Europa Universalis IV News

Hallå allihopa! Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! Today is the day where we finally get to cover the content for Sweden, so let’s get started!

Yesterday, June 6th, it was celebrated the National Day of Sweden, as the remembrance of Gustav Vasa being elected king in 1523. This was a pivotal moment in Swedish history, as it finished the union with the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway after more than one century of common government. It happened after some decades of a troublesome political relation between the Sweden nobility and the Danish kings that ended in the tragic Stockholm Bloodbath, and the already mentioned coronation of King Gustav, starting the famous and powerful Vasa dynasty, which would rule until mid 17th century.

The mission tree for Sweden recaptures the rise of Sweden to the dominant power of the Baltics prior to the Great Northern War. But it also covers other ambitions and developments of Sweden.



The Swedish mission tree is split into two blocks just like Denmark’s: the first half of the mission tree is all about the historical conquest and their further ambitions in Europe. The other half, on the other hand, is a lot more about flavor missions which focus on internal development, colonization and of course the religious direction of your country.

Starting with the “conquest block”, Sweden’s initial missions - “Engelbrekt Rebellion”, “Swedish Allies”, “Military Advice” and “Support from the Estates” - revolve around preparing yourself for your war for independence against Denmark. It should be noted that certain events such as “The Engelbrekt Rebellion” have been incorporated into these first missions.

“Swedish Allies” can be completed by improving the relations of Denmark’s enemies / rivals and fires the following event:

Note: Support Independence is becoming part of this DLC. Note: Numbers are not final.

Not in the picture is the third option, which just decreases your liberty desire by 50%. This option is mostly used by the AI in case Denmark managed to handle the Swedish nobility already and the AI just happens to complete this mission by accident.

If you have chosen the second option and you win your independence war against Denmark without any allies whatsoever then the following event will fire for you:



However, if you try to cheese it by selecting the second option and then getting support for independence from another country then you get this event during the war with Denmark:



With the mission “Military Advise” you get another event which will support you in your quest for independence:




Note: Johan (Kristernsson) Vasa is the grandfather of Gustav I Vasa. If you complete this mission at a later date you get Erik Vasa - the father of Gustav - or even Gustav Vasa himself. There is virtually no difference between them other than their names however.

When you gain your independence while the modifier is active then another event will fire for you:



Of course you have the option to keep your current king. The AI will always choose the king with the better stats.

Finally, with “Support from the Estates” you can choose what kind of support you want and from who:



The Nobility will grant you a level 2 discipline advisor for only 25% of his price, the Clergy gives a large amount of Papal Influence and the Burghers will lend you galleys for your fight against Denmark. However, taking any of their support will put you into debt with the estate in question and you will have to enact a decision to get out of it. This decision is a requirement for one of the late missions. However, you can completely ignore it altogether by either choosing the fourth option (which gives 20 Prestige) or waiting until the “Stockholm Bloodbath” event fires (which has been presented in the Denmark Development Diary). In the case you complete this mission after the Bloodbath event the estates will grant you their support for free due to the atrocity done to your Nobles by your overlord.

After all these missions and events you are more than ready to face your overlord and declare your Independence War! The missions after “Declare Independence!” are rather self explanatory as they now focus on conquering the coastline of the Baltic Sea. However, some missions are a little bit more special.

“Stabilize the Kingdom” is one of them. It requires you to, well, stabilize your kingdom by having high legitimacy, stability and have no debts to any of your estates. In return the mission lets you choose how to complete other missions:



Three options; three ways to complete the “The Kingdom of Poland” mission later on. The third option is especially interesting for those who want to have a co-op campaign with Sweden and Poland or who do not want to blob into Polish territory. This gives some flexibility to your mission tree without going too much into the “what if” territory which is reserved for the Orders.

The other mission of interest is “Swedish Skåneland” - or rather its reward. Completing this mission will give you a special casus belli against Denmark if they still have Norway as subject:



Note: If Norway is independent then you gain a normal PU cb against Norway, not a special one against Denmark.

The mission “The Crown of Norway” rewards you with a historical friendship with Norway if you have them as your subject with at least 50 opinion of you.

Last but not least let’s take a look at the “finisher” missions of the conquest block. “Dominium maris baltici” has two ways to be completed: you either own the entire coastline, or you have allies who own it. If you complete it by having you or your subject own the coastline then you gain permanently -5 Years of Separatism and +2 Monthly Splendor.

The mission “Stormakstiden” rewards you with the following event:

Note: The country of Scandinavia will be worth forming with the free update, but that is topic for a later Development Diary.

Finally, the mission “Lord of Eastern Europe” fires the following event:



Note: This event and the mission “Varangians’ Legacy”, which requires you to conquer and develop Novgorod, are the only Viking references for Sweden. Asking for more is futile.

Now with the conquest missions covered let’s move on to the flavor missions for Sweden - and they are plentiful. The flavor missions are divided into 5 branches: Internal missions regarding the Sami and the Swedish peasants, Swedish colonialism, Trade and Industrialization, Military Reforms and Religious matters.

The Internal missions on the most left side of the mission tree handle the Swedish peasantry, which play a large role in Sweden’s history, and the Sami population which is inevitably part of your country. By establishing 10 manufactories in Grain, Fish and Livestock provinces, having 2 stability and by either having overcome the “The Dacke War” disaster or by having at least 10 Grain, Fish or Livestock provinces with 10 development you can complete the mission “The Peasants’ Agenda”, giving the following reward:



Speaking of the disaster: the Dacke War disaster has become a little bit more dangerous and more likely to trigger.

Note: Numbers are not final.

The mission “Integrate the Sami” on the other hand is about your cultural approach to them and can be completed by having all the Sami provinces a religion and culture you accept - how you do this is up to you. This will unlock the Burghers “Forest Expansion” estate privilege:



The mission “Forest Expansion” is developing your forest provinces, so not really much to talk about. The reward reduces the Development Cost of all owned Arctic Scandinavian provinces by 40% however, which makes playing tall with just Scandinavian provinces an actual option.

