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EU4 - Development Diary - 12th of March 2019

Let’s talk about Germany. Before I begin, I’d like you all to spare a few minutes to examine the image below:

nightmare.png


As you may be aware this is a screenshot of the glorious, beautiful, and ambitious EU4 mod ‘Voltaire’s Nightmare’. I’d like to assure you all that we are not going to implement this or anything like this in vanilla EU4.

So what are we going to do? Well for one thing we’re going to continue to rely on abstractions such as the existence of a country called “Switzerland” in 1444 rather than a multitude of semi-independent cantons. “Accuracy”, beyond a certain point, ceases to be relevant or else Voltaire’s Nightmare becomes the standard. Good design, rather than “accuracy”, is what should guide us here.

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.
  • Provinces owned by free cities should be approximately Frankfurt-sized. This creates extra space, as well as a visual distinction between Free Cities and other OPM’s.
  • All other provinces should be noticeably larger than Free City provinces. This sets a limit to how far we should split up the region.

  • A development increase in Germany in to be expected, but we should aim to keep it under control. Germany should not be dramatically more developed in the European update compared to 1.28

  • We should specifically avoid increasing the starting development of majors like Austria, Burgundy, and Bohemia.

  • It is more acceptable for “new” development to be added to weaker and/or new tags

  • It can be tempting to split tags up for the sake of “accuracy”, but keep in mind that we still want a mix of large, small, and medium powers. Consider the impact on the balance of power.

  • Adding new tags designed to begin as vassals is sometimes desirable, but starting liberty desire should be kept under 50%. If this cannot be achieved without disproportionately buffing the development of the overlord, it is better not to have the vassal.

  • 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.

  • Avoid non-contiguous country borders. This is messy for a variety of reasons, including military access.

  • Provinces adjacencies should be clearly visible, always more than a few pixels. Likewise avoid ‘four corners’ style adjacencies where possible.

  • It should look good. Think about aesthetics in terms of province borders, states, historical borders, etc.
I’ll skip the nostalgic retrospective today and get right into the gritty details. Let’s take a look at southern Germany:

southgermany.png


Bavaria is looking rather monolithic in 1.28, but it was not so historically. Divided between several Duchies most notably based in Munich, Landshut, and Ingolstadt, the Wittelsbach dynasty is at odds with itself in 1444. Bavaria wouldn’t be united until 1503, when Albrecht IV instituted primogeniture. There were also other independent polities in Bavaria such as the Bishopric of Passau and the Free City of Regensburg. We’re going to have to decide how many Bavarian states are going to exist in 1444, but we are determined for the answer to be “more”. Overall the region’s total development seems a little lackluster compared to the likes of Austria and Bohemia, so expect to see it boosted by comparison.

Looking to the west, there is the potential for more Free Cities in Swabia, as well as splitting the large province of Wurttemberg. Switzerland is trickier. We certainly don’t want to represent each province as a nation, but the fact is that the Swiss Confederacy wasn’t as large in 1444 as we currently present it. Graubünden for instance, later unified under the Three Leagues, had yet to be incorporated. We certainly want to add a province, and very possibly also a tag, for the city of Geneva. Geneva in 1444 was a somewhat unwilling subject of Savoy, and would eventually secure its liberation through entry into the Swiss Confederacy. We're also thinking about how we want to represent that rather unique "government" of the Confederacy, but more on that much later. The passes through the Alps could also use some work; we feel that there ought to be a connection between Savoia and Piedmont, while the pass between Piedmont and Wallis seems less necessary.

northgermany.png


And here’s northern Germany. As I noted in my design guidelines, there’s a temptation to overboard splitting up e.g. Saxony and Brunswick into many small duchies. In this region I think we should resist this urge for the sake of maintaining a mix of countries of different power levels within the HRE. Saxony for instance shall likely remain united. There are however candidates for splitting and potential new tags that could be added to the region. Pomerania and Silesia are both good candidates for division. Luneburg, Verden, and Magdeburg could potentially be elevated from OPM status. New OPM’s such as the Free City of Nordhausen are also possibilities. We’ll be carefully considering which provinces and countries merit inclusion and how they each fit into our overall goals for the region.

Moving on to the Low Countries, this is a region that has seen a lot of iteration over the course of EU4’s history. There is very little that can still be done without over-inflating its province density and risking an excessive reduction in the development of each province. That said, some changes we’re considering include an additional province in Flanders, splitting up Brabant, and adding the province of Julich (though we’re not quite sure how Julich is going to work). The Friesland/Utrecht border is something often complained about and will likely be revised in some way, though the solution probably will not be to add a new province. I’ve also seen suggestions for adding Frisian culture along parts of the coast, which is something we’re considering.

I hope that I’ve been able to give you some insight into the way we think about map changes, and once again I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Germany and the HRE. This concludes our series of dev diaries on the upcoming map changes. Next week you’ll be hearing from me again, but this time on the subject of mission trees.
 
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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
 
*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)
 
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.
 
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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.
 
As we're talking about German countries... any changes regarding the Teutonic Order in the plans? :rolleyes:

Oh, and those Livonian bros as well
 
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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?
 
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.
 
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!
 
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
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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