Konnichiwa! Welcome to another weeks Dev Diary, this time around focusing on Japan. As a region, it already received a good amount of interesting content during Mandate of Heaven, with the introduction of the Shinto interactions, as well as the Shogunate. The goal of revisiting Japan is to expand its mechanics & tie them around new flavor in the form of a mission tree for Japan, new events as well as government reforms. Lets take a look!

[WIP] All values, art and even layouts showcased here are work in progress![WIP]

Note, as you probably might have guessed already, Japan also gets access to the Emperor of China dedicated branch that I showcased a few weeks ago albeit the descriptions and titles are curated for immersion and accuracy reasons. The tree will be granted upon forming Japan and it houses 30 new missions, 46 if you count the Emperor of China branch, as well as a dozen new events (both tied to the missions AND independent from it) as well as several new government reforms and even a special new unit, the Samurai. The top half of the mission tree will deal with the internal affairs of the island, instructing you to guide the nation through military, commercial as well as administrative changes you may wish to enact. As we will see in detail further down, nearly every single mission is tied to either a new mechanic specifically made for Japan or a dynamic set of rewards. Alongside all these cool new additions, we have also created a new special unit for Japan, the Samurai! They will not be easy to recruit and the intention is that they make about 10-25% of your forcelimit as your elite frontline, as shown below:

] Give us some ideas about what color they should be and feel free to chime in with some overall feedback regarding these very powerful bonuses

Every Daimyo, Shogun and Indep. Daimyo will have access to the new unit either via their national ideas or via their government type, which are accessible in the base game. Furthermore, Japan has a +15% Samurai Forcelimit in its ideas! Let's take a look at some highlights around new events and missions: The mission Bushido has not only been reworked from the ground up, but it also interacts with the aforementioned new special unit for Japan, the Samurai. By elevating your army professionalism and presenting a robust and powerful army, you will be rewarded with the following event:

]

[spoiler] Kept you waiting huh?[/spoiler]

These options will reform a significant part of the following 2 missions, based on your choices. Should you choose to focus on the matter of land, you will be greeted by the mission Bugeijuuhappan (or 18 types of martial arts), a carefully curated combination of warfare techniques. Heres Bugeijuuhappans reward:

While, opting to focus on maritime warfare, would yield the mission A New Naval Academy with the following reward:

[This will probably be nerfed, its quite powerful!]

But the dynamic nature of these missions does not stop there! The mission Train the Samurai will also be impacted by your choice in the Book of Five Rings event as shown below:

A very interesting part of the missions revolves around the fact that many of them will have their outcome depend on how you handle certain Shinto Incidents (if you own MoH and are yourself Shinto):

[Glorious Nippon steel, folded over 1000 times!]

The tree also plays around some new government reforms, as shown below:

[That trade value will definitely be nerfed, at the very least! Please keep in mind these numbers are FAR from final]
[Max Effect of Absolutism amplifies your current Absolutisms potency. If 100 Absolutism grants 30% Administrative Efficiency, then 20% Max Effect of Absolutism will amplify the 30% up to 36%]

Before we move on to the conquest, second part of the tree, here are a few events that are independent of the mission tree:

Moving on to the conquest branch of the tree, you will have the opportunity to seize land in both Korea and China as well as the Malacca Trade Node:

[Should you claim the Mandate, you will be able to fabricate Tributary CBs on anyone, as long as they are weaker than you development-wise and independent]

The event Fate of the Mandate which is granted after finishing the Mandate to Rule Them All mission may grant you the opportunity to seize the Mandate, mid-war, and gain a powerful modifier to go with it:

[Should you complete the mission while already a hegemon, you will gain a special easter egg modifier called 'Unleash the Shinkirou']

The above 3 missions will have their rewards depending entirely on the current level of isolation! While we are at it, I took the liberty of changing the bonuses of isolation as I felt that the Open-side was incredibly more powerful than the Isolated side. I chose to have the extremes (0 and 4) be somewhat more powerful in most ocassions, so they are something a player will actively work towards during the entire game. Of course, this does not mean the other levels of isolation are useless, on the contrary:

Finally, lets take a look at the mission A New Buddha? This one will deal with the relationship between Edo-Period Japan and Christianity:

Note, the modifier Protectors of Eastern Catholicism will also grant Papal Influence, which is not visible right now

Should we complete the mission by eradicating Christianity, we will gain access to the following mission and reward:

Note; all these new reforms will also bolster the amount of Samurai you can recruit, by +10%

Siding with the Shogun will rename your country to The Shogunate and grant you a new and powerful T1 reform whereas siding with the Emperor, will yield the following event:

[Note; your title with this reform is God-Emperor]

HOWEVER, if you choose (for whatever reason) to embrace Christianity in the Shinto incident, you will gain the following mission and reward:
The above event proclaims the ending of the Kirishitan Incident. You won't need to conquer any land outside


[NOTE; the art is PLACEHOLDER!]

Please keep in mind the art and the numbers showcased here are a WIP!

The Government buttons showcased here were created from scratch with our new and fully moddable mechanic, which will allow you to create your own government buttons as you see fit should you wish to mod them. You can add 0 buttons or up to however many you can stuff on the UI and have them act accordingly or even evolve based on requirements or rewards you subscribe to them. These particular ones operate much like the Tsardom buttons, but I could just as easily remove them and have a large bar in their stead, akin to the one we showcased last week for the Ottoman Decadence. Thank you so much for taking the time to read through this Dev Diary. Next week we will be discussing new content for Russia with Ogele! This week's chapel comic, courtesy of Father Lorris: