Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 14th of March 2023 - Government Mechanics + Free Content

Good afternoon and welcome to another Developer Diary! This week we will be taking a closer look at various types of new content added to the game, starting with a review of the new Government mechanics that will come with Domination, and the additions we made to previous DLCs as well as to the base game.

Before we begin, let’s take a moment to address the concern around power creeping in 1.35 that has been discussed by the community in the past weeks. The content we showcase in Developer Diaries is usually in a rough form, not just from the perspective of numbers but also even from that bonuses. QA and Beta testing, along with your feedback, shape and changes the content vastly over the coming weeks. As a result, more often than not the content of the Dev Diaries does not reflect the final iteration. We take great pride in combing through and interacting with many of the comments under the Developer Diaries. We wanted to take this opportunity and note that in the cases of the Ottomans, France, Japan, and every other Great Power we have previously showcased, we have taken great steps towards rebalancing, snipping bonuses, nerfing, and even out-right changing modifiers completely. This is at least in part attributed to your stellar feedback, which helps guide us as we move through the development process. Having said that, thank you for taking the time to comment and contribute, even if we’re not always ready to answer as much as we’d like, but we genuinely appreciate it and try to take it into account as much as possible. Now that’s out of the way, let’s move on to today’s content!

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Let’s start with an updated review of all the new Government Mechanics available with Domination. You may notice that they are using a similar box, which will now be part of the Government window (Note: the Purple box does not appear for countries who do not have mechanics). This has been done to make the expansion and maintenance of special Government mechanics easier, but also it will increase its modding possibilities (something we will talk about more in-depth next week):


New look of the Government window. When having more than one mechanic at your disposal, a lateral scrollbar inside the window will allow you to check them.

So, let’s showcase them:


Following up on your feedback for Prussian Militarization, I went ahead and tweaked it a fair bit:

• Removed Land Forcelimit and replaced it with Land Maintenance Modifier
• Decay halved in tier 2 and 3
• Added a decay countermeasure to slow down the loss of militarization
• Militarization Interactions now cost 20 Militarization instead of 50

• Forcibly Expel Ronin
  • -1 Global Unrest for 10 years
  • 50 Admin Power
  • -5% Liberty Desire in Subjects for 10 years
• Sankin Kotai
  • +3 Diplomatic Reputation for 10 years
  • 50 Dip Power
  • +0.25 Monthly Autonomy Change in Subjects for 10 years
• Sword Hunt
  • -15% Regiments Cost
  • 50 Mil Power
  • -10% Manpower Recovery Speed in Subjects for 10 years

Starting off with non-Domination-related, let’s start with the Base Game. A while back we released a Developer Diary around the addition of new Idea Groups as well as the re-balancing of existing ones (this is also a great way to showcase the impact of your feedback by comparing the old iteration with the new one!). Since then, a lot has changed based on a multitude of factors. Here are the current iterations of the 3 new Idea Groups:

Infrastructure Ideas:

Court Ideas:

Mercenary Ideas:

Now that the new idea sets are showcased, let’s take a look at some highlighted changes:

Religious Ideas:

• Church Attendance Duty now grants +10% Manpower in True Faith Provinces

Economic Ideas:

Administrative Ideas:

• Moved the Core Creation Cost to slot 3
• Governing Capacity Bonus nerfed to 20% (used to be 25%)

Expansion & Exploration Ideas:

• Changed the Idea Factories to - > -10% Trade Company Investment Cost & -10% Trade Company Governing Cost. It is now in the 5th slot of Exploration Ideas. Expansion now gets the Viceroys idea, which used to be in Exploration (We have also tweaked Global Tariffs, hopefully they will be a bit more worthwhile now!)
• Additional Diplomats now grants +1 Diplomat and -5% Liberty Desire of Subjects in Other Continents
• The goal of these changes is to turn Expansion into the “Americas” colonization idea whereas Exploration should now be more useful for general exploring and going into and beyond Africa!

Humanist Ideas:

Espionage Ideas:

Aristocratic Ideas:
Defensive Ideas:



Quantity Ideas:

For this group, we have elected to increase the Manpower and Forcelimit a bit, to 33% each. It’s an experimental change and we would love to hear your thoughts on it!

Let’s briefly look into some policy changes:

Defensive Policies:

And one final look at the current version of the new Idea Group Policies (not much changed, for posterity’s sake)

Mercenary Policies:



Court Ideas:

Infrastructure Policies:
I should also note, that the AI is now far more proficient at not only picking but also combining Idea Groups based on a multitude of factors such as:

• How militaristic their National Ideas are
• What is their current mana generation of ruler, heir, etc. (as in, can they support the idea group AND not fall behind in the same type of tech?)
• How threatened they are by neighbors and how they stack up against them
• How defensible their terrain might be
• What other idea groups they have picked (for better Policy combos)

While on the topic, let’s take a look at some of the events associated with the new idea groups!

