I managed to take over Britain as Mann in an apocalyptic war against England but somehow the aftermath didn't feel really fun. I wanted to colonize and go to America and Asia but all the other colonizers (except England who are dead) beat me there.
Started again, joined the HRE, it's starting to feel a bit cheesy buuuut maybe now I can go to Indonesia, maybe have a CN or two
At some point I want to do a game where I play as OPM Lubeck or Hamburg in Europe and am only allowed trading cities, taking land for colonies, and trade companies.
I just did a run to try to restore the Roman Empire and get Mare Nostrum, and it was kinda disappointing. To restore the Roman Empire you need to control all of France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, plus London and Cairo and Vienna, and maybe more I'm forgetting. Which means you basically have to control Europe, and you probably own half a dozen colonial nations and a good chunk of Africa. By the time I was able to form the Roman Empire I had 8 times the development of Ming, the 2nd Great Power, and there was no point continuing to play. I never even saw what my new national ideas were, because meh, time to quit. Also, you need to own all that land directly, which means you're drowning in corruption from too many territories.
I would have preferred if I could call myself Rome earlier, then try to expand to Rome's old boundaries, rather than the other way around.
I just did a run to try to restore the Roman Empire and get Mare Nostrum, and it was kinda disappointing. To restore the Roman Empire you need to control all of France, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, plus London and Cairo and Vienna, and maybe more I'm forgetting. Which means you basically have to control Europe, and you probably own half a dozen colonial nations and a good chunk of Africa. By the time I was able to form the Roman Empire I had 8 times the development of Ming, the 2nd Great Power, and there was no point continuing to play. I never even saw what my new national ideas were, because meh, time to quit. Also, you need to own all that land directly, which means you're drowning in corruption from too many territories.
I would have preferred if I could call myself Rome earlier, then try to expand to Rome's old boundaries, rather than the other way around.
By the time you can form Rome you own the entirety of the Genoa and Venice trade nodes and probably a good chunk of the English Channel. The corruption isn't a problem because you're making a stupid amount of money so who cares.
But yeah if you're going Rome and you keep playing it's because you're trying to WC, probably. At least their ideas are fantastic for that (though the Mughals and, hilariously, Italy are arguably better.)
Corruption starts to become a problem once the corruption from territories gets very high, something like +0,5 - overextension will then put you over +1 which means you can no longer get rid of all the corruption by rooting it out
It's also fairly easy to hit +1 from territories just by playing e.g. in certain world regions which have a lot of those awful three-province states
Speaking of corruption and world regions which have awful states, I'm playing a horde and despite the various ways the game became less fun you sometimes really feel the magic
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Corruption starts to become a problem once the corruption from territories gets very high, something like +0,5 - overextension will then put you over +1 which means you can no longer get rid of all the corruption by rooting it out
It's also fairly easy to hit +1 from territories just by playing e.g. in certain world regions which have a lot of those awful three-province states
I mean, sure, but then you wait for your OE to drop and root it over a couple of months/years (or use the Islamic government feature, depending on which road you're taking to Rome)
Like Rome requires a lot of land, but I'm in the middle of dealing with the corruption from a First Come, First Serve run, and it's annoying but ultimately not that big a deal.
Been picking on the Ottomans mercilessly this game. Playing as Poland, allied with Austria and Brandenburg, PU over Bohemia. Whenever they had a tough war, like against Venice or the Mamluks, I'd declare on them too. I was just focused on killing their armies, even if I lost the battle, and eventually peacing out with cash, war reparations, and humiliation. I had this great time when they declared on Hungary, I declared on them, wore them down, took a bunch of cash, then declared on Hungary for the PU, and when I won I was suddenly the defender against Ottomans again, and as a defender I could call my allies in again.
I know I've complained about this in this thread before, but goddamn you just can't stop them. They have a massive army with massive manpower, if you somehow kill all that they hire 50 mercs and recover their manpower in a year.
Anyway, here's the Ottomans in 1550:
Did France have its vassals on release or was it something they added (then removed)?
They started with them. I think the Paradox forums were talking about wanting to better model how decentralised France was but the bog standard vassals don't quite fit.
I think that's always going to be the issue in the crossover period of CK2 and EU4 - most of the European nations were very loose confederations still.
To be historically accurate at game start England should be similarly fragmented as France. The legacy of the Wars of the Roses was to destroy the autonomy of the nobles and strengthen the English crown.
You'd have justification to split up every major that way, for example Austria was essentially split between three states at this point
But you'd have to be careful with the balance since I don't think they're for example going to split Castile after Golden Century
Considering Austria has been *REDACTED* in all the map changes they've shown off, that might actually be a thing.
Anyway I think the choice about doing this to France vs. other nations of Europe where it would reasonably apply (who don't already have a vassal thing going) is that it sets the historical narrative of France going from a decentralized Feudal state to the definition of Absolutism.
You'd have justification to split up every major that way, for example Austria was essentially split between three states at this point
But you'd have to be careful with the balance since I don't think they're for example going to split Castile after Golden Century
Honestly I expect this is less for "historical accuracy" reasons as much as to make France actually have to do a little bit of internal cleanup before they start chowing down on everything west of the Rhine.
