You hired your advisors from the arabian peninsula?
The main thing about policies is the flavor they provide; they’re the result of the myriad combinations of idea groups.
The real problem with Ideas and Policies (imo) is that generally i seem to only have enough Mil points for one idea group, at best, since investing everything into military tech to keep up with the jones is absolutely essential as a militant, non-western power. And of course Ideas and Infrastructure are direct competitors.
I kinda chuckled at the part with the Russian Tartar King Ivan von Wittelsbach…
rezaf
Eh, the last tsarina was German. Russian royalty found spouses outside its borders fairly often, and Germans were the most common.
Yeah, all Muslim advisers as I attacked the heart of the Ottoman Empire! For some twisted reason I found it ironic and particularly funny as I attacked them I managed to hire some traitors! The von Wittelsbach thing as a bit unusual as well if I’m correct that’s Ansbach’s/Bavaria’s in game line.
I think I love the new changes now mostly. I would say EU4 hard difficulty on 1.5 is basically equal to 1.6.1 normal now however. The rebels can still be a tad ridiculous at times. If you could at least wear them down through attrition it’d fix things. I like most of the new balance changes especially. For instance Moscovy/Russia is now focused more on Europe and conquest instead of getting super strong easily colonizing a way too rich Siberia (most provinces in Siberia went from base tax 1-4 to all base tax 1 I think). The Ottomans also seem nerfed but I need to try them out to say for certain. Overall it’s a lot harder to expand and the AI is much improved. Now that the rebels are reasonable (1.6.1) it doesn’t feel unfair either.
My recent Hansa game with friends was quite fun and on going. Merchant Republics can definitely make a bigger impact on the game. I was making much more money than in 1.5 I feel. Extra naval FL from merchants is very nice. I also love the slower colonizing rates and managed to still get a Caribbean colony in 1550 as Hansa. Exploration was my third idea group. Typically in 1.5 you’d have to go Exploration ideas first or second to have any chance at a Caribbean colony. Privateers are also a riot and seem like a great mechanic. My friend was playing Kurland and put a bunch of pirates into Lubeck. Shortly thereafter Sweden’s fleet sunk most of them. Also a big fan of the new trade wars and boosted conversion to Protestant. It’s still hard due to stronger rebels but it feels better. It took me a bit to adjust and get comfortable but I feel this version of EU4 is the best so far.
Is there a way to see all the army / navy units that you currently own?
Also, should I set national rivals right away or just leave that for some other time?
Use the little overview window near the top right of your screen. It will list all land and sea units.
So I was playing as spain last night because it is supposed to be newbie friendly. Anyway I am allied with portugal and England (which I think was a mistake since they sucked me into a war far from me). I have this mission to take Granada. I have a truce with them which is shown on my notifications and just before this truce expires, Portugal declares war on Morocco. So the war goes on and I “conquered” Granada. Then Portugal ends the war with Granada and I get a single province.
At this point everything is fine and I have a stability of 1. I have this casebelle thing still against Granada. I see that I have a truce with them, but for the life of me, I can not find out when it expires. I look all over the diplomacy screen and click on Granada and can’t find a thing about it other than I have a truce. So I declare war because they have no army. I retake the remaining provinces, but my war score only goes to 22%. Then I notice my stability is -3 and I am bleeding money.
What happened? If I had to guess that breaking a truce cause this effect or was it something else. I also could not see the cause for the stability of -3.
Breaking a truce sets you back FIVE points in stability…
rezaf
My top three recommendations to get the hang of EU4 are: tooltips, tooltips, and tooltips. They will tell you everything you need to know. You don’t have to go to a diplomacy screen to see when your truce with Granada ends, you just hover over the truce icon and the tooltip will tell you. When you go to declare war, it will tell you all the effects of that action (including the stability hit for breaking a truce).
Paradox has done a much better job in this iteration making sure information is more readily available instead of having to go digging/hunting for it. When in doubt, hover your mouse over it and you’re likely to get the info you need.
England isn’t typically a strong ally early on as they have various issues to deal with (War of Roses, 0/0/0 King, HYW, etc). There’s at least three places I can think of where you can find truce’s listed. The provinces of any nation (lower left window), diplomatic window of any nation and usually there’s a flag among the row of notification flags that tell important stuff near the upper right. I’m not sure what happened for sure as EU4 generally warns you if you are about to break a truce when you declare war. Negative three stability is definitely bad for the economy but it shouldn’t be making you bleed money. Are you over your force limit on navy or army? That is very expensive as is reinforcing armies not at full strength. You can also lower maintenance of army/navy during peace (though trade ships make more money with full maintenance). Breaking truces does seem a common new player mistake however and the game should probably warn you a bit more. AFAIK all truces last 5 years. If you can only get your war score to 22% then that means you haven’t occupied all of Granada’s provinces. Perhaps they control another province and you don’t realize it? Another possibility is Granada is not war lead and the war lead jumped to a stronger 3rd party nation who is defending Granada. This wiki is quite in depth www.eu4wiki.com if you are looking for info. Pressing f let’s you search for nations, provinces, etc and is very useful too. EU4 is a steep learning curve but the complexity has reasons to exist and the game is logical.
I saw the truce icon and I thought I hovered over it and didn’t see any info. I was also looking for a diplomatic overview that would show my diplomatic relations, ie: I have a truce with Grenada and it lasts another 5 years and I am allied with Portugal and at war with X, Y and Z.
Ill restart tonight. I only played for a few years. I think the war score limit was because there were a lot of other involved with the war. Do allys typically help you when you declare war?
I think I was bleeding money because my base income was like 11 per month. Then I hired 2 advisors for 4g / month each, then expanded my army a bit and was making like 2g or so a month. That was at stability +1. Then when I went to -3, even a small hit bringing me to like -2 or 3 a month really hurts.
Anyway, any advice on rivals on when to take them and what I should look for in a rival? I notice it limits your selection quite a bit. I would guess picking a rival for a country you know you are going to war with at some point is a good idea.
When you declare war, it will tell you which allies are willing to enter the war with you. That should give you an idea of who is willing to help, but if they’re on the opposite end of the continent it might be difficult for them to project force.
I can’t comment on the Rivals as that is a system that has changed with this expansion and I haven’t had a chance to give it a go yet.
Well as a new player I think France is a much better choice than Castile myself. Even though Castile is stronger now in the new patch they aren’t nearly as strong as France. Rivals are nations you want to fight mainly but you could also pick one or two rivals which are far away to be safer then have one you concentrate on. Conquering provinces from rivals grants a lot of power projection. At the beginning of the game try to stick to +1 advisors, +2 or +3 are usually not worth it and too expensive unless you are Ming. There’s no shame in using easy with player bonuses until you learn the game better.
What is power projection? Did they rename prestige points?
You should almost never break a truce. They game should warn you if you are about to break one. It does come with a massive -5 hit to stability, which not only directly lowers tax revenue, but it raises revolt chances which indirectly lowers tax revenue. So, yes, breaking the truce is your current cause for concern. Truces expire automatically after a set amount of years, though I cannot recall off the top of my head how many. 5 or 10, most likely. As for the low Warscore, is Granada fighting in this war with anyone else? If so, the small nation (Granada) may have led a bigger ally become the War Leader. Which means you have to negotiate with them to get any new provinces in a peace. However, the War leader won’t care if you took over the smaller country if their armies and territories are untouched. Eventually, by holding your war goal the war score will continue to tick in your favor and depending on how the game values the provinces at that moment, you can negotiate for them.
You played a game without learning it. Duh.
-Tom
New mechanic. It’s tied to the rival system mainly. If you fight or do things against your rivals you can gain power projection (PP). It goes from 0 to 100. At +25 you get an extra leader, at +50 you get +1 in all monarch points among other bonuses. You can gain +30 with just setting three rivals and waiting long enough but it won’t go higher than that. It’s similar to prestige in a way but directed at rivals. It does seem a bit wonky. For instance as Russia I was fighting two rivals and got almost no PP out of it because the war was on another nation then the alliance chain jumped to another war lead. So I ended up killing 200k rival troops and not seeing PP as a result. Big WTF moment there for me.
Interesting new mechanic that obviously needs some tuning. Thanks for the write-up on it, pg. I haven’t bought either EU4 expansion but plan to revisit the game someday.
Unless he played the Tutorial to learn the game which is terribly lite. I am glad most of my experience with EU 3 transfers because I can’t imagine how anyone can learn with that tutorial.