Dev Diary 2018-10-26

Welcome to our second dev diary for 3.8, due out November 2 to the public and on early access now. Most of today's dev diary will focus on the Papacy which, if you hadn't noticed, hasn't been working the greatest as the cardinals seem incapable of completing some basic addition to figure out how many of them there are. That's all about to change.

Cardinals
Cardinals in a "Cardinal's Seat" no longer die as the death of these cardinals just resulted in a new one being instantly appointed; we now assume a seamless transition from one cardinal to his replacement in these provinces. Other cardinals still age and die and a nation that loses its last cardinal in the Curia loses its accumulated College Influence giving those with a Cardinal's Seat a distinct advantage in that this cannot happen so long as you hold one of the seats. The seats and the dates they become appointed haven't changed from prior versions.

Interaction
The Papacy window makes a return (though you will see with some notable differences from vanilla) and spending of Papal Influence is now done through the interface here instead of via decision. Papal Influence is still generated by the same old factors (see the Papacy page) in Catholic provinces and can be spent on the same benefits you could before: stability, missionary strength, legitimacy, taxes (now as a modifier instead of a lump sum), diplomatic reputation, and manpower recovery. Additionally we've added a new option to use Papal Influence to have a cardinal appointed and streamlined the process for investing influence in cardinals from the unwieldy event in previous versions.



Influence
Papal Influence is generated and spent as described above while a new type of influence, College Influence to represent the influence of your cardinal(s) within the curia. College influence is generated over time by cardinals and can also be purchased with Papal Influence or gained/lost via certain events. College Influence is the factor determining which cardinals will be eligible for election with the top five most influential nations putting forward one of their cardinals as a candidate.



Elections
As said above, the five nations with the most College Influence put forward one of their cardinals as a candidate (with the automatic support of that nation's other cardinals and the cardinals of any subject nations). Any remaining cardinals are assigned by chance, relative to the percentage of total influence the country possesses. (so a country with 25 College Influence out of a total College Influence pool of 125 has a 20% chance of gaining the vote of each unassigned cardinal; the chance is rolled for the highest influence country first then the second and so on). After the initial disbursement, the five candidates are ranked by number of supporting Cardinals with the lowest two removed and their cardinals reassigned by the same procedure (except now the person with the most cardinals gets to "roll" for each available cardinal first; their chances are still based on their influence percentage). After that round the person with the third most cardinals is eliminated and their cardinals disbursed; a winner is determined between the remaining two candidates. A tie in the number of cardinals at any stage is broken by the country with more College Influence.



What Stays The Same
Crusades are still called by the Pope via decision and function as they always have in VeF. The Papal Controller makes a return in place of the old Papal Sponsor, but the position of Virtus Post Solium (the Papacy's military protector) can still be gained by relevant Catholic nations. The western schism will be on a short hiatus, but expect to see it return soon.

Version 3.8 is currently in early access and will release on Friday, November 2.