I mean, I'm only playing on Normal, but the French plan now is to just ally Castille at game start and eat Aragon before the wedding fires
I guess you'd be in trouble if he gets the Inheritance
It's not going to make France weaker unless they implement some sort of small quasi-HRE (which they might)
Vassals result in a higher total force limit and they shift warscore to more forts you have to siege down
The AI's also going to behave stupidly around the capital forts
Another benefit of vassals is that they always join your war and they can't dishonor so it's better than allying HRE princes
I have a feeling if there's a France mechanic, there might be something with diplomatic relations in there - if France starts filled out, it's going to make some starts in Western Europe extremely difficult for the player
That's basically the starting position of burgundy, right? A lot of vassals taking up all of their relation slots as soon as the game starts. Makes it pretty hard to get a marriage in there if you want a part of the inheritance.
It's not going to make France weaker unless they implement some sort of small quasi-HRE (which they might)
Vassals result in a higher total force limit and they shift warscore to more forts you have to siege down
The AI's also going to behave stupidly around the capital forts
Another benefit of vassals is that they always join your war and they can't dishonor so it's better than allying HRE princes
I have a feeling if there's a France mechanic, there might be something with diplomatic relations in there - if France starts filled out, it's going to make some starts in Western Europe extremely difficult for the player
I expect the vassals take up Diplo slots and start either disloyal or right on the edge with scutage on.
Assorted thoughts from this playthrough of Spain's new mission tree:
I really like the new mission trees. They give a bunch of goals throughout the game, rather than just the big one at the end achievements give, and I think achievements and missions are the most important thing to turn EU4 from a sandbox into a game.
Spain's mission tree is dumb. Control Holland to get a free PU CB over Austria and Britain? I hope you got the Burgundian Inheritance. Portugal is always going to be the first to colonise, even if you get the PU over them first, and then they claim the Carribean, but too bad you need to colonise about 10 provinces there with a Treaty of Tordesillas penalty and now Portugal and the Pope hate you. And you can't just let Portugal colonise it and then integrate them because that's the mission that gives you claims on Mexico, and you don't want to wait 70 years to do that. Overall, it feels more railroaded and arbitrary than Russia or England's mission trees, which makes sense because the DLC as a whole was pretty bad.
I wish there was more to do out of combat. For instance, I control the Genoa trade node. After colonising some of Africa I bought some land in India, and funnelled as much trade as I could over to South Africa and around to Sevilla... and it completely tanked the Ottoman's income. They lost about 1/4 of their trade income in Constantinople, and just lost more and more as I developed my colonies. But that was a bit of a one-off, everything else is resolved by fighting.
I think every post I make in this thread is about the damn Ottomans...
I'm Poland, had a great start: got a PU over Bohemia right away, got Lithuania, Danzig, and Moldavia nice and quick. Then I saw the Ottomans struggling through a war with Venice and decided to pounce (I had told Moldavia to fabricate on Constantinople, hoping to get it first). Took about 1000 ducats in loans, spent it all on mercenaries, managed to just barely eke out enough warscore to take Constantinople and around 500 ducats. Spent the next few years just trying to keep unrest down, pay off my loans, get some manpower back... took loans to hire mercs to put down rebels... meanwhile Ottomans got attacked by just about everyone else. As soon as my truce was up I went back in to take 1000 ducats and all the land I could.
I feel like Denmark and Muscovy might have had too much time to build up unopposed, but it's only 1475 and one rival is out already. This should be a good run.
Edit: Ottomans currently have a truce with Albania, Wallachia, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Moldavia, Danzig, Mazovia, Serbia, Austria, Hungary, Mamluks, and Candar, and they're at war with Venice and Genoa.
AnteCantelope on
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Releasing Byzantium as a vassal will give you a *bunch* of cores to reclaim. That's probably a comparatively easy WC run.
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.
Posts
Ottomans are considered the strongest nation in the game for a reason.
edit: apropros of nothing:
Started again, joined the HRE, it's starting to feel a bit cheesy buuuut maybe now I can go to Indonesia, maybe have a CN or two
Also look at all this moneeey
[edit]
Rank 5 Great Power with ten home provinces
on Very Hard, no wrecking Castile in the beginning
Both on Very Hard
Spanish Fly
Basque in Glory, with Spain forming
Also another Hisn Kayfa campaign on Very Hard where I blocked the Ottomans from going down their mission tree and so far it's been a blast
I started an East Asian game afterwards and ended up with this monstrosity in Europe, due to the HRE disbanding in 1544
I would have preferred if I could call myself Rome earlier, then try to expand to Rome's old boundaries, rather than the other way around.
By the time you can form Rome you own the entirety of the Genoa and Venice trade nodes and probably a good chunk of the English Channel. The corruption isn't a problem because you're making a stupid amount of money so who cares.
But yeah if you're going Rome and you keep playing it's because you're trying to WC, probably. At least their ideas are fantastic for that (though the Mughals and, hilariously, Italy are arguably better.)
