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[Mr.Mike]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...a-Universalis-IV-Mini-Expansion-to-the-Public

STOCKHOLM — JUNE 17, 2014 — Paradox Interactive and Paradox Development Studio today revealed the third expansion for Europa Universalis IV, the award-winning grand strategy game of empire-building and global domination. The new mini expansion, entitled Res Publica, will introduce new systems of governance and trade to the game, including an all-new government type and several new Idea Groups for ambitious strategists to explore. The mini expansion is scheduled to release this summer for Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs.

Res Publica, a Latin phrase meaning “Public Affairs,” expands upon the critically acclaimed strategy game Europa Universalis IV, providing players with even more ways to rewrite history and tell their unique stories of conquest. In Res Publica, dictators and diplomats will discover new ways to manage and govern their empires, including additional ways to influence growth, sway the balance of power, and maintain – or shatter – a nation’s stability.

Res Publica adds the following features to the game’s affairs:

Republic Affairs: Grow your influence with the Merchant Republic faction to create new trade posts and reap bonuses, or exploit the inner power struggles of the Dutch Republic and their unique election events
Meet the New Boss: Try the all-new Republican Dictatorship government type, and decide between increases in power or Republic Tradition in new in-game opportunities and events
Don’t Fight the Power: Retain power for the ruling family by backing heirs in Elective Monarchies; boost your growth with the National Focus bonus and spend your points on Administrative, Diplomatic, or Military Power

Res Publica will provide grand strategy fans with their broadest set of choices and tactics yet when it releases this summer. However, if you want to see the expanded gameplay in action right now, check out livestream at http://www.twitch.tv/paradoxinteractive where we have 32 dev’s playing the latest beta build of the game today from 15:30cest to 17:30cest

For more information on Europa Universalis IV Res Publica, please visit https://www.paradoxplaza.com/europa-...iv-res-publica.

And here's a summary from someone on reddit who watched the live stream.
http://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaz...pa_universalis_iv_res_publica_announced_will/

Quick list of things from the livestream
-Cheap, '4.99'
-Extra Dutch republic stuff
--Switch between Orangists (more monarchical and military) and Statists (More Republican and economic)
-Merchant Republic factions FREE
-Merchant Republic trade post
-Elective Monarchy (foreign rulers can be voted as rulers for other countries if those other countries are Elective Monarcies; doesn't create PU but has other benefits)
-National Focus (focus on specific type of Monarch power)
-Republican Dictatorship, mid-step between switching from Republic to Monarchy
-Extra Idea Groups FREE

 

[Niahak]

That's pretty cool news! I picked up just the base game when it was last on sale and that's been plenty on its own, but I'll probably be picking up the existing expansions during the summer sale whenever they're up.

At $5, I could see picking this one up on release. Haven't tried a republic government yet, more meat to those features before I give it a shot would definitely be welcome.

I tried playing as Castille and England for a while before I finally tried France. Playing as France for my third game was quite a trip, you can pretty much bully anyone you want as long as you don't get trapped between Castille and Austria.

Through no effort of my own (aside from the marriage of course) I formed a personal union with Castille and started chipping away at my eastern neighbors. Integrating might've been a bad idea long term, although I've got a solid border I have a bunch of unaccepted cultures.

I'm at the point where I can beat the tar out of Austria, and I just did - they claimed Muscovy's throne with no successor, and I was the only person to dispute it.

Now I'm France with absorbed Castille, pretty much all of Burgundy's territory or so, and I have a personal union with Muscovy. I'm not sure what I'm going to *do* with Muscovy, but I have it.

After 30 hours or so, I still feel like a newbie to this game, and I'm still really enjoying it.

 

[mkenyon]

At this point, just play around with systems to learn what is what. There's no way anyone can stop you with that kind of power.

 

[ZZMitch]

Expansion sounds nice! I am a little annoyed since I am currently playing a Dutch game... might have to wait for this new stuff before continuing.

 

[mkenyon]

Expansion sounds nice! I am a little annoyed since I am currently playing a Dutch game... might have to wait for this new stuff before continuing.

Yeah, that was going to be my next game after my current Japan game. Definitely waiting on that now.

 

[Arol]

What are some good recommended mods? Or what are some mods you guys are playing?

I don't care if they're not iron man compatible.

 

[Haly]

This one's for you, Kab.

