Computer Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted! [Archive] - Page 2

Frog Dragon

2014-10-13, 01:18 PM

On a completely different tack, anyone have war advice for Glorious Mother Russia?

I decided to give Muscovy another bash, and this time I managed to annex Novgorod pretty early without getting coalitioned out of existence like last time. Then, I focused on vassalizing/diploannexing nearby minor states. Then I set my sights on removing kebab. Golden Horde basically got rolled by Crimea and Kazan, and I rolled Kazan shortly afterwards. However, I kept a wide berth of Lithuania.

This may have turned out to be a mistake. While I did have free reign to stomp on hordes while not being tangled up in Europe, this also meant that I was not checking Lithuania's power, and they kind of... blobbed. And attacked me. And then Sweden attacked me. And despite scorching, it seems like they just get so much more oomph out of their troops that my stacks simply cannot feasibly compete. I'm not even that much behind Lithuania in military tech (typically around 1 level), but their generals seem to be better, and in general their armies just overpower mine for some reason I am not exactly sure about. So while I've expanded east and south at the expense of the hordes, I've been pushed back in Europe. Moskva is actually a border province right now. Kola, Karelia, and Kexholm are all Swedish, and a bunch of western provinces are in Lithuania's hands.

I figure I have to do about this or I'm just going to get rolled eventually (it's still hard for them to really push, but I lose every war). How do I go about this? What can a late 17th century Russia do to deal with Blobthuania? What can I do to increase the performance of my troops? I'm still in a position where my military can just keep bouncing back (glorious mother Russia has infinite manpower), but well, every defeat erodes that. I was also significantly bogged down by being forced to release Perm and then diplovassalize them again. Still haven't annexed them back.

I looked into central European politics, and it seems like Lithuania's enemies are mostly the same as mine. I can't exactly enlist Sweden or Ottomans to my aid in dealing with them. I managed to ally Poland (who is also allied with Lithuania), but I'm not sure if that will be enough to stop them from going for me again. And that alliance still won't help me in the actual war. The way diplomacy is going, it seems like I'll somehow have to muster the strength to take out Lithuania on my own.

TL;DR: Playing Russia, Lithuania and Sweden problems.

tonberrian

2014-10-13, 04:29 PM

Woo, successfully westernized Cherokee! Missed out on the Carribean, but I blocked Europe out of everything but Canada on the continent. Year is 1580.

Eldan

2014-10-14, 02:16 AM

So, after getting stuck in the South Sea for 50 years (I got Hawaii and Samoa, at least), I finally got the colonial range to go to the Aleutes, which have been taunting me since the beginning. Japanese California, here I come! And I'm almost done with the Conquest of Korea, too. Got the Penninsula and connected it to Japanese Kamchatka, but they still control a good part of former Ming, which will be mine soon. Then on down the coast to Shun and Zhou and Lan Xang.

Good thing the Manchu dropped out early. I don't think anyone will reunite China at any point soon.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-14, 09:52 AM

Also, here's a screenshot about my current situation.
http://i.imgur.com/CmCp40Y.jpg
Also, the year was earlier than I remembered. Looks like it's only 1644. My next move would be to attack Nogai and Bukhara. They're in coalition against me, but no-one else is. And being kebab hordes, both are technologically and militarily inferior to me by a far margin. I'll probably just annex Nogai and if I'm lucky, Manchu will take a large enough bite out of Bukhara that it will be possible for me to force-vassalize them. Then I'd feed them that enclave in the middle and eventually annex them. This should let me core everything. The big problem I have in Asia right now is that after numerous frankly bizarre wars, not all of my territory can be cored. Annexing Perm (again. Stupid Swedes.) is also on the to-do list.

Other details: Crimea is a rump state. After an ill-advised attack on me, I ate a good chunk of their territory. This left them weakened against the Lithuanians later, and they also took a bite. Looking at the map, my best hope might be waiting for Lithuania to wind up in a tangle with Ottomans and then striking them in the north. I can reconquer my stuff and maybe release Livonian Order or something similar. Unfortunately I seem to have sawed my own foot in my war against Crimea. Forcing them to annul treaties with Ottomans (thinking I could come back for more) has given Lithuania free reign to expand at their expense with no fear of serious opposition.

I really need to get Lithuania under control.

Guancyto

2014-10-14, 12:32 PM

Hot damn, are those honest-to-god Spanish Netherlands?

OrcusMcP

2014-10-14, 12:48 PM

Hot damn, are those honest-to-god Spanish Netherlands?

Looks like Spain inherited Burgundy!

Frog Dragon

2014-10-14, 12:50 PM

That they are. Spain seems to be pretty hardcore in this one. Thankfully I'm not in competition with them. Is Spanish Netherlands that unusual though? This is the second game where I've gotten anywhere so I don't know how things usually develop.

Also, from what I hear France usually blobs more. Also, I'm pretty sure large chunks of Burgundy were Austrian at one point. Not sure what happened there. Was busy with kebab.

Edit: Also looks like I misinterpreted the map. Back in the game, it seems like the occupied areas of Bukhara are not occupied by Manchu, but by peasants.

Guancyto

2014-10-14, 01:28 PM

Yeah, one of the events that can happen (if the player isn't Burgundy) is that Burgundy gets split up and its territories divided. The mechanics of who gets what are kind of complicated, but usually how it works out is that France takes a bit of it and the Holy Roman Emperor (usually Austria) gets the lion's share.

The Spanish Netherlands (which, as you'll be able to see if you page through the start dates, were a thing for a really long time) basically never form.

As far as I can tell, yeah, now that I look at it, in this particular game Spain got everything - not even France took any, and they pretty much always make sure they get their share!

Terraoblivion

2014-10-14, 02:07 PM

Not just that, France has somehow failed to take Brittany or Provence. How did that happen? That's about as unusual as Russia failing to eat northern China by 1700.

Closet_Skeleton

2014-10-14, 02:42 PM

There's a chain basically.

If the Emperor has a certain number of provinces (8 if not Austria, 6 if Austria), the Emperor gets the low countries and Franche-comte.
\/
Otherwise a neighbouring HRE state with 3 provinces a royal marriage with burgundy gets them (usually the Palatinate if anyone).
\/
Otherwise any state with 3 provinces and a royal marriage with burgundy gets them.
\/
Spain or Castille gets them if they have a royal marriage. This section is basically pointless unless Castile has less than three provinces, so despite being on this list Castille really has no advantage over any other country and is incredibly unlikely to get the netherlands.
\/
The Emperor if he's really small and Burgundy has no royal marriages with anyone with more than 2 provinces
\/
If somehow the Empire has been dissolved and Burgundy has no royal marriages with anyone over 3 provinces, then a random neighbour can get them.

So for Spain to get the Netherlands as per history, The Emperor has to be a tiny country like Baden and Burgundy has to have a marriage with Castille but not with any neighbouring HRE state. In a multiplayer game, players can refuse to inherit any burgundian provinces which would let people further down the chain get a chance but that sounds very unlikely.

As far as I can tell, yeah, now that I look at it, in this particular game Spain got everything - not even France took any, and they pretty much always make sure they get their share!

They probably got a regular PU and integrated Burgundy with diplo-power. France can refuse to take provinces but the AI has a 100% chance of not doing so.

AgentPaper

2014-10-14, 02:45 PM

Most likely, Burgundy never got split up and Spain simply inherited it.

It would be nice to see an event happen to transfer the Netherlands to Spain, if for no other reason than that it would make it more likely that the Netherlands itself forms, since they usually have no chance of beating Austria when they revolt.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-15, 12:45 PM

http://i.imgur.com/LG4Kqx9.jpg

I DoWed Nogai and predictably Bukhara joined the war, as per coalition. Then Delhi and Chagatai joined out of alliance. Then freaking Brunei joined because they were apparently the defenders of the Sunni faith. So the war wound up as me and Perm (my vassal) against Nogai, Bukhara, Delhi, Chagatai, and Brunei.

Out of those, Delhi was the only state with any real power. And even they were handily outmatched by Mother Russia's technologically superior forces. Five on one, and the one won.

So I annexed Nogai and took a chunk out of Bukhara. This gave me pretty bad overextension, so to deal with that I formed Kazakh as a vassal. This also dealt with a brewing nationalist problem (I believe I was up to 40% monthly Kazakh nationalist revolt chance when I did it). Pleasantly enough, Kazakh formed as an Orthodox state so they've also been converting the provinces so I don't have to.

I then diploannexed Perm. The coalition against me grew somewhat. I believe Crimea, Delhi, and Baluchistan are in it now. I probably won't go for any of them yet, because DoWing anyone coalitioned with Crimea has a risk of drawing in Ottomans. That's a fight I might win, but they're not actually a direct threat to me and I might need them against Lithuania.

Also, is westernization worth it as Russia? Looks like I could try going for it now, but I'm not sure. As I understand, I still wouldn't get Western units?

OrcusMcP

2014-10-15, 12:56 PM

Also, is westernization worth it as Russia? Looks like I could try going for it now, but I'm not sure. As I understand, I still wouldn't get Western units?

I've never played Russia, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but the answer is "probably not worth it". For The Ottoman and Eastern tech groups, especially now that units don't come with westernization, it's not an automatically good move. The penalty from your tech group is not so large to keep you far behind Western countries. Plus, I think Russia has some "Peter the Great" events where you can get bonuses to tech if you aren't Western and are behind in tech with a good leader after a certain date.

Now, if one of your major rivals in Europe(Sweden or Lithuania by the looks of it) gets way ahead of you, or the Ottomans westernize, then that is a different story, and then it might be worth it to westernize just to make sure you don't get outclassed.

Don't forget that if you westernize, you will allow all those Muslim/Nomad/Indian/Chinese countries a chance to westernize off your back.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-15, 01:05 PM

My problem is that they kind of are outclassing me, though not to catastrophic levels. Defense should by now be manageable with liberal scorching and a numerical advantage, but actually winning an offensive war is not in the cards. Sweden seems to be basically impossible right now, and Lithuania would only be doable if I managed to catch them in a 2-front war in such a situation that they couldn't just sic their military alliances on me.

My other plan is to just keep beating on kebabs until I am so ridiculously big that I can just send hundreds of thousands of men at Lithuania and Sweden until their very last soldier falls. He may fall surrounded by the corpses of 30 Russians, but they will have lost all the same. That's the Russian way. :smalltongue:

OrcusMcP

2014-10-15, 01:13 PM

My problem is that they kind of are outclassing me, though not to catastrophic levels.

Is their tech lead consistently 2-3 mil-techs? And growing? Then yeah, it might be time to westernize, but finish your next couple wars in central asia first. You don't want to westernize, beat on Sweden & Lithuania and then look back east to find a Westernized Bukhara or Delhi in your way.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-15, 01:28 PM

Well, Bukhara has recently gotted mired in a rather nasty war with a strong Manchu, so I doubt they're going to be a problem. The last war resulted in them losing 5 provinces. I will probably go after them again though. Cutting Delhi down to size is also on the agenda, and eventually I'll have to take care of Manchu as well.

Looking at the techs, I am right now 20 Admin, 15 Diplo, 18 Mil. Sweden is 20 Admin, 21 Diplo, 20 Mil. Lithuania is 19 Admin, 20 Diplo, 19 Mil. Does this warrant westernization?

My poor diplo is probably a result of extensive vassal wrangling and Russification in non-Tartar and non-Russian provinces.

Guancyto

2014-10-15, 05:27 PM

If I remember right, failing to Westernize as Russia can get you the Time of Troubles events, which are fifty shades of bad juju for your Grey Menace. Only happens if your Stability is -2 or worse, though, and only between 1550 and 1650.

As Poland or the like, or if you're conscientious about your stability/avoiding Peasant's Wars as Russia, there's no reason to bother.

Leecros

2014-10-15, 06:44 PM

If I remember right, failing to Westernize as Russia can get you the Time of Troubles events, which are fifty shades of bad juju for your Grey Menace. Only happens if your Stability is -2 or worse, though, and only between 1550 and 1650.

Time of trouble has nothing to do with Westernization.

Guancyto

2014-10-15, 06:50 PM

You sure? I could swear it's related somehow.

Or maybe there's another event (1700s-ish?) that pops up if you haven't Westernized that's bad juju?

I could swear there's something, otherwise when I played Russia I rushed to Westernize for nothing. :smalltongue:

Leecros

2014-10-15, 07:06 PM

from the wiki:

Russia runs the risk of running into their Time of Troubles at any point between 1550 and 1650 if its stability is below 2. This event series gives neighbors opportunities to back pretenders to the Russian throne, which will further extend Russia's internal chaos.

To bring an end to the Time of Troubles, Russia (or Muscovy) must not be at war, have a war exhaustion less than 3, no revolts going on, positive stability and not have the Usurper on the Throne modifier. Once all these conditions have been met, the mean time for the End of the Time of Troubles event to fire is 24 months.

What i don't know is if that "Stability is below 2" is supposed to be 2 or is a typo to be -2. If it's stability below 2, then oh my...

Frog Dragon

2014-10-16, 02:25 AM

Also, does reforming government tend to be worth it? I've done it once in this game, turning the Despotic Monarchy into an Administrative Monarchy because the bonuses seemed better.

Eldan

2014-10-16, 02:32 AM

Effing Korea, being too big by now to annex in one piece. I needed three wars and that cost me a lot of alliances. Rest of China next.

Also, Spain finally managed to grab one of the South Sea islands before I got there, time to westernize.

Grif

2014-10-16, 02:53 AM

Also, does reforming government tend to be worth it? I've done it once in this game, turning the Despotic Monarchy into an Administrative Monarchy because the bonuses seemed better.

Depends on your goals, but generally most of the other monarchy government are better than Feudal. Administrative Monarchy is excellent for land-based empires, where your income is derived from taxes and production, while Absolute is best for military powers like France.

Constitutional recently has been buffed, and the -5 Nationalism is useful for warmongers. (Although it may come into play a little too late for that to matter. Admin Tech 22 is really the late 1600/early 1700s.)

Closet_Skeleton

2014-10-16, 05:00 AM

You can't build St Petersberg without westernising, that's about it.

Leecros

2014-10-16, 10:20 AM

Funnily enough, i've been playing a Russia multiplayer game recently.

It's going pretty well, after Byzantium fell and I got the event where I either got claims on all of the byzantine cores held by the ottomans and lost 3 stability or lead the Orthodox church into the future. I decided to take the claims, because The Ottomans are way behind in tech and have been floundering against me. So in my first war i took a decent chunk of Greece and returned cores to Byzantium(which funnily enough revolted out of Cyprus during the war) and after the war i vassalized them. I expect to have control of the rest of Greece in the next war.

http://oi60.tinypic.com/28ksd3c.jpg

The other players are Sweden and The Hansa. They're a bit less experienced(especially The Hansa, he just got the game during that big sale last week) and i've just been leaving them to their own devices. Sweden plans on forming Scandanavia and conquering the British Isles and The Hansa plans on forming Germany.

on another note, i'm kind of disappointed that they added the requirement that the Timurids have to reform their government before they form the Mughal Empire. It means that even if the AI timurids get the land, they rarely...if ever actually form the Mughals.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-16, 12:49 PM

Depends on your goals, but generally most of the other monarchy government are better than Feudal. Administrative Monarchy is excellent for land-based empires, where your income is derived from taxes and production, while Absolute is best for military powers like France.

Constitutional recently has been buffed, and the -5 Nationalism is useful for warmongers. (Although it may come into play a little too late for that to matter. Admin Tech 22 is really the late 1600/early 1700s.)
Should I stick with that then? Russia is definitely a large land-based empire. My diplo tech and trade kind of sucks, but I do have a lot of real-estate. Or is there a superior form of government I should assume once it becomes available?

OrcusMcP

2014-10-16, 01:00 PM

Should I stick with that then? Russia is definitely a large land-based empire. My diplo tech and trade kind of sucks, but I do have a lot of real-estate. Or is there a superior form of government I should assume once it becomes available?

Well, assuming it's not forced on you by event or misfortune, you want to choose a government that boosts something you need or are already good at and want to boost. Administrative is good if you have a lot of taxable land(which Russia does) and lets you get more money without having to rely on trade. Feudal is good if you have a lot of vassals(which Russia can have, if you want to play that way). Absolute is good if you want to have a better army(Russia needs all the discipline help it can get). Constitutional is really good for stability(which Russia needs) since it boosts the nationalism threshold and legitimacy.

Now personally, when I play Paradox games I like to aim for good stories rather than optimal play, so your mileage may vary. If you're like me though, I think you should aim for a government form that starts with "R" and ends with "evolutionary". Who says France has to have all the fun?

Guancyto

2014-10-16, 01:06 PM

Huh, I was wrong about the Time of Troubles. I could still swear there's something bad-juju related if Russia hasn't westernized by some date (maybe the 1700s?), but damned if I can remember what it is.

Also, regarding government types, I should note that independent of their stats, Revolutionary Republic/Empire, Bureaucratic Despotism (Republic) and Enlightened Despotism (Monarchy) all give you the Imperialism CB (wargoal: take capital is not so great, but it lets you declare on absolutely anyone anywhere - great for snapping up former colonial nations in the twilight of the game).

Leecros

2014-10-16, 02:44 PM

Well, assuming it's not forced on you by event or misfortune, you want to choose a government that boosts something you need or are already good at and want to boost. Administrative is good if you have a lot of taxable land(which Russia does) and lets you get more money without having to rely on trade.

Russia has a lot of taxable land, but if you want a high patriarch authority(which you might need to convert some of those Sunni provinces), then you're going to be making more on trade and production than tax anyway.

Although I suppose Administrative would offset those penalties a bit.

OrcusMcP

2014-10-16, 02:57 PM

Russia has a lot of taxable land, but if you want a high patriarch authority(which you might need to convert some of those Sunni provinces), then you're going to be making more on trade and production than tax anyway.

Although I suppose Administrative would offset those penalties a bit.

Administrative boosts production by 10% anyway, so the logic still applies. Dat fur money....

Frog Dragon

2014-10-16, 03:04 PM

My Patriarch Authority has been hovering close to 100 for a while now. I default to siding with the church. The only times I don't do so is when the consequences of siding with them would yield much more losses than not doing so. I still tend to gain the Patriarch Authority back pretty quick, since the generic +5/-5 Patriarch Authority events pop up pretty often. I figure the PA is useful since I do need to convert Sunnis a lot. When it was too low, I couldn't do it at all in most provinces. Now that I have high PA and some religious ideas, I can convert Sunnis pretty fast.

Also, should I go for Defender of the Orthodox Faith? The -5% tech makes me leery.

Leecros

2014-10-16, 03:33 PM

Also, should I go for Defender of the Orthodox Faith? The -5% tech makes me leery.

they 5% tech cost is a pain, but Russia's 10% tech reduction helps reduce that. That and if you can get western arms trade for another 10% and innovative for 5% and that 5% tech cost increase isn't so bad.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-18, 03:03 AM

I also read that DotF disables the Holy War Casus Belli from Deus Vult. Is this true? If so, that would really suck for me because randomly Holy Warring hordes has been like half my strategy for a good chunk of the game.

Leecros

2014-10-18, 09:47 AM

I also read that DotF disables the Holy War Casus Belli from Deus Vult.

Unless it's been changed, that's right. You don't get Holy Wars from Deus Vult if you're Defender of the Faith.

Grif

2014-10-18, 10:57 AM

Frog Dragon

2014-10-18, 03:44 PM

Welp, that's my first finished game.

http://i.imgur.com/nx0J0IA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XG8PcPw.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wAkI6c3.jpg
Lithuania Stronk.

I guess that's pretty much a wash as far as comparison to historical Russia goes. On one hand, Lithuania kept me out of Europe and Spain kept me out of China and the Pacific.

On the other hand, I managed to ultimately take more land from Sweden, and at the very end, I even had Indian Ocean ports. Persia and Khorasan are my vassals there. I was actually annexing Khorasan when the end screen popped up.

Probably the biggest "oh crap" moment was in 1745 when I got PU over Norway and Lithuania immediately succession warred me over it. That might've been manageable (though Lithuania only kept getting scarier as the game went on. No-one could really check them, and I wasn't about to try), except for the fact that the giant Kebab coalition decided that was an appropriate time to punish me for my indiscriminate warring against the muslim states. Qara Qoyunly holy warred me. Sweden was also in the coalition, and I was seeing 60+ deathstacks on my southern border.

I had learned to respect Sweden, and thus I had a rather large army on standby to whack them down. Swedish armies were basically so badass that even as a rump state, I had to face them 5-on-1. This while facing down Lithuanian deathstacks and those of the muslims was not a pretty proposition. While Sweden+Kebabs was doable and Lithuania was potentially doable, both at once was death.

Thankfully, Lithuania accepted my peacing out on condition of giving up the Norway PU. While regrettable, it wasn't something I was actively pursuing and definitely something I was willing to give up to get Lithuania off my back in this kind of bind.

I was able to keep the Swedes down, but the muslims had taken enough land and won enough battles against my Kazakh vassal to shoot me down to -40 warscore.

However, the muslim hordes, while numerous, were still less so than the russians. I lost an army, and drafted another. I marched my renewed forces against the muslims and crushed their vanguards. Qara Qoyunlu offered white peace while I was still around -30 warscore. It seems like they saw where things were going. I accepted, because I didn't really want to get stuck in a 2-front quagmire where I probably wouldn't be able to make any gains. Thankfully, most of the coalition against me left after that peace. Russia was mighty, but I didn't want to fight half the muslim world every time I went against one of the hordes.

After that, I wasn't really involved in any seriously threatening wars. Just relatively minor ones against hordes that couldn't realistically match me. With the coalition cut to a much more manageable size, it was fairly smooth sailing from there, though I didn't really challenge any great European powers.

Also, never westernized, didn't reform again after Administrative Monarchy, and maintained the Patriarchate of Moskva (didn't do the state church thing).

IthilanorStPete

2014-10-18, 03:55 PM

Welp, that's my first finished game.

http://i.imgur.com/nx0J0IA.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XG8PcPw.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wAkI6c3.jpg
Lithuania Stronk.

I guess that's pretty much a wash as far as comparison to historical Russia goes. On one hand, Lithuania kept me out of Europe and Spain kept me out of China and the Pacific.

On the other hand, I managed to ultimately take more land from Sweden, and at the very end, I even had Indian Ocean ports. Persia and Khorasan are my vassals there. I was actually annexing Khorasan when the end screen popped up.

Probably the biggest "oh crap" moment was in 1745 when I got PU over Norway and Lithuania immediately succession warred me over it. That might've been manageable (though Lithuania only kept getting scarier as the game went on. No-one could really check them, and I wasn't about to try), except for the fact that the giant Kebab coalition decided that was an appropriate time to punish me for my indiscriminate warring against the muslim states. Qara Qoyunly holy warred me. Sweden was also in the coalition, and I was seeing 60+ deathstacks on my southern border.

I had learned to respect Sweden, and thus I had a rather large army on standby to whack them down. Swedish armies were basically so badass that even as a rump state, I had to face them 5-on-1. This while facing down Lithuanian deathstacks and those of the muslims was not a pretty proposition. While Sweden+Kebabs was doable and Lithuania was potentially doable, both at once was death.

Thankfully, Lithuania accepted my peacing out on condition of giving up the Norway PU. While regrettable, it wasn't something I was actively pursuing and definitely something I was willing to give up to get Lithuania off my back in this kind of bind.

I was able to keep the Swedes down, but the muslims had taken enough land and won enough battles against my Kazakh vassal to shoot me down to -40 warscore.

However, the muslim hordes, while numerous, were still less so than the russians. I lost an army, and drafted another. I marched my renewed forces against the muslims and crushed their vanguards. Qara Qoyunlu offered white peace while I was still around -30 warscore. It seems like they saw where things were going. I accepted, because I didn't really want to get stuck in a 2-front quagmire where I probably wouldn't be able to make any gains. Thankfully, most of the coalition against me left after that peace. Russia was mighty, but I didn't want to fight half the muslim world every time I went against one of the hordes.

After that, I wasn't really involved in any seriously threatening wars. Just relatively minor ones against hordes that couldn't realistically match me. With the coalition cut to a much more manageable size, it was fairly smooth sailing from there, though I didn't really challenge any great European powers.

Quite a lot unusual going on there! That's one seriously impressive Bohemia. Vijayanagar did quite well, Ayutthaya did extremely well. I'm not used to seeing Qing form that often; did Ming manage to pull itself together?

Frog Dragon

2014-10-18, 04:09 PM

That's the end state you see there, so yeah. Manchu --> Qing just kept getting stronger throughout the game, and they absorbed the former Ming territories. Ming got split into several smaller states, but looks like Ayutthaya mostly blobbed into Zhou.

Bohemia really went crazy lategame. Spain seemed to be biggest winner, at least according to score. Their heyday was actually a while back (Spanish Netherlands used to be basically all of Burgundy), but it takes a while to take down an empire that giant. Never dared to challenge them, even though evicting them from Siberia might've been doable without them being able to really bring their force to bear on me.

Everything else happened mostly without my meddling, but I can claim responsibility for giant Vijayanagar. Delhi was rather strong at one point, and basically a northwestern muslim counterweight to Vijayanagar's southeastern hindu. However, Delhi got dragged into repeated coalition wars against me, which they kept losing. As a result. Delhi got their manpower pool depleted, and eventually they couldn't even hold back Chagatai and nationalist rebels. Getting into repeated fights with me left them so weakened that they couldn't hold themselves together, especially Vijayanagar went to war with them. Vijayanagar basically moved into a power vacuum.

As a sidenote, had the game gone on longer, I probably would've been in position to chunk Lithuania once they inevitable wound up in conflict with Bohemia. Basically the same way I took out Sweden. I waited until they lost a war in continental Europe that wiped out their forces, and then rolled in while they were essentially defenseless. I never defeated Sweden in a fair fight. :smalltongue:

Leecros

2014-10-20, 11:45 AM

gotta say, i'm having a crazy Austria game which makes me feel like i'm back in EU3.

Started the game up, first few years and i got a personal union with Bavaria. Burgundy declares war against me in the succession crisis and the resulting war ends with the Burgundian Inheritance event.

So burgundy's land gets split between France and I. A few more years pass and France attacks Savoy. Savoy calls in me, Hungary, and Venice. I become the war leader and call in Castile, Bohemia, Bavaria, Poland-Lithuania, and Brandenburg. France gets crushed and i release Burgundy as an independant nation. Immediately after, I get the Burgundian Inheritance mission(not to be confused with the event) and get a casus beli to put Burgundy into a Personal Union...which i do.

The game stabelizes and over the next few years things are relatively peaceful(except for the occasional beating up of France or the Ottomans) and i inherit Bavaria. In the 1550's I get a personal union with Spain.

I did have to release them, because Spain was being played by a friend, but at this point, i'm in shock because i just finished a discussion with that friend about how they've nerfed Personal Unions from EU3 when i notice that Norway's king is 60 years old with no heir, so I royal marriage them and when their king dies a Habsburg takes over and I immediately claim the throne and force them into a PU. Shortly after that Brandenburg gets under a PU with me, because they were in a regency council and their heir died. And then shortly after that Pommerania joined the Habsburg family...although I couldn't force a PU there due to being in a regency council.

So yeah....Habsburg Dominance Indeed. :smallbiggrin:

Eldan

2014-10-20, 12:02 PM

I had a similar Habsburg game, except that I inherited my way eastwards. Bavaria, Burgundy, Bohemia and then Poland-Lithuania. Stopped at that point, it was sort of pointless.

And of course there was that one crazy game where I had a PU with France.

Leecros

2014-10-20, 12:18 PM

I'd imagine i'll get a PU with Poland eventually, once they switch out of their elective monarchy mess. The last 3 or 4 kings there have all been Habsburgs.

But still, not something you really see that often in EU4 since they've been gradually making PU's harder to get. In EU3 all you needed was a marriage with a kingdom that had a low legitimacy claim to claim their throne and unless something happened to that low legitimacy heir, a PU was almost assured.

OrcusMcP

2014-10-20, 12:29 PM

My favourite PU moment was when I was playing the Ottomans. I allied/married the Timurids just to keep them off my back in the early game, figuring I'd have to turn on them eventually in a couple hundred years. I left them to their own devices.

Imagine my surprise when, ~1530, I get a PU with the Timurids. Then, 50 years later, I inherited them.

This was after I had done a bunch of conquering in the Middle East, Africa, Black Sea and was starting to press into Italy.

Yeah, my name was REALLY big on the map.

tonberrian

2014-10-20, 12:57 PM

My record PU game was with Austria too. First I got the Burgundian PU mission. Then the next ruler comes up. He manages to get PUs with Hungary and Bohemia through missions, and France, Russia, and Aragon without them. It was sweet.

Terraoblivion

2014-10-20, 05:30 PM

I haven't done much with PUs. I did have an incredible story ones. I was playing as the Commonwealth and had allied and royal married France since I was planning on conquering in Germany and somebody to beat up on Austria would be useful. Then I got a PU with them, managed to keep it stable and finally got big enough to absorb France. I dropped the game shortly after because there were nobody left who could challenge me, I had already all but killed Muscovy when it happened and that really only left the Ottomans as a potential threat and they were floundering.

Guancyto

2014-10-21, 12:32 AM

PUs are like winning the lottery, really. I had a Burgundy game where I got a PU with Austria in the first year. Needless to say, a lot of smacking around France followed.

And then I had a (pre-Res Publica) Poland game where I attempted to get personal unions with everyone I could, dedicated myself to controlling the curia so I could snipe royal marriages and... the only PU I ever got besides Lithuania was in like 1780, when rump state England (mostly consigned to some land in Australia and Indonesia - Scotland had entirely kicked them out of the British Isles) became a monarchy again due to a revolution, and they got a Lancaster as a ruler, so I could claim their throne (Poland had been ruled by Lancasters for a couple hundred years at this point.)

Then there was a Timurids-> Mughals game where I ended up with PUs with no-joke every single Muslim power in the world (except the Ottomans, Mali and the various states of India, who I conquered). I got Tunisia, Morocco (who had split north africa between them), the Mamluk rump state, the Kazan, the Nogai, and even the Oirat Horde, who weren't even of my religion group! (It turns out that was a huge problem, they will refuse to Integrate if they're not of your religion group, so it took me a couple hundred years maintaining the union to inherit them.) The islamic rulers of the world may have had many wives and many sons, but apparently the Mangit dynasty exceeded them all.

Leecros

2014-10-21, 09:40 AM

Then there was a Timurids-> Mughals game where I ended up with PUs with no-joke every single Muslim power in the world (except the Ottomans, Mali and the various states of India, who I conquered). I got Tunisia, Morocco (who had split north africa between them), the Mamluk rump state, the Kazan, the Nogai, and even the Oirat Horde, who weren't even of my religion group! (It turns out that was a huge problem, they will refuse to Integrate if they're not of your religion group, so it took me a couple hundred years maintaining the union to inherit them.) The islamic rulers of the world may have had many wives and many sons, but apparently the Mangit dynasty exceeded them all.

The last time i played as Timurids->Mughals I did get a PU with the ottomans. Amusingly it was a multiplayer game and it was the same person who played Spain when i got a PU with them in my current game.

I've been playing a lot of multiplayer recently.

Closet_Skeleton

2014-10-21, 06:08 PM

I had to PU the Ottomans via war during this achievement run.
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/36351290788177361/B77BF06D62D5AC4BCAAA6B9B2CCE1FC4DF963EFF/

Couldn't integrate since there was only 20 years left when I finished the war (not the war took long but I only did it because I only needed Ottoman Persia for the Great Khan achievement and the Ottomans didn't get Persia until very late).

I managed to get Muscovy in a Prussia game. They hate me so much.

Then I loaded up a Muscovy game and got a PU with Yaroslavl in the first few years, leading to a war with Lithuania where all my manpower was destroyed and I had to surrender giving Lithuania the PU. A few years later I got another PU with Ryazan and another succession war with Lithuania while my manpower still sucked and rage quit.

tonberrian

2014-10-21, 07:55 PM

Closet_Skeleton

2014-10-22, 04:48 AM

Dat France. :smalleek:

Yes.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/36351290788175093/8DD0C55E1792D98CC58AB686C9BA5D9DA00C017E/

They PU'd Castille really early. I ignored them the whole game until they suddenly started jumping in charge of every war in the last few years. I still won every one but they did slow me down.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-29, 12:06 PM

So, Art of War is coming tomorrow. The associated patch also has a lot of interesting stuff.

I like the idea of more Asian and African provinces. Playing Western Europeans doesn't appear hugely to me in this game (currently trying a Mamluk run. Kebab+Timmy alliance is a problem. My current plan is to provoke war with Timmy, then try to punch out the Ottoman navy with an over-force-limit galleystack of my own and blockade Istanbul, hopefully forcing white peace and allowing me to go to town on Timmy).

Anyway, there are some things that I'm a little leery about. The colonial local autonomy thing is one. Apparently all colonies have a permanent minimum of 50% local autonomy, which was intended to make same continent colonization more on par with overseas colonization (which have their own penalties). Unfortunately, this would seem to shaft Americans, sub-saharan Africans, and Polynesians hardcore (because they will only ever get 50% returns out of land that is literally right next to them). It also swings a nerfbat at Russia, which might be appropriate given that they often eat northern China. However, stronger and more numerous Asian provinces would also curtail this behavior.

Unsurprisingly, this change got a lot of flak over on the paradox boards. Luckily, this can be removed by changing just one variable.

Also, apparently hordes never upgrade their unit types? I just read about this and it seems silly. In general, it seems like hordes become easy to roll over by 1600, which seems rather silly and ahistorical. Maybe I should just download MEIOU and Taxes.... :smalltongue:

Also, since I wrote this post over a long period of time, I played through the Timmy+Kebab vs Mamluk war in between. I managed to get Kebab out of the fight by crushing them navally, but I still had to revoke cores on their territory and give Algiers back cores to get them to accept peace. However, I then realized that Timmy+their vassal Georgia still outnumbered me twice over, and while they had worse units than I did, they had better generals. I wound up with +20% warscore through my tried and true tactic of "hide on the mediterranean coast and pick off siege stacks that wander too close", and I got peace on Timmy off that. While I didn't fulfill my original goal of destablizing Timmy, I did get a rather important concession. Annul treaties with Ottomans. :smallbiggrin:

Isolating the Ottomans has been the #1 foreign policy goal for a while now.

Now, onto forcevassalizing Algiers while Ottoman is still truced. :smallamused:

Edit: Nevermind, that doesn't work. Ottoman will answer a defensive call even when truced.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-10-29, 12:37 PM

Question: why are the central Asian Turks being called Kebabs all of a sudden? It strikes me as a bit racist, I'm confused as to where it comes from.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-29, 12:41 PM

It's a Polandball joke, and one I've seen used quite a bit with regards to EU4. I just found it amusing for entirely childish reasons. Similarly, French are Baguettes and Austria are Schnitzels. I can stop using it if it's inappropriate though.

Edit: Aw yisss, Timmy wound up in a war against the Ottomans, and they're losing, and I have CBs on them. It's over now Timmy, time to collapse like you should've 50 years ago.

Leecros

2014-10-30, 05:06 PM

I've gotta say, i really like the addition of all of these new provinces and nations to play with, but i have to wonder why they decided to add some eastern siberia tribes in. Chavchuveny, Khodynt, Kamchatka, and Chukchi(ChuckyCheese). I've played around with them a bit and they tend to end up having some of the same problems that native americans do...There's just nothing to do. They don't even have the Conquest of Paradise stuff that they added to native americans to make them more interesting to play.

Heck, the only advantage they have over the native americans is that they have the chinese tech group and honestly, i'd have been happy if they were given the native american idea group and worked on the native american mechanics....or something similar.

They're just kind of there and I don't see them having any impact on the game except as fodder for Russia, Japan, Manchu, or the Oirats.

Terraoblivion

2014-10-30, 06:21 PM

Fodder for the Manchu, Oirat and Japan isn't a bad thing, though. Making them stronger in the face of Russia is definitely helpful for game balance.

Leecros

2014-10-30, 06:40 PM

Fodder for the Manchu, Oirat and Japan isn't a bad thing, though. Making them stronger in the face of Russia is definitely helpful for game balance.

except...there's only four of them, each only has one base tax and doesn't border anybody. So it's pretty unlikely that the AI will go for them.

players...sure, but they're all only 1 base tax, so i don't really think that it helps them that much. the Increased provinces in Asia are probably much more relevant to the asian nations being more competitive than 4 tribal nations that doesn't really seem to fit in.

Terraoblivion

2014-10-30, 06:59 PM

Okay, if they were only given one province each, then yeah, they're pretty much pointless. Even Kongo has three provinces and one of them is actually great and the North Americans have their special mechanics giving them stuff to do and making them more able to stand up to Europeans than their tech group would lead you to believe. Better provinces too.

Still, can't hurt to give members of those people or their descendants some recognition.

