Europa Universalis 4 Thread 2: Comet Sighted!

[Leecros]

Has anyone seen AI Ming not implode within the first 50 years after 1.8? In my Khmer game, I've been watching them collapse, fragment, and get invaded non-stop for 60 years. It seems like they are incredibly vulnerable to rebel waves which destroy their ability to even begin to recover, especially since they're locked at 50% autonomy due to Celestial Empire. I think so far 4 nations have split out of Ming, and most of the hordes have taken a bite. About 2/3 of their territory seems to be occupied at any given time.

From what I've read, this seems to be pretty close to the average case. My moves so far have been vassalizing Champa and chomping on Lan Xang, so I don't think I'm responsible for it.

Ming's problem isn't with the unrest or autonomy changes though though, it's with Inward Perfection on top of the unrest or autonomy changes.

With inward perfection, Ming actually loses an extra 25% off of many of the same variables that local autonomy hits. On top of that, for such a large nation, they only have 34,000 manpower at the start of the game and factions have been rebalanced so that they're effectively just used to offset the penalty to inward perfection.

The autonomy changes wouldn't be so bad on their own, if they didn't have the inward perfection penalties keeping them from actually fielding a large enough of an army to actually handle rebels and if the AI was smart enough to put the correct faction in power at the right times. Ming starts with 45,000 men with a 34,000 maximum manpower(With the temple faction in charge). They burn through it fast when fifty thousand rebels pop up all over the nation.

This would still be an issue, even if they weren't locked at 50% autonomy though. The AI doesn't mess with autonomy that much and it's unlikely that even if the Ming AI could increase the autonomy, that they would.

Ming has always had a problem with collapsing. This isn't necessarily a new thing to EUIV. The AI doesn't take enough measures against rebels. Whether that'd be using harsh treatment(Pre-1.8) or increasing autonomy(If they could) or harsh treatmenting factions that are about to rebel.

[Frog Dragon]

I haven't exactly looked into what is causing Ming to implode within 50 years. Just that they are.

Ming being prone to collapse isn't necessarily bad (As far as I know, Ming was in pretty bad shape internally when the Manchu came), but it seems like the AI is woefully unprepared to ever deal with this, and the average 1.8 China is an ugly crisscross of hordes and Chinese minor states after a very short time. This does not seem like intended behavior (though it might make my game easier in the long run. Chomp Indochina, then minors in China proper! )

[Leecros]

I haven't exactly looked into what is causing Ming to implode within 50 years. Just that they are.

Ming being prone to collapse isn't necessarily bad (As far as I know, Ming was in pretty bad shape internally when the Manchu came), but it seems like the AI is woefully unprepared to ever deal with this, and the average 1.8 China is an ugly crisscross of hordes and Chinese minor states after a very short time. This does not seem like intended behavior (though it might make my game easier in the long run. Chomp Indochina, then minors in China proper! )

usually when Ming collapses, it's because they lose the Mandate of Heaven. They go from a cushy -5 Unrest in all of their provinces to a dangerous +5 unrest in all of their provinces. This results in revolt risk all across the nation that AI Ming just isn't equipped to deal with. This is working as intended, as when an emperor would lose the Mandate of Heaven the people were inclined, even obligated to rise up against him...

This is "Simulated" in-game by Ming collapsing when they lose the Mandate. The problem is that that's the end of it. Ming collapses, the minors break off and that's that. They stay independent as small Chinese minors and the hordes or whoever takes advantage. What should happen is a period of warring states where the various Chinese minors attempt to take control of the Chinese Region and become the leading dynasty. Unfortunately that isn't simulated at all.

I'd like to see a system where when a Chinese state breaks off, they get more missions, claims, a huge relations hit to the current Emperor, and maybe even cores. Anything that would push the AI into reuniting China and claiming the Mandate of Heaven for themselves. Which is generally what they should want to do anyway.

[Terraoblivion]

Ming being prone to collapse isn't necessarily bad (As far as I know, Ming was in pretty bad shape

Yes, but that was more than 200 years after game start. The game starts with Ming as a fairly young dynasty that's only 76 years old and which would go on to last for around 220 years more. In fact the game starts right around the height of Ming power, stability and interest in affecting the surrounding world.

