I have been playing Crusader Kings 2 a lot lately and was thinking of trying EU IV again as I seemed to have bounced off it before. With the sale ending tomorrow, what are the must have non-cosmetic DLC’s? I just have the base game at the moment.
Expansion features are listed here:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Downloadable_content#Expansions
If there’s a particular region or playstyle you’re interested in playing, I’d recommend grabbing the expansion related to it.
The expansions are mostly optional, adding nice-to-have features. The one exception to that is probably Common Sense, which allows internal development of provinces which can potentially be powerful, especially if you’re building tall instead of going all out on expansion.
That said, I’ve enjoyed all the expansions thus far. Mare Nostrum is probably the weakest, so if you’re looking to trim that’d be a place to start. If you’re not playing a colonizer, you can probably skip Conquest of Paradise and El Dorado. Skip Third Rome if you’re not playing in the Russia region. Mandate of Heaven is focused on Asia, Cradle on the Middle East. They all have nice features but you can probably skip unless you’re playing in this regions specifically.
If you’re looking to battle it out in continental Europe, Art of War was one of the best expansions. I can’t remember how much of that was available in the base game patch versus the expansion itself, you’d have to check the link.
Thanks. I ended up grabbing Rights of Man, Art of War, and Common Sense as they were bundled together a little cheaper. Enough to get my feet wet and wait for the next sale for other items. Guess I will be watching a lot of learn to plays over Thanksgiving.
That’s great, I hope you have a good time with the game! It’s probably my number 1 or 2 most played PC game of all time, it is so addictive after you get past the initial learning curve.
I did finally make it past the initial learning curve and couldn’t put it down this weekend. Castile up to the mid 1600s so far. Have to dig a little more on late army composition as Moracco gave me a lot of trouble when I tried to secure the land passage to Ivory Coast.
Not sure I can ever go back to a Civ style strategy game now.
No, probably not. This is the reason why, when I tried playing even the lauded Civ IV recently, I couldn’t stand them. EU IV so utterly embarrasses the ‘diplomacy’ of most strategy games that it really has ruined many of them for me.
Does anyone have thoughts on the latest expansion Cradle of Civilization? I don’t usually play countries in the Middle East, but the army professionalism and drilling mechanic looks really neat, almost like pre-war army management in Hearts of Iron IV. $20 is high though.
So say we all. I know from personal experience that it doesn’t go very well… which kind of pisses me off, because I loved Civ-style games. @CraigM is right on the money, the fact that there’s actual honest-to-god diplomacy in EU4 just makes standard 4X games seem boring and trite.
Honestly, as good as the game systems are, I think it’s the fact that Paradox puts real effort into the AI that makes all the difference. All the diplomatic systems in the world wouldn’t be engaging without a sensible AI on the other end.
I love it! Army Professionalism / Drill I thought was kind of a nice little perk, even when I first started playing with it, but the more I play around with it the more I like it. It really makes me weigh how much I want to rely on mercenary forces. It also makes me a little less cavalier in spending the lives of my heavily-drilled troops, as you can see it plummet as attrition and battles take their tolls. I wouldn’t say the system is game-changing, but it permeates a lot more than I thought it would.
Now, I wouldn’t say Army Professionalism is worth the $20 price tag, but the additions they made to the Middle East are fantastic. I really like that the Ottoman Janissaries have moved from a Decision you take to an actual unique unit type. They’re elite infantry that fights better (less shock damage received), but their best perk is that they Drill at twice the rate of regular infantry. This allows the Ottomans to keep an elite fighting force in the field. Use too many Janissaries, though, and you’re looking at a Disaster.
They also made great additions to other countries in the region. Ajam has been a really fun game, forming Persia. The Mamluks are now a very interesting and powerful country to play, and they’ve made additions to the White Sheep and Black Sheep. Lots of fun to be had in the region now, whereas previously it was pretty much Go Ottomans or Go Home.
Sounds good! Thanks for the write up @KevinC. I think I will wait for 25% off and then jump on it (fingers crossed that happens by xmas sales!).
On a similar note, has anyone tried playing Russia in that recent immersion pack? Is that worthwhile? I do really like playing as Russia so that one might be more of an immediate buy.
Anyone want to list their favourite country to play as well? I’ll go first: Novogorod. Early game you get the initial challenge of beating back muscovy, Mid-game you get the massive role playing potential of expanding as a Russian republic, and late game you get to fight in both europe and asia.
Second favourite would probably be Spain, as colonising can be alot of fun as well and you don’t really get that with Russia (besides siberia).
I have over a 1000 hours into EU4 and earlier this year vowed I was done. DONE.
This weekend:Not done. :/
(Now to decide if I want to buy Cradle. I don’t normally play in the Middle East but it might be fun with the changes.)
Favorite country?
Custom.
Then the Dutch/Netherlands (I usually started as Holland.Bit of a pita now with the Burgundy changes made a while back though.)
