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EUIV - Development Diary - 17th of March 2020

Good morning! As you may have heard, the Paradox office has shut down temporarily due to Coronavirus concerns; we’re all continuing to work from home though, and you’ll be pleased to hear that thus far the team remains in good health. If all goes as planned we should be able to continue releasing dev diaries as normal.

Today I’ll be covering the Papal and Italian mission trees. It’s been a while since we had a content-focused dev diary, and there’s still quite a lot we haven’t covered. Emperor and the 1.30 patch have such an immense wealth of content that we almost definitely won’t be able to talk about it all before release. With that in mind, here’s a list of mission trees we’ve created over the last year or so:

Mission trees available with the Emperor expansion:
  • Austria
  • Bavaria/Bavarian minors
  • Bohemia
  • Burgundy
  • Netherlands/Dutch and Flemish minors
  • Crusader States
  • Florence/Tuscany
  • France
  • Genoa
  • Germany/HRE (several unique missions each)
  • Lubeck
  • Hungary
  • Italy
  • Milan
  • Naples
  • Papal States
  • Provence
  • Brandenburg/Prussia
  • Savoy/Sardinia-Piedmont
  • Saxony
  • Serbia
  • Switzerland
  • Venice
Mission trees available to all players:
  • Albania
  • Brittany
  • Bulgaria
  • Croatia/Ragusa/Dalmatia
  • Dithmarschen
  • Elector Bishops
  • Franconia/Franconian minors
  • French Duchies
  • Hannover/Hannoverian minors
  • Italian minors
  • Palatinate
  • Pomerania
  • Austrian Minors
  • Swabia/Swabian minors
  • Westphalia/Westphalian minors

Improving Catholic and Papal gameplay has been one of our core priorities during the development of Emperor, so it’s only fitting that the Papal States get a suitably comprehensive mission tree to boot. I won’t attempt to describe the requirements and rewards for every mission, so I’ll just focus on the parts I think are especially interesting.

pope_1.png


Starting from the Patrimony of St. Peter, the Holy Father is encouraged to embark on a campaign of conquest across the Italian peninsula. Besides uniting Italy under the rightful patrimony of the Pope being a noble goal in and of itself, this will also help you meet the requirements for the Kingdom of God decision.

Among the first missions the Papal States can pursue is Form the Swiss Guard. To achieve this the Pope must either have very good relations with Switzerland or else directly own a province in Switzerland itself.

swiss guard.png


The Swiss Guard is a unique mercenary company available only to the Papal States through the completion of this mission. They are very cheap to maintain, cheaper even than your normal Infantry regiments at base maintenance, and highly disciplined. They are however a very small Company, so while they will provide a significant edge in the early game they will not scale as well as other Companies later into your campaign.

Pursuing this branch of the mission tree will eventually get you to End the Schism. Besides completing previous missions in the branch, the owners of Constantinople and Moscow must both be Catholic. Completing this mission will give every remaining Orthodox country an important choice to make:

schism.png


Several of the missions for the Papal States give bonuses not only to the Pope himself but also to other Catholics. The Holy League for instance gives mercenary bonuses to the Pope’s allies, while Eastern Catholicization gives Lithuania a bonus to their Missionaries. The most interesting application of this idea is in the Missions to China and Japan. Using whatever means the Pope deems necessary, several provinces in China/Japan must be owned by a Catholic country to complete these missions of evangelism. Upon completing the mission, not only will relevant countries receive events giving them an opportunity to embrace Catholicism, but all provinces in China owned by a Catholic but not yet Catholic themselves will become easier to convert, while provinces already converted will receive reduced development cost.

Moving on, here’s the mission tree for a united Italy:

italy.png


As you can probably tell from some of the mission names, this mission tree has a somewhat Roman theme. Completing these missions will set you well on your way to restoring the Roman Empire and, therefore, Italy’s rightful place in the world.

The leftmost branch of the tree deals with bringing prosperity and advancement to Italy itself. Completing the Prosperity for all mission grants a temporary development cost modifier which will be useful in completing the Develop the South mission, which requires at least 5 provinces in southern Italy to have at least 25 development.

