It’s gotta be this one, though. He’s even dressed like a pirate.
Edit: I guess pasting a gif turns it into a static image. Oops. Well, you’ve all seen it.
So Green Man Gaming has a EU IV collection for $24 which seems to include a lot of DLC, through Dec 14 they say.
I got EU IV pretty early and the first expansion. But I haven’t played it much in years so many of your swear by it that I thought I’d give it second look.
Could some EU IV expert do me a favor and look at this bundle and let me know if there are additional DLC that I really should get.
I’m showing the $24 collection as including all items up to July 2014. I’m not sure that there’s a collection anywhere that includes the newer DLC.
Unless you’re a fanatic (and even if you are), I would stick to only the core expansions and ignore the unit and music packs. The core expansions are listed on the top of the game’s wikipedia page. Personally, I think all 9 of the expansions offer significant improvements, though if I were held to a fire, I’d probably admit that The Cossacks adds a bit too much of annoying micro by way of estate management.
Thanks the wiki was super helpful. Turns out I already had 1 expansion so getting the collection was a waste.
GMG had most of the expansion on sale for 75% off 4.99 and Steam had a 66%. So I picked up everything but Cossacks and that last couple for ~$25
I had so much fun with this game over the holidays. I haven’t played heavily for the last 2-3 expansions, so it was fun to really get a handle on all the new features and mechanics that have been added in that time.
I don’t have time to do an AAR type post, but I played a game as Kongo and had an absolute blast. Central Africa is a world unto itself, and I just had fun conquering the entire region while trying to figure out how to A) get institutions spread and B) keep the Europeans off my back.
I eventually became a Protectorate of Spain and I got to experience all the Subject interactions that have been added, but from the Protectorate/Vassal end. I was quite large at this time, having the entirety of central Africa to myself, and had just been finishing up conquering the Swahili peoples along the eastern coast. Spain was getting quite a lot of trade power from me, not to mention using our alliance in multiple wars in Western Africa that they were fighting. Sometimes they were subjugating other African nations, other times it was proxy wars between them and the French. I did my best to help out in those wars, often coming at extreme casualties on my end (despite my best efforts, I was more isolated than Songhai and the other west African nations and thus I couldn’t quite keep up on military tech).
Unlike a lot of other games, doing my best to help out Spain pays dividends, since Paradox seems to be the only ones to really focus on the diplomatic side of these games. My alliance with Spain was rock-solid throughout the rest of the game and I was able to use those accrued Favors to get Spain’s assistance in a couple massive wars of aggression I fought against Ethiopia.
Regarding the subject interactions, in the second half of the 18th century Spain was really having to work to keep my Liberty Desire down. In order to keep my Protectorate status in place (and the enormous amount of trade I was bringing to them), they went on a massive development effort across my nation. Some provinces saw as much as 20 additional development (tax/production/manpower). Cathedrals were build across the kingdom, along with trade depots, conscription centers, etc. It was an amazing mutually beneficial relationship, and it was just awesome being able to get that kind of gameplay from AI.
In any case, eventually the Protectorate status ended due to my technology becoming too advanced, thanks to Spain’s assistance. The alliance never ended, though, and the game concluded with Spanish, Kongolese, and Genoese armies successfully sieging Paris and burying the Big Blue Blob once and for all. Now to figure out who I will play next!
Coooool! Now I want to try to do that too, just with much more horrible results since I suck!
Awesome!
I recently played an awesome game as Mali where I conquered Africa and Asia and took bites out of Europe but had a bugger of a time keeping up with institutions in the late game despite massive ADM spend. I was far too large to become a protectorate and had enough development in my empire that even securing the institution in my capital by improving its 80+ development wasn’t enough to hit the 10% threshold.
New dev diary up. Beware Spain if they’re able to get rolling in the Age of Reformation.
Wonder what the Absolutism mechanic is going to be? Another interesting thing that wasn’t explicitly called out is it looks like there’s some sort of Edict mechanic. Wonder if they’re borrowing Edicts from Stellaris, and if absolutism ties into that somehow?
Paradox has this on sale. They inconveniently do not offer a “complete” package, but as best I can tell the base game plus all expansions is about $70, or game, expansions, plus all the art/sound fluff is about $500 (not really but there was so much I didn’t even try to add it up). Seventy bucks is a bit much before I know how much time I will put into this. Base game plus first three expansions (conquest of paradise, wealth of nations, res publica) and associated fluff is $25. Will I get close enough to the full experience with that, or are there other expansions that are must have to start?
