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[KingSnake]

Thanks for the hints. I got a good grip now in North Africa, let's see how this turns out and if not I will try maybe Italy. I got a Dip Rep adviser and didn't manage to get close enough to an alliance with France or Portugal. Now Castille and Aragon attacked me, so let's see how I peace out of this.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Conquer East Frisia, use a missionary to force yourself into being Christian, join HRE, play ordinary HRE OPM game as Granada, then conquer Spain. Bonus if you use it to get the Spain is not the Emperor achievement at the same time.

Literally, "DoW East Frisia" is like the easiest way to do any of the really hard starts that have access to Europe. Alternatively Urbino works fine too.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Yeah, you should always try to please France, KingSnake

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Was it circumcised or uncircumcised, Robo? And what are we talking about on the disease front?

 

[Haly]

play ordinary HRE OPM game

You guys make this sound so easy :~;

 

[Red Arremer]

Conquer East Frisia, use a missionary to force yourself into being Christian, join HRE, play ordinary HRE OPM game as Granada, then conquer Spain. Bonus if you use it to get the Spain is not the Emperor achievement at the same time.

Literally, "DoW East Frisia" is like the easiest way to do any of the really hard starts that have access to Europe. Alternatively Urbino works fine too.

Yeah I guess this'd work too.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

Was it circumcised or uncircumcised, Robo? And what are we talking about on the disease front?

La syphilis. A disease for gentlemen

 

[Deleted member 231381]

You guys make this sound so easy :~;

1. Ally Emperor.
2. ???
3. Form Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation and conquer the Netherlands, rightful German clay.

 

[Red Arremer]

You can even make it more hilarious - ally some other great power that isn't the emperor. The emperor will always defend you if you're HRE lol.

 

[Deleted member 125677]

dat teaser

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Pirates/naval warfare, I think.

 

[KingSnake]

So, my Granada game is now stuck in a time loop. Castille declared on me and occupied all 3 provinces in Iberia, but I have 3 more provinces in Africa, plus Tlemcen and Touggourt as vassals. So the war score is going up and down between 41% and 46%. As Castille wants to annex me, they don't want to peace out. They have only 7 transport ships, so whatever army they bring in Africa I can crash immediately. They kept trying for about 20 years. Now they are not even bothering with that. Another 30 years passed and now I started westernize while my provinces in Iberia are still under their occupation, so any revolt from westernization is crushed by them. It's a very funny game, let's see where it leads.

 

[Red Arremer]

So, my Granada game is now stuck in a time loop. Castille declared on me and occupied all 3 provinces in Iberia, but I have 3 more provinces in Africa, plus Tlemcen and Touggourt as vassals. So the war score is going up and down between 41% and 46%. As Castille wants to annex me, they don't want to peace out. They have only 7 transport ships, so whatever army they bring in Africa I can crash immediately. They kept trying for about 20 years. Now they are not even bothering with that. Another 30 years passed and now I started westernize while my provinces in Iberia are still under their occupation, so any revolt from westernization is crushed by them. It's a very funny game, let's see where it leads.

This sounds hilarious. Not sure if you can do the stability hit exploit at this point, but it sounds like their war exhaustion must be through the roof. If you can, try offering them 2 of your 3 Iberian provinces (if you still have your capital in Iberia), and see if the peace deal says "This offer is too good to decline". If they do decline, they'll take a -1 to stability. You can further bend them over that way without even needing to raise a finger.

Though if they don't bring any more men to you, I think that means that they're out of manpower and probably don't have a lot of money either... is their fleet too strong for yours? If not, then it might be the time to mount a counterattack. If it is... consider taking a bunch of loans, building a metric ton of galleys and just crush that navy.

 

[KingSnake]

I can't get the stability hit for them and their fleet is too strong for now. But once I will finish the westernization and I will try to build a counterattack to be prepared for the time they will be in a war with France or something similar.

