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Paradox Grand Strategy - Thread of Fighting WW2 as Bithynia

Podcat said on the forums last week that a trotskyist coup fired in 1936 which wasn't supposed to be able to happen so early because of a bug. So USSR had hardly any troops.

I'm nearly through with today's session and I feel like Johan is being an imbecile the whole time. Dropping troll airborne divisions is "funny' but wasting troops because of course they're going to get destroyed. He already lost a bunch of divisions in Sweden in previous sessions, now today he launched a 3 pronged naval assault and didn't fully commit to any of them so they all got wrecked.

Idk if the game is busted or what but the previous plans to cut off supply in South Sweden seemed like it should have worked, but the German troops just had no problems without supply. Now they have Finland to connect up directly to the supply network so why did he land troops in Sweden again? Didn't work when Sweden was an isolated pocket of land, of course it's not gonna work when Sweden is contiguous territory and is full of troops for the Norwegian invasion. Dude should have gone all out in Turkey or something because that's the only area he could plausibly have trapped a bunch of German divisions as they advanced into Syria.
 

bjaelke

Member
Paradox Dev Studio @PDX_Dev_Studio

We would like to know a bit more about your mobile gaming habits! Take our survey if you enjoy mobile gaming!

Questions/options included in the survey:
I would like to be able to continue my current campaign on a tablet port version for the game while away from my PC.
I would like a “companion app” to see statistics and information about my current campaign(s) away from my PC.
15. At what price do you think that people will find a game such as Europa Universalis IV Base Game Tablet version inexpensive/cheap?
Link to survey: ow.ly/Z1urb
 
HoI4 specs page on steam used to say it required an 8800 GTX

Now it has been updated to require a GTX 460

One of the main reasons I went for Surface Book over Surface Pro 4 was the dGPU so I could play HoI4 better when it came out. Now it's looking like it won't even run.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.
 

Omikron

Member
Just give us an option to preorder HoI IV soon, Paradox.

Did they make that option available for CK2 and EUIV in the past?

Pretty sure it was for EUIV. Although not really sure why people pre-order a digital product really? Unless some amazing deal/bonus.


pre-orders all the paradox things
 

frontovik

Banned
Oh yes, that's understandable. I'd only preorder it if some amazing bonuses are attached to it.

I recall some titles offer a 20/30% discount if you own previous games in a series, or digital content like OST and artbook.

Now that you mention it, EUIV's preorder bonus came with a 100 years war unit skin pack and a mini Byzantine expansion, which must've been appealing at the time?
 

jtb

Banned
Stellaris is releasing in May??? I really hope it doesn't take three expansions for it to become playable -- I have faith that those days of Paradox are behind it
 
They finally just came out and did it, lol.

FoR5QnQ.jpg
 
Ffs paradox

6 weeks ago I got this stupid bug in EU4 that caused the save to crash on the same day no matter what. Reloading the previous autosaves didn't help. Uploaded to the forums and reported the issue, the staff guy says "I've tried running it in the new beta patch and it's fixed, you'll have to wait for it to come out!"

So the new patch comes out today, and 1.15 saves aren't compatible with 1.16 so I have to fucking abandon the campaign anyway.

Thanks for letting me know I was waiting for nothing, broski.
 

ZZMitch

Member
I am a tad bit nervous about HOI4 after the latest WWW video...

It should not be that easy for Hungary to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without any sort of push back from either the Axis or Allies, or even any sore of domestic resistance.

You would expect Germany to be annoyed that another country was invading 2 countries that it believes is rightfully theirs, and instead they provided Hungary with Volunteers :/

You would think that the other eastern European countries would try to band together to try and stop this Hungarian threat, but nope. Other neighboring countries didn't boost up their defenses in response, which seems suspect. Even the allies (UK, France etc.) didn't provide any guarantees.

