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Europa Universalis IV MP Community Thread of fanboi needing to speaka da English

Who will be the first backstabbing victim?


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Deleted member 125677

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I think honestly, it doesn't make much of a difference whether he is Bengal or Vijayanagar for Fitz.

Yeah, he doesn't seem to care much about the nationality of his victims anyway. A corps is a corps to Fitz, he has little prejudice in that sense.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
i finished an iron man game as ottomans (art of war newest expansion), and am i mistaken or are they ridiculously overpowered, even more so than france? westernization never even came up since i was even in technology with europe through the whole game, only falling behind at the end in administration since i went on a crazy expansion spree with my ridiculous armies and spent it all on coring. from my limited understanding of history ottomans had a long rivalry with persia, but in this game there's nothing they can do to keep you from rolling over them whenever you feel like it. and considering my op manpower and force limits, the stats of my armies were way too good to make it even a tiny bit challenging. discipline was like 128-133 and moral 10-11. i occupied all of france twice and took most of the iberian peninsula without any resistance to speak of. i thought the ottoman manpower would be countered with poor quality troops or something, but now it was just bonuses all over the place.

i don't like the overextension system at all, by the way. just feels silly to have overwhelming military victories to lead to revolts all over the place.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Yes they are.

Overextension is a soft cap on your growth. Otherwise a country like France can take over the world in no time.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
Yes they are.

Overextension is a soft cap on your growth. Otherwise a country like France can take over the world in no time.

i think it's really just a poor fix to war mechanics that are largely broken. i hope when there is europa universalis 5 they come up with a whole new battle system. now pretty much every war can be decided with one massive doomsday stack battle, and pretty much the only time a war ends in a stalemate or a minor victory is when the other country is inaccessible to the stronger one. it's also silly how you can send reinforcements for a battle from the other side of the country if it looks like you might lose since apparently a battle lasts for weeks or months.
 
Yeah, in the 1444 start, the Ottomans are, bar none, the most powerful nation in the game. There's few countries that can stand up to them once they start rolling.

As for overextension, battle mechanics and whatnot - the problem is that you can't make a historically accurate simulation while also offering you to change history. The EU series (and its sister series) will always feel gamey, because they are games.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
i don't think it needs to be historically accurate, but i believe the war mechanics are clearly outdated, and have not evolved much. eu3 was the first game in the series i played and it was pretty much the same. i would even prefer that battles would have some modifiers or events that can result in some wildly unpredictable outcomes, like a huge army getting totally annihilated by a small force. might be a bit frustrating when it happens to you, but ultimately i think it would be more satisfying. armies should also be harder to replace, and no country should be able to maintain a huge standing army in peace time without massive penalties.

basically, considering what a significant role it has in this game, warfare still feels extremely shallow and unrewarding to me. there are no prisoners or war or really anything to give it flavour.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
i don't think it needs to be historically accurate, but i believe the war mechanics are clearly outdated, and have not evolved much. eu3 was the first game in the series i played and it was pretty much the same. i would even prefer that battles would have some modifiers or events that can result in some wildly unpredictable outcomes, like a huge army getting totally annihilated by a small force. might be a bit frustrating when it happens to you, but ultimately i think it would be more satisfying. armies should also be harder to replace, and no country should be able to maintain a huge standing army in peace time without massive penalties.

basically, considering what a significant role it has in this game, warfare still feels extremely shallow and unrewarding to me. there are no prisoners or war or really anything to give it flavour.

The best thing about EU is that it is a game about strategy and not another boring tactics-simulator like Total War. Leave the shallow battle-mechanics the way they are, and create more gameplay in regards to developing infrastructure, economy etc which you will have to fall behind on if you war to much. That is the way to fix this problem, and also make the game more interesting. Victoria and Crusader Kings both have some great systems that could and should be somewhat implemented in EU imo - or at the least be used as inspiration when developing such systems in EU as well.
 
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Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
Not enough French cock sucking mechanisms imho
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
I just noticed that they changed how exploration works, funky because right before the patch I still did it the old way, (by inching forward with an explorer) instead of using the new system, but I actually like the flavor of the new system.
 

