2241

Awesome post Grumpy :)

2242

Thanks jpinard!
So my next attempt turned out better - if you connect the two continents you lose the distance overseas penalties. I thought that would do it, but as I’m approaching 1700 my income is “only” 200 ducats/mo - and that despite owning the Caribbean, Mexico, Mississippi, Rio Grande trade nodes plus good income from Lima, Amazonas and the Philippines. Apparently I’m just not aggressive enough as I can’t see how I’m going to get to the 500/mo goal. :( Turned out to be an interesting game - France - who has been HRE the the entire game - also has a game long PU with Austria and Savoy (they had been my allies until I was the only nation left they could rival, which they did.) The USA, Newfoundland, Ottawa, Peru, Chile, Brazil and Canada all formed from CNs, too (none of my doing actually except Chile. (France is just a terror in Europe. Oddly enough though the map has yet to uncover for me.) I’ll post some screen shots later if I think of it as I’ve never seen those nations form ever (and I have an embarrassing amount of hours played.)

I’m trying another tact - this time starting in the Cape to see if that works out better, but man rough start when the RNG decides to roger you repeatedly ;D

2243

Well to give some context on what you need for 500/month, my Ottoman game, in the year 1720, I make right around 400. Should jump as I just annexed Ferrara and Genoa, so the 75% autonomy renders northern Italy of relatively low value.

400/month when I directly own 2/3 of the Iberian peninsula, every province on the Medditeranean except Narbone and Ceuta, most of former Hungary, Poland south of Warsaw, Lithuania from Kiev south, Everything north from Crimea to Ingermand (Muscovy), through the Caucuses, all of Persia, East to Samarkand, south through Delhi, most of western India, the Arabian Peninsula, and every Red Sea province. All that and barely over 400/ month. Granted in those vast expanses are plenty of low value provinces, but still.

2244

Holy crow. Wow that’s insane heh (This is my first super blob game and I have to say I’m not a fan, but now I’m obsessed <g>.) Yeah that New World game isn’t going to make it. The vast majority of my provinces are poor (<10 dev.) I suppose I could conquer everyone around me but what a slog.

Reading the Wiki, they say the Cape trade can “easily” get to 500, so I’ll see how that goes. My plan is to go Cape, Zanzibar, Moluccas, Philippines then probably do some conquering in India if that doesn’t get me there. Took me half a dozen starts to get a game going; what a difference a gold province makes. I decided to go Merchant republic so I don’t have to deal with the factions - which can be both good and bad, but with my RNG luck, it’s mostly bad. That and the Dutch Republics I was running had a long string of horrible monarch choices. Tough to lose the bonuses from it but at least with a real republic I can control the focus of my monarch points.

2245

Well my initial goal had been Sultan of Rum. Got that relatively quick, other than I waited to annex Urbino, which I had fed Italy to, until I had Unified Islam. Which was just enough to convert Rome to Sunni when paired with religious ideas.

Then I just decided to keep going. Some achievements as goals, such as dismantle HRE, others because I can, like control every single Mediterranean province. Now it’s connect Iberia to the rest by land, a single war with France away, and try for Master of India. May have started too late on that, only really pounded Hindustan around 1700. Now 100 years, and got a lot of Hindustan to eat. Might have to break a few truces. The challenge, when my armies are 300k+, is the clock race. With only the Mughals and Hindustan it’ll be tough. A more fractured subcontinent allows quicker war turnover.

After this I’ll probably try some quicker campaigns, this one has taken a long time. I’m still on 1.9!

2246

So here’s a cool feature I didn’t know about in EU4. Perhaps this has been posted elsewhere in the thread, and my apologies if so! Consider this a PSA reminder to refresh knowledge if that’s the case.

So, I haven’t taken the plunge yet on Cossacks, though I will very soon. I’m trying to grok all the changes in forts and movement and vertical province building introduced in Common Sense first, and want to play a few games with it before moving ahead.

Problem I was having is that the patch that came out with Cossacks seems to make for a tough, tough game, especially with some new diplomacy scenarios and rules. I was struggling.