The colonial missions of Sweden are self explanatory: you take the provinces which were historically part of Swedish colonial ambitions.

On the other side, however, are the missions about dominating the Baltic trade and industrializing your country - your copper and iron provinces to be more precise. Highlight of this branch is an event where you can decide what the price of copper will be for Europe:

Note: Keep in mind that the burst of money you get from the other two options scale with your own production of Copper and Iron.

The missions regarding the religious matter work very similar to the ones of Denmark. Here are the three paths with Catholicism on the left, Protestantism in the middle and Humanist in the right:



Highlights of each path are the following things:

• For Humanist, the mission “Disempower the Clergy” removes triggered rebels from the Clergy if you seize land
  
• The mission “Religious Peace” gives permanently +1 Max Tolerance of Heretics and Heathens
  
• Catholic and Protestant “Defender of the True Faith” give you a modifier which increases the Tolerance of True Faith by 1, Manpower in True Faith provinces by 15% and Imperial Authority Growth Modifier by 25%. It is active until you change your religion.
  

There is one mission I want to go into further detail: the mission “The Religious League” requires you to participate in the League War (or complete the fallback if the League War is impossible due to non-existent HRE). While for the Catholic side it is completed when the League War never fires, the Protestant mission requires that it happens.

Well, there are moments where the AI refuses to convert to Protestantism due to their position as Elector, even though 90% of their land is Protestant. Fortunately the mission “The Protestant Sword” covers you in that regard. By having a Protestant HRE ally who is either an elector or has 100 development you can complete this mission and unlock a decision which lets you force the formation of the Religious League. Because of that the Protestant mission “The Protestant Sword” unlocks a special decision which… “motivates” your fellow Protestant brethren to form a Religious League on their own.





At long last we shall take a look at the final branch of the flavor missions: the military branch. Two parts played a major role in the military history of Sweden: the Finnish Hakkapeliitta and the Carolean units. The mission “The Hakkapeliitta” unlocks for you the special Hakkapeliitta mercenary company which costs no Army Professionalism to hire:

Note: The merc company has 100% Cavalry to Infantry Ratio because it does NOT take the value from your own government into account. This is only an issue for merc companies which consist of over 50% cavalry, so other mercenary companies do not require this modifier.

The mission “Reform the Military” has three ways of completion: the first one can be done by patience as you just have to wait until Mil Tech 19 and have 40 Army Tradition. The second way is a little bit faster as you need to hit 75 Absolutism.
However, most players will probably go for the third way which is a lot more difficult to achieve, but can be done before the Age of Absolutism:

• Gain 15 Mil Power per month
  
• Have 800 Military Power (is affected by All Power Modifiers)
  
• Have a Level 3 Military Advisor
  
• Completed at least one Military Idea Group
  

Completing this mission by this way will cost you mentioned Military Power.

These are some hard conditions, but the reward makes pain worth it:



The Carolean unit is not fully implemented just yet in the game so bear with me for the lack of screenshots, but at least I can talk a little bit about how the unit works. The Carolean unit is an infantry only unit which you can only recruit in Swedish or Finnish provinces and the amount of how many you can recruit scales with the development of your Swedish and Finnish provinces. The Carolean infantry has the normal costs of an Infantry unit right now - so without any modifiers it costs 10 Ducats.
Of course a unique unit also requires unique modifiers to make them worth their effort: the Carolean unit deals 25% more Shock Damage and receives -20% Morale Damage. That’s it. The only downside this unit has is that the amount of Carolean you can recruit is heavily limited by the dev of your Swedish and Finnish development with 20 development of a Swedish or Finnish province equalling 1 Carolean Regiment.

The mission “Drill the Caroleans” also unlocks two special Noble privileges which modify how your Caroleans fight for you too.

Note: “Morale Damage” should be here in Green. It is already fixed internally, but I didn’t have the time to update my version of the game. Also these modifiers only affect Carolean units.

Keep in mind that all the numbers are still work in progress. The Carolean presented here might get the nerf hammer before they get released.

With that being said, that was the content for Sweden!

Due to the extent of this Dev Diary, the free content part will be more of a teaser for next week:



That was it for this week! Next week we will dive into the content for Norway.
Until then I wish you all a nice week!

Hej allesamen! Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! After covering the Baltics it is finally time to switch our focus to Scandinavia, so let’s get started!

As the 13th century drew to a close, powerful social mechanisms such as feudalism and manorialism had formed deep roots in the Danish Court. At the same time, the Christian church had, at that point, come to dominate religious matters all across the Scandinavian region. At home, the royal family, spearheaded by Margaret I, would finally place a singular dynastic head on each of the three lions’ thrones, during the last years of the 14th century.

As of the treaty of Kalmar in 1397 the Nordic Crowns of Norway, Sweden and Denmark are intended to be borne by one monarch. Since its inception this Kalmar Union has been led by the Danes, the strongest and richest of the Nordic powers, close to the continent with an ambition to control and dominate the Baltic Sea area.

Eventually however, the Kalmar Union fell apart when Sweden broke free from Denmark and established an empire of its own later on. The goal of the Danish mission tree is to avoid this fate. It also focuses on the ambitions Denmark had during the time period of EU4 and as such is a lot less experimental than the Teutonic and the Livonian Orders’ mission trees.



You will notice that the Danish mission tree is separated into two “blocks”. The first half is about keeping the Kalmar Union together with a few conquest missions on the side to ensure that Denmark is the sole maritime power in North Europe.
The second block on the other hand is a lot more about the Danish ambitions of colonialism, the question of religion, embracement of Absolutism and the usage of mercenaries as the army for Denmark.