GnomeGninjas

2014-10-30, 07:18 PM

Has anyone played as Provence before? I've reclaimed Avignon and vassalized the Papal State. My allies are Castille, Hungary and Milan. The Hundred Years War is about to end and France has ~6.5 war exhaustion and ~3.5K manpower. I feel like I should stab them as soon as it ends (Or possibly I should separate peace England and declare war now?), before they annex their vassals. What should my strategy be?

Leecros

2014-10-30, 07:18 PM

Okay, I was wrong....I think they can migrate, they just don't get the other native shenanigans.

Which, doesn't really help them in the long run, except in monarch points, but even then...

Has anyone played as Provence before? I've reclaimed Avignon and vassalized the Papal State. My allies are Castille, Hungary and Milan. The Hundred Years War is about to end and France has ~6.5 war exhaustion and ~3.5K manpower. I feel like I should stab them as soon as it ends (Or possibly I should separate peace England and declare war now?), before they annex their vassals. What should my strategy be?

I've been considering playing them, since they have their own National Ideas now, but I haven't gotten around to it yet...

I don't know what position you're in manpower-wise, but when dealing with France...It's probably best if you try and get an alliance first. Check to see if Aragon or Castile or Austria will ally you when you're not at war and if they do, then i would probably separate peace England and attack France. Not that i think separate peaceing England will do a lot...It's probably most likely that France will ask them for peace when you declare war on them, but on the off chance that they don't...

Narkis

2014-10-30, 07:20 PM

except...there's only four of them, each only has one base tax and doesn't border anybody. So it's pretty unlikely that the AI will go for them.

players...sure, but they're all only 1 base tax, so i don't really think that it helps them that much. the Increased provinces in Asia are probably much more relevant to the asian nations being more competitive than 4 tribal nations that doesn't really seem to fit in.

It's very likely that the region will be overhauled in a future DLC. The hordes as a whole are in a pretty sorry state as it is.

Leecros

2014-10-30, 07:24 PM

It's very likely that the region will be overhauled in a future DLC. The hordes as a whole are in a pretty sorry state as it is.

Maybe...It's a bit too far north to have much to do with Hordes though. I mean we're talking about Northeastern Siberia, not Mongolia or Manchuria. My disappointment is the fact that they already have mechanics in place for them to be more interesting than they are(the native mechanics in the Americas), but the only mechanic they appear to get off of it is the ability to migrate(I think...at least the button's there when you click on the province).

I guess it's probably just that they want to keep Conquest of Paradise DLC stuff out of the Old World, but that seems like a dumb reason*

*I'm a little biased though considering i own Conquest of Paradise

edit: They do get the ability to migrate

Narkis

2014-10-30, 08:03 PM

I don't see Paradox fixing the hordes and not touching these guys. It wouldn't require that much effort.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-31, 12:20 AM

Looks like there's a beta mode for 1.7.3 now, so I can let my game patch. Wouldn't want to break my lovely Mamluks --> Egypt run.

Timurid and Ottoman actually managed to ally each other AGAIN. This became apparent when I actually went for my long-since planned vassalization of Algiers, and Timurid, Ottoman, Milan, and Mali all joined the war. On my side? Me and vassals.

....whoops.

No worries though. By that point Ottomans and Timurids had both been weakened by both me and Europeans, and Mali, despite a respectably sized army, was a non-factor because their techs suck (my mil tech is actually Europe-level at 26). So I just sieged up Anatolia and kicked Turks about a little bit before peacing out for some Algiers provinces (couldn't full-vassalize Algiers. Had to grab provinces, eat the overextension, and attack again later for the vassal) and some other minor stuff.

At this point it seems like I can scrap with basically all of my immediate neighbors and come out on top.

Also, is there any way to peacefully annex a Sub-Saharan African nation? Due to an alliance with me and me honoring calls, Adal has grown quite large (Because if I so much as sneeze on their neighbors, they're done for). They have been somewhat useful in letting me have grab stuff for myself while helping them conquer (most notable, they went after Kilwa, who was guaranteed by GB.... great chance to steal their colonies in Zimbabwe and Madagascar). However, once I chunk Mutapa and Kilwa for good, Adal will be hemmed in by my territory and useless to me as an independent state. Do I have to war them to annex them? Protectorates are useless unfortunately.

Also, tactic I have found useful. Naval forcelimits are not a limit, they are a misguided suggestion. Having like 160 ships to a forcelimit of 100 lets me both protect trade and stomp on Otto on the mediterranean. Since Galleys are cheap and strong on inland seas, the maintenance costs don't really hurt. Light Ships pay for themselves anyway.

Leecros

2014-10-31, 08:41 AM

Also, is there any way to peacefully annex a Sub-Saharan African nation? Due to an alliance with me and me honoring calls, Adal has grown quite large (Because if I so much as sneeze on their neighbors, they're done for). They have been somewhat useful in letting me have grab stuff for myself while helping them conquer (most notable, they went after Kilwa, who was guaranteed by GB.... great chance to steal their colonies in Zimbabwe and Madagascar). However, once I chunk Mutapa and Kilwa for good, Adal will be hemmed in by my territory and useless to me as an independent state. Do I have to war them to annex them? Protectorates are useless unfortunately.

Unfortunately the only way to do so would be to hope for them to westernize....This is quite rare and i usually only see at most 1 or 2 nations do it each game.

Plus after they westernize, they'll auto-break free of being a protectorate. Which if they've grown too large to be diplovassalized, you'll have to go to war with them anyway.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-31, 08:50 AM

I guess I'll just have to invade them then. There's no way they're westernizing since in a short time, I (Egypt, non-westernized muslim tech) will be their only neighbor. Unfortunate. That's a lot of minority-culture provinces to core. At least they're Sunni. Would Personal Union also work since I have Royal Marriage with them? Not that it's very likely anyway with the Sunni heir chance boosts.

GnomeGninjas

2014-10-31, 08:56 AM

Frog Dragon

2014-10-31, 02:56 PM

I was still in 1.7.3 because I didn't want to break my save.

http://i.imgur.com/9CKuOlS.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/waJmMSN.jpg

The OE in the last screen is because I warred Otto just before the end date and didn't have time to finish coring the two provinces I took.

I wound up just annexing Adal over two wars. Given their small size relative to my Egyptian empire, their lack of allies, and their inferior technology, they could offer no meaningful resistance.

Most of my lategame was beating up Otto and Timmy, though Otto's European allies made that a little more difficult than I expected. I actually had a serious scrap with Brandenburg when they came down to Anatolia to fight me. Let me tell you, fighting 40-stacks that forced march everywhere is not pleasant. Somehow, Timmy managed to deal with its rebel problems, despite constant attacks and rebel supporting from me, in addition to conflicts with Russia and Malwa. That was genuinely quite surprising.

Malwa also did very well. It seems like they managed to ally with the unusually stable Timmy, gain strength in comparison with the rest of India, and then roll.

Castile did badly. Never formed Spain, got kicked out of North Africa (and only kept South Africa because I never got around to attacking them for it), and doesn't have that many colonies in general. They had their Iberian holdings sieged for 20 years straight at one point (France attacked them for some colony, and apparently couldn't actually get to the colony. Lacking the ability to take the wargoal, they threw a tantrum all over Iberia and refused to peace out. At least, that's my guess). Granada got released again, and freaking Morocco managed to siege up most of their European holdings. I was technically in the war, but not actually helping.

All in all, pretty nice run. One thing I noticed though was that when I warred Otto lategame (they tended to have pretty big alliances and I would up scrapping with the likes of Milan and Brandenburg), I could only take provinces I had claims on. Anyone know why? In the same timeframe, I could still demand huge territorial concessions out of Adal.

Leecros

2014-10-31, 03:12 PM

Kudos to Malwa for (almost) uniting India...Although i'm quite sad at the size of dat Russia, but that's generally my thoughts whenever i see an enormously large Russia. When i'm playing in Asia, my first mission is to always cut them off as soon as possibru. They're annoying enough to fight when they don't have the resources of half of Asia.

AgentPaper

2014-10-31, 03:36 PM

Loving the new map. Started a game as Mongolia, and while it took a while to get started (Oirat smashed Uzbek and Oirat, who I'd hoped would support my independence), but a good alliance with Yarkand, a long and draining war with Uzbek*, and their only ally Buryatia getting distracted by an almost as long war with Korchin allowed me to break free, with a nice gift of 5 (poor) provinces to boot.

Now I'm stomping around vassalizing all the eastern hordes, and just about to start a second war to take even more land from Oirat (possibly vassalizing them back -- take that!), and am well on the path towards Great Khan. It remains to see how strong Ming is after the patch, though.

*Which actually lasted for the duration of, and for a while after, my war of independence, though they still ended up winning and taking a bunch of land anyways. Sibir and Kazakh got spit out a bit later and now Oirat seems set to take even more land off of them, furthering their western migration.

tonberrian

2014-10-31, 03:37 PM

All in all, pretty nice run. One thing I noticed though was that when I warred Otto lategame (they tended to have pretty big alliances and I would up scrapping with the likes of Milan and Brandenburg), I could only take provinces I had claims on. Anyone know why? In the same timeframe, I could still demand huge territorial concessions out of Adal.

Sounds like you were in a coalition against them, maybe. Being in a coalition limits the things you can demand.

Frog Dragon

2014-10-31, 03:40 PM

I had them rivaled, but never actually fought a war against them. I believe by the end of the game I was about on equal footing with Russia as far as war capability went, though they did have around double my manpower. I guess if the game went on past 1821, conflict with Russia would be inevitable. My missions kept prodding me to war against them. :smalltongue: It would've been a meatgrinder, since Russia had also been rushing miltech so I don't think I would've had any quality advantage. Probably would be very difficult to actually get anywhere in that war.

Interestingly, Kazan was actually pretty strong for a good chunk of the game before Timmy cut them down to size. For a while it looked like Russia was going to be choked out by unusually strong hordes. Luckily for them, Kazan wound up in conflict with Ottomans and Timmy.

Also, coalition does that? Damn. I had just left the anti-Otto coalition on in hopes of pulling extra support against them from Europe. Didn't really work, and by the endgame I was kicking them around all by myself anyway.

Leecros

2014-10-31, 05:00 PM

(Oirat smashed Uzbek and Oirat, who I'd hoped would support my independence)

It would have been an impressive feat to get the Oirats to support your Independence considering they're your overlord. Good thing they smashed themselves. :smalltongue:

I do agree though, the new map is amazing. Even if i think those northeastern Siberian tribes should be having existential crises'. It must be a sad existence to know that your entire purpose of existing is to be eaten by Russia, or some asian power who decides to colonize in your general direction.

AgentPaper

2014-10-31, 05:27 PM

It would have been an impressive feat to get the Oirats to support your Independence considering they're your overlord. Good thing they smashed themselves. :smalltongue:

Whoops, meant Chagatai, of course. Though the Oirats did do a good job of smashing themselves by sitting giant stacks in norther Siberia in the Uzbek war. And then again just now trying to put down Kazakh rebels while I carpet sieged them. Of course, now they're my vassal so said Kazakh rebels are my problem now, but at least I'm not sucking on attrition to do so. (ya maneuver 4 generals!)

Frog Dragon

2014-11-01, 11:19 AM

Leecros

2014-11-01, 07:32 PM

Well, no AoW for me yet, but I think I'll play around with the new patch now. I did fiddle with defines.lua a little to correct what seem like industrial-strength blunders by paradox. I set the colonial autonomy floor to 0. The 50% autonomy seems to illogically and unnecessarily **** over Indonesian and American natives. While same-continent colonization may be strong, especially for American natives, this really doesn't make sense.

The ideal system would perhaps start the colony off less useful, but allow the player to get a fully utilized and integrated province out of it later. However, in absence of that, I find the old system infinitely preferable to the clunky half-provinces of the new patch.

I think that's something that will eventually get fixed, there's a lot of frustration on the forums about it and a lot of interesting ideas flying around to fix it. I feel like the 50% autonomy floor was something that they just stuck in as an afterthought, without thinking of how it might affect player natives or Indonesians.

I also slashed the 75% autonomy of diploannexed vassals to 50%, because it seems exceedingly silly to get less tax out of a recently integrated territory than the same territory as a vassal, or as a recent conquest.

Eh....I'm inclined to disagree. You can reduce the autonomy by 25%(bringing it down to 50%) immediately after you diploannex the nation...although that does run the risk of revolt depending on how stable your nation is.There would have to be a degree of autonomy involved to make sure the integration went smoothly without the risk of people getting uppity about it.

Also, while the autonomy of recent conquests is lower(50%) it's offset by that increase in unrest from nationalism. Which you can all but get rid of with an increase in autonomy to 75%. The same amount of autonomy that a newly annexed vassal starts at. So it's a tradeoff, you either have to deal with the rebels from conquering someone militarily/reducing the autonomy of a recently annexed vassal, or deal with a bit more autonomy and no rebels.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-02, 11:55 AM

In unrelated matters, does anyone know who Malik Muhammed Humad was and why he was so awesome? The bookmark for 1756 has him as the ruler of the Sultanate of Aïr as a 7/7/8, which I didn't think was even possible in EU4.

Also, did 1.8 nerf hordes again? Apparently they have local autonomy floors as well. I thought hordes already got rolled by Muscovy/Russia ahistorically early.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-11-02, 12:17 PM

Can't find anything on him. At that time Air was ruled by Tuareg Sultans. In fact in the 17th century it had suffered a steep decline economically and socially according to Wikipedia. However, I found a French article on the Mosque of Agadez (the capital of Air) that states that he and his twin brother Sultan Muhammad al-'Adil, were the two most celebrated and venerated Sultans in the 300 year history of the Sultanate. Only reference to him I could find without spending too much time looking up the history of Agadez instead of reading Sayyid Qutb's letters from America like I really should be doing...

Leecros

2014-11-02, 12:54 PM

Also, did 1.8 nerf hordes again? Apparently they have local autonomy floors as well. I thought hordes already got rolled by Muscovy/Russia ahistorically early.

They do have a 25% autonomy floor(which they can presumably get rid of by reforming their government). Also keep in mind that Muscovy has been nerfed a bit too, since most of their land that they colonize in Siberia is going to have 50% autonomy. In fact, in the two games i've played so far, I've seen the hordes around and doing okay well into the 1500-1600's. Granted 2 games is hardly enough of a baseline to say if this is the norm or not, but i have seen a slowdown in how quickly Muscovy eats the hordes. Whether it's because of the 50% autonomy from colonies or because the hordes get a lot more land now(The Golden Horde went from like a 5-6 province minor to something like 15 or 16.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-05, 07:13 AM

Eldan

2014-11-05, 07:29 AM

Grumble grumble grumble frigging dice...

Declared war on Turkey, knowing that my allies (Austria and Lithuania) outnumbered them handily. Then, my army of 12000 meets a Turkish army of 13000 and promptly... disintegrates. No survivors. Haevn't ever seen such a short battle, either. Not sure what happened there.

Leecros

2014-11-05, 07:45 AM

Has anyone seen AI Ming not implode within the first 50 years after 1.8? In my Khmer game, I've been watching them collapse, fragment, and get invaded non-stop for 60 years. It seems like they are incredibly vulnerable to rebel waves which destroy their ability to even begin to recover, especially since they're locked at 50% autonomy due to Celestial Empire. I think so far 4 nations have split out of Ming, and most of the hordes have taken a bite. About 2/3 of their territory seems to be occupied at any given time.

From what I've read, this seems to be pretty close to the average case. My moves so far have been vassalizing Champa and chomping on Lan Xang, so I don't think I'm responsible for it.

Ming's problem isn't with the unrest or autonomy changes though though, it's with Inward Perfection on top of the unrest or autonomy changes.

With inward perfection, Ming actually loses an extra 25% off of many of the same variables that local autonomy hits. On top of that, for such a large nation, they only have 34,000 manpower at the start of the game and factions have been rebalanced so that they're effectively just used to offset the penalty to inward perfection.

The autonomy changes wouldn't be so bad on their own, if they didn't have the inward perfection penalties keeping them from actually fielding a large enough of an army to actually handle rebels and if the AI was smart enough to put the correct faction in power at the right times. Ming starts with 45,000 men with a 34,000 maximum manpower(With the temple faction in charge). They burn through it fast when fifty thousand rebels pop up all over the nation.

This would still be an issue, even if they weren't locked at 50% autonomy though. The AI doesn't mess with autonomy that much and it's unlikely that even if the Ming AI could increase the autonomy, that they would.

Ming has always had a problem with collapsing. This isn't necessarily a new thing to EUIV. The AI doesn't take enough measures against rebels. Whether that'd be using harsh treatment(Pre-1.8) or increasing autonomy(If they could) or harsh treatmenting factions that are about to rebel.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-05, 08:04 AM

Leecros

2014-11-05, 10:05 AM

I haven't exactly looked into what is causing Ming to implode within 50 years. Just that they are.

Ming being prone to collapse isn't necessarily bad (As far as I know, Ming was in pretty bad shape internally when the Manchu came), but it seems like the AI is woefully unprepared to ever deal with this, and the average 1.8 China is an ugly crisscross of hordes and Chinese minor states after a very short time. This does not seem like intended behavior (though it might make my game easier in the long run. Chomp Indochina, then minors in China proper! :smallbiggrin:)

usually when Ming collapses, it's because they lose the Mandate of Heaven. They go from a cushy -5 Unrest in all of their provinces to a dangerous +5 unrest in all of their provinces. This results in revolt risk all across the nation that AI Ming just isn't equipped to deal with. This is working as intended, as when an emperor would lose the Mandate of Heaven the people were inclined, even obligated to rise up against him...

This is "Simulated" in-game by Ming collapsing when they lose the Mandate. The problem is that that's the end of it. Ming collapses, the minors break off and that's that. They stay independent as small Chinese minors and the hordes or whoever takes advantage. What should happen is a period of warring states where the various Chinese minors attempt to take control of the Chinese Region and become the leading dynasty. Unfortunately that isn't simulated at all.

I'd like to see a system where when a Chinese state breaks off, they get more missions, claims, a huge relations hit to the current Emperor, and maybe even cores. Anything that would push the AI into reuniting China and claiming the Mandate of Heaven for themselves. Which is generally what they should want to do anyway.

Terraoblivion

2014-11-05, 11:03 AM

Ming being prone to collapse isn't necessarily bad (As far as I know, Ming was in pretty bad shape

Yes, but that was more than 200 years after game start. The game starts with Ming as a fairly young dynasty that's only 76 years old and which would go on to last for around 220 years more. In fact the game starts right around the height of Ming power, stability and interest in affecting the surrounding world.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-05, 11:44 AM

Yeah, I'm aware that Ming did not collapse that early (though I was a little fuzzy on the exact timeline of Ming, so thanks for that. I did remember Manchus happened in the 17th century). That's why I pointed it out as odd.

