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EUIV - Development Diary - 12th of May 2020

Good afternoon! I’m back again with another content-driven dev diary. Today we’ll be taking a look at two of the new mission trees coming with the Emperor expansion: Germany and Lübeck.

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The German mission tree takes a lot of inspiration, as you might expect, from Imperial Germany and the accomplishments of Bismarck. Although very much outside of the period, we felt that it was an appropriate way to go given the ahistorical nature of a united Germany within our timeframe.

The conquest branch of the mission tree begins with Blood and Iron, which requires you to own at least 50 provinces across the North Germany or South Germany regions, essentially completing your early German unification. This mission rewards perhaps the most extensive set of permanent claims of any single mission in the game: the Low Countries, Italy, France, and Poland will all simultaneously become your next targets. This is pretty extreme for a single mission, but given the requirements not only of the mission but also of forming Germany in the first place, the player is likely already in a very dominant position by the time that they unlock this mission tree. Completing the Annex Poland mission gives even further permanent claims, this time on the Baltic, Scandinavia, and Carpathia regions.

Next we have an economic branch of the mission tree. You are charged with building manufactories to Industrialize the Rhineland, permanently improving local goods produced in applicable provinces by 15%. You must also Promote Urbanization by reaching at least 30 development in 10 German provinces, and achieve Protected Markets by reaching 75% trade share in all German trade nodes. Completing these missions unlocks the Dominant Economy mission, which requires you to have the highest income of any European nation as well as 10,000 ducats with no loans.

Next up, Germany has a branch of its mission tree dedicated to overseas expansion, beginning of course with the construction of an Imperial Navy. After building 30 heavy ships, you must Burn the Wooden Wall by ensuring that no British country has more than 5 heavy ships. Achieving this will grant you +10% naval morale for the rest of the game, as well as a permanent claim on London. Scramble for Africa and Overseas Empire see you building an empire in Africa and Asia respectively.

Germany and the Holy Roman Empire share a large portion of their missions trees, but each of them have a unique branch available only to them. The German unique branch focuses on state-building, for instance hiring skilled advisors, gaining Crown Land, constructing universities, and gaining absolutism.

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This is the Holy Roman Empire’s unique branch of the mission tree. It has been said that the HRE was neither Holy, Roman, nor an empire, but you have the chance to change that. You must become Defender of the Faith (giving you an opportunity to launch a final crusade for Jerusalem), become Papal Controller (if Catholic), and finally centralize the disparate states of Germany into a single nation. Completing the Roman Resolution mission as a Catholic nation fires the following event, representing victory of the Emperor in the dispute between Church and Emperor:

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Hi I’m @Alfray Stryke , a new addition on the EUIV team. Currently working as QA, although I have assisted with the design and implementation of Lübeck’s mission tree in the Emperor DLC.

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The four paths for their missions are:
  • End the Sound Toll, By forcing or convincing Denmark to end the toll and increasing your trade in the Lübeck trade node, you continue to increase your trade in the Baltic. This leads to gaining claims on the Jutland peninsula and then Norway (subjugation if Norway is independent, permanent claims if they are not).
  • Ties with England requires either strengthening relations with England or Lübeckian merchants or privateers having at least 25% of the trade power in the English Channel. Completing this will strengthen Lübeckian traders in the British Isles, granting claims in order to form trading cities in London, Edinburgh and Ayr. Setting up trade cities in Edinburgh and Ayr will lead to dominating the North Sea trade and recruiting an explorer to settle Newfoundland (giving a Center of Trade there) and founding the American colony of Neulübeck.
    • The London Steelyard was historically the main trading base of the Hanseatic League during the 15th and 16th centuries, thus either owning London directly or indirectly via a member of your trade league will grant you a substantial boost to trade.
  • Defend the City, although Lübeck starts as a relatively wealthy but militarily lacking nation, their first goal should be to ensure they have a standing army capable of holding their own against any neighbours inside the HRE. Complete this via your own soldier or recruiting mercenary companies and you will gain claims on the rest of the Mecklenburg area. After building up your own strength, it is time to return the cities of Visby and Novgorod to the Hanseatic League by either owning them directly or indirectly.
  • The Merchant Navy, by building up your merchant navy and increasing your coffers, you are then led to formalising bookkeeping and building the Lübeck Krantor (replacing the old decision). After increasing your ship building industry, commissioning the Adler von Lübeck (for owners of Golden Century, the decision now requires a flagship), and asserting naval dominance over the North and Baltic Seas Lübeck can be declared the Queen of the Hanseatic League. This rewards you with increased diplomatic reputation and decreased advisor cost.


