Common Universalis is a total overhaul mod created by Corpsemania that focuses on producing an entirely new, challenging, balanced and detailed gameplay experience. In this mod you can play as whatever kind of ruler you like, all have their unique mechanics, problems and solutions. In fact, you can never experience every aspect of the game, unless you have tried all of them. In this manual, you can learn what new features are added, how these new mechanics work, and understand some basic parts of the game strategy. But it will not tell you how to make decisions or how to solve problems, for these, you have to find out in the game yourself. What do you want to know?


Expansion in this mod is entirely different from that of the original game. In this mod, core creation cost is greatly increased(15 points/dev), but you will not have to core every conquered provinces and run out of your adm power, instead, you can just wait for the province auto-core(PAC), and you will gain a free core in this province. The average time of PAC is influenced by core creation ideas, culture, religion(heathens and untolerated heresies take penalty), overextension(the higher the longer), government buildings and province development(the higher the longer)

If the province has your primary culture, you can expect PAC to finish in an average of 5 years, otherwise, you have to wait until its separatism passes away. There is a 'Suppress Nationalism' event that allows you to spend mil power(10 per 3 devs) to reduce a province's separatism by 10. Warning:When you reload your game, all reduced separatism will come back, this is a bug from the original game which I haven't found a way to fix. So try to avoid S&L before PAC is done

A non-core province has 5 extra unrest and cost additional 1 yearly maintenance, meanwhile it contributes to the overextension, which gives further penalties and lowers the frequency of province auto-core and suppress nationalism event. So keeping a lot of non-core province is highly costly and risky, but still, it is an efficient way of fast expansion.

There are many ways of quick expansion in this mod. For example, you can pick the administrative ideas, fabricate claims and advance adm tech to gain a minimum core creation cost, and core most of your conquered provinces;Or you can pick Humanist idea which reduce both unrest and years of separatism, and keeping a lot of provinces for PAC;When you have a high own religion tolerance, religious ideas are even better than humanism;Building a City Government in the conquered province, or a Provincial Government in any province next to it, will reduce PAC time by about 25%, but you have to develop the province to meet the building requirement first;As diplomatic annexation costs a lot less than creating cores, diplomatic and influence ideas are also good choices;Other ideas also help a lot.

Several countries have unique expansion mechanics. For example, European colonists can slaughter natives in oversea provinces, changing their culture and religion to primary and prevent nationalist rebels from spawning;the Ottomans can annex and core the entire mamluks when their army captures Cairo(but at the cost of high local autonomy), making the Ottomans the best nation for early expansion. Chinese nations, and foreign nations after moving capital to Chinese region, can declare the Mandate of Heaven, which, if accepted, allows them to seize and auto-core all captured Chinese provinces, making it possible to reunify China in ten or twenty years.


Economy in Common Universalis is very different and a bit more complicated than that in the original game. Inflation is now a key factor in the game representing not only the currency increase, but also the rising corruption of large empires. It is increased by province development, gold production and decreased by the num of provinces. You can hardly avoid inflation from increasing, so keep your income growing. Economic, innovativeness and administrative ideas will help you fight inflation. Be aware that inflation now also affects trade efficiency, if you simply let it fly , it will destroy your trade empire in the end. Inflation is extremely disastrous for large less advanced empires - especially for Ming.

Buildings are now much more important, not only in a few key provinces, but in all among your empire. All buildings are useful, especially for the government buildings, which can neutralise large empire's stability, advisor cost and global unrest penalty related to total development and the num of provinces. As each province has limited slots, you should improve your provinces to unlock new slots, and choose wisely. Building a City Government requires the province to have at least 15 development, or be next to another province which has a Provincial Government in it. Building a Provincial Government requires the province to have your core and at least 24 development.

Your policy and government type will affect your economy. Each ruler can switch the countries'economic policy for one time, including the currency issue and taxation. both of them have different options, whose effects are quite balanced, and suitable for different situation. Almost all government types now have a minimum autonomy. Later government forms have lower autonomy, for example Feudal Monarchy has 30%, and administrative monarchy has 20%. Chinese Celestial Empire now has 0% minimum autonomy, but it has several modifiers which weakened the nation significantly, these modifiers can be temperately removed by reforms and permanently removed by the combination of idea groups.

Small countries and large empires have different economic structure. Each province now have gold maintenance, autonomy and bad terran will reduce its maintenance. All nations now have a country-size modifier which influence the nation in every aspects. Check the triggered modifiers for more detailed information. Small countries can build up their economy by improving development and compete for local trade superiority, while larger empires rely heavily on buildings, strong administration and a global trade route.

How your country's economy runs is also affected by the portions of Tax, Production and Manpower in provincial and total Development. For example, Tax will increase inflation and Production will reduce it, so if you are suffering a high inflation increase, try boosting Production instead of Tax. Check the development penal in the province view for more details.

Large empires rely heavily on trade. In Common Universalis, Mercantilism will increase province trade power and in the meantime reduce your trade efficiency. You can adjust Mercantilism by 1(2 when you have full trade ideas) each time you switch your economic policies. Increase Mercantilism when you compete with strong trade opponents, and reduce it to maximise your trade income when you win this zero-sum game.


