Final and succesful attempt at updating the thumbnail, apparantly the Steam Workshop just doesn't like high resolution images. RIP quality.

Second attempt at updating the thumbnail, no luck

So, I've been busy. School work got in the way of some things for a while, but I'm back with a pretty meaty update

• Updated both the thumbnail and preview screenshots to feature more up-to-date and high quality images. Some of these were taken in crisp 4k quality, believe it or not.
  
  
• The 4 estates previously added by this mod have been phased out. The creator of Extended Timeline approached me wondering if they could integrate these into base ET, to which I agreed. Their implementation of an improved estate system will most likely arrive to ET in a future update.
  
  
• Updated the modern day bookmark to feature spheres of influence. Most of the worlds nations is now within the sphere of world powers, possibly leading to less (or more) conflict. If you have ideas for 'which' nations should be in 'whos' sphere, I would appreciate feedback.
  
  
• Changes to modern day: The G4 (Britain, France, Germany, Italy) are no longer Faction-Allies to the US, but rather regular allies. This change was made because Faction-Allies lack the ability to be Great Powers, which the latter countries are. This change was also made to Japan.
  
  
• Great Powers now immediatly loose their spheres of influence the moment they drop out of Great Power (this previously occured with a delay). Countries who are not Great Powers but have spheres will not loose these, unless they elevate to GP and then loose that status.
  
  
• Improved stability of political parties. Relevant parties should now always be displayed, while non-relevant parties remain hidden.
  
  
• Added events in the leadup to elections. A year or so prior to election democracies will have events that sway public support of political parties, increasing or decreasing their influence.
  
  
• Modifiers relating to political parties are now applied when the political party faction is in control, as opposed to being a modifier tied to elected rulers (so basically a return to the base ET system).
  
  
• Overhauled decisions and events surrounding the Raj. These have mostly just been updated to be less janky, but I've also added another path to the Raj formation event. You can now choose to integrate the Princely states under your direct rule, at the cost of increased autonomy within provinces previously owned by them. This is now the default path that the AI will pick, as the autonomous Raj options are a tad bit janky for it to handle.
  
  
• Added decisions to 'centralize' regions. Certain regions can now be 'centralized' under protectorates if a GP nation has influence over several countries in the region, examples include Yemen and Malaya.
  
  
• Added decisions to 'reorganize' historical colonies, which spawns cores for the modern day nation that occupy that land. For example; 'Reorganize the East-Indies' adds Indonesian cores to all provinces in the East-indies region you own, meaning that Indonesia can be released or break free via rebels.
  
  
• A bunch of event chains have been turned into disasters instead, examples include; Revolutions of 1848, American civil war, Oriental crisis, Xinhai revolution, Balkan uprisings, Spanish civil war, etc. This should give players more awareness and time to prepare ahead of impending crises. Some of these disasters have also received minor tweaks and changes to the way they play out, fire or end.
  
  
• Revolutions of 1848 disaster has been altered somewhat for France and Austria. Austria now has to deal with seperatists in Italy and Hungary on top of regular revolutionaries, in the midst of the chaos Sardinia-Piedmont also has the opportunity to annex Lombardy. France is scripted to lose the revolution and turn into a republic.
  
  
• Both Austria and Hungary can now form Austria-Hungary via a decision, so long as the other doesn't exist. This formation process previously occured via an event, which I found somewhat unintuative.
  
  
• Added events for seperation of Austria-Hungary, where the country changes name/tag if it loses one of its half.
  
  
• Overhauled Great Wars. Fighting parties can no longer peace out individually, and each respective war leader can only send peace deals upon one side reaching atleast 60% warscore. This is bound to cause some REAL deathwars.
  
  
• Decision to construct Nuclear weapons now requires ownership of a uranium producing province OR a province containing a Nuclear Powerplant. This is meant to give Nuclear weapons more exclusivity, while also giving uranium provinces a tactical value.
  
  
• Overhauled Swiss Neutrality. Previously, I had created a system where Switzerland automatically renewed truces with all neighbouring nations so as to prevent wars. Now I've replaced this system with a condition on the Declare war action that prevents declaring war on Switzerland outright.
  
  
• Added a decision to violate Swiss neutrality. At the cost of stability, a nation can revoke Switzerlands neutrality. AI nations will only do this if it is the sole nation neighbouring Switzerland, e.i, if Switzerland is surrounded on all borders by another country.
  
  
• Added a decision to Repurpose civilian convoys, quickly granting 50 cheap transport ships to a nation in need.
  