Another thing that worried me about the wars themselves was how easy Hungary was able to annex a relatively equal Austria, who should have a good defensive bonus due to its mountains. Czechoslovakia didn't put up much more of a fight and they had a stronger army. All Hungary did pretty much was rush infantry at the enemy capital and easily took it. Pretty boring, neither country seemed able to defend themselves at all
 
Yes but that's not really a regression from HoI3 where Albanian and Luxembourg world conquests were achievable and you were mostly ok to DOW anybody who wasn't in a faction and snowball out of control within 10 years.

They have said they intend to rework the AI wrt guarantees, such that countries will start guaranteeing surrounding countries after a minor begins conquering people. But it was indeed supremely silly that Germany's response to Hungary conquering Volksdeutche in land Germany had designs on was "oh here, have 3 divisions!"
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
I am a tad bit nervous about HOI4 after the latest WWW video...

It should not be that easy for Hungary to take over both Austria and Czechoslovakia without any sort of push back from either the Axis or Allies, or even any sore of domestic resistance.

You would expect Germany to be annoyed that another country was invading 2 countries that it believes is rightfully theirs, and instead they provided Hungary with Volunteers :/

You would think that the other eastern European countries would try to band together to try and stop this Hungarian threat, but nope. Other neighboring countries didn't boost up their defenses in response, which seems suspect. Even the allies (UK, France etc.) didn't provide any guarantees.
I suspect it won't be quite as bad as HOI3. I think they said on the stream that the Allies should start guaranteeing nations at 25% world tension. Whereas in HOI3 you could conquer half of Europe before other countries start mobilizing. Obviously some realism has to be sacrificed to make certain nations more interesting to play, although I agree Germany's response was probably too unrealistic.
Another thing that worried me about the wars themselves was how easy Hungary was able to annex a relatively equal Austria, who should have a good defensive bonus due to its mountains. Czechoslovakia didn't put up much more of a fight and they had a stronger army. All Hungary did pretty much was rush infantry at the enemy capital and easily took it. Pretty boring, neither country seemed able to defend themselves at all
If it's anything like HOI3, then it's likely because their divisions were at partial strength and very low organization. The player should have an easy time at the start of the game simply by being prepared for war.
 

ZZMitch

Member
Yeah, good points guys. I should not I never really got into HOI3 like I did withe EU so I don't know too much how it is in comparison to HOI4.

I guess it just seemed boring to play the "attack countries weaker than you until you are a major power" game. I can do that enough in Europa Universalis haha. I was hoping a WW2 setting would make massive landgrabs a bit more of a diplomatic and logistic nightmare I suppose.

We shall see how the game turns out tho!
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Yeah, good points guys. I should not I never really got into HOI3 like I did withe EU so I don't know too much how it is in comparison to HOI4.

I guess it just seemed boring to play the "attack countries weaker than you until you are a major power" game. I can do that enough in Europa Universalis haha. I was hoping a WW2 setting would make massive landgrabs a bit more of a diplomatic and logistic nightmare I suppose.

We shall see how the game turns out tho!
I wouldn't expect anything on the level of EU4. Diplomacy is probably the least interesting aspect of the HOI series. AI countries might declare war on you if your threat level increases, but otherwise their thinking is very rigid and doesn't deviate much from history. That doesn't mean the AI is completely incapable of acting spontaneously. For instance, I was curious if Germany would declare war on a Republican Spain if I tried to align myself with the Allies (the answer, as I unfortunately discovered, is yes, they will). Although judging by what the developers have said, it seems like HOI4 offers even more opportunity for things to go off the rails if the player starts conquering their neighbors, especially if the historical national focus is not turned on.
 

frontovik

Banned
So what's the usual approach towards army management? I've noticed that AI armies in EU IV and CK2 tends to cluster together to form a doom stack, which prompts me to do the same.

However I understand that I would face attrition/supply penalties if I also have a doomstack. I haven't noticed any serious consequences from managing a doomstack, but is there a more reasonable approach?
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Squads. I like to move my army in squads strictly below the maximum supply limit of any single province I control (or am invading in). Generally I like to work with multiples of 4, and usually 16-20 by mid-late game. You'll definitely feel attrition doing a number on you if you, say, move 80 units onto a mountain in Timurid country. When the AI doomstacks, it's moderately proficient at avoiding attrition penalties so you don't see how it's avoiding the really low supply provinces.

