Europa Universalis IV

Six of those are given. We know the Ottomans, and there's now way CAS/SPA, ENG/GBR, MUS/RUS, HAB and FRA are not Big Eight material. The later two are more interesting. Brandenburg-Prussia, Sweden and Portugal are all contenders. The Netherlands you could argue for as well, though their absence at game start hurt them.

And of course, below that tier, you have two more tiers that still get a lot of extra flavor. All in all, there are 33 nations (split 8/9/16) getting extra flavor, and the rest mostly have to rely on what EU2+3 gave them.

Wouldn't it be the TO/prussia?
Has there been any confirmation that the big 8 are European? If not China, Japan and Muhgal/Timurid are in with a shout.

Edit: Byzantium might be in with a shout knowing EU3

Byzantium is confirmed out.

And given how much Johan insist on "It's EUROPA" these days...

EDIT: And no, it shouldn't be the TO. There were two distinct states of Prussia in European history, the duchy and the kingdom. The Duchy was formed by the TO, and was basically just a renamed, secularized TO that never really mattered much. The Kingdom, on the other hand, was created by the Electors of Brandenburg after they inherited the old duchy, and that Prussia sort of mattered a good deal.

Oda Nobunaga said:

The later two are more interesting. Brandenburg-Prussia, Sweden and Portugal are all contenders. The Netherlands you could argue for as well, though their absence at game start hurt them.

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Portugal and the Netherlands won't be in because that would require a moderately advanced trade model, and Paradox only just discovered the concept of "trade routes". Good luck making something like the Estado da India with this system. That, and both of those countries were chiefly relevant for the impact they had on RotW, and vice versa, so any extra effort for them would require a cursory look outside Europe, and we can't have that.

Sweden's in because it's Paradox, and Prussia's in because GERMANY.

I generally agree with Dachs' points. Sweden will be in, anyways, it's a given, and I think Prussia's a good contender, although it won't really... exactly be fully there at the beginning of the game. Netherlands and Portugal will be added with a trade DLC or something. Portugal might be slightly more plausible, I think, if their events focus more on exploration rather than trade.

Anyhow, I'm actually having a bit of hope that China's one of the big 8. On the forums, one of the devs said:

tier 1 - 8 countries (flavour and fun, behaviour vital for game progress)

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To me, that makes China plausible, even if unlikely. Why? Because China's behavior is vital for Asia if, for anything, to make sure it doesn't turn into an ahistorically expansionist blob of doom that eats alive every tiny Asian country, even with the hilariously arbitrary tech penalties in EUIII. It's really the biggest, baddest blob in-game. But I suppose this is a bit of a stretch and too much false hope.

Other contenders, if we ignore Portugal and Netherlands... well, actually, yeah, Prussia's the only choice I can really think of. Poland, maybe, but probably Prussia, I'd say.

I had hope that Poland would be in the 8 and much to my surprise, there is some vocal support for Poland in the Paradox forums. Given Paradox's track history with Poland though, it is probably a lost hope.

It's not that big of a deal though. I am more concerned with Paradox atleast attempting to make a system of governance that reflects Poland more so than events and DHE's which are really not all that important and can be modded.


@cyrbxkhan, I'm afraid you will be forced to look at the modding community for answers with Asia. There are some good options.

Dachs - on the other hand, Johan himself just dropped into that thread on the Paradox forum to note that Portugal had more impact on Europe than Poland and Sweden combined. Given the well known pro-Sweden bias of Paradox, that's a pretty significant statement.

It may also be a pretty strong hint at Portugal being ahead of Sweden in Paradox's "Big 33" ranking.

EDIT: the quote

Ehh...

Portugals actions had far more impact on europe than sweden and poland put together. Its thanks to them that the med declined.

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My guess right now:

Tier 1: France, England(GBR), Russia (Muscowy), Spain (Castille), Prussia (Brandenburg), Ottomans, Austria, Portugal.
Most likely to go down a tier: Prussia-Brandenburg, then Portugal
Most likely to go up a tier: Sweden, then the Netherlands.

Tier 2: Sweden, Netherlands, Venice, Aragon, Poland strike me as very unlikely to be any lower.
Burgundy is always a strong possibility, and Bohemia and Denmark also can make a solid case for themselves.

