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EU4 - Development Diary - 10th of November

Hey everyone! So when we introduced the new natives mechanics several of you were asking why we weren’t changing Totemism as well while at it. So since then and while I was working on the Sikh Gurus and Zoroastrianism I figured I should give it a shot and try to give them something as many of you were pointing out, it is one of the major religions at the start of the game and it deserves some love. Be warned a lot of work in progress values & especially really bad coder art will be shown!

Now North America is a big place, and how we are using Totemism in the game is sort of a catch all for several very distinct mythoses and with that also comes the challenge of figuring out flavor that is general enough and fits all of these as well. What I could find as a best candidate for a fun mechanic that could fit for all of these very different cultures were that they all have legendary figures, and the oral tradition of great deeds. Like Gloosecap of the Abenaki, or Esa the Wolf of the Shoshone.

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So now as you progress through the game, you can add one of your previous rulers to your mythos. You can have a maximum of 10 stories added at any point. This costs 100 Diplomatic power but they can also be removed later on for a severe stability hit. It’s not intended to be something that you switch around often but I don’t want to lock you in entirely either.

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Adding an ancestor’s story to your religion will have them provide the personality they had in real life be applied to your country for all future, with some modifications which we will get into in a bit. It will be a weaker version than they had in real life but still a nice bonus for you even as they have died.

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So with this change in order to keep things balanced rulers who follow Totemism will only have one personality, since it will be combined together with the benefits they get from the religion as well. But these are special and they scale with the rulers skill. This does mean that you can get a ruler with 7.5% discipline bonus instead of 5%. This is also to feed into the ancestor stories where not all rulers will actually be useful to be made into a story. This does mean that totemism needs it’s entire own setup of personalities scripted up but we are aiming to try and match the original ones.

The intent is since you have 10 ancestor stories you can collect, each will just provide a bit of the full picture. It's a religion you build up over time by reconnecting to previous rulers you’ve had.

Also here's a preliminary set of values for the Gurus and their teaching. The value next to the Guru's name is applied by the Guru while they are alive. The ones in the lists are their teachings and can be picked by you as the player. These values are still work in progress but I know people been asking for a complete list.
Guru Nanak: +1 Admin Power
  • Share and Consume: -1 Unrest
  • Work Honestly: 5% Production Eff
  • Recite His Name: -2.5% Regiment Cost
Guru Angad: +1 Military Power
  • Gurmukhi Script: -5% Tech Cost
  • Temple Langar: +10% Church Loyalty
  • Wrestling Akhara: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Amar Das: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Dasvnandh Collection: +5% Tax Modifier
  • Anand Karaj: +1 Diplomatic Reputation
  • Sanghat Equality: +10% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Ram Das: +1 Admin Power
  • Legitimize Inheritance: +0.25 Legitimacy (or +0.1 Rep Trad, etc. etc.)
  • Scripture Hymns: +0.5 Prestige
  • Masand System: +10% Manpower Modifier
Guru Arjan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Adi Granth: +10% Institution Spread
  • The Abode of God: +10% Rel Unity
  • Martyrdom: 5% Land Morale
Hargobind: +1 Military Power
  • Throne of the Timeless One: Same as Legitimize Inheritance
  • Protection of the Poor: -0.025 War Exhaustion
  • Miri and Piri: +2.5% Discipline
Guru Har Rai: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Impartial Manjis: -0.05 Corruption
  • The Fragrance of a Flower: +10% Improve Relations
  • One Guru: +5% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Har Krishan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Treat the Sick: +1 Monarch Admin Skill
  • Illiterate Recites Saloks: +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill
  • Young Humility: +1 Monarch Military Skill
Guru Tegh Bahadur: +1 Admin Power
  • The Word of Sikh: +1 Missionary
  • All Kings must Pass: +2 Tolerance of Heretics
  • Resist Persecution: +1 Hostile Attrition
Guru Gobind Singh: +1 Admin Power
  • Pluralism: -10% Advisor Cost
  • Dharam Yudh: 50% War Taxes Cost
  • The Khalsa Sikh: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Granth Sahib: -50% State Maintenance Cost, -25% Regiment Drill Loss
  • Eternally Living Guru: -10% Development Cost
  • Divine Justice: 10% Trade Efficiency
  • The Unchanging Writing: 50% Drill Gain Modifier

And that is it for today! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!
 
