Europa Universalis IV

For the record I didn't mean the super powers were less fun in EU3 than other games. Just that I don't enjoy playing them in any game.

 

Yea, it's a shame Paradox puts so much focus on the superpowers. Generally they're just too uninteresting to play in the huge timespan games. It's much more fun to have Georgia or Lithuania conquer all of Russia, or have Welsh sheep-shaggers conquer England. You got some 500 years to utterly rape history, so might as well make the most of it.

Oh I would love a more detailed or involved SoI system. Currently the system is largely limited to just checking your opponents attempts to expand, or expanding yourself (most notable example being forming Germany). Generally you don't have to give many fucks about it outside of China, due to all non-starting GPs generally being too weak to export enough raw materials to make getting the first cut worth the effort. This of course goes without mention that all the usual GPs are self-sufficient and thus don't need SoI for the market function.

I'd also like if SoI could be used to either hinder or further the civilization process for the various uncivs. Of course, this would need military overhaul in general, since otherwise it won't matter if those Zulu suddenly have cannons and rifles instead of sharp sticks.

There's two things that could fix the military, but can't be done by modding: First off, rework standing armies to have a core of really damn good troops, which cannot increase past a certain number that's reached relatively quickly (meaning that almost any civilized minor will have an equal force of this caliber to the GPs, which is then immensily buffed in effectiveness if a GP tries to take clay, essentially requiring overwhelming force that's away from everything else or the core army will be an unstoppable rapetrain on defense). More importantly, both sides should be subject to attrition while in combat, which in turn makes doomstacks extremely risky for both parties (of course, this would need the attrition to be calculated separately for each side, so a smaller stack would not take attrition but the doomstack would).

 

I think it's actually a good idea for Paradox to focus on making the superpowers more interesting to play. That way the game doesn't get boring once Georgia finishes conquering all of Russia.

 

Pride of Nations for the 5 first five items. Diplomacy is exceptional. I have no recollection of how PoN is for the 6th item.

On the other hand, PoN was too complicated even for me a grognard / veteran of Paradox. Try it if you dare.

 

What's your opinion on Sengoku?

 

Tech demo

 

exactly, i would love for EU4 to be a mix of the EU series, Crusader Kings, Civilization and Total War.

 

Vaarna_Aarne

I got to say that I think AI Navy, in general, seems broken in Victoria II. Other day I sat through a near-half century war between Italy and the US over some islands in the pacific, and the american 1000000 soldiers didn't do a thing because they went in a never ending cycle of dreadnought spamming which, somehow, kept them from building transports.

This can make a Great War suck if the US aren't isolated and there isn't another Great Power in America (that is you).

 

Correct, though I rarely see the AI achieve Dreadnaught spam in APD (due to the tech investment needed). It's extremely rare to see Kwa accomplish anything in an overseas war, in my recent Transvaal -> South Africa (cheating like a mofo to survive the start, I'm not as good as Cassidy or others at the game; Also had to cheat to HM's Government after forming the damn place in order to have the flag of DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY) game, I watched the US lose a war against Netherlands over Hawaii due to failing to even move anywhere.

Note that this was a super-US, controlling over half of Mexico in addition to their usual area as this campaign was started with a save where I'd previously arranged maximum possible odds for the CSA (meaning ALL the possible cores, plus five Mexican states as cores). Spoilers: CSA lost like a little bitch after 20 years (generally the main issue is that Union has the major coal provinces, and the downright hax Land of Opportunity modifier).

 

do you want fries with that too?

 

That's just bad design. I love the idea of some 2nd stringer kingdom suddenly becoming a prime worldpower, that's what Grand Strategy is all about, not boring ever-constant games where the same guys fight each other.

 

Meanwhile whenever I have the USA as an ally and I go conquering in india or w/e I find that the USA has landed quite fine, and done so right ontop of my stack. Thanks for the attrition. My countrymen sure are assholes.

