Europa Universalis IV

[Kane]

That completely random peasant war event is an instant game killer.

Start game -> play until peasant war -> restart game.

 

[Mortmal]

Also, does anyone else feel like they made combat math a lot more punishing? The difference between a tech level or two feels much more massive early on than in previous games, and of course assaulting fortresses is for some reason not just hugely more inefficient than EU3, but even way worse than CK2. Mind, I haven't gotten into lategame yet, so maybe the whole thing is balanced around having all the siege/idea bonuses.

The thing that immediately leapt out at me was the 10X numerical superiority of enemy -> automatic victory rule being completely gone.

Tech clearly make a huge difference, i was not kidding earlier when speaking of burning lot of manpower to compensate.Now its 1810, i am allied with ottomans agaisnt spain austria, and other european minor coalition. Golden horde is a bit under teched (32vs 28) , i have to bring 2X more troops to succeed.Also westernization is really nightmarish, -3 stability 200% cost to regain it, ton of demands events and rebellions. If you find the game easy try more primtive nations, its probalby much more fun.

 

[Zeriel]

Also, does anyone else feel like they made combat math a lot more punishing? The difference between a tech level or two feels much more massive early on than in previous games, and of course assaulting fortresses is for some reason not just hugely more inefficient than EU3, but even way worse than CK2. Mind, I haven't gotten into lategame yet, so maybe the whole thing is balanced around having all the siege/idea bonuses.

The thing that immediately leapt out at me was the 10X numerical superiority of enemy -> automatic victory rule being completely gone.

Tech clearly make a huge difference, i was not kidding earlier when speaking of burning lot of manpower to compensate.Now its 1810, i am allied with ottomans agaisnt spain austria, and other european minor coalition. Golden horde is a bit under teched (32vs 28) , i have to bring 2X more troops to succeed.Also westernization is really nightmarish, -3 stability 200% cost to regain it, ton of demands events and rebellions. If you find the game easy try more primtive nations, its probalby much more fun.

Playing as Byzantium so it's not like I'm rolling in the crazy awesome tech, and I'm still speaking of early game. Still, what I'm actually saying isn't so much about game difficulty (this is a Paradox game, after all), but comparative simplicity of doing certain things. If I wanted to be the typical Codexian meme-fountain, this would be where I'd call the monarch power system as it relates to a lot of things as pretty damn "popamole". It just feels weird hitting a button to automatically core & convert & enculturize every time I take a province.

Assuming you are doing a eurocentric playthrough, mind, and not doing something like colonialism. So judging it by that standard is I suppose pretty unfair. But still. Ones to look at: economic, all military ones (quality/quantity, offensive, defensive, etc), maybe religious.

Best ideas are Diplomacy and Exploration. Fabricating claims and reduced core cost is the lifeblood of expanding your continental empire, while Colonies are incredibly cheap for the benefit they give. Both ideas also use up Diplomacy points, which is hands-down the most useless tech and the one you can afford to draw points away from.

Sadly Military ideas tend to make you worse at military for not teching. Being a level behind on Military Tactics = You will lose with 2 to 1 odds in your favour, being a level behind on new units = you will lose with 1.5 to 1 odds in your favour. It's not really worth taking them until you are ahead of time in tech.

Economic ideas are a bit of a waste considering everyone has loadsamoney after a short period of play, and unlike EU3 improving your income doesn't really improve tech rate (ridiculously overpriced advisors aside). It just kind of sits there. Unless you want to go massively over the limit in colonialism and colonize 10 places at once.

My biggest complaint so far is how dumb missionaries are. Sure, there was always a bit of "I can't convert this shit realistically" in EU3, but at least it generally had a _chance_, and it wasn't necessary for culture. In EU4 you need to convert their religion before dealing with culture, and religion and culture penalties stack for purposes of countering missionary strength. So different culture + different religion = 0% missionary chance until you have literally every missionary strength idea in the game. I suppose I'm just not a fan of binary success/failure states in a game otherwise filled with tons of gradients and number-crunching.

Paradox can't into math. It's ridiculous to literally have a 0% conversion rate. The penalties should be by percentage, not percentage points. e.g. 1% conversion rate - 50% wrong culture = .5% conversion rate, not 1% conversion rate - 2% wrong culture = -1% fuck you asshole.

Huh, good to know. I didn't actually realize military ideas used military power to research--makes sense, I just hadn't actually gotten into those ideas yet. Military tech in general seems really borked. Tech was always a big deal in EU as it should be, but it should only (in my opinion) be the decider of battles above everything else when you're ahead multiple levels. Losing 2-to-1 battles because you're one level behind seems so ridiculous--thematically this would be one thing, just something to chalk up to gameism, but in terms of what that does to how the game plays, it's absolutely atrocious.

