El Dorado

El Dorado

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Type

Expansion

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Release date / Patch

2015-02-26 / 1.10

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Store: Expansion

Paradox / Steam

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Store: Content pack

Paradox / Steam

Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado expansion feature spotlight by EU4's project lead Martin "Wiz" Anward.

El Dorado was the 5th expansion for EU4. It was announced on 2015-01-25. It was released on 2015-02-26, coinciding with patch 1.10.

Features

• A deep Nation Designer gives you new starting options for your games, including national ideas and custom monarchs
• Experience the new Nahuatl, Inti and Mayan religions with blood sacrifices or Sun Worship
• Send your conquistadors to hunt for the Seven Cities of Gold, or your explorer on exploration missions around the world
• Gold Fleets can traffic New World wealth back to Europe, and be targeted by your privateer fleets
• Use your trade fleets to hunt dangerous pirates
• Maintain good relations with the Pope so you can get a corner of the world to call your own in the Treaty of Tordesillas

Nation Designer

Main article: Nation designer

With the expansion, players are able to create their own nation. To do so, they are given between 50 and 800 points, depending on the settings (200 by default), that they can spend on a certain number of provinces, in their government, in their national ideas…

First, the players have to choose a capital, then add or remove provinces. The richer a province is, the more expensive in points it will be.

Then, players can customize the appearance of their nation by configuring its name, map color and flag. Those are purely aesthetic and do not cost any points.

After that, players can choose the government form, the name, age and skills of the ruler and heir, the culture, the religion, and the technology group of their custom nation. The cost for this last one depends on the location of the Nation.

Finally, players have to pick their National Ideas from over 90 modifiers and setting the level of each. The first level of most modifiers is free, with an exponentially increasing cost for higher levels and penalties for having more than 50% of the total modifiers levels from a single type (administrative, diplomatic, and military).

There are also additional custom settings such as a world populated by randomly generated states, or a flat world with provinces of the same value. The Nations created by this way are ironman-compatible, but not achievement-compatible.

Nahuatl

Aztecs and other Mesoamerican states now follow the Nahuatl religion. Each nation of this faith has a ticking doom value that increases every year based on the number of provinces it owns.

High Doom increases technology costs and idea costs. If the value reaches 100 the Nahuatl state will be forced to take drastic measures to avert Doomsday. The ruling monarch and the heir will be killed and be replaced by a 0/0/0 ruler, all of the monarch points will be lost, any/all the subject states will declare independence and up to two religious reforms will be lost.

The "Flower Wars" casus belli gives the Nahuatl states the ability to declare war on their neighbours freely. Occupying provinces and winning battles with that casus belli will result in doom being reduced. Nahuatl states can also sacrifice ruling monarchs and adult heirs in their vassal states. This will reduce Doom by an amount equal to the total skills of that monarch or heir, but will anger all subject states and make them more likely to seek independence.

To free themselves from the Doom mechanic, Nahuatl states will need to reform their religion. There are five reforms they can pass giving benefits such as colonists, war exhaustion reduction or an increase in the number of potential diplomatic relations. Enacting a reform requires having at least 5 vassal states, no rebels, positive stability and less than 50 Doom. When enacted, Doom will increase by 25 and all subject states will declare independence. Once all five reforms have been passed, and if the Nahuatl state borders a nation with institutions, it will be able to reform the religion. This brings the nation up to 80% of the neighbour’s technology level and gives it all of the neighbour's embraced institutions. It also permanently disables the Doom mechanic.

Nahuatl reforms give -0.05 War Exhaustion, +1 Diplomatic Relations, +5% Discipline, +1 Colonist and -20% Stability Cost Modifier.

Maya

Mayan states follow their own religion. Like Nahuatl, it too has its own reform track, although it is not dependent on Doom.

For a Mayan nation to pass a reform, they will need to own at least 20 provinces, have positive stability, no revolts, and no overextension. Upon passing a reform, a Maya state will lose about half its territory, shrinking to a size of 10 core provinces determined by culture, religion and distance to capital. Other provinces will break away, joining existing nations or forming new nations and requiring the state to reconquer them again. For each reform you have passed, the country will be able to keep hold of more territory, retaining an extra province in addition to the original 10. As with the Nahuatl, when the last reform is passed and the state borders a nation with institutions, they will be able to reform the religion, getting a tech boost, all of the neighbour's institutions, and gaining the permanent benefit of the religious reforms.

