Europa Universalis IV

[tyrannosaurus rex]

It's retarded. Thankfully the Spanish Empire took over and developed the region.

Took over. Or blended in.

 

[Irenaeus]

Agree. They are still barely above stone age.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Irenaeus at the plateu

Lyric epic commemorating his deeds in mexico

 

[Irenaeus]

I like that painting

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

 

[baturinsky]

That whole colony business is a little disappointing. 20 or so colonial provinces give only around 2 gold per turn. And I had raised their tariffs to 20% manually. Am I missing something?

 

[Irenaeus]

Trade.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, colonies are about controlling trade routes. Very, very good at shipping dat sweet sweet monee back to home node. Colonies also provide you with overseas armies so you don't need to micro like a madman as much (though you'll still probably end up with a full-size stack or two somewhere in the colonies to keep the natives down by splitting when colonizing, and to provide necessary edge in colonial wars).

Don't hesitate to beat the fuck out of the AI over their colonies if they're along your trade route, you don't want to lose any trade cash you don't have to lose. Same thing goes for the coastal provinces of That Asshole you have somewhere next door that's competing with you over colonies.

EDIT: But yea, colonizing is an all-or-nothing thing. You pick Exploration and Expansion as your first two ideas and try to conquer everything you lay your eyes upon before anyone else shows up. Cockblock colonization along the coastline is priority.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I have a specific virulent hatred of the Spanish for fucking up muh history due to their very high colonization buffs. I often toy with the idea of just nuking Spain's and Portugal's colonists permanently via custom event after X colonies founded. In the little customization work I did on Shattered Europe mod, I just made sure Spain only has Expansion idea group and Portugal only Exploration to balance out their otherwise rampant colony-forming (the issue is mostly just that nobody else among the AI nations picks colonial ideas as early as they do, and they are the only ones that pick both Expansion and Exploration).

 

[Irenaeus]

I disagree with both of you, I think EU4 does a great job with colonization compared to its other aspects. I agree that there are could be more colonial only wars, but the Indians are now very active in starting their own shit, just try colonizing Florida and dealing with the Creek, for instance. Vaarna's hate of Spain is something that doesn't surprise me, though, because he seems very emotional about history and I think he likes to imagine other countries as big colonizers in his alternate history. Okay, but that's alternate history. What I've seen from the current game so far shows Spain colonizing stuff close to what happened in real life.

CK2 is, imo, a game unsuitable for anything other some shitty The Sims deranged tryhard where you fuck half of Europe or whatever is the map now. I can keep my mother.

For Portugal and other colonizer/expansionist European nations, it is indeed very worthy to trade with India, South East Asia and China, you get unbelievable amount of money. It's also nice to stomp big low tech armies with small high tech armies.

I think the size and organization of the standing armies of EU should be more properly developed as the centuries goes by, but the current abstraction is fine by me. Of course, any improved would be welcomed. However, considering recent Paradox retarded design of CK2 I have fears they achieved as much as they could with EU4 and I'm in constant fear of decline being brought to the game due to laziness, lack of understatement of common things and dumbing down to retards. As a good recent example of decline brought to EU4, the substitution. instead of a refinement, of the supply/demand system for good prices for a fixed prices system guided by events.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually it's more that I dislike Spain often going far beyond their historical reach even without Lucky Nations turned on (which I never do, since it makes the game less interesting due to limiting shenanigans), and I find it boring from a gameplay perspective (which is why when I customized Shattered Europe I increased the number of AI colonizers three-fold to cause more destruction and mayhem). The kind of Spain I'm talking about is one that has colonized half of Siberia (this wasn't a problem limited to Spain, I deal with it by just expanding the Far East Siberian tribes to cover the coastline so nobody can colonize by sea), almost all of South-East Asia, conquers half of China, and own roughly 3/4rds of North America and Africa, with Portugal owning most of the remainder. It's quite boring for global developments, I assure you.

Anyway, EU4 has probably the best colonial model out of the Paradox games so far, since the colonial nations are a very important feature and has many potential applications, and the system is in a lot of ways more balanced than the completely brainless spam from EU3.

I would also say that any attempt at creating some kind of supply and demand trade model is by default futile and would add nothing of value. It'd never be anything except a worthless random factor to be ignored like all the previous EU attempts at this. The system is too abstract to create anything that would behave in a logical manner or one that couldn't be easily exploited. The event-guided goods value system is predictable, but it creates a coherent picture of province value.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I have a specific virulent hatred of the Spanish for fucking up muh history due to their very high colonization buffs. I often toy with the idea of just nuking Spain's and Portugal's colonists permanently via custom event after X colonies founded. In the little customization work I did on Shattered Europe mod, I just made sure Spain only has Expansion idea group and Portugal only Exploration to balance out their otherwise rampant colony-forming (the issue is mostly just that nobody else among the AI nations picks colonial ideas as early as they do, and they are the only ones that pick both Expansion and Exploration).

