Post by: inteuniso on August 10, 2012, 09:23:27 am
They're also hinting at a melding of the features of different games, such as making characters more important, as people can identify with individual characters.
EDIT: A full list of EU IV features (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?625530-Just-the-facts-m-am-collected-information-from-the-devs-READ-BEFORE-POSTING), link given by Johnfalcon99977
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 09:28:39 am
EU3 was the game that got me really into Grand Strategy games but I found after playing other Paradox titles like Victoria II and Crusader Kings II that Eruopa suffered a bit from being a bastard and a jack of all trades. It was mainly the lack of any meaningful diplomacy or trading which meant that between wars there wasn't all that much to do. I guess I would like to see more "population management" in Europa like Victoria II had, it makes sense to me with Europa being focused on colonial land grabbing and empire building.
I doubt this will be but a day one purchase for me. Might be interesting to see how they handle the expansions and whether they'll go the CKII route.
EDIT:
They're also hinting at a melding of the features of different games, such as making characters more important, as people can identify with individual characters.Could we be seeing a return of some of the EU:Rome features? I know that game was a mess but it did have some interesting little mechanics here and there. I enjoyed playing as the Gauls a little too much.
Double Edit: http://kotaku.com/europa-universalis-iv/ (sorry for Kotaku :< )
http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/19367/paradox-reveals-europa-universalis-iv-for-q3-2013
Post by: Karlito on August 10, 2012, 09:33:31 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 10, 2012, 09:40:42 am
Post by: RedKing on August 10, 2012, 09:48:18 am
It's Paradox. It'll probably be less than optimal at launch, and eventually (after several DLC packs and updates) be digital crack.
Post by: inteuniso on August 10, 2012, 09:50:49 am
Anyways, they claim it will have "more historical characters than ever before." I'm thinking that they're going to do a power rangers-esque melding of their games to create the greatest grand-strategy that ever was.
EDIT: RedKing, refer to CKII. As part of their beta, it was more polished than any of their games at release. It had bugs, but they certainly weren't gamebreaking. If they follow a similar dev-cycle, it should be optimal, and fun.
Post by: Toady Two on August 10, 2012, 09:53:55 am
This news really cheers me up after the recent cancellation of the standalone Magna Mundi game. It just means I'll have more time to play CK2 and mods before a worthy successor to EU3 is published.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 09:54:56 am
Anyways, they claim it will have "more historical characters than ever before." I'm thinking that they're going to do a power rangers-esque melding of their games to create the greatest grand-strategy that ever was.I don't think that's going to be the case. I think Paradox knows that doing something like might be development suicide. You have to balance everything and make sure it's all historical accurate. On top of that you have to make it accessible and easy enough to manage. Trying to keep track of a near endless amount of mechanics and having to pause every few days to prevent your kingdom to collapse would only appeal to a very select group of players. Adding small mechanics from their other titles is quite possible though.
I believe this is why Paradox often have heavily "themed" games that expand on a particular part of national focus while simplifying and generalising the rest. You can see this very clearly in Crusader Kings II with the lack of economy and trading.
Post by: Cheese on August 10, 2012, 09:55:41 am
I'm hoping for more intricate combat, but I doubt there will be. Hopefully the new badboy system will be better at restricting excessive conquest.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 10, 2012, 10:10:42 am
Post by: lastverb on August 10, 2012, 10:16:03 am
Post by: Azkanan on August 10, 2012, 10:22:49 am
*shakes fist at Inte*
Post by: Cheese on August 10, 2012, 10:35:04 am
Damn! I just ran over here, stumbling over gateway errors to post this.Would you join me in a plot to remove Int from power?
*shakes fist at Inte*
Article about EUIV with screenshots and some tidbits of information: http://kotaku.com/europa-universalis-iv/
Edit: More articles for the article god! This time some more info and the announcement trailer. Strategy informer article (http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/19367/paradox-reveals-europa-universalis-iv-for-q3-2013) Announcement trailer (http://www.strategyinformer.com/pc/europauniversalisiv/movie/45009.html)
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 10, 2012, 10:42:45 am
Also, just 'over 300 years'? Damn, we've gotta wait for expansions to get the EU3 time range, then.
Post by: Cheese on August 10, 2012, 10:43:58 am
Post by: Errol on August 10, 2012, 10:59:46 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs)
Post by: Cheese on August 10, 2012, 11:01:03 am
Post by: TripJack on August 10, 2012, 11:01:03 am
i've learned my lesson with paradox, i'll probably wait a few years for the diamond ultimate super complete edition before i buy eu4
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 11:04:40 am
i've learned my lesson with paradox, i'll probably wait a few years for the diamond ultimate super complete edition before i buy eu4* Diamond Ultimate Super Chronicles Edition
Paradox doesn't understand the concept of "complete" :p
Post by: TripJack on August 10, 2012, 11:07:23 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 11:14:10 am
This would really change the balance and would stop countries like England rofl stomping the rest of the British Isles as the smaller Celtic countries will likely be a (semi-historical) coalition.
Good to also seem to same level of modding support, not that I expected less. Multiplayer improvements sound lovely but until they do something with the pause/time system I doubt I could get into it. I said it once and I'll say it again: Defcon's simultaneous pause system is the best for a game like this. As the game scales in a decent amount of players the time system can become more "democratic" so more players would have to set it to a lower/higher speed to change it.
Post by: sambojin on August 10, 2012, 11:18:23 am
But now I'll wait for this. Woohoo, another game I actually think I'll play for years.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 11:21:12 am
The modding scene is almost where Paradox games really shine. There are some great mods out there that have had years of development while EU4 won't have the benefits of mods until a few months after release.
Post by: TripJack on August 10, 2012, 11:36:21 am
Post by: sambojin on August 10, 2012, 11:38:14 am
(I just had a Diablo 3 shudder moment. That game HAS to get better. It was my last full price purchase and I still haven't finished it. But it's because I couldn't be bothered. If Paradox doesn't do this to EU4, then I'll be happy).
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 10, 2012, 12:10:26 pm
The addition of 'hotjoin' is good news. I can't even count the number of times everybody has had to rehost because someone cut out.
Post by: Twiggie on August 10, 2012, 12:18:03 pm
Dammit Paradox.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 12:20:45 pm
Wow, they couldn't even be bothered to design a new map - check out the trailer, its the same land masses from EU3.Europe in Europa Univeralis AGAIN?!? *flips table*
Dammit Paradox.
Post by: Dutchling on August 10, 2012, 12:25:36 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2012, 12:26:54 pm
Haven't seen it on youtube yet.
Post by: Oliolli on August 10, 2012, 01:34:49 pm
Please refer to following video for my reaction:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ALwKeSEYs)
I was a bit worried when that link was orange. But my reaction was pretty much the same.
Only way Paradox could be more certain that they'll be getting more money from me would be Hearts of Iron IV. It would be the only one missing from my collection... for a while.
Post by: Kanil on August 10, 2012, 01:51:34 pm
It's certainly not an insta-buy for me, but after I read some dev diaries, maybe. And given that they have a year to write dev diaries...
Post by: Dutchling on August 10, 2012, 01:56:13 pm
Post by: Tarran on August 10, 2012, 02:03:18 pm
I'll be watching this. I spent so much time on EU3.
Post by: Rex_Nex on August 10, 2012, 04:00:08 pm
Post by: Heron TSG on August 10, 2012, 04:37:03 pm
Post by: micelus on August 10, 2012, 04:53:01 pm
But just a little nitpick.
Quote from: RPS
Have more than a thousand historical leaders and over 4000 historical Monarchs at your disposal.
The articles seem to be mentioning this detail quite a bit. Now, if this just means that there's a historical mode, then that's all fine. But what if it means rulers are restricted to historical ones? Probably an unfounded fear, but its possible.
Post by: Maldevious on August 10, 2012, 04:58:06 pm
Post by: Lightning4 on August 10, 2012, 05:20:32 pm
The articles seem to be mentioning this detail quite a bit. Now, if this just means that there's a historical mode, then that's all fine. But what if it means rulers are restricted to historical ones? Probably an unfounded fear, but its possible.
Probably. I can't imagine how that would work for nations that historically ceased to exist within a few years of the game start.
Post by: micelus on August 10, 2012, 05:48:56 pm
YEEEESSSSS!!!
But just a little nitpick.Quote from: RPSHave more than a thousand historical leaders and over 4000 historical Monarchs at your disposal.
The articles seem to be mentioning this detail quite a bit. Now, if this just means that there's a historical mode, then that's all fine. But what if it means rulers are restricted to historical ones? Probably an unfounded fear, but its possible.
Nevermind, Captain Gars has assuaged my fears.
Post by: Azkanan on August 11, 2012, 04:10:16 am
Must... resist... EU3...
(http://static.fjcdn.com/comments/must+_fe0059f8bd576ae4025215740d92acd9.jpg)
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on August 11, 2012, 04:29:52 am
Historical leadership was optional in EU3, I don't know why they'd change it now.Quote from: RPSHave more than a thousand historical leaders and over 4000 historical Monarchs at your disposal.
The articles seem to be mentioning this detail quite a bit. Now, if this just means that there's a historical mode, then that's all fine. But what if it means rulers are restricted to historical ones? Probably an unfounded fear, but its possible.
I just hope they don't neglect East vs. West's development because of this. Everyone knows Europa Universalis has always been Paradox's lovechild.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 11, 2012, 04:37:04 am
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on August 11, 2012, 04:39:32 am
Post by: inteuniso on August 11, 2012, 09:05:13 am
Post by: Errol on August 11, 2012, 09:43:38 am
I want it to have the depth of combat of HoI3, the economy and population of vicky 2, and a trade system and colonization system of the gods.
Wait for DF 1.0.
Post by: Dutchling on August 11, 2012, 09:54:51 am
I want it to have the depth of combat of HoI3, the economy and population of vicky 2, and a trade system and colonization system of the gods.You forgot the dynasty system of CKii.
Post by: Oliolli on August 11, 2012, 10:55:49 am
I want it to have the depth of combat of HoI3, the economy and population of vicky 2, and a trade system and colonization system of the gods.
Wait for DF 1.0.
No, physical and chemical reactions being recorded live for the entire world down to the quantum level is not necessary.
Post by: snelg on August 12, 2012, 06:09:13 am
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on August 12, 2012, 06:12:21 am
I'm wondering if it is even possible to simulate quantum mechanics in a video game, or in a computer in general.No, physical and chemical reactions being recorded live for the entire world down to the quantum level is not necessary.I want it to have the depth of combat of HoI3, the economy and population of vicky 2, and a trade system and colonization system of the gods.
Wait for DF 1.0.
Post by: Xeron on August 12, 2012, 07:59:27 am
I'm wondering if it is even possible to simulate quantum mechanics in a video game, or in a computer in general.
[/quote]
Challenge accepted
Post by: ibot66 on August 12, 2012, 12:44:13 pm
Imagine starting up a world in DF only for the entire thing to explode.
Post by: inteuniso on August 12, 2012, 03:20:19 pm
Some interesting quotes:
Quote from: Destructoid Article
Trade ceases to be a merchant placement mini-game, and looks set to become far more connected to conquest, colonization, exploration, and diplomacy. No longer do you have to conquer entire countries to get a gold mine in a specific province, you can use your fleet and strategic bases to control the flow of trade on your own terms.
Quote from: Destructoid Article
Johan clarifies how this will work. "So what we are trying to do is that in EU is you have the administrative, diplomatic, and military ability. So we’re making it so that each of these gives you points, then you use this points to do certain things. So if you have a really good monarch you get lots of points every month, these points are used for buying ideas, increasing your technology, making a province into a core, assaulting a fortress, and making a leader"
Quote from: Destructoid Article
They are improving their matchmaking system, adding a chat that, in Johan's words, "wasn't designed in the 80s", and stand alone servers running off players' PCs which allow for saving the game and jumping in whenever you feel like it.
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 13, 2012, 03:10:48 pm
EU III was one of my most favorite games ever, and I can't wait for the next one!
Post by: RedKing on August 14, 2012, 09:45:30 am
I'm eager to know more about how they're incorporating more "personality" to rulers. Honestly, I'd love to see something where your ministers and generals/admirals can be potential threats to power. Maybe they all have individual popularity and loyalty ratings, and in periods of severe unstability (-2 or -3 stab) they could support pretenders to the throne (or become pretenders themselves).I want it to have the depth of combat of HoI3, the economy and population of vicky 2, and a trade system and colonization system of the gods.You forgot the dynasty system of CKii.
I'd love to see a system that could result in a Belisarius-type scenario, where you maybe don't send your most effective general to stop that invading army, because you're afraid the people will love him more than they do you. Maybe in conjunction with some kind of faction system like China in DW, but more dynamic. That could then evolve into political parties in Victoria.
Granted, that would be virtually a game's worth of dev work in itself.
Post by: Dutchling on August 14, 2012, 10:52:57 am
Post by: RedKing on August 14, 2012, 11:28:40 am
Post by: snelg on August 14, 2012, 12:10:21 pm
Quote
And here's the link if someone's interested:
- Make your own decisions: Nation building is completely flexible
- Use your Monarch Power: In this new system, a leader's traits will direct the ebb and flow of gameplay
- Experience history coming to life: The great personalities of the past are on hand to support you as you make your mark on thousands of historical events
- Turn the world into your playground: Enjoy over 300 years of gameplay in a lush topographical map in full 3D
- Gain control of vital trade routes and make the wealth of the world flow to your coffers in the all-new trade system
- Bring out your negotiating skills in a deeper diplomatic system
- Go online and battle against your friends in an all-new multiplayer game mode that features hot-join, improved chatting, a new matchmaking server, and support for a standalone server
- Create your own history and customize your game: Europa Universalis IV gives you the chance to customize and mod practically anything your heart may desire
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1044-Gamescom-2012-Europa-Universalis-IV-Officially-Announced-trailer-screens (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1044-Gamescom-2012-Europa-Universalis-IV-Officially-Announced-trailer-screens)
Quote
Use your Monarch Power: In this new system, a leader's traits will direct the ebb and flow of gameplayI'm interested to see if this will be something along the lines of what they did with Ming factions in DW (I hope not).
The random kings were always a pain in the ass when trying to westernize (seldom having high enough stats) so I hope it won't be something like that either.
But it needs to have a pretty strong effect to control how people play the game. Still, I don't really feel like doing nothing a lot of the time because options are out of the question thanks to the current monarch (especially since they tended to live long when you didn't want them to).
Based on EU3, perhaps the new one will add a lot of new things to do.
Post by: Domenique on August 14, 2012, 12:15:32 pm
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 14, 2012, 07:43:07 pm
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?625530-Just-the-facts-m-am-collected-information-from-the-devs-READ-BEFORE-POSTING!
Oi, inteuniso, put this in the O.P.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on August 14, 2012, 08:57:08 pm
Anyways Im excited that the multiplayer might actually be stable now!
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 14, 2012, 09:20:41 pm
...and it would literally be the perfect strat game imo...
That the problem with your statement. Europa Universalis is not a game about war, its a game about managing a nation. Conquest is purely optional, and some people like me only pursue it to an extent.
Edit: Why do I have this gut feeling that they are going to sell a CK2-EU4 converter as DLC? It may just be my cynical side taking over, but it would only make so much sense.
Post by: inteuniso on August 14, 2012, 09:30:24 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on August 14, 2012, 10:13:45 pm
sidenote, I believe somewhere in the topic where it lists the features it says there will NOT be a ck2-eu4 converter because it's difficult
Post by: Karlito on August 14, 2012, 10:24:13 pm
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on August 14, 2012, 10:36:17 pm
You know what I'd like in EU IV? An event chain that fires if it looks like you're going the World Conquest route and make things far more difficult for you. It always annoyed me that the people of the world would just stand by and wait while a huge empire ate up the world province by province. If that happened there would be a clear panic and reaction amongst the remaining autonomous states against the conqueror. Infamy just does not stop players, and there have been WCs done without even breaking the infamy limit anyway. PrawnStar is doing one for England right now, even.
Post by: Karlito on August 14, 2012, 10:41:31 pm
Post by: sambojin on August 15, 2012, 01:11:38 am
Maybe even some achievements based on how many of your own rulers you've offed over the course of history :)
Post by: Trollheiming on August 15, 2012, 04:38:35 am
combat shouldnt be necessary but historically war and conquest factored heavily into nation management, it's a very large part of history you can't just ignore it, and if you want the option to fight your own battles you should be able to.
sidenote, I believe somewhere in the topic where it lists the features it says there will NOT be a ck2-eu4 converter because it's difficult
War is a continuation of politics, not the other way around. Dropping down to a tactical battle would just break the flow of the game, which is not turn-based like TW. War is actually quite inconsequential compared to larger trends such as overpopulation, resource needs, and cultural ideas that spawn wars. EU reflects that perfectly.
Post by: Rakonas on August 15, 2012, 06:07:17 am
Not to mention how having tactical battles as an option is a terrible idea. I don't want to have to struggle with the problem of getting tired of tactical battles and auto-resolve not being as reliable as actually managing the armies. War in EU3 is logistics, there's a reason that you appoint generals to armies, because you're not a general.combat shouldnt be necessary but historically war and conquest factored heavily into nation management, it's a very large part of history you can't just ignore it, and if you want the option to fight your own battles you should be able to.
sidenote, I believe somewhere in the topic where it lists the features it says there will NOT be a ck2-eu4 converter because it's difficult
War is a continuation of politics, not the other way around. Dropping down to a tactical battle would just break the flow of the game, which is not turn-based like TW. War is actually quite inconsequential compared to larger trends such as overpopulation, resource needs, and cultural ideas that spawn wars. EU reflects that perfectly.
Post by: Cheese on August 15, 2012, 06:24:09 am
It wouldn't do them much good anyway. Haven't most of the save converters been made by fans so far?
You know what I'd like in EU IV? An event chain that fires if it looks like you're going the World Conquest route and make things far more difficult for you. It always annoyed me that the people of the world would just stand by and wait while a huge empire ate up the world province by province. If that happened there would be a clear panic and reaction amongst the remaining autonomous states against the conqueror. Infamy just does not stop players, and there have been WCs done without even breaking the infamy limit anyway. PrawnStar is doing one for England right now, even.
I agree with this. I think CK2 had a nice system for avoiding world conquest; simply being unable to declare war without a cb. EUIV is obviously a different setting from CK2 and should have different mechanics but hopefully there'll be a more effective system than infamy. Coalitions trying to stop you (if they work like that) and ruler (in)competence breaking apart your realm sounds like a good combination though.
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 15, 2012, 07:14:35 am
sidenote, I believe somewhere in the topic where it lists the features it says there will NOT be a ck2-eu4 converter because it's difficultCounternote: The exact quote is that they have no plans ATM to do a converter. Its still possible for post release.
War is a continuation of politics, not the other way around. Dropping down to a tactical battle would just break the flow of the game, which is not turn-based like TW. War is actually quite inconsequential compared to larger trends such as overpopulation, resource needs, and cultural ideas that spawn wars. EU reflects that perfectly.I agree completely. Politics and situations spawn wars, not the other way around.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on August 15, 2012, 08:05:42 am
War is inevitable, unavoidable, you will always have something someone wants and someone else will always have something that you wan't. War is not always the final resort.
Post by: Silent_Thunder on August 15, 2012, 08:10:27 am
Post by: RedKing on August 15, 2012, 09:43:04 am
It wouldn't do them much good anyway. Haven't most of the save converters been made by fans so far?
Bingo. And now it's become a vicious cycle: Paradox doesn't bother building converters because it takes time away from working on game content, and because they know the user community will hack one out eventually. So then the games get released sans converters, and because a signficant portion of the user community is clamoring for a converter, some team of incredibly hoopy froods will hammer one out (frequently including mod support and lots of user-configurable options).
Oddly enough, even as the games get more complicated, the converters seem to get better and better. It took a while but the EU3->Vic2 converter is a solid piece of work, much less buggy than the EU2->Vic:Rev one or the CK:DV->EU3 one. To their credit, Paradox has always been good about giving information to mod teams to simplify the work they have to do. I think that good relationship with the mod community is a big part of Paradox's success for what would otherwise be a relatively niche market. I just don't see an EA or Bioware or Blizzard providing their users with that kind of discussion with the programmers and support for tweaking the game.
Post by: Azkanan on August 23, 2012, 11:26:07 am
infamy -50
stability
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
...
...
(when you have 40~ provinces...)
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
event 6602 *9000.
Really, War Exhaustion is the reason I don't play this game. You get to the point where you need stacks of 15k~ soldiers on your borders to stop the 10+ bordering nations from steamrolling you as one - but you can't put this defence up, because you wind up getting +7 WE every month.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 23, 2012, 12:35:12 pm
Quote from: Paradox thread.
Use of spies will be reduced.Am I the only one who finds this a little strange? I was expecting spies to get a little bit more love in EUIV. Personally I never found them all that great in III if you weren't a monarchy and therefore couldn't fake claims. You could occasionally start a rebellion or the like but the risks were for the most part not worth it when you're giving a country a free CB + a rather high reparations stab. Most gameplays (outside monarchies) my spy bar stayed at 5 and I'd only use a couple when there was a rather nasty siege or to get natives to raise some colonies.
EDIT: Also doesn't seem like they're changing the population mechanics which is a little disheartening. It was possibly the weakest part of EUIII
Post by: Criptfeind on August 23, 2012, 12:48:37 pm
Really, War Exhaustion is the reason I don't play this game. You get to the point where you need stacks of 15k~ soldiers on your borders to stop the 10+ bordering nations from steamrolling you as one - but you can't put this defence up, because you wind up getting +7 WE every month.
Huh? Where does the WE come from? I normally have at first tens and then hundreds of thousands of border guards, they don't give WE unless they are dying.
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 23, 2012, 02:01:46 pm
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
...
...
(when you have 40~ provinces...)
*cast war*
infamy -50
stability
event 6602 *9000.
Really, War Exhaustion is the reason I don't play this game. You get to the point where you need stacks of 15k~ soldiers on your borders to stop the 10+ bordering nations from steamrolling you as one - but you can't put this defence up, because you wind up getting +7 WE every month.
Well, if you are really getting into so many wars that your WE is always going over the top, then you should really be taking a break from all that Conquest :P
Also you should feel horrible for cheating so much.
Huh? Where does the WE come from? I normally have at first tens and then hundreds of thousands of border guards, they don't give WE unless they are dying.
You War Exhaustion when you are in War (Durr), and when you are taking a lot of attrition. I'm pretty sure thats all the ways it can happen. (You can also get it from certain events, but those are fairly uncommon.)
Post by: Twiggie on August 23, 2012, 02:16:33 pm
Anyway, back to EU4 shall we?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 23, 2012, 02:18:41 pm
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 23, 2012, 02:51:52 pm
A common mistake (which I'm guilty of doing) is leaving a force in a province that has a low supply limit and therefore causes attrition. I was wondering why my war exhaustion was so high when I realised that I left a whole bunch of my Papal Free Shooter squads on some tropical Indian provinces when I sent them to wreck rebels.
Yeah, it happens to the best of us. In other Paradox games like CK II I always accidentally leave some of my troops raised in some obscure province.
Post by: Rakonas on August 23, 2012, 07:54:36 pm
Maybe they mean they'll fix the problem of warring in the HRE meaning that you'll forever have twenty OPMs sending spies your way.Quote from: Paradox thread.Use of spies will be reduced.Am I the only one who finds this a little strange? I was expecting spies to get a little bit more love in EUIV. Personally I never found them all that great in III if you weren't a monarchy and therefore couldn't fake claims. You could occasionally start a rebellion or the like but the risks were for the most part not worth it when you're giving a country a free CB + a rather high reparations stab. Most gameplays (outside monarchies) my spy bar stayed at 5 and I'd only use a couple when there was a rather nasty siege or to get natives to raise some colonies.
EDIT: Also doesn't seem like they're changing the population mechanics which is a little disheartening. It was possibly the weakest part of EUIII
Post by: lemon10 on August 23, 2012, 10:27:33 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on August 23, 2012, 10:35:13 pm
With that, I'm going to look into turning off the notification for spies... I really don't care if I have lithuania throwing a thousand spies at me.
I'm hoping EU4 makes them less of a spammy-spammy thing and adds more weight to them. In EU3 the only spy action that was likely to be very important is Forge Claims, and maybe Patriots.
Post by: lemon10 on August 23, 2012, 11:43:07 pm
On the plus side, AI spies are ignorable. They just annoy me by spawning a rebel stack every once in a while, its not like they actually use spies in a way thats likely to hurt you much.Well its not actually dangerous (I don't think enemy spies have ever done anything that has actually threatened me), but its really annoying getting rebellions way off in your colonies (eg. The Azores) and having to send a squad of troops over there (by boat since the colony in question isn't large enough to necessitate a standing army over there and because it usually has a 0% rebellion rate).
With that, I'm going to look into turning off the notification for spies... I really don't care if I have lithuania throwing a thousand spies at me.
I'm hoping EU4 makes them less of a spammy-spammy thing and adds more weight to them. In EU3 the only spy action that was likely to be very important is Forge Claims, and maybe Patriots.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 24, 2012, 01:56:43 am
This should hopefully combat the AI doing nothing but insisting to spam spy rebels while possibly also negating the "whack-a-rebel" problem. Having rebels rise on an Island province and have to put units on a boat on shipping them out will always be annoying.
It seems like Pirates might be getting changed too. Hopefully they'll just stick to unprotected trade lanes instead of having an isolated colony with 54 inhabitants get a pirate blockade in a few months. Also heard Privateers mentioned a few times, could we finally see mercenary boats?
Post by: mainiac on August 24, 2012, 02:44:10 am
Spies are fantastic in the hands of a player though. Lift fog? Yes please! Fund patroits? Groovy. Claim throne? Practically cheating.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 24, 2012, 04:20:00 am
Would also be nice to see different tech/culture groups get different ships. Chinese junks and South American rafts are needed in my opinion.
Post by: Megaman on August 24, 2012, 04:38:43 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 24, 2012, 05:00:27 am
It's one of the reasons why guns spread so quickly across Eastern Europe and the Steppes even though they were considered technologically backwards. The "Western arms trade" really made Russia a lot more open to innovation than it was before and helped it to expand rather rapidly.
I think if they really want to do modernising and technology regions a lot better they should look at this thread: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?626299-A-View-On-EUIV-Technology
It's pretty much the closest and easiest way to simulate how the real world evolved technologically and it would add a whole lot of depth to the game instead of "move slider to the right". It would also allow native cultures to modernise rapidly if they're having a lot of contact with Europeans. Consider how quickly the Native American Indians adopted horses and firearms to the point where it became part of their culture.
Post by: Megaman on August 24, 2012, 05:02:51 am
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 05:07:10 am
Which reminds me. Ottomans are weak. Half the games I had when I played EU3, the Ottomans either get defeated by the Byzantines or they stop being a threat when their first/second sultan dies.
Also I want more Granada flavour and events to counterbalance the Byzantines >:(.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 24, 2012, 05:14:41 am
Yes, but muskets don't grow on trees, eh? At least make me pay money to upgrade themI don't really know how you'd balance this though. What happens if you have a massive army and you want to upgrade your army so you can compete with Bohemia or something on a single front, however the game is going to charge you quite a lot to upgrade your whole army even those bumming around in India. You might also make it so you can upgrade only a select few squads but then you run into the "Civilization" problem of upgrading where there's a whole bunch of micromanagement of finding and then upgrading the units plus a rather hefty fee so that most players don't bother with it.
Personally I think the best thing to do is to just have military maintenance costs more for a select period of time and have discipline lower temporally. That would reflect getting new arms to the troops and getting new officers/blood into the army. I don't think it's really that necessarily to charge a country to upgrade their units, soldiers generally had to buy their own equipment in standing armies back then.
Post by: Errol on August 24, 2012, 06:35:44 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 24, 2012, 08:01:32 am
I've never seen them fall to AI Byzzies, though. Impressive.
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 24, 2012, 08:05:09 am
Also I want more Granada flavour and events to counterbalance the Byzantines >:(.
What. The Byzantines only had, like, one Flavor Decision and three missions to take back cores.
Post by: Rakonas on August 24, 2012, 09:40:50 am
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 09:52:15 am
Also I want more Granada flavour and events to counterbalance the Byzantines >:( .
What. The Byzantines only had, like, one Flavor Decision and three missions to take back cores.
Well, actually they had nine missions. See (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Byzantine_Missions)? Quite a bit for a...TPM? Can't remember if they had more.
Post by: mainiac on August 24, 2012, 09:53:27 am
The problem is that the ottoman AI is stupid. It should dec on the turkish minors that it has cores on immediately, and expand in the balkans until it almost reaches its infamy limit. Instead it allies the turkish minors and attempts to war with the timurids.
It doesn't have a choice when it comes to war with the Timies. Steppe hordes are always at war with anyone they don't have a 5 year truce or a tribute relationship with.
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 09:56:35 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 24, 2012, 10:03:11 am
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 10:04:27 am
Post by: mainiac on August 24, 2012, 10:10:44 am
Well, actually they had nine missions. See (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Byzantine_Missions)? Quite a bit for a...TPM? Can't remember if they had more.
Byzantium is a TPM in 1399 but they had just won a war against the Ottomans five years before and would actually go on a successful counter offensive in the following decade with Western help. Their enemies the Ottomans were also engaged in repeated civil wars in the first half of the 15th century and didn't stop the horde invasions until just three years before they took constantinople (a big part of why they took so long to take the city). So in 1399 Byzantium's had a chance of recovering greece and bulgaria. By 1407 they are definitely back to secondary power status. That's not even getting into the huge cultural significance of the Roman Empire which had the west launching crusades to help them as late as 1448. So they are definitely not just another TPM.
But honestly the real reason they get the missions is because Byzantium is cool.
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 10:33:03 am
I'll agree with you there being a chance for Byzantium reclaiming 'parts' of their empire, but I really doubt that the West could aid them much during that century...Ottoman victories over 'crusading forces' as well as the lack of support from Genoa and Venice didn't really help much. If I remember correctly, the republics had more to gain from Byzantium's fall than its renewal and the general public weren't very willing to accept aid from the Pope at his price of unification with the Catholic Church. Keep in mind that this is only a half-remembered recollection of what I read in the book 1453 and several Greek-Turkish debates (headaches all around!).
Post by: Twiggie on August 24, 2012, 10:39:11 am
Post by: micelus on August 24, 2012, 10:40:48 am
Post by: Johnfalcon99977 on August 31, 2012, 10:02:51 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 31, 2012, 10:44:49 am
So the first Dev Diary is out... (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1064-EU4-Development-Diary-0-Our-Vision&s=c32bf3efbb2965236fdc46b149c7eddb)No screenshots :(
DHE sounds awesome though.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 28, 2012, 08:40:59 am
This is in particular. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?634853-Europa-Universalis-IV-Developer-diary-4-Your-Economy-is-about-to-change)
Finally we'll see the end to that confusing mess that was yearly/monthly income! They've also get rid of the concept of having your technology and stability connected to your economy and a rather tight-lipped about what will replace these mechanics.
Post by: TripJack on September 28, 2012, 10:13:59 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 04, 2013, 08:02:43 am
http://signup.europauniversalis4.com/
It's not too bad with a forum icon and cosmetic unit pack DLC at 3 people. Strat guide, Monument DLC and (presumably digital copy) of Sun Tzu's Art of War at 5 people. Free copy of EU3, Wallpaper and "Compendium Universalis" at 10 people.
I don't usually post up my own referral link since I often find it in poor taste - however if you sign up 10 people you get a free copy of EU3. I already own a copy so I could easily do a giveaway for anyone who signs up using the link and wants the game.
Just post if you've joined using my referral and whether you want the game or not, I'll likely delete the link at 10 sign ups.
Spoiler: referral link (click to show/hide)
Post by: cartmann on June 05, 2013, 01:04:57 pm
But I can't see the point in preordering the digital deluxe edition... Some new events and sprites/images? Meh.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 05, 2013, 01:08:23 pm
Post by: 10ebbor10 on June 05, 2013, 01:09:52 pm
So just a necro to state that Paradox is hosting a referral link thing at:I hope it has pretty pictures, because well, you can get it for free easily.
http://signup.europauniversalis4.com/
It's not too bad with a forum icon and cosmetic unit pack DLC at 3 people. Strat guide, Monument DLC and (presumably digital copy) of Sun Tzu's Art of War at 5 people. Free copy of EU3, Wallpaper and "Compendium Universalis" at 10 people.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 05, 2013, 11:54:28 pm
I think I got to about 6 people for the referral thing, too lazy to get anymore. Never much cared for that chain letter marketing stuff.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 13, 2013, 09:09:01 am
Digital Extreme for 44.99 (http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/au/en/pc/games/strategy/europa-universalis-iv-digital-extreme-edition/)
20% off coupon, GMG20-JLKSA-7A8HA. $36.00
Finally you can get a referral to GMG from a friend if you don't already have an account (http://www.greenmangaming.com/recommendafriend/), it gives 2 dollars credit. $34.00. (note that if you're really busting for this discount and don't have any friends who have a gmg account I can supply a referral if you pm me).
Standard edition for 39.99 (http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/au/en/pc/games/strategy/europa-universalis-iv/)
20% off coupon, GMG20-JLKSA-7A8HA. $32.00
2 dollar referral credit (http://www.greenmangaming.com/recommendafriend/) (if applicable). $30.00
Edit: seems like people are having a problem with the coupon for some reason.
Double Edit: Seems like the deal is no longer available, sadly.
Post by: Twiggie on June 13, 2013, 09:55:03 am
45usd = 29gbp. annnnnnd its on steam for £40.
if only i could buy it from the russian site, its something like £15 there :p
e: amazon wouldnt let me buy it but i got it through gametap, now to see how much it actually cost :/
Post by: Virex on June 13, 2013, 10:14:59 am
You're still lucky. I'm in Australia for the time being.... Guess I'll hold off on this game until I get back to Europe.
Apparently it's got a forward by a Thomas Johansson and I don't think it's the Swedish tennis player.
Nope, it's the project leader for the EU4 team. Supposedly, some of Paradox' members have a background in history, but I can't find if that applies to Johansson too.
Anyway, I wonder how extensive the copy of The Art of War you get will be. My personal copy comes with a load of historical background, notes on interpretations and cross-references to and citations from the works of influential translators and interpreters of The Art of War. Without that background I'm afraid most people won't be able to actually grasp most of it.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 13, 2013, 10:28:05 am
Post by: Virex on June 13, 2013, 10:31:12 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 13, 2013, 10:39:12 am
I did some research after my friend complained that the coupon wasn't working and apparently the 20% no longer works for EUIV. GMG often releases a couple coupons a month so I'll post up another if it appears. :(
Post by: Rakonas on July 02, 2013, 09:49:31 pm
MFW Animist Mexico
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 25, 2013, 09:26:27 am
First of all we have the lovely playthrough of a press release by a Quill18 (http://www.youtube.com/user/quill18/videos?view=1&flow=grid). He's playing as England and shows off a lot of the new features which have quelled almost all my fears about EUIV.
Second, people have been receiving their incentives for the Call of Arms campaign. The e-books and EUIII code have been sent out but the DLC and forum badge will not come out just before the release.
Third, speaking of release we have the release coming very soon.
Lastly there's the "Paradox Platypus Homecoming Event (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?703715-Paradox-Platypus-Homecoming-Event-August-7th-2013-in-Sydney-Australia)" which is a Paradox run meet-up in Sydney city on the 7th of April. It's mostly going to be publicity and marketing but there will most likely me some small incentives and a one hour EUIV presentation "plus another game" (which may not have been announced yet).
I've sent my RSVP email and I seem to be on the list so it's likely I'll be going. If you're in the area and have an interest in EUIV I'd RSVP as quickly as possible as they state there's only 50 positions.
Post by: Maldevious on July 25, 2013, 09:27:45 am
Third speaking of release we have the release coming very soon. August 13. You preorder on Amazon using the code "gooncave" for 15% off (that coupon may expire soon).
FTFY
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 25, 2013, 09:31:52 am
Post by: Dutchling on July 25, 2013, 10:41:38 am
He's so selfish :v
Post by: Eagle_eye on July 25, 2013, 11:13:06 am
Post by: Andrew425 on July 26, 2013, 05:50:52 pm
Anyone up for a multiplayer match? I hear hot joining will be in.
Post by: Twiggie on July 27, 2013, 04:16:11 am
Post by: Vel on July 27, 2013, 06:32:55 am
Post by: Dutchling on July 27, 2013, 07:34:09 am
Quote from: Wiz (dev)
Quote from: DutchlingThat would be an incorrect assumption. :)Quote from: Wiz (dev)Yes, there are difficulty settings for the AI.I assume they work like EU3 and don't actually make the AI 'smarter' but just makes it get static bonuses or penalties?
Post by: Tarran on July 27, 2013, 12:03:07 pm
I'll be setting one up I'm sure, but I'm out of the (my) country until the 13th, so it probably won't be on release. I'll make sure to post in here when I do get it started, thoughThat might be for the best, to let people try out the new things before actually getting serious.
Nice: (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?704104-Artificial-Intelligence-Levels/page2)Oh, neat.
Fun trivia for those who don't know: Wiz was (and still is for the moment) a CK2 modder. Specifically, the sole dedicated mod maker (as far as I know) of the CK2+ mod (though that won't be for long as he's quitting the mod soon).
Post by: Dutchling on July 27, 2013, 12:23:23 pm
Post by: Tarran on July 27, 2013, 01:47:21 pm
As for not lasting long enough, last EU3 game we had we had even after you left definitely had exploration.
Post by: Twiggie on July 28, 2013, 03:30:20 am
Maybe disallow player alliances and set up a proper team system rather than standard alliance blocs:
Blocs are formed by vassalization, which is permanent, but nobody is allowed to agree to peaceful vassalizing, and losing x amount of wars/war percentage means the losing side has to accept vassalization. Then have a hall of fame type thing and restart play every few months, with leaders and players in the winning bloc both recorded.
That would encourage more CBs being gathered so that crucial wars can be intervened in, on whichever side, and also give defeated players something to work towards.
There would likely be issues with balancing, but having a malus to starting nation for previous winners might sort that out.
Possibly allow the leader of the winners to assign rankings to their followers in the hall of fame, too, so that the difference between a player who really helps out and one that just tags along is actually recorded.
Maybe have a 1 or 2 session period where player vassalization is not allowed, to let people grow a bit or something - though that could be really dangerous, like what happened in the last EU3 game with england.
Just some thoughts anyway
Post by: Tarran on July 28, 2013, 04:51:39 am
...but nobody is allowed to agree to peaceful vassalizing, and losing x amount of wars/war percentage means the losing side has to accept vassalization...You'll also want to make sure nobody intentionally loses wars if you're going to forbid peacevassal, which is difficult to do unless you can see what is happening every war and are somehow able to distinguish intentional bad moves from just poor gamers.
Maybe have a 1 or 2 session period where player vassalization is not allowed, to let people grow a bit or something - though that could be really dangerous, like what happened in the last EU3 game with england.Perhaps you could base it on strength. Larger nations get no leeway, while tiny nations have much more spare time if you think that it might effect them or something.
Post by: Twiggie on July 28, 2013, 04:59:13 am
And for sure, maybe no sessions of peace for the major nations, then one for the minors, and two for the rest. (as defined by pdox)
Post by: Twiggie on July 29, 2013, 05:18:19 am
EU4 game signups open! (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129214.0)
Post by: Dutchling on July 30, 2013, 08:51:21 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Digital Hellhound on July 30, 2013, 09:07:34 am
Post by: Rakonas on July 30, 2013, 12:16:30 pm
Pre-order the game and you will get an extra copy of Crusader Kings II AND the CKII -> EU4 Save Game Converter :D (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?704709-Crusader-Kings-II-Save-Converter-Announced-for-Europa-Universalis-IV)Interesting to note that you can take a way-before 1444 scenario and convert it evidently. As that screenshot couldn't possibly stand up to 30 years of CK2 gameplay.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tarran on July 30, 2013, 02:35:36 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 30, 2013, 03:20:38 pm
Post by: Tobel on July 30, 2013, 03:24:15 pm
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on July 30, 2013, 03:54:14 pm
Oh god I want the ability to tie ALL of my Paradox games together. Take CKII to EUIV to Victoria 2 to Hearts of Iron III to ... Space Citizen? Alright, so they obviously need to do a futuristic grand strategy next. The Paradox version of GalCivII.
A Paradox version of GalCivII wouldn't be a good ending point for the Grand Campaign, since it'll take place in the wide galaxy, where Earth is just one planet among millions and humans are just one species to choose from. What it'd really need is something along the lines of Alpha Centauri taking place on Earth. Futuristic, yet rooted enough in reality to be plausible and believable. You'd also need a good set of scenario writers, so that the world can change and adapt in response to the player and AIs. If they wanted to throw in a cyberpunk feel they could add in quasi-nation corporations, data nodes instead of trade centers, all that fun stuff. Could be good, I think.
Post by: Rakonas on July 30, 2013, 05:06:37 pm
Oh god I want the ability to tie ALL of my Paradox games together. Take CKII to EUIV to Hearts of Iron III to ... Space Citizen? Alright, so they obviously need to do a futuristic grand strategy next. The Paradox version of GalCivII.You could already do this and it used to be built in. CK1>EU2>Vicky1>HoI2. I'm glad they're finally bringing it back, but it's hardly a new feature considering that... they're bringing it back.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 30, 2013, 05:27:34 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on July 30, 2013, 06:29:12 pm
When was the last time they had it?
CK1>EU2>Vicky1>HoI2.
Rakonas literally just said it. I read a Jerusalem AAR, it's actually probably pretty famous, that went through all of these games (although I thought it went through EU3 and not EU2, so might have been an unofficial converter).
I think that they might make Vic3 and HoI4 for the official converters. My god, if they did, Paradox, take all of my money.
Also, if anyone doesn't own the world by the end of the HoI game, you're doing it wrong. I'm not saying a HoI game alone (in which case you're just doing Axis or Commintern wrong), but if you start in a CK game and the world isn't yours after going through that many games in which it's possible to own the world already... like it's possible in just one EU game... yeah.
Also, if they did a Space grand strategy, I'd figure that it'd be solar system instead of something more like GalCiv. Solar system would fit better and make more sense for the appropriate scale, where humanity would be fighting itself across the different planets, they'd have their own terrain penalties on top of planet penalties, etc. At least, it makes more sense to me. Perhaps after that it'd be appropriate for a GalCiv game for humanity vs. other dudes. Though really any of this isn't appropriate because all of the grand strategy stuff is historical and the future is... not.
Post by: MrWiggles on July 30, 2013, 06:34:17 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 30, 2013, 07:01:03 pm
Post by: bulborbish on July 30, 2013, 07:03:21 pm
I have, but right now I'm confused due to conflict information if I preorder EU4 now will I get the 100 year sprite pack and CK2/Converter or not?
Yes. All pre-order bonuses will be granted if you pre-order, with the only content locked the digital extreme edition (and if you buy that, you have everything)
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 30, 2013, 07:04:03 pm
Post by: Rakonas on July 30, 2013, 07:20:00 pm
If they somehow tied it to Freelancer it would be the most awesome thing ever. Coalition v. Alliance, fighting across all the planets. Eventually one side wins as the other pours all its resources into leaving.
Also, if they did a Space grand strategy, I'd figure that it'd be solar system instead of something more like GalCiv. Solar system would fit better and make more sense for the appropriate scale, where humanity would be fighting itself across the different planets, they'd have their own terrain penalties on top of planet penalties, etc. At least, it makes more sense to me. Perhaps after that it'd be appropriate for a GalCiv game for humanity vs. other dudes. Though really any of this isn't appropriate because all of the grand strategy stuff is historical and the future is... not.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on July 30, 2013, 08:15:30 pm
If they somehow tied it to Freelancer it would be the most awesome thing ever. Coalition v. Alliance, fighting across all the planets. Eventually one side wins as the other pours all its resources into leaving.
I was kind of thinking a Freelancer vibe if they decided to do something like GalCiv, since that would have humanity vs. humanity across the galaxy. As for Solar System, I guess if you're just looking at one solar system from Freelancer I can kind of see it. Keep in mind that Freelancer is considered a failure at what it could have been, thanks to Microsoft, so it has a lot of unrealized potential. I just mention that to say don't keep your imagination of what could be shackled to something so restrictive.
Post by: Kaferian on July 31, 2013, 11:04:22 am
Dev Diary for the Converter (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1541-Europa-Universalis-IV-Developer-diary-42-The-Crusader-Kings-II-Converter)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 31, 2013, 11:13:17 am
I don't personally own the SI DLC and I have no plans on owning it. Mega doom stacks that have no attrition made me despise the Mongols and I don't see why I would want another faction invading that doesn't uphold the same gameplay mechanics the player is limited to.
SI has given me no lack of enjoyment however. My roommate bought the DLC pack since it was cheaper and it included SI. Every few months I hear him screaming about how he reinstalled CKII, started a long campaign only to find that he left the Aztecs invasion on and ruined his whole playthrough.
Post by: Dutchling on July 31, 2013, 12:03:53 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 31, 2013, 01:44:27 pm
Post by: snelg on July 31, 2013, 03:19:08 pm
I think the Aztec invaded europe because they were fleeing from the gunpowder using Inca or something. I've never actually activated the DLC though.This is what I've heard as well, though I never activated the DLC either.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 31, 2013, 04:59:13 pm
Post by: Rakonas on July 31, 2013, 09:53:09 pm
Quote
So, in Europa Universalis IV we have now added the concept of Republican Tradition. This is a value between 0 and 100%, and a newly formed republic starts with just 1% tradition – people like what they know, historically republics were seen as a little bit unstable, and it takes time before the ideas of civic freedom and voting for leaders take hold. A low republican tradition increases stability cost, and a high tradition reduces revolt risk. If you get a low republican tradition, you are more likely to have rebels supportive of restoring the monarchy, and if you ever go below 1% tradition you convert to a despotic monarchy rather quickly.That's ridiculous, by that logic America is already a despotic monarchy from too many two-term presidents.
Your Republican Tradition goes up by +1% each year, and there are events that can give you a hard choice between tradition losses or other negative consequences. There are some advantages to playing a Republic – you get to choose your leaders in elections, after all. But you should never be really comfortable.
In light of adding this new mechanic, elections for Republics have changed slightly. You will lose 10% Republican Tradition if you re-elect the same leader, to represent the fear of a republic losing that regular change of office that guarantees the legitimacy of the government, and if you re-elect someone at while you have low tradition (currently we’ve set this at less than 20%), your Republican period comes to an end and you give birth to a despotic monarchy.
Post by: Karlito on July 31, 2013, 09:56:35 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 31, 2013, 10:12:13 pm
Republican Tradition makes sense to me. Today there are no lack of countries that are republic in name only. If you're going to let your Republican Tradition decay to the point where it's barely recognisable as a republic it makes sense for a leader to just sweep away the old failing system and put forth his own government. Monarchs were considered much more legitimate than republics in the greater European political game.
America would likely have a very high Republican Tradition and would likely have tons of events and perhaps even national ideas to booster it further. I would wager as America it would be very easy to have a bunch of presidents serve more than a single term.
It seems that it's mostly in place to stop the gamey abuse of republic governments by electing a new leader every term until a 8/8/8 leader comes along and then sticking with them for their lifetime.
Post by: Rakonas on July 31, 2013, 10:21:12 pm
Post by: bulborbish on July 31, 2013, 10:46:00 pm
Is that really so gamey though? It makes by far the most sense for that popular genius leader to be re-elected, and I have my doubts about whether the AI will be able to deal with it well.
It's reasonable from a Monarch Point Standpoint. They don't want Republics becoming the standard strategy in Multiplayer simply because they can keep re-rolling rulers until they end up with a near perfect one, than preserving him until he dies.
And realistically speaking, it's hard to call it a republic when they have maintained the same leadership for 30 years, which was a common occurrence in EU3, aka the Noble Republic Strategy.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 31, 2013, 10:52:14 pm
I think it's fair to assume that if a republic which already had the notion of terms chooses to re-elect the same person (even based on merit) it undermines it's own traditions and moves away from that republic system and more towards a cult-of-personality/despotism. The main point of a term/term limit is to stop particular influential individuals from gaining a stranglehold on the government/population and reshaping that government into something initially different either directly or indirectly.
I would still argue that it's gamey mostly due to early republics being nowhere near a perfect meritocracy or democracy with decent leaders being shunted out all the time due to internal politics. From what I've read about Maritime Republics it seems to have been almost never based around merit and rather who seemed like the most malleable and offered the better promises.
Post by: MrWiggles on July 31, 2013, 11:08:56 pm
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
Post by: Rakonas on July 31, 2013, 11:21:51 pm
It gets complicated because historically there's been all kind of republics with all differing views on "terms". Some republic leaders ruled for life while others ruled for a set amount of years before being completely barred or having to be re-elected.But this mechanic mandates that every republic must have a tradition of term limits or it stops being a republic permanently. I really don't agree with that at all.
I think it's fair to assume that if a republic which already had the notion of terms chooses to re-elect the same person (even based on merit) it undermines it's own traditions and moves away from that republic system and more towards a cult-of-personality/despotism.
I dun like like EU4 forces the technological retardation of some of the groups.It's going to be apparently easier for natives to westernize once they have a border with europeans, though, I think.
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 31, 2013, 11:33:09 pm
I dun like like EU4 forces the technological retardation of some of the groups.It doesn't actually appear the New World natives can tech up at all. According to Quill's video the tech up costs a huge 2080 monarch points while the max number of monarch points is 999. On top of that they also suffer a -2 monarch point malus across the board.
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
This is all extremely silly and I can only hope they rectify this mistake in some fast patches prior to release.
But this mechanic mandates that every republic must have a tradition of term limits or it stops being a republic permanently. I really don't agree with that at all.What would you suggest replace it? The only advantage to a republic is the term system since they lose out on so many diplomatic options and without some kind of mechanic to punish players when gaming the elections we'll end up in the same boat where republics were stupidly overpowered and would infact be even worse due to the new importance of monarch skills.
If that doesn't take your fancy I know for a fact that Elective Monarchy won't have Republican Tradition even though it's technically classed as a republic in EU3.
Post by: Rakonas on July 31, 2013, 11:40:21 pm
The tech dev diary said that no tech will ever take more than 999 to upgrade, so there's that. I assume they've fixed it already because they realized it was silly.I dun like like EU4 forces the technological retardation of some of the groups.It doesn't actually appear the New World natives can tech up at all. According to Quill's video the tech up costs a huge 2080 monarch points while the max number of monarch points is 999. On top of that they also suffer a -2 monarch point malus across the board.
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
This is all extremely silly and I can only hope they rectify this mistake in some fast patches prior to release.But this mechanic mandates that every republic must have a tradition of term limits or it stops being a republic permanently. I really don't agree with that at all.What would you suggest replace it? The only advantage to a republic is the term system since they lose out on so many diplomatic options and without some kind of mechanic to punish players when gaming the elections we'll end up in the same boat where republics were stupidly overpowered and would infact be even worse due to the new importance of monarch skills.
If that doesn't take your fancy I know for a fact that Elective Monarchy won't have Republican Tradition even though it's technically classed as a republic in EU3.
I'd suggest nothing replace it. The system in EU3 was fine, monarchies still have a lot of advantages like personal unions, royal marriages, etc. The advantage of republics was that you would never have a terrible leader for long, and if you were lucky you could have a great leader for a couple decades. I don't think they were truly overpowered, what they should have implemented was more hostility between republics and monarchies.
Post by: MrWiggles on July 31, 2013, 11:50:52 pm
It'll really guarantee that the native americans are lagging far behind the europeans. Which, is obviously what they want; but it seems so artificial this way.I dun like like EU4 forces the technological retardation of some of the groups.It doesn't actually appear the New World natives can tech up at all. According to Quill's video the tech up costs a huge 2080 monarch points while the max number of monarch points is 999. On top of that they also suffer a -2 monarch point malus across the board.
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
This is all extremely silly and I can only hope they rectify this mistake in some fast patches prior to release.
Though I cant really think of a better mechanic, given their frame work.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 01, 2013, 01:03:04 am
For example, there's an Iroquois World Conquer AAR on max difficulty for EU3. There were something like 8 provinces left unowned at the end of the game.
Post by: Dutchling on August 01, 2013, 08:13:46 am
Quote from: Balor (dev)
If you are among the small minority that bought ck2 at gg and have dlc there, you need to order eu4 from gg. There is no other technical solution.. ( still pissed at the amount of problems relating to the forum petition for a non-steam ck2)
Not relevant to me, but fairly important information I guess.
edit: ah, the converter is a CK2 dlc, and not a separate program.
See this for more info. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?705036-Converter-GG-CK2-Steam-EU4)
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 01, 2013, 03:54:01 pm
Never mind, they thought of that save games will work with all info saved if you disable the DLC I was worried I would have to restart.
Post by: Felius on August 01, 2013, 04:18:47 pm
Post by: werty892 on August 01, 2013, 04:55:16 pm
Post by: Kaferian on August 01, 2013, 06:06:02 pm
Post by: Sergarr on August 01, 2013, 06:46:48 pm
It'll really guarantee that the native americans are lagging far behind the europeans. Which, is obviously what they want; but it seems so artificial this way.I dun like like EU4 forces the technological retardation of some of the groups.It doesn't actually appear the New World natives can tech up at all. According to Quill's video the tech up costs a huge 2080 monarch points while the max number of monarch points is 999. On top of that they also suffer a -2 monarch point malus across the board.
Like the Native Americans starting at 1 and having 2.6 cost (I think). Seems very shallow way to limit their tech growth.
This is all extremely silly and I can only hope they rectify this mistake in some fast patches prior to release.
Though I cant really think of a better mechanic, given their frame work.
Better mechanic? Make people rage at you trying to invent new technologies and ruin their way of life.
Post by: Rakonas on August 01, 2013, 07:26:41 pm
Post by: MrWiggles on August 01, 2013, 07:36:38 pm
I think just having every tech cost 999 points is enough, making it harder to do anything at all is just ridiculous. It's tied to the eurocentric idea that european forms of government are magically superior than native american forms of government, despite the existence of the Aztecs, Incans, Iroquois, Powhatan's empire...Better? Eh...
But it was a reality that the native americans were stagnant a in neolithic era. And the game tries to replicate that.
Post by: Rakonas on August 01, 2013, 07:43:26 pm
But that's not actually true, ask people who study the native americans. They weren't stagnant, but they had a significantly delayed start (Agriculture developed ~9000BCE in Mesopotamia, but only ~3500BCE in Mesoamerica) and developed differently. The game shouldn't try to replicate something like the native americans being totally stagnant because... they weren't. If anything, the game should just replicate how anywhere from 50-95% of the population of the americas died soon after european contact.I think just having every tech cost 999 points is enough, making it harder to do anything at all is just ridiculous. It's tied to the eurocentric idea that european forms of government are magically superior than native american forms of government, despite the existence of the Aztecs, Incans, Iroquois, Powhatan's empire...Better? Eh...
But it was a reality that the native americans were stagnant a in neolithic era. And the game tries to replicate that.
Post by: Sergarr on August 01, 2013, 07:45:41 pm
Post by: Pnx on August 01, 2013, 07:50:19 pm
I mean in theory any group of people no matter how primitive will eventually draw forward in technology, but it can take a long time for the ball to get rolling.
I really wouldn't have expected the native americans to have moved a comparable pace to the europeans technologically in this timeframe. Though yeah, getting killed off en-mass probably didn't help.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 01, 2013, 08:19:57 pm
The game doesnt force them to be stagnant, to my understand, it just artificially retards their progress.But that's not actually true, ask people who study the native americans. They weren't stagnant, but they had a significantly delayed start (Agriculture developed ~9000BCE in Mesopotamia, but only ~3500BCE in Mesoamerica) and developed differently. The game shouldn't try to replicate something like the native americans being totally stagnant because... they weren't. If anything, the game should just replicate how anywhere from 50-95% of the population of the americas died soon after european contact.I think just having every tech cost 999 points is enough, making it harder to do anything at all is just ridiculous. It's tied to the eurocentric idea that european forms of government are magically superior than native american forms of government, despite the existence of the Aztecs, Incans, Iroquois, Powhatan's empire...Better? Eh...
But it was a reality that the native americans were stagnant a in neolithic era. And the game tries to replicate that.
And I know they were making improvements, but they werent the same forward progress technologically, that europe was, or even far east was. And there reason for that, there wasn't as much competition as there was in Europe, they didnt make as much use of animal power or domestication. They were were understandalbe reasons why they progressed slower, just that in the tools that EU has, you can't really represent that.
You also can't really present the lack of immunization of the north americans to euro centric diseases.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 01, 2013, 08:25:04 pm
Britain and Portugal owned Hong Kong and Macau of China, respectively, because they were able to dominate trade because the Chinese lacked the capacity to do so (mostly due to their isolationist policies stagnating everything). Portugal, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands and later the United States were able to bully Japan around economically because Japan lacked the technology to really do anything against them. Heck, Portugal basically owned Nagasaki. The Middle East is no longer the jewel it once was, and North Africa has long since lost its luster. Even much later, India was subjugated with the clever use of flags (ha, Eddie Izzard). Heck, even in WW2 the West was technologically superior to the East (again with government policy, though). After considerable Western influence, though, the playing field was evened out. This is modeled rather accurately in the EU games. Everyone who isn't the West needs to Westernize if they want the best tech. Those wishing for AU history get it in pretty much everything but tech, although that can happen as well.
So yeah, before you blame the historic empire simulator for being euro-centric, blame reality.
Post by: Twiggie on August 02, 2013, 06:19:58 am
Also, another plug for my MP game, signups here (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=129214.0).
Post by: Rakonas on August 02, 2013, 06:51:33 am
EU isn't euro-centric because the developers are biased, EU is euro-centric because, historically (and this is a historical game), technology was euro-centric. Despite the Chinese having a leg up on everyone, despite the Mongols taking over a bunch of the known world, despite the Aztecs and Mayans and Incas, the European powers at the time period we're dealing with had the best stuff. The Native Americans didn't magically have cannons and guns, which is why they were ultimately pushed out of their ancestral lands. They never even had the technology to produce cannons and guns, they just traded for them or looted them.Your points are all valid, but it doesn't change the fact that the implementation of a monarch point penalty (and monarch points are used for EVERYTHING, not just tech) for native american governments alone is seriously hamfisted.
Britain and Portugal owned Hong Kong and Macau of China, respectively, because they were able to dominate trade because the Chinese lacked the capacity to do so (mostly due to their isolationist policies stagnating everything). Portugal, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands and later the United States were able to bully Japan around economically because Japan lacked the technology to really do anything against them. Heck, Portugal basically owned Nagasaki. The Middle East is no longer the jewel it once was, and North Africa has long since lost its luster. Even much later, India was subjugated with the clever use of flags (ha, Eddie Izzard). Heck, even in WW2 the West was technologically superior to the East (again with government policy, though). After considerable Western influence, though, the playing field was evened out. This is modeled rather accurately in the EU games. Everyone who isn't the West needs to Westernize if they want the best tech. Those wishing for AU history get it in pretty much everything but tech, although that can happen as well.
So yeah, before you blame the historic empire simulator for being euro-centric, blame reality.
Post by: Chosrau on August 02, 2013, 07:04:27 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 02, 2013, 07:56:03 am
The only case I think you can make for the monarch point penalty is real tribal "nations" to abstract just how hard reforming and changing beliefs were in these particular governments, although tribal governments are really bad already and making them weaker might not be the best idea.
Post by: Dutchling on August 02, 2013, 08:07:13 am
Post by: Chosrau on August 02, 2013, 08:11:57 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 02, 2013, 08:22:04 am
Post by: Chosrau on August 02, 2013, 08:28:55 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 02, 2013, 08:30:55 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 02, 2013, 08:36:11 am
A system I utterly despise. The more backwards you are, the more easily you can westernize is pretty dumb.
It makes a little bit of sense, if you think about it. If you're just a bit behind, then your pride as a nation may not allow you to adopt the newer technology. You need something that is so obviously superior that everyone in the nation would say "... yeah, so, what do we have to do to get that?"
That said, I also don't like it, I just think that it could make a bit of sense. I'm a fan of there being different ways to Westernize, though I don't think it'll happen.
Also, did anyone else who preordered get an extra copy of CK2? Because I just got one, and I have no idea why. Is it a confirmed pre-order perk? When I pre-ordered, there was just the thing with EU3 Chronicles, but that was after getting referrals.
Post by: Chosrau on August 02, 2013, 08:38:11 am
It makes a little bit of sense, if you think about it. If you're just a bit behind, then your pride as a nation may not allow you to adopt the newer technology. You need something that is so obviously superior that everyone in the nation would say "... yeah, so, what do we have to do to get that?"
I wouldn't call a system that makes me think "I should totally stop my scientific progress so I can westernize" something that makes sense.
Your example may be used on first contact (native amercians meet europeans --> culture shock), but not in a situation of perpetual neighbourship (Ottomans and Europe).
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 02, 2013, 08:46:20 am
The free CK2 is from the last preorder bonus, yes, as is the CK2-EUIV converter. I'll have to figure out if I can find anyone to give it to.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 02, 2013, 08:50:11 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 02, 2013, 08:57:17 am
Considering there are only 30 Tech levels, being 8 behind pretty much makes you a punching bag for most european powers.Yeah, I've always thought that the requirement of a tech difference was ridiculous, though in the case of ottomans+western europe it's clearly to force the ottomans to fall behind first rather than continuously keep up. Note, that while you say there's 30 tech levels and you require to be 8 behind, that almost definitely means 8 total. As in, be 5/5/5 with a 8/8/7 neighbour. I don't think it will actually be very much harder to westernize in EU4 though, if anything it should be easier as you could just save up points planning to spend them all once you westernize for a massive sudden boost.It makes a little bit of sense, if you think about it. If you're just a bit behind, then your pride as a nation may not allow you to adopt the newer technology. You need something that is so obviously superior that everyone in the nation would say "... yeah, so, what do we have to do to get that?"
I wouldn't call a system that makes me think "I should totally stop my scientific progress so I can westernize" something that makes sense.
Your example may be used on first contact (native amercians meet europeans --> culture shock), but not in a situation of perpetual neighbourship (Ottomans and Europe).
I believe they're taking a hint from their terrible implementation of westernization in Vicky2:AHD in that regards, by doing basically the same thing again.
Edit:
Manual is released! http://cdn2.steampowered.com/Manuals/236850/EuropaUniversalisIV_Manual.pdf
Post by: Kaferian on August 02, 2013, 10:00:15 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 02, 2013, 10:11:24 am
Mostly disappointed with the lack of attrition for AI controlled navies. We're going to have the same doom stacks patrolling the Atlantic again with Castile dropping 22,000 units on the Aztecs as soon as they're discovered. I'm wondering how trivial colonisation will be now that you can just make a core in captured lands instead of waiting 50 years.
Post by: bulborbish on August 02, 2013, 10:44:08 am
I would have prefered tabs rather than buttons for the ledger but it still looks like it's infinitely better than EUIII so I don't mind all that much. Already knew about the production interface and improved tutorial but I'm still glad we're getting them.
Mostly disappointed with the lack of attrition for AI controlled navies. We're going to have the same doom stacks patrolling the Atlantic again with Castile dropping 22,000 units on the Aztecs as soon as they're discovered. I'm wondering how trivial colonisation will be now that you can just make a core in captured lands instead of waiting 50 years.
To be fair, now they can't just sieze a province the moment they reach there. Additionally, the question is if it will be worth coring the new world entirely, especially because that is a serious waste of monarch points that could be going towards buildings, techs, and idea groups.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 02, 2013, 11:03:44 am
My main argument about coring was mostly focused on how "colonial reach" would become irrelevant since you could just conquered and core a single unciv province and then move on to the colonial rush. I now remember that colonises still have to be cored and cost a whole bunch of maintenance that it might sometimes be worth it to just stay in Europe.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 02, 2013, 11:08:38 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 02, 2013, 11:22:17 am
Coring colonies in incredibly cheap as (I assume this is the reason) they have no foreign cores. You can see this in Quill18's Portugal video. This will likely not be the case with the civilized native Americans and the Indian tribes.I would have prefered tabs rather than buttons for the ledger but it still looks like it's infinitely better than EUIII so I don't mind all that much. Already knew about the production interface and improved tutorial but I'm still glad we're getting them.
Mostly disappointed with the lack of attrition for AI controlled navies. We're going to have the same doom stacks patrolling the Atlantic again with Castile dropping 22,000 units on the Aztecs as soon as they're discovered. I'm wondering how trivial colonisation will be now that you can just make a core in captured lands instead of waiting 50 years.
To be fair, now they can't just sieze a province the moment they reach there. Additionally, the question is if it will be worth coring the new world entirely, especially because that is a serious waste of monarch points that could be going towards buildings, techs, and idea groups.
edit: Is it just me or is the screenshot in page 10 of the manual from EU3?
Post by: bulborbish on August 02, 2013, 11:34:26 am
Coring colonies in incredibly cheap as (I assume this is the reason) they have no foreign cores. You can see this in Quill18's Portugal video. This will likely not be the case with the civilized native Americans and the Indian tribes.I would have prefered tabs rather than buttons for the ledger but it still looks like it's infinitely better than EUIII so I don't mind all that much. Already knew about the production interface and improved tutorial but I'm still glad we're getting them.
Mostly disappointed with the lack of attrition for AI controlled navies. We're going to have the same doom stacks patrolling the Atlantic again with Castile dropping 22,000 units on the Aztecs as soon as they're discovered. I'm wondering how trivial colonisation will be now that you can just make a core in captured lands instead of waiting 50 years.
To be fair, now they can't just sieze a province the moment they reach there. Additionally, the question is if it will be worth coring the new world entirely, especially because that is a serious waste of monarch points that could be going towards buildings, techs, and idea groups.
edit: Is it just me or is the screenshot in page 10 of the manual from EU3?
The options menu? It could just look exactly the same. No reason to change what isn't broken.
Also core cost is derieved primarily from the base tax value of the province. Most of the areas covered in the video derieve most of their income from trade, rather than from tax. In the more wealthy provinces that are actually worth something (Central America and the Caribbean) we should see significantly more expensive cores.
Also, if Colonial Range is the concern, than we still don't have to worry, seeing as the Cost of Colonies is significantly increased until turned into provinces, and would drive any nation to ruin if more than a few are worked on at a time.4
Wait, you can force cores? That's wonderful! I was trying to play an EU3 game of Colonial Japan as Minamoto until Fujiwara got inherited, and I couldn't colonize Alaska or even Hawaii despite losing around a dozen ships and several explorers trying to find them. Meanwhile, the European powers already owned the east coast and almost all of South America. With the ability to force-core, I could have cored a place in Indonesia to reach Hawaii, cored that and then got the west coast. I mean yeah, I could invest elsewhere, but I wanted to be colonial Japan.
You have no choice, seeing as automatic coring has been removed. But yeah, forcing cores should make Asian colonization fun.
Post by: Kaferian on August 03, 2013, 03:20:45 pm
Post by: ibot66 on August 03, 2013, 06:03:39 pm
Post by: bulborbish on August 03, 2013, 06:28:44 pm
I feel like maybe after one hundred years there could be some auto cores.
The point that automatic coring was removed was to stop some of the strange blobbing, along with strengthening some of the historically hard to control areas that really no nation had a solid claim to though they controlled the area (examples include the Frontier in America).
I suspect that Paradox's major goal at the beginning is to prevent a world conquest within two months. As time passes automatic coring may be added depending on circumstances.
Post by: forsaken1111 on August 03, 2013, 06:53:35 pm
I'm just dropping this link in here: New DD About Random Stuff Like Ledgers and Naval Combat and Production Stuff (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1544-Europa-Universalis-IV-Developer-diary-44-Newbie-Friendly)TIL: Timetravel is coming in 2020
Post by: Karlito on August 08, 2013, 09:54:28 am
Post by: Andrew425 on August 08, 2013, 04:54:58 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 08, 2013, 05:06:28 pm
Post by: Azthor on August 08, 2013, 05:25:58 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 08, 2013, 06:13:03 pm
I've been playing the demo and been enjoying it. They're not my particular choice of countries but it was really nice to be able to play as Venice and explore the trading mechanics. I had a decent game going never wanting for money until around 1505 when I declared war on an Italian OPM and Austria which I had an alliance, military access and +180 relationship with decided it was sick of my crap and jumped me. Spent the next few years having Vencia as my only unconquered province and nothing would make Austria declare peace. Got bore when my economy started collapsing.
Fucking HRE.
Post by: Rakonas on August 09, 2013, 01:59:00 am
Post by: Twiggie on August 09, 2013, 03:16:34 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 09, 2013, 09:37:52 am
Post by: Chosrau on August 09, 2013, 09:43:50 am
Post by: a1s on August 09, 2013, 09:58:52 am
Don't you need +3 stab to westernize?+1, I haven't played the demo, but the "difference between EUIII & EUIV" document said you did)
Post by: echonic on August 10, 2013, 09:58:14 am
I did not think I'd be up for more EU, but I was really surprised at how they seemed to add more depth yet also streamline things.
Post by: bulborbish on August 10, 2013, 12:58:41 pm
Post by: Pnx on August 10, 2013, 01:37:53 pm
A lot of the stuff these nations specialise in were things they specialised in on account of their real life circumstances. Ones which will commonly not happen. In some cases it makes sense, because of the history of the nation, but it seems odd that a Russian state would still maintain a huge manpower bonus, even when in a completely different area.
Some of them also seem to be a lot more powerful than others. Which is a little annoying.
It might be better to instead have a "central idea", which you get to pick from, and is increased in a similar way.
Post by: Dutchling on August 10, 2013, 01:46:23 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 10, 2013, 01:54:22 pm
Posting because this is the only logic.
Hoping for depth added to Meso/South American and African nations.
Post by: bulborbish on August 10, 2013, 02:29:44 pm
Hoping for depth added to Meso/South American and African nations.
The Base game seems to have very little to add on to the EUIII depictions of the Meso-Americans and South Americans. I think the Africans only have a slight bonus.
The game will likely receive a DLC that expands on the New World, especially because they really are spent for improvements to Europe.
Post by: Lightning4 on August 10, 2013, 07:39:27 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 10, 2013, 07:47:03 pm
I also have a sneaking suspicion that you can't form Italy in the demo.
Could just be awful luck however.
*found someone who have done it. Apparently you have to take a shit ton of loans and buy the most expensive admin advisor you can. Apparently the game also ends and you can't see their national ideas.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 10, 2013, 08:27:43 pm
Post by: Andrew425 on August 11, 2013, 12:04:04 am
Post by: MrWiggles on August 11, 2013, 12:16:05 am
I'm really liking the trade system. I was playing as Portugal and feeding trade back. It went through a few nodes before making it back to my home node. By that time it had ballooned to over 5.7 worth of goods. The awesome part about that is every time you push money to another node it inflates the value of the goods. All in less then 30 years. I really like the synergy of how both Portugal and Spain can work together to bring trade home. Of course they have to split it, but I got that home node up to 13.1 which is far better then the 7.2 I think it started with. I can imagine if you own enough trading posts you could bring back massive amounts of money. Imagine pulling all the trade from India, then take it around the horn of Africa. You could be making serious money by the time it gets back to you.
You'll never get enough merchants to affect that many nodes though.
---
So how does piracy work? Can you hand out marquee of piracy?
Post by: fivex on August 11, 2013, 12:22:54 am
You can get up to 8 merchants.I'm really liking the trade system. I was playing as Portugal and feeding trade back. It went through a few nodes before making it back to my home node. By that time it had ballooned to over 5.7 worth of goods. The awesome part about that is every time you push money to another node it inflates the value of the goods. All in less then 30 years. I really like the synergy of how both Portugal and Spain can work together to bring trade home. Of course they have to split it, but I got that home node up to 13.1 which is far better then the 7.2 I think it started with. I can imagine if you own enough trading posts you could bring back massive amounts of money. Imagine pulling all the trade from India, then take it around the horn of Africa. You could be making serious money by the time it gets back to you.
You'll never get enough merchants to affect that many nodes though.
Post by: mainiac on August 11, 2013, 12:25:27 am
Post by: Descan on August 11, 2013, 12:44:24 am
Post by: fivex on August 11, 2013, 12:44:53 am
I wonder though, if you manage to get a trade route to china, bring all the trade back to seville, won't you end up just splitting your hard earned trade with the spanish?Getting a trade route from china to seville requires going through the mediterranean, which is going to result in most of the trade getting lost.
Post by: Andrew425 on August 11, 2013, 01:57:45 am
Also with Spain in the same node they will be willing to help you out. Maybe you can do a deal at the start in wbich you focus on getting the Chinese trade and they get all the Caribbean trade. Sure you have to share the pie, it's just going to be a heck of a lot bigger.
Post by: Chattox on August 12, 2013, 03:45:27 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 12, 2013, 03:56:45 am
No notice that there are rebels sieging your provinces. I lost a bunch of provinces since I was busy managing other matters and some arsehole forced them over the border.
A navy that is being repaired in a colony which when that colony is attacked and destroyed by natives will result in the whole fleet being destroyed. Very annoying.
Trade fleets have to be micromanaged in a war. I think it would be nice to be able to toggle whether trade fleets return to a friendly port when there's a war. I lost so many since I just forget about them and lightships are just horrid at combat.
Diplomacy GUI is still a little iffy. Setting rivals for instance should be able to be done through the relationship screen and not just through the government tabs. Still a lot better than EUIII though.
You still need to manually upgrade obsolete ships. I can understand that you can't just let them auto-upgrade like troops, but at least have a little button which sends them off the the nearest port and have them upgraded with a very slight "scraping" discount.
Combat is still opaque and dice rolls are still way too important. The "pip" system needs to be reworked so it shows the various multipliers so you can get a clear indicate on which unit is better. Needs a military DLC ASAP.
AI still calling players in battles where they can't physically do anything. That's nice Austria that you're attacking Novgorod but I'm Venice and I'm not sailing through the Baltic and asking for a bunch of military access for you. AI has also called me into battles where they clearly need no help, England called me in to fight Leinster which was a OPM with no allies and no army. I wanted to increase my stability that month, you jerk.
Galleys could do with some more types at the start. Heavy, light and transport ships go through many tech levels before galleys get their first. I think they should be a lot more useful in the early game. Perhaps allow galleys to steer trade at a decreased rate?
Non-europeans are just too weak. Their units get cut down like kobolds and it's way too easy to core and change religion.
Should I get this game if I already have CKII? £32 is seriously hefty..Depends. Have you played and enjoyed EU3? CK and the EU series are two very different beasts. I suggest you download the demo and use that to help you decide.
Post by: Rakonas on August 12, 2013, 04:01:33 am
Post by: Tarran on August 12, 2013, 04:02:21 am
Some annoying things I found so far.Aren't there message options? Surely there are some message options lying around somewhere in options.
No notice that there are rebels sieging your provinces. I lost a bunch of provinces since I was busy managing other matters and some arsehole forced them over the border.
A navy that is being repaired in a colony which when that colony is attacked and destroyed by natives will result in the whole fleet being destroyed. Very annoying.I think that was also in EU3, so nothing new there as far as I know.
Combat is still opaque and dice rolls are still way too important. The "pip" system needs to be reworked so it shows the various multipliers so you can get a clear indicate on which unit is better. Needs a military DLC ASAP.DLC? Why not just a free update?
Post by: Chattox on August 12, 2013, 04:03:17 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 12, 2013, 04:04:55 am
I got a few messages about rebels crossing the border into my country, but I think it may be spotty and only alert you part of the time.Some annoying things I found so far.Aren't there message options? Surely there are some message options lying around somewhere in options.
No notice that there are rebels sieging your provinces. I lost a bunch of provinces since I was busy managing other matters and some arsehole forced them over the border.
Downloading the demo as we type. I own and have played EU3, but it was before I really got my head around how Paradox games work. I'd go back to it and try it out, but I'm downloading the EU4 demo so I might aswell just wait for that. At the risk of sounding retarded, what are the main differences between CK2 and EU4?EU4 is about running a country. You're not concerned with characters very much, though your leader's skill, advisors, and generals are all important. It's more about securing your place in the sun as a european country or preventing europeans from wrecking your shit as a non-european.
Post by: Descan on August 12, 2013, 04:07:42 am
Other things but those are the major ones. (Read: the ones I could think of)
Post by: Kaje on August 12, 2013, 06:08:11 am
Post by: Tarran on August 12, 2013, 01:14:06 pm
In EU, it's all about managing your country, while admittedly characters get the shaft hard. Colonization (which CK2 does not have), trade (which CK2 does have but in a drastically different way), ideas, stability and war exhaustion (which CK2 does not have), and more important diplomacy are some of the things EU has over CK2. In addition, the actual culture and religion of your provinces actually matter, as provinces of different culture and religion are going to be seriously angry with you. Combat, in my experience, also manages to be more complex than two or a few more armies engaging in a couple fights. Instead, you often have long, drawn out tactical wars where you have to manage attrition, reinforcements, terrain (terrain in EU is even more important than CK2), sieges, war exhaustion, manpower, and money, all while trying to outdo your enemy with multiple separate armies instead of a few large ones as there is now a limit in how many troops can fight at once in each battle.
Post by: Dutchling on August 12, 2013, 01:16:01 pm
Also people can only ever have one living child.
Post by: Rakonas on August 12, 2013, 01:18:27 pm
You can also cannot change your rulers. It's as if you play CK2 and a random AI will always educate your heir and you can do nothing about it.Not true, actually. You have times where heirs die and are immediately replaced by another, generally younger.
Also people can only ever have one living child.
Post by: Dutchling on August 12, 2013, 01:19:23 pm
I always assumed that's their kid.You can also cannot change your rulers. It's as if you play CK2 and a random AI will always educate your heir and you can do nothing about it.Not true, actually. You have times where heirs die and are immediately replaced by another, generally younger.
Also people can only ever have one living child.
Post by: Rakonas on August 12, 2013, 01:25:57 pm
Doesn't make a lot of sense when your first heir was 12 and the next one 8, though. Unless those inbred nobles have invented the gene for super fertility.I always assumed that's their kid.You can also cannot change your rulers. It's as if you play CK2 and a random AI will always educate your heir and you can do nothing about it.Not true, actually. You have times where heirs die and are immediately replaced by another, generally younger.
Also people can only ever have one living child.
Post by: Tarran on August 12, 2013, 01:28:25 pm
You can also cannot change your rulers. It's as if you play CK2 and a random AI will always educate your heir and you can do nothing about it.Yes, that is a serious gripe I have with EU. But unlike CK2 it doesn't bring your empire crashing down as everyone revolts at once just because they don't like your traits and your last leader happened to die at the wrong time. Rather, it just makes your country crappier in more passive ways, where it crashing down is more due to it's situation rather than traits.
Post by: Andrew425 on August 12, 2013, 01:28:31 pm
Tarran sumed it up well. Its not about dynasties or characters its about the formation of a nation. Its about dealing with other nations where the only course of action might be conflict.
It's a logistics game. Generally the bigger army wins as long as you have comparable technology. Getting and paying for those armies is what you will be worried about.
Post by: snelg on August 12, 2013, 01:34:20 pm
That aside I like a lot of the new things for EU4 and can see myself sinking a bit of time into that one.
Post by: Dutchling on August 12, 2013, 01:35:59 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 12, 2013, 01:42:16 pm
Never has that happen to me. When my heir inherits he tends to have a kid, and when my own heir dies I can get an event giving me a new one. Now I think about it, I never had an heir being replaced by a 1+ year old new heir.Doesn't make a lot of sense when your first heir was 12 and the next one 8, though. Unless those inbred nobles have invented the gene for super fertility.I always assumed that's their kid.You can also cannot change your rulers. It's as if you play CK2 and a random AI will always educate your heir and you can do nothing about it.Not true, actually. You have times where heirs die and are immediately replaced by another, generally younger.
Also people can only ever have one living child.
edit: oops, double post.
Post by: pedrito on August 12, 2013, 02:06:47 pm
I still have a gripe with some of the new mechanism, but there's hardly enough to not consider EU4 as a succesful heir and improvement of it's predecessor.
Considering the amount of hours I've dropped on EU3 I certainly fear for my social life and job during the next weeks.
Post by: Shooer on August 12, 2013, 02:11:02 pm
Considering the amount of hours I've dropped on EU3 I certainly fear for my social life and job during the next weeks.Play MP and there goes one of those fears.
Post by: Culise on August 12, 2013, 02:35:09 pm
Play MP for long enough and you won't have to worry about the other fear anymore, either.Considering the amount of hours I've dropped on EU3 I certainly fear for my social life and job during the next weeks.Play MP and there goes one of those fears.
Post by: Felius on August 12, 2013, 05:04:32 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on August 12, 2013, 05:20:50 pm
Release is in a few hours. Anyone want to bet how bug infested the release version of the game will be? :PI'll go with 'very' for $500 Alex.
Post by: Dutchling on August 12, 2013, 05:27:35 pm
Release is in a few hours. Anyone want to bet how bug infested the release version of the game will be? :PCkii wasn't and EUiv won't be either.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 12, 2013, 07:02:44 pm
My only concern is that release prices as too steep if you're going to have that system of continually DLC expansions. The system does have some obvious parallels with "free2play" games and I think cheap releases would only get more people invested in the series. Combine this with the fact that because Paradox games are so niche if you wait a month or so they'll have a massive discount on amazon or steam.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 12, 2013, 07:14:03 pm
Post by: Andrew425 on August 12, 2013, 07:54:01 pm
$50 is around what i'd spend on a new game, so $40 on a game I really like sounds pretty darn fine to me.
Post by: Wiles on August 12, 2013, 08:05:18 pm
My only concern is that release prices as too steep if you're going to have that system of continually DLC expansions. The system does have some obvious parallels with "free2play" games and I think cheap releases would only get more people invested in the series. Combine this with the fact that because Paradox games are so niche if you wait a month or so they'll have a massive discount on amazon or steam.
As much as I dislike Paradox's pricing/dlc strategy I find I can't complain about it too much because of how cheap you can buy the games/dlc a while after it has been released. It's not like the days of PC gaming yore when the only place you could buy games was in a brick and mortar store and often games would still be full priced years after release. I purchased CKII and all of its dlc (pre-ToG) for 9.99. I felt like a bandit. You pay a premium if you want it right away, but you can pick it up later for great a price if you're on a tight budget.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 12, 2013, 08:09:34 pm
It's not like the days of PC gaming yore when the only place you could buy games was in a brick and mortar store and often games would still be full priced years after release.
Those days still exist. Look at the battlechests for Blizzard's games. The original StarCraft and Diablo 2 battlechests haven't dropped in price for more than a decade.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 12, 2013, 08:11:38 pm
You cant really point to the odd exception and then say that its the common law of the land.It's not like the days of PC gaming yore when the only place you could buy games was in a brick and mortar store and often games would still be full priced years after release.
Those days still exist. Look at the battlechests for Blizzard's games. The original StarCraft and Diablo 2 battlechests haven't dropped in price for more than a decade.
Blizzard games are price controlled like that, because Blizzard as a brand is strong enough to do it, and they dont release enough games to where they thin out their own brand.
There was only one D2 for a very long time. As there was only One SC for a very long time.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 12, 2013, 08:16:54 pm
Release is in a few hours. Anyone want to bet how bug infested the release version of the game will be? :P
A few hours? The Steam page says approx. 12...
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 12, 2013, 09:52:14 pm
I know, I'm not fully arguing against it, I'm just saying there are still those games out there that won't drop in price. Dominions 3 was still something like $40-$60 until Dom4 was announced recently. Still, similar case to Blizzard.
That was due to a deal they signed, far as I remember.
Post by: Karlito on August 12, 2013, 09:55:30 pm
Post by: bulborbish on August 13, 2013, 08:12:02 am
See you guys in about... 3 days.
Post by: Rakonas on August 13, 2013, 08:12:37 am
Post by: a1s on August 13, 2013, 08:34:44 am
Have you suffered a selective amnesia? The only way in which CKII 1.00 wasn't buggy was that it didn't crash very often- if it was any more raw, it would have crawled away. It only really got playable by v1.02.Release is in a few hours. Anyone want to bet how bug infested the release version of the game will be? :PCkii wasn't and EUiv won't be either.
Post by: snelg on August 13, 2013, 09:13:03 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 13, 2013, 09:21:52 am
Post by: bulborbish on August 13, 2013, 09:37:38 am
Have you suffered a selective amnesia? The only way in which CKII 1.00 wasn't buggy was that it didn't crash very often- if it was any more raw, it would have crawled away. It only really got playable by v1.02.Release is in a few hours. Anyone want to bet how bug infested the release version of the game will be? :PCkii wasn't and EUiv won't be either.
Currently the game is quite stable and working, actually.
Post by: Teneb on August 13, 2013, 09:39:32 am
So the converter is out - anyone have cool saves they'd want to hand over? I kinda accidentally overwrote the save I was supposed to convert. Yaaay.Do you want the save file to convert or the already-converted file for EUIV?
EDIT: place this in "Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\eu4_export\mod" (https://www.dropbox.com/s/g54imbazfhe4gnb/convertedsave.rar)
Post by: a1s on August 13, 2013, 09:45:07 am
Currently the game is quite stable and working, actually.Good on them. I'm still waiting for the prices to drop to buy it, because I'm cheap (and from a poor-ish country.)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 13, 2013, 10:02:00 am
For this this makes the choice of countries extremely limited since I'd rather be playing with countries that do have the interesting national ideas. I suppose mods will have to fix it, sigh.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 13, 2013, 10:33:25 am
Post by: BigD145 on August 13, 2013, 10:38:17 am
Post by: Teneb on August 13, 2013, 10:48:45 am
Hey has any one else converted a saved game yet? I did and its broken very very, broken. every continent is shifted to the other side of the world form where it appears, does anyone else have this problem.I converted, no problems. Were you using any mods?
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 13, 2013, 11:06:17 am
Post by: bulborbish on August 13, 2013, 11:10:57 am
here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Eoa2Ohypgw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUhMP4URnsWjFT1T1KefjzxQ)
Granted, you can barely hear me over the background audio, but you can (sorta) enjoy it.
(yeah, I know this is shameless advertisement)
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 13, 2013, 12:33:48 pm
Restarted Steam and it worked just fine, though, but now instead of having a game I can play right when I wake up, I have to wait a couple hours or so. I hope I only have to wait a couple hours.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 13, 2013, 12:47:42 pm
So the converter is out - anyone have cool saves they'd want to hand over? I kinda accidentally overwrote the save I was supposed to convert. Yaaay.Do you want the save file to convert or the already-converted file for EUIV?
EDIT: place this in "Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\eu4_export\mod" (https://www.dropbox.com/s/g54imbazfhe4gnb/convertedsave.rar)
Either way is fine, but the latter sounds simpler. What's the world like in that one? Looking for interesting starts here.
The converter is... alright, judging by my one test. It has less features than the fanmade EUIII converter in some aspects (alliances, wars, etc. kept in), but it is polished and easy to use, so. I'll just have to get a proper CK2 game going for it (again, having overwritten the save I would have wanted to convert).
I've played a while with Novgorod, aiming to replicate my GLORIOUS REPUBLICAN RUSSIA from EUIII. Doing pretty well so far - it's been kinda easy, actually. Might kick up the difficulty a notch next time (from Normal).
Post by: Silent_Thunder on August 13, 2013, 01:31:04 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 13, 2013, 01:37:26 pm
The only real issue I have so far is how Admin power is superior to the other two monarch powers.
$10 for a save game converter that's usually been made by modders. No thanks.So far CK2 -> EU3 converters have been absolutely terrible. The EU3 -> V2 was okayish though.
The screens I've seen of the official CK2 -> EU4 converter are pretty sweet though.
Post by: CognitiveDissonance on August 13, 2013, 01:40:50 pm
So... how is it?
Post by: Dutchling on August 13, 2013, 01:43:26 pm
A bit scary to play as Aragon and see both Castille and France literally 'want to annex you' though >.>
Post by: cerapa on August 13, 2013, 01:59:50 pm
Been playing as the Aztecs. Got to level 4 admin tech, took Exploration and nearly instantly maxed it out. Colonial Aztec Empire FTW. Currently creating a core on Tortuga that borders a spanish province, so I can westernize and perhaps not be 12 tech levels behind in every field.
EDIT: Oh shit, Spain just declared war.
Post by: Rakonas on August 13, 2013, 02:17:57 pm
Post by: cerapa on August 13, 2013, 02:29:56 pm
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 13, 2013, 02:37:52 pm
Gah, westernization changes your state religion through an event. My entire nation is rebels.
Wait, what? How does that make any sense? Atleast tell me it was some kind of reformed version of the old religion and not just Christianity.
Post by: cerapa on August 13, 2013, 02:53:22 pm
Post by: Wiles on August 13, 2013, 03:02:09 pm
I started off as Norway, which is a vassal of Denmark. It was fairly dull for a very long time. I felt like I should have been reading a book while I was playing. Even with the game speed turned up to max there wasn't much happening. Just a lot of waiting. The game definitely picked up and became more interesting later though. Which is why I'd recommend picking one of the major powers to get your feet wet, so you can get into the game right from the get go.
Post by: Megaman on August 13, 2013, 03:37:36 pm
Straight up catholic. Silliest damn event ever. Even the text was like "Since we are taking on western customs, we might as well convert too." Like you were going to the store to buy some groceries and decided to grab a box of cereal too. Didn't even convert a single province.
Wait, so if you're trying to modernize Russia the game will turn you Catholic?
Post by: cerapa on August 13, 2013, 03:42:33 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 13, 2013, 03:48:17 pm
No, no. Only animism and shamanism are converted.
That's... Not... Well, hope someone mods that out asap. :-\
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 13, 2013, 04:02:01 pm
Post by: a1s on August 13, 2013, 04:27:46 pm
even if I can keep up with tech western troops are just magically better and it's silly.I always found that annoying in the original- I get that Europe has the highest tech level in the game for essentially no reason (instead of inventing a cool mechanic connected to trade and plurality, it's just straight up '5 times better at !!SCIENCE!!- suck it, natives!') but why do they also get better troops at the same levels (for, again, no reason besides "white means might")?
Post by: Teneb on August 13, 2013, 04:53:31 pm
There are some megablobs over europe. Also Roman Empire, christianity reunited (orthodox won. you need to take the same places to make the roman empire and to mend the schism), and SI-enabled save, so uber-aztecs/incas with zero tech penalities. It was converted at year 1109, starting from Old Gods.So the converter is out - anyone have cool saves they'd want to hand over? I kinda accidentally overwrote the save I was supposed to convert. Yaaay.Do you want the save file to convert or the already-converted file for EUIV?
EDIT: place this in "Documents\Paradox Interactive\Crusader Kings II\eu4_export\mod" (https://www.dropbox.com/s/g54imbazfhe4gnb/convertedsave.rar)
Either way is fine, but the latter sounds simpler. What's the world like in that one? Looking for interesting starts here.
Post by: cerapa on August 13, 2013, 04:55:43 pm
My 6/6/5 ruler died. Cutting down the 1 stability I had regained. An average ruler was put on the throne, no biggie. Then I get an event. 33% +1 stab, 33% -2 stab, 33% ruler dies. Ruler dies. No valid heir, regency council. Same event comes a week later, kills the friggin regency council.
So right now I am gonna be sitting on a 0/0/0 regency council until a 3 year comes of age. I assume the regency council is also all 3 year old, and it has its own regency council.
Why does paradox hate me so much?
Also, extra from a RETREEEEAT!-ing boat from a bit earlier.
Spoiler: Warning, huge image (click to show/hide)
Note about westernizing, tooltips state that after it's over, I should get western units.
EDIT: An explanation for those who haven't tried it yet. If you have +3 stability and a core next to a western countries core, you can westernize. This instantly puts you in the western tech group and resets all your points to -100, and starts the process of westernizing.
Westernizing is done by having a bar that reaches up to 100. The way to increase this bar is to raise stability(-3 stab = -3, 3 stab = 3, don't remember if monthly or yearly). Along the way are many events, including random losses of points, lowered tax income, quitting merchants, change of religion, and other such things. It also causes a considerable amount of unrest and rebels. If the rebels win, they lower your westernization progress by 10.
If you survive the process, you should get western units and may now enjoy your non-ludicrous tech costs.
Post by: Silent_Thunder on August 13, 2013, 06:49:36 pm
Post by: Tarran on August 13, 2013, 06:52:35 pm
-46 enthusiasm, 13 WE, 6 years of war, several occupied provinces, and a crushed army, and they are still fighting. They are now losing provinces to heretics. Seems like the AI still doesn't know when fighting is futile regardless of their size.
Post by: umiman on August 13, 2013, 07:58:42 pm
Well, one thing I can tell from playing this is that France is absurdly stubborn.Maybe the king is on a long holiday in Florence and hasn't bothered to check the news or read his mail. All his advisors are not bothering to tell him because "well... technically if we don't admit we've lost it doesn't count."
-46 enthusiasm, 13 WE, 6 years of war, several occupied provinces, and a crushed army, and they are still fighting. They are now losing provinces to heretics. Seems like the AI still doesn't know when fighting is futile regardless of their size.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 13, 2013, 09:23:35 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 13, 2013, 10:05:39 pm
If you attack someone in the coalition, the warcore is calculated as if all the coalition members were in an alliance against you. However, you can't make peace on them separately... and you can't make demands of them, except the one you attacked. You can't ask for them to cede provinces, return cores, annul treaties, ANYTHING. As far as I can tell, any money you ask for will come from the main target.
This means that if you wanted to annex 4 one province nations, and they were all in a coalition against you along with France, you would have to beat France 4 times to annex each one province nation individually, and you could never make any demands of France, unless you chose to attack them directly, at which point you couldn't annex any of the smaller nations. On top of that, those four tiny nations could hate France's guts, but they would still join the coalition and fight to the death together.
It also means that if you're in a coalition, you essentially get a free war with no risk of losing land, unless someone else is attacking you. Seriously. Your armies scattered, your bitter rival occupied every last inch of your land? No biggy. Since you aren't guilty of anything other than joining a coalition sworn to fight said rival unconditionally, they'll have to forgive you, and leave your lands without taking so much as a single gold coin. *incoherent rage*
Post by: MrWiggles on August 13, 2013, 11:24:18 pm
Ok, so from what I can tell, coalitions are completely fucking broken. Its possible I'm missing something and this is a rant about nothing, in which case... oops. But I'm pretty sure about this.
If you attack someone in the coalition, the warcore is calculated as if all the coalition members were in an alliance against you. However, you can't make peace on them separately... and you can't make demands of them, except the one you attacked. You can't ask for them to cede provinces, return cores, annul treaties, ANYTHING. As far as I can tell, any money you ask for will come from the main target.
This means that if you wanted to annex 4 one province nations, and they were all in a coalition against you along with France, you would have to beat France 4 times to annex each one province nation individually, and you could never make any demands of France, unless you chose to attack them directly, at which point you couldn't annex any of the smaller nations. On top of that, those four tiny nations could hate France's guts, but they would still join the coalition and fight to the death together.
It also means that if you're in a coalition, you essentially get a free war with no risk of losing land, unless someone else is attacking you. Seriously. Your armies scattered, your bitter rival occupied every last inch of your land? No biggy. Since you aren't guilty of anything other than joining a coalition sworn to fight said rival unconditionally, they'll have to forgive you, and leave your lands without taking so much as a single gold coin. *incoherent rage*
How did coalitions function historically? Or its closet historic analog?
Post by: umiman on August 13, 2013, 11:26:46 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 13, 2013, 11:29:09 pm
Well... they would fight among each other. Be incredibly inefficient. Fail to achieve their purpose. And were generally a waste of time. With one or two exceptions.
Pre-Han dynasty?
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on August 13, 2013, 11:36:51 pm
Post by: umiman on August 14, 2013, 12:58:47 am
I was thinking the *seventh* (lol) coalition to fight Napoleon since that's the timeframe but that works too haha.Well... they would fight among each other. Be incredibly inefficient. Fail to achieve their purpose. And were generally a waste of time. With one or two exceptions.
Pre-Han dynasty?
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 14, 2013, 01:39:23 am
Straight up catholic. Silliest damn event ever. Even the text was like "Since we are taking on western customs, we might as well convert too." Like you were going to the store to buy some groceries and decided to grab a box of cereal too. Didn't even convert a single province.
Historically, countries that Westernized were also being converted around the same time. Don't think of it like going to the store to buy some groceries and deciding to grab a box of cereal, think of it like going to the store to buy some groceries, and the entire time you're in the store there's a sermon going on over the PA system and the cashier hands you a free mini-bible on your way out and inside is a 15% off coupon for your return visit to the store.
Post by: Lightning4 on August 14, 2013, 02:17:03 am
...and they were all in a coalition against you along with France...
Thankfully, it's as likely, if not more likely that France itself will be the target of a large coalition.
At least, it's this way in my game. I'm going to need it if I want any chance of surviving next to that big blob of doom as Brittany. And even then, I'm not sure we can survive.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 14, 2013, 02:29:50 am
I got claims all over Italy and it didn't take me long to consolidate most of it into the state. Austria is much weaker and with the help of my English and French allies aren't too much a problem. I'm considering pushing into southern Austria for the gold and iron down there but there's going to be a bit of culture flipping. There's also no chance of forming the HRE easily due to Venice not starting in it.
I could play the colonial game as both Spain and Portugal haven't advanced too far, only a few provinces between them. I'd have to take some land in western Europe which sounds like a lot of effort.
The other possibility I was considering is conquering The Mamluks since I keep getting missions to conquer Judea and then build a fleet on the other side of the nile and colonise Africa from the east to the west before moving on to India. I know this worked rather well in EUIII but I'm not quite as sure how it would work in EUIV due to trade routes.
Another annoying thing is that provinces with religious zeal are extremely hard to convert. I've tried both advisors and ideas and I haven't even gotten close to the missionary strength I need.
Post by: Tarran on August 14, 2013, 03:06:55 am
Post by: Inarius on August 14, 2013, 03:14:15 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 14, 2013, 05:05:49 am
Ok, so from what I can tell, coalitions are completely fucking broken. Its possible I'm missing something and this is a rant about nothing, in which case... oops. But I'm pretty sure about this.The worse part is that even if you sit around at peace with them for 40 years (currently the state of my Ottomans game which I've given up) almost nobody leaves the coalition. Croatia, Hungary, the Mamluks and Naples are all in a coalition against me. I had all these claims on Naples and Croatia, but I can't declare on either of them because France will intervene and magically become the head of the coalition due to Defender of the Faith. If I knew that the AI was permanently bound in a non-expiring coalition I wouldn't have waited around hoping for them to see reason.
If you attack someone in the coalition, the warcore is calculated as if all the coalition members were in an alliance against you. However, you can't make peace on them separately... and you can't make demands of them, except the one you attacked. You can't ask for them to cede provinces, return cores, annul treaties, ANYTHING. As far as I can tell, any money you ask for will come from the main target.
This means that if you wanted to annex 4 one province nations, and they were all in a coalition against you along with France, you would have to beat France 4 times to annex each one province nation individually, and you could never make any demands of France, unless you chose to attack them directly, at which point you couldn't annex any of the smaller nations. On top of that, those four tiny nations could hate France's guts, but they would still join the coalition and fight to the death together.
It also means that if you're in a coalition, you essentially get a free war with no risk of losing land, unless someone else is attacking you. Seriously. Your armies scattered, your bitter rival occupied every last inch of your land? No biggy. Since you aren't guilty of anything other than joining a coalition sworn to fight said rival unconditionally, they'll have to forgive you, and leave your lands without taking so much as a single gold coin. *incoherent rage*
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 14, 2013, 05:20:56 am
Post by: snelg on August 14, 2013, 07:05:35 am
Also, playing ironman feels like I'm spending more time waiting for the game to save than actually playing.
Post by: Wiles on August 14, 2013, 10:08:31 am
I'm trying to fight Sweden as Norway and I can't win a single battle. Last time I tried I outnumbered them 31 to 22 and I lost horribly. I'm fairly certain that I am ahead of them in military tech and I have gone most of the way up the military quality idea tree.
The problem seems to lie in the fact that they seem to have a decent general while mine is pretty lousy. Does a general make that much of a difference? Does the lucky nation system play into it too?
I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.
I have more money, more tech and more men but I have no idea on how I should go about beating them. Any suggestions?
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 14, 2013, 10:13:54 am
I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.
If it's the same as EU3 you should save up as much power as you can before making generals, increases their base stats. In EU3 I'd always wait until 90%+ tradition before making generals, and they'd always be 4-4-4+s, not sure how EU4 works though.
Oh, and about the tactical side of things: Terrain is most important in Paradox titles. River+Mountain = attacker loses, bottom line. I wish EU had a more HOI-like system with flanking and pincer attacks. Otherwise; for wars like yours your only bet is to create doomstacks at a size just below attrition and mass wave them until you win.
Dunno if I'll pick this up. Seems to be a pretty normal Paradox launch, but with more rush. Will gladly wait until patches and mods to shore up the glaring mistakes in design main one I saw around was making state religion go to Christian with no goddamn option at all on westernization, due to the 'White makes might'* theory of Paradox titles. Coalitions, too, that bit scares me.
EU3 wasn't necessarily stellar in espionage areas, either, so I don't think I'll be very motivated to bother fucking with currently-broken coalitions at all. Feel like it'd just be a rush to grab all the minors you can before unbreakable coalitions form everywhere.
*Coined by A1s :]
Edited for butchering the English language. What I get for typing half asleep.
Post by: Culise on August 14, 2013, 10:28:01 am
I don't think I quite understand the combat system yet.Generals can be quite important with bonuses comparable to your dice rolls, which you typically get with high tradition, which you can get in turn through ideas and fighting; even a poor general's +1 or +2 is better than no general at all. I was sweeping up Sweden as Muscovy/Russia through the power of the luck, which granted me some rather useful generals with 4 pips in shock. I really wonder about some of the retreat algorithms, though; I had an army lose in Tsaritsyn and decide to retreat clear to Ladoga, which was entertainingly terrible and put that army out of commission for months as it had to march all the way back.
I'm trying to fight Sweden as Norway and I can't win a single battle. Last time I tried I outnumbered them 31 to 22 and I lost horribly. I'm fairly certain that I am ahead of them in military tech and I have gone most of the way up the military quality idea tree.
The problem seems to lie in the fact that they seem to have a decent general while mine is pretty lousy. Does a general make that much of a difference? Does the lucky nation system play into it too?
I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.
I have more money, more tech and more men but I have no idea on how I should go about beating them. Any suggestions?
Handling Sweden as Norway, you don't have a lot of ground to fall back on, but winter attrition should help deplete them. Try to force them to battle you in mountains or other difficult terrain, so that you get the bonus of terrain instead of them. An EU3 tactic that worked was to cycle fresh armies into battle and exhausted armies out; if you have enough of a numeric superiority, you may be able to do that. Also, try to get Moscow or Novgorod on your side; in planning my reclamation of Karelia, I set the stage diplomatically by allying with both Denmark and Norway.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 14, 2013, 10:30:53 am
I really wonder about some of the retreat algorithms, though; I had an army lose in Tsaritsyn and decide to retreat clear to Ladoga, which was entertainingly terrible and put that army out of commission for months as it had to march all the way back.
This also worries me. Glaring issues in simple mechanics like this for multiple titles now does not bode well for their attention-to-anything rating.
Seriously. It's not hard to put in some goddamn if variables.
Troop retreating. Calculate adjacent provinces, strongest draw is in this order: 1st priority Quickest movement, 2nd priority friendly armies, 3rd priority best defensiveness. At the moment retreat algorithms look like: FLEE TO NEAREST PROVINCE.. 45km away is a mountain top while 50km away is a desert. Pick mountain and have enemy troops on you as soon as you arrive.
I feel like they just don't care about things that enhance the actual gameplay anymore if they don't even bother with that.
Spoiler: Warning, huge image (click to show/hide)
And it definitely hasn't gotten better..
Post by: Drakale on August 14, 2013, 10:40:27 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 14, 2013, 11:26:18 am
The christianizing westernization thing, are you sure it wasn't a "choice" like all of the westernization event choices? You either do x or lose stability kinda thing, which isn't a choice if you have -3 stability.
Personally I'm enjoying the game a lot more after raising the overextension threshold to 150%. Now I can actually get more than a couple provinces in a peace deal before my entire country explodes into rebels. Was able to annex the Mamluks in 5 wars instead of 300 like I would with 100%.
One other thing I have a big problem with is that Mecca and Medina offer no benefits. You'd think being a muslim empire controlling two of the holiest cities in Islam you'd get some kind of benefits, but nope. There isn't even any trade power modifiers in Mecca like there are for estuaries. You'd think that Mecca might be a mecca of sorts but instead it's a shitty 2 base tax province, while Judea gives +1 prestige and missionaries.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 14, 2013, 11:42:00 am
One other thing I have a big problem with is that Mecca and Medina offer no benefits. You'd think being a muslim empire controlling two of the holiest cities in Islam you'd get some kind of benefits, but nope. There isn't even any trade power modifiers in Mecca like there are for estuaries. You'd think that Mecca might be a mecca of sorts but instead it's a shitty 2 base tax province, while Judea gives +1 prestige and missionaries.
'Mecca and Medina Bonuses DLC'
Post by: snelg on August 14, 2013, 11:46:01 am
'Mecca and Medina Bonuses DLC'I've already lost count of the number of DLC's released... ::)
Post by: yarr on August 14, 2013, 12:34:28 pm
I start as Leinster(?), South Ireland. I "immediately" forge a claim on the province to the west, of which I forgot the name and take it by force. This usually goes smooth (I've already tried that scenario 3 times now). So now I have 2 provinces. :D However, once I try to take Connacht to the north I run into problems. Scottland or England gets involved and they just crush me. I then pay back all the loans I had to take for the next ~10 years and try again, but then they're allied with some other large nation which just proceeds to block my ports, so I run out of funds etc etc they crush me etc etc and I just lose.
I'm basically a noob at this game, having never played EU3. I have played CK2 tho and created Ireland there successfully. I just can't seem to do it in this game, any tips? :(
Post by: snelg on August 14, 2013, 12:41:16 pm
England's got a mission to conquer Ireland that they can pick from the start I think. It was hard to play the Irish minors in EU3 and it might be even worse in EU4 unless you can ally with England or something.
Post by: Wiles on August 14, 2013, 12:49:19 pm
Eventually even though I was winning the battles my manpower was whittled away to nothing. I had to hire mercs and managed to force a white peace. I spent the next ten years repaying loans, and my manpower is still only halfway replenished.
I think my mistake was ignoring my military for so long and focusing only on my colonial efforts, once I lost Denmark as an ally I was a target too tempting to pass up on for Sweden.
I'm basically a noob at this game, having never played EU3. I have played CK2 tho and created Ireland there successfully. I just can't seem to do it in this game, any tips? :(
I'm pretty new too, so I don't have very much advice, but I would recommend trying a more powerful realm to get familiar with the game. I find it a lot harder to be small in EU4 than it is in CK2. Also it might be worth your while to watch some videos of other people playing on youtube, that helped me get acquainted with some of the rules (but some, like trading, still fly over my head).
edit: Paradox has some tutorial videos that may be worth watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ep76d3kWs
Post by: cerapa on August 14, 2013, 12:58:37 pm
I'm bad at this game.EU4 Is not CK2. Small countries get crushed by bigger ones, so its easier to start with something big like France or the Ottomans.
I start as Leinster(?), South Ireland. I "immediately" forge a claim on the province to the west, of which I forgot the name and take it by force. This usually goes smooth (I've already tried that scenario 3 times now). So now I have 2 provinces. :D However, once I try to take Connacht to the north I run into problems. Scottland or England gets involved and they just crush me. I then pay back all the loans I had to take for the next ~10 years and try again, but then they're allied with some other large nation which just proceeds to block my ports, so I run out of funds etc etc they crush me etc etc and I just lose.
I'm basically a noob at this game, having never played EU3. I have played CK2 tho and created Ireland there successfully. I just can't seem to do it in this game, any tips? :(
Ireland is just there to be crushed by England. You really shouldn't feel bad about losing as them.
Post by: Descan on August 14, 2013, 01:03:34 pm
If you want to become a huge trading power, take high trade power provinces in the feeding nodes, such as Ceylon and Kochin. Trade Steerage means how effective you are at directing trade from feeding nodes, trade efficiency means how much money you get from your home node, and (global) trade power increases your control of nodes.
Hope that helps!
Post by: Whitefoxsniper on August 14, 2013, 02:19:40 pm
I'm waiting for more opinions before I decide to buy or not.
Post by: echonic on August 14, 2013, 02:40:41 pm
I'm waiting for more opinions before I decide to buy or not.
My opinion is that it's awesome! I liked EUIII, but I love EUIV (so far).
I avoid war though, it's not really a part of the game that I'm interested in. So my opinion is going to be skewed towards how much I like the things like Trading/Colonization/etc.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 14, 2013, 02:45:24 pm
Post by: Felius on August 14, 2013, 02:56:16 pm
PTW!Personally I'll wait until it goes in a sale in steam, also because by them it will have at least a few patches under its belt, which should help with the most glaring bugs, balancing issues and simply stupid events.
I'm waiting for more opinions before I decide to buy or not.
Post by: umiman on August 14, 2013, 03:06:15 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 14, 2013, 03:07:42 pm
I'm bad at this game.
I start as Leinster(?), South Ireland. I "immediately" forge a claim on the province to the west, of which I forgot the name and take it by force. This usually goes smooth (I've already tried that scenario 3 times now). So now I have 2 provinces. :D However, once I try to take Connacht to the north I run into problems. Scottland or England gets involved and they just crush me. I then pay back all the loans I had to take for the next ~10 years and try again, but then they're allied with some other large nation which just proceeds to block my ports, so I run out of funds etc etc they crush me etc etc and I just lose.
I'm basically a noob at this game, having never played EU3. I have played CK2 tho and created Ireland there successfully. I just can't seem to do it in this game, any tips? :(
In CK2 you can survive as a small nation by being vassalized. In EU3 though vassalization is rare and boring. In general if you get beat by a larger nation, you just lose. People who play tiny nations tend to use exploits, luck (AKA savescumming) and be really, really good at the game.
If you really want to play as a tiny Irish nation, your best bet is to use coalitions and (if you can somehow manage it) an alliance with a large power to keep England and Scotland at bay. One thing you might consider trying is finding a medium sized nation that's allied with France and then allying that nation, because they might call in France into any wars you get into. Then wait until you're confident that England and Scotland are busy, either because they're losing a war, or they're already at war with you and you have a big ally backing you, and use that time to take out your Irish neighbors. Once you unify Ireland... I don't know where you would go from there. Just try to survive against England and Scotland I guess, and maybe play the colonial game?
Honestly though, without both luck and skill you'll be crushed. I would recommend playing as a large or medium nation that has the potential to form a larger nation, like Castile to form Spain, or Muscovy to form Russia. These nations are typically balanced so that they're at least a decent match for their neighbors, and they give you an obvious goal and a powerful nation once you achieve that goal.
Post by: somebody on August 14, 2013, 03:17:35 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 14, 2013, 03:19:40 pm
Apparently, countries will accept a Forced conversion along with their annexation.
paradox interactive ladies and gentlemen
it might have been a bad idea but i have now acquired this. well, my hard drive can't complain
time for unbalanced pain
Post by: cerapa on August 14, 2013, 03:49:21 pm
Still doing the Aztec game. I have a monopoly on the western sides of the Americas, but I can't drag trade from the Carribean(which actually has the entirety of Africa and Brazil being routed through it, and has a crapton of money) because it's downstream, nor collect there, cause Spain is throwing around hilarious amounts of trade power. So I'm expanding to the only upstream node from my nodes, which is the Philippines. I'm guessing I should get a bit from the natives, but I'm wondering how much I should spend on consolidating my power in that direction.
Post by: a1s on August 14, 2013, 06:28:06 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 14, 2013, 06:41:35 pm
goddamnit
oh boy coalitions
yeah fuck you coalitions, you and whoever thought they're a good idea
We stopped increasing the relations between you and the target country because we maxed them out. Should last a while. declares war three days after due to fabricated claims 5/5 diplomacy where's the button to sack diplomats
the above sums up my session of eu4
go buy it
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 14, 2013, 06:54:27 pm
Post by: inteuniso on August 14, 2013, 07:17:08 pm
Your forcelimit should be high enough that you can hire enough troops to keep down any rebels too, even if you have to hire mercs. Once you can get past the initial difficulties, you should be fine.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 14, 2013, 08:50:26 pm
Post by: hexedmagica on August 14, 2013, 09:06:33 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 14, 2013, 09:54:14 pm
Is it just me or does it feel a lot quicker to expand in this compared to EU3?
It feels the same or a little less to me. The same general limits on expansion are there, but now taking provinces costs diplomatic power, getting cores and raising stability costs administrative power, and all that comes out of your tech growth.
The only real difference is that now you can choose to get conquest missions instead of being burdened by some crappy mission you're forced to cancel. But on the flip side before you could just bite the bullet and accept -2 stability, whereas now I don't generally consider the cost of that to be worth it. Also conquest CB was -50% infamy for taking cored provinces, now its -25% whatever they're calling infamy now. (yeah yeah, aggressive expansion penalty, its still pretty much just infamy).
Post by: Tarran on August 14, 2013, 10:22:22 pm
Is it just me or does it feel a lot quicker to expand in this compared to EU3?Yes and no. On one hand, with the claim generation it is now far easier for small nations to go somewhere. On the other hand with Overextention, Collations, and so on, it is harder to expand massive tracts of territory at once.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 14, 2013, 11:22:20 pm
Colonial Japan!
Oh, this is kind of neat, everyone is vassals.
YOU CAN DIPLO-ANNEX VASSALS WITH GOOD RELATIONS? This is AMAZING!
Oh, it takes forever. Oh well. Trying to get into some colonial action, but I keep taking event stability hits and that just eats away my Admin powers. Thinking I should have started as one of the vassals instead of Japan, since apparently they have higher tech levels at the beginning of the game. That'll be a test for next time.
Legitimacy hit for diplo-annexing vassals? Oh... okay? Whatever.
Oh god, my legitimacy is ultra low and I'm not liking it dipping that far down. Luckily I have craptons of gold from not having to fight any wars. Unfortunately, Nippon is like the least interesting/worst trade route ever. It's fed by a trade node that's way off in the East, probably with the Americas, and there's not that much gold going through it (I think?). It also has one out path. Lame.
YEAH, EXPLORATION! COLONIES! OH GOD, MING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. WHY DOES ZHOU AND SHU AND THE ORIAT OWN SO MUCH OF YOU? MANCHU, WHAT THE HELL? ORIAT VASSAL WITH TWO PROVINCES AND KOREA IS GIANT! I don't like any of this! MING STOP DYING! Crap, crap! Gotta figure out how to make an alliance to stop having two giant superpowers right next door! By this time in EU3 I owned Korea, come on! How was I even distracted long enough for this to happen!?
Alright! Taiwan is colonized, and now I can pull in trade from China! Can't do anything else useful with it, but it's a little more income! An actual job for my second merchant, hurra- ZHOU. ZHOU STOP THAT. STOP TRYING TO MAKE A CLAIM. ZHOU, NO. STOP ZHOU. WHY YOU DO THIS. No seriously is all you're doing trying to force claims? I stopped you like 20 times in a month already. Well, except for that just then. Damnit.
UNITE JAPAN! YEAH! Wait nothing happened. What the hell? Ohhh, it's the other event I need for it to do something other than change government. Damn. *savescum*
Heeeeeeeeeeeeey. Ming. I see you barely holding on over there. I made a rival out of Korea, so now my own relations are high enough to Alliance with you. Sooo... wanna Alliance? Alright! Sweet. Now, let's hope that intimi- oh god seriously?
IT'S OKAY MING, I GOT YOU. I SEE YOU HAVE LIKE 4 PROVINCES OCCUPIED, BUT I OWN LIKE 5 OF KOREA'S, WRECKED ITS NAVY AND WE HAVE POSITIVE WARSCORE. JUST HOLD O- ... or... you know... just hand them a couple provinces. That's fine. Whatever.
Okay, ruler died, got 100 legit, vassals not freaking out about getting annexed so I can start on a couple more, I colonized The Land of the Gods and working on the Kurils and that little peninsula of Siberia. Damn, this is kind of late in the timeline. Maybe I didn't own tons of stuff by this time in EU3 like I thought. At least colonization is way less painful and the vassals thing is super cool. Wonder why they changed the Divine Wind setup. I didn't see it at all throughout the timeline when I checked all the historical starts.
ANOTHER WAR AGAINST MING!? I'm not prepared to fight Korea AND Zhou right now! Wait... wait... YES! THEIR ALLIANCE DISSOLVED! Just me and you, Korea. Just me and you. Well, Ming's there, but- WHY THE HELL AM I THE JUNIOR PARTNER TO MING? MING HAS LIKE 1000 TROOPS AND FOUR BOATS. This is dumb. Whatever, at least I broke up that alliance. Let me just eat Korea's navy, blockade all of its ports, take it's homeland... or not. At least I got my troops out. To the eastern Korean coast! Why the hell is 15k troops wreaking my 27k stack? I mean, I win every time but it's Pyrrhic all day, every day. Shit, actually lost a couple. At least I like the ping-ponging WAY MORE than in the other EU games. And stacks can actually die, you don't need to hound them for a year until you kill the last 400 trying to hold on. Lost my little 3k stack, but it set up a victory over their 15k with my depleted 27k now at 18k, so that's okay. Hey, Ming, could you... you know... do anything useful? I own a handful of Korean provinces, they literally have a handful of boats at individual ports, they're down to a 13k stack and this 5k I'm chasing around... but I can't do peace. Because I formed a coalition trying to help with the whole Korean superpower going on. And now I'm waiting for you to force peace. Also, this is for "Show Superiority". Did you start this war, Ming? I can't find out where to check. If you did, I hate you, because I'm not getting anything out of this other than 0 Manpower and setting Korea back some. What if Zhou tries to attack you right now, Ming? I have nothing to help you with. JUST DO THE PEACE, MING. DAMNIT, MING, DO THE PEACE.
And now it's time to take a break. Saw a few bugs, mostly graphical. That Siberian peninsula has its colonial range bugged, though. I owned Kamigawa but it was reading the range from Takehito (I think it was Takehito?) which made it just out of range. Kamigawa wasn't blockaded either. Kind of silly. Oh, and there was a "Gain a merchant" event when it was impossible to get a merchant (maybe intentional? Doubtful), and a couple uprising events in Okinawa that didn't actually spawn rebels. The last uprising event actually did spawn rebels, so maybe it was just events telling me things weren't doing too good and to expect an uprising and I just wasn't paying attention.
Post by: Descan on August 15, 2013, 12:08:50 am
Though the most-south Swahili province was core-able when I cored Kilwa (or whatever, the other gold province) so... Hm.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 15, 2013, 12:39:42 am
Oh, and everyone hates me now.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 15, 2013, 01:18:39 am
A vast improvement over EUIII
Post by: Tarran on August 15, 2013, 01:19:55 am
Oh, and everyone hates me now.Meh, the typical fate of a grand empire.
Post by: Karlito on August 15, 2013, 01:32:37 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 15, 2013, 02:00:36 am
Playing an ironman poland game, everything's going pretty well: I've got Austria and Mega-Sweden as allies, Lithuania is firmly under my thumb, I'm at the top of the pack in tech, etc. Then all of a sudden, Austria surrenders to Crimea, and releases my vassals of Moldavia and Gotland. I recapture them, and things are looking up again. I form the Commonwealth, and then boom: reformation, plus "religious turmoil". Now I have 7+% revolt risk in 2/3rd of my provinces.
A vast improvement over EUIII
There's a checkbox next to the negotiate button that decides if your allies are allowed to negotiate for you.
Also you can spend 10 military power on "harsh treatment" to reduce the revolt risk by 5% in a province.
Post by: Tarran on August 15, 2013, 05:06:03 am
Post by: Twiggie on August 15, 2013, 08:00:46 am
Also, has anyone else noticed a bug with the army travel arrows? Seems like they only fill up to a quarter ish and then the army is moved.
Post by: Dutchling on August 15, 2013, 08:02:37 am
I've also seen nationalist rebels go independent, while taking the one province they had a core on but did NOT occupy, meanwhile leaving three occupied provinces alone. Kinda odd.
Post by: Grand Nagus on August 15, 2013, 09:13:48 am
I hate rebels and coalitions so much, My CK2 empire was so massive and I had more trouble with rebels in Ireland where I started then my African holdings or Mongol eastern Europe. Now I can't invade any one due to being so freaking large rebels pop up in groups of twenty thousand or more.
I got my ass handed to me by Lollard rebels as Britain. I love the new rebel mechanics etc. But. I hate Lollards.
Post by: cerapa on August 15, 2013, 10:15:20 am
125 years to go. Plenty of time to start a new war. Against Spain, for Caribbea.
Post by: Rakonas on August 15, 2013, 10:23:13 am
Still playing the Aztecs and I am so freakin rich. 128 gold per month. I don't even have anything to spend it on. Right now I feel like I should go to war just to take more provinces to construct manufactories on. I am collecting all of the trade west of the Caribbean, which includes the Philippines and Australia, sadly don't have control of Caribbea itself. I haven't seen war since I conquered the Incas, and am closing the tech gap with western nations. I am also in first place in administration.Personally I modded the defines so that building buildings only takes 1 power instead of 10. I really don't see the logic in choosing between EITHER building your country up in practice technologically OR getting the theoretical technology to build yourself up. Why should constructing a ton of trade/naval buildings throughout my country handicap myself in trade/naval tech!? Stupid gamey design decisions, really. Now I finally have something to spend all my money on.
125 years to go. Plenty of time to start a new war. Against Spain, for Caribbea.
Post by: Karlito on August 15, 2013, 10:37:23 am
Post by: cerapa on August 15, 2013, 10:47:51 am
Plus I am running out of money anyway. Advisors are doing a good job.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 12:19:38 pm
The whole point of the monarch points is that you have to make choices. There's no strategic depth in a system that lets you get everything.
Quote
Why should constructing a ton of trade/naval buildings throughout my country handicap myself in trade/naval tech!?
There's very little strategic depth to a mechanic designed specifically to hamstring players by forcing them to make gamey choices. It is extremely ahistoric to imply that building infrastructure will somehow make you behind in technology.. Due to a number that Paradox slapped on to facilitate gamey choices with faux 'limitations'. Ancient example: I don't think Rome was devolving to the barter system and not upgrading troops while they were building aqueducts.
Also see: Coalitions, which now all but assures players will rush every nearby minor nation.
Post by: Wiles on August 15, 2013, 12:35:40 pm
Post by: snelg on August 15, 2013, 12:53:06 pm
It seems like an old EU3 bug is still here: when you reinforce a fighting army in the day it loses a battle the reinforcements also flee. Blergh.I've had this happen a couple of times as well. If I was playing an EU3 expansion I'd probably just accept it but EU4 wasn't exactly cheap to buy and already have a couple of dlc's. It's kind of sad to see they haven't done something about such an easily reproduced awkwardness.
Edit: By the way. Anyone else having the HRE turning into a crazy free for all and ending up as a bunch of medium-ish blobs?
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 12:56:27 pm
All of the systems are gamey and ahistoric. The game would likely be overcomplicated and unfun to play if they weren't.
How about those arbitrary limits on non-white people, then? Shall those be removed? Gamey and ahistoric is the creed, I suppose, but it shouldn't be SELECTIVELY applicable. Make it historical or ahistorical.
Post by: snelg on August 15, 2013, 01:00:19 pm
Yeah, I think they did keep the inferior unit types for some reason (That is, when they're at the same tech level they're just worse).All of the systems are gamey and ahistoric. The game would likely be overcomplicated and unfun to play if they weren't.
How about those arbitrary limits on non-white people, then? Shall those be removed? Gamey and ahistoric is the creed, I suppose, but it shouldn't be SELECTIVELY applicable. Make it historical or ahistorical.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 15, 2013, 01:08:34 pm
Coalitions are terribly implemented, but the game does need something like that. The AI in previous paradox titles has been really bad at responding to a growing deathblob (see: HRE and England in CK2 sitting idly while Iberian Muslims invade France and become unstoppable, despite being allowed to join the war), and this gives them a cue to unify and fight together.
Post by: Culise on August 15, 2013, 01:09:57 pm
Is it just me or does it feel a lot quicker to expand in this compared to EU3?It feels the same to me as well, especially with the tremendous blobbing of the HRE states. Then again, I haven't played vanilla EU3 in years; most of my games were played using Magna Mundi or other mods that hammer on profligate expansionism, especially in the HRE, so my perspective may be slightly warped. I think it's largely a matter of tweaking the balance for things like claims and core generation, though, to fix many of the worst issues.
Post by: Rakonas on August 15, 2013, 01:38:47 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 01:49:59 pm
There will soon be MEIOU and Taxes (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?707351-(MOD)-MEIOU-and-Taxes) for EU4.
MEIOU will end up being vanilla fixed+ before the first patch is even out, heh.
I'm glad, too, this release is a shamble. I can't even believe this ridiculous retreat [go to a random-fucking-province] mechanic. Want to strategically draw someone to a province nearby by retreating there? Not happening anymore in EU.
And, once again in Paradox fashion, events, especially chained events, are broken as all hell. Get a peasant war event, skip to whenever the stop trigger is supposed to kick in [according to forum it's somewhere between 1,000 days and never] then try to use the 'pay money' option to end it. Doesn't work, and takes money, leaving peasant war in place. Lol.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 15, 2013, 02:24:55 pm
The whole game seems to be somehow faster, though that's probably the later start date. I'm already in the 17th century, what.
It's kinda annoying that you can only rename provinces, not their capitals. Sure, I doubt many people ever used the feature, but I like a bit of customization in my colonization.
Post by: ibot66 on August 15, 2013, 02:28:27 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 15, 2013, 02:36:52 pm
Post by: Sergarr on August 15, 2013, 04:05:53 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 15, 2013, 04:12:14 pm
CK2 was good at release, they said. Paradox is bug-testing games more, they said. The game will be fully playable and bug-less at v1.00, they said.You think it's not? It's pretty damn playable...
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 15, 2013, 04:19:22 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 15, 2013, 04:21:02 pm
Also the Mughals revolted from the Timurids which really shouldn't happen...
Post by: Wiles on August 15, 2013, 05:07:10 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 15, 2013, 05:35:38 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 05:44:05 pm
also the only I saw was because I have a Intel hd chip which the map doesn't like at all.
Elaborate? I'm having issues with certain graphical parts, too.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 15, 2013, 05:50:28 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 05:58:20 pm
Well my problem was that the unexplored map fog would cover Europe with everything still select able just unseeable but I could see all of Asia like I started their, fixed it but I got massive black shadows the world cover large chucks of oceans.
Ah.
Go to:
Documents\Paradox Interactive\Europa Universalis IV\settings.txt
See this on the first line?
force_pow2_textures=yes
Change to 'no' and the problem should be slightly alleviated. And I mean slightly.
It's an issue with certain cards deciding the underlying parts [the shadowy base] of the continents are shifted over, for some goddamn reason, which screws FOW and everything about the map. You'd think they'd playtest on different cards, but just shows they rushed the release.
Here's how it looks after that [WITH the fix, to make it so that FOW actually works right]:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The glory of playtesting. Wanna see how it looked before I figured that tweak out? Imagine a blank map.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 15, 2013, 06:16:33 pm
Post by: Tarran on August 15, 2013, 06:26:59 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 15, 2013, 09:22:53 pm
I think the personal union mechanic could use a little work. It seems that leaders in my game are dying without heirs a bit too often. As Norway I just had Russia become my vassal under a personal union. That seems a bit... broken. They are quite a bit larger than I am.That's WAD. You're supposed to be able to get a PU over a larger country, but good luck inheriting them. Personally I think there should be some kind of assimilation decision. ie: Stuarts of Scotland become greater partner in personal union with England. Stuarts move to London and suddenly Great Britain (okay not exactly but you get the point). So as Norway with a personal union over Russia your dynasty should be able to decide that Norway just isn't that important and to become essentially Russian.
Post by: Andrew425 on August 15, 2013, 10:35:41 pm
As a Portugal player Seville is worth over 65 ducats halfway through the game. If the AI Spain built a few buildings in the Caribbean and tried to get some actual money out of it I could see it easily having reached 80 ducats by now.
England and France just can't compete with the massive amount of money that the two trading empires can establish before the hundred years war is even up.
Post by: Tarran on August 15, 2013, 10:44:29 pm
Post by: Wiles on August 15, 2013, 11:01:27 pm
England and France just can't compete with the massive amount of money that the two trading empires can establish before the hundred years war is even up.
The game can play out differently. In my game Spain never formed because France (who are #1 score wise) holds land in the Iberian peninsula. Great Britain for their part has by far the largest navy of any nation.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 16, 2013, 12:19:46 am
For one, I was wrong. They don't start out at higher tech levels, they start out at the same tech level but some of them have better leaders and they can tech up better like that. So, instead of being 1562 Japan with two vassals left, I was able to use Uesugi to conquest Japan completely by 1472. The problem with this game is that Ming has absorbed Korea and doesn't like me because I took everything in Japan by force. I do like how Aggressive Expansion or w/e is different from EU3's Infamy, though, in that it has an area of effect and people care differently about it. Like, by the end I had -400 relations with my Japanese neighbors due to AE, but Ming and Korea are closer to -100. That's probably just due to the annexation of the Western vassals of Japan and Japan itself, and the nearness of Ming for the end of that since they owned Korea.
I'm pretty sure the best bet is to still use Japan, but diplo-annex the biggest vassals and use events or fabricated claims to get all the small ones. Still take it slow, but that way you won't build up ridiculous levels of AE. That's probably obvious, but I was just checking out the different ways stuff works. Probably going to do another playthrough now that I know how the game works a bit better and see how fast I can unite Japan. Also because Ming is super gigantic and doesn't like me, and it took a bajillion admin points to core everything and keep myself stable long enough not to collapse completely so I'm not Colonial yet and I think I was by now as the Japan playthrough.
After this I'll probably try going back to my EU3 roots and play colonial Teutonic Order.
Post by: h3lblad3 on August 16, 2013, 12:50:25 am
I feel like that's kind of odd. Shouldn't they have it by definition?
Post by: RedKing on August 16, 2013, 01:11:10 am
I really, really think they didn't playtest this before release at all...I'm kinda with you on that one.
PROS:
--Love the admin/diplo/military point thing. Makes OPMs and smaller nations more competitive technologically and in terms of modifiers. Also eliminates the arbitrary tech penalty for massive empires.
--Like the new way National Ideas work. Gives you much more flexibility towards building a "style" of play without letting you cherry-pick just the best ideas.
CONS:
--Trade. WTF? I know it's supposed to make taking and holding key CoTs more important but I'm still mystified at how the mechanics work.
--Diplomacy. Let's face it, it's just fucking broken. Let me get this straight -- I am the Emperor, the chosen of God on Earth...but I can't sign a strategically important treaty because my population mildly dislikes that country?? WTF Paradox? And yeah, coalitions feel completely useless.
--Religion. Feels considerably more vanilla than EU3 or CK2, especially as regards non-Christians.
--CK2 Converter. Was bummed that exporting my heresy-laden CK2 game converted all those lovely Nestorians and Bogomils back to plain old Orthodox. It also converted the Mongol hordes into Sultanates rather than...y'know...Mongol hordes. And despite my Genoa being the jewel of Europe, decades ahead of its time and far outstripping the hinterlands of Europe....everybody gets a flat level 3 tech in everything and a lvl 2 fort. Lazy. I do hope there's a community-designed exporter (or mod to the exporter mod) that fixes all that.
Also, the Byzantine Empire force-converted the Pope to Orthodox a couple of decades into the EU4 game, and nothing changed. IIRC, that triggered a major event chain in EU3. Only thing that's happened in EU4 is that the Pope is now grouchy about being surrounded by all those damn Catholics. :P
I dunno, I guess I'll go back and use a CK2-EU3 converter instead and play from there until they get a few patches out to fix the broken stuff. I'm trying not to be too harsh, because I hated EU3 when it initially came out and came to love it after the first few expansion packs. Just disappointed that some aspects of the game feel like they were built from vanilla EU3 rather than fully expanded EU3.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 16, 2013, 01:56:08 am
Also, the Byzantine Empire force-converted the Pope to Orthodox a couple of decades into the EU4 game, and nothing changed. IIRC, that triggered a major event chain in EU3. Only thing that's happened in EU4 is that the Pope is now grouchy about being surrounded by all those damn Catholics. :P
Ugh, that reminds me of my Teutonic Order game on EU3 I had. Everyone in Europe who wasn't me (and I owned a very large chunk) or Middle/Southern Italy was Protestant (or whatever the non-Catholic religion is). One of those Protestant countries goes and takes over the Papal States. Planning on bringing the wrath of God to the world in the form of war and Catholicism, this was a slight I could not ignore. DoW'd them, annexed their face (because at that point I was so strong I didn't even care what my infamy was), and then I got an event. I was Catholic, and I just took back Rome, so I should be a good Catholic and give that back. If I don't, Catholics will be upset with me, but that didn't matter since I was basically the only one left. Even though it went against my whole "Conquer the World!" thing I had going on, I decided that it was thematically appropriate, so I agreed to the event to reform the Papal States. Apparently, the country that took over Rome converted it before I took over their country. Rome was a Protestant province. The only province(s) that the Papal States had was Protestant, so their state religion was Protestant. The Pope was a Protestant, and I, with my seat of power in previously Pagan-infested forests and fields, was the last bastion of the True Faith of God.
It made me very sad.
Also, the whole religious fervor thing for that playthrough was 100% for flavor. Just figured I'd throw that out there.
Post by: Pnx on August 16, 2013, 03:04:55 am
--Trade. WTF? I know it's supposed to make taking and holding key CoTs more important but I'm still mystified at how the mechanics work.The trade works off of a system of gathering and steering trade, basically you gather trade using either your merchants, which can be set to either gather or steer, and/or your capital, which is always collecting trade from the trade node it's connected to. Other trade nodes you have provinces in, but no merchants will just automatically steer towards your capital I think.
Basically the more provinces you own in a trade node, the better your trade power, control over a node is divided amongst the various nations with merchants/provinces there according to how much power they have. You also get a chunk of power for having a merchant there, and also for sending light ships on a protect trade mission, which makes naval based nations potentially very good at trade.
Trade also becomes somewhat more valuable when it moves from one node to another.
CoT's still exist, but they're just provinces that give a special extra bonus to your trade power, certain other provinces like the ends of river estuaries also give bonuses.
Post by: Rakonas on August 16, 2013, 06:43:25 am
Merchants don't really give much trade power, unless you're destitute never use a merchant to collect trade in your capital CoT. You already collect there by default! It seems you actually need to have a merchant transferring trade power to make that work, so place your merchants wisely.
For example, as the Ottomans I have the majority of trade in Constantinople and Alexandria, which are both 60+ trade power. I place my merchant to transfer trade from Alexandria to Constantinople, and about 7 ducats leave Alexandria each months, arriving in Constantinople as about ~9 ducats! I place my other merchant in the smaller CoT of Ragusa to collect trade. So almost all of the trade from Alexandria heads to Constantinople, I collect there by default (capital) getting a large sum of money, and then anything I don't collect goes to Ragusa where I also collect. I send my fleet of trade ships to Ragusa because it has less total trade power, making the ships more valuable in terms of percentages. I thereby prevent the Europeans from getting much of any benefit out of asia overland while reaping a profit to the tune of ~25 trade ducats monthly, or 25% of my income.
Trade is really one of the most improved aspects of EU4 by far.
Post by: cerapa on August 16, 2013, 08:31:21 am
--Trade. WTF? I know it's supposed to make taking and holding key CoTs more important but I'm still mystified at how the mechanics work.Seriously? COT's give about as much trade power as 2 ships.
The trade system is far better than any other I have seen, especially the way it links up with navies. Right now Portugal has sent a huge fleet of light ships to my home node, is embargoing me, and stealing 1/4 of my trade profits. So my only option is to build up a greater war fleet and declare war simply to crush the Portugese navy and regain my monopoly on the Panama trade region.
You don't see that shit happening in Civilizations.
Post by: Tarran on August 16, 2013, 03:00:25 pm
Sometime after Greece was conquered by the Ottomans and converted utterly, Epirus, a greek Sunni nation composed of the most of modern Greece of was released. While the Ottomans, having previously converted everyone to Sunni, is now Orthodox. I'm not even kidding.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 16, 2013, 04:07:29 pm
Okay, something really weird happened while I wasn't paying attention.
Sometime after Greece was conquered by the Ottomans and converted utterly, Epirus, a greek Sunni nation composed of the most of modern Greece of was released. While the Ottomans, having previously converted everyone to Sunni, is now Orthodox. I'm not even kidding.
Sounds like they lost a war, and two of the stipulations were that the Ottomans release Epirus and that the Ottomans force-convert to Orthodox. Epirus, having only Sunni provinces and not a part of the force-conversion of the Ottomans, had its state religion set to Sunni.
That is pretty weird, though. Any idea who beat them in a war?
Post by: Rakonas on August 16, 2013, 04:21:34 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 16, 2013, 04:24:17 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 16, 2013, 04:27:42 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 16, 2013, 04:57:12 pm
Post by: Teneb on August 16, 2013, 05:00:30 pm
That's something I just don't get. Having a dominant religion means the majority of the people there practice it. If you release a nation, why does the religion change? It just doesn't seem like it should happen.If the majority of that newly-released country is of a different religion then the state religion will be that.
If a sunni nation releases an area with a catholic majority, then that new country will be a catholic one.
Post by: Micro102 on August 16, 2013, 05:14:13 pm
Post by: Karlito on August 16, 2013, 05:23:40 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 16, 2013, 05:24:28 pm
O, maybe they changed it from EU3 then. Because I had Castille release Granada (in EU3) and Granada wasn't Catholic, despite the population being Catholic for several generations.In EU4 I released Bosnia which was 100% muslim, as a muslim, and the state religion was muslim. For comparison, I invaded Hungary and annexed it over time, and promptly released it. The state religion was again muslim, though it was only about half muslim (and the capital wasn't).
If a nation is force released in a peace deal I'm sure it's different, though.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 16, 2013, 06:21:59 pm
That's something I just don't get. Having a dominant religion means the majority of the people there practice it. If you release a nation, why does the religion change? It just doesn't seem like it should happen.
In this case the religion didn't change for the released nation. The patriots/nationalist rebels won, causing the independant nation to form. This nation had Sunni majority provinces, so its state religion was Sunni. Orthodox zealots were also in the Ottomans, and they did their thing after the Epirus patriots/nationalists were able to release the country, causing the Ottomans to convert to Orthodox.
Post by: Tarran on August 16, 2013, 08:26:14 pm
Meanwhile, the African and American natives that have little or no neighbors are just chilling, not aware of the horrific map abuse happening around them. But not the ones that bordered Spain, of course. They got a small taste of abuse.
Hopefully, the light of Great Bohemia will cleanse the map and make it orderly.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 16, 2013, 08:53:33 pm
That's something I just don't get. Having a dominant religion means the majority of the people there practice it. If you release a nation, why does the religion change? It just doesn't seem like it should happen.
In this case the religion didn't change for the released nation. The patriots/nationalist rebels won, causing the independant nation to form. This nation had Sunni majority provinces, so its state religion was Sunni. Orthodox zealots were also in the Ottomans, and they did their thing after the Epirus patriots/nationalists were able to release the country, causing the Ottomans to convert to Orthodox.
I think there's some condition that causes all rebels to immediately enforce all of their demands in a country. That's probably what happened.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 16, 2013, 09:25:26 pm
Still can't form Ireland cause no 10 Admin tech. Britain is a minor in a personal union with me. Had to get extremely lucky, abuse the growing size of loans over time and hoard my diplo points for colony tech.
Post by: Inarius on August 17, 2013, 04:38:32 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 17, 2013, 07:16:47 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 17, 2013, 07:32:30 am
The pope will be elected in his late 40s or even older. This means that your leader will die a lot. Not a massive issue until you realise that theocracies still take the stab hit for having leaders die. This of course means that all your administration points will be sucked into maintaining stability. I even had a 6/4/4 leader who died in, get this, a month!
I understand that historically the pope dying was a big thing and it would change the whole political make-up of the land but damn is it annoying as a gameplay mechanic.
Also what is up with Protestantism? +10% tax and -10% tech cost is insane. There's really no reason to stick with catholic or go with reformed. Even more so that the "silent auction" mini-game of the curia that is rather annoying and will often see your bid overwritten when your focus lapses.
EDIT: Italy's ideas are pretty underwhelming and Kingdom of God still doesn't give you a unique tag.
Post by: ank on August 17, 2013, 08:06:37 am
Guess I will have to keep being poor old Denmark....
Post by: Rakonas on August 17, 2013, 11:29:43 am
Post by: MoLAoS on August 17, 2013, 01:20:15 pm
In any case aside from having to be clever with loans its pretty fun to push the Irish empire across the world years before major powers can colonize. My ships just explored to the coast of India. They probably won't make it back to the nearest core though.
I've been slowed by the massive length of time it takes to core a colony once it's formed but that's it. I control all of Ireland/Scotland/England/Iceland including some Islands one owned by the Norse as well as the 3 lands on the pointy part of Brittany.
I am trying to decide now whether to conquer Frand for Bordeaux trade node or maybe attack Castille and Portugal for Seville plus access to the Med so I can push a land war to the Mamluks and have an easier time pushing into the Indian Ocean.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 17, 2013, 02:30:05 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 17, 2013, 02:32:53 pm
Let Christian zealots take all of mainland Japan so they could get to 100%, broke my country, and guess what? The demands for Christian Zealots are: Make state religion Catholic. I let them win for this purpose.
They get to 100% my country breaks, their demands are... not enforced at all. State religion still Shinto for some goddamn reason despite the Catholic zealots winning their war and enforcing their main demand.
Why? I assume it's because Shinto cannot convert. Yep. Shinto just can't convert state religion, which is the whole reason I wanted to exploit the religious uprising in the first place since game arbitrarily adds 'Shinto cannot convert' to their religion.
So, now, 60/70 of my provinces are Catholic, yet my state religion remains Shinto, therefore forever hamstringing relations with stronger counties and stopping me from selling any western nation a province in order to westernize eventually. What the fuck Paradox.
Japan is 9th in the world in rankings yet can't catch up due to being 'Chinese' tech according to developers..
Oh, the only reason I did this is because every 3-4 months now, after I found Europe, a province randomly turns Catholic and cannot be converted back ever thanks to an event.. Which then causes religious zealot events in said provinces, which pop out 20+ units a piece. Great, so I can't change to Catholic to stop this ridiculous and unfair hamstringing of Japan.
EU4 is one of the biggest turds by Paradox I've played, it makes no sense, it's extremely easy, and has little depth. Sorry, not even opaque 'trading' mechanics can change that. ONly thing I like is the new ideas and unlocking sub ideas. But those cost arbitrary building/doing stuff points which is another neat way to hamstring a player who isn't playing as a white/superior race nation.
Want to see how easy it was to turn Shimazu into Japan and then into the entire east coast of Asia? Diplomacy -> Fabricate claim -> Invade 1 year later. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. No depth. 'Claim throne' part of diplomacy simply doesn't work, even when triggers are activated. Simply doesn't do anything. Lol. I'm not even kidding.
Sorry. This release is making me rage with how fucking junk it is. I haven't been this disappointed in release quality since CK1. Jesus christ if the first patch's first note isn't
Code: [Select]
Made retreating algorithms: instead of 'retreat to wherever' pathologicI'll burst a blood vessel.Of course knowing Paradox it'll be a DLC.
Post by: Rakonas on August 17, 2013, 03:14:39 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 17, 2013, 03:21:09 pm
Post by: cerapa on August 17, 2013, 03:23:57 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 17, 2013, 03:35:59 pm
-snip-
Well then... I have nothing to say in defense of EUIV, then. Historically, although Japan had a lot of converts to Catholicism, they never did fully convert. That would only justify it being difficult, not actually limiting it. Apparently, it's not working as intended, though. I looked it up and Japan appears to be bugged in this regard. It's somehow possible for them to convert to Catholicism, but the only evidence of that I saw was through an AI player, so *shrug*.
Sorry to hear that you're so frustrated with the game.
So, I was looking into seeing what Achievements on Steam I got through playing, since uniting Japan is usually one. Guess what? I got nothing. I looked it up, and you need to be playing in Ironman Mode in order to unlock achievements. Interesting. Not sure if I agree with it, because I'm not sure who actually uses Steam Achievements as some measure of their skill in order to brag and toss their e-peen about, but in another I think it's actually part of the challenge and I like that.
Post by: Shooer on August 17, 2013, 03:58:32 pm
Before I did that I had a 25k uprising on Wake. Totally not annoyed I had to muster the transport ability to move 30k troops to take back a tiny island.
Post by: Inarius on August 17, 2013, 04:16:44 pm
I'd also like a good Sim city (if anyone knows one, apart from Sim city 4...), a good EU4, and some other games...even with ASCII display.
I think that mods will make a LOT for this game.
These DLCs everywhere are a shame. If it's only for more music or graphism, I don't care, but when it's about the game (such as Sword of Islam and old gods for CK2) it shouldn't be a DLC.
Post by: Karlito on August 17, 2013, 04:28:22 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 17, 2013, 04:31:50 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The paradox guide to ruining Japan players games.
This is done to hamstring players, since I'm aware I need to let my country turn Catholic as white = might in EU4 and will easily open the doors to westernization. I allow the rebels to occupy my country, and state religion will not change.
This is either an oversight, a bug, or deliberate, the fact that you cannot even allow your own country to convert. I bet they didn't even make events for a Catholic Japan, and just thought people wouldn't try to let it happen. So you can't do it, and tagged these harsh non-events on to make people change to a proper country, or be stuck as backwater-Japan forever. Sigh.
Post by: somebody on August 17, 2013, 04:34:24 pm
-snip-To add to this, there are two random events which might revert the province back to Shinto, One has a 5% chance to change it back and the other is a 100% chance.
Also, seriously paradox? I can't westernize into any other tech group but Western?
Post by: snelg on August 17, 2013, 04:41:17 pm
So, I was looking into seeing what Achievements on Steam I got through playing, since uniting Japan is usually one. Guess what? I got nothing. I looked it up, and you need to be playing in Ironman Mode in order to unlock achievements. Interesting. Not sure if I agree with it, because I'm not sure who actually uses Steam Achievements as some measure of their skill in order to brag and toss their e-peen about, but in another I think it's actually part of the challenge and I like that.I've been playing around a bit in ironman mode trying to get some achievements, it's pretty fun to have a goal set to work towards (not that you couldn't decide one on your own which worked fine in all the previous games). And having only one save that constantly saves means you can't reload when something goes wrong and adds a little tension and weight to decisions you make. But here's a quick little rant on ironman mode and the achievements from my impression so far.
Achievements seem kind of bugged at the moment and some pops up when they shouldn't and others don't trigger at all so far though.
For instance the "Jihad" achievement (in which you have to conquer Europe, Africa and Asia as Najd and convert them all) triggered as soon as the game started. I guess it's better than the way it was bugged in EU3 where if I recall correctly you had to have a different religion.
Why are they using largely the same achievements as they did in EU3 anyway? Many of them were bugged, exploitable or just generally a bad idea (in my opinon at least).
Take the "Poland can into space" for instance. You spend the whole game trying to maximize tech and in the end you might have to redo everything because it was only almost enough. Not to mention you have to get behind in tech first so you can westernize (which is something I still can't believe they kept in there for EU4).
More importantly, I'm having some issues with ironman mode itself as well or rather the save frequency. It saves so often, sometimes a few times in a single month. Everytime something "important" happens and twice for every diplomat you send. Both when you send it and when you get a reply. The answer is already mentioned before you send him for gods sake and probably won't change.
Now I don't really mind the actual amount of saving it makes if it weren't for the fact that it stops the game for a while and sometimes it takes up to some 10 seconds for whatever reason. I wouldn't mind one or the other, but with them both sometimes it gets really frustrating since I forget some of the things I was planning to do as well.
Post by: Endymion on August 17, 2013, 04:49:17 pm
Ulitmately all I expect from a release of a paradox game at the start anyways is a decent engine for people to mod though. And I'm sure some modding will help out a lot of the problems.
My current issue has to be the policy of who 'leads' a war when allies are around. England is down to controlling only London, and I wouldn't mind needing to smack Denmark around for 50% warscore if Denmark was guarenteeing England.... but he isn't, they're just normal generic allies. And last war when they were allies England was the leading nation in the was so I was able to get that 100% easily.... oh, and I forced him to break relations with Denmark-- sure enough they're allied again when I declare war 1 month after the truce ended.
Post by: snelg on August 17, 2013, 04:53:33 pm
Is it just me who feels the effects are something completely different than the flavor text? And surely these events would be more interesting with some kind of choice for the player to steer their country somewhere instead of just dumping rebels on you. Though many choices in events seem to have changed to "pay some administrative points" or the like.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The paradox guide to ruining Japan players games.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 17, 2013, 05:15:03 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 17, 2013, 06:14:49 pm
Isnt that what, in part drove japan to close its border and muder all the christians?
In game terms, this means Japan never has a real chance in hell of becoming equal or greater than 'proper' countries because of the +60% tech point cost from being 'Chinese'.
Basically, no matter if you're Japan or a vassal who eventually creates Japan, your game becomes unplayable at one point, or you have the choice of never catching up to the white nations due to built in limitations. I'd try another Asian nation but I have the feeling it'll be a similar outcome.
I just deleted the save entirely. I am saddened by these state of affairs.
Playing now as Byzantium to see if EU4s is as flavorless as EU3s vanilla Byzantium. Hoping not.
Post by: Tarran on August 17, 2013, 06:18:34 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 17, 2013, 06:38:12 pm
This is done to hamstring players, since I'm aware I need to let my country turn Catholic as white = might in EU4 and will easily open the doors to westernization.
Okay, now you're just being annoying. Am I the only person who is okay with the historical accuracy of Westernization and am totally cool with playing non-western countries? I'm not saying that Paradox executed it correctly (I've already suggested potential changes to make it better), nor am I forgiving the bugs, but quite frankly I'm sick of the constant "white = might" and racist accusations of Paradox. Go read a history book and come back when you're doing being upset that Paradox included something that was historically accurate and maybe your hate will be accurately focused on just the bugs or inaccurate mechanics.
This is either an oversight, a bug, or deliberate, the fact that you cannot even allow your own country to convert. I bet they didn't even make events for a Catholic Japan, and just thought people wouldn't try to let it happen. So you can't do it, and tagged these harsh non-events on to make people change to a proper country, or be stuck as backwater-Japan forever. Sigh.
-snip-
Apparently, it's not working as intended, though. I looked it up and Japan appears to be bugged in this regard. It's somehow possible for them to convert to Catholicism, but the only evidence of that I saw was through an AI player, so *shrug*.
It's a bug. You wouldn't have to speculate if you either read what I had said, looked it up for yourself, or paused for a second to consider that you might be being unduly cruel in accusing Paradox of being short-sighted bigots.
I'm not making accusations based on your personal character or anything. I'm not attacking you, I'm just saying that you're being absolutely ridiculous and far too eager to hate-monger at Paradox over the game. Yeah, bugged releases suck. Yeah, being forced to abandon a play-through due to bugs also sucks. It's something that's incredibly frustrating, and I'd be in the same boat with you if I had continued my Japan game (which I'm not going to, because said bugs would make it unplayable, and thank you for revealing them to me and to the others), but try to be a little bit understanding that this isn't like most other games. Most other games have a singular experience for every player and bugs are often unforgivable because how could they possibly miss it? Grand Strategy games from Paradox offer unique experiences for every player, and yeah there's likely going to be tons of overlap, but given the number of countries, events, countries later created by events, etc., it's understandable that not everything is going to be tested and there's going to be some shitty bugs for some people. Even so, you're still justified in being upset with them over bugs, but please don't continue to mix that frustration up with accusations of their character.
Post by: werty892 on August 17, 2013, 06:44:26 pm
This is done to hamstring players, since I'm aware I need to let my country turn Catholic as white = might in EU4 and will easily open the doors to westernization.
Okay, now you're just being annoying. Am I the only person who is okay with the historical accuracy of Westernization and am totally cool with playing non-western countries? I'm not saying that Paradox executed it correctly (I've already suggested potential changes to make it better), nor am I forgiving the bugs, but quite frankly I'm sick of the constant "white = might" and racist accusations of Paradox. Go read a history book and come back when you're doing being upset that Paradox included something that was historically accurate and maybe your hate will be accurately focused on just the bugs or inaccurate mechanics.
This is completely right, white=might is accurate. If you don't like it, mod the game to have everyone start western.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 17, 2013, 07:02:07 pm
This is completely right, white=might is accurate. If you don't like it, mod the game to have everyone start western.
-.-
White = might is not accurate. The people of Europe were the most technologically advanced and continued to be the most technologically advanced and pretty much the only thing that is different in modern times is even more westernization, especially of Japan and China. For whatever reason, whether it be religious unity, the fact that their languages had a lot in common due to the existence of the Roman Empire, that they had powerful trading empires, or were very interested in innovation, Europe was the most technologically advanced. They could have been African or Asian or even Crayola Mountain Meadow in color, but no, they were white and that has absolutely nothing to do with why they were technologically advanced or that other countries and areas, such as the Middle East and China that were once technologically superior, became technologically inferior.
People are upset that the mechanics are bugged, that they can be unfun or that they aren't being historically fair, and that there isn't enough opportunity to really take history into their own hands and have an appropriately ahistoric game. They're right about all that. What people aren't right about is the racism.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 17, 2013, 07:18:27 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 17, 2013, 08:07:34 pm
As for the Japan glitches... yeah that does suck, but at least its not EU3 Japan. That was an unplayable mess after they released an expansion specifically to improve Asian nations and hordes.
On an unrelated note I ragequit my Venice game, for reasons that have nothing to do with EU4. The Ottomans waged war on me and I can't transport armies effectively because I only have 10 transports, I can't make more because my fleet can't beat the Ottomans even currently, and I can't walk over there because Austria owns one province in the way and I don't have military access. But because both me and my coalition have provinces by the Ottomans, they can attack us :/
Post by: Shooer on August 17, 2013, 08:40:20 pm
Westernizing at this point I would never catch up to Spain, France or Britain. But I don't have to, I can exploit the already existing diplomatic scene in Europe to play the three against each other and sweep up the weaker colonies. If I did westernize I would do it so I would out match the rest of Asia and conquer mainland Asia. China has been eating it's self apart (with my help) so they are all ripe to be brought under a better single government, and I could finally reunite Korea under a single banner (let's not go into the fact I took all of south and east Korea).
Post by: MoLAoS on August 17, 2013, 08:58:41 pm
Plus Europe hates each other so they are so busy fighting that they almost never have the capability to fight a serious war against you.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 17, 2013, 09:47:35 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 17, 2013, 09:53:06 pm
The problem is that Europe didn't have to be more technologically advanced, it just turned out that way. It's like designing the game so that every colonizing country gets a huge malus to colonial growth in every region they didn't colonize historically. Sure, it produces historical results, but we don't want historical results, we want plausible responses to the player's actions. There's no reason that China couldn't have turned around and become a technological powerhouse again: after all, Europe went through a much longer period of stagnation. They just didn't.
Yeah but its not all about the player. In fact Westernizing IS the chance for the player to turn things around. Its extremely historical in and of itself. Russia and Japan really did westernize at the behest of specific leaders. But not for many years. Plus, early on in the game the Eastern powers are actually better in some ways, which is why they don't just westernize right away.
You can do plenty of ahistorical nation building within the current mechanics without westernizing. Japan just isn't going to stomp the world within the timeframe of EU4. You can westernize much easier in Vicky2 and conquer the world as an Asian power though, because its temporally accurate for that possibility.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 17, 2013, 10:03:25 pm
Post by: loose nut on August 17, 2013, 10:19:26 pm
It can be interesting to see how fans of either of these two series approach historical questions.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 17, 2013, 10:36:53 pm
Add to this a corrupt and ineffective administrative bathed in traditions and rituals, a miniature ice age that completely change the agricultural make up, long drawn out wars with the Japanese, a lack of control over their own armies and taxation, and finally the nomadic invaders wanting to capitalise on weakness.
Ming was in a bad place and any emperor who wanted to try and turn it around would have likely been seen as a complete tyrant who would have soon lost the mandate of heaven and have his own people turn against him.
Westernising to me does make sense. However I don't like how other countries have monarch point maluses just because they're not European, that's really silly. The ultimate system is to just give every region their own tech tree. You should be able to see the Aztecs when left to their own devices start to embrace metal weapons as the Mayas slowly were. China when left alone should slowly develop towards hand-artilitarly, Indians embracing primitive cannons and muskets.
Technology should really just be a trade good. Gunpowder should move out of China and sent to Europe and India through the Mongols. That gunpowder tech is slowly embraced and advanced on by the Western Europeans which is sent out to the muslims and eastern europeans. Colonisation era starts pushing technology all over the world and countries that embrace "western ideals" can start to reform their armies more organically.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 17, 2013, 10:55:01 pm
You're missing the point: there shouldn't be a need to "westernize". There's nothing about European culture that makes it inherently vastly superior at technological development: just look at what China was like during Europe's middle ages. It's pretty obvious that whatever the root cause of technological development in this time period is, it isn't anything inherent to a group of people. You can say that Japan isn't going to stomp the world, but from the perspective of someone in 1444, it's equally impossible that France, a divided and poorly administered nation that barely managed to fight off the English, would, in a few hundred years, almost conquer all of Europe. The only reason history seems plausible is that it actually happened.
Medieval Euro culture wasn't great. It was the spread away from it that made them superior. Increased social and economic freedom and so forth. That's what westernize means. Historically real life nations that really called it westernizing westernized and became more powerful. They literally copied aspects of western european culture.
As far as it not being inherent to a certain group of people, are you ignorant or something? There is nothing specific about a given ethnic group certainly, but cultural differences are HUGE. Seriously. Why do you think America took off as western Europe slowed down? Cultural changes.
What slowed down the Japanese was very specific elements of medieval Japanese culture. They began to become more powerful as they westernized, in real life that is what Japan did. And much later than 1444. The same thing happened to Russia.
Its almost like you think people are saying the Chinese genome is inferior or something stupid like that when its all about cultural attitudes. China pursued a policy of isolationism and tradition around the period of this game after previously being at the forefront of naval trade.
"After Zheng He's voyages in the 15th century, the foreign policy of the Ming Dynasty in China became increasingly isolationist. Emperor Hongwu was the first to propose the policy to ban all maritime shipping in 1371.[2] The Qing Dynasty that came after the Ming often continued the latter dynasty's isolationist policies. Wokou or Japanese pirates were one of the key primary concerns, although the maritime ban was not without some control."-Wikipedia
I remember this because I did my world history project on Zheng He freshmen year of highschool. I honestly just know the Russian part because I had a big personal historical phase.
Essentially China specifically closed itself off almost exactly as the time people of Europa Universalis began.
Post below appears to have gone in way more detail on the same point.
Paradox make HISTORICAL grand strategy games and if you would to lead an eastern asian nation to world technological dominance all you have to do is make a simple fucking mod starting yourself as westernized. Problem solved.
Post by: ibot66 on August 17, 2013, 11:09:45 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 17, 2013, 11:17:06 pm
People are upset that the mechanics are bugged, that they can be unfun or that they aren't being historically fair, and that there isn't enough opportunity to really take history into their own hands and have an appropriately ahistoric game.
because part of the fun of the Paradox games is obviously having history turning out different, and in the regard of the Asian countries, there are inherent limiters that people don't like.
What I think needs to happen is that there needs to be a way for the player to "Westernize" their country by their own means, and I say "Westernize" because that would be the parallel mechanic rather than the proposed fix having much to do with the West. First I want to address this though:
There's nothing about European culture that makes it inherently vastly superior at technological development: just look at what China was like during Europe's middle ages. It's pretty obvious that whatever the root cause of technological development in this time period is, it isn't anything inherent to a group of people.