The Maya religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and +1 Possible Advisors and their reforms give -10% Land Maintenance, -2 Global Unrest, +10% Infantry Power, +1 Colonist and -20% Core-Creation cost.

Inti

Where the Maya and Nahuatl religions are about expansion and contraction, the Inti faith is about maintaining the authority of the Sapa Inca by having the people worship him as a God. Inti nations have an Authority value that goes up from owning vast stretches of territory, and goes down when the ruler grants autonomy to a province (either from granting autonomy via by the grant autonomy action, being forced to by rebels, or choosing to do so in an event). Authority is also affected by a number of unique events added for the Inti religion. Authority reduces unrest and makes it cheaper to increase stability.

An Inti state that has 100 Authority and owns at least 10 provinces can pass a Religious Reform, but doing so will remove all their Authority and spark a civil war as a pretender exploits the loss of authority to attempt to seize the throne for themselves. If the civil war is lost, two Religious Reforms are lost as well, greatly setting back progress towards reforming the religion. Because the Inti religion does not have the same cycle of expansion and contraction as other two, Inti religious reforms are generally weaker than those of the Maya and the Nahuatl, but easier to accomplish.

The Inti religion starts with +1 Tolerance of the True Faith and -0.05 Monthly Autonomy in all provinces and their reforms give +10% Manpower Recovery Speed, +1 Colonist, +0.5 Yearly Legitimacy, +0.05 Land Morale and -10% Core-Creation Cost.

Naval exploration

Fleets with an explorer and at least 3 light or heavy ships (or a mix of both), that are in a port can undertake exploration missions such as exploring a sea, charting a coastline and circumnavigating the globe. When on an exploration mission, they do not suffer from attrition and cannot divert from their course.

When the player sends a fleet to explore a sea or chart a coastline, it will head towards that province and automatically uncover it, along with surrounding provinces, before returning to port. Charting coastlines can also result in a variety of events as the explorers make landfall and encounter the native population of other continents.

Nations that have diplomatic technology level 9 can send a fleet to attempt circumnavigating the globe, from the Straits of Magellan to the Cape of Good Hope. The fleet will take attrition as normal on this mission. Being the first nation to circumnavigate the globe will give you 100 prestige, while other nations who do so later will gain 10 prestige for a successful attempt.

In compensation of this new ability of the explorers, they will now have 20% fewer pips than ordinary admirals.

Land Exploration

The system of Land Exploration is called Hunt for the Seven Cities and is only available in the New World. It will be used by hitting the ‘Hunt for the Seven Cities’ toggle in the unit view of an army led by a conquistador. While this toggle is on, the conquistador will automatically explore his surroundings, uncovering terra incognita, fighting natives, and stopping to rest as needed.

While a conquistador is exploring in this manner, a large number of events can happen, such as run out of food, trade with friendly natives, or uncover a lead on where to find one of the Seven Cities of Gold, the Fountain of Youth, or other mythical places. Upon following a lead, several more events are unlocked as the conquistador follows the clues to an end that can involve failure and death, failing to locate your goal but finding something else of value instead, or actually locating the objective. Finding the objective will provide a permanent increase to tax income, increased trade efficiency, prestige or other such bonuses.

Players will also be given chances to abandon this quest, should they wish to employ their conquistadors in a more traditional manner.

In compensation of this new ability of the conquistadors, they will now have 20% fewer pips than ordinary generals.

Note that nations with their capital in the New World are unable to automate conquistadors using this mechanic.

Colonial Merchants

Even without the expansion, every colonial nation of more than ten provinces that a nation has as a subject will give the overlord an extra merchant (tested on 1.25)

Inland Trading

The mechanics and bonuses relative to merchant present inland and steering towards inland will be replaced by a new mechanic called Caravan Power. A merchant present on an inland node will add an amount of trade power equals to the nation total tax value of this merchant, up to a maximum of +50.

Treasure Fleets

With the expansion, Colonial Nations with gold provinces no longer gain the income of that gold for themselves, but instead store it in a ‘Treasure Fleet Counter’ that counts up towards a certain sum depending on the size of the colony’s gold mines. Once the counter is full, the colony will send a Treasure Fleet. The Treasure Fleet travels downstream along the trade routes, passing each node between the Colonial Nation and its mother nation’s trade capital. If there are privateers present in these nodes, they will steal a share of the gold corresponding to their power in the node. At the end of the journey, any money that remains is given to the mother nation, who suffer some inflation depending on the amount of money relative to the size of their economy.

