Austrian advisor: Ryuku...
Archduke: Gesundheit.
Austrian advisor: I was trying to say that Ryuku
Archduke: Gesundheit!
Austrian advisor: We've just been insulted by the country of Ryuku...
Archduke: Good god, blow your nose, man!
Ming survived three near-explosions which is a bit silly, they made short work of the rebel stacks despite once even slipping into Civil War - the play which won the other guy the game was vassalizing Ming, feeding them their cores back and then integrating them with all available modifiers (so at -50%)
How he got a 1000+ development Ming vassal to be loyal I don't know, but this meant he didn't have to pay Dip for any province in China, I currently miss about 1800 diplo points which I should have spent on stuff at this point (my parliament also rejected Noble Offices for Vassals at 85% chance to succeed)
My biggest mistake so far was unlocking Humanism before Influence, I could've really used that -50% Unjustified Demands
Rivalling Austria resulted in me being able to ally European powers like France, I kinda regret choosing Hindu over Coptic? Then Humanism before Influence would've made sense and there would still be plenty of time to cheese out a PU over France or another European power
Austrian advisor: Ryuku...
Archduke: Gesundheit.
Austrian advisor: I was trying to say that Ryuku
Archduke: Gesundheit!
Austrian advisor: We've just been insulted by the country of Ryuku...
Archduke: Good god, blow your nose, man!
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
To be completely honest, I think it is easier to go after the Ottomans than go after Muscovy within the first twenty years (I performed the early Otto-kill so many times by now)
The Ottomans quickly start to become stronger than Muscovy however
I grabbed all the expansions in the last steam sale and had a few games. I feel like the Institutions and Estates are really negative additions, and I kinda regret buying those DLCs now. Institutions means playing as anyone but Europe is annoying, and Estates means nothing except you get autonomy in some provinces.
I think if I play any more I'm going to be disabling those, by using an older patch version and dropping the Cossacks DLC.
Estates are hugely useful, I paid off 10k in debt in this Ryukyu campaign just by taking money from the merchants (that was around 19 ducats in monthly interest)
I agree that Estates are very useful. I like getting generals from the nobles, and paying off debt is of course very nice. There are also the nationwide and province bonuses to consider, which can be a nice boost as well.
Institutions are something I am still getting used to, I think once you know how they propagate they really aren't bad, and you can decrease your wait time on their spread significantly. Colonialism popping up in Asia instead of Europe is pretty amusing when it happens, though this generally requires player intervention.
If institutions weren't a thing, I would migrate with Ryukyu to Europe and then join the HRE so I can inherit Burgundy
I'm only half-joking, I migrated with Theodoro into the HRE before
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Insitutions are a good idea that I wish was explained better than "do thing first" or "develop regions so you can get thing". Like wouldn't it be nice if the printing press institution started in China and spread from the far east since they invented it but I guess didn't use it enough to be considered an institution?
Institutions are vastly superior to the old Tech Groups and Westernization systems. Feudalism, which most of the world starts with, also gives you an extra leader out the gate, which means you can now have a general and an admiral from the beginning of the game. They probably need a couple more rounds of balance tweaks, but it's still infinitely better than the pain of Westernizing.
Monarch Points spent on development to score new Institutions winds up being pretty similar to what you'd have spent Westernizing, except you also gain those development points instead of just wasting all the values. Pretty much every RotW nation has a better start now, too, because you have either a 0 or 50% tech penalty at the start of the game at worst.
You do probably want to stack -Dev Cost bonuses, but that's not too hard. You can get -20% from the Economic idea finisher and another -5% from the Merchant's Guild estate, which is usually enough if you have some nice grasslands and farmlands. You can stack a few more from policies and some religions, but those are the easiest ones to get. Embracing Renaissance gives you another -5%, and unless you're a Great Lakes African, it's pretty much the only one you'll develop for before getting that bonus.
Properly managing Estates most definitely supercharges your nation as well. Merchant Republics are now considered bottom-tier governments moreso because of their lack of estates than because of their state province limiter. Not only do estates give you a slew of static bonuses, but you can also use them to ignore Autonomy for the most useful benefit a given province provides. That means you can quickly turn powerful captured provinces into calm and useful lands by increasing autonomy and then handing it over to the best estate choice immediately after state coring. Giving all your centers of trade / estuaries / etc to the Merchant's Guild will skyrocket your Trade Power, too. And you'll always want to be demanding Admin Power from the Clergy.
The only meh DLC recently released is Mare Nostrum. Condotierri can be a little weird, especially when blob powers overuse them. Even still, the additional Espionage options are nice to have.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Basically, in layman's terms, institutions are in general better than the old tech system for anyone outside of Europe because cumultive tech penalties you get are way better, especially with institutions past printing press. Global Trade, Manufactories, and the Enlightenment are all really easy to get no matter where you are.
So, I want to try and go for that Byzantium cheevo. Any tips/suggestions? I found some guides online, but they all seem pretty old and I heard the patches have changed things up quite a bit since then
I would rival the Ottomans, that means you can ally Austria with a Diplomatic Reputation advisor which is a luxury most similar starts don't have
Try to get Poland as well and avoid to fight too many battles - Austria starts with 10% Morale of Armies which means you will have a fair chance of winning battles, but in my experience the Ottomans will still kill more men
In my game, I directed Austria to Edirne while the Ottomans sieged up Morea and Athens first - capturing Edirne meant I was able to block the straits with galleys (you can also siege up all provinces surrounding Edirne but that's not as safe and ZoC rules are especially weird when it is an occupied fort)
If the Ottoman army can only retreat over a few provinces, chances are you can stackwipe them
I have European hyperblobs in my game of a size I've never seen before, Austria and the Blobbenwealth are monstrous (the Commonwealth absorbed all of Muscovy except for a few provinces in Siberia)
My micro gets really, really bad once I have to push these many armies around and fight on so many fronts, I'm worried I'm not only losing too much manpower to attrition but also wasting time by not being as efficient as I could be
I'm toying with the idea of creating a super-march as an attack dog but it would have to be a dead nation with loads of cores, otherwise they might not be growing in power quickly enough
Platy on
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I know that releasing nations are apparently a really good way to blob if one doesn't vassalize, but I haven't ever quite got it down. The last time I tried to make a gigantic vassal was my Spain game to swallow north Africa, which actually worked well for a while, but I really should not have tried to force religion on them BEFORE absorbing on them because grand morrocco had to deal with a bunch of rebellions forever. Also I probably should have absorbed them before giving them like half of North Africa because yeah that would take a long time. Though the real reason I quit was that I started a war with the Ottomans but had units spaced wrong so even though they were fighting in the 30 Years War they had enough to catch me in a bad spot and I was in ironman so I had no good earlier save.
Ottomans are straight up cheaters. Their national traditions are some Mary Sue bullshit, they get the lucky nations buff, and I have a feeling that they have some event they can spam to get free troops. Many times they've been losing horribly, and just shat out tens of thousands of troops that didn't exist a moment before.
Troops they could not afford, nor have the forcelimit for.
AI can go over the forcelimit like a player can and merc limits can get insanely high
In this version even big nations will eventually go bankrupt though once you slap them around enough
[edit]
Once you sit on their provinces, their debt ceiling will go down with their income and if their treasury hits 0, they're bankrupt
It's a mechanic I don't like, but you can use it against the AI
Platy on
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
I find sometimes just winning an expensive war against an AI just to weaken them is enough to insure you can conquer them in a second war, even if you don't take any land. Happened with me and Korea in one of my Japan playthroughs.
Though I still have no idea what the point of humiliate or have them concede defeat is when if I don't want their land I want their money.
Humiliate is a quick way to get your PP up for that sweet +1 to all MPs. You can usually take their money along with it. It's probably best used when jumping a threatening rival while they're in the middle of another big war. You get the PP and can also ensure that they lose the other war they're in, hopefully getting much weaker as a result.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Humiliate is also a useful peace option when you sign a separate peace with a rival - in a separate peace, taking provinces is twice as expensive and you incur additional Aggressive Expansion, so it is often better to take other concessions than territory
Taking provinces in a separate peace is also a huge drain on your diplomatic power
I might give up, there is too much European development in the world locked up in those huge blobs and not enough time to fight them
I wasn't really able to start affecting Europe until the 1750s which kinda led to this situation, I think a European start is still superior to an Asian start by far, especially with how easy it is to score PUs as a Christian country since 1.18
Austria in this game got the Hungary PU, Burgundian Inheritance and then consecutive PUs over Savoy, Great Britain and Scandinavia
To be honest, I think this needs to be rebalanced, the AI tends to disinherit heirs even if it is in danger of falling under a PU (i.e. when they have an old ruler and another nation can just click "Claim Throne")
(And succession wars are still completely one-sided affairs, I think the AI should react better to such massive shifts in power)
Platy on
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
So I think the protect trade UI might be lying to me. It said I would get a net 0.12 loss but it gave me like 0.15 instead
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Wish I had tested this earlier. Went Date and got bored because no one out the jidai in Sengoku Jidai for like five years so I played around with development and protect trade. Dev actually seems like a good thing for a smaller daimyo to do since there's not a lot of ways to make money until you start conquering and the tech upgrades aren't going to be relevant until after someone wins independence.
The trade hint is pretty much completely useless in trade nodes where you're redirecting instead of collecting. I think it's estimating the total value of amount expected to shift, which is only accurate if you have 100% power in the node where you eventually collect, and I don't think it accounts for added value properly.
Additionally, trade is recalculated every month, so the values always change (based on things like shifting AI trade power as a result of moving their ships around / changes in autonomy / buildings being completed / changes in piracy or pirate hunting, changes in total value due to Goods Produced going all over the place as a result of buildings / development / possibly other effects like looting?, etc).
Among other things.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
0
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
Ok no, playing an opm daimyo is not great. For some reason no one decides to start a war around me and everyone has their alliances so I can't attack them because don't even think putting myself through like 20 loans would help. The AI is also not great at pulling me into their wars even when they're right next to me or far enough that they shouldn't worry I would take spoils away. Also, apparently random daimyo after a period of time will get bored doing nothing and declare independence war on Japan for no reason. Last time they at least waited until they or their allies accrued land but now they just do it out of nowhere.
All of the Mongol lords were pretty religiously tolerant. They had to be considering how religiously fractured the mongol tribes were.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It's one of the reasons why the Ottomans get so disgustingly big. As soon as they have some ideas under their belt they get Millets which is a -33% modifier (and incidentally +1 promoted cultures).
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Armies laying siege to forts are now always considered to be attackers when members of the home alliance come knocking to lift the siege. Although you're graced from having to deal with any river crossing penalties in that situation.
AI programmers talk a lot on the EU forums. You can find a bunch of pretty informative (and often very detailed and even technical) posts from former AI programmer Chaingun. The short of it is, the game's AI is massive and complex. Often they'll tweak parameters or rewrite subroutines in order to fix a major issue somewhere else in the world (either an existing one or something added by new features), but the result will be that something somewhere else (hopefully more minor by comparison) breaks down.
Japan's been a known issue for awhile. We're all waiting for an East Asia patch + DLC to fix it up. If they're not focused on it, it's going to keep breaking as their refinement focuses lay elsewhere.
One issue I've seen is that if the AI enters into a bunch of equivalently-powerful blocs, they're going to be extremely reluctant to ever attack each other. This is actually quite rational behavior and usually isn't a problem because most of the world is inherently imbalanced. It can be an issue in some isolated cases, though.
Also, for AI to join battles now, you have to either give them favors or promise them land. If they don't want land then you have to give favors. It takes ten years from the start of the game to accumulate enough favors (without being called into wars anyway) to call a nation into your offensive war. So, those first ten years tend to be filled with the AI just focusing on absorbing all the tiny states and generally avoiding major conflicts.
A player can muck with this in various ways, like shifting around your rivals and your own alliances to force blocs to move about. It can be a weird puzzle sometimes, and there isn't always a solution. Of course you can also always take 15 loans, merc up, and bludgeon your larger neighbors into submission, then take their money to repay the loans. But there is still a ceiling on what you can pull off with that method.
I still see Japan tending to unite, but perhaps it's because of self-destructive independence declarations that lead to bloc implosions.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
-75% Coring Cost would be super-powerful but then again in my Ryukyu game I could've easily cored or integrated the whole world, the problem in the end was more in having the time to siege up multiple 2500+ development blobs and getting them to 100% warscore
My plan was to leave Austria to the end and then repeatedly truce-break them but I was already so burnt out after taking so much time breaking up the Commonwealth
Somehow this made me really reconsider the value of having RCC in your NIs
Posts
It's not like they picked Exploration, they're on the other side of the world
Archduke: Gesundheit.
Austrian advisor: I was trying to say that Ryuku
Archduke: Gesundheit!
Austrian advisor: We've just been insulted by the country of Ryuku...
Archduke: Good god, blow your nose, man!
How he got a 1000+ development Ming vassal to be loyal I don't know, but this meant he didn't have to pay Dip for any province in China, I currently miss about 1800 diplo points which I should have spent on stuff at this point (my parliament also rejected Noble Offices for Vassals at 85% chance to succeed)
My biggest mistake so far was unlocking Humanism before Influence, I could've really used that -50% Unjustified Demands
Rivalling Austria resulted in me being able to ally European powers like France, I kinda regret choosing Hindu over Coptic? Then Humanism before Influence would've made sense and there would still be plenty of time to cheese out a PU over France or another European power
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
The Ottomans quickly start to become stronger than Muscovy however
I think if I play any more I'm going to be disabling those, by using an older patch version and dropping the Cossacks DLC.
Institutions are something I am still getting used to, I think once you know how they propagate they really aren't bad, and you can decrease your wait time on their spread significantly. Colonialism popping up in Asia instead of Europe is pretty amusing when it happens, though this generally requires player intervention.
I'm only half-joking, I migrated with Theodoro into the HRE before
Monarch Points spent on development to score new Institutions winds up being pretty similar to what you'd have spent Westernizing, except you also gain those development points instead of just wasting all the values. Pretty much every RotW nation has a better start now, too, because you have either a 0 or 50% tech penalty at the start of the game at worst.
You do probably want to stack -Dev Cost bonuses, but that's not too hard. You can get -20% from the Economic idea finisher and another -5% from the Merchant's Guild estate, which is usually enough if you have some nice grasslands and farmlands. You can stack a few more from policies and some religions, but those are the easiest ones to get. Embracing Renaissance gives you another -5%, and unless you're a Great Lakes African, it's pretty much the only one you'll develop for before getting that bonus.
Properly managing Estates most definitely supercharges your nation as well. Merchant Republics are now considered bottom-tier governments moreso because of their lack of estates than because of their state province limiter. Not only do estates give you a slew of static bonuses, but you can also use them to ignore Autonomy for the most useful benefit a given province provides. That means you can quickly turn powerful captured provinces into calm and useful lands by increasing autonomy and then handing it over to the best estate choice immediately after state coring. Giving all your centers of trade / estuaries / etc to the Merchant's Guild will skyrocket your Trade Power, too. And you'll always want to be demanding Admin Power from the Clergy.
The only meh DLC recently released is Mare Nostrum. Condotierri can be a little weird, especially when blob powers overuse them. Even still, the additional Espionage options are nice to have.
I would rival the Ottomans, that means you can ally Austria with a Diplomatic Reputation advisor which is a luxury most similar starts don't have
Try to get Poland as well and avoid to fight too many battles - Austria starts with 10% Morale of Armies which means you will have a fair chance of winning battles, but in my experience the Ottomans will still kill more men
In my game, I directed Austria to Edirne while the Ottomans sieged up Morea and Athens first - capturing Edirne meant I was able to block the straits with galleys (you can also siege up all provinces surrounding Edirne but that's not as safe and ZoC rules are especially weird when it is an occupied fort)
If the Ottoman army can only retreat over a few provinces, chances are you can stackwipe them
Really, really should've gone Coptic I guess?