Find people with an IQ above 110 and play multiplayer. Fighting the AI's flaws is a never ending battle.

Scheduled games with proper house rules work flawlessly.

 

[baturinsky]

With enough house rules you would not need EU4 to play multiplayer at all

 

[Dead Guy]

Also, I've been a bit behind on EUIV (and likely not to caught up any time soon due to lack of videocard), but is it already worth to try and trade with India? From my games, I never even attempted it, there's just too many nodes between Europe and India, and South America/Mexico/Caribbean is just the thing.

In my current Netherlands game I grabbed Ivory Coast which ships directly to English Channel, cape just sends all the money along, I own Zanzibar, and Malacca sends everything to Zanzibar if you grab the centers of trade there and have a nice fleet. Moluccas, Philippines also feed into that. If you want Ceylon, Goa, Indus or Bengal you also need power in Gulf of Aden, though. Zanzibar's centers you can get with colonial exp CB so those are easy, but some of the Gulf of Aden ones you will have to get creative with claims and alliances in the region, at least that's what I did to grab Aden from Hejaz and the one opposite the strait from their ally by having a claim on an entirely different province.

But if you're competing with other Euros, Ivory Coast control is obviously key, since it decides between Sevilla, Bordeaux and English Channel. Now that you get extra merchants from having 50% or higher trade power in a trade company charter that bit becomes less of a hassle as well, but the main nodes can be directed using just 3-5 merchants or so I'd say, since you don't have to direct ie Cape or Zanzibar.

Since I'm able to properly improve all these provinces myself, including manufactories etc, the money coming in via Zanzibar --> Cape --> Ivory Coast is insane. The income I got when focusing on Caribbean, Colombia, Mexico and North America was peanuts in comparison.

If only I could find the button that makes you able to build in a colonial nation's provinces...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It seems to me that the only way to improve American colonies is to give the colonies tremendous piles of cash as gifts, since their own base income is miniscule due to low base tax.

I for one think it's rather silly that for mysterious reasons only the Americas are subject to the colonial nations' rules. Like you said, it makes Africa->Asia route much more profitable since there's no middle men.

 

[Luzur]

Am I the only one who always fucks over Castille and splits the peninsula between myself and Aragon when playing as Portugal? I just can't tolerate these annoying spanish fucks colonizing all over goddamn creation and stealing my clay and looking all threatening over my borders, so I tag-team on it with Aragon until it becomes history by the early 1500s, with priority on taking anything near the coast. Fuck Castille, FUCK CASTILLE!.

I invaded them on the north coast as Sweden in 1750's to help France which where my allies, they where abit harder then my usual enemies but i still got 3 provinces.

 

[Irenaeus]

Yeah, colonial America should be improved somewhat, but I can't think off the top of my head on how. Maybe faster colonization/improvement of provinces? It makes sense since you are building everything from the start after killing/integrating local natives instead of subduing more traditional cultures elsewhere. I don't know, really, but that would be interesting.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I think it should be tied with making said colonial nations more capable in all respects, including likelyhood of succesful revolution. The American colonies are still far too loyal and stable in the 18th century.

 

[thesheeep]

Then again, if it was too hard to keep them "friendly", why would a player want to do it?
It would still have to be profitable. If it was a pita with little gain and too much of a risk to lose it all...

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yep, though something still needs to change for late game and American colonies.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I think it should be tied with making said colonial nations more capable in all respects, including likelyhood of succesful revolution. The American colonies are still far too loyal and stable in the 18th century.

You still cling to this idea even thought it's completely baseless historically speaking and a nerf to colonising nations when they don't need one.
Colonising is a huge investment. Have you not noticed the cost in the economy tab? It takes a long time for the colonial income to finally meet and compensate the colonial expanses. Over settling is a massive expanse, and almost mandatory once you get competition. It's a vicious cycle. Once you've started it, you can't stop it, otherwise your small colonial nation gets overwhelmed by the competition from the other colonizers and their minions.
Then there's the enmities you gain, some of them who would have been natural allies on the continent. More wars to fight, for indirect colonial gains, and that require plenty of landing and invading other countries far removed from yours.

The much more valid point you're missing, probably because you haven't done you weren't listening in your classes, is that colonies are far more powerful than what they ever were. When America rebelled they hardly stood a chance, with a few thousand men, untrained, ill equipped. The French colonies were almost completely empty and relied on alliances with the natives and asymmetric warfare. The Spanish and Portuguese to a lesser extant were very few as well, far too busy dealing with a much more numerous native population for independence to every be on their mind (which is not factored in the game at all). Colonies were generally poorly militarised.

What would be more interesting, from both a gameplay and sweet historical perspective would be to nerfs these nations themselves, considerably. It would be easy to decrease their manpower and forces limit. They should be gold feeders, not the new Lithuanian union.
Right now An independent Mexico is one of the most powerful nation in the world, this is idiotic. In many cases, you end up controlling nations almost or more powerful than you.