After that Milan probably although it’s been ages since I played as them.
Favorite country?
Brandenburg. Because it means I will have to fight France, Austria, Poland, Muscovy/Russia, and by end game probably the Ottomans too.
Going from little old Brandenburg then kicking them all in the teeth? I like it.
I haven’t played much (maybe 2 games + a start of a 3rd?) but my go to country is Portual since you can try a lot of things. I haven’t played enough to really know what I’m doing and I think Portugal is one of the more forgiving countries.
For me, the random worlds of Civ are an enormous plus, and the lack of that is what has repeatedly pushed me away from Europa Universalis. I bought the original, back when it first came out in German, and I have tried every iteration. But I always end up discouraged when I realize the extent to which nations are wired to do what they did in history. Portugal gets events to supercharge early exploration. Poland does not, even if they have conquered some coastal cities.
Kevin’s DLC enumeration has alerted me to the fact that they have, at least, allowed randomization of the New World. Previously, I always found that lack game-breaking. It’s not exploration when you not only know where the land is, you know where the best resources are. And this improvement may lure me back for another try. But if the past is any guide, the inner workings of the game pushing things to fall out as they did in history is something I will find discouraging.
I may like EU IV more than Civ games if I played EU IV enough to know what I’m doing, but I like the building and developing cities in Civ games. EU is missing too much of that to really grab me so far. I’d love an EU game where city / province development was much more developed, along with starting in ancient times where everyone only has 1 province (area) to start.
I dipped my toe back in for the first time in a long while, and decided to do my second favourite playthrough (1st is Byzantium) of Novgorod becoming the Russian Empire.
I spent about 6 hours restarting trying to find a way to either defeat Muscovy or at least keep a state of cold war while I expanded. I eventually gave up and restarted as Muscovy, and within a few hours and with incredible ease had expanded massively. It was so easy that I got bored and quit, something I can’t remember happening before in EU4 until far into the late-game - even when I picked powerhouses to start with.
I don’t have a particular problem with the new systems added in the meantime, but I didn’t see anything meaningful added by them either.
It seems that the relevant developers mistook complicated for complex and kept throwing more complications at the game without regard for whether it added or subtracted from complexity. There’s more “stuff” to do but if anything the game feels less complex precisely because it is more complicated.
I’ve played hundreds of hours but have never once felt the desire to create a custom country - but apparently it is the no. 1 start. What custom nations are people making that are so good?
Oh man, that was going to be my selection too. Playing EUIV on the weekend and that was my pick to try out the new drill mechanic and professional army. To add my own weight to why Brandenburg is so good. It is a small country that can truly punch above its weight. For instance, I fought Aragon (who gobbled up Castille) in a succession war over Ferrara and clapped with joy when I saw my army steamrolling through every battle. I lose troops, they (Aragon) lose a lot more, 2, 3 or even 4 times as many!
Second reason is they have a complicated start. Being part of the HRE is one thing, but having a much larger neighbour (Bohemia and allied Silesia) to the south is an issue that needs to be dealt with quickly. All the OPM provinces are juicy targets that can lead to a quick demise thanks to aggressive expansion penalties and as such, growth in the early game requires careful maneuvering through the right diplomatic channels.
I think Sweden comes a close second in terms of favourite nation. Again, a strong army, but a different focus in terms of expansion or general gameplay. One time with Sweden I expanded through Russia, another time it was all about securing the sweet ducats in the Baltic trade region.
I don’t know what the popular choices are; I vary the nations and the regions where I create them. But I’m an outlier since I enjoy “tall” colonizers and traders, and typically take ideas to further that end. On occasion I’ll create military type ones (i.e. “mini Prussia”) but I usually don’t play them for very long since I dislike blobbing and that’s really all you can do with a military focus (after I while I tire of chasing armies around.)
I will admit that playing actual Prussia is quite fun. I did my runs as Teutonic Order though, but that was before all their neighbors hated them (AI TO is always getting stomped by some combination of Denmark/Poland/Pommerania.)
On the flip side, do you all have countries you don’t enjoy playing?
I am playing a Japan game at the moment, and I must say I am not a fan of the game style in the mid-game after the first hundred years of making your daimyo emperor (which is really fun). It’s true that unified Japan has alot of possibilities at this point, but it seems the only viable strategy these days is to voluntarily become a tributary of Ming, beat up on some of their other tributaries like Korea and those in SE Asia, and then eventually get to a point where you can take on Ming itself. Perhaps the late game will be much more fun as I can attack Ming and also have to deal with European colonisers with their fancy guns and boats.
I also don’t really enjoy playing England, as it’s inferior to playing Castile in almost every way. Spain can colonise earlier than England, it has land connections with other countries in Europe (so not so isolated), the trade situation is more interesting, and you can adventure around North Africa and the Mediterranean. I suppose the parliamentary system that England has is cool.