The main part of the mission tree encourages you to embark on a widespread campaign of conquest across the Mediterranean. A new Caesar must launch a new invasion of Gaul by crossing the Alps and defeating whatever barbarians have made it their home in the absence of proper Roman order. The so-called Holy Roman Empire must also be dealt with, either by dismantling it as a false pretender to the mantle of Rome or by seizing its crown for yourself. With the matter of Empire settled, it will be time to consider invasions of Iberia, the Balkans, and Anatolia. Completing this branch of the mission tree will reward you with 10% more manpower and land forcelimit for the rest of the game.

A united Italy must have a great navy, both to repel invasion from the sea and to launch invasions of its own. The Barbary Pirates inhabit the lan

d which was once Carthage, and later the Roman province of Africa. Once again it aligns itself against Italian interests, and must be annexed to ensure the safety of your trade routes. Before taking the fight onward to Egypt, it would be wise to secure an ally in Ethiopia, for the Kingdom of Prester John would surely aid your efforts. Jerusalem is the ultimate goal of this campaign, and once secured its religion will immediately be restored to your faith.

On the topic of Italy, we’ve added some new content about the Italian Wars:

italianwars.png


The Italian Wars can begin at any point during the Age of Discovery if an Italian country is the war leader (on either side) against a major Christian power - most likely France or Austria. Lasting for around 50 years, special Mercenary Companies such as the Tuscan Free Company will become available. Participants in the Italian Wars receive -10% mercenary cost and +5% mercenary discipline while they remain in an applicable war.

That’s all from me today. Next week Johan will reveal the major mechanical changes we’ve made to Catholicism, so come back next week to read all about it.
 
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All it takes is for one country to have +10% Morale or +5% Discipline and you already lose, most countries have that AND more, and if they don't have more, at least one of the two modifiers.
How about you show the test in a separate thread? You were pretty vague in the post trying to prove this one page ago. I'm not convinced that 10% morale or 5% disc are better than 15% ICC, considering that people have been praising Sweden's 20% and it should not be too different.
And I'll say it again, forming Italy as some of the major Italian states should not make my army weaker
If I form Italy as Sardinia-Piedmont in 1.30, and change to Italian NI, my army gets weaker, which to me is dumb.
How is it dumb? You are trading in for a well-rounded idea. Furthermore, Sardinia-Piedmont has only 2 mil ideas, mercenary maintenance (quantity focus) and fort defense (defense)(Italy also has this), none of which improve troop quality, so you're getting a straight upgrade there.
this won't break the game, this won't break SP,
I have a very strong feeling it will, people were already forming Italy in SP as Spain, France, and Austria.
If you still don't want a small buff to Italian NI at this point, we'll just have to agree to disagree and end the conversation here, because neither one of us will be changing our opinions clearly.
I'm trying to convince other readers to not take your arguments seriously by refuting it, and point out how it is either based on wrong assumptions or will break the game.
 
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From all of them, I hope that austria's mission tree will be about uniting germany
They've already published the Austrian mission tree? You can get a gov reform or extra accepted cultures.
Mission trees available with the Emperor expansion:
  • Austria
  • Bavaria/Bavarian minors
  • Bohemia
  • Burgundy
  • Netherlands/Dutch and Flemish minors
  • Crusader States
  • Florence/Tuscany
  • France
  • Genoa
  • Germany/HRE (several unique missions each)
  • Lubeck
  • Hungary
  • Italy
  • Milan
  • Naples
  • Papal States
  • Provence
  • Brandenburg/Prussia
  • Savoy/Sardinia-Piedmont
  • Saxony
  • Serbia
  • Switzerland
  • Venice
I want to play a campaign as Aachen because they are the original Emperor. Reform the HRE as Aachen was my goal. I was waited a year now to start this campaign i did some practice runs in the mean time but were not special enough to be mentioned.
Now the DLC is call Emperor but you dont give Aachen same special mission tree.
In my opinion is after Ulm as koala OPM Aachen the most loved and fun to play.
So my suggestion is give Aachen some missions to became the Emperor
Hopefully there's more events on hosting the imperial election, the imperial diet, and circle diet, but just because Dithmarschen gets the funny USSR treatment, doesn't mean Aachen should be historically inaccurate, especially with how the AI will just conquer rather than vassalise, and so lose its free city status
 
If I form Italy as Sardinia-Piedmont in 1.30, and change to Italian NI, my army gets weaker, which to me is dumb.