A direct intervention in colonial warfare is almost completely useless. You bring at best a few thousand men on transports, when your respective subjects are throwing 50K stacks at each other.

 

[Irenaeus]

Agree that colonial armies are too big, even in the early 1600s. Makes no sense historically.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It's also a game that has highly abstract forms of gameplay for several other aspects. Because there is by design no downward spiral similar to that of the Spanish Empire, and because there is nothing stopping a colonial overlord from shipping all of their troops and sending all of their fleets (except external events) to fight a rebellious colony. Which means that it's not only colonies that are stronger than historically, but their overlords as well, so the larger armies make a lot more sense as a consequence of general gameplay (of course, this also leads to problems with smaller nations, for example it's practically impossible for Albania to kick Ottoman and Venetian ass as badly as they did under Skanderbeg). It's just the way things will have to be because of the level of abstraction the game operates at.

Anyway, colonies only cost money when colonizing, and even then it's barely noticiable if you stick to your number of colonists available. Oversettling is supposed to be prohibitively expensive and inefficient, not to mention considerably slower. It's easy to dominate an entire continent with the right approach (ie, cutting off Quebec and rushing along the coastlines in Canada and America until you beeling across Mexico to the West Coast and then scramble along and up). And of course, you always have the option of just beating the fuck out of some poor bastard and stealing their lunch money, colonies are cheap in peace cost and cause less AE.


Personally I'd see that twin mechanics of possible overlord decay or taking action to strengthen a colony too much would be what can lead to major problems with a colonial empire, but I'd still prioritize colonial nations mechanics being extended to all overseas colonies (besides few exceptions, like say Morocco for Spain). In terms of Pdox coming up with a solution to this little pet peeve of mine I hope that Disasters will have a bigger effect on colony-overlord relations.

 

[Irenaeus]

In terms of Pdox coming up with a solution to this little pet peeve of mine I hope that Disasters will have a bigger effect on colony-overlord relations.

What Disasters?

Colonial america should have its own techgroup with different, weaker units until independence.

The old Sid Meier's Colonization game does a good job in showing how hard it was to expand the colonies' militar capabilities. The only good thing most colonies possessed were stationary forts, which were heavily disputed in fact.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yeah, the colonies weren't that powerful in the EU timeframe. Contrary to the bad teaching done in brazilian school, even the brazilian independence was a close shave thing, Dom Pedro I had no money and a pathetic fleet, it was only a sure thing after the Bahia was liberated from the portuguese, then pretty much every colony started to revolt (mine was the last to join, in fact). Don't think american independence was much different in that aspect.

I think another weird detail is that the colonies always use large european-level armies. Your subjects don't field armies too different from yours, which doesn't make sense. I don't think any american countries had european-like standing armies until the Napoleonic Wars. I know that the first "brazilian" army (the one that kicked out the dutch from the northeast) was essentially a mix of portuguese and local officers, local militias and native auxiliaries. I doubt they had the big cavalry forces present in Europe, either, or even a lot of artillery. Colonial america should have its own techgroup with different, weaker units until independence.

Of course, in EU nothing but external factors can stop the overlord from shipping all of their army to the colonies. That's really the reason why the colonies need to be militarily largely the same as Europe, since the ocean is nothing more than requiring traveling via boat. Come to think of it, isn't it faster to ship the entire army to Americas than walk them from Iberian Peninsula to Germany?

What Disasters?

The new system for covering Civil War, Peasants' War, et al.

 

[Irenaeus]

Also, I think the colonization expensive part could be easily solved by allowing the colonizer to invest in the colony by building.

Of course, in EU nothing but external factors can stop the overlord from shipping all of their army to the colonies. That's really the reason why the colonies need to be militarily largely the same as Europe, since the ocean is nothing more than requiring traveling via boat. Come to think of it, isn't it faster to ship the entire army to Americas than walk them from Iberian Peninsula to Germany?

The speed isn't the problem. Maybe transporting large troops by ocean should be more expensive somehow.

The new system for covering Civil War, Peasants' War, et al.

Oh yeah, I'm using it in my new game, it's definetively interesting. I had Peasant's War and Internal Conflicts as Portugal, I think. Set back my expansion by 50 years, at least, lost several colonies in Africa near Mali, also Morocco. Just had to give them up.

My main problem now (1630s) is France, since it beat the the HRE and Austria in the continent, reverting all Germany to Catholicism and now the blues have got a huge colonial empire in the Caribbean, making them ultra rich with trade. You are going to like, they fucked up Spain so much with European wars that the Spanish colonial empire is micro and both the Aztecs and Incas are still alive and well, now starting to get attacked by French and GB. Most of North America is up for grabs, with colonies from Dutch, Sweden and other small colonizers.