Europa Universalis 5’s update 1.0.8 has now entered open beta and is available to download from a separate beta branch on Steam. Its patch notes reveal the addition of new advances, buffs for decentralization, a trade range map mode, and much more.
One of the grand strategy game’s bigger updates, EU5’s patch 1.0.8 was first brought to open beta so that developer Paradox Tinto can collect feedback from players, getting a better sense of what the game’s sizable community thinks of the changes before pushing them to the live branch.
Europa Universalis 5 Update 1.0.8 Patch Notes
EU5’s update 1.0.8 also replaces the existing formula for the economic base with a new one that brings different scale values for tax, pop, and trade.
Women above the venerable age of 40 will no longer get pregnant, while raising a subject’s levies should no longer impact their loyalty towards their overlord.
Furthermore, inland exploration has been introduced, while automating buildings no longer affects the employment system they use.
Below, you’ll find a part of the full Europa Universalis update 1.0.8 patch notes, highlighting some of the changes it plans on bringing to the grand strategy game when it goes live:
New Features
- Added 8 new advances for the Aztec formable
- Added 6 new advances for the Two Sicilies formable
Gameplay
Government:
- Settle the Frontier will no longer empty low-pop provinces.
- Estate privileges are removed if the estate doesn’t exist in the country
- Cabinet actions remove old geography modifiers properly after being reassigned
- Hire Advisor will no longer create Crown Estate advisors
- Fixed new rulers’ attributes not applying to their country on ascending to the throne
- Centralization now reduces subject loyalty with up to 30
- Decentralization now increases subject loyalty with up to 30 (was 20).
- Remove the impact of maximum war exhaustion from centralization and decentralization.
- Maximum decentralization now recovers estate satisfaction by another 2%
- Rebalanced children’s education to have a more balanced improvement
- Matrilineal non-exclusive succession law does take character abilities into account when choosing an heir now
- The ruler’s diplomatic ability now also impacts subject loyalty.
- Scotland’s ‘authority over the clergy’ law now disappears if Scotland converts from catholicism.
Economy:
- Each 20k pops instead of each 200k pops gives 1 extra free building level in a location.
- Implemented a system where prosperity decays down to 0 by default if no increases.
- Made a new formula for an economical base that has different scale values on tax, pop, and trade.
- Tweaked the sell location acceptance criteria
- Balanced pop growth values to compensate for lower prosperity levels
- Removed some demands for some goods for slaves & tribesmen, and made some thresholds for soldiers.
- Reduced the nobles’ demand for lacquerware to 10% of what it was before.
- Added trade profit and subject tax levels to be part of the economic base calculations
- Further rebalancing of the the economical base and taking building based countries into account.
Production:
- Can no longer build or delete buildings in locations that are under siege
- Building automation no longer changes the employment system
Society:
- Random characters are more likely to be of primary and accepted cultures.
- Females above the age of 40 will no longer get pregnant.
Diplomacy:
- Fixed HRE election votes after long reigns of the previous leader accidentally pumped up the GP score weight
- Removed “Food access” diplomatic option if you’re fighting in a war with the other country
- Can no longer sell a location when at war
- Fixed static antagonism related to societal values
- Subject actions get cancelled after the subject is cancelled
- Lacking rivals will no longer make you conciliatory, but instead make you lose prestige.
- Conciliatory no longer increases subject loyalty, but instead increases diplomatic reputation.
- Removed the base diplomatic reputation for belligerent vs conciliatory
- Conciliatory vs belligerent now impacts how much of an impact the shared border has.
- Reworked a bit how subject loyalty is impacted by relative power, and made keeping subjects loyal a bit more fun
- Taking back a location from a revolter is now -95%, not +95% cost.
- Added the border percentage opinion mechanic from EU4, which will create a bit more conflict
- Each vassal and fiefdom gives a small drift to decentralization.
- Civil wars now automatically end when a union between a tag and its civil war opponent is about to happen. The Civil War is always the one getting annexed in this context
- Raised levies for the subject no longer impact subject loyalty.
- Adjusted the colonial nations’ loyalty values to take
- Reduced a lot of subject loyalty from advances
- If a country moves its capital, anyone who knew the old capital now discovers the new capital.
- Border feud CB works properly
- Enable the request of subject actions from the subject to the overlord
- Can’t leave a coalition mid-war
- Fixed immediate full war score vs tiny nations with no cores
- Conquistadors will now become a normal location-based country when they become a colonial nation.
Military:
- Manually doing a shattered retreat is now a 10% loss to strength instead of 50%.
- Fixed being able to recruit to a boarded army from a location
- Fixed exiling armies in places you declare war on
- Levies now disband if the locations they come from are lost.
- Complete refactoring of several combat algorithms like damage dealing, initiative, and combat speed, and exposing themino to more helpful tooltips
- Patrol the seas objective works for the Hanseatic League
- Fixed an issue where military tactics had an impact on naval battles
- The cost of transporting levies now scales with the size of the levy, making them cost the same to transport as regulars.
-
Reduced the Age penalty for levies in the Age of Revolutions to 10% instead of 20%. ** Geopolitics:**
- Allowed inland exploration
- The fishing village applies a small bonus to harbor capacity
- Can now colonize Iwo
Other:
- Pops will no longer lose lots of literacy instantly if the max literacy is reduced.
- Changed the bonus modifier of the “Renaissance” to be a cultural influencer percentage instead of flat, as originally intended.
- Navies will no longer keep army-based nations without armies alive
Content
Map:
- Added more lumber to Scotland (Badenoch, Cowal, Inverary, Ayr)
- Corrected the German dynamic name of ‘Poznań’, so now it’s the correct one, ‘Posen’.
Setup:
- Removed some Mamluk alliances with beyliks that were too weak
- Hendrik van Reginar is not the heir of Brabant
- Changed the Aragonese localization of the locations of Aragon into medieval Aragonese
- Made all setup and content instances of the German name ‘Bernhard’ to use its dynamic instance (‘name_bernard’) instead.
- Removed a duplicate character instance of bishop Bernhard von Lippe, ruler of Paderborn.
- Corrected the death date of the Teutonic Order Hochmeister Werner von Orseln, so it’s now aligned with the ruler term one.
- Added the correct ‘Alès’ location to the cores of Toulouse.
Situations:
- The Italian Wars Situation action “Plan Campaign in Italy” now requires the actor not to have any levies raised
- Fixed Western Schism getting loads of support for whoever had the most dip rep only
- Western Schism - The AI will now use the Declare Oboedientia Action more flexibly, depending on which candidate they like more
- Fixed an issue wherein the ‘Rise of the Turks’ situation displayed incorrect end requirements when the strongest beylik is not the Ottomans
- Fixed missing localized reasons for war declaration in the Nanbokucho situation
- Added background illustrations to two Rise of the Turks-related events
- Italian leagues can now be created 2 years after one of them was dissolved via war
- Fixed an issue that indefinitely prevented new Italian leagues from being created in the Italian Wars after one of the leagues was forcefully dissolved
- Becoming the revolutionary target will no longer spawn units every month
- Blocked Nanbokucho CB from being created against countries supporting the same side
- Rewrote the visible = { } of the Rise of the Turks situation to account for the strongest beylik not being the Ottomans
- While in the map mode of the Rise of the Turks, subjects of the strongest beyliks will now have striped instead of solid colors
- Reshuffled the end requirements of the Rise of the Turks for better readability
- The Rise of the Turks ending now correctly displays the appropriate ending event based on its end requirements
- The rise of the Turks situation no longer takes into account subjects as contenders
- Fixed Sengoku missing a clan and showing a blank one
Disasters:
- Increased the % chance of the Castilian civil war disaster occurring and made sure the ruler during it cannot be Alfonso XI
- The event “Spread of Islam” during the “Death of Hayan Wuruk disaster now correctly spawns a Sufi lodge
- The disaster “Crisis of the
Dynasty" now correctly resets its variables on completion - Fixed an issue where a dead claimant would still be shown on the disaster UI instead of their successor
- The event “Death of a Claimant” (hook_and_cod_wars.1200) option d now ends the disaster if both claimants are dead and buried
- The ‘Court and Country’ disaster starting event now grants 2 new country modifiers based on whether the player wants to eventually become Liberal or Absolutist
- The ‘Court and Country’ disaster now reduces estate satisfaction by -10%
International Organizations:
- Fixed Independence War Target
- Improved authorization for the expanding Shinto action
- Fixed the independence movement acceptance criteria
- Removed duplicate action for joining Autocephalous Patriarchates
- The AI will no longer constantly propose the “maintain federal status” policy for unions
- The estate satisfaction hit from votes in unions is now only applied if you actually vote. Refusing to make a choice will no longer punish you
- The “Lordship of Ireland” action “request planters” now correctly triggers migration
- Fixed an issue with a spammy “Lordship of Ireland” regency pop-up message
- Fixed an issue with the action message display after using invite planets in the Lordship of Ireland
- The protestant union and the catholic league will no longer be locked into a deadlock when either leader is in a union with another leader. Additionally, union members will now try to join the side that already contains one of their union partners
- The “unified external diplomacy” policy of unions now makes the AI less likely to declare wars as it adds -0.75 aggressiveness and +0.5 carefulness. Additionally, it now also gives -2+25% stability cost on no CBS wars and now also unlocks the “enforce peace” country interaction on junior partners
- Blocked the Shogun from being able to get claims from the Imperial Court
Events:
- The Pavia event “Expulsion of the
" (flavor_pav.1) now requires Milan to have the same Government type as Pavia - The French Event “The Jacquerie” will no longer fire while France is already in a civil war
- Margarete von Tirol will no longer immediately select a new husband upon divorcing her Bohemian spouse
- The English event “William Pitt the younger” (flavor_eng.35) will no longer target William Pitt the Elder
- The Florentine event “Consolidation of Power” (flavor_flo.49) will no longer fire while Florence already has a major reform
- The occurring child via the event “soirée” (dynastic.6) and “the consequences of our actions” (dynastic.6001) is now properly attributed the “bastard” modifier
- The father of the child born via the event “soirée” (dynastic.6) is no longer stuck in the shadow realm
- Event “soirée” (dynastic.6) now tries to pick an eligible character before creating one
- The Ottoman Dragoman feature now has proper tooltiping
- The Byzantine event for the Katholikon Mouseion now properly gives you research progress if you already have a library in Constantinople
- Annexing Rome as a catholic will now trigger an event to potentially return it to the Pope
- The Genoese event “Founding of the Merchant Republic” (flavor_gen.1) will remove excess major government reforms before assigning “Merchant Republic”
- The event “The Gallipoli Earthquake” will now fire instantly instead of having a delay
- The Byzantine event “Gemistos Plethon” now activates the Hellenic religion
- The ‘Holy League’ Crusade should now correctly have Constantinople as its war goal
- The ‘Holy League’ Crusade ending events no longer fire on a separate peace
- Fixed the second Byzantine event, “A hand for peace”, it can no longer attempt to marry a dead ruler to the Byzantine princess
- The Florentine event “Formation of the Medici bank” is now also available for Tuscany
- Many event texts that begin with a country name will capitalize that country name if it isn’t already capitalized
- Corrected the historical info description of the event “A Clash of Culteranismo and Conceptismo” (flavor_cas.94), so it now shows the correct one, instead of the one for “Ortographical Reform of de Herrera” (flavor_cas.90).
- Fixed a missing dynamic loc in the event “The Hussite Wars” (hussite_wars.10), now it will correctly use the ‘commoners’ estate name in the text.
- Correctly localized the first name of the character Zafar Muẓaffar, created by the event “The Governor of Gujarat” (flavor_dlh.4).
- The radical reforms event (mercantilism_events.6) can now only fire in and after the age of reformation
- Swapped the Commoners’ estate satisfaction change for the abolition of feast days (anglican_events.9) event to now
- The colony of
(colonial_charter.100) event will no longer turn cores back into integrated - Limited effects of the Bountiful Harvest event (random_event.91) to locations owned by the country
Government:
- Fixed broken localization in the Latin Empire formable description
- Implementation of the peasant republic reform for Dithmarschen now removes any other major reform
- Romania is now a level 3 formable, enabling Transylvania and Moldavia to form it
- Made the following reforms free by assigning a +1 reform slot to each one: “Daedongbeob”, “Sadae policy”, and “Powerful viziers”
- The government reform “Sovet Gospod” of Novgorod is no longer a “major” reform
- The “Elective Succession” and “Dynastic Elective Succession” now have an additional warning line in their description, which informs the player that these succession laws can break unions.
