Europa Universalis IV

[Raghar]

So i attacked Aztecs for sweet sweet gold they have, my 2k infantry groups a+click kill everything they have no problem. They get pissed at me and enter a coalition. So now everytime i want to attack them to annex the rest of them whole Europe jumps on their side (i was playing as France). It's a bit weeeiiird, native americans would not be able to contact europeans unless europeans themselves come to new world. Pretty lame.

And even worse problem is they would need 6 months for message to arrive to EU. Ships were not exactly fast.

 

[XenomorphII]

Coalitions are a good addition to the game. They just have a few kinks that need to be worked out. Main thing is that if somebody is whipped bad enough they need to be able to bail out of the war and coalition (should probably make it a litter harder to join up again though in the nearish future and would definitely hurt relations with all members, perhaps an "Abandon Coalition" wargoal in coalition wars that is rather pricey and is generally the only thing AI subordinate members will accept).

 

[Kem0sabe]

A year from now, after 15 pieces of DLC, 2 expansions and countless versions of Death and Taxes later, we will all be looking back and laughing at how silly coalitions were at launch.

 

[Malakal]

Changing coalitions from "cant separate peace ever" to "can peace out at big stability (like -2) and prestige/legitimacy cost" would mostly fix them. Natives did enter alliances with European powers and we had coalitions like Venice-Persia-Mameluks in history so both distance and different religion doesnt matter much.

 

[Kane]

But he posts so rarely now. We don't give tags to half-assed dumbfucks.

we don't even give tags to full-assed dumbfucks.

 

[Tigranes]

If anything, ships are too slow in this game. Sailing was the only reliable means of transportation and it accounted for the vast majority of goods transported. Bad roads and infrastructure meant that moving stuff by land was extremely slow and unreliable in comparison, and yet I've seen armies outrun ships in this game. Seafaring is also terribly gimped; even investing a lot in naval tech and stopping by the Azores/Canary Islands, your ships will hardly manage to make it to the New World, let alone get back in one piece, due to naval attrition and the fact that it takes an age to get there (it only took Colombus 5 weeks to sail from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas in his first voyage). The "limes" tech makes long-range sailing viable, but people were sailing back and forth across the Atlantic way before lime juice was used to treat scurvy.

I'm fine with this for game balance reasons - I like that it takes both humans and AI a while to discover the world and colonise, and coupled with settler times & times taken for diplomats to get back from missions across the sea, there is at least some sense of just how far away everything is. Doesn't stop my Hindustan empire from colonising New Zealand and Manhattan, but...

Westernisation seems odd. I prepared very thoroughly (2000 gold in bank, third largest army in the world, everything cored, all nearby factions beaten down to the ground) and then saved up diplo-power until I could go from -3 to 0 stab in one go, and it only took me 20 years of stable rebelstomp. But afterwards, with 15 miltech and Western infantry I attacked Indian Madurai with 18 miltech and they had slightly superior troops. Seems like at the same miltech Indian and Western troops don't differ much, and the primary benefit of Westernisation is to lose the tech penalty and catch up?

Now I've nearly caught up to European nations in tech, and France has invaded so we will test that theory...

 

[1eyedking]

Always persistent, always making efforts .. Give this guy his dumbfuck tag , hes working so hard to get it , all the time.

Funny how this is only because I dislike games the Codex cockwhores all over, and can actually back it up with a casus discutio (how pretentious can you get if you write casus belli instead of "cause of war"? FFS)

Get your head out of your ass and realize you're only playing a glorified spreadsheet simulator specially designed to cater to your sense of intellectual superiority.

 

[Grinolf]

Funny how this is only because I dislike games the Codex cockwhores all over, and can actually back it up with a casus discutio

No, it's only because yur arguments are utter rubbish like that:

how pretentious can you get if you write casus belli instead of "cause of war"? FFS

Since "casus beli" despite being from latin language is widely used even today in various countries. The same thing with ad hominem, a priori and others latin terms. Contrary to "a casus discutio", since I didn't see anyone, who used it. I have a strong suspition, that you pull that term from your ass in order to look smart.

