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Europa Universalis IV |OT| A Game of Blobs

Carcetti

Member
Any tips on how to deal with following situation:

I got a long game running with Castile, own most of the peninsula with Portugal and Aragon down to 2 provinces each. I pretty much own north America and Caribbean plus West Africa. The problem is that I want to form Spain, but Aragon is so pissed with me diplomatically it's never going to work out peacefully. Its also always allied to either the French (huuuuuuge land armies) or the Brits (million allies and 60 ship doomstacks floating around my coast). I got Austria and bunch of mediterranean states on my side but they got totally creamed by the brits the last time I tried to take Barcelona... and that was the 4th war for Barcelona.

How do I get Barcelona and Valencia for myself?

Also, what's wrong with my caribbean trade numbers? It's not putting out any money.
 
Worst rebel doomstacks in recent memory.

v1l2i.jpg

They kept crossing the border and then spawning new stacks. It's pretty retarded that the rebels can field an army that's so ludicrously large, dealing with them involved mercenary spam, taking out several loans, and letting htem siege provinces so they split up and hoping to get lucky enough for them not to retreat to the same province the other guys were sitting in. Took YEARS before they finally fucked off.
 

Omikron

Member
Probably a stupid question, but you're in ironman right?

Yah.

Couldn't be because Japan had 1 other vassal left before I went for the throne... hrm.


Edit: well shit, I started in ironman, but connection to steam or something must have gone down. :-/ That sucks royally so to speak.
 

Manik

Member
Hope it's not too late to jump on the multiplayer list, because I'd be super interested in joining in.

As far as times / days go -

Manik - 8:30pm - 12:30pm BST
 
Didn't get an achievement for unifying Japan... anyone know if that is bugged and/or what I may not have done?
The same thing happened to me. I don't know if it was because Japan had a vassal left or if it was because they had changed government type to Feudal Monarchy instead of Shogunate.
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Didn't get an achievement for unifying Japan... anyone know if that is bugged and/or what I may not have done?
You have to annex all the other daimyos, even if you've already taken the decision to unify Japan.
 

Fitz

Member
Looks like sometime in the last hour they've enabled Steam trading cards for EU4 if anyone's interested in that sort of thing. To be expected I suppose, after adding them to CK2.
 

Clevinger

Member
Worst rebel doomstacks in recent memory.



They kept crossing the border and then spawning new stacks. It's pretty retarded that the rebels can field an army that's so ludicrously large, dealing with them involved mercenary spam, taking out several loans, and letting htem siege provinces so they split up and hoping to get lucky enough for them not to retreat to the same province the other guys were sitting in. Took YEARS before they finally fucked off.

Maybe the Ottomans or the Mamluks were supporting them? The AI can do that too, right?
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
So is trying to unify the HRE as weak as it seems? I had an extremely satisfying game as Saxony where I gradually amassed power, stole the HRE from Austria, and started implementing reforms. But when I clicked the penultimate reform (where every HRE member either agrees to be vassalized or declares war), things didn't work like I expected. It looked like the HRE members who declared war actually left the HRE as well.

This makes the last reform (make the HRE into a nation) seem really weak. Only the countries that I already have vassalized will be incorporated, right? Why bother going through the effort of reforms instead of just conquering/diploannexing everyone?

Can anyone shed some light on this?
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
So is trying to unify the HRE as weak as it seems? I had an extremely satisfying game as Saxony where I gradually amassed power, stole the HRE from Austria, and started implementing reforms. But when I clicked the penultimate reform (where every HRE member either agrees to be vassalized or declares war), things didn't work like I expected. It looked like the HRE members who declared war actually left the HRE as well.

This makes the last reform (make the HRE into a nation) seem really weak. Only the countries that I already have vassalized will be incorporated, right? Why bother going through the effort of reforms instead of just conquering/diploannexing everyone?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

The others probably didnt accept because you had vassalized HRE members. They need to consent to every reform and having a vassal gives -50 for every HRE vassal you have.
 
So is trying to unify the HRE as weak as it seems? I had an extremely satisfying game as Saxony where I gradually amassed power, stole the HRE from Austria, and started implementing reforms. But when I clicked the penultimate reform (where every HRE member either agrees to be vassalized or declares war), things didn't work like I expected. It looked like the HRE members who declared war actually left the HRE as well.

This makes the last reform (make the HRE into a nation) seem really weak. Only the countries that I already have vassalized will be incorporated, right? Why bother going through the effort of reforms instead of just conquering/diploannexing everyone?

Can anyone shed some light on this?

You instantly inherit and get cores on every single vassal in the HRE. How is that weak?
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
You instantly inherit and get cores on every single vassal in the HRE. How is that weak?

