[2023] Developer Diary - Yemen and Arabia

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Greetings everyone! Today we will take a look into Yemen and the Arabic states, coming back to a more regular type of DD.

Let us start with the content for the Yemeni countries:


Note: Mission icons are still WIP.

As you might notice, the first mission tree is for the Rassids while the second one is for all Yemeni countries. The reason for this is that they are one of the two unique tags that follow the Zaidi school of Islam (the other one is Gilan on that note) and even are a Feudal Theocracy, so figured they deserve a bit more attention.

In general, though, the Yemeni tags are relatively similar with a similar focus which is the unification of southern Arabia, expansion into the Horn of Africa, and, of course, trade.

The Yemeni tags won’t have any big gimmicks to play with as you will probably either form the Mamluks / Egypt or Arabia later on. With that being said, they still have some interesting additions and small design experiments. An example is the addition of more age-lasting rewards like in the “Unite Yemen” mission:

Note: Completing missions with age-limited modifiers after the age has passed will just give some small monarch power instead.

These kinds of rewards should incentivize you to focus on certain missions and allow us to give impactful rewards without having to worry about them stacking too much indefinitely as this was the case with permanent rewards.

A bit of a theme for the Yemeni mission rewards is to strengthen the Propagate Religion Trade Policy as you can see in the following missions:


And as a trade-focused nation, you will gain the ‘Thalassocracy’ reward when you manage to make the Gulf of Aden the highest-valued trade node and make a monthly income of 300 ducats.


What is a Yemeni country without its focus on coffee?


The “Port of Mukha” requires you to have a workshop, shipyard, and 20 development in the coffee province. The resulting plantation will then pretty much carry your economy while you can focus on “Qahwah Monopoly”.

Now a short insight in the Rassids-specific missions:



And when you are done with the Yemen mission tree then you can form into Arabia to continue your campaign. With “Unite Arabia” you will be able to form Arabia a lot earlier too:


With that being said, let’s take a look at the Arabic content. Before I go into the Arabic mission trees, I should mention that Arabia has received new ideas so they are no longer a drawback to form:

ARB_ideas = {
start = {
tolerance_own = 2
years_of_nationalism = -10
}

bonus = {
siege_ability = 0.15
}

trigger = {
tag = ARB
}
free = yes

ARB_arabian_pincers = {
cav_to_inf_ratio = 0.25
cavalry_power = 0.25
}
ARB_pact_of_umar = {
dhimmi_loyalty_modifier = 0.1
global_tax_modifier = 0.2
}
ARB_engage_in_indian_ocean_trade = {
trade_steering = 0.2
}
ARB_conversion = {
global_missionary_strength = 0.03
}
ARB_jihad = {
warscore_cost_vs_other_religion = -0.1
}
ARB_new_caliphate_rising = {
missionaries = 1
missionary_maintenance_cost = -0.25
}
ARB_mubarizun = {
army_tradition_decay = -0.01
}
}
Also forming Arabia will now fire the following flavor event, allowing you to change your capital to one of the important provinces from the Caliphate states:


Now to the mission tree for the Arabic countries and Arabia as a whole:


These missions are available to all Bedouin and Hejazi countries. The mission tree is split into 5 parts, 2 of them are inspired by Hejaz while the other 2 smaller parts are inspired by Najd. The last and biggest part is telling the narrative of the formation of a new Arabic Caliphate, and as such possesses a large number of conquest missions.

Starting with the Hejaz-flavored mission parts which branch from the missions “Promote Shura” and “Protectors of the Two Cities”. Here are some highlights of these missions:



Note: Jeddah is a Coastal Desert province. So in total, the province will have a -5% Local Development Cost from mission rewards after completing these missions.

As for the Najd-flavored part, here are the following highlights:

Note: Countries which do not have the government mechanic gain +15% Permanent Reinforce Speed instead.




Before moving on to the last part of the mission tree, I should mention a special decision available to Bedouin and Hejazi countries. Near the city of Medina used to be an old gold mine which was virtually exhausted in EU4’s timeframe. However, as your early economy in Arabia is barely sufficient enough to cover your state maintenance, we have added a decision that allows the Medina province to help boost your economy for the early years:


And once gold runs out of its usefulness to you, you can restore Cloth production once more.


At last, we now take a look at the core of the mission tree which is heavily dedicated to expansion to mirror the past achievements of the Islamic conquests. As these missions are quite self-explanatory, I will focus on the big highlights of this part:




Note: The mission is significantly easier to complete than the Unify Islam decision.



That was it for this week. Next week @Pavia will present you a feature breakdown of 1.36 as well as new and exciting QoL and modding additions. Until then, I wish you all a great week!

What do you think of these new missions for Yemen and Arabia? Let us know in the comments below or discuss with us on our Discord here: https://pdxint.at/45bfgP4