EU4 - Development Diary - 12th of March 2019

[DDRJake]

Well while they are at it, let's hope that they fix annoying stuff like not being able to use vassals in the HRE because they will return unlawfully territory with out asking there overlord

This is very high on the to-do list.

 

[1persona]

talk more about mechanics and less about provinces, we need an HRE mechanics, papal tools, completly spain dlc redone, face washing of the trade, take off those unsense religious orders, more vassal interactions..... no more muicroprovinces hard to see and anoyying to manage

 

[Vulkandrache]

The province density of Voltaire's Nightmare

That first screenshot of this mod ive tangentialy heard about looks like a clusterfuck.
Might also be a Salvador Dali picture or something.

 

[JayD]

*Bohemia should get at least one additional state - moravia - perhaps with moravian culture
*Frisian culture sounds good
*And if talking about voltaire mod - there is a boost for some provinces called "hanseatic city" wouldn't mind something like it to show even more how rich some merchant republics and some cities were
*Upper Silesia state could also be a desirable land with its all coal later on
*Maybe a new region of czechoslovakia? with Silesia included (it belonged longest to Bohemia)
*Oh and plz add Hussite faith same as you did with Anglican faith
* And a Bohemian mission of reaching Adriatic (after the congress od Vienna (afair) they wanted to have a straight line (1 or 10 km wide) between Austria and Hungary reaching the sea so that Hab-Hun 'd never become one body. Their proposal was laught out but it can be a mission to split Hab-Hun so they dont border each other because of Bohemias reaching Adriatic with one straight row of provinces. Sounds like fun
*there could also be an achievement with it called "Bohemia says Ahoy"
(Czech "Ahoj" means hello)

 

[Madaboe]

Please consider splitting Drenthe and Groningen, this would add all the 7 Provinces of the Netherlands(with an extra holland province)

 

[TheDungen]

What's this obsession with Switzerland, they're not exactly important in the era, meanwhile the hansa still share a mechanic with Genoa and Venice, each one of these individually are far more improtant than the swiss confederacy.

Also saxony brunswich and swizerland being on the map is fine, but their real subdivisions should have cores on the appropriate provinces.

 

[Nyrael]

talk more about mechanics and less about provinces, we need an HRE mechanics, papal tools, completly spain dlc redone, face washing of the trade, take off those unsense religious orders, more vassal interactions..... no more muicroprovinces hard to see and anoyying to manage

Provinces are easier to talk about when the design had just started. I don't think they had yet even made guidelines for mechanical overhauls.

 

[Heiliges Thüringens Reich]

As we're talking about German countries... any changes regarding the Teutonic Order in the plans?

Oh, and those Livonian bros as well

 

[AlexandruRadu]

Might also be a Salvador Dali picture or something.

Welcome to the HRE.

 

[Blobhemian]

I kinda don't see why Silesia should be split into multiple tags, if Saxony is to be kept in one piece. It could use more provicnes though (the game files already contain notes on them from Trin Tragula anyway), and Kladsko should be part of Bohemia in 1444. Making Lusatia(s) a separate releasable/vassal tag would make more sense IMHO.

By the way, right now there are only two unreleased nations in the German part of the HRE. Thuringia and Meissen. Thuringia used to exist in 1444 prior to Art of War and its current province is very large, yet still comparably small to rest of Saxony, so I don't see why it couldn't start as a vassal to Saxony for example. Meissen is weird, because under realistic circumstances it cannot even be spawned and lacks any cores, which doesn't make much sense, given that it was integrated deeper into Saxony only a few years before the start date. Maybe a core would do it justice?

 

[Radorkan]

Say it with me: repeatable missions! Repeatable missions! Repeatable missions! (and a bit more permanent rewards for the historical ones plox)

 

[Comrade Kalle]

All I really want is more unique country ideas inside the HRE, and more provinces in HRE and France, anything beyond that is just a bonus for me

 

[klingonadmiral]

Bavaria wouldn’t be united until 1503, when Albrecht IV instituted primogeniture.

