Europa Universalis IV

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually it does, but they aren't applied without being reformed. Of course, there are easy ways to reform if you don't mind cheating a little to spice things up.

 

[Mortmal]

So i decided to get it after all before waiting for juicy expansion packs and i had a nice full grand campaign game with castille. I must say the carribean trade node is a gold mine, although i was not happy with the game handling me aragon on a plate. Too deterministic. What does +xxxx combat ability means? Is it like discipline but for only a specific unit type?

Castille is easy mode, like the other suggested "interisting" nations , they arent hiding it, its written for new players all over the place. Now try stuff like byzantium(in iron man ) without reading the strrategy guide and no EU3 previous experience, thats really difficut. Some say its too simplsitic, i dont think so this game is definitvely not dumbed down , nations dont really play he same , it takes hours to discover everything the game has to offer.

A Text-Only Report Of The Tunisian Cockblock


Once again, I try and core, and once again, rebellion while coring. Still on -2 stab. Urbino Nationalist Horde wipes out my army for a second time. I eventually accept demands, which strangely does not reform Urbino, but Abruzzi gets -100% everything Autonomy modifier for 20 years. Seeing its continued ownership as pointless for now I sell it to Napoli for 60 gold and try to core Ancona ASAP, using points for stability and harsh treatment. Ancona is cored. I relax and begin the missionary conversion process - which hikes up rebellion chance by 6%, and soon there is Urbino Horde III that wipes my army. Again. It goes rampant, again, and forms Urbino again, this time including the Papacy-owned Romagna. Urbino disbands the entire horde again, I swoop in again. The result: Urbino rebels have given me Romagna as well.

At this point my army has been wiped 4+ times, I am perpetually in negative stability, I can't afford any Ideas, and I only have trade income from the Tunis node to continue to replenish my army and keep a foothold. Just before Romagna is cored, Urbino Horde IV rises and wipes my army. Again. My ally, the Ottoman Empire, drags me into a war with Venice, which promptly sinks all my ships.

And that's where I'm at.

I am reading many codexers have problems conquering province of different cultural group, the trick is to make vassals, dont blob everything yet. Vassalize and with your new income build structure,s market places and such in your core loyal provinces. Do not waste your admin points ever, you will later diplo annex urbino and get all cores for free once you are stable with a strong army or better wait end game those usefull vassals will do all the sieging for you, ton of micro avoided while you wander with your doom stack with defensive ideass . If you cant take a big country in one war , just take as much provinces you want to , but be sure some of them contain core of small forgotten nations, you dont care of overextension, just release the minor nation as vassal and sell your provnces to it, make it your core bitch.

 

[Malakal]

So i decided to get it after all before waiting for juicy expansion packs and i had a nice full grand campaign game with castille. I must say the carribean trade node is a gold mine, although i was not happy with the game handling me aragon on a plate. Too deterministic. What does +xxxx combat ability means? Is it like discipline but for only a specific unit type?

Castille is easy mode, like the other suggested "interisting" nations , they arent hiding it, its written for new players all over the place. Now try stuff like byzantium(in iron man ) without reading the strrategy guide and no EU3 previous experience, thats really difficut. Some say its too simplsitic, i dont think so this game is definitvely not dumbed down , nations dont really play he same , it takes hours to discover everything the game has to offer.

Byzantium is either very easy if you use the strait exploit or very hard if you dont. Unfortunately the exploit stems fro eu3 and I thin its there to appease the byzantophile crowd.

 

[Borelli]

Byzantium was playable in EU3 because of the 1405 start date (a sacred date for all who play with balkan countries). Here it's only meaning is to get conquered by the Ottomans. I do however often see them collapsing under rebels and then Byz getting released.

 

[Mortmal]

So i decided to get it after all before waiting for juicy expansion packs and i had a nice full grand campaign game with castille. I must say the carribean trade node is a gold mine, although i was not happy with the game handling me aragon on a plate. Too deterministic. What does +xxxx combat ability means? Is it like discipline but for only a specific unit type?

Castille is easy mode, like the other suggested "interisting" nations , they arent hiding it, its written for new players all over the place. Now try stuff like byzantium(in iron man ) without reading the strrategy guide and no EU3 previous experience, thats really difficut. Some say its too simplsitic, i dont think so this game is definitvely not dumbed down , nations dont really play he same , it takes hours to discover everything the game has to offer.

Byzantium is either very easy if you use the strait exploit or very hard if you dont. Unfortunately the exploit stems fro eu3 and I thin its there to appease the byzantophile crowd.

The strait exploit is not enough in EU4 , many things can go wrong , crimea can join in with the ottoman fleet, bulgarian rebels have to be bribed before starting reconquista else a stack of 20 or more will insta gib your amy , if you are not aware of the strategy before hand its indeed extremely hard, in my opinon true gaming is done without reading guides.