We will focus on the Kalmar Union block first as it ties into the mechanics which are unique to Denmark with the upcoming DLC. When you start as Denmark while the DLC is active you will be confronted with this government reform at your start:



The Kalmar Union is a somewhat mixed bag for the player. On the one hand, the diplomatic relations and possible advisors are desirable to have, but on the other hand you are confronted with the fact that you can not manually integrate any kind of personal union (however, inheriting them is still feasible though). You also have to deal with the “Kalmar Election” which is a unique mechanic to Denmark.
As you might know neither Sweden nor Norway had a hereditary monarchy but an elective one. So whenever your king dies as Denmark while you have this government active you get the following event:





This will trigger the following event for your Scandinavian personal unions:
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It is important to note that the AI will make their choice based on your prestige, diplomatic reputation and how much Liberty Desire they have with the latter one being their biggest factor. As Denmark you really want to keep the liberty desire low of each of your personal unions or otherwise they might spiral out of your control and will easily find supporters for their independence.

While the first and third options are rather self-explanatory, the second one is a choice that the AI can take when they are not fully convinced by your ruler - mostly when your ruler is quite the unfortunate one regarding his monarch skills - but do not desire to break out of the Kalmar Union yet. In this case the junior partners can suggest somebody from their own ranks to take over the Kalmar Union as your king:



This will of course trigger an event for Denmark where they can accept or reject to proposed regent:



Of course you can always reject the proposal, though this will result in your junior partner becoming slightly upset about your decision. Alternatively, you can accept the new king, but because your junior partners have to elect their king this will result in a new re-election:



However, this event will not allow your junior partners to propose another new king (otherwise you would end up in a loop of elections of new kings while hilarious for the first three or four rounds can become quite annoying really fast). Additionally, the one who suggested your new king in the first place will ALWAYS elect him to king, so you can reduce some liberty desire this way.

While the Swedish and Norwegian nobilities are a pain to deal with, you cannot forget your own. Historically, the Danish nobles did not support the Kalmar Union and attempted to exploit the divided attention of the Danish King. This gets represented in form of an event which triggers around every four years:



There are 11 demands in total and the nobility will pick one of them. Each one of them has some penalty to your country: be it from losing monarch power to losing Ducats to even getting the risk of a hunting accident.



Now let’s go back to Denmark's mission tree. The centerpiece of the mission tree focuses on resolving the conflicts with the other junior partners. By increasing the opinions of your Norwegian and Swedish subjects you can complete the missions “The Crown of Norway” and “The Crown of Sweden” which give you the following events respectively.



The first option allows you to receive a penalty to National Tax Modifier / Goods Produced Modifier by -10% and an increase of the Nobility’s Influence by +10%, but in return your two subjects gain a modifier which decreases their liberty desire by 10% and increase their Yearly Tax Income, which makes them to durable subjects during your wars with other European countries. The second option just gives some monarch power. On the other hand there is the third option which allows you to be more risky with your personal unions, giving the following effects:



Note: keep in mind that numbers and modifiers are NOT final.

The “Integrate Holstein” mission is rather self explanatory. However, “The Nobles of Sweden” is a little bit of a different story:



This whole mission is basically about a medium-long event chain (which also incorporates some of the vanilla Danish / Swedish events into it) where you can choose how to deal with the nobility of Sweden. For the sake of simplicity I will only highlight the two possible results of the event chains:





The event for Sweden when Denmark chooses to be more hostile...

After dealing with the Swedish nobility (by either defeating them on the battlefield which is Sweden or by executing them in quick succession in Stockholm), you can start working on the “Ratify the Kalmar Union” mission which triggers the following event for you:



Note: Modifiers and mechanic values are subject to change.

Keep in mind that you get this event ONLY when you complete the “Ratify the Kalmar Union” mission while having the Kalmar Union government reform. Otherwise you get +100 Monarch Points for each category. The military bonuses mentioned here are the following ones: you gain flat +2000 Manpower and +400 Sailors per Junior Partner + an additional +5% Global Manpower Modifier and Global Sailors Modifier. Meanwhile, your junior partners will receive the military benefits of Marches, so keeping them as your military buffer states.

You also unlock one decision which might be welcome to any roleplayer here:



Historically, only Christopher III von Wittelsbach styled himself as “Arch-King” while everyone else in Europe just used the normal title. In a time where Cristopher and his heirs might have managed to keep the union together it seemed plausible enough to us that future generations of Danish rulers might choose to follow Christopher’s naming fashion. It is, however, a purely visual title and you gain no other benefit than having an unique title.

Now that we are done with the Kalmar Union section let’s take a look at the remaining missions of the first block. The most right side of the missions are quite obvious what they are about: challenge the English navy, conquer England and gain dominance in the British Isles. These missions are referencing the North Sea Empire, but the mission descriptions make clear that the conquest of England is motivated by maritime rivalry and commercial dominance in Lübeck and the English Channel, not by the lost accomplishments of the Danish vikings centuries ago.

The most left branch of the missions is more concerned about a more important enemy Denmark is facing: the Hansa. Some of you, the community, already commented how the poor merchant republic of Lübeck gets bullied in this DLC and Denmark’s mission tree continues with this trend. The mission “Humiliate Lübeck” unlocks a decision for you which will be very much needed for the next mission:



The mission “The Cities of the Hansa” will require you to control all the important centers of trade in the Lübeck trade node - all lands in the HRE. Because of that, you will most likely know to appreciate this decision as this will trigger a DEFENSIVE war against the Hansa.
The rest of the mission branch is then about conquering Estonia and Novgorod and of course expanding the Sound Toll. Highlight here is a permanent +25% Trade Efficiency modifier.

Now that we are done with the European affairs part of the mission tree it is time to go into detail for the second block of missions. The missions linked to “Colonial Ambitions” are the biggest branch of this mission tree and cover the colonial ambitions of Denmark with a big focus on colonizing valuable trade company regions and a lesser focus on the New World (which also gets updated if you happen to play with a Random New World).