I'm toying with the idea of creating a super-march as an attack dog but it would have to be a dead nation with loads of cores, otherwise they might not be growing in power quickly enough
Troops they could not afford, nor have the forcelimit for.
In this version even big nations will eventually go bankrupt though once you slap them around enough
[edit]
Once you sit on their provinces, their debt ceiling will go down with their income and if their treasury hits 0, they're bankrupt
It's a mechanic I don't like, but you can use it against the AI
Though I still have no idea what the point of humiliate or have them concede defeat is when if I don't want their land I want their money.
Taking provinces in a separate peace is also a huge drain on your diplomatic power
Bringing democracy and plutocracy on the backs of horses just seems hilarious.
I wasn't really able to start affecting Europe until the 1750s which kinda led to this situation, I think a European start is still superior to an Asian start by far, especially with how easy it is to score PUs as a Christian country since 1.18
Austria in this game got the Hungary PU, Burgundian Inheritance and then consecutive PUs over Savoy, Great Britain and Scandinavia
To be honest, I think this needs to be rebalanced, the AI tends to disinherit heirs even if it is in danger of falling under a PU (i.e. when they have an old ruler and another nation can just click "Claim Throne")
(And succession wars are still completely one-sided affairs, I think the AI should react better to such massive shifts in power)
Additionally, trade is recalculated every month, so the values always change (based on things like shifting AI trade power as a result of moving their ships around / changes in autonomy / buildings being completed / changes in piracy or pirate hunting, changes in total value due to Goods Produced going all over the place as a result of buildings / development / possibly other effects like looting?, etc).
Among other things.
I really do think they've made the Japan sengoku AI dumber and dumber as time goes on. Declare war against each other you fucking pieces of shit.
edit: Also wow. That's a lot of angry Dutch
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
It seems like this would even be possible in Ironman
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
(But then you're playing Coptomans)
Also no one wars still. Everyone keeps waiting for an independence war. Why did they change how the AI was from before?
AI programmers talk a lot on the EU forums. You can find a bunch of pretty informative (and often very detailed and even technical) posts from former AI programmer Chaingun. The short of it is, the game's AI is massive and complex. Often they'll tweak parameters or rewrite subroutines in order to fix a major issue somewhere else in the world (either an existing one or something added by new features), but the result will be that something somewhere else (hopefully more minor by comparison) breaks down.
Japan's been a known issue for awhile. We're all waiting for an East Asia patch + DLC to fix it up. If they're not focused on it, it's going to keep breaking as their refinement focuses lay elsewhere.
One issue I've seen is that if the AI enters into a bunch of equivalently-powerful blocs, they're going to be extremely reluctant to ever attack each other. This is actually quite rational behavior and usually isn't a problem because most of the world is inherently imbalanced. It can be an issue in some isolated cases, though.
Also, for AI to join battles now, you have to either give them favors or promise them land. If they don't want land then you have to give favors. It takes ten years from the start of the game to accumulate enough favors (without being called into wars anyway) to call a nation into your offensive war. So, those first ten years tend to be filled with the AI just focusing on absorbing all the tiny states and generally avoiding major conflicts.
A player can muck with this in various ways, like shifting around your rivals and your own alliances to force blocs to move about. It can be a weird puzzle sometimes, and there isn't always a solution. Of course you can also always take 15 loans, merc up, and bludgeon your larger neighbors into submission, then take their money to repay the loans. But there is still a ceiling on what you can pull off with that method.
I still see Japan tending to unite, but perhaps it's because of self-destructive independence declarations that lead to bloc implosions.
My plan was to leave Austria to the end and then repeatedly truce-break them but I was already so burnt out after taking so much time breaking up the Commonwealth
Somehow this made me really reconsider the value of having RCC in your NIs