How is your EU3 Game going?

[Duke of Britain]

It's focused on the period AD1399 to AD1821; it should focus on the colonisation of the Americas, or that should be one of the main focus. I know it doesn't, but it should. I'm talking about what can be done better, not what the game is.

It should represent colonization better, but everything outside of Europe isn't properly portrayed, sadly. (Colonization of Australia happens too early and is way too easy, for instance)

As far as quality of representation goes, Asia is, luckier than most of the Rest of the World. Africa had it the worst, followed shortly behind by America. Asia comes a good bit behind - yes, there's shortcuts, simplifications and representations of one tag with another, and yes the map is horrendous in Asia, but it's still a far better representation than the tragi-comedies of Africa and the Americas.

(Even within Asia, India is far from the worst part off - South East Asia and the Middle East share that crown, not India))
Oceania is not worthy of discussion.

I am forced to disagree with you, India is insanely underpowered, do you think the europeans could conquer it by 1500 like this? No, India is huge, the indian states had very big populations and were hardly that backwards.

Colonization of India is much more complex than colonizing the native americans, there were some very important factors that allowed Britain to colonize it, however what if the Mughals remained strong and never suffered some kind of collapse? (Like if they avoided their succession crisis in 1707 and could focus on defending themselves from invading powers and rebel factions)

India should, like any other parts of the world, be technologically behind the europeans by 1750, trading posts should not be impossible to gain, but an unified India should be a respectable opponent, not something that you would care less than an invading 3PM in Europe.

That said I disagree that "This game should focus on colonization fo the Americas". As I said before, the game's focus, is, and should be, on the discovery of the world, and the contact and interactions between Europeans and the many different people they encountered along the way.

That's really the great flaw of Paradox's approach. They do piecemeal improvement to how things work in an individual region, but European contact with the RoW are governed in exactly the same way as contact between European nations. This is the biggest flaw of the game - contact with the great established empires of the East should be about sending missionaries to their provinces and trying to get access to the trade in their markets. Contact with the natives of north america should be about forming trade leagues with them that direct their furs to your markets (subtle but important distinction), and purchasing provinces from them to expand your colonial holdings. Contact with japan should involve backing one side or another in the civil war (rather than having all contacts be with main Japan) - not by direct military intervention, but by providing advice and armament to the side most favorable to you. Etc, etc, etc.

Only thing i disagree is with trade league with the natives, you could adopt different approaches to them, but yes, that should be an option, and i agree with everything stated in there.
As for Japan, we have a event-chain where some provinces are converted to catholicism, that could be expanded to include what you mentioned and it would be great. (armament in exchange for allowing missionaries in, basically)

Instead, it's all the same, without any distinction. They'Re all just victims to be conquered - all the more so than western tech nations because they suffer from ridiculously overblown technological penalties.

Once again i point out to India, the natives didn't had knowledge of gunpowder or steel when Cortez first arrived in Mexico, the same can't be said for India, especially not if it was unified, yet in vanilla DW India is ridiculously easy to conquer.

What is there to educate him on? If he's going to go around making statements like "Native Americans were more primitive and technologically inferior than Europeans," there's really not much I can help him with.

So you disagree that the most technologically advanced and sophisticated countries in the Americas were in Meso America or the Andes?
Do you think any other american native tribe could even compare to those?
Do you think that the natives had gunpowder, steel and every other kind of technology avaible to the europeans when Cortez came to Mexico?

Yes, sure they had great knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, but i never argued against the Meso Americans or Incans.

 

[sophie]

So you disagree that the most technologically advanced and sophisticated countries in the Americas were in Meso America or the Andes?
Do you think any other american native tribe could even compare to those?
Do you think that the natives had gunpowder, steel and every other kind of technology avaible to the europeans when Cortez came to Mexico?

Yes, sure they had great knowledge of astronomy and mathematics, but i never argued against the Meso Americans or Incans.

Definitely not what you were saying, but this is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

 

[Evie]

Honestly, I couldn't care less what a-historical things players routinely do. The measures necessary to keep the...excessive...players honest would make the game even worse than it is for the more RP sort of players.

The Euro-AI, in my experience, however rarely carries out invasion of India by 1500. Or 1600. By and large, Indian matters tend to remain Indians for most of the era in most of the game sI've played.

This is unlike SE Asia (well, SE Asia prior to the moronically overblown factions), aka Chinese Expansion Country; unlike North Africa and the Middle East (aka the Castillian Empire), unlike the Sahel states (aka easy conquest for anyone who bother to walk in), and the North American natives as the game portray them. None of which were conquered beyond a few bridgeheads until the tail end of the era, and all of which tend to be trampled by the AI at the drop of a hat.

Not to say India deserves no attention. It's up there, along with the Middle East, Africa, SE Asia and the Americas in "areas badly needing attention". Just at the bottom of that list, not the top.

One also has to define attention. Yes, simplifications have a place. Adding fifty different Indian tags to cover all the various minors is no more warranted than covering every insignificant county of the empire. (Besides which, division weakens, it does not strengthen). The level of modification that India need, bluntly put, involve relatively few extra tags, and a lot of boosting existing ones.

 

[Duke of Britain]

Honestly, I couldn't care less what a-historical things players routinely do. The measures necessary to keep the...excessive...players honest would make the game even worse than it is for the more RP sort of players.

The Euro-AI, in my experience, however rarely carries out invasion of India by 1500. Or 1600. By and large, Indian matters tend to remain Indians for most of the era in most of the game sI've played.

This is unlike SE Asia (well, SE Asia prior to the moronically overblown factions), aka Chinese Expansion Country; unlike North Africa and the Middle East (aka the Castillian Empire), unlike the Sahel states (aka easy conquest for anyone who bother to walk in), and the North American natives as the game portray them. None of which were conquered beyond a few bridgeheads until the tail end of the era, and all of which tend to be trampled by the AI at the drop of a hat.

Not to say India deserves no attention. It's up there, along with the Middle East, Africa, SE Asia and the Americas in "areas badly needing attention". Just at the bottom of that list, not the top.

One also has to define attention. Yes, simplifications have a place. Adding fifty different Indian tags to cover all the various minors is no more warranted than covering every insignificant county of the empire. (Besides which, division weakens, it does not strengthen). The level of modification that India need, bluntly put, involve relatively few extra tags, and a lot of boosting existing ones.

What i meant about being able to invade India by 1500 with no problems was just for the player, the AI ofc will never try to do that.

But yes, lots of regions should be way different...but i think the single country needing the most attention on the game are the Ottomans...they could at least help the muslim world (aka Ottoman middle East and strong muslim DoF protecting north africa)
Simplification is needed, but don't overdo it.

Anyway, i doubt we'll get that on EUIII, unless they still plan on adding expansions to the game, i would rather have Pdox start preparing for EUIV.

 

[Evie]

Yeah, as I said, I could not care less what a player can do. Players can WC as Ryukyu. The players best able to master the game should be able to accomplish incredible things. So making gameplay change only to hold the players who want to go on a rampage of conquest at bay should be far down the priority list IMO. Misbehaving players affect only themselves.

On the other hand, trying to get the AI to behave is fairly important, because a misbehaving AI is going to get on the nerves of any of the more RP-based players, leading to nonsensical results.

That the Ottomans need the most work *of existing country* is a open and shut case. Followed closely behind by Tunis, Morocco and Algiers (which I was including in "Africa" in that earlier statement). But taking the broader region as a whole, non-Ottoman Asia trails behind America (and the rest of Africa) in my opinion.

 

[SamSniped]

In my EU3 Milan to Italy game, I DoW'd the Ottomans. It is 1541 and my endless wars with them have reduced them to 6 provinces
Also, what speed do you guys play on?

 

[Bowsling]

2 or 3 during war, 4 or 5 while staring at the map.

 

[uat2d]

I'm loving this ROTW discussion.

