Goddamn it, not once has there been a “Navigator” advisor (+ 20% (?) to colonial range) available when I needed him. Not once. Useless for, like 95% of the whole game, asleep for the rest.
Gah.
Johan just posted a great overview of some of the many features coming in Mandate of Heaven. Most of this stuff has been covered in dev diaries, but some of these were months and months ago. It’s nice to have an overview.
Balance wise, there’s some changes coming. A few that stood out to me are that they number of States you get has been greatly reduced, making it a much harder decision on what to make a state and what to leave a territory. He also mentions that Mercenaries are much more expensive now in order to put heavy financial pressure when using them like cannon fodder (which I do). Some of the insanely good national ideas have also been nerfed, like Japan dropping from 10->5% Discipline and Ottoman coring cost reduction going from 33->20%. >sadface<
I’m sure all of these new features and balance adjustments are going to require a few hotfix patches, but I’m really looking forward to this expansion. I think a couple days of vacation are in order!
I’m with you, and I am even coming around to your perspective of instabuying both expansions because Stellaris: Utopia looks great too.
I notice that the Paradox store has both expansions bundled together with a small discount:
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/stellaris-utopia-and-europa-universalis-iv-mandate-of-heaven-bundle
You’d get the discount anyway (perhaps even more of one) by buying through GMG on day 1, but this way Paradox will get all of the cut.
Here’s a buying guide of sorts for all the the EU IV DLC, from StrategyGamer. I know it’s a common question.
So Stellaris: Utopia got much of the fanfare, but I am having more fun playing EU IV: Mandate of Heaven since last Friday (not saying definitively which is better, but certainly EUIV deserves love too!).
I’ve been playing as France going for the “Better than Napoleon” achievement, thinking it will be a nice easy-ish campaign. So far that’s exactly how it’s going, it’s only a bit over 1600 but I am already eating up Poland and getting myself to be elected Emperor (thanks vassals, you’re alright). Just have to wait for the Austrian Emperor to keel over.
I’m enjoying the Rights of Man features such as traits for rulers and generals, and also the extra diplomatic options as a Great Power. I feel like I have more power over how the world is shaped beyond just going to war with countries, which I like.
Regarding Mandate of Heaven only features I have tried, I could give or take Ages. It’s a nice feeling rolling over to a new Age and seeing what all the requirements/rewards are, but I feel it needs a bit more balancing. I have only been fulfilling 2/3 objectives an Age so far (happens when you don’t colonise) and I still get enough splendour to buy all of the perks that are actually useful to me. Some of the rewards feel very weak except in very specific circumstances. Oh well I am sure that will get some more love in time.
On the other hand, the diplomatic macro thing is awesome. Having my civil servants automatically running around the HRE saying sorry and pardon to outraged princes as I devour burgundy and rampage through North Italy is great. It really helps maximise expansion rate without a ton of tedious button presses.
Also a question for those in the know: I was at war and my three vassals just sat around doing nothing. I tried flipping their role in combat to no avail. I noticed that they all had liberty desire over 50% and hence “disloyal”, is that the reason they didn’t do anything?
Yep, very likely. If they don’t like you, they’ll just play defensively in their own territory.
OK, I’m pretty sure that before the recent update, when I set a fleet to patrol, the fleet would stop to repair any attrition damage in one of the several land provinces I specifically included in the route.
Now, my Caribbean patrol just sails from place to place until it sinks. You’re supposed to stop in Havana, you morons, not just wave to the nice people with all those odd-looking crates and barrels, and then float off to die in the Bahamas.
I mean, on the one hand it’s funny, because fuck those idiots, but on the other hand, ships are expensive.
They would definitely return to port before, trade and patrol fleets. I remember the days before this feature. You’d send some fleet off to some exotic locale, they’d go chill, and you’d never know they were taking damage. That was a huge QoL they added.
To be fair, I did see the icon telling me that I had ships suffering attrition; I just naively assumed it referred to my explorer, who was high-tailing it back to Brazil from the Indian Ocean. I did not think that my anti-pirate squadron was going to be fatalistically ignoring all the many opportunities for resupply I had included in its orders.
Is there a setting or toggle for that? And is that with the recent hotfix, or prior to it? Maybe it was a bug.
This was after the general update that was issued alongside Mandate, which I haven’t bought. Yeah, maybe it was a bug. I’ll play around with it some more.
You can set the repair threshold under “Mission settings.” There’s even a “never” setting, for those who actually do want a “SAIL UNTIL YOU DIE OF THIRST” option for their fleets. But mine was set to “default,” which one would hope isn’t equivalent.
E: Seems that the “port” destination gets lost when the “patrol” option is selected. If I order a fleet to sail from Havana to Massachusetts, then select patrol, the fleet’s destinations switch behind the scenes from Massachusetts (the land province) to Massachusetts Bay (the ocean province), and from Havana to the Yucatan Channel. Moreover, the “any damage” repair threshold specified under mission settings is ignored, so it stays at sea forever.
Strange. There’s been a hotfix, but I didn’t see anything in it related to that. Maybe try changing it from Default to something else, just to see if it changes behavior? I know my ships used to go back to repair, but I haven’t had a chance to dig into Mandate of Heaven yet (finishing up a Stellaris game).
Yes, disloyal vassals will not help in wars or pay you any money. You have to charm them up first.
Map changes! Events! Decisions! Flavor, flavor, flavor for any and all that are hungry for some Hungary in their EU4 buffet.
Paradox posted a trailer for a new Russian-themed expansion immersion pack (my bad on labeling it an expansion. The naming of DLC is usually pretty important in terms of what kind of scope it will have).
I wonder if the title triggered any of the crowd clamoring for a new Rome game.
Here’s some features:
Since it pretty much superficial changes, I wonder how much they charge for this. $10? I can’t see paying much more than that for it.
Yeah, I think you’re probably right on the mark with $10.
From a dev post:
I would be down for $5-$10 (depending how extensive) packs for various major nations, I think in an aggregate it could add a ton of extra flavor to the game.
I feel like EU games are long enough that if I even got an additional (and fun) playthrough with a nation, it’d be worth 5 bucks. 10 might be kind of pushing it because I don’t think I’d get two playthroughs out of anything specific to one nation.
There’s some more details about the Third Rome immersion pack. It is supposedly roughly the size of Wealth of Nations and will be priced at $9.99. It includes new Russian-themed portraits and three new sprite packs. All the details can be found here.
There’s also some additions to the Cossacks estate, for those that own that expansion.