Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted!

[Leecros]

from the wiki:

Russia runs the risk of running into their Time of Troubles at any point between 1550 and 1650 if its stability is below 2. This event series gives neighbors opportunities to back pretenders to the Russian throne, which will further extend Russia's internal chaos.

To bring an end to the Time of Troubles, Russia (or Muscovy) must not be at war, have a war exhaustion less than 3, no revolts going on, positive stability and not have the Usurper on the Throne modifier. Once all these conditions have been met, the mean time for the End of the Time of Troubles event to fire is 24 months.

What i don't know is if that "Stability is below 2" is supposed to be 2 or is a typo to be -2. If it's stability below 2, then oh my...

[Frog Dragon]

Also, does reforming government tend to be worth it? I've done it once in this game, turning the Despotic Monarchy into an Administrative Monarchy because the bonuses seemed better.

[Eldan]

Effing Korea, being too big by now to annex in one piece. I needed three wars and that cost me a lot of alliances. Rest of China next.

Also, Spain finally managed to grab one of the South Sea islands before I got there, time to westernize.

[Grif]

Also, does reforming government tend to be worth it? I've done it once in this game, turning the Despotic Monarchy into an Administrative Monarchy because the bonuses seemed better.

Depends on your goals, but generally most of the other monarchy government are better than Feudal. Administrative Monarchy is excellent for land-based empires, where your income is derived from taxes and production, while Absolute is best for military powers like France.

Constitutional recently has been buffed, and the -5 Nationalism is useful for warmongers. (Although it may come into play a little too late for that to matter. Admin Tech 22 is really the late 1600/early 1700s.)

[Closet_Skeleton]

You can't build St Petersberg without westernising, that's about it.

[Leecros]

Funnily enough, i've been playing a Russia multiplayer game recently.

It's going pretty well, after Byzantium fell and I got the event where I either got claims on all of the byzantine cores held by the ottomans and lost 3 stability or lead the Orthodox church into the future. I decided to take the claims, because The Ottomans are way behind in tech and have been floundering against me. So in my first war i took a decent chunk of Greece and returned cores to Byzantium(which funnily enough revolted out of Cyprus during the war) and after the war i vassalized them. I expect to have control of the rest of Greece in the next war.

Spoiler

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The other players are Sweden and The Hansa. They're a bit less experienced(especially The Hansa, he just got the game during that big sale last week) and i've just been leaving them to their own devices. Sweden plans on forming Scandanavia and conquering the British Isles and The Hansa plans on forming Germany.


on another note, i'm kind of disappointed that they added the requirement that the Timurids have to reform their government before they form the Mughal Empire. It means that even if the AI timurids get the land, they rarely...if ever actually form the Mughals.

[Frog Dragon]

Depends on your goals, but generally most of the other monarchy government are better than Feudal. Administrative Monarchy is excellent for land-based empires, where your income is derived from taxes and production, while Absolute is best for military powers like France.

Constitutional recently has been buffed, and the -5 Nationalism is useful for warmongers. (Although it may come into play a little too late for that to matter. Admin Tech 22 is really the late 1600/early 1700s.)

Should I stick with that then? Russia is definitely a large land-based empire. My diplo tech and trade kind of sucks, but I do have a lot of real-estate. Or is there a superior form of government I should assume once it becomes available?

[OrcusMcP]

Should I stick with that then? Russia is definitely a large land-based empire. My diplo tech and trade kind of sucks, but I do have a lot of real-estate. Or is there a superior form of government I should assume once it becomes available?

Well, assuming it's not forced on you by event or misfortune, you want to choose a government that boosts something you need or are already good at and want to boost. Administrative is good if you have a lot of taxable land(which Russia does) and lets you get more money without having to rely on trade. Feudal is good if you have a lot of vassals(which Russia can have, if you want to play that way). Absolute is good if you want to have a better army(Russia needs all the discipline help it can get). Constitutional is really good for stability(which Russia needs) since it boosts the nationalism threshold and legitimacy.

Now personally, when I play Paradox games I like to aim for good stories rather than optimal play, so your mileage may vary. If you're like me though, I think you should aim for a government form that starts with "R" and ends with "evolutionary". Who says France has to have all the fun?

