So I decided to finally try to win the hundred years war as England, since I hadn't since they made the war AI a lot better a couple of patches ago.(Also I activated ironman mode since I wanted the "One Night In Paris" achievement.) And after a couple of restarts I managed to do it, and also managed to maintain alliances with Castille (Who eventually formed Spain.), Austria, and Portugal.
Now several weird things happen. Austria loses the HRE title and it shifts between several other countries. All but three of the electors disappear or otherwise lose their elector status. Since the lack of electors causes a massive drain on imperial authority, and the emperor is consistently a weak nation, the Holy Roman Empire is essentially broken. Finally Brandenburg gets the title and they at least seem to be able to keep it, even though they are so often at war electors only gradually start to reappear. So... on a semi-related note the Lancaster line propagated through Austria, to Brandenburg. Now, I know you may think you know where this is going, but wait. I am notified that Brandenburg is about enter into a personal union as a leading partner but I have the right to challenge it since we have the same dynasty and I have way more prestige. Now, what country did Brandenburg royal marriage and get into a Personal Union? What country can I fight them for? Russia. Cue the power mad laughter.
So, now I have all of the British isles, France, the netherlands, most of northern Italy, all of the North American coastline save the Caribbean, and now Russia under my control. I think... I think I've won? Should I just... should I just attack everything?
so, there's at eu3 and a buncha other strategy games deal going on for the next monthish
basically, eu3 for 3 bucks
worth getting as a hold out in the future for when I feel like diving deep in a game like that, or should I just wait a bit longer for a good steam sale on eu4?
Europa Universalis III is quite a bit different than EUIV and also quite a bit harder to get into. But... it's only three bucks so it's probably worth it if EUIV isn't going on sale in the next couple of months?
Yeah I don't expect it to go on sale anytime soon, but I also wouldn't expect to actually play an EU game for a couple of months either. Crusader Kings 2 is first on my list for strategy go-to when the mood strikes next.
So I decided that with Conquest of Paradise making Native Americans a lot easier and more enjoyable to play as, I'd finally go for the "No Trail of Tears" achievement. (Also I like all the Native American national ideas. Just looking at them my favorite idea set is probably the Iroquois, followed by the Huron, followed by the Cherokee, followed by the generic 'native ideas, followed by the Pueblo, followed by the Creek, Chickasaw, and Shawnee.) Something I quickly realized is that with the all of the new native nations the Cherokee start off in actually kind of a tenuous diplomatic situation. They're surrounded on all sides by nations of comparable strength: The Powhatan, the Shawnee, the Creek, the Choctaw, and the Chickasaw. Out of these, only the Chickasaw is willing to be friendly for any length of time. It's a good thing then that none of the north american nations can fabricate claims in the traditional way then, although I did have to fight two really difficult early wars against a combined alliance of the Shawnee and Creek because of event generated claims. I found a good opening move was to take the mission to conquer Powhatan that the Cherokee start off with, since even though Powhatan will usually very quickly make and call in allies you can siege their single province fast enough that it's not that big of a problem.
Anyways, after that I spent the next 60 or so years colonizing, forming a federation, and getting into the occasional war. (Native American manpower pools don't start off very great, so wars are pretty brutal.) By the time I got to admin tech 4 and could start really exploring the Spanish and Portuguese were already in the Caribbean. (They got there quicker than they usually do.) I colonized part of Cuba next to Spain to be able to reform my government and eventually westernize, and naturally this led to the Spanish to decide to declare war on me. I got off pretty light, I managed to get them to go away by just giving them all of my money. A decade or two later I was able to westernize, I hit the button and... whoo boy.
The new westernization mechanic is brutal. First off there's the revolt risk. Five revolt risk doesn't seem like much at first, it's not enough to really make a big difference with all of the negative revolt risk modifiers you usually have in a province. But when you add in the westernization events that lower stability, legitimacy, or just randomly spawn rebels/increase revolt risk nationwide and it becomes an nightmare(Also, as a pagan country there's a big incentive to take the option to convert to Catholicism or some other branch of Christianity so that the Europeans stop bothering you so much, and the complete lack of religious unity and having all your provinces suddenly be the wrong religion until you can convert them doesn't help with revolt risk.) Add this to the fact your monarch points are constantly being drained. At first, you can just boost stability when it drops,pl or spend points for harsh treatment on a troublesome, out of the way province. But within ten years due to the natural drain on points caused by westernization and all the bad events that cause you to lose monarch points and soon you're left with nothing. Your stability eventually ends up at negative three and there's nothing you can do about it. At the worst of it, I was getting about three revolts a month of about 20,000 men each, which eventually whittled my manpower down to nothing. All the revolt risk also hamstrings your tax income, so to hire the mercenaries I eventually needed to fight off the hundreds of thousands of rebels I had to go several thousand gold in debt, and this is as a huge nation with a massive default tax base, good production, and access to valuable trade routes like the Caribbean. On the plus side you will generally westernize much faster than you would before, but now you have a very real chance of failing. I think I just barely made it by the skin of my teeth. A couple dozen more loans might have totally crippled my economy, it took me a couple of decades to pay off my debts as it was.
Anyways, I eventually did successfully westernize by the 1580s, and here is the current situation in the Americas:
As you can see, I've mostly managed to keep the Europeas out of the east coast, although France managed to sneak in a bit of Canada before I could completely close it off. (On the plus side they're now my ally so I don't really mind them being there.) I've also been colonizing a bit in South America because I've heard that Native Americans get some cool unique colonial nation names if they manage to form one. Currently working on finishing sealing off North America from other colonizers, and once I catch up on tech I might use my power and leverage with the French to start enacting payback on the Spanish and Portuguese. Though with the new protectorate system I'll be busy conquering the other native groups for awhile since now that I've westernized I can't vassalize them, only directly annex them.
I've started playing on EU4 and having cut my teeth on the Ottomans I'm thinking on playing a more colonial game with England. I've dabbled a tiny amount with colonies as Spain and I have a question - do people generally keep colonists in a colony until it becomes a city or do they use them to create multiple concurrent colonies?
Generally you don't create multiple concurrent colonies, because for each colony you have greater than the number of colonists you have you pay an exponential cost greater than what you'd normally. For example, if you have two colonies but only one colonist, you will pay 200% the base maintenance cost for your second colony. If you have 3 colonies with one colonist, than the second one would be 200% and the third one would be 400% base maintenance cost. You should only go over the limit if you have the kind of income that can support it.
I have bought every expansion for vicky2, every non-cosmetic DLC for CK2, and conquest of paradise for EU4. I'm totally willing to buy these kinds of things, but just events and event pictures is a little bit iffy for me.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
It seems like the next expansion to EU4 has been announced
I like the look of it. It seems to contain a few things that I looked for in the vanilla game - privateers and instigating conflict between rivals for a start
So one of the first country's I ever played in EUIV was Poland. I recently started up an ironman game with them because I heard that at the very beginning of the game Poland is just small enough to be able to join the Holy Roman Empire. So I did, and did the normal thing of forming a union with Lithuania, vassalizing the Teutonic Order and later the Livonian order, and I was planning to westernize right after I formed the Commonwealth but... then I became Emperor. Hrm. That changes things. Guess it's time to attack Russia and the Ottomans!
Bundle Stars is having a 75% off deal on EUIV and some DLC, and I can't resist. Is any of the DLC worth it? It's hard to tell from the descriptions on Steam.
(Specifically - American Dream DLC, Call to Arms DLC, Pre-Order Pack DLC, Digital Extreme Upgrade Pack DLC)
I don't think the American DLC even works right now unless you pick a start date with USA already formed. I think if you release a north american colonial state it just gets generic colonial ideas
So it's 1520 as the Commonwealth and I'm only two reforms away from Revoking the Privelegia. And I have a forcelimit of 90. And... I... have... unlimited... power! Seriously though if there's any part of EUIV that needs seriously rebalancing it's the HRE. It is so gamey and broken and overpowered and it barely resembles the historical reality of the HRE at all.
well at least it isn't as bad as it was back in EU3.
In which you could vassalize half the electors, "lose" a war to someone Orthodox, convert yourself, then demand conversion from everyone else in the empire and pass the final reform in like 1450.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
I really want to make my Hungary Protestant because holy shit the Balkans are poor, but if I do that Poland and Austria abandon me to the devices of the Ottomans and I only barely managed to get off by conceding defeat last time with the help of Poland and Lithuania.
The Ottomans are scary you guys.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
I've done Coalition wars where Russia and I (Prussia) took on a giant Ottomans. I could crush their superior numbers, but they could just keep bringing in troops and Russia would just get carpet sieged before we could make anything happen.
The thing you've gotta remember about the Ottomans is not only are they big, they start out with literally the best unit types in the game, and it takes awhile before even western tech units are better.
If that isn't a multiplayer game that's impressive. The biggest I've seen the Ottomans get is about 3/4th that size, and that's when they got a PU on an expanded Timurids.
It reminds me of the games back in EU3 where Austria would go through Hungary, and end up eating through all the horde nations, ending up looking a lot like the Ottomans do there.
So Ethiopia seemed like an interesting game... and it sure is. One of like 7 "Orthodox" nations in the game (Not counting the half dozen Russian minors.) with no tax base, religiously divided, surrounded by not only muslim neighbors but also surrounded by nations with a much higher tech group. At the very lest, the introduction of protectorates makes Ethiopia's northern borders fairly safe, as the Mamelukes will offer to make you into a protectorate fairly quickly. Also they have a gold mine which allows Ethiopia to afford advisers at the start of the game.
My opening move was to attack Adal using a mission, but they unfortunately allied Hedjaz almost immediately. Luckily my king turned out to be a 3/5/3/0 commander and since Hedjaz could only ship over 3 troops at a time I managed to win despite the massive tech and unit type disadvantage. My second Arabian enemy was Yemen, who allied/protectorate-d several of the east African nations. I timed my attacks to when they were fighting Oman, since I knew Oman would have a bigger fleet than Yemen and would keep Yemen's armies safely preoccupied outside of Africa. My third challenge was Kilwa: It had also expanded into neighboring Swahili nations and nabbed several gold mines, and to make matters worse it had also allied with Hedjaz. Luckily they attacked Mutapa, which wore down their army, and also allowed me to enforce peace with them to take several provinces and annul their treaty with Hedjaz, who hadn't been dragged into the war.
What I didn't mention is that this was my third try: Expanding quickly as Ethiopia is possible but pretty hard. You have to conquer Adal pretty quickly or else their alliances will make aggressive expansion a nigh impossibility. (You can ally the Mamelukes in addition to becoming their protectorate, but the Mamelukes will never join your wars.)
Edit: Also Funj just randomly appears from uncolonized provinces around the early 1500s, what's even weirder is that the game both treats the provinces as colonies in that walking across them can trigger native attacks (Although you can't attack any natives.) and provinces (You get full income from the provinces and you can core them.) at the same time. Seems like a bug but it's still interesting.
I don't like to be down on PDS since I feel like they generally try a lot harder than most devs (their support for CK2 is amazing), but man I haven't been too crazy about these last few patches/expansions. They keep doing this thing where they bolt on some new mechanic that tries to simultaneously railroad the AI to do what it should and also limit the player. And then after they add it they keep trying the flail around to make it work. I don't know if there's some fundamental flaw in the system of EUIV, or there's some conflict over the direction of the game, but its been super weird.
Things like:
Protectorates
The Western Europe trade node
And by extension, generally handicapping colonization across the board for everyone in Europe who isn't Spain or Portugal (trade range limitations leaving the Dutch in the dust, and making fleet basing rights not give colonial range)
flip flopping on AE calculations and coalitions
Great power modifier (which basically makes the AI always hate the player because even OPM think they're great powers)
Making vassals wayyyy more willing to rebel
ETA: forgot! Flip flopping on whether vassal feeding is a valid tactic (I think we landed on something looser than, if core=yes then buy. But its now a whole set of variables that I don't think are reflected any where now.)
There's been a lot of good stuff added in 1.5 too (especially the new army/general tooltips), but I've been hard pressed to find any examples of WHY most of these things were added (aside from the coalition stuff). But from the players perspective it just seems to be there to make the game more punishing (and I think a lot of people feel like this about the Colonial nations as well since they remove power from the player but I don't mind). This stuff combined with the fact that Johann has stated that he doesn't really want to add any internal management of your realm is just turning the game into: Go to War, everyone gets mad at you, fast forward, repeat.
I absolutely know what you mean. I'm still having tons of fun with the game, but I wish they were a little more decisive about what they want their updates to do
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
First Dev Diary for Wealth of Nations bringing the defensiveness
Welcome to the first of several dev diaries of the next EU4 expansion Wealth of Nations.
By now you have probably heard a bit about the upcoming expansion, there have been some press about it, but in particular you have been able to follow some of the new features in our Developer MP stream (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...XMdqg5ADde-G2o) Still, I will take this opportunity to just quickly go through what you can expect from it.
More gameplay, less fluff
The previous expansion had a few really visible game altering things such as a completely randomized new world, a new type of dynamic nations which changed how you controlled your American colonies and completely new mechanics for the native americans, perhaps a bit disrespectful to call it ‘fluff’, but bear with me. These features required quite a big investment in development time and made a big impact on how you play EU4. For Wealth of Nations you can look forward to towards more features but perhaps less headline grabbing features, in other words more interesting gameplay changes but perhaps not so many features that force you to completely rethink your priorities.
A focus on trade
The main focus of this expansion is going to be trade, as the name suggests. We are not, however going to change the the base concept but instead we are going to look into what we can do to strengthen the strategic choices and sharpen the conflicts that come from trade. We are going to add Trading Companies that allow for more specialized trading empires, we are going to add new diplomatic actions and types of peace treaties, privateers and things like that.
Not Just Trade
Just as with the previous expansion, Conquest of Paradise, not all features we add are going to fit the chosen focus. When we design features for our expansion we they usually fit the bill of either the what the expansion is about or what we really want to see in the game sooner rather than later. Like the Fervor features specially for the Reformed religion or a brand new mechanic dealing with competition among nations that we have not told you about yet, more on that in a later dev diary (or in the MP stream in a couple of weeks).
Some Free thing, some Not Free thing
As always some new features are going to be in the expansion and some in the major patch released at the same time. We want to be able to add radical changes, but we don't want to add features to expansions that are vital for the game balance or require us to remove old mechanics, so you get them for free. This is a living game that will hopefully continue to evolve for many expansions to come.
They've been announcing the new WoN stuff. And have unleashed another shit-storm by announcing that they've added an Auto-Add Papal influence point mechanic that is only available with the DLC. I really don't know if Paradox is just trying to antagonize their fanbase at this point.
Anyways here's the other dev diaries:
Welcome to the first of several dev diaries of the next EU4 expansion Wealth of Nations.
By now you have probably heard a bit about the upcoming expansion, there have been some press about it, but in particular you have been able to follow some of the new features in our Developer MP stream (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...XMdqg5ADde-G2o) Still, I will take this opportunity to just quickly go through what you can expect from it.
More gameplay, less fluff
The previous expansion had a few really visible game altering things such as a completely randomized new world, a new type of dynamic nations which changed how you controlled your American colonies and completely new mechanics for the native americans, perhaps a bit disrespectful to call it ‘fluff’, but bear with me. These features required quite a big investment in development time and made a big impact on how you play EU4. For Wealth of Nations you can look forward to towards more features but perhaps less headline grabbing features, in other words more interesting gameplay changes but perhaps not so many features that force you to completely rethink your priorities.
A focus on trade
The main focus of this expansion is going to be trade, as the name suggests. We are not, however going to change the the base concept but instead we are going to look into what we can do to strengthen the strategic choices and sharpen the conflicts that come from trade. We are going to add Trading Companies that allow for more specialized trading empires, we are going to add new diplomatic actions and types of peace treaties, privateers and things like that.
Not Just Trade
Just as with the previous expansion, Conquest of Paradise, not all features we add are going to fit the chosen focus. When we design features for our expansion we they usually fit the bill of either the what the expansion is about or what we really want to see in the game sooner rather than later. Like the Fervor features specially for the Reformed religion or a brand new mechanic dealing with competition among nations that we have not told you about yet, more on that in a later dev diary (or in the MP stream in a couple of weeks).
Some Free thing, some Not Free thing
As always some new features are going to be in the expansion and some in the major patch released at the same time. We want to be able to add radical changes, but we don't want to add features to expansions that are vital for the game balance or require us to remove old mechanics, so you get them for free. This is a living game that will hopefully continue to evolve for many expansions to come.
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Talking Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 2: Trade Improvements
Time for the next Dev diary where I tell you a little bit about the features that will appear in the upcoming Wealth of Nations expansion for EU4. In this dev diary I will dive straight into some of the trade improvements we are doing and a especially on the thinking behind them. Bear in mind that we are still working on and tweaking these features so some of them might change between now and release.
Enhanced Merchant Republics
Merchants republics are among the theoretically really strong nations in the game. They have a extra merchant (giving them not only the merchant but a higher naval force limit), that have extra trade efficiency and on top of that a bonus to trade steering. Add to that the, frankly, a little bit OP ability to elect rulers. Yet you rarely see nations like Venice or the Hansa grow to conquer the world. One reason for this is their geographical weakness, especially the Hansa lacks strategic depth. Then add that to what I mentioned earlier, the trade republics are kind of dangerous. This, first order of business for Denmark - take out the Hansa and for Austria - take out Venice. So we started thinking, what kind of extra thing can we add to an expansion that adds an extra layer to the Merchant Republics.
In Wealth of Nations, trading with a merchant republic is no longer a zero sum game. When a merchant republic trades in a region this will add value to the goods that are produced in the region (technically we are increasing the amount of goods produced) in proportion to how big a share the Merchant Republic is taking of trade in a region. This means that as the likes of Venice and The Hansa are spreading their tentacles and send their merchants to take over the trade lanes the nations they are trading with becomes richer and until the point where the other want to become traders or Venice is threatening to become a land power, its a win win situation.