The culmination of their mission tree after increasing the reach of the Hanseatic League is to unite the league into a solidified political entity - making any members of the trade league that own historically important trade cities into vassals, with a boost to their diplomatic relations in order to compensate for this. Then using the same system for the Kingdom of God and the Caliphate renaming you are rightfully termed the Hanseatic League!

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And that’s all for today! Join us next week for the last in our series of content-focused dev diaries.
 
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Can Wallachia and Moldova also get a revamp?
If it's not done already, it's too late, the release of Emperor being in a month.
 
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Since my comments got destroyed by that server failure yesterday, I'm going to post my thoughts on this again: the German mission tree is a bunch of hackneyed ahistorical pandering to the Prussiaboos, Kaiserboos, and Wehrbs who've been allowed far too much sway in the development decisions of many a historically themed game for years, often to the detriment of just about everyone else's enjoyment. If you are going to put something into the game, make sure it fits the tone rather than just being a bad decision to pander to an obnoxiously vocal minority of players who prefer memes over theme. If this were for a Victoria series game I wouldn't be too cranky about this, since it'd fit the theme of the time period, but this is just flat out absurd.
 
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*nods* I freely state, as someone who generally has no problem with ahistorical stuff, having an interesting mission tree for an ahistorically formed Germany is certainly a good idea.

But looking over the mission tree again, I agree with other folks- the missions are kind of BULLSHIT to go with for Germany. What if you form Germany as Austria, Bavaria, or some not so militaristic minded German princedom?

Its literally going "Congrats, you've formed Germany! Now play it like your in Vicky2 or HoI4 and conquer Europe!"

This tree either needs to be tweaked, or redone entirely so that it's based on what states are forming the nation.
 
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Paradox Interactive.

What we need is EU5 not 1.32(20),1.34(20), 1.36(20), etc.
Let Emperor be the final paid downloadable content of Europa Universalis 4.

Sincerely everyone
 
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The main thing to take away from this is that Lotharingia (which hasn't existed since the middle of the 900s) and Imperial Germany (which didn't exist until the later half of the 1800s), with pure conquer-everything focuses, take a greater precedence than the Scandinavian countries (particularly Denmark and Sweden), which were at their height of power, and arguably cultural influence (partially through colonisation, and architectural expansion), during this point in European history. What an interesting strategy.

And no, don't give me that "but the Scandinavians were at their height during the Viking Age" which is usually touted by people who flap their gums at matters they don't understand. As someone with an actual degree in Viking and Medieval-archaeology, I'm tired of hearing that nonsense xP
 
