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EU4 - Development Diary - 21st of September 2021

Hello and welcome to the 3rd Dev Diary for the content of the Sub-Saharan region. Today we shall take a look at the Horn of Africa - at Ajuuraan and Ethiopia to be more precise.

We start off with Ajuuraan as they have the smaller mission tree. Ajuuraan is one of the Somali clans in the Horn and is known for its impressive irrigation system, for its unique position as a theocratic clan state, as a trading nation, which had its merchants active in India and Asia, and even as a winner against Portuguese aggression. The mission tree for Ajuuraan reflects these traits, focusing on both the military strength and the trade power it possessed.
dd_aju_mission_tree.png

The most left row focuses on the trade aspect of Ajuuraan. A theme of this row is the importance of Mogadishu as a center of trade and its minted currency. After annexing Mogadishu you get access to the "Gain Gold Access" mission. The requirements of it seem easy enough: just have a gold province. However, the mission can also be completed diplomatically by allying and having 100 opinion with a country which happens to have a gold province. If you finish the mission diplomatically, your ally will receive an event, which will ask them to supply Ajuuraan with their precious metal. They either can choose to refuse, giving mercantilism for the ally, or accept the deal, reduce their own Global Trade Power by 5%, but increase Goods Produced by 5% and reduce the inflation by 0.05 for 25 years.
In exchange, Ajuuraan will receive an acceptance or refusal event. In case of acceptance you get 0.25 years worth of income, increased Global Trade Power by 10%, increased Trade Power Abroad by 25% and increased inflation of 0.05 for 25 years.

The Trade Power Abroad might seem a little bit off, but it will come in handy for the next mission "Trade with India", where you need to have 5% Trade Power in any of the Indian trade nodes. Achieving this mission will trigger the "The Merchants of Ajuuraan" event for all countries which have their capital in India:
dd_aju_trade_event.png

Note: The AI will always expel your merchants if their attitude is either outraged, hostile or rival to you.
Additionally, Ajuuraan gains in every Indian Trade Node, where they had at least 5% Trade Power, +10 Trade Power for 25 years too.

Afterwards your trade row branches into three directions, where you need to have an active merchant in Beijing, good relations with Dong Kinh and have 5% trade power in Moluccas. My personal favorite is the event for the Emperor of China when you finish the mission "Trade with the Dragon":
dd_aju_giraffe.png

Note: a proper event picture is currently work in progress by our great artists. The picture you see right now is just a placeholder.
All the trade missions interact with the countries in their respective trade nodes while the rewards for Ajuuraan itself are more moderate like cash, mercantilism and monarch power.

The right side of the mission tree is more focused about the military and the conquest with the end goal of consolidating your region. They are quite self explanatory, so I will show you how the end result of all the conquest missions should look like if you only take the claims from the mission tree.
dd_aju_all_claims.png
While I am at it: we did not forget to use this opportunity to showcase one of the formables we will add with the patch:
dd_aju_somalia.png

Note: Final color might change later as Somalia's blue clashes too much with Ethiopia's blue.

Finally one last thing: Ajuuraan is well known for its hydraulic constructions, which they used to enforce their power in their provinces. To represent the importance of these wells and the Ajuuraan efficiency in creating them, the mission "Hydraulic Expertise" grants Ajuuraan the estate privilege "Hydraulic Rights":
dd_aju_hydraulic.png


With that said, let's move on to Ethiopia, the empire of the legendary Solomonid dynasty.
dd_eth_mission_tree.png

The mission tree of Ethiopia has basically 3 major parts: the Liberation of the Copts in the Middle East, the legacy of the Aksumite Empire and the contact with the Europeans.
Let's start with the most basic one: the rightmost missions, which are about the Aksumite Empire and surpassing its old territory. These missions are quite conservative as they give you permanent claims over the whole Horn of Africa eventually and even some permanent claims on Arabian provinces, which are part of the Gulf of Aden trade node. The "Centralize the State" mission is more interesting though, as it requires that you reach the 6th tier of the government reforms or that you abandon your starting government reform.
dd_eth_gov.png

