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[Haly]

Shrink your army and build more?

I upgrade my navy sometimes with spare ducats, I guess.

Anyway that's why I'm wary about how much this new expac will actually contribute to the gameplay, seeing as how the trade empires are the last ones to ask for even more ducats. Unless the Trade Companies introduce some hefty ducat sinks so you can actually invest your money, it's just going to let me get +3 Advisors a bit sooner.

 

[mkenyon]

Well, if they change how you earn that income by increasing the complexity and dynamics of it, that in itself would be the gameplay reward, right?

 

[Haly]

Well, if they change how you earn that income by increasing the complexity and dynamics of it, that in itself would be the gameplay reward, right?

Kind of, I guess. It's a sort of consolation prize in my eyes though. What I'm really looking for is for ducats to matter when it comes to exerting your strength over other countries.

 

[mkenyon]

Kind of, I guess. It's a sort of consolation prize in my eyes though. What I'm really looking for is for ducats to matter when it comes to exerting your strength over other countries.

You can't just throw money at problems Haly. Look at Afghanistan.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Kind of, I guess. It's a sort of consolation prize in my eyes though. What I'm really looking for is for ducats to matter when it comes to exerting your strength over other countries.

Well, one of the new things coming with this patch are privateers, so you could invest your trade income into lowering other people's trade income.

What I want to know more about is these trade companies. Are they like colonial nations, but for places outside of the New World? Or are they something else entirely.

 

[Haly]

You can't just throw money at problems Haly. Look at Afghanistan.

It's my right as trade hegemon to throw money at any problem I damn well please.

 

[Lyng]

Gaf! Help me get started on this game. I have had it since release but just cant seem to get the hang of it. I feel like I have no impact on what happens?
Any good newbie guide videos out there?
I love CKII and really want to learn this.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Gaf! Help me get started on this game. I have had it since release but just cant seem to get the hang of it. I feel like I have no impact on what happens?
Any good newbie guide videos out there?
I love CKII and really want to learn this.

Quill18's videos get recommended a lot. I personally prefer reading, and would recommend this http://www.eu4wiki.com/Beginner's_guide .

This video series seems pretty decent to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wat8osA4ddg

But I'm pretty sure he has done other tutorialish videos. I remember one about playing the Timurids being recommended pretty often, but Muscovy makes more sense as a beginners country to me.

EDIT: This is the Timurid one, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGH-Sc1EfdI , but I'm liking the Muscovy series better after watching the first few minutes.

 

[TiredGamer]

What I want to know more about is these trade companies. Are they like colonial nations, but for places outside of the New World? Or are they something else entirely.

More control than CNs according to the Lead Designer.

 

[Lyng]

, but I'm liking the Muscovy series better after watching the first few minutes.

Thanks a lot!
The Muscovy series was exactly what I needed since military was the main thing I keep having problems with. Quill explains it very nicely here!

 

[Omikron]

Quick question...

I want to jump on Austria as they are currently getting beat down, they are at war with France and about 10 other countries.

But, France is defender of the faith and they info text is telling me that France will aid Austria, surely this can't and won't happen considering they are already at war with each other?

 

[Mgoblue201]

Gaf! Help me get started on this game. I have had it since release but just cant seem to get the hang of it. I feel like I have no impact on what happens?
Any good newbie guide videos out there?
I love CKII and really want to learn this.

My advice is to watch some let's plays on Youtube, such as Quill's videos posted above or some of Arumba's videos (he also has a series of tutorials). Sometimes it's easier to learn by watching other people play. If you have any specific questions, then feel free to ask them here.

Quick question...

I want to jump on Austria as they are currently getting beat down, they are at war with France and about 10 other countries.

But, France is defender of the faith and they info text is telling me that France will aid Austria, surely this can't and won't happen considering they are already at war with each other?

I thought it was an iron rule that countries at war with each other can never join on the same side. I don't think there are any exceptions; in your case, I doubt France would join.

 

[Omikron]

I have left the game paused for 10 minutes so far trying to figure out if I click the button or not. This could be my only chance to break up Austria after they engulfed Hungary.


Edit: Declared, they didn't join. Phew.

 

[Mr.Mike]

So I just got dragged into a succession war between Austria and Lithuania over Tver of all places. I guess it'd be nice if Austria exhausted themselves over there against Muscovy while I ate up Germany, but man, the AI needs to do a better job assessing what wars are worthwhile.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Having some crash problems. Any known issues / fixes I should be aware of ?

