Europa Universalis IV Thread 4: Divine Wind

[Leecros]

"Europa Universalis 4 is the 4th in a series of Grand Strategy games by Paradox Interactive, set in the years 1444-1821, the Age of Exploration, Enlightenment and Empire Building. You control a nation from the period and seek to guide it to a grand destiny, through trade, conquest, religious strife, colonization and technological ingenuity. You can visit the Paradox Forums for detailed information, and there is a good fan-supported Wiki (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki) for more strategy and reference." - OrcusMcP

Currently there are Ten major expansion DLC's with the most current one (Mandate of Heaven) reworking Eastern Asia including China and Japan along with the addition of various ages throughout the game and...other things.

I felt like now was a good time to start a new thread. The previous one kind of died off and it seemed more reasonable to start a new discussion rather than resurrect one from months ago.

Useful links:

Previous thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?441445-Europa-Universalis-IV-Thread-3-If-only-we-had-comet-sense&p=19806841#post19806841)
Official forums (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?forums/europa-universalis-iv.731/)
Fan wiki (http://www.eu4wiki.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki)


Now that all of the formality stuff is out of the way....

I'll be honest. There's a lot of things i like about the new DLC. I like the new mechanics for China, Japan, and Manchu, I really like the Diplomatic Macrobuilder.

But I have to say...The whole Historical Ages thing...It doesn't really interest me one bit. Really, it feels like something pulled straight out of a Civilization game. I don't want to meet arbitrary objectives that the game devs put out for me.I want to do my own thing and set my own objectives. That has been pretty much the draw of the Paradox Strategy Games for me since I started playing them.

Edit: Changed the thread name from Mandate of Heaven to Divine Wind, because I found the fact that this is the fourth thread for EUIV, Divine Wind was the fourth expansion to Europa Universalis III, and both Divine Wind and Mandate of Heaven overhauled Eastern Asia amusing.

[The Great Wyrm]

Quality of life improvements (like automated diplomats) are always welcome.

Also: the Historical Ages thing would make more sense if it had more ties to technology and Institutions.

[divitorobert]

Actually the country that most Americans originate from genetically is Germany , much more so than Ireland.

[Leecros]

Also: the Historical Ages thing would make more sense if it had more ties to technology and Institutions.

Well, they are...sort of. The Age of Reformation starts after the Protestant Reformation kicks off, but the other two Ages all have triggers based on when an Institution appears.

[CozJa]

Mh... I restarted plating it after a year and a half and... well, I'm addicted again, damn! I think I'll use the sale to buy some DLC I'm missing...

If I have to choose two, what would you say? Currently I'm thinking Art of War and Common Sense (I only own El Dorado and Res Publica)

[Sian]

AoW and CS seems to be the two most widely loved ... with RoM in third

[Eldan]

So, what do those ages actually do, for someone who hasn't read the diaries?

[tonberrian]

So, what do those ages actually do, for someone who hasn't read the diaries?

Each age has some specific mechanics associated with it. Like the first two allow declaring crusades and excommunicating. There's also a set of objectives each age, the more you fill the more PP you get, and you also get an accumulating resource each age that allows you to buy specific perks that age - but they go away once the next one rolls around.

At least, that's what I recall. Haven't tried them out myself, yet.

[Eldan]

Is there a menu for those ages somewhere where you can see all that? Clicking the age title at the top does nothing.

[Leecros]

So I decided to do my first game as Ming and Dear God Dat Ming....They are so powerful now that i'm sure if the Ming AI wasn't specifically tailored to focus on Tributaries and not expand, we would see Ming as a super dangerous late-game power.

with that said, my Random New World is both amazing and baffling.

https://s27.postimg.org/umb43v8er/randomnewworld.png

It's a pillar of land that sits between Europe and the other New World continent(you can see it on the minimap). It's amazing, but some of those colonial nation regions look really weird and the particular section i took a screenshot of has traditional colonial nation names like it was a non-Random New World(like Colonial Canada and California). Plus some of the colonial nations in that area are really tiny(Colonial Alaska in particular with 5 provinces).


Edit:

Then there's this...."Thing"
https://s8.postimg.org/6mh1pswut/c08.png

Ah yes. I believe we are all familiar with the Great empire known as c08....Yeah, i think there's something weird with this particular Random New World tile. Which is unfortunate, because outside of the weirdness it is awesome.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Ugh, I just can't play EUIV anymore. I try, but every time I sidetrack myself with how awesome everything is going to be once the MEIOU+T team (and especially Demiansky) release their population overhaul. I really want to play more EUIV though...

[Eldan]

Cxx is probably just for "colonial region name X" and they didn't put in a proper number eight.

[Leecros]

Ugh, I just can't play EUIV anymore. I try, but every time I sidetrack myself with how awesome everything is going to be once the MEIOU+T team (and especially Demiansky) release their population overhaul. I really want to play more EUIV though...

I really like M&T. I remember i did a EU3 series of MEIOU on these forums (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?270101-Lets-Play-Europa-Universalis-III(MEIOU)) and that was a bunch of fun.(and then bad stuff happened to my computer and I lost the save file and was too disappointed to tell anyone)

I like M&T just as much as EU3's MEIOU, but there are times where I like the simplicity of vanilla EU4. Especially considering Dei Gratia drives me nuts at times when minority religions don't do what I want. There's also the fact that it runs more slowly than CKII...

[Aotrs Commander]

If anyone is interested, over on ponythread, I'm doing another of my sporadic Bleakplays plays, this time a psuedo-achievement run aiming for psuedo-achieving Ideas Guy. (Psuedo because I don't actually play ironman.)

Bleakplays Plays EUIV: Necrolantis Rises!
Necrolantis Arises! 01 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21893596&postcount=782)
Necrolantis Arises! 02 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21895575&postcount=790)



Regardless, I am about to pick my second idea group (first was exploration) and suggestions would be welcomed. To summarise the situation for them as is not bothered about reading the whole thing: my current situation is Cape Verde capital, about 80% of my first colony (in random new world) but no other provinces and with a low cash inflow. (All expansions enabled, no mods.) My nominal short-list is Administration, Religious, Trade, Quality, Quantity and Offensive and possibly Economic - which would be the next choice. I was leaning towards a military one, but I was reading elswhere it might be better to keep pushing mil tech for a bit; if so, it wants to be one of the admin ones. Thoughts?

[Sian]

Well, if I had been in your shoes I'd have focused on early Military Tech and ganked Western Africa while waiting on Colonists to come in, so you had the economy to push onwards ... Also, given that you have early colonists as your second idea, I would probably not have taken Exploration first, as you simply can't afford keeping 3 colonies rolling yet (although that could also make a case for reshuffling your ideas so you get military ideas early where you're going to need to war against people bigger than you)

[Leecros]

Sometimes I swear that I'm the only one who likes Innovative...

[Sian]

Sometimes I swear that I'm the only one who likes Innovative...

Innovative have some of the best policies ... but unless you're in a position where you can run those, it simply loses the fight between the Papermana groups, specially against Administrative and Either Religious/Humanist (depending on preference) ... by it self its middling good at all times, but often there's groups that is better (Economy if ducat income is your bottleneck, Expansion if you want to push colonization).

When you are in a position where there is no obvious picks (because you've taken all the low-hanging fruit for the style of game you want to play) then Innovative is very strong, but by itself its a resounding 'eh' ...

[Leecros]

When you are in a position where there is no obvious picks (because you've taken all the low-hanging fruit for the style of game you want to play) then Innovative is very strong, but by itself its a resounding 'eh' ...

the biggest thing about Innovative in my opinion are the pulse events that it gives you access to. There's 10 of them. Three just give you a free 50 monarch points outright, one gives you -5% on all of your techs for 10 years, one gives you -10% tech cost in a category of your choosing for 10 yeras, one gives you a free 10 prestige. then i guess there's the bad ones...-1 stab, -5 Prestige, -10 prestige, and +5% Tech cost.

But mostly for the three 50 Monarch Points events and the reduced tech costs. The sooner you get Innovative, the more useful it is throughout the course of the game.

[Eldan]

So, played around as Ming about and... yeah, the new mechanics are nice, but I felt something strange.

I don't want to conquer my neighbors anymore. They are all paying me that lovely tribute, refilling my manpower every time I need it...

And without conquering everyone, I don't really know what to actually do in this game. I mean, I might just try and ttake on Japan or Oirat, for being the only neighbors to refuse me, but that seems foolish.

[CozJa]

I too love Innovative! Sure, the ideas are not spectacular, but the events are. I remember when I used it playing with Sweden paired with Administrative, spamming cheap mercs against the never ending hordes of Mother Russia, while the emperor took every moment of weakness to attack me and steal my Baltic empire.
I think I passed at least ten years with 0 manpower surviving only with supercheap Mercenary Swedish Space Marines.

[Leecros]

I don't want to conquer my neighbors anymore. They are all paying me that lovely tribute, refilling my manpower every time I need it...

And without conquering everyone, I don't really know what to actually do in this game. I mean, I might just try and ttake on Japan or Oirat, for being the only neighbors to refuse me, but that seems foolish.

Diplovassalize!

The biggest advantage that them being your tributary has is that it improves trust. Trust is a huge modifier for vassalizing people and it increases your "borders" and allows you to turn more nations into your tributary. Turn a nation like Nepal into a Tributary, then vassalize(and then March them because Nepal has some great military ideas) them and you can turn half of India into tributaries. Then intervene when Vjayanagar and Delhi try to take your minions away from you. All the meanwhile spread your colonial empire.

[Eldan]

So, unless I'm somehow missing it, there's no way to turn a tributary into a vassal, other than finishing the tributary relationship, then trying to vassalize them. Which not only pisses them off to the tune of -50 opinion, but also means that you don't actually know if they would be vassalizeable.

On the other hand, I love the Queen Regent system. My 1/1/1 emperor was just succeeded by a 4/3/6 Korean queen regent who will rule 12 years before the (crappy) heir comes to power.

[Sian]

The Donation drive for the Swiss Army successful.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/170417037202151660/5879245292907D9EBB62B7B000A71B29B43B18EA/

was tired of barely being able to war without having to get a few loans, and had to keep warring as to not waste my massive Improve relation (Diplomatic Idea 4, Humanist Idea 6, advisor, Protestant, high Prestige), and to keep Austria from getting frisky with unlawful territory demands ... and given that I'm ahead of time with Printing press spawned in the middle of my lands (although strictly speaking not in my lands but rather a Palatinate enclave) I both need the money, and aren't short on Administrative Power to buy off the Inflation

[Leecros]

So before the most recent DLC came out, I decided to play a nice and relaxing game as Poland and get the Poland Can Into Space achievement. I had planned to form The Commonwealth and beat up Russia, but not really do anything big...And then I got a Personal Union over Bohemia....And then I won the Thirty Years War...Then I became Holy Roman Empire(without even trying)...Then I got a Personal Union over France(and near the end Great Britain).

It was around the PU with France that I lamented my not taking Idea groups that focused around conquering vast amounts of land. I planned on a nice,relaxing game to get one achievement...Not one where I turned myself into a superpower. In the end, I was only able to conquer Europe and most of The New World...

https://s1.postimg.org/5burhzy9r/20170216231830_1.jpg

(And I got something like 15 achievements in total...including Poland Can Into Space, A decent reserve, Black Jack, Fanatic Collectivist, and more)




there's no way to turn a tributary into a vassal, other than finishing the tributary relationship, then trying to vassalize them. Which not only pisses them off to the tune of -50 opinion, but also means that you don't actually know if they would be vassalizeable.

This is a factually accurate statement. with that said, based on the size of Ming and the bonuses from trust which i think caps out at +20; you can diplovassalize a lot of minors. Especially those morsels in the southwest and the minors in India.

[Sian]

Ugh, I just can't play EUIV anymore. I try, but every time I sidetrack myself with how awesome everything is going to be once the MEIOU+T team (and especially Demiansky) release their population overhaul. I really want to play more EUIV though...

I really don't get this fandom hype for meiou+t ... while it might well be one of the bigger mods, the number of players is still only 0.7% of the total playerbase (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-many-more-planned-dlcs-are-left.1004233/#post-22521351) ... and from hearing those that have boarded the hypetrain, you'd sometimes believe that they would rather be forced to binge reality tv for several days in a row without being allowed to sleep, than playing the vanilla EU4.

At least the equivalents from CK2 (them being those that hypes about GoT) have the excuse of radically retooling the game to fit an existing (well ... fictional) world that had a stupidly big following even when the mod came out.

The closest thing i recall, is quite frankly the hypetrain that was pulling No Mans Sky and that's not something anyone want to be compared to

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

It's a personal thing. It's very niche by design. It adds a ridiculous amount of depth to an already niche game. For those of us that need that depth, we can't return to a comparably shallow version of the game. I have the same thing about any mods that add similar levels of historical plausibility to the games, like HIP for CK2.

Sure, it doesn't change the setting, but that's window dressing changes. It changes every aspect of the rest of the game, and the new edition that I'm so excited for changes the economic system, a complete rewrite, modelling trade and population in a more dynamic way. I try to play vanilla, and I conquer a few countries, but then that has no major effects on my own economy? I turned half of Aragon into a burning wasteland but across the border Spain feels no effects? Now that I know that it doesn't HAVE to be that way, how can I accept lesser detail? How can I accept lesser plausibility?

Note that I don't say everyone should play it. Most people are content with map painting in a historical setting. I and those who play the same mods I play don't want a historical setting and freedom when we hit play, we want things to follow from existing historical constraints and trends after we hit play. It's not about popularity, the goal isn't "everyone should drop what they're doing and install the same set of mods I play". It's "I find the vanilla game to be too game-y and not enough simulation-y for my personal tastes, so I can't play without increasing its simulationist verisimilitude." You see the difference?

[Leecros]

At least the equivalents from CK2 (them being those that hypes about GoT) have the excuse of radically retooling the game to fit an existing (well ... fictional) world that had a stupidly big following even when the mod came out.

Interestingly enough, part of the reason I play M&T is that it doesn't radically retool the game to turn it into fictional world. I can't play AGOT and only rarely play Elder Kings, because I play them for awhile and find them uninteresting.

[CozJa]

So... who's going to play Hungary when the new patch comes out? I'm surely going to!

[Sian]

When I'm finished with my current game (aiming for the Switzerlake Achievement) I'm strongly considering a Mongolia->Yuan Empire, aiming for Great Khan Achievement

I'm of the type that needs Achievements to keep myself focused and interested in extended/multiple game sessions

[CozJa]

When I'm finished with my current game (aiming for the Switzerlake Achievement) I'm strongly considering a Mongolia->Yuan Empire, aiming for Great Khan Achievement

I'm of the type that needs Achievements to keep myself focused and interested in extended/multiple game sessions

Same for me here. And to think that when my PC broke down a year ago I was in 1700 during a "Poland can into space" run... I've never had the courage to play a game with Poland again!

[tonberrian]

I haven't played Austria in a few patches, and now it seems much harder, starting at a budget deficit. How does one Austria now?

[CozJa]

I haven't played Austria in a few patches, and now it seems much harder, starting at a budget deficit. How does one Austria now?

I tried few years some days ago; honestly the deficit is not that terrible: you can just disband some troop (I didn't) or reduce maintenance (not that Austria starts with rebels, so...) and it is fine. Plus, you start with a lot of money, therefore you have plenty of time even running with a deficit. I suppose that the best (easiest) thing to do is to fabricate on Venice and start kicking them for money/provinces.

[Sian]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/822314262452140919/B75AAC6C11E26FE24F14F3D97AD80B627B4D3CFD/

Finished Switzerlake ... Absolutism bonuses seems insane ... got 37% Admin Efficiency before accounting for the Age ability bonus, and If you pair that with proper blobbing-focused idea groups (my first 4 was Diplomatic, Humanist, Influence and Plutocratic) I believe it might well be easier than ever before to WC, specially if you're already able to get in a good position pre-1610(ish).

Well ... on to next game ... Mongolia into Great Yuan into Great Khan Achievement

[Aotrs Commander]

Just in case anyone is as surprised as I am - patch 1.21 is out, put up only a couple of hours after they posted the Dev diary. I was not expecting that.

[tonberrian]

Got a decent Austria run going. Ironman, managed to PU Hungary, and I ate Venice (except for like one set of islands near the Ottomans? Which I assume they got, since I couldn't). Not going to be able to stop the shadow kingdom, since the Pope allied with France and Aragon (still with Naples). I'd need to get like three provinces off the Papal States and one off Naples, and I simply don't have the men to do it. Or the military tech, since I am totally lacking in anything but dip points (luckily, my heir Ceasar is 6/3/6). Next stop, eating italian minors.

[The Great Wyrm]

Sounds like a good time for a hunting accident . . .

[Leecros]

So I managed to get Shahansha the other day.

https://s17.postimg.org/6pi2l1n6n/Shahanshah.png

It was quite tricky. Playing as Tabaristan, you're stuck between two factions that are enormously more powerful than you, but very unstable. The trick, I've found is to try and ally with the one you think will not break first and use them to rip apart the other crumbling nation...My first attempt had the Timurids implode, my second had Qara Qoyunlu implode, then my third attempt had them both implode, but Qara Qoyunlu ended up imploding a bit more explosively. The Timurids just exploded into nice Persia/Timurid chunks. It really is just a coin toss.

Sadly, it's a few years later. The Ottomans are right on my border as is Russia and they've both allied with one another. My last war with The Ottomans saw me lose two provinces and I expect the next war to involve both the Russians and Turks. So unfortunately, getting the This Is Persia! Achievement is probably going to be off the table and I'm probably just going to die a slow, painful death.

[Leecros]

Well then. Color me surprised. My Persia game didn't end in a whimper, but in one of the most impressive set of wars that i personally have ever fought in EUIV. What follows is the story of my persia game from a regional power just struggling to survive to the strongest nation on the planet.



Allow me to set the stage. After forming Persia, My focus was mainly on reacquiring the Persian region. It was fairly easy since the Timurids were crippled, Hormuz wasn't very powerful and Iraq was abandoned by their masters The Ottomans, because they wanted to conquer them instead. After that, an alliance with Delhi allowed me to pick apart Sind and the Timurids in relative short order. Iraq was vassalized and annexed as was Georgia. Afghanistan was released and vassalized as well.

Thus led to a rather precarious position for Persia. They had a huge target on their backs as they were directly blocking The Ottomans march eastward and the ottomans were of course hugely powerful with nearly 200k troops where I only had somewhere around 80k. Of course, they invaded, but I had been planning on this invasion for a long time and erected a line of forts along The Zagros Mountains from Georgia to the Persian Gulf to protect my heartland from the brunt of ottoman invasion. The Ottomans struck and wore themselves on the mountainous defenses.

https://s27.postimg.org/hb71hq79f/persia_1.png

Fortunately, the war ended. The Ottomans still won and took several provinces in Georgia, but the heartlands of Persia remained intact. With any expansion westward cut off for now, Persia turned their attention east to Gujarat. The alliance of Persia and Delhi pushed back against the alliance of Gujarat and Jaunpur although not without loss(Mostly on Delhi's part).

A war with Russia was also fought and a few provinces around the Caspain were taken and the alliance between The Ottomans and Russia was severed. It was around this time that The commonwealth saw the advances Persia was making on their longtime enemies(Ottoman and Russian) and joined in an alliance with them. With their new allies, Persia invaded Russia and released Nogai and a reduced Kazan into their care. Gujarat was ultimately cannibalized by the other Indian powers after a crushing war that left Mewar also in Persian care. Thus the stage was set for the Second Ottoman-Persian war.

Persia knew that The Ottomans were only increasing in power and if they weren't stopped, then they would ultimately just roll Persia over. So the Persians took the initiative and invaded Turkish lands...with The commonwealth's help. The Ottomans were hugely powerful, but couldn't break through The Zagros Line and the Persians mostly ignored their attacks and focused on controlling the wargoal, but the war was cut short. A barely victory for Persia, because The Ottomans had an ace up their sleeve. Morocco and Tunis invaded from the south through Hormuz and around the Zagros mountains and straight into the heartlands of Persia.

https://s14.postimg.org/nkm00dm8h/Persia_2.png

It was a close victory, but Persia managed to take a few provinces and release an OPM Syria into Persian care. The next few decides was a constant war against The Ottomans. Essentially I was sort of playing a game of "Chicken" with them. Pushing both nations to the limit to see who would break first. My plan was simple: Divide The Ottomans into Two with Syria and then Three and it worked. Each war saw a few more provinces taken from The Ottomans than the previous one until a resounding victory was taken.

After the first victory:
https://s10.postimg.org/qk0fw5veh/Persia_3.png
After the Second:
https://s24.postimg.org/jp3msv5yd/Persia_4.png
After the Third:
https://s29.postimg.org/yco3zmfh3/Persia_5.png
After the Fourth:
https://s12.postimg.org/5acrxsacd/Persia_6.png
Finally, The Ottomans Stop being a threat(Imperialism Ho!):
https://s18.postimg.org/b5y4b6t7d/Persia_7.png

As you can see, I devoted nearly all of my resources for around 50 years trying to break The Ottomans and it was only after that last war that they ceased being a massive threat(although they were still fairly powerful). At this point, Getting This Is Persia! was nearly assured and I began wondering what I should do with the remaining hundred years. Yeah, I still had to conquer Egypt, but that would be solved rather quickly. The Ottomans were no longer a threat and my alliances changed drastically as Spain deemed that I was a worthy ally and The commonwealth determined me to be a threat. Not wanting to deal with the nasty alliance of The commonwealth, Austria, and Scandinavia, I decided to turn my focus Eastward...To Silk!

There was only something around 13 silk provinces that I didn't own and/or was near enough for me to take and there's definitely an achievement for it, so that became my endgame goal. Silk and Ming. Getting a border was easy. I just invaded Yarkand. Ming counter attacked, but they couldn't push my troops off the land. Then the big one came. The War with Ming. Ming was a massively powerful state and still had more troops than I did, but they weren't quite the same quality. The unfortunate part was that I had to invade through the Takla Makan and Gobi desert.

I divided my troops into three armies. One, 120k would strike north through Mongolia and Korea. Another would strike south through to the Ming heartlands and a third 60k flanking force would invade through India after the Ming troops headed North.

Casualties were huge on both sides and I took lots of losses. Ming had entirely level 8 forts that were hard and obnoxious to siege down. Ultimately the invasion had to be stopped short due to Ming striking out at the Persian heartlands through Mongolia and Bukhara.

https://s13.postimg.org/3p604fphz/Persia_8.png

Land was taken and over the next several years I would continue to annex the silk provinces that I needed. With Ming and The Ottomans crippled, there was little else to stop me from claiming all of the remaining silk provinces in Southeast Asia, India, and Japan. Ming never collapsed and was a near constant thorn in my side even after they lost The Mandate(Really miss the old Mandate mechanics). Persia became the dominant world power with barely any land in Europe. At the end, I was going to go for Unite Islam, but ultimately I ran out of time and the one war i had with Spain at the end for Tunis I won, but man they kicked me in the teeth. (Also I invaded Scotland...for reasons)

https://s11.postimg.org/ai7z1x7r7/PErsia_9.png

This play through was super nostalgic and fun for me(Thus the elaboration). I have never played a Persia game in EUIV, but I have Played a persia game multiple times in EUIII. Including one super amazing one in EUIII MEIOU which went...a lot like this one actually.

I also learned that I sort of have a soft cap to conquest in EUIV at around 300-500 provinces. Even as Tabaristan, going from a 2 province minor to superpower Persia, I sort of slowed my roll quite a lot after a point. I could have conquered so much more in this game. I barely utilized Client States...only building three(one in India that got annexed, One in China that didn't get much love after I got the Silk, and one in Japan which went similarly). I also barely had any issues with Aggressive Expansion and never had the risk of any coalitions. My AE always burned off before the peace went away....Although I did acquire a lot with The Ottomans at one point.

I also learned that if you can manage to conquer Kyoto multiple times, you'll get "The Shogunate falls" event or whatever it's called each time that gives you admin/diplo power and prestige. So that's a bug that one might be able to exploit if you feel like being cheeky. I, on the otherhand revoked it from Persian Japan and they immediately shot up to 100% liberty desire for the rest of the game. So outside of "testing purposes" I wasn't able to make use of that.

Final thoughts:

I still don't really like the ages. I feel like forcing arbitrary objectives on the player takes away from the game. I know they're optional in the sense that you don't have to do them, but that won't stop the AI.
Ming needs to get penalized more for low mandate. Even with all of those penalties, they were still fairly powerful. They just took a lot of casualties in battle.
Absolutism is super powerful and I don't know why you'd ever go for a government type that doesn't give you the most Absolutism possible.
Be nice on the graphical representation of wars/battles. They were made in 5 minutes using the Power of Paint.
Achievements get: Shahansha, This is Persia!, Absolutely, A Golden Empire, and That's a Silk Road

[Sian]

I like the 'Exiled to Siberia' Russia, and Netherlands-in-Congo

Any idea why Castile never formed Spain?

[Leecros]

To me, the most impressive thing in the game was Kedah. They start as a One-Province minor between Malacca and Ayuthaya and in this particular game they conquered most of Southeast Asia.



Any idea why Castile never formed Spain?

one of the requirements to form Spain is that none of the provinces in Iberia is Muslim and...well, Morocco held onto Lisboa for...most of the game. In fact, i'm pretty sure it only got returned in the last few years of the game when Castile won a massive Imperialist war against them.

So I presume that the province never got converted back to a non-muslim religion in time.

[Sian]

Well, I couldn't decipher the name so I thought at a glance that it was Pasai since they have a similar'ish color

IIRC the "From Spain" doesn't actually demand that there aren't any Muslim provinces, only that there aren't any provinces ruled by muslims.

That said, looking again, it appears that Morocco still owns Canaries, and they're part of the Macaronesia, which in turn is a part of Iberia

[Eldan]

So, apparently, lesbian marriages are a thing now. My Spanish Empire was ruled by Empress Maria Teresa von Habsburg and her wife, Maria Teresa von Habsburg.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm all for social progressivism but I think marrying yourself is taking the whole Habsburg Royal Marriage thing a little too far.

[Eldan]

Oh, they weren't the same. Empress Maria Teresa died, to give way to Empress Consort Regent Maria Teresa.

They just had the same name.

[tonberrian]

So I'm trundling along, just started a new game as Brandenburg. Going after Mecklenburg so I have sailors and boats. I get a message, the HRE sound effect triggers, I click past it without reading, assuming Austria got a son.

A couple months later I get a call from Liege, asking to support them because we're allies. I clicked no such agreement. Looking further, it turns out that Austria's king did die - without an heir. Now they're in a personal union under Hungary, and in an inheritance war with France. And I am the emperor. In like, 1446. Which is great, except I'm going for Prussia so I've got a time limit on enjoying the empire.

Well, luckily for me, later on I get burgundian inheritance. Now I can actually get some work done on getting money.

Good game so far. Both Castile and Poland have rejected their possible unions, and Austria got taken out of the way, at least for a while (they broke free after Poland stomped all over Hungary). Just gotta get some more bling before the reformation fires.

[Eldan]

My Spain game ground to a halt and I probably won't start it up again. I completely colonized the entire new world with no other powers having a province in the Americans anymore after a few wars, and the majority of Africa also mine. But then, all my colonial nations decided to rebel at once and my usually strongest ally, Austria-Hungary, fell under a PU with Russia, my rival. So all of Eastern Europe and Northern Asia is now one big green blob that wants me dead.

[tonberrian]

Heck yeah!

Spawned Colonialism in my territory, as Ottomans. Not as hard as I thought it'd be.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Sale on payday, time for DLC. What's MANDATORY besides Common Sense?

[tonberrian]

Sale on payday, time for DLC. What's MANDATORY besides Common Sense?

Mandate of Heaven and Cossacks are my picks. Estates and Ages are all fun and games and I have no complaints.

Edit: Also Rights of Man. My god, disinheriting heirs is so useful.

[Valley]

Could anybody suggest a good YouTube tutorial for EUIV. I got a few hundred years of playing on CKII left and have the converter, so plan to see if I can continue the Byzantine Empire in EUIV. But I need to really learn the ropes first.

I have the DLCs: Conquest of Paradise, Res Publica, Wealth of Nations, and Women In History.

Any suggests and is there a DLC I must have to make it easier/more interesting to play?

[riswansupriadi]

hello gammers....
amazing game, this good forum

[Nerd-o-rama]

Mandate's only 10% off because it's new. Thinking Common Sense and...I want Art of War and Cossacks both eventually, but I'm trying to spread my expenditures out. Maybe just grab one at a time if I'm not getting everything with good general mechanics at once...

[Sian]

Sale on payday, time for DLC. What's MANDATORY besides Common Sense?

Act of War is probably the most mandatory DLC, Rights of Man is also up there

[CozJa]

Art of War must be taken!

[Leecros]

Could anybody suggest a good YouTube tutorial for EUIV.

I enjoyed watching Arumba's tutorial series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1DesDCb2WU&list=PLH-huzMEgGWC4jPjzdV9H5TQ7vbrUDCWx) with FilthyRobot. I don't know how good it is at actually teaching the game though and Arumba had a tendency to deviate into just doing things without explaining why on occasion. Especially during wartime. They also played that game over a kind of tumultuous period between patches where paradox wasn't really sure what they wanted to do with Forts amongst other things which led to the occasional "This is like this" "Now it's like this" moments.

They also start in a much harder position than you probably will be(Scotland). Depending on how large and powerful your Byzantine Empire game is, you might not really even need to watch a tutorial series. Unlike Crusader Kings where you want to start small while learning and larger empires are harder to manage, EUIV is the opposite. The larger you are, the easier the game is(generally).

[Eldan]

In general, I'd agree to that. Maybe, before you port your safe, start up a game as France, Spain, Ottomans, Ming, a country like that. One that is big, doesn't have many obligations (so, not Austria) and is not surrounded by too many enemies (don't border the Ottomans).

Have the Wiki open, too, or you'll be totally lost.

You'll have a general idea about things like budgets, manpower, etc. if you played CKII, but there's more stuff to watch. A few general things:

In general, the game is much less about people and more abut countries. Your alliance is not with King Louis, it's with France. It doesn't end on anyone's death. Until recently, monarchs didn't have personalities, either. Neither did advisors, nobles, etc. Following from that, there's a lot more numbers. There's tons of national and provincial numbers. However, you don‘t really need to monitor them all, usually you get a general idea about what they do from the name (more discipline good, more inflation bad).

A few of your „national numbers“:

Monarch points:
Fans jokingly call them „Mana“. These are your main power source. Everything that doesn‘t cost money costs mana. They come in three flavours, administration, diplomacy and military. (Trade falls under diplomacy). Their most common use is to buy tech levels every few years, but you also use them to develop provinces, make national decisions, increase or decrease various values.
You get a base number of them, plus a number between 0 and 6 of each per month based on your monarch, plus between 0-3 depending on the skill of your advisors.

Your top bar from left to right:
Money: how much you have and whether it‘s going up or down. Note that money is more complicated than in Crusader Kings: if this goes to zero, your country will automatically take a loan. A loan automatically charges you interest every month and generates some inflation (which can lead to a viscious cycle.

Manpower: this is pooled for your entire nation. Unlike in Crusader Kings, your army will not be called to serve and gathered in case of war, but will be a standing army, that you can station where you want. If manpower is above 0, your units will automatically refill, which also costs money.

Stability: a value between -3 and +3, in whole numbers. Mainly influences how many rebels you get and how quickly, but also changes a lot of other numbers in big or small ways. This will go down for bad omens like comets, some national decisions you make and whenever yourf ruler dies. Buying it back up usually costs administrative points.

Prestige: Between -100 and +100. Does a lot of stuff, from diplomacy to internal stability to trade income. Goes down by making unpopular decisions and losing wars, goes up from victories in war and some decisions like investing in the arts or sciences.

Legitimacy: starts at 100, usually, and goes down if people don‘t like your ruler. Can make your country explode with rebels.

A few more concepts not in CKII:

Diplomacy: you have a limited number of diplomats (snomewhere between 2 and 4, usually), and they have travel times, depending on the distance between your capital an theirs. Increasing someone‘s opinion of you or spying on them means leaving a diplomat in their capital for years, which requires some planning. Contracts, alliances, declarations of war, etc. happen immediately.

Declarations of war: like CKII, there is the concept of Casus Belli. Unlike CKII, you can declare war without one, it‘s just usually a bad idea, since it gives you aggressive expansion and costs a lot of stability.

Alliances: unless you have majorly pissed them off, allies will come to your defense if you are attacked, but will only help you in exchange for land, money or favour (favour is earned over time or for helping them with their wars.)

War Exhaustion: as your soldiers die or provinces are occupied, this goes up. High exhaustion will lead to rebellion and will lower the regeneration of your manpower. This is usually the thing that stops you from constantly waging war.

Trade: very complicated. I sure as hell don‘t fully understand trade, even after a thousand hours in the game. You don‘t need to. Very basically: trade flows along trade routes from node to node, from sources to destinations. Nodes produce a certain income, based on how much trade flows into them. This money is distributed based on trade power in that node, which is based on how many provinces you have near that node, and how rich they are, but can also be increased by sending trade ships. You have merchants, like diplomats, who can be sent do any trade node you can see, to do either Trade Steering, which means controlling where the trade goes from that node along the network (you want this to go towards your home, obviously), or to make money from that trade node.

[Valley]

Thanks Eldan and Leecros,

Looks like I need to watch a few videos and just jump in the deep end and get a feel of the game. Thanks again!