Looks like they finally managed to stop everything rebelling all over the place.
http://i.imgur.com/7V9vHWB.jpg

The only problem....
http://i.imgur.com/cfBtrKU.jpg

GG Ming.

Edit: Also Khmer should have national ideas. Generics make Barom Reachea Khmer a sad panda. :smallfrown: Ah well, they're almost certainly coming down the pipeline eventually. I was still a little surprised they don't have them already, given how influential the Khmer empire was in the history of Indochina, and only a short while back from the start date.

Also, glanced at china again. Peasant revolts. Autonomy is already 100% across the board. What do the peasants even want?

Leecros

2014-11-05, 12:25 PM

Yes, but that was more than 200 years after game start. The game starts with Ming as a fairly young dynasty that's only 76 years old and which would go on to last for around 220 years more. In fact the game starts right around the height of Ming power, stability and interest in affecting the surrounding world.

I'd be up for Ming getting some bonuses. Double-dipping Inward Perfection and 50& Autonomy on them is just mean. Even the factions were nerfed to effectively just be useful in offsetting Inward Perfection.

I'd imagine that part of the world will get an expansion/patch at some point. That area wasn't fleshed out at all in EU3 until Divine Wind and that was the last expansion they made for that game.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-05, 12:49 PM

Also, Ming needs to start at tech 3, minimum. They were the most technologically advanced civilization on the globe in the 15th century, yet they have 2 across the board at the start date. This is only compounded by their tendency to stay at 2 because their internal chaos prevents them from doing anything as AI.

Also, anyone else noticed the AI refusing to peace out of stalemate wars? Malacca has been sitting on -67 warscore vs Brunei for decades on a trade war. It appears that Malacca started a trade war, kept ferrying troops over and got them all killed, and then blockaded all the things. Now Brunei has wargoal (because they won the battles) but can't do anything because they can't defeat Malacca's navy, but Malacca can't do anything because they can't contest Brunei's military on their own soil. Neither will peace out, and this situation has been going on for several decades.

Flickerdart

2014-11-09, 12:24 PM

Anyone know how the new Siberian tribes can migrate? The Chukchi start in a great position to move 1 province and then dominate all of Kamchatka and descend upon the Ainu and then Japan...but I can't find the button to move them, and without that button, it's impossible to core your conquests. I tried the old way (making a colony) but because the base tax in Siberia is 1, the colony bankrupted my country and now makes me no money (because of the new mandatory 50% autonomy).

AgentPaper

2014-11-09, 12:49 PM

Flickerdart

2014-11-09, 02:52 PM

I do. I found the button (it's in a stupid place - why do I have to choose my province?) but decided to go along with my crappy game. For some reason the game won't let me make claims on any Ainu land even though I already control the Kurils. Weird.

Now I'm wondering what the deal with tariffs is. Will Viceroys do anything for me, since my colonies are not overseas?

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-11-09, 04:06 PM

Is there not a "Native" page for the Siberians? Maybe not, because they're not Native Americans in the same way...

mythmonster2

2014-11-09, 04:29 PM

Siberians don't get any native features except for migration, so no, they don't have a native page.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-09, 09:19 PM

Playing my first post-Art of War game as the Ottomans. The increased number of provinces makes expansion harder; I have to spend a lot of admin points on coring, even with lots of fabricated claims. Went with Religious for my first idea group (though I'm wishing I had chosen Humanism), then Offensive; probably going to get Trade for my third group so I can take advantage of all the trade nodes I control, then Exploration to go for Indonesia/Siberia.

EDIT: Expanding via vassals is also pretty slow; annexation now takes quite a long time, and it's tough to deal with the long-lasting Diplomatic Reputation malus you get when annexation completes.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-10, 12:12 AM

Ottomans seems to be weaker and more likely to crash now, at least in AI hands.

http://i.imgur.com/HSmr9Sd.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/glOwHdR.jpg

In unrelated matters, does anyone know if the province count in the end screen counts vassal provinces? What about occupied ones? I ended a game while at war with Russia and France, and I had occupied all of their stuff in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Would that increase the count?

mythmonster2

2014-11-10, 12:18 AM

Yeah, the AI is not really capable of dealing with the increased rebel sizes. Trivial for most situations for the player, but especially bad with the Ottomans and Ming. On the other hand, I've never even heard of Eretna before.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-10, 12:22 AM

Apparently Eretna is a revolter state that can spawn from Rebels. I guess they did just that and proceeded to blob Anatolia.

Flickerdart

2014-11-10, 12:31 AM

Frog Dragon

2014-11-10, 12:45 AM

Eh, I think the rebels are fine. Not ideal, but fine. I didn't have to fight them. Just don't decrease autonomy (because that causes your people to shoot Bobrikov) and don't get too high into overextension. Instead, vassalize stuff and form vassals out of your foreign cores.

And this was with Khmer, a crappy 6-province start surrounded by stronger states, not a European superpower with more money than sense.

The only times I really had to deal with rebels were when I took a huge bite out of Ming and couldn't feed my vassal Miao fast enough (they were also getting overextension) and when I westernized (less bad now I think, but still not necessarily worth since I did it in the 18th century).

The annoying part is honestly event rebels. Almost every other kind can be avoided.

AgentPaper

2014-11-10, 12:57 AM

Ugh, those damn rebels. Everything is cause for a rebel faction these days, apparently. How are you supposed to conquer your way through the world when the people you've mercilessly crushed rise up against you to fight again?

They threw me for a bit of a loop at first, but once you get used to the new ways of managing them, it's OK.

First off, anything that reduces revolt risk is great. There's not a ton of ways to get it, but you should definitely value it more than before. Having a Theologian adviser is often the difference between massive revolts and nothing.

Second, when you conquer, raise autonomy. Sometimes you'll still end up getting a revolt, but it'll be much delayed and often you can prevent it altogether. Don't be afraid to quash it with harsh treatment, especially if your manpower is low or you think you aren't strong enough to fight them.

Parking your armies on the trouble provinces is a good idea as well, you don't need to keep their maintenance up since there's no chance of them revolting until after they get to 95%. It's not a huge difference (I wish it'd affect RR a bit more, honestly), but it does help, and doesn't really cost you anything.

Eldan

2014-11-10, 03:10 AM

Personally, I just keep some 30k troops hanging around conquered territory to crush everyone. But I also have a 100k manpower.

Leecros

2014-11-10, 12:58 PM

Second, when you conquer, raise autonomy. Sometimes you'll still end up getting a revolt, but it'll be much delayed and often you can prevent it altogether. Don't be afraid to quash it with harsh treatment, especially if your manpower is low or you think you aren't strong enough to fight them.

I don't generally immediately raise autonomy unless it looks like it's going to be a problem. If the unrest is over 10, like if you take a wrong religion/wrong culture province, then i do. However, if the unrest is less than 10, i normally wait until a rebellion is imminent before upping autonomy.

There's not really a reason to raise autonomy(which gives -10 to unrest) if the unrest in the province is less than 10, unless a revolt is imminent. Making your provinces 25% less useful just in case they might revolt isn't really worth it. However, making your provinces 25% less useful when you know that a province will revolt is definitely useful. Especially if you're at war/don't think you can handle it.

Of course with provinces with more than 10 unrest is almost a guarantee that it will revolt before the nationalism goes down. So it's sensible to increase the autonomy there.

I feel like i've repeated myself a lot in this post...

Flickerdart

2014-11-10, 01:25 PM

The problem was that high autonomy hamstrung my income (everything in Siberia is 1 base tax and produces garbage like Grain and Fish) and constantly needing to use Harsh Treatment drained my military power. Once I had a sane country built up, vassalizing the Ainu worked out a lot better than regular conquering, and now I have a force limit of 12. I still can't afford an advisor, or colonize without having to bank a ton of money beforehand, but given that I started with an OPM that is the butt of half of Russia's best racist jokes, it's quite the accomplishment. Now that I control Hokkaido and the Kurils, I'm probably strong enough to strike at the rest of Japan, which still has not united (there are currently three main powers, each roughly as strong as I am - Uesugi in the north, which keeps breaking away and being reconquered, Japan proper in the middle, and some boot-licking vassal in the south).

Unfortunately, Russia is starting to head over here, and they're a good number of techs ahead of me...I've started colonizing Taiwan just so I have a refuge when Russia inevitably rolls over me with their 62 man FL.

Speaking of force limit, mine was crap until I took Plutocracy's first idea (+50% merc availability) and now it has +6 from "Mercenary Pool." Since when does that interact with how many full time soldiers I can raise?

Also I'm kind of antsy about colonizing the remainder of the coast of Kamchatka. I'm one uncolonized province away from Yeren, who is a vassal of spooky scary hordes (hordes that somehow have better tech than me). Is it worth taking that province and risking horde conflict, in order to forbid any colonizing power from gaining a coastal foothold in the region? Should I keep colonizing west to stop Russia from grabbing Siberia without paying the blood price, colonize to the south through Polynesia where base taxes above 1 are rumoured to exist, or head east to Alaska and hope I find gold?

mythmonster2

2014-11-10, 03:11 PM

Going to Alaska could give you an early start on the West Coast of North America, too, assuming no Europeans have gotten there.

Flickerdart

2014-11-10, 06:17 PM

It's around 1560, so while they're probably not there yet, they will likely be soon. Frankly, given my crappy tech and terrible poverty, the natives might be able to beat me up, especially since they've been considerably buffed by recent updates. Does Art of War add any stuff worth paying full price for?

mythmonster2

2014-11-10, 08:46 PM

The paid features, according to the wiki, at least, are: templates for armies, the ability to sell/mothball/upgrade ships, sorties, transferring occupied provinces, allied objectives to have some control over what your allies do, marches, and the ability to declare war on behalf of your vassals and in support of rebels that you're supporting. Not quite sure it's worth full price; probably better to wait for a sale. The lion's share of the features were in the patch, IMO.

OrcusMcP

2014-11-10, 09:29 PM

It's hard to say whether Art of War is "worth the price", so to speak. Paradox is trying to find the right balance between free features and paid features. The DLCs/Expansions are to pay for the continued development and patching, but it's hard to properly price that.

Put too much stuff behind the paywall of DLC and people cry foul that it should be free. Put too much stuff in the free patch and people cry foul that they're getting ripped off if they buy the expansion.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-11-10, 09:46 PM

I think it's certainly a NOBLE way of doing the patches, but it made more sense in CK2 than in EUIV. In CK2 you could "unlock" the ability to play certain dates and certain religions, but almost all the content was available for AI. EUIV didn't have the original restrictions on religions and dates that made that possible.

AgentPaper

2014-11-10, 10:02 PM

As un-intuitive as it may seem, I'm really starting to think EU4 should just be a subscription game: You pay $X each month, and as long as you do, you can download the updates as much as you want and also have access to online features like achievements, multiplayer, ironman, cloud saves, and so on. If you stop paying the subscription, or go offline, or just hate Steam, then you're simply stuck with whatever version you most recently updated to and can't use any of the online feature.

This way, you can pay however much you want. If you want everything all the time, you stay subscribed permanently, as I suspect many players would. If you're short on cash or just have no interest in all those shiny features, then you buy the game and never bother to subscribe (the game would probably come with a month or so subscription free), or sign up every few months or once a year to get the latest updates, then unsubscribe and go back to playing offline.

This would essentially allow Paradox to keep updating the game with new content continuously without having to worry about free vs paid or different versions of the game. The subscription cost wouldn't even need to be much: $5 a month would be equivalent to buying two $30 expansions twice a year, and gives Paradox a much more predictable and steady income. It also lowers the bar of entry for new players, since they get all the features right out of the gate with just the purchase of the game itself. No need to buy $100+ worth of expansion packs to get the most out of a game that you don't even know if you're sure you like or not.

OrcusMcP

2014-11-10, 10:19 PM

As un-intuitive as it may seem, I'm really starting to think EU4 should just be a subscription game

This is not a bad idea at all.

Flickerdart

2014-11-10, 10:44 PM

But then we won't experience the joy of massive Steam sales.

Leecros

2014-11-10, 11:35 PM

But then we won't experience the joy of massive Steam sales.

That is a fair point to bring up, When games go on sale on Steam. Especially paradox games which tend to go on sale regularly and often. A game that costs 20 dollars may cost 10 dollars 3 months from now and 5 dollars 6 months from now depending on the sales.

It's not exactly ideal, but if one showed a bit of restraint and patience, then they can technically choose their price(to an extent). It lets them decide if they want to pay 20 dollars, 10, or 5, or whatever when an expansion goes on sale.

Of course i'm also highly against subscription-based games in any way, shape, or form and find them hardly worth the money you put into them, but that's not really an argument for here...

Frog Dragon

2014-11-17, 10:06 AM

How do I tactics in this game? I've read that there are ways to use the terrain system and combat width and such thingamabob's to your advantage, but I haven't really grokked it. So far, my tactics and strategy have amounted to

1. Have more troops.
2. Have better Military Tech.
3. Have better generals.
4. Bring forth the hate train.

But apparently there are ways other than battering your opponent with superior firepower. How does this work?

Eldan

2014-11-17, 10:19 AM

That's generally it, but terrain does feature into it. Terrain is a modifier of -1 to -3 for the attacking forces, so try to attack your enemies in open terrain and not across a river.

OrcusMcP

2014-11-17, 10:58 AM

There's 3 main tactical tricks:
-Try to fight on the defensive whenever you can(let other armies cross the rivers, breach the mountains, establish the beachheads, etc). You can only really go on the offensive if you have massive advantages in either tech, numbers or generals. Preferably more.
-Scorch the earth. Especially when fighting big scary countries like France, Ottomans, HRE or Russia, scorching the earth in your border provinces can help attrit their doomstacks to more manageable armies, which you then fight on the defensive as per above.
-Army composition. Be mindful of the cavalry ratio your tech group uses and always set up your armies to be a bit under the threshold so you don't go over it due to casualties. Example: the Western tech ratio is 50%, so if you have 10 infantry in an army, you should avoid going over 5 cavalry in the same army. This can work to your advantage when playing Muslims or Hordes, as they have much more generous cavalry thresholds and cavalry can be very powerful in the early game. Once artillery starts getting good, though, artillery dominates.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-17, 11:06 AM

Flickerdart

2014-11-17, 11:09 AM

-Scorch the earth. Especially when fighting big scary countries like France, Ottomans, HRE or Russia, scorching the earth in your border provinces can help attrit their doomstacks to more manageable armies, which you then fight on the defensive as per above.
Is this new? Where do you do it?

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-17, 11:13 AM

Is this new? Where do you do it?

It's not new. When you've got an army sitting in a province you own and control, there should be an icon that looks like a torch next to wheat; use that to scorch the province.

OrcusMcP

2014-11-17, 11:32 AM

It's not new. When you've got an army sitting in a province you own and control, there should be an icon that looks like a torch next to wheat; use that to scorch the province.

Also to note, it costs a small amount of MIL per province.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-17, 12:10 PM

One additional note about fighting on the defensive: you can generally bait the AI with a small army going ahead, keeping your main force a province behind and pouncing once they engage. Having Offensive for forced march helps execute this well.
Also, it's generally a good idea to pursue a routing army if you can; wiping them out completely makes it a lot harder for them to reassemble an army.
I do chase armies most of the time. The situations when I don't tend to be when I'm fighting superior forces and want my forces as close together as possible to be able to muster numerical superiority in battles.

Most of the time I'm the one attacking though, because I try not to pick fights I can't win. Generally, the opponent won't attack into my stacks, so I chase them down instead with my own.

My army compositions tend to be something like 20% cav 80% inf early game, with increasing amounts of artillery until it looks more like 45% inf, 45% art, 10% cav.

Flickerdart

2014-11-17, 12:30 PM

It's not new. When you've got an army sitting in a province you own and control, there should be an icon that looks like a torch next to wheat; use that to scorch the province.
Where would this icon be located? Paradox's user interface design leaves a lot to be desired...

Narkis

2014-11-17, 01:11 PM

Here you go:

http://i.imgur.com/XFCnCiR.jpg

One more thing that I didn't see mentioned about armies: Morale is doubly important, because unlike most other stats the same number affects both attack and defense. If you have more than your opponent, yours will be depleted more slowly, while his will be depleted faster, allowing you to rout armies in quick succession.

And I don't think cavalry is all that great in the game. My non-horde armies never have more than 4 in them. Unless I'm outnumbered, any cavalry unit beyond the fourth will just sit uselessly behind those fighting, and when I'm outnumbered I'd like to have more infantry instead. My late game combat armies usually contain 4 cavalry, cannons equal to my maximum combat width and as much infantry as I can spare, though always more than cannons. I usually keep them split in 2-4 stacks depending on province supply, and combine them only to fight decisive battles.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-17, 01:13 PM

Where would this icon be located? Paradox's user interface design leaves a lot to be desired...

In the lower right of the army window in this image: (near where the options for autonomous rebel suppression, attacking natives, forced march, etc. are)

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=117295&d=1414135326&stc=1

Frog Dragon

2014-11-17, 01:15 PM

I happen to have an image (for troubleshooting purposes, having problems with CtDs) that shows it.

http://i.imgur.com/o440zgc.jpg

See the army tab? See the six buttons on the bottom right of the army tab? It's the currently greyed out one (because that army is not in friendly territory) that looks like a torch and some grain.

Edit: Welp, double-swordsage'd.

Also, something I saw in my Mewar --> Hindustan game.

http://i.imgur.com/wxE1lps.jpg

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-11-17, 06:53 PM

So decided to give umodded EU4 a try even though I haven't the last two expansions.
It's a lot more fun even with the patched features! Lots of little strategic decisions to make that add up.

OrcusMcP

2014-11-18, 04:30 PM

So decided to give umodded EU4 a try even though I haven't the last two expansions.
It's a lot more fun even with the patched features! Lots of little strategic decisions to make that add up.

Yeah, the game has come a LONG way since it released last year. The new map/provinces alone makes the game so much better. I think the fact that they got Wiz on staff has gone a long way to make both EU4 and CK2 much more dynamic and deep.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-18, 05:33 PM

How long does it take for map information to filter through to different tech groups? It's 1530 in my Ottomans game and I still can't see Muscovy*, it's getting annoying.

* Still hasn't formed Russia and probably won't for a while. The Golden Horde's been unusually powerful, although I just took a swathe of provinces from them on my way to Siberia.