 

[KingSnake]

Ha, I don't need to counterattack, it seems. Castille went in war against France for succesion of Friesland, so France kicks their asses, while some rebels are conquering my provinces there. This game has been really something.

Edit: Haha, white peace!

 

[TiredGamer]

So it seems we're going to be on the search for...

El Dorado

(Come on, I can't be the only one.)


OT: Treaty of Tordesillas, time to butter up the Pope for some rich S. American lands.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Got crushed by Ottos as Ethiopia. Tried to do some scorch trickery by forcing him to siege with high attrition but he was still sitting at a comfortable 48k troops to my paltry 20k.

Maaaan, how does DDRJake do it.

Spoiler

Messedup a key engagement when I lured one of his bigger stacks into some mercs sitting on mountain + rivers but I accidentally gave my stack an additional command so it went into retreat.

I have a similar problem at the moment. I started an Ethiopia game awhile ago and got so far as to fully occupy the Mamluks, but then I couldn't decide whether I want to block the Ottomans off in Syria and potentially incite their wrath or give them some latitude and only take provinces in Egypt. I'm leaning toward the former, since I have Poland as an ally.

 

[Kabouter]

I have a similar problem at the moment. I started an Ethiopia game awhile ago and got so far as to fully occupy the Mamluks, but then I couldn't decide whether I want to block the Ottomans off in Syria and potentially incite their wrath or give them some latitude and only take provinces in Egypt. I'm leaning toward the former, since I have Poland as an ally.

In my most successful Ethiopia game I did the former.

 

[Haly]

Ottomans crunched me only because they had the mission "Take Egypt" and guess who took Egypt first?

How did you ally Poland they're so far ._.

 

[Red Arremer]

He who dares wins.

Spoiler

Though I'm also always scared of the Ottomans, myself.

 

[Mgoblue201]

Ottomans crunched me only because they had the mission "Take Egypt" and guess who took Egypt first?

How did you ally Poland they're so far ._.

I haven't played in two and a half weeks, but if I recall, it was a combination of a +2 diplo rep adviser (whom I immediately had to fire) and enemy of enemy thanks to the Ottomans. It certainly wasn't due to my meager army, which was only about 20 to 25k, or the distance modifier, since I haven't even reached the Mediterranean yet. I also allied the Timurids to act as a deterrent. If the Ottomans declare war, though, no way the Timurids would be useful. They can't get access through QQ.

 

[Haly]

I don't know what they changed in the Manchu area but it's so difficult to move there now. Some really awkward alliance networks that makes expanding such a pain.

 

[bjaelke]

EU4: El Dorado - Development Diary 1: Nahuatl, Exploration & Treaty of Tordesillas

All Nahuatl states have a ticking Doom value that increases every year based on the number of provinces they own. High Doom increases technology costs and idea costs and should the value ever reach 100 the Nahuatl state will be forced into taking drastic measures to avert Doomsday. The ruling family will be sacrificed, killing your ruling monarch and heir and replacing them with a 0/0/0 ruler. In addition, all of your monarch power is lost and any and all subject states break away as the nation descends into chaos. As if that wasn’t enough, if the doomed state has gained any religious reforms, up to two of these will be lost (more on that below).

 

[Haly]

Doom is going to be as fun as Gavelkind was in CK2.

That is, not fun at all.

 

[Uzzy]

The exploration mechanics sound great. Really liking the idea of sending your explorer on a mission and hoping for the best, and it should slow exploration down a tad too.

Treaty of Tordesillas sounds like it could be very ignorable though. Perhaps ignoring it should lead to a free CB instead. A lot will depend on how the AI treats it, will they ignore it or treat it seriously.

 

[Red Arremer]

The "Treaty of Tordesillas" is just a bonus to your colonization speed and a malus to that of others, really. It is indeed ignorable.
Is likely to make Portugal and Castile even more powerful though (since they're usually the first in the colonial regions and that gives them more speed to spread further).

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Doom is... more or less exactly as bad as I suspected the South American religions would be. Treaty of Tordesillas sounds completely ignorable. New exploration mechanics sounds promising, though.

