So EU IV is on sale during the Steam Summer Sale and thinking of finally taking the plunge. I mean, I love Crusader Kings and quite like Stellaris, surely I'll be able to figure out this game as well?
But... 160 bucks worth of DLC? Bit too rich for my blood. Can anyone give me a quick rundown on which ones are particularly worthwhile?
The DLC situation is a real mess. I've been trying to figure out the best way forward without buying everything as well. I've played all of the DLC thanks to my friend having all of them (and multiplayer games use the host's DLC setup) but it's really hard to discern what features come from what DLCs.
Here's my personal breakdown from what I've gleaned:
Art of War: EU4 is very much a war-time game and the options here are critical. Completely revolutionizes the ways you can wage war.
Common Sense: Enables a completely different style of building up your nation through development. Playing "tall" (small nation, but strong) is impossible without this DLC. To be frank though... without the bonuses/customization options from many other DLCs playing a satisfying "tall" game is questionable with only this DLC. Regardless the DLC remains valuable. Developing your nation may not always be the strongest possible move but it adds a lot of flexibility and possibilities.
Rights of Man: Adds a lot of character to the game with personality traits for your leaders and the AI. Nice quality of life changes.
Wealth of Nations: Large trade-based gameplay improvements and expansions. A weaker pack but great for value due to the price being half a normal DLC. There are some versions of the game that come with this and Res Publica packed in.
The first two are pretty critical. The options they enable... they're almost insultingly important to the game at this point. Like the ability to build up your provinces (A Common Sense expansion perk) is so fundamental that it seems crazy that it is part of a DLC.
Here's my comments on the other ones but I want to warn here that I just don't really understand these as well:
Mandate of Heaven: I dithered on putting this up in the top four. A double edged sword for games in Asia. It adds core mechanic around the empire of china but the mechanics introduced tend to create an empire of china the never falls and completely dead-locks the entire continent through their "tributary system". However I really find the "Ages" system fun. Ages are ~100 year periods that come with mini-goals. Mini-goals give points that give unique bonuses for the remainder of the Age. Pursuing these bonuses can be fulfilling and the bonuses are nice.
The Cossacks: Adds factional "Estates" that exist and vie for power in your nation. They're a bit simple but appeasing and exploiting their strengths as a little mini-game can be interesting and beneficial.
Mare Nostrum: Adds a bunch of quality of life naval improvements. Naval gameplay is sort of weak in EU4 and the improvements make it a bit better but don't really address core issues?
Res Publica I started with this DLC and I literally have no idea what it does. It's only 2.49$ with the sale but as the oldest DLC many of its features have probably been bulldozed by changes to the game.
El Dorado/Conquest of Paradise: These rework many of the colonization systems and add unique gameplay for native American tribes. They also allow for you to make "Custom Nations" which can have unique national perks/bonuses and you can carve up their starting territory. I haven't played around with the new colonization and I haven't done much with custom nations so these two packs are the most unknown to me.
I started with Wealth of Nations and Res Publica. I already have Common Sense and Art of War from a recent sale. I was thinking about picking up Rights of Man and The Cossacks during this summer sale. The only thing holding me back is that I am a bit burnt out on the game at the moment.
edit: As a note I did not include any of the "Content Packs" as these are quite literally images, models and music added to the game for armies, advisors, and nations in certain regions. To be completely honest I rarely zoom-in enough to notice the difference between muslim soldiers and europeans. Adding a bunch of other model swaps from these content packs doesn't quite appeal. They are pretty cheap though.
The other un-mentioned DLC is the newest one: The Third Rome. The Third Rome is an "immersion pack" which is a whole new criteria of an expansion pack. It's not a full expansion pack and mostly focuses on the Orthodox Christianity religion and reworking various Russian nations. I would revisit purchasing it if you enjoyed the game and were considering a Russian campaign. It's not on sale right now.
