We have a release thread and since it has released and the other thread was getting long.... I thought I would start this thread and focus on the subject.
Currently playing as Portugal in 1444 and it is interesting to say the least.
PE
I opted for Portugal 1444 as well. The few times I did try to make a go of EU3, I played Portugal. Seems like a nice country to learn the ropes with -- not too big and powerful, not too small to be boring, decent navy and some head-start with colonization.
I played for only an hour or two -- got to 1450 or so. Despite getting dragged into the Hundred Years War as England's ally, not a whole lot is going on. Built a few ships to boost my trade routes. Upped my National Stability to 3. ....aaaaand a lot of waiting around...
I played Castile in 1444. Tension between Navarra and Aragon is increasing so I decided to guarantee the Navarra so that I can get a free reason to fight Aragon and take his provinces.
Well the plan back fired. I lost a lot of troops and quit the game. I also built an army so large so early in the game that it ate up all my resources. :( Oh well, lessons learned.
My first game as England lasted about 5 minutes. second day of the game I got the Lollard heresy, -1 stability, then two days later I get another -1 stability event....Really wish I would have got a screenshot. Then France sends a death stack to southern France to meet my reinforcing army. Restart.....
Starting as England again. Going to see if I can get France to peace out, even if I lose Normandie and Caux. I can always retake them when I get things in order on my island. Doesn't help England starts with a 0-0-0 king.
Quote from: jomni on August 13, 2013, 09:35:09 PM
I played Castile in 1444. Tension between Navarra and Aragon is increasing so I decided to guarantee the Navarra so that I can get a free reason to fight Aragon and take his provinces.
Well the plan back fired. I lost a lot of troops and quit the game. I also built an army so large so early in the game that it ate up all my resources. :( Oh well, lessons learned.
LOL have you seen the terrain in Aragon? Desert and desert mountains. Not the best terrain for an invasion. :D
Started a ironman game as Castile. trying to figure out what the hell happened to the last few hours. ???
I took a province from Aragon almost at the start. I dominated the land battle. I took out their main army then split mine into a few smaller siege armies with a larger roving army for reinforcing where needed. I lost all of my heavy ships due to not paying attention. I did some scouting before the war and only noticed a few heavy ships. After war was declared an giant Aragon fleet came out of the FOW and destroyed my fleet.
After my Castile war on Aragon I went for Grenada. Their land forces didn't pose any threat to me, neither did their Morocco allies. But losing my fleet to Aragon, prevented me from countering the Morocco blockade. I was able to take 2 of Grenada's provinces but couldn't get the last.
Kushan, that giant Aragon fleet appeared in my game as well.
-----------------------
So far, all we are seeing are quick failures. Lol!
-----------------------
My short-lived Aztec campaign went down the drain.
I initially established good relationship with the Mayans so that we can pick on the Zapotec in between us. First war against the Zapotec was successful as I am able to take 3 provinces from them.
But those greedy Mayans started their own war to take the rest of the country. In order not to be left out. I attacked the Zapotec as well and annexed the rest of the remaining provinces. With the Zapotec out of the way, the Mayans waged war on me. While there was a stalemate, the Zapotec nationalists started revolting in large numbers and reestablished their nation. Preoccupied with the Zapotec rebellion, the Aztecs and Mayans then settled for a truce. The Aztecs have to pay some money but no exchange of land. My troop morale is so low they refuse to move and I don't know how to increase it. The Mayans regained strength and finally captured Zapotec. I decided to call it quits. All this happened in a span of 40 years.
I just realized that having full 3 advisers is a money drain for the Aztecs. I'll make sure I don't recruit them in my next round.
My first game started as Burgundy with the plan to unite the Netherlands and reform to a dutch culture.
It lasted only for about an hour real time before my former Ally England backstabbed me, jumped into an alliance with Austria who had managed to form a big front in the East ready to trample all over me in the mean time.
My meager economy was unable to field a force big enough to resist and province by province went over to the Austrian onslaught. Then France, like a dog, came running for the third bone and declared war from the South.
End game.
I guess a high difficulty means just that! O_O :)
Next game I decided to take the advise from the game and start with a recommended starter nation.
1444, Castille.
First goal was to convert the culture in the North to something we accept. Which was pretty easy. Then our focus went to Granada. They have what it rightfully ours and I am not too interested in an alliance. I just want back what is mine...
Oh and can someone explain what the 'Steer Trade´option for the merchant does and how you should field him. I understand that the flow of trade from a hub cannot be changed? But what is the function of this 'Steer Trade' option then?
EDIT: I think I got it now; the hubs show where the possible routes go. 'Steer Trade' will use one of your Merchants to make sure more trade flows over the route to the hub that you control and are making money from.
after looking at the game and its functions for 10 mins yesterday, this is the first time in a long time ive thought 'id better do the tutorials'
Lol! I had that with 3 more than this one. :)
The current Clausewitz engine provides a ton of additional info if you keep hovering over stuff. Very helpful.
Some tips I picked up from extensive play of the demo and a bit of time as Castille yesterday:
1) All 3 schools of MP are important, but Admin is first among equals, since you can't open new slots for Idea Groups without moving up the Admin tech tree. Also you need Admin for everything from improving Stability to creating Cores.
2) Advisers are a LOT more expensive than they were in III. When money is tight, see about getting by with only 1 or 2. Depending on your Monarch's stats, it might make more sense to have 1 Lev. III adviser producing 3MPs/month than 3 Lev I.
3) Never reduce naval maintenance if you are at all relying on trade, as it will reduce your trade efficiency.
4) If you don't have an heir, Royal Marriages are the next best thing. Each marriage increases the chance of getting an heir by 5%
5) You now apparently have a limit to the number of diplomatic agreements you can have (that little 2/4 or whatever on the diplomacy screen). I THINK it really is a limit to the number of countries, not the number of agreements, so if you have an alliance, a royal marriage, and are guaranteeing independence all with the same country, it only counts as 1. I don't know if that's a bug or WAD.
6) Similarly, in addition to force limits, you have a limit to the number of commanders you can field. Each commander above the limit costs 1 military MP/month. Converting your ruler or heir doesn't count, so if you're stuck with one with crappy stats, ship him off to battle and hope he doesn't make it home.
7) Harsh Treatment is VERY effective in dealing with rebellious provinces, but also very expensive (50 military MP). Use as a last resort only.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
2) Advisers are a LOT more expensive than they were in III. When money is tight, see about getting by with only 1 or 2. Depending on your Monarch's stats, is might make more sense to have 1 Lev. III adviser producing 3MPs/month than 1 Lev I.
Yep. That's what sucked all the money from my 2nd game.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
6) Similarly, in addition to force limits, you have a limit to the number of commanders you can field. Each commander above the limit costs 1 military MP/month. Converting your ruler or heir doesn't count, so if you're stuck with one with crappy stats, ship him off to battle and hope he doesn't make it home.
lol! ;D
Quote from: jomni on August 14, 2013, 02:23:08 AM
Kushan, that giant Aragon fleet appeared in my game as well.
I really should have scouted more. I don't know for sure, but I think that fleet starts over in Sardinia or Sicily. Both either belong to Aragon or are Aragon vassal.s
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
2) Advisers are a LOT more expensive than they were in III. When money is tight, see about getting by with only 1 or 2. Depending on your Monarch's stats, it might make more sense to have 1 Lev. III adviser producing 3MPs/month than 3 Lev I.
Remember to check the level of the adviser. The bonus each type of adviser is the same mo matter the level, but the amount of points each level provides does differ. So a -10 to inflation type adviser will always provide -10 to inflation no matter what his level is. But a level 1 of that same adviser will provide +1 to admin points while a level 3 will provide +3 admin points. The cost of recruiting and maintaining each adviser also goes up significantly per level. No reason to get a level 2 or 3 adviser at the start of the game no matter who you are playing. You just can't afford the upkeep even if you can afford the initial recruitment cost.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
5) You now apparently have a limit to the number of diplomatic agreements you can have (that little 2/4 or whatever on the diplomacy screen). I THINK it really is a limit to the number of countries, not the number of agreements, so if you have an alliance, a royal marriage, and are guaranteeing independence all with the same country, it only counts as 1. I don't know if that's a bug or WAD.
yea, I believe it is per country. You can have a royal marriage and alliance with Portugal and it should count for only 1 diplomatic agreement. I don't think it costs an agreement slot to simply have your diplomat increase opinion with the target country. But there is a cap on the countries opinion rating based on several factors; are they set as a rival to you, who are you allied with, etc.
Setting a country as a rival is a good way to increase an allies or potential allies opinion of you. I set Morocco as a rival to court Portuguese opinion and set Foix and Aragon to increase Navarre's.
It you don't know how to set a country as a rival, its on your countries diplomacy screen, right above your diplomatic arrangements (truces, alliances, etc.) on the right side
There is a lot to EU IV than meets the eye.... I am still getting use to all the screen and options available to me and of course the trading. I have started out as Castile then switched to Portugal. Taking it slow now to learn as much of the mechanics as I can.
PE
Blockades - how do they work?
As Castille I'm trying to blockade the port at Gibralter. I hit the "Detach Blockade", and a ship does indeed detach, but then what? I can't find a way to actually get the ship to sail into the port.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 09:15:28 AM
Blockades - how do they work?
As Castille I'm trying to blockade the port at Gibralter. I hit the "Detach Blockade", and a ship does indeed detach, but then what? I can't find a way to actually get the ship to sail into the port.
The ship just needs to be in the sea zone that that province's port is located in in order to blockade. Have to look at the map. It doesn't matter if it connects to 2-3 other sea zones, only the one with the port graphic on the map matters. If a sea zone has 2-3 provinces with a port in it, then you can effectively blockade all 3 at one time. Detach blockade is like the detach siege button, use it if your moving your fleet through a province and want to detach a small unit as your main force moves elsewhere.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 06:04:01 AM
Some tips I picked up from extensive play of the demo and a bit of time as Castille yesterday:
1) All 3 schools of MP are important, but Admin is first among equals, since you can't open new slots for Idea Groups without moving up the Admin tech tree. Also you need Admin for everything from improving Stability to creating Cores.