[Frog Dragon]

Yeah, I'm aware that Ming did not collapse that early (though I was a little fuzzy on the exact timeline of Ming, so thanks for that. I did remember Manchus happened in the 17th century). That's why I pointed it out as odd.

Spoiler: China development

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Looks like they finally managed to stop everything rebelling all over the place.


The only problem....


GG Ming.

Edit: Also Khmer should have national ideas. Generics make Barom Reachea Khmer a sad panda. Ah well, they're almost certainly coming down the pipeline eventually. I was still a little surprised they don't have them already, given how influential the Khmer empire was in the history of Indochina, and only a short while back from the start date.

Also, glanced at china again. Peasant revolts. Autonomy is already 100% across the board. What do the peasants even want?

[Leecros]

Yes, but that was more than 200 years after game start. The game starts with Ming as a fairly young dynasty that's only 76 years old and which would go on to last for around 220 years more. In fact the game starts right around the height of Ming power, stability and interest in affecting the surrounding world.

I'd be up for Ming getting some bonuses. Double-dipping Inward Perfection and 50& Autonomy on them is just mean. Even the factions were nerfed to effectively just be useful in offsetting Inward Perfection.

I'd imagine that part of the world will get an expansion/patch at some point. That area wasn't fleshed out at all in EU3 until Divine Wind and that was the last expansion they made for that game.

[Frog Dragon]

Also, Ming needs to start at tech 3, minimum. They were the most technologically advanced civilization on the globe in the 15th century, yet they have 2 across the board at the start date. This is only compounded by their tendency to stay at 2 because their internal chaos prevents them from doing anything as AI.

Also, anyone else noticed the AI refusing to peace out of stalemate wars? Malacca has been sitting on -67 warscore vs Brunei for decades on a trade war. It appears that Malacca started a trade war, kept ferrying troops over and got them all killed, and then blockaded all the things. Now Brunei has wargoal (because they won the battles) but can't do anything because they can't defeat Malacca's navy, but Malacca can't do anything because they can't contest Brunei's military on their own soil. Neither will peace out, and this situation has been going on for several decades.

[Flickerdart]

Anyone know how the new Siberian tribes can migrate? The Chukchi start in a great position to move 1 province and then dominate all of Kamchatka and descend upon the Ainu and then Japan...but I can't find the button to move them, and without that button, it's impossible to core your conquests. I tried the old way (making a colony) but because the base tax in Siberia is 1, the colony bankrupted my country and now makes me no money (because of the new mandatory 50% autonomy).

[AgentPaper]

Anyone know how the new Siberian tribes can migrate? The Chukchi start in a great position to move 1 province and then dominate all of Kamchatka and descend upon the Ainu and then Japan...but I can't find the button to move them, and without that button, it's impossible to core your conquests. I tried the old way (making a colony) but because the base tax in Siberia is 1, the colony bankrupted my country and now makes me no money (because of the new mandatory 50% autonomy).

Do you have Conquest of Paradise?

[Flickerdart]

I do. I found the button (it's in a stupid place - why do I have to choose my province?) but decided to go along with my crappy game. For some reason the game won't let me make claims on any Ainu land even though I already control the Kurils. Weird.

Now I'm wondering what the deal with tariffs is. Will Viceroys do anything for me, since my colonies are not overseas?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Is there not a "Native" page for the Siberians? Maybe not, because they're not Native Americans in the same way...

[mythmonster2]

Siberians don't get any native features except for migration, so no, they don't have a native page.

[IthilanorStPete]

Playing my first post-Art of War game as the Ottomans. The increased number of provinces makes expansion harder; I have to spend a lot of admin points on coring, even with lots of fabricated claims. Went with Religious for my first idea group (though I'm wishing I had chosen Humanism), then Offensive; probably going to get Trade for my third group so I can take advantage of all the trade nodes I control, then Exploration to go for Indonesia/Siberia.

EDIT: Expanding via vassals is also pretty slow; annexation now takes quite a long time, and it's tough to deal with the long-lasting Diplomatic Reputation malus you get when annexation completes.

