Europa Universalis IV

[Average Manatee]

Defensive just seems absurdly better than the other military ideas.

+1 army tradition alone, the very first defensive unlock, is arguably stronger than the combined benefits of any other single idea line minus the last level. Over time, it equals +20 tradition, since unlike EU3 recruiting generals doesn't use tradition and only time brings it down. +20 tradition will give you +1 fire, +1 shock, +1 maneuver +.5 siege on average. Tradition also gives other benefits: 100% army tradition will give you +.5 morale, +50% manpower recovery speed, and +10% army morale recovery speed. Overall, +1 army tradition replicates the effect of 3 offensive ideas (fire/shock/maneuver) + 1/2 another defensive idea (siege) + 1/5th another defensive idea (morale) + 1/2 a quantity idea (manpower recovery). This is insane. This is the first idea that defensive gives you.

 

[Emily]

Tbh the reason why def is OP is just for one reason 50% attrition allowance.
Meaning you can attack 20k stacks with 40 k with no attrition.
If you dont have it you will always lose on similar tech level.

 

[Average Manatee]

Yeah, that too, but it's impossible to quantify how amazing that is. Even if you strip that out Defensive is pretty damn good.

 

[Kane]

defense also gives you +33% reinforce speed wich is super awesome

 

[Zeriel]

Pretty amusing how Defensive makes you more offensive.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Pretty amusing how Defensive makes you more offensive.

It makes sense that defensive should give you bigger supply bonuses, since advanced fortresses were used both as obstacles as well as resupplying points. (vauban fortification idea for france should give more supply bonus rather than defensive bonus, since they were made with an invasion of the Palatinate and the low countries in mind)

But fortress magazines and supply shouldn't extend beyond the reach of 1 enemy province, thus the deeper you go into enemy territory that supply bonus should be nerfed severely or simply cancelled. Doubht paradox would take the time to code that in though.

But offensive should also have some foraging bonus, in my humble opinion. But coupled with forced march (pretty much the best idea bonus) it would be an instant grab.

 

[Zeriel]

I think the non-combat ideas are the ones that need the most work, really. Economic/Trade are fine, but the rest have so many bad picks.

 

[Average Manatee]

I think the non-combat ideas are the ones that need the most work, really. Economic/Trade are fine, but the rest have so many bad picks.

Economic/Trade? I guess I can give you Trade as being decent, but Economic is just a random pile of crap thrown together. And I'm not sure why anyone would really want Trade, since making money is really easy in EU4.

Now Diplomatic, that's an amazing idea line where every bonus is somewhere between pretty good and incredible. Exploration is obviously great for colonization and all of the ideas synergize. Innovative is pretty damn good too for poorer tech groups in particular. Rest of the idea lines in admin/diplo are pretty meh, though Religious would be great if the CB wasn't so damn limited.

 

[Mortmal]

Offensive for forced march is mandatory especially in iron man mode when you cant reload after missing to catch a stack of running army , and defensive for the 50% attrition then economy , the other ideas are just for filling up wich is a bit sad. I tried quantity with the mongols, its not worth it as you are wasting considerable manpower with your inferior units, in fact its never usefull as you can just bypass manpower problem by buying mercs.Money is not a problem in late stage of the game, now getting enough tech points is , and if you fill more than 2 military ideas lines, your normal military tech tree will lag behind.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Expansion is really good late game for when you want to blob into japan, china and the rest of the chinkcontinent.

Trade as venice, byzantium, russia or sweden is a license to print shekels and economic...eh, national tax, production bonus and land maintenance is also good. But it's only a must if you like austerity taking loans like a ZOG. Which is always the case with venice or some german/dutch minor.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually, in my Sweden campaign the hilarious thing is that I've got so fucking many Military points it's becoming prepostrous. I had absolutely nothing to spend them on for some 10+ years, hit the limit, and now I'm 20 years ahead of tech curve in Military AGAIN. I need to get Defensive ASAP so I don't get crushed underneath all these points.

