Europa Universalis IV

[Hoodoo]

A diplomatic council sounds like something akin to the concert of europe. That's more of a Vicky thing, IMO.

It's almost as if major diplomatic councils like the peace of Westphalia didn't exist before that.

 

[Delterius]

Yes but those weren't intended as permanent institutions, like cooperation in general became in the XIXth century, were they?

 

[Hoodoo]

The Mughals, Mings and Ottomans were no more stagnant than their smaller, supposedly non decadent neighbors like the hundreds of south east Asians states. Did we see the rise of a dozen Asian version of the Netherlands? Those 3 empires were the only states where the Imperial authority could have tried forcing a westernization of their global infrastructure, the smaller Asian and African states were too petty for the possibility to even exist.

Isolationism was the right call when these bloated empires were falling apart on their own due to a primitive power structure, which had nothing on the rising European nation states. Where the Ottomans could only indirectly control a feudal Egypt, the Europeans could assume an increasingly more direct control of territories 2 oceans away. Which isn't even represented in this game at all, even though Vicky 2 does it for China at least iirc.

Without going into Victoria tier specific trade needs to be revamped to allow for a more adventurous playstyle. By 1550 the portugese were already trading with the Japanese, you're lucky if you ever influence the trade node before the end of the game.

 

[Hoodoo]

Yes but those weren't intended as permanent institutions, like cooperation in general became in the XIXth century, were they?

Diplomats were in every court at every moment after the 30 years war. From 1700 onward France was busy brokering every conflict that were taking place in Europe. Before that the pope and holy roman emperor held a similar role. There's no medium to do anything like that, in fact bullshit mechanism like rivals and automatic truce impede the diplomatic volatility that was characteristic of Europe at that time.
European powers flip flopped between increasingly polarized alliance networks. Paradox had to create an artificial mechanism to emulate the religious wars because you could never see anything on the scope of the 30 years war before.

It's impossible to even flip sides in a war. That's how limited it is.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The Mughals, Mings and Ottomans were no more stagnant than their smaller, supposedly non decadent neighbors like the hundreds of south east Asians states. Did we see the rise of a dozen Asian version of the Netherlands? Those 3 empires were the only states where the Imperial authority could have tried forcing a westernization of their global infrastructure, the smaller Asian and African states were too petty for the possibility to even exist.

Isolationism was the right call when these bloated empires were falling apart on their own due to a primitive power structure, which had nothing on the rising European nation states. Where the Ottomans could only indirectly control a feudal Egypt, the Europeans could assume an increasingly more direct control of territories 2 oceans away. Which isn't even represented in this game at all, even though Vicky 2 does it for China at least iirc.

The key thing separating Western Europe from Asia was dynamic political landscape without a hegemon. The competition against the prevailing status quo based on balance of power in Europe and the importance of subjective advantage is what drove the transformation of Western Europe into pre-modern statehood and onwards. Historians avoid dabbling too much into shouldawouldacoulda, but the question generally pondered is the reasons for why pre-Mughal hegemony Indian subcontinent didn't become like fragmented Europe, or what would have occurred if Ming Dynasty had not turned inward into isolationism and mass production of bricks.

 

[Hoodoo]

That leaves out most of South East Asia south of China, people tend to forget about that place. I'm not a big expert on Indian history but iirc mughals only held India for less than a century, this leaves ample time before and after. No doubt China could have adapted to modernity the way Japan did under different circumstances. That's not to say fully comparable to Europeans but still much better than what anyone else did.
But yet, look at what Paradox did. East Asians have a tech rate comparable to African kingdoms. Inferior to Indians and Muslims. It's complete nonsense. If anyone else showed the potential to keep up close behind Europeans, it was them.

