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EU4 - Development Diary - 3rd of April 2018

Good morning all. It's Tuesday and that means time for another Dev Diary. As I mentioned in the last non-alcoholic dev diary, we're going to start looking at changes and features coming with the 1.26 and its accompanying, unannounced expansion.

Before that though, we are currently looking to iron out the kinks with the open beta 1.25.1 hotfix (AI allies deciding that money is more important than friendship and nations sometimes failing to explore for a long time). These fixes will be made, applied to the open beta and rolled out in due time.

Governments

The way governments work have remained mostly unchanged for the duration of Europa Universalis IV, still being almost entirely lifted from EU3. While we have added new government types and their own mechanics such as Theocracy devotion, Steppe Nomads and American Natives, the government progression has remained quite stale, where tech sometimes unlocks a new tier within your government tier and you will switch to it at a cost of 100 ADM if you want its better effects, different election times, absolutism etc.

As a feature in 1.26's accompanying expansion this goes out the window and instead we introduce the system of Government Reforms where you will hand-craft your own government through a series of reforms as the game progresses.

The start of any great project starts with burning a few things down, so to set things straight:

All Monarchy types are merged into one
All Republic types are merged into one
All Theocracies are merged into one
All Tribals are merged into one

The differences we had between government types, for example between Administrative Republic and Oligarchic Republic, or Steppe Nomad and Tribal Despotism, will now be modeled through the reforms

Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.

Each reform costs 100 Government Reform Progress, plus 50 for each additional reform. Each nation gains +10 Government Reform Progress towards reform per year, multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces. As ever, the numbers we talk about today are subject to balancing and can and likely will change by release, but the net effect is that nations who crack down on autonomy are going to have a far easier time passing their government reforms.

We will cover all the different types of governments over the course of a few dev diaries, but today we will focus on the reforms for a Monarchy.

  • Feudalism vs Autocracy
    • Feudalism: +25% Income from Vassals

    • Autocracy: -10% Unjust Demands
    • [Other Special monarchies]*
  • Hereditary Nobility
    • Enforce privileges: +15% Manpower

    • Quash Noble power: +10% Tax Modifier
  • Bureaucracy
    • Centralize: -0.05 Autonomy reduction

    • Decentralize: +2 Accepted Cultures
  • Growth of Administration
    • Clergy in Administration: +1 [HIDDEN] , +5% base loyalty of Clergy

    • Of Noble Bearing: -10% hire leader cost, +5% base loyalty of Nobility

    • Meritocratic Focus: -10% Advisors Cost

    • Seizure of Power: [Early path for Government type change]
  • Deliberative assembly
    • Parliamentary: Enables Parliaments if Common Sense DLC enabled, else -1 Unrest

    • Royal Decree: +5 max absolutism

    • Aristocratic Court: -0.5 Army Tradition Decay

    • States General: +10% Production Efficiency
  • Absolute Rule v Constitutional
    • l'etat c'est moi: +5 States, -15% State Autonomy

    • Regional Representation - 25% lower autonomy in Territories
  • Separation of powers
    • Political Absolutism: +5 max absolutism, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism

    • Legislative Houses: +1 Possible [HIDDEN]

    • Become a Republic

    • Install Theocratic Government
"What about unique government types?"

The game is host to various different unique government types, with their own effects or mechanics. some examples:

  • Shogunate - +1 Diplomat, -25% Envoy Travel Time, +2 Number of states, +5 Max Absolutism. Dynasty is fixed, Enable Shogun-Daimyo mechanics
  • Daimyo - +10% Morale of Armies, 10% Infantry CA. Dynasty is fixed, enable Daimyo mechanics
  • English Monarchy - +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, -1 National Unrest, 1 states, -30 absolutism, uses Parliaments
  • Prussian Monarchy - -2 Unrest, -0.02 War exhaustion, +3 Monarch Military skill, uses Militarism.

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy) ready-unlocked for said countries. We will also be making the system more flexible in that if you fulfill the criteria for having a certain government type, but previously had no way of switching into it, you will be able to change your reform to pick it up. Changing reforms that have already been passed comes at a cost (currently 10 corruption)

This system is still Work in Progress, so expect changes along the way. Here's a screenshot of it in-game at this current time:

government.png

Return of the pink coder-art and overflowing GUI. Games are like sausages, beware of seeing them made.

