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EU4 - Development Diary - 4th of August 2020

Good morning! Welcome to another South-East Asian themed dev diary. This week we’re focusing on the Khmer Empire.

Khmer was once the dominant power in Mainland South-East Asia. Ruling from the mighty capital of Angkor, the empire encompassed most of modern Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Due to a combination of factors which may have included plagues, ecological issues, and the decision to change the state religion from Hinduism to Theravada Buddhism the empire fell into decline starting from the 14th Century. Thai and Lao powers broke away from the periphery of the kingdom and established their own domains. In 1431, the killing blow was struck by Ayutthaya with the sack of Angkor. The Khmer empire would never recover from this final defeat. The period following the sack of Angkor has been called the Dark Age of Cambodia, and neatly corresponds to the EU4 timeframe.

dd_dark_age.png


Like Majapahit, Khmer begins the game in a Disaster. The Dark Age of Cambodia is a lot less punishing than Majapahit’s situation in that there are no additional events that break up the country or spawn rebellions, but you need to contend with a hefty 25% increase to all power costs (as always, numbers presented in dev diaries are not final). Your priorities will have to be on consolidation and reconstruction rather than expansionism.

dd_missions.png


Khmer can end their decline and restore the glory of their old empire through their new missions tree. They’ll need to restore their old capital of Angkor, achieve some degree of religious unity, and improve the development of their more rural provinces. When this is achieved the disaster ends and Khmer can truly begin restoring its empire.

Some additional highlights:

  • The Second Golden Age mission rewards -25% powers costs and -33% culture conversion cost for 20 years, compensating for the lost monarch points during the disaster.
  • The Enlightened Rule mission enacts the Chakravarti government reform discussed in previous dev diaries.
  • Around half of the mission tree is focused on military expansion, and like Ayutthaya’s mission tree these missions reward Subjugation CB’s against your targets.
  • The Restore the Empire mission increases your government rank to Empire.
  • The Invade Burma mission grants +0.5 Army Tradition for the rest of the game.
  • The Overseas Adventures mission has you invading Borneo and being rewarded with a permanent +1 Yearly Navy Tradition.

dd_privileges.png
dd_privileges_2.png



Above you can see four new estate privileges, with effects that should be fairly self-explanatory. Brahmins at Court functions essentially the same as the Brahmin privilege for Indian Muslims. This privilege as well as Advanced Irrigation Techniques are only available to specific nations, including Khmer, and are unlocked through their mission trees. Monastic Temples is available to all Buddhists and provides a new way to control your Karma, while Tropical City Planning is available to all countries in the Chinese or Indian tech groups and offsets the penalties for developing and colonizing in Tropical provinces.

That’s all for today! Next week we’ll take a look at the maritime Sultanates of Malacca, Brunei, and Aceh. And I think the week after that will be Vietnam. There's still plenty of content to show off, so make sure to catch up with weekly dev diaries.
 
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-10% dev cost.. :rolleyes: though honestly i'd prefer if that modifier was just removed from all idea sets, it's incredibly powerful for the mid-late game. I strongly dislike not having it.
I mean yes dev cost is basically the strongest modifier in the game given how much monarch point inflation the games had since release...( an average of 6 per month to 12+ per month)

But the reason if feels bad to not have dev cost is because there are too many monarch points, and deving for 40 when you know later you can do it for 3 points is definitely not a fun gamplay sensation.

But hey you get 5% dev cost reduction in tropical, another 5% on livestock, tropical was buffed to only 10% penalty, and you can get inward perfection to 5% fairly easily.

God this game's gotten top-heavy. This is the problem with "expansive content" on top of a really barebones engine. And you cant change the engine because of all the expansive content that's been made...
 
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Since your adding a new -100% conversion strength privilege I think this would be a perfect time to talk about how this privilege breaks one faith attempts for Muslims due to vassals enacting them.

Can we 1) have that -100 only apply to the vassal and not the overlord. 2) Or have some interaction that prevents vassals from taking that privilege. 3) Or code it so that vassals never take that privilege?
 
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Dai Viet's provinces have more development than others in the region on average.

Thank you @neondt for your effort. Yet, I disagree on this point of view.
I cannot say for all but I think many players are willing to go for more provinces instead of higher average development. Such trade-off would surely create room for a higher degree of maneuverability, but not necessarily incur higher total development (if you just simply transfer some monarch points from already high developed provinces to the new ones). The average development might be lower, but the added maneuverability makes that trade-off worth taking.

Also, the north of nowadays Vietnam alone was already a prosperous region of 8 million inhabitants in 15th century, which is nearly 3 times as many as that of Britain, 8 times to Cambodia's, and is in par with the whole Japan at that time (Hokkaido excluded). Thinking of letting 8 millions crumbled in just 10 provinces is quite a nonsensical thought. Thus, I hope that you might consider adding 2 to 4 provinces to the north of Vietnam. It should really add more depth to the game.