 

[Mgoblue201]

Having some crash problems. Any known issues / fixes I should be aware of ?

When I enabled the windowed full screen mode, the game would repeatedly crash in the start up screen until I turned it off.

 

[Shaldome]

So I finally got back to EU4 and started a new game as Brandenburg and having a lot of fun. I am still learning, but despite some rookie mistakes (giving Pommern to Bohemia as a vassal in a peace deal) I think I am doing fine.
Getting into the end phase and finally getting some more action, which was hampered a bit because Austria got the Reichsfrieden reform through. I was waiting for a long time to get Braunschweig to finally form Germany only to get it vassalized by France while I was distracted by a war against Russia, which was a long time ally for me.
And then all of a sudden France declared war on me, while I was still thinking how I could get Braunschweig from them.
To bad I did not have Russia as an ally anymore, but I had something better:



I don't know what France thought when dowing me, but who am I to judge?

And at this time of the game the fights get really big. At least I did not see such huge stacks before:



Holy attrition batman. But finishing Defensive ideas just before the war should at least help me somewhat.

Current map:


Not the best state for Prussia regarding the time of the game, but as I said I am happy for the small times I have played the game until now. Now I just have to hope the Ottomans are smart enough to peace out right and don't do anything stupid...

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Any tip on how to spread the one true religion to an aquired province that remains chained to their backward beliefs, besides technology/ideas? I have a 0 % progress missionary process rolling in Grenada.. Tried going Defender of the faith, but that did nothing. A friend told me to go for an advisor, but I have none available with that speciality.

Game tells me Province Tax is the main culprit, but there's no way to make a province pay less/no taxes, right?

 

[Mgoblue201]

Any tip on how to spread the one true religion to an aquired province that remains chained to their backward beliefs, besides technology/ideas? I have a 0 % progress missionary process rolling in Grenada.. Tried going Defender of the faith, but that did nothing. A friend told me to go for an advisor, but I have none available with that speciality.

Game tells me Province Tax is the main culprit, but there's no way to make a province pay less/no taxes, right?

If it's still early in the game, then there is probably no good way to do it. Muslims are really hard to convert. You will most likely have to wait for some combination of religious ideas, decisions (such as the religious uniformity act), and the adviser. Spain will also get a unique national idea for missionary strength, if you're playing as them.

Not the best state for Prussia regarding the time of the game, but as I said I am happy for the small times I have played the game until now. Now I just have to hope the Ottomans are smart enough to peace out right and don't do anything stupid...

Almost looks like you're trying to go for the historical Prussian borders.

 

[Shaldome]

Almost looks like you're trying to go for the historical Prussian borders.

That was not on purpose.

That was the only possible way to expand for me. Bohemia was also allied with Russia so that was not an option. Austria was sometimes allied with France AND Russia. So that was obviously also not an option.

 

[Mr.Mike]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...of-Nations-%96-Dev-diary-2-Trade-Improvements

Talking Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations – Dev diary 2: Trade Improvements

Time for the next Dev diary where I tell you a little bit about the features that will appear in the upcoming Wealth of Nations expansion for EU4. In this dev diary I will dive straight into some of the trade improvements we are doing and a especially on the thinking behind them. Bear in mind that we are still working on and tweaking these features so some of them might change between now and release.

Enhanced Merchant Republics
Merchants republics are among the theoretically really strong nations in the game. They have a extra merchant (giving them not only the merchant but a higher naval force limit), that have extra trade efficiency and on top of that a bonus to trade steering. Add to that the, frankly, a little bit OP ability to elect rulers. Yet you rarely see nations like Venice or the Hansa grow to conquer the world. One reason for this is their geographical weakness, especially the Hansa lacks strategic depth. Then add that to what I mentioned earlier, the trade republics are kind of dangerous. This, first order of business for Denmark - take out the Hansa and for Austria - take out Venice. So we started thinking, what kind of extra thing can we add to an expansion that adds an extra layer to the Merchant Republics.

In Wealth of Nations, trading with a merchant republic is no longer a zero sum game. When a merchant republic trades in a region this will add value to the goods that are produced in the region (technically we are increasing the amount of goods produced) in proportion to how big a share the Merchant Republic is taking of trade in a region. This means that as the likes of Venice and The Hansa are spreading their tentacles and send their merchants to take over the trade lanes the nations they are trading with becomes richer and until the point where the other want to become traders or Venice is threatening to become a land power, its a win win situation.