Fitz

Member
I just noticed that they changed how exploration works, funky because right before the patch I still did it the old way, (by inching forward with an explorer) instead of using the new system, but I actually like the flavor of the new system.

Agreed. Trying it right now, and I wasn't keen at first as because of the range limitation, but it's so much better not having to micromanage exploration, was really tedious.
 

CloudWolf

Member
What not to do when you go for the Turn the Table achievement with a Dutch colonial nation:

1. Give your original country quantity ideas
2. Feed Denmark to your ally Holstein
3. Forget to remove yourself from the HRE when you switch tags

Even France couldn't save me from my own creation.
 

Uzzy

Member
So which country are you going to play as after Gelre gets annexed first session?

Speaking of Gelre, I gave them a go earlier, and they're quite fun! I lucked out at the start with Burgundy actually coming to my defence when my neighbours decided to attack me, and slowly clawed my way up the pecking order a province at a time. France sure is useful for taking down Burgundy, though they've run into big trouble now with an England/Castile/Aragon/Portugal team smacking them around a fair bit. Might have to ditch them and see if I can secure an alliance with England instead, as they're Protestant as well, though they want my provinces. Here I am just about to form the Netherlands.

TlTk9ZL.png
 

Kabouter

Member
So which country are you going to play as after Gelre gets annexed first session?
Robo will likely host if I am annexed.

Speaking of Gelre, I gave them a go earlier, and they're quite fun! I lucked out at the start with Burgundy actually coming to my defence when my neighbours decided to attack me, and slowly clawed my way up the pecking order a province at a time. France sure is useful for taking down Burgundy, though they've run into big trouble now with an England/Castile/Aragon/Portugal team smacking them around a fair bit. Might have to ditch them and see if I can secure an alliance with England instead, as they're Protestant as well, though they want my provinces. Here I am just about to form the Netherlands.

How is it that everyone succeeds at Gelre except me :p
 
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Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
So which country are you going to play as after Gelre gets annexed first session?

Speaking of Gelre, I gave them a go earlier, and they're quite fun! I lucked out at the start with Burgundy actually coming to my defence when my neighbours decided to attack me, and slowly clawed my way up the pecking order a province at a time. France sure is useful for taking down Burgundy, though they've run into big trouble now with an England/Castile/Aragon/Portugal team smacking them around a fair bit. Might have to ditch them and see if I can secure an alliance with England instead, as they're Protestant as well, though they want my provinces. Here I am just about to form the Netherlands.

Don't ally England. They have so many provinces that you want as Netherlands. In your game, they have even more!
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Fiddled around a bit to see if I can start a run for another achievement (to tide me over the time until Cities: Skylines), and had a pretty decent start with Castille:

I am trying to go for the taking over India and Japan achievements via Africa, currently almost got rid of aragon/portugal, have Fez, Tlemcen and Navarra as vassals and france are best buddies. Now to focus my effort on a) navigating africa to the east coast, b) creating a colony in the US to get some more money and c) prevent England from joining the colonization race. (I will likely walk into Ireland and then block the path via Greenland.
 

John Dunbar

correct about everything
The best thing about EU is that it is a game about strategy and not another boring tactics-simulator like Total War. Leave the shallow battle-mechanics the way they are, and create more gameplay in regards to developing infrastructure, economy etc which you will have to fall behind on if you war to much. That is the way to fix this problem, and also make the game more interesting. Victoria and Crusader Kings both have some great systems that could and should be somewhat implemented in EU imo - or at the least be used as inspiration when developing such systems in EU as well.

i certainly agree that there is tons of room to improve how you can organize your own country, but as it is now i do not think it affects the rest of the game negatively, where as warfare does. you are absolutely right that total war style combat is not wanted, but that doesn't mean there isn't a huge problem: because of how significant warfare is in this game and because of how shallow it is, there is neither tactics nor strategy. every war is either the strong steamrolling the weak or a duel of two doomsday stacks. i don't remember starting a war when i didn't know pretty much exactly how it would turn out, and that to me robs a lot of the enjoyment from the game.

i do want to say that despite my whining, i do like the game. i just like it despite itself. most of my disappointment stems from the fact that art of war, according to the trailer, was supposed to have "deepened warfare," but the only changes of any importance should have been there from the start or been free patches (giving occupation to allies, naval upgrades, etc.). i think monarchy points are a pretty bad system as well, and you're too dependent on a random number generator to be able to do anything effectively. doesn't feel like you're actually ruling a country, feels like you're babysitting rulers of varying degree of incompetence.
 

