Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted!

[GnomeGninjas]

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

I don't think its possible to embrace Animism (or Shamanism or Totemism), Animist zealot rebels can't force conversion.

[AgentPaper]

I don't think its possible to embrace Animism (or Shamanism or Totemism), Animist zealot rebels can't force conversion.

Sure it's possible. Become a one-province minor and go bankrupt. Of course that means moving your capital to an animist province and selling your homeland to a vassal, but hey, if Ming can do it, so can you!

[Leecros]

So France has decided to "Conquer" Spain and by conquer i mean sit on their land for 30 years. There's been a war going on between France and Spain where Spain was trying to do a reconquest war against France and France just outright crushed them.

...unfortunately they've been sitting on their land for the last 30 years. No peace is being made and France has gone through several wars(something that usually breaks habits like this). This is behavior i've seen before, In my first game as Aragon, I crushed Castille and around the 15-1600's I attacked France in my overconfidence and they obliterated me, occupied my land and refused any kind of peace offer i could give them.

To my knowledge this generally happens when the AI nation wants a certain province from you, one that has a core or claim on it by that nation...but they can't actually reach it or can't take it. In my game, they couldn't 100% occupy me, because i had colonies overseas(and this was before colonial nations). I presume France or its colonial nation wants land over in the colonies, where Spain's colonial nations have completely destroyed any kind of French resistance.

The thing is... I seem to recall an update somewhere fairly early on that dissuaded this behavior. It's kind of annoying, because even though it's not bad to be happening to an AI nation...If it happened to me(again) I would get so sick of the game that i would quit(Like i did in my Aragon game).I thought this was fixed. Apparently i was wrong...

I actually pity Spain, so i've been funding peasant rebels to overthrow French rule. Some of the provinces are up to 53% revolt risk and i Declared War on France with the backing of both Austria and The Ottomans, so France should release their death grip on Spain soon...

[Terraoblivion]

Still not as absurd as the one game I actually played to the time limit. In that one England and Castille were at war without pause for 120 years without either side actually doing anything to end it. It was just a bizarre absurdity and a farce, that made it hugely inconvenient to attack either of them because most of their provinces were occupied by the other.

[tonberrian]

Obviously you attack both at once.

[Flickerdart]

Still not as absurd as the one game I actually played to the time limit. In that one England and Castille were at war without pause for 120 years without either side actually doing anything to end it. It was just a bizarre absurdity and a farce, that made it hugely inconvenient to attack either of them because most of their provinces were occupied by the other.

Maybe they did it on purpose, exactly so that you wouldn't attack them? All while winking conspiratorially at one another?

[Leecros]

So after defeating France, getting them to end their long war with Spain and taking parts of Normandy...France has evolved into Revolutionary France!

It's amusing mostly because it's actually the first time i've seen the elusive creature when i'm not starting a game when they actually exist or playing a modded game and because i didn't think i actually pressed them that hard. Yeah, i defeated their armies, forced them to end their war with Spain, and took two provinces in Normandy, but it's not like i fully occupied their territory and took out all of their armies.

Of course looking at the requirements, they really only need 10 war exhaustion...which they probably had by the end of the war. Although the AI normally burns off their war exhaustion at the end of the war, so it must have just been luck that the event popped so quickly(literal days after the end of the war).

[tonberrian]

Okay, so when I released Najd as a vassal, why did it release as a protectorate?

[GnomeGninjas]

Sure it's possible. Become a one-province minor and go bankrupt. Of course that means moving your capital to an animist province and selling your homeland to a vassal, but hey, if Ming can do it, so can you!

I didn't realize bankruptcy did that.

[tonberrian]

France got the Conquer Milan mission. Unfortunately for them, they were low on manpower because fighting Austria, and had a weak heir. After a long war, I unionized them, becoming the greatest land-power in Europe.

[Eldan]

I had no idea playing as the Emperor was so much fun. I never have to declare war on anyone. Just sit there with my 40'000 troops, wait for someone to call me for assistance, crush the aggressor and vassalize them to some imperial power. Burgundy, Denmark and most of Italy are now imperial.

[IthilanorStPete]

So about that Big Blue Blob...
It's 1522 in my latest game as Castile/Spain. I'm doing well in the colony game, I've beaten up Portugal a good bit and I'm looking to vassalize them, but France is rapidly expanding into the HRE. They've beaten Austria handily in two wars so far; I nominally participated in one, but didn't have the troops to make an substantial contributions. I'm really not sure how I'm going to deal with France; even allied to Austria, England, and Naples, France and its allies (most notably Bohemia) have the numerical advantage. I started from the 1492 bookmark, so France has Brittany in a PU and Bohemia has a PU with Hungary. My idea groups are Exploration (completed), Offensive (have 4/7), and Trade (1/7). Any suggestions for how to keep France from conquering everything?