I'm 5th in score, the target of a moderate coalition within the HRE and, here's the best part, best friends with France. And France has no interest in the Dutch cores! As soon as France's war is done, I'm dragging him into a war for the rest of the Dutch homelands, hopefully forming the Tulip Republic by 1530.

(We will never forget the Gelreans we saw that day.)

 

[Kabouter]

How is it that everyone is better at playing Gelre than me?

 

[Haly]

I thought Wealth of Nations fucked shit up but apparently, playing a OPM in the HRE is easier than ever. I suggest giving it a shot.

(I don't even have Wealth of Nations, this is Conquest of Paradise + latest patch)

LOL, Fyn defected to me what the fuck.

How am I supposed to handle a province like that?

(I guess it's time to conquer the Danes!)

 

[mkenyon]

Started a game as Tuscany last night, holy crap this is an interesting playthrough.

You get to start with a 6/5/5 leader, and I decided to take the hit to Republican Tradition twice by keeping him around. When he died, he was 8/7/7.

The first national idea is 5% discount on ideas and tech. You also have the 10% bonus from being an HRE member. With Reichsreform, that's an additional 2%. The first idea group I went for is Innovative, which gave me another 5%. I also had two different events that gave me an additional discount of 5% and 10%.

I think there was something else I picked up, but I counted a total discount of 47% on tech. 47 freaking per cent.

So far, conquered The Papal State, Siena (Diplo Annex), Urbino, Ferrara (and Modena), and Mantua (Diplo Annex). France is my BFF, Venice is pretty supportive as well, and things are looking good.

Also, I love the new trust mechanic where you actually do improve the strength of an alliance when you help each other out. I was always so bummed when a good friend would leave me high and dry before despite me saving their ass multiple times.

Right now, I'm stuck though, as the only way to expand is through Naples, which France nor Venice is keen on joining, and they're still under Aragon and have an alliance with Genoa, so it'd be pretty damn hard to pull out a win myself. The other eventuality is of course Milan, but being an HRE member that is also allied with France, I'm kind of stuck. I'm thinking the next idea group to go with is Espionage to get my allies on board.

 

[Haly]

Dis game...

DIS GAME.

I am UNSTOPPABLE.

Britain, Austria, Bohemia, Denmark, Muscovy.

Not once have I crumbled.

(Those Danish territories? I didn't even touch them, I was so awesome they all defected to me.)

 

[mkenyon]

That's like if the World Cup were being played in EUIV.

 

[Haly]

Lolololololololol

Literally easiest game of my life:

Playing France was harder than this.

 

[Setre]

Any good guides or Let's Plays that can help me learn to play this game?

I've tried a couple of games as Castille and Date (Japan) a couple of times but always get stomped when it comes to war. It seems like everyone I fight can raise a bigger army than mine.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Any good guides or Let's Plays that can help me learn to play this game?

I've tried a couple of games as Castille and Date (Japan) a couple of times but always get stomped when it comes to war. It seems like everyone I fight can raise a bigger army than mine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wat8osA4ddg

This is a pretty good let's play for your purposes. If you prefer reading the EU4 wiki has a Beginner's Guide.

http://www.eu4wiki.com/Beginner's_guide



So has anyone managed to nurture there colonial nations to start colonizing on their own? I've been trying to get one in every colonial region, but my earlier ones still haven't started colonizing. I think they might need more income to start colonizing. (They do all currently have expansion ideas). Perhaps I should be feeding them more than the 5 provinces to make them.

 

[Kabouter]

Lolololololololol

Literally easiest game of my life:


Playing France was harder than this.

fml

 

[Haly]

My Cloud lost about 50 years, this new alternate history is a tad more difficult because France doesn't like me this time.

EDIT: Ugh, cloud lost a few more years.

This just came out. I haven't read it yet but I bought it immediately because Harry Turtledove, the Master of Alternate History himself, has an entry.

 

[mkenyon]

Thought I'd ask here since you all play EUIV.

Rome II Total War worth buying/playing? I used to be huge on the earlier entries, with Empire being the last one I played.

 

[Mr.Mike]

Thought I'd ask here since you all play EUIV.

Rome II Total War worth buying/playing? I used to be huge on the earlier entries, with Empire being the last one I played.

So I bought Rome II today and I've been liking it. I've heard that it's been improved a lot since launch.

