EUIV: Tactics, Tips, Strategies, Questions....

[jomni]

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.

[Kushan]

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....

[tgb]

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.

[Kushan]

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.

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.

[tgb]

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.

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.

[bbmike]

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!

[CptHowdy]

anyone imported their own dynasty from ck2? how does the game handle a large empire being present from the start? will it crumble quickly?

[Kushan]

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.

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/

[Nefaro]

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 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. 

[undercovergeek]

i WILL not read this until im ready to start the game!!

[Kushan]

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.

[tgb]

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.

[Nefaro]

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.

[Kushan]

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.

[Kushan]

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.