Europa Universalis IV

Yep, just realized that. And I'm not sure if it makes a difference or not, but I had my army maintenance scaled way back since I wasn't at war. Bumped that back up since a few rebellions just sprung up. The blockade was the big one though.

 

Well shit. Don't have some of the good DLC for CK2 on steam so I'll have to wait for an illegal copy of the converter.

No way I am doing a vanilla CK2 conversion.

 

France is kicking all ass. Was going to vassalize some electors to fuck with the HRE, but instead I think I'm just going to beat them up the old fashioned way.

 

Also, turned off lucky nations. Castile sucks and Austria lost the HRE to Bohemia. England was in trouble for awhile, but stabilized and are now beating up Burgundy, who no longer has an army or a treasury since I just finished a war with them.

 

You can convert with non-Steam CK2 just fine. Did it myself a few moments ago.

I'd say there's only one real problem with the converter, and that's the need to mix it up with the French and German subcultures (all Frankish provinces become Cosmopolitaine). Otherwise, it's a real nice piece of work.


I'll need Kodex Kool Konsensus on various things I'll work on the converted save before uploading it:

1) What should the Basque-dominated Empire of Hispania be called?

2) Should the Finnish Empire be called Karelia, Uralica, Finland-Permia, or what?

3) Burgundy-Italy, what do?

4) What's the national adjective for Empire of Albion (Welsh Empire of Britannia)? Brython? Albionian? Sheepshagger?

5) Persia is a theocracy. Zoros definately don't have an Archbishop. What ruler title to give?

 

1) Greater Euskal? Or just spain in basque which is "Espainia" according to the googlebot translator. Best bet would be to ask on a basque forum or something.

 

Shaping up to be an interesting game to import.

- Muslims have conquered France and central/eastern Iberia. Have been some successful French Catholic revolts that have led to independent states.
- Lothrangia holds much of west/central Germany and Italy and could probably expell the Muslims but keeps splitting up due to gavelkind succession
- Byzantine Empire holding out well
- Cumania has formed a huge eastern steppe empire
- I'm playing as Prussia and have united the Baltic tribes and reformed the Romuva faith

Should be an interesting set-up. Do I have to wait for the game to run until 1450 or whatever to import?

 

There is a debate among historians as to whether the term "Zoroaster" later became a high religious title in Zoroastrianism, but if you want to play it safe (you should), you can use the title moabadan-moabad, which seems to be precisely the equivalent to an achbishop or a pope in that religious structure (a mobad being a bishop's counterpart).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobad

Downloading the game!

 

Euskal Herria (basque kingdom)

As a Castillan myself, my ancestrors just shivered.

 

Have to say that AI has issues with keeping its realm together. Austria expanded greatly and then simply imploded, the entire HRE and western Europe is a mix of smaller and bigger powers in constant flux and war.

But I suffered some catastrophic defeats from the hands of OE too. They killed my armies and didnt demand anything for few years completely ruining my economy. Kinda hated that - they declared on my ally Venice with war goal of winning as many battles as possible but then demanded shit from me as alliance leader. Unfair. Lost three provinces and Lithuania collapsed/broke the union. It took me years to put everything together. This proves that the AI can fight wars and build its nation since it slaughtered my troops effortlessly.

 

And in the game.

 

hurry up with screenshots of imported persia you faggots.

 

Is it screenshot time already?



Playing as Genoa. They start very small and it's so tough not to get bumrushed by Savoy it almost feels broken. But a few minor annexations fixes that. Had pretty much a permanent alliance with Aragorn and to my delight Castille was beaten back. Then France too was assaulted on all sides. Had this great 3-way alliance with Venice and Switzerland and managed to help them come back from some disastrous losses to Austria up to the point Austria is almost a non-threat. Venice grew so big they hate me now.

The diplomacy AI is pretty cool. Beyond your usual modifiers, you have a helpful indicator that changes from friendly to rival and it's pretty accurate to what a human player would do. Venice doesn't need me anymore. Then the stupid event chain fired and Castille who was weaker than Aragorn became Spain and magically became the leader in a union between them. Aragorn hates me too now.