The combat system in the original game is well-balanced and pretty enough for EU4's gameplay, so this mod changed little in it. However, the supply limit calculation is now totally reworked, turning the logistics into a major aspect of war, and making the fort an important role in both defensive and offensive operations. Switch to the supply limit map, you will see that provinces without a fort now have a much lower supply limit, while those with fort have equal or even higher supply limit compared to the original game. Also, I have increased land attrition in bad climates and terrains.

The new supply system make the mass strategy much more risky, especially in cold or desert areas. You may suffer tens of thousands of casualty even before encountering your enemy. Divide your troops, improve their quality, build a fort chain from your army's station to the frontier, and stay home or in a captured fort during winter - if you have to attack, do it slow and steadily. All military ideas are now completely balanced, choose the one you really need.


Version 1. 5(Land of Liberty) added new population growth and migration mechanics into the game. Province development will growth naturally, each time randomly increase base tax, production or manpower by 1, and meanwhile provide a 10-years local development cost discount(-20%), allowing further development of this province. The speed and upper limit of population growth depend on the terrain, buildings(to be added) and ideas. Population growth will slow down in the little ice age. When suffering a famine, there will be no growth in this province.

Migration:Provinces with high development will transfer their development to other provinces, providing a development discount to both provinces, and influence the culture of the target province. The migration target may be oversea provinces, your colonial subjects, your homeland, foreign colonies and your neighbour countries(sorted by chance, from highest to lowest). If immigrants of your culture group have settled in one of your provinces with a foreign culture for several times(depending on the province's development), they will change its culture into your
primary one. Little Ice age and famine will increase the likelihood of immigration, and famine will avoid immigration.


Steppe Nomads

Steppe nomads have two unique decisions and in this mod. 'Raising the Horde!' and 'Start Plundering'. 'Raising the Horde!' will start a special period of 3 months long, during which all of your provinces may answer to your call, reducing their base tax, production and manpower by 1 or 2 and provide you one or two land unit(if the terrain of the province is steppe, or it has your accepted culture, it gives you cavalry, otherwise it gives infantry). The development of raised provinces will recover after several years. You can only raise the horde in spring or summer.

'Start Plundering!' allows you to pillaging your neighbours during peace time. When this is on, your neighbours' provinces will randomly be pillaged, reducing development by 1 and gives you a small amount of gold, manpower and monarchy points. However this will also deteriorates your neighbours' opinion of you, and gives them a unique CB as powerful as tribal ones.

Nomads also have some other features. The expansion of nomads is quite different from that of others, they auto-core large provinces much more slowly, and they have a unique slaughter event that replaces the normal 'Suppress Nationalism' event, which is far more effectively, brutally and devastating. Nomad government now has 50% minimum autonomy, and coring a nomad province is now 25% cheaper, these two are both advantages and disadvantages for the nomads.

Celestial Empire

The minimum autonomy of Celestial empire is now set to 0%, but this super-advanced government type now has 5 passive modifiers which weaken the empire even more than the autonomy does in the original game. These modifiers are Gentry's Landholding, Artisan's Regulation, Wei-Suo System, Trade Limitation and Foreign Ignorance. And remember, westernization will NOT remove these modifiers, so Ming's priority can now be elsewhere. So how to remove these modifiers?There are 2 ways, one temperately by issuing reforms(check the decision penal and you can see them), and one permanently by the combination of idea groups, for example, if you have finished two idea groups picked from diplomatic ideas, influence ideas and expansion ideas, you will no longer have Foreign Ignorance. Check the removal conditions of each modifiers in the triggered modifiers panel.

Celestial empire government can now be reformed into a more advanced type, either through decision or westernization. Although still having the five modifiers, a reformed Celestial Empire can issue temperate reforms much more easily, and can be further reformed to Absolute Monarchy when you reach adm tech 18. You may find all Chinese reforms in the decision penal, except for the reform into Absolute Monarchy, which can only be seen when you have a reformed celestial empire.

There is also a tributary system for the celestial empire, other countries can send tribute to the empire and expect better rewards. Chinese emperors are always generous, so you will be welcomed even with empty hands.

Republic Election

Republic Elections have been reworked. All republic government now have factions, and you can only pick the candidate of the leading faction without consuming republic tradition. Each candidate now have random adm, dip and mil ability, but the one related to his faction will never be lower than 2. Rulers can be re-elected only if his faction is still the leading one.

Navy

Navy now plays a more important role in this mod. Firstly, maritime and naval ideas have been significantly enhanced:Countries with full maritime ideas can now hire colonists without exploration or expansion ideas, and they receive extra merchants when owning a large amount of light ships. Naval ideas now improve sea combat far more significantly, and allows a powerful 'Sun Never Sets' CB which allows the conquest of all oversea colonies. Secondly, blockade is now more effective, each blocked provinces will increase its owner's war exhaustion by 0. 01 every month. Thirdly, ship cost has been increased by 25% - 50%, and light ships now have only half maintenance, naval buildings are also more effective.