Hell yes. Get Admin all you can in early game!
Quote2) Advisers are a LOT more expensive than they were in III. When money is tight, see about getting by with only 1 or 2. Depending on your Monarch's stats, it might make more sense to have 1 Lev. III adviser producing 3MPs/month than 3 Lev I.
As an addition to point #1 above, you probably want to at least hire an Administration Adviser ASAP. Each of the three advisor slots are for one of the three - Admin, Diplo, Military. Advisors will give you a bonus, depending on their level, to the appropriate point income!
Quote3) Never reduce naval maintenance if you are at all relying on trade, as it will reduce your trade efficiency.
Dunno if I'd fully agree with this since some nations with a big Navy can have absolutely crippling Naval Maintenance, especially at the start of the game when everyone is relatively poor and low tech. The English fleet in 1444 is pretty insane. I even had to scrap a few of their Large Warships to get back in the black aside from dropping fleet maintenance quite a ways during peacetime. The trade income boost from the light ships' trade support was nowhere near what I was spending on maintanance at the time.
Quote5) You now apparently have a limit to the number of diplomatic agreements you can have (that little 2/4 or whatever on the diplomacy screen). I THINK it really is a limit to the number of countries, not the number of agreements, so if you have an alliance, a royal marriage, and are guaranteeing independence all with the same country, it only counts as 1. I don't know if that's a bug or WAD.
Yes, only counting a single foreign country as one, no matter how many of such agreements you have with it, is WAD. I read it in the "Hints" pop-up regarding the specific term (Diplomacy Limit??). That also tells you which specific agreements count against this limit - there are only about 4 or 5. IIRC... Alliance, Royal Marriage, Personal Union, and one or two others.
I suppose this was an additional lock on the ridiculous runaway alliance DOWs from EU3 that ended up in constant world wars. Hopefully the AI behavior in EU4 got a workover regarding that problem too.
Quote6) Similarly, in addition to force limits, you have a limit to the number of commanders you can field. Each commander above the limit costs 1 military MP/month. Converting your ruler or heir doesn't count, so if you're stuck with one with crappy stats, ship him off to battle and hope he doesn't make it home.
LOL! Just make sure you have an heir with a strong claim! ;D
Quote7) Harsh Treatment is VERY effective in dealing with rebellious provinces, but also very expensive (50 military MP). Use as a last resort only.
It also only gives -5% revolt risk there, so it's not a huge payoff either.
Good suggestions TGB, I just wanted to add to them!
Quote from: Kushan on August 14, 2013, 09:25:33 AM
Detach blockade is like the detach siege button, use it if your moving your fleet through a province and want to detach a small unit as your main force moves elsewhere.
So the button is just redundant for the usual "Separate forces" button - ?? I'm confused.
Also confusing to me is the talk about "Upstream" and "Downstream" when it comes to trade flows. I understand that you collect money from trade by having a merchant in a node that covers territory you own. I also understand that, for nodes that aren't within your territory (but still within your 'range' - ?), you can send a merchant there to "Steer" trade back to a node where you can "collect."
But I don't get this idea of transferring "trade power" Upstream as opposed to Downstream? ???
Also, it seems that you can *still* collect and steer trade from nodes within your territory *even without a merchant there* - ??
QuoteAlso, it seems that you can *still* collect and steer trade from nodes within your territory *even without a merchant there*
You can, but not nearly as much. Try it.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 11:04:31 AM
QuoteAlso, it seems that you can *still* collect and steer trade from nodes within your territory *even without a merchant there*
You can, but not nearly as much. Try it.
Pretty sure you get a +10% trade income bonus in your home trade node, with one of your merchants collecting there.
Considering most of the peripheral trade nodes that feed into these bigger ones are pretty thin at game start, it's often the most value to set one of your Merchies to collect at home in the early game and the other to "feed" it from "upstream". Then send your Light Ships to patrol the home trade node to gather more trade power in it, and therefore gain more of the income available there.
I'm sure that later on after trade routes have matured, trade tech has increased the bonuses & production, ideas give you more available Merchants to command, and the New World trade nodes start providing an inflow of new high-demand resources, then it'll be time to branch out your merchants and light ships out along the nodes.
I'm diggin' the new stuff in EU4, such as this new Trade system. Another huge improvement is the Monarch Points system - it makes for more tough decisions. It really seems like there are fewer crappy exploitative meta-gaming tricks in EU4, compared to EU3.
Quote from: sandman2575 on August 14, 2013, 10:16:02 AM
Quote from: Kushan on August 14, 2013, 09:25:33 AM
Detach blockade is like the detach siege button, use it if your moving your fleet through a province and want to detach a small unit as your main force moves elsewhere.
So the button is just redundant for the usual "Separate forces" button - ?? I'm confused.
Detach siege/blockade only splits 2 units off of your army/navy. The split force button which will split off half of your force. Unlike CK2, you don't have to have a huge army to siege a province. It helps if you do but you can siege with much less. This allows you to split your armies up and siege multiple provinces at once. As long as you pay attention and don't let your forces get picked off in detail by superior numbers of reinforcements.
As a rule of thumb, 2 to 3 batallions is enough to keep a siege going.
So if you have a bigger army, you can detach the Siege section of the army and have the rest roam about again.
Same goes for blockading ports with a fleet. But there I have no idea what a rule of thumb is for minimum blockade amount. But the technical function of the button is the same.
As pointed out above, the split army button just divides your army in two parts.
Does the 'Make Core' diplo option seem to take effect rather quickly to you guys? You can pretty much lay claim to any territory adjacent to one of yours, or even along any sea coast you can reach, by sending a diplomat for less than a year. ???
Similarly - converting the population of a province you control to your culture or religion doesn't take long at all and the biggest hurdle is spending the Monarch Points to do so (which can slow down how quickly your next idea/tech advancement is achieved, of course).
It seems like time isn't a big factor in these things anymore. I'm okay with that.. but maybe it's too quick now??
I haven't tried to change a culture, since I haven't played long enough to have the need, but I have converted religion in Granada. It took a Missionary, not MP's, and took about 3 1/2 years for one province.
Quote from: tgb on August 14, 2013, 04:14:08 PM
I haven't tried to change a culture, since I haven't played long enough to have the need, but I have converted religion in Granada. It took a Missionary, not MP's, and took about 3 1/2 years for one province.
That's good. At least the religion change takes longer.
I've changed two provinces' culture to my own and it too something like 246 days and 50-75 Diplo MPs.
While the Diplo MP cost was pretty high, the time it took seemed rather short. The one I wanted to question most is the time it takes to place a Core claim on a foreign territory through a diplomat. You can do it in something like three to six months. :o I suppose that the limited amount of available Diplomats is supposed to be the retarding factor to how quickly such claims are made but I've had the AI spamming claims on my stuff quite steadily thus far. Seems to be happening at a rather rapid pace.
I'd say the time it takes to place Cores on foreign provinces is about my only head-scratcher thus far. I wouldn't be surprised if they adjusted it somewhat, or better yet placed some kind of cooldown on it, in a future update.
So...is this a must buy or what? I was trying to hold off, but the futility of this approach is starting to sink in...
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2013, 04:38:56 PM
So...is this a must buy or what? I was trying to hold off, but the futility of this approach is starting to sink in...
I say YES.
If you don't get the 'Stutter' bug permanently stuck in your game. Mine came and went in a short period and hasn't reared it's ugly face since then, fortunately. It didn't make the game unplayable for me, but was a bit annoying at the time. No way to know if you may suffer from this without buying, however, since it reportedly wasn't present in the Demo. Devs & betas are looking into it, either way.
The game itself is a huge improvement over EU3, IMO.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2013, 04:38:56 PM
So...is this a must buy or what? I was trying to hold off, but the futility of this approach is starting to sink in...
Am I the meanest.... Sho Nuff
Am I the prettiest.... Sho Nuff
Am I the baddest mofo lodown around this town... Sho Nuff
Who's tha MASTER.....
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 14, 2013, 04:38:56 PM
So...is this a must buy or what? I was trying to hold off, but the futility of this approach is starting to sink in...
yes, shame on you!
What is more profitable?
Sending a merchant to participate in a trade zone?
Or directing trade to a trade zone (that you dominate)?
Quote from: jomni on August 14, 2013, 05:59:41 PM
What is more profitable?
Sending a merchant to participate in a trade zone?
Or directing trade to a trade zone (that you dominate)?
Very situational. I would think that directing trade down to the next trade node would be ideal - if the next one in line is your Home Node where you have tons of trade power (and therefore you get a much higher percentage).
Then again, if you have lots of Light Warships with good Trade Power bonuses, you can send them to an external trade node. That will boost your trade power there - hopefully to a higher level than most others present. If you can boost it pretty high like that, and the next trade node down the line
isn't your Home Trade Node, then I would think that sending a Merchant to collect in that would be ideal if the potential profit was there.
This may happen more often when trade nodes in the new world open up and there aren't many nations competing in each one. IIRC, there are only a handful of Nations who have a direct trade connection to the ones in the new world (Spain, Portugal, England, maybe France & Holland & someone else??) so those are the ones that would benefit from pushing it's part of that trade back to it's home node - the next in a row. Other nations would have to push it through two or more nodes, and with each push the amount is getting divvied up in the next node so it would be a waste in two ways: 1) Having to use more than one Merchant and 2) Getting the amount you pushed forward divided up between all the trade powers within the next one (that isn't your Home node). Oh.. and a third problem: In order to keep your Light Warship flotilla in such a distant trade node, you'll need either a port of your own or an allies' port in the vicinity so you can keep your ships supplied.
The problem with collecting at a non-home trade node is that it's heavily penalized when you do so. Like -50% to the trade income IIRC... or more perhaps? Still.. that can be better than pushing it through an intermediate node where you don't have a huge Trade Power rating (think "Shares" when regarding the effect of Trade Power in a node).
Edit:
In the 1444 start date, I've done the exact same setup with my trade since it's so early and undeveloped:
*1 Merchant Collects Trade in the Home Trade Zone
This only gives +10% trade income there, since you don't even need to commit a Merchant in your home province to collect. But since most nations have little other Trade Power in other nodes, it's more profitable to just boost this (your largest and possibly only one with a presence)
*1 Merchant pushes trade from the next Trade Node up the line.
This is likely pretty tiny but your Merchant would otherwise be doing nothing at all so what the hell. If you're lucky, you may already have a tiny bit of Trade Power in one of these 'upstream' nodes too.
*Make a fleet with all your Light Warships and give them the Trade Patrol order in your Home Trade Node. This will further boost your Trade Power there (i.e. Shares) and give you a larger percentage of the income.
It's the way most of them start, I believe. If you also have a free Admiral with some Maneuver Rating on him, you can attach him to the Light Warship trade patrol fleet and that will further boost the trade power bonus it gives.
My alarm about using Diplomats to create Cores in other people's territory wasn't based on full info.
Even with a few bonuses, I just gave an order to do so with one of my Diplos and it took about 478 days for my last one. So not quite as bad as I originally thought. There may be numerous factors that have an effect on that length so perhaps the earlier time estimates I had seen were getting some big bonus (same ethnic group or something??).
I actually found this quite helpful over on the Paradox forums. 3 short videos about how trade works, only about 2 min. apiece. Helps explain trade steering, trade power, 'pulling' trade and so forth. Post #25:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709910-I-still-don-t-understand-trade-can-someone-explain-it-simplified/page2 (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709910-I-still-don-t-understand-trade-can-someone-explain-it-simplified/page2)
I didn't realize that having a merchant 'collect' at a node in your territory only gives you a 10% bonus *as opposed to having no merchant there at all*. Thus it seems like it is often more useful to have your 2 starter merchants steer trade from other nodes.
Also found this explanation helpful -- this stuff may be obvious to y'all but I didn't really understand the concept of "trade power" --
"Trade flows along the arrows from trade hub to trade hub, until it reaches an end point. At each hub some trade will generate money for the hub and some will move on.
Trade power can be used by nations to either direct the trade in a specific direction, or to gain money from the trade hub. A nation with a capital in a trade hub will gain a big bonus to trade revenue in that hub, so for them it will be an advantage to direct the trade there and then collect it.
The effectiveness of directing trade or collecting it is dependent on the trade power compared to that of competing nations. Trade can be thought of as a tug of war, some nations will want the trade to stay, others will try to move it in various directions. The sum of trade power commited to either moving it or trading in the trade center will influence how the trade flows.
Basic trade power is generated by owning provinces connected to the trade center. Trade power can be increased with traders or by using light ships to secure the trade if the trade center is coastal. "
Appointing enemies and rivals... What are the effects?
Quote from: jomni on August 14, 2013, 09:38:12 PM
Appointing enemies and rivals... What are the effects?
I think you can only appoint three rivals (at start anyway). Not sure how the enemies are chosen.. perhaps by whom you've warred last or have claims on?
The tooltip on the Rival selection shields, in your own Diplomacy info page, tells you what actions you get bonuses for against them. IIRC.. Spy action discount, Producing diplo (or is it Making a Core?) claims discount of about 50% shorter time. One or two other things.
Quote from: Nefaro on August 14, 2013, 09:43:41 PM
Quote from: jomni on August 14, 2013, 09:38:12 PM
Appointing enemies and rivals... What are the effects?
I think you can only appoint three rivals (at start anyway). Not sure how the enemies are chosen.. perhaps by whom you've warred last or have claims on?
The tooltip on the Rival selection shields, in your own Diplomacy info page, tells you what actions you get bonuses for against them. IIRC.. Spy action discount, Producing diplo (or is it Making a Core?) claims discount of about 50% shorter time. One or two other things.
You also get an opnion boost to anyone who has the target country set as a rival. I think you can only have 3 rivals but I believe you can change them at any time.
I think enemies are nations who have a CB against you, or vice versa.
Rivals do seem to get notified and take an opinion hit towards you.
There are bound to be modifiers when getting into a war with a rival, but I don't have them present.
Thanks for the trade video link. :)
I posted this in the other EUIV thread... but it may help some.
Just in case you guys have questions.... Arumba put out some videos covering a wide variety of topics in a short condensed format videos. Also, his Dwarf Fortress tutorial/LP is excellent as well.... just FYI
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH-huzMEgGWBz8XAD77YTwMe6wx-Ql_Ao
PE
Here is a nice visual guide on the basics of the new Trade system.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?710484-Guide-Trading-in-EUIV-for-Dummies
OR
http://imgur.com/a/A1Hk1
Just screenshots with word bubbles, for the visually-oriented. 8)
Quote from: Nefaro on August 15, 2013, 12:23:04 PM
Here is a nice visual guide on the basics of the new Trade system.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?710484-Guide-Trading-in-EUIV-for-Dummies
OR
http://imgur.com/a/A1Hk1
Just screenshots with word bubbles, for the visually-oriented. 8)
Thanks Nefaro.
Didn't realize until this morning; you need to turn any colonies into core provinces before they count towards your fleet supply / colonial range. I thought colonies were automatically cored when they became a full province. I colonized two provinces in Brazil but couldn't figure out for the life of me why it was saying the closest port was the Azores, now I know :-[
Quote from: Kushan on August 17, 2013, 04:44:36 PM
Didn't realize until this morning; you need to turn any colonies into core provinces before they count towards your fleet supply / colonial range. I thought colonies were automatically cored when they became a full province. I colonized two provinces in Brazil but couldn't figure out for the life of me why it was saying the closest port was the Azores, now I know :-[
Some dude has a bunch of gameplay vids as Portugal up on YouTube. This post about having to Core colonies reminded me of his confusion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLc3FNKAxjg
The guy certainly doesn't know how everything works, and he's still kinda figuring some of it out as he goes. However, I've always found it interesting seeing other peoples' thought processes when it comes to deep grand strategy games. It makes you realize how many different branching decisions you would've made compared to whom you're watching, and how the outcomes of the paths you don't normally take turn out.
There's a lot of micro now compared to before. Gotta remember about manually converting cores, changing culture and religion, increasing stability, reducing war weariness.
Last time, these were automatic. Now these things cost action points so you gotta choose which one to do.
Quote from: jomni on August 17, 2013, 06:05:39 PM
There's a lot of micro now compared to before. Gotta remember about manually converting cores, changing culture and religion, increasing stability, reducing war weariness.
Last time, these were automatic. Now these things cost action points so you gotta choose which one to do.
Yep.
I've been in a debate with a die-hard EU3 fan, ever since release, and his big complaint is that EU4 is "Dumbed Down". I just don't see it at all. EU4 is keeping me way more busy than EU3 ever did, and it's giving me far more difficult decisions to make too! To say nothing of all the other big leaps in gameplay, AI, UI and graphics. Some people have a severe tendency to resist change don't they? ;D
One man's micro is another man's interesting decisions :).
I woke up this morning to discover a nasty bug. Playing as Castille I had one of my diplomats in Navarre improving relations. After forming Spain, I can no longer recall him. The status bar shows he's still there, but the diplomatic menu for Navarre says "Improve Relations" instead of "Cancel Improvement". I can send in the other diplomat and recall him normally, but this effectively leaves me with only 1 that can do anything.
Quote from: tgb on August 18, 2013, 08:49:38 AM
One man's micro is another man's interesting decisions :).
I woke up this morning to discover a nasty bug. Playing as Castille I had one of my diplomats in Navarre improving relations. After forming Spain, I can no longer recall him. The status bar shows he's still there, but the diplomatic menu for Navarre says "Improve Relations" instead of "Cancel Improvement". I can send in the other diplomat and recall him normally, but this effectively leaves me with only 1 that can do anything.
Believe I read that a few people were having issues with being permanently stuck at war with a nation that was eliminated in a different one, and they can't sue for peace.
Fortunately, I don't think you just automatically get War Weariness built up any more. It is a result added to your total after each battle, depending on the outcome (a small bit for a win, more for a loss in a big battle). The problem is that a few diplomatic actions require the nation, or target nation, to be at peace. There may also be other specific circumstances that makes it 'stick', since it may not happen all the time in such cases. I'm sure this has been reported as a bug so hopefully it gets squashed very soon. :o
In the meantime, be careful of getting entangled with a small (<3 province) opposing nation, all by itself, that is also in other wars. The small HRE nations are prime candidates.
Quote from: Nefaro on August 18, 2013, 03:46:54 PM
In the meantime, be careful of getting entangled with a small (<3 province) opposing nation, all by itself, that is also in other wars. The small HRE nations are prime candidates.
Now you tell me. :o I mistakenly vassalized one of the HRE vassals, Loraine I think, and now I can't let them go without losing 2-3 stability. One of feudal monarchy's bonuses is +10% income from vassals. Unfortunately I didn't think it all the way through and the only way to really have it make any sort of a difference would be if I had 4-5 vassals.
My first war with the Aztecs went really well. I got the Yucatan and Benzai provinces. I had two regiments, 1 infantry and 1 cannon, get attacked by a 10 regiment Aztec army. They won the first two engagements but I was to slow on moving them and during the third attack they broke. Luckily they fled to a captured province and I didn't lose them completely.
I did a technology check of all the main power. I'm starting to get behind in both admin and diplomacy techs. No suprise since the first portion of my game was me taking out Aragon and Grenada and having to core all those provinces. Taking two diplomatic idea's didn't help the diplomatic tech at all either. Was a mistake taking expansion idea's early. I should have taken trade or economic or a military idea until I had secured Aragon and until I had the colonial range to make good on it.