It's also nice for baiting the AI. For example, say 80 troops vs 80. I have my army split into 4 groups of 20. I position one group on a mountain range at the border where it avoids attrition. I have the other 3 groups one province away. The moment I see their doomstack of 60-80 moving into the mountain, I give a move command to everyone else. The bait group will suffer massive losses, but with good timing the other troops will join in before they're wiped out and retaliate with the terrain bonus. Thus, I force fights on mountains without having to subject my troops to mountain attrition (which is usually really bad).
 

frontovik

Banned
Hmm, some questions and thoughts about EU IV...

It's been awhile since I've played the game (pre Mare Nostrum & Cossacks) .. so the Corruption feature among others are new to me.

I decided to play as Castile and primarily focused on the Reconquista for a few decades. I gained parts of Burgundy through the Inheritance event and also gained Aragon and Naples as PU vassals through the Iberian Wedding. I was going to focus on colonizing the Caribbeans when France declared war on me, and then things went downward from there.

Now I think I'm just going to start a new campaign with what I've learned in mind. However, I have a few questions as I'm still learning the mechanics:

1) I inherited some HRE/former Burgundian provinces (Luxembourg, Metz etc), and tried to sell them back to neighbouring HRE realms, but they wouldn't take them. When the Reformation struck, I got constant Prestige hits from Protestants fleeing to my realm. I wasn't able to release them as vassals or independent nations, and wasn't able to sell them back to the HRE. How should I have resolved it? Should I have never accepted the Burgundian inheritance?

2) When I conquer a province that has different culture/religion, I first send a missionary to do their work, then change the culture, then core it. Or the other way around. Is that the ideal way to maximize its usefulness? I tried this on some provinces I seized from the Moors, and had to constantly put down Separatists or Zealots. Is it better to let them rebel and let my troops crush them, or continually use Harsh Treatment until they desist? I find that Cultural Conversion, Religious Conversion, and Autonomy to be very frustrating to deal with at times.

3) I was 90% in process of integrating Aragon into my realm, but then they maintained a 200% positive relation with a Disloyal attitude towards me. What's the ideal method for reverting their sudden change in attitude.

4) Is it feasible to keep Corruption down to 0 without going in debt? It seems to be more expensive to reduce than maintaining armies. The highest I've had it was at 10 by the early 1500s. What is the community's thoughts on this mechanic so far? I get the impression it's throw more hurdles at the player to prevent them from steamrolling others when they get strong enough, but perhaps it could use further tweaking?

5) With regards to maintenance; I keep Army Maintenance to 0 and only activate it during times of war. I get the impression any middle ground is deterrent to its morale during war as well. I always keep Naval Maintenance to maximum during peace and war. I always keep Missionaries and Colonial maintenance to maximum during peace/war. Is this is the ideal way to go about it? I always try to maintain a positive budget/income, so I continually adjust it.

6) Is there any benefits to establishing Spy Networks in a country without focusing on the Espionage Idea?

7) With regards to buildings, I get the option to construct Churches, Courthouses, or Forts in my provinces, but they're so pricey that I choose to save up instead. For example, should I only build Churches when I have a surplus income, and Forts in strategic locations only?

That's all I can think of so far, I'd appreciate your thoughts and advice.
 
1) I inherited some HRE/former Burgundian provinces (Luxembourg, Metz etc), and tried to sell them back to neighbouring HRE realms, but they wouldn't take them. When the Reformation struck, I got constant Prestige hits from Protestants fleeing to my realm. I wasn't able to release them as vassals or independent nations, and wasn't able to sell them back to the HRE. How should I have resolved it? Should I have never accepted the Burgundian inheritance?

There should be a button on the bottom left that is "return province" or similar. If any other country has a core on it, it should revert to them. A few wrong religion HRE provinces isn't a major deal though unless you're getting religious turmoil or people are declaring war on you for them. Especially as Spain. Beating down France and making them stay down should be priority #1 always lol.