 

[hoverdog]

Why The Witcher is an intelligent game

 

[suejak]

I still can't understand how people play all these glorified Paradox excel spreadsheet simulators.

I had some recent curiosity and downloaded CK2, gave it a couple of spins, and my god is it awful. The amount of grinding you must go through to actually make something happen, endlessly clicking through character windows and harvesting data to make some half-blind assessment that in the end can royally fuck up due to some random event. Is this your idea of fun people? I tremble at how dull your actual lives might actually be.

It's also funny how everyone turns a blind eye at ridiculous shit happening like getting a noble to surrender and offering himsef for imprisonment as a peace condition. Yeah, right.

The funny thing about these grand epic scope and supposedly complex games is that, in the end, it ultimately boils down to some stupid gimmick like assassinating fuck-everyone, getting a high stat councillor to forge claims (to actually get some adrenaline-inducing data-browsing action going), and marrying genius courtiers to get genius sons.

Uninstall this shit and play Civilization.

This is a great post. I love fresh opinions.

I dunno, I think most people here enjoy all the data and complexity (somewhat shallow though it may be) in these games. I definitely do.

Plus assassinating fuck-everyone isn't quite as easy or successful as you may think, and only Christian countries (in general) really benefit from or require claims-forging. Given that claims-forging is merely a percentage-chance, only works at the county-level, and risks getting your chancellor killed, it's sometimes faster and more reliable to invite a claimant into your realm and wage a war for his claim. Neither of these "gimmicks" is especially unsatisfying. They're also very historically plausible.

Geniuses also aren't quite that easy to find, although I do agree that the (inevitable?) eugenic tendencies in the game are a tad unfortunate.

As in any game, there are a number of paths to success, and the ones you mentioned are (sometimes) good ideas in a CK2 game. If you can pull them off. And if they're appropriate for the situation.

 

[Kattze]

Always persistent, always making efforts .. Give this guy his dumbfuck tag , hes working so hard to get it , all the time.

Funny how this is only because I dislike games the Codex cockwhores all over, and can actually back it up with a casus discutio (how pretentious can you get if you write casus belli instead of "cause of war"? FFS)

Get your head out of your ass and realize you're only playing a glorified spreadsheet simulator specially designed to cater to your sense of intellectual superiority.

Says the fag who always harps about art direction in HIS GAEMS to feel superior over those banal plebs.

 

[Luzur]

bros, i lost a major war earlier today, overwhelmed (as usual, damn their unending hordes!) by those damn Muscowites.

situation was like this (since i cant figure out how to take pictures), that my Greater Sweden was involved in a...i dunno, 8 nation war in Germany (Sweden, Lüneburg, The Hansa and Saxony vs Austria, Bohemia, Ulm, Baden over Bohemia's claim on Saxonys throne, and Saxony asked for help) and in a fit of stupidity (as it would later turn out) i deployed my two main armies, Kungliga Lifgardet (20.000 men and my best general) and a support unit (2nd Skånska regiment, 10.000) deep into Saxony to drive the Austrian and Bohemian armies back and secure my allies.

well, just when i had combined my two armies with a Saxon unit and was fully engaged with a joint Austrian-Bohemian-Ulmian army of around 30.000 in the vicinity of Franconia when suddenly i get a pop-up on my screen informing me that Muscowy have decared war on me with a "you own land of mine" casus belli, and a second later his allies joined in too, and in the following week russian armies simply flooded over that little "wall" i had made of Novgorod . i had no chance to disengaged the battle to rush home and defend myself and my eastern friends (read vassals) so i had to put my hopes on my last remaining armies home in Sweden, the 3rd Nyländska regiment (13.000) and the smaller Hälsinge regiment (just recruited, 5000 men and some cannons), so i rushed those east, where my "vassal-wall" where pretty much overwhelmed with russian units ranging from 1000 to up to 8000 men (vs Tver= around 8000, Smolensk= 5000?, Yaroslav=1000 i think and Novgorod=10.000), and a big hefty 18.000 main army with their Tsar blitzing through Tver, while i was preparing to assault the two smaller 3000k armies that had spilled over into Karelen, and meet their main force with my 13.000 and hope they would hold until i could get my main army home from Germany.

