I’ve been watching some preview Let’s Plays.
My problem with buildings is that still so few of them feel useful. I mean, if you’re looking at a temple that recoups its’ investment in 50 years, should I feel a strong urge to build it? I think the building system still needs tweaking.
[ul]
[li]Reworked how ZOC from forts works, should be a little less confusing.
[/li]> [/ul]
Ha! I don’t think this is the case. From what I have seen, the way forts work now is this: you can move into a Fort’s ZOC, and all around it (so you effectively have unlimited movement to all zones adjacent to the fort, and the fort itself). However, you can’t leave the fort ZOC until you occupy the fort itself. And this applies to neutral countries too, so you can’t just get movement through a neighbor to bypass that. Granted, that’s still more clear to understand than the way fort ZOCs worked before, but it still can make movement really wonky.
[ul]
[li]Navies can no longer block movement on straits if the enemy army controls both sides of the strait.
[/li]> [li]Improve Relations diplomatic action is now bi-directional, up to +50. I had SO many frustrating times when I’d improve relations with a nation to get an alliance and they loved me, but the problem was MY opinion of THEM was like -10 (due to a religious difference or something). This is going to go a long way to alleviate that.
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You can also set your country’s intended attitude towards others, so in a case that you describe, you could manually set your country to heart the country you’re improving with (even if they’re neutral).
[ul]
[li]No more “Competing Great Power” diplomatic malus, which tended to make no sense early game.
[/li]> [li]You can now run a large deficit of DIP points when signing a peace treaty.
[/li]> [li]Only the Coalition and ‘Crush the Revolution’ CBs can now be used to start coalition wars. (!)
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Navies can no longer block movement on straits if the enemy army controls both sides of the strait.
Hmmm, not sure I approve of that. I mean, sure it’s annoying when, say, France is blocking the movement of your colonial army, but that’s kind of the point of having a navy.
My problem with buildings is that still so few of them feel useful. I mean, if you’re looking at a temple that recoups its’ investment in 50 years, should I feel a strong urge to build it? I think the building system still needs tweaking
Well, 50 years isn’t that long in a game that lasts 450 years. And it’s not just a question of recouping its cost on its own, as it feeds into other buildings modifiers. But, sure, you shouldn’t be building one in every province, especially late in the game. Which is what they were trying to encourage with the revamped building system anyway.
KevinC
2204
It’s only when the enemy controls both sides of the straights, if you control one you can still block with your navy. I’m thinking it was probably intended to help the AI, especially the Ottomans, but that’s just a guess on my part.
KevinC
2205
The problem I had with the current system is that there’s exceptions to the rules. Forts behave certain way, unless it’s a captured fort and then it doesn’t. That kind of thing. They’re addressing my personal pet peeves with it anyway, but that’s not to say they don’t just create new ones. :)
CraigM
2206
What I’m curious is how this would interact with uninvolved third parties. Lets say Venice to Treviso. Ferrara owns Treviso and allows military access, but is not allied or involved. Would you be able to cross the strait from Venice, the neutral territory not counting as owned? Or, since they are neutral, would you be able to cross?
I think you are probably right that this is designed as primarily an aid to the Ottomans, preventing one of the common techniques for preserving Byzantine independence. So if that is the case I would guess that in my hypothetical that you would be able to blockade Venice, since they do not ‘own’ both sides of the strait. But that is potentially the most interesting interaction of the new system.
KevinC
2207
My interpretation is that the system behaves as normal, unless the enemy alliance controls both sides of the straight. In the example above that isn’t the case (Ferrara is not part of the war), therefore you would be able to block them with the navy. That’s just my interpretation based on the fact they used “war allies” specifically in the patch notes, but I’ll definitely be wanting to test that out tomorrow. :)
CraigM
2208
I look forward to testing that out myself… in two months.
Closing in on my Ottoman game. Like a glacier just moving along in 1.9. Finally hit 1700.
Started playing again out of the blue. It’s kinda scary how I can get re-addicted to this game after being away. Just in time for the DLC too. ;)
Anyway I agree with the buildings being weak, but I build them anyway. I would add the same thought concerning trade goods. I kinda wish there was more trade with resources between nations. I know that’s abstracted with trade nodes but it would be cool imo to have more interaction on that front. I tend to prefer tall vs wide development, that and having vassals do the fighting for me. It annoys me to no end chasing armies around the map (which is really acute when playing in the steppes of Asia.)
Granath
2211
The new patch just dropped on Steam and according to their Twitter feed the expansion should launch in about an hour.
https://twitter.com/E_Universalis?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
This x1000. I’m not very good at this game, and I’ll play for a while then get sort of burned out and put it away. But when I come back to it in a month or two, it all feels so fresh and compelling. I look at all those achievements and say “I could do some of those!” Sadly, I’m probably wrong.
Granath
2213
The expansion is on Steam.
Strato
2215
Thanks for the heads up! I was able to snag a couple of things I was waiting for with the steam sale, and this expansion in one hit. Helps to minimise my currency conversion fees.
KevinC
2216
This is my first day back to the office since last Wednesday. Paradox is seriously taunting me by scheduling the release date for today. Gonna be a loooong day at work. :)
CraigM
2217
Oh wow, I just looked over some of the features. The ability of a horde to raze a province to gain a bunch of Admin points could be huge. Really thematic too, since the destruction of cities like Merv (admittedly before the EU IV timeline) were a major part of the terror that hordes inspired.
Also I see no way that the ability to demand provinces from other countries using the Threaten War could be abused by players. I approve.
I agree the new features seem like interesting additions. I can’t wait to fiddle with them!
I’ve been watching a Let’s Play where Arumba is Uzbek and has been using the Raze mechanic on just about every province he takes. It’s 1550-ish now and he controls pretty much all of Asia. The Timurids, Golden Horde, Nogai, all those guys no longer exist. He has fought (and beaten) Ming and the Ottomans, has Muscovy and Persia as vassals, and has been rivaled by Novogrod and the Commonwealth. It’s been really interesting to watch.
One thing that’s been mentioned about the Threaten War ability is that if you can get a province that way, you could get it just as easily through a war. Plus the agressive expansion from that action seem to be way higher than from conquest.
KevinC
2219
Yeah, this expansion is really stuffed with a lot of cool features! I’ve been wanting to play a Horde game, but when I heard about the Cossacks expansion I’ve put that off until it released. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the Estates mechanic works too.
The amount of development this game has received has been pretty phenomenal. I’m more than happy to shell out $15 every 4-5 months or so for all this new content.
Scotten
2220
I just started playing again before I saw this new DLC was being released.
I stink at the game! I’m trying Muscovy, and keep restoring from save because Sweden keeps killin’ me! I outnumber them 3:2 and their armies beat me easily.