Main Trade Port
In the game trading is currently centered on your capital. Thats where you direct your trade and where you collect your money. In the base game you have some options, you can collect in other places anyway but take a trade power penalty or you can simply move your capital. In Wealth of Nations we are adding a new concept, the Main Trade Port that is the new place where you collect trade with your merchants. This trade port is easily visible in the trade mapmode and can be relocated using diplomatic power. Now as France for example you have a choice, do you go for a Mediterranean strategy or an atlantic strategy, and you don't have to relocate from Paris to do it.
Inland Trading
One aspect that we felt we wanted to add to is to make the option of inland trade nodes more attractive. On sea you can send trade ships in addition to conquering provinces and making trade deals. On land however, there are no ships. We figured that we wanted to change the dynamics of how trade works inland. We figured that if we wanted to do that one way would be to make the quality of your trading be much more influential inland. After all, trading on the oceans is all about controlling the sealanes and having lots of ships and ports while inland you are much more dependant on having access to local traders, making good deals and all that stuff that makes for a good trader. In Wealth of Nations at the moment, certain trade nodes have been marked as inland, in these trade nodes your trade efficiency is really the biggest factor in deciding how much power you get. For example for having a merchant present you will now get 50 extra trade power per trade efficiency so great trading nations have it easier inland, but on the other hand low stability will decrease inland trading so having a stable nation will also be a different factor on inland trade.
Changing role of traders
Finally a small ergonomic little thing that is making it into this expansion as a free feature. At the moment in EU4 if you have a merchant collecting trade and you want change the role of the trader you have to recall him and then send him out again. After you download the 1.6 patch you can now just change the trader from collecting to steering and he will just change what he is doing, no travel time involved. Thats just one example of all the little improvements and additions we are adding for free with the patch accompanying the expansion.
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Wealth of Nations Dev Diary 3:Companies and Canals
So, it’s time for the third dev diary on the Wealth of Nations expansion for EU4. This week I will talk a little about two brand new concepts, Trade Companies and Canals. This week all the stuff I will be talking about will be in the expansion and not in the free 1.6 patch.
Trade Companies
In Conquest of Paradise we looked at colonisation in the western hemisphere when we added Colonial Nations. With that feature you got independant colonial states that had their own goals and live their own lives but they could also expand your empire on their own and if you weren’t careful they could break free. Now when we add Trade Companies to Africa and Asia in Wealth of Nations we wanted to give them a very different feel. While colonisation in the west is about sprawling empires with a lack of control, trade empires in the east is a bit more specialised affair.
So, again we have divided parts of the world into a new type of regions but thats where the similarities ends. When you add provinces (something that you choose to do, and you can revoke it again) to a Trade Company you will still retain control of it but the way you gain benefits from it change. First of the province will produce radically less tax and manpower, but on the other hand it will provide a massive boost in Trade Power (we are still toying with the numbers here) and its also going to add 0.5 Naval Force Limit per province.
This makes the Trade Companies first and foremost a tool for Trade Empires, if you are the Mughal Empire and you are conquering India you are probably looking to increase your tax base and the amount of troops you can raise. On the other hand if you are Portugal you already have overseas penalties to manpower and you are instead looking to improve and extend your trading empire.
Now there are other little effects of Trade Companies. Most importantly, if your Trade Company is dominating the region (currently holds 51% of the modified province trade power) you are getting an extra merchant. This means that if you come into a region as a Trade Power you will start looking for the really good trade provinces (with the 1.6 patch we are also adding new icons to the trade map mode so you can better find the river estuaries etc) and with your superior Trade technology you have a good chance to dominate trade in the area. What we are looking to do is create layers of conflicts where Trade empires have each other as their main adversaries and have local alliances with the more primitive powers. To help that area we are also making it so that you can no longer westernize if you are only neighbour to a trade company (normally one of the requirements is that you have a high tech neighbour) on the other hand you can westernize if you own a core of an advanced nation.
Finally on the subject of Trade Companies, they are not going to be the powerful independent actors that Colonial Nations are but there will be frictions through a number of events where you can choose how to manage the friction created between yourself and your companies.
Now, on to one of the more controversial subjects.
Canals
Yes we are adding Canals to the game. In Wealth of Nations there are three buildable canals, Suez, Kiel and Panama. The latter is probably the least realistic but we wanted to add these three to give players that manage to build global empires something extra to strive for. Canals are basically massive building projects that when finished will be visible on the map. During these expensive projects you will also get events that allows you to face up to the historical difficulties of such projects. Canals will allow ships to sail through them, can be blocked by fleets and will also grant a substantial province Trade Power bonus to the owner so that you can use the canal to redirect the flow of trade (and no, it doesn't alter the trade routes but on the other had you already have trade routes across the canal routes). An interesting side effect of this is for future expansions and mods is that the canals are basically construction projects with events that can trigger during building and with on map objects when you are done so there is the possibility to add more interesting province specific works in the future.
That was it for this week, next week I will talk a bit about the new Religion Mechanics that are coming with Wealth of Nations.
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Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 3: Naval Improvement
Welcome to the third EU4:Wealth of Nations Dev Diary. Last weeks theme was some of the improvements to the trading side of the game. This week I am going to cover more of the naval side of Wealth of Nations. The main focus of this expansion is trade but as you know navies and control of sea lanes is one of the most important factors in dominating trade.
Privateers
With the Wealth of Nations expansion we are adding the option of using privateers as a way to damage the trade of your opponents. This is added to allow you to hurt an opponents trading empire even if you can’t outcompete him at a certain point. Your light ship fleets now have the option of going on a Privateer mission just like going on a Trade Patrol mission, there are however some major differences. First of all the ships that go on a Privateer mission will raise the Jolly Roger, they will still be your ships but you can clearly see what they are up to. These ships will not give trade power to you but to the Pirate faction. The Trade Power they get will be a multiplier on what they would be worth on a Trade Patrol, so its a great way for a smaller nation to hit above its weight and also, while they keep a lot of money for themselves some of the loot will be sent back to you. There are however risks, if you send out privateers other nations will get upset and the people you steal from will get a Trade Conflict Casus Belli against you. There are other consequences as well as we have added a bunch of new historical events that triggers based on privateers.
New Blockade Mechanic
As you probably know, in EU4 if you place at least one ship outside an enemy province it will be considered under blockade. We felt that it was a bit strange that to fully blockade a country you placed one ship outside every port no matter how big or small. As one of the free features in this expansion we are changing the blockade system. Instead of fully blockading say the city of London with a lonely frigate, each ship now has a blockade value currently base on the sail speed of a vessel (more maneuverable ships catch more smugglers) and a blockade efficiency modifier. To fully blockade a province your blockade efficiency needs to match the base tax of the province, so its easier to blockade a small fishing village but harder to blockade London. These values can change between now and release, but you get the idea. We have also added an onmap interface that quickly shows that a fleet is blockading and to what percentage.
Detach Obsolete Ships
Another one of the small free features that makes life as an EU4 player a bit easier is the Detach Obsolete Ships button. It is active on fleets where you have ships that are older than the newest model and if you click it, said ships will separate into a new fleet for easy scrapping.
5 new ships
Speaking of ships, we noticed that there was a lack of certain shiptypes in the technology tables so we decided to add some new ones, these are:
- Great Frigate (Next after Heavy Frigate)
- War Galley (Between Galley and Galleas)
- Galiot (Between Galleass and Chebeck)
- Brig (Between Flute and Merchantman)
- Trabakul (Between Merchantman and East India Main)
We’re adding these ship-types in the free part of the expansion but if you buy WoN you get cool new models for them as well.
Trade patrol behaviours
Personally I hate when you find yourself at war with a bigger naval power and they quickly sink your trade fleets. As a free part of the expansion we are adding the option of setting your trade fleets to automatically return to port at the outbreak of war. After the war is over though, they will return to whatever they were doing at the start of the war. Since its an option, you have a choice to make, is your trade-fleets strong enough to fight of possible attackers or should they always hide at the outbreak of hostilities.
That was it for this week, next week I’m planning to write a bit about Trade Companies.
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Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 5: Religion
The theme for this weeks dev diary will deal with the wholly uncontroversial topic of religions, and in particular which one is right and which one is wrong.
Just kidding The dev diary will however cover what we are adding in the area of religions in Wealth of Nations. Note that all of these changes are part of the Wealth of Nations paid expansion; they will not be in the large free update that traditionally comes with our expansions.
Reformed
First up is the Reformed Religion, the Calvinist faith that was particularly embraced by the Dutch in this time frame. We figured that doing something for the Dutch would be an appropriate thing for our trade themed expansion. It is a distinct religion in EU4 and has an increasing chance of spawning in a European province that has been Protestant for a long time. It also has an increased chance of appearing in nations that have selected more innovative ideas.
For Wealth of Nations Reformed nations can direct the industriousness of their people via a new concept called Fervor. The player will get a base value of 2 Fervor points per month if the nation is at peace and 1 per month if it is at war. Like most things in EU, this rate is also infuenced by things like prestige and stability. If its not used it’s stored. So how do you use it? Reformed nations have 3 place to focus their Fervor: Trade (Global Trade Power and Trade Steering bonus), War (Morale of Armies and Morale of Navies) and Stability (National Revolt Risk and Diplomatic Reputation). The player can activate one or more of these but each will cost 5 Fervor each month, which means that your nations needs to be fairly stable and at peace the be able to run one permanently - but you can also save up so run several at once for a power boost in times of crisis or expansion. We have also changed one of the Reformed religions regular modifiers from +10% trade efficiency to +2 tolerance for heretics, instead.
Hindus
Since we are adding East India Companies to Asia and Africa, we wanted to see if we could add something more to make it more interesting to play in India as a local and not just as a European conqueror. For one thing, we have added about 50 new events for Hindu rulers that deal with the Hindu religion (and we’ve added some nice new art for ambience). We have also added a personal deity system.
If you have the WoN expansion, Hinduism will lose its regular modifiers. Instead you get to pick a deity to follow. You can choose from Shiva, Ganesha, Surya, Ganga, Shakti and Vishnu. Each god has its own bonuses (and also specific interesting events as mentioned earlier). The ruler picks a deity for life, but when the ruler dies you get to pick a new one (though there is also a rare event that lets you change while the monarch lives). This is going to add an interesting new dimension as you build your Hindu empire in an interesting part of the world that we might revisit in the future in another expansion or add-on.
Papacy
And finally, as a little extra to those who buy Wealth of Nations, you will now be able to automate cardinal influence, by using a checkbox next to each cardinal. With that checked the game will automatically assign enough influence to selected cardinals to keep your guy ahead in the competition. This is mostly to avoid the busy work of fighting to add +5 here and there to keep France out of the Throne of Peter.
That’s it for this week. Next week, we will talk a bit about the diplomatic additions that come with Wealth of Nations.
Posts
Now several weird things happen. Austria loses the HRE title and it shifts between several other countries. All but three of the electors disappear or otherwise lose their elector status. Since the lack of electors causes a massive drain on imperial authority, and the emperor is consistently a weak nation, the Holy Roman Empire is essentially broken. Finally Brandenburg gets the title and they at least seem to be able to keep it, even though they are so often at war electors only gradually start to reappear. So... on a semi-related note the Lancaster line propagated through Austria, to Brandenburg. Now, I know you may think you know where this is going, but wait. I am notified that Brandenburg is about enter into a personal union as a leading partner but I have the right to challenge it since we have the same dynasty and I have way more prestige. Now, what country did Brandenburg royal marriage and get into a Personal Union? What country can I fight them for? Russia. Cue the power mad laughter.
So, now I have all of the British isles, France, the netherlands, most of northern Italy, all of the North American coastline save the Caribbean, and now Russia under my control. I think... I think I've won? Should I just... should I just attack everything?
basically, eu3 for 3 bucks
worth getting as a hold out in the future for when I feel like diving deep in a game like that, or should I just wait a bit longer for a good steam sale on eu4?
Stop looking at the sky!
Anyways, after that I spent the next 60 or so years colonizing, forming a federation, and getting into the occasional war. (Native American manpower pools don't start off very great, so wars are pretty brutal.) By the time I got to admin tech 4 and could start really exploring the Spanish and Portuguese were already in the Caribbean. (They got there quicker than they usually do.) I colonized part of Cuba next to Spain to be able to reform my government and eventually westernize, and naturally this led to the Spanish to decide to declare war on me. I got off pretty light, I managed to get them to go away by just giving them all of my money. A decade or two later I was able to westernize, I hit the button and... whoo boy.
The new westernization mechanic is brutal. First off there's the revolt risk. Five revolt risk doesn't seem like much at first, it's not enough to really make a big difference with all of the negative revolt risk modifiers you usually have in a province. But when you add in the westernization events that lower stability, legitimacy, or just randomly spawn rebels/increase revolt risk nationwide and it becomes an nightmare(Also, as a pagan country there's a big incentive to take the option to convert to Catholicism or some other branch of Christianity so that the Europeans stop bothering you so much, and the complete lack of religious unity and having all your provinces suddenly be the wrong religion until you can convert them doesn't help with revolt risk.) Add this to the fact your monarch points are constantly being drained. At first, you can just boost stability when it drops,pl or spend points for harsh treatment on a troublesome, out of the way province. But within ten years due to the natural drain on points caused by westernization and all the bad events that cause you to lose monarch points and soon you're left with nothing. Your stability eventually ends up at negative three and there's nothing you can do about it. At the worst of it, I was getting about three revolts a month of about 20,000 men each, which eventually whittled my manpower down to nothing. All the revolt risk also hamstrings your tax income, so to hire the mercenaries I eventually needed to fight off the hundreds of thousands of rebels I had to go several thousand gold in debt, and this is as a huge nation with a massive default tax base, good production, and access to valuable trade routes like the Caribbean. On the plus side you will generally westernize much faster than you would before, but now you have a very real chance of failing. I think I just barely made it by the skin of my teeth. A couple dozen more loans might have totally crippled my economy, it took me a couple of decades to pay off my debts as it was.