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Well, that's unexpected. I expect to see lots of "[Totemist-OPM-name] OP, fast ruler kill - 10 dead in 1 yaer!!1" threads to pop up.

I find it very nice to see Totemism getting a mechanic - it's a very widespread religion in terms of number of tags that always seemed like a sadly lacking pick. I hope that the next juicy thing will be Animism.

Maybe rulers should rule for a minimum of 10 years to have a trait be passed on so as to avoid exploiting the system.
 
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That idea for Totemnism is super creative and cool, but I do worry on the RNG-heavy aspects of it. You are rolling for leaders personality traits AND for their stats to buff the religion. If you've been lucky to always get a 6-mil discipline ruler, you'll be the insanest country in the world. If all you've gotten was 1 to 3 diplo-trait rulers, then your religion might likely suck.
So maybe:
- Expand the pool with the ruler and their consort.
- Use the skill as threshold, not for scaling. Using the personality for the religion is only possible at 4+, and at 6, it can be done while the ruler is living. For consorts, only at 5+ they can be used in the religion, and never while living.
- The bonus has a static number, and can be chosen only twice. So you can get 2 times 2.5% discipline that way.
- The ruler and consort personalities are used for determining the bonus. They can only stand for one bonus. The modifier that gets chosen will depend on 1) the personality traits they had 2) the monarch skill points (if ADM skill highest-->prioritize the adm trait) 3) age at which they acquired the trait (if ADM highest, but two ADM traits, chose the first one acquired; or if multiple skills the highest and multiple possible modifiers, choose the the first acquired) 4) which bonuses you already have in your religion (to avoid having that third discipline ruler for your religion). 5) if for some reason all that fails to give a modifier, use a fallback modifier like "-5% [pointtype] tech cost". 7) if even both of those have been used: too bad I guess?

This should hopefully increase the pool to choose from, and reduce the extreme randomness of the religion. Plus, it should mostly work fine with the current way monarchs/... work now, so no extra personality scripting?
 
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Funny how the religions which were eventually suppressed are often much stronger than the big religions which spread around the world.
I like the balance, really. Abrahamic religions are still going to be vastly better for something like a One Faith because of all of their extra missionaries, and as far as I can tell will generally keep their relative advantage in higher Tolerance of the True Faith bonuses, but the powerful minor/pagan religions give us the option to play something more local and more wild.
 
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Cool and creative new mechanics, interesting possibilities to combo totemism and republics.
It leaves judaism and animism the only religions without mechanics, maybe sometime in the future.
 
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This seems a bit like power creep to me. Totemism will be the strongest religion by far.
Eh, I dunno. Unless you get an extremely unlikely string of god-tier rulers with god-tier traits, this will probably be around Nahuatl-tier, though it’ll take centuries longer to actually get fully powered-up. The way he designed it seems very reasonable to me.
 
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This seems a bit like power creep to me. Totemism will be the strongest religion by far.
That entirely depends on rngesus sure you can get 10 strict leaders and have absolutely insane op armies or you could get an entire game of naval upgrades that you will never be able to use as the Sioux...
 
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Is it really necessary to have a totally different personality system? It seems to me that you could just select one of several traits, and require several to get one, if you see what I mean. Maybe adjust existing traits a bit to fit, but I can see issues with changing away from (or to!) totemism if rulers work differently.
 
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This seems a bit like power creep to me. Totemism will be the strongest religion by far.
Only if one goes wiled with killing rulers and even then its heavily rng dependent, one has no control over what traits the ruler gets. One may very well end up with +X spy defense, - X construction cost and +X ship durability for the first 50 years.
 
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I really like the concept of making a ruler trait permanent - that's very much in keeping with what totemism is! The choice to change how ruler personalities work for totemists is a bit weird, but I do like having the ruler ability be scalable.
 
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One suggestion regarding Zoroastrianism @Groogy, would it be possible to add a decision for Persian minors and Persia to "Reconvert to Zoroastrianism"?