I like economic ideas, but then I've always loved just piling up gold in every EU game. As far as it being useless... not sure I agree, isn't everyone basically agreed on the fact that mercenaries are hella good compared to manpower, and you can always convert lots of excess ducats into mercenaries (assuming you have mercenaries to hire).

 

[Zeriel]

Anyway, to put some context to my ramblings, here's the only game I've played so far (yes, still fairly early):

 

[KoolNoodles]

Anybody know how to change to a different military tech group? I've westernized as the Aztecs and I'm pretty far behind but catching up(sort of, only militarily), but my units are still crap for the most part compared to anybody else. It's kind of hilarious, because Native Americans equipped with rifles and other modern tech/logistics were able to hurt the world's finest "Redcoats" on many occasion, depending on terrain. Here I am with "Reformed Mountain Guerrillas" or whatever the hell, and still getting womped. As soon as Portugal or Spain get their overseas shit together I probably won't last.

 

[Average Manatee]

Playing as Byzantium so it's not like I'm rolling in the crazy awesome tech, and I'm still speaking of early game. Still, what I'm actually saying isn't so much about game difficulty (this is a Paradox game, after all), but comparative simplicity of doing certain things. If I wanted to be the typical Codexian meme-fountain, this would be where I'd call the monarch power system as it relates to a lot of things as pretty damn "popamole". It just feels weird hitting a button to automatically core & convert & enculturize every time I take a province.

I call it the strategy equivalent of level scaling. No matter how amazing or how shitty you run your empire, your research/coring/etc is still within the hard limits of the RNG that monarch power is.

Huh, good to know. I didn't actually realize military ideas used military power to research--makes sense, I just hadn't actually gotten into those ideas yet. Military tech in general seems really borked. Tech was always a big deal in EU as it should be, but it should only (in my opinion) be the decider of battles above everything else when you're ahead multiple levels. Losing 2-to-1 battles because you're one level behind seems so ridiculous--thematically this would be one thing, just something to chalk up to gameism, but in terms of what that does to how the game plays, it's absolutely atrocious.

I don't know why Paradox insists on making big jumps. It would be easy to make every level give .2 military tactics, rather than staying at 1.5 for 5 levels then jumping to 2.5. In EU3 individual tech levels were often priced differently, in EU4 they are always priced the same regardless of whether they do big things or offer nothing but a higher level fort you'll never build.

It's also silly how badly they gimp the poorer tech groups with this by making it scale so harshly. In aforementioned Mongol Khanate game, I blobbed west until reaching Russia. Of course, I was behind even Eastern group in tech, but it was still only one tactics level. Not even a contest, even with the Mongol unit buffs and stuff. 2.5 tactics vs 1.5 means that you get utterly annihilated beyond all recognition. We're talking 40k Russians take on 60k mongols, killing 40k while taking 2k casualties. Thankfully I entered that war along with the Ottomans in a coalition, they were able to do my work for me and carve me a province path to sweden so I could westernize.

I like economic ideas, but then I've always loved just piling up gold in every EU game. As far as it being useless... not sure I agree, isn't everyone basically agreed on the fact that mercenaries are hella good compared to manpower, and you can always convert lots of excess ducats into mercenaries (assuming you have mercenaries to hire).

If you are winning your battles you tend to not have manpower problems. At least I haven't. Also in EU3 mercenaries were weaker due to not getting most morale boosts, not sure if that's still the case.

BTW, if you've won a war, make sure to rack up all the ducats your enemies have with the excess warscore. Most AI nations stockpile ridiculous amounts of money, I dunno why. But you can often get hundreds of ducats per enemy in this way.

Anybody know how to change to a different military tech group? I've westernized as the Aztecs and I'm pretty far behind but catching up(sort of, only militarily), but my units are still crap for the most part compared to anybody else. It's kind of hilarious, because Native Americans equipped with rifles and other modern tech/logistics were able to hurt the world's finest "Redcoats" on many occasion, depending on terrain. Here I am with "Reformed Mountain Guerrillas" or whatever the hell, and still getting womped. As soon as Portugal or Spain get their overseas shit together I probably won't last.

Did you just click the westernize button or are you fully westernized? You only get unit changes once fully westernized. Amusingly, your unit type instantly changes to the european equivalent when this happens, which means their morale unexpectedly goes to zero like all unit type changes.

 

[Zeriel]

Ah, I didn't mean as a substitute for manpower so much as the reinforcement cost of manpower in EU4 is so high (like, "cost of hiring mercenaries in EU3" high) that mercenaries in comparison aren't intensely more expensive. Which in turn offers a point to lots of money. Admittedly, I'm sure it's still like EU3 was lategame where you hit a point where you have so much income that the only way to dispose of it is building a manufactory in every province on the map, but that's a different sort of problem.

This is also why I've stopped taking the colonial route through the game, it always ends up being a form of cheatcode where you're sitting on the gold mines of America and hundreds of provinces while the AI is just starting to colonize a few patches of sugarcane in the Caribbean.

 

[Average Manatee]

I don't think the reinforcement cost is that bad, you should be able to ride it out. Certainly not as bad as having 2x as high of maintenance cost, which you must pay every month for eternity. That said, I tend to run a deficit during war (if not during peace as well during the early game!) and extract exorbitant amounts of money from war targets. In the early game wars tend to be decided by only 1 or 2 big battles, and if you win those handily you won't take many casualties at all.

That said, if you stack the -merc cost bonuses they actually become cheaper than regular units. Which is kind of silly. Also kind of a waste of idea slots since the ones that give it are rather sub-optimal. Sweden btw is overpowered thanks to this and their other NIs.

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, Byzantium also gets mercenary bonuses. I'm not a fan of mercenaries because the type of unit tends to be kind of bad and its out of your control, but it is a major element of the game they tried to promote this time around that gives a benefit to massive amounts of ducats, so there's that to be said for economic ideas.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Anyone tested if the converted country files have functional name files? I've combed them over, and they look kind of iffy (like "leader names and monarch names files are identical, while the first one should determine surnames and the latter one first names" iffy).

I'm still probably just going to replace the rest of the name sections with the standard files, since I've taken care of the files for Uralica and its various possibly released states (current loadout is: Karelia, Livonia, Finland, Perm, Mordvinia, Ruthenia, Lithuania and Khazaria).

And yea, the goddamn cultural enrichment and core allocation is FINALLY finished! Woohoo!

 

[Renegen]

Mercenaries have really quick recovery rate. I'm talking about hiring all the mercenaries available and an equel number being restocked 3 months later.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

It. Is. Finnished.

Once I check that everything works out, I can give you guys the standard version (no special events or decisions).

 

[Space Satan]

So, by experience, what Military tech is the best? Quality have +15% discipline final bonus and +10% infantry ability but Offensive have powerful bonuse and Defensive have this awesome +0.5 morale. I can't figure out yet what is better - +10|% combat ability or +1 leader shock and fire

 

[Kane]

it depends

 

[KoolNoodles]

it depends

 

[Kane]

discipline is a damage modifier. ex: 150% = 1.5 times as much damage. discipline makes combat more "economically" efficient since you kill more MP per attack than they do. Then there is military tactics which reduces the damage taken by your men. Discipline also increases military tactics, so it's essentially a double damage boost. that makes discipline especially interesting for small countries with limited manpower.

combat ability is essentially the same, but it is usually just applied to a certain kind of unit (infantry combat ability, cavalery combat ability,...) and doesn't raise your military tactics.

Fire/Shock values directly influence the die-roll in their respective combat phase.

 

[Average Manatee]

So, by experience, what Military tech is the best? Quality have +15% discipline final bonus and +10% infantry ability but Offensive have powerful bonuse and Defensive have this awesome +0.5 morale. I can't figure out yet what is better - +10|% combat ability or +1 leader shock and fire

Defensive is generally the best, but only because -50% attrition lets you doomstack to hell and back. For those who don't know, -50% attrition actually means -50% supply used, so you can stuff 50k units in a 25k province. Scary fucking things happen when you have another NI that gives -attrition. Hordes for example have -33% attrition, which stacks for -83% attrition = 25 supply provinces now let you stack nearly 150k units in them. And Maneuver adds to this. At that point you just run around with all infantry and insta-siege things, the AI won't even bother you because that stack size just scares the shit out of them.

As for Quality vs Offensive:

Shock/Fire die rolls are almost linear, so +1 fire/shock on a roll of 0-9 will give an average damage boost (or damage reduction, since the attack and defense shock values are compared and the difference between sides is used) of just over 20%, but only for that half of combat. Altogether, Offensive line should increase force effectiveness to 1.1 (discipline less damage taken) * 1.1 (discipline damage) * 1.22 (fire/shock) = 148%.

I know nothing about how combat ability bonuses work since they are new, but assuming raw is correct we have 1.15 * 1.15 * 1.1 = 145% for quality.