And well, I have to give credit where credit's due. The Itinerant Capital mechanic and the Ç̌äwa regiment (the game doesn't like the Ç̌, so we had to settle with "Cawa") are heavily inspired by ajsieg incredible suggestions.
Around the start of the game, Ethiopia will receive the following event, explaining the starting situation and the drawbacks of their moving capital system:
dd_eth_issues.png

To combat the issues caused by this modifier, the Itinerant Capital has a special mechanic attached to it: provinces of the capital area always have the following modifier.
dd_eth_capital_area.png

It should also be mentioned that for 5 years after moving your capital you get +1000% Move Capital cost modifier, so make sure you make the best out of it.

To get rid of this nasty modifier you have to complete the mission "Centralize the State", which fires the following event:
dd_eth_perma_captial.png

Of course you can choose to keep your current government reform. Both cases will remove the modifier and you can later choose to switch to the Solomonic Empire.

Ethiopia history has a lot to offer, and as such we couldn't forget the legendary war between Adal and Ethiopia, which almost brought doom upon Ethiopia if it wasn't for the Portuguese. As such we tried to recapture it with a few flavor events for both Ethiopia and Adal.
Now, here is the deal though: The Ottomans, the ally of Adal during this war, look usually like this in the test runs
dd_eth_ottomans.jpg
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian ally...
dd_eth_oof.jpg
Because of this limitation + the usual tendency that the Iberians won't reach Africa we have decided to recapture the spirit of this war through military aid in the form of mercenaries.
For Adal that means they get the following events should they be at war with Ethiopia while the Ottomans exist
dd_eth_adal_help.png

Around 2 - 5 years later, Ethiopia receives the help of the Portuguese - if they are still alive that is
dd_eth_ethiopia_help.png

The Janissaries have -10% Shock and Fire damage received, while the Portuguese have +5% Discipline and +10% Infantry Combat Ability. Both merc companies are a little bit cheaper than the usual mercenaries, so it is advised to use them.

Speaking of units: the second mechanic Ethiopia receives are the Ç̌äwa regiments. Right now you recruit them in your states like Janissaries, but without the requirement of being limited to heathen provinces. The amount of Ç̌äwa you can have is dependent on the development of your provinces, which is about 0.125 regiments per development (+ some other modifiers).
Recruiting one regiment costs 10 Mil Power right now (value might change later on).
dd_eth_cawa.png

Figures for the Ç̌äwa and their privilege are not final, we're still waiting on some more modifiers which will give me more options to fine-tune them. Also, we are not entirely sure what color we want to give them just yet, so they are blank for now (I personally considered yellow for their color as it is part of the Ethiopian flag + it is free to take). I am open for suggestions though.

Other highlights of Ethiopia:
  • A small event chain triggered by "Create the Ethiopian Navy", where a small fleet sails along the Nile and reaches the Pope
  • "Modernize the Army" allows you to switch your unit type to "Western Units"
  • "Train the Cawa" unlocks Noble privileges, which reduce the amount of available Ç̌äwas in exchange for global modifiers. Right now, there are two mutually exclusive privileges, which reduce the allowed Ç̌äwa by 50%, but either reduce global unrest by 1 or increase Siege Ability by 5%
  • "A Blessed Empire" is the only permanent modifier, giving -15% Stability Cost and +3 Tolerance of Faith
Before finishing the Dev Diary for good, let's look back at West Africa for a moment: After doing some research, we took some suggestions from the forums done after the last DD, so we have been working on a rework of starting setup (although with no new provinces, as you already know).
dd_eth_west_africa.png
The Mossi Kingdom has been split into 3 realms now: Yatenga, Fada N'gourma (also known as Gurma) and Wagadugu. Additionally, the ahistorical state of Macina has been annexed by Mali, although we're working on a better balancing of this area, as Mali may be a bit overpowered with this extra provinces. Also, on every Bambara province there is now a Segu core. The event "Emergence of the Fulani" allows you now to switch your country to Fulo and the event "The Ashanti" allows you to switch your country to Ashanti.
Also, Songhai's decision "Focus on a Professional Army" now costs 75 mil power instead of 200 per ruler and the Songhai mission tree has seen some QoL changes:
dd_mystery_missions.png

By hovering over the triggers and effects you can read what the eventual branches would request of you if you select any of the two paths.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the Dev Diary.
 
