It’s been awhile since I have played EU4 compulsively, but by 1700 shouldn’t the fire/shock stats + the ideas unlocked lead to very quick and deadly battles that can wipe out big armies quickly? Also, with the changes to forts the siege-fest isn’t anywhere near the same as it was before that particular expansion came out.
This is one of my bigger problems with the series too. Not so much for the military side of things (which kinda sucks in EU anyway), but rather, as you mentioned, the political mechanics stop making sense at a certain point. EU should probably end round 1648 (end of the Thirty Years’ War) and then there should be another game covering the time between there and Victoria. I’ve usually abandoned my game by then anyway, but I know some people love painting the map a certain color and that takes a longer time frame I suppose.
I managed to fight my way free of France. It went more or less as I expected; they walked over the various colonies but I managed to hold them off on land. Actually, just holding them off wasn’t enough because my Stockholm war score was pretty event balanced by their colonial occupations, so I had to set out for France. That part was easier than expected, though, as their army was mysteriously AWOL. I’m really not sure why, but it was just as well because I looked up halfway through and realized my manpower was a big fat zero. But Scandinavia was free once more. And we pretty quickly re-allied France again.
I’m not sure if the French alliance was a net positive after that. We got into several wars with the HRE and won most of them, and while I didn’t lose anything the time we lost, I also didn’t win much because I usually wasn’t the declarer. (Though France did give me one province in Pomerania when Brandenburg or someone peaced out early once, but that was more of a nice surprise than anything else.) On the whole France did quite poorly, though, especially the one time they went to war without me–they had to release Brittany, heh. Why they kept attacking (they were always the aggressor) is beyond me.
While I was unable to realize Swedish Pomerania in its entirety, I did expand the Swedish Niger at the expense of poor Mali. It was kinda cool having a couple gold-producing provinces, even if it was really just a drop in my economic bucket. Many of the places there had value 4 and 5 trade goods (ivory, dyes, etc), which again was cool, but I’m not sure really how to take advantage. I put a merchant collecting in in Ivory Coast–I guess that’s how?
I also carved out a great colony in the Kongo. I decided that my mission was too abolish slavery, so I made a point of taking any place that had slaves for a trade good–most of them were replaced with something with more value, anyway. (Except I didn’t try to take that one place held by France in the Niger… uh, sorry about that.) I wanted to try to settle more in the Great Lakes region there, what with the chance of gold and gems, but didn’t get a chance to.
I then noticed the button to make a trade company. Huh! So I made the Scandinavian Ivory Coast Company. It looked like there was another button I could press if I got to 51% trade power (actually, trade power from provinces, it turns out, but the crown would like to thank the Royal Scandinavian African Fleet for their invaluable services anyway). I scrimped every last bit to get over the line (conquered an ex-French territory that somehow became independent, and finished off the Aragonese from their some remaining province, sorry guys, when spent points on development (gasp!)), and for my troubles I got a merchant. Great. And it wasn’t even a button after all.
All the while I was scheming for more of Pomerania and trying to figure out how to manage my manpower (a lot of mercenaries were used). I’m pretty sure I was in a good position to take the HRE with or without France. And then it was 1821 and the game over screen popped up. Well then!
Turns out I was number two! Pretty good, I guess, and a bit of a surprise since last I checked I was five–I guess those last couple wars really hurt France and Austria, and I’m not sure why the Indian kingdom fell a notch, either. (Though I strangely couldn’t see how to view the whole ranking, i.e. who was number one. I believe it was the Ottomans.)
Next I’d like to try a (more) colonial focused game. Portugal, maybe?
You can mark provinces as being of interest to you (provinces with claims are automatically flagged as such). The AI will actually be pretty decent at respecting this and rewarding allies for contributions as long as it doesn’t conflict with their own interests.
Oh, that sounds cool! I did have a claim on the province that they gave to me.
Ah, but it appears that system is only available with The Cossacks DLC, which I don’t have. (I got the $1 Humble Bundle tier.)
I did manage to figure out that if I want to give a province to someone else during a peace deal, I need to transfer occupation to them. At least you don’t need to unpause for that.
Oh, dang, I didn’t realize that. Sorry. Well, without that mechanic, just make sure to have claims on nearby provinces of interest and get a similar effect. :)
I had no idea this was a feature. Sucks being such a noob with only 208 hours in the game.
Hah, I know what you mean. I still bump into things where I’m like “Oh, I had no idea I could do that. I wish I knew that like 600 hours ago”. It’s crazy! It’s a really useful tool, so glad you know about it now! :)
This is a good solution when fighting multiple wars, need to limit AE for unjustified demands or when you aren’t min/maxing in late game. After the Age of Absolution, your absolutism will allow you to take more land if it is your occupation. I am not sure if vassals even get absolutism. You do also get a reduction of liberty desire when granting provinces through vassal window.