 

[Kane]

though Religious would be great if the CB wasn't so damn limited.

allows you to wage war on about everything as muslim ruler. landlocked OPM minors in central europe will probably find it less than useful.

 

[Zeriel]

Is getting CB to attack really a big deal? Never had an issue with lacking CBs in EU4, the bigger issue these days is the core costs/overextension.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Agressive expansion and coalitions up the ass.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, it doesn't seem like there's much to worry about with CBs. Especially because the Peace Costs scale properly this time, which in turn makes it much easier to have landgrabs from huge empires even without Claims. I finally layeth the smacketh down on Muscovy (it's been on the cards for a while, but I just kinda never got around to it), grabbing Pskov, Ladoga, Olonets, Kholmogory and Arkhangelsk along with releasing EVERY country inside their empire and restoring five cores to various Asians I found useful. The territorial demands? 8 warscore total.

The only peace cost that remains expensive even against large empires is core revoking.

 

[Kane]

Is getting CB to attack really a big deal? Never had an issue with lacking CBs in EU4, the bigger issue these days is the core costs/overextension.

can always fabricate a claim

 

[Average Manatee]

though Religious would be great if the CB wasn't so damn limited.

allows you to wage war on about everything as muslim ruler. landlocked OPM minors in central europe will probably find it less than useful.

Only as a muslim or christain and only with a border to another religion (so it's useless for about 80% of nations already). Only before 1650. And it still has 100% peace cost for provinces. Meanwhile Revolutionary War lets you DoW god damn everyone if you are a republic, works for everyone, never dies, and has 50% peace cost for provinces, so you can pretty much annex everything short of a major country in one go. And the rest of the Diplomatic ideas are far better anyway.

Religious line has 1 good idea at the beginning that is only useful for a small subset of nations, 1 alright idea at the end, and a bunch of useless crap in the middle.

 

[Zeriel]

Is getting CB to attack really a big deal? Never had an issue with lacking CBs in EU4, the bigger issue these days is the core costs/overextension.

can always fabricate a claim

That's what I meant, between that and automatic claim events on your borders, I always have more CBs than I need.

 

[Sranchammer]

http://www.wargamer.com/article/340...a-universalis-iv-the-necessary-disappointment

This simplification is also reflected in the user interface. The gilded gold leaf Baroque style of the previous titles has given way to more cartoonish borders and shading. The menus look like they were created by someone on devaintART as part of a comic strip. Sure, the unit sprites might look better than they were before, but it's a sad day when Empire: Total Warhas a better period interface than a Europa Universalis game. Instead of dazzling us with the magnificence of Versailles, Paradox made the mistake of making their interface a caricature. They made the mistake of not taking their own period immersion seriously. I will guarantee you that players would feel more excited about playing as the Holy Roman Emperor if their icon for it looked more like the crest of Karl V than the cartoon turkey they have in EUIV. In the process of upgrading the visuals for the game, Paradox forgets the essential aesthetic qualities that made Europa Universalis a game for adults—not children. But who am I to argue if they think this will generate sales or cut down on production costs.

 

[Average Manatee]

Is getting CB to attack really a big deal? Never had an issue with lacking CBs in EU4, the bigger issue these days is the core costs/overextension.

can always fabricate a claim

That's what I meant, between that and automatic claim events on your borders, I always have more CBs than I need.

Yeah, but if you really want to expand you want a CB that lowers aggressive expansion and reduces the peace cost of provinces. Though it's not necessary if you have multiple theatres of conflict you can switch between.

 

[Zeriel]

I've been wondering about that. Is there a list somewhere of the CBs that provide lower cost/AE, other than having cores on the target?