Main Trade Port
In the game trading is currently centered on your capital. Thats where you direct your trade and where you collect your money. In the base game you have some options, you can collect in other places anyway but take a trade power penalty or you can simply move your capital. In Wealth of Nations we are adding a new concept, the Main Trade Port that is the new place where you collect trade with your merchants. This trade port is easily visible in the trade mapmode and can be relocated using diplomatic power. Now as France for example you have a choice, do you go for a Mediterranean strategy or an atlantic strategy, and you don't have to relocate from Paris to do it.

Inland Trading
One aspect that we felt we wanted to add to is to make the option of inland trade nodes more attractive. On sea you can send trade ships in addition to conquering provinces and making trade deals. On land however, there are no ships. We figured that we wanted to change the dynamics of how trade works inland. We figured that if we wanted to do that one way would be to make the quality of your trading be much more influential inland. After all, trading on the oceans is all about controlling the sealanes and having lots of ships and ports while inland you are much more dependant on having access to local traders, making good deals and all that stuff that makes for a good trader. In Wealth of Nations at the moment, certain trade nodes have been marked as inland, in these trade nodes your trade efficiency is really the biggest factor in deciding how much power you get. For example for having a merchant present you will now get 50 extra trade power per trade efficiency so great trading nations have it easier inland, but on the other hand low stability will decrease inland trading so having a stable nation will also be a different factor on inland trade.

Changing role of traders
Finally a small ergonomic little thing that is making it into this expansion as a free feature. At the moment in EU4 if you have a merchant collecting trade and you want change the role of the trader you have to recall him and then send him out again. After you download the 1.6 patch you can now just change the trader from collecting to steering and he will just change what he is doing, no travel time involved. Thats just one example of all the little improvements and additions we are adding for free with the patch accompanying the expansion.

Exciting changes to Merchant republics. I think I'll try to form a Merchant Republic Germany as the Hansa once this comes out. Or maybe form Russia and Novgorod.

 

[Haly]

That's not going to stop anyone from taking over The Hansa and Venice, nor will it make their expansion any easier. All this does, is make other nation consider twice whether they want to attack Venice or not and in most cases it's, "Why yes, I would love to have some 7+ provinces and dominance over one of Europe's trade node endpoints". This only adds depth to interacting with Merchant Republics, it doesn't add any depth to being one.

Austria and France, easily Venice's greatest enemies, don't give a shit about trade in the Medditerranean. Neither does the Ottomans, who get all their money from their blob. And they talk about "sending merchants to take over trade lanes", which kind of misses the point of why The Hansa and Venice are so weak: Being rich doesn't really help you expand. Manpower does. As long as Mercenaries are so inefficient that they're almost always a last resort, being a merchant republic will always be suffering.

 

[Kabouter]

That's not going to stop anyone from taking over The Hansa and Venice, nor will it make their expansion any easier. All this does, is make other nation consider twice whether they want to attack Venice or not and in most cases it's, "Why yes, I would love to have some 7+ provinces and dominance over one of Europe's trade node endpoints".

Austria and France, easily Venice's greatest enemies, don't give a shit about trade in the Medditerranean. Neither does the Ottomans, who get all their money from their blob.

I wouldn't annex Venice. I'd just take all their provinces but one and vassalize the last one .

 

[Haly]

That's basically what I did in my France game. Nothing Venice can do to stop them.

What you really need to be able to do is to just buy allies outright. For example, in our MP game, both Venice and The Mamluks worked together to take down the Ottomans, and grew much larger than they normally would in a single player game. Even then, Venice (me) has trouble expanding without giant allies backing them up. If they go Northwest, they need France. if they go Northeast, they need Poland (or Russia, in our current game). It works in a MP game, because the Venice player can make real alliances, but in single player games they are at the mercy of the alliance AI. Grow too big? Woops, France broke the Alliance and thinks you're a Rival now. So you're left with all the negative opinions and AE you accrued while working with France, with none of the strength to back it up.

This wouldn't be a problem if you could, as a Merchant Republic, enforce an Alliance by sinking a massive amount of gold, similar to how the U.S. and China are so deeply in bed with each other financially speaking that the U.S. is forced to look away when China starts shit in the Eastern Hemisphere.

 

[mkenyon]

I'd imagine I would start the subsidizng process pretty much right away. That'd be a great way to counter balance AE 200+ years down the line with key nations.