the smaller campaign went well, Karelen was cleaned of russians by Hälsinge, the 18k russian horde was standing still in (former, now eastmost Sweden) Novgorod, waiting for something i guess, Smolensk had fixed up a seperate peace unscathed, Yaroslav was fully occupied, Tver was being besieged in almost every province, and now russian units had started pouring into East Sweden, or Defence Sector Ingermanland as i call it in my head.

at the same time the battle in Germany ended, with a victory/close to defeat, since both my armies there was pretty much battered down into a measly 10.000 men after that gargatuan fight (over a week in the same province, with units of both sides joining in and falling out), but i rushed that home anyway, oping i had enough cash to resupply it with fresh men on the way to Pommerania and the navy waiting there, Russia created another 10.000 army by joining up the smaller ones (i think, it just appeared) and walked through Novgorod and into Karelen, swatting away Hälsinge like a fly as they tried to retreat, and forcing me to decide to attack them, since by now Novgorod had fallen into that 18k russian horde's hands, and that was now probably deciding where to go next.

so i charged that new 10k russian army with Nyländska, hoping to take them out fast enough so i could turn back and try to refill on men and get those new recruits i was fielding in Viborg into a new army, so could make a combined charge on that great horde of theirs.

thing is, when i was in battle with the 10k army in Karelen, that 18k army simply swung around and went straight to help their comrade, so suddenly, with a cold feeling running down my back, my plan turned on its head and all i could do was watch as my main defense line and last hope of defending the east was slowly grinded down by a combined 18+10k Russian horde.

i imagine it kinda looked like this on ground level for the average swedish trooper, bless him:



well, cutting the story short, Nyländska was fully eradicated (or bugged out, dunno), and then those units proceeded to mop up my newly recruited forces that pop-up'd on the map, and finally when i landed my main army back home all i could do was follow that 18k around and try to unsiege what provinces it had taken while my coffers where running dry (Tavastehus was being besieged when i went for peace), while my strong Swedish Navy guarded Ålands sea so they couldnt cross over to Stockholm that way, i had to ask for peace, and i had to give them Novgorod and south Karelen and anull my vassalage with Tver before they where satisfied.

Yaroslav was annexed fully (was only a two province kingdom) and surprisingly Novgorod didnt have to do a thing, they simply white-peace and was done.

plan now is to get some nice allies (Lithuania is in my hopes), reorganize the army and get those provinces back.

 

[Borelli]

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

 

[Kane]

Always persistent, always making efforts .. Give this guy his dumbfuck tag , hes working so hard to get it , all the time.

Funny how this is only because I dislike games the Codex cockwhores all over, and can actually back it up with a casus discutio (how pretentious can you get if you write casus belli instead of "cause of war"? FFS)

Get your head out of your ass and realize you're only playing a glorified spreadsheet simulator specially designed to cater to your sense of intellectual superiority.

you're like that guy that never gets picked in sports and has no friends in school. except that this isn't school and this is your free-time that you spend being jaded and bitter.

 

[Malakal]

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

Its pretty much growing high over growing wide if it were not for the fact that you dont use much military points to grow wide thus its quite imbalanced right now. There needs to be more uses for military points.

