Not too crazy. Achievements can only be earned when playing Ironman.
Most people haven’t played Ironman, and many are country locked.
The most common is 24% of people have the one for securing a royal marriage. Something that will happen in 99% of non theocratic plays.
The least common one I have is Big Blue Blob at .6%, and rarest non country locked is Master of India at 1.7%. So treat 24% as the baseline for achievments, and basically scale that to 100.
I forgot that ironman is needed for achievements.
If there’s an achievement you think sounds like fun and you’re pretty new at the game look here:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Achievements
For each achievement it provides a difficult rating, and until you’re experienced I would stick with Easy/Medium ones.
That’s pretty cool!
Granda just formed Andalusia - I have never seen that one
Ok, I’ll task you with a fun, but still challengin, one. Definitely the Sultan of Rum. As Ottomans, who are a powerful nation with options, conquer Rome and Moscow.
Pro tip: go after Moscow earlier, Muscovy tends to form the powerful Russia. In my game I took Moscow and vassalized Muscovy before 1600, as Rome is always within range, just high aggro and hard to convert.
But it is a fun challenge that should not prove all too hard, if you have the patience for it.
I went back to EU IV one more time, given all the praise I hear for it. But man, this game bugs me AT LEAST as much as Civ 6 bugs others. Could they possibly make the game more inaccessible and the mechanics more obscure?
Started a game in a fictional world with a fictional country, Valencia, and, for some unknown reason, one of my provinces, Lisboa, is a territory rather than an actual province. No indications while setting up the country that this would be the case, and even after starting the game, this fact is invisible pretty much throughout the interface… until you go to set up estates, and that is given as the reason why Lisboa cannot be assigned to one of the estates.
Okay…
Nothing on the Lisbon interface says this. In fact, hovering over my “cores and claims” I get a message that my nation considers this to be one of my core provinces. Only hint otherwise is that autonomy is 75%. And a mouseover of that says that territories cannot have autonomy lower than 75%.
Okay… so the mouseover is clearly right, while the directly given information is misleading. Fine, so how do I go about correcting the situation?
Guess I better go to the “Make core” tab. Strike one. That page is blank, I cannot address Lisboa’s situation there.
Maybe go to Lisboa’s territory tab, Alentejo. Lisboa is listed, with an icon of no obvious meaning, but a mouseover says, “Lisboa is one of our core provinces.” No, it is not. That would be strike two.
Okay, better check manual… Ha Ha. Just kidding.
Maybe a section in the tutorial? Yeah, I am a very funny guy today.
Seriously, the wiki, it’s got to be there right?
Under “Mechanic summary” it says "Provinces in territories have a 75% local autonomy floor. Once all the owned provinces in an area have territorial cores, it is possible to turn the territory into a state (from the province interface, above the buildings section).
Well… this is the only province I own in that territory, not sure if that is the same all “in the area.” And it is labeled in-game as being cored. (Just a digression here, but how obscure is this word “core”? Initially, the concept of a core piece of your nation made some sense. But normal people core apples, not pieces of land.) But when I go to the province interface for Lisboa, I see a tab on the right for buildings, but THERE IS NO F-ING PLACE ABOVE THE BUILDINGS TAB TO ADDRESS TURNING THIS INTO A STATE.
If this isn’t strike three, then strikeouts simply do not exist in this universe. If you are going to create such an obscure, byzantine set of rules, with terminology that is far from intuitive, you gotta have documentation that is correct. And this game does not.
I have no idea how to fix the Lisboa problem, but, to be honest, I have lost interest in the game, even if someone were to tell me that it’s simple to turn territories into states right there on the stability screen. The whole thing simply serves as an acute reminder of the last time I put the game away… after discovering the truth about the fort/zone of control rule. (No, it is not bugged. There is a set of rules, utterly irrational and divorced from any aspect of real life forts. But it is not documented. Anywhere.)