Tier 3: Expect all the fan favorites (including non-European ones) to be hanging out at this tier (except Ulm): Byzantium, Japan, China, etc.

Naturally, even Johan's reasons for elevating Portugal above Sweden are wrong.

Hey, it's Johan. If he arrives at the right result for a change, I won't worry too much about how he got there .

It's EU3's most popular AAR, they have to have at least one reference to Ulm. It'll probably be just an achievement or something, but I'm hoping for the best.

TheLastOne36 said:

@cyrbxkhan, I'm afraid you will be forced to look at the modding community for answers with Asia. There are some good options.

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Unfortunately so. I'm still holding out hope that China and a few other important/well-known non-Europeans (i.e. Mughals, Japan, etc.) get into tier 2. I'm also hoping that the Native Americans and Africans get a bit more respect, rather than become punching bags for Europeans (Native Americans I can partially understand, but Africa was a joke in EUIII, which I found to be perhaps the greatest example of EUIII's Eurocentrism).

Oh well. Divine Wind, funky and silly as it was, stopped the Imperial Japanese Empire from attacking SE Asia 400-500 years before they were supposed to, so I'll give them credit for that. (I remember one of my brother's many Dai Viet games when he teamed up with Japan to basically divide SE Asia into a huge Japanese blob and a huge Vietnamese blob)

Dachs said:

Naturally, even Johan's reasons for elevating Portugal above Sweden are wrong.

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It was my understanding that it was Portugal the country that discovered the naval route to India and it was also pretty strong in the colonization of the Americas. If that wasn't a reason to deviate trade from the Mediterranean, I don't know what is.

Still, this big 8 talk sounds incredibly silly, it's just restricting replayability - in fact, afaik, most people turn off lucky nations, why would they go against the have and be biased and favour some specific nations over all others?

Also, they seem to be overplaying the whole "new trade routes" thingie. Other than some arrows on the sea and ducats coming out of it, it doesn't sound that interesting at all. I'm sure nobody will play EU4 to look at trade routes and more ducats. People want to paint the map and to roleplay a bit, not to look at a chart and go all "le happy merchant".

uat2d - they cannot possibly focus on all nations equally; if they did, they'd end up with every nation being equally unsatisfactory to play.

The Big Eight just mean the ones they have chosen to focus the most design efforts in, based on their perception of which nations were most vital to a game set in the EU era.

Oda Nobunaga said:

uat2d - they cannot possibly focus on all nations equally; if they did, they'd end up with every nation being equally unsatisfactory to play.

The Big Eight just mean the ones they have chosen to focus the most design efforts in, based on their perception of which nations were most vital to a game set in the EU era.

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I know, I also didn't expect them to focus equally in France and in Oyo. Still, saying that there will be the big eight and the rest will be leftovers is rather worrying. Wasn't EU1 only playable for 8 countries and EU2 basically EU1 but with everyone playable? That's what's concerning me, they going back to so blatantly favouring some countries over others.

The thing with favouring England / France / Sweden / Castile / Prussia / Austria is that it makes it extremely rare for countries like Scotland / Burgundy / Norway / Aragon / Brandenburg / Bavaria to succeed. I mean, even if the outcome is similar, give it a chance for things to get there differently. Or make it so that this uniqueness in decisions is based on culture group instead of on country.

Players shouldn't be discouraged of playing countries with a worse starting position. Heck, the most fun I have is starting as an OPM and ending up owning entire continents. If one attempts to conquer Europe as Granada or America as Navarra, one shouldn't be discouraged by the lack of flavour or decisions, that's all I'm saying.

Honestly, the best strategy is to only play the base game to learn the mechanics, then just play mods that make the game better.

It's not "Big Eight then leftover". It's "Big thirty-three then leftover who still get anything they had in EU2+EU3 unless it doesn't fit in EU4.

There are thirty-three nations getting extra flavor. What distinguishes them is how vital to the game Paradox consider their performance to be.

cybrxkhan said:

Unfortunately so. I'm still holding out hope that China and a few other important/well-known non-Europeans (i.e. Mughals, Japan, etc.) get into tier 2. I'm also hoping that the Native Americans and Africans get a bit more respect, rather than become punching bags for Europeans (Native Americans I can partially understand, but Africa was a joke in EUIII, which I found to be perhaps the greatest example of EUIII's Eurocentrism).

