Good morning! After last week’s dev diary on Ayutthaya, we’re taking a voyage across the sea to Java, home of what remains of the Majapahit Empire.
Majapahit once spanned nearly all of Maritime South-East Asia, ruling over countless vassal states and tributary kingdoms across the isles. The empire reached its golden age under the administration of Gajah Mada, a renowned statesman and military leader who vowed to conquer all of Nusantara for Majapahit.
It has been almost a century since Gajah Mada left office in disgrace after attempting to subjugate the Sunda kingdom against the wishes of both monarchies. The Chinese treasure fleet expeditions of Zheng He severely disrupted the balance of power in the region, with many kingdoms taking the opportunity to strike out on their own and the Chinese supporting the rival Sultanate of Malacca in the west. The Majapahit Empire in 1444 is in a state of severe decay. Only a few of its tributaries remain loyal, a series of bloody struggles over the succession are imminent, and religious tensions are rising. The last remaining tributary states are Blambangan, Bali, Banjar, and Palembang - for owners of Mandate of Heaven, all nations in the Chinese tech group can now have Tributaries regardless of religion.
At the very start of the game, Majapahit begins a unique Disaster that puts them on the road to total collapse if not managed carefully. This is intentionally one of the most difficult disasters in the game, immediately tanking your stability and legitimacy, while also adding a modifier that increases all power costs by 15%, reduces monarch lifespan by 50%, and increases the liberty desire of all subjects by 15%. As always, numbers are not final and I’ll need to play around with this to get the difficulty level right - navigating this Disaster should be a challenge but not an insurmountable one. In addition, every succession will be challenged by a Pretender and events will further increase the Liberty Desire of subjects, who will become independent if their Liberty Desire becomes too high. After dealing with these effects for a while, you’ll be approached with an offer of financial aid from a group of Muslim merchants who wish to trade in Majapahit. Accepting their offer will provide a much-needed influx of cash, but also causes the periodic conversion of your provinces to Sunni Islam. Rejecting this offer causes Majapahit to become diplomatically and economically isolated, with penalties to your diplomatic reputation and trade power.
Above is a worst case scenario. Successor states of Demak and Mataram vie for dominance of Java while the remnants of the Majapahit court helplessly watch their nation collapse. Muslim successor states spawn by event if a significant number of your provinces convert to Islam and you cannot maintain high Legitimacy.
But all is not yet lost! Through their new mission tree, Majapahit have the means to end the Disaster and restore the golden age of their empire:
The Majapahit mission tree is a little different to the traditional mission tree structure. It begins with 4 missions that guide you through the Disaster and alleviate its effects - putting an end to the succession crises, stabilizing the spread of Islam, disabling events that increase subject liberty desire, and preventing breakaway states from emerging. Completing the Prevent Collapse mission finally puts an end to the Disaster, and adds a permanent +1 diplomatic relation slot.
This mission tree does not award permanent claims (with one notable exception) or even Subjugation CB’s against specific countries. Instead, the Enforce Loyalty mission unlocks the unique Majapahit Campaigns CB, which functions similarly to the Subjugation CB but has no time limit, a warscore cost discount of only 25% (compared to Subjugation’s 50% discount), and can be used against any nation in the Malay culture group that you’ve discovered. This eliminates the need to award CB’s or claims preceding missions like Rein in Malacca or Subjugate Makassar. This CB is improved when you complete Gajah Mada’s Oath, which requires you to form Malaya, by unlocking use of the CB against all nations in the Chinese culture group. Completing the Subjugate the Mainland mission improves it for the final time, allowing the CB to be used without restrictions.
Some additional highlights:
- Completing the Enforce Loyalty mission converts all of your current Tributaries into Vassals.
- The Chakravarti mission, unsurprisingly, unlocks the Chakravarti tier 1 government reform described in the previous dev diary. It has all the (unrevealed) benefits of the Mandala reform without the penalties, plus a bonus to absolutism and monthly ADM power.
- The Candi Shrines mission unlocks a new Hindu personal deity - the Buddha. Hindu-Buddhist syncretism was extremely common in South-East Asia, especially on Java. This personal deity increases your Tolerance of Heathen by 2 and decreases your Advisor Cost by 10%.
- The Porch of Mecca mission requires controlling the Aceh area and spreading your religion through the region. As a reward, you unlock the Propagate Religion trade policy and your Hindu provinces become immune to its effects.
- The Eastern Campaigns and its follow-up missions each add a permanent province modifier to various uncolonized provinces in Maritime South-East Asia that make them much easier for you to colonize. The final mission in that branch, Dominate the Moluccas, awards a permanent bonus to your Colonial Range and Trade Efficiency
- Restore the Fleet begins a chain of missions that bring you into conflict with the Ming dynasty, which shattered Majapahit’s hegemony in decades past. Disrupting Chinese Trade adds a permanent modifier increasing your Naval Morale, Blockade Efficiency, and Blockade Impact on Siege - you’re going to need this because the Great Blockade mission tasks you with blockading the entire coast of Ming China. This then grants permanent claims on the Chinese coast.
- The rightmost missions are part of a set of missions available to all countries in Maritime South-East Asia, and focus on provinces that were noteworthy for producing specific trade goods such as iron in Palopo.
Surprisingly Majapahit does not have its own set of National Ideas in 1.30, and shares the Javan idea set with Sunda and rarely-seen tags like Banten and Mataram. This will be rectified in the South-East Asia update. Below is Majapahit’s new set of National Ideas:
MAJ_ideas = {
start = {
ae_impact = -0.15
legitimacy = 1
}
bonus = {
diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.15
}
free = yes #will be added at load.
trigger = {
tag = MAJ
}
maj_nusantara_tributaries = {
vassal_forcelimit_bonus = 1
reduced_liberty_desire = 10
}
maj_restore_candi = {
global_missionary_strength = 0.02
}
maj_maritime_silk_road = {
trade_efficiency = 0.1
}
maj_nusa_tenggara = {
colonists = 1
}
maj_gajah_madas_oath = {
land_morale = 0.1
}
maj_majapahit_armada = {
heavy_ship_power = 0.1
navy_tradition = 1
}
maj_reformed_bhattara_saptaprabhu = {
advisor_cost = -0.15
}
}
And that’s all for today. Next week we’ll return our focus to Mainland South-East Asia and take a look at another crumbling empire: Khmer.
Moderator note:
As a reminder, @neondt is a content designer, not a programmer, therefore cannot reply on the programming side of the patch.
This development diary is about content design. Remain on topic.