Europa Universalis IV

[Luckymoose]

I always have lucky nations turned off. I have only ever seen the HRE form.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I should post a pic of my current game as Denmark which i think got some intresting developments.
From about about 1650 to 1700 Bavaria got REALLY PISSED for some reason and just conquered loads of HRE states tripling it's size.
Also, i inherited GB and no one even contested that claim. They have almost 1/4 of the world ...
I also inherited Savoy and the Palatinate.
I just discovered that if you remove your provinces from the HRE you only piss off the country who has the emperor. If another country gets the emperorship things are just peachy, it's just the old country that's holding a grudge for 50 years i think. I just love pissing off Austria as much as possible. I hate Austria and France. (in every game so far)

 

[Kyriakos]

It was going so well, Hungary. (1580)

I see that the AI still doesn't care about declaring war to massive alliances (as long as it is allied to the human player).

 

[Angst]

Actually, I've found them quite able this time around. Also in regards to alliance-tinkering; they don't declare war solely to punish the player anymore

I've found they aren't as aggressive as they could be though. My first game is as Burgundy and France has had several opportune moments to kick my butt. But they don't. When I'm down, they're usually busy elsewhere. Meanwhile I eat pieces of them little by little.

 

[Luckymoose]

My first game as France ended with continuous coalitions destroying me.

EDIT: Castile > Spain game, 1533. I inherited Hungary out of the blue. GG Europe. Portugal is my ally, and potential to PU soon. Portugal leads a PU with England. This could get hilarious.

Spoiler :

 

[Haig]

Hola, do you thnk that EU IV would be easier to get into than III?

What are the main differences / "selling points" between III and IV ?

I always have wished that EU would be fully turn-based so that has been a turn off for me, havent really played the series even though I own EU III.

 

[cardgame]

IV's cause-effect seems much clearer to me at least

 

[Sonereal]

EUIV seems like it would be easier to get into than III.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

EU4 has a significantly better interface, less obscure tech and event effects and it requires less micromanagement because it is not as complex as EU3.

Other advantages of EU4 are a better trade system, a new engine that runs much, much faster + is more stable in multiplayer and better graphics.

As for being turn based - the day runs in one-day increments. If you slow down game speed enough you can basicially play it as a turn based game, plus you can pause it at any time.

 

[bonefang]

the most important key here is "space"

 

[Kyriakos]

Why is it "not as complex as EUIII"? I liked EUIII, and part of the reason was that there were many things to do. It still seemed dead boring by the late 1500's, cause i controlled most of Justinian's empire, Britain was all over the new world, Spain was dead, France was under control, and the rest were second tier powers anyway. So i don't think i ever continued an EUIII game past the 1600 date :/

What i mostly loved in EUIII is that it did have decisive battles, along with crucial zones of control. It did not matter what you controlled from enemy land, or vice-versa, neither how many soldiers were killed from either side. It mattered most of all if the other side could realistically keep on going, or if the tide had turned too heavily against it in the mainland or the overseas bit you were having armies in.

 

[schlaufuchs]

Why is it "not as complex as EUIII"? I liked EUIII, and part of the reason was that there were many things to do.

Things to do in EU3:
1. War
2. Kill Rebels
3. Wait for Infamy/WE/Truce to tick down
4. Send guy to do thing; forget about said guy
5. ???
6. Twiddle thumbs
7. Try to learn htf the merchant system makes any sense
8. Learn how the battle mechanics work, stare at them and pretend like it matters that you know how it works
9. Rant about Byzantium/Poland/[Insert pet-polity here] getting marginalized
10. Complain about how EUIV significantly dumbed down the experience from EUIII
11. Complain about how EUIII significantly dumbed down the experience from EUII
12. Complain about how there's nothing to do when you're at peace
13. Rant about how ahistorical the game is
14. Rant about how the map makes no sense

Yes. There's ton to do in EU3

 

[uat2d]

EU4 is much more casual than EU3, now it's just too easy and most new mechanics make no sense

 

[NBAfan]

I fail to see how EU4 is much too easy. The AI is way better, now there's actually some challenge in taking a small nation and making it big.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Why is it "not as complex as EUIII"?

Imho the removal of sliders, the changes to NIs and the less obstructive interface have reduced complexity quite a bit. Which is not necessarily bad, because the actual depth of the game hasn't suffered that much.

One good thing is that the times of looking up tech effects are over. That one was really, really painful for new players. Same for mission triggers and some game mechanics like unlawful territory.

 

[madviking]

guys

guys

how about we all just get crusader kings 2?

