True Mauryan Decline

Not ironman achievement compatible.

This mod aims to put harsher penalties on the Mauryan Empire in the mid-game so it does not diminish the impact of the Seleucid Empire around the Mediterranean Sea.

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Summary

• Changes the Mauryan Abandoned Heritage; its trigger remains unchanged
• Introduces a new Mauryan Decline Heritage; can and will be be triggered by the AI via decision after a certain date if Maurya exceeds a certain size

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Changes

Maurya Heritage ("Heritage of Chandragupta")

• no changes

Mauryan Abandoned Heritage (renamed from "Mauryan Decline" to “Wavering Maurya”)

• Removed the lowered civil war threshold: This is actually not a negative modifier, as it will lead to laughably weak revolts that result in high character loyalty after it has been put down.
• Added a passive character corruption increase: The base game introduces a decrease in monthly wages for characters, which is similar to lowering character wages in the economy tab that would normally lead to passive corruption.

Mauryan Decline Heritage (“Curse of Corruption”)

• Maximum number of mercenaries +1
• More noble happiness
• Even lower character wages
• Severe passive character corruption
• Massive monthly province loyalty penalty

Historically, Maurya controlled most of India around the year 524 AUC = 230 BC. After that point in time, Maurya started losing territories until the ruling class was overthrown in the year 569 AUC = 185 BC. The Indo-Greek Kingdom was founded in 574 AUC = 180 BC.

The new heritage is triggered via a new decision that is available to Maurya after a certain date if it has passed a population threshold. My goal was to ensure that Maurya still had time to exert its influence over the entirety of India.
The AI will always enact the decision, a player can choose not to.

I tried to turn the Mauryan Decline heritage into a more extreme version: As government wages harshly drop, the ruling class is forced to turn to open corruption to make ends meet. The nobles enjoy buying more privileges via bribes. As the military becomes more and more loyal to their commanders, a higher presence of mercenary bands is required to maintain the status quo. Provinces grow increasingly unhappy with the ever present corruption and start to revolt.

A monthly province loyalty penalty of -5 will cause Maurya to fall and disappear within 30 years. It takes the AI that long to collapse because of a hidden buff introduced in Imperator 2.0: Every time an AI controlled province rises up in rebellion, every other province they control will receive a flat loyalty boost of +30. This was introduced by Paradox to balance out the vastly more aggressive AI in 2.0.

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Mod Compatibility

• If another mod changes the Mauryan Abandoned Heritage, the mod load order in the launcher will determine which mod takes precedence.

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Changelog

• Version 1.*: Mauryan Abandoned Heritage was changed to give moderate penalties in the form of passive province disloyalty and character corruption. This would essentially "freeze" Maurya in time.
• Version 2.*: Turned the Mauryan Abandoned Heritage into a "normal" heritage and introduced a new Mauryan Decline Heritage that will splinter Maurya by force.