Uzzy

Member
And of course, not twenty years later it all goes to hell. One coalition DOW's me, with Aachen, Ansbach, Austria, Frankfurt, Hungary, Lorraine, Milan, Saxony, Switzerland, Wurttemburg and Wurzburg involved. While they're slapping me around, a separate coalition of Brabant, Brandenburg, Brunswick, Burgundy and Great Britain forms and DOW's me.

All because I took Luxembourg in a defensive war. Goddamn it.
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
i certainly agree that there is tons of room to improve how you can organize your own country, but as it is now i do not think it affects the rest of the game negatively, where as warfare does. you are absolutely right that total war style combat is not wanted, but that doesn't mean there isn't a huge problem: because of how significant warfare is in this game and because of how shallow it is, there is neither tactics nor strategy. every war is either the strong steamrolling the weak or a duel of two doomsday stacks. i don't remember starting a war when i didn't know pretty much exactly how it would turn out, and that to me robs a lot of the enjoyment from the game.

i do want to say that despite my whining, i do like the game. i just like it despite itself. most of my disappointment stems from the fact that art of war, according to the trailer, was supposed to have "deepened warfare," but the only changes of any importance should have been there from the start or been free patches (giving occupation to allies, naval upgrades, etc.). i think monarchy points are a pretty bad system as well, and you're too dependent on a random number generator to be able to do anything effectively. doesn't feel like you're actually ruling a country, feels like you're babysitting rulers of varying degree of incompetence.

Let me start by saying that I totally agree with you on the monarch point-system, that is completely broken and one of the worst things about EU4 imo.

And while I agree that the war-mechanics are shallow and more or less without any strategic depth - there is still some decisions to be made when it comes to when to go on the offensive etc. If you watch our mp-games here, you will see that there are players like myself and Fanboi who always manages to guide our countries terrible during war, loosing a ton of manpower, and then there are people like MGO, Fitz and Jazz Jackrabbit that are so good at moving their troops, that they are almost unbeatable.

However, the real depth comes into play before the war is declared. Managing allies, friends and foes, avoiding AE, coalition etc, and I always felt the single most important thing to be good at in the Europa Universalis-series was to know when to go to war, against who and with who. Here there lies a ton of opportunities and decisions to be made, and this is what makes the game fun. A deeper combat system would simply make the game even more micro-heavy and boring - and also help even more those that are good at moving their army around on the map - which is counter to the spirit of the game imo. Leave that stuff to games like Total War and Star Craft - and let us strategy-fans have this game light on tactics and reflexes as it should be.
 

CloudWolf

Member
And of course, not twenty years later it all goes to hell. One coalition DOW's me, with Aachen, Ansbach, Austria, Frankfurt, Hungary, Lorraine, Milan, Saxony, Switzerland, Wurttemburg and Wurzburg involved. While they're slapping me around, a separate coalition of Brabant, Brandenburg, Brunswick, Burgundy and Great Britain forms and DOW's me.

All because I took Luxembourg in a defensive war. Goddamn it.

I have no idea how, but in my latest Gelre game I managed to completely avoid coalitions. Got really lucky there.
 
And of course, not twenty years later it all goes to hell. One coalition DOW's me, with Aachen, Ansbach, Austria, Frankfurt, Hungary, Lorraine, Milan, Saxony, Switzerland, Wurttemburg and Wurzburg involved. While they're slapping me around, a separate coalition of Brabant, Brandenburg, Brunswick, Burgundy and Great Britain forms and DOW's me.

