Europa Universalis IV

[Humanophage]

Playing as Catholic Geneva on "Very Hard Ironman". Feelgood Deus Vult, white power through diplomacy. Constantinople taken away from Turkish hands after less than a century.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i still have no idea how to have a succesful byzantium game since the blockade rework.

 

[Riddler]

What rework?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it got reworked a dozen millennia ago, with the introduction of percentage based ports blockades. since then, no one can blockade the whole bosphorus other than ottomans themselves for a century.

 

[Riddler]

it got reworked a dozen millennia ago, with the introduction of percentage based ports blockades. since then, no one can blockade the whole bosphorus other than ottomans themselves for a century.

What are you talking about? You can easily blockade the strait as Byzantium.

The issue is the fort.

This is the easiest way to start as Byzantium:

Start by building a ton of galleys (you'll probably only get to build 5). Move your troops to Morea. Kill Epirus and possibly keep him as a one province vassal. Get military access from Venice and if you vassalised Epirus scutage him.

Wait for the Otto's to move troops into position to attack, set defensive edict on Constantinople and then either let him attack you or attack him. The goal now is to island trap 1-2 of his armies coming for you in Morea.

Once that is done you get a bunch of mercs to break the seige on Constantinople. After that you have a choice depending on how things are going, either you cross the strait with transports and start to hunt whatever remains of the Ottos or you quickly seige the fort beside Constantinople, possibly breaching with your armada depending on how earlier naval battles went. Having secured the two forts on the strait you should be safe and can disband the mercs and seige down Greece and wait for the peace deal (or if things went well earlier you can 100% him and use your fleet to trap smaller armies on different sides of the strait).

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's all cool and dandy, until ottomans attack first two months in.

just my sick curiosity: how are you going to maintain a fleet large enough to fight kebab's? magic?

 

[thesecret1]

Been a long time since I did a vanilla BYZ run, but it should still be possible to cheese it if you really need to. IIRC crossing the bosphorus takes a fairly long time. If you can grab gallipoli fast enough, you can send a single galley from port into the strait. The galley will die to Otto fleet, of course, but the naval combat will provide a blockade for a moment. That's enough to reset the crossing timer. If used well, you can buy yourself a year or two where Otto's armies are stuck trying to cross (then you prolly run out of money, but it's fine, you can pay your debts with the money you grab in the peace deal), while you siege down all of greece. When Otto finally does cross, he still needs to siege down those forts to get any warscore, giving you yet more time. If you time things well, you should be able to reach a favourable peace deal just before they take one of your forts.

That's how I did a BYZ vs Otto run with no allies a couple years back anyway.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

but the naval combat will provide a blockade for a moment.

nope, you have to provide 100% blockade to all the ports involved in order to block troops from crossing.

 

[thesecret1]

but the naval combat will provide a blockade for a moment.

nope, you have to provide 100% blockade to all the ports involved in order to block troops from crossing.

Is that some recent change?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

it's a decade old. but i admit i don't know if it's been changed back, honestly doubt.

 

[Riddler]

it's all cool and dandy, until ottomans attack first two months in.

just my sick curiosity: how are you going to maintain a fleet large enough to fight kebab's? magic?

Selling monopolies and then loans, you'll pay things back with the money you take from the Ottosman.

 

[Riddler]

it's a decade old. but i admit i don't know if it's been changed back, honestly doubt.

A single transport is enough to block a strait you control one side of.

 

[thesecret1]

it's a decade old. but i admit i don't know if it's been changed back, honestly doubt.

I've never had to actually blockade a port to prevent troop crossing. This is the first time I hear about that.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

try again, if you don't 100% block source and target, troops don't give a fuck and walk anyway. last time i played, a couple years ago, it was still like this, i doubt it's been changed or nerfed, paradox loves sticking to its terrible decisions.

 

[thesecret1]

try again, if you don't 100% block source and target, troops don't give a fuck and walk anyway. last time i played, a couple years ago, it was still like this, i doubt it's been changed or nerfed, paradox loves sticking to its terrible decisions.

