[2022] 1.34 Denmark

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

Hej allesamen! Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! After covering the Baltics it is finally time to switch our focus to Scandinavia, so let’s get started!

As the 13th century drew to a close, powerful social mechanisms such as feudalism and manorialism had formed deep roots in the Danish Court. At the same time, the Christian church had, at that point, come to dominate religious matters all across the Scandinavian region. At home, the royal family, spearheaded by Margaret I, would finally place a singular dynastic head on each of the three lions’ thrones, during the last years of the 14th century.

As of the treaty of Kalmar in 1397 the Nordic Crowns of Norway, Sweden and Denmark are intended to be borne by one monarch. Since its inception this Kalmar Union has been led by the Danes, the strongest and richest of the Nordic powers, close to the continent with an ambition to control and dominate the Baltic Sea area.

Eventually however, the Kalmar Union fell apart when Sweden broke free from Denmark and established an empire of its own later on. The goal of the Danish mission tree is to avoid this fate. It also focuses on the ambitions Denmark had during the time period of EU4 and as such is a lot less experimental than the Teutonic and the Livonian Orders’ mission trees.



You will notice that the Danish mission tree is separated into two “blocks”. The first half is about keeping the Kalmar Union together with a few conquest missions on the side to ensure that Denmark is the sole maritime power in North Europe.
The second block on the other hand is a lot more about the Danish ambitions of colonialism, the question of religion, embracement of Absolutism and the usage of mercenaries as the army for Denmark.

We will focus on the Kalmar Union block first as it ties into the mechanics which are unique to Denmark with the upcoming DLC. When you start as Denmark while the DLC is active you will be confronted with this government reform at your start:



The Kalmar Union is a somewhat mixed bag for the player. On the one hand, the diplomatic relations and possible advisors are desirable to have, but on the other hand you are confronted with the fact that you can not manually integrate any kind of personal union (however, inheriting them is still feasible though). You also have to deal with the “Kalmar Election” which is a unique mechanic to Denmark.
As you might know neither Sweden nor Norway had a hereditary monarchy but an elective one. So whenever your king dies as Denmark while you have this government active you get the following event:





This will trigger the following event for your Scandinavian personal unions:
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It is important to note that the AI will make their choice based on your prestige, diplomatic reputation and how much Liberty Desire they have with the latter one being their biggest factor. As Denmark you really want to keep the liberty desire low of each of your personal unions or otherwise they might spiral out of your control and will easily find supporters for their independence.

While the first and third options are rather self-explanatory, the second one is a choice that the AI can take when they are not fully convinced by your ruler - mostly when your ruler is quite the unfortunate one regarding his monarch skills - but do not desire to break out of the Kalmar Union yet. In this case the junior partners can suggest somebody from their own ranks to take over the Kalmar Union as your king:



This will of course trigger an event for Denmark where they can accept or reject to proposed regent:




Of course you can always reject the proposal, though this will result in your junior partner becoming slightly upset about your decision. Alternatively, you can accept the new king, but because your junior partners have to elect their king this will result in a new re-election:



However, this event will not allow your junior partners to propose another new king (otherwise you would end up in a loop of elections of new kings while hilarious for the first three or four rounds can become quite annoying really fast). Additionally, the one who suggested your new king in the first place will ALWAYS elect him to king, so you can reduce some liberty desire this way.

While the Swedish and Norwegian nobilities are a pain to deal with, you cannot forget your own. Historically, the Danish nobles did not support the Kalmar Union and attempted to exploit the divided attention of the Danish King. This gets represented in form of an event which triggers around every four years:



There are 11 demands in total and the nobility will pick one of them. Each one of them has some penalty to your country: be it from losing monarch power to losing Ducats to even getting the risk of a hunting accident.



Now let’s go back to Denmark's mission tree. The centerpiece of the mission tree focuses on resolving the conflicts with the other junior partners. By increasing the opinions of your Norwegian and Swedish subjects you can complete the missions “The Crown of Norway” and “The Crown of Sweden” which give you the following events respectively.