Next week we will have more information about this feature as well as looking at another reform path. Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals? See you next week for it!
 
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So what about government types like the Sejm, the Ottomans and the Mamluks who are unique (short of creating a custom nation). Would those particular nations have a hardcoded reform that has already gone through to simulate their nature?
 
Please show us Tribals next week. They've got nothing for a long time.

BTW, there's no map change for Western Iberia in that screenshot. Either Jake cut it out specifically for this screen or it's not Iberia, as many here seem to believe.
 
How moddable will the feature be?
Will there be a hard maximum of categories and options per category?
Will there be moddable side effects of passing a reform, i.e. additional unrest etc?
  • It will be highly customisable, you will be able to mix and match mechanics and modifiers in reforms. There are a few exceptions (E.g. Daimyo/Shogun mechanics)
  • No
  • Yes
 
Each Government has a starting reform and maximum number of reforms available. When a Reform value ticks up to a required value, a Governmental reform can be made granting a choice of modifiers and effects and advancing Government reform by 1 step. Each bonus gets incrementally more expensive to increase.
Good concept here, but I feel that certain reforms should be locked behind tech levels or something dynamic like the requirements to unlock a new institution/age.

multiplied by 1-(its average autonomy across all provinces
I feel like progress/regression should not depend solely on average autonomy but rather every day small decisions related to the decisions of the sovereign. Furthermore, having low autonomy to be able to pass reforms like decentralising bureaucracy doesn't really make sense. Since it's early in the game and numbers are still subject to balancing, please consider having a small negative penalty for certain reforms if it makes sense, e.g. enforcing noble privilege raising noble influence and loyalty while decreasing tax income.

Ps, will the requirements for progress be moddable too?
 
How will this effect Custom Nations ? Do we get free reform points to spend from the start up ? Or are there presets for us to choose from then build upon.

Also... Please add the option to choose army graphs we bought to custom nations ? I know Custom Nation players are a minority but we are here.
 
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Buff to absolutism? WC is already easier then ever besides the 1444 Qing bug.
 
+1 [HIDDEN]
Speculation of advisor rework? Maybe you can have more than one per mana type? Maybe even a whole cabinet with different positions like Prime Minister and loyalties to different factions?

These special tools will now be modeled by unique reforms. In most cases, it will be a special reform on the first level (Feudalism vs Autocracy)
Please integrate reforms for special governments like Emperor of China here.
 
Ah, so we're Stellaris now! (Only slightly similar, I know) Is the government name displayed based on things like reforms, religion, etc.?

What happens if we change government type to republic or theocracy, do we start from reform 1 of their list again?

Also, what happened to government changes by event/tag formation? Do they switch reforms now?
 
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Sorry if this seems like a silly question but can anyone explain the choices in deliberative assembly? For example, by royal decree, does it mean that the monarch only has the power to call for an assembly?
 
Sorry if this seems like a silly question but can anyone explain the choices in deliberative assembly? For example, by royal decree, does it mean that the monarch only has the power to call for an assembly?

By Royal Decree means that the King ultimately writes and enforces the law and not an assembly.
I wanted a name for where you essentially goes full dictator and felt that was most fitting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree
 
Which shall we look at, Republics, Theocracies or Tribals?
Republics.

Please, Paradox, I hope you will tie it government types more with the estates and idea groups. Missions reform was the first great step in making game better, really want you to go that way with the govs and estates.
Seriously I think that in the long run the idea groups should perhaps be phased out for a system like this combined with the new mission system. I have been saying it for a long time, a focus tree whic explores what was actually going on in each country in the era is a far better representation of the choices the countries can go in.

Sounds a bit like Vic2.
I do hope each of those reforms will have events associated with it. Also passing reforms should imo have some temporary downsides.
Not really this feels more top down, the reforms in vic are more of a system where you can go though in any order you want to.
Also yes there should be more narrative elements to this than just pass the reform get the bonus, quashing noble power for an example should mean you actually have to take on the nobles.

I'd love to see a tech/philosophy system which worked sort of a mix between the stellaris one and the inventions from vic2 some time in the future.