Maritime is only good in multiplayer to maximize naval potential. Otherwise yeah it isn't very good, especially since the diplo idea groups are the most competitive in terms of most of the others being bangers. Exploration is almost a must for many nations, diplomatic is arguably the single best first idea group in the game for most nations (especially in Europe), infleunce and espionage aren't *as* good as diplomatic, but they're still amazing. Even trade, which is certainly much less useful than it was way back in the dau, can get you *more* money than maritime can.
I found a handy bug! If you have 100% crown land, selling land to the estates doesn't give them any land, but you get the cash and the increased loyalty.
Been playing as Mewar to get their achievements and wow they are kind of a secret military powerhouse. Their ideas and mission tree are great and synergize super well with rajput regiments.
I'm Rajputana now and for awhile I've had a rajput only elite army (with cavalry and artillery support though) that has just been annihilating anything I throw it against, even against worse than 2-1 odds. And the only military ideas I have gone for so far is quantity so they don't even have any extra buffs besides Mewar/Rajputana's ideas+rajput modifiers+rajput estate modifiers.
edit: Finally bought the DLC and decided to play as Mulhouse. Managed to form swabia in less than fourty years with no outside help (just Konstantz and Ulm) so that felt pretty good.
Every fucking time I want to play as Portugal, the fucking Reformation kicks off 30 years earlier than normal. I want to play as New Providence, so I'm busy colonising the Caribbean, and I get 3 provinces in before reformation in 1480.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
edit: Finally bought the DLC and decided to play as Mulhouse. Managed to form swabia in less than fourty years with no outside help (just Konstantz and Ulm) so that felt pretty good.
Re: that Swabia pic, it's 1494 and the Papacy is dead? WTF?!
Turns out New Providence is harder to play as than I thought.
First, you get the religion of your coloniser at the time New Providence is created, not the religion of the province or the colonial nation you split from. I made the province Sunni, and most of the Caribbean too, and it turns out that was a mistake.
Second, you start with one province, no provinces are in range for you to fabricate on, and the most valuable provinces for raiding are too far away.
Third, you start with Plutocratic and Economic ideas, which isn't very helpful.
When I finally got through this I annexed most of Caraibas in one war, because I'm all the way over here, and they're Sunni, who's going to care? Turns out most of Europe still cares. I immediately got declared on by a coalition of France, England, Scotland, Portugal, Savoy, parts of Ireland and Italy... kinda bonkers.
edit: Finally bought the DLC and decided to play as Mulhouse. Managed to form swabia in less than fourty years with no outside help (just Konstantz and Ulm) so that felt pretty good.
Re: that Swabia pic, it's 1494 and the Papacy is dead? WTF?!
The papacy was in liege. They eventually got rome back though. Reformation spawned in Siena so... was rough for the ole pope.
My excitement was premature. I didn't get the achievement because it requires holding all the lowlands too, not just france and austria as subjects. That'd be fine, because I can inherit them for free with the Burgundian event... except it never fired. I was getting heirs all over the place, and apparently as Burgundy you're not meant to? And then when you don't have an heir you get Marie. Well I never didn't have an heir, so bollocks.
I've been trying to figure out how to get a Reformed Empire. There is supposed to be an Imperial incident that fires if the Protestant League is victorious where the Reformers protest against Protestantism being the official Religion that can potentially result in Reformed becoming the official religion of the empire if most princes are reformed, or alternatively result in a Treaty of Westphalia if Protestantism is only followed by a minority of the princes.
But in several games where the Protestant League was victorious I have never seen the incident fire.
I had a save from 30 years earlier, so I'm trying to recreate the above screenshot but now Marie's on the throne because of aggressive disowning of heirs. (Before, I was told that if the heir was young enough Marie would still appear)
And halfway through I get asked if I want to contest England's succession. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh I want to, I really want to, but I have no manpower and no boats, so it's not a war I could win. Felt so bad to decline that option.
Switzerland was always pretty strong but the merc changes plus them getting more provinces plus their mission tree and unique government type has made them into a real an insane military powerhouse. I'm playing a game as them and I had a coalition war declared on me by basically all of the HRE minus Austria, Bohemia, Pomerania and Brandenburg and I obliterated them with my mercenary armies. France, Commonwealth, Spain, Ottomans? Pfah.
