Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! The majority of the new content for the upcoming DLC has been revealed so far and all that is missing are two nations - one of them is an island nation which almost never sees the light of day.
Prior to 1.34 Gotland was a province occupied by a rebel stack led by the Danish ex-king Eric of Pomerania. This has changed now and Gotland is selectable at the start of the game with Eric as its ruler.
Originally a commercial center situated in the crossroads between the merchants of Russia and Germany, Visby has quite an interesting history during the century prior to the beginning of the game. Home to privateers such as the Victual Brothers and the bastion of a former Danish King, Gotland ended up being the guarantee of peace between the Teutonic Knights and the monarchs of Denmark. Coupled with a fresh new mission tree, its very own great project and unique new paths to explore, Gotland will offer a fascinating playthrough.
As Gotland was a member of the Hansa, the hideout of the ex-king Eric and a base of operation of Eric’s piracy, the fate of Gotland is quite open-ended (though, in 99% of games Gotland will probably end up as territory of Denmark or Sweden as these two countries still have their core on Gotland).
The content for Gotland is intended to reflect the possibilities Gotland’s history could have gone and as such when you start as Gotland you get the following event instantly:
When you select the second choice you get a follow-up event:
Of course the claims of Eric won’t make much sense when he dies before pressing them against Denmark. If you select the monarchy path of your missions and Eric finds himself buried with the head first in the mudflat then you get an event which allows you to change your direction (this only triggers when you picked the monarchy missions though):
But what are these missions even about? Let’s start taking a look at them, starting with the monarchy missions:
As your goal is to become Denmark, the monarchy missions of Gotland are a little bit shorter, but will help you with your ambition.
“Dynastic Relations” for example gives you 10k manpower per nation which has the same dynasty as you and has at least 100 opinion of you. As you start with the Gryf dynasty you can get 20k manpower rather easily from Stettin and Wolgast - if you manage to finish the mission before they annex each other.
Meanwhile, “The Enemy of My Enemy” makes alliances with rivals or enemies of Denmark easier.
The biggest supporter would be the HRE however. “The Emperor’s Treasury” is mission which allows you to make a deal with the Emperor upon reaching 100 opinion of him:
Naturally, this event triggers an interaction with the Emperor:
Of course you can accept or reject these conditions:
Taking the help of the Emperor will have consequences. If you ever manage to get Holstein or Slesvig then you get confronted with an event which reminds you of your end of the deal:
Of course you are free to ignore your promise, but this will result into a diplomatic escalation of the situation:
Of course the event for the ultimatum has a proper title which is a homage to a different demand of German territory in history:
As Eric was voted out by the nobles of Norway and Sweden it is only natural that you want to get on Norway and Sweden’s good sides - either through diplomacy (they have 100 opinion of you) or through espionage (you have 50 spy network in their overlord).
The main focus of the monarchy missions is your war with Denmark. “War for the Crown” which is doable after getting any kind of cb against Denmark will give you a restoration of Personal Union casus belli against Denmark as well as 10% Land and Naval Morale for 25 years.
“Take over Sjaelland” which can be achieved by occupying the capital of Denmark (in this case it is Sjaelland) will trigger the following event:
If you manage to get 50 War Score against Denmark, control the Danish capital and be at war with Denmark for 3 years you can complete the mission “Execute the Wrong King” which will end the war immediately in your favor:
Of course these missions are all completable if you manage to win the war against Denmark on your own and get them under a personal union before. In that case the events will not fire, but their rewards are given directly by the missions themselves.
Also, if Norway or Sweden are independent then you gain a PU cb against either of them in this event.
As soon you have the Kalmar Union under your control you can complete the mission “Back in Control” and get the following event:
From this point forward you are then playing as Denmark, though with a slightly easier time with Sweden.
But not everybody wants to play “Denmark with extra steps” and so you can choose to become a republic instead.
Your mission tree is tailored to become the dominant trade power of the Baltic Sea, rivaling the likes of Lübeck or Riga.
As it has become a little bit of an unofficial tradition for this DLC, so does Gotland too have a way to join the HRE with the “Imperial Protection” mission. The claims of the mission tree are few and mostly focused on the Baltic coast of Germany as well as the lands of Denmark and Novgorod.
Real highlights of this mission tree are +25% Permanent Ship Trade Power from the mission “Compete with the Hansa”, as well as +25 Trade Power in the English Channel until the end of the campaign from “Channel’s Trade”.
“Gutnish Trade Fleet”, “Strong Mercantilism” and “Gotland’s Trade Empire” have dynamic rewards which depend on which faction is currently at power:
“Gotland’s Trade Empire” has of course the most impactful reward of all three of them:
But what if you don’t want to make your ducats the honest way through trade and commercial? What if you want to embrace the historical roleplay of Eric, the king who became a pirate? For that there is the last and biggest mission tree of Gotland which explores this path.
The Gotland AI will always take the Pirate missions as historically Eric of Pomerania was living the pirate life on Gotland until he eventually died.
