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[Rommel]

My go as Brandenburg. Woo its hard trying to juggle all those nations surrounding you. Finally was able to form Germany in 1800. Sweden went bananas and took over everything, Russians be speaking Swedish now. I got stuck as their Vassal for 75 years due to a lack of an heir and insufficient army to take on the top nation in the game.

Spent those years building up my economy until I finally was able to smash theirs and Poland's army.

 

[Clevinger]

The Russian republic is Novgorod. Haven't tried them yet, but you'd just have to worry about Muscovy. If you manage to get an upper hand against them, you should be able to form Russia soon after.

Would you stay as a republic if you formed Russia as Novgorod?

 

[Son1x]

Would you stay as a republic if you formed Russia as Novgorod?

Nothing in the decision file indicates that the government type is changed upon forming Russia.

 

[Clevinger]

Nothing in the decision file indicates that the government type is changed upon forming Russia.

Thanks. Novgorod it is then.

 

[mkenyon]

My go as Brandenburg.

I like how your cursor longingly hangs on Bohemia.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Republics > everything else by a vast margin; the ability to compensate for awful leaders is absolutely vital. I think in multiplayer Novgorod is going to be an extremely popular choice - easy expansion, good government system, relatively easy Westernization.

 

[Birathen]

Started playing this today and daaaamn I had a hard time breaking out from under denmarks heel as Sweden. I reccon I was in far too much of a hurry (broke free about 1470 or so).

Now I'm my own master and just beat the danes in a second war, with the Hansa as ally and war leader. The Hansa, surprising enough, forced the danes to cede two provinces to me and one to another country.

Now begins a period of peace and rebuilding (I hope :3 ). My people are warweary.

 

[Rommel]

I like how your cursor longingly hangs on Bohemia.

Its just sitting there... like a thorn in my side. Unfortunately to take anything now I have the smash the Austrian blobs every time. Damn HRE. Fortunately the French hate the Austrians so they join my lil wars.

 

[Sickboy007]

Is Genoa any fun to play as? Or that Russian republic (I think there's a Russian republic?)?

I tried The Hansa for a bit, but it seems boring to be in the HRE if you can't become emperor and every time I take a province around me the emperor demands it back.

Genoa is really fun if you manage to ally early on with the Ottomans so that you don't have to worry about your Crimean provinces. Here's my second game with them right after I managed to unite Italy. Also, I left the HRE just because.

With Venice, Genoa and the Ivory Coast I'm set for life.
Also, take a look at that Sweden :lol

 

[twinfin]

Having a blast with this game. After a long Austrian campaign, I wanted a challenge so I've been doing a few playthroughs as Brittany. Man, it just seems like France is hellbent on conquering that peninsula no matter what my strategy is. As soon as the 100 Years War finishes, the clock starts ticking... Anyone else made it work?

 

[TiredGamer]

For people wondering about the Border Friction change:

Home territory = all provinces connected by land to the province with your capital. Spain will get BF with Portugal and France, but not Great Britain, even if both control provinces bordering each other; unless Spain is controlling Scottish, Welsh, or British provinces, then they'll totally hate you.

 

[Toma]

How often does the HRE vote? Every time the current ruler dies?

 

[Fitz]

How often does the HRE vote? Every time the current ruler dies?

A new Emperor is elected on the death of the current one, I believe the electors update who they're actually backing every month.

 

[ZZMitch]

Thanks. Novgorod it is then.

I am playing as Novgorod right now, just annexed Muscovy and should be able to form Russia soon. The initial war against Muscovy is hard, I had to buy a bunch of mercs in order to get the upper hand in a war that lasted almost a decade. Now my main worry is Kazan, who is very strong since they were my ally in defeating Moscovy and now have a huge army and a lot of provinces. Looks like they bit off more than they could chew in the last war though, a bunch of rebels just spawned!

It has been a really fun game, would recommend. Still intense too since almost every nation that borders me is in a coalition against me. I think I might have killed it though when I annexed Muscovy since they are "Outraged" and were the ones to form it. We shall see.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

My go as Brandenburg. Woo its hard trying to juggle all those nations surrounding you. Finally was able to form Germany in 1800. Sweden went bananas and took over everything, Russians be speaking Swedish now. I got stuck as their Vassal for 75 years due to a lack of an heir and insufficient army to take on the top nation in the game.