Turns out, Paradox built a patch rollback-system into the EU4 ecology. Right click the game in your Steam library, and choose properties. Go to the Betas tab, and pick your patch out to roll back. I was able to roll back to the last Common Sense patch before Cossacks this way, and that’s made a huge difference for me learning and understanding the new systems introduced in CS.

2247

Watching a Let’s Play of England right now, and it’s very fascinating, and serving as a very good advert for NEVER playing England in the game! The War of the Roses just seems like a massive hassle, and it usually seems to land about the same time as the Lollard heresy and it all seems like an utter and absolute mess to ensure that England spends the first century or so in the game licking its wounds and trying to recover.

Yikes!

2248

Had the “A ha!” moment with England. They’re almost like a caster in the D&D universe. They can get sidetracked, hung up, and horribly de-fanged early in the game with the problems at home with the civil war and the Lollards and a gajillion other things.

But man. If you can get them through that and start amping up trade, my my goodness. Suddenly England become ENGLAND!!! Crazy, crazy powerful (you know, like actually happened in history and stuff…)

BTW, this could be my relative lack of experience with EU4 (under 50 hours played, pre-Common Sense) but boy do I really actually like the changes that it introduced. I know it changes strategy, and I know there’s plenty of kvetching about how things are less dynamic. It feels more accurate now. That, and I love the way that vertical development of your country is handled here. Love the way the systems interact and interlock. I was skeptical at first, but I’ve had the lightbulb come on and have really come 'round on it.

In six months, when the next expansion is ready, I look forward to telling you my feelings towards Cossacks…;)

2249

So another (hopefully) easy question:

I’m playing at Ottoman, and repeatedly I have armies from countries like Castille and Portugal walking through my territory, despite us not being allied and us not having military access. How/why does this happen? I am not allowed to route my armies through other countries - how can they?

2250

Do they have the black flag symbol? When an army is in exile (usually by being in foreign territory when a war ends) they are able to move anywhere, military access or no. They can’t attack, or be attacked, until they enter friendly territory.

Alternately are you granting military access to one of their enemies in a war?

2251

Some changes have gotten some flak, here and elsewhere, but I’ve also been a big fan of them.

2252

Hullo all!

WoT incoming :-)
Started a new campaign in Cossacks. Jianzhou, the south-eastern Manchu tribe.
As the first moves, I allied Korchin, set both manchu tribes as rivals (the third one could be either Korchin or Korea, both obviously no-way options since Korea is allied with Ming since day 0 and I will need Korchin for the first wars), took the befriend Korchin mission (the 100 relation one, easy with alliance, RM combo).
Next step, wait till Haixi declares on Yeren, both are ally-less. If Yeren makes Korchin a rival (about 80% of the starts), they both remain ally-less and jump on each others throat. It did not happen now, Korchin made the first move against Haixi. I was lucky, they fought each other while I occupied every province. An instant separate peace for full annexation made Korchin a bit unhappy, but I secured my first goal. Then I started a new war against Yeren. Was lucky like hell, caught his army in a woods province (no shock bonus for them) and had stellar rolls - insta-wipe. Continued with occupying then full annexing the land. Cored everything which won’t be cored for free with the Manchu decision.
Next target Buryatia for his gold province. After consideration I made them a vassal to later feed Korchin and Mongolia.
Korchin allied Oirat in the meantime and Mongolia was still a vassal of Oirat, Kham also. An Uzbek-Oirat war weakened Korchin and severed their alliance with Oirat, so made a good opportunity to pounce on them. Took Xilin Gol for myself (needed for the form Qing decision), the rest for Buryatia. In the meantime there was a failed Mongolian+Khami independence war. This made a very unfortunate situation since I was caged in. Korea was allied with Ming, the former being equal to me, the latter at least twice as big in forces. Mongolia was still under Oirat with Kham and the three of them together was more than I was willing to chew on without allies. Japan undiscovered and a force to not laugh at when combined with the Daimyos. Anyway, Japan took his chances and declared on me. He had the naval supremacy, but never tried to land troops (which would be obliterated), so a lost cause for them. Took a lot of ducats and warrep in the deal.
So then, years of waiting, then supporting independence for Mongolia, then fighting this war. More waiting for the Mongolia truce to end, then annex them. Afterward there was a nice cycle of fighting something to the west and sometimes to the south. At the moment I ate almost everything east of Muscovy (about 150% ws worth of Uzbek left, while I’m at war with them atm), south in the east between Ming and the Tibetian lands (Nepal atm, with alliance with a strong Viya and Orissa) until that wasteland (Ming ate countries there and cut my path south), started to eat into Delhi territories, and took a nice chunk west from there to the Gulf of Persia, including Baluchistan and the eastern part of Persia. Japan didn’t manage to eat up its daimyos, Takeda and Hosokawa remained strong and big, Hosokawa taking the Shogunate title after a while. Found a nice opportunity to take on Takeda when the new Japan tried to get some land from him. While he was fighting Japan, I shipped troops in 6k batches (had only that much transports) and took most of its land. Needed to keep a province for future Tribal wars, hence I had to release a different vassal. Uesugi had the most cores while still leaving me one next to Japan.