That's an overly simplistic representation. All the Bavarian sub-duchies practised primogeniture, it was through the extinction of the various Wittelsbach branches that Bavaria coagulated back into a more centralized form. The Straubing line went extinct a few decades prior, with its Bavarian lands bein partitioned between Munich, Ingolstadt and Landshut while its holdings in the Low Countries went the the Duke of Burgundy. Ingolstadt was already on the way out in 1444 - the only son of the Duke had usurped the throne in 1443, with his father ending up imprisoned by the Duke of Landshut. The son would however die in 1445 and his father two years later, leading to the extinction of the line and their lands being transferred to Bavaria-Landshut. Landshut thus emerged as the strongest of the Bavarian duchies, until in 1503 George the Rich died without male heir. In his will he announced his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Ruprecht, Count Palatinate of the Rhine. As that however was a breach of Salian Law Bavaria-Munich, supported explicitly by the Emperor, declared war on Bavaria-Landshut. Two year later Elizabeth and her husband were dead and Bavaria re-united as a Duchy.

I also find it odd that Austria isn't mentioned at all. The setup between Austria, Hungary and Bohemia is just flat-out wrong. The Habsburg line was split between the Albertine line (represented by Ladislaus Posthumus) that held Austria, Hungary and de jure Bohemia (in 1444 it was indeed in an interregnum, but in the end Ladislaus would be affirmed as king) and the Leopoldine line that held "Inner Austria" - Styria, Carniola and Tyrol. In 1444 Frederick was ruler of Inner Austria and regent to Ladislaus in Austria. Only after Ladislaus' death and the extinction of the Albertine line would Austria be reunited and Hungary and Bohemia (temporarily) split off.

Luneburg, Verden, and Magdeburg could potentially be elevated from OPM status.

I would reorganize the Welfish lands as following:

Lüneburg holds Lüneburg and Hoya (reason for existing: de jure highest Welfish fief)
Calenberg holds Hannover (reason for existing: actually the guys that re-united most of the Welfish lands and ended up becoming the House of Hanover)
Brunswick holds Braunschweig (reason for existing: the guys that didn't unite with the other Welfish lands and existed until 1918)

But I think the biggest thing the HRE needs isn't more provinces, it's more unique mechanics. You might have noticed that suspiciously many lines of German nobility simply wen't extinct. The reason for this was Salian Law, which strictly prohibited women from inheriting land. Even while the rest of Europe increasingly relaxed the restrictions on female rulers, Germany never modernized its succession laws. In fact, Salian Law was in use until 1918 after which the monarchy was abolished. The only major exceptin in EU4s timeframe was Maria Theresa, and her ascension triggered a minor conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession (and no, MT was never Empress of the HRE. The EU4 Pragmatic Sanction is flat-out wrong). It was in fact conflicts arising from disputed successions that led to the majority of wars in the HRE. "Fabricating claims" wasn't really a thing, or rather it was by marrying a daughter of you off to whatever region your line would like to conquer and wait for a few decades/centuries. You could say that the HRE never stopped playing CK2.

Then of course there are ideas. German ideas are one of the two last remaining broad group sets (the other being Horde ideas, which get away with it because they are awesome). The Welfs deserve ideas of their own, despite being in a lull between their first period of prominence of the High Middle Ages and their second period of prominence in the 18th and 19th centuries. Even more so do the Bishop-Electors. Brandenburg also needs an idea set of its own, in 1444 it had exactly nothing to do with Prussia. And in fact Prussia needs a new idea set. While Prussian soldiers were highly drilled, they were not nearly the Space Marines EU4 portrays them as. Prussia was more known for fielding an absurdly large army. When considering the number of their subjects, the Grande Armee on the eve of the Russian campaign was relatively smaller than the Prussian Army under Frederick II during peace time.