The second biggest branch of the flavor events are the branching missions on the most right. These are focusing on the religious direction of your country: stay loyal to the Catholic Church, embrace the Reformation or become a state of Tolerance. Completing the mission “The Age of Reformation” fires the following event which unlocks your religious missions:



One notable mission from the religious ones are the “Spread the Reformation” / “The Religious League” missions which you unlock by either taking Reformation or Catholicism missions respectively. What makes them special is that they are intertwined with the Religious League War. You complete them by winning the Religious League War and the mission rewards you with +2 Military Skill for your monarch and +150 opinion of every HRE member which follows your religion, which makes becoming the next Emperor of the HRE more feasible.

One minor but important branch I want to go into detail is the one regarding the mercenaries. As some of you might know, Denmark is not really known for its own strong military during this time period. Instead of Danish soldiers, the kings of Denmark relied heavily on German mercenaries to do the monarchs’ bidding. The mission “The German Mercenaries” emphasizes it. By improving the opinion of several owners of homes of Germanic mercenary companies you can complete this mission and the following event fires for you:



The mercenaries you unlock are dependent on which owners of Germanic merc company homes have a high opinion of you. In this case Denmark increased the opinions of Saxony, Hesse, Wurttemberg and Switzerland.

And that was the Danish mission tree!

As we were working on the Danish mission tree the time for us has come to also revisit the Danish ideas. While the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden have unique and/or very powerful ideas, the Danish ideas fell flat on both fronts. We wanted to change this for the upcoming update and as such we decided to give Denmark an update:

DAN_ideas = {
    start = {
        navy_tradition = 1    #Prev: ship_durability = 0.05
        global_manpower_modifier = 0.2    #Prev: global_tax_modifier = 0.1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        global_naval_engagement_modifier = 0.15    #Prev: global_naval_engagement_modifier = 0.10
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = DAN
    }
    free = yes      #will be added at load.
 
    dan_kalmar_union = {    #Prev: shock_damage = 0.1
        liberty_desire_from_subject_development = -0.2
        diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.1
    }
    dan_sound_dues = {
        global_own_trade_power = 0.2    #Prev: global_manpower_modifier = 0.2
        trade_efficiency = 0.05    #Prev: global_sailors_modifier = 0.2
    }
    dan_the_kings_sea = {
        naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5    #Prev: naval_morale = 0.1, disengagement_chance = 0.05
    }
    dan_royal_mercenaries = {    #Prev: build_cost = -0.15
        shock_damage = 0.1 
        mercenary_discipline = 0.05
    }
    dan_naval_heroes = {    #Prev: naval_maintenance_modifier = -0.15
        leader_naval_shock = 1
        naval_morale = 0.15
    }
    dan_colonial_ventures = {    #Prev: naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
        global_colonial_growth = 15
    }
    dan_danish_absolutism_idea = {    #Prev: global_unrest = -1
        global_autonomy = -0.05
        max_absolutism = 10
    }
}

While we were updating the ideas of Denmark we also remembered another favorite of the community whose ideas were rather lackluster - even for its time back then:

VEN_ideas = {
    start = {
        trade_steering = 0.33    #Prev: global_sailors_modifier = 0.20
        republican_tradition = 0.25    #Prev: global_trade_power = 0.1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        galley_power = 0.25
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = VEN
    }
    free = yes      #will be added at load.
 
    venetian_arsenal = {
        naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.25
        ship_durability = 0.05    #Prev: galley_cost = -0.20
    }
    printing_industry = {
        diplomats = 1
    }
    stato_da_mar = {
        trade_efficiency = 0.2    #Prev: trade_efficiency = 0.10
    }
    state_inquisition = {
        global_spy_defence = 0.3
        yearly_corruption = -0.05    #New
    }
    conscription = {
        global_sailors_modifier = 0.33    #Prev: naval_maintenance_modifier = -0.2, sailor_maintenance_modifer = -0.05
    }
    defend_the_law = {
        global_unrest = -2    #Prev: stability_cost_modifier = -0.1, justify_trade_conflict_cost = -0.1
    }
    provveditori_ai_beni_inculti = {
        development_cost = -0.1    #Prev: land_attrition = -0.10, naval_attrition = -0.10
    }
}

Owners of Rule Britannia will also have access to more Naval Doctrines for more countries. These are the new ones added to the game we have so far:

For Danish countries:

It is unclear right now if we’ll add more naval doctrines or not, but we have an open ear for more naval doctrine suggestions.

And that’s it for this week! Next week’s DD will be about the most overpowered perfectly balanced country in Scandinavia.

Until then I wish you all a nice week!

Hello everyone, Gnivom here today.

I may return for a future dev diary on the many AI improvements we’re making for 1.34, but today’s topic is Land Combat.

First a recap:

For 1.33, we decided to change some things with combat; first mentioned in this January DD and soon amended by making backrow regiments take 60% less morale damage. The core idea was to remove some weird traps that uninitiated players (I would guess a majority) and the AI (without major modifications) would easily fall for. In particular, having a large army without a full back row of artillery could be disastrous.

However, those changes also caused some unintended balance effects:

• Battles last longer, sometimes a lot longer.
  
• Morale is much less important.
  
• Stackwipes (officially “overruns”) are much less common (though this is mostly caused by the AI accidentally exploiting the Zombie Regiments bug, by shift-consolidating troops before battle).
  
• Tech Groups’ impact through unit pips have been amplified. This has not been addressed so I won’t mention it again in this DD.
  

Additionally, some of you have pointed out that what can be seen as a “noob trap” can also be a source of tactical depth in multiplayer.

Now, let's look at what's new for 1.34 and how this addresses these issues.

[h2]Passive Morale Damage[/h2]
In 1.33 we made the daily 0.03 “morale damage to reserves” actually only apply to reserves, where it previously applied to deployed troops as well. The intention was to relatively penalize overstacking more as well as to be consistent with the name.
This is a major cause for the longer battles in the early game, and for morale being less important, and has now been reworked in 1.34 to as follows:

• Deployed troops take a daily morale damage of 1% of max morale.
  
• Reserves take a daily morale damage of 2% of max morale.
  

Only the reserves are affected by the Professionalism modifier, so it remains mostly a QoL modifier, although its absolute effect is now much bigger.