Edit : My suggestion is that if Persian minor or Persia own 2 or more Zoroastrian holy sites, have 2+ stability and 90 or more legitimacy the decision would be available. And since you're returning old faith back you'll suffer no loss of stability, prestige perhaps. Just a suggestion.
 
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Also here's a preliminary set of values for the Gurus and their teaching. The value next to the Guru's name is applied by the Guru while they are alive. The ones in the lists are their teachings and can be picked by you as the player. These values are still work in progress but I know people been asking for a complete list.
Guru Nanak: +1 Admin Power
  • Share and Consume: -1 Unrest
  • Work Honestly: 5% Production Eff
  • Recite His Name: -2.5% Regiment Cost
Guru Angad: +1 Military Power
  • Gurmukhi Script: -5% Tech Cost
  • Temple Langar: +10% Church Loyalty
  • Wrestling Akhara: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Amar Das: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Dasvnandh Collection: +5% Tax Modifier
  • Anand Karaj: +1 Diplomatic Reputation
  • Sanghat Equality: +10% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Ram Das: +1 Admin Power
  • Legitimize Inheritance: +0.25 Legitimacy (or +0.1 Rep Trad, etc. etc.)
  • Scripture Hymns: +0.5 Prestige
  • Masand System: +10% Manpower Modifier
Guru Arjan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Adi Granth: +10% Institution Spread
  • The Abode of God: +10% Rel Unity
  • Martyrdom: 5% Land Morale
Hargobind: +1 Military Power
  • Throne of the Timeless One: Same as Legitimize Inheritance
  • Protection of the Poor: -0.025 War Exhaustion
  • Miri and Piri: +2.5% Discipline
Guru Har Rai: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Impartial Manjis: -0.05 Corruption
  • The Fragrance of a Flower: +10% Improve Relations
  • One Guru: +5% Nobles Loyalty
Guru Har Krishan: +1 Diplomatic Power
  • Treat the Sick: +1 Monarch Admin Skill
  • Illiterate Recites Saloks: +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill
  • Young Humility: +1 Monarch Military Skill
Guru Tegh Bahadur: +1 Admin Power
  • The Word of Sikh: +1 Missionary
  • All Kings must Pass: +2 Tolerance of Heretics
  • Resist Persecution: +1 Hostile Attrition
Guru Gobind Singh: +1 Admin Power
  • Pluralism: -10% Advisor Cost
  • Dharam Yudh: 50% War Taxes Cost
  • The Khalsa Sikh: +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism
Guru Granth Sahib: -50% State Maintenance Cost, -25% Regiment Drill Loss
  • Eternally Living Guru: -10% Development Cost
  • Divine Justice: 10% Trade Efficiency
  • The Unchanging Writing: 50% Drill Gain Modifier

And that is it for today! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week!

As the resident cheerleader for Sikh:

Nanak - 1480 -> 1539
Angad - -> 1552
Amar Das - -> 1574
Ram Das-> 1581
Arjan - -> 1606
Hardobind -> 1644
Har Rai -> 1661
Har Krishan -> 1665
Tegh Bahadur -> 1675
Gobind Singh -> 1708
Granth Sahib -> Permament

Now; on top of the baseline +10% Morale and -10% Military Tech Cost; Sihks get +1 MP per month for about 200 years, and then get a pretty massive -50% State Maintainance Cost and -25% Drill Loss.

Sihk's absolute peak of Hargobind and Singh are nerfed; as 5% Discipline for those periods are gone. However; after Arjan they can activate 5% Morale, and after Hargobind they can activate a permament 2.5% Discipline. So while their peak is nerfed, they can get near that peak permamently. And this dosen't account for Sihk's other optional benefits.

While there's a case to be made for just picking up those 2 Guru Bonuses; and using Religious to Holy War everything, there's also a strong case for just focusing on India [Humanist is not required to tolerate Hindus; particually with Tegh and the Khalsa Gov.Reform which gives another +1 Toelrance to both Heretics and Heathens] and making an absurdly powerful Sihk India with bonuses from every Guru. If you do this, I'm fairly sure Sihk is the strongest religion in the game hands down, completely uncontested. Who cares if you have -10% Missionary strength when your tolerance of Hindus is maxxed out anyway?