- Fixed missing trigger localization for the Devshirme policy
- New LIV ‘Llivonia’ formable created to reform the Livonian Order
- LVA ‘Livonia’ formable repurposed into a Baltic culture formable
- Made Moldavia a tier 1 formable, so it can later form Romania (which is tier 2); also reduced the number of required locations to be formed to 40, so it doesn’t need to conquer any land from the Golden Horde to have it formed, just unify the Moldavian minors.
- Fixed an error in the description of the ‘Tsardom’ government reform, now it should show ‘Russia’ correctly.
- Enabled the Ancient French Taxation reform to be removable if France reaches > 50% centralization and the birth of the permanent taxation system event hasn’t fired.
- The parliament issue sponsor a trade expedition will now construct a market village or a marketplace in the capital if no building like it exists already
- Change policy agenda can no longer target otherwise locked policies
- The Prikazi government reform now displays the cabinet actions that it unlocks
- Added failsafe to the ‘Communal Living’ marriage policy, so now it also requires being Hussite, on top of having the ‘Adamite Services’ aspect active.
Economy and Production:
- The House of Parliament Building now employs 200 Nobles instead of 2000
- Great Madrasas now also promote tribesmen like normal Madrasas
- Rebalanced, where the Japanese clans are allowed to build their buildings
- Improved description of Beeswax
Society:
- The Hellenic faith now correctly grants infantry combat ability instead of levy efficiency
- Changing religion will now always automatically remove any active excommunication against the country
- Baltic Germans added to the Baltic culture group
- Added ‘invite foreign cleric’ action. Christian countries can spend religious influence to spawn a new high-adm cleric with a foreign culture.
Diplomacy:
- “Hanseatic member” special subject now pays much less manpower and sailors to the Hansa (assuming they have the capacity to do so)
- The “dubious claims on province” and the “parliament-approved claims on province” casus belli are no longer available to be fabricated via the spy network
- The “Negotiate Succession Law” country interaction now informs the player when the succession law cannot be adopted by the recipient
- The military sponsorship relationship now has a diplomatic capacity maintenance cost of a guarantee
- The opinion penalty from not fulfilling a promise of land does not decay by 1 each year
- The “demand unlawful territory” diplomatic action will now automatically release a completely new tag instead of granting that land directly to the emperor
- The diplomatic action “enforce peace” can no longer target wars where the actor is in the war with them on the same side already. It also can not target wars where the subject is the leading defender in the war, which means they can no longer be saved from any invading country
- Capped the minimum value of excommunication opinion hits to -200
- Papal action “Excommunication” is no longer possible, while curia actions are otherwise blocked
- The “negotiate succession law” diplomatic action now changes the heir religion law to a policy that is actually compatible with your religion. In other words, if you are orthodox and your junior partner is catholic, you would force them to take the “same religion group” policy instead of the “same religion” policy one
Military:
- Fixed an issue with Renaissance Mamluks only having 50 men and tweaked their extra bonuses
Advances:
- Expanded the plausible areas of spawning of the Renaissance to all of Northern Italy
- Unlocked the “warrior societies” advance from Tenochtitlan for the Aztecs formable
- Unlocked 2 advances from Sicily and Naples for the Two Sicilies formable as well
Other:
- Corrected many instances of this_opinion_of_prev wherever it was applied incorrectly for AI weights
- Fixed the Aztec tag not having a name
- Hungarian, Croatian, Czech, and Slovak regnal numbers appear as “ii.” with the dot, as in German
You can read through the entire list of changes available in EU5’s update 1.0.8 open beta in the full patch notes found on the Paradox forums.
Europa Universalis V is available now on PC. For more on Paradox’s latest effort, check out our articles covering its console commands, start and end dates, and what we know about potential PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.
For the latest gaming news, follow GameWatcher on BlueSky, check out our videos on YouTube. We sometimes include affiliate links in our posts, which grants us a small commission, thank you. Please support independent Games Media. ❤️