[2023] Developer Diary - Empire of France

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

Bonjour! Welcome to this week’s Development Diary where we will be taking a closer look at the new content for France. Before we begin, I would like to take a moment and discuss the idea behind giving content to France and other countries which have already received content of any form in previous years. The idea behind revisiting them for the upcoming DLC is that we want to elevate them up to our current standards of quality and aim at making these nations fun again for people who have completed several campaigns before, already. In addition, we consider France alongside the Ottomans and some of the other Great Powers as the final big bosses of the campaign, powerful and scary, but at the same time not railroaded towards success.

To be clear, the content displayed here (missions, reforms and events tied to the tree) will be part of the DLC. We’ll also be adding a lot of new content in update 1.35 for free, but we’ll talk about that later in March (although we already gave an early preview of that with the new Idea Groups). Please keep in mind that the values and art displayed here are far from final and will be further tweaked, with your feedback!

On a personal note, France is one of my most favorite countries to play and as such, I am extremely excited to unveil the extensive content I have prepared for them. The philosophy behind this content is to imprint as much of France’s history as possible within the confines of the game. As a result, playing as France you will experience the most extensive and intricate mission tree we have created since Rule Britannia, with 84 new missions, dozens of new events, mechanics, decisions, a new monument, government reforms, a new subject type and even new Revolutionary content included in the tree. Please enjoy reading through this Developer Diary and I hope you enjoy it!

So, starting off, let’s take a look at the new mission tree I have in store for you:




Much like my previous work, this mission tree is also broken down into different parts, each with its own thematic direction, objectives and goals. The goal behind this extensive reward is to utilize the tree as a narrative vehicle to tell the story behind the growth and rise of the French kingdom from the end of the Hundred Years' War to the conquests of Napoleon.

It features a combination of some of the game’s most popular aspects, let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

The start of the game will greet you with a new event, telling the story of the Hundred Years War and the state of France. Some of the first missions at the very top of the tree will deal with retaking the cores back from England, making your cores cheaper to demand in a peace deal and awarding you with more crown land. The culmination of that path, from retaking Gascony and Normandy, to securing the Armorican Peninsula leads to the Crown of France, with a reward that will help you consolidate yourself as a great power:




At the same time, on the right hand side of the tree, you will be called to decide the fate of Provence, with the choice to ask their monarch for a voluntary union under the French banner. By raising relations, a royal marriage, strong trust and favors you may earn yourself a powerful subject. Else, if you wish to conquer them, the reward will be a not-insignificant amount of Aggressive Expansion reduction, perhaps a great play for further conquest into Italy ?



Ducal Lands of Avignon is a very important part of the experience, as it will let you decide the fate of a considerable part of your campaign. I really enjoy the dichotomy of choice in Europa Universalis IV so I opted to give the player as much of a choice as possible when it comes to shaping your world, country and even your mission tree. Thus, this mission will give you the choice between amending your relations with the Pope and taking on the sword of Christianity back into the Holy Lands or denouncing his authority and gaining more missions for conquering Italy, that compliment the main Italy branch further below.



But wait a minute, you may ask: Why do I receive a mission path to conquer Italy if I amend my relations with the Pope and proclaim a mutual friendship and alliance ?

Should you decide to side with the Pope and forge a bond between your nations, your missions around Italy will shift significantly. You are no longer conquering Italy DIRECTLY for the crown of France. You will be doing it as the righteous sword of the Holy Father and thus completing missions in the Italian Peninsula will cede these territories to the Pope and grant you powerful bonuses to strengthen both your nation and the Papal States:



You will of course have the choice to shift your approach before you embark on this conquest path, instead opting to have Italy directly for yourself.

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights on this path:



The Golden March will either have the Pope coronate your ruler or grant you a new type of evolving modifier. This reward will grow in strength as you conquer Italy, with each mission you complete.


Note: The second part of the reward is not an error per se, rather I still need to implement a new Great Project in the French region

The tree offers a vast array of new events, one of which is the Treaty of the Golden Bulls, a way to demand direct allegiance from the Pope as you have been very successful in conquering Italy for the Holy See.




As noted further above in the mission tree, the Papal States has a right to decline both the initial cooperation agreement and the Treaty of Golden Bulls, albeit the latter will bring forth dire consequences in the form of stability, prestige and devotion loss.

This path ends with the mission ‘Expand the French Domain’ which will seek to consolidate all of Italy under either the Papal or French banner:


Note: changing your Catholic religion will result in the tree defaulting back to its direct-conquest approach, erasing all rewards earned from this path.