Brittany should be easy to destroy as France since they're geographically isolated from their allies and their capital should be just across the border
Don't be scared of loans, you can avoid some of the costs associated with hiring mercs if you consolidate them right after a battle instead of paying to replace them
I was like this when I first started. But loans are the greatest. Loans are how you turn a small nation into a big nation and a big nation into an unstoppable nation. Wars are costly, but if you can be quick about them, you can quite often make all the money you spent back and then some. There's no hard and fast rule to this stuff, but experiment with mercs more. If you're in a war that you know is going to be pretty bloody, throw some mercs into your armies from the beginning. And buy more as the war drags on. Take on more loans, no big deal. Ask for lots of money as part of the peace deal. Money is usually cheap in terms of warscore. If you're fighting multiple countries, make sure you peace them out separately. You probably don't want to grab land from non-belligerents, because it's expensive, and coalitions will be angry, but you can take lots of money that way and make countries break their alliances, which makes for easier pickings later. Also, make countries end rivalries. Good way to farm prestige. Even when I'm playing pretty casually, I'll often take out 10-15 loans at a time, especially in the early game. And if you're really pushing the envelope, 40+ loans is not too outrageous. Granted, you have to know what you're doing to keep that kind off debt from spiraling out of control, but the point is, don't be afraid of loans. They're arguably one of the strongest tools in your toolbox.
El Dorado and Conquest of Paradise are essential if you plan to either play as a native or as a European colonizer of the Americas. Random New World adds tons of life to the game as well.
I checked out around Mandate of Heaven and never picked up Rights of Man, though, so I don't know if those are "essential" nowadays.
EU4 recently got a price hike, and the discounts don't go below 50% anymore for most of the content. I have no idea what they're thinking.
That said, if this is your kind of game, you'll still get value out of it. If you have 1000 hours to throw at this game, it'll happily eat them up and leave you with still plenty of new things to try and do if you want.
So if neither money nor time are objects for you, or if you just want to buy one game for the rest of the year, by all means jump in. I'd stress caution if those things aren't true for you though.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
The "price hike" was a fix for the changing value of certain currencies (the Ruble being one of them) and not any sort of Steam sale shenanigans. It notably didn't affect the price in USD. Oh and they rolled the price back and implemented some sort of compensation system to those affected. So basically a whole lot of nothing.
The "price hike" was a fix for the changing value of certain currencies (the Ruble being one of them) and not any sort of Steam sale shenanigans. It notably didn't affect the price in USD. Oh and they rolled the price back and implemented some sort of compensation system to those affected. So basically a whole lot of nothing.
They didn't roll the prices back on Steam. Said explicitly that they could not due to the Steam summer sales.
Frankly, I think that Paradox's DLC system is going off the rails. That being said, shitting on their reviews because of a price hike seems like total garbage too. Game reviews shouldn't be about a company's policies; they should be about the product. Steam reviewers should obviously be required to take a course on ethics in game journalism before being able to file reviews.
I admit it was certainly bad optics on their part, but it was also a tremendous overreaction from a small segment of the community. I had forgotten that they couldn't change the price on Steam (presumably because the sale is going on), but they did mention they were looking into ways to compensate people affected by the price change.
I'm not sure what other approach Paradox can take with their games. People want more features and options and expansions, and that is obviously going to cost money. If they don't do paid expansions, then development is going to have to stop because they couldn't afford it. I guess they could stop at some point and start working on the next game in the series, but I don't see how that would be better for the players. Frankly, I find their DLC system to be pretty reasonable. Every expansion comes with a host of free features, and there is always a patch between expansions that usually is a balancing pass. They regularly put their DLC on sale, though eventually even on sale it ends up being pretty darn expensive to get all the DLC for one of their games. Perhaps they should do compilation packs of older DLC + the base game to make it cheaper for new players to get started, but that's a fairly minor quibble I think. What other (realistic) approach do people think Paradox should take?
I do think they've gone pretty DLC-happy. It's great that the games continue getting attention and updates post-release, but counting just the DLC that labels itself as "expansion" there's $200 CAD of DLC, on top of the $50 base game, in just under 4 years
Personally, I'd prefer to buy some DLC than to buy EU5 then EU6 and so on. It allows them to iteratively improve the game, rather than need to justify a new one that wouldn't be significantly different. It also means I can pick and choose which parts are important to me. Don't want to play as Russia or Eastern Orthodox Christians? Then skip that DLC. Love playing in Asia? Grab Mandate of Heaven, skip El Dorado.
Obviously I'd rather if they released it all for free, but realistically I think this is a good way to do it.
