Yes, that was the wrinkle–thanks! :)
No idea how that got toggled, but switching to none has kickstarted the update.
Haven’t updated because I’m still picking at my very easy Brandenburg game… but thought you eu4 nerds might enjoy the wild world.
Ottomans are practically nothing
Great Britain formed… from Scotland (England still exists as one province)
France was doing fine until the last 10 years when it was completely devoured by neighbors
The iberian peninsula… i’ve got nothing
Wow, way to go Granada. Do you happen to know if they survived all this time, or were they released when Castile lost a war?
They survived the whole time. Actually they owned even more of the peninsula (about 1/3) before castillian separatist rebellions return 2 or 3 provinces to castille. Aragon had the same happen to them. I wasn’t paying attention and I have zero idea how they got 2 of portugal’s provinces.
In satisfying news, i just made France a vassal and almost have the Netherlands as a vassal
That’s hilarious. Granada just reappeared in my game, as a OPM from Oran. Not entirely sure what happened, as I had helped Castile wipe them off the map (they’ve helped me with England by handling Portugal, and we’ve been parceling out Aragon).
Byzantium also lives, though that is also due to direct intervention. I’d been planing a Balkan incursion anyhow, but I saw that the Ottomans had declared for Constantinople, and decided to move early, prevent them from the major development boost from the Byzantine lands. It worked, though Venice promptly took all the lands in Greece anyhow. Which, fine. Anyone but the Ottomans. I carved out a nice 5 province deal from them, including Macedonia. Right now, in 1468, I sit with about 50 provinces, and have Thurmond as a vassal holding all but 5 Irish provinces. I think I’m on pace for BBB, and have no issues with coalitions, as I actually planned on that, and have every extra diplomat cranking relations with the western HRE members, and Austria. Since they’ve derailed 3 attempts so far…
30 minutes (game time) I posted my last post about Granda, then went hogwild and finished off Castille and most of Portugal (at least finished off in Europe, I’m sure there are some castillian colonies somewhere)
Never seen Granada do this before. Quite fun, except there is no nation on the map so far to oppose me
Big Blue Blob pushes things fast. Currently, in 1484, I sit at 76 provinces, with another 9 on the way from annexing Thormond. 40 years of very aggressive expansion and things look like this:
I just ended a war with England, my last one for the achievment. Peace ends in 1498, which means that there would not be enough time for coring before time ran out. I, effectively, have to conquer 15 provinces in 12 years. Which means I get one more crack at the Ottomans (expires 1488), Serbia (1490),and Venice if I feel like I can afford to piss off the Pope (spoiler, I probably shouldn’t). Rivals are Ottomans, Burgundy, Muscovy. For reasons of AE things are getting dicey. I’ve managed to skirt coalitions so far, but it is getting harder to do. Most of the Adriatic has 100+ AE. Even the Pope! The amount of AE I get with the pope for conquering Ottoman lands is… questionable. Same with Bosnia and Serbia. And England. Though I did just ditch Provence as an ally when they attacked the Papal States, which probably buys me enough relations to keep them from getting upset (the -25 ally of rival malus was getting hard to work around).
15 provinces. My next move is to take a bunch of Norwegian land, and try and get adjacency to Muscovy. Goal is an 8 province+ peace deal. If I can get that, I think I’ve got it. Then I can go after the Muscovites or Ottomans as chance allows. Getting 10 provinces from England in the last war put me within striking distance. Now the final push, let’s see how this goes.
If only the Protestant Reformation fired 75 years early, life would be so much easier.
I’ve been playing quite a bit of this in cooperative multiplayer lately, but I’ve also been trying my hand at solo plays of The Isles and Byzantium without much luck at all.
I think a successful playthrough of The Isles depends heavily on the stars aligning. Because Scotland can annex your provinces (or you entirely), starting after 10 years, you have a fairly narrow opportunity to gain independence. Maybe someone else can do it better, but I’ve only had luck when the England/France war doesn’t fire (you need English troops busy supporting your independence in Scotland rather than fighting a pointless war in Europe) and when France is embroiled in a longish conflict with a continental power to keep them from coming to Scotland’s aid.
As for Byz, I can survive, but it’s a very slow process of building up favors and then very carefully picking wars against the Ottos.
Yeah, some nations your options are ‘restart until you get lucky’. Isles, Urbino, Athens, they never last very long in any game, unless I intervene directly. Realistically I don’t think there is much you can do directly. You, as you say, need to get lucky. England needs to surrender Maine without going to war, and hope they decide to help you instead.