A little off topic but I had to laugh. It always amazes me that people complain that wargames where you take control of a nation (total war, EU, etc) are unhistorical. For example, there is a thread over at the EU4 paradox forums where someone is complaining that there is war going on everywhere in his game and that isn't historical. Well, anyone with a passing knowledge of the 16th-18th centuries can tell you that- yes- that was actually the case.
The best part though, is that others join in to complain that France conquered Italy, or the HRE is blobbing because it took France or whatever. I'm not sure...did they expect the outcome of the game to unfold identically to history? What would be the point of the game? Isn't possible that given different choices, France could have defeated Austria in one of their many 16th century wars and won control over a large portion of its holdings in Italy and the Low Countries ?
No real point...just amazes what people find to complain about. No game is perfect but this is a highly complex but very polished game. To bitch about constant warfare in an era where constant warfare was the norm is almost as laughable as complaining that events are unfolding unhistorically. I posted my thoughts on this in a similar thread for EU3 and was simply referred to as a Paradox fanboy.
They better be not caught changing history with their chosen country. >:(
Quote from: mikeck on August 18, 2013, 07:23:33 PM
A little off topic but I had to laugh. It always amazes me that people complain that wargames where you take control of a nation (total war, EU, etc) are unhistorical. For example, there is a thread over at the EU4 paradox forums where someone is complaining that there is war going on everywhere in his game and that isn't historical. Well, anyone with a passing knowledge of the 16th-18th centuries can tell you that- yes- that was actually the case.
The best part though, is that others join in to complain that France conquered Italy, or the HRE is blobbing because it took France or whatever. I'm not sure...did they expect the outcome of the game to unfold identically to history? What would be the point of the game? Isn't possible that given different choices, France could have defeated Austria in one of their many 16th century wars and won control over a large portion of its holdings in Italy and the Low Countries ?
No real point...just amazes what people find to complain about. No game is perfect but this is a highly complex but very polished game. To bitch about constant warfare in an era where constant warfare was the norm is almost as laughable as complaining that events are unfolding unhistorically. I posted my thoughts on this in a similar thread for EU3 and was simply referred to as a Paradox fanboy.
Yeah, it wouldn't be a game if it completely followed history.
However, I
am about plausibility. Fortunately EU4 looks to be doing very well regarding that, in my game which has advanced to around 1618. The only thing that really stands out as a bit unusual is the Ottomans having gobled up a swath of Eastern Europe from Russia, Hungary, Lithuania, etc. Certainly plausible, though, and it has taken them a lot of time & toil to achieve.
Some of the early game hijinks that used to grate on me in EU3:DW were the runaway Golden Horde taking half of Europe, despite quickly falling behind in technology. It would pretty much eradicate all the larger Eastern nations from the game, for quite some time. I suppose they've toned down the ridiculous special rules that the hordes played by, in the new game, because the AI situation has been quite good over there. Hell, Russia was even formed in the 16th century and that almost never happened in EU3. ::)
Lots of people complained about the France blob before, too. Austria also had the potential IIRC. When I say "blob", I'm talking about very fast expansion across large swaths of territory. This looks to have been slowed a good deal now too. I don't know if it's AI behavior that's been fixed, the penalties for taking large amounts of territory by force, or both. Probably both since I'm seeing the AI calculate it's decision to DOW more efficiently.
Lovin' all the changes.
OK, now I'm really cheesed. I took the Quest for the New World idea, but can't create Explorers, or even Admirals any more. I can create Conquistadors and Generals. I'm going to come back in the morning to an earlier save and try again, and see if the bug repeats itself.
Having played the Aztecs. I believe EU4 is pretty brutal to less developed nations as compared to before. So it may mean more plausible results.
Quote from: jomni on August 19, 2013, 01:06:55 AM
Having played the Aztecs. I believe EU4 is pretty brutal to less developed nations as compared to before. So it may mean more plausible results.
Probably against the more archaic ones. But I'm still seeing the Eastern and Muslim nations' AI keeping right up in Military Tech Levels in the 1600s. Their other stuff has begun lagging behind, but not Mil for some reason. I suppose it's really hording those Mil MPs for just teching up, but that could cause a shortfall in Military Idea spending so maybe that's where theyr'e taking the hit.
I'm an idiot. I completely forgot that naval leaders take diplomatic points, not military.
One way to increase colonial range early on, I discovered, is to make friends with the right country (Hello, Portugal!) and then get fleet basing rights, since it's measured from the nearest port to which you have access.
Quote from: tgb on August 19, 2013, 03:10:46 PM
One way to increase colonial range early on, I discovered, is to make friends with the right country (Hello, Portugal!) and then get fleet basing rights, since it's measured from the nearest port to which you have access.
Hell yeah! Excellent new diplo option!
Although it costs monthly ducats to maintain. So can be painful if you do it before having your economy kickin ass.
In my Denmark->Scandoland game I've mostly been colonizing the New England/Eastern Canada area, and a bit of South America around modern-day Columbia, I had attempted to establish one small colony on the western African coast so I could push my basing range out towards the Indian Ocean and the gold-tastic spice trade and east asia further down the road. The amount of available colonization in the Americas is quickly dwindling. But I've ended up right next to a monstrously powerful Portugal (they have a PU over Castile :o ) and they're definitely targeting targeting my new West African naval base (Gabon) as one of their first targets in any war.
If those Portuguese bastards manage to pry Gabon from me, I may be forced to use this option to rent basing rights with someone in Africa, later on. Although at this point, I'm not really sure how many available Traders I'll have late in the game and it'll be awhile until I need to start expanding into another trade node. I'm raking in so much right now, I have a huge surplus of income that I've not been able to spend fast enough. Probably no need to worry about it, although further expansion will allow me to hire higher-ranked Advisors and therefore get more Monarch Points every month. :D
In EUIII, each city improvement you made, made the next one more expensive. Is that still the case in EUIV.
Quote from: OJsDad on August 19, 2013, 07:08:15 PM
In EUIII, each city improvement you made, made the next one more expensive. Is that still the case in EUIV.
You mean the buildings? Yeah, the line of buildings is still very similar. You must purchase the cheapest one of a specific sort, and then you can spend more on the next, and so on. The buildings themselves are pretty much the same, only they cost additionally cost some extra Monarch Points, depending on the type. For instance, the land recruitment bonus buildings also cost 10 Military MPs, Naval ones and Diplo ones cost Diplo, etc. So if you go on huge building sprees, it can hit your Monarch Points which are also spent on many other things.
The largest MP expenditures come from Tech upgrades and unlocking Idea lines. But you also spend some for certain diplo options (claims in war, annexing, etc), placing a temporary beatdown on revolt risk in a province, burning or claiming enemy un-finished colonies. All kinds of stuff. So the expenditure of MPs can make for difficult decisions and it can probably help keep runaway wealth & expansion somewhat in check regarding advancement.
Do not, doesn't matter how tempting it is, take out the Aztecs in one war. The 188% over extension will kill you......
Quote from: Kushan on August 20, 2013, 12:08:04 AM
Do not, doesn't matter how tempting it is, take out the Aztecs in one war. The 188% over extension will kill you......
Ah maybe that's why the Portuguese took 5 wars to conquer me despite obliterating my army every time.
Please explain the concept of over extension to me.
Over extension is what happens when you take too many provinces that you don't have a core on. Provinces that you colonize don't count, just provinces that you take in war. Over extension gets reduced by coring the target provinces. Some provinces give more over extension then others. Most of the Aztec province gave me a relatively low amount of over extension individually, but cumulatively it was way more then I should have taken on.
As you can see below, over extension has some very significant penalties....
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm8.staticflickr.com%2F7303%2F9550570481_e80908eefa_o.jpg&hash=5bd1aa9041c3c0d17d6f2631bfef2435d4dfc4a9) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/100435917@N07/9550570481/)
Overextension replaces the old "Bad Boy" mechanic. The closer to home the conquered province is, the greater the penalty. After all, does France really care what Spain is doing to the Aztecs? But make a move on Aragon without a CB, and it's another story :).
Is anyone else finding exploration a lot tougher this go-around? A fleet of 3 heavy ships with an explorer barely makes it a zone or two into Terra Incognita before being lost at sea. It makes exploration very expensive.
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 06:38:14 AM
Overextension replaces the old "Bad Boy" mechanic. The closer to home the conquered province is, the greater the penalty. After all, does France really care what Spain is doing to the Aztecs? But make a move on Aragon without a CB, and it's another story :).
That's aggressive expansion. Overextension is different.
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 06:38:14 AM
Is anyone else finding exploration a lot tougher this go-around? A fleet of 3 heavy ships with an explorer barely makes it a zone or two into Terra Incognita before being lost at sea. It makes exploration very expensive.
I think attrition is a little to harsh. Historically, Spain was able to sail straight across the Atlantic where right now even after colonizing the Caribbean my ships still have to go down to Brazil then cross there.
I got the Columbus event as Spain in 1492. The description said that he made it to the Caribbean in 30 some odd days. I actually laughed out loud because my light and heavy ships were barely making it to Brazil, let alone being able to reach the Caribbean before attrition took its toll.
Quote from: Kushan on August 20, 2013, 08:47:23 AM
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 06:38:14 AM
Overextension replaces the old "Bad Boy" mechanic. The closer to home the conquered province is, the greater the penalty. After all, does France really care what Spain is doing to the Aztecs? But make a move on Aragon without a CB, and it's another story :).
That's aggressive expansion. Overextension is different.
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 06:38:14 AM
Is anyone else finding exploration a lot tougher this go-around? A fleet of 3 heavy ships with an explorer barely makes it a zone or two into Terra Incognita before being lost at sea. It makes exploration very expensive.
I think attrition is a little to harsh. Historically, Spain was able to sail straight across the Atlantic where right now even after colonizing the Caribbean my ships still have to go down to Brazil then cross there.
I got the Columbus event as Spain in 1492. The description said that he made it to the Caribbean in 30 some odd days. I actually laughed out loud because my light and heavy ships were barely making it to Brazil, let alone being able to reach the Caribbean before attrition took its toll.
