Privateers: +33% embargo efficiency. You can always embargo your rivals, but this idea adds some extra bite to that policy choice. Vetting: +30% defence against enemy covert actions. You can’t have good espionage without good counter espionage. Rumourmongering: Allows Sabotage Reputation, a special covert action that will be discussed in more detail below. Efficienct Spies: +10% more efficient covert actions. Considering the relative scarcity of diplomats for most countries, you might want to get a little more bang for your buck. Shady Recruitment: 33% less relation penalty for being discovered. It’s unfortunate when your spies are found out, but some sorts of characters are just expected to be a little bit unsavory. Destabilising Efforts: Allows Sow Discontent, a special covert action that will be discussed in more detail below. Espionage: Allows Infiltrade Administration, a special covert action that will be discussed in more detail below.

Welcome to the 27th development diary for Europa Universalis IV.* Today, we look into the shadier parts of diplomacy.*As we mentioned in one of earliest dev diaries, we’ve removed spies, but there are some actions that we still consider as “covert”, so we have spy actions, but no spies.Now, we have diplomats perform these tasks, giving another option for this precious resource.* *If you are really committed to the idea of espionage as an arm of national power, we have an idea group oriented around the spy activities. This group falls into the Administrative Power track of ideas, even though it uses diplomats.The bonus for having all seven ideas is a +50% bonus to rebel support efficiency.The seven ideas in the spy group are:If you choose to assign your diplomat to a covert action, then you can expect that diplomat to be out of commission until that task is complete. These sorts of things take a little longer than sending a marriage proposal or declaration of war.*There are two basic covert actions that any nation can do, and three others that require specific ideas from the spy idea group.A diplomat can always be sent to another neighbouring nation to fabricate a claim on a neighbour province. We don’t want island nations to miss out on all the fun, you can also fabricate claims on province that share a seazone with one of your provinces.Fabricating a claim can take up to two years, and each time your diplomat gets discovered, the progress of the claim drops by 10%.* Once you have a claim on a province, you have a legal reason to start a war – a casus belli. All these claims are removed once peace is established.*Claims allow you to select the targeted provice as a wargoal, and for five years after taking a claim in a peace deal you get a 50% reduction on core creation for that province. You just fought for this patch of land! The world will more easily recognize your hold on it.You need to have the 'Espionage' spy idea to take this covert action.So long as one of your diplomats is present in the enemy capital, the fog of war is lifted over their country, letting you see everything within their territory.* As soon as the diplomat is discovered, he is sent home and the fog is returned.You need to have the 'Destabilising Efforts' spy idea to take this covert action.So long as one of your diplomats is present in the enemy capital , the target country gets more expensive stability costs, and a higher chance of revolt.* A country can only be targeted by either one Sow Discontent at once.You need to have the 'Rumourmongering' spy idea to do this.So long as one of your diplomats is present in the enemy country, all neighbours, enemies and rivals of the targeted country gets a opinion penalty towards the target. This will make it more difficult for the target to recover its reputation from recent expansions or betrayals, to make alliances and to enter other diplomatic agreements. A country can only have one sabotage on them at the same time.This is a covert action that can be done by any country.If there is a rebel group to support in a targeted country, then you can select that group, and start funneling money into it. You can only support one rebel faction in each country, so you have to select which one to back.The provinces where the selected rebel faction is likely to spawn and/or have control over get a boost to the revolt risk. You decide how much money you want to pour into the faction, and the more you spend, the quicker they will reinforce their armies.And while we’re talking about rebels, we’ve made some rather dramatic changes to how the red and the black work in EU4.First, rebels can now spawn from rebel-controlled territory, which means that rebellions grow in strength if they are left alone. Just because you defeat one rebel army in the field that doesn’t mean you can let the hotbed of anxiety sit around occupied by malcontents because you have a more important war to fight. Rebellions can represent an existential threat if ignored.Second,*only Pretender rebels will keep an army around if it has been defeated in battle. In other words, there will be no more ping-pong battles chasing insignificant rebels across Brittany. Because pretenders represent an actual major challenge to your leadership, they get the chance to retreat and rebuild until destroyed. Peasants will just scatter if they lose.Far more rebels will reinforce their armies and behave more intelligently in battle. Rebels now take their base morale and technology from the country they rebel from, unless they have a foreign supporter, in which case they use their sponsor’s stats. This means that militarily advanced countries can destabilize lagging neighbors in ways beyond simple conquest.Different types of rebels have different morale, so peasants are easier to shatter, while a noble army fights for longer. It’s important to have these sorts of distinctions so you can decide which rebel threat to deal with (if you have more than one, and you often will).In general, our goal was to make rebels more of a challenge while still minimizing micromanagement. So your decisions are now more high level ones about managing potential rebel threats (as discussed in an earlier diary) and choosing which army or province to suppress first instead of playing whack-a-mole with 7000 farmers that keep running away.We also removed the limit on how often you can negotiate with rebels, as you sometimes may want to give concessions before its too late.