[Guancyto]

Huh, I was wrong about the Time of Troubles. I could still swear there's something bad-juju related if Russia hasn't westernized by some date (maybe the 1700s?), but damned if I can remember what it is.

Also, regarding government types, I should note that independent of their stats, Revolutionary Republic/Empire, Bureaucratic Despotism (Republic) and Enlightened Despotism (Monarchy) all give you the Imperialism CB (wargoal: take capital is not so great, but it lets you declare on absolutely anyone anywhere - great for snapping up former colonial nations in the twilight of the game).

[Leecros]

Well, assuming it's not forced on you by event or misfortune, you want to choose a government that boosts something you need or are already good at and want to boost. Administrative is good if you have a lot of taxable land(which Russia does) and lets you get more money without having to rely on trade.

Russia has a lot of taxable land, but if you want a high patriarch authority(which you might need to convert some of those Sunni provinces), then you're going to be making more on trade and production than tax anyway.

Although I suppose Administrative would offset those penalties a bit.

[OrcusMcP]

Russia has a lot of taxable land, but if you want a high patriarch authority(which you might need to convert some of those Sunni provinces), then you're going to be making more on trade and production than tax anyway.

Although I suppose Administrative would offset those penalties a bit.

Administrative boosts production by 10% anyway, so the logic still applies. Dat fur money....

[Frog Dragon]

My Patriarch Authority has been hovering close to 100 for a while now. I default to siding with the church. The only times I don't do so is when the consequences of siding with them would yield much more losses than not doing so. I still tend to gain the Patriarch Authority back pretty quick, since the generic +5/-5 Patriarch Authority events pop up pretty often. I figure the PA is useful since I do need to convert Sunnis a lot. When it was too low, I couldn't do it at all in most provinces. Now that I have high PA and some religious ideas, I can convert Sunnis pretty fast.

Also, should I go for Defender of the Orthodox Faith? The -5% tech makes me leery.

[Leecros]

Also, should I go for Defender of the Orthodox Faith? The -5% tech makes me leery.

they 5% tech cost is a pain, but Russia's 10% tech reduction helps reduce that. That and if you can get western arms trade for another 10% and innovative for 5% and that 5% tech cost increase isn't so bad.

[Frog Dragon]

I also read that DotF disables the Holy War Casus Belli from Deus Vult. Is this true? If so, that would really suck for me because randomly Holy Warring hordes has been like half my strategy for a good chunk of the game.

[Leecros]

I also read that DotF disables the Holy War Casus Belli from Deus Vult.

Unless it's been changed, that's right. You don't get Holy Wars from Deus Vult if you're Defender of the Faith.

[Grif]

My Patriarch Authority has been hovering close to 100 for a while now. I default to siding with the church. The only times I don't do so is when the consequences of siding with them would yield much more losses than not doing so. I still tend to gain the Patriarch Authority back pretty quick, since the generic +5/-5 Patriarch Authority events pop up pretty often. I figure the PA is useful since I do need to convert Sunnis a lot. When it was too low, I couldn't do it at all in most provinces. Now that I have high PA and some religious ideas, I can convert Sunnis pretty fast.

Also, should I go for Defender of the Orthodox Faith? The -5% tech makes me leery.

There isn't really much of a point going DotF, tbh, unless you really want the morale boost and war exhaustion reduction. Losing Holy War and being dragged into pointless wars by other countries of your religion pretty much makes it tedious.

[Frog Dragon]

Welp, that's my first finished game.

Spoiler: Pictures

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Lithuania Stronk.

I guess that's pretty much a wash as far as comparison to historical Russia goes. On one hand, Lithuania kept me out of Europe and Spain kept me out of China and the Pacific.

On the other hand, I managed to ultimately take more land from Sweden, and at the very end, I even had Indian Ocean ports. Persia and Khorasan are my vassals there. I was actually annexing Khorasan when the end screen popped up.

Probably the biggest "oh crap" moment was in 1745 when I got PU over Norway and Lithuania immediately succession warred me over it. That might've been manageable (though Lithuania only kept getting scarier as the game went on. No-one could really check them, and I wasn't about to try), except for the fact that the giant Kebab coalition decided that was an appropriate time to punish me for my indiscriminate warring against the muslim states. Qara Qoyunly holy warred me. Sweden was also in the coalition, and I was seeing 60+ deathstacks on my southern border.