I really need help with exploration (I also got the Columbus event). It's 1500 in my game, I've sent out a 3-Carrack fleet with an explorer three times, and all were lost at sea, with one barely making it to the Caribbean.
You guys are doing good to even get the chance to explore! After getting crushed in several starts as either Portugal or Castile, I'm finally doing okay as England (still not far into the game, though!). I have all of Ireland but not sure what to do about Scotland yet. France's guarantee on their independence ends in a year or two...
I have to say I am having so much fun playing this game. It oozes atmosphere and while there are some slow moments I can't wait to see what happens next!
anyone imported their own dynasty from ck2? how does the game handle a large empire being present from the start? will it crumble quickly?
Quote from: bbmike on August 20, 2013, 10:51:11 AM
You guys are doing good to even get the chance to explore! After getting crushed in several starts as either Portugal or Castile, I'm finally doing okay as England (still not far into the game, though!). I have all of Ireland but not sure what to do about Scotland yet. France's guarantee on their independence ends in a year or two...
Playing as Castile. Go explore towards Brazil and set up a colony down there when you have the range. You will need a few of the exploration ideas and/or a few diplomatic tech levels to extend your colonial the range. Once that colony has 1,000 colonist and is converted to a core province it should just barely extend your colonial range to the Caribbean. Not sure about how to colonize Africa.
Quote from: CptHowdy on August 20, 2013, 12:36:18 PM
anyone imported their own dynasty from ck2? how does the game handle a large empire being present from the start? will it crumble quickly?
Running a CK2 game in observer mode today. Going to let it play until the end then decide what country to play as.
EU IV was also the topic of this week's Three Moves Ahead podcast. Highly recommend it!
http://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/ (http://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/)
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 06:38:14 AM
Is anyone else finding exploration a lot tougher this go-around? A fleet of 3 heavy ships with an explorer barely makes it a zone or two into Terra Incognita before being lost at sea. It makes exploration very expensive.
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 10:39:41 AM
I really need help with exploration (I also got the Columbus event). It's 1500 in my game, I've sent out a 3-Carrack fleet with an explorer three times, and all were lost at sea, with one barely making it to the Caribbean.
You need to use Light Warships, with Explorer captains, to explore seas with. Their movement rating is twice that of Heavy Warships, so they can get in & out of the zones much faster. Hence less time taking damage.
Once you've already explored an area and discovered coasts with potential colonies, you can send a couple transports with a small amount of troops to go beat down any natives in your future colony. I find it useful to use the army's command to eliminate natives in a burgeoning colony if it has any more than one or two axe symbols representing their hostility. Otherwise the natives will regularly come kill your colonists, and if they do that enough they could even wipe out all that time you've spent expanding your colony.
Overextension is calculated by each un-cored province's tax income. The higher it is, the more overextension it causes you.
i WILL not read this until im ready to start the game!!
Quote from: undercovergeek on August 20, 2013, 06:00:13 PM
i WILL not read this until im ready to start the game!!
And you can;t do that until after the CK2 Parma AAR is finished ;) Your really missing out on a great game.
I ended up paying Portugal fleet-basing rights long enough to get a couple of colonies going in Brazil, then canceled the contract. Once they grow into provinces I should be able to start exploring the rest of the coast and up Central America.
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 07:37:28 PM
I ended up paying Portugal fleet-basing rights long enough to get a couple of colonies going in Brazil, then canceled the contract. Once they grow into provinces I should be able to start exploring the rest of the coast and up Central America.
Yep! They just have to finish colonizing into a regular province, not cored, in order to provide a port and it's associated fleet range.
Quote from: Nefaro on August 20, 2013, 07:43:56 PM
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 07:37:28 PM
I ended up paying Portugal fleet-basing rights long enough to get a couple of colonies going in Brazil, then canceled the contract. Once they grow into provinces I should be able to start exploring the rest of the coast and up Central America.
Yep! They just have to finish colonizing into a regular province, not cored, in order to provide a port and it's associated fleet range.
I think they need to be cored before they count towards fleet/colonial range. When they first become a province there's a 1 or 2 province radius that is in supply but I believe anything beyond that need to be cored. That's at least what happened when I first colonized Brazil, my fleets took attrition damage all the way up to the coast until they where cored.
I (maybe?) encountered a bug (and my first rage quit moment tonight). Was trying to crush a stack of ~15 rebels. I send a stack of ~30 troops against them, I beat them 5-6 times in a row, and each time their morale was broken and they would retreat to the next province. When I send my army after them they would go from broken morale up to full. Then on the last battle they retreated to the one province they had taken and the stack reinforced from 10 understrength regiments to 40 full strength regiments.
Quote from: Kushan on August 20, 2013, 09:00:37 PM
Quote from: Nefaro on August 20, 2013, 07:43:56 PM
Quote from: tgb on August 20, 2013, 07:37:28 PM
I ended up paying Portugal fleet-basing rights long enough to get a couple of colonies going in Brazil, then canceled the contract. Once they grow into provinces I should be able to start exploring the rest of the coast and up Central America.
Yep! They just have to finish colonizing into a regular province, not cored, in order to provide a port and it's associated fleet range.
I think they need to be cored before they count towards fleet/colonial range. When they first become a province there's a 1 or 2 province radius that is in supply but I believe anything beyond that need to be cored. That's at least what happened when I first colonized Brazil, my fleets took attrition damage all the way up to the coast until they where cored.
Yeah, maybe you're right about having to Core for the extra naval ranges. I must've been thinking of being able to repair your ships in port there, without a core, so you can at least still stop there with a fleet and fix it up if you've suffered during a long trip.
Quote from: Kushan on August 21, 2013, 12:59:37 AM
I (maybe?) encountered a bug (and my first rage quit moment tonight). Was trying to crush a stack of ~15 rebels. I send a stack of ~30 troops against them, I beat them 5-6 times in a row, and each time their morale was broken and they would retreat to the next province. When I send my army after them they would go from broken morale up to full. Then on the last battle they retreated to the one province they had taken and the stack reinforced from 10 understrength regiments to 40 full strength regiments.
The morale boost sounds like a possible bug, but the extra regiments showing up may well have been more of them spawning in and greatly boosting up the overall morale while doing so.
Regarding the morale boost - I've only had defeated Rebel armies be completely wiped out after the battle. They wouldn't retreat, they'd just die. I've not seen them actually retreat to fight another day.. at least when you kill them in the province they originally spawned. Once they cap the first one and become mobile, this may be what happens. That or if some nationalist rebels cross your border from a foreign province they just captured.
As for the extra regiments popping up, I've seen that happen on an isolated island of mine without any meddling from me. It happened when the revolt risk at that location was very high. Like over 10% (was probably about 12 to 15 percent). I left it alone for awhile, as I was already in a war, and it spawned two extra armies into that location very quickly. Of course, if it spawns a bunch of new rebel troops in then they'll have full morale that will wash out any recently defeated smaller army's morale loss due to there being so many more full-up fresh troops.
That would be my first guess anyway, as I've seen some similar rare cases such as that. But it may well be a bug causing extra troop spawns or something. *shrug*
Quote from: Nefaro on August 21, 2013, 01:56:13 AM
Regarding the morale boost - I've only had defeated Rebel armies be completely wiped out after the battle. They wouldn't retreat, they'd just die. I've not seen them actually retreat to fight another day.. at least when you kill them in the province they originally spawned. Once they cap the first one and become mobile, this may be what happens. That or if some nationalist rebels cross your border from a foreign province they just captured.
They had captured the original province they started in, but even when I had crushed them in that province they still retreated. Maybe part of the design? Was just frustrating to use up 15k man power in reinforcements for one stack of rebels, especially when they should have been wiped out multiple times. By the time this stack of rebels appeared my over extension was down to about 15%. Don't think that had much to do with the increased stack numbers.
Either way think I'm going to be starting a new game. I've got a CK2 game running on auto. See who survives to the end before I choose who I'm going to play as. Also planning on giving Venice a try soon.
I want to try and do a small mod to increase Spain and possibly Portugal's colonial range when the Columbus event happens. Give them a little bit of a head start on colonization that I think they should have. Maybe (if possible) increase their supply range with the event too so Spain at least can get the Caribbean without taking the long way.
Well, I successfully took the Aztec empire as Spain, but it took me much longer than the actual conquest. The Overextension rules meant that I either had to totally annex the Aztecs, but suffer a 220% OE penalty - and thus suffer incessant rebellions, huge diplomatic hits, and general "bad luck" events throughout my empire - or I had to conquer a large piece, do a truce, core all the provinces, rinse and repeat. While that worked fine, it was a little less realistic to what actually happened.
I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on August 21, 2013, 03:36:47 PM
I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.
The low-tech nations tend to have lots of highly profitable goods but their tax rates are generally pretty poor, and taxes are the basis for determining force limits if IIRC. They also don't tech up much so they don't get a bunch of new buildings (perpaps almost none at all?) & units to buy as the game goes on. Having small armies, almost no buildings, and decent production income so after the game has progressed quite a ways, they tend to build up
lots of wealth that they can't spend.
Once a foreign power beats the snot out of them, they have tons of cash so the conqueror can demand large amounts in a peace treaty.
That seems "gamey." I guess it can signify the amounts of pelts, gold, slaves, spices, etc. that are given to me in tribute?
Quote from: Nefaro on August 21, 2013, 03:43:03 PM
Quote from: son_of_montfort on August 21, 2013, 03:36:47 PM
I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.
The low-tech nations tend to have lots of highly profitable goods but their tax rates are generally pretty poor, and taxes are the basis for determining force limits if IIRC. They also don't tech up much so they don't get a bunch of new buildings (perpaps almost none at all?) & units to buy as the game goes on. Having small armies, almost no buildings, and decent production income so after the game has progressed quite a ways, they tend to build up lots of wealth that they can't spend.