Ming is stubborn, like in every one of my games where I need them to explode and refuses to do so. He didn’t have a single revolt as far as I could see. I’m sad like a hungry otter… And now he’s supporting independence for one of my bigger (more important) vassal.
I look big, but mostly “useless” and big provinces :’( Can hardly support half my forcelimit at max maintenance, while manpower is decent at 63k max and hardly dropping below 55k most of the time.

Vassals:
Buryatia - to eat the eastern tengri/Vajrayana nomads -> annexed
Kokkand - to eat the muslim nomads and the nations southward -> annexed
Nogai - Kokkand started to get too big, needed a new vassal for the remaining nomads
Kazakh - realized, he has a hell lot of cores in Uzbek
Ladakh - to eat the Hindu culture in Delhi area - got support for independence from Ming
Baluchistan - for the Persian culture group
Uesugi - for Japan

Ideas:
Offensive - had it unlocked but no ideas bought for a looong time for the events, now it’s 5/7
Influence - fleshed out early, while Buryatia was being annexed (for the cost reduction)
Religious - fleshed out while waiting for ahead of time bonus for Admin tech (usually at 0/-5%) - can convert most heathen sunni land in 24-30 months without advisor, heretic vayrajana in 13-14, heretic shinto in 20 average as they’re a lot more developed.

Tech:
Adm 12 - usually on par with the neighbors
Dip 10 - a bit left behind due to the diploannexations of two 1200+ vassals (cost reduction included)
Mil 14 - on par/ahead of Muscovy and Ming, my biggest adversaries
Got two very good (5/4/4 and 4/5/4) and long living rulers.

My routes to conquest:
North-west: Russia or my own vassal Nogai (is unwilling to create more claims I can start war on Genoa as it’s controlling the crimean lands or Gazimukh) - Russia fighting in the War of the Protestant League against France, Spain, Poland and Lithuania, might be a good time to strike and take those provinces to prevent him colonization
South-west: Persia - I’m chewing through it, but it’s slow, both the wars and the truces
South-south-west: Gwalior or Mewar - the latter decent in size and have allied Vijayanagar, the former lost some provinces recently, but still allied to Orissa and Mewar too
South: Nepal - allied Vijayanagar, both of them biiig with cca 30k armies (also had Orissa as an ally not long ago)
South-east: Ming - 72k army, mandate, strong heir, allied a decent Khmer with 26k army
East: Japan - working on it, but truces…

So the big questions:

  • Can I somehow help Ming explode without waging war on them or taking Espionage and using Sow discontent? My 52k army is making me losing ducats (with 82 forcelimit :-/) and the loyal vassals have 17k total with their own rebel issues (Tribe dominance in Kazakh, Internal whatever disaster in Uesugi and Baluchistan). Maybe I can drag in Korea with its 20k army on my side.
  • Or where should I go forward? Maybe annex Nogai and take the Crimean lands from Genoa and the rest of the nations in the region. I could take espionage as the next idea group and help Ming explode internally. Or take exploration and start colonizing Siberia and/or the random new world or the Philippines region.

