The main focus of the upcoming Divergences update will be content for Hungary, one of the most popular starting nations in Europe in the mod which up to this point had few content of suboptimal quality.
Right at the start of the game in 1836, you will recieve an event explaining the challenges that lay ahead in your path to bring Hungary into the European elite. Having just recently unified after 300 years of partition between the Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the semi-independent Principality of Transylvania, Hungary in 1836 is an amalgam of quaint institutions and privileged groups rather than a consolidated nation-state.
Just as in previous versions of Divergences, your main goal in the early game will be the recovery of the Crown of Saint Stephen, a medieval relic indispensable to legitimise the Hungarian monarch - legitimacy that will be needed in order to reform Hungary into a proper centralised state.
After the crown has been recovered (through legitimate or not-so-legitimate means) a decision will become available to reclaim the Kingdom of Croatia, a former possession of the medieval Hungarian crown, and the Hungarian Age of Reform will kick off.
In royal Hungary, the former territories under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Empire, the privileges of the catholic nobility will have to be broken down. Given that the unification of Hungary occurred under the auspices of the Duke of Nitra, the resulting state saw a catholic elite rule over a majority protestant population. This unsustainable arrangement will have to end, and the Protestants allowed to hold high office within the Hungarian government, if further reforms are to be enacted.
Another issue are the still-existing medieval privileges of the Hungarian nobility, which are crushing the peasantry under the yoke of serfdom. Hungary, unlike other nations in Divergences, is mechanically unique in that Serfdom cannot be abolished through the usual reform tab - the institution is far too entrenched in the current constitution. Liberalising the countryside will be a two step process: first the most glaring abuses of signeural rights will have to be tackled, and only afterwards can serfdom as an institution be properly abolished.
In south-central Hungary, the provinces corresponding to Ottoman Madjaristan, economy is the biggest issue at hand. Due to the frequent warfare between the Holy Roman Empire and the Turks, the Hungarian peasants emigrated from the Great Plain, leaving the lands fallow. The Ottomans nevertheless seized upon the opportunity and introduced cattle economy, which thrived in the now-extensive grasslands. Nevertheless, in the age of industrialisation cattle as a crash crop has lost its worth, and it is up to the player to invest into the Great Hungarian plain and choose how to properly modernise its economical activities.
In Transylvania, the first of the several privileged groups that will have to be confronted are the Szekelys - a group of Hungarian frontiersmen that were settled in military colonies during medieval times to protect the eastern borders of the Kingdom. Szekely society has been on decline for a long time, although their various privileges and tax exemptions have survived to the present.
Abolishing said privileges will increase your tax base and allow proper investment of the state into the mineral resources of the Szekelyföld, although this move will be met with opposition.
Unrest will break out in the Szekelyföld, and the player will have to choose how to deal with it. Biding your time will mean that negative modifiers will be hurting the Szekely province for years, whereas resorting to violence will result in a massacre with far-reaching consequences for your nation.
Stay tuned for more dev diaries as we gear up for release of the upcoming patch later on in this month. Find the mod here:
Will Romania get the same(or similar) decisions for Transylvania if Romania forms and has Transylvania with it before Hungary takes those decisions? Would same apply if a great power forms Romania via decision as a puppet?
Romania will get events to at least remove some of the modifiers that wouldn't make sense for them (i.e. Vlach unrest, not shown here but added by the 'Legacy of Madjaristan' event).