There kind of is, and it's inherent to a group (or groups) of people, but not due to anything stupid like race. The issue is that the countries that were previously technologically superior either fell apart, lost all of their influence, adopted isolationist policies, stopped scientific investment or etc. The cultural and geopolitical climate of Europe during the time period of the EU games was ripe for Europe to steamroll technologically. The cultural and geopolitical climate for the Middle East and Asia were the exact opposite. There was a lot of infighting, a lot of civil war (yeah, there were a lot of wars in Europe, but they seemed to be very diplomatically dealt with), and lots of isolationist policies. That's why China lost all of its technological superiority. I mean, they had reusable paper flamethrowers during the reign of Genghis Khan, not to mention all of the other neat stuff with rocketry and gunpowder. The Koreans also had very neat stuff with gunpowder. Japan didn't because they were also isolationist and kind of busy with constant civil war. So it's not just happenstance that they are technologically inferior by 14-whatever-the-game-starts-at.
However, it's totally agreeable that the player should be able to contradict history. Westernization is one method, but I think that for everyone to be happy there should be another. The alternative method would require a lot of investment and a lot of work so that it can compete with the viability of Westernization so it's not just a completely useless mechanic. Essentially, the idea is that there need to be national missions/decisions that pave the road to technological revolution and allow a non-Western-tech-group to be able to match up to the West. This will require conscious effort on the part of the nation, so that's where the national missions and decisions would come in. Monetary investment, monarch points investment in changing how things are done non-technologically (so it makes a bit of sense investing monarch points when they could just go straight into tech), trade domination (perhaps), encouraging other nearby countries to have non-isolationist policies, good relations (or more frequent, non-civil wars as war is the mother of invention), etc. It should be done in such a way that not all of them need to be accomplished, just a majority, so that it doesn't somehow become impossible, just always pretty difficult. There will also be appropriate consequences, like higher revolt chance in random coastal provinces for countries that adopt non-isolationist policies and other relevant things. Things that have some (or complete) historical support, so it's not just more BS limitations. The benefit to vanilla Westernization, then, is that you don't need to go through all this, you just let another country do it for you, basically. The benefit of this version is that you also don't need to wait for Westernization and you feel like you're really getting something done.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 17, 2013, 11:27:07 pm
Hell if you make it a dynamic thing with events changing it every so often it could become another monarch point sink and add a little bit more depth to the game. It could however just turn out like another glorified stability slider.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 17, 2013, 11:32:15 pm
That would be an absolute nightmare for Paradox to deal with if it's not something that's part of releasing the game, though. That'd definitely be a mod.
I actually wish I knew how to mod, now. I really like that solution.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 17, 2013, 11:38:40 pm
In any case, the main problem with adding a new tech system is probably the GUI. Its not really designed to be easily changeable in my opinion. I haven't seen the source or anything, but games with such specific GUI features have never been easily modded in my experience. Under the hood you could just add some floats into the nation class and bam, new tech system.
I do object to having a totally ahistorical tech system in vanilla, but making it easy to mod in a new one is totally okay and would be amazing for alternate history mods.
Post by: Shooer on August 17, 2013, 11:50:40 pm
Getting tech faster would be awesome, but the actually inherent problem is that tech groups just end up being out classed.
I will say I HATE the negative to power growth and will gladly see that modded out. Just because I'm not western at the start doesn't mean I should be ham-stringed by not being able to build buildings, do more diplomatic deals, or be able to recruit fewer generals. I'll take slower tech growth, a slower unit growth curve but I hate having all my other advancements slowed further (with them being slowed by the tech growth already).
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 12:18:04 am
I still have a few hundred years to go for my Ireland WC though.
Post by: mainiac on August 18, 2013, 12:19:10 am
I feel like something simpler but more straightforward would have been more appropriate. To start to westernize, you need to make a big upfront payment of all three kinds of monarch points. This price is reduced by the stuff that lets you westernize, being behind in tech, western neighbors, high stability. Then the westernization process continues for a long time, with you having to keep making monarch point payments and face annoying, but not crippling events about resistance. So westernization would be way easier if you do it the right way but completely possible to do at any time if you can pony up the monarch points.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 01:23:05 am
Westernization seems a bit dodgy in how it actually plays out. You need to fall behind technologically for starters, which makes sense from one point of view but is quite silly from another. But once you westernize, you are basically crippling your country for fifteen to twenty years. You will not do any technological advancement until the westernization process is complete. And that seems to make little sense to me. The iconic example of westernization is Peter the Great and he neither crippled Russia, nor stopped it's technological advances. Quite the opposite, Russia aggressively expanded and eagerly adopted new technologies during his westernization reforms.
I feel like something simpler but more straightforward would have been more appropriate. To start to westernize, you need to make a big upfront payment of all three kinds of monarch points. This price is reduced by the stuff that lets you westernize, being behind in tech, western neighbors, high stability. Then the westernization process continues for a long time, with you having to keep making monarch point payments and face annoying, but not crippling events about resistance. So westernization would be way easier if you do it the right way but completely possible to do at any time if you can pony up the monarch points.
I haven't actually westernized. I assumed it went Peter the Great style with maybe some monarch point losses. 15-20 years makes sense for asian nations though, but not much sense for Russia. Especially since EE nations are eastern tech which isn't as far behind Western as asian is.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 18, 2013, 01:25:32 am
Post by: Vel on August 18, 2013, 03:05:30 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 18, 2013, 05:49:45 am
It's extremely dull as 99% of your time will be spent doing nothing at all. Managed to rush to admin level 4 by vassaling the neighbouring states and diplo-annexing them so I'd get free cores. My first choice of national idea was Expansion but I was meant to go for Quest for the New World instead and pushed the wrong button. Started the colonial process and got pretty far north a little bit past the Illinois. Lucky for me France had collapsed in the game and GB was rocked by major revolts including a free Ireland.
I thought all would go well and Portugal will start up a colony next to me so I can start to westernise. Instead the fuckers declared colonial conquest against me. I wasn't too worried since I thought I could just pay them off. Never got to find out if I could or not. Crashes every month after that point.
So one of the most tedious, laborious waste of time I have ever endured is now all for nothing.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 18, 2013, 05:52:05 am
Personally I think it's sort of arbitrarily harsh. I can see that high of a penalty for New World or Asian countries -- but -3 for EE or Muslim seems excessive. It's not like they're *that* far removed from European tech. Heck, the Muslims had even better advances, and EE was about equal with Western Europe, a couple hundred years before.. I'm pretty sure they could adapt without falling into anarchy.During that time period, they became horribly xenophobic, and lost a lot of trade flowing their their area, losing their pluralism and what pluralism they had, they feared and rejected it.
When the Middle East was the leading force in math, and science it was also the leading force in pluralism in terms of scientific progress, political and cultural.
Even during these years of intense rivalry and fighting for Europe, there was a lot of shared knowledge and a lot of pluralism. Lots of trade of trade, and lots of travel and traveling got faster and safer.
Westernization, is just an abstracted measures that promote the better exchange of ideas and their implementation, either purposefully or incidentally.
Uh.... like a random example. War Manuals were pretty major thing for EU during this period. Warmasters would print these manuals, that showed the construction and use of siege weapons, and best practices for fielding infantry, and it served much of an advertisement for their skills, so they can get hired as higher ranking officers in armies afield as it propagating knowledge.
Whereas with the middle east, they for practical purposes, banned books. Especially foreign books.
Post by: ank on August 18, 2013, 06:12:21 am
Ok, that's cool, I'll just be taking the rest of Britain then!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 10:21:41 am
I'm rather angry right now. Was playing the Cherokee trying to do the No Trail of Tears achievement.
It's extremely dull as 99% of your time will be spent doing nothing at all. Managed to rush to admin level 4 by vassaling the neighbouring states and diplo-annexing them so I'd get free cores. My first choice of national idea was Expansion but I was meant to go for Quest for the New World instead and pushed the wrong button. Started the colonial process and got pretty far north a little bit past the Illinois. Lucky for me France had collapsed in the game and GB was rocked by major revolts including a free Ireland.
I thought all would go well and Portugal will start up a colony next to me so I can start to westernise. Instead the fuckers declared colonial conquest against me. I wasn't too worried since I thought I could just pay them off. Never got to find out if I could or not. Crashes every month after that point.
So one of the most tedious, laborious waste of time I have ever endured is now all for nothing.
The only crashes I get are when I fuck with stuff in the console. The Windows7 version is crazily stable. Although honestly, if you hit own 199191 when you meant to get just 191, how hard is it to have a bounds check that just cancels that command...
Post by: pedrito on August 18, 2013, 10:57:11 am
Point is, they did.
The only issues I have currently with EUIV are:
- Western tech takes off waaaay too early. By 1500, western nations have an important tech lead over everyone else, and this is just inaccurate from a historic point of view. They did eventually, but not this early. This has two solutions, which will be done eventually by the great modding community: having other nations start at a higher tech level, or having the malus kick in for non-westerners at a later date.
- Even when a non-westerner keeps up in tech somehow, they are still doomed because for the same military tech level they have worse units. This makes no sense at all, and it's like a double idiot proof mechanic to make absolutely sure that Europe will never be overrun by foreigners.
These things aside, EUIV is great.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 18, 2013, 11:09:38 am
The only crashes I get are when I fuck with stuff in the console. The Windows7 version is crazily stable. Although honestly, if you hit own 199191 when you meant to get just 191, how hard is it to have a bounds check that just cancels that command...I can assure you I didn't fuck with the console since it was Ironman. I also found EUIV to be pleasantly stable outside of that one (albeit annoying) situation. There's a couple of bugs but they're far from game breaking. One of my favourites includes ships getting repaired in a foreign ports will be treated as a "navy in exile".
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 11:41:55 am
I just sit around waiting for my 3 colonies at a time to fill and there isn't much else to do. I conquered or vassalized much of India at least.
I guess I just need to start spawning tones of armies and flooding India and the New World with them and colonial conquest and overseas expansion everyone.
I haven't be able to really do that previously because I had a bunch of events like Peasant's war that made overextension a problem. Early on I was overextending my ass off to conquer Great Britain.
Post by: Rakonas on August 18, 2013, 11:43:35 am
But in the Ottomans, Mathematics, Astronomy, etc. all reached their height during the early period of EU4. The point is, the reasons for falling technologically backward were COMPLEX. A simple "Yes you can do well/No fuck you" is the problem.Personally I think it's sort of arbitrarily harsh. I can see that high of a penalty for New World or Asian countries -- but -3 for EE or Muslim seems excessive. It's not like they're *that* far removed from European tech. Heck, the Muslims had even better advances, and EE was about equal with Western Europe, a couple hundred years before.. I'm pretty sure they could adapt without falling into anarchy.During that time period, they became horribly xenophobic, and lost a lot of trade flowing their their area, losing their pluralism and what pluralism they had, they feared and rejected it.
When the Middle East was the leading force in math, and science it was also the leading force in pluralism in terms of scientific progress, political and cultural.
Even during these years of intense rivalry and fighting for Europe, there was a lot of shared knowledge and a lot of pluralism. Lots of trade of trade, and lots of travel and traveling got faster and safer.
Westernization, is just an abstracted measures that promote the better exchange of ideas and their implementation, either purposefully or incidentally.
Uh.... like a random example. War Manuals were pretty major thing for EU during this period. Warmasters would print these manuals, that showed the construction and use of siege weapons, and best practices for fielding infantry, and it served much of an advertisement for their skills, so they can get hired as higher ranking officers in armies afield as it propagating knowledge.
Whereas with the middle east, they for practical purposes, banned books. Especially foreign books.
I don't get the whole argument. Paradox doesn't try to analyze the reasons behind the Europeans having better tech and showing up with vastly superior armies and navies in other parts of the world.When you create a game about plausbile alternate history you have to consider shit like that in order to make it actually plausible. There's more to a game like this than giving arbitrary advantages to nations that succeeded historically. A game like this should have a great degree of stuff encouraging historical outcomes in a non-arbitrary way. Otherwise if anything ahistorical happens (which is guaranteed) things make less and less sense.
Point is, they did.
I would rather all tech groups have the same (statwise) units for any given tech level to demonstrate technological equivalency, since that's already the case in every other matter. Then Sub-saharans and Native Americans would have straight up maluses, while all countries would struggle with a more fluid system of technological maluses, which would also come with stability benefits and such. The Innovative v. Narrowminded slider was great in that regards, as you could see tangible benefits for stifling innovation, which is the reason why non-europeans turned out the way they did.
Quite frankly, there's no reason why China or Japan or Persia or India couldn't have embraced technological innovations without becoming "western" during the early portion of this time period. In Victoria 2 westernization makes perfect sense in that regard, but in 1444 nobody would have said that the entire world would become Europe.
Ugh. After only 80 years of my Ireland game I am getting bored. I can only have 3 colonists with all relevant ideas. WTF is that.You can recall colonists and send them to more provinces, your colonies will just grow slower.
I just sit around waiting for my 3 colonies at a time to fill and there isn't much else to do. I conquered or vassalized much of India at least.
I guess I just need to start spawning tones of armies and flooding India and the New World with them and colonial conquest and overseas expansion everyone.
I haven't be able to really do that previously because I had a bunch of events like Peasant's war that made overextension a problem. Early on I was overextending my ass off to conquer Great Britain.
Post by: Tobel on August 18, 2013, 12:03:27 pm
I wound up rerolling to a much earlier time, although I hate doing that. Another interesting note - you get 1 prestige and 1 naval tradition for every area of the map you uncover.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 12:11:55 pm
But in the Ottomans, Mathematics, Astronomy, etc. all reached their height during the early period of EU4. The point is, the reasons for falling technologically backward were COMPLEX. A simple "Yes you can do well/No fuck you" is the problem.Personally I think it's sort of arbitrarily harsh. I can see that high of a penalty for New World or Asian countries -- but -3 for EE or Muslim seems excessive. It's not like they're *that* far removed from European tech. Heck, the Muslims had even better advances, and EE was about equal with Western Europe, a couple hundred years before.. I'm pretty sure they could adapt without falling into anarchy.During that time period, they became horribly xenophobic, and lost a lot of trade flowing their their area, losing their pluralism and what pluralism they had, they feared and rejected it.
When the Middle East was the leading force in math, and science it was also the leading force in pluralism in terms of scientific progress, political and cultural.
Even during these years of intense rivalry and fighting for Europe, there was a lot of shared knowledge and a lot of pluralism. Lots of trade of trade, and lots of travel and traveling got faster and safer.
Westernization, is just an abstracted measures that promote the better exchange of ideas and their implementation, either purposefully or incidentally.
Uh.... like a random example. War Manuals were pretty major thing for EU during this period. Warmasters would print these manuals, that showed the construction and use of siege weapons, and best practices for fielding infantry, and it served much of an advertisement for their skills, so they can get hired as higher ranking officers in armies afield as it propagating knowledge.
Whereas with the middle east, they for practical purposes, banned books. Especially foreign books.I don't get the whole argument. Paradox doesn't try to analyze the reasons behind the Europeans having better tech and showing up with vastly superior armies and navies in other parts of the world.When you create a game about plausbile alternate history you have to consider shit like that in order to make it actually plausible. There's more to a game like this than giving arbitrary advantages to nations that succeeded historically. A game like this should have a great degree of stuff encouraging historical outcomes in a non-arbitrary way. Otherwise if anything ahistorical happens (which is guaranteed) things make less and less sense.
Point is, they did.
I would rather all tech groups have the same (statwise) units for any given tech level to demonstrate technological equivalency, since that's already the case in every other matter. Then Sub-saharans and Native Americans would have straight up maluses, while all countries would struggle with a more fluid system of technological maluses, which would also come with stability benefits and such. The Innovative v. Narrowminded slider was great in that regards, as you could see tangible benefits for stifling innovation, which is the reason why non-europeans turned out the way they did.
Quite frankly, there's no reason why China or Japan or Persia or India couldn't have embraced technological innovations without becoming "western" during the early portion of this time period. In Victoria 2 westernization makes perfect sense in that regard, but in 1444 nobody would have said that the entire world would become Europe.Ugh. After only 80 years of my Ireland game I am getting bored. I can only have 3 colonists with all relevant ideas. WTF is that.You can recall colonists and send them to more provinces, your colonies will just grow slower.
I just sit around waiting for my 3 colonies at a time to fill and there isn't much else to do. I conquered or vassalized much of India at least.
I guess I just need to start spawning tones of armies and flooding India and the New World with them and colonial conquest and overseas expansion everyone.
I haven't be able to really do that previously because I had a bunch of events like Peasant's war that made overextension a problem. Early on I was overextending my ass off to conquer Great Britain.
That's true I guess. If you are willing 10 years or so accounting for native attacks you can just get up to like 300-400 pop and then shift colonists elsewhere. You still need a ton of troops since low native/low aggression provinces are pretty rare.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 01:29:52 pm
Nvm. I finally got rid of it. Lol on the timing. God that event was a huge pain.
Post by: cerapa on August 18, 2013, 02:19:57 pm
With the help of a coalitation of a couple of nobodies(me included) and France, I(by which I mean France) kicked the crap out of Spain, cause they were stealing my trade money. The Frenchies did short work of the Spanish armies. Peace terms were 50% of their trade power. And the independance of Castile.
EDIT: Who I now have an alliance with. Holy shit, this is beyond perfect.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 18, 2013, 03:53:44 pm
Post by: Karlito on August 18, 2013, 04:28:00 pm
Post by: Vorbicon on August 18, 2013, 05:15:11 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 05:55:15 pm
The tiniest little war against an indian minor is a fucking global conflict. Although I suppose that might be my massive aggressive expansion score acting up.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 18, 2013, 08:16:53 pm
So one of the most tedious, laborious waste of time I have ever endured is now all for nothing.
Have you played The Road to War start for Hearts of Iron 3? EU IV is far more eventful than that, I'm pretty sure. =P
Don't forget to add that the AI suffers no navy attrition so they're able to easily drop doom stacks on the on those poor uncivilised natives who need the guiding hand of Jesus.
... I didn't suffer navy attrition in any of my games. I don't mean boats, I mean soldiers on the boats. I thought they removed it or something. They didn't?
So, England.... you wanted the Orkney Islands?
Ok, that's cool, I'll just be taking the rest of Britain then!Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Silly England, Orkney is for ME.
I hate how coalitions are just massive global pile ons. Its not like they can really do anything anyways, just occupy a couple lands I don't worry about and maybe spark some rebellion or w/e. Just another boring micro-management mop up that serves no gameplay purpose. How the hell are a bunch of Indian nations in a coalition with post france french minors when neither of them have gotten around the cape? And fucking only me and portugal are in the new world but those same indian and french states and in coalitions with native americans.
The tiniest little war against an indian minor is a fucking global conflict. Although I suppose that might be my massive aggressive expansion score acting up.
You do know that discoveries spread to other countries eventually? Sure it'd be some BS if you just showed up and they were in coalitions, but if it's been a while then those French Minors or those Indians have map visibility. You can check by saving and playing as one of the other countries.
Also, the coalition thing is definitely the massive aggressive expansion. People will drop out of coalitions if you don't have much AE. I'm playing a Hansa game currently and had a coalition against me when I vassalized Lubeck, but that went away after a bit. Munster (the German one with the u umlaut) has a coalition against it that I'm a part of, and the other coalition members only joined after they force-annexed some neighbors. Members are dropping out now that Munster has lost a couple wars. I'm considering dropping out as well, they're much less of a threat to me. Denmark is scaring me but I can't do much about that, there's no coalition against it.
Post by: Vel on August 18, 2013, 08:22:38 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoilersnip. That's something interesting I hadn't thought of. Thanks! I'll have to read a bit more about that kind of stuff.
Post by: Karlito on August 18, 2013, 08:33:03 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 18, 2013, 08:36:49 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 18, 2013, 08:43:24 pm
Just successfully smashed the Ottomans with a large coalition. Even out numbered three to one they still won the majority of battles, what with their 115% discipline, better technology, and morale out the wizoo thanks to piety and prestige, plus poor tactics on the part of my AI allies, but we managed to wear them down eventually. It cost me 133 DIP power to make return a bunch of Hungarian cores though. It'd be nice if my fellow coalition members could have shared in some of that cost; it's kind of a disincentive to be the one to start a war against an agressive power.
No, just... no. It's already debilitating enough to be a junior partner in a coalition war. You can't declare peace, you don't get anything from it other than stopping the enemy, your war exhaustion can get arbitrarily high and get tons of revolts and you can't do shit about it, etc., and you could be the top nation of the pack but you're still a junior partner if any of the little guys starts some crap. In fact, I think it's only a matter of time until a common strategy is to enter a coalition with an enemy, DoW as soon as current treaties end, bleed your fellow coalition members dry, declare peace and then DoW each of the other members in turn now that they are husks of a nation with no soldiers, no money, no war enthusiasm and nothing to offer to other countries for an alliance. That is, unless it's already a thing. It's one of my biggest criticisms of coalitions, although the counterargument is obviously "If you don't like it, don't join it!"
Personally I tweaked the whole dip cost for peace thing. I don't understand why doing something like you explained would cost 1/4 of a tech level. It makes no practical sense why peace should require monarch points. There's nothing sillier than having to wait 3 years just to be able to ask for the peace you want.
I think it's because the peace he asked for was war more than what the CB allowed, meaning you have to have a lot more political sway to force it out of them. Alternatively, it's a penalty for asking so much. Unless that was actually a part of the CB, then I have no idea.
Post by: ibot66 on August 18, 2013, 08:47:32 pm
Really, coalitions just take the place that bad boy used to, only more effective.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 18, 2013, 08:53:46 pm
So basically paradox succeeded in making historically accurate coalitions.
Really, coalitions just take the place that bad boy used to, only more effective.
I think you should still be able to peace out of coalitions with enough of a negative consequence.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 18, 2013, 10:18:32 pm
So basically paradox succeeded in making historically accurate coalitions.
Really, coalitions just take the place that bad boy used to, only more effective.
Coalitions have two, massive, issues:
A: forming a coalition doesn't have requirements the way other diplomatic actions do; location, the culture of your fellow coalition members, relationships between anyone, none of it matters. You could join a coalition against England as Korea if all you saw was a single English island, and be in a coalition with the major European countries. Or join a coalition against someone smaller than you, or form a coalition with people you hate against someone you like. Basically the option to join a coalition is just sort of floating out there independent of all the logic that makes the rest of the game run.
B: They have ridiculous, artificial limits on diplomacy. Me and others have raged enough about this, but a quick summary is that junior members of the coalition have no diplomatic choices at any point in the process, and the target of the coalition has no diplomatic options with them. Coalitions are MORE unified than alliances in that sense, which is nonsensical. There's also a lot of oddities and inconsistencies with what you risk by being a junior member. If the war ends quickly, the only significant loss you risk is your army. If the war goes on for a long time, your nation could be absolutely ruined in a manner completely outside your control, but you still couldn't lose anything to the peace deal. At least in my experience.
Post by: ibot66 on August 18, 2013, 10:27:21 pm
Post by: Karlito on August 18, 2013, 10:29:12 pm
I think it's because the peace he asked for was war more than what the CB allowed, meaning you have to have a lot more political sway to force it out of them. Alternatively, it's a penalty for asking so much. Unless that was actually a part of the CB, then I have no idea.
I think Dishonorable Scum actually gives a discount to return cores, though I might be misremembering that. At any rate the costs were kind of weird. Want 4 provinces returned to an exiting nation? 132 DIP points. Want 5 provinces released as completely new nations? 0 DIP points!
Post by: MoLAoS on August 18, 2013, 10:36:04 pm
In any case I got bored of Ireland so I started a game with a heavily buffed custom Ceylon. First goal is to take over India. Basically a new tech group I added with some powerful custom national ideas and a powerful new religion and new culture. I would never play a powerful Euro nation, or even Ireland with these buffs but for Ceylon is reasonable considering my goals and its fun to make alt history changes. I actually have a lot of trouble even with buffs due to money issues and the fact that all of India is a web of alliances. Only the powerful explorers and conquistadors I added because Ceylon had no fucking vision and I needed a way to break terra incognita allowed me to even take an indian OPM due to them being allied with the most powerful southern indian nation. And none of the other choices are any better.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 18, 2013, 10:56:09 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 12:58:58 am
Even with all my amazing buffs its still extremely difficult to get a foothold on the subcontinent from my oversized island. In fact I wouldn't even have been able to without like 50 loans if not for Bahaminis leading a rebel supported assault on That Vdjar whatever country splitting of Maduria or w/e its called and take another 3rd of its provinces for itself.
Year internecine warfare!
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 19, 2013, 02:49:42 am
Post by: Rakonas on August 19, 2013, 08:08:08 am
The thing I hate about coalitions is you can't vassalize. I wanna vass someone but the leader of the coalition is the one who it targets and they are always like 350% warscore. And unlike Vicky2 you can't even cheat with yesman and shit because its hardcoded that an individual action can't go over warscore even if I can load a group of actions to 100000000million with cheats a 101% vassalize won't work. Not that I want to vassalize the coalition leader anyways.You can actually TAG XXX to change to them and accept any peace.
In any case I got bored of Ireland so I started a game with a heavily buffed custom Ceylon. First goal is to take over India. Basically a new tech group I added with some powerful custom national ideas and a powerful new religion and new culture. I would never play a powerful Euro nation, or even Ireland with these buffs but for Ceylon is reasonable considering my goals and its fun to make alt history changes. I actually have a lot of trouble even with buffs due to money issues and the fact that all of India is a web of alliances. Only the powerful explorers and conquistadors I added because Ceylon had no fucking vision and I needed a way to break terra incognita allowed me to even take an indian OPM due to them being allied with the most powerful southern indian nation. And none of the other choices are any better.
Post by: Wiles on August 19, 2013, 08:33:41 am
Quote
Here is the first hotfix to adress some of the most serious issues reported.
We have planned to push out a second hotfix, mostly with multiplayer focus, either later this week or very early next week depending on when we can test it enough to guarantee we nothing new is broken. Thanks for buying the game and thank your for your patience.
Also, this will not break your ironman saves.
Patch notes 1.1.1
------------------------
- Lots of localisation fixes (including the localised tutorials)
- Fixed crashes when failing to retrieve resolution (merged 8252)
- Hints and tutorial textboxes can now have scrollbars (fixes for too long text for non english)
- Sound are now disabled on standalone server.
- Chat now works with standalone server.
- Peasants' War more likely to end the longer it has been going on
- Peasants' War will not happen again for at least 10 years
- Fixed broken continent all trigger and fixed adding hidden modifiers.
- Jihad achievement should now work again
- African Power achievement should now work again
- Ruina Imperii achievement should now work again
- Correct version is now listed in serverbrowser
- Fixed crashes when failing to retrieve resolution
- Fixed issue with black areas on TI (bad/old graphics cards)
- Optimized mission and revolt risk alerts
- Optimized when we disable trees/terrain/water/borders
- Multiplayer lobby: Keep scrollbar position when a new server is added
- Fixed savegame lockup when having only one core
- Fixed white glow on Linux cursors
- Fixed some more broken localisations
- Religious rebels can no longer flip the Papacy's capital province
- Religious heathens breaking your country results in large prestige loss
- Religious rebels breaking the Papacy results in a stability loss
- MP: Renamed "Connect to IP" to "Connect to ID"
- MP: Version should now be correct in server browser
- Dx9: If we fail to determine refresh rate, default to 60
- Normal borderfriction now only applies if its the home territory bordering each other.
Post by: Rakonas on August 19, 2013, 08:38:56 am
Post by: ibot66 on August 19, 2013, 10:08:25 am
Post by: RedKing on August 19, 2013, 10:42:13 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 19, 2013, 10:43:27 am
I have experienced any of the stuff other people talk about though. So that helps.
Post by: cerapa on August 19, 2013, 11:15:40 am
I wanna do an Aztec crusade before the game ends.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 19, 2013, 11:20:36 am
Post by: Drakale on August 19, 2013, 11:23:44 am
Does anyone know how I can use the papal controller powers?
I wanna do an Aztec crusade before the game ends.
As far as I know you have to vote in enough Cardinals, but for some reason I get a pathetic number of vote as Wallachia even though I got a huge territory as a christian nation. Maybe it has to do with the smaller relative population density, but Poland get a lot of vote and they are not that big.
I imagine managing to do so as the Aztec would be bordering on the impossible.
Post by: cerapa on August 19, 2013, 11:26:58 am
As far as I know you have to vote in enough Cardinals, but for some reason I get a pathetic number of vote as Wallachia even though I got a huge territory as a christian nation. Maybe it has to do with the smaller relative population density, but Poland get a lot of vote and they are not that big.Tell that to my array of Cathedrals giving me 100 papal influence every year.
I imagine managing to do so as the Aztec would be bordering on the impossible.
I control every future cardinal except for one, which is contolled by France.
EDIT: Correction, 140 papal influence per year. 8 cathedrals just finished construction.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 11:32:26 am
Couldn't you just add the missionary to your national traditions?
Adding a missionary to my starting idea crashes the game when I click on the Ideas panel. Anything else works fine and I can add them to other national ideas no problem. It was pretty weird.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 11:32:54 am
The thing I hate about coalitions is you can't vassalize. I wanna vass someone but the leader of the coalition is the one who it targets and they are always like 350% warscore. And unlike Vicky2 you can't even cheat with yesman and shit because its hardcoded that an individual action can't go over warscore even if I can load a group of actions to 100000000million with cheats a 101% vassalize won't work. Not that I want to vassalize the coalition leader anyways.You can actually TAG XXX to change to them and accept any peace.
In any case I got bored of Ireland so I started a game with a heavily buffed custom Ceylon. First goal is to take over India. Basically a new tech group I added with some powerful custom national ideas and a powerful new religion and new culture. I would never play a powerful Euro nation, or even Ireland with these buffs but for Ceylon is reasonable considering my goals and its fun to make alt history changes. I actually have a lot of trouble even with buffs due to money issues and the fact that all of India is a web of alliances. Only the powerful explorers and conquistadors I added because Ceylon had no fucking vision and I needed a way to break terra incognita allowed me to even take an indian OPM due to them being allied with the most powerful southern indian nation. And none of the other choices are any better.
No, its not that they don't accept it. Yesman handles that. Its that the option is greyed out on anything over 100 warscore. You can't add it to the peace.
Post by: Rakonas on August 19, 2013, 11:44:43 am
Ah, yeah, that's silly. I had a case where I crippled Russia in a war, and they had Kazan as their vassals. It cost more than 100 warscore to cancel the vassalage, even worse.The thing I hate about coalitions is you can't vassalize. I wanna vass someone but the leader of the coalition is the one who it targets and they are always like 350% warscore. And unlike Vicky2 you can't even cheat with yesman and shit because its hardcoded that an individual action can't go over warscore even if I can load a group of actions to 100000000million with cheats a 101% vassalize won't work. Not that I want to vassalize the coalition leader anyways.You can actually TAG XXX to change to them and accept any peace.
In any case I got bored of Ireland so I started a game with a heavily buffed custom Ceylon. First goal is to take over India. Basically a new tech group I added with some powerful custom national ideas and a powerful new religion and new culture. I would never play a powerful Euro nation, or even Ireland with these buffs but for Ceylon is reasonable considering my goals and its fun to make alt history changes. I actually have a lot of trouble even with buffs due to money issues and the fact that all of India is a web of alliances. Only the powerful explorers and conquistadors I added because Ceylon had no fucking vision and I needed a way to break terra incognita allowed me to even take an indian OPM due to them being allied with the most powerful southern indian nation. And none of the other choices are any better.
No, its not that they don't accept it. Yesman handles that. Its that the option is greyed out on anything over 100 warscore. You can't add it to the peace.
Post by: cerapa on August 19, 2013, 11:49:07 am
I believe the ability to call crusades end with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. That was the case in EU3 and while I haven't really paid attention to catholic politics in EU4 (because protestantism is overpowered) I believe it's the same case.Dawwww.
I will just go sacrifice the Pope then. The cardinals shouldn't mind, considering that they are all loyal to me.
(The Aztecs keep "Religious Sacrifices")
EDIT: Da Pope is now an Aztec vassal.
Post by: Tobel on August 19, 2013, 12:12:53 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 19, 2013, 12:37:30 pm
QuoteHere is the first hotfix to adress some of the most serious issues reported.
We have planned to push out a second hotfix, mostly with multiplayer focus, either later this week or very early next week depending on when we can test it enough to guarantee we nothing new is broken. Thanks for buying the game and thank your for your patience.
Also, this will not break your ironman saves.
Patch notes 1.1.1
------------------------
- Lots of localisation fixes (including the localised tutorials)
- Fixed some more broken localisations
- Fixed crashes when failing to retrieve resolution (merged 8252)
- Fixed crashes when failing to retrieve resolution
^ Aren't these the same thing?
- Peasants' War more likely to end the longer it has been going on
- Peasants' War will not happen again for at least 10 years
- Fixed issue with black areas on TI (bad/old graphics cards)
- Optimized mission and revolt risk alerts
- Religious rebels can no longer flip the Papacy's capital province
- Religious heathens breaking your country results in large prestige loss
- Religious rebels breaking the Papacy results in a stability loss
- Normal borderfriction now only applies if its the home territory bordering each other.
Let's see.. Looks like Paradox fixed one event chain and broken textures..
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 03:51:14 pm
And that really hurts because they had powerful sieging and combat skills that allowed Ceylon to take on Bahamanis with only a few territories and low manpower. And they stomped rebels. My naturally made generals are weirdly powerful but still not as good as the 2 conquistadors with all 7s. Plus I can't get conquistadors again until my next idea set so I can't expand my map knowledge.
Hopefully my empire doesn't fall apart now that rebels are more of a problem. And I was planning on warring Bengal after my current set of cores is done which I probably can't do now due to coalitions and now much less powerful military.
Ah well. I'll roleplay it as a sort of founding myth. And now my nation slowly falls down from its pinnacle to be only slightly superior to its neighbors.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 19, 2013, 04:32:41 pm
Anyone know a basic guide to how to make a mod? I tried downloading a mod and copying the format they used (with the .mod text file and such), but as I said before it didn't work, and Google is just turning up EU3 modding guides and EU4 previews.
Post by: Silent_Thunder on August 19, 2013, 04:46:45 pm
I think the RNG hates me. I added some special conquistadors and explorers to my super ceylon cause it has no map vision and it killed them all off, 2 of each kind, in only 30 years.
And that really hurts because they had powerful sieging and combat skills that allowed Ceylon to take on Bahamanis with only a few territories and low manpower. And they stomped rebels. My naturally made generals are weirdly powerful but still not as good as the 2 conquistadors with all 7s. Plus I can't get conquistadors again until my next idea set so I can't expand my map knowledge.
Hopefully my empire doesn't fall apart now that rebels are more of a problem. And I was planning on warring Bengal after my current set of cores is done which I probably can't do now due to coalitions and now much less powerful military.
Ah well. I'll roleplay it as a sort of founding myth. And now my nation slowly falls down from its pinnacle to be only slightly superior to its neighbors.
I dunno, I think 30 years is a pretty good amount of time to get out of war leaders, I mean these guys are probably in their 30s at the earliest when you recruit them, and 60 is definatly at the age where they'd start dying, especially since just simply retiring isn't modeled at all, even though I can't imagine someone at the age of say, 60, still exploring the American Interior.
Post by: Descan on August 19, 2013, 04:54:23 pm
So, I tried modding the game. I figured out how to make some new stuff, but after a while, I noticed that nothing I did actually effected what showed up in game. I did a really easy, obvious change to test it (making western tech group have a huge penalty) and nothing happened. As it turns out, the game knows my mod is there, but doesn't seem to actually run it.When I was modding CK2, one of the problems I had were really stupid mistakes.
Anyone know a basic guide to how to make a mod? I tried downloading a mod and copying the format they used (with the .mod text file and such), but as I said before it didn't work, and Google is just turning up EU3 modding guides and EU4 previews.
Like not putting "landed_titles.txt" into a folder called "landed_titles".
What's in your .mod file?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 19, 2013, 05:57:33 pm
So I did a quick check for stupid mistakes in the .mod file and I found the problem. It turns out I entered the mod's in-game name as its directory location instead of its folder name, which in this case was different. For the mod I copied, the mod name and folder name were the same.So, I tried modding the game. I figured out how to make some new stuff, but after a while, I noticed that nothing I did actually effected what showed up in game. I did a really easy, obvious change to test it (making western tech group have a huge penalty) and nothing happened. As it turns out, the game knows my mod is there, but doesn't seem to actually run it.When I was modding CK2, one of the problems I had were really stupid mistakes.
Anyone know a basic guide to how to make a mod? I tried downloading a mod and copying the format they used (with the .mod text file and such), but as I said before it didn't work, and Google is just turning up EU3 modding guides and EU4 previews.
Like not putting "landed_titles.txt" into a folder called "landed_titles".
What's in your .mod file?
Thanks for the help.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 06:01:41 pm
This may be the only time I ever use that phrase in my life, but it just seemed so appropriate.
Post by: Djohaal on August 19, 2013, 06:07:07 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 19, 2013, 06:12:05 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 19, 2013, 06:28:56 pm
The Timurids setting me as a rival and cancelling our alliance right after they take over most of Uzbek is not helping either. At least Tripoli accepted vasalization, saving me many hundreds of Admin points.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 07:21:26 pm
I'm bothered with how the overextension penalty is calculated - it doesn't matter if your empire is tiny or spans half of asia, that 10 income province will grind your empire to a halt. Honestly those excessive nerfs by paradox so people don't pull a napoleon or gengis gets annoying sometimes. Same goes for the massive tech nerf for non-europe.
My over extension is regularly at 120-160%. Basically I try to run stability boosts and all other relevant actions in the small period where I get all more cores before charging off again to expand.
I definitely hate how I get the same overextension now as I did when I was just Ceylon, the one province and I would capture 5 thingies.
You can still pull a Napoleon, you just have to deal with the rebels that crop up.
For real though I can go on a larger conquering spree in Vicky2 than I can in EU4 and that just doesn't make sense goddamit!
I think perhaps the desire of Paradox is for you to vassalize and personal union a bunch of stuff, plus alliances, rather than actually controlling a fuck ton of land. Plus you can get good colonial powers. Colonies don't set off over extension, they just have super high maintenance.
I'm conquering my way from Ceylon to Kashimir and even with my super charged Ceylon its quite the feat to avoid massive rebellions. And I'm balanced on a razor's edge with regards to loans that I use to finance construction.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 19, 2013, 07:26:35 pm
Post by: MrWiggles on August 19, 2013, 07:33:27 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 19, 2013, 07:41:03 pm
You can't even go a vassalizing route because of diplomatic relations limits. If you have more than 1 or 2 vassals at once you're hurting yourself in terms of alliances/military accesses. The bad events for overextension don't really make sense either, you end up with random nationalist revolts in territory that you've controlled forever.I'm bothered with how the overextension penalty is calculated - it doesn't matter if your empire is tiny or spans half of asia, that 10 income province will grind your empire to a halt. Honestly those excessive nerfs by paradox so people don't pull a napoleon or gengis gets annoying sometimes. Same goes for the massive tech nerf for non-europe.
My over extension is regularly at 120-160%. Basically I try to run stability boosts and all other relevant actions in the small period where I get all more cores before charging off again to expand.
I definitely hate how I get the same overextension now as I did when I was just Ceylon, the one province and I would capture 5 thingies.
You can still pull a Napoleon, you just have to deal with the rebels that crop up.
For real though I can go on a larger conquering spree in Vicky2 than I can in EU4 and that just doesn't make sense goddamit!
I think perhaps the desire of Paradox is for you to vassalize and personal union a bunch of stuff, plus alliances, rather than actually controlling a fuck ton of land. Plus you can get good colonial powers. Colonies don't set off over extension, they just have super high maintenance.
I'm conquering my way from Ceylon to Kashimir and even with my super charged Ceylon its quite the feat to avoid massive rebellions. And I'm balanced on a razor's edge with regards to loans that I use to finance construction.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 08:28:42 pm
So, I don't suppose its possible with modding to change which troops a country can recruit after the game has started? As far as I can tell it isn't :(
After it's started? Maybe if you deleted all your armies with existing troops? Did you try to change units mid game and get a crash?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 19, 2013, 10:09:54 pm
So, I don't suppose its possible with modding to change which troops a country can recruit after the game has started? As far as I can tell it isn't :(
After it's started? Maybe if you deleted all your armies with existing troops? Did you try to change units mid game and get a crash?
No, I'm trying to make it so if you switch to a certain made up tech group, you get new options in terms of which units you can make your main unit. But unit choices seem to be defined by country in common/countries/[countryname].txt and I can't find any way to change that list after the game has started, through events or decisions or whatever.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 19, 2013, 10:35:04 pm
Also I just successfully created and swapped in a whole new set of units into a game that was like 55 years in. Wee. Although it turns out the cannons I added weren't nearly as overpowered as the infantry or cavalry.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 20, 2013, 03:52:30 am
Spoiler: Big Image is big (click to show/hide)
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 20, 2013, 04:31:50 am
Spoiler: Big Image is big (click to show/hide)
Very nice!
Now for everyone else:
WHY CAN'T YOU BE THIS GOOD? (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709144-The-Three-Mountains-A-Ryukyu-AAR)
Post by: Djohaal on August 20, 2013, 12:34:02 pm
I wonder why they go with a mercator projection.
You wanted the peters projection. Face it. :P
But yeah I also found weird why mercator. Surface area gets royally fucked (not that in EU3 it wasn't weird. New zealand was about as big as china in that projection)
Post by: Tobel on August 20, 2013, 12:38:56 pm
I wonder why they go with a mercator projection.
You wanted the peters projection. Face it. :P
But yeah I also found weird why mercator. Surface area gets royally fucked (not that in EU3 it wasn't weird. New zealand was about as big as china in that projection)
As a cartographer I am pleased with this discussion.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 20, 2013, 01:00:47 pm
In the end I had 3 idea groups by 1500 and none of them were trade, expansion, or exploration because I needed admin and religious for keeping my costs down like interest on all my loans and quickly changing religions to avoid all out anarchy. I took innovation first because I like tech speed bonuses. Bad, bad decision. I am now limited to the small amount of sea exploration my original special explorers, that I added due to Ceylon having ZERO map knowledge and thus needing explorers to even reach Venad, which went from the cape of good hope to the Straits of Johore with pretty much no land knowledge. I discovered mid to northern India primarily from my wars as my conquistadors also died early. I haven't gotten new ocean knowledge for over 30 years. And I'm a good 10 more years to getting my 4th idea group even with my insane tech boosts.
Post by: Rakonas on August 20, 2013, 01:02:09 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 20, 2013, 01:05:14 pm
Also, turns out I didn't pause the game when I went to answer the door and make that post and punish the toilet, I came back to a game that had gone on without me for three years, Bengal respawned except without the Bengal Delta, but its sieged and about 80% of northern India is fully sieged by rebels. Damn I hope I have an autosave that is far back enough because I am BONED.
Stupid not pausing the game.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 20, 2013, 01:08:47 pm
Post by: Twiggie on August 20, 2013, 01:12:52 pm
Post by: Azthor on August 20, 2013, 02:35:27 pm
On a side note, WC seems to be mechanically impossible on vanilla without exploiting vassals and PUs, and most certainly not worth it.
Post by: Rakonas on August 20, 2013, 02:49:48 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 20, 2013, 03:56:00 pm
I'm probably going to fight my way through South East Asia till my borders extend to the chinese, ming and chou being north and south respectively. Then I'll probably either dig into the middle east or prepare for the overextension fest that is conquering China without ever taking vassals. I wanna paint the map goddammit not have stupid vassals.
Post by: Demonic Spoon on August 21, 2013, 05:47:35 am
In the end I had 3 idea groups by 1500 and none of them were trade, expansion, or exploration because I needed admin and religious for keeping my costs down like interest on all my loans and quickly changing religions to avoid all out anarchy. I took innovation first because I like tech speed bonuses. Bad, bad decision. I am now limited to the small amount of sea exploration my original special explorers, that I added due to Ceylon having ZERO map knowledge and thus needing explorers to even reach Venad, which went from the cape of good hope to the Straits of Johore with pretty much no land knowledge. I discovered mid to northern India primarily from my wars as my conquistadors also died early. I haven't gotten new ocean knowledge for over 30 years. And I'm a good 10 more years to getting my 4th idea group even with my insane tech boosts.
I FEEL YOUR PAIN. BEHOLD
(http://i709.photobucket.com/albums/ww99/Demonic_Spoon/eu4_2_zps1b4f52e1.png~original)
Aargh! I want it so bad but I just had to go and take innovative.
But seriously, administrative sucks, take trade or economy idea groups instead.
I'm bothered with how the overextension penalty is calculated - it doesn't matter if your empire is tiny or spans half of asia, that 10 income province will grind your empire to a halt. Honestly those excessive nerfs by paradox so people don't pull a napoleon or gengis gets annoying sometimes. Same goes for the massive tech nerf for non-europe.This so much. It's much, much harder to make my beautiful sprawling empire now. Coalitions are just minimally annoying though, since I have to wait a decade to get rid of my overextension by which time it's fallen apart. Or I just steamroll over all of them like the pitiful bugs they are.
Don't even get me started on the lack of nice casus belli's and the extremely sucky Unam Sanctum
EDIT: This had made me quit my recent Japan Campaign, despite having control over most of america and have a decent stake to parts of africa and asia proper.
Post by: BlindKitty on August 21, 2013, 08:34:38 am
Oh well. The first thing I have noticed, though, was the fact that all non-major nations have the same set of National ideas, which, by the way, suck. So my idea was born - I want to create a set of National idea groups, geographically based, that could be used with your game to make playing minors more interesting. Also, to make it viable to fit into any mod created, to make other's lives easier. So if you have any idea for an idea, especially in less popular regions of the world (for example, I know close to nothing about India), you can drop me a hint (as a private message, preferably), and I will soon start little modding. Maybe with German or Italian ideas for minors from those regions?
If it will go well, I will probably take this to separate thread or something, before unleashing it on the Paradox forums or something. Never liked those Paradox forums, by the way.
Post by: Muz on August 21, 2013, 09:09:18 am
So yeah, how does EU4 match up against Magna Mundi? I suppose there's a hefty price tag on it for now, so I'll wait til later.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 21, 2013, 09:15:03 am
snipI personally find it really stupid that there's a single country with generic ideas. The way Paradox explained it during the dev diaries I expected every minor nation to at least have "cultural ideas" like German minors sharing the same idea group. The cynic in me what to say that it's nothing more than an aggressive move to market DLC since I really doubt it could be that hard to come up with 12 or so blanket culture ideas.
There's already a couple mods focusing on giving minors ideas. Might be worth it to join those if you're really interested in the project.
So yeah, how does EU4 match up against Magna Mundi? I suppose there's a hefty price tag on it for now, so I'll wait til later.I never played much Magna Mundi but I did think it had a completely different feel to EU3. EU4 on the other hand is much like EU3 with some improved mechanics and some completely new mechanics like the leader point system. I would suggest trying out the demo and formulating an opinion on that. Right now I'm really enjoying it but I think it still needs a couple DLCs under it's belt to have some really great longevity.
Post by: Demonic Spoon on August 21, 2013, 10:16:58 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 21, 2013, 10:18:44 am
edit: although you probably do border republics... No idea how it works though, as while I always go for Diplomatic as my first idea group I never go that far into the group.
Post by: Demonic Spoon on August 21, 2013, 10:25:21 am
Well, you'd think (not from the tooltip, but just what's more logical) that republics get CBs against theocracies and monarchies and vice versa.It does not work on kingdoms, noble republics or administrative republics. I don't border any theocracies so can't give feedback on them.
edit: although you probably do border republics... No idea how it works though, as while I always go for Diplomatic as my first idea group I never go that far into the group.
Post by: Dutchling on August 21, 2013, 10:27:26 am
Code: [Select]
# Revolutionary CB
cb_revolutionary = {
prerequisites = {
is_neighbor_of = FROM
cb_on_government_enemies = yes
OR = {
AND = {
government = monarchy
FROM = { government = republic }
}
AND = {
government = republic
NOT = { FROM = { government = republic } }
}
}
}
war_goal = take_province_revolutionary
war_goal = war_goal_change_government_mutual
}
Post by: Demonic Spoon on August 21, 2013, 11:42:42 am
Does the Austrian Imperial Authority bonus only get applied on any gains of imperial authority?
Post by: MoLAoS on August 21, 2013, 01:25:13 pm
Post by: pedrito on August 21, 2013, 02:52:58 pm
Except defensive, which I always take because it is kind of a must with -50% attrition letting you field double size armies.
By the way, Ottoman traditions 33% + Adaptability NI 25% + Having a claim 25% gives a whooping 83.3% discount on coring. Gotta love the Ottos.
Post by: Dutchling on August 21, 2013, 02:56:05 pm
Probably going to take Aristocracy as my second Mamluke idea as I really want a fourth diplomat and that +25% manpower and -10% mil tech cost is also very tempting...
Post by: MoLAoS on August 21, 2013, 03:23:11 pm
I like the way Idea groups work, I always end up taking different ones, and some of the bonuses are incredible.
Except defensive, which I always take because it is kind of a must with -50% attrition letting you field double size armies.
By the way, Ottoman traditions 33% + Adaptability NI 25% + Having a claim 25% gives a whooping 83.3% discount on coring. Gotta love the Ottos.
Does it discount the cost or the time to core? Time to core is the most evil part of this game.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 21, 2013, 03:31:35 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on August 21, 2013, 03:50:49 pm
cost only, I believe.
According to my test, this is not true. It reduces time to core as well.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 21, 2013, 03:52:27 pm
Post by: PanH on August 21, 2013, 06:13:33 pm
I always take Diplomacy because trying to do anything without a third diplomat is just so painful :/Build an embassy to get a 3rd diplomat ?
Probably going to take Aristocracy as my second Mamluke idea as I really want a fourth diplomat and that +25% manpower and -10% mil tech cost is also very tempting...
Post by: Dutchling on August 21, 2013, 06:30:56 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 21, 2013, 07:45:31 pm
Working on changing unit building so it costs military power to build light/heavy ships. Shouldn't be able to pump out galleons and barques without any care in the world. Since it's not used for anything else it'll keep the AI/me from spamming trade ships to win.
Making idea groups better. As stated a million times, generic national ideas are awful. Seriously. Hell, even Oman's default national idea is better than most others, what with their -50% to naval maintenance.. Was Paradox thinking? How is that anywhere near balanced? Why would someone pick, let's say, Yemen over Oman in that case? Ugh.
Also: Put merchant on node to collect if possible, redirect to one you can if not. Spam trade ships on that route so all their trade is drained to x node. Switch merchant to different node, spam more ships. Rinse repeat until all trade is blobbed to one node and collected by you. That's how you get a lot of income. Works best with end nodes like Venice/Antwerp, but still very effective otherwise.
I'm not sure if it's a bug, but stacks of ships that wouldn't be able to 'protect trade' on a node with no merchant of your own are not taken off the route when you remove the merchant. Makes it easy to redirect/collect from every node you come across even with the default 2 merchants.
Playing with Oman and 7th in world due to my trade income. Basically, Oman is Middle-East easy mode. Go ahead, try it.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 21, 2013, 08:06:56 pm
You know what Muslim easy mode is? Ottomans. At top level they get -83% core cost or something.
Post by: Andrew425 on August 21, 2013, 09:29:29 pm
Post by: Wiles on August 22, 2013, 07:27:48 am
Post by: Drakale on August 22, 2013, 12:33:07 pm
Post by: Tobel on August 22, 2013, 12:43:14 pm
I prefer offensive, not that quality isn't good, but getting forced march before your neighbours is amazing.
When I played recently with Brandenburg I saw the usefulness of this since I'm ALWAYS chasing armies to their retreat points.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 22, 2013, 12:46:46 pm
If you're not a republic then the choices are between offensive and defensive. The size of your country should really dictate what choice to go with first. Offensive for small to mid size countries so you can get forced march and start expanding. Defensive as a large country can brutalise invaders and the leader siege and minus attrition will allow you to still push an offensive game. There can be a case made for quality if you plan to be very naval focus.
Apparently (according to the forums) there are some really nasty events if you pick conflicting ideas like offensive and defensives.
Post by: BlindKitty on August 22, 2013, 03:08:19 pm
Post by: Tarran on August 22, 2013, 03:43:02 pm
Quote from: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?714668-1.1.2-Hotfix&p=16013652&viewfull=1#post16013652
1.1.2
- Filter on tags now works
- Fixed issues with joining/inviting friends from friends list
- Server requests password if it ain't provided
- Fixed dedicated server not displaying the correct version
- Fixed sorting on server names
- Improved joining server status message
- Keep server browser scrollbar position when adding new servers to the lis
- Fixed a better oos-message. The client now gets an error-code so we can know what it was that went oos. (revision 8323)
- Supply, demand, total_produced, num_supply_provinces and num_demand_provinces for tradegoods are now saved in savegame (fixes hotjoin OOS).
- Fixed pause-bug on standalone server.
- Added better information for the client during hotjoin-request.
- Connection popup no longer in front of password popup
- You no longer get password rejected message when getting an invite to a password protected game
- No longer possible to filter on empty tag, either all servers or some tags
- If you search for a tag, steam will now return a global search enableing any player to find any game if his searching for the tag
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 23, 2013, 02:13:55 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 23, 2013, 12:36:17 pm
The AI is terrible with cooperation in general. Sure, you can siege a lot with 3k stacks on every single province, but if you combined them and not let them be picked off piecemeal you'd notice you have triple the enemy's numbers. If the enemy has doomstacks on the field, the AI should not divide its forces.
It's kinda weird that the AI doesn't seem interested in taking on the Native American nations. They haven't had a single war - Central America is still dominated by Aztec, Inca is still in its original borders, etc etc while all of the unclaimed area is colonized.
Post by: Wiles on August 23, 2013, 01:46:04 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 23, 2013, 01:46:55 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 23, 2013, 02:08:29 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 23, 2013, 02:16:27 pm
Spoiler: kinda long (click to show/hide)
Post by: WealthyRadish on August 23, 2013, 02:40:54 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 23, 2013, 03:18:09 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 23, 2013, 03:44:22 pm
Out of curiosity, how does the performance/optimization compare to EU3? Things were a bit choppy on my crappy system... anyone try it on, say, a laptop? I could always wait for performance mods, just wondering if they went overboard on having DA BEST GRAFIX. A 2D strategic mode or the like would be perfect.EU4 is faster than ck2, but obviously slower than eu3. I do not have the technobabble to say anything more useful than that :P
Post by: Karlito on August 23, 2013, 04:03:24 pm
EU4 is faster than ck2The opposite is definitely true for me.
Post by: lemon10 on August 23, 2013, 04:07:44 pm
As for actual running time (per day) it seems to run about as fast, with one exception: instead of calculating taxes (ect) yearly, it does it monthly. This means that there is a pretty significant delay on the first of every month (it lasts 4-5 seconds, but it doesn't give lag, just takes a super long time to process the day).
Post by: WealthyRadish on August 23, 2013, 04:33:47 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 23, 2013, 05:45:14 pm
Tried the demo (I should've checked for one before posting, derp), definitely waiting for a performance mod. Why they think 3D modeling is even remotely important for games like these is baffling. That said, my computer is pretty garbage, so most people probably don't have a problem with it. It's just that I feel the strategy genre should be one place to go that doesn't have high/barely any requirements, and a 2D mode would've been fantastic and I'd assume not very difficult to add.I agree. It's partly why I don't play Civ V. Luckily, my laptop handles EUiv fairly well.
Post by: WealthyRadish on August 23, 2013, 08:13:56 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 23, 2013, 09:03:18 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 23, 2013, 11:41:07 pm
Post by: fivex on August 23, 2013, 11:57:57 pm
Does anyone have an original tradenodes.txt? I think I fuxed mine. Game runs too slow due to the routes being overcomplicated. :[Here (http://pastebin.com/ZzuA5gri)
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 12:09:30 am
Does anyone have an original tradenodes.txt? I think I fuxed mine. Game runs too slow due to the routes being overcomplicated. :[Here (http://pastebin.com/ZzuA5gri)
+1 Internet Heart
Post by: MoLAoS on August 24, 2013, 09:55:09 am
Does anyone have an original tradenodes.txt? I think I fuxed mine. Game runs too slow due to the routes being overcomplicated. :[
You know that you are never ever ever supposed to edit the base game datafiles right? You are supposed to add content using mods.
I mean, I edit them, but that's because I'm so off the chain and awesome. Regular people should stick to the intended content addition method of mods.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 10:35:45 am
Post by: snelg on August 24, 2013, 10:36:01 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 10:38:46 am
Post by: ank on August 24, 2013, 12:26:43 pm
Incidentally, it's because Paradox did very little optimization of their own trade sytem. Making it too complex slows the entire game.
Jeez, who would have thought that the travelling salesman problem would be hard?
Post by: FritzPL on August 24, 2013, 02:34:54 pm
hold your chevauchees, more than 4 daimyos?
i fucking love paradox
Post by: Maxsimal on August 24, 2013, 03:46:05 pm
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 24, 2013, 03:49:30 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 24, 2013, 03:50:57 pm
Is it different enough from EU3 to justify a purchase? From the early press, it didn't seem like it - what do people that are hands on with it feel?There are differences, but if you hated EU3 I doubt you will like EU4 much.
I love it though.
Post by: lemon10 on August 24, 2013, 04:17:48 pm
I do feel its better then EU3 even now, but there are quite a few hings that feel rather raw and could be fixed up (eg. the current state of coalitions), and I am sure that with 2-3 expansions under its belt there will be quite a bit more content.
EDIT: That said, you you are willing to buy all the DLC/expansions at full price (and pay full price for it right now too), then go ahead, is a pretty fun game already.
Post by: Micro102 on August 24, 2013, 04:42:09 pm
I definitely like it a lot more. Trade, diplomacy/AI, and balance are all vastly improved. No more monopolizing all of Europe's trade as the Netherlands, and no more world conquests by 1600. The coalitions are somewhat irritating, but they're a good concept that'll probably get fixed up by patches or mods. Technology is the usual nonsense, but there will always be mods for that.
I liked how absurdly strong you could get. Whats the fun if you can't take any country, abuse the hell out of the game, and take over the world???
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 04:44:51 pm
No more monopolizing all of Europe's trade as the Netherlands, and no more world conquests by 1600.
Being the Netherlands generally gives you de-facto control over Antwerp, where a majority of the world's trade drains to..
I liked how absurdly strong you could get. Whats the fun if you can't take any country, abuse the hell out of the game, and take over the world???
I don't know about others, but its incredibly easy to blob. As anyone. I've now formed Netherlands+ from Frisia, united Muslims as Oman, nearly conquered all of India as Kwailor. Only hindrance is waiting a year or two to create claims out of thin air to get a CB and core after conquest in nearly no time. It's a mad landgrab and whoever blobs quicker will win. Oh, and spam trade ships.
Mods are getting better. I've found a bunch of things I can change in easily editable files. Don't like lucky nation bonuses? Change them. Want there to be higher penalties for inflation in costs of troops? I've made it so loans add +1 inflation and +.1 revolt risk, to keep me from spamming loans. Presumably the AI as well.
Still crossing my fingers waiting for MEIOU&Taxes, though.
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 24, 2013, 04:48:44 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 04:52:22 pm
Post by: Andrew425 on August 24, 2013, 05:42:04 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 24, 2013, 07:54:46 pm
Just wait until the English embargo you.
They have 20 ships, since I destroyed their navy with my trade route fleets [mostly by accident], because they were allied with someone who DOW'd me, its the price of loyalty, I suppose. 80% of London node goes to Antwerp. England is so screwed by revolts in every game it's hardly fair for them with Netherlands around.
Embargoes are hardly very effective if the majority of the power in the node is the one you're cutting yourself off of. I could even be real nice and divert Bordeaux/North Sea around them. I think the AI knows this.
Post by: MoLAoS on August 24, 2013, 08:26:48 pm
Post by: PanH on August 25, 2013, 04:31:35 pm
I don't know about others, but its incredibly easy to blob. As anyone. I've now formed Netherlands+ from Frisia, united Muslims as Oman, nearly conquered all of India as Kwailor. Only hindrance is waiting a year or two to create claims out of thin air to get a CB and core after conquest in nearly no time. It's a mad landgrab and whoever blobs quicker will win. Oh, and spam trade ships.Coring is very costly though, it's better to have a vassal do it for you, and then diplo annex it, which gives you his cores. It costs you 1 diplomat and 1 diplo relations for a few years, but that can give a bunch of cores for no admin points.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 25, 2013, 06:15:38 pm
This is because even without !!Lucky!! rulers not building infrastructure makes it so you can get incredibly far ahead in tech with almost no effort. So, do you go ahead and save past your cap or continue to blob [to fight the unrealistically-worldwide-growing coalitions]? Gold is nearly useless in this game; and military buildings only use military points [instead of 25% 25% 50% like I think it should, to represent the building, negotiation with locals, etc].
On annexing: I'm thinking of upping the costs of individual province requests in war negotiation, to prevent you from snagging all the best tax-producing provinces with a 'Conquer x' [where x is a backwater 1-base tax province] due to a mission giving you a claim out of thin air.
Spoiler: Sadism (click to show/hide)
On that note; I'm fiddling with missions and going to see if there's real ones, even flavor ones, hidden beneath the 'Conquer x' ones that appear all the damn time. I'm tired of the only missions appearing being Conquer/Savethepeopleof That [the only motivation to taking these missions is the fact that it auto-creates claims for you, which makes world conquest invariably easy if you're already in a strong position to begin with, unless you think +5 prestige (one battle's worth) is the motivator to choose these..] and Build Fort.
I'm also starting to become severely against the 'annex vassal' mechanic. You can sell a 'vassal' [someone you create out of thin air directly after signing peace with..] provinces, buy a Diplomatic Reputation+5 adviser, and annex the whole thing, with free cores, in less than five years. That doesn't seem right. There's no *Force stop annexation* casus belli, so AI will not attempt to stop you from blobbing in this way, unless I've missed it because no one will lift a finger to stop such things.
I seem to do just great with the constant stream of free claims given by missions and quick core conversions. Only thing that takes too long in my opinion is religious conversion, due to the wonky mechanics behind it. Either buy the missionary +2 adviser, buff it with events/decision/piety cheese [Piety makes Muslim nations incredibly unbalanced for reasons I won't go into now], or watch your missionaries simply never accomplish anything. Ugh. I'd prefer the 2% chance a month to taking 111+ months. I'd prefer a flat rate of conversion, something like 5 years to convert then with the modifiers taken into account. But nope.
Oh. And I made it so full military maintenance only adds 1.5 morale to the max. To represent that it should be baseline morale, not make up a majority of your discipline. Turns those military tech levels into something more than a 'bolting a spear onto a bulldozer' kind of thing. Tech levels should represent your military coming into discipline, not your damn maintenance slider. The slider is still incredibly important early-game, though.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on August 25, 2013, 06:44:12 pm
I'm also starting to become severely against the 'annex vassal' mechanic. You can sell a 'vassal' [someone you create out of thin air directly after signing peace with..] provinces, buy a Diplomatic Reputation+5 adviser, and annex the whole thing, with free cores, in less than five years. That doesn't seem right. There's no *Force stop annexation* casus belli, so AI will not attempt to stop you from blobbing in this way, unless I've missed it because no one will lift a finger to stop such things.
Unfortunately, that's the only real way to WC right now unless you just don't care about overextension. Due to how long it takes to core things, getting a core on the last province in the game (there are 1419 provinces) would take almost 216 years by itself. Just coring the 500th province would take 78 years. Therefore, creating vassals, selling them a bunch of land, making super blobs out of them, and then annexing them for free cores is about the only way you can do it. I don't agree with that approach either, it's just how things are done currently. Definitely needs to be fixed, I can't imagine how Paradox expected anyone to conquer the world without what is, IMO, a serious exploit. That is, unless they just expected people to do it with gobs and gobs of overextension, or if there are new qualifiers for "world = conquered".
Also, the reason why the AI doesn't lift a finger to stop you is because you need 190 relations to annex a vassal. Unless those relations plummet into the dirt, they aren't going to do anything because they like you too much. However, I would like to point out that the wording on diplo-annexing a vassal gives the impression that you can only annex one vassal every ten years...
Post by: Rakonas on August 25, 2013, 06:48:19 pm
Post by: fivex on August 25, 2013, 06:49:12 pm
or if there are new qualifiers for "world = conquered"It's "you're the only country that exists"
Thus, if you can stop colonies from happening, you can speed things up.
Post by: Dutchling on August 25, 2013, 06:53:35 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 25, 2013, 07:18:46 pm
Also, the reason why the AI doesn't lift a finger to stop you is because you need 190 relations to annex a vassal.
I'm not talking the target of the diploannex. I mean, for example, RussiaMuscovy/AustriaBohemia/Ottomans/Denmark having nothing to say about Poland Diploannexing Lithuania, which would create a superpower on their doorstep. My thought is something like a "Stop Vassal Annexation" CB with relatively high cost [50%?] to stop and annul diploannexing for the target for 10 or so years. I'd think the Paradox devs would implement a way for AI to counter someone superblobbing in such an incredibly easy way, but there's no way. Is it possible to add new CBs? Everyone always seems to have their nose in my business except for in cases of diploannex. Just feels like a free pass if you're not already being coalitioned against heavily, like my Hansa game, which is an annoyance no matter what cheese you're spraying all over the mechanics.
I played almost a hundred years and still no colonies. Spain, France, and Portugal all took the Exploration idea group but only unlocked the first idea, so nobody can explore yet :/
Lucky nations off? Spain always ends up being the big dawg in the new world in every game, no matter what, if LN is on or random. In fact, on random, Spain and Ottomans always still seem to get lucky nation, unless I'm just crazy.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 25, 2013, 07:26:28 pm
Post by: Digital Hellhound on August 25, 2013, 11:10:11 pm
Post by: MrWiggles on August 25, 2013, 11:20:57 pm
I believe even Random LNs are still more likely to go to the big, historically important guys. That's how it was in EU3. Kinda misses the whole point of 'random' there.
There lots of different randoms. And most randoms you encounter are a form of weighted random.
The lucky nation modifier, is an attempt to make historic maps.
The random LN, do prefer larger nations, as those are the nations that can actually make use of the modifier. A single provence country isn't going to be dick with an additional 25 percent bonus. It'd be a stupid waste.
Post by: h3lblad3 on August 26, 2013, 12:11:36 am
Post by: PanH on August 26, 2013, 07:00:55 am
Coring is the only thing besides stability that I use admin points for. And I only bother to go to +1 stability for the most part, anything more is for when I'm too far ahead to upgrade due to my pool. Administrative idea groups are neigh-useless and I make sure to fabricate claims on provinces I'm taking before I go to war, so the costs were always >50 [sometimes even down to 10's]. I made it so even with claims it costs me about 100 and I can still core-conquest on a whim much of the time.Economic, Innovative and Religious Idea groups are great, in that they give you lots of positive events in addition to their bonus, including some +stab. Admin ideas generally have better events than the diplo or military ideas, and they can save you a lot of monarch points (especially innovative). IMO, they are the best ideas (except maybe the diplo idea group), because they will always be useful.
Post by: Dutchling on August 26, 2013, 07:09:28 am
-Diplomatic, mandatory for the diplomat and less coring cost
-Defensive, great early ideas
-Aristocratic, finishing this before defensive for the -10% military tech cost
-Economic, I really need less inflation and more adivsor choices
-Quality, moar military
-Naval, naval forcelimits aren't great
-Religious, need to convert everything in my realm to enact the Unite Islam decision
-Expansion, extra diplomatic relations and some colonists to get all those piss poor empty provinces I border
Thoughts? Expansion isn't the but it seems the best one there is left at that point.
Post by: cerapa on August 26, 2013, 07:45:26 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I am 100% certain that giving France constant casus-belli(going to help allies doesn't seem to trigger coalitations) against Spain won't bite me in the ass in the future. The BBB is a peaceful creature and would never go for world domination, no sir.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 26, 2013, 08:02:44 am
Thoughts? Expansion isn't the but it seems the best one there is left at that point.Seems like a perfect choice of ideas. I would definitely prefer defensive over offensive as the Ottomans. You already start off with a nice big nation and in the future when you start to fall behind in tech you can grind the western forces down before attacking back. That added siege and less attrition will also help
Expansion is a decent last choice just due to the bonuses it offers apart from colonising. Likely you won't be doing any colonising at all since the Europeans would have gobbled up everything decent already. Do note that you cannot get the free casus belli on asians unless you westernise.
Whether to westernise or not will likely be a difficult choice. It's a rather painful experience and the reward doesn't scale up as well as Eastern/Ottoman tech. You will be able to fully benefit out of expansion though and if that allows you to crack India before the europeans you're going to be in a very good spot.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 26, 2013, 09:31:45 am
Economic, Innovative and Religious Idea groups are great, in that they give you lots of positive events in addition to their bonus, including some +stab. Admin ideas generally have better events than the diplo or military ideas, and they can save you a lot of monarch points (especially innovative). IMO, they are the best ideas (except maybe the diplo idea group), because they will always be useful.I only care about Innovative. Others are too specialized in use and not viable for long term game, especially religious. Interest decreases and the like are only helpful if you're flooded in debt which is generally a slippery hole to get out of even with related buffs. Expansion+Trade+Navy for the +50% limit modifier [one of the things limiting Light ship snowballing] will net you highest income and unstoppable navies in 3 idea groups. Consistently.
I pick Expansion because I don't like to leave it to Spain and Portugal to control the whole new world every game. Seriously, if you're on a coast, your first idea should be navy or trade. I pick trade if I'm light in power but heavy on ships, navy if I'm heavy on power but light on ships [to steer trade]. You will win before you need to win. With a country like Amsterdam/Oman this becomes incredibly unfair, as they get merchant/steering/etc bonuses while you tech up. I hardly screw with idea groups other than diplomatic and the military ones.
Diplomatic ones are especially useful to rush for those unlock bonuses [if they're worth a damn] since I literally never run low on diplomatic points.
Post by: pedrito on August 26, 2013, 09:55:07 am
Thoughts? Expansion isn't the but it seems the best one there is left at that point.Seems like a perfect choice of ideas. I would definitely prefer defensive over offensive as the Ottomans. You already start off with a nice big nation and in the future when you start to fall behind in tech you can grind the western forces down before attacking back. That added siege and less attrition will also help
Defensive is the way to go for Ottos, though I never fell behind in tech playing them. They have good leaders to start with, then they have enough cash to afford good advisors, and also the piety tech modifier leaves you almost at parity with european nations.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 26, 2013, 01:12:51 pm
Which isn't exactly a valid point when it came to EU3 in which random lucky nations tagged Byzantium something like 80% of the time with its 2 or 3 province size.
Byzantium without the bonus could come ahead of the Ottoman Empire by itself. Its a nation that can do something with the bonus. So, its probably weighted to get selected.
I also wouldnt surprise me if random LN werent also based on where the player was playing.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 27, 2013, 05:25:37 pm
Literally cut my trade income in half and I had no idea until I checked why my trade all dried up, it was all being directed to random freakin nodes!
Post by: Dutchling on August 27, 2013, 05:28:50 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 27, 2013, 05:39:25 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But that doesn't look right.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 27, 2013, 06:19:53 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 27, 2013, 06:30:17 pm
It must be an MP game. That, or modding.Nah, having animist zealot occupying a single province when a nation breaks converts it.
Post by: fivex on August 27, 2013, 07:24:21 pm
Only if you're Shamanist.It must be an MP game. That, or modding.Nah, having animist zealot occupying a single province when a nation breaks converts it.
Post by: Dutchling on August 27, 2013, 08:12:57 pm
No...?Only if you're Shamanist.It must be an MP game. That, or modding.Nah, having animist zealot occupying a single province when a nation breaks converts it.
Post by: fivex on August 27, 2013, 08:24:49 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 27, 2013, 08:27:08 pm
Post by: fivex on August 27, 2013, 08:54:02 pm
Are you sure? When did that change?That's how it's always been in EU4:
Code: [Select]
can_negotiate_trigger = {
any_owned_province = { controlled_by = REB }
religion_group = pagan
}
# Country scope
can_enforce_trigger = {
religion_group = pagan
NOT = { tag = PAP }
}
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 28, 2013, 03:00:11 am
Post by: Dutchling on August 28, 2013, 07:16:45 am
I have seen numerous threads on the Paradox forums indicate your claim inn't true. One person annexed Inca too quickly, got revolts everywhere, collapsed, and became an Animist noble republic as Portugal.Are you sure? When did that change?That's how it's always been in EU4:Code: [Select]can_negotiate_trigger = {
any_owned_province = { controlled_by = REB }
religion_group = pagan
}
# Country scope
can_enforce_trigger = {
religion_group = pagan
NOT = { tag = PAP }
}
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 28, 2013, 02:10:40 pm
A more ideal system would be religious rebels outside your group having some sort of independence condition instead of forcing you to convert. But I'm not sure EU can handle the creation of new countries the way CK does.
Post by: Inarius on August 28, 2013, 03:20:28 pm
Animist France !
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 28, 2013, 03:21:31 pm
Post by: Dutchling on August 30, 2013, 03:13:19 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 30, 2013, 03:35:12 am
Do modded saves also work?
Post by: Mini on August 30, 2013, 05:00:03 am
Post by: ank on August 30, 2013, 08:49:41 am
I crash consistently after forming Hindustan..
I had the same problem when forming scandinavia.
Wait a couple of years and try again.
Post by: MrWiggles on August 30, 2013, 06:40:41 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 30, 2013, 08:01:51 pm
Man after a hundred years, the native americans don't do anything.Do what? Declare war on Super France?
Post by: MrWiggles on August 30, 2013, 09:15:25 pm
Expand, and colonized. They had time to expand before France.Man after a hundred years, the native americans don't do anything.Do what? Declare war on Super France?
Post by: Tarran on August 30, 2013, 09:45:31 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 31, 2013, 01:33:25 am
Apparently there are plans to add "over 25" new unique national ideas to various countries. This has relieved a bit of my fears that EUIV would be heavily milked for DLC. If Paradox is smart they'd make the majority of these "cultural" ideas so that cultural regions with lots of minors (HRE, Ireland) won't all suffer from generic ideas.
Post by: PanH on August 31, 2013, 05:50:17 am
Afaik, only Portugal, Spain (Castille), France, GB (England), Netherlands and Norway (might have forgotten one) take Explorations. Plus, it can be quite hard to reach adm 4 before they arrive. As Kongo, I only have 20 years between the time I unlock it and they come, and Sub-Saharan is a bit better than New World. I'm pretty sure the AI don't reach it.Expand, and colonized. They had time to expand before France.Man after a hundred years, the native americans don't do anything.Do what? Declare war on Super France?
Post by: MrWiggles on August 31, 2013, 10:35:48 am
Afaik, only Portugal, Spain (Castille), France, GB (England), Netherlands and Norway (might have forgotten one) take Explorations. Plus, it can be quite hard to reach adm 4 before they arrive. As Kongo, I only have 20 years between the time I unlock it and they come, and Sub-Saharan is a bit better than New World. I'm pretty sure the AI don't reach it.Expand, and colonized. They had time to expand before France.Man after a hundred years, the native americans don't do anything.Do what? Declare war on Super France?
I've some of the African nations do stuff. But they also dont really expand. Like the Mali and Hausa wont really interact, even though they're oh so very close.
Post by: PanH on September 01, 2013, 01:32:35 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 04, 2013, 12:41:58 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ironman. Not shown is my North American colonies funneling trade in from the west.
I would have formed it a bit earlier but I had to first dismantle the Danish mega empire, which gave rise to the Swedish empire. I dismantled France but Spain came in later and gobbled up the rest. Dismantled Britain since they were meddling in my colonial affairs, they came back decently unfortunately. However what really slowed me down was getting into massive wars with the Spanish empire which has a PU with Portugal.
Think I'm pretty much done now. All that remains is taking more of North America and consolidating gains in Europe. If I really wanted to I could move my capital to Italy and try to get to get into the Indian trade but I'm not sure if I want to make that commitment.
Post by: MrWiggles on September 04, 2013, 03:06:53 am
Post by: Rakonas on September 04, 2013, 08:49:57 pm
Think I'm pretty much done now. All that remains is taking more of North America and consolidating gains in Europe. If I really wanted to I could move my capital to Italy and try to get to get into the Indian trade but I'm not sure if I want to make that commitment.Except you're the Holy Roman Empire and the Ottomans are still around. You need to re-take Constantinople.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 04, 2013, 10:33:50 pm
I mean just look at it.
(http://i.imgur.com/N23TUkp.png)
"Everyone calm the fuck down, I'm a crow."
Post by: Chaoswizkid on September 04, 2013, 11:08:37 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 04, 2013, 11:18:26 pm
Corsica also gets an honourable mention.
Post by: evilcherry on September 05, 2013, 12:31:14 am
My Japan took Explorations. After all Americas is the only way to guarantee westernization eligibility.Afaik, only Portugal, Spain (Castille), France, GB (England), Netherlands and Norway (might have forgotten one) take Explorations. Plus, it can be quite hard to reach adm 4 before they arrive. As Kongo, I only have 20 years between the time I unlock it and they come, and Sub-Saharan is a bit better than New World. I'm pretty sure the AI don't reach it.Expand, and colonized. They had time to expand before France.Man after a hundred years, the native americans don't do anything.Do what? Declare war on Super France?
Post by: ank on September 05, 2013, 08:03:50 am
I was confused so I saved before clicking yes, and I ended up fighting Britain, but the British troops had blue icons, instead of red.
Weird...
Naturally I reloaded and just took the prestige hit.
I guess Poland is next on the list now...
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on September 05, 2013, 12:08:46 pm
My Japan took Explorations. After all Americas is the only way to guarantee westernization eligibility.
Which is one of the most ridiculous things in a so-called 'historical' game. There's so many things wrong with EU4 vanilla ranging from zero national idea balance to the simply asanine and not-playtested at all coalitions, the fact that trade is stagnant and does not change at all over time, I get what they were trying to do but they basically made a simplified EU3 system [without dynamic nodes] and slapped-on trade routes, with varying amounts of historical accuracy..
Spoiler: Anger (click to show/hide)
About trade: How the new trade nodes work, with London getting a bonus to income due to being a 'center of trade' but places like the Gulf Of Aden trade node have no complimentary province, it should be consistent or have no province-specific bonuses at all. Unless everyone dinghied their goods into the middle of the ocean to trade goods at places like Bordeaux and Settsu..
I've simply stopped playing and picked up MEIOU 5.6 for EU3 again and remembered why I didn't like EU3 vanilla, and why I do not like EU4 vanilla. Waiting for MEIOU&Taxes with bated breath, otherwise I'm done with EU4. I don't think I'll be buying another Paradox launch until the total conversions [good versions] are out anymore.
Oh, I also severely dislike the simplified advisor system. Playing EU3 MEIOU reminds me how much depth there used to be to advisors and the choices you could make in them.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=172185692
Oh, and I ran across this. Mod of the year.
So I got a PU with Britain as Scandinavia, then Poland(my ally) asked me to join a war vs britain.
I was confused so I saved before clicking yes, and I ended up fighting Britain, but the British troops had blue icons, instead of red.
Weird...
Naturally I reloaded and just took the prestige hit.
I guess Poland is next on the list now...
And yeah, for some reason you can be asked to join wars you'd otherwise be unable to join, the AI is absolutely foolish and does not take the same penalties you do if they refuse your request to go to war with someone they have PU/Alliance with. I've been asked to join a war by the Major partner on both sides, and a junior, and declining them all cost me 75 prestige. They didn't think to implement a 'Stay neutral in war' option. Refusing to attack an ally is not telling your other allies to piss off, i'd hazard a guess that a -20 'Non involvement' penalty to both parties would be good, but not massive prestige hits and annuled alliances. I do not form alliances unless I know they will be immediately useful and exploitable. There are no such things as long term alliances in EU4 anymore. They severely fucked up their own system, if they're not a vassal they are not your friend, no matter what their opinion of you is.
Hell, I released a country on my border and then a few months after their birth they coalitioned up against me with the same guy I released them from. Diplomacy does not exist in EU4 because they set AI aggressiveness/suicidal tendencies at a maximum.
On that note, I've had nations with royal marriages attack me before a truce was over, only to get no hit to stability. You'd think they would fix obvious AI cheating but hey, that's Paradox. Even a -1 to their stability would've been nice, to stop the AI from doing such things. Marrying to other nations and forming alliances only hurts you in the long run. Unless you know you will PU/vassalize a country do not ever get a royal marriage.
Works out better when you don't have those -1 stab hits laying around all over the goddamn place because AI diplomacy consists of 'coalition and human wave PC until they stop having fun'.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on September 05, 2013, 12:14:27 pm
Post by: Dutchling on September 05, 2013, 12:18:28 pm
Their map looks pretty though.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 05, 2013, 12:20:07 pm
The only non-European nation that really got close to westernising in the time frame was Japan which didn't have a direct land bridge with any Europeans.
A couple of requirements for westernising instead could be stuff like owning a trade node with europeans trading in it, having a high relationship and an alliance with an european power, and perhaps agreeing to convert or becoming highly tolerant of christians.
Westernising should be a little less painful but should give a rather large trade malus for a few decades, abstracting that you've given in to western influences and are offering trade access in return for technological and governing advice.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on September 05, 2013, 12:22:15 pm
I hope MEIOU will be good, but if it's anything like EU3 it will be good, but also a bloating mess of unnecessary "features". Whomever made that seems to think "MOAR = BETTER" regardless of what you're talking about :/
Their map looks pretty though.
D&T team is much more !!Fun!! leaning than MEIOU's !!Extreme feature addition!!/province addiction which is why I look forward so much to what the teams are putting together.
A couple of requirements for westernising instead could be stuff like owning a trade node with europeans trading in it, having a high relationship and an alliance with an european power or perhaps agreeing to convert or becoming highly tolerant of christians.
Westernising should be a little less painful but should give a rather large trade malus for a few decades, abstracting that you've given in to western influences and are offering trade access in return for technological and governing advice.
If only they had bothered to make Westernization a dynamic requirement set as opposed to a hard requirement.
Post by: Tarran on September 05, 2013, 03:30:38 pm
Has anyone else had wacky Burgundy inheritances?
Post by: fivex on September 16, 2013, 05:50:15 pm
He actually did it.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on September 17, 2013, 04:09:43 pm
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709144-The-Three-Mountains-A-Ryukyu-AAR&p=16155113&viewfull=1#post16155113
He actually did it.
And this is how Paradox responds:
Quote
fyi, the following exploits are closed
- exiled units can no longer loot.
- navies can not be exiled.
- defeat rebels mission no longer gives +2 stability.
- coalitions will now always join in defensively in wars, even if they got a truce.
- it is no longer possible to westernize while overextended.
- countries becoming republics now start with 50 republican tradition.
- years_of_income is now excluding all non-monthly incomes.
- rebels use the best possible unittype, not the one you have selected.
Specifically:
Quote
- coalitions will now always join in defensively in wars, even if they got a truce.
Really? Paradox is literally the most non-thinking group of developers. Naw, fuck accessibility and bugfixes lets just let AI cheat around truces some more. Why even have truces? Just apply them to the player, don't lie to me and give AI nations truces they never have to follow. Seriously, two actual bugfixes from that AAR? Did they even pay attention? WC is not possible without PU/vassal manipulation, which in the real world is called exploits. The response to a broken exploit-laden WC is to allow AI to break truces thanks to coalitions and nerfing an event which simply needed to be made to trigger less often, and the obviously broken exiled units [which goes to show how EU4 was not playtested before release].
Revolutionary CB being broken to the point of allowing a 2-war annex of HRE..
Post by: Tarran on September 17, 2013, 04:24:09 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 18, 2013, 12:04:25 am
I was gonna buy this on the next big sale, but maybe not even then.
Did EU3 sound this bad when it first came out?
Post by: MoLAoS on September 18, 2013, 12:27:06 am
Hrmmm, sounds like this isn't going to be like EU3 where you can just get insanely strong with anyone and then devour entire countries. No WC = no fun. Let my alternate reality be as chaotic as I want it to be!
I was gonna buy this on the next big sale, but maybe not even then.
Did EU3 sound this bad when it first came out?
You know you can just mod anything you don't like. I've been pretty tempted to mod some of the stuff impeding world conquest.
Post by: Micro102 on September 18, 2013, 02:36:08 am
Hrmmm, sounds like this isn't going to be like EU3 where you can just get insanely strong with anyone and then devour entire countries. No WC = no fun. Let my alternate reality be as chaotic as I want it to be!
I was gonna buy this on the next big sale, but maybe not even then.
Did EU3 sound this bad when it first came out?
You know you can just mod anything you don't like. I've been pretty tempted to mod some of the stuff impeding world conquest.
Not really interested in learning how to mod games. I took a look at the EU3 save game and that was enough to make me lose any interest I might of had.
If saying modifying it was good enough they wouldn't of changed anything in any of the EU3 games. They obviously have some sort of idea as to how they want their game to be, and I am wondering if EU3 had as many troubles as EU4 when it first came out. If it did, I can look forward to seeing a polished product that will make me addicted to it like I am to EU3.
Post by: MoLAoS on September 18, 2013, 02:47:38 am
Modding to make world conquest easier is pretty simple. Mod in superior national ideas for instance. Mod in a new CB to limit aggressive expansion. Personally I modded it for more and earlier idea groups and a tech group equal to western for India.
The modifications Paradox has made so far are actually making it harder to do world conquest.
Post by: Tarran on September 18, 2013, 04:08:16 am
Not really interested in learning how to mod games. I took a look at the EU3 save game and that was enough to make me lose any interest I might of had.The save files are far more labyrinthine than the actual game files.
Post by: umiman on September 18, 2013, 12:53:22 pm
Post by: PanH on September 18, 2013, 12:59:37 pm
Post by: Sheb on September 20, 2013, 03:42:17 am
I'm currently giving me free core to all non-overseas colonies for this reasons, but it sure feels cheaty.
Post by: Dutchling on September 20, 2013, 03:43:44 am
Post by: Sheb on September 20, 2013, 03:45:05 am
Post by: Karlito on September 20, 2013, 09:07:21 am
Post by: shadenight123 on September 20, 2013, 09:17:00 am
Playing as Savoy -and being an outright first time player of EU IV- I managed not to rage quit the first few times but now...
Really!
Stop using the Conquest Casus Belli.
And then, of course, both Venice and Milan AND switzerland had to try and come in after the 40+ castille army did its job.
Unfortunately for them, I've got mercenaries and -extreme string of luck- 147 ducats in my purse after the bank became happy.
I'm not giving Cremona back to the Venetians, and now Lombardy...you're going to pay for going against the might of the Savoy Royal family!
(BTW, my king has Five Diplomat and Five Administrative...and only one military...he's like...'yep, we're going into the future!')
Another thing...is it normal I'm getting steamrolled militarily?
I mean, I had twenty-two troops plus general, against nine troops from Castille...and the nine troops won.
Post by: Twiggie on September 20, 2013, 09:23:41 am
probably castille has a high military king which let them get ahead in military tech and leaders
Post by: shadenight123 on September 20, 2013, 09:24:34 am
I mean, I know it might sound paranoid, but they get 'eight' on their dices like...always.
I get two and threes.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on September 20, 2013, 09:25:50 am
Lots of possibilities.
Post by: Twiggie on September 20, 2013, 09:27:08 am
best to turn it off when playing a minor, leave it on when playing someone who starts powerful, imo
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 20, 2013, 09:35:38 am
Castile could also very likely be the Defender of the Faith which gives quite a decent morale bonus which I believe is +0.50.
It sounds like you're a little later in the game. You'll want to start progressing towards a 2:1 ratio of infantry to artillery with a couple cavalry units mixed in to maximise frontage. You'll want to take at least a single military idea although I tend to go for two (defence and quality).
Post by: shadenight123 on September 20, 2013, 09:45:10 am
luck means nothing in the face of true chaos!
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 20, 2013, 09:53:30 am
I understand the purpose of them, to have a respectable enemy to fight at "endgame". However all they turn out to be (for me at least) is a major annoyance at the start and just a slightly harder target at later dates.
Paradox advertised empires "rising and falling due to their monarchs" but I've never seen that because the lucky countries get nothing but demigods for centuries.
Post by: shadenight123 on September 20, 2013, 11:02:50 am
Baden curbstomped Switzerland.
Then weakened milan enough for Savoy to employ the 'Change form of government' excuse to attack.
Onwards Savoyards! Italy shall be ours once more!
Post by: lemon10 on September 20, 2013, 12:04:12 pm
I find lucky countries complete bollocks. The bonuses they get are just silly (6/6/6 leaders), they already have the best national ideas in the game.Agreed, all lucky countries does is have the same 8 nations become super powers. I am not fundamentally against the idea of lucky nations. If it was implemented truly randomly (and none of the "it randomly picks 8 from 10 countries"), then it would be a fine idea. Having different nations every game rise to power would be pretty neat IMHO.
I understand the purpose of them, to have a respectable enemy to fight at "endgame". However all they turn out to be (for me at least) is a major annoyance at the start and just a slightly harder target at later dates.
Paradox advertised empires "rising and falling due to their monarchs" but I've never seen that because the lucky countries get nothing but demigods for centuries.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on September 20, 2013, 12:12:21 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on September 20, 2013, 12:19:11 pm
Post by: PanH on September 20, 2013, 12:26:20 pm
you probably didn't turn off lucky nations then, i think that gives +1 dice roll?It doesn't. Dices are dices. Lucky nation changes other things though.
Post by: Dutchling on September 20, 2013, 12:29:02 pm
Lucky nations is the most ahistorical junk ever thought up for a game like this. I removed the obnoxious and unfair bonuses from LN and added them to general bonuses for the AI. Paradox just likes to shoehorn such -features- so that 'proper' white countries win the whole game.>Implies Turkey is a 'proper white country'
>Implies luck and fairness are related
>Uses the word historical which never works out in a EU discussion ;)
I do think that random lucky nations should have a a) more random chance, b) more lucky nations so some non-Europeans nations can become it too, and c) have a very low chance to pick the historically lucky nations. In my last game the only two random lucky nations that aren't normally lucky were Baden en the Teutonic Order.
Post by: PanH on September 20, 2013, 12:31:23 pm
Post by: Chosrau on September 20, 2013, 12:38:55 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 20, 2013, 12:46:16 pm
From memory the only "historical" countries that can be "lucky" have their capital in europe which include
Sweden
England
France
Ottomans
Muscovy
Castile
Portugal
Austria
EDIT: the more I type "lucky" the more I see it as a very silly word.
DOUBLE EDIT: checked on the wiki to check if I was right, I was.
This is the stupid buff that lucky countries get (according to the wiki):
Global Trade Power +10%
Colonist Success Chance +5%
Global Missionary Strength +1%
Leader Fire +1
Leader Shock +1
Military Tech Cost -2%
Diplomatic Tech Cost -2%
Administrative Tech Cost -2%
Spy Offensive Chance +5%
Stability Cost Modifier -10%
Defensiveness +25%
Available Advisors +1
Maintenance Free Leaders +1
Chance of Heir +25%
Global Revolt Risk -1
Yearly Legitimacy +1
Yearly Republican Tradition +1
Plus 6/6/6
Post by: PanH on September 20, 2013, 01:01:16 pm
Post by: Dutchling on September 20, 2013, 01:13:56 pm
Edit: you being the ottos also freed a slot of course.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on September 20, 2013, 01:14:48 pm
are we going to have the "colonists totally weren't overpowered in real life it's paradox being eurocentric (and potentially racist)" discussion again. because if that is what you're going for, go ahead, but tell me when people are going to get bored with it so next time i get here for reasons like discussing game strategy or mods i can actually do so
+1 post count? Lol
Post by: MrWiggles on September 20, 2013, 07:21:29 pm
Post by: ibot66 on September 20, 2013, 09:20:39 pm
Post by: Dutchling on September 21, 2013, 07:02:45 am
They dont get 6/6/6 leaders. For instance Britian starts with a very shitty leader.They get a bonus to their randomly generated monarchs. Something like +1/2 to each skill.
Post by: Lightning4 on September 21, 2013, 03:41:36 pm
It's mostly the same as it was in EU3, at any rate.
Post by: Dutchling on September 23, 2013, 05:50:33 am
And yes, that are seven different threads. Don't ask me why.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 23, 2013, 06:03:59 am
The patch will likely be released tomorrow as well as the two new DLCs. American Dream and National Monuments 2.
American Dream seems like a major disappointment as it only adds new decisions and events for the USA. I was hoping for a DLC focusing on better revolter states with dynamic naming based off the previous overlord's culture. Right now it's all just useless fluff for a country that rarely forms and which only exist near the end of the timeline.
Post by: Dutchling on September 23, 2013, 06:09:25 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on September 23, 2013, 06:30:36 am
Quote
Gaining Cores
Size penalty on coring is now reduced by about 0,2% each year, down to basically 0 at 1800.
Default core time modifier from size of country reduced by 20%.
Coring colonies you colonized now takes 50% of the time & coring provinces of your own culture is now quicker.
The russian idea Subednik is now 15% cheaper cores instead of +10% tax income.
Coring a province can no longer take more than 20 years, no matter what.
Claims no longer have any major impact on coring time, its just a 10% bonus.
You now only get cores on your vassals/unions if they have cores on those provinces.
Making a province you colonized into a core now costs the same anywhere in the world. aka, Russia gets Siberia for same price as Spain gets south america.
WCs might be possible now without ridiculous hijinks (if no one has checked it out, look at that Ryukyu WC. First recorded WC for the game, I think, and it's full of exploits and abusing broken mechanics to achieve it, and a lot of the bugfixes in the patch are pretty much the devs looking at that AAR and going "Oh shit, gotta fix that.").
Post by: fivex on September 23, 2013, 06:55:23 am
Patch (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723701-1.2-New-Features&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03) notes (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723679-1.2-Expansion-changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03) of (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723681-1.2-Economical-Changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03l) v1.2 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723683-1.2-Military-Changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03) have (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723680-1.2-Religious-Changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03) been (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723684-1.2-Diplomacy-Changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03) released! (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723682-1.2-Misc-Changes&s=e9598c5da8b8905f50b05c81e9cfce03)You missed one (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723722-1.2-Interface-Improvements)
And yes, that are seven different threads. Don't ask me why.
Post by: Dutchling on September 23, 2013, 07:01:01 am
edit:
"- [AI] Will no longer agree to buy non-core non-claim provinces if they are a vassal"
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 24, 2013, 08:01:52 am
The ideas still haven't been completely balanced and it looks like diplomacy, defensive and religious are still the key players. Most notable change is that the -25% core cost discount was moved from diplo into admin making it almost not an undeniable waste of MP.
Most nations have ideas now except for the natives and a few minors. Some of the more interesting ideas groups that I wouldn't mind trying are Tuscany and Irish. Tuscany in particular has no military ideas but makes up for it with decent discounts in idea and tech cost. Coupled with some decent increases in the economy and it might make an interesting exodus to the new world nation if exploration is rushed.
Post by: Sheb on September 24, 2013, 09:46:03 am
In the meantime, half of my provinces are catholic and around 200,000 rebels dispersed in 27 armies are occupying the whole of the Japanese Island chain as well as some part of my Chinese holdings.
So I'm wondering what I should do. Try to hold on and beat the odds? Edit my savefile to orthodox so I can give in to the rebels? Give me some legitimacy? I mean, the rebel spawn rate is just ridiculous and not being able to give in without cheating make me sad.
Post by: Dutchling on September 24, 2013, 09:51:26 am
Post by: Wiles on September 24, 2013, 11:42:35 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 24, 2013, 11:49:38 am
Post by: Tarran on September 24, 2013, 12:12:55 pm
Edit: Who thought it was a good idea to give Serbia a -10% cavalry cost national idea? Does anyone ever have any serious problems recruiting cavalry?
Post by: PanH on September 24, 2013, 12:57:44 pm
Post by: Tarran on September 24, 2013, 01:10:18 pm
Also, holy cow, I just had the Pragmatic Sanction fire in 1446! I don't think that's how history works!
Post by: Twiggie on September 24, 2013, 01:48:07 pm
You know what this patch also means? MEIOU and Taxes will finally start making serious progress.
Edit: Who thought it was a good idea to give Serbia a -10% cavalry cost national idea? Does anyone ever have any serious problems recruiting cavalry?
Russia, after they have -50% infantry cost? :D
Post by: Tarran on September 25, 2013, 03:15:04 am
Argh, I'm never going to expand with Austria and its thousands of friends breathing down my neck.
Edit: ...The update reset my Lucky Nations settings. Urgh, what a waste of my time.
Post by: shadenight123 on September 25, 2013, 04:09:48 am
I'm allied with England, Castille, Aragon and funnily enough some strange amount of states up in the north.
I learned another lesson: Never ally with the 'warring states of bloody north' because really...Wurtember, Mainz, Saxon...they all fight one another like unruly children...sheesh!
Now Aragon's conquered Naples, wonderful.
And the center is in Tuscany's hands while the papal states have been wiped out of the map (and 'Genoa' is now simply in Crimea XD)
But Savoy...nobody shall mess with the Savoyards! really, it's cheaper to hire Mercenaries with out Ideological ideas and then release them post-war...Just must be careful to pay back the loans and...
*chuckles darkly*
HRE...nope, not giving you back MY conquered states. I'll take the hit to reputation any day...in any case, Italy will be mine, mine I tell you!
*ahem* ending the rant...I'm going to annex Corsica.
And then Sardinia.
Is there actually a way to 'buy' regions from other countries, or can you only 'sell' them? I find it strange I can sell them but not 'buy' them.
Post by: Dutchling on September 25, 2013, 04:23:12 am
Post by: Tarran on September 25, 2013, 04:30:54 am
The AI will sell provinces they cannot core, possibly to you if they like you, you have the money, and they think you'll want it.Yes, but he's talking about just plain offering to buy them, not the AI offering to sell them.
Post by: Dutchling on September 25, 2013, 04:41:31 am
Post by: Tarran on September 25, 2013, 04:51:00 am
Edit: Hey, turns out, the Lucky Nations bug is even worse. Sometimes, Lucky Nations can activate mid-game (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?724243-1.2-Lucky-nations-activating-part-way-through-a-game).
Post by: Tarran on September 26, 2013, 05:44:11 am
Patch notes (with minor corrected spelling):
Quote
- Can no longer see destination of others shattered retreat using the low morale icon
- Fixed issue with changing side in the war when making someone your vassal
- Fixed chat where player would not show up i chat
- Warexhaustion now gives revoltrisk again
- Border friction is now entirely dependent on how much basetax you border them with
- Unions now end when the subjects dislikes the overlord, as the tooltip says
- Defender of the faith now gives normal deus vult cb as well
In other news, Paradox is without a good internet. The horror!
Here's translated text from the link Besuchov posted:
Quote
News In Stockholm, 10,500 households without internet during Tuesday evening as a result of explosions in connection with the construction of City Line.
The blasting took out fiber owned by Stokab and Skanova. Both internet TV via broadband went out for a total of 17 000 households in the inner city and under Svd problem persists for more than 10 500 households in Vasastan.
Among the affected operators are Comhem and the Stockholm metropolitan area networks.
Post by: ank on September 26, 2013, 07:43:11 am
Quote
- Unions now end when the subjects dislikes the overlord, as the tooltip says
Won't that mean you can never claim a throne through a succession war, ever?
After I was done PUing Britain, they had an opinion of me of -180...
Post by: Twiggie on September 26, 2013, 07:53:22 am
Post by: Sheb on September 26, 2013, 10:27:36 am
Post by: PanH on September 26, 2013, 01:00:31 pm
Post by: shadenight123 on September 26, 2013, 03:38:28 pm
You got that right you insufferable frenchies! We are Savoyards! We hold the line! Get back to licking your damn frogs and stay down!
I'm laughing as Castile takes care of your south side while Austria devours you! Take that! You do not mess with the might of Savoyards' mercenaries, you hear me!? DO YOU HEAR ME FRANCE!?
*takes a deep breath*
Nobody messes with Savoy.
*exhales*
Now, let's get back to paying those forty something loans I ended up accumulating...
Post by: Tarran on September 26, 2013, 07:25:15 pm
If France explodes and fragments into multiple different states, keep your eyes on the Spanish and Austrians. Don't let them go to far.
Post by: Lightning4 on September 27, 2013, 01:17:38 am
Let me be the first to say that Spain/Castile holding French lands isn't as good of a thing as it may seem, especially if France fragments as a result. Same goes for Austria. France is important for keeping Austria and Spain in check. If France fragments, not only is there the possibility that Spain will go rampant and become potentially quite powerful, but Austria will have few serious competitors and they will start bullying the HRE.
If France explodes and fragments into multiple different states, keep your eyes on the Spanish and Austrians. Don't let them go to far.
It's even scarier now that the Iberian countries seem to be much more likely to form a gigantic Iberian friendship bloc. So not only do you have to worry about Spain/Castile, you'll also have to worry about Portugal and Aragon! (if they still exist)
It's this way in my game. Thankfully I'm all the way over in Italy. They're (hopefully) unlikely to care about me until I've consolidated my power and taken over the Italian peninsula. And by then I should hopefully be strong enough to make major powers think twice about going after me. Hopefully.
Though I have much more immediate concerns with the HRE being literally right on my border, as a three province Urbino...
Post by: PanH on September 27, 2013, 05:54:51 am
Post by: Twiggie on September 27, 2013, 06:14:21 am
hah
hah
hahaha
time of troubles anyone?
Post by: shadenight123 on September 27, 2013, 06:52:32 am
...
Someone, give me a history book.
In other news, Savoy became Curia controller at the same time the nation entered war against the Papal states to claim superiority.
And we're catholics.
Hypocrisy FTW!
Now, if I can keep the Tuscany allies out of my hair while I deal with conquering Italy...
Tuscany, somewhat, hates my guts and is allied with Castile, France and Austria.
Funny, because France hates the guts of Castile and Austria.
Even funnier, England wants me to marry their heir for some reason or another...
Post by: PanH on September 27, 2013, 08:52:54 am
hah, if they dont have too much rebelsWhich is pretty much luck. A Russia without ToT has no real issue.
time of troubles anyone?
Post by: Twiggie on September 27, 2013, 09:00:56 am
hah, if they dont have too much rebelsWhich is pretty much luck. A Russia without ToT has no real issue.
time of troubles anyone?
ToT has a 100 year timespan in which to fire (and a MTTH of 1000 months), and can fire at ANY POINT
then russia has massive rebel problems in any non-orthodox provinces, and can undergo several ruler changes, which reduces your stability even further (and your legitimacy)
its not so bad now that <0 stab is a requirement, but before that change it was pretty much guaranteed...
EDIT: compare for example to france, whose bad event has about 10 or 20 years in which to fire
Post by: PanH on September 27, 2013, 10:54:37 am
Post by: Twiggie on September 27, 2013, 11:43:39 am
and yeah, the latest patch gave russia a nice boost, its nice, especially in our mp game :D but it was too late to save me from time of troubles
Post by: gogis on September 27, 2013, 01:14:53 pm
More tools for player means more headache for AI.
It's pretty much same disaster as CIV5/Warlock with hexagons. People just plain better in thinking if they have more choice. Coding of doom stack vs coding hexagonal-one-unit is a recipe for programmer nightmare. I will wait for further patches tho, who knows. Mods can't fix it properly.
Post by: gogis on September 27, 2013, 01:20:34 pm
Post by: Dutchling on September 27, 2013, 02:40:43 pm
Post by: gogis on September 27, 2013, 02:49:26 pm
Isn't it Heroes 4 with the shitty 3d?
Nah, Heroes 3 started the trend. I basically stopped care after. All that blasphemies. Might & Magic 6 went 3d, EVERYTHING went 3d after or in the same time. I was sad panda, endless tears all these years all way up now. My saddest part of gaming career. Substitute beatiful handwritten sprites to lifeless vectors? An outrage!
Post by: Dutchling on September 27, 2013, 02:50:16 pm
Post by: gogis on September 27, 2013, 02:51:58 pm
But Heroes 3 is the best of the series D:
Yes. But graphics is POS 8) Whole trend is shit
edit: We had hosted 5 or 6 years straight lan party tournaments of Heroes 3. Maps was done. Balance was adjusted. Heroes 3.5 was born eventually (not by us, but whatever). It's was huge game in Russia 8)
Post by: Tarran on September 27, 2013, 09:01:15 pm
Alternatively, you could always play EU2 and FTG if you really, really can't handle graphics.
Post by: Lightning4 on September 28, 2013, 03:14:36 am
I have big problems with current state of the game. It's just too easy, somehow all that changes (and I like em) give you even more control about everything and you can crush pretty much anybody, because AI sucks (and rightfully so). ...
It's hard to say... It seems to suffer from the same problem that EU3 did, in that once you're already big, it's harder to fail. So if you start as a nation that's already big, and get bigger, then it's just going to be even easier. If you're lucky, maybe another nation will blob hardcore and be at least a passable threat.
But if you pick a small nation tucked in an extremely politically hot area, it's going to be much, much tougher. Perhaps even more than EU3 was, because of all the new diplomacy mechanics which can both work for you, and work against you.
I find my Urbino game to be pretty intense. I haven't died yet, but alliances shift like the wind, and I've only just barely managed to squeak out of getting my ass handed to me a couple times (admittedly to what feels like cheaty peace deals). Rebel stacks are frightening when you're small, and I've been nearly broken once, and successfully broken another time. It's a diplomatic challenge trying to find passable allies that are actually close, trying to keep major powers happy, and finding the best possible expansion route that doesn't piss off a nation who has four times my forcelimits and can squash me.
And the larger I get, it feels like there's no end to the threats. First it was just a couple neighbors in Italy. Then it was larger Italian powers, who despite staying the same size, managed to match my forcelimits, or even exceed them. Now I'm starting to draw the interest of the minor powers. I fear soon, the Holy Roman Emperor will find a reason to dislike me. Or Austria. And I know eventually I'm going to butt heads with France. It's inevitable. That's going to be a fun one indeed. I just hope I'm large enough, or have some competent allies.
I suppose it isn't so much any difficulty as feeling like I could get demolished at literally any moment, even if it may not actually ever come.
The latest patch does seem to have made the AI more competent at its job, so there's that. I suspect there's always more room for improvement.
As for Muscovy, I think part of the problem is the later start date, if you're comparing it to EU3. In the later start date, the hordes are fragmented and have no technological edge. I believe historically, the hordes were already on the decline by this time.
Post by: shadenight123 on September 28, 2013, 03:22:13 am
I can relate to the 'feeling squashed' thing and to the money problems.
I actually have to ask if the Ai cheats on the money.
I mean, I'm pretty sure I forced through peace deals quite a lot of loans on the neighboring countries...yet they always match my stacks time and time again.
Ps: Tuscany is allied with Castile in my game, head of the coalition against Savoy...I tore apart its navy once already...yet they keep coming back with thirty-three stacks of ships.
What was your worst 'FUBAR' moment in Europa Universalis IV by the way? (Generally asked to everyone)
Mine was when Austria, Castille and France decided Savoy needed to be completely conquered.
I had to delivery Savoy, Cuneo and Nice to France.
...
Took them back when Austria and Castille declared war on France a few years later (Talk about Alliance Shiftings!)
...
Post by: Tarran on September 28, 2013, 03:58:22 am
It won't save them though. I formed Germany from Brandenburg. I have goddamn awesome Prussian ideas. I have claims over the majority of the Germany region. I have, multiple times now, beaten France, the HRE, Poland, and Lithuania all allied together in multiple wars. I am an unstoppable juggernaut, and nothing they can do will stop me, I will eat Germany no matter what. They may make me drain my 200K+ manpower pool each war, but that will not deter me when I am ultimately victorious.
I've also had many other times where I was DoW'd by angry neighbors, but after hard fought wars, they never managed to take even a single province from me. Still, two times I was on the rope and only a loan+merc spam saved me from a defeat.
I also seem to be the targets of every single insult devised. Seriously, I annex one piece of land and I get multiple insults from across the HRE. I don't get why.
Post by: PanH on September 28, 2013, 08:35:42 am
Though, now it's time to take my revenge, since I control modern days Canada, USA (not all the inland province though), and the former Aztec. I put my capital in Manhattan (my force limit went from 19 to 79, and I got +60 income, as well as plenty of manpower and stuff). And suddenly, France, Castille (never formed Spain, Aragon still alive and kicking), Russia and the Ottomans have the "Competing great power". I am allied with Castille AND France. Bye bye GB.
Post by: Lightning4 on September 28, 2013, 11:24:39 am
Hey there lightning, you started with Urbino?
Indeed! I'm aiming to form Italy. Eventually. I control the middle peninsula now, and am starting to overrun what's left of Naples. Then I have to start the long game of figuring out when and where to strike to get provinces that are in the empire. Or who to try to diploannex, though I haven't had any luck there yet whatsoever. Going to be fun.
I actually have to ask if the Ai cheats on the money.
I dunno. It does sometimes seem that they manage to pull money out of thin air, but I think the AI is completely unafraid to take loans. Loans are not really a big deal anymore, since you can take a lot of them, and the inflation you accrue can just be removed by about half a year to a year's worth of admin points.
I'm fairly sure that you can demand more money than a nation actually has, too. So they'll have to take a loan just to pay you. Then they'll need more loans just to rebuild their military.
I guess the best way to find out if they cheat is to watch their inflation. If it rises frequently, then they have full knowledge of the loan mechanic.
What was your worst 'FUBAR' moment in Europa Universalis IV by the way? (Generally asked to everyone)
My first ironman attempt as Brittany. I had managed to expand to the two provinces Provence controls on Brittany's border.
France declared war. I didn't manage to get any significant allies.
I deleted that save, there wasn't much hope.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on September 28, 2013, 12:41:12 pm
Already posted about it. Played as Japan, allied with Ming in order to prevent Korea (which had annexed Manchuria) and Zhou (which had annexed most of Ming) from gaining too much power. Ming declared war on Korea despite not having much military at all (2-5k troops versus their 20+k), and the truce timer offsets disallowed Zhou from participating. Instead of entering the war as an ally, I entered as a junior in the coalition which I forgot to leave after I allied Ming and which I didn't know that you're just screwed as a junior partner. I expended all of my cash and manpower just to keep Korea occupied, defeating them where I could and stopping them from capturing Ming territory. As soon as Korea turned the tides on their Eastern coastline (which I had captured about half of the Manchuria region), Zhou declared war. I was left without manpower or money, Ming kept us in the war with Korea forever while doing absolutely nothing other than moving around the 2-5k stack of troops it had so that they didn't fight the deathstacks from Korea. Zhou immediately moved ~30k troops into Ming territory and I pretty much ragequit.
A really dumb and kind of FUBAR situation I had in EU3 was when I was trying to WC with the Teutonic Order. I focused mostly on Northern Europe, West Asia, Africa and the Americas. That is, I didn't really focus on the Mediterranean or the Middle East. When I eventually turned my attention on Italy, I discovered that the Papal State had been annexed by a Protestant nation. As the sole remaining Catholic nation (except for a handful of one-provinces that were able to keep Catholicism), I made it my duty to reconquer Roma. After the war was over, I get the event stating that I should be a good Catholic and release the Papal State. I figure that I've got plenty of time to steamroll it later (I colonized almost all of North and South America and much of Africa by this point, pretty much nothing could challenge me), so I decide to do it since its in the spirit of playing as the Teutonic Order.
The Papal State was released. It regained Roma. Roma had been converted to Protestantism. The Papal State changed its state religion to Protestantism. The Pope was a Protestant and didn't like that I was of another religion.
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Post by: Sheb on September 30, 2013, 01:22:18 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 02, 2013, 11:53:40 pm
Denmark was the main antagonist since she swallowed both Sweden and Norway extremely early and had a monstrous naval force limit. It was nothing but pain trying to fight a coalition of France, Denmark and their respective allies. Luckily with all the trade I was abusing from the new world I was able to fund pretty much any force and I won the war of attrition.
Spoiler: pics (click to show/hide)
Almost all of those little colonies you see outside of NA were English colonies that I had to steal so I could finally annex them. Note the little red island in central Africa, that's their capital. :)
I could keep playing as I have a good chance at inheriting Spain since I was able to beat them in the colonial game as they burnt all their money on endless wars with France. I did however cook up an ungodly amount of AE conquering what was left of England so it's going to be endless tedious coalition wars forever which makes me loath 1.2 so much.
Post by: Tarran on October 03, 2013, 12:18:32 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 03, 2013, 12:52:12 am
Also an interesting thing to note is the +6 stability. It's of course not +6 stability but seems to be some kind of strange GUI bug I get very rarely. I'm thinking it has something to do with one of the graphic mods I'm using. Another graphical bug I get is the mouse pointer glitching. It looks like it's been sliced up horizontally per pixel line and pasted back together haphazardly.
Post by: Mipe on October 03, 2013, 06:09:39 am
Conquered and colonized the whole African coast from Trarza (west african coast) to Mogadishu (just short of Gulf of Aden). I was lucky the Europeans were busy colonizing the Americas they somehow got to early (the Spain took nearly whole South America.. I don't know how they managed to get there before Portugal). Eventually, England was controlling most of North America, Spain almost entire South America, Portugal kept going to the Maya town for gold and whores, Viyanawhatever blobbed across whole Indian subcontinent... well, thanks to me controlling the African coast and developing provinces, the trade node in Timbuktu climbed to 50 value. Sweet.
The only problem is that the Ottomans and Mamluks are pretty high tech, even higher than most western powers, only short of France. S'why I didn't keep expanding - kept the buffer of uncolonized province between us, which prevents them from steamrolling me with high-tech doomstacks. Goal: turn whole Africa beige. Chances: Mission Impossible.
Post by: Sheb on October 03, 2013, 07:09:38 am
Post by: shadenight123 on October 03, 2013, 07:10:23 am
Sherlock Shade has done his job.
Post by: Dutchling on October 03, 2013, 07:12:26 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 03, 2013, 07:14:47 am
Who are you playing?Oyo. It's a landlocked African native two-province-minor south of Songhai bordering Benin. It has a pleasing bone/beige colour.
I'm playing the colonizing game as England, and I have ran into a problem: I have no use for monarch points. The Welsh have gone extinct and I'm afraid the Irish will soon follow :/Sometimes you get stuck with points you can't do anything with and just have to suck it up. It's not uncommon to be sitting on 999 military points in a lot of games. I've learnt that there is a kind of "tempo" of national ideas which usually goes somewhat like mil - dip - dip -admin - mil although it's heavily depended on your unique national ideas and your leader.
Post by: Mipe on October 03, 2013, 07:28:05 am
Then years pass by until you can unlock your first settler. I opted to go with Expansion ideas rather than Exploration. Luckily Ashanti wasn't conquered by then, so as soon as I colonized the province leading to Gold Coast and Ashanti, I took 'em out briefly. Voila, gold mine! Watch the inflation, however.
After that, I could go for Mali or the rest of Hausa. There was another option - colonizing the way to Kongo and conquering it. Luckily, Mali was being shaken with constant revolts, so I subjugated it rather quickly while Songhai wasn't looking. Mali has two more gold provinces which are also 8 base tax. Most of those are animist, I left Sunni provinces out for later. In hindsight, vassalizing Mali may have been the better choice, only taking Jenne for myself so I could gun for Songhai.
In the end, I overcame Songhai and painted central africa beige. Colonize the whole coast so that Europeans couldn't settle. I had to unlock Quest for The New World to explore Fernando Po and St. Helena to deny the both to Europeans. Then from Kongo towards Cape and onward to Swahili...
Rather interesting game, some elements of luck, craftiness and insight. And oh, why won't inflation go down?! Sigh. There are too many gold provinces in Mutapa... Next time I'll just vassalize them.
Oh, and keep the Incapable Ruler malus in mind. Oyo is a tribal despotism, it gets punished for having over 10 provinces if it has an incapable ruler (below 4 stats). There is 3 revolt risk, 200% coring cost and -33% tax... manageable if you know what you are doing. You need to fill one of the ideas (I picked Economic) to change government form.
Post by: Jelle on October 07, 2013, 11:04:48 am
Specifically, the trade system complete eludes me. I understand there's static trade nodes and provinces belong to a certain node, and that trade flows to and from other nodes. But that's as far as I figured it out, no idea how this stuff works precisely. Apparently you can redirect flow somewhat, and trade value flows and accumilates to downstream nodes? And the trade value you get is dependant on your trade power in a trade node, and the trade value of said node?
Argh so confusing.
I'm also pretty puzzled by the specifics of warfare. Thus far I've mostly won through force of numbers wich seems effective enough. Still, I see it's not all numbers and dicerolls, I've lost battles I thought were in my favor and have had pretty assymetrical casualties in even fights. I see there's something called combat width, don't know what else is relevant.
And much more ofcourse, I'll have a read through some of this thread and see if I can learn anything, figured I'd start by asking first.
I should probably have chosen one of the recomended nations, for some reason I had the bright idea to play the Maya. Here's what happened in my game so far:
Laid some claims, warred with the zapotec and aztec respectively and assimlated some of their lands. Went through a rather dark time of civil unrest and rebellion, me not having Monarch of age certainly didn't help there. Cracked down on the rebels and the new ruler came of age and heralded the countries resurgance as it conquered what was left of Zapotec and Aztec.
It's about 1500 now and I have central america under pretty stable control, treasury is filling up nicely. Only problem it seems is the civilization is completely technologically backwards, and I incur a pretty hefty tech modifier as a new world civilization. Wich leaves me wondering what to do next, don't have any neighboring nations to conquer, and I can't colonize the nearby uncolonized land until I tech up. I've seen a portuguese vessel pass by so western nations are sure to come about sooner or later. Is my only hope to hang in there and hope I can westernize to compete and tech up?
Oh also what's up with royal marriages, I see it plays into the heir system? Apparenly huayna capac eligible to succeed my rule, since I made made a royal marriage with the Inca? Is this a bad thing?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 07, 2013, 11:19:18 am
Portugal is the main newbie country since all you have to do is be friendly with Castile and you can play the colonisation game and later come back to Europe with your colonial conscripts and wreck shit.
England used to be a good country in EU3 to pick but in EU4 they start in a very bad spot due to the 100 years war and the war of the roses.
Sweden is a decent choice since it becomes such a powerhouse in the Baltic, it also has the most flavour and some of the most powerful ideas in the game. You do start in a personal union with Denmark but that tends to be of a boon than a problem in the early game since it provides a lot of protection. Later you'll have so much powerhouse from expansion into the Baltic you'll be able to hit Denmark into submission and become independent with ease.
Castil is a lot like Portugal although a lot stronger but they do face the might of France which is extremely problematic. If you can starve off France for the early and mid game you have the very really possibility of taking the whole new world, returning and dominating all European politics.
France is a very powerful country but tends to be ganged up on by the whole of Europe extremely fast. The early game can be fairly difficult and the medium game can be very hard if you went too over board with conquest. France is a lesson in patience and discipline. Expanding too fast and too greedily will meet you the same end as Napoleon.
Austria and the German states have the HRE mechanics to worry about so they shouldn't be a first nation pick. If you do want to play the HRE game Brandenburg is a very decent minor with the possibility to have the strongest land army in the game.
Venice is an interesting choice to play the trade game. It does have to worry about both the Austrians and Ottomans. Pushing into Italy isn't recommended since it will push the brunt of the HRE onto you while pushing into the Mediterranean may push the brunt of the Ottomans onto you. Genoa isn't nearly as interesting as Venice but they do have the protection of the HRE. The Hansa is the trade power of the north which while protected by the HRE is highly limited on room for expansion which limits its options.
As for trade you'll want to consult this (http://imgur.com/a/A1Hk1) as a start and then play as one of the trading countries (like Venice or the Hansa) so you get a better understanding. You can then move on to the really in depth guide (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?707109-How-Trade-Works-(with-formulae))s if you feel you need them but they're really not needed unless you really want to abuse trade mechanics.
Land combat is really quite awful in describing how it works and really isn't transparent at all. To be honest there is actually quite a lot of conflict over what is the real way the system works. The wiki (http://eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare) has a nice breakdown of how it works. All I could really say is to make sure you have a bigger army than the enemy, make sure you're not fighting in bad terrain, not be behind the enemy in military tech and to never get in a land war with France.
As for royal marriages it really just means that if you have low prestige and no heir that a successor from another country may claim the throne, forcing you into a personal union which is like a vassal that doesn't pay tribute. It really isn't something to be too concerned with as a player as long as you maintain decent legitimacy and prestige.
Post by: gogis on October 07, 2013, 11:55:11 am
I'm playing the colonizing game as England, and I have ran into a problem: I have no use for monarch points. The Welsh have gone extinct and I'm afraid the Irish will soon follow :/
I usually start to spam corresponding buildings, this including taking loans, inflation is not such a beast in IV.
Hire generals up to limit, convert cultures. Real problem is adm points. You need this for coring and stability all the time, and these give ideas, which is a blessed points suckers. So if you have big problems with capped dip/mil points dont take admin ideas if possible. Wait for 3-4 dip/mil already taken.
Or just cry out the loss ::)
Post by: gogis on October 07, 2013, 12:09:22 pm
Well first off the bat never play a new world nation. They're completely flavourless and useless. Go for a nice powerful European nation as your starting choice.
Europe is not easier at start, and playing as HR state is also nightmare to maintain reputation, which means years and years of eventless sitting in front of computer. Easiest games too boot is either Ottomans (-33% core cost? I mean wtf?) or Muscovy. Both have huge forcelimits and army NI's, good and easy income and cakewalk rivals at start. Also you have all action from start to finish and you still close to all interesting stuff in Europe, but in a relaxing way.
Post by: Jelle on October 07, 2013, 01:34:32 pm
Also, more fun to steer history in the most improbable absurd direction.
Since nothings happening at the homefront, and I have close to no vision of the world beyond I took a look at the map on my latest save to see what the rest are up to. Apparently both the Portuguese and the Castille (I think they were called? Proto Spain) both have a colony at Brazil, and the former also have a colony at nearby Jamaica. About that, since it's an island, can I attempt to colonize nearby Cuba and westernize asap, or do I need a physical land border for that?
Additionally it seems the Flanders nation formed, in around 1550. Myself living in Flanders Belgium, this makes me giddy. :P
Note to self, keep this save and give rise to the great Flanders empire.
P.S. Exploration or Expansion idea for colonization? I figure exploring europe and beyond could be economically interesting, since I have a good amount of gold, sugar and coffee production. But then I still don't get trade, so you tell me. Or maybe europe will be coming to me instead very soon.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 07, 2013, 01:49:13 pm
Portugal and Castile are the main colonisers. They do so very fast and very efficiently. As a new world nation you'll find that after conquering all nearby tribes and nations you have nothing to do but wait for the europeans to come and conquer you. Believe me a new player will have no chance against an European invasion so it's a better use of your time to just start a new game after you've subjugated your neighbours.
Flanders I believe is owned by Burgundy at the start of the game. Burg will usually start to collapse a couple decades into the game and the low countries will be free. I believe if you play as Burgundy you can just release Flanders as a vassal and play from them, allowing you to form your mighty Flemish empire.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 07, 2013, 02:17:18 pm
Burg will usually start to collapse a couple decades into the game and the low countries will be free.
Not really free. If Burg collapses (monarch dies without heir), it gets split between France and the Holy Roman Emperor. Burg has to lose a war that causes the release of Flanders for Flanders to exist (or play as Burgundy and release them yourself, like you said).
Post by: Jelle on October 07, 2013, 03:50:42 pm
Portugal and Castile are the main colonisers. They do so very fast and very efficiently. As a new world nation you'll find that after conquering all nearby tribes and nations you have nothing to do but wait for the europeans to come and conquer you. Believe me a new player will have no chance against an European invasion so it's a better use of your time to just start a new game after you've subjugated your neighbours.
Later, I want to mess around and figure stuff out a bit more first.
For instance: I keep losing ships I sent out exploring due to 'navigating treacherous waters'. What gives? I was paying attention to the attrition, and it was only at about 30% I was navigating the spanish coast to, so close to the rest of europe...
Edit: Never mind, percentage was attrition value increase, not total. Wich I guess means my ships aren't good enough to cross the atlantic.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 07, 2013, 03:54:22 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 07, 2013, 04:34:58 pm
Edit: Never mind, percentage was attrition value increase, not total. Wich I guess means my ships aren't good enough to cross the atlantic.
Few ever are. You're going to need an in-between island to repair and then set out again from there. If you don't have one, try and get fleet-basing rights from someone that does. Otherwise you'll have to go north and hop from Iceland to Greenland then down south, but that may take a while before you can get colonial range on the coast.
Post by: MoLAoS on October 07, 2013, 05:20:21 pm
Having islands is more for colonial range than crossing the ocean per say.
Post by: Jelle on October 07, 2013, 05:41:24 pm
Things are starting to get more interesting to. In the far east Korea is starting to dominate, controlling land all the way from Russia to the now decimated Ming. Russia and Sweden both getting real big, probably going to duke it out sooner or later. Netherlands formed and started colonising North America, being the first to do so. And Castille creeping ever closer across the Brazillian coast, getting close to me and the Inca now.
I think I can westernize soon though, I don't think (rather I hope) Portugal much minds me settling a land next to them. Should have a nice clash in the Carribean and South America soon enough!
Post by: Jelle on October 08, 2013, 03:56:13 am
Anyway uh question: I was trying to reform my government into a monarchy through a national decision, one of the criteria is having completed either an administrative, innovative or econmic idea. Despite having completed the exploration idea, the criteria remains unchecked and I haven't been able to reform even though I had met the rest of the criterion. What's up with that?
Also sorry for posting nonstop. I only ask because my google fu fails me on this matter.
Edit: My bad, thought it meant an administrative, diplomatic or military idea. Ugh, will be a while before I can get a monarchy going then.
Post by: Chosrau on October 08, 2013, 04:16:29 am
Post by: shadenight123 on October 08, 2013, 04:58:35 am
What gives?
How in the frigging hellish hell can they still manage to earn a win with their armies when I'm continuously stomping them down in the dust?
And Great Britain allying with France. That I did not foresee.
Well, time to use the brunt of the HRE reforms to my benefit. (I did become emperor of the HRE apparently, with the Carlo IV of Savoia)
Btw, Venice has a Savoia in charge too...I wonder if I can claim the throne even if they hate my guts? We're basically family!
Post by: Tarran on October 08, 2013, 06:47:14 am
But on the bright side, at least they don't have Prussian ideas. Seriously, check the Prussian ideas. They are absurd.
Post by: Sheb on October 08, 2013, 08:24:38 am
Post by: Jelle on October 08, 2013, 02:26:01 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Those numbers are just absurd, how does this happen? I am fielding Longbow, Latin Knights and Houfnice. The enemy I think is fielding Condatta infantry, but I'm unsure (can I see information on their units somehow?)
I just can't figure out warfare. I'm sure it's glaringly obvious somehow, I don't understand a thing about these unit stats.
If you're interested, the war is the Maya and Inca alliance against the Castilia Portugal alliance, with me and Castille as leaders of the war. Portugal was moving against Inca, so I chose to honor my alliance and put a stop to it. Portugal was mostly assaulting me with endless white peace requests while I captured Carribean provinces uncontested, until that happened...
Post by: shadenight123 on October 08, 2013, 02:32:13 pm
It means, plainly put, that he is god.
He rolls a dice, he adds four.
On the other hand, Tecunuman has zero on the 'fire' and two on the 'shock'.
Furthermore, I don't know about 'Nazca'.
Was it a mountain region? Were you attacking or defending?
Attacking a mountain region means that you get a -3 penalty, furthermore the 'range' is reduced, and depending on circumstances you do not get flanking bonuses...
Post by: cerapa on October 08, 2013, 02:37:51 pm
And I highly doubt they had Condotta. You can look at enemy units during a battle, or just by looking at their military tech as they would most likely be using the best stuff available to them.
Post by: Jelle on October 08, 2013, 03:10:34 pm
Nazca is aproximatly 55% desert 25% desert mauntain 12% mauntain and 8% coastline, I don't know if that's the relevant info. I'm pretty much oblivious to how terrain matters in battle, except that mauntains have restricted combat width so are bad for flanking?
Post by: Tarran on October 08, 2013, 04:32:41 pm
Post by: lemon10 on October 08, 2013, 04:57:00 pm
2) Don't attack hills.
3) The rest of the terrain doesn't really matter (although forests have a small effect on combat width, it isn't really that important)
Both mountains and hills have 2 effects. The first effect is that combat width (the number of max units that can fight at once) is lowered (by 66% and 33%). The second is that you get a -3/-2 penalty, which is HUGE.
This means that if you have a very large army you won't be able to use most of your troops, while at the same time you will take tons more and deal tons less damage.
So, while with a significantly better army you will often 'win' in the mountains, you will still lose far more troops even in victory.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 09, 2013, 02:14:24 am
I _really_ need reinforcements but I have no manpower left, so I recruit 8 mercenaries, load them up into my 40 navy stack and thankfully make it past a blockade to deposit them on the mainland. Some skirmishing happens, but eventually Ming returns with a 55k+ doomstack. I figure this is the end, it's 55k+ versus my ~25k. I manage to hold my ground and end up winning, by a lot. I took 6,600 casualties, they took around 16,000.
They'll be back, and I really need reinforcements because I got knocked down to 16k troops that'll have to face off against more doomstacks. I recruit more mercenaries, but Ming distributes it's 80-combined-total navy to blockade me. Even though those mercs are sucking up money, they contribute to how Ming feels about the war (comparative army sizes), so I don't disband them. My mainland army is by itself, holding up in Hwanghae while some smaller stacks take the peninsula. I get the provinces I cared about and then send all but one cap stack to reinforce my forward defense in Hwanghae. I have reinforced to around 23k when the Ming doomstack returns. It's roughly at 39k. I hoped that my defense worked again, and it did. In return for less than 4000 casualties, I inflict 15k. They are very demoralized, and I decide to chase them down and end them to ruin Ming's manpower while my single capstack sits and tries to take the rest of Korea.
I manage to Scooby Doo chase Ming's demoralized stack (while it constantly reinforces from new regiments it builds) when I realize that I have almost no hope of killing this thing if Ming just keeps throwing ridiculous amounts of troops at it. Korean patriots spawn back in my conquered territory, so I leave with 12k out of Ming to fight 8k rebels. I fear that I'm going to be squashed between those rebels and the growing doomstack I left behind (I lost vision of it when it got back to around 17k) when, just as my armies are leaving Ming territory, Manchu DoW's Ming and I see 20k of their troops head down behind me.
YES! Thank you Manchu! You're the best! I make it back to the Korean patriots, which were actually worse than any other force I fought and got my forces dangerously low. The doomstack finally makes it out of Ming and away from Manchu at around 20-25k or so. I have around 11k at this point with like 6 regiments of 0 troops. I disband them and I consolidate as much as is reasonable since I won't be getting any more troops, only reinforcements from manpower (consolidating is necessary for winning fights if you really have to win them). The only thing keeping me afloat, really, are those 8 merc regiments I was barely able to maneuver past the blockades because they reinforce by themselves. This fight was much more close to me losing, but I managed to win, and a Manchu 15k stack followed the Ming forces and was able to finish them off. I cap the rest of Korea while Ming is busy with Manchu. Manchu peaces out after capturing 3 territories by settling for ducats only. A 30k Ming stack is headed right towards my depleted forces when I cap the last Korean province and then settle for 3 provinces and some ducats.
Lots of luck, there. Ming will likely recover and be super scary, but I think I'll be able to get more of Korea or perhaps vassalize them if I can manage it.
Post by: Dutchling on October 09, 2013, 12:49:56 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At least they're not colonizing :/
Post by: Jelle on October 09, 2013, 01:08:13 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As for the context; Got into an alliance with Orleans (wich turned into the dominant nation in stead of France), figured it would be a good way to keep the Castilia at bay should they get any ideas. They got embroiled in a war with the low lands and then some, and I joined the conflict. I raised a considerable army and started messing up the Dutch colonies in North America, who were undefended, and declared war on the English and took some of their nearby colonies on the way. Orleans seized considerable territory in the peace negotiations due thanks to me wrecking Dutch colonial holdings I think.
Fast forward a decade and Orleans is again defending against a Flemish attack, now joined by Savoy who is the big player in Italy and around Provincia, and I decided to join the war in Europe itself. Cue the Maya marching into Flanders. Let's see where this goes!
Anyway just wanted to share that.
Something tells me I won't be doing any continental Realpolitik in the foreseeable future o.O:Spoiler (click to show/hide)
At least they're not colonizing :/
Ahh how does this even happen, in my game the western european powers haven't amounted to much at all. It's nearing 18th century and I've yet to see such a huge force. The only western nation that is remotely powerful in my game is Castilia, whom I have been on good terms with thus far. No mighty Britain of France...
P.S If you're wondering about the lack of general on my army, it was the prince. Just as they landed on Europe he inherited the throne and apparently swam across the atlantic to the capitol.
Edit: Wooh another war, this time started by them. Seriously, it's not been a month since that last conflict, in wich I helped sink the massive Scottish fleet, and then got my ass handed to me by the papal state. This time it's England, I guess that's in my interest to at least.
Post by: MoLAoS on October 09, 2013, 02:18:19 pm
Takes me 20 or more years to core stuff which I didn't realize when I attacked. The large nation scaling is just stupid. By the time I'm ready to gank the rest of India my coring time will be in the 50+ range and that means if I overextend even a little bit I'll have massive revolts for 50 years...
I've killed literally millions of rebels and they just keep coming. Culture changes take about 10-15 years although religion changes only take 6-12 months.
And honestly I wouldn't even care but revolt risk makes troop recruiting impossible due to random rebels popping up and taking years to recruit even infantry. So I can't just double my army size and place 20 guys per 3 of my lands and then keep conquering.
Its not like the rebels even have a chance, its just the game slows to a glacial crawl as I maneuver my armies around and search for wrong culture or uncored areas. Its not difficult just dull.
The coalitions don't even matter, I could just ignore them and break tons of truces except that my overextension makes stability boosting impossible. I am considering just playing on -3 stab since I 3 revolt risk doesn't mean shit on top of 35.
It would just be better to lower ridiculous coring speeds. I can't even run off and go colonize since that would take forever to core and then my conquest provinces would also get another 200 provinces worth of coring time extension once my colonies were done.
It would be nice if core time could just be capped at like 10 years.
Post by: gogis on October 09, 2013, 02:43:16 pm
France has some great ideas, they have some good provinces, to top it off it will very likely get Lucky Nations if you have it on. If any nation is going to give you trouble in the game, chances are it's gonna be France unless everyone gangs up.
But on the bright side, at least they don't have Prussian ideas. Seriously, check the Prussian ideas. They are absurd.
Yeah, they are absurd. This went worse after some time, but I fully enjoyed this 5k vs 50k nonstop casualties ratio. Outright killing in one go 20-25 stacks? No problem. Then I went to examine France and Austria ideas. Seriously, any prussian capable country will wipe them over. Repeatedly. +20 discipline is so OP it's not funny.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 09, 2013, 03:04:32 pm
It would be nice if core time could just be capped at like 10 years.
Core time is capped at 20 years for 1.2. 1.2 was a bunch of fixes so that WC might be easier. I think you just bit off way more than you could chew there.
Post by: Dutchling on October 09, 2013, 03:07:46 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on October 09, 2013, 03:37:15 pm
It would be nice if core time could just be capped at like 10 years.
Core time is capped at 20 years for 1.2. 1.2 was a bunch of fixes so that WC might be easier. I think you just bit off way more than you could chew there.
Not at all. I don't have any problems taking down rebels. 1.2 set coring time to scale with nation size. So whether I took 100% extension or 700% extension I would still have to wait 15 years to get my cores.
The main problem is that I have to sit and do literally nothing for 15 years after every expansion phase. Its ridiculous. But more importantly, its boring.
Post by: shadenight123 on October 09, 2013, 03:44:25 pm
As Savoy, expanding in Italy means annexing countries under HRE, which is fine if Austria forgets to 'call your bluff'.
(at least in the beginning, because if Austria declares the territory you hold 'unlawful' you either give them back or suffer penalties in them)
Then thankfully Austria's seat is taken over by someone else. (In my case it was for a short while the palatinate and then someone else still).
When it finally got to me, I realized something: the more kings die fast, (with little changes to relationships) the easier it is to stack up on HRE powers (since the electors will revote you)
Now my seat is pretty much secure, and I'm making my way to the 're-unite HRE'.
It's going to be fun when I reach that point because...well, those who don't follow...BAM.
And those who follow...Immediate Annexation. At least, that's what I understood.
Post by: Jelle on October 10, 2013, 04:47:42 am
So I've been trying to figure out what is factoring in my empire's economy, wich is apparently the second strongest in the world (castile is first methinks), and how adding buildings will help me out.
First how does production and trade relate? If I increase my production, I increase my trade value in the trade node with it? But I also gain money from production alone, regardless of trade power I may or may not have in that node? If I increase my production, I take it it's best I ensure a high trade power in that node to doubly benefit?
Secondly, how does supply and demand work? I see they are both percentages, common sense would suggest increasing production would increase supply globally, but what factors into demand? I see that, for instance, the value on sugar has decreased pretty sharply compared to previous centuries, probably because of my and castile's colonization, will the value continue to drop if I ramp up production? Is it worth it at all to invest in my production capacity, or does that depend on global demand?
Thirdly, how do I counteract a merchant pulling trade value? If I understand correctly the power of the pull depends on the power in the trade node being pulled to, but what determines how much value gets pulled? Is it a factor of the trade power of the node being pulled to to the power of the merchant's nation in that trade node? Can I reduce the amount being pulled away from a node by another merchant by increasing my trade power there?
Lastly is there any benefit at all to increasing trade power in a node where I soly controle provinces? Does it help a merchant who is collecting from trade there, or is there really no point to it.
If you would like an idea of my economic situation and what considerations I'm making here's an overview: I controle all pronvinces in the mexico node, wich has a modest trade value (and no trade node to pull from, sadly) and is getting most its income from gold mines. I have a pretty strong influence in Panama (the inca trade power is laughable), sitting at about 55% in power and a pretty good value. I have close to no influence in the carribean, where castile and portugal are dominant. The two are pulling a large amount of trade value from panama to carribeans,and from there to southern europe. I would like to increase my production in panama but not before I stop more then half the value from leaving the node and flowing to europe. Also, if I were to hypothetically gain a strong influence in the carribean, would I benefit from placing my capital there and pulling trade value to there from my other regions?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also on another note, what determines the size of a province's population? From what I gather the size of a province effects the amount of tax I get from it? Does the size of a province increase over time, if so what factors into this? Or is it just a static vale for each province? I have one province that is fantastically large (taxes for like 13), and I'm curious how it got like that.
Post by: Mini on October 10, 2013, 05:13:10 am
First how does production and trade relate? If I increase my production, I increase my trade value in the trade node with it?Yes, and also your trade power.
But I also gain money from production alone, regardless of trade power I may or may not have in that node? If I increase my production, I take it it's best I ensure a high trade power in that node to doubly benefit?If there's not anything stopping you from getting the trade back to your capitol's node, yes. If there is something in the way then you can collect trade from anywhere, but there's a big penalty to trade power while you are doing it.
Secondly, how does supply and demand work? I see they are both percentages, common sense would suggest increasing production would increase supply globally, but what factors into demand? I see that, for instance, the value on sugar has decreased pretty sharply compared to previous centuries, probably because of my and castile's colonization, will the value continue to drop if I ramp up production? Is it worth it at all to invest in my production capacity, or does that depend on global demand?High stability will increase demand, low stability and revolt risk will reduce it. Other than that it depends a lot on the good, sugar's demand is increased by having customs houses. Producing more of it will lower the price, but I doubt it would get to the point where producing more would lower your income.
Thirdly, how do I counteract a merchant pulling trade value? If I understand correctly the power of the pull depends on the power in the trade node being pulled to, but what determines how much value gets pulled? Is it a factor of the trade power of the node being pulled to to the power of the merchant's nation in that trade node? Can I reduce the amount being pulled away from a node by another merchant by increasing my trade power there?It's all proportional to how much trade power you have in the node. If a node has 10 coming into it (total from flowing from other nodes and local production), you are trying to pull one way with 9 power and someone else is trying to pull another way with 1 power then the way you are trying to pull will get a base of 9 going that way, and the other will get a base of 1. If it's not been changed since last I played then having a merchant gives a multiplier depending on how many other merchants are pulling the same way, if there was a single merchant pulling each way then you would get 10.8 flowing your way and they would end up with 1.2 going their way. If a country has trade power in a node and it isn't their home node (the one with their capitol in it, if they do then it collects from the node, even without a merchant there) then their power is split between all the merchants that are there who are trying to pull along trade, if there are no merchants then it's split between all the routes out of the node equally.
Lastly is there any benefit at all to increasing trade power in a node where I soly controle provinces? Does it help a merchant who is collecting from trade there, or is there really no point to it.There's no immediate benefit, but if someone else ends up competing there then it means you immediately have the benefit of the extra trade power, instead of having to wait for it to finish building.
Also on another note, what determines the size of a province's population? From what I gather the size of a province effects the amount of tax I get from it? Does the size of a province increase over time, if so what factors into this? Or is it just a static vale for each province? I have one province that is fantastically large (taxes for like 13), and I'm curious how it got like that.Population doesn't exist in EU4, only base tax does. Actual size of the province is also irrelevant. Base tax doesn't increase by itself, but there are a few events that increase it, and some countries have decisions that increase it in a province too.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 10, 2013, 05:22:01 am
1.2 set coring time to scale with nation size. So whether I took 100% extension or 700% extension I would still have to wait 15 years to get my cores.
The main problem is that I have to sit and do literally nothing for 15 years after every expansion phase. Its ridiculous. But more importantly, its boring.
Wrong, coring time was always based on nation size (or at least definitely before 1.2). 1.2 actually decreased the nation size scaling factor by a flat amount and also set it to decrease its importance over time until it eventually reaches 0% influence near the end of the game (1800). If you were playing pre-1.2, you'd likely have 20 years to core instead.
I agree that coring mechanics make it frustrating to do very much, but you shouldn't wrongfully blame a patch that's actually helping you out in that regard. The changes in 1.2 were done in reaction to world conquers being pretty much mechanically impossible unless you exploited the hell out of the game. I still don't think that WCs are possible with the current coring mechanics, but I could be wrong.
Post by: Jelle on October 10, 2013, 08:34:24 am
It seems I have a rebellion on my hands. A wave of revolutionary ideas has put the country in turmoil, and the rapidly deteriorating royal line (seriously, the last guy was like 1 0 3, didn't conceive an heir instead found a baby in the reeds, then died leaving an even more incompetent regent council in charge and a 2 year old baby with very weak claim) has spurred onwards revolusionists everywhere.
Their demand seems to be to form a republic, all revolutionary armies are fighting for the same leader to. And you know, a republic actually sounds pretty good. Sadly I can't seem to negotiate with the rebels at all. I don't even know how to form a republic peacefully, all I can do is change to other forms of monarchy.
Is it game over if the revolutionsts succeed and my country breaks, or is there some way I can let this happen and assume controle of the newborn republic? If not, how do I even form a republic?
Post by: cerapa on October 10, 2013, 08:39:33 am
Is it game over if the revolutionsts succeed and my country breaks, or is there some way I can let this happen and assume controle of the newborn republic? If not, how do I even form a republic?I don't think you can ever straight up lose due to rebels. Perhaps lose a few provinces, lose some taxes and prestige, get your religion or goverment form changed, but that's about it.
Post by: shadenight123 on October 10, 2013, 08:48:21 am
Go in the panel (click on the banner) with the twin flags (one red and one black)
there should be a 'handle rebels'
There are options like 'accept demands' but those are greyed out until the rebels actually 'conquer' what they want.
So, peasants was less taxes in lombardia, peasants rise, 'conquer' lombardia and yell 'LESS TAXES'.
You agree, the peasant forces disappears and Lombardia now gets the 'reduced taxation' until the Year XXXX
Post by: Jelle on October 10, 2013, 09:08:23 am
I say was because it seems the revolution succeeded, surprisingly peaceful and seamless in fact. Once they captured sufficient territory I was forced to accept the demands, and now I have a new fully functional government. Somehow I thought this would be far messier.
I suppose I could've just waited and seen what would happen, I kind of panicked. :-[
I also feel sort of bad for the baby in the reed, who knows what they did with it.
As a sidenote, jeez so many free troops. All these rebel forces turned into a standing army, without manpower or gold cost. Better go conquering, for the republic!
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 10, 2013, 11:41:23 am
Is this still your Maya game? I think you're getting pretty darn far for a Mayan player.
Post by: Jelle on October 11, 2013, 03:11:08 pm
That's because the type of rebels were government revolutionaries that affect the entire country. Other rebels that only focus on one territory or a group of territories need to take much less land (depending on country size).
Is this still your Maya game? I think you're getting pretty darn far for a Mayan player.
Yeah, I was actually doing pretty well compared to other nations. I ended up with highest overall income globally somehow (probably inflation to, all that inca and aztec gold does that to an economy), and I just kept expanding. Eventually, after figuring out all the economy stuff, I got bored and invited death to the americas. Got into a war with France, Britain, Castile, Portugal and Sweden all at once, just for the heck of it. After seeing they weren't going to put up much of a fight (hard to transport so many troops overseas, and I don't know what Castile was even doing) I figured I was probably in for a boring ride of expansion till 1820.
I think I'm going to give another new world nation a go. I wonder what would happen if the Iroqouis Confederacy remained in power in North America, let's find out. :)
At any rate the provinces are way more valuable then those in Central and South America so far, those were all 1 and 2 tax rate provinces. Now I'm surrounded by 3 4 and 5 potential tax rate provinces, goody. Is this just particularly good land, or is central and south american land just particularly shitty?
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 11, 2013, 03:17:12 pm
Post by: gogis on October 11, 2013, 03:20:23 pm
That's because the type of rebels were government revolutionaries that affect the entire country. Other rebels that only focus on one territory or a group of territories need to take much less land (depending on country size).
Is this still your Maya game? I think you're getting pretty darn far for a Mayan player.
Yeah, I was actually doing pretty well compared to other nations. I ended up with highest overall income globally somehow (probably inflation to, all that inca and aztec gold does that to an economy), and I just kept expanding. Eventually, after figuring out all the economy stuff, I got bored and invited death to the americas. Got into a war with France, Britain, Castile, Portugal and Sweden all at once, just for the heck of it. After seeing they weren't going to put up much of a fight (hard to transport so many troops overseas, and I don't know what Castile was even doing) I figured I was probably in for a boring ride of expansion till 1820.
I think I'm going to give another new world nation a go. I wonder what would happen if the Iroqouis Confederacy remained in power in North America, let's find out. :)
At any rate the provinces are way more valuable then those in Central and South America so far, those were all 1 and 2 tax rate provinces. Now I'm surrounded by 3 4 and 5 potential tax rate provinces, goody. Is this just particularly good land, or is central and south american land just particularly shitty?
If you want to play inferior nations, you better to fire up some african tribe game, atleast you going to be much closer to europe to incite some action past 1600. Americas is incredibly boring to play in EU timespan. I had a Mali game, where I westernized and started trade and other wars past 1600, but it's was still pretty boring before that.
Post by: Descan on October 11, 2013, 04:11:17 pm
It'd be even nicer if the horde colonizing mechanics from EU3 DW were back in, only this time make it in the form of being able to colonize the lands of people who have a extremely lower tech-level than you (I.E. the difference between Europe and the Americas when they were colonized historically.) That way, instead of a bare-naked America, the natives can have the land as actual states and nations, and if they westernize and tech up, you can't colonize them. And unless you break them militarily, they can easily form up a sizeable regiment of units and drive you out. (also that way you can't colonize France as England ;P)
I don't think you should have to declare war and siege the province to colonize it, but the natives should be able to drive anyone out of any province they own if they can. You should be able to land troops on provinces you have a colony on, so you can defend your provinces, but you can't move into uncolonized native territory that a native nation owns until you put a colony there, and the provinces you can colonize either need to be neighbouring one of your provinces or a coastal province.
Add in this (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?650429-The-West-A-Dynamic-Colonial-Overhaul-for-Europa-Universalis-IV-) and the colonization might actually be good while still having a functioning native america!
Okay now that I've thought of all this I REALLY want it in the game. I wonder if you can mod it...
Post by: MoLAoS on October 11, 2013, 05:09:10 pm
Sadly I may just have to blanket war the far east so I can get a worthwhile number of provinces. 4 from Manchu 4 from Ming 4 from Korea 4 from Japan 4 from the other Japanese nation. Maybe head southeast too and nab another 5 nations. Although I may cause so much hate that I can't hit many south east nations before coalition kicks in. Bummer. I may be able to break my record of 1000 aggressive expansion that I hit against Malwa in India :P
I'm probably gonna raise another 400k troops made up of 6/4 inf cav though. That way I'll have 40 armies that can fight off the massive rebels I'll get after nabbing another 40-50 provinces. Holy shit am I gonna get a lot of rebels. But hey, at least with 50 rebel stacks running around and 10 new ones spawning every month I'll have a challenge. Even if the massive coalition against me were to be set off due to a dumb war dec by me, I would crush them into nothing.
Currently I'm raising the ships to transport my million man army and also building up production buildings to raise my tax base high enough to vassalize united Great Britain who has all the British islands lands except Cornwall which I stole to remove the 13 point distant borders penalty to my vassalizing them. Oh man will it be hilarious to vassalize the sole remaining great power in the world. Besides me.
Ming, under PU to Korea, doesn't count because they aren't western and are therefore week and pitiful.
I am the emperor of the HRE currently, because I vassalized electors. I really need to vassalize some other princes so I can finish maxing out reforms. Although if I form the united HRE I will lose my awesome color and title and possibly commonwealth ideas. Not sure. Does that happen?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 11, 2013, 05:26:43 pm
It's why I like the mods that add in a functional America.
There were a few mods in EU3 that already made the North Americans into "hordes" which really did make the Native Americans feel much more dynamic and interesting. The only flaw was that the coast of the Americas had to be "unoccupied" so it could be colonised which looked very strange.
This coupled with some events to spawn some free units for the natives plus some extremely big tech gains when being colonised by Europeans would be an extremely easy, fast and much more historical fix for North America and most other nomadic natives.
Sadly I don't think it's possible to bring back the horde system for EUIV. I don't see anyway to make the natives interesting at all with the current mechanics. They're really just better being "unoccupied" and having them rebel through events a bit like the colonial revolters.
Post by: werty892 on October 13, 2013, 10:16:19 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Backstory. Start off as France, kick England and Portugals ass in the 100 years war. I take the 2 bottom coastal provinces. Peace for a while. Fight Provence, fucks over because Brittany is occupying them, so I cant take my war goal. Oh well. Suddenly, Normandy splits away, and Calais joins me. I instantly invade and take over Normandy, then peace for a little bit. I'm shaping up to fight Brittany, and it turns out they are allied to Burgundy. Beat both of them, after a fucking long time. Take some Brittany and Burgundy. Burgundy gets cut up a few years later. So, because I'm a idiot, I decide to do a invasion of England. Get military access from Scotland and start shuttling troops up there. Realize one my troops are there I have no claim. But guess what! England invaded Connaught, and I ally with them, call to arms, and invade. And that's how I ended up there. Tons of newbie mistakes, but I am learning.
Post by: BFEL on October 15, 2013, 01:23:56 pm
Like for example how well does it handle the DLCs? Would a game where Sunset Invasion happened have more powerful Aztecs in the "New World"?
Same question for mods (I haven't downloaded anything, but I did change inherited traits to always inherit. Y'know for shits, giggles, and das uber dynastys.)
Speaking of dynasties, if I played straight until the end in 1400-whenever, would the last character of my dynasty still be alive during a converted EU4 game?
And what happens if I DON'T play till the end? Will it just fill in the blanks with regular old history?
Also, history is kinda boned in my CK2 games, is there a point where the converter just says "FUCK THAT, I'M OUT" and flat out flips its shit?
Post by: Dutchling on October 15, 2013, 01:28:41 pm
Question for you guys, I just got Crusader Kings 2 this week and as I was planning to eventually get EU4 I was wondering how well that converter thing worked between the games.If the Sunset Invasion DLC is turned on for the save, rergardless of invasion, you will have a different New World. Most noticeably is a special New World tech group with the same tech rate as the Western one. It also ports reformed pagan religions and Zoroastranism to new EU4 religions.
Like for example how well does it handle the DLCs? Would a game where Sunset Invasion happened have more powerful Aztecs in the "New World"?
Same question for mods (I haven't downloaded anything, but I did change inherited traits to always inherit. Y'know for shits, giggles, and das uber dynastys.)
Speaking of dynasties, if I played straight until the end in 1400-whenever, would the last character of my dynasty still be alive during a converted EU4 game?
And what happens if I DON'T play till the end? Will it just fill in the blanks with regular old history?
Also, history is kinda boned in my CK2 games, is there a point where the converter just says "FUCK THAT, I'M OUT" and flat out flips its shit?
Dynasties exist in EU4, and they will be the same as in CK2. It's not as important as in CK2 though. Your game will always become a 1444 save, no matter when you port the save.
Post by: BFEL on October 15, 2013, 01:55:13 pm
If the Sunset Invasion DLC is turned on for the save, rergardless of invasion, you will have a different New World. Most noticeably is a special New World tech group with the same tech rate as the Western one. It also ports reformed pagan religions and Zoroastranism to new EU4 religions.Well that's pretty awesome with the SI thing.
Dynasties exist in EU4, and they will be the same as in CK2. It's not as important as in CK2 though. Your game will always become a 1444 save, no matter when you port the save.
But does that mean it doesn't port unreformed pagan religions? If not what happens to them? Do they just get "catholicized?"
And what about Heresies?
These are kind important because in my current game its 1131 right now and the Aztecs (reformed) have completely CRUSHED pretty much all Catholicism.
It only exists as a sliver up in England/Scotland. And that's getting Norsed HARD.
This is notable because I actually don't have Sunset Invasion. I just turned my Italian Duchess into an Aztec (yes I am a dirty cheater) to get around the "trapped on all sides with no casus belli" thing and was planning to turn her back to catholic but it just kinda spiraled and now all Christianity is Heresies, mostly Cathar and that Wendelusian or whatever (the W's have taken Ireland completely) so it would be a little disappointing if I ported it and suddenly POOF EVERYONE IS CATHOLIC AGAIN.
Also the Sunni have taken the Byzantine empire. Completely. So there goes Orthodox as well. Guess the Miaphysites win the whole Christian thing. Granted they are also under Sunni hoof, but less so.
I'm currently trying to bring back Zoroastrianism to break up that damn Arabian Empire. By cheating.
IT SPIRALED OK? DON'T JUDGE ME!
Yeah the dynasty thing doesn't really worry me too much, but it will be fun to see what the converter does with it, seeing how 90% of the world population is either a strong-attractive-genius or most of those plus EVERY deformity.
I pretty much created Eugenics Land.
Post by: cerapa on October 15, 2013, 02:20:37 pm
I have no idea what will happen to you as an Aztec without SI. I haven't heard of anyone doing something like this.
Post by: Descan on October 15, 2013, 02:24:09 pm
That means you'll have Orthodox and Catholic and that's it. No Miaphysite.
Mods need to have their eu4_converter file modified to take into account the changes before they convert. I don't know what that'll mean for your own "always inherit" modification.
Also, yeah, no idea about the aztec thing. Probably, though? You'll be an Eastern tech-group (I think pagans turn into Eastern when they are reformed and converted. Might be wrong.) and there will be no New World changes. Unless you turn on Sunset Invasion for when you convert.
Post by: BFEL on October 15, 2013, 03:29:50 pm
But I'm pretty sure Miaphysite isn't a heresy, its considered a separate entity, just like Orthodox is separate from Catholic.
Granted EU might not take that into account, but that's how it works in CK2
I have NO idea what changes I would need to make to the converter file. This lack of knowledge is exacerbated by the fact I haven't downloaded the EU converter. Since I haven't bought EU yet. Would be kinda silly to buy the converter without the other game.
And that surprises me that I'm the only one to go Aztec sans SI, seems like the kind of thing non-cheaty people would do for extra hards. As for me I can't play normally for ten seconds without opening that console :P
Also, Lithuania is ruled by Draguns.
Nothing else in this will ever be that awesome.
EDIT: WELCOME TO CRAZY WORLD!
Spoiler: religion map (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: realm map (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: HERE THERE BE DRAGUNS (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Also Here (click to show/hide)
Post by: Jelle on October 16, 2013, 04:30:58 pm
Spoiler: religion map (click to show/hide)
That is...I don't know what that is. Interesting, I guess? ???
Anyyyway, doesn't seem I was able to form a strong native american nation like I did with the maya. Tried twice, went smoothly to. By 1540+- I would start colonizing, by 1600 I would own land from right up to Florido to Massachutes (hope I spelled that right, from the other side of the atlantic), and an immensly strong economy. Then the colonial powers come along and despite me westernizing asap, they go straight for me and grab all my hard earned land, all the while completely ignoring the Cherokee, Aztec and Inca.
I don't know, does having a lot of high quality land make you a bigger target?
Also
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I don't know if it's my influence or not, but southen Asia sure seems bloody this era.
Post by: Tarran on October 16, 2013, 06:04:33 pm
Also, I do suggest prioritizing colonization some time before Europe gets there. Don't want some ugly Spanish yellow in your neighborhood, do you?
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 16, 2013, 06:29:04 pm
Also, Ming is programmed to fracture at low stability (or have a chance at fracturing). That's why it does that.
Post by: BFEL on October 16, 2013, 09:33:21 pm
That is...I don't know what that is. Interesting, I guess? ???
Basically that's the religion view from my crazygame.
Everything in Europe that started off worshipping Catholicism is now worshipping Aztec gods, and every other Christian denomination is getting torn apart by muslims, other pagan faiths, or just multiple heresies. Basically Jesus died twice in this world.
Post by: MoLAoS on October 17, 2013, 12:02:51 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 17, 2013, 12:58:37 am
Quote from: hauptman
1.1 combat was fine. Everything worked as intended. 1.2 changed something. Someone left out a decimal or a number and it all went to hell. The "testers" only tested early game, as in they would start a new game to see the problem, see huge casualty rates, so they halved damage which made late game combat even worse.Source (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?728878-Extensive-combat-testing-in-1.22-and-why-combat-number-are-so-skewed&p=16302200&viewfull=1#post16302200)
So according to what Kongoman did, what happened is, in 1.2 infantry fire became a fixed 2 instead of the intended scaling modifier. since that number is simply a multiplier, no matter the erra, infantry did 4 times the damage of the roll. Early game when you have no tactics to offset damage, you Gibbed an army with a high roll. The infantry fire early game is supposed to quarter damage to offset this. Now in 1.2.2 they "halved" damage. So in effect they changed the bugged fixed number from a 2 to a 1. So the problem was still there. And when the fire rating should be higher late game (2) it is now at a fixed 1. so we saw much longer battles with dozens of casualties. As the modifier was supposed to offset the large number of pips and tactics.
I am asuming this works exactly the same for shock numbers and all unit types. I cant imagine they have a seperate line of code for those, and would have only made the mistake in 1 place.
So late game when artilery fire should be 4+, it remains a 1. Cavalry shock also gets upto the 4+ range. Also staying 1 the entire game. This in all is what killed late game casualty rates.
And as everyone seemed to notice, Mid game seemed to even out and be fine. That's because mid game, they are supposed to be at 1. when arty becomes available I'm pretty sure it starts with a 1 rating in the tech screen. It isnt until later techs that it's supposed to get bumped. tech 10 or so, pretty much all modifiers should list at or near 1 in the fire/shock modifiers in the tech screen, and as such combat was perfectly fine.
The OP of that thread has the research, and the following pages have more research that validates that the weapon modifiers from tech levels and combat ability modifiers do not work at all.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 19, 2013, 07:58:32 pm
Post by: Dutchling on October 19, 2013, 08:26:07 pm
I will wait until I get a new pc :P
Post by: shadenight123 on October 20, 2013, 02:33:00 am
Italy is now formed.