[tonberrian]

Seconding Ottomans as a nice safe game, particularly if you have Rights of Man. You have a number of things that makes an Ottomans game have handrails, though there are a few things to worry about. Ottomans has a lot of content, almost all of it in your favor - you have one of the best ways of generating heirs through the unique Ottoman government type (in Rights of Man) - whenever your emperor turns thirty, an event will fire that gives you three sons to choose from, generated randomly, and usually at least one of them is good. Rights of Man also allows you to bump off your heir for a prestige hit, which fires the event again. The Janissaries is a great modifier that lasts until the end of the game, but can lead into a disaster if you're not careful (though with Rights of Man choosing your heirs makes this much easier to avoid).

Geopolitically, almost no-one will mess with Ottomans unless you really upset them (read: take catholic provinces). You've got basically everywhere else to expand towards, though, and the only real fights are Timurids (which often collapse into rebellion) and the Mamluks, who will never recover if you beat them that first war (and you will get missions to point you there).

[Aotrs Commander]

Trade: very complicated. I sure as hell don‘t fully understand trade, even after a thousand hours in the game. You don‘t need to. Very basically: trade flows along trade routes from node to node, from sources to destinations. Nodes produce a certain income, based on how much trade flows into them. This money is distributed based on trade power in that node, which is based on how many provinces you have near that node, and how rich they are, but can also be increased by sending trade ships. You have merchants, like diplomats, who can be sent do any trade node you can see, to do either Trade Steering, which means controlling where the trade goes from that node along the network (you want this to go towards your home, obviously), or to make money from that trade node.

I actually made an effort to understand trade and after reading this extremely helpful guide The Curiously Inscrutable Principles of Trade Mechanics of Europa Universalis 4 (http://econopunk.com/2016/10/17/the-curiously-inscrutable-principles-of-trade-mechanics-of-europa-universalis-4-aka-another-eu4-trade-guide/), I think I have actually some reasonable grasp now. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to try and wrap their head around it.

[tonberrian]

I have no idea what to do with all these ducats. Well, I buy manufactories by the dozen, of course, but still. An income of 100+ ducats a month with tier 3 advisors is living the life.

[Leecros]

I have no idea what to do with all these ducats. Well, I buy manufactories by the dozen, of course, but still. An income of 100+ ducats a month with tier 3 advisors is living the life.


https://i.imgflip.com/1r1x6i.jpg

[Sian]

I have no idea what to do with all these ducats. Well, I buy manufactories by the dozen, of course, but still. An income of 100+ ducats a month with tier 3 advisors is living the life.

More Mercenary, More Conquest

[Leecros]

So does anyone enjoy some delicious, delicious Ottoman Gore?
https://s15.postimg.org/thnmgfvmz/ottoman_gore.png

I made a run at Big Blue Blob and fell short of the 100 province goal by less than 10 and the problem traced back to an accidental Humiliate Rival war against Denmark. so I got mad and decided to Venice with a new tactic that I've never tried before called "Vassalize Byzantium"

Near the end of the war, The Ottomans declared on them and miy reaction was just "Whelp. Time to bring The Ottomans into a war with Austria, Poland, and Lithuania before 1450. 100k vs 30k. I don't think The Ottomans are long for this world.

[Flickerdart]

Poland and Austria are good for something that early on? I'm surprised.

[Nerd-o-rama]

They're two of the stronger European powers that aren't already embroiled in a war or with a mission to immediately get embroiled in a war that they always take. They're the big stick for any of the minor Eastern European Christians to befriend to avoid getting turned green.

[Leecros]

So I've decided to make an attempt at doing a World Conquest as The Ottomans...which is one of the easiest nations to do a world conquest with due to their initial size and proximity(they're Hands Down the strongest nation at the start of the game).

I'm coming up on the half-way mark(1600) and I think i'm doing....okay.
https://s4.postimg.org/66cyhvhod/Ottoman_WC.png

I'm a bit hesitant, because the mid-game mark is generally where I start slowing my conquering spree down and I really wish I was farther into Central Europe. I'm also a bit concerned with India and Asia as I cannot create Client States in those regions due to the rather asinine "Overseas" definitions. That's all going to have to be either ruled by me or fed to a vassal.

As for Europe I...have been fortunate in not getting blocked in by Hungary or Poland, but the HRE is a pretty solid wall at the moment.I can't quite beat a coalition consisting of all of the HRE minors, so my inroads into Europe have been much smaller than my liking. I managed to get a rather advantageous alliance with Muscovy early, but that has broken down due to territory disputes involving Polotsk, Smolensk(both of whom are my vassals) and the Great Horde.

Overall i'm reluctant to say that I have a fair chance at completing a WC...I don't feel like I'm expanding quickly enough, but I also know that it's not rare for me to double or triple in size once Imperialism comes knocking.

[Sian]

Mind that late game is where the game allows you to get away with conquering larger and larger parts, due to Administrative efficiency (Specially now that Absolutism boosts this) and superior CBs (Imperialism)...

Also ... you're not quite at the halfway mark yet ... your in 1578, and the halfway mark is 1635(ish) ... 1/3th of the way?

[Leecros]

Also ... you're not quite at the halfway mark yet ... your in 1578, and the halfway mark is 1635(ish) ... 1/3th of the way?

Well, I like to say that 1600 is the half-way mark, because it's a nice round number and is the end of the Age of Reformation which is basically the half-way mark on the list of Ages. It's not quite accurate, but it's close enough.

However, you are right. Considering the fact that the game goes from 1445(1444 is not even two months) to 1820. 375 years pass throughout the game and the mid-point would be something like June of 1632.

[Gnoman]

I found out I own this game (only have Mandate of Heaven as DLC) recently, and have been playing with it (only have Mandate of Heaven as DLC) a bit. I am quite confused about something. Starting a game as England in 1444, Scotland is locked into an alliance with France that makes warring against either impossible to win (if I try fighting France, Scotland can pour over the border; if I try fighting Scotland, France gains a lot of warscore by siezing my Continental possessions; don't have the land cap to fight both) and relegating me to picking off small Irish nations.

If, however, I start a game as Castile, England's AI invariably gobbles up Scotland within a few years, with France sitting out.

Is this just a case of mechanics working differently for the AI, or is there something I could be doing to get around this alliance?

[Nerd-o-rama]

England starts with a big navy and France starts with bupkis in terms of crossing the Channel, so that helps in keeping French troops from helping the Scots. France also often declares on England to take Normandy or Aquitaine (the AI might also do the reverse and have England declare on France, I don't know. I wouldn't).

If Scotland sits out the inevitable French/English war, that's great for England as once they finish the war with France, they can attack Scotland while France has a peace treaty with them and take most or all of the country in a single war (certainly enough to form Great Britain). If Scotland does join the war, it's tough for England, but if they can wipe out the Scottish armies and keep the French from landing troops, it's more than doable.

[Gnoman]

England starts with a big navy and France starts with bupkis in terms of crossing the Channel, so that helps in keeping French troops from helping the Scots. France also often declares on England to take Normandy or Aquitaine (the AI might also do the reverse and have England declare on France, I don't know. I wouldn't).


I get that part. The trouble isn't France invading England proper, it is that they occupy all of the territories England starts with in France right away since I don't have the armies needed to defend those and crush Scotland at the same time. They get enough warscore from that that I can't seem to get the Scots to give up even with the entire country occupied.

[Nerd-o-rama]

What you mainly want to do is engage France separately from Scotland. This can be done in one of a couple of ways:

1) Improve relations with Scotland or France until they're unwilling to join a war with each other (severely unlikely)
2) Attack one of Scotland's allies who isn't allied with France, bringing Scotland into the war but avoiding bringing in France. Alternatively, attack one of France's allies who isn't Scotland, get a peace treaty with France from a win or a loss, then attack Scotland.
3) If you do get in a war with both, negotiate with Scotland separately by clicking their flag on the truce screen. It will only take into account their individual warscore with you and if you've obliterated and occupied Scotland proper, you should be able to arrange a beneficial separate peace from them, independent of how badly France is taking back continental territory. This should work as long as Scotland isn't the "war leader" for their side, which means you need to declare on France if it's an offensive war on your part.


This is important chicanery for taking apart power blocs and expanding throughout the game. If you want to get a real taste for how screwy alliances and breaking them apart can get, try playing as a Daimyo in Japan, aka one of like 20 minor powers of equivalent strength who form tenuous alliance webs with each other and have to swallow each other in a series of wars in order to challenge their overlord and form Japan.

[Gnoman]

2) Attack one of Scotland's allies who isn't allied with France, bringing Scotland into the war but avoiding bringing in France. Alternatively, attack one of France's allies who isn't Scotland, get a peace treaty with France from a win or a loss, then attack Scotland.

Tried this, France got called in anyway.


3) If you do get in a war with both, negotiate with Scotland separately by clicking their flag on the truce screen. It will only take into account their individual warscore with you and if you've obliterated and occupied Scotland proper, you should be able to arrange a beneficial separate peace from them, independent of how badly France is taking back continental territory. This should work as long as Scotland isn't the "war leader" for their side, which means you need to declare on France if it's an offensive war on your part.

I had no idea that this was possible. I've seen a few cases of independent negotiations, but had no idea how (or if - for all I knew it was event-flagged) I could do it myself.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Tried this, France got called in anyway.

Shouldn't be possible unless you marked Scotland as a co-belligerent, unless there's some kind of tributary or guarantee shenanigans or something very strange happened to the Holy Roman Empire. That saves you Diplo points when you start annexing territories, but sort of defeats the goal here.

But yeah sounds like separate peace negotiations are the way to go here. They are extremely important for making wars more manageable in a variety of situations, from taking territory from a minor to breaking apart large but geographically distant alliance blocs.

[Leecros]

There doesn't have to be any complex shenanigans involved. France can't land troops on England Proper or rescue Scotland from your armies. Hang your continental claims out to dry and declare a war on Scotland for one of Scotland's provinces. Occupy that province as quickly as possible followed by the rest of Scotland and keep France off of Britain.

One of two things will happen. Scotland's enthusiasm will tank to the point where they will concede and you'll win, or 5 years will pass and Scotland will automatically capitulate. The one problem with this happening is that France will take your continental holdings for themselves except for Calais which they usually transfer control of over to Scotland. If that happens, then the whole 5 years thing won't happen, but you should still be able to wear Scotland out faster than you wear yourself out.

This all boils down to a really important mechanic in the game called Ticking Warscore. Ticking Warscore is the gain(or loss) of warscore due to completing the wargoal(or not completing the wargoal). With Conquest, the wargoal is to occupy the province you have a claim on.So that's pretty straightforward. You gain up to 25 warscore just by occupying that province.

The drawback to this tactic is that there is a slight test of endurance. You will gain war exhaustion from the occupied holdings in France and that could cause rebellion to flare. However, It's absolutely possible to crush Scotland while they are still allied to France.

[Sian]

There doesn't have to be any complex shenanigans involved. France can't land troops on England Proper or rescue Scotland from your armies. Hang your continental claims out to dry and declare a war on Scotland for one of Scotland's provinces. Occupy that province as quickly as possible followed by the rest of Scotland and keep France off of Britain.

Or closely monitor the number of transports France have, and let them send over small enough armies that you can handle followed by you re-blockading their ports

[Nerd-o-rama]

And of course, all that can be done a lot quicker and more reliably if you can negotiate a separate peace with Scotland. Then you can send your armies down to fight France or just let them have Normandy so you can focus on exploration/colonization.

[Gnoman]

Thanks. I just restarted and wound up giving away my white-elephant territories in France away to get them out of the war while I grabbed Scotland. I can always try taking them back at a later date after Scotland and Ireland have been pacified.