I managed to do it! Burgundy united! The idea of this run is that when the succession occurs, if you choose to be a junior PU you instantly inherit all your subjects, so if you choose to be a junior to France, and France is your subject, you inherit everything and remain independent. All you have to do is defeat one of the strongest countries about 4 times within the first 50 years, and you have to be constantly at war for most of it because you'll have a dozen disloyal vassals, and you'll have no dip mana or dip tech, and constantly face the threat of a coalition. It's a pretty stressful game, but feels good to get it done.
Now I just need to slowly conquer the lowlands, then release France and Austria as vassals, and I'll have the achievement!
It is kind of goofy to me that I think the Economic and Naval Hegemon military bonuses are better than the Military Hegemon ones.
Economic has the best in general effects, and +10% merc discipline and +100% merc manpower are definitely the strongest military bonuses. Naval gets the very powerful +20% artillery damage at max power.
Military gets... -20% land attrition, +20% siege ability, and +10% movement speed. Lower land attrition is normally quite useful, but it seems an almost silly thing to give to a nation that can field an army of over a million men. +20% siege ability and +10% movement speed are both really good too... but against the other hegemony they'd probably lose.
How do you even got to the military one? Like, i played as Ottomans and had Quantity idea and was a green giant and had dumped a ton of points into manpower and built the buildings and was still only at like 450k.
Is this only for those "i am taking over the world" games at which point it becomes irrelevant?
Because the economic one i could have easily hit in my Castille/Spain game wit treasure ship naval tradition where after all the costs were accounted for i was still pulling in like 5k gold per month at the end. Alas, was in the prior patch.
It is kind of goofy to me that I think the Economic and Naval Hegemon military bonuses are better than the Military Hegemon ones.
Economic has the best in general effects, and +10% merc discipline and +100% merc manpower are definitely the strongest military bonuses. Naval gets the very powerful +20% artillery damage at max power.
Military gets... -20% land attrition, +20% siege ability, and +10% movement speed. Lower land attrition is normally quite useful, but it seems an almost silly thing to give to a nation that can field an army of over a million men. +20% siege ability and +10% movement speed are both really good too... but against the other hegemony they'd probably lose.
With 20% siege ability you're winning every race, and with +10% movement speed and a general with decent maneuver pips you're unlikely to have to take a fight you don't want. Artillery bonuses don't really matter if they never get to shoot.
Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Prester John on VH. Ethiopia is a lot of fun in 1.30. Went Innovative-Offensive-Religious-Quantity-Diplomatic, since Coptic Ethiopia gets 20% CCR by default. Ottomans were extremely weak this game, which became a huge problem in the midgame when Austria invaded all the way down to Anatolia while I had a truce with the Ottomans and I had to fight a very strong Austria in order to take Constantinople. Rather than take them head-on I used a holy war CB against The Knights, to draw in Austria due to Catholic Defender of the Faith, and racked up enough war score to take it with unjustified demands. All my AE was in Muslim and Hindu territory, so I'm not worried about a European coalition. Not sure what my next objective should be for this game. Maybe form a Coptic Roman Empire? Holy War goes together with Coptic like peanut butter and chocolate, it's so great.
A lot of the new mission trees they added in western europe are real fun.
Provence can potentially get PUs over Naples, Aragon, and Hungary, plus free claims on the levant just for PUing Naples and taking Sicily from Aragon. (Makes Good King Rene waaay easier than it used to be.)
Florence has a neat mission tree which mainly just gives you lots of very good temporary modifiers and free claims over all of Italy. You get things like temporarily reduced idea and tech cost, cheaper advisors, cheaper development cost, etc. It really plays well to their reputation of being the tech leader of EUIV. Plus you get an easy way to switch to monarchy from the end of a mission tree. (Finish the line about estates and you'll have the option to become a monarchy, become a noble republic, or keep your italian republican government and get some stability. If you go monarchy you'll get enough government reform points to instantly max out all your government reforms.)
Italian Signoria seems terrible at first glance but it's actually pretty good, it's effectively a monarchy where you get to swap your ruler every twelve years if they suck or you get a monarch power boost
Prince of Egypt:
Yes I did get a PU over Austria. No I didn't do anything to get it. (And yes my dynasty is still the Medicis.) Will probably continue to get the Arabian Coffee achievement. Also considering I have a hundred innovativeness and innovative ideas, I'm probably pretty close to the world record for this achievement since it's gate kept by admin tech 20 which I took as soon as I could.
