Europa Universalis 4

One thing to note, manpower particularly, is that units at partial strength do not decrease in effectiveness in a linear scale. That is to say 10 units with 100 men are not equally effective to 1 unit with 1000. There is some exponential growth curve there. So if you catch an enemy at low manpower, the losses they suffer are more damaging. They won’t be able to full reinforce for a while. So the first battle you do damage, and you get to reenforce but they can’t? Then you hit them again. And again. And eventually stack wipe them. Much easier when they don’t have the manpower to absorb 1,2,4K losses and you do.

Some ideas : use a diplomat for a mission that takes a year or two (less for rivals) plus cash per month = ledger knowledge for 20 years (or until their ruler dies?)

  • the espionage idea group would be great for this - add an idea that allows the country to sell ledger data (like selling world maps or tech)

  • sharing a border; having adjacent forts would lessen the time/costs of spying

  • merchants in proximity

Now if the AI is using the ledger data to make decisions this would be problematic but I think it would be an interesting mechanic rather than knowing all the things.

Even in lieu of monitoring manpower, another indicator is to monitor how a war is going between two factions, because that information too is relayed to the player. Turks vs Rus, if the diplomacy view for one side shows a -20, I know they are losing pretty badly.

The manpower thing isn’t always reliable anyway. After all, with the inclusion of estates, a nation can levy the feudal lords and get another 10k manpower for instance. It does scale if I recall. Or conscript the populace at the cost of army professionalism that was introduced with one of the recent DLC.

There’s been some goodies talked about the last few weeks about the Immersion Pack focused on Iberia. Map changes, Holy Orders, Portuguese Marines and flagships, and some new missions and Ideas for countries in Iberia.

Thankfully, it looks like they’re also revisiting the Maghreb. I always want to play Morocco, but I tend to find it a pretty miserable experience. You start out with a terrible king, your neighbors all have Hostile Core Creation which makes expansion across North Africa extremely expensive for pretty crappy land, and the Iberians have naval dominance. On top of that, I find their Ideas to be the worst in the entire time. I did play a game recently as Morocco (where I remembered why I disliked it so much) and had success, but definitely wasn’t the most fun.

I think the changes they outlined are going to help a lot. Removal of HCC is going to make eating your neighbors a better proposition for early-game expansion. You have some determination on when you get land access access to Western Africa via the mission tree. And while their reworked Ideas still aren’t great, the ones for Andalusia are an amazing payoff if you can reverse the reconquista. In my recent Morocco game it was a bit of a letdown to drive Portugal and Spain from the peninsula only to get a tag change. I’m looking forward to replaying that game once the immersion pack goes live.

EDIT: Oh and I have to say, the new Spanish ideas announced today sound top-tier. The new modifier they are adding for them (the bonus to Artillery) sounds like it is going to be lethal in the mid parts of the game, getting less amazing as technology progresses. I think that’s a good fit for the Spanish Empire!

I wish this and CK2 had that gorgeous, beeeeuatiful, map + interface that Imperator Rome has.

I’m going to steal a little of @KevinC thunder here and post the latest dev diary which is all about Pirates! No, not the Sid Meier game, but rather a chance to actually play as a Pirate Republic in the game.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-20th-of-november-2018.1129806/

This for some reason has me quite a bit excited. When I played through the game as Netherlands, it was kinda fun playing tall, and given that Pirate Republic too are required to play tall in order to form, it might be a nice shift in the game similar to what I found with Netherlands.

Haha, no stealing of thunder! Paradox games tend to be some of my favorite so I keep up on the dev diaries, but I sometimes feel a little self-conscious about bumping all the threads with the latest. I worry I come across as a spammer. :)

The pirate thing sounds fun. I think there’s room in the game for more “roleplay” type of scenarios, and playing a pirate republic that possibly evolves into something greater as the game goes on sounds like it could be a lot of fun.

Of course, I"m sure the forums will be full of complaints about how you can’t paint the map as a pirate republic and that they need to be “fixed” because they “suck”. :)

And the new DLC will be available Dec 11. Will post a link when I get back to a computer.

Does anyone have any plans to start a game in CK2 random world and then carry it over to EU IV?

The random world generator in CK2 can make a world with only 1 province countries right?

I thought about it, but it’s never going to happen. Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can start with all 1 province rulers.

It’s been a while, trying to get back into this. Trying Scotland this time around. I’ve had a couple of restarts. My plan for the current timeline: STAY AWAY FROM ALLYING WITH FRANCE. At least at first. I think I’ll try some adventures in Ireland while they slug it out with England.

So interesting to see how far the game has come since the initial release. As someone who’s been playing every expansion, it’s easy to miss the big picture. Like most Youtube “personalities”, I find him incredibly annoying but it was interesting to see the comparisons.

North America:

Africa? Ew. How did we think this map was fine for all that time?

I like to chill out and watch a YouTuber play EU4 now and then (don’t judge me!). I am not familiar with this guy… I know you said you find him annoying but is he bearable to watch for someone who has lower standards (i.e., me!)?

Just keep the volume low and you’ll probably be fine. :)

After I get bored with HOI IV, this will be my next conquest lol.

Woohoo! And then Imperator comes out at the end of the month, so you’ll have something else to tackle once you get bored of EU4 (as if that can ever happen!). :)

What’s the pitch for Imperator? Other than it being Rome, what are the big differences from EU4?

The trade system and Pops are two things off the top of my head that set it apart from EU4. It’s not trying to be CK2, but characters also play a more prominent role. Popular generals can be dangerous, as are powerful governors and the like. Warfare sounds like it has more granularity than EU4 does as well. There’s a lot more to army composition which varies between cultures as well as military tactics you play.

Of the various Paradox games I think it will be closest to EU4 but I think there’s enough differences in core systems to make it feel distinct. I’ll have to wait and see, though!

Also, there is a lot of focus on Alexander’s successors and their endless disputes, despite the name of the game. And they have also done interesting things with uncivilized tribes, a whole new bunch of mechanisms.

I usually end up frustrated with Paradox games, but this one I am fairly optimistic about.

What are the odds a future expansion has an optional start 30 years earlier?