Europa Universalis IV

Why The Witcher is an intelligent game

 

This is a great post. I love fresh opinions.

I dunno, I think most people here enjoy all the data and complexity (somewhat shallow though it may be) in these games. I definitely do.

Plus assassinating fuck-everyone isn't quite as easy or successful as you may think, and only Christian countries (in general) really benefit from or require claims-forging. Given that claims-forging is merely a percentage-chance, only works at the county-level, and risks getting your chancellor killed, it's sometimes faster and more reliable to invite a claimant into your realm and wage a war for his claim. Neither of these "gimmicks" is especially unsatisfying. They're also very historically plausible.

Geniuses also aren't quite that easy to find, although I do agree that the (inevitable?) eugenic tendencies in the game are a tad unfortunate.

As in any game, there are a number of paths to success, and the ones you mentioned are (sometimes) good ideas in a CK2 game. If you can pull them off. And if they're appropriate for the situation.

 

Says the fag who always harps about art direction in HIS GAEMS to feel superior over those banal plebs.

 

bros, i lost a major war earlier today, overwhelmed (as usual, damn their unending hordes!) by those damn Muscowites.

situation was like this (since i cant figure out how to take pictures), that my Greater Sweden was involved in a...i dunno, 8 nation war in Germany (Sweden, Lüneburg, The Hansa and Saxony vs Austria, Bohemia, Ulm, Baden over Bohemia's claim on Saxonys throne, and Saxony asked for help) and in a fit of stupidity (as it would later turn out) i deployed my two main armies, Kungliga Lifgardet (20.000 men and my best general) and a support unit (2nd Skånska regiment, 10.000) deep into Saxony to drive the Austrian and Bohemian armies back and secure my allies.

well, just when i had combined my two armies with a Saxon unit and was fully engaged with a joint Austrian-Bohemian-Ulmian army of around 30.000 in the vicinity of Franconia when suddenly i get a pop-up on my screen informing me that Muscowy have decared war on me with a "you own land of mine" casus belli, and a second later his allies joined in too, and in the following week russian armies simply flooded over that little "wall" i had made of Novgorod . i had no chance to disengaged the battle to rush home and defend myself and my eastern friends (read vassals) so i had to put my hopes on my last remaining armies home in Sweden, the 3rd Nyländska regiment (13.000) and the smaller Hälsinge regiment (just recruited, 5000 men and some cannons), so i rushed those east, where my "vassal-wall" where pretty much overwhelmed with russian units ranging from 1000 to up to 8000 men (vs Tver= around 8000, Smolensk= 5000?, Yaroslav=1000 i think and Novgorod=10.000), and a big hefty 18.000 main army with their Tsar blitzing through Tver, while i was preparing to assault the two smaller 3000k armies that had spilled over into Karelen, and meet their main force with my 13.000 and hope they would hold until i could get my main army home from Germany.



the smaller campaign went well, Karelen was cleaned of russians by Hälsinge, the 18k russian horde was standing still in (former, now eastmost Sweden) Novgorod, waiting for something i guess, Smolensk had fixed up a seperate peace unscathed, Yaroslav was fully occupied, Tver was being besieged in almost every province, and now russian units had started pouring into East Sweden, or Defence Sector Ingermanland as i call it in my head.

at the same time the battle in Germany ended, with a victory/close to defeat, since both my armies there was pretty much battered down into a measly 10.000 men after that gargatuan fight (over a week in the same province, with units of both sides joining in and falling out), but i rushed that home anyway, oping i had enough cash to resupply it with fresh men on the way to Pommerania and the navy waiting there, Russia created another 10.000 army by joining up the smaller ones (i think, it just appeared) and walked through Novgorod and into Karelen, swatting away Hälsinge like a fly as they tried to retreat, and forcing me to decide to attack them, since by now Novgorod had fallen into that 18k russian horde's hands, and that was now probably deciding where to go next.

so i charged that new 10k russian army with Nyländska, hoping to take them out fast enough so i could turn back and try to refill on men and get those new recruits i was fielding in Viborg into a new army, so could make a combined charge on that great horde of theirs.

thing is, when i was in battle with the 10k army in Karelen, that 18k army simply swung around and went straight to help their comrade, so suddenly, with a cold feeling running down my back, my plan turned on its head and all i could do was watch as my main defense line and last hope of defending the east was slowly grinded down by a combined 18+10k Russian horde.

i imagine it kinda looked like this on ground level for the average swedish trooper, bless him:



well, cutting the story short, Nyländska was fully eradicated (or bugged out, dunno), and then those units proceeded to mop up my newly recruited forces that pop-up'd on the map, and finally when i landed my main army back home all i could do was follow that 18k around and try to unsiege what provinces it had taken while my coffers where running dry (Tavastehus was being besieged when i went for peace), while my strong Swedish Navy guarded Ålands sea so they couldnt cross over to Stockholm that way, i had to ask for peace, and i had to give them Novgorod and south Karelen and anull my vassalage with Tver before they where satisfied.

Yaroslav was annexed fully (was only a two province kingdom) and surprisingly Novgorod didnt have to do a thing, they simply white-peace and was done.

plan now is to get some nice allies (Lithuania is in my hopes), reorganize the army and get those provinces back.