I had learned to respect Sweden, and thus I had a rather large army on standby to whack them down. Swedish armies were basically so badass that even as a rump state, I had to face them 5-on-1. This while facing down Lithuanian deathstacks and those of the muslims was not a pretty proposition. While Sweden+Kebabs was doable and Lithuania was potentially doable, both at once was death.

Thankfully, Lithuania accepted my peacing out on condition of giving up the Norway PU. While regrettable, it wasn't something I was actively pursuing and definitely something I was willing to give up to get Lithuania off my back in this kind of bind.

I was able to keep the Swedes down, but the muslims had taken enough land and won enough battles against my Kazakh vassal to shoot me down to -40 warscore.

However, the muslim hordes, while numerous, were still less so than the russians. I lost an army, and drafted another. I marched my renewed forces against the muslims and crushed their vanguards. Qara Qoyunlu offered white peace while I was still around -30 warscore. It seems like they saw where things were going. I accepted, because I didn't really want to get stuck in a 2-front quagmire where I probably wouldn't be able to make any gains. Thankfully, most of the coalition against me left after that peace. Russia was mighty, but I didn't want to fight half the muslim world every time I went against one of the hordes.

After that, I wasn't really involved in any seriously threatening wars. Just relatively minor ones against hordes that couldn't realistically match me. With the coalition cut to a much more manageable size, it was fairly smooth sailing from there, though I didn't really challenge any great European powers.

Also, never westernized, didn't reform again after Administrative Monarchy, and maintained the Patriarchate of Moskva (didn't do the state church thing).

[IthilanorStPete]

Welp, that's my first finished game.

Spoiler: Pictures

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Lithuania Stronk.

I guess that's pretty much a wash as far as comparison to historical Russia goes. On one hand, Lithuania kept me out of Europe and Spain kept me out of China and the Pacific.

On the other hand, I managed to ultimately take more land from Sweden, and at the very end, I even had Indian Ocean ports. Persia and Khorasan are my vassals there. I was actually annexing Khorasan when the end screen popped up.

Probably the biggest "oh crap" moment was in 1745 when I got PU over Norway and Lithuania immediately succession warred me over it. That might've been manageable (though Lithuania only kept getting scarier as the game went on. No-one could really check them, and I wasn't about to try), except for the fact that the giant Kebab coalition decided that was an appropriate time to punish me for my indiscriminate warring against the muslim states. Qara Qoyunly holy warred me. Sweden was also in the coalition, and I was seeing 60+ deathstacks on my southern border.

I had learned to respect Sweden, and thus I had a rather large army on standby to whack them down. Swedish armies were basically so badass that even as a rump state, I had to face them 5-on-1. This while facing down Lithuanian deathstacks and those of the muslims was not a pretty proposition. While Sweden+Kebabs was doable and Lithuania was potentially doable, both at once was death.

Thankfully, Lithuania accepted my peacing out on condition of giving up the Norway PU. While regrettable, it wasn't something I was actively pursuing and definitely something I was willing to give up to get Lithuania off my back in this kind of bind.

I was able to keep the Swedes down, but the muslims had taken enough land and won enough battles against my Kazakh vassal to shoot me down to -40 warscore.

However, the muslim hordes, while numerous, were still less so than the russians. I lost an army, and drafted another. I marched my renewed forces against the muslims and crushed their vanguards. Qara Qoyunlu offered white peace while I was still around -30 warscore. It seems like they saw where things were going. I accepted, because I didn't really want to get stuck in a 2-front quagmire where I probably wouldn't be able to make any gains. Thankfully, most of the coalition against me left after that peace. Russia was mighty, but I didn't want to fight half the muslim world every time I went against one of the hordes.

After that, I wasn't really involved in any seriously threatening wars. Just relatively minor ones against hordes that couldn't realistically match me. With the coalition cut to a much more manageable size, it was fairly smooth sailing from there, though I didn't really challenge any great European powers.