Hey @KevinC you’d probably appreciate this like I do
Much better than strict date hard coding.
and @uncle_briggs the answer is that most expansions add options that add flavor and new advanced mechanics. None are essential to play, though the one that adds estates gets close. But, really, the game was complete and great to start, and expansions added depth to places. Depth that, to a new player, you probably wouldn’t notice to start. I do reccomend them all eventually, but the $25 start pack is a good place to start. I’d also suggest any expansions that are 66% off or more to just get, but really that’s not critical.
Get the base game, and if you like it, pick up those expansions next Steam sale or something.
Nice, I definitely like that!
Looks like Johan talks about the Absolutism mechanic and how France is going to crush your hopes and dreams in the Age of Absolutism.
And as far as France crushing your hops and dreams goes, there’s this in the Age-specific bonuses to unlock:
Ow.
Today’s dev diary talks about why I’m going to play a game in Japan once the next expansion hits.
Never played in Japan, but perhaps once things calm down I might give a go.
Finally, they talk China! I’ve been waiting for this ever since the first teaser screenshot release of the upcoming expansion.
Here’s a snippet:
The rest of the dev diary covers Celestial Reforms and Decrees and their various effects as well as the Meritocracy system (which replaces Legitimacy).
Video on some of the new achievements.
Timed achievements are the new thing. And that Aq Quonlyu one seems crazy for 35 years. Abuse peace timers ahoy!
So here’s what happens when you pick up a save after several months away. You find yourself at war with Spain, Austria, Milan, Papal States, Hannover, Poland, Lithuania, England, Kongo, and about a dozen and a half colonial nations, not only not remembering why, but why you had declared on the Papal States of all places.
I mean I’m the Ottomans, and my goal is take India with 70 years left, and Hindustan a problem. Why am I attacking half of Europe, and why declare on a Papal States that is up in former Holstein area? Apparently I decided to do that because coalition stuff. Papal States triggered several big alliance members, but did not bring in France or Hindustan and Mughals. At least I think that’s why. Basically split the coalition in half. It’s not like I particularly want to take any of this land. Spain is already landlocked to about 8 interior Iberian provinces, Austria split in two parts. Poland Lithuania massive land sinks I just want to ignore. I mean, I dunno. I’ll take some because why not, but no real goal there other than weaken for next round.
Which means I’ll peace out, declare on Hindustan dragging coalition in, which means my 200k European army can go wreck France. Probably what I was thinking. Yeah, I’ll go with that.
Usually it’s not that hard to remember, but when you’ve got multi continental coalitions going hard after you, and you’re declaring proxy wars to get around them? It can be hard to recall. Eh, whatever. I can take them. I’ll probably trigger the full coalition in the 1800s for the lulz, I can probably take them.
Japan and Shinto get major reworkings. Shinto gets event chains and modifiers based on the level of Isolation. Japan itself gets a lot of map changes: new provinces, new nations, and the various daimyos get their own unique National Ideas.
Also, last week introduced enhancements to Confucianism, which has received its own unique mechanics.
Just wanted to pop in to say I got back into this one a couple of days ago. I had always wanted to play as England but the 100 Years War and War of the Roses events always put me off; I didn’t want to have to put myself through one unwinnable war and a maybe can’t win war just to get to the unification of Great Britain and the exploration of the New World. It had been a year or so since my last attempt at England and I decided it was time to try again. I decided to swallow my pride and enabled Ironman Mode since my previous game as Muscovy/Russia went well with achievements enabled.
To my surprise, the first thing I was greeted with was parliamentary actions. What a cool addition. The other thing I realized is that I wasn’t automatically at war with France, so I went ahead and allied/married as many of France’s neighbors as I could and they’ve left me alone. Another thing I noticed was a looming disaster icon. I was familiar with those from my Russia game, but I didn’t realize that they made the War of the Roses a looming disaster event… which means they made it preventable. Wow, what a breath of fresh air that I needed for England. Since I had so many royal marriages with Castile, Aragon, Savoy, etc., I was able to get an heir pretty quickly. I also got a Margaret of Anjou event which also helped to stifle the War of the Roses. I’m so happy Paradox found a way to deal with the issues I had so much trouble with, and now I’m playing the England I’ve always wanted to play in EU4. Great stuff so far, and I’m looking forward to the next expansion in April.