 

[KingSnake]

So the idea of making the Central American states less boring is to make them having even smaller chances against Europeans? On the other hand, a lot depends on how helpful the religion reforms are.

 

[Haly]

So the idea of making the Central American states less boring is to make them having even smaller chances against Europeans?

No, you see, El Dorado is about making Central America more interesting for Europeans.

 

[EMT0]

No, you see, El Dorado is about making Central America more interesting for Europeans.

That's pretty much what I'm expecting. But hey, at least they got some attention. I think. I'll be surprised if they lift a finger on behalf of the Andes.

 

[Mgoblue201]

The Aztecs actually have an unrealistically good chance to survive contact with Europeans at the moment, mostly because they can build early carracks. Beating the European powers is simply a matter of building more heavy ships than anyone else. And ever since they removed the penalty to monthly points it's not too difficult to unlock early carracks. You can even begin westernizing before anyone has finished exploration ideas and gets access to the CB against pagans. What the developers really need to do is create a tradeoff: Europeans can no longer send over huge stacks without taking massive attrition, but in exchange it becomes much harder for native Americans to westernize and hold their realm together, and they can no longer access any European technology until they westernize.

Anyway, I've already played an Aztec game, but I might try the Inca instead.

 

[John Dunbar]

i finished my first iron man campaign, playing as byzantium.

all things considered it went better than expected, but i'm pretty disappointed with the end game, so i didn't manage to get all of italy and the last mameluk province. i went into war with brandenburg over bremen, thinking it would be nice to have a vassal up there. those guys were fucking monsters. they had low manpower and tiny armies so thought it would be no big deal, but they had like 115-120 discipline and almost 12 morale. what the fuck? they tore through my armies like paper. on top of that they were allied with austria and ferrera, so they managed to occupy most of my italian provinces and the balkans, with my warscore being over 50% in the red at its worst. the only thing that saved me here was the ridiculous AI: brandenburg split their forces and for some silly reason sent half of them all the way to jerusalem, where i had some scrub forces taking back provinces that some 3 unit stack that had landed in my africa had been taking.

when that happened i just spammed mercenaries in anatolia that was safe some of my fleet parked at the bosphorus with the rest blocking all of brandenburg (those idiots walked all the way around crimea to get to middle-east). contantinople was never taken, so when they came to siege it i could launch counter-attacks from adrianople. austrians and ferre..rans? rese? were pretty much useless and couldn't deal with with my armies, but if any of those stacks had brandenburgians they were almost untouched. just crazy. eventually they ran out of manpower and i actually recovered mine by using nothing but mercs. i got my warscore down and managed to call poland into the war, at which point even those freaks couldn't hold on. but that war lasted ages and as a result i ended up with ugly borders. poland also backstabbed me and made a separate peace, broke the alliance and turned hostile to me.

overall i don't think i was aggressive enough. it was my first iron man from start to finish, so i was a chickenshit most of the time and just tried to poach weaklings. also, somehow japan ended up as the defender of the catholic faith.

 

[Red Arremer]

Brandenburg has Prussian ideas, so they're OP.

 

[Niahak]

I don't know if you all have been following the El Dorado stuff, but they posted the Patch Notes for 1.10 today ( http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?837924-EU4-1.10-Full-Patch-Notes& ). El Dorado comes out on Thursday the 26th.

