Europa Universalis IV

Last try also failed. Colonized bermuda to block them off, yet around 1500 they managed to get one little island in the carribean...

Im considering just do it as castille. But there is offcourse the "spain is the emperor". Is there a viable way to do both? I would like to colonize and expand into italy. I might let that emperor slip for another playthrough, and just colonize and war with portugal for its colonies eventually.

That ive only seen the iberian wedding once in 8 playthroughs doesnt bode well though.

I picked this up when it was dirt cheep during the steam sale and just got around to playing a couple days ago. Unlike EU3 which I found not even remotely new player friendly I'm highly enjoying myself. I didn't pick up the DLC's though so I'm wondering what or if any of them are worth grabbing at full price?

greenmangaming and gamersgate have a sale going.

Was so close to all of the carribean, when f***ing england comes out of nowhere to take the last island. Normally i would attack them since they are in full religious rebel trouble, but they are the junior partner in a personal union with castille.....

Can you fabricate a claim on an island btw?

If you share an ocean province with it you should be able to, yes.

and an ocean province with my colonial nation?

That's probably a different story. Can't you load up the game and find out?

too late, colonized the province under curacao, and then it was possible

But really too late now, cause somehow mali depleted all my manpower==> peasants war, army upkeep of 20, rebels everywhere, colonizing halted....

Does anyone know what +relations are needed to join the hre? Assuming I'm smaller and less powerful than Austria. Having a crack at Venice ATM with a plan of take ragusa, release Croatia, join hre, play in the Balkans, and then slowly chip away at Italy while taking the e med. By the time I'm playing in the gulf money should be no object so form Italy lose naval power that by that point should be fairly overwhelming and gain land power and be eligible to be HREmp.

But knowing how arsekissy I have to get with Austria before they turn on me would be really handy.

Started an Ethiopia game.

I own everything down to Mutapa, and have got Yemen as a vassal. Also taken a province off of Hedjaz.

I've taken Expansion and have started colonising. I want to colonise round the cap to try and meet Portugal/Castile on their way east. Sadly I have also just learnt there is a likely bug with westernisation and it can take a huge amount of time due to some sort of link with base tax.

My main problem on the domestic front is my religious unity. Coptic has a missionary strength malus so all those muslim lands are hard to convert. Also going to get increasing problems with inflation due to all the gold mines on the east coast of Africa. So with Expansion I'm probably going to have to take Economic and Religious or Humanism. Thats 3 ADM ideas! Going to be slow going!

Go Ethiopia! I had fun playing as Adal once in EU3. I actually managed to be somewhat successful, in no small part due to not antagonizing the Mamluks, and it sounds like you're well on the path to success, too. And likely with a harder starting point, being Christian.

GinandTonic said:

Does anyone know what +relations are needed to join the hre? Assuming I'm smaller and less powerful than Austria. Having a crack at Venice ATM with a plan of take ragusa, release Croatia, join hre, play in the Balkans, and then slowly chip away at Italy while taking the e med. By the time I'm playing in the gulf money should be no object so form Italy lose naval power that by that point should be fairly overwhelming and gain land power and be eligible to be HREmp.

But knowing how arsekissy I have to get with Austria before they turn on me would be really handy.

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The EU4 Wiki says this about joining the HRE. Looks like you just have to get your capital to the Empire, but there's no specifics on what the Emperor will require.

Of course, you don't have to be a member of the Empire in order to become Emperor. It just makes it easier. In my current game, one of the electors is voting for Castile as Emperor.

Yeah, I allied the mamluks asap. They already drew me in to war with the timmys and the ottoman but nothing bad came off it. That's my main concern with then as allies, the ottoman smashing through them and gutting me.

They would accept me as a protectorate which is nice for the tech boost but then I'd lose my vassal (i think).

I want to get a cb of some kind on Oman so I can vassalise them too.

Heh, I've been playing an Ethiopia game too. Allying with the Mameluks is the wrong move. You want to become their protectorate instead - you get a 20% tech cost reduction, they'll help you when you're attacked and you don't get dragged into their wars, for the price of some trade power that you weren't making much money off of anyway.

Anyway, I didn't do too much expansion early on - annexed Adal in one war right straight off of course (AE is irrelevant when you're a protectorate), and then Funj when they appeared, but other than that, I went for a more colonial game. Grabbed a couple of Indian ocean islands, then the cape region. Grabbed a couple of provinces from Mali, released Jolof in one of them letting me core the other one so I could westernise off the adjacent Castillan provinces. Westernisation was surprisingly smooth, particularly with the Mameluks sending troops to crack down on my rebels.

Once that was done, I turned by attention east, taking Ceylon and much of Indonesia and the Phillipines. Unfortunately now everything's getting a bit stagnant, with some ridiculous alliance blocks springing up - I want to go after some of my neighbours, but not only are Yemen and the Mameluks allied to each other, but they can both call on the ~100k troops of Astrakhan. (Yes, Astrakhan).