Spent those years building up my economy until I finally was able to smash theirs and Poland's army.

Sounds like you got some shit luck. I formed Germany in the 1580's.

 

[Dennis]

That is just horrible. Look at all that Sweden.

 

[Rommel]

Sounds like you got some shit luck. I formed Germany in the 1580's.

Well it didn't help that Sweden went bananas and was blocking me at every turn with alliances, I literally couldn't attack anyone without bringing hellfire down on me.

 

[Chairman Yang]

The Manchus might be my favourite non-Western nation to play.

They have solid national ideas, a great position, and the ability to become China without all of the normal China penalties. They're also surprisingly great to colonize with; you have access to Russia without pesky hordes in the way, you have plenty of time to colonize the Pacific (including Australia) before the Europeans can do much in the area, and through the Aleuts, you have a backdoor into North and South America.

 

[Clevinger]

What the hell is this: "They will most likely accept!" "WE cannot ally with ____ because we must have a positive opinion of them"


-_-

Bitch, if they can help me with Muscovy, I like them! I love them!

 

[dr3upmushroom]

So I've been eyeing these games for a while and I am finally ready to take the plunge into them.... uhhh anything I should know before going in?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

So I've been eyeing these games for a while and I am finally ready to take the plunge into them.... uhhh anything I should know before going in?

Do the tutorials to learn the basics. Try to secure strong alliances, but don't get involved in complicated webs of alliances if possible, and be wary of allying with superpowers. Sometimes one medium regional ally is more useful than a France or England just because they're less likely to get you on the receiving end of a coalition rear-ending and demanding you join their wars (which they totally didn't need you in) stopping your war exhaustion from naturally lowering itself.

Expand slowly, and core as you go. Don't take too many provinces at once, and try to only take provinces you have claims on where possible (makes coring easier). Watch out for the Reformation in the 1500's.

 

[ZZMitch]

Is there an option anywhere to auto-destroy ships instead of capturing them in battle?

Also, Spain diplo-annexed (I think) Austria in my game. I was investigating and realized that Spain instantly got cores on all of the provinces. Is that normal?


Also, formed Russia as Novgorod in my game. Going to try to westernize soon and see how that goes. Then the march East if I survive!

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Is there an option anywhere to auto-destroy ships instead of capturing them in battle?

Also, Spain diplo-annexed (I think) Austria in my game. I was investigating and realized that Spain instantly got cores on all of the provinces. Is that normal?

As far as I know, diplo-annexing, integrating and inheriting all gives cores now.

 

[TriangleOfCorruption]

Are the tutorials in this game enough to get you to a level where a first time 4X player will have a basic idea of what they're doing, or will I have to put in some groundwork?

I'm not as lazy as I sound I swear.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Are the tutorials in this game enough to get you to a level where a first time 4X player will have a basic idea of what they're doing, or will I have to put in some groundwork?

I'm not as lazy as I sound I swear.

This isn't a 4x game, lol.

But I don't know. I came into this as an EU3, Victoria 2, Hearts of Iron 3 and Crusader Kings II veteran.

 

[archnemesis]

The tutorials in EU3 were broken for me and I just learned the game by trial-and-error. The new interface is great and you can get most of the complex systems by just hovering over buttons. Playing through some entry level tutorials is most likely enough for a beginner.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Are the tutorials in this game enough to get you to a level where a first time 4X player will have a basic idea of what they're doing, or will I have to put in some groundwork?

I'm not as lazy as I sound I swear.

I've played Civ games and Total War before (I'm sure by the time I'm done writing this someone will have made a distinction about 4X and Grand Strategy), but besides a little bit of CK2, which I got with my pre-order, I'm new to Paradox Games.

The tutorial is plenty to get you started. But there are some things which might be considered more "advanced" but are really important that I feel should have been covered in the tutorial. Most of these you can learn by reading the manual (which I recommend)

But even then there's some things missing. For example, Tariffs. The income you receive from your overseas provinces is modified by the number of heavy ships in your fleet, which I didn't learn until well after I had already built a vast Spanish colonial empire. When I found this out I had something like 4 Heavy Ships. Thankfully I was able to steal some gold from the Natives in a peace deal (which seems to me to break the game, being able to demand such vast amounts of gold/ the natives having so much gold to be taken) which I used to build myself a Grand Navy. Also, if you don't keep your coasts patrolled you will get much less gold from your overseas provinces and pirates will show up.