[Grif]

So about that Big Blue Blob...
It's 1522 in my latest game as Castile/Spain. I'm doing well in the colony game, I've beaten up Portugal a good bit and I'm looking to vassalize them, but France is rapidly expanding into the HRE. They've beaten Austria handily in two wars so far; I nominally participated in one, but didn't have the troops to make an substantial contributions. I'm really not sure how I'm going to deal with France; even allied to Austria, England, and Naples, France and its allies (most notably Bohemia) have the numerical advantage. I started from the 1492 bookmark, so France has Brittany in a PU and Bohemia has a PU with Hungary. My idea groups are Exploration (completed), Offensive (have 4/7), and Trade (1/7). Any suggestions for how to keep France from conquering everything?

Just colonise everything in the New World, then use the ducats you get from the Colonial Nations to fund your own merc armies. You'd want to wait for France to busy itself with some war in the HRE before declaring. Your aim should be to dismember and break France down to its constituent duchies. (May take several truce breaks if you want to do it definitely, since a 100% WS will now entail a 15 year truce. 100% is also required to release Guyenne. You can imagine how long it'll take.)
Possible allies are any Italian majors, England (this one is usually a joke), Sweden and PLC, if they haven't collapsed.

[mythmonster2]

So, other people may have known about this, but I just learned of it and figured I'd share it with any like-minded people. The Extended Timeline mod, from 51 AD to 2014. Even better, I've tried it out for a while and it doesn't seem nearly as crash-prone as Steppe Wolf was for EU3.

[IthilanorStPete]

Just colonise everything in the New World, then use the ducats you get from the Colonial Nations to fund your own merc armies. You'd want to wait for France to busy itself with some war in the HRE before declaring. Your aim should be to dismember and break France down to its constituent duchies. (May take several truce breaks if you want to do it definitely, since a 100% WS will now entail a 15 year truce. 100% is also required to release Guyenne. You can imagine how long it'll take.)
Possible allies are any Italian majors, England (this one is usually a joke), Sweden and PLC, if they haven't collapsed.

Thanks for the advice! I've got a solid game plan now. Haven't declared war on France yet; I'm waiting to get military tech level 10 to upgrade all my units. In the meantime, I've been working on the Americas. I'll probably go after Portugal again, and it looks like I'll be breaking the alliance with England, hopefully replacing it with Sweden.
As an aside: colonial nations make things kind of odd. I conquered most of the Aztec territory, had a bunch of admin points saved for coring and shiny new Counter-Reformation missionaries to use, but all the territory went to Castilian Mexico. Pretty sure I'll have to keep an army there to put own revolts while the conquered territory slowly gets converted and cored.

[Leecros]

So, other people may have known about this, but I just learned of it and figured I'd share it with any like-minded people. The Extended Timeline mod, from 51 AD to 2014. Even better, I've tried it out for a while and it doesn't seem nearly as crash-prone as Steppe Wolf was for EU3.

It's a fun mod, but You really have to play in a time where there isn't a massive empire like the Roman Empire or Mongolian Empire. Otherwise the game just becomes you vs them. Unless there's events built in which eventually collapse them, but I've not seen anything happen quite yet.

It also needs a lot more flavor and an end date. As much as i don't really like how EUIV just stops abruptly, you really need an end date to establish goals. So that you can say "Okay this is what i want to accomplish by the end of the game". However, it doesn't have one. It starts at 51 AD and goes all the way to 9999. So you can establish goals if you want, but there's no real problem with missing them, because you'll always have 6000 more years to finish them in.

In the end it just becomes a world conquest simulator. A "How fast can i conquer the world as X Nation".

It does have its advantages though, for example it makes culture conversions a viable tactic considering they'll eventually pay for themselves and the gap that exists between techs at the start of the game. I was playing as Parthia and i was something like 145 years ahead of time. So there was basically nothing to do with my monarch points other than sit and wait.

[Flickerdart]

So, other people may have known about this, but I just learned of it and figured I'd share it with any like-minded people. The Extended Timeline mod, from 51 AD to 2014. Even better, I've tried it out for a while and it doesn't seem nearly as crash-prone as Steppe Wolf was for EU3.

Downloaded it, started as Han China. You start with 0/-1 diplomatic relations, which costs you 2 diplo points per month, and if you want to attack Dai Viet you are warned it's part of the Holy Roman Empire and Saxony will defend it.

[SilverLeaf167]

Sorry for the shameless plug, but I didn't realize until now that the Playground actually has a sizable Paradox fanbase and thought you might be interested.

I've been writing a Let's Play of sorts over here in this very section (link), and some of you might like to check it out if you haven't already. I'm playing as the Republic of Tibet, and the readers get to participate in the elections in basically every update.

To actually contribute something semi-related: there's an awesome bundle sale for Victoria II going on! Link here.

[tonberrian]

Boy, is Austria strong. I managed to get a Hapsburg on the French throne, and then PU'd Burgundy through the mission (giving France -200 "wants your provinces" modifier). Then I managed the Hungary and Bohemia PU missions. Finally I married Muscovy and then like the next week got a Hapsburg on the throne, and then proceeded to PU them.

The year is 1529.

Edit: and by 1547 I had unions with France and Aragon as well. And the last 5 unions were done under one incredibly long-lived 5/4/5 ruler. Sadly he died before the Argonese Succession War was finished. Requiescat in pace, Johann Leopold von Habsburg.