I won't copy/paste the whole thing here, but some of the cool features I'm interested in, because I'm not brave enough to try a Maya/Inca game and the Custom Nation stuff doesn't interest me:

- Colonial Nations will now accumulate the gold they get from their mines, no longer benefit from it themselves, but instead sending a treasure fleet to the homeland whenever enough gold has been accumulated. Non-friendly privateers in the tradenode-path will steal parts of it, depending on privateer power.
- Larger Colonial Nations (10 provinces or more) now provide a merchant
- Fleets with with big & light ships can now be sent hunting pirates in trade nodes, reducing the privateer efficiency with up to 99% depending on gun ratio in the tradenode.
- Treaty of Tordesillas: The first catholic nation to form a colonial nation in a colonial region will now get a bonus to colonisation there, while other catholic nations gets penalties for colonising it.
- Can now set a conquistador in a colonial region to Hunt for the Seven Cities, this will make them automatically explore their surroundings in search of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold.
- Can now order a fleet with an explorer to circumnavigate the globe if diplo tech is at least 9, this will have it attempt a journey from the Straits of Magellan to the Cape of Good Hope. If it successfully makes the journey and you are the first to cirumnavigate the globe, you get 100 prestige.
- Can now order fleets with explorers to automatically explore uncharted territories and coasts.

There are also a ton of cool features for Inca and Mayan nations and some rebalance of existing ideas.

It looks like none of the new features are included if you don't buy the expansion, so for those waiting on it this is mostly just a rebalance / bugfix.

I've been doing a Burgundy -> Netherlands playthrough (Dutch Republic is an incredibly powerful gov't type - always swimming in monarch points!) but I'll probably start a new Portugal or Castille game when this comes out.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

The Aztecs actually have an unrealistically good chance to survive contact with Europeans at the moment, mostly because they can build early carracks. Beating the European powers is simply a matter of building more heavy ships than anyone else. And ever since they removed the penalty to monthly points it's not too difficult to unlock early carracks. You can even begin westernizing before anyone has finished exploration ideas and gets access to the CB against pagans. What the developers really need to do is create a tradeoff: Europeans can no longer send over huge stacks without taking massive attrition, but in exchange it becomes much harder for native Americans to westernize and hold their realm together, and they can no longer access any European technology until they westernize.

Anyway, I've already played an Aztec game, but I might try the Inca instead.

I think Paradox reads GAF; in the next patch note it says primitives are banned from ship building.

 

[Omikron]

Anyone got any tips for taking on colonial nations as the inca?

I own the vast majority of the West coast of south America, but Portugal ownsv the east and Spain the north. They are also allies...

I managed to westernise while thinking about it but I don't see how it is possible.

 

[Niahak]

Looks like there is a new free-add on (Women in History) which adds several historical events. It's coming in with Patch 1.11 on Sunday.

I've played El Dorado just from the European side of things. It's been interesting playing Castille again knowing what I know now (and being much more ruthless - crushed Portugal until I could vassalize, then annexed them once they had a colonial nation). Of course, it's really easy, but it's part of the fun seeing how crazy I can get. Might try to build the Panama Canal.

I'm liking the incoming changes for exploration as they should be a lot more hands-off than how it is now.

The Search for the Seven Cities is a cool feature, but I managed to explore all of the Americas without any really powerful events firing (only the +50 monarch points ones, which are pretty nifty).

 

[Pollux]

I put over 100 hours into EU3 and just bought this game on steam. I am just as confused starting EU4 as I was playing EU3 for the first time.

I have no clue what I'm doing. Anyone else have that when they went from 3 to 4?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I put over 100 hours into EU3 and just bought this game on steam. I am just as confused starting EU4 as I was playing EU3 for the first time.

I have no clue what I'm doing. Anyone else have that when they went from 3 to 4?

I went into EU4 on launch, so it was a simpler game back then, lol. A lot of stuff is simpler than 3. Monarch points govern tech increases, stability, lowering war exhaustion etc instead of being based on monthly income. You spend points to core provinces instead of waiting 50 years. You don't need to get claims randomly, you can fabricate them with spies.

A lot of the randomness and uncertainty of the old one is gone in favour of more predictable or well explained things.

 

[Pollux]

I went into EU4 on launch, so it was a simpler game back then, lol. A lot of stuff is simpler than 3. Monarch points govern tech increases, stability, lowering war exhaustion etc instead of being based on monthly income. You spend points to core provinces instead of waiting 50 years. You don't need to get claims randomly, you can fabricate them with spies.