I guess you took exploration instead of expansion?

My main reason for not being a protectorate is that I want to have some vassals. At this point I'd rather spend diplo points to expand rather than admin points. I'm looking to Oman and mutapa next, though with all the gold I'm not sure I can take mutapa in one war.

If your a protectorate do you get called to arms if the protecting nation is attacked?

What did you do about religious unity?

grandad1982 said:

I guess you took exploration instead of expansion?

My main reason for not being a protectorate is that I want to have some vassals. At this point I'd rather spend diplo points to expand rather than admin points. I'm looking to Oman and mutapa next, though with all the gold I'm not sure I can take mutapa in one war.

If your a protectorate do you get called to arms if the protecting nation is attacked?

What did you do about religious unity?

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Exploration first yes, though I took expansion later mainly for the CB against asians (Overall, I went Exploration, Admin, Expansion, Trade, Quality and I've just picked up Maritime; I want all the trade in the Indian ocean going into Ethiopia). Exploration is really important as you need to get round the Cape to westernise. Sitting and waiting for the Europeans to come round no longer works as they make all their provinces in south/east Africa trade companies which you can only westernise off of if you conquer, rather than just bordering. Admittedly, the way I did got in a position to westernise was a little cheesy (you can core provinces that border a vassal even if they're outside of your normal coring range), but since WoN it's become pretty awkward to do it "fairly" as a nation east of Europe.

You can still have vassals as a protectorate, you just have to annex them first then release (I did this with Funj [then diploannexed them to save on admin points] and Jolof [for westernisation]).

Nope, you don't get called into your protector's wars. Though in return, you can't call them for help when you're attacking, only when you're attacked.

Converted everything to Coptic (barring a couple of my high BT Indonesian provinces, but being part of a trade company seems to make it irrelevant for unity). Grab a theologian for the decisions, then an inquisitor to increase conversion rate if you can find one, keep positive stability and you can do it reasonably quickly - east Africa is not exactly the highest base tax region in the world. Once you get your admin tech up to the 10ish range, there's a bunch more decisions to boost missionary strength, one of the Ethiopean ideas has +1% too, and if you have real problems, grab Religious ideas.

I think they should go back to 2D graphics. I liked that better.

grandad1982 said:

They would accept me as a protectorate which is nice for the tech boost but then I'd lose my vassal (i think).

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grandad1982 said:

My main reason for not being a protectorate is that I want to have some vassals. At this point I'd rather spend diplo points to expand rather than admin points. I'm looking to Oman and mutapa next, though with all the gold I'm not sure I can take mutapa in one war.

Click to expand...

You do lose any existing vassals when you become a protectorate, but you can vassalize other nations after you become a protectorate -- either vasslaize directly in a peace deal, or annex the target and release it as a vassal. But you cannot diplo-vassalize anyone as a protectorate, since protectorates can't form alliances.

If your a protectorate do you get called to arms if the protecting nation is attacked?

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No, you do not. It does work in reverse, however -- the protector will intervene in its protectorate's defensive wars.

DDRJake is attempting his second World Conquest as the tiny Okinawan kingdom Ryukyu.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm0MDLKuRDrlp18FY6VyF5OdUCAKBv7IO

For those who are unfamiliar with DDRJake, he's the guy who conquered the world as Ryukyu back in EU3. As a nod to his incredible accomplishment, Paradox designed the "Three Mountains" achievement for EU4, wherein the player conquers the world as Ryukyu.

DDRJake did this once at EU4's release with a whole bunch of exploits and bugs. Now he's attempting it again in 1.7, with another round of bugs.

Is it even possible without bugs and glitches? Seems a bit weird to put an achievement in the game that you can only get via... I want to say cheating, but will use "stretching the game's rules."

I'm pretty sure Three Mountains is only achievable with exploits and bugs. It appropriately honors DDRJake

TheDanish said:

DDRJake is attempting his second World Conquest as the tiny Okinawan kingdom Ryukyu.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm0MDLKuRDrlp18FY6VyF5OdUCAKBv7IO

For those who are unfamiliar with DDRJake, he's the guy who conquered the world as Ryukyu back in EU3. As a nod to his incredible accomplishment, Paradox designed the "Three Mountains" achievement for EU4, wherein the player conquers the world as Ryukyu.

DDRJake did this once at EU4's release with a whole bunch of exploits and bugs. Now he's attempting it again in 1.7, with another round of bugs.

Click to expand...

I do believe that the Three Mountains already existed as an EU3 achievement before DDRJake conquered the world as Ryukyu in EU3. I recall reading that part of the goal is conquering the world as the Ryukyan Horde was to get that achievement. I think there were also two or so other people who also managed to get that achievement - still a very select crowd.