Also I've seen the CSA actually win after the USA sent the majority of forces overseas and then left them there (either in an annexed province of theirs or simply left standing around in my new SOI). And I've seen a communist revolt and takeover due to same circumstances. I think I've seen just about every fate that can possibly happen TBH.

 

That's actually my favourite hated bug: The AI is a dumbass who doesn't bring its stacks back to the homeland after not-conquering or losing territory. It just leaves them there.

A very good APD example is the "Satsuma will forever be free" situation, where AI Japan just forgets to withdraw its stacks from Kyushu and thus cannot declare war.

EDIT: Right now I've started a "let's see what happens if ALL the states within Russia are freed from the start" campaign as Ural State (next time will probably try to create Potato-Hitman Commonwealth), and things are going craaaaaazy. Well, not really. Just less disruptions to Prussian beatings of Austria, and Prussia conquered another slice of Poland like they've done in my three previous campaigns.

I think I should try a Grossdeutschland campaign at some point.

 

no, i take some Chicken Bits instead, thanks.

 

Hmm, since you're capable of modding, might want to delve into what the 4.02 patch for TFH/HoI3 did for the AI, as it's now much better on running over-seas campaigns and doesn't abandon most of its army on some unnamed Pacific Island. Namely, I've seen Japan actually conquer most of Pacific, including Sydney, before the Kwa throw them back and land in Osaka by '44/'45 - so if the HoI3 AI can now manage that, one would think that the Vicky2 AI could be taught the same thing.

 

I don't do AI modding tho, I'm only good for fairly basic stuff.

 

When was this done in EU3's period?

 

When did governments invest in technology at all in the 1400s? Wasn't all research done by bored monks?

 

Well, there have been Universities around since the 11th century. Also, madrassas and similar stuff in China.
Other than that, there were those Renaissance men, like Leonardo (not the turtle). Also, there were also military and naval proto-academies around for those types of tech.
I think governments didn't invest directly on research, other than grants for scholars and academies. If I were designing a grand strategy game, I would place an somewhat unfocused research system based on the countries current activities (might be a lot work to devise correlations) and, of course, the always fun randomness.

 

The most realistic research system in Paradox games was introduced in CK where its mostly random, slow, and beyond your control. It perfectly shows how it was done in medieval times and up to the XIX century. Its just that players hate this kind of research.

 

Hey folks, here's some interesting stuff I've found and could be put on First Page:

There's a topic on Paradox Plaza only for info collection about the game, read it:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...information-from-the-devs-READ-BEFORE-POSTING!

There's also this one about how much time and work they will dedicate for each country:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?636355-The-3-tiers...

Sweden as more important than Portugal and Austria hahahaohwow.jpg

True, but that's manily because you can barely influence it andi it barely plays much according to your strategy.

 

Also, Strategy Informer says "Europa Universalis IV's multiplayer is actually fun."

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121851-Multiplayer-in-Europa-Universalis-4-Is-Actually-Fun

 

Have they said anything about technology discrepancy between Western Europe and the World? Will I still be able to conquer a Indian-spanning empire with 40 thousand troops?

 

I hope missions and decisions will be a bit more free-form. Sure England gets in fights with France a lot, but if I'm Aragon or Savoy and France is my rival I want similar stuff to happen.

I'd be OK about the tech discrepancy if Paradox would let natives actually properly mass and surround western armies at 10:1 odds. The way EU3 combat worked was that the enemy landed 20k units on a 20k supply limit (god help you if the AI landed 30k and just beat attrition with manpower) and you had to attack with your 20k army. And even if you were fighting 40k vs 20k, your flanks did jack shit and just stood in line until the middle died rather than a surround and rape. So give lower tech units a 2-5x supply bonus depending on tech level and let excess troops flank like they are in other paradox games. And of course they need a way to support the troops on a gimped economy, so make the cost and maintenance cheaper as well.

 

I'm not sure the numbers within the tiers are rankings. I think they're treating all tier 1 countries as equally important.