Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted!

[AgentPaper]

Yeah, Spain is a pretty fun game.

Currently playing as Genoa, and it's been lots of fun. Been trying to limit my blobbing, instead focusing on trade, specifically trade through Tunis and Alexandria. An early war with Provence (for Provence) gave me the early boost I needed to survive, start a trade war with Tunis to vassalize them, and eventually beat up Aragon, taking Sardinia, Malta and then later on Valencia. Castile is helpfully beating them up as well, so I should be able to take Barcelona from them as well.

I now have naval dominance over the Mediterranean, and the Ottomans are finally smashing into the Mamluks, which allowed me to steal Cyprus and Alexandria from them, and soon I'll be taking Gaza and Sinai as well, probably along with some other lands around there like Judea and Dumyat, which will let me start projecting into the Arabian Peninsula and then India, with the goal of conquering all trade company land and making Genoa into a real world power.

[Leecros]

It fixes that too. Got overextension from conquering the Ottomans? Annex them, then release them as a vassal!

Yes, I actually thought about that after i went to bed, but i had already turned my computer off.... Oh well.




As far as Spain/Castille goes, I always harbor some resentment at playing as them, because i have never had the Iberian Wedding event fire. Ever.I've played Castille through 1500 at lesat 6 times so far and nothing. The game knows it too, because it always fires for the AI and usually at its earliest convenience.

I want that Double the Love achievement dangit!

[Closet_Skeleton]

Current work in progress.

Europe, which I have no real effect on other than that one time I declared war on Russia.

My Empire

[Leecros]

Interestingly enough, I just finished a Ming game last week.




Honestly, i'm not really happy with mine...I made a few bad decisions early on in the game regarding National Ideas. The biggest one being the decision to not begin colonization early(I didn't start colonizing until the late 1600's). Had i started earlier, i would have gimpped Russia much like you have and I'd probably be much larger. Also the decision to westernize in the late game was pretty bad. I was already competitive with the western powers(and managed to beat Portugal, Spain, AND Russia off of me several times. I had hoped, however that by westernizing it would make wars with Russia less of a slog. In the end it just turned out to be a giant waste of time and resources though.


Dat Russia though.
Dat Scandanavia though.
Dat Ottomans though.

Actually, no...The Ottomans at that time are a shadow of their former glory. They used to be one, contiguous mass spanning from Lithuania all the way down through Persia and Morocco, but around the 1700's they were just beaten back by the rather nasty alliance of Spain, Portugal and Russia. An alliance that caused me many, many problems.


At least i got Japan in a Personal Union. That saved me a lot of trouble.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I was basically racing Russia on parity to get to the coast, so I cut them off by war instead.

Then they fell under a PU with Britain , but really that just means they're very very safe and quiet as a neighbour.

For ideas I have in order

Humanism
Quantity
Exploration
Innovative
Influence

I'm not planning on westernising at all. Which is a pain because it means I can't create protectorates so all my vassals are taking up diplorelations and I don't have an easy way to get more of those.

My main problem is that Persia is Confusian and refusing to buy uncored sunni provinces, so getting Khorasan is slow. Ottomans also just joined the big coalition against me after I annexed Iraq which sucks, so I may have to go poke Russia and hope for the best.

Bukhara is also being a pain and not wanting to siege its own cores whenever I go to war to increase his size.

[Leecros]

My Ideas were:

Diplomatic
Defensive
Religious
Offensive
Exploration
Innovative
Quality
Trade

Knowing what i Know now though, I definitely would have scrapped Diplomatic Ideas. I've no idea what i was thinking taking that Idea group other than it's basically a staple for almost every nation that i play, but effectively useless for Ming. Instead i'd probably have gone somewhere along the lines of Defensive, Exploration, Innovative, then trade.

Innovative gives a bunch of events that give Monarch points and by the time i'd have gotten exploration in that set up, i'd have access to SOMETHING to colonize.

The other problem that I had in my game was that i was just so afraid to expand. I've seen the horrors that is Ming losing the Mandate of Heaven after overextending itself too much and it's generally not pretty. It tends to start a downward spiral that can be hard to get out of. So i was always afraid to really push hard or destabilize myself too much for fear that everything begins to go horribly wrong.

[IthilanorStPete]

Humanism? *looks up idea groups* Wow, there's been lots of changes. Are there any idea groups that got noticeably stronger or weaker? How good are the new idea groups?

[Grif]

Humanism? *looks up idea groups* Wow, there's been lots of changes. Are there any idea groups that got noticeably stronger or weaker? How good are the new idea groups?

Humanism is a godsend. The reduced accepted culture threshold alone makes the group really worthwhile if you're planning to run a multi-cultural empire like Commonwealth. (It reduces the culture acceptance threshold to 10% overall, from 20%.)

Offensive has been nerfed somewhat, losing the admittedly OP manpower bonus. Still powerful though.