Max morale is not based on the regiment itself, but on the average of all regiments on the other side. Such that, in a standoff between a Prussian and a regular soldier, where neither is shooting, the regular soldier will run first.

The fact that this is now a percentage means that its importance will be consistent throughout the ages, so that late-game battle length is now shorter.

While on the subject of morale, some of you may know that when entering a battle against someone with higher morale, your morale progress bar starts at less than 100%. This is now changed to show the percentage of your own average max morale, rather than the max of all regiments on either side. This makes it easier in my experience to guess who is winning from just looking at the bars.
[h2]Zombie Regiments[/h2]
As mentioned above, EU4 has always had a bug (feature?) called Zombie Regiments.
In 1.34, regiments will always retreat and be replaced once either strength or morale reaches 0, removing the 12 day invincibility.

Additionally, an obscure condition for stack wipes based on the remaining morale of defeated regiments has been removed. You probably didn’t know about it (I didn’t), but it started mattering when 0-strength full-morale regiments were immediately retreated.

All in all, stack wipes are now much more viable than in 1.33, but still less viable than in 1.32 if the losing side has more than a full front row of decent-morale troops.



Adding a screenshot here for future readers, as the wiki link may be obsolete.

[h2]Insufficient Support[/h2]
Insufficient Support currently works by applying a flat -25% Combat Ability to all troops of an army that has too much cavalry, even if it’s just 1 knight above the limit. Although it’s made a bit more complicated by counting armies from different countries separately, as well as mercenaries.

In 1.34, this will instead be a scaling penalty of -1% CA per percentage point of cav/inf ratio above your limit. The ratio will be calculated based on all deployed front row troops on your side, while the limit will be calculated individually per regiment. Only cavalry gets affected by the penalty.

Two things to note:

• A country with a high support can still cause allied cavalry to lose CA.
  
• If you overstack your armies, an overall balance does not guarantee a frontrow balance at every moment of fighting.
  

[h2]Artillery Pips[/h2]
Artillery unit pips have been rebalanced.

• Late-game artillery will have less defensive pips and more offensive ones, contributing to shorter late-game battles.
  
• Techs 7, 10 and 13; which give two options; now have a distinct difference between the two, where neither is strictly superior to the other.
  

Let me take this moment to briefly explain an existing feature: for each damage calculation, backrow artillery propagates half of the sum of relevant defensive pips to the unit in front of them (rounding down). For example, the Leather Cannon will propagate 2/2=1 pip to strength damage calculation in the fire phase, and 1/2=0 pips during shock phase. For morale damage, it will propagate (2+1)/2=1 pip during the fire phase and (1+1)/2=1 pip during the shock phase.

With this feature in mind:

• At tech 7, you choose between winning battles quickly (Mortar) or dealing strength damage (Houfnice).
  
• At tech 10, the Pedrero is your anti-cavalry weapon by propagating 1 shock defense to the front row. But the Culverin deals more strength damage.
  
• At tech 13, the Small Cannon propagates 1 morale defense to the front row in both phases, but the Large Cannon will deal more damage (to both strength and morale).
  

[h2]Reinforcement to Back Row[/h2]
This change in particular is still subject to further testing, tweaking and possible removal.

Reinforcement to backrow means something very different now vs in 1.32. In 1.32 it was a way to push further infantry/cavalry into the death pit that was the back row. Only after all inf/cav reserves were spent did artillery reinforce to the back, and once there they never left.
Now (since 1.33) only cannons can be in the back row, and they can also retreat from it, which makes back row reinforcement an important (and positive) thing.

From 1.34, each combat side will be limited to 2 back row reinforcements per day, plus 1 per 2 maneuver pips of the commanding general. This does not limit initial placement of artillery at battle start.



This is intended to increase tactical depth in multiplayer, by a number of means:

• Armies caught low on artillery are more vulnerable, though not as badly as in 1.32.
  
• Cavalry becomes more useful during two distinct phases of the battle:
  
  • Just after the initial line of artillery retreat, which happens roughly simultaneously.
    
  • Later in the battle, when the combat duration modifier is so high that artillery reinforcements can’t keep up with churn.
    
• This breaks the symmetry of long battles, so that artillery (and by extension, infantry/cavalry as well) don’t all retreat in huge batches.
  
• Quality becomes more important over quantity in long battles, as high quality troops will lower the “artillery saturation” of the enemy.
  

[h2]Breakthrough[/h2]
After some initial testing and discussion, this feature will probably not make it into vanilla, but it will be available for modders to enable.

• Two defines have been created: INFANTRY_BREAKTHROUGH and CAVALRY_BREAKTHROUGH, each being a probability between 0 and 1.
  
• When defeating a regiment with artillery behind it, you have a probability (equal to the corresponding define) of pulling that artillery into the front row.
  

If we don’t change our minds, and if you still choose to enable this, there will be no UI or tooltip mentioning this whatsoever.

Well, that’s all for today!

Next week, Ogele will return with a Dev Diary showcasing the new content we’ve been creating for the first country in the Scandinavian region: Denmark, and its troubled lead over the Kalmar Union.

Hello there and welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! For this week we will take a dive into the mission tree for Riga and into the additions to the game from the free update. So let’s get started!

Located at a commercially advantageous position, Riga enjoyed great wealth and affluence between the 13th and 15th century, during which she served as part of the well-known Hanseatic League. Despite its size, the city survived for many centuries, eventually becoming a manufacturing and mercantile center of whichever power had influence in their surrounding territory.

As for its mission tree we try to answer one question: is it possible to make playing (and staying as) an OPM enjoyable? The Rigan mission tree is relatively small, but it will lead your OPM of Riga into an unique direction of gameplay.



