Europa Europa: European Empires Mod

[Kaenash]

Let me preface by saying that of all the great mods, this one captivates my interest the most. I too played as England and focused on founding Catholocism. (I find that I now always focus on founding a religion at the start of a game)


I also found that what I had been doing wrong in vanilla unmodified games is playing the game on "Normal" speed. If you get into a war, then ka-blam all your enemies race to the next epoch in peacetime and you are left with macemen and a huge amount of land, while your new enemies show up with battleships and tanks.

Play on "Epic" speed. it slows down time a little more realistic. So that is how I played this mod too. It did seem better, but at times I thought I science was sped up and unit creation was slower. I dunno, that part may be my imagination/perception.


Secondly, what I love and hate about Civilization IV is that as my empire grows, I get bogged down. Soon, it seems I must have 30+ units to even launch an offensive. Gone are the days when you could take two catapults and a couple knights and go sack a city. You need a full fledged uber army. You also can't 'stack' em. You need to be really carefully about this. its a double edged sword.

Medieval Combat works a bit like this;
The archer is great against axemen, the axeman is great against swordsman, the swordsman is bad ass against cities and archers. The pikeman kicks the knights ass, the knight kicks everyone elses ass.

You need a little of everything, because your opponent is going to throw them all against you, but what happens at some point is Catapult shows up with collatarel damage. Basically, you can go hit the uberstack of six units with a single catapult or two and completely halt an advance.

Here is what I did;

As England, I had several false starts. Settle most of England and quickly push up into the borders of Scotland. Remove Robert the Bruce is my first plan.

I also founded Catholicism, which will be a HUGE advantage later. Catholocism spreads like rapid fire and as soon as I can build the Church of the Nativity I can get information about other nations, effectively making me Pope.

Anyway, the one downside to this mod, and I am not sure why this is, but even though Robert the Bruce has two cities, he seems to have an erection for producing troops. I can't seem to build at the same rate, but this guy is making ginormous gains in troops, that don't seem related at all to just using slavery.

I show up with six axeman and horse archers, wipe out his horses and iron source, and he has a about 2 spearman and archers. in the time it takes me to wipe them out he has increased to 8. He is limited to archers now.

Great. I am bringing up extra troops, but with my six cities I can't barely match his two cities. Slavery doesn't work so good at completing units. Sometimes you can, some times you can't.

I am assuming that is what the AI does though.

After several false starts, I realize that I need to go back to the moment I started the offensive, except not attack. Just surround his city and wait for a little while. Once I have 16 units to his 12, I attack.

I take his city, but at huge cost to myself.

Once I crack his capital, the other city falls like butter. The AI tends to have an ubercity it houses its huge army in.

If I bring in a swordsman with bonuses, I get wiped out by an archer. it seems the combat is skewed some how. I can't figure it out, but if I had an archer and he had a swordsman he would slaughter me.

I wipe out the bruce except for a tiny island in northern scotland. Doing an invasion from sea does not seem fun. Especialy since he has two "Archers", which means that will cost me at least four swordsman.

I then mop up the barbarians on the island. For some reason they don't seem so tough. The Bruce has 'aggressive' so he gets a slight bonus to units, but I wouldn't think so much.

I grab a small peice of land on the mainland that I rename "Normandy" which I am guessing was close to there. It is owned by the Dutch. I get the dutch to declare peace afterwards. my goal was to use it as a staging area by ferrying across my invasion fleet.

It won't be until 1000 AD that I decide to take out France, my closest rival. This is where life gets interesting.

I bribe France into attacking his neighbors Barbarrosa. Barbarrosa proceeds to counter and sack Paris. This is when I attack!

The first city I was prepared for, it takes me about 8 units, to sack a city of 4 units. I had 4 catapults, 2 welsh longbow, 2 knights.

He had 2 spearman, 2 archers.

I am left with the 2 knights and 1 welsh longbowman, but the french even though they should be worried about Paris counter attack my position.

I become locked into the hundred years war spiral. The problem being attrition. It just doesn't seem 1 for 1. I have to have bigger/badder troops and then maybe its 1 for 1, but it seems with a single archer he can send me packing.

I play on noble setting.

I dont' mind that at some point when you are controlling the large empire you get bogged down with 'next', 'next' queues so much as I do what seems to be unbalanced combat.

 

[Barak]

I agree that sometimes you can get stuck in a 40 turn war. Sometimes the AI declares war and sends huge amounts of troops to take your cities. Usually I just fortify as best i can, let them suicide against my archers (or longbows) and wait till they thin out to attack. The problem is the cost of taking one or two cities (building only troops) seems to cause a slowing of technological expansion.

In the game I started last night (inspired by the SG), I am playing the Papal States. Rome is the center of Christendom, and the builder of many Christian wonders. I have 5 Italian cites; barbarian Turin and Naples, Genoa (near correct location) and Ravenna in the far south. While I am near the top of the roster of nations, Venice is right there with me. I know that I have to expand, the question is do I move west against the French, North into HRE territory or East against Venice. The most logical move is against Venice, but they are the strongest in terms of military.

THat is what i love about this game and mod....so many choices.

 

[sapon]

Just before go to bed I tried to play some turns as Italy in the original mod (10 Civ), settlers level, just for fun. I've played until 300 BC then I give up. I wonder how a player can choose to play Italy in this mod: in almost 4000 years I could built: a barrack, a granary and Oracle, 3 archers, 1 worker, 1 boat and 1 settler. No space to found cities, no resources (just one cow and fish), barbarian cities as Venice and Naples well defended (phalanx and longbowmen), no bronze neither iron around, no stone or marble for wonders. The sense to play Italy? Can you explain? I know Italy was not a power in the history world, but as it's a choice it looks logical it can get same chances as others Civ. Indeed it looks totally unbalanced and not funny to play at all.

Snake,

I have modified the original map to include my Iceland & other edits. The Italian peninsula now has accurate resources (Iron, Marble, Copper, Coal). I deleted Naples, and added Palermo (Sicily). I also moved Rome a tile south to allow for accurate developement of Toscana. I think you'll find Italy much more viable now.

Goto the link in my signature below and download the 10 civ map. Put that in your Civ4 publicmaps directory and have fun!

Cheers

 

[Notarzt]

Greetings!

I don't know wether this is a known issue or if it is intentionally, but
when I play a marathon game on the extended map, i only have time
until 800 AD. At this year, time victory conditions take effect.

But nice mod so far. Love to play it. Would even love it more if i could
play marathon into the modern times.

 

[Methos]

But nice mod so far. Love to play it. Would even love it more if i could play marathon into the modern times.

Go into the ini file located in the EE3 mods folder. Open it with either textpad or notepad. You'll find a statement about max turns towards the top of the page. Just remove it and you can play as long as you want.

 

[cordas]

Interestingly enough, for the remainder of the game, this religion did not spread to a single city. Since it was founded after the discovery of Scientific Method, i could not build missionaries and did not want to change civics to be able to build one.

Considering how quickly Catholicism spread I was surprised by this result.

One way to change this would be to remove the missionary being made redundant by Scientific Method, this really isn't that realistic. You only have to look at how religion is still being spread today too see that the advance of Science still hasn't killed religion and its creep.

I really do think that this mod deserves to have religion play a bigger part in it, as it has played such a crucial role in European histroy for the last 1500 - 2000 years. Its too easy in this mod (or hard if you ignore it) too rush Catholicism and dominate the early game, then have the later game just descend into anarchy due to fighting members of your own faith.

This also seems to favour the AI outrageously as I have been attacked by other Catholic nations and their standing with other AI nations hasn't been altered significantly, but if I decalre war on one then its like I launched nukes.

 

[O.O. Howard]

.... I too played as England and focused on founding Catholocism. (I find that I now always focus on founding a religion at the start of a game).......You need a little of everything, because your opponent is going to throw them all against you, but what happens at some point is Catapult shows up with collatarel damage. Basically, you can go hit the uberstack of six units with a single catapult or two and completely halt an advance...

Kaenash, I wanted to respond to your interesting post. First, you mention how good it is to be pope, and i really agree with that. When when the level of play I am at becomes easy for me I try a game without being pope.

I didnt see you mention something else that can make the game easy, namely the wonders of colonization and trade monopolies. Do you not like them? Part of the greatness of EE (imho) was that innovation because it allows you to concentrate on european map so nicely but still have a sense of the rest of the world. I am embarrassed to say but i like the Africa/slave monopoly and then in the new world i get the cotton and sugar pretty easy on monarch level. I feel a bit guilty.. there needs to be some sort of moral penalty in the game for this.

You mention false starts. Yeah, we all have those with a new mod, scenario, or nation.

You mention the computer making a ton of units. i think that is true in vanilla civ too tho. I have found that the computer will waste many troops if you can bait him a bit. Have a worker unguarded just out of reach maybe. or a city not well guarded. Also i notice the computer will make units to take advantage of your weakness. So yeah you need a spearman in each stack, etc.
You dont mention knocking down Edinburough defences before attack. i am sure you did, but just in case you didnt i will tell you that you need a preliminary battering by catapults to lower the tile's inherent defense. when it is zero, throw the catapults at the city. All of them if need be.
yeah enemy catapults are a pain. And the fun thing is this problem of concentration vs dispersion is an age old military puzzle. I like to advance thru the woods and hills dispersed in small stacks, but plan to have the stacks coalesce in good spots at the city. blocking or destroying the roads that lead to your target is a must. Why let him move more units in? Also I try to bait enemy catapults into attacking a smaller stack. I keep my best units safe. Usually but not always you can make them lose many more units than you do. As long as you dont count my catapults that i burn thru i sometimes dont lose any units in a war.(dont ask how many catapults i burn thru) the other units of mine get the city attack promotions up to the max. I have rookie units in the stacks that i intend to put into the hard fights. not my best units. they wont fight unless i see at least 90% success chance.
You mention gazillions of units. I advise you play on the small map. Either way, look for the weak link in the enemy and hit that first. The Computer piles tons of defense in Capital but leaves the industrial city with 3 defenders? go for the industrial city, and you lose few units while he loses his producing machine. he is all piled in the cities? pillage everything. i love to have a small stack raid his strategic resourses right away so he cant make the type of unit he needs to win.
i liked the beachhead of normandy as a staging area. I love it too much... i tend to take too many turns planning out and positioning/staging. I especially like how you use diplomacy with bribe France into attacking barbarossa before you attacked france.
Unlike you, my main problem with the EE mod is the culture wars. I love being on a crowded map and fighting the right enemy for the right reasons. but my plans often go astray because even tho i win, some other nation gains the fruit of my well planned victory because his culture grabs not only the resourse but the conquered city as well. Or i decide to cut the war off early cause I got what i wanted out of it (and to avoid that 100 year war you speak of)... only to find my newlyconquered city is going to rejoin its homeland in a few turns.
So in sum i find the military aspect challenging yet winnable. But i am finding it hard to secure the fruits of victory in EE. But i like it very much too.

 

[Jouda]

Well, my strategy lies in pretty peaceful stand to all nations. I never attack first and I keep good relations with all leaders as long as possible. When expanding, I prefer cultural expansion which takes much longer time but causes no harm. I try not to engage in any war and to improve relations at all costs - I pay tributes, give techs (only if they do not have anything to trade) etc., I only refuse to support someone's crusades. These ocassional refusals cool the relations a bit as the time flows and there is always someone who gets pissed a lot. But with most of the leaders on my side, it is pretty hard for my enemies to cause me any damage And despite my peaceful nature, I have no mercy with the foes who have attacked me - I let them live crippled only to see my glorious empire prospering.

For example, in my last game (Prince level), Peter of the Russians grew really big and reached the top firmly whereas I (playing Bohemia) was varying from fifth to second. Our dispute started when I refused to help him with destroying Lithuania several times (was my best friend) and the quarrel gradated when Peter converted to orthodox. Having the mightiest army, Peter was real danger to me. After annihilation of the poor Lithuanians (whom I cowardly refused to help), Peter disembarked with his troops on my coast, thus declaring war. Thank God (Catholic ) that friendly Poland and brave Hungary stayed in his way to my territory. With my cities poorly defended with obsolete units, I would not hold up long despite I succeeded in beating those four disembarked units of Peter.

Next I called for help my friends in faith and persuaded them to declare war on Peter (defensive pacts had not yet been invented). It was pretty hard sometimes, especially in those cases our relations were only polite. But I seduced them with gold and techs and more and more nations were lining on my side. Finally, Peter was in war with half of the continent including pretty mighty empires of Byzantium and Poland. In about 10 turns the leading nation of medieval Europe, Russia, was destroyed - Peter could not resist allied forces of anti-orthodox crusade.

I never drew the sword and still was able to crush the insolent Russians. I let the others do the dirty job .

The only problem is that the Poles and the Byzantines got really huge .

I agree that sometimes you can get stuck in a 40 turn war. Sometimes the AI declares war and sends huge amounts of troops to take your cities. Usually I just fortify as best i can, let them suicide against my archers (or longbows) and wait till they thin out to attack. The problem is the cost of taking one or two cities (building only troops) seems to cause a slowing of technological expansion.

