Europa Universalis IV

[Makabb]

Seems EU4 now will be EU + CK + Victoria

 

[Delterius]

That's a shitton more ruler personality traits than I expected.

 

[Makabb]

1.18 is shaping up to be bretty gud

 

[LizardWizard]

1.18 is shaping up to be bretty gud

20 dollar (27 including the superfluous shit) dlc of copy pasting in CK2 features. Great value Paradox.

 

[Lone Wolf]

I'm pretty sure you'll get 60% of those features for free in the patch.

 

[Average Manatee]

This patch/DLC looks cool. Hopefully EU5 will include most of this features but ditch mana.

 

[LizardWizard]

I'm pretty sure you'll get 60% of those features for free in the patch.

Not really no. Most of the free stuff is fixing the garbage tier dlc which was mare nostrum.

The trait/personality/greatpower stuff looks good, just not 20 bucks worth considering they are copy paste features from previous games. Johan is claiming this is the most expensive expansion which sounds like pure horseshit.

 

[Trash]

Heh, that does look good. Perhaps time to get this then.

 

[Makabb]

 

[MoLAoS]

I'm pretty sure you'll get 60% of those features for free in the patch.

Not really no. Most of the free stuff is fixing the garbage tier dlc which was mare nostrum.

The trait/personality/greatpower stuff looks good, just not 20 bucks worth considering they are copy paste features from previous games. Johan is claiming this is the most expensive expansion which sounds like pure horseshit.

I don't understand how all this stuff can be so expensive. I've implemented more complex features in a day. Maybe it has to do with their interface and art assets needing to be redone or something?

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I don't understand how all this stuff can be so expensive.

Don't try your luck in sales then.

 

[Kane]

Abolishing techgroups is the I have been longing for all these years.

 

[Multiple Sarcasm]

Can't wait for it to become playable in patch 1.19.3.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Been playing Rights of Man. So far it's pretty fantastic. Definitely one of the best DLCs for EU4. I'd go so far as to say Art of War tier

 

[MoLAoS]

What's so great about it? I went ahead and got my DLC up to date including RoM and I don't see a significant gameplay difference.

 

[MilesBeyond]

What's so great about it? I went ahead and got my DLC up to date including RoM and I don't see a significant gameplay difference.

Derp. Meant to reply to this but forgot. Personally I absolutely love the Great Powers mechanic, and the ability to get all up in other peoples' business. Particularly loving the balance of power type stuff, where, for example, if there's two Great Powers on one side of a war and one on the other side, any other Great Power can join the second side to even the odds a bit. To me, this makes diplomacy a lot more interesting and intricate, and I think it really serves to help strike a balance. Basically the issue is that Paradox seems to want to tone down the blobbing simulator aspect of EU4, but the problem with that is that military conflict is at the core of the EU games. Lacking the internal politics of CK2 or the economic development of Vicky 2, there's little they can do to make peacetime as compelling as wartime in EU4 without completely revamping the game. So I was a little so/so on the way that expansions like The Cossacks tried to implement more peacetime things to do, but I feel like Rights of Man has reached a happy medium: Enabling and encouraging the player to fight wars over things other than territory.

Prussia becomes particularly interesting for this, because the Prussian Monarchy actively discourages blobbing (well, kinda. Your country's militarization declines if you have too many provinces, but as you can boost it with sword mana, I found I could just blob and keep it high anyway). So it's actually totally viable to play a small, tall Prussia with a super badass army that keeps everyone around them in line.

I also really like how it changes England, because it allows you to Brexit and abandon your holdings on the continent and become an island fortress, but still have a big impact on European affairs (before, selling off your continental provinces really just meant you were going to do a purely colonial game).

I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about institutions. They're cool, certainly, and the way they spread makes the game still stay reasonably within the same sphere (e.g. while it's hypothetically easier for non-westerns to achieve tech parity, in practice this really doesn't play out too much, aside from India being a little more advanced than they were ordinarily, really the only difference I've noticed is that you might be like ten levels ahead of the Aztecs instead of twelve). They also make it easier for small nations to keep up technologically, as opposed to larger ones (which is a mechanic I always appreciated about EU3). However, the spread system can be a little frustrating. Particularly Colonialism. Sometimes that institution can spend like thirty years on England before it pops up anywhere else. Which, to be fair, is a lot of fun if you are England.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Oh, right. The reason I came back to this thread is: Steam Halloween sale. Are any of the content packs actually worth getting?

 

[Delterius]

Played a game as Tabarestan/Persia, got scared that the Ottomans and Super France-Spain-Northern Italy were growing too much. Was mighty surprised when Prussia managed to break of the French and the Ottomans with marginal help from second rate countries like the remains of Austria and Russia minus Kiev. Especially since that helped me in growing into Ottoman territory later on.

Particularly Colonialism. Sometimes that institution can spend like thirty years on England before it pops up anywhere else. Which, to be fair, is a lot of fun if you are England.

Colonialism is manageable. Try Printing Press when it spawns in fucking Stockholm.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Colonialism is manageable. Try Printing Press when it spawns in fucking Stockholm.

True dat. Though institutions can magically appear in any province with development over 30 and that tends to be more common when Printing Press rolls around. Still, though. Can slow you down pretty fiercely.

I actually still haven't seen Russia in my games. They removed "lucky nation" status from Poland, Brandenburg, and Sweden, all with the intention of making Russia more likely to form, and it still hasn't happened for me. I was worried that Scandinavia and eastern Europe would be consumed by the Green Blob, but Muscovy just can't get it together.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i once had industries spawn in kyoto :V

 

[Delterius]

I guess Manufactories and perhaps even Global Trade are the ones with the best chance of spawning outside Europe. You can spawn Manufactories across an Empire with a good enough cashflow. And I guess you could create the wealthiest center of Trade with a good enough trade power across Asia/Caribbean. Enlightenment however seems a bit stacked towards the old world once again.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Oh, right. The reason I came back to this thread is: Steam Halloween sale. Are any of the content packs actually worth getting?

I managed to get Mare Nostrum for 4.90 EUR and that's 8 months after its release, which I think was a good deal.

military conflict is at the core of the EU games.

I think EU was at its best in EU2's AGCEEP mod (or For The Glory), where it's mainly a game of diplomacy where the real game is in predicting and averting the forming of coalitions which would bring your country down. That's where the real brain stretching was. The military aspect and model of the game is really very basic and I've always found it uninteresting, although EUIV has made steps in the right direction, like the forts' control area.

 

[Makabb]

EU 4 is weird, either it's way too hard as a small country, or when you get big enough its get way too easy.

 

[oscar]

EU 4 is weird, either it's way too hard as a small country, or when you get big enough its get way too easy.

Yeah something in general I've noticed with the series and Paradox games in general. It's rare to be in the sweet spot beyond relying on ridiculous exploits/save scumming for very survival or being able to kick everyone's ass with one hand tied behind your back.

 

[MilesBeyond]

I think EU suffers from it particularly due to the lack of peacetime options. CK and Vicky have all sorts of other things going on, where even if you're a tiny insignificant nation or by far the most powerful country out there, you've still got interesting things to do. In EU, it's generally blob or be blobbed.