 

[Omikron]

Finally managed to form Germany after about the 4th try starting as Brandenburg...amusingly just before I formed it Sienna took over the HRE which leaves things interesting. Need a new short/long term aim though. Maybe break up Austria.

 

[Haly]

Eyo dat blob.

Blobs errywhere. Except Britain, not blob.

 

[Omikron]

Eyo dat blob.

Blobs errywhere. Except Britain, not blob.

Poor England. I use them as an ally to help me out, but drop them as soon as they try to attempt to protect Burgundy. Idiots. :>

Also, pretty sure France leads a PU with Aragon. Which is rather scary.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Finally managed to form Germany after about the 4th try starting as Brandenburg...amusingly just before I formed it Sienna took over the HRE which leaves things interesting. Need a new short/long term aim though. Maybe break up Austria.

You have to bring Pomerania into the fold. And what's going on in Ireland? That's a surprisingly modern state of affairs going on there.

I guess what I would do is try to get every German culture group province. Then maybe go colonizing and name my colonial nations "Lebensraum" or something.

 

[Lyng]

So I took the dive and finally got into EU. And its just about as amazing as I hoped.
I prefer this to CKII actually since it feels more clear and straigth forward in what you can and need to do.
Playing as Muscovy. Decided to use my superior force to attack Novgorod.
Thing is, I am also ally with Perm. And while I am taking over Novgorod, the bastard Kazan decides to invade Perm, forcing me into a 2 front war.
Ended up with gaining 2 provinces from Novgorod and loosing one of my own, plus Perm loosing two.
Could have been worse. Now I will rebuild and plan my revenge on Kazan!!

 

[TiredGamer]

http://pastebin.com/HLyKmkMa

This cheese fascinates me. I never knew about the Scorched Earth / 1 unit trick or how the AI calculates some of these things.

 

[ZZMitch]

Do you guys play EU4 with any mods?

 

[Mgoblue201]

Do you guys play EU4 with any mods?

No, except for maybe a few visual enhancements. Part of the reason is that I tend to play exclusively on iron man. But I also have a deeper issue with mods: most of them either unbalance certain aspects of the game, or they add complexity without adding a similar level of depth. I'll probably put aside these issues, though, and try the Veritas et Fortitudo mod; the changes it makes to the internal realm mechanics look promising. But Fortitudo also expands the timeline (1309 to 1865), which I really don't like. EU4 already has enough trouble modeling all the historical trends that occurred from 1444 to the end of the game. I wouldn't want anything longer than ~370 years.

 

[Haly]

I'm a purist so I generally dislike adding mods to my game except for stuff that actually fixes developer mistakes.

 

[ZZMitch]

No,cept for maybe a few visual enhancements. Part of the reason is that I tend to play exclusively on iron man. But I also have a deeper issue with mods: most of them either unbalance certain aspects of the game, or they add complexity without adding a similar level of depth. I'll probably put aside these issues, though, and try the Veritas et Fortitudo mod; the changes it makes to the internal realm mechanics look promising. But Fortitudo also expands the timeline (1309 to 1865), which I really don't like. EU4 already has enough trouble modeling all the historical trends that occurred from 1444 to the end of the game. I wouldn't want anything longer than ~370 years.

I have almost the exact same issues as you. I almost always play ironman and the mods themselves also have issues. Most of them focus on certain aspects of the game and overlook others. Mods that add a whole bunch of provinces tend to unbalance the game since each individual province becomes less in important (and thus things like buildings and monarch points need to be changed to compensate). Most mods don't acctount for all these related systems and thus some stuff is unbalanced.

I also saw that mod and was thinking about giving it a shot to see how the 'large' mod scene is for EU4. I did enjoy Death and Taxes for EU3, despite the above issues. I have been much more impressed with vanilla EU4 than vanilla EU3 though.

I'm only using visual mods that are compatible with ironman at the moment as well.

 

[Lyng]

What visual Mods do you use?

 

[ZZMitch]

What visual Mods do you use?

Better Terra Incognita (just changes the look)
MapModeButtons (really cool, puts all the map mode buttons along the button of the screen so you don't have to obscure the world map to see them all)

 

[i_am_ben]

My wipe out Christianity game is not going well.

There simply doesn't seem to be enough time to conquer Europe without royal marriages or forming the Holy Roman Empire. I've got 120 years left and I've barely touched the Holy Roman Empire. Plus the western half of Russia still exists.