[Flickerdart]

Thanks. I just restarted and wound up giving away my white-elephant territories in France away to get them out of the war while I grabbed Scotland. I can always try taking them back at a later date after Scotland and Ireland have been pacified.
Intentionally boosting the BBB and then planning to fight them later? Bold.

[Leecros]

Intentionally boosting the BBB and then planning to fight them later? Bold.

It's pretty much recommended for new players to give that land away anyway. It takes a lot of skill and luck to beat France in an early war vs France and most guides just recommend giving that land up either in a war or diplomatically.

As long as the player keeps up with their navy and makes sure to have a larger one than France at all times, then there's not really much France can do against them. Even if England goes and starts working on Scandinavia. Which is a fairly typical move for a human England that's been kicked off the mainland.

[Gnoman]

I pretty much immediately decided that those territories were indefensible on terms of pure geography due to the way they're divided, as well as the fact that a two-front war is extremely likely unless you've conquered the entire British isles (even a single-county Irish nation would tie up enough troops to make fighting France hard). My next conquest will probably be Iceland, after consolidating Britain.

[russdm]

Buying Main Game, will buy DLC later; Can I get people's thoughts on them, which ones I would definitely want?

[Eldan]

Depends a bit on what you want to play.

I'd probably get Common Sense and Art of War first, as they probably just do the most things, though to be honest, I can never quite remember what were DLC-only features and what was generally available.

[Sian]

wait for a sale ... its quite common that there is a 75% discount on everything but the 2-3 most recent DLCs

[Artanis]

Depends a bit on what you want to play.

I'd probably get Common Sense and Art of War first, as they probably just do the most things, though to be honest, I can never quite remember what were DLC-only features and what was generally available.
Looking on the wiki, I have to agree with this. Art of War doesn't change gameplay so much as it adds so many QoL improvements that I can hardly imagine playing without it; seriously, there are things in it that I had just assumed were in vanilla. Common Sense, meanwhile, includes the ability to spend MP to increase province development, which the rest of the game has been balanced around (something that Paradox regrets, btw).

Once you have those, I'd say that Mare Nostrum, Wealth of Nations, and The Cossacks add the most general stuff. The others are generally quite focused on one region or type of gameplay (e.g. Conquest of Paradise only does anything if you're doing a lot of stuff in the New World).




wait for a sale ... its quite common that there is a 75% discount on everything but the 2-3 most recent DLCs

100% this.

[Leecros]

Common Sense, meanwhile, includes the ability to spend MP to increase province development, which the rest of the game has been balanced around (something that Paradox regrets, btw).

They might regret it, but it's still better than the old Base Tax system that they had before....and while improving development is a huge help for institutions. Institutions are still better than the old tech group system which was severely dated.

[Artanis]

To clarify, Paradox regrets putting it behind a paywall, and wishes that they had put it in the free patch instead.

[Aotrs Commander]

Cross-posting this to the major PDX threads as a heads' up: if you were affected by the non-US price increase and bought something you might be able to get a free doofer.


After exploring options with our sales partners, we’ve come to the conclusion that partial refunds (as in, refunding the price difference) aren’t practically possible. Instead, we will gift everyone who purchased any Paradox product between May 17 and today (including pre-orders of Steel Division: Normandy 44 made before May 17), in any currency except USD (where prices were not changed), a free copy of a full PC game or two DLC, as a gesture of goodwill.

The games on offer will be:

Stellaris
Hearts of Iron IV
Crusader Kings 2
Europa Universalis IV
Magicka 2
Tyranny


OR, if you prefer, TWO from the list of the following DLC:

HoI IV: Death or Dishonor
EU IV: Third Rome
CK II: Monks and Mystics
Stellaris: Utopia
Tyranny: Tales from the Tiers


Should you happen to already own all of the above then the system will credit you equivalent giftable keys.

Link (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/pricing-change-rollback-information-thread-latest-news-here.1031635/)

[Artanis]

So in my current game, I decided to go vassalize Ternate and Tidore, rather than have to colonize everything by myself. When I did so, the first time I opened the subject management screen while at war, I discovered that somehow, both were running deficits. Upon investigating their capitals, I found that both of them had filled their three building slots* with the same thing:
-A temple, which is completely reasonable,
-A fort, which is usually kinda dumb, but tolerable for a rich OPM with no allies, and
-A dock.

A friggin' DOCK. I can literally think of only one province in the entire game that is a better place for a workshop than Ternate and Tidore, and BOTH of them decided to go with a DOCK instead.

*grumble grumble*

I'm tempted to go to PDX's suggestions forum and suggest making the AI stop building so d*** many docks.




*I'm trying out the flat development option, so every province started out as 4/4/3

[russdm]

Got Common Sense and Art of War. Have started first game as France. Planning to have games as Austria, England, Scotland, Cherokee (Because of Heritage, A MultiGreatGrandparent was one), Someone to form Prussia, and most definitely Japan. With having everything for Vic 2, I can transfer the save over there to keep going.

Liking game so far. Still have eu3 chronicles, but had issues getting it to install on my laptop, while it got installed on my tower computer. Anyway, off to see how much land I can retake as France. (I may try out a game as Ottomans or Castila or Portugal, but those aren't really countries that I am really interested in, though I may do Ottomans)

[Nerd-o-rama]

Was messing around with Brandenburg this weekend. I'm still not very good at this game, but I did manage to form Prussia. I don't have the Cossacks so I can pretty much use Austria and Poland as attack dogs to get the needed territory very quickly (even with the Cossacks I assume I could just offer Poland parts of Teuton territory and then beat up Pomerania by myself).

Then I watched a 40 minute video on HRE mechanics and still didn't understand them so I just started conquering stuff.

I did have some impressive luck there. No Polish-Lithuanian PU, France is dead, Burgundy is somehow still alive (and splitting France with their rival, England). I'm continuing with that game mostly to see where European politics goes rather than because I have a particularly good base/pace going.

[Sian]

I'm mildly confused ... the whole of your post sounds like you want someone to assess your play and help you understand something, but I can't quite understand what you want the help for, other than something vaguely surrounding HRE ...

[Nerd-o-rama]

I'm exhausted and vaguely rambling about my still-noobish gameplay experience in a game that hasn't it 1550 yet. It's not important.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Just sharing is a thing, don't fret.

I'm playing a MEIOU game as Alwa, and it's... tricky. Unifying Nubia is easy, my borders were pretty much modern Sudan (minus South Sudan). But Nubia starts out as basically tribal, with advanced Ethiopia and Mamluks on either side of me. Luckily the Mamluks are a paper tiger, and after a vicious plague swept through Egypt killing about a tenth of their population, the Hafsids, the Rassids and I have basically taken to dismantling them. Now all the Nile is mine up to the Delta, which is still Mamluk!

My original plan was to have two cities, my capital of Soba (outside modern day Khartoum), and Dongola, but Dongola was close enough to Egypt to get hit by the plague pretty hard, so it's pretty much a ruined shell of a city now. Shame. Well, Soba has 50k people in it, which is the largest city south of Cairo (a sad 80k after plague and multiple sackings, down from it's game-start population of 350k), north of Kilwa (60k in modern Tanzania), west of Sanaa (50k, capital of massive Rassid empire), east of Kanem (60k, lake Chad is rich yo)

Meanwhile, in West Africa, I've been excited to watch how dynamic the population mechanics make the region; Several regions in West Africa, specifically along Lake Chad and the ***** River, have quite a few major cities, and the Oyo tribe has actually become a huge empire in modern Nigeria, pretty much unifying the Yorumba people, and tripling in size from their original start position. Meanwhile, Northern Africa has condensed into two powerful tribes, who've done a strange switch. The Hafsids have, well, lost their dynasty, and are now the Abdulwadids/Zayyanids, and control all of Tunisia and Libya, as far as the Nile Delta. Tlemcen have lost their previous Abdulwadid/Zayyanid dynasty, and now the "Essaids" (Is that supposed to be al-Sayyids?) control all of Algeria and the vast majority of Morocco and Mauritania.

Largest cities in Africa are pretty impressive to be honest.
In addition to the cities listed above, there's major cities in Fes (70k, former capital of the Marinids, sacked from it's original 120k), Tlemcen (50k, capital), Tunis (60k, capital), Niani (90k, the capital of the Mali Empire, up from 50k), Timbuktu (50k, still in Mali), Kano (70k! Capital of the tribe of the same name, up from 30k), Zazzau (50k, Capital of the tribe of the same name), Nufi (50k, former capital of the Nupe tribe), but most shockingly, Oyo-Ile, with 110k residents, doubled what it starts as!
10 Largest cities in Europe:
Paris (170k), Granada (160k), Milan (140k), Florence (120k), Venice (110k), Genoa (100k), Kaffa (100k, a Genoese colony in the Crimea), Naples (100k) Toledo (90k), Constantinople (90k),
6 largest cities in Asia
Baghdad (170k), Tabriz, Azerbaijan (150k), Bursa, Turkey (100k), Isfahan, Persia (100k), Izmir, Turkey (100k), Shiraz, Persia (70k)

[russdm]

Wondering what would be the most effective Daimyo to use for unifying Japan and then getting started on expanding into the Pacific. Does it matter as far as starting date goes? I have seen a YouTube video of a Japanese empire timelapse so was curious for advice.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Before MoH, I always went Uesugi in 1444 (plenty big, good ruler, easy access to Takeda's gold mine). I haven't bought Mandate of Heaven, though, and I'm not messing around in East Asia again until I do, so I haven't tried since they added all the new guys and new shogun interactions.

[Sian]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/854975099033157063/6BC31494A79B104EF02519716BBE6555F02B659E/

Inspired by the previous Dev Diary (realignment of Arabia) I've restarted after a short break (where I've focused on Stellaris ... which probably aren't saturated enough (both in event-weight and AI competence) for my continued playing) finally getting around getting "Third Way" Achievement, which is the one where you have to eradicate Sunni and Shia as an Ibadi nation and decided to play Oman ... some 80 years in and I've swapped Culture to Baluchi with the intention of forming Mughals soonish, currently beating up Delhi for Lahore and Sirhind, Timurids are chaining Civil wars (at 0 Horde unity and -3 Stab) so Roh should be fairly trivial to conquer, but Jaunpur (which owns Central Doab and Dehli) is annoying enough to have allied Ottos (who decided to hate me for our ugly border in Iraq which happened because they ate the bits of Timurids that didn't secede from Persia's first independence rebellion, immediately after I had conquered up through Persia), so I'm looking into what would be the least clunky way to take those provinces without Ottomans being invited to the war. Colonizing Andamans and get a claim on Pegu (who are one of their other allies), and seperate peacing Jaunpur for removing their alliance with them seems to be the best way ... and at the same time this would mean that I can start claiming on Indonesia.
In fear of Ottomans declaring on me, I've felt forced to become a tributary of Ming :S

[Leecros]

Well, i'm continuing my Ottoman Conquest attempt and it's now coming up on 1625. I haven't really played it much as World conquests really just feel like a chore sometimes...

https://s2.postimg.org/k8a8n339l/Ottoman_WC.png

As you can see, I haven't really expanded a whole lot. (for reference, here's (https://s4.postimg.org/66cyhvhod/Ottoman_WC.png) my empire 50 years earlier).

