[2022] The Rise of Sweden

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

Hallå allihopa! Welcome to our next Development Diary for Europa Universalis IV! Today is the day where we finally get to cover the content for Sweden, so let’s get started!

Yesterday, June 6th, it was celebrated the National Day of Sweden, as the remembrance of Gustav Vasa being elected king in 1523. This was a pivotal moment in Swedish history, as it finished the union with the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway after more than one century of common government. It happened after some decades of a troublesome political relation between the Sweden nobility and the Danish kings that ended in the tragic Stockholm Bloodbath, and the already mentioned coronation of King Gustav, starting the famous and powerful Vasa dynasty, which would rule until mid 17th century.

The mission tree for Sweden recaptures the rise of Sweden to the dominant power of the Baltics prior to the Great Northern War. But it also covers other ambitions and developments of Sweden.



The Swedish mission tree is split into two blocks just like Denmark’s: the first half of the mission tree is all about the historical conquest and their further ambitions in Europe. The other half, on the other hand, is a lot more about flavor missions which focus on internal development, colonization and of course the religious direction of your country.

Starting with the “conquest block”, Sweden’s initial missions - “Engelbrekt Rebellion”, “Swedish Allies”, “Military Advice” and “Support from the Estates” - revolve around preparing yourself for your war for independence against Denmark. It should be noted that certain events such as “The Engelbrekt Rebellion” have been incorporated into these first missions.

“Swedish Allies” can be completed by improving the relations of Denmark’s enemies / rivals and fires the following event:


Note: Support Independence is becoming part of this DLC.

Note: Numbers are not final.

Not in the picture is the third option, which just decreases your liberty desire by 50%. This option is mostly used by the AI in case Denmark managed to handle the Swedish nobility already and the AI just happens to complete this mission by accident.

If you have chosen the second option and you win your independence war against Denmark without any allies whatsoever then the following event will fire for you:



However, if you try to cheese it by selecting the second option and then getting support for independence from another country then you get this event during the war with Denmark:



With the mission “Military Advise” you get another event which will support you in your quest for independence:




Note: Johan (Kristernsson) Vasa is the grandfather of Gustav I Vasa. If you complete this mission at a later date you get Erik Vasa - the father of Gustav - or even Gustav Vasa himself. There is virtually no difference between them other than their names however.

When you gain your independence while the modifier is active then another event will fire for you:



Of course you have the option to keep your current king. The AI will always choose the king with the better stats.

Finally, with “Support from the Estates” you can choose what kind of support you want and from who:



The Nobility will grant you a level 2 discipline advisor for only 25% of his price, the Clergy gives a large amount of Papal Influence and the Burghers will lend you galleys for your fight against Denmark. However, taking any of their support will put you into debt with the estate in question and you will have to enact a decision to get out of it. This decision is a requirement for one of the late missions. However, you can completely ignore it altogether by either choosing the fourth option (which gives 20 Prestige) or waiting until the “Stockholm Bloodbath” event fires (which has been presented in the Denmark Development Diary). In the case you complete this mission after the Bloodbath event the estates will grant you their support for free due to the atrocity done to your Nobles by your overlord.

After all these missions and events you are more than ready to face your overlord and declare your Independence War! The missions after “Declare Independence!” are rather self explanatory as they now focus on conquering the coastline of the Baltic Sea. However, some missions are a little bit more special.

“Stabilize the Kingdom” is one of them. It requires you to, well, stabilize your kingdom by having high legitimacy, stability and have no debts to any of your estates. In return the mission lets you choose how to complete other missions:





Three options; three ways to complete the “The Kingdom of Poland” mission later on. The third option is especially interesting for those who want to have a co-op campaign with Sweden and Poland or who do not want to blob into Polish territory. This gives some flexibility to your mission tree without going too much into the “what if” territory which is reserved for the Orders.

The other mission of interest is “Swedish Skåneland” - or rather its reward. Completing this mission will give you a special casus belli against Denmark if they still have Norway as subject:




Note: If Norway is independent then you gain a normal PU cb against Norway, not a special one against Denmark.

The mission “The Crown of Norway” rewards you with a historical friendship with Norway if you have them as your subject with at least 50 opinion of you.

Last but not least let’s take a look at the “finisher” missions of the conquest block. “Dominium maris baltici” has two ways to be completed: you either own the entire coastline, or you have allies who own it. If you complete it by having you or your subject own the coastline then you gain permanently -5 Years of Separatism and +2 Monthly Splendor.

The mission “Stormakstiden” rewards you with the following event:


Note: The country of Scandinavia will be worth forming with the free update, but that is topic for a later Development Diary.

Finally, the mission “Lord of Eastern Europe” fires the following event:



Note: This event and the mission “Varangians’ Legacy”, which requires you to conquer and develop Novgorod, are the only Viking references for Sweden. Asking for more is futile.[/i]

Now with the conquest missions covered let’s move on to the flavor missions for Sweden - and they are plentiful. The flavor missions are divided into 5 branches: Internal missions regarding the Sami and the Swedish peasants, Swedish colonialism, Trade and Industrialization, Military Reforms and Religious matters.

