Europa Universalis IV Thread 3: If only we had comet sense...

[Leecros]

Man, the game is really getting better with every new expansion. But I can never muster the strength to start playing again when it's always gonna be so much better in the near future.

I've found the best time to play is typically after the big bugfixing patch that comes after an expansion.

[OrcusMcP]

New Dev Diary. And it's a doozy.

So, this is a pretty big deal. Diplomacy is getting a major overhaul in terms of how alliances and relationships between countries work based on 3 things: Trust, favours, and provinces of interest.

It may be too early to tell, but I think that if this works, we may be able to see some negotiated/bi-lateral peace deals in the future.

[Grif]

New Dev Diary. And it's a doozy.

So, this is a pretty big deal. Diplomacy is getting a major overhaul in terms of how alliances and relationships between countries work based on 3 things: Trust, favours, and provinces of interest.

It may be too early to tell, but I think that if this works, we may be able to see some negotiated/bi-lateral peace deals in the future.

I hate to say this, but this is more common sense than the Common Sense DLC.

I'll take my leave now.

[Leecros]

So i've spent the last 4-ish days, using all of my spare time to try and get the Great Khan achievement. I've got to say. I've played Hordes before, built decently sized empires as Kazan and Oirat. I still have no love for playing hordes. I find it annoying how much admin power they require to just reform their government and they need to reform their government before they're even allowed to westernize. Under average conditions(Aka: No penalties/bonuses), they have to fill out one of three specific Admin Idea Groups(2800 Admin Power), be at +3 Stability(450 admin power), and have 200 admin power in the bank. Of course, I also decided i wanted to reform my government while i was in the middle of some Internal Conflicts. completely ignoring the increased stability cost that caused. Plus the fact that if i had just cleaned up the internal conflicts i would have gotten the final stability i needed for free. However, my ruler was old and his heir had low legitimacy(You also need like 70 legitimacy to reform).

However I digress. I do have to say, it did take me out of my comfort zone. I had to play a little less safe and made some more...reckless moves to get me into the correct position for Imperialism. I had to do things like attack eastward despite me being far behind in tech. Something i'm loathe to do. Especially if i'm far behind in admin tech. My tech really suffered in the early game. I managed to keep up in military tech, but at one point i had 6 diplotech near the end of the 1500's and i was behind for most of the game. I don't think i actually caught up in all three techs until just before Imperialism(~1680) I also had to make some choices regarding alliances and making friends more to protect me from attack than to assist me in war. After i hit Imperialism, then i had to be careful that i didn't way overextend and just collapse...something that almost happened at one point. Then at the end of all things i almost completely messed up because i didn't realize that Hormuz(That little island between Persia and Arabia) counts as being in the Persian region).

However, after all the things. I did manage it. I conquered Russia, Persia, China, and a little extra as The Golden Horde.

Spoiler

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Note: Golden Arabia and Golden India(That brown blob in northern India) are both my client states.
Also that's Mexico in Japan...

[Eldan]

Who is that colonizing Australia there? Doesn't quite have the colour of France.

[Razade]

Who is that colonizing Australia there? Doesn't quite have the colour of France.

Appears to be Colonial French Australia.

[Eldan]

Ah. Didn't know Australia could have colonial nations.

[Razade]

Ah. Didn't know Australia could have colonial nations.

It was added in a patch a bit ago, they didn't used to.

[Sian]

nicely big Austria you got there thru

[Tokay]

So to celebrate the Cossacks release I decided to revisit one of my favorite EU4 playthroughs ever, Dulkadir, and it seems like I may have stumbled upon the best Dulkadir start ever.

Spoiler: Here be an image

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Last time I played as Dulkadir I had to do about twenty restarts before even getting a start that didn't result in getting eaten by the Ottomans. This time the Ottomans got a very fortunately timed regency council, allowing me to eat up everything to their east and denying them a whole bunch of expansion.

Also, I'm glad not to be anywhere near Western Europe, because Austria seems to have decided to take all the things. They also have a PU with Hungary.

[Grif]

Bavaria being in that shade of blue upsets me more than I thought.

[Leecros]

Bavaria being in that shade of blue upsets me more than I thought.

Personally, i don't mind the blue. However this is very much a matter of opinion. It fits with my narrative that the HRE is just a massive bag of spilled Skittles i must consume to become more powerful.



Anyone have any interesting Random New Worlds yet?

[mythmonster2]

If people are willing to spoil themselves, here's a list of the potential tiles. There are a few fantasy ones in there, too.

I'm a fan of the Columbus-was-right-India and the Leviathan.

[OrcusMcP]

If people are willing to spoil themselves, here's a list of the potential tiles. There are a few fantasy ones in there, too.

I'm a fan of the Columbus-was-right-India and the Leviathan.

I THOUGHT I saw India....

Spoiler

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[AgentPaper]

Spoiler: RNW easter egg

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I THOUGHT I saw India....

You should stick that in a spoiler. Let some people be surprised.

[Leecros]

Hm

Hm...


I think it may take me a little while to get used to the whole estates system. I just had my Lithuanian Commonwealth(horray achievement mongering) collapse due to The Clergy being dissatisfied for too long.