I think he refers to that action being weak since he doesnt actually inherit anyone other than the vassals he has. If you play it without vassalization, there are probably more nations inclined to join your empire, but thats just my theory right now.
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
You instantly inherit and get cores on every single vassal in the HRE. How is that weak?
Toma's got it. Given the need to raise Imperial Authority, and given that a lot of HRE nations will declare war instead of willingly submit to vassalization, it seemed faster and easier to just diploannex rather than go through the last two HRE reforms.

Toma said:
The others probably didnt accept because you had vassalized HRE members. They need to consent to every reform and having a vassal gives -50 for every HRE vassal you have.
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind for my next game.
 
Well, that would have been the point of going into Persia.

persia's sizeable in your game, you just gonna be taking their beachfront property?

i'd take landing fleet over to gujarat, oust the dirty portugeezers, conquer the indus and ceylon trade routes then funnel all that gold through the gulf of aden up into alexandria, i can only imagine how disgustingly lucrative that will be. if you end up finishing the game by taking constantinople that'd be hilarious.

K2dS0SE.gif
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Alright. first time ever I try France in any Paradox game. Lets see how they roll (and try whether I get closer to the crush HRE achievement with France) and get that France Achievement.
 

Omikron

Member
The same thing happened to me. I don't know if it was because Japan had a vassal left or if it was because they had changed government type to Feudal Monarchy instead of Shogunate.

You have to annex all the other daimyos, even if you've already taken the decision to unify Japan.

Yeah... see my update. Seems I lost connectivity to steam so my cloud/ironman save became a regular one without me realising. :-/
 
I'm Portugal, in a PU with Seville, we allied to Aragon as a mission and were part of a big coalition against a v. powerful Big Blue Blob doing the usual ... immediately declares war on Aragon, and Burgundy and the low countries hit them from the north, and me, Seville and Aragon hit them from the south.We take out their doomstacks and have them on the run .. taking back Barcelona and they won a few sea battles and wsr score ticks over to 1% positive. Then Aragon does this:

AragonYouFnckers_zpsbb3cdee2.jpg


Wtf? They are my African provinces that I'd spent an age, coring, converting and culturing ... Aragon are going to DIE ... the traitorous weasels!
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Yeah... see my update. Seems I lost connectivity to steam so my cloud/ironman save became a regular one without me realising. :-/
I wouldn't think losing connectivity is an obstacle to getting the achievement. I've noticed that Steam occasionally goes down, but that's never prevented me from simply resuming the save later (or even continuing the game until it connects again).
I'm Portugal, in a PU with Seville, we allied to Aragon as a mission and were part of a big coalition against a v. powerful Big Blue Blob doing the usual ... immediately declares war on Aragon, and Burgundy and the low countries hit them from the north, and me, Seville and Aragon hit them from the south.We take out their doomstacks and have them on the run .. taking back Barcelona and they won a few sea battles and wsr score ticks over to 1% positive. Then Aragon does this:

AragonYouFnckers_zpsbb3cdee2.jpg


Wtf? They are my African provinces that I'd spent an age, coring, converting and culturing ... Aragon are going to DIE ... the traitorous weasels!
The one time I got involved in a coalition was not a pleasant experience. First off, I had military access with France when the coalition triggered and lost five stability. Then, the AI was unable to coordinate its movements and lost most of the battles. Great Britain was sieging near Paris and had a chance to move toward Ile-de-France and wipe out a stack of 45,000 retreating French soldiers, but of course they never did it. And even though I was the only one actually making progress against France, the war leader decided that I should be punished and gave up some of my territory to Portugal in the peace deal. It ultimately didn't matter, though, because I was already at war with Portugal and simply got my cores back at no cost. I think coalitions can still generously be called a work in progress.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Burgundys ruler died 10 years after the game started and I (France) got half of their provinces while Austria got the other half in a seemingly random event triggered by the rulers death.
O...kay? Is that always happening?

Edit: I actually would have preferred the event not triggering because now Austria will become stupidly powerful if I cant stop them immediately before they build up their army.
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Burgundys ruler died 10 years after the game started and I (France) got half of their provinces while Austria got the other half in a seemingly random event triggered by the rulers death.
O...kay? Is that always happening?

Edit: I actually would have preferred the event not triggering because now Austria will become stupidly powerful if I cant stop them immediately before they build up their army.
I believe it happens when Burgundy's ruler dies without an heir or Burgundy is involved in some kind of war. It's intended to reflect and simulate the historical division of Burgundian land between France and Austria. From Wikipedia:

Charles the Bold (or Charles the Rash) (French: Charles le Téméraire or Charles le Hardi, Dutch: Karel de Stoute)[1] (10 November 1433 – 5 January 1477), baptised Charles Martin, was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. Known as Charles the Terrible to his enemies,[2] he was the last Valois Duke of Burgundy and his early death was a pivotal, if under-recognised, moment in European history.

