Europa Universalis IV

[whydoibother]

Is that how it works? I thought it worked like CK2 where the more troops you have the faster it ticks down.

I thought you need to beat a defense value X to get it going, and if you beat it by 2x it goes faster.

 

[Stavrophore]

I thought you need to beat a defense value X to get it going, and if you beat it by 2x it goes faster.

Nope. You need minimum number of troops per fort level, ie. a lvl 2 fort needs 6k troops, lvl 3 fort needs 9k troops minimum. Siege won't progress if you fall below this number, and if you have more than that let say 20k troops vs lvl 3 fort[capital with fort at start of the game] it will progress just as well as if you had 10k troops there. Cannon regiments will increase siege progress up to +5, depending on number of cannons, and in late game thanks to age ability you can increase that by 3 for maximum of bonus o 8. Assaulting is the mechanics of spending military mana points for assaulting a breached fort. Then you also have bombardment, which needs minimum number of cannons per fort level. In the end number of troops doesn't matter for SIEGES as long as you have the minimum necessary number. It matters for Assault. Number of cannons matter for siege speed progress and for bombarding. For bombarding same rule apply as with siege, you need minimum number to bombard, if you have more than that it won't give you a better breach.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i found assaulting is almost never worth it. it costs military mana, it's only barely effective with a wall breach, eats troops like candy, carving a gigantic hole in your manpower, in the end you spend longer reinforcing troops than just waiting for the siege to end by itself, with cumulative danger of being eaten by some random microstack wandering around which also will be free to take back the region now at 0 or minimal garrison.
spending for a breach is more than enough. but not always, it can still occur naturally.

 

[Stavrophore]

i found assaulting is almost never worth it. it costs military mana, it's only barely effective with a wall breach, eats troops like candy, carving a gigantic hole in your manpower, in the end you spend longer reinforcing troops than just waiting for the siege to end by itself, with cumulative danger of being eaten by some random microstack wandering around which also will be free to take back the region now at 0 or minimal garrison.
spending for a breach is more than enough. but not always, it can still occur naturally.

Assaulting doesn't cost as much troops when you consolidate regiments after every casualty tick.
The game mechanics work like that:
1. Certain regiments are chosen to take part in assault
2. Every few days there's a casualty tick
3. Participating regiments[10k for the fort with 2000 garrison] lose both morale and strength, while the rest of the army only loses morale
4. Assault either is successful or army is either destroyed[strength] or routed[lost morale].

The lesson is that you want to consolidate regiments that participate in siege after every casualty tick, to maintain both their strength and morale.

Here's the mechanics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBTIHO9yTUk&t=0s

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

oh yes, abusing and breaking mechanics, it's always so much fun.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I'm trying to work out how trade power works.
So Seville is my home node. Is it worth building markets everywhere to increase trade power, or is that pointless as I already have control of it? Or should I only build markets in provinces that have a trade route?
I also have control of Genoa. However, I seem to make barely anything when I collect from it, and Valencia feeds into it. How can I redirect trade from Genoa to Seville, or maximize trade profit in Genoa? Do I just need more Light Ships?

 

[Stavrophore]

You need complete control of every upstream node to halt 100% of trade. Meaning for sevilla you need to conquer whole valencia trade node, every province. Then you can collect 100% in sevilla.

 

[Average Manatee]

You assault when you can't fight the AI on one of your forts, so you wait for them to move off after winning the siege but their soldiers in the fort hasn't fully reinforced and is something pathetic like 100-200 men. Barrage->Assault-> 12 months of AI work and attrition undone in a week. If you're lucky the AI is now stuck behind your zone of control and therefore split up from the rest of their armies.

Assaulting normally is pretty bad unless it's an exceptional circumstance. I believe that general siege ability (not shock or fire) makes assaulting better, but then if you have a 6 siege general you kind of don't need to assault since you'll win a siege normally insanely quickly.

I'm trying to work out how trade power works.
So Seville is my home node. Is it worth building markets everywhere to increase trade power, or is that pointless as I already have control of it? Or should I only build markets in provinces that have a trade route?
I also have control of Genoa. However, I seem to make barely anything when I collect from it, and Valencia feeds into it. How can I redirect trade from Genoa to Seville, or maximize trade profit in Genoa? Do I just need more Light Ships?

Never build markets everywhere. Build markets in centers of trade (at most), and upgrade the centers to level 2.