Simultaneously, you will need to safeguard your southern borders, dealing with Iberia. You can either help an Iberian country towards consolidating their power in the peninsula (more on that in a future Dev Diary) or choose to conquer the region for the French Crown.


(This reward may be a bit too strong, but please keep in mind that you will lose it should you conquer any land in Iberia. Further balancing will take place!)

Before we move on to further parts of the tree, the left side of these paths will lead into Facing the Habsburg / HR Empire. As shown before, here you will find a difficult choice: To unite the HRE and revive Charlemagne’s ambitions or shatter it and take it all for yourself!



The path to diplomatically gain land in the HRE via contesting the Emperorship will reveal some interesting missions, let’s take a look:

By swaying the opinion of several electors and securing their crucial vote, while outgrowing the current emperor in terms of land, prestige and diplomatic ability, we will gain the following reward:



The current Emperor, will receive an ultimatum in the form of an Event with the following options:



The first option will relinquish the emperorship to France, but the AI will almost NEVER (in all caps) opt for this option. The second option will use funds from the Imperial treasury to block France’s ambitions for imperial ascendance while the third option will enable the Austrian player to counter the claim and receive a special Restoration of Union CB on the throne of France. This option will only be pursued by the AI when it’s militaristic and/or when it’s confident in its ability to eradicate the French in the field of battle (will make for some interesting multiplayer scenarios!)

Through the other missions (‘Right by Blood’ and ‘Means of Expansion’) you will interact with new unique rewards in the form of events and evolution of great projects for owners of Leviathan:



Of course the tree would not be complete without the customary “Beat England” path which is thematically tied in with colonial and Low-Countries related missions:



Conquering the British Isles will result in the following event:


(The values here are experimental, especially since Ship Cannons is a new modifier I wanted to introduce in 1.35!)

The alternative option would grant us a powerful permanent reduction to Culture Conversion cost, the ability to concentrate development without losses as well as the unique mechanic of reducing separatism in provinces we concentrate development from!






(Another example of a new modifier I was very excited to talk about, Max Number of Flagships!)

This concludes the first part of the French mission tree, out of three! Moving on, let’s take a look at my favourite part: Internal management and flavor missions!

Let’s begin by making a quick remark about the new subject types of France, the Appanages, in order to highlight the importance behind the gameplay of France’s path towards centralization.
They will have a few unique subject interactions and they are only accessible by France. Their liberty desire will be quite high at the start of the game, for 2 reasons:

• They need to feel like a threat to the French dominion
  
• Burgundy’s mission League of Public Weal should now have an actual impact, raising the French subject liberty desire to above 50%

(Appanages will have their own art and more in the final release!)




An interesting note about this mission, one of the ways to complete it, is by having Jean Bureau win several times on the battlefield!

And here’s a barrage of flavorful missions, enjoy!










I should note here that one of the biggest proponents of 15th and early 16th century gameplay will revolve around centralizing the state and concentrating power in the hands of the monarch. As such, France will start the game with this Tier 1 unique government reform:



Which will be removed and replaced by this around the 16th century as you increase your crown land, centralize and steer the glorious nation of France to a new era:



This will open the door to further facilitation of imperial ambitions both at home and abroad:

The French Musketeers are no longer a simple abstract Age Ability! They are now a cool new special unit armed with +10% Fire Damage and very ample in its numbers. The reform itself will grant you access to around 50% of your forcelimit as Musketeers so they cannot be as powerful as other special units and of course these numbers are definitely not final!

Also, feel free to suggest a colour for the French Musketeers (meaning, a tone of Blue, as the BBB deserves )!





You may ask “So France now gets both Fire Damage from the Age Ability AND their special units?”
Sacrebleu no! Their Age of Absolutism ability is now this:


(The art is not final)

I felt like the one nation that defined the era and the meaning of Absolutism, deserves its own brand of it. More details on Ages and Splendor abilities in the future!

Moving on, Colbert was a very influential figure in France, in his time. As such I wanted to portray him in his own mission, with a cool new reward type which depends upon the choice you make in the ‘Colbert’ base game event. (If you have not received the event, you will instead receive the event and a large amount of Mercantilism). He was incredibly important to France and I encourage you to visit his page[en.wikipedia.org] and learn more about him!









Note; my original plans for this canal was to convince the team to let me carve an actual canal connecting the Cote d’ Argent with the Mediterranean but alas it is sadly not within our capabilities.