Rise, my patriots, rise!
(Because, for some strange reason, I also managed to assimilate Wurtemburg and go from there)
And when the dust settles, I will be Emperor again!
Post by: Jelle on October 20, 2013, 12:22:19 pm
Actually what is that government type anyway, I noticed it in Asia once or twice but have no idea how it works.
Post by: shadenight123 on October 20, 2013, 01:19:31 pm
I have also kicked France's ass for the FIRST TIME.
DO YOU HEAR ME FRENCHMEN!? VIVE LA REVOLUTION is done! Now is the Era of Glorious Italy! We punch the Ottomans, we feast on your French flesh! We devour the infidels!
All Hail Italy!
//Nationalistic Rant done//
Unfortunately, Italy (Savoy) is a monarchy...I did kick the Revolutionary down, (Aiming at enlightened Monarchy) but I wonder when I'll reach the 'Unite the Empire' mark, if it will become the 'Holy Roman Empire' once more. (Ps, Italy gets a nice 10% to Imperial Authority, because we are the TRUE emperors!)
Post by: werty892 on October 20, 2013, 01:53:45 pm
Spoiler: Warning, Large (click to show/hide)
Post by: PanH on October 20, 2013, 03:45:31 pm
Post by: werty892 on October 20, 2013, 04:13:25 pm
Is it Spain in the British Isles ? Also, you don't even have the French Region (vassalize Burgundy in a war and diplo annex them later). You might want to dismantle/weaken the HRE too.No. That's Scotland. Good ideas though.
Post by: gogis on October 22, 2013, 04:46:34 pm
Oh man.
This looks awesome, but I don't want to spent £35 on it.
I'll get it when it's on sale, I guess.
Btw, with all my love to EU3, EU4 *even now* is a better game.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 22, 2013, 06:09:32 pm
Oh man.
This looks awesome, but I don't want to spent £35 on it.
I'll get it when it's on sale, I guess.
Btw, with all my love to EU3, EU4 *even now* is a better game.
Not sure how many people would agree with you, but I would. I just really wish World Conquers weren't so impossible.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on October 22, 2013, 08:15:26 pm
Anyone here about the combat fuckup in the latest patch? Combat modifiers don't work and so basically cav and cannons suck. Among other problems. Also no wonder my PLC is getting so screwed.
Did this get fixed yet?
Post by: Lightning4 on October 22, 2013, 08:50:23 pm
Anyone here about the combat fuckup in the latest patch? Combat modifiers don't work and so basically cav and cannons suck. Among other problems. Also no wonder my PLC is getting so screwed.
Did this get fixed yet?
Nope, not yet.
I'm honestly not sure how much issue there is though. Half of the issue is apparently "WAD", in the sense that weapon modifiers and such only apply if you're actually fighting someone of a different tech, which the combat tests didn't capture.
But jury seems to be out on whether the combat ability modifiers are actually broken or not.
Either way, combat is slated to get rebalanced in 1.3
Post by: Rakonas on October 22, 2013, 09:01:47 pm
Yeah, I'm holding off until something changes so that things aren't so terrible for anyone who wants a legitimate land empire instead of a trade/colonial one. Even keeping up with real world ottoman expansion through the 16th century is a chore because of how angry the game mechanics get at you. Combine that with the impossibility of holding any land that's not cored and how easy and clearly beneficial it is to convert every province and it becomes not terribly fun.Oh man.
This looks awesome, but I don't want to spent £35 on it.
I'll get it when it's on sale, I guess.
Btw, with all my love to EU3, EU4 *even now* is a better game.
Not sure how many people would agree with you, but I would. I just really wish World Conquers weren't so impossible.
Once overextension is based on proportion and not a flat value masquerading as a percentage I'll be excited for the game again.
Post by: gogis on October 23, 2013, 04:46:39 pm
And I made Brandenburg/Ottomans/Byzantine/Russia/Mali superpowers all in 1600s. I was happy with result, I never really noticed all that horrendous bugs you describe here. All these games was reliant on land, not naval, and my trade superiority only fired so much late into game, strictly due to me controlling hefty landmass, rather than any kind of naval/trade focus.
And idk about any serious army flaws, I had some problems with Russia, I had severe problems with Byzantium; I went 2 land ideas straight away and lost 4 to 11 land tech to my neighbours, but it's was quickly solved with mass hiring merc regiments of proper land tech level and raping everybodies asses around. With brandenburg (read prussian ideas, it's insane!!) I demolished multiple armies thorough, including several 30k vs 80-90k wipes in my favor.
Game works. Amount of new options, compared to EU3 is staggering. Despite of my hate to all heavy graphics and laggy overall game, it's just outright plain better than EU3. Worthy purchase, hands down. I can't even imagine how great it will be after all patches and mods.
Seriously, stupid sliders compared to new 3 types monarch points separated from treasury? No contest.
p.s. I still cry how bad TW: Rome 2 now :-[
Post by: shadenight123 on October 24, 2013, 04:37:35 am
So when it ended in 1821 I was sad.
Sniffles.
I didn't manage to form the Glorious Italian Empire, but I did diplo-annex half of the vassals I freed from the Ottomans. Sniffles. I had the strongest army.
Sniffles.
I was the best income player.
Sniffles.
I even destroyed the revolutionaries without batting an eyelid.
Sniffles more.
And I got back Provence and Dauphnè from those damn frenchmen.
Post by: Jelle on October 26, 2013, 05:49:20 pm
Spent some five years idle filling up the royal treasury (Antwerp is nice) till I had enough to build a decent army. Decided to take my chances and declare war on Burgondy for independance. Through a miraculous series of fortunate events, I managed to crush the habsburg/low land alliance of more then 45000 men with my 16000 strong army.
When I say a series of fortunate events, I mean the heretic uprising my decleration of war spawned handily ontop the 16000 habsburg army that was sitting in one of my provinces, a battle after wich I swooped in and capitalized on the low morale it left them. Followed by a horrible stack of units foolishly throwing themselves at one of my provinces walls (when is it ever a good choice to not wait the siege out), again followed by me utterly crushing their remaining morale despite their overwhelming numbers.
After those dramatic events Habsburg near instantaniously dissolved, leaving its provinces to France and Austria. Rest of the low lands had with little army they had on the run after that last battle, leaving me with war against their alliance of no real military strength. Oh and England likes me, once I end the war I should be able to form and alliance following this royal marriage. Only five years have passed yet to, should be an interesting game. :)
Post by: MoLAoS on October 26, 2013, 07:01:25 pm
Post by: Descan on October 26, 2013, 07:52:20 pm
Post by: BFEL on October 26, 2013, 09:47:00 pm
It seems that it adds tech groups and such, but every time I attempt it I get error messages. Also is there any rime or reason behind the amount of adm/dip/mil power points you can store? I have no idea why there is a limit, or why that limit is what it is.
Post by: Simmura McCrea on October 26, 2013, 09:59:05 pm
So is anyone else here a big cheater like me? Because I REALLY want to know what the hell the syntax is for the "power" cheat.Western tech gets a max of 999 power points, everyone else gets more based on their increased tech cost. If you're cheating then you can keep up with the westerners easily because of it.
It seems that it adds tech groups and such, but every time I attempt it I get error messages. Also is there any rime or reason behind the amount of adm/dip/mil power points you can store? I have no idea why there is a limit, or why that limit is what it is.
And if you mean the power points cheat, it's just "powerpoints". If you mean adding tech groups and whatnot, god only knows.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 02:04:31 am
You can cheat above 999/your tech group equivalent so you can tech up above legal limits. If you do have more than 999 and you research a tech it will revert back to 999 and force you to enter the code again if the tech increase is more than 999.
This can be quite handy to see all the different countries' unit sprites throughout the ages. I quite like the later indian sprites since they have fantastic beards and turbans. South Americans get rather colourful late uniforms. Some artillery sprites don't work for some cultures and will revert to generic european halberdier.
Post by: BFEL on October 27, 2013, 02:31:36 am
You can cheat above 999/your tech group equivalent so you can tech up above legal limits. If you do have more than 999 and you research a tech it will revert back to 999 and force you to enter the code again if the tech increase is more than 999.
This can be quite handy to see all the different countries' unit sprites throughout the ages. I quite like the later indian sprites since they have fantastic beards and turbans. South Americans get rather colourful late uniforms. Some artillery sprites don't work for some cultures and will revert to generic european halberdier.
So how do I do this thing what you have described?
Post by: a1s on October 27, 2013, 02:38:20 am
To cheat power points just enter mil, adm or dip [into the console] followed by your chosen number. E.g. "dip 800".
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 03:03:45 am
If you have a foreign keyboard it might lack the key and you'll have to go hunting on google on how to perform it.
Post by: Jelle on October 27, 2013, 03:54:26 am
...Don't judge me, I used it to murder my ruler. Those incapable ruler modifiers for a tribal government are crippling. :(
Post by: Sheb on October 27, 2013, 05:20:17 am
Post by: NRDL on October 27, 2013, 05:28:03 am
Post by: Dutchling on October 27, 2013, 05:28:10 am
Post by: Sheb on October 27, 2013, 05:31:31 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 27, 2013, 06:06:20 am
The Catholic incursion in Japan is actually relatively easily solved if you want to focus on it. When you get the "Western Trade" event and modifier, you lose missionary chance and gain a very small tech bonus. The missionary hit is a huge problem because you're going to be screwed by lack of religious unity if you're capturing provinces on the mainland. After a while, two different events may fire periodically: a province is auto-turned to Catholicism, or a province is auto-turned from Catholicism into Shinto and it spawns a giant mob.
The solution is to raise your stability to 2 and gain 200 points of ADM, DIP and MIL, then choose the national event that ends the Western Trade modifier. You can also choose another national event that gives you +5% stability cost but +1% missionary chance if you want that bonus to converting provinces when you end Western Trade, so you'll want to do those as quickly as possible if you want to stay Shinto. Also, the event where provinces are auto-converted from Catholicism into Shinto and spawn rebels continue to fire after this, which aids in establishing religious unity as fast as possible.
After all of that happens, you should have enough bonuses to missionary chance that you'll be able to convert provinces without religious ideas rather quickly (or as quickly as I've ever seen it, ~19 months for low-tax provinces).
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 06:11:19 am
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 27, 2013, 06:13:42 am
Post by: BFEL on October 27, 2013, 06:46:04 am
Yup as a1s edited my post to make it clearer just punch it into the console. If you don't know how to open the console you have to push the grave accent key (`). It is not tilde (~) like a lot of other games.:P I know how to open the console, its the first thing I did XD
If you have a foreign keyboard it might lack the key and you'll have to go hunting on google on how to perform it.
And for my it IS tilde, oddly enough.
What I'm confused about is that you said its possible to get your powerpoints above max with cheats but I've BEEN cheating. HARD. I constantly have max powerpoints, but it never goes over. Is that because I'm just using the cheat [powerpoints]? Does it work differently if I use the dip/adm/mil version and specify amount? I would really like to see the rest of the tech tree (and unleash its full fury upon those silly backwards other nations) but I can't go above tech level 5 or so until a certain year is reached and frankly....that's retarded.
Also I can confirm that Japan is badass. Granted I HAVE been cheating, but everyone talks about Prussian ideas being OP because of +20 discipline, and Japan gets that BY DEFAULT. The plus twenty discipline I mean, not Prussian ideas :P that would be weird.
Addendum: In my quest for hilariously OP cheating I had briefly considered modding in a ridonkeylous country with stuff like -2000% tech cost as its base idea, but I can't figure out what to do to get it as a starting country on the map. The guide on the wiki was fairly decent and most of the stuff was obvious already but all the guide said about actually getting it in the game was "conditions for forming it" which I want to be "is formed and selectable right off the bat"
Post by: Chaoswizkid on October 27, 2013, 06:54:13 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 07:07:22 am
snipI will try to answer your question with an image I (poorly) made.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Jelle on October 27, 2013, 07:48:21 am
I do like a bit of modding however, and I wouldn't mind tinkering with this game. If anyone has the knowhow, beyond entering console commands, do share!
Also diplomacy sure is a lot more interesting in westen europe then what I'm used to from my previous games, where I mostly ignored diplomatic relations to the point of shunning alliances. After taking a huge agressive expansion hit and being targeted by a coalition, and ultimately a war, from a large amount western nations, I realized I have to adapt to this diplomatic climate!
So went back in time a bit to rectify the situation. I think I'm in a decent spot now, but I'm still pretty clueless on how to proceed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Both England and France have decided to make me a rival, not much to do about that. Hope it'll be the friendly kind of rivalry. Castile was cordial to me, so I struck an alliance and diplomatic marriage with them. Then out of nowhere Hungary wants to be my ally to. I figure they are a good ally against France and Austria respectively, if they try anything.
So what's your take on this diplomatic situation. Any advice on how to proceed?
Post by: Sheb on October 27, 2013, 08:01:18 am
You'll want to take down France and Britain sooner or later. Don't touch France until a bunch of coalition kicked their asses. For Britain, get more ships than they do, then attack some minor nation allied to them. Careful use of naval superiority will let you take parts of their realm and split their troops, then have them release everything you can make them release to weaken them.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 08:09:25 am
It's likely you won't be able to expand into Europe in your current state much at all. I would go for a colonial game and perhaps rush through Africa abusing native basking rights and get a nice strangle hold on India and SEA. You could try for the Americas but it would probably be easier to just leech the trade that GB/France makes when it colonises the north. It's a lot easier to lock the other Europeans out of asia than it is the Americas obviously due to the time advantage Castile and Portugal has to secure colonies. Hell, exploration is likely a great first choice since you will likely be avoiding battles as much as possible.
I'm not sure if Flanders can get the Dutch union events so forming the Netherlands might be a great deal harder.
While you can beat France in a land war and England in a sea war I tend to avoid it since it takes such absurd resources unless you can find a really lucky time to attack. Neutrality and patience seems to be the key to playing the low countries and remember that you can always come back and claim what's rightfully your's with a bunch of colonial conscripts to throw at fortress walls.
Post by: Dutchling on October 27, 2013, 08:11:37 am
Flanders will likely have troubles playing imperial politics since it's not the correct culture (German)Actually, in vanilla EU4 Flemish is a Germanic culture.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 27, 2013, 08:18:25 am
Colonialism is still the smarter play.
Post by: Jelle on October 28, 2013, 10:42:08 am
Meanwhile the French and the English at having at it, hopefully leaving me free to gobble up the lesser nations of the HRE to the east.
I'm not sure if Flanders can get the Dutch union events so forming the Netherlands might be a great deal harder.I can form the Dutch nation yes. But frankly, It'd kind of kill the fun for me nor are the advantages that important, so I think I'll leave it.
Well I stand corrected. For some reason I thought it was bundled with the French. You still generally have to be a larger nation to gain respect in the HRE although you can game the system with electors and religion switching.Don't know about game mechanically, but historically Flemish culture is mostly Germanic, while Wallonian (wich is an accepted culture in my nation currently) is Latin.
I did look into joining the HRE, but it said something in the lines of "Your nation is to large to join the HRE, the emperor would never allow it.". Egh, screw them anyway, I'll just drag the provinces I take out the empire.
Edit: Also what does the 'same dynasty' diplo modifier mean? My ruler has the same family name as the other nation, wich is probably it. Still, how does it work? Can I 'inject' my dynasty in another nation with marriages?
Post by: Sheb on October 28, 2013, 11:09:03 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 29, 2013, 09:16:50 am
Big image, link here: http://i.imgur.com/hnCZnOP.png
I managed to get Winged Hussars, Poland can into Space, Market Control, Aggressive Expander, This navy can take it all, Master of India and Down Under all in one game. I'm really disappointed I couldn't get Trade Hegemony since it's locked to Western Europeans for some stupid reason.
I'm rather proud of my colonial empire since I never wasted points on Exploration and therefore was limited to a single colonist and the other powers already took a lot of the good stuff. I couldn't conquer as many natives in SEA as I would have wanted due to a massive issue with coalitions which Russia would always god damn join.
Post by: PanH on October 29, 2013, 09:32:00 am
1) Join and unite the HRE (but Austria will hate you if you get into the HRE, even if they're always friendly before).
2) Prevent Russia from forming (but gotta do this early, by guaranteeing Novgorod).
Though, it's quite impressive that you gobbled up the Ottomans. Also, is it natives still living in America :o ?
Post by: a1s on October 29, 2013, 09:36:31 am
Poor Poland didn't release that the world wasn't flat and therefore got creative in finding a way to India.You realize that from Poland the land route to India is like 3 times shorter then the seaborne route (even to the West Indies), right?
Big image, link here: http://i.imgur.com/hnCZnOP.png
Post by: LordSlowpoke on October 29, 2013, 09:40:44 am
Poor Poland didn't release that the world wasn't flat and therefore got creative in finding a way to India.You realize that from Poland the land route to India is like 3 times shorter then the seaborne route (even to the West Indies), right?
Big image, link here: http://i.imgur.com/hnCZnOP.png
not if you use the might of the empire to cut a canal from the black sea to the persian gulf no
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 29, 2013, 09:47:17 am
Though, it's quite impressive that you gobbled up the Ottomans. Also, is it natives still living in America :o ?Yup the natives are all alive and dandy, one of them westernised (I forgot which). I can only assumed that the some of the powers guaranteed them or they joined some smart coalitions.
The Uzbeks also westernised and made a face of doom in Russia. Mali managed to beat the snot of Spain and got back it's provinces, defeat portugal but could not compete with the Grande Armée.
HRE formed as usual which is annoying and finally almost every single province that could be colonised is, I think the exception is Timbuktu and a single province in North America.
You realize that from Poland the land route to India is like 3 times shorter then the seaborne route (even to the West Indies), right?I do realise that but it didn't start as a game to conquer India, it rarely does as Poland. I was merely trying to get Winged Hussars and Poland can into Space but I pushed into Turkey after the Ottomans got into some devastating wars with Venice/Austia. It seemed like a perfect launching pad into India through Persia/Mid East without having to colonist rush Africa. It also let me have my capital in Constantinople which is far better than Warsaw for East Indian Trade.
Overland trade also has the benefit of not being stolen by light ships and therefore allowed me to reserve more naval forces to heavier ships which Poland needs to compete in naval warfare in anyway.
not if you use the might of the empire to cut a canal from the black sea to the persian gulf noI really want to port it to Victoria II just for the Suez Canal alone.
Post by: Jelle on October 29, 2013, 01:21:59 pm
Big image, link here: http://i.imgur.com/hnCZnOP.pngLooks like an extended version of Alexander the Great's empire, but then with Poland at the head. Impressive! What year is it at?
I'm at 1580 and going strong. Somehow France just keeps rearing its ugly head, despite being at war with everyone and having been crushed by coallitions on a regular basis. It's like they pissed off every major european power yet they're still trucking along, colonizing my americas...
Is it like a universal constant that everyone hates France? Not that I'm complaining, they're a thorn in my side.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on October 29, 2013, 01:34:32 pm
Big image, link here: http://i.imgur.com/hnCZnOP.pngLooks like an extended version of Alexander the Great's empire, but then with Poland at the head. Impressive! What year is it at?
I'm at 1580 and going strong. Somehow France just keeps rearing its ugly head, despite being at war with everyone and having been crushed by coallitions on a regular basis. It's like they pissed off every major european power yet they're still trucking along, colonizing my americas...
Is it like a universal constant that everyone hates France? Not that I'm complaining, they're a thorn in my side.
i'm fairly sure that historically francexpoland otp (shipped by poles mostly)
so you know without the polish part there seems to be a problem
Post by: Tarran on October 29, 2013, 03:59:46 pm
Post by: Jelle on October 30, 2013, 10:49:42 am
i'm fairly sure that historically francexpoland otp (shipped by poles mostly)
so you know without the polish part there seems to be a problem
I don't know what you just said. :(
In any case, I had an image lying around thought I'd share. Anyone with a knowledge of low lands history will find this funny no doubt. :)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: shadenight123 on October 30, 2013, 11:09:01 am
That was funny.
Have no clue about Habsburg or whatever.
But anything that starts with 'Take that!' is usually funny in some way.
Post by: Dutchling on October 30, 2013, 11:09:59 am
Ah. 'Take that!'>.<
That was funny.
Have no clue about Habsburg or whatever.
But anything that starts with 'Take that!' is usually funny in some way.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 30, 2013, 11:16:22 am
(http://i.imgur.com/ledBf0D.jpg)
Have no clue about Habsburg or whatever.The Habsburg were arguably the most successful european dynasty ever. At their height they had most of Europe under their dynasty and their family motto is: "Leave the waging of wars to others! But you, happy Austria, marry; for the realms which Mars awards to others, Venus transfers to you."
Post by: a1s on October 30, 2013, 11:40:29 am
Have no clue about Habsburg or whatever.Habsburgs were the foreign kings of the Netherlands (among oh so many other things that family got into) until The Republic kicked them out. If this event is about a Flandrian noble replacing a Habsburg on one of the European thrones (and didn't just have them as flavor text) it could be considered a sort of karmic payback.
But anything that starts with 'Take that!' is usually funny in some way.
Post by: Dutchling on October 30, 2013, 11:57:53 am
Except that Flanders decided halfway through the "kicking out" phase that they actually did want to stay with the Hapsburgs >.>Have no clue about Habsburg or whatever.Habsburgs were the foreign kings of the Netherlands (among oh so many other things that family got into) until The Republic kicked them out. If this event is about a Flandrian noble replacing a Habsburg on one of the European thrones (and didn't just have them as flavor text) it could be considered a sort of karmic payback.
But anything that starts with 'Take that!' is usually funny in some way.
* Dutchling shakes his fists and mutters "southern scum..."
Post by: Jelle on October 30, 2013, 04:11:15 pm
Habsburgs were the foreign kings of the Netherlands (among oh so many other things that family got into) until The Republic kicked them out. If this event is about a Flandrian noble replacing a Habsburg on one of the European thrones (and didn't just have them as flavor text) it could be considered a sort of karmic payback.That's the general idea yes, beating them at their own game. :P
The dynasty spread all over in fact, from Hungary to the east, Bohemia who is now a mere shell, to Denmark who rules all of Scandinavia. Less prominent but nontheless symbolically important to the holy roman empire the dynasty in Aachen, and the resulting incorperation in the nation and expulsion from the empire. With some luck, soon Spain to will have a Flemish monarch. :)
Except that Flanders decided halfway through the "kicking out" phase that they actually did want to stay with the Hapsburgs >.>Ah the disuniy brought by religious strife, it's unfortunate not more at the time shared the views of religious tolerance held by the Prince of Orange. Had the unification held, the debacle with the French and the Spanish reconquest that followed it could maybe have been averted. :-\
* Dutchling shakes his fists and mutters "southern scum..."
On another note, this sure escalated quickly!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
btw if the amount of images is becoming tiresome just let me know. Having to much fun with the crazy stuff that keeps happening this game. :P
Post by: ibot66 on October 30, 2013, 10:04:17 pm
Post by: hexedmagica on November 04, 2013, 10:27:56 am
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?733017-Europa-Universalis-IV-Conquest-of-Paradise (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?733017-Europa-Universalis-IV-Conquest-of-Paradise)
Post by: Dutchling on November 04, 2013, 10:50:45 am
Post by: Wiles on November 04, 2013, 12:20:52 pm
Post by: Digital Hellhound on November 04, 2013, 12:21:46 pm
Post by: Singularity125 on November 04, 2013, 12:58:17 pm
I'm curious to see how it goes. Personally, from what I've heard I'm a fan of the indepth mechanics of this game, but not so much a fan of the hardcore historical accuracy points. Frankly I'm not up to par on my history and would miss most of the references anyway. The sort of thing I'm looking for is probably some bastard child of Civ IV and EUIV... and if the modders get a hold of the random map generation it just might be a thing. Then I might actually buy the game. :D
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 04, 2013, 01:19:53 pm
So far I'm the most interested in the improved colonial game and improved natives. I think it's great that we'll see decentralised colonial nations forming which should make colonial war and expansion into native areas a lot less bloody. Hopefully we'll see dynamic naming of both these nations and her colonies.
I have to wonder if the native improvements will just be events and other small tweaks. The natives need a lot of fleshing out and a whole bunch of added tags are needed. It would be nice to see mesoamerican hegemony mechanics instead of the Aztecs just rolling over the other nations and making a single unified blob. I'd also like to see a much improved westernisation for native americans.
Post by: Descan on November 04, 2013, 04:27:40 pm
Someone suggested a colonial-nations instead of directly-controlled nations and I loved it.
All they'd have to do is add in my suggestion and I'd be happy as balls~
Post by: Karlito on November 04, 2013, 04:40:33 pm
Post by: kingofthescots on November 04, 2013, 06:08:33 pm
Post by: a1s on November 06, 2013, 12:42:30 pm
games like Civ in the past, I dislike seeing stupid stuff like America in 2000 BCE.You should try Rhye's and Fall of Civilization (mod for Civ), Which features ethnogenesis in the middle of the game. This is something that the EU series has too, albeit only for the Americas (and as far as I'm aware only EU, despite the fact that the 1920s (in Vicky) should be filled with new nations forming too).
Post by: Jelle on November 06, 2013, 12:50:17 pm
Post by: Jelle on November 07, 2013, 03:54:10 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Couple of things that confuse me so here's some questions. First on the HRE (I joined it, can't be having a roman empire without ol' roma can we?!), I understand the emperor will intervene with any defensive wars by its member nations. Now what if I am allied with the emperor, will they honor the alliance or put their obligation as the emperor first should I start a war with another member nation? Also if I want to become emperor (big ambissions I know) I take it I have to curry favor with the electors?
Next the curia. I half get how the cardinal stuff works, I should be able to figure that out. What boggles me is that relation with the papal states factors in what actions can be taken by the curia controller. Is that my nation? Can I effectively have some control over what the curia controler can do by managing my relation to other nations? Or more so when I am curia controller myself, I pretty much have free reign (as far as I can manipulate my nations opinion on them) to call crusades or excommunicate, provided I have the papal influence? Lastly I see you get papal influence based on relation to papal states, I assume I don't get that...being that I can't have a relation with my own nation.
Other then that, pretty funny to see the pope leading troops into battle when I make a commander out of him. Not so much that I can't change government, always having really old rulers and stability drops, or marry, but I suppose the lastcomes with being chaste. :)
Post by: Sheb on November 07, 2013, 04:07:04 am
I'm pretty sure you can't become Emperor as a theocracy. You'd have to find a way to turn into a monarchy of some kind. And I don't know if it's possible (rebels maybe?) or what happen to the Pope if you're not a theocracy anymore.
As for war, I'm pretty sure the Emperor only intervene if it's an outside power attacking an HRE member. If you're into the HRE, you should be safe.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 07, 2013, 04:10:05 am
Avignon can drag you into no lack of trouble, particularly if France converts and you haven't had a chance to really consolidate your Italian holdings. I tend to sell it off as soon as France gets a claim on it.
The Papal State has the special Papal government which is a theocracy. Only monarchies can be elected as the emperor. The papal states cannot change religion or governments, even through rebels (barring a rare religious rebel bug). Joining the HRE as the Papal States is really only for the HRE bonus modifiers and having some breathing space with Austria.
The main thing holding the Papal states from controlling the curia is the fact they have few provinces with mediocre base tax. Base tax is pretty much the main curia point generator though if you managed to unite Italy and declare the kingdom of heaven on earth you'll likely have little to no problem controlling the curia.
Papal States is a fun game but I've always been disappointed that the Kingdom of God isn't a tag switch and maybe even a government change. I want to be the divine emperor of Europe, damn it!
Their national ideas are lacking as well sadly. I would personally argue they had better ideas when they had generic theocracy ideas.
EDIT: slightly ninja'd
Post by: Jelle on November 07, 2013, 05:43:38 am
Avignon can drag you into no lack of trouble, particularly if France converts and you haven't had a chance to really consolidate your Italian holdings. I tend to sell it off as soon as France gets a claim on it.
Yeah, I let Bourgogne barter it to France in a peace deal. Those occatain rebels were getting on my nerves anyway. :P
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 08, 2013, 04:37:31 am
So far I'm not all that amazed with the features. The nomadic features are interesting but far from needed. The tribes that were added don't seem like they will have any effect on the colonial game. The random map generator is just hideous with straight borders and trade. Finally there will be no improvements to the south americans.
I still think it would have been better to just make natives an EU3 horde that could be colonised without bordering them. That way you could fill up the whole American map and still colonise.
Ultimately I don't think I'll be getting this expansion and just relying on the patch.
Post by: Descan on November 08, 2013, 07:00:18 pm
Though I do like the colonial mechanic, with sub-colony nations. I wonder if it's one-colony-per-area or if you can have multiple colonial nations, like Canada and the Thirteen Colonies.
Post by: Wiles on November 08, 2013, 07:54:59 pm
The random map generator is just hideous with straight borders and trade.
It's worth mentioning that they talked about how that part of the random map generation wasn't finished yet and that they were still working on making the continents and borders look nice.
Post by: Lightning4 on November 08, 2013, 08:00:54 pm
The tribes that were added don't seem like they will have any effect on the colonial game.
I dunno, each new tribe I think makes more fodder for the more... warlike tribes to become bigger, and hopefully more competitive with the Europeans. I hear something about the natives having some chances to become nearly on par with western nations, but I don't think they've clarified this yet.
The random map generator is just hideous with straight borders and trade.
At least this is a work in progress, they have expressed they want the borders to be different. Trade, *shrug*
Probably the same.
Finally there will be no improvements to the south americans.
I'm hoping they do change South America a bit while they still have time, but I don't know if they will.
Post by: PanH on November 09, 2013, 08:08:11 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 09, 2013, 08:17:06 am
Post by: Wiles on November 09, 2013, 08:30:38 am
It will be interesting to see how the game goes once the Europeans arrive with new colony mechanics. I wonder if colonies will be more willing to side with native nations against other colonies or even their parent nations.
Post by: Wiles on November 11, 2013, 06:50:45 am
Quote
We decided to spend more time on polishing Conquest of Paradise and the 1.4 patch, so it will now be released in mid january instead.
It's nice to see that they aren't rushing it at least.
Post by: Dutchling on November 11, 2013, 07:04:05 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2013, 09:58:54 am
Post by: Descan on November 11, 2013, 01:09:01 pm
Even better if they put tribal nations along those rivers.
Post by: Rakonas on November 11, 2013, 01:35:14 pm
I'd be happy just for them to expand Brazil into the Amazon, along the river routes.I'd like it if they put some kind of complex provincial modifier system which represented natives resisting colonization which didn't allow for outright conquest. Like if neighbouring provinces helped the natives in a province you were colonizing, and natives moved around especially into the interior instead of being absorbed by your colonies.
Even better if they put tribal nations along those rivers.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2013, 01:56:21 pm
Right now colonies only exist as developed cities which is rather silly. Make colonising much harder with the option to build trade posts to funnel trade like the Europeans mostly opted to do outside of North America. It would allow the natives to better resist settlement and make colonial nations rich while not having endless manpower and resources that they have now.
Post by: Descan on November 11, 2013, 01:57:58 pm
1) Dynamic colonial nations. We're getting that, with the Thirteen Colonies and all that. Time will tell if they half-ass it or not.
2) Horde-style colonization mechanic of native land. Edit: Plus the trade-post idea from Lolcats! :D Good one <3
3) Have natives have a "population" number, separate from their provinces, to represent their nomadic nature (if they were nomadic) and the plagues from the old world that decimated natives. The plagues send the number down, events of colonists defecting to natives brings it up, and let natives move around their provinces like the migrate button, but for any size. You move out of one province, and into another, and the number of provinces you can control at any one time is controlled by your population number. You can double-up in one province or triple or more, so you can have 3 1-pop provinces or 1 3-pop province, or more.
Have a malus to economy from a newly migrated province (so it only provides a small amount until your population gets accustomed to the new province), local to that province. Like instead of giving 5 bucks per month, give 1-2, until a timer runs out. The more settled natives like the Inca and the Maya, and the Aztec, don't migrate, but they get a bonus to tech-rate or something to compensate. And give them the same population mechanic, because they were hit by plagues too, only instead of evacuating provinces, it lowers stability and economy unless they decide to consolidate into a smaller but more robust nation. (Instead of 5 1-pop provinces, have 1 5-pop province)
And a possible mechanic for reforming from a nomadic tribe to a settled tribe being need an admin tech of 3-4 (to represent the basic technology you would need to store food for a large population over winter) and a threshold of population in a single province (to make a city).
Hopefully all this can be modded with the addition of that migrate button, as long as it's not hard-coded to one-province-minors and you can add in some sort of seperate population counter/province-owner-ship.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2013, 02:25:24 pm
I still stand by the horde mechanic being the best for natives. Sadly it has been tainted by the horrible implementation of the hordes of Divine Wind. Unlike the migration mechanic it allows theoretically every province to be populated by real natives, outside the scope of the official game but would be nice for mods.
I'm not particularly sold on the idea of population. Paradox has understandably moved away from population since it's near impossible to find anywhere near accurate population numbers (and that's from Europe let alone the world). Having shifting numbers could also technically simulate genocide which Paradox does not want which is why I find it strange they never got rid of "attack natives" button.
I don't think there really many cases of colonists defecting to natives. Most colonists met their end through starvation/disease. The natives generally had a pretty "live and let die" attitude towards the early colonists.
I'm also not totally sold on the migration mechanic. To my knowledge nomadic tribes tended to only migrate in their own territory and would face warfare if they expanded past those territories. It seems like it would be better to model "displacement" rather than "migration".
Displacement would allow tribes to pack up and move into foreign territory due to outside influences such as powerful neighboring tribes or expanding Europeans. This displacement would allow them to move into less organised tribal lands (generic natives) or fight neighbouring organised tribes to settle in those lands. This would make a gradual migration of tribes from the east to the west which would consolidate and eliminate weaker tribes which might become a major hassle for the colonial nations if left unchecked. In theory you could model historical forced displacement such as the Trial of Tears.
How hard this mechanic would be to implement I'm unsure. Haven't really modelled it too well yet.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on November 11, 2013, 02:33:48 pm
Given that they kicked it back to January, I think it's safe to say the current images are still heavily work in progress in any case.
Post by: Descan on November 11, 2013, 02:58:10 pm
Plus, it's a game, and I'd like to play a different style if I want to. Playing a nomadic nation that roams the coast and plains would be fun!
I'd also love to play a dark-ages game with this population = provinces you can own/"people in provinces" mechanic.
Post by: Rakonas on November 11, 2013, 03:02:33 pm
I mostly want the population mechanic to simulate the weakening of natives via plagues (So they don't have to START weak in order for the historical steamroll to work out more often than not) and to simulate the idea, or lack there-of, of a nation being intrinsic to it's land. A native nation, at least the nomadic ones, are about it's people, more-so than it's land. At least compared to the European nations that came in, which were a lot more land-centric (though still people-centric).I'm pretty sure that none of the native nations currently with tags were nomadic, though. I'd love for more to represent natives being pushed inland and becoming problematic, though. Ferocity should maybe increase over time in provinces bordering european colonies to represent trade for weapons, for instance.
Plus, it's a game, and I'd like to play a different style if I want to. Playing a nomadic nation that roams the coast and plains would be fun!
I'd also love to play a dark-ages game with this population = provinces you can own/"people in provinces" mechanic.
Post by: Descan on November 11, 2013, 03:11:34 pm
If you're overhauling natives, there's no reason you have to stick with the natives you already have. So I don't see why "The natives in the game weren't nomadic!" is a reason to not put in natives that were nomadic, and a mechanic to simulate that. Case in point: This update is adding more native nations.
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 11, 2013, 07:14:05 pm
I've got Portugal under me in a PU as Castile and I'm not sure where to go next, seeing as Granada is allied with Algiers and Morocco.
Post by: Descan on November 11, 2013, 07:20:52 pm
Declare war on Grenada, take them out while keeping the Africans out via the above method while you occupy and annex Grenada.
After that, you can deal with the two African states, or just wait for them to accept a white peace. They will eventually, or should.
Things to watch out for: Coalitions (AFAIK you won't be able to peace-out and annex Grenada if they're a minor-member of a coalition that is at war with you), and both you and Grenada being minor members in a non-coalition war. You need to either negotiate with the war-leader if you're a minor war member, or you need to be the war-leader on your side to negotiate with minor war-members on the opposing side.
Things to hope for: Algiers and Morroco being minor members in the war and Grenada is the war-leader, or better yet, neither of them answer the call to arms. Either way, you'll be able to annex Grenada and finish the war without a lingering fight with the two African nations.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on November 11, 2013, 07:23:26 pm
Well, I'm playing legitimately for pretty much the first time. I've pretty much always just cheated a lot and done ridiculous stuff like colonize the entirety of North America as Ming.
I've got Portugal under me in a PU as Castile and I'm not sure where to go next, seeing as Granada is allied with Algiers and Morocco.
You can go straight Colonial Power or you can just wait to tech up a bit and then ignore Algiers and Morocco. Seriously, you shouldn't be that afraid with the Western tech group and advantage.
Of course, I haven't played Castille/Portugal/Granada/etc., so there might be other considerations for taking down Algiers and Morocco.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2013, 08:06:33 pm
I'm not sure what to think about this. On one hand you now have to create a strong naval force to maintain your trade which wasn't quite the case before, I had a German empire trading in the new world quite easily with minimal navy. However it might favour the nations that have a big naval force limit like Spain or England who already are quite effective at steering trade. This could make colonial empires a lot less appetising for smaller powers or it could add additional trade tactics like warring just to sink light ship stacks.
Personally I would have liked to see more improved trade interaction such as hiring privateers before this change but it's hard to judge without trying it out. I honestly can't tell if this will be a positive or negative change.
Picture: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=94662&d=1383905353
Post by: Karlito on November 11, 2013, 08:33:07 pm
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 11, 2013, 08:38:15 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2013, 08:45:13 pm
They panned away from that very quickly when it was shown on screen. My guess is that it's simply a placeholder in the developmental build. Nothing to get excited about.Thinking about it you're likely completely right. Such a fundamental change to the way colonial trade works would likely have been mentioned in the upcoming features, although I suppose we still haven't gotten all the dev diaries yet.
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 12, 2013, 12:46:43 am
Post by: PanH on November 12, 2013, 01:56:24 pm
Since it was a PU though, it's better to integrate (you can lose a PU), but I'd suggest releasing Portugal as a vassal, to let them colonizing.
Afaik, Granada can colonize too, so might be interesting.
Against France, you can soon have such a colonial empire that you can recruit mercenaries to make up for the differences between your 2 nations. Ally Austria (though they may grow too much in this case) and some other nations (Russia maybe, Prussia, etc).
Post by: MoLAoS on November 12, 2013, 02:14:01 pm
Sadly I cannot diplo vassalize any Indian nations and so first I split them into the maximum number of nations and next I'll try and vassalize them militarily.
Is it possible to diploannex a country of another religion? It doesn't really specify on the tool tip.
Post by: Dutchling on November 12, 2013, 02:15:51 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on November 12, 2013, 02:25:58 pm
IIRC: yes you can.
I hope so. Coring all that myself will be a huge pain plus I'll have to get a ton of aggressive expansion if I do it militarily.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 12, 2013, 02:30:45 pm
With India you'll want to expand via vassal feeding, it's actually easier than most areas since it's so culturally heterogeneous and there's plenty of revolter states to free and feed.
Post by: MoLAoS on November 12, 2013, 02:38:00 pm
Pretty sure you need a royal marriage to diplo-vassalise. You can't royal marriage with heathens.
With India you'll want to expand via vassal feeding, it's actually easier than most areas since it's so culturally heterogeneous and there's plenty of revolter states to free and feed.
I diplo vassalize militarily. I was asking about diploannexing.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 12, 2013, 02:42:27 pm
Post by: Simmura McCrea on November 12, 2013, 02:49:27 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 12, 2013, 03:05:46 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on November 12, 2013, 04:00:36 pm
Sadly the anti-blob legions on the pplaza forums will make this kind of mind numbing crap par for the course in grand strategy for all eternity.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on November 12, 2013, 04:25:31 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on November 12, 2013, 05:53:39 pm
If you're waiting 5-10 minutes each time then you aren't declaring enough wars, fabricating claims, influencing diplomatic relations, building up your armies, etc. Your argument would have more merit if you could really argue that there are long stretches of time where you do nothing, but I haven't seen that happen for anyone other than natives or if you don't really want to fight wars and you want to build a trade empire or colonial empire or something like that. Admittedly, there could be more events and such for not being at war for a long time, or war but where you haven't lost any manpower from fighting (in the case of alliances where you don't believe your forces would accomplish anything). Those events might have bonuses to trade or maybe trading manpower for an increase in settlers for your colonies.
I tend to declare a shit ton of wars at once. So I fought every single nation in India at once in order to split up everyone into smaller nations to vassalize. I also conquered some lands on the southern tip. I just got the Euro coalition on me to clear up, too.
Post by: Wiles on November 13, 2013, 07:06:22 am
Post by: Simmura McCrea on November 13, 2013, 09:13:10 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 13, 2013, 03:28:39 pm
fabricating claims, influencing diplomatic relations, building up your armies,
I.e sitting around and waiting.
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 13, 2013, 04:31:55 pm
EDIT: Also, Jesus Christ, Tangiers, how many religious rebels are you going to produce?
EDITEDIT: EXTREME CARTOGRAPHY:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 14, 2013, 11:37:48 pm
Post by: a1s on November 15, 2013, 01:00:09 pm
Oh my god why do people care so much about the Incans? I'm drowning in rebels here!Kill a bunch of them. Then treat them all harshly.
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 15, 2013, 07:14:40 pm
Post by: Sheb on November 16, 2013, 05:06:43 am
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 17, 2013, 09:14:06 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MoLAoS on November 28, 2013, 05:33:46 am
But in the end after I miraculously tanked Austria with my 4/2 pip king general I got lucky again. My marriage with France has resulted in their next ruler being of my dynasty. So I did some research to be sure and claimed throne. So many people hate me but fuck em, with only a single royal marriage I am likely to inherit France once it finishes crushing England in the Hundred Years War. Sadly they may end up not annexing or vassalizing all the french minors but this PU will be worth tons later. I'll inherit the Burgundian lands, or at least France will, and if I am lucky I can win a war against Burgundy before that to get Antwerpen before Austria inherits it, move my capital there, and have the best trade node in the game with control over its major feeding nodes.
If we all pray, maybe their 26 year old king will die and I shall have a chance at a crazy trade empire with Denmark and the power to fight the HRE. I was considering joining the HRE with the possibility of stealing the imperial crown myself. Does anyone know if that's a good strategy for Denmark?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 29, 2013, 03:12:00 pm
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?738163-Europa-Universalis-IV-Conquest-of-Paradise-%96-Dev-diary-5-A-new-way-of-playing
Doesn't state too much but does give a small outline of federations and migrations. While I'm still not completely sold on the DLC federations do sound like a good contribution. They're basically regionalised defencive coalitions that only go to war if outside forces attack. Honestly it seems like what coalitions should have been in the first place instead of the current situation where half of europe joins Ottomans' jihad on Italy because it annexed Venice 4 years ago.
Oh and apparently the north american natives have been granted the divine gift of trading. The reason for the original exclusion is rather weak but baby steps...
Post by: Ivan Issaccs on December 01, 2013, 05:01:12 pm
As expected, Castille was still a joke however my attempts to play Brandenburg have all been great !FUN!
Post by: jhxmt on December 02, 2013, 01:14:49 pm
So - it's a Paradox game, so I have to ask: worth it at that price, or still glitchy/unbalanced? I'm aware it's a (relatively) recent release, and though I love Paradox I recall what CKII was like early on!
Post by: Wiles on December 02, 2013, 01:57:27 pm
It's a good game. It's not my favourite series out of their grand strategy titles, but if you like the EU formula you'll probably enjoy EU4. I didn't find it to be overly buggy on release, though there were some nations that had more problems (like Japan and Christian rebels), but most of that stuff was fixed. I'm sure there are still bugs here and there, but I've never had major issues and I've put in about 70 hours. Balance is one of those things that seems to be always tweaked throughout the life of Paradox titles but the game is definitely enjoyable.
Post by: Micro102 on December 05, 2013, 02:31:58 pm
It feels like in order to make the game more difficult, the AI intentionally abuses the system to hurt you. I can take some bad luck, but every single game countries suddenly declare me a rival at 99 relation to stop me from completing a mission, or my monarch suddenly goes insane, and then dies, putting me in a PU with a country that is allied to France (always France...). It feels intentional compared to EU3
Post by: Tjoh on December 05, 2013, 03:25:05 pm
Post by: a1s on December 06, 2013, 10:17:03 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 06, 2013, 11:22:34 pm
Post by: FritzPL on December 06, 2013, 11:34:18 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 07, 2013, 06:20:46 am
Have you seen a game where the AI doesn't suck and doesn't cheat? Don't worry about it too much.
At least I noticed it less in EU3... Worst it got was them not taking attrition when I tricked a stack of 200 onto Venice and sealed them in. But that's at least reasonable as that would of been a huge exploit.
Post by: Sheb on December 07, 2013, 08:55:04 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 07, 2013, 03:21:50 pm
One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits, always having gold and monarch jedi points on demand.. A complete lack of usage of the trade system, as well.
Lets not forget the ability to completely ignore casus bellis with impunity and still get an entire group of their not-friends-but-allied-allies to gang up on you because you're the player. Meanwhile allies never join in on your wars despite the best of CBs because their aggression AI mechanics are set to suicidal.
No, the AI in EU4 is not broken, it simply doesn't exist and the cheating and ignoring of mechanics the player is otherwise forced to slog through makes this blatantly obvious that they don't know how to make an AI to play their own simple game.
Post by: MoLAoS on December 07, 2013, 04:18:53 pm
Post by: a1s on December 07, 2013, 04:36:47 pm
the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ramIt's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.
A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29) type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)
Post by: Karlito on December 07, 2013, 04:39:27 pm
One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits
The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.
Post by: chaoticag on December 07, 2013, 04:41:40 pm
Well, chess has had about 30 years of programming behind it. Meanwhile, a decently good Go player can run laps around the best Go playing algorithms. Not all AIs are made equal, and past a certain point, you need to decide whether a game will ship with an advanced AI enough to challenge a player on their own merits, or well, the game coming out sometime this decade.the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ramIt's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29) type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 07, 2013, 04:42:05 pm
One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits
The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.
They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.
Post by: a1s on December 07, 2013, 04:56:02 pm
That's where the modding community comes in- the unspoken agreement between paradox and it's fanbase is that they give us an engine with a basic game running on it and we (well they, I never wrote a mod in my life) make a real game out of it.Well, chess has had about 30 years of programming behind it. Meanwhile, a decently good Go player can run laps around the best Go playing algorithms. Not all AIs are made equal, and past a certain point, you need to decide whether a game will ship with an advanced AI enough to challenge a player on their own merits, or well, the game coming out sometime this decade.A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29) type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)
As for AIs being born unequal, that is quite true. For example an AI will have a problem with even kindergarten level lateral thinking problems (you know, like 'why did the tycoon always go the the 4th floor') despite being better at the superficially similar 20-questions.
Post by: MoLAoS on December 07, 2013, 05:05:54 pm
the AI can't afford to use more than 40% of the total resources of a game designed to run on 2GB ramIt's, in fact, more like 0.4%, since there is over a hundred countries in the game, each of which is expected to be a decent AI (or at least an equally crappy one). Even if you cheat and say only the important nations (So maybe Britain, Spain and Russia, but not Munster or Zapotec. Maybe get the countries directly bordering the player in on the action too?) get to be smart , the percentage still won't go above 5%.A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29) type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)
True Chess computers are worth quite a lot. But Chess is an optimal game for a computer. Deterministic, simplistic, limited, two player. It's also been the focus of more money and massively high IQ people than Paradox will ever see in the entire lifetime of their company across all of their products.
It is true that I have significant trouble defeating the level 10 version of Chess Titans. But then I haven't played Chess actively since long before I downloaded it and I didn't spend any time at all memorizing game openings in all my time playing Chess.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 07, 2013, 05:13:24 pm
A player is basically a whole top of the line computer with hundreds of programs relevant to warfare games optimized over hundreds of thousands of years.The human is optimized to be a spearman in the African savannah, it sucks at a lot of deep strategic stuff, and sucks even more at the quick tactical stuff (absent from this game, by virtue of the Pause Button). Your desktop PC will hand you your ass at a game of chess (if you don't inhibit it), and it will spend a fraction of the time you did deliberating on your moves. More impressively, it will hand asses to you and 9 of your friends in a real-time version of a Scorched Earth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29) type of game (again, unless you ask it to 'play nice'). (the ten of you are allied in this scenario)
Computers are stupid. A computer cannot "think". It doesn't play chess in the sense that humans do, it just plays through thousands of possible moves and then judges the outcomes based on values a human set. The only reason it works AT ALL is because Chess is an extremely simplified, predictable version of combat. Also, chess is the same every time, which means a computer doesn't need to be adaptive to win.
The other cheat that computers commonly use is superior inputs. A human has to order its fingers to press keys, but a computer can be plugged straight into a video game and enter inputs impossibly fast with complete precision. They also typically can read the state of the game directly rather than relying on a single sequence of images and some sound the way humans do. This is why aimbots work so well.
There are many, many things that modern computers are just flat incapable of doing, even if you restrict yourself to video games. They can not effectively deal with simple unknown qualities, which is why most AIs will have FoW disabled and most games known for having good AIs that don't cheat will provide a lot of information to both humans and the AI (such as the relative military strength of countries in EU, not that its known for having particularly good AI). Computers also cannot adapt their strategies in a non-scripted manner, which is why the AI will generally fail at any situation the developers didn't anticipate, even if a human would adapt in seconds. They also stink at positional play. Someone built a chess-like game, which I wish I could link you to but I don't remember what it was, but it was designed so computers couldn't play it because of the positional play involved. It has a similar number of pieces and board size, but (back when I looked it up) computers could not beat skilled humans at it, even though kindergartners can learn to play it. IIRC it was designed by someone who built a chess computer, as a challenge for people who made chess computers.
I could go on. Computers either suck or cheat at 99% of games ever made.
Post by: chaoticag on December 07, 2013, 05:13:47 pm
That's where the modding community comes in- the unspoken agreement between paradox and it's fanbase is that they give us an engine with a basic game running on it and we (well they, I never wrote a mod in my life) make a real game out of it.Definitely, though the AI is adequate for my wants, as I tend to play the games pretty casually. Not that I don't like the games or anything, but until CKII it was hard for me to break into the games what with all that goes on without you knowing it. Still, the modding community does pump out some impressive things, and I can respect that.
But yeah, not expecting to see an AI play the game well to be honest, though I have been suprised by things such as the gal civ AI, so who knows.
Post by: a1s on December 07, 2013, 05:51:10 pm
The other cheat that computers commonly use is superior inputs. A human has to order its fingers to press keys, but a computer can be plugged straight into a video game and enter inputs impossibly fast with complete precision. They also typically can read the state of the game directly rather than relying on a single sequence of images and some sound the way humans do. This is why aimbots work so well.You say that like it's a bad thing. A computer is designed to 'work' a set of data really quickly and precisely, than send the solution (this could be an answer to a question like "where to send the forces", or it could be a literal firing solution) down the pipes as fast as possible. It's like saying humans cheat at bowling because they can use fingers to guide the ball, instead of having to push the ball with their heads.
There are many, many things that modern computers are just flat incapable of doing, even if you restrict yourself to video games. They can not effectively deal with simple unknown qualities, which is why most AIs will have FoW disabled and most games known for having good AIs that don't cheat will provide a lot of information to both humans and the AI.Actually estimating army strength based on indirect factors (let's say a countries population and the size of their GDP, but not how much people they draft, guns they buy and new guns they research) would be an AI's strong suit. Of course if you knew how an AI works, you could fool it into thinking whatever you wanted, but that will happen every time someone finds out your methodology (which, yes, the AI can't change on the fly, except to go to a pre-made backup). Here's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_%28video_game%29) a game which neatly illutrates the concept.
Someone built a chess-like game, which I wish I could link you to but I don't remember what it was, but it was designed so computers couldn't play it because of the positional play involved. It has a similar number of pieces and board size, but (back when I looked it up) computers could not beat skilled humans at it, even though kindergartners can learn to play it. IIRC it was designed by someone who built a chess computer, as a challenge for people who made chess computers.Was it Arimaa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa)?
Post by: fivex on December 07, 2013, 06:11:42 pm
I've never seen this happen.One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits
The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.
They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 07, 2013, 06:40:21 pm
Was it Arimaa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arimaa)?
Oh wow, there was no way I was ever going to guess that name.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 07, 2013, 06:43:35 pm
I've never seen this happen.One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits
The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.
They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.
..... You must not have played much. The AI breaks truces all the time, I'd call it near-constant but in reality its mostly directed towards the player due to the AI not knowing how to play the game and therefore suicide attacking the PC.
I've had multiple cases of bordering countries breaking truces a year after a peace agreement, even declaring wars outright without a CB and still getting full support from allies, because the AI literally gets no penalty from doing so. Why? It doesn't know how to deal with the simple mechanic of stability hits.
With all this chess talk, I'll give a comparison: If chess were a Paradox game, the AI would know how to move the pieces [the simple basic premise of running the game -although the economic and stability functions are turned off for the most part-] but not how to utilize the back row of units [the diplomacy, war nuances aside from outright suicide wars/steamrolls, trading mechanics], the complexities are lost entirely on the computer and it gets curb-stomped because it only knows how to utilize the pawns on the gameboard in a limited scope.
Some people enjoy this.
Some people look at the board and say there's a complete game. I agree, EU4 is a complete game with neat mechanics.
Yet, it doesn't matter if what you're competing against doesn't know how to use half the pieces.
[This analogy leaves out the fact that Paradox AIs blatantly ignore the maluses and penalties incurred on the player for making basic gameplay decisions. Modding cannot fix this entirely, unfortunately.]
Post by: fivex on December 07, 2013, 07:35:01 pm
Post by: Lightning4 on December 07, 2013, 09:25:24 pm
Why? It doesn't know how to deal with the simple mechanic of stability hits.
Questionable.
When you have the choice to call in an ally in an offensive war, and they have some relationship with that enemy (truce, marriage, etc), the stability hit is in fact weighed in (you can see it in the tooltip), and affects how willing they are to do it. Unless they really, really like you, they're not going to want to take a stability hit. It's a pretty hefty malus, as I recall.
I don't really see why the AI-AI relationships would not work the same way as AI-Player relationships do, the mechanic does exist for it.
So if they are ignoring it, it's pretty pointless cheating.
Post by: Leyic on December 07, 2013, 10:26:10 pm
It's not exactly fair, either. While a human can only visualize the part of the playfield that's on screen and interact with it through a mouse cursor and keyboard shortcuts, a computer can visualize the entire playfield and interact with everything simultaneously. That's fine for a turn based or pauseable game, but for a real time game, it'd be like playing against Cthulhu who's using a giant hi-res multi-touch screen. Not exactly fair anymore, now is it?The other cheat that computers commonly use is superior inputs. A human has to order its fingers to press keys, but a computer can be plugged straight into a video game and enter inputs impossibly fast with complete precision. They also typically can read the state of the game directly rather than relying on a single sequence of images and some sound the way humans do. This is why aimbots work so well.You say that like it's a bad thing. A computer is designed to 'work' a set of data really quickly and precisely, than send the solution (this could be an answer to a question like "where to send the forces", or it could be a literal firing solution) down the pipes as fast as possible. It's like saying humans cheat at bowling because they can use fingers to guide the ball, instead of having to push the ball with their heads.
Post by: engy on December 08, 2013, 03:28:10 am
..... You must not have played much. The AI breaks truces all the time, I'd call it near-constant but in reality its mostly directed towards the player due to the AI not knowing how to play the game and therefore suicide attacking the PC.I've never seen this happen.One of these is ignoring peace treaties, never getting stability hits
The player can also ignore a truce to answer a defensive call to arms.
They don't get stability hits from calling a war on you directly after signing peace, without CB. Good try, though.
I've had multiple cases of bordering countries breaking truces a year after a peace agreement, even declaring wars outright without a CB and still getting full support from allies, because the AI literally gets no penalty from doing so. Why? It doesn't know how to deal with the simple mechanic of stability hits.
You are wrong. This is how the AI Cheats: http://www.eu4wiki.com/AI#Cheats
I have played EU4 a lot; I have played several multi-player games to completion. IF the AI starts a war that a player would take a stab hit for, they take the stability hit. The same one you do. They don't do it often, they aren't dumb, stab hits hurt. You'll usually see it when they are breaking a royal marriage.
I'm pretty sure you are just missing how they are going to war with you and not taking a stab hit for it; of which there are many ways....
Also, I've found the AI in EU4 to be vastly better then in EU3 DW, MEIOU or Magna Mundi. I still remember being cocky after EU3 going into EU4 like oh man I got this and running into the new military AI; it was a rough surprise.
I'm 100% sure the AI takes stab hits for wars; because I have used it for my benefit. So before you act like a jerk and tell people they didn't play enough. Maybe you should check your facts.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 05:18:05 am
Post by: snelg on December 08, 2013, 05:33:55 am
They actually don't. A nation with 3 stability declaring war on you with a peace treaty, and if they have no CB, and if they have a marriage, it will result in them still having 3 stability. Go ahead. Invoke one of these scenarios and tell me I'm wrong.I haven't played EU4 much but the ai in EU3 did take stability hits when declaring war. Hard to imagine them going backwards there. Still, I guess it's not impossible.
Post by: PanH on December 08, 2013, 05:44:27 am
They actually don't. A nation with 3 stability declaring war on you with a peace treaty, and if they have no CB, and if they have a marriage, it will result in them still having 3 stability. Go ahead. Invoke one of these scenarios and tell me I'm wrong.Tag switch and you'll see that their adm reserve points will take a hit. They will just be back up to max stab in no time because it's quite high priority and they always have a sizable reserve of monarch points. Or you can even cheat your way in getting the 'ai' bonus (got it once thanks to a bug), and declaring war with no cb will still give you stab hits, despite having every other advantage an AI has.
You're inventing some sort of conspiracy, while the devs have explicitly stated in which way the AI cheat, and it's not one of them.
Post by: Micro102 on December 08, 2013, 07:07:56 am
Post by: PanH on December 08, 2013, 07:50:28 am
It's equally hard to believe that the AI has such a massive stockpile of admin points and still keeps up with technology. What if they don't take stability hits, but instead lose a percentage of their admin points?It's really easy to have too much monarch points as a western nation. The AI wastes a lot of them, but if you don't, you'll be at 999/999 most of the time. Seriously, as a western (or even eastern, hell, I was leading tech by 1-2 with PLC), it's harder to find where to spend your points than getting some. Western have rich lands (advisor), low cost tech, lots of universities from the start, neighbor bonus.
It shows a lot how the AI wastes his monarch points with other tech groups : you can be 3-4 tech level in front of the AI, because he'll waste it on getting stab to 2-3, stuff like that. The AI is just programmed to have a reserve, because it can't plan ahead.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 08, 2013, 08:00:32 am
AI will take stab hits when declaring wars, I have observed it many times. Since stab hits are now pretty dire you will almost never see an AI DOW without a CB as was so common in EUIII.
The standard ai is never swiming in MP. They tend to prioritise tech over ideas which is unoptimised over focusing on ideas and investing in tech when the neighbour bonus cheapens. I can have most of my ideas unlocked and still be competing in tech while the standard ai has completely fallen behind in idea development. This is another reason why lucky countries just tear through Europe since they have buffs, more development in both idea/tech and finally have some of the strongest ideas in the game.
Personally if I was new to EUIV I would completely disable lucky countries since it only leads to "end game blobs" for the player to fight and nothing else (plus Russian is OP and will always join a coalition when I'm expanding in India >:().
Post by: Korbac on December 08, 2013, 12:15:02 pm
AI is willing to use up its last diplorelation for a human (it reserves one for humans so you're not always getting 'can't afford another relation').
Humans cannot get inherited by other countries, in a PU or elsewise.
Humans cannot be replaced as warleader in a war unless they are a vassal.
Humans can save and reload when things go badly (unless you're playing ironman).
Humans have a human brain.
XD
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 05:08:02 pm
Since stab hits are now pretty dire you will almost never see an AI DOW without a CB as was so common in EUIII.
Never happened to me in EU3 and yet in EU4 AI will declare wars without CBs with impunity, especially on the PC. Check the logs in game and you'll see them regularly declaring wars without CBs and with royal marriages without a care in the world, because they do not get stability hits, so this talk of them 'using reserves to boost back to 3' isn't true.
Get a scenario where a country will declare war on you with a royal marriage or without a CB, in a situation where they should get a stability hit. Tick 1: No war. Tick 2: X declares war on you! [With or without CB] Tick 2a [without unpausing after the declaration of war]: Check stability of computer nation. Will be the same as Tick 1.
Stability hits are taken into account the second you declare a war, and the AI works in 'ticks', so it wouldn't spend any points to boost stability until Tick 3 of this situation. If the stability is the same as the moment they declare the war, they are not getting a stability hit. I know it's hard to believe but the AI in EU4 does not understand the simple mechanics of the game and therefore ignores them.
Readily admitted by the paradox crew that they don't know how to make an AI to be able to play their games with competence, as well. The quote is something along the lines of "The AI doesn't understand how to prepare ahead of time so we just let it ignore x!' where X is any penalty/malus incurred on the player for simple actions of progress.
It doesn't matter how neat the mechanics are in this kind of game if none of the other colors on the map know how to utilize them and outright ignores mechanics the player is forced to utilize.
Post by: Dutchling on December 08, 2013, 05:18:04 pm
Post by: a1s on December 08, 2013, 05:28:19 pm
Stability hits are taken into account the second you declare a war, and the AI works in 'ticks', so it wouldn't spend any points to boost stability until Tick 3 of this situation. If the stability is the same as the moment they declare the war, they are not getting a stability hit....Unless the stability increasing code kicks in after the war evaluation/declaration code. Since the AI is going to increase stability anyway, it makes no gains from delaying the action and it would make sense for it to do so during the same tick.
Post by: chaoticag on December 08, 2013, 05:40:10 pm
It doesn't matter how neat the mechanics are in this kind of game if none of the other colors on the map know how to utilize them and outright ignores mechanics the player is forced to utilize.The player does ignore some mechanics the AI uses though. Unless you're a vassal, you'll stay being a war leader if you are one, and you can't be integrated from a personal union. When the people that coded the AI tell me that they take a stab hit, then they likely take a stab hit. It likely has code for declaring wars without a CB and boosting it's stab as soon as it does that.
Post by: fivex on December 08, 2013, 05:56:14 pm
I see it happen in EU3 very often. I almost never see it happen in EU4.Since stab hits are now pretty dire you will almost never see an AI DOW without a CB as was so common in EUIII.
Never happened to me in EU3 and yet in EU4 AI will declare wars without CBs with impunity, especially on the PC.
I've also never seen anyone make the same claims as you.
Post by: Andrew425 on December 08, 2013, 05:58:23 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 08, 2013, 06:00:32 pm
Why do you assume it can't process declaring war and raising stability in the same tick? The stability loss is instantaneous, as you can see if you declare war on someone while paused. So as long as the AI decides if it wants to raise stability after it decides it wants to wage war, than you wouldn't see the stability hits and it would all be done in the same tick.Stability hits are taken into account the second you declare a war, and the AI works in 'ticks', so it wouldn't spend any points to boost stability until Tick 3 of this situation. If the stability is the same as the moment they declare the war, they are not getting a stability hit....Unless the stability increasing code kicks in after the war evaluation/declaration code. Since the AI is going to increase stability anyway, it makes no gains from delaying the action and it would make sense for it to do so during the same tick.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 06:16:43 pm
If that were the case, they'd all be spending their points on stability instead of shitty tech groups.
Note:
Unknown if they get infinite points though from the ether, wouldn't surprise me if they did in "needed" situations. Considering they readily admit they will allow their AI to ignore complete parts of the game to be able to allow it to "function".
Post by: chaoticag on December 08, 2013, 06:25:26 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 06:28:40 pm
I understand that the AI works in ticks, but why can't the AI in the same tick declare a war without CB and raise stability because it knows its declaring a war without CB as one action?
Tick: Action -> Tick: Reaction
Suggesting it goes Tick: Action Reaction Action -> Tick is incorrect. Otherwise the AI would be taking all actions and reactions to actions at all times. See: Combat logic ticks to demonstrate the A -> B linear nature of EU4 AI.
Post by: chaoticag on December 08, 2013, 06:36:50 pm
Post by: Korbac on December 08, 2013, 06:37:39 pm
I understand that the AI works in ticks, but why can't the AI in the same tick declare a war without CB and raise stability because it knows its declaring a war without CB as one action?
I agree with this. It's not too hard to code a function so that when the AI declares war in a situation where it knows it will lose stab, it immediately raises stab as soon as it carries out the action that would lose it.
Mict : If the AI knew it would lose stability by doing an action, why couldn't it carry out the stab raise in the same tick?
Post by: engy on December 08, 2013, 06:44:06 pm
.... EU4 AI works in ticks. You cannot process a task in one tick and the reaction to said action in the same tick if the PC has the game paused. Otherwise, that would all be one action. AKA simply not how the mechanics work, and arguably proving the point that the AI doesn't know how to play the game if you are saying they get a special "up stability immediately [using free jedi points because the AI doesn't understand how to spend them correctly] after declaring war in same tick no matter what because they can't handle the loss" line.
If that were the case, they'd all be spending their points on stability instead of shitty tech groups.
Note:
Unknown if they get infinite points though from the ether, wouldn't surprise me if they did in "needed" situations. Considering they readily admit they will allow their AI to ignore complete parts of the game to be able to allow it to "function".
The AI does not cheat with points.
The AI does try and keep stab high; if it takes it hit and the stab goes down; most of the time they will raise it if they have the points. I have personally seen it and used it for my purposes. They also do this with War Exhaustion.
Again, this is how the AI Cheats:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/AI#Cheats
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713930
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 06:47:40 pm
What I meant is, if the AI had a special routine for declaring a war without a causus beli. It'd check if it had the admin to declare war and take the stab hit, then work as if it spent the admin instead of taking the stab hit? Or soak stab hits using it's admin?
That's assuming they even have a true pool of points that they need to manage in the way the PC does. I believe the developers have given enough evidence that this is questionable and likely not the case at all.
Mict : If the AI knew it would lose stability by doing an action, why couldn't it carry out the stab raise in the same tick?
Playing the game shows the AI's process: Same way every other action -> reaction works in EU4. You take the action and it then reacts the next tick. The AI takes an action, and cleans up the consequences/begins to in the next tick. I do not recall if they immediately raise armies upon you declaring war, but this would be another good example of them being unable to react immediately to events while the PC has the game paused.
Unless there was a specific subroutine added to the AI to take into account their complete inability to deal with stability mechanics [enforcing my point that the AI doesn't know how to play the game], I stand by my claim that they get absolutely zero stability hit from warring without CB or on a married country.
Which is indicative of further issues with EU4, the fact that the AI is so weak and unable to play the game that it ignores the gameplay that is forced on the player.
The AI does not cheat with points.
The AI does try and keep stab high; if it takes it hit and the stab goes down; most of the time they will raise it if they have the points. I have personally seen it and used it for my purposes. They also do this with War Exhaustion.
Again, this is how the AI Cheats:
http://www.eu4wiki.com/AI#Cheats
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713930
What you saw was an event-triggered stability hit. The AI is not immune to those. What is clear is they do not get stability hits from declaring wars without a CB/with a royal marriage/from breaking truces. Ive had one do all three at one, actually, and had.. you guessed it, 3 stability afterwards. I highly doubt a country with 4 provinces and a 2/2/2 ruler has thousands of admin points stacked up ready to go whenever they break one or all of these routines.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on December 08, 2013, 06:52:11 pm
Mict : If the AI knew it would lose stability by doing an action, why couldn't it carry out the stab raise in the same tick?
This.
Also, reactionary stab raising would likely be from losing stab to random events.
The AI determination for declaring a war might include "Do I have enough monarch points to offset the stab hit?" and they don't declare war until they do or if they are fine with -1 or -2 stab and want to declare war that badly.
Unless there was a specific subroutine added to the AI to take into account their complete inability to deal with stability mechanics [enforcing my point that the AI doesn't know how to play the game], I stand by my claim that they get absolutely zero stability hit from warring without CB or on a married country.
That makes no sense. You're saying that programming the AI to consider if it can cover it's ass when it gets a stab hit somehow supports your argument that the AI doesn't know how to play the game.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 06:54:18 pm
That makes no sense. You're saying that programming the AI to consider if it can cover it's ass when it gets a stab hit somehow supports your argument that the AI doesn't know how to play the game.
If there is a routine to immediately increase their stability because they do not understand how to deal with stability losses [that they would always incur from warring impunitively], then yes, it is indicative of weak AI and further weak programming. AKA a workaround because they didn't bother letting the AI war with any sense of reason.
You assume they even need to pay those costs to increase stability when that is highly questionable. I've rarely seen a country lose stability and not immediately pump it back to 3 the next tick.
This is assuming they even do get stability hits from said situations. Which they don't. Prove me wrong. I tried to prove that they do get stability hits and could not do it. Now, why did I do this? Because decreasing a country's stability should be a viable tactic and it is not possible in EU4 in reality, unless you luck out with a dead ruler popping a terrible regency and already having overextension problems..
Post by: engy on December 08, 2013, 06:57:17 pm
What you saw was an event-triggered stability hit. The AI is not immune to those. What is clear is they do not get stability hits from declaring wars without a CB/with a royal marriage.
No, that is not true at all.
There are several ways you can test it yourself if you don't believe me, the Paradox AI programmer, or anyone else here on the forums. We don't have to prove it for you. I've seen it myself in action and used it. Several of the game-y AARs have as well.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 07:00:38 pm
No, that is not true at all.
There are several ways you can test it yourself if you don't believe me, the Paradox AI programmer, or anyone else here on the forums. We don't have to prove it for you. I've seen it myself in action and used it. Several of the game-y AARs have as well.
Of course. Now, provide me with screenshots before and after a country declaring war and their stability changes. Load up the game before and after said declaration [on the AI country], comparing their administration points. There will be no difference. I've done this multiple times.
Of course when you run into these situations it will be essential to try this testing then [its rather difficult to invoke these situations on the PC-side, being an AI issue]. Its happened to me about 6 times in the course of 20 games, and even then that is far too often.
Post by: Leyic on December 08, 2013, 07:02:39 pm
Code: [Select]
try declare_war
if stability_decreases
if enough_points
declare_war
raise_stability
else
pass
How is that compensating for bad AI, when it's how many people think?
Post by: a1s on December 08, 2013, 07:05:19 pm
That's assuming they even have a true pool of points that they need to manage in the way the PC does. I believe the developers have given enough evidence that this is questionable and likely not the case at all.Now you're just being contaraian. There is no need to assume anything, set up an experiment:
since you can load the game as any nation, just set autosave to monthly and wait (or provoke, I don't know) until the AI attacks you. Save immediately and compare the AI nations points (by loading that nation) before and after.
*If the amount of admin points don't change (or changes very little) your hypothesis that the AI ignores stabs will be verified.
*If, on the other hand, admin points decrease (we're talking a couple of hundred points here), it is disproved and you can assume the AI has kept stability up with points.
repeat several times to be sure, in case you aren't.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 07:08:41 pm
Edit: Nope, must've wiped it when my save files piled up. I'll keep one around next time I come across a situation where I get a no-CB/married/peace treaty breaking attack.
Post by: a1s on December 08, 2013, 07:11:33 pm
I might have my Delhi save from a situation I'm describing where I've done this testing.I would be very interested. Alternatively, I'd like to know how to aggro the AI better. I guess I play to passively, but it just doesn't seem to happen to me all that often...
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 07:29:04 pm
I might have my Delhi save from a situation I'm describing where I've done this testing.I would be very interested. Alternatively, I'd like to know how to aggro the AI better. I guess I play to passively, but it just doesn't seem to happen to me all that often...
I'm thinking of an easier way to invoke this: Spamming stability decreasing spies and checking said AI nation's admin points between stability changes. Unsure of if this would be a similar representation of what is happening during the warring-stability hits, but its easy to test.
And on this: I was Delhi forming Hindustan so of course I got coalition spam from the very beginning, breaking their countries into nothing and expanding ruthlessly so everyone in the area hated me for the land penalties, especially my Royally-married Ahmednagar. They join the coalition, I get Dow'd by the coalition for punitive actions, smashed them to nothing again. A majority of countries then leave the coalition from me gaining cores and the cooldown hitting on their anger-meters.
Then Ahmednagar, a royally-married, no-Cb-having, peace treaty having country to my south declares war on me citing no CB. I check the stability of said country, and it is at.. 3.
The dialogue when you get war declared on you, as it pops up, shows you the stability hits the attacker is incurring: -2 from no CB, -1 from marriage, -2 [I think? 3 maybe] from breaking treaty. This would have put Ahmednagar into negative stability with a cost in the thousands to bring it back up [due to their own overextension and large province count without cores thanks to me].
Loading at that day of the declaration showed me that they had.. 700? Admin points and 3 stability. On the day they should have gotten that massive stability hit. Comparing the admin points to what they had at the start of the month.. negligible difference.
Maybe it is better that they completely ignore those nuances. The game isn't necessarily hard..
Post by: a1s on December 08, 2013, 07:38:08 pm
I'm thinking of an easier way to invoke this: Spamming stability decreasing spies and checking said AI nation's admin points between stability changes. Unsure of if this would be a similar representation of what is happening during the warring-stability hits, but its easy to test.I'm fairly sure there's no such thing as stability decreasing spies. The closest thing I know of is 'Sow discontent', which increases revolt risk and stability cost.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 08, 2013, 07:43:39 pm
I'm thinking of an easier way to invoke this: Spamming stability decreasing spies and checking said AI nation's admin points between stability changes. Unsure of if this would be a similar representation of what is happening during the warring-stability hits, but its easy to test.I'm fairly sure there's no such thing as stability decreasing spies. The closest thing I know of is 'Sow discontent', which increases revolt risk and stability cost.
I swear there's one which would knock stability.
Post by: fivex on December 08, 2013, 07:51:59 pm
There was one in EU3, I think.I'm thinking of an easier way to invoke this: Spamming stability decreasing spies and checking said AI nation's admin points between stability changes. Unsure of if this would be a similar representation of what is happening during the warring-stability hits, but its easy to test.I'm fairly sure there's no such thing as stability decreasing spies. The closest thing I know of is 'Sow discontent', which increases revolt risk and stability cost.
I swear there's one which would knock stability.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 08, 2013, 08:36:26 pm
I understand that the AI works in ticks, but why can't the AI in the same tick declare a war without CB and raise stability because it knows its declaring a war without CB as one action?
Tick: Action -> Tick: Reaction
So... why do you think that the AI can only take a single action in a tick? Why do you assume that one tick = one action?
I did some google searches to figure out what AI tick means in EU, and what AI tick means in general, and got absolutely nothing except the AI cheats page already linked to, the paradox forum post that came from, and THIS THREAD.
Now, if you have a source that I don't have, ignore this and link me to it. However, assuming you're in the dark as much as everyone else... why would you assume that an AI tick refers to a single action that the AI takes? In DF "tick" it means an interval of time. In RL, "tick" refers to the noise a clock makes, which is a reference to time. So, to me, it seems logical that the AI ticks refer to how OFTEN it acts, not how many times it gets to act in a single space of time as you refer to.
Also, seriously, please include some proof for what you're saying here You're making a lot of very confident declarations, and asking people to include screenshots to prove their points, without doing the same for your points. The opposition to your argument already has a forum post from a Paradox dev that strongly contradicts what you're trying to say here.
Post by: Lightning4 on December 08, 2013, 10:02:24 pm
I might have my Delhi save from a situation I'm describing where I've done this testing.I would be very interested. Alternatively, I'd like to know how to aggro the AI better. I guess I play to passively, but it just doesn't seem to happen to me all that often...
I'm thinking of an easier way to invoke this: Spamming stability decreasing spies and checking said AI nation's admin points between stability changes. Unsure of if this would be a similar representation of what is happening during the warring-stability hits, but its easy to test.
And on this: I was Delhi forming Hindustan so of course I got coalition spam from the very beginning, breaking their countries into nothing and expanding ruthlessly so everyone in the area hated me for the land penalties, especially my Royally-married Ahmednagar. They join the coalition, I get Dow'd by the coalition for punitive actions, smashed them to nothing again. A majority of countries then leave the coalition from me gaining cores and the cooldown hitting on their anger-meters.
Then Ahmednagar, a royally-married, no-Cb-having, peace treaty having country to my south declares war on me citing no CB. I check the stability of said country, and it is at.. 3.
The dialogue when you get war declared on you, as it pops up, shows you the stability hits the attacker is incurring: -2 from no CB, -1 from marriage, -2 [I think? 3 maybe] from breaking treaty. This would have put Ahmednagar into negative stability with a cost in the thousands to bring it back up [due to their own overextension and large province count without cores thanks to me].
Loading at that day of the declaration showed me that they had.. 700? Admin points and 3 stability. On the day they should have gotten that massive stability hit. Comparing the admin points to what they had at the start of the month.. negligible difference.
Maybe it is better that they completely ignore those nuances. The game isn't necessarily hard..
Hmm.
I wonder. Maybe it's a bug, then? To me, everything points to the fact that AI should be getting stability hits on war declarations.
If they aren't, it's pretty inconsistent with everything else in the game. There are mechanics in place that allow the AI, at some level, to factor in stability hits for certain actions... and seems pretty silly to have a popup show you how much of a stability hit the AI will take, only for them not to get hit with it.
Unless, of course, stability costs for AI are significantly cheaper... wonder if there's a way of determining that?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on December 08, 2013, 10:39:22 pm
Post by: FritzPL on December 13, 2013, 11:09:00 am
I'm playing as Italy after forming it in 1520s, starting as Tuscany. I managed to eat Genoa, half Venice, Nice and Cuneo provinces of Savoy, vassalized what was left of them and integrated Corsica. I was going to make good use of 25 year claims I got after forming Italy, but after getting Genoa and Savoy I didn't risk overexpansion and aggresive expansion, as well as Great Britain(yes, they formed as well) joining the war on Venice's side. I went around building things for about 20 years, savescumming after failed wars with Naples and Venetians. Then, Venice declared war on me, 'coalition' their CB. Guess what?
Spain(yep, they formed too) joined. I shat my pants at that moment, as my navy could barely compare to their 12 carracks and 40+ caravels. Fortunately, Hungary honored the alliance and I got a few moments of breath, and I focused on getting Sicily and Sardinia. I managed to somehow scramble 10 galleys and caravels, join up with Hungary's fleet and beat combined Venetian-Ferrarian naval forces, fixed my ships, then I saw the Ottomans in a 70v41 battle, them being the former number. I quickly joined in and together with them crushed the Spaniards - after that battle everything went a lot easier. I occupied Venice and Ferrara, got Sicily and the 14 reg garrison that was there, went to Sardinia, blocked all of their ports, went for Madrid, went back to destroy what remained of their army, went back and I'm in progress of occupying entire Spain.
My question is:
Which religion should I convert to?
I'm obviously not gonna stay Catholic, but I don't know if I should go Reformed or Protestant. Protestant sounds awesome for me, because tax modifier is always good, and I'm planning on leaving HRE soon. Reformed isn't bad either though, as I'm controlling trade in Genoa and Venice, and trade income makes up 1/4th of my overall income. What do you guys think?
Post by: Descan on December 13, 2013, 11:19:32 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 13, 2013, 11:34:52 am
The reformation doesn't seem to be as powerful than in EU4 as most countries often tend to drift back to Catholicism. However Protestantism is the best christian religion if you can't completely control 100% of the curia.
Post by: Lightning4 on December 13, 2013, 04:14:54 pm
It started at its normal time around the early 1500s, but it's somehow still going in the 1600s and later. Every time I look up into Europe, there's like ten more new protestant provinces, and someone else has converted.
I didn't even think it was supposed to spread anymore after about 100 years, since the spreading event gets a very nasty multiplier against its MTTH as time drags on. So, I guess nations are either warring to do it, or just flipping on their own.
Post by: Micro102 on December 15, 2013, 03:00:34 am
Post by: Ivan Issaccs on December 15, 2013, 08:15:17 am
Post by: Micro102 on December 21, 2013, 12:51:52 am
Post by: Karlito on December 21, 2013, 12:54:23 am
Post by: Micro102 on December 21, 2013, 03:05:50 am
Seriously, the amount this game cheats is so horrible that I am considering asking for a refund. It constantly breaks the rules and gives my enemies absurd bonuses in some sad attempt to prevent you from doing anything outside of a white peace.
Please tell me someone is working on a mod to fix this mess?
Post by: Tarran on December 21, 2013, 02:53:36 pm
Micro, have you even considered the possibility that it might be a bug? I have seen things like phantom wars where countries were allied in a war against someone even though nobody was actually at war, preventing a PU from being broken. The game is far from picture perfect.
And out of curiosity, what kind of war is it? Might it be a succession war?
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 21, 2013, 03:25:44 pm
I found it weird that buildings cost monarch points. The line of thinking is probably that it requires a leader's drive to push for improvements in infrastructure, but then you consider that investing in infrastructure would make you advance technology slower, which makes no sense whatsoever. Thankfully this is EU, so all that is changeable in the defines file.
I've also been playing with Meiou and Taxes (haven't played vanilla at all even), and found that it's in a rather poor shape currently, which is unfortunate. I was able to fix some of the problems easily myself, or at least bandaid it, but I think I'll revisit EUIV when M&T's port gets better.
Post by: Micro102 on December 21, 2013, 04:05:14 pm
I have seriously never seen the AI covertly cheat as much as some people imply.
Micro, have you even considered the possibility that it might be a bug? I have seen things like phantom wars where countries were allied in a war against someone even though nobody was actually at war, preventing a PU from being broken. The game is far from picture perfect.
And out of curiosity, what kind of war is it? Might it be a succession war?
I don't know what type of war it was, as I rage white peaced and forgot about it. I could consider it a bug if it happened once or twice. But it happens constantly and only to my disadvantage.
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.
Post by: Xeron on December 21, 2013, 05:32:31 pm
If i press the save game button game crashes.
If i try to load the game in any situation,game crashes.
I can't even click the goddamn savegames tab at selection screen
Post by: Ivan Issaccs on December 21, 2013, 07:12:38 pm
I have seriously never seen the AI covertly cheat as much as some people imply.
Micro, have you even considered the possibility that it might be a bug? I have seen things like phantom wars where countries were allied in a war against someone even though nobody was actually at war, preventing a PU from being broken. The game is far from picture perfect.
And out of curiosity, what kind of war is it? Might it be a succession war?
Indeed I have, infuriating things like being Prussia, warring with Poland and them somehow managing to ally with both Austria and England after the declaration.
Still, better off complaining on the Paradox forums than here about such things.
I don't know what type of war it was, as I rage white peaced and forgot about it. I could consider it a bug if it happened once or twice. But it happens constantly and only to my disadvantage.
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.
Post by: Tarran on December 22, 2013, 12:57:52 am
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.I might have, but if it did happen to me it likely had no effect as I don't actually remember any case of it happening and resulting in anything notable happening.
Post by: Lightning4 on December 22, 2013, 04:28:48 am
Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.
Nope!
Practically all of my enemies are already allies, no need for them to be doing that during a war.
Portugal... Castille... Ottomans... Austria...
...please send help...
Post by: a1s on December 25, 2013, 09:30:10 pm
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.Actually it's only -100 (since 1.3 I think), still quite hard to pull off, but not actually impossible.
Post by: Micro102 on December 26, 2013, 09:00:07 am
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.Actually it's only -100 (since 1.3 I think), still quite hard to pull off, but not actually impossible.
I saw the modifier myself. At the very least mine was -1000. AI still ignores the basic rule you have to follow. I would love to delve into other countries on my save game to confirm the cheating, but it wouldn't earn me much other then bragging rights.
Post by: PanH on December 26, 2013, 12:39:09 pm
Post by: engy on December 26, 2013, 12:41:29 pm
If you have never seen the AI cheat, then let me ask you this. Have your enemies ever made an alliance while you are at war? That's suppose to be a -1000 modifier, yet I've had it happen 3 times in a century or 2.Actually it's only -100 (since 1.3 I think), still quite hard to pull off, but not actually impossible.
I saw the modifier myself. At the very least mine was -1000. AI still ignores the basic rule you have to follow. I would love to delve into other countries on my save game to confirm the cheating, but it wouldn't earn me much other then bragging rights.
That is because you don't actually know how it works for yourself...
Anyone can make allies during a war; the negative modifier goes up over time capping at -1000. The same for calling allies in during a war that has been going on for a while. There are also several events that can bypass it.
The AI isn't cheating, its just you don't understand what its doing in this case.
Post by: Micro102 on December 26, 2013, 01:19:32 pm
And you are going to have to do something other then go "you are wrong, it happens because of things I'm not going into detail on, but I will list a bunch of general apologetics that you cannot prove wrong completely"
If you know how an AI can ally with multiple others during a war that has lasted longer then normal and no obvious reason that there was an alliance (PUs, vassalization, etc.) then state how, and why the player cannot do the same thing. Maybe they get a bonus from being a lucky nation, and all the alliances I saw were with lucky nations? Or perhaps there is a special event for say, England and Hungary that can ally them?
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 26, 2013, 01:34:32 pm
Post by: engy on December 26, 2013, 08:20:38 pm
Look just post any save and someone will help you figure out what happened.
I'd rather the thread be more hey look at this cool empire I made, hey I won the 100 years war ironman (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169496461 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169496461)), or hey there is a Dwarf Fortress EU MP game going on right now http://i.imgur.com/BEMY6o0.png (http://i.imgur.com/BEMY6o0.png), ect. instead of people complaining cause they don't understand how the game mechanics work.
Post by: Micro102 on December 27, 2013, 06:00:49 am
Seriously, I already posted the wiki article that explains how the AI cheats...
Look just post any save and someone will help you figure out what happened.
I'd rather the thread be more hey look at this cool empire I made, hey I won the 100 years war ironman (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169496461 (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=169496461)), or hey there is a Dwarf Fortress EU MP game going on right now http://i.imgur.com/BEMY6o0.png (http://i.imgur.com/BEMY6o0.png), ect. instead of people complaining cause they don't understand how the game mechanics work.
Intentional AI advantages are a game mechanic. Like I said before. If you want to assert that I simply don't know what the mechanics are without knowing them yourself, then you are not helping in the slightest.
If you want the thread to be more social, then I will change it to a question.
In what ways can you circumnavigate the negative modifiers that you get from being in a war? (IE: trying to make an alliance while in a war, waging war on a someone you are currently in another war with, etc.)
Post by: RexMundi on December 28, 2013, 02:29:58 am
Post by: Micro102 on December 28, 2013, 07:36:26 am
Got the game, playing with MEIOU and Taxes. Need to pick a nation to learn and play, as I did a learning game as brandenburg, then byzantium, and I'm still new to the not minting money thing..
Yeah I missed the money minting too. It was so convenient to get a master of mint and lock the mining bar in place, assuring income and the lowering of inflation. But then I discovered that you can have a LOT of loans at once.
Now I just have to figure out if it's worth it to take out multiple loands for faster building if I have a lot of modifiers that reduce my interest. Anyone have some advice on this?
Post by: a1s on December 28, 2013, 09:04:49 am
Now I just have to figure out if it's worth it to take out multiple loands for faster building if I have a lot of modifiers that reduce my interest. Anyone have some advice on this?Well loans increase your inflation as well as cost you interest, so unless you already have a master of the mint (or more probably the National Bank idea) and no inflation for him to work on, I would say no.
Post by: Micro102 on December 28, 2013, 09:23:05 am
Post by: Tarran on December 28, 2013, 02:49:41 pm
Anyway, I myself don't see any events relating to forced war in FlavorFRA or FlavorSPA, which is where the events would most likely be, and I'm not sure if there's anywhere else to look.
Post by: ibot66 on December 28, 2013, 04:11:52 pm
How do you get mods working? I unpacked them and put them in the mod folder, but can't select them at e start menu.
Post by: Tarran on December 28, 2013, 04:25:16 pm
Post by: RexMundi on December 28, 2013, 04:39:14 pm
Post by: ibot66 on December 30, 2013, 09:55:09 am
Post by: Micro102 on January 04, 2014, 03:57:08 pm
Also, sometimes I see armies after being defeated, getting some sort of modifier that lets them travel to a province in a single day, preventing the follwing army from catching them. Anyone know when that activates?
Post by: Tjoh on January 04, 2014, 04:27:09 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on January 04, 2014, 04:48:02 pm
For some reason, my trade in seville is switching back and forth between the green arrow (forwarding) and the yellow plus sign (taking income directly). Why? What causes this to change? I thought it might be the trade range but after increasing it it seems to happen more.
Longstanding bug. Just check your trade node flow directions from time to time, they'll be messed up when you declare war/sign peace/do other actions. Randomly, mind you. So just keep up to date with your trade directing. Key to winning EU4 is pumping out trade ships anyways so you'll likely be doing it a lot.
Post by: Micro102 on January 04, 2014, 07:13:07 pm
For some reason, my trade in seville is switching back and forth between the green arrow (forwarding) and the yellow plus sign (taking income directly). Why? What causes this to change? I thought it might be the trade range but after increasing it it seems to happen more.
Longstanding bug. Just check your trade node flow directions from time to time, they'll be messed up when you declare war/sign peace/do other actions. Randomly, mind you. So just keep up to date with your trade directing. Key to winning EU4 is pumping out trade ships anyways so you'll likely be doing it a lot.
How do you change the direction? Do you have to just abandon the trade there and go somewhere else?
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on January 04, 2014, 09:48:24 pm
Post by: Micro102 on January 05, 2014, 06:51:48 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on January 05, 2014, 07:46:04 pm
If you enjoyed EU3, you'll likely enjoy EU4. If you enjoyed playing the smaller countries, building up powerful trading empires, cutting out your little corner of the world, you'll like EU4. If you liked going on a grand crusade to bring the entire world to kneel before you, you'll probably be upset, but you'll still probably like EU4. There'll always be mods to fix that, too, though.
Post by: Rakonas on January 05, 2014, 09:39:47 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 05, 2014, 10:51:08 pm
No AI Naval Attrition.
AI can just drop doomstacks where ever they want which makes stuff like conquering natives and the colonial independence movements extremely trivial.
Coalitions.
AIs joins these too much and make conquest in the last hundred or so years of the game incredibly dull. They should be defensive agreements triggering only when you've attacked a coalition member rather than half of Europe jumping onto the side of the Ottoman jihad of Cyprus.
Overseas Province System.
The way the game determines what is overseas seem broken to me. North Africa is apparently overseas for Portugal making any investments in that area pretty much null. Some kind of distance system based of capital or something would be much better.
Post by: fivex on January 06, 2014, 12:24:08 am
No AI Naval Attrition.Note that this was also in EU3
AI can just drop doomstacks where ever they want which makes stuff like conquering natives and the colonial independence movements extremely trivial.
Post by: majikero on January 06, 2014, 08:31:33 am
Post by: Sheb on January 06, 2014, 08:33:25 am
Post by: Karlito on January 06, 2014, 10:13:07 am
Post by: Descan on January 06, 2014, 05:25:39 pm
Because a lot of the more ridiculous parts of that are like, Cyprus, or Sicily, to Asia and North Africa respectively. They're both 1 sea province away, aren't they?
Post by: Tarran on January 06, 2014, 08:37:29 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 06, 2014, 11:05:00 pm
CoP is 14.99 USD which I find personally a bit much. Pre Ordering will get you 10% off ($13.49).
There is currently a coupon I know of for Greenman Gaming (http://www.greenmangaming.com/s/au/en/pc/games/strategy/europa-universalis-iv-conquest-paradise/#item-s1), it stacks with the current discount.
25% off ($10.12)
GMG25-0YUM5-VKMVU
GMG also has a referral system which I've never used. Apparently if you send someone a referral link you both get 2 dollars if they sign up and spend 2 dollars. Not overly impressive but I suppose it is a "free" cosmetic pack. If you're not already on GMG and don't have a friend who is and you're really dying to get that store credit for some reason, I can supply a referral link if you PM me.
Post by: metime00 on January 06, 2014, 11:33:36 pm
Post by: Rakonas on January 07, 2014, 06:40:52 am
I've never played beyond my 1000 year CK2 -> EU4 mega Holy Roman Empire game, and so although I've clocked 60 hours at least in this game, I haven't experienced any nation other than a unified France/Germany that could steamroll anyone. And a little 50 year game with japan, but I'm wondering does the game change significantly playing one nation versus another? Is it going to be worth it to sink a ton of time into another game of EU4 just to experience a different nation?Definitely, this holds true for any paradox game.
Post by: metime00 on January 07, 2014, 09:19:52 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on January 07, 2014, 09:44:05 am
Post by: Rakonas on January 07, 2014, 09:54:50 am
Even Crusader Kings 2? Barring of course playing a Muslim dynasty with their different mechanics, I know those are different.Here's just a few completely worthwhile different playthroughs in CK2
-Starting as a major empire
-Marriage game in the HRE
-Independent count
-Muslim
-Republic
-Zoroastrian
-Norse Viking
-Heretic
Similarly, in EU3 the game is pretty much completely different playing as a non-western country, an OPM in Europe, a mercantile power, a colonial power, a land power, a naval power, republic, etc. Balancing and focusing your country's abilities serves as a compelling dynamic to try to solve various problems, both unavoidable ones and ones of your own ambition. Basically why people log 1000s of hours on these games in a nutshell.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 08, 2014, 05:33:01 am
It was a lot more challenging than modding vanilla. Dei Gratia has such enormous amounts of text, it's actually insane. Any suggestions for new events/whatever you guys would like to see while I'm at it?
Post by: metime00 on January 09, 2014, 12:38:47 am
Am I missing something or has anyone else tried to play the US in the revolution starting scenario and found it disappointing? Is it likely that such a situation might be remedied by the upcoming expansion (of course any claims either way would probably be baseless). I hope that with the colonies acting like vassals it would be more in line with the mechanics to have a true revolution that would allow a player to mirror the actual US situation and holdings at the various points in the short time given to it before 1821. It pains me to have to be so thoroughly disappointed with this, when the rest of the game is so fantastic....
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 09, 2014, 12:47:23 am
Post by: Karlito on January 09, 2014, 12:55:40 am
Post by: snelg on January 09, 2014, 08:06:52 am
Post by: metime00 on January 09, 2014, 08:46:55 pm
It sucks but from what it sounds like it's been a problem for a while with the Paradox games. I'll return to you in a week's time, USA!
Post by: Wiles on January 14, 2014, 02:52:00 pm
I'm debating whether or not to pick it up - I'm thinking I might get more enjoyment out of EU4 if a wait for a couple more DLCs come out. The base game got a little stale for me after a full playthrough.
Post by: Bluerobin on January 15, 2014, 05:51:55 pm
One thing I DID see floating around is that it's possible to play 1.3 if you have save games you want to finish before you move on to 1.4.
Quote
You can now play with the previous version of Eu4 (v1.3.2) by right-clicking the game in the Games Library and selecting Properties and then the BETAS tab, the select the 1.3.2 version in the dropdown.
This can be handy if you want to finish an old save using the old rules or just want to compare features to before. Just be aware that this version is unsupported, your ironman saves will not be ironman and you can't play MP with people using another version.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 15, 2014, 06:32:56 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 16, 2014, 10:42:19 am
I was deliberately trying to play a very slow game since I was trying to see what happens if you get a nation with colonial underlings into a personal union and integrating them as someone who has their capital in the new world. No such luck apart from the PU with England (who had no colonial nations)
Spoiler: image (click to show/hide)
Thoughts on the DLC:
The patch has really limited AE and vassal feeding. While I thought AE and coalitions needed to be toned down a little it's pretty much nonexistent now. You cna go on a murderous rampage in the HRE and nobody will bat an eye. I personally find this rather boring since there's really nothing stopping snowballing now.
Not a fan of the change to vassal feeding either. Now vassals will almost never buy a province even if it's their culture and religion. My fondest memory of EU4 so far was punching India into little vassal states as Poland separating them by culture and slowly consuming them. I don't really see why it was removed, the AI was already restricted to buying their own culture and most places in the world are decently cultural heterogeneous. With the oversea integration malus it was fairly close time wise to conquering and coring. I would have just made vassal states more prone to revolt, harder to integrate or maybe an admin cost on top of the legitimacy cost.
As for protectorates I'm rather disappointed with them as well. What should be a really interesting mechanic seems to be nothing else but a fancy guarantee. Getting +50% trade is nice and the guarantee +25% tech increase for the protectorate is nice but it still feels lacking especially when compared to good ol' vassalising.
It would have been nice if they acted more like a colonial nation where you could impact their development by paying leader points. The ability to slowly Christianise, advance their tech standing and finally for a large commitment be able to diplo-annex them. I guess we'll see something like this in the likely Indian expansion.
It also makes the Eastern tech group much better than the Western tech group for the ability to vassalise Chinese and Indian tech groups. If you want to be the master of India then playing Poland or Russia seems to be the way to do it.
The random world generator is a mess. It's just simply awful. The best features out of the DLC have been the native play which is fun although possibly a bit too powerful and the colonial nations which really do add some interesting dynamics. Sadly the AI is still rather bad at colonising AI and I've noticed the AI is really bad at choosing areas where a colonial nation could form.
Westernisation is much better than before. It's less punishing and random than before but it does seem to weigh much more heavily on having a good leader.
All in all it's been a rather odd expansion. A lot of stuff I'm not too happy with plus some stuff I do like. I don't really see myself playing much for now, even playing up to 1718 as Caddo was a boring chore. I guess I just found vassal feeding more interesting than the war core war cycle.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 16, 2014, 01:23:40 pm
Post by: Tarran on January 16, 2014, 01:52:04 pm
Post by: Rakonas on January 16, 2014, 01:52:37 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 16, 2014, 01:56:36 pm
Post by: Rakonas on January 16, 2014, 02:57:19 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 16, 2014, 03:23:38 pm
The HRE is a boring slog for mediocre province gains, Hungary and Bohemia are massively expensive to core and Hungary is large and has no releaseable nations, Muscovy and France are OP unless you camp them at the start. Not that vassals are any good anymore anyways. Instead of just nerfing Austrias diplovassalizing power, for instance by adding diminishing returns to stacked diprep for vassalizing, now you can't vassalize barely at all unless its military.
I coulda spent that money on a PLEX for EVE or some soda, at least then I wouldnt feel like it went in the trash. I guess all they care about is "balancing for multiplayer." Morons.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 16, 2014, 10:00:08 pm
Conquered all of Teutonic Order but Marienburg which Poland stole. Even with an accidental send offer that cost me two lands I had Kurland, Riga, Osel and Samogatia. Took Neva from Finland by defeating Muscovy. Conquered Lubeck, vassalized Baden because why not, conquered Mecklenberg, East Frisia, and Utrecht. I had paid off all my loans, had awesome income, decent fleet and army. Allied with Hungary, Bohemia, Bavaria. It was the year 1475.
And then it all went wrong. I forged claims on Antwerp and Aberdeen(England ate entire Scotland). I declared on England forgetting about their massive heavy ship fleet. I lost a sea battle instantly but no ship losses. They patrolled so that I couldn't get any troops to GB at all.
Then, having been used to steamrolling even Austria and Burgundy and various HRE people I said whatever and declared on Burgundy. They had all their normal lands plus 4 between their 2 clusters. Only later did I realize that not only were Englands fleets keeping me from being able to move troops to Burgundy but my allies couldn't move any troops across the continent to hit England's continental holdings. Later I realized I should have allied France and had them declare on Burgundy with me but "since war started" penalties boned me. England had Portugal providing extra ships which made that even harder. And somehow Burgundy allied with Castille who lead a union with Aragon who lead a union with Naples. And they had a small fleet. Even when I built up my fleet to 20 heaviess plus galleys and light ships and cogs taking me to 58 I couldn't win against England or Castille when either of them had 40 or more with less light and heavy than me. I peaced out to England eventually losing Mecklenberg and Osel and Kurland plus Gotaland, money and such. But in the end even Castille could fleet stomp me, I was already in debt from ships and mercs, and I had had to disband mercs after the had snuck into Orkney and then lost half in the Highlands to an English army. So I was both broke and unable to get more mercs even if I had had money.
I really should have just waited to take out Burgundy first. With no England I would have had time to bring in my 45 armies before Castille's fleet sealed the ocean up.
At least next time I have a good strategy and won't mess up the peace offer to the Livs, among a few other changes. But still I lost like 10-20 hours of playtime.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 20, 2014, 06:07:54 pm
After conquering Cleves and Utrecht with separate peace I got screwed because I had my king sieging and so he was the general at like 2/1 instead of my general with 1/6 shock fire. I would have beat the army I set a trap for before the other army arrived and probably ended up winning. Instead with mere days to go they loaded in and totally stomped me. So while I didn't get Friesland I still got the lands I needed to go after Burgundy who has been crippled by wars. Sadly now I'VE been crippled by wars. I totally forgot about the king thing. What I should have done was let that guy die and tried to intercept the smaller army. If I had ended up winning this crucial battle Austria would have been ruined militarily thus allowing me to finish attacking them and claiming Friesland plus a sizable amount of ducats, which I could have spent paying off loans while my still incredibly large army healed up a few thousand troops and prepared to stomp Burgundy in 6 months to claim Antwerpen Zeeland and Freda which also would have given me a line of provinced to Cleves so I could start coring it.
Fuck you Paradox for making the little known rule that shitty monarchs must lead all battles they are a part of even if I was only using him as a leader for his 2 points of siege which I had to Google to find out after wondering why my 1/6 general didn't crush my enemies into dust for me. Why the hell would you just not average or take best stat of all generals on each side of a battle anyways as that is what historically would have happened? In a non Ironman game this is probably where I would either use the manpower cheat or savescum to pretend that battle never happened. Its going to set me back about 20 years once I tally up all the various consequences like losing 5 years of manpower, losing 80 ducats instead of gaining 70 and probably missing me chance to gank Denmark while France was still sieging them and stomping all their armies to claim Picardie.
Sad times ahead for the poor Danes.
In my current game I got curia control from the rng at start. This helped IMMENSELY. I still lost 3 Teut lands to Poland but I managed to get other stuff instead.
I just finished enforcing a PU on Hungary. Even with 3 Italian allies and crappy armies on their side I still burnt through 100% of my manpower and had to stop paying off loans for a while. Somehow I ended up not fighting a single battle with my fleet, which blows since most of my power is in my massive fleet. Well actually the Italians beat but didn't damage my 10 Barque Lubeck trade fleet.
Most of my losses were due to siege attrition which is massive since I had to take down all but 2 of their lands even with winning every single fight and having the war goal bonus. I had the hardest time getting there too. I had to get mil access from Burgundy, Bavaria, Austria and 2 HRE minors. My first route close when the Palatinate revoked mil access which put 1 of my 3 12 man armies into exile status so I had to march all the way back across Europe to my fleet. Sending 3 12 man armies across the entire continent was nervewracking. Getting exiled, taking so long that Hungary got an heir and shit. During the multi year sieging period where I had 3 mil leaders with 1 1 and 2 in siege while having to siege 20 lands with no cannons I was immensely afraid they would get an heir. Once they won I had to counter the 113 negative opinion of me before my stupid king died. Terrifying. What if I lost my PU and wasted all that time, money, and manpower plus the 30 AE? Currently I managed to get to 100 opinion and my king is alive with a semi decent heir. I'll got from 2/4/2 to 1/4/2. Big bonus of forcing a PU on an awesome country like Hungary? No stupid coring costs and no overextension.
In my previous games my first two heirs were 6/5/3 and 5/3/3. Needless to say I am super poor in admin points at 2/4/2. Hell even if it didn't take 10 freaking years to core crappy Nov provinces I still couldn't conquer land anyways since I have no ADM to spare. Also I'm multiple techs behind in every category, well only 1 behind in military, due to stability and coring costs. Its 1490 right now and I have only one idea set, Diplomacy, and only filled 4 levels. Once I get to 7 in 10 years or so I'll have to take Naval Ideas so I can head for England. Luckily having level 3 or 4 DIP tech is not that harmful until like 1550. I really hate the behind in tech monarch point cost nerfs though. I should be saving like 500 points because of how farm behind I am in dip tech but no...
Now literally the only thing I can do is pray that in 50 years + integration time my PU with Hungary will pay off. I'll have tons of money, tons of troops, be able to pincer Poland/Lithuania who are PUed and finally get those 3 Teuton lands plus maybe some bonus lands that Lith has in the Baltic node, and finally have a whole other area to fight wars in where the AE won't cross over to Europe. Denmark has the worst time ever trying to expand because Muscovy and Poland/Lithuania wall off the East and the HRE is not a safe expansion area due to massive AE and those extra opinion nerfs to the entire HRE. I already had to give back Lauenburg because Austria gave me the return it or suffer huge penalties warning.
And anything below Friesland is too far away to fabricate claims on and I can't afford to take 2 point stab hits. Until my manpower and armies recover I cannot even attack Burgundy because taking Friesland to get into their sea node to forge claims is impossible with Bohemia and Austria and the rest of the HRE trying to defend it.
I had Lithuania to help me until taking all of the Livonian Order and 60% of the Teutonic Order pissed them and Poland off and then they got PUed and so Poland told me to fuck off. Now my allies are Hungary, which will finally help me again now that its PUed, since my recent fights were too far away for it to care, and Bavaria which is my dynasty. I have the chance to force a PU on the Palatinate but its not worth it with their allies. Currently if they die its me vs Scotland, why would Scotland have a chance...
Hopefully I can win the succession war and cripple them for an invasion 5 years down the road. I think that since I didn't join the HRE till I was too large because Austria used to be mad at me my best shot is to break up the HRE entirely. Then finally Denmark will take its rightful place as the ruler of Europe, with a focus on taking all the coastal provinces. Eventually I'd like to take not only all of Europe, Britain, and the Med coastal province wise but maybe Africa, too. Then maybe pop the coastal lands of all the Americas for that delicious trade money. I doubt I can get a WC but I might be able to conquer literally every single coastal or island province on the whole map.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 23, 2014, 02:42:46 am
Post by: Teneb on January 23, 2014, 11:05:58 am
Damn it Paradox, I haven't even bought CoP yet.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 23, 2014, 11:58:15 am
The two sprite packs are very well done however, kudos Paradox South.
Hopefully Paradox is going to step up their game with the next expansion. Trade companies are completely needed at this point to fix the totally borked protectorate system (which should have already been patched out).
I do have more faith that they'll be able to pump out a better expansion this time though since it seems like the random map generator (for some reason) got the most attention out of CoP and pissed away precious development time. Not going to preorder though, fool me once...
Also Announced:
Paradox Viking RPG, Runemaster (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?843-Project-Nero) (that looks a bit like HOMM)
Hearts of Iron 4 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?844-Project-Armstrong) (because you can't possibly ever get sick of WW2 games...)
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 23, 2014, 12:47:15 pm
I've found that it is actually possible to keep technological pace with Europe as Japan without westernizing, but it requires having +3/+3/+3 advisers always, and frugality when it comes to monarch points. Of course, for whatever dumb reason Asian units are still objectively inferior to their equal level western counterparts, but I didn't have difficulty trashing Spain and Muscovy. Colonizing the Philippines and Indonesia early gives some ridiculously good provinces that can pay for the adviser costs, but for the first time in EU, I was strapped for cash most of the time (until I annexed Manchu who had been fed most of Ming).
Rushing the first artillery tech lets you absolutely stomp Ming if they don't have it, by the way... I obliterated an 80 regiment doomstack in the first war with a 28 regiment stack, and after that their manpower never really recovered. The overextension mechanics are absolute tripe, though... Couldn't take 4 provinces from Ming without going over 100%, and without vassal feeding, there wouldn't have been any reason to even bother with it. I fail to see how conquering the crap out of China would result in constant peasant revolts in mainland Japan... I would've thought that house Hosokawa would've ascended to god status by then.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 23, 2014, 09:08:07 pm
Post by: MrWiggles on January 23, 2014, 09:53:45 pm
Post by: Tarran on January 23, 2014, 10:08:10 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 04:12:49 am
Have you consider that Paradox isnt making a world conquest game?
Have you considered that you can make a world conquest possible without focusing the entire game on it or forcing players who don't want to do it to do it?
That exact phrase with precisely those words is a common troll tactic on the Paradox forums. And its inherently trolling in general. I mean, no, I never ever ever not in a million years considered that world conquest and map painting was not the sole focus of Paradox. Or is that sarcasm?
Johan specifically stated that EU4 was a conquest game, and yet the most effective strategy for growing large is to abuse Austria's, and some other countries', ability to possess a large number of dipreps and diprels.
Probably the stinkiest cheese in the whole game is of course the HRE. In fact nearly every world conquest centers around it. While DDRJake sort of sidestepped it by abusing the warscore cost drop of the revolution casus belli some players like Novacat went right at it using its vassal power combined with its core cost and tech bonus to make an Ottoman HRE ruling monstrosity coring provinces in 6-12 months rather than the 6-10 years most countries take.
There is also of course the cheese strategy of abusing the free faux-vassal status of HRE princes to "vassalize" the whole world with no diprel requirement and then permanently sticking to 6-10 high quality provinces to further reduce coring time and nerf your aggressive expansion gain.
World conquest trouble is really just a symptom of the fact that attempting to directly conquer large amounts of land in a conquest game is disallowed by arbitrary, unhistorical, nonsensical hard caps. At 99% OE you merely get massive nerfs to diplomatic capability. At 101% you are pummeled with insane events until you crash and burn. Even if you could handle the random rebels springing up in your capital because you conquered some poor nation halfway across the world it doesn't matter because events will cripple you.
I once accidentally went 4% over the OE line and triggered a whopping 3 25 prestige loss events in a single 2 month period.
There's lots of other bullshit too. With claims and wargoals and rival status I can take 1 province for 0 dip points in a peace deal, plus like 4 provinces for 28 each. But god forbid I want to annex the entire country which suddenly costs me 300 points for 6 provinces instead of 112 for 5 of them.
The list of garbage goes on and on but no one else out there makes games remotely similar to Paradox so if you want to play grand strategy you are stuck with it.
Well, you can do some decent fixes with mods but so much of the stuff is hard coded that many major issues are unavoidable.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 24, 2014, 06:48:46 am
"#pdxcon EUIV:WoN - Enhanced Diplomacy. Trade companies (like East India Company). Privateers and Caravans." (https://twitter.com/quill18/status/426373368389304320)
Presumably caravans will be like lightships for landlocked countries.
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 11:01:50 am
We're 200 years in now and we're the top two nations in the New World and can actually meet the larger countries in battle on equal terms. My troops have 125% discipline, which seems to be a tremendous advantage and I can cut through other native american nations like a chainsaw through a moderately large shrubbery. I dominate the trade in two of the three major new world trade nodes currently, and he controls the other one.
Post by: bulborbish on January 24, 2014, 12:22:03 pm
Have you consider that Paradox isnt making a world conquest game?
Have you considered that you can make a world conquest possible without focusing the entire game on it or forcing players who don't want to do it to do it?
[rest omitted for length sakes]
Ok, first off, cool down. We're not on paradox forums, so no need to bring the unhealthy rants from there here.
Second off, the priority of the game is a Historical Simulation, which should make a world conquest nearly impossible (they keep plugging holes that are found to make it easier, with the most recent casualty being vassal feeding)
The purpose of overextension is to simulate the fact that you really cannot take significant amounts of territory and hold onto it easily, and if you have a problem with it the EU4 simply is not your game. I recommend EU3, which is much more forgiving in giving you the ability to conquer.
As to your other complaints: if you really hate patch 1.4 (which is what reduced your ability to map paint) then stop complaining about it here and just revert to the previous patch. No one is forcing you to use patch 1.4 .
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 01:26:10 pm
As far as the Paradox forums, I don't care about your hard on for trashing them, that's your issue. I mentioned them because that's where you find the best examples of how the optimal way to play EU4 is with blatant cheese like Orthodox Ottoman HRE abuse.
If you read the Paradox forums you would know that the game is not primarily a historical simulator. And if it were it would be a terrible one. They nerfed vassal feeding because Johan wants the game to be about conquest and because tons of people complained on the forums about it. Complaining on forums is one of the primary ways to change the game. Although if that was the goal the Paradox forums would be the optimal place to do it. In fact they gave a large buff, large being a relative term here, to direct conquest by dropping AE scaling for larger nations. Coalitions were basically totally nerfed, thanks mainly to bitching by people on the Paradox forums about how anti-fun they were.
Your argument about overextension is ridiculously contradictory. You first claim that EU4 is a historical simulator and then claim overextension makes sense. In fact overextension is perhaps the second most unhistoric mechanic in the game after Protectorates. Also, you can world conquest easily since Protectorates count for the purpose of world conquest but protectorates ruin the historical simulation argument because that's not how India was conquered. Which they are sort of but not really changing in the new DLC about trading companies. And of course the British Raj ruled India as vassal states for a long time after the Companies were dissolved.
The Core and OE systems are actually immensely unhistoric. Please explain where in history you could spend 8 years doing some abstract thingamajiggy and suddenly that province will not longer ever rebel ever? Ridiculous no? Also accepted culture is non-historic as well, such as my Danish empire losing Norwegian as an accepted culture.
The reason world conquest is possible in EU4 is that over a 400 year period the same person with the same goals, and extremely gamey/cheesy goals at that, rules a country. No amount of mechanic change will fix this. Furthermore if we really look at history we see that a lot of stuff was dependent on a ton of other stuff. EU4 loses its status as a history focused game as soon as the first 10 or so years are over.
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 01:48:53 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 01:53:18 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 02:02:07 pm
I have a cherokee province. They are NOT an accepted culture but they are the same religion. I have all of the revolt reducing buildings I can currently build in the province. I have a small garrison stationed there because this is, seriously, a recurring thing. I think the cherokee just fucking hate me. The zapotec? Gone. Happy. Accepted culture. Never rebelled. Rolled over after one siege and a blockade in fact. Choctaw? Gone. Not an accepted culture, but never a peep have I heard from them.
Cherokee province shows NEGATIVE revolt risk. Guess what? 26 more units yay! The people's republic liberation army of the cherokee nation? Maybe another nation is funding them? Because they are a pain in the ass.
Also, my opinion: Any discussion of whether these mechanics make sense in a historical or realistic sense is ridiculous and serves no purpose. This is a game about playing around in a historical setting, but anything that happens once you start the game is 100% ahistorical. The Aztec controls the curia in my game, for god's sake. The mayans are a major trade power and a peer to castille. You cannot call this game anything but an ahistorical simulation of the medieval world.
Also: I did not know unhistorical was a common word. I have always used ahistorical. Neat.
Post by: bulborbish on January 24, 2014, 03:01:44 pm
Get bent. I didn't start a fight, Mr. Wiggles did with his sarcasm and blatant condescension.
To be honest, I just saw Mr. Wiggles pointing out one thing and your extreme overreaction, but I guess that opinions can vary.
As far as the Paradox forums, I don't care about your hard on for trashing them, that's your issue. I mentioned them because that's where you find the best examples of how the optimal way to play EU4 is with blatant cheese like Orthodox Ottoman HRE abuse.
When have I ever talked down on paradox forums outside my last post? And I was mostly commentating that virtually half of the threads on the forum are complaining about various features paradox has implemented/patched/not fixed/not implemented.
If you read the Paradox forums you would know that the game is not primarily a historical simulator. And if it were it would be a terrible one. They nerfed vassal feeding because Johan wants the game to be about conquest and because tons of people complained on the forums about it. Complaining on forums is one of the primary ways to change the game. Although if that was the goal the Paradox forums would be the optimal place to do it. In fact they gave a large buff, large being a relative term here, to direct conquest by dropping AE scaling for larger nations. Coalitions were basically totally nerfed, thanks mainly to bitching by people on the Paradox forums about how anti-fun they were.
Actually, I spend more time on Paradox forums than these forums these days. I am well aware of how it looks and the purpose of the complaint threads. I am also aware that they are going to be re-buffing AE in local regions due to the fact that nations were barely receiving any lasting AE, so the only coalitions were small OPMs.
Your argument about overextension is ridiculously contradictory. You first claim that EU4 is a historical simulator and then claim overextension makes sense. In fact overextension is perhaps the second most unhistoric mechanic in the game after Protectorates. Also, you can world conquest easily since Protectorates count for the purpose of world conquest but protectorates ruin the historical simulation argument because that's not how India was conquered. Which they are sort of but not really changing in the new DLC about trading companies. And of course the British Raj ruled India as vassal states for a long time after the Companies were dissolved.
While I disagree that OE is very unhistoric (administratively integrating new territory does take time, and puts strain on your remaining administration in the meantime) I can understand your sentiments that this is not expressed very well (since cores are treated as right to rule and established administration at the same time).
And protectorates are a fairly decent at simulating how Spain annexed the Aztec, Maya, and Inca, though ideally you would be able to annex them too, so I have little objection to them.
The Core and OE systems are actually immensely unhistoric. Please explain where in history you could spend 8 years doing some abstract thingamajiggy and suddenly that province will not longer ever rebel ever? Ridiculous no? Also accepted culture is non-historic as well, such as my Danish empire losing Norwegian as an accepted culture.
While I admit that it is true that cores are very unhistorical compared to what I would prefer (a population level acceptance of rule, combined with a method of wide scale revolts to free countries), I accept it as one of the concessions that had to be made because the focus of the game era (Exploration, Trade, and Global Hegemony) makes it impractical to take a more in-depth look on population in the initial release, though I hope that this will eventually be rectified.
Additionally, nothing is wrong with losing accepted cultures at the point that they are not relevant for keeping your nation stable. IRL Denmark also treated Norway poorly exactly because they lacked the manpower and wealth to resist Denmark at a meaningful level.
The reason world conquest is possible in EU4 is that over a 400 year period the same person with the same goals, and extremely gamey/cheesy goals at that, rules a country. No amount of mechanic change will fix this. Furthermore if we really look at history we see that a lot of stuff was dependent on a ton of other stuff. EU4 loses its status as a history focused game as soon as the first 10 or so years are over.
I will have to clarify: I see it as a historic simulator, not a simulation of actual history. I can play EU2 if I really want more historic worlds, and read a history book for direct history results.
Post by: Dutchling on January 24, 2014, 03:03:33 pm
Not that I care, CK2 FTW :p
Post by: Micro102 on January 24, 2014, 03:07:23 pm
Have you consider that Paradox isnt making a world conquest game?
Have you considered that you can make a world conquest possible without focusing the entire game on it or forcing players who don't want to do it to do it?
[rest omitted for length sakes]
Ok, first off, cool down. We're not on paradox forums, so no need to bring the unhealthy rants from there here.
Second off, the priority of the game is a Historical Simulation, which should make a world conquest nearly impossible (they keep plugging holes that are found to make it easier, with the most recent casualty being vassal feeding)
The purpose of overextension is to simulate the fact that you really cannot take significant amounts of territory and hold onto it easily, and if you have a problem with it the EU4 simply is not your game. I recommend EU3, which is much more forgiving in giving you the ability to conquer.
As to your other complaints: if you really hate patch 1.4 (which is what reduced your ability to map paint) then stop complaining about it here and just revert to the previous patch. No one is forcing you to use patch 1.4 .
Wasn't the priority of EU3 also historical simulation? Hasn't the world been on the brink of of world conquest before in actual history? Aren't you playing as some sort of immortal mind controlling the nation for centuries? You seem to have no justification to assert how EU4 should be played or designed.
Was there a poll for this or something before they patched the game? Because the reason for patching it should not just be (we wanted to make it harder). It should have some sort of historical reference or appeal tot he community.
Also, for your last sentence, it's like me saying "Well if you don't like exploit X, don't use it. No need to patch it out and cause hassle to people"
Post by: bulborbish on January 24, 2014, 03:25:36 pm
Have you consider that Paradox isnt making a world conquest game?
Have you considered that you can make a world conquest possible without focusing the entire game on it or forcing players who don't want to do it to do it?
[rest omitted for length sakes]
Ok, first off, cool down. We're not on paradox forums, so no need to bring the unhealthy rants from there here.
Second off, the priority of the game is a Historical Simulation, which should make a world conquest nearly impossible (they keep plugging holes that are found to make it easier, with the most recent casualty being vassal feeding)
The purpose of overextension is to simulate the fact that you really cannot take significant amounts of territory and hold onto it easily, and if you have a problem with it the EU4 simply is not your game. I recommend EU3, which is much more forgiving in giving you the ability to conquer.
As to your other complaints: if you really hate patch 1.4 (which is what reduced your ability to map paint) then stop complaining about it here and just revert to the previous patch. No one is forcing you to use patch 1.4 .
Wasn't the priority of EU3 also historical simulation? Hasn't the world been on the brink of of world conquest before in actual history? Aren't you playing as some sort of immortal mind controlling the nation for centuries? You seem to have no justification to assert how EU4 should be played or designed.
Was there a poll for this or something before they patched the game? Because the reason for patching it should not just be (we wanted to make it harder). It should have some sort of historical reference or appeal tot he community.
Also, for your last sentence, it's like me saying "Well if you don't like exploit X, don't use it. No need to patch it out and cause hassle to people"
EU3's goal was historical simulation, and it did this to a degree. The primary issue that arose though was that every nation was the same except for some small modifiers, detracting somewhat from historical progression. The end result was the idea system in EU4.
Technically, Vassal Feeding was actually supposed to be removed all the way back in Patch 1.2, but a bug broke prevented this change from being implemented. Patch 1.4 fixed this bug and caused this storm to happen.
And my last sentence was the recommendation I had since MoLAoS was complaining about the changes in Patch 1.4, clearly preferring patch 1.3.2 over it. In hindsight I did come off as offensive, and I overreacted in my response.
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 03:27:50 pm
Post by: bulborbish on January 24, 2014, 03:30:01 pm
Can someone explain what vassel feeding is?
You vassalize someone and then give them provinces to core for you so you can avoid the overextension, and then annex them to get free cores which you suffered no overextension for.
Post by: Tarran on January 24, 2014, 03:34:35 pm
Not just overextention, but also the admin point cost, and in the case of returning cores your vassals already have, avoiding AE.Can someone explain what vassel feeding is?
You vassalize someone and then give them provinces to core for you so you can avoid the overextension, and then annex them to get free cores which you suffered no overextension for.
Vassal feeding is far less straightforward compared to coring yourself, especially with the latest patch, but it is still far easier on your nation than coring yourself.
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 03:36:45 pm
Post by: Tarran on January 24, 2014, 03:39:16 pm
So compared to the most dedicated cheesers/conquerers, yes, you are expanding much slower. Compared to the average? Hard to say.
Post by: forsaken1111 on January 24, 2014, 03:40:56 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 04:09:53 pm
It's hard to tell how many people vassal feed and, more importantly, to what extent.
So compared to the most dedicated cheesers/conquerers, yes, you are expanding much slower. Compared to the average? Hard to say.
There was a passionate complaint thread about the VF nerf on the Paradox forums. A lot of people think vassal feeding is a more interesting involved activity that the player has some control over and needs to put thought into, compared to war where you have barely any control. Use the optimal unit comp for your tech, hope for a good general when you blow that 50 mil points, carpet siege all day every day. I'd say 25 or more people posted there defending vassal feeding as fun and involved. There is a lot of strategy in doing it well. Personally I prefer the Iron Fist of Death over dip expansion. I used to constantly use the infamous "North Korea Method" in CK2 to get fast WC.
My expansion involves little cheese. Of the two attempts I made at vassal feeding one was a great success although I lost 2 attempts to core meath due to rebels. I ended up selling all the Irish lands to Connacht instead of coring Meath and I'll reap those benefits in about 10 years. On the other hand I tried to feed Oldenburg and it was awful. Turns out that stupid strategic interest modifiers meant I sat around with 164 overextension so that I had to peace out of a war on Lithuania and then stupid vassal wouldn't even take provinces right next to it with same culture and religion. Now I've got 2 useless vassals, I coulda had Oldenburg annexed already if I hadn't tried to feed, I got those rebels that ruined my core attempt on Meath and I had to lose 2 stab breaking royal marriages with Austria and Lithuania to clear up my dip rel limit. I'd unwin that conquest of Utrecht and Brunswick in a second because it cost me tons of AE and those 2 one and two province vassals are ruining my dip points.
Post by: Tarran on January 24, 2014, 04:22:31 pm
Anyway, a way to tell if the AI has Strategic Interest is to turn on AIview. If their want to conquer is high, they'll likely accept it.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 06:23:22 pm
Post by: Tarran on January 24, 2014, 07:38:43 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 24, 2014, 11:10:15 pm
Post by: MrWiggles on January 25, 2014, 12:58:12 am
Post by: bulborbish on January 25, 2014, 01:08:30 am
I can do that in Ironman or no?
You cannot access anything in the console during Ironman.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 25, 2014, 03:15:12 am
Post by: MoLAoS on January 25, 2014, 03:17:49 am
Just for the record, I wasnt being condescending or sarcastic.
Intention isn't magic. You just can't ask whether someone has not considered such an obvious possibility without sounding like a jerk. Might as well ask whether someone knows the sky is blue. I believe you when you say you didn't mean to come off that way, but that question is just extremely condescending by default.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 25, 2014, 03:45:48 am
On a different topic, God hates me. Literally. A cardinal I outinfluenced Spain for 145 to 140 Papal Influence died. I had got 50 from an event so I loaded up on his replacement. Guy dies. Not only that but I've lost a total of 1000 Papal Influence to dying cardinals. In 75% of cases where one of my Cardinals gets elected he knocks out one of my already elected cardinals(I noticed a pattern and started keeping track). I haven't gotten a cardinal spawn for over 50 years even though I am the largest nation, Catholic or otherwise, in the game. In 80% of cases, 4/5, where I had to choose which cardinal to focus on until my Papal Influence bounced back, the guy I didn't pick was elected within 6 months and the one I picked eventually died before reaching the Curia.
I really need to gain control so I can drop two royal marriages and be able to annex all my vassals while still being able to declare war. I started this game in control, lost it 20 years in and never got it again in the following 80 years. I have a perfect relationship with the Papal State, the largest nation, perfect religious unity, and I am the Defender of the Faith and have been for 50 years. Unfortunately when your cardinals constantly die with 50-250 Papal Influence invested or bump another of your guys off if they do manage to get elected, no amount of player intervention can ever matter. There is no action of any kind I can take because the in game version of God has decided to screw me over. Its insane. I must have lost the equivalent of an extra 20 years of gametime due to losses of dip points since I can't cancel the marriages without a stab and prestige loss, but mainly a stab loss, plus the services of the extra diplomat. Hell I bit the bullet and cancelled 2 marriages awhile back. Unfortunately after my 2/2/1 king lived for 40 years, 15 of them when my 4/3/5 heir was of age despite sieges and battles and even trying to drown him at sea, and then my heir only lived 10 years to age 41 sticking me with an 8 year 1/1/1 regency. So I cannot afford to take the stab losses to break the marriages.
This shit is why I am an atheist. God never comes through when you really need him.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 25, 2014, 06:04:07 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 25, 2014, 04:16:08 pm
Its also undesirable from a gameplay perspective because its unintuitive, which makes the game less accessible.
The issue is that vassal feeding is required in the first place, but that just means the system is broken. The answer is to fix the base system, not to leave an exploit in that fixes it in an awkward and unintuitive way.
Post by: Rakonas on January 25, 2014, 05:03:53 pm
The problem with vassal feeding is that it doesn't make any sense. Cores represent an area being in line with your county's culture, and your country being seen as having a historical claim to that land. Neither of those things a vassal could offer you. Also... when in history has vassal feeding, or anything like it, ever happened?Except that's not what cores mean, they mean administration or something. Pretty much all decisions or events only give you claims which somehow represent your right to the land. You still face OE for trying to reclaim your land as the byzzies for instance.
Its also undesirable from a gameplay perspective because its unintuitive, which makes the game less accessible.
The issue is that vassal feeding is required in the first place, but that just means the system is broken. The answer is to fix the base system, not to leave an exploit in that fixes it in an awkward and unintuitive way.
It's so inconsistent in Eu4 it's irritating.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 25, 2014, 05:41:17 pm
Sadly there was a cost. My second amazing king, 4/3/5 and now 4/4/1, died after only 10-15 years of service leaving me in a 7 year regency. Luckily my regent was decent unlike the 1/1/1 I had last time. Still, I can't fight any wars.
Also I thought I had a great shot at getting Spain in a PU but just as the last 2 times they had an heir at like age 60. I was hoping to have Spain and thus Naples in a PU by the time I begin or finish integrating France. Spain has 2 colonial nations and a lot of land. It's not even worth attacking them to try and get control, it would just take too long. I also just barely missed a PU with Hungary once or twice. At least I am allied to both of them.
I got Mazovia vassalized but even with only 19 base tax Poland still gets a 40 point penalty vassalizing. I could overcome that except the -14 trust I have from dissolving marriages, not joining wars, and breaking alliances that I did to get them small enough to vassalize. Once I can get them I'll go after Bohemia to return Plock to Mazovia, release Silesia so I can grab their other core back from Brandenburg later, and return as many Polish cores as possible. Then I'll have to gank the Ottomans to get a couple more Polish cores and release Serbia.
Once I integrate France I'll be able to force Austria to release some crap for later vassalizing and beat down Muscovy and Lithuania.
Post by: MrWiggles on January 25, 2014, 08:59:50 pm
Very true, but you know what else is true, controlling your own reaction.Just for the record, I wasnt being condescending or sarcastic.
Intention isn't magic. You just can't ask whether someone has not considered such an obvious possibility without sounding like a jerk. Might as well ask whether someone knows the sky is blue. I believe you when you say you didn't mean to come off that way, but that question is just extremely condescending by default.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 25, 2014, 09:35:32 pm
Very true, but you know what else is true, controlling your own reaction.Just for the record, I wasnt being condescending or sarcastic.
Intention isn't magic. You just can't ask whether someone has not considered such an obvious possibility without sounding like a jerk. Might as well ask whether someone knows the sky is blue. I believe you when you say you didn't mean to come off that way, but that question is just extremely condescending by default.
Considering its prevalence as a troll on the PDox forums, that wouldn't be very likely. Anyways most of my post wasn't an angry rant, just a couple lines. Hardly very much drama considering the amount of trolling that phrase has been used in.
On the topic of EU4 itself, I have finally started to integrate France, lost a few years because Bohemia somehow pwned my 3x as big army while having too many cavalry and with everything but the general the same thus making that war last until the length of war penalty expired in its entirety. And I was on the way to losing another army when I peaced out. I also had to release Finland and pay 1.2k ducats to Austria to end a coalition war on me, and 500 plus novgorod and ladoga to Muscovy to avoid them attacking me while I still hadn't finished Bohemia. Luckily Burgundy, Bohemia's only ally peace out and gave me gold and cancelled their treaty after France/Spain did a lot of damage. Of course the reason Muscovy wanted Novogord was to form Russian which it did right after peace. FML. Still I got Plock for Mazovia and have begun to annex Mazovia which has Podlaise, Plock, Warsawa and Wizna. And I got like 3 cores back for Poland. Once I win one more war with Bohemia for the last 2 Polish cores and one vs the Ottomans for the 3-4 they have I shall annex a massive Poland. I annexed Britanny over the course of the war. Also Papal Control is perhaps permanently in my grasp. I now have 4 controlled Cardinals and 2/5 prospective ones. If only those chances for a PU with Hungary and Spain had worked out. My next goal is to clean up Pomerania and Brandenburg and Mecklenberg and maybe Brunswick if I have to so I can finally control all of the Baltic coast. Normally I get it a lot earlier but shit happens. I think I traded half of Scotland, Cornwall(which is how I got close enough to Brittany and all of Ireland for it. Once I clear that up I'll be after the rest of England. Release Scotland and Wales, and maybe Northumberland although it only has one core. I may just direct core that. Maybe try to sell some English lands to Wales or Scotland if they'll take them. Ideally I would vassalize England, but with their rich base tax it might only allow me to hold a few lands that way. I think 20 basetax is the limit for Force Vassalization. Maybe I can do the release plus a little coring, then attack again for max lands, then break truce right away and try to force vassalize and sell it all its lands back, thus saving a lot of coring time and cost. Then I guess I'll release Ukraine and take some lands and try to vassalize it and Lithuania.
Ideally I want to be undisputed master of Europe by 1621, thus giving me 200 years to expand overseas and handle the middle East and Russia. Without getting those lucky Spain and Hungary PUs its probably not a potential world conquest. But then, I was playing Denmark, can't vassalize anything but Eastern and Ottoman, has terrible NIs for coring or conquest and is curtailed immensely early on by the HRE and Russia. I'd say all of Europe including colonizers and maybe half the rest of the world would be a good result.
Post by: Rakonas on January 26, 2014, 01:08:41 am
Post by: MoLAoS on January 26, 2014, 04:24:28 am
Ottomans kept stomping me, even when I win I lose more guys. Its total bullshit. They just have Lucky Nation Generals and roll after roll of high numbers. In the end I peaced out with 150 ducats and 2 of the 4 cores I want. I actually coulda got 3 core returns and one conquer and then sell return to hit the total of 4, except the war was so damn long Lithuania recovered from Russian stomping it and sieged the provinces I wanted.
I'm just waiting for my 3rd, yes 3rd, regency of the game to end so I can crap on Bohemia for the other 2 it has and then annex this sucker. A solid 10 or so provinces plus 4 from Mazovia ain't bad considering how shit I am at diplo annexing. The other 2 would have given me a sea presence in the Black Sea but w/e. I'll expand over from my French Med coastal provinces.
My upcoming ruler is 5/0/3. Thank god I'll be starting his reign by annexing the 3 French OPM vassals I got stuck with and soon after the annexation of Poland to clear up my relations. I may also dump Bavaria as an ally. They never join my wars and they are weak anyways, even carved up Bohemia managed to retain more than its starting provinces.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Update: I actually got stomped by dice rolls in the first fight with my new French armies but I prevailed with about .20 morale to spare in the next fight where I outnumbered them 2 to 1 and there was no terrain bonus for either side.
Stupid jerks just kept rolling 8s and 9s on top of their 2x as good generals.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Well, its not only terrain but bad dice roles and lucky nation generals just constantly fucking you over and over and over. I had 60k men when I attacked the Ottomans. Now I have 14k. Meanwhile the 110k troops I was counting on from France and Spain are not even coming. Apparently France lacks the boats to move dudes any distance and the Ottoman boats are crushing the Spanish. Nominally I have armies 2x as big as the Ottomans even after they crushed like 50000 of my guys regardless of terrain. But they can't get anywhere. Luckily I'll finish integrating France in the next 5 months and ship them a short distance to where they can pursue a land crossing through Prussia/Mazovia/Poland.
And to think I thought returning 40 warscore worth of cores to Poland against an inferior tech group was going to be a walk in the park with 3x as many troops at equal or superior tech level. Its been like 5 bloody years, 6 months till France is mine and I can use their troops with an intelligence slightly above that of a squirrel which the AI apparently can't handle in order to smash the Ottoman armies and then carpet siege. Even before the Ottoman death fleets the useless Spanish were barely doing anything.
Post by: werty892 on January 26, 2014, 09:00:21 am
Post by: PanH on January 26, 2014, 09:57:43 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 26, 2014, 11:29:20 am
The Ottoman units really decline in quality at around tech level 17. Tech level 24 is where they completely fall behind both Western and Eastern which is expanded to 22 full pips at end game! However what I find makes western infantry so deadly is not only that they get more pips but rather have the highest fire pips in the game which get the biggest multipliers. Mid to end game is all about stacking fire and moral.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 26, 2014, 04:30:31 pm
That's why I play with lucky nations off.
Ironman though, so not an option. Its not even that I took like 10 years and lost 100000 troops. Its that fucking Lithuania ganked 2 of the provinces I wanted after I finally crushed the immortal souls of the Ottomans into the dirt. I would have had a province on the Black Sea and Moldavia is a nice province in general. Diplo-annexing the entire starting borders of Poland would have been amazing revenge. Plus the main thing I even did to stop them was support rebels to lose them their Teuton lands that they stole before I could get them. Aside from this war I only put minimal effort into completely destroying a Great Power. Hell the 40 stacks of rebels I spawn, the first time there were 29 and Poland and Lithuania finally got them, drove their prestige so low that they lost their PU with Lithuania. Took me a whopping 100 or so gold to support those rebels.
Honestly, something goes catastrophically wrong in every war I've had with a major power past the point when I formed Scandanavia. Its only my abuse of loans, my high levels of ideas due to lagging in diplo tech and my general refusal to ever get up that beats my enemies into submission. I could have conquered another 50 provinces of various things by now except for random massacres where the enemy's 6/5 general was rolling all 8s and 9s.
Post by: MoLAoS on January 26, 2014, 06:03:37 pm
After the stomped my dozens of mercs and killed literally 100% of my army I managed to piece out by cancelling treaties and also my 3 OPM French Vassals and giving Austria a crapload of gold. I kinda wish I had tried to do that while I still had troops. Musta lost 20000 or so that I could have saved if I had thought of it. Honestly though I still think its bullshit that Brandenburg's 15k guys got the province bonuses when it was my vassal we were fighting on. I assume its some sort of war declaring guy doesn't get the bonuses thing. And I'm still so pissed about their 2x as high dice roll average. Also apparently it would destabilize Hungary to join my war on their rival Bohemia but they happily joined Austria and Brandenburg and Savoy in roflstomping ME, their loyal ally for hundreds of years because I declared on Brandenburg.
The main reason I attacked Brandenburg was because they were sieging Bohemia provinces I want for Poland. Honestly I should have just annexed Poland instead of attacking the Ottomans and Bohemia for their last 6 cores. Instead I could have annexed my French OPM vassals, attacked Burgundy and the Dutch during the Dutch War of Independence and taken control of Antwerp for my capital thus massively boosting my trade income.
Post by: Rakonas on January 26, 2014, 06:58:21 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tarran on January 26, 2014, 07:02:53 pm
Post by: Rakonas on January 26, 2014, 07:09:13 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 26, 2014, 09:48:41 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on January 27, 2014, 07:32:43 am
However I learned a lot of stuff about next time like get into the HRE posthaste and conquer Hansa and grab the Dutch stuff early. I pray I'll have a similar chance to break up Poland. I may want to focus a little more in one area next time. I went after half of Scotland plus the whole of Ireland thus bringing me into those two disastrous conflicts with England. Although my initial attack to take Cornwall and Meath in order to be able to vassalize Brittany actually went extremely well. Then of course it mad England and later Great Britain declare on me twice. It may be better to break up and vassalize Poland and start working on Lithuania/Ukraine early on rather than go for British stuff. Being in the HRE will of course make many things a lot easier. I had 2 or 3 wars where Austria + Brandenberg curbstomped me. Also I can go after Mecklenberg and Pomerania earlier to make sure I rule the Baltic, plus the aforementioned Hansa. Assuming I can PU Hungary and/or France next game as well as rule the Curia I expect my new strategy to be amazing. I do not know if I should be come Emperor or just dissolve the HRE.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 27, 2014, 08:47:28 am
Right now the biggest issue I see is that when Manchu invades northern China and declares themselves the Qing dynasty but they're still forced to conquer the country piece by piece and wipe Ming out completely.
My solution would be to have a dynamic tag call China which changes name per dynasty, just like CK2 with Muslims/Pagans. When Ming (China) loses the Mandate of Heaven all neighbouring countries will get a CB called something like "Force Dynasty". If a country using this CB wins with 100% warscore that nation will tag switch to China, it's name will change to the current dynasty and the previous tag plus the land it owned is given to the AI and forced into either a vassal or PU (national ideas will likely be inherited from conquering country).
This is meant to primarily simulate both the Qing and Yuan (maybe Wei?) invasions which had a force taking over the full region of the Chinese empire but their homelands remaining rather autonomous. It would make the Asia region a whole lot more dynamic with the possibility of other Asian dynasties taking the throne of China (imagine the Joseon or Sho Dynasty!).
Revolter states (like Zhou) can be spawned dynamically by event which instead of just taking over a few provinces and calling it quits will try and force a dynasty change, making losing the Mandate of Heaven deadly even for a player.
Been thinking about a way of trying to mod it but I don't think the game will handle the "double swap" of the tags. There's also no current way to make a dynamic tag meaning that there would be a big ugly China spread across the map.
Post by: Sheb on January 27, 2014, 09:23:41 am
-Make it a low authority HRE and play again as Navarre trying to hold onto the throne of an Europe-wide Empire.
-Make it a low to mid-authority HRE and then play as some Indian state with the end goal being becoming Emperor.
-Make it a Roman Empire and then play as Aztec or Inca (I've got the Sunset Invasion DLC) trying to get a foothold in Europe and generally hold them back.
So, what do you think would be the most fun?
Post by: casserol on February 08, 2014, 08:14:02 am
So I tried a bit of EU IV. My first impressions were great, but after a couple hour I finally reinstalled EU III :(
My biggest problem is monarch points. Are they here for anything but slowing down the game :( ?
On the other hand, there's been quite a few improvement, and after replaying a bit of EUIII I'm not satisfied either and want to give EUIV a second try.
Please tell me positive things about monarch points :D
Fake edit : and on the technical side, how do you deal with warning ? Playing as Armenia (I started a game as Aq Konyulu and released them) I find myself constantly warned by my huges hostiles neighbours (namely the ottomans and Qara Konyulu) and have to wait for them to be embroiled in big wars just so I can dow my small neighbours, which is crippling my expansion. I apparently managed to fend off warning by the Qaras by guaranteeing them, which as absurd as it is seemed to please them, but now i got warned by the ottomans and I'm in for 20 years of forced peace :(
True edit : I mean EUIII was already all about playing around the obstacles to expansions the devs put in, but damn EUIV does it even worse, looks like they got it really expansion-proof that time.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 08, 2014, 08:44:56 am
The point of monarch points is to add a random aspect to nations so not everything can be calculated and gamed. It's purposes are meant to simulate the rise and fall of nations and possibly stop the snowballing of nations once they get too big. It does work to a degree but is heavily reliant on luck. I personally prefer having more than a single currency and found tech rates and the like much more reasonable than in EU3 (where a HRE OPM can be like 15 levels higher in tech).
Some people argue that MP is nothing than a stupid luck mechanic that negates tactics but I would personally argue against this by saying that there is some tactics and indeed even skill in working around a 0/0/1 monarch. This is especially true in Multiplayer where you have to really start playing the diplomacy game where you get a bad ruler so you have some allies to shield you in your moment of need.
If you're having a lot of trouble getting into EUIV due to the MP system try starting with a republic. My first game was with Venice and I felt that really eased me into the system and learning where and when to spend points.
As for warnings remember that a nation cannot warn you if you've warned them. I used this in my Ireland game when I knew I would never be able to be friends with England so I both warned them and embargoed them. AI will also not always go through with the warnings especially if they're in a big war, lack funds/manpower or you have a big mean ally to protect you.
Post by: MoLAoS on February 08, 2014, 05:14:23 pm
So shitty monarchs will slow a smart player down and bore them out of their minds, but they won't collapse the player nation to any significant degree. Even my most disastrous mistakes have consequences of mostly waiting for manpower to recharge and maybe wait to deal with loans I may have taken trying to fight against the AI's super generals and constant 9 rolls in battles. but I don't LOSE, and my empire never collapses. Maybe I release a couple nations with low base tax provinces, like Finland. But mostly not even that.
If I want to savescum and break out the Google, a real sandbox would let me. If I want to try and play the game all by myself, the poor design decisions and programming of Paradox will be a far greater limiter to my expansion than any intentional mechanic they design. Well that combined with their poor in game descriptions. Anyone who remembers the combat power modifier debacle, or the ongoing cavalry are worthless for anyone but Poland with full Aristocratic and National Ideas problem, understands what I mean.
Post by: casserol on February 09, 2014, 09:54:37 am
Why is Paradox calling its add-ons "DLC" ?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sheb on February 09, 2014, 10:31:23 am
Post by: Micro102 on February 09, 2014, 02:03:49 pm
Post by: Dutchling on February 09, 2014, 02:24:16 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on February 09, 2014, 03:37:44 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on April 23, 2014, 05:03:21 am
Anyways, does anyone have any experience modding in major landmasses in the northern atlantic? I am doing a huge personal Atlantis mod, and I was wondering how hard it hits colonizers and how it might affect the politics of Europe.
Will France, Castille, Portugal, and England attack the new lands, thus altering the balance of power in Europe? Hows does having to cross at the A/SA or Ice/Green links affect colonizing the new world?
I am somewhat afraid that my new nations/continent shall empower Russia. With Norway and Denmark and Sweden having to look at a more northwest threat than the usual Russian one change the balance? Or will Poland be free to clear out the Orders and perhaps go after Muscovy rather than fight the vikings?
I also wonder how the HRE/France/Bur fight will go with England and Castille being worried about a major power in the west.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on April 23, 2014, 06:16:00 am
How has this not been posted in in 2.5 months?
I don't know why others haven't posted, but I personally stopped playing early on because coalitions pissed me off and I assumed they would be toned down at some point. Apparently this hasn't happened so I never came back to it.
Also CK2 is pretty much more awesome than EU 3 or 4, in my opinion of course.
Post by: snelg on April 23, 2014, 07:21:48 am
How has this not been posted in in 2.5 months?I'm having trouble enjoying the game, have started 4 or so campaigns since it came out and probably haven't played it more than 10 hours or so in total. Between the vassal-feeding, monarch points and so on I don't feel like I'm having fun with it. On the other hand, I've been playing a lot of V2, HoI3, CK2 and even EU3.
Maybe I should give it another go soon.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on April 23, 2014, 07:41:44 am
Just finishing up my Ethiopian restore the patriarchy campaign. I've got all the provinces needed except for Constantinople but I'm slowly grinding them into paste with my fully westernised 146% discipline armies.
Looking forward to the new expansion especially since the units from all tech groups are being rebalanced. I would love to play a non-western game where I don't have to rush exploration and westernise ASAP to survive. Hopefully there's a nerf to the rate of colonising so Castile and Portugal don't own everything east of South Africa.
Post by: MoLAoS on April 23, 2014, 10:21:19 am
How has this not been posted in in 2.5 months?
I don't know why others haven't posted, but I personally stopped playing early on because coalitions pissed me off and I assumed they would be toned down at some point. Apparently this hasn't happened so I never came back to it.
Also CK2 is pretty much more awesome than EU 3 or 4, in my opinion of course.
No, no. Coalitions were really toned down from what I've seen. As the Ottoman Empire, I found that when I started taking land willy-nilly, most of the countries that joined a coalition against me were weaker neighbors. As England against France, I found that the only person who joined a coalition against me when I took some French land was... well, France. Mind you, I play MEIOU and Taxes, but that doesn't touch coalitions.
Are you sure MEIOU doesn't nerf AE?
Also the Ottomans can avoid coalitions by taking land in 3 different regions. I'd say AE gain is currently a bit too high, but its mainly important for the HRE. AE in the HRE is just so overdone. You can conquer anywhere else decently well, still a bit high, without getting tons of powerful coalitions.
Post by: Tarran on April 23, 2014, 10:31:08 am
How has this not been posted in in 2.5 months?Three reasons for me:
1: I don't have any questions (I believe I know a lot of the game, I believe the Paradox forums are best for answers, and I have come to the fact that the game hides things from you anyway[e.g, warscore costs]), nor do feel like anything I do in-game is particularly worthy of telling to the rest of the world.
2: Due to the behavior of Paradox, I have grown largely dissatisfied and disinterested with the future of the game. It doesn't help that I still play 1.4.
3: I am neither interested in starting a conversation nor am I very interested in helping people. :P
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on April 23, 2014, 10:54:43 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Fuck. I did it again. I'm sorry, this was building up in me the whole time I was attempting to enjoy EU4 last week.
Post by: a1s on April 23, 2014, 11:32:17 am
The strategy on how to deal with a tiny one-province country, in places like Europe. I'll call this country A. You go to declare war, you mouse over the Call All Willing Allies. You notice all of your allies are on board but one. This one being a pretty major one, a big power broker in the area. For EU this is stuff like France, Britain, Sweden, etc. I'll call this country X. Why does X not want to help me over A? No reason, really. [I've usually got strong allies permanently at +200 opinion] Save the game and declare the war. This one NO on your 'call willing allies' will invariably join tiny, useless country A against you, a country they've been allied/married/had military access to since the inception of the game. This is typical in my cases.Are you sure X is not guaranteeing A? they stand to lose quite a bit of prestige (not that it's really logical to prefer war to a loss of prestige, but it would make some sense.)
How do you deal with this? By bribing, cajole the ally into taking a neutral stance on a war you're about to declare, as per history? No, there's no mechanics for this. It's simply a 'if the AI decides to fuck you, they can' design decision.While imagining a Shadow President style event chain (basically, you keep threatening with worse consequences until they back off or you do) with each war is really !!fun!!, it wouldn't fit with the physical reality of the age. Not that instantly controlling your troops does, or most of the other things about your interface. for that matter.
I also tried playing EU4 this week and quit as soon as I had something rad happen again. Declare a war on a vassal to another nation. Claim a province, or something. Call some allies in, even 1 will work. Now, occupy the vassal. Keep it occupied. Try attempting to occupy the overlord's land in any reasonable timeframe. Now, when your warscore reaches a certain point, your AI allies in your war will offer to this overlord country a separate peace [mind the separate]. This peace usually turns out to be a 'release vassal' peace. Now, mind you, I declared the war, occupied the vassal, occupied the overlord, and then, suddenly, I get a 'Peace!' popup, as if I offered a treaty to the other side. 'So and so [this being the vassal nation!] has accepted our terms'. Now the vassal is released, and I'm still at war with the overlord. The fuck? You're saying random allies in a war like this can, and will fuck up your entire war goal? Why have allies in offensive wars like this then? I will provide any and all saves required to prove this situation is real.Now this sounds like it should be very moddable- war target's owner shouldn't be allowed (you didn't just attack under a random trade war, did you?) to be released (or AI shouldn't want to do it). Does anyone know of a mod that fixes this or is willing to write one? (this should be a dozen lines tops, unless it's the AI thing, in which case it should be a dozen lines, and an evening of propagation testing)
Fuck. I did it again. I'm sorry, this was building up in me the whole time I was attempting to enjoy EU4 last week.Don't sweat it, I (and probably most people in this thread) enjoy a well written rant.
Post by: somebody on April 23, 2014, 11:43:36 am
Now this sounds like it should be very moddable- war target's owner shouldn't be allowed (you didn't just attack under a random trade war, did you?) to be released (or AI shouldn't want to do it). Does anyone know of a mod that fixes this or is willing to write one? (this should be a dozen lines tops, unless it's the AI thing, in which case it should be a dozen lines, and an evening of propagation testing)Nope, completely impossible. There isn't any scope that would specifically address this. If it were to happen it would be through a really arcane way as there isn't anything that tracks being a war leader.
Isn't a war target scope either, and I was being more general about this as I meant if you aren't the war leader the vassal should stay in the war.
Post by: a1s on April 23, 2014, 11:47:08 am
War target. The province you're going for. To clarify: no one should be able to release the war target, whether they're a war leader human or an allied AI.Now this sounds like it should be very moddable- war target's owner shouldn't be allowed (you didn't just attack under a random trade war, did you?) to be released (or AI shouldn't want to do it). Does anyone know of a mod that fixes this or is willing to write one? (this should be a dozen lines tops, unless it's the AI thing, in which case it should be a dozen lines, and an evening of propagation testing)Nope, completely impossible. There isn't any scope that would specifically address this. If it were to happen it would be through a really arcane way as there isn't anything that tracks being a war leader.
Post by: Mindmaker on April 23, 2014, 12:19:40 pm
How has this not been posted in in 2.5 months?Don't know about the others, but I'm playing these kind of games on and off with months in between.
Post by: MoLAoS on April 23, 2014, 01:56:38 pm
Post by: Mindmaker on April 23, 2014, 02:04:07 pm
Making each game more predictable isn't fun.
Post by: Sergarr on April 24, 2014, 07:20:56 am
Post by: Mindmaker on April 24, 2014, 09:02:43 am
Post by: a1s on April 24, 2014, 09:52:06 am
Who thought of the very idea of "lucky nations" as a viable game mechanic?there are about 150-200 countries involved in any game, so making sure the important ones have names you recognize is a good idea. Of course a better way to do it (which EU IV has) is to give the names to prominent countries in the region (such as any of Ireland, Scotland and England (Wales too? That would be pretty cool) being able to become Britain, and either Novgorod or Muscovy (possibly Ryazan or Tver) becoming Russia)
Post by: lemon10 on April 24, 2014, 10:50:08 am
The way lucky nations work is extremely stupid. Having the same 8 nations every game getting crazily unfair advantages is annoying and repetitive.Who thought of the very idea of "lucky nations" as a viable game mechanic?there are about 150-200 countries involved in any game, so making sure the important ones have names you recognize is a good idea. Of course a better way to do it (which EU IV has) is to give the names to prominent countries in the region (such as any of Ireland, Scotland and England (Wales too? That would be pretty cool) being able to become Britain, and either Novgorod or Muscovy (possibly Ryazan or Tver) becoming Russia)
Annoying because the advantages are unfair in a not-fun way.
Repetitive because the same exact nations every game get them for teh entire game, which means that every single game you deal with the exact same strong enemies.
A neat mod would be for lucky nations to be truly random (within Europe, with more outside of Europe), and having them change every 100/50/25 years. It would completely remove the repetitive issue, and make the annoyance more bearable because you wouldn't have to deal with the same super-nations for the entire game.
And it would lead to fun things like tiny useless nations that were being stepped on by lucky ones rise up to become super powerful and lucky themselves.
Post by: snelg on April 24, 2014, 11:15:20 am
I really dislike it as well though.
Post by: RedKing on April 24, 2014, 12:35:52 pm
Post by: BFEL on April 24, 2014, 01:59:29 pm
Since important countries exploded when they got into trouble and the ai couldn't handle it.
Then maybe instead of just throwing out cheats to "important" countries they should have made the ai ABLE to handle it.
Post by: Sindain on April 24, 2014, 02:38:39 pm
Post by: BFEL on April 24, 2014, 09:14:41 pm
But yeah, kinda retarded concept.
Although I guess it would make the few scenarios that DON'T go "according to plan" all the more special.
But then again, how the hell did they go from SUNSET INVASION levels of "I don't give anything resembling a fuck about history" to "EVERYTHING MUST PLAY OUT THE SAME FOREVER."
EDIT: Actually now I think about it, they MAY be trying to reign in the alt-histories so they have less work to do for HOI or whatever the next one in the series is.
Would be kinda hard to figure out how the worlds Nazi era would go down with The Fylkirate in the north, the Zorastrian Empire in the East AND random SuperAztecs from the west.
And if Africa became a supernation then suddenly all bets are off....
Post by: Descan on April 24, 2014, 09:20:35 pm
They have Victoria in the middle, bro.
There's nothing resembling fascism or communism in Europa Universalis...
All the set-up for a World War 2 scenario is in Victoria-era, not in the EU era.
Post by: Criptfeind on April 24, 2014, 09:33:27 pm
But then again, how the hell did they go from SUNSET INVASION levels of "I don't give anything resembling a fuck about history" to "EVERYTHING MUST PLAY OUT THE SAME FOREVER."
Lucky nations were a thing before and after CK2 I believe.
Anyway. I in general like lucky nations. I mean, maybe not having a iron man mode without lucky nations is the wrong choice, but I can understand them wanting the controlled achievement getting mode, which is what iron man appears to be to me. It seems like a bit of a minor thing.
Post by: BFEL on April 25, 2014, 12:50:30 am
What?
They have Victoria in the middle, bro.
There's nothing resembling fascism or communism in Europa Universalis...
All the set-up for a World War 2 scenario is in Victoria-era, not in the EU era.
And all the set up for Victorian era is in EU era, and all the set up for the EU era is in CK2, therefore, if the whole world goes crazy in CK2 or EU4...
Shit gonna be fucked by the time HOI rolls around.
Just imagine it, Aztecs have a foothold in Europe, Fylkirate rules the top half of the map, Zoarastrians are in charge from Greece to India, the last bastion of Christianity is Cathar AFRICA, and Japan colinized Australia.
I mean, I personally love crazy alt-history shenanigans, but from a developer perspective what do you even DO with a crazy alt-world like that?
Post by: Descan on April 25, 2014, 12:55:59 am
Like that Cathar Africa. Turn it into the last crusade, taking Europe back from the pagans.
Post by: BFEL on April 25, 2014, 01:00:04 am
You tell the converter to take a country that's been beaten down like Germany was, with irredentism and a failing economy, and turn it into a Nazi Germany analog. Helpful if they've already gotten a Fascist party in power in Vicky2.
Well that can be interesting, but I mean event wise and such. Paradox is good at the "developer thinks of everything" trope, with special events like "norse sacrificing an Aztec during a blot" and the silly things like Aragon wanting to go to Gondar. Makes you wonder how many scenarios they can predict.
Post by: Tarran on April 25, 2014, 01:21:48 am
Also, fun trivia about that mission: It's actually a very old one from EU3. Truefax.
Post by: Karlito on April 25, 2014, 01:25:38 am
Post by: a1s on April 25, 2014, 03:51:13 am
I seriously doubt there's any plans for them to build a save converter for HOI4.If I know the Paradox community (and I don't, TBH) someone definitely has those plans.
Post by: Culise on April 25, 2014, 09:32:50 am
Yes, but Paradox has no responsibility to maintain a save converter designed by modders, so we wouldn't expect them to create events for such an eventuality. I don't believe Paradox Interactive has any intention of building a save converter to translate from Victoria 2/3 to HOI4.I seriously doubt there's any plans for them to build a save converter for HOI4.If I know the Paradox community (and I don't, TBH) someone definitely has those plans.
Post by: BFEL on April 25, 2014, 09:46:22 am
I don't believe Paradox Interactive has any intention of building a save converter to translate from Victoria 2/3 to HOI4.
THERE IS NO FAIC SAD ENOUGH TO EXPRESS MY DISAPPOINT.
Post by: a1s on April 25, 2014, 10:20:39 am
Aragon wanting to go to Gondar is just a joke mission and is not actually the devs thinking ahead of time.There's apparently 2 of these. "Become King of Gonder" and "Defeat Saruhan". I think that makes Aragon the Dolan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolan_%28Meme%29) of the EU universe.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on April 25, 2014, 10:37:20 am
It's also a play balance issue for achievements. For instance "Overthrow Austria and become Emperor of the HRE". Without Lucky Nations, you'd just need to play through a couple of times until Austria gets some god-awful 1/1/1 leader for a while or a run of bad events.
No, it's hardly about "balance" for achievements. To begin with, Lucky Nations long predates the implementation of achievements. More importantly the interaction you're arguing for is just so tangential and marginal that it's just not a plausible argument. Lucky Nations does little to nothing to stop the player from defeating a lucky AI nation. It just means that in contests between the AI, the lucky nations will almost always win. The AI's ability to plan and fight wars is so poor that lucky nations is basically irrelevant.
For another thing most of the achievements have nothing to do with lucky nations at all. Achievements to somehow defeat or subdue lucky nations specifically are pretty rare. And for things like World Conquest or The Three Mountains, lucky nations are irrelevant compared to coalitions, overextension, core timers, etc.
Lucky Nations are a stupid holdover from previous EU games that really have no place in the current design, which takes many more cues from the success of CK2 and will hopefully go farther in that direction by making non-European countries more interesting to play.
Post by: Criptfeind on April 25, 2014, 11:39:17 am
No, it's hardly about "balance" for achievements. To begin with, Lucky Nations long predates the implementation of achievements.
Right. But is anyone here seriously saying that having the option for lucky nations is a bad thing? I thought the only serious arguments against it were caused by the fact that ironman, the achievement getting mode, locks it in. So yeah, saying that it's there for balance for achievements seems perfectly reasonable to me.