There's no denying that the context of Europe made for a steep competition, I approved the post a page before that sparked the chain. What would be nice to see is a mechanism that shows the comparative decentralization of Eastern empires.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Mughals held most of India for over three hundred years (with a few decade break at the start when Sur Empire temporarily overthrew them). Bringing Japan into this is important because where the vast Qing Empire failed to reform because of the way any modernization efforts would upset the status quo and the basic unifying idea of the Middle Kingdom as the center of the world, as well as the natural problem of warlordism when you have to make massive investments to military organization over an enormous domain, but meanwhile the much smaller Japan discarded their prior isolationism and after the Boshin War became a dynamic nation that wholeheartedly embraced contact and learning from the outside world, as well as foreign and economic policy based on interaction.

The key point is that in general it is the vast EMPIRES that have great difficulty in adapting to change or interacting with the outside world. A 20th century example would be the Soviet Union.

Personally I think having a Tech system is in itself kind of ridiculous. Contact with the outside world and dynamic competition is what spurred economic, social, and military development, not resources invested. Trade should be the key to innovative edge as subjective advantage. Speaking of which, the Columbian Exchange is sorely lacking outside of the mild annoyance of smallpox, which is almost comical given how BEFORE contact with Europeans the Aztec and Inca development levels should be enormous. Even after the Inca Empire was devastated by smallpox and a bloody civil war most likely caused by a case of smallpox Atahualpa had an army of nearly 100,000 with him before the ambush at Cajamarca (of course, Cajamarca is completely impossible to model in EU4's scale without fiat by event). Smallpox killed millions in Americas, but in EU4 it doesn't vastly weaken Aztec and Inca Empires at all, it's a general mild nuisance, potato blight or cholera in Victoria 2 is way worse.

In case of Africa, it's also important to keep in mind that there were African nations that were coastal African nations that were active and impotant participants in Triangle/Square Trade and the Indian Ocean trade but most of them were oriented towards staying inland and European presence was mostly limited to trade post concessions along coastal cities and ports (after all, real wave of imperialism in Africa didn't take place until 19th century) and Dutch settlers in South Africa. A common case with both Africa and pre-Columbian Americas however is that much of the continent at the time was very difficult to traverse which limited contact between areas and outside world (and in case of Americas that the primary pack animal available was humans).

 

[Hoodoo]

Mughals held most of India for over three hundred years

I checked and it does appear like the southern half held until the end of the 17th century. Even the North was only taken in the beginning of the 17th century. Then they collapsed into a tiny irrelevant kingdom for most of the 18th century. Which means their complete hegemony lasted less than 100 years and relevance just over 150 years.

I Found a gif to illustrate too

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Typically late to the party, I tried playing this recently. My only question is: how can a game with such a price, so many expansions, patches and dlcs be so unfun and broken so long after release?

I took the default starting date, picked England to spread the degenerate facial features genes across the world. Annexed Ireland and conquered Scotland. Suddenly a thirty-something thousand Scottish rebel army spawns (I didn't suppress the rebellion to not waste the precious military points and just thought I'd crush them easily when they spawn). This is roughly 3x size of the regular Scottish army I fought during the last war. They proceed to completely annihilate my regular English army, which is ahead of time technology wise and I have almost entire quality idea tree unlocked. Then they completely annihilate all the reinforcements I can throw at them. I am now without an army and with 0 manpower left. Wat.

No, seriously.

Wat.

Perhaps I was unclear, so let me repeat myself.

Wat.

And why the hell some non-countries are declaring war on me? I don't even know who they are and cannot find them without using the complete mess of a diplomacy screen. I then cannot even reach them to kick their asses and remain in a state of war, awesome.

Anyway, this is a typical no fun allowed Paradox game. I mean, like 90% stuff you can do is dependent on the magic points that you just wait to gather while screen watching, with their amount based mostly on random leader stats. Wow, great idea for and underlying gameplay mechanic, really.

Such a shame that no one else makes games with similar scope and themes. What was the last one, Imperialism 2?