The wiki does not tell me how to fix Lisboa, but it sums up the problem quite succinctly: “This section may contain outdated information that is inaccurate for the current version of the game. The last version it was verified as up to date for was 1.21.”
Endless streams of DLC and content-upgrading patches do not offend me from a monetary perspective. They offend me from a documentation perspective. Somewhere, accurate rules for the product need to be available, and if you create such a bizarre combination of product versions that you can no longer provide documentation, then I say your product has a flaw more grievous than Civ 6’s AI
Which is why Civ 6 is vastly more fun, in my book.
/rant
Reading your comments @FinnegansFather - it is possible you are maxed out on States which is why you can not change it from a Territory to a State. There is a notification that tells you if states can be made. Also, the province view has two tabs on the top. The rightmost tab is the stateview - there should be a little blue flag you can click to make it a state. You can view your State limit in the Expansion and Stability tab. If you really want to, you can remove the state from somewhere else and assign it to Alentejo.
I’m currently trying for The Iron Price achievement. And as a side benefit, having fun playing as Denmark. The achievement itself involves Denmark conquering the Eastern states of England and culture converting to Danish. I am on my third run at the moment, with the earlier runs being aborted thanks to sloppy play because all I do is expand too much, too fast. Or get dragged into a war with the Ottomans…
One aspect of this game I really appreciate and respect is how every 1444 start is largely the same (minus rivals) and the diverging ways the game plays out over time. In my last game, the Teutonic Order successfully spanked Poland around to the point where they were reduced to a 3 province duchy and a new state I’d never come across (Galicia-Volhynia). They had help of course, but it was satisfying to see the Commonwealth crumble away. Then it became frightening once I realised not much would be stopping the Muscovy juggernaut. Not even the Ottomans who didn’t bother to rival them. And that was what lead to my demise in Denmark. Dragged into war with Ottomans, Russia set its sights on the Baltic, and then England decided it would reclaim the nice Scottish beach head I created for future forays into their lands. Try again, this time focus less on the Baltic. The Livonian region wasn’t contributing that much too my game.
I actually wish there was the same start thing in Stellaris.
I hate to be that guy, obviously if you have a frustrating time you have a frustrating time. But it does seem a little weird to complain about the accessibility of the game when you’re diving into a random map. If you’re struggling to get to grips with the mechanics, maybe it’s best to stick to the real world where at least the players and their characteristics and long term goals and relative strengths are familiar. As I’ve said repeatedly in this thread, the best way to start out with EU games is to pick a small but powerful nation (eg Portugal) with a clear historical path, then try to follow that path. If you’re playing a randomised map, you’re not going to have that guiding light of history.
I agree with the choice of Portugal being the best way to start and learn EU IV. It can be boring at the start for a new player with not much going on year after year. An experienced player will look for opportunities to take down Morocco or Castille but that can be difficult for a newer player so they just will tend to sit there. If they do, they should focus on getting the Exploration ideas, maximizing their money and maintaining balanced alliances while keeping out of major wars. This is not difficult in most games.
Once you can head towards the New World a whole host of possibilities open up. Colonization will start to bring in more money and power. Colonize enough and Portugal can get some subjects that can make it extremely powerful. At that point the choices are many. Create an army and conquer others, dominate trade or even take over as one of your subjects and try to roll up the entire New World. The large number of possibilities tends to teach a newer player a lot of things that carry over to subsequent games.
The custom nation definitely isn’t helping his situation.
@FinnegansFather, it sounds like the issue you were having is that you had exceeded your state cap. I can’t say for sure because you’re playing a custom nation which means I have no frame of reference of how you set it up: how many provinces you have, what government rank you are, etc.
The answer to your question is found in the documentation, which is thorough and up to date. It’s on the wiki which I understand is different than a printed manual, but it’s easier to search than that would have been. You could have started with typing “EU4 territory” into Google. As I did so, this was what popped up:
https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Territories_and_states
That explains both in summary and in detail everything about the State/territory difference. It explains the State cap. There’s your documentation for what you wanted to understand.