They are obviously very close. Offensive has a slightly bigger bonus and other things to get in the NIs like more manpower and forced march (which you can use to cheese AI by attacking a smaller force, then when they retreat a day before you would arrive hit forced march to catch up before they leave). On the other hand, it absolutely requires you to have a general at all times to take full use of its effect. Also, if you have 100 army tradition you'll generally roll 4-6 stat generals, and if they are 6 stat they won't go all the way to 7 with offensive, losing the fire/shock benefit.

So yeah, it can go either way.

Also of note is the Innovative tech. It's really an amazing all-around tech. Just for combat ability: -2% tradition decay will equate to some 20-30% better army and naval tradition after having it for a few decades, on it's own probably giving you an average of +1.5-2 to fire and shock. +1 leaders without upkeep is very nice, especially when you need both admirals and generals. -war exhaustion is great since it works during war, and war exhaustion is an absolute pain during long wars. And of course, it doesn't cost military tech points to upgrade, meaning your military tech stays at its peak (plus the -5% technology cost bonus). This is most useful for non-western nations who absolutely can't afford to divert a single military point away from teching.

 

[Kane]

I know nothing about how combat ability bonuses work since they are new, but assuming raw

Noone knows for certain yet but it seems to be unit type specific discipline.

 

[Malakal]

I generally have problems keeping tradition high enough to max the power of my generals therefore I prefer offensive to other army ideas. But now that I have read what -attrition does I have to try that, seems awesome if imbalanced.

On another note I love trade now, its very fun managing how the trade value flows. Its wayyy better than sending merchants every month to different cots.

 

[Average Manatee]

I generally have problems keeping tradition high enough to max the power of my generals therefore I prefer offensive to other army ideas. But now that I have read what -attrition does I have to try that, seems awesome if imbalanced.

On another note I love trade now, its very fun managing how the trade value flows. Its wayyy better than sending merchants every month to different cots.

FWIW, something like 98% of AI nations are programmed to take defensive at one time or another. And it would seem that every time I've invaded some giant AI blob that I've been taking that +1% attrition in enemy territory. Circumstantial evidence would suggest that the AI ability to blob is closely linked to whether they take Defensive early or not.

 

[Malakal]

Well considering that most idea groups are useless anyway I would take defensive eventually too. Because lets face it:
-religious group is good
-innovative is meh but usable
-economic is obviously the superior one once you can shell out enough adm
-diplomatic is the obvious first pick
-trade is the obvious pick for anyone trading
-all military ones seem to work
-the rest? especially the adm ones and diplomatic ones if not going for colonies and trade? useless

Considering how many idea groups you get there is hardly a choice at all. Especially administrative group is extremely disappointing with merc focus.

 

[Spectacle]

On another note I love trade now, its very fun managing how the trade value flows. Its wayyy better than sending merchants every month to different cots.

Trade is improved, but the static trade routes let it down. I would have liked to focus on trade in my Japan game, but there's just no way to move trade in Asia towards the Nippon node, it always goes towards Europe.
Apparently the engine cannot handle any loops in the trade network, so it is limited what modders can do to improve this.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Europa Uralica is finally in passable state. Some maps:

That Shamanist blurb there has been fixed.

Alright, so I've also assigned some of the national ideas to the new states present. Albion has English ideas, Greater Bavaria, Transylvania and Burgundy-Italy have respective primary ideas, Iberia has Spanish ideas, Georgia has Ottoman ideas, Anatolia has Byzantine ideas, Livonia has Danish ideas, Finland has Hansa ideas, Karelia has Russian ideas (Uralica itself doesn't have special ideas), Frisia has Dutch ideas, Carinthia has Austrian ideas, Beja has Portuguese ideas and Africa has Mameluk ideas. Jomsvikings and their Fylkir should prioritize Exploration ideas now. Ukraine and Lithuania have been set to have their pagan religion if released. Khazaria uses the Kazan flag, Livonia uses the Prussian flag, Karelia uses the Novgorod flag and Mordvinia uses the Courland flag. All countries have complete namelists.

One last check, and then uploading.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Now we only need a proper balance mod... from what i have been reading, the combat is either too easy or too hard, people can't decide witch.

 

[Malakal]

On another note I love trade now, its very fun managing how the trade value flows. Its wayyy better than sending merchants every month to different cots.

Trade is improved, but the static trade routes let it down. I would have liked to focus on trade in my Japan game, but there's just no way to move trade in Asia towards the Nippon node, it always goes towards Europe.
Apparently the engine cannot handle any loops in the trade network, so it is limited what modders can do to improve this.

Yes, static trade nodes suck and need to be replaced with dynamic trade nodes appearing when enough trade routes cross.