 

[Makabb]

Typically late to the party, I tried playing this recently. My only question is: how can a game with such a price, so many expansions, patches and dlcs be so unfun and broken so long after release?

I took the default starting date, picked England to spread the degenerate facial features genes across the world. Annexed Ireland and conquered Scotland. Suddenly a thirty-something thousand Scottish rebel army spawns (I didn't suppress the rebellion to not waste the precious military points and just thought I'd crush them easily when they spawn). This is roughly 3x size of the regular Scottish army I fought during the last war. They proceed to completely annihilate my regular English army, which is ahead of time technology wise and I have almost entire quality idea tree unlocked. Then they completely annihilate all the reinforcements I can throw at them. I am now without an army and with 0 manpower left. Wat.

No, seriously.

Wat.

Perhaps I was unclear, so let me repeat myself.

Wat.

And why the hell some non-countries are declaring war on me? I don't even know who they are and cannot find them without using the complete mess of a diplomacy screen. I then cannot even reach them to kick their asses and remain in a state of war, awesome.

Anyway, this is a typical no fun allowed Paradox game. I mean, like 90% stuff you can do is dependent on the magic points that you just wait to gather while screen watching, with their amount based mostly on random leader stats. Wow, great idea for and underlying gameplay mechanic, really.

Such a shame that no one else makes games with similar scope and themes. What was the last one, Imperialism 2?

That's why i consider EU 3 to be the last fun paradox game..... but i played it so much im bored now.

And now they are adding in Victoria mechanics? Maybe they are testing for Victoria 3 on EU 4 engine.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Rebellions are serious business if you did something like annexed all of Scotland and Ireland rapidly.

Also, you probably had Aggressive Expansion racked up high, which gives a Casus Belli against you that the AI is very likely to use.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm not certain what "rapidly" means in this game. I've annexed entire Ireland without fighting a single war and gobbled Scotland in two wars (first one included a war against France). Regardless of circumstances, this is just idiotic beyond comprehension and having stuff like that in a game that was "updated" so many times (with many of said updates being sold) is just horrible.

Anyway, just wanted to rant. The game didn't feel fun anyway and that ridiculous rebel situation didn't change my impression that much.

 

[Delterius]

I took the default starting date, picked England to spread the degenerate facial features genes across the world. Annexed Ireland and conquered Scotland. Suddenly a thirty-something thousand Scottish rebel army spawns (I didn't suppress the rebellion to not waste the precious military points and just thought I'd crush them easily when they spawn). This is roughly 3x size of the regular Scottish army I fought during the last war. They proceed to completely annihilate my regular English army, which is ahead of time technology wise and I have almost entire quality idea tree unlocked. Then they completely annihilate all the reinforcements I can throw at them. I am now without an army and with 0 manpower left. Wat.

Sounds like you made a series of extremely bad decisions. Rebellions, particularly in the early game, aren't something you just let happen. If you put yourself in a situation where a rebellion is building up, you are supposed to use military points. This is because under the old EU3 system of rebellions you'd face weak rebel armies all over the place every few weeks until coring was done. Now you are supposed to keep that from even happening via a combination of religion, coring, appeasament, ideas, autonomy, stationing armies here and there and such. There's less mole popping overall.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

How is "making bad decisions" an excuse for something like that? Answer: it isn't. Also, it wasn't really early game, I was game's leader in military, having a full army with ahead of time technology and almost completed quality idea path, previously rolfstomping France, which I assume should be one of the main world powers.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

idiot stuff

git gud.
l2p.
rtfm.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

How is "making bad decisions" an excuse for something like that? Answer: it isn't. Also, it wasn't really early game, I was game's leader in military, having a full army with ahead of time technology and almost completed quality idea path, previously rolfstomping France, which I assume should be one of the main world powers.

There's no certainty of France being one of the major powers. I kind of misplaced a bet on that when I played my first Mare Nostrum campaign as Sweden, which ended up with France being so assfucked from being my misplaced meat shield that the ensuing corruption, bankcruptcy, rebellions, and manpower depletion were something they didn't recover from in 400 years because of le ITZ begetting le ITZ.

