Welcome to Tinto Talks, the Happy Wednesdays, where we talk about what is happening with Europa Universalis V.
I’m Pavia, Content Design Lead on EU5; some of you might know me from the Tinto Maps series, and also by being a host of a bunch of Tinto Talks last year; it’s been a while since the last time, back in October! The past 3 months have been quite busy from my end, I guess… Today, we’ll talk about what we’ve been doing during this period of time. I’ll present you with the new content and adjustments we’ve been working on for the 1.1 ‘Rossbach’ patch, and a bit on our plans for 2026. Let’s get started!
Patches 1.0.X
The main focus of the Content Design team after the release of EUV on November 4th was bug-fixing. For the patches 1.0.2 to 1.0.10, we averaged around 150-200 content fixes per patch. The way we organized the work, as Johan mentioned back in time, was creating a Custodian team to upkeep the base game, which later on, was subdivided into two additional sub-teams, one for ‘Hot Fixing’ (those fixes that are going into live versions, such as the 1.0.X ones), and another for ‘Cold Fixing’ (those fixes that are planned for future patches, because they are more complex or require some more time to work on or test them; you’ll see some examples of this for 1.1, down this TT).
Although these sub-teams are usually quite small (1 to 3 Devs), this organization gives us a lot of flexibility, as we can move our developers between the different development tracks depending on the necessities of the game without much overhead, while making sure that we’re able to both upkeep the base game and develop new content, something that is handled by a third sub-team; one example of this are the new advances that we added for some formable countries during December, of which here you have some:
Patch 1.1
Let’s now move into the new content for 1.1 ‘Rossbach’. As the name of the update teases, we’ve focused a lot of our work on the German region, and specifically on countries such as Brandenburg//Prussia.
Let’s start with a new disaster we have added, ‘Turmoil in Brandenburg’. It aims to handle the content concerning the 'Wittelsbacher Neglect', 'False Waldemar', and 'Robber Barons' event chains in a more cohesive way. We have also added 6 new additional events for it:
We have also added the following content for German countries in the 1.1 update:
2 new advances for the German Culture Group, with 2 new buildings
Unique advances: 1 advance for Hesse, 2 for Cologne, 6 for the Palatinate, 1 for Trier, 2 for the Hanseatic countries of The Hansa, Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Rostock.
6 new advances that unlock policies for Chivalry Order Law, creating some new German Chivalry Orders.
2 new events, one for Switzerland creating the Codex Manesse Work of Art, and one for Trier creating the Codex Balduini Trevirensis.
And we have added the following generic and unique units in this update:
Age of Reformation
saxon_defensioner - Saxon Defensioner
a_saxon_defensioner (Saxon Culture)
hesse_jager - Hessian Jäger
a_hesse_jager (Rhine Franconian Culture)
gebirgsschutzen_infantry - Gebirgsschützen
a_gebirgsschutzen_infantry (Southern/Danube Bavarian, Swiss Countries)
Age of Absolutism
prussian_grenadiers - Prussian Grenadiers
a_prussian_grenadiers (tag PRU, Prussia)
bavarian_jager - Bavarian Jäger
a_bavarian_jager (tag BAV, Bavaria)
Age of Revolutions
unlock_grenadiers_advance - Grenadiers
a_grenadiers (generic, ALL countries in the world)
cro_pandurs_recruitment - Pandur Infantry
a_pandur (tag CRO, Croatia)
austrian_grenzhussar - Grenzhussar
a_austrian_grenzhussar (tag HAB, Austria)
austrian_grenzer - Grenzer Infantry
a_austrian_grenzer (tag HAB, Austria)
Tengri Gods:
We have added 8 unique gods for the Tengri religion:
New Achievements:
We have added 7 new achievements, all in the ‘Hard’ category, aiming for more seasoned players who are looking for new challenges in EUV:
Fixes
We have made around 200 content fixes and tweaks for 1.1 ‘Rossbach’. These are the most meaningful ones, in our opinion:
Manchurian Setup Rework:
Added dozens of countries in Manchuria, Mongolia and Xinjiang.
Added a new Mongolia formable country
Added character trees to Belgutei, Hachiun, Otchigin and Qasar TAGs
Added the Baatud, Choros, Khoid and Torhgut dynasties.
Added Haixi and Hurga cultures
Removed Nanai and Solon cultures
Corrected Jusheli to Jusheri
Made pop changes in Manchuria according to feedback
Reviewed the harbor setup in China
Note: The Swiss are not Jurchen, as far as we’re aware, but they appear in the list with the other Confederations when looking for them.