How is it dumb? You are trading in for a well-rounded idea. Furthermore, Sardinia-Piedmont has only 2 mil ideas, mercenary maintenance (quantity focus) and fort defense (defense), none of which improve troop quality, so you're getting a straight upgrade there.
After checking every Italian major (Savoy-SardiniaPiedmont, Florence-Tuscany, Milan, and Venice) none of them have better mil ideas than Italy (Florence might come close with 5% disc and 25% manpower), so it will be an upgrade for everyone.
*EDIT: I forgot Naples, who also come close with 10% morale and 20% manpower.
 
Newsflash:
If you don't like NI of United Italy, just keep your old ones ;)

That's not the point, the point is upon forming a nation and acquiring their NI set I should be getting better, you don't form Prussia and not take their ideas, or form Russia and not take their ideas. Yeah there's a few exceptions, but as someone who plays SP, I don't look for the best idea set out there, rush to form it and go for WC because I don't know what else to do. Besides, I didn't say I don't like the ideas, I said they could use a buff, that's why I proposed merging the Stability Cost Modifier with the Yearly Prestige boost so you can free up a slot for a military buff.

Personally, i didn't had any trouble while playing and conquering as United Italy:
Offensive Ideas+Quality Ideas+Defensive Ideas+Italian NIs+Revolutionary Republic bonuses+Turning on millitary edicts (horse artillery, quality of arms) = you are pretty scary as it is.

And the AI can also get those bonuses and cancel out the bonuses and if they happen to have another military idea in their NI, which most of the majors have, and usually at least 1 of their ideas is better then yours. Regardless, I'm currently working around on the game to show why I believe Italy could use a small military buff to make them better and not just some 5% buff to one of Milan's starting Traditions
 
Respectfully, I hope your suggestion goes unheeded. I like very much that EU4 is usually balanced with historically plausible outcomes first in mind, rather than meta arguments like the one you are making. Every country SHOULDN'T be able to match France and Prussia in the field.

....

I literally said I don't want Italy to be as strong as Prussia and France... o_O

My god when will you people listen, there's a difference between SMALL buff and give them 6 more military buffs, like +20% Morale, +20% Fire Damage and god knows what else. I'm saying something like a +10% Fire Damage, something so they can at least make France go, "Oh, damn I actually lost some troops there", not brush the Italians off to the side. How is that historically breaking? Yeah I know Italy didn't exist during EU IV timeline, does that mean we should have make Italy have negatives because why not? Disagree? Go ahead. But actually read what I'm saying of a small buff, don't start accusing me of things I didn't want. Not asking for Spanish Tercios buff, or whatever. Just a simple, small buff to their military. Still disagree? Alright, just disagree on this post, no need to comment on this. Currently I'm working on tests on how you could buff Italian troops WITHOUT being a dominant force. I don't expect to finish it tonight though, I work in 9 hours so I kind of need to run to bed soon, but I'm almost done comparing Italian ideas to Naples and Tuscany. Tomorrow I'll probably start working on France, Spain, Aragon, Castile, Serbia, Ottomans, Russia, Prussia, Great Britain, England and anyone else I can think of that is a major player in Europe or has decent military ideas. Contratry to popular belief I want balance, that's why I'm looking for a buff to Italy. Besides in my current tests at tech 10, +15% ICA beats +5% Discipline and +10% Morale of Armies, separately not teamed up though. Which I'm sure will make @EquilinT happy to rub in my face or whatever. But those victories were nail biters until the end and in any normal game of EU IV, the ICA team would've lost a few battles, because I'm fixing the combat dice so in a normal game with a random dice who knows what happens there.
 