 

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

 

you're like that guy that never gets picked in sports and has no friends in school. except that this isn't school and this is your free-time that you spend being jaded and bitter.

 

Its pretty much growing high over growing wide if it were not for the fact that you dont use much military points to grow wide thus its quite imbalanced right now. There needs to be more uses for military points.

 

Well I marched few units through Siberia, to get some westernization, and well I seen AI Sweden to have more gains than yours. Of course Portugese don't bother Japan, thus no revolts, but on the other hand they have no province close and all countries refusing samoa as a province because they can't core it. I kinda wonder if I shouldn't conquer ally vasalize Aztecs.

 

Military tech and ideas are 100% more important than admin and diplo ones though.

 

Yes but you need ADM to actually get new ideas. Im not talking early game here but more mid-late. Early you rush those early military techs and ideas but once you get one or two idea groups you are more or less set as far as military is concerned. ADM never losses its emaning as long as you want high stab or expansion and DIP is important for peace treaties and culture conversion - not to mention trade tech and ideas if thats your plan.

 

well, i start to calculate what provinces i really want after i gained baltic dominance, i see no need in owning all those big, empty russian provinces other then those around Novgorod.

besides, its only 1620 still, i got time.

 

I got quality and defensive then picked my next idea group 100-150 years later because I kept building constables and counting houses everywhere and coring all the time. Played on hard and with AI handicap and wasn't beaten in a single war. You don't need another idea except perhaps for offensive for more forcelimits and forced march.

And diplo is only important for castille, britain and portugal, maybe even France if you don't go full European Hegemony.

 

Diplo could be important if you want the increase relations stuff and extra diplo when you abuse personal unions /diploannexing. It takes a long time to get the relation to 190 and for world conquest (if you want to try that) , you have to keep a ton of vassals to avoid overextension and doom stack of rebels, those are much more deadly than any army the other empires send you. Id take it after getting offensive and defensive ideas first .

 

The Diplomatic idea is among the most important in the game. The only valid reason not to take it as the first idea is if you are taking Exploration.

 

Weird. The only non-military idea I ever took was exploration as russia and maybe economic after I blob a lot and wanna make 100 shekels per turn with full maintenance on everything.

 

Is EU4 "better" (or just different enough) than EU3 with all expansions? because I'm sick of Paradox DLC policy and I won't buy EU4 if it's not already better than EU3.

I got screwed at CK2 (yeah, I was stupid enough to hope they will release major expansion pack, not shitton of fucking DLCs) and I avoided buying HoI3 at all because even now, all you can get on dvd in polish shops is HoI + Semper Fi, rest you have to purchase over the net and I will never pay for game that I don't get on CD/DVD (preferably in a fucking box, but that's thing of the past for years now).

 

Its different. Wouldnt say better since it doesnt have as many options yet and no big mods but its definitely different enough and playable to buy/try out. As I say the foundation is solid some tweaking and its gonna be awesome.

 

Just like EU2->EU3, it's different and good in its own right so worthwhile. The DLC policy I don't mind os much because every substantial CK2 DLC (i.e. not the sprite pack shit) was indeed substantial and these allowed Paradox to improve what was already a pretty good game significantly. I can see the same thing happening with EU4 and that is good.

I suppose if you don't like it you can wait for some Complete Edition a year or two down the line.

 

And I'd say it IS better. Since at least this time around shit's happening all the time, it's not just "like other Paradox games, except with all the interesting stuff removed".

 

EU IV is large improvement over EU III, even if I disagree with some mechanics or atleast their presentation.

 

Definitely an improvement. It unifies and consolidates a lot of the stuff that was tacked onto EU3 in different expansions and it feels solid and polished overall. I'm not entirely sold on the Monarch Point system but choosing how to invest those points is definitely more interesting than watching the tech sliders slowly tick upwards every month. Furthermore, the game runs a lot smoother than EU3 on my computer and it seems to process save files much faster (there were times in EU3 where it took the game about 5 minutes to load bloated saves; I haven't experienced that so far).

 

^ All those things are true, I wish it retained a little bit more of the old "rocks fall everyone dies" stuff which was taken away by providing players with clean, useful, well presented information + monarch points, but I certainly have no desire to go back to EU3, whereas back in the days I'd still fire up EU2 occasionally.

 

I eventually got bored with EU3 so the different direction the 4 is going is a fresh new thing for me.

 

I quess I will wait a while.... Meanwhile, those damn Swedes have some good deals at TPB

I'm slightly suspicious to new EU games simply because EU3 with In Nomine, HttT and Napoleon Ambitions was first EU game I played. Few years after I finally decided to take a look at EU2... and it's almost same fucking game only national ideas are not present (and AI is much dumber)*.

* "Historical Determinism" in EU2 is much overrrated, you DO get some real history events that will screw you up (especially Polish Liberum Veto, dumbest fucking law ever) but then you will get not-so-historical event to repair shit previous event broke.

 

It is the same franchise and the core gameplay is not really going to be different. If you thought EU2 and EU3 were basically the same game I suppose you might think the same with EU4.