The Internal missions on the most left side of the mission tree handle the Swedish peasantry, which play a large role in Sweden’s history, and the Sami population which is inevitably part of your country. By establishing 10 manufactories in Grain, Fish and Livestock provinces, having 2 stability and by either having overcome the “The Dacke War” disaster or by having at least 10 Grain, Fish or Livestock provinces with 10 development you can complete the mission “The Peasants’ Agenda”, giving the following reward:



Speaking of the disaster: the Dacke War disaster has become a little bit more dangerous and more likely to trigger.


Note: Numbers are not final.

The mission “Integrate the Sami” on the other hand is about your cultural approach to them and can be completed by having all the Sami provinces a religion and culture you accept - how you do this is up to you. This will unlock the Burghers “Forest Expansion” estate privilege:



The mission “Forest Expansion” is developing your forest provinces, so not really much to talk about. The reward reduces the Development Cost of all owned Arctic Scandinavian provinces by 40% however, which makes playing tall with just Scandinavian provinces an actual option.

The colonial missions of Sweden are self explanatory: you take the provinces which were historically part of Swedish colonial ambitions.

On the other side, however, are the missions about dominating the Baltic trade and industrializing your country - your copper and iron provinces to be more precise. Highlight of this branch is an event where you can decide what the price of copper will be for Europe:




Note: Keep in mind that the burst of money you get from the other two options scale with your own production of Copper and Iron.

The missions regarding the religious matter work very similar to the ones of Denmark. Here are the three paths with Catholicism on the left, Protestantism in the middle and Humanist in the right:



Highlights of each path are the following things:

• For Humanist, the mission “Disempower the Clergy” removes triggered rebels from the Clergy if you seize land
  
• The mission “Religious Peace” gives permanently +1 Max Tolerance of Heretics and Heathens
  
• Catholic and Protestant “Defender of the True Faith” give you a modifier which increases the Tolerance of True Faith by 1, Manpower in True Faith provinces by 15% and Imperial Authority Growth Modifier by 25%. It is active until you change your religion.

There is one mission I want to go into further detail: the mission “The Religious League” requires you to participate in the League War (or complete the fallback if the League War is impossible due to non-existent HRE). While for the Catholic side it is completed when the League War never fires, the Protestant mission requires that it happens.

Well, there are moments where the AI refuses to convert to Protestantism due to their position as Elector, even though 90% of their land is Protestant. Fortunately the mission “The Protestant Sword” covers you in that regard. By having a Protestant HRE ally who is either an elector or has 100 development you can complete this mission and unlock a decision which lets you force the formation of the Religious League. Because of that the Protestant mission “The Protestant Sword” unlocks a special decision which… “motivates” your fellow Protestant brethren to form a Religious League on their own.





At long last we shall take a look at the final branch of the flavor missions: the military branch. Two parts played a major role in the military history of Sweden: the Finnish Hakkapeliitta and the Carolean units. The mission “The Hakkapeliitta” unlocks for you the special Hakkapeliitta mercenary company which costs no Army Professionalism to hire:


Note: The merc company has 100% Cavalry to Infantry Ratio because it does NOT take the value from your own government into account. This is only an issue for merc companies which consist of over 50% cavalry, so other mercenary companies do not require this modifier.

The mission “Reform the Military” has three ways of completion: the first one can be done by patience as you just have to wait until Mil Tech 19 and have 40 Army Tradition. The second way is a little bit faster as you need to hit 75 Absolutism.
However, most players will probably go for the third way which is a lot more difficult to achieve, but can be done before the Age of Absolutism:

• Gain 15 Mil Power per month
  
• Have 800 Military Power (is affected by All Power Modifiers)
  
• Have a Level 3 Military Advisor
  
• Completed at least one Military Idea Group

Completing this mission by this way will cost you mentioned Military Power.

These are some hard conditions, but the reward makes pain worth it:



The Carolean unit is not fully implemented just yet in the game so bear with me for the lack of screenshots, but at least I can talk a little bit about how the unit works. The Carolean unit is an infantry only unit which you can only recruit in Swedish or Finnish provinces and the amount of how many you can recruit scales with the development of your Swedish and Finnish provinces. The Carolean infantry has the normal costs of an Infantry unit right now - so without any modifiers it costs 10 Ducats.
Of course a unique unit also requires unique modifiers to make them worth their effort: the Carolean unit deals 25% more Shock Damage and receives -20% Morale Damage. That’s it. The only downside this unit has is that the amount of Carolean you can recruit is heavily limited by the dev of your Swedish and Finnish development with 20 development of a Swedish or Finnish province equalling 1 Carolean Regiment.

The mission “Drill the Caroleans” also unlocks two special Noble privileges which modify how your Caroleans fight for you too.


Note: “Morale Damage” should be here in Green. It is already fixed internally, but I didn’t have the time to update my version of the game. Also these modifiers only affect Carolean units.

Keep in mind that all the numbers are still work in progress. The Carolean presented here might get the nerf hammer before they get released.

With that being said, that was the content for Sweden!

Due to the extent of this Dev Diary, the free content part will be more of a teaser for next week:



That was it for this week! Next week we will dive into the content for Norway.
Until then I wish you all a nice week!