Food & Tools in Andes & Mesoamerica
This one important concern for the players. It has taken us some time to get all the changes we wanted, and be able to adjust them with the economic rework for 1.1. Here you have the list of what we’ve done:
Added the Market Village Building to many Mesoamerican and Andean Rural Capitals
Added the Terrace Building to Andean Towns and Cities
Added Tool Guilds to Mesoamerican and Andean Towns
Created two new Copper-Based Production Methods; for the Tools Guild "Copper Tool Makers" and for the Jewelry Guild "Copper Base Jewelry", both unlocked by the Native American "Copperworking" Advance
Thanks to Negative Ramos for their work on the Mesoamerican Copper tools mod, which helped us to nail down the rework.
Added more Stone, Copper and Lumber to Mesoamerica
Situations:
We have worked very intensively towards improving the existing situations, fixing bugs and making tweaks. These are the most meaningful changes in some selected situations - which doesn’t mind that we haven’t been working on other, as you’ll see in the full patchnotes, but that this is the most relevant work.
HYW:
Corrected an issue for the Hundred Years’ War that made the subjects of the backstabber country not leave the war after their overlord used the "Betray our Allegiance" action
Corrected an issue for the Hundred Years’ War that made the AI doubt its own shifting allegiance after triggering the "Betray our Allegiance" action
The Hundred Years War Action "Influence French Subject" can no longer be performed during a war
Fixed an issue that allowed Appanages being called to wars by France despite the former having the appanage_prevented_from_call_to_war modifier, also added a version of the modifier for other subject types
RTR:
The Crisis of the Chinese Dynasty will no longer fire during the first 2 ages, so as to avoid interference with the Red Turbans Rebellions Situation
Added diplomatic interaction to demand the annexation of Red Turban Rebels countries
Red Turban Rebels will now have one additional cabinet seat, and the leader of the Red Turban Rebels IO will have another extra one, to get in par with the Emperor
Added one extra cabinet seat to the Emperor of the Middle Kingdom
Hussite Wars:
Added a unit action for Catholics during the Hussite Wars, "Hussite Tribunal" which will convert some Hussites back to Catholicism and eradicate some. This action can be done once the province capital is held by a Catholic enemy of Bohemia during their ongoing war
The "Crush Hussitism" now allows to release areas from Bohemia
Fixed an issue with the ‘Join the Hussite Side’ situation action which accidentally checked for not having a truce with Bohemia, when it should've checked for not having a truce with the Pope
The Hussite Wars actions "Join the Pope / Hussites" will now attract more countries of Catholic and Hussite faith each, based on how badly their faith is losing the ongoing war. So, Catholics are more likely to help the Pope if he's losing the ongoing war
The Hussite Wars situation action "Join the Papal Side" will now require the actor to have > 0 opinion towards Pope, instead of > 25
The Hussite Wars actions "Join the Pope / Hussites" no longer check for the actor country NOT being allied to the side whose button they are evaluating (so the "Join the Papal Side" action will be allowed for countries that are allied to the Pope, etc...)
The Hussite Wars actions "Join the Pope / Hussites" no longer checks for Bohemia being a member of the HRE, as that's not needed
The Hussite Wars situation peace treaty "Suppress Hussitism" no longer costs between 50 and 100 war score, it now costs 25 to 50 at most
Decreased the duration of the Hussite Wars situation action-related modifiers "Promoted Moderates/Radicals" from 10 to 3 years
Increased the cooldown of the Hussite Wars situation actions "Align with the Moderates/Radicals" from 1 to 3 years
Increased the cooldown of the Hussite Wars situation action "Prepare the Defenses" from 1 to 5 years
The Hussite Wars event "A Common Enemy" (hussite_wars.8) now occurs fewer times during the situation
The Hussite Wars actions "Demand Donation from " for Bohemia now have a cooldown of 5 years (it was 1 year)
Actions that are available to Hussite Bohemia during the Hussite Wars, are now available to Bohemia even if they are not Hussite, as long as they are not Catholic
Nanbokucho & Sengoku Jidai:
Added an event to avoid Nanbokucho, resulting in an entrenched stalemate without ending
Improved the tooltip of the Expand Clan Influence peace treaty
Expanded the Gain Clan Autonomy peace treaty to be able to be used against other clans, not just against the Shogun
Reworked the logic of how Japanese clans get landed during the Sengoku, now the clan with the most buildings in a location will get that location.