A lot of the randomness and uncertainty of the old one is gone in favour of more predictable or well explained things.

I've tried looking for some beginner guides to explain the things I can control and things I can't and what I need to know to start off, but any suggestions?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I've tried looking for some beginner guides to explain the things I can control and things I can't and what I need to know to start off, but any suggestions?

It's actually hard to say now because a lot of mechanics have been altered since launch and gone through various iterations. I might recommend looking for a recent Let's Play on youtube, but some mechanics wont' apply unless you have the major DLCs (there's about 4-5).

 

[Pollux]

It's actually hard to say now because a lot of mechanics have been altered since launch and gone through various iterations. I might recommend looking for a recent Let's Play on youtube, but some mechanics wont' apply unless you have the major DLCs (there's about 4-5).

I think I picked all but art of war up on a steam sale

 

[Jhriad]

Hooray to broken saves! I wasn't invested in that game at all.

Thanks Paradox!

 

[Niahak]

Hooray to broken saves! I wasn't invested in that game at all.

Thanks Paradox!

You can access the older versions using Steam Betas. Not sure if they added the pre-patch version from today to that list but they seem to be pretty good about that.

That said the Common Sense changes, especially the new forts, are pretty neat sounding, I hope they are as fun to play as they sound. I'll probably get sucked back into EU4 this weekend.

 

[Jhriad]

Forgot about the Beta thingy. Yay!

That said the Common Sense changes, especially the new forts, are pretty neat sounding, I hope they are as fun to play as they sound. I'll probably get sucked back into EU4 this weekend.

I wish I could jump in that soon but I always wait until after the inevitable wave of hotfixes that will come after release.

 

[FlyingSaucer]

Bloody hell Paradox, my Byzantium game.

You can access the older versions using Steam Betas. Not sure if they added the pre-patch version from today to that list but they seem to be pretty good about that.

They are buggy thought (nogov, for ex.).

 

[Mgoblue201]

Past versions should work just fine. I was still playing a 1.9 game yesterday after a long break from single player (and unlocked an achievement too).

 

[Niahak]

Some thoughts on the new version changes, just an intermediate-at-best player playing an England game to test out a bunch of the new things:

• England start is much easier since they start at peace with France with no truce timer - by 1475 France only holds about 1/3 of its territory with the rest split between me, Brittany and Provence.
• Development seems a little on the expensive side, 50+ monarch points. This early in the game it doesn't make much sense to use them for that.
• Forts add interesting wrinkles to combat, I can't cross my war target to help my ally in a large battle anymore, nor can I chase a fleeing enemy past their forts. I think stack-wipes will be less frequent as a result.
• Coring + Diploannexing seems more expensive in general, probably a good change
• Parliament system is a neat set of small decisions but not a major impact, at best it's reduced army cost or a minor tech
• The tooltip on Aggressive Expansion for peace deals now tells you which countries might join a coalition against you. This seems like a pretty cool change!

Development is probably more useful as a small republic (or playing as Netherlands which got a ton of extra monarch points in my experience) not really looking to expand aggressively.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

The Parliament system is weird because it basically mandates that England stays Catholic. Not very useful for helping with history - I have no idea why parliamentary seats should reduce stability, the Civil War only happened once and lots of countries had one around the same time (e.g., the Fronde in France).

 

[Niahak]

The Parliament system is weird because it basically mandates that England stays Catholic. Not very useful for helping with history - I have no idea why parliamentary seats should reduce stability, the Civil War only happened once and lots of countries had one around the same time (e.g., the Fronde in France).

Yeah, that's one thing I'm noticing in my England game. There's no reason to switch to Protestant since then I'd need to use a *lot* more ADM on stability.

Honestly, I wish the other papal buttons were nearly as helpful as stability. Legitimacy can help in a pinch but all the other bonuses are really piddly in comparison.

I expected to get a few more events discouraging me from staying Catholic. So far it's been easy aside from a CoR in Scotland.