It's also fairly easy to hit +1 from territories just by playing e.g. in certain world regions which have a lot of those awful three-province states
I mean, sure, but then you wait for your OE to drop and root it over a couple of months/years (or use the Islamic government feature, depending on which road you're taking to Rome)
Like Rome requires a lot of land, but I'm in the middle of dealing with the corruption from a First Come, First Serve run, and it's annoying but ultimately not that big a deal.
That's a big scary Yeren, though. What year?
Very Hard, otherwise I think I'd be touching tips with Muscovy already, there's so little dev in Central Asia
I know I've complained about this in this thread before, but goddamn you just can't stop them. They have a massive army with massive manpower, if you somehow kill all that they hire 50 mercs and recover their manpower in a year.
Anyway, here's the Ottomans in 1550:
Also Aztec for the first time in new Mesoamerica, all five reforms in 1467 on Very Hard
Unfortunately the colonizes give you such a clobbering this patch
I look at France and all I can think is "look how they massacred my boy"
spoiled for huge
I feel there were good reasons for removing them initially
Also interesting they changed the Nivernais color when Ulm and Austria still have the same color
They started with them. I think the Paradox forums were talking about wanting to better model how decentralised France was but the bog standard vassals don't quite fit.
But you'd have to be careful with the balance since I don't think they're for example going to split Castile after Golden Century
To be historically accurate at game start England should be similarly fragmented as France. The legacy of the Wars of the Roses was to destroy the autonomy of the nobles and strengthen the English crown.
Considering Austria has been *REDACTED* in all the map changes they've shown off, that might actually be a thing.
Anyway I think the choice about doing this to France vs. other nations of Europe where it would reasonably apply (who don't already have a vassal thing going) is that it sets the historical narrative of France going from a decentralized Feudal state to the definition of Absolutism.
It's hard to say how the vassals work but if it's a Muscovy-type situation they might make France stronger early-game
The one nation you wouldn't split would be Portugal
Honestly I expect this is less for "historical accuracy" reasons as much as to make France actually have to do a little bit of internal cleanup before they start chowing down on everything west of the Rhine.
I mean, I'm only playing on Normal, but the French plan now is to just ally Castille at game start and eat Aragon before the wedding fires
I guess you'd be in trouble if he gets the Inheritance
Vassals result in a higher total force limit and they shift warscore to more forts you have to siege down
The AI's also going to behave stupidly around the capital forts
Another benefit of vassals is that they always join your war and they can't dishonor so it's better than allying HRE princes
I have a feeling if there's a France mechanic, there might be something with diplomatic relations in there - if France starts filled out, it's going to make some starts in Western Europe extremely difficult for the player
I expect the vassals take up Diplo slots and start either disloyal or right on the edge with scutage on.
Assorted thoughts from this playthrough of Spain's new mission tree:
I really like the new mission trees. They give a bunch of goals throughout the game, rather than just the big one at the end achievements give, and I think achievements and missions are the most important thing to turn EU4 from a sandbox into a game.
Spain's mission tree is dumb. Control Holland to get a free PU CB over Austria and Britain? I hope you got the Burgundian Inheritance. Portugal is always going to be the first to colonise, even if you get the PU over them first, and then they claim the Carribean, but too bad you need to colonise about 10 provinces there with a Treaty of Tordesillas penalty and now Portugal and the Pope hate you. And you can't just let Portugal colonise it and then integrate them because that's the mission that gives you claims on Mexico, and you don't want to wait 70 years to do that. Overall, it feels more railroaded and arbitrary than Russia or England's mission trees, which makes sense because the DLC as a whole was pretty bad.
I wish there was more to do out of combat. For instance, I control the Genoa trade node. After colonising some of Africa I bought some land in India, and funnelled as much trade as I could over to South Africa and around to Sevilla... and it completely tanked the Ottoman's income. They lost about 1/4 of their trade income in Constantinople, and just lost more and more as I developed my colonies. But that was a bit of a one-off, everything else is resolved by fighting.
I must've played Nagaur half a dozen times before but I always got burnt out before the invasion of Europe
This Bohemia had a PU over Russia and basically stretched from Alsace to Korea
I'm Poland, had a great start: got a PU over Bohemia right away, got Lithuania, Danzig, and Moldavia nice and quick. Then I saw the Ottomans struggling through a war with Venice and decided to pounce (I had told Moldavia to fabricate on Constantinople, hoping to get it first). Took about 1000 ducats in loans, spent it all on mercenaries, managed to just barely eke out enough warscore to take Constantinople and around 500 ducats. Spent the next few years just trying to keep unrest down, pay off my loans, get some manpower back... took loans to hire mercs to put down rebels... meanwhile Ottomans got attacked by just about everyone else. As soon as my truce was up I went back in to take 1000 ducats and all the land I could.
I feel like Denmark and Muscovy might have had too much time to build up unopposed, but it's only 1475 and one rival is out already. This should be a good run.
Edit: Ottomans currently have a truce with Albania, Wallachia, Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania, Moldavia, Danzig, Mazovia, Serbia, Austria, Hungary, Mamluks, and Candar, and they're at war with Venice and Genoa.
VH
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.