Infrastructure Ideas:




Court Ideas:



Mercenary Ideas:


Another impactful change in this line we decided to go forward with, is turning the "Slacken Recruitment Standards" into a 'toggle' button. Instead of magically making 20,000 dudes appear out of thin air, your conscription centers now lower their standards in order to fundamentally increase your Manpower Recovery Speed:



Since we are catching up on previously shown content, let’s take another look at the Artillery Units, here you have them with proper names, and their final pips:




Another interesting addition to the base game is the introduction of the Tier 5 Military Government reforms, which we talked about the past week. The vast majority of these (barring some tag-specific ones) will be free:




With 1.35 we introduce some new privileges for free, which add some estate-specific mechanics to estates that were lacking them:




Moving on, we have a good deal of new traits related to generals, admirals and even rulers, all of which will be part of the base game:

New General Personalities

• Cuirassier Leader: +10% Cavalry Combat Ability
• Cruel Tactician: +10% Morale Damage
• Frontline Holder: -10% Morale Damage Received
• Strict Drillmaster: +2.5% Discipline and -50% Drill Decay

New Admiral Personalities

• Naval Strategist: +10% Disengagement Chance
• Inspirational Captain: +5% Naval Morale and +10% Navy Morale Recovery Speed
• Naval Cannoneer: +10% Number of Cannons Modifier
• Wooden Waller: +10% Hull Size Modifier
• Cunning Navigator: +1 Fleet Movement Speed

New Ruler Personality

• Peasant Revolt Leader: +10% Morale Damage and -1 Global Unrest (available to Peasant Republics)
• Patron of Arts: -5% Technology Cost and -5% Idea Cost

Now let’s move to the content that we are adding to previous DLCs!

For owners of Leviathan, we have added 7 new Great Projects (all shown at their Tier 3):


Taking your feedback into account, we decided to dedicate some of our artist time into reworking the visual for the Walls of Benin, to better reflect how they looked like in real life:



For owners of Golden Century, as pointed out in a previous Developer Diary, we added new Holy Orders:




For owners of Rule Britannia we went on to add or re-balance the following new Naval Doctrines:

Venetian Arsenal (re-balanced):

• Number of Cannons Modifier: +10%
• Sailors Maintenance Modifier: -10%

Korean Panokseon:

• Ship Durability: +5%
• Morale Hit from Sunken Ship: -25%

Japanese Atakebune:

• Heavy Ship Combat Ability: +5%
• Naval Morale: +5%

Hanseatic Trade Fleet:

• Global Ship Trade Power: +25%
• Naval Tradition from Protecting Trade: +100%

Ottoman Great Navy:

• Global Ship Cost: -10%
• Naval Forcelimit Modifier: +20%

Maghrebi Corsairs:

• Privateer Efficiency: +25%
• May Perform Slave Raid
• Available Province Loot: +50%

Letter of Marque:

• Disengagement Chance: +10%
• Movement Speed in Fleet: +1
• Chance to Capture Ships: +20%

Novgorodian Ushkuiniks:

• Allowed Marine Fraction: +15%
• Sailor Maintenance Modifier: -10%

Dvoryane Admiralty:

• Naval Tradition: +1
• Naval Leader Shock: +1

Malayan Seafaring:

• Disembark Speed: +50%
• Naval Attrition: -25%
• Naval Transport Attrition: -50%

Junk Fleet:

• Light Ship Cost: -50%
• Naval Forcelimit Modifier: +25%

Chinese Treasure Fleet:

• Trade Range: +25%
• Colonial Range: +25%
• Treasure Fleet Income: +25%

Maratha Naval Bombards:

• Naval Barrage Cost: -25%
• Blockade Impact on Siege: +1
• Blockade Efficiency: +25%

Polynesian Navigation Seas:

• May Recruit Explorers
• Colonial Range: +50%

Naval Tactica: (for Byzantium)

• Disengagement Chance: +15%
• Galley Combat Ability: +20%

Basque Marines:

• May Recruit Explorers
• Landing Penalty: -1

Furthermore, we have also reworked the UI for the Emperor of China that comes with Mandate of Heaven, as to accommodate the new Decrees and Reforms that were added (and which we showed a couple of months ago), and to improve the user experience associated with it:




Lastly, we tweaked the Reformed religion a fair bit, in order to add a lot more versatility, as we did previously with Protestantism! Now, Aspects are activated and deactivated as toggle buttons. Each toggled aspect will drain -8 Monthly Fervor. In most of our tests, players can attain a level of monthly fervor in which they can maintain at least 1 aspect at all times. Moreover, we added a new aspect: Diplomacy while stacking your Fervor higher gives its own different benefits!



And now, to finish, a couple of additional cosmetic changes to the Base Game:


For those of you who love painting the map when it comes to forming Japan, I added the ability to adopt your Daimyo Color upon forming Japan, based on a selection of the top 15 most popular Daimyos. Here's how it would look for a handful of them:

Shimazu Japan




Oda Japan




Takeda Japan


So Japan




While these colors certainly look fresh, some may not like the color change and wish to play with the original Japanese color. For this purpose, I added a new decision available for 10 years that will revert your color to the original Japanese one:




To make a note on a previously discussed topic, we asked you guys for feedback on the various choices regarding the English and Angevin flags:

English Flag:




Angevin Flag:


Note; the flag looks a bit off-putting on the edges due to the zooming/stretching for the purposes of the Dev Diary!
And that’s all for this week! We hope that you like the changes and additions that we have made to the game, as we’ve put a lot of effort into adding more depth to it for 1.35, in parallel with the development of Domination. In that regard, the changelog will again be massive, with hundreds of issues fixed and tweaked.

Next week @Ogele will talk about the new Usermodding features that we’re also introducing in the next update, so make sure you read it if you’re interested in the wonderful mods available for EUIV, as they will probably come with a bunch of novelty in the following months!