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Really enjoyed this Dev Diary! Ethiopia have always been one of my favorite nations to play and I really look forward to playing them again when this DLC is released.

Also from the aspect of a modder, how much can we modify the Cawa units? Will we be able make them stronger like Rajputs or will they be more fixed? Rajputs if I recall can have their morale increased by +5% via a estate privilege

Edit* I somehow managed to skip over the ‘Train Cawas’ mission rewards so this essentially answered itself! Will Cawas possibly be extended to also be spawnable Cavarly and Artillery units?
 
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Im very impressed by the work that went into this.

This looks great.

With the addition of Cawa units, I assume they are a custom unit type such as the Yuan Banner Units, Streltsy and Janisaries.

Will modders be able to add in our own custom units now?
 
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Question; Would it be possible to un-hardcode some stuff the base-game has such as unique units and adding new trade company investments ? I am sure modders would love to get their hands (me included) on some of these mechanics, and deliver fresh content for years to come.
I may not always agree with your direction choices but today you are absolutely correct. Cheers and thank you for your hard work.

Big Boss
 
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Looks pretty good. I'm wondering has Adal gotten any missions as well? Will there Ethiopia be a reformable tag now considering that there might be other Coptic Ethiopian nations that might survive if Adal or Yemen conquer the region. Also are there generic Ethiopian/Somali mission trees?
 
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FInally Ethiopia gets the attention it deserves.
A little question, since you reworked Zoroastrianism last time, is there any chance that we see some mechanics for Jews? Even just being able to form Israel and culture switch to Hebrew would be cool.
 
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Question; Would it be possible to un-hardcode some stuff the base-game has such as unique units and adding new trade company investments ? I am sure modders would love to get their hands (me included) on some of these mechanics, and deliver fresh content for years to come.
I may not always agree with your direction choices but today you are absolutely correct. Cheers and thank you for your hard work.

Big Boss

I know that Anbennar has done unique units (Gnomish Artificers), so that should already be possible - might want to ask their team how they did it. As to the new Trade Company investments, afraid I got a "No" from the developers, sorry.
 
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Hello and welcome to the 3rd Dev Diary for the content of the Sub-Saharan region. Today we shall take a look at the Horn of Africa - at Ajuuraan and Ethiopia to be more precise.

We start off with Ajuuraan as they have the smaller mission tree. Ajuuraan is one of the Somali clans in the Horn and is known for its impressive irrigation system, for its unique position as a theocratic clan state, as a trading nation, which had its merchants active in India and Asia, and even as a winner against Portuguese aggression. The mission tree for Ajuuraan reflects these traits, focusing on both the military strength and the trade power it possessed.
View attachment 758365
The most left row focuses on the trade aspect of Ajuuraan. A theme of this row is the importance of Mogadishu as a center of trade and its minted currency. After annexing Mogadishu you get access to the "Gain Gold Access" mission. The requirements of it seem easy enough: just have a gold province. However, the mission can also be completed diplomatically by allying and having 100 opinion with a country which happens to have a gold province. If you finish the mission diplomatically, your ally will receive an event, which will ask them to supply Ajuuraan with their precious metal. They either can choose to refuse, giving mercantilism for the ally, or accept the deal, reduce their own Global Trade Power by 5%, but increase Goods Produced by 5% and reduce the inflation by 0.05 for 25 years.
In exchange, Ajuuraan will receive an acceptance or refusal event. In case of acceptance you get 0.25 years worth of income, increased Global Trade Power by 10%, increased Trade Power Abroad by 25% and increased inflation of 0.05 for 25 years.