 

[Raghar]

bros, i lost a major war earlier today, overwhelmed (as usual, damn their unending hordes!) by those damn Muscowites.

situation was like this (since i cant figure out how to take pictures), that my Greater Sweden was involved in a...i dunno, 8 nation war in Germany (Sweden, Lüneburg, The Hansa and Saxony vs Austria, Bohemia, Ulm, Baden over Bohemia's claim on Saxonys throne, and Saxony asked for help) and in a fit of stupidity (as it would later turn out) i deployed my two main armies, Kungliga Lifgardet (20.000 men and my best general) and a support unit (2nd Skånska regiment, 10.000) deep into Saxony to drive the Austrian and Bohemian armies back and secure my allies.

well, just when i had combined my two armies with a Saxon unit and was fully engaged with a joint Austrian-Bohemian-Ulmian army of around 30.000 in the vicinity of Franconia when suddenly i get a pop-up on my screen informing me that Muscowy have decared war on me with a "you own land of mine" casus belli, and a second later his allies joined in too, and in the following week russian armies simply flooded over that little "wall" i had made of Novgorod . i had no chance to disengaged the battle to rush home and defend myself and my eastern friends (read vassals) so i had to put my hopes on my last remaining armies home in Sweden, the 3rd Nyländska regiment (13.000) and the smaller Hälsinge regiment (just recruited, 5000 men and some cannons), so i rushed those east, where my "vassal-wall" where pretty much overwhelmed with russian units ranging from 1000 to up to 8000 men (vs Tver= around 8000, Smolensk= 5000?, Yaroslav=1000 i think and Novgorod=10.000), and a big hefty 18.000 main army with their Tsar blitzing through Tver, while i was preparing to assault the two smaller 3000k armies that had spilled over into Karelen, and meet their main force with my 13.000 and hope they would hold until i could get my main army home from Germany.

Well I marched few units through Siberia, to get some westernization, and well I seen AI Sweden to have more gains than yours. Of course Portugese don't bother Japan, thus no revolts, but on the other hand they have no province close and all countries refusing samoa as a province because they can't core it. I kinda wonder if I shouldn't conquer ally vasalize Aztecs.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

Its pretty much growing high over growing wide if it were not for the fact that you dont use much military points to grow wide thus its quite imbalanced right now. There needs to be more uses for military points.

Military tech and ideas are 100% more important than admin and diplo ones though.

 

[Malakal]

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

Its pretty much growing high over growing wide if it were not for the fact that you dont use much military points to grow wide thus its quite imbalanced right now. There needs to be more uses for military points.

Military tech and ideas are 100% more important than admin and diplo ones though.

Yes but you need ADM to actually get new ideas. Im not talking early game here but more mid-late. Early you rush those early military techs and ideas but once you get one or two idea groups you are more or less set as far as military is concerned. ADM never losses its emaning as long as you want high stab or expansion and DIP is important for peace treaties and culture conversion - not to mention trade tech and ideas if thats your plan.

 

[Luzur]

bros, i lost a major war earlier today, overwhelmed (as usual, damn their unending hordes!) by those damn Muscowites.

situation was like this (since i cant figure out how to take pictures), that my Greater Sweden was involved in a...i dunno, 8 nation war in Germany (Sweden, Lüneburg, The Hansa and Saxony vs Austria, Bohemia, Ulm, Baden over Bohemia's claim on Saxonys throne, and Saxony asked for help) and in a fit of stupidity (as it would later turn out) i deployed my two main armies, Kungliga Lifgardet (20.000 men and my best general) and a support unit (2nd Skånska regiment, 10.000) deep into Saxony to drive the Austrian and Bohemian armies back and secure my allies.

well, just when i had combined my two armies with a Saxon unit and was fully engaged with a joint Austrian-Bohemian-Ulmian army of around 30.000 in the vicinity of Franconia when suddenly i get a pop-up on my screen informing me that Muscowy have decared war on me with a "you own land of mine" casus belli, and a second later his allies joined in too, and in the following week russian armies simply flooded over that little "wall" i had made of Novgorod . i had no chance to disengaged the battle to rush home and defend myself and my eastern friends (read vassals) so i had to put my hopes on my last remaining armies home in Sweden, the 3rd Nyländska regiment (13.000) and the smaller Hälsinge regiment (just recruited, 5000 men and some cannons), so i rushed those east, where my "vassal-wall" where pretty much overwhelmed with russian units ranging from 1000 to up to 8000 men (vs Tver= around 8000, Smolensk= 5000?, Yaroslav=1000 i think and Novgorod=10.000), and a big hefty 18.000 main army with their Tsar blitzing through Tver, while i was preparing to assault the two smaller 3000k armies that had spilled over into Karelen, and meet their main force with my 13.000 and hope they would hold until i could get my main army home from Germany.