Byzantium, and really any of the Orthodox nations down there, are very frustrating to play simply because Ottomans gonna Ottoman. And the penalties to get Poland or Lithuania as allies can sometimes be tough to overcome. With some luck the Mamlukes will attack them, and draw their forces east. If not, as is often the case, then you might just be SOL for a while, assuming you don’t get eaten.
Anyone interesting in some Government Reform?
Too much stuff to quote here, follow ze link for the details.
I hope Stellaris gets this one day sooner than later.
That… actually looks cool. I wish they tied reform points with unrest, as it would have created this very interesting Victoria-esque trade-off where you accept (or even provoke) unrest in your country to spark change in the government. Instead it’s just +10 a year with debuffs for any lack of autonomy, yawn.
Stellaris merged with EU4 features…yeah.
Big Blue Blob complete.
So that Protestant Reformation? Yeah, fired in 1494. That war against Denmark was a raging success though. In about two years I was able to get a 12 province peace deal. To seal the mark, I also took one last stab at the Ottomans for another 4 provinces, and feeling perhaps a bit uncertain I would core in time, took a whack at Provence for the remaining 3 provinces of the Brittany state.
Which, good thing, turns out that two of the formerly Norwegian provinces would not be able to start coring in time, a third only finishing a month after the time limit. Total in 1499: 104 provinces, 101 cored.
Other notes: Byzantium lived until 1493. I could have saved them but… frankly I just didn’t feel like it. The Ottomans had just been whacked for a bunch, and I could have proclaimed guaruntee for Byzantium and probably saved them, but instead I opted to go after Brittany. Were it not for BBB I probably intervene (the Ottoman ruler has the babbling trait, so I got tipped off two months before the war, plenty of time to guarantee and shift forces), as Ottomans are so much weaker without that big trade node.
It was a tricky achievement, but also fun in its way. I had to push much differently than I would have otherwise. I’ll probably continue a bit to get the Greater than Napoleon one, since I’m already closing in on both targets.
Congrats, Craig! Are there other achievements you’ve been eyeballing for future playthroughs?
I do want to go back and do those Serbian ones. I just got irritated with them, and the patch dropped so I went and did something else. But Serbia -> all Balkans -> Greece - > all greek to me (Thatta, Rho, and other Greek letter sounding ones) seems fun, if you can survive the initial Ottoman onslaught and get a decent ally. Which, admittedly, was super aggrivating. I found a reliable expansion path, one that worked several times, but the problem is that inevitably the Ottomans will come calling, and it’s very hard to withstand. You need to keep the Byzantines alive, they are a massive boost to the Ottos if they get them, but trying to do so inevitably hurts you when the attack comes and you’re not strong enough since the Byzantines can’t get a decent ally on their own. If only they had the sense to do so, it would be much better.
Or inversion of my current run, do One Night In Paris, and get the English achievements.
What achievements would you recommend to beginners? There has got to be a lot of beginners like me who like to have more direction provided by the game.
I think the key here is the advanced players are going to go for the hard achievements. I can’t tell you how many times I tried the Kongo one. For a beginner I would instead try the country forming achievements like Russia, Germany, or Italy (in order of difficulty) until you get a good grasp on game mechanics, especially managing AE.
I think it depends on how much difficulty and direction you want @robc04. Some are fairly easy, bordering on trivial and accidental. Others near impossible (Three Mountains is probably literally impossible now).
Some of the ones @Spaced_Cowboy mentioned are decent. Forming Russia from Muscovy is a decent choice, fairly easy but requires planning. Forming Germany significantly harder, and takes longer. One like Azure Sem De Lis, as France acquire all French cores, is easy, and can be done in a fairly short time. It’s a good beginner one, as it could be done in 20 years, or 200.
Play as Austria and form the HRE.
Play as Ottomans and unify Islam.
Play as France or Ottomans and dismantle the HRE.
Play as Spain or Portugal and get some colonial achievements.
Basically pick one of the suggested default nations and start from there. The new mission system will really help too, just look down your mission paths and instant long term goals.
One of the most popular, and widely considered fun, nations is Brandenburg. For a reason. It’s influential, but small. Can punch above its weight, and is a late game powerhouse, but requires care to get there. It’s not a beginner country, but neither is it a ‘restart 10 times until you roll the right general, and get fortunate with who rivals whom’.
Thanks for the suggestions!
It’s crazy how many of the achievements have less than a 10% success rate.