Europa Universalis 4

It was probably because of balacing in the respective patch, but in my Branderburg play I ended up with most of the new world without a single colonist because there was only so much land I could take in europe without a coalition.
Of course, the power play would be to constantly fight smaller coalitions, but it’s not like you needed to optimize as Prussia.

Interesting - it has been a LONG time since I played as Brandenburg, so I will have to see how this goes.

I’ve been so wanted to start another EU4 game…but Stellaris and others…Sigh.

I have put in about 500 hours since Thanksgiving and think I am finally ready for a break. Currently did a failed Big Blue Blob into a Roman Empire WC. It’s 1799 and I have already picked off most of Ming’s tributaries. I have about half of Ming’s land left to annex and think I should truce break to finish them off in time. Only other decent size nation left is Scandinavia, but should be able to annex them all in one go with my current administrative efficiency. Found out the hard way to check the status of vassal coring before starting a war with a nation that has claims on them. Since they couldn’t complete the core during the war, I was stuck with 300% OE and wasted a year or so fighting off rebels. Won’t be a 1 tag or 1 faith as I misjudged the time left to integrate Bohemia, who was my last PU after Commonwealth, Spain, Portugal, and Scotland.

I’ve tried the Roman Empire achievement a couple of times and so far not managed it. Almost got there as Naples, but didn’t look up a map of required provinces until too late.

Brandenburg run has been fun, but easy (except always being poor). It has been one of those fun games where the world kind of goes a little crazy. I sponsored a rebellion in Poland, who had the Teutonic Order secede. I promptly took them over… then had the same thing happen to the Livonian Order where the Danes had taken them over… did the same thing… so now I am perched on Novagard’s doorstep - should give me lots of eastern expansion options.

Meanwhile, in central europe I remain closely allied with Austria, which is blobbing into the HRE strangely enough. Been a good ally, except for all the wars they drag me into. Meanwhile, I have force vassalized/diplo annexed Brunsiwck, Lubeck (3 territories at the time), Luneberg, East Fresia, and Munster, with Mecklenburg as a vassal. That means i’ve cut off the remaining northern countries + denmark from the rest, who are getting squeezed by Austria/Hungary. I’m also allied with Sweden which is nice… and I’m allied with HRE emperor Saxony - but I’ve had to break that alliance twice to support Austria - luckily Saxony takes me right back after the war ends.

My expansion is steady, and other then the annexing HRE vassals, I haven’t taken much of a diplo hit. Currently running a completed Influence idea, and about 1/3 of the way thru Humanist.

Fun things happening in the world:

  • Scotland owns 1/2 of England and most of Ireland
  • Aragon almost immediately broke their PU with Spain, and proceeded to take 1/3 of the Iberian peninsula.
  • Granada also beat the crap out of spain and took another 1/3 of the Iberian peninsula
  • Spain has managed to take back some of these lands due to secessionist rebellions in Aragon and Granada, so we will see if they fully recover in the next 50 years or so
  • Burgandy won a nice early war and I thought they were going to survive, but then they lost all but one province in their event… to Gelre. Gelre promptly released all the provinces as independents in an immediate war
  • Provence also owned the most provinces I’ve ever seen them own, before BBB swallowed them up.
  • Poland and Lithuania separated almost immediately, which means that Poland was completely eliminated from the map by Silesia and some country whose name I forget that is allied with Wallachia.
  • Austria is blobbing into Germany, which I frankly don’t see very often. Bavaria, Salzburg, Anspach, and a few other provinces are gone.
  • Some crazy stuff also appears to be going on in the Middle East - but I assume the Ottomans will clean that all up shortly
  • For reasons I haven’t figured out, I have mostly been the Papal Controller for the whole game. Most of the other nations didn’t appear to get any cardinals, for whatever reason. That means I have an ongoing crusade against the Ottomans to try and stop their European expansion, and I also excommunicated Savoy - because screw Savoy

EU4 really gets its hooks in me when the nations go all crazy like this. I like the alternative history angle of it all. Wish the random new world could have the same effect, but it is always such a mess.

Games where:

UK forms (or England remains just as powerful)
Spain forms / Castille takes over most of Aragon
France annexes most of its traditional lands

Are really, really boring.

Dynamism in Europe revolves around will Austria blob, and how do Poland-Lithuania & Russia develop. Frequently, those 3 things are decided by who allies with the Ottomans, as I am yet to see a game where the Ottomans aren’t wildly successful.

I’m not sure if it has been changed by all the patches/expansions over the last few years, but the game does seem a little less interesting in that way!

I always run random lucky nations as well, which sometimes helps a little bit. But i’m loving this game even though I know that 100 years from now I’m going to be just snowballing everywhere.

Trying to decide if I should form Germany or Prussia… leaning towards Prussia cause I formed Germany last time I player in central europe (Lubeck -> Germany = coalition hell but rich enough to deal with it)

And now I’m laughing because Denmark just absorbed Norway in a PU, Naples took over Tunis/North Africa, and Cornwall has appeared.

So good

Even without being lucky nations, those are poor starts by Muscowy, Castille and the Ottomans!

That’s a lot more frequent with recent patches, along with Austria. The last one might be a bug about them trying to get big without thinking of keeping the emperorship, but I don’t have a lot of data points.

That would make sense because they lost it 20 years in or so

I’m sorry to keep going on about this run-through, but it has just a bit nutty.

I’ve had a great alliance, but Austria has blobbed themselves out of my alliance. The game won’t even let me stay allied to them because I have -187 opinion of them because they refused to give back unlawful territory in in the HRE. I have never had that happen to me before. So, now they are my rivals :).

To me they look like they are about to get popped by a coalition… although they did fully absorb Hungary in their PU.

Just crazy stuff happening

The mission system is changing in the Rule Britannia patch (missions will be presented in sort of a tech-tree format, so you can see all your possible missions and which missions are prerequisites to other missions). If you want more info about the changes, DDRJake has done what appears to be a butt-load of videos going over all of the revised missions.

Here is an overview of the new system. His YouTube account also has around 15 more videos (2 to 4 minutes each) focusing on country-specific changes, for those who want to know more.

The new mission system is the main reason I’ve been holding off revisiting EUIV. I so badly want to start a new Byz run, but I’ve been consoling myself with running across Europe in HOI IV until the expansion drops.

That looks like an excellent change - will likely pull me back in while I wait for dust to settle on the Stellaris balancing.

I see EU4 is on sale along with most of the DLC’s. Is it worth $10 for the base game? Any must have DLC’s? I have way more games than time right now so I wouldn’t buy it unless it is still getting glowing reviews.

Note that I have a bad feeling toward the game in general. I bought the original EU when it first came out and it was a piece of shit IMHO, and in the opinion of many others. So instead of fixing it Paradox came out with EU2 about 6 months later and did not give the original buyers even one cent off the price of EU2. That really soured me on EU and Paradox so I never bought EU2 or 3, although I have picked up a couple of other Paradox titles during big sales.

EU4 is my favorite strategy game, so I think $10 is worth the base game for sure. Art of War and Common Sense are typically the two listed as must-haves by players.

Many of the expansions add nice features or flavor to particular regions, but they’re not necessary. Get them if you get hooked on the game and want more.

And eventually you fall in love and buy them all

Thanks. I’m on the fence due to the huge backlog already, but there are still a couple of days left in the sale for me to cave. :)