I'm trying to create this global trading empire with Genoa and so far I have nothing to show for it. 80 years of fighting to secure my own borders and I haven't been able to invest in colonists and explorers at all. But the trading system is just brilliant. The Sevilla node is pretty much the center of the world. Trade that comes from Moscow or Alexandria only comes in 1 way, Genoa is among the best placed nodes to suck up all of this trade, but the whole Mediterranean inturn funnels 1 way into Sevilla. Venice, Constantinople, Genoa it doesn't matter who you are, you can't get anything past Sevilla because trade only flows to it, not from. New World trade and African trade also flows into Sevilla, naturally. The other "center of the world" is Antwerp. In order to collect trade and actually make any money, you need to own a province in that trade node. So I invaded Tangiers, it was conveniently left alone by Spain/Portugal. At this point, light ships are nice to build up your market share, but getting a few more prized possessions goes just as far. I'm thinking of taking the southern tip of Spain, not trying to conquer everything, just enough to get a good base in what will be the center of everything. Hard to believe but France is my best hope right now, and I hope they get stronger.

 

Yeah, I gotta agree on the diplomacy being cool as hell. You have so many options available to you, and so goddamn much influences diplomacy positively and negatively.

This has easily usurped Dragon Commander for "Game within the past month or two that I preordered and feel the least bad about" position, in that I actually feel good about preordering this. And I actually enjoy the gameplay instead of suffering through it for carrots-on-sticks dialog!

 

Railroaded events to make Castille become Spain and inherit Aragon? That's hilarious, considering in reality it was the other way around, with Aragon inheriting Spain. Would be so awesome to troll people playing Castille into being forced into a PU under Aragon. You disappoint me, Paradox.

I agree, the diplomacy transparency was pretty cool. Only thing I don't like though is that it seems like you can't really change someone into liking you if they've decided they aren't going to like you.

 

Can you actually get countries to do things during peace time now? Paradox games have always had really cool diplomacy for ending wars, but there's basically nothing to do during peace time.

 

Yes, sort of. Although there's only a few new diplomatic actions to be made, the new transparent diplomatic system provides you with more possibilities to craft diplomatic objectives and plan your actions during peacetime. At a glance, you'll be able to see what each country thinks of you, wants and what room you have to manoeuvre. The elimination of the infamy system also means that diplomacy can act more directly on what your enemies think of you. Invest in "relations over time" stats to control others better during peace time or "diplomatic reputation" to force better deals. And things like diplomatic annexation is a lot more desirable now as it automatically gives you cores and saves precious administration points. The limit to how many diplomatic relations you can have makes the whole system more impactful. The espionage system is also simpler and possibly more effective.

 

First go at EU. Didn't play any other paradox games, save for some CK2. The complete n00bs guide recommends starting in Europe, so I picked Empress Black Cat's grorious nation of Nippon. I expect the rape to be majestic.

 

If it's like EU3, you'll be fine for like 100 years then reach a point where you're like "oh, I wish I had known that" and start a new game.

 

Guys, guys, I think... I think they're on to my plans.



(i am actually happy the ai is fucking me like that. connacht and scotland get to cover their tender asses, and france would be interested because if they get a massive war on me then they can snap up my mainland territories. i approve, videogame)

 

From what I've heard Japan is basically bugged in EU4. Daimyos can't unite Japan, and Japan proper has all of the daimyos as vassls, which wouldn't be a problem except that too many diplomatic relations at once in EU4 means they have 0 diplomacy power always.

If you want a good introduction I would try Vaginanigger in India. If you want majestic rape try the last remnants of the Mongol Khanate.

 

Tell me that name ain't real.

 

Think I'm gonna start a CK2 and finish it (for the first time) until winter sale so I can grab EU4 and first content dlc for cheap.

 

So here I thought, "Whisky, your unified, Absolute Monarch, Norse Scottish Great Britain transferred over from CK2 will make the game way too easy."

Then my Norse German allies brought me into four different wars with all of the strongest nations in Europe. Hello War Weariness! Why yes, you absolutely fucked me up on the homefront while all my soldiers died in some hellhole in France!

By the way, is it just me, or do non-organized Pagan religions turn into Animists? Slavic Poland is now Animist Poland and while I could have sworn that the Suomenusko Russians were organized, they're also Animist now. Norse and Tengri (Which I can attest organized in CK2) transferred over just fine.

 

Starting at 1444 with the Archbishopric of Mainz, with the mission to spread hardline theocratic expansionism everywhere. Those who would not have bishops as Kings are not worthy. Those who would embrace tolerance policies must burn. Those who do not purge nonCatholic provinces in their realm will pay.

Haven't unpaused yet but I really really like the interface. Information is very clear despite numerous changes, many things are sorted well, and it's all quite very pretty (except for the creamy political map colours).