Notes and Wishes on the 1.31 patch
- The new Confucian reforms apply only if the country's state religion is Confucian, or primary culture is Vietnamese. Hopefully a further possible condition of primary culture being Korean or in the Chinese group can be added.
- On a similar note, the Jianzhou/Geonju province modifier would work far better if the religious restrictions were removed. (Currently they only apply if the province owner is Confucian or Tengri) Baekdu Mountain has nothing to do with Confucianism; in fact its legends originate from Gojoseon, a dynasty that existed almost 2000 years before Confucius was even born.
- The (very controversial) moving of Vietnamese from the Southeast Asian culture group to the Chinese group is interesting. Moving Korean to the Chinese group outright wouldn't be that accurate, but a mid-game event that moves Korean to the Chinese group if it takes the Mandate could be interesting.
- The new tropical dev cost modifer is fixed, if Korea is to be handicapped by starting with 'Inwards Perfection', perhaps the dev cost reduction could be fixed to 20%, instead of scaling according to clergy land ownership.
- Seeing how the various nations in SEA recieved new ideas, Korea's could probably get touched up though.
Traditions
-10% development cost
-10% stability cost modifier
The Hangeul Alphabet
-10% tech cost
Geobukseon
+10% ship durability
+1 yearly naval tradition
The Hermit Kingdom
+20% fort defence
The Geojung'gi
-15% construction cost
The Kyujang'gak
-10% idea cost
The Gyeong'guk Daejeon
-1 national unrest
The Hwacha
+10% artillery combat ability
Ambition
+1 ruler administrative skill
A brief overview sees that most of the (numerous) generic modifiers that Korea had were all trashed. +10% tax, +10% production eff. +10% inf. CA, +10% manpower were all filler ideas that had no real relation to the history of Korea. They were instead replaced with ideas that are debatably balanced, but much more in line with Korean culture.
Korean traditions are now a 10% dev cost and stab cost modifier. The stab cost modifer, originally Korea's second idea, felt pretty historically accurate and balanced, hence trading out the odd +25% domestic trade power tradition. The 10% dev cost modifier is a new addition however that I originally contemplated on setting to 15%, but toned down to 10% (After all, only
2 nations in the game have -15% dev cost, Genoa and Australia).
The -10% idea cost, +10% ship durability and -15% (Originally 10%) construction cost modifier were all originally part of Korea's idea set, but I moved their places around a bit.
The Hangeul Alphabet is now probably the defining part of Korea's idea-set however. Reminescent of how the old Manchu ideas had the Manchu alphabet at -10% tech cost (Compared to Hangeul's -5%), Korea's first idea now actually does justice to the sheer innovativeness of the alphabet.
New additions include the +20% fort defence, +10% artillery combat ability and +1 ruler admin skill. Korea definitely did not have an impressive land army during EU4's timeline, thus their sole land army quality idea is +10% artillery CA, referencing the Hwacha. However Korea was notable in that it withstood multiple hard sieges from its invaders (Namhansanseong during the Manchurian invasion and Haengjusanseong during the Japanese one for example), which is represented by its new fort defence idea.
The ambition however I struggled to come up with. I wanted to represent Korea's top-heavy but meritocratic government, which led me to choose between -10% advisor cost, -20% advisor cost with ruler's culture and +1 ruler admin skill, but the new government reform in 1.31 tipped me over the edge in that having more advisor cost modifiers for Korea would make -90% too easy to reach.
- Yi Hyang is probably never going to escape being a 2/1/1. RIP Munjong, finisher of the Yukjin conquest, inventor of the conventional Hwacha and reformer of the Korean army. Your sacrifice for the sake of 'game balance' will not be forgotten.
- Dai Viet will apparently get an event that gives it a cosmetic name change (Where they can change to Nam-yue or Vietnam) upon taking the Mandate. Perhaps Korea could recieve something similar too? Or maybe the restore Goguryeo mission could give Korea a cosmetic name change to Goguryeo or Balhae.
- Seeing how Dai Viet will get a permanent harmonisation speed boost, hopefully Confucianism could be touched over, or at the very least be allowed to culture convert harmonised provinces. (You'd be wasting one of Vietnam's ideas currently if you convert to Confucianism) Currently Confucianism is laughably awful, with it oftentimes having lower tolerance of the true faith than it does of heretics due to harmonising, meaning it's better to just completely ignore its mechanics than it is to use them. It's literally the only non-American religion that actively punishes you for using its mechanics. (At least the American pagans get great modifiers out of their reforms, confucianism gets shit like +5% production efficiency in exchange for -3 ToTf, -2 yearly legitimacy and +25% development cost).
fuckSoallmyhomieshateSoremoveSo- There have been rumours on the Siam node getting reworked (either getting divided, or at least not being a starting node anymore), hopefully the Nippon node (why is it called Nippon and not Japan?) can be worked on too. Currently it's the largest node in game by a pretty significant margin, having 9 more provinces than Girin, the second largest node. There's been plenty of suggestions on the reworking of East Asian trade nodes, hopefully one of them could be applied?
- Rework Korea's provinces maybe? The Manchu update left Korea in the dust, and now it has lower province density than Manchuria. Gangwha/Incheon, Gaegyeong, Anju, Dongnae and Chuncheon are all viable candidates to be added, or at the very least the states could be reworked. Western Korea, Southern Korea, and Eastern Korea? Might as well just rename all the states in Italy to Northern Italy, Slightly less Northern Italy, Central Italy, Central Italy but left, etc. It's not like the developers didn't know of the traditional Korean administrative divisions, considering how the Northern half of the peninsula is accurately stated into Pyeongan and Hamheung. It's just that for some odd reason, instead of using Hwanghae, Gyeonggi, Gangwon, Chungcheong, Jeolla and Gyeongsang, they divided the province borders awkwardly so that none of those could work.
- Hanseong 10 dev lol. Want to see how ridiculous this is? I can prove how stupid this is without even referencing Europe. Whangarei, an uncolonised province in New Zealand upon game-start, has 11 dev, 1 more than Hanseong. Whangarei in 2020 has less than half the population that Hanseong had back in 1821, endgame. Do you see how ridiculous a 10 dev Hanseong is now?
- Further notes on the rest of Korea being even lower dev. Gangneung, Jeju, Gyeongseong and Yukjin were apparently all complete wastelands devoid of life akin to Northern Siberia.
- The capital city of Hamheung is still Hamgyeong. I'm pretty sure this is because Paradox hasn't touched Korea in any meaningful way since 1.20 Mandate of Heaven.
- Han river estuary for Hanseong? (Or in Incheon if it's added)
- Loosen the requirements for the Hermit Kingdom mission. Currently it requires having 4 fortresses (level 8 forts), which are unlocked at mil tech 24, usually around the mid 1750's. Your game will most likely be done at that point, and a -15% fort maintenance modifier will not only last a fraction of your game, but also be mostly irrelevant at that point since A. High levels forts late game are useless , and B. Your finances will most likely not be a problem. Just making the requirements be 4 bastions (level 4 forts) would be enough, considering how Korea's garbage economy can't support the 3 level 2 forts that it starts with.
- Jurchen Yukjin is plausible, if you stretch historical records a bit. Jurchen Gyeongseong though? Why?
