Dev diary 58 - Reformation tooltips, bureaucracies, eunuchs, and other things
Though most that has been worked on since the last dev diary is polishing old stuff (still not done) and adding members of the Imperial Family (which is as done as it's likely to get for the foreseeable future; this also goes for the family of a certain queen...), a few assorted things have gotten done, which is a decent enough chunk for a rather unfocused dev diary.
Reformation tooltips:
As there has been considerable confusion regarding which pagan reformations give access to Chinese Imperial (and other governments) in the past and that the upcoming changes might confuse people that have memorized the old setup tooltips have been added to the relevant Nature, Doctrines, and Leaderships explaining which religions are eligible and whether a certain pick would be allowed. The exact phrasing might be updated before release, but it'll probably be pretty similar overall.
If you're wondering about the Leadership that's partially concealed by the tooltip, it's the new Divine Ancestry leadership (still not completely done, but it's mostly minor stuff that remains
as far as the Doctrine itself goes).
Bureaucracies:
The various bureaucratic governments -- Chinese Imperial, Confucian Bureaucracy, Eastern Imperial, Japanese Imperial, and Divine Imperial; note that this does
not include Japanese Feudal or Japanese Monastic Feudal -- have been changed in a few ways:
- First off,
all of these government types have been rendered unable to have Full Council Authority (i.e. forced Elective) or any elective succession laws (excluding the Tenno's special law and the upcoming knock-off for Divine Imperial). This change
also applies to Japanese Feudal and Japanese Monastic Feudal. The reason for this is that it's quite likely to break various things in new and interesting ways from time to time (e.g. if the Shogun gets Feudal Elective and the Kampaku is elected, it's a mess), and since none of the realms that have these governments had some kind of elective system historically it avoids things going ahistorical in that particular way (which didn't really factor into the decision, but which might be a bonus). It is
possible that some specific laws will be restored if it turns out the issues with them can be dealt with in a less blunt manner, or that special options that are set up to take various possible issues into consideration will be introduced in the relevant places, but no promises (I don't consider it a priority due to the aforementioned historical situation).
- Secondly, while rulers with the bureaucratic governments
can fire their councillors (including advisors and Council Eunuchs, where relevant) -- unless blocked due to e.g. the councillor being a Grand Chancellor -- they now need to spend prestige to do so, scaling based on the number of laws in the council's favour and your tier (with Japanese and Divine Imperial always counting as emperor tier). This partially counters the fact that they can't be
completely unable to fire councillors, which is part of Full Council Authority, and it should make it harder in general to get rid of people trying to become Grand Chancellors, people controlling a bunch of votes, and that nobody you want to fire to be able to give a spot to a powerful vassal that's leading or supporting several dangerous factions. Note that the tooltip below is slightly inaccurate -- a Permanent Regent means the cost always is the maximum -- and that the cost might be adjusted before release.
- Thirdly, king-tier bureaucrats are able to have Imperial Administration and Duchy Viceroyalties, which should make their realms a bit less likely to become hereditary, particularly Confucian Bureaucracy realms since they have free duchy revocation. Free duchy revocation is of course also available to Chinese and Eastern Imperial, but they're of course able to have Imperial Administration and Duchy (and Kingdom) Viceroyalties by virtue of being emperors. Japanese Imperial, Japanese Bureaucracy, and Divine Imperial all lack free duchy revocation, seeing as it's undesirable for them to have the ability to easily revoke stuff from vassals that are going Japanese Feudal/Japanese Monastic Feudal (none of the bureaucratic governments can do tyrannical revocations).
Eunuchs:
Council Eunuch randomization has been restricted quite a bit, which should result in the result being much less weird if you set up a Chinese Imperial (or Eastern Imperial) realm in some unexpected place (and it'll also result in the relevant scripted_effect requiring less performance, even if it is unlikely to be noticeable by itself). They are also no longer required to have high Learning (or high stats at all), which means that that useless nephew or disappointing grandson you sent as Tribute actually might be appointed from time to time even if he has abysmal stats (which might not be good for you if he's still upset about the whole "snipping" thing, but if
that was due to e.g. your Court Physician trying to cure the flu you could potentially benefit from having an ally in a position of power).
Updated title colours:
Vietnam and assorted titles that were part of its de jure previously had very similar colours to the adjacent Khmer Empire and large parts of its de jure. This has now been fixed.
It's quite possible Lan Xang's colours will be updated to match the rest of the Khmer Empire to avoid similar confusion with regards to Burma.
Near-ish future plans:
Though it's possible something else will get done first, chances are assorted things in relevant in Korea and relevant for Ainu characters will be looked over relatively soon. As it is fairly new content, I don't expect to find too many instances where I decide that I don't like what I did before and need to make significant changes, but there will probably be some minor tweaks. If you have any suggestions as far as adjustments go, I suggest making them before much longer. If there is anything you feel could be added in these areas, feel free to suggest it, but bear in mind that large additions might be pushed to a later version even if they're good ideas, and that it also is possible that some idea will be decided against for one reason or another.
Additionally, since it will become relevant as part of work on stuff in Korea (if not in a major way), I have a question regarding Confucianism and Neo-Confucianism: Which of the following implementations would you prefer,
why, and -- if you picked either of the latter options -- what would reasonable differences be?
Option 1: Every Confucian and Neo-Confucian character has the same religion (Confucian). This would be the most straightforward setup, and would mean there's only
one additional (non-pagan) religion to consider how to make unique (at least down the line) and neither underpowered nor overpowered next to the Taoist and Buddhist religions, but it'd obviously mean there is no difference between Confucians and Neo-Confucians as far as the game goes.
Option 2: Every Confucian and Neo-Confucian character has the same religion (Confucian), but there are different schools, similar to e.g. Mahayana/Vajrayana/Theravada for Buddhists. This would require coming up with at least one additional school beyond Neo-Confucian to implement (I suppose "Traditionalist" could be a fallback option meant to be "
Not-Neo-Confucian") that's not something that was invented after the era, and would require something different for the schools. It'd be easier to set up than two separate religions, but schools would not be possible to make as distinct as religions could be in every regard.
Option 3: Confucian and Neo-Confucian are two different religions. This would require there being enough differences between the two that it's not effectively "Pick the name/map colour you want to see and which people have a slight penalty due to religious differences" (and both of them having strengths and weaknesses, as "Always pick X!" isn't a good implementation) while still keeping them balanced with respect to other relevant religions.
That's all for today. Dev diaries might remain infrequent for a while yet, seeing as there still is a bunch of old stuff to check and that some of that might result in a lot of time spent doing things that either are boring to look at or that don't result in any visible changes ("Adjusted value X", "Improved AI logic for decision Y", "Optimized event Z", etc.).