They set up a new studio to continue development on EU4
Not sure how I feel about it considering they've been unable so far to fix what's fundamentally broken with the game and the last expansion created a host of new problems or exacerbated existing ones
I'd prefer waiting for an EU5 at this point with better AI and a completely new direction for coalitions and truces
They set up a new studio to continue development on EU4
Not sure how I feel about it considering they've been unable so far to fix what's fundamentally broken with the game and the last expansion created a host of new problems or exacerbated existing ones
I'd prefer waiting for an EU5 at this point with better AI and a completely new direction for coalitions and truces
I'm a little confused why they would set up a new studio to work on EU4. I mean they have an existing team working on it, so does this imply an EU5 is coming? And honestly if it's mostly the same people that worked on EU4, I wouldn't really expect it to be all that different, but probably prettier (like CK3) and maybe in a new iteration of the engine (I don't know if CK3 uses a different engine from the older games).
I wish that Victoria 2 was popular enough to have them release a Victoria 3, because I've really been enjoying Victoria 2 quite a lot, but I'd really like to have a better UI and some bug fixes.
Stellaris, CK3 and Imperator are also in development at their Swedish studio, they've shifted people around a lot in the past (the game's gone through various directors, content designers, programmers)
Whiz is working on some unannounced project at the moment - if I remember correctly - but I wouldn't bet my money on it being EU5 or Vicky 3 (unfortunately)
Yeah I don't have any realistic hope of Victoria 3 being a thing. That time period doesn't have the same pull as World War 2 or the Age of Exploration. The Victorian Era is definitely important, but people that play grand strategy games don't (in general) seem to find it overly interesting.
I've grown really fond of the Monopoly Privileges lately, because
1. They make getting to 50 loyalty for seizing crownland easier.
2. They're an easy source of Mercantalism, and Mercantalism can really up your trade game if you farm enough of it.
Wish the Cossacks had a monopoly though, ot can be hard to keep them happy.
For 90% Administrative Efficiency, you need to start as Dithmarschen, form Prussia, form Sardinia-Piedmont, form Deccan and take their ideas and finally form Mughals
You're going to miss out on Mughal CCR since you need to stick with Deccani Ideas, but with so much Administrative Efficiency you can annex any culture in one go and instantly accept it before coring
The entire world is probably only around 2000% Overextension after that point
Bit unsure about the speediest way to eat Germany, maybe stacking minus Aggressive Expansion modifiers is the way to go
I got the hardest achievement! Chop Chop - have 6 spouses with one ruler.
But that's easy, right? Just play as Anglican and divorce them. Well, you see, that requires playing as England, which means I needed to go minmax crazy, get the PU over France, get a PU over Spain, get all the best colonies, transfer subject on Norway and Sweden, get the Burgundian inheritance, etc etc. It took several attempts over about 3 days just to make it to 1550.
I just got African Power! It ended with about 5 consecutive wars with the biggest AI Ottomans I've ever seen (and they used to own all of Egypt down to Ethiopia, and most of Tunisia too):
Bastard was allied with France and Russia too.
According to the ledger they've lost 12 million troops, beating #2 Russia who is on 3.4 million, and me at 3 million. And they still have 600k troops a month after our peace deal!
Posts
I'm Rajputana now and for awhile I've had a rajput only elite army (with cavalry and artillery support though) that has just been annihilating anything I throw it against, even against worse than 2-1 odds. And the only military ideas I have gone for so far is quantity so they don't even have any extra buffs besides Mewar/Rajputana's ideas+rajput modifiers+rajput estate modifiers.
edit: Finally bought the DLC and decided to play as Mulhouse. Managed to form swabia in less than fourty years with no outside help (just Konstantz and Ulm) so that felt pretty good.
Re: that Swabia pic, it's 1494 and the Papacy is dead? WTF?!
First, you get the religion of your coloniser at the time New Providence is created, not the religion of the province or the colonial nation you split from. I made the province Sunni, and most of the Caribbean too, and it turns out that was a mistake.
Second, you start with one province, no provinces are in range for you to fabricate on, and the most valuable provinces for raiding are too far away.
Third, you start with Plutocratic and Economic ideas, which isn't very helpful.
When I finally got through this I annexed most of Caraibas in one war, because I'm all the way over here, and they're Sunni, who's going to care? Turns out most of Europe still cares. I immediately got declared on by a coalition of France, England, Scotland, Portugal, Savoy, parts of Ireland and Italy... kinda bonkers.
The papacy was in liege. They eventually got rome back though. Reformation spawned in Siena so... was rough for the ole pope.
But in several games where the Protestant League was victorious I have never seen the incident fire.