There is a series on YouTube by quill18 that I've seen suggested alot to new players (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGH-Sc1EfdI) but I haven't personally watched it. I'd rather read instead. For that I'll point you to the EU4 wiki (http://eu4wiki.com/Europa_Universalis_4_Wiki). The wiki was helpful as well, but not nearly complete yet unfortunately. Maybe one day when I've learned more about the game myself I'll sit down and write my own guide.


That said, I absolutely love this game.

EDIT: To get achievements you have to be playing Ironman Mode, that's also something I don't think was in any of the tutorials and what not.

 

[superdeluxe]

Are the tutorials in this game enough to get you to a level where a first time 4X player will have a basic idea of what they're doing, or will I have to put in some groundwork?

I'm not as lazy as I sound I swear.

If not, several youtubers have created tutorials, including quill18, arumba07, shenryyr, kailvin, frewd100

 

[Toma]

After 150 years, I final-fucking-ly made it:

 

[Hari Seldon]

But even then there's some things missing. For example, Tariffs. The income you receive from your overseas provinces is modified by the number of heavy ships in your fleet, which I didn't learn until well after I had already built a vast Spanish colonial empire. When I found this out I had something like 4 Heavy Ships. Thankfully I was able to steal some gold from the Natives in a peace deal (which seems to me to break the game, being able to demand such vast amounts of gold/ the natives having so much gold to be taken) which I used to build myself a Grand Navy. Also, if you don't keep your coasts patrolled you will get much less gold from your overseas provinces and pirates will show up.

Light ships count for tariffs as well. Just not galleys or transports. People saying otherwise are mixing this up with eu3. Light ships are also extremely cheap compared to heavies. I recommend not many heavy ships if you intend to stay at peace for a while.

Heavy Ships = best combat in open seas, provide tariff coverage.
Light Ships = terrible combat, provide both tariff and trade power, best for exploring
Transports = transport units, provide nothing else
Galleys = powerful for inland seas like the med and way cheaper than heavies. Provide nothing else.

One mechanic that you might not notice, is that your tariff income will plummet if there is not a recent naval patrol. It won't say this anywhere unless you mouse over the specific province's tariff income. The only indicator outside of this, is that pirates might show up, which is how I discovered it. Therefore have at least a single light ship set to trade patrol in every trade region that you have colonies in, even if you don't need to boost trade power there.

 

[Fitz]

After 150 years, I final-fucking-ly made it:

Nice job, what did you do in the end to get the votes?

 

[Mr.Mike]

Light ships count for tariffs as well. Just not galleys or transports. People saying otherwise are mixing this up with eu3.

I read Heavy Ships, probably from someone who had played EU3. But yea, there are a lot of esoteric things that are pretty important that aren't covered, I don't remember the idea of Tariffs and how Income from overseas provinces differs. I suppose they were worried about making the tutorial seem too daunting for new players.

 

[Toma]

Nice job, what did you do in the end to get the votes?

I had 4 voting members in the HRE vassalized and then I STILL wasnt 100% of the time getting their vote because the emperor has a huge boost for the voting, so I needed to hope for the first 40% or so of their imperial authority boost and hope their leader dies before they reach 40% which would make my vassal vote for them again.

It was a bit of a crapshot, but my next move was preparing the relation sabotage idea to keep that relation down more reliably, and by then I should have been able to finally make it without relying on luck. However, their leader did me the huge favor of dying 3 months after they used all their imperial authority to make another imperial reform. If you go immediately for espionage and keep up the relations with the HRE, you should be able to do this achievement faster.

 

[Son1x]

After 150 years, I final-fucking-ly made it:

Wait what, you actualy got elected with a female ruler?