I'm not super happy with my expansion rate...especially in areas such as India and Central Asia. I ran into an unexpected problem in Ming. Ming has most of northern India and the entirety of Central Asia as their Tributary. This means that any war that I wage in that region; they get involved.

Let me emphasize that I can beat Ming in a war. I have done it twice now. However, every war that they get involved with means several years of pushing them back out of the region i want to attack(and sometimes sneaky armies that take a more northerly approach) and just a huge headache in general until I push them out of the war.

I should probably focus on breaking them. I think my next war is going to be pushing through The Oirat so that I can border them and then invade through their realm before they build level 8 Forts everywhere.

To the west, I have made some important inroads in Italy and the most important acquisitions: Poland and Aragon are my vassals. I used Reconquest to rip a large chunk of land out of Spain and intend to do the same to the Teutonic Order and Bohemia(betraying my long-term ally)

I'm less worried about Europe than i am about Asia and the New World(which i have no map information on yet :/). I plan on making France an ally to protect myself from any major Coalitions and can always create Client Kingdoms in that region once Imperialism comes around.

for the New World, I'm hoping that Spain's colonies will break free in the next 50 years or so and cause problems for other colonial powers in that region.

Ming is the big frustration i think. If i manage to break Ming's power on India, then I'll be able to sweep through there with little resistance.

Years Left: 195

[Akisa]

I'm currently staying with patch 1.18 due to no longer liking the balance changes, DLC spam.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah I'm considering a rollback to 1.19 because Mandate of Heaven feels like a mandatory (see what I did there?) patch at this point and I really don't want to pay full price for it.

(See also Lee's problems with Ming; they were a lot more of a paper tiger before the MoH patch and they apparently become a huge nuisance now without owning MoH and having the option to go to war to seize the Emperor of China title.)

[Leecros]

(See also Lee's problems with Ming; they were a lot more of a paper tiger before the MoH patch and they apparently become a huge nuisance now without owning MoH and having the option to go to war to seize the Emperor of China title.)

I don't really have a problem with Ming itself. The only reason complaining about them is because the mechanics make World Conquest more difficult...which isn't really a problem as World conquests should be unreasonable goals anyways...Ming should be powerful until the late 1500's early 1600's when they began their decline.

Although....I do have a mechanical problem with their tributaries. Nations are perfectly happy to sit around and be Ming's Tributary for the entire game and because non-tributaries can't attack them without Ming's involvement(and thus do not due to Ming's status as strongest nation in Asia); Tributaries tend to gobble each other up and the surrounding non-tributary lands. Then it seems like they're content to just sit around and stay Ming's Tributary forever. This means that an invading force now has to deal with a nation that's fairly powerful in their own right and Ming and its 200k troops.

Ming should have ways to keep their tributaries small and weak and powerful tributaries should be more inclined to break free from their tributary status or go for Emperor of China.

[Mari_Lilac]

Well, i'm continuing my Ottoman Conquest attempt and it's now coming up on 1625. I haven't really played it much as World conquests really just feel like a chore sometimes...

#1 Reason I've never finished a world conquest, despite reading up on them, trying them out and then... tediousness making me bored and suddenly I don't play EU4 for a month...

[Flickerdart]

This means that an invading force now has to deal with a nation that's fairly powerful in their own right and Ming and its 200k troops.
Seems like a really good arrangement for the tributary nation, not sure why you think they ought to want to ruin it.

[Leecros]

Seems like a really good arrangement for the tributary nation, not sure why you think they ought to want to ruin it.

For the same reason regular vassals want independence? Because their overlord constantly drains their resources? Because when there's a few of them that could overthrow Ming together, they should definitely do so? Why be a servant of The Ming when you can become The Ming?

[tigerusthegreat]

I hate that they release a game and then 10 dlc pacs to finish it out. Only major complaint I have for paradox

[Leecros]

I hate that they release a game and then 10 dlc pacs to finish it out. Only major complaint I have for paradox

Unfortunately for you, that seems like it's going to be Paradox's policy for the time being. Personally I don't mind it. 15-20(sometimes 10) dollars every few months or so? It's still not nearly as much money as people spend on MMO's. However, I understand why people would dislike the policy...especially if they haven't invested as many hours into the game as I have.


Fortunately, Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV felt like complete games when they were released and you don't really need all of the DLC to get many hours of enjoyment out of them. Comparatively speaking Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV had much rockier releases as they felt pretty empty on release.

[tigerusthegreat]

Eu 3 felt broken when it came out, as did hoi3. Eu4 seems good and i love ck2 with only the base game. I just dont like it as a policy. I have over a thousand hours into various pi games

[Flickerdart]

For the same reason regular vassals want independence? Because their overlord constantly drains their resources? Because when there's a few of them that could overthrow Ming together, they should definitely do so? Why be a servant of The Ming when you can become The Ming?

Because then you get conquered by upstart human players.

[Sian]

Fortunately, Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV felt like complete games when they were released and you don't really need all of the DLC to get many hours of enjoyment out of them. Comparatively speaking Stellaris and Hearts of Iron IV had much rockier releases as they felt pretty empty on release.

Well, with CK2, IIRC they've been pretty up front about the next dlc being ... last or second last?, since they're really starting to feel the age and design bloat, so I wouldn't be surprised if they split half the team off soon to start brewing CK3

[Aotrs Commander]

Well, with CK2, IIRC they've been pretty up front about the next dlc being ... last or second last?, since they're really starting to feel the age and design bloat, so I wouldn't be surprised if they split half the team off soon to start brewing CK3

But they then later said they'll keep making stuff for CK2 and EUIV as long as people keep buying it, so now we don't know again.

[Leecros]

Well, with CK2, IIRC they've been pretty up front about the next dlc being ... last or second last?, since they're really starting to feel the age and design bloat, so I wouldn't be surprised if they split half the team off soon to start brewing CK3

There's barely anyone working on CKII as it is. A bunch of them were split off to work on other games already. Also they mentioned that they wouldn't make a sequel just for the sake of making a sequel. Someone mentioned in an interview that they would have to have a reason or enough new ideas that they couldn't currently implement in the current game for that to happen.

[russdm]

Tweaked the game files some. I swapped out the Byzantines in place of the Ottomans for the Lucky Nations list, and increased technology costs for Ottoman/Muslim tech groups. Mainly wondering if that will make the game not run. Made sure to have everything be correctly written.

Made the change to spice things up and to more properly reflect what actually occurred historically in that it was the Greeks who preserved their own cultural information, despite what certain historians claim without evidence.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Greeks eventually ruled over by Turks (with the rest fleeing to other nations and helping kickstart the Renaissance), yes. That's difficult to model in EU4, though. Might work better if they moved to using a system of POPs like Victoria 2 or Stellaris, with part of the Ottomans' strength coming from extremely high-literacy Greek pops they absorb early in the game, rather than simplistic country modifiers and special technology/government forms.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Greeks eventually ruled over by Turks (with the rest fleeing to other nations and helping kickstart the Renaissance), yes. That's difficult to model in EU4, though. Might work better if they moved to using a system of POPs like Victoria 2 or Stellaris, with part of the Ottomans' strength coming from extremely high-literacy Greek pops they absorb early in the game, rather than simplistic country modifiers and special technology/government forms.

Honestly, most of the games could be improved simulation-wise by a POP system, except maybe CK2, and even thta could use a little more demographics in it.

[Leecros]

Honestly, most of the games could be improved simulation-wise by a POP system, except maybe CK2, and even thta could use a little more demographics in it.

Crusader Kings 12 will be released in 2117 it's main feature will be the fact that the game will track all the people in the world. They'll all have their own traits and personality and marry and have kids that will also be tracked.

[Nerd-o-rama]

And the main fandom focus will still be converting characters to religions where they can marry their siblings.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Yeah, must say I'm SLIGHTLY weirded out by the Xedodah-cultists. Like, they literally only put that into the game so that the Game of Thrones modders could do their stuff. Half of the Zoro-fans just want their 'wincest'.

But I don't play with those mods so whatever :D

[Leecros]

And the main fandom focus will still be converting characters to religions where they can marry their siblings.

I bought one of my friends Crusader Kings II so that he and I could play multiplayer. So he and I played and I walked him through the basics and he decided to play in Ireland. I didn't say anything about all of the lustful "fun" you can partake in.

The game progresses, he becomes the king of Ireland and all of a sudden I hear "oh my god! I can sleep with my sister!"

His CKII life has never been the same.


Anyway, this is the EUIV discussion, not the CKII discussion. We probably shouldn't get them cross-contaminated

[Nerd-o-rama]

Last time that happened on Reddit I believe r/crusaderkings declared a Crusade and r/eu4 started fighting each other over colonial rights.

[Flickerdart]

Last time that happened on Reddit I believe r/crusaderkings declared a Crusade and r/eu4 started fighting each other over colonial rights.

"Did someone say Colonial Reichs?" -r/hoi4

[Nerd-o-rama]

"Did someone say Colonial Reichs?" -r/hoi4

Maybe when I actually buy Art of War and can Revolutionary Empire Germany. It's still colonialism when you just beat up your neighbors to make them concede their overseas territories, right?

Update, though, game's surprisingly playable with Common Sense only, just missing some of the more fun features and World Conquest feasibility. Just recently played a full Thomond -> Ireland -> Luck of the Irish game and an almost complete Date -> Japan game. Both as mainly Colonial empires, though, since I haven't figured out how to dent France or Ming, respectively, without using either a country with better combat NIs or Mandate of Heaven, respectively.

[Sian]

My Ibadi "Third Way" Oman->Mughals got played a bit more

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/867363083306783282/ECD142AA931DE19744628FD0D5AB1733AAB16511/

I've snaked my way through the Congo Basin with the intention of colonizing up the coast till I touch the West African nations for conquest, Snaking my way along the northern Ming border through Chagatai as Yeren have a couple of Sunni provinces on the Siberian seaboard, I've just managed to break the annoying alliance between Ottomans and Bahmanis (via declaring on Ceylon, Bahmanis' ally, and only taking alliance-break from Bah), and got a few provinces scattered around South East Asia.

Also have two Vassals in the North which have a lot of Cores that I can feed them, Khiva and Kazakh.

Interestingly enough, Morocco have conquered most of Southern and Western Iberia, leaving Portugal with only one continental province, and are currently guaranteeing OPM Castile that appears to have been losing several wars against Aragon (who got a Valois on throne, but somewhere along the way lost the PU over Naples). Other than that, the only thing of note is probably that PLC never happened, and both nations is all but nonexistant now, having been eaten by Teutons, Ottomans and Russia (in order of gains)

[tonberrian]

As a note, Paradox is doing a massive sale on their own online store. They give out steam codes, so no reason not to check it out if you're looking for some DLC.

[Caelestion]

I bought the recent Russian music pack for 50% off, so there's no excuse for not checking it out.

[Leecros]

Well, in an attempt to revitalize this discussion. The new DLC has been officially announced(even though the Dev Diaries have given us a pretty good idea of what's going to be in it). Here's the info on the Cradle of Civilization (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/europa-universalis-iv-cradle-of-civilization/EUEU04ESK0000048-MASTER.html).


In other news, I have to ask: Am I nativing properly yet?

https://s1.postimg.org/70atajtqxr/Maya.png
(Muisca is my vassal)

I know I haven't quite Native'd enough yet. There's still 200 years left in the game for that to happen, but I have to know whether or not I am nativing at an appropriate level.