 

[CrimsonAngel]

So my Denmark game is going well enough so far. I was trying to eat up parts of the HRE as giant super Denmark after my personal union went through, but i kept getting cock blocked by France and there defender of the faith bullshit. I can take France in a fight i can not take HRE and France at the same, but finally Austria is Defender of the Faith and who cares about that. So now i am slowly cutting my way down taking more and more land, but now freaking Ottomans are almost at MY Baltic SEA!.

Soon the war will come so now i am trying to spread the true faith and make freinds. If the Ottoman jerks want a fight i will take them out.

Also Ironman mode is the way to play.

 

[Sranchammer]

Am I right in saying that, currently, mercenaries have no effect other than being expensive? There isn't some event I'm missing here., right?

I played a few hours as Tyrone and couldn't help noticing nothing happened when I fielded an mercenary on Irish soil for a couple years.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Mercenaries also don't upgrade while hired I think, so you need to dismiss and hire newer replacements. Not sure how their reinforcements work.

 

[Sranchammer]

It would've been nice to see mercenary armies subsist on looting provinces alone, like most armies were back then.

Currently, there's no way of accurately simulating the effects of a long-term war other than manpower loss. England seems to be riddled with rebels for the first decade of the game but all of a suddenly they are a strong power that can field armies of 20k

 

[Borelli]

I never cared much for mercenaries in EU3 but when in 4 i ran out of manpower i noticed that i had 1k sitting in the bank and said what the heck let's try it, so i hired 10k mercs and won the war, surprisingly they are not that much more expensive than regular troops. With manpower filling slowly i might have to use them more. I wonder if AI uses them.

 

[Malakal]

It would've been nice to see mercenary armies subsist on looting provinces alone, like most armies were back then.

Currently, there's no way of accurately simulating the effects of a long-term war other than manpower loss. England seems to be riddled with rebels for the first decade of the game but all of a suddenly they are a strong power that can field armies of 20k

Each and every time a hostile army enters a province its looted. Your armies cant loot your provinces tho, and that happened. Guess its half done.

I never cared much for mercenaries in EU3 but when in 4 i ran out of manpower i noticed that i had 1k sitting in the bank and said what the heck let's try it, so i hired 10k mercs and won the war, surprisingly they are not that much more expensive than regular troops. With manpower filling slowly i might have to use them more. I wonder if AI uses them.

Yes, AI uses mercenaries quite extensively in need. It can be easily observed either when annexing vassals during longer wars or when destroying main armies of enemy nations and seeing them quickly build replacements - recruitment time shows they are mercenaries. Those are also situations where I use mercenaries so AI works fine in this regard.

 

[Sranchammer]

Each and every time a hostile army enters a province its looted. Your armies cant loot your provinces tho, and that happened. Guess its half done.

And don't forget one's mercenaries were just as dangerous as hostile armies. Paradox did a lot better simulating them in CK2, I don't know why the same couldn't work with EU4

 

[Grinolf]

There are countries like Sweden, Burgundy or Venice, which ask about using mercenaries, but I didn't play as them yet.
For the most other countries mercenaries are only for emergency cases, like facing large rebellion or fighting against big coalition.
Part of it because, that dedicated to them idea group isn't that tempting to take. Sure, you can choose it and use mercs on constant basis. But it looked so much preferable to save your adm. points and idea slot on something else and stick with normal troops instead. The most obvious solution would be remove that group and add it's bonuses to military idea groups. So their usage will be more common.
Atleast Plutocracy is must have for any republic and Innovative give some nice bonuses to other things, so it worth picking and have some bonuses to mercs when they needed.

Other problem are how not problematic they are. Even in CK2 one could as count conquer entire kindom only because of them and they stayed loyal until they were paid. In EU4 mercs are even more lenient. As if one of the main points Machiavelli's "The Prince" weren't how one shouldn't rely primary on them in order to win his battles and how their unwise use completely fucked up Italy.
But one can always hope for some Italian Wars DLC, which would include some mercs improvements.

 

[Borelli]

westernized thanks to the Portuguese

How did you managed to do it? How did you survive being at -3 stab with the size of china? How long did it take? Was your ruler good at admin?

Why invest 400 so points in a marginally interesting idea when tech development provides vastly superior benefits for approximately the same cost?

Well you see as a western nation you will often have ahead of time tech penalty so while waiting for that to wear off you can dump the monarch points in ideas. Oh you are not a western nation? What a shame.

 

[BelisariuS.F]

constant shortage of admin points due to random events causing stab hits all the time

Useful info: being on +2 or +3 stab greatly increases chances of stab hit events.

 

[Sranchammer]

I simply removed all missions and RNG stability events for now.

 

[Kane]

constant shortage of admin points due to random events causing stab hits all the time

Useful info: being on +2 or +3 stab greatly increases chances of negative stab hit events.

fixed. also Johan explained that most +stabs are bound to national ideas. and that there is about a 60:40 positive to negative events ratio.