Leecros

2014-11-18, 06:50 PM

How long does it take for map information to filter through to different tech groups? It's 1530 in my Ottomans game and I still can't see Muscovy*, it's getting annoying.

EU3 had a 50 year map spread for land provinces and a 25 year map spread for sea provinces(default) based on tech. So if Portugal discovered Sea Province X, the rest of the western tech would learn of it 25 years later(or 50 for a land province) and then eastern tech would learn of it 25 years after that, then muslim, then indian, then chinese, etc...etc...etc...

I don't think that system carried over to EU4, EU4 bases it on culture i believe.i'm not entirely familiar with the mechanic, but It might still work in a similar way and be culture-based instead of tech based.

Narkis

2014-11-18, 08:41 PM

It's definitely been changed, but I don't know how it works now. If you want to force the issue you could start conquering your way north, provinces adjacent to your territories are automatically explored.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-18, 10:41 PM

Ended up discovering Muscovy via northward expansion. Check this mess out:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/25096732267891358/F49313099044ECFBE78CF45112FE974B815F910A/

Narkis

2014-11-18, 11:23 PM

Nice. You realise of course you now have to spend the rest of your game prettying up these borders. :smallamused:

And I can see why Muscovy is not Russia. They need to annex Ryazan. (Or Smolensk but there's no way they can handle Lithuania.)

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-18, 11:35 PM

Nice. You realise of course you now have to spend the rest of your game prettying up these borders. :smallamused:

That's the plan...in a little while. Once I cut Muscovy off from Siberia, then I'll mop up the hordes as operations in Arabia, the Caucasus, and Egypt wind down. The other major fronts are pushing further into Eastern Europe (though Hungary has an annoying alliance with France), going down the Red Sea against Ethiopia, and moving along Persia's southern coast to India.

And I can see why Muscovy is not Russia. They need to annex Ryazan. (Or Smolensk but there's no way they can handle Lithuania.)

Yep; Ryazan was conquered by the Golden Horde early on, just split off again from rebels while I was fighting the Horde.

EDIT: A bunch of discoveries came through in 1544 - looks like 100 years after the start date is a major landmark.

Leecros

2014-11-20, 11:09 PM

Phew, I just orchestrated a huge invasion of Spain from North Africa with only Tunis and Azov(My client Kingdom) assisting in the invasion while the warleader, England spent the time getting kicked around by Portugal. I just establish a foothold in Granada and have not one, but three battles against Spanish and Portuguese troops where i was outnumbered by a large margin. When in their infinite wisdom, England decided that it was time to concede defeat and give the Spanish what they wanted..

I think it's time i did a similar invasion in England and establish a client kingdom there.

I shall call it: Better England.

Grif

2014-11-21, 02:24 AM

Ended up discovering Muscovy via northward expansion. Check this mess out:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/25096732267891358/F49313099044ECFBE78CF45112FE974B815F910A/

Augh. Those border gore. D:

Quick, conquer some more heathens to smoothen them out!

Eldan

2014-11-21, 02:49 AM

That's not a proper mess yet, you should see my greater Persian area. I'm playing as the Commonwealth and I have conquered my way down to the Gulf of Persia. But there's now small splinter states everywhere, until I've annexed them all.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-21, 10:04 AM

Augh. Those border gore. D:

Quick, conquer some more heathens to smoothen them out!

Hey, they're not heathens, they're fellow Sunnis! (Which is actually important for keeping my Piety low)

Terraoblivion

2014-11-21, 02:02 PM

Yeah, playing as Humanist Ottomans trying to restore as much of the Roman Empire, with some extra bits when I've got truces with Europeans I'm likely to attack, as possible, I've just kinda accepted that I'll sit on max piety forever due to mostly attacking Catholics. Which is a shame, I'm humanist Ottomans, I never need to convert anybody.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-22, 02:04 PM

Well, I've officially cut Moscow off.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/25096800569752860/4F4C0AFCB65DC67AF490420976DB3E011B99F48C/

Leecros

2014-11-22, 02:51 PM

You're gonna clean those borders up, right?

...right?:smalleek:

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-22, 02:58 PM

You're gonna clean those borders up, right?

...right?:smalleek:

Eventually...just give me 20, 30, maybe 40 years...

mythmonster2

2014-11-22, 04:40 PM

Frankly, I'm not sure what cleaning those up would even entail. All I could think of is conquering the Timurids and all the nomads in the way.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-22, 05:53 PM

Frankly, I'm not sure what cleaning those up would even entail. All I could think of is conquering the Timurids and all the nomads in the way.

Conquering the minor hordes; Kazan's allied with the Timurids, but the Golden Horde and Sibir should be easy to mop up. It'll also help to clear up the Caucasus; need to conquer Georgia (Golden Horde vassal) and annex my vassal Gazikumukh (the orange country). It won't be hard (I can deal with even the Timurids pretty easily), it'll just take time and lots of admin points, which is annoying when I'm trying to get to Admin 14 to get Exploration ideas and start colonizing.

Leecros

2014-11-23, 12:06 AM

So something i just noticed recently is that auto-transporting troops often get confused when handling multiple transports. I have two or three transport fleets(Which i used to land armies in Spain) and i've noticed a tendency for two armies to attempt to use the same fleet instead of deferring to a free fleet instead.

also if you want some border gore...

http://oi62.tinypic.com/27wyqmd.jpg

Muscovy got Smashed by the Golden Horde early game and then smashed again by Scandanavia mid-game...then i decided that it was time to smash the Golden Horde and released Azov as a client kingdom.

and Ming....well......Ming....

and we don't talk about Japan whose middle is owned by Spain.

At least my borders are nice....mostly.That'll change when i annex Azov. At least the Sultan of Rum achievement is pretty much assured at this point.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-27, 03:41 PM

How worthwhile are Res Publica's features? Are national focuses good? Do any countries besides Poland-Lithuania use Elective Monarchy?

Murmaider

2014-11-27, 04:26 PM

National Focus is good when you want to adopt a certain idea group but don't have the ruler stats to support it at the moment. So it gives you a bit of flexibility at times. you can only change it every 25 years or so though.

Only Poland has elective monarchy but I think you get another government form for the Netherlands aswell.

Leecros

2014-11-27, 10:03 PM

How worthwhile are Res Publica's features? Are national focuses good? Do any countries besides Poland-Lithuania use Elective Monarchy?

Considering Res Publica is only $2.50(USD) on Steam right now, I think it's probably worth that much. I've found myself using national focuses constantly and Poland-Lithuania electiveness can be fun to play with. You get Monarch Power and i think prestige for your dynasty getting the throne and a nice, fat relations boost which can keep them as your ally for a long time and if they're still on the throne when they go into a normal monarchy it gives a decent Personal Union opportunity. The extra flavor for Republics are nice too.

Now would it be worth the full $4.99(USD)?

mmmmmm....probably not, but if you can get it on sale, then it's another story. I can't help but feel that Res Publica would have been better off as just stuff added in a patch than its own DLC.

Murmaider

2014-11-28, 09:42 AM

mmmmmm....probably not, but if you can get it on sale, then it's another story. I can't help but feel that Res Publica would have been better off as just stuff added in a patch than its own DLC.

Well, there was a patch that came along with the DLC. It's just that you get so many things for free with the patch, that paying 10-15$ for an expansion seems not really worthwhile in the end.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-28, 09:50 AM

Ok, I'll probably go ahead and pick up Res Publica since it's on sale. (Also going to get Wealth of Nations)

Leecros

2014-11-28, 11:33 AM

Well, there was a patch that came along with the DLC. It's just that you get so many things for free with the patch, that paying 10-15$ for an expansion seems not really worthwhile in the end.

Well, Res Publica is only $5. So considering what you get for it, it's nice that it's not as expensive as the other DLC.

That said, I still don't think it's worth full price for just a couple of extra things. It just seems more like something that could either be added in a different expansion if they really wanted to make some money off of it, or released with the patch for free. Especially considering Res Publica was announced and released not long after Wealth of Nations.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-28, 03:38 PM

Steam made it even easier - there's a sale at 75% off for EU4 and DLC (except Art of War) right now.

EDIT: Borders are looking much cleaner in my Ottomans game. One major war against the Timurids and allies, a few minor wars against the hordes. Kazakh and Uzbek are still ugly, but they're vassals of Sarig Yogir, and I don't really feel like getting into a war that far east.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/25097277488376074/C15E1DB419281D5EE2AE12DBFBD4A83979F1BD91/

Leecros

2014-11-29, 03:00 PM

gotta say, i love that War Exhaustion now increases liberty desire in that nation's colonies now. It gives a way for you to effectively force colonies to break off of their overlord and makes it so there's a slightly better chance of colonial nations gaining independence in the 1700's-1800's than what was transpiring before 1.8 where colonial nations were basically permanently stuck under their masters and independence wars were rare.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-11-29, 05:11 PM

That... is actually a remarkeably great mechanic add. I would like to see more things linked to War Exhaustion across Paradox games, though. I mean, in the CK2 modding thread for the 480AD mod, we were discussing how likely the Rise of Islam would be successful, but there's very little chance of them doing anything. Give a type of 'war exhaustion' mechanic in CK2 which hits your morale HARD after long wars, and you can finally model both the strategic successes of Islam (two huge empires both exhausted from fighting each other collapse against a newcomer) and the tactical successes (I mean, how in the world does 13,000 soldiers defeat 100,000. Honestly.), especially if combined with the historically genius generals that the Arabs had (Again, 13,000 versus 100,000).

Frog Dragon

2014-11-29, 07:17 PM

Something I've been thinking about.

Do you think this game (and games like it) should tend toward historical results, or historical potential?

For example, take a look at a map of the Swedish Empire in 1658. Sweden controls most of the Baltic Sea. In this, Sweden was opposed by Denmark, Poland-Lithuania, and Russia. Particularly the latter two could lay claim to greater resources and manpower bases that Sweden. Nevertheless, Sweden managed to gain hegemony in the Baltic Sea, even if for a limited time, against such opposition.

How? Well, Sweden had extensive economic support from France, a competent administration, competent kings, and a system of conscription that allowed them to utilize what manpower they did have much more effectively than their rivals. Nevertheless, when the end came, Sweden only needed to lose once (Poltava, and it's worth noting that even if they had won here, Russia would still have had the resources and manpower to keep trying) for the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.

My point here is that Sweden was an overachiever, and if we started considering how things could've gone for a country with those resources at their disposal... in most scenarios they wouldn't get very far.

Right now, if Sweden manages to gain independence from the Kalmar Union, they tend to blob. This means they tend more towards their historical borders.

So, what do you think? Should the AI, left to its own devices, usually produce something fairly close to what actually happened? Or should it produce something extrapolated from the resource bases of the various countries at the start date? Of course, both are difficult to do successfully, and the latter is even harder and more open to interpretation.

Terraoblivion

2014-11-29, 07:49 PM

I consider the latter vastly more interesting. The fact that you can have a strange run of luck and end up with a giant Polotsk as the main country in Eastern Europe is quite appealing to me. That said, the game has a distinct tendency towards blobbing in general, but I prefer to give countries a fair shake at being the ones forming a big blob depending on their available resources. Even if I understand that Ming needs handicaps or it conquers the world on its own.

IthilanorStPete

2014-11-29, 07:59 PM

I lean towards the latter, but with slightly more options for random chance to shape events. Specific events and AI that aim to reproduce historical events get monotonous and overly deterministic, but relying solely on existing resources also tends to produce the same sort of games again and again, especially with the tendency towards blobbing.

Guancyto

2014-11-30, 12:36 AM

I think EU4 even as it stands uses too much historical determinism. If Sweden loses a war and is forced to release Gotland, and Gotland winds up conquering the entirety of Sweden, they will still have Generic Ideas and a lack of good missions or events despite being Sweden for all intents and porpoises.

On the one hand it'd kind of suck if you were playing England, and you took over France (in the classic WC opener), and you lost your English Ideas and events because you're not really England any more you're this all-consuming continental monster thing. On the other hand that really makes more sense for that to happen if you're busy conquering Europe and not giving a damn about your navy.

I'd love to see even more events/missions tied to policies, ideas that you can choose, and sociopolitical status, because recreating history is much less interesting than creating it.

tonberrian

2014-11-30, 03:45 AM

I saw an interesting suggestion on the forums, that you be able to pick and choose national ideas based on countries that you've eaten. I like it, but I'd like it more if it was more tied to cultures.

The way I'd set it up, each culture and culture group would have their own set of national ideas. You get a free national idea every 3 ideas you take, and you can pick from ones from your nation, primary culture, accepted cultures, primary culture's group, accepted cultures' groups, and any nation who you've annexed, integrated, or tag switched from. You can change the national idea by spending 400 monarch points of a type depending on the bonus, but doing so gives you a hefty unrest hit in any province that doesn't share culture with the new idea and you have a 25 year cooldown before you can change any other national idea. If you lose the accepted cultures threshold you lose any ideas from those cultures - and you do not get free repicks. Cultural unions do not get ideas for their nation; they get less choice in ideas but more cultural freedom. I'd also allow you to change culture to any accepted culture, but all culture changing has a premium based on makeup percentages, and I'd throw in some unrest based on cultural differences at borders.

I'm tempted to gut the national ideas for nations entirely, leaving nations with only traditions and ambitions.

Frog Dragon

2014-11-30, 10:47 AM

Well, I found a workaround to the Rev. France occupation crash and managed to finish my Hindustan game.

http://i.imgur.com/nFQWSPU.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FKXr5Ed.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/TRXmzPX.jpg

Vassals at the end: Timurids, Khorasan, Afghanistan. I expanded pretty recklessly right at the end. Right after getting out of the war with Ming (and using the console to give them back a province in the middle of nowhere Brunei had given me... couldn't core it or release it as anything, and Ming had me rivaled and wouldn't buy it. I guess that's what you get for helping your allies....) I warred OPM Bengal for their last province, and Portugal (and Castile... and Norway... and France... and Colonies) for their one province in India. I wanted every Indian culture province to be mine.

I used the Conquest CB rather than the generally superior Imperialism CB because my plan was to siege the wargoal fast and then sit tight and hope they didn't bring the hammer down on me too hard. While any individual member of the alliance arrayed against me was winnable, all of them at once might have actually defeated me on my mainland had they all devoted all forces into it.

Luckily, they didn't and the worst I had to deal with were a couple 40-stacks of Spaniards in the Philippines.

Then I warred Timmy because they had two Kashmiri provinces. I then noticed that with the Imperialism CB, it was actually possible to annex all of Timmy if I did it right. I guess they had a lot of LA because the entire Timurids were less than 100 warscore to annex. Of course, the OE from that would've been death. So what I did was siege them up fully, annex enough until I could vassalize Timmy (strangely enough, I couldn't just straight out vassal them, but I could annex a huge chunk and vassal the rest). Then I released Khorasan, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and started selling the remains to vassal-Timmy and cored a bunch myself.

Brunei called me into another war, and I ate a few more provinces of Southeast Asia before separate peacing to be able to start diploannexing my acquisitions. I managed to get Baluchistan diploannexed, but Khorasan and Afghanistan didn't have time to complete before the end date. It wasn't yet possible to diploannex Timurids because they had insane AE against me.

Also, I attacked U-Tsang because I thought taking their land would make my borders look nicer. It did.

And yes, dat Castile. Also dat Nogai, and dat Ethiopia. I play with lucky off. :smalltongue: Pasai was also big, but fighting the player rarely ends well for the AI.

Leecros

2014-12-01, 04:02 PM

Well,I expanded pretty recklessly right at the end.

To be fair, the entire point behind the Nationalism and Imperialism CB is reckless expansion. So, expanding recklessly at the end is kind of encouraged.

Frog Dragon

2014-12-09, 03:42 PM

Finally ran into a situation where a no-cb stability-can-go-kitten-itself trucebreak seemed reasonable.

Playing Songhai, and trying to vassalize/annex all the sub-saharan tech civilizations before I westernize. I'm kind of starved for admin, and I go for Kongo.

Turns out they are just too large to forcevassalize in one fell swoop.

So what I did was 100% them once, take as much land as possible, and then immediately trucebreak to take the capital. The war exhaustion was annoying, but I had spare dip. The stab hit was annoying, but less so than having to core all of kongo. This way, I could immediately release a vassal and get rid of the overextension.

I then chunked my longtime ally Katsina. They were less annoying to deal with (despite also being above 100% to forcevassalize) because I could actually release enough stuff from their territory for it not to be a massive adm sink. I left their capital for later.

Next step, westernize and remove Iberian from premises.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-09, 04:21 PM

OrcusMcP

2014-12-09, 04:25 PM

Leecros

2014-12-09, 08:08 PM

Fairly big new patch! Lots of bugfixes, but probably the biggest change is the "Disasters" system for handling things like the Wars of the Roses or Peasant's War, making them more transparent to the player. Some new national ideas were also added. Dev notes are here (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?821379), full changelog is here (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?822138-1.9.0-Checksum-6845&).

Of course, the 1.9 patch would come out just was i was downloading the latest release of MEIOU&Taxes for 1.8(which was released yesterday, but I wasn't aware until today). It was literally between the time of me downloading it and installing the files that the game updated before i noticed and when i went to play MEIOU&Taxes it was all "Nope, sorry wrong version." Let's just say that i was greatly confused for a few minutes...

As far as the disasters system...i know i'm probably in the minority here, but i feel like they keep eliminating random variables that influence the game. The change to Revolt Risk to Unrest is welcome and adds(in my opinion) a fair balance between chance and the ability to predict when it's going to happen. However, they also took out variable terrain in 1.8. which i was sorely disappointed in. I liked that the type of terrain that you fought on was determined which general had the best maneuver(and some chance) and made maneuver a bit more important than it is now. The 'Simple Terrain' is also incredibly silly at times with examples such as China being 3/4 jungles when it's really not.

Now even the peasant's keep to schedule to revolt. don't get me wrong, i like the transparency and them showing what modifiers influences these really bad events into happening, but I wish that's as far as it went. I'd like it if the game told you "Hey, you're in danger of a peasant's revolt" while risk of it happening at any time. Not this slow tick up to 100% and then it happens.

i just can't help but feel that they're setting up a lot of the really bad things(getting caught in a field, rebels, disasters) and making it so that they're easily avoidable. In that case, if they're easily avoidable, then why even have them in the game except to penalize the AI? I've seen three Peasant's Wars hit the AI since the newest patch. That's more than I've seen in entire games before.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-09, 08:28 PM

As far as the disasters system...i know i'm probably in the minority here, but i feel like they keep eliminating random variables that influence the game. The change to Revolt Risk to Unrest is welcome and adds(in my opinion) a fair balance between chance and the ability to predict when it's going to happen. However, they also took out variable terrain in 1.8. which i was sorely disappointed in. I liked that the type of terrain that you fought on was determined which general had the best maneuver(and some chance) and made maneuver a bit more important than it is now. The 'Simple Terrain' is also incredibly silly at times with examples such as China being 3/4 jungles when it's really not.

