Review Europa Universalis IV Review

[Whisky]

Tags: Europa Universalis IV; Paradox Interactive; Tacticular Cancer



Our good friend Cenobyte has created a review for Europa Universalis IV.

Warfare went through a number of important developments during this time. First, the old medieval scheme of raised vassal levies got replaced by mercenary bands with often quickly changing loyalties. Later, the first professional standing armies were created, and the musket more and more replaced the halberd and other forms of melee weaponry. In the last decades of the game era, nations began to experiment with total mobilization and officer corps where ranks were awarded according to merit and not according to noble background. Thus, the warfare of those times saw a lot of development and has a huge potential for interesting mechanics. However, sadly, warfare is currently the weakest point of the game. In principle, warfare is done by simply ordering troops or ships into another province. If hostile forces are present there as well, a battle will occur. The course of these battles are influenced by a number of factors, such as morale, discipline, tactics and terrain. The loosing force will either be completely annihilated, especially if its size is much smaller than the opposing force, or auto-retreat into a safe province to recover. This can mean to retreat into a province on the other side of your empire, which is rather weird to watch. However, this means that a defeated force can often recover and later participate in the war again, which avoids much of the ping-ponging seen in EUIII and mitigates the effects of a defeat somewhat. On the other hand, this new mechanic means that manpower reserves play a huge role in the standing power of a nation. As long as you still have manpower left, you can nearly always recover from a defeat and bring back your force to full strength, able to engage the enemy again as if nothing had happened. This leads to very long wars, especially in the later stages of the game. This problem is also reinforced by the fact that warscore, the score determining the winner of a war, rises rather slowly through battles alone. If you want to get an edge in warscore, you have to capture provinces of your enemy. This is done via sieging. If you have enough troops in a hostile province, meaning more men than the defenders, you have to wait for some time until the enemy garrison surrenders the province to you. If you have a very high morale and achieved a breach in the fortifications, you can also order an assault, which will speed up things but exponentially increase your losses. For a defender, the only viable way to stop a siege is to send a relief force, otherwise you will almost certain loose the province after some time. All in all, this warfare model has little to do with the historical realities and offers not much of a challenge. It would be good to see a major rebalancing or reworking of the combat mechanics in one of the almost-certain future expansions of the game.

Read the full article: Europa Universalis IV Review

 

[Grinolf]

and the culture group they belong to, which influences, usually in a negative way, the research speed and the available leadership points

There confused tech group and culture group. Culture group in EU4 only reduces penaltyes for owning province of different culture, if that culture is part of your culture group.

However, both religion and culture can be changed, if you are willing to pay the price to do so.

There isn't direct price for changing religion of province.

It should also be noted that while the skill of your ruler affect those leadership points, it does have little direct effect on other gameplay elements.

Monarch stat are important for various events. Also mil stat has effect on how good general your ruler or heir will be. But one could say, that they have less direct effect than in EU3.

With ideas and national traditions having taken over much of the role of domestic sliders and national events, the remaining events have been reduced in number and effects. The general events of EUIII, covering policies and regulations like the standardization of weights or the admission of lay priests, are still present and available for most countries. Specific national events are for the most part gone, with the exception of events that allow to form new countries. An example for such an event is the option to form the Indian-based Mughal Empire as the Timurids.

There confused decisions and events. Also I don't think, that number of decisions was reduced in EU4.

This problem is also reinforced by the fact that warscore, the score determining the winner of a war, rises rather slowly through battles alone.

Warscore rises very fast from battles. But there is limit, on how much warscore one could get from battles. 40, if I am not mistaken. So it often better get peace deal around 50-60 warscore and not prolonge war further.

However, to make effective use of merchants, you need to have a certain trade power in the area. This in turn requires the ownership of provinces, which necessitates expansion even as a primarily trade-oriented country.

Trade Power also depend on your trade fleet.

They automatically increase the size of the colony over time, until it grows self-sustaining when reaching a population of 1,000 settlers. Until this is achieved, the colonist cannot be used to create another colony and you have to pay some upkeep for the expenses of the growing colony.

One could create as many colonies with one colonist, as he likes. With presence on colonist colonies only grow faster.

Nevertheless, it’s fulfilling its intended role and the cascade of alliances is seen to a far lesser extent in this game. It also has the side-effect of slowing down diplomatic expansion via vassalization and later annexation a little bit.

I don't think it is side effect, since diplovassalization was huge exploit in EU3. And expansion by vassals in still could be considered as exploit.

Maybe there is something else, that I missed.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Most national decisions were rolled into the national idea groups, they're not gone (since vast majority of those ideas were just permanent buffs).

 

[Grinolf]

Most national decisions were rolled into the national idea groups, they're not gone (since vast majority of those ideas were just permanent buffs).