I get how getting frustrated can lead to an unpleasant experience, but you’re jumping into a complex strategy game. I don’t care how good the tutorial, documentation, or anything else is, you’re going to gave a learning period.
I second what @Ginger_Yellow said. If you just play Portugal and follow a historical path (even easier now, because there’s a mission system in-game to give you goals and bread crumbs on what to do) I think you’ll find that the UI actually does a pretty good job at communicating a lot of information and will prompt you when something needs your attention. You should be able to follow the tooltips from there, in large part.
Even in your current situation, if you had played a bit your state cap would have increased, you would have received a notification telling you this, and clicking on it would have cycled through available territories you could turn into States. Including Lisboa. The game would have taught you, you just never gave it a chance to.
If you do ever fire it up again, just understand you’re not going to grok every single mechanic right away. There’s going to be things you’re unclear on, but they are not necessary to play the game, you’ll figure them out as you go. Nothing about Lisboa being a territory was stopping you from proceeding with the game. Be okay with not knowing everything, if anything have fun with it and roleplay your 0-1-0 king that just took the throne. ;)
Man, it pains my soul when people don’t like EU4. For me, it is an absolute strategic masterpiece. Yes, it is ridiculously dense for a new player, but I’m 800 hours in and still peeling back layers and layers… especially compared to Civ 6, which I feel like is a complete disaster.
But I get it - I’ve tried to play CK2 about 8 times now, and have complete bounced off it every single time.
So I like the new way exploring works. Used to be more manual, but the explore missions are a nice automation.
One thing I noted, and went for eventually, was the Magellan achievment. First circumnavigation. I tried a few times during my France run, I’ve been colonizing so thought it might be doable, but my first two attempts ended in failure. Some strategic choices, namely taking La Plata from Portugal, prepping Vijaynagar for fleet basing, and conquering parts of east Africa put me close. Having a few completed colonies across the Indian Ocean, and south Pacific I thought would help, but mostly didn’t. But I built up, explored most of Indonesia and Australia, and had two groups of light ships ready. Starting at the Falkland Islands with 4 light ships, with reinforcements ready at Reunion Island, I sent it.
It was really exciting. Doubly so when Spain dragged me into a war in Mexico right after I started. Fortunately my ships managed to avoid a fight. Aside from that it has been neat how they work. The attrition free travel for normal explore missions, the events, the explore the sea first, then the shore, it all works for me. Also enjoyed the Quest for the Seven Cities, though Sacajewea happened roughly 5 times for me.
The other thing is institutions. I’ve been in a full blown Colonial race. The Antilles are mine, fully. Louisiana safe, as is Columbia. Brazil is a fight between me and Scotland. Portugal keeps trying to establish south America, I keep claiming the region. Thanks for the free land in La Plata! All this has led to an interesting Institution race.
So it’s 1612, and Global Trade has not happened. That’s because it can’t. The English Channel is, and has been, the most profitable trade node. I have highest trade value there. I have no Center of Trade there. Not until I finish annexing England (who only has London there, otherwise they are, basically, Columbia) which I will do in 1621. So right now I am manipulating trade to prevent it from spawining. Why? Because I can. Because I think it would be hilarious to basically cram two in a shorter time frame, really try and push Russia and Ottomans back into technological irrelevancy. By delaying, I can force make the cost prohibitive, and try and get an edge for 50 years. I can afford the price, my income is 40 ducats a month, even accounting for level 3,2,3 advisors.
It’s a bit odd, though. I wondered what would happen when the timer came up, and no node met the criteria. Turns out it is nothing, nothing happens. I could easily make it spawn any time, just reroute things a bit so Genoa is most valuable. Problem is Spain controls it, and my penalty for non home node means even my 60 ship trade fleet there can’t quite get me there.
