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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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Monday, great wonders. Then Tuesday, monuments. Almost the same DD...

Weird.

But I liked it. Just disliked existing only pre-defined monuments. Let us build our stuff wherever we want.

And 15% adm eff is just crazy. Change that for good.
 
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Please don't have admin efficiency tied to any monuments, there is already an inflated quantity of sources in the game as stands. If it was to even be attached to a monument at all it should be a miniscule amount like 2.5%. Being able to turn ducats into admin efficiency is very unhealthy for the game and I would highly recommend you revisit its inclusion. Otherwise a pretty neat feature and I am excited to see all the different monuments that get included!
I low grade disagree because after they nerfed absolutism's Admin Efficiency gain 17th Century conquest isn't as punchy as it used to be unless you're a nation that gets its own source of AdEff. This allows countries left in the dust by that decision to catch up. Or they could undo that nerf because the 90% cap on AdEff serves the purpose they were going for anyway.
 
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This is a feature I absolutely love. Thanks for bringing this into the next expansion. Looking forward to it!
 
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also like the 2D Pictures. That feels good!
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.
yeah definitely an age ristriction on some of them would make a lot of sense
 
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Why Himeji Castle specifically? Sure it's one of only 7 originals that still stand today and the biggest of those, but at the time it ws just a castle. And we got a building for that: Castle....
If anything, include Azuchi castle, because that actually felt special and monumental to the people at the time, as it was the first castle in roughly that style. Also if Himeji can only be built after 1581 to be historical, the boni will be useless since Japan will be united by then. Being able to build it before then would feel stupid to me since there were only hilltop forts in Japan at the time without the beautiful architectural features like Tenshu, but then again you did include clans like Oda as a significant clan in 1444 and called a feature in Shinto religion the completely anachronistic term "sakoku", so clearly anything pertaining to Japanese history is not meant to be accurate but to cater to popular stereotypes... -.-
 
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alhambra seems a bit OP. guess it may be limited to primary culture andalusian or something along that line? so it's a great asset for an al-andalus run but useless for castille
 
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Maybe it's just that I suck at EU4 economics, but 1000 gold seems like an aweful lot to me for a lower tier upgrade. It takes quite some time until I have this much money lying around.

Well except for the Alhambra. That one is a steal.

Maybe you should consider rebalancing some of these bonuses as well as the costs to upgrade, possibly making the final tier more expensive but the lower ones more affordable.
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.

Does that include rebellions? Or is a change of ownership required?
 
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Yeah, 15% admin efficiency is way too powerful compared to the other wonders. The other bonuses of the Alhambra would already make it well worth the effort.

Did you maybe intend to give it -15% admin tech cost and mixed up the modifiers?
 
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Would it be possible for Constantinople to feature both the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (possible if conquered by the Ottomans)?
 
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Quick reply (I should be working): the entire idea sounds awesome! I loved great wonders in CK2, and as other players have mentioned this is a great addition to my tall-ish playstyle :D
There are plenty of questions and issues, as is to be expected with such a change, but others seem to be doing a fine job of pointing them out and making suggestions. Nevertheless, those are (mostly) about details and not about the idea itself --- important details, I'll grant you, but details nonetheless. Good job! :)
 
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What about the Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand? It was destroyed in 1449 but the country can have the option to either destroy it or keep it which would help boost technology progress.
 
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Is Paradox monument addicted this week? First Imperator announces their monuments with EU4 following the same treatment literally the day after xD

Imperator announced their monuments around half a year ago. The latest DD just showed the changes done to it.
 
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+15% admin efficiency is crazy, every damn nation west of India will be gunning poor Grenada for that buff.
 
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Hm, meh.
Doesn't look like a feature EU4 desperately needed. More clutter I guess...

One question, what happens with decisions and events that build certain buildings (Basilica in Roma, the Forbidden City, etc.)?
 
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Awesome feature. Something I've wanted for EU4 for a long time. I hope more wonders are added as well in addition to the ones already there. Particularly for regions with very few of them.

I actually don't mind not being able to build a custom wonder, since then you eventually will be tempted to spam wonders everywhere, and also I would rather have culturally distinct and unique wonders, rather than a set of boring generic ones. I like the focus on historical wonders, as it gives flavour to those regions that have it, and also lets you learn and appreciate some history. What they should do instead of letting you build your own custom wonders, is the possibility to build some historical wonders that previously have been destroyed like the Colossus of Rhodes, but only under certain conditions and at a much more expensive cost.
 
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@skingrado
Can you also please look into Anatolian/Turkish architecture. Art doesn't fit region in game.
 
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so, like, not to be rude or anything, but how is the ai going to handle this? the ai is sort of notoriously bad with money already - are they going to just pretend it doesnt exist or bankrupt themselves rushing it down? are they going to fill their whole country with docks or whatever and then EFFECTIVELY never touch the things because they save it for last and never have the cash for it? are they gonna dump money into this instead of paying off their massive debts?

its a fine idea but i dont know about adding more mechanics like this until you teach the ai how to play the videogame good. like, again, im not trying to be nasty or anything, but it really is a big issue - i know the content guys arent the same guys as the bugfix and balancing guys, but i really think itd be prudent to hold off on mechanics like this until the ai has a handle on the mechanics that already exist
 
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