Collecting outside your home node has a -50% trade power penalty. You can't redirect trade backward. If you want to maximize trade in Genoa you just need to take the centers of trade, or vassalize the nations that own them and force you to transfer 100% of their trade power through the vassalize action. Notably trade power you get from vassals is not affected by that -50% trade power penalty.

Light ships are usually kind of trash and not worth the money, at least until the mid/late game where trade income goes bonkers and you have infinite money anyway. If you have the ability to capture ships then they are great to get for free.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I see, so even if I have a trade good markets are pointless, unless they have that coastal trait thing?
Good to know.
By centers of trade, you mean what feeds into a trade center, right?
So for Seville it would be the Carribean, Ivory Coast and Safi, and for Genoa it would be Valencia, Tunis and India?

 

[Average Manatee]

By centers of trade I mean this, which you can see in the trade mapmode:

Markets apply a % bonus to the province's trade power, centers of trade have a massive trade power bonus. So they are like 5-50x more effective there depending on the level of the center of trade and other factors. Boosting centers of trade to level 2 or 3 may be locked behind some random DLC, I recommend "obtaining" all DLC.

Even then, trying to boost your trade only matters if you plan to try and collect in a divided node for a long period of time. If you plan to just own a node entirely in the near future its not really worth trying to boost your trade power because the most effective way to own nodes is to remove all foreign trade power. Nodes below the node you are collecting in do get some % power to pull trade away from you, but Genoa is an end node so if you control 100% of the land you'll get 100% of the trade (and if you control just the centers of trade you'll get like 90%). This would also help protect your trade in Valencia because enemy power in Genoa won't have that % pulling away from Valencia to Genoa.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I have to conquer the whole of italy then to maximize Genoa's output? That's fine I guess, Spain's mission tree involves conquering italy anyway.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's so much fun when you play france and aragon would rather kill itself than losing any ground in italy, while when you play castille aragon jettisons naples as soon as possible in order to fuck you over.

 

[Average Manatee]

So I have to conquer the whole of italy then to maximize Genoa's output? That's fine I guess, Spain's mission tree involves conquering italy anyway.

Like I said you can get ~90% of the trade by simply taking the centers of trade, and if you vassalize them and force the vassal to transfer trade power you'll ignore the -50% penalty and probably get 95% of trade. Italy is a really high-AE place to conquer so it takes a long time to get the whole thing. Also vassalization costs 1/2 the normal AE of annexing land so it's well advised.

it's so much fun when you play france and aragon would rather kill itself than losing any ground in italy, while when you play castille aragon jettisons naples as soon as possible in order to fuck you over.

Just normal AI fucking up the player's plans. Like when you play Novgorod and manage to ally Poland but they refuse to take the Lithuania PU, get dogpiled immediately, and Lithuania has you rivaled.

 

[Higher Game]

i found assaulting is almost never worth it. it costs military mana, it's only barely effective with a wall breach, eats troops like candy, carving a gigantic hole in your manpower, in the end you spend longer reinforcing troops than just waiting for the siege to end by itself, with cumulative danger of being eaten by some random microstack wandering around which also will be free to take back the region now at 0 or minimal garrison.
spending for a breach is more than enough. but not always, it can still occur naturally.

You can easily end up with excess infantry relative to cavalry and cannon by annexing vassals. Assaults are good for trimming away that excess if you have less than 60% army professionalism. Russia is going to demand lots of assaults when they make it so you can't disband streltsy for manpower.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So I have to conquer the whole of italy then to maximize Genoa's output? That's fine I guess, Spain's mission tree involves conquering italy anyway.

Like I said you can get ~90% of the trade by simply taking the centers of trade, and if you vassalize them and force the vassal to transfer trade power you'll ignore the -50% penalty and probably get 95% of trade. Italy is a really high-AE place to conquer so it takes a long time to get the whole thing. Also vassalization costs 1/2 the normal AE of annexing land so it's well advised.

it's so much fun when you play france and aragon would rather kill itself than losing any ground in italy, while when you play castille aragon jettisons naples as soon as possible in order to fuck you over.

Just normal AI fucking up the player's plans. Like when you play Novgorod and manage to ally Poland but they refuse to take the Lithuania PU, get dogpiled immediately, and Lithuania has you rivaled.

How do you force vassalization? I know you can demand it in a war, but it doesn't seem to work on countries with 100+ dev? Do I just have to keep chewing it up until they agree?