THat is what i love about this game and mod....so many choices.

 

[O.O. Howard]

Jouda! great post!

I especially like the part about mighty Russia. it is realistic that she be a looming threat to you. I am amazed that you got Russia burned to the ground by diplomacy.
I have never tried the super-nice approach to the demands of the AI. It really paid off for you. I might try it sometime.

 

[Notarzt]

Go into the ini file located in the EE3 mods folder. Open it with either textpad or notepad. You'll find a statement about max turns towards the top of the page. Just remove it and you can play as long as you want.

Tried some variations of roundlimits in the ee3.ini, but i still have only 480 turns to play in marathon.

My EE3.ini:

[CONFIG]

; This mod is only for single player games
SinglePlayerOnly = 0

; Allow public maps to be used with this mod
AllowPublicMaps = 1

; Mod Image file
ImageFile = 0

; Name of Mod
Name = EE3

; Description of Mod
Description = Europa Europa 3

and i already tried to insert:

[GAME]
; Max number of turns (0 for no turn limit)
MaxTurns = 0

as i found in the civ-.ini

.... still 480 turns to play

 

[hamtastic]

Notzart, you actually just have to go into the PublicMaps folder and edit the scenario (whichever one it is that you want to play.)

 

[Notarzt]

Okay. I edited the scenarios (both original and expanded).

I deleted the maximum turns (which were indeed set to 460)
.... but in game i still had the time limit
on a second try i also deleted the victory option time
.... but still the same limit in the game.
i even checked if i saved the file correctly (yes i did)

can anybody help?

 

[sapon]

Okay. I edited the scenarios (both original and expanded).

I deleted the maximum turns (which were indeed set to 460)
.... but in game i still had the time limit
on a second try i also deleted the victory option time
.... but still the same limit in the game.
i even checked if i saved the file correctly (yes i did)

can anybody help?

Notarzt,

set the maxturns = 5000 that should take care of your problem. I've never hit that limit and I play on Emperor/Marathon.

Cheers

 

[Notarzt]

Thanks a lot!
Im enjoying the extended map now, playing venice in marathon mode and 5000 turns to play

 

[pason]

Notarzt,

set the maxturns = 5000 that should take care of your problem. I've never hit that limit and I play on Emperor/Marathon.

Cheers

Disable all victory conditions except domination victory. Then the challange starts in modern times when all have their pacts and a war results in a world war.

 

[abilard]

First- Fantastic Mod! Let my voice join the choruses of praise... exactly what all of us europiles have been waiting for.

I'm half way through my first game, Hungary at the noble level. I'm tying up a centuries long war with Poland and I've experienceed many of the same things as other players:

* the rapid and pervasive spread of Catholicism

* the huge armies that you must build to wage a campaign to destroy / subdue another civilization.

One suggestion. From my (very limited) modding experience in Civ 3, I noticed that increasing the mmovement rates of units helped the pace of play on huge land maps. Perhaps this mod could be "spiced up" by doubling the move rate of land units and tripling (or quadrupling in later years) the move rate of naval units. In my game, it takes decades for my knights in Graz (Austria)(my western front) to move to Cluj (my eastern front). Not only is this unrealistic, but (most importantly) it slows down game play. Imagine Napolean trying to march on Moscow... centuries (yawn).

Anyway, fantastic mod nonetheless. I hope to add my own map to the mix here in a week or two.

 

[Barak]

Abilard--

In some ways I agree with you that it takes too long to get troops from one part of the map to the other. But remember that IRL it took the armies of Rome months to go from Rome to Gaul or Iberia on foot. I believe that Railroads demonstrate the effect of technology by allowing for more movement.

Many complained in Civ III with RR allowed for instant movement anywhere, so this was changed in Civ IV.

 

[immanuel]

(1) I can resist addiction to vanilla Civs, but this whole modding thing is killing me. I haven't slept in a week because of EE3.

(2) The only thing that prevents me from attaining perfect bliss is that I cannot figure out how to change an empire's border color. I've fiddled with the XML art files, but the starting color isn't changing on the map. Specifically I'm looking at the Byzantines, here, just can't get fired up about an orange empire. Purple, sure, or red or even blue but... orange? How can I be the Defender of Europe with a color like that?

Thanks, all.

 

[BenGee171]

Will there be newer versions? i tought it s final.

 

[danieldaniel]

I'm not such a big fan of mods, but this one is really GREAT!!! MAny thanks for sharing this with all of us!

DELETED (too stupid)

Thanks again for the great mod!