Screenshots

6s6kyc.jpg1600×961

2vwbckj.jpg1599×960

2253

I haven’t played too much with the Qing hordes, so I’m afraid I can’t offer too much advice. I do hate when Ming stubbornly stays stable. :) It might have to be up to you to destabilize them in some way. Once they start tottering, they’re bound for an epic clash. If you can beat them up really good in a war and get their war exhaustion up, that might do it. Easier said than done, obviously. I’d probably bide my time while eating up Japan and waiting for an opportunity to strike. If Ming doesn’t have the right faction in charge, their troops suck (90% discipline), so wait for an opening and hit them hard and fast. And then pray.

In other news, it looks like EU4 will be getting a hefty 1.15 patch by the end of the month. It includes changes and polish to some of the new systems that came with the expansion, notably Estates and Diplomatic Feedback.

2254

You can beat Ming in a war no problem. You have a miltech advantage and remember your cavalry get a 25% shock damage bonus on steppes that you own. Occupy their land until they hit 20 war exhaustion and white peace out leaving them at 20. Loot your way to solvency.

2255

To destabilize Ming without espionage, engage in a long war, drive up their war exhaustion then offer a white peace. I recently learned that the higher the war cost of a peace treaty, the more it reduces WE. Thus, a 0 point peace won’t reduce their WE at all. That should see them explode. Note, though, the nations that arise out of Ming’s corpse will often be allied with each other and you might end up in a worse situation than fighting a united Ming.

Edit: With the patch changes to Estates I might need to play something other than a Merchant Republic to see how that goes. Might be tough for me though as I hate playing monarchies; there’s enough RNG f***ary as it is, getting a long string of 0/1/0 rulers (which invariably happens to me) induces rage quitting lol.

Edit the 2nd: Doh I should have read Mehrunes post before posting. :/

2256

Thx for the advice ppl.
Unfortunately it did not work as such. :-(
After some small wars (like against Russia when he was still in that religiuos war), I was “amassing” my western army on the Persian border for the next round, when Ladakh suddenly declared it’s independence. Ming joined as expected. Redirected my western army to siege up Ladakh and clear that obstacle. The rest of the army was in Japan trying to subdue the constant revolts in Uesugi and waiting for the truce for Japan. I shipped this army back to the continent before they could sink my transport fleet and stranding them there. Ming managed to catch this army in a 2:1 battle before I could bring help from the west. Then sieged up part of Korea and made a separate peace with them. :-( 20k army out of the war. Afterwards I managed to get the western army to the east, and fought several battles against Ming dealing heavy casualties (also receiving a lot myself but not that bad). Used up my full manpower, a very nice manpower event and also the Tribe estate manpower stuff. I ran out anyway. Ming did a lot earlier, but he had a lot of cash to merc up. The took a loan and continued to merc up. The took another loan and kept mercing up. That’s when I ran out. Then he still continued to merc up. Unfortunately, he managed to merc up and bring his army back before I could siege down a single fort. To beat his overwhelming numbers I had to constantly retreat to own provinces for the shock bonus, cancelling the sieges. In the end I managed to get him on 12 WE (he got event or bought it down at least twice), barely getting him to positive revoltrisk. Nepal started its own war against Ming, they had forces, but still managed to lose it hard. Was counting on him to continue the war a lot longer because I really had to peace out. Manpower was -30k, 5 loans taken, didn’t look I will be able to raise WE more than a point or two higher. And Russia thought this would be the perfect time to take some land back. After peacing out Ming, the war with Russia was a fast one. After a slap or two he was eager to white peace out. Could fight it out more, take some land and warrep, but I think it would cost me more in the long run. My only reason to pick a fight with Russia was to get it’s border provinces to prevent him from colonizing. But I did that with colonizing of my own in the end.
End of story. And Ming is still strong and unified. It’s just my opinion, but I think this new mercenary mechanic made large and wealthy nations a lot stronger. They can’t run out of recruitable mercs, as I bet, with the old mechanics Ming would have ran out in the middle of the war, which would let me siege his forts down with ease.