The mission tree is split into three branches, focusing each on different tasks for your nation to do. Starting with the smallest of the three, the “City against the State” and “Develop Our City” missions focus on establishing authority of the Archbishop over the city of Riga as historically the city itself was very autonomous of its ruler.
What makes these missions special is that their rewards are the nature of the modifiers granted by them. Unlike usual permanent modifiers, your capital receives these triggered modifiers:



The most right branch of the mission tree is made of the military missions. Although the intended playstyle is staying as small as possible, it is apparent that a beautiful city such as Riga needs a buffer state to keep it protected from Novgorod and the jaws of Commonwealth. Because of this the mission “Raise Riga’s Defense” will give you a subjugation casus belli against the Livonian Order. You will also gain +10% Morale for a limited amount of time, but that is all you get, so good luck in your first war.

“Subjugate the Livonians” will give you your final subjugation casus belli against the Teutonic Order and unlock decisions which will handle the estate privileges of your Livonian subject.
After the mission “Punish the Teutonic Order” you get the following event:



Finally, the mission “The Knights of Riga” will be completable when you manage to keep the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order loyal to you, and it gives you the following reward:



The rest of the mission tree focuses on trade, religion and Empire. With the mission “Contact the Emperor” you can join the HRE through the following event:



With the mission “Papal Embassy” you gain another event which will make your capital into a seat for a Cardinal.
Finally, if you complete the mission “Compete with the Swedes”, “Trade Presence in Lübeck” and “Papal Embassy” the following event fires:



The Catholic Plutocracy is a Theocratic version of the Merchant Republic, but with one additional bonus: you are allowed to sell Indulgences to other Catholic countries!*

*Cannot sell Indulgences to countries which are at war with you or are subjects. You need at least 75 Papal Influence. You cannot sell an Indulgence to the Pope himself.



Note: AI acceptance of the Indulgences is dependent on their current treasury, if they are in deficit and if they even need the extra stability. Countries with +1 stability for example have -50 reasons to accept it while countries with negative stability gain +50 reasons for every missing stability.

Of course selling Indulgences is not without its consequences. Every time you sell one to a Catholic country you will increase the Reform Desire by 0.25%. Eventually, you could run out of customers this way as the Reformation will convert them to Protestantism.

If you happen to join the reformation (and repent for you sins of selling Indulgences) you will get the following event:



Note: The name of this government reform is a placeholder, and we appreciate suggestions for a better sounding name.

While the Catholic Plutocracy focuses on earning money through the selling of Indulgences, the Theocratic Plutocracy is more concerned with spreading the Reformation. As such, the trade policy “Propagate Religion” will be available to you to convert Catholic provinces to your state religion - as long as you are either Hussite, Protestant, Reformed or Anglican.
Additionally, you get access to the following peace option:



This is the first experiment of a peace option which forces the losing country to destroy a building in one of their provinces. In this case it is the tax building, and it selects the province in this order: capital, then highest developed non-oversea province, then highest developed province.

Coming back to Riga’s mission tree, the mission “Sell Indulgences!” requires you to either sell Indulgences 5 times, or raid 5 heretic churches in total. From there your mission tree branches into four smaller paths of which have the following highlights:

• The mission “Mercenary Contracts” halves the Army Professionalism cost of all recruited mercenary companies.
  
• The mission “Handle the Reformation” reduces the trade power needed for Propagating Religion from 50% to 15%. It also unlocks a new casus belli against all heretic countries, with the only goal is to force convert them to your faith - you can NOT conquer any provinces with this cb though.
  
• The mission “Break the Hansa” can be completed by improving the opinion of all members of Lübeck’s trade league. When completed, Lübeck will get an event where they are either forced to grant temporary privileges to their trade league members, which make them basically useless for Lübeck, or let them choose if they want to stick with Lübeck or want to join Riga’s Trade League.
  

Speaking of Hansa: we have some good news for every Merchant Republic enjoyer here!
With the free update, Merchant Republics gain full access to both their factions and estates. Although there were arguments that they should have one or another, we think it is a fair change if the merchant republic has access to both systems. Factions are very outdated and would require too much work for 1.34 to be reworked, which is why we have made this decision.

We also added a new government reform for Novgorod when they form Russia:



While we are at the topic of government reforms: Dharma overhauled the system of government reforms for EU4, and has allowed players to customize their experience as they progress through their campaign. While we really like the concept, the amount of choices always felt a little bit lackluster.
Because of that we have decided to add new government reforms beyond the Tier 1 level, and rebalance existing non-Tier 1 reforms so you have more agency while picking your government reforms. Here is a peak into the more interesting reforms we are going to add for the Republics:



The general design idea is that government reforms should not necessarily be just a source for more modifiers to stack for you (though they will never really leave us either) but as changes and additions of mechanics of your country.
For example: the mechanic “Can force Re-election” allows you to use one simple decision at the cost of 5 Republican Tradition every 20 years to trigger the “Election!” event. Despite the fact that it is just one simple decision attached to a government reform, it can have a significant impact on your Monarch Power generation.

With the addition of these new reforms we aim to have around 4 or 5 government reforms to choose from per tier above the first one.

With the help of our newest colleague we also have started to add new reforms for the monarchies. Here you can see two new reforms:



Of course we are also reworking some of the older reforms too:



That was it for today!

Until then I wish you all a nice week!

Greetings everyone! And welcome back to another Development Diary for the upcoming DLC. Last week we took a look at the Teutonic Order, and for today we shall visit the monastic neighbor to its north: the Livonian Order.

The Livonian Brotherhood of the Sword was founded in Riga in 1202 for the purpose of christianizing Livonia. Despite their early successes, the Brotherhood suffered a heavy defeat against the Lithuanians in 1237. The remaining members of the Brotherhood then got incorporated into the Teutonic Order, which then later branched into the Livonian Order we all know in EU4.

The Livonian Order survived its Teutonic brother, but in the end it too was conquered by its neighbors. As such their mission tree is similar to the ones of the Teutonic Order: a mission tree of “what if?”, though this time it is a little bit more grounded as the Livonian Order did persist as the Polish vassal state Kurland for some time after until the third partition of Poland.