Moreover, Austria, Russia and a huge Bohemia have formed a super alliance and i can't seem to attack anyone without triggering a ridiculous alliance.

oh and don't even get me started on the coalitions.

I don't know why I'm continuing. Unbeknownst to me, in one of the last patches they added a "holy site conversion penalty" so i can't even convert Roma to islam.

 

[ZZMitch]

I just had an absolutely crazy war pop up just as I was about to quit out for the night in my Germany game.

I present to you all, the Great Spanish Succession War of 1723 (not to be confused with the real life War of Spanish Succession that happened between 1701 and 1714 and with almost the game belligerents on each side as my war)

Map of Europe at the beginning of the war:

France inherited Hungary and Poland while I inherited Ukraine and will get a PU with Spain if I can win this war.

Diplomatic View:

The forces of Germany (plus my vassals Lorraine and Finland), Spain (without its colonies), Great Britain (with its colonies) and Naples are pitted against the armies of Mega-France (with its colonies and Aragon/Augsburg vassals), Switzerland, Tuscany and Netherlands for the Spanish Crown!

German led forces amount to 630,000 men while French led forces number 520,000 men.
My allies and I should be able to have clear control of the seas, however, as we have twice as many big ships as the enemy (129 vs. 53).

I am super pumped for this war, next time I am able to play! I have never fought a war like this in EU4, especially not this late in the game.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Has anyone tried for the Norwegian Wood chievo? A whooping 0 % has it unlocked on steam

And does anyone know if the DLC currently on sale (pre-order pack, call to arms, digital extreme) are at all worth getting? The only one I really want is Conquest of Paradise which of course is not on sale. I've been told the American Dream is rather bad.

 

[Kabouter]

Has anyone tried for the Norwegian Wood chievo? A whooping 0 % has it unlocked on steam

Haven't even bothered, naval supplies are like all over the world. I'm not able to conquer the world as anyone, let alone Norway.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

As a Norwegian, it's mighty tempting to give it a go

 

[mkenyon]

I just had an absolutely crazy war pop up just as I was about to quit out for the night in my Germany game.

I present to you all, the Great Spanish Succession War of 1723 (not to be confused with the real life War of Spanish Succession that happened between 1701 and 1714 and with almost the game belligerents on each side as my war)

Holy shit. Going to be one bloody war.

 

[zoku88]

Mitch, you're fitting a war on two fronts as the Germans; you've already lost!

 

[ZZMitch]

Mitch, you're fitting a war on two fronts as the Germans; you've already lost!

Ah ha, but the French are fighting on three fronts!

 

[TiredGamer]

Ah ha, but the French are fighting on three fronts!

Napoleon took on roughly the same as your screenshot and won. Don't underestimate France.

 

[Aaron D.]

Quill18's videos get recommended a lot.

This video series seems pretty decent to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wat8osA4ddg

But I'm pretty sure he has done other tutorialish videos. I remember one about playing the Timurids being recommended pretty often, but Muscovy makes more sense as a beginners country to me.

Thanks so much for linking this Muscovy tutorial. I've poured over many EUIV videos and this is one of the best I've seen to date. While I appreciate all the work that goes into tutorializing a complex game like this, many feel overwrought and poorly paced as a result. This one is quick and to the point, getting players into the action immediately without skimping on insightful big-picture concepts.

I only wish quill18 included a companion Portugal campaign of similar length that covered Trade & Exploration, as it would be the perfect compliment to the War & Diplomacy theories covered in the Muscovy tutorials linked above.

 

[ZZMitch]

Some really cool changes were discussed in the new Dev Diary for WoN today.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-of-Nations-%96-Dev-diary-3-Naval-Improvement

 

[Aaron D.]

Just a quick PSA.

There's a big Europa Universalis IV sale over at The Gala Store.

The big ticket items include EUIV ($9.89 - reg. $39.99) and Conquest of Paradise expansion ($3.49 - reg. $14.99).

All other DLC on sale too. Roughly 75% off for everything.

All Steam keys.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Just a quick PSA.

There's a big Europa Universalis IV sale over at The Gala Store.

The big ticket items include EUIV ($9.89 - reg. $39.99) and Conquest of Paradise expansion ($3.49 - reg. $14.99).

All other DLC on sale too. Roughly 75% off for everything.

All Steam keys.

It's $13 for the expansion for me. Deal over?