Moving on, let’s take a look at Revolutionary content for France. As a player myself, I understand that it’s difficult to stick to a campaign and at times it gets less fun the later the game goes, and that’s part of the reason why I strived to give France as much flavor, missions, events, reforms etc as possible, to help the player (and myself) reach the Age of Revolutions in order to enjoy the content I made for it.








Completing the missions regarding the Peninsular War and Invading Italy, will reward you with powerful new tools, ripped straight from the National Ideas of the countries you conquered. In Spain case, for example you will receive a 10% increase to your Morale of Armies. However, the real twist here is that if you complete these missions with a subject owning these regions, the subject’s color will change to reflect yours. And this is where I want your feedback my beloved community:


(Colors are restored upon regaining independence!)

Should the colors be a 1:1 representation of the French color, or should they be a similar but somewhat different shade for better border readability? I personally lean towards the latter option.

The conquest branch ends on the following mission:



Simultaneously, you will be able to follow the path of Napoleon’s internal affairs and recreate some of his accomplishments.


Note; I decided to make these decisions, which empower your Revolutionary Guard, mutually exclusive because whilst I love playing France, they should not be able to employ scores of super soldiers. However, each decision will impact the above mission differently, so choose wisely!



Before we part ways, I would like to hear your opinion on the following change. I decided to give France a new set of Ideas and would love to hear your thoughts on it. The reason behind this change is clear; I want France’s idea set to be reflective of the time period between 1444 and the revolution, with a second idea set adopted upon embracing the Revolution:

Starting French idea set:

FRA_ideas = {
start = {
diplomatic_reputation = 1
global_manpower_modifier = 0.2
}

bonus = {
development_cost = -0.1
}

trigger = {
tag = FRA
if = {
limit = { has_dlc = "Emperor" }
is_revolution_target = no
}
else = { is_revolutionary = no }
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

lessons_hundred_years_war = {
army_tradition = 0.5
land_morale = 0.15
}
fra_taille = {
global_tax_modifier = 0.1
war_taxes_cost_modifier = -0.5
}
estates_general = {
reform_progress_growth = 0.1
global_unrest = -1
}
europes_first_standing_army = {
discipline = 0.05
}
native_trading_principles = {
native_uprising_chance = -0.5
native_assimilation = 0.5
}
divine_right_to_rule = {
core_creation = -0.1
max_absolutism = 5
}
vauban_fortifications = {
defensiveness = 0.15
garrison_damage = 0.5 #Note for the modders, it’s a float for casualty damage (mostly for MP)
}

Revolutionary France idea set:

FRA_ideas_2 = {
start = {
max_revolutionary_zeal = 5
harsh_treatment_cost = -0.5
}

bonus = {
siege_ability = 0.2
}

trigger = {
tag = FRA
if = {
limit = { has_dlc = "Emperor" }
is_revolution_target = yes
}
else = { is_revolutionary = yes }
}
free = yes #will be added at load.

revolutionary_tribunal = {
years_of_nationalism = -10
}
elan = {
land_morale = 0.15
morale_damage = 0.05
}
mandats_territoriaux = {
production_efficiency = 0.15
inflation_reduction = 0.05
}
liberty_egalite_fraternity = {
tolerance_heretic = 1
tolerance_heathen = 1
}
jourdan_law = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.2
}
napoleonic_tactics = {
military_tactics = 0.1
drill_gain_modifier = 0.5
}
european_ambitions = {
core_creation = -0.2
}
}

For reference, here’s the old 1.34 set that France has:

FRA_ideas = {
start = {
diplomatic_reputation = 1
global_manpower_modifier = 0.20
}

bonus = {
discipline = 0.05
}

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

french_language_in_all_courts = {
diplomatic_upkeep = 1
}
elan = {
land_morale = 0.20
}
estates_general = {
global_tax_modifier = 0.1
}
native_trading_principles = {
native_uprising_chance = -0.5
native_assimilation = 0.5
}
vauban_fortifications = {
fort_maintenance_modifier = -0.2
}
the_philosophes = {
technology_cost = -0.1
}
liberty_egalite_fraternity = {
tolerance_heathen = 2
tolerance_heretic = 2
}
}

As a player, I find it immersion-breaking to have ideas for the Revolution before / without embracing the Revolution itself, and that’s part of the reason why I wanted to make this addition.

As I mentioned before, the tree hosts 84 new missions, dozens of events and so much more content than I could display here, without taking over your entire day reading and writing. This Dev Diary barely scratches the surface of what’s to come for France and I am very excited to hear your thoughts on it.

That is all for this week, thank you all so much for taking the time to read through this Developer Diary and please do come back next week, where Pavia will be discussing new content for Iberia!

Le Chapel Comique: