Releasing Byzantium as a vassal will give you a *bunch* of cores to reclaim. That's probably a comparatively easy WC run.
Pretty much all of Byzantium's cores were eaten up by Hungary, who I then got a PU over. And having done a WC once, I don't really intend to do it again, once it's about halfway done it gets very boring.
What would people recommend I do about trade in this game? As the Commonwealth I'm strong in Novgorod and the Baltics, but Constantinople is a wealthier hub, so I'm not sure which to focus on.
Honestly if you have PU's on Bohemia, Hungary, and Lithuania, there's very little stopping you from just eating the entire Wien and Venice node and funneling everything there. (There's a southern route out of Novgorod, right? Don't feel like firing the game up to look.)
So I haven't touched EU4 in quite a while, pretty sure the last game I played as the Aztecs and had a rip-roaring good time with it. I see the Steam Summer Sale has the DLC at 50% off, so I was thinking of picking some up and trying a Russia run again. Pretty sure I did it once before but I don't really recall how it all ended up. I haven't played since before the corruption mechanic was added I think? So I have no idea what sorts of stuff would be new besides that.
Ming is no longer hobbled but Russia has an easy time with Ming
You currently gain corruption from territories which could be an annoyance if you don't own Third Rome or MoH
Much of the money in the game has been shifted to trade companies, this is mostly a problem for Asian nations though (which can't set up trade companies in Asia)
Russia has a lot more tags now but Muscovy still has a super-secure position
I had a lot of fun as Muscovy -> Russia, they've got a good mission tree, a unique colonising mechanic, a strong religion, a lot of expansion options. If you go for Relentless Push East you're going to have an interesting fight with Ming; I built a few forts and just fell back, Ming lost over a million troops to attrition before I moved my own troops in. They've got an interesting geography, with some big rich cities in the West and huuuuuuuuuuge tracts of poor land to the East. I think they're one of the more interesting countries to play as.
It's been a while since I played, but that Mysore must have a ton of development with all those subcontinent provinces. The only experience I have with the area is from ages ago when I expanded through most of that area with the Ottomans. Anyway I'm about to start a Muscovy game, I haven't played in ages and I wasn't all that good at the game the last time I played, so wish me luck! (Pretty sure my last game has images in this thread of a fun Aztec Empire I guided to being 4th on the nation rankings by game end).
-edit- Already screwed up enough that I feel like I should restart, didn't read the mission requirements so I didn't know I needed to max out my army before I got claims on Novgorod. So lesson learned there.
So I continue to be bad at the game, but hey at least I'm having fun! Just about to form Russia (a few years yet for Admin Tech 10 but otherwise good to go), all vassals integrated, only one bad war so far when I foolishly supported Sweden's independence but forgot to raise my fort maintenance immediately after agreeing because I wasn't expecting them to push the button a month after I signed on. If I had fought smarter I probably could have still won, since my army + Sweden's army was roughly on par with the army of Denmark, Finland and their ally England. I didn't lose any land so it wasn't the end of the world, but I did lose an absurd number of soldiers and the opportunity to weaken Denmark significantly.
I feel I should probably be working on getting some more allies, since the only ally I have is Bohemia (who weirdly enough hasn't had an heir for 10+ years in a row, though their ruler is quite young still). If their leader kicks the bucket the game says I would end up in a succession war with Hungary, who I think I could beat (if I had access to their land anyway) but I'm not sure how such a war works. Would Hungary, as the attacker, get to call in allies? If they did, and one of their allies is the Holy Roman Emperor Austria, would Austria be able to call in THEIR allies? I seem to remember the Emperor getting to call in allies even if they weren't a co-belligerent, but I could be wrong. If I was also allied to Austria, would Austria instead be obligated to step in on my side? Is the war guaranteed to happen? I really don't know how these things work as I've never been involved in a succession war situation before, on either side. It probably won't matter anyway, plenty of time for Bohemia to get an heir.
I would like to move into Lithuanian lands, but they're the junior to Poland as usual and I think Poland is allied to Brandenburg (kind of weird that alliance has survived so long) so that's a bit of a daunting prospect. Again I need a strong ally like Austria or Ottomans or something.
I did have a couple weird things happen. One of the goals for the Age of Discovery is the humiliate a rival in a peace treaty. I did this twice to Great Horde (who were absolutely my rival both times) and didn't get credit. Not a huge deal, but kind of disappointing. Also I guess forts don't automatically siege down neighboring provinces anymore? At least I wasn't seeing it happen. Movement around forts is also still very confusing. The estate interactions are pretty useful so far, I didn't really do much with them before. Did they automate assigning provinces to estates? I haven't had to manually assign any to maintain loyalty like I remember having to do in the past. Also the state limit is borderline obnoxious, though I think partly that has to do with being stuck at Duchy level until I jump to Emperor when forming Russia. Hopefully I still get to be the cultural union for my culture group when that happens, I haven't been promoting cultures in my nation because I've been counting on that. Also converting Sunni lands to Orthodox is obnoxious, but at least it is possible now so I'll definitely be taking chunks out of the hordes.
Overall I'm having a good time, and it's still pretty early in the game after all so I'm not too concerned about the position I am in. I figure if I can get a really strong ally like Austria or Ottomans to go with Bohemia I should be able to beat up on Poland for that sweet Orthodox land they have. If I manage to ally Ottomans I might even take a stab at dismantling the HRE, I've never managed that before. Institution spread could be better, I got Renaissance relatively early through developing Moskva, but I'm not sure if I should do the same for Colonialism. It takes a huge chunk of monarch power to do it and I have other things to spend that on at the moment. I forgot to take screenshots but it's pretty boring at the moment anyway, I doubt I've done better than a typical AI run.
So I continue to be bad at the game, but hey at least I'm having fun! Just about to form Russia (a few years yet for Admin Tech 10 but otherwise good to go), all vassals integrated, only one bad war so far when I foolishly supported Sweden's independence but forgot to raise my fort maintenance immediately after agreeing because I wasn't expecting them to push the button a month after I signed on. If I had fought smarter I probably could have still won, since my army + Sweden's army was roughly on par with the army of Denmark, Finland and their ally England. I didn't lose any land so it wasn't the end of the world, but I did lose an absurd number of soldiers and the opportunity to weaken Denmark significantly.
I feel I should probably be working on getting some more allies, since the only ally I have is Bohemia (who weirdly enough hasn't had an heir for 10+ years in a row, though their ruler is quite young still). If their leader kicks the bucket the game says I would end up in a succession war with Hungary, who I think I could beat (if I had access to their land anyway) but I'm not sure how such a war works. Would Hungary, as the attacker, get to call in allies? If they did, and one of their allies is the Holy Roman Emperor Austria, would Austria be able to call in THEIR allies? I seem to remember the Emperor getting to call in allies even if they weren't a co-belligerent, but I could be wrong. If I was also allied to Austria, would Austria instead be obligated to step in on my side? Is the war guaranteed to happen? I really don't know how these things work as I've never been involved in a succession war situation before, on either side. It probably won't matter anyway, plenty of time for Bohemia to get an heir.
I would like to move into Lithuanian lands, but they're the junior to Poland as usual and I think Poland is allied to Brandenburg (kind of weird that alliance has survived so long) so that's a bit of a daunting prospect. Again I need a strong ally like Austria or Ottomans or something.
I did have a couple weird things happen. One of the goals for the Age of Discovery is the humiliate a rival in a peace treaty. I did this twice to Great Horde (who were absolutely my rival both times) and didn't get credit. Not a huge deal, but kind of disappointing. Also I guess forts don't automatically siege down neighboring provinces anymore? At least I wasn't seeing it happen. Movement around forts is also still very confusing. The estate interactions are pretty useful so far, I didn't really do much with them before. Did they automate assigning provinces to estates? I haven't had to manually assign any to maintain loyalty like I remember having to do in the past. Also the state limit is borderline obnoxious, though I think partly that has to do with being stuck at Duchy level until I jump to Emperor when forming Russia. Hopefully I still get to be the cultural union for my culture group when that happens, I haven't been promoting cultures in my nation because I've been counting on that. Also converting Sunni lands to Orthodox is obnoxious, but at least it is possible now so I'll definitely be taking chunks out of the hordes.
Overall I'm having a good time, and it's still pretty early in the game after all so I'm not too concerned about the position I am in. I figure if I can get a really strong ally like Austria or Ottomans to go with Bohemia I should be able to beat up on Poland for that sweet Orthodox land they have. If I manage to ally Ottomans I might even take a stab at dismantling the HRE, I've never managed that before. Institution spread could be better, I got Renaissance relatively early through developing Moskva, but I'm not sure if I should do the same for Colonialism. It takes a huge chunk of monarch power to do it and I have other things to spend that on at the moment. I forgot to take screenshots but it's pretty boring at the moment anyway, I doubt I've done better than a typical AI run.
If the game says 'A succession war between X and Y', X is the defender and gets their allies, Y is the attacker and probably doesn't.
The Emperor is automatically made a cobelligerent whenever an outsider attacks an HRE member. So if you're the defender in the succession war, the emperor probably won't be involved, but if you're the aggressor, the emperor and his allies probably will be.
Ottomans make a great ally for Russia, because you have common enemies in Poland and the HRE.
You should definitely develop your land for Colonialism. It will cost a lot, yes, but it's a higher priority than tech levels.
Cool thanks for answering the questions I had so quickly! I ended up forming Russia, moving my capital to St. Petersburg, and developed St. Petersburg until it got Colonialism. It should spread far enough to embrace pretty soon. Poland was in a war with Austria, Hungary and a couple other nobodies so I jumped Lithuania behind their back. Then Poland peaced out their other war so I called in the Ottomans with a promise of land. Ottomans got the Polish province they bordered, and I got a couple border provinces near Smolensk, and everybody on our side of the war was happy. Then I goofed and took entirely too much land from Great Horde, which was a hassle to deal with. Once that was nearly handled, the Ottomans asked me join them in beating up on Poland again so I gladly jumped on that. We're handily winning the war so far, though I'm not sure how much I'll actually get since the Ottomans are the war leader and I don't want to separate peace out because I really want them to stay friendly. It would be very inconvenient to end up with massive overextension again, but at least these provinces would be Orthodox and Slavic.
One oddity is that I got a bunch of permanent claims from missions, only to later get claims on the same areas from an event.
Cool thanks for answering the questions I had so quickly! I ended up forming Russia, moving my capital to St. Petersburg, and developed St. Petersburg until it got Colonialism. It should spread far enough to embrace pretty soon. Poland was in a war with Austria, Hungary and a couple other nobodies so I jumped Lithuania behind their back. Then Poland peaced out their other war so I called in the Ottomans with a promise of land. Ottomans got the Polish province they bordered, and I got a couple border provinces near Smolensk, and everybody on our side of the war was happy. Then I goofed and took entirely too much land from Great Horde, which was a hassle to deal with. Once that was nearly handled, the Ottomans asked me join them in beating up on Poland again so I gladly jumped on that. We're handily winning the war so far, though I'm not sure how much I'll actually get since the Ottomans are the war leader and I don't want to separate peace out because I really want them to stay friendly. It would be very inconvenient to end up with massive overextension again, but at least these provinces would be Orthodox and Slavic.
One oddity is that I got a bunch of permanent claims from missions, only to later get claims on the same areas from an event.
Separate peace costs trust, which you might have enough of to sacrifice. As long as you don't go below 40 you should be fine.
Getting land from the peace deal can happen, but it is unreliable and I don't understand how it works. I think you need to have designated provinces as 'of vital interest'. Certainly just having a claim isn't enough to get land.
Everything went better than expected! The Ottomans and I beat Poland, Lithuania and Bavaria into the ground, Aragon never really did anything in the war. Except peace out a couple minor allies to the Ottomans who were no longer allies after I guess. But really, the Ottomans weren't doing anything with Tunis and Tlemcen anyway. I sieged down the stuff near me, and the few provinces I had claims on that the Ottomans sieged down they put under my control anyway. Ottomans took I think one province, might have been two. I got five somehow, not gonna complain about that. Then I noticed that two Orthodox nations on the Black Sea were both still around, so I grabbed them as vassals. So now have the second most development in the world, but I'm ranked first on the Great Nations list because I have embraced all institutions so far. Next on the chopping block will be Uzbek and Bashkiria, then I'll grab the last two Crimean provinces for my vassal Trebizond. Probably take the last province off of Sibir because why not? I'm not aiming for achievements or anything so I'm not too concerned about pushing through Siberia, though obviously I will continue to do that as the provinces become available. Definitely having fun with this, it's so incredibly unfair to Eastern Europe when Russia and Ottomans work together. I'd toss a screenshot up but I forget the image size limit for these forums and I'd rather not break the rules (also not entirely sure how to put a Steam screenshot in anymore).
I've played a few games with intense starts lately, where I constantly try to maximise everything and get everything perfect, so I've decided to take it a bit easier and play as Ottomans this time. I'm going to go Coptic and see if I can get One Faith, but mostly this run is just to remind me that EU4 can be fun sometimes.
I'm really enjoying this Russia playthrough for sure. Poland finally formed the Commonwealth, and I noticed that their only ally is Aragon. Both Ottomans and Bavaria are willing to join the fight without having to promise them land, so I'm going to go smack them around and see how much Ruthenian land I can take. I did decide to take a break for a little bit when something happened that I did not think was possible. The Printing Press was discovered in the Canary Islands, specifically Gran Canaria. So I looked into what is going on. Technically Gran Canaria has a land border to another island, so it doesn't get disqualified for being an island. It does not produce paper or have 15 development, but it is the capital of a nation I thought long gone, Castille. 15 total development Castille (so presumably just Gran Canaria and the province it borders) that has exploration and expansion ideas but no colonies (seems unlikely they could afford them). They are also Protestant. And part of a coalition against Aragon along with France and Tlemcen. Which might be interesting when I attack Commonwealth and Aragon gets called in. Unfortunately France doesn't seem to have any claims on Aragon, but Tlemcen and Castille do so who the hell knows what will happen (probably nothing).
OK so I ended up with more time to play EU4 than I expected, so I hopped back in for some shenanigans. My war with Commonwealth went about as expected, I got a bunch of East Slavic + Orthodox land out of it. I then did some cleanup on the horde side of things, completed a few missions. Then Ottomans called me into a war against Mamluks and friends, so I helped with that. Then Bohemia called me in to fight Hungary, so I went and won their war for them. Meanwhile the coalition against Aragon fired off, and Castille now owns about 40% of the Iberian Peninsula. Talk about a comeback, they were in Gran Canaria and two provinces in Africa, now they're a legit nation again. Then for some reason the Ottomans called me in to help with conquering the newly released Wallachia, who was guaranteed by Hungary. Hungary wisely looked the other way. The Baltic lands held by the Danish have been occupied by Estonian and Livonian separatists for a while now, while parts of Denmark proper (they assimilated Norway) are held by noble rebels. I'm hopeful that Estonia and Lithuania/Livonian Order/whoever gets released, because I will instantly jump on their faces and take their land. Bohemia also offered to share the Printing Press with me, so that's been embraced. The only downside right now is that for some damn reason Bohemia allied with Commonwealth. I mean I get it, allied with Russia, Commonwealth and Great Britain you're basically never going to get declared on, but it's pretty inconvenient for me in particular.
The Religious Leagues are looking interesting. I'm not sure what causes the AI to actually attack or not, but the Protestant side is looking pretty strong with Ottomans, Commonwealth and France. I have yet to see the war actually kick off in any game, but then again I haven't played that many different runs for long enough. I can also see the Ming mandate of heaven widget, and they have done most of their reforms so apparently they're handling it fine. I'm not sure what the best way to handle that whole situation is, or if I should just ignore it and go through the Timurids (who are doing really well!) to India. All sorts of interesting things coming down the pipe, I'd say.
If you do decide to tackle Ming, as Russia you're one of the few nations with enough manpower and troops to threaten them on land. However, I find the best way to beat them is by sea. This may require certain expansions, but devastation wrecks their mandate.
As Portugal, I started a trade conflict war once they embargoed me. I had basically no troops, but I had a lot of galleys and galleons. Once I had beat their navy, I just parked a string of ships along their giant coastline. This satisfied the war goal to blockade their ports, and generates a lot of devastation for the coastal provinces. You have to wait a while, but eventually they'll develop the maximum 20 war exhaustion, and the devastation will build quite high. Once devastation is high enough, it will actually pull their mandate points in to the negative direction, no matter how many tributaries they have. Then you wait even longer, and once the mandate starts dropping the unrest level spikes. Add to this the extremely high war exhaustion and the whole country will start exploding with rebellions.
In the end I was able to take large sections of the coast, including Hong Kong, without ever sieging a fort or landing a single army. Once Ming splinters from the lost mandate, they're never really able to recover and you can pick off the half dozen countries that result.
Sad news, not only did Bohemia (my ally for a really long time) ally Commonwealth (my rival for literally the entire game), but the Ottomans decided that instead of being allied to me, they'd rather be my rivals. I thought that they had fixed this AI behavior? Or did I not have enough trust with Ottomans or something? I always answered calls to arms and fulfilled promises. Oh well, it's not all bad, since the Ottomans went and beat up on Commonwealth and Bohemia both, enough such that when I attacked Commonwealth immediately after none of their allies honored the call to arms. So at this point Russia vs an exhausted Commonwealth is pretty much a walkover. In other weirdness, half of the Commonwealth army is headed off to . . . Siberia? I guess? I have no idea what the hell they are doing. I'm chasing them with a chunk of my army just to make sure they don't do anything annoying. While they are out there (and after this war is over) I'll probably attack one of the Siberian nations that isn't a Ming tributary. With Ottomans being my rival now, I kind of don't want to deal with Ming, so I'll probably start working on Timurids. I don't think there is enough time to get Relentless Push East, but I might get closer than I expected since I did just find Korea. I should think about finding another ally since I lost the Ottomans, but there really don't seem to be any good candidates except maybe Timurids, who are somehow going strong and blocking my way to India.
-edit- Oh yeah Estonia did break free from Denmark, so I grabbed their provinces, but the Livonian rebels eventually got rooted out because their stack moved into my Livonian province so I had to beat them down. I guess I could have let them siege the territory and taken it back later? That feels wrong though.
-edit 2- Pretty much annihilated Commonwealth as expected, and took enough land from them that they are no longer a Great Power. I have also surpassed the development of Ming. However not all is peachy keen because the Ottomans have a claim on one of my new provinces (I thought I had checked before taking the deal, but I guess they snuck it in off the Commonwealth before I finished the peace deal or something). They have also taken their forts near my border out of mothballs, and I can see a 35k stack so there are probably more nearby. They also have an alliance with the Timurids, who aren't quite as big as the Ottomans but certainly large enough to be a problem, though the Timurids are currently fighting another war. Sadly the Timurids hate me for whatever reason (I have literally never done anything to them) so if the Ottomans attack, I'm sure the Timurids will help. I wouldn't be worrying too much over it, but my army is currently making sure my new provinces don't rise up against me so they're out of position. I am definitely not going to do anything to Ming with the Ottomans and Timurids staring at me like this. The Ottomans are also currently ahead of me on mil tech, and I get a new infantry unit at the next level so I'm extra worried. Should be interesting!
Dang, wish I had known that before, but lesson learned. If I had spent my favors to get more trust they wouldn't have broken the alliance, and I'd be in a much better position. Potentially less interesting, but I would also probably be working towards taking on Ming which might have been fun so who knows? I will definitely keep that in mind going forward.
-edit- Also LOL at the Ottomans disliking me for breaking our alliance when they're the assholes that rivaled me!
-edit2- Also also, I honored three calls to arms (+30), honored giving them land (they didn't have the thumbs down on the peace deal at least and I gave them the only land they had a claim on), we were allied for like 50 years so how did I not have 80+ trust with them? I dunno, maybe I lost a little trust because I didn't give them enough land? I feel like that should have triggered the thumbs down icon on the peace deal screen. I never insulted anybody or broke any treaties or alliances, though I did annex vassals. I guess I will just have to really keep an eye on that in the future.
Lately I'm noticing the AI makes no fuss about marching half their forcelimit through low supply limit land meanwhile I'm trying to stop my manpower melt away.
Big unjustifed war conquests when you're at low diplomacy will do that.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
+5
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Posted in [chat] but also posting here.
My current EU4 Campaign is weird, I'm playing as the Ottomans.
Austria political unioned Hungary, not weird, loses the Empire five seconds later to Bohemia, kinda weird, and then gets a ruler with militaristic tendencies so they started expanded into the Empire, which is super weird.
Spain has turned into a goddamn monster and while they don't have any of the Netherlands they have most of the Italian peninsula but thank god outside of Portugal having a few territories most of North Africa is still independent. Spain's a big enough badass this play through that France has lost every war they had with them outside of one, which returned the borders to the normal configuration.
Venice has been allied with Poland and France -the entire damn game- and there hasn't been a chance for me to attack to try to split up the alliances. Right out the gate they conquered Serbia and Bosnia, lost Bosnia to Austria, so as a consequence I haven't been able to conquer any territory in the west outside of Wallachia.
France is not that scary although if they finish up conquering the British Isles (yeah, that's right. The AI pulled off an invasion, France has territory in the British Isles) they're going to be terrifying, but England looks like they might finally have stabilized after the early game beatdown events they get.
Poland is fuck hueg. Like, scary big. They didn't even PU Lithuania, it's nuts. I want nothing to do with them which is why I've left Venice alone. To date they've kicked Russia's ass in three separate wars and are currently smacking the shit out of half of Europe in a coalition war. I could probably try to take some land from them in Moldavia but I'm not sure I win that even with Poland busy beating down Europe.
So with all that weird shit going on I just decided to head east and conquer out that way. It's safer.
I'll toss some pictures up later so you can see the wacky antics of a Europe that is at the mercy of Poland.
+1
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Poland just won the coalition war.
man just break your alliance with Venice pleeeaassse
I can maybe take Poland and Venice. Maybe. Poland terrifies me because it just beat Austria, Hungary, Denmark, and Russia up. Without help from Spain. Seemingly without any real trouble.
I can maybe take Poland and Venice. Maybe. Poland terrifies me because it just beat Austria, Hungary, Denmark, and Russia up. Without help from Spain. Seemingly without any real trouble.
I can't beat Spain and Poland and Venice.
If you want to take Venice, you only have to worry about Venice's allies.
If Venice has a second ally that isn't allied with Poland, wardec them and demand Venice break it's alliance with Poland for the peace treaty (which you should be able to do even if you have to use a CB that doesn't allow conquest... of course if you can get a conquest CB you can just take the diplo hit and take land from Venice without calling them a co-belligerant) then you can wait out the truce, which IIRC is shorter than their ban on reforming their alliance, and then wardec them without Poland to protect them.
If all 3 nations are allied with each other and noone else, then you're best hope is lightning war: get a stack of artillery for siege, amass all your forces on Venice's border, wardec and then use that arty stack to smash any fort in your way, always using the beach option. Once you've occupied all of Venice, which should be doable before Poland, much less Spain shows up, you should be able to demand *something* from them, even if it's just to break alliances so you can take everything you want the next time.
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TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
It's Venice, and Poland. In theory it should be an easy war but Russia is -right there- and Poland is keeping them in check so I don't have to deal with Russia.
I'm only midway through so I'm sort of just sitting back and waiting for the next inevitable Russia v Poland war and when that happens I'll probably punch Venice in the nose, especially since they're no longer allied with France.
Basically I don't want to fight Poland because
A.) They scary. They got offensive and quantity ideas filled out. Even if I win the war it'll hurt, maybe badly enough that someone decides I'm weak enough to declare war on.
B.) Right now the balance of power in Eastern Europe is basically Russia, Austria, and Poland. Poland is so far the big boy of the three (I have yet to see them lose a war against either of the other two powers or against anyone this game) and they're focused on Russia and Austria instead of wanting to take Wallachia away from me.
Honestly Spain has me worried. They own most of Italy and don't really have a threat to deal with in Western Europe. France is busy with England, England is so weak that it's not really a threat to anyone and them and France have had like four wars over the same three provinces and neither one has really made any gains since England has some decent allies.
Spain is also allied with Poland and wants some of my provinces.
It's a tricky situation because I don't really want to break up the nice balance of power to my North but something needs to be done about Spain.
I don't know how much people follow it, but yesterday there was a dev diary for a future merc rework
Short version is that instead of merc regiments that you can hire virtually limitless amounts of so long as you have the money, instead you'll hire merc companies that will be their separate stacks with a specific infantry/cavalry/arty ratio and each have their own manpower pool. Every nation will have 3 local groups only they can hire, plus access to foreign mercenaries within their trade range (though there will be additional restrictions to some foreign mercs, like religion or where your capital is located, so having a foothold in India doesn't mean GB will have immediate access to all mercs there, though they *would* be able to hire mercs that they do have access to show up and fight wars back in Europe.)
Foreign mercs can be hired by multiple nations at once, to prevent the true-to-life-but-terrible-for-gameplay strategy of hiring mercs for the sole purpose of preventing others from hiring them to use against you. They will also have their own "free" general. There will be a cooldown to hire the same band of mercs again, whether it's a stack wipe or firing them, and they will always have full maintenance cost making it expensive to hire in times of peace. ATM they have no plans of being able to merge mercs with your own troops, but are well aware how annoying that can be and hope to instead come up with a solution that fixes several of the issues of dealing with multiple stacks in general. Finally, there will be merc events.
+3
TraceGNU Terry Pratchett; GNU Gus; GNU Carrie Fisher; GNU Adam WeRegistered Userregular
Finally cracked the alliance between Venice and Poland. Me and Austria took advantage immediately. I got their Greek islands and Kosovo and they'll be mopped up in the next few years. Austria got Venice, which kind of sucks but I can deal with it.
Also Poland won -another- war against Russia if you couldn't tell.
I'm playing as Krakow in Vicky 2, first formed Galicia-Lodomeria, then united with Congress Poland
Unfortunately I'm in an awkward situation where I'm at rank 9, but struggle to become a Great Power - I'm landlocked, so I feel I fall further behind as the others scramble for Africa
And no one wants to be my friend!
[edit]
Managed to become a Great Power, lost a war and got Treaty of Versailles'd
Wow
And it doesn't seem like there's a comeback mechanic
Platy on
0
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
By 1625 the Islamic pip advantage has faded to equal, hasn't it? Like manpower wouldn't be a problem and Janissaries are still Real Good, but it would be an actual fight.
Posts
Honestly if you have PU's on Bohemia, Hungary, and Lithuania, there's very little stopping you from just eating the entire Wien and Venice node and funneling everything there. (There's a southern route out of Novgorod, right? Don't feel like firing the game up to look.)
Constantinople is overall a better trade node but it depends on the shape of your country
You currently gain corruption from territories which could be an annoyance if you don't own Third Rome or MoH
Much of the money in the game has been shifted to trade companies, this is mostly a problem for Asian nations though (which can't set up trade companies in Asia)
Russia has a lot more tags now but Muscovy still has a super-secure position
I have a feeling this is a fairly easy achievement on Normal but I had to flee from Bahmanis into Burma (before I returned to exile them to Tibet)
-edit- Already screwed up enough that I feel like I should restart, didn't read the mission requirements so I didn't know I needed to max out my army before I got claims on Novgorod. So lesson learned there.
I feel I should probably be working on getting some more allies, since the only ally I have is Bohemia (who weirdly enough hasn't had an heir for 10+ years in a row, though their ruler is quite young still). If their leader kicks the bucket the game says I would end up in a succession war with Hungary, who I think I could beat (if I had access to their land anyway) but I'm not sure how such a war works. Would Hungary, as the attacker, get to call in allies? If they did, and one of their allies is the Holy Roman Emperor Austria, would Austria be able to call in THEIR allies? I seem to remember the Emperor getting to call in allies even if they weren't a co-belligerent, but I could be wrong. If I was also allied to Austria, would Austria instead be obligated to step in on my side? Is the war guaranteed to happen? I really don't know how these things work as I've never been involved in a succession war situation before, on either side. It probably won't matter anyway, plenty of time for Bohemia to get an heir.
I would like to move into Lithuanian lands, but they're the junior to Poland as usual and I think Poland is allied to Brandenburg (kind of weird that alliance has survived so long) so that's a bit of a daunting prospect. Again I need a strong ally like Austria or Ottomans or something.
I did have a couple weird things happen. One of the goals for the Age of Discovery is the humiliate a rival in a peace treaty. I did this twice to Great Horde (who were absolutely my rival both times) and didn't get credit. Not a huge deal, but kind of disappointing. Also I guess forts don't automatically siege down neighboring provinces anymore? At least I wasn't seeing it happen. Movement around forts is also still very confusing. The estate interactions are pretty useful so far, I didn't really do much with them before. Did they automate assigning provinces to estates? I haven't had to manually assign any to maintain loyalty like I remember having to do in the past. Also the state limit is borderline obnoxious, though I think partly that has to do with being stuck at Duchy level until I jump to Emperor when forming Russia. Hopefully I still get to be the cultural union for my culture group when that happens, I haven't been promoting cultures in my nation because I've been counting on that. Also converting Sunni lands to Orthodox is obnoxious, but at least it is possible now so I'll definitely be taking chunks out of the hordes.
Overall I'm having a good time, and it's still pretty early in the game after all so I'm not too concerned about the position I am in. I figure if I can get a really strong ally like Austria or Ottomans to go with Bohemia I should be able to beat up on Poland for that sweet Orthodox land they have. If I manage to ally Ottomans I might even take a stab at dismantling the HRE, I've never managed that before. Institution spread could be better, I got Renaissance relatively early through developing Moskva, but I'm not sure if I should do the same for Colonialism. It takes a huge chunk of monarch power to do it and I have other things to spend that on at the moment. I forgot to take screenshots but it's pretty boring at the moment anyway, I doubt I've done better than a typical AI run.
