Europa Universalis IV

[Average Manatee]

There's nothing inherently wrong with nations westernizing. Its not like other nations were completely unable to fight westerners, as being behind 10 military techs and without military ideas in EU would suggest. They still have to catch up in actual tech and ideas which can take a century or so.

The number of nerfs to westernization is insane though.

- Have to be ridiculously behind to start. 24 techs for Americans wut?
- If you are too big (from actually doing something while waiting), it takes vastly longer.
- Trade companies don't count for a border for westernizing. The AI will put every colony it can as a trade company, meaning you'll need to land in Europe or something.
- Once westernized, you only get -10% max tech cost from being behind rather than -25%.
- Once caught up, your units are still PERMANENTLY gimped vs. European type units.

Like, I could get making a few changes somewhere and not seeing how it gimps certain westernizing nations. But you'd think with so many changes to westernization that they would have someone test it...

 

[baturinsky]

So, new Westernisation is racist?

 

[anus_pounder]

I kinda like EU3's tiered take on westernization.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I always end up going back to ck2, a much more fun and dynamic experience.

 

[Pantalones]

There's nothing inherently wrong with nations westernizing. Its not like other nations were completely unable to fight westerners, as being behind 10 military techs and without military ideas in EU would suggest. They still have to catch up in actual tech and ideas which can take a century or so.

The number of nerfs to westernization is insane though.

- Have to be ridiculously behind to start. 24 techs for Americans wut?
- If you are too big (from actually doing something while waiting), it takes vastly longer.
- Trade companies don't count for a border for westernizing. The AI will put every colony it can as a trade company, meaning you'll need to land in Europe or something.
- Once westernized, you only get -10% max tech cost from being behind rather than -25%.
- Once caught up, your units are still PERMANENTLY gimped vs. European type units.

Like, I could get making a few changes somewhere and not seeing how it gimps certain westernizing nations. But you'd think with so many changes to westernization that they would have someone test it...

I always thought it was pretty silly. For example in India they had muskets relatively soon, they even had a form of rocket artillary that British copied and used themselves. There was just no reality to them being all that technically behind. The Chinese were not so much far behind either as their civilization had not fought any wars in some time and had not purchased new equipment in some time. It was more that the British had been constantly fighting for centuries whereas the people they were fighting in the east were decadent, not that they had some big technical edge.

If easterners had expanded instead, or a new empire had been in charge of things and was on the rise, things could be much different.

 

[anus_pounder]

Want to start a new round, are revolts still fucked or...?

 

[Average Manatee]

I kinda like EU3's tiered take on westernization.

I really can't see why they changed it. It's just so dumb that you can only be dumbfuck or West European Ubermensch techgroup with nothing in between. Sure it was silly that North Americans changed to Asian and Muslim techgroups before becoming western, but that was purely a naming issue.

I always thought it was pretty silly. For example in India they had muskets relatively soon, they even had a form of rocket artillary that British copied and used themselves. There was just no reality to them being all that technically behind. The Chinese were not so much far behind either as their civilization had not fought any wars in some time and had not purchased new equipment in some time. It was more that the British had been constantly fighting for centuries whereas the people they were fighting in the east were decadent, not that they had some big technical edge.

If easterners had expanded instead, or a new empire had been in charge of things and was on the rise, things could be much different.

Plus there was Japan who effectively westernized their military within a generation after first meeting the Portuguese traders. Had they not closed their borders and continued with their aggression in Korea and China we could have seen the majority of Asia forced to catch up with Western developments. The main reason Native nations didn't do so was because they and their traditional enemies were complacent and continued to see each other as the biggest threats, while Western nations were seen as benign or friendly until it was too late.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

I always thought it was pretty silly. For example in India they had muskets relatively soon, they even had a form of rocket artillary that British copied and used themselves. There was just no reality to them being all that technically behind. The Chinese were not so much far behind either as their civilization had not fought any wars in some time and had not purchased new equipment in some time. It was more that the British had been constantly fighting for centuries whereas the people they were fighting in the east were decadent, not that they had some big technical edge.

If easterners had expanded instead, or a new empire had been in charge of things and was on the rise, things could be much different.

Most of the innovations and contributions to science post 16th century came from the west. Transfer of knowledge and fancy weapons became one sided.

Also, the Brits had an impressive fleet, second only to France or the Netherlands, then later first in the world. Their home land army on the other hand was lackluster, due to next to no incentive whatsoever having no land threats whatsoever, European Warfare being dealt using proxy German states.
They would still utterly defeat any Indian kingdoms who tried to oppose them, and it is french competition that prevented them from sphering the whole Subcontinent before the 19th century.

Battle such as Plassey had less than 3000 British soldiers defeating 62 000 Indians. The strength gap in eu4 makes sense, and apart from the Japanese in the late 19th, just about every single eastern nation was on the receiving end.

 

[Pantalones]

I always thought it was pretty silly. For example in India they had muskets relatively soon, they even had a form of rocket artillary that British copied and used themselves. There was just no reality to them being all that technically behind. The Chinese were not so much far behind either as their civilization had not fought any wars in some time and had not purchased new equipment in some time. It was more that the British had been constantly fighting for centuries whereas the people they were fighting in the east were decadent, not that they had some big technical edge.

If easterners had expanded instead, or a new empire had been in charge of things and was on the rise, things could be much different.

Most of the innovations and contributions to science post 16th century came from the west. Transfer of knowledge and fancy weapons became one sided.

Also, the Brits had an impressive fleet, second only to France or the Netherlands, then later first in the world. Their home land army on the other hand was lackluster, due to next to no incentive whatsoever having no land threats whatsoever, European Warfare being dealt using proxy German states.
They would still utterly defeat any Indian kingdoms who tried to oppose them, and it is french competition that prevented them from sphering the whole Subcontinent before the 19th century.

Battle such as Plassey had less than 3000 British soldiers defeating 62 000 Indians. The strength gap in eu4 makes sense, and apart from the Japanese in the late 19th, just about every single eastern nation was on the receiving end.

Yes, it's true but this innovation really came after they had their conquest well under way. British obliterated everyone in the east they encountered, but so did the Portuguese much earlier. So it's more like having a higher military tradition and better organization that allowed west to conquer east so easily than any big technical innovation.

In the west there were constant but low level wars, and many small, culturally homogenous states instead of big states that were barely under control. Wars were also limited by holy roman empire. So they had experience in war without getting wiped out from it.

 

[Average Manatee]

Also, the Brits had an impressive fleet, second only to France or the Netherlands, then later first in the world. Their home land army on the other hand was lackluster, due to next to no incentive whatsoever having no land threats whatsoever, European Warfare being dealt using proxy German states.
They would still utterly defeat any Indian kingdoms who tried to oppose them, and it is french competition that prevented them from sphering the whole Subcontinent before the 19th century.

That's a silly way to rationalize it. It wasn't British vs. India. It was always British and British Indian allies vs. France and French Indian allies. Whoever won, the Europeans would win. There's a very important reason that Europeans never tried to conquer large, relatively united countries like Japan or China. Exploiting already-present strife was key to all European conquests. It was simply impossible to do it alone with a standing army, logistically speaking, until the 19th century.

Battle such as Plassey had less than 3000 British soldiers defeating 62 000 Indians. The strength gap in eu4 makes sense, and apart from the Japanese in the late 19th, just about every single eastern nation was on the receiving end.

A lot less than 3000 British soldiers, seeing how the majority of them were Indian. And the battle result was, again, mostly due to disunity and poor tactics on the other side causing a quick retreat of the majority of enemies. 3000 soldiers never fought 62000 in the literal sense of the word. You might as well say that France should never be a military power because they performed poorly in WW2.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Both Portugal and England had next to no European land wars to fight post 15th century. And apart from China, Asia was divided in Hundreds of small kingdom who regularly warred each other. Granted the kingdoms in India were less stable, but you had south east asia, The Middle east or Africa with small kingdoms, more stables borders and regular wars.
And the Holy Roman Empire was the cause of some nasty wars including the 30 years war who wiped about 1/3 of it's population or so.

For whatever reason, there wasn't a single place in the world who topped Western Europe's technological development. I believe the current bonuses are fair. The ones which I feel have it way to easy than they should, even considering their good historical records, are the Ottomans until the 17th century. In before you argue they were doing great in history, the power height a player is allowed to easily achieve is way beyond what they actually had, relative to other nations.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

A lot less than 3000 British soldiers, seeing how the majority of them were Indian. And the battle result was, again, mostly due to disunity and poor tactics on the other side causing a quick retreat of the majority of enemies. 3000 soldiers never fought 62000 in the literal sense of the word. You might as well say that France should never be a military power because they performed poorly in WW2.

Are you purposely playing devil's advocate? Most if not all of those battles were one sided victories of whichever side a European power was backing, regardless of the numbers. Isn't there a pattern here?

When the French were utterly blasted at the end of the Napoleonic wars, they lost any presence overseas for a long time and the united kingdom was left alone to conquer the whole subcontinent, a one sided and fairly fast conquest.

Japan would have been an easy conquest as well, but completely worthless. Much more useful as a long term trading partner, which they became and which later allowed them to industrialize under the West's umbrella. China was just to big to control.

 

[Average Manatee]

Are you purposely playing devil's advocate? Most if not all of those battles were one sided victories of whichever side a European power was backing, regardless of the numbers. Isn't there a pattern here?

Well, you picked a bad battle if we are talking about numbers. It might look impressive at first but the actual circumstances was not 3000 soldiers defeating 62000 soldiers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey

Mir Jafar Ali Khan (defector)
Yar Lutuf Khan (defector)
Rai Durlabh (defector)

Mir Jafar 15,000 cavalry
35,000 infantry

So yes, 50000 defectors in a 62000 army. That makes the reason the British-backed Indians won more obvious, don't you think?

In the evening of 23 June, Clive received a letter from Mir Jafar asking for a meeting with him. Clive replied that he would meet Mir Jafar at Daudpur the next morning. When Mir Jafar arrived at the British camp at Daudpur in the morning, Clive embraced him and saluted him as the Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.

This makes it more clear how the Europeans managed to win. Set disparate elements against each other, entice and reward supporters with the fruits of the conquest, who then became puppet states of British India, which then continued to support Britain in conquering more of India.

When the French were utterly blasted at the end of the Napoleonic wars, they lost any presence overseas for a long time and the united kingdom was left alone to conquer the whole subcontinent, a one sided and fairly fast conquest.

Only because by that time the UK had amassed a large contingent of powerful and loyal Indian allies.

Japan would have been an easy conquest as well, but completely worthless. Much more useful as a long term trading partner, which they became and which later allowed them to industrialize under the West's umbrella. China was just to big to control.

No, that's a complete joke. This isn't EU4 where Britain can just put 100k soldiers on boats and sail around the world. It was prohibitively expensive and supplying them would be insanely difficult. No Western power had a chance of conquering Japan until the 19th century, just as no western power would have had a chance of conquering India. The catch is that India didn't exist in EU4, what existed were hundreds of warring states that were more than happy to accept British help to advance their own interests.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

No, that's a complete joke. This isn't EU4 where Britain can just put 100k soldiers on boats and sail around the world. It was prohibitively expensive and supplying them would be insanely difficult. No Western power had a chance of conquering Japan until the 19th century, just as no western power would have had a chance of conquering India. The catch is that India didn't exist in EU4, what existed were hundreds of warring states that were more than happy to accept British help to advance their own interests.

1. No it isnt. The Japanese fortress were a joke and their army would have been utterly blasted just like every other eastern army against a western one. The expedition would have cost a lot, european armies would have eventually died to attrition and the island would rebel at every occasion. Not worth the trouble.

2. Then I wonder how these allies eventually end up being conquered? With new Indian allies living in another dimension? This seems awfully similar to Caesar's conquest in Gaul, no army could really take on his own, which means he eventually persuaded the entirety of Gaul to bend the knee. I wonder how the French conquered an entire chunk of Egypt with an improvised expedition corp cut from their home country and harassed by the British (until the British pressure prove to be too much and rebellions kept broking out).

The west experienced an exponential growth in warfare and technology, the rest of the world didn't follow and as such Europeans were carving colonial Empires as soon as the 16th century.

 

[Pantalones]

No, that's a complete joke. This isn't EU4 where Britain can just put 100k soldiers on boats and sail around the world. It was prohibitively expensive and supplying them would be insanely difficult. No Western power had a chance of conquering Japan until the 19th century, just as no western power would have had a chance of conquering India. The catch is that India didn't exist in EU4, what existed were hundreds of warring states that were more than happy to accept British help to advance their own interests.

1. No it isnt. The Japanese fortress were a joke and their army would have been utterly blasted just like every other eastern army against a western one. The expedition would have cost a lot, european armies would have eventually died to attrition and the island would rebel at every occasion. Not worth the trouble.

2. Then I wonder how these allies eventually end up being conquered? With new Indian allies living in another dimension? This seems awfully similar to Caesar's conquest in Gaul, no army could really take on his own, which means he eventually persuaded the entirety of Gaul to bend the knee. I wonder how the French conquered an entire chunk of Egypt with an improvised expedition corp cut from their home country and harassed by the British (until the British pressure prove to be too much and rebellions kept broking out).

The west experienced an exponential growth in warfare and technology, the rest of the world didn't follow and as such Europeans were carving colonial Empires as soon as the 16th century.

Basically they always had help of Indian natives. Their formula was to find some oppressed minority or smaller neighbor kingdom then help them conquer. Then the puppet rulers stay in power with their aid. However the raw manpower still comes from the locals.

I don't deny that west pulled ahead super fast but this didn't happen until after all these big conquests.

Portuguese had ports all over the world before English even really got started! They beat back huge armies many times their size but it was mainly with balls of steel, not some big technical advantage.

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

No, that's a complete joke. This isn't EU4 where Britain can just put 100k soldiers on boats and sail around the world. It was prohibitively expensive and supplying them would be insanely difficult. No Western power had a chance of conquering Japan until the 19th century, just as no western power would have had a chance of conquering India. The catch is that India didn't exist in EU4, what existed were hundreds of warring states that were more than happy to accept British help to advance their own interests.

1. No it isnt. The Japanese fortress were a joke and their army would have been utterly blasted just like every other eastern army against a western one. The expedition would have cost a lot, european armies would have eventually died to attrition and the island would rebel at every occasion. Not worth the trouble.

2. Then I wonder how these allies eventually end up being conquered? With new Indian allies living in another dimension? This seems awfully similar to Caesar's conquest in Gaul, no army could really take on his own, which means he eventually persuaded the entirety of Gaul to bend the knee. I wonder how the French conquered an entire chunk of Egypt with an improvised expedition corp cut from their home country and harassed by the British (until the British pressure prove to be too much and rebellions kept broking out).

The west experienced an exponential growth in warfare and technology, the rest of the world didn't follow and as such Europeans were carving colonial Empires as soon as the 16th century.

Basically they always had help of Indian natives. Their formula was to find some oppressed minority or smaller neighbor kingdom then help them conquer. Then the puppet rulers stay in power with their aid. However the raw manpower still comes from the locals.

I don't deny that west pulled ahead super fast but this didn't happen until after all these big conquests.

Portuguese had ports all over the world before English even really got started! They beat back huge armies many times their size but it was mainly with balls of steel, not some big technical advantage.

I can find as much examples as I desire of European armies decisively defeating eastern ones in the 18th century, even before, without any significant help from natives.

Besides, it does mean something if the manipulation is almost always one sided, and the end result is complete hegemony from the European power involved.

I don't bite into the ideology that only through deceit, dissension and slavery did the west manage to get the edge over the rest of the world. Looking at Prussia, I don't think ''enslaving'' and building colonial empires was even necessary for a successful industrial growth (it helped). There was already a European particularity that made Scientific discoveries and inventions so abundant in Europe, which slowly started in the 12th century (the actual renaissance) and boomed from the 17th century onward.

 

[Average Manatee]

You have to keep in mind that the concept of nationalism didn't exist back then. There was no outcry to drive out Europeans. Europeans came to India and slowly inserted themselves into the order, and if anything they were welcomed. It wasn't deceit, it was simply leveraging their position. They offered trade opportunities to enrich locals and technological benefits to help them both in war and in peace.