But every new colony is bumping their value. 10 years ago they were 32 and 29 respectively. Now? 48 and 42. Normally trade is set and forget, but this has been exciting. Especially since I can’t just go to war to ensure I maintain the lead, they’re an ally I’d rather not shed.
So there’s two exciting new things I’ve never dabbled with, due to being 1.09. Which is doubly nice since I’m still burning down AE, and am excommunicated. Stupid pope, drop to negative for one month and immediate excommunication from the Commonwealth curia controller. And my ruler was only about 25…
But these have been some of the more interesting non war things I’ve ever engaged with in EU IV. I approve.
I also approve of the shifting in buildings. The slots based on development, the tiers, and the fact they no longer required admin points (well, not directly. The slots do) make it so much better. Used to be I just ignored buildings, espeically late game. Now I actually pay attention to them more than ever.
One nice thing about intentional institution spawning, is I actually tracked the impact of colonies on trade and income in a way I never had before. My push saw the English channel go from 28 in 1595 all the way to 59 in 1622.
Also annexing England had a big surprise for me. My income went from +54 a month to -60. Why? I went from 3 colonies building (plus a fourth that had the colonist arrive a month later) to 8. That exponential growth of colonial maintenance was crazy. I actually had to abandon one, as it was costing me 30 ducats a month. I ate the rest, since one would finish soon anyhow. I could absorb the 25 ducats a month or so, for the year it would take to finish one. but 60 was a little rich.
But that was a shock!
Ouch, that colony assimilation thing has hit me before as well. It’s terrific if you can grit it out!
In EU4, it looks like India is getting 106 additional provinces. Holy crap.
Good god, I’m glad I got the ‘own all of India as European nation’ done, that seems daunting! Especially since AE can be very high on the subcontinent.
One odd thing I noticed recently, and it seems to be working as designed, is the AI use of send gifts. Normally not very noticeable, but I got really interested when I noticed during my war against the Ottomans, who were the crusade target, they were getting gifts from the normal selection of enemies of mine, like Hungary, mutual rivals, like Austria, but also some very curious ones. Like the Papal States (dude, you have a crusade on them), and my ally Scotland. Like, wtf? I have 160 relation with you, just helped you take major chunks of England, and you are sending hundreds to the Ottomans?
Makes no damn sense strategically. But then I saw the pattern.
It’s an AI cheat. Whoever is facing one of, or the top of the Great Power board gets lots of gifts, usually one every month or two. It was a bit disappointing, since that means their ai is slightly less so much better than the rest of the industry.
I mean it’s diplo AI is still magnitudes better than just about any other, but the gulf is slightly less than id imagined.
I had a lot of fun earning the Iron Price achievement. The goal is to play as Denmark and culture convert the eastern regions of the British isles to Danish. By early 1700’s I achieved it thanks in part to forgetting the whole culture conversion step. The rest of the game ended up being a slog to finish, the first EU game I played that started to wear out its welcome. I attribute that in part to lack of challenge. I set Europe alight with my aggressive expansion so I could feed provinces to a German vassal, I decimated the Ottomans in a counter revolutionary war to the point where I was sick of fighting. I didn’t care about manpower losses because a large contingent of my army was mercenaries, and earning more land wasn’t exactly much of a benefit for me.
My early game began by following the Denmark specific missions and events. I acquired Holstein by event and grew my navy to begin the missions against the Livonian order. That mission requires a fleet force limit of 25 and grants permanent cores on Osel and the Estonian region. They were fairly easy wins and acted as a buffer to keep Sweden’s liberty desire in check. Add in the era ability where Denmark can reduce liberty desire by 30%, and Sweden was a convenient non-threatening junior partner. Norway was and always is easy to integrate; I did so fairly quickly which ended up being an error thanks to losing permanent cores on the Scottish isles. That is, Norway had the claims, an integrated Norway does not.
My biggest challenge in this run was establishing a beach head on what had become Great Britain. It turns out France was not playing well and couldn’t push Britain off the continent, nor was it in any position to follow up on its Guarantee of Independence to Scotland. So France never went to war with Britain over Scotland, but would go to war with me (an ally) if I chose to attack Scotland. So I had to play the waiting game, allowing Scotland to be consumed and Great Britain forming. I had an army parked on the nearby island ready to march over onto Sutherland. But with GB fleets roaming around, I needed them to be pulled away so the army could march over. I didn’t exactly have a fleet myself that could deal with GB heavies, I was flat out just paying for army maintenance.
To adapt to the challenge, I leveraged my tech advantage over Muscovy to increase my income base via the Novgorod trade node. I essentially went to war over Novogord province and that helped feed my Baltic node income, but not enough to keep a fleet of ships that would go toe to toe against Britain. Fighting in Muscovy was expensive with respect to attrition, something I was unwilling to do in future, though in a fit of greed some hundred years later, I did fight Muscovy a second time to strengthen myself in the Novgorod trade node by capturing Moscow (yet again an expensive war).
Thankfully France was useful in my fights against Britain by sending fleets out that engaged the British navy and allowed my troops to march over. From my initial incursions, it was all downhill for Great Britain and over a series of wars, I dismantled them piece by piece to the point where their only presence in the game in the 1800’s was a single island in the middle of the ocean. I created an Irish vassel (Kildare) and fed them all of Ireland to convert and kept all of England for myself. By this stage of the game, my presence stretched from Western Russian, through the Baltic, across England and beginning through the North American colonies (forming Vinland in the process). Trade income was making me rich. 400 ducats a month and nothing to spend it on eventually. Towards the end, I remembered I never changed my primary trade node from Lubeck to English Channel, doing so upped my monthly income to 600 ducats per month, but with over 120K ducats in the treasury after fighting an expensive war against the Ottomans, it didn’t matter.
Speaking of Ottomans, I do find it satisfying to see those large, villanous nations brought down a peg or two. Because of my war with them, they were unable to deal with the rebels spawning. Sure, the rebels did capture the provinces that I sieged down, but I figured it was better for an Ottoman army to deal with them than I. The rebel stacks were stronger than the sum of the Ottoman army by the end of the war (Ottomans had about 40k troops fielded, rebel stacks were typically 40-50k). Ottomans lost the Balkans and their Central African holdings. It felt good to see that dull green being stripped away to reveal the original nations from 1444.
Fun, but long. I need to fix my sleep schedule again, so no EU for a few weeks I think. This stuff is crack for the brain, fries it pretty effectively. But I have other games to play. But yeah, thumbs up to trying Denmark. Early game is exciting!
I’m a big fan of Paradox’s development model they’ve been using since CK2. It’s resulted in EU4 being my favorite strategy game of all time and it’s not even close anymore. That being said, there are certain drawbacks to the model.
One of those drawbacks is the fact that it’s hard for them to continuously work on and further integrate expansion-specific mechanics. Since Paradox allows you to purchase expansion a la carte without dependencies on other expansions, you can’t integrate new mechanics being introduced with old ones if you can’t guarantee that user owns both.
That’s why I think it’s great news that Estates are being moved from Common Sense to being available in the core game to all players. There’s been a few expansions that have added mechanics that would have worked well with Estates, but as described above it wasn’t a possibility. Now that Estates are part of the base game, they can start tying them into more systems and to rework some of the pain points surrounding them.
The dev diary today discusses how Estates are going to work on the Indian subcontinent in the upcoming Dharma expansion, as well as some changes that should make them less of a hassle to deal with.
I know I’ve asked a number of questions here but I have a few more.
- What is a good nation to play if you prefer combat/wars? I’ve already (over)played the Ottomans and would like some ideas
- Any recommendations for specific DLC/expansions to add to the game? Looks like I already own these older ones:
Wealth of Nations
Conquest of Paradise
Res Publica
Art of War
El Dorado
Common Sense