The first option allows you to receive a penalty to National Tax Modifier / Goods Produced Modifier by -10% and an increase of the Nobility’s Influence by +10%, but in return your two subjects gain a modifier which decreases their liberty desire by 10% and increase their Yearly Tax Income, which makes them to durable subjects during your wars with other European countries. The second option just gives some monarch power. On the other hand there is the third option which allows you to be more risky with your personal unions, giving the following effects:



Note: keep in mind that numbers and modifiers are NOT final.

The “Integrate Holstein” mission is rather self explanatory. However, “The Nobles of Sweden” is a little bit of a different story:



This whole mission is basically about a medium-long event chain (which also incorporates some of the vanilla Danish / Swedish events into it) where you can choose how to deal with the nobility of Sweden. For the sake of simplicity I will only highlight the two possible results of the event chains:





The event for Sweden when Denmark chooses to be more hostile...

After dealing with the Swedish nobility (by either defeating them on the battlefield which is Sweden or by executing them in quick succession in Stockholm), you can start working on the “Ratify the Kalmar Union” mission which triggers the following event for you:



Note: Modifiers and mechanic values are subject to change.

Keep in mind that you get this event ONLY when you complete the “Ratify the Kalmar Union” mission while having the Kalmar Union government reform. Otherwise you get +100 Monarch Points for each category. The military bonuses mentioned here are the following ones: you gain flat +2000 Manpower and +400 Sailors per Junior Partner + an additional +5% Global Manpower Modifier and Global Sailors Modifier. Meanwhile, your junior partners will receive the military benefits of Marches, so keeping them as your military buffer states.

You also unlock one decision which might be welcome to any roleplayer here:



Historically, only Christopher III von Wittelsbach styled himself as “Arch-King” while everyone else in Europe just used the normal title. In a time where Cristopher and his heirs might have managed to keep the union together it seemed plausible enough to us that future generations of Danish rulers might choose to follow Christopher’s naming fashion. It is, however, a purely visual title and you gain no other benefit than having an unique title.

Now that we are done with the Kalmar Union section let’s take a look at the remaining missions of the first block. The most right side of the missions are quite obvious what they are about: challenge the English navy, conquer England and gain dominance in the British Isles. These missions are referencing the North Sea Empire, but the mission descriptions make clear that the conquest of England is motivated by maritime rivalry and commercial dominance in Lübeck and the English Channel, not by the lost accomplishments of the Danish vikings centuries ago.

The most left branch of the missions is more concerned about a more important enemy Denmark is facing: the Hansa. Some of you, the community, already commented how the poor merchant republic of Lübeck gets bullied in this DLC and Denmark’s mission tree continues with this trend. The mission “Humiliate Lübeck” unlocks a decision for you which will be very much needed for the next mission:



The mission “The Cities of the Hansa” will require you to control all the important centers of trade in the Lübeck trade node - all lands in the HRE. Because of that, you will most likely know to appreciate this decision as this will trigger a DEFENSIVE war against the Hansa.
The rest of the mission branch is then about conquering Estonia and Novgorod and of course expanding the Sound Toll. Highlight here is a permanent +25% Trade Efficiency modifier.

Now that we are done with the European affairs part of the mission tree it is time to go into detail for the second block of missions. The missions linked to “Colonial Ambitions” are the biggest branch of this mission tree and cover the colonial ambitions of Denmark with a big focus on colonizing valuable trade company regions and a lesser focus on the New World (which also gets updated if you happen to play with a Random New World).

The second biggest branch of the flavor events are the branching missions on the most right. These are focusing on the religious direction of your country: stay loyal to the Catholic Church, embrace the Reformation or become a state of Tolerance. Completing the mission “The Age of Reformation” fires the following event which unlocks your religious missions:



One notable mission from the religious ones are the “Spread the Reformation” / “The Religious League” missions which you unlock by either taking Reformation or Catholicism missions respectively. What makes them special is that they are intertwined with the Religious League War. You complete them by winning the Religious League War and the mission rewards you with +2 Military Skill for your monarch and +150 opinion of every HRE member which follows your religion, which makes becoming the next Emperor of the HRE more feasible.