At some point they'll have to release eu5 if just to trim the fat and remake the UI with all the new buttons they've added in. Also I think it would be a good idea for them to start integrating expansion dlc that's more than two years old into the main game.
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
I suppose a good player is willing to get into debt if they can manage to make it pay off significantly? I err too much on the side of caution to take on debt. It's only ever a last resort.
I suppose a good player is willing to get into debt if they can manage to make it pay off significantly? I err too much on the side of caution to take on debt. It's only ever a last resort.
After you've grown to a certain size, it basically becomes impossible for you to go bankrupt (you could say "too big to fail")
The only question is whether you can snowball fast enough
I may be in the minority here, but Paradox could double the price for their DLC, and I'd still buy it all and call it just about the best value in gaming. No other game that I've personally played even approaches EU4 in terms of enjoyment and time spent enjoying per dollar. And that's without even considering getting the DLC on sale. Bring on more DLC, I say.
I was like this when I first started. But loans are the greatest. Loans are how you turn a small nation into a big nation and a big nation into an unstoppable nation. Wars are costly, but if you can be quick about them, you can quite often make all the money you spent back and then some. There's no hard and fast rule to this stuff, but experiment with mercs more. If you're in a war that you know is going to be pretty bloody, throw some mercs into your armies from the beginning. And buy more as the war drags on. Take on more loans, no big deal. Ask for lots of money as part of the peace deal. Money is usually cheap in terms of warscore. If you're fighting multiple countries, make sure you peace them out separately. You probably don't want to grab land from non-belligerents, because it's expensive, and coalitions will be angry, but you can take lots of money that way and make countries break their alliances, which makes for easier pickings later. Also, make countries end rivalries. Good way to farm prestige. Even when I'm playing pretty casually, I'll often take out 10-15 loans at a time, especially in the early game. And if you're really pushing the envelope, 40+ loans is not too outrageous. Granted, you have to know what you're doing to keep that kind off debt from spiraling out of control, but the point is, don't be afraid of loans. They're arguably one of the strongest tools in your toolbox.
I'd like to say that this is very good advice
There is definitely a potential that taking too many loans will make you enter a downwards spiral, but in my personal experience those spirals tend to happen when you start treating loans as an infinite money well
The statement that loans are what allows a small nation to become a big nation is important
I may be in the minority here, but Paradox could double the price for their DLC, and I'd still buy it all and call it just about the best value in gaming. No other game that I've personally played even approaches EU4 in terms of enjoyment and time spent enjoying per dollar. And that's without even considering getting the DLC on sale. Bring on more DLC, I say.
I've bought basically every eu4 dlc for full price on release day, but I absolutely feel the pain of someone just trying to get into the game now and being buried under the weight of $20 dlc expansions
My friend is working on a roguelike game you can play if you want to. (It has free demo)
I may be in the minority here, but Paradox could double the price for their DLC, and I'd still buy it all and call it just about the best value in gaming. No other game that I've personally played even approaches EU4 in terms of enjoyment and time spent enjoying per dollar. And that's without even considering getting the DLC on sale. Bring on more DLC, I say.
I've bought basically every eu4 dlc for full price on release day, but I absolutely feel the pain of someone just trying to get into the game now and being buried under the weight of $20 dlc expansions
True. I definitely recommend newer players pick up the base game and a couple DLC when they're on sale, then slowly build out their collection from there. I think that's how most people do it anyway.
In my opinion the base game is enough for checking the game out, I bounced off pretty hard at first and then returned to it after few months
Some of the expansions may seem light on content to new players because half of the new mechanics are usually part of the free patch anyway
Yeah, that's probably true. It took me two or three concerted attempts to get into the game as well. And then it dug its hooks in deep. Honestly, the past six months that I've spent sucked into EU4, I've been spending way less on other games. The DLC has paid for itself and then some.
Bought EU IV and some of the DLC that looked interesting enough.
Question, though: Where I can view other country's military strength? Crusader Kings 2 let you see other realm's troop strength, which makes it easier to decide to attack or not. Does EU IV has something similar, or is that hidden information and you'll only find out by attacking?
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Bought EU IV and some of the DLC that looked interesting enough.