It depends on country. Playing as Byzantium, France, Russia or England one wouldn't see any changes. But apparently if one play as Austria (had 3 ND in EU3) or Denmark (had 2 ND in EU3), he wouldn't see any national decisions at all. But in national ideas he would see very familiar:

HAB_ideas = {
imperial_ambitions = {
imperial_authority = 0.1
}
military_border = {
defensiveness = 0.2
}
fugger_banks = {
inflation_reduction = 0.05
interest = -1
}
habsburg_dominance = {
diplomatic_reputation = 5
}
edict_of_restitution = {
tolerance_own = 1
global_missionary_strength = 0.02
}
austrian_court = {
diplomatic_upkeep = 2
}
hofkriegsrat = {
reinforce_speed = 0.3
}
}

and

DAN_ideas = {
vornedskab = {
manpower_recovery_speed = 0.15
}
old_naval_traditions = {
navy_tradition = 1
}
rentekammer = {
global_tax_modifier = 0.10
}
klaedekammer = {
naval_maintenance_modifier = -0.33
}
expanded_dockyards = {
naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.5
}
den_danske_lov = {
global_revolt_risk = -1
}
religious_orthodoxy = {
tolerance_own = 2
stability_cost_modifier = -0.10
}
}

Only now for some reson Vornedskab gives bonus to manpower regeneration, when in EU3 it give tax boost, like now Rentekammer. The rest are almost identical.

 

[Sranchammer]

We're going to need a bigger overhaul mod.

 

[Cenobyte]

There isn't direct price for changing religion of province.

Well, you have to pay the upkeep for your missionaries. I would call that a price, too :D

Trade Power also depend on your trade fleet.

That's correct. I mentioned the provinces and their impact on local trade power in the review because it's a major difference to EUIII.

 

[Grinolf]

Well, you have to pay the upkeep for your missionaries. I would call that a price, too :D

Yes, I constantly tend to forget, that I in fact pay something to my missionaries. There is even sliders for it, that I don't remember touching ever once. Not sure why it's here. Maybe some additional tool for modders to play with.

Regardless, religious conversion presented in review as some tough choice with consequences, but in fact it isn't. You could convert some stuff? You send missionary and convert it. More so, game punishes player for not converting his provinces.
Player could not have the ability to convert some particular province with his current missionary strenght. And most of the things, that raise it, are not free. But not the conversion itself.

 

[Cenobyte]

Regardless, religious conversion presented in review as some tough choice with consequences, but in fact it isn't. You could convert some stuff? You send missionary and convert it. More so, game punishes player for not converting his provinces.
Player could not have the ability to convert some particular province with his current missionary strenght. And most of the things, that raise it, are not free. But not the conversion itself.

Not wanting to nitpick, but at least when playing a Muslim nation this is a constant issue and does indeed have consequences. Since the piety of your ruler gives you such a large bonus to missionary strength if you raise it. But on the other hand you miss out the cost reduction for research and a nice bonus to national tax income. And the piety score is reset for each ruler, so you have to make this decision again and again (I guess usually favouring the research speed and tax income bonus).
Furthermore, if you don't have at least one province with a different religion than your Islamic state religion (even a Sunni province will work for a Shiite nation and vice versa), you miss out the opportunity to take the Jizya decision.

 

[Grinolf]

Not wanting to nitpick, but at least when playing a Muslim nation this is a constant issue and does indeed have consequences. Since the piety of your ruler gives you such a large bonus to missionary strength if you raise it. But on the other hand you miss out the cost reduction for research and a nice bonus to national tax income. And the piety score is reset for each ruler, so you have to make this decision again and again (I guess usually favouring the research speed and tax income bonus).
Furthermore, if you don't have at least one province with a different religion than your Islamic state religion (even a Sunni province will work for a Shiite nation and vice versa), you miss out the opportunity to take the Jizya decision.

But I already wrote, that it is ability to convert provinces, that could or could not cost player, not the conversion themselves. And its not like difficulties with acquiring needed missionary strenght are relevant outside Middle East and Eastern Europe regions. Also there are multiple ways to raise missionary strenght, so its not like you need sacrifice your tech cost or tax income for it. Easiest would be simply picking religious ideas as your second or third, since it not only eliminate all problems with conversions, but give a good cb, very nice boost to diplomacy and bunch of good events.

My point was, that as long I one could convert province, hitting "convert" button is no brain choice. And if you don't or can't hit it, game will punish you for it. Only Ottomans and Poland have some flexibility in that matter with their NI bonuses.
And yes, muslims have a reason to keep one token low value province with wrong religion. Or they could just conquer new wrong religion province when they get a new ruler.