Now even the peasant's keep to schedule to revolt. don't get me wrong, i like the transparency and them showing what modifiers influences these really bad events into happening, but I wish that's as far as it went. I'd like it if the game told you "Hey, you're in danger of a peasant's revolt" while risk of it happening at any time. Not this slow tick up to 100% and then it happens.

i just can't help but feel that they're setting up a lot of the really bad things(getting caught in a field, rebels, disasters) and making it so that they're easily avoidable. In that case, if they're easily avoidable, then why even have them in the game except to penalize the AI? I've seen three Peasant's Wars hit the AI since the newest patch. That's more than I've seen in entire games before.
I'm pretty sure that maneuver still matters, since now it can let you force the defenders into using terrain penalties when you are attacking(I think anyway).

And while I see what you mean about the less randomness, I think it actually models internal bureaucracy better. Where before a 2% chance could suddenly become this gigantic revolt out of nowhere, with this system you can see the clear fruits of your country's dysfunction. Your leader (or the AI) would have to be pretty tone deaf or desperate to make decisions that will anger the populace when it's already really angry, and from an emergent narrative perspective it's much easier to see the straw that broke the camel's back in such a system.

To take something like the War of the Roses into account, the tension between the Lancaster and York families did not just spring out of thin air, and there's an argument to be made that if Henry the 6th had managed to produce a viable heir sooner or was of sounder mind the conflict could have dissipated.

Artanis

2014-12-09, 08:43 PM

So after getting distracted by multiple shiny objects before playing much of the game, I finally got around to really sitting down and playing EU4. I played a while as Portugal, but made the mistake of exploring WAY before I had any colonists, so I wound up having to race Castile and England in the New World. After that, I started a Castile game, and it took until 1512 to finally get a ruler with more than 6 total stat points...and she's my second straight randomly-generated Lancaster queen :smallsigh:.

Aaaaaaaanyways, I think I've mostly got a handle on the trade system, though there's still a lot of trial and error trying to figure out where my merchants and light ships will make me the most money due to the tooltips being utterly useless. Any advice in that regard? For reference, Merchants are collecting in Sevilla (with high 40's trade power) and pulling Genoa, Tunis, and Ivory Coast towards Sevilla, plus Timbuktu towards Ivory Coast. 23 Light Ships are protecting in Sevilla while 14 are pirating various rivals. Non-trade-related advice would also be helpful as well, of course :smallsmile:

Leecros

2014-12-09, 08:57 PM

I'm pretty sure that maneuver still matters, since now it can let you force the defenders into using terrain penalties when you are attacking(I think anyway).

all Maneuver does now is influence the speed of the armies, reduce attrition(which i admit is nice), and it can negate crossing penalties if attacking an army with a general that has a worse maneuver skill. the exception might be if two armies arrive at the same day and that situation is(and has always) been highly debated as to who gets the terrain penalties in that situation. I've never been in a situation where having a higher maneuver has let me force terrain penalties on defenders. However, I tend to fight defensively and rarely push an attack unless i'm confident i'll win.

And while I see what you mean about the less randomness, I think it actually models internal bureaucracy better. Where before a 2% chance could suddenly become this gigantic revolt out of nowhere, with this system you can see the clear fruits of your country's dysfunction. Your leader (or the AI) would have to be pretty tone deaf or desperate to make decisions that will anger the populace when it's already really angry, and from an emergent narrative perspective it's much easier to see the straw that broke the camel's back in such a system.

To take something like the War of the Roses into account, the tension between the Lancaster and York families did not just spring out of thin air, and there's an argument to be made that if Henry the 6th had managed to produce a viable heir sooner or was of sounder mind the conflict could have dissipated.

As mentioned, i don't think that the changes to revolt risk and Unrest is bad. it gives you a view on how discontent the people are while still leaving some uncertainty as to when exactly things would explode out of control through a percentage chance of the rebel factions rebelling based on the provinces.

For disasters, i feel like the method is just a bit heavy handed to basically use the same system as unrest with modifiers and a lot more certainty. there has to be a way to make it better while still having a bit of uncertainty. War of the Roses is kind of a special case, because it is based on chance whether you get an heir or not. As far as Peasant's wars and Revolutions are concerned, there's clear cut modifiers that cause them to trigger. Now that they're a lot more predictable, they're very easy situations to avoid.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-09, 09:20 PM

As far as Peasant's wars and Revolutions are concerned, there's clear cut modifiers that cause them to trigger. Now that they're a lot more predictable, they're very easy situations to avoid.

Considering that Peasant's wars and revolutions have pretty much the same triggers now as they did then, they're just more visible, I think my point still stands. The aristocracy probably knew that the peasants were super pissed off about being sent off to die in wars that don't benefit them, but I doubt they could have predicted they'd revolt to such an extent, hence their tone-deaf decision making. It being something that simmers to a boil makes more sense than just low manpower + low stability = major chance of peasant war

Leecros

2014-12-09, 10:03 PM

Considering that Peasant's wars and revolutions have pretty much the same triggers now as they did then, they're just more visible, I think my point still stands. The aristocracy probably knew that the peasants were super pissed off about being sent off to die in wars that don't benefit them, but I doubt they could have predicted they'd revolt to such an extent, hence their tone-deaf decision making. It being something that simmers to a boil makes more sense than just low manpower + low stability = major chance of peasant war

It's more than just being more visible though, It increases by a percentage now and when it hits 100% is when the event fires. It seems as if not only do the aristocrats know that the peasants are super-pissed, but also exactly when they'll rebel.

Oh well, a lot of my disconnectedness probably stems from me being an EUIII veteran. EUIV has always been easier than EUIII. that's not so bad in itself than the fact that it seems like with each passing patch, there's less variables to take into account when coming to a decision. I don't have to be worried about being at risk for a peasant's war when deciding when to go to war with low manpower, because as long as I can get my manpower back up to 25% before the ticker hits 100%. I'm good.

Oh well, Like i said. I'm sure that i'm in the minority here. Most people won't protest to them making the game less random.

Frog Dragon

2014-12-10, 04:58 AM

Apparently 1.9 has a rather nasty bug.

Basically, if you gain a land connection to formerly overseas provinces that you had previously cored, you lose the cores on those provinces.

Better not play Ottomans or anyone close to a continent barrier before hotfix. It's also really abusable against AI Russia and Ottomans. Just break them into two halves at the continent barrier, then intentionally lose a war and give them back their cores. Boom, huge core loss and insane overextension, from which the AI will promptly explode.

Eldan

2014-12-10, 05:04 AM

Also: Canadian and Quebecois national ideas. Yessssssssssssss.

And the first one is called "Singing Lumberjacks", too.

Rockphed

2014-12-10, 06:31 AM

And the first one is called "Singing Lumberjacks", too.

But of what do the lumberjacks sing?

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 06:51 AM

But of what do the lumberjacks sing?

They probably sing about being ok, sleeping all night and working all day.

Eldan

2014-12-10, 07:13 AM

But of what do the lumberjacks sing?

Lumbering. And jacking.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 09:00 AM

Actually, if Paradox comes out with a unit pack that turns all Canadian units into Lumberjacks I would pay all the money for it.

I would then mod it so the lumberjacks would wear high heels, suspendies and a bra (just like his dear papa, of course).

Eldan

2014-12-10, 09:22 AM

Clearly, we need a Lumberjack Idea. I suggest that it should replace Offensive Ideas for nations of British culture.

Leecros

2014-12-10, 09:26 AM

i've been playing a bit of EU3 lately, Mostly for nostalgia purposes, and I started an Austria game and have like 5 or 6 vassals.

I have to say, i miss when vassalizing someone stretched your name across their country. it made you sort of feel good to see your name dominate your vassals. It also looked nice, or at least i think it did.

It certainly made vassal-heavy nations like The Ottomans, France, and the HREmperor before uniting the Empire look nicer, as their name would be plastered across their entire land instead of just where their personal land is. It also would have made Japan look nicer, if the daymio system they used in EU3 wasn't so obtuse and was more like how it is in EU4.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 09:37 AM

Clearly, we need a Lumberjack Idea. I suggest that it should replace Offensive Ideas for nations of British culture.

1 - He's a Lumberjack... - +10% Infantry Combat
2 - ...And He's OK! - +5% Discipline
3 - He Sleeps All Night... - +20% Morale Recovery
4 - ...He Works All Day - +20% Reinforce Speed
5 - The Larch! The Fir! The Mighty Scots Pine! - +50% Good Produced
6 - I Put On Women's Clothing... - +3 Tolerance for Heretics
7 - ...And Hang Around in Bars! - +50% chance of heir
8- Just Like My Dear Papa! - +1 Yearly Legitimacy
Bonus - Double price of Naval Supplies and Tropical Wood in owned territory

Eldan

2014-12-10, 09:58 AM

The Spanish Inquistion (Replaces religious ideas for British culture)

1. Our chief weapons are surprise and fear: +1 land leader shock
2. ... and ruthless efficiency: +5% discipline
3. ... and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope: +2 yearly papal influence
4. I'll come in again: +20% manpower recovery speed
5. And nice red uniforms!: +20% morale
6. You'll have to say it.:10% advisor cost
7. I couldn't do that.: +1 yearly legitimacy
8. [Diabolical Laughter]: +2% missionary strength against heretics.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-12-10, 11:21 AM

The Canadian and Quebecois NA's are actually pretty accurate, even if "Singing Lumberjacks" made me headdesk. It's like if the first Russian NA was "Vodka", or the first French one was "Tradition of Surrender".

They based their NA off of a Monty Python sketch...

To be honest, I find it pretty funny, but still.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-10, 11:23 AM

What's a good army makeup for the Ottomans circa 1630? I'm at military tech 18; only relevant ideas are the full Offensive idea group and the Ottomans national idea that slightly buffs cavalry. I'm probably going to use 30 regiment armies as my standard. I'm thinking 14 inf/6 cav/10 art, though that might be too cavalry heavy.

Apparently 1.9 has a rather nasty bug.

Basically, if you gain a land connection to formerly overseas provinces that you had previously cored, you lose the cores on those provinces.

Better not play Ottomans or anyone close to a continent barrier before hotfix. It's also really abusable against AI Russia and Ottomans. Just break them into two halves at the continent barrier, then intentionally lose a war and give them back their cores. Boom, huge core loss and insane overextension, from which the AI will promptly explode.

Ack, thanks for the heads up. Didn't affect me when I was playing last night, but that's very good to be aware of.

Flickerdart

2014-12-10, 11:50 AM

It's like if the first Russian NA was "Vodka", or the first French one was "Tradition of Surrender".
It couldn't possibly be the first one - the word vodka only came to Russia in 1533, and then it was used to describe a medicinal herbal tincture. Modern vodka (in the sense of a high ABV, pure distilled spirit) did not appear until the 1750s. Historically, the beverage of the peasants would have been medovukha (a type of mead).

As for the French, they didn't start surrendering until WWII.

In the meantime, Canada has had lumberjacks before it was Canada.

Grif

2014-12-10, 11:54 AM

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 12:00 PM

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 12:30 PM

Did the combat system change significantly in the latest patch? If not, the best makeup is still 15 Inf/15 Art. No question.

That's a very expensive army to maintain manpower-wise, though. If you can afford it, then yes it is super effective.

Leecros

2014-12-10, 12:52 PM

It couldn't possibly be the first one - the word vodka only came to Russia in 1533, and then it was used to describe a medicinal herbal tincture. Modern vodka (in the sense of a high ABV, pure distilled spirit) did not appear until the 1750s. Historically, the beverage of the peasants would have been medovukha (a type of mead).

So what you're saying is that we could put it about 1/3 down the National Ideas for Russia. Replace Oprichnina with Vodka. the +10% manpower recovery speed makes sense and the -20% culture conversion cost could just be an amusing joke to those who don't understand the difference between early Vodka and the drink Vodka.

Russia: converting cultures through the power of Vodka. :smalltongue:

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-12-10, 01:09 PM

It couldn't possibly be the first one - the word vodka only came to Russia in 1533, and then it was used to describe a medicinal herbal tincture. Modern vodka (in the sense of a high ABV, pure distilled spirit) did not appear until the 1750s. Historically, the beverage of the peasants would have been medovukha (a type of mead).

As for the French, they didn't start surrendering until WWII.

In the meantime, Canada has had lumberjacks before it was Canada.

Yes, but my point was that "singing" lumberjacks is entirely a modern invention, with no base in history, beyond maybe conflating the singing Coureurs de Bois with European stereotypes of Canadians through British comedy...

Eldan

2014-12-10, 01:14 PM

Next update: Australian national ideas. They are all Bruce.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 01:20 PM

Yes, but my point was that "singing" lumberjacks is entirely a modern invention, with no base in history, beyond maybe conflating the singing Coureurs de Bois with European stereotypes of Canadians through British comedy...

Better singing lumberjacks than seal-clubbers, anyway. I still think it's a pretty good list overall.

If you want something a bit more historical for the period, maybe something Laura Secord-ish or Loyalist-ish that gives bonuses to spy offense/defense. Most of the other major national moments/institutions/traditions are from the 18/1900's

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 01:27 PM

Next update: Australian national ideas. They are all Bruce.

4 - Absolutely no abuse of the "Abbos" - Free CB against pagans
5 - ...If anyone's watching - +25% spy defense
6 - There is no Idea six - *NULL*

AgentPaper

2014-12-10, 01:56 PM

That's a very expensive army to maintain manpower-wise, though. If you can afford it, then yes it is super effective.

The trick here is, when you're starting to run a bit low on manpower (40-50%), you break off your infantry and merge them, then supplement with mercenaries. Keep doing this whenever you have combat losses, and you'll lose very little manpower (mostly to attrition, plus and casualties to your cav/art). Using this strategy, I've been in wars where I had 10-20% going in and ended up with 60% or more by the end. Of course, this will drain your treasury, but as long as you're not spending money on frivolous things like buildings or high-cost advisors, and are working the trade game at least decently well, you should be able to foot the bill no problem.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-10, 01:56 PM

That's the composition I like as an offensive heavy nation like the Ottomans, Prussia or France. If you're going into a more defensive mode, you may want to go with something closer to 16inf/2cav/12art.

As you progress in your supply limit and make bigger army standards, you can keep the 6 cav and just add more inf and art as you need.

Sounds like a good plan, and that's what I was intending for the future. I'm curious; why does a more defensive army want less cavalry?

EDIT: Hotfix for 1.9 bugs is up, solving the issue with disappearing cores.

Flickerdart

2014-12-10, 02:01 PM

Yes, but my point was that "singing" lumberjacks is entirely a modern invention, with no base in history, beyond maybe conflating the singing Coureurs de Bois with European stereotypes of Canadians through British comedy...
From what I understand, it's not exactly uncommon for laborers to sing as they work, to keep morale up and dispel boredom. Especially lumberjacks, who usually work in the forest and might be trying to be considerate of people who are passing by and don't terribly want to get timber'd upside the noggin.

OrcusMcP

2014-12-10, 02:34 PM

Sounds like a good plan, and that's what I was intending for the future. I'm curious; why does a more defensive army want less cavalry?

EDIT: Hotfix for 1.9 bugs is up, solving the issue with disappearing cores.

Cavalry isn't very good on the defense compared to Infantry, mostly. (lots of people are of the opinion that they are always bad at everything, but I don't think so. If you've ignored cavalry bonuses or don't have a nation/tech groups that gives them bonuses, then they can be pretty forgettable. They are good at killing an enemy's manpower when you're on the offensive, though.)

AgentPaper

2014-12-10, 03:34 PM

Cavalry isn't very good on the defense compared to Infantry, mostly. (lots of people are of the opinion that they are always bad at everything, but I don't think so. If you've ignored cavalry bonuses or don't have a nation/tech groups that gives them bonuses, then they can be pretty forgettable. They are good at killing an enemy's manpower when you're on the offensive, though.)

Cavalry are different from infantry in two ways:

1) They have different stats. In the early game, they're a bit stronger than infantry, unit for unit, but not cost-for-cost. There are some exceptions (hordes mainly) where cavalry is worthwhile in large numbers because of this, but for the most part early countries are too poor for large cavalry forces to be worthwhile. Even the richer, smaller countries are usually better off saving their excess money for mercenaries instead. Later on, the gap closes and infantry is on par or even sometimes better than cavalry in pure stats.

2) Cavalry has a higher maneuver rating than infantry. This allows you to gain extra benefits from out-flanking your enemy compared to normally, since you can bring more forces to bear than usual. Infantry has a maneuver of 1, while cavalry has a maneuver of 2, so having 2 cavalry (one for each side) is sufficient to get the full benefit of this. At tech level 17, cavalry maneuver increases to 3 (+50%), so you should go up to 4 cavalry to get the full benefit.

So, an *ideal* army would by a 1:1 ratio of infantry and artillery, with 2-4 cavalry to supplement. In reality, though, you want more infantry than artillery, since the former take losses and are cheaper to maintain, so a 3:2 or even 2:1 ratio of infantry to artillery is usually better. This means that, after a battle when your infantry divisions have taken heavy losses, you can combine your regiments and still have a strong front line without needing to wait for reinforcements.

Personally, I don't really like having to bother with all that too much. I prefer a more modular approach of 2 infantry and 1 cavalry early on, evolving into 3 infantry, 1 cavalry, and 2 artillery later on. This makes it easy to split armies up and re-combine as needed, without messing around trying to figure out what ratios you need or how many of each unit to build or any other nonsense. You can even split this up into two 3-stacks for when you're seriously blanket-sieging, though that messes with the infantry/cavalry balance a bit if you're not careful on how you recombine.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-10, 07:13 PM

Cavalry are different from infantry in two ways:

1) They have different stats. In the early game, they're a bit stronger than infantry, unit for unit, but not cost-for-cost. There are some exceptions (hordes mainly) where cavalry is worthwhile in large numbers because of this, but for the most part early countries are too poor for large cavalry forces to be worthwhile. Even the richer, smaller countries are usually better off saving their excess money for mercenaries instead. Later on, the gap closes and infantry is on par or even sometimes better than cavalry in pure stats.