Question, though: Where I can view other country's military strength? Crusader Kings 2 let you see other realm's troop strength, which makes it easier to decide to attack or not. Does EU IV has something similar, or is that hidden information and you'll only find out by attacking?
That information (and oh so much more) is located in the Ledger. Press L or find the icon along the bottom of the screen.
My Russia game is going pretty great, though I'm not playing as often as I'd like. Been allied with Commonwealth most of the game, both of us rivaled the Ottos, and at this point, the three of us are the only real superpowers. Around 1575, Commonwealth declared on Ottomans and called me in, which I declined. Broke that alliance. Waited about five years and declared on Ottomans separately. I had already taken over all of Timurids and Persia, so I was able to invade Ottomans from the south while Commonwealth kept them busy up north. Got 100% warscore and took as much territory as I could, then immediately broke truce with Commonwealth and took a big chunk of land from them. And now it's basically just a matter of blobbing until I get bored. Russia is REALLY strong this patch, as might be expected.
I'm coming close to the end of a colonialist Japan game. I've been trying to conquer the southeast pacific but fighting Ming, who has made like literally everyone a tributary, is a huge pain. My fleet is superior but they have a ludicrous number of troops so I end up have to wait for ticking warscore.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I'm coming close to the end of a colonialist Japan game. I've been trying to conquer the southeast pacific but fighting Ming, who has made like literally everyone a tributary, is a huge pain. My fleet is superior but they have a ludicrous number of troops so I end up have to wait for ticking warscore.
Take one side of the Straits of Jahore, blockade it, and watch attrition kill their entire army. It's good times.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I'm coming close to the end of a colonialist Japan game. I've been trying to conquer the southeast pacific but fighting Ming, who has made like literally everyone a tributary, is a huge pain. My fleet is superior but they have a ludicrous number of troops so I end up have to wait for ticking warscore.
My main issue with Ming is that a player-controlled horde can implode and roll over them before 1500, but taking the Mandate as a non-horde nation is such a long and convoluted process
If you're lucky, AI Russia will eventually touch Ming's border and tank their Mandate
Ooh I had no idea that Russia and Muscovy had different ideas now. That's really interesting. I am hysterically (and historically) bad at judging what makes an idea set good, but Muscovy looks nice early on with that shock bonus and extra diplomatic relation, but I think long term Russia pulls ahead with the AE reduction and coring reduction, plus that spiffy artillery bonus.
So now that I have expressed my undoubtedly hugely flawed initial opinion, one of the experts can chime in on what makes the Muscovite ideas attractive past the early stages of the game. Taxes, morale and the boost to diplo rep?
Did you keep Muscovite Ideas or did you take the Russian Ideas
I'm unsure which I would pick personally
I took Russian, for flavor as much as anything. But I'd personally pick them while min-maxing as well. Core cost reduction is always a big plus for me, especially in a game as blobby as Russia. Mini-quantity is nice too, of course. But I think the quality of late game Russian armies shot up a ton this patch due to +10% artillery combat ability and -10% fire damage received. My armies are punching quite a bit above their weight class, compared to previous patches. Combined with the manpower and force limit modifiers, you can be really flexible in your military idea picks, which is nice. Personally, I think it's one of the top tier idea sets. But I'm certainly no expert.
Whenever I start a solo game I tend to go for an achievement of some sort. This game's goal was two-fold: "Bengal Tiger" and "The Sun Never Sets on the Indian Empire" achievement. Good excuses to launch into the Indian sub-continent!
It's been a relatively smooth ride. As I had to start as Bengal to get the Bengal Tiger achievement I expanded out from the delta and I've made a nice Hindustan. You can see my very recent land-grab of Canton (I picked up most of the state) from the ever monstrous Ming.
With Cape, Canton and India itself the only real barriers to my achievement are french-held Canada (I haven't even discovered the goal province for the achievement...!) and of course London. London is naturally in the hands of Great Britain although hilariously enough Scotland became powerful enough to master all of the English lands and created Great Britain on their own.
I started my colonization early and I have crept over from Califor- erm, Calinda rather all the way across to the east coast of North America!
One of the most bothersome things in this game has been the accumulation of Absolutism. I don't have Mandate of Heaven which means I can't fulfill/benefit from Age Objectives. Generating up to your maximum without the +1 yearly absolutism bonus from the splendor bonus is practically impossible. You have to expend vast amounts of military power on Harsh Treatment (without the half-off cost from the other splendor power...) to feasibly make it. I have tried to exploit the full power of lowering autonomy but the restriction of only lowering it in State-Provinces is very limiting. I think most European powers could make up for this by using Trade Companies (which have no autonomy floor despite not being states) to create provinces with manipulable autonomy. As an Asian power however I can only create Trade Companies in Africa. African trade companies are highly limited to only the coastlines and Madagascar so you just don't have that many provinces to work with. The new Aristocratic Ideas bonus of +.1 absolutism yearly has been nice... but if you actually calculate it out that's like 15-20 absolutism by the end of the game. It pulls a fair amount of weight for a single idea but it's not close to enough to offset the Splendor powers.
I don't know, I have MoH and I think the +1 Yearly Absolutism bonus is really weak
In my last campaign it took me less than ten years to trigger Court and Country and then you can pick Hardline Centralization Attempts and you should be at 70-80% when you exit the disaster
Ah, I didn't try to farm the Court and Country disaster. It does seem to be pretty worth it given your country is relatively robust and capable of enduring some disruption. I knew that it improved your max absolutism with the right choices but I didn't realize it affected absolutism itself...
I mean if you can get some age objectives going you can get like +80 from 80 years of Age of Absolutism for free. That's pretty solid income for basically nothing. The disaster does come at some cost although I don't really understand how much.
edit: Wow, it takes 50 absolutism to even get to Court and Country? I think I have like 62-70 in that screenshot...
Absolutism is definitely an awkward mechanic and so is everything about the Court and Country disaster, since you have to get your unrest above 1 to trigger it you might have to take over 100% Overextension if you stacked -Unrest modifiers
The disaster can very well resemble a controlled explosion of your country with rebels popping everywhere, in that regard it reminds me a lot of the old Westernization
I would say the most important tool for managing Absolutism is actually the Strengthen Government feature from the Rights of Man DLC, since it's always 100 Mil = 2 Absolutism and max absolutism is tied to Legitimacy
In some ways you find yourself hoping you can get a weak or average claim heir and then convert mil points into absolutism, but what also works is entering marriages for the legitimacy dip
One thing which is also useful in managing absolutism is to raise autonomy 20 years before the age starts and lower it afterwards, unfortunately this means the game can punish you for having -Autonomy modifiers
It's a very awkward mechanic which requires gamey strategies
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But... 160 bucks worth of DLC? Bit too rich for my blood. Can anyone give me a quick rundown on which ones are particularly worthwhile?
Here's my personal breakdown from what I've gleaned:
The first two are pretty critical. The options they enable... they're almost insultingly important to the game at this point. Like the ability to build up your provinces (A Common Sense expansion perk) is so fundamental that it seems crazy that it is part of a DLC.
Here's my comments on the other ones but I want to warn here that I just don't really understand these as well:
I started with Wealth of Nations and Res Publica. I already have Common Sense and Art of War from a recent sale. I was thinking about picking up Rights of Man and The Cossacks during this summer sale. The only thing holding me back is that I am a bit burnt out on the game at the moment.
edit: As a note I did not include any of the "Content Packs" as these are quite literally images, models and music added to the game for armies, advisors, and nations in certain regions. To be completely honest I rarely zoom-in enough to notice the difference between muslim soldiers and europeans. Adding a bunch of other model swaps from these content packs doesn't quite appeal. They are pretty cheap though.
The other un-mentioned DLC is the newest one: The Third Rome. The Third Rome is an "immersion pack" which is a whole new criteria of an expansion pack. It's not a full expansion pack and mostly focuses on the Orthodox Christianity religion and reworking various Russian nations. I would revisit purchasing it if you enjoyed the game and were considering a Russian campaign. It's not on sale right now.