I hear Maritime isn't quite worth the price, and Espionage is still meh.

[Leecros]

Espionage Ideas have become more useful since they were moved over to Diplo Ideas(from admin ideas) and the addition to privateer efficiency. Privateers are a nice way to make money and power projection if you're rivals with a nation like Venice or Portugal.


But yeah, it's still pretty meh. I miss Ye Olden Days of EUIII where spies were actually useful. Not only did all of those Ideas things you could do right off the bat, but supporting rebels had a flat percent chance of actually spawning those rebels immediately.

I get why it's nerfed, i remember one multiplayer game where i spawned 120k rebels on Alexandria, but it still made Espionage useful.

[Eldan]

Soo... it's now about 1560 in my England game. France still has no coastline. Somewhat worryingly, Burgundy is now slowly eating them, while I vassalized Bretonia, giving me the entire French coastline, except for that bit that is now Provence. I've had four major wars with France/Scottland now and with help from Austria, Provence and the Spanish states, beat them pretty badly every time. Which means that Burgundy is now becoming a major threat to everyone. They have eaten the Netherlands, the small French-ish states, some of the Western Empire (though Austria now borders France) and, when Scandinavia fell apart unexpectedly, they also got Denmark.

On the other hand, I somehow vassalized Norway. Which at that point consisted of Iceland and one other province. Meant that I didn't have to get any of the colonial ideas to start on Newfoundland. I got them anyway, later. Also, as Spain, I conquered natives. What a foolish idea. THey love me and want to join my empire, now.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The other problem that I had in my game was that i was just so afraid to expand. I've seen the horrors that is Ming losing the Mandate of Heaven after overextending itself too much and it's generally not pretty.

I've had at least 30% over-extension for a century and only lost the Mandate of Heaven temporally from stability hits until by dynasty died out and I had below 60 legitimacy for a bit. During that time I was pretty much fine, even with the over-extension being a steady 80% at times.

Humanism is a godsend. The reduced accepted culture threshold alone makes the group really worthwhile if you're planning to run a multi-cultural empire like Commonwealth. (It reduces the culture acceptance threshold to 10% overall, from 20%.)

So far I've found it pretty dubious to be honest. If you're too big it doesn't help that much except with really big cultures.

[Leecros]

I've had at least 30% over-extension for a century and only lost the Mandate of Heaven temporally from stability hits until by dynasty died out and I had below 60 legitimacy for a bit. During that time I was pretty much fine, even with the over-extension being a steady 80% at times.

Yeah, In hindsight, I did worry a bit too much. However, it was definitely a thing that influenced my decisions. If i started over, i would definitely have worred a little less about it. The only time I lost the Mandate of Heaven was when like 3 or 4 of my heirs died in short succession; ending with a low legitimacy one...and of course when i westernized.

[AgentPaper]

So, about that talk on France and long-term allies in general...I'm currently playing through as Brandenburg (now Germany), and I've had France and Poland as my allies basically since the start of the game. Austria and Denmark were also good allies for a while, and only stopped being so because I intentionally spurned them. France especially has had my back in almost every major war I've had to fight, and recently have even started taking to granting me lands in peace deals, something like a dozen in total now over the course of a few wars where I was their ally. The alliance even managed to last through me being at war with them at one point due to a war between them and Austria (which ironically enough, was when my alliance with Austria ended, due to a reformation event).

Relations are getting slightly strained now due to the Allied to Rival, Heretic Religion, and Competing Great Power modifiers, but I think that the fact that I've kept them generally above 100 relations and they have a high amount of trust for me has kept them on my side when in earlier versions of the game, they would have rivaled me long ago basically just for being there. Case in point, after losing Burgundy as a rival (they annexed them, the event to split them up never fired) they chose the Mamluks of all things as their next rival.

Of course, it's only 1547, so there's still plenty of time for them to turn on me (and eventually I'll likely have to do so myself, after they inevitably start pushing into German lands), but it's definitely a lot easier to have long-term allies now. Hasn't stopped me from buttering up England and Spain just in case, of course.


Edit: Also, privateers are OP. Not because they make you money or even for denying your enemy trade power, but just because they allow you to easily clear 50 Power Projection on a permanent basis. Just find a nice rival who has a lot of trade power in some node, then send a few privateers there and you'll easily get 20+ power projection. Combine that with the +30 for 3 long term rivals and maybe a bit from embargoes and you'll have no problem keeping 50 Power Projection and the free monarch points that come with it.

[Flickerdart]

How does the game define a Great Power, exactly?

[OrcusMcP]

How does the game define a Great Power, exactly?

I'm pretty sure it's a measure of where you are in the score rankings, but the wiki doesn't say anything about it.

[Leecros]

It's based on how much score you're gaining each month, or maybe a combination of both.