And moving completely away from countries, perhaps a Germany rework would also be a opportunity to tackle one of EU4s biggest balance issues - the OPness of loans. Currently those are procured from a nebulous "bank", while in history it was rich merchant families that more or less bankrolled Europe during the 15th and 16th century. At gamestart the Medici were the most prominent bankers of the continent, but would quickly be supplanted by the German Fuggers and Welsers. In fact, Jakob Fugger "the Rich" is the only person in history that can argue with Mansa Musa II to be the richest man to have ever lived.

Oh and make Prussia blue.

 

[Godrage87]

Those proposed changes will add more Provinces to the HRE, additionally maybe some more tags. So the mechanic behind the authority is going to be reworked in either case.
I really like to see a new hansa mechanic, after adding government decisions etc. Nations in EU4 can get very rich by valuing trade. Those OPM free cities like Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Danzig, Stade, Münster and many others were rich af. Adding some society which boost your income, your trade steering or trade power would be needed therefore. Some more percent in mercantilism would do the job aswell.
Never forget please, that there were hansa-cities in Norway, France, England aswell. Bergen is a famous example of it.
Plenty is possible with just some imagination!

I'm really looking forward to those changes and the DLC coming in late 2019!

 

[JayD]

Say it with me: repeatable missions! Repeatable missions! Repeatable missions! (and a bit more permanent rewards for the historical ones plox)

They could have left repetable missions and rename them into "dynamic duties" or sth and have them along new mission system - a hybrid system with both kinds of missions would satisfy all i guess

 

[Tue_p3]

Plz add comparability with trade leagues to the design rules. For example, by adding a province to Gelre in past updates, trade leagues lost a potential target.

 

[gulaschkoenig]

AE needs to be a lot higher. Its just fudging dumb that around 1530 there are almost no minors left, if the emporer sucks.
India and the HRE need to forbid annexation until 1600 or something like that. I want OPMs to exist until fkin napoleon!

 

[cuendillar]

Good to see the guidelines, most make sense to me. However, the one quoted below I strongly disagree with. My preference have always been to start as OPMs (ever since my very first EU4 game, with Ansbach) and "fun and interesting to play" seems like a solid reason to me. The point above about trade leagues (already a bit funky) depend heavily on OPMs for their trade leagues to make that government form viable strengthens the argument to re-add a few since all the Dutch ones were removed in the Rule Britannia patch. A decent mix of OPM governments makes sense to me, rather than have all be free cities.

Any good Dutch free cities you plan to add?

On that note, I’ve devised a few design guidelines that will advise the way we plan out the region, some of which I’ll share with you now. Bear in mind that these are guidelines and not hard rules; there will likely be the occasional exception.

• Avoid adding independent OPM’s. There are literally hundreds of OPM’s that we could but definitely should not add to the game. New OPM’s should be restricted to Free Cities or else have a very good reason to exist.
  
  
• It should look good. Think about aesthetics in terms of province borders, states, historical borders, etc.

 

[Mingmung]

I hope Ravensburg gets deleted; Constanz (bishopric) was much more important. Metz and the like should be good Free Cities to fill up the Free City gap.

Anyway, neondt should take a very, very good look at the HRE-map I and some others made and posted in the Kleinstaaterei-thread. His priorities seem all over the place, especially if you look at his vision of Bavaria which isn't even extended to politically fractured Saxony (Thuringia, anyone).

No mentions of Hoya, Lippe, a split of Stade into two tags, Cilli, Gorizia, a Hungary-borderfix, Bayreuth, Bamberg (tag), etc... Mentions of a Magdeburg-split are bordering to 'ignorance'; no significant split can be made there. Has research even be done thoroughly enough?

And Nordhausen? Really? Erfurt (owned by Mainz) and Mühlhausen are much more important. And sizable.

I sincerely hope the update will be satisfying for this region; not a repeat of the last two patches. This ddiary once again doesn't put me at ease. There are good things said by neondt (mostly things said by the community, first), but also troubling things.

 

[Lee Saxon]

Could please we see a rework of Dutch Revolts and Burgundian Succession future?

Seconded, I really feel like the Dutch Revolts ought to be a Disaster with some more clearly defined parameters. Any time I need to Google to figure out why something is happening and how it can be stopped that's bad design.