The Trade Power Abroad might seem a little bit off, but it will come in handy for the next mission "Trade with India", where you need to have 5% Trade Power in any of the Indian trade nodes. Achieving this mission will trigger the "The Merchants of Ajuuraan" event for all countries which have their capital in India:
View attachment 758431
Note: The AI will always expel your merchants if their attitude is either outraged, hostile or rival to you.
Additionally, Ajuuraan gains in every Indian Trade Node, where they had at least 5% Trade Power, +10 Trade Power for 25 years too.

Afterwards your trade row branches into three directions, where you need to have an active merchant in Beijing, good relations with Dong Kinh and have 5% trade power in Moluccas. My personal favorite is the event for the Emperor of China when you finish the mission "Trade with the Dragon":
View attachment 758433
Note: a proper event picture is currently work in progress by our great artists. The picture you see right now is just a placeholder.
All the trade missions interact with the countries in their respective trade nodes while the rewards for Ajuuraan itself are more moderate like cash, mercantilism and monarch power.

The right side of the mission tree is more focused about the military and the conquest with the end goal of consolidating your region. They are quite self explanatory, so I will show you how the end result of all the conquest missions should look like if you only take the claims from the mission tree.
View attachment 758371
While I am at it: we did not forget to use this opportunity to showcase one of the formables we will add with the patch:
View attachment 758376
Note: Final color might change later as Somalia's blue clashes too much with Ethiopia's blue.

Finally one last thing: Ajuuraan is well known for its hydraulic constructions, which they used to enforce their power in their provinces. To represent the importance of these wells and the Ajuuraan efficiency in creating them, the mission "Hydraulic Expertise" grants Ajuuraan the estate privilege "Hydraulic Rights":
View attachment 758374

With that said, let's move on to Ethiopia, the empire of the legendary Solomonid dynasty.
View attachment 758377
The mission tree of Ethiopia has basically 3 major parts: the Liberation of the Copts in the Middle East, the legacy of the Aksumite Empire and the contact with the Europeans.
Let's start with the most basic one: the rightmost missions, which are about the Aksumite Empire and surpassing its old territory. These missions are quite conservative as they give you permanent claims over the whole Horn of Africa eventually and even some permanent claims on Arabian provinces, which are part of the Gulf of Aden trade node. The "Centralize the State" mission is more interesting though, as it requires that you reach the 6th tier of the government reforms or that you abandon your starting government reform.
View attachment 758441
And well, I have to give credit where credit's due. The Itinerant Capital mechanic and the Ç̌äwa regiment (the game doesn't like the Ç̌, so we had to settle with "Cawa") are heavily inspired by ajsieg incredible suggestions.
Around the start of the game, Ethiopia will receive the following event, explaining the starting situation and the drawbacks of their moving capital system:
View attachment 758380
To combat the issues caused by this modifier, the Itinerant Capital has a special mechanic attached to it: provinces of the capital area always have the following modifier.
View attachment 758381
It should also be mentioned that for 5 years after moving your capital you get +1000% Move Capital cost modifier, so make sure you make the best out of it.

To get rid of this nasty modifier you have to complete the mission "Centralize the State", which fires the following event:View attachment 758383
Of course you can choose to keep your current government reform. Both cases will remove the modifier and you can later choose to switch to the Solomonic Empire.

Ethiopia history has a lot to offer, and as such we couldn't forget the legendary war between Adal and Ethiopia, which almost brought doom upon Ethiopia if it wasn't for the Portuguese. As such we tried to recapture it with a few flavor events for both Ethiopia and Adal.
Now, here is the deal though: The Ottomans, the ally of Adal during this war, look usually like this in the test runs
View attachment 758386
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian ally...
View attachment 758387
Because of this limitation + the usual tendency that the Iberians won't reach Africa we have decided to recapture the spirit of this war through military aid in the form of mercenaries.
For Adal that means they get the following events should they be at war with Ethiopia while the Ottomans exist
View attachment 758388
Around 2 - 5 years later, Ethiopia receives the help of the Portuguese - if they are still alive that is
View attachment 758445
The Janissaries have -10% Shock and Fire damage received, while the Portuguese have +5% Discipline and +10% Infantry Combat Ability. Both merc companies are a little bit cheaper than the usual mercenaries, so it is advised to use them.