One minor but important branch I want to go into detail is the one regarding the mercenaries. As some of you might know, Denmark is not really known for its own strong military during this time period. Instead of Danish soldiers, the kings of Denmark relied heavily on German mercenaries to do the monarchs’ bidding. The mission “The German Mercenaries” emphasizes it. By improving the opinion of several owners of homes of Germanic mercenary companies you can complete this mission and the following event fires for you:



The mercenaries you unlock are dependent on which owners of Germanic merc company homes have a high opinion of you. In this case Denmark increased the opinions of Saxony, Hesse, Wurttemberg and Switzerland.

And that was the Danish mission tree!

As we were working on the Danish mission tree the time for us has come to also revisit the Danish ideas. While the kingdoms of Norway and Sweden have unique and/or very powerful ideas, the Danish ideas fell flat on both fronts. We wanted to change this for the upcoming update and as such we decided to give Denmark an update:
DAN_ideas = {
start = {
navy_tradition = 1 #Prev: ship_durability = 0.05
global_manpower_modifier = 0.2 #Prev: global_tax_modifier = 0.1
}

bonus = {
global_naval_engagement_modifier = 0.15 #Prev: global_naval_engagement_modifier = 0.10
}

trigger = {
tag = DAN
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

dan_kalmar_union = { #Prev: shock_damage = 0.1
liberty_desire_from_subject_development = -0.2
diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.1
}
dan_sound_dues = {
global_own_trade_power = 0.2 #Prev: global_manpower_modifier = 0.2
trade_efficiency = 0.05 #Prev: global_sailors_modifier = 0.2
}
dan_the_kings_sea = {
naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5 #Prev: naval_morale = 0.1, disengagement_chance = 0.05
}
dan_royal_mercenaries = { #Prev: build_cost = -0.15
shock_damage = 0.1
mercenary_discipline = 0.05
}
dan_naval_heroes = { #Prev: naval_maintenance_modifier = -0.15
leader_naval_shock = 1
naval_morale = 0.15
}
dan_colonial_ventures = { #Prev: naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
global_colonial_growth = 15
}
dan_danish_absolutism_idea = { #Prev: global_unrest = -1
global_autonomy = -0.05
max_absolutism = 10
}
}
While we were updating the ideas of Denmark we also remembered another favorite of the community whose ideas were rather lackluster - even for its time back then:
VEN_ideas = {
start = {
trade_steering = 0.33 #Prev: global_sailors_modifier = 0.20
republican_tradition = 0.25 #Prev: global_trade_power = 0.1
}

bonus = {
galley_power = 0.25
}

trigger = {
tag = VEN
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

venetian_arsenal = {
naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.25
ship_durability = 0.05 #Prev: galley_cost = -0.20
}
printing_industry = {
diplomats = 1
}
stato_da_mar = {
trade_efficiency = 0.2 #Prev: trade_efficiency = 0.10
}
state_inquisition = {
global_spy_defence = 0.3
yearly_corruption = -0.05 #New
}
conscription = {
global_sailors_modifier = 0.33 #Prev: naval_maintenance_modifier = -0.2, sailor_maintenance_modifer = -0.05
}
defend_the_law = {
global_unrest = -2 #Prev: stability_cost_modifier = -0.1, justify_trade_conflict_cost = -0.1
}
provveditori_ai_beni_inculti = {
development_cost = -0.1 #Prev: land_attrition = -0.10, naval_attrition = -0.10
}
}
Owners of Rule Britannia will also have access to more Naval Doctrines for more countries. These are the new ones added to the game we have so far:

For Danish countries:For Norwegian countries:For Dutch / Flemish countries:

It is unclear right now if we’ll add more naval doctrines or not, but we have an open ear for more naval doctrine suggestions.

And that’s it for this week! Next week’s DD will be about the most overpowered perfectly balanced country in Scandinavia.

Until then I wish you all a nice week!