2257

So when do cannons become a necessity and how much artillery should an average army consist of? (IE what’s a good mix?)

It’s ~ 1560, I am Ottomon and my ~ 20-12-6 (Inf-Cav-Arty) army seemingly got clobbered by an enemy with ~ 16-5-16 enemy force.

2258

If you’re fighting another army, you want your entire back row to be cannons, because if infantry or calvary are back there they aren’t doing anything. Now that’s not always possible, but I would think that’s the ideal. The combat width is determined by your tech but it’s modified by your ideas and the terrain. It’s displayed on your military screen, near the bottom left, I think.

Of course there are roughly a bajillion factors that determine the course of a fight, like morale, discipline, leader pips, relative tech levels, terrain, and dice rolls. So it might not just have been the cannons.

2259

Ok, there are a lot of factors here. First off once you get cannons it is mostly critical to add them to siege armies. You are probably already aware, but in case you aren’t, # cannons / fort level = siege bonus, up to a max of +5. So a level 2 fort if you have 10 cannons, would get a +5 bonus, 5 would get 2 (rounds down to a minimum of 1), 4 would get 2 as well, and any less would get 1.

However for combat it works a little differently. So cannons give a bonus to the line in front of them, both defense and offense. So the answer is ‘as many as you can afford, up to your combat width’. So for a combat width of 20, try and have 20. If you can afford it having them 1:1 with infantry is near ideal. Infantry and cavalry can not attack from the back row, but cannons do. Early on, with the first level of cannon, the impacts are small enough to ignore. By the time you get to 1700 cannon will really be essential if your enemy has them.

Practically speaking it is around tech level 13 where cannons go from ‘ok bonus’ to ‘actually impactful’, and around level 16/18 where they go from that to ‘critical’. Up until then the fire bonuses for all units are still well below the shock bonuses, meaning cavalry still leads the battle. After that, however, things even up and fire starts to be more important in battle. My Ottoman game in 1720’s has multiple armies with 20k cannons in them. At this point I’ve got somewhere in the realm of 150k cannon across 8 armies. I could probably optimize some more, but the gist is that I almost won’t engage with my army without at least 15k cannon in the stack at this point.

So you could dig into the math and formulas a bit more and find the optimal point, I’ve not actually done so, but since you are in 1650 that is roughly tech 19. By that point I would try and have at least 10 cannon in any army that is engaging the enemy. 15k if you can afford it. You’ve just really crossed that tipping point where if you are facing an enemy with more cannons than you you are in trouble. Double so since the only armies likely to do so are Western tech group, and you’re also starting to have inferior units to them at the same tech level. Really for the next 50 years or so you are going to have a hard time at even strength to Western armies. Always have at least 1.5 their numbers, you’re going to need them.

2260

I finally got the Idea Guy achievement. Turned out that North American game I started ages ago actually worked, just took a while - reached 500/mo in the 1770’s. I had to build a crap ton of counting houses and manufactories to get it done (I also build the Panama Canal for the first time. There’s actually a canal on the map, and is as useful in the game as it is in real life.) Taking the High American tech was largely a mistake, despite getting a Western Arms tech bonus (coupled with the tech bonus I took as a tradition.) In 1799 the map still isn’t revealed, but worse units apparently are North American ones. I had to field enormous armies in order to win wars, which luckily were few and of my own choosing as the game progressed. And despite being enormous and wealthy, I’m still only 2nd in score in the game. That honor would go to the Ottoman’s - I can’t see what they hold, just their coastal provinces but they are rather large. I’m think I’m going to go ahead and actually finish the game - my second ever despite 100’s of hours played heh.