How is "making bad decisions" an excuse for something like that? Answer: it isn't.

You allowed a nationalist revolt build up in a moment of overconfidence, while also feeding it by acquiring too much Scottish land while being overconfident about your military capacity (also of note is that nationalist rebels are probably the strongest rebel type alongside religious rebels until revolutionaries show up). So yea, it was a series of bad decisions from getting too greedy.

Also, when you saw the fuckhueg pile of angry Scots you should have taken a loan, and hired a merc stack to bolster your numbers so you can win the decisive battle. Sure you'd be paying off the debt for a good deal of time, but by the sound of it you had lots of AE to get rid of too.

 

[Delterius]

How is "making bad decisions" an excuse for something like that? Answer: it isn't. Also, it wasn't really early game, I was game's leader in military, having a full army with ahead of time technology and almost completed quality idea path, previously rolfstomping France, which I assume should be one of the main world powers.

And somehow couldn't deal with a single rebel stack? Yeah. Sounds we lack the information necessary to fully appreaciate your string of bad decisions. Rebellion is serious business now dude.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I kind of misplaced a bet on that when I played my first Mare Nostrum campaign as Sweden, which ended up with France being so assfucked from being my misplaced meat shield that the ensuing corruption, bankcruptcy, rebellions, and manpower depletion

Do you know for a fact that all these concern the AI? Quite a few user reviews point to AI factions being completely resistant to things that human player must suffer through, like stability drops etc.

You allowed a nationalist revolt build up in a moment of overconfidence, while also feeding it by acquiring too much Scottish land while being overconfident about your military capacity (also of note is that nationalist rebels are probably the strongest rebel type alongside religious rebels until revolutionaries show up). So yea, it was a series of bad decisions from getting too greedy.

Oh, I don't doubt there are game mechanics about it which I didn't prepare for since I didn't yet know how stupid the game is and safely assumed that if I completely destroyed Scottish army I will be able to do the same with their rebels just fine. What I mean is that nothing explains a country previously fielding a 12k regular army spawning 3x that and completely destroying what the game itself deemed at that point a number 1 military in the world.

And somehow couldn't deal with a single rebel stack? Yeah.

Uh... Congratulations on understanding what I wrote? It didn't take you that long I guess.

 

[Delterius]

I don't doubt there are game mechanics about it which I didn't prepare for since I didn't yet know

Learning about new games is fun.

 

[Hoodoo]

Yeah alright so some of you nitwits are seriously defending a 30K professional rebel army popping out of nowhere, that's bigger and better trained than any army the whole tiny country otherwise fielded when it was whole and independent. Does that make you feel like pros when you dispense platitudes to explain his situation?

There's only so much you can do to stop an incoming rebellion, in fact some of them are just forced upon you. The proportional strength of rebels stacks is always greater than any rebellion that ever happened in history.

 

[Delterius]

The game gives you all the tools required to keep any and all rebellions from happening.

 

[Hoodoo]

No not really. Especially when they're event induced.

 

[Delterius]

Yes, really. Trust me on this, AIDS.

 

[Hoodoo]

You wast 500 adm points for a meager -3 rebellion chance. Waste 150 Military power to delay it by a few months (if the risk is high it's a waste). If you're lucky you can have the special adviser.

Decrease autonomy is the only mechanism that will really help you, but sometimes that's not enough. Regardless of those tools, rebellions can grow to absurd size, sometimes larger than the historic population of the province. It's another cargo cult tax from paradox, just like their comet, that bring nothing of value to the game.

 

[Delterius]

Generally autonomy + Stationing troops is enough. To say nothing of national ideas and common religion. If not, you can always just leave your troops in the province, making use of the terrain modifier to break the rebel troops as they come up.

Sometimes the blame is on you.