Don't be scared of loans, you can avoid some of the costs associated with hiring mercs if you consolidate them right after a battle instead of paying to replace them
I was like this when I first started. But loans are the greatest. Loans are how you turn a small nation into a big nation and a big nation into an unstoppable nation. Wars are costly, but if you can be quick about them, you can quite often make all the money you spent back and then some. There's no hard and fast rule to this stuff, but experiment with mercs more. If you're in a war that you know is going to be pretty bloody, throw some mercs into your armies from the beginning. And buy more as the war drags on. Take on more loans, no big deal. Ask for lots of money as part of the peace deal. Money is usually cheap in terms of warscore. If you're fighting multiple countries, make sure you peace them out separately. You probably don't want to grab land from non-belligerents, because it's expensive, and coalitions will be angry, but you can take lots of money that way and make countries break their alliances, which makes for easier pickings later. Also, make countries end rivalries. Good way to farm prestige. Even when I'm playing pretty casually, I'll often take out 10-15 loans at a time, especially in the early game. And if you're really pushing the envelope, 40+ loans is not too outrageous. Granted, you have to know what you're doing to keep that kind off debt from spiraling out of control, but the point is, don't be afraid of loans. They're arguably one of the strongest tools in your toolbox.
Sounds like a problem for the future. Gotta spend those ducats.
I checked out around Mandate of Heaven and never picked up Rights of Man, though, so I don't know if those are "essential" nowadays.
EU4 recently got a price hike, and the discounts don't go below 50% anymore for most of the content. I have no idea what they're thinking.
That said, if this is your kind of game, you'll still get value out of it. If you have 1000 hours to throw at this game, it'll happily eat them up and leave you with still plenty of new things to try and do if you want.
So if neither money nor time are objects for you, or if you just want to buy one game for the rest of the year, by all means jump in. I'd stress caution if those things aren't true for you though.
They didn't roll the prices back on Steam. Said explicitly that they could not due to the Steam summer sales.
Frankly, I think that Paradox's DLC system is going off the rails. That being said, shitting on their reviews because of a price hike seems like total garbage too. Game reviews shouldn't be about a company's policies; they should be about the product. Steam reviewers should obviously be required to take a course on ethics in game journalism before being able to file reviews.
I'm not sure what other approach Paradox can take with their games. People want more features and options and expansions, and that is obviously going to cost money. If they don't do paid expansions, then development is going to have to stop because they couldn't afford it. I guess they could stop at some point and start working on the next game in the series, but I don't see how that would be better for the players. Frankly, I find their DLC system to be pretty reasonable. Every expansion comes with a host of free features, and there is always a patch between expansions that usually is a balancing pass. They regularly put their DLC on sale, though eventually even on sale it ends up being pretty darn expensive to get all the DLC for one of their games. Perhaps they should do compilation packs of older DLC + the base game to make it cheaper for new players to get started, but that's a fairly minor quibble I think. What other (realistic) approach do people think Paradox should take?
Obviously I'd rather if they released it all for free, but realistically I think this is a good way to do it.
I suppose a good player is willing to get into debt if they can manage to make it pay off significantly? I err too much on the side of caution to take on debt. It's only ever a last resort.
A lot more money in publishing.
After you've grown to a certain size, it basically becomes impossible for you to go bankrupt (you could say "too big to fail")
The only question is whether you can snowball fast enough
I'd like to say that this is very good advice
There is definitely a potential that taking too many loans will make you enter a downwards spiral, but in my personal experience those spirals tend to happen when you start treating loans as an infinite money well
The statement that loans are what allows a small nation to become a big nation is important
I've bought basically every eu4 dlc for full price on release day, but I absolutely feel the pain of someone just trying to get into the game now and being buried under the weight of $20 dlc expansions
True. I definitely recommend newer players pick up the base game and a couple DLC when they're on sale, then slowly build out their collection from there. I think that's how most people do it anyway.
Some of the expansions may seem light on content to new players because half of the new mechanics are usually part of the free patch anyway
Yeah, that's probably true. It took me two or three concerted attempts to get into the game as well. And then it dug its hooks in deep. Honestly, the past six months that I've spent sucked into EU4, I've been spending way less on other games. The DLC has paid for itself and then some.
Question, though: Where I can view other country's military strength? Crusader Kings 2 let you see other realm's troop strength, which makes it easier to decide to attack or not. Does EU IV has something similar, or is that hidden information and you'll only find out by attacking?
That information (and oh so much more) is located in the Ledger. Press L or find the icon along the bottom of the screen.