Lucky Nations does little to nothing to stop the player from defeating a lucky AI nation. It just means that in contests between the AI, the lucky nations will almost always win. The AI's ability to plan and fight wars is so poor that lucky nations is basically irrelevant.
Anyway, I don't play EU4, just EU3 (I mean, I have played EU4, but then I went back to EU3). So maybe something has change that I did not notice? In EU3 saying that lucky nations always win is totally untrue. It's not even that huge of a advantage. Now, perhaps something in the balanced has changed between 3 and 4, but looking it up the bonuses from being lucky don't really seem to be that much more. And I sorta am doubting the game is different enough for it to actually matter THAT much.
Also it seems a little disingenuous to say that the lucky bonus is huge enough that in a AI vs AI fight the lucky AI almost always win, and in the next sentence and paragraph go on about how the lucky bonus means so little. I'm not sure what you even think about lucky nations, whether they are too strong or too weak. (Although I would guess by the fact that you seem to dislike it having a effect on your game you think it is too strong?)
Post by: Sheb on April 25, 2014, 11:43:31 am
Post by: Broken on April 25, 2014, 02:13:26 pm
No, it's hardly about "balance" for achievements. To begin with, Lucky Nations long predates the implementation of achievements.
Right. But is anyone here seriously saying that having the option for lucky nations is a bad thing? I thought the only serious arguments against it were caused by the fact that ironman, the achievement getting mode, locks it in. So yeah, saying that it's there for balance for achievements seems perfectly reasonable to me.Lucky Nations does little to nothing to stop the player from defeating a lucky AI nation. It just means that in contests between the AI, the lucky nations will almost always win. The AI's ability to plan and fight wars is so poor that lucky nations is basically irrelevant.
Anyway, I don't play EU4, just EU3 (I mean, I have played EU4, but then I went back to EU3). So maybe something has change that I did not notice? In EU3 saying that lucky nations always win is totally untrue. It's not even that huge of a advantage. Now, perhaps something in the balanced has changed between 3 and 4, but looking it up the bonuses from being lucky don't really seem to be that much more. And I sorta am doubting the game is different enough for it to actually matter THAT much.
Also it seems a little disingenuous to say that the lucky bonus is huge enough that in a AI vs AI fight the lucky AI almost always win, and in the next sentence and paragraph go on about how the lucky bonus means so little. I'm not sure what you even think about lucky nations, whether they are too strong or too weak. (Although I would guess by the fact that you seem to dislike it having a effect on your game you think it is too strong?)
Lucky nations are much, much more powerful that non-lucky ones. the reason is not the bonuses, but the fact that all their monarchs are demigods (rarely worse that 5/5/5, and probably 6/6/5 or something like that). That gives them more monarch points that they can expend,
thus giving them top noch tech and more buildings. Also, the generls of lucky nations are gods as well.
Post by: Criptfeind on April 25, 2014, 03:55:56 pm
When they would have gotten a 1/1/1 guy they instead get a 2/2/2 guy.
Although this is certainly. Like. A pretty big advantage. Especially over the long term. It doesn't seem huge to me. It's not like they always get impossibly good leaders. I mean, unless my source is wrong on that?
Post by: Johuotar on April 25, 2014, 04:03:55 pm
Post by: Karlito on April 25, 2014, 04:10:20 pm
Post by: Sindain on April 25, 2014, 04:10:33 pm
If I understood it right, increasing diplomacy tech makes having ships more expensive, which is weird. Now I have max diplomacy points and nothing to use them on because I dont want to lose money. Or what does the +10 naval maintenance mean?
It does increase maintenance, but its fairly negligible. And since dip tech also increases your trade efficiency and trade power (better light ship models give more trade power while protecting) you would hafta to have a large navy and yet not be guarding trade for some reason to really lose money.
Post by: Descan on April 25, 2014, 04:10:36 pm
Post by: BFEL on April 25, 2014, 04:17:09 pm
It does that, but very few of the tech-ups actually increase your naval maintenance? It's more than worth it to increase your diplomatic technology, I don't see how you think you could survive without increasing it.
Simple, just carve out a nice little empire with no seas around, and defend it. YOU HAVE SURVIVED. CONGLATURBATIONS!
Post by: Tarran on April 25, 2014, 05:28:55 pm
Okay so. Maybe the wiki I am reading is wrong. But it says their rulers get +1 to each stat. So when a lucky nation gets a 6/6/5 guy, that means they would have gotten a 5/5/4 guy. When they get a 5/5/5 guy that means they would have gotten a 4/4/4 guy.Just to put in perspective the actual difference, +1 to all stats will give the AI, assuming you play from the beginning to the end of the game's timeline, give it a total of 4514 more points each for military, diplo, and admin. For 10 years, 120 points. It's a noticeable advantage both short and long term. Note, the beginning-end value might be a little off (I'm not sure if it applies the point bonus retroactively to starting rulers) but either way the points will be hovering around 4K even if an AI starts with a 20-year old ruler without the bonus that lives for 50 years.
When they would have gotten a 1/1/1 guy they instead get a 2/2/2 guy.
Although this is certainly. Like. A pretty big advantage. Especially over the long term. It doesn't seem huge to me. It's not like they always get impossibly good leaders. I mean, unless my source is wrong on that?
Another thing to remember, is the Yearly Republican Tradition +1. Considering republics re-electing takes 10 Rep. Tradition, this means that Lucky republics can potentially frequently get great doges. Heck, assuming one lives long enough, you could even see ones that reach the godlike 6/6/6 values. Granted, the AI isn't likely to make use of that as the chance of getting a republican AI isn't very high, but the point remains.
Post by: Johuotar on April 26, 2014, 06:11:02 am
EDIT: Nevermind, apparently you can make the disabled banner events appear in the list on the right and enable them from there, while dismissed return when you save and load.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on April 29, 2014, 09:44:58 am
Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tarran on April 29, 2014, 01:31:33 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on April 29, 2014, 04:35:06 pm
Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)
EDIT: Are people alright with me posting these huge pictures? I could link them if it's more convenient.
Post by: mainiac on April 29, 2014, 04:40:42 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on April 29, 2014, 04:59:25 pm
Unfortunately this isn't ironman mode. I was trying out some starting strategies to survive as Albania and had an amazingly lucky start and decided to just roll with. It gave me the opportunity to test out some tricks. Still without reloading nor cheating I think it's still a decent effort.
If you want to try and emulate an Albanian empire I think this method I stumbled across works the best.
1) reload the game until Naples is not hostile with you (diplomatic ruler).
2) get military access with Naples and cheese DOW on Urbino.
3) Scorch Albania and ferry men across to Italy (keeping a single man behind to re-scorch every year).
4) Defeat Urbino with your god-general and great rolls.
5) Annex Urbino and continue to scorch Albania until warscore with Ottomans goes positive.
6) Call for peace and revoke Ottoman core on Albania, core and move capital to Urbino, join the HRE.
Venice will likely DOW on you at some point but can be defeated with the same scorching tactic. Finding a strong ally (like Austria) will allow you to easily survive and expand at your leisure. I would highly recommend staying in the HRE for the great modifiers, protection and faster expansion against other members.
Post by: MoLAoS on May 01, 2014, 01:33:15 am
Then I conquered all of souther france to Savoy. So now Granada owns all of portugal and castile and I have all of Aragon as a vassal except all the islands are owned by a 6 province sicily. Brittany conquered all of northern france, they got the burgundy lands too. Flanders has all of the northern parts of burgundy.
Even though its kinda early I'm tempted to just conquer savoy, diplo vassalize aragon, I conquered it but released as a vassal to save on coring, and build up my nation, trying to protect flanders and brittany as my allies. Maybe fiddle around to get some other alt historyish nations built and stabilized. Then maybe just sit back and see if the game corrects itself.
Post by: ShoesandHats on May 03, 2014, 05:00:55 pm
Spoiler: Dacia down there is my vassal (click to show/hide)
Post by: Teneb on May 03, 2014, 05:03:40 pm
I'm playing as the Vandals in a mod that extends the timeline from Roman times to the very end of the 30th century. Right now I'm in third place in terms of troops, right beneath Parthia and the Romans. Frisia, the guys in fourth place who I'm allied with have declared a conquest war against another one of my allies. Should I support Frisia and take a -2 stability hit to maintain the stronger of the two alliances, or should I take the prestige hit and support my weaker allies? The former of the two options allows me to potentially vassalize the Goths, who've been a thorn in my side for a while now.Could you give us the name of the mod?Spoiler: Dacia down there is my vassal (click to show/hide)
Post by: ShoesandHats on May 03, 2014, 05:05:01 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on May 29, 2014, 05:10:17 pm
I haven't played EUIV in a while, was waiting for some fixes to the expansionism to make WCs possible.
That might have happened this last patch. Anyone played it and tried it out?
Post by: Tarran on May 29, 2014, 07:03:17 pm
There's also many, many other threads filled with HAPPY PEOPLE. I suggest you look at the rest of the EU4 forums here (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?731-Europa-Universalis-IV).
I hate to say it, but WC are going to probably be almost impossible now.
Post by: Mindmaker on May 29, 2014, 07:14:08 pm
Countless hours I put into it lost, like tears in the rain.
I'll never finish even a single games like this.
Post by: Karlito on May 29, 2014, 07:17:06 pm
Post by: Tarran on May 29, 2014, 07:18:53 pm
Right click on the game name on Steam>Properties>Betas and then select an old version.
It's how I've played 1.4.1 for what must be since 1.5.1 came out.
Post by: Karlito on May 30, 2014, 12:25:55 am
Post by: Sindain on May 30, 2014, 01:07:33 am
Huh, I don't know why I bother with random lucky nations since France, Castille, Austria, and Ottomans seem to end up with it every time anyway.
Well the random lucky nations prefer large nations of high tech groups.
Some highlights from my current 1.6 TO -> Prussia game
- I've settled into a nice routine of someone launching a punitive war at me, me 'n Austria kick their arses, and I take a few provinces in the peace. Which then cause more AE, more people joining the coalition vs me and launching another punitive war at me. Something like 70% of the wars I've fought in have been defensive punitive wars.
- I've never before gotten more mileage out of the admin idea group. At some points 80% of my military were mercs because I didn't have enough manpower to put down all the rebels.
- At one point I was up to 13% inflation from loans alone! All these loans were used to buy mercs to put down revolts.
- During the umpteenth Bohemian-Prussian punitive war I decided to give Austria a province in the peace. Within a month the province rebelled four times with a grand total of 70 regiments, making the Bohemian patriots the mightiest military force in the known world.
- Its currently 1580 and the Ottomans have yet to conquer all of Greece (Athens is independent with three provinces.) because they do nothing but sit there putting down rebels. Though at least they finally managed to conquer Constantinople a few decades ago.
- The only major powers other than me that has managed to expand much is Moscow, which hasn't formed Russia because of roving bands of Smolensk nationalists.
- First time I've seen either Hungary or Austria go protestant let alone both. To top it off, Bohemia stayed catholic.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on May 30, 2014, 01:30:35 am
This time its because mercenaries use up forcelimits. Like I'm only going to make that mistake once, and I think that one at least was in EU3 but... why? Why does the size of my country and my army have any bearing on the cost of the mercenaries I hire?
Post by: sambojin on May 30, 2014, 01:50:42 am
So yeah. Force limit.
While the rebellions sound like an annoying "feature" of the patch, I tend to think of it as a CK2->EU4 crossover. Yes, all your realm's nobles hate you, so butter them up or kick their arse. With armies and harsh treatment rather than assassinations/counties/intrigue this time. Actually, you can't be nice to the little upstarts in the proto-empirical age, so kick their arse. Still, seems like a weird "feature" in the patch.
I actually wonder if any EU IV players have ever bothered with a small, spread-out standing army at any other time than when at war or when there is a rebellion? It'll cost you in upkeep, but isn't rebellion risk linked to mobilized, yet stationed forces in some way? But it was easier as an all or nothing thing before (because rebellions were manageable as an on/off event on raising troops?)
Post by: PanH on May 30, 2014, 02:04:23 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on May 30, 2014, 02:16:31 am
Because regardless of fictional fantasy novels, mercenary forces of any reasonable size were always integrated directly into the military forces of any realm. The military administration of that realm, including their supply lines, food, stationing areas/barracks and armourers were all used by historical mercenaries.What fantasy novels are you reading that feature mercenaries? I've read quite a few and can't think of a single one where they had any notable relevance. The best I got is a Fire Emblem game. And a threat in a Discworld novel that was never realized.
So yeah. Force limit.
Post by: Mindmaker on May 30, 2014, 02:25:02 am
Yep:
Right click on the game name on Steam>Properties>Betas and then select an old version.
It's how I've played 1.4.1 for what must be since 1.5.1 came out.
You can, in fact, revert to an earlier version.I need to try that. Thanks guys.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on May 30, 2014, 02:32:13 am
I actually wonder if any EU IV players have ever bothered with a small, spread-out standing army at any other time than when at war or when there is a rebellion? It'll cost you in upkeep, but isn't rebellion risk linked to mobilized, yet stationed forces in some way? But it was easier as an all or nothing thing before (because rebellions were manageable as an on/off event on raising troops?)
Then the first rebel stack to appear will wipe all those 'small, spread-out standing army's since you didn't put your troops into groups of doomstacks as is appropriate in the EU4 universe.
Post by: sambojin on May 30, 2014, 02:39:01 am
Raymond Feist's Krondor series has some from memory that magically bring everything they need with them (from memory. I'm pretty sure mercs bailed them out in a seige or battle or something. Then went, "thanks for the gold!" and disappeared).
Game of Thrones (television series, not sure how the books handle it) auto-magically support 10,000 men traveling hundreds of miles for another (Daniris's army of Unsullied and Second Sons, possibly the Golden Company or whatever later as well, I'll have to do some reading). No one knows what they eat, but apparently they carry it where their nuts used to be. Or it's an invisible supply line or something.
Post by: Sergarr on May 30, 2014, 02:44:06 am
Post by: PanH on May 30, 2014, 03:08:12 am
Then the first rebel stack to appear will wipe all those 'small, spread-out standing army's since you didn't put your troops into groups of doomstacks as is appropriate in the EU4 universe.This. Plus, small stacks are useless in lowering RR. Now that it's generated mostly by Nationalism (which is a minimal RR), a 20k stacks only lower it by 2 !
Post by: Korbac on May 30, 2014, 03:37:00 am
Because regardless of fictional fantasy novels, mercenary forces of any reasonable size were always integrated directly into the military forces of any realm. The military administration of that realm, including their supply lines, food, stationing areas/barracks and armourers were all used by historical mercenaries.What fantasy novels are you reading that feature mercenaries? I've read quite a few and can't think of a single one where they had any notable relevance. The best I got is a Fire Emblem game. And a threat in a Discworld novel that was never realized.
So yeah. Force limit.
"Looks like the Guild bungled. Now we're fighting on opposite sides."
That's why you don't split up a mercenary band by using a silly thing like a guild. XD
Post by: a1s on May 30, 2014, 04:34:42 am
What fantasy novels are you reading that feature mercenaries? I've read quite a few and can't think of a single one where they had any notable relevance. The best I got is a Fire Emblem game. And a threat in a Discworld novel that was never realized.I don't read fantasy (not much anyway), but off the top of my head I can remember 3 sci-fi books with mercenaries:
- The General series (which is basically British Raj meets Byzantine Empire. With dogs instead of horses for some reason) depicts mercenaries as being semi-integrated (which causes more admin problems for the protagonist, not less).
- the Hammers Slammers series (which is about a band of mercenaries) depicts them running on their own equipment. Then again, most places in the setting don't even have militaries for you to mooch off of.
- The Vorkosigan Saga (which is the one I whole heatedly recommend) doesn't much focus on how the mercenary fleet is supplied, but it is implied they just buy stuff. With money. (money they get from a major government secretly funding them... it's hard to explain- read the books, you won't regret it.)
Post by: forsaken1111 on May 30, 2014, 05:45:13 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 30, 2014, 07:02:13 am
It seems like Paradox just balanced everything of their MP game instead of bothering to read user input. There are so many design flaws that I can't believe any slow, deaf and dumb beta tester could miss. Apparently having to use "harsh treatment" on every conquered province instead of strategically using it on troublesome provinces is an improvement. :-\
I'm also having problems with mods. Mods that normally worked without any problems (which shouldn't have been affected by the patch at all) are all crashing to desktop. My little music mod now CTD without any errors when it worked 100% perfectly before the patch.
Post by: Korbac on May 30, 2014, 08:51:22 am
I haven't bought the game yet, but I've seen the gameplay and as it's apparently 75% off on Steam until the 2nd, I will be grabbing it tonight. :)
Also, are there any player - made converters? In case I don't have to pay an extra £5 for the official one. ^_^
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on May 30, 2014, 10:04:36 am
Post by: MoLAoS on May 30, 2014, 10:20:17 am
Post by: Bastus on May 30, 2014, 11:01:53 am
Making Diplo-Annexing costing diplo-points is nothing gamebreaking. If you are not a colonial nation you often had more of these than you could ever use. And even if you are one of them you normally don't have so many vassals that it is really hurting you. PU's on the other hand are actually broken at the moment. The sheer amount of points you need to invest over a a few years just cripples a lot of additional expansion as you can't spare the diplo-points.
To AE I don't know what you do, but as long you stay relatively close to you wargoal the impacts are manageable (excepts for PU, again). You just aren't able to grab land from evry member of the war.
Nationalism is something I wanted and just needs to be toned down a bit and perhaps rework the way it works by conquering same culture provinces.
Rebels are the only real problem I have at the moment, they AI isn't able to deal with them. If you want to see something funny start in observer mode and watch the hordes.
Well, there seems to be a hotfix coming, hopefully it will tackle the problems.
Post by: Sindain on May 30, 2014, 11:21:10 am
I can understand why people are against the change intoduced by 1.6, but a few really over react.
Making Diplo-Annexing costing diplo-points is nothing gamebreaking. If you are not a colonial nation you often had more of these than you could ever use. And even if you are one of them you normally don't have so many vassals that it is really hurting you. PU's on the other hand are actually broken at the moment. The sheer amount of points you need to invest over a a few years just cripples a lot of additional expansion as you can't spare the diplo-points.
To AE I don't know what you do, but as long you stay relatively close to you wargoal the impacts are manageable (excepts for PU, again). You just aren't able to grab land from evry member of the war.
Nationalism is something I wanted and just needs to be toned down a bit and perhaps rework the way it works by conquering same culture provinces.
Rebels are the only real problem I have at the moment, they AI isn't able to deal with them. If you want to see something funny start in observer mode and watch the hordes.
Well, there seems to be a hotfix coming, hopefully it will tackle the problems.
If you're western tech you usually had too much dip points, per usual, the lower techs got the short end of the stick.
Though I do also think people are overacting a bit. (though the PI forums always do nothing but whine so its pretty much business as usual for them.)
What fantasy novels are you reading that feature mercenaries? I've read quite a few and can't think of a single one where they had any notable relevance. The best I got is a Fire Emblem game. And a threat in a Discworld novel that was never realized.
The biggest example I can think of is the Black Company, entire fantasy series focused on a mercenary company. Though I can't remember any times where they mentioned how they got their supplies...
Post by: RedKing on May 30, 2014, 12:14:51 pm
That, or it just doesn't take the size of your empire into account anymore, so world conquest is a thing again. You just have to deal with ethnic uprisings or find a way to placate your new subjects. Which seems legit to me.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on May 30, 2014, 12:16:26 pm
That, or it just doesn't take the size of your empire into account anymore, so world conquest is a thing again. You just have to deal with ethnic uprisings or find a way to placate your new subjects. Which seems legit to me.
Naw, it does. In the defines. I just change the number to '0' because its a stupid, stupid 'feature'.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on May 30, 2014, 12:21:29 pm
That, or it just doesn't take the size of your empire into account anymore, so world conquest is a thing again. You just have to deal with ethnic uprisings or find a way to placate your new subjects. Which seems legit to me.
Naw, it does. In the defines. I just change the number to '0' because its a stupid, stupid 'feature'.
How do you do this, I'm to scared to try after I broke AoD.
Post by: RedKing on May 30, 2014, 12:22:09 pm
In essence, they've made it possible to go Napoleon on the world's ass without going into super overextension, but the tradeoff is that you have a far longer horizon of potential unrest. Again, seems legit to me.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on May 30, 2014, 12:28:56 pm
Well, looks like the patch either removed that "feature" or chanegd the formula then. Cause my massive Mongolian Empire is suddenly nomming up European provinces (even ones I didn't have a claim on) in under 2 years. Now, the kicker is that I can't change the culture anymore until nationalism expires (which is a lot longer than the old "core+religion+culture" wait time).
Defines.lua in current version
CORE_TIME_SIZE_MODIFIER = 0.04, -- % longer per province owned.
MONTHS_TO_CORE_MAXIMUM = 240,
MONTHS_TO_CORE = 36,
Defines.lua in previous version
CORE_TIME_SIZE_MODIFIER = 0.04, -- % longer per province owned.
MONTHS_TO_CORE_MAXIMUM = 240,
MONTHS_TO_CORE = 36,
Seems to be the same, somehow, actually. I've noticed the time on useless provinces is lower, for what it's worth. And I wasn't aware there was a maximum time number.
@stabby, go to EU4folder->common->defines.lua and search for core_time and change the number to 0.
Post by: Tarran on May 30, 2014, 01:15:08 pm
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?778921-1.6.1-Hotfix-RELEASED-Feedback-here
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 31, 2014, 11:35:19 am
I'm now wondering whether I should pick up exploration or expansion as my next idea. I would really like to colonise africa and some of the east indies before the other colonisers turn up but I would also love that CB on asians. I'm worried the slow spread of discoveries and only a single colonist won't be enough to carve out a big enough colonial empire before the real colonisers turn up.
Post by: Sindain on May 31, 2014, 12:31:56 pm
I'm now wondering whether I should pick up exploration or expansion as my next idea. I would really like to colonise africa and some of the east indies before the other colonisers turn up but I would also love that CB on asians. I'm worried the slow spread of discoveries and only a single colonist won't be enough to carve out a big enough colonial empire before the real colonisers turn up.
Expansion allows you to pick up a nice policy that give -15% coring cost (I forgot what the other required group is though).
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 31, 2014, 12:57:19 pm
Expansion allows you to pick up a nice policy that give -15% coring cost (I forgot what the other required group is though).Looked it up and apparently it's administration. Don't really have a good excuse not to go for expansion over exploration, I would rather have the coring cost than missing out some of the colonial race.
Post by: Glloyd on May 31, 2014, 01:27:14 pm
Because regardless of fictional fantasy novels, mercenary forces of any reasonable size were always integrated directly into the military forces of any realm. The military administration of that realm, including their supply lines, food, stationing areas/barracks and armourers were all used by historical mercenaries.What fantasy novels are you reading that feature mercenaries? I've read quite a few and can't think of a single one where they had any notable relevance. The best I got is a Fire Emblem game. And a threat in a Discworld novel that was never realized.
So yeah. Force limit.
The Videssos cycle is all about a mercenary company, and it goes into how they are supplied by the central government for the most part. They take care of their own weapons and armour, but the rest is the central government.
Post by: Karlito on May 31, 2014, 02:53:08 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on May 31, 2014, 02:56:33 pm
tech differences (you start as lower tech than grenada)
rng being a fickle bitch
Post by: Karlito on May 31, 2014, 02:57:40 pm
25% defense advantage.I don't know what this means.
Can't really vouch for the tutorials, but if you attack an army in the mountains, it won't really matter if you outnumber them because only a part of your army can attack at once.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on May 31, 2014, 03:02:31 pm
Post by: Sindain on May 31, 2014, 03:04:32 pm
Post by: Karlito on May 31, 2014, 03:11:16 pm
Yeah, they're on the boats. Move the transports back into a port.did you have a fleet in the province your units were inYes. Doesn't allow you to embark otherwise. I had the fleet, and as soon as I moved it off with the embarked units, they disappeared.
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 31, 2014, 03:20:09 pm
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Army#Composition (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Army#Composition)
Good reads, the combat mechanics are actually pretty good.
Morale is essentially stamina, affecting how long a regiment will continue fighting before retreating. Discipline is a straight damage multiplier, combat ability is basically the same but with pips instead. Shock/fire pips interact directly with the die roll and leader bonuses to determine damage done/received in their respective phases. Bad terrain gives you a malus to that calculation in the same way as something like a leadership bonus, and you can see all the things affecting the die roll as well as the regiment positioning when viewing the fight.
The gist of army building is that you want most of your dudes to be infantry with high morale pips (if you're just starting, then latin medieval is better than halberd), with low morale cavalry with high shock pips (chevauchée). Regardless of army size, in my experience there's no real reason to have more or less than 4 cavalry regiments (for Europeans, other tech groups may use more or less cavalry). When you get cannons, they'll enhance your infantry's ability to stay alive and beat down the other guy's infantry hugely (but are expensive and slow, and very bad on the front line).
Post by: Sindain on May 31, 2014, 03:23:39 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 31, 2014, 03:25:55 pm
I actually just started a game recently, and haven't noticed a difference using the same compositions. I think some cavalry do have higher pip counts though, so maybe they could replace infantry more effectively.
Post by: Wiles on May 31, 2014, 04:17:08 pm
Post by: Rakonas on May 31, 2014, 06:27:50 pm
Have you checked for the army on the outliner in the top right?I did. They never came back. As I said, they disappeared off the face of the earth.Yeah, they're on the boats. Move the transports back into a port.did you have a fleet in the province your units were inYes. Doesn't allow you to embark otherwise. I had the fleet, and as soon as I moved it off with the embarked units, they disappeared.
Anyway: ~ to open console. Then manpower 9000 and cash ~50 to re-build it.
Post by: rumpel on June 01, 2014, 12:50:19 am
Oh, the Afghan state is my vassal btw. Quite useless, as its forces can't help me nor could I help them as they are surrounded by Timurids which are my rivals ever since.
Post by: Bitoru on June 01, 2014, 03:53:53 pm
Post by: Maldevious on June 01, 2014, 04:57:46 pm
Post by: Bitoru on June 01, 2014, 05:10:25 pm
huge EU3 and CK2 fan.
Well that's me. Sold!
Post by: Tarran on June 01, 2014, 07:07:32 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on June 01, 2014, 08:05:30 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on June 01, 2014, 09:26:44 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on June 01, 2014, 09:42:36 pm
You can thank the Paradox forums, I spent HOURS trying to find the 1.08 patch for AoD, I hate them all.
No, the Paradox forums are raging hard against the rival and annexation problems. They have my back on this one. Their rage also spurred the addition of auto-cardinals to the patch instead of the expansion.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on June 01, 2014, 09:51:53 pm
\.You can thank the Paradox forums, I spent HOURS trying to find the 1.08 patch for AoD, I hate them all.
No, the Paradox forums are raging hard against the rival and annexation problems. They have my back on this one. Their rage also spurred the addition of auto-cardinals to the patch instead of the expansion.
Not the "people" I run into, if there are good forum users there I never meet them, but by god I hope I do.
Post by: bulborbish on June 01, 2014, 10:42:18 pm
The game is basically ruined. Worst 150$ I ever spent. Power projection rivaling is broken for large nations, vassal annexing and thus nations that start with vassals were massively nerfed. Regardless of the really nice things they added, the major systems of the game have been so broken that there is almost nothing they can do to fix them short of rollbacks.
Also, I hate to add this, but how on earth did you spend $150 on EU4 when the main game and 2 expansions only cost a total of $65, and the rest of the DLC only costs roughly 30 bucks (ignoring the 2 books) and is all cosmetic anyway.
Oh well, I will state as I always do: give Paradox time to patch some of the balancing errors that they always introduce in primary patches.
On nations starting with vassals: Unless that nation starts with a giant vassal, then most of what I've heard is that annexations are ridiculously easy. And to my knowledge, in no case is there a vassal that is large enough to be crazy. Now, if you are complaining about the continuous string of nerfs to diplo-annexing created vassals, then I can see where you are coming from more, though I still think that the technique had to have some tangible costs.
The only 2 major issues I've seen with this patch is the messed up force PU AE and that rebels are kind of ridiculous at the moment.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 02, 2014, 01:00:43 am
The game is basically ruined. Worst 150$ I ever spent. Power projection rivaling is broken for large nations, vassal annexing and thus nations that start with vassals were massively nerfed. Regardless of the really nice things they added, the major systems of the game have been so broken that there is almost nothing they can do to fix them short of rollbacks.
Also, I hate to add this, but how on earth did you spend $150 on EU4 when the main game and 2 expansions only cost a total of $65, and the rest of the DLC only costs roughly 30 bucks (ignoring the 2 books) and is all cosmetic anyway.
Oh well, I will state as I always do: give Paradox time to patch some of the balancing errors that they always introduce in primary patches.
On nations starting with vassals: Unless that nation starts with a giant vassal, then most of what I've heard is that annexations are ridiculously easy. And to my knowledge, in no case is there a vassal that is large enough to be crazy. Now, if you are complaining about the continuous string of nerfs to diplo-annexing created vassals, then I can see where you are coming from more, though I still think that the technique had to have some tangible costs.
The only 2 major issues I've seen with this patch is the messed up force PU AE and that rebels are kind of ridiculous at the moment.
Okay, I didn't actually count up the costs directly. It may only be the worst 80$ I ever spent.
The problem is it takes Paradox half the time between the patches to fix them, thus half the time the game is unplayable and the other half most things are still being nerfed to shit. any good change is balanced out by a crappy one, too.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 02, 2014, 03:58:41 am
Rival system: While much more interesting than the old system it does have a lot of quirks. It's currently way too easy to get PP from taking land (which lasts for ages) making the system rather easy to game. The rival pool is far too small meaning you'll have to start declaring on allies or simply run out of people to beat up. Finally the limit to a single rival at the start of the game breaks a lot of the gameplay balance.
There might need to be a new system in place for truly great powers that forces them to play world police or something.
Vassal integration: it's both too fast and too pricy. Vassals can be integrated at a ridiculous rate meaning France and Denmark are powerhouses way before they should be. Vassals are now barely worth it unless you've completely abandoned both naval and colonial aspirations.
I much prefer the old method and wish they just slapped on a -1dip per month cost or something.
Westernisation: This is just ridiculous. You have to be so far behind in tech and since it scales up by size you can't be a decent empire. The added RR is also crippling and makes the whole game whack a mole for decades. Needs to be rebalanced to have governments, ideas (plutocracy, innovation), alliance with western powers and tolerance have an impact on westernisation speeds.
Westernising as Ragusa (why the hell is it eastern anyway?) was one of the most painful things I've gone through in EU4, I can't even imagine an Asian or African attempt. I heard NA natives have to be around 26 levels behind to start westernisation.
The major change is no longer getting Western units after westernising and due to the harshness of westernising makes it very debatable whether it is remotely worth it.
Colonisation: With the edition of some rather dubious policies that give you colonists and colonisation speed increases the major colonisers can get to some insane speeds. With trading companies you can suck trade from outside europe without even bothering with lightship commitment ( I had over 50% trade just from two South Indian trading ports).
Polices: Same ol' story with generic ideas being the illusion of choice. Some are completely useless, some not worth the MP cost while others are borderline overpowered. Most of the stronger ones seem to follow the better idea groups giving them covert buffs.
Trade: Inland trading nations suck way too much out of nodes. My Ragusa node despite having a ton of light ships patrolling and ALL trading buildings is losing 50% of it's trade to ... The Hansa and German minors.
France: The BBB is back with vengeance. She can now integrate all her provinces in barely a second. She can also make an alliance with Castile almost day 1 since she will only rival England (for some reason Castile and France are not historical enemies) and then they play the merry game of destory europe together. The combined forces of europe can't slow her down and she'll be chewing on the middle of the HRE by 1555.
EDIT:
Hordes: They're even worse than before. While there's been a decent attempt to balance pips across tech groups (could still be done better) hordes are still stuck with level 1 cav and infantry throughout the whole game, apparently they can't learn to use those pistols they keep raiding from the Russians.
For some unknown reason hordes now cannot form their conquest unions (Mughals, Qing) without REFORMING THEIR WHOLE GOVERNMENT FIRST. This completely castrates what were the only playable hordes in the game which were already under performing compared to their historical counterparts (also the opposite of what happened in history, the adaption of the local administration "reformed" them*). Whoever came up with this change needs an unpaid vacation asap.
Russia will also take the expansion idea first allowing them to roll all over Asia even faster than before. The nerf to trading goods outside of Europe makes Russia a little less powerful compared to Europe but puts Asia on even worse odds against the Russian bear.
Culture converting: Can't convert culture if that province is not overseas (to the owner) and the nation of the primary culture still exists. This means as Granada if you steal some provinces off Castile or France you can't convert them to your culture unless those tags are completely wiped off the planet. All this does this buffs large nations and nerfs small nations (like the Netherlands).
*Although technically the Timurids were already semi-"reformed". Ruling from major cities and barely migrating.
Post by: Sergarr on June 02, 2014, 05:49:50 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 02, 2014, 06:14:53 am
And all this was not caught by the testing team... why?I believe that Paradox either has an extremely bad testing department or they disregard everything they say and choose to balance everything from their in-studio MP sessions. The latter is much more likely seeing some of Johan's replies about the patch.
I really want to enjoy WoN since it adds so many fantastic things but the patch just changed so many underlying mechanics and broke so many that it's sucking almost all of the enjoyment from the game. A lot of these changes I don't exactly remember the community screaming to change either.
EDIT: The bug reporting team on the Paradox forum do seem to do a very fast and vigorous job, hats off to them. Seems there is a lack of that information being filtered back to the devs however.
Post by: PanH on June 02, 2014, 07:16:40 am
Culture converting: Can't convert culture if that province is not overseas (to the owner) and the nation of the primary culture still exists. This means as Granada if you steal some provinces off Castile or France you can't convert them to your culture unless those tags are completely wiped off the planet. All this does this buffs large nations and nerfs small nations (like the Netherlands).France isn't the worse, since it's just cosmopolitaine that you can't culture convert. Now, England can culture convert the holdings it has in France (normans and aquitaine) since they have no primary nation (ever, afaik, there's no TAG for it). Now, if you want to culture convert them back, invade the British Isles ! Totally makes sense !
Post by: sebcool on June 02, 2014, 07:49:02 am
Vassal integration needs to be changed, though. It doesn't make much sense that it drains DP, which affects colonization speed and tech. It would make way more sense to use AP, since it affects coring and stability (IE, basically what integrating a vassal would involve). Doing that would also help slightly in nerfing France, since it would have to sacrifice it's stability and actually conquering instead of it's basically useless navy. Having it drain DP is also hugely annoying for Denmark, since it means delaying your colonization by several years, and you can't avoid it, since you need Norway to reach the new world in the first place.
Post by: Lightning4 on June 02, 2014, 07:54:17 am
Rival system: While much more interesting than the old system it does have a lot of quirks. It's currently way too easy to get PP from taking land (which lasts for ages) making the system rather easy to game. The rival pool is far too small meaning you'll have to start declaring on allies or simply run out of people to beat up. Finally the limit to a single rival at the start of the game breaks a lot of the gameplay balance.
There might need to be a new system in place for truly great powers that forces them to play world police or something.
I suspect (well, hope) it will be calibrated a little as time goes on. The rival pool is way, way too finicky, you can't even set some neighbors as a rival. As Morocco, I can only set Mali (an ally, for now, but an utter joke since they're sub-saharan) and Mamluks (probably the second most powerful nation in the world. Also an ally) as rivals.
Castile is no longer valid for some reason (even though they have ME as a rival), nor is Portugal (who is my friend in this MP game, though I had him as a rival for a little while). Nobody across the Mediterranean has shown up at any point.
There's probably some weird criteria here that hasn't been fully explored or posted on the wiki yet.
The mechanic as a whole doesn't seem to play too well for nations that aren't in the thick of things though.
Westernisation: This is just ridiculous. You have to be so far behind in tech and since it scales up by size you can't be a decent empire. The added RR is also crippling and makes the whole game whack a mole for decades. Needs to be rebalanced to have governments, ideas (plutocracy, innovation), alliance with western powers and tolerance have an impact on westernisation speeds.
Westernising as Ragusa (why the hell is it eastern anyway?) was one of the most painful things I've gone through in EU4, I can't even imagine an Asian or African attempt. I heard NA natives have to be around 26 levels behind to start westernisation.
The major change is no longer getting Western units after westernising and due to the harshness of westernising makes it very debatable whether it is remotely worth it.
The tech difference change does seem to really hurt Native Americans. I think it could be an unintended side effect of the Conquest of Paradise changes, which nerfed their tech group and forced them to finish their native ideas to remain 'competitive'. If westernization would factor this in, it'd be a little better, requiring them to be a net of 17 techs behind. That's around 6 in each group, which is easily possible to have by the time Europeans start really showing up in North America.
Not exactly sure what the change was intended to accomplish, besides stalling advancement of African and native nations.
It doesn't actually hurt anyone else that much, even for the Asians, they only need to be behind by an extra few techs.
France: The BBB is back with vengeance. She can now integrate all her provinces in barely a second. She can also make an alliance with Castile almost day 1 since she will only rival England (for some reason Castile and France are not historical enemies) and then they play the merry game of destory europe together. The combined forces of europe can't slow her down and she'll be chewing on the middle of the HRE by 1555.
I'm seeing this too in my MP game, Castile and France being buddies. I hope it breaks up sometime soon, because it makes for a ridiculous powerbase in Western Europe.
This is probably related to the weird rivalry system too, so maybe for some reason France can't set Castile as a rival, or vice versa.
Post by: Stuebi on June 02, 2014, 08:43:37 am
If yes, I might have not noticed it because I just started playing EU IV when it came on sale for -75% and thus basically skipped the "unbroken"-part of the game. It's a bit silly, I really enjoy the game while every vet I know tells me that the latest patch fucked it up big time.
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 02, 2014, 08:51:49 am
It's still a good game which makes me even more disappointed they added such wonky mechanics.
Post by: Wysthric on June 02, 2014, 08:55:01 am
Post by: MoLAoS on June 02, 2014, 11:06:11 am
From my experience, Paradox games have a vastly shifting meta, which I find interesting although I can understand why people may not like this.
CK2 had almost none of the balancing bullshit problems EU4 has.
Post by: Sheb on June 02, 2014, 11:13:43 am
Post by: PanH on June 02, 2014, 11:44:47 am
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.Being a Daimyo is ridiculously hard now, since the Shogunate can integrate the rest of Japan in 20 years, while it took at least 10x (numbers of daimyos / 2) years and usually didn't happened before 1500 (when the Shogunate didn't simply got crushed).
Post by: Sheb on June 02, 2014, 11:51:22 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 02, 2014, 12:08:46 pm
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Man, you're going to be disappointed ~200 years into your Japan game when Kirishan Tensions starts. Hint: Japan is not worth playing. At all. I thought it'd be fun too until the bullshit 'flavor' events that force you into revolt lock.
I even let the goddamn christian rebels break my country since 14 regiment groups poopped up with every Tension event that fired. Guess what? My religion didn't change. Rebels disappear, still shinto, still get Kirishin tensions every couple weeks. You can't change to Catholic to stop this, and you can't simply stay Shinto or the game ruins any fun you'll be trying to have about 1600.
When you get the choice to let westerners in, don't do it, ever. It ruins Japan's gameplay and shows us how Paradox is a Europe-fanboy without the ability to create real experiences in EU4 outside of painting a map a pretty color and watching your magic points tick up.
I *believe* picking a certain choice in the 'westerners arrive' or [whatever the event is called] will stop you from having a ruined Japan game.
Post by: Sindain on June 02, 2014, 12:35:12 pm
*snip**Japan stuff snip*
You don't have a choice on whether or not to let the westerners in, its just an event that happens. You can make the decision to enforce Sakoku which iirc takes 200 from each mp pool and requires a certain amount of stability, but it stops all that crap.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 02, 2014, 02:58:29 pm
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Man, you're going to be disappointed ~200 years into your Japan game when Kirishan Tensions starts. Hint: Japan is not worth playing. At all. I thought it'd be fun too until the bullshit 'flavor' events that force you into revolt lock.
I even let the goddamn christian rebels break my country since 14 regiment groups poopped up with every Tension event that fired. Guess what? My religion didn't change. Rebels disappear, still shinto, still get Kirishin tensions every couple weeks. You can't change to Catholic to stop this, and you can't simply stay Shinto or the game ruins any fun you'll be trying to have about 1600.
When you get the choice to let westerners in, don't do it, ever. It ruins Japan's gameplay and shows us how Paradox is a Europe-fanboy without the ability to create real experiences in EU4 outside of painting a map a pretty color and watching your magic points tick up.
I *believe* picking a certain choice in the 'westerners arrive' or [whatever the event is called] will stop you from having a ruined Japan game.
Do you know anything about EU4? Paradox no longer allows us to paint the map our color. No, that would be too fun. Any attempt to paint map will result in disaster. And should you figure out a viable strategy, it shall be nerfed in the next patch.
Post by: RedKing on June 02, 2014, 03:08:34 pm
I beg to differ. It's just that the threshold to hit snowball levels is higher. The world is my plaything in my current EU4 game, but that's in large part because I started with an imported CK2 game where the Mongol Hordes were VERY successful. The 1.6.1 patch actually made it far easier for me to steamroll, thanks to the changes to coring mechanics.Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Man, you're going to be disappointed ~200 years into your Japan game when Kirishan Tensions starts. Hint: Japan is not worth playing. At all. I thought it'd be fun too until the bullshit 'flavor' events that force you into revolt lock.
I even let the goddamn christian rebels break my country since 14 regiment groups poopped up with every Tension event that fired. Guess what? My religion didn't change. Rebels disappear, still shinto, still get Kirishin tensions every couple weeks. You can't change to Catholic to stop this, and you can't simply stay Shinto or the game ruins any fun you'll be trying to have about 1600.
When you get the choice to let westerners in, don't do it, ever. It ruins Japan's gameplay and shows us how Paradox is a Europe-fanboy without the ability to create real experiences in EU4 outside of painting a map a pretty color and watching your magic points tick up.
I *believe* picking a certain choice in the 'westerners arrive' or [whatever the event is called] will stop you from having a ruined Japan game.
Do you know anything about EU4? Paradox no longer allows us to paint the map our color. No, that would be too fun. Any attempt to paint map will result in disaster. And should you figure out a viable strategy, it shall be nerfed in the next patch.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 02, 2014, 03:43:39 pm
I beg to differ. It's just that the threshold to hit snowball levels is higher. The world is my plaything in my current EU4 game, but that's in large part because I started with an imported CK2 game where the Mongol Hordes were VERY successful. The 1.6.1 patch actually made it far easier for me to steamroll, thanks to the changes to coring mechanics.Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Man, you're going to be disappointed ~200 years into your Japan game when Kirishan Tensions starts. Hint: Japan is not worth playing. At all. I thought it'd be fun too until the bullshit 'flavor' events that force you into revolt lock.
I even let the goddamn christian rebels break my country since 14 regiment groups poopped up with every Tension event that fired. Guess what? My religion didn't change. Rebels disappear, still shinto, still get Kirishin tensions every couple weeks. You can't change to Catholic to stop this, and you can't simply stay Shinto or the game ruins any fun you'll be trying to have about 1600.
When you get the choice to let westerners in, don't do it, ever. It ruins Japan's gameplay and shows us how Paradox is a Europe-fanboy without the ability to create real experiences in EU4 outside of painting a map a pretty color and watching your magic points tick up.
I *believe* picking a certain choice in the 'westerners arrive' or [whatever the event is called] will stop you from having a ruined Japan game.
Do you know anything about EU4? Paradox no longer allows us to paint the map our color. No, that would be too fun. Any attempt to paint map will result in disaster. And should you figure out a viable strategy, it shall be nerfed in the next patch.
Well sure if you import a massive blob you can snowball to hell and back. I'm talking about starting a normal game. Hell, only the early game is slowed down any, after like 1650 I can do what I want. But the problem is most people spend most of their time in the early game.
Post by: Rakonas on June 02, 2014, 03:56:57 pm
Other than that it was pretty fun, but the HRE thing wasn't actually my plan, I actually wanted to get PU's. Never even got a von Habsburg on any throne outside the empire.
Post by: lemon10 on June 02, 2014, 04:13:57 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on June 02, 2014, 04:23:49 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 02, 2014, 05:46:39 pm
What I would really like to see is a system where the vassal offers integration after you treat it well for a number of years, or you force it early at the expense of something else. There was also a good opportunity to tie it in with the rival system, where a vassal may seek integration if there are numerous perceived threats. It's a shame that it came out as half baked as it is, but I do think there's a lot of possibility for improvement with the direction they took.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 03, 2014, 03:20:38 am
I started my first game as the Teutonic Order in EUIV, and didn't find expansion too difficult (except in the beginning, when Poland and Brandenburg are up in your face). All of Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Finland, Crimea, and half of Russia by 1700's ok. I can see what they were trying to do with the new vassal annexation system, and I think it's a good idea to have it tied to base tax to discourage vassal feeding, but what I would've liked is to have the other poorly executed ways of discouraging it removed if they're going this route, like the arbitrary refusals to buy territory sometimes.
What I would really like to see is a system where the vassal offers integration after you treat it well for a number of years, or you force it early at the expense of something else. There was also a good opportunity to tie it in with the rival system, where a vassal may seek integration if there are numerous perceived threats. It's a shame that it came out as half baked as it is, but I do think there's a lot of possibility for improvement with the direction they took.
You made it to 1700 after the patch? I haven't even broken 1475 in my current Denmark game. I got curia controller which was nice, but then Russian roflstomped me in a war. Got the last two teutonic provinces but lost some from other places to make peace. I was trying to grab the last 3 nov provinces by taking ingermarland from muscovy so I could get claims. Probably just gonna kill Nov with only the 1 claim instead now. Then maybe go for Hansa with good allies.
Post by: Bastus on June 03, 2014, 07:36:52 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 03, 2014, 07:44:35 am
Post by: sebcool on June 03, 2014, 09:40:10 am
So, does this stuff come even if I DONT own Wealth of Nations (the new dlc, might have gotten the name wrong)?
If yes, I might have not noticed it because I just started playing EU IV when it came on sale for -75% and thus basically skipped the "unbroken"-part of the game. It's a bit silly, I really enjoy the game while every vet I know tells me that the latest patch fucked it up big time.
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Yeah, I also bought this at the sale, and so far I've been having a blast playing Denmark.
It was pretty infuriating at first. I hadn't yet figured the game out yet, so I made the stupid decision of attacking the Hansa, since they had my trade node, before I could or even knew of integrating my PU's. The Hansa were tiny, so I thought it would be easy. Cue several infuriating curbstomps by the combined might of the Hansa, Austria and it's ally France (who quickly blobbed and dominated the entire game). I was about to ragequit right there, since France was already unbeatable and my ally England decided to be constantly in debt for the rest of our alliance. Then I finally learned how to play the game. I did my best to avoid the alliance of facestomp, integrating my Pu's, conquering weaker countries to get their tradepoints and focusing on colonization.
I had hit the 1500's, when I decided to get my revenge on the Hansa, who had swallowed up the neighboring OPM's. The Hansa were allied with someone outside the HRE (can't remember who), so I declared war on their ally and proceeded to curbstomp them with the help of England (who were finally out of dept), Brandenburg and Bohemia, completely ignoring their ally. I couldn't annex them in one war, so I took as much land as possible, giving some of it to my allies. England, who had been given a province, suddenly decided it wanted my everything, cancelled the alliance and allied with the Hansa. England at that stage was pathetic. No navy whatsoever, a smaller army than me and completely trapped on the isles. I laughed gleefully and declared war on them. Ignoring them entirely, again, and taking everything but Lubeck itself (and snatching up England's only colony in the process).
Cue protestantism. I have the second best navy in the world (after the Ottomans). I am the dominant trade power in the north, the Hansa does not exist. I am the only colonial power in North America (England and France have only discovered one province in america, which I own. No colonizing for them.) I am allied with France. I have built a March on the only land route into Denmark (Holstein), so winning an offensive war against me is almost impossible, and I have enough soldiers to make even Austria reconsider taking back my german provinces. I have more money than god (but not more than France), and I am well on my way to start outpacing everyone in economic power. Oh, and I'm a great power, and I've united scandinavia.
I love this game.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 03, 2014, 11:01:16 am
Also protestant is so OP that they literally throw money at you once you convert. Now that's balance.
Post by: Sindain on June 03, 2014, 11:09:17 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 03, 2014, 11:13:25 am
If anything Reformed is the new OP [christian] religion. It's ridiculously easy to gain more than +5% ferver a month which means you can uphold a single policy without any downsides. The military policy conveys a stupidly large boost to morale as well.
With the new tolerance mechanic you can even completely avoid converting heretic provinces but I found that way too boring. It also doesn't make much sense as the reformed movement was often less tolerant to heretics than most protestant churches.
With that out of the way Hinduism with Shiva is likely the new power-gamer's dream. I can't wait for someone to form Hindu Ottoman HRE (although Mughal seems more likely).
Post by: MoLAoS on June 03, 2014, 02:25:21 pm
So, does this stuff come even if I DONT own Wealth of Nations (the new dlc, might have gotten the name wrong)?
If yes, I might have not noticed it because I just started playing EU IV when it came on sale for -75% and thus basically skipped the "unbroken"-part of the game. It's a bit silly, I really enjoy the game while every vet I know tells me that the latest patch fucked it up big time.
Currently trying to unite Japan as a Daimyo, which isnt easy. On my third attempt and they keep uniting against me once I get to a certain size. :/ Granted, maybe I should be more patient and core and integrate the prvoicnes I conquer first, before moving on. Steamrolling my neighbors seems to have some serious backlashes.
Yeah, I also bought this at the sale, and so far I've been having a blast playing Denmark.
It was pretty infuriating at first. I hadn't yet figured the game out yet, so I made the stupid decision of attacking the Hansa, since they had my trade node, before I could or even knew of integrating my PU's. The Hansa were tiny, so I thought it would be easy. Cue several infuriating curbstomps by the combined might of the Hansa, Austria and it's ally France (who quickly blobbed and dominated the entire game). I was about to ragequit right there, since France was already unbeatable and my ally England decided to be constantly in debt for the rest of our alliance. Then I finally learned how to play the game. I did my best to avoid the alliance of facestomp, integrating my Pu's, conquering weaker countries to get their tradepoints and focusing on colonization.
I had hit the 1500's, when I decided to get my revenge on the Hansa, who had swallowed up the neighboring OPM's. The Hansa were allied with someone outside the HRE (can't remember who), so I declared war on their ally and proceeded to curbstomp them with the help of England (who were finally out of dept), Brandenburg and Bohemia, completely ignoring their ally. I couldn't annex them in one war, so I took as much land as possible, giving some of it to my allies. England, who had been given a province, suddenly decided it wanted my everything, cancelled the alliance and allied with the Hansa. England at that stage was pathetic. No navy whatsoever, a smaller army than me and completely trapped on the isles. I laughed gleefully and declared war on them. Ignoring them entirely, again, and taking everything but Lubeck itself (and snatching up England's only colony in the process).
Cue protestantism. I have the second best navy in the world (after the Ottomans). I am the dominant trade power in the north, the Hansa does not exist. I am the only colonial power in North America (England and France have only discovered one province in america, which I own. No colonizing for them.) I am allied with France. I have built a March on the only land route into Denmark (Holstein), so winning an offensive war against me is almost impossible, and I have enough soldiers to make even Austria reconsider taking back my german provinces. I have more money than god (but not more than France), and I am well on my way to start outpacing everyone in economic power. Oh, and I'm a great power, and I've united scandinavia.
I love this game.
Denmark and Poland are my favorite nations. I'm currently attempting to do a half world conquest, even with the stupid new rules. I was doing good until Muscovy, allied to the Livonian Order who I attacked, roflstomped me. Did manage to eat the rest of the 2PM
Teutons but lost Gotland Osterbotten and Reval. I got Papal Controller on game start which is crazy powerful for Denmark. Then I lost it but now I've regained it. Its about 1460 and I integrated all my shit, at massive dip point cost, and ate 3 Teuton provinces, and one or two Livonian ones. I'm hoping to take the rest of Novogord and either get revenge on Russians or push into the Hansa now that I have allies to fight Austria. I'm going for Admin and Expansion ideas in order to get that incredible coring cost reduction policy. 40% plus 25% on claims even though claims are really only 10% for speed of coring. Then I'm grabbing naval to destroy England and then trade for monies. I probably should take a military idea but with my NT bonus, plus and another +1 for the naval plus adm and naval plus dip policies, my ships shall conquer the world. I do kinda wanna get innovative though. Reduce my NT per year drop.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 03, 2014, 04:24:00 pm
You made it to 1700 after the patch? I haven't even broken 1475 in my current Denmark game. I got curia controller which was nice, but then Russian roflstomped me in a war. Got the last two teutonic provinces but lost some from other places to make peace. I was trying to grab the last 3 nov provinces by taking ingermarland from muscovy so I could get claims. Probably just gonna kill Nov with only the 1 claim instead now. Then maybe go for Hansa with good allies.
Had to do it over from the beginning a couple times, but my strategy was to rush an alliance with Austria to keep Poland/Denmark/Brandenburg from DoWing while building barques, then joined the HRE, vassalized Pomerania, and then ate Poland with Austria's help. From there Eastern Europe is your oyster. I think I'll do it again, but this time not join the HRE and try to multitask conquering the east while eating away into the HRE.
I've normally played as Asian countries, but did they increase AE for actions against the HRE? Just getting caught fabricating a couple claims on Poland and vassalizing Pomerania was enough to get a coalition of every neighbor to form, and was the reason for one of the restarts. I ended up going into the defines to reduce it.
Post by: Sindain on June 03, 2014, 04:51:36 pm
Post by: pedrito on June 04, 2014, 12:57:21 pm
- Diplo annexations being too easy
- Western units being superior to all the other ones even at equal tech levels
Guess what the new patch fixed?
I love the patch, pretty much everything is spot on!!
Post by: MoLAoS on June 04, 2014, 02:47:30 pm
I used to complain about exactly 2 things before the current patch:
- Diplo annexations being too easy
- Western units being superior to all the other ones even at equal tech levels
Guess what the new patch fixed?
I love the patch, pretty much everything is spot on!!
Honestly, if they would just nerf the HRE I wouldn't have such a big problem with this patch.
Post by: Lightning4 on June 05, 2014, 07:53:54 am
Western units being superior to all the other ones even at equal tech levels
Western still does pull a little bit ahead towards endgame, but by like 1-2 pips at most. It's a pretty spectacular change.
Shame about those horde units though. Hope maybe they have an expansion or patch that gives them a total revamp.
Post by: Lightning4 on June 06, 2014, 07:09:30 am
To the guy that was wondering how the game picks potential rivals:
They need to be nearby and of roughly equal strength to you. They may or may not need to be neutral or worse with you as well.
Relations don't seem to have an impact. I can set my allies, the Mamluks, as a rival, and they pretty much adore me. I think the relations are mutual from my nation to theirs, as well.
Post by: Karlito on June 06, 2014, 08:57:46 am
Western units being superior to all the other ones even at equal tech levels
Western still does pull a little bit ahead towards endgame, but by like 1-2 pips at most. It's a pretty spectacular change.
I think it's 4 pips, but not until the very last military tech levels, yeah.
Post by: Wysthric on June 06, 2014, 09:20:55 am
I love the game but I find it hard to find the enthusiasm to go through another ~100 year set up for the potential for that to happen again.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on June 06, 2014, 11:52:23 am
If you're a continental European nation... a strong, coordinated alliance could get a victory. The AI is rarely strong and coordinated, of course.
Post by: Rakonas on June 06, 2014, 12:43:01 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 06, 2014, 12:59:14 pm
The way I usually take them down as a minor land power is to wait until she's burnt most of their gold/manpower on the HRE or Iberian block and then go in blazing with as many allies as I can round up. After that the other powers should hopefully beat on France in her weakened state and even better a peasant war might outbreak, repeat this process without letting her get manpower back up until you've punched out all the minors.
Taking out France early really does make land expansion in Europe pretty trivial since they tend to be the biggest land power in Europe. Austria won't be too bad for most of the game since they burn most of their manpower infighting the princes (although when they start reforming the HRE you may have a problem), Castile/England don't really expand all that much militarily since their main expansion is through colonies (they will become dreadful to fight on the sea however). Ottomans will start out god tier but will start to fall behind in the later centuries.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 06, 2014, 05:02:18 pm
Only problem is that all these successful defenses of the HRE are gettting it dangerously close to actually forming, and I haven't nabbed all the provinces I want from it yet since I've focused on Russia and the Ottomans. I'll probably have to leave the HRE and betray Austria soon.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 06, 2014, 05:19:35 pm
Post by: Sindain on June 06, 2014, 05:22:57 pm
It's always a joy to goose step all over the HRE and create the real German empire. Are you still a theocracy? I heard that forming Prussia no longer changes your government and a theological Germany sounds like a lot of fun to play. Imagine the Hearts of Iron conversion...
The TO decision still does change your government. It is possible to create a theocratic Prussia as LO or any other theocracy by culture switching and using the generic form Prussia decision.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 06, 2014, 05:54:24 pm
Edit: Checked GermanNation.txt, doesn't look like it changes government. So yeah, I think you can have a theocratic Germany (but only the player, AI theocracies can't form it).
Post by: MoLAoS on June 08, 2014, 01:08:58 pm
I was going to take the last 2 provinces of Novgorod that me and Muscovy hadn't gotten with Lithuania, then declare on Austria with Bavaria and Hungary at my side, while France and Castile were smashing Austria in a war. I would take some war exhaustion and lose 2 stability but w/e I had the admin points. Poland would join Austria and Bavaria and Hungary plus my PUed Bohemia would be on my side. Poland and Austria had like no troops because of France and Castile going after Austria's Burgundian lands. Not only did Hunagry fuck me and make me lose 25 prestige not joining their war, but then I reallied them after and they called me in again after I already said no. 50 prestige and my brilliant plan all down the drain. Unless Hungary loses fast and I can then declare on Austria anyways. But its unlikely.
And then it looks like France and Castile even though they were totally crushing Austria and all of the remaining Austrian troops went after Hungary, apparently caved and peaced out, without even taking any provinces. So now even if I can draw Lithuania into a separate war, I'll be facing the full might of Austria-Burgundy with a totally depleted Hungary.
Post by: h3lblad3 on June 08, 2014, 11:25:10 pm
It's always a joy to goose step all over the HRE and create the real German empire. Are you still a theocracy? I heard that forming Prussia no longer changes your government and a theological Germany sounds like a lot of fun to play. Imagine the Hearts of Iron conversion...I've been working on a conversion from CK2 to EU4 (I didn't care much for how the CK2 converter did it, so I've been editing that).
In that game, the Teutonic Order invaded a Cathar HRE, multiple times, eventually destroying it. As such, there is a huge TO in place of the HRE in EU4.
It would be scary if Sicily, which takes up the Italian Peninsula and Bavaria/Austria/Southern Germany weren't considered the strongest power by a longshot.
Also, no unified France.
Post by: RedKing on June 09, 2014, 06:17:36 pm
Well, I found out that I can't play Castille without the RNG deciding I must lose everything.Pre-emptive Aztec curse.
Fights where I outnumber the enemy 2:1 and have a commander whilst they don't? Clearly I should get bad rolls to make up for that!
My morale drops like a fucking lead weight in every fight I go in as Castille, regardless of... well, everything.
Post by: Culise on June 09, 2014, 06:20:11 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 09, 2014, 06:57:04 pm
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9910241/russia.PNG (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9910241/russia.PNG)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Teneb on June 09, 2014, 07:19:50 pm
Presented without comment:Looks like Byzantium wants to be the HRE.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9910241/russia.PNG (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9910241/russia.PNG)Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 09, 2014, 08:48:27 pm
0.o
Crusader Kings import?
Post by: Tarran on June 09, 2014, 09:00:50 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on June 09, 2014, 09:16:33 pm
Also the way the Byzantine Empire has expanded is likely result of using the Holy War CB on Pagans, and not being able to get away with that against Muslims.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 09, 2014, 11:05:46 pm
Well, I found out that I can't play Castille without the RNG deciding I must lose everything.
Fights where I outnumber the enemy 2:1 and have a commander whilst they don't? Clearly I should get bad rolls to make up for that!
My morale drops like a fucking lead weight in every fight I go in as Castille, regardless of... well, everything.
Late reply, sorry.
In the defines file (Steam\...\common\defines.lua) there's an entry under NMilitary called COMBAT_DICE_SIDE. By default it's set to 10 (so you can roll 0-9), but you can lower it to make fights less random. I highly recommend it, because you can get some crazy snowballing bullshit if one side happens to get a comparatively high roll early in a fight. But if you're having problems more generally with every fight, it may be something to do with your units or the enemy's units and all their stats.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 10, 2014, 01:41:10 am
Edit: Oh, and then after the war, I lose Poland as a potential rival. FML.
Post by: Bastus on June 10, 2014, 08:31:20 am
It is way to easy to get more than 5 Fevor per month, even in times of war, which means you can basically use one of the three modifiers all the time and enter one from time to time as nice additional bonus.
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 11, 2014, 05:35:39 am
(http://i.imgur.com/fpjVp2B.png)Yep. A friend and I played a CK2 game from old gods start until the end and then moved on to EU4.
0.o
Crusader Kings import?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 11, 2014, 10:33:51 am
Biggest mistake was trying to colonise the New World in an attempt to fully wipe out the Iberian cultures. I already dominated the Sevilla trade node and should have just stolen all the trade coming in from the colonisers (but damn do I hate the Iberians). It would have been better to focus on colonising Africa and getting the full manpower and tax power bases there.
Post by: Sergarr on June 11, 2014, 03:45:03 pm
What'll happen if you set COMBAT_DICE_SIDE to 100 or 1000?Well, I found out that I can't play Castille without the RNG deciding I must lose everything.
Fights where I outnumber the enemy 2:1 and have a commander whilst they don't? Clearly I should get bad rolls to make up for that!
My morale drops like a fucking lead weight in every fight I go in as Castille, regardless of... well, everything.
Late reply, sorry.
In the defines file (Steam\...\common\defines.lua) there's an entry under NMilitary called COMBAT_DICE_SIDE. By default it's set to 10 (so you can roll 0-9), but you can lower it to make fights less random. I highly recommend it, because you can get some crazy snowballing bullshit if one side happens to get a comparatively high roll early in a fight. But if you're having problems more generally with every fight, it may be something to do with your units or the enemy's units and all their stats.
Post by: Tarran on June 11, 2014, 04:00:05 pm
Post by: Culise on June 11, 2014, 04:14:09 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 11, 2014, 08:38:15 pm
* thinking that in theory if both sides will roll the same 'casualty' number, then battles will be affected by things like.. generals, morale, discipline, pips, [modifiers and such] much more, correct?
** Ends up it's not a range just a hard number
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 12, 2014, 01:22:16 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on June 17, 2014, 04:17:30 pm
Post by: Descan on June 17, 2014, 04:43:38 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 17, 2014, 08:43:08 pm
Some details scrapped off the Paradox forums:
Spoiler: general information (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: new ideas (click to show/hide)
It looks alright but personally I would much prefer them to sort out all the shit they flat out broke in the 1.6 patch.
Post by: MoLAoS on June 17, 2014, 08:57:13 pm
Post by: PanH on June 17, 2014, 09:16:49 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on June 17, 2014, 09:29:27 pm
Quantity just went from Good to Godly, it seems.
Why can I only choose 8 ideas :'( I call shenanigans!
Post by: FritzPL on June 18, 2014, 01:13:19 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 18, 2014, 01:32:37 am
Post by: FritzPL on June 18, 2014, 01:34:59 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 18, 2014, 01:41:50 am
Post by: FritzPL on June 18, 2014, 01:43:06 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 18, 2014, 09:45:43 am
Well, even with MEIOU and Taxes, all I can do while playing this game is look into all of the things that they got wrong in the process. Not major things, but just small details like... well, the existence of Arbanon in 1356 (I can't find any bit of info on that whatsoever, especially the part where it is a vassal of Achaia) or the conquering of Serres (which has the wrong land borders anyway) in 1360.
Guess it is back to making suggestions on their forum...
Unfortunately M&T runs like crap and was a letdown in comparison to the [smarter] changes of VET. If they combine and consolidate [see: overcomplicated trade node paths that slow down the game too much with no real bonus or added depth beyond a couple of nodes that should have exit paths but don't in vanilla] I'll be interested but M&T in its current form is rather unplayable for me since there's a total conversion that doesn't run at 1 day/second.
Honestly, I wish the trade node modifications would stop deciding arbitrarily that all trade should go to London/Lubeck/Amsterdam. Trade should not always end up at the same nodes. Those nodes severely need an exit path [to eachother?], or some sort of mechanic that gets diminishing returns from being the *only* trader in a node, a la stagnation in EU3. Giving them exit paths to eachother would atleast incentivize the three powers that always eventually form around these free money pits to be challenging eachother to control their favorite nodes. I'm thinking I'll just do this myself and see how it affects balance.
The way it works currently is if you're located in London/Lubeck/Amsterdam you will always have a metric fuckton of free cash due to free money always ending up at these nodes and piling up over time without any real chance to slow down the inevitable 100+ trade values in each node. Or, an alternate strategy is to rush for the Amsterdam/Lubeck/London trade nodes if you're anywhere in Europe because all your trade ends up there anyways. It's pretty 1-dimensional.
Note: I'm in 1600ish in the 'wealth expansion' and I don't have any options to form new trade nodes or change paths of any sort, like I inferred from the description. Kinda not sure what the expansion does besides add piracy buttons and a Lisbon trade node.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 18, 2014, 10:56:07 am
It handles things like vassal annexation, tech groups, modernization of capitals, trade power [the first trade ships have .2 trade power now] and rebalances most of the ridiculous horseshit, if you aren't playing as ERE in the fantasy bookmark, that is.
Also: If you want to enjoy EU4, turn on 'Selflearningai' in the console.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 18, 2014, 11:23:56 am
Post by: Culise on June 18, 2014, 11:28:31 am
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 18, 2014, 11:31:45 am
VET. I was looking at the state of the Byzantine Empire in 1356- in VET, it had the Ottoman Empire owning an incredibly large swathe of land that it shouldn't. Hell, it even held Bulgarian lands in VET, which is just absurd.
That's been the 1356 bookmark since EU3. And yeah, it's VEF, dunno why I was thinking VET.
Also, culise, I'm sorry, but..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Serbian_Empire
The empire period is over just about the start of EU4. I guess Serbian empire can exist in the first bookmark and then be event-forced to a normal kingdom, but that's historical railroading and in no way is it the goal of the mod to force certain nations to play ways as determined by events, otherwise we'd have event-forced PUs and colonization.
Post by: Culise on June 18, 2014, 11:49:08 am
Yeah, but the date was specified as 1356. A decent way to model its decline, I'd hope, would have been a lack of cores on its gains, a very poor and young ruler who won't die in the near future and won't give many monarch points from ADM, and hostile cores from Bulgaria, the Byzantine Greeks, Hungary, and the Ottoman Turks (semi-deterministic, but to encourage them to expand beyond Gallipoli). As for government, the usual despotic monarchy or feudal monarchy would be the best to model it; the kinds of empires modeled by EU's empire government are not the sort Serbia was, and I apologize if I was misinterpreted as attempting to argue for that.VET. I was looking at the state of the Byzantine Empire in 1356- in VET, it had the Ottoman Empire owning an incredibly large swathe of land that it shouldn't. Hell, it even held Bulgarian lands in VET, which is just absurd.
That's been the 1356 bookmark since EU3. And yeah, it's VEF, dunno why I was thinking VET.
Also, culise, I'm sorry, but..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Serbian_Empire
The empire period is over just about the start of EU4. I guess Serbian empire can exist in the first bookmark and then be event-forced to a normal kingdom, but that's historical railroading and in no way is it the goal of the mod to force certain nations to play ways as determined by events, otherwise we'd have event-forced PUs and colonization.
That said, you're right that Europa Universalis has never been very good at modelling the fall of empire in anything other than an event-driven context. It's just odd that a mod, of all things, didn't even try.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 18, 2014, 12:12:36 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 18, 2014, 11:22:38 pm
Post by: MoLAoS on June 19, 2014, 12:58:25 am
Just had a 6,6,5 18 year old heir die in a hunter accident and my 46 year old non-general leader die in the same week resulting in a regency. I cam extremely close to throwing my computer in rage.
Regencies are literally the 3rd worst mechanic in the game.
On another topic, the new ideas are so horribly abuseable. I'm gonna conquer the world while also getting max tech as Poland when the new DLC drops.
Post by: Tarran on June 19, 2014, 01:24:25 am
Just had a 6,6,5 18 year old heir die in a hunter accident and my 46 year old non-general leader die in the same week resulting in a regency. I cam extremely close to throwing my computer in rage.Instead of raging, do yourself a favor and use the reload function. It's better to avoid a mental breakdown than to maintain a stupid ironman for a video game. Assuming you're playing singleplayer, of course.
Post by: Sergarr on June 19, 2014, 01:36:18 am
Cheat DLC are the bane of my existence.Just had a 6,6,5 18 year old heir die in a hunter accident and my 46 year old non-general leader die in the same week resulting in a regency. I cam extremely close to throwing my computer in rage.
Regencies are literally the 3rd worst mechanic in the game.
On another topic, the new ideas are so horribly abuseable. I'm gonna conquer the world while also getting max tech as Poland when the new DLC drops.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 19, 2014, 01:48:42 am
Post by: Sergarr on June 19, 2014, 01:53:39 am
Speaking of cheating, I added a decision for Hosokawa ages ago that inherits all the daimyos and becomes Japan (I was doing a lot of testing), and funnily enough it works in ironman since apparently the checksum the game uses to check against stuff like that isn't shipped with the update, but generated locally on first initialization (or something). I actually tried removing it, and doing so prevents ironman. The funny part is I started to think about how this could abused, when I could just, you know, not play ironman and cheat all I like.That looks like a giant hole. Can you give Ryukyu the decision which give it the whole world on day 1 and complete the Three Mountains achievement that way?
Post by: Descan on June 19, 2014, 10:53:14 am
If something isn't detrimental to others' experience, I don't see how it's "abuseable."
Post by: MoLAoS on June 19, 2014, 12:36:30 pm
Who cares? Achievements don't give you anything except a sense of accomplishment, if you cheat to get one it's not like it'll mean anything to anyone else besides an "Oh, that's cool" (if they don't know you cheated)
If something isn't detrimental to others' experience, I don't see how it's "abuseable."
Mainly it detracts from others because if they care about achievements and you got one that should be impossible it'll drive them nuts trying to imagine how it was done. But probably only for a little bit before they give up caring or figure out you cheated.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 19, 2014, 12:43:43 pm
Who cares? Achievements don't give you anything except a sense of accomplishment, if you cheat to get one it's not like it'll mean anything to anyone else besides an "Oh, that's cool" (if they don't know you cheated)
If something isn't detrimental to others' experience, I don't see how it's "abuseable."
I agree, cheevos are largely pointless, which is why I joked about thinking of ways to abuse it when I already think it's pointless.
*cough*
That said...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: RedKing on June 19, 2014, 02:26:01 pm
Post by: Culise on June 19, 2014, 02:30:31 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 19, 2014, 03:35:57 pm
There are also third party editors (and the good old manual way) that you can use to unlock steam achievements for any game, though I guess you could get your account banned over it. I remember using one to avoid having to grind out the Poker Night at the Inventory nonsense for a pair of glasses I wanted in TF2. Please no tell gaben
Post by: rumpel on June 23, 2014, 02:58:33 am
Spoiler: "Image" (click to show/hide)
I'm playing as Prussia and want to form the German Nation. All I need to do so is to get Nürnberg. Austria hates me with -200 and won't give me military access. That means there's no way to get to Nürnberg without messing with Austria. I have a few allies who would join the war against Austria, but they aren't helpful and the odds I would loose are rather high (they have Spain and bigger army).
My thought now is that I wait until Austria is at war with The Ottomans or another Arabic country that's better than Austria and attack Austria when they're almost crushed, take over Bamberg and make peace. Then it's just a matter of time until I have a core on Nürnberg and be able to form the German Nation. :|
Any suggestions?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 23, 2014, 04:36:32 am
Post by: Karlito on June 23, 2014, 09:46:06 am
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on June 23, 2014, 09:48:58 am
Post by: Sindain on June 23, 2014, 10:34:48 am
Can't you walk through HRE nations during war if you're a member yourself? Or is that something only the emperor gets?
I believe it works as a member if it's a outside war.
Whenever the emperor is in a war all participants can cross HRE territory.
Post by: rumpel on June 23, 2014, 12:11:03 pm
You might be able to get on the same side as Austria in a war using clever diplomacy and enforce peace. Look for potential targets of Austria/Castile's enemies and get those relations up to +100.
Sounds like an idea. I'm going to try it. Either this or my thought should hopefully work out.
Can't you walk through HRE nations during war if you're a member yourself? Or is that something only the emperor gets?I believe it works as a member if it's a outside war.
Whenever the emperor is in a war all participants can cross HRE territory.
Too bad the emperor is that stupid 1 province country Württemberg. I'm sure the electors just wanted to troll Austria.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 23, 2014, 04:17:04 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 27, 2014, 11:51:54 pm
Spoiler: from the PDI forums (click to show/hide)
The removal of the monarch point penalty and the behind of tech bonus greatly increased will allow for much stronger nations outside of Europe. It does seem like it will almost completely remove the need for westernisation (except for hordes and Ming/Qing) and I personally prefer that.
The only negative things I can say are niggling, such as the worries that trade republics are getting too powerful (my Ragusa campaign in WoN alone was on the easy side). It's also a bit of a shame to see factions being ripped straight from Ming as it will make them a lot less unique to play. Finally I'm a little disappointed we haven't gotten some kind of unique "Thalassocracic Kingdom" government types for nations outside of Europe that were kingdoms that still relieved heavily on trade and maritime (Indian Ocean Sultanates, Ryukyu, Majapahit etc).
Post by: Sergarr on June 28, 2014, 04:03:57 am
This can't possibly backfire in any shape, way, or form.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on June 28, 2014, 11:32:06 am
Post by: ShoesandHats on June 28, 2014, 07:29:40 pm
Post by: Sindain on June 28, 2014, 10:27:32 pm
So, vassal annexation now costs diplo points, 15/bt, which is the same cost as coring a province with a claim on it. Though vassal annexation does tend to be faster now. I would recommend vassalizing, as Tibet you probably aren't in that much need of diplo points anytime soon so saving the amp is nice. Also you don't have to deal with rebels when you annex them.
If you have any decent allies I wouldn't worry too much about the AE, particularly since Bengal is the biggest power in the region.
Post by: ShoesandHats on June 28, 2014, 11:14:32 pm
Psst posting across forums, how terrible.
I've been found out! :P
My only ally at the moment is the 2PM Kachar, so I'm not too confident about my position on that front. Malwa seems to have overtaken Bengal in terms of power, especially after I beat Bengal up a while ago to take Koch.
Post by: Sindain on June 28, 2014, 11:52:38 pm
Post by: ShoesandHats on June 29, 2014, 12:52:07 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 02, 2014, 11:28:11 pm
Post by: Tarran on July 03, 2014, 12:25:28 am
Post by: Micro102 on July 03, 2014, 01:01:24 am
Post by: Tarran on July 03, 2014, 01:05:35 am
Forced March is a bonus triggerable ability at the end of the Offensive idea tree, which gives 50% or 100% faster movement (I can't exactly remember which).
Higher maneuver generals move armies they lead faster than those with less maneuver or no general at all.
Shattered Retreat causes an army to move far faster than usual.
I believe horse-only armies are also significantly faster than those with infantry/artillery attached to them.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 03, 2014, 01:10:28 am
Post by: Micro102 on July 03, 2014, 01:15:10 am
There's good potential that it wasn't cheating, and indeed I've never heard about such cheating at all, nor is there any patch note that remotely mentions it.
Forced March is a bonus triggerable ability at the end of the Offensive idea tree, which gives 50% or 100% faster movement (I can't exactly remember which).
Higher maneuver generals move armies they lead faster than those with less maneuver or no general at all.
Shattered Retreat causes an army to move far faster than usual.
I believe horse-only armies are also significantly faster than those with infantry/artillery attached to them.
Phew. It does seem to be forced march. First time I've seen it and when the first thing I fight starting moving twice my speed I flipped out. Thought I would have to just stop playing EU4..... Of course, now I know which tech tree to max out first. Double movement speed? GG.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 03, 2014, 01:37:45 am
Not going to bother buying it (or playing EU4 at all) unless there's an AE fix.
Post by: FritzPL on July 03, 2014, 02:50:12 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 03, 2014, 03:12:37 am
There's so much nonsense like coalitions forming when failing to fabricate a claim in the HRE. Hordes having a measly -1 AE reduction a year. Massive AE for vassaling with the average being about 100, some people are reporting 500 for OPM Portugal. Huge AE hit for forcing personal unions that will basically never decay.
Basically if you're a small nation you can't expand without the majority of the continent entering a coalition against you. It forces you to sit on your arse doing nothing for decades (even centuries) and it doesn't contain the larger nations like France since they could already take on all of Europe and win. It's fucking awful and ruined the game for many players including myself who don't care much for playing majors.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 03, 2014, 02:13:39 pm
Post by: Eagle_eye on July 03, 2014, 04:03:15 pm
Post by: Tarran on July 03, 2014, 04:21:11 pm
VEF nerfs AE effects pretty well. Just another reason to like it. Vanilla EU4 is full of stupidity.Well, the MEIOU mod probably also has far more reasonable AE considering they were already tweaking the AE for 1.6.1 and the mod's not had an update for 1.6.2.
Also, yes, vanilla is quite bad.
One thing I will note though: Even if you don't want to get a mod, you probably could just change a few values and get the AE to your personal preference. I'm not a master modder, but I'm pretty sure it's but a few value changes.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 03, 2014, 05:43:37 pm
Post by: Tarran on July 03, 2014, 06:50:41 pm
1: Navigate to common>opinion_modifiers>00_opinion_modifiers.txt
2: Search "aggressive_expansion"
3: Change "yearly_decay = 2" to whatever you want.
Post by: Micro102 on July 03, 2014, 10:11:52 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 03, 2014, 10:30:13 pm
Well I'm fighting Persia (who somehow has tech rivaling western tech countries as a non-western tech country) And they are 2 tech levels above me in military and have a full offensive tree while I have half of it filled plus the first buff form the quality tree. I have a general that is just flat out better then them and get river and terrain bonuses in fights with many more men then them. Talking about 23 to 30.... They are still dominating. Even when I get +9 in dice rolls, they kill more guys. If I happen to get a bad dice roll (~ -5 compared to theirs) they destroy thousands of my men. And heck, I've seen thousands of my men disappear as soon as the battle begins. That seems way off to me, so could someone else give me their opinion?
Definitely possible, depending on the tech levels in question, morale/discipline difference (they probably have higher discipline if they've filled offensive), the leader difference, and your tech group. Often it's easy to overlook that tech levels will sometimes do something like give +1 cavalry shock or something, which early in the game can be huge.
Post by: Sindain on July 03, 2014, 10:37:16 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 03, 2014, 10:41:08 pm
Ah, I was just looking in the defines, I've actually never done anything in opinion_modifiers.Well I'm fighting Persia (who somehow has tech rivaling western tech countries as a non-western tech country) And they are 2 tech levels above me in military and have a full offensive tree while I have half of it filled plus the first buff form the quality tree. I have a general that is just flat out better then them and get river and terrain bonuses in fights with many more men then them. Talking about 23 to 30.... They are still dominating. Even when I get +9 in dice rolls, they kill more guys. If I happen to get a bad dice roll (~ -5 compared to theirs) they destroy thousands of my men. And heck, I've seen thousands of my men disappear as soon as the battle begins. That seems way off to me, so could someone else give me their opinion?
Definitely possible, depending on the tech levels in question, morale/discipline difference (they probably have higher discipline if they've filled offensive), the leader difference, and your tech group. Often it's easy to overlook that tech levels will sometimes do something like give +1 cavalry shock or something, which early in the game can be huge.
Lets just assume the best case scenario for them. They get an entirely new set of units in those 2 levels. That's all sorts of bonuses. But then I think of Native Americans. When you start fighting them they are pushovers, but would you fight a stack of 30 of them if they:
1) Had a stronger general
2) Had 7000 more troops then you
3) Had a river and terrain bonus
?
I feel that that would be risky, and that's with a huge tech advantage you get. Several units apart with many more ideas.
Also, I'm assuming that you're also not a western group, (if your two techs behind Persia) which means that a tech difference can be particularly devastating. The lower tech groups get new unit types less often which means that they're a bigger upgrade when they do. So if Persia crossed the right tech level there could be quite a dramatic difference in your pips.I was Hindustan, and recently converted to western.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 04, 2014, 12:05:56 am
Lets just assume the best case scenario for them. They get an entirely new set of units in those 2 levels. That's all sorts of bonuses. But then I think of Native Americans. When you start fighting them they are pushovers, but would you fight a stack of 30 of them if they:
1) Had a stronger general
2) Had 7000 more troops then you
3) Had a river and terrain bonus
?
I feel that that would be risky, and that's with a huge tech advantage you get. Several units apart with many more ideas.
There's still always a mathematical reason for your losses, though. My guess is that those tech levels and their higher discipline are making the largest difference. If you've played as Japan fighting Ming in vanilla, it's a joke since you'll have a 35% discipline advantage (at least) and they never go for military tech. I watched two random no leader sieging infantry regiments fight off 15 regiments led by a general with 5 shock. Yeah. Whether that's realistic, I dunno, but I sure found it funny.
I'd look at your army composition, and if all else fails, make a doomstack with a full combat width of artillery, like 4 cavalry, and a couple combat widths of infantry and trick the AI into sending an army into it or a smaller bait army next to it.
Post by: pedrito on July 04, 2014, 05:45:40 am
Well I'm fighting Persia (who somehow has tech rivaling western tech countries as a non-western tech country) And they are 2 tech levels above me in military and have a full offensive tree while I have half of it filled plus the first buff form the quality tree. I have a general that is just flat out better then them and get river and terrain bonuses in fights with many more men then them. Talking about 23 to 30.... They are still dominating. Even when I get +9 in dice rolls, they kill more guys. If I happen to get a bad dice roll (~ -5 compared to theirs) they destroy thousands of my men. And heck, I've seen thousands of my men disappear as soon as the battle begins. That seems way off to me, so could someone else give me their opinion?
-current military tech level? some jumps bigger than others, and 2 levels ahead can range anywhere between a solid advantage to a complete obliteration
-you tech group/unit group? muslim units are generally stronger than indian for example, and especially during certain stages of the game
-army composition? if they are fielding a lot more cavalry than you, early game, that will explain a lot
-actual leader stats? a flat out better leader, yes, but how many more shock and fire points does he actually have? early game ONLY shock is relevant
-your prestige vs theirs?
-your morale vs theirs?
-tactics?
-discipline?
-war exhaustion?
If you look into all of this I'm sure you will find an answer.
Quite honestly, an indian nation getting smashed by a muslim nation with a solid tech advantage and more military ideas is no surprise at all. Persia has a nice 5% discipline in their national ideas as well.
Post by: Micro102 on July 04, 2014, 05:21:48 pm
What wasn't mentioned was that the tech levels were 18 (me) vs 20 (Persia), that Persia was Muslim tech group, and that we were fighting with musket tech. I don't know about morale, just that both of our green bars were full when fighting. My prestige was in the 70's..... It felt like their 2 levels of military tech and their 4-5 offensive tree bonuses vs my superior numbers, units, tactics, and generals, which resulted in me losing EVERY. SINGLE. BATTLE. Bad roll? I lose 2000 guys a turn. Very good role? We both lose about the same amount of guys. See how it doesn't make sense?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 04, 2014, 05:25:15 pm
Post by: Tarran on July 04, 2014, 06:06:23 pm
Western does fare better at cav, though, even with a tech difference, but cav aren't often the main body of an army. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/images/d/d6/Cavalry_pips.png)
And while Arty remains the same for all tech groups, there is a gap between 18 and 20. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/images/4/44/Artillery_pips.png)
Not arguing, just providing data for the argument.
Post by: Micro102 on July 04, 2014, 07:50:47 pm
Do those charts mean that for western tech, having 10 Inf and 9 cav makes your armies stronger then 12 inf 7 cav? Or 13 inf and 6 cav?
Post by: Sindain on July 04, 2014, 09:24:41 pm
*edit*
Also they would have .5 higher tactics and .5 higher infantry fire.
Post by: Micro102 on July 05, 2014, 03:05:50 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 05, 2014, 12:55:32 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 05, 2014, 08:07:27 pm
Regardless. No matter what has been presented so far, no matter how I try to justify all the possible advantages they could of had, 2000 units a turn doesn't add up.... But that gave me an idea. Is there a way to measure how much an advantage would be needed for a 2000 unit a turn difference? Perhaps a way to calculate it in just unit pips or numbers?
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Combat_sequence (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Combat_sequence)
Could have a gander at that, but it'd be a bit much, and some information may be out of date.
Just played a Makassar -> Malaya game, but found it a bit too slow. By ~1600 I had all of the spice islands colonized/conquered, as well as Australia, half of Japan, some valuable provinces eaten into Ming, and a chunk of Siberia colonized before Russia. The trick is to colonize the Philippines first, since they don't have that horrible tropical modifier, but I should've just started as Brunei. Think I'll try it again, but go for American colonies as well.
Post by: Micro102 on July 06, 2014, 01:34:44 pm
Ok, this sounds obvious but did you manually update your units? If you were still using tech 1 units that would explain it.
Yes it's very obvious. Yes I did upgrade them.
Post by: Wysthric on July 06, 2014, 02:41:32 pm
Post by: Rakonas on July 06, 2014, 03:19:46 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 06, 2014, 03:27:27 pm
But I can say from experience that modding the maps in one of these games is hard to do, much harder than messing around with events or modifiers or something.
Post by: Rakonas on July 06, 2014, 03:40:22 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 06, 2014, 03:54:32 pm
Post by: Wysthric on July 06, 2014, 05:45:30 pm
EnigmaticHat, I totally agree, which is why I would simply use a random map generator to give me a physical world I can bounce off. The modding is going quite well - here's an example of what I've done so far.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sheb on July 07, 2014, 01:22:04 am
Post by: Wysthric on July 07, 2014, 02:36:36 am
Is the reason why in dynasty names Louis doesn't have quoted around it and "van Oranje" does.
Post by: Sheb on July 07, 2014, 06:22:58 am
Post by: Micro102 on July 07, 2014, 11:12:34 pm
Nvm, they ended up being in exile.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 07, 2014, 11:18:50 pm
Post by: Wysthric on July 08, 2014, 04:53:25 pm
Where do you think the best place for the topic is - other games or creative projects? :)
Post by: Maldevious on July 09, 2014, 06:48:38 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 09, 2014, 07:34:08 am
That said with the new trade company system in WoN you might as well go wild with colonies just so you have a chance at getting some bonus merchants. It's ridiculously easy to get 50% trade income if you're not competeing against other colonisers.
Post by: Micro102 on July 09, 2014, 11:46:51 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 09, 2014, 12:53:12 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 09, 2014, 07:59:42 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 09, 2014, 09:48:35 pm
Post by: Karlito on July 09, 2014, 10:36:21 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 10, 2014, 12:22:24 am
However, I took a bite out of Ming, and I think I can solo them now..... That is.... if I can get through the crippling overextension I didn't realize I was building (and from only 4 damn provinces too)
Also, those tropical colonies are !!INSANE!!. The amount of time it takes to colonize one of them takes about 3 times as much as a normal one, and it even dares to give me an event before it's finished where one of the choices is (lose 1000 population and do it all over)
Post by: Eagle_eye on July 11, 2014, 02:51:07 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 11, 2014, 04:45:16 pm
You realise that you can annex a country if they're small enough and you get 100% warscore, right?
You annex them, then you can colonise an adjacent province, then you have a core in that province and can core the place you annexed (or release them as vassals if you want)
Makes it so you don't have to wait for colonial range to increase, since you already have a colony there.
And, Micro, the Native American nations (Iroquois, for example) tend to be very small when you first head over there.
Anyways, different stuff: Is there a mod which makes it so that when you westernise you get western tech units? I want to play as shoshone or somesuch, but by the time I've westernised, the European powers will have units much more powerful than mine (seeing as I'll have probably peaked.)
I find it odd that they would allow you to war-annex a country outside your colonization range but not allow you to diplo-annex a country outside your colonization range. I understand that they had an update for colonization and am wondering if you can actually annex natives outside your colonization range anymore.
Also, is there a way to get rid of aggressive expansion quickly? I have like,-300 relations because of it.
Post by: Tarran on July 12, 2014, 02:35:44 am
Post by: Rakonas on July 12, 2014, 09:58:02 am
Tropical colonies are fine, what's ridiculous is how the AI gets no effect from natives. They'll colonize places like Madagascar with no troop presence and never have a single uprising.
Also, those tropical colonies are !!INSANE!!. The amount of time it takes to colonize one of them takes about 3 times as much as a normal one, and it even dares to me an event before it's finished where one of the choices is (lose 1000 population and do it all over)
Post by: Sheb on July 12, 2014, 10:43:21 am
Post by: LordSlowpoke on July 12, 2014, 10:56:31 am
force tiny tiny imperial minors to take them from you
get infinite imperial authority from defending said minors from having their stolen land stolen
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 12, 2014, 02:38:23 pm
Post by: Rakonas on July 12, 2014, 03:44:52 pm
Post by: Descan on July 12, 2014, 07:11:44 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 15, 2014, 12:14:03 pm
Paradox patented "what the fuck were they smoking?" change: Truce times now scale from 5 years (white peace) to a rather long 15 years at 100% warscore.
There also appears to be no change to how AE is calculated but that is currently overshadowed by the truce shitstorm.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 15, 2014, 12:19:41 pm
Res Publica/1.7 patch notes are up. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?789336-Patch-Notes-1.7)
Paradox patented "what the fuck were they smoking?" change: Truce times now scale from 5 years (white peace) to a rather long 15 years at 100% warscore.
There also appears to be no change to how AE is calculated but that is currently overshadowed by the truce shitstorm.
Quote
# Buildings
- Marketplace and Canal are now +2 trade power instead of +1.
- Customs House is now +10 trade power instead of +5, and also adds +2 trade value.
Confirmed: Paradox has no ability or willingness to balance changes. I'm going to just go with a lack of will.
Okay, no seriously
Quote
Centers of Trade now provide 100% more tradepower and naval forcelimit.
It's almost as if they're just making EU4 into 'Hansa/Dutch world conquer simulator 2014'.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 15, 2014, 12:36:39 pm
Post by: Teneb on July 15, 2014, 12:46:44 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 15, 2014, 01:22:42 pm
Add to that all republics now have scaling republic tradition costs and I see no possible reason why you would never go trade republic. All hail Ragusa, conqueror of all that can be surveyed or traded.
Pretty much. Especially now that you can vassalblob with republics.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 15, 2014, 01:26:12 pm
This is of course not factoring in possible growth/loss of French territory, better CBs or Administrative Efficiency. There's a very high chance that my maths is wrong since it's 4:25am here.
EDIT: I think I made a mistake calculating French basetax, 161 looks way too high.
DOUBLE EDIT: I got around 158 this time, France really is quite rich. What's even the point as playing such a monster? Jeeze.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 15, 2014, 01:30:35 pm
Yeah.. Actually Germany has a higher tax, so it'd be more like 100 years minimum to annex a united HRE completely, with the best CBs, with rivalry.
Post by: Sindain on July 15, 2014, 01:47:32 pm
With certain CBs I believe you can lower the cost to half for provinces. So under best circumstances with your number you'll be looking at a minimum 50-75 year conquest to annex Germany/France, with the best CBs and rivalry on top of it...
Yeah.. Actually Germany has a higher tax, so it'd be more like 100 years minimum to annex a united HRE completely, with the best CBs, with rivalry.
Unless you have administrative efficiency. That at max combined with abusing coalitions and you could probably do that in like, a decade. Assuming you can handle the OE, of course.
Quote# Buildings
- Marketplace and Canal are now +2 trade power instead of +1.
- Customs House is now +10 trade power instead of +5, and also adds +2 trade value.
Confirmed: Paradox has no ability or willingness to balance changes. I'm going to just go with a lack of will.
I'm not sure what you're getting at here...
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 15, 2014, 01:51:18 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 15, 2014, 01:53:42 pm
Post by: Sindain on July 15, 2014, 01:59:15 pm
Truces were always 5 years.
Well, that sucks, guess coalition abuse or going somewhere else is the way to go.
Post by: Rakonas on July 16, 2014, 01:09:37 am
Res Publica/1.7 patch notes are up. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?789336-Patch-Notes-1.7)- IA no longer gained when princes convert to the Emperor's religion.
Paradox patented "what the fuck were they smoking?" change: Truce times now scale from 5 years (white peace) to a rather long 15 years at 100% warscore.
There also appears to be no change to how AE is calculated but that is currently overshadowed by the truce shitstorm.
Is another big ridiculous one, suddenly no reason to fight the 30 years war. An example of Paradox using its rare cases of historical determinism... to mandate something that won't make sense in a lot of cases. Nice job making it necessary to use gamey tactics to gain IA just because players who tried specifically to do something for fun mostly succeeded with it.
Also my favorites:
Quote
- Capped tolerance towards heretics and heathens at +3.Tolerance now useless for no perceivable reason.
Quote
Fixed an exploit where you could call the AI into wars you know they will dishonor in order to get a CB on them.So long as the AI tells you it's not going to join your war before you manage to ask you can't do anything about it.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 16, 2014, 01:43:15 am
EDIT: Found this fantastic image (http://i.imgur.com/rIEoolw.png) on the Paradox forums that pretty sums up my experiences post 1.6.
Post by: Micro102 on July 16, 2014, 02:17:08 am
So....I am convinced that they destroyed EU4's balance. How do I fix it? Is there a mod or a commonly shared preference to a previous version? And if so for the previous version, how do I change to that version and lock it so it cannot update?
Post by: somebody on July 16, 2014, 02:23:18 am
So that's why France keeps getting so big.... I thought it was because i turned off lucky nations.
So....I am convinced that they destroyed EU4's balance. How do I fix it? Is there a mod or a commonly shared preference to a previous version? And if so for the previous version, how do I change to that version and lock it so it cannot update?
I've heard good things about Veritas et Fortitudo. To revert versions go to Properties->Beta->Whatever version number you want. To stop updates go to Properties->Updates->Do not automatically update
Post by: Tarran on July 16, 2014, 03:14:44 am
So....I am convinced that they destroyed EU4's balance. How do I fix it?EU4's balance has been being swayed violently for many versions, though now they're doing it even more.
As for fixing... it depends on what you want to fix, and what your opinions are on what is "fixed". Of course, some things can't be modded, but thankfully the devs did not fail a notable portion of the community 100% and left ways to edit some if not most significant values.
Is there a mod or a commonly shared preference to a previous version?Mods tend to split people between mods. It's the nature of things. So "commonly shared" depends on what kind of people you ask.
There are two especially large mods that I know of: MEIOU&Taxes, and VeF, though only because they have their own sub-forums. I've only played M&T, but I'd imagine the devs on both are at least mildly more receptive to people who actually talk to them than Paradox. So you could try either. Though you have to remember, considering they're mods, they probably have new mechanics that might be slightly confusing and might not be documented. Of course, there's a reason questions exist, and even on this forum I'm sure you can get fairly quick response, so you shouldn't have to worry too much.
As for commonly shared preferences for older versions... I've read 1.3 had a (relatively) good AE balance (larger nations get more), but of course, it's a very old version. I've played a lot of 1.4 even when 1.5 was out, though AE is effectively null there. I've never played 1.5 much, but it's at least relatively new and it's before the cluster that was 1.6. Really, you'd probably get a good sense from testing and old patch notes which is best for you.
Post by: pedrito on July 16, 2014, 07:39:34 am
But I haven't played 1.7 yet.
Now, from out here, the change in truce duration does sound reasonable to me. For as long as I remember, only the first war has ever been difficult against an AI enemy, after you win one crushing victory it only comes down to 'rinse-and-repeat-every-5-years'. Because the AI never recovers enough from the damage done in a 100% siege. The manpower takes 10 years to recover, the endless loans they take destroy their economy for an even longer time.
So a priori I think it's a good change. I need to try it though to see how it really plays out.
The other patch notes sound great...
Quote
Quote- Capped tolerance towards heretics and heathens at +3.Tolerance now useless for no perceivable reason
Explain useless. If base is -2, and you have modifiers that put you up to +1, that's not useless at all. Base tolerance for heretics and heathens is always negative, so your modifiers are indeed useful. They only cap it at +3 so that you can't get ridiculous amounts of positive tolerance for heretics and heathens.
Post by: Detharon on July 16, 2014, 07:47:53 am
I loved playing as dutch minors, it was not very hard, but still challenging. I could mostly focus on trading, but usually I had to fight Burgundy, or France, depending on current geopolitical situation; it was not uncommon to see Burgundy conquering French provinces and becoming a real threat in western Europe.
If my country was relatively small, I've had better techs than France / Burgundy and I was ahead of everyone else (because I'm a rich trader!) and pretty often very high military tradition, so most of the time my army performed much better compared to theirs. It resulted in interesting wars, where I was the underdog, but with few vassals, better army, and some mercenaries, I could crush much stronger France. With war exhaustion high enough, it was possible to see France getting torn apart by freshly independent French minors. If that wasn't enough, I could always spawn some rebels by myself too! Fun.
The same scenario in EU4. France always wins over Burgundy. Always. And they do it pretty fast, so I have to hurry up and grab precious Dutch provinces before French get them. It's not wise to vassalize due to ridiculous AE penalties and artificial diplomatic relations limit, it's just easier to take territory or annex. My army is weaker than French, or on par with theirs, due to the fact that they can afford better advisers, whilst in the early game I'm too poor to hire any. French never run out of manpower, neither they have to deal with any rebels, even after long and bloody wars with Austria. I can't destabilize their country with funded rebels either. The only viable strategy for Dutch is to... ally France. At this point I can literally do whatever I want. Boring.
With the new truce mechanics it will be even harder to conquer blob countries like France or Turkey, because they'll have a lot of time to recover from a single devastating war. Unlike EU3, in EU4 bigger = better, sadly. This game has lost a lot of depth.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 16, 2014, 08:01:46 am
EDIT: Declared war on Urbino without a CB. That alone was enough to get me a coalition with almost all of Italy and Germany, AE has not been changed. GG Paradox (http://www.myinstants.com/instant/gg/).
Post by: Rakonas on July 16, 2014, 12:42:31 pm
It's not difficult to get tolerance up to positive with a bunch of countries. Now it's just completely useless for those countries to try to be tolerant on top of that because there's a cap at +3, so Ottomans, USA, Republics, etc. have no benefit from trying to be extra tolerant because Paradox doesn't want freedom of religion to be a thing even while they're adding a tolerance idea group.QuoteQuote- Capped tolerance towards heretics and heathens at +3.Tolerance now useless for no perceivable reason
Explain useless. If base is -2, and you have modifiers that put you up to +1, that's not useless at all. Base tolerance for heretics and heathens is always negative, so your modifiers are indeed useful. They only cap it at +3 so that you can't get ridiculous amounts of positive tolerance for heretics and heathens.
Also, apparently
Quote from: Johan
QuoteIf the AI wasn't deranged about Length of War, relative strength of alliances and still holding your capital, you wouldn't have to destroy them to take anything. In most of Europe, a 30 basetax province cession is nothing. So why will France or whomever else fight to the death over it? Just lighten up the WS minimum and they'd give up without being on the brink of death.I don't give a fuck about the AI in this issue.. Its a matter of problem for the players vs players..
1) there was no incentive to fight a war for less than 100% warscore gains.
2) there is no incentive to ever give up early in a war, since losses are not recovered quick enough.
Johan confirmed for delusionally thinking EU4 should be a multiplayer focused game.
Post by: Teneb on July 16, 2014, 01:25:56 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 16, 2014, 01:32:08 pm
Also is Johan a dev? Because otherwise not sure why we're talking about him here (I assume he's from the Paradox forums).
Post by: LordSlowpoke on July 16, 2014, 01:35:05 pm
and yeah he's the manager/lead programmer/whatever of the development studio
Post by: Tarran on July 16, 2014, 01:46:53 pm
Also yes, Johan, who I believe also has the profile of Balor, is a pretty important person for EU4 at the very least (Studio Manager). That quote from Rakonas isn't the only time Johan has acted erratically. So to see how he's acting is making me sad and worried for the future of various Paradox games that I have interest in.
Hoi4?Hearts of Iron 4 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?844-Hearts-of-Iron-IV).
Post by: Culise on July 16, 2014, 02:46:56 pm
he's the scrubbest scrub to ever scrub and said to be the one who pushed forward cancelling everything(tm) in favor of hoi4Wait, what? When did this happen? As far as I knew, they have a handful of dev teams for each of their games in active development - one on HoI4, one on Runemaster, one on EU4, and one on CK2. I know that there were at least active teams for the latter two as of a couple weeks ago - Gars had to ask Doomdark on the EU4 team to fix a serious republican succession bug that was blocking progress in the Crisis in the Confederation mod (which I've been following for a while because space opera + CK2 drama = high entertainment) because he moved from the CK2 to the EU4 team, and the code was a bit of a mess for the CK2 lead to put the necessary time into for a single mod.
Post by: Bastus on July 16, 2014, 02:53:58 pm
To the whole I am going back to EU 3 affair. I already did it with 1.6. Not because I hated what happened to the game, though some things irritated me a lot, I just missed the sliders and the way tech works. I always found it quite funny that you could just rush away tech wise in one (or if you had the money) all categories and screw the AI over massively.
Post by: Karlito on July 16, 2014, 03:05:21 pm
Johan confirmed for delusionally thinking EU4 should be a multiplayer focused game.
This has been apparent from the beginning. PDS has built the game around their large office LAN games, which is completely different from how basically everyone else plays he game.
EU4's big problem continues to be a lack of anything interesting to do besides declare war on people.
Post by: Sheb on July 16, 2014, 04:59:00 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 16, 2014, 06:11:20 pm
It seems like an interesting trade off in my opinion and certainly makes the humanist idea group less of the "I win button" that it seemed to be when announced. I think I'll still prefer religiously homogeneous realms since just getting +3 tolerance and not bothering with missionaries feels too "hands off" for my liking. Region, ideas and religion will also heavily play on that decision.
Post by: Rakonas on July 16, 2014, 06:26:56 pm
Rakonas, you have a link?http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?789400-Basis-for-Truce-Time&p=17730111&viewfull=1#post17730111
I think it's just to make religious ideas/converting in general have a use. Stacking high tolerance would give you a very stable empire with no downsides at all. A humanist state won't have to bother with converting but will be slightly less stable, while a religious based state trades initial stability and costs for a more stable empire further down the line.This isn't true, because culture conversion is impossible without having the correct religion. So even if you have a stable multi religious empire like the Ottomans, you'll never have a lasting effect on the culture of conquered peoples without converting them. I have no problem with this representation as it's a reasonable trade off for not creating strife through attempting to convert. Now they've just arbitrarily decided to limit heretic/heathen tolerance to +3 so that you can never have full religious equality. So it's probably completely idiotic to choose the tolerance idea group for various RR decreases instead of the religious ones for permanent changes.
Also, religious unity doesn't have anything directly to do with tolerance iirc, it's a separate metric but I'm sure you get bonuses from the tolerance idea group.
Post by: Eagle_eye on July 16, 2014, 06:38:54 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 16, 2014, 06:48:37 pm
Most players, including myself, do not bother with culture converting as it's a massive dip sink that is better spent on buildings or vassal expanding. Even so you still have missionaries and decisions/policies to increase your conversion rate so you can still convert those choice provinces. Also Humanism gives you a bigger threshold for culture acceptance meaning that cultural conversion is a bit less useful.
Finally religious equality didn't exist and still doesn't exist. I always found it incredibly strange it was possible to get higher tolerance of other faiths than your primary in EU3 ... how does that even work? Tolerance is tolerance but it's far from equality.
Post by: Rakonas on July 16, 2014, 09:53:59 pm
I'm a bit confused by your post there, Rakonas. Getting +3 tolerance of either heathen or heretics will cause those provinces to never affect your religious unity, thus giving you 100%. It was a change in 1.6.
Most players, including myself, do not bother with culture converting as it's a massive dip sink that is better spent on buildings or vassal expanding. Even so you still have missionaries and decisions/policies to increase your conversion rate so you can still convert those choice provinces. Also Humanism gives you a bigger threshold for culture acceptance meaning that cultural conversion is a bit less useful.
Finally religious equality didn't exist and still doesn't exist. I always found it incredibly strange it was possible to get higher tolerance of other faiths than your primary in EU3 ... how does that even work? Tolerance is tolerance but it's far from equality.
Quote
It was a change in 1.6Ah forgive me then, I have played little since 1.6 because these patches just seem to be getting more and more unbalanced and less fun. I still don't think it's fair to limit tolerance at the (arbitrary) +3 limit. Making it so that the primary religious tolerance needs to be higher would probably be fine since I'm not sure how that works either.
Post by: a1s on July 17, 2014, 07:06:35 am
Finally religious equality didn't exist and still doesn't exist. I always found it incredibly strange it was possible to get higher tolerance of other faiths than your primary in EU3 ... how does that even work? Tolerance is tolerance but it's far from equality.It works like Affirmative Action- you just assume that the majority can take care of itself, and whenever a minority is in trouble you step in (leading to them in effect having more rights and privileges than the supposed "primary"). The trouble is that kind of thinking wouldn't be around at least until the age of Enlightment (at the end of EUIV), and arguably not until the Atomic Age (very much outside it).
Post by: Sindain on July 17, 2014, 08:46:43 am
*snip*
Yeah that happens. Sometimes I wish they just had a flat decrease in stability over time, instead of just firing events every other month.
Post by: Bastus on July 17, 2014, 10:34:47 am
On the other hand am I the only one thinking that the way elective monarchies work is a bit strange? If you want to keep a polish noble in power you have to spend an abnormal amount of legitimacy to get him on the throne and due to the low legitimacy he has a low amount as well. So your are kinda locked in a area under 50. At least this was my experience, on the other hand I can see a lot of options for some really big PU using the new system.
Oh and did someone already played the dutch or merchant republics enough to say something about them?
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 17, 2014, 10:36:19 am
Oh and did someone already played the dutch or merchant republics enough to say something about them?
You don't 'play' as the Dutch or merchant republics. You secure your trade node in ~10 years and win the game, then blob until you're bored.
Post by: Sheb on July 17, 2014, 10:51:04 am
Post by: Tarran on July 17, 2014, 01:20:23 pm
Post by: Rakonas on July 17, 2014, 06:28:53 pm
"I love you too Portgual"
"Wait, I think I actually want to own Paris, I hate you."
Paradox logic.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 17, 2014, 10:37:18 pm
With every update, I have a sweeping number of changes I make to smooth out the more annoying random events, which is to basically # out all the ones with '-1 stability' as the only option and make some other crazy ones more reasonable. Otherwise I just find it too irritating to go above 1 stability, since you'll otherwise always eventually just get lolcomet'd. I'll still choose the -1 stability sometimes if it's part of a close choice, though, it's just the straight up "screw you" events I hate.
I also reduce AE across the board by like 30% and do some other defines tweaks (like building MP cost, combat randomness, and some peace offer stuff). That's the great thing about EU really, is that you can always just change anything you don't like (well, almost anything) with a text file edit.
Edit: Oh, I also straight up removed that truce scaling thing. Has anyone played with it? It sounds awful.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 17, 2014, 10:42:55 pm
"I love you France"
"I love you too Portgual"
"Wait, I think I actually want to own Paris, I hate you."
Paradox logic.
Its especially stupid because of how realpolitik the rest of the game is. Just because one country's government wants another country's land doesn't mean they wouldn't be willing to ally with them in the short term...
Granted, this is game where alliances can last for hundreds of years, so I guess it was already a little cheesy.
Post by: lijacote on July 18, 2014, 04:02:19 am
*shake fist*
Post by: a1s on July 18, 2014, 06:47:35 am
Post by: Micro102 on July 18, 2014, 07:01:40 am
Post by: Sindain on July 18, 2014, 07:18:10 am
Omg.... all countries controlled by players multiplayer game... What would that be like.
Lots of people would lose reaallly quickly?
Post by: Micro102 on July 18, 2014, 07:22:36 am
Post by: a1s on July 18, 2014, 07:24:11 am
Well, it's kinda like being eliminated from the first round of the World Championship: it might be short, but you were part of something memorable.Omg.... all countries controlled by players multiplayer game... What would that be like.
Lots of people would lose reaallly quickly?
(plus imagine how amazing the decrease in lag will feel)
Post by: Greenbane on July 18, 2014, 09:27:38 am
Code: [Select]
TRUCE_YEARS = 5, -- _DDEF_TRUCE_YEARS_; Years of Truce
SCALED_TRUCE_YEARS = 10, -- Additional years of truce based on % of warscore taken in war (100% warscore = full scaled truce years)It'd seem truce lengths are variable, depending on the intensity of the previous war, as indicated on the comments.
As for losing to a smaller force, there's more than troop numbers and general quality at play. There's unit types, composition, tech and terrain. Terrain can not only provide bonuses to the defender, but also reduce the front width (which I don't think is maximized in the beginning even in optimal terrain), diminishing the viability of large armies until your technology is sufficiently advanced.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 18, 2014, 09:30:46 am
Savoy can take Defensive, Offensive and Quality for the record.
There's a lot that factors into military battles and if you miss something even minor it can completely floor your army.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 18, 2014, 12:24:31 pm
And don't lie to me about discipline/morale/tactics being the most important factors. I've been the one with the most discipline/morale/tactics since launch because EU4s combat system consists of rushing for discipline and morale bonuses, and yet despite this Nubian nationalists in mountains outnumbered 10-1 can still inflict significant casualties despite general bonuses *if* they get to actual combat. It's the fact that you're basically forced into doomstacking everything to combat that makes EU4 combat such a boring, boring slog, honestly.
I'm actually getting significant morale losses lately attacking shattered armies with .01 morale. That's something that's bound to make you delete the game.
Post by: Tarran on July 18, 2014, 03:38:30 pm
They really, honestly should play more single player. Yes, yes, the multiplayer is amazing, it's fantastic, it's some of the best fun you can have in 2014, but still. These things are not rocket surgery. AI that doesn't outright murder suspension of disbelief is always a bonus, Paradox!Even if they did, Johan seems determined to balance the game around multiplayer regardless based on his posts. He believes that, if something is balanced in multiplayer, it will also balance out in singleplayer if the AI behaves like a human does if I remember his wording correctly. You can find it somewhere on the same thread Rakonas linked to.
*shake fist*
Post by: Sheb on July 18, 2014, 03:50:28 pm
Post by: jakeread1 on July 18, 2014, 04:09:19 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 18, 2014, 04:47:43 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 18, 2014, 04:54:08 pm
Post by: Sergarr on July 18, 2014, 05:31:43 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 18, 2014, 06:30:01 pm
Rebels suck, AI cheats
Worth noting that for nationalists (and maybe patriots, can't remember), they'll spawn with the same tech level and base morale as your units, though possibly in a different tech group. It means that basically you're going to be fighting armies of around the same quality as your own armies, which seems disproportionately tough when you consider how far ahead players usually are over their neighbors. When you add on top the 10-25% morale bonus some types get (though many get a malus), and the fact that you'll almost always be the one attacking, it's natural that you'll need a larger army to beat them, and that they'll inflict more casualties. Really all that it means is that you shouldn't be lazy and leave conquered provinces alone with revolt risk, you should always be using harsh treatment and an occupying army for high base tax provinces.
If you want to avoid ping ponging, you can either raise the maximum dice roll (making combat more random) or increase the amount of minimum time armies have to stay engaged (at its extreme, one army would always eventually destroy the other to the last man).
Post by: Tarran on July 18, 2014, 10:57:55 pm
Post by: somebody on July 19, 2014, 12:54:05 am
Hooray! Veritas et fortitudo hates me, too!If you downloaded it through steam workshop you need to start up EU4 before it will show up in the directory. It's weird I know.
No matter what I do, I can't get it to come up in the mods tab.
Post by: Greenbane on July 19, 2014, 09:51:43 am
So, is EU4 a total failure?
I think some people on this thread are exaggerating a smidge.
Post by: Greenbane on July 19, 2014, 11:14:07 am
I never much liked the Steam Workshop.
Post by: Sergarr on July 19, 2014, 03:40:25 pm
I've read a lot (a lot) of complaints about the cheating AI, and I don't like cheating AI in games like that.So, is EU4 a total failure?
I think some people on this thread are exaggerating a smidge.
There is enough evidence to say that the AI gets undeclared and quite possible hard-coded bonuses in combat with player armies, and that's not only unfair, but also insulting. If it cheats, at least show me that!
Post by: LordSlowpoke on July 19, 2014, 03:42:06 pm
eu4 confirmed for needing evw-level patches
gg paradox
Post by: Greenbane on July 19, 2014, 04:37:07 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 19, 2014, 04:52:12 pm
Specifically, a terrible dice roll or two at the start of combat can ruin you even if you set up a favorable combat. There is also a lot of under the surface stuff like unit pips and ideas that aren't always immediately apparent, and can have a pretty massive impact on combat. Paradox typically only has their AIs cheat on weird secondary mechanics they flat out can't deal with, like naval attrition in EU 3.
Post by: Sindain on July 19, 2014, 05:27:40 pm
I think it might be the incomprehensible nature of EU IV combat + confirmation bias + the fact that the player's biggest opponents will often be lucky nations that is causing people to believe the AI gets undeclared bonuses.
Specifically, a terrible dice roll or two at the start of combat can ruin you even if you set up a favorable combat. There is also a lot of under the surface stuff like unit pips and ideas that aren't always immediately apparent, and can have a pretty massive impact on combat. Paradox typically only has their AIs cheat on weird secondary mechanics they flat out can't deal with, like naval attrition in EU 3.
Or naval attrition in EU 4 :P
Post by: Wysthric on July 19, 2014, 05:47:12 pm
Post by: Greenbane on July 19, 2014, 06:24:31 pm
I'm assuming a good portion of the complaints about EU4 are rooted in simply not knowing how the game works. Also third or fourth-hand information/rumours.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 19, 2014, 06:33:42 pm
Post by: Greenbane on July 19, 2014, 06:39:28 pm
Nah, a lot of complaints about EU IV are rooted in knowing how the game works.
Another large portion, sure.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 19, 2014, 11:40:18 pm
I thought reading the wiki (http://www.eu4wiki.com/) was standard procedure for playing Paradox games. Combat factors might not be 100% transparent, but it's nothing a trip to the wiki doesn't solve.
I'm assuming a good portion of the complaints about EU4 are rooted in simply not knowing how the game works. Also third or fourth-hand information/rumours.
Of course. Lol.
A good portion of the kneejerk defenses of EU4 are rooted in simply not knowing how the game works.
See how that works?
Also EU4 combat is anything but deep.. CK2 combat is deep. EU combat consists of getting 25k+ doomstacks and smashing them into smaller parties until you get an insta-wipe battle.
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 12:09:45 am
Also EU4 combat is anything but deep.. CK2 combat is deep. EU combat consists of getting 25k+ doomstacks and smashing them into smaller parties until you get an insta-wipe battle.
Isn't that basically how combat works in CK2 as well? Except in CK2 one battle usually means a won war, you don't hafta manage your doomstacks at all, and smart sieging pretty much amounts to moving your doomstack onto enemy territory. There is a lot of things I like more about CK2 than EU4, combat isn't one of them.
Post by: Elfeater on July 20, 2014, 06:40:58 am
Post by: Greenbane on July 20, 2014, 09:06:03 am
CK2 combat has less factors working behind the scenes. Terrain matters less, technology is very minor, and there's no ideas system. Composition is important to a certain extent, but it's mostly a matter of numbers and having good commanders. CK2's a great game, but its strength lies elsewhere.
Post by: Micro102 on July 20, 2014, 09:46:07 am
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 09:55:09 am
How do you westernize as japan? I've got a western neighbor but the event isn't even showing up.
You can't westernize off of trade companys, which is likely your problem. So either get a core next to them on a continent that is not Asia or Africa, or get a core next a new colony. They usually don't (at least from what I've heard) turn provinces into a trade company until a few months after completion, which gives you some time to start wosternization.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 10:58:24 am
There's also the fact manpower is a finite resource which takes years to regenerate, and if you just keep throwing "doomstacks" around without thought, you'll soon find yourself drained. It's something that can cost you a major war.
CK2 combat has less factors working behind the scenes. Terrain matters less, technology is very minor, and there's no ideas system. Composition is important to a certain extent, but it's mostly a matter of numbers and having good commanders. CK2's a great game, but its strength lies elsewhere.
Okay then. I'm not going to say this more. The combat system consists of making a 30k doomstack and then winning every war after that fact. I can show you OPM after OPM WC, because it's so easy to game the combat and ridiculous trade system of EU4. It is not a difficult game. Quit acting like having to worry about 3 numbers is complicated. You also might be surprised to know a player who knows what they're doing always picks army+naval ideas, then quality, then whatever else to fill out until exploration, because combat consists of rushing for those idea groups and doomstacking.
EU4 combat consists of you throwing a doomstack at a unit and hoping your battle doesn't get to actual shock phase. Anyone playing any other way is doing it wrong.
Go ahead, find me all the 5k vs 25k battles you've won in EU4.
Hint: You haven't. When you reach a certain threshold of troop number difference in EU4 battles always will be won by the side with the larger number. Look at the defines, I'll show you why EU4 combat consists of doomstacking:
Quote
OVERRUN_FACTOR = 10, -- How much stronger one side of a battle must be to cause the other side to be overrun (integer)
And that's why you get doomstacks. Because if you get a certain number higher than theirs, you'll always win.
Post by: Micro102 on July 20, 2014, 11:23:22 am
How do you westernize as japan? I've got a western neighbor but the event isn't even showing up.
You can't westernize off of trade companys, which is likely your problem. So either get a core next to them on a continent that is not Asia or Africa, or get a core next a new colony. They usually don't (at least from what I've heard) turn provinces into a trade company until a few months after completion, which gives you some time to start wosternization.
I am next to provinces owned by Spain and New Spain in the new world.
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 11:29:08 am
Okay then. I'm not going to say this more. The combat system consists of making a 30k doomstack and then winning every war after that fact. I can show you OPM after OPM WC, because it's so easy to game the combat and ridiculous trade system of EU4. It is not a difficult game. Quit acting like having to worry about 3 numbers is complicated. You also might be surprised to know a player who knows what they're doing always picks army+naval ideas, then quality, then whatever else to fill out until exploration, because combat consists of rushing for those idea groups and doomstacking.
EU4 combat consists of you throwing a doomstack at a unit and hoping your battle doesn't get to actual shock phase. Anyone playing any other way is doing it wrong.
Go ahead, find me all the 5k vs 25k battles you've won in EU4.
Hint: You haven't. When you reach a certain threshold of troop number difference in EU4 battles always will be won by the side with the larger number. Look at the defines, I'll show you why EU4 combat consists of doomstacking:QuoteOVERRUN_FACTOR = 10, -- How much stronger one side of a battle must be to cause the other side to be overrun (integer)
And that's why you get doomstacks. Because if you get a certain number higher than theirs, you'll always win.
Show me all those 5k vs 25k battles you've won in CK2, or any battle where you've won with a ratio of 1:10 in their favor, and no, cataphract massing does not count.
Hint: there are none.
Combat in EU4 consists of rushing idea groups and doomstacking, while combat in CK2 consists of just doomstacking, so how is CK2's combat more complex than EU4's?
I am next to provinces owned by Spain and New Spain in the new world.
Eh dunno then.
Post by: Elfeater on July 20, 2014, 11:41:16 am
And 5 to 25 wins?
I've crushed natives with those odds.
as Prussia, Ive held France's army in place wit lower number, not 5-25 odds, but maybe 2-3.
Mountains, rivers and leaders can work too.
But, even historically, those odds are shit, rarely will you see a battle won like that. Look at Agincourt, the English won that through the terrain, discipline, and having a kick ass leader. Napoleon conquered with the equivalent of "Doomstacks" - Russia got him with attrition. He also faced a coalition. He lost.
And the thing about rushing those ideas is it can leave you far behind on tech, you will bleed points into the ideas.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 11:45:12 am
Show me all those 5k vs 25k battles you've won in CK2, or any battle where you've won with a ratio of 1:10 in their favor, and no, cataphract massing does not count.
Hint: there are none.
Combat in EU4 consists of rushing idea groups and doomstacking, while combat in CK2 consists of just doomstacking, so how is CK2's combat more complex than EU4's?
1. Dice rolls are the entirety of EU4 combat
2. Flanks
And yes, tell me about all those 5v25 battles I haven't won in CK2. You might be surprised to find that strategy [especially learning how to use chokepoints] is important in CK2. Meanwhile EU4, you look for a mountain or a river and avoid it. That's the strategy. Unless you're like me and know how the mechanics work that even a 10k group on a mountain will get insta-wiped against 50k, no matter what the bonuses may be.
Post by: Elfeater on July 20, 2014, 11:47:00 am
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 11:48:10 am
1. Dice rolls are the entirety of EU4 combat
2. Flanks
1.Soooooooooooo if dice rolls are the entirety of EU4 combat does that mean doomstacking is irrelevant?
2. We have to worry about army comp in EU4 as well, and EU4 has a helluva lot more than 3 spots where troops can be placed in battle.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 11:48:17 am
There is a deep flanking system in EU4
No, there really isn't.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 11:51:17 am
1. Dice rolls are the entirety of EU4 combat
2. Flanks
1.Soooooooooooo if dice rolls are the entirety of EU4 combat does that mean doomstacking is irrelevant?
2. We have to worry about army comp in EU4 as well, and EU4 has a helluva lot more than 3 spots where troops can be placed in battle.
I'm going to help and explain it slowly. The battles in EU4 are based on 0-8 rolls of a dice. The reason for this is hard to explain, as CK2 uses an actual battle system based on general competency and flanking. In the context on EU4, if you get into a *real* battle against the AI you're going to lose exorbitant amounts of troops/morale despite having superior morale, discipline and pips, ideas, etc. That is why you make doomstacks, to trigger the 'overrun' insta-wipe battles as to not get shafted by the bull battle system that gives you -1k troops in every shock day.
This is hardcoded into EU4. Overrun factor. The number is displayed to you. Numbers of troops are the most important part of EU battle calculation.
Meanwhile, in CK2, there is no hardcoded overrun factor. A group of 5k soldiers can, and will, attempt to hold out against 50k if they are good soldiers under a strong nation.
Post by: Elfeater on July 20, 2014, 11:53:18 am
With commanders in EU4, you make the battles less random, making your rolls "weighted", as can assigning commanders with certain traits and martial score in CK2.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 11:55:42 am
Post by: Greenbane on July 20, 2014, 11:56:04 am
When you reach a certain threshold of troop number difference in EU4 battles always will be won by the side with the larger number. Look at the defines, I'll show you why EU4 combat consists of doomstacking:QuoteOVERRUN_FACTOR = 10, -- How much stronger one side of a battle must be to cause the other side to be overrun (integer)
And that's why you get doomstacks. Because if you get a certain number higher than theirs, you'll always win.
The others have dealt with the force ratio issue well enough.
The overrun factor doesn't mechanically guarantee victory (though losing outnumbering the enemy 10 to 1 would be exceedingly rare in any game), as you imply: it's merely a ratio which, if met when the battle ends, means the losing army is wiped out instead of given a chance to retreat. Armies can be more even at the start of the battle, but if combat tips numbers that much, a wipe can happen. It's likely not something you'll see often in battles between European nations, but it's more common when fighting technologically disparate opponents.
Oh, and CK2 has it too, as does Victoria II as well. There's a clever but more difficult way to eliminate armies completely, which involves keeping forces in neighbouring provinces so that the enemy army can't retreat when defeated.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 11:59:34 am
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 12:06:29 pm
A majority of my battles are overrun and insta-wipe battles because doing otherwise costs your resources due to ridiculous casualties/morale loss during actual combat phases if you don't. That's the issue with EU4's combat. It's incredibly boring.
Yeah and moving my retinue to the border and then glomping over split levies and 0 morale mercs is so much more exciting. N' the only reason your costs aren't ridiculous in CK2 is because there are no costs to combat in CK2, unless you lose retinues, because levies just sprout out of the ground.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 20, 2014, 12:12:04 pm
Post by: Elfeater on July 20, 2014, 12:22:36 pm
I would hate having CK2's combat in EU4. France would be even more powerful.
And in CK2, tech one is almost as good as the highest tech. A basic percentage change.
When I play CK2 I can fight a battle and pretty much tell who wins from the get go. Reinforcements are the only thing which might change that.
CK2 is much blobbier than EU, with nearly cost less units, dumbed down combat, and a "Bigger country = bigger army = always wins" kind of game play.
In EU4 I have been playing as a small nation with a few medium or small allies, and we can stop a country from simply stomping all over us, if we play our cards right. In CK2 I have never seen this.
Post by: Sindain on July 20, 2014, 12:29:05 pm
Yeah, but CK2 actually has something other than combat as well. Do you prefer combat being 'hope you don't roll a 0' [if you're not like me and go for insta-wipes], instead of CK2s version? I can't find a real improvement in EU4. You can port discipline, morale, tactics, pips, everything to CK2s combat system and have an actual satisfying and enjoyable time while you're slogging through war after war to blob to the Netherlands instead of the total mess that it is currently.
I've personally never had that much of a problem with the dicerolls in EU4. I generally find that they matter a bit less than most people on this board make it out to be, If I expect to win a battle I usually win it, and if I don't I usually don't. But overall if I had to pick out actual improvements in EU4 its that they're are actual cost to war. In CK2 I don't care if they siege out a few provinces, while in EU4 that's something I must try to avoid. In CK2 a destroyed army means farting some mercs out to win the war and recovering all my levies in a year, in EU4 it means a decade of weakness as all my neighbors dogpile on me.
Anyway, I'm getting a bit tired of this argument, so I'm going to end my part with this: I think we can both agree that CK2 is pretty great, but I don't play it to face-roll people with my retinues for the umpteenth time.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 20, 2014, 01:43:10 pm
Yeah, you need commanders for all the 0 rolls you'll always be getting. That's the neat part of the dice system. No reliability. So you rely on insta-wipe battles. That's the part that irks me so badly about EU4. The combat is not consistent. You can have the best military across the board and still be losing 1k troops a day in every shock phase because the AI has a +1 advantage in the random number roll that combat consists of.
I think you've got a lot of complaints that aren't related (or at least in the way you think they are) that are more the result of playing the game too much (and noticing minor quibbles) than the game itself being terrible. If I were to make the mistake of summarizing them, it'd be that combat is simplistic because numerical superiority is always the best, dice rolls make the game too random to bother with anything but instant wipes, the AI gets undisclosed bonuses to combat and dice rolls, and that fighting battles results in too many casualties.
What I would recommend doing is loading up the vanilla game from the normal 1444 or whatever start, and play as France. You'll be at war with England, they'll have 9 regiments daydreaming in Normandy while a 30 regiment doomstack led by your pick of excellent general sits right next to them. Load this up several times, and share the results of the battles.
Now do it with COMBAT_DICE_SIDE set to 1. No insta-wipe.
If France gets a really minor advantage, like +1 to fire and +2 to shock in the first few phases, France totally annihilates that army. With no influence from dice rolls, they fight it out until England runs out of morale and retreats.
You don't need to get instant wipes to avoid bad dicerolls, you get them in the first place because of good ones. You seem to be saying that you'd rather not have insta-wipes, since it makes things boring, but you feel forced to because dicerolls make the rest of the game unfair. So, play it without dice rolls. See how fun it is. (it's not)
This is the Dwarf Fortress forum for god's sake. If you think DF is too easy when you just seal yourself off and grow all the food you'll ever need, do something else. If you think something would be better tweaked, mod it yourself. The same applies with EUIV. So, find a balance you like with the combat, with the phase length, dice range, retreat limits, and so on. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of core problems with EUIV, but what you're mentioning has more to do with the playstyle you settled in being boring than the game being bad. It's the worst kind of complaining. You have the tools! You've even quoted defines.lua!
I dunno, I feel like this is going to be one of those aggressively toned posts I regret later, but I'm really not trying to be antagonistic. I just think it's an argument that is misguided, is all.
Edit:
If I were to offer constructive advice, it'd be to increase OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE to something like 4 (you were incorrect in quoting OVERRUN_FACTOR, that's what determines out of combat surrenders), reduce COMBAT_DICE_SIDE to 6-8, and tweak CANNOT_RETREAT_DAYS and DAYS_PER_PHASE to your liking. Increasing OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE will make wipes impossible until that ratio is met, and CANNOT_RETREAT_DAYS will give you more or fewer opportunities to hit it. I'd also lower SHATTERED_RETREAT_SPEED_MODIFIER, since you'll be chasing down more retreating armies.
Post by: Sheb on July 20, 2014, 01:55:11 pm
Post by: Sergarr on July 20, 2014, 02:29:48 pm
Out of curiosity, how come the 2000 men army I leave on my colony to protect them don't get insta-wiped by the overrun mechanic?Probably because of "native troops are 10 times worse than the european ones even on a same technological level" bullshit?
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 20, 2014, 02:36:02 pm
Out of curiosity, how come the 2000 men army I leave on my colony to protect them don't get insta-wiped by the overrun mechanic?
I think OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE only applies when the larger force is "winning" an attack phase (I don't think it ever happens during a defending phase). Even with a +9 to your 0 dice roll, the natives probably can't get a higher combat calculation once you've gotten a few military tech levels, so while they may still force your units to retreat (or kill them to last man if you don't have them retreat and the AI doesn't order one), they won't get wiped.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 20, 2014, 03:07:47 pm
This sort of "results first, simulation/logic/genuine balance second" approach is all over EU IV. Focusing on land war tech/ideas gave too much of an advantage in EU 3? Ok, let's make military tech and military ideas draw from the same pool of resources, and give the player only very limited control over the flow of said resource. Or for example the peasant's War. Triggers on any number of things that happen to someone who's been at war, triggers a devastating series of events that drops stability to min and fills the country with rebels, PLUS gives all sorts of negative modifiers. It achieves the result of adding an extra layer of punishment to warmongering expansion, and presumably adding in something that happened in RL. But its completely fucking stupid from a game perspective because it hides this huge effect behind an invisible event, hits struggling nations while they're down, and it bypasses the systems that are supposed to cause that sort of thing to happen naturally.
What EU IV really needs is a domestic game like what CK 2 or Vicky 2 has. The gamey substitutes that EU 3 has have all been moved over to the MP system, which has had the side effect of making them all basically the same three part choice*. CK 2 (while being, yes, more of a simulation than an actual balanced game) has this interesting ebb and flow to a realm's power as marriage alliances and rulers come and go. Its very possible to win wars simply by attacking when you are strong and the enemy is weak, most recently I did this as Nubia (who ate Ethiopia) fighting Egypt and Arabia at the same time and winning. Its also very possible in those two games to become more powerful than a rival without attacking them, in CK 2 by gaining more land and in Vicky 2 by improving your industrial base. In EU IV because the game in its current state basically boils down to a series of choices balanced to be zero-sum (even expansion slows down your progress along other lines), its very hard to do that without knowing the game well.
*The three part choice of MPs: You can choose to improve your tech, gain whatever bonuses ideas would give you, or avoid negative consequences of your actions. Choosing between these three things is honestly about 60% of EU IV's gameplay at present. Its frustrating because things that were once interesting like coring and stability now just slow down your regular "level ups".
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 20, 2014, 03:27:44 pm
*The three part choice of MPs: You can choose to improve your tech, gain whatever bonuses ideas would give you, or avoid negative consequences of your actions. Choosing between these three things is honestly about 60% of EU IV's gameplay at present. Its frustrating because things that were once interesting like coring and stability now just slow down your regular "level ups".
So much this. This is really what I think is wrong with the game, is that MP just ends up being a catch all for things that should've been simulated better, and the actual choices end up boiling down to those 3 choices. For me it's always that war -> blob, blob -> money, money -> advisors, and now you're France.
Post by: pedrito on July 21, 2014, 09:41:14 am
There are quite a lot of factors to consider in a battle, and failure to do so will lead to complaints of the "AI-is-cheating-it-doesnt-matter-what-I-do-EUIV-is-broken" type.
The AI does cheat in a few ways, but land combat is not one of them!. You are losing battles because you fail to take into account all of the factors involved, that's all there is to it.
In a nutshell: Morale, Discipline, Unit type (pips, technology, tech group), Tactics, Combat width, Army composition, Excessive cavalry penalty, General stats, Unit combat ability, Terrain penalty, River crossing... and if that wasn't enough all of these influence eachother and in turn are modified by other stats.
See this post for more info:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713856-AI-Cheats-Facts-and-misunderstandings
Post by: Sergarr on July 21, 2014, 09:49:37 am
A lot of the complaints about how unbalanced the EUIV combat system is seems to stem from a lack of knowledge about how the system actually works.
There are quite a lot of factors to consider in a battle, and failure to do so will lead to complaints of the "AI-is-cheating-it-doesnt-matter-what-I-do-EUIV-is-broken" type.
The AI does cheat in a few ways, but land combat is not one of them!. You are losing battles because you fail to take into account all of the factors involved, that's all there is to it.
In a nutshell: Morale, Discipline, Unit type (pips, technology, tech group), Tactics, Combat width, Army composition, Excessive cavalry penalty, General stats, Unit combat ability, Terrain penalty, River crossing... and if that wasn't enough all of these influence eachother and in turn are modified by other stats.
See this post for more info:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713856-AI-Cheats-Facts-and-misunderstandings
I counter it with:
Well, it's more like the issue with EU4's combat system is it's so opaque and you're bound to lose most battles anyway unless you get together doomstacks for warring. Because the only reliable way to actually play the game and win battles is to get the insta-wipe battles and nothing else. If you don't get into an insta-wipe battle you'll always lose a disproportionate amount of forces and/or morale in the first shock phase no matter the rolls, it's actually pretty neat to see. EU4 combat is more whack a mole than ever thanks to the useless [for you] and broken [for AI] shattered retreat, as well. Which is why you always want to instantly wipe, because 'battles' in EU consist of the AI getting ridiculous damage numbers and near-null damage without a 6+ advantage on rolls.
And don't lie to me about discipline/morale/tactics being the most important factors. I've been the one with the most discipline/morale/tactics since launch because EU4s combat system consists of rushing for discipline and morale bonuses, and yet despite this Nubian nationalists in mountains outnumbered 10-1 can still inflict significant casualties despite general bonuses *if* they get to actual combat. It's the fact that you're basically forced into doomstacking everything to combat that makes EU4 combat such a boring, boring slog, honestly.
I'm actually getting significant morale losses lately attacking shattered armies with .01 morale. That's something that's bound to make you delete the game.
Making a complicated battle system is not good when you combine it with the fact that you can only learn about these things after you lose and go to wiki to find out what's going on.
Games in general should not rely on some external sources of information.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 21, 2014, 10:02:07 am
A lot of the complaints about how unbalanced the EUIV combat system is seems to stem from a lack of knowledge about how the system actually works.
There are quite a lot of factors to consider in a battle, and failure to do so will lead to complaints of the "AI-is-cheating-it-doesnt-matter-what-I-do-EUIV-is-broken" type.
The AI does cheat in a few ways, but land combat is not one of them!. You are losing battles because you fail to take into account all of the factors involved, that's all there is to it.
In a nutshell: Morale, Discipline, Unit type (pips, technology, tech group), Tactics, Combat width, Army composition, Excessive cavalry penalty, General stats, Unit combat ability, Terrain penalty, River crossing... and if that wasn't enough all of these influence eachother and in turn are modified by other stats.
See this post for more info:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713856-AI-Cheats-Facts-and-misunderstandings
Alright then.
Being forced into rushing for army/discipline ideas and tech doesn't make EU4s combat system complicated, it just shows how broken and lopsided all the calculations are to the AI side if your high-tech highly disciplined tactically advanced military can and does take massive morale and casualty damage in every shock battle phase, as is totally historical, right? That superior formation, tactics, morale, etc militaries are forced to outnumber weaker foes simply because 1:1 is an easy way to get your stack wiped.
That's what you don't understand. That's why you don't see an issue with EU4s incredibly boring battle system where numbers are the most important factor. Because you play it straight and probably get huge casualties. And wonder why I do things like make every battle insta-wipe to save the always-retreating ping pong [then getting morale damage attacking a shattered retreating army who has .01 morale because they aren't allowed to insta-wipe for some reason].
Because the battle system is broken and heavily favors AI getting no damage.
So you are forced to doomstack.
So all battles are insta-wipes [or atleast you hope].
Because even with superior pips, morale, discipline, techs, ideas, you will get ridiculous casualties and morale damage against even a pitiful nation with 1:1 ratios of soldiers on flat lands.
So you make a huge doomstack and no longer have to worry about these fucked up, stupid calculations.
Do you understand why EU4 has a bad war system? Because numbers are the entirety of the calculation outside of horseshit dice rolls that the player needs to game in order to get anything useful out of.
Can we please stop pretending EU4 has a complicated battle system? It's build a huge stack or build more huge stacks to combat according to actual rules because the calculations are heavily against you. Also, the extent of 'flanking' in EU4 consists of.. building 6-8 mounted units and putting them in a doomstack. Man, that's some high strategy.
Post by: pedrito on July 21, 2014, 12:16:46 pm
Quote
Because even with superior pips, morale, discipline, techs, ideas, you will get ridiculous casualties and morale damage against even a pitiful nation with 1:1 ratios of soldiers on flat lands.
Because the battle system is broken and heavily favors AI getting no damage.
So you are forced to doomstack.
That doesn't happen to me.
Battles between equal nations result in more or less the same casualties on each side.
If this happens to you, I insists that you don't really understand the combat system and fail to factor in something.
It can't be that for some magical reason you get to lose battles that I win. And most of my friends who have 100+ hours on EUIV don't run into these problems either.
Quote
And the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
About 3-5 tech levels difference, and an excellent general vs a mediocre one, added to a -2 from terrain should be enough to achieve this.
It's been done numerous times.
Quote
Making a complicated battle system is not good when you combine it with the fact that you can only learn about these things after you lose and go to wiki to find out what's going on.
Games in general should not rely on some external sources of information.
Welcome to the DF forums mate.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 21, 2014, 12:19:24 pm
Post by: Sergarr on July 21, 2014, 12:34:45 pm
Post by: a1s on July 21, 2014, 01:58:29 pm
Indeed no general at all (he 'died in the battle') +better troops for 14th century Ottoman Vs. Eastern, +river crossing + terrain (it's all hills (https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B043%2700.0%22N+26%C2%B013%2700.0%22E/@41.7034696,26.4035345,87348m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x0:0x0!2zNDHCsDQzJzAwLjAiTiAyNsKwMTMnMDAuMCJF!3b1!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en)). This is, honestly, just a couple of good rolls away from happening.QuoteAnd the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
About 3-5 tech levels difference, and an excellent general vs a mediocre one, added to a -2 from terrain should be enough to achieve this.
It's been done numerous times.
Post by: Greenbane on July 21, 2014, 02:34:45 pm
Indeed no general at all (he 'died in the battle') +better troops for 14th century Ottoman Vs. Eastern, +river crossing + terrain (it's all hills (https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B043%2700.0%22N+26%C2%B013%2700.0%22E/@41.7034696,26.4035345,87348m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x0:0x0!2zNDHCsDQzJzAwLjAiTiAyNsKwMTMnMDAuMCJF!3b1!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en)). This is, honestly, just a couple of good rolls away from happening.QuoteAnd the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
About 3-5 tech levels difference, and an excellent general vs a mediocre one, added to a -2 from terrain should be enough to achieve this.
It's been done numerous times.
To further add to the plausibility, in EU4 terms, the base combat width is 15 (and the 14th century can't be higher than tech 1), which means a maximum of 15,000 men can be effective in battle at any one time, between front and back ranks. The hilly terrain imposes a 25% penalty on width, which reduces the effective fighting strength to 11,250. The vast majority of the 70k-strong attacking army wouldn't be able to take part in the battle simultaneously, which means that given enough favourable factors, the defenders have a real chance to hold their ground and deplete the enemy morale.
The game doesn't benefit the AI in combat, but it is easier to defend than it is to attack. I suppose that an impression of AI advantage might come from the fact the AI is usually defending, as it doesn't tend to attack, sensibly enough, unless it thinks it can win. This advantage can be exacerbated by lucky nation bonuses, if those are in play. Casualties are to be expected unless there's a massive difference in technology and everything that implies, and in any case it's generally unwise to launch an attack without outnumbering the enemy significantly (2:1 or 3:1 at least).
Post by: Sergarr on July 21, 2014, 02:45:30 pm
Wait, if there's a width thing in play, then how and why does the OVERRUN thing works?Indeed no general at all (he 'died in the battle') +better troops for 14th century Ottoman Vs. Eastern, +river crossing + terrain (it's all hills (https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B043%2700.0%22N+26%C2%B013%2700.0%22E/@41.7034696,26.4035345,87348m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!1m4!3m3!1s0x0:0x0!2zNDHCsDQzJzAwLjAiTiAyNsKwMTMnMDAuMCJF!3b1!3m1!1s0x0:0x0?hl=en)). This is, honestly, just a couple of good rolls away from happening.QuoteAnd the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
About 3-5 tech levels difference, and an excellent general vs a mediocre one, added to a -2 from terrain should be enough to achieve this.
It's been done numerous times.
To further add to the plausibility, in EU4 terms, the base combat width is 15 (and the 14th century can't be higher than tech 1), which means a maximum of 15,000 men can be effective in battle at any one time, between front and back ranks. The hilly terrain imposes a 25% penalty on width, which reduces the effective fighting strength to 11,250. The vast majority of the 70k-strong attacking army wouldn't be able to take part in the battle simultaneously, which means that given enough favourable factors, the defenders have a real chance to hold their ground and deplete the enemy morale.
The game doesn't benefit the AI in combat, but it is easier to defend than it is to attack. I suppose that an impression of AI advantage might come from the fact the AI is usually defending, as it doesn't tend to attack, sensibly enough, unless it thinks it can win. This advantage can be exacerbated by lucky nation bonuses, if those are in play. Casualties are to be expected unless there's a massive difference in technology and everything that implies, and in any case it's generally unwise to launch an attack without outnumbering the enemy significantly (2:1 or 3:1 at least).
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 21, 2014, 03:18:38 pm
Being forced into rushing for army/discipline ideas and tech doesn't make EU4s combat system complicated, it just shows how broken and lopsided all the calculations are to the AI side if your high-tech highly disciplined tactically advanced military can and does take massive morale and casualty damage in every shock battle phase, as is totally historical, right? That superior formation, tactics, morale, etc militaries are forced to outnumber weaker foes simply because 1:1 is an easy way to get your stack wiped.
?
I'm just going to disregard this, since it's wrong. Maybe if you're fighting native americans or something you can inflict enough casualties in the first 9 days to go over OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE, but you're obviously just exaggerating or don't understand what's happening.
That's what you don't understand. That's why you don't see an issue with EU4s incredibly boring battle system where numbers are the most important factor. Because you play it straight and probably get huge casualties. And wonder why I do things like make every battle insta-wipe to save the always-retreating ping pong [then getting morale damage attacking a shattered retreating army who has .01 morale because they aren't allowed to insta-wipe for some reason].
Lower SHATTERED_RETREAT_SPEED_MODIFIER from 0.5 to 0.3 or something if you don't like chasing armies as much. May also consider changing LOW_MORALE_THRESHOLD and CANNOT_RETREAT_DAYS if you want armies to fight longer/shorter before retreating.
Obviously didn't read my post, so I'll say it again, you should raise OVERRUN_FACTOR_CANNOT_LEAVE to 3 or 4 so wipes only happen over that ratio. It's also not just this value at work... it also either requires a certain number of casualties or a threshold of calculated advantage.
Because the battle system is broken and heavily favors AI getting no damage.
No?
So you are forced to doomstack.
Early game when there are fewer factors at work, yeah, numbers are important, but try beating Poland-Lithuania as Teutonic Order, or beating France as England in the HYW. Obviously outnumbered grossly, but it just means you've got to be play carefully and have a strategy.
So all battles are insta-wipes [or atleast you hope].
Because even with superior pips, morale, discipline, techs, ideas, you will get ridiculous casualties and morale damage against even a pitiful nation with 1:1 ratios of soldiers on flat lands.
So you make a huge doomstack and no longer have to worry about these fucked up, stupid calculations.
?
Again, I think you're either grossly exaggerating or don't understand it. I'm guessing you never use mercenaries? If you don't want to ever use mercenaries, consider raising MAX_MANPOWER to 20 or something, so you can have more reserves for a planned difficult war. Just keep in mind that it'll also apply to France.
Do you understand why EU4 has a bad war system? Because numbers are the entirety of the calculation outside of horseshit dice rolls that the player needs to game in order to get anything useful out of.
Dicerolls aren't that important, but again, since you didn't read my post, try playing for a bit with COMBAT_DICE_SIDE set to 1. The scenario I recommend is the vanilla start as France, since you'll have a nice doomstack right next to a smallish English army. I agree that 10 sides is a bit much, but they really are needed. Tweak it to where you find it fun, I'd recommend 6-8.
Can we please stop pretending EU4 has a complicated battle system? It's build a huge stack or build more huge stacks to combat according to actual rules because the calculations are heavily against you. Also, the extent of 'flanking' in EU4 consists of.. building 6-8 mounted units and putting them in a doomstack. Man, that's some high strategy.
Thing is it actually is pretty complicated, just with little direct player involvement. There's a lot to consider that isn't obvious, like the effect of maneuver, combat width, moraledisciplineleadershipterrainmilitarytactics and so on. It's definitely more complicated than HoI3's combat, it's just that HoI has more precise stats. If you're looking for a tactical game, where each battle can be fought with direct player involvement, there are tons of fantasy games that do that. Personally, since there are so many battles in EU, I think it'd be tedious.
And the nail in the coffin for EU4's combat system? It can't even simulate history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maritsa) correctly, which is the whole point of the game. Yes, that is the case of an army of 70000 being beaten by an army of 10000-15000, that is quite literally impossible to achieve in-game no matter how hard you try, unless you give crazy tech advantages and such to the smaller army. Even if they were only slightly off tech-wise and given a much greater discipline boost, it wouldn't make a difference.
With certain terrain it's doable in EUIV, even with equal tech.
Maybe the game isn't meeting your expectations in some regards, but I think you're just blowing up some things that could be easily changed on your own. If you find that you lose too much manpower, use mercenaries, take loans, maybe increase the max manpower that can be saved up. If you find that you don't like chasing shattered armies, lower their speed bonus. If you find that you're tempted to go for instant wipes every time and find it boring, change the "hardcoded" ratio that makes it possible. If you think the dice are too random, reduce its range. There are tons of valid criticisms that can be made of this game, mainly for things that can't be changed, but your complaints are invalid when the solutions are easy and staring right at you.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 21, 2014, 03:45:16 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 21, 2014, 03:59:15 pm
First of all, the a lot of those many stats are the same as EU IV but more naunced. For example units in EU IV have a commander, units in HoI 3 have a direct commander, and up to 4 high command members giving that commander orders. Combats in EU IV have a combat width, combats in HoI 3 have a combat width which is increased if the unit is fighting along the borders of multiple provinces. Ect. Ect.
Also HoI 3 was made with an understanding that all other Paradox GSGs lack, which is that unit choice shouldn't be about composition, it should be about role. Calvalry, infantry and artillery in EU IV all move at the same speed and there is a fairly hardcoded "ideal" formula. This is infantry= x+spare, cavalry = x*tech group cav percentage, artillery = expected combat width, where spare is the amount of infantry you expect to die, and x is either a number you think won't put you over your supply limit, or your land forcelimit if you can fight a large enemy army in a defense war and then move reinforcements in. There is only a weak element of choice to it. Whereas cavalry (well, armor), infantry and artillery all fill different roles in HoI3. Infantry is generically most useful, armor is fast and effective for its combat width, allowing them to break into enemy lines and quickly claim territory, artillery ignores combat width and is thus ideal for slugfests where both sides use their entire combat width. Then there's all sorts of detail on top of that, like anti-tank artillery which sucks on offense and mainly work on tanks, and planes which have their own mechanics. And all that stuff about envelopment (I still haven't managed to actually wipe out enemy units yet).
Like don't get me wrong, HoI 3 is probably the least fun of all Paradox GSGs, and EU IV does ok compared to the others (except CK 2 because its results are more intuitive to me) but its military sim is way beyond EU IV even though its an older game.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 21, 2014, 04:15:48 pm
Yeah, it should really be up to the player to wrestle some sense out of the system. You also mis-attributed your last quote there.
Eh, if you don't want to change a few integers, don't. Hopefully you do though, I think it'd fix most of your complaints, and it's easy stuff. Sorry about the misquote.
I haven't played as much HoI or dived into modding it, so for some reason I assumed it was simpler. The role point is great, I wish there was more of that in EU. There's some minor bits of it with siege groups, chasing groups with no artillery, main doomstacks, but yeah, it's a shame the focus is mostly on composition. Though they are very different settings, so I dunno how that'd work.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 21, 2014, 05:27:45 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 21, 2014, 08:21:42 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on July 23, 2014, 09:39:31 pm
Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sheb on July 24, 2014, 06:08:30 am
So Thekkunilam would be nice I think.
Post by: mainiac on July 24, 2014, 09:56:19 am
Post by: Sindain on July 24, 2014, 10:05:00 am
N anyway, I've seen coalitions vs computers, but lucky nations get -25% AE and there use to be a glitch that made it so all AIs got that bonus. (not sure if they ever fixed it.)
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 24, 2014, 10:25:57 am
Use this to cimcumvent the whole workshop download thing. Just copy+paste the full link of the workshop link of the mod. It'll be downloaded as a certain file type, just rename the extention to .rar or .zip and unpack it to your documents/paradox/Eu4/mods folder to force it to be there.
Post by: Greenbane on July 24, 2014, 11:12:14 am
As for the AE, greatorder, did you have claims on those provinces you took? Simply being at war, even if it's a defensive war, doesn't allow you to take everything you want if you manage to win. That would be immensely exploitable. And again, the AI doesn't have any hidden bonus: it just bothers with claims and giving their wars at least a facade of legitimacy. Taking territory you can't justify as your own is the very definition of aggressive expansion.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on July 24, 2014, 11:14:10 am
Post by: Greenbane on July 24, 2014, 11:19:29 am
Yeah, or you could've read his past posts about it.
I'm not sure what you think I've missed.
Post by: Isdar on July 24, 2014, 11:45:36 am
Post by: Tarran on July 24, 2014, 01:23:51 pm
Post by: Sergarr on July 24, 2014, 02:15:27 pm
"He essentially made it so that he got two missions. Recover manpower and obtain religious unity. For this he has to send a colonist to maintain and break religious unity, he also ques up and de-ques troops as needed to complete the mission. What this lets him do is obtain 25 adm and dip every time he triggers the "complete religious unity" mission. (Which he can then de trigger by abandoning the colony, allowing him to take it again. He would also than trigger a set of the manpower mission, then alternate back and forth. This will allow him to max his adm and diplo tech, so he can go on mass conquering sprees as needed. He can then also complete as many idea groups as he wants.
The other exploit was making himself into a protectorate, which makes him immune from coalitions. "
New patch incoming in 3, 2...
Post by: Sindain on July 25, 2014, 09:44:14 am
Post by: snelg on July 25, 2014, 10:52:53 am
The actual download is on an external site so here you go.
https://mega.co.nz/#!LQBhiKTC!blSEXJNnx74VV2Q1bdioaqnBjop4pPiLvD3J0rMIqMI
Post by: Wysthric on July 26, 2014, 12:21:53 pm
Post by: snelg on July 27, 2014, 08:35:29 am
Hey guys, do you know where I can find the religious icons for modding purposes? I've had a look in the gfx folder, but to no avail.I think you're looking for:
Europa Universalis IV\gfx\interface\icon_religion.dds
Post by: Wysthric on July 27, 2014, 10:49:11 am
Post by: lijacote on July 28, 2014, 12:50:09 pm
Meh. It's sad.
Post by: Azkanan on July 31, 2014, 06:09:39 pm
Started with the Expanded Timeline mod, which includes bookmarks from CK2... So I played The Old Gods, Wessex. 600 years or so later... Volga Bulgaria, Tang, Hindustan, Abbasid, Japan and Me (Modded "Europe" into it, because "Great Britain" wasn't cool enough at that point).
I don't know HOW, but Japan has been clinging tightly to its islands and, more to the point, Korea against Tang for centuries. And Abbasid just declared war on me, for no reason /o\.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Descan on July 31, 2014, 08:42:27 pm
Post by: Sergarr on July 31, 2014, 10:25:47 pm
I am so glad I got the mod that reverts the AE to 1.6.1 levels.Just defeat somebody and become their protectorate. Instant 100% coalition immunity! Totally balanced by the inability to create vassals (but you can still full annex) and join alliances... but who needs alliances, when you've broken the main anti-player mechanic?
I can now actually attack people without every country and their mothers forming a coalition against me.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on July 31, 2014, 10:33:42 pm
remember to stack some modifiers after ae though, otherwise it'll stick around
/me watches ddrjake's stream
Post by: Sergarr on August 01, 2014, 03:08:56 am
I wonder how the greatest balancer of all times, Johan, will fix the protectorate exploit?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 01, 2014, 03:26:35 am
It was introduced to stop player vassal feeding expansion. Now that vassal feeding has been nerfed to hell and back, vassal incomes extremely reduced and finally the ability to force nations to give you trade power I see no reason why there are protectorates. Merely slap on a diplo-vassalise malus for differing tech group and let vassals be vassals.
Have any of you actually got any use out of a protectorate (apart from the recent anti-coalition cheese)? I never once bothered with them since they're so incredibly useless. A bit of trade power which usually amounts to nothing now that you can just get a couple trade companies/lightships and completely dominate trade.
Also offtopic my graphics card blew up so I'm stuck with onboard, no EU4 (or anything really) for a long while. Couldn't have happened at a worse time, broke and about to finish up a Friesland-Netherlands achievement run (was going so well, managed to keep the filthy Iberian colonist cheaters completely out of Africa and beyond). >:(
Post by: Micro102 on August 02, 2014, 01:12:12 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 02, 2014, 01:38:26 am
Protectorates were the first attempt to discourage vassal feeding since at release you could just vassalise some backwater OPM (like Kochin) and then feed them the whole continent and diploannex them at almost no cost. Of course since it's Paradox the mechanic was half-arsed, buggy and poorly executed, only stopping Western tech vassal feeding outside most of Europe while other tech groups (like Ottomans/Eastern) still ran rampant.
Protectorates need a major overhaul since their intended purpose has already been filled by better, less buggy features and since their only current use is for finishing world conquests.
Post by: Tarran on August 02, 2014, 03:56:44 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 02, 2014, 04:13:19 am
I'm not even sure what point I was trying to make anymore apart from protectorates sucking plump helmets.
Post by: Erkki on August 02, 2014, 08:06:45 am
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 04, 2014, 08:36:03 am
and that's over
not much was achieved i guess
Post by: Johuotar on August 04, 2014, 12:29:46 pm
Post by: Rakonas on August 04, 2014, 03:07:20 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 05, 2014, 04:27:50 am
That's all you need to know about Ming's faction system.
Post by: Johuotar on August 05, 2014, 06:10:23 am
Post by: lijacote on August 14, 2014, 06:03:08 pm
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 14, 2014, 06:19:28 pm
Post by: Elfeater on August 14, 2014, 07:12:55 pm
As pre-trailed by Paradox, the company has revealed a new upcoming expansion for Europa Universalis IV. It’s called The Art of War, which gives something of a clue as to what kind of additional features it may contain. (http://As pre-trailed by Paradox, the company has revealed a new upcoming expansion for Europa Universalis IV. It’s called The Art of War, which gives something of a clue as to what kind of additional features it may contain.)Sends me to a blank page?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 14, 2014, 10:57:11 pm
It's main focus is apparently going to be about the thirty year war and and the napoleonic era. You know that time period where 99% of games won't reach because the game gets ridiculously boring once you've managed to blob up.
It's apparently going to add more depth to combat and add "customisable armies", whatever that means. There is a strangely thick line in one of the screenshots that almost makes me think of fronts like HoI, doubt we'll see that though.
From the leaked screenshots there's also going to be improvements to Africa and likely the rest of the world as well such as increased tags and provinces. However it seems like that will just make more territory for Europeans to blob into.
Ultimately I'm really disappointed. It may be a bit early to judge and things might start looking up once the dev diaries start rolling in but it just seems like it's completely the wrong expansion we need right now. The game festers while having such a major focus on conquest but so many barriers put in place to do so. Barriers would be fine if there was some other mechanic to keep the game interesting while not at war but that aspect has been completely neglected.
Post by: krisslanza on August 14, 2014, 11:51:55 pm
The "announcement" is here (http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive/b/558100952) at 23:30.
It's main focus is apparently going to be about the thirty year war and and the napoleonic era. You know that time period where 99% of games won't reach because the game gets ridiculously boring once you've managed to blob up.
It's apparently going to add more depth to combat and add "customisable armies", whatever that means. There is a strangely thick line in one of the screenshots that almost makes me think of fronts like HoI, doubt we'll see that though.
From the leaked screenshots there's also going to be improvements to Africa and likely the rest of the world as well such as increased tags and provinces. However it seems like that will just make more territory for Europeans to blob into.
Ultimately I'm really disappointed. It may be a bit early to judge and things might start looking up once the dev diaries start rolling in but it just seems like it's completely the wrong expansion we need right now. The game festers while having such a major focus on conquest but so many barriers put in place to do so. Barriers would be fine if there was some other mechanic to keep the game interesting while not at war but that aspect has been completely neglected.
Perhaps an expansion based on warfare might add some things to spicen up the non-warfare aspects.
To be honest, EU4 I feel in some ways, is more friendly and inviting then EU3. But I do agree that during peace it does feel kind of... stale. All you really do is prep for the next war, but there's generally very little to do in that regard.
To compare two different, but vaguely similar, series I'd use Total War as an example. While it is doubtfully about conquest and expansion, you at least spend your downtime upgrading and researching towards better stuff. The issue I feel with EU4 is that research takes so much MP you just kinda end up doing it... eventually. And the costs of buildings means until you get fairly large - and even when you do - there isn't much reason to actually be building constantly.
It's a sharp contrast to TW where you should be pretty much building up your settlements every turn until they max out, and in later TWs, always be researching new technology. Admittedly, TW is pretty shallow for everything that isn't warfare though. I sometimes with EU would loosen up and give us more to do rather then wait all the time. The high cost of buildings, combined with generally low income for most small nations, makes me feel like I spend 80% of my time in EU4 just with the speed maxed out, waiting for ducats to amass, so I can click a button, and spend it all in a heartbeat.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 15, 2014, 02:30:16 am
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?795532-Eu4-Art-of-War-Announcement-Information&p=17882160#post17882160
Spoiler: for the lazy (click to show/hide)
Cautiously optimistic.
Post by: lijacote on August 15, 2014, 03:45:03 am
Shit. :PAs pre-trailed by Paradox, the company has revealed a new upcoming expansion for Europa Universalis IV. It’s called The Art of War, which gives something of a clue as to what kind of additional features it may contain. (http://As pre-trailed by Paradox, the company has revealed a new upcoming expansion for Europa Universalis IV. It’s called The Art of War, which gives something of a clue as to what kind of additional features it may contain.)Sends me to a blank page?