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Since my original post got deleted due to the forum bug, let me restate it:
- I really dislike the mission tree for Germany. It is anachronistic, it encourages mindless blobbing and it basically only makes sense for a Prussia-formed Germany.
- that said, since I have no interest in militarily forming Germany, either, this mission tree mostly will not concern me. It is okay to have an anachronistic, blobby mission-tree after enacting a formation decision that requires blobby, anachronistic play
- on the other hand, as far as I understand, parts of this mission tree will also apply to a unified HRE. Since enacting all the imperial reforms as Austria, Bavaria or Bohemia is something that I personally consider quite fun to do and much more "plausible" than an early Bismarckian conquest, this is something that might affect my games and therefore I do mind. A "blood and iron" mission with a Prussian Pickelhaube seems like a very inappropriate "reward" for a catholic Bavaria or Austria that have managed the empire well enough to get the princes to agree to turning the Holy Roman Empire into a more centralized state. The mission for a HRE should have a more diplomatic and "imperial" theme rather than Prussian militarism.
EDIT: For example, something about fully recovering the Kingdoms of Burgundy and Italy or even restoring (for later missions) the old Carolingian empire and/or the Staufer Empire (i.e. Sicily and the Kingdom of Jerusalem) would feel much more fitting for the HRE.
 
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Hm, not entirely fond of the Kaiserreich slant for Germany, given that of the two options for uniting Germany (HRE or Germany), it is the only one available to republics and, therefore, a likely lategame goal for a German-culture republic.


I'm pretty excited for the peasant republics in the HRE.

My first game will be either a Brandenburg/TO Peasant republic into Roman Republic game or Florence shenanigans.
 
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If they bothered with a tree for 19th century germany they should have bothered for one for United Kingdom of Portugal and Castille.


First and most impactful change:
No Habsburg Spain.

Second change: Afonso V was very much focused in north african conquest, imagine if he had the resources of both Portugal and Castille.

Third change: Would Columbus expedition be financed?

4th change: Antuwerp would not lose acess to the Portuguese capital (after all they made 50% of the profit because they were the middleman for central europe markets that Portugal used, and it was due to the iberian union (the historical) that a deal embargo was put in place.


With just one event, within the timeframe of the game, there ya go a proper alt history country.

But hey, I can form Spain! And for some reason lose all the Portuguese heraldy after doing so.
 
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Will Germany still require tech 20 to form? Nationalism and Imperialism are unlocked at 23 which would make these claims almost entirely pointless.
Wrong. Permanent claims give reduced core creation cost.

I think the claims are no problem, BUT all major powers should get something like a cb on germany on completing this mission. In general the germany tree should be strong because its a hard way to form it.
 
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Would be nice if there was a decision to create Deutsch MittleAfrica for Germany. And to create British Raj for Britain. And also is Germany getting unit models?
 
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Since my original post got deleted due to the forum bug, let me restate it:
- I really dislike the mission tree for Germany. It is anachronistic, it encourages mindless blobbing and it basically only makes sense for a Prussia-formed Germany.
- that said, since I have no interest in militarily forming Germany, either, this mission tree mostly will not concern me. It is okay to have an anachronistic, blobby mission-tree after enacting a formation decision that requires blobby, anachronistic play
- on the other hand, as far as I understand, parts of this mission tree will also apply to a unified HRE. Since enacting all the imperial reforms as Austria, Bavaria or Bohemia is something that I personally consider quite fun to do and much more "plausible" than an early Bismarckian conquest, this is something that might affect my games and therefore I do mind. A "blood and iron" mission with a Prussian Pickelhaube seems like a very inappropriate "reward" for a catholic Bavaria or Austria that have managed the empire well enough to get the princes to agree to turning the Holy Roman Empire into a more centralized state. The mission for a HRE should have a more diplomatic and "imperial" theme rather than Prussian militarism.
EDIT: For example, something about fully recovering the Kingdoms of Burgundy and Italy or even restoring (for later missions) the old Carolingian empire and/or the Staufer Empire (i.e. Sicily and the Kingdom of Jerusalem) would feel much more fitting for the HRE.
My sentiments exactly. As I said yesterday, the new German Missions should generally be seen as a goofy extra that most players will never actually see or interact with, kind of like Sunset Invasion for CKII. The HRE Missions, however, should definitely be reworked to be more realistic, given the DLC focus on HRE mechanics.
 
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I echo the sentiment that the German mission tree is bad and 100 years too soon.
 
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