 

[Shaldome]

New Patch (hotfix) 1.6.2 is out:

Patchnotes:
---------------------
- Restored AE Decay to intended levels.
- Westernisation threshold is now 8 levels for all techgroups.
- CTD Crashes when observing macrobuildinterface buildings and CountryIdeasView, while no country is selected.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would continously move between two adjacent provinces while supporting a siege.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would prioritize blockading straits it had no strategic reason to blockade.
- Overlords of colonies and Protectorates can no longer transfer trade power.
- Fixed an issue where AI would start and abandon sieges due to faulty attach logic.
- AI: Will now help its vassals and war allies fight rebels, if there are no higher priority targets.
- Fixed a bug where you could not cancel transfer trade power relations unless you had Wealth of Nations.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would appear to accept joining a war but then dishonor when called from declare war screen.
- Fixed a bug where you would get AE for declaring war while at negative stability, even if you had a CB.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would disband mercenaries to replace them with regular troops when there was no financial need to do so.
- Fixed a bug where the AI would refuse to make peace despite being offered all of its demands.
- Culture triggers should no longer cause a CTD from incorrect culture
- Launcher no longer borderlss (and can therefor be moved)
- Now disabled ingame load for ironman
- 'Pacta Conventa' and 'The Royal Struggle' modifiers will now be properly removed when the Struggle for Royal Power ends.
- Removed unused code from DirectorySettings - Made debug memory info in CEU4Application::LoadDatabases available to modders
- Removed old DirectorySettings stuff from files
- Removed a lot of old DirectorySettings crap from main.cpp and eu4application.cpp * Debugging broken mods
- CalculateChecksum now uses same code as checksum builder
- Removed GetModFromCommandLine from main.cpp - Removed GetDebugFromCommandLine from main.cpp - Added g_bDebug which is now set like any other command line argument
- Culture triggers should no longer cause a CTD from incorrect culture
- Fixed tooltipcrash in subjectview
- Fixed bug with checksums calculated badly when mods where used

Also: "The next patch will be the much bigger 1.7 patch released together with the Res Publica expansion where you will get much more fixes as well as new stuff to play a round with."

 

[robjoh]

- Fixed a bug where the AI would appear to accept joining a war but then dishonor when called from declare war screen.

I had this happening to me in my last game as Sweden. I thought I did something wrong.

 

[FinalHeaven]

I should really play some more EU4... I sort of went back to CK2 for a good while because it's all that my friends play and the multiplayer makes for hilarious shenanigans.

 

[TiredGamer]

They reverted Aggressive Expansion back to 1.6 and it still doesn't properly scale by distance, culture, or religion; ex. internal Holy Roman Empire warfare still gets you Aggressive Expansion (Outraged) from Muslim, Asian and Indian countries.

They can't join the Europe-wide coalition only because they don't know about you...

 

[ZZMitch]

Oh man that Westernization change is going to have a big impact on my Sioux game I think.

 

[Omikron]

Ok question, my ironman cloud save on my main PC is fine, but on a 2nd PC it is stuck at an earlier save. Does anyone know a way to get them to re-sync somehow?

 

[Mr.Mike]

Ok question, my ironman cloud save on my main PC is fine, but on a 2nd PC it is stuck at an earlier save. Does anyone know a way to get them to re-sync somehow?

Restarting steam ought to do the trick. Failing that you can try "Verifying the integrity of game cache" , which should check out the EUIV files on your computer, possibly including your saves?

 

[Mr.Mike]

I got a 6/6/6 heir! I've never gotten an heir this good. Heck, I still don't have the 5/5/5 leader achievement (I think it would be wonderfully hilarious if I didn't get that achievement when this guy gets in.)

 

[Shaldome]

I got a 6/6/6 heir! I've never gotten an heir this good. Heck, I still don't have the 5/5/5 leader achievement (I think it would be wonderfully hilarious if I didn't get that achievement when this guy gets in.)

He is already dead.

 

[Mr.Mike]

He is already dead.

He was 50-something when he became heir. Najd starts out with some real old royals.

 

[Shaldome]

He was 50-something when he became heir. Najd starts out with some real old royals.

Well then you were in luck. Normally when you get a good heir you can be he will die before has any chance getting on the throne.

I think I have to start a game again the coming week end. Have to think about which nation I will pick.