2) When I conquer a province that has different culture/religion, I first send a missionary to do their work, then change the culture, then core it. Or the other way around. Is that the ideal way to maximize its usefulness? I tried this on some provinces I seized from the Moors, and had to constantly put down Separatists or Zealots. Is it better to let them rebel and let my troops crush them, or continually use Harsh Treatment until they desist? I find that Cultural Conversion, Religious Conversion, and Autonomy to be very frustrating to deal with at times.

Core usually comes first but sometimes if you have extremely high conversion speed and lots of missionaries, you can core some and convert others to minimise how long it all takes. Conversion when you have poor tolerance of heretics/heatherns is a very powerful way to reduce Unrest. Just be wanrned that overextentsion is a global Unrest modifier as well as some other effects, so it varies case by case. If you don't have enough adm points to do the coring or whatever then obviously do that. Some provinces will have religious zeal so if you are going htis route, core the ones that have zeal since you can't convert them yet anyway.

3) I was 90% in process of integrating Aragon into my realm, but then they maintained a 200% positive relation with a Disloyal attitude towards me. What's the ideal method for reverting their sudden change in attitude.

No idea, check the liberty desire tab and see what is causing it (possibly someone with espionage ideas, good luck figuring out who). Integrating Aragon is usually unnecessary since you get the "Form Spain" decision which gives you a free integrate, doesn't it? I haven't played Spain in a while.

4) Is it feasible to keep Corruption down to 0 without going in debt? It seems to be more expensive to reduce than maintaining armies. The highest I've had it was at 10 by the early 1500s. What is the community's thoughts on this mechanic so far? I get the impression it's throw more hurdles at the player to prevent them from steamrolling others when they get strong enough, but perhaps it could use further tweaking?

Corruption is unbalanced as balls and needs to be revised down. It's a completely brutal modifier but it is possible to manage it yes.

5) With regards to maintenance; I keep Army Maintenance to 0 and only activate it during times of war. I get the impression any middle ground is deterrent to its morale during war as well. I always keep Naval Maintenance to maximum during peace and war. I always keep Missionaries and Colonial maintenance to maximum during peace/war. Is this is the ideal way to go about it? I always try to maintain a positive budget/income, so I continually adjust it.

I keep maintenance at a middle ground unless I need the duccats desperately but I'm not a min-max type gamer. When I'm wealthy as feck (i.e. have formed Germany or blobbed out of control and have infinite cash) I keep it at max.

6) Is there any benefits to establishing Spy Networks in a country without focusing on the Espionage Idea?

Yes it's necessary to fabricate claims so you should be building networks in all your targets. Additionally, now that they've hotfixed the bug, building spy network in a country means that you have less aggressive expansion impact in them so it's theoretically possible to preemptively build a network in a country you're worried about upsetting in a region before you conquer stuff near them. However that seems like an inefficient use of a diplomat unless you've got them coming out your ears.


7) With regards to buildings, I get the option to construct Churches, Courthouses, or Forts in my provinces, but they're so pricey that I choose to save up instead. For example, should I only build Churches when I have a surplus income, and Forts in strategic locations only?

Forts are a scam and pain in the arse. They cots gajillions of duccats in maintenance and are just temporary speed bumps to enemy armies that don't work the way you think they will half the time. Unless you have a large, contiguous hinterland all of the stupid special rules and regulations and military access shit means that you need to be a fucking supercomputer to work out when enemies will just be able to ignore your forts like they're not there, which is often.

The AI doesn't pay for any fort that borders another country, a sea tile, or wasteland. So that is to say they hardly pay for any forts at all unless they're Russia or France. You don't have that luxury so instead it's a giant money sink that will just prevent you moving around to reconquer territory once the giant AI swarms start sieging them down. I do use forts but sparingly, near critical border chokepoints as appropriate and in my capital. Some prominent EU4 players hate forts make minimal use of them, I can't remember if it was Arumba, Shen, or both.