Shouldn't have tried to be fancy at 3 AM or however late it was (after a session of EU4 incidentally! I'm the Swiss emperor, and Poland is in my PU, and I'm annexing France... anyway)
http://www.incgamers.com/2014/08/europa-universalis-iv-the-art-of-war-dlc-revealed
Post by: Maldevious on August 16, 2014, 03:59:39 pm
- I am Scandanavia
- One province short of owning the entire Baltic. Russia owns the remainder.
- Year is 1780 or so
- I have 250K men or so. 360K manpower.
- Russia has 230K men or so. 550K manpower.
- I'm allied to France but they won't accept a call, as it will "destabillize" them
- Russia is at war with Timurids, who have about 100K troops and manpower
I just need that one province for the achievement. Can this be done? How would I do it. Am at a bit of a loss. Military tech is the same, too.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 16, 2014, 04:40:37 pm
So here's my situation:
- I am Scandanavia
- One province short of owning the entire Baltic. Russia owns the remainder.
- Year is 1780 or so
- I have 250K men or so. 360K manpower.
- Russia has 230K men or so. 550K manpower.
- I'm allied to France but they won't accept a call, as it will "destabillize" them
- Russia is at war with Timurids, who have about 100K troops and manpower
I just need that one province for the achievement. Can this be done? How would I do it. Am at a bit of a loss. Military tech is the same, too.
Support the largest rebel group, and just swarm.
Post by: Sergarr on August 16, 2014, 04:54:58 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 17, 2014, 12:53:30 am
I suggest watching DDRJake streams to see how real pros deal with large countries. His techniques are godly.
every single time ddr makes a stream, paradox patches the most offending bits
the religious unity stuff is patched already
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 17, 2014, 01:30:04 am
I only recently rekt'd my roommate as Albania while he was playing Castile and he used to be the one who smacked me around in EU3. At this rate EU4 is going to become barred from multiplayer just like AoE2 due to the skill gap. :(
Post by: Maldevious on August 20, 2014, 08:35:22 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 20, 2014, 09:59:09 pm
Also doesn't deal with my basic complaints about the game but w/e, little steps.
Post by: Sergarr on August 21, 2014, 10:38:08 am
Post by: a1s on August 21, 2014, 10:49:22 am
I'm sure somebody will exploit the hell outta that core abandoning mechanic. Because there is pretty much no other way to realistically use it.I don't want to watch an hour long video, so
I'm assuming the logical thing: you can abandon cores on foreign soil. If that's true, then the underlying reality isn't so much "we actively renounce our claim on that territory, may it burn forever in hell fire", but more of "tell the diplomatic corps to stop mentioning how outrageous it is that territory isn't ours at every dinner. It's... no longer a priority".
Post by: Micro102 on August 21, 2014, 02:08:37 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on August 21, 2014, 03:55:36 pm
Of course it used to be it took 60 years for a territory to become core. Now its like ~2 unless you intentionally wait. Letting them be abandoned at will just makes it weirder. If they're just going to let cores be created and destroyed at the drop of a hat they might as well start calling them something else because they're nothing like how the mechanic worked in older games.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 22, 2014, 04:51:43 am
namely legendarymarvin
hope you speak german (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDZk_ElV6Ufql5iTMRgVJGw)
demonstration: chimu fuckery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS_SsqGAqsg)
marvin doesn't even have any pretenses of giving a fuck, though, as noted by what i think was rampant savescumming in the demonstration video
he's also credited with defeating otto as albania
Post by: Rakonas on August 22, 2014, 08:19:54 am
That's the whole original point of a core though, is that in the eyes of the people it is your territory. If you don't control it people will think less of you, that's just how it is.
Of course it used to be it took 60 years for a territory to become core. Now its like ~2 unless you intentionally wait. Letting them be abandoned at will just makes it weirder. If they're just going to let cores be created and destroyed at the drop of a hat they might as well start calling them something else because they're nothing like how the mechanic worked in older games.
Cores mean nothing except that they cost x mana and provide y numerical benefits. There's no consistent logic as to what a core is that can really be applied. In EU3 it was tenuous and almost believable but in EU4 it can't be that people consider the provinces to be yours, since forming countries only gives you claims (each of which would only take a year to fabricate anyway). Better that you can drop cores because you can have your cores "revoked" in peace deals, as if the people of your country will forever forget that some province was once a part of your nation just because you lost a second war.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 22, 2014, 08:44:25 am
India is looking pretty damn good. Even more provinces for glorious Kochin to spread the empire of pink.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3a/Cochinel.png)
Post by: a1s on August 22, 2014, 08:45:35 am
Cores mean nothingCores mean too much, actually. The core is an amalgamation of 3 interconnected, but very different concepts:
- "The world is more or less in agreement we have a claim on this land"
- "Our own people are more or less in agreement the land ought to be ours "
- "The locals of this land are more or less in agreement that our country should rule them"
Post by: Dutchling on August 22, 2014, 08:46:59 am
Post by: a1s on August 22, 2014, 08:59:53 am
EU doesn't really have local taxation level.Well, no. However half the fluff refers to the base tax value as taxes and the other half as the economy.
Post by: kaian-a-coel on August 22, 2014, 09:14:50 am
EU doesn't really have local taxation level. Not saying that's better than combining the two, but they are really not combined.AoW will add that it seems, with the "local autonomy" variable, counted per province. it's a negative % modifier to the tax income.
So base tax will be the economy, and local autonomy represent the local taxation of that economy.
Post by: Culise on August 22, 2014, 09:39:30 am
Local autonomy will actually represent practical control by the central government, and only indirectly taxes, which could potentially lead to even more potential issues with conflation of disparate concepts.EU doesn't really have local taxation level. Not saying that's better than combining the two, but they are really not combined.AoW will add that it seems, with the "local autonomy" variable, counted per province. it's a negative % modifier to the tax income.
So base tax will be the economy, and local autonomy represent the local taxation of that economy.
That said, the India improvements look quite interesting. One step closer to Bengali Universalis.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 29, 2014, 05:29:52 am
Spoiler: the important (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sergarr on August 29, 2014, 07:40:18 am
Post by: a1s on August 29, 2014, 09:35:01 am
Cue somebody immediately finding a way to enforce AI to make you it's March and then exploiting the resulting bonuses to conquer the world.You can't declare wars as a vassal.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 29, 2014, 01:00:57 pm
[spoiler=the important]Marches
Marches are a new type of subject that can be created from existing vassals. By designating your vassal as a March, you are giving that vassal greatly expanded autonomy in exchange for greater military service. A March does not pay taxes to its Overlord and cannot be diplomatically annexed. However, they get a 25% bonus to manpower, a 30% bonus to force limits and have 20% better fort defense, making them useful as military buffers against enemy states, or when you simply need additional soldiers more than you need the income from those territories. March status can be retracted, but doing so results in a stability hit and a very large opinion penalty with the vassal whose autonomy you just revoked.
O...kay... There's no reason to make marches, then. Your vassal simply gets free manpower and doesn't have to pay you money [one of the main ways I limit vassal power is limiting their income], yet you can't ever diplo-annex or force them to allow you to control their soldiers [leaving it up to the simply god-awful war AI to let them control their soldiers for you]. Why would I make a march? There's literally 0 benefits to the real life player in this situation. Just gives the shitty diplomatic AI another reason to not be a good vassal despite you having created the entirety of their nation.
Expanding on this, WHY would I ever need a march? One situation where a totally useless vassal that you can't directly control the military of being more useful than a vassal who pays you income and can be annexed. I can't think of it. The only possibility of marches being useful is if they make it so your vassal has +200 relations. Otherwise the AI simply will break off as soon as it can with the free soldiers and money it [thinks] it has.
By the time you're hand-crafting marches to 'defend your empire from outside forces' you've already blobbed to the point that your own manpower is likely plenty, plenty enough. The only time a march would be useful is in early blobbing [if the AI was useful at warring, which it's not], but the thing is.. after you blob.. you don't need to make little vassals to give you 1k or more troops than another vassal type. Especially if it just becomes a roadblock to expansion forever.
Post by: a1s on August 29, 2014, 01:20:42 pm
Quote
Vassals increase the suzerain's manpower and land force limit,the wiki (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Vassal) says so at least. Even if you don't want the AI generals in your war, you'll want their men.
(I also remember reading that vassals don't lose the money you get from them, but the wiki doesn't support me on this)
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on August 29, 2014, 01:27:22 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on August 29, 2014, 01:35:10 pm
But is there any reason to do it for the most optimal strategy? I doubt it. The bonuses aren't that great for the AI. But I definitely think I'll be using it, to keep pet vassals around to do my bidding. I think the concept of having a "buffer" is fairly useless though, unless we eventually get to create vassals province by province semi-independently of cores.
Post by: a1s on August 29, 2014, 01:45:41 pm
And you can get more money and power out of the lands yourself instead of if it were given to a permanent 'vassal' roadblock.Vassals cost points to annex, and are not worth bothering with, IMHO, if you don't already plan to keep them as pets. :-\
Post by: Tarran on August 29, 2014, 02:10:24 pm
Post by: Sheb on August 30, 2014, 07:31:32 am
Speaking of which, is there a way to get the AI to join the Empire/add provinces to the Empire? Several of my HRE vassals have non-HRE provinces, which I'd like to get in for the Imperial Authority. I'd also love for Ukraine and Norway to join, to free up diplomatic relations and eventually absorb them. I tried grabbing Kiev, adding it to the HRE then giving it to Ukraine, but they don't seem to want to move their capital back.
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 08:15:04 am
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 30, 2014, 08:15:58 am
france is france
they will be op as fuck no matter what
Post by: Karlito on August 30, 2014, 10:40:22 am
Speaking of which, is there a way to get the AI to join the Empire/add provinces to the Empire?
I believe the AI will add provinces to the Empire, but never when a player is Emperor.
Post by: Erkki on August 30, 2014, 11:05:50 am
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 11:23:54 am
And bam! coalition-proof.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 30, 2014, 11:26:39 am
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 11:35:45 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 30, 2014, 11:50:29 am
This does mean that Ottoman tech will make a vassal out of Chinese tech (+60%) while a Western tech nation will make it a protectorate. Horde tech cannot become a protectorate even though they have a +75% tech cost (this is hardcoded).
Chinese tech (+60%) could vassalise Sub-saharan (+100%) but would protectorate Mesoamerican (+150%) and North American (+250%).
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 12:10:35 pm
Post by: Sheb on August 30, 2014, 12:14:51 pm
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 01:08:12 pm
Post by: Baffler on August 30, 2014, 01:13:33 pm
Post by: Sheb on August 30, 2014, 01:13:47 pm
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 01:19:53 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 30, 2014, 01:24:22 pm
slam your home with harsh treatment, put a stack of 16 over it
i think you can buy western mercs when westernizing, but the troops aren't that much better anymore
but yeah you gotta take down most rebels at the speed of fast you can just accept demands of peasants i guess
Post by: kaian-a-coel on August 30, 2014, 01:35:07 pm
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 01:49:52 pm
infinite loanswat
how d u bankrupt now then
Post by: LordSlowpoke on August 30, 2014, 01:51:20 pm
infinite loanswat
how d u bankrupt now then
m8 the amount of loans you can take now is obscene
if you're keeping track with ddr, he can take 40k ducats of loans if he wanted to
i have no bloody idea what this runs on, probably something related to national income, but marvin (that german i linked a fair bit ago) uses that as a cornerstone of his shenanigans so it must be op
Post by: Teneb on August 30, 2014, 02:27:19 pm
I'm pretty sure loans are also what makes byzantium playable since they are doomed otherwise.infinite loanswat
how d u bankrupt now then
m8 the amount of loans you can take now is obscene
if you're keeping track with ddr, he can take 40k ducats of loans if he wanted to
i have no bloody idea what this runs on, probably something related to national income, but marvin (that german i linked a fair bit ago) uses that as a cornerstone of his shenanigans so it must be op
Post by: a1s on August 30, 2014, 03:04:31 pm
Yeah, pretty much. After all, when European arrived IRL, North American still lived in the stone age.That is a true, but misleading sentence. 'Stone' age refers to the state of material science- Amerindians didn't know copper or iron. They did know woodcrafting, and had social structures rivaling the low middle ages. On the balance, they could be more likened to the Germanic tribes of 0AD then cavemen.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on August 30, 2014, 05:16:20 pm
Post by: Eagle_eye on August 30, 2014, 06:29:50 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 30, 2014, 11:00:34 pm
Sadly they were nerfed big time with the westernisation change and now have to go through the painful experience of trying to westernise for centuries or fall behind massively in tech. Hopefully that will be fixed one day when Johan finally tries to play a NA in a multiplayer match and gets destroyed.
Still Mesoamericans are probably the worst tech group in the game. They have a massive tech cost (150%), few potential rivals (goodbye leader points), no unique mechanics, generic ideas, forgettable units, pagan religion and generally start closer to the colonisers.
I've been trying to get the Sunset Invasion achievement and even with protectorate cheese I just can't make a decent beachhead in Europe. Your mighty Jaguar Warriors fall like paper to the European guns and drums and drums and guns.
Post by: Sergarr on August 30, 2014, 11:36:33 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 31, 2014, 01:22:21 am
On a side note I've been playing a nice relaxing Savoy -> Sardinia-Piermont game. They have decent enough ideas but the allure to form Italy and get those ideas instead is pretty strong. Only the glorious colour holds me back.
Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)
French expansion has been completely cut off and I plan to slowly nimble at them over time. The North Africans have mostly been subjugated and I'll focus on expanding into Alexandria soon. Italy is mostly divided between myself and the pitiful Aragonese, their time is limited.
Haven't been expanding nearly as fast as I could have but it's nice to have a relaxing game after the chaos that is Sunset Invasion.
Post by: Tarran on August 31, 2014, 02:17:01 am
Actually Amerindians weren't at stone age level tech when Euros first arrive, my tribe use to use copper for a lot jewelry, but a few plagues from the good old trade route killed 90% of the Amerindian population. What Paradox should do is work on properly modeling plagues. That would lead to a lot more interesting games since you go first reach the west see massive empires and return fifty years later and see vast stretches of nothing. But nooooooo that would mean that France and the rest of Western Europe wouldn't be stupidly more powerful then they were.I believe the MEIOU&Taxes mod has some modeling of said plagues, even though I'm playing an old version (so the newer version is probably even more well modeled). Provinces bordering Old World countries' colonies, and those bordering those suffer varying manpower and income and such penalties varying from a slight penalty to around -90%.
That said, rest of the mod may be a bit much if people prefer the vanilla taste, but I thought I might as well point out another thing a group of modders at least try to model while Paradox does not.
Post by: Sergarr on September 05, 2014, 03:46:39 pm
Tried playing as Japan TWICE, and it just seems fucking impossible.You can try not clicking on events which cause rebels. Until you decide on a current event, another version of it won't appear.
You can't diplo annex the clans because some fucking genius at Paradox seems to think that all the clans appeared in 1444, and they always fucking gang up on you before the ten years is up!
EDIT: Also, is anyone here able to westernise? I find that westernising causes so many revolts and terrible events that by the time you're halfway through, you have no money, monarch points or manpower, and there's more and more rebellions.
Post by: Sergarr on September 05, 2014, 04:21:59 pm
Huh. I thought it auto-selected after a while."a while" equals six months. Still, additional six months of no-hell-events happening for each case are pretty useful. DDRJake uses that tactic a lot when he overextends.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 05, 2014, 04:35:26 pm
And yeah, if you're overextended or westernizing, avoid clicking the dumb events and let them fire after the 6 months. With revolts it's also great to park an army in the province before it goes off, so you get the defensive bonus rather than the attacking malus.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 05, 2014, 04:53:20 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 05, 2014, 10:36:12 pm
One thing that bugged me about EUIV was that there was a lot more peace than EUIII, and with little to do between wars... that can get annoying. Not only is there little to do, half the fun of EU is seeing the wacky nations that the AI manage to cobble together. In EUIV you could often sit there for a hundred years and see only minor territorial disputes (at least in europe). In EU3, you wait a hundred years and Morocco might own half of France. Has this changed? Are the AI still that passive?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 06, 2014, 02:38:04 am
Post by: Baffler on September 16, 2014, 05:22:32 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 02, 2014, 07:00:42 pm
Post by: Sheb on October 06, 2014, 04:42:42 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 06, 2014, 05:49:28 am
Res Publica is a tiny "micro-expansion". It adds decent flavour and mechanics for merchant republics, Poland/PLC and the Netherlands. Worth it primarily for the National Focus ability.
Conquest of Paradise is the biggest disappointment so far. It allows you to play colonial nations (meh, can't even be played in ironman mode) and gives new mechanics to Native Americas (North America only). The native mechanics are fairly gimmicky and extremely poorly simulated historically wise (no Great Dying for example).
CoP also adds the random new world which in theory sounds awesome. In practice it's horrible being both eye cancer and poorly constructed. I have never managed to play a game with it (yes it that's bad).
The only worthwhile addition CoP offers is being able to support independence for nations. This can be really handy for a Sweden/Norway playthrough for example but I don't think it's worth the price alone.
The only other DLC I would recommend is The Star and Crescent which is available in the Digital Extreme Edition. It adds a bunch of events for muslim nations (which are in the majority at the start of the game). These events tie into the Piety mechanic so they do have an affect on the game.
Post by: FritzPL on October 13, 2014, 09:22:08 am
Post by: Culise on October 13, 2014, 09:48:37 am
I'm about to start a campaign with my friend, he chooses Prussia. I want to play in such way that he won't be having a superior advantage to me, while at the same time not being too aggresive, as that is just not my way of playing. I'm torn between France and Russia.Prussia as in the Teutonic Order (the eventual Ducal Prussia), Brandenburg (the eventual Kingdom of Prussia), or a later-game start where Prussia itself is on the map? And if the last, which year?
Post by: FritzPL on October 13, 2014, 10:03:29 am
Post by: Erkki on October 13, 2014, 10:06:56 am
Brandenburg, 1444. I decided to go France, but I'm open to any sweet elite tactics I could utilize against him. We literally just started the game.
It'll take him a long time to get the provinces needed to form Prussia. Most of the time Poland conquers Danzig and then the rest of the Teutonics within 20 years or so, and if that happens(likely as Brandenburg cant challenge Poland mano et mano) it'll take a long, long while for him to get those provinces. In the meanwhile, you can just ally Poland and annex the whole Western and Central Europe before the year 1700.
Post by: FritzPL on October 13, 2014, 10:09:54 am
Post by: Erkki on October 13, 2014, 10:13:59 am
Thing is, we're playing with 'lower aggressive expansion' mod. It cuts the relationship hit in half. And he is known for his warmongering - which bites him in the ass 20-50 years after the conquest, when he finds himself abandoned diplomatically and with rebels taking control over his nation.
Well... Despite of lowered AE, its still difficult for him to expand. Hes small, within the HRE and suffers a lot from illegally holding provinces(unless he allies Austria) if he expands. At the same time, you are still FRANCE, the Big Blue Blob itself. By the time Prussia forms, if ever, you can be so huge that you need no allies of your own to win any war. Or even several simultaneously. Just forming the modern day France is enough to become the scoreboard leader and have an unbeatable army, as long as you dont fight Castile+Austria+Russia or similar combination without allies of your own.
Post by: Culise on October 13, 2014, 10:16:57 am
NOT-AN-EDIT: And Erkki, I think, says it much better than me.
Post by: Elfeater on October 13, 2014, 10:19:32 am
Post by: FritzPL on October 13, 2014, 10:29:39 am
Post by: a1s on October 13, 2014, 10:30:28 am
Seems kinda dickish to pick France to counter Brandenburg in 1444.Depends on if they're at the same skill level or not. Brandenburg could be a deliberate handicap.
Post by: FritzPL on October 13, 2014, 10:52:52 am
It's not good. I set Lucky Nations to Random, and it seems that Burgundy got one. They attacked me with 30k - I had equal forces and I got wrecked in the first battle. I had to resort to baiting and using the terrain - I managed to own them four or five times that way, which gives hope.
Does the succession event appear when the emperor is in the war, or can it happen whenever their king dies on the battlefield?
Post by: PanH on October 13, 2014, 11:16:59 am
Post by: Culise on October 13, 2014, 11:37:59 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: FritzPL on October 14, 2014, 02:20:06 am
Post by: chaoticag on October 14, 2014, 05:35:15 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 30, 2014, 12:07:55 pm
I haven't had a long time to play and I really need to get to bed soon (it's 4am!). Been playing the M'zab in north africa. It's one tough nut to crack. You get a massive -40 relation with basically everyone since you're a neighbouring heretic (Ibadi), you're a theocracy so no royal marriages (makes it impossible to secure alliances unless they're already friendly), you have two one base tax provinces, one of those provinces is the wrong religion giving you a measly 50% religious unity and finally a force limit of three which you can't even finance.
So far the only way I can see survival is to try and find an ally in Morocco or another north african which isn't bordering you (there's only like three). Your starting leader is crap and needs to die off as soon as possible so hopefully you get a decent one that can do the unique muslim ruler decisions that give you +missionary strength. Stack as much piety as possible and convert that province as quick as possible (the extra morale may help when you're finally declared on).
Sadly my last attempt fell apart when Morocco got completely destroyed by the Iberians and the scum refused to join my defencive war. Managed to hide in neighbouring neutral territory after scorching my lands (arid really bites hard) and tried to loot enough money to get a merc stack together, sadly I got out-maneuvered due to my terrible general and although not annexed was too broken to continue the good fight.
Post by: PanH on November 01, 2014, 05:22:50 am
Post by: kingofthescots on November 01, 2014, 09:15:42 am
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?811958-1.8-BETA-Hotfix-Checksum-f62e
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 02, 2014, 10:23:40 am
:D
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 02, 2014, 01:12:51 pm
There was always this fear in the back of my mind that every time I declare war on some random insignificant target their alliances would travel up the chain and somehow always lead to France joining in. Or wanting to bring my allies into the fight, but also having to race them to the provinces I want and just wait for them to occupy the provinces I want them to get. Also or, having to fabricate some CB to be able to force some country into returning cores to a vassal. Also also or, starting wars where you want the same CB to apply to the target and one or more of their allies, rather than eating the dip points.
I also think it may be possible to get around all the vassal feeding restrictions with the change occupation feature, by having the peace cede the provinces to them directly rather than having to sell them. It's seemed to work so far, but I have seen some weirdness where I still end up getting the province when the peace said a vassal would get it, so maybe they anticipated that.
One kind of annoying thing though is that it seems occupying all of the war leader's provinces no longer gives 100% warscore, which is only really a problem when you're annexing a OPM war leader and they have sprawling blob allies. It seems to work fine in circumstances where the target is larger though, since you'll be able to get a higher local warscore.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 02, 2014, 01:16:39 pm
which is only really a problem when you're annexing a OPM war leader and they have sprawling blob allies
This is about 90% of circumstances. Instead of fixing unbeatable OPMs in coalitions, they've now extended that same ally-warscore finagling BS that ruins the fun of fighting coalitions to every other war. In other words, if someone you want to annex has france as an ally, you may as well just declare war on france and let the allies get dragged in so you can freely annex them after complete occupation. I actually think that this change has made it so I'll literally never play vanilla EU4 again.
Post by: Tarran on November 02, 2014, 01:19:51 pm
Edit: Darn it Mict you ninja.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 02, 2014, 01:23:05 pm
On the AE front, it looks like it's been diminished greatly, just from me doing a quick Ottomans game. Being able to cede provinces to your vassals directly also means that they'll take some of the AE rather than you, which is nice.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 02, 2014, 01:26:12 pm
I mean it makes sense from a realism perspective, it's not like WWI would've ended if Austria just occupied all of Serbia really quickly.
AH annexed Bosnia AFAIK but that's neither here nor there. In this video game's mechanics, if you declare war on a OPM with a blob ally/allies you're doing it wrong *because* you will not be able to win, you will not be able to annex this single province belonging to a single nation because they have friends with land. [If that's realistic.. then I'm a cartoon.] You're better off directly declaring war on the person your target is allied with, so the war score belongs to that war leader. That way your main target is dragged into the war and you can annex them once you've 100% occupied them, like you should be able to when you decide to declare war on them in the first place. But now this has added another layer of worrying about unbeatable blob warscore in all cases instead of just worrying about fighting the anti-fun coalitions.
Post by: lijacote on November 02, 2014, 01:26:36 pm
Huh... For some reason I've encountered a bug where ALL of my saves have had France become Rev. FranceI believe there's a screenshot on the official forums about a Revolutionary Revolutionary France. France France Revolution? France Revolution Revolution? This joke needs refinement.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 02, 2014, 01:55:03 pm
AH annexed Bosnia AFAIK but that's neither here nor there.
Yeah, exactly, Austria-Hungary occupied Serbia but the war didn't end. I think it's actually a pretty good real example of what the game's trying to represent. Granted, if I were to try to represent WWI as an EUIV war, I doubt Serbia would be the war leader, but I guess that's the problem. They just need to make whatever base tax/whatever difference is needed for a new war leader be smaller. But in the mean time, that's a good idea about declaring directly on a larger ally with the OPM as co-belligerent.
I would agree that blob warscores have always been annoying, but the old way of getting 100% warscore quickly was more a way of playing around it than anything, and was definitely less realistic. It was ridiculous how powerful rivals would just give up the war because you occupied and annexed their tiny ally. I don't think realism should be the most important thing in these games, but if you're trying to argue that having to beat a target's allies before they give up the war is unrealistic... I don't know how you could think that. I mean yeah, sieging lots of territory is annoying, but you can just tweak the warscore defines to make wargoals more influential, which I did when I was digging in the defines for relevant values.
I get the feeling from previous discussions with you that there's nothing I could say that would change your mind, though, so I'm not pursuing this further.
Edit:
Found MONTHS_BEFORE_TOTAL_OCCUPATION in the defines, so you do actually get 100% score from occupying the war leader, it just by default only triggers after 5 years. Can just set it to 0 for before the change.
Editedit:
Spoiler: NOOOOO (click to show/hide)
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 02, 2014, 01:58:19 pm
Post by: Andrew425 on November 03, 2014, 01:31:48 am
Post by: Majestic7 on November 03, 2014, 02:14:05 am
Post by: PanH on November 03, 2014, 08:03:32 am
If you occupy the war leaders provinces and the war is over 5 years old you will get 100% warscore. It was added to stoppeople from jumping small countries before their large allies had a say in the matter.Alternatively, you can save and reload. Probably an exploit, yeah, but it works.
Post by: Rakonas on November 03, 2014, 08:42:23 pm
If you occupy the war leaders provinces and the war is over 5 years old you will get 100% warscore. It was added to stoppeople from jumping small countries before their large allies had a say in the matter.
What does this even mean though? Like if I occupy one province of the war leader's I'll have 100% after 5 years? Or I can't get 100% before 5 years have passed?
Post by: Baffler on November 07, 2014, 02:02:11 pm
Post by: Sindain on November 07, 2014, 04:06:27 pm
Is anyone else having stability issues with the new patch? I've got my game consistently crashing a minute or two after I open a trade node's info screen.
I've experienced quite a few crashes during load.
Post by: Erkki on November 07, 2014, 04:17:03 pm
Post by: kingofthescots on November 07, 2014, 06:03:16 pm
Post by: Erkki on November 07, 2014, 06:22:16 pm
You can just roll back to the previous patch in steam.... So you can finish your old game. Under the beta opt in tab. You can roll all the way back to 1.4.
Too late for the old game...
Post by: PanH on November 07, 2014, 06:47:59 pm
Is anyone else having stability issues with the new patch? I've got my game consistently crashing a minute or two after I open a trade node's info screen.I've had a few crashes during loading saves, but otherwise it's pretty smooth, and apart from an increase in time to launch the game is quite faster.
Post by: ShoesandHats on November 09, 2014, 01:14:55 am
So, Apple decided to minimize my game to tell me about an update to iTunes, a program I've not used in probably over a year. The game didn't pause. I was on speed 5. When I opened the game again, it was about 50 years from when the game was minimized and I was nearly fully occupied by Bohemia at -3 stability. The game was ironman. Is there any remote chance it didn't save because it was ironman, or is my Prussia game completely ruined?
EDIT: Nope. Ruined. Guess it's good timing for the console commands to be broken, then, because I see this as a perfectly legitimate excuse to abuse that at the moment.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 09, 2014, 01:26:36 am
You might still be able to recover even if your country is crippled. Remember the game only ends when you're annexed and I find fighting uphill is the better experience in EU4.
If you're really dedicated to that save you could just get a trainer. I've read they can do some pretty strange things to a save however (particularly with province ownership) so you might want to be careful.
Post by: Sergarr on November 09, 2014, 03:53:32 am
Now you won't ever lose a game to a out-of-gameplay reason!
Post by: Erkki on November 09, 2014, 07:39:06 am
Post by: a1s on November 10, 2014, 01:51:22 am
Or alternatively, play without Ironman and make manual saves every year.That would only moderatrely help, seeing as how 50 years had passed (of which a maximum of 2.9 can be recovered.)
Post by: Sergarr on November 10, 2014, 04:54:12 am
I said manual, not auto.Or alternatively, play without Ironman and make manual saves every year.That would only moderatrely help, seeing as how 50 years had passed (of which a maximum of 2.9 can be recovered.)
Post by: a1s on November 10, 2014, 04:57:21 am
oh, sory. I do find that manual saving is pain in the ass, but that could just be because I don't have the right reflexes ("save early, save often and don't overwrite saves")I said manual, not auto.Or alternatively, play without Ironman and make manual saves every year.That would only moderatrely help, seeing as how 50 years had passed (of which a maximum of 2.9 can be recovered.)
Post by: Lukeinator on November 13, 2014, 04:42:53 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 13, 2014, 04:58:43 pm
Post by: Andrew425 on November 19, 2014, 01:41:47 pm
If you occupy the war leaders provinces and the war is over 5 years old you will get 100% warscore. It was added to stoppeople from jumping small countries before their large allies had a say in the matter.
What does this even mean though? Like if I occupy one province of the war leader's I'll have 100% after 5 years? Or I can't get 100% before 5 years have passed?
Basically after 5 years the input of the allies provinces when calculating war score is removed as a negating thing against your war score. So if you're at war with say Serbia who is allied to Austria and you occupy all of the Serbian provinces at the 5 year mark you will have 100% warscore. Before the 5 year mark you would need to have occupied all of Austria as well to get to 100% warscore. It basically lengthens all wars to be a five year minimum unless you're only taking a province or two or it's an utter curb stomp.
As an aside, is anybody interested in another attempt at getting a Bay12 EU4 game going again? I know the last one didn't end all that well but I've got some ideas on how to make it so we don't end up in the same sort of stalemate we did last time.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 19, 2014, 08:53:36 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 19, 2014, 10:00:22 pm
Been playing a Jurchen tribe -> Manchu -> buddhist Qing, wanting to get Eastern Jade, Manchurian Candidate and Silk Road in one game.
Just had two back to back regencies with both heirs dying just a few years away from adulthood. I'm now forced to endure 26 years of complete peace, losing a 6/4/6 heir (Johan) and my starting dynasty.
France also managed to get a foothold into Mexico since I couldn't burn/snipe their colonies and is now starting to outcompete me for the little trade I can suck out of the New World. Here's hoping they don't swallow up the rest of Meso-Americans before my new (shitty) heir comes to age.
Post by: Tarran on November 19, 2014, 11:49:42 pm
As an aside, is anybody interested in another attempt at getting a Bay12 EU4 game going again? I know the last one didn't end all that well but I've got some ideas on how to make it so we don't end up in the same sort of stalemate we did last time.It probably would be a good idea to mention the ideas if you're trying to stir up attention. "Some ideas" is very vague, and your ideas might work better with second opinions.
Post by: Andrew425 on November 20, 2014, 12:00:30 am
As an aside, is anybody interested in another attempt at getting a Bay12 EU4 game going again? I know the last one didn't end all that well but I've got some ideas on how to make it so we don't end up in the same sort of stalemate we did last time.It probably would be a good idea to mention the ideas if you're trying to stir up attention. "Some ideas" is very vague, and your ideas might work better with second opinions.
This game would require at a minimum eight players divided into five different teams.
Catholics
Austria
Castille
Protestants
England
Denmark (or Sweden depending on the player's choice)
Reformed
France
Poland
Orthodox
Muscovy
Georgia (If we have enough players)
Sunni
Ottomans
Najd (If we have enough players)
Additional players would be assigned to other smaller nations such as Morocco or Brandenburg
All players would then try their hardest to spread their faith to the four corners of the world. The winning religion would have the most provinces following their doctrine by the end of the game.
This would make the multiplayer game different then the standard version as alliances would change over the course of the game as lesser powerful religions might temporarily band together to stop the expansion of a stronger religion.
Standard rules for the other parts would of course apply
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 20, 2014, 12:46:17 am
Argh, so much RAGE.
Been playing a Jurchen tribe -> Manchu -> buddhist Qing, wanting to get Eastern Jade, Manchurian Candidate and Silk Road in one game.
Just had two back to back regencies with both heirs dying just a few years away from adulthood. I'm now forced to endure 26 years of complete peace, losing a 6/4/6 heir (Johan) and my starting dynasty.
France also managed to get a foothold into Mexico since I couldn't burn/snipe their colonies and is now starting to outcompete me for the little trade I can suck out of the New World. Here's hoping they don't swallow up the rest of Meso-Americans before my new (shitty) heir comes to age.
I actually just wrapped up a Manchu game. The crappy thing about colonial nations as a non-western tech group is that they'll fall way behind in tech, even if you can match the west yourself (or at least the mil tech). It was fun at first helping Qingxico blob and kick New Spain out, but eventually they'll end up like, 10 levels behind and pretty useless.
I wouldn't worry about not being able to colonize a province in the central american region for the cheevo. With all the new little mesoamerican nations, it's not like before when someone could just come in and annex the whole region and get a megablob colonial nation right away. In that Manchu game, over 50% of the area was still independent by 1600, which I found pretty weird.
Post by: Tarran on November 20, 2014, 01:12:50 am
Unfortunately, I don't see how this would majorly change the way things worked in the previous game. I don't quite remember the game, so I can't really remember everything that went wrong. But I still don't see how this would change things.As an aside, is anybody interested in another attempt at getting a Bay12 EU4 game going again? I know the last one didn't end all that well but I've got some ideas on how to make it so we don't end up in the same sort of stalemate we did last time.It probably would be a good idea to mention the ideas if you're trying to stir up attention. "Some ideas" is very vague, and your ideas might work better with second opinions.
This game would require at a minimum eight players divided into five different teams.
Catholics
Austria
Castille
Protestants
England
Denmark (or Sweden depending on the player's choice)
Reformed
France
Poland
Orthodox
Muscovy
Georgia (If we have enough players)
Sunni
Ottomans
Najd (If we have enough players)
Additional players would be assigned to other smaller nations such as Morocco or Brandenburg
All players would then try their hardest to spread their faith to the four corners of the world. The winning religion would have the most provinces following their doctrine by the end of the game.
This would make the multiplayer game different then the standard version as alliances would change over the course of the game as lesser powerful religions might temporarily band together to stop the expansion of a stronger religion.
Standard rules for the other parts would of course apply
In the previous game, people already sort-of teamed up into small groups of players with vaguely similar goals which then teamed up with another similar group to beat up on another team that is growing too powerful. How is this different besides the introduction of forced alliances and a religious factor?
Post by: Tarran on November 20, 2014, 01:33:06 am
There's also the problem of MEIOU not being updated yet.
So it's probably not going to happen, even though it really is a well developed mod.
Post by: Andrew425 on November 20, 2014, 02:09:50 am
Unfortunately, I don't see how this would majorly change the way things worked in the previous game. I don't quite remember the game, so I can't really remember everything that went wrong. But I still don't see how this would change things.
In the previous game, people already sort-of teamed up into small groups of players with vaguely similar goals which then teamed up with another similar group to beat up on another team that is growing too powerful. How is this different besides the introduction of forced alliances and a religious factor?
From what I remember of that game an attempt by the British and Spanish players to open up the gulf of Aden trade node was opposed by the French, who caused the Russians to side with British. Which in turn led to the Italians and Hansa player joining the French.
That led to a near stalemate and a bit of hostilities, as neither side was willing to budge on their terms.
My way would hopefully be a bit different in the sense that everyone would have a distinct endgame in mind and they would be willing to switch alliances to achieve that. Also because their would be 5 different alliance groups it would be unlikely for them to end up in a permanent state of hostilities towards a single group.
Last game we also had a lack of balancing forces. France was able to take on the next two largest armies in the world and wipe them out, as well as march into Russia during the winter time. Now we would have enough European states to be able to form a coalition if needed.
Post by: Tarran on November 20, 2014, 03:44:58 am
Also, the lack of budging was more the problem of a few players being stubborn as opposed to there being two sides. France wanted to get something severe out of Spain, who was going to fight to the death. The problem lay with the players, not the alliance, which is why ultimately everyone else peaced out without at least one of the partner's consent.
Post by: lijacote on November 20, 2014, 07:01:19 am
My timezone is EEST or so. Or GMT +3. Or +2. Sometimes hours shift, because lol consistency.
Post by: Isdar on November 20, 2014, 08:06:21 am
Regarding the last MP game I didn't have a problem with the stalemate, not every war should be a total defeat or victory, and if the war had continued for a few more years I think one of the sides would have won. What we did was basically the equivalent of the Entente and Central Powers in WWI signing a white peace immediately after the trenches had been dug and everything descended into a tugging match. That's how I viewed the war as the Hansa.
Post by: Micro102 on November 20, 2014, 11:11:41 am
The Ottomans almost instantly warn you and unless they get severely hurt by either Venice or the Mamalukes they WILL attack you and annex you. And if you wait too long they attack and annex you.
It seems like my only hope is to get 6 cities and the noble knights idea before the ottomans attack so I can fight them with the knights decision, but this seems heavily reliant on luck as I need the Ottomans to lose a war to get an opportunity to attack someone.
Post by: Teneb on November 20, 2014, 11:22:17 am
Been trying to play Byzantium and just cannot make it work. The strategies I've read don't seem to be up to date, as they ask you to declare war on countries that you don't have cores on.The one thing I've seen that gives you an edge is DoW'ing Cyprus before you unpause. As long as you do it before you unpause, the Mamluks won't join the war despite their guarantee. Other than that, all I can think of is a lot of loans, mercenaries and rebels.
The Ottomans almost instantly warn you and unless they get severely hurt by either Venice or the Mamalukes they WILL attack you and annex you. And if you wait too long they attack and annex you.
It seems like my only hope is to get 6 cities and the noble knights idea before the ottomans attack so I can fight them with the knights decision, but this seems heavily reliant on luck as I need the Ottomans to lose a war to get an opportunity to attack someone.
Post by: Karlito on November 20, 2014, 11:26:29 am
In the long term, an alliance with Poland was helpful.
Post by: Micro102 on November 20, 2014, 04:15:52 pm
Byzantium is super easy in the latest patch. I just built as many galleys as possible and then won my first war with the Ottomans about 3 years into the game after waiting for them to go fight in Asia minor and blocking the strait. It's much more difficult for them to get military access through the Caucasus, at least in the early game.
In the long term, an alliance with Poland was helpful.
Ok first off, your navy force limit is like.....12. The ottomans have over 40 ships. Do you sacrifice advisers or something? Because it sounds like it will get expensive if you go 300% over your force limit.
Secondly, Poland doesn't seem to be bordering water or the ottomans, so how do they help?
I view that as a bug and don't plan on exploiting it.Been trying to play Byzantium and just cannot make it work. The strategies I've read don't seem to be up to date, as they ask you to declare war on countries that you don't have cores on.The one thing I've seen that gives you an edge is DoW'ing Cyprus before you unpause. As long as you do it before you unpause, the Mamluks won't join the war despite their guarantee. Other than that, all I can think of is a lot of loans, mercenaries and rebels.
The Ottomans almost instantly warn you and unless they get severely hurt by either Venice or the Mamalukes they WILL attack you and annex you. And if you wait too long they attack and annex you.
It seems like my only hope is to get 6 cities and the noble knights idea before the ottomans attack so I can fight them with the knights decision, but this seems heavily reliant on luck as I need the Ottomans to lose a war to get an opportunity to attack someone.
Post by: FritzPL on November 20, 2014, 04:26:12 pm
Also, the host's gotta have most, if not all of the dlcs. That way we can benefit, too.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 20, 2014, 04:26:33 pm
Now, the not so easy part is dealing with a 12k+ Ottoman army that is usually parked in Greece. Sometimes you can luck out and the Ottomans will move their armies into easily stoppable places. They moved 20k soldiers to Corfu my last Byzantine game, and I just stopped them from returning to the mainland with a couple transports, basically pinning down their whole force limit for the entire war. Needless to say I took back 99% warscore of provinces. If they don't do something pants-on-head retarded like that in your attempts, though, your best bet is putting a 12k stack of your own on a mountain province. The Ottomans are usually suicidally aggressive if they have a path to your armies.
It all depends on luck, really. And I don't find it particularly fun because once you've beaten the Ottomans you win everything else as the Byzantines.
Post by: Sergarr on November 20, 2014, 05:22:40 pm
Post by: Karlito on November 20, 2014, 07:16:09 pm
Ok first off, your navy force limit is like.....12. The ottomans have over 40 ships. Do you sacrifice advisers or something? Because it sounds like it will get expensive if you go 300% over your force limit.They may have 40 ships, but they don't have 40 galleys. Transports and lightships don't have much combat power on the inland seas. Constantinople is quite rich, so you can easily overbuild your naval forcelimits to achieve force superiority. I took a few loans and probably did without a few advisors in the first decade, yes.
Secondly, Poland doesn't seem to be bordering water or the ottomans, so how do they help?
Secondly, Poland does border the Ottomans, albeit through their vassal Moldova.
Post by: Uristides on November 20, 2014, 07:36:16 pm
I'm a complete newb(on EU, not on Paradox) though, so I'll probably choose a bad country and get steamrolled early on. And I don't have all the DLCs either(I bought the complete pack some months ago, but I think a new one already came out?)
Also poor excuse to PTW this one. I think I'm beginning a campaign later tonight.
Post by: Sartain on November 21, 2014, 04:02:12 am
Post by: Erkki on November 21, 2014, 06:32:46 am
Post by: lijacote on November 21, 2014, 08:07:38 am
Post by: FritzPL on November 21, 2014, 12:08:52 pm
Post by: werty892 on November 21, 2014, 01:27:51 pm
Post by: Descan on November 21, 2014, 01:30:38 pm
That's the way it's always been with Paradox. Almost makes me forgive them for releasing 5+ game-changing DLCs within 2 years of releasing the base game - which most of the time is shit by itself. Almost.No, only since CK2 came out. Before, if you didn't have all the same expansions as the host, you couldn't play with them unless they downgraded.
Post by: FritzPL on November 21, 2014, 01:58:26 pm
(just a personal opinon)
Post by: Uristides on November 21, 2014, 02:39:17 pm
Post by: Sheb on November 21, 2014, 02:44:01 pm
Post by: Uristides on November 21, 2014, 02:49:11 pm
It's kinda weird you didn't have problems with France.Yeah, it felt strange they didn't bug me at all, or my ally Burgundy, for that matter. The worst they did was snatching Provence away from me when I still had then under a truce.
Burgundy is pure awesome and has balls of steel. At one moment they were enemies of both France, England and Austria at the same time. Not to mention repealling a Castillan invasion all by themselves.
Post by: FritzPL on November 21, 2014, 03:04:57 pm
Post by: Baffler on November 21, 2014, 03:17:24 pm
Now what should I do? The English hate my guts, but they can't really do anything about it anymore and I don't have any interest in the now mostly Protestant provinces they have left. Maybe I'll start working over the new African nations, or intervene in Northern Europe where the Hansa has somehow managed to roflstomp Denmark and are enjoying even more improbable success against Sweden and Norway at the same time, with a warscore of +46.They have no allies.
Post by: FritzPL on November 21, 2014, 03:26:30 pm
Anyways, Brit here... looks like we may have to play an EU game and an American game.
Yeah... No offense to those on the other side of the Atlantic, but I think Europeans are in majority here. We should still try to do one unified game, though. Just find more or less perfect time for everyone.
@Baffler
Please, screenshot it all and send us a link.
Post by: Uristides on November 21, 2014, 03:27:46 pm
Did you turn lucky nations off? I had MP game where we did that - my friend played Brandenburg and I played France. While the Hansa wasn't such a bully to him, he still had a hard time - and considering I was playing France and I was unable to take any of the Burgundian provinces, so did I.Oh, I had set it to random. No idea who gained the bonus or how to check it though.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 21, 2014, 03:28:32 pm
Post by: Uristides on November 21, 2014, 03:37:30 pm
Random is still weighted towards the usual extreme blobs, unfortunately.Oh, I thought it would give more balanced, or at least interesting, results. But by "usual extreme blobs" you mean just the ones we know and love or bizarre stuff like extreme blob Albania and Ryukyu? The latter at least could be quite amusing for a while.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 21, 2014, 03:45:30 pm
Post by: Uristides on November 21, 2014, 03:52:04 pm
I believe 'Random' lucky is weighted towards the ones who already are on the 'Lucky' list. And if not, they'll be conquered anyway and the lucky bonus transferred to France/Spain/GB/Muscovy as the AI can't play the game at all if they're a OPM in a moderately hostile area. All in all LN is a terrible mechanic, since it gives an arbitrary bonus to a huge [10+] amount of already incredibly OP nations, mechanically it is inferring the other nations of the earth were 'unlucky' for the literal entire period of EU4. Pretty historical stuff there. Turning it off completely actually gives the game a chance to be dynamic and not completely predictable after the first 20 years.I see, thanks for the breakdown. Will turn it off for my next campaign.
Post by: Isdar on November 21, 2014, 08:39:39 pm
Post by: Tarran on November 21, 2014, 08:56:30 pm
Post by: lijacote on November 22, 2014, 07:58:02 am
Post by: Exerosp on November 22, 2014, 09:39:59 am
Post by: cerapa on November 22, 2014, 10:16:36 am
Do you have a very old processor or something?
Post by: PanH on November 22, 2014, 10:27:37 am
Ugh, Art of War ruined it kind-of for me, I love the new features but it turned the game into a grinding hault even with 1024-8xx resulotion and everything else turned off. I went from being able to play a speed 3 to barely even speed 1. Is there something i'm doing wrong? I've got compressed autosaves off also.Afaik, the only thing to do right now is to wait. Some people have trouble with the new patch (do you have AoW ?), and last time I looked, they didn't knew how to fix it yet.
Post by: FritzPL on November 22, 2014, 11:31:15 am
a) a person with a majority, if not all of the DLCs
b) preferably in GMT+0
Post by: Uristides on November 22, 2014, 04:56:02 pm
Everything was fine for some 10 years and I got Korsika as a vassal and monies and stuff until Tuscany started antagonizing me. Even worse they had an union with Milan, which was my strongest ally in Italy. I joined a coalition against them but lol Ferrara and Mantua.
Then the war started and all went downhill. The T-M coalition soon formed a 20-strong deathstack that none of us could quite breach. It just roamed the map picking us out individually. I blame some of that on how poorly the game controls, some of my troops did some mad loops around instead of simply backing when I told them to.
And it's ragequit time again. Hopefully I have a decent save I can load later so I can wipe the floor with their faces.
And god, that's an awfully slow game. Pre-Clausewitz Paradox games at least took some half of the campaign to get to the point where I'm falling asleep even at max speed when nothing happens.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 22, 2014, 05:31:46 pm
Post by: Exerosp on November 22, 2014, 06:36:11 pm
Graphics settings shouldn't affect simulation speed.Yes, AMDX2 with 2.2ghz. Graphics settings do affect simulation speed because it has to calculate, whereas it's not as heavy on the graphics department. I used to turn off things like Trees to gain a speed during the days my computer was running more sluggish before ArtOfWar, but yes, it's best to wait.
Do you have a very old processor or something?
Post by: werty892 on November 22, 2014, 08:29:35 pm
Post by: Micro102 on November 22, 2014, 09:28:26 pm
Also, should I even annex all them? I have a lot of vassal buffs and extra diplomatic relations.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 22, 2014, 10:28:30 pm
Deciding whether to integrate a vassal or not weigh on a lot of factors. One of the main reasons not to integrate is to create a buffer between you and another power (marches are great for this). Also if the land is primarily different culture/religion the vassal state will be able to get more out of the land than you can.
However vassals do not contribute trade power which is a massive issue for trade focused nations. Vassal fees are also a poultry base 10% which is basically nothing, if you want more dosh but don't mind investing in the land a bit then annexation is a decent bet. Vassals also take up a diplo-slot so having a bunch of small minors as vassals is generally not recommended.
There's other stuff to consider like trying to create and feed a military vassal (like Brandenburg) to destroy your enemies. I'm fond of doing this in different continents (like playing in Asia and vassalising Perm) so I can often forget about that front and let my vassal(s)/allies deal with it.
Vassal feeding as a means of expansion is as powerful as it has ever been in EU4. Remember however that provinces that are integrated start at 75% local autonomy (unless you have claims) so it can be a bit of time for those provinces to start producing.
Post by: Micro102 on November 23, 2014, 12:31:32 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 23, 2014, 02:26:25 am
Post by: Micro102 on November 23, 2014, 03:03:09 am
Post by: lijacote on November 23, 2014, 07:18:01 am
Post by: cerapa on November 23, 2014, 12:08:10 pm
A coalitation of the biggest countries in the HRE smash their armies against my defensive attrition and walk around in stacks way above the supply limit without managing to siege anything. You might think that it would a cause for celebration? Well, wrong. Cause France is doing its thing and just attacked an Austria that has 0 manpower.
Fuck, now I gotta find a way to break France.
Post by: lijacote on November 23, 2014, 12:11:42 pm
Austria and Brandenburg, you fucking idiots.If you have France as a rival, you can get a lot of power projection by releasing nations. Especially if they've absorbed Spain. The horror... :P
A coalitation of the biggest countries in the HRE smash their armies against my defensive attrition and walk around in stacks way above the supply limit without managing to siege anything. You might think that it would a cause for celebration? Well, wrong. Cause France is doing its thing and just attacked an Austria that has 0 manpower.
Fuck, now I gotta find a way to break France.
Post by: Micro102 on November 24, 2014, 04:18:31 am
Hopefully next time I will be able to completely blockade them and attack the shores with transports.
Post by: Innsmothe on November 24, 2014, 04:22:54 am
*shudders* I'm dealing with France currently in my Byzantium game. France was so unstoppable that it just kept building more units as they got killed and eventually wiped out everyone else (including massive Austria who ate massive Poland and brought half the HRE and Spain into war against France with it). And they would always attack when Austria was helping me with my wars (they decided they needed 100000 men to help capture a broken country's provinces, letting France walk all over everything else). But finally I ate the Mediterranean and got a strong enough navy to destroy France's and even though they did the whole "never ending manpower" thing and ran everyone dry of their own manpower, they ended up admitting defeat and ceding......a single province.Is why I am glad Francia almost never forms when I do my my CKII-EUIV-VicII MegaGames.
Hopefully next time I will be able to completely blockade them and attack the shores with transports.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 24, 2014, 12:53:42 pm
Post by: Erkki on November 24, 2014, 12:59:43 pm
I think its the combination of superb national ideas, massive base tax, and France having a sea at its back instead of being surrounded from most directions like most are.
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on November 24, 2014, 01:13:57 pm
superb national ideas
Especially when France getting 2x bonus from native populations isn't considered needlessly overpowered when combined with the fact that the AI never has native uprisings.. I honestly don't understand how they could make France any less inevitable. If there weren't 'don't murder Spain/UK' checks on France it'd just be needlessly inevitable.. Vanilla balance is so bad..
Post by: Vactor on December 01, 2014, 12:02:27 am
The other main alliance consists of Portugal and Great Britain (who I cut down to size a bit in an earlier colonial war, forcing them to release scotland and most of their colonies), and Commonwealth. HRE took the reformation pretty hard, with Austria sticking with Catholic, while the rest of the empire went protestent. They routinely lose wars to a France/Hungary alliance.
At some point I'm going to need to break up Commonwealth, but there is no way I can face their army 100k+ vs my 50k standing army, and France and Spain have a hard time shipping enough troops around to be effective.
I'm thinking of three main options, I could expand through where golden horde is, and use commonwealth armies to beat up the ottomans for me. Alternatively, I could carve a path through the HRE to France, essentially building a road for my French allies, or I could try to burn off Commonwealth's manpower in futile wars in the east against the Timurid/Ottoman alliance. Maybe a combination of these.
I'd like to go to War with Britain in order to capture some British and Portugese Colonies, but without Commonwealth joining, I could do a no CB war on britain's ally Brittany, and possibly nab one of the naval supplies I need off them before France gets it, but I fear this would just sour my French relations, and I'll need to fight them at least once for the supplies they already have.
I'm wondering, If I go to war with some steppe hordes, and call Commonwealth in, will Britain still be able to call them to their defense If I attack? Will France and Spain still join me against GB if I don't call them into the war with Timurids, or will this situation give the "called to multiple wars" penalty?
I have to say this is one of the more intriguing situations I've had with this game, and as an aside, probably the first time I've seen such a successful commonwealth, I suppose me sapping Muscovy right away helped them along a bit.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on December 06, 2014, 06:49:33 pm
Post by: kaian-a-coel on December 07, 2014, 02:49:57 pm
I severely underestimated the f*cking turks.
All was well and I was expanding quickly (though that alliance with Hedjaz was a grievous error in hindsight), but everything changed when the ottomans attacked.
I was ROFLSTOMPED into the ground in no time, tried to expand into africa to compensate, but the land down there is shit and the people rebel all the time. I got the things barely under control, and then the ottomans attack again.
Second ROFLSTOMP, I can't stop them, and africa is rebelling. I ragequit. I'll probably play someone else next time. Maybe the ottomans.
Post by: PanH on December 07, 2014, 04:58:19 pm
Generally, the countries that are recommended (even the not recommended as easy) are quite easy.
Post by: lijacote on December 07, 2014, 05:16:49 pm
*haha no specifics
Post by: kaian-a-coel on December 07, 2014, 06:04:01 pm
On the downside, I had to vassalize the guy who entered the coalition with the mamlukes, because I wasn't fighting five years for two cores.
There was a neat mission about cleansing the unbelievers from anatolia or something, it promised 30 army tradition, but I couldn't understand what I was supposed to do exactly. Instead I took the "conquer levant" one. Nice little checklist, claims galore, just have to wait until the end of the truce...
Post by: Descan on December 07, 2014, 06:15:20 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on December 07, 2014, 06:36:47 pm
(I think my game is starting to break, possible due to meager amounts of cheating. There is no way I should be facing down nearly three million rebels after any war, well maby 500+ extension might have something to do with that.)
Post by: kaian-a-coel on December 07, 2014, 06:55:27 pm
Sounds like either conquer all non-Muslim states in the region (map-mode) of Anatolia, or have all of your (again, region) Anatolia provinces be Muslim?The wiki says all my anatolia provinces must be muslim. The game itself is pretty unclear though, it tells you that:
(X) not one province in anatolia is:
NOT ottoman
in muslim group
Or something to that effect. It's really confusing. I thought I needed to own all muslim provinces in anatolia.
Post by: Karlito on December 08, 2014, 01:02:05 am
Post by: Vactor on December 09, 2014, 11:54:54 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It is now 1780, I've got 25 provinces left to capture from 11 nations, including Great Britain, France, Portugal, Spain, and 2 HRE member states. I managed to take everything I need from commonwealth, and have the largest navy with 75 tripledeckers. Portugal and GB both have 50, so I could still lose to their combined Armada. Spain has the largest army, but no navy, and I share a dynasty and royal marriage with them, so I may be able to nab them in an PU before time runs out, however it may be simpler to just take the provinces i need from them in an imperialism war.
The Ottomans are flying towards bankruptcy with a current debt of 23,000 some ducats. France got torn apart in a series of wars with Spain and Austria after they stranded a 100k army in the Caribbean for a few decades. I can occasionally get an alliance with Spain or France, who go back and forth from being friendly to hostile.
My biggest problem right now is that I think i'll need to fight Austria in 3 wars, 2 of them as HRE wars. They are allied with Brittany, and I still need Genoa, and a province out of Bohemia. I could do it easily if I can get Spain back as an ally, but I'm not sure if that will happen. I should be able to drag GB and Portugal into individual wars by declaring on their small pacific allies and taking what i need by getting the 100% warscore after 5 years of occupying the nation that I declared on. This would allow me to eliminate their navies one at a time. I'm a few years away from Commonwealth being able to declare on me, which would pull in GB and Portugal, so I need to kill their navies before that happens.
Spain has the most territories I need, and I think I can get it all in one war, so I'll probably leave them for last, so I don't have to suffer so much overextension.
Which leads me to my last challenge, overextension. Commonwealth had noble traditions, so i'm still struggling to core the provinces I took from them, along with everything else I'm grabbing up.
I feel like i'm close, but i'm worried I'll run out of time. I'm currently thinking my next step would be to fight a land war against the ottomans and ethiopia while i fight successive naval wars against GB and Portugal (declaring on the second once the first's navy is destroyed.) Then blockade them both for awhile to let the war timer wear out a bit before I take the provinces I need from their colonies. I shouldn't actually need to fight their armies, which means once I beat the ottomans I can take my land armies against austria.
I can pull austria into a non-hre war by declaring on Brittany, but I'm afraid that will preclude me from declaring on HRE members. At the very least I'll be able to fight austria without the rest of the HRE and break them before the upcoming HRE wars.
It is exciting being so close, but also a bit stressful. I just wish I had a good ally that didn't own any naval resources. Commonwealth would have been great if I hadn't let them take the baltic coast.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 09, 2014, 02:50:18 pm
I don't think claiming the throne with Spain would be a good bet, considering the lack of time, unless you need a CB. Unless it counts for the cheevo, I don't know. I've barely played vanilla, and the only cheevos I have I think are the ones for WC as Ryukyu, when I cheated.
Post by: Vactor on December 09, 2014, 07:26:04 pm
Post by: Uristides on December 09, 2014, 07:37:18 pm
Dismembered Switzerland early on with Burgundy, Baden and Milan. All they have now is Bern, which I'm taking whenever the current truce expires.
When the Burgundy ruler died this time we got into a PU that dragged me and half the HRE into a war against Provence and all those modern-Spain Iberian folks.
Settled the war fairly early because that hit on my monies and all I could do was sit and watch Austria steamroll everybody since France didn't want either Burgundy or me going through their territory.
Now I'm sitting on a PU with a country that is some 4 times stronger than me, a tad broke and with France as a rival.
The strategy section on EU4wiki says I should vassal Milan early on, but I can never get that to unfold. Their tax and military always put tons of negatives on me.
Overall, still no idea what I'm doing. Victoria may be quite obtuse on its internals, but it's fairly straightforward to just pick and play. EU is just like what the how do those tech trees work and what is that idea stuff and how does trade work and why can't I ever make money and slow, really slow. Also no easy mode picking up a secondary power in Latin America and slowly building up to rule the world.
Post by: Chaoswizkid on December 09, 2014, 07:44:07 pm
Threw up a new Savoy campaign because patch killed my other one.
Dismembered Switzerland early on with Burgundy, Baden and Milan. All they have now is Bern, which I'm taking whenever the current truce expires.
When the Burgundy ruler died this time we got into a PU that dragged me and half the HRE into a war against Provence and all those modern-Spain Iberian folks.
Settled the war fairly early because that hit on my monies and all I could do was sit and watch Austria steamroll everybody since France didn't want either Burgundy or me going through their territory.
Now I'm sitting on a PU with a country that is some 4 times stronger than me, a tad broke and with France as a rival.
The strategy section on EU4wiki says I should vassal Milan early on, but I can never get that to unfold. Their tax and military always put tons of negatives on me.
Overall, still no idea what I'm doing. Victoria may be quite obtuse on its internals, but it's fairly straightforward to just pick and play. EU is just like what the how do those tech trees work and what is that idea stuff and how does trade work and why can't I ever make money and slow, really slow.
Haven't Vicky'd yet, but EU IV is a lot simpler than either CK2 or HOI3, IMO. For me it's actually pretty straight-forward as well, though I'll find some interesting things from time to time watching Quill18 or Arumba on Youtube play.
Post by: Tarran on December 09, 2014, 09:47:30 pm
Damn, I came home to a patch that reduced my administrative efficiency from 50% to 25%, pushing my 90% OE up to a dangerous 135%. Between that and the trading changes, my peacetime monthly income dropped from +80/month to -25/month. I'm debating playing through it, or sitting on the save to see if they revert some of what they did with this patch.Well, you might be sitting on that a while if you do plan on waiting, though they might never revert their changes. I don't see any good reason to wait to continue a game 40 years from finishing, honestly.
The strategy section on EU4wiki says I should vassal Milan early on, but I can never get that to unfold. Their tax and military always put tons of negatives on me.When reading the wiki I suggest looking for the version of the game the strategy was written for. Some information is out of date, sometimes by several versions, and thus probably isn't still correct. For example, the version the Savoy page was written for was apparently 1.4, while the current version is 1.9. That's far before Art of War, Res Republica, and I believe even Wealth of Nations.
Post by: Vactor on December 09, 2014, 10:59:31 pm
A few things feel off about the patch, rebellions appear to advance at incredible speeds. I had Portuguese patriots developing from 2 islands that had about 5% unrest, and they were on track to go from 0 to 100% in 0.8 years. Harsh treatment could give you a month or two of relief max. Recently conquered territory with full nationalism had 75% chance of advancing 20% every month.(currently at 30% with 0.3 years until a revolt breaks out) From everything I've read they then spawn full stacks in every province.
If this is the new normal its just a default revolt every 20 years for all non accepted cultures/religions, especially if you take any war exhaustion.
Taking a look at the numbers right now i'm getting the following:
starting with 0 revolt progress
1 province with 1% unrest = 11.2 years until revolt
2 provinces with 1% unrest = 5.6 years until revolt
3 provinces with 1% unrest = 3.7 years until revolt
12 provinces with 1% unrest = 1 year until revolt
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As you can see, with the added overextenison I got from 25 administrative efficiency vanishing, my entire country is going to spend the next decade erupting into 20-30k stacks of rebels in every province. By the time i've actually marched my armies back and forth to kill every stack, my manpower is going to be shot, and the recent uprising debuff is going to wear off, and it will all start over again. My hope is that this isn't what paradox intended. If it is, i'll need to take some extremely drastic measures to try to salvage the game, like giving back half of the provinces i've recently captured. In the meantime I'm happy to play other things, or try additional EU4 playthroughs.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 10, 2014, 12:46:17 am
I suggest rolling back to 1.8 for the time being by opting into the "beta".
All fault, naturally, lies on Johann who brings plague and pestilence to all that he touches. Cursed are all projects of PDS.
Post by: Micro102 on December 10, 2014, 02:22:14 am
All my good leaders are dieing while heirs or before even 5 years of rule, while all me 0-1-2 leaders are living to the age of forever. I swear there is some behind the scenes shit going on here.
Post by: Sergarr on December 10, 2014, 03:38:57 am
I'm waiting because I'd rather not throw away a rare achievement to what could be a botched patch, when there might be a hotfix to correct bugs coming down in just a couple days.The 1.0 Victorian rebels STRIKE AGAIN!
A few things feel off about the patch, rebellions appear to advance at incredible speeds. I had Portuguese patriots developing from 2 islands that had about 5% unrest, and they were on track to go from 0 to 100% in 0.8 years. Harsh treatment could give you a month or two of relief max. Recently conquered territory with full nationalism had 75% chance of advancing 20% every month.(currently at 30% with 0.3 years until a revolt breaks out) From everything I've read they then spawn full stacks in every province.
If this is the new normal its just a default revolt every 20 years for all non accepted cultures/religions, especially if you take any war exhaustion.
Taking a look at the numbers right now i'm getting the following:
starting with 0 revolt progress
1 province with 1% unrest = 11.2 years until revolt
2 provinces with 1% unrest = 5.6 years until revolt
3 provinces with 1% unrest = 3.7 years until revolt
12 provinces with 1% unrest = 1 year until revoltSpoiler (click to show/hide)
As you can see, with the added overextenison I got from 25 administrative efficiency vanishing, my entire country is going to spend the next decade erupting into 20-30k stacks of rebels in every province. By the time i've actually marched my armies back and forth to kill every stack, my manpower is going to be shot, and the recent uprising debuff is going to wear off, and it will all start over again. My hope is that this isn't what paradox intended. If it is, i'll need to take some extremely drastic measures to try to salvage the game, like giving back half of the provinces i've recently captured. In the meantime I'm happy to play other things, or try additional EU4 playthroughs.
I fully expect AIs empires to be covered in rebels completely.
Post by: Uristides on December 10, 2014, 06:12:39 am
--Science--So that explains the incredibly angry Waldstättians I had this time around. Thought it was something I had done. We Victoria now.
I feel so dumb now. Thanks. Guess it's back to freeing and then vassalizing Corsica then.The strategy section on EU4wiki says I should vassal Milan early on, but I can never get that to unfold. Their tax and military always put tons of negatives on me.When reading the wiki I suggest looking for the version of the game the strategy was written for. Some information is out of date, sometimes by several versions, and thus probably isn't still correct. For example, the version the Savoy page was written for was apparently 1.4, while the current version is 1.9. That's far before Art of War, Res Republica, and I believe even Wealth of Nations.
Post by: Vactor on December 12, 2014, 12:13:28 am
Post by: Wysthric on December 12, 2014, 05:57:34 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 12, 2014, 06:51:59 pm
Then when you're done warring, the game penalises you like crazy. 'Lose all your monarch points, lose stability like mad, revolts, the works because you're a warmongering shit!'
If you're over 100% overextension, you'll get some unusually awful events like that over and over until you reduce it (more frequently the more overextended you are). Might just be a string of bad luck otherwise.
Personally, one of things I'll do if I'm sick of RNG is go through and ctrl+h out all the shitty 'add_stability = -1' event choices in the random events files. Being able to lose stability at any time for no reason sets off this nervous tick where it's like, "why ever improve it if I'm just going to lose it constantly to BS events anyway?" I dunno, I find that change in particular much more relaxing, even though stability isn't even that important.
One of the other things to do that isn't war is manipulating trade, which can be fun sometimes. I agree completely though, if they're going to put the brakes on war constantly, there should be more things to do.
Post by: Micro102 on December 13, 2014, 01:11:24 am
Also, I had a peasants war disaster start which really screwed with me, however it seemed to fire when it was only ~35/100. Is it a percent chance that they are going to fire?
Post by: Sergarr on December 13, 2014, 01:23:50 am
Y'know, I'm beginning to find some design decisions annoying.That's the result if you're building a gameplay revolving around "noob-traps" and "punishing the player for everything not directly intended by the developer".
Peacetime needs more things to do, but they never add anything, being at war drops stability, monarch points and stuff, but so does peace. Then when you're done warring, the game penalises you like crazy. 'Lose all your monarch points, lose stability like mad, revolts, the works because you're a warmongering shit!'
They could've done the opposite and start promoting the weak parts, but because of ABSOLUTELY STUPID "MP > SP" DECISION all peacetime activity cannot take too much time, or the MP players will throw a fit due to inability to micromanage both war and peace activities at the same time.
EU4 is still not a good MP game, by the way.
Post by: Vactor on December 13, 2014, 01:29:25 am
The frustrating part is that I actually managed to pin down about 300k of their armies on the danish straights and the island in livonia, but overlooked a breton fleet that snuck into the baltic and freed them up.
Post by: Exerosp on December 13, 2014, 03:25:55 am
0/1/2 leader as an heir, I make him a war leader and he dies. Start to westernize, old king dies and I'm expecting a regency council, but instead A new king appears and guess what? 1/0/2....during westernization..... I am 100% convinced that there is code in this game to make things go bad for you when you are doing good.Well if you're Poland I think it only gives you bad 'heirs' that have bad stats, yet high claim and shit. Whereas your good ones, the actual Polish one has good stats but a weak claim.
Also, I had a peasants war disaster start which really screwed with me, however it seemed to fire when it was only ~35/100. Is it a percent chance that they are going to fire?
Post by: Micro102 on December 16, 2014, 08:17:01 pm
I declare war on a small East African country who is allied with someone further south on the coast, but otherwise no land access points, I start to carpet siege their provinces, and then suddenly a stack of 8 guys from their allies just appear and start fighting one of my small sieging armies. I have 2 provinces sight in all directions, they don't have military access with anyone, and they only have 2 transports. I did not see any army approach, just appear.
I have no idea what is going on, did paradox give armies the ability to teleport? I think they did that to rebels.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 16, 2014, 08:37:13 pm
What I think may of happened is that the allied army merely marched through uncolonised territory to attack your own army. AI will path through uncolonised provinces (never wastelands obviously) if they have line of sight to the target; hilariously leading to them getting destroying by aggressive natives in the early game (especially in Africa).
Post by: Micro102 on December 17, 2014, 02:37:59 am
Post by: a1s on December 17, 2014, 03:30:41 am
rebels teleportWhat is this heresy? :o
Post by: kaian-a-coel on December 17, 2014, 03:44:14 am
They don't have boats so to prevent them from getting stuck on islands they teleport.rebels teleportWhat is this heresy? :o
Post by: Sergarr on December 17, 2014, 04:22:12 am
Only in Paradox games one can simultaneously claim to be one of the most accurate simulators of history while also giving AI blatant cheats.They don't have boats so to prevent them from getting stuck on islands they teleport.rebels teleportWhat is this heresy? :o
Post by: Majestic7 on December 17, 2014, 06:02:50 am
If you really wanted to defend teleportation, I guess you could argue it represent popular support to the rebels. Their troops are ferried in small numbers by fishing boats and other small civilian vessels etc.
Post by: a1s on December 17, 2014, 06:20:21 am
But... they're rebels. They can just spawn boats. I guess that would require a coastal province to support their cause, though...They don't have boatsrebels teleportWhat is this heresy? :o
Post by: werty892 on December 17, 2014, 06:30:48 am
Post by: Micro102 on December 18, 2014, 04:27:08 pm
They were Ethiopia and the only reasonable conclusion other than blatant cheating that I can come up with is that they have an event that lets them auto spawn some units. But I've never heard of an event that only spawns 2 units and don't know if they can spawn on a captured province.
Post by: Baffler on December 18, 2014, 04:51:59 pm
Post by: Mictlantecuhtli on December 18, 2014, 04:56:24 pm
Post by: Sindain on December 18, 2014, 06:29:33 pm
Ok, it's confirmed, my AI is teleporting units. I literally just watched a stack of 2 guys appear. No fog of war nearby, spawned on one of their already captured provinces.
They were Ethiopia and the only reasonable conclusion other than blatant cheating that I can come up with is that they have an event that lets them auto spawn some units. But I've never heard of an event that only spawns 2 units and don't know if they can spawn on a captured province.
There is an event that can give you (or the AI) a couple free regiments on an owned but occupied piece of territory.
Also, while it doesn't sound like it fits any of these scenarios, you can recruit troops on occupied enemy territory.
Post by: Eagle_eye on December 18, 2014, 09:15:47 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 18, 2014, 09:29:30 pm
And yeah, native nations usually have more money than they know what to do with, so that's not AI cheating either.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 18, 2014, 10:58:09 pm
I have had a couple of (extremely rare) events that would summon a couple of free units in provinces I own, they seems to be added in Art of War. It could also mean that the AI could somehow be sortie-ing, perhaps through an event? To my knowledge they still have no concept of that feature (gj on that Paradox btw ::))
EDIT: I do have a vague memory seeing a stream where there was an event that gave you the option to sortie or not. This could explain why a couple thousand units mysteriously appear out of nowhere and kill your carpet sieges.
Post by: Exerosp on December 19, 2014, 02:46:22 am
Post by: kaian-a-coel on December 19, 2014, 06:04:07 am
Isnt this new teleportation feature in Art of War? Could've sworn I saw something about if they had all land on one continent/island they would teleport over the sea.Just for rebels, but yeah they do that, on account of them not having boats, and it's probably simpler to abstract the boats rather than getting the rebels to spawn cogs, embark, and go somewhere, and then you have to deal with rebel naval units and it's gettiing confusing, and the AI has no concept of transports in the first place.
Post by: Micro102 on December 19, 2014, 06:10:42 am
I would be very surprised if the teleporting soldiers thing was true. It's an easy explanation to jump to, when messing up and getting sieges wrecked is so common for tons of reasons. If you think they're teleporting, savescum and it'll be clear they aren't. If rebels can teleport, I'd say that's a stupid change, but I wouldn't really call it the AI cheating when rebels aren't an AI or opponent, but a mechanic that affects everyone.
And yeah, native nations usually have more money than they know what to do with, so that's not AI cheating either.
I too just assumed that I was mistaken the first few times this has happened. But it's only happened recently and this time I was staring directly at the spot the units appeared. I was planning on save scumming and checking out Ethiopia's units but I was on ironman mode.
Post by: FritzPL on December 19, 2014, 02:07:06 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The Ottomans never recovered from that last war, from now on it's just carpet bombing them. HRE won't be a problem either - with Savoy as the Emperor that has only Naples as ally, I outnumber their forces 4:1, 2:1 if all of HRE fights against me. Gonna try and become the emperor, then either dismantle the empire or renovate it for lulz. (this is ironman)
Post by: Micro102 on December 19, 2014, 03:45:27 pm
Post by: LordSlowpoke on December 19, 2014, 03:46:53 pm
I wonder if it's possible to make a shinto HRE...
since recently you can only be in the hre if you're christian or protestant
paradox is completely shit at their rebalancing
Post by: Micro102 on December 19, 2014, 03:52:00 pm
I wonder if it's possible to make a shinto HRE...
since recently you can only be in the hre if you're christian or protestant
paradox is completely shit at their rebalancing
You sure? What if you vassalized and forced religion change on all the HRE electors as Japan?
Post by: Sindain on December 19, 2014, 05:11:14 pm
I wonder if it's possible to make a shinto HRE...
since recently you can only be in the hre if you're christian or protestant
paradox is completely shit at their rebalancing
Unless you mean catholic, that's been around for awhile. There's a reason why Orthodox Ottomans were a thing for so long.
You sure? What if you vassalized and forced religion change on all the HRE electors as Japan?
Vassalizing them doesn't guarantee they vote for you, it just gives a large + in the vote. In this case you would still be stopped by the -1000 for being an invalid religion.
I vaguely remember there being a glitch that allowed you to become non-Christian emperor, I think it required you to murder all nations of a valid religion or something. Hell if I know if its still around.
Post by: Uristides on December 20, 2014, 03:32:10 pm
Holy Moly, isn't England completely useless. Didn't see a single of their units the whole time and all they managed to occupy were some of Genoa's(France's ally) land in Crimea. Austria's army had mostly vanished by the time I joined and even me, Burgundy, Milan and a couple more guys weren't enough to turn the tides. Absolutely nope.
Also, does the AI request military access as necessary to their wars? More than once now I had to ask for access to a few countries and singlehandedly occupy some of our enemies' ally in some obscure corner of Europe simply because the AI wouldn't do anything against them and occupying the countries the AI had access to didn't grant enough warscore for their objectives.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on December 20, 2014, 03:46:24 pm
what did you expect
I wonder if it's possible to make a shinto HRE...
since recently you can only be in the hre if you're christian or protestant
paradox is completely shit at their rebalancing
You sure? What if you vassalized and forced religion change on all the HRE electors as Japan?
hre disbands if it can't find a catholic ruler now
Post by: Sindain on December 20, 2014, 07:06:57 pm
Also, does the AI request military access as necessary to their wars? More than once now I had to ask for access to a few countries and singlehandedly occupy some of our enemies' ally in some obscure corner of Europe simply because the AI wouldn't do anything against them and occupying the countries the AI had access to didn't grant enough warscore for their objectives.
They actually tend to request access much more than they need too. Access doesn't cost a relation slot for computers (unless its been changed) and they just get access with pretty much everyone on the same continent as their enemy. What you likely saw was that the AI needed to walk through the territory of someone who hates them, so they couldn't get access.
Post by: Karlito on December 24, 2014, 09:47:57 pm
Post by: Tarran on December 25, 2014, 02:42:02 am
Seriously, in somewhere like the HRE, you really need to suck up to others to eat the minors, then suck up to outside forces to eat up the majors, all before you can stand by yourself. IIRC the HRE in particular is extremely intolerant of AE (I think there's some extra multiplier), so there more than ever you need to suck up to people. Not only that, you need to take things veeery slowly.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 25, 2014, 03:20:21 am
Remember, settling for grayskin is the greatest sin an EU4 player can commit second only to playing
Post by: FritzPL on December 25, 2014, 03:22:05 am
Post by: Uristides on December 25, 2014, 07:54:11 am
The best advice I can give with this game is to simply never play in/near the HRE. It's a complete broken mess and not anything but tedious.I can see where you're coming from, but that more or less excludes a big, interesting bunch of Europe from the table, and all the cool centers of the reformation :-\
Post by: Sindain on December 25, 2014, 08:53:41 am
So, I had Barrois in my pocket for a while and can annex them now. The thing I didn't know is that annexing a HRE member carries a -25 relations hit with the whole HRE. Is that generally troublesome? Does it fade away with time? 25 seems like quite a bit and Austria hates my guts. There is also the hit on diplomatic reputation, I'm not even sure what it does, but apparently savoyard traditions give me some of that.
It's generally not too big of a deal. It typically won't be enough to affect your relationship with your allies, and people who hate you will just continue hating you. It's only really a problem when your trying some difficult diplomatic action, like allying with someone much more powerful than yourself or diplovassalizing somebody. Or if you do it a bunch so the -25 stacks up. Like most relation affects it does degrade and eventually go away with time.
Dip rep affects your success chance with most diplomatic actions and how fast you can annex vassals.
Post by: Sartain on December 25, 2014, 10:13:08 am
So, I had Barrois in my pocket for a while and can annex them now. The thing I didn't know is that annexing a HRE member carries a -25 relations hit with the whole HRE. Is that generally troublesome? Does it fade away with time? 25 seems like quite a bit and Austria hates my guts. There is also the hit on diplomatic reputation, I'm not even sure what it does, but apparently savoyard traditions give me some of that.
It's mostly an issue if you want to get voted emperor, I find.
Post by: Uristides on December 26, 2014, 06:01:16 pm
Long story short I was dumb enough to fall in an alliance with Aragon. They got all cocky and threw themselves in a war against Castille. I want to honour the alliance but France hates my guts and I only have one transport to move troops around.
tbh I was thinking in bailing out of the war and letting Aragon get pwned. This way I can throw a claim on Sardinia and get it easily for myself. Problem being I really wanted Aragon around to make France fight on two fronts in their inevitable war with me.
Post by: Sindain on December 26, 2014, 06:10:36 pm
Okay, more noob questions. Is one-regiment-per-ship transports the only way to move armies around in water? If so, is there a way to automate it somewhat? Can I get vassal/PU troops in them too?
Long story short I was dumb enough to fall in an alliance with Aragon. They got all cocky and threw themselves in a war against Castille. I want to honour the alliance but France hates my guts and I only have one transport to move troops around.
tbh I was thinking in bailing out of the war and letting Aragon get pwned. This way I can throw a claim on Sardinia and get it easily for myself. Problem being I really wanted Aragon around to make France fight on two fronts in their inevitable war with me.
If you haven't noticed, you can order your armies to simply "walk" over the water and your nearest transport ships will automatically do it. It can still only be done one at a time with this method, but at least you don't have to do it manually.
Other than that, no.
Post by: Micro102 on December 26, 2014, 06:19:22 pm
Okay, more noob questions. Is one-regiment-per-ship transports the only way to move armies around in water? If so, is there a way to automate it somewhat? Can I get vassal/PU troops in them too?
Long story short I was dumb enough to fall in an alliance with Aragon. They got all cocky and threw themselves in a war against Castille. I want to honour the alliance but France hates my guts and I only have one transport to move troops around.
tbh I was thinking in bailing out of the war and letting Aragon get pwned. This way I can throw a claim on Sardinia and get it easily for myself. Problem being I really wanted Aragon around to make France fight on two fronts in their inevitable war with me.
If you haven't noticed, you can order your armies to simply "walk" over the water and your nearest transport ships will automatically do it. It can still only be done one at a time with this method, but at least you don't have to do it manually.
Other than that, no.
That is a horrible method. First off you cannot due multiple units as a time. Trying to make land units move onto a ship before the first units get off it just messes things up, and if you can ferry them across one sea tile than it's usually faster to manually dock at one port and then another. And by faster I mean days compared to weeks. Ferrying is only preferable in a few choice situations.
Post by: Sheb on December 27, 2014, 10:05:43 am
But then, that's just my OCD.
Post by: Uristides on December 27, 2014, 10:52:33 am
I just hate naval gameplay so I'll build a couple of cogs and let them do the hard work for me.
Post by: Persus13 on December 27, 2014, 03:57:20 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I also got an event saying I had discovered Japan. Do you happen to know what happened, and if I continue to play this save, will I get the Steam achievement?
Post by: werty892 on December 27, 2014, 04:37:00 pm
So I'm running an Ironman game with France in order to get the get all cores of France achievement, and at one point I clicked on the 1789 start to check out the late game starts and see the countries and stuff, before switching over to the saved games and clicking my Ironman game. This happened:Thats a common exploit, don't worry you're fine in terms of achievements.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I also got an event saying I had discovered Japan. Do you happen to know what happened, and if I continue to play this save, will I get the Steam achievement?
Post by: Persus13 on December 27, 2014, 06:58:42 pm
Thats a common exploit, don't worry you're fine in terms of achievements.Will I be fine in terms of other stuff?
Post by: Uristides on December 27, 2014, 10:00:43 pm
- Stupid burgundians thought rebelling would be fun. The ensuing war took intervention from France, Austria and half the HRE plus tons of loans from me.
- Ruler decided to die and his lil boy is just a bit softbrained(2/3/0 IIRC). That coupled with the legitimacy drop put me on the path to civil war and all I could do was sit there and watch the timer tick.
- Civil war ticked just a bit after a peasant's war broke out in Burgundy. Meaning my military workhorse was too busy to help me. At some point I was running through one loan per month to keep my mercenary army up.
- Protestantism got kickstarted and I already have one province converted. I'm really feeling like giving the pope the finger for this campaign.
- Aragon got cocky with Castille again. The war has helped me regain some prestige(the civil war pushed me from 70ish to -18), but Portugal pulled out and I'm not sure I want to stay there either. And oh the joys of looting, why did it take me so long to find out.
Now if I may pester you with questions again:
- What's the deal with succession? My heir's claim was strong and yet boom, legitimacy went from ~90 to ~25 on sucession.
- Is there no way to raise a ruler's attributes? Having mil < 1 was the only thing increasing the civil war timer and yet all I could do was sit and watch it tick.
Post by: Uristides on December 27, 2014, 10:54:06 pm
No way to boost ruler skills. Heir skill can be boosted via a rare event that lets you choose their education. If it's bothering you that much, you can enter the console and type in... 'kill', I think it is, and they suddenly keel over dead.Oh well, sucks for me then, now I feel why some people want an abdication mechanic. But nah, gonna just deal with it, at least for as long as I can. Or maybe I'll make a general out of him and see if he perhaps learns something from working in the field ;D
Thanks for the answer.
Post by: werty892 on December 27, 2014, 11:41:03 pm
Yep.Thats a common exploit, don't worry you're fine in terms of achievements.Will I be fine in terms of other stuff?
Post by: Micro102 on December 28, 2014, 09:15:16 am
I keep smashing austria's papacy chance down into the teens while mine is hitting almost 30%, yet they have won it 4 times in a row now!
Post by: Micro102 on December 28, 2014, 10:30:37 am
This is BS!Terrible luck.
I keep smashing austria's papacy chance down into the teens while mine is hitting almost 30%, yet they have won it 4 times in a row now!
When I played portugal, I had a 0% chance and still got a guy in. Somehow.
Make that 5 times.... Isn't this statistically insane? an average of 15% 5 times in a row?
Post by: Rakonas on December 28, 2014, 10:40:23 am
Post by: Sergarr on December 28, 2014, 10:47:47 am
paradox loves their ai and hidden bonuses so much they made it a mandatory enforced option in EUIV ironman
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 28, 2014, 11:16:59 am
(http://i.imgur.com/hf28xuGl.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/hf28xuG.jpg)
Trying to decide if i want to go colonial or not. It seems stupid not to while in the overpowered Sevilla node but the colonial game is just so boring. I might just own the Caribbean and make some token efforts in Africa before consolidating the whole mediterranean.
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2014, 12:52:51 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 28, 2014, 03:15:23 pm
Nuu! The Crescent Horde is taking over Iberia! How dare they!?
Although I have wanted to try a Granada game. I just know that I'd lose, much like I have with Byzantium.
EDIT: Speaking of Byzantium, any advice? I tried the whole 'isolate the Greek area', but it failed miserably when they sent a large navy in to crush the one I was using to hold their soldiers back.
Yeah I've found galley spam to work, but the point isn't to isolate an area, it's to kill all of their galleys and then isolate their army. I've won a war with them isolated on my capital because I had island provinces and could keep those safe while sieging everything they have. The important part is killing their navy. You can go WAY over your force limit with your money, and you don't need to match their navy. Pick off what you can when you can. If possible, start a war while they are at war with another navy heavy country and when your stack of galleys are on a large (but smaller than yours) stack of their galleys.
I also don't like the idea of playing as Granada. You basically have to abandon your starting provinces. At that point, why not just play as another country?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 28, 2014, 03:48:59 pm
I also don't like the idea of playing as Granada. You basically have to abandon your starting provinces. At that point, why not just play as another country?
I didn't have to.
Post by: Baffler on December 28, 2014, 06:05:12 pm
Post by: Vactor on December 28, 2014, 06:43:01 pm
Post by: Micro102 on December 29, 2014, 04:59:21 pm
How am I suppose to take this other than paradox hiding their "-100 you are doing too good so die now" modifiers as other things?
Scratch that, France just claimed my throne. FML..... Any tips on fighting all of Europe?
Post by: FritzPL on December 29, 2014, 06:03:31 pm
Post by: Baffler on December 29, 2014, 07:11:05 pm
Post by: Vactor on December 30, 2014, 10:53:11 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Here are a couple images of the map for anyone else who likes to look at maps from other people's games:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
and the world map:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The game ended with a final showdown between me and my stalwart ally France. While I had numerical superiority, the French army had 12% more discipline than me and 2 extra morale. I was also running dangerously low on manpower when I declared war. Luckily I had been able to steal the throne of a strong Milan in a succession war in the mid 1700's when Poland stood to inherit it. While France exhausted their manpower against Milanese and Hungarian troops in the alps, I was able to siege out several provinces, and with the arrival of my pacific fleet and their additional 50k troops, I was able to march on paris, assaulting fortresses as I went. France's army of 50k that had been dispactched north from the alps fled before my beleagured, but freshly reinforced army of about 150k
A couple interesting things with this map, The Ottomans had never lost a war, and held a vast empire that stretched from northern Ethiopia to southern Siberia, from Baluchistan to the eastern parts of Austria. In the 1790's I led my allies and vassals into war with them, including France, Netherlands, Milan, Hungary, and Lithuania. They had an army of over 300k with over 500k manpower, and a strong ally Crimea who added about 80k of their own troops. It was probably the most difficult war, and we only really seiged half of their territory, but after the peace deal their empire was struck by the revolution disaster, and they crumbled like a house of cards. You can see in the maps a bit of the extent of their territory, at one point everything south of me between Europe and India was all Ottoman and Crimean.
There was also a very successful AI Oriat Horde, which vassalised most of north Asia, and took over most of Timurids and took a good portion of northern India. Their expansion was only stopped when they ran into the Ottomans, and when I needed to take some of their naval supplies.
Post by: Micro102 on January 02, 2015, 06:10:54 pm
Post by: Elfeater on January 02, 2015, 06:14:14 pm
How do you avoid aggressive expansion as Naples? I've control of 60-70% of the Italy region and everyone around me has hundreds of aggressive expansion. Even Austria. Muscovy, Denmark, and England are all in a coalition against me. And this is after taking roughly half of the Italian region. Why doesn't France, who has taken about twice that much from Europe have this problem?Lucky nations.
Post by: Tarran on January 02, 2015, 07:30:17 pm
Post by: Micro102 on January 02, 2015, 07:39:58 pm
Wait, how did you manage so much AE from just Italy? How fast did you conquer stuff? Have you conquered much stuff without claims or an appropriate CB?
I may have taken a few provinces without claims, but I tend to only take claims because it costs less monarch points and seems really good in the long run. The only reason I can think of is that it was made up of so many OPMs that each province was causing ~70 AE each.
Post by: Persus13 on January 02, 2015, 08:24:31 pm
Post by: Micro102 on January 06, 2015, 12:24:28 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 07, 2015, 06:38:50 pm
Highest income by far, fully westernised by around ~1520 (didn't want to vassal feed as an extra "challenge"), world trade leader in almost all trade goods and production leader in most. Biggest religion in the world with something like 1.5k provinces.
It was a stupidly easy and frankly rather boring game. It's the first time I've ever finished a game and by ~1700 I just had the game on full speed occasionally unpausing to do trivial things. Eu4 certainly fails to be interesting in the late game.
My CN managed to suffer a huge rebellion and lost territory while I wasn't paying attention for a few seconds (damn colonial nations suck at surviving), enraging me to no end. Perm is a vassal which I subjugated very early in the game (by no CB declaring and marching across Siberia) just because I didn't want to bother sieging down a thousand Russian provinces in the late game. Didn't want to take Africa but I was too disgusted by the income Sevilla was making.
Post by: Descan on January 08, 2015, 09:25:03 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 08, 2015, 02:13:31 pm
王國, Yù Wángguó.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 08, 2015, 06:02:19 pm
Did you also take Rome?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 08, 2015, 06:08:36 pm
Post by: Azkanan on January 09, 2015, 06:18:04 pm
It's not that great, but my Game Speed has dropped to two days a second, on full speed, and my king is four year olds. Fuck this shit. o7
(http://puu.sh/eahjD/2629a8418f.jpg)
(http://puu.sh/eiwTd/6a8e0cd1d4.jpg)
There was a northern state, but I needed that monies.
Oh, and don't forget to notice the Adriatic State I was planning to take over Italy with, in place of Serbia.
Post by: FritzPL on January 09, 2015, 06:40:13 pm
Post by: Descan on January 09, 2015, 06:50:47 pm
Post by: Culise on January 09, 2015, 10:49:13 pm
Post by: Micro102 on January 09, 2015, 11:00:37 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 10, 2015, 12:38:39 am
snipMuscovy not your vassal? You should have made a beeline and strangled Muscovy in the crib before it got out of hand. Also not only have you failed to removed Kebab but actually allowed it to expand into the Balkans. I'm disappointed. :P
Good little game but if you really want to devastate with Poland you have to get a lot more aggressive. You're in a great spot to strangle the rising powers in the east early and then you can rotate your efforts towards expanding eastwards into Asia or westwards to consolidate Europe.
Weird thing just happened. Game was paused. I Annexed a country, then I get a pop-up message while the game is still paused saying a revolt has occurred. Is this normal? What causes it?The game seems to "tick" whenever a war is declared or ended. This happened a lot more back in the day when uprisings were random but it still happens occasionally.
Post by: Azkanan on January 10, 2015, 12:09:25 pm
Oirat were previously engaged in an expensive war with Mongolia, and the rich nation of the Commonwealth sent them a couple of thousand to get them out of debt. They soon won that war, and with no debts and recovered war exhaustion, we put a collar on Muscovy.
Crimea was my earliest enemy, large, technological and powerful. When I finally expanded to this size, they had a strong alliance with the Ottomans. However, the Ottomans then attacked my vassal of Kandahar - this led to a war where Hungary, Siberia and Wallachia led the western assault. I held back, placed a few 5,000 men on the isolated three territories of the Crimean peninsula, and waited for the main army of the Ottoman Empire - larger still than the latest picture - to rear its head. 80,000 ottomans and a few 10,000 pieces appeared in Constantinople and headed for my vassals' armies capturing the Balkans. They engaged, all my vassals disengaged and set the balance to about 2:1 (in the Ottoman favour), then my glorious army chipped in when the War Exhaustion was low enough.
From there, it was wonderful. I think the French and British were involved in this too - didn't see too much activity on that front. The french held a northern coast territory that I stapled down early on, the British waged war in the Americas with the French, and all in all, the Brits handled 'em pretty well on their own. I rewarded the Brits with a giant slice of Florida/Louisiana, took that french territory, the Crimean Peninsula and some of the Ottoman Balkans for good measure (and a Mission Accomplished pat on the back).
Might record my next playthrough with screenshots and a thread.
Edit; Gonna load up and grab that world map photo. AFAIK, the Far East is in tiny pieces, everywhere. Oirat will gobble that shit up easily.
Spoiler: World Map (click to show/hide)
Edit; In hindsight, I'm terrible with American States. Red blob west of the Spanish Peninsula in America.
Post by: Dakorma on January 10, 2015, 02:38:00 pm
Post by: Azkanan on January 10, 2015, 03:21:44 pm
Also, followed through with the Let's Play (click here) (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=147419.msg5942658). Playing as Ming. After the initial couple of posts, I've taken up a historical writer perspective of events.
Post by: FritzPL on January 10, 2015, 03:25:15 pm
Happened to me once.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 10, 2015, 03:53:03 pm
Once Russia comes knocking or they start to completely get outpaced by the Asian tech they collapse pretty easily. Often it only takes a brutal succession crisis and they'll collapse on their own. I haven't seen many AI hordes that have managed to reform outside of Crimea and the other hordes that border Europe in 1444.
Poland is stuck between most of the rising powers and have much bigger things to worry about then some toothless old wolf in the steppes.
Post by: Micro102 on January 18, 2015, 01:58:15 am
Post by: LordSlowpoke on January 18, 2015, 02:27:21 am
if you're this salty you may wanna just go and wreck the dice in the config files m8
Post by: Micro102 on January 18, 2015, 02:45:05 am
you might have been equal but the rng might've fucked you over
if you're this salty you may wanna just go and wreck the dice in the config files m8
It wasn't equal, I had a clear advantage, and I'd be willing to blame it on the RNG if I don't constantly see situations where higher dice rolls for me does not result in higher damage for me. If I roll an 8 and they roll a 4 with a -2, we shouldn't both be doing 300-400 damage. And it should not be the case where if the situation is reversed, they end up doing hundreds more damage to me. I have found no room for confirmation bias or random chance.
I'm stuck. No idea why they are doing more damage and no idea where to look.... Do bonuses from ideas translate into numbers on the battle screen, or are they hidden? Are Indian units just automatically better than African units and the modifiers are hidden? Do your armies get a negative modifier if they are taking attrition while being attacked?
Post by: Descan on January 18, 2015, 03:00:50 am
Post by: LordSlowpoke on January 18, 2015, 03:06:13 am
combat ability bonuses may be a thing here
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 18, 2015, 04:15:30 am
Inf: 2OF,2DF,2OS,2DS,2OM,3DM
Cav: 0OF,1DF,4OS,3DS,3OM,2DM
Art: 2OF,2DF,1OS,1DS,2OM,2DM
Indian tech 16:
Inf: 2OF,1DF,2OS,1DS,3OM,2DM
Cav: 2OF,0DF,2OS,3DS,3OM,2DM
Art: 2OF,2DF,0OS,1DS,2OM,1DM
You'll also get +1 Cav shock from mil tech 17, as well as some tactics and maneuver.
So the base African pip advantage is
Inf: 0,+1,0,+1,-1,+1
Cav: -2,+1,+3,+1,0,0
Art: 0,0,+1,0,0,+1
Most important things to note are that your cavalry are quite a bit better (offensive shock), your infantry are only slightly better, and the artillery advantage is probably negligible unless you're both filling the combat width with them.
On the whole your units are obviously better, but it wouldn't take much of a difference in idea bonuses to swing it in an Indian army's favor, especially since Ethiopia doesn't get any national idea bonuses whatsoever (Indian national idea groups tend to get them up the booty). If you aren't using the East African Musketeers, your outlook is probably worse (though the Central African Musketeers are also ok). This is all without taking into account full army composition, leader differences (the +2 fire advantage is still pretty useless at this point, especially with cavalry that have no offensive fire pips), and the arcane stuff with how maneuver affects battles in real time.
Post by: Micro102 on January 18, 2015, 06:50:22 am
Now. Let's assume they had more cavalry than me. How would this effect composition and how battles are fought? Is it best to not only flank with calvary, but have it consist of a good chunk of the front line?
Post by: Sheb on January 18, 2015, 06:54:01 am
Post by: chaoticag on January 18, 2015, 07:51:16 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 19, 2015, 12:45:51 am
The basic composition strategy for manpower/gold efficiency is to have more than a combat width worth of infantry, some cavalry to flank, and a full width of artillery. That's not to say a large cavalry army won't absolutely trash enemies early on, though, even with the support problems.
Also, typically cavalry suffer fewer casualties because they're never on defense if you're winning the battle (and even more so if you have more infantry). After they kill the troops on the edge (with their high offensive shock) they just flank increasingly inward (which has something to do with the maneuver stat). In close fights where you're outnumbered, cavalry will suffer a lot more casualties, and they're usually more defensively fragile than infantry.
Post by: Micro102 on January 19, 2015, 05:16:10 am
I've hear people say that you only need a few cavalry on the sides to flank, but why not max out the cavalry since they are stronger then infantry? Also, can't you have say.....2:3 cavalry to infantry and still get the flanking bonus?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 19, 2015, 05:48:39 am
In the early game they're by far the best unit since they get massive shock multipliers and infantry pips/modifiers are awful. They're limited by cost however since the early game tends to lack disposable money.
Forward to the mid game and cav start to be outpaced by infantry/artillery due to the big increases in both fire pips and fire modifiers.
The important thing to remember about fire/shock is that the fire phase is always first. This means that cavalry units do pretty pitiful in the first phase and tend to be ripped to shreds before they can do the massive damage in the shock phase.
The other important thing to remember (especially for western tech) is that armies can only support a certain ratio of horses to infantry. When this ratio is not met the army takes a massive hit in tactics. Since infantry tend to sit on the middle of the rank while calvary sit on the sides it can be very easy to get the tactics malus in a cavalry heavy army without constant reinforcements.
There are times when you want to stray away from the golden rule, usually with ROTW nations or nations that have cavalry bonuses (Poland). Even then you'd still want a decent sprinkling of infantry in there and you always want to have a full back row of cannons once the technology is decent enough for them.
Post by: Sheb on January 19, 2015, 05:49:11 am
Also, you get a malus if you have too much cavalry: 2:3 is ok, but if some of your infantry takes a beating, you might find yourself with too much cavalry.
I usually have as much infantry as artillery, and then 4 or 6 cavalry units.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 19, 2015, 06:35:49 am
Post by: Sindain on January 19, 2015, 10:22:29 am
Not entirely sure if its actually useful, but an interesting thought nonetheless.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on January 20, 2015, 04:45:50 am
bonus points for doing it as smolensk
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 20, 2015, 05:08:50 am
Post by: h3lblad3 on January 20, 2015, 05:47:02 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 20, 2015, 09:57:02 am
Spoiler: Send help! (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sheb on January 20, 2015, 09:58:27 am
Post by: Culise on January 20, 2015, 10:01:07 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 20, 2015, 10:05:19 am
Poland also lost the union. Austria turned reformed (likely due to religious rebels?) and lost the emperorship. Novgorod ate Muscovy. Catholics won the 30 years war putting a two province minor Hesse on the throne.
The only lucky countries that managed to survive is France (blobbing as usual) and Ottomans who are pushing just past the Balkans.
EDIT: New expansion for EU4 announced. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?831095-%93El-Dorado%94-Expansion-for-Europa-Universalis-IV-Lets-You-Go-For-Gold)
It looks pretty meh.
Post by: Uristides on January 20, 2015, 11:08:43 am
EDIT: New expansion for EU4 announced. (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?831095-%93El-Dorado%94-Expansion-for-Europa-Universalis-IV-Lets-You-Go-For-Gold)Was just gonna comment on it. And yes, completely meh. The Tordesillas mechanic is the only thing I see real potential in.
It looks pretty meh.
The rest sounds quite comical. Blood sacrifices, Eldorado and even the faint possibility of carving up your own shintoist wonderland in the mediterranean islands, really? :P
Post by: Culise on January 20, 2015, 11:15:10 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 20, 2015, 12:16:37 pm
The features they're adding seem extremely gimmicky/gamey and I doubt they're going to change the inherent mechanical problems with current colonising. I have completely no interest in the nation designer which (if judging by the CK2 ruler designer) will likely be awful.
More mechanics ROTW nations is great (although I doubt it's even near what modders have done with events alone) but I personally hate playing the new world nations since after the initial (easy) blobbing it basically becomes a tedious colony race with yourself before Europeans come and you try to rush westernation before they crush you.
I would have much prefered to see an Asian DLC (far east or horde) since that area is frankly in a disgusting state.
I'm also a bit worried that the DLC will make Europeans even stronger. WoN was really bad with the trade companies and I would hate to see even more free ducats go to the
I also agree that the only thing worthy of note is the Tordesillas Line. I'll have to wait until the dev diaries on the matter before I get excited. Hopefully the important and actually good stuff will be free in the patch and I can skip this DLC altogether.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 22, 2015, 07:30:08 am
Completely underwhelming. The Treaty of Tordesillas which could have fixed up some wonkiness with colonising is completely underwhelming and will likely make it even easier for the Iberians to dominate.
Looks like I'm skipping this one.
Post by: Uristides on January 22, 2015, 09:02:05 am
I mean, it getting ignored by other colonial entrepreneurs, and even by the iberians from time to time, was what happened IRL. I just hoped EUIV could make it relevant. I imagine it would really put some more fuel to the fires of the reformation.
Nahuatl mechanic sounds completely silly too. At this point I'm only buying this on a sale and if one of the new native religions is for south american tribes(preferably brazilian) and not as silly as nahuatl.
Post by: Culise on January 22, 2015, 10:07:21 am
That said, this (almost certainly patch) note looks very nice:
Quote from: Wiz
The concept of 'Primitives' (CB and such) has been decoupled from religion and is now a factor of tech group.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 02, 2015, 02:13:27 am
Then staunchly Catholic, reformation-embracing Austria and Hungary join the Protestant League. Now, this makes sense from a realpolitikking point of view - I am the (Catholic, though I intended to convert) Emperor, and their hated enemy - but it seems pretty bizarre for them to join the heretic scum they want to eradicate.
Post by: Wysthric on February 02, 2015, 03:13:14 am
Post by: PanH on February 02, 2015, 04:39:57 am
Yep, weird. I had a Catholic France join the Protestant League, which resulted in it breaking our alliance and coming to beat my ass when I accidentally got elected.So, like Catholic France did historically helped the Protestant League ? Rivalry was more important than religion.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 02, 2015, 05:47:28 am
Post by: Satarus on February 03, 2015, 12:58:12 pm
Post by: Micro102 on February 07, 2015, 04:10:56 pm
Post by: Micro102 on February 07, 2015, 04:39:32 pm
Post by: PanH on February 07, 2015, 06:20:52 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 07, 2015, 07:06:29 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/FsuyPjC.jpg)
Post by: Sindain on February 07, 2015, 07:19:05 pm
Post by: Micro102 on February 08, 2015, 03:13:11 pm
Paradox plis.
Paradox is too busy giving the AI zero build time, speed boats, and ICBMs
Post by: Wysthric on February 08, 2015, 06:18:36 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 08, 2015, 07:01:46 pm
Is there an official way of porting games over to Vicky 2?Nope. All you can do is use the fan made utility (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?707362-The-EU4-to-V2-Converter-Project). It's highly flawed as you can expect but converting through Paradox titles has never yielded any good results.
Post by: BFEL on February 09, 2015, 09:28:09 am
Play CK2 with Sunset Invasion and when the Aztecs come, join up with them, conquering as much as possible. Then port this to EU and have "Reverse USA" where the nation the Aztecs colonized in Europe rebels against their rulers in America...
Post by: Wysthric on February 09, 2015, 05:44:58 pm
Post by: Teneb on February 09, 2015, 06:27:05 pm
If you don't have CKII, I suppose it'd be possible to do that with the new nation creator.I'm guessing Vinland is going to be a pretty common creation when the dlc is out. At least we'll be able to have multiple created nations.
Post by: Micro102 on February 19, 2015, 01:13:35 am
EDIT: Welp! Seems paradox decided to make it a pain in the ass to colonize the new world as England and England is closer to the New world than Greenland. Almost prepared to go back to EU3 with how much they are messing with the AI and historical accuracy for the sake of multiplayer balance that will never be achieved.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 19, 2015, 02:38:30 am
For England, I'm trying to decide if it's better to avoid taking land and rushing tech for QftNW, or take lands from Scotland and get the idea later. And suggestions?
EDIT: Welp! Seems paradox decided to make it a pain in the ass to colonize the new world as England and England is closer to the New world than Greenland. Almost prepared to go back to EU3 with how much they are messing with the AI and historical accuracy for the sake of multiplayer balance that will never be achieved.
England (that owns Ireland) needs dip tech 8 plus exploration ideas to start colonising the new world. You can also steal colonises from the Iberian scum if you want to slingshot into colonisation earlier. This is due to a concept called "trade winds" which lower the distance and travel speeds in a single direction of certain ocean provinces (use your trade map to see them).
While I don't think I've ever played England I have played a couple of Irish games and I find if you want to play the colony game from the British Isles it's best to just skip Exploration as a first idea unless you want to cheese it by stealing colonies or declaring on weak minors in Iberia/NA.
Personally I would likely pick up something like diplomatic first so you can play the majors in Europe against each other and to potentially help diplo-vassalise small revolter states. Humanism or military are another possibility if you fear the bad revolts.
You can leave the Scots and Celts to annex later or aggressively assualt them early, either way they're never going to be a major threat outside of the lollard revolt/war of the roses. I would mainly keep an eye on the lowlands and try to steal some provinces from Burgundy before the succession crisis happens.
I would ideally aim for a non-dutch tag and release it as a march and try to feed it as much as possible. This will allow you to have a presence in Europe (without losing your island advantage), have a target to both distract/attack France from and finally you can integrate it later in the game when you want to get the complete share of the English Channel trade node.
Colonisation should be a side-game in EU4 for most Europeans until you start scrambling for Asia later. Even then consider most colonising will be done by the Iberians and will be trivial to take later in the game.
Post by: Teneb on February 24, 2015, 06:03:26 pm
I like the nation designer, but I'm not so sure on the rest of the features... or that it'll be worth buying outside a sale.
Post by: forsaken1111 on February 26, 2015, 05:58:23 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Wiles on February 26, 2015, 06:44:06 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on February 26, 2015, 08:05:00 pm
Post by: ggamer on February 26, 2015, 09:13:16 pm
Honestly, i'd like to fast forward twenty years, when Paradox Games basically makes Dwarf Fortress. Have random starting points in the map, then have the cultures randomly play out for thousands of years.
Post by: Bouchart on February 26, 2015, 10:54:50 pm
Post by: Greenbane on February 27, 2015, 07:49:09 am
Can't say I like the multitude of micro-DLC, a tactic Paradox has really gone overboard with in EU4 and CK2, but it triggers a sort of "gotta catch 'em all" feeling in me. Which is obviously their intent. I got some of the ampler non-expansion DLC, like the ship ones and the greater unit packs (only remotely acceptable at 50 cents a piece). However, I find the concept of paying for a handful of models for a whole two nations disgusting.
Post by: Hetairos on February 27, 2015, 09:46:47 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on February 27, 2015, 10:05:50 am
So how accurately does El Dorado let you recreate the EU2 Fantasia scenario?Well you can only make up to 32 custom countries. Beyond that you can allow the system to fill in the rest of the world either historically or randomly.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 27, 2015, 02:31:38 pm
I set up a bunch of nations on the North American coast and Mexico (Western tech, Western cultures... Pagan religions), with four Shinto Hordes in the interior. I added some nice island states to the Caribbean (original Caribbean cultures, Indian/Ottoman tech, Hindus), a few kingdoms to Central America (also Indian with, uh, American Indian cultures), Chinese Ottoman-tech nations down the Pacific side of South America, joined by a few Sikh Hordes.
There's some vague backstory in my mind about these being colonies left stranded after an Old World catasthrope, plus I tried to give each nation an unique personality/feeling with ideas and equally vague backstory in my mind.
The designer is a bit limited right now, but hopefully patches and mods will tweak it. I admit, what I want to do is probably not what most people will use it for, so I dunno if the problems I've noticed will be fixed (for example, colonizing as an European power in Europe doesn't seem to give the provinces any production goods).
Post by: Persus13 on February 27, 2015, 02:37:37 pm
colonizing as an European power in Europe doesn't seem to give the provinces any production goods).They just fixed that.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 27, 2015, 02:50:41 pm
I hope the 32 limit isn't hardcoded. Though it takes so much time to create these nations I'd spend half of the day setting up and hoping it doesn't crash.
Post by: WealthyRadish on February 27, 2015, 05:02:14 pm
Post by: Hetairos on February 27, 2015, 06:05:11 pm
So how accurately does El Dorado let you recreate the EU2 Fantasia scenario?Well you can only make up to 32 custom countries. Beyond that you can allow the system to fill in the rest of the world either historically or randomly.
Fantasia only had 8 nations scattered over the entire world, each an OPM, and everything else was uncolonised. They would start on more or less equal terms, excluding the tech group and geographic location, and get a fixed high amount of colonists and merchants to aid with the expansion. All armies and fleets were allowed to explore Terra Incognita - something only unlocked by 1700's military tech in normal play, as you couldn't recruit conquistadors and explorers back then. It was quite fun, especially when the massive blobs would start crashing into each other.
So far it seems it's a thing that can be done. In the worst case I'll give everyone two provinces (why can't OPMs colonise? I'm not very familiar with the game yet). I'm still going to finish my current campaign first, to avoid compatibility issues.
Year is 1583, I'm playing my first campaign as the Commonwealth, and things are looking a bit odd.
It all started going south when the Reformation came around. Vienna, the seat of the previous emperor, has been a favourite camping spot for gigantic stacks of heretics for the past 50 years or so. I giggled a bit whenever I saw "Dishonorable Emperor" pop up in the log, and Austria's prestige was stuck at -100 most of the time. The rebels also broke the Kalmar Union and have been messing Scandinavia up for about as much time, with Hussites taking over Norway again and again, Sweden losing Finland, switching from one religion to another because of zealots and fighting pretenders in the meantime, and Denmark being a general mess losing clay to Gotland. France is being bullied by Burgundy, stronk Provence and Great Britain. All in all, it's a beautiful mess.
The HRE is broken so badly I was just elected emperor thanks to a single vote from my old friend Brandenburg. Took me a while to even notice. The IA is unsurprisingly 0, and not a single reform was passed. I can shift provinces into the Empire now; is there any downside to that? Will doing that to the capital make me join the HRE as a member?
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 27, 2015, 06:39:50 pm
Post by: Hetairos on February 27, 2015, 07:01:40 pm
I can always write a custom event to give everyone big bonuses to whatever they need.
Post by: Sartain on February 28, 2015, 04:19:33 am
OPMs can colonize if you find them all fantastic provinces (and have a lot of patience - I'd suggest changing the start date to a late one so you have higher Settler Increase, so you don't have to spend the entire game at speed 5), but most of the time they're going to be too poor to colonize at all.
I managed to become a world power as Navarra, through colonizing South America, so it's certainly possible. It's slow, boring and full of risk until you reach critical mass though
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 28, 2015, 05:12:28 am
1) The arbitrary 50% restriction on idea groups.
This change just boggles my mind. For some unknown reason one can't pick the same idea group unless it's less than 50% of the total. For example England can't go maritime and then exploration instead having to pick up either an adm or mil idea.
Paradox hasn't commented on why this was changed (and the first topic discussing it was locked without reason) which leaves players to speculate it's to stop players stacking mil ideas in MP. Again another ridiculous bandaid fix that EU4 is infamous for, utterly disgraceful.
2) Auto Exploration.
Auto Exploration will only scout for a very limited amount of coastal tiles before returning home resulting in a tedious amount of micromanagement. Paradox has actually acknowledged this and given us back manual exploration and will look at making Auto Exploration search for whole regions instead. Credit where credit is due.
3) Wonky Vassal Liberty Desire.
Right now there are some rather wonky modifiers for the liberty desire of vassals. Having a vassal above 100 base tax will add a massive 50 liberty desire no matter how large your empire is. This should be removed for scaling via differing base tax.
When those three problems are fixed I think it's safe to say EU4 is likely in the best state it's ever been. Even the custom nation designer which I was dreading (who wasn't after CoP's shitty random new world) has managed to add a new dimension to the gameplay.
Post by: WealthyRadish on February 28, 2015, 01:29:45 pm
So I've given El Dorado a fairly decent play through now and I'm fairly happy with it. However there are still three glaring issues that, in my mind, have to be fixed as soon as possible.
1) The arbitrary 50% restriction on idea groups.
This might be IDEAS_PERCENTAGE_LIMIT and IDEAS_LIMIT_PENALTY under the NNationDesigner defines. Could just be for the nation designer, but I'd try it, that sounds awful.
3) Wonky Vassal Liberty Desire.
GREAT_POWER_VASSAL_LIMIT and LIBERTY_DESIRE_GREAT_POWER_VASSAL under NCountry in the defines. Also one for 'large' vassals near it too. I agree that scaling would be better, though.
Post by: Persus13 on February 28, 2015, 01:32:51 pm
Make a new colony and liberty desire of 25%. Increase tariffs and it goes up and up, decrease tariffs and... It doesn't drop.Hasn't this been how its always been? And in a historical sense it makes sense. America didn't want independence less after Britain dropped the Stamp Act.
Post by: andrea on February 28, 2015, 01:35:09 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 28, 2015, 01:36:08 pm
This might be IDEAS_PERCENTAGE_LIMIT and IDEAS_LIMIT_PENALTY under the NNationDesigner defines. Could just be for the nation designer, but I'd try it, that sounds awful.It's not just for the nation designer and it's not in the defines (those modifiers are unrelated). Hilariously the AI doesn't need to follow the arbitrary rule and will happily choose the same idea grouping over the 50% margin.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on February 28, 2015, 02:59:53 pm
Post by: Micro102 on February 28, 2015, 07:30:13 pm
Post by: Chaoswizkid on February 28, 2015, 07:35:37 pm
I wish they would shovel all these advantages for the AI into a ruleset. Heard on one of Arumba's videos that they want to change attrition so that the AI don't suffer attrition unless their individual armies exceed the support limit, but the player will suffer attrition if the total number of armies exceeds the limit. Why base your game on history when you aren't going to base the gameplay on reality?
Because it's difficult for Paradox to program an efficient-enough AI to handle some of these situations to the point where it isn't exploitable by the player.
Post by: Sergarr on February 28, 2015, 07:47:45 pm
I wish they would shovel all these advantages for the AI into a ruleset. Heard on one of Arumba's videos that they want to change attrition so that the AI don't suffer attrition unless their individual armies exceed the support limit, but the player will suffer attrition if the total number of armies exceeds the limit. Why base your game on history when you aren't going to base the gameplay on reality?
Because it's difficult for Paradox to program an efficient-enough AI to handle some of these situations to the point where it isn't exploitable by the player.
Their AI is pretty bad because it only considers the current situation (most factors abstracted to a few numbers, even) and tries to make decisions solely on it, while a good AI would need an ability for making plans and then carrying them out. There are some rudimentary mechanics to emulate the "making plan" part in the game (rivals and such), but Paradox AI doesn't do the "carry out" right at all, because it doesn't know the results of its own actions and thus cannot predict itself, which periodically leads to bouts of circular decisions.
Fixing that would require to basically rewrite it from scratch, and because I'm fairly sure that Paradox's AI hasn't been significantly changed since Europe 1, it seems that they're really conservative in regards to that.
Post by: Empty on March 01, 2015, 11:07:46 am
It's nigh impossible to westernize as an Aztec nation now.
Not only do you have to vasselize 5 other nations 5 times. Releasing the nations each time for your religious reform.
But the reform pushes your doom up by 25 and reduces your stability by 1. That's not the hard part.
But if you ever reach 100 doom you can say goodbye to all your acquired religious reforms and start over again.
And every province you have gives you +1 doom per year.
With the 10 year truce after vasselizing and only fighting, besieging, random events and vasselizing reducing doom it's quite insane.
Am I doing something wrong? Is it wrong to get enough provinces to increase your land-limit so that you can't be roflstomped by an alliance?
Post by: PanH on March 01, 2015, 12:42:18 pm
And with no boats, you're limited to the initial aztec and maya country to battle with. So you have to release and fight vassals until the westerners arrive.
For the initial part, I'd recommend not taking any land but the Center of commerce (there is one which isn't a capital). Eventually, with more reforms, they reduce the yearly doom, so you can have a bit more provinces.
The 10 yr truce after the reform is quite hard, that's why I'd recommend to leave one of your weaker neighbour with no truce to attack after your reform. That should be enough to wait until all the truces are over (though, it's sometimes hard because the released vassals sometimes vassalize each other), and suffer the bad side of doom reducing events (choose -doom, unless the truce ends in 2 years or so).
Post by: Sergarr on March 01, 2015, 12:53:06 pm
But if you ever reach 100 doom you can say goodbye to all your acquired religious reforms and start over again.What the fuck. That sounds like the most retarded mechanic for a Paradox game of all times. Seriously, they actively throw back your progress?
And every province you have gives you +1 doom per year.
Why Paradox hates non-Europeans so much? First, the infamous Shogunate of Japan, then the Chinese "inward perfection", then this?
I wonder how many new bullshit mechanics will be in HoI 4... I dearly hope they'll actually implement proper planning AI for army control because the travesty that was HoI 3's command system has only showcased the stupidity of their artificial "intelligence".
Post by: WealthyRadish on March 01, 2015, 11:51:43 pm
But if you ever reach 100 doom you can say goodbye to all your acquired religious reforms and start over again.What the fuck. That sounds like the most retarded mechanic for a Paradox game of all times. Seriously, they actively throw back your progress?
And every province you have gives you +1 doom per year.
Why Paradox hates non-Europeans so much? First, the infamous Shogunate of Japan, then the Chinese "inward perfection", then this?
I wonder how many new bullshit mechanics will be in HoI 4... I dearly hope they'll actually implement proper planning AI for army control because the travesty that was HoI 3's command system has only showcased the stupidity of their artificial "intelligence".
From what I've heard about it, the Mesoamerican reform system actually sounds kind of refreshing. There aren't many problems in EU4 that can't be solved by blobbing more, and having a system like that (if done well) that actually shakes things up along the way seems way more interesting than most systems. I wouldn't say they hate non-Europeans after releasing something more complex than the HRE framework, anyway. I'd agree about the Shogunate to an extent though, Japan was my favorite to play in EU3 but I haven't really enjoyed it in EU4.
Granted, I haven't played it, so I don't know how well they implemented it. If you have to resort to releasing vassals just to have someone to fight, then they probably messed it up somewhere.
Post by: Micro102 on March 02, 2015, 12:00:11 am
Post by: Majestic7 on March 02, 2015, 03:34:31 am
Ever since Art of War I've been keeping a couple of militant vassals (marches) around based on hinterlands. They are actually quite useful in defeating rebellions and occupying provinces. Plus I guess I just like the illusion of having friends. (*sniff*)
Post by: Bastus on March 02, 2015, 09:05:39 am
Created a Prussian custom nation in modern day South Africa with colonise and battle heavy ideas. At the moment I am colonizing the pacific and rofl stomp Ethiopia. The only thing that really makes me wonder is the way discoveries don't trigger for me. I can understand why I don't start with them even though I am western tech, but I should really get them at some point. I know every single coast in the world but don't know how it looks inside the continents. Which means I will probably wait until 1700 and then just remove the terra incognita per console just so I can see something.
I think there should be a trigger for western countries who are outside Europe, something like creating contact with a European Nation grants you the full view over Europe or something like that.
Post by: Persus13 on March 02, 2015, 03:17:57 pm
Post by: Satarus on March 02, 2015, 03:26:00 pm
Post by: Persus13 on March 02, 2015, 03:35:43 pm
Are you overextended? Overextended or low stability both cause progress for peasant's war.I'm overextended and have no manpower, but my stability is at 0 and I don't meet the conditions for the Peasant's War.
Post by: FritzPL on March 02, 2015, 03:45:53 pm
Post by: Satarus on March 02, 2015, 03:55:13 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 03, 2015, 08:22:16 am
(http://i.imgur.com/Mn2MzsZm.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/Mn2MzsZ.jpg)
Inti is pretty decent religion even before reforming. The ticking automacy is great as is the tolerance of the true faith (here you can see a nice +8). The major downside is the lack of both missionaries and missionary strength since pagans lack any good religious decisions and can't take DotF (would be nice if reforming a religion let you have DotF). Considered taking down Rome or Mecca for the free missionary but I've done that enough times in my various playthroughs.
Playing in the new world is both stupidly easy and tedious. Milking Euros for colonies every few years gets pretty boring fast. I formed Inca for a day to get the Sun God achievement then I crashed the game before it auto-saved because their flag and colour are gross.
Post by: Majestic7 on March 09, 2015, 02:06:37 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 09, 2015, 02:23:32 am
I thought the development of EU4 was going the right way after Wiz took over from Johan, now it just seems like they're back to their same old bullshit of completely removing game mechanics for no reason. Guess they have to make room for the random nations and Tropes vs Women in History.
Post by: Wysthric on March 09, 2015, 03:08:42 am
How do you change a province's culture to something other than your primary?
I wasn't aware this was possible. I thought Cultural Shift could only happen if you put your capital in a province with different culture?
So Paradox decided to basically remove looting from the game. Looting was one of the only ways for smaller countries and hordes to take on larger countries. Didn't even bother giving a justification for it either.
Is this due to the military access thing?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 09, 2015, 03:19:45 am
Is this due to the military access thing?No they changed it so looting now only happens on a successful siege instead of having an army pass through the territory. This means you'll get a measly base tax payout once per province and you can't wear down a nation's tax/production via looting their provinces.
Right now the only thing you can do in warfare is carpet siege, which I personally don't find amazing gameplay.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on March 09, 2015, 04:27:09 am
Tropes vs Women in History.wat
(I haven't played this game in like a year, please explain)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 09, 2015, 04:58:10 am
I'd just prefer a little more attention to be focused on the main gameplay and I'm getting really sick of Paradox's "slash and burn" tactic towards "balance". I love the game but man does Paradox make it hard for me.
Post by: Sergarr on March 09, 2015, 06:14:14 am
So Paradox decided to basically remove looting from the game. Looting was one of the only ways for smaller countries and hordes to take on larger countries. Didn't even bother giving a justification for it either.I've figured it out: they just want everybody to play the same one true way, and put a lot of trap options to identify and laugh at the "noobs".
I thought the development of EU4 was going the right way after Wiz took over from Johan, now it just seems like they're back to their same old bullshit of completely removing game mechanics for no reason. Guess they have to make room for the random nations and Tropes vs Women in History.
Post by: lijacote on March 09, 2015, 12:38:04 pm
So Paradox decided to basically remove looting from the game. Looting was one of the only ways for smaller countries and hordes to take on larger countries. Didn't even bother giving a justification for it either.(http://i.imgur.com/S3OedBG.jpg)
I thought the development of EU4 was going the right way after Wiz took over from Johan, now it just seems like they're back to their same old bullshit of completely removing game mechanics for no reason. Guess they have to make room for the random nations and Tropes vs Women in History.
am i rite
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 09, 2015, 01:06:32 pm
am i riteI was simply making a joke about Paradox's attitude towards patching from El Dorado onwards. I thought the satire is pretty clear but since english isn't too great expressing those points through written language I completely understand the criticism.
I probably should have waited for my anger against the nerfing of hordes/small states subsided so any gendered politics couldn't have been dragged into it. My apologies if anyone felt offended, I was just focused on the gameplay and Paradox's continual overall "nerfing" of gameplay mechanics and seemingly waste of time in near (gameplay) pointless DLCs.
Post by: lijacote on March 09, 2015, 01:10:23 pm
I doubt even the missing of these "pointless" DLCs would turn their heads in some of the more flawed mechanics of the game.am i riteI was simply making a joke about Paradox's attitude towards patching from El Dorado onwards. I thought the satire is pretty clear but since english isn't too great expressing those points through written language I completely understand the criticism.
I probably should have waited for my anger against the nerfing of hordes/small states subsided so any gendered politics couldn't have been dragged into it. My apologies if anyone felt offended, I was just focused on the gameplay and Paradox's continual overall "nerfing" of gameplay mechanics and seemingly waste of time in near (gameplay) pointless DLCs.
Post by: Wysthric on March 09, 2015, 05:27:21 pm
Isn't American culture an offshoot of British/English, making it impossible to get as New Portugal?Even when I've done it as Britain/Thirteen Colonies, the culture's never changed with one exception where I had the event that changes a colony's culture.I'm asking how you do it. I imagine you could edit the save file somehow to do so.How do you change a province's culture to something other than your primary?
I wasn't aware this was possible. I thought Cultural Shift could only happen if you put your capital in a province with different culture?
I was about to go and show you how easy this was, but I don't know how to 'open' the save files, and there only seems to be a way to change a province's culture to your primary culture. So, no luck there. :(
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Console_commands
Post by: Rakonas on March 10, 2015, 12:29:55 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on March 10, 2015, 01:14:56 am
Post by: Wysthric on March 10, 2015, 03:12:39 am
greatorder, if you send me the save, I can change it for you if you'd like. :)
Post by: Eric Blank on May 12, 2015, 06:04:14 pm
I've never tried this before, of course. Looks like there's... 13 days left on this sale? Assuming I'm reading that right.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 13, 2015, 03:14:32 am
It's not as good as those epic Paradox packs Amazon used to sell but it's still a very good entry you don't already have the games. With a Steam sale approaching soon you should be able to pick up the remaining expansions/dlc for barely anything at all.
Post by: Uristides on May 13, 2015, 06:04:01 am
Post by: Teneb on May 13, 2015, 06:14:17 am
So, any of you following the dev diaries for the new DLC? I didn't even know about it until about a week ago. The new protestant mechanics and buddhist revamp look really nice, though I'm a bit wary that karma might be too gimmicky for my tastes.Those are pretty minor. The real big thing about the expansion will be the fort system overhaul, followed by the redesigned buildings. That will change the game quite a bit.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on May 13, 2015, 08:18:02 am
Post by: Uristides on May 13, 2015, 11:29:18 am
So, any of you following the dev diaries for the new DLC? I didn't even know about it until about a week ago. The new protestant mechanics and buddhist revamp look really nice, though I'm a bit wary that karma might be too gimmicky for my tastes.Those are pretty minor. The real big thing about the expansion will be the fort system overhaul, followed by the redesigned buildings. That will change the game quite a bit.
Development and peace deal changes are all pretty big as well. It's looking like an extremely good expansion and I can't wait to get my hands on it.Oh, I haven't had time to plow through all dev diaries yet, I only managed to find the religion and reworked eastern europe map ones. I did read some people commenting it would probably fix the map painting fest that the game currently is and that sounds big indeed, since as much as I'd like to like EUIV it just feels like one of my worst purchases because I'm more of an internal politics kind of person and it has nearly none of that.
Gonna chase down the other ones right now.
Post by: Teneb on May 13, 2015, 12:14:56 pm
Tall and Wide development (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-27th-march-2015.847196/)
Parliament and English Monarchy (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-2nd-of-april-2015.848078/)
Warfare (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-9th-of-april-2015.849816/)
Theocracies and Government Ranks (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-16th-of-april-2015.851327/)
Free Cities of the HRE (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-23rd-april-2015.852567/)
Religions (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-30th-of-april-2015.853722/)
Peace (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-7th-of-may-2015.854763/)
Also some other stuff (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/new-developer-diaries.849893/)
Post by: Uristides on May 13, 2015, 02:28:38 pm
Behold! All dev diaries!Thanks :D
Post by: Zrk2 on May 13, 2015, 02:39:28 pm
Post by: Persus13 on May 13, 2015, 02:55:06 pm
So I just got this in the sweet-ass Paradox Humble Bundle, unfortunately it doesn't have all the DLC. Is the game playable without them? I was planning on waiting for the Steam Summer sale and then buying them all then.The game is very playable without the DLC, EUIV DLC tends to fall into three categories: extra events, graphical stuff or new things you can do in game that tend to be limited to specific situations (although not always). While the DLC content is great once you got it as it makes things a lot more flexible or interesting (depending on who you are playing), you can play the base game initially without feeling like something is missing. Just don't play as the Aztec, Mayan, or Inca unless you have El Dorado, but that's about it.
Quote
Then again, I might also wait until they are done releasing DLC and buy them all at once.You're probably going to have to wait awhile if you do that.
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 13, 2015, 05:16:12 pm
Wealth of Nations has a few useful paid features but isn't necessary. Fabricating trade conflict is somewhat useful in some regions to avoid no CB wars, and moving the trade capital can be nice. Babby westerns also get merchants up the butt from trade companies, but those aren't necessary either.
Res Republica's only real feature I recall is the national focus (+2 MP generation in one category for -1 in the others), which is far from essential but pretty nice. Maybe pick it up when it's dirt cheap.
El Dorito adds some interesting things to play around with (the custom nations) but has no useful features outside of specific regions. You could never buy it and play fine.
Conquest of Paradise is the least useful 'expansion', even less so than El Dorito.
TL;DR
AoW is almost essential to play "seriously", WoN/RR add a couple minor useful features, El Dorito/CoP can be passed over entirely.
Post by: Teneb on May 13, 2015, 07:08:10 pm
El Dorito adds some interesting things to play around with (the custom nations) but has no useful features outside of specific regions. You could never buy it and play fine.To expand on this, these two only matter if you got any interest in the american continent. ED is if you want to play as mesoamericans. CoP is if you want to play as the rest of the natives or colonial nations in later dates.
Conquest of Paradise is the least useful 'expansion', even less so than El Dorito.
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 15, 2015, 05:45:45 am
After annexing both the tribal nations to your right (which then opens you up to getting DoW'd by the bizarrely keen Mamluks) you still only have like 8 revolting high-autonomy base tax and a force limit of 4 (that you can't afford to maintain). You get to use Morocco for half of one war before they get destroyed by Portugal, and nobody else will ally you while you've still got garbage land and no army. The strategy I ended up going with was to force feed a vassal (spat out from Tlemcen land) most of Morocco while they're still getting wrecked by the scummy Iberians, and then I no CB'd an OPM in Indonesia to prevent independence wars while integrating that big vassal (with like 7 times my base tax).
After getting DoW'd by Tunis a few months later I sent my pathetic army running around in circles in Hejaz with a doomstack on their tail, while waiting for the diploannexation to complete. Within 6 months of Tunis starting their war the Mamluks started a third conquest war, resulting in Tunis being stranded in Hejaz. I wish I could say I planned it, since it's actually hilarious.
Once the Moroccan vassal is integrated it'll probably be time to get off Mr. Bones' wild ride, but there's something really satisfying about being on the verge of getting annexed, and having to lose wars repeatedly for once.
Post by: Zrk2 on May 15, 2015, 10:07:32 pm
Post by: Aklyon on May 16, 2015, 12:30:05 pm
Post by: Jeshin on May 21, 2015, 03:05:10 pm
I love this game. I enjoy playing it whenever I have a free evening, get a drink, do a multiplayer with some friends. I was wondering if there is a list of "required" expansions for the best experience possible or if it's just one of those games that you should really buy all of them?
Also I believe that only 1 member of a group needs the expansions, the game creator, right?
Post by: Exerosp on May 21, 2015, 03:09:58 pm
Hey,Yes, Paradox has the policy of only one person needing the expansions, whereas unit DLCs you have to own yourself I believe.
I love this game. I enjoy playing it whenever I have a free evening, get a drink, do a multiplayer with some friends. I was wondering if there is a list of "required" expansions for the best experience possible or if it's just one of those games that you should really buy all of them?
Also I believe that only 1 member of a group needs the expansions, the game creator, right?
But i'm not positive enough to point out the thing about the host needing to have them, probabbly.
Also, I believe if you just turn back a page or two or you'll find them talking about expansions that are must haves.
Post by: Vendayn on June 05, 2015, 01:03:34 am
If I play CK2 in a way where I mostly just conquer stuff...think this game might be a better fit for me? I don't really do much diplomacy in Ck2 like some do, except at least its pretty in-depth. Pretty rare to have in-depth diplomacy in a strategy game. One thing I DO really like in CK2 is I can have long periods of peace, which is really nice. I can focus on other stuff during peace time. Like total war games is obviously just always in war and diplomacy sucks like heck (which is game breaking for me.) Except rome 2 is a bit better as the older total wars, your relations auto goes down every turn lol. And rome 2 your relations goes up instead. But I don't tend to like them as much and I tend to auto-resolve every battle anyway after a while lol. Like literally, the battles get kinda boring to me so I auto resolve and then I start a new game and do a migration and then get bored lol. I play total war games like europa already, just focusing on the game map xD
And, I did really like HIP mod (my favorite mod for it) for CK2. Any big mods like that for Europa 4?
Post by: Vendayn on June 05, 2015, 01:48:40 am
I'm waiting for a sale on this as I'd rather get most/all the DLCs in one go in one nice sale...so next sale I might pick this up (hopefully not this month though :P as I bought Witcher 3 and upgrading my GPU which is much higher on the priority list than new games)
If I play CK2 in a way where I mostly just conquer stuff...think this game might be a better fit for me? I don't really do much diplomacy in Ck2 like some do, except at least its pretty in-depth. Pretty rare to have in-depth diplomacy in a strategy game. One thing I DO really like in CK2 is I can have long periods of peace, which is really nice. I can focus on other stuff during peace time. Like total war games is obviously just always in war and diplomacy sucks like heck (which is game breaking for me.) Except rome 2 is a bit better as the older total wars, your relations auto goes down every turn lol. And rome 2 your relations goes up instead. But I don't tend to like them as much and I tend to auto-resolve every battle anyway after a while lol. Like literally, the battles get kinda boring to me so I auto resolve and then I start a new game and do a migration and then get bored lol. I play total war games like europa already, just focusing on the game map xD
And, I did really like HIP mod (my favorite mod for it) for CK2. Any big mods like that for Europa 4?
EU4 has MEIOU & Taxes (or just M&T for short) which does a similar thing as HIP- massive overhaul, historical accuracy, et cetera.
awesome. :) Thanks. :) I'll check it out
Post by: Vendayn on June 05, 2015, 02:02:00 am
I'm waiting for a sale on this as I'd rather get most/all the DLCs in one go in one nice sale...so next sale I might pick this up (hopefully not this month though :P as I bought Witcher 3 and upgrading my GPU which is much higher on the priority list than new games)
If I play CK2 in a way where I mostly just conquer stuff...think this game might be a better fit for me? I don't really do much diplomacy in Ck2 like some do, except at least its pretty in-depth. Pretty rare to have in-depth diplomacy in a strategy game. One thing I DO really like in CK2 is I can have long periods of peace, which is really nice. I can focus on other stuff during peace time. Like total war games is obviously just always in war and diplomacy sucks like heck (which is game breaking for me.) Except rome 2 is a bit better as the older total wars, your relations auto goes down every turn lol. And rome 2 your relations goes up instead. But I don't tend to like them as much and I tend to auto-resolve every battle anyway after a while lol. Like literally, the battles get kinda boring to me so I auto resolve and then I start a new game and do a migration and then get bored lol. I play total war games like europa already, just focusing on the game map xD
And, I did really like HIP mod (my favorite mod for it) for CK2. Any big mods like that for Europa 4?
EU4 has MEIOU & Taxes (or just M&T for short) which does a similar thing as HIP- massive overhaul, historical accuracy, et cetera.
awesome. :) Thanks. :) I'll check it out
Also, a new DLC releases on the 9th. They usually have a massive sale when new DLC ships, so enjoy that when it happens.
Ah, that is actually bad for me :P I'm upgrading my GPU and that is going to take pretty much the rest of my funds (a little went to witcher 3). I'd have to wait on another sale, but with summer coming up, probably shouldn't be a long wait
Post by: Lightning4 on June 05, 2015, 06:49:56 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 09, 2015, 09:07:28 am
Common Sense has just been released.I saw a few of the changes on Quill18's stream. Is there a good summary anywhere?
Post by: Aklyon on June 09, 2015, 09:35:16 am
Theres the wiki page. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Common_Sense)Common Sense has just been released.I saw a few of the changes on Quill18's stream. Is there a good summary anywhere?
Post by: Teneb on June 09, 2015, 10:26:25 am
Tried Papal states. No way to expand at all because of byzantine webs of alliances and nobody nearby wanting them with me.Maybe try something easier? Like Portugal or Ottomans?
Tried Cusco again. Consistently shit rolls an shitty events. To such an extent that I got fed up and cheated. My 34,000 man army with Pachacuti (4 fire 5 shock) leading it... lost. Against a 6000 man army with no general. He then keeled over dead for no reason halfway through the retreat. My army was at full morale, so was theirs. I was attacking into mountains, but with an army size difference that large it shouldn't have mattered.
The game hates me. It hates me and there's FUCK ALL I can do about it. I can try as hard as I like to throw things into being fucking fair, but the game dicks me over and over and over again.
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 09, 2015, 10:37:34 am
This is looking pretty good.Theres the wiki page. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Common_Sense)Common Sense has just been released.I saw a few of the changes on Quill18's stream. Is there a good summary anywhere?
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 09, 2015, 02:31:02 pm
My 34,000 man army with Pachacuti (4 fire 5 shock) leading it... lost. Against a 6000 man army with no general. He then keeled over dead for no reason halfway through the retreat. My army was at full morale, so was theirs. I was attacking into mountains, but with an army size difference that large it shouldn't have mattered.
It's actually not that outrageous to lose a battle like that. The majority of your regiments probably didn't see combat, but lost ticking morale on the back lines or didn't participate at all. +3 shock (possibly +2 if you got a river crossing) in a fight like that would also have very little effect with that tech group, combat width, and tech level.
If you want to attack into mountains like that (though you really shouldn't pretty much ever), you would've been much better off gradually feeding reinforcements in over time so they don't lose all their morale doing nothing. Morale is king in early game, and should be what you're paying attention to, not necessarily shock. The losses definitely wouldn't be worth it though, should've just not attacked. If you're doing really badly and don't know why, you're better off recognizing your mistakes and learning.
Post by: Vendayn on June 09, 2015, 04:21:53 pm
Post by: Aklyon on June 09, 2015, 05:39:51 pm
Post by: Teneb on June 09, 2015, 05:43:30 pm
Wouldn't M&T be broken because new patch?Unless the mod devs work surprisingly quickly, quite probably yes.
Post by: Tarran on June 09, 2015, 05:56:36 pm
Relevant thread. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/common-sense-and-m-t.860429/) Or at least, I think it might be. They might use a different thread.Wouldn't M&T be broken because new patch?Unless the mod devs work surprisingly quickly, quite probably yes.
Anyway, as someone who plays M&T a lot, and has seen how long it takes to update both normally and for new patches, yes, it's going to be broken for a fair bit.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 11, 2015, 05:42:25 am
(http://i.imgur.com/TEa4Fp8l.jpg) (http://i.imgur.com/TEa4Fp8.jpg)
Thinking about doing Ichma (again) for my next ironman game Maybe Ajuuraan but they seem a bit too easy.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 11, 2015, 04:21:35 pm
I want to do it again, but stay Abadi this time instead of wimping out and converting to Sunni right off the bat like a casual.
The best thing about this patch for me is that it seems much easier for AI underdogs to suddenly swing into powerful positions. Whereas before I was always happy to see a wild Ryazan or something appear, now it's almost common for OPMs and the like to be able to take and actually hold large amounts of land from wars with larger powers.
After playing a bit with Common Sense, I'd also say that I don't think buying the DLC is necessary to enjoy the game fully. Development isn't worth the MP, the vassal interactions are neat but not particularly vital, government ranks are just small bonuses to reward nations that have already blobbed past the need for them, and the rest are all mechanics specific to certain regions/governments/religions. If you buy it for anything, I'd buy it for the Protestant and theocracy mechanics, but I wouldn't say that's good value for money. Still, that's just my personal preference; any of the other things I mentioned may tickle your fancy if you're interested in a different way of playing.
Post by: Vendayn on June 13, 2015, 12:39:02 am
Playing ironman mode...cause no console or save scumming for me!
Started as Byzantines. Managed to avoid Ottoman war, probably with my alliance to poland+lithuania they wanted to avoid making my allies angry. Plus, I got lucky and they were busy declaring war on small nations that were around them and too busy to notice me.
Get up to where I can colonize the new world. Just slowly building up, making sure everyone doesn't want my head.
Arrive in south america, successfully colonize two areas. And...ottoman+golden horde both declare war on me :( And for some reason poland and lithuania didn't join in, but probably cause they had a lot of civil wars. Or they couldn't go through hungary to reach me (hungary still exists, barely declared war on). So instead of losing my capital and losing the game...I break alliance with athens. Give my two states that are by athens and give them, one to venice and other to athens. Then I move my capital to south america. Give my former capital to venice (cause heck if I let ottomans get it). Get peace with golden horde (but ottomans wanted no peace, but eventually because I was so far away I guess, they accepted about a year in-game after I arrived in south america). And...get the hell out of there.
And it is so random. my Byzantines are now south american migrants lol. I get my leader (I had him as a general) and my ships to south america. Then I conquer a bunch of territory, from north tip of south america (furthest north I went so far is panama canal) to down south to where incas are. Had a huge war, but my military is more advanced so I ended up winning. Then all south america hated me cause I expanded too fast. So I got declared war on by ALL of south america. Have war for 3 game years, defeat inca and take all his land and get peace.
So now I've just been sitting back, colonizing and slowly building. Waiting for reputation with the other south americans natives to go up from too fast expansion (that was -200 reputation). Its almost back down to 0 with most of them though. I did get one ally and a protectorate though. But if I get at least some south american allies, and choose a central america+north american ally(ies)...I can control all of north and south america as byzantines. :D
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 13, 2015, 12:59:31 am
I'm not completely sold on the new development system. It seems like it rewards rushing towards easy to develop provinces with decent trade goods, trying to develop anything below costal (that doesn't have gold) seems like a waste of MP. This is what CK2 seemed to encourage and I ended up getting bored of that because almost every game would involve me migrating to Italy. Maybe I just need to learn more of the system's finesse.
Decided on my next Ironman game. Ultra-defensive Kurdish state. No provinces that aren't Mountain, Highlands or Hills allowed. Maximum fort defensiveness and attrition with as many forts as I can afford. I want their armies to melt before they even reach my own.
EDIT: mapmodebuttons still not updated. Arrrghhhhh.
Post by: Vendayn on June 14, 2015, 06:22:22 pm
Out of three possible factions (I'll have three games going)
Should I be hawaii (its listed as one of the nations, so I assume its playable)...probably be a super slow game, but hawaii is so random rofl. When hawaii was introduced in CIV 5 me and my friend laughed so much. Just the most random nation you could be.
One of the HRE nations (never done anything in HRE, usually not a big fan of europe stuff...but supposedly unique gameplay mechanics and a lot of diplomacy)
Chorokee, Inca or Iroquois (I always play natives if given the chance. So wouldn't be most unique for me...but playing natives is usually a ton of fun
One of the chinese nations (probably choose Ming)...never done anything with asia at all in any game, so be a new experience
One of the japan nations
Byzantines (cause romans are epic and re-create roman empire...but this is a super popular choice, so pretty typical.)
Ottomans (they start huge, so probably be really easy...I tend to prefer much smaller nations. But I do like Ottoman history)
Cilicia (amazing history, and I'd probably ally ottomans so I don't get pwned :P)
One of the african nations (I'd probably choose an eastern africa one, or a south africa nation. I wouldn't want to choose a northern one, or its too similar to how I usually play...interacting with same nations of europe :P)
What would your three choices be out of those?
Post by: MrRoboto75 on June 14, 2015, 07:09:35 pm
All that empty land just bothers me.
Post by: Kruniac on June 17, 2015, 08:18:51 am
I didn't survive the Bohemian Conquest of Berlin. :(
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on June 17, 2015, 08:42:47 am
I didn't survive the Bohemian Conquest of Berlin. :(Git gud.
On differing matters my new Kurdish ironman game is going good. Got independence and annexed most of the Timurids. Converted to glorious Shi'a, Persian is accepted (of course). Forts are doing a surprisingly decent job of melting enemy armies before I engaged them with superior morale. Unfortunately the game is on hiatus until I get my new computer (which should be by the end of the week). Common Sense runs like shit and I cannot abide by it.
I miss theocracies.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 17, 2015, 06:14:17 pm
Just got my hat raped off as Brandenburg. Developed my territories, allied with Saxony, allied with WhoCaresOPM near Bremen, got dragged into a defensive war, won, got declared on by the Swiss, Austria, Bohemia, and Bavaria.
I didn't survive the Bohemian Conquest of Berlin. :(
I also played an HRE game recently (for the first time since EU3 I think) as Nassau, and there are a few things that are fairly critical (aside from gitting gud). You should always either be the emperor or allied to the emperor, for instance. The emperor won't do diddly for you when fighting in the HRE (though will be more than happy to call you into whatever horrible war they've gotten themselves into), but will keep you from getting that disgusting "unlawful territory" opinion/province modifier malus from taking land in the HRE.
I would also get someone else who's big as a defensive ally to dissuade people from DoWing you, and from there go over your diplomatic relations cap allying as many electors as you can. Once you're emperor, staying emperor isn't difficult, and so long as France isn't feeling perky early on you can blob with impunity and massive bonuses. Revoking the privilegia is also one of the easiest ways of getting a WC if you're of loose morals and low self-esteem, but I personally preferred dismantling it from within and painting Europe that lovely shade of Nassau lilac.
Post by: Vendayn on June 20, 2015, 10:47:27 pm
I started as Cilicia, an Armenian empire. Armenia history is among my favorites. However, I ended up allying Byzantines and helping them out a bunch in their war against Ottomans and some other enemies. So, now in the game they are pretty big because of me.
After that was over, I went and captured Jerusalem from the egypt guys over there. Got peace, and then freed the jerusalem jewish guys.
I then saved my game so I can go back as Cilicia (if I choose, since I do really like playing as Cilicia)...and within the same game I switched over to jerusalem. Saved it as a separate save (pretty awesome EU lets you switch nations, I think CK does that too).
So now I got two games going in one (isreal and cilicia) both from the same game :D
Anyway, onto the ending. So, I did end up cheating on this one. But not for money or anything (I almost never cheat, unless a game bugs out or the mechanics are really weird like this one)...but I did a lot of reading and couldn't figure out at all how to get the Jewish religion. From what I read, supposedly you can "only" if you port over a CK2 jewish game. I won't have any of that. So I did an event in the console that spawned jewish rebels, let them capture jerusalem and then met their demands and switched from catholic to jewish. Kinda a minor cheat, nothing that big. And I wanted a jewish jerusalem, not a weird catholic one that I didn't want as jerusalem.
Allied byzantines again (see a thing I have for byzantines? :P)
And then went to war with the egypt guys, took two provinces with help of byzantines (you only need three to form israel) and...well...formed israel.
And btw, israel in MEIOU looks beautiful on the map. A very pretty icy blue color. Looks amazing. :D
Post by: Vendayn on June 26, 2015, 05:40:57 pm
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/submod-the-templar-order-for-meiou-1-19.866203/
Post by: Erkki on June 27, 2015, 09:21:15 am
Post by: Icefire2314 on June 27, 2015, 11:13:07 pm
Post by: Persus13 on June 27, 2015, 11:23:12 pm
I play through steam but the game won't upon after the Common Sense patch. Happen to anyone else?You play on a Mac or PC?
Post by: Icefire2314 on June 28, 2015, 12:12:40 am
PCI play through steam but the game won't upon after the Common Sense patch. Happen to anyone else?You play on a Mac or PC?
Post by: Vendayn on June 28, 2015, 01:53:50 am
I play through steam but the game won't upon after the Common Sense patch. Happen to anyone else?
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-wont-open-anymore.862000/
should work :)
Might have to delete your saves too. One of my saves got corrupted or something, and game kept crashing every time it opened. Deleted saves, and game started up. But the thing in that thread should work for you.
Post by: Baffler on June 28, 2015, 02:42:59 am
For one, the limit on construction seems too low, and with no real way to make it get any higher without hoping for random events that -might- bump the development level up the vast majority of provinces will be stuck underdeveloped and empty no matter how much money and resources I may have at hand, because that province was historically underdeveloped and empty. I want to make the desert bloom, dammit, and relying on random whims isn't going to do it.
The forts are nicer though, it always seemed a bit silly for me to just be able (and expected) to put a gigantic fortress in every single one of my territories. I still can, technically, but the cost of maintaining the things (another sensible change) means that that probably isn't going to happen. That and the looting makes the strategic game a lot more considered as well, and makes enemy territory much more dangerous even if there aren't any active divisions around.
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 28, 2015, 05:19:07 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 28, 2015, 05:56:24 am
Post by: lijacote on June 28, 2015, 10:07:15 am
Post by: Persus13 on June 28, 2015, 10:50:38 am
I'm not sure how much I like Common Sense's patch changes, they seem like they only make sense with the DLC installed as well and I've sunk enough money into this game as it is.The point of the building slots is that they've been limited even with the DLC. As a non-DLC player, while it is super annoying to have a province with 9 development and know you could develop it one and get another building, I've played with the DLC on in multiplayer and making a desert province bloom and being able to build more buildings will cost you something like 420 monarch points or more (assuming its a 3 development province)
For one, the limit on construction seems too low, and with no real way to make it get any higher without hoping for random events that -might- bump the development level up the vast majority of provinces will be stuck underdeveloped and empty no matter how much money and resources I may have at hand, because that province was historically underdeveloped and empty. I want to make the desert bloom, dammit, and relying on random whims isn't going to do it.
The forts are nicer though, it always seemed a bit silly for me to just be able (and expected) to put a gigantic fortress in every single one of my territories. I still can, technically, but the cost of maintaining the things (another sensible change) means that that probably isn't going to happen. That and the looting makes the strategic game a lot more considered as well, and makes enemy territory much more dangerous even if there aren't any active divisions around.
You're expected to build forts in every province? That sounds like a huge waste of money.
There are a few provinces I think that really could use a trade building, but can't get one without demolition unless one develops them. I think this is bad practice, and it reeks of such free-to-play marvels as... ugh, I can't recall if Travian had bullshit like this. Surely it had?So demolish a building, if its an estuary or a center of trade you'll get more money from that trade building any way. Out of curiousity why is that a bad thing?
The most annoying thing for me was that they got rid of the Unique buildings without replacements. Having that third diplomat and extra relation from the embassy was very useful and something I'm really annoyed about not having anymore.
Post by: Chosrau on June 28, 2015, 05:47:07 pm
The most annoying thing for me was that they got rid of the Unique buildings without replacements. Having that third diplomat and extra relation from the embassy was very useful and something I'm really annoyed about not having anymore.
While I also miss the third diplomat, I still think removing the embassy was a good choice. Since that change I actually start contemplating taking one of the +1 diplomat ideas, something I barely did before. Those idea groups really needed a little buff.
Post by: Vendayn on June 28, 2015, 05:59:15 pm
The most annoying thing for me was that they got rid of the Unique buildings without replacements. Having that third diplomat and extra relation from the embassy was very useful and something I'm really annoyed about not having anymore.
While I also miss the third diplomat, I still think removing the embassy was a good choice. Since that change I actually start contemplating taking one of the +1 diplomat ideas, something I barely did before. Those idea groups really needed a little buff.
That isn't really buffing the idea group though. That would have been the better solution.
Nerfing something to make something else "better" (when that something that is "better" wasn't touched) just makes its the same, just one thing is worse.
I actually liked the unique buildings. And now, the new system, I take the same buildings in every province...because that is whats optimal. At least before it was the same roughly (still just mass build same buildings), but I had more options before with the unique buildings.
The fort mechanics are awesome though, I like that feature. And playing theocratic empires (like papal states) is A LOT more fun.
Post by: Chosrau on June 28, 2015, 06:39:50 pm
That isn't really buffing the idea group though. That would have been the better solution.
While I also miss the third diplomat, I still think removing the embassy was a good choice. Since that change I actually start contemplating taking one of the +1 diplomat ideas, something I barely did before. Those idea groups really needed a little buff.
Nerfing something to make something else "better" (when that something that is "better" wasn't touched) just makes its the same, just one thing is worse.
They turned one of the ideas from "meh, anything above 3 diplomats is overkill" into " ohh, 3rd diplomat would be nice". And this idea especially they could have not just increased the values to make it better. Even if it gave something like ludicrous +4 diplomats, I would have not taken it, since I really don't need more then 3 diplos. The way they changed it, it now is a qualitative difference, rather then a quantitative one.
The only unique building I really liked mechanics-wise was the march, even though I never managed to make proper use of it. All others were simply built whenever I hit the techlevel, not really caring about the placement. They might as well have made them into decisions that cost alot of gold and some time to implement, wouldn't have changed them in any way that mattered.
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 29, 2015, 01:36:20 am
I would also say that having 4+ diplomats is pretty great, if only because it allows for simultaneously integrating up to 3 small/medium vassals (to avoid that dip rep malus if timed correctly), and it makes coalition dodging in the HRE much easier. It's a shame the only good policy that gives a diplomat seems to be the one from exploration and aristocratic.
Post by: Vendayn on June 29, 2015, 01:40:00 am
I broke the HRE apart with espionage. I played that game like a CK2 game pretty much lol. Dunno if it was part of MEIOU or the game is just like that as maybe its realistic...but I had everyone hate Australia (the leader of HRE) and they all attacked him. Didn't think HRE would turn on the leader, but they did lol. On top of that, Austria (which was HUGE by the time I got espionage) had so many rebellions ( :D ) that it pretty much crumbled.
One by one I took down HRE ;) In its place, Lithuania took the eastern part, and for some reason islam owned that game and took over spain and france. But couldn't beat england. Islam (mamluks still survived, and so did Fez) was also very advanced in tech. It outclassed me lol. But maybe I just sucked at it as it was my first game I did with EU4. In any case, they really owned.
And then my save corrupted :(
(edit: Early on, espionage is definitely rather useless (most of the time). I tried it as Byzantines to take down ottomans. And well, that actually worked VERY well...all of that area had massive rebellions and the entire area fell apart and I took over easily. Wasn't meant to do that good on a test game lol, but ah well.
Next game I tried Cilicia (the armenia guys), and tried espionage against mamluks. But it didn't do anything at all. No rebellions, nothing.
Could depend on the nation, maybe mamluks get high lower revolt risk or something. Or its random. But it sure worked as Byzantines that one game, ottomans (and everyone else in that region (that was islam) got crushed by revolts.)
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 29, 2015, 01:55:57 am
Post by: Vendayn on June 29, 2015, 02:01:49 am
I feel like if I played with SPY_DISCOVERY_COOLDOWN_MONTHS in the defines set to something like 5 months (instead of 5 years) I could have some fun with espionage. Not really sure what they were thinking setting it that high, although in EU3 it was always hilarious (and really quite annoying) how the AI would do all sorts of dumb spy stuff constantly.
Well, now I'm going to have to tweak that :P
5 years is way too long
5 months way too short...
wonder what a good balance is. Maybe just a year, I'll try that. Cause a year is quite long really, and that seems better.
Having the AI do more spy stuff would be a lot better. Be a lot more realistic, nations always spy on each other.
Post by: Persus13 on June 29, 2015, 09:05:09 am
Post by: Bouchart on June 29, 2015, 07:20:25 pm
Post by: Rakonas on June 29, 2015, 07:34:18 pm
I like espionage :P Just a bit later down the line, definitely not my 1st...2nd...3rd and sometimes its the 4th but usually 5th idea I take (if i do).Espionage is broken imo because of how easy it is to prevent rebellions from happening so long as you have no war exhaustion. Especially with lucky nations and such. The AI is smart enough to raise autonomy and the like so you generally don't have many rebel options or at least nothing viable. For instance vs the ottomans you'll generally be unable to encourage any orthodox rebels because they'll tolerate them. Any province with below 0% revolt risk cannot be affected by foreign support for rebels, so it's hard to upset the status quo. But at the same time the ottomans will slowly sink in religious unity because they only have like +20 now and will rarely convert.
I broke the HRE apart with espionage. I played that game like a CK2 game pretty much lol. Dunno if it was part of MEIOU or the game is just like that as maybe its realistic...but I had everyone hate Australia (the leader of HRE) and they all attacked him. Didn't think HRE would turn on the leader, but they did lol. On top of that, Austria (which was HUGE by the time I got espionage) had so many rebellions ( :D ) that it pretty much crumbled.
One by one I took down HRE ;) In its place, Lithuania took the eastern part, and for some reason islam owned that game and took over spain and france. But couldn't beat england. Islam (mamluks still survived, and so did Fez) was also very advanced in tech. It outclassed me lol. But maybe I just sucked at it as it was my first game I did with EU4. In any case, they really owned.
And then my save corrupted :(
(edit: Early on, espionage is definitely rather useless (most of the time). I tried it as Byzantines to take down ottomans. And well, that actually worked VERY well...all of that area had massive rebellions and the entire area fell apart and I took over easily. Wasn't meant to do that good on a test game lol, but ah well.
Next game I tried Cilicia (the armenia guys), and tried espionage against mamluks. But it didn't do anything at all. No rebellions, nothing.
Could depend on the nation, maybe mamluks get high lower revolt risk or something. Or its random. But it sure worked as Byzantines that one game, ottomans (and everyone else in that region (that was islam) got crushed by revolts.)
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 29, 2015, 08:07:44 pm
I can't decide whether I like EU3 or EU4 better. I'm leaning towards EU3.
There's a huge list of mechanics I preferred in EU3. The policy sliders, economy sliders, ideas, province decisions, national focus, horde mechanics, agents generated and used rather than reused statically, earlier start date, supply/demand, (which was removed from EU4 recently for some reason), and a few other minor things. That said, I tried playing a bit of MEIOU again, and good god, rebels are so much better in EU4. For every good thing about EU3 it seems there's something I find horribly irritating that EU4 does much better, which is a bit of a shame.
What I'd personally like to see is a total conversion mod for EU4 that removes monarch points from the game entirely and replaces their uses with EU3-like mechanics, but I'm not sure how one would go about that.
Post by: Vendayn on June 30, 2015, 05:39:39 am
Its definitely fantasy though, Atlantis. Might be an op navy, but it got late to test. But if so, its on purpose. The leader you start with is poseidon. Start with zeus as a general. Very good buildings on your starting island.
Probably be an incredibly hard province to siege. A lot of defense and strong navy. Troops will be weaker, might need to nerf troops, if they are too many/good. Cause I want Atlantis to be about navy.
Probably be boring as heck start though lol. Stuck on an island for a while, till you get exploration. But its sorta OP and killer navy. Take a huge fleet and enough troops to take island.
Post by: Inarius on June 30, 2015, 09:08:15 am
Quote
monarch points
This .I don't like it, at all. It killed the spirit of EU3. I can't exactly say why, and how, but it changes the whole spirit of the game.
Post by: Bouchart on June 30, 2015, 06:01:26 pm
Worth pointing out that the diplomatic idea group is one of the best in the game (and was before the patch removing embassies). Province warscore cost reduction, the extra diplomat + improve relations bonus, 10% tech reduction, and +2 dip rep are all huge, and every other idea in the group is worth it as well (though the increased diplo-annex costs make me think that influence is often going to be the better 1st/2nd/3rd choice over diplo). Espionage also gets a diplomat, but is of course one of the worst idea groups.
I would also say that having 4+ diplomats is pretty great, if only because it allows for simultaneously integrating up to 3 small/medium vassals (to avoid that dip rep malus if timed correctly), and it makes coalition dodging in the HRE much easier. It's a shame the only good policy that gives a diplomat seems to be the one from exploration and aristocratic.
I don't know, I think I like Influence Ideas a little better. -33% claim fabrication cost, +2 dip reputation,, -50% unjustified demands and +1 diplomatic relations are all pretty powerful too.
