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EU4 - Development Diary - 9th of February 2021

Good morning, everyone! Today we're back to some exciting content, talking about a whole new feature we'll be introducing in our next expansion: Monuments!

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Similar to the Wonders feature in CK2, you'll be able to build some of the most iconic and stunning buildings that serve as landmarks for many of our different playable nations. And, of course, given how important they were (and some still are), they will also grant you special and permanent bonuses. Let's cover some of their major points!
  1. Monuments are a special type of building that can only be built in certain provinces (according to their real life location), already set at the beginning of the game. However, some of them will be able to be relocated to your capital if you own their province. This is true for some "non-settled" monuments, like Stonehenge or the Moai, but will be impossible to do when it comes to other bigger monuments, like Nôtre-Dame.
  2. Monuments will be displayed in the province view in a separate window, each of them having a new and unique 2D art that portrays the monument at its highest (but also according to our time period). In this view you'll be able to see the benefits of upgrading it, the cost and the requirements for doing so, as well as the current tier, represented by medals.

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  3. Monuments have 4 different tiers, ranging from 0 to 3. Tier 0 implies that said monument is completely devastated or not even built yet and you will get no bonuses from it; each building will have a default tier at the beginning of the game, according to its real life state in 1444. Achieving a new tier is both time and resource consuming, costing a total of 1000 gold to upgrade each time and taking 50 years to complete. This process can be sped up by using an extra 300 gold to bring the project forward by 730 days or by using 10000 manpower to get the same result.
    The modifiers you get from reaching every tier are permanent and linked to the purpose of each building: for example, the Alhambra will reward you with some diplomatic and administrative bonuses, whilst the Shwedagon Pagoda will help you boost your karma and legitimacy, also reducing the unrest in the area. These bonuses may apply to your province, its area or the entire nation, growing stronger and wider as you upgrade your monument.

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  4. Monuments will require you to meet certain conditions before building or upgrading them and, if you fail to meet them, you will also lose their bonuses even after having completed their construction. Normally these conditions are to have a certain culture or follow a certain religion, but some monuments, like the Ambras Castle, are available for everyone that owns their province to build.

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  5. After conquering a province with a monument, its tier is reset to 1 to show the impact of the war in the city, even if it was already in an upper tier. However, it won't be reset to tier 0, as if it was completely destroyed. Also, provinces with a monument cost more warscore, as they hold a special significance to their owner. The new owner, however, will be able to upgrade it again, as long as the requirements are still met.
  6. Some missions will also be linked to certain monuments, specially if they were relevant for a tag during the time period we are covering. For example, you can see that in this Majapahit mission one of the requirements is to have the Borobudur temple upgraded to its maximum tier. Some other missions will also give you a great projects' building cost reduction or time reduction bonus, making it easier to upgrade your monuments.

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    (Please notice that our icons are still placeholders).
As you can see in the first screenshot, certain monuments will also have 3D art displayed on the map. Those models that were already implemented in the National Monuments cosmetic dlcs will be added as proper monuments, and you'll be able to see them both in the political and terrain mapmodes.

Thank you for reading and I hope you're as excited as we are about this! See you next week!
 
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Honestly, right now it looks like a downgrade mechanic from CK II.

In that game, we had cool and famous wonders from history, but we were also able to build some new with unique effects anywhere else. I really wonder why did the team deciced not to implement this too.
 
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Also some questions:
1) Is one province limited to have 1 monument?
2) Can you spam money or manpower so much that you can immediately upgrade the monument?
 
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Finally, National Monuments I (as a part of Call to arms pack) also have Fuji and Old Faithful. Will they also be monuments? :D
 
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And why the hell would you lock bonuses from Stonehenge to pagans? It's at least understandable in CK II with pagan religions being more than alive, but here it looks like a dead feature. I would give it some neutral bonuses like yearly prestige. At this point Stonehenge was not about the religion anymore
 
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I expect nothing but some new achievement called "Reverse Elgin": steal Stonehenge from the English as Greece or Byzantium.
 
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*insert "Hey can I copy your homework" meme here*

Joke aside I wasn't expecting such a thing coiming in EU4 right now. I have yet to think about how interesting it'll be compared to its CK2 and soon to be I:R counterparts, but a money sink which will allow me to indulge into my modifier stacking mania is okay I guess.
 
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oh wow! Thats a big one.
I like it - it is immersing the game and now we have monuments in Imperator, CK and EU 4 - so thats something.

I also like the 2D Pictures. That feels good!

Is there a list with all monuments or the amount of monuments,?

The 15% admin eff. at the alhambra seems pretty strong, when an other country that conquers that province (castille) would get that benefit as well.
 
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Geez, now almost every Paradox game has wonders - Stellaris, Rome 2, CK3, EU4. Only HoI4 is left out.
 
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Are there also events for the construction of the monuments? Or for the monuments themselfs? Or for specific monuments? (espc. if I conquer one?) - that would be so nice, as it opens so many possibilities
 
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I remembered one more thing - will canals be included into this mechanic? Right now their construction is purely random and pretty much unrewarding.
 
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Building Notre Dame or Hagia Sophia makes sense, but "upgrading" Stonehenge or the Pyramids feels counterintuitive.

Can you spend both 300 gold and 10000 manpower to get double speedup? Oh, also: Would putting the Suez/Kiel/Panama Canals in this system be a good idea?

I definitely like the idea.
 
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15% adm efficiency is stupidly OP. Now the new meta would be to rush the provinces with those wonders...
It's almost as if designer who did this wonder didn't know how big is 15% bonus when it comes to adm eff
 
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yeah. Please don't forget the canals - they are a good idea, but not really as good implemented, so you don't really see them or build them yourself.
 
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