Nations who do not have their trade capital downstream of their colonies’ trade nodes will be unable to receive treasure fleets. In these cases, the colonial nation will simply keep the gold for themselves, paying just the usual amount in tariffs.

Pirate Hunting

To repel the privateers that are stealing from the trade or the gold fleets of the players, they can send heavy and light ships pirate hunting in a particular node, and will reduce the efficiency of all pirates in that node based on the amount of guns that the pirate hunting fleet can bring to bear.

Treaty of Tordesillas

The first Catholic nation to create a colonial nation in a colonial region while having positive relations with the Papal States will be given a ‘Papal Grant’, which speeds up the growth of settlers for them by +10 in that colonial region and slows down the settler growth of all other Catholic nations there by -20.

A Catholic nation that violates a Papal Grant gets -50 relations with both the nation that has the grant and the Papal States. They also receive a -10 papal influence modifier for violating the treaty.

Liberty Desire changes

The 1.10 patch introduces a major rework of liberty desire that expands it to all other subjects such as Vassals and Personal Union juniors. Each subject now has a Liberty Desire towards their Overlord, calculated based on a large number of factors such as opinion, diplomatic reputation, relative power, and relative diplomatic technology levels. Certain subject types like Marches and Client States are more loyal and thus have inherently lower Liberty Desire, while the Daimyos of Japan are an unruly bunch and have a large bonus to their liberty desire. Vassals are also aware of the power of all vassals relative to their liege, and their liberty desire will go up if they think that they could, together, bring their overlord down.

While Liberty Desire is lower than 50, the subject will be considered ‘Loyal’. They will dutifully pay taxes, send their armies to help in war, and refuse any offers of Support for Independence.

If Liberty Desire is above 50, but below 100, the Vassal will be considered ‘Disloyal’. They will refuse to pay taxes and tariffs, won’t send their armies to help in war (only defending their own territory) and will both look for foreign powers to support their independence and seek to ally with other rebellious subjects of their liege. If they find allies and supporters, their Liberty Desire goes up by an amount depending on the power of said supporters and allies.

At 100, the subject will be ‘Rebellious’. They will not only refuse to pay taxes and send help, but will declare war for independence the moment they think they have a shot at winning. When a subject declares war for independence, they will automatically call in all other subjects of their liege that they are allied to, and all independence supporters of both themselves and their allies.

Client states

The client state interface uses the new options available in the Nation Designer.

Revolutions

See also: Disasters#Revolution

Revolution targets get a dynamic tricolour as their revolutionary flag based on their revolutionary colours.

Events

With the free patch, there are now over 40 events for the Incas and the Aztecs.

Terrain Rework

With the free patch, the province terrains and the terrain mapmode has been reworked. Many parts of the world have had their terrain updated to better reflect reality. The map has also been tweaked so that it is much easier to tell the terrain of a province simply from looking at said province.

As part of this reworking, four new terrain types has been added : Highlands: Hilled but deforested regions (such as the Scottish Highlands). The old Hills terrain has been modified to represent forested, more inaccessible hilled regions. Drylands: Arid regions that can still support agriculture, such as southern Spain. Farmlands: Densely populated and cultivated areas with rich soils, such as northern Italy. Savanna: Largely open regions with alternating dry and wet seasons, such as the African Savannas.

Dev diaries

Main article: Developer diaries

All developer diaries about the El Dorado expansion, patch 1.10, and patch 1.11.

Patch 1.11

No.	Title and Link	Description	Date
6	Dynamic Random Nations teaser	Dynamic random nations mode, that creates custom countries instead of using historical ones	2015-03-04

Patch 1.10

No.	Title and Link	Description	Date
5	Treasure fleets and pirate hunting	New treasure fleet mechanic and its associated pirate hunting mechanic, and changes to terrain	2015-02-19
4	Seven Cities of Gold and Colonial Merchants	Changes to land exploration, caravan power - a new mechanic for inland trade and dynamic historical events for South Americans and Meso Americans	2015-02-12
3	Inti, Maya and Liberty Desire	Introduction to the Inti and Maya religions, and the changes made to liberty desire	2015-02-05
2	The Nation Designer	Introduction to the nation designer which enables customized nations	2015-01-29
1	Nahuatl, Exploration & Treaty of Tordesillas	The mechanics of the new Nahuatl religion, changes to how naval exploration works, and the addition of a system to simulate how the New World was historically divided between Spain and Portugal	2015-01-22