 

[TiredGamer]

1.7 & Res Publica will be out soon-ish, so I'm just going to wait for that. The new idea groups look a little OP in spots...

 

[xeris]

Got about 15 or so hours into a game as France before I found out I forgot to turn on random continents. Which was the whole reason I started that game in the first place. Blarg.

 

[ZZMitch]

Hey guys, I tried to load EU4 on my desktop (usually play on my laptop) and the cloud save on the desktop is decades behind what is on my laptop.

Is there something I can do to catch it up?

edit: never mind got it working

 

[jakefromstatefarm]

Just starting to sink my teeth into this Bavaria game and I'm really enjoying it. 1520, diplo annexed and cored Ansbach/Wurttemburg/Thurinigia/Mainz, got Sachsen and half of Bohemia through war, working on Brandenburg, Cleves and Wurzburg; I'm firmly in the driver's seat in Germany. Allied with the two biggest military powers in France and Poland, Austria's the only one I'm legit concerned about because although I'm top 10 in force limit they can still field twice as many men as I can.

Only two issues I really have internally are prestige decay and growing my economy. Trade is so opaque to me, I don't know what I'm doing with my merchants or what the goods each of my provinces generates means. My admin power is also abysmal but that's because of my monarch (how are the heir's attributes determined? completely random?)

I took offensive and diplomatic ideas, planning on taking economic next. What are generally considered the best?

 

[Shaldome]

And it's out. Patch notes and feature list here

 

[mkenyon]

Just starting to sink my teeth into this Bavaria game and I'm really enjoying it. 1520, diplo annexed and cored Ansbach/Wurttemburg/Thurinigia/Mainz, got Sachsen and half of Bohemia through war, working on Brandenburg, Cleves and Wurzburg; I'm firmly in the driver's seat in Germany. Allied with the two biggest military powers in France and Poland, Austria's the only one I'm legit concerned about because although I'm top 10 in force limit they can still field twice as many men as I can.

Only two issues I really have internally are prestige decay and growing my economy. Trade is so opaque to me, I don't know what I'm doing with my merchants or what the goods each of my provinces generates means. My admin power is also abysmal but that's because of my monarch (how are the heir's attributes determined? completely random?)

I took offensive and diplomatic ideas, planning on taking economic next. What are generally considered the best?

My protip from playing a few mainland Europe games. Though France is a great ally in the beginning, you want to prevent them from blobbing through Flemish/Dutch areas, and prevent them from getting into Spain. Once they do that, they just hate on everyone and try to take over everything.

Germany is often in a tough spot, because you have to initially face Austria, which you need France's help for. But then you will need to also be fighting against France. Though England/Great Britain seems like an obvious choice for an ally, their relatively weak army strength ends up not helping too much in terms of facing French stacks of doom.

The best you can hope for is a unified Spain or Italy to buddy up towards. If you can ensure Tuscan supremacy on the Italian peninsula, they'll often go Protestant, which helps a ton with maintaining that alliance.

And it's out. Patch notes and feature list here

Huge ones from my perspective:

# Buildings
- Marketplace and Canal are now +2 trade power instead of +1.
- Customs House is now +10 trade power instead of +5, and also adds +2 trade value.

# Military
- Removed manpower impact from productionsize, to be tied to increased by 5% from each military tech.

# Religion
- Conversion Zeal no longer disappears on conquest of province

# Rivals
- Countries that are 50% or more apart in tech speed can no longer set each other as rivals.
- Fixed a bug where potential rivals being calculated wrongly when handling countries with overseas provinces

# Trade
- Centers of Trade now provide 100% more tradepower and naval forcelimit.

# Technology
- Countries now get +20% production efficiency for being ahead of time in Production technology.
- Countries now get +20% trade efficiency for being ahead of time in Diplomatic technology.
- Removed power point penalties from all tech groups.
- Neighbour bonus is now +5% per level, and can now reach up to 75% off, to let late westernisers have a chance to catch up.


And there goes my weekend.

 

[Shaldome]

There is also a thread for undocumented changes.