Groogy hangs out in the SA forums and hope he looked at my suggestion to improve occupation transfer. Would be a shame to leave it as-is in an HRE focused expansion. I believe I am up to 85 princes in my Norway HRE run and it is a pain to scroll through a loosely ordered list by region. Alphabetical would be better at a minimum.
I wish I knew that like 600 hours ago
But then maybe you could not do that 600 hours ago, since it’s a newer feature. :-D
It will continue. Even at over 4k hours, I still have TIL moments.
I’ve started a new one as Portugal. I feel like I’m struggling just the same amount as I was with Sweden, but I think it’s because I’ve pushed my fledgling empire (much closer) to its limit, and that’s where the struggle is coming from, rather than a combination of being a junior partner and not knowing how the game works.
I leaned pretty hard into colonization; I almost immediately got the idea to give a colonist (ok, you have to unlock your first idea group first, but you get the idea). The colonization range is much more limited, early on, which poses some interesting/annoying challenges (wasting time on that single province so I could reach the ivory coast, for example).
I learned the hard way about naval attrition and supply ranges, let me tell you that. I’m decently good at guessing when I need to turn back now, but I suspect I’m being overly conservative.
I’m definitely leading the colonization game (at least I think so, I don’t have full visibility of the new world, of course). But I still take it as a personal affront any time anyone gets a colony anywhere in the world, heh. I’ve got maybe 7 provinces in Brazil, soon to be four in Colombia (where the British have four or five; if I’d realized it was a separate region I probably would have just stayed on the other side of that imaginary line), and maybe 10-12 scattered around the Ivory Coast (a mixture of colonization and conquest).
I also have one in South Africa (which netted me a merchant because the Portuguese South African Trading Company controls literally the only province in the entire trade node) and some formerly uninhabited island Indian Ocean. The plan is to springboard into the East Indies, because I feel like I’m not strong enough to take on anything in India.
I’ve also pushed Morocco back into (and almost past) the Atlas mountains. I’d have made faster progress there but I was hoarding my admin points for colonization techs and ideas. I did make Moroccan into an accepted culture, though, which is helpful. For a while I had a pretty good thing going where I’d** repeatedly humiliate first Morocco, then Tunis or Tlemcen–that was great at keeping my power projection above 50 for those sweet, sweet bonus points. Those days are gone as they allied with the Mamluks and Ottomans, respectively. Well, until they didn’t, but you know how it goes.
** There’s an argument to be made that Castile was doing the humiliating at my bidding, but we don’t need to get into that.
I’m pretty overextended because I only barely have enough troops to fight off the natives and put down the uprisings in the Ivory Coast and Morocco. I’ve got three colonists, and the plan was to send one to each region (South America, Central/West Africa, South Africa / Indian Ocean) but that would necessitate three army stacks to put down uprisings. I could handle that, but I get occasional 12k - 18k stacks of revolts in Morocco and Africa, and my force limit is only 20 or 25 or so. With just a couple more force limit I could do it, I think, though I’ve had some pretty embarrassing defeats in battle against West African armies that are only slightly bigger than mine.
I’ve managed to hang on to my alliances with both England (now UK) and Castile (now Spain). Spain somehow managed to make the Papal States a vassal (I wasn’t paying attention but I guess Austria was unable to stop them), and then foolishly went to war with Tunis and brought the Ottomans down on us. They completely occupied Morocco, but then for some reason withdrew (they weren’t in any other wars that I could see) and in the end the Spanish somehow eked out a win, or at least a white peace, not sure how.
I’ve got a crap ton of Pope Points (I think I’m up to 4 cardinals now), and while I keep 100 around for a stability boost when needed, I don’t really know what to do with the rest of them. I got the tax bonus, which is always nice. I took the mercantilism once; mercantilism seems kind of marginal but I guess it lasts for the whole game (until you need to reduce it later, I suppose). Prestige also seems kind of marginal for me at this point, but maybe I’m underappreciating it. I suppose I’d do legitimacy if it becomes a problem.
I could pretty easily cash in my ~175 or so Pope Points to be the next papal controller, I think, but the bonuses there also seem kind of marginal. What do you think?
A couple general questions:
- Should I go for the West Indies or focus more on existing South Africa / Central-West Africa / Brazil? Or somewhere else?
- I usually run at +2 stability (thanks again to the Pope Points), because I figure I’d hate to miss out on an event that gives a free +1 stability, rare as they are. What do other people do?
Oh yeah, Kongo also got this event that converted them to Catholic, so I allied with them as it was my religious duty. I even got a Royal Marriage, as ahistorical as that seems. I figured I could make them my vassal, but I ended up conquering a couple of their cores (from a rival) so they refuse. Oh well, at least they’re willing to give me some of their trade power.
What year is it, and would you like to be able to unite the Christian world in a crusade against the Ottomans or Moroccans? That is the big thing.
As papal controller you get two big actions that can be very beneficial. You can excommunicate rulers, which gives a free for all on that ruler. Especially useful against France in my experience (French goals and missions tend to put it at odds with the papacy enabling excommunication). And you can call crusades until the Age of Absolutism starts. Which gives casus belli to other catholic nations, and huge bonuses to nations that declare war on the target. Manpower, money, prestige, morale. Calling a crusade against the Ottomans in your case would very likely bring in Austria, Hungary, Poland, and whatever Italian and Balkan states exist, as it is a very tasty pie to take.
Detailed write-up on the mercenary overhaul in the upcoming mega expansion:
The Portuguese Empire has continued expanding. I didn’t realize where the border between Brazil and Peru was, so there’s now a Portuguese Peru, and there will shortly be a Portuguese La Plata as well, for the same reason. There was no serious competition in South or West Africa so I finished both those areas off with one colonist (slowly) and pushed into the East with my third (my first continuing to work in South America).
Expansion in the East has been accomplished probably more by way of conquest than colonization; Borneo and Indonesia are almost all Portuguese, and when I found myself in a war with Bengal (by alliance) I grabbed their most significant port, because why not. I then expanded to take all of the coast of Bengal (gotta get that merchant). My colonists are currently pushing into New Guinea and Australia after a brief dalliance in the Philippines. The English have the east coast of Australia, and I have the north; I’m really not sure it was worth it; probably would have made more sense to focus on the Philippines / South Pacific, but oh well.
I also belatedly realized that one of the key Portuguese missions involves owning the area around Zanzibar, and while I figured that would be straightforward I didn’t realize that I needed to colonize Cormoros for it, and Spain beat me to it. Since the rest of the missions further East (which were pretty much already accomplished, anyway) were gated behind that, I started gearing for war with my best friend. Alas.
I accidentally blew like 80% of my Papal Points when I didn’t realize the cost for influence increased with each click. And worse, it is past the time when Crusades and Excommunications are even possible–the whole reason for this was to excommunicate Spain, which the French were doing only yesterday, it seemed. So I guess I got some kind of bonuses to conversion and stuff.
In any event, the dreaded Spanish War was really not that hard. I actually feel bad for them because I had both the UK and France on my side, so they really didn’t stand a chance. The Spanish homelands were occupied very quickly, and while there was some dilly-dallying in South America we basically ended up running circles around each other with me coming out ahead. Spanish Africa was also quickly occupied. The only place where we lost was in the East Indies, where I just didn’t have an army. There seemed to be some serious back-and-forth between the Spanish and British Mexicos, as well as with French Louisiana, but I didn’t really pay too much attention to that.
The peace wasn’t too hard on them; France got a province in the Pyrenees, a couple Spanish North American possessions were ceded, and of course I got the African provinces I needed. And there was probably a bunch of money, too.
The funny thing is that at this point I really don’t need the money. The Portuguese trade empire is vastly profitable; I’m netting around +100 a day! It’s hard to believe this, coming from my previous Swedish experience, but I’m actually having trouble spending the money. I periodically open up the build menu and build like 20 heavy warships, or throw down Manufactories in half my colonies, but I can’t seem to spend the money as fast as it comes in. I do have some 16 merchants, which probably helps.
Unlike the last game, all of my merchants are set to forward trade, rather than collect it (except for the home node, Sevilla). In the Swedish game I had a lot of income in the Ivory Coast, and it didn’t make sense to forward that since it wasn’t going to get to the Baltic Sea (similarly with the North Sea, IIRC). I’m also amused by the various “Trading in X” “events” that happen to me. I rather like the idea that when I control 20% of the spice trade I get a mild bonus to spy network construction, or whatever, even if it seems a bit ahistorically out of place compared to the rest of the game.
I don’t remember the exact year, a bit after 1700 I think. But that’s plenty of time to finish off the mission tree (I think I just need a couple places here and there that I’d otherwise skipped). The only mission I probably won’t finish is the one where you need your home region. I probably could; I think I have a nationalism CB on the rest of Iberia (and there’s always imperialism otherwise), but it would be a bit of a slog. And I suppose that one province I gave to France would be quite a bit of a hassle to get back…
(I’m also amused that there’s that one tech where you get “Advanced CB types” which is, AFAICT, just imperialism and nationalism, which boil down to “I’m gonna take your stuff now.”)
You are about at the point where I get burned out with Portugal. Endless micromanagement of colonization
Weirdly I don’t find the colonization stuff tedious, but the idea of micro-managing a multi-front, intercontinental war in EU4 is actual nightmare fuel to me, so I usually duck out before 1700. One day they’ll add that “automate army” checkbox.
The new world colonies aren’t so bad nowadays, since they are semi-automated… But Africa and the South Pacific/Australia drive me nuts
The feature list below are the paid features of the expansion. They’ve been talking for over a year now about all the base game additions and updates they’re making in their dev diaries.
Still no release date!