Besides in my current tests at tech 10, +15% ICA beats +5% Discipline and +10% Morale of Armies, separately not teamed up though. Which I'm sure will make @EquilinT happy to rub in my face or whatever. But those victories were nail biters until the end and in any normal game of EU IV, the ICA team would've lost a few battles, because I'm fixing the combat dice so in a normal game with a random dice who knows what happens there.
Fixing dice roll is actually the accepted way of testing combat system and modifiers, or at least that's what i've seen on this forum. I'd be happy if you test it at different tech levels however.
The reason i asked for it to be in a separate thread is because the test won't have much weight without lots pics and excessive details of the test.
 
....

I literally said I don't want Italy to be as strong as Prussia and France... o_O

I'm not accusing you of anything or attempting to put words in your mouth. I did read your posts, though you did not make it easy by writing in these bulky unbroken paragraphs. You may also want to take your own advice, as I said nothing about your suggestion being "historically breaking."

My assertion here is that balance arguments should be rooted in history. Showing that Italy's troops are weaker than any number of other countries' is one thing. But why shouldn't they be? What historical reason is there for them to be better than they are? It's difficult for a country like Italy that is already speculative, but I don't think an argument about just competitiveness is enough.

In any case, I'll leave you to have the last word. I'm not interested in convincing you of anything; just adding my own opinion.
 
Fixing dice roll is actually the accepted way of testing combat system and modifiers, or at least that's what i've seen on this forum. I'd be happy if you test it at different tech levels however.
The reason i asked for it to be in a separate thread is because the test won't have much weight without lots pics and excessive details of the test.

That's why I fixed dice in my tests and will continue to do so and yes I'm working on a thread, though I honestly have no idea how long it'll be... Hope to be done by later tomorrow, technically later today in my timezone, and if not well then actual tomorrow, I want to make sure I have something balanced and everything goes right. I also plan to cover the Galley Combat Ability but I won't jump into that here since I haven't even started that yet. Anyway, I'm about to pass out, until next time.
 
I didn't read the whole thread but

1. Does Muscovy converting to Catholicism requires Pope advancing in its mission tree? Because AI it pretty bad in it
2. Why I even would bother to convert them? Pope isn't that powerful to enforce religion on me, and Orthodox is a very good religion on its own (even with those catholic buffs). In the end, even if I decide to convert I'l get like 5% rel unity with lots of different tags on my lands => lots of rebellions for nothing.

What's the point here? Looks like a choice without a choice.
 
I didn't read the whole thread but

1. Does Muscovy converting to Catholicism requires Pope advancing in its mission tree? Because AI it pretty bad in it
2. Why I even would bother to convert them? Pope isn't that powerful to enforce religion on me, and Orthodox is a very good religion on its own (even with those catholic buffs). In the end, even if I decide to convert I'l get like 5% rel unity with lots of different tags on my lands => lots of rebellions for nothing.

What's the point here? Looks like a choice without a choice.
1) bonus is focused on the Pope I think, as then more tithes
2) this would happen once you've got enough modifiers to easily convert
3) you need to lose Moscow first the mission to fire, so as a player that ain't a happening
 
Furthermore, the only other Flemish tag in the game apart from Flanders is Brabant, so having the option to form Flanders as Brabant sounds rather redundant, not to mention that the Flemish tags already have a more interesting formable tag to go after: the Netherlands. Besides, Brabant was a duchy while Flanders was a county, so it wouldn't make sense for Brabant to demote its title. Ultimately, it seems that the desire to form Flanders is because Flanders is Flemish culture's primary tag, and the primary tags of other small nations in HRE (like Silesia and Pomerania) are now formables.

Flemish culture as a whole is a bit iffy in eu4 timeframe imho. There wasn't really a lot to set it apart from Dutch culture, hence why most of modern day Flanders joined the Dutch against the Spanish despite religious differences in the union of Utrecht (the capital of which was Antwerp, Flanders)

The distinction really only came about during almost three centuries of seperate rule with the Dutch independence and the Flemish under the Spanish and Austrians mostly.

During eu4 timeframe there wasn't really any entity the Flemish could realistically unite into other than the Netherlands which is why there is no formable Belgium