Good morning all! What would Tuesday be without an EU4 dev diary? Tragic, I say, so here for the last of the Summer dev diaries while the bulk of the Swedes are on vacation, I bring to you a summary of balance changes coming in the 1.26 Mughal Update. This is not exhaustive (We'll post up the full changelog closer to release) and is about changes made to the game and its existing mechanics, rather than the new stuff we've added. We'll have another Dev Diary in the future to act as a "roundup" of new mechanics and how they work.As we have mentioned before, Estates now cause a disaster at 100% influence rather than 80%. They also no longer have a minimum requirement for land. In addition to this:- Confiscating estate land now gives a +5 unrest modifier in the province for 15 years. This modifier goes away if you give the land to another estate.- Confiscating estate land now adds 25 local autonomy in the province that the estate was previously in.- Advisors generated by Estate interactions now scale in cost depending on estate influence.- Influence from estate events generally increased.- Cossack Estate now gains twice as much influence per development in granted provinces.- The cap for how much development in granted provinces can increase influence is now 50% rather than 40% for all estates.- Bengal trade now flows into Doab, which in turn flows into Lahore (renamed from Kashmir) undoing the injustice to these nodes.- General renaming and reshaping of Indian trade nodes (see screenshot)- The Katsina Trade Node now connects to Ethiopia instead of Alexandria.- The Ethiopia Trade node now also connects to Aden.- Coromandel flows straight to the CapeIn general this means more Indian trade will be able to flow around Africa into Europe without needing massive amounts of control in Aden. Zanzibar isn't quite the slush fund it used to be, but remains lucrative.Far away tributaries with no expectation of help or feasible reason to be a subject was something we're looking to change with this update. As such, the AI is no longer interested in establishing new tributary relationships with nations who do not border them. This goes for both asking and receiving requests. Existing tributaries are fine, so Ayutthaya & Khmer won't suddenly want to abandon Ming in 1444.Speaking of Ming, 1.26 may as well be renamed the Sukhothai update, as declaring an independence war no longer calls in your overlord's Tributary overlord. Sukhothai can now declare war against Ayutthaya without Chinese intervention.An issue in EU4 that we've long recognised is that conquest is almost always a good idea: you are able to immediately get a financial benefit from land, buff up your own forcelimit, size, trading potential, while at the same time denying your foes that land. We've been wanting to change this so that one has to consider what they conquer with a bit more forethought and with that we turn to your States.Your maximum number of States is now far more important: If you hold more territories than your state limit, you will face a yearly corruption penalty, currently +0.02 per territory (not per province). For example, if you have a State Limit of 15, you can have up to 15 States AND up to 15 Territories without penalty. Overseas Colonial Regions and Trade Charter Companies are exempt from this calculation. This corruption hit is halved in Easy mode, and entirely absent in Very Easy. Additionally sending Missionaries and cultural conversion are not possible in Territories. You must make them a state to do these.In conjunction with this, all nations' base state limit has been doubled (up from 5 to 10).There is a define ALLOWED_TERRITORY_VS_MAX_STATES which allows you to tweak this value in defines.luaIn the interest in encouraging more indirect rule, holding a subject for a long time will gradually reduce their liberty desire. Subjects can now also gain trust with their overlord, instead of having it pinned at 50.Force Limit Contribution from subjects now scales with the subject's own FL, minimum of +1 + 10% from vassals, +20% from marches.Preventing weird country formations, like Ottomans to Byzantium or Minghals or England to Mughals to Shan to Mughals to Japan is something we're historically not very good at. It generally involves a lot of different file changes and something usually gets overlooked. In script as of 1.26 we now have a scope known as "End game tags" which will prevent most cases of such nations forming other nations (Holy Roman Empire, Rome and Papal States are so special they trump this list, eg: Byzantium can for Rome, Italy can form Holy Roman Empire...).The current list is:MughalsOttomansByzantiumRomeHoly Roman EmpireRumQingRussiaCommonwealthJapanYuanHindustanBharatArabiaPapal StatesSpainGreat BritainItalyGermanyMingThat's the bulkier of the balance changes. As usual, there will be more nuanced changes in the fine details to come along in the full Changelog, which we will be sharing closer to release.We are well aware that balance changes can get people worked up and are seldom without contention. I have very fond memories of forums around the the 1.12 release. Remain civil when expressing your feelings over your favourite balance changes as, although I endeavour to explain why we make changes, there are as many opinions as eyeballs in the world. Thanks for your time.And if Balance Changes are not your cup of tea, let's have a look at some of the other National Idea changes brought along in the 1.26 Update. We'll look over at the Bengal region, where there is now a distinction between The Bangal Sultinate, and the Bengali Minors in the area.Bengal Sultanate ideasstart =infantry_power = 0.1global_manpower_modifier = 0.15bonusbackrow_artillery_damage = 0.15bng_combat_piracy =trade_efficiency = 0.1bng_habshi_generals =army_tradition = 0.5bng_clearing_the_delta =development_cost = -0.1bng_attract_sufis =idea_cost = -0.1bng_conquest_of_the_gangetic_plain =leader_land_shock = 1bng_rupees =global_tax_modifier = 0.1bng_bengali_industrialization =global_trade_goods_size_modifier = 0.1Bengali Minors ideas =start =merchants = 1infantry_power = 0.1bonus =prestige = 1hindu_sufi_syncretism =religious_unity = 0.5ganges_brahmaputra_confluence =trade_efficiency = 0.1rice_fields =global_manpower_modifier = 0.2mustard_oil_ilish_mach =war_exhaustion_cost = -0.10jute_production =#production_efficiency = 0.1opium_fields =global_tax_modifier = 0.1bengali_renaissance =global_institution_spread = 0.1And if neither Balance changes nor National Ideas are your thing, well, swing by next week, where we'll talk about that new image you keep seeing in the buildings interface is. There are still a fair few dev diaries to come before Dharma is due to hit the shelves.