 

[Kane]

http://www.wargamer.com/article/340...a-universalis-iv-the-necessary-disappointment

This simplification is also reflected in the user interface. The gilded gold leaf Baroque style of the previous titles has given way to more cartoonish borders and shading. The menus look like they were created by someone on devaintART as part of a comic strip. Sure, the unit sprites might look better than they were before, but it's a sad day when Empire: Total Warhas a better period interface than a Europa Universalis game. Instead of dazzling us with the magnificence of Versailles, Paradox made the mistake of making their interface a caricature. They made the mistake of not taking their own period immersion seriously. I will guarantee you that players would feel more excited about playing as the Holy Roman Emperor if their icon for it looked more like the crest of Karl V than the cartoon turkey they have in EUIV. In the process of upgrading the visuals for the game, Paradox forgets the essential aesthetic qualities that made Europa Universalis a game for adults—not children. But who am I to argue if they think this will generate sales or cut down on production costs.

bullshit
eu IV is much harder than EU III ever was. maybe he shouldn't play france vs easy AI and lucky nations on
but what can you expect from a review that drones on about gilded gold leafs

 

[Kane]

Religious line has 1 good idea at the beginning that is only useful for a small subset of nations, 1 alright idea at the end, and a bunch of useless crap in the middle.

i am not disagreeing with you but the point still stands that the right nation can find the religion CB very useful. republics tend to be very small and unless you have a lot of OPMs in the area to take, that CB is fairly useless

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

http://www.wargamer.com/article/340...a-universalis-iv-the-necessary-disappointment

This simplification is also reflected in the user interface. The gilded gold leaf Baroque style of the previous titles has given way to more cartoonish borders and shading. The menus look like they were created by someone on devaintART as part of a comic strip. Sure, the unit sprites might look better than they were before, but it's a sad day when Empire: Total Warhas a better period interface than a Europa Universalis game. Instead of dazzling us with the magnificence of Versailles, Paradox made the mistake of making their interface a caricature. They made the mistake of not taking their own period immersion seriously. I will guarantee you that players would feel more excited about playing as the Holy Roman Emperor if their icon for it looked more like the crest of Karl V than the cartoon turkey they have in EUIV. In the process of upgrading the visuals for the game, Paradox forgets the essential aesthetic qualities that made Europa Universalis a game for adults—not children. But who am I to argue if they think this will generate sales or cut down on production costs.

bullshit
eu IV is much harder than EU III ever was. maybe he shouldn't play france vs easy AI and lucky nations on
but what can you expect from a review that drones on about gilded gold leafs

That entire review is full of some amazingly stupid bullshit. Ie, the fact the dumbfuck didn't notice most cultural decisions are either events now or bunched up with regular decisions, or the fact this guy has some seriously faulty memory about how National Ideas used to work and how big their bonuses were.

 

[Average Manatee]

http://www.wargamer.com/article/340...a-universalis-iv-the-necessary-disappointment

This simplification is also reflected in the user interface. The gilded gold leaf Baroque style of the previous titles has given way to more cartoonish borders and shading. The menus look like they were created by someone on devaintART as part of a comic strip. Sure, the unit sprites might look better than they were before, but it's a sad day when Empire: Total Warhas a better period interface than a Europa Universalis game. Instead of dazzling us with the magnificence of Versailles, Paradox made the mistake of making their interface a caricature. They made the mistake of not taking their own period immersion seriously. I will guarantee you that players would feel more excited about playing as the Holy Roman Emperor if their icon for it looked more like the crest of Karl V than the cartoon turkey they have in EUIV. In the process of upgrading the visuals for the game, Paradox forgets the essential aesthetic qualities that made Europa Universalis a game for adults—not children. But who am I to argue if they think this will generate sales or cut down on production costs.

bullshit
eu IV is much harder than EU III ever was. maybe he shouldn't play france vs easy AI and lucky nations on
but what can you expect from a review that drones on about gilded gold leafs

Please tell me you are joking. EU4 is much, much easier than EU3.

Religious line has 1 good idea at the beginning that is only useful for a small subset of nations, 1 alright idea at the end, and a bunch of useless crap in the middle.

i am not disagreeing with you but the point still stands that the right nation can find the religion CB very useful. republics tend to be very small and unless you have a lot of OPMs in the area to take, that CB is fairly useless

Once I annexed the entire Ottoman Empire in a single war thanks to them going republic. Just saying...

Religious would be a lot more interesting if the rest of the line could pull a bit of weight. And there is no god damn reason to limit Holy War to muslims and christians.