[Frog Dragon]

Ottomans seems to be weaker and more likely to crash now, at least in AI hands.

Spoiler: This is what happened to them in my Khmer game

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In unrelated matters, does anyone know if the province count in the end screen counts vassal provinces? What about occupied ones? I ended a game while at war with Russia and France, and I had occupied all of their stuff in Oceania and Southeast Asia. Would that increase the count?

[mythmonster2]

Yeah, the AI is not really capable of dealing with the increased rebel sizes. Trivial for most situations for the player, but especially bad with the Ottomans and Ming. On the other hand, I've never even heard of Eretna before.

[Frog Dragon]

Apparently Eretna is a revolter state that can spawn from Rebels. I guess they did just that and proceeded to blob Anatolia.

[Flickerdart]

Ugh, those damn rebels. Everything is cause for a rebel faction these days, apparently. How are you supposed to conquer your way through the world when the people you've mercilessly crushed rise up against you to fight again?

[Frog Dragon]

Eh, I think the rebels are fine. Not ideal, but fine. I didn't have to fight them. Just don't decrease autonomy (because that causes your people to shoot Bobrikov) and don't get too high into overextension. Instead, vassalize stuff and form vassals out of your foreign cores.

And this was with Khmer, a crappy 6-province start surrounded by stronger states, not a European superpower with more money than sense.

The only times I really had to deal with rebels were when I took a huge bite out of Ming and couldn't feed my vassal Miao fast enough (they were also getting overextension) and when I westernized (less bad now I think, but still not necessarily worth since I did it in the 18th century).

The annoying part is honestly event rebels. Almost every other kind can be avoided.

[AgentPaper]

Ugh, those damn rebels. Everything is cause for a rebel faction these days, apparently. How are you supposed to conquer your way through the world when the people you've mercilessly crushed rise up against you to fight again?

They threw me for a bit of a loop at first, but once you get used to the new ways of managing them, it's OK.

First off, anything that reduces revolt risk is great. There's not a ton of ways to get it, but you should definitely value it more than before. Having a Theologian adviser is often the difference between massive revolts and nothing.

Second, when you conquer, raise autonomy. Sometimes you'll still end up getting a revolt, but it'll be much delayed and often you can prevent it altogether. Don't be afraid to quash it with harsh treatment, especially if your manpower is low or you think you aren't strong enough to fight them.

Parking your armies on the trouble provinces is a good idea as well, you don't need to keep their maintenance up since there's no chance of them revolting until after they get to 95%. It's not a huge difference (I wish it'd affect RR a bit more, honestly), but it does help, and doesn't really cost you anything.

[Eldan]

Personally, I just keep some 30k troops hanging around conquered territory to crush everyone. But I also have a 100k manpower.

[Leecros]

Second, when you conquer, raise autonomy. Sometimes you'll still end up getting a revolt, but it'll be much delayed and often you can prevent it altogether. Don't be afraid to quash it with harsh treatment, especially if your manpower is low or you think you aren't strong enough to fight them.

I don't generally immediately raise autonomy unless it looks like it's going to be a problem. If the unrest is over 10, like if you take a wrong religion/wrong culture province, then i do. However, if the unrest is less than 10, i normally wait until a rebellion is imminent before upping autonomy.

There's not really a reason to raise autonomy(which gives -10 to unrest) if the unrest in the province is less than 10, unless a revolt is imminent. Making your provinces 25% less useful just in case they might revolt isn't really worth it. However, making your provinces 25% less useful when you know that a province will revolt is definitely useful. Especially if you're at war/don't think you can handle it.

Of course with provinces with more than 10 unrest is almost a guarantee that it will revolt before the nationalism goes down. So it's sensible to increase the autonomy there.

I feel like i've repeated myself a lot in this post...