Now, I can give you that Europeans would have a good advantage over locals, even with odds skewed (although once natives had guns and artillery of their own the greatest European advantage was arguably just morale and training). The point is, they rarely needed it. They didn't need to kill the locals or somehow cheat them, they made friends, ensured that their friendly natives would win against non-friendly ones, and slowly consolidated their power over hundreds of years. It was easy because there was never any organized anti-British sentiment until the 19th and 20th century. Even then the various Princely States of the British Raj were the last to rebel against British rule, as their rulers and people were quite comfortable with their situation and the position they were in.

 

[thesoup]

Welp, new dlc, time to not remove it from inventory.
Start playing as Japan, unite the fucking islands. Then I conquer Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia and colonize a bunch of shit like Siberia (just in time to check the Russians), Australia and Taiwan. Then I hop to North America, colony hopping so I could reach some Europeans as fast as I could. Well I was in luck, for I reached Castilian Mexico. 15 years later I have western tech. Then I go to check out my units and they're chinese.
I guess I'll just play as a European until this shit either gets modded or patched.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

works as intended, because all the troops values have been halved and reworked.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Welp, new dlc, time to not remove it from inventory.
Start playing as Japan, unite the fucking islands. Then I conquer Korea, Manchuria, Mongolia and colonize a bunch of shit like Siberia (just in time to check the Russians), Australia and Taiwan. Then I hop to North America, colony hopping so I could reach some Europeans as fast as I could. Well I was in luck, for I reached Castilian Mexico. 15 years later I have western tech. Then I go to check out my units and they're chinese.
I guess I'll just play as a European until this shit either gets modded or patched.

So you are telling me there is a difference between Japanese and Chinese?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Troop values in general need huge reworking. Haven't tried out the new way they're doing it yet, but previously the whole system was bonkers even among Western Europeans. A single tech could be just WAYYYYYYY too much advantage, the tech proceeded in huge jumps at arbitrary intervals (this is an issue that goes back to previous game). Lowered values *could* lead to a more steady progression.

 

[Malakal]

Troop values in general need huge reworking. Haven't tried out the new way they're doing it yet, but previously the whole system was bonkers even among Western Europeans. A single tech could be just WAYYYYYYY too much advantage, the tech proceeded in huge jumps at arbitrary intervals (this is an issue that goes back to previous game). Lowered values *could* lead to a more steady progression.

That was their argument behind lowering values, to limit the tech advantage. Its still big but not as huge as before.

Now they need to spread bonuses coming from tech more evenly so there are no super tech levels.

 

[Pantalones]

The morale levels should be separate from the kill levels and relatively fixed. There is no reason for morale to go up so much all the time. In my mod I give a general boost towards all morale and it makes things work much more sensibly.

I wanted to rework the incredibly silly units as well, but the way the bonuses come is utterly senseless and forces you to do a ton of work to make that happen.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Troop values in general need huge reworking. Haven't tried out the new way they're doing it yet, but previously the whole system was bonkers even among Western Europeans. A single tech could be just WAYYYYYYY too much advantage, the tech proceeded in huge jumps at arbitrary intervals (this is an issue that goes back to previous game). Lowered values *could* lead to a more steady progression.

That was their argument behind lowering values, to limit the tech advantage. Its still big but not as huge as before.

Now they need to spread bonuses coming from tech more evenly so there are no super tech levels.

Agreed, they should definately have things like Tactics increase with each level instead of what you aptly termed super tech levels. It wouldn't even be difficult, just check super tech level increase and the number of techs before it, and spread the increase across them.

 

[Mefi]

Rapidity and scope of some of the changes patch-to-patch isn't encouraging at the moment. There's a beta up on Steam, and once again it rolls back major changes which were made for the previous patch. They need to figure out how some of these mechanics are meant to work and then try to make them work in a sensible way for all nations for at least most of the time or ditch them for something else. 1.6.1.1 and it's still a mucky mess of a game and, even worse, is in constant flux with each patch.