Other buildings can be very important. I like to build manpower buildings quite a bit but churches are good, and the sooner you build them the sooner they pay for themselves. Build churches in high Adm development provinces, build barracks in high mil development provinces. Build the production increasing stuff in high dip provinces with good trade goods like iron or whatever. Trade buildings go in high trade power provinces.
 
The way fort zone of control is designed really is a clusterfuck. I wish Paradox would completely rework the feature because as it is it completely unintuitive.
 
The way fort zone of control is designed really is a clusterfuck. I wish Paradox would completely rework the feature because as it is it completely unintuitive.

The fort rules work fine in theory, the problem is that the maps aren't built for them. Provinces are irregular shapes and sizes and usually much too large. It's the kind of mechanic that would work much better on a hex grid.
 

frontovik

Banned
Thanks for your advice, TheDeafMutes, I'll try applying that in my next playthrough.

What is your approach towards force limit by the way? Is it usually ideal to max it out if your budget allows for it?
 
Thanks for your advice, TheDeafMutes, I'll try applying that in my next playthrough.

What is your approach towards force limit by the way? Is it usually ideal to max it out if your budget allows for it?

Build what you need, but the force limit is a good thing to aim for. If you have a weak economy you may be forced to be below it, if you have a very strong economy you can treat it as more of a guideline than a 'limit'. For power players, the optimal strategy is to basically always be at war, fighting in different directions with the largest army possible to secure as much from people as you can. Forcing out secondary participants with war reps to suck money out of their corpses, expanding in disgusting blobby ways where you deliberately leave a few provinces between you and the area you're expanding into if it's "on another continent" so that you pay cheap overseas coring costs, then later on connect it all up to lose the overseas penalty... lots of cheesy stuff to do.

I recommend watching LPs by Arumba if you want to see people pushing the game to its limits.

P.S. don't forget to use mercs to avoid manpower hitting zero. The optimal way to use mercs in my experience is (assuming you can afford it and don't have endless manpower) have mercs make up part or whole of your "front line" (i.e. your infantry) while your cav and artillery are all regulars (midgame and later). Before arty is good that's not possible obviously, but mercs replenish quite well, and your front line units are what take the casualties until the front line is broken. So you'll use little manpower unless your armies are getting trashed.

Optimal army composition is to check the combat width you have based on tech, then you want to have essentially that many infantry, about ~4 cavalry, and then combat width-2 artillery. That way you basically have an entire back row firing during the fire phase (arty fires over the front row's heads I guess), cavalry to flank the outside and inafntry stuffing the front row with their useless cannon fodder selves. Early game there is no arty and cavalry is quite dominant. Late game arty is dominant.

Your armies might look something like : 12 inf 4 cav 10 art
 

frontovik

Banned
Understood, thank you. I'll keep that in mind! :)

A question about AI settings; there is an option for them to "keep alliances" .. I assume that keeping it unchecked means that they're more unpredictable when it comes to call to arms/keeping alliances? If I keep it checked, will the AI break/maintain alliances amongst other nations?
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Keep alliances means if you have an alliance network the AI will preserve it. I'm not sure how far that extends with Call to Arms but for the most part they won't break alliances the moment their historical rivalry bullshit turns on like they normally would so if you created a France/Austria alliance as France and you left it to the AI, France will try to keep it.
 

Fitz

Member
You're supposed to be able to prevent AI breaking alliances with you these days by maxing out trust iirc. Never really tested it though, haven't stayed allied to one nation for long enough.
 

frontovik

Banned
Thanks for your advice everyone, I appreciate it. I started another playthrough as Castile, although this time I decided to revert to patch 1.15 because I don't want to deal with the Corruption mechanic as it stands currently.

I'd say my current playthrough is progressing much better now.

I was able to start off by allying myself with France, Portugal, and Austria, and rivalled England and Aragon.

1) I double-checked the EU IV wiki for the Iberian Wedding conditions, and it didn't state if Rivalry would prevent Castile and Aragon forming a PU. I never got the event and France actually ended up seizing parts of Aragon including its capital, so now I am unable to form Spain.