Frankly, Even though i know that I'm nativing quite hard. I don't know about the long-term prospects of the game. As with many native games, the Europeans could come over and just roll me over at any time. My religion is reformed, but iIm still roughly nine techs behind the most technologically advanced nations and I don't get any special neighbor bonuses due to well....not having any neighbors.

Spain is getting crushed by a SuperFrance on the Mainland which has led to me and Muisca splitting Spain's colonial holdings over a number of wars. Then I force-vassalized Muisca.

Also I hate how Terra Incognita works now. Back in My Day (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/36/Eu3-win-cover.jpg/220px-Eu3-win-cover.jpg), When we westernized, we got vision of what the Europeeans were doing. Also it had a 50 year spread, so undiscovered provinces were explored in a reasonable period of time.

Nowadays, it feels like Terra Incognita takes a loooong time to lift naturally.

[Sian]

In other news, I have to ask: Am I nativing properly yet?

https://s1.postimg.org/70atajtqxr/Maya.png
(Muisca is my vassal)

I would argue that no, since you haven't annexed Inca.

And depending on what your end-goal is, there might have been better ways to spread out your colonization effort, but given that you haven't stated what that is it might be difficult to be certain about which route would have been the ideal

[Leecros]

I would argue that no, since you haven't annexed Inca.

And depending on what your end-goal is, there might have been better ways to spread out your colonization effort, but given that you haven't stated what that is it might be difficult to be certain about which route would have been the ideal

I'm not sure how I could have expanded much more quickly to eat the Incans. I could only really expand farther south at the rate of colonies and made it down to Panama before the Spanish colony cut me off. It's only been a few years since I reformed and slightly longer since I got conquistadors. the only way i can think of would have been to take the colonist reform earlier, but thats a mixed bag. However the Incan days are numbered.

As for my goal? Well I learned after starting that there's no Mayan cheevies (which is dumb). So really my goal is simply to become a great empire and practice nativing because its been a long time since I've played them. I have a LAN party Wednesday that I might decide to play a native faction. They can fight over Europe.

[Sian]

I have a LAN party Wednesday that I might decide to play a native faction. They can fight over Europe.

I would heartly suggest NO!! ... being the only one that plays with natives in LAN, is boring as hell ... at speed 2 you'll be twiddling your thumbs for up towards 3-4 hours with practically nothing to do ... and that is if people in Europe actually go out of their way to make it possible for you to get into the game fast, at which point you'll likely be underdog for quite a while ... If they're playing/destroys the traditional colonizers, it might well be even more that.

[Leecros]

Eh, the natives (specifically central and south American natives) aren't the ball of sadness and disappointment and boringness they used to be. As obnoxious as I find the reform mechanics to be, I cannot deny that it keeps the player busy. Especially the Mayans which fragment their country multiple times.

As for being the underdog... that I'm not worried about. I'm by far the most skilled player in our group and it doesn't bother me to be at a disadvantage.becides, the natives can often be underestimated and left to their own devices; they can make bank on their valuable trade goods and quickly outpace other players.

I believe it was the dev multiplayer game for Mandate of Heaven where one of the devs ended up as the Inca and threatened top score.

[Flickerdart]

Wasn't there some cheesy North American tribe you could migrate down to Central America with, convert to Mayan religion, and then blob like a maniac?

[Artanis]

Wasn't there some cheesy North American tribe you could migrate down to Central America with, convert to Mayan religion, and then blob like a maniac?

That would be Caddo: they could make contact with Mesoamericans with just two or three migrations, switch to Nahuatl, then reform the religion almost instantly because they start with North America - and all its OPMs - revealed.

[Eldan]

More than that. From what I understand, at least in older patches, the Nahuatl religion gave good bonuses, which were made up for by weak mesoamerican government types and culture. On the other hand, north American natives had good government types and some bonuses there, but very weak religions. So getting Nahuatl on a North American natives just gave you huge bonuses all around, as soon as you could reform.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I know it's CK2 not EU4, but I didn't feel like starting a whole new thread just for this.

I just had the shortest game ever. Decided to play in 1066 (pre-conquest) and do a Qarmatian Revival run in HIP mod. So I'm playing as the Jannabids, heretical rulers of al-Ahsa near Bahrain, and my first easy move is to reconquer the Bahraini peninsula proper. Well, my first Emir dies on October 3 1066 of old age. He was 71, so no biggy. My heir takes over the war, I outnumber the enemy 2-to-1 so I'm pretty confident. Until my Emir is confronted by freaking Ibrahim al-Hilali, stubborn bastard. I'm thinking "oh, so my new Emir is Proud, so he's not gonna back down". First and second rounds of combat I wound al-Hilali, but the damn man keeps on getting up, and on the third round he runs me RIGHT THROUGH and I die on the field of battle. October 21st, 1066, a reign of 18 days, and barely a game longer than that, as I had no heir.

[russdm]

I know it's CK2 not EU4, but I didn't feel like starting a whole new thread just for this.

I just had the shortest game ever. Decided to play in 1066 (pre-conquest) and do a Qarmatian Revival run in HIP mod. So I'm playing as the Jannabids, heretical rulers of al-Ahsa near Bahrain, and my first easy move is to reconquer the Bahraini peninsula proper. Well, my first Emir dies on October 3 1066 of old age. He was 71, so no biggy. My heir takes over the war, I outnumber the enemy 2-to-1 so I'm pretty confident. Until my Emir is confronted by freaking Ibrahim al-Hilali, stubborn bastard. I'm thinking "oh, so my new Emir is Proud, so he's not gonna back down". First and second rounds of combat I wound al-Hilali, but the damn man keeps on getting up, and on the third round he runs me RIGHT THROUGH and I die on the field of battle. October 21st, 1066, a reign of 18 days, and barely a game longer than that, as I had no heir.

That's why I rely on the Kill Code at times. "Was struck down by lightning"

[Sian]

I think i shoulda played in the lottery today

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/877499126472260083/964789EB7473547C0AFAA6875F0E4DFC361B6429/

the event have an mtth of 500000 months (that's 41666 years!), and can only fire if you have 100 Prestige ... rare as hens teeth that is

[Sian]

having finished my Third way run, I'm considering what my next one should be (should be able to fit one more run in before CoC), thinking Ryazan aiming for Kinslayer, Breaking the Yoke, Relentless Push East and the Orthodox achievements ...

Any other interesting campaigns to take a swing at?

[Caelestion]

You could try out the Third Odyssey mod on Steam, where the Palaiologoi take flight to the New World and become a small colonial nation in New England.

[Nerd-o-rama]

the event have an mtth of 500000 months (that's 41666 years!), and can only fire if you have 100 Prestige ... rare as hens teeth that is

I can't believe they'd put in an event like that just to screw with people who are expecting Comet Sighted.

Wait, yes I can.

Anyway I have no good campaign suggestions, I just now got An Early Reich/Ruina Imperii. I'm still working on that one, not because I think I'm going to get any more achievements, but because I really want to dismantle Lithuania and Ottoblob too. I'm incredibly surprised the former is still kicking (as a republic, even) after I ate Poland.

I was going to be a good Bismarck and take every European province with Germanic-group culture but then I realized that includes Dutch and Flemish and honestly I have 60 years left and I don't want to spend all of it blockaded by the Netherlands.


I do have a question, though. Even with more than the modern state of Germany under my belt I've still been losing money every time I built past half my force limit late-game. Is there a way to avoid that other than investing boatloads of Monarch Points and ducats into improving everything instead of techs and standing armies? Do I need to trade better? You get like three merchants total if you don't take any trade ideas, so it seemed more worthwhile to focus on buildings, but those themselves cost money which I usually didn't have because I was trying to beat France in an arms race or something.

[Sian]

I do have a question, though. Even with more than the modern state of Germany under my belt I've still been losing money every time I built past half my force limit late-game. Is there a way to avoid that other than investing boatloads of Monarch Points and ducats into improving everything instead of techs and standing armies? Do I need to trade better? You get like three merchants total if you don't take any trade ideas, so it seemed more worthwhile to focus on buildings, but those themselves cost money which I usually didn't have because I was trying to beat France in an arms race or something.

Post screenshots of Budget ... are you utilizing your state count properly?

[Akisa]

Here is a rant that is entirely my fault.



I'm starting a new game as Eastern Roman Empire, and Ottomans decide to attack me before I get alliance with Poland and/or Hungary. However it seems both powers had guaranteed me and I was allied to Albania. Fast forward through multiple wars and I'm working my way down the middle East and I find out that the game is not Iron man.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Post screenshots of Budget ... are you utilizing your state count properly?

I'm at work right now so it'll be a bit but can I ask what you mean by that? I'm pretty sure I have everything stated because I'm Empire rank and it's late game now, and I haven't expanded outside of my immediate area at all. Unless the game's lying to me when I click the button, I should be making a pretty good profit at low autonomy (which I have because I want Absolutism and haven't bought Rights of Man - I'd rather use my standing army to fight rebels from manually lowering autonomy than use Military Points anyway).

Maybe I did have some things unstated...I am absurdly behind on Admin Tech, which also means I might be losing money to Corruption even after I have things cored, I guess.

[Caelestion]

There's no might about it. It's something like 0.05 corruption per level of tech beyond tolerance (2, I think), and that quickly adds up. Having lots of colonies on the go at once also takes a scary amount of money, no matter how rich you are.

[Sian]

By utilizing states I mean having your largest (development-wise) areas as states and your smallest areas as territories ...

Using a state-slot on a single 3dev province on your border (with the rest of the area in foreign territory) is rather a waste of worth.

Anyhows ... Started a Coptoman run which I'm intending to push towards a Mare Nostrum Achievement run

[Leecros]

By utilizing states I mean having your largest (development-wise) areas as states and your smallest areas as territories ...

Using a state-slot on a single 3dev province on your border (with the rest of the area in foreign territory) is rather a waste of worth.


In Germany, that shouldn't be so much of a problem. Even the small states are pretty valuable.

[Nerd-o-rama]

Yeah all my states were rich former HRE provinces or Poland's more valuable trade goods. It was probably the tech difference corruption plus interest. I really need to not touch the loan button except when all my mercs are dead...

Also I got bored and started a Poland run. I am needing to be more careful with states because Poland/PLC can expand into a lot more crappy land than someone trying to form Germany. On the plus side, I invented T-34s several centuries early and have cleverly disguised them as horses so as not to clue the Russians in.

EDIT: comparing my bonuses in Poland game vs. Germany game I think the real difference is trade. In invested a lot more in Production infrastructure and controlling upstream trade nodes as PLC and it really helps my income. Basically as Germany I needed to eat more of Austria, Lithuania, and Russia than I did and maybe pay real life United States dollars for thr ability to move my trade capital to Lubeck.

[russdm]

Think going to get a test game running, after making a few more tweaks, than see how well matters run.

In regards to the other thread: Will there be a new thread for Crusader Kings 2 since the one is last commented on in August (Into Thread Necromancy) and if so, can the forum's CK 2 Let's Plays get links to read?

Enjoy reading those, and I liked the Tibet/Novgorod EU 4 Let's Play. Think links should be posted in first post, so people could read them, doing so helped me decide to buy Ck2 then also EU.