 

[Average Manatee]

constant shortage of admin points due to random events causing stab hits all the time

Useful info: being on +2 or +3 stab greatly increases chances of negative stab hit events.

fixed. also Johan explained that most +stabs are bound to national ideas. and that there is about a 60:40 positive to negative events ratio.

Read what you quoted. Can't exactly take a positive stab hit now can you? And it's really quite ridiculous. +3 stability is actually the least stable place for your realm to be, relatively speaking.

As for the posiitive/negative event distribution: Yeah. You get 60 events of +5 prestige and +10 ducats, then 40 events of -1 stability, -1 stability and 150 ducats, and 15k rebels.

Also NIs usually give far more negative stability events than postitive. In fact I'm not sure if there is any idea line that gives a net increase stability events. I'd have to run through the files and check.

 

[Renegen]

Started a game as the Palatinate looking for a diplomatic focused game. Get alliances with both Austria and Bohemia. Bohemia calls in me a war with Switzerland and doesn't send a single troop, Switzerland kicks my ass. While this is going on, I get called into war with Burgundy who has large territory but depleted army, Austria has this 15 stack army just sitting there casually sieging 1 province while my smaller stack desperately fights against Burgundy and I lose that battle too. Also Saxony literally gobbles up everything around it enlarging itself to 11 provinces, - 100 aggressive expansion modifier and Austria does nothing against it.. because they are allied.

Yeah, fuck diplomatic focused games, the AI is too stupid.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Actually you should never accept a call to war if you have nothing to gain from it. Which usually means never (the only exception is wars you can just keep in the background and never actively participate, or wars where you need to keep some minor around).

In a diplo game, it's really about maneuvering yourself to a position where you can gobble up the other minors around you without interference and then play with the big boys.

 

[Luzur]

Started a game as the Palatinate looking for a diplomatic focused game. Get alliances with both Austria and Bohemia. Bohemia calls in me a war with Switzerland and doesn't send a single troop, Switzerland kicks my ass. While this is going on, I get called into war with Burgundy who has large territory but depleted army, Austria has this 15 stack army just sitting there casually sieging 1 province while my smaller stack desperately fights against Burgundy and I lose that battle too. Also Saxony literally gobbles up everything around it enlarging itself to 11 provinces, - 100 aggressive expansion modifier and Austria does nothing against it.. because they are allied.

Yeah, fuck diplomatic focused games, the AI is too stupid.

well, as a minor nation it is kinda bad to get involved in the big boys game, better ally with other minor powers instead.

(dunno how many wars i had to fight as Sweden, every big nation i allied got into big wars all over the continent all the damn time, it was almost like they used me as a big brother peacekeeper force, until i simply said NO and only allied minors/vassals.)

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The real reason to ally with a major power is to keep them off your own ass, or to have them provide you with a naval superiority when needed. Pretty much the only nations you don't want to ally with are Spain and Portugal, since their prepostrous colonization rampage means you will probably have to give them a good beating if you don't go with Exploration as your first or second idea (and even then you'll probably want to tell them to fuck off from YOUR continent at the end of a rifle barrel). You'll want to ally with Britain and/or France most of the time, but never help them.

Now at the Burgundian endgame, I drove them out of South Africa. I was having a little national inferiority complex over having no colonies, I decided to focus on continental politics this time and currently Burgundy is the Emperor and sole Elector of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as the largest nation in Europe covering much of Western Germany in addition to France, Bohemia and Catalonia, as well as being in personal unions with Bavaria and Brandenburg who are also leading a personal union with Prussia. At the cost of ridiculous Overextension Burgundy received all of South Africa, but since then constant beatings have been applied to the Spanish at regular intervals to remind them who's da boss in Europe. Currently they've been forced to release around ten states in the Americas, and release Castille, Portugal and Granada at home, so they're quickly becoming Europe's official punching bag.

Btw, anyone know what the "other claimants" in Integration means? The penalty is pretty hefty, and stops me from adding Brandenburg to the throne.

 

[Raghar]

BTW when you start a war for some province, and your ally would conquer it, shouldn't you get it anyway, or be able to get it from your ally as your ally is supposed to be helping you?

Also grabbing Japanese Shogunate is fucked up now, you have only one chance.

 

[XenomorphII]

BTW when you start a war for some province, and your ally would conquer it, shouldn't you get it anyway, or be able to get it from your ally as your ally is supposed to be helping you?

Also grabbing Japanese Shogunate is fucked up now, you have only one chance.

Nope (though they might sell it to you after-the-fact, if it is an inconvenient province for them and they are a smaller power). But your ally will usually let your forces take over the siege if you send some to the province.

 

[Raghar]

Nope (though they might sell it to you after-the-fact, if it is an inconvenient province for them and they are a smaller power). But your ally will usually let your forces take over the siege if you send some to the province.

Wow they do? Well I don't remember if I send one or two units.