 

[Mr.Mike]

From the Paradox Forums

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?713856-AI-Cheats-Facts-and-misunderstandings

AI Cheats - Facts and misunderstandings
I've seen a lot of misconceptions here and elsewhere about what advantages the AI gets over the player (besides the ones rolled into 'Bonuses' and 'Lucky Nations', which are explained through tooltips in the game options menu), so I thought I'd make a post and clear up in which exact ways the AI 'cheats'. Some of these cheats are crutches that it is my goal to eliminate, while others are more or less necessary for gameplay or performance reasons (for instance the +1 diplomat is necessary because the AI only handles diplomacy about once a month and therefore can't do the cancel diplomat, use diplomat, resend diplomat thing players do).

First, let me dispel some common misconceptions:
- The AI does not cheat with dice rolls, not even Lucky Nations. If you believe this to be the case, you are experiencing confirmation bias (ie you notice the times it rolls well a lot more than you notice the times you yourself do).
- The AI does not cheat with land attrition. No, really. Not even a little bit.
- The AI does not get extra manpower or free units.
- The AI does not cheat with sieges.

Now, a list of how it actually cheats:
- AI does not get naval attrition. It does avoid going too far out of range with most of its naval operations though, to somewhat simulate it.
- AI can see through fog of war, but pretends it can't in most cases.
- AI gets +1 diplomat that it reserves for non-maintained actions because the diplomatic AI 'ticks' means that it can't do the recall-send strategy that players do with maintained diplomats.
- AI gets +1 free leader pool because it's not nearly as good as a human at planning out when it will need leaders and needs to keep them on hand always.
- AI does not pay hiring costs for advisors, only maintenance, because their hiring code isn't that good and otherwise they waste a lot of money.
- AI can reassign admirals to a fleet that is at sea.
- AI gets slightly fewer revolts in its home owner area (the provinces connected to its capital).
- AI gets less native uprisings, because it is less than optimal at keeping its colonies garrisoned.

Finally, for the sake of fairness, here is how the human cheats:
- AI is willing to use up its last diplorelation for a human (it reserves one for humans so you're not always getting 'can't afford another relation').
- Humans cannot get inherited by other countries, in a PU or elsewise.
- Humans cannot be replaced as warleader in a war unless they are a vassal.
- Humans can save and reload when things go badly (unless you're playing ironman).
- Humans have a human brain.

On balance, AI isn't that big a cheater is it?

 

[Rug Monkey]

Just finished my first full game with the Ottomans 5th overall with 1. France. 2. England. 3 Portugal. 4. Seville

Mistakes I made.

1. I was never brave enough to Westernise. Didn't matter for most of the game, then circa 1780 my military just couldn't hack it against the big 4 or HRE doomstacks of 150k+

2. I didn't explore/colonise early enough. I know it's not a 4x game but I really should have played it like one The 4 countries that explored were unstoppable.

3. Allied with bad people. Crimea had a series of wars with about 15 different countries, and the usual response during my wars was to send a 1 stack to follow my biggest force.

4. Got into stupid long term wars and didn't watch my back, next time improving relations with likely backstabbers will be an early task when taking others out.

Absolutely loving this game.

 

[TiredGamer]

What the hell is this: "They will most likely accept!" "WE cannot ally with ____ because we must have a positive opinion of them"


-_-

Bitch, if they can help me with Muscovy, I like them! I love them!

It's annoying that you don't entirely control your country's own feelings towards others. One of the devs said they are talking about a way to fix this, though.

 

[xenist]

I thought I'd play an easier game and try France. So far things are pretty much going according to history. I'm gobbling up the other French kingdoms without a single drop of blood spilled. Burgundy is now a shadow of itself but I'm taking my time with dealing with them. I'm about to start colonization. I think I go after Africa.

The only big historical detour that I can see is that Poland is beating the Ottomans like a circus monkey. They are already down to the Aegean.

 

[Clevinger]

Novgorod is going well.

At first it looked a bit hopeless because Muscovy somehow got an alliance with Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. They were able to get some of my provinces in a long war. But thankfully not long after those alliances broke down, and in the meantime I ate one of those monastic states nearby. That gave me enough of a boost to attack Muscovy allied with Perm and I took a chunk out of em.

After that, I waited for the right moment to really cripple Muscovy. A nice sized revolt happened while they were fighting the Golden Horde and that was the perfect timing. I took three more of their provinces, and now they're a shell of their former power. However, while Muscovy were weakened, Poland assimilated (or whatever it's called) their vassal Lithuania, so now I have this gigantic Poland right next to me. They must be the biggest country in the game right now.