[Mabn]

So I'm playing a game as Carib. I migrated up to Central America and conquered basically the entire Mayan region. Rather than convert provinces as I went along, I decided to try to get religious rebels to change to the Mayan religion. My thought process was that if I modernized (or whatever the term is now) by reforming my religion I could get techs and institutions while keeping the excellent native council government. Problem is, nothing I do will make religious rebels spawn. I'm at about 6% religious unity, I've let all the separatism in my provinces go away, I've made the cultures in my provinces my accepted culture, I've stuck missionaries in my provinces just to see if it would irritate them. Still getting separatists everywhere. I can't change provinces to Carib culture since they aren't my religion, and the decision to culture shift wont appear even if I make one of my secondary cultures 50% of my development. Is changing my religion simply impossible?

[Leecros]

So I'm playing a game as Carib. I migrated up to Central America and conquered basically the entire Mayan region. Rather than convert provinces as I went along, I decided to try to get religious rebels to change to the Mayan religion. My thought process was that if I modernized (or whatever the term is now) by reforming my religion I could get techs and institutions while keeping the excellent native council government. Problem is, nothing I do will make religious rebels spawn. I'm at about 6% religious unity, I've let all the separatism in my provinces go away, I've made the cultures in my provinces my accepted culture, I've stuck missionaries in my provinces just to see if it would irritate them. Still getting separatists everywhere. I can't change provinces to Carib culture since they aren't my religion, and the decision to culture shift wont appear even if I make one of my secondary cultures 50% of my development. Is changing my religion simply impossible?

Your best bet to force religious rebels is to try and convert a province with a missionary and then go into your economy tab and drop missionary maintenance to 0(it's the one between Colonial maintenance and Root out Corruption). That will reduce the base chance of converting a province down to 0%. Then religious rebels eventually will spawn.

Typically unless you actually try to convert the province to a different religion, usually all you will get is separatists.

[Mabn]

Your best bet to force religious rebels is to try and convert a province with a missionary and then go into your economy tab and drop missionary maintenance to 0(it's the one between Colonial maintenance and Root out Corruption). That will reduce the base chance of converting a province down to 0%. Then religious rebels eventually will spawn.

Typically unless you actually try to convert the province to a different religion, usually all you will get is separatists.
so the transition isn't immediate? I'd been moving my missionary between provinces to see if one of them would work, I'll see if keeping the missionary in just one province is effective

Edit: new wrinkle. I put a missionary in a proving at 0% maintenance and kept them there, and religious zealots did spawn. I let them conquer my one animist province and gave into their demands. Now I'm at 0% religious unity and I still can't convert. How I'm still animist when every one of my provinces is mayan I just don't get.

[Sian]

Think I'm first going to buy CoC when Christmas/NewYears Sale is around (even if its only going to be a small decrease), not because it doesn't look promising, but because I don't see me being done with my current campaign before that, and hence won't upgrade my game to 2.23 before then

[Sian]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/879753787848446426/78A9329370A10FCF3C7FEC71DE3EFFB6D0F69CE7/

behold the Coptoman machine.

got free PU over France in 1495, and free PU over Saxony (who's an elector) just a few days ago ... 13 years ahead of time in all tech, got full Admin/Influence and are either going Diplomatic or Religious/Humanist (still not entirely certain, Deus Vult against the world vs the tasty goodies that Humanist have later on) next

[tonberrian]

There is nothing more satisfying than getting declared on, have allies bail on you, and you still manage to win an overwhelming victory.

Playing Ottomans, sometime in the 1460's. Planned on chewing on AQ and Razaman for a bit before confronting the buffed Mamluks. But in the middle of my war, Mamluks declare and Tunis and some arabian minors I allied jumped ship. Fortunately I'm at the top of my manpower and beating the pants off AQ, so I push for a bunch of new troops, and spend a huge excess of sword mana for Miltech 6 - giving me a decisive troop type and tactics advantage over the Mamluks. They went after my smaller stack sieging AQ, but with the better troops and tactics my guys finished off one group before reinforcements could arrive and managed to hold onto that siege. Finish up the AQ war right quick, I concentrate on grinding down the Mamluks who still have the raw numbers advantage (for the moment) and sieging down their stuff. Came away with a good half the Levant mission area, so woo! Gotta eat away at the mamluks so I can get to Tunis and punish them for their treachery, tho.

[Caelestion]

There is nothing more satisfying than getting declared on, have allies bail on you, and you still manage to win an overwhelming victory.

Well, you are playing the Ottomans.

[tonberrian]

Hmm. So far, Professionalism feels mostly like a bonus manpower reserve.

[Sian]

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/883132351295169854/D6EDA0B111F4DCC160C3A928FB49166E700887C7/

*groan*

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/500x/75920359/how-long-is-this-going-to-take-forever.jpg

[tonberrian]

Hey, at least you don't have to punch France. Like I have to.

[Caelestion]

How on earth did you get an RM with Catholic France? Did you exploit something to stop being Islamic?

[Sian]

I forced Coptic Rebels to spawn and got them to convert me to Coptic.

My intention is down the road is to try and provoke the League War (with me being on the opposing side) and stall the war to the point where Peace of Westphalia happens (by supplying the significant potion of the troops, only engaging in and so far as to keep the Catholics from winning) and then convince the Electors that they should elect me as the Coptic leader of HRE :smallcool:

Just saw a tweet from Johan (Creative director) where he pointed out that parts of the combat logic in the game, have been unchanged since early EU1! with a date saying that it was written in January 1999!

[Nerd-o-rama]

Coptomans is the classic strategy of "gee, Ottoman military isn't overpowered enough for a World Conquest, let me abuse Personal Unions too. Also, Copts get Core Cost Reduction with Rights of Man installed."

I guess what I'm saying is: that integration timer on France is karma for doing things the easy way.

[Eldan]

Halp, my map maker broke.

https://i.imgur.com/nsh1CdL.jpg

[Leecros]

Halp, my map maker broke.

https://i.imgur.com/nsh1CdL.jpg
I wasn't aware that there was a nation in the game called Zica(not to be confused with Zika).:smallamused:

[Akisa]

I'm doing a Sweden to Prussia run as 1.18, I'm wondering what events should I want before I switch to Prussia?

[Leecros]

I'm doing a Sweden to Prussia run as 1.18, I'm wondering what events should I want before I switch to Prussia?

That's actually a really hard question, because Sweden gets good events throughout the entirety of the game. One would think they get preferential treatment.

Essentially the want or need for a Sweden>Prussia game would be to get as many of Sweden's Good Events as possible while having Prussia's military ideas for the late-game mega wars. I would say that if I was going to do it, it would be just before getting Imperialism or at the latest by 1700. However, they get unique events all through the mid-1700's.


Personally, I probably would consider it not worth the effort unless I wanted to be cute. Sweden's Ideas aren't as good as Prussia's, but they're definitely acceptable and culture converting enough provinces to do a culture shift can be obnoxious if you've gotten very big. Which I have a tendency to do as Sweden since Poland-Lithuania tend to gobble up the Teutons rather quickly.

But hey, sometimes you gotta be cute. I remember a multiplayer game where I spent an hour renaming all of my provinces to My Land 1,2,3,etc.

[Mabn]

so, I'm playing an Ironman Poland game, and I was about to take the form commonwealth decision, but I saw that Muscovy was fighting England in a succession war to take Sweden (which considering I had prestige for days, had a royal marriage and was by far their closed ally should totally have partnered with me, but such is the Polish monarchy). Long story short, when I was getting a peace deal I figured I'd give Lithuania as many provinces as the Commonwealth decision would allow and save myself some overextension and coring costs. Unfortunately I misread the decision requirements as less than or equal to 48 provinces (and even rereading it, that's how it sounds to me). So I thought no problem, I'll just take one of their provinces, but apparently you can't do that with junior partners. How to I make a junior partner one Provence smaller?

[Leecros]

How to I make a junior partner one Provence smaller?

The only way i know how to quickly and easily is to "Lose" a war against another nation and give it up in a peace deal.

Another option if you're unwilling to do that would be to inherit/integrate Lithuania like you would any other junior partner and that'll give you a decision to "enforce the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth". Of course, that has it's obvious drawbacks of time and/or diplomacy point expenditures.

[Akisa]

When you're playing Multiplayer suddenly people start leaving voice chat and head to a different room. Welp time to turn up army maintenance! I need a meme image that.

[Caelestion]

Why would they do that? EU4 allows you to mute other players as and when you wish.

[Aotrs Commander]

So, with the annoucement of the new Rule Britannia immersion pack, I did a bit of digging and unearthed loads secret new features. This list was clearly obtained by careful hacking of PDX's internal databases and nothing whatsoever with that nice lady off of Broadchurch over there.



- England and Great Britain will suffer increasing unrest if they do not have access to Tea.

- If Britain is part of an empire larger than the British Isles, it will peroidically inexplicably start to become independant, like integration in reverse, but that takes a variable amount of time (hidden from the player) to complete and costing the empire a large amount of money. Sometimes, the process will halt halfway through and begin to reverse, which will incur even more costs.

- England and Great Britain will have their national ideas modified to gain a diplomatic reputation penalty, to accurately represent that they are the bad guys. Scotland will instead gain a bonus to diplomatic reputation to accuractely represent how people trust the Scottish accent.

- Scotland will gain a large boost to innovation, but this is can be negated by a special diplomatic mission from Great Britain to take all the credit.

- Several new nation specific advisors will occasionally spawn for England or Great Britian including Baldric, who generates negative monarchy points, and a mouse with an eyepatch that increases the success chance of espionage operations by +500%.

- A new event can occur in the British Isles: Rain. This reduces trade values, reduces army morale and diplomatic reputation with non-British nations to best represent time lost to discussion of weather. This event will fire twice as often as the Influenza event before the frequency was decreased.

- A nation specific building is available to England and Great Britain, the University of Cunning.

- Unrest in Britain will not spawn rebels, but instead spam the player with pop-up notifications containing politely-worded letters of complaint.

- Army AI has been improved so, that when more than one army is about to enter the same province, the British army will wait politely until the other armies have moved. If more than one army entering a province is a British army, they will instead form an orderly queue.

- A new soundtrack DLC will be released, but instead of Sabaton, it will be one variously composed by Cliff Richard, Oasis, Ozzie Osbourne and the Spice Girls, with some inspired by the Beatles1.

- Following the trend of CK2, new supernatural elements will be enabled as an options game rule. This enables the following features:
- Perodically, an crisis event chain will spawn for the controller of Cardiff or London, in which aliens, prehistoric creatures or other monsters will appear, stopping only when one of a series of strange men and one woman inexpliably appear in a blue box at the last minute.
- There are several more provinces in Britain in-between the regular provinces, which are only accessable when supernatural mode is turned on. In multiplayer, these provinces will not appear to other players unless they also have supernatural mode one.
- Merlin, a level ten advisor with no upkeep and a large boost to innovation, will occasionally spawn, but only if England or Great Britain is a monarchy and whose king is named Arthur.

- The DLC will contain many jokes and in-jokes delivered without any indication that they are intended to be humorous that British players will find hilarious and non-British people will be alternately bemused and bewildered by.

- The DLC will include the correct usage of "irony." Like steely or goldy, but made with iron.



I think that is everything, did I miss any?



1Yes, I am that far out of touch that was the best I can do. Hush.

[Sian]

Finally reached my goal for my Coptoman run (Mare Mostrum, although really, if i had the patience for it, I would still have some 150 years to WC it, specially since I'm also HRE with the attendant vassal swarm, and more then 4x stronger than number 2, Ming) ... any one got some interesting suggestions as for what my next run should be?