I'm surprised there's no option to buy provinces, so what's the best way to seize Aragon from France? I could hope for a Border Friction Casus belli, but I'm currently maintaining a RM/Alliance with France. I understand that France got some nerfs in recent patches, but it's still a kingdom to be reckoned with.

I find it funny that in my 1.16 playthrough as Castile, I was able to get a PU with Aragon/Naples and inherit Burgundian land.

2) So I'm currently in the process of colonizing the Carribeans and I've adopted a policy for my conquistadors to attack all natives on sight in Terra Incognita, as they often attack my colonies while it's being settled. Am I missing out on trade/income through my policy? I was browsing the options for colonizing, and it didn't seem to mention anything regarding natives and trade.

3) If I decide to use Trade War or Trade Conflict as Casus Belli, will it primarily involve naval forces, or will the land army get involved as well.

4) It's my understanding that if people want to focus on World Conquest or conquering the continent, they'd feed conquered territory to their vassals and integrate them later, correct? It's to lessen the impact of Aggressive Expansion and coring costs. Is that still a viable method? It seems a tad "gamey". Has Paradox nerfed it? I may start a playthrough as France or Burgundy and focusing on taking over all of Europe so I'm curious to know how viable this option is.
 

Fitz

Member
1) To break down the Iberian Wedding event, essentially Castile and Aragon have to be neighbours, not at war or subjects of another nation, and not both player controlled. After that the year must be between 1450 and 1530, you must have at least 10 provinces, then the event can trigger if one of the two nations has a female ruler, and the other a male. It can also work if the other has a regency council, but the chance to fire is much smaller.

If France has already eaten a sizeable portion then your probably just going to have to fabricate claims and take the land the old fashioned way, via war. France are one of the tougher nations to fight, thanks to their rich lands and powerful national ideas, so keep track of their current strength via the ledger, particularly army size and available manpower. Ideally strike when you've got a mil tech advantage or they're coming out of a bad war, bring in allies too if possible.

The Burgundian inheritance in another more complicated matter, most of the time the lands are split between France and Austria, I won't go into any detail on that event as it's a little more lengthy.

2) You're on the right track by focusing on the Caribbean first for colonisation, as it's one of the key trade points from the Americas into Europe, the same goes for the Ivory Coast and trade coming from Africa/Asia. You want max control there to get rich directing all the monies into Sevilla.

Dealing with natives is another matter, the amount of natives in a province you're colonising when finished get turned into extra development, so generally you don't want to kill them off imo. Usually the idea is to leave a small army of a few regiments in each colony as protection and move them to new ones as needed, but personally I find that to be a pain, so I use the colonial policy that prevents native attacks. It's a bit slower overall, but it means you don't have to protect your colonies from natives, and still get the bonus from local population at the end of the process.

3) The CB you use primarily determines two things: What the war goal is (how to get up to 25% extra warscore), and what discounts/bonus you get in the peace deal. However some CBs also change what you can/can't take in the peace deal. E.g. Coalition CBs don't allow you to take land directly, only return cores and the like. iirc 1.16 changed Trade Conflict so that you can no longer take land, but it was generally a last resort CB when you couldn't get a better one anyway. The majority of the time, especially in Europe, you'll be fabricating claims and using the conquest CB.

4) Vassal feeding has gone through a lot of changes since release, in it's current state, it's essentially a way to integrate land for dip points instead of admin. You'll still get AE for giving land to vassal instead of taking it directly, but they'll handle the coring/converting and deal with the separatism (if they can) and down the road you then just pay the dip points to integrate the vassal. There are ways to improve the efficiency of this though, e.g. taking a vassal (peacefully or through force) that has just lost a lot of land and then returning their cores in war. (less AE) Taking influence ideas to improve vassals and vassal integration. Another good strategy is to take a little land with a core from a nation that doesn't exist at the start, release them, and feed it all back. The best example of this is Persia, take some of their cores from the Timurids, release as vassal, feed the rest back.
Of course a fully fed Persia will cost a crap-ton of dip to integrate, and there are other things to consider such as liberty desire, different vassal religion etc.
 
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