The pirate missions are divided into three greater branches and some miscellaneous missions which are adopted from the generic Pirate missions and slightly adjusted for the North Sea.
Starting from the left to right, the missions starting with “Gotlander Pirate Fleet” are your conquest and exploration missions, handling Denmark and, of course, the Caribbean. When you complete the mission “Pirates of the Caribbean” you get the option to move your capital in to the new world through an event:
Meanwhile, the mission “The Worst Pirate” gives the following rewards if you own or have a subject own Tortuga:
The missions branching from “Reach the Mediterranean” are all about raiding and looting certain places of importance such as Rome and its Curia coffers, or Venice and its arsenal. “Pirate versus Berber” on the other hand is more of a mission for all those who played in the Mediterranean and had to suffer under the Berbers.
Each one of these three missions rewards you with an unique event which is of narrative nature. But they also contain strong rewards which are fitting to the text. Here is the event “The Raid of the Venetian Arsenal” which is the reward of the mission “Raid the Arsenal”:
I will come back to the “Legendary Pirate” personality later.
“Terror of the Baltics” and the followup missions are about, well, raiding the Baltic Sea, but also “liberating” Lübeck, Danzig and Riga from their owners and incorporating them into your pirate republic. Each mission gives their respective city the following reward:
“The Pirate Haven” is the finisher of these missions and is completed when you own at least 10 provinces which are either centers of trade or have a river estuary. Finishing it gives you a reward which mirrors the Merchant Republic dynamic mission reward:
Finally a few words for the remaining missions:
“A Pirate Federation” works exactly like the generic pirate mission. “Global Piracy” requires you to privateer in at least 10 different trade nodes of the world and gives you extra privateer efficiency of 33% until the end of the game. “Scourge of the North Sea” requires you to privateer in the North Sea and the English Channel while “Loot London” and “Loot the Low Countries” are rather self-explanatory. All of these missions reward you with good chunks of money.
“Renowned Pirate King” is a special version of the “Renowned Buccaneer” mission of the generic Pirate mission. But it is worth mentioning that both missions have received an additional bonus in its reward:
The “Legendary Pirate” is a new ruler personality which can be gained through either mission rewards - as it was the case in Gotland’s mission tree - or by winning against an enemy who is above your own weight. Also, all historical pirates have the “Legendary Pirate” personality.
It goes without saying that the Legendary Pirate is part of the free update and not locked behind the newest DLC.
Speaking of free content: monarchies and republics received new government reforms, and so did the Pirate Republics some new reforms to play with too! I will list the tiers where a new reform has been added or an old Pirate reform has been adjusted and will highlight them.
Tier 2:
Tier 4 (they are all new):
Tier 7 (they are all new):
Tier 8:
Tier 10 (the first three are generic Republican reforms, hence their theme is not quite fitting for Pirates):
Tier 11 (the first three are generic Republican reforms, hence their theme is not quite fitting for Pirates):
Tier 12:
Next to the pirate government reforms we also have added some new naval doctrines. In the development diary for Denmark we presented you some of the new naval doctrines and you gave us ideas for new additions of naval doctrines. While not all were able to make the cut for 1.34, some of your suggestions have been implemented!
For Venetian countries
For Korean (or Snocized-Korean) countries
For Japanese countries
For Lower Saxon countries (in that case it is mostly relevant for Lübeck):
It goes without saying that the icons for the Naval Doctrines are placeholder.
Last but not least we also did some balance changes regarding the navy to make them (and their ideas) a little bit more impactful.
Blockaded provinces now receive +0.25 Monthly Devastation and -50% Local Trade Power additionally to the +20% Local Ship and Regiment recruitment time.
Additionally, blockading a country’s ports not only increases +0.10 Monthly War Exhaustion but also -75% Global Trade Power and -75% Trade Steering, scaled by proportion of (core, state) development blockades.
1.33 buffed the Maritime Ideas and Naval ideas and while we are happy with Maritime ideas for now, the Naval ideas are still lackluster in their usage. They do their purpose which is buffing the navy, but due to how EU4 works naval battles are rarely of big concern and as such the Naval Ideas have a too high opportunity cost.
So we have decided to give a secondary role to Naval ideas which is rewarding your land conflict if you have naval dominance by giving the fourth idea “Naval Glory” +1 Blockade Impact on Siege additionally to the Yearly Navy Tradition. The +10% Ship Durability has been moved from the bonus of the ideas group to the sixth idea, “Oak Forests for Ships” (the +20% Heavy Ship Combat Ability remains) while the bonus now has -100% Naval Barrage cost next to the +15% Ship Disengagement Chance.
The Naval/Maritime policy “The Naval Supremacy Act” now gives +1 Blockade Impact on Siege instead of +50% Privateer Efficiency. The +50% Blockade Efficiency remains unaffected here.
Finally one quick Quality of Life addition to the game:
That was it for today! Next week PDX Big Boss will present the final country which receives content from this DLC. Little hint: it is NOT a nation you can select when you start the game.
With that being said I wish you all a nice week!