 

[Mikeal]

Or just balkanize them.

 

[thesecret1]

How do you force vassalization? I know you can demand it in a war, but it doesn't seem to work on countries with 100+ dev? Do I just have to keep chewing it up until they agree?

Yep. But often, the best way to blob while avoiding AE is to vassal some has-been with just a few provinces, but a shitload of cores all around. Then you can just reconquest on his behalf, feeding him his cores at 0 AE, and finally diplo-annex him when there's no more cores to retake. Bird mana is by far the most useless of them all, so it's cheap in that regard as well.

 

[Average Manatee]

How do you force vassalization? I know you can demand it in a war, but it doesn't seem to work on countries with 100+ dev? Do I just have to keep chewing it up until they agree?

Yep. But often, the best way to blob while avoiding AE is to vassal some has-been with just a few provinces, but a shitload of cores all around. Then you can just reconquest on his behalf, feeding him his cores at 0 AE, and finally diplo-annex him when there's no more cores to retake. Bird mana is by far the most useless of them all, so it's cheap in that regard as well.

Even better, ally someone who wants a medium power's land, feed your ally his land in a war and vassalize him yourself (you need to control the capital for this), then use your favors with the ally to have them give your vassal back his cores. This can work great for a nation around the size of Milan which can vassalized (maybe it takes a way first to make him smaller) but would generate way too much AE, if you only technically vassalize him when he owns his capital after the war you only pay the AE for the capital (-50% because you vassalized).

 

[AwesomeButton]

Two questions:
1. What do you say about the new content pack? Is it remotely worth buying?
2. I remember there was a mod that was making the political map semi transparent and only colored on the edges, a lot like HoI4's, but what was it called?

 

[Higher Game]

Espionage is even better than you think now. The AI is far more aggressive in getting more distant, better allies, so you are better off with a smaller number of very intense wars with lots of cobelligerents (since you often end up fighting everyone anyway) and this results in massive amounts of AE in short time frames. You can't nibble away at minor powers as easily.

Forts are better now too, as it's hard to juggle lots of opponents without them. War weariness is a bigger concern, too.

New content pack is ok if you really like Northern Europe.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

> Be Spain
> Unlocked Holy War
> About to declare a crusade on England
> Sees the Pope is allied with the protestants
>Confused Spanish screaming

 

[Average Manatee]

Espionage is even better than you think now.

Espionage for 100% spy network and you have +30% siege ability with just espionage. Then there's a policy with divine ideas that gives another +20% siege ability. It's really nice.

Still hard to drop Diplomacy with its -20% province warscore cost though.

 

[Agame]

Two questions:
1. What do you say about the new content pack? Is it remotely worth buying?
2. I remember there was a mod that was making the political map semi transparent and only colored on the edges, a lot like HoI4's, but what was it called?

It has mission trees for nations in the Baltic area, thats literally it, everything else is in the free patch. Sad that PDX have gone full retard on mission trees in EU, they are absolute cancer. Curious to see if they bring these in to Vic3.

 

[Axioms]

Two questions:
1. What do you say about the new content pack? Is it remotely worth buying?
2. I remember there was a mod that was making the political map semi transparent and only colored on the edges, a lot like HoI4's, but what was it called?

It has mission trees for nations in the Baltic area, thats literally it, everything else is in the free patch. Sad that PDX have gone full retard on mission trees in EU, they are absolute cancer. Curious to see if they bring these in to Vic3.

What adding free PUs on Hungary and Bohemia for Poland is too OP for you?

 

[Agame]

Two questions:
1. What do you say about the new content pack? Is it remotely worth buying?
2. I remember there was a mod that was making the political map semi transparent and only colored on the edges, a lot like HoI4's, but what was it called?

It has mission trees for nations in the Baltic area, thats literally it, everything else is in the free patch. Sad that PDX have gone full retard on mission trees in EU, they are absolute cancer. Curious to see if they bring these in to Vic3.

What adding free PUs on Hungary and Bohemia for Poland is too OP for you?

I just hate the design philosophy behind mission trees, the railroading and lack of replay-ability (which to be fair they are addressing somewhat with the new design but its fundamentally always going to be a railroad system.)

I would like to see truly dynamic and changing mission structure based on the game world and situation around you, but of course that would be far to difficult and costly to implement. Better to make fun and wacky missions so Ytubers can create videos about "New Teutonic Horde OP BROKEN OMG LMAO"...