I'm coming close to the end of a colonialist Japan game. I've been trying to conquer the southeast pacific but fighting Ming, who has made like literally everyone a tributary, is a huge pain. My fleet is superior but they have a ludicrous number of troops so I end up have to wait for ticking warscore.
I'm unsure which I would pick personally
Take one side of the Straits of Jahore, blockade it, and watch attrition kill their entire army. It's good times.
My main issue with Ming is that a player-controlled horde can implode and roll over them before 1500, but taking the Mandate as a non-horde nation is such a long and convoluted process
If you're lucky, AI Russia will eventually touch Ming's border and tank their Mandate
So now that I have expressed my undoubtedly hugely flawed initial opinion, one of the experts can chime in on what makes the Muscovite ideas attractive past the early stages of the game. Taxes, morale and the boost to diplo rep?
They're both very strong idea sets in my opinion
My Najd game is going alright; it's 1706 and I'm the second-place GP with roughly 200 provinces
I feel like the AI is blobbing harder in this game than I've ever seen before?
I suffered several (painfully avoidable) vassal-mismanagement setbacks, which slowed my own blobbing down a lot; oh well
It's just about time to take more provinces from the Ottomans with the help of the Russians
I took Russian, for flavor as much as anything. But I'd personally pick them while min-maxing as well. Core cost reduction is always a big plus for me, especially in a game as blobby as Russia. Mini-quantity is nice too, of course. But I think the quality of late game Russian armies shot up a ton this patch due to +10% artillery combat ability and -10% fire damage received. My armies are punching quite a bit above their weight class, compared to previous patches. Combined with the manpower and force limit modifiers, you can be really flexible in your military idea picks, which is nice. Personally, I think it's one of the top tier idea sets. But I'm certainly no expert.
It's been a relatively smooth ride. As I had to start as Bengal to get the Bengal Tiger achievement I expanded out from the delta and I've made a nice Hindustan. You can see my very recent land-grab of Canton (I picked up most of the state) from the ever monstrous Ming.
I started my colonization early and I have crept over from Califor- erm, Calinda rather all the way across to the east coast of North America!
One of the most bothersome things in this game has been the accumulation of Absolutism. I don't have Mandate of Heaven which means I can't fulfill/benefit from Age Objectives. Generating up to your maximum without the +1 yearly absolutism bonus from the splendor bonus is practically impossible. You have to expend vast amounts of military power on Harsh Treatment (without the half-off cost from the other splendor power...) to feasibly make it. I have tried to exploit the full power of lowering autonomy but the restriction of only lowering it in State-Provinces is very limiting. I think most European powers could make up for this by using Trade Companies (which have no autonomy floor despite not being states) to create provinces with manipulable autonomy. As an Asian power however I can only create Trade Companies in Africa. African trade companies are highly limited to only the coastlines and Madagascar so you just don't have that many provinces to work with. The new Aristocratic Ideas bonus of +.1 absolutism yearly has been nice... but if you actually calculate it out that's like 15-20 absolutism by the end of the game. It pulls a fair amount of weight for a single idea but it's not close to enough to offset the Splendor powers.
In my last campaign it took me less than ten years to trigger Court and Country and then you can pick Hardline Centralization Attempts and you should be at 70-80% when you exit the disaster
I mean if you can get some age objectives going you can get like +80 from 80 years of Age of Absolutism for free. That's pretty solid income for basically nothing. The disaster does come at some cost although I don't really understand how much.
edit: Wow, it takes 50 absolutism to even get to Court and Country? I think I have like 62-70 in that screenshot...
The disaster can very well resemble a controlled explosion of your country with rebels popping everywhere, in that regard it reminds me a lot of the old Westernization
I would say the most important tool for managing Absolutism is actually the Strengthen Government feature from the Rights of Man DLC, since it's always 100 Mil = 2 Absolutism and max absolutism is tied to Legitimacy
In some ways you find yourself hoping you can get a weak or average claim heir and then convert mil points into absolutism, but what also works is entering marriages for the legitimacy dip
One thing which is also useful in managing absolutism is to raise autonomy 20 years before the age starts and lower it afterwards, unfortunately this means the game can punish you for having -Autonomy modifiers
It's a very awkward mechanic which requires gamey strategies