Could we change the buff of the Grand Duchy government?

[necro84]

currently grand duchy is just much weaker russian principality

principality
−1 National unrest
+5% National tax modifier
+100 Governing capacity
Uses Russian government mechanics

grand duchy - only +100 Governing capacity

 

[Nostalgium]

currently grand duchy is just much weaker russian principality

principality
−1 National unrest
+5% National tax modifier
+100 Governing capacity
Uses Russian government mechanics

grand duchy - only +100 Governing capacity

And honestly, that is fine. Not everywhere needs to have a super-special government type. Look at France - they just have baseline Feudal Monarchy, and the decentralized nature of it is represented in a Nobility Privilege and a bunch of vassals. Lithuania was a Grand Duchy, which legally speaking made it less than a Princedom but more than a Duchy. So they get a government reform that lets them be bigger than normal for a Duchy. If they want to be a Kingdom, they can literally reform out of Grand Duchy and upgrade to Kingdom, form the Commonwealth and get that upgrade for free, or culture flip and form Ruthenia for a free upgrade to Empire. Even Tsardom, if they switch to Orthodox as well.

 

[The_Real_China_WU-Empire]

currently grand duchy is just much weaker russian principality

principality
−1 National unrest
+5% National tax modifier
+100 Governing capacity
Uses Russian government mechanics

grand duchy - only +100 Governing capacity

YES

 

[Republic of Mercury]

our dukes that 'have united' and 'led' the 'various peoples' within our borders to greatness

The latter half of the sentence that you didn't mention.

That's fluff.

Compare it with the description/effects of the Rajput Kingdom:

Description: "A Rajput kingdom is ruled through close ties of loyalty and kinship with the clans of the ruling dynasty and their retainers. As the head of a Rajput clan we have a long and strong tradition of martial prowess that we can rely on. Whenever war or disaster comes near we can call upon our supporters both from within the kingdom and in nearby regions."

The effect: +0.25 Yearly army tradition

Going through what you bolded.
"United"
The dukes have united Lithuania. Past tense. This has happened. Lithuania is one tag, the southern parts aren't subjects. And the grand duchy provides extra governing capacity, the lack of which is normally an incentive to not annex subjects. So that works out nicely.

"Led"
I did, in fact, mention that "Lithuania was led by dukes."

"Various peoples"
Lithuania gets +3 tolerance of heretics in its traditions. I'm fairly sure it starts with the other two main cultures in its lands as accepted, too.

"Greatness"
What would that mean as a modifer? And I don't think it would be prestige; The only tier 1 government reform that gives prestige is the Celestial Monarchy, and that's only +0.5/year.

The description you're quoting is not a historical analysis of the nature of the governmental structure of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the consquences it had on the state, and how that should translate into the game. It's bit of in-character flavour text, that was added to explain why the Duke of Lithuania is a duke when country ranks were added back in 2015.

 

[EarlKonrad]

The developers got the inspiration for Lithuania in EU 4 based on a real life country called Lithuania, so the geography cant really be changed.

Let me rephrase that. Over the years EU4's map got changed considerable; many new provinces got added by partitioning big provinces into smaller ones. One of the few places that got little to no new provinces added over the years was Easter Europe, more precisely Poland-Lithuania with their in-game geography being basically untouched since Art of War (when they re-did the entire map). And it doesn't help that most of its territory is low dev, terrible resources and terrible potential for building up an economy. These are non-trivial issues for a nation that needs to have a high FL and is incentivized to go for cavalry early on which is an extremely expensive option, doubly so when your economy struggles to afford even their starting armies.

Its an amazing subject for Poland. I cant think of a single subject in the game more powerful than Lithuania, especially since Austria can fail its free PU for Hungary.

I disagree. Lithuania has a couple of glaring weaknesses: Poor economy, has to deal with a lot of rebels (be they event rebels, religious rebels, noble separatists), huge territory to defend (AI struggles with this, although it has been getting better n the last few patches), and it struggles with manpower. AI Poland has to babysit Lithuania.

Thing is, there aren't many strong vassals in 1444 so Lithuania is ahead by default. Other good candidates for amazing vassals are: Burgundy, Transoxiana (if Timurids can keep them happy) and Sweden.

1) The Commonwealth regularly destroys Russia in games. 2) The country did get defeated in history. 3) If Russia and Ottomans are too powerful then re tune Russia and Ottomans.

1) Does it? Not in my games. 2) So what? EU4 is all about Alt History. 3) Definitely. But the point still remains that over the years Russia and the Ottomans got a lot of changes while Poland-Lithuania didn't.

They hardly have any rebel spawns or bad events. This sounds like a overexageration or a player who puts himself in a position of 0 manpower and gets outraged at a single 18k rebel spawn, or doesn't realize its subject has had +10 war exhaustion for the last 5 years.

Lithuania starts as Christian with a good portion of its territory being Orthodox. It doesn't take much for religious separatists to spawn and, when they do spawn, the AI don't go after rebels (again, it is getting better at this). Just double checked their events and yes, they hadly have any rebel events, must have misremembered that.

It looks like you're the one who is wrong about player expectations.

I don't get why the hostile tone from your posts but whatever.

 

[Nostalgium]

I disagree. Lithuania has a couple of glaring weaknesses: Poor economy, has to deal with a lot of rebels (be they event rebels, religious rebels, noble separatists), huge territory to defend (AI struggles with this, although it has been getting better n the last few patches), and it struggles with manpower. AI Poland has to babysit Lithuania.

A lot of the rebel issues the AI has in Lithuania is because Lithuania tends to be occupied during wars, building up their war exhaustion faster than normal due to a lack of forts. If you conduct your wars in foreign territory, and take some time to breathe between offensive wars (subjects are poor at dealing with constant wars regardless of who they are, this isn't unique to Lithuania), they don't have an unusual amount of rebels. A player Poland can also help Lithuania with their religious division by converting their provinces. In addition to strengthening their RU and lowering revolt risk, this also means you know which provinces are most likely to spawn rebels and can keep watch on them.

As for whether the AI manages this or not, in my experience it's a 50/50 coinflip. Half of my games sees a strong Commonwealth form, frequently eating chunks of Hungary and the Baltic Sea provinces. The other half sees Poland get crippled relatively early on, lose Lithuania, and be carved between Russia, Austria and [insert whichever North German state came out on top]/Teutonic Order. They're only slightly less likely to do well than Russia is.

 

[necro84]

And honestly, that is fine. Not everywhere needs to have a super-special government type. Look at France - they just have baseline Feudal Monarchy, and the decentralized nature of it is represented in a Nobility Privilege and a bunch of vassals. Lithuania was a Grand Duchy, which legally speaking made it less than a Princedom but more than a Duchy. So they get a government reform that lets them be bigger than normal for a Duchy. If they want to be a Kingdom, they can literally reform out of Grand Duchy and upgrade to Kingdom, form the Commonwealth and get that upgrade for free, or culture flip and form Ruthenia for a free upgrade to Empire. Even Tsardom, if they switch to Orthodox as well.

But grand duke was more like a different name for a king in Eastern Europe than just some rank between king and duke - like sultan, shah, raja in other countries. Kievan Rus was always the grand duchy even when it ruled over most of Ruthenia and Russia and using game names it should be tsardom of Ruthenia. In game grand duke of Lithuania should be considered king

Papal states also has kingdom rank and nobody calls the Pope king.

 

[Nostalgium]

But grand duke was more like a different name for a king in Eastern Europe than just some rank between king and duke - like sultan, shah, raja in other countries. Kievan Rus was always the grand duchy even when it ruled over most of Ruthenia and Russia and using game names it should be tsardom of Ruthenia. In game grand duke of Lithuania should be considered king

Papal states also has kingdom rank and nobody calls the Pope king.

If that is the case, then Grand Duchy should simply be the localization of Kingdom-rank Monarchies in non-Principality Eastern European nations, and should not be represented with a unique government type at all.