 

[Wolfbeckett]

I actually think this game is better than EU3 already. Honestly my only two real complaints at this point are:

-Balanced around multiplayer instead of single player. This is annoying but also not new, Johan himself admits that all of their games have been balanced this way for a long time. Maybe not the best company decision Paradox has ever made considering the vast majority of players play single player, but that's their choice.

-Diplomacy is too easy, both for the player and the AI. Taking provinces by vassalizing and then annexing your vassals is far more efficient than going to war for it, especially since coring things yourself gets prohibitively expensive, but ESPECIALLY since Alliances are so easy to form that you can't actually go to war without getting gangbanged by half of the world. I inevitably end up roadblocked in every game, stuck with no more countries that I can easily vassalize and no countries that I can win a war with since everyone has too many alliances with everyone else and it just turns into a huge clustermess.

Other than that I'd much rather play this than 3, I think the depth is still about the same and EU4 is much easier to intuitively understand what everything is.

CK2 on the other hand I haven't been able to figure out AT ALL.

 

[PhilBowles]

CK2 on the other hand I haven't been able to figure out AT ALL.

I love CKII - one of the barriers to my getting into EU games is that (as humorously alluded to in an earlier post) EU IV doesn't really seem to offer much gameplay beyond "conquer/annex the rest of the world", and offers only a rather limited variety of ways to achieve that. If CKII was just a matter of expanding into the other provinces and forming empires it would get stale fast - it's the variety introduced by the dynasty system that gives it both a hook and strategic diversity (as it also has rather limited mechanics in terms of how to achieve goal X).

What is it you're finding difficult to figure out about it?

 

[GAGA Extrem]

how about we all just get crusader kings 2?

Thanks, but I already have like 3 or 4 copies... ^.°

That being said, if you like medieval politics and find game of thrones appealing, CK2 is certainly worth getting. =)

What is it you're finding difficult to figure out about it?

I guess the whole "baron, count, duke, king, emperor" thing isn't exactly easy to understand for first time players. Same for the title systems, the different types of claims and the "auto-military access" thingy ("OMG why are there armies in my territory?!").

 

[PhilBowles]

I guess the whole "baron, count, duke, king, emperor" thing isn't exactly easy to understand for first time players. Same for the tile systems, the different types of claims and the "auto-military access" thingy ("OMG why are there armies in my territory?!").

When you start (and, well, afterwards as well), all you really need to understand about the title system is which rank outranks which, since the main purpose of ranks is to allow you to vassalise - you can only vassalise ranks below yours (and I still get caught out by this, awarding duchies to people only to have them become independent. I start as Wessex, a petty kingdom, and a petty king = a duke).

Higher ranks can also hold more personal territory, so it's good to be able to create a new, higher title for yourself when possible (though once you hit Emperor there's no particular benefit other than sandboxing to holding extra territory - you get extra vassal armies, but the core territory of most empires gives you all the military you really need).

The different types of claims is something shared with EU IV, I think? For the most part a claim is a claim and the rest is flavour - the difficult thing to grasp (and I still don't completely) is what you need to do to place yourself to inherit a claim, since the succession system is rather arcane and it's difficult to trace who counts as a sufficiently close family member to give you a claim or inherit as a vassal (grandchildren don't seem to, for instance).

Commonly early in the game, you'll only be able to claim by:

(a) having a de jure title that contains land you don't own (for instance, if you form the Kingdom of England as Wessex, you can press claims for any English territory you don't own)
(b) fabricating a claim
(c) sharing a border with an infidel or pagan (allowing you to claim the neighbouring territory through Holy War), and:
(d) inheritance - this is ultimately the most important type of claim, but also the hardest to get to grips with. The earliest way you'll get a claim this way is by marrying someone with a claim, but pressing on your wife's behalf won't give you possession - having a son, pressing the claim on your wife's behalf, and then arranging for her to die conveniently soon afterwards is the surest way to get this land, but you have to be aware of the succession laws for that particular territory: I tried this approach with Aquitaine in one game, unfortunately Aquitaine had seniority succession so the territory wasn't inherited by our son.

At least in the early game I'd try marrying people with claims to keep the claims in the family, but not pressing them until they're due to expire a couple of generations later. By that time you'll hopefully have a better understanding of how the system works, since once you're into it it starts to become fairly intuitive as, like any Paradox game, there's a lot of rinse-and-repeat gameplay mechanically.

Armies in your territory are only something to worry about if they're red - and no, you can't shut them out or close borders. CK II is all about politics, but its diplomacy system is extremely limited and rudimentary - basically you can give people stuff for favours (i.e. improved influence), but that's pretty much it. You can't arrange treaties of any kind (alliances are something else linked to the dynasty system, and again are rather arbitrary in terms of who counts and who doesn't - in-laws of close family members count, grandchildren and cousins don't, for instance).