After his death, his domains began an inevitable slide towards division between France and the Habsburgs (who through marriage to his heiress Mary became his heirs). Neither side was satisfied with the results and the disintegration of the Burgundian state was a factor in most major wars in Western Europe for more than two centuries.
 
Revolution and counter-revolution is ridiculous for republics or those with non-standard governments. 25% aggressive expansion, 100% prestige, 50% cost towards annexation or taking provinces? It pretty much breaks the game's diplomatic system.
 

Walshicus

Member
I'm Portugal, in a PU with Seville, we allied to Aragon as a mission and were part of a big coalition against a v. powerful Big Blue Blob doing the usual ... immediately declares war on Aragon, and Burgundy and the low countries hit them from the north, and me, Seville and Aragon hit them from the south.We take out their doomstacks and have them on the run .. taking back Barcelona and they won a few sea battles and wsr score ticks over to 1% positive. Then Aragon does this:

AragonYouFnckers_zpsbb3cdee2.jpg


Wtf? They are my African provinces that I'd spent an age, coring, converting and culturing ... Aragon are going to DIE ... the traitorous weasels!
Isn't there a checkbox on the war progress screen that allows you to deny the AI war leader the right to offer your provinces in a peace?
 

evilhomer

Member
Isn't there a checkbox on the war progress screen that allows you to deny the AI war leader the right to offer your provinces in a peace?

Yes there is, I always make sure it's off after a vassal was forced to give up a county early in my game. Even when I have the enemy completely sieged and click that button I have never received anything so I usually try to settle for peace early and see what I can get if I'm not the war leader. The relation hit for settling early is pretty minimal.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
From Johan's twitter account:

Thanks for posting. What would that mean though? He means the perks you get for having 3,6,9,12, ideas right? So it would basically be one more of those since you could max them pretty early on?

Yes there is, I always make sure it's off after a vassal was forced to give up a county early in my game. Even when I have the enemy completely sieged and click that button I have never received anything so I usually try to settle for peace early and see what I can get if I'm not the war leader. The relation hit for settling early is pretty minimal.

Are you able to do that in a coalition though?
 

Fitz

Member
Thanks for posting. What would that mean though? He means the perks you get for having 3,6,9,12, ideas right? So it would basically be one more of those since you could max them pretty early on?

I think that's right, a lot of countries at the moment get the crappy generic "National Ideas" group, instead of say "Prussian Ideas" or "English Ideas". So I should think it means more countries having more flavour!
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
I think that's right, a lot of countries at the moment get the crappy generic "National Ideas" group, instead of say "Prussian Ideas" or "English Ideas". So I should think it means more countries having more flavour!

Ah, I thought it meant that there would be more national ideas for each country on each playthrough. Currently there are only 6-7 or so, which you can easily max out at around 1700, so maybe adding another one, but yours makes more sense.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
"A member of a coalition can never sign a separate peace"

FFFUUU-

Yep.

Edit: On a different note, because of that Burgundy split up between me and Austria, Austria got insanely strong. I might need to start a war immediately while they dont have that much money before they actually build the army up to their current limit of 75. (I only have 54 or so and no manpower left)
 
Ah, I thought it meant that there would be more national ideas for each country on each playthrough. Currently there are only 6-7 or so, which you can easily max out at around 1700, so maybe adding another one, but yours makes more sense.

No, they are adding new national idea groups, not expanding existing ones. It'll add more flavor to other countries.
 

Fitz

Member
I have a feeling patch 1.2 is going to be awesome, sounds like there's a lot of things they've been working on.
 
Is there any good way to recover legitimacy? It's going to take like 200 years to get up to full at this rate because I had a weak heir. I can't see any advisors that give it like in EU3 and royal marriages are only a tiny trickle.

Will my next in line be a higher legitimacy? I never paid attention in may last game -_-
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Is there any good way to recover legitimacy? It's going to take like 200 years to get up to full at this rate because I had a weak heir. I can't see any advisors that give it like in EU3 and royal marriages are only a tiny trickle.

Will my next in line be a higher legitimacy? I never paid attention in may last game -_-

You get higher legitimacy with higher prestige, not sure whether it makes a significant difference though.
 

Perkel

Banned
So i started as Frankfurt and i was enclave between Mainz and Hesse.

From start Mainz decided that i am their biggest enemy and Hesse from start decided that they will be hostile to me.That meant two things: 1) i Couldn't move my soldier anywhere 2) I was sitting duck and both of them could just attack me anytime.

Since i am no duck i simply decided to wait, improve stability and finances and keep my army at 3000 which was more than Mainz (2000) but less than Hesse (6000).