Most allies won't join the attacker in a succession war unless they're rivals with the defender
Forts lift occupations in friendly land but they don't siege down enemy land
If the game says 'A succession war between X and Y', X is the defender and gets their allies, Y is the attacker and probably doesn't.
The Emperor is automatically made a cobelligerent whenever an outsider attacks an HRE member. So if you're the defender in the succession war, the emperor probably won't be involved, but if you're the aggressor, the emperor and his allies probably will be.
Ottomans make a great ally for Russia, because you have common enemies in Poland and the HRE.
You should definitely develop your land for Colonialism. It will cost a lot, yes, but it's a higher priority than tech levels.
One oddity is that I got a bunch of permanent claims from missions, only to later get claims on the same areas from an event.
Separate peace costs trust, which you might have enough of to sacrifice. As long as you don't go below 40 you should be fine.
Getting land from the peace deal can happen, but it is unreliable and I don't understand how it works. I think you need to have designated provinces as 'of vital interest'. Certainly just having a claim isn't enough to get land.
The Religious Leagues are looking interesting. I'm not sure what causes the AI to actually attack or not, but the Protestant side is looking pretty strong with Ottomans, Commonwealth and France. I have yet to see the war actually kick off in any game, but then again I haven't played that many different runs for long enough. I can also see the Ming mandate of heaven widget, and they have done most of their reforms so apparently they're handling it fine. I'm not sure what the best way to handle that whole situation is, or if I should just ignore it and go through the Timurids (who are doing really well!) to India. All sorts of interesting things coming down the pipe, I'd say.
As Portugal, I started a trade conflict war once they embargoed me. I had basically no troops, but I had a lot of galleys and galleons. Once I had beat their navy, I just parked a string of ships along their giant coastline. This satisfied the war goal to blockade their ports, and generates a lot of devastation for the coastal provinces. You have to wait a while, but eventually they'll develop the maximum 20 war exhaustion, and the devastation will build quite high. Once devastation is high enough, it will actually pull their mandate points in to the negative direction, no matter how many tributaries they have. Then you wait even longer, and once the mandate starts dropping the unrest level spikes. Add to this the extremely high war exhaustion and the whole country will start exploding with rebellions.
In the end I was able to take large sections of the coast, including Hong Kong, without ever sieging a fort or landing a single army. Once Ming splinters from the lost mandate, they're never really able to recover and you can pick off the half dozen countries that result.
-edit- Oh yeah Estonia did break free from Denmark, so I grabbed their provinces, but the Livonian rebels eventually got rooted out because their stack moved into my Livonian province so I had to beat them down. I guess I could have let them siege the territory and taken it back later? That feels wrong though.
-edit 2- Pretty much annihilated Commonwealth as expected, and took enough land from them that they are no longer a Great Power. I have also surpassed the development of Ming. However not all is peachy keen because the Ottomans have a claim on one of my new provinces (I thought I had checked before taking the deal, but I guess they snuck it in off the Commonwealth before I finished the peace deal or something). They have also taken their forts near my border out of mothballs, and I can see a 35k stack so there are probably more nearby. They also have an alliance with the Timurids, who aren't quite as big as the Ottomans but certainly large enough to be a problem, though the Timurids are currently fighting another war. Sadly the Timurids hate me for whatever reason (I have literally never done anything to them) so if the Ottomans attack, I'm sure the Timurids will help. I wouldn't be worrying too much over it, but my army is currently making sure my new provinces don't rise up against me so they're out of position. I am definitely not going to do anything to Ming with the Ottomans and Timurids staring at me like this. The Ottomans are also currently ahead of me on mil tech, and I get a new infantry unit at the next level so I'm extra worried. Should be interesting!
You can convert favors to trust in the screen where you also set your attitude
-edit- Also LOL at the Ottomans disliking me for breaking our alliance when they're the assholes that rivaled me!
-edit2- Also also, I honored three calls to arms (+30), honored giving them land (they didn't have the thumbs down on the peace deal at least and I gave them the only land they had a claim on), we were allied for like 50 years so how did I not have 80+ trust with them? I dunno, maybe I lost a little trust because I didn't give them enough land? I feel like that should have triggered the thumbs down icon on the peace deal screen. I never insulted anybody or broke any treaties or alliances, though I did annex vassals. I guess I will just have to really keep an eye on that in the future.
Bunte Kuh on Very Hard
AI takes the attrition hit for the most part so you kinda have to take it too if you don't want to get stackwiped
That's a big Khorasan.
How in the world did you end up at -97 diplo?
My current EU4 Campaign is weird, I'm playing as the Ottomans.
Austria political unioned Hungary, not weird, loses the Empire five seconds later to Bohemia, kinda weird, and then gets a ruler with militaristic tendencies so they started expanded into the Empire, which is super weird.
Spain has turned into a goddamn monster and while they don't have any of the Netherlands they have most of the Italian peninsula but thank god outside of Portugal having a few territories most of North Africa is still independent. Spain's a big enough badass this play through that France has lost every war they had with them outside of one, which returned the borders to the normal configuration.
