EU4 Dev Diary - Aztecs, Mayans and Incas

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

While the European kingdoms are leaving the Medieval period and starting their centralization to the modern states, the New World these soon-to-be colonizers will discover is already home to other empires. The heart of Mexico is settled by the Nahuatl empire of the Aztecs, led by the great Moctezuma I who aims to centralize the Triple Alliance and establish a realm that drives fear to the hearts of its enemies. The Mayans, once controllers of the jungles of Chiapas and Guatemala have retreated to the Yucatan peninsula. Their once great realm is now splintered into a series of city-states, not all too unlike the Italian domains. In the heights of the Andes reigns the many different Inti kingdoms. One of them, Cusco, will be destined to unify the region under the rule of Pachacuti and his descendants, forming the first Incan Empire.

Welcome to our newest Development Diary for the upcoming DLC. Today, we will take a look at the content for Central and South America - namely the Aztecs, the Mayans, and the Incas. As always, all values you see here are NOT final. So without further ado, let us get started.

First, we shall take a look at Mexico and a few setup changes there:


The Mexico Trade Node has received some additional Centers of Trade, as well as a new province modifier added to a few selected provinces that represent the mining of obsidian. This is, however, only limited to those of the Mesoamerican technology group:


Next are some changes to the country of the Aztecs. They now start with the Empire rank instead of the Kingdom rank and their starting ruler, Moctezuma I, also starts with the guaranteed “Legendary Conqueror” personality trait.


However, the Aztecs were never as centralized as EU4 can realistically depict it. Historically, they were more an alliance of the city-states instead, though Moctezuma I was on his way to centralize the state. As such, the Aztecs also start with a new privilege:


Now let us take a closer look at the mission tree:

Note: Mission icons are still placeholders and will be of course replaced with the proper images for the release.

The mission tree is separated into 3 big chunks. The first block at the very top is about dominating the Mexican region, and as such is the main bulk of your New World conquest. The biggest highlight of this part is the opportunity to buff your Moctezuma progressively more as you continue through your missions.

Note: We might add a Monarch Lifespan modifier to these rewards so your Moctezuma can enjoy his newfound powers for a little bit longer. We also might consider changing his starting situation as a general into an event to further increase his survivability.

The second subtree is all about your government and, of course, your blood tribute to the gods. Some highlights from this part are the following:


Now a few of you might have noticed that certain keywords such as “Blood” and “Mesoamerican Tributaries” have been mentioned. These are part of the new government mechanics the Aztecs will now start with:

Note: The art is still work in progress.






The “Demand Sacrifices” peace option always requires a 50% War Score and grants 10 Blood.


Next are the Mesoamerican Tributaries which is a new subject type available to all Mayan and Nahuatl countries. You establish them with a new peace treaty:



They act just like normal tributaries, though you can sacrifice their ruler and you can annex them. On that note, all of your conquest missions in Mesoamerica can be completed via these tributaries or vassals.

Last but not least, the final subtree is all about the economic and military affairs of the Aztecs. I should also probably mention here that there are no Jaguar special units and a tease for them was not intentional whatsoever. With that being said, here are some highlights of these missions:


Note: these missions are more long-term based as you will require some higher advanced technologies to complete them. Also, the Telpochcalli Academy will probably have its Possible Number of Buildings penalty replaced.

Before we move on to the next country, one quick note for all the non-Aztec Nahuatl countries: as there was time for only the Aztec mission tree itself, every Nahuatl country gets a decision to adopt the Aztec mission tree if they conquer the Aztecs and own the Mexico provinces themselves.


Moving on to the Mayans, every Mayan country gets a small mission tree at the start which helps you out for the formation of the Mayan Confederation:

Note: With “Venus” we mean the planet Venus. That was localized before finding the name “Chac Ek” or “Noh Ek” to use instead. Will be fixed before release.

Highlights of these missions are the “The Sign of Venus”, “Campaigning Season” and “Reforming our Society” which have evolving rewards. Every time you unlock a Religious Reform, these three missions get reset (in other words “un-completed”) which allows you to complete them again. Their evolving modifier gets upgraded whenever you complete the missions again.

Another change to the Maya formable is that you now need only 2 Mayan Religious Reforms instead of the full 5. However, forming the Mayas will still be rather painful as whenever you enact a new Religious Reform you get a 5 year penalty to your Manpower Recovery Speed (-10%) and your Harsh Treatment Cost (+100%) which also disables the ability to Increase Autonomy and manually decrease War Exhaustion. You also gain +3 War Exhaustion whenever you undergo a reform.

Once you form the Maya you get the following mission tree:

Note: we are aware of the mission title leaving the GUI here. Will be fixed before the release.

Similar to the Aztec mission tree, the Maya one is about unifying Mesoamerica under your banner, as well as focusing on the economic improvements of your empire.

I will focus now on mentioning some highlights of the mission tree which are the following missions:




With that, we finish the Mayans and will now take a closer look at the Incas. The first thing that needs to be mentioned is that the map of the Andes does NOT get any additional provinces or tags. This also means that there are no new wastelands too. There are, however, some small setup changes. Similar to the Aztecs, Pachacuti starts with the “Legendary Conqueror” personality trait but has been reduced to a 4/3/5 (down from 5/4/6). The missions Cusco has received are similarly structured to the ones of the Aztecs as they buff your starting ruler:


Some early highlights in the mission tree are the following:


The decision to colonize the provinces requires you to defeat the local tribes and have 50 Ducats ready. Using the decision will then start a Frontier Colony in said province, and this decision can go far along the Andes as you can see in the following screenshot:

Note: All the green-striped provinces are ones you can colonize via the decision.[/center]

Additionally, you also have access to the following estate privilege:


Once you form Inca you gain the following mission tree as a whole:


While you have the original Cusco missions about the conquest, you also get four additional, smaller subtrees that have their own focus.

The first small subtree is about the Mitma - a policy of forced resettlement of the border provinces. The highlight here is the following reward:


Another subtree is about the religious nature of the Inca, highlighted by the following reward:




You might now notice that “Regenesis of History” mentions “Mummified Rulers”. As you can see, the Incan religion has an interesting and unique quirk which is the fact that your dead ruler is de jure still alive. They get mummified and continue to participate in all of your governmental activities. To represent this in EU4 you will now always trigger the following event upon your ruler’s demise:


The third subtree is about gold, idols, and economy represented by the following mission rewards:

Finally, the last subtree focuses on developing your lands and your military, giving you the following rewards:


And with that, we conclude the Incan missions. However, we are not entirely done as all the aforementioned countries get one mission subtree which is all about the so-called Sunset Invasion:


These missions are always at the very bottom and follow one major theme which is the invasion of Europe and Asia by the American powers - both main culprits of colonizing the new world in many EU4 campaigns.

I won’t go too much into detail with those missions as they are mostly focused on large conquest campaigns. However, some rewards are worth mentioning:


Last but not least, Fatherlorris' comic:


That was it for this week. Thank you all for reading today’s Development Diary! My colleague Big Boss will continue next week with a DD on the Netherlands, Venice, and Italy.