Speaking of units: the second mechanic Ethiopia receives are the Ç̌äwa regiments. Right now you recruit them in your states like Janissaries, but without the requirement of being limited to heathen provinces. The amount of Ç̌äwa you can have is dependent on the development of your provinces, which is about 0.125 regiments per development (+ some other modifiers).
Recruiting one regiment costs 10 Mil Power right now (value might change later on).
View attachment 758392
Figures for the Ç̌äwa and their privilege are not final, we're still waiting on some more modifiers which will give me more options to fine-tune them. Also, we are not entirely sure what color we want to give them just yet, so they are blank for now (I personally considered yellow for their color as it is part of the Ethiopian flag + it is free to take). I am open for suggestions though.

Other highlights of Ethiopia:
  • A small event chain triggered by "Create the Ethiopian Navy", where a small fleet sails along the Nile and reaches the Pope
  • "Modernize the Army" allows you to switch your unit type to "Western Units"
  • "Train the Cawa" unlocks Noble privileges, which reduce the amount of available Ç̌äwas in exchange for global modifiers. Right now, there are two mutually exclusive privileges, which reduce the allowed Ç̌äwa by 50%, but either reduce global unrest by 1 or increase Siege Ability by 5%
  • "A Blessed Empire" is the only permanent modifier, giving -15% Stability Cost and +3 Tolerance of Faith
Before finishing the Dev Diary for good, let's look back at West Africa for a moment: After doing some research, we took some suggestions from the forums done after the last DD, so we have been working on a rework of starting setup (although with no new provinces, as you already know).
View attachment 758402
The Mossi Kingdom has been split into 3 realms now: Yatenga, Fada N'gourma (also known as Gurma) and Wagadugu. Additionally, the ahistorical state of Macina has been annexed by Mali, although we're working on a better balancing of this area, as Mali may be a bit overpowered with this extra provinces. Also, on every Bambara province there is now a Segu core. The event "Emergence of the Fulani" allows you now to switch your country to Fulo and the event "The Ashanti" allows you to switch your country to Ashanti.
Also, Songhai's decision "Focus on a Professional Army" now costs 75 mil power instead of 200 per ruler and the Songhai mission tree has seen some QoL changes:
View attachment 758405
By hovering over the triggers and effects you can read what the eventual branches would request of you if you select any of the two paths.

That's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the Dev Diary.
Hi thx for this great dev diary looks very interesting I just have a few points if you don’t mind

Ethiopia already gets a overpowered event will that be removed ?? (The one that gives +5 discipline)

the Oromo migration completely changed Ethiopia will that be included in the game

and finally Will the holy city of harar (developed more during the games time) be increased in development as it was crucial in the battle against the Ethiopian and Oromo invasions

1: is there any mission tree or development buffs for Adal as currently it gets absolutely destroyed by Ethiopia , I understand the merc event but Ethiopia starts with double the troops of Adal

Adal conquered nearly all of Ethiopia
CDD06BE8-5D23-4F2A-9D45-120C1E910D15.png

2: south western Somalia is home to a very fertile river but in the game it is arid/desert is there any plan to change it

3: is there any support for adding more development to the Horn of Africa to make up for the fact that no new provinces will be added ? Cause it is laughable how low value the ancient trading city states on the coast are

there are provinces in the jungle of the Congo and the Great Lakes with more dev then cities which had extensive trading history with nations as far as China
thanks
 
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Seeing as the only Jewish provinces/jewish nation are in the region, I hope we will finally see mechanics for the third Abrahamic religion.
Jewish mechanics are long overdue.