And now I'm trying to westernize. I've never done this before, and it feels like it's going to take ages.

 

[speedpop]

The Ottomans are proving themselves to be a pain in the arse.

 

[Metrotab]

Since it's been out a while and people have played around with it, I think I can ask this question: is it worth it to upgrade from EU3 to EU4? I'm still in the learning phase of Europa Universalis overall so I was wondering whether to ditch 3 to learn the new gameplay in IV, or whether to stick with it.

 

[speedpop]

There's no real difference in essential gameplay between EU3 & EU4. If anything, EU4 is expanded and works as it was originally intended within the series - trade nations actually function properly, and the art of diplomacy isn't akin to throwing a dart blindly.


At the moment I am running Byzantium and an Empress is upon the throne. Her diplomacy is a massive influence, but her military prowess is useless. So I drew back everything concerning military expanse and worked solely on annexing my vassals, weaving my ways in to the royal marriages, and hoping for a lucky union or two. At the moment I am praying that the 44 year old King of Naples (who controls the majority of Italy) is about to kick the bucket and a Union is born saving me the bloody torment of taking Italy bit-by-bit over the next 20-40 years with the son of the Empress (who has an orgasm-number in military power).

I doubt I could structure things properly like that in EU3 where it was all about the blob with military might. As great as the diplomacy was and is in throughout Europa Universalis incarnations, it seems lightyears of difference between EU3 and EU4.

At the end of the day the choice is entirely up to you whether to continue learning about Europa Universalis through an already amazing game in EU3, or spending $30-40 on EU4 to receive all the new bells and whistles.

 

[Clevinger]

Since it's been out a while and people have played around with it, I think I can ask this question: is it worth it to upgrade from EU3 to EU4? I'm still in the learning phase of Europa Universalis overall so I was wondering whether to ditch 3 to learn the new gameplay in IV, or whether to stick with it.

It's worth it because the tutorials and tips/hints in EU4 are really, really good (the latter explains most new concepts as they happen in your game). I learned how to play pretty fast, where as the couple times I tried EU3 I was completely baffled.

 

[speedpop]

It's worth it because the tutorials and tips/hints in EU4 are really, really good (the latter explains most new concepts as they happen in your game). I learned how to play pretty fast, where as the couple times I tried EU3 I was completely baffled.

This is another important fact that I completely forgot about.

If anyone ever wanted to try out EU to see what it was like, I'd point to EU4 without hesitation. Heck, even if they had never tried a Paradox game and wanted to see what they were like then EU4 would be great for any beginner.

The amount of tutorial and explanation overlays are amazing compared to previous efforts. Even compared to CK2. Paradox deserve a pat on the back for that - the ability to be informative without intrusion.

 

[speedpop]

That moment when you make Poland a vassal and shit the bed with Hungary and Lithuania at the same time because they know they can't kick poor Poland around anymore unless they want to face off against Big Momma Byzantium w/ Russia in tow.

Eastern European politics is always more fun.

 

[xenist]

Since it's been out a while and people have played around with it, I think I can ask this question: is it worth it to upgrade from EU3 to EU4? I'm still in the learning phase of Europa Universalis overall so I was wondering whether to ditch 3 to learn the new gameplay in IV, or whether to stick with it.

It's so worth it. I have to agree with the Three Moves Ahead guys on this. After playing EU IV it is impossible for me to play EU III again. It's obsolete now.

 

[Metrotab]

Thanks for the responses, guys. I guess I'm just gonna finish my current game of EU3, just for completion's sake, then buy EUIV.

 

[Walshicus]

Tried playing this on my wife's laptop after I fucked up my PC's CPU in a freak cleaning accident (aka I'm a complete fucking moron who forgot to take the heatsink off when re-inserting)...

Not a chance. Stuttering on the title screen.

 

[archnemesis]

With all the auto-saving in ironman mode it's nice to run it off an SSD. It shouldn't be very demanding otherwise.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

I don't think EU4's been optimized very well. I'm fairly sure it should be less demanding than CK2, but my laptop doesn't even bat an eyelid at CK2 and yet runs EU4 quite poorly at times.