Anyways, I eventually did successfully westernize by the 1580s, and here is the current situation in the Americas:
As you can see, I've mostly managed to keep the Europeas out of the east coast, although France managed to sneak in a bit of Canada before I could completely close it off. (On the plus side they're now my ally so I don't really mind them being there.) I've also been colonizing a bit in South America because I've heard that Native Americans get some cool unique colonial nation names if they manage to form one. Currently working on finishing sealing off North America from other colonizers, and once I catch up on tech I might use my power and leverage with the French to start enacting payback on the Spanish and Portuguese. Though with the new protectorate system I'll be busy conquering the other native groups for awhile since now that I've westernized I can't vassalize them, only directly annex them.
Is the expansion worth getting now or is it more of 'wait until a sale' kind of thing?
I like the look of it. It seems to contain a few things that I looked for in the vanilla game - privateers and instigating conflict between rivals for a start
(Specifically - American Dream DLC, Call to Arms DLC, Pre-Order Pack DLC, Digital Extreme Upgrade Pack DLC)
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
In which you could vassalize half the electors, "lose" a war to someone Orthodox, convert yourself, then demand conversion from everyone else in the empire and pass the final reform in like 1450.
The Ottomans are scary you guys.
My opening move was to attack Adal using a mission, but they unfortunately allied Hedjaz almost immediately. Luckily my king turned out to be a 3/5/3/0 commander and since Hedjaz could only ship over 3 troops at a time I managed to win despite the massive tech and unit type disadvantage. My second Arabian enemy was Yemen, who allied/protectorate-d several of the east African nations. I timed my attacks to when they were fighting Oman, since I knew Oman would have a bigger fleet than Yemen and would keep Yemen's armies safely preoccupied outside of Africa. My third challenge was Kilwa: It had also expanded into neighboring Swahili nations and nabbed several gold mines, and to make matters worse it had also allied with Hedjaz. Luckily they attacked Mutapa, which wore down their army, and also allowed me to enforce peace with them to take several provinces and annul their treaty with Hedjaz, who hadn't been dragged into the war.
What I didn't mention is that this was my third try: Expanding quickly as Ethiopia is possible but pretty hard. You have to conquer Adal pretty quickly or else their alliances will make aggressive expansion a nigh impossibility. (You can ally the Mamelukes in addition to becoming their protectorate, but the Mamelukes will never join your wars.)
Edit: Also Funj just randomly appears from uncolonized provinces around the early 1500s, what's even weirder is that the game both treats the provinces as colonies in that walking across them can trigger native attacks (Although you can't attack any natives.) and provinces (You get full income from the provinces and you can core them.) at the same time. Seems like a bug but it's still interesting.
Things like:
Protectorates
The Western Europe trade node
And by extension, generally handicapping colonization across the board for everyone in Europe who isn't Spain or Portugal (trade range limitations leaving the Dutch in the dust, and making fleet basing rights not give colonial range)
flip flopping on AE calculations and coalitions
Great power modifier (which basically makes the AI always hate the player because even OPM think they're great powers)
Making vassals wayyyy more willing to rebel
ETA: forgot! Flip flopping on whether vassal feeding is a valid tactic (I think we landed on something looser than, if core=yes then buy. But its now a whole set of variables that I don't think are reflected any where now.)
There's been a lot of good stuff added in 1.5 too (especially the new army/general tooltips), but I've been hard pressed to find any examples of WHY most of these things were added (aside from the coalition stuff). But from the players perspective it just seems to be there to make the game more punishing (and I think a lot of people feel like this about the Colonial nations as well since they remove power from the player but I don't mind). This stuff combined with the fact that Johann has stated that he doesn't really want to add any internal management of your realm is just turning the game into: Go to War, everyone gets mad at you, fast forward, repeat.
They've been announcing the new WoN stuff. And have unleashed another shit-storm by announcing that they've added an Auto-Add Papal influence point mechanic that is only available with the DLC. I really don't know if Paradox is just trying to antagonize their fanbase at this point.
Anyways here's the other dev diaries: