How is your EU3 Game going?

[Evie]

Yeah, that one area is a bit of a mess (Eastern Europe/Baltic/Black Sea/Levant), because of the way Paradox handled merging the European and Rest of Asia parts of their map (as they cleared used a different projection for the Europe area). Which is the one major flop of their map projection. Most everything else can be made sense of.

That said, IMO it's normal for Belarus and Ukraine to be proportionally smaller compared to Europe. Even if all provinces of the PLC are represented, there's only so many provinces you'd end up with in the region, and there's very little reason to subdivide those. So if they were not proportionally smaller than western/central Europe, you'd either end up with a handful of massive provinces, or a massive handful of provinces (far more than is justifiable)..

 

[TheLastOne36]

Blasphemy!

Spoiler :

I still need to do Zoprozhia and Crimea but I am pleased with the provinces I have for the region. These provinces are not particularly rich either so it isn't like Lithuania will become a superpower (especially since Russia has more provinces as well), if anything it is a handicap.

I am sure once I am done with all the extra tags, events, missions and decisions for the area, the area will be on par with Western Europe in terms of playability.

 

[Evie]

The problem is that more provinces does not equate more playability. Far from: beyond a certain number of provinces (enough to have reasonable defensive depth), you hit diminishing returns hard - adding five provinces to a five-province nation is much more beneficial in terms of game value than adding fifteen to a ten-province nation, which is in turn far more valuable from a gameplay perspective than adding 100 province to a 25 province nation. The fact is, beyond military operations, provinces add very little to the game, except being MORE provinces where the player has to click and build when magistrates become available.

In my opinion, once a country has around 10-ish provinces, there is very little to be gained by adding more, except where useful for historical reasons (eg, so you can simulate relatively reasonable borders for the era). It's far better, from a gameplay perspective, to have fewer provinces and more things to do in them, than more provinces with fewer things to do in them. It's also better, at least IMO, to have fewer provinces (within reason) with more things to do in them, than more provinces with more things to do in them - It was (pops aside) one of the significant downsides of Vicky I, having so many provinces to manage.

(Of course I have no intention of taking away provinces from countries that already have them)

 

[TheLastOne36]

You are right, I've learned that lesson the hard way. Every province I make now serves a geographic/regional, historical, balance or boundary purpose. My mod is changing the game mechanics drastically as well(especially regarding man power, taxes, and province populations) so I don't think balance will end up being an issue. (Especially with aforementioned new events and province decisions, Lithuania will have lots to worry about ) Those game mechanics are what are giving me all these ctd's...... Anyway, the area needed a complete overhaul and the only province I added that I don't think was really necessary was Slutsk, but having an elongated Navagradak would make for ugly borders if a foreign state conquered/rebelled from it.

 

[GamezRule]

What's the best mod to play? I'm talking Death and Taxes or PDM (for V2 players) scale mods. All I have the latest version of Death and Taxes installed, and though I rarely play this game, I'm thinking of playing it a bit more.

 

[uat2d]

What's the best mod to play? I'm talking Death and Taxes or PDM (for V2 players) scale mods. All I have the latest version of Death and Taxes installed, and though I rarely play this game, I'm thinking of playing it a bit more.

The latest D&T is a bug-ridden slow mess.

Try 4.9, where there's none of that bs or stuff like Austro-Hungarian culture

 

[Tee Kay]

What's the best mod to play? I'm talking Death and Taxes or PDM (for V2 players) scale mods. All I have the latest version of Death and Taxes installed, and though I rarely play this game, I'm thinking of playing it a bit more.

Further Beyond: KPUK

...which is coming out some time in the next ten years.

 

[Antilogic]

Even as the game is now, it's too easy, you can settle Australia or the American West by the 1600s without much hassle, much earlier if you plan ahead and conquer some bits of Northern Africa.

Agreed. Colonization needs to progress much slower in the game. And natives shouldn't disappear once you claim the province, or be "cleaned out" of an entire region by a couple regiments in a single year.



On the maps--I'm glad somebody is trying to fix the crap Paradox packed with base EU3. I can at least tolerate the DW map, but improvements are always welcome.

 

[Tee Kay]

In progress...