Once a foreign power beats the snot out of them, they have tons of cash so the conqueror can demand large amounts in a peace treaty.
While I was playing the Aztec I was able to stockpile more than 2000 gold during peace time. Nefaro's analysis is correct.
I lost them all in a peace treaty with the Portuguese.
Quote from: jomni on August 21, 2013, 05:40:33 PM
While I was playing the Aztec I was able to stockpile more than 2000 gold during peace time. Nefaro's analysis is correct.
I lost them all in a peace treaty with the Portuguese.
It's really quite easy to get 2-5k ducats once your nation has grown in size, and especially in Trade. I've been up over 6k at one point, because I didn't really need to spend them on a lot at that point. The Monarch Points have become the bottleneck, so dumping a huge amount of monthly income into higher-tier Advisors is where it's begun to go. Last I looked, I was making over 80 ducats a month
in Trade income alone.
Anyway, my point is that you can build up that much loot fairly quickly with a large colonial & trading power, so it isn't quite as massive as it seems compared to game start (when everyone is dirt poor) or compared to a one or two province nation. Sure it's pretty large, but it's still only a one-shot deal AFAICT anyway. We could probably just consider it the initial pillaging, looting, and ransom of a conquered native nation.
Hmm... I routinely only have around 8-9 ducats a month and I have a Spanish Empire that encompasses the Aztec, Maya, much of what we call the Thirteen Colonies, the Iroquois, and I have a Personal Union with Portugal (which will eventually be integrated into my realm... that will be awesome). But I have huge military expenditures, so that could be the problem.
I really must be missing something economic-wise. I finally was able to form Great Britain and even started a colony on the west coast of Greenland. The whole game my monthly income would fluctuate between .5 and 1.8 a month or so. My overall balance stayed at about 0 and I had to take a couple of loans. Once Reformation hit the rebels went wild (inspiring the Scottish to rise up as well) and I decided to board the royal yacht and move to what would eventually become Brazil (though in this alternate universe it'll probably be known as Le Brazileaux. :P
Maybe I'm not building enough buildings in my provinces? Do you guys build markets, temples, docks etc. everywhere?
Quote from: bbmike on August 22, 2013, 06:00:53 AM
Maybe I'm not building enough buildings in my provinces? Do you guys build markets, temples, docks etc. everywhere?
Yes, you should be building trade improvement in building in any province that is in a trade node you control. What you really want to go for as early as you can is diplomatic tech level 7. It gives access to constables and temples. 1 of them increases the tax income in the province it is built and the other increases the tax base. Build them in every one of your provinces. Pay attention to the guild menu, it will overlay on the map what the increase in gold/man power/etc from building any particular building is going to be. Build in those that give the biggest boost first then work your way down.
Also, if you don't already do so, during peacetime army maintenance can be turned all the way down. If you are really strapped you should be able to turn naval maintenance down to about 60% without affecting trade too much. Speaking of which, make sure you have light warships (as many as you can afford) protecting your trade routes. That and exploration are pretty much all they are good for. Only develop one colony at a time, no matter how many colonists you have, until you are making a substantial profit each month. Colonial development is very expensive.
I tend to keep my army maintenance slider, during peacetime, at about 50%. One reason: it only takes 1 month to recover to full morale so the next time it hits the 1st, after raising it to full, my armies should be at full morale.
Another is for when you have some rebels popping up. You can generally fight and win without having to raise your slider up, especially after getting a some Military tech-ups that give bonus morale, and perhaps some Ideas. Just make sure you outnumber them and put move your general into the rebel-stomping army in question.
You want to construct buildings in provinces, but only build ones appropriate to what you need. The Temple, which gives +1 tax per year, is always a good choice for anything. While it'll take ~50 years to make that back (or less if you have tax bonuses), it's still a way to increase your monthly income and therefore offset your expenses along the way. I also construct Trade Power bonus buildings - especially for provinces in my home trading node. It may be a good idea to build land and naval recruitment specialized provinces because the reduced cost bonuses also translate into reduced upkeep costs of the units created there. I tend to keep just one land recruitment province in each specific land area separated by water and just build all my units there once it's up to par. If you're a large colonial/trade/naval power, it may be best to have a few naval bases to build ships in, since they take longer. The main point of these military provinces is to save upkeep (primarily) and build a bit faster when in need.
The buildings that provide spy defense are very situational. If you have a territory in which someone is constantly placing claims on, those can slow it down. Dunno how much more toil that will cause your aggressor, but perhaps it can delay his plans a bit? It may be a good idea to raise these up for your capital, however, since I suspect that some general spy missions will target your capital province every time. The only time I've used the Goods Production increase is when I've achieved domination in a trade good and it's a close-run thing. Pumping up production of said trade good can help you retain your advantage there, especially since the other nations are always getting bumps to it and attempting to knock you down below the required 20%.
The really cool thing about the Build Mode view (the crossed hammer button in the top left of the UI) is that when you select a building, it will calculate how much of a bonus each eligible province will get, after appropriate modifiers. So you can see which provinces will profit the most from a specific building type and construct accordingly. Since buildings use monarch points, in addition to money, you'll only be constructing only small amounts at any one time.
Thanks for the tips, guys! I'll try them tonight when I start Great Britain II: The Wrath of Gussie Fink-Nottle. ;D
Does anyone know if its possible to raise your countries opinion of another? Started a game as Austria and two of the missions have to do with Burgundy. One is to form an alliance, the other is to get a royal marriage. The Burgundy opinion of Austria is easy to improve. But Austria's opinion of Burgundy is -2. How do you increase Austria's -2 to a positive number? I ran into the same issue in my Castile game with England. I wanted to form a alliance with England, so I sent a diplomat to improve relations. I got the English opinion of Castile improved, but Castile still hated England for a variety of reasons (most notably they were protestant and they were a competitor for world domination)
Quote from: Kushan on August 22, 2013, 11:37:04 PM
Does anyone know if its possible to raise your countries opinion of another? Started a game as Austria and two of the missions have to do with Burgundy. One is to form an alliance, the other is to get a royal marriage. The Burgundy opinion of Austria is easy to improve. But Austria's opinion of Burgundy is -2. How do you increase Austria's -2 to a positive number? I ran into the same issue in my Castile game with England. I wanted to form a alliance with England, so I sent a diplomat to improve relations. I got the English opinion of Castile improved, but Castile still hated England for a variety of reasons (most notably they were protestant and they were a competitor for world domination)
I actually had an alliance automatically
break because my own relations rating with the other side dropped below 0. >:(
I don't think there is much of a way to raise your own other than by creating royal marriages, alliance, etc. Maybe Guarantee Independence but that may only give a bonus to the one receiving it. One of the big roadblocks is often the oddly varying "Border Friction" penalty, or if you have pressed a claim on one of their territories. Surprisingly.. religion isn't often that much of a penalty in many cases, although I
do have some odd "heretic neighbor -40" penalty with France, but not some other neighbors with the same religious differences. *scratches head* Either way, just a couple smaller neighbor penalties can make it difficult at times.
You pretty much have to hope the specific nation in question sends a diplomat to butter you up. Or wait until any temporary negative relations hit goes away.
The catch here is.. I'd be wary of changing too much with the diplo-relations settings right now, because the game looks to progress quite nicely as it is. Maybe a look at some things like the occasional "Border Friction -200" rating that has gone amuck, but that's probably just a bug. I really like how some of the stronger nations are somewhat restrained from blobbing out too quickly, like they did in the previous version. That's a delicate balance.
Found this guide in case anyone else is trying to win the 100 years war as England.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709649-Guide-to-Winning-the-100-Years-War-as-England (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709649-Guide-to-Winning-the-100-Years-War-as-England)
Personally, I think I'm just going to peace out at the start my next game. I hate the thought of having to surrender the the French of all people even in a game. If I can give up 2-3 provinces, preferably Calais and the two in the south, then Normandie and Caux should serve as a good jumping off point for any future continental expansion. Either way France is going to come after Normandie and Caux, so quickly getting your own house in order (conquering Ireland) and maybe picking off a few Scottish provinces.
If you can't keep a foothold on the mainland I'm at a loss of how England can be anything other then a conquer your island and wait until you can discover America game. Maybe going after Brittany is an option?
Quote from: Kushan on August 26, 2013, 01:09:35 AM
Personally, I think I'm just going to peace out at the start my next game. I hate the thought of having to surrender the the French of all people even in a game...
That's what I did in my current game. I also (through a series of bad events) decided to let most of Ireland (Munster) stay independent (not that I recommend that :P ). I was still able to form Great Britain and now have three colonies (core provinces now) in North America and continue to expand.
I was really hoping to turn England into a continental power instead of colonizing. In some ways the Spain and English games are the same. Consolodate your area then wait for colonization range to tech up. At least as Spain, you can go beat up o Morocco and Algiers. You don't want to take any provinces early given the huge coring cost that the Berber tradition culture has, but at least you can extort gold and trade power from them. No such easy targets in England's case.
Peacing out with France ASAP isn't a bad idea at all. Otherwise you're just gonna be spending money & troops in which you are already disadvantaged. Don't want to start off the early game in the red, and there are easier targets like Ireland & Scotland. Besides, even if you keep provinces on the mainland, France will constantly war you as soon as they can and even if you manage to outfight them, the expenditures just aren't worth it IMO. The Big Blue Blob's extra massive manpower reserves, and the massive wealth they get once they consolidate their area, just makes land battles a losing proposition even if you win some. I'd like to see a proper coalition against them fairly early, to check their unrestrained expansion, but most AI nations are terrified of France once it starts rolling. That's probably quite historical, especially during Louis XIV's reign in the 17th- early 18th century, but there was also a "coalition" against France at that time, and I haven't seen one stick yet in my first long game.