And halfway through I get asked if I want to contest England's succession. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh I want to, I really want to, but I have no manpower and no boats, so it's not a war I could win. Felt so bad to decline that option.
Now I just need to slowly conquer the lowlands, then release France and Austria as vassals, and I'll have the achievement!
Economic has the best in general effects, and +10% merc discipline and +100% merc manpower are definitely the strongest military bonuses. Naval gets the very powerful +20% artillery damage at max power.
Military gets... -20% land attrition, +20% siege ability, and +10% movement speed. Lower land attrition is normally quite useful, but it seems an almost silly thing to give to a nation that can field an army of over a million men. +20% siege ability and +10% movement speed are both really good too... but against the other hegemony they'd probably lose.
Is this only for those "i am taking over the world" games at which point it becomes irrelevant?
Because the economic one i could have easily hit in my Castille/Spain game wit treasure ship naval tradition where after all the costs were accounted for i was still pulling in like 5k gold per month at the end. Alas, was in the prior patch.
With 20% siege ability you're winning every race, and with +10% movement speed and a general with decent maneuver pips you're unlikely to have to take a fight you don't want. Artillery bonuses don't really matter if they never get to shoot.
Provence can potentially get PUs over Naples, Aragon, and Hungary, plus free claims on the levant just for PUing Naples and taking Sicily from Aragon. (Makes Good King Rene waaay easier than it used to be.)
Florence has a neat mission tree which mainly just gives you lots of very good temporary modifiers and free claims over all of Italy. You get things like temporarily reduced idea and tech cost, cheaper advisors, cheaper development cost, etc. It really plays well to their reputation of being the tech leader of EUIV. Plus you get an easy way to switch to monarchy from the end of a mission tree. (Finish the line about estates and you'll have the option to become a monarchy, become a noble republic, or keep your italian republican government and get some stability. If you go monarchy you'll get enough government reform points to instantly max out all your government reforms.)
Yes I did get a PU over Austria. No I didn't do anything to get it. (And yes my dynasty is still the Medicis.) Will probably continue to get the Arabian Coffee achievement. Also considering I have a hundred innovativeness and innovative ideas, I'm probably pretty close to the world record for this achievement since it's gate kept by admin tech 20 which I took as soon as I could.
Yes that is France bordering me and yes they were/are scary.
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/eu4-development-diary-8th-of-september-2020.1420367/?utm_source=stcom-owned&utm_medium=social-owned&utm_content=post&utm_campaign=eu_eu_20200908_for_dd
Not sure how I feel about it considering they've been unable so far to fix what's fundamentally broken with the game and the last expansion created a host of new problems or exacerbated existing ones
I'd prefer waiting for an EU5 at this point with better AI and a completely new direction for coalitions and truces
I'm a little confused why they would set up a new studio to work on EU4. I mean they have an existing team working on it, so does this imply an EU5 is coming? And honestly if it's mostly the same people that worked on EU4, I wouldn't really expect it to be all that different, but probably prettier (like CK3) and maybe in a new iteration of the engine (I don't know if CK3 uses a different engine from the older games).
I wish that Victoria 2 was popular enough to have them release a Victoria 3, because I've really been enjoying Victoria 2 quite a lot, but I'd really like to have a better UI and some bug fixes.
Whiz is working on some unannounced project at the moment - if I remember correctly - but I wouldn't bet my money on it being EU5 or Vicky 3 (unfortunately)
1. They make getting to 50 loyalty for seizing crownland easier.
2. They're an easy source of Mercantalism, and Mercantalism can really up your trade game if you farm enough of it.
Wish the Cossacks had a monopoly though, ot can be hard to keep them happy.
You're going to miss out on Mughal CCR since you need to stick with Deccani Ideas, but with so much Administrative Efficiency you can annex any culture in one go and instantly accept it before coring
The entire world is probably only around 2000% Overextension after that point
Bit unsure about the speediest way to eat Germany, maybe stacking minus Aggressive Expansion modifiers is the way to go
But that's easy, right? Just play as Anglican and divorce them. Well, you see, that requires playing as England, which means I needed to go minmax crazy, get the PU over France, get a PU over Spain, get all the best colonies, transfer subject on Norway and Sweden, get the Burgundian inheritance, etc etc. It took several attempts over about 3 days just to make it to 1550.
Bastard was allied with France and Russia too.
According to the ledger they've lost 12 million troops, beating #2 Russia who is on 3.4 million, and me at 3 million. And they still have 600k troops a month after our peace deal!