[IthilanorStPete]

Arg, France. 55k of Spanish troops versus 11k of theirs, and they win. IIRC, they had a ridiculously high morale, and I'm not sure why; it was more than just the boost from Elan.

[Tebryn]

Has anyone been playing the Super States Mod? It's amazingly in depth. All 50 states with unique ideas and a lot of national decisions. All the Canadian Provinces and Territories, a lot of Mexican states and all of Australia are also in with unique ideas and national decisions.

[Leecros]

Arg, France. 55k of Spanish troops versus 11k of theirs, and they win. IIRC, they had a ridiculously high morale, and I'm not sure why; it was more than just the boost from Elan.

If you go into a battle with them, you can mouse over their morale to see what's influencing it. It's probably Elan! coupled with Military drill plus the morale boosting advisor.

That's a 45% increase in morale right there. That plus a little bit of luck can win most battles.

[Grif]

Arg, France. 55k of Spanish troops versus 11k of theirs, and they win. IIRC, they had a ridiculously high morale, and I'm not sure why; it was more than just the boost from Elan.

I'd imagine if a high proportion of that 55k is Infantry/Calvary, then they'll be sitting around doing nothing because they can't engage. Even more so if you happened to battle over a hill/mountain.

[mythmonster2]

Well dang, this thread's been quiet, especially considering we've been getting all these dev diaries about Art of War. I, for one, am very excited about all the map changes. A lot of the new features are also quite interesting. The terrain changes with each province only having one terrain is the only thing that I don't like yet.

[Frog Dragon]

Welp, I got this game last weekend in the steam sale (with DLC), and I'm liking it so far (even though it's hard). I do wish the Universalis wasn't quite as Europa though. I was quite enjoying my Kathiawar run until the British and the French rolled over my longtime ally, destroyed my army and left me wide open to a spiral of debt, nationalists, general rebels, and mongol attacks that made short work of glorious Kathiawar. I understand there's a very robust modding scene around EUIV, but I want to get the hang of the base game first.

Somehow my attempt at playing Kathiawar was much more long lived and successful than my attempts at playing Muscovy, France, and Castile. In all of those I got rolled by a powerful neighbor after prosecuting some early wars.

[Eldan]

I'm rather enjoying my game as colonial-expansionist Japan. I got to Hawaii and Kiribati, but now I seem to be stuck in the middle of the Pacific, unable to find a way to America. Colonized a good part of Indonesia, though.

In the absence of any other targets, I used all my valuable trade money to build up an army to take on Korea. I have the penninsula, but they have taken a good bit of China, which they are still holding.

China in general is a mess. There's about six nations there and everyone around the edges took themselves a few pieces. Dai Viet, Lan Xang, Oirat and Ayutthaya all have bits.

[Leecros]

Well dang, this thread's been quiet, especially considering we've been getting all these dev diaries about Art of War. I, for one, am very excited about all the map changes. A lot of the new features are also quite interesting. The terrain changes with each province only having one terrain is the only thing that I don't like yet.

It's more along the lines of the thread getting lost to obscurity(for me at least).



I've been playing a lot of EUIV multiplayer with two of my friends who got the game over the big Steam Sale. I'm doing amazingly as the Mughal Empire.

[Frog Dragon]

Any suggestions on what a relative newbie should play? So far I've tried France, Muscovy, Castile, and Kathiawar. I also made an abortive attempt at Sweden.

I'm not hugely interested in playing the historical "winners" like France of Britain. Still, I want something that won't get rolled right away. Would Livonian Order be good for me? Maybe I should play with lucky off.

[AgentPaper]

Any suggestions on what a relative newbie should play? So far I've tried France, Muscovy, Castile, and Kathiawar. I also made an abortive attempt at Sweden.

I'm not hugely interested in playing the historical "winners" like France of Britain. Still, I want something that won't get rolled right away. Would Livonian Order be good for me? Maybe I should play with lucky off.

For Europe, something in Italy might prove a bit more challenging, with Savoy, Milan, and Naples being the major players. Any of the mid-sized German states would also be a bit easier, especially Brandenburg. Livonian Order is a bit tricky, since it has poor base tax and no really good expansion options. Teutonic Order is a bit easier. Poland and Burgundy are both fairly strong countries that didn't win historically, and both are surrounded by enemies, making them potentially harder than those you mentioned. Burgundy is certainly the more difficult of the two, being penned in by the HRE to the east and France to the west, but is very doable.

Outside of Europe, there's plenty of regional powers to play, such as Ayutthaya, Vijayanagar, Bengal, Timurids, and Mamluks all make for fun games. Any of the Japanese shoguns can also be fun, though a bit different from a normal campaign due to the mechanics involved.

Also, as a bit advice, the biggest difference between a player who does OK and one who does very well is that the new player watches what's going on in their country, while an advanced player watches what's going on in other countries. It's the difference between managing your country (which after a few games you should be able to do without much thought), and managing the larger geo-political game, knowing who's weak, who's strong, who you should ally, who you should attack, watching for signs of weakness to prey on or danger to avoid.

[Driderman]

I don't think Italian nations are particularly newbie-friendly as you'll likely have to counter Spanish or French Italian ambitions at some point.