One thing that has been bothering me regarding diplomatic relations is that once you piss off a neighbor, often by a simple yet large "border friction" penalty by being neighbors, then they turn into a permanently angry enemy. Even ones that you've never DOW'd or taken land from. This has resulted in everyone having it in for me, and a very large coalition targeting my empire despite being only 5th in worldwide ranking. ??? There may be some mechanic specifics I'm not realizing, especially regarding the 'border friction' penalty and having neighboring provinces in the first place. But it seems like the AI is really piling on me (the player), despite my being quite nice with a few of them.
While the other large ones have been getting into occasional wars with each other (France, Portugal *who inherited Spain!!*, England, Ottomans, Russia) the majority of those biggies have me on perma-hate and join coalitions against me if not outright DOW'ing. Despite having had near-perfect relations and an alliance that lasted over 150 years with France, they dropped it out of the blue and refuse my further offers. They DOW'd me despite being at +140 relations a year or so later. I realize that there are some hard-wired behaviors for the biggest empires, against each other, and can even believe the dropping of the alliance. However, the complete reversal into war was pretty crazy.
I think that, overall, the diplo is working quite well other than some of the overzealous tendency for AI nations to DOW each other. I'm sure you guys are seeing the HRE in constant warfare for hundreds of years, as am I. I wonder if it's intentional, in order to make things more interesting?
Quote from: Nefaro on August 26, 2013, 02:23:03 PM
One thing that has been bothering me regarding diplomatic relations is that once you piss off a neighbor, often by a simple yet large "border friction" penalty by being neighbors, then they turn into a permanently angry enemy. Even ones that you've never DOW'd or taken land from. This has resulted in everyone having it in for me, and a very large coalition targeting my empire despite being only 5th in worldwide ranking. ??? There may be some mechanic specifics I'm not realizing, especially regarding the 'border friction' penalty and having neighboring provinces in the first place. But it seems like the AI is really piling on me (the player), despite my being quite nice with a few of them.
I had this happen in my Castile game. France hated me, and it was solely because of the border friction penalty. At one time they had me set as a rival, but when I checked a second time I wasn't on their list but our relationship was still in the negative. Even Portugal, which for the most part had been a steadfast ally (except against Aragon) had a huge border friction penalty. It got worse as the game went on and we both had colonies next to each other. I was thankfully able to keep their relationship maxed out by sending a diplomat ever couple years.
if you could somehow get a coalition against France consisting of England, Burgundy, and Brittany you could probably have a good chance at at least weakening France and keeping them in check. As England, you can probably get an alliance or at least military access early on but Burgundy hates your guts. From what I can tell its mainly them wanting Calais, and the Burgundy AI being the vulture of the game and going after targets already weakened by war.
As Castille/Spain I've had border friction with both Aragon and Portugal, and it never led to extended hostility.
Playing as England starting in 1500. Instantly sold Calaise to France because I couldn't defend it if we went to war anyway...so might as well get cash. I have made Scotland and half of Ireland vassals. I made the mistake of Allying with Austria, Switzerland and Munster to try to surround France. It was a mistake because Austria is constantly at war which means I am constantly at war. At least your allies actually help you fight
Austria is a bad ally for anyone outside the HRE itself. if its the emperor, which it usually is, its forced to fight every time someone takes imperial territory both within and outside the empire.
In my Austria game(s), I never had more then a year of peace after the first 5-10 years. Was constantly at war either defending imperial territory from outsiders or at war with a another HRE member for annexing someone's province. Curiously, when you "liberate" a province you can actually take it for yourself instead of releasing it.
Quote from: tgb on August 26, 2013, 05:43:18 PM
As Castille/Spain I've had border friction with both Aragon and Portugal, and it never led to extended hostility.
One good example of my runaway Border Friction was right after I took control of Norway (as Denmark), from the initial personal union.
I gained the Orkney Islands. They have a land connection to the northernmost province in Scotland. England had recently taken Scotland and now that my one island province was next to them, I saw the "Border Friction" diplomatic standings penalty rise from -40 all the way up to -200(!!) within a couple years.
Obviously the 'Border Dispute' random event just kept firing and firing, or some other such craziness. Britain had no natural Core claim on them. The problem is that the negative diplo effects were
stacking. In addition, once their relations rating with me had been tanked for awhile, their overall stance went from Neutral all the way to Rival fairly quickly. This also happened later with another large nation.. think it was Portugal and some of our bordering colonial areas in the new world. However, the -200 border friction rating didn't last near as long.
I eventually got sick of Britain repeatedly DOW'ing me, despite beating them every time, and I sold the Orkneys to them dirt cheap. The border friction rating dropped back down to -40 or -20 due to our colonies next to each other. Still.. they now permanently have me listed as a Rival and I've not seen that ever change once you get it with an AI nation.
The big issue here is the penalty stacking so much that it makes diplo useless and can turn an otherwise relatively neutral nation into a dire enemy in short order.
I had seen some others complaining about this runaway border friction issue on the Pdox forum, and there was some Dev reply asking about it, but I haven't checked to see if this will be fixed/adjusted.
Quote from: Kushan on August 26, 2013, 07:40:57 PM
Austria is a bad ally for anyone outside the HRE itself. if its the emperor, which it usually is, its forced to fight every time someone takes imperial territory both within and outside the empire.
In my Austria game(s), I never had more then a year of peace after the first 5-10 years. Was constantly at war either defending imperial territory from outsiders or at war with a another HRE member for annexing someone's province. Curiously, when you "liberate" a province you can actually take it for yourself instead of releasing it.
I don't recommend allying with
anyone in the HRE, if possible. They just fight each other so much that you'll be constantly dragged into their wars. Which will do no favors for your advancement.
I didn't have the HRE controller attack me much, when I took a few Hannoverian provinces in the HRE. Then again, the AI seems a bit wiser in choosing whether to attack you when it comes to relative strength. It didn't dare bring it when I was allied with France. Even when I gave the order to remove four of them from the HRE all at once! ;D It only made a 'Return Province' demand once. So I'm pretty sure it doesn't quite go blindly into such wars, although it's probably inclined to, else risk losing HRE influence and stability.
Something I don't understand.
Two of my allies go to war against each other (Austria vs Naples). I get a call to arms from Naples, and not wanting to lose my alliance with Austria I decline. When I refused, I got a refusal to join war from both sides, and both cancelled the alliance. If I never got a call to arms from Austria, why would declining the Naples call to arms hurt my reputation with Austria?
Quote from: Kushan on September 01, 2013, 12:55:05 AM
Something I don't understand.
Two of my allies go to war against each other (Austria vs Naples). I get a call to arms from Naples, and not wanting to lose my alliance with Austria I decline. When I refused, I got a refusal to join war from both sides, and both cancelled the alliance. If I never got a call to arms from Austria, why would declining the Naples call to arms hurt my reputation with Austria?
Because you're an unreliable ally either way. Lol!
Quote from: mikeck on August 26, 2013, 06:38:19 PM
Playing as England starting in 1500. Instantly sold Calaise to France because I couldn't defend it if we went to war anyway...so might as well get cash.
I've adopted a strategy of selling continental provinces I can't defend, not to France, but to another power that will fight France to keep it. Calais to Burgundy works well. I've even sold a province to Castile. Anything that keeps France fighting someone else is preferable to them fighting England.
My game is going quite well as England. I took Scotland and Ireland (vassals >annexation) and formed Great Britain. I have 4 colonies in what is now Virginia, Delaware and Massachusetts. Oddly enough, I switched strategies and am now allied with France. With the colonial power of Portugal and Spain, they were becoming very powerful while France was declining. I had spent tons of cash supporting rebellions in France and it was paying off.
Well, Spain and Portugal formed and alliance and listed me as a rival. Austria was weak so I started improving relations with France. Now we are allies against Spain/Portugal. I am planning to enter a continental war with them and take a few German provinces. from there I will try to form a good continental presence to weaken Spain's allies there including Switzerland, Sweden and Bavaria
200 years in and I'm doing pretty well as Spain. Now that I've shown those heathen Incas the error of their ways, I pretty much own South America, and am well on my way to colonizing the Eastern Seaboard, with my only competition coming from France. Portugal no longer exists (I took over the throne during the Iberian Succession event), have annexed Aragon, and am both Defender of the Faith and on my way to controlling the Holy See.
Quote from: Kushan on September 01, 2013, 12:55:05 AM
Something I don't understand.
Two of my allies go to war against each other (Austria vs Naples). I get a call to arms from Naples, and not wanting to lose my alliance with Austria I decline. When I refused, I got a refusal to join war from both sides, and both cancelled the alliance. If I never got a call to arms from Austria, why would declining the Naples call to arms hurt my reputation with Austria?
I've had what I thought to be a single click actually select the same reply on two stacked decisions before. Don't know if it was my fault for ham-fingering the mouse button when letting go or whether the game is overly sensitive if you're slow on letting off. Perhaps this happened to you?
Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income
Quote from: undercovergeek on September 02, 2013, 09:04:11 AM
Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income
OMG! 12k trade income!? Insanity!
Granted, the guy looks to be dominating pretty much all trade in the world minus that from the Atlantic side of the Americas.
he explains how hes done it which i thought might be handy - it looks like hes pushed all the trade as far as possible to get all the multiplier bonuses - apologies if this sounds complete gobbledigook as i havent played it yet
Quote from: undercovergeek on September 02, 2013, 10:26:16 AM
he explains how hes done it which i thought might be handy - it looks like hes pushed all the trade as far as possible to get all the multiplier bonuses - apologies if this sounds complete gobbledigook as i havent played it yet
Yeah, that's the ideal way of doing it.
When you place one of your limited amounts of merchants in a trade zone you can either have him collect directly from there for you (adding your trade bonuses to the node) or you can have him "push" the trade further up the chain to the next node. This also supposedly adds a tiny bit of extra income bonus to the previous node in the trade lines, too. The big advantage of pushing that trade to the next node is the larger trade income bonuses it gives. If you can control a large percentage of numerous trade nodes, in a line, you can make a killing with your merchants doing that.