Just like the Teutonic Order, so does the Livonian Order have a bunch of branching missions depending on the path you choose. However, you first have to complete the middle column first in order to unlock your missions.

Most of the missions are rather self explanatory from their titles alone (“Protect Riga” and “The Teutonic Knights” both require you to ally or to conquer Riga and the Teutonic Order respectively for example).
The more interesting one, however, is the mission “The Livonian Confederation”. In 1444, the Livonian Order was by far not as unified as it is shown in EU4. It had four bishoprics as well as the Archbishopric of Riga within it, which were not really subjects of the Livonian Order but allies.

Due to the freeze of the map and the hard block of introducing new tags to the game, we have decided to take a more abstract approach to the Livonian Confederation:



Every bishopric and the lands of Riga are portrayed as one estate privilege to the Clergy estate. And yes, we are increasing the number of maximum possible estate privileges from 4 to 6! More to it in the free patch section.

Each of these privileges has its own penalty which makes these bishoprics obnoxious to keep. Fortunately, you don’t have to wait endlessly for clergy loyalty to revoke them (though this is the easiest way to get rid of them). While you have any of the bishoprics active in your land, you gain access to these two decisions:



Each of these decisions is one way to get rid of one of these bishoprics. “Purchase Bishopric” requires you to be debt free and to have no deficit, as well as to have a starting capital of 100 Ducats (which is basically the starting fee to even get into the trade with one of these bishops), and triggers the following event:



The cost of these bishoprics is relative to the land they historically had. For example: the Bishopric of Reval was rather small and only covered the city, while the Bishopric of Dorpat covered the whole province. In general, the pattern is like this: the higher up in the event option, the more costly it gets.

If you cannot throw money at your problem to get it gone, then the decision “Dissolve Bishopric” might be the better option. At the small:™: price of 2 stability you can trigger the following event:



This decision cannot be enacted if you either already have rebels in your land or if you are at war.

On a side note: you need to own the provinces where these bishoprics are located to revoke the privileges through the decisions or manually. However, losing the land will NOT remove the privilege - this is mostly due to gameplay reasons as you shouldn’t be motivated to give all your land to Lithuania to get rid of these privileges.

After getting rid of all the small bishoprics and finishing the mission “Protect Riga” you can finally seize the lands of the Archbishopric of Riga, the mission “The Livonian Confederation” will be completed and you will get 10% Crown Land from your Clergy back.

Then, with the mission “Strengthen Our Authority” you can finally get this event:


Let us first start with the mission tree of the Livonian mission path:



You will notice that there are colonial missions, which seems a little bit weird for a Baltic nation whose only trade connection to the New World is in the Lübeck trade node. The reason for that is that the Livonian path of the mission tree gets shared with Kurland (more to it in the free patch section).

The colonial missions are quite obvious what they are about: discover the New World, colonize North America, colonize key ports of Africa and reach India. Highlights of these two mission columns are two rather powerful permanent trade bonuses such as +10% Trade Efficiency from dominating colonial trade and +10% Global Trade Power from colonizing India.
On a side note: if you have a Random New World active then the North American missions get replaced with ones which address the Random New World.



Continuing with the mission tree, the middle column handles the mentioned issue of no gain from New World trade. With the mission “Deal with the Hansa”, which requires you to defeat Lübeck, you gain the following reward:



In a way, you will be able to benefit from your colonies even if you do not conquer the Lübeck trade node.

Another part of the middle column of the mission is the mission “Secularize the Order” which fires the following event for you:

The tag of Livonia has received some big changes, more to it in the 1.34 section.

With the mission “A Prussian Alliance” you either focus on conquering and developing Prussia OR keeping a healthy alliance with Prussia. If you complete this mission through diplomacy, you and Prussia become historical friends.
I also should point out that the mission trees of the Teutonic Order and the Livonian Order were designed with a MP co-op approach in mind: missions which have overlapping regions of interest can be completed if either of the one tags hold the land.

With the mission “Reform the Government” you will start a process of creating a government reform which is suited for your needs. This will be a process of 6 events, each one of them has a mean time to happen of 5 years. Here is one of such event as an example:



Note: This is very much work in progress, and can differ from the final events.

You always have three options to pick from: the first one lets you focus on a more concentrated and focused government which is suited for tall players, while the last option is for expansionists, though these government reforms have their own sets of drawbacks.
The middle option is the more balanced of the two, but this will reflect in your government reform too.

Right now there are 10 final governments you can get: one default “Livonian Monarchy” and nice specialized reforms based on your decisions from the 6 events. Here is a short overview of them:

Note: modifiers are not set in stone yet.

The final part of the mission tree is revolving around developing your land. Highlight of it is a permanent -5% Tech Cost Reduction in your capital province after constructing 10 universities.

That was the Livonian path, so let us move on to the Crusader path of the Livonian Order:



Those who have read last week’s Development Diary will know what the Teutonic Mission Tree was about, so you can expect to see some recurring themes - like the construction of churches and mending the Schism between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.

However, the Livonian Crusader missions are more focused on developing the Baltic and Russian lands; so basically a “Tall Crusader State”. The left side is mostly about keeping your country religiously stable and constructing churches and cathedrals - things you would expect from a faithful order of the Catholic faith. Highlights here are the missions “Build Cathedrals” and “Defender of the Faith”. With “Build Cathedrals” you unlock a estate privilege, which makes these tax buildings a little bit more useful:



Meanwhile, the mission “Defender of the Faith” requires you to be the Defender of the Catholic Faith for 25 consecutive years without any break. As a reward you get the following modifier:



The second column focuses on handling the Reformation while the middle one allows you to reform your knights and militarize them even further as they were. As the reward of the final mission you unlock the following government reform:

Note: modifiers are not final.

The final part of the mission tree is, well, about conquering and converting Ruthenia and Russia, as well developing these lands. “Support Our Brethren” is a mission where you are required to support other Catholic nations which border a powerful Heathen or Heretic country - most of the cases it is probably the Ottomans.

That was all for the Livonian Mission Tree!