2) Cavalry has a higher maneuver rating than infantry. This allows you to gain extra benefits from out-flanking your enemy compared to normally, since you can bring more forces to bear than usual. Infantry has a maneuver of 1, while cavalry has a maneuver of 2, so having 2 cavalry (one for each side) is sufficient to get the full benefit of this. At tech level 17, cavalry maneuver increases to 3 (+50%), so you should go up to 4 cavalry to get the full benefit.

So, an *ideal* army would by a 1:1 ratio of infantry and artillery, with 2-4 cavalry to supplement. In reality, though, you want more infantry than artillery, since the former take losses and are cheaper to maintain, so a 3:2 or even 2:1 ratio of infantry to artillery is usually better. This means that, after a battle when your infantry divisions have taken heavy losses, you can combine your regiments and still have a strong front line without needing to wait for reinforcements.

Personally, I don't really like having to bother with all that too much. I prefer a more modular approach of 2 infantry and 1 cavalry early on, evolving into 3 infantry, 1 cavalry, and 2 artillery later on. This makes it easy to split armies up and re-combine as needed, without messing around trying to figure out what ratios you need or how many of each unit to build or any other nonsense. You can even split this up into two 3-stacks for when you're seriously blanket-sieging, though that messes with the infantry/cavalry balance a bit if you're not careful on how you recombine.

Gotcha, thanks for the info. There're lots of nuances to the combat system, even if it's not quite as complex as CK2's.

Grif

2014-12-10, 11:02 PM

tonberrian

2014-12-11, 10:41 AM

I build 2/1/3 Infantry/Cavalry/Artillery. Not because it's cost effective, but because it makes for modular armies I can split up with impunity.

Leecros

2014-12-12, 08:24 AM

Contiuing my EUIII Nostalgia tour(with no better place to put it, since an EUIII thread would be meaningless)...

I had forgotten how... "Shackled" the AI-controlled nations had become in EUIV. Now that makes it sound like i'm implying that the AI in EUIII is better than IV and that's not the case. The AI in IV is much better(in nearly every way) from its predecessor. what i mean to say is that it's more limited in its conquests.

in EUIV, The AI is largely limited in what it can take in its wars. Generally speaking they stick to the Casus Beli and whatever that casus beli entails. The easiest example of that would be the Conquest CB. Generally when the AI declares a conquest war, they'll only take land that they have claims and cores on. with more warscore, they'll then release nations, break treaties, vassalize, and war reparations. there are exceptions, but i've found that they're generally fairly rare.

In EUIII, The AI doesn't have that limitation.They can basically take whatever land that they can occupy and annex. With the only limitation that they actually have to be able to get to it.This has led to a situation in my EUIII Austria game where Aragon has annexed all of the Irish Minors and in response England and France went to war with them and partitioned the land between the three powers. this will likely lead to more conflict between the three in the future(although i doubt it's a fight Aragon will win as they're much weaker than their EUIV counterpart.)

I'm not saying it's a bad change, more like an observation. If the AI expanded in IV as it does in III you would quickly run into situations where the AI nations would just run out of admin power and diplo power and fall behind the more sensible players. Also the EUIV AI does take land that it doesn't have claims on sometimes, but you're not going to see Denmark go on a War of Conquest against England, or Aragon annexing Ireland unless Personal Unions or Vassals are involved. Since the AI in IV generally sticks to land that they have or can fabricate claims on which is basically only the land that they border. This leads to more predictable world layouts, albeit probably more historically plausible ones.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-12-12, 08:47 AM

Personally that was one of the draws of the new game, as I definitely fall quite heavily on the "historical plausibility" side of the debate. But you're 100% right in how much that's changed, I don't think I ever really noticed that before...

Flickerdart

2014-12-12, 10:39 AM

Personally, I feel like the game should proceed historically if left to its own devices, and it's the player's job to muck things up.

Leecros

2014-12-12, 10:57 AM

Something else that i've noticed and one thing the EUIII AI actually does better than EUIV is tactical retreating.

In EUIV if you're in a 10k vs 10k battle with the AI and bring in another 10k, then the AI will just fight it out. In EUIII, when you bring in more troops to put them into a losing situation, then they will actually withdraw their men to preserve their troops.

Personally, I feel like the game should proceed historically if left to its own devices, and it's the player's job to muck things up.

unfortunately, that'd be pretty difficult to program in while keeping the variable mechanics to the combat. I mean they could, if the player was just spectating just eliminate the combat aspect or set up some historical armies and battles and just have a guaranteed outcome, but that just seems like it would be an immensely difficult project to do.

Flickerdart

2014-12-12, 12:10 PM

OrcusMcP

2014-12-12, 12:15 PM

Nah, I don't mean 100% on the nose (especially because it would have to nail one in a million things like Harold Godwin getting shot in the eye), I just think that it's not terribly plausible for Aragon to covet Irish lands.

Well, the Spanish and French did somewhat covet Ireland. Not in a "Oh look, easy land to conquer!" way, more in a "Oh look, a Catholic backdoor into Protestant England!" way.

At least, the Tudors and Cromwell all saw Ireland that way in order to justify purging Ireland of Catholics and Irish, but they weren't getting that fear out of nowhere.

Leecros

2014-12-12, 12:52 PM

I just think that it's not terribly plausible for Aragon to covet Irish lands.
that Aragonese Conquest of the Irish Lands that i mentioned was in EUIII. I doubt that such a scenario would happen in EUIV considering the restrictions set on the AI unless it involved Vassals or Personal Unions.

"Oh look, a Catholic backdoor into Protestant England!"

This is how i see Ireland in general in my games where they're not gobbled up by England. "Oh Look, i can just conquer this land and get easy access to England"

tonberrian

2014-12-12, 01:30 PM

In fact, one of my previous opening moves with Castile was to sell an Irish minor something small on the northern coast, then proceed to eat them all up.

Frog Dragon

2014-12-12, 05:47 PM

Lose 1 stability? Joke's on you reactionaries, I'm already at -3!

Ah, westernization....

Rockphed

2014-12-13, 09:09 AM

Lose 1 stability? Joke's on you reactionaries, I'm already at -3!

Ah, westernization....

Isn't there some kind of penalty for dropping below -3 stability?

Frog Dragon

2014-12-13, 09:49 AM

Isn't there some kind of penalty for dropping below -3 stability?
As far as I know, no. I also checked the EU4 wiki and there's no mention of anything like that.

Grif

2014-12-13, 02:03 PM

As far as I know, no. I also checked the EU4 wiki and there's no mention of anything like that.

Wiki is a little wacky now. There're a lot still not updated yet.

In other news:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/40861235259619457/3543F0C885B5D9F0CDCA61FD3F312545D76022E9/

I have a feeling the war will start the very moment I get to be Emperor.

Frog Dragon

2014-12-13, 04:27 PM

Songhai game is pretty close to the end. This is the actually the first time I've used colonial nations, since I've never before played a country that would really go to the new world. It's just that in this case I picked Exploration to rush through the colonizable provinces in West Africa, and once I started to run out, I noticed that the southern tip of the Americas was still free. So I went there and made Songhai La Plata.

Also first time I've really culture converted. Once I westernized, I had stupid amounts of tech cost reducers, so I was rapidly getting ahead of time on dip and mil, even after two completed idea groups. I then noticed that most of my land was non-accepted culture, since West Africa has a lot of small culture groups. As I am a large turquoise blob like only a player can manage, each of these culture groups was only a small part of my total base tax.

I was hoping Humanist would solve this problem, but that only gave me Hausa as an additional accepted culture. While even that is nice, I was hoping for more. Anyway, I decided to just sink my spare dip into Songhaifying my territories. I'm currently annexing Ethiopia. Hopefully Amhara will be large enough to be accepted with my threshold reduction.

Also, I managed to ally both Ottomans and Austria. Austria in particular dragged me into a few wars, which I've tried to use to grab Iberian provinces in West Africa while Spain and Portugal are distracted. However, I never get the provinces. Don't really want to DoW Spain if they're not distracted since despite my name being considerably larger on the map, they are still way stronger than I am militarily (even if I'm a tech ahead).

Leecros

2014-12-13, 06:51 PM

I hate to say this, but i wish there were even more colonial regions. I like the concept, although i know there are people who don't like them.

It can be a pain managing my empire when i have land in Africa, Indonesia, India, etc...Especially in places where the European powers did colonize and create colonies that eventually did gain independence(in various ways). Even though many of them didn't get their independence until the 1900's, well after the EUIV timeline.

Unfortunately i'm also aware of issues with colonial regions in the Old World where if you're in a colonial region and your nation gets split in half. Then the half without your capital would turn into a colonial nation and probably other weirdness.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-13, 10:24 PM

Wiki is a little wacky now. There're a lot still not updated yet.

In other news:
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/40861235259619457/3543F0C885B5D9F0CDCA61FD3F312545D76022E9/

I have a feeling the war will start the very moment I get to be Emperor.

Is that a mod, or did they rework the HRE screen that much? And how'd Scotland get to be an elector?

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-12-13, 10:34 PM

They redid the HRE screen in the Art of War expansion, mainly adding the Catholic and Protestant Leagues.

And isn't that Holland?

Grif

2014-12-13, 10:47 PM

Is that a mod, or did they rework the HRE screen that much? And how'd Scotland get to be an elector?

The Art of War update changed the HRE screen quite a bit. You may want to read the 1.8 patch notes for that. (Among other things, they added a religion requirement to be emperor, and the religious leagues of the 16th century.)

And yes, that is Holland, not Scotland.

Artanis

2014-12-13, 11:44 PM

So, I uh...completely by accident, found myself (Castile -> Spain) leading a PU with Portugal, thanks primarily to the two straight heirless rulers being succeeded by random Lancasters. Now I'm a decade away from finishing the integration (which is totalling over 1500 f****** Diplo MP), at which point I will own ALL THE COLONIES. Seriously, like 95% of all European overseas holdings will belong to me. I...I never had anything like this happen in any Paradox game :smalleek:

And isn't that Holland?

And yes, that is Holland, not Scotland.
There are too d*** many of those lion-on-a-color coat of arms :smallyuk:

Terraoblivion

2014-12-14, 12:20 AM

I'm more puzzled by the shield that I could have sworn is Spain...

tonberrian

2014-12-14, 12:58 AM

So, I uh...completely by accident, found myself (Castile -> Spain) leading a PU with Portugal, thanks primarily to the two straight heirless rulers being succeeded by random Lancasters. Now I'm a decade away from finishing the integration (which is totalling over 1500 f****** Diplo MP), at which point I will own ALL THE COLONIES. Seriously, like 95% of all European overseas holdings will belong to me. I...I never had anything like this happen in any Paradox game :smalleek:

There are too d*** many of those lion-on-a-color coat of arms :smallyuk:

Please. I had an Austria game when I got France, Aragon, and Muscovy in PUs. Do not talk to me about Diplo MP.

mythmonster2

2014-12-14, 01:59 AM

I'm more puzzled by the shield that I could have sworn is Spain...

Spain's flag is the one in the center of the bottom line of the Catholic League. Can't say I know which one it actually is, though (assuming you confused the one that's supporting Austria as the Emperor).

Grif

2014-12-14, 02:24 AM

I'm more puzzled by the shield that I could have sworn is Spain...

Do you mean Utrecht? :smalltongue:

EDIT: Small update, didn't get to be elected Emperor in the end. France went in and tried to snag a Milan province, and Austria got a large "Defending HRE" bonus. I think I'll just watch the sparks fly when they do eventually clash.

Artanis

2014-12-14, 04:21 AM

Please. I had an Austria game when I got France, Aragon, and Muscovy in PUs. Do not talk to me about Diplo MP.
I bow to your superior experience. Spending enough MP for two and a half techs was a real shock to the system, but having to integrate half of Europe? Ouch :smalleek:

Tangentially related: is there any way to get provinces back from colonial nations? With Portugal's stupidly huge overseas income now added to my own, I have enough in the bank to pay for a canal right now, but Panama is currently held by my newly-acquired Portuguese Columbia :smallfrown:

tonberrian

2014-12-14, 10:34 AM

I bow to your superior experience. Spending enough MP for two and a half techs was a real shock to the system, but having to integrate half of Europe? Ouch :smalleek:

This was in addition to the standard Austrian unions of Bohemia, Hungary, and Burgundy. And everything except for Burgundy was under one incredible ruler (He died like a month after claiming Aragon, iirc). Unfortunately, that was on another computer, and so was the not recognizing it. I believe he was Ferdinand von Hapbsburg II.

rweird

2014-12-14, 11:37 AM

I bow to your superior experience. Spending enough MP for two and a half techs was a real shock to the system, but having to integrate half of Europe? Ouch :smalleek:

Tangentially related: is there any way to get provinces back from colonial nations? With Portugal's stupidly huge overseas income now added to my own, I have enough in the bank to pay for a canal right now, but Panama is currently held by my newly-acquired Portuguese Columbia :smallfrown:

If you don't core the land, colonial nations don't get it, so releasing and conquering could work. Additionally, what is generally thought to be the better way is just give the colonial nation the money and let them build it, as building canals have all sorts of terrible events (lose tons of money/admin points/other good stuff, or lose progress).

Leecros

2014-12-14, 11:47 AM

Tangentially related: is there any way to get provinces back from colonial nations? With Portugal's stupidly huge overseas income now added to my own, I have enough in the bank to pay for a canal right now, but Panama is currently held by my newly-acquired Portuguese Columbia :smallfrown:

According to the EU4 wiki, you can give the AI 50,000 ducats and that will trigger them to start the process...but i've attempted that before with no luck.

rweird

2014-12-14, 11:56 AM

According to the EU4 wiki, you can give the AI 50,000 ducats and that will trigger them to start the process...but i've attempted that before with no luck.

Did they have ADM Tech 26?

Leecros

2014-12-14, 02:17 PM

Did they have ADM Tech 26?

That's beyond my knowledge, That was from a game from Ages Past. i don't think i have the save anymore to check.

Artanis

2014-12-15, 07:41 PM

Decided that I had "won" that Castile game and decided to start an Austria one. It's...significantly different from Austria in EU3. I actually managed to drain my manpower before bludgeoning everybody and their dog into submission :smalltongue:

Any advice on playing Austria? I already got the PU with Hungary, and mostly plan to spend a while making my minions release each other while my manpower recovers. Being allied with (among others) Bohemia and Brandenburg certainly helps.

Eldan

2014-12-15, 07:50 PM

Resist the urge to go to war. Diplo it up. Marry everyone. Get into wars when you get an opportunity as an Emperor, a good reason is always to split up a prince that gets bigger, because many small princes helps you a lot. Save your manpower because eventually, you'll get into a war with France.

rweird

2014-12-15, 08:12 PM

Keep control of the empire, slowly expand inside it. Diplomatically expand outside it (I believe Venice is a good target, as is the rest of Italy). Keep in mind that you can core provinces adjacent to occupied provinces (for in-empire expansion).

Also, while it is tempting to pick up a bunch of little allies vassals, keep in mind the great powers. Marry/ally some of them to get some support (I the AI commonly chooses Castile, which is good if you're fighting France, as they almost always rival each other, and Castile's ideas got buffed to be almost on par with France's in 1.8), and there is a chance to get another PU. Denmark (when Denmark has a PU on Norway+Sweden, it is three for the price of one, Poland for Poland+Lithuania is a good choice too) makes a good initial ally, although they oftentimes attack northern german states, so it might not last. I'm not sure about Poland, but I think that if you get them to elect a Von Habsburg, due to the elective monarchy always giving a weak claim, could allow you to claim the throne (You'd have to fight a war to take it though, and I'm not sure if the Elective Monarchy makes it easy to break).

Try to enact reforms up to the one disallowing internal HRE war, at which point, stop and enjoy HRE bonuses, unless you plan on unifying it. Though if you plan on unifying it, plan ahead. Save adding territory until after you can't use Imperial Liberation and stuff. Keep in mind that releasing princes as vassals gives the "A prince restored event" (at least it did in 1.7, last time I played in the HRE) for Imperial Authority (and when you enact the final reform, you'd just get them back), so expanding within the empire some before then is good, but be sure to keep the electors happy (well, at least four of them, choosing OPMs is a good way to ensure they don't vote for themselves).

Artanis

2014-12-15, 08:32 PM

Keep control of the empire, slowly expand inside it. Diplomatically expand outside it (I believe Venice is a good target, as is the rest of Italy). Keep in mind that you can core provinces adjacent to occupied provinces (for in-empire expansion).
I've been going about it backwards then. The wiki suggested beating up people outside the HRE, so I've been allying inside it and beating up the likes of Hungary and Venice.

Also, I had no idea that I could core adjacent provinces. Is it only ones that are occupied during a war, or what? :smallconfused:

rweird

2014-12-15, 08:40 PM

I've been going about it backwards then. The wiki suggested beating up people outside the HRE, so I've been allying inside it and beating up the likes of Hungary and Venice.

Also, I had no idea that I could core adjacent provinces. Is it only ones that are occupied during a war, or what? :smallconfused:

Beating up people outside the HRE is good (the HRE gets a ton of aggressive expansion when expanding inside it, so you'd have to take it slowly, or diplo-annex them when expanding inside it). Just having a stronger ally outside is also good for when France or someone comes trying to invade the HRE (as Austria really is the only large nation in the HRE, and against countries like France, the little guys often don't cut it). Also, pickings are a bit slim for Austria, soon enough you get Ottomans+PLC+Russia to the east, France to the west, HRE to the north, and conquered the few non-HRE lands to the south.

Its a little trick for coring like that. Probably Certainly not intended by Paradox (I discovered it by accident). Provinces occupied during war give you coring range while you have them occupied (so if you separate peace a neighbor of the war leader when you have both of them sieged, you can core it before you peace them out and get a landlocked core, then if you take stuff from the war leader, you can core it with the first core).

Grif

2014-12-15, 08:43 PM

Keep in mind that releasing princes as vassals gives the "A prince restored event" (at least it did in 1.7, last time I played in the HRE) for Imperial Authority (and when you enact the final reform, you'd just get them back), so expanding within the empire some before then is good, but be sure to keep the electors happy (well, at least four of them, choosing OPMs is a good way to ensure they don't vote for themselves).

I think this has been patched out in the 1.8. You need to release independent princes, not vassals.

Artanis

2014-12-17, 10:01 PM

I want to thank everybody for the advice, it has been quite helpful. I have managed to get six of the nine reforms passed, the "no internal wars" one just moments after finishing the mission to bludgeon Bohemia into a PU :smallsmile:

The advice to ally outside the HRE has been particularly helpful. The Castile/Aragon/Naples union has saved my rear three or four times now, distracting French forces with timely cross-mountain invasions and racking up warscore against Denmark by landing troops in distant areas that I could never, ever get to :smallsmile:

Grif

2014-12-17, 11:56 PM

OrcusMcP

2014-12-18, 11:38 AM

Been doing a 1.9 Byzantium run. I think I'm doing okay.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/40861869101539015/C6410CE6BF24585801582F061BBB8642E532577E/

(Serbia and Ragusa is my vassal, Poland is my ally)

Probably going to try westernising first, before expanding into what's left of the Ottomans.