Sounds like he has an absolutely massive naval fleet out guarding the trade lanes, which adds bonus to the trade power in that node for each light warship there, and thus increases your share. I read that there is supposed to be diminishing returns on doing this, but I don't think that's the case. More like diminishing returns once your total trade power percentage in a node starts getting pretty high. I think the sweet spot for a good return on investment is around 66 to 75% depending on whether another nation is sending it's own warships to dominate the node in question.
yeah, everyone has questioned the force multiplier coming into effect, it appears hes 3 times over the limit but not really suffering for it - there are calls for it to be nerfed, as is always the case, you can play the game, or play the system, this guy has just gone all out trade and captured each node on his plan - a plan which falls apart should the AI capture the ground he has there
Quote from: undercovergeek on September 02, 2013, 10:42:53 AM
yeah, everyone has questioned the force multiplier coming into effect, it appears hes 3 times over the limit but not really suffering for it - there are calls for it to be nerfed, as is always the case, you can play the game, or play the system, this guy has just gone all out trade and captured each node on his plan - a plan which falls apart should the AI capture the ground he has there
Admittedly, my trade income was high enough for me to run well over my landlimits and eat the large extra costs, too.
At the same time, I have so much territory to defend that I
must have the extra armies. The landlimit just doesn't go up much at all in relation to how much territory you own so you're kinda forced to do so. I'm not even the third largest empire, either. The limits are obviously not meant to be a hard ceiling and the large penalties for going over are a good money sink for the larger powers.
Quote from: undercovergeek on September 02, 2013, 09:04:11 AM
Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income
Nice accomplishment. If that was me I would have probably quit before I reached that point. Playing the game systems like that so you have more money then you can possibly ever spend just doesn't seem like much fun to me. To each there own though.
Is anyone playing EUIV with mods? If so, which?
...I only just now figured out that I had to register my game with Paradox in order to access the mod page.... I had no idea there were already so many mods available... ???
I've not really felt the need to mod anything right now. This soon after release, I'm not even sure what I would want changed. Besides, the mods probably aren't all that large anyway, more like tweaks at this point.
I'm just surprised at how many mods are already available, from graphics enhancements to more serious overhauls. Many are still in progress, but a lot are already up & ready to go, it appears --
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709604-Master-Mod-List (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709604-Master-Mod-List)
The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.
Quote from: Kushan on September 02, 2013, 08:35:02 PM
The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.
Did you not take the Exploration idea as your first? I thought you could boost up your colonial range with only a couple increases in it?
I suppose if you want to find the New World in 1450, then going through South America is the way..
Quote from: Nefaro on September 02, 2013, 09:49:39 PM
Quote from: Kushan on September 02, 2013, 08:35:02 PM
The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.
Did you not take the Exploration idea as your first? I thought you could boost up your colonial range with only a couple increases in it?
I suppose if you want to find the New World in 1450, then going through South America is the way..
The Exploration idea track gets you colonists, explorers and conquistadors in the first two choices. You have to research Diplomacy a level or two before colonial range starts to increase. If you are not playing Portugal, you can always pay P for fleet rebasing until you get a toehold in the New World.
I've steam rolled the east with the Ottomans.... so much so that I am looking at restarting as another country. I have 71+ army and I have steam rolled much of the region.
PE
The Ottomans are considered very strong in this one. They're like the Wicked Blue Blob of the East now.
Quote from: Nefaro on September 11, 2013, 11:13:16 AM
The Ottomans are considered very strong in this one. They're like the Wicked Blue Blob of the East now.
They are an eastern steam roller..... even coalitions fall to me.
PE
Quote from: PanzersEast on September 11, 2013, 11:28:28 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on September 11, 2013, 11:13:16 AM
The Ottomans are considered very strong in this one. They're like the Wicked Blue Blob of the East now.
They are an eastern steam roller..... even coalitions fall to me.
PE
Which are you gonna play next? Something a bit more.. difficult? :D
Quote from: Nefaro on September 11, 2013, 06:02:57 PM
Quote from: PanzersEast on September 11, 2013, 11:28:28 AM
Quote from: Nefaro on September 11, 2013, 11:13:16 AM
The Ottomans are considered very strong in this one. They're like the Wicked Blue Blob of the East now.
They are an eastern steam roller..... even coalitions fall to me.
PE
Which are you gonna play next? Something a bit more.. difficult? :D
I'm going to bow up on Europe as Austria.....
PE
Anyone else running into steam sync errors when using iron man mode? Lost my Austria iron man game last night when steam disconnected right after I had concluded peace with the Ottomans (when it autosaves). I've been having random steam disconnects and random game freezes when playing EU IV. Normally its not a game breaking issue. My PC locks up for a few minutes then starts working normally again. Apparently this time it created a "perfect storm" of events and I lost my save.
Quote from: Kushan on September 15, 2013, 02:56:38 PM
Anyone else running into steam sync errors when using iron man mode? Lost my Austria iron man game last night when steam disconnected right after I had concluded peace with the Ottomans (when it autosaves). I've been having random steam disconnects and random game freezes when playing EU IV. Normally its not a game breaking issue. My PC locks up for a few minutes then starts working normally again. Apparently this time it created a "perfect storm" of events and I lost my save.
Pretty sure that's the crappily-performing Steam cloud server connectivity hitting you, there.
I've not fired up EU4 in the past week or two but their cloud servers have always been slow as old people f**king, even for the tiniest of save files. Unfortunately, EU4 freezes until your cloud save goes through, on Ironman mode, and it saves all the damn time. Considering I've also been seeing some Steam patches stalling out for minutes at a time before starting back up, I'm gonna add two and four together and blame Steam. It's the obvious choice. ;)
They're probably getting overloaded with users saving to the cloud (it's on by default IIRC so even people who don't use it get their shiz saved to it constantly) or their client is a buggy piece of poocake, which also wouldn't be anything unusual.
In case anyone is interested new DLC is available. Probably get them at some point. The national monuments are kinda meh IMO. Unless you play the map close you you don't really notice them. Haven't played any campaign with the USA in it, but more events can't be a bad thing.
Quote
The American Dream DLC adds over 50 new, unique events, 10 themed event pictures, as well as several new unit models to the United States of America.
National Monuments II adds new graphical national monuments to the already stunning Europa Universalis IV map.
http://store.steampowered.com/news/11508/ (http://store.steampowered.com/news/11508/)
Not too crazed about a USA DLC pack. I mean.. they only show up in the latest stages of the game, ideally, so it's not really all that attractive to me. I've never started from such a late game stage, either, since playing such a short game stretch in one of these Paradox games just isn't that appealing.
On another note, I believe the big new patch is supposed to be out sometime today. It reportedly has a few new little features and interface tweaks, along with bug fixes & such.
EDIT:
Patch 1.2 just released!
Patch Notes:
Quote
#################################
# New Features
#################################
- Added new ideagroups for Anatolian Beyliks, Marathas, Taungu, Rajput States,Granada, Papal States, Daimyos, Serbia, Orissa, Punjab, Ragusa, German States, Ryukyu, Bengal States, Tibet, Dravidian States, Assam, Gujarati States, Tuscany, USA, Switzerland, Irish States, Songhai, Brittany, Malayan States, Arabian States, Italian States, Najd & Hedjaz
- When you release a vassal you now get the option to swap to that country and play as it.
- Added two buttons to the peace interface. 'Surrender' - clicking this will automatically construct a peace offer the AI would accept & 'Suggest Demands' that constructs a demanding peace offer the AI will accept.
- Editboxes can now have use copy/paste/cut and accepts text from other applications. This is handy if you want to copy a steamid for example. Also implemented some basic text navigation-features like ctrl-skipping words, and marking text.
- There is now support for windowed fullscreen, and you can now toggle between fullscreen, windowed, windowed fullscreen) in the video-settings.
- Added in two new mapmodes, one to display coalitions, and one to display opinions.
- Added in five new achievements: Grand Coalition - to get a coalition with 6 members in it. Trade Hegemon - be a western european and owning Aden, Hormoz & Malacca. Winged Hussars - Have the Winged Hussar unit, while having at least 50% cavalry power. Luck of the Irish - Conquer all the british isles as an irish country. Sunset Invasion - Start as the Aztecs and conquer Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, London, Amsterdam & Rome.
List of changes is too long to post the full thing here.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723913-... (http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?723913-...)
I'm glad they added new Idea Groups for some of the more rarely played nations. The fewer nations using that same single national idea group, the better.
Anyone know if they lowered the Auto-Save to Cloud frequency in IronMan mode? That thing was getting pretty annoying when it was constantly stuttering due to waiting on the Cloud upload to Steam. But you gotta use IronMan to get achievements.
So I couldn't help myself and picked up EUIV from the STEAM sale this weekend. I went with the Extreme Edition because, well it says extreme in the title and I am sucker for marketing .... I have no idea when I will have proper time to sink into this game but if/when I do are there any newbie guides out there that would be helpful or advice for a first timer to the EU series?
^Ditto that. Also any advice for someone who was shallacked by EUI and hasn't returned since.
Quote from: Gusington on May 31, 2014, 01:00:15 PM
^Ditto that. Also any advice for someone who was shallacked by EUI and hasn't returned since.
for me personally
youtube, search for arumba, and within his channel search for EUIV - why tutorials, what for tutorials, newbie tutorials, how to tutorials, trade tutorials, watch and play tutorials
The Spanish tutorial campaign helped me a fair bit.
YouTube for me as well, except in my case it was by watching Quil18's EUIV England preview campaign. When the game out I just jumped in and started playing, the UI is fairly self explanatory. The mission system also helps in giving you an idea of what things you can/should be doing.
The game also has a really good help/hints system. By clicking on the button in the red box, it will highlight certain UI elements blue, you can then click on them to get additional information.
(https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2915/14128117787_284f18bf68_o.jpg)
Gamers With Jobs did some really good tuorials. Sean walks two newbies through most of the opening phase of the game
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/117527 (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/117527)
http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/117636 (http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/117636)