Europa Universalis IV News

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Treaty of Prague

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Hello! Welcome to another dev diary for Europa Universalis IV: Emperor. Today we’ll be revealing new content for Burgundy, famous in this era for its immensely confusing succession crisis that forever altered the balance of power in Europe and laid the foundations for Dutch independence.

We’ll begin with the new Burgundian mission tree. Wedged between France and the Holy Roman Empire, Burgundy has a challenging but rewarding path to follow.

The leftmost branch contains some familiar missions, involving the conquests of Savoy and Provence. We’ve also included a couple of additional missions in this chain: Invade Lombardy and Kingdom of Italy push you to continue your southward expansion. Completing the final Kingdom of Italy mission rewards you with the Rex Italiae modifier, granting -5% Idea Cost and +10% Institution Spread for the rest of the game.

Burgundy begins as a divided realm, with its wealthy holdings in the Low Countries owned by Personal Union subjects. Burgundy must placate these subjects to begin the next branch of the mission tree. After Burgundy finds a way to Unite the Realm, ruling over a united nation and directly owning the Lowlands, you are tasked with securing the region for the long term. You must either continue to hold the Low Countries through the Dutch Revolt or find some way to avoid it (and there will be opportunities to do so). With the Dutch provinces finally secured, you’ll be tasked with Dominating Channel Trade, which rewards you with a permanent bonus to your Trade Efficiency and Trade Steering.

EUIV begins in the midst of the Hundred Years War, with England and France constantly at each other's throats. Burgundy has played a crucial role in this conflict in the past, and can continue to do so from the start of the game. You are tasked with establishing an English Alliance, which unlocks the mission League of the Public Weal. This requires you to achieve very good relations with at least 3 of the French vassal Duchies. As a result, all of these Duchies gain +50% Liberty Desire, depriving France of their vassals support at a critical moment. This will aid you in becoming King of the Franks; owning Paris and 17 other provinces in the France region, as well as being physically and militarily greater than France, will give you permanent claims on all of France, and all of their remaining vassals will immediately be transferred to you.

After improving Papal Relations, Burgundy can organize a new Crusade against the Ottomans at the Feast of Pheasants. To achieve this you must either have 2 allies who have set the Ottomans as a rival, or else 1 ally that has the Ottomans as a rival that is also a great power. When you complete the mission, all Catholic countries with a positive opinion of Burgundy and a negative opinion of the Ottomans will gain a Holy War CB against the Ottomans for 5 years.

You’ve likely noticed that the flag used in the mission tree screenshot above is not the Burgundian flag we know and love. That’d be because Burgundy gets an expanded mission tree upon forming Lotharingia - the medieval realm of Lothair, descendant of Charlemagne. With the Emperor expansion this is handled through completing the Crown of Lothair mission, but without Emperor there will be a decision. Besides expanding your mission tree, you’ll have the option to switch your national ideas to Lotharingian ideas.

I’ll now hand you over to @Meka66, who implemented the redesigned Burgundian Inheritance content.

The Burgundian Inheritance event chain has been completely reworked for Emperor, with the entirety of the old system gutted out and replaced with something much more dynamic and directly involving for the Emperor and France.
The previous incarnation of the Burgundian Inheritance was something that only AI Burgundy would have to contend with, and without diving into the game’s arcane scripted event files, players would be unable to be directly involved in the inheritance and would be limited in how they interact with it.

In the new system however, the Burgundy player takes direct control of Charles’ historical successor; Marie de Bourgogne, and is able to make a direct choice as to which nation they are “inherited” by via a royal marriage with each of these choices triggering a unique Imperial Incident for the Emperor!

Should Marie choose to marry into the HRE, the Emperor will be presented with a choice as to how he distributes his newfound lands and territories.

The first option is to cede lands and territories to France while keeping the rest of Burgundy under personal union. This will of course make France happy, but will be of little benefit to the Emperor outside of that.

The second option is to just keep Burgundy in its entirety which will grant France cores all over Burgundy’s territories in the French region and give France a righteous cause to declare war.

The third option (and my personal favorite) is to integrate Burgundy into the Empire. What this means in practice is that you will “balkanize” all of Burgundy’s territory into smaller independent imperial Princes, leaving Burgundy with only its namesake while Luxembourg and the like are freed from their control.

Should Marie choose to marry outside of the HRE, however, this triggers an entirely different incident altogether. Burgundy can marry back into the French Kingdom or seek the support of a strong marriage partner, and choosing to do so will put the future of their kingdom entirely in the hands of their new overlord.

The Emperor may demand the Low Countries from Burgundy’s new overlord, and should they accept; Flanders, Holland, etc. will be released back into the Empire as free Princes. Should Burgundy’s overlord refuse, the Emperor may go to war to press his imperial claims.

The Emperor can also declare Marie’s marriage entirely illegitimate and attempt to force a union on the entirety of Burgundy.

A particularly cowardly Emperor may choose to just let this issue slide and allow the succession to take place without his interference.

Whomever Burgundy marries, they shall exist under personal union until an event declares Marie’s death and Burgundy in its entirety is integrated in a manner similar to the old system; with all of Burgundy’s territories becoming a core part of one’s own nation.