Rise of Timur:
Added the "Declare Conquest Ambition" action for the Timurids during the Rise of Timur. This action will make you choose an adjacent region as your desired region of conquest, which means that the "Plan Invasion" action will declare an immediate war against countries in that region (as well as countries with their capital in your home region) instead of just creating a casus belli. Additionally, declaring a war against any country in the designated region will now give a penalty to all locations in the regions owned by the enemies which makes the occupation of these locations significantly easier for Timur. This effect can only be applied as long Timur is alive, however. A Historical AI will prioritize Persia as their region of desire.
Western Schism:
Requesting a Cardinal is now much cheaper during the Western Schism
Being on the losing side of the Western Schism will now remove your Cardinal Seats
Added a new Parliament Issue ("Foster Religious Relations") for Countries with a religion which use Religious Influence
Council of Trent:
The Council of Trent now determines its success not by how many debates were successful or not, but by the traits of the policies after the debates compared to before. So even if a bunch of debates failed, if the doctrines are what the Protestants wished than the situation ends with Catholics and Protestant religions seeing each other as kindred
Disasters:
The Decline of Empire disaster is now utilizing Complacency and is available to all countries with high Complacency. It is renamed to "Complacent Decline" and hosts 2 new actions & 3 events
Other Complacent-disasters: Dissolution of Delhi, Decline of Mali, Decline of Majapahit
Yuan and the Mamluks now start with 25 and 15 Complacency each
HRE:
A note on this. The HRE is the most complex IO we currently have, so we’ve put a lot of effort into making further fixes and improvements to it. It’s also very dependent on AI behavior, which makes it quite challenging for us. Nonetheless, we’ve done the following, and we’ll keep working on it following the feedback we receive during the Open Beta:
The HRE now requires the ruler / heir to be of the Imperial Religion before you become eligible to be elected as the next emperor
Fixed the tooltip of the "Demand Unlawful Territory" Imperial Action, so now it shows that it is only targeting provinces with conquered locations instead of provinces with non-core locations
The HRE AI will no longer declare no CB wars within the HRE
The "Enforce Religious Unity" country interaction now gives the imperial authority directly in the action itself instead of triggering the event "A Wayward Sheep Returns" (hre.903)
The HRE gains a -0.5 Monthly Imperial Authority penalty if the Emperor is in an offensive war against another member of the HRE. This only applies to the enemy war leader, which means HRE members which just join an ally against the Emperor will not trigger this penalty
For members of the HRE declaring no-cb wars within the HRE has now a +100% cost penalty (+75% before)
For outsiders of the HRE taking land within the HRE now has a +200% antagonism penalty (+100% before)
For members of the HRE taking land within the HRE now has a +125% antagonism penalty (+75% before)
We have some more potential tweaks for the HRE in the pipeline for the first update of the 1.1 Open Beta, but they require some more time for testing, and we’re leaning towards reading your opinions after the Open Beta is released, in order to account for your feedback:
Other tweaks:
Banking Countries:
Limited the ‘Take over Loan’ action to banking countries
Added an event for the creation of the Sienese Monte dei Paschi bank
Added an event for creating the Genoese Bank of Saint George, and reorganized existing content around it
Added the Acciaioli bank in setup
Added Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu as possible revolters of the Sutayids
Reorganized of the areas of South America; created the Mato Grosso area, placed the Paraguay area correctly, fused the Pindorama and Janeiro areas.
2026
For 2026, we have two main goals in the Content Design team. On the one hand, we’ll keep improving the quality of the base game, with more fixes and improvements, while keeping adding additional free content in the base game patches. In this regard, I think that 1.1 ‘Rossbach’ gives a good idea of what to expect from now on, and what our main field of work is. In this regard, short-term and mid-term, one of our sub-teams will keep working on fixes for the 1.1 Open Beta, while another sub-team has already started working on further setup tweaks for the 1.2 patch - as that’s the part of the CD work that requires more time, as you may know if you followed the Tinto Maps series.
On the other hand, we have already started working on new content for the first DLC, Fate of the Phoenix. It’s soon to start talking about it, but I wanted to let you know that we’re already on top of it, especially for the player who acquired the Premium Edition of EUV.
And that’s all for today! By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be playing our internal dev MP, and then we’ll have our weekly Brainstorming session, so my availability will be limited; however, I’ll try to put in some time to reply as much as possible, especially tomorrow morning. And this Friday, there will be an additional Tinto Talks talking about the Art for 1.1, with SaintDaveUK and Stefan. See you, cheers!