Edit: Actually i'm completely clueless, The Hansa is #3 in the world score-wise and #5 in the world in terms of score gain, but they're not a competing great power.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

So the next EU4 expansion was announced: Art of War. Focuses on the latter half of the game period, with "revolution, counterrevolution, reformation and counterreformation", customizable armies, Napoleon and the 30 Years War.

Which excites me more than the CK2 expansion which is just another pushing the start date back, farther in my opinion than the engine can handle. Charlemagne. Eh.

[Leecros]

So the next EU4 expansion was announced: Art of War. Focuses on the latter half of the game period, with "revolution, counterrevolution, reformation and counterreformation", customizable armies, Napoleon and the 30 Years War.

I suppose we don't see Rev. France as much as the devs would like...

[IthilanorStPete]

So the next EU4 expansion was announced: Art of War. Focuses on the latter half of the game period, with "revolution, counterrevolution, reformation and counterreformation", customizable armies, Napoleon and the 30 Years War.

Which excites me more than the CK2 expansion which is just another pushing the start date back, farther in my opinion than the engine can handle. Charlemagne. Eh.

This definitely sounds exciting. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the Thirty Years' War. Hopefully they'll rebalance the base tax of provinces worldwide... *grumble*

[GnomeGninjas]

Hopefully they'll rebalance the base tax of provinces worldwide... *grumble*

I don't know if non-European provinces will have more base tax but there will be a lot more non-European provinces (if the screenshots I've seen on the forums are to be believed).

[IthilanorStPete]

I don't know if non-European provinces will have more base tax but there will be a lot more non-European provinces (if the screenshots I've seen on the forums are to be believed).

That could help; at the very least, they're not ignoring the issue.

[Terraoblivion]

Oh, hey, you can no longer march armies around at random in the middle of the Iraqi desert now.

[tonberrian]

Hee. So I'm playing as Milan. I managed to get a Valois on the throne, and France and I have been best buds ever since (I've made sure to not share a border in case of the Conquer Milan mission). I was crusading against the Mamluks when apparently the Portuguese queen died, willing Portugal to me! Yay! Apparently France was unhappy with that decision, though, and they declared a succession war on me. Being as I was currently fairly involved and really couldn't take France on (they won Hungary in a succession war earlier), I looked at what it would take for them to leave me alone. All they really wanted was 1600 ducats, which I was quite willing to share with them. Everybody's happy!

[Driderman]

Hee. So I'm playing as Milan. I managed to get a Valois on the throne, and France and I have been best buds ever since (I've made sure to not share a border in case of the Conquer Milan mission). I was crusading against the Mamluks when apparently the Portuguese queen died, willing Portugal to me! Yay! Apparently France was unhappy with that decision, though, and they declared a succession war on me. Being as I was currently fairly involved and really couldn't take France on (they won Hungary in a succession war earlier), I looked at what it would take for them to leave me alone. All they really wanted was 1600 ducats, which I was quite willing to share with them. Everybody's happy!

France will happily vassalize Savoy, resulting in you bordering with them and them acquiring a taste for Lombards. Or, they'll pick up an Italian Ambitions mission. Not actually sure them bordering you is a requirement for the Conquer Milan mission.
As you may be able to tell, I've had plenty of grief with France playing as Milan

[AgentPaper]

France will happily vassalize Savoy, resulting in you bordering with them and them acquiring a taste for Lombards. Or, they'll pick up an Italian Ambitions mission. Not actually sure them bordering you is a requirement for the Conquer Milan mission.
As you may be able to tell, I've had plenty of grief with France playing as Milan

The requirements are:

Milan owns Lombardia.
Milan is a neighbor of France.
Milan shares France's religion group.
Milan is at peace with France.

So, you could avoid it by giving up Lombardia to a vassal, having a vassal buffer (probably Switzerland) that you grant the borderlands to, or by switching to a different religious group (ie: Sunni). I guess you could also try to be at war with France whenever they would be eligible to get a new mission, until they get a different mission, as well, but that seems a bit...harder.

Of course, the best way to avoid it is to simply stop being Milan, presumably by becoming Italy.

[tonberrian]

Well, I don't want to go to war with them quite yet. We share a dynasty, so theoretically I could claim their throne. But they're bigger, and also pu'd hungary.

[Leecros]

Whelp, got to see a huge Ottoman Empire Republic turn Shia today. I was wondering why they were having so many issues, i guess that's what happens when an enormous country changes religion. that's even ignoring the fact that they turned into a republic.


see, it's things like this that keep me coming back to these games. Just the 1 or 2 weird things that can crop up in every game.

[Grif]

The requirements are:
Milan shares France's religion group.

The course is clear. Embrace Islam!

[AgentPaper]

The course is clear. Embrace Islam!

I think DDRJake has shown us quite clearly that Animist is the superior religion.

[Leecros]

I think DDRJake has shown us quite clearly that Animist is the superior religion.

DDRJake has shown us many, many things...