[Flickerdart]

The problem was that high autonomy hamstrung my income (everything in Siberia is 1 base tax and produces garbage like Grain and Fish) and constantly needing to use Harsh Treatment drained my military power. Once I had a sane country built up, vassalizing the Ainu worked out a lot better than regular conquering, and now I have a force limit of 12. I still can't afford an advisor, or colonize without having to bank a ton of money beforehand, but given that I started with an OPM that is the butt of half of Russia's best racist jokes, it's quite the accomplishment. Now that I control Hokkaido and the Kurils, I'm probably strong enough to strike at the rest of Japan, which still has not united (there are currently three main powers, each roughly as strong as I am - Uesugi in the north, which keeps breaking away and being reconquered, Japan proper in the middle, and some boot-licking vassal in the south).

Unfortunately, Russia is starting to head over here, and they're a good number of techs ahead of me...I've started colonizing Taiwan just so I have a refuge when Russia inevitably rolls over me with their 62 man FL.

Speaking of force limit, mine was crap until I took Plutocracy's first idea (+50% merc availability) and now it has +6 from "Mercenary Pool." Since when does that interact with how many full time soldiers I can raise?

Also I'm kind of antsy about colonizing the remainder of the coast of Kamchatka. I'm one uncolonized province away from Yeren, who is a vassal of spooky scary hordes (hordes that somehow have better tech than me). Is it worth taking that province and risking horde conflict, in order to forbid any colonizing power from gaining a coastal foothold in the region? Should I keep colonizing west to stop Russia from grabbing Siberia without paying the blood price, colonize to the south through Polynesia where base taxes above 1 are rumoured to exist, or head east to Alaska and hope I find gold?

[mythmonster2]

Going to Alaska could give you an early start on the West Coast of North America, too, assuming no Europeans have gotten there.

[Flickerdart]

It's around 1560, so while they're probably not there yet, they will likely be soon. Frankly, given my crappy tech and terrible poverty, the natives might be able to beat me up, especially since they've been considerably buffed by recent updates. Does Art of War add any stuff worth paying full price for?

[mythmonster2]

The paid features, according to the wiki, at least, are: templates for armies, the ability to sell/mothball/upgrade ships, sorties, transferring occupied provinces, allied objectives to have some control over what your allies do, marches, and the ability to declare war on behalf of your vassals and in support of rebels that you're supporting. Not quite sure it's worth full price; probably better to wait for a sale. The lion's share of the features were in the patch, IMO.

[OrcusMcP]

It's hard to say whether Art of War is "worth the price", so to speak. Paradox is trying to find the right balance between free features and paid features. The DLCs/Expansions are to pay for the continued development and patching, but it's hard to properly price that.

Put too much stuff behind the paywall of DLC and people cry foul that it should be free. Put too much stuff in the free patch and people cry foul that they're getting ripped off if they buy the expansion.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I think it's certainly a NOBLE way of doing the patches, but it made more sense in CK2 than in EUIV. In CK2 you could "unlock" the ability to play certain dates and certain religions, but almost all the content was available for AI. EUIV didn't have the original restrictions on religions and dates that made that possible.

[AgentPaper]

As un-intuitive as it may seem, I'm really starting to think EU4 should just be a subscription game: You pay $X each month, and as long as you do, you can download the updates as much as you want and also have access to online features like achievements, multiplayer, ironman, cloud saves, and so on. If you stop paying the subscription, or go offline, or just hate Steam, then you're simply stuck with whatever version you most recently updated to and can't use any of the online feature.

This way, you can pay however much you want. If you want everything all the time, you stay subscribed permanently, as I suspect many players would. If you're short on cash or just have no interest in all those shiny features, then you buy the game and never bother to subscribe (the game would probably come with a month or so subscription free), or sign up every few months or once a year to get the latest updates, then unsubscribe and go back to playing offline.

This would essentially allow Paradox to keep updating the game with new content continuously without having to worry about free vs paid or different versions of the game. The subscription cost wouldn't even need to be much: $5 a month would be equivalent to buying two $30 expansions twice a year, and gives Paradox a much more predictable and steady income. It also lowers the bar of entry for new players, since they get all the features right out of the gate with just the purchase of the game itself. No need to buy $100+ worth of expansion packs to get the most out of a game that you don't even know if you're sure you like or not.

[OrcusMcP]

As un-intuitive as it may seem, I'm really starting to think EU4 should just be a subscription game

This is not a bad idea at all.

[Flickerdart]

But then we won't experience the joy of massive Steam sales.