I'm pretty sure its never been like this... There was a straits blocking change some years back that mandated that you had to control one of the two provinces forming the strait, in order to block the troop passage. Whether you manage to blockade the ports or not has always been completely irrelevant.

 

[Average Manatee]

No, you don't need 100% blockade, you only need 1 ship and for the enemy to NOT control both sides of the strait. The blockade % only matters for stealing income and getting the bonus on sieges for blockading the province. Unless it was literally changed in the last month I'm absolutely certain it works this way. If the enemy does control both sides of the strait then no amount of ships can stop them crossing.

 

[XenomorphII]

Yeah blockade percentage has never been relevant to troop crossing unless it was very swiftly changed back at some point.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

As far as I'm aware, this 1.33 strategy still works just fine:

 

[Space Satan]

LIES, DECEPTION

 

[Jason Liang]

Free this week on Epic Games!

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/europa-universalis-iv

 

[Lady Error]

Free this week on Epic Games!

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/europa-universalis-iv

And $390 with all DLCs:

https://store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/europa-universalis-iv--ultimate-bundle

It's like with drugs, the first sample is free.

 

[Mikeal]

Finally the mod we need https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3018237343

Stock Market Mod for Europa Universalis IV!

Experience true life of an investor, immersing yourself in an overhaul of the eu4 trade good system, providing you with many tools necessary to completely relearn the inner workings of the trade system.

Rest assured, for you will be delivered with:

Dynamic Pricing!
The mod allows you to immerse yourself in the realm of real economics. There are no more static prices rarely influenced by a few price change events. Everything is now dynamic, and prices of trade goods depend on their supply and demand which can be influenced from anything like development to army and navy sizes around the world.

Price Events!
The vanilla price change events have been entirely overhauled to make the changes in markets more realistic. New events have been introduced to add some randomness to the prices. Experience the "craze" events, introducing otherwise foreign trade goods to Europe, generating temporary skyhigh prices! And don't let the Huaynaputina eruption bankrupt your economy!

Stockpiles and Demands!
Your population now demands trade goods! Acquire them by conquest or purchase them so that your population shall never suffer from a famine ever again. Fail to do that and you will find yourself beset by internal cohesion. Manage your demand by instituting taxes or completely banning consumption altogether.

New Buildings!
Fulfill the demand by constructing one of the 10 new buildings, half of them focusing around increasing the production of 5 Basic Trade Goods. If you are feeling prosperous and bountiful, further empower your country by constructing one of the five buildings that generate demand.

The Stock Market!
Buy, profiteer and manipulate the global markets to your will. Purchase stock ahead of time and sell at the most opportunistic time and sow the profits of your hard investor work! Or... just invest everything into one basket and lose all your life savings.

 

[Higher Game]

Early game Castile is still a beast if you play it right. Was about to cut down Aragon just before Iberian Wedding so I could feed it up more later before annexation, but Isabel got dysentery and died so whatever.

 

[Higher Game]

If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much.

 

[None]

Next DLC is about Persia and the Middle East. Wasn't always a fan of the flavor packs, as DDRJake's approach was always summed up by him adding more hidden buttons to push for mana, but the last two give the game more life in the areas they've covered.

I've returned to this game (a few months ago) after dropping it sometime before Golden Century. And I've gotta say, I've been having fun. EU4, despite a good amount of issues, has always understood what it is supposed to be, moreso than other Pdox titles. For example, HOI4 can't decide whether or not I'm supposed to be primarily conducting war, or clicking through a focus tree and deciding how many machine guns to put on a tank. CK3 is split between being a traditional GSG and The Sims.

Right now the game's main issue seems to be balance. It is way easier than I remember, with everything being done far too quickly. Conquest and coring, discovery and colonization, technology and institutions, etc. All of it happens too quickly or early and by the time I get to ~1600 I've more or less beat the game and the only point of continuing is if I want to do a WC. All the mechanics to slow things down a bit are there, they just need to be tweaked.