Some suggestions for Vietnam could be found here for your future considerations:
 
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-10% dev cost.. :rolleyes: though honestly i'd prefer if that modifier was just removed from all idea sets, it's incredibly powerful for the mid-late game. I strongly dislike not having it.
I don’t like the idea of every country having ideas that give modifiers which are powerful in multiplayer, everyone’s always requesting CCR reduction, discipline, and/or army tradition bonuses, but ideas need to represent the country that they are with. Not every country was an expansionist power, and that should be reflected in the ideas.
 
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Can we get a different colour scheme for missions that provide permanent bonuses? Maybe extra gold on it, or a fancier shield.

I think it would help with navigation of the trees.
 
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I mean yes dev cost is basically the strongest modifier in the game given how much monarch point inflation the games had since release...( an average of 6 per month to 12+ per month)

But the reason if feels bad to not have dev cost is because there are too many monarch points, and deving for 40 when you know later you can do it for 3 points is definitely not a fun gamplay sensation.

But hey you get 5% dev cost reduction in tropical, another 5% on livestock, tropical was buffed to only 10% penalty, and you can get inward perfection to 5% fairly easily.

God this game's gotten top-heavy. This is the problem with "expansive content" on top of a really barebones engine. And you cant change the engine because of all the expansive content that's been made...

I feel like the issue with -% dev cost ideas is that, the more -%dev cost you add, the better it becomes.. going from 80% to 90% often means moving from 7 power per dev to 4 power per dev. That means the idea can double the value of your monarch points.. (assuming access to low dev provinces).

Afaik this is the only mechanic in the game that works like this, and THAT is why it feels so bad not to have -10% dev cost in your idea set.


Edit:
Actually that's not true, -CCR works the same way.. which helps explain why that idea is so powerful. It's a lot harder to stack -CCR than stacking dev cost reduction though.
 
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@neondt

Would you please, please, please, please, grant that estate privilege for tropical city planning to the African tech groups as well. They need it so bad. Something, anything.
 
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@neondt

Would you please, please, please, please, grant that estate privilege for tropical city planning to the African tech groups as well. They need it so bad. Something, anything.

That probably won't happen until they turn their attention to Africa (obviously not counting modders). But on the plus side, with this upcoming SEA update, Africa and the Americas are two places on the map that need attention right now so odds are it won't be too long before we get that.
 
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That probably won't happen until they turn their attention to Africa (obviously not counting modders). But on the plus side, with this upcoming SEA update, Africa and the Americas are two places on the map that need attention right now so odds are it won't be too long before we get that.

Africa really could use some attention. It's not in the scope for this update however, and since this is the last update I'll be working on for EU4 it'll be up to my replacement to make that happen.
 
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Yeah Khmer's ideas are fine where they are, it's Dai Viet that needs a buff to overtake them as the #1 military power in the region, given their cool history and ability to be unconquerable. Would you not agree @neondt
 
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Is there a reason none of the recent expansions have expanded on the Age abilities? Specifically, by expanding the list of nations that have exclusive Age abilities?

(I'd actually like to see the Ages expanded so that they start roughly every 50 years, still lasting roughly 100, so that there would be two Ages at the same time- it's kind of ridiculous now that the Age of Discovery is routinely wrapping up before 1492!)
 
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@neondt

Would you please, please, please, please, grant that estate privilege for tropical city planning to the African tech groups as well. They need it so bad. Something, anything.
The wide variety of tropical diseases and parasites with only modern cures in the African continent means it should be hard to get mega cities.
Since your adding a new -100% conversion strength privilege I think this would be a perfect time to talk about how this privilege breaks one faith attempts for Muslims due to vassals enacting them.

Can we 1) have that -100 only apply to the vassal and not the overlord. 2) Or have some interaction that prevents vassals from taking that privilege. 3) Or code it so that vassals never take that privilege?
It's great for the AI, helps Islam not become too expansive, and you can always convert via propagate religion if non abrhamic, you can always convert the province then hand it over
 
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Africa really could use some attention. It's not in the scope for this update however, and since this is the last update I'll be working on for EU4 it'll be up to my replacement to make that happen.
I'd say it's tragic that people move / get moved once they learned the ropes. :confused:
 
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The wide variety of tropical diseases and parasites with only modern cures in the African continent means it should be hard to get mega cities.

The capital of Kongo, Mbanza-Kongo, had a population between 30,000 and 100,000 (that upper number is probably an exaggeration; 60,000 is more likely) at its height in the 17th century. And Mbanza-Kongo was not an anomaly - other Central African urban centers reached similar sizes. That's just Central Africa, which I assume is what you meant by "Africa". West Africa is a whole different story and of course has a history of major cities like Jenne, Gao, and Timbuktu.

But yeah Africa definately needs more attention. At the very least, mission trees of varying sizes for Mali, Songhai, Benin, Kongo, Ethiopia, Imerina, Adal, and Kilwa.
 
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