On a side note, does anyone have any opinion on the military ideas? They all seem about equally powerful, except maybe Naval.
Post by: Persus13 on June 30, 2015, 06:51:09 pm
I feel like Quality got buffed this patch, Plutocratic and defensive are really good, Aristocratic I only really go for as an Eastern tech nation for the Liberum Veto decision(or for the diplomat), and Offensive I've always felt to be kind of meh since Forced March got removed from it. Naval tends to be one I go for as a Mediterranean power because it buffs galleys. I've yet to play as Venice, but if I do, Naval would probably be a good one to grab as the galley combat ability idea combined with Venetian ideas makes galleys super powerful.Worth pointing out that the diplomatic idea group is one of the best in the game (and was before the patch removing embassies). Province warscore cost reduction, the extra diplomat + improve relations bonus, 10% tech reduction, and +2 dip rep are all huge, and every other idea in the group is worth it as well (though the increased diplo-annex costs make me think that influence is often going to be the better 1st/2nd/3rd choice over diplo). Espionage also gets a diplomat, but is of course one of the worst idea groups.
I would also say that having 4+ diplomats is pretty great, if only because it allows for simultaneously integrating up to 3 small/medium vassals (to avoid that dip rep malus if timed correctly), and it makes coalition dodging in the HRE much easier. It's a shame the only good policy that gives a diplomat seems to be the one from exploration and aristocratic.
I don't know, I think I like Influence Ideas a little better. -33% claim fabrication cost, +2 dip reputation,, -50% unjustified demands and +1 diplomatic relations are all pretty powerful too.
On a side note, does anyone have any opinion on the military ideas? They all seem about equally powerful, except maybe Naval.
Post by: Vendayn on June 30, 2015, 08:13:03 pm
I like espionage :P Just a bit later down the line, definitely not my 1st...2nd...3rd and sometimes its the 4th but usually 5th idea I take (if i do).Espionage is broken imo because of how easy it is to prevent rebellions from happening so long as you have no war exhaustion. Especially with lucky nations and such. The AI is smart enough to raise autonomy and the like so you generally don't have many rebel options or at least nothing viable. For instance vs the ottomans you'll generally be unable to encourage any orthodox rebels because they'll tolerate them. Any province with below 0% revolt risk cannot be affected by foreign support for rebels, so it's hard to upset the status quo. But at the same time the ottomans will slowly sink in religious unity because they only have like +20 now and will rarely convert.
I broke the HRE apart with espionage. I played that game like a CK2 game pretty much lol. Dunno if it was part of MEIOU or the game is just like that as maybe its realistic...but I had everyone hate Australia (the leader of HRE) and they all attacked him. Didn't think HRE would turn on the leader, but they did lol. On top of that, Austria (which was HUGE by the time I got espionage) had so many rebellions ( :D ) that it pretty much crumbled.
One by one I took down HRE ;) In its place, Lithuania took the eastern part, and for some reason islam owned that game and took over spain and france. But couldn't beat england. Islam (mamluks still survived, and so did Fez) was also very advanced in tech. It outclassed me lol. But maybe I just sucked at it as it was my first game I did with EU4. In any case, they really owned.
And then my save corrupted :(
(edit: Early on, espionage is definitely rather useless (most of the time). I tried it as Byzantines to take down ottomans. And well, that actually worked VERY well...all of that area had massive rebellions and the entire area fell apart and I took over easily. Wasn't meant to do that good on a test game lol, but ah well.
Next game I tried Cilicia (the armenia guys), and tried espionage against mamluks. But it didn't do anything at all. No rebellions, nothing.
Could depend on the nation, maybe mamluks get high lower revolt risk or something. Or its random. But it sure worked as Byzantines that one game, ottomans (and everyone else in that region (that was islam) got crushed by revolts.)
I'll have to test it. But, I went into the espionage idea and buffed a bunch of stuff up. Should be a lot better. On top of making that one change to 1 year instead of 5 years (which 5 years? lame lol)
Hopefully that makes it improved. We'll see. I didn't change any idea around, just boosted up the numbers by quite a lot. Though I might add 2-3 new things to some of the ideas on top of what it has. But, I'll see if buffing it doesn't make it better. Might be OP now lol, but at least it would give a gameplay option to go down if that is what happens. Or it might still suck :P
Post by: WealthyRadish on June 30, 2015, 10:41:41 pm
That said, I rarely take it. I like to take administrative as early as possible, and taking mil ideas early just causes horrible tech problems. Then with the 2nd and 3rd pick almost always being diplomatic and influence (in varying order), with religious 4th (or first, if the starting location really needs it), by the time I'm looking at a 5th group quantity is no longer worth it. By that point, oodles of manpower isn't good enough, and the cheap mercs of administrative are a good enough substitute. While I would say quality is a worse idea group than quantity, I actually think it's a better pick if you've already filled administrative and religious (the policy with religious + quality is insane). I'd even say defensive or offensive is better by that point, but it depends on how big you've blobbed.
In multiplayer it's a whole other cup of noodles, though.
Post by: Eagle_eye on July 01, 2015, 04:21:27 am
Post by: Rakonas on July 01, 2015, 09:36:23 am
Post by: Exerosp on July 01, 2015, 12:02:41 pm
Does -10 years of separatism mean that you start revolt risk wise as if it's been 10 years since conquest?Yes.
Post by: Erkki on July 02, 2015, 12:56:16 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 02, 2015, 11:12:30 am
I used to like offensive, but then forced march got moved, so it got much worse in my opinion (and now that siege ability is so much less important now, I don't think there's any reason to take it anymore). Defensive gets that stupid OP morale event on top of its existing bonus (15% + 15% morale?!), making up for the other lackluster ideas.
Anyway, just concluded my cleanest annihilation of the Ottomans yet, in 1560 as glorious Montferrat (the OPM vassal of Savoy added in CS). Occupied until they bankrupted, took most of Bulgaria and Karaman's cores, and then broke truce a day later after releasing them. This is one of the reasons why diplomatic ideas are so amazing, incidentally. -3 stab for a truce break really isn't that bad, and in both wars I was able to demand 20% more land than I normally would be able to (not to mention the cheaper war exhaustion reduction paying for itself when call for pizza reared its ugly head).
Post by: Aklyon on July 04, 2015, 03:06:56 pm
Which patch would be a better idea to use currently?
Post by: Lapoleon on July 06, 2015, 02:07:46 am
So EUIV thread, I have a question for you people since I haven't played since a little before common sense came out, and was going to get it soonish. After looknig up some recent patch notes and the posts that come with them, I've heard both that 1.12 development costs were terribl(y expensive), but also apparently the beta costs are terrible in a different way, one that makes opms into tiny megacities all the time.
Which patch would be a better idea to use currently?
I haven't played the beta patch, but 1.12 is fine to play even though development is somewhat expensive. In 1.13 the AI tends to mess up by spending most of their monarch points on development which ends up with megacities everywhere which is much more problematic than the fact that you potentially create a 200 development province yourself.
Post by: Uristides on July 06, 2015, 09:13:38 pm
Also Scotland colonized Brazil, but it's independent now.
And I cheated through my teeth first to resist Japan's aggression without having to give up Hokkaido, then to convert to Confucian because I couldn't accept demands nor get them to revolt and finally because I was bored and losing my soul would be quite worth it if I could only have Ainulaska and Ainustralia as colonies.
Still, development made my starting position a lot less painful. Usually I'd burn my bank fighting Yeren for Sakhalin and then drown in debt, now I could at least stay afloat and tackle Chukchi until Japan decided to move in.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 06, 2015, 10:27:01 pm
Also, dat Lorraine. And is that Naples in Albania?
Edit: Whoa, just noticed that Russia was formed by someone other than Muscovy. I'm guessing Novgorod, if you have lucky nations off. Still pretty cool anyway, I'm not sure I've seen the AI ever manage that.
Post by: Karlito on July 07, 2015, 01:25:07 am
Post by: Uristides on July 07, 2015, 03:47:57 am
Seems Hungary doesn't whither away nearly as often in CS. Starting friendly with Austria and having about as much development as France helps, though Bohemia also tends to do well (christ, just look at them), and they often go in on Hungary. The Teutonic Order have also been getting way beefier with seemingly every patch, and they often ally Hungary early, so I bet Hungary is less likely to lose all their troops fighting Polith.Ah yes, Bohemia has been emperor ever since the HRE became visible for me. And yes that's Naples in Albania. And Palatinate in Netherlands/Brittany :P Pic is a bit illegible because I wanted Green/Iceland Norway visible.
Also, dat Lorraine. And is that Naples in Albania?
Edit: Whoa, just noticed that Russia was formed by someone other than Muscovy. I'm guessing Novgorod, if you have lucky nations off. Still pretty cool anyway, I'm not sure I've seen the AI ever manage that.
By the way, did I mention that except for England, Scandinavia and a few blotches of HRE the reformation didn't take hold? And that there's a hindu princedom in Tibet? Beautiful things happen when the player sits away from the worldly affairs to colonize Siberia/Oceania, apparently.
And good to know Hungary got some love and it's not just coincidence them doing well here, I wanted to play them some time but their starting position is quite scary.
Post by: Bouchart on July 20, 2015, 07:17:42 pm
Post by: h3lblad3 on July 22, 2015, 01:42:39 pm
Don't like losing land and hostile core creation up makes the AI not want to take your land. It also, as I recall, reduces the chances they'll even declare war on you because it just isn't worth it.
Post by: Chosrau on July 22, 2015, 02:28:42 pm
To be honest, I can't even remember the last time I actually lost a war against an AI. The last one that came close was the 2 million troops coalition against my 400k something Byzantine Empire, and that one was only scary during the first year, due to loosing the initial battle (320k soldiers will loose to 1,2 million, even in a mountain province).
Post by: Uristides on July 22, 2015, 09:24:47 pm
Loosing land to the AI isn't something that happens often enough to make it worthwhile to go aristocratic, in my opinionIt must really suck to not suck at the game :D
Started another Ainu game because I learnt how to cheese out of the first few japanese invasions without cheating. Got a big chunk of Siberia, Taiwan, vassalized Date and Takeda(after beating them out of a unified Japan in a war) and now working on getting some Humanistic ideas before beginning mass annexations. Did I mention I'm on easy with player bonuses? Yeah, I suck at this game.
Post by: Bouchart on August 03, 2015, 06:44:55 pm
Yaroslavl:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Smolensk:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 03, 2015, 06:50:19 pm
So who has the better flag: Yaroslavl or Smolensk?Perm.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Also man does 1.13 suck. Hopefully the recent changes get put into the defines because I'll never go back to ironman again if the 1.13 beta actually goes live.
Post by: Bouchart on August 03, 2015, 07:05:20 pm
Post by: Aklyon on August 03, 2015, 07:07:21 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on August 03, 2015, 07:40:31 pm
What are the big problems with 1.13?Development is the main issue. The devs decided it was smart to link it to MP instead of ducats. Causing minors like Wallacia to have development in the hundreds and London and Paris to be stuck at like forty. It's also hardcored to be MP.
Next comes the typical Paradox balancing bullshit. Units can't be dismissed in enemy land because reasons, enjoy that island tapped fifty merc stack.
Land can no longer be taken unless it's in coring range. So releasing and feeding vassals is nerfed hard.
Native development has also been hit hard with a one hundred percent increase, forcing the natives to sit on their dicks for decades (sometimes even centuries) hoping a European will stumble across them.
Stealing colonies had also been removed unless it's in coring range so goodbye fast westerning.
Buddhism is a joke of a religion due to the idiotic karma mechanic (which people already knew was going to be an issue in the dev diaries). It's literally worse than it was preCS making SEA even less appealing to play in.
There's also way too much focus on government levels with bonuses being much too high. Causing r even more snowballing and making states that start or are locked to duchy much less appealing, RIP monastic orders.
Post by: WealthyRadish on August 03, 2015, 09:05:05 pm
The only redeeming factor would be the extra diplomat for kingdom rank, but IMO that should be an independent nation bonus, not related to government rank. As CL already said, being fixed at duchy rank blows even harder.
Having development cost money would be interesting, it's something I haven't thought about at all. The whole idea of development was to give tiny rich nations a way to get powerful without conquering, and having it cost money would allow that to still be true without also having 30 Londons sprinkled across the HRE by 1600. The biggest problem with it is that there currently reaches a point in the game where you make more money than is practically possible to spend, so I dunno, maybe a mix of monarch points and money would be better.
Post by: Bouchart on August 05, 2015, 12:14:41 pm
Post by: Aklyon on August 05, 2015, 12:19:01 pm
Maybe monarch points for monarchies and money for republics, or something along those lines?But what do theocracies do then? Do they trade free rulers for dev points?
Post by: Baffler on August 08, 2015, 10:51:28 pm
Post by: Mini on August 09, 2015, 07:06:09 am
Post by: Vendayn on August 30, 2015, 04:36:14 am
Starting as Cuzco (always have most fun starting in americas. Its fun being a native and defending against Europe. And then by the small chance one lives, sending fleets of many natives to europe lol)
I like doing that as Aztecs too. But I always liked Incas more for some reason. I think its cause they get a lot more money, and it makes it a bit easier lol. Probably all those gold provinces :P And first idea tech always is exploration :P Start colonizing as soon as possible :D
Though I also always make the end date the year 99k lol. It disables ironman though. But, I hate end dates in games, always been a pet peeve of mine. Especially when its the end and it forces you to stop playing lol. More so with larger strategy games and open ended RPGs. Like imagine if you beat Skyrim and could never play your character again rofl. Or you won all the main goals of Civ 5 and instead of them letting you continue to conquer the world, they just said "nope you won, but really lost, game over" lol. I hate that. At least civ 5 devs was nice enough to add a button to continue the game whether you win or lose. They didn't do that for EU4 :( At least I can edit the txt file.
I want to play slowly and enjoy the game lol...if I get bored I can start over. But, usually I just like to conquer the world :P Without blitzing it I should add.
Post by: Micro102 on September 04, 2015, 05:18:06 pm
I'm also confused as to how development works. When does it increase?
And the most confusing one of all. Why do all the buildings suck? It doesn't seem like you will ever get your money back from building temples, marketplaces (outside of special trade provinces), workshops, etc. Why build these things? Are buildings now meant to only be built in the most extreme synergistic places?
Post by: Persus13 on September 04, 2015, 05:27:24 pm
Well I just started playing again and have noticed a lot of changes. The new way forts work is cool and WAY better than how it used to be, but I'm not sure how the forts affect surrounding provinces. How do you guys decide where to build forts?I build forts on my borders or places that have really bad rebels. That way the armies have to siege down the forts before entering my territory. Armies basically can't through provinces surrounding a fort unless the fort is owned by them.
I'm also confused as to how development works. When does it increase?
And the most confusing one of all. Why do all the buildings suck? It doesn't seem like you will ever get your money back from building temples, marketplaces (outside of special trade provinces), workshops, etc. Why build these things? Are buildings now meant to only be built in the most extreme synergistic places?
If you have the Common Sense DLC, you spend Monarch points. If you don't, it only increases through rare random events..
Buildings are crap now. I build marketplaces in trade ports and estuaries, and the other ones everywhere else when I have plenty of cash to spare.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 04, 2015, 05:40:23 pm
If two forts are exerting zone of control over the same province, movement will be more restricted, and one of the forts will need to be occupied before that province can normally be accessed. When building forts, having every province be under at least one fort's zone of control is helpful against rebels, and will stop advancing armies until the forts are taken. Having every province be protected by 2 forts will severely restrict enemy movement.
But since forts are very expensive, I would only recommend building a few forts along the borders in strategically important locations, like where a strait can be blocked or a narrow strip of land. They're also nice on your capital, since you get the additional fort level and garrison from the natural capital fort. I would also build them in terrain that's easily attacked (somewhat counterintuitively) so you can lift sieges easily. If a large army sieges a fort in the mountains, you basically have to wait for them to occupy it and leave, and then siege it back yourself, which sucks.
Development is increased by spending monarch points on the province screen if you have Common Sense enabled. It's not very useful though, it's basically just something to do if the alternative is paying an ahead of time malus on a tech, or if you really want an extra building slot for a fort or something. If you're outside of Europe, you may never even consider increasing development, but if you're western tech and not expanding too quickly, you will probably hit your point cap while being ahead of time on tech often.
The buildings show monthly income now instead of yearly now I think, so if you're calculating how quickly they'll pay themselves back, take that into consideration. A temple in a good province is usually like 50 years to pay for itself or something, production buildings usually less so, and extra income from trade buildings is pretty much impossible to calculate. If you're planning on owning every province in a node, marketplaces and the like there are pretty useless except for upstream propagation. I wouldn't say buildings are all worse (not costing MP is very nice), though I miss being able to increase goods produced easily to get that production/trade synergy going in controlled nodes. Barracks are probably the best building to spend money on, as well as a few shipyards.
Post by: Micro102 on September 06, 2015, 06:20:01 pm
exile, military access, any form of alliance, or war. How are they doing this?
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 06, 2015, 08:36:41 pm
My enemy is freely going through the provinces of another country without:They changed how military access works a few patches ago. It's now a convoluted mess where the enemy will gain military access with countries you yourself have military access with (plus other factors I can't figure out). It's best to just always assume that the enemy has military access.
exile, military access, any form of alliance, or war. How are they doing this?
Also the last three dev diaries have been amazing. Greater focus on score in multiplayer! More loading screens! Inane changes to custom nations I've never used! I'm so glad they're working on that instead of fixing development. Common Sense is a fucking joke.
Post by: Uristides on September 06, 2015, 10:15:09 pm
But the biggest disappointment so far was the DD in which it was revealed we won't see Wiz trouncing sassy players with his superior scandinavian sassypower for a while.
Post by: Persus13 on September 07, 2015, 03:37:07 pm
Its if you have vassals or allies with military access, they get that too.My enemy is freely going through the provinces of another country without:They changed how military access works a few patches ago. It's now a convoluted mess where the enemy will gain military access with countries you yourself have military access with (plus other factors I can't figure out). It's best to just always assume that the enemy has military access.
exile, military access, any form of alliance, or war. How are they doing this?
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 07, 2015, 03:41:07 pm
There's also Ming, which seems to have surpassed the Ottomans, France, and Austria in power level in this version. It's 1590 in this run, I have all of SE Asia, Indochina, India (save for about a third of Delhi lingering), and most of Arabia with a third of Persia, and I'm still uneasy about whether fighting Ming head on is worth the resources. They've got better tech than the Ottomans, have declared wars on an early Russia (and won easily), have lost the mandate of heaven twice (once while at war with me and drinking WE during a peasants war), and are still pretty much unscratched, even with the ~250 development I've taken. Maybe it's just that they've also gotten the lucky nation bonus early, but the combination of infinite money/forts and decent troops (resting +15% morale and +5% discipline while maintaining western tech parity) seems to make them immune to rebels and unbeatable by other AI nations.
Post by: Micro102 on September 07, 2015, 07:19:40 pm
Another game I was against the Ottomans. Me and Hungary were beating them easily and Hungary decided that he didn't want the cluster of provinces he had be fabricating claims on so he leaves the war early and me to deal with an uninjured Ottoman empire.
Post by: Aklyon on September 07, 2015, 08:07:36 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 08, 2015, 07:17:07 am
Are you sure its not just the area you're in?
Area?
Post by: Micro102 on September 08, 2015, 11:39:06 am
Post by: Baffler on September 08, 2015, 12:27:09 pm
Just had an enemy army attack my army, the fighting lasted one day, and then they left with full morale. How can I do this?
You can't. You are allowed to retreat by just ordering your army to go somewhere else, but only after a couple days of fighting. I'm not sure how they managed it. I'm not aware of anything other than a declaration of peace that can interrupt a battle other than one side winning or retreating.
Post by: Micro102 on September 08, 2015, 03:37:54 pm
Post by: Bouchart on September 08, 2015, 04:12:21 pm
Post by: Kruniac on September 08, 2015, 04:31:36 pm
Wow, just screw this game. I tried playing a few times, and it's like the AI has hive mind of "kill the player" going. I go to war with the papal states and Hungary as Austria to grab the old empire provinces, and then France and England go into a peace that lets England keep all it's would-be French provinces, giving France nothing, and then England immediately goes into a military alliance with The Papal States, and then they join the war, somehow along with Leinster.
Another game I was against the Ottomans. Me and Hungary were beating them easily and Hungary decided that he didn't want the cluster of provinces he had be fabricating claims on so he leaves the war early and me to deal with an uninjured Ottoman empire.
I don't agree. For the most part, the AI reacts to a global scene pretty well. Maybe you should have had good relations with England.
There are a lot of lazy EUIV players who don't bother kissing the ass of major nations and then whine when they get jumped on by them. I make it policy to have all but one of my diplomats improving relations with key nations at all times.
Hell, even "Hostile" nations can be convinced to leave you alone, given enough time spent kissing their ass.
Another point to consider is that while most nations aren't a threat to people like Austria, if enough minors gang up on you, they toss their armies together into a doom stack. Then you die. Don't let it happen. Make good relations scattered around yourself - you are not playing a badass in this game. You will be overwhelmed.
Dunno. The game seems the same as it's always been. If you're just now playing EUIV, have never played any of the others, and are calling the game "bullshit", then perhaps you simply aren't cut out for the series. I know a lot of roguelike players are in that position.
If you have a problem with EUIV specifically but enjoy the genre, give Crusader Kings or even Vicky 2 a try. Different time periods, great games.
Post by: Micro102 on September 08, 2015, 06:10:51 pm
Wow, just screw this game. I tried playing a few times, and it's like the AI has hive mind of "kill the player" going. I go to war with the papal states and Hungary as Austria to grab the old empire provinces, and then France and England go into a peace that lets England keep all it's would-be French provinces, giving France nothing, and then England immediately goes into a military alliance with The Papal States, and then they join the war, somehow along with Leinster.
Another game I was against the Ottomans. Me and Hungary were beating them easily and Hungary decided that he didn't want the cluster of provinces he had be fabricating claims on so he leaves the war early and me to deal with an uninjured Ottoman empire.
I don't agree. For the most part, the AI reacts to a global scene pretty well. Maybe you should have had good relations with England.
There are a lot of lazy EUIV players who don't bother kissing the ass of major nations and then whine when they get jumped on by them. I make it policy to have all but one of my diplomats improving relations with key nations at all times.
Hell, even "Hostile" nations can be convinced to leave you alone, given enough time spent kissing their ass.
Another point to consider is that while most nations aren't a threat to people like Austria, if enough minors gang up on you, they toss their armies together into a doom stack. Then you die. Don't let it happen. Make good relations scattered around yourself - you are not playing a badass in this game. You will be overwhelmed.
Dunno. The game seems the same as it's always been. If you're just now playing EUIV, have never played any of the others, and are calling the game "bullshit", then perhaps you simply aren't cut out for the series. I know a lot of roguelike players are in that position.
If you have a problem with EUIV specifically but enjoy the genre, give Crusader Kings or even Vicky 2 a try. Different time periods, great games.
I really don't see how England disliking me has anything to do with the French abandoning their war with them and then having England ally with the papal states (who were at war at the time and miles away, I know if I tried that I would never be able to ally them). And I DID suck up to the Ottomans. It all disappears when they get the "-1000000 relations, wants all your provinces" modifier. They canceled the alliance and royal marriage for it.
I am not new to the game. I have played 100's of hours on both. I have played in all the area's of the map in EU4 and after the endless changes the game has slowly degraded in singleplayer. The AI does things I cannot comprehend. Teleporting units, instantly canceling battles to escape, allying nations that would normally give me a -1000 reading if I were to try the same... It's just aggravating.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 08, 2015, 07:55:43 pm
I really don't see how England disliking me has anything to do with the French abandoning their war with them and then having England ally with the papal states (who were at war at the time and miles away, I know if I tried that I would never be able to ally them).
England has loads of troops and was still catholic. If they're catholic, they'll improve the papal state's opinion of them, and if they have loads of troops, they can ally with pretty much anyone they like on the same continent (distance between borders matters much less when making alliances than it does for marriages and diplovassalizing). While the Papal States is in a defensive war they'll get a -50 acceptance malus when sending alliance offers (-1000 is when sending alliance offers after starting an offensive war, and the AI gets this just as the player does), but no such malus when judging whether to accept an offer from someone (such as England). This is exactly how it works for the player, and if you kept a save and tag switched to England you'd see that the Papal States would gladly accept an alliance from England, even if they hadn't improved relations. They may have even accepted it while England was still in their war, but probably not unless they were really hurting. Just playing the game normally this should be obvious, and as the player you can also make new alliances and call them into your defensive wars after the war has started (normally players don't fight many defensive wars though).
If you don't want to fight the Papal State's allies, don't make them a cobelligerent. It has never been more clear to the player in the history of EU4 or EU3 as it is now how alliances will be called when declaring war, and the player has never had as much information or options. If you're declaring wars on people, check the opinion mapmode on the target to see who's "friendly" with them. It takes like 10 seconds to scan over their neighbors and people you don't want to fight, and will prevent you from making this same mistake again 95% of the time.
France peacing out with England without taking anything (or only taking one or two provinces) is very common. England starts as a hugely powerful nation now with loads of development, and likely had allies in that war with France (since the war isn't going at game start in the newer versions), so even when France occupies all England's continental possessions, they're unlikely to get the warscore to demand much. AI France probably peaced out after getting full ticking warscore and after the length of war modifier reached a certain point, in addition to whatever other factors (like manpower, WE, or if they had other wars going or revolts).
I CAN agree with that. Some of the stuff the AI gets away with is utter horseshit.
Like what? Here (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Artificial_intelligence#Cheats)'s a complete list of AI bonuses, still valid for this version.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on September 08, 2015, 08:03:08 pm
Like what? Here (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Artificial_intelligence#Cheats)'s a complete list of AI bonuses, still valid for this version.I love how that article claims that the AI "does not cheat on land attrition, not even a little" and then goes on to explain that the AI isn't effected by land attrition from other units in the same province. So basically the AI could move three stacks, all right up to the supply limit, onto the same province, and thus fight at 3x the supply limit while taking no attrition. Oh and if they move one of their units onto a player unit and together both units are over the supply limit, the player unit will take attrition but the AI unit will not.
"does not cheat on land attrition"
"not even a little"
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 08, 2015, 08:10:13 pm
Worth noting that it still is possible to wear out the AI through land attrition, it's one of the best ways to beat Austria and Ming in particular.
Post by: Bouchart on September 08, 2015, 09:57:26 pm
41 days after the start I form a personal union with Austria.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Persus13 on September 08, 2015, 10:33:14 pm
I started a new game as Brandenburg.That's pretty awesome. Hope Austria doesn't decide it hates you. Does that mean Bohemia is emperor?
41 days after the start I form a personal union with Austria.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Bouchart on September 08, 2015, 10:43:48 pm
Also this game got messy real fast. The succession war was easy but then Saxony dragged me into a war against the Pope. After that I declared war on the Teutonic Knights because Poland attacked them and they were weak. Rather than attack Poland, which was sieging half of their forts, they went after my stack and wiped it out. Poland eventually conquered half of TO and I fought them to a draw.
Long story short, Austria has high liberty desire, my prestige is -15 so I might not keep the personal union anyway, I have four loans and zero income and nothing else to show from any of the wars I fought.
Post by: Micro102 on September 08, 2015, 11:07:22 pm
*snip*
I keep on hearing people saying that the AI doesn't cheat, and that the wiki says the AI doesn't cheat, but your words mean absolutely nothing when compared to my eyes watching the AI do this. I've seen 100+ stacks on one tile never taking attrition, I've seen armies pop up with no military access/boats with a clear LoS of all surrounding Provinces, I've seen the AI immediately leave a battle they were going to lose on the first day and they left with full morale. Frankly, I wish I had some sort of program that records the last half an hour of gameplay just to be able to either rub the video into peoples face or figure out what went wrong. Is there such a program? I'd rather not use a CPU intensive one or one that will record the entire game, chewing up my memory.
Post by: Persus13 on September 08, 2015, 11:10:43 pm
I've seen 100+ stacks on one tile never taking attrition, I've seen armies pop up with no military access/boats with a clear LoS of all surrounding Provinces,The first one was probably a bunch of HRE guys at war. THe second sounds like you missed something.
I've seen the AI immediately leave a battle they were going to lose on the first day and they left with full morale.Has this happened more than once? Sounds like a bug to me.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 09, 2015, 05:06:19 am
Frankly, I wish I had some sort of program that records the last half an hour of gameplay just to be able to either rub the video into peoples face or figure out what went wrong. Is there such a program? I'd rather not use a CPU intensive one or one that will record the entire game, chewing up my memory.
Dxtory is somewhat cheap, and recording something like EU4 wouldn't be very intensive with a performance codec and low settings. But I'm not sure how serious you are; all I'm saying is to look for an explanation in the game mechanics before jumping to conclusions about the AI cheating with everything. Incidentally, with the army retreating at full morale you saw, was there already a battle going on when they arrived? There's a very common bug that I'm not sure has been patched yet, where armies arriving on the day a battle is lost will do a shattered retreat along with the losing force.
Anyway, I think I'm done with this Majapahit run. With quantity ideas finished and some bigger vassals finally integrated, I was planning a blitz of Europe, starting with dismantling a truly disgusting PLC and a very weak HRE, but then I looked over the development of Europe and sort of lost enthusiasm. Seeing so many provinces all over the HRE with over 40 development, about 20 Ile-de-frances in France, and practically no province under 25 development... it would just be such a headache to integrate all those vassals and take the land bit by bit. At least with Ming high autonomy meant being able to take huge amounts of land in each war.
Spoiler: The world 1666 (click to show/hide)
Overall a very disappointing run, with around 20 years lost to regencies, a period of dedicated rebel stomping, a good deal of complacency on my side in often only warring one large target at time, wasting time shuffling troops between east and west on alternating truces, some sloppy wars going with the major powers going longer than they needed to, and poor vassal placement and expansion. I feel like in the last 60 years I accomplished next to nothing except eat Ming and needle into the Ottomans, but those regencies and low legitimacy rulers were quite unlucky I guess. I would still say a non-western WC is possible in this version though, even with the glaring development issues.
Post by: Sergarr on September 09, 2015, 09:06:59 am
It would be nice if someone has managed to actually document all these undocumented bonuses, with screenshots and videos attached so that the "AI is totally fair guys you just suck at gaming" people would shut up.
Post by: Sindain on September 09, 2015, 12:12:28 pm
I have yet to see a nation receive the same amount of AE as I would for doing the same thing. Seriously, I've seen France swallow shitloads of OPMs and barely have a dent in relations. I play as them and swallow ONE and everyone is forming fucking coalitions against me because I'm the most horrible warmonger to have existed on this earth.I CAN agree with that. Some of the stuff the AI gets away with is utter horseshit.
Like what? Here (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Artificial_intelligence#Cheats)'s a complete list of AI bonuses, still valid for this version.
Lucky nations do receive reduced AE.
Also there's a shit tone of modifiers on AE. In particular France gets a bunch reduced since they have cores/claims on like, everywhere around them when they start. (at least when I last played, haven't done so for about half a year).
Post by: Aklyon on September 09, 2015, 01:02:09 pm
Post by: Sergarr on September 09, 2015, 01:12:00 pm
You didn't actually read his post, it seems. He said that when he played as France, the results were cardinally different compared to when AI played as France.I have yet to see a nation receive the same amount of AE as I would for doing the same thing. Seriously, I've seen France swallow shitloads of OPMs and barely have a dent in relations. I play as them and swallow ONE and everyone is forming fucking coalitions against me because I'm the most horrible warmonger to have existed on this earth.I CAN agree with that. Some of the stuff the AI gets away with is utter horseshit.
Like what? Here (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Artificial_intelligence#Cheats)'s a complete list of AI bonuses, still valid for this version.
Lucky nations do receive reduced AE.
Also there's a shit tone of modifiers on AE. In particular France gets a bunch reduced since they have cores/claims on like, everywhere around them when they start. (at least when I last played, haven't done so for about half a year).
The only difference here is France being controlled by the player vs France being controlled by AI. And this means that AI is treated differently by the game than the player.
Post by: Micro102 on September 09, 2015, 01:15:55 pm
Post by: Chosrau on September 09, 2015, 01:28:43 pm
Is there a way to set up a mock battle? I want to pit 2 armies of exactly the same units against each other, right down to the same prestige, legitimacy, and power projection.
Set up 2 custom nations next to each other somewhere remote, so other people can't interfere and they don't have traditions/ideas which increase army strength. Use console commands to switch tags so you can play both and set up the armies.
Once you're at war, pause and the save the game one day before the armies meet each other and make sure it doesn't happen on a monthly tick. Edit the savegame so both nations have the same prestige, legimitacy, ect.
Post by: werty892 on September 09, 2015, 02:33:28 pm
Jesus christ, get a grip. One of the tooltips in the loading screen is "It's ok to lose land in a war, you can always take it back later." Or you want to declare on your neighbor but he's allied to France/Prussia/PLC/Austira and you're a OPM? I wonder why you're losing! Stop whining if you can't handle the game as France, at that point, you not winning is YOUR FAULT. Period. You keep complaining about the effects of your decisions, but you can't see that the decisions you make are bad.
Post by: LordSlowpoke on September 09, 2015, 02:35:20 pm
proceeds to be salty
i don't even play this game anymore preferring to eu3 instead and this is around where y'all should ask for a threadlock
Post by: Aklyon on September 09, 2015, 02:51:12 pm
Post by: werty892 on September 09, 2015, 02:57:49 pm
i don't even play this game anymore preferring to eu3 instead and this is around where y'all should ask for a threadlock
So you don't have anything relevant to say. Thanks.
I'm just annoyed at the endless whining. For fucks sake, it's a game."erryone be salty"This is where we proceed to be civil or ignore him. If neither happens, then we go and ask for a thread lock. As it stands, I think I'll take the latter route.
proceeds to be salty
i don't even play this game anymore preferring to eu3 instead and this is around where y'all should ask for a threadlock
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 09, 2015, 03:45:45 pm
Lucky nations do receive reduced AE.You didn't actually read his post, it seems. He said that when he played as France, the results were cardinally different compared to when AI played as France.
The only difference here is France being controlled by the player vs France being controlled by AI. And this means that AI is treated differently by the game than the player.
The player doesn't get the lucky nation bonus, which is why you'll see more AE playing as France than the AI gets (25% less).
Is there a way to set up a mock battle? I want to pit 2 armies of exactly the same units against each other, right down to the same prestige, legitimacy, and power projection.
I wouldn't recommend going through the work to set this up, since the only modifier that affects combat that isn't visible directly from the battle screen is combat ability (and that is a rather minor stat). You can see exactly how prestige, army tradition, and power projection affect morale by mousing over it, in addition to all the other bonuses. Keep in mind that if there are multiple nations on one side of the battle, it'll list some bonuses separately (which is rather confusing) even though they are on an individual unit basis.
Morale damage done is based off of maximum morale, whereas unit damage is increased by discipline and combat ability (as well as dice rolls, unit pips, and leader values). If you have less maximum morale than the person you're fighting, you must have some combination of better composition/numbers or unit damage to win, period.
Since morale is so important early game, the big things to look out for to avoid being caught off guard and losing battles are national ideas, religion, and defensive ideas. Muslims can get up to 10% from piety, and Shia, Vajrayana, and Shinto get +10% as well. Defensive ideas give +15% and loads of army tradition (typically enough for around 5-10% more, this is true of offensive as well), and defensive and offensive both have events that give +15% as well ("relentless drill" and "full elan", very horrible to see). National ideas can be easily checked by mousing over the light bulb on both the province and diplomatic windows, but ones to remember that get morale early are Castile, France, Brandenbarf/Prussia, Persia, and Austria. Other surprises are morale advisors for +10%, or if you're really unlucky, an additional +10% from the level 3 morale advisor event.
Generally the player with a better composition, better planning/positioning, and the morale advisor can overcome even Prussian nonsense (well, maybe not the Prussians) without needing military bonuses or even a general. If you're losing battles unexpectedly due to their total morale being higher, these are the things to look out for. Later on in the game cannons and discipline become more important than morale, but fighting with a morale disadvantage will always be difficult. If you don't want to have to care about any of this, just take defensive ideas and you'll win most early fights without much care needed.
Post by: Vendayn on September 09, 2015, 04:00:59 pm
The AI took massive amounts of territory within the HRE (it was an HRE member too) and got not a single coalition (edit: btw, it was a small 2 state nation like me, it had lost one province during one war, used to be 3 state nation. Why did he not get any coalition at all from massive territory within HRE? And it happened to me from one single province, that wasn't a one city state, and province just came from a bigger nation like the AI did?)
Lucky nations is always off
I thought it was really BS lol.
Game is still fun though, but the AI DOES cheat heavily.
Post by: Eagle_eye on September 09, 2015, 08:56:38 pm
Was the land the AI took in Bohemia or Italy? Same culture-group increases the AE penalty. Was the AI taking land from a nation larger than it? Absolute size doesn't matter- you get an AE penalty for taking land from a nation smaller than you, and less for taking it from a larger nation. Did the AI take idea groups that reduce AE? Did they have alliances with major powers? Allies get virtually zero AE. Was the province you took very rich, like Milan or Vienna? AE is based on province value, not number. The AI cheats on things, but AE isn't one of them unless you're playing with the difficulty on hard.
Post by: Vendayn on September 09, 2015, 09:02:11 pm
Were they on the same patch?
Was the land the AI took in Bohemia or Italy? Same culture-group increases the AE penalty. Was the AI taking land from a nation larger than it? Absolute size doesn't matter- you get an AE penalty for taking land from a nation smaller than you, and less for taking it from a larger nation. Did the AI take idea groups that reduce AE? Did they have alliances with major powers? Allies get virtually zero AE. Was the province you took very rich, like Milan or Vienna? AE is based on province value, not number. The AI cheats on things, but AE isn't one of them unless you're playing with the difficulty on hard.
Ah that could have been it, the other guy had an alliance with both england and france (dunno how, but okay lol)...and he took mostly low cost ones now that I look at the map. He took 4 cheap provinces.
I opted for the richer provinces, and I actually took a coastal province to so I wouldn't be landlocked. I took 3 expensive provinces, and the coastal one was most developed.
I'll need to keep a better eye on that then. I didn't even pay attention to any of that, had to boot up the game and check. Guess that explains it.
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 10, 2015, 02:19:39 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 12, 2015, 12:15:46 am
Also,
Spoiler: Yeah, thanks (click to show/hide)
Post by: EnigmaticHat on September 12, 2015, 03:38:01 pm
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 12, 2015, 10:55:18 pm
That's an interesting strategy for getting into the HRE, I haven't thought of it.
Having used Austria to help me suppress electors, I've three elector-vassals now and am in line to be the Burgundian Emperor.
EDIT: I am now the emperor. There is no Imperial Authority, nor has there been for a long time. How do you get the religious unity CB? I need it badly.
Post by: Bouchart on September 13, 2015, 08:44:36 am
Post by: Micro102 on September 13, 2015, 11:34:07 am
Post by: Bouchart on September 13, 2015, 11:54:19 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 13, 2015, 07:52:00 pm
I've been playing as Better Poland (Mazovia), and man, it's been a hell of a ride. The independence war itself was luckily very smooth, and I was able to break Poland's PU over Lithuania (by the capital trick) and the next war with them went well enough, but afterward I ended up getting DoW'd by Lithuania and Poland separately. It was a 2:1 disadvantage in the Lithuania war, and all my allies dishonored the call to arms with the Poland war (they didn't get any allies in though, so it was just me and them).
What was insane about it was that I knew something horrible like this would happen (Lithuania is no joke, and I hadn't been able to get Muscovy on my side), so I encouraged a civil war ahead of time by leaving land uncored (fortunately had a really shitty ruler). The result was Poland and Lithuania slogging through around 70 pretender regiments, while I stayed out of bankruptcy by looting random provinces I could sneak around to with my tiny army. It was probably the most fun I've had in this game, and by the end of it I managed a white peace with Lithuania and took 100% warscore worth of land off Poland (while at 15 WE, -3 stability, and 15 legitimacy). And then with the war over, I collapse to rebels, and poof! 0 stab, 95 legitimacy, and 0 war exhaustion (also -100 prestige and like 80% autonomy everywhere, but you can't have everything).
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 14, 2015, 06:46:21 am
This is the first time I've ever really used mercenaries in EU4 for any length of time. Mercenary infantry with home-grown cavalry and artillery is my standing army. Fighting with France consists of me throwing troops into the meat-grinder to deplete French manpower until Austria can reinforce me while Spain conquers southern France. Still really bad that I have no navy to speak of; I never rebuilt it after England destroyed it in the beginning of the game.
I've got Quality (unfinished), Defensive (finished), Diplomatic (just started), and Administrative (finished) ideas and am not sure what to take next. Maybe Offensive? Or Quantity? Aristocratic for the +10% cav damage and -10% mil tech cost?
I've reached the point where I'm not sure what to do anymore. Do I continue swallowing France or do I go back to swallowing the HRE? Because I have elector-vassals to keep myself emperor, I'll never unite it. But that doesn't mean I can't use and abuse liberation CBs against the princes.
Post by: Bouchart on September 14, 2015, 09:04:17 am
What is going on in North America? It's too late to get into the colonization game but there might be a small colonial power you could take on. Probably not Spain, Portugal or Britain but possibly a smaller one like the Dutch (if they are still around) or Venetians or some Italian minor.
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 14, 2015, 11:04:21 am
I think colonization has been severely hampered by constant warfare and debt. Spain spends every moment it can on fighting Super Tunis and the Ottomans. Meanwhile Portugal is focusing on Africa and the Caribbean. France was the first real colonizer, taking up Brazil/Venezuela. Might actually be able to get into that game, but it'll take me into direct conflict with England who will almost certainly sink my fleet if we ever go to war. Assuming they aren't allied with Spain, I could probably take Portugal out by simply marching through Spain. But yeah, by the time I could take an idea for colonists, it'd probably be too late. Then again, there's always the East. Last I checked, India was nearly united by Bahmanis, so I don't know how easy it would be to get a foothold there.
Last time I played, I ended the game as the merchant republic of Serbia. This has been a much different experience.
The HRE has barely any Catholics, the west being Reformed and the north being Protestant. The last Catholics are, amusingly, Austria and 2 of the electors. I can't get IA because I have too many vassals (3 elector-vassals destroys IA gain), but I can't win elections against Austria (can't even come close, their dip rep is insane) so I can't give them up. Maybe if/when I finish Diplomatic I will have a chance.
Post by: Sheb on September 14, 2015, 11:15:14 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 14, 2015, 04:07:19 pm
Post by: PanH on September 14, 2015, 04:15:04 pm
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 14, 2015, 06:31:41 pm
In the meantime, in case anyone is interested, I have the state of Europe from my game.
http://imgur.com/a/ENTNJ#0
Post by: Bouchart on September 14, 2015, 08:35:24 pm
And is that purple blob Theodoro? What's going on over there?
Anyway my gut says try to vassalize Brittany, one way or another.
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 15, 2015, 12:39:43 am
What I'm curious about is who that is in Cyprus. My first guess was the ever migratory Naples, but they got integrated by Castile by the looks of it.
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 15, 2015, 02:10:31 am
The Commonwealth is the game's superpower. Whatever the Commonwealth says, goes. This includes the survival of Theodoro, the prevention of Muscovy forming Russia, and the repeated putting of the Ottomans in their place. The one time I fought them, Austria bowed out of the war within a year because the flood of Poles overran everything. That was back before the colonial times started, though, so I don't know if it would still be the same.
Post by: Bouchart on September 15, 2015, 07:08:54 pm
Also, is there ever a reason to declare the statute in restraint of appeals?
Post by: Culise on September 15, 2015, 07:25:54 pm
Post by: Bouchart on September 19, 2015, 03:40:50 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Micro102 on September 19, 2015, 09:16:49 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 19, 2015, 09:39:22 pm
10% is fairly low, all things considered, but I play very vassal heavy. Nothing like getting +50 liberty desire from lack of dip tech on all 6 of your vassals to make you value prestige and dip rep.
Edit: Oh, I think it also takes into account forcelimits and possibly some economic factors. Adding a new vassal with no military will instantly jump the liberty desire of the others substantially if you're a small nation.
Post by: Uristides on September 19, 2015, 09:55:19 pm
Can someone explain the "relative power to liege" modifier in liberty desire to me? It's giving them a 10% bonus when they have 8 units compared to my 218 and 17 ships to my 255. 10% seems rather high.Not sure if that's even a factor in your case, but it seems to me it takes into account the units of nations supporting the independence of that one particular vassal too.
Post by: Flying Dice on September 20, 2015, 11:18:04 pm
Spoiler: It's 1080 AD (click to show/hide)
Needless to say, it's my fault Western Europe currently looks like a pile of vomit. I started as Leinster in the mid-late 800s and went about the usual business of forming Ireland and conquering the British Isles -- it's much easier when they're a smattering of one and two province minors. The orange-peach whatsit with the vaguely germanic name, the one stuck between East and West Francia, it tried to make a land grab on some minors in England before I finished, which is what ended up drawing me onto the continent. A few decades after unifying I managed to pull off a diplomatic coup which is largely responsible for the current situation: I got alliances and royal marriages with East Francia and Italy, the blobs on my south and east borders respectively.
We've been at constant near-perfect relations for close to two hundred years; they get into wars in Eastern Europe and the Med that I can join without having to do anything, and they kept West Francia, wossname, Burgundy (for the decade or so it existed), and Brittany from getting help against me. Italy and I split western France about down the middle, now they're busy with the muslims in Iberia. Eastern Francia absolutely tore through Eastern Europe, and founded Germany in 1071.
The other major players are the Byzantines (maroon), Bulgaria (lavender), and Svealand (purple). Oh, and Western Francia technically still exists (at least until the truce is over, heh); it's the blue OPM sandwiched between our unholy triple alliance. I figure I'll provoke Germany into war at some point before it gets too strong and chop all this up to see what happens, 'cause as cool as it is having Germany founded 800 years ahead of schedule is, I miss the chaos of HRE-era Europe full of OPMs. So I won't annex much, just force a bunch of releases.
Only had one really close spot in the buildup, it was back in the 1050s when my monarch was in his 80s and heirless and I only had ~2-3 provinces on the continent. Thankfully the legitimize-daughter event triggered and she had a pretty obscene military score, so I could afford to pop a couple of policies on and reroll generals until I got a pair of monsters to stomp Western Francia's shit in with.
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 21, 2015, 11:57:28 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on September 21, 2015, 01:02:33 pm
And yeah, that got me to start a CK2-converted Austria game too - the Duchy of Austria is a OPM in CK2 in its earliest form, so I've been playing from those humble beginnings to reach its historical great power status. I took it slow for CK2, so there's still plenty of challenge in the world now in EUIV. And I'm a von Babenberg instead of a stupid Habsburg, mwah!
Post by: Flying Dice on September 21, 2015, 07:40:39 pm
Post by: Bastus on September 22, 2015, 06:46:05 am
Adding to that the raise of Christianity is either painfully slow to a point where I once had a completely pagan Europe for the whole game, or it hits lick a brick and half the world is force converted or drops into a doom spiral of breaking to rebells over and over again.
Post by: Aklyon on September 22, 2015, 08:22:01 am
Post by: Bastus on September 22, 2015, 08:25:01 am
Post by: Boksi on September 22, 2015, 03:12:19 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Bouchart on September 22, 2015, 03:42:55 pm
But the question that everyone is asking: what the hell is Ternate?
Post by: Boksi on September 22, 2015, 04:05:38 pm
In my game they're an empire spanning through Indonesia, parts of SE Asia, much of Australia, various Pacific islands, small parts of the east coast of America, and most recently a good chunk of Peru.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on September 22, 2015, 05:30:10 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 22, 2015, 05:37:41 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on September 22, 2015, 05:42:26 pm
Post by: Lukeinator on September 22, 2015, 07:32:37 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 22, 2015, 07:47:18 pm
The minor DLC (American Dream, Star and Crescent, Purple Phoenix) provides the type of content you could easily make for yourself, like events and decisions, unless you're super keen on ironman. I wouldn't consider any of it a good value for money.
Post by: Uristides on September 23, 2015, 04:52:00 am
Sometimes, the game doesn't need your help to go off the rails.Who is the emperor there?Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And indeed, OPM France + reverse PU Hungary is just beautiful.
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 23, 2015, 03:01:35 pm
After two days straight of trying to revive the Byzantine Empire I have... Well, not quite succeeded in that, but have certainly gotten to the point of survival. After some brief moments of false hope (the most painful being one particular run where Genoese islands were returned to me by force of steppe hordes and just after everything seemed good Timurids and Tunisians landed in Greece) I managed to muster a coalition of Poles, Lithuanians and Greeks to stand fast against the Ottoman invasion - all the whilst the Ottomans fought Qara Qoyunlu in the East and the Mamluks bankrolled me in the South. The Serbians jumped out of the war almost immediately to pursue their bosnian conquest whilst Byzantine soldiers escaped Ottoman soldiers by running through Hungary to reach the Slavic forces up North. After about 60 battles which saw Bulgarian freedom fighters join the Byzantine army, the Polish and Lithuanians reluctantly withdraw and saw the Ottoman army reduced to a mere few thousand in a sea of rebellions and one lone bastion of Byzantine spirit - the Emperor managed to force the Sultan into giving up most of Greece and Albania back to the Empire. The Ottomans have made Byzantium their rival but we're now in the running to take them down. Whilst recovering from the devastating war I can annex Athens and then go for round two: This time with more galleys. We took down 7 Ottoman ships despite having a vastly smaller navy... We can do better.
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 23, 2015, 03:30:09 pm
So far I've found you have to start the game fabricating claims on the province that borders Crimea's capital (you cant take the capital itself; it requires double your forcelimit to siege, which you cant possibly support long enough to finish), accepting Trebizond's alliance offer, and improving relations with Circassia. Once you get Circassia to like you, you ask for access and then ally them. Use the couple transports you start with to move your small 4/5k man army over to Circassia's provinces so they wont get instantly crushed by the 10k Crimean army bordering your capital. Once you have the claim, hope to god Circassia hasn't set you as a defensive ally (or they wont accept your call) and go to war with Crimea. Put a leader on, attach your troops to Circassia's, and then hope for the best!
That's as far as I got so far, took a while just to get my order of operations right.
Post by: Bouchart on September 23, 2015, 03:51:04 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 24, 2015, 12:40:57 am
YES FINALLY BYZANTIUM RISES
After two days straight of trying to revive the Byzantine Empire I have... Well, not quite succeeded in that, but have certainly gotten to the point of survival. After some brief moments of false hope (the most painful being one particular run where Genoese islands were returned to me by force of steppe hordes and just after everything seemed good Timurids and Tunisians landed in Greece) I managed to muster a coalition of Poles, Lithuanians and Greeks to stand fast against the Ottoman invasion - all the whilst the Ottomans fought Qara Qoyunlu in the East and the Mamluks bankrolled me in the South. The Serbians jumped out of the war almost immediately to pursue their bosnian conquest whilst Byzantine soldiers escaped Ottoman soldiers by running through Hungary to reach the Slavic forces up North. After about 60 battles which saw Bulgarian freedom fighters join the Byzantine army, the Polish and Lithuanians reluctantly withdraw and saw the Ottoman army reduced to a mere few thousand in a sea of rebellions and one lone bastion of Byzantine spirit - the Emperor managed to force the Sultan into giving up most of Greece and Albania back to the Empire. The Ottomans have made Byzantium their rival but we're now in the running to take them down. Whilst recovering from the devastating war I can annex Athens and then go for round two: This time with more galleys. We took down 7 Ottoman ships despite having a vastly smaller navy... We can do better.
If you ever need to try again, the way I did it was to go WAY over the force limit with galleys and then take over half of the ottoman's empire while their army is stuck on the other half, preferably the half that doesn't contain your capital. This is possible due to the Constantinople money.
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 27, 2015, 08:40:00 pm
http://imgur.com/a/rkave
Sadly no more strong Theodoro. Also, not pictured: Ternate colonized Australia. After Ternate was annexed by Mexico, they took over Ternatian Australia as their colony. As such, Australia is effectively being colonized by Mexico. Britain currently only has one province on the far west side.
Post by: Vendayn on September 28, 2015, 12:02:09 am
My custom Hashashkin nation for MEIOU :) They are the same, but my friend wanted me to have them colonized east south america, so they have two little provinces in south america and one province is under siege by rebels/natives to make it a challenge. And, since my friend wanted them in south america...
The Hashashkin saw renewed strength from underhanded dealings with surrounding nations. From stealing of valuable treasures, a valuable marriage with the Mazandaran and their biggest source of income: The hidden remnants of the Crusader States hiring them with vast wealth to destroy their enemies. In this, with a couple valuable provinces conquered, a valuable ally and a secret alliance with what remained of the Crusaders, they went from near destruction of the Mongol horde to being a rather strong force.
On the other side of the world...
When spain tried colonizing south america early on (secretly at that), an unknown source hired the Hashashkin, known for their brutal daytime killings, to infiltrate and take over the spanish colony. Obviously they wanted to scare the spanish from any further colonization, at least for the time being. They discovered Spain had some settlers, and cheaply made wooden walls. With little in the way of troops. Plus, they seemed lost in the "new world" as they called it. Explorers would leave and just never return, possibly taken by the natives to be sacrificed. It took merely a year and two of the small spanish colonies had been infilitrated by the Hashashkin and they had sent their own to replace them. The spanish? Some sent back to spain to tell of the horrors they saw, the others sent to the various natives in peace offerings...as the Hashashkin knew allying with the natives could prove very beneficial in this new world.
Gameplay reasons, my friend finds playing in the americas the most fun part of the game. And he likes playing in two areas at one time. So with the main holdings in India, and then a smaller area in South America, it accomplishes just that.
However, just a slight bug. I can't get HSH_ideas to work at all. It doesn't show the name I put for those in the localization file. No matter what I do, and spending over 2 hours trying to fix that stupid thing...it doesn't work. Even though its same exact damn format as the others listed. So I've given up and not gonna bother dealing with that sh! lol...its just a mod for me and my friend anyway, so a tiny bug not worth spending hundreds of hours fixing. Thats more annoying than the bug lol.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 28, 2015, 01:29:20 am
Post by: Bastus on September 28, 2015, 08:44:11 am
And I think I finally know why Poland/Commonwealth is so strong in the newer versions. It's not just the over developed provinces in Lithuania. First of all free Westernisation due to Poland always getting Danzig is helping out alot, even if being eastern isn't that bad, you get a huge amount of free points over time just by doing your normal expansion, you don't have to get out of your way. Next thing is you rivals. Most of the times you only strong rivals are Muscovy and the Ottomans. I could easily secure Alliances with Austria, France and Brandenburg which made me nearly unbeatable until I was string enough myself.
Post by: Bouchart on September 28, 2015, 08:51:16 am
One of the odd things about Poland is that you can't form the Commonwealth if you have two personal unions. I learned that the hard way in my most recent game because I had some random personal union with Anhalt. I don't know why that would be the case since you can form Spain with two personal unions.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 28, 2015, 08:57:40 am
What are your issues with Common Sense? I try out a lot of different mods perhaps I found one which can help you get rid of some of your problems.Development being linked to MP instead of something sane like ducats. Leads to ridiculous sky metropolises from useless OPMs.
No longer being able to take land outside of coring range. Really fucked up vassal feeding and hit the RoTW hardest since they can't fast westernise anymore.
Can't disband units in enemy territory. Not a massive issue but another poorly implemented fix for a very small exploit that could have been patched in a less tedious way.
Native development and buildings being nerfed into the ground leaving them with nothing to do for decades (sometimes centuries) while the Euro scum goes and conquers Africa instead of the New World.
I wouldn't mind just turning off Common Sense and disabling development but then I lose out on all the new vassal interaction features which you need now that you're locked out of intergrated a vassal above 50% LD (fuckign dumb change). There's also issues with certain disasters that you can't actually stop unless you have Common Sense, enjoy those rebel stacks.
Buddhism being a joke of a religion that is actually more powerful with the DLC turned off. The karma balance "mechanic" is the second worst implementation I've seen after development.
Government levels having way too big of a bonus. Empires are already stupidly stable in EU4 and they just made them stronger. Heaven forbid we get some domestic policies or a centralisation mechanic instead.
So yeah, Common Sense had the potential to be a great expansion that the game really needed but the implementation was just so utterly pathetic.It wouldn't be too bad if this stuff wasn't hardcoded so modders could actually repair the game but Wiz is too busy shitposting to get that done apparently.
Post by: Aklyon on September 28, 2015, 09:17:53 am
That was the entire point of development though, was it not? Regardless of if your sky-tall city is actually better or worse than huge blobpires, you can do that. If you wanted to play an opm as an opm for some arcane non-hre reason.What are your issues with Common Sense? I try out a lot of different mods perhaps I found one which can help you get rid of some of your problems.Development being linked to MP instead of something sane like ducats. Leads to ridiculous sky metropolises from useless OPMs.
Post by: RedKing on September 28, 2015, 09:25:15 am
Importer did some weirdness with giving Mongolia a sliver of provinces almost to the Indian ocean, but this problem resolved itself in short order thanks to masses of Indian separatists and an AI that actually does try to sell provinces now. I was gracious enough to buy the two times it offered, since I have more money than Shiva anyways.
Took Gahrwal in a quick war so I could form Bharat (despite having been the unified empire of India for hundreds of years). Also took Bhutan and Manipur, and have a slew of protectorates around my fringe. Reclaimed all the Persian holdings that I had lost to the Arabs towards the end of CK2. Now I'm wondering if I should focus on internal development or go for a massive land grab and expand west until I hold the Holy Land (now that I don't need to worry about endless Crusades if I do).
Or expand west until I find China and then try for a massive Indo-Persian-Chinese empire. One interesting bit is that I imported with Western tech, so all these south Asian minors are rapidly Westernizing. If I push west, I have to roflstomp China quickly, or I risk letting them westernize hundreds of years ahead of schedule, which would have huge ramifications for the rest of the world. At this point, I have a huge advantage in conquering/colonizing in Asia, because the Western powers are relatively small and won't be able to reach Asia for a long time.
Primary European powers:
Knights Templar (which appears to be filling in for Spain -- they won a Crusade for Iberia sometime back in CK2 and have kept trying to retake the rest of the peninsula)
Lloegyr (Breton England)
Norway
Sweden
Germany
HRE (considerably weaker than normal, only 24 members, mostly in Italy and eastern France)
Carpathia
Poland
Byzantine Empire (all of the Balkans, southern Italy and western Anatolia)
The Arab Empire is still around, but heavily truncated to mainly just the coast of North Africa, bits of Andalusia, the Levantine, and western Anatolia. Mecca and Medina were converted to Hinduism a hundred years ago. One major beneficiary of that is Abyssinia, which survived as an intact and stable Monophysite kingdom, at one point reaching all the way into central Egypt.
Should be an interesting game. There's no danger of "losing" the game, but I'm curious to see how things develop organically.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 28, 2015, 09:42:40 am
Here's a crosspost of mine from the EU4 forums if you care for a response.Development being linked to MP instead of something sane like ducats. Leads to ridiculous sky metropolises from useless OPMs.That was the entire point of development though, was it not? Regardless of if your sky-tall city is actually better or worse than huge blobpires, you can do that. If you wanted to play an opm as an opm for some arcane non-hre reason.
Spoiler: kinda long (click to show/hide)
Post by: Aklyon on September 28, 2015, 09:51:03 am
Post by: Bouchart on September 28, 2015, 12:13:13 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 28, 2015, 01:18:51 pm
My fix for development in this version (while still being able to use other CS features) was to change the base development cost in the defines to 9999. It's the crudest fix imaginable, but it's a lot more fun until they fix the AI's spending and the more fundamental problems that CLC's listed.
Post by: Bouchart on September 28, 2015, 02:21:36 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 29, 2015, 03:28:27 am
Was quite a new thing for me, I've certainly lost before, but never after having expanded so large. Usually once I get the ball rolling, it's over. Not this time! Another thing I learned is that attrition is not very poweful, at least in that part of the world. 50k troop stacks in the 1500s besieging a scorched earth province for two years? Didn't even make a dent!
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on September 29, 2015, 03:45:46 am
Not this time! Another thing I learned is that attrition is not very poweful, at least in that part of the world. 50k troop stacks in the 1500s besieging a scorched earth province for two years? Didn't even make a dent!Attrition was hit with the nerf bat pretty hard a couple patches ago. It's now capped at 5% max attrition which is basically nothing for a large nation (also makes scorched earth hilariously useless). There's also currently a bug (yes another attrition bug) where the AI will only take half attrition.
So yeah. Don't expect to be melting armies anymore like the EU4 of glorious yore.
Post by: h3lblad3 on September 29, 2015, 10:05:33 am
Trying to play as Mutapa, that gold-infused tribal nation on the south tip of Africa. I had dreams of eventually marching on Constantinople, but those were crushed pretty quickly. I made my way up the coast of Africa until I got to Ethiopia, and it was all downhill from there. Massive armies with inflated tech values, alliances with everyone around, etc. I had one shot at beating them, but it required a LOT of mercs. I should of done it, even if it required massive loans. But I didn't, I lost. From there it was just Ethiopian crusade after crusade, and I effectively lost the game. I had no idea Ethiopia was such a powerhouse, but they certainly are. It wouldn't of been so bad if I could carve them up, as the Mamelukes weren't very threatening, but that didn't happen.
Scroll up and look at the pictures from my Burgundy game. Ethiopia is the big blue blob of that game.
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 29, 2015, 11:32:04 am
I have begun colonizing as well. A small bit of India now belongs to me, as does one sole Island in Indonesia and a single province in Brazil. Whilst the Romans simply cannot compete with the filthy likes of Frenchmen, Iberians and Britons, the Romans can certainly steal the fruits of their labours.
Post by: Uristides on October 01, 2015, 10:22:16 am
Even though I'm usually all for playing tall and internal I have to say I'm not yet sure I'll pick the next expansion at launch.
As interesting as the horde mechanics look, they just aren't my piece of cake.
Estates do look intriguing, but I have to admit the more I play EUIV the fonder I get of it's "just sit down and fuck shit up" style rather than the more involved pace of CKII/Vic2 where you need to be really careful when going to war and assuring you'll have enough internal support and you won't just piss off the big powers to a point they come after your ass the same instant(well, at least not in this patch not outside the HRE). I'm just not sure I want a mini-faction system for every nation I pick to play as.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 01, 2015, 10:53:16 am
Also hilariously Paradox knows how shit Buddhism is that they had to remove all hordes from the religion. Maybe just cut your loses and accept that the karma system is complete trash, boys.
EDIT: dev diary about culture next week. Hopefully it addresses the broken cultural acceptance and cultural conversion, preferably completely removing it (outside of colonising primitives of course).
DOUBLE EDIT: DLC will be called Leviathan. I'm willing to bet on it.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 01, 2015, 04:09:49 pm
Edit: Reading through many of the recent diaries, it looks overall disappointing. That they've acknowledged how crazy development gets, and apparently don't think anything's wrong, is a strong indicator that I'm not going to be playing vanilla for a long time. Revanchism also looks incredibly dreadful, like they're going in the complete opposite direction they should be. When bleeding someone like France or the Ottomans at 20 WE until they finally explode into separatists, white peacing them, and then watching them recover completely within 5 years is something that happens now, why on earth do they want to make it even easier for them to bounce back?
Post by: Bouchart on October 01, 2015, 07:53:36 pm
Post by: Icefire2314 on October 01, 2015, 09:03:53 pm
Paradox creates new Estate system in next DLC.
Puts it in vanilla game but locks out the actual estates themselves.
Shrugs, says 'Whoops' and puts out a new DLC.
Post by: Wolock on October 04, 2015, 07:21:32 am
My goal was to get land in the polish heartland but because of him I had to limit my expansion. When the war ended, my standing army was under 100k and my reserve was at 13k and it fell to 0 shortly after. In 1608, nearly half a million Turks were shouting ''Warsaw in 1610!'', half of them had to contend with Tarnow in 1615...
Post by: Twiggie on October 04, 2015, 08:55:52 am
I managed to murderise the pole pretty easily in my current game ( I think they had no union )
But now burgundy formed France, and is the only nation in the world who can challenge me. I'll fight them and win, but the losses are so ridiculous it's not worth it.
Post by: Majestic7 on October 04, 2015, 11:24:10 am
Post by: PanH on October 04, 2015, 12:12:41 pm
I think there was a similar revanchism mechanic in Victoria 2. I never played a full game of it so hopefully someone can fill in the details. But from what I remember you could switch to a fascist government if you were lacking a lot of cores and fascism was powerful.Revanchism caused an increase in facism in your country, so if you were a facist govt (which is the best one), it was pretty good, otherwise it was hindering your reforms/counter - reforms. So, the name is the same, but the mechanism seems pretty different.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 04, 2015, 12:28:25 pm
Then the Spanish attacked, with the Portuguese and all of Aragon and the Meditteranean islands. They seized all but two of Tlemcen's lands, including my own. Destroyed my fleet, forcing me to disband nearly all of my soldiers (all but two thousand made it to Trinidad) and the Knights spent the next two centuries being bullied by Ottomans, Mamlukes, Spaniards, Portuguese and all their allies in the Italian peninsula gradually abandoned them. The archbishopric, alone in West Africa, was conquered by Mali.
Then the protestant reformation happened. The Knights at this point had only one ally, the Papal State - and nonetheless converted to protestantism to continue expanding from Trinidad. After decades of expansion, where the Knights' economy recovered and pulled out of debt to become the 11th most powerful force in the Americas, the Knights really began shaping up. Over time a fleet grew until the pirates of the Caribbean were able to challenge even the Portuguese and Spanish. Although the Knights weren't able to stop the Spanish from conquering Mexico, the Knights themselves had a modest Empire stretching from Florida to Panama and all the way down to Chile.
Rather strange is that the Knights' only ally in the world was the Papacy in Rome. This is even stranger because the Knights are the only protestant nation in the world, with the Germans subjugated by a Catholic Australia, all of Scandinavia ruled by Catholic Swedes and Britain Catholic as well. I imagine there must have been some great conspiracy where the Knights accepted expelled protestants in some form of controlled opposition.
At first incapable of waging direct warfare on the Iberians, the Knights invested heavily in espionage and sabotage. Pirates in the Caribbean, rebels in Mexico and Morocco - making way for the war effort to follow, as the Knights gradually constricted their control over central America. And from there? The world.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 05, 2015, 04:40:10 pm
with the Germans subjugated by a Catholic Australia
Oesterreich -> Ostrichreich -> Holy Aussie Empire? Now there's something I haven't seen.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 05, 2015, 05:47:48 pm
Post by: Bouchart on October 05, 2015, 07:36:01 pm
Post by: Wolock on October 07, 2015, 11:07:19 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Inarius on October 08, 2015, 02:22:50 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on October 08, 2015, 03:14:22 am
The mighty Ottomans Empire ca. 1669:That's a nice empire. Sure would be a shame if something were to... pull it into WW1.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 08, 2015, 03:46:36 am
Also:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-dev-diary-october-8th.885819/
Pretty lackluster all round.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on October 08, 2015, 04:00:14 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 08, 2015, 04:05:21 am
I suppose if you want to make Kyoto Sami as Morocco this is the feature for you.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 08, 2015, 05:03:03 am
It really isn't the change I'd be looking for, though. Something I'd like to see is a system where you can select an unaccepted culture to "represent" its group, simulating the way empires often favored a minority in local leadership positions as a way of creating a loyal and ruthless administration (allowing the player to set up the same sort of messed up colonial structures that caused so many modern problems). Or really, just any way of getting reduced maluses when you have, for instance, the entirety of China but accept none of the cultures because the sum of each individual culture prevents any other one from being accepted. Being able to get an entire culture group accepted to the point where it gives the same level of maluses you get from unaccepted cultures in your own group would be a great improvement.
Post by: Flying Dice on October 08, 2015, 06:23:57 am
Post by: Sheb on October 08, 2015, 06:27:39 am
Converting cultures to ones other than your own does seem very unrealistic, but I can imagine having some fun with it.
What about stuff like Great-Britain (culture: English) settling some of its colonies with Scots for example?
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 08, 2015, 07:07:30 am
Settling its east indies colonies with Indians and Chinese is more significant but that mostly happened around the time Viccy takes placeConverting cultures to ones other than your own does seem very unrealistic, but I can imagine having some fun with it.
What about stuff like Great-Britain (culture: English) settling some of its colonies with Scots for example?
Post by: Sheb on October 08, 2015, 07:26:27 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 08, 2015, 07:33:10 am
As far as I know all Scottish settlements in the New World were sent by the Scottish government or by private investment. Even after the Act of Union in 1707 they still enjoyed a rather decent degree of freedom and the colonies stayed under quasi-Scottish rule until their destruction by the likes of the Spanish or disease.Converting cultures to ones other than your own does seem very unrealistic, but I can imagine having some fun with it.
What about stuff like Great-Britain (culture: English) settling some of its colonies with Scots for example?
The English just didn't march into Scotland, point at the nearest family and demand they got their stuff and moved to the Americas. Scottish emigration outside of their colonies would be in willful exchange for labour such as trappers, home duties, soldiers or scouts.
Of course there were also the slaves (from failed revolts in Scotland/Ireland) and the indentured servants sent to "work off loans". They were sent over in large numbers but obviously there were desire to suppress these "deviant" cultures.
Post by: Culise on October 08, 2015, 07:46:30 am
Which really is my problem with culture conversion in general, but that's something much more general than this. It's simply too controlled, too directed for much of the EU timeframe.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 08, 2015, 08:35:02 am
Post by: Sheb on October 08, 2015, 08:39:37 am
Post by: mainiac on October 08, 2015, 08:54:11 am
What about stuff like Great-Britain (culture: English) settling some of its colonies with Scots for example?
Fun fact, this is the origin of Redneck culture in the United States. Thanks Scotland!
Post by: Descan on October 08, 2015, 09:01:16 am
Post by: Culise on October 08, 2015, 10:08:31 am
Can't it already happen? Like if you take over the whole of China, there will be so much Chinese in your empire your primary culture flip?Yep, but the decision only appears if your capital also shares that culture. I'm not certain I've ever seen the AI move their capital outside of immediate pressure due to losing land to hostile powers, though I haven't played EU4 that much compared to the first three, however, so that may explain its relative rarity. Of course, Mongolia and Manchu are both ineligible for the decision by virtue of their tags, if Wiki is accurate, so the two historical sources of the foreign dynasties are both unable to convert to Chinese culture.
Post by: Bouchart on October 08, 2015, 11:59:55 am
"Cultural Unions" can't use this decision. Cultural unions are basically what the game calls modern nation states you can form by decision that treat all cultures in that cultural group as accepted cultures (Britain, Spain, Italy, etc.) and the HRE.
Post by: RedKing on October 08, 2015, 04:40:57 pm
The English just didn't march into Scotland, point at the nearest family and demand they got their stuff and moved to the Americas. Scottish emigration outside of their colonies would be in willful exchange for labour such as trappers, home duties, soldiers or scouts.Erm...for many Scots who were on the losing side (i.e. most of them except the Campbells and many of the lowland Clans), emigrating to the New World was about the only tolerable option. The Crown may not have forced them at the point of the sword/musket, but it was still the end result of government actions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Clearances), in the same way that ISIS isn't forcing millions of Syrians to settle elsewhere, they're just creating the conditions such that it's about the only rational option.
Of course there were also the slaves (from failed revolts in Scotland/Ireland) and the indentured servants sent to "work off loans". They were sent over in large numbers but obviously there were desire to suppress these "deviant" cultures.
And I say this as a descendant of a Scot who fought in the 1715 Jacobite rebellion and fled to North Carolina afterwards.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 08, 2015, 05:27:37 pm
Can't it already happen? Like if you take over the whole of China, there will be so much Chinese in your empire your primary culture flip?Nah, you can only shift culture with a national decision which costs -5 stability and is very much instantaneous and after you move your capital into China as opposed to having China move to your capital; it is not quite the gradual shift like the Byzantine shift to Greek or the Norman shift to English.
At best they can be an accepted culture. I'd be nice to see more Viccy style stuff with multiple populations by province, but I guess that's engine limitations at work
For that matter CK2 could also do with multipop provinces, as stuff like Mongols and black plagues do not nearly have the effect and gravitas they should, but that's for another thread
Post by: Baffler on October 08, 2015, 05:53:21 pm
I'm happy to be able to do it though, it gives me the ability to settle Urbinos in one part of the new world and Tuscans in another and Swiss in yet another in an colonizing Italy run, for example, making the New World slightly more interesting when they get their independence. And it lets you grow your minorities along with your primary culture to prevent them from dropping out of acceptance if you paint Siberia or South Africa or something as a relatively small nation.
Post by: Bouchart on October 08, 2015, 06:52:21 pm
Post by: Culise on October 08, 2015, 06:56:40 pm
I'm happy to be able to do it though, it gives me the ability to settle Urbinos in one part of the new world and Tuscans in another and Swiss in yet another in an colonizing Italy run, for example, making the New World slightly more interesting when they get their independence. And it lets you grow your minorities along with your primary culture to prevent them from dropping out of acceptance if you paint Siberia or South Africa or something as a relatively small nation.That doesn't actually look possible, though. Your only options in the Dev Diary are the primary culture (as exists in the game now), any adjacent culture, and the original culture. So, f'rex, if you were playing as the default Cosmpolitaine France, you could invest Diplo points into pushing Gascons from Spain to Moscow as France, but not one Gascon could be settled in New Gascony, Arkansas, because there's no land connection between the Old and New World.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on October 08, 2015, 08:25:58 pm
Post by: Rakonas on October 08, 2015, 08:35:35 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 09, 2015, 01:29:30 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 09, 2015, 04:38:10 pm
Post by: Kot on October 09, 2015, 05:00:55 pm
Post by: Bouchart on October 09, 2015, 06:46:39 pm
Post by: Wolock on October 10, 2015, 07:25:36 am
Jamais vu une Ecosse aussi forte !
Well, it had the backing of France nearly since day 1 and its colonies rival those of England.
Those are some disgusting borders you have in that Scrubomans game. Expanding into dirty slav lands, have you no shame?!
None at all. Though I have respect for the Poles who offer me some fierce resistance during our first wars.
That's a nice empire. Sure would be a shame if something were to... pull it into WW1.
Now it's 1700 and I'm actually preparing for one. It will be me, Castille, Austria, Boukhara and the Hansa vs Portugal, England, Sweden (if still under PU with England), Lithuania and France. Though I think the results will be different.
Post by: Micro102 on October 13, 2015, 04:44:23 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 13, 2015, 09:58:46 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 13, 2015, 10:28:40 pm
Privateering allows you to sap the trade power of other nations by adding a cut of the power to a "pirate" nation (where it's basically wasted). I guess the idea is to disrupt someone's trade in a node where you can't otherwise spare a merchant to transfer away, or something. It's almost completely useless for its intended purpose (whatever that is), though it's worthwhile to have a single light ship privateering in a rival's node, since it gives 1 power projection (and a recurring event with an option for better relations over time, which is useful for faster AE reduction).
"Caravan power" is a passive modifier that's applied to inland nodes (nodes without coastal provinces) that basically amplifies the effect provincial trade power has on transferring trade into or out of inland nodes. I guess it's compensation for not being able to protect trade with light ships, though there isn't any player interaction with caravans or anything like that.
Post by: Astral on October 13, 2015, 10:45:40 pm
I haven't played much on the European nations, but I'm particularly fond of Castile (I think that stems from playing Europa in Warcraft 3 extensively), and I haven't found many instances where it was better to spend MP on making a single province better, as opposed to increasing technology overall.
Post by: Bouchart on October 13, 2015, 10:48:10 pm
Post by: Persus13 on October 14, 2015, 11:07:45 am
Privateering allows you to sap the trade power of other nations by adding a cut of the power to a "pirate" nation (where it's basically wasted). I guess the idea is to disrupt someone's trade in a node where you can't otherwise spare a merchant to transfer away, or something. It's almost completely useless for its intended purpose (whatever that is), though it's worthwhile to have a single light ship privateering in a rival's node, since it gives 1 power projection (and a recurring event with an option for better relations over time, which is useful for faster AE reduction).Privateering also gives you income from the trade you take away (I think its listed as war spoils), but the main benefit is power projection and hurting the trade income of rival nations. I've used it rarely, the best case was as the Ottomans against Venice and I was pretty happy with the effects, since it was a way of getting back the trade Venice was transferring from Constantinople.
Post by: Teneb on October 15, 2015, 08:44:56 am
EDIT: Also a dev diary, it seems. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-dev-diary-october-15th-2015.886882/)
Post by: Kot on October 15, 2015, 10:36:11 am
Post by: Bouchart on October 19, 2015, 03:46:24 pm
Post by: Teneb on October 19, 2015, 05:15:53 pm
Goofy exploit involving The Netherlands and Westphalia. (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/the-netherphalia-exploit.887516/)I saw that. Netherphalia is pretty amusing, especially since the AI can take over your country.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 19, 2015, 06:13:55 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 20, 2015, 03:19:34 am
Post by: Aklyon on October 20, 2015, 07:19:38 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 20, 2015, 02:12:02 pm
Post by: Aklyon on October 20, 2015, 02:16:44 pm
Post by: Micro102 on October 20, 2015, 04:27:16 pm
So I need some suggestions in interesting ways to make custom nations.
Post by: Bouchart on October 20, 2015, 07:08:03 pm
Post by: Culise on October 20, 2015, 09:35:59 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 20, 2015, 09:43:07 pm
High American is already a tech though, at least in a slightly modded nation designer or converted game. Its th tech level they give the super-aztecs from Sunset Invasion if you bring over a save that used that from ckii, and basically a renamed western.
Well, with a lower cavalry ratio.
The point of excitement is that you no longer need to be using an imported game or custom nation.
Post by: Baffler on October 20, 2015, 11:08:06 pm
Post by: Lightning4 on October 21, 2015, 01:51:58 am
Though honestly, it'd probably be kinda boring since it's unlikely anyone will bother you. :P
Might be good for an isolationist game I guess. Maybe do Asian techgroup so there's always the risk of being attacked by stronger powers, when/if they bother coming to you.
Post by: Majestic7 on October 21, 2015, 05:07:18 am
Post by: Aklyon on October 21, 2015, 06:27:45 am
Post by: Persus13 on October 21, 2015, 11:55:00 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on October 21, 2015, 03:39:53 pm
I make Custom starts all the time because I just like creating nations and set-ups. They're just not too fun to actually play (there's a hard limit to how many nations you can create, too, so unless you only create big blobs, most of the world will be empty).
Post by: Rakonas on October 21, 2015, 09:59:13 pm
Post by: Uristides on October 22, 2015, 03:32:50 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on October 22, 2015, 04:22:10 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 22, 2015, 05:23:14 pm
Post by: Micro102 on October 24, 2015, 07:32:36 pm
Wish me luck, technically I should be able to fight off the navies of France and Portugal.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 24, 2015, 07:52:50 pm
There's also a trick to prevent any of your ships from being sunk in battle. If you divide your navy into individual fleets of one ship each, and then watch the battle carefully for when a ship runs out of morale, you can order it to retreat individually, recover morale/hull at the tick of the month, and then order it back into the fight. It requires tons of micro, but it can be used to win battles that'd otherwise be lost, or prevent any ships from being sunk in easy victories.
Post by: Bouchart on October 24, 2015, 10:26:01 pm
Post by: Teneb on October 29, 2015, 12:28:43 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 29, 2015, 04:22:28 pm
Quote
build armies and navies in subject countries
The old trick I used in my Majapahit WC of migrating to Africa and westernizing by 1520 may just be possible again. Still have to deal with the horrible Indian ocean, though, but I bet it can be done by 1540.
Post by: Teneb on October 29, 2015, 05:45:21 pm
The european nations (Portugal in particular) often colonise/conquer inland provinces, which cannot be added to trade companies. You can always use those, as well as maybe abusing protectorates to keep them from attacking you.AND the fact you cannot westernise off of trade companies. Gonna have to send a colonist to America or something.Quotebuild armies and navies in subject countries
The old trick I used in my Majapahit WC of migrating to Africa and westernizing by 1520 may just be possible again. Still have to deal with the horrible Indian ocean, though, but I bet it can be done by 1540.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 29, 2015, 05:47:25 pm
I think the only way to do this again in this version would be to play without El Dorito (so you have old exploration mechanics), no-CB into two adjacent vassals so you can integrate one off the other, and then push onward. That'd save 3 or 4 colonies worth of time in the Indian Ocean, but would also tack on 10+ years for the integration. But if you could also vassalize the Mamluks (might need a truce break, but I bet you can avoid getting coalitioned), you could easily build a proper navy in the Mediterranean. If by then you've moved your capital you could core a province on the coast off the Mamluks, and then annex Rome or one of the Italian minors that now leaves the HRE. I think it'd still be significantly slower, but could be worth it.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 02, 2015, 08:05:40 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Having secured the British Isles completely, the Anglosaxons were quite bored, looking for people to pick fights with. So they began picking on old rivals, with the Germanics of the Netherlands finding out firsthand that their Essex rivals were considerably more powerful than they last remembered. The Anglosaxons planned on taking over the entirety of the Frisian coast, and after destroying the Soisson, Dutch and Norse navies one after the other the north sea easily belonged to England. Conquering and holding onto those provinces would be considerably more difficult, as the British Isles simply could not replace its dead men with the same ease it did for its ships.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
King Philip Aetheldring also had a neat trick up his sleeve. His predecessors had conquered the isles with swift ease by granting autonomy to disgruntled druids, by creating Germanic vassal states that were in turn annexed over time - and also by abusing Welsh immense hatred of their druid neighbours to decisively turn the coalition against the Anglosaxons in the Anglosaxons' favour. In the European continent however, the same strategy would be insufficient. Endlessly warring with powerful barbarian Kingdoms and insurrections would quickly drain England's resources and undo much of her progress into the Frisian coast. The plan then was to create a vassal state to sort out with local insurrections and to rule over the continent in England's stead. What better mandate for this altruistic conquering than that of the Roman Empire? (http://i.imgur.com/ZXiFvgw.jpg)
Granted, the Western Roman Empire was now nothing more than a single province on the French coast, whose Emperor was as respected as some minor dukes, whose Emperor answered to King Philip Aetheldring. The important thing though, was that once the Gauls were once again subjugated, the English would be able to count on a Roman juggernaut as a European attack dog of Cerberic calamity. Given the possibility of marriages resulting in personal unions with Philip's allies, the entire Roman Empire itself could be rebuilt in time. With the Romans administering as Romans do, the Anglosaxons could be left to the practices of trade and killing things!
Oh, and Tokyo has been confirmed as real before the end of the 6th century. (http://i.imgur.com/QItxR4U.jpg)
And the Abbasid Caliphate is wedged precariously between the Byzantine and Sassanid Empires. (http://i.imgur.com/AxWcYcN.jpg) I wonder what is more confusing, the fact that the Caliphate is the leader of the Islamic world when Islam does not exist yet, or that the Abbasid Caliphate's official state religion is Chalcedonist Christianity.
Post by: Bouchart on November 02, 2015, 08:39:40 pm
If anything westernization in EU4 is too easy. It was better in EU3, when it needed to be done in steps.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 03, 2015, 04:47:01 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sheb on November 03, 2015, 08:25:34 am
Post by: Aklyon on November 03, 2015, 08:28:02 am
What mod is that?Pretty sure its Extended Timeline.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 03, 2015, 02:09:16 pm
YupWhat mod is that?Pretty sure its Extended Timeline.
It's hilarious fun playing modern nations with EU4
Post by: Baffler on November 03, 2015, 04:55:54 pm
Post by: Persus13 on November 03, 2015, 05:47:27 pm
How did ISIS, Israel, Palestine, and the Saudis end up on the same side in a war against Syria?Yeah, you'd think they'd all have separate wars against Syria. But it did say it was 2017, so maybe they all allied each other (and since Palestine is in there, that's probably what happened, unless Palestine is considered an Israeli vassal or something).
Post by: Teneb on November 03, 2015, 06:09:11 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 03, 2015, 06:28:35 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on November 03, 2015, 07:21:09 pm
Quote
ISIS funded by IsraelI fucking love Extended Timeline.
Post by: Vendayn on November 05, 2015, 12:29:35 am
but, with extended timelines (and one that adds a ton of new provinces) I started in year 58. I chose to be the roman empire, a massive empire of course, but very hard to play early on. Dealing with unrest (and tons of religious problems), rebels all over the place and you start in war with parthia.
I've played a few games of extended timelines, and roman empire only won once. up to year year 400 when I had to restart due to updating the mod....so it is possible to do okay for a while. but later when new nations start popping up as the time goes by, its gonna get pretty hard maintaining the empire...but this is so far on my current game
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 05, 2015, 04:14:00 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
AT LAST ESTONIA WAS READY FOR CONQUEST
I never did get to see what happened of that war. I was playing as Great Britain. Queen Elizabeth had passed away.
This left the Throne to Charles of Windsor.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It started off with the Dutch invasion of Belgium, which in turn caused the French invasion of the Netherlands (drawing Britain into the war with the Dutch). The British were quite eager to get rid of Dutch pirates and so joined, clearing the north sea. British fleets also began exerting power across the entire Atlantic, with Argentinian, Canadian and American navies shadowing Royal British Navies. British spies likewise sought allies by creating new ones out of rebel groups, most notably with the Guryana tribe on the northernmost tip of Argentina and the Kingdom of Catalonia out of Spain. Surprisingly for some reason Mexico grew enamoured with the prospect of destroying Britain and endlessly sent spies and saboteurs to London, and so London in turn sent gifts to Mexico as well. Neither Mexico or Britain is yet to gain the upper hand in this bizarre cold war, though British pirates now roam the Mexican gulf. Some other weird things include the Sudanese and Malaysian attempts to invade Spain... I still don't understand what that was about. With French help, the Sudanese successfully landed in Spain.
Anyways, the Dutch were defeated, but it would not be long before the British were once more called to trade war with the Dutch - just as the Germans and their vast alliance (which I suppose is the European Union, albeit one without France or Britain but includes Russia) were invading the Dutch. The British were invading to restore the Belgian lands and end Dutch ambitions in the English channel, which very quickly ended with the creation of the Free Lowlands puppet state and the Netherlands being reduced to Holland and a British vassal. This drew the Germans to war with the British, but after two brief naval battles and the Germans already having fought for quite some time, the Germans made peace after being given the Dutch territories they occupied.
The side effect of this militant protestant Kingdom and this bureaucratic authoritarian Republic partitioning the entire Dutch state created three coalitions. A coalition against France, a coalition against Germany and a coalition against Great Britain.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My strategy is to hold the ocean line and bid my continental allies adieu, as there is simply no halting that many soldiers on land. I cannot count on a Chinese intervention as the Koreans are invading them (North Korea invaded South Korea, South Korea annexed North Korea after a crushing victory) and I cannot count on an American intervention as President Ambrose Churchill is very indecisive and more concerned with stopping the Mexicans and Canadians from killing each other. Maybe the Iranians or Saudi Arabians could do me a solid.
In the meantime, EVERYONE'S GETTING REBELS, WHEN IN DOUBT - JAMES BOND TIME :D
*EDIT
Surprised the French fleet in the English channel and the Belgian army is kicking surprising amounts of Baguette bums. GO BELGIUM, LEAD OUR ALLIANCE TO VICTORY
The Catalonians likewise march north. The rest of the continental army is yet to arrive, hopefully the Catalonian-Belgian forces will be able to strike fast enough to bring an early end to the French menace.
Post by: Bouchart on November 05, 2015, 04:33:01 pm
Post by: Teneb on November 06, 2015, 09:51:06 am
Post by: Uristides on November 06, 2015, 10:28:11 am
Post by: Teneb on November 06, 2015, 11:06:29 am
Brazil lost Acre and a shitton of forest to Peru? What the hell, get your shit together Brazil!Don't be silly. There is no such thing as "Acre".
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 06, 2015, 03:54:23 pm
The British funded dissidents everywhere to cripple the great European coalition. 29,000 Swedish patriots rose up in Norway under British guidance alongside 68,000 Swedish rebel soldiers in Sweden, also under British guidance. 25,000 Italians in France. With the Germans being drawn into WWIII after the Swiss invaded France, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were now de facto out of the show and British blockades would begin encroaching deeper into Scandinavian seas. The greatest triumph occurred when the British successfully turned inordinate amounts of money into Ukrainian nationalists attempting to secure freedom from Russia - 105,000 patriots rose up at a time where the Russian army was occupying the Netherlands, and had just lost 35,000 men fighting Dutch revolutionaries. Russia withdrew from the Dutch lands.
By 2039 the British blockade had successfully brought peace with insignificant nations in the Caribbean, but it was a moral boost nonetheless. Moreover it began moving south - after having destroyed the main Portuguese navy, the Royal Navy began blockading all of Portugal. This would prove to be very costly, as the Portuguese would destroy many ships using guerilla tactics and torpedo boats throughout the war.
Destroying the Russian black sea fleet, the Croatian fleet, the Turkish fleet, the Greek fleet, the Italian fleet and all manners of Navies in a colossal game of cat and mouse that spanned 3 years, the British blockaded all of Europe from Constantinople to Sevilla, with the Black Sea and Eastern Adriatic notably remaining free of Royal Navy presence due to Russian and Turkish fleets. Chios, the Aegean Islands, Crete, Venice, Rome, Corsica and Sardinia - all fell to British forces but the overwhelming strength of the European alliance meant that France was unconcerned and victory was inevitable.
And victory was inevitable. Throughout the war with extremely careful micromanaging the British had avoided a serious naval defeat - a single loss would precipitate the fall of Britain. But even with the most serious contenders knocked out of the sea, the resources of the entire world were far superior to that of solitary Britain. It was all over if nothing was done soon.
There was only one thing to do, and plan a beach landing in France whilst outnumbered by 10,000 to 1. The Swiss and Germans had made peace but the damage they had inflicted upon France had been sweet, and the costly occupation of the Netherlands and the total blockade of France was doing wonders to demoralize the French. They had once chance at Caux (http://i.imgur.com/58q2s3b.jpg) and unbelievably the British won, killing 35,000 Frenchmen, capturing 10,000 and rolling tanks down Paris. With the French people close to breaking point (so much so that they were about to join the British invasion), France surrendered. Caux, Greenland and Iceland went to the Brits. Of note is that the Dutch also joined in on the landing - having set sail from their Caribbean island with 2,000 men to liberate their lowlands. After 10 years of war and after having spent $310,200,000,000 with the loss of millions of Europeans (British only lost tens of thousands, though their rebel allies fared worse off) the war was over. The rebels however did not go away, and the revolutionaries in the Netherlands had to be eliminated with British peacekeepers whilst the Kurds, Swedes, Serbians and Ukrainians all fighting with British resources continued to fight.
After neurotically hunting for enemy fleets from the arctic to the baltic to the meditteranean, at last the entire world was defeated. It was also 3:00AM, and is why EU4 ET: NOT EVEN ONCE
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 06, 2015, 05:06:59 pm
UK stronk!The real winner of the war was the USA, their trade income quadrupled in the absence of European and Chinese competition
Post by: rumpel on November 11, 2015, 11:48:14 am
Post by: FritzPL on November 11, 2015, 12:30:52 pm
New spy actions allow you to study the technology of more advanced countries and prod your rivals’ subjects towards independence.
study the technology of more advanced countries
YES
Post by: Bouchart on November 11, 2015, 12:31:53 pm
Post by: Persus13 on November 11, 2015, 12:45:54 pm
Sounds odd because there's already a tech discount for having a more advanced neighbor.The espionage action allows you to get an extra MP each month if you have a next door nation 2 techs ahead. Admittedly its not too useful, but its something nice to have.
Post by: Bouchart on November 11, 2015, 01:07:22 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 11, 2015, 05:48:57 pm
Post by: Bouchart on November 11, 2015, 07:44:19 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 11, 2015, 07:52:33 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on November 11, 2015, 08:20:01 pm
...
Don't look at me like that.
Post by: Bouchart on November 11, 2015, 08:26:00 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on November 11, 2015, 09:25:11 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 11, 2015, 09:27:41 pm
Next you're going to say development isn't broken, regencies are a good mechanic and the random new world is fine as it is.Culture mechanics are ok
Post by: Orange Wizard on November 11, 2015, 09:37:24 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 11, 2015, 09:45:01 pm
Post by: Bouchart on November 11, 2015, 09:49:25 pm
Post by: Baffler on November 11, 2015, 10:03:37 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 11, 2015, 10:08:00 pm
Post by: Vendayn on November 11, 2015, 10:49:36 pm
I know what I'm getting next month :D
Now the "fun" part...wanting to play eu4, but not playing it cause the dlc will make my save broken. but then still have to wait for extended timelines to update xD so I have extra waiting on top of dlc release to play lol
ah well, good to take a break every now and then :)
Post by: Teneb on November 12, 2015, 09:30:47 am
I see France implode roughly half of the time, far more so than Ming.Sometimes, they don't even need player interaction to do so. And, for some reason, I often see Ming not implode despite its reputation.
For instance:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Bouchart on November 12, 2015, 09:38:45 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on November 12, 2015, 06:46:25 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on November 12, 2015, 06:59:11 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 12, 2015, 07:27:43 pm
Post by: Teneb on November 19, 2015, 09:02:41 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I guess this will make achievement runs easier, especially those tied to resources.
Post by: Sergarr on November 19, 2015, 01:33:18 pm
Prevent Nation Ruining (Free Feature)That's, uh, quite a feature they have here. Wonder what triggered them to include in. Maybe someone rage-quitted in one of their "in-house" MP games?
If you've ever played EU4 multiplayer competetively, you know that it can sometimes get rather emotional. People may not react well to being backstabbed or losing a war, and some of them will proceed to make rather hasty, emotional decisions because they conclude that they have lost the game, which they then come to regret once tempers have cooled. To help MP game hosts deal with this problem, we've added a new option called 'Prevent Nation Ruining' for multiplayer (default off). If enabled, this option prevents players who have recently lost a war where they were forced to give up core territory from ruining their nation by blocking the following:
- Truce breaking
- Selling cores
- Manually taking loans
- Releasing vassals
- Creating client states in cored provinces
- Accepting rebel demands with <50% progress
- Releasing colonial nations
- Giving money to other players
This block lasts for the duration of the truce.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 19, 2015, 02:22:43 pm
Post by: Bastus on November 19, 2015, 02:48:40 pm
Oh and the colonial good think will be exploitable and I am 100% sure someone is gonna screw the system for his advantages regarding the ressources that spawn or get a world where there is next to none of some ressources.
Post by: pedrito on November 19, 2015, 03:08:53 pm
That's, uh, quite a feature they have here. Wonder what triggered them to include in. Maybe someone rage-quitted in one of their "in-house" MP games?
Happens in MP quite a lot. Players who get wrecked in a war (or just can't handle their loans) sometimes go and release every possible vassal or no-CB dow every nation on the planet, often forcing the host to reload an earlier save. And reloading a large MP game means losing 30 minutes in lobby!!
IMO this feature is spot on.
Post by: Persus13 on November 19, 2015, 04:02:40 pm
Oh and the colonial good think will be exploitable and I am 100% sure someone is gonna screw the system for his advantages regarding the ressources that spawn or get a world where there is next to none of some ressources.The colonial good system doesn't seem too different, its just outright telling you the base chance of getting a resource in a colony, instead of the current system doing that with event modifiers. Its another one of the changes to make things less arcanae. The current system. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Trade_goods#Trade_Goods_in_Colonies)
That's, uh, quite a feature they have here. Wonder what triggered them to include in. Maybe someone rage-quitted in one of their "in-house" MP games?How much multiplayer have you played? One friend of mine who plays EUIV just ups and quits if they lose a war, which is why I'm never playing a multiplayer game hosted by them again.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 19, 2015, 04:27:40 pm
Post by: Bouchart on November 19, 2015, 04:41:01 pm
Post by: Culise on November 19, 2015, 04:44:35 pm
The cultural union thing is just Paradox being lazy and notSorry, but I could not resist. In seriousness, though, it feels like it was a relatively common thing in the forums there that someone will complain about Italy being worthless for any non-monarchic, non-HRE power, due to representing the Iron Crown instead of 19th century nation-state. That's also why I suspect they chose the illustrative screenshot they did.creating more nation-forming decisions"fixing" Italy.
Post by: Bastus on November 19, 2015, 04:45:09 pm
The cultural union thing to me seems like just yet another "blob more" incentive, and if anything I'd say you should be getting maluses instead. It's neat in a "pretty borders" way, and the bonuses aren't insignificant, but there's a greater problem of the game getting too easy at that size, and making it easier doesn't help. I think an empire rank isn't something you should earn by constant conquest and then hold onto until the end of time, but something that should have to be actively fought for and maintained after acquiring it (and maybe an empire rank should be in some ways a bad thing, that's forced on you). It's hard to imagine implementing something more advanced than the core system without something CKII-like with titles and succession, though, and even CKII suffers the same problem to a lesser extent.I think you are right but I have to admit that I lost my faith in Paradox to give this game some interresting peacetime mechanics quite a while ago and accepted that EU4 is a map painter and will probably always be one, so this "feature" fits into my perception of the game, which consist of picking some interesting countries and try to do some wacky alternate timelines. But I wouldn't mind if they gave goverments more depth, especially empires. It feel kinda weird too get to a certain size, get a cookie (the button to become an empire) and then forgetting about goverment ranks for the rest of the game.
But it seems so be a bit more predictable which can lead to some outcomes which are more favorable for the player. If a province has a 5% chance or gold for example you could save scum until you get gold. Which was something that was harder to achieve with the old system due to the lack of information. But I am not complaining. Actually knowing what I can expect beforehand seems kinda nice. :)Oh and the colonial good think will be exploitable and I am 100% sure someone is gonna screw the system for his advantages regarding the ressources that spawn or get a world where there is next to none of some ressources.The colonial good system doesn't seem too different, its just outright telling you the base chance of getting a resource in a colony, instead of the current system doing that with event modifiers. Its another one of the changes to make things less arcanae. The current system. (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Trade_goods#Trade_Goods_in_Colonies)
The cultural union thing is just Paradox being lazy and not creating more nation-forming decisions.Never understood this argument to say the truth. I think they added most of the formable nations that seemed logical for the timeline, the rest can be done by modding. Adding on that I never really understood the appeal of clicking a button to change your name and get some other ideas, which were worse than the ones you already had if you were unlucky.
Post by: Culise on November 19, 2015, 04:50:57 pm
Never understood this argument to say the truth. I think they added most of the formable nations that seemed logical for the timeline, the rest can be done by modding. Adding on that I never really understood the appeal of clicking a button to change your name and get some other ideas, which were worse than the ones you already had if you were unlucky.Indeed, but I'll note that not all formable nations even give you a new set of NIs. Russia is probably the biggest example; it keeps its forming nation's ideas, whether it's Muscowy, Novgorod, or a culture-shifted Milan. As such, it seems like this is plenty more work than generating a few new tags with generic shields.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 19, 2015, 05:04:08 pm
The cultural union thing is just Paradox being lazy and not creating more nation-forming decisions.
Yeah, but I'd say paradox has most of the reasonable formable nations for the timeline already scripted in (and many 19th century ones that don't make much sense as well). One neat thing about the change is being able to feel better about triumphing as a minor and refusing the decision to tag switch, without the game treating your nation as a lesser Spain or whatever. But honestly, I don't think cultural unions should exist at all.
I never really understood the appeal of clicking a button to change your name and get some other ideas, which were worse than the ones you already had if you were unlucky.
Personally I also don't like taking almost all of the nation forming decisions either. I mean, why conquer all of France as Nevers just to make the map look as though nothing happened? Aside from Sardinia-Piedmont (best map color in the game, and unique I think) I've always felt emptiness after taking a nation-forming decision.
Post by: Orange Wizard on November 19, 2015, 05:23:20 pm
Even something as simple as raising minimum autonomy the more provinces you have.
I've always felt emptiness after taking a nation-forming decision.> Reform into Prussia
"Meh."
Post by: Teneb on November 19, 2015, 05:31:52 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on November 19, 2015, 09:08:47 pm
Post by: Persus13 on November 19, 2015, 09:26:50 pm
Wait, they didn't specifically say existing tag-cultural thingies are gone, did they?
Quote from: Dev Diary
Cultural Unions (Free Feature)
Another mechanic that has always been rather opaque to players is the Cultural Union mechanic, whereby certain nations (such as France) will always accept all cultures of the same culture group. This has also received a rework in 1.14, by decoupling it from tags and instead making it so that Cultural Union status is something you achieve when your nation grows powerful enough to be able to lay claim to such status - either by achieving Empire rank (if you have Common Sense) or by having 1000 total development (if you do not have Common Sense).
Post by: Bouchart on November 19, 2015, 09:34:34 pm
This might help out the Ottomans more than anything else since they can easily become empire rank but couldn't otherwise form a cultural union. It's a relief too since the Ottomans are just a tad underpowered.
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 19, 2015, 10:02:27 pm
Post by: Bouchart on November 24, 2015, 08:59:18 pm
Playing as Austria and everything is going well. I'm the emperor. Burgundy declares war on Luxembourg and I get dragged into it. I don't really want to fight cuz Burgundy's army is about twice my size. A couple days after declaring war, the Burgundian king instantly dies and I inherit half of his stuff.
Fastest war ever.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 26, 2015, 05:33:27 am
I downgraded to version 1.9 since I felt like fiddling around with some older stuff.I had something similar. Was playing as Byzantium, had grown quite large (to encompass much of the lost Anatolian, Levantine, Egyptian lands, pushing into Africa, the East and raising tensions with a colonial outpost in Brazil versus Portugal); was caught between trying to stamp out the Ottomans, the Poles, annexing the Georgians, the last Mamlukes, the French, the Papacy, the Spanish, the Portuguese and their vast overseas empire from Brazil to Australia (oh god why won't they declare independence) and the Austrians (who inherited Burgundy and then blobbed through all of the HRE bar Bohemia) when all of a sudden I inherited the Russian Empire.
Playing as Austria and everything is going well. I'm the emperor. Burgundy declares war on Luxembourg and I get dragged into it. I don't really want to fight cuz Burgundy's army is about twice my size. A couple days after declaring war, the Burgundian king instantly dies and I inherit half of his stuff.
Fastest war ever.
Things got a lot easier after that.
Post by: Bouchart on December 01, 2015, 11:35:36 am
Post by: Bouchart on December 01, 2015, 02:25:51 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 01, 2015, 04:38:17 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 01, 2015, 05:08:07 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on December 01, 2015, 05:50:48 pm
I own all of Europe west of (this timeline's) Germany, so once I get my colonial game going in a few decades I'm probably going to release all of it as little Irish-Catholic micronations to make an absolute mess, retaining a wall of provinces from the Netherlands to Rome to keep my German allies from getting ambitious when they aren't fighting Sweden or the Byzantines. Sort of like a zoo. Starting as early as I did is weird, everything blobs up really fast. We're only in the mid-1400s but Europe is basically just me, Germany, Sweden, the Byzantines, Moravia, and maybe two smaller Eastern European states, now that I've eaten Italy, the Papal State, and the Muslims in Iberia. Asia is split between Japan, the Chinese blob, the Indian blob, and the eastern fringes of the hordes and Sultanate that own all of the Eurasian middle ground and all of the Middle East respectively.
Post by: Cthulufaic on December 01, 2015, 06:27:20 pm
I've now got the option to form the HRE. As Ireland.You're using the extended timeline mod, yeah? Is it better with all the DLC, or would it still be fun without Art of War or that one that lets you add development?
I own all of Europe west of (this timeline's) Germany, so once I get my colonial game going in a few decades I'm probably going to release all of it as little Irish-Catholic micronations to make an absolute mess, retaining a wall of provinces from the Netherlands to Rome to keep my German allies from getting ambitious when they aren't fighting Sweden or the Byzantines. Sort of like a zoo. Starting as early as I did is weird, everything blobs up really fast. We're only in the mid-1400s but Europe is basically just me, Germany, Sweden, the Byzantines, Moravia, and maybe two smaller Eastern European states, now that I've eaten Italy, the Papal State, and the Muslims in Iberia. Asia is split between Japan, the Chinese blob, the Indian blob, and the eastern fringes of the hordes and Sultanate that own all of the Eurasian middle ground and all of the Middle East respectively.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 01, 2015, 07:01:37 pm
I've now got the option to form the HRE. As Ireland.You're using the extended timeline mod, yeah? Is it better with all the DLC, or would it still be fun without Art of War or that one that lets you add development?
I own all of Europe west of (this timeline's) Germany, so once I get my colonial game going in a few decades I'm probably going to release all of it as little Irish-Catholic micronations to make an absolute mess, retaining a wall of provinces from the Netherlands to Rome to keep my German allies from getting ambitious when they aren't fighting Sweden or the Byzantines. Sort of like a zoo. Starting as early as I did is weird, everything blobs up really fast. We're only in the mid-1400s but Europe is basically just me, Germany, Sweden, the Byzantines, Moravia, and maybe two smaller Eastern European states, now that I've eaten Italy, the Papal State, and the Muslims in Iberia. Asia is split between Japan, the Chinese blob, the Indian blob, and the eastern fringes of the hordes and Sultanate that own all of the Eurasian middle ground and all of the Middle East respectively.
I'm playing totally sans DLC, since I'm a cheapass. Better with it, of course, but if you can stomach vanilla you can play ET without DLC.
Just make sure to avoid doing really early (i.e. Roman Empire) starts, since it takes a painfully long time to build up to the point where you can really do much of anything. Unless you want to spend 500 years in small-scale conflicts with nothing else to do.
Post by: Aklyon on December 01, 2015, 07:05:12 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on December 01, 2015, 07:15:14 pm
But yeah, the tech rubberbanding is such that if you start as the Roman Empire in the 200s or whatever you're still going to stay roughly parallel with real history as far as technological development goes (even if politically everything goes all superblob), so you're in for something like 1000-1400 years of very slow progress depending on how early you start. Might be interesting to try to conquer your way all the way to the Pacific via land route, of course.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 01, 2015, 08:17:50 pm
More mechanics for breaking up superblobs would be nice, basically.
Post by: Cthulufaic on December 01, 2015, 08:20:09 pm
I'd like to see something to make blobbing harder. Maybe just something as simple as raising minimum autonomy in provinces as your empire gets bigger.That'd actually be pretty neat, also having it increase as the provinces get farther from your capital.
More mechanics for breaking up superblobs would be nice, basically.
Post by: Bouchart on December 01, 2015, 08:21:29 pm
I could never get behind the love of Byzantium. It's one somewhat tricky war followed by the game heaping every bonus it can at your feet as congratulation (not even including the nonsense in that DLC). The first thing I thought of seeing the strait crossing change was how wonderful the Byzantophile anger would be when they could not longer block the Biga/Edirne crossing in that initial war.
Byzantium was kinda fun in EU3. One of the early starts made it relatively easy for Byzantium to take back a lot of cores from the Ottomans.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 01, 2015, 08:38:27 pm
I'd like to see something to make blobbing harder. Maybe just something as simple as raising minimum autonomy in provinces as your empire gets bigger.I'm doing an ancient world run as Nepal; after 200 years the Roman Empire lost England to King Arthur (who promptly defeated the Germanic invasion), it annexed Dacia but suffered a cruel blow by losing all its Greek territories to a great Greek Kingdom but after that stabilized its decline to maintain dominance. The Sassanids enjoyed a bit more success, gradually annexing everything non-Roman south of the Georgian mountains, even taking over half of Arabia and pushing into the Indian subcontinent. Steadily and progressively it was taking over its influence, spreading Persians everywhere. Then there was the great Han Empire, which split into a Han core and an independent Cantonese Kingdom, which in order to spite its jain rivals occasionally threw vast amounts of money at an upstart Nepal. Nepal itself grew up conquering its local rivals until they ceased to exist, and new rivals were sought. Eventually Nepal grew so large that it was uniting all of Hindudom and defeating the Jains and Buddhists everywhere; only the great southern Jain Kingdom and the Western Hindu Satrapy effectively resisted Nepal's expansion.
More mechanics for breaking up superblobs would be nice, basically.
That's when the large Empire malus kicked in and unrest was increased, tax and manpower decreased and insurrections appeared everywhere. This ended Nepal's expansion and devoted its resources to policing, all the while its Sassanid rival continued pressing into India. One lost war will result in the total destruction of the Nepalese Empire, so concurrently the Chola dynasty chooses its wars very carefully... Until such time that the Nepalese are the majority of India.
In a strange way I'm looking forward to being struck with some fell and terrible event, like a peasant's war that will see my Empire fracture and force Nepal to start all over again! With the malus and no ideas due to low tech, anything below +3 stability and high legitimacy is ruinous
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 01, 2015, 08:55:16 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 01, 2015, 09:06:56 pm
Post by: Bouchart on December 01, 2015, 09:25:29 pm
Watch out for Genoa since they have a mission that gives a claim on Constantinople. Them and Venice will probably be bigger threats than anyone else because of their navies.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 01, 2015, 11:45:02 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 02, 2015, 12:12:39 am
Post by: Uristides on December 02, 2015, 05:50:29 am
One thing that worries me is that the changes to straight crossing make it seem like they totally screwed the early game for Ainu. Winning by straight blocking was too easy, but facing Japan without it is just plain impossible.
Post by: Phantom on December 02, 2015, 05:57:01 am
Post by: Micro102 on December 02, 2015, 06:05:50 am
Post by: Digital Hellhound on December 02, 2015, 09:00:02 am
How was anyone's experience with the CK2>EUIV save converter? Do dynasties transfer over, do nation names affect national ideas, et cetera? A CK2 game of mine and a few friends is on it's last few years and we were going to see how well the converter carries over things such as tribes and reformed paganism.
It's alright. Dynasties transfer (and the game recognizes all rulers of it as the same dynasty), cultures transfer, religion transfers. Getting the right NIs is a bit poorly implemented - most big nations will get their NIs (but only with the right name - 'Suomi', the name of Finland when ruled by Finns, will just get generic ideas instead of Finland's), sometimes the culture of the ruler/nation grants the ideas of the culture, sometimes it just gives generic ideas even if it seems it should give tag-specific ones.
Tribes will probably give you some kind of tribal government, not sure, and reformed religions transfer over fine, with unique bonuses. Tech groups depend on the spread of tech in CK2, I think - expect to see Muslim and Eastern tech for nations/places you're used to being Western.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 02, 2015, 02:04:14 pm
One thing that worries me is that the changes to straight crossing make it seem like they totally screwed the early game for Ainu. Winning by straight blocking was too easy, but facing Japan without it is just plain impossible.
You'll still be able to block the strait between the home northern island and the main island from the start, and all it'll take to block the other straits is occupying a province on one side. So it'll take an extra month and some more fancy footwork, but I'm guessing it's still very possible to trap the Japanese army on one of the smaller islands.
Post by: Uristides on December 03, 2015, 04:41:14 am
Ah, I misinterpreted it then! What a relief. Tbh, it sounds like a good system then(unless you're a Byzantinophile, that is). While playing Ternate recently I could just win a battle in Kyushu and trivially block the japanese in Honshu while I conquered it and Shikoku... and then trap them in Hokkaido because they were answering a rebellion there :POne thing that worries me is that the changes to straight crossing make it seem like they totally screwed the early game for Ainu. Winning by straight blocking was too easy, but facing Japan without it is just plain impossible.
You'll still be able to block the strait between the home northern island and the main island from the start, and all it'll take to block the other straits is occupying a province on one side. So it'll take an extra month and some more fancy footwork, but I'm guessing it's still very possible to trap the Japanese army on one of the smaller islands.
Under the new system I guess I'd at least have to expose a lone detachment to counterattack for a while to pull those dirty tricks on people.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 03, 2015, 11:24:44 am
Oh and unless you want to do some province changing and a bit of editing try to stay away from Africa, the Middle East and India. There are a lot more province differences between CK2 and EU4 in those regions than there are in the rest of the map and those regions inevitably become a horrendous mishmash of CK2 and EU4 states.How was anyone's experience with the CK2>EUIV save converter? Do dynasties transfer over, do nation names affect national ideas, et cetera? A CK2 game of mine and a few friends is on it's last few years and we were going to see how well the converter carries over things such as tribes and reformed paganism.It's alright. Dynasties transfer (and the game recognizes all rulers of it as the same dynasty), cultures transfer, religion transfers. Getting the right NIs is a bit poorly implemented - most big nations will get their NIs (but only with the right name - 'Suomi', the name of Finland when ruled by Finns, will just get generic ideas instead of Finland's), sometimes the culture of the ruler/nation grants the ideas of the culture, sometimes it just gives generic ideas even if it seems it should give tag-specific ones.
Tribes will probably give you some kind of tribal government, not sure, and reformed religions transfer over fine, with unique bonuses. Tech groups depend on the spread of tech in CK2, I think - expect to see Muslim and Eastern tech for nations/places you're used to being Western.
Post by: Persus13 on December 03, 2015, 01:40:00 pm
Got to say, I'm liking the looks of the new random new world. Also, the fantasy nations seem to have unique ideas. Thus far I've seen the Obsidian Empire and Vinland.
There's also a nation that appears to be from Zheng He's fleet that shows up occasionally too.
Post by: Vendayn on December 03, 2015, 05:58:45 pm
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Vendayn/EU4%20Extended%20Timelines/TheSeleucidEmpire.jpg
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y149/Vendayn/EU4%20Extended%20Timelines/RomanEmpire.jpg
The very first (as far as I can tell, google, reddit and paradox forms no one has ever made...) the Seleucid empire.
Unless someone else has made the Seleucid empire, but no search says anyone has.
Also, despite my giant empire, I do say it in the spoiler...I start in normal mode, increase unrest by a lot, start a war with rome and parthia (since my alternate history of Seleucid empire makes them at war in the start) and its a hard as heck game. Not so much against rome/parthia (they are challenge too, cause they both have a lot of vassals)...but so many rebels. After I set the initial scenario up, I switch my save to ironman mode.
With that said, its actually easier to start as roman empire in 58 than the way I set the game up :P Roman empire in year 58 is still hard though, tons of rebellions and huge parthia armies attacking. But still, roman empire gets the advantage of a ton of cash/military and land...so its easy in some ways. But its still a really hard game, because historically roman empire did collapse. In this case, Seleucid empire is sort of the roman empire, but even more unrest and more wars. Since they were defeated in history, but in this case the way I set it up, they went to win against romans and take a ton of their land over the next few decades.
long spoiler (that way it doesn't take so long to scroll through the thread)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With eastern technology and eastern graphics. I think that is most fitting. I did try Anatolia technology that seemed like it might fit better, but it gets automatically changed to eastern since anatolia is too advanced or something for the time, so eastern technology is closest I guess.Post by: FritzPL on December 03, 2015, 06:00:24 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 04, 2015, 05:29:05 am
Post by: Karlito on December 04, 2015, 10:12:14 am
EDIT: It looks like at least some of the random new world... isn't. There's a few smaller landmasses I've stumbled across that have been identical to other ones.
Yes, the whole thing is now based on premade, handcrafted tiles that are randomly arranged/
Post by: Karlito on December 04, 2015, 11:32:16 am
Post by: Persus13 on December 04, 2015, 11:33:31 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Wiles on December 04, 2015, 01:51:07 pm
I'm having trouble logging in at the moment so I haven't been able to get mine yet.
Post by: Kot on December 04, 2015, 01:51:35 pm
Post by: Wiles on December 04, 2015, 03:24:36 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 04, 2015, 04:26:03 pm
Including the corpse of the Leviathan.This really annoys me considering how they named the expansion "The Cossacks" instead of the infinitely superior "The Leviathan".
Also it seems development is still hardlocked to only MP, even after every single major mod had to completely remove the vanilla system and make their own. Sorry Paradox but a leaderboard and victory points are not going to bring me back to your game.
Post by: Persus13 on December 04, 2015, 04:45:44 pm
He means that you can only spend Monarch Points (MP) on improving development instead of spending money or something else. He's been complaining about it since Common Sense came out.Also it seems development is still hardlocked to only MPI have no clue what you mean by this. The only thing I can think of it meaning is 'you can only use development in MP'
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 04, 2015, 05:10:58 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 04, 2015, 05:58:23 pm
Also it seems development is still hardlocked to only MP, even after every single major mod had to completely remove the vanilla system and make their own.
I haven't seen the long game spin out yet, but I think vanilla may be almost tolerable with some of the changes. Since core costs are now capped at 30 development (and there's a new modifier that encourages the AI to develop the capital more), having Europe be a high development hellscape shouldn't be as bad late game. Overextension may not be capped though, I haven't checked, and I'm not overly optimistic about 5% dev cost in capital per 100 total development changing things much. With OPMs it'll definitely still be a loony nightmare of 40 development metropolises built on arctic swamps (unless they changed the AI), and that'll need some modding (easiest way would be adding a triggered modifier with the condition of being an OPM that's not a free city increasing development cost massively, but that leaves out 2PMs, 3PMs, etc).
It's disappointing that paradox seems oblivious to AI development being bananas, but all things said, being able to play ironman with mods makes me pretty much stop caring about whatever they do to vanilla. I used to play vanilla to avoid the temptation of using the console and savescumming, but now there's no reason at all to.
Post by: werty892 on December 04, 2015, 05:58:42 pm
Post by: Bouchart on December 04, 2015, 07:03:46 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 04, 2015, 08:08:11 pm
Post by: Bouchart on December 04, 2015, 08:32:53 pm
Post by: Leyic on December 04, 2015, 09:34:47 pm
Would someone be so kind as to report a bug I found on their forums? Their password recovery doesn't seem to be working, and their site's NOT remembered my details like I asked it to.(In case you don't visit their forums often.) I had this same problem a while ago. Turns out they changed their forum software earlier this year and invalidated the old accounts. I had to register a new account, but was given the option to migrate my old account as part of that process. So if you haven't logged into the Paradox forums since (I want to say) March, you should try that.
Post by: Uristides on December 05, 2015, 09:43:01 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Still, it helped me realize just how unviable my fantasy of making a regional OPM FC power through development was stupid.
And this isn't by far the oddest alliance the Ottos have done in 1.14. Some people in the forums have been reporting them allying Austria and the Pope :P
Post by: Teneb on December 05, 2015, 09:49:07 am
Having development tied to wealth rather than MP would be a big improvement IMO.While from a historical point of view, wealth would be the most logic, I can understand why it is tied to MP. If it was tied to wealth, a player/AI nation could sink tons of cash into development without slowing down their tech. This way, you have to choose between a better province, or keeping up with the rest of the world.
Post by: Mini on December 05, 2015, 10:22:52 am
Post by: Flying Dice on December 05, 2015, 11:06:33 am
Which... makes sense from an abstracted game-balance standpoint but not from an accuracy-oriented one. Development tended to go hand in hand with technological advancement in most cases, especially later in history thanks to how closely urbanization was intertwined with industrialization. Sort of silly to think that (essentially) building up population, infrastructure, &c. would somehow slow the march of progress.Having development tied to wealth rather than MP would be a big improvement IMO.While from a historical point of view, wealth would be the most logic, I can understand why it is tied to MP. If it was tied to wealth, a player/AI nation could sink tons of cash into development without slowing down their tech. This way, you have to choose between a better province, or keeping up with the rest of the world.
Post by: Bouchart on December 05, 2015, 11:35:16 am
Post by: Kot on December 05, 2015, 01:11:23 pm
Or something.
Post by: Cthulufaic on December 05, 2015, 04:06:55 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 05, 2015, 05:13:35 pm
Which... makes sense from an abstracted game-balance standpoint but not from an accuracy-oriented one. Development tended to go hand in hand with technological advancement in most cases, especially later in history thanks to how closely urbanization was intertwined with industrialization. Sort of silly to think that (essentially) building up population, infrastructure, &c. would somehow slow the march of progress.It doesn't even make sense from a gameplay stance since it rewards countries that do nothing and luck out on a god-king. There's absolutely no player agency when it comes to development, no tactical thought or strategy needed, just mash the button every few months on speed 5. Playing "tall" is a joke and development has basically become an AI only feature unless you're truly drowning in MP (which means you're a disgusting eurobabby).
The one thing in the game that might make ducats a semi-competitive currency compared to MP just serves to make MP an even rarer and more important resource. Top quality game design there.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 05, 2015, 05:33:34 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 05, 2015, 05:46:44 pm
Post by: Sergarr on December 05, 2015, 06:39:17 pm
Coring costs, overextension, and wealth feedback can all be balanced separately. My complaint is that the current development system leads to OPMs becoming sprawling metropolises, while larger countries might have a small town here and there.As far as I see, this is actually the intended behaviour. Remember, "tall" must be competitive with "wide", and this means the "tall" provinces should be much much better than "wide" ones.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 05, 2015, 07:07:19 pm
As far as I see, this is actually the intended behaviour. Remember, "tall" must be competitive with "wide", and this means the "tall" provinces should be much much better than "wide" ones.Why though? How many examples of a "tall" country existed? Many people will cite the maritime republics like Venice or Genoa as "tall" nations but they completely ignore how expansive these countries were, swallowing and bullying weaker nations not just militarily but also economically.
In my eyes the difference between tall and wide should come down to centralisation. A smaller nation ruling over a homogeneous population is more easily able to optimise administrative processes and resource distribution. Being able to invest in projects that will benefit more of their population and losing less resources to third parties like nobles.
There's still a limit on just how optimised you could get these systems and just conquering your neighbours and taking all their stuff will likely still be preferable (if you can maintain control over that territory) but not everyone should be in a position where that is possible (expansion in EU4 is way too easy).
This fascination with a small nation being able to completely compete on all levels with a big one is just bizarre to me (was it Civ5 that started this?). Just sitting around, doing nothing and staying small shouldn't give you any advantages aside from avoiding the negatives of expansion. Players should still have to expand their economy and influence other countries if they wish to expand their power in any meaningful way or even stay relevant.
Ducats combines with a centralisation mechanic that punishes large countries for blobbing too big and too greedily seems like the only logical way of handling development.
Post by: Sergarr on December 06, 2015, 05:23:04 am
Don't ask me, I too consider the idea that small countries should be competitive with big ones for no apparent reason as dumb as hell, but it's a pretty popular meme among current strategy gaming scene (just google "tall vs wide" to see the extent of the problem) and it's going to be forced on us until it dies off.As far as I see, this is actually the intended behaviour. Remember, "tall" must be competitive with "wide", and this means the "tall" provinces should be much much better than "wide" ones.Why though?
Post by: Flying Dice on December 06, 2015, 08:30:23 am
Post by: Sergarr on December 06, 2015, 09:02:23 am
But the Winter War :^)You mean that war that Finland lost in far less than a year despite defending a nearly perfect choke-point in an extremely rugged terrain in deep winter against an army that have had barely any competent leadership left after the purges? :^)
Post by: Kot on December 06, 2015, 09:10:39 am
In my opinion, they did pretty damn well.
Post by: Sergarr on December 06, 2015, 09:19:47 am
Also against an country fifty times it's size, with an army with over three times the numbers as theirs, almost 40 times as many planes and over 100-200 times the number of tanks while inflicting five times the casualties it suffered...So, you agree that "tall empires" shouldn't realistically exist or be supported in strategy games, since they can be easily conquered by "wide empires"?
In my opinion, they did pretty damn well.
Post by: Majestic7 on December 06, 2015, 09:24:05 am
If you want a better example, Netherlands did pretty good for a century or so in the 1700s. I think "tall" powers are okay as a concept as long as they are fragile, since that is always the problem. They lack the depth and width to take damage, whether that damage is political, economic or military losses. Usually it only takes one major disaster to drop them down for good.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 06, 2015, 09:36:18 am
What doesn't make sense is for them to be military powerhouses capable of effectively fighting other states that are more than 4-5x their size, never mind sprawling blobpires.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 06, 2015, 09:44:52 am
I suppose one good example would be Germany vs the great blobs of the USSR and the British Empire, which is as small vs blobby as you can get. Even still that one was about a small nation having an advantage but deeming being blobby as necessary for its continued power. I could see some value in at least having momentary advantages over expanding nations... Until they finish expanding.Don't ask me, I too consider the idea that small countries should be competitive with big ones for no apparent reason as dumb as hell, but it's a pretty popular meme among current strategy gaming scene (just google "tall vs wide" to see the extent of the problem) and it's going to be forced on us until it dies off.As far as I see, this is actually the intended behaviour. Remember, "tall" must be competitive with "wide", and this means the "tall" provinces should be much much better than "wide" ones.Why though?
On that note my Nepal Empire run has entered a very interesting stage; the Roman Empire collapsed.
The Austrians, Saxons, Huns and Sarmatians were the first to invade the Roman Empire, the Romans could have held off longer if the Greeks and Persians had not also attacked and destroyed their Arab vassal. The Iberian peninsula held on for longer for it was infested with animist rebels, eventually it too fell to the Germanic hordes. With most of Europe in a state of fucked or soon to be fucked, Emperor Vitellius Ostorius made the bold move to move the capital from Rome to Alexandria at the age of 16; shortly before Germanic pagans sacked Rome. North Africa was quite Roman, with an exception to the Western half which had been taken over by a great Berber tribe. Emperor Vitellius was an absolute genius in all fields of governance, including the all important military strategy. There was hope for Rome. For many years the resistance in Alexandria held out against unbeatable odds, not least of all because the Romans found an unusual ally.
Emperor Rajandralakshmi Chola of the Nepalese Empire sent 26,000 swordsmen and 8,000 war elephants to Alexandria and crushed the various rebels plaguing the last of the Roman Empire. When the Saxons first hit North Africa the Nepalese and Roman forces fought bloodily to the last man, losing much of North Africa but keeping Egypt safe. In the second war Rajandralakshmi sent another 32,000 swordsmen and 10,000 war elephants - this time the Saxons were only stopped at Egypt itself, with the last Roman Legion of Nepal holding the Suez. (http://i.imgur.com/bgk3YGy.jpg) After the third war Rajandralakshmi withdrew the only surviving units back to India, the 2nd Rome Legion and another amalgamation of units who did not survive in full strength or never made it to Egypt in time; once the Suez fell there would be no way to bring Nepalese soldiers home.
The alliance was dissolved and a heartbroken Emperor Vitellius died. The Saxons pillaged Egypt and the Berbers invaded Corsica, what surviving remnants of the Romans departed for Jerusalem and Damascus where they were outnumbered by the Chalcedonians who they had previously successfully suppressed. The Hellenistic Greeks to the North began eyeing the last pickings of their old foe with relish.
Rajandralakshmi would shed no tears for Rome (though his Roman wife did), as the Parthian Empire launched a fullscale war against the Nepalese Empire to prevent it from taking over the last independent states in India. The Persians, their nomadic allies and their coalition had superior soldiers, technology, tactics and commanders. The Nepalese Empire and their ally the Han Empire had the advantage of numbers. 250,000 Persians up against 500,000 Nepalese, Chinese, Bengali, Afghan and Tibetan soldiers, fighting the bloodiest battles the world had ever seen since the fall of Rome.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 06, 2015, 02:20:20 pm
I suppose one good example would be Germany vs the great blobs of the USSR and the British Empire, which is as small vs blobby as you can get. Even still that one was about a small nation having an advantage but deeming being blobby as necessary for its continued power. I could see some value in at least having momentary advantages over expanding nations... Until they finish expanding.
Germany sounds like a really bad example for "building tall". Prussia became the most militarily powerful nation in Europe by conquering or otherwise absorbing most of Germany and the late HRE, not by staying small and building up.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 06, 2015, 06:54:34 pm
Post by: Lapoleon on December 07, 2015, 10:43:34 am
Post by: Sergarr on December 07, 2015, 01:22:04 pm
The only possible reason I see to add development to these ones is because the aforementioned forms of growth require too much time to properly carry out during a typical fast MP game, and as we all know, fast MP games is the only way of testing Johan knows.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 07, 2015, 01:33:58 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 08, 2015, 04:56:14 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 08, 2015, 05:44:46 pm
I'm finding the new "game restarts when you try to return to the menu" feature to be incredibly annoying.Don't we all?
Post by: Wiles on December 08, 2015, 06:10:28 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 08, 2015, 06:25:42 pm
Post by: Mini on December 08, 2015, 09:28:37 pm
Post by: Vendayn on December 09, 2015, 10:26:47 pm
https://www.reddit.com/r/eu4/comments/3uvyon/awesome_bookmark/
November 24th 1457
I'm trying it as Navarra and its a ton of fun! A huge challenge too, because Navarra king starts so old and no heir. But navarra is my favorite nation to play as. They are just a ton of fun, but like I said, a big challenge, and not an annoying one either. Like playing as byzantium is a huge challenge, but unlike navarra, its annoying as hell lol.
Actually more dynamic than the default 1444.1.1 bookmark. A lot more randomness happens, but there is also much bigger wars. In one game, Ottomans actually collapsed somehow, in another France occupied south of the english island. In another there was a HUGE war with most of europe attacking both ottomans and muscovy and poland/lithuania declared war on austria which opened up another big war, and random nations joined in on the fun. That hasn't happened again thus far, but that was such a huge war lol.
I recommend trying it out. :) Very interesting date. And not that much later than vanilla.
Also, if you do the 23rd austria is occupied by another nation (Styria) if you prefer that. and hungary is in a personal union with austria. But I prefer the 24th.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 09, 2015, 10:48:20 pm
However 1444 completely sucks for balance: railroaded Burgundian succession, PLC, 100 years war mess and the Euros not having a foothold in the Americas (making them dick around in Africa, forcing natives sit on their dicks for centuries). Sadly we're stuck with it thanks to the filthy disgusting sub-human scum that are the byzantiphiles.
Post by: Vendayn on December 09, 2015, 11:06:32 pm
I wouldn't really recommend trying to have a serious game with anything other than the starting date. Paradox barely supports the other bookmarks and they will be filled with all kinds of quirks and bugs (bizarre personal unions are the most common).
However 1444 completely sucks for balance: railroaded Burgundian succession, PLC, 100 years war mess and the Euros not having a foothold in the Americas (making them dick around in Africa, forcing natives sit on their dicks for centuries). Sadly we're stuck with it thanks to the filthy disgusting sub-human scum that are the byzantiphiles.
I dunno. The bookmark I found suggested on reddit, seems vastly better than the default one. Cause like you said, 1444 is pretty unbalanced. And to make it worse, 1444 roughly the same thing happens each game...poland almost always gets a personal union and forms common wealth...ottomans always get big and overpowered...hordes do same thing each time. 1444 no randomness or huge wars at all (until way later). I mean, when I first played it was okay cause I didn't really know anything, but the 1457 bookmark is way more dynamic and huge wars happen. Anything can happen, and way better to me than the 1444 bookmark.
Then again, I do play with extended timelines+a submod for it that adds over 500 provinces. So that might change things around and make it better. Still, even with extended timelines, 1444 is way too samey.
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 13, 2015, 02:09:11 am
Meanwhile, with Eu4's mechanics and start dates, all the major stuff basically always happens the same way. The Ottomans always expand in the same way and are always successful - they eat minors, byzantium, more minors, and then slowly snake their way through the mamlukes. England always loses their early war with France, eats everyone else on the isles, and then sits there doing nothing for the rest of the game. France wins that war, but has ended up nerfed down enough that it basically only sits there in fear of the Emperor until the end of time, sometimes having small skirmishes with Castille. Bohemia does virtually nothing, ever. Their main purpose seems to be trying to snipe the crown from Austria, which, if it happens, makes Austria (and the rest of the HRE, really) do nothing, too. I think the way they set up the major powers in this game needs some looking over, as the fact they are either set up for near 100% success (like the Ottos and Muscovy) or 100% stagnation (like Bohemia and England) makes everything else in Europe turn out the same, too.
The game has certainly come a long way since EU3 when we talk about how interesting it is to play outside of Europe and Anatolia, but inside it's stale.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 13, 2015, 02:20:25 am
Though that game was pretty weird all around. Castile got eaten by Portugal and Granada, of all things.
I was playing Scotland and a big England is bad for Scottish health. Ended up squatting in Iceland while GB proceeded to snap up all the good colonial spots before I quit.
Post by: Persus13 on December 18, 2015, 11:54:48 am
Post by: Persus13 on December 18, 2015, 12:32:21 pm
Gotcha. Is there anything documenting AI troops and transports? Because that sounds like a stupid cheat if it is one.Do you have screenshots of the game?No, there was something of a ragequit at that point.
Post by: Majestic7 on December 18, 2015, 01:01:17 pm
If you are playing some mod, perhaps the AI is using that option normally reserved only for rebels. In that case, you should blame the mod and not P'dox.
Post by: Teneb on December 18, 2015, 02:08:32 pm
I was playing a fantasy RNW nation, and what I think was the crimson empire DoWed me (I say I think because the names were randomised when I reloaded. I was the Chinese nation and somehow my name because Omo)It might've been a bug. The AI cheats in some ways (native uprisings in AI colonies are super rare, for example), but I've never seen any troops teleport, ever. The bolded part above might indicate that something is wrong with that save.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 18, 2015, 06:07:22 pm
Also, if you're ever in a situation where you get DoW'd and want to ragequit, keep in mind that it's very easy to get out of completely hopeless wars only losing one or two provinces and some money, which isn't the end of the world. Even with a stack like that on your capital, one loan worth of mercs and the rest of your forces will probably get them off, and if you let the war last as long as you can, the length of war modifier will go down and you can get a favorable deal or white peace (even in situations where the AI really should be asking for more). Chances are you'll keep your cores on whatever you cede, and can prepare for the next war rather than being caught off guard.
One trick is to also release nations with provinces of your primary culture, since you'll keep your cores and can probably easily snipe them again.
Post by: Culise on December 18, 2015, 07:52:25 pm
Well, except for a really weird bug where rebels apparently teleported to Sweden whenever they were beaten that was fixed in 1.12.
Post by: Exerosp on December 18, 2015, 08:41:26 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 18, 2015, 08:48:38 pm
Post by: Mini on December 18, 2015, 10:41:28 pm
I don't know how provinces work in EU4, but since i've seen natural harbours occur inlands (somehow) with the new RNW, could it be possible that the game registers a province as adjacent to your province, yet not being near eachother? Like a portal.It's probably this, a bug with the RNW. There was a picture on Reddit pretty soon after the latest DLC came out that had a province bordering basically an entire coastline when it should have been bordering only a couple of provinces towards the north end of said coastline.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 18, 2015, 11:08:09 pm
Post by: pedrito on December 21, 2015, 04:09:27 am
Stack appeared out of nowhere, my unit disappeared, this is impossible, I saw it wasn't there...
I'm not saying this is your case, but I know for a fact that even if there is a bug in your game one of the least likely things to happen because of a program malfunction is an enemy army appearing out of nowhere. A scrambled name, a missing graphic, a stupid AI decision... those are likely bugs.
Sorry for being skeptical. But I believe there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for you problem. Maybe the army got transported by boat and the AI deleted some ships because of negative cashflow right after the troops finished unloading?
Post by: Exerosp on December 21, 2015, 10:21:49 am
-snip-I rarely see AI delete/scrap ships.
Post by: Micro102 on December 21, 2015, 11:45:30 am
Post by: Bouchart on December 21, 2015, 12:23:10 pm
Post by: Exerosp on December 21, 2015, 01:45:33 pm
For what it's worth, I've seen an army pop out of nowhere right in front of my eyes as well. I've also seen the AI scrap ships when they have taken extreme economic damage, but only big navy nations like Spain, France, and England.On my last Russia-try, England went 5k in debt and even then didn't remove their navy. Damn britts love their ships.
Post by: RedKing on December 21, 2015, 02:27:32 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 21, 2015, 07:45:15 pm
The kebabs have been relentlessly advancing into Europe. Most of Hungary has been devoured. My allies in Austria and the PLC are really shit at doing useful things. Austria is more concerned about annexing HRE provinces, and the Commonwealth has been steadily losing ground to a weird Livonian Order/Novgorod/Muscovy alliance.
The other major powers aren't doing much better. France is perpetually butting heads with Austria, and would be winning if I didn't keep sinking obscene amounts of money and manpower into keeping them in check.
England is faffing around in the New World and generally being worthless. They're allied to the Ottomans because of the Protestant League (which won the war because of Ottoblob, even though the Reformation was really weak) which makes colonial wars a pain. I'm basically relying on income from colonies and trade companies to hold ground against the Ottomans, which is why hampering England is so important.
Ming, Delhi, and Japan have blobbed to the point that expansion in East Asia is prohibitively difficult. On their own they're no match for the mighty Spanish Empire, but I don't have the resources to commit against them with the lime green armies breathing down my neck.
Overall, this is pretty darn entertaining.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 21, 2015, 08:14:17 pm
Spoiler: Here's the current situation. (click to show/hide)
I'm allied and RM'd with Germany and have been for nigh on 400 years, and have been constantly improving relations. Upside: no need to remove sauerkraut. Downside: Sweden, Poland, &c. cannot into remove sauerkraut. I'm basically Scrooge McDucking it up in my treasury at this point, so I've been flooding Sweden with shekels (and the same to Bulgaria to help them remove protokebab), but I'm reluctant to outright attack Germany, for several reasons.
1. Still busy consuming and digesting all that pasta.
2. Byzantines are mostly being kept in check because I stomp their stacks every time Italy calls them, and because Germany, the Abbasids, and the Oghuz are constantly running a train on them.
3. I'd have to be the one to stomp Germany's shit in, rather than them being kept occupied by the Nordic folks. Keep in mind that the only reason I'm eating all this pasta is to stave off boredom while I wait for colonization ideas so that I can free Western Europe and fuck off to East Asia to play grab-ass with the Europe-sized Japanese empire.
4. I inherit if they don't have an heir.
I also don't want to fight Italy too much, because that also means fighting Moravia and the Byzantines, which fucks with the balance of power when Germany DoWs them while they're at 0 manpower with a bunch of empty unit stacks. It'd be less of a problem if those two-faced assholes in Germany hadn't given them access, because my fleets can easily blockade the Med.
What do?
Unrelated: Yes, the Vatican has basically been relocated to the Balkans and is now palling it up with their Moravian neighbors.
Post by: Bouchart on December 21, 2015, 09:04:41 pm
Post by: Vendayn on December 21, 2015, 10:41:16 pm
But I have all of Iberia, with Portugal being a vassal. A small part of southern France, a huge part of the surrounding provinces of Constantinople (freed Greece and made as a Vassal) and all of coastal egypt (except I freed Jerusalem who got a couple coastal provinces through a decision event and also made them a Vassal). I also have antioch and the coastal provinces there, and Ottoman no longer has the southern coastal provinces except for the Balkan ones.
Probably will stop conquering a bit so I don't get coalitions that I always hate dealing with and need to start building up my economy again anyway. Plus I need to focus on securing and building up my provinces and get tech/ideas. Once I start warring again, I'll probably take more Ottoman provinces and secure my holdings around there. But I also want to connect Iberia with my eastern front as my force is split in half with two armies (one massive army in Iberia, the other in the Holy Lands), probably do it through africa since its a bunch of weak nations out there except Morocco is pretty strong. It'll look like the roman empire almost, except I won't have much of europe or italy lol. The main issue is I'd need to go to war with naples to get his three north african provinces that he took over, and I don't really want to go to war with naples and his huge alliance lol.
I also have a few colonies, one in south america, one in north america and one in west africa. They don't really do much lol.
The strangest thing is Scotland went from one island province to having his whole original territories again lol. But then norway/scotland go back and forth. Iceland randomly appeared too, but maybe that is normal. But the funniest was France who was completely wiped out, but then french rebellions appeared and france reappeared again and has become quite a power.
The most helpful has been my quantity ideas lol, can field such a huge army with it that it let me split my forces in two pretty much (iberia/holy lands) and still do really well. The only problem I might run into is that I have kind of a lot of colonies and vassals (3 vassals, 3 colonies). But they have been at 0-5% independence so its not an issue for now.
Post by: Vendayn on December 22, 2015, 12:48:25 am
http://i.imgur.com/3XdbGJe.jpg (http://i.imgur.com/3XdbGJe.jpg)
I am spread out quite a bit, but securing Iberia sure helps a lot in being able to focus elsewhere. I probably should clean up the area with the Ottomans and make it look nicer on the map, but I like what I've done so far. My main goal will be to take all the provinces in north africa so I can connect the holy land empire with my iberian provinces. But that will have to be another time since I'm taking a bit of a break from EU4, cause that'll take quite a while with a lot of wars.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 22, 2015, 01:06:27 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 22, 2015, 01:08:02 am
I have never seen Pronsk before.It's the extended timeline mod. You can tell by the disgusting square borders.
Post by: Vendayn on December 22, 2015, 01:09:37 am
I also have a submod fpr extended timelines, that adds 500+ provinces, so that is a thing.
(edit: Heh yup was beaten to it :P)
As for borders. In real life many borders are square :P At least in the US that is a thing
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 22, 2015, 02:57:04 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 23, 2015, 12:23:07 am
Spoiler: fluff (click to show/hide)
Ultimately it was just a matter of prolonging the war until the Roman civilians rebelled against Nepal. The Romans were handed city by city from Nepal, and did not think returning to Saxony was a smart idea. North Africa and Jerusalem were taken from Saxony racking up a mighty 173 overextension, reduced by 50 when the Nile administration took over half of North Africa. Saxony was never going to pose a threat to North Africa ever again, and the Roman Empire was avenged (and living once more!)
This is not where the miscalculation arose.
By the end of the war, Nile, Ethiopia and Nepal were all governed by three men each named Mahendrasimhamalla. The reign of the three Mahendrasimhamallas was... Eventful.
Nepal did not impose on the colonies' self rule, but that also meant there was no Chola oversight.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
One Mahendrasimhamalla converted to Sunni Islam and brought with him Ethiopia and Arabia. Mahendrasimhamalla Nepal gave Mahendrasimhamalla Caliphate independence over his Caliphate, upon which point he reformed it into a merchant republic based in Mecca, struck alliance with the Nepalese and declared war on the Parthians. Mahendrasimhamalla Nile is currently quite panicked about this state of affairs and Mahendrasimhamalla Doge Caliphate has his diplomats working around the clock to try and keep cordial relationship with Mahendrasimhamalla Nile.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Flying Dice on December 25, 2015, 03:12:02 am
Is it normal for RNW sea provinces to all be named "Rand-Prov-Whatever"?
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 25, 2015, 03:25:16 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 25, 2015, 05:50:07 am
Speaking of manpower, that's another thing that bugs me - for most nations, I end up completely gutting my infantry and replacing all of them with mercs eventually. Keeping up with manpower just becomes obscenely hard until your nation is absolutely massive, even with Quantity.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 26, 2015, 02:45:28 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Sergarr on December 26, 2015, 05:11:10 am
Rerolled until I got an interesting RNW, then started my 790s Yamato game. I happened to glance over at Europe, and-JESUS FUCK FRANCE WHAT ARE YOU DOING IT'S ONLY BEEN 30 YEARSblob's gotta blobSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MetalSlimeHunt on December 26, 2015, 05:12:11 am
FRANCE HAS ENTERED A PERSONAL UNION WITHRerolled until I got an interesting RNW, then started my 790s Yamato game. I happened to glance over at Europe, and-JESUS FUCK FRANCE WHAT ARE YOU DOING IT'S ONLY BEEN 30 YEARSblob's gotta blobSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on December 26, 2015, 10:10:40 am
Post by: gimli on December 26, 2015, 10:22:45 am
Rerolled until I got an interesting RNW, then started my 790s Yamato game. I happened to glance over at Europe, and-JESUS FUCK FRANCE WHAT ARE YOU DOING IT'S ONLY BEEN 30 YEARSSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Cool looking map! Which gfx mod is this?
Post by: Bouchart on December 26, 2015, 12:43:09 pm
Post by: gimli on December 26, 2015, 02:29:24 pm
Post by: Azkanan on December 26, 2015, 03:39:09 pm
I would get into wars with Abbasid but due to territory value at that point, and simply due to the size of our empires, the 10 to 40-year wars were simply not worth it; ergo, it became a stalemate. This was a couple of years ago.
My more impressive game was in the Extended Timeline mod, a few months ago. I played as a small nation of Frisia on the border of the Roman Empire. I dumped masses of monarch points into my territories and built stable allies (or destroyed, slowly and non-agressively, my rivals).
Eventually I launched a suicide war against the Roman Empire (who had got into a war with the Parthia a few months prior). I spread as quickly as I could, breaking down their War Exhaustion, and eventually caused riots.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Eventually, their armies had arrived from the Eastern Front. Shits were shat.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But then suddenly
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I forced the Romans to submit:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then over the next few hundred years, built and split my nation because I enjoy the roleplay side of it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And grew more.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And after a thousand years of gameplay, and reunition...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: mineforce on December 26, 2015, 03:52:02 pm
1.Is it possible to stop the spread of Christianity or is it just plain impossible to beat?
2.Will Dacia get the same bonuses as the other tribes in 395 and inevitably declare war one me?
3.What year does the barbarian bonuses wear off?
Post by: Flying Dice on December 26, 2015, 08:40:13 pm
Yep..sort of. Anyway I've found it in the workshop. It's called Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.If you do decide to use it, make sure to grab the addon for increased color opaqueness, otherwise everything will be worn-parchment brown when you're zoomed in to a playable level.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 26, 2015, 11:30:58 pm
1.Is it possible to stop the spread of Christianity or is it just plain impossible to beat?I saw my Rome defeat it up until it got rekt by the Germanic invasion. The Greeks and Germanics also subsequently kept Christianity quite small until one of the major Germanic tribes converted and started pressuring everyone else. I'm sure it can be done, use that festival to Saturn and favour the deity which gives bonus to missionary, focus on eradicating rival pagans first and then pick on the Christians who have lost their zeal whilst making sure to spread Roman culture as much as possible/keeping stability high and avoiding losing wars or fighting costly wars as much as possible.
2.Will Dacia get the same bonuses as the other tribes in 395 and inevitably declare war one me?Probably, would advise vassalizing it
3.What year does the barbarian bonuses wear off?3560 days, so just under 10 years from when the barbarian tribe first fires the migration event, there's not really an exact date when it ends
Post by: Flying Dice on December 27, 2015, 04:12:11 am
Spoiler: It's been about 80 years (click to show/hide)
Francia's completely swallowed the British Isles and a bit more of the German states, but Andalusia, the Abbasids, and Sijilmasa have put together a solid alliance that slightly outnumbers the French in just about every area, and are working with the Byzantines to strangle French merchants. Meanwhile, just about the whole of Asia is either Tibet or a churning mass of rebellion, war, and changing national colors. I was content picking away at Mongolia until Xia abruptly popped into existence and colored much of China a disgusting shade of yellow.
I edited Extended Timeline so that the Exploration idea unlocked at Admin 30 (instead of Admin 49, which is where it normally pegs all of the vanilla ideas). Yeah, so that I could start popping colonies all over Oceania, but also for the sake of the New World: The Crimson Empire has a near-Asia continent all to itself and I want a fight, Zhengheian is on the first continent the French will reach, and there's a third major continent with about thirty minor native states who'll hit 30 Admin in the next few decades.
Post by: gimli on December 27, 2015, 11:33:00 am
Yep..sort of. Anyway I've found it in the workshop. It's called Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.If you do decide to use it, make sure to grab the addon for increased color opaqueness, otherwise everything will be worn-parchment brown when you're zoomed in to a playable level.
Thanks for the advice.
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 27, 2015, 02:19:23 pm
Post by: Vendayn on December 27, 2015, 02:38:15 pm
EU4 or CK2? Which game you think is it better to invest (scarse) free time into? I have played EU3 for a reatively long time (my greatest achievement was establishing the Indostan state over the whole India) and now I'm sampling the 4th incarnation, but I want to experience something new in Paradox games. I have started getting into CK2 today as well, and I'm afraid it's going to take quite some time to comprehense merely the basics (everything seems soo different from the EU series). (sorry for offtopic)
Well, I personally have a lot more play hours in EU4. But mods for CK2 are overall a lot better. However, I much prefer the DLCs EU4 releases.
CK2 I notice is a lot more slower paced, since its more about your dynasty and not really growing a huge empire. There isn't really a lot of action that happens, and it never gets intense or anything. I mean sure your son/daughter can turn around and kill you, but it isn't intense or exciting (at least to me).
EU4 downside is it does get blobby (you don't really blob very much in CK2, that isn't the point of it). Where as EU4 is almost all about blobbing. But its a lot more exciting and intense, and I personally much prefer a huge game map to play on, and not the little play area of europe/tiny part of arica and india...where as in EU4 you get the entire world. EU4 is far more like a VERY advanced RISK to me, which I personally prefer MUCH more.
Nothing wrong with both, but only 60 or so hours of CK2, and I got Eu4 AFTER CK2 (many months after), and it already has hundreds of hours of game time. I barely touch CK2, and when I do, I get kinda bored and go back to EU4. I think people who get most enjoyment out of CK2 is by RPing their dynasty, and I don't really care about that...but I'm a sim city guy, not a Sims guy :P I just find CK2 to go to slow for me, when EU4 is more actiony and to me, EU4 feels a lot more dynamic in what happens to the world map (as long as you turn lucky nations off)
(edit:
Also, for some reason CK2 has no naval combat (and pretty sure naval combat was still important in CK2s timeline :P But I built a huge fleet to take on the AI's fleet coming to land on my shore, and...my guys waved at them like friendly british men and they started raiding my place. Naval combat isn't that great in EU4 either, but there is a ton of features regarding the water (trade, blockades, all kinds of stuff) that is completely missing in CK2. This was a HUGE negative for me.
But yeah, I mean just different games. CK is more for RPers I think, where as EU is more for strategists. That's how I see it anyway.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on December 27, 2015, 02:42:45 pm
Spoiler: MY EYES (click to show/hide)
Naturally I had to start playing. I had no idea continents could get this ridiculous.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 27, 2015, 04:43:57 pm
EU4 or CK2? Which game you think is it better to invest (scarse) free time into? I have played EU3 for a reatively long time (my greatest achievement was establishing the Indostan state over the whole India) and now I'm sampling the 4th incarnation, but I want to experience something new in Paradox games. I have started getting into CK2 today as well, and I'm afraid it's going to take quite some time to comprehense merely the basics (everything seems soo different from the EU series). (sorry for offtopic)Depends on your tastes, I'd say.
EU4 if you really like the macro-level play in EU3: blobbing, colonizing, lots of strategic-level combat with big stacks all over.
CK2 is a lot more heavily focused on lower-level management, politics, and dynasty management. I've heard it described as an RPG centered around your family line (as opposed to a single character) and that's a pretty fair assessment, I'd say, not least because there are a shitload more people than the ruler and three advisers and each of them has a bunch of different traits, skills, &c. as opposed to EU rulers consisting entirely of the three tech stats and their age.
They're both fun, but they are fairly different games. CK2 (mods aside) is set in an earlier timeframe, and you're generally going to be using smaller armies on a smaller scale while directly controlling relatively little territory.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 27, 2015, 05:05:26 pm
I built a huge fleet to take on the AI's fleet coming to land on my shore, and...my guys waved at them like friendly british men and they started raiding my place.
This is a fairly obscure "feature" that I think is a holdover from EU3. Fleets that are transporting troops have a chance to not be intercepted (which I think happens regardless of composition, number of troops, maneuver, or anything rational). It's pretty annoying when it happens, since typically it's either your fleet failing to engage when you want it to, or the AI getting away when they don't deserve to. Sometimes, if you're really desperate, you can throw the dice and try it yourself, attempting to sneak a weak fleet through by transporting a merc or something.
But yeah, naval combat kind of sucks. It's basically just ships randomly running into each other until they run out of morale, at which point they stop doing anything and just take loads of damage.
Post by: Vendayn on December 27, 2015, 07:04:35 pm
I built a huge fleet to take on the AI's fleet coming to land on my shore, and...my guys waved at them like friendly british men and they started raiding my place.
This is a fairly obscure "feature" that I think is a holdover from EU3. Fleets that are transporting troops have a chance to not be intercepted (which I think happens regardless of composition, number of troops, maneuver, or anything rational). It's pretty annoying when it happens, since typically it's either your fleet failing to engage when you want it to, or the AI getting away when they don't deserve to. Sometimes, if you're really desperate, you can throw the dice and try it yourself, attempting to sneak a weak fleet through by transporting a merc or something.
But yeah, naval combat kind of sucks. It's basically just ships randomly running into each other until they run out of morale, at which point they stop doing anything and just take loads of damage.
That was actually in CK2, sorry if it wasn't clear. In CK2 there is no naval anything at all. Not even any trade as far as I saw. I haven't actually noticed that in EU4, so it must be rare or I just don't notice or both lol.
(edit: I have noticed females like CK2 more than EU4 however. From my personal observations, I've seen FAR more female fans for CK2 on facebook+forums than female fans for EU4, which seem to be very rare (I've seen 2-3 over a period of a few months, but they get chased off the forums/facebook group from all the guys lol. Where as female fans for CK2 don't get bombarded by the guys nearly as much...maybe possibly because there are more females that join the groups/forum for CK2, so they get treated differently just because there are more of them so it isn't as rare to see a female join a CK2 group. Or whatever reason. Just my observations.
But for whatever reason, CK2 attracts far more females than EU4 does. But Sims attracts more females than sim city does, so there is that)
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 27, 2015, 09:02:47 pm
EU4 or CK2? Which game you think is it better to invest (scarse) free time into? I have played EU3 for a reatively long time (my greatest achievement was establishing the Indostan state over the whole India) and now I'm sampling the 4th incarnation, but I want to experience something new in Paradox games. I have started getting into CK2 today as well, and I'm afraid it's going to take quite some time to comprehense merely the basics (everything seems soo different from the EU series). (sorry for offtopic)CK2 gets my vote as the more interesting of the two, as EU4 just does not have the same character depth as CK2. Whilst EU4 is a very nice, calm and even borderline casual (once you understand the mechanics... That have been released) it turns into a game of patient map painting. Not to say that it is slow or unchallenging, as it can be very fast paced and incredibly difficult at times. Much more fun in multiplayer dicking over your m8s on the international stage. And really, sometimes all you want is an exercise in patience ;P
But whilst things are more set in stone in EU4, CK2 is much, much more dynamic and the much more complete of the two (with or without factoring in DLC). The lack of naval battles I feel is incredibly shit, but just about everything else in CK2 is perfect.
EU4 is about the age of Imperialism, where national darwinism and constant growth meant nations which dominated survived and nations which didn't perished. CK2 is about the wheel of fortune and how a pauper today is an Emperor tomorrow, and an Emperor today a pauper tomorrow. The interactions between the people are the focus and their stories the central point of it all.
I'll give you a comparison between two average games of EU4 and CK2 I've had.
In EU4 I started off as the Kingdom of England. I surrendered the French lands to the French, ending the hundred years war. I colonized North America and crushed the American revolution, annexed the Irish Kingdoms and united with Scotland. I placed the Lancasters upon the throne in the war of the roses, gained a foothold in Central America, the Caribbean, the Indian Subcontinent and even Australia - essentially the proto-British Empire of the 19th century, minus the Cape of Africa (which belonged to Portugal, a stalwart ally). In the religious league wars the English joined the Catholic side as they too were Catholic, and the Austrians ever victorious cemented their position as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and ended Ottoman ambitions for expansion beyond Serbia and Bulgaria. The game would culminate in a showdown between Revolutionary France, Austria, Russia, Tuscany, the Ottomans and Great Britain where France would force the surrender of all of Britain's allies until the war turned into the contest between the Whale and the Elephant, neither one capable of truly challenging the other outside its element. With a relentless blockade unable to be broken even by the most valiant efforts of the French navy, eventually the French Rev Republic was too exhausted to fight and was crushed - ushering in the age of pax Britannica.
In CK2 I started off as a Christian count (I forgot all of their names as this was an average game) on the wrong side of the Holy Lands to an irate Emir who desired my lands. My wife was a Sunni Arab who was not particularly fond of me but eventually grew to fall in love with me, so much so that she stopped sending assassins after our children. My Lord the Emir of Bagdhad grudgingly accepted I was a talented commander and appointed me martial of his forces. All around me great things were happening, the Vikings were making their forays into raiding, the Franks had defeated the Andalusian invasion of France, the Caliphate and the Byzantines were waging bitter war - it all mattered for nought. I was busy partying with the sole Muslim in a Baghdad court decadent enough to drink!
This Emir would however grow ever increasingly hostile to me as time went on, and I waged a war of independence upon him in order to serve the Caliph directly. Being the Marshal of his forces helped considerably, and I had timed the war to coincide with his invasion of one of his rival Emirs - between his rival and my forces, the war was won. The Caliph recognized my skill and made me marshal of the whole Caliphate and commander of the centre; the Caliph was quite happy with me after I led the Caliphate's forces to victory against the Byzantine Empire's attempt to reclaim the levant. This war had very little impact on me despite being a world-changing event, and after some political concessions were forced from the Caliph I found myself back under the suzerainty of an even angrier Emir of Bagdhad. Things were looking to be once more horrendous.
After scheming with some help from my decadent friend (who just so happened to inherit a county within the Emirate with help from myself) a second war was launched and I gained control of the Bagdhad Emirate, elevating myself to ruler of the Emirate and the former Emir reduced to a Sheikh (who was promptly murdered in a Zoroastrian riot, his lands subsequently conquered by me). My decadent friend (now a decadent sheikh) was made my right hand man and I was in turn once more promoted to Marshal and Commander of the Caliphate - just in time to lead the Muslim armies in the First Crusade. After the first Caliph I had served died of old age, a second younger and more martial Caliph took charge (whilst the Crusade was still ongoing). He still looked favourably on me, but had noticeably demoted me from commander of the centre to commander of the right flank. The Crusaders would be defeated but truthfully, it mattered not either way whether we won or not - only if I made it home did it matter.
I made it home and all hell broke loose, the Caliph was victorious but the Caliphate had descended into civil war. The Sultan of Egypt, the Emirs of Persia and the Caliph with his loyalists in the Levant and Arabia all fought viciously, I stayed mostly in the sidelines, running the logistics of the Caliph and helping reinforcements get to the front line. The only time I saw battle was when a hostile Emir tried laying siege to one of my towns.
The second Caliph I served was eventually removed from power and Egypt became an independent Sultanate. The third Caliph was a zealous Sunni convert from Persia, the son of a former Zoroastrian nobleman. He did not like me for my heathen ways, nor did he like how close I had been to the previous Caliph. I gave him my two daughters for reeducation, knowing that they in their old age and their stubborn cynical ways would probably tell his teachers to suck on some figs. But my son on the other hand... He was a hard working, trusting and studious infant. He did not possess his sisters' perception for how things were. I had to refuse his reeducation into a bedouin nobleman.
This pissed off the third Caliph immensely. Before long the Caliph was caught between the decision of invading Egypt or invading Bagdhad. I began gathering friends fast, aware that soon I would die of old age or assassin blades and Bagdhad would be left in the hands of a trusting boy. My coalition of a Christian, a decadent Muslim, the last Zoroastrian, a Khawarjite heretic and the Emir whose 1st and 2nd wife had cheated on him with the Caliph fought hard and long and won - securing independence just in time for the Sultan of Egypt to capture the Caliphate's capital. After my death the coalition would unite behind my son, by then an able commander holding together a loose federation of Catholics, Sunni heretics, Sunnis, Assassins and a smidgen of Buddhists. The only ones who left were the Zoroastrians, who were granted independence as their Duke was violently opposed to rule from anywhere except home.
Those are the average games for me. The exceptional ones I can think off the top of my head in EU4:
- Using the extended timeline mod to play as Nepal and over the course of 600 years outlive Rome, unite India, revive the Han, bring back Rome and lose my colonial Empire after a government oversight led to a third of my Empire converting to Islam
- Playing as the Knights of Rhodes surrounded by hostile states, raiding the Mamluks for gold and desperately trying to stay alive. Managed to raid my way around Africa and land a single colony in modern day Colombia just days before my fleet was destroyed, my African territories lost to Mali and my North African territories lost to Spain. I had gained Malta and lost it to the Mamluks and Rhodes herself was barely holding on.
The colony succeeded and for a tense few decades the Knights of Rhodes expanded through central America and the Caribbean. With the conquering of the Incans became a great power and all those who had turned Rhodes to ruins suddenly had reason to fear the sunset invasion. The Knights were back, and not to negotiate.
Whilst in CK2:
- In a word, Miroslavs
Over the longest campaign possible from the Old Gods Start to the very end the Miroslav dynasty expanded (I was operating under the self-imposed restriction of no expansion through conquest for a long while) and kept expanding, fighting shadow wars behind overt wars, playing off Crusader Knights against Byzantines, Byzantine Queens against Byzantine Empresses, Shiite Caliphs against Byzantine Baselieuses against Sunni Caliphs, fighting dynastic wars of intrigue against Karlings, Isauros and growing so potent as to even make the Mongol invaders into Miroslavs. By the end of that run there had been 21,000 confirmed Miroslavs and everyone alive had a Miroslav as their common ancestor, from the farthest reaches of Timbuktu or Reykjavik to Calcutta. All the world religions were controlled by Miroslavs, all the banks controlled by Miroslavs, the holy orders controlled by Miroslavs, every level of government from the lowest to highest controlled by Miroslavs and the dynastic management was intense. And every single time I was always hanging on by the razor's edge of survival and it was intense. It was only made all the better by conversion funnily enough, to EU4 - managing the dynasty took a different light with the far more powerful EU4 armies and navies raising the cost of war, or made better with the use of mods. Still, I don't think I'll ever top the invasion of the Game of Thrones world:
No. Fucking Words.EU4 does not have the same potential to go... Completely... Off... The same way. On a thematic note I don't want EU4 to have the same character depth as CK2, I think it's quite appropriate that the Imperialism simulator has more concern for the tea trade than the people drinking it, but CK2 does have it and it uses it perfectly (in a very DF style, leave the notes and let your mind connect them to make music). If EU4 had better peacetime mechanics to deal with infrastructure development, client/ally management and technological/social progress control/guidance it could perhaps compete by doing what EU4 does better than what CK2 does in regards to what CK2 does best. I haven't tried the Cossacks or Common Sense DLCs in EU4 which deal with some of those, which may explain that a bit. The trade system could also use some dynamism to help history develop on non-linear paths (that surprise you! You will only once in your life see the invincible ring of Portugal) and the culture and religion spread system are inferior to both CK2 and VIC2 (VIC2 doing it fantastically with population tracking, migration, assimilation and CK2 doing it well with it all happening through layers of nobles, courtiers and commoners), also failing to accurately represent how culture and religion spread through the age of Exploration and early Imperialism. The monarch points system itself is quite painful, overextension seems quite forced (compare CK2 and EU4's ideas of overextension, where in CK2 there is no number that decides you are overextended too much. It's a personal judgement that if you refuse to make will eventually result in your Empire growing too large to administrate properly, crush all revolts and stop vassals breaking away - resulting in a natural collapse, versus EU4's "you go over 100% you die," which really slows down the aggressive Imperialism the game models (at least until client states are unlocked)). Without even addressing the cost of DLCs... CK2 offers more. On a technical basis EU4 runs smoother and its saves are much smaller which may be of concern to you, as after a while CK2 games can slow down (so games lasting several centuries are not advised except in really special games).
You used the fucking world-ending demonic ice zombie hordes as a tool against your personal enemies, invaded the entire planet, and then polished it off by watching as three hundred thousand fucking aztecs landed in the heart of Winter with a dozen dragons, drove back the zombie hordes, and re-established the barrier of men against the wastes you previously let slip.
And then, of all things, the sheer charisma of the aztechs persuaded the White Walkers to take over the duties of the Night's Watch. This is where you've sunk to. You are the bad guy. The aztecs are slitting throats, skinning people, and ripping out hearts, and you're the bad guy. The ice demons of the endless northern wastes are guarding the Wall from themselves and you're the bad guy. The great slavery empires of the East have been overthrown under wave of screaming tribesmen, and you're the bad guy. Winter has become a formal fucking procedure and you're the bad guy.
When you play the game of thrones, you win, or the serbians come.
When it comes to investing scarce time, I would actually say go for EU4. CK2 and EU4 both have a wealth of mechanics to learn, but EU4's are definitely simpler and more abstracted, something which it achieves very well (perhaps too well :D). EU4 will give you all the fun you want and is solid in its own right, and a brilliant banter machine slightly less vehement against friends than Monopoly. But it's like this, if you have more time, just as investing time to learn DF makes Fun, investing time to learn CK2 makes Fun.
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 04:52:10 am
So, I decided to test out the new random world gen and they were quite a bit nicer for the most part. Then, uh, this happened:Spoiler: MY EYES (click to show/hide)
Naturally I had to start playing. I had no idea continents could get this ridiculous.
(http://dirkkelly.com/gifs/classics/gandalf-you-shall-not-pass.gif)
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 28, 2015, 05:07:43 am
~~~holy wall of text batman
above image is appropriate
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 05:19:06 am
(http://i.imgur.com/RL42rrg.png)
Post by: Digital Hellhound on December 28, 2015, 05:50:26 am
Spoiler: DUN DUN DUUUUN (click to show/hide)
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 06:19:20 am
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 07:45:13 am
Putting non-Steam games that don't need Steam for anything into your Steam library? *shudders* :P
Spoiler: DUN DUN DUUUUN (click to show/hide)
(http://cdn.meme.am/instances/500x/19665711.jpg)
Pretty much. :P
Post by: gimli on December 28, 2015, 08:54:55 am
EU4 or CK2? Which game you think is it better to invest (scarse) free time into? I have played EU3 for a reatively long time (my greatest achievement was establishing the Indostan state over the whole India) and now I'm sampling the 4th incarnation, but I want to experience something new in Paradox games. I have started getting into CK2 today as well, and I'm afraid it's going to take quite some time to comprehense merely the basics (everything seems soo different from the EU series). (sorry for offtopic)
CK2 for me [...even tho EU4 is a decent game as well]. I have all expansions and DLCs & I've spent like 400 hours on multiplayer so far. IMO it's the best PD game up to date, perhaps Stellaris will take the #1. spot in 1-2 years [...after ~4 expansions :D]
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 08:57:28 am
Spoiler: Japanese Japan (click to show/hide)
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 09:10:11 am
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 09:40:03 am
I've seen Arabian Arabia too.
"Japanese Korea" splattered on the main-land looked much, much worse, believe me. So I moved my capital to Beijing (New Kyoto).
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 09:52:10 am
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 09:54:01 am
Huh, that's really inconsistent. I never got the Japanese Korea label even when the only mainland territory I held was the Korean peninsula.It was awful, Flying Dice. Just awful. *sobs*
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 28, 2015, 10:14:58 am
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 10:21:41 am
Sunni is one of the more powerful non-Christian religions so I don't see why you'd want to switch unless you are trying to weasel into the HRE.
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 28, 2015, 10:23:01 am
It's possible to switch religions by collapsing to religious zealot rebels. Sunni and Shia can also switch between one another by decision.
Sunni is one of the more powerful non-Christian religions so I don't see why you'd want to switch unless you are trying to weasel into the HRE.
'cause all the provinces practise hinduism and it's going to take forever to convert all of them to the state religion. :(
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 10:24:05 am
But then I'm trying to paint the world Shinto right now, so maybe don't listen to me.
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 10:29:08 am
It's possible to switch religions by collapsing to religious zealot rebels. Sunni and Shia can also switch between one another by decision.
Sunni is one of the more powerful non-Christian religions so I don't see why you'd want to switch unless you are trying to weasel into the HRE.
'cause all the provinces practise hinduism and it's going to take forever to convert all of them to the state religion. :(
Send a missionary to one of the provinces and set the missionary maintenance slider to 0. Wait for hindu zealots. Let them seize a few provinces. In one of the menus there should be an option to succumb to the rebels' demands which will change your state religion to hindu. You take a 50 prestige hit in the process though.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 28, 2015, 11:06:02 am
It's possible to switch religions by collapsing to religious zealot rebels. Sunni and Shia can also switch between one another by decision.Switching to Hinduism lets you blob through Hindu India and use deities, I find the flexibility is worth more than the reduced missionary resistance
Sunni is one of the more powerful non-Christian religions so I don't see why you'd want to switch unless you are trying to weasel into the HRE.
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 11:20:21 am
Post by: Teneb on December 28, 2015, 11:32:05 am
True. Only problem is there's a lot of Sunni land and not a whole lot of Hindu land so you'll end up doing a lot of conversion once you have India.And remember that you'll need a lot of missionary strength to convert the Sunni provinces. I guess it depends on whether you want to expand east or west.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 28, 2015, 12:24:48 pm
How could that even happen that Bengal's national religion is sunni islam while all its provinces practice hinduism?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_rulers_in_South_Asia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_rulers_in_South_Asia)
All the sultanates in India get large bonuses to religious unity and tolerance of heathens, so it doesn't really matter that all of your provinces are wrong religion. Hinduism with WoN is one of the best religions in the game though, but so is Sunni.
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 28, 2015, 01:35:33 pm
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 01:40:10 pm
Is there a way to switch to another religion in case the country's national religion is sunni islam? How could that even happen that Bengal's national religion is sunni islam while all its provinces practice hinduism?
Because in the 1400s most of India was under the control of Muslim conquerers who had taken over India in the last century, but didn't care enough to try and convert the majority Hindu population. Almost all of your neighbors will also be Sunni sultanates ruling over Hindu provinces with the exception of Bahmais (which I believe is Shia) and some Hindu states in the south and east.
As said above, you natioanl ideas give reduced unrest and tolerance. You'll be fine, especially if you take Humanist ideas.
How do I make those damned nationalists settle down already? I've made their provinces core but they're just not going to give up, so I often end up with destroying all my army in battles against them, and it takes a really long time to start regaining free manpower to afford wars.Raise autonomy in the province, place 20k stacks on provinces with unrest, spend military power to setback the time once over 50%, or take ideas that reduce separatism or unrest (Humanist helps with this as well). Taking a province results in Separatism which gives a lot of unrest and takes something like 15 or 25 years to eventually go away.
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 02:26:11 pm
e: wat
I was idly skimming around looking at countries. The year is 1030 AD, and Kyrgyzstan is a republic.
The Abbasids are looking to nom them next, so I might just have found myself a proxy.
On an unrelated note, I can reorder as the Celestial Empire as Japan, and I only barely beat out Tibet (though I don't actually want to). Poor China.
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 03:18:52 pm
If rebels siege a province adjacent to a fort it won't give the province any negative modifiers (like 10 years of separatism in this case). Pick your battles wisely.
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 03:24:06 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 03:58:04 pm
That's the sort of situation where there's got to be something else going on: the 25k already had low morale, the 9k had markedly higher tech/were defending on good terrain/had an excellent leader, &c. Reinforcements don't turn a definite loss into a definite win (unless it's something major like a 20k stack rolling up near the end of a 25k vs 50k or whatever).
Be careful with autonomous rebel suppression. An army will automatically attack rebels sieging a mountain province across a river, which is a major penalty.True--but again, that's why I noted that it's situational. If terrain penalties are enough to make your forces lose, your stacks aren't beefy or numerous enough to just leave it on by default. If any rebel stack is going to have multiple 20-30k stacks attacking it at the same time, on the other hand...
If rebels siege a province adjacent to a fort it won't give the province any negative modifiers (like 10 years of separatism in this case). Pick your battles wisely.
That said, you can also manage initial movements manually and then turn it on after your first or second victory, since the AI is pretty much always more efficient than you are at chasing down retreating losers.
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 04:04:50 pm
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 04:09:11 pm
Post by: Il Palazzo on December 28, 2015, 04:17:02 pm
What major (i.e. introducing new mechanics) DLCs are fun? As far as I can see, these are all very small changes - moving a trade centre, or creating a new government type.
Anything out there worth considering?
Post by: Bouchart on December 28, 2015, 04:23:55 pm
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 04:31:07 pm
Star and Crescent gives a lot of neat Muslim events if you don't have it already.
El Dorado is useful if you want to make your own nation or have fun with the Aztecs or Incans.
Conquest of Paradise gives the option of randomizing the New World which is fun, if a bit gimmicky.
Wealth of Nations and Res Publica do a whole bunch of different stuff I'm not completely sure about.
I must be an odd one out, because I find EUIV better with Common Sense turned off than with it on. I save a lot more MP that way.
Post by: Il Palazzo on December 28, 2015, 04:45:17 pm
I must be an odd one out, because I find EUIV better with Common Sense turned off than with it on.Judging by vitriolic Steam reviews, the odd one out is Bouchart for recommending it. And by reading the reviews I've just learned that, if I understand it correctly, the game without CS still uses mechanics CS introduces (i.e. provincial development), but only AI is allowed to do so. What the heck?
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 28, 2015, 05:07:27 pm
I must be an odd one out, because I find EUIV better with Common Sense turned off than with it on.Judging by vitriolic Steam reviews, the odd one out is Bouchart for recommending it. And by reading the reviews I've just learned that, if I understand it correctly, the game without CS still uses mechanics CS introduces (i.e. provincial development), but only AI is allowed to do so. What the heck?
I don't own CS, but all the provinces have development stats, which I have no buttons to increase. I haven't played long enough nor payed enough attention to see if the AI is able to increase development without CS installed.
On the other hand, I've heard investing in development is very rarely worth the point costs, if you have other things to spend on.
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 05:10:59 pm
Before CS came out, provinces were rated by base tax. Now base tax is wrapped up in development. Improving development in a province is a DLC mechanic only, and as far as I'm aware, AI can't do that without the DLC.I must be an odd one out, because I find EUIV better with Common Sense turned off than with it on.Judging by vitriolic Steam reviews, the odd one out is Bouchart for recommending it. And by reading the reviews I've just learned that, if I understand it correctly, the game without CS still uses mechanics CS introduces (i.e. provincial development), but only AI is allowed to do so. What the heck?
The two major complaints I see about development is that improving it costs monarch points, which are already scarce, so its barely used by a player, and that the AI spends so much on development when they're a OPM, that it makes these ridiculous top value provinces, that when conquered are really expensive to core.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 28, 2015, 05:23:33 pm
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 05:34:12 pm
I'm now, finally, quite happy to sit in the British Isles rather than rampaging all over Europe. LONDON WILL BE GREAT.
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 05:35:17 pm
I'm half-tempted to make a mod to make development tied to wealth instead of MP, but that requires me learning how to mod.
You know, I'm very tempted to make a mod myself, where the gameworld is the British Isles - but super, super huge, with all of the counties and microcounties within. It would be a fine mod, where you see so many factions; lordlings and counts, fighting over the British Isles.
Post by: Teneb on December 28, 2015, 05:43:40 pm
Wouldn't that be better suited to CK2?I'm half-tempted to make a mod to make development tied to wealth instead of MP, but that requires me learning how to mod.
You know, I'm very tempted to make a mod myself, where the gameworld is the British Isles - but super, super huge, with all of the counties and microcounties within. It would be a fine mod, where you see so many factions; lordlings and counts, fighting over the British Isles.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on December 28, 2015, 06:38:52 pm
Before CS came out, provinces were rated by base tax. Now base tax is wrapped up in development. Improving development in a province is a DLC mechanic only, and as far as I'm aware, AI can't do that without the DLC.
So if I get an event that raises the base tax in say, Barcelona, what actually happens under the development system?
Right now provinces use development instead of base tax, but events still talk about base tax in their effects
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 28, 2015, 06:46:36 pm
I'm half-tempted to make a mod to make development tied to wealth instead of MP, but that requires me learning how to mod.
One way I've considered doing it is using a building (or three, one for each dev type) that triggers an event to destroy itself and increase the province's development. That'd also be a nice way of preventing development increase from being instant. There'd be some problems with build cost and new pseudo-modifier creation with flags or something, but I think it'd work out.
Before CS came out, provinces were rated by base tax. Now base tax is wrapped up in development. Improving development in a province is a DLC mechanic only, and as far as I'm aware, AI can't do that without the DLC.
So if I get an event that raises the base tax in say, Barcelona, what actually happens under the development system?
Right now provinces use development instead of base tax, but events still talk about base tax in their effects
It's not very different from the old base tax/manpower system. Whereas before provinces had base tax and manpower, they've now got a production value as well, and most of the effects base tax used to have were moved to total development (the 3 categories added together).
Many of the old events that raised base tax now give you a choice of either of the 3 components, or still work exactly as they used to (but base tax is less important now, being only one value).
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 06:56:30 pm
There are three types of development. Base tax is one of the three and affects tax income. The other two are Base Production and Base Manpower, and then all these add up to a total Development value, which affects stuff like trade power and coring cost. So Barcelona has a base tax of 6, a base production of 6, and a base manpower of 3, with a total development value of 15. So your event that increases base tax would increase Barcelona's base tac to 7, and the total development value to 16.Before CS came out, provinces were rated by base tax. Now base tax is wrapped up in development. Improving development in a province is a DLC mechanic only, and as far as I'm aware, AI can't do that without the DLC.
So if I get an event that raises the base tax in say, Barcelona, what actually happens under the development system?
Right now provinces use development instead of base tax, but events still talk about base tax in their effects
As Urban Giraffe said, most development events give you the option to choose between which type you improve in a province. And if you have the Common Sense DLC, you can manually do that with MP.
Relevant Wiki Article (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Development)
Post by: Flying Dice on December 28, 2015, 06:58:53 pm
Hell, that's pretty much exactly what the ASOIAF mod for CK2 is, if you squint hard enough to mistake Westeros for the British Isles.Wouldn't that be better suited to CK2?I'm half-tempted to make a mod to make development tied to wealth instead of MP, but that requires me learning how to mod.
You know, I'm very tempted to make a mod myself, where the gameworld is the British Isles - but super, super huge, with all of the counties and microcounties within. It would be a fine mod, where you see so many factions; lordlings and counts, fighting over the British Isles.
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 07:12:09 pm
ASOIAF
Bless you.
But, what?
Post by: Persus13 on December 28, 2015, 07:14:27 pm
Post by: Azkanan on December 28, 2015, 07:30:08 pm
A Song of Ice of Fire. Also known as the book series that caused the Game of Thrones TV Show.
Oh. I know what it is, just never heard the acronym and therefore what it meant :o
Post by: Leyic on December 29, 2015, 05:00:48 am
You know, I'm very tempted to make a mod myself, where the gameworld is the British Isles - but super, super huge, with all of the counties and microcounties within. It would be a fine mod, where you see so many factions; lordlings and counts, fighting over the British Isles.The Winter King (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/western-europe-479-867-the-winter-king.783011/) mod for CK2 plays on an enlarged map of the British Isles, though it's set during the Christianization of Britain (so even earlier than CK2) and is based on "The Warlord Chronicles" saga rather than being purely historical.
Post by: gimli on December 29, 2015, 10:56:20 am
PD should spend more time on AI development tbh. ::)
I don't care that much since I prefer MP in all games, but I am a bit worried now because of their upcoming game - Stellaris. 100.1% that the vanilla AI will suck major balls, and I am not sure that it will be a "popular" game for MP.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 29, 2015, 02:27:36 pm
One way I've considered doing it is using a building (or three, one for each dev type) that triggers an event to destroy itself and increase the province's development. That'd also be a nice way of preventing development increase from being instant. There'd be some problems with build cost and new pseudo-modifier creation with flags or something, but I think it'd work out.
It is done.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip)
For a base cost of 100 ducats, improve the development in any province with a building slot available. The building will give the normal bonus from one development in its category until a recurring event destroys it and increases development in the province permanently. All dev cost modifiers have been replaced with build cost modifiers (except that dev efficiency one in tech, but who cares), and the AI should behave itself. It's inconvenient to increase development multiple times in the same province rapidly, but aside from that it seems just as good as the vanilla system.
Unfortunately disabling MP development entirely seems to no longer be possible, with cost capped at 999. So I bet some particularly disgusting OPMs will still do it the vanilla way, which would be hilarious.
I haven't played it out yet, since I'm working on loads of other mods I want to get released, so if you use this, please let me know how the world ends up and how the performance is (as well as suggestions/balance changes). Provinces won't show how many times development has been improved normally, but you can see what the AI's done by checking province history.
Also worth noting that this should let you increase development without owning common sense, though I haven't tested it yet. In the final release I'll probably add a lip service check to owning the DLC, but anyone could just remove that one line, so I don't really care.
Edit:
Left the game running until 1500, and saw France and Ming go absolutely nuts. And then I saw Mutapa with a 2/16/3 gold province. Otherwise I'm liking it, but there's another mod I'm working on that makes Europe start a lot less rich, which I think will be important. I made some other changes, but here's a better common\buildings\UG_dev_buildings.txt
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Vendayn on December 29, 2015, 03:00:08 pm
One way I've considered doing it is using a building (or three, one for each dev type) that triggers an event to destroy itself and increase the province's development. That'd also be a nice way of preventing development increase from being instant. There'd be some problems with build cost and new pseudo-modifier creation with flags or something, but I think it'd work out.
It is done.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip)
For a base cost of 100 ducats, improve the development in any province with a building slot available. The building will give the normal bonus from one development in its category until a recurring event destroys it and increases development in the province permanently. All dev cost modifiers have been replaced with build cost modifiers (except that dev efficiency one in tech, but who cares), and the AI should behave itself. It's inconvenient to increase development multiple times in the same province rapidly, but aside from that it seems just as good as the vanilla system.
Unfortunately disabling MP development entirely seems to no longer be possible, with cost capped at 999. So I bet some particularly disgusting OPMs will still do it the vanilla way, which would be hilarious.
I haven't played it out yet, since I'm working on loads of other mods I want to get released, so if you use this, please let me know how the world ends up and how the performance is (as well as suggestions/balance changes). Provinces won't show how many times development has been improved normally, but you can see what the AI's done by checking province history.
Also worth noting that this should let you increase development without owning common sense, though I haven't tested it yet. In the final release I'll probably add a lip service check to owning the DLC, but anyone could just remove that one line, so I don't really care.
This sounds interesting. I'll post my thoughts, seems perfect for a new game since I'm about to start a new nation at some point in next couple/few days. I'm sure others may post their findings on what AI does and what not with it if they decide to use it, but seems like its worth trying out.
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 29, 2015, 08:14:31 pm
I'm playing Ethiopia. Game starts, I crush Adal pretty easily, their armies melt to mine. I take some provinces and get a separatist revolt - oh well, not a huge deal. The separatists spawn in just the wrong province and in too big of numbers, so I decide to park my army next to them while I recruit some extra units to deal with it. I get distracted for a moment and the rebels jump into my army - woops. With 13k of my troops vs 17k rebels, I'm not expecting wonders, but I figure I'll just pull them away as soon as I can retreat and join them up with my recruited emergency rebel-eating army.
...and my army is immediately stackwiped with no warning. Battle starts, three or four days pass, and I instantly go from a little under 13k troops to 0 in a single combat phase. What gives?
(http://i.imgur.com/w0mR5Ce.png)
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 29, 2015, 08:42:01 pm
At least you got half your manpower back. It's possible if the battle dragged on you would've lost the same number of men.
Post by: Bouchart on December 29, 2015, 08:59:57 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 29, 2015, 11:49:03 pm
Post by: Azkanan on December 30, 2015, 05:02:45 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 30, 2015, 05:28:18 am
Post by: Sergarr on December 30, 2015, 05:56:00 am
Post by: Azkanan on December 30, 2015, 08:02:38 am
what the hell did lybia do
Slipped a spinal disc.
Latest update is that I have the whole Syria/Israel/Jordan area and Egypt now; though India has eaten half-way through Iran on a course for me D:
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 30, 2015, 12:10:37 pm
Post by: Eagle_eye on December 30, 2015, 12:12:48 pm
Post by: Bouchart on December 30, 2015, 12:20:17 pm
Post by: Persus13 on December 30, 2015, 12:21:59 pm
Attackers also get a .5 morale boost on battle start, so that may also help explain it.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 30, 2015, 06:45:30 pm
One of the early Defensive ideas gives a big boost to morale. That's probably it.Lots of country ideas get +10% or +20% morale
Post by: Persus13 on December 30, 2015, 06:50:54 pm
The only two that get 20% is Prussia and France. There's something like 50 nations with ideas giving 10% morale though.One of the early Defensive ideas gives a big boost to morale. That's probably it.Lots of country ideas get +10% or +20% morale
Post by: BFEL on December 30, 2015, 07:08:06 pm
Post by: Teneb on December 30, 2015, 07:10:15 pm
So if I wanted to convert a CK2 game, what helps determine your national ideas and such? Relatedly, what would be a good/OP conversion? I.E. any particular scenarios that result in abnormally good ideas?I don't know the best ones, but, in short, certain nations have certain ideas, while others simply have the generic and not that good ideas.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 30, 2015, 07:13:14 pm
Post by: Teneb on December 30, 2015, 07:14:11 pm
Divine ideas are generic but aren't actually very terrible IIRCI forgot republics and theocracies get specific ideas. I was thinking of the "national ideas" set.
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 30, 2015, 07:15:09 pm
Post by: Bouchart on December 30, 2015, 09:01:05 pm
As far as lesser-known idea groups go, the Italian idea group is powerful, along with Karaman, Kazan, and Manchu.
Take a look at Smolensk. They have a weird, artillery focused idea set.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 30, 2015, 09:57:19 pm
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-ducat-development-1-14-4.900090/ (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-ducat-development-1-14-4.900090/)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/download/o6dvj281arck6ns/Ducat_Development.zip)
Still haven't run it past 1500, but I'm happy with how it works. OPMs typically improved 0-2 times in that time, while the rich nations in Europe had about as much as they would with MP (with the condition that they actually have money, so nations that lose wars and go into debt didn't raise development, which is great). Still a few nations like Mutapa that may need some restrictions, but on the whole it turned out well, I'd say. Performance at speed 5/4 was a bit choppy for around 20 years, but it stabilized to barely below what I'd normally get. Not bad, considering every nation getting an event that checks all their provinces every 30-90 days.
Post by: BFEL on December 30, 2015, 10:11:35 pm
Naples, Ayutthaya, Georgia, Hausa ideas are awful.So er, does that mean your ideas on conversion are based on what your primary title was?
As far as lesser-known idea groups go, the Italian idea group is powerful, along with Karaman, Kazan, and Manchu.
Take a look at Smolensk. They have a weird, artillery focused idea set.
So if you for example did a world conquer as Smolensk would you still get their idea set?
This seems like the kind of thing that requires !SCIENCE!, but no one else seems to care, and I've yet to get far enough in a CK2 game to consider conversion. (I have a weird thing where I just can't imagine starting in EU, or even starting in anything other then the earliest date available.)
Post by: Bouchart on December 30, 2015, 10:57:47 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 31, 2015, 01:45:14 am
Post by: RoguelikeRazuka on December 31, 2015, 04:26:30 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on December 31, 2015, 04:27:38 pm
Both are pretty good. Roma goes further back in time to something around 300BC, basically early Republic days, but Extended Timeline goes to modern-day stuff as well.
Post by: DemonOfWrath on December 31, 2015, 11:43:00 pm
Post by: Teneb on January 01, 2016, 09:30:29 am
Having just gotten to play the cossacks/1.14 patch, is it just me or is the very early game (first 5-10 years) suddenly WAY more passive than it used to be? In at least a dozen runthroughs of those first years (I'm trying a pretty specific strategy as castille) I've seen literally three wars between two countries larger than ~3 provinces (portugal attacking morocco, and sweden going for independance twice) when before it was really common to see england and france going to war and stuff like that.It's because England and France used to start at war, and now they don't.
Post by: Bouchart on January 01, 2016, 09:41:33 am
Post by: DemonOfWrath on January 01, 2016, 09:49:37 am
Basically without any changes to the diplomatic/military situation at the start of the game (in the region I'm looking at most, which is far western Europe) I'm seeing basically a drastic drop in the aggressiveness of the AI going from the common sense patch to the cossacks patch.
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 02, 2016, 03:14:45 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'm probably going to stop it here as I've hit that point where it's not really a challenge any longer (basically I just expand into the infinite nothingness that is horde land, and then turn around and crush Lithuania/Poland), but it was fun while it lasted. I probably wouldn't of formed Livonia if I knew how ugly its color was, but I decided to live with my mistake.
Check out Spain and France!
Post by: Kot on January 02, 2016, 03:19:23 pm
Post by: Bouchart on January 02, 2016, 03:31:00 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 02, 2016, 03:48:33 pm
Oh well, painting things horrific shades of brown is more reminiscent of grade school art class anyway.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 02, 2016, 06:31:40 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Most notably the only things unchanged are that the Druids of the British Isles have outlasted their real life counterparts by hundreds of years now and the Norse faith is in comfortable standing after the one nation of Scandinavia was formed by the Danes.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Red = Hostile states
Yellow = Neutral states
Blue = Allies (Roman Empire and Han Empire)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I think other than one or two more provinces, I'll stop gouging land out of the Parthians - weakening them has allowed the Christians to make major headway going East. I wonder if I can get the other pagans in Europe (druid England and Norse Scandinavia) to either convert to Hinduism or start carving land out of the Chalcedons.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
These were happy times, but the population of India did decrease somewhat drastically.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 05, 2016, 09:49:53 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 05, 2016, 10:00:02 pm
Post by: Kot on January 05, 2016, 11:00:39 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on January 07, 2016, 10:09:54 am
Well, all that really needs to be said is lolAbbasids, and that I'm now guaranteeing the Republic of Kyrgystan against Sunni aggression in the early 1200s. I fed Francia some dosh so that they could eat the Byzantines first after they almost went down to the Abbasids and their allies. Sweden's blobbed up a bit, but it's all shit low-development territory and they'll roll over if they're attacked. I'm rushing to finish eating Tibet and start working on the SE Asian states before the Abbasids finish off Bharat. Meanwhile in the New World, the Crimson Empire has almost fully colonized one of the three major continents and is island-hopping to both of the others. I'm afraid that they're going to finish stomping everything there before I get the range to do so myself.
My Legitimacy is in the garbage because I just had a daughter inherit, but I've got the largest army in the world and 95k ducats in the treasury so it's not like the rebels are getting anywhere. Managed to make both Korean and Han accepted, so pan-Asian hegemony is a go.
At this point I'm hoping that by the time the game reaches modern-ish times it'll be a 1984 sort of situation with the world split between three or four major powers. Then I'll invade the fuck out of everyone, force releases, grant independences, and watch the carnage that comes of Balkanizing the whole world.
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 07, 2016, 09:56:30 pm
Post by: Bouchart on January 07, 2016, 10:03:19 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 07, 2016, 10:04:25 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 07, 2016, 10:15:23 pm
Edit: Oh, wait, EU3! I formed the HRE as England and Japan. Simpler times.
Post by: Bouchart on January 07, 2016, 11:20:44 pm
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 08, 2016, 06:49:59 am
I had an EU3 game where I started as England, conquered France, cultural shifted to French and then recreated France, and eventually became emperor and consolidated the HRE.That is completely disgusting.
Also here is a mod that is trying to fix development (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-ducat-development-1-14.900090/). You should show them love and hopefully Paradox will concede on their incompetence.
Post by: Flying Dice on January 08, 2016, 12:29:18 pm
That link's returning an error to me, and I can't find the thread.I had an EU3 game where I started as England, conquered France, cultural shifted to French and then recreated France, and eventually became emperor and consolidated the HRE.That is completely disgusting.
Also here is a mod that is trying to fix development (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-ducat-development-1-14.900090/). You should show them love and hopefully Paradox will concede on their incompetence.
A shame, because I'm digging my heels in and refusing to pay for the second half of a gameplay upgrade. Having to fiddle in console because I'm getting the Famine event (-2/-2/-2 to the areas of development) about once every three weeks; if I wasn't auto-correcting with console most of my good provinces would be 1/1/1 now.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 08, 2016, 01:28:02 pm
Also here is a mod that is trying to fix development (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mod-ducat-development-1-14.900090/). You should show them love and hopefully Paradox will concede on their incompetence.That link's returning an error to me, and I can't find the thread.
A shame, because I'm digging my heels in and refusing to pay for the second half of a gameplay upgrade. Having to fiddle in console because I'm getting the Famine event (-2/-2/-2 to the areas of development) about once every three weeks; if I wasn't auto-correcting with console most of my good provinces would be 1/1/1 now.
Here's a direct download link (http://www.mediafire.com/download/pv5qi97dbajhalb/Ducat_Development.zip) (link will probably break in the future when whoever this handsome modder is releases a new version). Note that it isn't compatible with extended timeline, but only due to minor changes in a few files. A program called WinMerge can be used to easily merge the ET and DD files that overlap, or more lazily most can just be discarded (the ideas files, vanilla building file, government file, vanilla event modifier file, and static modifier file all just replace vanilla dev cost modifiers with build cost and balance things a bit).
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 08, 2016, 06:39:15 pm
That link's returning an error to me, and I can't find the thread.You need to have EUIV registered on your Paradox forum account for some reason.
Post by: inteuniso on January 08, 2016, 06:56:37 pm
Can't have pirates getting mods/tech support now, can we?That link's returning an error to me, and I can't find the thread.You need to have EUIV registered on your Paradox forum account for some reason.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 08, 2016, 08:32:03 pm
Can't have pirates getting mods/tech support now, can we?yarr harr tibbledeedee, being a pirate is all you can be, do what you want cause a pirate is 1337, you aarrrr a pirate
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 08, 2016, 09:37:04 pm
New run for me!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Wallachia (the home of Vlad the Impaler/Dracula!) -> Romania. Another fun run, as EU4 games tend to be, although it took a good amount of time before I could start expanding. I still remember having fits trying to afford the single merc regiment I needed to stave off a very early pretender rebel spawn. I love navy blue, so I'm much happier with this formable nation.
I'm not entirely sure how to proceed - I want to fish off Tuscany, Sicily, and Morocco, but I cant afford these coring costs, doing so will probably take most of the remaining time of the game. It's a tech level problem - because I spend all my admin points on coring, I cant afford to upgrade admin tech. Because I cant upgrade admin tech, I cant unlock higher levels of admin efficiency, which makes coring much cheaper and overextention much less harsh. I think I should of just sat around teching up earlier on instead of expanding past Egypt, because at this point I don't think I can afford to catch up to the going admin tech, which is like 7 tech levels above me.
Restoring the pentarchy and removing the Papacy was fun, though :)
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 08, 2016, 10:29:04 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 08, 2016, 11:20:20 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 09, 2016, 01:02:58 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 11, 2016, 12:52:06 am
Is there a mod that removes the new world? I like the concept, but I don't like the execution. The main problem I have with it is that the AI absolutely cannot deal with it once they start colonizing. Castille parking their entire army in random south american colonies while half of Spain is under siege, England drag racing their navy around Canada while seperatist rebels tear apart of the isles, France completely ignoring Europe for 200 years while they colonize Louisiana, etc. Every time the New World opens up for more than just Portugal, it feels like every colonizer just grinds to a halt for the rest of the game.
Post by: Mini on January 11, 2016, 01:01:55 am
Post by: Flying Dice on January 11, 2016, 01:15:23 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 11, 2016, 01:20:16 am
Post by: SaberToothTiger on January 11, 2016, 05:15:48 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on January 11, 2016, 05:55:09 am
do you happen to know the name of it?
Post by: Bouchart on January 11, 2016, 07:04:36 am
Hey guys, I have a question to ask. Is EU 4 worth the price during a sale? I have my objections to the very questioanble Paradox business practises, by which I mean removing core functions of the game to sell as DLC.
If you've never played any EU game before I recommend picking up EU3 Chronicles first.
Post by: SaberToothTiger on January 11, 2016, 07:44:25 am
Post by: Bouchart on January 11, 2016, 11:29:49 am
Post by: Azkanan on January 11, 2016, 06:08:08 pm
Sims 1: I have an idea... Let's make expansions to this great game!
Sims 2: That worked last time - let's do it again!
Sims 3: We need more DLC, cut back on some stuff and repackage it.
Sims 4: We need even more DLC, cut back everything down to the basics of walking around and getting a job.
End result: Sims 4 is a shitpiece. Franchise becomes most pirated game series.
They tried it with Spore somewhere between Sims 2 and 3, but they pulled so much stuff out that it was shit. Also that they wanted to make it more sellable to kids, so they cut back on all the interesting shit for "Wacky" "Cool" stuff. FML. I hate EA. #EndTangentRage
Post by: Vactor on January 11, 2016, 07:19:00 pm
Hey guys, I have a question to ask. Is EU 4 worth the price during a sale? I have my objections to the very questioanble Paradox business practises, by which I mean removing core functions of the game to sell as DLC.
I played EU4 without any expansions for around 500 hours, so I'd say it is worth it if you like the genre. It has always been my observation that Pardadox includes the core of EU4 expansions into the vanilla game as a free patch.
Post by: SaberToothTiger on January 12, 2016, 04:06:32 am
Post by: Bastus on January 12, 2016, 11:21:06 am
Or gives the AI the abilities that the player doesn't have unless he buys the DLC. However, you do have a fair point.
To be fair the AI is so bad that it really needs some "bonuses" like this to stay slightly competitive and even then it only lasts for so long before you can overpower or outsmart it.
Just take straits, they reworked the whole mechanic because it was so easy to exploit against the AI (and bad player in MP) that it made more sense to change it. And that isn't the first time they changed stuff to make the AI not suicide all the time.
And the worst part is that the difficulty does nothing to adress that, on hard the AI just gains bonuses and swarms you with every country from Britain to Japan as soon as you show the slightest weakness and even then you can often save yourself by just being smart about it.
God I really love that game, but the more I think about it the more I realise that I hate the AI and it's stupidity.
Post by: Flying Dice on January 12, 2016, 12:00:48 pm
It's not like it's impossible to make strategic AI that's hard because it's smart--look at what Stardock managed with GalCivII!
Post by: Persus13 on January 12, 2016, 01:44:34 pm
Or gives the AI the abilities that the player doesn't have unless he buys the DLC. However, you do have a fair point.Abilities like? I've heard this criticism before, and I don't know any examples of this.
Post by: Mini on January 12, 2016, 01:46:42 pm
Post by: Persus13 on January 12, 2016, 01:52:45 pm
I believe the AI can still increase development if the player doesn't have Common Sense (whereas the player can not).I don't have Common Sense (which is weird to say) and I haven't seen that happen though. And a quick look on the internet didn't bring anything up about it either.
Post by: Wolock on January 12, 2016, 01:53:37 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 12, 2016, 04:11:01 pm
To be fair the AI is so bad that it really needs some "bonuses" like this to stay slightly competitive and even then it only lasts for so long before you can overpower or outsmart it.Is it not realistic that you get swarmed at the earliest sign of weakness? Ming, Mughals, Ottomans, Portuguese, French and so on, at the slightest weakness the sharks circled overhead and if they weren't beaten away they were torn apart
Just take straits, they reworked the whole mechanic because it was so easy to exploit against the AI (and bad player in MP) that it made more sense to change it. And that isn't the first time they changed stuff to make the AI not suicide all the time.
And the worst part is that the difficulty does nothing to adress that, on hard the AI just gains bonuses and swarms you with every country from Britain to Japan as soon as you show the slightest weakness and even then you can often save yourself by just being smart about it.
God I really love that game, but the more I think about it the more I realise that I hate the AI and it's stupidity.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 12, 2016, 05:09:27 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 12, 2016, 06:24:28 pm
To make matters worse my vassal Theodoro stopped loving me and declared independence (and won because I had no manpower after losing a civil war). My ally Sweden are losing wars to friggin' Norway, and my other ally Bohemia (emperor) keeps defending against Burgundy attacking other princes and getting their arse whipped.
Now I don't know what to do.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 12, 2016, 07:43:00 pm
Post by: Kot on January 13, 2016, 11:31:09 am
Poland: The tragic lifestory of a nation so interesting, other nations just can't bear themselves to leave itWe can't bear ourselves to leave it too which is why we're clearly superior than all other nations in the world. /me flaps his hussar wings angrily.
Post by: LoSboccacc on January 13, 2016, 12:42:58 pm
Poland: The tragic lifestory of a nation so interesting, other nations just can't bear themselves to leave itWe can't bear ourselves to leave it too which is why we're clearly superior than all other nations in the world. /me flaps his hussar wings angrily.
can confirm Polish are madly stubborn
Post by: Flying Dice on January 13, 2016, 02:36:29 pm
Post by: Bouchart on January 15, 2016, 10:11:14 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 15, 2016, 03:33:08 pm
I've been doing more building modding stuff lately, and was wondering... how do you guys feel about the number of buildings per province restrictions after 1.12? Even with increasing development as a viable option (like with money instead of MP), it's still striking me as really artificial. But remembering the old system of spamming buildings everwhere also wasn't too great, so I'm not sure.
Post by: Flying Dice on January 15, 2016, 03:39:32 pm
Especially with the new fort system--you don't need to spam them everywhere any more, so that's one free slot. Besides, past a certain point you can build basically everything you want anyways.
Post by: Bouchart on January 15, 2016, 04:05:21 pm
Seeing Tyrone eat Scotland and a few of those Norwegian islands is a bit silly though.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 15, 2016, 06:26:55 pm
I sort of like France failing a lot, though, so long as it isn't Brittany that does them in. It irks me to see them take those two provinces from Provence every single game.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 16, 2016, 08:47:53 pm
ARTILLERY GUIDED BY GOD
Post by: Bouchart on January 16, 2016, 09:07:40 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 17, 2016, 12:30:53 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 17, 2016, 01:06:06 pm
They even have artillery on their flag. Along with a chicken.
- National flag - artillery (and chickens)
- National pastime - making artillery
- National ambitions - using artillery
- National tradition - raising artillery chickens
- Sole export - artillery munitions (used once)
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 25, 2016, 12:11:04 am
My current game:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Main enemy at this point is Bohemia. Absolute monster due to their alliance with the Scandinavian/Swedish stormtroopers. Greece and Bulgaria are my vassals, Russia and Ferrara are my allies.
This is the last time I play a nation in these parts without Humanist. Religious is great and all but christ is that casus belli not worth all your land being poor due to unaccepted cultures and having to constantly run into 40k+ rebel doomstacks.
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 25, 2016, 12:35:56 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 25, 2016, 01:11:29 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 25, 2016, 03:30:32 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 25, 2016, 05:07:55 pm
It was a painful defeat. Novgorod had their territories returned, rebels broke Muscovy free (with more land than it had when I conquered it), the colonies were lost and the century of expansion Smolensk had achieved was set back by 60 years. In this time Novgorod conquered some Muscovite lands back and the Nogai horde combined all its vassal hordes into one great big horde, one to make Genghis proud.
Truly I had sinned, I had not BUILT ENOUGH CANNONS
Post by: Bouchart on January 26, 2016, 09:35:43 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 27, 2016, 07:09:08 pm
Post by: Icefire2314 on January 27, 2016, 07:27:16 pm
Sure, it's a good restriction, but realistically speaking, I should be restricted by wealth as far as they go, not some number which, really, doesn't even represent any realistic value.
If I'm make a massive surplus in ducats per month from colonialism I should be able to pour that into developing my provinces. I guess I can use that to buy advisors, but that's only helpful to a certain degree.
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 28, 2016, 12:35:14 am
If you truly want a ducat based development system, there needs to be more considerations made. You need more ways to drain a rich nation's economy, large developed nations need more mechanics to keep them from blobbing ever larger, etc. To me a ducat development system would be fine in a game that's a bit more realistic with its economy, but EU4 is not that game. There's just too much money and too much control over the money you do have for a system like that to ever work out.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 28, 2016, 01:02:57 am
For the player it's a whole other barrel of biscuits, there definitely need to be more severe problems with getting huge and having massive amounts of money. I've been testing an autonomy system that gives constant autonomy off of the total number of provinces (+0.1/month at 100 provinces is no joke) and other things like unaccepted cultures, with EU3-ish faux policy sliders and other measures like emergency policies to counter it. One funny thing I've tried that I like is having local autonomy generate more autonomy, so it's harder to get rid of when you raise it or let it creep high by fighting constant wars (and makes conquest less profitable long term). I think what's really critical though is some sort of a decadence system to really make things inefficient when you get huge, but it's hard to toe the line between being sufficiently harsh without making it unfun.
Post by: Orange Wizard on January 28, 2016, 04:13:25 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 28, 2016, 04:52:28 am
Stick the mod on the Steam workshop once you've got the numbers right, so the rest of us canThere's only so much you can do with the current development system modding wise. The ducat development mod works by adding three buildings that, when combined with a 30 day pulsing event that checks for these buildings, increases the development in that province.praise you as Messiahenjoy your work.
This is obviously not ideal since adding maintenance events tend to have a negative impact on performance. It also means that all development is linked to building cost which makes tweaking the value a lot harder since it will make the other buildings either too cheap or expensive to build. Would be nice is Paradox would just open the mechanic up for modders though.
The autonomy suggestion is an interesting one. Especially if it was linked to a dynamic centralisation mechanic that heavily penalises rapidly expansive blobs. Autonomy right now is just increase in newly conquered land and maybe lower it later when the land is all converted with no separatism. Once you start getting more advance governments/government ranks the whole system because pointless due to the huge ticking reduction you get (I still believe government ranks are stupid and only make it easier for big blobs).
I would love to see a better rebel revolt system influenced by EU:Rome and CK2. Have factions that revolt into independent states that have to be bought back into the fold. Other nations can engage in diplomacy with these rebel states which would be a massive improvement over the current rebel supporting mechanic. Finally it would stop the ridiculous rebel stack problem and better simulate historical revolts like the War of the Roses and the Dutch Revolt.
None of this will happen though because for some reason Paradox think EU4 has to be a lite strategy multiplayer wargame. EU4 needed a stronger lead designer right from the start with clearer design goals instead of flip-flopping with no clear cohesion.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 28, 2016, 01:02:08 pm
The issue with the system that I've made now is that it has many pitfalls that can abused by the player. I still think it's an improvement, and the AI-AI interactions seem fine, but the AI-player interactions would be really abusable, without a clear solution.
The performance with Ducat Development (at least on my machine) has been encouraging, though, since it also uses recurring events that check every province. After around 20 years, as the events get desynchronized, I don't notice any performance dip at speed 5, even on the 30 day interval.
Post by: Bouchart on January 28, 2016, 02:30:18 pm
Post by: Chosrau on January 28, 2016, 04:29:24 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 29, 2016, 05:52:21 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on January 29, 2016, 06:19:05 am
Post by: gimli on January 29, 2016, 10:15:42 am
Top kekSpoiler (click to show/hide)
Lol @ Ireland. :D
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 30, 2016, 01:20:30 pm
The biggest issue was that (http://i.imgur.com/mnlVZOG.jpg) resupplying my armies over the Georgian mountains was too slow, so I could send hundreds of thousands south to capture some land, the Mamlukes could keep attacking until my armies had to withdraw and resupply and then just recapture everything. Fortunately I still made some headway into Anatolia in those 85 years, returning Byzantine lands to Byzantium and expanding the reach of my vassal Georgia to provide a comfortable buffer for the Mamlukes to cry over whilst I gradually destroyed their Mongol ally in the North. Towards the end of the 85 years war the Smolenskians had reached such a critical mass of cannons and Russians that the Mongol hordes were not only overthrown, but they were usurped.
Kazakhs were the next to go. The success of the war was compounded by the Russian patriot blob. (http://i.imgur.com/AOH4KPG.jpg) Any land the Kazakhs took from me were very quickly swarmed by the patriots, it was quite horrifying really. When I tried moving my capital to Siberia I found they counted as rebels and so did not let me, so I accepted their demand to turn Smolensk over to Smolensk...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I felt such happiness, the war for Jerusalem was to end quite decisively. All I needed was to outfit my patriots with some artillery and that'd be that. And then the war for the Protestant League started. 500,000 men on one side, 400,000 on the other. Russia, France, Bohemia, Hungary, Bulgaria, all the Protestant Princes and Sicilian-England versus the three Catholic princes, the Papacy, the Teutonic Knights, Poland, Scandinavia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Byzantium, Holland and Switzerland. The French and Iberian forces were locked in a stalemate whilst in the East the Austro-German-Greek troops just tore through everything the Balkan forces had. I realized grudgingly that the Russians were not even close to being their match so just engaged in hit and run combat, knowing the German forces could scarcely afford their casualties and the Byzantines would succumb to my marches' sieging. Any undefended columns were assaulted by Russians en masse and as soon as the uberstormtoopers arrived, a retreat was ordered back to Kiev. The worst casualties suffered in any one battle for an army of over 100,000 Russians was 3,000 troops. Most pleasing.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I'd have an AAR map of the aftermath but it's too large for imgur to handle :P
Post by: Rex_Nex on January 31, 2016, 09:48:30 am
The problem I'm having is that England is the war leader for the Protestants. While the Catholics beat every other nation in Europe (quite easily, too), England is just sitting there alone against all of us with a navy better than most of the world combined. This is problematic because we cannot gain enough warscore to get the catholic victory without getting troops to England. After a while the Peace of Westphalia triggers and no one gets their bonus.
Is there anything I can do that's not a huge pain in the ass, or should I just give up on a catholic victory? Not getting the bonus is not a big deal, but it's still frustrating.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 31, 2016, 02:48:44 pm
Post by: Flying Dice on January 31, 2016, 03:12:40 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 02, 2016, 06:58:47 pm
- Holland is an independent colonial power, as is the Netherlands. The two Dutch states are bitter rivals, with Holland being smaller in Europe but with a head start on colonizing. Both are the only two protestant colonizers, though already one of their colonies was forcibly converted to Catholicism (New Holland in Canada, during the war of the three Canadas). In the war of the three Canadas, French Canada expanded westwards into native lands whilst New Holland succeeded in taking over most of Newfoundland (English Canada). Sadly the two Dutch powers do not seem likely to unite their small Empires peacefully into one terrifying Dutch Empire any time soon.
- Naples has held a personal union over England for about 200 years now, but as England had absorbed Ireland and annexed Scotland it was too large to integrate into one state. The Anglo-Sicilian Empire is a horrifying beast to behold, though thankfully it is one that is mostly limited to Central America and its pincer formation on Europe.
- Portugal's adventure in South Africa went surprisingly well, so well it is so large it has no rivals anywhere near it, and probably will continue to have none for centuries still.
- The power of Byzantophiles managed to make the Byzantines repulse the Ottomans (largely due to the Ottomans being backstabbed by Dulkadir during their failed invasion of Constantinople), and over time the Byzantines regained much of their lost strength. They do not have the birthplace of Greece itself however, with Achaea and Athens (and Corfu) full of Sicilians under the Empire of Naples.
- After the Byzantines were aided by Smolensk in their war to smite the last remnants of Venice, they decided to reward the Russians by giving them Corsica. This was not a gift the Smolenskians wanted, so they gave it away to the Papacy, almost as an apology for helping the Protestant league make the HRE officially protty.
- The HRE is also a bit mad. They converted the Hungarians to protestantism and during the religious league wars the title of Emperor flitted between the Napoli and the French, resulting in the HRE incorporating Eastern France (France remaining outside the Empire) and extending all the way south to Malta and Corfu (with the Napoli Empire being a member of the HRE). The Napoli Empire is an Empire above an Empire and within an Empire.
- Corsica was an elector within the Holy Roman Empire, and I felt quite guilty being given one of my favourite countries I like seeing independent. When I gave Corsica to the Papacy, it was largely because I did not want Emperor Wuttenburg to get irritated with the Tsar Mstislavs. What I did not expect was for the Sienans to conquer Rome and evict the Papacy to Corsica.
- The Catholic Papacy of Corsica is alongside Austria and the Napoli-Anglo Empire the last Catholics of the HRE. On the bright side for them, as a result of England being subject to Naples and all of Scandinavia subject to Sweden, the entire non-Orthodox Christian world is Catholic. Still, the Pope being a vassal to the Protestant Emperor is an amusing image.
- Finns also don't exist anymore, having been Swedified.
- Brittany survived, largely as a result of the Napoli Empire inheriting a duchy right in front of Brittany, acting as a French anger magnet keeping the Bretons safe. Brittany has since developed its own modest overseas colonial Empire.
- The Portuguese, Spanish and English have all taken a claim to Australia. The English arrived there first, the Portuguese finished a colony there first and the Spanish formed a colonial nation there first.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 03, 2016, 11:07:04 pm
Post by: Persus13 on February 03, 2016, 11:18:30 pm
Post by: Teneb on February 04, 2016, 05:06:15 am
So the Dutch of Holland managed to invade the Dutch of Netherlands and in their bitter struggle finally take over un-Holland Netherlands to make all of the Netherlands Holland. I thought this would be the end and all of the Netherland's colonies would become independent Dutch Republics, but then this happened (http://i.imgur.com/Yk5k2xJ.jpg) and the Netherlands just moved their capital to the Amazon interior. The Netherlands will have the last laugh in a hundred years...Not that crazy, actually (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Brazil). Sure, it had no eviction from Europe, but nothing is perfect.
Post by: Uristides on February 04, 2016, 05:52:30 am
Johan confirms the icon in the previous DD is for sailors -- perhaps also confirming the next DLC will indeed be called "Mare Nostrum" -- and leaks that he'll be the project lead for this DLC because Wiz has moved on to another project.
And we'll now have the Barbary pirates in game. Looks like hordes of the sea that are able raze any not-friendly province they can blockade.
And the next DD will be about new changes to espionage.
I'm not sure what naval manpower accomplishes by itself other than putting a hard cap on navy size(since going over FL is extremely cheap as long as you don't build heavies) but hopefully we'll be shown more naval tweaks in the next weeks and it will make sense. And I can predict people getting bitter about it being tied to province development.
Post by: Antioch on February 04, 2016, 01:16:18 pm
Oddly enough only Mongolia and miao seperated from them.
Post by: WealthyRadish on February 04, 2016, 02:18:38 pm
Post by: Antioch on February 04, 2016, 07:57:46 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 04, 2016, 08:51:22 pm
Huh, how about that. Still no Portugal relocation to Brazil though :(So the Dutch of Holland managed to invade the Dutch of Netherlands and in their bitter struggle finally take over un-Holland Netherlands to make all of the Netherlands Holland. I thought this would be the end and all of the Netherland's colonies would become independent Dutch Republics, but then this happened (http://i.imgur.com/Yk5k2xJ.jpg) and the Netherlands just moved their capital to the Amazon interior. The Netherlands will have the last laugh in a hundred years...Not that crazy, actually (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Brazil). Sure, it had no eviction from Europe, but nothing is perfect.
Post by: Orange Wizard on February 09, 2016, 01:10:56 am
Early game was pretty straightforward. Buddy up Austria and Castile, then beat on France/Burgundy and take some of those delicious Dutch provinces.
Unfortunately the Burgundian Succession fired pretty much straight away and Austria took Holland etc. meaning I actually had to build a merchant fleet to stay dominant in the English Channel. I considered going to war then and there, but Austria was allied to PLC, Castile, and an ascendant Lubeck, so I held off.
For the next few decades we took turns warring France and divvying up provinces. Not ideal, seeing as they got most of the good ones.
Around this time the Ottomans were blobbing pretty crazily, and although they've stayed irrelevant for most of the game, they did grow too big for Poland to keep them rivalled. Poland chose Austria as their new rival, which made a huge change to the balance of power. I immediately dropped my alliance with Austria (I'd been letting it slip for a while - trust was down and they were constantly annoyed by me claiming their French provinces) and allied Poland and Bohemia.
Things were kinda tense for a while - I was sinking resources into placating Castile because if they broke their alliance with me, Austria would probably DOW to take my French provinces. Poland wasn't in any shape to help me as they were too busy getting smacked about by Muscovy, and Bohemia was backwards irrelevant shitcountry.
Finally, I got myself ahead in military tech and finished Quality ideas, Poland got enough Revanchism from Muscovite brutalisation to get themselves into a reasonable state, and Castile was bogged down with wars in their African colonies. I declared war on Austria.
The war was weird. Shit-hemia signed a separate peace almost immediately, only to attack again a few years later for the League wars (which they lost).
I managed to endure the larger army of the Austrian alliance by squatting in mountain forts and occasionally making "squee" sounds at my 123% discipline (custom nation ideas op pls nerf). The fact that most of the armies were having their way with Poland lands instead of mine also helped.
Eventually I got a favourable peace deal, mostly thanks to Ottomans joining the Protestant league, even though they got their butts kicked. I demanded a couple of the crappier Low Countries and war reps. It changed basically nothing, other than costing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and ducats.
Post by: EuchreJack on February 09, 2016, 02:02:55 pm
I've been doing a custom nation run. Began with a few provinces in Brittany, Normandy, and southern England.
Early game was pretty straightforward. Buddy up Austria and Castile, then beat on France/Burgundy and take some of those delicious Dutch provinces.
Unfortunately the Burgundian Succession fired pretty much straight away and Austria took Holland etc. meaning I actually had to build a merchant fleet to stay dominant in the English Channel. I considered going to war then and there, but Austria was allied to PLC, Castile, and an ascendant Lubeck, so I held off.
For the next few decades we took turns warring France and divvying up provinces. Not ideal, seeing as they got most of the good ones.
Around this time the Ottomans were blobbing pretty crazily, and although they've stayed irrelevant for most of the game, they did grow too big for Poland to keep them rivalled. Poland chose Austria as their new rival, which made a huge change to the balance of power. I immediately dropped my alliance with Austria (I'd been letting it slip for a while - trust was down and they were constantly annoyed by me claiming their French provinces) and allied Poland and Bohemia.
Things were kinda tense for a while - I was sinking resources into placating Castile because if they broke their alliance with me, Austria would probably DOW to take my French provinces. Poland wasn't in any shape to help me as they were too busy getting smacked about by Muscovy, and Bohemia was backwards irrelevant shitcountry.
Finally, I got myself ahead in military tech and finished Quality ideas, Poland got enough Revanchism from Muscovite brutalisation to get themselves into a reasonable state, and Castile was bogged down with wars in their African colonies. I declared war on Austria.
The war was weird. Shit-hemia signed a separate peace almost immediately, only to attack again a few years later for the League wars (which they lost).
I managed to endure the larger army of the Austrian alliance by squatting in mountain forts and occasionally making "squee" sounds at my 123% discipline (custom nation ideas op pls nerf). The fact that most of the armies were having their way with Poland lands instead of mine also helped.
Eventually I got a favourable peace deal, mostly thanks to Ottomans joining the Protestant league, even though they got their butts kicked. I demanded a couple of the crappier Low Countries and war reps. It changed basically nothing, other than costing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and ducats.
Congratulations, you just fought World War One!
Post by: Rex_Nex on February 09, 2016, 02:44:23 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Took a few tries, but I finally pulled this off. Time to give Europe a new Perm :D
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 16, 2016, 04:44:02 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So I joined the league and after warring with the Spanish over the Caribbean some more I left the league, then rejoined when I found out Spain had entered the protestant league. Whilst gauging the strength of the leagues I accidentally declared war on the Austrians and started the world war, and I couldn't have been luckier. Well, I was hoping the Ottomans would've joined the league but they were stuck with the Mamluks and Timurids. I was lucky because the French had declared war on Austria... On the Papacy's behalf! The French began cleaning up the Austrian stacks and the English helped them win some early battles, but after time I noticed disparagingly that all the soldiers of the new world were not going to be of much help in the old world. I knocked Denmark out of the war but then the grand slavic army from Poland to Muscovy and everything Lithuanian in between just utterly swamped Norway and Sweden, and right as I pushed back the Austrian ubermensch and was about to take Vienna the slavs attacked.
Several times I lost everything, with my troops slaughtered by the Russians when I nearly took Vilna and knocked Lithuania out of the war, slaughtered by the SlavoAustrians when I nearly took Vienna, slaughtered by the Venetians when their fleet surprised my heavies (my navy was used to ruling the open seas... The Mediterranean belonged to Venetian galleys), eventually it got to the point where English gold and Spanish troops were the only thing keeping the Protestant league from descending into total collapse.
Spoiler: The most notable moment being this (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then the Dutch declared independence and brought me into war with France and her friends. 20 years of warfare was undone in one week. I signed the peace of Westphalia.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
At least Achaea is my friend now
*EDIT
Austria was fighting all of these countries at the same time and managed to stalemate them. Dayum. (http://i.imgur.com/Z1MJ2Rg.png)
Post by: Sheb on February 23, 2016, 03:42:07 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 23, 2016, 11:16:48 am
So I'm getting bored of my Ethipia game (Basically the next 100 years are going to be slowly gaining power waiting for an occasion to strike the Ottomans down...) and I want to start something new, maybe a mod. I'm hearing good things about Extended Timeline, any suggestions of challenge/country to play?Modern day conquest as one of the OPMs
Post by: Sheb on February 23, 2016, 11:21:24 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 23, 2016, 12:33:43 pm
Is the EU a thing in extended timeline? Can I invade everything from Brussels (Especially the UK?) :pNot yet, but I really want to see something like it (maybe use the HRE mechanics to simulate new countries in Europe being added, a single country dominating it with leadership and a model for centralization and opposition?)
Sounds like a well gud idea actually!
*EDIT
I suppose there would be that issue of allowing the Emperor to be selected from Republics, so you might have to change all the govs of Europe to Constitutional Monarchies for it to work
Post by: Teneb on February 23, 2016, 12:55:10 pm
I'm pretty sure the extended timeline does make the EU using the HRE mechanics.Is the EU a thing in extended timeline? Can I invade everything from Brussels (Especially the UK?) :pNot yet, but I really want to see something like it (maybe use the HRE mechanics to simulate new countries in Europe being added, a single country dominating it with leadership and a model for centralization and opposition?)
Sounds like a well gud idea actually!
*EDIT
I suppose there would be that issue of allowing the Emperor to be selected from Republics, so you might have to change all the govs of Europe to Constitutional Monarchies for it to work
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 23, 2016, 12:57:05 pm
Post by: Uristides on February 25, 2016, 04:38:17 am
The territory/state thing seems really confusing to me. Perhaps because I haven't really played a big campaign ever since the region overhaul so I'm not sure how big regions actually are.
Corruption seems to have some positive things(mercantilism is finally connected to other game mechanics!), but I fear it will make small RotW starts even more strapped for cash and mana if it forces you to stay up-to-date in admin and diplo tech.
Post by: Orange Wizard on February 25, 2016, 04:52:31 am
New DD is out (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-25th-february-2016.910409/) introducing the new states and territories systems to replace the previous overseas province one and finally explaining the new bleeding coin purse icon, which, yup, is corruption.Oh yes. I hate the overseas territories thing; it's awesome to see it updated.
The territory/state thing seems really confusing to me. Perhaps because I haven't really played a big campaign ever since the region overhaul so I'm not sure how big regions actually are.Regions are roughly the same size as they used to be. France, Iberia, Germany, Scandinavia, etc., but waaaaaaaaay more intuitive than the old system. Mostly because they don't overlap and can be displayed cleanly on the map.
Post by: Teneb on February 25, 2016, 05:31:17 am
New DD is out (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-25th-february-2016.910409/)There were other DDs in the last few weeks, just so people are aware. Main changes shown on those is that Irelan now resembles its Noob Island incarnatiion (CK2) and Everything between Kongo and Madagascar is no longer wasteland (plus a new tech group for that area).
It's nice that all these changes will be free.
Post by: WealthyRadish on February 25, 2016, 02:06:06 pm
Corruption is really interesting as well, but again, their implementation looks really bad. Almost all of the things in their list that increase or lower it make no sense for simulating corruption, both from a gameplay and historical standpoint. And having it make everything cost more MP is going to be fiddly as hell, and only exacerbate everything wrong with the MP system. But at least there's an EU3-esque slider for it, so at the very least you can always keep it down with money. Makes it a bit of a throwaway mechanic, but again, modding may fix it.
Post by: Rex_Nex on February 26, 2016, 12:27:34 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It was kind of lame once I realized that the Europeans would never land troops on me as long as I didnt expand into Northern Africa. After I cleared Spain away from my turf, I could happily declare war on the entirety of Europe and not a single one of them would do anything about it. Playing in the New World or Western Africa is just broken. I took the Canaries from Spain just to get the rest of the worlds' AI to land anything on me.
I had dreams of filling the entire continent with Air (and I certainly could), but playing more sounds boring.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 26, 2016, 12:58:25 am
Finishing up an Air gamePro tip for anyone playing outside of end nodes: colonise all of the cape as quickly as possible and then conquer the Zanzibar trade node. Since the Euro scum can't suck trade out of Zanzibar if you own all of The Cape node it basically becomes an end node allowing you to create an easy (and extremely profitable) Asian trade loop. The silly Euro scum will even help to transfer trade into your pocket when they start to colonise Asia.
The game does become incredibly easy once you've learnt to abuse this trick though since basically any country in the old world can become a huge trading empire by rushing The Cape. It's a lot like migrating to Italy or Greece in CK2.
In your game you focused way too much on crappy African lands when you could have been focusing on India and making mad dosh. This excess money could then be used to create a huge fleet to quash any European annoyances in Africa.
You've also failed to take the Mutapan gold mines which are by far the most valuable land in Africa. The inflation is easily combated by economic ideas which is a great pick for Africans due to decent chance of gold in colonies and often having to reform their government.
For 1729 both your colonial and aggressive expansion is rather limited. Which ideas did you take and in which order? Air has some of the better ideas in the area with relatively good development.
Post by: Rex_Nex on February 26, 2016, 06:40:58 am
Finishing up an Air gamePro tip for anyone playing outside of end nodes: colonise all of the cape as quickly as possible and then conquer the Zanzibar trade node. Since the Euro scum can't suck trade out of Zanzibar if you own all of The Cape node it basically becomes an end node allowing you to create an easy (and extremely profitable) Asian trade loop. The silly Euro scum will even help to transfer trade into your pocket when they start to colonise Asia.
The game does become incredibly easy once you've learnt to abuse this trick though since basically any country in the old world can become a huge trading empire by rushing The Cape. It's a lot like migrating to Italy or Greece in CK2.
In your game you focused way too much on crappy African lands when you could have been focusing on India and making mad dosh. This excess money could then be used to create a huge fleet to quash any European annoyances in Africa.
You've also failed to take the Mutapan gold mines which are by far the most valuable land in Africa. The inflation is easily combated by economic ideas which is a great pick for Africans due to decent chance of gold in colonies and often having to reform their government.
For 1729 both your colonial and aggressive expansion is rather limited. Which ideas did you take and in which order? Air has some of the better ideas in the area with relatively good development.
My ideas were Economic (for Reforms) and Defensive (To squish Spain) during most of the game. Eventually I nabbed Exploration next, but by that time it was already super late. In the final 50-75 years I picked up both Humanist and Administrative, although I only got the first few ideas in each to grab the unity, -unrest and core cost reduction. Offensive was somewhere in there too, just to drain off excess mil points.
Well, the goal here was put my name over Africa, so focusing on crappy African lands was the plan! After the first fifty years or so, I've was never limited by my army/gold. Just admin points and truce timers. Westernizing and reforming my government took ~8k admin points in total, and then from there I also wanted to catch up on admin tech so that I could get admin 23's admin efficiency. That along with coring some chunks of land (spanish mali, dutch cape, ethiopia, kongo) took quite literally all of my admin points for the last 200ish years. Having more money for a bigger army is always nice, but it wouldn't of done a huge amount for me. I could invade all the countries around me with little to no issue, but there's no real point when I dont have the admin to core my conquests.
I think my biggest mistake was wanting to reform my government. That was cripplingly expensive. If I had taken admin instead of economic, I'd of had enough admin points left over to core most of Africa. I only ended up getting one or two tribal events during my entire game.
Post by: Majestic7 on February 26, 2016, 07:26:11 am
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on February 26, 2016, 07:41:21 am
snipExpanding into Asia is ridiculously cheap due to the half-price overseas discount. Taking an admin idea first is always a bit of a gamble, it can be hard to manage both rapid expansion which you'll want to do in the early game to survive, filling out your ideas and also keeping your stability in the green (especially if you're a monarchy/tribe which are by far the worst governments*). This is only increased when you have you reform your government/westernise due to the huge stab hits and MP sinks.
Personally I might have considered aristocratic as a first/second idea if I had a string of good mil leaders or some decent dip tech like influence as my first idea (especially good since you'll won't be needing much dip tech as a landlocked nation and you'll want to be abusing vassals throughout all of the game). I'm a huge fan of religious rather than humanism since it tends to have much better policies, gives you the massive holy war casus belli and it tends to synergies with unique national ideas a lot better.
*If I have to rank governments it would probably be Republics >> Theocracies > Monarchies >> Tribes. Theocracies used to be top tier but Paradox decided to nearly completely castrate them by no longer allowing their rulers to become generals. While having two free generals was incredibly strong the smart thing would have to limited theocracies to only a single free general. Paradox is not smart (or competent) which is perfectly proven by the fact that the god awful regency mechanics are still in the game unchanged.
Technology part I just don't get - why does old technology increase corruption? In general, corruption should be something that increases constantly and you need to combat actively to keep down, usually costing stability.Because Paradox has no idea how to balance EU4 without becoming more reliant on
EU4's motto at this point might as well be "there is always Stellaris". Which honestly has me worried about Stellaris.
Post by: Sheb on February 26, 2016, 03:50:00 pm
And of course, three seconds after typing this I've found it.
Post by: Teneb on March 01, 2016, 02:00:30 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 02, 2016, 12:33:28 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 03, 2016, 06:04:59 am
Not too sure about the changes balance-wise. 200 dip for 1% mercantilism seems like a waste, and trade leagues sound really situational only accepting OPMs.
Post by: Sheb on March 03, 2016, 06:18:20 am
There is also a "offer Condotierri" button on that screenshot... Will we be able to play as mercenaries now?
Finally, I seem to have an issue in my game where sometime an enemy army will attack crossing what should be a river according to the provincial tooltip, but doesn't get the malus. What can cause this?
Post by: DemonOfWrath on March 03, 2016, 06:44:38 am
Post by: Majestic7 on March 03, 2016, 07:53:29 am
Post by: Sheb on March 03, 2016, 09:02:32 am
Also, yeah, it seems high-maneuver general entirely negate the terrain modifier. And me who though maneuver was worthless.
Post by: Majestic7 on March 03, 2016, 09:29:37 am
Post by: Sheb on March 03, 2016, 09:46:13 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on March 03, 2016, 10:35:25 am
Maneuver is sorta useful. It's still considerably worse than fire/shock/siege overall (at least when fire pips start mattering), since it has no combat impact and oftentimes the slightly faster armies and reduced attrition will not influence the outcome of a war. It used to be a lot nicer when chasing and stackwiping armies was more common before forts were changed, but now you have to play for the long game in wars more often.
Attrition can be a huge deal in some parts of the world, though. Namely Siberia, southeast Asia, and the Persian region can have supply limits low enough that splitting your armies to avoid attrition is not viable. It's not really a big deal in most of the world, though.
Post by: Sheb on March 03, 2016, 11:14:21 am
Post by: Uristides on March 10, 2016, 04:21:19 am
It looks quite nice, fleets can be a micromanagement hell at times and if their automated missions work as intended it will be a godsend. Admirals still look like they are ehh, not really worth it though, and I don't quite get why MN owners will be able to reassign leaders of fleets within supply range, does MN unlock primitive Star Trek teleporters mounted on ships? :P
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 10, 2016, 04:36:18 am
Maneuver
maneuver
maneuverMANOEUVRE
Admirals still look like they are ehh, not really worth it thoughHaving separate naval/land leader caps would make them much more desirable IMO.
I don't quite get why MN owners will be able to reassign leaders of fleets within supply range, does MN unlock primitive Star Trek teleporters mounted on ships? :PArmies work the same way with teleporting generals, so it's more a question of why only admirals are constrained by the laws of physics.
Post by: Uristides on March 10, 2016, 08:24:50 am
Yeah, as long as they have to compete with generals for slots I'd rather have full generals and maybe one explorer max.Admirals still look like they are ehh, not really worth it thoughHaving separate naval/land leader caps would make them much more desirable IMO.
Well, that's true. But it's the fact that they only added this now and only for DLC owners is what sounds the weirdest to me. It's such a minor, random feature.I don't quite get why MN owners will be able to reassign leaders of fleets within supply range, does MN unlock primitive Star Trek teleporters mounted on ships? :PArmies work the same way with teleporting generals, so it's more a question of why only admirals are constrained by the laws of physics.
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 20, 2016, 12:45:47 pm
Might do an AAR but I need help on deciding what to do with my Knights of Rhodes run.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The Ottomans are very angry at me, the Mamlukes slightly less so but still very angry and as of this moment the Ottomans appear to be just about to deal the deathblow to Karaman, Georgia (now shiite) and the Mamlukes in one war (having already destroyed Candar in this war).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Circled in red are the islands I have managed to take possession of, the islands of Rhodes, Cyprus and Crete, giving my bases in all Aleppo/Constantinople/Alexandrian trade (to pirate). I managed to secure Cyprus with Venetian help (though as a result of that war Venice ended up being carved to pieces by Hungary, Milan and Florence, helpfully leaving Crete open for me whilst killing my erstwhile naval ally). I failed to stop the Ottomans from taking over Corfu, Naxos, Chios and Euboea (and a good opportunity was missed when they were trapped on Corfu) and now the only thing stopping the Ottomans from taking over the Eastern Mediterranean is the Knights' naval wedge.
Yet my forces represent a wedge without a hammer.
The Ottoman fleet has a mere 2 light ships, but with 44 galleys and 12 cogs commands the largest warfleet in the world. The Knights with 3 heavy warships, 4 light ships, 11 galleys and 5 cogs has one of the largest fleets in the world, more than Portugal and Venice - a fleet built up over decades of harassing Ottoman trade.
Yet when it comes to armies the Knights command 11,000 soldiers whilst the Ottomans have over 60,000, excluding auxiliaries and allies. The Knights' only useful ally with a large ground force is Poland, who lacking Lithuania have only 24,000 troops, and are constantly at threat by Bohemia. Even with the Warfleet at sea conducting hit and run strikes on the Ottoman fleet, the war cannot ultimately be won at sea and eventually the Ottomans will be able to land an army on one of the three islands. It is quite the puzzle.
Should I wait for Poland to hopefully form a personal union with Lithuania, or should I search for alliance with the Austrians or Hungarians?
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 22, 2016, 09:45:48 pm
Spoiler: tl;dr aar part 1 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: part 2 (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
fml
Post by: WealthyRadish on March 26, 2016, 05:23:20 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Is that Kochin in southern India? If so, I think you have a moral obligation to save their bubblegum-pink hides from Bahmanis, if you're still playing this campaign. Also, good lord, just look at that Kedah, I hope they stayed Sunni. And there's Theodoro on the rampage again, it's really weird that that's becoming a common sight.
Completely unrelated, here's something that's been bothering me for about a week now:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I added some buildings, and to make space moved the costs over the building icons to compress the rows. It's probably strange to ask this here, but what do you guys think of the readability of the text?
Post by: Sheb on March 26, 2016, 05:48:45 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 26, 2016, 06:11:29 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on March 27, 2016, 09:19:58 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Declared independence asap, beat byzantium, turned byzantium's achea and morea into marches, allied hungary, no cb'd and ate Bosnia/Serbia completely using Hungary to fight the battles (gave Hungary the one province from Bosnia they desire), and somehow survived the resulting revolts. This basically transforms you into a very unstable Bosnia with some greek holdings.
Here's my empire by the time I got bored:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: PTTG?? on March 27, 2016, 08:17:30 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on March 29, 2016, 02:42:02 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on March 29, 2016, 02:31:22 pm
Is "Catstille" a client state? It's a funny name for one. If only you could've made it shaped like a cat, like LW's elephant.
You bet it is! I should have done that.
Ok, that's impressive.
Thanks :)
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 30, 2016, 02:21:10 am
Post by: ZeroGravitas on March 30, 2016, 10:54:16 am
People keep saying that France is weak this patch. I have lucky nations off, France has just about annexed all of Iberia, and it's barely 1500.
I think it comes down to an early dice roll about whether France makes friends with Austria, or they end up rivals. I've seen it go both ways.
Things can also go weird depending on the Burgundian Inheritance and Iberian Wedding (as always).
Post by: Teneb on March 31, 2016, 03:17:23 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 31, 2016, 03:33:18 pm
triple roman.Byzantium, HRE, Rome?
Post by: WealthyRadish on March 31, 2016, 03:44:59 pm
Post by: Teneb on March 31, 2016, 04:25:40 pm
Allowing pagan religions to form it is absurdWhy? They were pagans for a pretty long time. I think it should be restricted only to nations from the mediterranean (and, if you want to stretch it a bit, the black sea), though.
Still, a roman in each one of us.
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 31, 2016, 04:59:05 pm
Last Dev Diary (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-31st-march-2016.916870/) for Mare Nostrum out. One of the free features is that anyone can reform the Roman Empire now. Perhaps now you can be triple roman.I once managed to become Emperor whilst reforming the Roman Empire to be the Holy Roman Emperor of the Roman Empire of the Eastern Roman Empire
Wish I tried reforming the Eastern Roman Empire as Romania to take this one step beyond
Is that Kochin in southern India? If so, I think you have a moral obligation to save their bubblegum-pink hides from Bahmanis, if you're still playing this campaign. Also, good lord, just look at that Kedah, I hope they stayed Sunni. And there's Theodoro on the rampage again, it's really weird that that's becoming a common sight.Oh boy, they got rekt. Couldn't stop to save them as I was in such a precarious position, where for the first time ever I nearly ragequit due to how awfully things went during the attempted transition from "we sea pirates" to "DEUS VULT". By the time I got my shit together not only had the last bubble gum Kings already been conquered between the massive Sultanates of Juanpur and Malwa, but the last of the Coptics and Ibadis had also been rendered extinct.
Post by: Teneb on March 31, 2016, 07:50:54 pm
I harbour a degree of envy with you, LW. You can shitpost with the best of them, and then you could probably go world conquest with fucking Ryukyu whilst I can't even get the Byzantines out of their predicament without it either going all to hell or needing to resort to cheats.I am in a similar situation. Maybe we should form a coalition against these aggressive expansionists.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on March 31, 2016, 09:57:00 pm
I bet we get sprite packs of legionaries armed with muskets next. ::)
Post by: Vendayn on March 31, 2016, 10:28:24 pm
My vassals: Chakas (or however its spelled) down in South America, Mayans and three Aztec (aztec hasn't formed, but you get the idea) nations (one is a tiny two province one though cause he broke away and then I pwned him). I wanted to leave the north natives alone for most part. So I'm pretty much leaving them alone the entire game, except to deal with petty wars and rebellions.
However, its a VERY tough game. Have had three wars with Spain, first one I did pretty good and would have done a lot better, but forgot to actually put a claim on his spanish Brazilian vassal. So the war ended with nothing for me lol. Since I entirely rely on ticking war score. Second war went a lot better, took all his south american territories and did really good defending against his troops (and his Sicily ally which was a pain in the ass to deal with). However, I pretty much prevented him from even thinking of colonizing South America. The only hard part of the 2nd war (and 1st which went even worse in this regard) was my fleet of ships just got slaughtered. I didn't have heavy ships at this time.
Third war, again against Spain. He had started colonizing North America, and he had a bunch of island provinces he was and had colonized. This war however went really badly, even though I accomplished what I wanted. For one, I probably should have made bigger use of my navy, but I was still building it up and didn't want to throw away ships. I was kinda nervous they'd get pwned again. I should have attacked the Sicily fleet with it though, AND had more troops along the coastal provinces. See, I had a huge army in Aztec land that I forgot about (30k or so troops) and they didn't need to be there anymore. I forgot I sent an army to deal with the rebellious vassal. I also had probably too big of an army around my capital, since they weren't doing anything.
However, Sicily landed ashore in the north part of South America. Which I also had to keep a better eye on where ships were along my coast, kinda focused on another part of the battle lol. And they went in and just slaughtered my smaller forces I had defending various places. They went all the way south, then went to attack my capital itself. Even with my troops defending, they would just get slaughtered by Sicily. Spanish never landed many troops for some reason, or he didn't do much with them. But wherever I went to defend, even with massive terrain bonuses (which I rely on a lot), it was no good. In the end, before the capital was taken, I managed to get a massive army to attack Sicily's invasion force and won (barely lol).
A whole bunch of factors went into getting pwned. For one, spain and sicily had a tech level of military higher than me, which gave them new troop types. I managed to get it after the war, but I bet that would have helped a LOT. I also didn't pay enough attention to where enemy fleets were, and I had a bunch of troops being useless in central America. And I should have made a bigger use of my fleet.
Luckily though cause I had the war goal that I put a claim on (that they never bothered to re-take, but did have a hefty force there), I managed to get all of Spain's colonies, AND all his island provinces (including two by Africa). And it was really useful (and probably helped the most) of having England be an ally. England even formed Canada lol, or his colonies did. But I don't see Spain colonizing the America's any time soon, as South America is pretty much secured along the coast from any colonization attempt. Except for Holland down south, but heh. Only place he could colonize is North America, but he doesn't have any provinces that are close to it now.
In the end, before I saved and got off. I took my two main forces and they are moving to one province along the coast, and then I'll split them up and put them in better locations so they can respond to any invasion landings better. I may end up putting castles along the coast as well, so it'll be a massive barrier (with provinces in between) of castles. I think that make it a lot easier to defend South America. But my income is shot (but I say that, and making nearly 90 gold a month lol. So many gold provinces :P), so that is a long term plan and take a while to do. I can afford that no problem lol, its just building them takes up the money. I make so much gold :P
Post by: Vendayn on March 31, 2016, 10:42:46 pm
Spanish has a castle in every other province of his. I can see his land, and its just one big orgy of castles lol. Only provinces next to each castle are empty of them, so its a castle for every other province lol. No idea how anyone can even win that.
And spain is also pwning everyone he meets in all the wars. He pwns England (England mostly distracted him for me lol), he pwns Naples. He pwns Venice. He pwns Austria. He even pwns the Pope. Spain is doing amazing in this game lol, which makes it scary. He is SUPER aggressive.
I do have lucky nations off (cause that is dumb), so all the nations are more random in how they do. Only nation who may pose a threat to Spain is Roman Empire (MEIOU renamed them that since MEIOU starts earlier than vanilla). Since the Roman Empire is doing okay (I guess, only what I can tell in start menu)...doesn't seem to have expanded much but won against Ottomans. And his rival is Spain. But I haven't seen any sign of wars between them. In any case, Spain is kicking ass this game lol...
And poor Portugal was kicked out of Spain to live the rest of his existence on two crappy islands he colonized before Spain pwned him :P
Post by: Orange Wizard on March 31, 2016, 11:10:57 pm
Also religion mapmode (http://imgur.com/oUpjM1k)
I started as the custom nation of Golden Ambrosia around Milan, and proceeded to conquer everything in the immediate vicinity. Greece and Tripoli are my vassals. The other major powers are Ottomans (currently in a spiral of wars/disasters), France (would be stable is GB and I didn't keep nomming on it), and Poland (has PU over Austria). Sweden and Great Britain are significant but not dangerous.
Currently I'm allied with Poland, but that will probably change soon because I want to dismantle the HRE. Should be interesting to see how well their doomstacks face off against my limitless pool of mercenaries.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on April 03, 2016, 04:38:55 am
I repeat, as I do every time I play this game. What. The fuck. Paradox.
Besides that tho I'm actually having fun. Probably just going to switch to another nation to give reasonable war peace settlement and then switch back, since I'm not playing Ironman. This incident has cost me horribly but I'm the Ottomans and everything else was going great so I'll bounce back just fine.
Post by: Sheb on April 03, 2016, 04:52:02 am
I've noticed that the AI will sometime refuse to white peace if they think they can get a better deal by letting you fight (And why shouldn't they?). Just land an army in Venice, siege it. That should give you enough war score to get a separate peace (War score from battles and holding the objective go to the war leader, but war score from occupying provinces count for both you and the leader.
Post by: Orange Wizard on April 03, 2016, 05:33:23 am
Most wars in history were won with a major battle where one side realised "ohshit we can't actually win this", or their capital was occupied. But the AI in EU refuses to give in unless you siege down half the country and send fleets to deal with Portugal's 10000000 random island forts.
Post by: Sheb on April 03, 2016, 05:38:21 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on April 03, 2016, 12:31:15 pm
In the defines, NAI.PEACE_TIME_MONTHS will set the initial length of war modifier (by default 60 months), while NAI.PEACE_TIME_EARLY_FACTOR is a multiplier on that (by default 0.75). This means nations will start with a -45 modifier to any peace deal that ticks down to 0 over 60 months, and from then on ticks up at a 1:1 ratio (because of NAI.PEACE_TIME_LATE_FACTOR). Length of war will actually be a positive reason for the AI making peace past that 5 years.
So what I personally did is changed PEACE_TIME_EARLY_FACTOR to 0.66, so the AI will start with a -40 length of war modifier, but it'll still decay over 60 months (at a rate slightly slower than default). This means it still takes 5 years to get the positive effects of length of war, but it addresses many of those times where you're just short of getting a deserved white peace without occupying their capital or something.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on April 03, 2016, 12:52:45 pm
War's going well... then it ends.
Aragon's ruler had died, and the female heir took over. Iberian Wedding fired 2 picoseconds later and the entire war ended in a white peace. Oh, and France doesn't trust me anymore because I didn't get them any land in the "peace deal."
Post by: EnigmaticHat on April 03, 2016, 09:07:16 pm
Yeah, the AI will usually let you white peace once you take a fort or two, regardless of how many peasants have been massacred. Actually getting a tribute is even worse.What pisses me off too is that they're the aggressor and all I want is white peace D:
Most wars in history were won with a major battle where one side realised "ohshit we can't actually win this", or their capital was occupied. But the AI in EU refuses to give in unless you siege down half the country and send fleets to deal with Portugal's 10000000 random island forts.
Post by: Sheb on April 04, 2016, 01:32:00 am
Post by: Bastus on April 05, 2016, 02:49:24 am
Everything seems fine. Some interesting points:
You can form Iceland, which might give an exiled Norway something to do/be. :P
The reform Rome decision was no joke.
France got slightly buffed and Lithuania nerfed ( all via development).
And for those of you who do not want to read through the Thread here is short tl;dr :
- Why did you nerf Russia, Russia strong
- Forts are broken, when do you fix them
- Why did you fix the fort exploit it was clearly balanced and worked as intended.
But seriously am I the only person who thinks that the fort system is fine at the moment?
And here (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/patch-1-16-full-patchnotes.917705/) is the link.
Post by: Orange Wizard on April 05, 2016, 03:53:20 am
But seriously am I the only person who thinks that the fort system is fine at the moment?Fort system is okay. The warscore buff from occupying provinces that don't have forts is a good change IMO. Annoying for those of us who abused the exploit, but it should make wars a little more nuanced.
Trade Leagues sound like they'd be more interesting if it was easier to establish them. Right now it's restricted to merchant republics and OPMs, but I would like to see shenanigans like with England making a trade league with Holland and Flanders. Otherwise the only place we're going to see anything will be the Hansa. Maybe Venice and Ragusa? But Venice is normally hostile to Ragusa, so probably not.
I was kind of hoping for a proper naval supremacy overhaul, right now navies are kinda pointless unless you want to invade Britain. Being able to occupy provinces with sailors and siege coastal forts would make having a fleet much more important.
Post by: WealthyRadish on April 05, 2016, 01:28:56 pm
Spoiler: From the thread (click to show/hide)
Looking at it, I'd say the expansion itself isn't worth the cost. A couple interesting features for specific nations, but the rest seems very unnecessary. Which is good IMO, but it's also disappointing to see paradox continuing to pimp espionage ideas in particular with expansions while leaving it worthless without them.
Playing around a bit, it looks like the states/territories system is much better than I expected. Tying it to areas instead of the massive arbitrary regions makes all the difference. Not having to cheese overseas coring mechanics is great, though it'll make world conquests so easy that maybe they're not even worth attempting. Most of the extreme autonomy changes I've modded in seem unnecessary with it.
Corruption is total throwaway, as I thought it might be. The only action that's needed is planting the slider moderately high and then forgetting it exists, while the game dribbles over itself to reward your exceptional skills of governance with ridiculously good and frequent events. I'm going to experiment with reversing the slider, so it gives you money and raises corruption, while giving other means to lower it. That sounds much more interesting.
The culture changes look almost completely horrible, and buffing France's already ludicrous starting development yet again because the AI sucks is disappointing, yet to be expected.
Post by: Rex_Nex on April 05, 2016, 06:47:52 pm
But seriously am I the only person who thinks that the fort system is fine at the moment?
I think that the fort system is pretty bad. I haven't played in Mare Nostrum yet, so I cant say whether the nerf to playing like this "balances" the issue, but forts are godawful. 1 ducat/month per fort per fort tier? That's obscene. I'm not saying that the situation doesn't crop up, but 9/10 the only place where a fort makes sense is on your capital. Later in the game when you're starting to abuse trade mechanics to make crazy money, forts start making more sense - but for the most part, demolishing everything and investing your newfound income into a bigger army is usually better, both offensively and defensively.
I'm spending 800 ducats just to construct and maintain a single lvl 2 fort for a petty decade. That's way too much money to be spending on something that's both purely defensive and wont make an ounce of difference in almost every single war you fight. Either forts need to be far cheaper to maintain or they need to be far more powerful tools. Obviously you cant make them just take longer to siege - stupid long sieges are not fun at all and break the game, as anyone who's fought lategame europe's lvl 6/7/8 fort spam can attest to. There are other options, though. Perhaps forts could act as a terrain penalty - if you're attacking my army sitting in a fortified province, you're going to have to deal with a -1 to all rolls malus.
This is all numeric though, the problem isn't necessarily the system of zones of control itself. If thats just what you mean, then yeah, it could work fine with just a tiny bit of tweaking.
Post by: Vendayn on April 06, 2016, 03:44:31 am
With that...
I have now colonized 99% of all south america's coastline. Holland (which turned into a vassal of his, but don't remember what it was renamed to) has a tiny part of it (just three provinces in southern tip). I colonized around it, blocking him from going further in. And besides those three provinces, Holland completely stopped colonizing. I also have a fort (just the first basic one) in every other province along the eastern coast of South America and going to the south tip. Also a really good fort in Panama (which I upgrade to the best I can get). A couple other coastal provinces have a higher level fort as well, otherwise I mostly stuck with the cheap one.
I also have troops lined pretty much all along the northern, eastern and southern part of South America. So once war comes, not only can they not land troops easily, they have to deal with all my troops. And they can also respond easily when the enemy is landing his forces.
England is still a good ally, he got a really good military leader so his military tech is really good. He keeps feeding provinces to Canada, which has a high liberty desire. Too far north for me to interfere lol.
Spain still hates me, and he also hasn't colonized at all in ages. I think I "broke" Spain by kicking him out of the Americas :P He isn't even colonizing Africa, he isn't really doing anything at all lol. For the past 50 years, he literally has done NOTHING lol. No wars, no expansions, no colonizing, nothing at all. Oh well...good for me :P
France is colonizing north Mexico into what would be Texas. France is actually doing some pretty heavy colonizing of North America, more than even England is. I plan to declare war on his colony once I get the rebellions under control (the Spanish colonies I took keep revolting). Which is looking to be kinda long-term problem I am dealing with. The unrest keeps being really high, even after beating rebels after rebels. I also would rather be able to build an actual invasion army (which I do have an okay sized invasion force sitting on my capital), and not use my defensive troops. But, France doesn't really pose much of a threat, and lost a war in Europe pretty recently in the game and white peaced a second. Plus England is rivals with France, and they'd join the war (I got favors, but they'd join anyway) and their military tech is 2 levels higher than France. France does have good allies (but England could still beat them) and could probably beat my navy. But he would lose his colonies since that is a long distance war, which I have the advantage of. And its not like he can really land in South America lol. Even Spain couldn't really defend his colonies that well and my forts weren't even setup then.
I kinda want to invade Europe at one point, but heh, I'll probably have moved onto the new DLC by then. Which, I plan to be Tunis. I only invaded Europe (as the american natives) once since I've played EU4 and that was as Aztecs and I never was able to get a foothold at all. Farthest I got was taking Ireland and then being slaughtered and sent back home :P But no one could conquer any of the Americas either lol, and then a DLC came out and I moved on :P
At least I accomplished my goal of the current Inca game. Colonize all of the coastal region of South America, and put forts in every other province :P Kinda a short game goal really, but I knew the DLC was coming out, so didn't want a huge long goal of conquering the world lol
The only problem with the strategy of forts all along the coast (and not really anywhere else) is if an invasion force broke through even one fort and defeat my initial forces protecting that region around the fort...they pretty much have free reign all the way to the capital :P I know an actual player would take advantage of that, but its just the AI...so...:P I do have a few forts around my capital though, but otherwise its pretty barren and open land. Not much troops to defend it either lol.
Post by: PTTG?? on April 07, 2016, 12:38:27 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on April 07, 2016, 12:45:16 am
Post by: Vendayn on April 07, 2016, 01:26:11 am
Its pretty painful actually, since it pretty makes provinces with plague completely useless (as it should be). Luckily I stopped Spanish on the coastal east side of South America, and not my good territories around my capital lol. Or my economy would be so screwed.
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 22, 2016, 12:11:42 pm
The fact that I can pre-convert Portugal to English culture beforehand is the icing on the cake, meaning when it's all done I should be able to integrate all the Empires into one massive giant spice-stealing Empire without issue.
One thing I've found is the mercenary adventurer house rule really is absolutely mandatory. Only send mercenaries to your overseas provinces, if you can't send enough mercenaries or can't afford them, your Empire must be allowed to crumble. Nobody said Empire building was cheap, and it makes little sense how thousands of men from Kent teleport to the other side of the planet (for so few ducats!)
At least with mercenaries it makes slightly more logical sense in that you're paying for the transit or you're poaching the few adventurous civvies/merchants or hiring local sepoys. And if you get bankrupt then it all disappears :D
One thing of note is that I managed to deus vult my way into freeing the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Ayyubids (ET mod). With the collapse of the Ayyubids the Greek lands descended into a horrendous conflict for dominance between the Latin Empire, the Greeks, the Nicaeans, Rum Turks and even some Armenians. When all the fighting was done the victor emerged - surprise Abbasid Caliphate jihad that crushed the Sultanate of Rum, Persia and absorbed the Ayyubids. Seems the Abbasid faired the collapse of the Mongol Empire rather well. Interestingly the Abbassids have formed a Sudanese and Ethiopian colonial nation, whilst the actual Empire of Ethiopia has migrated south into Somalia.
As intriguing as this all is, I only fear one long term threat to my hegemony. In the far east in the barbaric tundra of Russia, from the ashes of Swedish wars and Mongolian scourge the Empire of Smolensk has arisen. It is only a matter of time before they unleash their artillery GUIDED BY GOD
Only the Russian principality of Yaroslavl and Murom stands in their way, not even the cheeki Tajikis have held them at bay.
Smolensk will never cross Poland... R-r-right? Poland is strong enough?
Post by: Lukewarm on April 22, 2016, 03:08:23 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on April 23, 2016, 05:09:44 am
Now, Oman was allied to Mewar or something in India, and I thought, "hey it's only 1720 I could pull off Master of Africa and Master of India". Obviously this wasn't the case but vov.
I took only a couple of Indian provinces in the end, I couldn't be arsed sieging down their level 6 fort spam. Still, it was a foothold (that kept spawning 40k rebel stacks, RIP) and that was okay.
Meanwhile, the coalition of Ottomans, Ethiopia, Persia, and Egypt (I think they were released by Ottomans in a peace deal) was dissolved, so I launched an invasion there. Went well, after a few years of chasing around dozens of 1k armies I took about 140% overextension worth of shitty territory.
This would have been fine, I had more than enough troops in the area to keep knocking down rebels, but I noticed that Hindustan (who owned most of India) was sitting on 0 manpower. So Very Clever me decided that whatever war I started over there wouldn't end until well after the Ethiopian provinces were all cored.
Not so.
I forgot to factor in that Hindustan had allies in Delhi who had also blobbed quite significantly. I assumed that 60k soldiers would be enough to subdue India while another 120k squished rebels, but that was also not true. I was haemorrhaging soldiers to 130% discipline rebels and 80-100k Indian doomstacks at the same time. I burned through my ~150k manpower in no time, regretting not taking Quantity, and watched in despair.
Eventually I got myself into a white peace with Delhi, and then sank more ducats/manpower into making Hindustan give me their delicious dye provinces.
This put me at ~220% OE. Apparently coring takes a while when rebels are occupying everything.
Almost immediately, rebels everywhere. Then my ruler died and I got a shitty foreign noble take over. Now I've got bloody Africans declaring independence all over, Civil War ticking up, Aspiration for Liberty ticking up, and basically no soldiers to deal with it.
RIP African-Indian-Spanish Empire. Your 2500 development will be missed.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on April 23, 2016, 11:32:40 am
Playing as Spain again. I wanted to go for the Master of Africa achievement
the what now
Post by: Culise on April 23, 2016, 02:14:52 pm
I'm guessing someone accidentally conflated "Master of India" (as a European country, own and have cores on all of India) with the same conceptual idea for Africa...maybe African Power? (Own and have cores in all of Africa as Kongo - not Spain).Playing as Spain again. I wanted to go for the Master of Africa achievement
the what now
Post by: Orange Wizard on April 23, 2016, 02:47:30 pm
(Own and have cores in all of Africa as Kongo - not Spain).Fug
Post by: Micro102 on April 29, 2016, 01:39:12 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on April 29, 2016, 02:24:09 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 29, 2016, 02:43:44 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It goes without saying that it will not be an easy task, least of all because before saving I cheated to give the Empire an admin tech 260 years ahead of its time in order to give the Empire much-needed stability to not implode, so even the AI will have a hard time making the Empire collapse - with over 1,500,000 cavalry at its disposal, and a few tens of thousands of infantry. The Empire is Nestorian and reformed to a monarchy, and has both humanitarian and religious ideas so it'll only grow more stable as time goes on. The only issue I think the Empire will ever have is that there are so many provinces manually assigning estates is near impossible, which should be no issue for the AI :D
Norwegian exodus or big blue blob also seem appealing, but I'm not sure if I have the time for that, whilst operating clandestine pirate armadas is just as rewarding - I especially like unraveling giants by making them fall through a pin.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First Knights mission:
- Rescue the Pope
Thus begins Mongolia Universalis
Post by: FritzPL on April 29, 2016, 03:38:32 pm
time spent?
virgins drained of blood to give you inspiration for these campaigns?
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 29, 2016, 04:22:20 pm
2. About 8 hours just for the Mongols
3. Enough to turn EU4 into HOI2
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Jiokuy on May 10, 2016, 11:24:50 am
Brandenburg seems to have a much stronger start than they did a few years back.
Anyways, the year is ~1500, I'm the current Holy Roman Emperor, although Authority is 0 because I'm just using the title to dodge Unlawful Territory, and also to dismantle free states (there's like two on Luibeck Estuaries).
The Protestant Reformation has just begun. Based on existing reformation centers, more than half of my lands will convert to protestant. If I convert to protestant I loose my Emperorship, which would be very inconvenient since forming Germany involves carving deep into the HRE. Since 4/6 Electors are voting for me with over +150, it seems a bit foolish to just toss that.
I'm allied to Hungary, three smallish electors, Poland-Lithuania, and France-Austria, and Sweden-Norway. I've actually never played a significant role in the League Wars, and never on the Protestant Side. I assume some of my allies will split on each side of the war.
Is there a way for me, the Catholic Emperor, to support the Protestant League, and retain Emperorship without having to re-garner a support base? oh yeah, I think France-Austria might end up Protestant in this game. I know Sweden-Norway is.
Also how bad is the Religious Unity < 75% Disaster?
Post by: Rex_Nex on May 17, 2016, 11:14:10 pm
Also how bad is the Religious Unity < 75% Disaster?
Since it's been a week you've probably figured this out by now, but it's not bad at all. Compared to most disasters, the religious one is very tame. Which is probably a good thing, since you might be stuck in it a while if you want to remain catholic & aren't going Humanist.
Not sure if there is a way to be the catholic emperor and join the protestants. I think the emperor is forced to be the leader of the catholic league.
Post by: Micro102 on May 24, 2016, 10:08:58 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on May 25, 2016, 12:50:28 am
Post by: Micro102 on May 25, 2016, 07:46:57 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on May 25, 2016, 08:05:58 pm
Post by: Micro102 on May 25, 2016, 08:32:47 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 26, 2016, 02:47:42 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on May 29, 2016, 11:32:02 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/EW23EPQ.png)
Post by: Orange Wizard on June 09, 2016, 04:26:52 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on June 09, 2016, 01:09:02 pm
Ah, that feeling of completing Westernization as Ming and all of your provinces dropping down to 0 autonomy when Celestial Empire expires:Westernized Ming is plebian Ming
(http://i.imgur.com/EW23EPQ.png)
Mandate of Heaven 5ever
Post by: Micro102 on June 26, 2016, 08:24:15 pm
When using the automatic transport feature, the ships decide that when ever crossing south of Kent (south of England), it should drop all the unit's off at Kent, and then pick them back up again. I have lost a few armies this way.
Post by: Playergamer on June 30, 2016, 07:13:33 pm
Sorry for caps. Just...really pissed right now, since this is screwing up all my Maya race against the clock playthroughs.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on June 30, 2016, 07:30:09 pm
WoCI would mean the third party is now considered hostile, but the war goals would be whatever they have occupied in the second state. But neither the first nor third parties could take territories from each other.
Post by: forsaken1111 on June 30, 2016, 08:18:19 pm
I have wished I could declare a "War of Conflicted Interest" on states that happened to be at war with someone I am also at war with.sound like a really good idea. Write it up as a suggestion on their forums
WoCI would mean the third party is now considered hostile, but the war goals would be whatever they have occupied in the second state. But neither the first nor third parties could take territories from each other.
Post by: Orange Wizard on June 30, 2016, 09:38:53 pm
Gaaaaaaah! I used to like playing the Central American nations, like Xiu or Aztec, but it is GODDAMN IMPOSSIBLE now. Paradox screwed something up with the way sieges work, so it's completely impossible to conquer damn near any other country as Xiu. Declare war, stack wipe them, detach siege to take the capital while you occupy all the non-fort provinces. Then random country declares war on completely defeated, occupied enemy, and parks their army in the enemy capital. EVEN THOUGH YOU STARTED THE SIEGE A YEAR EARLIER, THEY GET THE OCCUPATION WHEN THE GARRISON SURRENDERS.If you were there first and didn't move your army away, you should still get the occupation?
Sorry for caps. Just...really pissed right now, since this is screwing up all my Maya race against the clock playthroughs.
Post by: Micro102 on July 01, 2016, 02:32:43 am
Gaaaaaaah! I used to like playing the Central American nations, like Xiu or Aztec, but it is GODDAMN IMPOSSIBLE now. Paradox screwed something up with the way sieges work, so it's completely impossible to conquer damn near any other country as Xiu. Declare war, stack wipe them, detach siege to take the capital while you occupy all the non-fort provinces. Then random country declares war on completely defeated, occupied enemy, and parks their army in the enemy capital. EVEN THOUGH YOU STARTED THE SIEGE A YEAR EARLIER, THEY GET THE OCCUPATION WHEN THE GARRISON SURRENDERS.
Sorry for caps. Just...really pissed right now, since this is screwing up all my Maya race against the clock playthroughs.
Only time I have experienced something like this is when I merge or split armies up. Basically, don't do ANYTHING with the army once it is on the capital.
Also, now that I am thinking about it, isn't it unrealistic for these sieges to take years?
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 01, 2016, 03:01:15 am
Also, now that I am thinking about it, isn't it unrealistic for these sieges to take years?Not at all. IRL sieges often took years, especially before cannon was a thing.
Post by: Rex_Nex on July 01, 2016, 03:45:41 am
Post by: LoSboccacc on July 02, 2016, 06:23:18 pm
http://listverse.com/2013/09/20/10-of-the-longest-sieges-in-history/
but I think statistic is skewed because of people not trying a siege without extreme advantages to begin with.
At any rate it's mainly a geological thing. Most city would fall in weeks without a water source, castles in month if they have stockpiles and eject all civilians.
Post by: Sheb on July 03, 2016, 04:38:21 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 03, 2016, 04:53:32 am
I don't think it'd be very fun to get a "someone left the back gate open" event and suddenly you've been annexed.Tell that to the guy who added hunting accidents
Post by: LoSboccacc on July 03, 2016, 06:09:52 am
Yeah, but then, most cities are build with or close to a water source, because water is nice.
what I meant was if you could poison a water source or deviate it, of course old cityes grew close to river, water logistic is a massive issue
Post by: Micro102 on July 03, 2016, 06:50:16 pm
Then Portugal rivals me. What the fuck. I'm pretty much dead now. I never even got the option to convert.
Post by: Rex_Nex on July 03, 2016, 08:42:20 pm
Post by: Teneb on July 03, 2016, 08:47:17 pm
Been playing as Kongo, got myself up to 15 soldiers. Got my first idea (exploration), Portugal sends missionaries, I accept.You should ask to be their protectorate as fast as you can. This protects you not only from Portugal itself, but also other europeans (and you get faster tech).
Then Portugal rivals me. What the fuck. I'm pretty much dead now. I never even got the option to convert.
Post by: Azkanan on July 04, 2016, 04:41:52 pm
Post by: ancistrus on July 04, 2016, 10:08:42 pm
What the hell AI?
Arent you supposed to be creating coalitions to keep warmongers in check?
So France starts conquering everything, and every other major power just goes, hey, if you cant beat them join them.
1730 AD. France is allied with Portugal, Scandinavia, Poland (and few others). These nations rank as 1, 2, 3 and 4 in terms of army size. The first three have been allied for 200+ years, seriously.
In isolation, I might be able to beat one of them, but together they are quite clearly stronger than the rest of the world put together.
I am playing as Navarra, and I am currently the last nation on Earth that is able to resist those jackasses, at least briefly. I have no potential allies at all, everyone else has been curbstomped already.
The second source of frustration is naval battles. I still retain the biggest navy in the world, but it doesnt do me any good. I cant compete with AIs ability to micromanage. I am getting flashbacks to age of empires 2, with the enemy doing hit and run with 30 horse archers individually. Only this is even worse. Just managing to get into a naval battle is a cause for celebration, the AI constantly teases and retreats their ships. However, what is even worse still is the fact that even if I wreck the enemy fleet, they NEVER LOSE TRANSPORTS. So they can happily move their doomstacks to my country and there is nothing I can do about it. What the *%#&.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 04, 2016, 10:48:24 pm
Are you playing with lucky nation bonuses on? I think the AI considers its AE reduction (like from the lucky nation bonus) when making a peace deal, so lucky nations will take more land in peace deals and blob harder than they would otherwise. The AI's "smart" enough to almost never get coalitioned either way, but I think that AE reduction is part of what feeds the ridiculous blobs (like France eating Spain, Austria cannibalizing the HRE, Poland's frequent rampages, etc).
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 05, 2016, 02:22:49 am
I did see Lithuania fighting a coalition once, against Crimea and a couple of other irrelevant eastern shitcountries. Lithuania annexed half of them in the peace deal.
Post by: Micro102 on July 05, 2016, 03:20:40 am
OK I just bought it and played it and I dont feel like registering to some new forum so I am going to went here.
What the hell AI?
Arent you supposed to be creating coalitions to keep warmongers in check?
So France starts conquering everything, and every other major power just goes, hey, if you cant beat them join them.
1730 AD. France is allied with Portugal, Scandinavia, Poland (and few others). These nations rank as 1, 2, 3 and 4 in terms of army size. The first three have been allied for 200+ years, seriously.
In isolation, I might be able to beat one of them, but together they are quite clearly stronger than the rest of the world put together.
I am playing as Navarra, and I am currently the last nation on Earth that is able to resist those jackasses, at least briefly. I have no potential allies at all, everyone else has been curbstomped already.
The second source of frustration is naval battles. I still retain the biggest navy in the world, but it doesnt do me any good. I cant compete with AIs ability to micromanage. I am getting flashbacks to age of empires 2, with the enemy doing hit and run with 30 horse archers individually. Only this is even worse. Just managing to get into a naval battle is a cause for celebration, the AI constantly teases and retreats their ships. However, what is even worse still is the fact that even if I wreck the enemy fleet, they NEVER LOSE TRANSPORTS. So they can happily move their doomstacks to my country and there is nothing I can do about it. What the *%#&.
Mind sharing a picture of these warmongers? I don't really see these nations going out of control in my games. It's hard to imagine how big they are if you think they need a coalition against them in the 1700's.
Coalitions are formed based on aggressive expansion which you get by...well...expanding. It goes down over time (I think diplomatic reputation speeds this up) so if you want to start a coalition against an AI, you will probably need to drag them into a war on your side after they have recently accrued a bunch of aggressive expansion and then finish it quickly and give them a ton of land in a peace deal. Then break alliance with them and join the coalition :)
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 05, 2016, 09:17:06 am
Mind sharing a picture of these warmongers? I don't really see these nations going out of control in my games. It's hard to imagine how big they are if you think they need a coalition against them in the 1700's.
Coalitions are formed based on aggressive expansion which you get by...well...expanding. It goes down over time (I think diplomatic reputation speeds this up) so if you want to start a coalition against an AI, you will probably need to drag them into a war on your side after they have recently accrued a bunch of aggressive expansion and then finish it quickly and give them a ton of land in a peace deal. Then break alliance with them and join the coalition :)
The AI has AE reduction. It's reduced even further for Lucky nations.
Post by: Micro102 on July 05, 2016, 11:10:15 am
Mind sharing a picture of these warmongers? I don't really see these nations going out of control in my games. It's hard to imagine how big they are if you think they need a coalition against them in the 1700's.
Coalitions are formed based on aggressive expansion which you get by...well...expanding. It goes down over time (I think diplomatic reputation speeds this up) so if you want to start a coalition against an AI, you will probably need to drag them into a war on your side after they have recently accrued a bunch of aggressive expansion and then finish it quickly and give them a ton of land in a peace deal. Then break alliance with them and join the coalition :)
The AI has AE reduction. It's reduced even further for Lucky nations.
Yes, that was just said, but why are you responding to my post with it?
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 06, 2016, 08:22:37 pm
I also lol'd quite heartily when Portugal allied with Castille to finish the reconquistida and Portugal took over most of Morocco. Whilst this went on England actually won the hundred years war, taking over half of France. This all changed France had some god tier monarch who screwed over everyone to climb back on top. Allied with Spanish to kick the English out of France, driving a wedge between Portugal and Spain by giving away half of Portugal to Spain. At this point Portugal is close to being evicted to Africa, when France breaks their alliance with Spain to ally with the desperate Portugal - declaring war on Spain to kick the Spanish out of France, and introduce the French to Spain, all the whilst Portugal regained most of their land. In the end, only France won that, now stronger than England, Spain and Portugal combined, where before they were about to be wiped out by Burgundy
No coalitions
I for one am glad I'm in the Eastern Med
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 06, 2016, 08:53:50 pm
The AI has AE reduction.
Is there a source from a dev or something on this? I don't think they do, there isn't anything in the static modifiers or defines.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on July 06, 2016, 09:40:13 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 06, 2016, 10:00:06 pm
Post by: Culise on July 06, 2016, 10:23:48 pm
RE: Coalitions, it appears to be that you can conquer all of the Americas, Europa, Africa, Asia and Australia - but god forbid you take two counties in Italy, instant coalition with the entire world vs you. MILAN MUST BE PROTECTED, THEY ARE A BEACON OF INNOCENCE IN TIMES OF TURMOILDon't worry, I'm certain several Kings Charles and King Louis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars) all agree with you. :P
((Of course, I'm of the opinion that snowballing in the game is a bit too easy, so I'm probably not a credible source of sympathy. ^_^))
EDIT:
At any rate, I've been doing some digging since I'm curious how badly the AI cheats as well in this regard. Primary sources of AI AE reduction are either cranking up the difficulty (Hard and Very Hard give the AI 33% reduction to AE) or Lucky nations (which receive 25% reduction to AE). General sources that players often neglect are very high prestige (10%), control of the Curia (20%), or ideas. On the forums, all I can find are a few players arguing that "maybe the AI cheats here" even though this is one of the possible cheats that, if it existed, would be off-loaded to the static modifiers. I'm not saying that it cannot be that it's cheating, but I'm not certain I can take it on a matter of faith that it is, either.
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 07, 2016, 12:20:33 am
EDIT:
At any rate, I've been doing some digging since I'm curious how badly the AI cheats as well in this regard. Primary sources of AI AE reduction are either cranking up the difficulty (Hard and Very Hard give the AI 33% reduction to AE) or Lucky nations (which receive 25% reduction to AE). General sources that players often neglect are very high prestige (10%), control of the Curia (20%), or ideas. On the forums, all I can find are a few players arguing that "maybe the AI cheats here" even though this is one of the possible cheats that, if it existed, would be off-loaded to the static modifiers. I'm not saying that it cannot be that it's cheating, but I'm not certain I can take it on a matter of faith that it is, either.
Yeah, I don't think there's evidence anywhere of it. People tend to jump to conclusions about the AI cheating, when paradox seems to be a studio that cares far more than most about making the AI play by the same rules, for better or worse (often for worse, IMO). Though paradox does have an interesting habit of hardcoding things that could be easily supported in the scripting language; AI naval attrition is a good example of this, and you should take a peek in the diplomatic_actions and scripted_functions files to see all the wasted potential for all the little restrictions on everything that have been added over the years.
Post by: Micro102 on July 07, 2016, 11:47:31 pm
Maybe the AI is limited because of the sheer quantity of nations that it has to run on?
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 08, 2016, 12:54:00 am
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on July 08, 2016, 02:15:59 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 08, 2016, 10:23:27 am
Post by: Descan on July 08, 2016, 11:36:21 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on July 08, 2016, 11:43:31 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 09, 2016, 10:09:31 am
(http://i.imgur.com/TgEjWto.png)
Post by: Flying Dice on July 09, 2016, 11:40:09 am
The AI cheats on a lot of other things (like ignoring fort maintenance costs and naval attrition) so it wouldn't surprise me.Oh, don't get me started on that shit. When I conquered east Asia in my Yamato game I had to delete forts from something like 80% of the provinces I took. :I
Post by: Micro102 on July 09, 2016, 08:39:04 pm
Post by: Persus13 on July 09, 2016, 08:55:57 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 09, 2016, 09:34:24 pm
I did some looking into to it, the AI gets free upkeep on forts bordering another nation. Which is pretty strong.
That makes more sense.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 11, 2016, 03:29:40 pm
I did some looking into to it, the AI gets free upkeep on forts bordering another nation. Which is pretty strong.
Oh, it's not just bordering another nation. It's also when bordering wasteland and oceans. Or it was 4 months ago, anyway.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 12, 2016, 01:35:43 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 12, 2016, 01:39:21 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 12, 2016, 11:12:53 am
It's even worse
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 12, 2016, 04:40:05 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 12, 2016, 04:43:19 pm
I also don't see you being able to recapture your provinces without going head to head with the enemy armies.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on July 12, 2016, 04:53:02 pm
How exactly do you make use of attrition? Do you just sit back and let the enemy capture everything, then attack? I doubt it.
I also don't see you being able to recapture your provinces without going head to head with the enemy armies.
You scorch earth like a wannabe pyromaniac and watch those enemy armies dwindle. Then you can attack. I've never been able to really use scorched earth successfully, though. It just never reduced their numbers enough, plus they tended to home in on my surviving forces and wipe 'em out.
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 12, 2016, 05:36:21 pm
You scorch earth like a wannabe pyromaniac and watch those enemy armies dwindle. Then you can attack. I've never been able to really use scorched earth successfully, though. It just never reduced their numbers enough, plus they tended to home in on my surviving forces and wipe 'em out.Yeah defensive warfare cannot succeed in EU4
In EU4, Russia loses to France, Malta to Ottomans and Byzantium inflicted casualties are minimal
Post by: WealthyRadish on July 12, 2016, 10:22:15 pm
Still, winning wars through attrition is something that can only benefit the player, since it's easy to game the AI into stupidly wasting troops on attrition (and you can't really blame paradox for this one, I don't think it's actually possible to write an AI good enough to manage something like attrition alongside all the other decisionmaking without running it on a super computer).
In my opinion it would be better to let the player use attrition to their advantage, but it should be something that requires either unusual circumstances or preparation on their part. If you build special buildings that raise the attrition cap in a key province, scorch it, and maybe take a policy (I refuse to accept "pick an idea group and dump points in it" as preparation), then I think you've done enough to earn the advantage, but it shouldn't be like before where you could scorch pretty much any province in the world and win a war off of that alone. I actually have an unreleased mod that does this, and it seems to work well (except for the small issue that raising local max attrition also does so for friendly units).
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 12, 2016, 10:25:43 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 13, 2016, 11:08:44 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 13, 2016, 02:38:54 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 13, 2016, 05:10:36 pm
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 13, 2016, 05:16:15 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on July 13, 2016, 05:21:47 pm
If its not going to siege, what is it going to do? Forever war?I think it would keep checking until it had recovered enough manpower to actually complete the siege..?
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 13, 2016, 05:51:29 pm
Or use mercenariesIf its not going to siege, what is it going to do? Forever war?I think it would keep checking until it had recovered enough manpower to actually complete the siege..?
Or negotiate a peace that doesn't involve costly sieges. Which would require tweaks to how warscore works, which I am 100% in favour of
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 14, 2016, 11:51:49 pm
It will only work if both the ruler and the heir are virgins, which is literally impossible. Paradox is still working out the glitches.
Post by: Micro102 on July 15, 2016, 07:49:52 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 15, 2016, 07:53:58 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on July 15, 2016, 07:57:26 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 15, 2016, 08:46:34 am
Shattered retreats save more lives than organized retreats. wat
Post by: Rex_Nex on July 16, 2016, 03:29:09 pm
...and Venice send six demands for peace on the same exact day, drops my stab by 6 in a single tick, and my country force-capitulates & implodes. What the heck? Doesn't the AI also have to wait between diplomatic actions? I was trying really hard not to get in the habit of reloading my saves, but stuff like this makes it hard.
Post by: Micro102 on July 16, 2016, 03:48:02 pm
I was playing Milan and having a pretty nice early game when I noticed Venice was vulnerable, having been attacked by the Ottomans. I declared war on them for Brescia and it's pretty rough, but I get by knowing that as soon as the Ottomans land in Italy and stackwipe them, I have the war in the bag. Everything going according to plan, Venice gets stackwiped, I siege down Brescia and go back to siege my capital back from Venezian control so that I'm not forced to give into demands. I figured I'd just spend some extra admin on increasing stability if Venice tries to back out while I'm still sieging.
...and Venice send six demands for peace on the same exact day, drops my stab by 6 in a single tick, and my country force-capitulates & implodes. What the heck? Doesn't the AI also have to wait between diplomatic actions? I was trying really hard not to get in the habit of reloading my saves, but stuff like this makes it hard.
Yeah that shouldn't happen.
Anyway, if you need a possible work around for that, you can leave the demands up for what I think is 3 months before they will automatically cancel/accept (I think it's whichever the first choice is). So that's about 3 more siege ticks.
Post by: Orange Wizard on July 16, 2016, 07:34:45 pm
Post by: Micro102 on July 17, 2016, 07:07:37 am
Having finally lost my Revolutionary France game (bohemiablob+mexicoblob+polandblob too stronk) I started playing as Castile. Lead a crusade into North Africa against Tunis and their Ottoman allies. My ally Austria was conquering Nuremburg or something and didn't want to join at first, but when the popup appeared I went to invite them to the war but clicked "Dissolve Alliance" instead. Then they rivalled me. RIP.
Load a save. Even if it's ironman if you make a mistake then exit out of it through task manager.
Post by: Persus13 on July 17, 2016, 10:03:13 am
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 18, 2016, 03:09:02 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 18, 2016, 03:20:04 pm
"I hear in their lands, cow manure is considered a great gift."Only in CKII
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 18, 2016, 03:51:01 pm
Post by: Persus13 on July 18, 2016, 09:45:23 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 13, 2016, 12:03:20 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on August 13, 2016, 12:21:26 am
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=633369890
Couple of mods I found. No idea how well they work though.
Post by: Micro102 on August 13, 2016, 12:43:23 am
Post by: Orange Wizard on August 13, 2016, 12:49:49 am
Post by: ollobrains on September 06, 2016, 06:36:46 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 06, 2016, 07:00:36 pm
Post by: ollobrains on September 07, 2016, 05:45:25 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on September 08, 2016, 01:48:31 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 08, 2016, 09:38:06 am
Skimming the stream, the tech changes aren't as exciting as I thought. Better than what was before, but all they seem to be adding is a new way to model the tech penalty, the tech itself will probably still be garbage. The institutions themselves also look poorly done. An absurd linear sequence with weak modifiers and a strong tech penalty, where some OPM in east asia finds themselves having newfound difficulty building guns because the Euros have started sculpting nudes again.
I think it has potential though, it may even be enough to finally get rid of the monarch points system entirely in a mod. Move some of the vanilla tech modifiers to institutions and remove the vanilla techs entirely, increase it to 20-30 institutions, write some better scripting to model the spreading, add complimentary decisions and unique buildings to enhance the bonuses, and you've got a good organic tech system. But there still might be that issue of the modifiers given by tech being very unmoddable, particularly mil tech; all the shock/fire increases, tactics, supply, width, etc can't be used anywhere but in the vanilla techs.
Some of the other features look very odd. A militarization bar for Prussia only, really?
Post by: ZeroGravitas on September 08, 2016, 09:45:05 am
theres a new DLC coming on october 11, its reworking the entire tech system to be more along the lines of CK2
no, it's really not. Techs themselves are not changing much at all - you still buy them with monarch points, tech is still mandatory to keep competitive troops and boats and colonization range, etc.
What's changing is the tech group system. And it's not really changing to be anything like ck2. Tech groups are gone; instead there are "Institutions" which spread based primarily on how close you are to Europe (colonization and manufacturing can start elsewhere, but everything else is pretty much hard-tied to Europe and/or Protestantism). If you don't keep up in Institutions, your tech becomes more and more expensive. You have to spend money to "embrace" institutions once they're sufficiently spread through your territory.
So it's not really anything like CK2. Institutions aren't tech; tech isn't optional; and you have to spend money to get institutions.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on September 08, 2016, 09:49:07 am
I've always thought the best realistic tech system would be that you can pay money into research to have the best stuff but if you don't do research eventually everything will trickle to you (although you'll never have the cutting edge). Think that would be pretty close to how it works in RL, provided you model communication barriers like isolationism and impassable oceans.
It's the age-old problem of "tech" systems that treat cultural "development" and physical inventions as fundamentally equivalent. Which is itself probably a symptom of Whig history, I guess. There is no such thing as "well we invented constitutional democracy so let's just click that button and never worry about how government organization again." Idiocy.
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 11, 2016, 06:40:36 pm
Old Air campaign:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
New Songhai campaign:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Its not exactly the same run (Different nation, different version, many more provinces in south Africa but territories exist), but its close enough for me to be happy about it. Getting better!
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 20, 2016, 04:19:40 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
SELL THE CHICKENS
WRITE A POLITE LETTER TO THE POPE
THE INFIDELS HAVE TAKEN JERUSALEM
BURN EVERYTHING
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 20, 2016, 04:39:37 pm
Code: [Select]
Basic techs (most likely won't be able to emerge independently, but maybe an allowance will be made for players in americas/sub-saharan africa)
- Ironworking
- Written Language
- Domesticated animals (only conspicuous by its absence in americas, could be replaced)
Mathematical techs (can only initially emerge from or spread to provinces with universities, prerequisites for many other practical techs)
- Numeral system
- Geometry/trig? (maybe redundant)
- Algebra
- Calculus
Trade techs
- Metal currency
- Guilds?
- Banking/credit
- Finance
Production techs
- Mixed agriculture (trade access to both old and new world crops)
- Guilds?
- Mechanical weaving
- Decent Steel
- Coke/industry?
Naval techs
- Shipbuilding
- Multi-mast sailing
- Navigation
Weapon techs (could be billions of things here, but I want to keep it simple and handle more specific modifiers elsewhere)
- Cavalry
- Gunpowder
- Firearms
- Artillery
Administration/government (loads could go here, not sure on order)
- Law codification
- Taxation
- Primogeniture (includes local level [extra administrators/officers from younger landed sons, etc], not just national succession)
- Bureaucracy
- Census
- Courts/appeals
- Parliament (not necessarily democratic)
- Religious tolerance?
Army techs
- Hierarchical command
- Professional officers
- Professional soldiers
- Standing army (redundant?)
- National conscription (late game, super OP)
Cultural techs
- Organized religion?
- Artistic patronage, architecture
- Literature
- Nationalism (late game, starts fucking everything up but also militarily powerful)
This is already 30-40 (god only knows how the performance will be), but I think this would be fairly comprehensive of the period for actually simulating the differences between the americas, china, the muslim world, western europe, etc. They'd mostly spread through trade and proximity, with the player probably being able to choose a "focus" through decisions for their ruler to make progress faster, and build/fund universities and other buildings that more quickly adopt and originate techs.
This should be the last piece of removing monarch points from the game altogether. Ideas will be a bit of a pickle, but right now I'm thinking that they'll be free, only provide a single bonus, and have a static 5-10 available at a given time throughout the game.
Post by: Micro102 on September 20, 2016, 07:37:13 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 21, 2016, 03:38:25 am
(Personally I'd wait a few weeks and pick up Rights of Man. Chances are good it'll improve things.)
Post by: Micro102 on September 21, 2016, 04:29:56 am
There is no way to westernize with a country like Ming that isn't silly. The only two ways to westernize as Ming early enough that it's worth the effort are via colonization of central America (particularly Panama) or creating a long snake of provinces through the hordes until you reach Genoa in the Crimea. The current tech/westernization system is ridiculously unfair to the Chinese/Indian nations, who have no hope of westernization without colonizing half the world away.
(Personally I'd wait a few weeks and pick up Rights of Man. Chances are good it'll improve things.)
Who would you say would westernize first? Russia or whoever is in control of Alexandria at the time I get a province there?
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 21, 2016, 01:46:35 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 21, 2016, 05:47:27 pm
Dice = Casualties
5 vs 5 = 70(me) 60(them)
1(me) vs 9 = 200+(me) 20-30(them)
8(me) vs 0 = ~30(me) ~50(them)
The final result ended with me losing over 8000 units while they lost a little under 4000. I just can't make sense of this.
EDIT: had another battle. Same stats. I roll an 8 with +1 shock from general, they role a 6. They do 102 casualties I do around 60.
Post by: Persus13 on September 21, 2016, 07:06:45 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 21, 2016, 07:48:59 pm
What year is it? What ideas do they have so far? How much cavalry do they have?
Game just started we were both at tech 4, no ideas for either.. Reported damage took place with me having more horses fielding during battle. Somehow I had more width than they did which gave me flanking.
Post by: Baffler on September 21, 2016, 07:56:47 pm
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Steppe_hordes#Steppe_shock_bonus
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 21, 2016, 07:59:35 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 21, 2016, 08:43:48 pm
Hordes also get starting units with excellent pips (both infantry and cavalry).
Steppe Hordes get a 25% bonus to shock on open ground, maybe that's it.
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Steppe_hordes#Steppe_shock_bonus
Ahhh these would explain it, thank you. So are these strong troops event troops or just starting ones?
Post by: WealthyRadish on September 21, 2016, 09:04:33 pm
Though I'm not sure how up to date the wiki is.
Hordes get 4 infantry pips to china's 2, and 6 cavalry pips to china's 3. It's sort of like a +1 to 2 to all rolls, multiplicative with the terrain shock bonus.
Post by: Persus13 on September 21, 2016, 09:06:58 pm
Post by: Micro102 on September 28, 2016, 04:22:27 pm
Post by: pedrito on October 11, 2016, 11:45:21 am
Been waiting for this all summer, but not much time to play ATM.
Anyone experimented with this yet?
Post by: PTTG?? on October 11, 2016, 12:05:24 pm
Post by: Ghazkull on October 11, 2016, 03:47:06 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 11, 2016, 05:34:03 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 11, 2016, 09:14:40 pm
I think the vanilla institutions will suck hard, though. If this was an update to address the many critics of the game's eurocentrism, having the conditions for the printing press originating being:
Code: [Select]
can_start = {
is_year = 1550
is_in_capital_area = yes
is_island = no
OR = {
religion = protestant
religion = reformed
region = north_german_region
region = south_german_region
}
}is going to get some entertaining complaints. I'm also not sure how they're addressing the fundamental problems with it, like how developments across the planet completely unknown to a continent make their progression inexplicably more difficult than it was before. But I probably won't be playing the game for a long time, because hot damn, there's some real potential here.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on October 12, 2016, 05:04:43 am
So very much modding to do. A peek in the institutions file looks promising, and there are quite a few sick new scriptable modifiers (or, as the ingrate in me first thought, "long overdue"). Institutions and the new scriptable military modifiers should be enough get going on the Big One, removing monarch points entirely (assuming I can wrangle single-idea-per-group GUI elements to not look like crap).That would be absolutely amazing. EU4's over reliance on MP has removed all the enjoyment I used to have for the game. I've been having pretty significant grand strategy withdraws after HoI4 underwhelmed me and Stellaris utterly disappointed me.
Although I guess that won't help the terrible navy and espionage systems that, if anything, have only gotten worse in the later patches. It only took them nine expansions to decide regencies were a trash mechanic.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 12, 2016, 09:09:04 am
I'm wondering how institutions will get to the Americas. They spread across single tiles of ocean or to adjacent land tiles. The Americas are significantly more than either of those.
No, adjacency is merely one way they spread.
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on October 12, 2016, 01:14:14 pm
In other words, the Americas are fucked for tech in the beginning. They aren't getting the first three institutions, and I doubt that they'll have 15 Diplo in time for Printing Press with the +150% tech cost. After that, they should have an easier time catching up.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 12, 2016, 02:01:14 pm
Definitely needs a patch or two to smooth things out though, right now there's a lot of silly stuff. I've only played one game and already noticed way too much "fun", here's a couple examples:
* Apparently being a single institution ahead allowed the Ottomans to make the entire Mamluk Sultanate a protectorate. This turned the Mamluks into a "nogovernment", stalled Ottoman expansion south, and naturally had a huge amount of liberty desire.
* If you release a trading city and aren't sufficiently large, that trading city will instantly rival you. Woops.
The one intentional feature of this patch that I'm not sold on is how forts work now. My fears when this was announced were that mountain forts would be gamebreakingly strong, and that's exactly what they are. I've watched the Ottomans try to invade Qara Qoyunlu four times now and only once did they manage to siege down a mountain fort before being repelled. I certainly wanted forts to be stronger, but this is going way too far. You even take the river crossing penalty if the relieving army crosses a river beforehand!
The new tech system is cool but the numbers and spawn locations need serious work. Instead of tech groups, you're now either "European" "Near Europe" or "Backwater". As far as I can tell, institutions spread very slowly compared to the penalty they give. China is already starting to tick up towards 200% tech cost fifty years after gamestart as the Enlightenment has barely made its way out of Anatolia. Unless something I missed causes institutional spread to increase massively, you can basically expect to have pre-RoM Native American tech costs in the east for most of the game.
Post by: Iceblaster on October 12, 2016, 02:39:05 pm
My main interest atm is seeing how Arumba will try to minmax it. Maybe he makes a few spreadsheets in his anger :P
Post by: Iceblaster on October 12, 2016, 04:45:31 pm
Post by: ollobrains on October 12, 2016, 07:24:45 pm
As far as the tech try and get close to where the europeans show up and prey ( and try to build the pre req buildings for institutions as listed above as well as maybe focus all development into a coastal province or two and build it up) and prey that u get an institution spawn in the americans
Post by: CABL on October 13, 2016, 11:13:08 am
Post by: Baffler on October 13, 2016, 04:48:40 pm
Post by: Kot on October 14, 2016, 09:56:20 am
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on October 14, 2016, 10:07:21 am
Post by: Persus13 on October 14, 2016, 12:50:17 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 14, 2016, 05:42:55 pm
Post by: Reudh on October 16, 2016, 07:33:18 pm
So far it seems to have worked; i had enough breathing space to deal with Suomensko rebels and Scottish seperatists after I beat the snot out of Alban and made it Cornish. I finally got the Quest for the New World and found France already has colonised the Azores and that other island off Western Africa's coast as well. Piss. That would mean my only avenue for expansion at the moment would be... Greenland.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 20, 2016, 02:35:04 pm
In 1444 there were around 46 universities in Europe, and many more schools attached to churches that taught literacy and had libraries. Conversely, that sort of an institution didn't really exist outside of Europe at that time; the Hindu-Buddhist institutions had long since fallen apart in India and Indochina, and the best examples elsewhere such as in muslim nations and Ming China only really reached that "monastic school" level of instruction.
So what I'm thinking is that the 3 types of development should be split into rural population, urban population, and educated population. When conditions are right rural population will become urban population (I think my work with the Dynamic Tradegoods mod will be the primary engine for that), and schools/universities will allow a portion of "urban" population to become "educated" population. It's then the provinces where these educated people reside that new institutions (around 40 for all the different individual technologies) come about and spread.
In player terms, they'd build schools and universities (and there would be a calculated monthly maintenance as well), and opt to give randomly appearing promising areas of study "patronage". War, looting, famine, and disease would disrupt this building of better population at the province level. I thinking modelling food production will be important, but that's one of the great strengths of modelling rural population.
With this system, Europe would have a massive head start (like they really did in 1444), but if a player somewhere else is able to build a successful economy that can support massive education investment, they could overtake them (while the AI would take the historical balanced approach that leads to them falling farther and farther behind).
I don't know why I post this stuff here. I guess I don't like the paradox forums very much. :P
Post by: Karlito on October 20, 2016, 02:48:58 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 20, 2016, 03:53:00 pm
With institutions, it's suddenly a problem worth caring about, since urbanization and education are a perfect mesh with province-level institution spread. I don't think that will be M&T's focus, though. My objectives and theirs are very different, and they have a great deal of dependencies they've accrued in a project that large.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 22, 2016, 01:06:39 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I made a mistake and kept Yarkand (who now starts as Chagatai's vassal) around, thinking they might be useful as cannon fodder. Sadly the new AI makes vassals not dumb enough to kill themselves, but not smart enough to contribute in any meaningful way. They mostly just walked around or hid in their capital during wars. I forgot Yarkand holds a gold mine, so I was screwing myself out of the majority of my income by keeping them around.
Oh well, I think I'll just play manchu if I want to do this again. If you aren't Tengri the entire process is too much of a pain, and you do not ever have time to flip tengri because you need to be stocked up on manpower/money and going to war every single time your truces end.
Also rip my superstar 6/5/6 event heir Johan to the tribals. You tried.
Post by: CABL on October 25, 2016, 10:26:48 am
Spoiler: Picture (click to show/hide)
EDIT: Everything is good right now.
Off-topic: What picture resolution is the best for this forum?
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on October 25, 2016, 10:30:38 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The picture is totally fine. Your BBCode was just messed up. Nothing serious.
Post by: Iceblaster on October 25, 2016, 10:45:38 am
Regardless, been playing as Gujarat. It's fun. Only downside is that I am horrible at diplomat managing :v
Post by: Iceblaster on October 27, 2016, 02:36:17 pm
Belgium! Oh how I have wanted a reason to play Flanders :P (http://i.imgur.com/PZDb0SB.jpg)
Mod if Extended Vanilla Experience. Picked it up recently. Decided to play Flanders because Belgium can be formed. Woo formable nations!
EDIT: The Seeing the Real You event. It's bullshit. Utter bullshit. Either a random heir or a pile of cash. With an attached five year modifier for -2 prestige and -5 legitimacy. Like. Is my wife really that powerful that not having a child with her causes that much trouble.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 27, 2016, 10:32:12 pm
On a similar note, I really wish there was some mod out there that just fixed a few things and added flavor without going overboard or messing with the balance. Like a sort of community patch combined what would be akin to a lightweight flavor DLC. I've tried a few mods that promised something similar, but they all go too far - I dont want to feel like I'm playing a different game than someone in vanilla. It makes me wish I had enough free time to do it myself.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 28, 2016, 12:20:12 am
it still makes me cringe every time I try a mod and my Decisions list is full of the mods' options and manuals.
Spoiler: But... my decision submenus! (click to show/hide)
If you do decide to start making tweaks, use this thread for reference:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/list-of-effects-modifiers-scopes-triggers-and-localization-strings-oh-my.722090/ (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/list-of-effects-modifiers-scopes-triggers-and-localization-strings-oh-my.722090/)
I wouldn't recommend the wiki. Nothing on it is information that isn't better found in the thread above or by using the vanilla files as examples.
The EU4 scripting language is designed mostly for exactly what you'd like to do, making tweaks to things that already exist. If you're finding little things that are irritating, I think you'll be surprised how easy it is to find them and change it, and since ironman now works with mods, there's really no reason not to besides achievements. You shouldn't change the vanilla files themselves though, you'll want to create a directory and .mod file in the "documents/paradox interactive" directory.
Post by: SaberToothTiger on October 29, 2016, 12:34:53 pm
I can buy most of the DLC before RoM, and which should I buy? I also heard that ED and CotNW aren't compatible - what's up with that?
Post by: Persus13 on October 29, 2016, 12:50:53 pm
I also heard that ED and CotNW aren't compatible - what's up with that?Never heard of that. There are some abilities that both El Dorado and Conquest of Paradise gives you access to, but I've played plenty of games with both of them active.
Art of War is probably the most important, as it has stuff that makes life a lot easier when you're at war.
Star and Crescent gives Muslims some pretty good stuff for Muslims.
If you want to play as custom nations or the Aztecs/Inca/Mayan, get El Dorado.
As for the others, they tend to be more specific. El Dorado, Conquest of Paradise, and Wealth of Nations are nice if you like colonizing and flesh out new world stuff and trade. Res Publica only really affects republics.
I don't own Mare Nostrum, and I haven't played enough with Cossacks to give my opinion on it. I don't own Common Sense either and I don't plan on getting it.
Post by: WealthyRadish on October 29, 2016, 01:34:31 pm
The more recent ones are getting into strange territory, since some of them started to include mechanics that (depending on your tastes) may not even be an improvement. Common Sense for instance has a lot of nice little things (the most important by far being subject interactions), but you may find that the HRE, development system, and karma are worse than the game without it. There aren't as many little things in Cossacks (except for hordes), and you may find that estates are tedious or make the game too easy, while the diplomatic feedback system is worse than what preceded it.
Mare Nostrum's Condottieri may also be found to be irritating, while the other features are just incredibly minor for the price. El Dorado for its price offers extremely little in terms of gameplay, maybe tied with RoM and CoP for the least; whether it's worth it would hinge entirely on whether you really think you'll get any value out of the nation designer. I think most people play one or two games with it and then never touch it again.
Then there's Rights of Man, which looks to be the most overpriced DLC for the amount of content yet, offering nothing major. I don't think this is a bad thing, though. The ridiculous patchwork of paid vs free content that's come about has hurt the game quite a bit, and at this point buying the DLC is probably more about supporting the free patches where most of the meat is.
So I guess in summary, just get AoW, and then decide about the other ones after considering whether you think something on their feature list is worth it.
Post by: ein on October 29, 2016, 03:44:29 pm
the new tech system they added with rights of man is more painful than the old one if you have to sit and wait for every institution to reach you in asia
if you only pick up two dlc, i'd recommend common sense and art of war
Post by: Lapoleon on October 30, 2016, 12:12:05 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 30, 2016, 01:35:39 pm
Post by: Cthulufaic on October 30, 2016, 02:16:52 pm
Development to get institutions early really doesn't seem worthIt's not really, but at a certain point its becomes cheaper to develop a province the needed amount than to purchase tech at the increased amount.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 30, 2016, 03:01:41 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 30, 2016, 05:05:14 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 30, 2016, 05:16:44 pm
Also you can conquer institutions, motivation for an ottoblob to take over italy and spain
All will fall to mighty keblob.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 30, 2016, 06:29:44 pm
Post by: PanH on October 31, 2016, 01:28:25 am
Development to get institutions early really doesn't seem worthIt is, long term wise.
The 1500 or so mana you'll spend getting renaissance to pop in China will be offset by the decreased tech you'll pay if you didn't, AND you'll get plenty of development out of it.
Post by: ein on October 31, 2016, 02:55:09 am
except it actually benefits your cities rather than leaving your country in turmoil for years
Post by: Iceblaster on October 31, 2016, 08:24:37 am
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 31, 2016, 12:29:26 pm
Oh yeah, that's why I don't play this often
Post by: SaberToothTiger on October 31, 2016, 03:41:39 pm
Why are my vassals, allies and enemies retarded? They walk around with no discernible purpose, walking in circles on the far outskirts of their respective lands, ignoring each other and only actually fighting when they accidentally bump into each other. You probably played this quite a bit, so could you tell me is it the norm for the AI to try and fail to enact combat?
Not even gonna touch on how when I try-played Castille England got invaded by France whilst the english navy was busy getting it on with portuguese sailors in Lisbon. I already heard that the AI doesn't know how to water.
Post by: ein on October 31, 2016, 04:05:09 pm
crossing a river and fighting in mountains or forest terrain give penalties to the attacker, while fighting in an enemy fort gives penalties to the sieging party
you can't do much for your allies, but in the subject screen, you can set your vassals to be supportive, and tick the 'friendlies can attach' box on a particular army, which will encourage them to move their armies with yours
on the flip side, you know that when the ai does move in to engage, it means they're confident in their ability to defeat you
Post by: Persus13 on October 31, 2016, 04:10:14 pm
Post by: Digital Hellhound on October 31, 2016, 04:19:10 pm
Post by: Iceblaster on October 31, 2016, 06:20:18 pm
How long does it normally take for maps to update? Because I've had no europe reveal for so long. Morroco is on the great powers board for pete's sake. I wanna know :c
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 31, 2016, 06:53:34 pm
I bought EU 4 and something struck me almost immediately whilst playing Poland.
Why are my vassals, allies and enemies retarded? They walk around with no discernible purpose, walking in circles on the far outskirts of their respective lands, ignoring each other and only actually fighting when they accidentally bump into each other. You probably played this quite a bit, so could you tell me is it the norm for the AI to try and fail to enact combat?
The enemies in the africa game I just lost would often just venture off into the uncolonized land just to be eaten by the natives.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 31, 2016, 08:46:33 pm
I bought EU 4 and something struck me almost immediately whilst playing Poland.
Why are my vassals, allies and enemies retarded? They walk around with no discernible purpose, walking in circles on the far outskirts of their respective lands, ignoring each other and only actually fighting when they accidentally bump into each other. You probably played this quite a bit, so could you tell me is it the norm for the AI to try and fail to enact combat?
This is actually a new "feature" with the latest patch that just dropped. Paradox made a bunch of adjustments to the AI that causes them to try and play smarter during wars, but most of the time it really just screws them up. They get stuck in logic loops and are way too noncommittal. I thought it was neat that the AI was trying to play smarter when the patch dropped, but as I've spent more time with them I think this causes way more gameplay problems than previous AI did.
It's pretty likely that the AI will get some tuning, but I also heard the guy who worked on the AI up until now stopped working on EU4, so...
Post by: takfpbi on November 01, 2016, 07:53:55 am
smarterlol nerd (https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Akrasia) simulation
stuck in logic loops
way too noncommittal
Post by: Kot on November 01, 2016, 07:57:49 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 01, 2016, 08:27:53 am
So it is basically 100% accurate simulation of average Europa Universalis player?The average Europa player tends to do too much in game, than too little
The "there is no such thing as overextension, only lack of admin points" strategy
Post by: Iceblaster on November 01, 2016, 10:39:41 am
Only time I really agressively expand is because it's random minors in the americas/SE asia because AE don't matter when everyone's dead :P
Post by: CABL on November 03, 2016, 11:18:20 am
Post by: SaberToothTiger on November 03, 2016, 01:55:00 pm
pu lithuania as usual
rekt teutons and magyars
vassalized livonians
somehow got a pu over mucovy
integrated livonia
vassalized teutons
holy shit, all this in less that 80 years, wtf paradox pls nerf
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 04, 2016, 06:37:39 am
Damn you, UK AI! I'm frigging serious, England/UK probably has THE WORST AI IN EU4! In my game as Morocco, France DoW'ed UK (I was in alliance with the UK). France occupied Navarra (which was owned by Brits), sunk my fleet, and occupied almost all modern-day Morocco. What UK did in this war? You guessed it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB7mHxdHlRY).I think it goes down to how the game doesn't really know how to handle naval powers, hence why Venice rarely ever bucks historical decline (even if the East Indies spice trade isn't rerouted through to Seville), with England it's even worse, the AI often managing to get itself fractured when all it had to do was just use its navy to keep enemy armies away. There is this strange gap between how powerful it is when controlled by players and AI that really goes down to how AI can't naval empire for shit
Post by: Iceblaster on November 04, 2016, 07:36:54 am
Though then again, I might be misremembering.
Post by: Kot on November 04, 2016, 07:58:11 am
holy shit polan is stronk100% historical and true. Deal with it.
pu lithuania as usual
rekt teutons and magyars
vassalized livonians
somehow got a pu over mucovy
integrated livonia
vassalized teutons
holy shit, all this in less that 80 years, wtf paradox pls nerf
Post by: Digital Hellhound on November 04, 2016, 08:55:10 am
Through all this, through all the screams of Winged Hussars being crushed under Teutonic discipline, I was thinking of you, Kot.
(Okay, I wasn't. I was mainly thinking how lucky and desperate my victories were, because Poland is terrifying.)
(Also, wow cultural conversion feels too easy given it's gotta represent either genocide or the kind of cultural suppression and re-education that historically took generations.)
Post by: Kot on November 04, 2016, 11:33:58 am
(Also, wow cultural conversion feels too easy given it's gotta represent either genocide or the kind of cultural suppression and re-education that historically took generations.)It should be noted that this is what various countries tried with Poland for quite a long while and it never truly worked out.
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 04, 2016, 12:43:08 pm
Honestly, I've heard that at least with a strait between kent and calais, England isn't totally useless. Sure, it might not be exactly realistic, but until naval AI gets better it might help.
Though then again, I might be misremembering.
It would help, but usually the English do help out their allies in wars now, the naval AI has gotten much better. I think RoM introduced some kind of bug that causes AI armies to wait indefinitely for transports, though. Might have been caused by that, but that's just a guess.
What hasn't gotten better is how the AI interacts with overseas provinces. The AI will never, ever declare war on a nation it doesn't have a direct land/strait connection with. This is probably the worst AI bug currently in EU4 because it causes so many problems. England/Japan going basically AFK for hundreds of years, the Emperor being unable to keep the HRE healthy, the inability for the Ottomans to ever purge the Knights, the stagnate diplomacy of Indonesia, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the main motivator for the kent-calais strait. I'm sad it didn't make it in.
Post by: Iceblaster on November 04, 2016, 02:29:42 pm
Another gripe unrelated to that. Canton and Macau are the worst border wise. Why can't Hong Kong be a separate province. Even if it only became relevant after the end of EU IV. It just looks ugly otherwise :c
Post by: CABL on November 04, 2016, 05:23:26 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/oxJTSIr.jpg)
P.S That big black blotch in Southern Africa is a Spanish colony.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 04, 2016, 05:33:14 pm
Post by: Iceblaster on November 11, 2016, 01:03:28 pm
The Link! (http://imgur.com/a/hpgVo)
Post by: SaberToothTiger on November 11, 2016, 04:54:03 pm
Five years after start BBB gets a PU over Castille (also, I have never seen the iberian wedding actually succeed and it only triggered once in around six attempts).
Sixty years later they still have that PU.
FML.
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 11, 2016, 06:02:23 pm
Post by: Micro102 on November 11, 2016, 08:24:27 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 11, 2016, 09:56:12 pm
So, I'm preparing to buy DLC during cyber monday. Are any DLC bad? And what are all the non-music/icons one? I just want good gameplay changes.
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Downloadable_content
All of the stuff under "expansions" is actual content and not music/textures/etc. Res Publica is "bad", very little content in it. Conquest of Paradise is pretty bad if you aren't going to play one of the natives in the new world.
The rest are more or less fine. Just make sure you are grabbing Art of War and Common Sense no matter what. The game is pretty incomplete without those two.
Post by: CABL on November 13, 2016, 06:04:56 am
(http://i.imgur.com/6h390Ti.jpg)
*insert horrible pun about hunger and Hungary here*
And yea, here's mandatory first impressions about 1.19 open beta:
- Small countries are doomed against big guys due to removed combat width penalty. It's much easier to stackwipe outnumbered enemy.
- New fort system is much more confusing in 1.19 because UI doesn't show you where you can go and where you can't go.
- UI improvements aren't noticeable for me at all, but thanks for overall missionary power tooltip.
Verdict: A mixed bag with more bad than good, but it's open beta, to be fair. Paradox forums are full of rage about AI spamming forts in every province possible, but the only area with forts everywhere in my game is Northern Italy.
Post by: ein on November 13, 2016, 06:06:08 pm
i was trying so hard to make them implode, but they managed to hold onto the mandate of heaven all the way through 1821
Post by: Kazagarth on November 14, 2016, 05:10:40 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 14, 2016, 05:21:36 pm
As someone who only has EU4 with no DLCs. What are the "must-haves" to get when they go on sale? It looks like there is a lot of DLC, and I wouldn't be able to afford them all even on a steam sale.
Art of War, Common Sense, The Cossacks, and Rights of Man are the four most important, in no particular order. If you have these four, you have 99% of all the content in the game. Unless you play a native tribe you're very rarely going to interact with anything in the other DLCs.
Post by: Kazagarth on November 14, 2016, 05:24:55 pm
As someone who only has EU4 with no DLCs. What are the "must-haves" to get when they go on sale? It looks like there is a lot of DLC, and I wouldn't be able to afford them all even on a steam sale.
Art of War, Common Sense, The Cossacks, and Rights of Man are the four most important, in no particular order. If you have these four, you have 99% of all the content in the game. Unless you play a native tribe you're very rarely going to interact with anything in the other DLCs.
Thanks! I'll make note of them for the next Steam sales. I'll get El Dorado too, since I think that makes playing in the New World better, correct?
Post by: Persus13 on November 14, 2016, 07:00:43 pm
Post by: CABL on November 17, 2016, 09:49:39 am
(http://i.imgur.com/GhxtJU9.jpg)
P.S I will die from laugh if Spain will be Emperor one day.
P.P.S Anyone else noticed that in 1.18/1.19 Protestant/Reformation Faith consumes HRE too fast? I even have Protestant Austria!
Post by: Persus13 on November 22, 2016, 01:52:35 pm
Post by: Persus13 on November 22, 2016, 01:56:10 pm
Post by: CABL on November 22, 2016, 03:08:37 pm
France got beaten numerous times...
In my two latest EUIV games, France was severely beaten by neighbors. In my Protestant Milan -> Italy "speedrun", Burgundy got huge and eat a decent chunk of France (Burgundy is quite a beast if it's not beaten/inherited by the event, to be fair). In my Ottomans 1.19 beta test game, France failed to drive England back to their islands, and as a result, lose its western coastal provinces. I was kind enough to befriend France and retrieve their provinces from England (I still angry at them after Morocco incident).
BTW, Here's my Italy "speedrun" (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/post-your-europa-universalis-4-empire.707840/page-579) (Warning! Major border gore!). Just scroll down 'til you find Sunbro9901's post (If you registered on Paradox Forums, you can say hi to me in private messages).
Post by: WealthyRadish on November 22, 2016, 03:18:44 pm
3) DO NOT USE CONTROL ALT DELETE WHEN THE GAME IS STARTING. It made my computer get stuck on a black screen. Had to restart it to get it going again.
I use ctrl + shift + esc to directly open up the task manager when I want to kill the process (which is like once every five minutes when testing), and haven't experienced any freezes. alt + F4 may also work, along with ctrl + w. It's a bit funny that the duct tape tier hotfix that introduced the need for the game to restart when going back to the main menu is still around.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 23, 2016, 06:28:42 pm
After doing some Knights of Rhodes runs just to calibrate stuff, started off as England. Unlike in normal EU4, the communication times between London and France before you can start building roads everywhere causes severe autonomy issues, thus in order to maximize resources for the war effort all available lands were turned over to Aquitaine or Gascogne for administration. The English won the first few battles, staving off the French and carving a few chunks of France away into Aquitaine, however Paris was not taken. I was waiting for the crucial moment when the English would be able to field longbowmen, as that would rapidly shift the quality of armed forces away from the men at arms of France to the longbowmen of England. All the while this occurred I sought allies but found none, which was an issue as France found suitable allies in both Aragon and Castile, rendering them impervious to English initiated wars even at their weakest. Unable to do much but conquer some independent counts in the France region, England turned its attention towards integrating Scotland and Ireland into a British-isles superstate, anticipating that this would improve chances at securing the French throne (especially as it removed Scotland from the French coalition and added its troops to the English cause).
The next war went incredibly well, the longbowmen inflicting immense casualties on the French. There was just one issue; the English did not have enough resources to afford victory, especially as the Castilians were hammering the English alongside the French, and the Royal Navy was not of such a size that it could take both countries on at the same time. To avoid having to surrender with a Franco-Spanish invasion of Wessex and London, vassalage of Gascogne and some gold was forked over. As the French had lost some land and were hurting manpower wise, they accepted this peace. Gascogne was eventually attacked and its lands incorporated into Aquitaine, all the while the English navy expanded in size and scope, the Scottish and English nations growing closer and Ireland being assimilated by diplomacy, alliance and warfare. Things would go especially well once I secured an alliance with Portugal, Sweden and Naples - with Portugal and Naples providing very powerful counterbalances to the Mediterranean Iberian powers, whilst Sweden kept Norway pacified.
I was rather worried however, in the geographical difficulties faced by my predicament. Portugal and Naples were a fitting counterbalance, however my Aquitaine didn't have strategic depth; I could not surprise attack the French as their Fortresses were behind the hills and mountains surrounding Aquitaine, hill forts and mountains I needed to control to solidify Aquitaine's security as a sure thing. Without a secure Aquitaine, I simply would never be able to keep an army encamped around Paris long enough (as Castile and France would always be able to link up Forces in the time it would take to siege Paris), meaning France would ultimately be victorious.
Things would go horribly wrong when I declared war again, facing much the same problem again. It was simply far easier for the French to siege Aquitaine than it was for the English to siege their hillforts, and so the English were forced to abandon all their Norman cores & their gains in Aquitaine from the first successful quarter. I regathered my forces, amassing a large navy and army, building roads throughout Britain wherever possible and waited for the right time to strike France. The moment arrived when France got drawn into a Castilian-Aragonese war which bled it dry, after which it was struck by a plague. With the French King depleted of manpower and his provinces devastated by plague, that left only the French nobles and Aragon to contend with. The attack which could have secured Aquitaine or even Paris itself was about to commence, when the French gained control of the curia. My King was excommunicated by the Pope, forcing Naples to abandon their alliance with England. The French declared war with the aid of Burgundy and Aragon, my faith in the longbowmen was well-founded, but the superior resources of France was simply an insurmountable thing to beat.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I realized then that I had fallen into the exact same overconfidence and beliefs as did the monarchs of the hundred years war and felt rather foolish, for repeating their mistakes and doing things like dying. This would lay the foundations of the future Anglo nation however - as the monarchy sold Calais and began departing from Aquitaine (looting it for all the gold it had before giving the immensely angry nobles independence). Looting Aquitaine and granting it independence was the only wise move I made in the whole hundred years war.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My one happy moment was getting revenge on Sweden for betraying our alliance - they got invaded by a Danish-Norwegian alliance. England wrecked Norway and Denmark, and as a result left the war having annexed Iceland. This still left Sweden on her own, and thus Sweden got partitioned between Denmark and Norway anyways. Interestingly, Silesians and England taking the Calixtine heresy seems to have slowed down the reformation considerably
Post by: CABL on November 24, 2016, 07:07:30 am
I'm going with Expansion. Sorry for wasting your time.
Post by: Kazagarth on November 26, 2016, 12:51:44 am
Though I probably won't take too much advantage of EU4 for now. I've played it mostly vanilla for quite a lot of play time. But, I'm really looking forward to the next MEIOU 2.0 patch, which sounds amazing. I hope it turns out good, they've spent a LOT of time with it. But it'll make EU4 so amazing if it turns out good. I assume it will. I haven't messed with MEIOU yet, but it looks like high quality content for a mod.
Post by: Iceblaster on November 26, 2016, 11:41:16 am
I'm waiting on the update that adds populations to M&T. Definitely prefer that.
Probably prefer it if I could get that as a separate mod, though. M&T seems to complex for me to enjoy. It's not that I don't enjoy complexity (played DF before, after all), but sometimes the complexity just seems unnecessary.
Yeaaah. I really would like some of its features, but with all the others tacked on + a map that will definitely make it horrible to play on my computer, I don't see a reason to do much of anything with it. Plus, it seems like some of its features are complexity for complexity's sake.
Post by: CABL on November 26, 2016, 01:59:22 pm
I need Doctor Freud... I REALLY do.
Post by: Uristides on November 26, 2016, 05:21:37 pm
(http://i.imgur.com/43XuWdk.jpg)Uh, I can't spot any dicks in that pciture. Where the dicks at?
I need Doctor Freud... I REALLY do.
Post by: Innsmothe on November 27, 2016, 03:08:28 am
Maybe it's pronounced 'shag a thai'?(http://i.imgur.com/43XuWdk.jpg)Uh, I can't spot any dicks in that pciture. Where the dicks at?
I need Doctor Freud... I REALLY do.
Post by: CABL on November 27, 2016, 03:14:51 am
Uh, I can't spot any dicks in that picture. Where the dicks at?
Look at Uzbek and then slowly turn head to the east. You will see pretty phallic occupied territory (it has white color).
Post by: Persus13 on November 29, 2016, 02:15:38 pm
I'm trying to join my brother's game with an RNW (that we spent literally an hour genning for. The game was generating shitty stuff.), but when I try to join it doesn't even let me connect, it just stays on the screen I was previously on. There's no 'Connecting' popup, literally NOTHING happens. Does anyone have a solution for this OTHER than him restarting his game, because I'd rather that we don't lose this RNW.Have you restarted your game? What screen are you on? How are you connecting?
Post by: Kot on November 29, 2016, 02:35:37 pm
You do need Doctor Freud.
Uh, I can't spot any dicks in that picture. Where the dicks at?
Look at Uzbek and then slowly turn head to the east. You will see pretty phallic occupied territory (it has white color).
Post by: Uristides on December 02, 2016, 02:00:45 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This has been quite a funny run. TO slapped Poland around early game and if they got the PU over Lith they lost it. Then Hungary became a leading PU partner over Austria, I intervened but needed more than 100% warscore to break it, so I just forced them to liberate Transylvania instead and waited for it to fall apart on its own.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 02, 2016, 04:40:34 pm
Post by: Iceblaster on December 02, 2016, 06:25:49 pm
/irrelevant comment
Post by: ein on December 02, 2016, 07:11:40 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 05, 2016, 05:46:01 pm
Playing a game with the custom nation of Ny-Island. Presently things are going VERY well.
The issue, however, is Japan. Somehow they seem perpetually able to defeat my armies. Either they manage it through stupidly good rolls, stupidly good commanders, or, in my most recent invasion attempt, them somehow managing to maintain a fuckhuge army in spite of them owning Japan and nothing else.
It's hard to get an army bigger than theirs when the only province you own directly connected to Japan is that tiny little one to their north that starts off uncolonised. I have improved the fuck out of it and it still has a limit of 44, while Japan's fielding something like 80K men.
Lucky Nations maybe???
Post by: ein on December 05, 2016, 05:57:54 pm
attacking into pre-unification japan especially is suicide
Post by: Uristides on December 05, 2016, 07:27:45 pm
Playing a game with the custom nation of Ny-Island. Presently things are going VERY well.After they changed the straits rules invading Japan has become terribly hard, indeed. Before that you could just galley spam, then bait one of their armies into an island, block the straits and deal with them one by one. And now that institutions spread like wildfire and you can't count on them having poor units + backwards tech anymore, hell, I don't even like to imagine what it's like.
The issue, however, is Japan. Somehow they seem perpetually able to defeat my armies. Either they manage it through stupidly good rolls, stupidly good commanders, or, in my most recent invasion attempt, them somehow managing to maintain a fuckhuge army in spite of them owning Japan and nothing else.
It's hard to get an army bigger than theirs when the only province you own directly connected to Japan is that tiny little one to their north that starts off uncolonised. I have improved the fuck out of it and it still has a limit of 44, while Japan's fielding something like 80K men.
Not sure how I'd aproach that other than maybe baiting them to attack me so I can cheese straits and blockades for war score.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 05, 2016, 08:21:21 pm
2. Rack up war exhaustion
3. Multiple simultaneous fake strikes to lure army onto one end of Japan in time to launch real strike
4. Die anyways (or win)
Post by: ein on December 05, 2016, 08:41:55 pm
Yeah, Japans ideas ARE pretty good (10% discipline tradition OP) but even so, I'd never have thought that they'd be able to field 80K men using Japan alone. Pretty sure they haven't taken quantity idea either.
daimyou ideas, possibly
i forget how, or if the ai ever does, but it's possible to become japan and keep daimyou ideas
Post by: Exerosp on December 06, 2016, 05:08:52 pm
Post by: Iceblaster on December 06, 2016, 05:49:38 pm
Post by: Kot on December 06, 2016, 07:10:05 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on December 06, 2016, 09:10:29 pm
I'm getting an urge to blob.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 06, 2016, 09:24:08 pm
Started my first Austria > HRE game after hearing being the emperor is like being a kindergarten teacher. Any tips about what I should look out for?Make the Burgundians your waifu so you inherit their land instead of France or England, ensuring you reclaim the lands of the Empire. Then you only have to worry about an expansionist France (which if you are diplomatic, can usually avoid), allowing you to consolidate the Empire. You'll want to diplo idea up to spread your Hapsburg tentacles everywhere and ensure your best chances of inheriting princedoms, and it may be worth guaranteeing the independence of Byzantium (maybe not Venice, as they will have territories you will want in future) just to slow the Ottomans down very much. It is a good idea to support the Polish against the Teutonic Knights, in order to preemptively destroy a powerful protestant Prussia from interfering with the HRE.
Your main issues will be dealing with electors (easy enough with alliances and marriages, though they can occasionally during periods of reform, hand over control to one of your rivals) and dealing with rivals (best not to fight them if they're within the Empire - only fight to humiliate them in front of the electors). At all times try to maintain peace within the Empire. If you nommed Burgundy then prepare for the Dutch, if not, ignore them.
When the reformation happens prepare for all of your shit to be fucked up. You will be better off as Catholic, as to convert to Protestantism will momentarily disqualify you for Imperial inheritance - it's a lot easier to weather the storm as a Catholic maintaining the status quo.
Post by: ein on December 06, 2016, 10:04:07 pm
Question: I know it's been asked before, but what DLC is really needed to get the "full" experience--so to speak???
I'm getting an urge to blob.
art of war, common sense, rights of man
if you like micromanagement, get cossacks
if you want to play american nations, el dorado and/or conquest of paradise
Post by: Persus13 on December 06, 2016, 10:50:29 pm
Post by: lordcooper on December 07, 2016, 05:09:35 am
There seriously needs to be some sort of recommendation in the OP. I feel like that question gets asked every 5-10 pages or so.
The only difference this would make is people would say 'read the OP' instead of providing answers. The question will still keep on coming.
Post by: CABL on December 11, 2016, 06:55:19 am
P.S Anyone noticed that France is kinda weak most of the time? The only time they were truly blobby is my Russian campaign.
Post by: Iceblaster on December 12, 2016, 02:30:40 pm
Post by: Uristides on December 13, 2016, 06:23:11 pm
I still have some hope, though, that ages system could bring in some good things. Right now the game has this problem that gameplay is far too homogeneous and there really isn't anything new or interesting to see beyond the late 1600s, differentiated mechanics for different ages could perhaps make that a litttle better.
Post by: Catastrophic lolcats on December 13, 2016, 07:18:40 pm
I might jump ship to MEIOU when 2.0 comes out. I'm hoping I can stand the bloat and performance hit for the institutions and population overhaul. Historical HRE borders might make me go blind though.
Here's a link to the video diaries if anyone hasn't seen them (https://www.youtube.com/user/Technolopithicus/videos). Some good stuff right there.
Post by: WealthyRadish on December 13, 2016, 10:39:32 pm
Post by: Tawa on January 01, 2017, 10:57:37 pm
Simply put, how do I beat the Granadans?
Post by: ein on January 01, 2017, 11:07:22 pm
on the war declaration screen, if you hover over the check or cross next to a nation's name, it gives you a detailed breakdown of why a nation would or would not join in that war
being in debt, having high war exhaustion, and already being in a war are typical reasons why a nation would dishonour the call to arms
you could also try threatening war, it's not guaranteed, and not very efficient in terms of truce timers, but it can be an easy way to bully weaker neighbours, especially if you're focusing on expanding on another front
Post by: Tawa on January 01, 2017, 11:13:38 pm
Thanks! The tutorial gave me the idea that it should be a piece of cake to take on Granada immediately.
Post by: ein on January 01, 2017, 11:51:12 pm
i was gonna say, i don't think i've ever seen granada ally ottomans, or ottomans become defender of the faith that early
the trick there, then, is blockades
with strait crossings, you can park your navy in that sea tile, blockading it, and preventing the moroccan troops from entering iberia and defending granada
then, once you've dealt with granada, you can move your armies (which should be larger and superior tbh) across the strait to deal with morocco
keep in mind tho that if someone controls both sides of a strait, they can ignore blockades and pass uninhibited, so (assuming you're allying portugal and bringing them into the war) you'll need to siege down gibraltar before the moroccans siege down ceuta
Post by: Persus13 on January 02, 2017, 04:51:17 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 19, 2017, 07:00:47 pm
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on January 20, 2017, 12:34:38 am
This was probably the second greatest thing I've watched this week.Bahaha, don't read the comments before watching the full video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHpnb-pzXEs)That was fucking great.
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 20, 2017, 02:07:51 am
Post by: Iceblaster on January 20, 2017, 09:16:26 am
Post by: Donuts on January 20, 2017, 10:04:10 am
And Russia?
...Et tu, Austria?
Guess the Kebab gets to live another day. :'(
Post by: ein on January 23, 2017, 07:51:50 am
i really like the idea, and the trade league mechanic is neat, but the fact that you're limited to 20 provinces to take the decision is pretty rough, as is full economic ideas
it feels like, not only is the game easier if you just blob normally, but you can make just as much money, if not more, through trade that way
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 23, 2017, 10:43:11 am
"I could do x, y, and z with merchants to seize trade power in this node... or I could just conquer it for basically the same effect and more"
Post by: Micro102 on January 23, 2017, 12:58:54 pm
I wish trade was more dynamic, too.
For example, if you had a large economic base with lots of trade power in America, the trade routes could potentially flip to flow AWAY from Europe, to represent a large amount of people buying products FROM Europe, rather than having large amounts of goods eternally flowing into Europe, even if Europe's economically fucked.
I don't think that's realistic. The populations in the colonies would just be abysmally low.
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on January 23, 2017, 01:51:19 pm
I wished freaking development was dynamic like populations are in you know real life, but I guess basic programming and QoL is to much for the EU4 team.Thing is, population is represented using development. If you have a high development, then you've got a high population. As little sense as that makes, that's how it works.I wish trade was more dynamic, too.
For example, if you had a large economic base with lots of trade power in America, the trade routes could potentially flip to flow AWAY from Europe, to represent a large amount of people buying products FROM Europe, rather than having large amounts of goods eternally flowing into Europe, even if Europe's economically fucked.
I don't think that's realistic. The populations in the colonies would just be abysmally low.
Again, one of the reasons I like the idea of the upcoming M&T population system.
Post by: ein on January 23, 2017, 06:09:59 pm
I wished freaking development was dynamic like populations are in you know real life, but I guess basic programming and QoL is to much for the EU4 team.
well there are a few events that emulate that
the issue with dynamic shit in general is that the more you program in, the more resources it takes up. the game already starts to chug in the later years, and especially during massive wars like the league wars. pulse events aren't perfect, but they're a nice way to add dynamicism without further slowing the game. it would be nice if there were more of them tho
my main issue is that the game just does not allow for playing tall at all
merchant republics are inherently shit aside from the few that start as merchant republics thanks to the province limit required for taking the decision (on top of the massive stab hit), and development is far too costly. it's, like, what, base of 10 admin per development to core a province? but on average 50+ to actually put points into development
even stacking modifiers for development cost, it's still cheaper to just blob
you can't even compensate for it by creating loads of subjects thanks to the liberty desire from development vassals and marches get. haven't played around with client states enough to know if they would work well, but those are relatively late-game. if you still have only 20 provinces by the time you get access to them, you're either bad at the game or you've seriously gimped yourself for a gimmicky gov't type
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on January 23, 2017, 06:12:47 pm
I really doubt their competence sometimes they're so hit or miss, I mean they could made development state-based or a way to raise all the provinces with 3 mil development to 4 or something. Instead a have to weigh the profit/cost of doing on providence at a time.They abandoned it because in EUIII you'd wind up with everywhere having the max population. Since apparently artificial caps dependent on how well developed a province is and the terrain etc (ie what the M&T team is using) are too difficult to code or come up with or what ever.I wished freaking development was dynamic like populations are in you know real life, but I guess basic programming and QoL is to much for the EU4 team.Thing is, population is represented using development. If you have a high development, then you've got a high population. As little sense as that makes, that's how it works.I wish trade was more dynamic, too.
For example, if you had a large economic base with lots of trade power in America, the trade routes could potentially flip to flow AWAY from Europe, to represent a large amount of people buying products FROM Europe, rather than having large amounts of goods eternally flowing into Europe, even if Europe's economically fucked.
I don't think that's realistic. The populations in the colonies would just be abysmally low.
Again, one of the reasons I like the idea of the upcoming M&T population system.
It's just one of the things that really annoys me.
and Ein like I said hit or miss and I'm pretty sure the suits are a major factor in this plus shit swedish work ethic.
Post by: ein on January 23, 2017, 06:17:24 pm
the bonuses for maintaining neutral karma are very nice, but the karma hits from declaring war in the first place, and taking land, aren't even close to made up for by the karma gains from releasing nations and returning cores
and while you're busy trying to make everyone get along, your neighbours are blobbing and eating up all the tiny little nations you're releasing for the sake of karma
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 26, 2017, 06:07:11 am
Shakti/Shiva Hinduism, Sikhism or Islam are preferable alternatives, I prefer Shia to Sunni for the morale bonus, plus if you're conquering loads of Hindu provinces then the Sunni bonus to TOTF is not that useful
Post by: ein on January 26, 2017, 06:21:35 am
keeping subjects doesn't really help either, between liberty desire from development and the relations limit
while you do get a ton of karma from forcing nations to release other nations and return land, anything outside of your relations limit is just going to be eaten up again. buddhists also shouldn't get the prestige hit from using the return province interaction
that said, the bonuses from neutral karma are very powerful and if you do manage to balance them early on, it's honestly negligible to sit at permanent -1 dip rep once you unlock imperialism
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 26, 2017, 06:32:27 am
Though I get your point the karma system seems really poorly balanced. The Orthodox and Muslim religions get that cool dynamism where they can tool their state towards a weak religion and high taxes or research, or for more manpower, morale and missionary bonus. Orthodox transition over time, Muslim through decisions and warfare (their diplomatic actions affecting piety making much more sense than Buddhism too). I reckon Buddhism having a slider that is affected by too much time at war or too much time at peace would be neater
Post by: ein on January 26, 2017, 07:15:30 am
i know the next patch is adding in tributaries as subjects that don't take up a relations slot, not sure if that'll be available to anyone but ming, but a similar system to that or protectorates could be used for buddhist nations so they can maintain more neutral karma without leaving the tiny nations they release free to be gobbled right back up by hungry neighbours. if nothing else, making guarantees free for buddhists would help a ton with karma management
one thing in particular i also really want to see is some form of syncreticism for shinto, which would accurately reflect historical shinto. could be something that adds more dynamicism to the ikko ikki and kurishitan events than just whoops this one random province is catholic now. i'll have to try out buddhist japan sometime tho. last time i played japan was before i started playing ironman, so i'm missing all of the achievements for japan
the various extra faiths in ck2 would be nice to have too. the bonuses exist in-game already, seeing as you can get them through the ck2 save converter, it'd just be a matter of putting them in the game proper
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 26, 2017, 12:16:14 pm
personally i'd like to see more interesting mechanics that go beyond sliders that give you varying bonuses and/or penalties. imagine if buddhists got other benefits from having good relations with other nations, like cheaper development cost. that would synergise well with the concept of a religion that rewards being nice to other, smaller nationsThat actually makes loads of sense
i know the next patch is adding in tributaries as subjects that don't take up a relations slot, not sure if that'll be available to anyone but ming, but a similar system to that or protectorates could be used for buddhist nations so they can maintain more neutral karma without leaving the tiny nations they release free to be gobbled right back up by hungry neighbours. if nothing else, making guarantees free for buddhists would help a ton with karma managementDoes vassalization or guarantees affect karma?
one thing in particular i also really want to see is some form of syncreticism for shinto, which would accurately reflect historical shinto. could be something that adds more dynamicism to the ikko ikki and kurishitan events than just whoops this one random province is catholic now. i'll have to try out buddhist japan sometime tho. last time i played japan was before i started playing ironman, so i'm missing all of the achievements for japanBOGOMILISTS FOR THE WORLD
the various extra faiths in ck2 would be nice to have too. the bonuses exist in-game already, seeing as you can get them through the ck2 save converter, it'd just be a matter of putting them in the game proper
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 26, 2017, 01:30:08 pm
Post by: ein on January 26, 2017, 06:37:08 pm
Does vassalization or guarantees affect karma?
unfortunately not, but honouring defensive calls is a massive karma boost, so guarantees can provide you with karma indirectly. the issue is, guarantees take up a relations slot, so they're effectively useless on minor neighbours that aren't already your allies or vassals. personally, i basically only use guarantees to speed up the process of hitting +190 relations so i can vassalise a nation, which is why i think buddhists should get guarantees for free
i can't remember if giving land to a vassal through the subject interactions increases karma, but forcing a nation to return cores to your vassal gives a massive karma boost, just like returning cores to a non-subject nation. similarly, you will always gain karma through the return province action, albeit at the cost of prestige
vassal feeding synergises fairly well with buddhists' early game, so long as you still keep yourself big and powerful enough to keep liberty desire down, but that's generally one of the best strategies for early-game expansion anyway
A tributary system would be extremely useful for representing the mandala system of southeast asia, the principalities of India, all the steppe hordes and tribal nations in general, and is perhaps the single most useful tool missing from diplomacy. So I give it an 80% chance that it's limited to ming and hardcoded to the point of uselessness (and maybe sold as DLC?).
ahaha yeah. who knows tho, they might add it in as part of the free content with the next expansion
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 30, 2017, 08:34:24 pm
Post by: Icefire2314 on January 30, 2017, 11:37:33 pm
The other thing I wish they improved on with EU4 is the pretty much hardcoded nation focus. By that I mean, native americans do absolutely nothing for 200 years until europeans arrive then just die
and europeans (COUGH SPAIN) seem to beeline for the Americas no matter what
i literally had a game where we reduced spain to nothing but The Canarias (read: -1 economy) and they still beelined to america and now have colonies
it would be cool if the ai was more dynamic, like japan unites really early on so the AI takes exploration ideas and discovers america, or something idk
Post by: stabbymcstabstab on January 31, 2017, 09:45:10 am
Post by: ein on February 01, 2017, 01:46:13 am
Post by: ein on February 01, 2017, 03:02:36 am
the idea is more just to get the modifiers away from the typical france, ottobots, muscovy, castile, england. small changes, in my experience, tend to trigger a sort of butterfly effect, which is why most of the ahistorical shenanigans tend to be caused by player intervention. bohemia or bayern getting lucky nation instead of austria or brandenburg seems like a minor change when they're all more or less roughly equivalent nations in terms of base power, but it can trigger a fairly massive shift in the political landscape of the hre
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 01, 2017, 07:47:51 am
I love EU4, but hate the AI. Useless 99.99999% of the time, unless of course they're your enemy.AI is dynamic. In one of my games as the Knights, I decisively broke Ottoman power and began conquering all of their fiefdoms and states. The weak Ottoman Empire allowed the Mamlukes to grow strong and become a great power and regional hegemon, during which they adopted exploration ideas and expanded through the Indian ocean to become a major international spice trader, sending Indonesian spice from their plantations up into the red sea through their Indian Sultanate allies. Once the Knights turned their attentions on the Mamlukes, attacked on two fronts by the Indonesians in SE Asia and the Knights in Egypt, the Mamlukes were effectively exiled to one fortress island in the Malayas, form which they founded an effective city state to colonize the Americas. By this point however most of the Americas was taken, but with great effort the Mamlukes sent their desert dwelling citizens to Alaska. No doubt extremely bitter at this turn of affairs, the Alaskan Mamlukes quickly grew rebellious against the Mamluke city-state, and with the aid of the Spanish plotted for independence, becoming the first independent colonial nation and the only Egyptian/Sunni colonial nation.
The other thing I wish they improved on with EU4 is the pretty much hardcoded nation focus. By that I mean, native americans do absolutely nothing for 200 years until europeans arrive then just die
and europeans (COUGH SPAIN) seem to beeline for the Americas no matter what
i literally had a game where we reduced spain to nothing but The Canarias (read: -1 economy) and they still beelined to america and now have colonies
it would be cool if the ai was more dynamic, like japan unites really early on so the AI takes exploration ideas and discovers america, or something idk
Spoiler: Some other weird things from the same game (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Austria inherited much lands and integrated many vassals in the early game HRE, and was shaping up to be an effective Emperor with mastery over the Empire, getting its first reform done in no time. Inheriting the lowlands, Austria gained a border with France, which was to be its undoing. Though France did not severely defeat Austria, the loss in prestige was enough to ensure that Austria fell under a personal union with the Magyar Hapsburgs. The entirety of the Austrian lands falling under the overlordship of Hungary completely killed all Imperial Authority and ensured the HRE would never unite ever again.
It's a pity, Hungary was 20 years away from integrating Austria when its PU was broken by a Franco-Commonwealth alliance.
Post by: Icefire2314 on February 01, 2017, 10:42:33 am
Thing is, population is represented using development. If you have a high development, then you've got a high population. As little sense as that makes, that's how it works.I wish trade was more dynamic, too.
For example, if you had a large economic base with lots of trade power in America, the trade routes could potentially flip to flow AWAY from Europe, to represent a large amount of people buying products FROM Europe, rather than having large amounts of goods eternally flowing into Europe, even if Europe's economically fucked.
I don't think that's realistic. The populations in the colonies would just be abysmally low.
Again, one of the reasons I like the idea of the upcoming M&T population system.
What is M&T? Meiou and Taxes? or something else?
I also had the idea that it would be cool to overhaul trade and make each province effectively its own trade node. very high development provinces (given multipliers by the modifiers on the province ie: estuary) would exert a great force over nearby provinces and they would trade at the large trade hub. this opens counter play for countries like ireland, for example who want to become a great trading power but are restricted because of England, Holland, etc and the North sea doesn't quite cut it lol. This doesn't really explain for overseas provinces, or how trade flows between nodes, but I think it would be way more fun than the static nodes and "england is ub0r 0verp0wered bc end trade node op"
I love EU4, but hate the AI. Useless 99.99999% of the time, unless of course they're your enemy.AI is dynamic. In one of my games as the Knights, I decisively broke Ottoman power and began conquering all of their fiefdoms and states. The weak Ottoman Empire allowed the Mamlukes to grow strong and become a great power and regional hegemon, during which they adopted exploration ideas and expanded through the Indian ocean to become a major international spice trader, sending Indonesian spice from their plantations up into the red sea through their Indian Sultanate allies. Once the Knights turned their attentions on the Mamlukes, attacked on two fronts by the Indonesians in SE Asia and the Knights in Egypt, the Mamlukes were effectively exiled to one fortress island in the Malayas, form which they founded an effective city state to colonize the Americas. By this point however most of the Americas was taken, but with great effort the Mamlukes sent their desert dwelling citizens to Alaska. No doubt extremely bitter at this turn of affairs, the Alaskan Mamlukes quickly grew rebellious against the Mamluke city-state, and with the aid of the Spanish plotted for independence, becoming the first independent colonial nation and the only Egyptian/Sunni colonial nation.
The other thing I wish they improved on with EU4 is the pretty much hardcoded nation focus. By that I mean, native americans do absolutely nothing for 200 years until europeans arrive then just die
and europeans (COUGH SPAIN) seem to beeline for the Americas no matter what
i literally had a game where we reduced spain to nothing but The Canarias (read: -1 economy) and they still beelined to america and now have colonies
it would be cool if the ai was more dynamic, like japan unites really early on so the AI takes exploration ideas and discovers america, or something idkThe Emperor of Trebizond started the Enlightenment. I conquered them just to see if that would speed up rate of adoption, but didn't seem to do much. RIP TrebizondSpoiler: Some other weird things from the same game (click to show/hide)Spain, Venice, the Papal State, Hungary-Austria, Cyprus and the Knights Hospitaller formed a super alliance, Mediterranean NATOSpoiler (click to show/hide)The Byzantine Empire was finally destroyed in the late 17th century with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, where the Med NATO alliance went up against the rival alliance of France and RussiaSpoiler (click to show/hide)Also hilarious is that Scotland nearly succeeded in destroying England. Cultural rebels undid the mighty Scottish conquest, however Scotland did remain powerful long enough for England and Scotland to create English Brazil and Scottish Brazil, which was eventually to include French Brazil. My absolute favourite though was that the Hungary-Austrian Empire formed. Not the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but the Hungary-Austrian Empire.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Austria inherited much lands and integrated many vassals in the early game HRE, and was shaping up to be an effective Emperor with mastery over the Empire, getting its first reform done in no time. Inheriting the lowlands, Austria gained a border with France, which was to be its undoing. Though France did not severely defeat Austria, the loss in prestige was enough to ensure that Austria fell under a personal union with the Magyar Hapsburgs. The entirety of the Austrian lands falling under the overlordship of Hungary completely killed all Imperial Authority and ensured the HRE would never unite ever again.
It's a pity, Hungary was 20 years away from integrating Austria when its PU was broken by a Franco-Commonwealth alliance.
AI can be dynamic, just in my experience it tends to do the same thing every game. it's dynamic in small ways, like France might get beaten by England or something, or the Irish minors/Scotland may survive for 15 years instead of 10, but very rarely do I see anything like the Africans colonizing America or Ottomans attacking Naples while Aragon is at war. When I play, it just seems to consistently be the same game, the only difference that I feel is in how I play.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on February 06, 2017, 10:37:17 am
Poland promised me land in a war with the knight orders, but took all the taken land for himself. What an asshole.
Post by: ein on February 06, 2017, 05:33:01 pm
if taking teutonic lands doesn't turn poland hostile, they're a safe ally once you have what you need to form prussia, assuming they actually get the union over lithuania
in my experience, allying lithuania out of the gate is generally safer, since they're less likely to compete for lands you need to form prussia and if poland doesn't take the union, lithuania tends to remain relatively strong while poland rapidly falls to shit
Post by: Majestic7 on February 07, 2017, 04:48:47 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on February 07, 2017, 01:35:37 pm
Territories have a 75% local autonomy minimum. Once you core the territories you can turn them into states, which have a 50% local autonomy minimum. You can finish coring the state after that, bringing the LA minimum to zero.
So basically you'll only ever get, at most, 25% of the income from a territory that you could theoretically get from a cored state.
Post by: Culise on February 07, 2017, 01:43:40 pm
A territory is also restricted to only obtaining "territorial cores" on provinces in that territory; while cheaper, these are also lost if you ever lose the province to an enemy (say, Spain or France comes knocking). You also cannot assign territories to estates, though this may not be a flaw per se depending on how you approach estates. States will also disrupt trade companies; existing trade companies are removed from states, and new ones are not formed.
Post by: ein on February 08, 2017, 12:47:20 am
elaborating a bit more on estates, too, if you play with the cossacks: your older land is likely going to have a true autonomy below the 25% floor of a province controlled by the estates. by removing that land from an estate, the autonomy will instantly decrease and you'll make more money out of it. then you can give your newly conquered land, which should have 40~50% autonomy to an estate, reducing the effective autonomy for one of the province's sources of income to 0%
personally, the only time i wouldn't make states, if i have the slots for them, is if i'm making trade companies and/or colonial nations
Post by: Majestic7 on February 08, 2017, 02:17:42 am
Post by: MrRoboto75 on February 08, 2017, 10:47:51 am
I took part of mecklinburg (Guy was a OPM with no army and no allies, sent a diplomatic insult), and two provinces eastern of Pomerania. Means I have a coastline now and get to deal with SAILORS, what a mechanic. Austria naturally has a -60 opinion modifier with me (why does he care who own what within the empire, its going to be a vomit of minors and bordergore anyway), but his overall opinion is still positive, and the emperor has the diplomat personality. Stupid Pom separatists almost got me, defeated my army, had to take a loan and some mercs to put them down. Getting the coastline and some trade ships has been good for income though.
I'd say Lübeck is my next target, though not right now. His capital is a coastal center of trade, so it has to be mine. He also owns the other half of Mecklinburg. I just got tech 5, and thus the first idea group, but I don't know what to pick yet.
A comet happened. I yelled at them about the economy, those fools.
Post by: ein on February 08, 2017, 02:15:45 pm
as for ideas, innovative first is good for brandenburg/prussia. i'm not personally a fan of innovative, or policies in general, but inno + quality gets you an infantry combat ability policy, which is what gets you the so-called space marines prussia is infamous for
watch out for lubey's trade league buddies too, when you do fight them. iirc, it doesn't display in the declare war screen like normal allies, but they WILL get called in when you attack
Post by: Loud Whispers on March 03, 2017, 01:17:46 pm
Post by: MrRoboto75 on April 04, 2017, 10:32:12 pm
He got the PU over Lithuania as he usually gets, and now he has one over Muscovy as well. At least he's still my ally.
Post by: Heron TSG on April 08, 2017, 01:58:10 pm
Post by: Donuts on April 08, 2017, 03:02:55 pm
Post by: Tawa on April 15, 2017, 12:05:12 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on April 16, 2017, 11:13:16 am
Spoiler: All the conditions under which it'll spread in vanilla (click to show/hide)
To sum it up, you can either be protestant or wait for it to painfully spread out from your (European) capital (or dump thousands of ducats into it, which is incidentally the only way the AI ever gets poorly scripted institutions like this either).
Post by: FearfulJesuit on April 20, 2017, 05:02:05 pm
Post by: Tawa on April 27, 2017, 04:59:59 pm
Post by: CABL on April 30, 2017, 06:12:57 am
1. Is Mandate of Heaven worth it? How did people react to it?
2. Has been the combat width brought back? Removal of combat width made small-to-medium factions even more weaker than ever before. They have like zero chance to win against Ottoderps or BBB after the removal (unless you're a god-tier player).
Post by: Chosrau on April 30, 2017, 07:04:29 am
Post by: CABL on April 30, 2017, 07:22:37 am
Uh, I dont think they ever removed combat width. Just the terrain penalties to it. But since one is now always the defender when relieving a siege, defending has become way easier.
Well, I did mean "combat width penalty". In what way defending became "easier"? If anything, small nations have zero chance without the penalty which their enemies receive, penalty to rolls is not noticeable against BBB or Ottomans, while "combat width penalty" was deciding factor between failure or success.
Post by: chaoticag on April 30, 2017, 07:37:33 am
What's the easiest Japan start these days? I know for a fact the Mandate of Heaven update updated the way Japan is designed, so it seems to me that older guides to unification are tangentially useful at best.Uesugi seems one of the best Daimyos around, judging by AI performance. They were also a historical powerhouse if that matters any. If you can manage the diplo game well, Shimazu looks really interesting in terms of their ideas, since even their traditions let them snowball into having the best troops and generals more or less.
Post by: CABL on April 30, 2017, 09:56:50 am
Post by: Heron TSG on May 03, 2017, 01:10:23 pm
Post by: redwallzyl on May 03, 2017, 02:28:29 pm
Just wondering if there's any mods out there that don't drastically change game mechanics, but make snowballing more difficult?well if you are willing to take changed mechanics try meiou 2.0 when it comes out in a few weeks. Theirs some streams out from arumba if you want to look at it.
As it stands in vanilla, once you get going that's it, you're set because you can just keep consuming your neighbours, and unless you wind up facing a giant coalition there's no risk of your nation falling apart, or facing major revolts or anything.
Post by: Baffler on May 03, 2017, 03:46:10 pm
Just wondering if there's any mods out there that don't drastically change game mechanics, but make snowballing more difficult?well if you are willing to take changed mechanics try meiou 2.0 when it comes out in a few weeks. Theirs some streams out from arumba if you want to look at it.
As it stands in vanilla, once you get going that's it, you're set because you can just keep consuming your neighbours, and unless you wind up facing a giant coalition there's no risk of your nation falling apart, or facing major revolts or anything.
Common Universalis does this too, through their state administrative capacity system. It makes larger states a more unwieldy, and gives some bonuses to smaller states. It also changes the province map around, and introduces a few other mechanical (mostly economy and colonization-related) changes.
Post by: redwallzyl on May 04, 2017, 08:43:04 pm
Yep, we release right around ParadoxCon.Your a team member? Hi I'm the flag guy. ;)
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 05, 2017, 07:15:07 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 11, 2017, 07:02:03 am
Post by: George_Chickens on May 11, 2017, 07:33:49 am
Post by: Tawa on May 20, 2017, 07:57:09 pm
I'm still Catholic, but Norway is still Protestant, and I'm either looking at a slow conversion of Norway to Catholic, peppered with rebels and unrest, or passing the Declaration of Indulgence. Which would you guys recommend?
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 21, 2017, 05:16:15 am
Post by: Tawa on May 21, 2017, 12:44:03 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 21, 2017, 03:47:33 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 22, 2017, 08:32:23 am
Post by: WealthyRadish on May 29, 2017, 02:30:12 pm
Things to look for when making allies are the dip rep adviser and everything else that gives dip rep, royal marriages (obviously), and building the army and navy up to or beyond forcelimit. Most difficult starts can also be easily cheesed just by building a merc army and no-CBing a neighbor before they get allies. You should also consider releasing a vassal and making them a march if you can, as the additional forcelimit and allied vassal troops will usually be far more useful than owning the provinces directly.
Post by: Persus13 on May 29, 2017, 02:47:25 pm
Post by: redwallzyl on June 02, 2017, 06:16:23 pm
My game:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tawa on June 04, 2017, 12:52:03 am
In short:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Wiles on June 17, 2017, 09:16:32 am
There's a paradox sale on steam and I'm torn between buying HoI4 or catching up on EUIV dlcs that I don't own. I stopped buying EUIVs dlc when they seemed to be selling DLCs that added very little to the game for what seemed to be a rather ridiculous price. They've since jacked the prices up even more which has made buying them even less appealing. But there's a sale on now so maybe some of them are worthwhile?
Post by: Teneb on June 18, 2017, 11:22:23 am
How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?IIRC, Russians don't have to deal with natives in their colonies as long as that colony borders one of their provinces.
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
Post by: Rex_Nex on June 18, 2017, 12:01:54 pm
How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
Post by: Tawa on June 18, 2017, 01:14:06 pm
Hang on a second. Wouldn't this mean that if you were playing as Russia and conquered a path down to Africa, you could theoretically colonize the African interior for free?How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
Post by: Teneb on June 18, 2017, 02:01:40 pm
I guess so.Hang on a second. Wouldn't this mean that if you were playing as Russia and conquered a path down to Africa, you could theoretically colonize the African interior for free?How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
Post by: Rakonas on June 18, 2017, 08:36:35 pm
How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
You have to spend 20 dip to start the colony though, it's not automatic.
Post by: Rex_Nex on June 18, 2017, 11:36:47 pm
How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
You have to spend 20 dip to start the colony though, it's not automatic.
Yep! Forgot about that, thanks.
Hang on a second. Wouldn't this mean that if you were playing as Russia and conquered a path down to Africa, you could theoretically colonize the African interior for free?How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
Yes. The mechanic is broken. The colonization is also relatively fast - starting a OPM nation in America with the Siberian Frontier idea will let you colonize the entire continent within a century or two.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on June 19, 2017, 11:12:56 am
How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
You have to spend 20 dip to start the colony though, it's not automatic.
Yep! Forgot about that, thanks.Hang on a second. Wouldn't this mean that if you were playing as Russia and conquered a path down to Africa, you could theoretically colonize the African interior for free?How does the "Siberian Frontier" mechanic work?
I've tried looking it up, there's no dev diary relating to it (that I can see), and everything else is people going on about it without any explanations as to what the mechanic actually is.
You automatically colonize any and all provinces that both borders you and reaches your capital over land. The colony costs almost nothing to maintain and you can have as many as you'd like.
Yes. The mechanic is broken. The colonization is also relatively fast - starting a OPM nation in America with the Siberian Frontier idea will let you colonize the entire continent within a century or two.
Hmm, time for an easy "First Come, First Serve" achievement? I tried it once and it was tedious as hell and relied on waiting for the AI to help you colonize.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 05, 2017, 12:30:41 pm
Hmm, time for an easy "First Come, First Serve" achievement? I tried it once and it was tedious as hell and relied on waiting for the AI to help you colonize.
So I did this and it was indeed quite easy, even starting as Zoroastrian (and oh my god is converting all the Mesoamericans to Zoroastrianism slow). I also colonized Philippines -> India and conquered Persia and completed the CN Zoroastrian achievement.
But now I'm looking at Idea Guy - and the income requirement to get the achievement just seems absurdly high. Even with 100% of the Americas and losing virtually no trade income to Europe (plus stealing quite a bit from Asia via Philippines->California transfer), is there any way to get Ideas Guy without conquering most of Europe? It's barely 1700 so I should have plenty of time to conquer English Channel and a bunch of stuff around it, but jeez. 500 ducats / month isn't kidding around.
Post by: Chosrau on July 05, 2017, 02:47:58 pm
I did finish sometime before Enlightenment Insitituion unlocked which is pre-1700 I believe. And this was before Siberian Frontier, so it must have become way easier now.
For best results start somewhere in southern North America, where all the cotton can spawn to get even more Settler growth.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 05, 2017, 03:40:15 pm
Idea Guys was extremely easy for me. Start in the Americas, make sure to grab the economic national ideas ideas (most importantly Goods Produced modifier, which I forgot and this probably prolonged my run substantially), go wild on colonizing and spam manufactories everywhere.
I did finish sometime before Enlightenment Insitituion unlocked which is pre-1700 I believe. And this was before Siberian Frontier, so it must have become way easier now.
For best results start somewhere in southern North America, where all the cotton can spawn to get even more Settler growth.
Did you only do Ideas Guy, though? Because I was doing FCFS and Rekindling the Fires, I could only start with 200 points worth of NIs. Ideas Guy allows you 800 points so it could be substantially easier than how I'm doing it.
Post by: Chosrau on July 05, 2017, 03:56:01 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 06, 2017, 10:03:34 am
Ok that does make it harder, in which case you probably just have blob more. Make sure you can actually get Ideas Guy before investing the effort. IIRC Rekindling the flames allows you up to 5 starting provinces, Ideas Guy limits you to one 3-development province.
Yeah, I made sure I met the starting requirements for as many custom nations achievements as possible. With Siberian Frontier starting in a 1/1/1 province wasn't much of a disadvantage. But after that I had to spend like 50 out of my 200 for Western tech for First Come First Serve.
Edit: yeah, got it just by blobbing more.
Post by: Tawa on July 06, 2017, 08:28:53 pm
Problem: Ottomans are after me. Bigger problem: They have guns and a 2-star commander. I have no guns, a 1-star commander, and to make matters worse Tunis abandoned their family and Egypt (will make them pay for their betrayal later.) They declared before my intended Polish alliance could be worked out.
Any suggestions of what to do? Appeasement could be a problematic strategy, because IIRC the province they're after is needed to form Arabia. Right now, I'm thinking I'll blow a ton of money and probably take a few loans on mercs, then sort out the economy later.
E: Alright, scratch that, I figured out what to do. I restarted after they crushed me. The trick, it turns out, is to deny them crucial territory early on, so what you should do is ally Karaman and feed them Ramazan and Dulkadir. This creates a buffer between the Ottomans and you, which buys you time to take more important anti-Ottoman measures, like allying one of their rivals. It also doesn't hurt to guarantee Byzantium--the longer you can stall the fall of Constantinople, the longer you can stall the Ottomans becoming an empire.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 10, 2017, 01:18:32 pm
E: Alright, scratch that, I figured out what to do. I restarted after they crushed me. The trick, it turns out, is to deny them crucial territory early on, so what you should do is ally Karaman and feed them Ramazan and Dulkadir. This creates a buffer between the Ottomans and you, which buys you time to take more important anti-Ottoman measures, like allying one of their rivals. It also doesn't hurt to guarantee Byzantium--the longer you can stall the fall of Constantinople, the longer you can stall the Ottomans becoming an empire.
Yeah. This happened to me in a Naples game. You really can't leave the Ottomans alone early, if you neighbor them and want any kind of peace.
Post by: Loud Whispers on July 12, 2017, 03:13:59 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 13, 2017, 09:59:08 am
Unless it's one of my games, where the Ottomans fly northwards and wind up at the Baltic.
doesn't that rely on a relatively unusual collapse of both Muscovy and PLC?
Post by: ZeroGravitas on July 14, 2017, 09:24:47 am
Nope. In my games Russia forms and the Ottomans have a habit of flying through them.Unless it's one of my games, where the Ottomans fly northwards and wind up at the Baltic.
doesn't that rely on a relatively unusual collapse of both Muscovy and PLC?
weird
Post by: Tawa on July 31, 2017, 04:10:27 pm
On that note, is it a good idea for me to force them to go back to Sunni? I want to do so but that +100% liberty desire modifier does not look very pretty.
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 01, 2017, 05:50:09 pm
Never have it above 50%. Once it goes above, the AI supports independence compulsively, your subjects ally with one another, and keeping liberty desire down becomes frustratingly difficult
Post by: Tawa on August 03, 2017, 11:34:10 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 04, 2017, 01:09:12 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on August 09, 2017, 07:30:08 am
Most of the time it's better to let Lithuania become Orthodox, it makes Lithuania stable as fuck and allows you to vassal feed PU'd Lithuania all those russian provinces in the East before you form PLC
Doesn't work so well any more. Lithuania can't have more than 47 provinces, or you can't form PLC.
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 09, 2017, 11:42:53 am
Post by: Micro102 on August 14, 2017, 12:33:41 pm
Post by: redwallzyl on August 14, 2017, 05:17:43 pm
So I'm trying MEIOU and taxes (picking Roman Territories because rebuilding the Roman Empire seems awesome) and am realizing that vassals are a real pain in the ass now. I started with 5 vassal and it seems that even with the policy that (slowly) increases centralization, I would have to wait literal centuries to annex these 1-2 province nations. What gives? Am I missing something? It seems like it would be easier to just cut vassalization and annex them militarily.A few things, first centralization increases it quite a bit, second their are multiple policies you can take that greatly speed up time time it takes, third once you get time time down you can negotiate a tighter bond and speed it up a decade at a time. this stuff should be listed under the vassal interaction decision.
Post by: Micro102 on August 14, 2017, 05:36:11 pm
So I'm trying MEIOU and taxes (picking Roman Territories because rebuilding the Roman Empire seems awesome) and am realizing that vassals are a real pain in the ass now. I started with 5 vassal and it seems that even with the policy that (slowly) increases centralization, I would have to wait literal centuries to annex these 1-2 province nations. What gives? Am I missing something? It seems like it would be easier to just cut vassalization and annex them militarily.A few things, first centralization increases it quite a bit, second their are multiple policies you can take that greatly speed up time time it takes, third once you get time time down you can negotiate a tighter bond and speed it up a decade at a time. this stuff should be listed under the vassal interaction decision.
Well it's taken several years for centralization to go up to 2, and so far I'm not seeing a big change in integration (maybe down to 815 years from 820 years) So it seems like it will take decades just to get the chance to begin annexation, which in turn will take a while. Second, I don't see the policies. Nothing states that it will speed up integration (just to clarify, this is not the part what I annex, but rather the time I need to wait before I can start the annexation process). Maybe I can get them later but it's sort of pointless when you have 5 vassals dragging your diplo points down. Third, I've tried getting a tighter bond but it failed. I don't get what you mean by "time down".
Post by: redwallzyl on August 14, 2017, 05:54:36 pm
So I'm trying MEIOU and taxes (picking Roman Territories because rebuilding the Roman Empire seems awesome) and am realizing that vassals are a real pain in the ass now. I started with 5 vassal and it seems that even with the policy that (slowly) increases centralization, I would have to wait literal centuries to annex these 1-2 province nations. What gives? Am I missing something? It seems like it would be easier to just cut vassalization and annex them militarily.A few things, first centralization increases it quite a bit, second their are multiple policies you can take that greatly speed up time time it takes, third once you get time time down you can negotiate a tighter bond and speed it up a decade at a time. this stuff should be listed under the vassal interaction decision.
Well it's taken several years for centralization to go up to 2, and so far I'm not seeing a big change in integration (maybe down to 815 years from 820 years) So it seems like it will take decades just to get the chance to begin annexation, which in turn will take a while. Second, I don't see the policies. Nothing states that it will speed up integration (just to clarify, this is not the part what I annex, but rather the time I need to wait before I can start the annexation process). Maybe I can get them later but it's sort of pointless when you have 5 vassals dragging your diplo points down. Third, I've tried getting a tighter bond but it failed. I don't get what you mean by "time down".
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Micro102 on August 14, 2017, 06:22:31 pm
Post by: redwallzyl on August 14, 2017, 06:30:13 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on August 14, 2017, 07:02:31 pm
Yes I've read that. But I've done all I can and it's taking years for little change. If you are trying to tell me that progress will ramp up exponentially, then I'd be willing to wait.Yeah, the bonuses from centralization, admin and vassal years stack up exponentially. Look at it this way, the longer you have your vassal, the faster they are integrated - so without factoring in centralization or admin, it definitely will exponentially increase. When you negotiate a closer bond with your vassal, you effectively add 10 years of service in the span of a day, so that'll also help speed up integration growth
Post by: Micro102 on August 21, 2017, 04:44:47 pm
(Just a reminder I'm playing MEIOU and Taxes 2.0)
Post by: Persus13 on August 21, 2017, 05:08:03 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 21, 2017, 06:22:48 pm
Have you tried clicking "attach to this unit" on your army? Also, what's the liberty desire on your vassals?
I have tried that, and their liberty desire was somewhere in the 50's.
Post by: Persus13 on August 21, 2017, 06:34:51 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 21, 2017, 07:22:57 pm
Post by: Sheb on August 22, 2017, 12:59:46 am
Well that's disappointing. I feel that there should be more to a decision that threatens the existence of your nation and army than a few points of liberty desire.
Well, keeping liberty desire low is important. If you have some prestige to sacrifice, you can sacrifice 20 prestige for a -5% liberty desire.
Post by: Exerosp on August 23, 2017, 03:10:39 am
Post by: Persus13 on August 23, 2017, 06:50:06 am
Post by: Micro102 on September 03, 2017, 11:17:19 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 04, 2017, 04:53:48 pm
So I'm playing MEIOU and Taxes and am wondering if this is vanilla or part of the mod and what causes it. My armies, after losing a fight, regain movement only at ~25% a month and the tooltip says I need 50% to begin moving again. This effectively lets the enemy stack wipe me.It's a vanilla mechanic, armies with too low morale get forced into a shattered retreat. The AI (or you) then marches to what it thinks is a safe place to retreat to, fingers crossed it's into a fleet of transports or behind Fortresses that can then ferry those forces to safety. If not, they can get stackwiped. Also when doing a shattered retreat, most commonly through Russia, if a unit regains morale before reaching its retreat destination it can be manually controlled again before the retreat is completed.
High morale is godly in the early game and great in the late game. Generally, it's never a bad idea to have better morale
Post by: Micro102 on September 05, 2017, 12:06:12 pm
Post by: Sheb on September 06, 2017, 02:07:59 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 07, 2017, 05:26:58 pm
*EDIT
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Sweden however does not care. The Swedes can stare down the swords of a million souls and fear not the coming storm, nor fear to walk amongst the innumerable dead. The Swede shall not ask whether honour matters or whether their cause was just, they shall simply carry on when everything is already lost, for the Swede must fear nothing but Finngolians and mildly hot weather
*EDIT
With the hapsbourgs assimilated in short order, the rest of the HRE crumbled in rapid succession - their great protector annihilated and annexed. With prince after prince falling to the livid Papacy, the last remaining elector of the Netherlands turned to the only Catholic ruler left who had managed to successfully resist the Pope.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Tawa on September 08, 2017, 12:01:17 am
My trade power is so insanely high right now that I control the world slave trade despite having outlawed slavery.
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 08, 2017, 05:11:39 am
I'm doing a Netherlands game, and I'm at the very tail end of it. I took all the economic and money ideas possible and colonized the shit out of South and Central Africa (among other places.) Basically everywhere between the Horn of Africa and the Cape of Good Hope is my domain.All that means is you need to go freedom the slave producing pops in order to liberate their ivory production pops
My trade power is so insanely high right now that I control the world slave trade despite having outlawed slavery.
*EDIT
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The world is now pope
In retrospect, the Papal state has ridiculous potential. When you get humanist, influence, diplomatic and espionage ideas you can keep expanding forever with never a single coalition forming in sight. You can tear the heart out of an Empire and that Empire won't hold it against you because they feel the pope is justified in doing so, and if they're disgruntled it takes less then half a decade for them to forget their grievances. The better relations from Pope prestige and stacked with all the other ideas makes you so diplomatically potent you can break truces with the HRE and expand into all of them at the same time and they still won't coalition you! And needless to say, humanist religious Pope makes stability IRONCLAD, and if you delay the reformation you can excommunicate and conquer Catholics with ease. With high morale troops and some of the highest discipline in the game, Pope troops have few real rivals once they secure the rich Italian provinces
Post by: Tawa on September 09, 2017, 11:08:59 pm
Tried an Iroquois game earlier today because I got Conquest of Paradise instead of El Dorado.
A tip to anyone debating whether to get CoQ or Dorado: Go for El Dorado. Conquest of Paradise's features suck. North and South American gameplay is basically a no-ducat sitfest until Europeans show up, at which point you can reform if you're half decent at the game and invalidate basically everything you'd been setting up until that point (reforming the government destroys your buildings and wipes out your ideas.) Random New World sounds cool, but quite frankly, the New World it generates consistently looks awful, the names sound terrible (the most recent time I played with it on, I colonized Mumper and Praxis,) and a lot of the time it just doesn't feel right throwing half the map away.
Meanwhile El Dorado sounds great. Treaty of Tordesillas should cut down on colonial bordergore (For me, colonizing the East Coast tends to end in the main colonial powers sneaking in little exclaves wherever they can,) automating exploration seems like a nice touch, I'm told that Nation Designer is great fun for a whole host of purposes, Nahuatl/Mayan/Inti actually sound like fun mechanics (as opposed to Totemist/Animist "sit around and do nothing while you accumulate enough mana to buy fifteen ideas" in particular,) and to top it all off it has Support Independence just like CoQ.
Which reminds me: this is a bit unrelated, but the mechanics in place to prod colonies into declaring independence really need to be harsher. I have not once in my entire life seen any colonial nation become independent. Perhaps there could be a tariff floor, or a gradually increasing flat liberty desire bonus for all colonies? It's bizarre that the game goes to extensive lengths to force various historical things to happen, but apparently forgets that 1/3 of the world's inhabited continents are today occupied mostly by colonies that won independence in this period.
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 13, 2017, 01:27:33 pm
Papal State keeps conquering Italy in my games. I don't remember it wiping the floor with the city-states before but it's been unsettling how consistent they've been.I think the real deciding factor is what happens in Provence; if the Pope takes it over and manages to maintain an alliance with France or Spain, it gradually snowballs its hold over Genoan and Venetian trade (which subsequently results in it slowly blobbing Italy). If it doesn't, then it usually gets rekt by a Tuscany or Milan. I don't see what else could be causing a consistent Pope conquest though
Which reminds me: this is a bit unrelated, but the mechanics in place to prod colonies into declaring independence really need to be harsher. I have not once in my entire life seen any colonial nation become independent. Perhaps there could be a tariff floor, or a gradually increasing flat liberty desire bonus for all colonies? It's bizarre that the game goes to extensive lengths to force various historical things to happen, but apparently forgets that 1/3 of the world's inhabited continents are today occupied mostly by colonies that won independence in this period.Cossacks DLC adds 'agitate for liberty' espionage, which adds a whopping 25% liberty desire. Things like low trust, high mercantilism and high tariffs all also significantly increase liberty desire - but the most important thing of all is force limit, war exhaustion and the 50% threshold. The more colonies a nation has the more vulnerable they are to force limit, war exhaustion and the 50% threshold completely fucking them up. Say you've got your AI Spanish Empire which has lucked out and done really well, as as a result it holds: the Burgundian Inheritance, Naples, Sardinia-Corsica, a load of Indonesia & the Philippines, and in the Americas it's got La Plata, Peru, Colombia, Caribbean, Mexico, Florida and Colombia. Keeping liberty desire in the colonies was easy for AI Spain in the early game, but as the 7 colonial republics develop and increase their force limits, they begin to increase in liberty desire relative to Spain. Individually they remain no match for their Imperial Overlord, and so the status quo remains stable.
Let's say however that Spain gets involved in a serious conflict; the low countries revolt, France does Spain a stackwipe, a religious league war forms - and suddenly a few of those colonial nations have armies (untouched by european wars) that match Spain's force limit. Instantly they break the 50% threshold and form alliances with one another. Once this great war ends and Spain rebuilds her forces, the colonial nations will not go back down below 50%, as they are now calculating the strength of their alliance vs Spain instead of the strength of themselves individually vs Spain. The alliance will grow spreading to most all the Colonial Republics and any Spanish rivals until Spain is overwhelmed before the wars for independence have even begun. This happens pretty consistently in my games where the Spanish or Portuguese usually get rekt after just one bad war triggers all of their subjects into rebellion
Speaking of vassal management, I managed to become the #1 world power with just these islands
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: MrRoboto75 on September 26, 2017, 12:52:28 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 16, 2017, 10:22:59 pm
I started up a new game as Hungary, the year is 1451. I have allied with a good portion of the Balkans (Bosnia, Albania, and Wallachia) and have managed to keep Albania independent from Ottomans via association and won a defensive war against Venice.
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
So I don't really know what to do... focus on technologies, institutions (via development), or ugh... just keep pumping points into development across the board?
Also I've spurned the Hapsburgs--but still maintain a strong alliance with them--and I had to take out a loan... so I'm not entirely how to dig my way out of this. Strategies?
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 17, 2017, 04:37:53 am
Okay, so considering how expensive EUIV DLC it actually adds a ton of depth to the game.Italian Ambition
I started up a new game as Hungary, the year is 1451. I have allied with a good portion of the Balkans (Bosnia, Albania, and Wallachia) and have managed to keep Albania independent from Ottomans via association and won a defensive war against Venice.
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
So I don't really know what to do... focus on technologies, institutions (via development), or ugh... just keep pumping points into development across the board?
Also I've spurned the Hapsburgs--but still maintain a strong alliance with them--and I had to take out a loan... so I'm not entirely how to dig my way out of this. Strategies?
INVADE ITALY
Italy is safe from Ottoman molestation, Italy is high development and institutions love spreading through it, and most of all you need to jump in and get that booty before the French take it. Focus development on adm and dip, mil tech early is too important to neglect, especially when next to Ottomans. Never be afraid to take loans to buy institutions, it's worth it. You also may want to cut your alliances with the Balkans unless you feel confident enough to take on the Ottomans and their allies alone, as there is otherwise a chance you could end up in a war that's Hungary + Albania vs Ottomans + Tunisia
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 17, 2017, 07:37:55 am
Okay, so considering how expensive EUIV DLC it actually adds a ton of depth to the game.
I started up a new game as Hungary, the year is 1451. I have allied with a good portion of the Balkans (Bosnia, Albania, and Wallachia) and have managed to keep Albania independent from Ottomans via association and won a defensive war against Venice.
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
So I don't really know what to do... focus on technologies, institutions (via development), or ugh... just keep pumping points into development across the board?
Also I've spurned the Hapsburgs--but still maintain a strong alliance with them--and I had to take out a loan... so I'm not entirely how to dig my way out of this. Strategies?
Investing development points at random kind of screws you for the rest of the game, especially because development points was your best hope for catching up in institutions. Developing a province gives you automatic progress towards a missing institution - and now you have neither, and you're falling behind in tech. Honestly as it's only 1451, I'd just restart. (although really, you're not going to fall behind in institutions as Hungary. Renaissance especially is going to spread to you in plenty of time, especially once Austria adopts it and if you're friendly with them. It's honestly find to take techs at a minor penalty until the institutions spread. Colonialism might be annoying but you have a long time before worrying about that.)
The only efficient way to improve your economy is conquest. As Hungary, you should mostly be trying to attack the Ottomans with Poland-Lithuania or Austria or both as your allies. If you didn't want to attack Ottomans, I guess you could do alright attacking Venice, expanding into the Venice node and moving your trade capital there. But you're going to run up against the Ottomans sooner or later. And it's your best direction to expand in because it generates the least AE with everyone in Europe.
You'll also want to gobble up the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic so you can have enough galleys to block the Bosporus once you take Constantinople from the Ottomans.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 17, 2017, 07:42:39 am
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
Sorry for double post but just wanted to note something here specifically.
The only way to make real progress in EU4 is loans. And I don't mean taking one loan during a war. I mean taking lots and lots of loans so that you're always at or above force limit and always fighting to expand. Loans are based on your income, so it's simple to take a bunch of loans when your country is smaller and then repay them when your country is larger. (And then take larger loans to expand your country again, etc)
Eventually you're large enough that loans aren't an issue, but the only challenging part of the game is the loan cycle in the first century.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 17, 2017, 01:51:12 pm
At this point, cash isn't so much the problem as it is the Ottomans. I just managed to integrate all of Serbia (had to take Kosovo as a vassal) and then Ottomans declared on me for former Serbia. With the help of Bohemia and Austria, I managed to hold them to a white peace, but Wallachia got absolutely fucked so that's a bit of a set back.
I actually managed to improve my defenses and army size in the years after the war. Now it's a race for who gets to have Bosnia.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 17, 2017, 04:24:44 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
From the early 1444 start of the game, the East tech people are rectally savaged by the superiority of the Ottoman Empire. Unfortunately, this includes the noble magyar savages that reside within the Carpathian walled plains known as HUNGRY. For one must only ever shout Hungary to the point where it is indistinguishable from hunger. Helps get in the mindset of a magyar commander eager to reverse Hapsburg all over Europe.
Ottomans and Hungary both start at mil tech 3, however the Ottomans start with a hard-coded ruler who is very young and with very high stats, so they will likely begin to rule ahead in the early game. Even if they didn't, their inexhaustible wells of manpower, their high morale and discipline would make an early attempt at invading the Ottomans highly inadvisable. If you are invaded by the Ottomans you are being punished by God for not securing an alliance with a big country.
Countries like the Venetians, Genoese and even the Knights of Rhodes can afford to early war the Ottomans by trolling them with ridiculously oversized fleets, because at sea the Ottoman armies count for shit. But you are noble magyar, you possess a large land border and a small navy. Early war is almost suicide. Oh yeah, and did I mention the Ottoman leader (who will have more mil points than you, guaranteed) also gets a decision to boost infantry combat for 20 years by 10%? And that the Ottomans start with +5% discipline, and that any difference in mil-tech will make winning a single battle impossible? Yeah, just don't think about it. If you can diplomatically slow down the Ottomans without risking battle, go for it. If not, focus on expanding Hungary's power base.
So at mil tech 9 we see the Ottomans make some real headway by unlocking the Janissary. The Janissary is scary, he IS NOT YOUR FRIEND. Unless you are kebab in which case Janissary IS YOUR FRIEND. The humble backbone of the Ottoman army, what makes him really scary is that he has an offensive fire pip and his offensive morale capabilities are superior to your equivalent, the humble pikeman. This means that effectively for 90 tech years from the start of the game fighting the Ottomans on land is suicide or at best, more damaging to you than them. In the fire phase all of their infantry will be doing damage to your lines and worst of all, causing morale damage - coupled with the Ottomans' high morale, any Hungarian combat line will struggle to not break before the shock phase has begun, and will break when the shock phase has begun. As the Ottomans will always outnumber the Hungarians in this period, the Ottomans will unquestionably dominate any battles, and as early game battles contribute significantly to warscore, will result in Hungary getting partitioned fairly soon. The story is much the same for cavalry, with Eastern Cavalry being certainly better than their infantry (and you should love your cavalry as Hungary), but again, for the first 100 years from the start of the campaign your cavalry will still be inferior to the Ottomans' and not enough to maintain parity with their Janissaries, so even if you go 50/50 inf cav you won't beat the Ottomans.
At mil tech 14-15 Hungary opens a window to a wonderful world of opportunity. At this point in the game, Hungary's infantry have fire pips, and most importantly have the morale and fire defence needed to weather the Ottoman infantry's gun-line. This means that in the fire phase the Hungarian infantry will not break, soaking up the fire to allow the most glorious Eastern Hussar to swoop in the shock phase and fuck all their shit up - with the Ottoman infantry backbone having terrible shock defence. Furthermore, up until now the Ottomans have had an advantage in troops with better morale and better discipline. Yet by this point you'll be around admin 14, unlocking 4 idea groups and you will definitely have unlocked your national idea: FOUND THE BLACK LEGION. This metal sounding group of fuckers are Hungary's professional standing army, and they give your dudes +5% discipline, which allows your dudes to match the Ottoman's starting +5% discipline. If you pick your national ideas well, you could even exceed the Ottomans in terms of unit bonuses, but more on that later.
At mil tech 19 the Ottoman army reforms its infantry and cavalry and they become more competitive, but honestly you can still keep attacking them if you think the situation is advantageous. Just expect the fight to be about even, as the Ottoman reformed Janissaries and Cavalry are more able to resist the shock phase of your Eastern Hussars (but are still inferior to your Saxon Infantry. Thus if you are already at mil tech 19, and they are at mil tech 19, go for it. If you are at 18 and they 19, do not start battle until you get mil tech 19). From this point onwards time is clearly on your side, because you can get to mil tech 22 and unlock THE GLORY OF THE WINGED HUSSAR.
In the fire phase the winged hussar looks cool and doesn't do anything, so you want your Saxon infantry to look steely and take all the hits until the shock phase arrives. At that point CAVALRY LANCES GUIDED BY GOD annihilate anything in their path down to the atomic level. Mil tech 22 is a magical time. Be sure to have fun in that time. You might want to wait til mil tech 23 to reform your infantry to better units but if you're spamming WINGED HUSSARS it doesn't really matter that much.
Then of course by the time you start getting to late game units you can start beefing up on infantry and the Ottomans shouldn't really be able to stop you from simply sweeping them away. East tech infantry blobs and Cossack nomad trolls will outperform Ottomans and make a mockery of their endless wells of manpower by killing their endless wells of manpower to death.
The 1337 Magyar strategy:
From mil tech 3 to mil tech 13, your job as Hungary is simple. Secure alliances with countries that have really fucking big armies. Doesn't matter if it's a horde of Russian peasants armed with spoons and the realities of serfdom, if there's lots of them the Ottomans will think twice about attacking you and will instead attack diplomatically isolated Persians or Ethiopians. The Persians or Ethiopians despite their inferior armies will cause serious delays in the Ottomans by virtue of all their provinces being full of fuck tons of mountains. Secondly, you are to maintain mil tech parity with the Ottoman Empire at all times. This is just in case you actually end up in battle with the Ottomans - in the early game, with an allied blob of peasants, it is still possible to win enough battles to trigger a white peace. If you are a single mil tech behind the Ottomans however, the difference in the tactics value will mean you will lose no matter what. If you end up getting invaded by the Ottomans between tech 3 to tech 13, then you should avoid battle wherever possible with any meaningful Ottoman army, striking their isolated units and letting the Ottomans siege you down. Do not even move a single unit into their territory. Accept that you've lost the war, but you need to make the Ottomans lose time, and if the Ottomans take much land then the resulting truce will be even longer.
Always remember too:
Your provinces are not very good. Losing some if it means surviving to retake them later is good. Historically the Hungarian-Ottoman border was very fluid, do not forget this.
During all of this time you need not be idle, and you really shouldn't be idle, though sitting comfy at home and developing your provinces is a legit strategy. If you don't want to go that route, invading Venice is a good idea. Ally with Austria and invade Venice, being sure to be the one who starts the war and the one who ultimately takes over the most valuable city of Venice and their bordering province in Dalmatia. Leave Ragusa alone, it's not worth waging war with the Ottomans over it. Once you've taken over Venice, move your trade capital to Venice and use your merchants to steer your Hungarian goods into it. If you have any more merchants it's usually best to use caravan power to bring in Polish and Ukrainian goods rather than expand into Alexandria, as doing so requires building a navy which diverts precious funds which could be spent on fortresses, province upgrades and cavalry. Whether you keep the Austrian alliance when you've conquered Venice is up to you, if you can replace them with another ally that's great as it allows you to connect your Italian holdings by land to Hungary, if not it's no big deal.
During all of this time I recommend picking in order: Innovative ideas, Economic ideas, Aristocratic ideas & Quality ideas.
Innovative at the start will make all your tech costs cheaper, Economic will make you richer, lower all your admin tech costs further (it's worth mentioning that all ideas reduce the tech cost in their respective field, so adm ideas reduce adm tech cost, mil ideas reduce mil tech costs). Aristocratic reduces mil tech costs, reduces the cost of your cavalry and increases your cavalry combat ability - it's a perfect match. Also, you don't want to miss out on the early mil tech morale, which is why aristocratic comes after innovative and economic. Never pick a mil idea group first unless it's maritime and you're Knights or Hormuz. Even then you probably shouldn't. Anyways I digress, quality comes fourth - once more increasing cavalry combat ability and also increasing discipline. By this point Hungary's national ideas will have neutralize Ottoman idea discipline and cavalry combat ability (but not their infantry, and also not the discipline bonuses they get for bolstering the Janissary corps, and certainly not enough to threaten Ottoman manpower/economy). By this point, Hungary is fairly safe and can start playing regional hegemon with the Italians, Germans and Eastern Europeans. Leave the French alone though. But yeah no, at this point with all these ideas you've got +40% cavalry combat ability. If you pick espionage (espionage is pretty terrible, but in this case it may be worth considering) that opens up the noble loyalty act, a policy which will allow you to jump that +40% to +60% cavalry combat ability!!! That, and you can cause the Ottomans some headaches by sowing discord with spies and shit. But eh... Covert stuff is more a nuisance than a threat in this game.
Anyways, your secondary goal in this time should be keeping the Ottomans peacefully at bay as the strong-looking bulwark as Christendom that doesn't really war with the Ottomans. For this reason it's best to pick an ally like Austria or France who don't border the Ottomans and won't drag you into a war you can't survive or thrive in. I say this is a secondary goal because it's not that important really. You may be worried that by allowing the Ottomans to expand you'll have a greater problem in future, which is true, but there's also the law of diminishing returns at play. The Ottomans conquering their way to ancient Babylon and Aksum doesn't help them nearly as much as you conquering the Vienna and Venice trade nodes. And if you get more, if you even become Emperor? Oh dear, how moisturizing. If you don't become Emperor? Then the change that should occur will still be the same: You will have become the deadly Magyar butterfly, hatching from its cocoon. The Ottomans on the other hand will still be dangerous to you, yet despite becoming more powerful, are less dangerous to you.
At mil-tech 14-15, your cavalry guided by GOD should be rolling around Europe expanding in all directions, generally just scaring everyone who looks at you funny. You must remind them of glorious magyar heritage like you are playing CK2. Invade everything valuable that is weaker or equal in strength to you, leaving yourself only constrained by imagination and aggressive expansion. If you do decide to wage war upon the Ottomans, have two armies at the ready. One will accept allied armies to attach (this is important so allies don't retardedly leroy jenkins into Ottoman gunfire), the other contains your unlimited Hussar hordes. Allow the Ottomans to invade and lay siege to your mountain fortresses, then attack the Ottoman armies - with a mountain penalty, they will struggle to be victorious even with their sizeable combat bonuses and commanders. Keep doing this until the Ottomans start suffering from clinical depression and peace out favourably, don't worry if you can't take over their Balkan or Greece land, what's more important is that you drain their treasury and keep driving up inflation and making them take loans. The goal is to ruin their economy. Reminder: A bankrupt nation, no matter how good their ideas, is one that cannot defend itself at all. I'm serious - their morale is so low that if you sent one drunk leper to fight their army, their army runs away.
By the time you start reaching mil tech 23, the picture should be very sexy for a liberation of Christendom with your flurry of roided up horses. This is because the Ottoman rulers who were intelligent as fuck will be pretty mediocre on average by now, which will be the same as your dudes. But by picking innovative ideas you should be picking up an edge, possibly even arriving at mil techs early and putting the Ottomans at a severe military disadvantage before you factor in ideas. If the Ottomans are hit by the Janissary decadence disaster, even better - they'll be at a 25% mil tech disadvantage. Also, you better have been keeping all institutions up fam. Always remember if a nasty institution like colonialism is hard to come by you can just develop one province until it has that institution. Doing this is usually always worth the monarch points, and because you have economic ideas you'll save a lot of points. Before you do this however, make sure you go to the states edict UI in the province overview and select the development edict, this will save you a further 10% on monarch points.
Honestly at this point you can take whatever ideas you want. Religious and humanists are not really needed since Hungary has a special idea which gives no negative bonuses for religious intolerance, so they can conquer heretic and heathen provinces with impunity and pretty much ignore much of the reformation in their own country. Whether they remain Catholic or convert to one of the other Christian sects doesn't really make a difference, since they're all pretty good fits for Hungary. If you somehow manage to convert to Tengri, good job, you made Hungarian cavalry even more powerful and Tengri is pleased. Religious is nice though in that it'll allow you to better keep religious unity up and give you a very good CB to attack anyone of a different religion to you, and this shouldn't necessarily be ignored. Humanist reduces idea costs and aggressive expansion, and can be really powerful to reducing AE with diplomatic, influence and espionage ideas. Once you've started pushing into the Constantinople trade node the Ottoman Empire is pretty much done for. Until you're strong enough to do so however, it's pretty easy from your trade node of Venice to just send loads of light ships to protect trade in Constantinople, diverting the great wealth the Ottomans have brought to Constantinople courteously into your coffers.
If you're still threatened by the Ottomans by the time you get to Winged Hussars, then your time to break their back is at hand. If you're the hegemon of the Eastern world, then do as you will. Hungary is in a prime position to expand anywhere it wants, into the Russian Empire, into East Africa, into Persia and then India - its cavalry will be a fearsome shock to all.
*EDIT
On a last note, diplomatically blocking the Ottomans in Europe and making them attack Persia may seem horrifying at first, but it's the best case scenario. Sure the Ottomans gain lots of base tax and bring in lots of trade revenue from silk to Constantinople, but that also brings silk money to Venice :]
Moreover, Persia generates some really pretty rebel stacks. Really, really pretty rebel stacks. All the better if the state of Persia itself survives Persia proper being annexed. OH BOY THE REBEL STACKS NEVER END
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 17, 2017, 10:24:43 pm
Don't contest the Ottomans in the early game through war when you share a land border with them. Their limitless reserve of manpower and their superior units means that victory is unlikely, and if you are capable of capturing victory - it's one where you could've better spent your manpower taking over the Vienna, Ragusan and Venetian trade nodes.
wat
Post by: Digital Hellhound on October 18, 2017, 01:44:24 am
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
Sorry for double post but just wanted to note something here specifically.
The only way to make real progress in EU4 is loans. And I don't mean taking one loan during a war. I mean taking lots and lots of loans so that you're always at or above force limit and always fighting to expand. Loans are based on your income, so it's simple to take a bunch of loans when your country is smaller and then repay them when your country is larger. (And then take larger loans to expand your country again, etc)
Eventually you're large enough that loans aren't an issue, but the only challenging part of the game is the loan cycle in the first century.
Wha-? Loans? You mean the magic 'I want to get less and less income for short-term gain' button? I'm not saying loans aren't useful, but I'd save them for crisis situations. They're not necessary in any sense or needed to make 'real progress'. Your strategy is interesting enough I wanna try it now, though.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 18, 2017, 02:32:09 am
watVienna trade node is Wien
Wha-? Loans? You mean the magic 'I want to get less and less income for short-term gain' button? I'm not saying loans aren't useful, but I'd save them for crisis situations. They're not necessary in any sense or needed to make 'real progress'. Your strategy is interesting enough I wanna try it now, though.Take admin, economic, innovative and trade ideas as a Catholic nation. Set your national bank loans to be high as fuck. Drive your interest rates and yearly inflation down with the forgive usury action and the trade-innovative policy which reduces interest. This will drive interest rates down to 0.25%, at which point you can use your loans to finance anything from early adoption of institutions (which you should always do before buying tech, and never something you should delay) or even fund the construction of buildings which will increase your income more than you pay for interest. Or like England in this period, use the loans to finance wars which promise to net greater profit than their cost. The only limiting factor at the point of 0.25% interest is how capable your country is at dealing with inflation, as inflation increases your state running costs and so reduces the profit gained from investing loan money in infrastructure. But economic catholic nations are pretty good at this, so that's not a big deal at all really.
I kinda wanna try a loan heavy playstyle now. It's a shame countries you lend money too don't like repaying their loans with reliability, cos then you could borrow money from your bank and lend it to them at higher interest rates :[
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 18, 2017, 08:21:31 am
watVienna trade node is Wien
No, I mean, the idea that you should fight Austria first because you don't want to fight Ottomans yet is completely bananas. Austria is going to have many more and useful allies; Ottomans will have few if any. When you're stuck between two larger powers (like Austria/PLC and Ottomans) the obvious thing to do is make them fight each other at the expense of the strongest. You should absolutely fight Ottomans and shouldn't have any trouble getting Constantinople in the second war, probably pre-1480s.
I did Dracula's Revenge as Wallachia; it would be a thousand times easier to do the same thing but as Hungary.
Quote
Wha-? Loans? You mean the magic 'I want to get less and less income for short-term gain' button? I'm not saying loans aren't useful, but I'd save them for crisis situations. They're not necessary in any sense or needed to make 'real progress'. Your strategy is interesting enough I wanna try it now, though.Take admin, economic, innovative and trade ideas as a Catholic nation. Set your national bank loans to be high as fuck. Drive your interest rates and yearly inflation down with the forgive usury action and the trade-innovative policy which reduces interest. This will drive interest rates down to 0.25%, at which point you can use your loans to finance anything from early adoption of institutions (which you should always do before buying tech, and never something you should delay) or even fund the construction of buildings which will increase your income more than you pay for interest. Or like England in this period, use the loans to finance wars which promise to net greater profit than their cost. The only limiting factor at the point of 0.25% interest is how capable your country is at dealing with inflation, as inflation increases your state running costs and so reduces the profit gained from investing loan money in infrastructure. But economic catholic nations are pretty good at this, so that's not a big deal at all really.
I kinda wanna try a loan heavy playstyle now. It's a shame countries you lend money too don't like repaying their loans with reliability, cos then you could borrow money from your bank and lend it to them at higher interest rates :[
You keep bringing up these mechanics and strategies that apply to halfway through a playthrough. We are talking about pre-1500 here. Idea groups don't even come into play yet.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 18, 2017, 08:23:40 am
However, cash is trickling out of the bank and I am facing the prospect of being left behind in the institution area. I've really been pouring points into development to try and up my tax base but it has left me pretty fucked in terms of technologies--everything is still at 3 right now.
Sorry for double post but just wanted to note something here specifically.
The only way to make real progress in EU4 is loans. And I don't mean taking one loan during a war. I mean taking lots and lots of loans so that you're always at or above force limit and always fighting to expand. Loans are based on your income, so it's simple to take a bunch of loans when your country is smaller and then repay them when your country is larger. (And then take larger loans to expand your country again, etc)
Eventually you're large enough that loans aren't an issue, but the only challenging part of the game is the loan cycle in the first century.
Wha-? Loans? You mean the magic 'I want to get less and less income for short-term gain' button? I'm not saying loans aren't useful, but I'd save them for crisis situations. They're not necessary in any sense or needed to make 'real progress'. Your strategy is interesting enough I wanna try it now, though.
It's not "my strategy." It's how EU4 works.
There are tons of videos on it. Try this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4OozdprIFc
I think the other thing to remember is that all of EU4 is short-term. Even if you're playing an entire 1444 to 1821 run, there is a finite amount of time. There's no such thing as a "long term" strategy. The only thing that matters is your ability to expand as fast as possible without provoking an unwinnable coalition war.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 18, 2017, 11:27:46 am
My long-term strategy is actually one of attrition. I don't really like doing the whole world domination thing. I'm more focused on making hungary/the balkans an absolute nightmare for countries to invade. At the most, I imagine I won't take much more than austria for its gold and venice for the node.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 18, 2017, 11:50:03 am
No, I mean, the idea that you should fight Austria first because you don't want to fight Ottomans yet is completely bananas.???
You don't fight Austria first, you fight Venice first with Austrian help. You probably could invade the Austrians first but it's a riskier affair and not as cheap and profitable as invading Venice.
Austria is going to have many more and useful allies; Ottomans will have few if any. When you're stuck between two larger powers (like Austria/PLC and Ottomans) the obvious thing to do is make them fight each other at the expense of the strongest. You should absolutely fight Ottomans and shouldn't have any trouble getting Constantinople in the second war, probably pre-1480s.That's great if you can, but if you can't then my strat wins over the Ottomans with Hungary sola. What's more the Ottomans simply don't need allies at all to make war a poor life choice pre-mil tech 14, and that's assuming they are without allies - they usually don't have trouble finding allies in France, especially if they mutually rival Austria. Austria by comparison shares the Vienna trade node with Hungary, has really shit strategic depth, and it's incredibly easy to ally with the French or Bohemians to partition Austria with ease at the early game.
I did Dracula's Revenge as Wallachia; it would be a thousand times easier to do the same thing but as Hungary.
Spoiler: I like turning the Knights into the world hegemon (click to show/hide)
You keep bringing up these mechanics and strategies that apply to halfway through a playthrough. We are talking about pre-1500 here. Idea groups don't even come into play yet.Of course they do, a strategy is a plan which achieves a long-term goal, it is not a short plan of action. Taking over the Wien, Venice and Ragusa trade nodes gives you an easy selection of states throughout Italy and the Balkans that offer great riches with little resistance, and Austria herself can be a juicy target before mil tech 14, and if you can't take on Austria you can still take over the Vienna trade node or expand east/northwards. By contrast there isn't a good reason to go attack the Ottomans pre-1500 after the truce ends, and if you look closely you'll see the mechanics and strategies I have said are all on a timeline. What this means is that they create windows which are not dependent upon the actions of the Ottomans or allies, but will inevitably happen. You don't pick innovative at the start to benefit immediately, the benefits manifest after 1500 for example. Likewise I don't understand why you'd want to attack the Ottomans when the power discrepancy between you is largest. Pre-1500 the Ottomans have more development, more income, more discipline, higher morale, a better leader, better military leaders, better infantry, better cavalry, better infantry combat ability, vastly more manpower, galleys and Forts on the Bosphorous. Thus the strategy is not to attack the Ottomans when you are weak and they strong, but to attack when you are strong and they are weak. How do you become strong? With this strategy. This is what separates the proposal of having the Ottomans fight the Austrians from the strategy of making Hungary so strong that random chance cannot stop Hungary's victory; the former is an opportunity which may arise, or never arise, the latter will occur.
Hallo,I'm actually doing quite good at the moment. Managed to secure an alliance with the Mamluks, which ensures I will basically always have local superiority over the Ottomans, basically took all the balkans back with only greece proper left to the big green blob.Yeah you're safe by this point. Maybe colonize Australia for banter's sake
My long-term strategy is actually one of attrition. I don't really like doing the whole world domination thing. I'm more focused on making hungary/the balkans an absolute nightmare for countries to invade. At the most, I imagine I won't take much more than austria for its gold and venice for the node.
What's your experience with attrition? For the most part I've found attrition strats to be pretty meh with big blobs like France, Ottomans and Russians, but great fun against high discipline-low depth countries like Prussia and the Italians. My most recent fun was when I metagamed as fuck a broken custom nation OPM in Persia, as a little Hindu state of Mazandaran.
With the Defensive Edict, taking only Mountain provinces, maxing out on Defensive ideas and policies, I managed to get just under 130% Fort Defense on every single province I had. That I took quantity and maxed out attrition made it even funnier for anything that dared to invade.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 18, 2017, 12:02:23 pm
Frankly though, it's a dangerous game to play, and lucky nations are really really bullshit lol. One slip up and the war is over.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 18, 2017, 12:19:29 pm
Mamluks are a decent ally but not the best as they're isolated from your own armies. Austrians / Poland-Lith are better.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 18, 2017, 12:28:29 pm
Yeah, you're on the right track. Even better is to only have Mountain forts (or even a single fort on Mountain) and always attack the Ottomans there.
Mamluks are a decent ally but not the best as they're isolated from your own armies. Austrians / Poland-Lith are better.
I've actually made the switch from having Austria as an Ally to France as an ally. Poland is still a rival.
Here's the thing about Mamluks. I don't need support against the Ottomans when I have even a little numerical superiority. All they do is drag one of their army stacks (usually 17-30k) down to the Middle East and Egypt. At that point, it's game over for Ottomans. I took everything not on the Anatolian peninsula last time out. The only reason I didn't finish the job last time is because I have literally no navy.
As far as forts go. Yes, mountain forts are great and a good portion of my forts are on highlands or mountains. I think I'll end up taking Greece and Constantinople though at which point I'll move my capital and just have layer after layer of fortresses on which to grind down the armies of Europe.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 18, 2017, 12:55:54 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 18, 2017, 03:55:10 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 18, 2017, 05:16:57 pm
I wonder just how disturbing you can get with Fort placements. Like full Ming great wall tier of nasty.
If you can get the Balkans' shit together it's basically worse to invade than Russia. Carpathians are nice and since seaborne invasions are terribad, you basically have to get through multiple layers of mountain fortress lines. The only weakness is the gap between the Carpathians and the Black Sea.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 18, 2017, 06:06:37 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 18, 2017, 08:25:29 pm
The AI will probably just ignore your zone of control anyway
I haven't had any problems with it yet.
In other news, I started a game a The Knights, and well... it's also going quite swimmingly. Took Naxos, Crete, and Cyprus... have the world's second largest navy (after totally destroying the Ottoman's navy, literally it didn't exist for a couple of decades.) Despite that... no one wants to ally with me... there's no real possibilities for me. Colonization is a fucking pain. Islands are surprisingly hard to come by in the Mediterranean.
EDIT: I guess I'm just being too stingy. Is it time to start declaring wars with no cassus belli so I can get the power I need to be politically important? I can easily take on other nations at the sea. I just have no army.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on October 18, 2017, 08:47:11 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 20, 2017, 06:12:30 am
I haven't had any problems with it yet.The Knights' ability to raid is sexy. When you start getting island outposts everywhere from the Caribbean to the Pacific that's when you really go overboard as any heathen/heretic province two ocean tiles or less away from one of your ports is fair game. Caribbean, Eastern Med, Zanzibar, Gulf of Aden, the entirety of Southeast Asia... Delicious loot.
In other news, I started a game a The Knights, and well... it's also going quite swimmingly. Took Naxos, Crete, and Cyprus... have the world's second largest navy (after totally destroying the Ottoman's navy, literally it didn't exist for a couple of decades.) Despite that... no one wants to ally with me... there's no real possibilities for me. Colonization is a fucking pain. Islands are surprisingly hard to come by in the Mediterranean.
EDIT: I guess I'm just being too stingy. Is it time to start declaring wars with no cassus belli so I can get the power I need to be politically important? I can easily take on other nations at the sea. I just have no army.
Also the most important alliance for the Knights imo is the Papal states. Just to get to +195 or even +200 with the Papal States, this way you get maximum Papal Influence with religious ideas and Knights traditions. Means you never have to spend a single point on stability ever again, and you can run every single Papal bonus and become controller at the same time. Alliance acceptance offer weights both Army and Navy strength, but AI really likes army strength. You can mouse over the UI to see why the AI wants to ally you or doesn't want to ally you, if it's because you're army is too small for them it'll say something like (army strength -17 will indicate they don't like your small army, while army strength +20 indicates they really like your army). It weights to a maximum of +10 for navies and +20 for armies. Because of Papal relations the Knights can DOW without casus belli, but it's preferable to just use religious holy war casus belli to blob through Africa and Egypt to begin doom rolling into Asia until Imperialism is unlocked. Also if you're not yet at strength to contest the Ottomans on land, you can still inflict lots of pain upon the Ottomans through aggressive wars - focusing on taking Euboea, Corfu and increasing their loans, war exhaustion and stealing their trade power through blockades and raids. This nets you lots of profit at very low risk and makes the Ottomans greatly weaker, even better when it incites people to DOW on them and rebels to pop, allowing you to take them over in future. Expansion into Italy is also a very safe bet, even contesting Spain for Sicily, Malta, Sardinia, Baleares and Corsica is possible without a single fight provided you keep their troops stuck on land.
GB makes for a good ally when you transition your navy from Galleys to Heavy Warships, just to ensure you don't get your fleet wiped out in the transitional period by any potential rivals.
*EDIT
lmao this is why you've always got to be careful dealing with Ottomans early game (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XzTRkuw0aI)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 22, 2017, 10:55:21 pm
1.) Hungary game is on hiatus. I've hit critical mass and nothing interesting is happening other than constantly reinforcing my mountainous death-trap.
2.) The Knights game is fucking lit. It's 16-something, I own the mediterranean, and I bring terror to all the world. Spain got Morrocofied, so I have tons of room for raiding without even having to leave the... Knightish Sea. Ottomans try and take Naxos everything 30 years but just end up giving me all of tier heavy ships and leaving their galleasses and early frigates at the bottom of the aegean. Armies are a little problematic, with raiding just enough to support my naval dominance between major conflicts. Not sure where to expand to, perhaps I will just keep island-hopping.
3.) I'm trying to figure out how to do an OPM game where I only stick with one province... sadly the mechanics don't seem to really fit this, but I REALLY want to do it, so if you guys have any ideas I am very much down to hear them.
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 23, 2017, 09:34:05 am
Post by: Sheb on October 23, 2017, 09:47:32 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 23, 2017, 09:53:29 am
Starting games with The Knights is probably going to be a fair bit harder next patch, so enjoy it while you can! Back in 2015 Paradox introduced a bug that completely stopped the AI from declaring war over a sea zone, so nations like The Knights/Cyprus/Maldives or even a united GB/Japan/Madagascar have complete diplomatic immunity currently. Having the Ottomans and Mamluks breathing down your neck could make things a fair bit more hairy, especially now that sailors stop you from spamming unholy amounts of galleys.Still doesn't stop you from DOW with no CB into Africa, taking the requisite cores to get you within range of Arguin, then doing a Knights Exodus to become PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. And then you take over the new world to begin your reconquest of Jerusalem. That said, One Province Islands will probably still be invincible in the early game when in the player's hands.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Is sailor an issue for anyone? It always seems to me that naval forcelimit is much more significant.I've only ever had it happen in my Genoa or Knights games where your forcelimit far exceeds the sailors you can provide from your little and few provinces :[
Otherwise yeah any mainland power shouldn't have an issue
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 23, 2017, 10:09:26 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 23, 2017, 10:27:41 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on October 23, 2017, 11:42:57 am
Is sailor an issue for anyone? It always seems to me that naval forcelimit is much more significant.
Naval forcelimit matters if you're using trade ships; they increase in maintenance much faster than the other boat types when you go over your limit. If you're just using a hoard of cogs and galleys, you can go several times over your forcelimit before things get unsustainable. Sailors are pretty irrelevant unless you're tiny, I think the Knights has to raid to build more than a couple ships!
With that said I totally forgot the Knights have raiding as an option, you can probably do the whole spam-galleys-from-day-one strategy like you would in the past.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 23, 2017, 01:18:40 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 26, 2017, 09:55:38 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 26, 2017, 10:22:25 am
If anyone wants to go back to the old way of things, I figured out how to stop vassals taking up a diplomatic relations slot.Is there an init file setting?
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 26, 2017, 10:27:26 am
If anyone wants to go back to the old way of things, I figured out how to stop vassals taking up a diplomatic relations slot.Is there an init file setting?
Don't think so, its 'hidden' in the 00_subject_types text file. The default class has a bunch of modifiers, one being "takes_diplo_slot", just set it to "no"and you're good. Presumably, you could make it only certain types of subjects too.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 26, 2017, 11:09:11 am
1. Make colonial subjects take diplo slotDon't think so, its 'hidden' in the 00_subject_types text file. The default class has a bunch of modifiers, one being "takes_diplo_slot", just set it to "no"and you're good. Presumably, you could make it only certain types of subjects too.If anyone wants to go back to the old way of things, I figured out how to stop vassals taking up a diplomatic relations slot.Is there an init file setting?
2. Spain enters the new age with rowboats
3. Profit
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 28, 2017, 06:23:26 am
"The White Man is coming ashore!" "Shit! What do we do?" "Hope there's a slight current.">Spanish armada defeated by a mild breeze
Post by: Mookzen on October 29, 2017, 04:07:31 am
I remember a very similar situation with CK2, and now I essentially own all DLC and it's like among the best things ever. I also know that EUIV has an equally enthusiastic and borderline rabid fandom, this coupled with the fact that many actually seem to prefer it makes me very interested indeed. Have been playing HoI4 recently, and while it's ok, I consider it a bit too 'binary', it's actually getting stale way faster than expected for me - nowhere near the perpetual awesomeness that CK2 continues to be to this day. Stellaris is already good, but perhaps could be truly great with AI improvements, Diplomacy etc.
Post by: Radsoc on October 29, 2017, 05:38:29 am
Unfortunately it looks like getting back into the game requires one full price purchase, in order to play with the maximum amount of features. That's very clever of them. However, got a lot of play time in their games, and cost/year would be similar to most other games.
Also skipped the Aztec DLC, but would get it at 75% just for the option to get some variation. Stellaris is pretty decent by now, but still buggy and requires additional music (repetitive).
Post by: CABL on October 29, 2017, 06:09:52 am
something, something, DLC recommendations...
The vital ones are in the order of importance: Art of War (significantly improves alliances and the other warfare stuff), Common Sense (province developing, required to play if you're outside of Yurop), and Rights of Man (A lot of good stuff, like disinherit your heir, traits for your generals and admirals, new mechanics for Ottomans and Prussia, new mechanics for Coptic religion, Great power mechanics, etc).
Avoid the next DLC: Mare Nostrum (Outside of one mechanic, the package is pretty shit) and Conquest of Paradise (Mechanics for what are considered the most boring nations in EU4: The American Natives).
Every other DLC is YMMV. Read about them and make a choice to buy it or not. But, IMHO, Mandate of Heaven and Third Rome are not worth it due to "let's introduce lotsa OP mechanics and flavor for some countries nobody plays as anyway" mentality.
Post by: hector13 on October 30, 2017, 08:25:46 am
How does it compares to EUIII: In Domine, since that’s the only one I’ve really played. Biggest concern being the units you can recruit after Westernising (if that’s still a thing, and specifically how those units compare to the best tech group’s units) and things to do mid- to late-game, since I found myself having not much to do during that period.
Does army composition affect things? EUIII seemed to be “have massive stacks of cavalry for auto win” for a pretty big chunk of the game.
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on October 30, 2017, 08:51:21 am
Westernization is no longer a thing per-say. Primitive religions need to be adjacent to a more advanced civilization to reform but generally they removed westernization in favour of institutions which you can embrace for a minor bonus and removal of a growing tech penalty. Institutions have to spread to your nation before you can embrace them though, and unsurprisingly the majority of them start in Europe. So non-Western tech groups no longer have an inherent and often crippling tech penalty but suffer from a lack of access to early institutions. Theoretically you can develop a province enough times to get an institution to spawn there regardless of where you are, but that costs a ton of monarch points and so can be a questionable investment. A side effect is that you can no longer change your tech group and thus what kinds of units you get. Unsurprisingly Western units are the best in the late-game by two pips while Easter/Anatolian units are better in the early game. Everyone else is pretty much neck and neck, though I'm sure that some comparisons are more favourable than others.
Army composition is still a thing. All-cavalry armies are out because of a cavalry-infantry ratio you can't exceed without massive penalties. So unless you have very good cavalry, infantry (with 4 cavalry units for flanking) is king in the early game. In the late game you want your armies to be half infantry and half artillery, with 4 cavalry units for flanking, because of how artillery works.
No idea about things to do in mid-to-late-game, mostly because my games crash and burn before I get there. My impression is that you still have a fair amount to do but don't quote me on that. If you aren't playing as a Western nation then fending off their seemingly unstoppable doom stacks will likely keep you occupied right up until the end of the game. I'm still salty about an Incan run I did that failed horribly, yes.
As for DLC, see CrocAndBearLover's post. The one right above yours. That's pretty much the major consensus on what DLC to get. You definitely don't want to play EUIV without any DLC, since you'll be locked out of many needed/useful features.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on October 30, 2017, 08:58:33 am
Unsurprisingly Western units are the best in the late-game by two pips while Easter/Anatolian units are better in the early game. Everyone else is pretty much neck and neck, though I'm sure that some comparisons are more favourable than others.
It's very much worth noting that tech group units really don't matter so much (especially as compared to release). There are obvious breakpoints and close cases where it's a really bad idea to fight a war, but that's more a function of the tech system than unit pip differences. An equivtech war against a similar-sized enemy is not much harder if they have a small advantage in unit pips, although it will mean slightly higher casualties.
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 07, 2017, 03:59:21 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I started out in Canada with a joke custom nation of Atlantean Vikings, swiftly absorbing all of North and South America's coasts, when I realized with some hilarity upon settling the West African coast that animists and fetishists were treated as Norse pagan heretics - not a heathen religion. As such, the religious war cb allowed the option of converting West African princes to Norseness... Which of course, was too irresistible a chance to refuse.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oldfoundland was originally an OPM in Canada, yet the ultimate goal was to reclaim the Danelaw. Naturally this meant evicting the Catholics, which the locals seemed to oppose rather vehemently. The result was to be the great clashing of Atlantean and European civilization:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: ollobrains on November 08, 2017, 08:49:06 am
My North Sea Norse run. The Norse Empire stretches from Scandinavia to the British Isles and Greenland beyond, far West to the island of Bermuda and down south to the Falklands, farther into the Pacific and out into Norse Zealand. It is a mighty Empire, the Empire of Oldfoundland!Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I started out in Canada with a joke custom nation of Atlantean Vikings, swiftly absorbing all of North and South America's coasts, when I realized with some hilarity upon settling the West African coast that animists and fetishists were treated as Norse pagan heretics - not a heathen religion. As such, the religious war cb allowed the option of converting West African princes to Norseness... Which of course, was too irresistible a chance to refuse.I did my best to create powerful African trade Empires, then upon ensuring their territorial integrity, set them loose upon the continent. This had the lovely benefit of creating numerous friendly nations that would allow my troops access to Africa but refuse the Christians, and even better - block all their attempts at colonizing Eastwards, resulting in Portugal getting so Poortugal, it was once nearly wholly annexed by Morocco. Poortugal was reduced down to Lisboa and would've suffered further had the African Norse not united to repel the Moroccan expedition in West Africa. Spain never founded a single colony. For that matter, almost no colonial powers existed, to the point where the principle settlers of the East Indies were the Indonesian princes (helpfully converted to Norse paganism) and the Russians.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Oldfoundland was originally an OPM in Canada, yet the ultimate goal was to reclaim the Danelaw. Naturally this meant evicting the Catholics, which the locals seemed to oppose rather vehemently. The result was to be the great clashing of Atlantean and European civilization:For whom the only true winner was the Ottoman Empire, annexing the entirety of Austria and Hungary amidst the great war. Thereafter the Norse moved their capital to Yorkshire, provoking a great controversy and uproar back home in the Americas, with the American Atlanteans protesting that the government had forgotten their ways, protesting to such an extent that the American nations erupted into outright rebellion. Before long warlords seized control of their own private Republics, and central authority over the two continents would be shattered forever more, replaced by the great scheming game between the various alliances of such arcane nations as Republican Mexico and the Canadian Empire. Amidst all of this the Government of Oldfoundland quietly divided the British realms into smaller realms, and quietly annexed those - until such time as it could set its sights upon the realms of Denmark and Russia. Thereafter it settled Norse Zealand, and with the aid of Norse African allies, spread the good word of Odin into the interior of Africa, or confounded the politics of the Christians with a good rabble rousing round of invasion.Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Its ahistorical stuff like this that makes this game darn good
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on November 08, 2017, 10:42:34 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 10, 2017, 07:01:02 pm
Damn it, Loud Whispers. I was gunning for the same achievement and now my accomplishments can't help but pale in comparison to your own. It's 1700 and I barely have a foothold on Scandinavia for Odin's sake. Admittedly it's because I got infected by colonization fever and beating up defenceless Mexicans, Inca and First Nations distracted me for decades. At least it catapulted me into my rightful place as the second greatest nation in the world, behind the inevitable Ottoman blob.I know that feel, though to be fair colonization fever isn't all that bad, and has the added benefit of denying the Americas to the European powers. imo you can just chill for the first 100 years, keeping your MP saved to develop provinces and spawn renaissance & colonialism in North America, while taking over all of the Caribbean, St. Lawrence & American East Coast, everything after that is icing on the cake. Just don't get drawn into the curse of trying to colonize all the continents at the same time, leaving Norse Africa alone is as much self-deterrence as it was for the Poortuguese Empire ;D
Also note that you can save a hell of a lot of time colonizing by taking over the coasts, moving your capital to yurop and letting the colonial nations do their own thing more or less. By leaving the Americas and popping colonial republics your colonist count should jump from +3 to +13, which also frees up your states count so you can properly begin converting the British Isles & Scandinavia to Odinism with the religion edict
Easy mode:
Ally with the Ottomans.
Seriously with the power of the Americas and the Ottomans combined few things can last the Ottoblob and Norseblob glancing at them in a neutral manner. Natural allies, with different trade empires, common enemies and a desire to carve up Christendom - match made in heaven
Its ahistorical stuff like this that makes this game darn goodI'm not sure if the Norse treating Fetishists as heretics is a bug or feature ;]
Post by: Karnewarrior on November 10, 2017, 09:01:20 pm
It seems the Norse were a pretty kinky people.Its ahistorical stuff like this that makes this game darn goodI'm not sure if the Norse treating Fetishists as heretics is a bug or feature ;]
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 12, 2017, 10:56:08 pm
Post by: DeKaFu on November 16, 2017, 05:17:47 pm
I've never actually tried a single game in this genre before, though, and have no idea if I'd actually like it. The base game is currently $11, which is about the limit of what I want to gamble on an unknown... but reading the reviews and such, it sounds like people are saying the game is "incomplete" unless you buy another $30+ of DLC.
So... is there actually any point in buying just the base game to try it out? If it's not fun without the DLC, I'll probably just assume the genre's not for me. But I don't wanna drop a lot of money on DLCs only to find I don't like the entire game, either.
Post by: Tawa on November 16, 2017, 05:22:30 pm
E: Long-term, that is. You'd definitely want to pick up Art of War if you come to like the game, but you don't really need it if you're just testing the waters for now.
Post by: Rex_Nex on November 17, 2017, 12:59:02 am
So... is there actually any point in buying just the base game to try it out? If it's not fun without the DLC, I'll probably just assume the genre's not for me.
I personally wouldn't play the base game; the game is designed around having almost all the DLC. You can avoid most problems by just getting Art of War and Common Sense, but that's still an investment for an incomplete experience. EU4 isn't really something I can recommend to someone new to the genre. Taking a stab in the dark with such an expensive game doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
In other news, Cradle of Civilization came out today, along with the accompanying patch. It's pretty fun, although the Ottoman AI is royally hecked now. Albania starts gaurunteed by Venice and can usually ally Poland/Hungary immediately. If the Ottomans attack (and they usually do) they get crushed & the newly buffed Mamluks come in to mop up.
Post by: Radsoc on November 17, 2017, 03:54:15 am
Post by: Sheb on November 17, 2017, 05:39:39 am
Post by: Ametsala on November 17, 2017, 08:25:39 am
I've never actually tried a single game in this genre before, though, and have no idea if I'd actually like it.
Have you watched any let's play videos of it? YouTube's full of them. I sometimes watch those, when I'm not sure if I want to buy a game or not. You get to see what the game's like and a bit of a tutorial as well. I've watched Arumba's (https://www.youtube.com/user/arumba07/playlists?disable_polymer=1) EU4 LP's in the past (don't remember which ones), but there are a whole lot of others making LP's of Paradox games. (Sure, they've got most of the DLC and a bunch of mods, but you'll still get an idea of what the game is like.)
And if you don't want to watch videos, there are also LP's on various forums like FearfulJesuit's one (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=167680.0) here in B12.
Post by: Culise on November 17, 2017, 01:21:10 pm
Post by: EnigmaticHat on November 17, 2017, 01:51:37 pm
I would probably try Victoria 2 or so in that case. Complete game with less DLC and cheaper on sale. But all games are basically different, even though they use the Clausewitz engine.Side note, but I had to buy Vicky 2 off Amazon for some reason (the steam version wouldn't work for me IIRC?). And the version I got off Amazon shipped unpatched. Unpatched Vicky 2 is madness. T h e r e b e l s a r e c o m i n g.
Post by: Sheb on November 18, 2017, 06:39:37 am
Post by: Tawa on November 18, 2017, 12:06:53 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on November 18, 2017, 03:20:11 pm
I'm told that El Dorado is pretty good. Along with the Native American features, it comes with Nation Designer, and gives access to Support Independence (which also allows you to play countries like Norway or Holland.)
Yeah it's probably worth it just for the nation designer.
Post by: Radsoc on November 24, 2017, 02:05:47 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on November 24, 2017, 03:46:42 pm
I just got back into the game after 3 years. Great improvements to the level of detail, performance, AI and overall playability. The game has reached a good level of complexity and ironman is no walk in the park. Had to restart a couple of times after having found out new mechanics I hadn't used before. I mean the estates interaction button is quite important despite being such a subtle button.
i think estates are generally a good concept and implemented ok. but they're kinda fussy because of all the arbitrary breakpoints.
they'd also be better if they were more varied - like instead of just a "nobility" estate there were different noble houses to juggle, with the possibility of any of them rebelling. also if estates were more mandatory - like get rid of the generic advisors, generic diplomats, and generic generals, and tie all of those into estates. like where do these people come from if they're not from estates?
anyway, they're fine how they are, but could be more interesting.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 24, 2017, 04:21:38 pm
So I just hit year 1700 in my "Hungary" run. I have transformed into Byzantium and am attempting to restore the Roman Empire. I've retaken Anatolia and Egypt and have nearly completed my conquests of North Africa (Just Morocco left) and Italy (Just Milan Left).
Currently gathering allies and defaming Austria in what is sure to be the first World War. (Actually the second, the HRE religious war was insane in scope.) It's gonna be tight... I need Vienna to restore the Empire, but they allied all my allies and Austria's Dip Rep is crazy rn. After that I'm somehow going to have to conquer all of Spain, France, and England.
Ugh.
EDIT: I'm not sure, but it seems like you could add more estates with a variety of events, effects, and conditions fairly easily... I may try my hand at noble houses mod.
Post by: Radsoc on November 25, 2017, 07:23:27 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 26, 2017, 08:24:19 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then some interesting things happen.
Austria inherits Hungary.
Spain inherits Austria.
Post by: Rakonas on November 26, 2017, 01:28:17 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 27, 2017, 01:09:42 pm
Is there a reliable workaround to the trade company merchant bug yet?Don't think so
Post by: Rakonas on November 27, 2017, 10:39:52 pm
Is there a reliable workaround to the trade company merchant bug yet?Don't think so
Found elsewhere that if you just remove provinces from trade companies you don't have 51% in you get the merchant from the ones you do in case anyone was wondering.
Post by: CABL on November 28, 2017, 02:58:40 am
Also, here's an important tip for the people who want to play Hungary: NEVER EVER FORM THE BLACK ARMY. The discipline bonus for mercs seems godly, but mercs are frigging expensive for the Hungarian economy, and the discipline bonus isn't very good in the early game (morale is the king in the early game), where you need to remove Ottoderps from Balkans ASAP. Also, you'll need to pay some serious dosh for the Black Army's maintenance!
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 28, 2017, 03:13:03 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 28, 2017, 07:54:01 am
weak hungry game tbh
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 28, 2017, 10:40:33 am
>not forming Hungary-Austria
weak hungry game tbh
Austrat is nation of weaklink, you must be of stronk to remove kebab from south empire!
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 28, 2017, 01:58:18 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on November 28, 2017, 02:25:56 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on November 28, 2017, 02:45:36 pm
Make Hungary Great Again
for the first time
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 29, 2017, 06:50:30 pm
Post by: Radsoc on November 30, 2017, 05:33:38 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on November 30, 2017, 05:38:27 pm
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 02, 2017, 06:48:28 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
One Sunni province remained in Yeren and one of Ming's provinces got an event and flipped to Sunni. My biggest mistake was not forming Mughals or Persia, but there were a lot of things I could of done before I realized how hard this was going to be. For some reason I thought I just had to wipe every Sunni nation out. Woops.
Post by: Sheb on December 04, 2017, 03:22:34 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 04, 2017, 08:26:38 am
Post by: Sheb on December 04, 2017, 09:23:51 am
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on December 04, 2017, 09:26:01 am
Post by: FantasticDorf on December 04, 2017, 12:44:59 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
All of this plus becoming england & passing parlimentary debates, Wales is tough & time consuming to eat your overlord but absolutely underrated for the quality of what you can do with these ideas. I just can't think of any dirty tricks at the moment that would give me a edge as often Scotland falls flat & France is purely good for the continent. Ill try releasing northumberland to free england up of development and intensify the war of the roses event which lets you send over 3000 men to spawn a 8 stack rebel of troops each.
Only time i've ever been freed from England was my first attempt at this where england incurred a irish coalition and lost releasing me within the peace deal. I then got clobbered being greedy & starting more wars after taking laughin.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 04, 2017, 01:27:55 pm
Think about it: From Wales you could eliminate the protestant centre of reformation in the British Isles and thus eliminate one of the toughest protestant strongholds. With bonus prestige and legitimacy you'll never lack for bonuses from other states wanting you to be Emperor (once you're big enough), and if you suck up to the Austrians before the Dutch leave, you could theoretically add yourself to the HRE or else just go the long route, become Emperor and so add yourself that way. With bonus to religious ideas and conversion you're a prime candidate for a German and Scandinavian protestant chemotherapy edition, eliminating centres of reformation with missionary strength no one else possesses (except maybe the Byzantines, but they won't have survived this long anyways so no one cares). With your idea groups stacked religious and humanist, you're basically immune to the reformation!
You also have a natural reason to reclaim France as the natural celtic descendants of One True Celtic Francetm. And if you become HRE and defeat the protestants and Dutch, revoking the privilegia cements your hold on the English Channel trade node, as all other trade income goes to your vassals instead of rivals. The only downside I think, is that despite your increased force limit, manpower may still remain an issue, with regards to winning a league war.
Post by: FantasticDorf on December 04, 2017, 04:15:26 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
However the process to becoming england incurs more development than the emperor will allow as the AI disallows states it feels are a threat, vassalising electors through roundabout HRE wars after i get a foothold in europe through France is a more likely bet.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 04, 2017, 04:23:51 pm
Post by: Tawa on December 24, 2017, 04:29:44 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Tondo, Pangasinan, and Maynila share ideas, which have a running theme of maritime support and economic boosts. Cebu's ideas focus it on political stability, Madyas is really navy focused, Maguindanao has ideas that mainly improve its economy with a military-boost on the side, and Butuan has diplomacy and trade focus (with much-coveted additional merchant, diplomat, relations slot, and relations point.) Personally, I like Maguindanao and Butuan's ideas, but none of them are really bad IMO, and given the Philippines' position, Madyas arguably has pretty good ideas.
On the topic of Madyas, there's something else interesting about them: they're an oligarchic republic. I'm not experienced enough to really comment on how good or bad this is, strictly speaking, although I'm told that absolutism is crucial to the metagame these days. It would definitely be an interesting game.
I'm currently having a pretty decent game as Maguindanao. Things would be going pretty smoothly if Borneo didn't threaten to intervene against me. If nothing else, a huge navy is the key to success here. If you have the biggest navy, you can lock down the sea and keep everyone off your islands.
Post by: Bob69Joe on December 25, 2017, 01:40:34 pm
The games bug out though with Norse pirates. Maybe it's cause they have their capital in the new world. After the turn of the month after sending out the fleet, the privateers sit idle in the sea. Anyone play?
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 25, 2017, 07:44:07 pm
Post by: FantasticDorf on December 26, 2017, 04:34:04 am
(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/884259456719616671/4E12C030675636C34B2307384EEF2876F5D35C4D/)
This picture is a little bit prior to where I ended up, but at 1616 i was a little behind schedule of how i wanted to form england quickly in the 1500's, but instead i took the long route & conquered ireland & scotland and worked my way back down into England. Lead manufacturer in iron from intensive development dumps, leading controller of the english trade node by virtue of provincial power.
Post by: Loud Whispers on December 26, 2017, 11:58:36 am
Post by: Rex_Nex on December 26, 2017, 12:44:34 pm
Post by: Bob69Joe on December 31, 2017, 08:18:31 pm
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
That's a utilitarian definition of feudalism. Convenient even for mysterious purposes not willing to be known.
_____
The tech 1 adminstration gives any nation feudalism. It reads "Feudal Monarchy - As social organization improves, so do things like food production. Increasing food production allows a society to upkeep people who aren't producers of food themselves. This leads to creation of a military elite, to defend against enemy's military elite. Supporting of the military elite is the basis of the feudal system." That's it word for word. It's backwards in thought and strangley grammar.
Butta hey, my Vinland games was going great until I moved the capital to Akerhaus and all of my original lands, quite sacred Norse yo, went to money grubbing colonial nations. Anyone know where I can rip those out of the game files and if I could continue playing? I might need to keep my capital overseas if there's no solution.
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 01, 2018, 01:20:19 am
You've made the mistake of exodusing yourself, now you will need to find a new non-colonial province to jump back possibly in a new region if you only hold Akerhaus and im pretty sure that will not undo your colonial nations formed in your wake either.
Keep it overseas because you're not disallowed to own land on two continents after all as a "New World" based nation, major misplay im afraid.
Post by: Bob69Joe on January 02, 2018, 12:50:19 am
With Vinland's dominance in the 'New' New World and lack of Doomsday, the hereditary monarchs will have an easier time anyway. Also, the chinese republic got spawned and is causing problems for Castilian expansion. It's 1580ish and the European monarchs are just now feeling adventurous enough to gain some islands along the equator. The new geography doesn't present any profitiability besides some island hopping. Eventually they'll get to the continent. It's the long one that looks like a can opener and is spread north to south. I'd say it's about a 1000 miles from China. I'd like to share the map, it's cool. Does DF Depot allow files from other games? Seems like It'd be a bad practice, what about the forum? I know Paradox allows for embedded files right inside a post. They allow for up to one whole gigabyte. Uh, lol looking down I notice an 'attachments' tab. I'll check that out in the morning. G' night, g' mornin', g' day, folks!
_____
Well poo. I started this game with only CotNW and Common Sense active, then put in everything else because I couldn't make Welsh, Irish, or Highland vassals into marches. Now trying to turn off CotNW makes the save fail to load. Ah well. Vinland is still awesome.
A tip on making RNW(random new world) is to keep the fog of war unactive in the lobby, it's in the options, to see what nations and lands are spawned. I personally dislike the symmetrical tiles and the one that looks like a skull and the other of the Paradox logo, so I moved those out of their folder into a backup and they aren't possible to be formed, cutting down on retrys greatly. Have two folders open: map/random/tiles and map/random/tiles/data. Data has the pictures and each is named the same for the text to each tile. RNWScenarios has each possible fantasy nation. I think 200 to 500 is the number most likely to spawn but I don't see how idea groups are chosen.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 07, 2018, 07:51:48 pm
I took exploration ideas for shiggles. I just started colonizing Taiwan. I figure I can probably colonize south and eat the Philippines and Indonesia or something.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on January 23, 2018, 08:22:03 am
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-23rd-of-january-2018.1066296/
fucking stupid that they tried doing that whole "ages" bullshit first, but whatever.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on January 23, 2018, 01:48:40 pm
Seems like it doesn't fit terribly well in EU IV? HoI has always had the problem that its such a short time span you can't have too much interesting alt history. Focus trees were a hamfisted way to give you some ridiculous options like fascist Canada vs USA. But here it seems like it rewards you for going down the path that your nation did historically.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on January 23, 2018, 02:34:01 pm
I haven't played this in a while, but that reminds me of focus trees from HoI IV.
Seems like it doesn't fit terribly well in EU IV? HoI has always had the problem that its such a short time span you can't have too much interesting alt history. Focus trees were a hamfisted way to give you some ridiculous options like fascist Canada vs USA. But here it seems like it rewards you for going down the path that your nation did historically.
eh, it's basically just the same mission system without having to game the RNG weighting for new missions. the graphical representation might be like HOI4, but most of the concepts - including prereqs and the "alt history" element is mostly the same as it was before - at least as far as Byzantium/Ottomans (shown) go. also not so much "historically" when it comes to countries like Byzantium.
it's also not like HOI4 in that you can complete all of the focus trees, and there aren't choices here.
Post by: Tawa on January 23, 2018, 07:43:32 pm
Also, this will reduce the effectiveness of crazy tag-switching strats. It always bothered me that the optimal strategies in a supposedly realistic grand strategy game involved things like turning Prussia into Yuan Mongolia.
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 23, 2018, 08:12:08 pm
Post by: WealthyRadish on January 24, 2018, 12:35:10 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 24, 2018, 02:25:07 am
Post by: Not good with names on February 06, 2018, 05:33:48 pm
And then I waited. and waited. I think it was around 1550 when the first European colony touched down, and as of my current save it's 1630 and there are only 6 European colonies in Africa at all. While I certainly am playing a little part in this (I slowly but surely took up most of the prime ivory coast territory, but since I was playing very defensively I didn't start settling Ivory coast until 1500+), something else was at play. Taking a look at the save screen, there's actually nothing very remarkable about Europe, Tunis ate morocco but everyone seems pretty normal. South America is a different story entirely. Musica has 10+ provinces from Panama down into Colombia, Tapuia has 5 provinces and then there's the 14 province Tupis who appear to be farming Portguese colonies. I thought that was pretty cool, though hurtful that the South American AI is probably playing a better game than I am at this point.
Anyway, a couple questions if anyone feels like venturing an opinion.
How do you cope with tribal governments? Should you revolt to feudal goverments as soon as possible? I really would prefer to have more states but I am having trouble finding the time to drop the 400-600 admin while keeping up with the rest of the world (And my military points, which I am having a hard time spending without triggering unbalanced research).
Also, trade routes. Since I control most of the ivory coast, should I move my capital to a province on the coast and push all my African trade to there? I really hate having a coastal capital but if it makes a huge difference between collecting in both Congo and ivory coast vs. collecting exclusively in Ivory and steering trade everywhere else then I'd consider it.
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on February 06, 2018, 06:26:15 pm
Transferring trade power upstream is extremely inefficient, so always be collecting on the furthest downstream node you can reach regardless of any other factors. Use a merchant if you have to.
Whether to collect or steer trade is dependent on the relative percentage of the trade power you have in the node and adjacent nodes. If you have 75% of trade power in a node then it doesn't matter whether that power is equal to 3000 or 3. The effects are the same. Your capital (or main trade city if you have the Wealth of Nations DLC) collects more efficiently than merchants, so the ideal scenario is to transfer all trade to the home node and collect from there. However the ideal scenario is one where you have 100% trade power in the nodes you're steering from. As a general rule of thumb:
- Steer trade if you dominate the node you're steering towards or that node is already steering trade to a node you dominate and/or collect from.
- Collect trade otherwise.
Post by: FantasticDorf on February 07, 2018, 11:12:50 am
> Highlander ideas courtesy of (gaeldom shared?) heberdies "lordship of the isles" new tag.
> Cornish ideas (and part of a unit model pack)
> No word on possible welsh unit models or idea restructuring, but ill be using the packs features to full effect.
Prussian monarchy with highlander charges, delightful.
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 08, 2018, 11:43:59 am
Im positively hyped for the new "Rule Britannia" immersion pack.inb4 in the hundred years war, Scotland kills England and France
> Highlander ideas courtesy of (gaeldom shared?) heberdies "lordship of the isles" new tag.
> Cornish ideas (and part of a unit model pack)
> No word on possible welsh unit models or idea restructuring, but ill be using the packs features to full effect.
Prussian monarchy with highlander charges, delightful.
Shock phases will never be the same again
Post by: Bob69Joe on February 08, 2018, 04:50:23 pm
Post by: USEC_OFFICER on February 08, 2018, 04:59:30 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on February 08, 2018, 07:00:46 pm
Does someone mess around with the console and know how to fire events? I'm doing a Zoroastrian Persia and it's 1450, just in time for the Renaissance to fire. The event id is institution_event.2. So I typed "event institution_event.2 416" 416 being the province where thecZoroastrian religion is present at the start of the game. The Renaissance fires and Persia gets the monarch points and prestige, but the event says, "Any/all gets 'Birthplace of the Renaissance." In fact, no province gets the modifier and none has embraced it. Anyone figure this out?
That event doesn't target a province, so telling it to target a province is useless. Further, that even fires when the Renaissance has actually already spawned somewhere; it's the event that tells the world the Renaissance has begun.
Post by: Culise on February 08, 2018, 08:04:13 pm
I suppose I should note that it may horribly break the institution spawn and spread in the game because it might bypass the game's method for institution activation. I highly doubt something like that will happen, and I expect you know all of this if you're already mucking about in the console to trigger events, but caveat fraudator.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on February 09, 2018, 10:19:56 am
While I have no idea whatsoever if it'll work, poking around the big list of console commands (https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Console_commands) suggests that embrace [ProvinceID] [InstitutionName] may do what you wish. You'll need the province ID of the province you wish to spawn it in and the name in the code (not the localization text) for the Renaissance institution.
yeah, this should be the correct method for cheat-spawning renaissance in the province you want. "embrace 416 renaissance"
if not it wouldn't be hard to make a tiny mod that does.
Post by: Glloyd on February 14, 2018, 03:32:47 am
Post by: forsaken1111 on February 14, 2018, 06:34:55 am
Post by: Tawa on February 19, 2018, 10:54:47 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on February 20, 2018, 06:55:05 pm
Does the Wiki mention how it slows the game to hell and back?
all the best paradox game mods are unplayable because of how much they slow the game
Post by: Tawa on February 20, 2018, 06:56:08 pm
Post by: Not good with names on February 24, 2018, 04:59:10 pm
In the late 16th century the situation finally opened up for some north African aggression as a lack of league war in europe (France is the emperor haha) meant that Castile and Portugal were able to marshal their forces, so Morocco finally lost its Iberian holdings and most of the Atlantic coast. With Berber hostile core creation being such a pain I opted to split the the Berbers between Moroccan and Touggartian Marches, but I'm pretty sure the 17th century opened with me at less than 200 development and maybe a 40 unit force limit, but totally filthy rich from colonies, with Lousiana, Eastern USA, Caribbean and California all adding their small bit along with my gigantic brazilian and Mexican holdings. I'm pretty sure both Al-Brazila and Al-Azteca (those suck, but Allahfornia and Al-Alabama I stand by) actually eclipsed me in development for a time.
With Europe playing mostly hugbox and looking huge, and only the occasional Italian war to spend their manpower, even the ottomans were kicked out of Bulgaria while they were expanding into Egypt. The worst part was realizing I actually didn't have much opportunity to raise absolutism, so Tunisia set its sights south. Did a fair bit of blobbing, but nearing an empire and figured I'd share because the border gore is pretty nice. And I spawned the Enlightement in Yao, which I found pretty funny.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I went with a sort of strange idea order, Exploration->Aristocratic->Innovative->Diplomatic->Defensive->Influence. I think if I had the choice I'd trade around Diplomatic and Influence, but it was pretty effective since I was really only fighting New World enemies for much of the early game. The vassal force limit booster would've been pretty nice earlier, but overall I didn't mind this combo so much. Cheap advisors and heavily discounted tech made development a thing without worrying about falling behind, and a fleet of galleys was basically all the protection I needed (and blockade spoils were no small thing either early).
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 25, 2018, 07:09:16 pm
Thinking I'll give MEIOU & Taxes a shot. Anything I need to know that the wiki fails to mention?Playing as most minors outside of the HRE, Italy or China really sucks. The population mechanic makes it so that small nations absolutely cannot play tall, they will be crushed if they cannot expand or get the required income to increase education and outfit a small, elite army. The problem is there are very few nations which can afford these expenses, while expanding is for most nations going to be slower than playing as Jains in CK2. For example in Anatolia there are numerous minors, from the Romans, to the Serbian Empire, to the Crusader States, to the Anatolian Beyliks and the Merchant Republics.
However none of these states will ever be able to expand, because in the time it would take for them to field an army and annex any of their neighbours, the Ottomans will have become a world power and destroyed them. This is because MEIOU & Taxes likes making more historical outcomes, which is really nice when it is from simulating the factors which resulted in such a rise - but not so fun or interesting when it is just one tag having less mechanical barriers than other states. Thus while I played Ottomans I quickly annexed everyone with no trouble, as I had access to a CB which gave me claims to everything and allowed me to annex everyone with 0 AE using war dynamism. Most states could not survive a single battle against me, and I grew incredibly quickly. Upon expanding to Ottoman's historical borders however, I kinda just got stuck there. Conversely while playing as Knights, I found that I struggled to outfit an army of 6,000 men without breaking the economy. Improving Rhodes was impossible, while my economy depended upon two land based cities. This forced me to go on the offensive, but I quickly found that while I could win many battles with my small, elite fighting force - I could rarely conquer anyone, as touching two provinces would spawn a coalition, and it usually took years to get a CB. This contrasted with the AI Ottomans who were rolling through Greece and Anatolia with absolutely zero limitations.
You might think there may still be some fun in the challenge, of waging a long campaign against such an asymmetrically favoured foe - one which can just claim your territory and annex it while you're fighting, while you cannot do the same in reverse. But, if the game isn't crashing every year, even the most powerful enemies can be destroyed by running a highly-developed, well-defended (in this case, by my navy), educated state, fighting to kill the enemy, not win. Once they run out of manpower they have to hire mercs, but with loans starting off with 10% interest, it doesn't take long for the AI to max out on loans and bankrupt. This led to the rather disheartening scenario where I could defeat the gratuitously large Ottomans and Mamlukes whilst barely keeping my economy afloat, but I couldn't afford to take any provinces from them - whether it was because I couldn't afford the AE, or I couldn't literally afford to hold the province.
Playing as a European or Asian state that isn't in the firing line of a historical power however, the game comes into its own as just dank beans all round. One of my most fun runs has been the Papal State - making that most difficult climb of returning to Rome, annexing the vassals and playing a complex diplomatic game towards unifying Italy. It gives you a hell of a lot to do in peace time, in administration and development, and is really where the game absolutely shines. Communication efficiency, population encouragement and estate management is the game's bread and butter. You genuinely feel like a sovereign Dorf Fortress overlord managing a state, in the sense that you are not making things happen - you are telling people what needs to be done, and hoping they implement it well.
Post by: Rex_Nex on April 02, 2018, 05:09:19 pm
Cue 400,000 Turks in Cairo and my 7th abandoned run.
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 02, 2018, 05:18:12 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 02, 2018, 09:26:34 pm
Ruined my Fezzan Corridors run, which is rather disheartening because it took me seven tries to get this one going. Conquered all of North Africa, all of Egypt, and most of Iberia as Fezzan -> Tripoli -> Tunis, then decided to take the Mamluk government because who doesn't want great sultans? As it turns out, that sets me as a historical rival to the Ottomans. The Ottomans I have been feeding land to all game, and my only ally in a world where everyone with even a drop of power hates me. That "No longer desires you as ally" notification was heart-wrenching.In EU4 the only true ally you have is the one you can turn into a vassal. Much of the rising powers in EU4 were not destroyed by their enemies; but by their allies.
Cue 400,000 Turks in Cairo and my 7th abandoned run.
Post by: Sheb on April 03, 2018, 07:11:49 am
And now there is no mandate of heaven for me to take...
Post by: Tawa on April 04, 2018, 04:45:28 pm
Post by: MCreeper on April 05, 2018, 02:12:37 am
Post by: sambojin on June 30, 2018, 09:44:30 pm
Might bring a bit more challenge to big conquests etc, once he's worked out what's going on under the hood.
Post by: EnigmaticHat on July 12, 2018, 03:42:30 pm
Got a frustrating run this time. I was going for a Qing run, and I took Ming down in one long, costly, bloody war that also brought me to the edge (but I was able to bounce back and theye not due to the mandate mechanic). Cue Ava attacking Ming and stealing the Mandate of Heaven from the mess of rebelling rebels that Ming was, before going down due to low mandate themselves. Before I realized it, they were being annexed, and I couldn't attack them for the Mandate since they were on the other side of China.I don't even play this game anymore, but can I just say that sounds like a very inaccurate portrayal of the Mandate of Heaven.
And now there is no mandate of heaven for me to take...
Post by: dennislp3 on July 15, 2018, 08:24:34 am
Bit off topic, but probably the best thread for it: is EU Rome any good? I've taken an interest in Roman history as of late and the game sounds interesting, but I'm seeing it has middling reviews(though good critic scores.)
Due to how EU Rome turned out I am hoping that the new rome based game that Paradox is releasing can nail it down a little better...time will tell
Post by: Micro102 on August 02, 2018, 04:04:53 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 03, 2018, 01:17:44 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on August 03, 2018, 01:25:37 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 03, 2018, 01:37:14 pm
Post by: Persus13 on August 03, 2018, 01:54:44 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 03, 2018, 03:49:58 pm
Post by: Persus13 on August 03, 2018, 03:52:24 pm
Post by: Micro102 on August 03, 2018, 04:44:18 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on September 04, 2018, 05:50:59 pm
$70 in goddamn DLC. $70.
So among:
Dharma
Rule Brittania
Cradle of Civilization
Mandate of Heaven
What's the best to get? I'm probably looking at Eastern/Central Europe, like the Serbia achievement or something.
Post by: Rex_Nex on September 04, 2018, 06:06:57 pm
Can't say what Dharma will be like. We just got the patchnotes today. Not a whole lot of QoL, but the government reforms could end up being somewhat fun for all nations.
Post by: Loud Whispers on September 04, 2018, 06:24:43 pm
Rule Britannia
-Adds exclusive missions and fluff to the British Isles.
-Adds naval policies (doesn't change the game much at all, Naval combat pretty much still remains a game of "who picked maritime ideas").
-Adds innovativeness (basically a tech reduction cost for being advanced in tech).
-Adds Anglicanism, a horrifying amalgamation of protestantism and catholicism. Plays like catholicism on steroids with no Papal rivals.
-Adds industrial revolutions, where high development provinces swap low value trade goods for coal.
Generally speaking, this DLC doesn't affect campaigns outside of the English Channel trade node all that much. It's like Third Rome or Purple Phoenix, where it's very specific to a government or nation you really enjoy playing. Low priority DLC unless you really enjoy English Channel games.
Mandate of Heaven
-Historical ages and golden eras provide bonuses specific to certain time periods, and tend to have synergies with powers which were historically significant in that time period. Significantly changes the outcome of games.
-Diplomatic actions are made a hell of a lot easier to manage with their own menu. Easily one of the best things about this expansion.
-Peaceful provinces get prosperity bonuses.
-Eastern Asian nations get loads of unique mechanics to religion, state and army.
Cradle of Civilisation
-Adds loads of new governments with unique mechanics or decisions in the Middle East region, adds more historical fluff events for those nations/empires.
-Islamic Schools, which act like subsects within Islam and provide unique perks/affect international relations.
-Unlocks trade policies, which affect every nation in the game tremendously, as trade policies are pretty powerful in the hands of a player.
-Unlocks army professionalism: Massively alters the combat of the game by making professional armies drawn from manpower with max maintenance at all times viable (even with mass losses).
-Unlocks exploitation of development, which is basically a reverse of development.
-Unlocks the use of missionaries on vassal provinces.
The last four are good reasons to get COC, which significantly impact all campaigns even if they're outside the middle east.
I don't know about Dharma though
Post by: ZeroGravitas on September 06, 2018, 10:02:52 pm
so the answer is now "all 3 that are on sale"
Post by: ChairmanPoo on September 07, 2018, 06:34:29 am
Post by: ZeroGravitas on September 07, 2018, 07:58:39 am
I´d been considering EUIV, but I´ve realized that I like CK2 better as low fantasy//secret history, and EUIV would probably fail to scratch that itch...
Yeah, EU4 has none of that. 90% wargaming with 10% nationbuilding.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on October 29, 2018, 05:35:35 am
Now, things got even more fun. The electors ran out of Catholic emperor options inside the HRE and voted for a blobbed mega-Hungary instead. The end result - all of the Balkans are now part of the HRE (I didn’t actually know that the Emperor’s lands joined the HRE, nifty). We Protestants easily win the League war nevertheless, leaving Hungary as the only long-term Catholic prince. And who do the electors turn to in this new gloriously Protestant realm? Yours truly, Bavaria supreme!
I decided to play the Good Emperor, liberating HRE states whenever possible, enforcing Protestant unity, generally bringing about a golden age for small Central European states. I was never personally too powerful, but my mass of allies and sometimes desperate military successes kept me Emperor and the HRE in decent shape. A member of the HRE was never actually directly attacked by an outside power, which was a bit of a shame. I could really have used that Authority reward.
Well, time goes on, I generally keep HRE states weak - I took great pleasure in dismembering Hungary over time and releasing all the Balkan minors - with the exception of my ally Brandenburg, who limits their conquests largely to outside the realm. Authority gain is a trickle at first, but gradually increases as I pass reforms and liberate HRE turf from Poles and Italians. And lo behold! I unite a massive HRE that stretches from Denmark to a stone’s throw from Constantinople. I look upon my loyal, adoring 36 vassals (Prussia being the only refusal) and feel content.
Then I inherited it and they all disappeared into a grey mass... ah, regrets. This was a very enjoyable ’slow, limited-expansion’ game. To be fair, I only expanded for like ten provinces total before the unification.
Post by: Loud Whispers on October 29, 2018, 07:07:38 am
Post by: Micro102 on January 24, 2019, 10:28:14 pm
Post by: Persus13 on January 24, 2019, 11:29:13 pm
Post by: Karnewarrior on January 25, 2019, 12:57:07 am
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 25, 2019, 03:35:30 am
Yup. Because, basically, the defender in the fort already has the best defensive ground, and when a marching army enters the province and attacks your dudes, they're basically pincer'd, meaning they don't get the defender bonus.
Core Teutonic strategy, they have the most wooded forts per capita and land-mass in Northern Europe for a independent country in defense against the large bordering slavic nations. Key problem being that lacking early troop density (11 - 14 standing troops isn't shabby but isnt 20 troops either) without the wooded fortresses against larger stacks you'll have a tough time, even with +5% discipline and a nice general imparted.
My dream setup would be to put another fortress on Neumark and a forward fortress in Lithuanian lands to cover the exposed eastern grassy side but funds rarely allow it. Pomerania is reasonably easy to defend and Berlin is harder to take (more lucrative to own) for said reasons.
Post by: pisskop on February 26, 2019, 11:04:59 pm
I did a Napolean run. I push the Pope out of rome early, but never took the rest of it, instead going around him and up the coastline all the way to venice and nice. The asshole allied with the ottomans :|
And when I quit I felt that while I learned a lot about trade and money and colonialization, I got stale instead of learning new ways to play the mid to late game. If 1580 is indeed late....
I fell behind in diplo tech because I kept taking land from, well, everywhere. Nice, Tunis, Portuguese Guiana. I even tried to set up cuba. Eventually I ran afoul of britain as it was me, otto, britain, and spain as the main powerhouses. I realized I was boned when I lacked the men to cover all the rioting the ottomans seeded via spys. oh well, when they dowed I agreed to quit.
But, If I controlled 80% of the genoian trade node and 50% of the venetian one, is it worth it to collect from venice and genoa?
Post by: ZeroGravitas on February 27, 2019, 08:30:50 am
One way to save on Dip is to switch to a Dip-free CB as soon as possible - like Religious ideas group. Otherwise you're paying hundreds every war.
Post by: pisskop on March 15, 2019, 02:36:57 pm
Post by: pisskop on March 15, 2019, 02:41:48 pm
So I chose to play as the kongolese nation Lunda. they have specific ideas differing from their neighbors, so.
Ive made it to 1700. I own most of central aftica down, excepting some of Madagascar. I spent many points eg on development instead of tech, since the penalty was so high. now that I've equalized my institutions, I find Im behind all but some of the Polynesians in tech.
my issue is that with my own colonies and the surviving powerbases of indo-arabia, i am starting to bump uglies with much more advanced people who i cannot just overwhelm with hordes as i have been. Persia, virhanija idianstan, northern indiastan, mamluks, aragon (who i just got to self destruct) - all really intimidating to me rn as a player. I'm losing battles with small nations fielding a third of my army, and its my manpower that keeps me competitive.
how to turn my strong economy that can support a 60k army and 4 colonies running into tech? i really am behind . . . and alliances are less protective for me than the geography of africa . . .
Post by: Digital Hellhound on March 15, 2019, 03:46:41 pm
There’s probably some gamey ways to increase tech gain... having advanced vassals will help for safe neighbor bonuses and a competitive army (make sure to March them, then send officers and subsidize). I’ve never tried Steal Technology espionage, but that might help too? Some Ideas also help with tech costs, but getting them does consume those points just as well.
Post by: Rex_Nex on March 15, 2019, 06:18:55 pm
If you're playing in east Asia or south Africa, the only development you can really afford for the first few centuries is throwing 30+ into a single province to generate something like the Renaissance which would otherwise take ages to spread. Spreading it around will just leave you in your situation.
Post by: Micro102 on May 07, 2019, 01:01:26 am
I've gotten to a point where the great powers of the world just non-stop attack me. England is allied to the Ottomans and Morocco and they declare war on me. After waiting them out and plenty of losses, Spain who has consumed half a France, Naples, and the Netherlands declares war on me, and somehow gets military access through Morocco, their rival. Before I wait them out, England attacks me again, and now I'm at war with the ottomans and Morocco again (I'm Kongo). They have all been constantly hitting me with high level espionage attacks, I literally cannot counter espionage them all.
With only 2 tech levels behind my armies are losing 3 to 1 battles both on land and in the sea, and they always have 3 star generals. I have yet to see a 1 star. They are also rivaled to each other yet will not attack their direct (vulnerable) neighbors. I'm afraid that the next century is going to be me in debt fighting off endless armies from the great powers with nothing to show for it.
Post by: Loud Whispers on May 09, 2019, 12:32:05 pm
Post by: Karnewarrior on October 24, 2019, 09:21:50 am
Some of it seems to have gone into development but most of it seems to have gone to technologies. I guess all those little smol nations floating around from CKII are going to be the bigger provinces, since they're going to get to invest their mana in one place instead of just piling it in the capital or spreading it out uselessly thin.
A bit irritating for my Megacampaign, but I guess it won't break things too bad. Might go through in a few years and hand out more 9999 bursts of mana to certain tags. Hopefully encourage more dev investment.
Post by: pisskop on October 24, 2019, 09:57:44 am
Post by: Karnewarrior on October 24, 2019, 03:53:29 pm
Post by: Karnewarrior on October 27, 2019, 09:33:28 am
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on October 30, 2019, 05:23:57 pm
Post by: Karnewarrior on October 31, 2019, 07:18:29 am
There's only a couple mods out for the new update though, so you're not missing very much if you can't access the workshop. I only can because I avoided the craptastic new UI update
Post by: DeKaFu on January 23, 2020, 03:42:38 pm
So now I have to ask the opposite of the standard DLC question...
Which DLC should I not install when trying the game for the first time? :P
I understand that some of them are really necessary for the game to be fun, but I also understand the game can be a bit intimidating to learn at the best of times, and launching it for the first time with 17 DLCs installed might send things over the top.
Any recommendations on a good set to install that would let me get into the game with a nice balance of complexity/content, before adding the rest in later as I get a better feel for it?
I'm entirely new to the genre, for what it's worth.
Here's the complete list of stuff included in the bundle:
Quote
Europa Universalis IV
Europa Universalis IV: Art of War
Europa Universalis IV: Res Publica
Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations
Europa Universalis IV: American Dream
Europa Universalis IV: Pre-Order Pack
Europa Universalis IV: Digital Extreme Edition Upgrade Pack
Europa Universalis IV: Rights of Man
Europa Universalis IV: Mare Nostrum
Europa Universalis IV: The Cossacks
Europa Universalis IV: Common Sense
Europa Universalis IV: El Dorado
Europa Universalis IV: Golden Century
Europa Universalis IV: Dharma
Europa Universalis IV: Rule Britannia
Europa Universalis IV: Cradle of Civilization
Europa Universalis IV: Third Rome
Europa Universalis IV: Mandate of Heaven
Post by: Aoi on January 23, 2020, 04:14:21 pm
Stellaris I found mostly intuitive (the war score thing still throws me off; one of my games had multiple battles stall at ~99% and I couldn't figure out how to end them, so I just wiped them from the galaxy) and can grab and go at any time.
CK2, on the other hand, 20 hours later and a few dozen tabs open dedicated to guides and tutorials and I'm still muddling my way through the interface, forget about executing strategy...
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on January 23, 2020, 04:55:38 pm
How 'playable' is EU4? (Which, I'm aware, is a terrible question on multiple fronts... and given that I'm looking at the same aforementioned Humble Bundle, access to the DLCs if they make things easier are perfectly valid inclusions.)
Stellaris I found mostly intuitive (the war score thing still throws me off; one of my games had multiple battles stall at ~99% and I couldn't figure out how to end them, so I just wiped them from the galaxy) and can grab and go at any time.
CK2, on the other hand, 20 hours later and a few dozen tabs open dedicated to guides and tutorials and I'm still muddling my way through the interface, forget about executing strategy...
Very playable, especially if you're planning on acquiring the DLCs, how much of a learning curve there is depends on your goals, and there are a lot of effective strategies anyways so you can experiment at your own pace.
@DeKaFu, dont bother with Golden Century, but you might as well install everything else! They mostly flesh out pre-existing features. I can't think of anything particularly difficult off the top of my head, but estates can seem unintuitive or obstructive at times.
Post by: Persus13 on January 23, 2020, 05:09:24 pm
The only system I'd describe as being really hard to learn is trade, but unless you're playing a nation that cares a lot about trade, going with what the game gives you and using merchants to direct trade to your home node or collecting in places where you have high numbers is pretty good. The main difference between the games is that EUIV uses mana, which is a set of resources you save up to get tech, but can also spend on a lot of other things too, and that's one of the core parts of the game.
If you're looking to jump in, but aren't sure what the game is worth to you, the $1 tier is a pretty solid starting point, although the Average Tier DLCs are definitely worth it for that price if you like the game (Most of the $17 DLCs are newer ones I don't have, so I can't comment on them).
Post by: ZeroGravitas on January 23, 2020, 08:22:36 pm
Giving this a multi-month bump because I finally picked this up along with nearly every DLC for around $20 from the current Humble Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/games/europa-universalis-iv).
So now I have to ask the opposite of the standard DLC question...
Which DLC should I not install when trying the game for the first time? :P
I understand that some of them are really necessary for the game to be fun, but I also understand the game can be a bit intimidating to learn at the best of times, and launching it for the first time with 17 DLCs installed might send things over the top.
Any recommendations on a good set to install that would let me get into the game with a nice balance of complexity/content, before adding the rest in later as I get a better feel for it?
I'm entirely new to the genre, for what it's worth.
Here's the thing: you should install all of them. (Well, yeah, Golden Century doesn't really do much... but it won't make it harder, either.)
The problem isn't them making the game more complicated. The problem is the game doesn't really make sense without them anymore. There may be a couple you could drop, but almost all of them are going to have other game balance and features relying on them. You'll basically be learning a weird, bizarro version of the game if you learn to play without all the DLCs.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 23, 2020, 09:48:07 pm
The only system I'd describe as being really hard to learn is trade, but unless you're playing a nation that cares a lot about trade, going with what the game gives you and using merchants to direct trade to your home node or collecting in places where you have high numbers is pretty good. The main difference between the games is that EUIV uses mana, which is a set of resources you save up to get tech, but can also spend on a lot of other things too, and that's one of the core parts of the game.
I feel like the problem with trade is that for all the tinkering you can do in the trade screen, the easiest way to boost trade power is just to take more land.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on January 23, 2020, 11:38:32 pm
The only system I'd describe as being really hard to learn is trade, but unless you're playing a nation that cares a lot about trade, going with what the game gives you and using merchants to direct trade to your home node or collecting in places where you have high numbers is pretty good. The main difference between the games is that EUIV uses mana, which is a set of resources you save up to get tech, but can also spend on a lot of other things too, and that's one of the core parts of the game.
I feel like the problem with trade is that for all the tinkering you can do in the trade screen, the easiest way to boost trade power is just to take more land.
yeah, but which lands? understanding trade nodes does help you understand where you'll get the most monetary gain.
that said, yeah, you're kind of limited in your trade expanding options. for all the fancy options, like privateering, protecting trade, steering, collecting, etc., most of them don't really matter that much.
Post by: MrRoboto75 on January 24, 2020, 08:57:42 pm
yeah, but which lands?
yes
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 25, 2020, 06:46:19 pm
yeah, but which lands? understanding trade nodes does help you understand where you'll get the most monetary gain.Privateering is really useful for fucking all of your rival's trade up. Seriously, if you hold a monopoly on your trade node and you privateer the enemy's trade node, there are no downsides at all. While the income you gain from spoils of war & intercepted treasure fleets is nice, I always consider the main boon to be depriving the enemy of trade income & giving myself power projection, the extra cash just offsets the cost of sending light ships to privateer in the first place.
that said, yeah, you're kind of limited in your trade expanding options. for all the fancy options, like privateering, protecting trade, steering, collecting, etc., most of them don't really matter that much.
Protect trade just boosts trade power in the node light ships are patrolling. Very useful, light ships will pretty much always make a profit transferring trade downstream (or transferring trade power upstream) unless you do something daft like send 200 light ships to patrol the arctic ocean
Hunt ships is just to stop privateers and most of all, stop the coastal raids which the Babary slavers & Knights will do nonstop if you are the Mediterranean Christians or Ottomans respectively. It doesn't take many ships to completely protect a trade node.
Collecting trade does what it says on the tin, but you don't get the transfer bonus to your main capital node that merchants provide if you collect in another node. Thus transferring with 10 merchants to your main node will most certainly give more profit than collecting in 10 trade nodes, and definitely more profit than collecting in 2 trade nodes & steering in 8
The good thing as well is that unless you choose to play as a tall merchant republic, you can ignore trade wholeheartedly and just focus on expanding. It won't be optimal but tax & production income is enough to keep a superstrong Ottoblob state running for example, and they will still get a load of trade. Even merchant republics like Genoa or Venice can choose to form Italy and ignore the trade game
Post by: Loud Whispers on February 03, 2020, 06:49:25 pm
Can't bloody believe it, never thought I'd ever be able to legally own this much PI DLC without taking up a career as a contraband baron. Tried playing CK2 the other day without DLC and it was just a cancerous experience all round. First time I can do EU4 without DLC that fell off the back of a truck
Post by: pisskop on April 04, 2020, 08:10:29 am
Ottobuddies have gone beserk, somehow losing greece to venice and then taking it back. Theyve left mamaluks alone for now, and focused on the balkins mostly. Austria and a mostly intact junior hungary have allied poland and PUed lithuania; they have the strongest alliance of the game. Otto's been my neighbor for 20+ years now, and the best defense I have is an alliance with muscovy and their numerous other enemies.
Im at a bit of a loss for how to work this. QQ has given way to ajam as a rival, who is too big to munch. And the land is so against me. My religious unity is already 60%.
Anyone have experience in this attritious part of the world?
Also, i played incan last game, and it was buggy. As in I took over several portaguese colonies, whole colony states, before the game let me modernize. And thats one example of odd interactions. Others are pirate nation formation and my inability to modernize my allies or vassals.
Post by: Digital Hellhound on April 04, 2020, 09:50:50 am
Fourty years into my second attempt at a Georgian campaign. Having trouble with the land - its a mishmash of cultures and geography and poor states and separatism and not enough money.
Ottobuddies have gone beserk, somehow losing greece to venice and then taking it back. Theyve left mamaluks alone for now, and focused on the balkins mostly. Austria and a mostly intact junior hungary have allied poland and PUed lithuania; they have the strongest alliance of the game. Otto's been my neighbor for 20+ years now, and the best defense I have is an alliance with muscovy and their numerous other enemies.
Im at a bit of a loss for how to work this. QQ has given way to ajam as a rival, who is too big to munch. And the land is so against me. My religious unity is already 60%.
Anyone have experience in this attritious part of the world?
Hmm. I've been thinking about a Georgian game, but it sure sounds difficult. I suppose you could try to play tall for a while and go for religious ideas so you can get those provinces converted? That'll net you the Holy War CB, too. Developing mountainous territory is probably not very worth it, though. Is expanding north an impossibility? Snatching the Crimean trade node might be a good idea.
Post by: ZeroGravitas on April 04, 2020, 09:53:43 am
Post by: pisskop on April 08, 2020, 09:04:23 am
You mentioning crimea reminded me that I didnt give that province to the burghers, and that alone was a huge boon. As was kicking a down genoa for their land and quite a bit of money to kickstart my conversions. Once I got that 2 extra ducats a month I was able to snowball that.
At 1650 I lost sight of my initial campaign goal and instead spread to the Persian Gulf. I was bloated and lost interest. But, Ottoman allied me in that way they do when theyre waiting to backstab you, poland and lithuania were nommed on by
Spain ran away with the game though, setting up Spainish Everything, with like 7 or 8 colonies. They ate Naples and a good chunk of northern italy. I really dont like how often spain runs rampant without player intervention . . .
Post by: pisskop on April 12, 2020, 09:13:28 pm
Spoiler: The schadenfreude (click to show/hide)
So I ran the georgian run again, but this time tried to restrict my actions more. I made a more concise grab at power, and using my foreknowledge of the scenario made out ~okay~ from the mess of situation. I actually bred 2 more problems for myself, and am happy how different this game has turned out to be.
- Spain is still spaining. Nothing going to stop that freight train. But it took them some time to get up to speed. Aragon almost got the courage have +=50 liberty desire....
- Denmark utterly failed.
- Tunis is beating down the Mamies more than otto is. Though no love is lost between the two.
- Ottoman is going up quite deep into poland, and venice actually holds the dalmatian area.
- Austria got a personal union with bohemia, allied me, we lost the religious league war, and then he got the emperor-ship back and has enacted 3 reforms by now.
- Persia should have been murdered by now, but I wanted to use them for at least one ottoman wrist-slap
And I tried to scutage nogai, but theyre not even good for that. I just reset them back to regular vassal and told them to follow me. Bodies to drown my foes in, or something.
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 13, 2020, 03:48:40 am
Also blast from the past:
Spoiler: cursed coalition (click to show/hide)
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 13, 2020, 08:49:02 am
It's beautiful!
Post by: pisskop on April 13, 2020, 11:51:34 am
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 13, 2020, 12:21:11 pm
No one saw them coming
Post by: pisskop on April 21, 2020, 08:00:28 pm
I can go two ways here, and both 'work'. Take the hordelands after becoming a tribuite for ming works, and is pretty easy if unsatisfying. Trying to ignore/prevent ming from being an influence and going west or south is much harder. I develop my gold mine, ally to uzbek or ming, overthrow my overlord fine. the issue is that ming's minors tend to ally rebellious tributes and get themselves vassaled so that ming demands to vassal me.
Is there another really interesting nation to play like yarkand, where Im really weak bvut poised to make a difference? But without the ming staring down my back? Because nothing takes the piss out of a run like ming being ming. Nobody will attack me if Im under ming, and they dont take no as an answer.
P: but, for the record, the run works okay until I hit india. Once I take lahore or delhi it becomes a tangle of strong alliances and greedy timmy. Ive quit twice at around 1530-1550, because the game starts to stall.
PP: I play on 'hard' if it matters. Vhard is ridiculous, and I hate when the ai needs massive bonuses to make up for their shortcomings. Just make more interesting ai, then, instead of buffing them into the sky.
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 22, 2020, 11:06:29 am
Seriously, oirat gang is fucking wonderful. Reform the great mongol throat singing choir that stretches from sea to sea
Post by: ZeroGravitas on April 22, 2020, 06:38:52 pm
Post by: Urist McScoopbeard on April 22, 2020, 06:40:40 pm
For some reason I just never "got" hordes. I feel like I'm pretty good at normal countries and can win wars where I'm relatively outnumbered through good maneuvering, but hordes never seem to work out for me.
As a super defensive tall player, I never do well w/ hordes lol
Post by: pisskop on April 22, 2020, 07:56:34 pm
- Always be looting. Dont loot what you keep,but you wont be keeping much. Get rid of extra land.
- Tribuitaries. The Tribuitaries are going to save you. Money might be the weakest thing the tribuitaries can offer you. Manpower or monarch points are where you wanna go.
- Snake. The land you want to keep is snakey land. Wind your way into europe on a one-province-wide trail of tears.
- Vassals. It can be worth it to have a few ai scattered around to do some defending for you. Everyone else who you snake around you make a tribuitary. Especially since liberty desire isnt calculated for tribuitaries the same as actual vassals.
- Placate upitty tribuitaries with the manpower you swipe from other tribuitaries.
- You wont ever be king of tech or have the best economy. Your strength is your hording.
- Raiding has deminishing returns the longer the game goes on. There's just better ways to make money and monarch points eventually.
- establish your power base early. Subjugate people before you hit double digits tech.
Raid, Raze, always be looting. You begin to take penalties for being at peace. Horde unity isnt that scary until to drops super-low, but what is scary is how you start off as much. much more powerful than a kingdom of similar size and become much weaker than them as the game goes on.
Hording isnt just playing wide, even though it is. Its about taking a strong military tradition (horde idea group is heavily focused on military might), the inability to generate extra monarch points while at peace (hordes dont get estates. They get a singular, relatively useless estate), and the fact that you can use the threat of war to steal peoples monarch points/mapower/money or use actual war to rip it out of their lands. Its a new kind of economy.
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 22, 2020, 08:20:36 pm
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 23, 2020, 11:06:07 am
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Post by: Trolldefender99 on April 23, 2020, 05:06:22 pm
Its my favorite nation in MEIOU, despite pretty much 0 flavor for them. Though I did change their stupid decentralized vassals to normal vassals. Decentralized vassals are a stupid BS mechanic that ruins any nation that has them. I found every decentralized vassal in the diplomacy history and changed them to normal vassals. Luckily not that many exist. Its the worst mechanic in EU4/MEIOU. Almost no one likes lithuania because of their stupid default vassal setup, so have to go in and fix it along with the few other nations that have. I guess its cheating, but whatever I give a big middle finger to that stupid mechanic. You can tell I really hate that mechanic lol.
rant aside from that dumb mechanic that really triggers me...
This is in regards to MEIOU, vanilla isn't very good for tall in comparison. Lithuania is a ton of fun really if you play it mostly tall. Its pretty easy to build up a strong capital (and have the best city in the world), with good provinces around it. I also like to keep Trakai has a march, since they share the same traditions and are closest allies to Lithuania and they make a powerful march to help defend that border. Besides that, sometimes Crimea pops up (quite often usually) and you can cut through them to get the black sea. That is the easiest target to get sea access because otherwise you start landlocked and the spacemarines are too scary to war against early on. Crimea sometimes never shows up though.
But honestly, out of all the "pagans", meaning not christian/muslim or any other major religion...lithuania is probably best to shun the religious world and stay as pagan. But it does have its challenges, much easier though than other non major religion nations. Like aztecs/incas start good, but the smallpox plagues kill them, which makes them have an easy beginning, godlike challenge mid-game and only recovers toward late game. Where as lithuania is okay early, and slowly gets better as they build up good cities. The hardest part is dealing with the spacemarines
Post by: Loud Whispers on April 23, 2020, 05:43:47 pm
Post by: hector13 on May 14, 2020, 03:41:56 pm
Fuckin' apparently still $190 for all the DLC at half price.
I want to get this game because I've played CKII into the ground and I enjoyed what little of EUIII I played (I made Russia, after like 4 goes at dealing with the Golden Horde, then I was going to stop expanding East until Ming kept going "oi!" so... I just ended up messing around the Pacific for no reason) but why is it so god damn expensive.
Post by: Micro102 on May 14, 2020, 05:30:22 pm
Post by: ZeroGravitas on May 14, 2020, 06:02:55 pm
Happy that EUIV is on sale.
Fuckin' apparently still $190 for all the DLC at half price.
I want to get this game because I've played CKII into the ground and I enjoyed what little of EUIII I played (I made Russia, after like 4 goes at dealing with the Golden Horde, then I was going to stop expanding East until Ming kept going "oi!" so... I just ended up messing around the Pacific for no reason) but why is it so god damn expensive.
Hey, CK3 on September 1...
Post by: MrRoboto75 on May 14, 2020, 09:29:15 pm
Post by: forsaken1111 on May 15, 2020, 05:38:22 am
Hey, CK3 on September 1...Yeah knowing Paradox the way I do, I look forward to buying the complete game next year once 2-3 DLC come out
Post by: Ametsala on May 15, 2020, 09:16:50 am
Happy that EUIV is on sale.
Fuckin' apparently still $190 for all the DLC at half price.
I want to get this game because I've played CKII into the ground and I enjoyed what little of EUIII I played (I made Russia, after like 4 goes at dealing with the Golden Horde, then I was going to stop expanding East until Ming kept going "oi!" so... I just ended up messing around the Pacific for no reason) but why is it so god damn expensive.
I've only got vanilla. The two things I've missed the most from DLCs are the buttons to get rid of a crappy heir, and the one to change main trade node. I think I even save game edited my main trade node at one point. Next up is the button to mothball fleets, and the war & peace deal stuff.
Edit:
For those interested:
Changing main trade node button is in Wealth of Nations DLC
Get rid of crappy heir button is in Rights of Man DLC
War stuff & fleet mothballing is in Art of War DLC
Post by: pisskop on July 20, 2020, 09:18:51 pm
Frisian Brazil
Andalusia
Manchese Japan
Breton Kongo
Breton Columbia
Brittany existing in 1600
Danish Scandinavia being wholly danish
Luwu-owned Polynesia (a unified island nation)
Greece existed in lue of the knights.
So other things I found 'odd' but not unique:
Papal italy
Portugal does not exist
Though the danes own scandinavia, they lost land to the empire.
Milan owns the ivory coast
Ireland existed for a century, as a standing nation
Yemen is a regional power who Im just now coming to kill. Took the horn of africa and most of the mamies.
Post by: Micro102 on July 21, 2020, 01:41:07 pm
Post by: hector13 on July 21, 2020, 05:15:56 pm
Post by: Inarius on July 22, 2020, 03:26:45 am
Post by: MrRoboto75 on July 22, 2020, 10:23:07 am
Next level will be 80. Be sure of this. Some already are.
...and still have rampant micro-transactions and secondary purchases
Post by: pisskop on July 22, 2020, 10:36:02 am
The overhead with software is developing it and/or providing continued support for it. back when you got manuals and nice cases and whole developed backstories and piracy was less of a thing the cost was standardized as a way to ensure some profit could be made. Some games had manuals/stories that could have reasonably cost 25 dollars as some stand alone material, others were not willing to sell for less so as to not disrupt this standard that was set.
Today, microtransactions are capable of mitigating the effect of piracy, and help you as a player not notice all the money you sink into the game. its easier as a consumer to make 60 $1 purchauses than 1 $60.
Mostly though, video games are still a thriving market, and AAA titles and consoles can still command such a high price. After all, you bought a machine that is largely useless outside of playing this custom-made disk . . . they have you in a position of power.
Look at steam and the like though. A lot of humble bundles seem ludicrous, and for a large part I do think the devs of a game are underselling their quality/product, but they highlight how the market has changed and how software just doesnt have the material overhead.
The price was a standardized agreement that the consumer agreed to pay for years, to break that agreement risks upsetting the higher price point, as even with inflation they still turn a tidy profit from the %60. It doesnt benefit the devs to charge less because people still expect to pay more, and it doesnt benefit them to charge more because the industry makes so much over their cost of production from the sale; and the market would just shun the product.
I feel like their are much more succinct ways to express this, but its been ages since I did a econ class.
Post by: LadyBrassroast on January 23, 2021, 02:04:58 pm
Post by: The_Explorer on January 23, 2021, 06:37:34 pm
Then again, if I like a game, I'd rather play it for years and years and years. Like I can do that with skyrim because of mods (still play it to this day because of mods). But can't do that with most games sadly.
Like EU4, I have over 2k hours played according to steam. Skyrim has about 1.5k hours. How many games offer THAT much gameplay without it being remade over and over or just abandoned for the next game?
To me, paradox and bethesda have some of the the best business models (ignoring bethesda's fallout 76 which I think is actually better these days but thats aside... their stupid 20 dollars for a blue skin), but overall both offer one game that allows to be played for thousand or more hours. Though for bethesda, its because they are so mod friendly which gives them "free" content created by people, which gives tons more playtime. Paradox is rather mod friendly too. Very very rare to find a game like that.
Either way, I'd rather buy a bunch of dlc for one huge epic game, then a bunch of games at 60 every year that get a few dlc then left to die. Though...paradox might take that approach too far as they learned with imperator rome.
Post by: Micro102 on January 24, 2021, 01:28:55 am
Post by: EuchreJack on January 25, 2021, 10:33:01 pm
The DLC is a separate purchase from the main game. The only decision you should have to make is "does this DLC provide enough new content to make it worth the price".
That is why I wasn't offended by the DLC plan of CK2. Each DLC that I bought added extensively to the game. When a DLC adds 20 or more hours of gameplay, its worthwhile. I didn't pick up any of the "make your soldiers/characters look different" DLCs, unless they were part of a package and thus free.
Yes, I probably paid over $100 for CK2. But I also put in over 1000 hours on the title. That is decent. Very few things give me 10 hours of enjoyment for a dollar.
EDIT: It helped that when I was playing a lot of CK2, I also had decent money coming in consistently. I could afford to throw around $14 every six months. Now...well nobody at the bottom end of things is really doing well, so I can't complain much. I'm a bit bitter now about the portions of EUIV that are locked behind DLC. Hopefully nothing fundamental to my enjoyment is trapped behind the DLC wall.
On unrelated news, my main motivation for buying HOI: Darkest Hour was the Fallout mod, although I think I bought HOI 4 on its own merits.
Post by: EuchreJack on September 09, 2021, 04:39:11 pm
I'm chewing on my words, and the taste is bitter...
Anyways, did you know that you could play on Pluto? (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2581504089)
It's incomplete, it's a struggle to get going, and once you've got it going you're overpowered since the AI really can't figure it out. But it's FUN.
Post by: Micro102 on September 09, 2021, 07:30:46 pm
Post by: EuchreJack on September 09, 2021, 08:36:05 pm
But on the the reason I necro'd this beast: Play Pluto? Good Dog, or Stinks of Hades? :P
Post by: DeKaFu on March 26, 2022, 11:22:25 am
Humble Bundle is currently doing a bundle with all of the DLC (except for "Europa Universalis IV: Origins", that's just a coupon) for around $20.
https://www.humblebundle.com/games/europa-universalis-iv-complete
So if you've ever wanted to get any of the DLC for this game, this is absolutely the best deal you're likely to encounter. The bundle's up for another 18 days as of this post.
Post by: Micro102 on March 26, 2022, 02:01:12 pm
Post by: Il Palazzo on March 26, 2022, 02:17:59 pm
If it's at all possible to summarise, how much of a difference do the remaining DLCs make?
Post by: pisskop on March 26, 2022, 02:45:23 pm
Post by: EuchreJack on March 26, 2022, 11:28:22 pm
Post by: Micro102 on March 26, 2022, 11:29:36 pm
Say, I haven't played this in six years or so. All I had back then was Res Publica and Wealth of Nations.
If it's at all possible to summarise, how much of a difference do the remaining DLCs make?
I'm not sure what those two DLCs are, but I know there are a LOT of DLCs, and they change a lot. Maybe drop by Arumba or Quill18 and watch their most recent EU4 series. See all the mechanisms they use that you aren't familiar with. That's what got me interested in the DLCs.
Post by: Radsoc on March 27, 2022, 01:19:29 am
Post by: Il Palazzo on March 30, 2022, 01:21:24 pm
2) has this always had power metal as the soundtrack, or is this something from the dlcs?
Post by: Persus13 on March 30, 2022, 01:49:26 pm
2. The metal soundtracks are from the Guns Drums and Steel series of DLCs, although there's also a Sabaton DLC. The first of those DLCs was 2014, though, so they've been around for awhile.
Post by: Il Palazzo on April 21, 2022, 07:58:04 am
What am I doing wrong here?
Post by: pisskop on April 21, 2022, 08:06:49 am
Post by: Mkok on April 21, 2022, 09:39:58 am
Post by: Il Palazzo on April 21, 2022, 09:46:05 am
e: ok, I think I get it. Any battles that are worse odds than about 1:1.5 in Ming's favour should be avoided, since above that losses accumulate too quickly to keep the cavalry stack in good combat readiness. Below that, combat concludes quickly enough to avoid dogpiling. And stack wipe is not uncommon, as a bonus.
Post by: Robsoie on April 21, 2022, 12:21:28 pm
It was then a good idea to not throw your army as a whole unit into an enemy, but instead split your army, and send each regiment as reinforcement into the battle with 4/5 days of delay for each, so they would reinforce the morale each time they arrive in your side while the enemy blob wasn't.
This could allow you , of course providing you didn't got horrible luck in the dice rolls as the opposing army could have too strong dice modifier for the 5 days (and so you should have just retreated and attacked the next 5 days instead), to manage to repel stronger army blobs.
link :
https://europauniversalis.fandom.com/wiki/How_to_Win_Battles_in_Europa_Universalis_II
Post by: FantasticDorf on April 21, 2022, 01:34:47 pm
It was then a good idea to not throw your army as a whole unit into an enemy, but instead split your army, and send each regiment as reinforcement into the battle with 4/5 days of delay for each, so they would reinforce the morale each time they arrive in your side while the enemy blob wasn't.
High level professional MP players adhere to a similar stratgem to this since mechanically reinforcements in itty-bits is good in holding morale, but EU4 operates in a way that soldiers in your own "overstacked" army over army-width can't actually get onto a the field unless they come from another tile/generated ontop (like to sally out of a siege, or be boated into the battle), so eventually a "over stacked" army deathblob of 60 men will expend its 40 men width (also to the terrain being fought), and run if they weren't thoughly thrashed into non-existance or got stuck and self deleted.
- One such way to skillfully win the 100 years war, constantly weave in and out of naval supremecy by changing unit type suggesting the likely defence/offence, and delivering reinforcements to coastal forts as france will over-commit blobs.