All because I took Luxembourg in a defensive war. Goddamn it.

One thing I really hate about the coalition system is that new coalitions can form while you're already in a coalition war. It's just so stupid.
 

Kabouter

Member
One thing I really hate about the coalition system is that new coalitions can form while you're already in a coalition war. It's just so stupid.

If this wasn't the case > Wait for coalition to form > declare country in it as soon as possible to start smallest possible coalition war and avoid it being as bad as it could be > sit it out until AE has dropped a bit and then peace out.
 
If this wasn't the case > Wait for coalition to form > declare country in it as soon as possible to start smallest possible coalition war and avoid it being as bad as it could be > sit it out until AE has dropped a bit and then peace out.

I know why it is like that, but it's a very clunky reasoning, especially since there's a few solutions that would make it fairer. The problem is that you can get more than 1 coalition war at the same time, so here's what you can do:
a.) Have anybody who joins the coalition automatically enter an on-going coalition war against the target. While that would invite hounding one coalition target, which would happen anyway, it would prevent from multiple coalitions punching multiple things out of you.
b.) Make it so that multiple coalitions cannot happen while you're defending in a coalition war. So if you declare war on a member of the coalition, a new coalition can form alright, since you're the aggressor, but while you're on the defensive, make it impossible for a coalition to form.

Either or both of these would make the system a lot easier to handle.
 

EMT0

Banned
You guys ever have a run as France where you PU both Castille and Portugal, and manage to almost completely annex the British isles, but then you realize you let the Bretons live and that they're spreading over the New World like a bad rash?

._.
 

mkenyon

Banned
I've never done Castile, England, France, Ottomans, Austria, or Portugal.

I have done Aragon -> Spain though, which is kind of close to Castile.
 

Uzzy

Member
Well, the new military access system is a bit weird. I'm playing as England, trying to win the Hundred Years War, and have allied with Austria. The Burgundian Inheritance fired off, and gave Austria all those provinces, so I figured I could use them as a launching point to invade.

But of course the French can march into any country that I have military access to. Which is fair enough, but leads to the rather bizarre situation of the French having a 40k stack of troops just sitting around in Austrian territory, when Austria has France rivalled and they both hate each other.
 

CloudWolf

Member
Guys, we should hold off on playing. Colonization is completely broken as of 1.11. The AI does not colonize the New World and Africa at all.
 

Kabouter

Member
Guys, we should hold off on playing. Colonization is completely broken as of 1.11. The AI does not colonize the New World and Africa at all.

Well, yeah, that's definitely a good reason not to play yet. Let's hope they hotfix it in the next week or so.

Edit: Reading the Paradox forums, it seems that the AI is not exploring rather than not colonizing. Someone said that in his game as the Netherlands, Spain did show up in the Americas in 1570 or so, which would be about when discoveries of the Dutch player would have spread to him. Still the same problem, not really fair to give human players a fifty year head start on colonization, but different cause at least ;P.
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, we can't play like this. I've just had an Aztec game and it is 1612 and there are no Europeans in the New World, so I still can't westernize.
 
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Deleted member 125677

Unconfirmed Member
Based on people's wishlists and posts, I guess I'm the only one here who'll be playing Hotline Miami 2 instead of Cities in about 8 hours?
#keepingitreal

I also think we should wait for a stable build btw
 
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Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
But is there really a problem early on? I mean the AI won't colonize untill session 4-5 for us?

Yes, but we don't know what the next hotfix will bring. We should start playing only when a stable one is released, IMO.
 

Uzzy

Member
Based on people's wishlists and posts, I guess I'm the only one here who'll be playing Hotline Miami 2 instead of Cities in about 8 hours?
#keepingitreal

I also think we should wait for a stable build btw

Playing neither here! Too many video games this month, can't get Hotline Miami 2.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Based on people's wishlists and posts, I guess I'm the only one here who'll be playing Hotline Miami 2 instead of Cities in about 8 hours?
#keepingitreal

I also think we should wait for a stable build btw

You'll join us soon enough.
One of us, one of us.
 
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