Venice has been allied with Poland and France -the entire damn game- and there hasn't been a chance for me to attack to try to split up the alliances. Right out the gate they conquered Serbia and Bosnia, lost Bosnia to Austria, so as a consequence I haven't been able to conquer any territory in the west outside of Wallachia.
France is not that scary although if they finish up conquering the British Isles (yeah, that's right. The AI pulled off an invasion, France has territory in the British Isles) they're going to be terrifying, but England looks like they might finally have stabilized after the early game beatdown events they get.
Poland is fuck hueg. Like, scary big. They didn't even PU Lithuania, it's nuts. I want nothing to do with them which is why I've left Venice alone. To date they've kicked Russia's ass in three separate wars and are currently smacking the shit out of half of Europe in a coalition war. I could probably try to take some land from them in Moldavia but I'm not sure I win that even with Poland busy beating down Europe.
So with all that weird shit going on I just decided to head east and conquer out that way. It's safer.
I'll toss some pictures up later so you can see the wacky antics of a Europe that is at the mercy of Poland.
Poland just won the coalition war.
man just break your alliance with Venice pleeeaassse
Poland is also allied with Spain.
I can maybe take Poland and Venice. Maybe. Poland terrifies me because it just beat Austria, Hungary, Denmark, and Russia up. Without help from Spain. Seemingly without any real trouble.
I can't beat Spain and Poland and Venice.
If you want to take Venice, you only have to worry about Venice's allies.
If Venice has a second ally that isn't allied with Poland, wardec them and demand Venice break it's alliance with Poland for the peace treaty (which you should be able to do even if you have to use a CB that doesn't allow conquest... of course if you can get a conquest CB you can just take the diplo hit and take land from Venice without calling them a co-belligerant) then you can wait out the truce, which IIRC is shorter than their ban on reforming their alliance, and then wardec them without Poland to protect them.
If all 3 nations are allied with each other and noone else, then you're best hope is lightning war: get a stack of artillery for siege, amass all your forces on Venice's border, wardec and then use that arty stack to smash any fort in your way, always using the beach option. Once you've occupied all of Venice, which should be doable before Poland, much less Spain shows up, you should be able to demand *something* from them, even if it's just to break alliances so you can take everything you want the next time.
I'm only midway through so I'm sort of just sitting back and waiting for the next inevitable Russia v Poland war and when that happens I'll probably punch Venice in the nose, especially since they're no longer allied with France.
Basically I don't want to fight Poland because
A.) They scary. They got offensive and quantity ideas filled out. Even if I win the war it'll hurt, maybe badly enough that someone decides I'm weak enough to declare war on.
B.) Right now the balance of power in Eastern Europe is basically Russia, Austria, and Poland. Poland is so far the big boy of the three (I have yet to see them lose a war against either of the other two powers or against anyone this game) and they're focused on Russia and Austria instead of wanting to take Wallachia away from me.
Honestly Spain has me worried. They own most of Italy and don't really have a threat to deal with in Western Europe. France is busy with England, England is so weak that it's not really a threat to anyone and them and France have had like four wars over the same three provinces and neither one has really made any gains since England has some decent allies.
Spain is also allied with Poland and wants some of my provinces.
It's a tricky situation because I don't really want to break up the nice balance of power to my North but something needs to be done about Spain.
Short version is that instead of merc regiments that you can hire virtually limitless amounts of so long as you have the money, instead you'll hire merc companies that will be their separate stacks with a specific infantry/cavalry/arty ratio and each have their own manpower pool. Every nation will have 3 local groups only they can hire, plus access to foreign mercenaries within their trade range (though there will be additional restrictions to some foreign mercs, like religion or where your capital is located, so having a foothold in India doesn't mean GB will have immediate access to all mercs there, though they *would* be able to hire mercs that they do have access to show up and fight wars back in Europe.)
Foreign mercs can be hired by multiple nations at once, to prevent the true-to-life-but-terrible-for-gameplay strategy of hiring mercs for the sole purpose of preventing others from hiring them to use against you. They will also have their own "free" general. There will be a cooldown to hire the same band of mercs again, whether it's a stack wipe or firing them, and they will always have full maintenance cost making it expensive to hire in times of peace. ATM they have no plans of being able to merge mercs with your own troops, but are well aware how annoying that can be and hope to instead come up with a solution that fixes several of the issues of dealing with multiple stacks in general. Finally, there will be merc events.
Finally cracked the alliance between Venice and Poland. Me and Austria took advantage immediately. I got their Greek islands and Kosovo and they'll be mopped up in the next few years. Austria got Venice, which kind of sucks but I can deal with it.
Also Poland won -another- war against Russia if you couldn't tell.
Unfortunately I'm in an awkward situation where I'm at rank 9, but struggle to become a Great Power - I'm landlocked, so I feel I fall further behind as the others scramble for Africa
And no one wants to be my friend!
[edit]
Managed to become a Great Power, lost a war and got Treaty of Versailles'd
Wow
And it doesn't seem like there's a comeback mechanic
By 1625 the Islamic pip advantage has faded to equal, hasn't it? Like manpower wouldn't be a problem and Janissaries are still Real Good, but it would be an actual fight.