What other religon can even come close to compareing with the strongest army quality in the game [15% Morale/2.5% Disc; you can get 5% More Morale with a Gov.Reform too, so that's +20% Morale], -10% dev cost; -10% Advisor Cost; +1 Attrittion [Or +2 Tolerance of Heretics]; +1 to MP of your choice; -Corruption; +20% Manpower [You have 10% from Guru; 10% from reform]; -10% Land Maintainance [Reform]; 5% Tax and -5% Tech Cost [Total -15% for Mil Tech; which; by the way you can feed into manpower dev; and the religion gives 20% manpower too... and -10% dev costs... see how this all stacks up?]

I think that blows even Orthodox with 3rd Rome and 100% Authority out of the water to be honest. Orthodox has it's icons [So can only have 1 active at a time] and it's peak military is 5% Discipline 33% Manpower. I don't think 5% Disc beats 20% Morale 2.5% Disc 20% Manpower.

Also remember:

Hindus can flip Sihk anytime after it's activation, at a Prestige hit.
Muslims bordering Hindus can flip Sihk by decision, although they take a stabhit
Pagans [Animist/Fetishist] can flip to Hindu by owning a Hindu province, via decision, and then flip Sihk. [IE: You can bring Sihk to Africa by colonizing Indonesia]

---

Also; how do Ancestors work for a Totemist Republic? I assume one booted out of office counts as 'dead' for game purposes?
 
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What is the moddability of this system? Will the single trait for totemist rulers be hardcoded? It would be great for the elven forebearers religion in Anbennar, but we need to have multiple personality slots to make elves immortal/long-lived
 
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@Groogy very importsnt question: what happens if i switch frim another religion to totemist? Would seem insane, that the ruler who embraced totemism wouldn't be able to be selected because his personality was "to diverse".
I'd implement a simple event that will let you chose one of the old leader traits and let it be exchanged for the totemism version upon changing religion to totemism.
 
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Will personality traits be released from DLC (Rights of Man) lock so that totemism can function, or will they be soft-ported with the DLC? It'd be weird for totemism to have this strange boon; because it gives players who quick-convert to totemism like some sort of bizzaro Spain strategy with high missionary power NI's and ideas the ability to push it through a immediate edge over other in-game rulers.

Also, if you convert to Totemism as not having (Rights of Man), do you immediately inherit a totemist personality?

There's still plenty of other things in that DLC that could justify it releasing ruler personalites as Free-LC, like great-powers, more events, some contextual things, ability to prune your heirs and pick up consorts. Some retro-active tweaking could help the DLC to replace it by helping expand it somehow, such as re-using this ancestor story mechanic of personality+ by event chain, slightly Crusader Kings style.
 
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Only if one goes wiled with killing rulers and even then its heavily rng dependent, one has no control over what traits the ruler gets. One may very well end up with +X spy defense, - X construction cost and +X ship durability for the first 50 years.

One may not be able to control what traits they get but you can certainly influence the weight system if you know how the trait system works. Additionally, nowadays there are more ways than ever to increase ruler's skills so you could try and maximize their stats while at the same time getting rid of bad leaders and just farm prestige. My only concern regarding this system is how weak or strong the modifiers will get (groogy said that you can get 7.5% Disc. If this is anything to go by, then you can stack a bunch of strong modifiers). And let's not forget that native's starting ruler is pure RNG so there is no reason to not restart until you get your desired starting ruler.

What really worries me is how 90% of Sikh's Gurus are a non-choice with most of them having one choice that trumps all others (-0.05 Corruption vs +10% Improve Relations? +10% Institution Spread vs 5% Land Morale? -5% Tech Cost vs +0.1 Yearly Army Professionalism? Really ????).

The modifiers are all over the place, and why do we get to chose one of three from each Guru? This is bound to lead to false choices (as we just discovered).
 
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One suggestion regarding Zoroastrianism @Groogy, would it be possible to add a decision for Persian minors and Persia to "Reconvert to Zoroastrianism"?

Edit : My suggestion is that if Persian minor or Persia own 2 or more Zoroastrian holy sites, have 2+ stability and 90 or more legitimacy the decision would be available. And since you're returning old faith back you'll suffer no loss of stability, prestige perhaps. Just a suggestion.
Everyone, the Iran and Religion understander has logged on.
 
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