Well I marched few units through Siberia, to get some westernization, and well I seen AI Sweden to have more gains than yours. Of course Portugese don't bother Japan, thus no revolts, but on the other hand they have no province close and all countries refusing samoa as a province because they can't core it. I kinda wonder if I shouldn't conquer ally vasalize Aztecs.

well, i start to calculate what provinces i really want after i gained baltic dominance, i see no need in owning all those big, empty russian provinces other then those around Novgorod.

besides, its only 1620 still, i got time.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

When i first saw armory's description "+25 manpower" i was like waaat in EU3 it was +250 fuck this shit i ain't building. Then i later noticed that province only gives about 50 manpower so an armory would increase it alot. I build an armory in every province and voila +10k national manpower. But infrastructure here is something that benefits small countries more than large ones.

Its pretty much growing high over growing wide if it were not for the fact that you dont use much military points to grow wide thus its quite imbalanced right now. There needs to be more uses for military points.

Military tech and ideas are 100% more important than admin and diplo ones though.

Yes but you need ADM to actually get new ideas. Im not talking early game here but more mid-late. Early you rush those early military techs and ideas but once you get one or two idea groups you are more or less set as far as military is concerned. ADM never losses its emaning as long as you want high stab or expansion and DIP is important for peace treaties and culture conversion - not to mention trade tech and ideas if thats your plan.

I got quality and defensive then picked my next idea group 100-150 years later because I kept building constables and counting houses everywhere and coring all the time. Played on hard and with AI handicap and wasn't beaten in a single war. You don't need another idea except perhaps for offensive for more forcelimits and forced march.

And diplo is only important for castille, britain and portugal, maybe even France if you don't go full European Hegemony.

 

[Mortmal]

Diplo could be important if you want the increase relations stuff and extra diplo when you abuse personal unions /diploannexing. It takes a long time to get the relation to 190 and for world conquest (if you want to try that) , you have to keep a ton of vassals to avoid overextension and doom stack of rebels, those are much more deadly than any army the other empires send you. Id take it after getting offensive and defensive ideas first .

 

[Average Manatee]

The Diplomatic idea is among the most important in the game. The only valid reason not to take it as the first idea is if you are taking Exploration.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

Weird. The only non-military idea I ever took was exploration as russia and maybe economic after I blob a lot and wanna make 100 shekels per turn with full maintenance on everything.

 

[Ivar the Boner]

Is EU4 "better" (or just different enough) than EU3 with all expansions? because I'm sick of Paradox DLC policy and I won't buy EU4 if it's not already better than EU3.

I got screwed at CK2 (yeah, I was stupid enough to hope they will release major expansion pack, not shitton of fucking DLCs) and I avoided buying HoI3 at all because even now, all you can get on dvd in polish shops is HoI + Semper Fi, rest you have to purchase over the net and I will never pay for game that I don't get on CD/DVD (preferably in a fucking box, but that's thing of the past for years now).

 

[Malakal]

Is EU4 "better" (or just different enough) than EU3 with all expansions? because I'm sick of Paradox DLC policy and I won't buy EU4 if it's not already better than EU3.

I got screwed at CK2 (yeah, I was stupid enough to hope they will release major expansion pack, not shitton of fucking DLCs) and I avoided buying HoI3 at all because even now, all you can get on dvd in polish shops is HoI + Semper Fi, rest you have to purchase over the net and I will never pay for game that I don't get on CD/DVD (preferably in a fucking box, but that's thing of the past for years now).

Its different. Wouldnt say better since it doesnt have as many options yet and no big mods but its definitely different enough and playable to buy/try out. As I say the foundation is solid some tweaking and its gonna be awesome.