For those who enjoyed gaming the old triggers in script for the old system, such a thing will still be possible with AI Burgundy; with their various options for marriage partners being decided by a number of factors by the AI. Optimize these factors, and Burgundy will very likely choose your nation to be their protector.

However, Marie de Bourgogne is not forced to marry into any particular house in Europe at all, and may in fact choose to stand on her own against the French Kingdom and the HRE. Doing so will likely lead to war with both, so surviving this version of the crisis will be quite a challenge for the Burgundian player, but may yield some interesting rewards.

That's all for today! Next week we'll take a look at some of the mission trees we haven't yet had the opportunity to reveal. Until then, have a great week.

Dev Clash day has arrived! Tune in on Twitch at 1500 CEST to see the live continuation. Who else is ready to see a Sunset Invasion!?

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Good morning! Those of you who have been watching the dev clash with a keen eye will have noticed that a new religion has appeared on the map, emanating from the Kingdom of Bohemia. Today I’ll talk about the Hussite faith and its associated content, as well as the new mission tree for Bohemia coming with the Emperor expansion.
The Hussite faith may now experience a resurgence.

The Hussites were in many ways a precursor to the Protestant Reformation. It was a very broad movement encompassing both moderates who merely wished to reform the Catholic Church and radicals who denounced the Church entirely in favour of strictly Biblical authority. Jan Hus, the leader of the movement and its namesake, was executed as a heretic in 1415, sparking a series of conflicts known as the Hussite Wars which lasted until 1434. This was not the end of the Hussites however, as the wars ended in an uneasy agreement between the Church and the moderate Hussite faction, and many people in Bohemia still believed that Jan Hus knew the truth.

In our 1444 start date, Bohemia begins with several Hussite provinces, but retains its Catholic state religion. Early in the game the Return of the Hussites event will fire, which gives Bohemia the opportunity to elect Jiri z Podebrad, a Hussite noble, as King. This event chain has been reworked to allow for three outcomes:

• Bohemia adopts a Hussite state church and permanently breaks with Rome
  
• The Hussites and Catholics reconcile, causing the remaining Hussites in Bohemia to revert to Catholicism. This is the path the AI will usually pursue.
  
• Bohemia pursues an aggressive policy of Catholic orthodoxy and strives to convert the remaining Hussites to win the favour of the Pope.
  

When the Protestant Reformation begins, Hussite nations will be given the choice of whether to retain their unique Hussite faith or convert the nation and all Hussite provinces to Protestant instead. Hussites are only eligible to become Emperor under the Religious Peace.
The Adamites were a curious sect that believed that church services should be held entirely in the nude. Note: numbers are not final

The Hussite faith uses the Church Aspects mechanic, much like Protestant nations. Hussites get an entirely unique list of Church Aspects to distinguish them from Protestants. We’ve aimed to make these Aspects, as well as the base bonuses of the religion, relatively powerful to offset their diplomatic isolation. And of course no rework of Bohemian content would be complete without a button to enact Regular Defenestrations. Here’s the full list in script for those curious:

Click here for to see the scripts
This is the new Bohemia mission tree, available to owners of the Emperor expansion after the release of 1.30. The upper left branch concerns the matter of the Hussites in Bohemia. The requirements and rewards change depending on which path the nation takes through the event chain. One notable reward is that if Bohemia becomes Hussite and breaks with Rome, a Hussite Center of Reformation will spawn in Prague upon completion of the Hussite Resurgence mission. To avoid an overwhelmingly non-Catholic Europe (as we’ve seen in dev clash), we’ve decided to make this CoR last only 100 years rather than until the end of the Age of Reformation.

At various points in the not-so-distant past, the Kings of Bohemia held prestigious titles such as Holy Roman Emperor, King of Poland, and King of Hungary. The majority of the Bohemian mission tree is aimed at regaining these titles and cementing a dominant position in Central Europe and the Empire, and rewards include powerful Restoration of Union CB’son Poland and Hungary. With Hungary under the Bohemian heel, they must contend with the greatest threat to Christendom: the Ottoman Turks. Bohemia is able to subjugate both Brandenburg and Saxony, keeping them as subjects without the usual penalties for subjugating electors if they are able to first Humiliate Austria. The Reformatio Sigismundi mission requires Bohemia to become the Emperor and pass the Perpetual Diet reform, which then rewards you with a 20% bonus to Imperial Authority Growth. The final mission in the Imperial branch, Peace in Europe, requires you to expand the borders of the HRE to 250 provinces while being at peace, and rewards +1 Monarch Diplomatic Skill as well as -5 Years of Separatism for the rest of the game.

That’s all for this week! The dev diary schedule for the next few weeks is content-focused, with next week’s dev diary being about the Burgundian Inheritance and their shiny new mission tree. So stay tuned for more mission trees and other associated content. And remember to catch the weekly Dev Clash every Wednesday at 15:00 CEST at https://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive. If you can’t watch the stream, the vods are posted on youtube later. Go Milan!

Greetings!

A vulnerability involving mods was discovered and patched. New checksum is b3ef

Changelog:

• Potential security issue fixed
  
• Using SDL 2.0.4 instead of 2.0.3 (addressing a graphical issue with some resolutions on MacOS 10.15)

This patch should hopefully not have any effect on save games.

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