I can never manage to get going as Byzantium, and the usual tips I've seen (block straights, get big allies, etc) never seem to pan out. Any tricks that helped you?

Grif

2014-12-18, 12:07 PM

I can never manage to get going as Byzantium, and the usual tips I've seen (block straights, get big allies, etc) never seem to pan out. Any tricks that helped you?

Ally Poland. That's about it. They'll do the heavy lifting when the Ottoblob come knocking. Galley spam never worked out for me either, and in 1.9 it seems 50/50 whether or not they'll wardec you first or go after the Turkish beyliks. The former is usually game over, if you're relying on galley spam.

Now, how to secure that alliance might be the tricky part. You'd want to get a RM with them first. Day 0 you should start improving relations with them. A dip rep advisor would help immensely. RM as soon as you can, then ally soon after. (In my game, I got my alliance to Poland mere days before the kebab wardec'd be for Constantinople. They got sucker-punched by the combined PLC army instead.)

After the first war though, the usual strategies apply. Vassalise any one of the Balkan states, and feed them land. Or annex them if you like. Take back Greek cores from Venice. Forment rebels in your other Greek non-cores. (Idk if it's a 1.9 thing, but it seems any sort of rebels will just defect to you if they manage to enforce their demands. I gotten land from peasants, orthodox zealots and the usual patriots. The only one you can't get land from is the nationalists type, but that's a small matter considering you can just fabricate and "invite" them into your empire.)

rweird

2014-12-18, 03:11 PM

Okay, I feel like I should share something odd that happened to me when I was playing my Ottoman play through.

By 1576, France became Revolutionary France, but is an Absolute Monarchy. I believe this might be because they took the decision "L'etat c'est moi" after they became a republic, to become an absolute monarchy, although I'm not sure how that'd explain the flag. Maybe a glitch.
http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j460/reweird/EU4/ScreenShot2014-12-12at72407PM.png (http://s1086.photobucket.com/user/reweird/media/EU4/ScreenShot2014-12-12at72407PM.png.html)

Also, in the same game, the Papal State lost Rome and converted to reformed. I think that Tuscany (who also went reformed, with most of northern Italy) chose to Force Religion on the Pope in their purge of papal heresy.
http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j460/reweird/EU4/ScreenShot2014-12-12at72426PM.png (http://s1086.photobucket.com/user/reweird/media/EU4/ScreenShot2014-12-12at72426PM.png.html)

I'm not sure about either of those things, as I was doing Ottoman stuff and ignoring western Europe for the most part, as I get crazy aggressive expansion whenever I invade.

WyvernLord

2014-12-20, 01:19 AM

Hello thread, I've been playing since the steam summer sale, and lurking this thread too. I've decided that I want to show off my most recent game.

http://i1257.photobucket.com/albums/ii507/wyvernking1/Genoa_zps12a7b3cf.png (http://s1257.photobucket.com/user/wyvernking1/media/Genoa_zps12a7b3cf.png.html)
I didn't realize how poor quality that picture was.
For those who can't read it, that is me as genoa. I own all my orginal land plus Ragusa, Trebizond, Theodoro, and Circassia. I have made vassals of Byzantium, Georgia, Crimea, and Granada.

Frog Dragon

2014-12-20, 04:45 AM

West Africa Best Africa.
Another one finished, and the first one where I actually had colonial nations. I picked Songhai because they were the only West Africans not stuck with a crappy tribal government early on, but earlygame was still a challenge. I had to keep dodging Mali because they were far stronger than anyone else at the start. I used a lot of decoy DoWs where I'd DoW someone other than the intended target and then not co-belligerent the target and just swallow the extra warscore costs to avoid drawing Mali in.

http://i.imgur.com/7m6tSdg.jpg
Timbuktu was my first target.

Mali didn't even really fall to me, but an alliance of other mid-power nations which cut it down to size. Once I became strong enough, I rapidly swept up all the rest of the West Africans. The isolation allowed me to do things like no-cb trucebreak against Kongo (wanted to vassalize them before Westernizing, and they were just too big to be caught in one war), because there was literally no-one who could punish me for diplomatic transgressions. Iberians had landed already, but they couldn't give a toss about AE among wrong culture group Sunnis and Animists.

Westernization was somewhat painful, and involved a lot of scrounging for more ADM and whack-a-mole vs rebels, but I eventually managed and continued blobbing.

http://i.imgur.com/xAjnGih.jpg
As you can see, my ADM had been spread very thin. Several techs behind and still out.

Westernization was pretty great diplomatically as well, since it allowed me to do fun things like ally Austria and Ottomans. I also tried the colonial game, but Songhai La Plata just got eaten by a Portuguese colony and I couldn't defend them because Portugal and Spain were allies and Spain was ridiculously strong. my chances of defeating them outside my mainland were zero. I did manage to keep my New Zealand colony though.

I did manage to kick Britain out of Africa. I actually got Britain's colony in a war started by Austria. I occupied it, and Austria decided I should have it in the peace, since I had made a claim. Danke, Österreich!

Blobbing commenced as normal. I eventually colonized the pathway to East Africa and chowed down on the weaker states there. Ethiopia had gotten cut down a lot recently, so I actually declared three wars or so at once to eat nearby countries and eat Ethiopia, and then release a much larger Ethiopia as a vassal. The whole setup was an excellent vassal feed. Ethiopia even converted some Copts for me.

Later, I wanted to blob into North Africa, but Ottomans was allied to Tunis, which was not ideal, because Ottomans was a house and they could've handily defeated me. I also had Ottomans as an ally though, so I managed to draw them and Austria into a war against France, and then went after Tunis during that war. Otto couldn't respond, and for once a two-front war was reasonable. Austria and Otto mostly knocked out France, and I got to kick them out of Africa as well while feeding Tunis to vassals. Annul treaties with Ottomans ensured I could just do it again later.

This was probably a little gamey.

Eventually, I decided I had to go for Spain and Portugal. They were still ludicrously strong, but they had territory in West Africa and that was unacceptable. So I attacked, pulling all my allies, and hoped for the best.

http://i.imgur.com/8SSKwr3.jpg
It went better than I thought.

Spain and Portugal were colossally incompetent, and managed to completely fail at making anything of their naval superiority. They blockaded me and then kept landing 5 regiment stacks which I steamrolled. Meanwhile, Otto actually dominated the Mediterranean even though the Iberians could've crushed them. They also kept getting outmaneuvered in Italy and thus kept losing troops. Eventually, France jumped on a weakened Spain, and they took some nasty hits in general. I got everything I wanted and fed Otto and Austria some provinces to keep them happy.

http://i.imgur.com/3ObHURK.jpg
Ottoman, why?

Apparently since they took a mission that involved conquering some inconsequential land in North Africa that was owned by my vassal, they decided to flip to hating me. The -200 for those missions is really quite ridiculous. I had been their ally since shortly after my westernization, so that was probably a hundred-year alliance they threw down the drain.

They never attacked me though. I guess they didn't think they had enough to comfortably fight both Austria and me.

Also, at one point Austria warred France and called me in. I sitzkrieged through the whole thing, but apparently my colonial nation sieged Kiribati or something and Austria decided to give it to me? So I had Kiribati in the endgame.

My last move was to break royal marriage and alliance (no stab hit because because Influence ideas) with Kilwa and chow on their territory. Songhai wants more clay!

http://i.imgur.com/EA3F0JY.jpg
Lategame military. My army tradition was pretty much locked on near a hundred due to Innovative Ideas, Songhai Ideas, and all sorts of other fun stuff.

http://i.imgur.com/TtfaICa.jpg
The "I" in Songhai is terribly kerned.

Final map. Not visible is my Colonial Nation that owns most of New Zealand. Also, since the colors are a little unclear, Portugal still has a few provinces in North Africa. I would've attacked them, but it would've called in Austria on their side due to DotF. They wouldn't have defended Spain, but I couldn't make a wargoal from Spain I could actually siege before the game ended.

Not sure when Hungary lost independence, but it was pretty shortly before the game end. Spain and Ottomans are ridiculous, which put a damper on my expansionism.

http://i.imgur.com/NgbIp2p.jpg
All techs maxed, all idea groups full. Didn't have time to convert everything to Sunni unfortunately.

Also, in the lategame I had a real problem with my stupid amounts of tech cost reducers. A westernized Sunni can really stack them, and I wound up having to burn mil and dip on frivolous crap to avoid buying tech at +80% or even hitting the cap. This is why I culture converted so much and have armories everywhere.

Terraoblivion

2014-12-20, 03:39 PM

You what's really absurd about those Ottomans, Frog Dragon? They're smaller than their real world counterpart.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll

2014-12-20, 04:06 PM

Aye, occasionally I see people complain about over powered ottomans, and I sit there and go are you kidding, that's smaller than real life!

I like your ottomans a lot

Frog Dragon

2014-12-20, 04:10 PM

You what's really absurd about those Ottomans, Frog Dragon? They're smaller than their real world counterpart.
Yeah, I know Ottomans were almost Umayyad-level with their conquests. In comparison to how they do in most games though, that's very big.

Also, given that they've also pushed into Russia quite a bit, I'd argue they about equal the Ottoman Empire of 1683.

Even more also, it would probably be inaccurate to say that their rule over Egypt would be described as owned cores in EUIV terms. IIRC, they left the Mamluk Sultan in place and it was much more like a vassalization. :smalltongue:

In unrelated matters, I got totally gypped on name size. The "Songhai" should extend from coast to coast!

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-20, 08:56 PM

Did someone say Ottomans? :smalltongue:

Current extent of the Empire as of 1658:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/27351263256161453/5BE01F1599A50F1C4EB057F2C55739D459BF7D2C/

The biggest recent conquest was in Italy; Rome, Sicily, and Naples are all under my control.

Diplo view, highlighting my vassals:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/27351263256162654/D2548A144EA6A5DAFD54F0846FE7BD9D7FFFF3B1/

Turkish possessions in the East Indies (highlighted in diplo view, then a general map)

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/27351263256163671/8112F43C444B58A9F1D41568584F5E50DE26E681/
http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/27351263256164744/83997DBD5019CA5C5DF1DBD7E5878D0F5EF1D670/

Biggest surprise of the game is Sarig Yogir - they've taken over an immense amount of territory, pushing into China, while remaining as a horde. (Kazakh, Uzbek, and the remnants of Ming are their vassals) In Europe, Spain's been generally triumphant, handing France several major defeats and vassalizing Portugal. Sweden's one province away from forming Scandinavia; they kicked Norway off to Iceland and their colonies, and the only thing protecting Denmark are their alliances with Austria and Poland. I can't see much of the Americas, though it looks like a diverse mix of colonizing countries, presumably thanks to the increased number of provinces in Art of War. I'm really eager to see AoW go on sale so I can pick it up, as the ability to declare war on behalf of my vassals is going to be immensely helpful. I'm planning to feed Algiers from Tlemcen, Khorasan from the Timurids, and Madurai from Bahmanis.

Leecros

2014-12-20, 11:54 PM

Well, IthilanorStPete's Ottoman empire beat mine, but since i finished an ottoman game as well relatively recently, i figured i might as well add mine to the list.

http://oi59.tinypic.com/174meo.jpg

that black blob(neumark) and Kursk are both my Client Kingdoms. I picked black for Neumark out of curiosity to see what it would look like. turns out it looks like crap. all that land used to be prussia(and a little bit of Poland). i was really stopped in my tracks in the 1600's thanks to a wall of alliances consisting of Spain, Austria, Prussia, and Scandinavia in Europe. although i probably could have taken them, I have a lazy mindset about wars this late in the game.

That mindset is mainly based around how long it would take me to claim a decisive victory and the Austrian/Prussian alliances were stronk. Austria had all of Hungary and Prussia had most of Poland and Lithuania. On top of that, Spain(at the time) was the only nation in the game that could match me financially although i did cut them down to size and they never recovered.

However, after some political maneuvering, i managed to find allies in France and Scandinavia and found an opening when i noticed that Prussia wasn't allied to Scandinavia(Leading to a situation where Scandinavia would come in on my side before getting the call from Austria). that's when the floodgates burst. War after war after war of me just taking as large of bites out of the Austria/Prussian monsters as i could to cut them down to size. Fortunately Spain pretty much gave up after the first war, after i forced Aragon out of them and crippled them economically. Austria's final Aggressive Penalty against me was -546.

Now i'm sure people have noticed that Great Britain is a lovely shade of Ottoman Green. Let's call it as a little revenge for me. See, i mentioned(probably a few pages now) about a war against Spain. it was my first major war against Spain and i launched a massive invasion against them from North Africa and as soon as i had them on the ropes...England surrendered. They were the warleader. i was rather irritated at the lost chance to cripple my biggest rival. So i decided that if England wasn't going to be a faithful ally, I was going to install a new English government that would be my faithful ally...regardless of the situation we're in.

http://oi61.tinypic.com/256vec5.jpg
THUS BETTER ENGLAND WAS BORN! They're my Super Secret Third Client Kingdom which was also a competing great power and probably my greatest asset at fighting was against Spain as their navy was the largest in the game.

Also i got a sweet 14 ducats/month from them and no issues with overextension or converting the land myself...Although the Aggressive Expansion was kind of bad, France was overjoyed.
No, i don't know how exactly Brazil got there.

Hmm, what else is there to say about it? Japan had a successful rebellion against their Spanish Overlords. for the longest time Spain held the entire Japanese land. That's...probably the most powerful USA i've ever seen. Also Scandinavia Stronk.

Flickerdart

2014-12-21, 12:39 AM

It's so weird to see Muscovy successfully colonize Siberia without becoming Russia first...or ever.

rweird

2014-12-21, 09:03 AM

And to see Scandinavia expand into normal Russian territory. In my, unfinished ottoman game I shared, Muscovy was eaten and partitioned by the hordes, russian minors, Lithuanian, and Novgorod, which is a real godsend for my hoping to complete the Sultan of Rum achievement. I'll give a better AAR once I finish… The game seems to be going weirdly so far though without me interfering, England under a PU from Portugal, Muscovy being torn apart, Papal State going Reformed, Monarchal Revolutionary France with the wrong flag, in 1576…

May I ask what ideas you took for your Ottoman Empires?

Leecros

2014-12-21, 10:38 AM

It's so weird to see Muscovy successfully colonize Siberia without becoming Russia first...or ever.
They didn't really have anything else to do. They got smashed by the Golden Horde early on, but were never fully annexed by them. So they didn't really have anything else to do except colonize.

Had I taken the screenshot 20 years earlier, that area would have looked much different. The Oirat Horde held much of the land that that Muscovy has at the end of the game. they also held land all the way to my border. However, Scandinavia decided to attack them and that's when everything fell apart for the poor Oirats.

May I ask what ideas you took for your Ottoman Empires?

Innovative, Offensive, Trade, Quantity, Religious, Humanist, Influence, and Defensive in that order. In the past, i've been hesitant to take an administrative idea group as my first set of Ideas, but recently I just can't say no to the events that innovative triggers which give you a free 50 monarch power every once in awhile and humanist made it so that i basically didn't have to worry about rebellion...even in territory that i just acquired.

Rockphed

2014-12-21, 10:45 AM

I like "Better England" as a name for your forced government change of the British Archipelago. Also, I am impressed by Moscovy in exile in Siberia. It must have been a slow, drawn out process where they would colonize, then lose some land in Europe, so they would colonize more, then lose more land. I would love to have a "wait, how did that happen" mode where the game played out events and maps that led to the end game for other nations. Or even you own. That was always what I like watching in Civilization III. Though most of the time it wasn't very interesting.

IthilanorStPete

2014-12-21, 11:06 AM

Innovative, Offensive, Trade, Quantity, Religious, Humanist, Influence, and Defensive in that order. In the past, i've been hesitant to take an administrative idea group as my first set of Ideas, but recently I just can't say no to the events that innovative triggers which give you a free 50 monarch power every once in awhile and humanist made it so that i basically didn't have to worry about rebellion...even in territory that i just acquired.

Was Humanist still useful when you took it so late? Seems like an idea group you want to take early to get as much use out of the -tech cost, -nationalism, and lower culture threshold ideas as possible.

EDIT: Incidentally, my idea groups are Religious, Offensive, Trade, Exploration, Expansion. Probably going to take Defensive as the sixth group for Military Drill and the decrease to land maintenance.

EDIT2: Looking back, I wish I had taken Humanism as my first idea group instead of Religious, but c'est la vie. I'm thinking of doing a Rome CK2-EU4 megacampaign next; if I get to EU4, I'll try out Humanism to make a pluralist empire.

Leecros

2014-12-21, 12:19 PM

Was Humanist still useful when you took it so late? Seems like an idea group you want to take early to get as much use out of the -tech cost, -nationalism, and lower culture threshold ideas as possible.

In hindsight, i might have wanted to take Humanist instead of Quantity to get more use out of the reduced nationalism and more money from having more accepted cultures and i remember juggling that decision. I ended up going quantity at the time, mostly for the -20% build power cost, because I was(and did) do a lot of building over the course of the game.

However, I can't say that it was not useful. I may have not used the reduced Idea, nationalism, and culture threshold to its maximum extent, but the Humanist Idea group was the sole reason why I could expand so aggressively after I unlocked the imperialism CB. The ability to take a large piece of land and have maybe 5% unrest in those provinces, coupled with the ability to convert the land quickly with Religious Ideas made a pretty powerful combination. I was able to take huge tracts of land with little internal struggles.

EDIT2: Looking back, I wish I had taken Humanism as my first idea group instead of Religious, but c'est la vie.

As a nation that starts as mostly the wrong religion, I don't think it's a bad idea to take religious ideas. However, I don't think it's really necessary. I've played The Ottomans casually a few times just to see what they were like and I've not really had much issue converting their territory...even without religious ideas.

I would love to have a "wait, how did that happen" mode where the game played out events and maps that led to the end game for other nations. Or even you own. That was always what I like watching in Civilization III. Though most of the time it wasn't very interesting.

I've never played Civ III, but I know in Civ IV there was a timelapse at the end of the game that showed you the progression of all the nations expansions. i really wish that EUIV had something like that. I remember back when EUIV first came out, someone did make a website where you could upload your save and watch a timelapse of it, but i don't think it was ever maintained past a couple of patches.