-2 stability and rebels in every province under the Clergy(15-20) caused by an event, followed by Nogai, The Golden Horde, and Teutonic Order rebels taking advantage of my depleted manpower from fighting those rebels to revolt. Then came the inevitable DOW from Novgorod(the Russia of my game).


Also, i've concluded that setting provinces to vital interest should be used to a limited extent at best(if at all). I've had two situations where allies with high trust have broken their alliance with me after setting a certain number of provinces to vital interest that they also had set as such.

[Sian]

Anyone having pondered on 'First Come First Serve' and 'For Odin!' ? been playing a bit around with it and believe that i've found a reasonble way to do it after my first try failed



Intention is to colonize the Center of Trades and Estuaries on the east coast, but otherwise focus on colonizing the west coast, letting the AI colonize from the east. My first failed attempt died on me coastblocking the eastcoast, which lead me to many provinces to self-colonize to be practically possible

[Eldan]

So the estate system means I can't just let my muslim rulers sit at the lowest possible piety for cheaper tech. Shame.

I have a game of Tunis on, and I'm not even sure whether it's going well or not. On the one hand, it's 1500 and I Westernized and control most of North Africa. On the other hand, bankruptcy is looming (one loan away from it), I lost my fleet and my army and the church rebelled and forced me to give autonomy to a lot of provinces. We'll see where this goes. The Ottomans are cutting ties too, over the question of who's getting the rest of Egypt, I hope they won't declare a war, or I'm gone.

[Sian]

Some nice land that you got there Spain ... shame if someone happened to it...,



Yoink!

[Leecros]

Hello thread, long time no see.

I come to you today to offer upon your eyeballs something that i rarely see the AI pull off. That is - Something that actually kind of resembles a nation's historically accurate borders.

Behold!

Spoiler

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The AI managed this with minimal to no intervention from me and it may be lacking in some many areas and gaining in others, but it's still one of the nicest looking nations i've seen for awhile. For Reference to actual historical ottomans in 1745 i shall send you over to geacron(link. I hope that link works the way i think it will and jump you straight to 1745).

As you can see, it's lacking a bit around The Black Sea, Persia, and a little bit around the Red Sea and North Africa. However, it also has a much larger chunk out of what would have been Austria in a historically accurate map. I also say minimum involvement from me, because i did sort of stop Muscovy from expanding east and that may have prevented The Ottomans from expanding in certain ways. However with that said, i sort of suspect the united front of Scandinavia and Poland-Lithuania would have put an end to Russian Ambitions in this alternate timeline anyway.

As for the rest of Europe, well...It can't all be perfect and Switzerland appears to have become much more militaristic in my absence. Not to mention the mess that is Spain.


Also for those wanting to know, i am playing an Ironman game as a Custom Siberian nation aiming for the Ideas Guy achievement(start as a custom nation with 800 points, but no more than 3 development, have a monthly income of at least 500).

[mythmonster2]

The patch notes for 1.15 are out. Quite a few big changes, of which maybe the most important are in the graphic provided by Paradox. Alternatively, you could look at what the changes really mean here.

[Leecros]

Looks Delicious. I'll enjoy playing a Poland game in my next MP session now. I've always enjoyed Poland, but hated the low legitimacy from local nobles being elected.

[Flickerdart]

Looks Delicious. I'll enjoy playing a Poland game in my next MP session now. I've always enjoyed Poland, but hated the low legitimacy from local nobles being elected.

Doesn't Poland force you out of Elective Monarchy with that one event where the Sejm rebels?

[Leecros]

Doesn't Poland force you out of Elective Monarchy with that one event where the Sejm rebels?

It can under a certain set of circumstances.


I believe the requirements to start that event chain is to have a foreign ruler elected that has less than 2 in all of his stats.

However, I have definitely played Poland>Commonwealth games where i stayed elective the whole time.

[Pahvimato]

It can under a certain set of circumstances.


I believe the requirements to start that event chain is to have a foreign ruler elected that has less than 2 in all of his stats.

However, I have definitely played Poland>Commonwealth games where i stayed elective the whole time.

Slight correction to this. Less than 2 in any of his stats, not all of his stats.

[Leecros]

ah, fair enough. That does say any of the following in the description of the event, not all. My mistake.

[Sian]

My Swarm is angry



Lorraine is a sourpuss and is one of the two nations that didn't argee with becoming part of my vassal-swarm ... they disagree ... and they're going to convince Bohemia that it was a silly idea to disagree as well as soon as they're done

[Grif]

Just got back into the game after finally picking up The Coassacks. Man, it sure changed a lot.

[mythmonster2]

So, the latest dev diary is showing they're giving Southern/Central Africa some much needed love. On the one hand, I'm glad, because it's a part of the world that really needs some love in these sorts of games. On the other hand, it's also likely to result in hugely ahistorical situations like Castile owning the inner Congo basin in the 1700s. I'm more on the side of excitement, though.

[Guancyto]

I don't think a concern like being "hilariously ahistorical" should generally get in the way of "being enjoyable to play," really. If making Central Africa more playable also results in it being more conquerable, well, that seems like a fair tradeoff?

Edit: Although "Fetishist" religion is, uh. Well it is a word for it...