Quite a lot unusual going on there! That's one seriously impressive Bohemia. Vijayanagar did quite well, Ayutthaya did extremely well. I'm not used to seeing Qing form that often; did Ming manage to pull itself together?

[Frog Dragon]

That's the end state you see there, so yeah. Manchu --> Qing just kept getting stronger throughout the game, and they absorbed the former Ming territories. Ming got split into several smaller states, but looks like Ayutthaya mostly blobbed into Zhou.

Bohemia really went crazy lategame. Spain seemed to be biggest winner, at least according to score. Their heyday was actually a while back (Spanish Netherlands used to be basically all of Burgundy), but it takes a while to take down an empire that giant. Never dared to challenge them, even though evicting them from Siberia might've been doable without them being able to really bring their force to bear on me.

Everything else happened mostly without my meddling, but I can claim responsibility for giant Vijayanagar. Delhi was rather strong at one point, and basically a northwestern muslim counterweight to Vijayanagar's southeastern hindu. However, Delhi got dragged into repeated coalition wars against me, which they kept losing. As a result. Delhi got their manpower pool depleted, and eventually they couldn't even hold back Chagatai and nationalist rebels. Getting into repeated fights with me left them so weakened that they couldn't hold themselves together, especially Vijayanagar went to war with them. Vijayanagar basically moved into a power vacuum.

As a sidenote, had the game gone on longer, I probably would've been in position to chunk Lithuania once they inevitable wound up in conflict with Bohemia. Basically the same way I took out Sweden. I waited until they lost a war in continental Europe that wiped out their forces, and then rolled in while they were essentially defenseless. I never defeated Sweden in a fair fight.

[Leecros]

gotta say, i'm having a crazy Austria game which makes me feel like i'm back in EU3.


Started the game up, first few years and i got a personal union with Bavaria. Burgundy declares war against me in the succession crisis and the resulting war ends with the Burgundian Inheritance event.

So burgundy's land gets split between France and I. A few more years pass and France attacks Savoy. Savoy calls in me, Hungary, and Venice. I become the war leader and call in Castile, Bohemia, Bavaria, Poland-Lithuania, and Brandenburg. France gets crushed and i release Burgundy as an independant nation. Immediately after, I get the Burgundian Inheritance mission(not to be confused with the event) and get a casus beli to put Burgundy into a Personal Union...which i do.

The game stabelizes and over the next few years things are relatively peaceful(except for the occasional beating up of France or the Ottomans) and i inherit Bavaria. In the 1550's I get a personal union with Spain.

I did have to release them, because Spain was being played by a friend, but at this point, i'm in shock because i just finished a discussion with that friend about how they've nerfed Personal Unions from EU3 when i notice that Norway's king is 60 years old with no heir, so I royal marriage them and when their king dies a Habsburg takes over and I immediately claim the throne and force them into a PU. Shortly after that Brandenburg gets under a PU with me, because they were in a regency council and their heir died. And then shortly after that Pommerania joined the Habsburg family...although I couldn't force a PU there due to being in a regency council.


So yeah....Habsburg Dominance Indeed.

[Eldan]

I had a similar Habsburg game, except that I inherited my way eastwards. Bavaria, Burgundy, Bohemia and then Poland-Lithuania. Stopped at that point, it was sort of pointless.

And of course there was that one crazy game where I had a PU with France.

[Leecros]

I'd imagine i'll get a PU with Poland eventually, once they switch out of their elective monarchy mess. The last 3 or 4 kings there have all been Habsburgs.

But still, not something you really see that often in EU4 since they've been gradually making PU's harder to get. In EU3 all you needed was a marriage with a kingdom that had a low legitimacy claim to claim their throne and unless something happened to that low legitimacy heir, a PU was almost assured.

[OrcusMcP]

My favourite PU moment was when I was playing the Ottomans. I allied/married the Timurids just to keep them off my back in the early game, figuring I'd have to turn on them eventually in a couple hundred years. I left them to their own devices.

Imagine my surprise when, ~1530, I get a PU with the Timurids. Then, 50 years later, I inherited them.

This was after I had done a bunch of conquering in the Middle East, Africa, Black Sea and was starting to press into Italy.

Yeah, my name was REALLY big on the map.

[tonberrian]

My record PU game was with Austria too. First I got the Burgundian PU mission. Then the next ruler comes up. He manages to get PUs with Hungary and Bohemia through missions, and France, Russia, and Aragon without them. It was sweet.

[Terraoblivion]

I haven't done much with PUs. I did have an incredible story ones. I was playing as the Commonwealth and had allied and royal married France since I was planning on conquering in Germany and somebody to beat up on Austria would be useful. Then I got a PU with them, managed to keep it stable and finally got big enough to absorb France. I dropped the game shortly after because there were nobody left who could challenge me, I had already all but killed Muscovy when it happened and that really only left the Ottomans as a potential threat and they were floundering.

[Guancyto]

PUs are like winning the lottery, really. I had a Burgundy game where I got a PU with Austria in the first year. Needless to say, a lot of smacking around France followed.

And then I had a (pre-Res Publica) Poland game where I attempted to get personal unions with everyone I could, dedicated myself to controlling the curia so I could snipe royal marriages and... the only PU I ever got besides Lithuania was in like 1780, when rump state England (mostly consigned to some land in Australia and Indonesia - Scotland had entirely kicked them out of the British Isles) became a monarchy again due to a revolution, and they got a Lancaster as a ruler, so I could claim their throne (Poland had been ruled by Lancasters for a couple hundred years at this point.)

Then there was a Timurids-> Mughals game where I ended up with PUs with no-joke every single Muslim power in the world (except the Ottomans, Mali and the various states of India, who I conquered). I got Tunisia, Morocco (who had split north africa between them), the Mamluk rump state, the Kazan, the Nogai, and even the Oirat Horde, who weren't even of my religion group! (It turns out that was a huge problem, they will refuse to Integrate if they're not of your religion group, so it took me a couple hundred years maintaining the union to inherit them.) The islamic rulers of the world may have had many wives and many sons, but apparently the Mangit dynasty exceeded them all.

[Leecros]

Then there was a Timurids-> Mughals game where I ended up with PUs with no-joke every single Muslim power in the world (except the Ottomans, Mali and the various states of India, who I conquered). I got Tunisia, Morocco (who had split north africa between them), the Mamluk rump state, the Kazan, the Nogai, and even the Oirat Horde, who weren't even of my religion group! (It turns out that was a huge problem, they will refuse to Integrate if they're not of your religion group, so it took me a couple hundred years maintaining the union to inherit them.) The islamic rulers of the world may have had many wives and many sons, but apparently the Mangit dynasty exceeded them all.

The last time i played as Timurids->Mughals I did get a PU with the ottomans. Amusingly it was a multiplayer game and it was the same person who played Spain when i got a PU with them in my current game.

I've been playing a lot of multiplayer recently.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I had to PU the Ottomans via war during this achievement run.


Couldn't integrate since there was only 20 years left when I finished the war (not the war took long but I only did it because I only needed Ottoman Persia for the Great Khan achievement and the Ottomans didn't get Persia until very late).

I managed to get Muscovy in a Prussia game. They hate me so much.

Then I loaded up a Muscovy game and got a PU with Yaroslavl in the first few years, leading to a war with Lithuania where all my manpower was destroyed and I had to surrender giving Lithuania the PU. A few years later I got another PU with Ryazan and another succession war with Lithuania while my manpower still sucked and rage quit.

[tonberrian]

I had to PU the Ottomans via war during this achievement run.


Couldn't integrate since there was only 20 years left when I finished the war (not the war took long but I only did it because I only needed Ottoman Persia for the Great Khan achievement and the Ottomans didn't get Persia until very late).

I managed to get Muscovy in a Prussia game. They hate me so much.

Then I loaded up a Muscovy game and got a PU with Yaroslavl in the first few years, leading to a war with Lithuania where all my manpower was destroyed and I had to surrender giving Lithuania the PU. A few years later I got another PU with Ryazan and another succession war with Lithuania while my manpower still sucked and rage quit.

Dat France.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Dat France.

Yes.



They PU'd Castille really early. I ignored them the whole game until they suddenly started jumping in charge of every war in the last few years. I still won every one but they did slow me down.