In there are also the changes of the national ideas. Here are some:

England: lost its 5% trade efficiency in exchange for accepted_culture_threshold boost of -0.1 (multiplicative, so nearly useless)

Muscovy: lost its infantry cost reduction in exchange for culture_conversion_cost reduction of -0.2 (slightly useful)

Denmark: lost both its global trade income boost AND its ship cost reductions in exchange for a legitimacy boost and a ship_durability boost of .05 (?). Their naval maintenance modifier was also reduced from 33% to 10%

Turks: lost religious unity boost in exchange for the accepted_culture_threshold boost of -0.15

Poland: (as stated above) lost its religious unity in exchange for the -0.15 to accepted_culture_threshold

Aragon: lost its diplomatic reputation boost in exchange for culture conversion cost boost of -0.1

Austria: lost prestige decay boost in exchange for diplomatic_annexation_cost boost of -0.2

France: had its bonus to vassal income reduced from 25% to 15%, but gained a 10% reduction in diplomatic_annexation_cost


Requirements for the Merchant/Noble republic decision:

- not more than 9 provinces
- No Subject
- peace
- 1 stab
- no heir or heir with <50 claim
- 20% income is tax (noble rep.) / 40% income is trade (merchant rep.)
- complete aristocratic/influence ideas (noble rep.) /trade+economic ideas (merchant rep.)

 

[mkenyon]

I'm having trouble finding info on the new three Idea groups, and the changes to the existing ones. Anyone see anything?

 

[Shaldome]

I'm having trouble finding info on the new three Idea groups, and the changes to the existing ones. Anyone see anything?

I do not know if these are all the changes, but there are some listed in the linked Patch notes under Game Balance - # Ideas & Policies

Other than that I did not see anything. I could log in and check, but it would take a while.

[edit]
I just copied hem from the game files:

humanist_ideas = category = ADM
bonus = idea_cost = -0.1
tolerance_idea = religious_unity = 0.25
local_traditions = global_revolt_risk = -2
ecumenism = tolerance_heretic = 3
indirect_rule = years_of_nationalism = -10
cultural_ties = accepted_culture_threshold = -0.5
benevolence = relations_decay_of_me = 0.33
humanist_tolerance = tolerance_heathen = 3

influence_ideas = category = DIP
bonus = diplomatic_upkeep = 1
tribute_system = vassal_income = 0.25
claim_fabrication = fabricate_claims_time = -0.33
integrated_elites = diplomatic_annexation_cost = -0.25
state_propaganda = ae_impact = -0.1
diplomatic_influence = diplomatic_reputation = 5
postal_service = imperial_authority = 0.1
envoy_travel_time = -0.25
marcher_lords = vassal_forcelimit_bonus = 0.33


maritime_ideas = category = DIP
bonus = sea_repair = yes
sea_hawks = navy_tradition = 1
merchant_marine = light_ship_power = 0.1
sheltered_ports = global_ship_repair = 0.2
grand_navy = naval_forcelimit_modifier = 0.25
ships_penny = global_ship_cost = -0.1
excellent_shipwrights = leader_naval_manuever = 2
naval_fighting_instruction = blockade_efficiency = 0.5

 

[TiredGamer]

15-year truce timer.

 

[mkenyon]

15-year truce timer.

Whoah what!?

 

[Niahak]

Whoah what!?

From patch notes:

- Truce length now scales to the amount of warscore taken in the peace, from 5 years at white peace to 15 years at 100% warscore.

I picked up this expansion (and the previous one), since I figured $15 wasn't too much to drop on a game that's already taken 40 hours or so. I'll probably go a bit further in my Portugal colony-bomb game before I start anew as a republic, though.

What's a good starter to build my way up to Netherlands from 1444? Is Brandenburg too easy?

 

[mkenyon]

Doing one of the Dutch minors (I prefer Gerle) is the only way to do it in Ironman. Otherwise, start a game as Burgundy and release the Netherlands. Save game, and when you go to load it again, switch to the Netherlands.

Brandenburg is Prussia/Germany.

 

[Niahak]

Doing one of the Dutch minors (I prefer Gerle) is the only way to do it in Ironman. Otherwise, start a game as Burgundy and release the Netherlands. Save game, and when you go to load it again, switch to the Netherlands.

Brandenburg is Prussia/Germany.

Err, whoops, I meant Burgundy. I could've sworn I saw "Form Netherlands" as them when I tried playing them briefly.

Looks like it's possible, but you lose all your French stuff. I'll try Gelre, it'll be an interesting challenge.