Oh well. Divine Wind, funky and silly as it was, stopped the Imperial Japanese Empire from attacking SE Asia 400-500 years before they were supposed to, so I'll give them credit for that. (I remember one of my brother's many Dai Viet games when he teamed up with Japan to basically divide SE Asia into a huge Japanese blob and a huge Vietnamese blob)

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BTW If you are interested, I am in the process of taking the Vicky 2 Asia and putting it onto the DW map for the MPM mod. When that is done I want to completely redo South East Asia and Indonesia.

I've intended on asking Masada or Tailless as they both are knowledgeable on the areas but if you are interested in helping me redo SE Asia that would be great. You can ask for as much as you want in provinces, tags, government types, events, decisions etc. and as long as it is in the realm of possibility I'll add it.

TheLastOne36 said:

BTW If you are interested, I am in the process of taking the Vicky 2 Asia and putting it onto the DW map for the MPM mod. When that is done I want to completely redo South East Asia and Indonesia.

I've intended on asking Masada or Tailless as they both are knowledgeable on the areas but if you are interested in helping me redo SE Asia that would be great. You can ask for as much as you want in provinces, tags, government types, events, decisions etc. and as long as it is in the realm of possibility I'll add it.

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Oh wow, sounds awesome.

I'll admit that it's been years since me or my brother have dealt with EUIII, and even then it was mostly him who played EUIII (like 99% of my EUIII "experience" actually comes from watching and advising him on EUIII), so my knowledge on the game is pretty sketchy at this point. That's not to mention that we rarely played EUIII mods (for whatever reason), so I'm unsure of what the capabilities of EUIII modding is. (For one thing, I've heard people throw the word "tag" around, but I dunno what it is)

That said, I'll be happy to contribute whatever limited knowledge and ideas I might have. I will say that Vietnam will probably have mechanics and events more similar to that of China, and it'd be more of a slight oddball in the SE Asian zone, but whatever. Do you have an account on the PI forums? It'd be quite... interesting to go do a bit of modding work with you again, albeit in a very different fashion.

uat2d said:

It was my understanding that it was Portugal the country that discovered the naval route to India and it was also pretty strong in the colonization of the Americas. If that wasn't a reason to deviate trade from the Mediterranean, I don't know what is.

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The Portuguese efforts to take over the Indian Ocean trading networks and redirect them to their own benefit failed pretty comprehensively. Most trade continued to go through the Red Sea and Persian Gulf; the Cape route was simply too long and dangerous for some time, and the Portuguese themselves never had the shipping capacity to keep it in competition with routes further north. The overland route would continue to dominate in importance long after the Estado da India had been virtually destroyed by the Dutch in the mid-seventeenth century.

The main discontinuity the Portuguese did cause with Indian trade was negative and temporary, and followed from the capture of Melaka in 1511 - it redirected the Gujarati merchants who had used to trade there through Aceh, from there to the Maldives, and then to the Red Sea and Venice. Melaka's hitherto trader-friendly environment ceased to be so liberal, and standard Muslim-Christian tensions compounded the issue. While Indian traders continued to visit, the port's overall importance declined precipitously.

None of this means that the Portuguese irruption into the Indian Ocean was inconsequential or irrelevant. What the Portuguese did very well at was the creation of a protection racket and at sustaining their operations via plunder. Militarily, the Portuguese were almost unchallengeable in eastern waters despite only possessing, at most, 10,000-15,000 personnel in the East at any given time. And the treasures that they did ship back to Portugal were substantial, especially in light of the ridiculous levels of corruption endemic to the Estado da India's officers. But none of this had any serious impact on trade. The overland route to the Mediterranean dwarfed the Cape route in terms of volume for centuries after da Gama, and by the time it had changed, the Portuguese were no longer the ones to benefit from it.

@Dachs: I think one of my professors said something like this, but would it be reasonable to say that the Portuguese (and to a lesser extent the Dutch afterwards) simply attempted to take over - or rather, monopolize - an existing system rather than create a new one? I'm also getting that vibe from your post.