Edit: I saw a good idea once by a modder on steam called 'Lord Thiolate' that used fetishist mechanics to represent ideas coming in from the worldwide jewish diaspora (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2486344922)
Just as an idea
Though new mechanics would also do (just not holy sites again pls)
 
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and even as a winner against Portuguese aggression
"The Somali-Ottoman offensive managed to drive out the Portuguese from several important cities such as Pate, Mombasa and Kilwa. However, the Portuguese governor sent envoys to Portuguese India requesting a large Portuguese fleet. This request was answered and it reversed the previous offensive of the Muslims into one of defense. The Portuguese armada managed to re-take most of the lost cities and began punishing their leaders"

The Battle of Barawa was an armed military encounter between the Portuguese Empire and the Ajuran Sultanate, in the city of Barawa. The Portuguese staged a landing and achieved their objectives of sacking the city.

Battle of Benadir
At Mogadishu, João de Sepúlveda "destroyed the city and did them great damage and injury". Moving a few leagues north, he reached a popular anchorage for tradeships coming from the Red Sea, where he learned that the Turks would not be sailing to East Africa that year. Thus he returned to what remained of Mogadishu, and made a peace deal with its rulers.

Passing by Barawa, the city was sacked, in retaliation for its inhabitants having delivered a few Portuguese prisoners to the Turks. After sealing peace with Barawa, João de Sepúlveda returned to Malindi."

If Portuguese Mercs, in this case troops sent by the Crown of Portugal led by Cristovao da Gama, can have 5% Discipline and 10% Combat Ability, its time to rework the military ideas given to Portugal a bit.
 
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I love the changes to Ethiopia! Ethiopia is my favourite African nation to play, and after this DLC you will have so much inmersion. I love the mission tree and all the new mechanics added.

I have a question: is there going to be a formable nation as Ethiopia? They are Empire tier at game start, so maybe it does not make sense, but it woud be cool to be able to form Aksum or change your name to Solomonic Empire.
 
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I know that Anbennar has done unique units (Gnomish Artificers), so that should already be possible - might want to ask their team how they did it. As to the new Trade Company investments, afraid I got a "No" from the developers, sorry.
You can steal vanilla mechanics and Rework them,

I assume anbennar used vanilla things like janisaries or banners for this.
 
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I still think the no new provinces thing just means we need EU5, large swathes of the world like the entirety of Mesoamerica or Africa have entire kingdoms missing that cant really be included within the existing province count.
Since that is just going to constrain further content it'd be better to just go with a new version, the game is in desperate need of streamlining, many reagions were never updated to work with current mechanics or to make general historical sense (DOOOM!) and it also suffers from a lot of feature-creep at this point.
 
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:eek: <3

I want to give my sincerest thanks to the dev team for this DD. I am honored that elements of my suggestions have made it into vanilla.

I love the new content. I don't have much to add on it. It's a good representation of both states.

I will mention a couple quick things:
1. I am not sure if the Somalia formable should be based on the Dervish State or not. There's an argument for either way. A formable for Somalia is hard, as Somali clans fought against each other constantly. Only strong rulers were able to make them coexist (Adal and Ajuuraan).

2. Yellow is a fine color for Cawa. I don't have any info on their colors/attire, so any color from their flag is good.

Thanks again!
Ajsieg
 
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:eek: <3

I want to give my sincerest thanks to the dev team for this DD. I am honored that elements of my suggestions have made it into vanilla.

I love the new content. I don't have much to add on it. It's a good representation of both states.

I will mention a couple quick things:
1. I am not sure if the Somalia formable should be based on the Dervish State or not. There's an argument for either way. A formable for Somalia is hard, as Somali clans fought against each other constantly. Only strong rulers were able to make them coexist (Adal and Ajuuraan).

2. Yellow is a fine color for Cawa. I don't have any info on their colors/attire, so any color from their flag is good.

Thanks again!
Ajsieg
Honestly proud for you , I remember reading your thread years ago and now that it’s finally being done is wow

also kinda sad there is no mission tree for Adal , they will get eaten by Ethiopia within a few years :(
 
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