Spoiler :

 

[Evie]

Agreed. Colonization needs to progress much slower in the game. And natives shouldn't disappear once you claim the province, or be "cleaned out" of an entire region by a couple regiments in a single year.

Depends what colonization is suposed to represent, really. And there's an issue of game mechanics as well.

If you assume colonization to be only cities, then yes, it's much too quick. But then, there's nothing to represent the other ways in which the west established their control of areas - forts, missions, and large-scale trading posts. They should be separate mechanisms, but so long as there's only one colonization mechanism, then they absolutely should be considered part of that mechanism.

And in that light, I'm not sure colonization develops that much too quickly. The French network went from Montreal being the westmost extent around 1665 (and a threatened one at that) to trading posts at lake Nipigon and on the Mississippi by around 1700. Colonization certain starts too early, but once it gets started, it should not be THAT hard to extend your control over a sizeable area. Similarly the British trade/fort network underwent rapid expansion after the end of the wars with New France, going from Manitoba (where they had taken over various French outposts and settlements) all the way to British Columbia, along two separate routes (Saskatchewan river route, including the future Edmonton, and Athabasca/Peace river route, including the futures Fort Chipewyan and Fort St. John).

Now the way natives are treated, I agree that's completely shameful.

 

[Ashurdan]

Playing as muscovy, when fighting the golden horde, is it best to colonize a lot of provinces and wait for them to grow as the war drags on, or to grab them one at a time and build it up?

 

[Mosher]

I would say grab them one at a time. If you spread them too thinly, it will take ages for them to grow and your war exhaustion will get very high, and the Golden Horde can burn them down if you're not careful.

 

[TheLastOne36]

In progress...

Spoiler :

Fantastic work. How big is the map in relation to the vanilla map? (Or Victoria II's)

I especially appreciate the work you've done on Eastern Africa. The wasteland province in Borneo is also a nice touch.

 

[Tee Kay]

Same size as the Vanilla map.

 

[Arakhor]

The new version of Death & Taxes (6.2) is better optimised, from what I can tell. Give that a whirl.

 

[W|M]

Rather than give you a long changelog I thought I'd give you a brief description of what has changed in the 6.0.

1) Firstly and most importantly is a new map, India, China and America have been completely redrawn. Full credit for this goes to Dafool (China/America) and Trin Tragula (India). All in all I think we added something in the region of 100-150 provinces (I'm sure Dafool can clarify). Tonnes of new countries were added to fill these regions too! India also has completely revamped cultures.

2) We added new graphics, more precisely the terrain textures and map overlay from the DaO mod. I still like the Modestus map however I thought it was time for a change, and I really liked the DaO map graphics.

3) Everything (and I mean everything) has been rebalanced. Benefits from missions/decisions, ideas and sliders has been rethought. Claim on X now requires cores!!! and nationalism lasts for longer, and reduces manpower. There are many other changes, some of which are documented in the changelog, but many of which aren't. You should just notice a general difference as you play. Finally, cbs have been reworked slightly. Every nation gets religious liberation which gives 25% bb. Holy war is reserved for muslims, catholics and orthodox - it gives 50% bb.

4) Religions in the east redone. Hinduism is in its own group. Buddhism is split into Theravda and Mahayana. They are in the same group as Shinbatsu Shugo and Shenism.

5) I added loads of new events and decisions to add a bit more flavour to certain countries and generally make the game more interesting.

6)There's generally just loads of other stuff which I can't begin to start describing. If you noticed any new features you liked please flag them up for other people to know about.

Sounds pretty good.

 

[GamezRule]

The new version of Death & Taxes (6.2) is better optimised, from what I can tell. Give that a whirl.

Well that's the only mod I have installed. Since I can't bear the game in Vanilla due to the crappy map, I'll go ahead and play D&T.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, you can also try MPM v6.5 (More Provinces Mod), which lives up to its name, as well as a bunch of new nations, cultures, decisions, events and so on.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Well, you can also try MPM v6.5 (More Provinces Mod), which lives up to its name, as well as a bunch of new nations, cultures, decisions, events and so on.

DanubianCossack's mod is my personal favorite. I recommend it!

 

[GamezRule]

Now the real challenge is finding time to play it between work and musical pursuits.