Just finished a Kilwa run after grabbing Origins in the Steam sale. Their mission tree is really fun and you can cut off all the colonisers if you expand into the cape early, and pretty much stop any trade reaching the Ivory Coast
Thank you. What I mostly mean with Estates is the priveleges. Right from 1444, there’s a lot of options, and I have no idea if they expand as tech improves. I get the sense that the mana point picks are the best to start with anyway, unless there’s some niche strategy (like an Albanian conquest). Then there’s the modifiers, and that’s what I’ve loved with CK3. In EUIV for instance, I need to revisit terms like Governing Capacity on the wiki. Thankfully EU is kind with alt-tabbing, and this is just first world problems anyway.
None of this should be seen as criticism of EU. Like, the fact I’m basically met with a familiar yet different game speaks volumes of the support the game has gotten, even if recent DLC was less well received. And I suppose some questionable decisions made with certain game mechanics. I’m not sure either about balancing now either. Ducat income seems a bit wild now. For instance, right off the bat, I can see crown lands for 521 ducats, at 1444. That seems obscene at that period of the game. Again, I’m aware of systems being gamed once like pulling a lot of loans to fund large scale wars. And changes to mercs I think killed that.
It is definitely a whole new game to explore. I’ll never be ‘good’ at it. I never want to be good at it. I find it refreshing though to know it is familiar, yet different when I do want to take the time to learn all the bits and pieces again.
Also, I’d love to see combat like in CK3 implemented in a future EU game. You’d have generals take the place of knights/champions etc, but then have a professional army built with culture specific units, and a tug of war style combat resolution alongside some sort of generic militia style unit.
Pretty much always give the points interactions.
Also burghers have a burgher loans one which is 5 1% loans and is super powerful to open with, and you can always pay off and re grant privelage for bigger loans as you grow. Great for hiring mercs in early game.
Also note that AI was significantly improved over time. It’s more noticeable in endgame, you’ll face some big and developed countries in the Age of Revolutions, but in early game too AI is more aware of importance of alliances.
Thanks I am going to give this a go. For some reason I love playing in Africa.
I just tried Mali with the new mission trees and it is HARD. I completely borked the start and ended up in a death spiral and being ganged up on the weakling nations around me. It has been awhile since I played, but the game has definitely become more challenging over time in many cases.
Yep. My estate play generally:
+1 mana points always
Reduce advisor cost until I’m rich
1% loans as needed
Seize land regular
Summon Diet regular
Then everything else as needed
Kilwa is a lot more forgiving in that regard since almost everyone around you is weaker than you are and you’re set up with good trade income from the start. You can still run into issues - I tried to start colonising South America and Spain attacked me over a single provice and it set me back a while. After that I stopped worrying about the Americas and just focused on the spice islands and had enough big allies that the colonisers left me alone.
I ended up getting about 8-9 acheivements without even trying by about 1700.
New DLC launched today. Considering it’s just a regional focus DLC I’m awfully surprised to see it at an expansion price of $15. The government reforms rework in the base game is what I’m really interested in for this update so I think I’ll hold off on buying the DLC until it goes on sale at some point.
They’ve upped their prices quite a bit across the board it seems like. I think it’s a mistake, but it’s not like I have any business acumen or know what their internal figures look like.
And yet this is the first DLC in quite awhile that has good initial steam reviews!
I would have liked more content, but the mission tree changes are excellent, and the rest of the patch is pretty awesome as well.
Maybe a higher asking price filters out the dirty casuals. Time to find a vein.
Accurate retelling of me playing Lions of the North…
15 minutes in: it’s the same old EU4. I will just poke around the mission tree for Sweden and then load up Warhammer 3.
4 hours later: Argh I don’t want to quit so soon this war with Muscovy is getting really interesting.
Day 5 of my experience having Lions of the North in my Steam library when I free time to play something.
Brain: We have been waiting a very long time for Immortal Empires in Warhammer 3, there are sooooo many legendary lords to play. This EU4 expansion didn’t add anything huge, it’s the same game we’ve played many hundreds of hours in the past. Open Warhammer 3 now.
EUIV intro music starts
I finally got through the worst of purchasing a fixer upper house and decided to do a True Heir of Timur campaign.
It had been a while since I played and I gotta say, what a challenge. I nearly restarted when I got an 11 year regency around 1500. I pushed through and got real close without any truce breaks or abusing guarantees and such. But at the end of the day I wound up having to go all in on destabilization to get over the edge. Wound up needing 1 province from Bengal, 3 from Bahmanis, and about 10 from Vijaynagar. Unfortunately my last normal war had truce timers that went to 1554. Had I 5 more years I could have done normally. Ah well.
I did some things really well. And I had a few mistakes that made it difficult. It really is a very aggressive goal that pushes disaster at many turns. Really getting Delhi as fast as possible is important. The Mughals can avoid the regency issues. Not having that 10 year no war timer would really have helped. Instead I had pushed both east and west, building the Transoxiana mission tree. The idea take all the Timurid lands before forming Mughals and not lose out on those free claims and cores, and use that to power my push into India. It largely worked, I completed both the mission tree and Mughal forming about 1502. However the Mughal government regency can declare war, which really struck me. Plus you really need to push down the mission tree for Mughals fast, Vijay is the largest Indian state and the furthest from you. The one you get claims on last as well. If you don’t get to them early (I started pulling Orissa and Andhra cores by 1510 and it was just barely too late even using allies to reset and shorten truce timers) you’ll really need truce break shenanigans.
Malwa was a bottleneck as well. Big central Indian state which gates a lot of the middle of the Mughal mission tree. Janipur was just a lot to take, and took multiple wars to knock out as well. My strategy of snaking them to take Orissa cores and using their cores to beat on Vijay, Bengal, and Janipur was a good one though.
Return core CB is critical. Finding the right tag with lots of cores that you can either vassalize or release? Big help. I used Orissa, Andhra, Madurai, Mewar, Punjab, Mysore, and several Nepali area vassals extensively. It definitely helped. You need max provinces, and it is one of the best CBs for that in the early game.
Anyhow that was a fun campaign. I may continue it to get some other achievements, we’ll see.
I’ve been playing that region as well, and having a ball. I had two back to back Bengal runs. One I made an ill-conceived decision to convert to Hinduism. The other i stuck with Islam.
Bengal mission is tree for how many perma claims it gives you in every direction!
Yeah. One mission tree failure on my end was not realizing that at the end of the Mughal mission tree is a mission which gives perma claims on all the areas that the Timurid/ Timmy vassal mission tree gives as well. Its at the very end, after the Deccan missions. So you lose nothing by ignoring those and just going hard for India.
That said the weak post independance Timmies are lots of juicy prime Persian cores, which can really help when you finally go for Delhi/ Janipur.
Was there any specific Bengal achievement you were going for?
Nope - i’m not an achievement player. I mostly just enjoy the pressure/puzzle of the early game, and then peter out in the 1700s when I’m just max annexing everyone and painting the map.
Fair enough! I like the achievements because there are a fair number that encourage playing in ways or as countries I otherwise wouldn’t. Like this one.
The more insane or specific, the better.
EU4 has so much stuff in it that AI tweaking and some new government reforms sound like very exciting things making the whole game better.