  
• Added a serfdom mechanic to Russia. At the start of the Victorian era Russia now has a modifier called 'Serfdom' granting decreased unrest and bonus manpower, but also penalties to tech cost and institution spread. Removing the modifier is a slow process, which first requires embracing the nationalism institution that spawns around 1850.
  
  
• Added a triggered modifier that reduces Army Tradition decay. Only triggers for nations with 100% army prof. in the Victorian era and onwards. This is meant to give militarly developed nations an easier means to stack Army Tradition, without the need to spam forts and constant wars.
  
  
• Upon game start, all overseas provinces located in trade company regions are now added to trade companies automaticlly. (So in other words, Britain won't have a bunch of State provinces in India anymore. These will automatically turn into territories, then TCs, without the need for player micro-managment.)
  
  
• Factory buildings can now only be built in Stated provinces.
  
  
• Previously, provinces with the Hard to Colonize modifier required Dip. Tech. 78 to be colonizable. I've increased this requirment to Dip. Tech. 81, as these provinces are better suited to be colonized in the late 1800-hundreds.
  
  
• Overhauled some AI behaviour, such as; the US and Qing will no longer colonise random provinces outside of their respective home regions, non-greatpower AI nations will now only colonise provinces adjacent to their existing colonies (meaning Denmark won't randomly become a colonial power because they colonise random provinces everywhere), the AI now develops their provinces more, and certain AI nations now have decisions that 'handhold' them into historical actions (such as the US declaring war on Mexico in 1845).
  
  
• Disabled royal marriages post-1836. This decision was made with both history and gameplay in mind, as monarchies have an easier time sphering nations using royal marriages. I also feel that random succession wars and personal unions aren't fitting for later startdates.
  
  
• Fixed an issue with the 'State Atheism' decision that would crash the game.

• Added a decision to form the United Kingdom as Great Britain. Simply a namechange, that's active by default in startdates post 1800.
  
  
• Expanded the Sphere of Influence system. Great Powers can now add smaller nations to their sphere of influence via a diplomatic action. Achieving 150 relations with a non-sphere, or country in the sphere of someone else, allows you to add that country to your sphere via a diplomatic action. Spheres give trade power to their overlord, but still preserve some sovereignty. If sphered, a nation may declare independence via decision.
  
  
• Great Powers lose their spheres of influence upon losing GP status.
  
  
• The Raj no longer get cores on all of India, just the provinces owned by their overlord and their subjects.
  
  
• India now stops being called the Raj upon achieving independence. It also gains cores on all of the India superregion if it stops being a subject.
  
  
• Certain ports in China now have the "Treaty Port" triggered modifier. This was previously applied to the provinces in question via an event, but is now triggerable as any nation that claims any of these provinces.
  
  
• The "Opium War" casus belli now only allows you to conquer these specific treaty port provinces.
  
  
• Changed the American-Mexican war event. AI Mexico will now surrender upon reaching 50+% OR capturing the Mexican capital province (this is mainly to make the war easier to win for the AI).
  
  
• Mexico is now forced into the US sphere of influence upon capitulation during the Mexican-American war, guaranteeing Mexicos drop out of GP and dicouraging the US AI from taking more land of them.
  
  
• Added a desicion to unite the Canadian colonies. If a nation has several colonial nations in Canada, these can be united via decision.
  
  
• Added events surrounding the Oregon Treaty. Great Britain and the US can now clean up the border between them in Canada through the Oregon Treaty event chain.
  
  
• Added events for the sale of Alaska to the US. Russia may now sell their colony to the US if they so wish.
  
  
• Added events relating to the Revolutions of 1848. Remaining an absolute monarchy and subsequently surviving the 1848 revolution now grants a strong modifier as a reward.
  
  
• The 1850s event "Nationalism in Germany and Italy" now unlocks a reconquest CB for German and Italian nations. This allows for the conquest of German/Italian core provinces owned by non-German/non-Italian nations.
  
  
• If a nation under a Personal Union enacts the Limited Party system or Multi Party system government reforms, the subject will turn into a Dominion instead.
  
  
• Added a new reform; Dominion Government, exclusive to nations who are Dominion subjects. While technically a type of monarchy, this reform has elected rulers who serve 4 year terms.
  
  
• Moved the Cold War bookmark forwards to 1956 (roughly coinciding with West German entry into NATO).
  
  
• AI Switzerland will no longer proclaim neutrality if it owns territory outside historical Swiss borders.
  
