Europa Universalis IV

[Angst]

They've been my vassal for like a 100 years and I kinda needed the extra 10k troops. I've begun to annex them however.

 

[Arakhor]

At the risk of sounding obvious, the Oirat are those beige-coloured people marked Oirat.

 

[Angst]

I meant that Double A wanted me to kill the Tartars.

I knew those were Crimea but forgot that I forgot to mention they were my vassals

 

[warpus]

Damn that's a giant Russia.. Glad I don't have to face something that giant in my game

What ended up happening in my commonwealth game is the Ottomans and Muscovy and their allies ganged up on me and defeated me in two wars. My allies were incompetent at times and my holdings were considerably weakened as a result. Anyway, I realized that some of my priorities throughout the game were flawed and restarted a game from scratch and took out the Teutons and Livonian order asap, instead of screwing around. Things are moving along much quicker this time around, my territory is larger and I can westernize and form teh commonwealth shortly, hungary and muscovy are already weak, and it's only 1500. The only problem might be that my military technology is a bit behind my rivals.. but if I can survive the storm I feel like this might be a much more successful game overall. Even if when I look at that insanely large Russia above it makes me feel insignificant in comparison

 

[Dell19]

Usually I prioritise military tech so if I get a King with 0 military ability I'll change the focus to military tech to make sure I don't fall behind. I tend to wait till the third idea group before taking a military idea group and when unlocking those ideas I'll make sure to tech in between. In my ROTW games I'll generally still have the same military level as the European powers or be at most one level behind.

Shame about losing against the Ottomans and Muscovy. One way to make the game easier to make sure to take out some of your expected late game rivals early which it sounds like you are doing in the second play through.

 

[warpus]

I have been trying to prioritize military tech advancement whenever I can, but my annexations of Teutonic, Livonian, and Hungarian territory has lead to me having to use the harsh treatment method of preventing uprisings from occurring. Muscovy is weak, because I have been supporting Novgorod, but I haven't really done anything about the Ottomans yet, aside from allying Austria and vassalizing Transylvannia. Ottomans aren't strong yet, but they can get there. Right now I'm sitting at a point when the uprisings are for the most part dealt with, but I can't destabilize my country much more, I can begin westernization if I want but I don't want to lose stability, and I'm 1 administrative tech away from forming the commonwealth. So need to figure out the right order for all this stuff without causing any rebels to rise up and keeping enough allies to keep Denmark, Muscovy, and the Ottomans away from my lands.

edit: My latest playthrough is now with the Wealth of Nations DLC, on top of Art of War. I looked at cossacks, but it didn't look appealing, and a lot of people were saying that it changes the game too much. So I opted for a more popular DLC, and a cheaper one.. So far not much different, but I didn't really expect it to be, as the focus is on merchant republics or whatever.

 

[Dell19]

I very rarely use the harsh treatment option as its really costly. My preferred tactic is raise automony in captured provinces as that reduces the revolt risk by 10% and can remove the revolt risk entirely. Its something that I didn't use when I first started playing as the reduction in tax income put me off but generally these provinces already have high autonomy anyway so either way its going to be a while before they are actually profitable. Additionally you can take the humanist idea group and park armies (more effective at full maintenance) on the rebellious provinces to reduce the risk further.

Other things to note is that war weariness has quite a bit impact so it can be worth paying diplo points to lower it. Its also sometimes worth just letting the rebellion happen as once they have rebelled there is a modifier that should stop them rebelling again.

Btw I agree with Quintillus that it shouldn't be necessary to have to Westernise with Eastern tech so if are planning on taking Prague or Vienna at some point then I would wait for that rather than have 10 years of speed 5. When westernising I usually appoint an unrest lowering advisor first and make sure I have enough admin points to go straight to +2 or +3 stability.

I'm not sure Cossacks is essential yet as I don't have it. I feel that Common Sense is more useful as they partially implemented development in the free version so I would recommend getting it when its on sale.

 

[Angst]

Spoiler :

Things are going well. Persia just DoW'ed the Ottomans so I reloaded and looked over the stats. Ottomans have a standing army of 75000... But so does Persia. My army is much more powerful but spread thin. All in all... I think I can take them. I'm going to the next time I play. Wish me luck.

 

[Arakhor]

I'm surprised that you don't know more of the map for your current year.

 

[Angst]

I hate exploring. I think it's unnecessarily tedious. (Other people are welcome to like it - I just don't.) I have plenty of colonial options too right now so I'm fine with not having it all showing up right now.

EDIT: Also as you can see, I'm slowly eating my way into the "Americas". France is an absolute beast. I hope I can recuperate and manage my revolts better so I can utilize the full force of my army. I'm really having problems with revolts - I very rarely run below full army maintenance as I have to fight constantly. It's a real drain on the economy.

 

[Daedwartin]

So....I have noticed something: Your game has had a Mingsplosion.

Which means there is a nice wealthy region to your south to conquer. Begin the Romanov Dyansty!

 

[Angst]

Yea I think there are Shun, Yin and Xi. Or something. The plan is to take them but I cannot concentrate enough soldiers in one place to really do the trick - they have some powerful blocs.

I managed to snatch Samarkand from Yarkand however through Threaten War. That felt gooood.

Perhaps it's better to beat up the Chinese first and then skip the Ottoman war. I just have serious Aggressive Expansion problems in the east, they're very close to forming coalitions at this point.

 

[Double A]

Eh, you could just make Kebab release 100WS worth of nations.

 

[Angst]

Might be a good idea, but as long as I don't have control over who is conquering the released states, I think I prefer taking land for myself. It might not be a good idea, of course, seeing that I already have stability problems.

 

[Antilogic]

I am playing a game as Bavaria and am trying to figure out the HRE politics in this version of the game.

Turns out, vassalizing electors can keep you on the throne but kills any chance of centralizing the empire.

 

[Double A]

I'm pretty sure peacefully annexing one gives you their seat but that could just be inheriting a PU, so it's probably not a bad idea to just vassalize and annex Trier or someone.

 

[warpus]

I very rarely use the harsh treatment option as its really costly. My preferred tactic is raise automony in captured provinces as that reduces the revolt risk by 10% and can remove the revolt risk entirely.

How do you do this, btw? I have had this option occasionally as an option, but usually I just don't, so it seems I can't. I can usually only accept their demands or kick their butts via harsh treatment, but maybe I'm thinking of the wrong panel.

Hey btw, my game was updated with the latest patch last night and now all my saved games are incompatible. I only get into EUIV every couple years it seems, is this normal, and something EUIV steam players have to put up with? Do you guys just disable automatic updates for this game? Kinda sucks to lose alllll your saves.

 

[Angst]

@Warpus
You can revert to earlier versions to make the save games playable. Under "opt for Beta" or something there's a list of each pre-DLC patch version for your liking.

It's annoying and bothersome but very possible to play older versions.

Hope it helped. I don't have access to Steam right now so can't follow you fully through it. There should be guides online.

 

[warpus]

Ahh thanks! I will look into that

Or maybe just start a new game, I wasn't too invested in the one I lost. I was just mainly asking for future reference, so that this doesn't happen during a game I'm really into or whatever.

 

[Angst]

I have the same issue

I get mostly "full" by playing 1-2 games per exp, so I often experience broken games.