To be honest, the thing that annoys me the most is the permanent terra incognita / wasteland. One is tempted not to colonize Taodeni, Wadjuk or Papua just not to make the map look ugly with provinces bordering uncolonized wasteland.

If I can colonize Alaska, own Timbuktu and enter deep into Russia through Okhotsk all before the 1600s with Castile, why can't I settle on the Great Basin or on the Australian Northern Territory?

Also, what speed do you guys play on?

Either on max speed or on pause. I know it's a RTS game but I play it as if it were a turn-based one.

 

[Tee Kay]

They'Re all just victims to be conquered - all the more so than western tech nations because they suffer from ridiculously overblown technological penalties.

Indeed. If a single sentence can sum up the problem with RotW representation in EU3, it's this.

Anyway, i doubt we'll get that on EUIII, unless they still plan on adding expansions to the game, i would rather have Pdox start preparing for EUIV.

Since DW is supposed to be the RotW-focused expansion, and we all know what that turned out to be, I'm not very optimistsic for EUIV.

What do we do? We mod.

 

[Duke of Britain]

I play on max speed and pause a lot of times, i think the game works better that way, things go faster but when i need to i pause and stop to think.

I'm loving this ROTW discussion.

To be honest, the thing that annoys me the most is the permanent terra incognita / wasteland. One is tempted not to colonize Taodeni, Wadjuk or Papua just not to make the map look ugly with provinces bordering uncolonized wasteland.

If I can colonize Alaska, own Timbuktu and enter deep into Russia through Okhotsk all before the 1600s with Castile, why can't I settle on the Great Basin or on the Australian Northern Territory?

True, Permanent TI on some ridiculous places...I mean, look at the USA and Brazil!
Especially Brazil, some of that TI was the most populated region of Brazil (Minas Gerais, there is a province but it doesn't covers it all) during a period after gold was discovered in there

Indeed. If a single sentence can sum up the problem with RotW representation in EU3, it's this.

Since DW is supposed to be the RotW-focused expansion, and we all know what that turned out to be, I'm not very optimistsic for EUIV.

What do we do? We mod.

DW is supposed to be an Asia-focused expansion...and IMO, Japan is fine but should have the historical daimyos, the Chinese faction system is not that bad and goes away when you westernize (that was added on the 5.2 beta patch)
But other than that there are not a lot of improvement to make Asia less ridiculous.

 

[Evie]

The problem with the TI in the United States (and Canada) is, it's largely out of place.

The Great Plains - all those Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, western Colorado, north-western texas - provinces just shouldn't be there. THEY should be Impassable - the Great American Desert is not to be triffled with. Judged unsettleable by everyone in the era, waterless, unable to sustain any sort of cultivation. The natives there were left well alone until the Vicky era. Impassable is very suitable for everything at the very least between the Red River and the Platte, and maybe as far north as everything between the Red (and bits south of the Red) and the Missouri.

On the other hand, settlement of forts and trading posts along the Missouri valley was well underway late in the era; all the way to the Rockies. The same in Canada, where forts and trading posts along the Saskatchewan and Peace rivers (east of the Rockies) and along the Columbia and upper Fraser (west) reached all the way to the Pacific within the Europa era. In fact, many of the modern Canadian towns and cities out on the plain began their history as HBC (in Manitoba, even French) trading posts in the Europa era. Edmonton, Prince George, KAmloops, Winnipeg, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Vermilion, Fort St John, Fort Resolution, Fort Simpson (that's all provinces west of Ontario except Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories)

 

[Leonel]

Alright here's my current Knights Hospitaller game. I know I took the conquer-new-world-civilizations-then-colonized-when-cored approach but it was for the greater good!

Now before Dachs chastises me again for failing my crusader roots (although let's face it, he'll find SOME fault ), behooooold...

Conquered Jerusalum as well as the Sinai peninsula and not only conquered Mecca but converted Hedjaz to the one true faith. My army is second only to the Ming and I have plans to conquer the Ottomans once my Arab territories are converted and settle down.

Spoiler :

 

[Arakhor]

What sort of adjective is "Knights"? Even "Knightly" would have been better!

 

[Leonel]

The Knightly Hospitallers? That's rather catchy actually.

On an unrelated note, I seem to have the ability to create the Mayan nation after I conquered the Yucatan.

 

[W|M]

I personally like the giant KNIGHTS scrawled across North America.

 

[SamSniped]

Leonel, that Ottoman Empire is atrocious. Fix it now. At least make it a 4 province nation like I have so far (2 wars away from it being history before 1600 )

Anyway, apparently for one second I found that Austria was no longer guaranteed by my ally, France. I DoW them; Austria now lacks many of the provinces south of its capital Wien. I also damaged Hungary, an ally of Austria.
I forgot the screenshots though...

 

[Leonel]

Leonel, that Ottoman Empire is atrocious. Fix it now. At least make it a 4 province nation like I have so far (2 wars away from it being history before 1600 )

Working on it! During the Conquest of Najd, they intervened and as a result I made them release a bunch of smaller countries. I'll make them release Bulgaria, Wallacca and Albania next time when I conquer the smaller countries they initially released since the Ottoman's guaranteed them already.

 

[SamSniped]

. So far I have taken them down to a 4PM in...4 wars IIRC.

 

[Dachs]

Alright here's my current Knights Hospitaller game. I know I took the conquer-new-world-civilizations-then-colonized-when-cored approach but it was for the greater good!

Now before Dachs chastises me again for failing my crusader roots (although let's face it, he'll find SOME fault ), behooooold...

Screw that, I think that that's hilarious and you should do more of it.

 

[Quintillus]

Recently I started a game as that most advantaged of European nations, Mantua. Surprisingly, it's actually going well.

Spoiler :

I started off by waiting to see what other wars came to pass, and the most relevant one was Austria exercising their claims on northern Italy against Milan. After waiting for Milan's army to be mostly defeated and building up my own, I declared war, and soon had occupied Parma and Pisa. Meanwhile, Urbino joined the war, so I kept it going and annexed them. Immediately afterwards I took Parma from Milan - careful not to stretech the war on too long lest Austria make peace and Milan's friends in Bohemia march against me instead.

Shortly afterwards, the Pope got in a war with Sicily, Aragon, and friends. They were clearly the losing party, so I declared war, and after the old war ended, took Romagna and vassalized the pope. I could've annexed them outright, but figured not being excommunicated while I had one core was probably a good idea.

Awhile later, Milan declared a war of reconquest on me, and Naples joined the party. Fortunately, I had the very model of a high-shock general, and was able to defeat Milan's army and then turn south and meet Naples and defeat their surprisingly undersized army, too, with some help from Corsica. That led to Apulia and Calabria being conquered, and a later war to subjugation. I also managed to vassalize Aqueilia in the second Milanese war.

Austria has been my ally for quite awhile now, with the Swiss having been an off-and-on ally (off when they fight Burgundy), and England a recent addition that might not last. Ferrara is a vassal of Austria; Tuscany and Sicily are independent, as are Venice and Genoa.

The Horde has done well this game, reaching the Adriatic for a change, and they could have hurt the Ottomans a lot more than they did. The Timurids are also doing well, and currently invading Anatolia. I hope the Horde has a good few years and owns Bohemia. Hungary used to be powerful, but revolts have really hurt them. Transylvania smartly remains their vassal - though they have 8 provinces to Hungary's 5, this way Hungary pays the extortionate tribute to the Horde, while Transylvania gets off easy in comparison.

A frustrating factor is being unable to build boats, thanks to no coastal cores. I feel like a horde myself with this limitation.

The immediate plan is to core up, as right now I'm barely able to make ends meet without increasing inflation. It's a good thing my vassals are giving me very nearly as much tax revenue as my own provinces.

Oh, and my king is from the house de Bourgogne. Which makes me glad Burgundy has, so far, been doing decently well, albeit with lots of infamy.