 

[mkenyon]

Yeah, Gelre is a tough one. It's really about getting good dice rolls for the first 10-20 years. Once you get Friesland, Utrecht, and Breda, it's pretty easy to start carving out the rest of the Flemish and Dutch lands from Burgundy. Just hope the alliances/wars turn out in your favor.

Buddy up to both Austria and France at first, but Austria is generally of more help sooner, due to France being preoccupied with the 100 years war.

If Austria inherits Burgundy quickly, you'll be better off starting the game over.

 

[jakefromstatefarm]

Update. 1611 in my Bavaria game and just managed to form Germany.

Brandenburg took Atlmark from Anhalt, which I had forged a claim on a couple years prior. I used that CB as precedence to rescind my diplomatic ties with Brandenburg, entered a war which took about a year to get to 100% war score because apparently I was the only one they had a military alliance with. Annexed and cored all 4 of their provinces, then diplo-annexed Anhalt.

At this point there were only two provinces I needed for the German national decision, Luneburg and Mecklenburg; the former was an OPM and the latter was held by The Hansa. Cleves, my ally, decided to declare war on Trier, who was three times their size and allied to Poland, who had the third largest force limit at the time. I told them no, because a) it was a stupid fucking idea and b) my army had just reached a nice size and was on the Hansean border poised to take Mecklenberg. What I didn't know was that the Hansa had allied Cleves and joined the war on their side. I waited until their forces were hacked down a bit, declared war with France on my side under a CB to take Mecklenberg, and after about 5-8 years came out with my war goal plus Launberg. Immediately after the war, I diplo-annexed Luneburg and cored the two provinces I took in war.

So, 1611, 15-17-16 in techs, allied with France and Poland (though the latter is shaky) and looking to take the remaining German provinces of The Hansa in the north and Trier in the west. I took Diplo, Economic, Quantity and Offensive.

.

France held the Low countries for about ~50 years before The Netherlands ceded in a war of independence. They lost, France took 2 of their Flemish provinces and now the Low Countries are a complete clusterfuck. France is also chewing away at Castile in northern Spain, so I have to make quick allies with Castile and The Netherlands if I want buffers against the French. GB has been completely overrun by Scotland, have no idea what's going on there. Naples has the Apennine Peninsula. France has five cardinals.

 

[TiredGamer]

Currently there's a bug where if a vassal is annexed, their overlord is also annexed. Completely ruins play in Japan. :\

 

[mkenyon]

.

Fear not, sounds like you're in a pretty good place for overrunning France. Just wait for them to get engaged in a war, and strike.

The key to winning a land war with them is to get their big stacks engaged, and with a smaller 10-15 size army, take out their new units as they're produced. Just keep running around with forced march, taking out the 1-3 stacks. Eventually they'll run out of manpower.

 

[robjoh]

For the moment I am playing as Sweden, I game that starts to get boring. Allied with France and together we have more or less fought HRE, Poland and Lithuania to ruble. The last wars against Russia has shown that I can expand in that direction. I have roughly 150 years left to play so I am planing what my new game should be.

I have some idea to play as Kazan, something I think can be quit rough for me. So I have some questions:
1, I am still playing without any of the expansions. Is it any expansion that I should buy before starting a Kazan game?
2, Any good advice how to play as the horde?

My average idea is to try to get an alliance with Novograd and hit Muscovy as hard as possible with the goal to prevent Russia to be formed. Then somehow succeed in westernize. I have however never played as the horde and I am not really sure what to expect.

 

[mkenyon]

For the moment I am playing as Sweden, I game that starts to get boring. Allied with France and together we have more or less fought HRE, Poland and Lithuania to ruble. The last wars against Russia has shown that I can expand in that direction. I have roughly 150 years left to play so I am planing what my new game should be.

I have some idea to play as Kazan, something I think can be quit rough for me. So I have some questions:
1, I am still playing without any of the expansions. Is it any expansion that I should buy before starting a Kazan game?
2, Any good advice how to play as the horde?

My average idea is to try to get an alliance with Novograd and hit Muscovy as hard as possible with the goal to prevent Russia to be formed. Then somehow succeed in westernize. I have however never played as the horde and I am not really sure what to expect.

Try taking out France to be #1 before ending your game.

I can't offer any advice on the Horde nations though. I've read on the forums that they've been nerfed to non-existence. But there's a lot of hyperbole on the official forums.