Real problem was that game is cheating and almost every country i allied to one another in that place. What is bigger problem is that few of them are allied constantly to Austria which after Burgundy divide is The Most Powerful Country (tm) on planet (since England is wasted by rebellions and France is still not combined). So declaring war is like walking on minefield. One bad move and you lose.

From political side of things i decided that i need to use my two diplomats to improve my relations with Hesse and Mainz to delay their attack as long as i could. When both my diplomats returned Hesse was at 75 and Mainz at 50 and that was max i could do since both nations as i mentioned were hostile to me and Mainz is rival to me. Next i send two diplomats to Austria and Palentine because some nation allied with Austria could smack me anytime (Austria has ton of allies in that area) so if some nation would attack me there would be chance that Austria could say "fuck off" to those allies attacking me. Palentine is different cup of tea. They were neutral to me and their power was at Hesse Level i could live with that since between me and Palentine there was Mainz. Problem was that they were allied with Hesse which was hostile to me and had other 6000 army stack that combined gave them 12 000 which even with mercenary stack i couldn't beat. So i spend time working with them and that paid off since none of those countries attacked me for a few long years.

Austria meanwhile became completely bonkers with wars fighting on all fronts and most of the time winning. Whole HRE was in fire from wars. Strangely France and Austria never got into a fight. So Austria focused on their allies in HRE and since they were at top of HRE some wars were strange. Few countries annexed different parts and later Austria send them letter to let go those provinces meaning war was stupid in first place.

Defining point of my country was certain event. Palentine got stack of rebels and they started war with Tier. Tier was allied with Mainz. So Hesse and Palentine destroyed Tier forces and Palentine occupied Mainz. Mainz accepted peace on condition that they will be stripped of their allies, pay serious sum of money.

That meant one thing. Mainz doesn't have for few months money to get army and they have no allies for at least month. I fabricated Casus Beli stacked another 1k (4k total) hired general and attacked their 1k stack. I won the war and annexed them getting everyone -50 to relations of next 20 years. So i send my diplomats to work on neighbor countries and stacked money in case of attack. I got letter from Austria that i should release Mainz otherwise i will get unlawful territory malus and Austria can have casus on me. I checked Austria relations (over 130) so i declined. For next 5-7 years without core and with Unlawful malus i got 0 money from Mainz but at least my force limit was 7 instead of 4. I got core later and my financial situation improved got 6k stack army and steady cash income of 1,5 monthly.

Hesse relations at this point were at -10 which meant that any minute they will go to war with me and so they did or i should say they fucked up. They were alied with Palentine and two other small countries but they were attacked by Cologne first. After few days of starting Cologne war Hesse declared war with me but since its allies were fighting with Cologne Palentine only joined their ranks against me and they were already in Cologne. In short i stacked additional 4k mercenary and destroyed their 6k army with my 10k army. In short while i occupied their whole 3 tiles and shortly annexed their capital ending war with them and Palentine.

In short from small enclave Frankfurt i am now 3 tile nation (where all those 3 are vgood provinces) my forcelimit is at 10, manpower at 13 000, neutral/friendly neighbor nations.
All that with 0 made alliances and only 23 years. I am administrative republic and have trade going by my capital. I already took trade idea and next i will take military one. With amassing money shortly i will be able to get even 15-20 stack without problems.

What it looks like currently:



Bonus. Castille is fucked and i think it will no longer be major player in later game. I wonder what this means for France (Hegemony?)

 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Any tips for speeding up conversion of Sunni provinces?

Get the proper ideas and grab missionary advisors. Other than that there are also some effects that help over time. If you cant convert a province at the start of the game, dont worry, you'll get to it later usually.
 

Fitz

Member
Any tips for speeding up conversion of Sunni provinces?

Inquisitor advisor, + missionary strength % decisions, stability, forts and the Religion ideas if you're doing a lot of converting.

The other option is going for positive tolerance, though that's not as simple, requires more specific decisions.
 

Toma

Let me show you through these halls, my friend, where treasures of indie gaming await...
Anyone interested in MP? Write your preferred time schedule like below and we'll see in a few days how we can fit it in.

Current schedule:
MP time scheduling said:
archnemesis, 6 PM - midnight / CET
Arol, 7 PM - ?? / PST
Colkate, 10:30 AM - 3 AM / BST
Crab, 7 PM - 1 AM BST
KingSnake, 7 PM - 3 AM / CET
Manik, 8:30PM - 12:30AM / BST.
Mgoblue201, 5 PM - ?? / Eastern Time (flexible?)
mkenyon, 7 PM - 11 PM / PST
Rug Monkey, 6 PM - 3 AM / BST
Toma, 12 noon - 3 AM / CET
Zoku88, 7PM - 2AM / PST
 
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