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EU4 - Development Diary - 16th of May 2017

Hi everyone, and welcome to another Europa Universalis development diary. I hope you all enjoyed PdxCon last weekend, either in person or from watching the streams.

As you all know, we announced our new Immersion Pack, Third Rome, which will be out in June this year for 9.99$. So what is an immersion pack then? Well, it is something between a full expansion and a small graphics pack, similar to the story pack Leviathans for Stellaris.

Closest comparison to Third Rome of our previous releases for EU4 would be Wealth of Nations when it comes to amount and size of features. Third Rome also comes bundled with a portrait pack for russians, and 3 new sprite-packs, for 12 countries in the russian region, including Ryazan, Lithuania and Perm.

So, what cool features will we talk about today then?

We’re adding three new russian government types. The actual types are in the free patch, but the abilities we give them as well, belong to the Immersion Pack.

Veche Republic
This is a new republic form, which works like a merchant republic and have access to the russian abilities as well. They are always duchy rank, and their bonus is +1 merchant. Novgorod and Pskov starts as Veche Republics. It also gives +3 to states.

Principality
This is the new monarchy governmentform, which all russian monarchies start with. It has access to the russian abilities, and while they are locked to duchy rank, they have a bonus of -1 unrest and +5% Tax Modifier. It also gives +3 to states.

Tsardom
This government form is given when forming Russia, and is automatically empire rank. Besides giving +10 to amount of states and access to the russian abilities, it gives the following bonuses. +20% Manpower, +0.1 Yearly Absolutism & -0.05 monthly autonomy.

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The russian abilities work like this. All actions have a bar to fill up before they can be used. Bar fill up from 0 - 100, increasing yearly by the ruler’s monarch point in the category, and a base +3. The actual bar can hold 150, so you don’t lose by not using it immediately.
  • The Administrative ability is called Reform Sudebnik, and reduces autonomy by 10% in all provinces you own.
  • The diplomatic ability is called Support Oprichnina, and reduces progress of all your rebelfactions by 30% each.
  • The military ability is called Raise Streltsy, and reduces war exhaustion by 2, and raises 20% of your forcelimit as Streltsy Infantry in your capital.

So what is Streltsy units? Previously we had three categories of units, with regulars, mercenaries & banners. In 1.22 there are two more categories added, and one of those is the Streltsy.

Streltsy arrive at full strength, but low morale, and do not cost manpower nor gold at recruit, but otherwise works like a regular unit, if not for two distinct differences. First, the amount of streltsy compared to your force.limit increases your stability costs, while each streltsy regiment provides +10% fire damage.

The other category we add for 1.22 is Cossacks, which is there for everyone that bought the “The Cossacks” expansion. Cossacks work like regulars, except they do +10% extra shock damage.

Cossacks are recruited as an estate interaction, where each province assigned to the Cossacks estate will give you 1 cavalry cossack regiment.

Of course, fittingly for the focus on this update, we have added three new interactions to the Cossacks estate.
  • Conscripting Elites: gain army tradition, lose loyalty
  • Supply Arms: lose MIL, gain loyalty and influence
  • Permit Self Governance: give autonomy to cossack lands, gain loyalty and influence

Next week, we’ll take a deeper look into more abilities of Russia and the Tsardom.
 
I was about to ask "WHERE IS MAH DRUG!" :)

In general, like this a lot! Although I love adviser portraits, I usually couldn't care less about skin packs, but I'll accept them this time, because Muscovy is my most played country. Though I'm not sure if I'd want all future content to be packaged with skins. I very much DID NOT like El Dorado for having the Nation Designer packaged with the other features as I had and still have no interested in it whatsoever.

Russian abilities are like super powers, they're all so powerful, and have tangible and practical applications. I love them. Quantity ideas were never so desirable in Russia :D. It's gonna be so much fun to play Russia with these abilities incentivizing to remain on the edge, and allowing to remain on that edge. Can't wait to see more about Russian abilities next. I have a feeling that means Orthodox abilities. I still don't like that the new Russian ideas :<.

With all these new unique and specialised units, we could totally use some new system where we'd get to establish constant armies, that are more than just stacked together units, to make it easier to manage them.
 
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Streltsy arrive at full strength, but low morale, and do not cost manpower nor gold at recruit, but otherwise works like a regular unit, if not for two distinct differences. First, the amount of streltsy compared to your force.limit increases your stability costs, while each streltsy regiment provides +10% fire damage.

Don't they cost more to maintain? 0.57 isntead of 0.2?
 
Don't they cost more to maintain? 0.57 isntead of 0.2?

They could be on that screenshot - way over the forcelimit + if Russia still needs ADM tech 10 or so to form, there is also increased maintenance cost to the armies tied to the mil tech. Their maintenance cost may be regular 0.2 base as well, but it could be good to get some confirmation.
 
@Johan does streltsy reinforce from the manpower pool and cost usual amount of gold for reinforcement? Or do they have some exceptions like banners? And what is their maintenance cost (0.2 base?)

Asking just for confirmation purpose :)
 
@Johan does streltsy reinforce from the manpower pool and cost usual amount of gold for reinforcement? Or do they have some exceptions like banners? And what is their maintenance cost (0.2 base?)

Asking just for confirmation purpose :)

"Like regular unit", so they drain manpower.
 
Must say I'm disappointed about Veche republics being locked to Duchy. That and the fact that forming Russia forces Tsardom government really screws over Novgorod. Why isn't there an option to form a Russian republic as Novgorod? Why are Novgorod permanently locked out of getting cultural union without changing government?
 
You worded it a bit weird. Does each streltsy add a bonus to fire damage to the entire army or do they just deal 10% more fire damage?
They deal 10% more damage in the fire phase.
 
"Like regular unit", so they drain manpower.

I'm assuming that as well, but you never know - that's why I added 'for confirmation purposes' :p (With PDX sometimes you never know...)
 
Will you be looking at reworking Merchant Republics at all with the new Veche Republic? They are currently by far one of the weakest government forms in the game. Factions are just worse estates and the state limit is penalizing without a real benefit as trade cities still aren't up to par. And now absolution being one of the best modifiers in the game with no real downsides, yet MR's get a massive penalty to it on top of everything else.

They at bare minimum need a way to get more sailors with the new maintenance mechanic, can't really run a trade empire if you can't afford to have lots o ships without blobbing for weak land you can barely use...
 
@Johan does streltsy reinforce from the manpower pool and cost usual amount of gold for reinforcement? Or do they have some exceptions like banners? And what is their maintenance cost (0.2 base?)

Asking just for confirmation purpose :)

exactly the same as regulars.
 
The military ability is called Raise Streltsy, and reduces war exhaustion by 2, and raises 20% of your forcelimit as Streltsy Infantry in your capital.
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Is Novgorod ForceLimit 15 now?:D How low is their dev?




no, why would they do that?

Senpai noticed me~~~ Oh, i saw on one screenshot this number :) Thank you proving me wrong ^^