  
• Austria and Switzerland can now unite Germany (AND be a part of unification), given that they fulfil certain criteria. If Switzerland hasn't proclaimed neutrality, it can both form and be absorbed into Germany. If Austria owns no provinces outside of the South-Germany/North-Germany regions, the same applies to them.
  
  
• Prussia's map color has been changed to proper Prussian Blue.
  
  
• Added a Sphere mechanic to Germany. Prussia and Austria now have smaller German states within their spheres of influence, making the unification process more focused on diplomacy over warfare.
  
  
• Added decisions to form the North German Confederation and South German Confederation. These are not required for German Unification, but they allow you to grow stronger by integrating sphere members.
  
  
• Cleaned up code for Chinese events. Should be less buggy now.
  
  
• Fixed an issue where the setup event would fire multiple times.

And thats all for now, I think I'm going to take break from this mod for a while so that I can focus on other stuff. Still, if you find any issues feel free to report them and I'll get around to fixing them when I have time.

Changelog

• Added events relating to Konstanz and Schleswig-Holstein. Austria and Denmark respectively now have events to give up these territories prior to German unification, creating better looking borders upon complete unification.
  
  
• Added a short event chain for the creation of Romania
  
  
• Added the Balkan Congress, an event chain that triggers if the Ottomans decline in GP status. By the choice of a GP above them, they may be forced to give up all of their balkan lands.
  
  
• Added an event improving relations between US and Canada(/any Canadian colony), hopefully the US no longer eats them...
  
  
• Added a decision to create the British Raj. India can be released as a colonial nation this way.
  
  
• Overhauled decision to unite Germany. You now need to be the sole Great Power (besides Austria) in the Germany region to activate the decision. Furthermore, you need to own the provinces of Elsass and Holstein.
  
  
• Overhauled decision to unite Italy. You now need to be the most developed country in the Italy region to activate it.
  
  
• Certain nations now have their country name change upon enacting specific government reforms
  
  
• "Close alliances", aka multinational factions, are now called "Faction-Alliances"
  
  
• Added diplomatic actions relating to Faction-Alliances. You can now join, invite and leave Faction-Alliances via buttons in the diplomacy menu. AI nations also now form Faction-Alliances this way, with ideologically similar nations being more likely to form alliance networks and dismayed allies being more likely to leave existing alliances.
  
  
• "Spread Democracy","Spread Fascism" and "Spread Communism" casus bellis have been slightly changed. Upon enforcing a government change on another country, the government that is installed "adopts" reforms from the country that enforces it (a dictatorship will install a dictatorship, for example). Furthermore, the target country now also joins your Faction-Alliance. (Note: these CBs are kind of buggy)
  
  
• Added swedish prime ministers to the history files, so far Belgium and Sweden now have their historical prime ministers available in historical bookmarks
  
  
• Mil tech no longer grant increases to base land-morale beyond mil tech 77, thereby reducing the significance of morale modifiers late game.

• Changed mod thumbnail
  
  
• 4 new estates; Workers, Capitalists, Farmers and Generals. These only have limited functionality currently, but they may see some development down the road.
  
  
• The election system has been scrapped, political party game mechanics have been essentially restored to the old base ET faction system (albeit with some minor changes). This part of the mod will see some expansion in the future.
  
  
• Added a decision to nuke enemy capitals during late-game wars, turning wars of this time period into FAR more destructive conflicts.
  
  
• Added a small event chain for the end of the shogunate and imperial restoration in Japan. Includes an alt-history path featuring a shogun republic, the Republic of Ezo
  
  
• You can now choose to play as the CSA during the American Civil war event (this feature was previously broken)
  
  
• Added a decision to partially secularise, granting some of the boons of secularism without needing to abandon your old religion. Comes at the cost of tolerance of the true faith
  
  
• Added a decision to leave factions (NATO, Warsaw pact, any of the factions added in later startdates), which also increases the likelyhood of these factions collapsing altogether (If you don't like the faction system, this allows you to remove them)
  
  
• Setup events now trigger upon game start, as opposed to after 1 month of ingame time
  
  
• Removed terra incognita in post-1836 startdates, for every nation
  
  
• Map color of China has been changed to be more 'cream' (similar to the color in Hoi4)
  
  
• Marines have been buffed, cuz why not? This really is turning into a mod where I just change random stuff that bothers me. Instead of taking +25% shock damage, they now recieve -10% shockdamage. You might actually bother using them now
  
  
• Minor rebalancing
  
  
• A bunch of minor bugs fixed

-Minor bugfixes
-Removal of some minor events