Last but not least we take a look at what the free patch has in store.

Protestantism is a very versatile religion which has fallen off a little bit since Catholicism has gained its buffs. We don’t think Protestantism is actually that much weaker compared to Catholicism. However, a good way to make Protestantism more appealing we have decided to add three new Church Aspects:



Additionally, we are also experimenting with a way to make swapping church aspects actually worth your time. Whenever you select a new Church Aspect you gain a passive modifier for 10 years which increase the effectiveness in of the Church Aspect:



I want to stress out that it is an experimental buff and NOT final. Chances are high that this can be changed throughout the development of the patch.

Next is Reformed, which has received a more boring but direct buff to their fervors as they were rarely - if ever - picked by any nation; and this even before the buffs to Catholicisim.
As such the following buffs were given:

• Trade Focus: Gives now +10% Trade Steering additionally to the other modifiers
  
• War Focus: Gives now +20% Manpower Recovery Speed additionally to the other modifiers
  
• Stability Focus: Gives now -10% Development Cost additionally to the other modifiers
  

Moving on to other parts of the free content. As some might be aware, the nations of the Baltic states were lacking some ideas. With the help of community posts (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/new-idea-groups-part-7-estonia-karelia.885359/ , https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/nis-for-old-livonia-tags-livonian-order-riga-estonia-livonia.1024446/ , https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/national-ideas-for-livonian-order.868638/ ) we were able to add some proper ideas, and we want to thank you for the inspiration you gave us!

Here are the ideas for the following nations:

Livonian Order:

LIV_ideas = {
    start = {
        num_accepted_cultures = 2
        missionaries = 1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        manpower_in_true_faith_provinces = 0.2
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = LIV
    }
    free = yes
 
    liv_knights_of_livonia = {
        discipline = 0.05
    }
    liv_hanseatic_merchants = {
        global_trade_power = 0.1
    }
    liv_livonian_castles = {
        fort_maintenance_modifier = -0.15
    }
    liv_baptizers_of_terra_mariana = {
        global_missionary_strength = 0.02
        papal_influence = 1
        church_power_modifier = 0.05
    }
    liv_local_serfs = {
        production_efficiency = 0.1
    }
    liv_promote_local_bishops = {
        tolerance_own = 2
    }
    liv_the_new_infantry = {
        infantry_power = 0.1
    }
}

Livonia:

LVA_ideas = {
    start = {
        discipline = 0.05
        num_accepted_cultures = 2
    }
 
    bonus = {
        global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.1
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = LVA
    }
    free = yes
 
    lva_legacy_of_the_knights = {
        infantry_power = 0.15
    }
    lva_border_between_east_and_west = {
        land_morale = 0.1
        development_cost = -0.05
    }
    lva_livonian_hanseatic_cities = {
        global_foreign_trade_power = 0.25
    }
    lva_livlandischer_landtag = {
        stability_cost_modifier = -0.05
        all_estate_loyalty_equilibrium = 0.1
    }
    lva_livonian_colonization = {
        range = 0.25
        global_colonial_growth = 10
    }
    lva_naval_professionalism = {
        naval_morale = 0.2
    }
    lva_religious_tolerance = {
        tolerance_of_heretics_capacity = 1
        tolerance_heretic = 1
    }
}

Latgalia:

LTG_ideas = {
    start = {
        manpower_recovery_speed = 0.15
        global_unrest = -1
    }
    bonus = {
        fire_damage_received = -0.1
    }
    trigger = {
        tag = LTG
    }
    free = yes
    ltg_daugava_river_trade = {
        trade_efficiency = 0.1
    }
    ltg_diplomatic_overtures = {
        improve_relation_modifier = 0.3
    }
    ltg_religious_flexibility = {
        tolerance_of_heretics_capacity = 2
    }
    ltg_latvian_people = {
        num_accepted_cultures = 1
        promote_culture_cost = -0.25
    }
    ltg_modernize_livonian_castles = {
        defensiveness = 0.2
    }
    ltg_daina = {
        prestige_decay = -0.01
    }
    ltg_reduction_of_noble_lands = {
        global_autonomy = -0.05
        nobles_influence_modifier = -0.1
    }
}

Karelia (and before you ask: no, they will not get any content, but I wanted to mention here too):

KRL_ideas = {
    start = {
        global_regiment_cost = -0.1
        land_attrition = -0.1
    }
 
    bonus = {
        manpower_recovery_speed = 0.15
    }
 
    trigger = {
        tag = KRL
    }
    free = yes
 
    krl_ladoge_fishing_industry = {
        global_manpower_modifier = 0.15
    }
    krl_between_two_seas = {
        global_ship_cost = -0.1
    }
    krl_the_sestra_river = {
        trade_steering = 0.1
    }
    krl_the_two_karelian_realms = {
        years_of_nationalism = -5
    }
    krl_baltic_shipyards = {
        naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.33
    }
    krl_valaam_monastery = {
        global_missionary_strength = 0.01
        yearly_patriarch_authority = 0.005
    }
    krl_from_the_varangians_to_the_greeks = {
        global_trade_power = 0.1
    }
}

Speaking of Livonia: the tag of Livonia is now a formable for Baltic German nations (which is also a new culture in the Baltic, followed by Riga and the Livonian Order).

Note: Yes, we are aware of the irony of giving them a blue color considering Prussia is next to them.

Meanwhile, a new tag has been added which represents the Latvian natives of the Baltic, which also has the old color of Livonia if somebody wished it to have:



Finally, one last word: the decisions about taking the Electorate of your subject were received very well, and people asked for it to become a standard mechanic. These decisions are now part of the base game and are no longer unlocked by the Teutonic mission tree. Additionally, the estate privilege “Grant Orthodox Autonomy” can now be unlocked through early missions of Poland, Lithuania and Venice too.

That was it for today! Next week we will take a look at the content of our favorite OPM, Riga, along with some extra government reforms we’re planning to add to the base game.

Until then I wish you all a nice week!