i don't understand how to play this shit. at all. is CK2 easier? should i learn how to play another paradox game before EU4? i know it's world's apart, but i'm coming from the total war franchise (particularly empire). thanks in advance.
>>321563345
>eu4
>hard
>>321563345
I came from Civ 4 and 5 and Endless Legend into CK2, and I still have no idea how to play, even after 5 hours and the tutorial.
>>321563434
gr8 post, i'm a scrub, etc etc. but really m. night famalyn.
>>321563345
CK2 is 100x harder.
Eu4 is the easiest paradox game.
>>321563345
I am just learning this game as well
heres some beginners tips:
dont hire advisors unless you need them, theyre very expensive
mothball your forts when you can
always have casus belli before going to war. you can use a diplomat to 'fabricate claim' on a neighboring province if you want an easy casus belli
having a general is important
increasing your land force limit is important
dont expect to conquer an entire country in one war like in empireTW
>EU4 the easiest game to get into
might aswell give up now.
just loook up some tutorials on youtube
>>321563345
What are you having trouble with?
>>321563434
fucking this
git gud OP
>>321563838
the interface is overwhelming. i'm not sure what anything does. i'm not sure what the "end goal" is. any sort of direction would be nice. i am aware of starting as portugal or castille. and i'm pretty sure starting as castille, i need to form spain? other than that, i have no fucking clue what's going on.
>>321563734
Daily reminder to vasallize countries in the HRE first
>>321563973
There is no actual goal you can do whatever you want.
You can also just play 400 years doing nothing
>>321563345
Here are the most important things
1) Monarch Points (im going to use mana points or just mana for short)
-you have three categories of mana, administrative, diplomatic, and military. admin is mostly national state-related, economic stuff. diplomatic is usually for your navy and relations with other nations and trade. military is for your armies and army development.
-what you do with mana points is usually upgrade your tech levels. because you're new you should focus on keeping your tech high. You also use mana for other more minor things like developing provinces, manually reducing inflation and war exhaustion, and hiring generals/admirals for your armies/fleets.
-how much mana you get per month is your base amount plus the amount based on your leader and advisors. advisors can get you up to 3 extra mana points for a particular category, but it is expensive. your leader's stats are how many mana points. for example, a 0/3/6 leader will give no extra admin points, 3 extra diplo points, and 6 extra military points per month. your base amount is always 3 points per category. your leader can have up to 6 points for each category. so, taking our example leader from before, he has garbage admin production, meh diplo, and absolutely awesome military.
-you don't need to worry about developing provinces if you're playing as one of the big boys like spain or france or kebab so play those first and get the feel for the game
>>321564191
so there is no sort of "winning?"
>>321564241
There's achievements that require some pretty extraordinarily well planned strategy, but no, no end-goal.
>>321563641
wut? I found CK much easier. You don't have to care about trade, development, inventions or bonuses so much and your alliances are not so much limited. (Or maybe it is because I'm interested in middle ages more than in early modern Europe).
>>321564223
2) Diplomacy
-you can have up to 4 (which is the base) diplomatic relations with other countries. Any more and it costs you diplo points per month.
-you can do many things but your primary concerns are fabricating claims (under the covert tab), improve relations (under relations), and alliances/royal marriages (alliance is the first option and royal marriages are under the dynastic actions tab)
improving relations makes the target nation more open to what you want if they don't outright hate you. if you're playing as castille, you may want to ally france who is a powerful faction and useful to have on your good side. first you will dedicate a diplomat to improving relations with him, then secure a royal marriage, then ally.
-you only have a limited number of diplomats (usually 2 or 3) to perform actions. they take time to travel to and from countries. for example, if you dedicate a diplomat to improving relations with france he will be unavailable until you call him back from improving relations.
-fabricating claims will be your primary reason to go to war. it only works on provinces adjacent to yours, and provinces directly accessable by one sea tile. for example, castille starts out with granada to their south. open the diplomacy tab, go down to fabricate claim, then dedicate a diplomat to fabricating a claim on any of granada's provinces. once it's done, you get something called a casus belli on granada which allows you to declare war without penalties. (more later)
>>321563973
If you're playing as Castille don't attack Aragon without strong allies because Aragon has a two star general and they will fuck Castille up
play as albania
>>321564781
Don't
>>321564662
3) War
-declaring war is different in paradox games than others, you need a casus belli, or a reason to declare it. otherwise you take a bunch of debuffs that will negatively affect your country and relations with other countries.
-fabricating a claim creates a conquest casus belli. going back to the previous example, say you've made a claim on a province of granada. You may now declare war, but you can also check what allies you and granada can bring to the fight.
-terrain will affect your battles. crossing rivers, fighting in mountains, woods, marshes, and hills will have debuffs for the attacker during fights. defenders want to try and make a stand in mountains that are across rivers. try to outmaneuver your enemy, but if you have overwhelming numbers in the case of castille versus granada you can just walk in and stomp them.
-provinces with fortresses take time to siege and capture. they also have passive reclamation on adjacent provinces. If you capture and occupy a province near a fort the fort will passively reconquer it unless you're sieging it. forts also block access to tiles behind them, forcing you to go around or siege it out.
-every thirty or so days you siege a fort a dice is rolled and the chance that you capture it will change. usually you will start out at -42% or -35% and that's fine, the fort will not surrender but in time it will tick up to the positive percentages. You will take attrition during this time so be mindful of your manpower.
-manpower is the amount of men ready to be drafted into your army. once it hits zero, your armies stop replenishing and you cannot draft further armies. at this point you will be forced to hire mercenaries, but mercenaries are expensive. try not to lose too many big battles.
-as the war goes on you rack up war exhaustion from attrition, enemies occupying your provinces, or ships blockading your ports. this will affect your stability.
CK2 is significantly easier, yes. Or at least was up until the point I stopped playing and picked up EUIV.
But truth be told, EUIV is not HARD, you just need to invest the necessary time in it for the game mechanics to "click" in your head.
>>321564223
>>321564662
>>321565341
thank you, comrade. i appreciate you taking the time to type that up for me.
>>321565341
3 continued)
-at the bottom of the screen you'll see a symbol marking the war and it's status. that's what the game believes to be how the war is going relative to you. If the number is negative, you're losing. Usually there is a goal to the war, in the example of castille vs granada, you've got a war goal to take x province and occupy it. that gives you a ticking warscore that increases your warscore over time in your favor until you lose x province back to granadan troops.
-war score is a system of points dedicated to telling you how badly you've won/lost and what you can take from it. when you click on the symbol showing your war at the bottom, you'll pull up a screen showing whos in the fight and the status. on the top right is the peace button where you can sue for peace. from there you can demand gold, provinces, make them become your vassals, etc and vice versa if you're getting your ass shit on but want peace on your terms. demand what you want, but if the bottom right has a big red x they won't accept. raising your warscore increases the number of demands you can make that they'll give in to.
DO NOT FALL BEHIND IN MILITARY TECH
DO NOT WASTE MILITARY TECH DEVELOPING PROVINCES YOU DONT NEED TO
IF YOU FALL BEHIND IN MILITARY TECH YOU WILL LOSE EVERY WAR AND BATTLE IN A HUMILIATING FASHION AND YOU WILL CRY LIKE A BITCH.
It's not that hard
I watched some videos and played a lot. I also got wrecked a lot but i learned out of my mistakes and improved
>>321563434
It's not hard but it's not very intuitive, which is the problem 99% of all beginners have with it.
>>321563345
play the in game tutorial and watch some beginner tutorial videos on youtube
>>321564626
It probably has to do with interest.
I can play all of HOI3 perfectly but I couldn't play ck2 to save my life.
New patch nerfed playing Brandenburg so hard. Now how am I supposed to form Prussia?
>>321565770
4) stability
-you need to keep your people happy if you don't want revolts and rebellions out your ass
-your stability is a number on the top bar that will usually be zero at the start. It can go as high as 3 and low as -3 you want it to be zero or higher, if its below -1 your first priority is to get it back up to 0. You can manually boost stability through pouring admin points. (usually 100) to increase it.
-war exhaustion is something that happens over time in a war, as it gets higher the costs of paying for troops, lowering stability, etc are really high. you can lower this by giving up diplo points (usually 75).
-unrest a number saying how unhappy your people are in general, negative is good positive is bad.
-unrest in your stability tab is different from unrest in individual provinces, 90% of your provinces can be happy but one province cans till revolt because people hate you there.
example: you've beaten granda as castille and annexed all their lands. Their people won't like that shit. they will be unhappy with you and will revolt if you don't do anything. because you're catholic and they're muslim they will hate you even more. you will likely need to deal with rebellions. You can delay rebellions by giving them autonomy (clicking on the province and pressing the + button on the left side) to decrease unrest by 10, but that may not be enough.
example: as castille your primary culture is castillan, with other sub-cultures that your primary culture accepts. say you go and take a province from portugal. portuguese isn't a culture castille is familiar with, and thus will give you more unrest upon conquering and less tax money because those people don't recognize you as their ruler.
-to circumvent this you can conquer so many portuguese provinces they become a major part of your country and castille recognizes portuguese as an accepted culture OR you can convert them to castillan or another culture (costs diplo points), this will take more time.
EU4 is really easy unless you want to actually blob then you have to be super exploitive which is game breaking and dumb.
CK2 is marginally more difficult but it was the first easy paradox title.
>>321566615
play the teutonic order, make austria love you, join the HRE. bide your time and eventually form prussia.
>>321566631
You now know the barebones of what you need to play the game as a big easy nation like castille. go play castille, and experiment around. you will fail, but as you get used to the game you will understand it more and it might even be fun for you.
>>321564241
The Winning part of the game comes from achieving any goals you might have yourself, usually taking a country you like and turning it into a great power. Or subverting history in ways.
For example, if you have a huge, throbbing boner for Swedish history you can take rickety, brittle Sweden and turn it into a major european power by conquering the Baltic and breaking the backs of the Russians and the Polish, creating vassal states to govern said regions in your name [or govern them yourself if you don't mind the border gore]. Or you also could, for example, take the Portuguese Colonial Empire that collapsed in real life and was eclipsed by Spain and Britain and turn it into the foremost colonial power of the era.
It's a very "make your own goals" kind of game.
>>321563345
Step 1:
Watch these 3 videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGH-Sc1EfdI
Step 2: Play the in-game tutorial
Step 3: Start a game as the Ottomans and just mess around. Don't be afraid of making mistakes.
I will never understand how ANYONE can think Paradox grand strats is in any way hard. Okay, maybe victoria and HoI 3, but those aside, none of the grand strat games are difficult to learn or play. I'm a complete retard and i can play these games just fine, so does every other normie i know.
It doesn't help that the grand strat fanbase is full of smug "intellectuals" who think themselves genius level tier for playing these games. Like Dwarf fortress fanbase, just much more arrogant
>>321566916
Teutonic Order is just bad. As Brandenburg you have a chance to PU Bohemia. Used to be so much easier to carve up Teutonic Order as Brandenburg as you could vassalize Ahnlalt, Luneburg, and that order province bordering the hanseatic league at the start.
>>321566972
>played EU4 wanting to restore the Byzantine Empire
>finally do it
best feeling
EU4 has nothing left to offer me now
>>321567178
The learning curve is brutal, as is Dwarf Fortress', but the game itself is fairly easy to do well in.
Basically it's scaling a cliff that then leads into a pleasant horizon of rolling green hills, rather than scaling a cliff and falling straight into a volcano. Either way, the cliff will give you problems, but after you're done with it, you don't worry about it anymore.
>>321567420
I don't know what they did to Brandenburg but there's no way it's any worse than the Teutonic Order. Being surrounded by 4 or 5 states which are all much more powerful than you and all want to eat your flesh makes for an incredibly frustrating game, unless you take the easy way out and join the HRE
>>321563345
my only advice is don't try to "win"
either set yourself a goal eg. take all of Spain etc. or just do stupid shit to make the most fucked up family story imaginable.
>>321563345
HOSTING A KEBAB REMOVAL GAME WITH THE INTENT OF COMPLETELY REMOVING ISLAM FROM THE MAP BY GAME END
Game name is 'KEBAB REMOVAL 1444'
>tfw wrecking all those small countries with Palatinate when Burgundy is supporting me.
Burgundy annexed France almost completely
>>321563973
>i am aware of starting as portugal
t. alberto barbosa
>>321568045
>tfw dinner on the stove
wish I could join lad sorry
I love the naming mechanic
>>321568381
oh
>>321568474
oh
>>321568474
Everytime. every fucking time when this event occurs my heir dies
crusader kings 2 is easier to start with because of Ireland. watch a tutorial video on youtube (arumba has a decent one) and then start in 1066 with either the petty kingdom of mumu or the county of dubhlinn in Ireland and try to form the Kingdom of Eire. from that point on you'll be gucci
Vicky 2 is probably the easiest imo
The economic shit looks complicated until you realise that 95% of it is automatic anyway
ragusa is so fucking easy now that they start off with the ottomans guaranteeing their independence
>>321563345
. I've been trying for the Swden is not OP achievement, but I always end up failing when the commonwealth gets mad at me. Tips?
Another question. Is it even possible to lose as castile? You get handed aragon for free, and your ideas are insane for colonizing.
>>321567558
>Drove the turks out of the Balkans
>Implying you're done yet
Same here. I bought this and CK2 because i'm a big Civ 5 fan. I played a couple hours each and never touched them again. Civ has spoiled me into thinking all strategy games were that simple to learn.
>>321569831
>Is it even possible to lose as castile
I think u forgot about Blue Blob my friend :^)
>>321570431
And yet funnily enough, I like to think I'm fairly competent at EUIV, and yet Civ V just makes me crash and burn. I simply cannot play on a higher difficulty than Warlord, I simply cannot wrap my head around the numbers involved and the concept that maybe you're NOT supposed to lead on all areas of gameplay at once in your average game, so I just play on Settler/Chieftain [whatever the second difficulty level is] and destroy everything.
>>321563345
>attack some country
>wait a few years
>attack it again or attack some other country
That's how to play EU4.
>not playing the best game
Lad
>>321570848
Yeah, you're just clicking buttons, come on, it's 2015 people.
>>321567558
>Not taking back the eternal city and burning Venice to the ground
>>321571096
Vicky 2 isn't even a game it's a simulator. You just sit there and stare at charts, fuck that.
>>321571602
Like every grand strategy game?
>>321571727
Yes.
>>321567558
Hahaha dude, what?
Restoring the Roman Empire doesn't end with Greece. Justinian would like to have some words with you.
>>321571096
>yfw Wiz is "fixing" Vicky 2 after years
>>321571096
Vicky 2 intrigues me a lot. I keep wanting to break into it and learn how to play, but I never quite manage to do it.
From what I've seen, I'm very interested in the possibility of being a major world power with little to no blobbing, which I think is possible in there unless my understanding of the game is mistaken.
Which, considering the throbbing erection that /gsg/ has for it, is very much a possibility.
>>321572046
What is there to learn? Set your tax rates and occasionally choose what tech to research. Wait 100 years of game time. That's pretty much it.
Is there an alien cheat in the recent paradox games? I remember greatly enjoying Hoi2 with alien invasion cheat.
>>321572692
There are zombie mods
>>321572692
I don't quite know what the alien invasion you're referring to was, but there's bearhaslanded.
>>321571297
>>321570135
>>321571974
cossacks corrupted my file shortly after this
>>321568747
despite the memes, Vicky II isn't much harder than EU4, but its lot less intuitive with a significantly worse UI. Once you learn it though, its pretty easy, especially considering how retarded the AI is
>>321572948
Alien invasion cheat in HoI 2 that caused aliens to appear with massive doomstacks. Didn't know about bears. Are there other joke nations across the games?
>>321573234
well have fun, they've nerfed the most byzie start strategies
still possible though
>>321574052
well CK2 has this cheat code where suddenly doomstacks of super advanced azteks appear to rape europe
>>321574052
>that caused aliens to appear with massive doomstacks.
Sounds like EUIV has something similar then, bearhaslanded causes the nation of Jan Mayen to spawn somewhere in the map, and it comes with hideous bonuses to basically every single stat and a desire to conquer everything.
>>321563345
It might look complicated for a beginner, but once you get used to it you'll realise how simple and easy it is.
>>321563345
The easiest way to learn grand strategy games is by playing them. A good country to start with in EU4 is Castile. They are in the perfect position to colonize and expand in to Africa. Playing Castile will teach you most of the mechanics you'll need to know. The most important thing is if you feel that something isn't working for you, figure out why. If you lose battles, check your morale, disciple, leaders, etc. If you are losing money, check the economics tab and figure it out. If everyone hates you, check your aggressive expansion.
All the information you could ever possibly want is available to you, you just need to use it. Even information about other countries is available in the ledger. You can see the exact amount of troops and manpower a country has so if you are unsure if you can win, check the ledge. The hardest part of EU4 and other grand strategies is learning to use the information available to you.
>>321575303
To add to this, the AI always has all this information available as well, so don't over extend yourself. If you are running low on troops or manpower, a neighboring country WILL come and wreck your anus.
>>321571727
>>321571602
you obviously never played literal spreadsheet simulator
>>321574251
That's not a cheat code, that's a legitimate expansion
>>321575952
there is nothing legitimate about that fantasy scenario
Fuck off with this shitty ass game you better throw your PC in the dumpster OP for even thinking about clicking that little gay as motherfucking icon holy shit how autistic can you be
EUIV has got to be the shittest piece of crap that has ever existed, worse then Battlefront, worse then Dungeon Keeper Mobile and even worse then Star Wars Fucking Kinect. Its a irredeemable piece of dog crap and I would rather hang myself then spend a single minute of my life playing in that swedish culture wank of a 'game'.
Kill yourself you worthless homosexual degenerate
>>321572692
>>321574272
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11tCIxGvr3s
It starts in England in this one. When you use it, it plops them down on a random location.
I found HoI3 and CK2 way easier to play than this.
>>321576114
Hello /gsg/, I hope the day finds you well today.
>>321566615
>forming prussia as brandenburg instead of teutonic order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSlGdnbIUw8
Eu4 is confusing as fuck but after one playthrough you'll understand everything.
vicky 2 however, i am not even deigned to attempt a palythrough
>>321567558
>tfw finally got the Basileus achievement
>>321567558
>Be a fucking worthless scumbag
>Better known as a developer for Paradox Interactive
>Be told to write some events for a Byzantine-focused DLC for EUIV
>Umm, like, maybe some events where you reconquer the old lands?
>Yeah yeah, so lets write this masterful event. If you are byzantium and control a lot of provinces you get 50 in each mana point!
>Also, lets write a whole two sentences for flavor! ( Keep in mind for Japan some of theirs are like 3 paragraphs )
>Dont even bother adding a "Restore the Roman Empire" decision
>Dont even bother to add a "Mend the Schism" event
>Dont even bother to add a "Restore the Hellenic Faith" fantasy decision when you bother to add Norse as a fantasy religion
>Dont even fucking bother to port over events from the massive CK2 Rome DLC
This DLC is pure cancer, "Purple Phoenix" my ASS
>>321571096
>Go full capitalisms
>Get all taxes down to 1%, most of the poor can afford luxury goods
>Continual socialist/communist uprisings even though the poor in my country are as rich as the middle and upper classes of most other countries
Fucking gomunists.
>>321566972
>>321564241
That is, until Paradox added 'Victory cards' which arbitrairly set win states for you to accomplish that are often far from what you actually want to do in the game
>>321577195
>Mend the Schism
It exists.
>Restore the Hellenic Faith
Do you have any clue how fucking retarded this would be? The Hellenic Faith is dead and fucking gone by the time EU4 or even CK2 happens.
>>321577195
This is a trend that reflects a problem with the game as a whole, and a point where I really wish EUIV would take a page from CKII's book.
In CKII, enacting a major decision or forming a major country, or completeing a major conquest is cause for celebration. You get the complete experience, full with extensive flavour events, when you do things such as restore the various imperial provinces, or restore the Shaoshyant, or things like that.
Europa Universalis as a whole has barely any flavor events regarding the achievements either of your nations or of neighboring ones, and it's a lesser game for that.
Granted though, it's something that's fairly easy to mod, so I should probably go and do it myself.Now to learn coding.
>>321577409
That's a multiplayer-only feature with basically zero bearing in single-player? Apart from maybe influencing your score?
And who cares about score, anyway. It's a completely detached concept from the rest of the game.
>>321574094
Strats? I've been wanting to do a run with it, but I can't figure out how to get past that initial sheer buttfuck of a starting position.
>>321566972
Sweden literally did this themselves though. How is this an alternate history?
>>321577693
It was extremely short-lived
>tfw trying to beat england as scotland
those first few decades are hard as shit
>>321577689
you can't galleyspam anymore because to block armies from passing a strait you need to control at least one side, that means the ottocucks can access the balkans through edirne if you haven't controlled it.
you basically need to abuse hungary's fuckawesome general instead of poland
>>321577307
>not taxing everyone into the ground to fund your Grand fleet and BTFO Great Britain
>>321577904
you got any strats? allying france gets you bumfuck nowhere unless they somehow bait the english army onto the mainland where you can take fucking everything for free
>>321577627
>It exists
Just as a mission I believe?
>>321579654
Yes. I do think it would be better off as a decision than a mission, but it does exist.
>>321577689
i only got it to work by allying with austria. poland kept getting fucked up
>>321577689
I think the strat for the latest patch is to use your MP to improve your two non-Constantinople provinces, build as many troops as you can afford and ally with Hungary. Wait for the Ottomans to attack you, and keep your troops in mountainous terrain so that if they do attack they will take heavy losses. Hungary has an excellent general that will help secure your victory.
>>321579610
Scotland is pretty easy.
Ally Denmark/Sweden/Castile/whoever has England rivalled, wait until Engerlund either attacks France/Burgundy or is attacked by them, give the way a year for them to transfer their armies to the mainland, and invade. Once you win the first war and take the first 5-6 provinces, it's a downhill fight to form a Scottish GB from there.
>>321577689
Galley start is gone until after the 1st war because of the changes to strait crossing
Ally favour also means you can't just ally Austria, Hungary and Poland and immediately go to town on the Ottomans
I found the most consistent strategy was
1) Release Morea and Achae as vassals, turn them an Athens into Marches. They can support a lot more troops than they would provide you with as provinces.
2) Move your army to Southern Greece, train a few more units so you've got 10-11 regiments (giving you 19-20 with vassal stack)
3) Ally Wallachia and Hungary
4) When you go to war, make sure you use the attach button and keep your army safe in the mountains. Hungary should hopefully siege down Selanik and then Ederine, which you need for warscore and to allow troop access. If the Hungarians get attacked, reinforce them and you should win due to terrain modifiers and Hungary's 2 star general. Do everything you can short of attacking the Ottos to stop them siege Constantinople.
5) Set Military points as national focus right at the beginning. Use the estate system and hire a military advisory once the war begins. You desperately want to get to Mil tech 4 before the Ottomans
that should be enough. Play it safe and don't get greedy in the first war.Take back your cores and, if possible, a strip of land to connect with Serbia so you can steal their gold mine. During the peace you should attack Serbia if its viable and focus on unfucking your loans, rebuilding your army and galley spamming to block the straits in the next war
>>321566997
except for the fact that video is old as fuck
EU3 vs EU4, which is better? I'm a long time player of EU3 but I don't like what I've heard about EU4. Can you make large trade empires in 4 like you can in 3?
>>321580529
yes
>>321580529
I have over 1000 hours in both and I think EU4 is better. EU3 has some really tedious mechanics like having to constantly send missionaries/colonists/diplomats etc. EU4 is certainly not without flaws, but it is the overall better game.
>Can you make large trade empires in 4 like you can in 3?
Yes, building trade empires is extremely satisfying in 4.
>>321577689
Just did it yesterday.
Easiest method to beat Ottomans is hope they rival Either Austria, Hungary or both. In my case it was both, so about a year into the first Ottoman-Mamluk war i declared and brought in 50k austro-hungarian troops, and no Ottoman allies joined but even if they did it'd be a cakewalk.
Make sure you take Edirne ASAP and then block the straight, and you can wait for your ally armies to mass across the strait of Marmara and wreck house, taking every single one of your cores, plus Biga and Kocaeli/Optimatoi, and setting yourself up to take the Bulgarian provinces in a second war.
>>321580529
If EUIV isn't yet better than EUIII, it'll be. It's just a matter of time, due to the fact that one of the two is actively supported and updated, and the other is not. Truth be told, if they fixed the problem with the monarch points anti-synergy and diplo point cancer in IV, I would have had no reservations in saying that it has already surpassed III. It just has far more expanded systems, in practically every aspect with a couple exceptions. As it stands, however, I can understand why people would have reservations, despite me still thinking IV is the better game.
>>321563345
If you can't play EU4 then you need to quickly commit sudoku.
RIGHT NOW.
>>321580883
>monarch points anti-synergy
>diplo point cancer
Can you explain what you mean by these?
>>321577195
>add Norse as a fantasy religion
t. Olav den hellige
>>321581185
>monarch points anti-synergy
As it currently works, the game's tech system stands on two basic pillars, the tech trees, and the idea groups. Both are activated through the use of their specific monarch points, so that, as you climb the admin tech line you progressively unlock slots for more idea groups, that allow you to specify what areas you want your nation to excel in.
The problem is, since both the tech tree and the idea groups draw from the same source of monarch points, it's easy to run into a situation where, as you progress on the idea group, you actually fall behind in that tech category, making it so, for example, as you progress on the Quality idea group to make your armies have higher combat ability, you actually fall behind in military tech, causing your armies to suck until you catch up on tech again again.
[cont]
>>321581826
>diplo point cancer
People tend to refer to monarch points as "mana", and say they make no sense in their implementation, but the only one who truly makes no sense is the Diplomatic Monarch Points. While Administrative seems to roughly correspond to the idea of spending administration resources to do things such as extend your government over newly conquered areas or implement better taxation and production methods, and Military points are basically a metric on how well you're keeping up with military tech and how well you can draft your population in times of war, Diplomatic Monarch Points are actually a cancerous mess that are used for Trade, International Relations, Naval Warfare, and Vassal Interaction, thus jamming two or three completely different areas of government into one. So you run into a problem where, to quote the anti-synergy example earlier, as you progress through your Trade idea group, your navies become obsolete for no reason.
>>321581826
You're right that ideas and tech do draw from the same pool, but you make the mistake that many beginners in EU4 also make. Just because you unlocked an idea does not mean you need to finish it immediately at the expense of everything else. Putting points in to ideas should only be done when you're getting an ahead of time penalty on your tech or the next idea in line is just really good and worth making the sacrifice for. If you watch the ideas that the AI selects, you'll notice the same thing; they are usually working on filling out two or three at a time while keeping their tech up to date.
>>321582328
Diplo tech has been like that since EU3. Diplo tech essentially covers foreign relations. A sub category of that is trade, of which a navy is an essential part. I don't really understand your problem with this.
>>321583384
My problem is that I don't see any situation in which adopting new trade practices would directly cause your naval technology to lag behind, nor in which integrating a vassal state as a directly governed province would cause your naval technology to lag behind, Basically, while Administrative and Military points make sense in their implementation [apart from the way generals are handled], I don't see the underlying logic behind Diplomatic Points, all I see is mess.
But hey, it's not like this ruins the game for me.
>>321584085
>I don't see any situation in which adopting new trade practices would directly cause your naval technology to lag behind
As previously mentioned, you are doing this to yourself. You don't have to go balls to the wall filling out ideas as soon as you unlock them.
>integrating a vassal state as a directly governed province would cause your naval technology to lag behind
While I do agree this is silly, the whole vassal integration process is silly to begin with. Right now, the only reason to even have a vassal and integrate it is so that you don't have to spend admin points coring their shit.
>>321584528
>Right now, the only reason to even have a vassal and integrate it is so that you don't have to spend admin points coring their shit.
Well, and sexy borders.
>tfw GrossPapadum game where you unite all of Italy and drives the Great Turk away by dividing the Balkans amongst a number of vassal crusader states
>>321584528
>As previously mentioned, you are doing this to yourself. You don't have to go balls to the wall filling out ideas as soon as you unlock them.
While I agree there might be a case to be made for when we're talking about the same two fields of government [invest into military idea groups, your military tech falls behind], I think the fact that two mostly separate fields of study can interfere with one another in such a way is a sign that there's a design problem in the system involved. The question is, wether it's a minor problem that can be overlooked, or something that would benefit from being fixed.
Like the critics of the system always say, the people who design the new ships are not the same people who decide on trade policy, who are not the same people that deal with vassal government integration, who are not the same people that deal with international relations.
>>321576485
I'll never get what this infatuation with Ulm that the forums have is, but this actually has some effort put into it
>>321563345
>>321564241
Achievements are pretty much the main goal of EU4 - that and making History as you see fit.
>>321585679
>the people who design the new ships are not the same people who decide on trade policy ...
I think this is a pretty nitpicky argument to make, to be honest. I think it totally misses the fact that diplo points are utterly worthless. Most people going to world conquests, for example, don't ever bother upping their diplo tech. There is no point. In an average game, the only reason to bother upgrading it at all is because you can. Boats don't win wars, although they certainly can help, and none of the other bonuses are really worth it. Bird mana is the least valuable of all the manas, while paper mana is the most valuable of all. Most of the time, you will never, ever have enough admin points. Sword mana, on the other hand, is important for keeping your military tech up, but once that's done there are absolutely no worthwhile uses of it. Even the best players in the world just dump it in to province upgrades because there's no other way to spend it. The whole three monarch point system is extremely flawed, and making the argument that people who work on trade don't also work on boats is kind of missing the point entirely.
>>321564223
I remember when /v/ was talking about EU4 like
"Remember the wise words of Confucius 'do not rush sieges too often least you forget how to make new cannons.'"
Anyone here us Extended timeline mod? That mod is like Long War to XCOM
>>321571096
>the whigs become liberal cucks
>>321587248
haha, ethiopia. my favorite.
>>321590038
I wish it had a module that did absolutely nothing but add a 1399 bookmark, and stretch the existing tech lines accordingly. The way it fills in the blanks in Africa and how it's incompatible with so many other mods, including map mods to make the vanilla map less plastic-looking and ugly, irks me the wrong way.
That's what annoys me about some of these mods, some of them have wonderful features that I'd love to play with... but they come with the rest of the mod attached.
>no standalone Veritas et Fortitudo map.
>>321568747
And the 5 percent that isn't automatic is you spamming liquor factories
>>321590038
I tried it some months ago and played at the modern day start. It seems like the AI is broken, in that some countries don't even bother moving their troops at all. Another thing that bothers me is that pretty much none of the modern day system of alliances are in place, so you just get day one declarations of war by everyone on everyone else.
Something that just removed the end date and added a variety of different start dates would be fun, but unfortunately it has all the other shit too.
>>321575949
oh my god what is this
>>321591252
take a look at the filename fagola
>>321573728
>especially considering how retarded the AI is
I like Vicky 2 most among the Paradox games, but this really bothers me.
I feel like I have to keep babysitting my sphere-lings with their rebels constantly, even if they have enough armies to deal with the rebels easily.
Am I missing something (like, is it trying to simulate that the military sympathizes with the rebels somehow?) Or is the AI just incompetent?
I feel like it might be the latter. Then again, is there any Paradox game that has AI that is above mediocre?
>>321576391
>>321566916
>Teutons
Fucking casuals.
>>321572046
The only thing is that Britain can basically never be weak unless you cheat because of their starting position and industry.
Playing a minor and trying to beat Britain is pretty fun though.
Why would anyone play games like this when the Total War series provides just as much detail but actual exciting battles as a bonus?
>>321575949
Aurora is so fun, but I just wish it didn't grind to a halt between time increments when I try multi-nation Earth starts. My PC isn't bad, too.
>>321592383
>provides just as much detail
Because they don't.
>>321592326
Shit army, OP navy.
Take Gelre and sneak your entire army across and you have won.
Never got how people found invading Britain hard.
Why is Paradox so jewish? I bought CK2, but after looking at the DLC, i'm almost regretting it
>>321592498
>OP navy
That's all that matters. It's the colonial age friendo.
Prestige and industry are also Xbox hueg
>>321563345
watch a lets play by a guy named arumba on youtube.
>>321592531
Every DLC has exclusive content but the patches that everybody gets for free add a significant amount of it.
>>321592531
Honestly, I can't blame them for it, all the DLC represents what, 3, 4 years' worth of expansions?
You can argue that they're overpriced, but if you're arguing against the model itself, what would the alternative be?
Either way you can just pirate everything anyway.
>>321592531
they've been updating the game for 3 years...
>>321592531
dont buy the misc shit like portraits or songs unless you really want it. just buy the content DLC. Its pretty worth it IMO
>>321584085
>apart from the way generals are handled
Seriously, when are they going to adopt the same system as with advisers. Recruiting generals at random is fucked up.
>>321593175
CK2 is just a good game after all the expansions
EUIV is still just a mediocre experience after all the expansions. There's a ton of depth to it, but everyone places the same. Blob up, counter the enemies blob, paint the map in blob. CB's and aggression is just too easy in EUIV, and you can't get punished like you can in CKII.
>>321592531
All the songs/portrait shit is pretty Jewish, but the rest of the DLC actually adds content. Well, everything except Sunset Invasion.
>>321592652
>>321592782
>>321592801
>>321593175
>>321593441
Which are the good expansions?
>>321593393
>and you can't get punished like you can in CKII
What? CK2 is by far the easiest game to blob in. It is an absolutely trivial process to keep your empire together, too. Even if you piss off every single one of your vassals and they all join a faction together you can just wipe them the fuck out with your stack of 50,000 retinues.
>>321593347
But the advisor system is terrible too
>hey, I'm totally worth about half your monthly income
>What? No, I'm not leaving this doorway and letting any other candidate in unless you pay me money in advance without me having done anything to justify it
The general system should be a system where generals continuously spawn out of a "war college" system or something similar, with their stats being influenced by your army tradition and ideas and you being able to dismiss or influence their spawning somehow, and the advisor quality should be detached from their salary, which instead should be transformed in a government funding system for extra monarch points, which is the only thing the money influences anyway.
r8
>>321593695
>the amount of options to roleplay
in EUIV the only gameplay is various forms of blobbing. I always look at my traits in CKII and make the best choice to my character traits.
>>321593620
Sword of Islam
Legacy of Rome
The Republic
The Old Gods
Sons of Abraham
Rajas of India
Charlemagne
Way of Life
Horse Lords
These are the expansions, everything else is portraits or other useless shit. Technically Sunset Invasion is an expansion but it doesn't really add anything worthwhile. It just adds a fuckmassive invasion in the late game that you either 1) wont play that long to encounter, most games or 2) will be fuckhuge and their invasion will be wiped out in a few months. Plus, you can't even play as them in Ironman mode.
>>321593695
>with your stack of 50,000 retinues.
>with your army of 50,000 armies
In all seriousness though, I agree. Up until perhaps Charlemagne, everyone in CKII played the exact same, and creating and maintaining an empire was trivial with almost any character. And EUIV also has the bonus that diplomacy is infinitely less restricted in it than it is in CKII.
Basically all Crusader Kings is good for is title inheritance, title creation and family lines, which is all I ask of it. But it's far more limiting apart from these aspects and is also by no means hard.
>>321593620
Sunset Invasion is key.
Just got the game. What should I be doing at the start of a Castille playthrough? Should I try to conquer Grenada?
>>321594135
Pretty cool but tons of useless wasteland + should have conquered the whole mediterranean basin + stayed out of china
>>321594345
Reconquer southern Spain, ignore north africa, it's clearly not worth it, set your sights on the new world. Also go full W40K with the Inquisition and Faith.
>>321594380
went for the silk road achievement
>>321594135
No Central Asia/10
>>321594485
Should I be saving dosh to build an army to take it as soon as the truce expires? What should I be doing with my own country in the meantime? I see I'm not getting power, research, or dosh very quickly.
I'm starting EU4 for the first time as the Aztecs, how fucked am I?
>>321563529
>Endless Legends
Pic related.
Very underwhelming game, and so was Endless Space.
>>321563345
CK2 is the kinda game you just have to play to under stand over time.
>>321594648
Yup, you need a big army stack to defeat Grenada. Be wary of upkeep though.
>>321594748
You'll uninstall and get a refund within 1 hour if you even try
>>321594345
>Retake Granada
>DON'T attack Aragon immediately, keep good relations with it + marriage, and there's a chance you get an event that allows you to instantly enact a personal union with them.
>Take Portugal
>create a vassal state in North Africa so you can feed pieces of Morocco to it without having to handle it directly
>sink your teeth into the Caribbean and never let go
>if you do take over Castile and Naples, expand into Italy once you're strong enough
>break the spine of the French by putting Southern France under a puppet march, convert it to Basque for added insult
>remove Kebab
>>321594853
How should I finance said army? Clearly I have a lot of Kebab to remove.
>>321594345
EU4 takes place over nearly 400 years, so don't worry if you're not accomplishing anything for a few years here or there. Build your army up to the forcelimit and destroy them when your truce is up. Fabricate claims on anyone you want to destroy later on while you prepare yourself. Unlike what that other guy said, north Africa isn't a bad place to expand.
>>321594748
Mesoamerican nations are the absolute shittiest in the entire game. You'll play for 50 or 60 years making trivial gains before Spain comes in, wrecks your anus, and annexes your entire country in a single war.
>>321595031
yeah, don't fuck with people until you have a couple good allies. And always check who their allies are.
>>321594748
You picked the worst possible country to start the game as. The Doom Clock will screw you completely.
>>321594925
Loans. The AI is kinda retarded so you can win with worse odds. Keep your armies grouped up and force the enemy into exhaustion.
>>321595578
Do I have to pay the loans back? Will taking Granada get me any decent income?
>>321595578
No one should ever need loans to destroy Granada.
>>321595661
You do have to pay loans back, but you shouldn't need them in this case. Taking Granada will get you more trade power in your home node, and much of the trade from the new world will eventually be flowing there.
>>321595661
Anon, your starting castillian armies are more than enough to take Granada, especially considering you'll probably have Portugal and Aragón to provide naval support and keep any eventual north african state from intervening.
You don't need loans for THAT particular war.
>>321595915
>>321595980
I've only got a stack of 1k troops, I think.
Is Granada really THAT bad?
>>321563345
>playing Civilization Univeralis or Crusader Kids
Play Victoria 2, Darkest Hour, or Hearts of Iron 3.
t. /gsg/
>>321571096
I had no idea what the fuck was going on in Vicky until I just blundered my way through a few games and watched some youtube videos. But when you finally figure out what's happening and why then it becomes fun, even if I'm not a master min-maxer or exploiter of all the mechanics.
>get that HPM mod from /gsg/ and play first "proper" game as Japan
>mostly free to just fuck around in Asia industrializing and killing subhuman chinese by the millions
>the Russians don't fight me over Sakhalin and instead we become fast friends
>the Great War begins in 1917 over some retarded shit in the Balkans, as usual
>Britain, France + others vs me and Russia
>invade India with Russia, encounter little resistance
>hop back on the ships and land in Egypt, vicious fighting against Turkslimes and Frenchmen, close the Suez canal and force turks out of the war
>engage and sink a French fleet of battleships off the palestinian coast, and then land troops in mainland France
>fully occupy their country, and seeing that everyone seems to be busy just killing each other in Africa I try to mount a naval invasion of Britain to get 100 warscore and end this fucking thing
>200,000 grorious samurai land on the emerald shores to begin the final battle
>they fight valiantly, but there are just too many british, get overrun after like a 1,000,000 causality battle and retreat across the channel
>war eventually ends once the russians occupy some french desert in Africa or some shit
>Britain explodes and releases almost everything
>Frenchmen somehow get away with only disarmament + reparations
>Governments start collapsing into Fascist and Socialist dictatorships
>>321596093
>my shit is better than your shit
Fuck off back to your circlejerk.
>>321596080
>1k
What the fuck are you doing
>>321596093
>I play singleplayer games to be hardcore
>>321596080
What. I'm pretty sure Castille starts with a LOT more than just 1k troops
>>321596093
Go away /gsg/, you are called the Grand Shitposting General for a reason.
>>321596204
>>321596219
>>>/paradoxplaza/
>taking loans
>>321592185
that ai is just that retarded.
they had to add a strait between Britain and the continent because the ai can't use transports.
I would love to see Vicky III with better AI, but paradox would end up simplifying the mechanics so it would still be shit
>>321596275
>if they don't agree with me they must visit some other site I don't like
Autism at its finest.
>>321596391
But EU4 is more complex than 3
Say what you want about mana, at least it's a more complex system than gold hoarding
>>321594345
>conquer Grenada
>conquer the trade port in Morocco, otherwise ignore
>be bff with Portugal
>try and be friendly with Aragon, you'll use get an event that puts them in a personal union under you
>focus on colonizing, grab the Caribbean and Gold Cost (in Africa) first, than spread out. Choose Exploration and Expansion as your first ideas
>laugh as you become invincible due to trade and colony monies
>>321596213
>>321596246
Goddamn I had a whole stack of 22k I had no fucking clue I had.
Nice.
Time to conquer Spain!
>>321596940
Get your eyes checked while you're at it m8
>>321596839
How do I get the points needed for the technology and ideas needed to set up colonies? I'm getting them very very slowly so far.
>>321597132
It'll happena t its own pace. There's very little you can do as a western nation to influence Monarch Point acquiral. Get level 1 advisors [if your economy allows, get a level 2 admin one], and set National Focus to Admin. One of the first few admin techs in the game unlocks your first idea group slot, which will allow you to pick the Exploration idea group, allowing you to then call upon explorers and colonize.
Additionaly, hello /gsg/, how nice of you to visit us.
>>321597132
Castile starts with a retarded monarch (something like 0,0,0) so points will be slow. Should eventually sort itself out. Just play slow at the beginning, only conquering Grenada (all of it) and Tangiers (the only North African province you want) if possible (Portugal usually goes for it pretty quickly). Otherwise, conserve your points to spend on tech and grab Exploration as your first idea group.
>>321597132
Actually, here's a tip: Make your monarch a general and throw him into battle as much as you can, even if there won't be many opportunities for that. That'll give you a higher chance of him dying, which sounds bad until you realize literally nothing can be worse than him.
>>321563345
It's easy as fuck. You're probably just retarded.
>>321595253
Didn't that change in the most recent patches? At least for South American tribes that's probably not the case, I remember having a very good run as the Potiguara tribe and basically unifying all of South America in a glorious proto-HUE christian kingdom
>>321598660
The Native American tribes are way more playable than the Mesoamerican nations.
>>321598660
They're more fun to play before the Spanish arrive now but it's kind of random when they arrive and how much they want to kill you. If they arrive too early they'll fuck you before you've finished your reforms, if they arrive late you'll be sat around for ages getting bored.
>>321594925
Whenever you're at war make sure you raise war taxes.
>>321599364
>I love crippling my country with war exhaustion
You're going to spend more money fighting rebels because of war taxes than you will earn with them.
>>321598859
Welp, something clearly went wrong with that design.
That said, south american tribes aren't supposed to play like north american ones anyway, the system just doesn't work for them.
>>321563345
play spain and just rape morocco for a while until you get the hang of it
>>321599510
War taxes don't affect war exhaustion any more, do they? If they do I didn't have any problem with it in my last playthrough.
>>321600195
I don't know, I haven't used them in a very long time because it isn't worth it. If they didn't cause war exhaustion there would be no reason NOT to use them, so everyone would try to stay at war forever just for the increased monies.
>>321600343
>>321600195
They don't increase it anymore, it was changed a number of patches ago.
Also, you can't do that because War Taxes doesn't directly give you money, instead it reduces the maintenance costs of your standing armies.
It's still less profitable thna just being in peace and keeping army maintenance at zero, thus having no reason to keep an eternal war up at all.
>>321600195
>>321600343
It doesn't increase war exhaustion. It costs military points though and mp is almost always worth more than money, I would only bother with war taxes if I was ahead of time on tech and had something useful to spend the money on.
>>321600593
Ah, that's good to know. I might actually consider using it now.
>>321600616
>mp is almost always worth more than money
MP is the one mana that everyone has too much of and doesn't have any worthwhile dump. War taxes would probably be a good use for it, actually.
>>321600859
That depends on how good your monarch is and whether you're western. If you're western or a horde doing a lot of razing then sure, you'll be swimming in mil points unless you're taking tons of ideas. If you're Chinese probably not unless you have a godlike king.
>>321600859
I end up using it to stagger revolts thru crushing them. haven't tried war taxes, tho. I do end up with a lot and almost always are ahead militarily which I don't think is that bad a thing.
>>321600343
Yeah that's what I did. This is what it says on the wiki:
>Unlike previous versions, and contrary to loading screen hints, raising war taxes does not affect war exhaustion.
>>321563345
it takes plenty of time to get used to managing everything
>play Portugal
>oh hey, estates are pretty easy to handle, I think I can deal with them
>play Sweden
>the Nobility wants my blood
Well fug.
>>321601089
Military Points are very plentiful, outside of tech and ideas there's very little to do with them. I usually end up using them to raise manpower in Nobility-controlled provinces nowdays.
>>321603148
i dont think i can do this. what xpac?
>>321603382
Nobility comes from Cossacks, the newest expansion.
Raising province development comes from Common Sense, in case it isn't a freely-available feature by now.
>>321603523
Development comes from the patch released along side Common Sense, but without Common Sense you can't actually improve it. The AI still can, though, as a giant fuck you to anyone who hasn't bought the expansion.
>>321603662
Well that's awfully convenient.
At least, if nothing else, raising development is a woefully inefficient use of points, even if your entire country is geared towards it.
>>321603662
Pretty sure they can't actually, except by event/decision
>>321603921
Raising development is just something the powerful countries get to do. I had so much money flowing in and great advisers boosting my mana that even with blowing it on Ideas I still had some left over while being up to date with all the current tech.
>>321604161
If only that were true. Trying to conquer the HRE late game after dozens of shitty countries have spent all game dumping points in to their capital is a fucking nightmare.
>>321604161
Yeah, it's probably always going to be the "Well, I have nothing else better to do I guess" mechanic of EUIV. Which is both necessary [what's the point of expansion if that country that's half your size can keep up with your military by doing nothing anyway?] and sad [you can't take over a heartland for your nation and spend the rest of the game improving it].
It's like there's some final piece of the puzzle missing, something that will make small powerhouse nations viable, but without falling into the trap of "tall vs. wide" as if the game had to have the same sort of balance as Civilization V.
I don't know how exactly they do it in Victoria II, so I'd like input from any Vickyfag on the matter.
>>321594748
Probably pretty fucked.
Had a coop game going where my friend played Aztecs and I played as Kiche(Later formed Maya).
We assisted eachother with the reforms.
Once spain walked through 5 of my provinces with a conquistador they decleared war and started sieging one of my forts.
I occupied their provinces in panama and made them suggest a offer.
They wanted 2 provinces, 250 ducats and war reps and I took it.
They had mil tech 15 I had mil tech 2 since I just developed with all of my mana until that point, since you gain 80% of their tech when you reform your religion, which I did as soon as they gained cores on the provinces they took from me.
>>321604281
It's harder to core/diploannex provinces with higher development right? Aren't there Ideas or tech upgrades that let you core shit without spending like 200 admin points? I was doing an Italy game and then blobbed into France and most of the coring costs were like 80 points at the highest. They were places with over 20 development too.
>>321604472
>[you can't take over a heartland for your nation and spend the rest of the game improving it].
Sure you can.
>>321605010
Well, you CAN, but it won't be very effective when compared to eating those heathens over there.
>>321604763
Some countries get reduced coring cost and the Administrative idea gives you reduced coring cost as well. Coring provinces with 30+ development is still extremely expensive.
>>321605149
>but it won't be very effective when compared to eating those heathens over there.
Yep, shouldn't either
>>321571602
The problem with Vicky 2 is its too damn exploitable. Conquer the right Chinese province and you now rule the world in RGO production. I think paradox has gotten better at making games. EU4 and CK2 are much better than their older games despite what edgelords will say. I can't wait for Paradox to make vicky 3.
>>321605641
Well... yes, that's the point. There should be a sweet spot between things like optimizing internal politics and demographics and conquering territory that allows for things like Napoleonic France fighting everything from England to Russia and win without depending on some hefty troop combat bonuses, or the Netherlands revolting from Spain and NOT being immediately crushed to the dirt. And it should be as hard and dangerous as war is.
What that sweet spot is, though, I'm not sure.
Why are the mods so good? I can't decide if i want to play the warhammer mod, or finish my fun game of thrones game
>>321592448
Fuck the interrupts.
>>321606428
>mfw Elder Kings mod
Who's ready for the Breton rape train?!
>>321603921
>Not using it for production leader bonuses
Sure feels good to play as Persia and not have to go conquer Ming to trade in silk.
>>321606674
Isn't it dead for like a year now?
>>321606796
Well I don't quite know, the last time I played it was more or less a year ago. If that's the case, it's a shame.
>>321606674
>Bretons
>Raping anything
Well, maybe their sisters
>>321606428
Granted, this is something that would work better for Hearts of Iron than EUIV, and it definitely wouldn't work at all in CKII, but I would kill a man for there to be a grand strategy game or mod set in Strangereal.
>tfw no Belka
Full random world when? Random new world is nice we need to take it farther.
>>321607578
HoI 3 has a great random world generator that's immensly fun, and perfect to learn the game with, if you use certain settings.
>>321607578
Random New World is great when it doesn't become a vast empty sea with nothing but random isles. That said, it's a great system and I hope the modding community picks it up and runs with it.
>>321607990
True, some of the RNWs are kind of shitty. The ones with millions of tiny islands are just annoying. Luckily you can preview them before playing by turning of terra incognito in the settings. You can use this to select some of the fantasy nations to play, too. I had a very fun game as the Burning Empire.
>>321594135
Wish I lived in that world, I'd be in Vinland.
>>321594135
>Brazil is fully inland with no coastal territories
Wait, what? WHAT?
>>321606753
Production leader and trading in bonuses are different things.
>>321609685
I know, but one opens up the other.
>>321609727
>I know
Gotcha.
Yeah dip mana is pretty useful for a land oriented empire especially.
A bit less so now that you have 2 standard build slots, using mana for getting a 2nd build slot for work+manu was especially powerful.
I stayed on dip tech 13 once and went up to 25 in one month thanks to liberté egalité and fraternité event, and used all my dip before that for developing.
>>321610214
I rarely play western tech since you just swim in mana, but even as a muslim nation I was able to spare enough dip to bring production from 16% to 20%. Personally I love the trade game in EU4 so it helps with that too.
I swear, no region in this game is as frustrating to play at as the freaking Baltic.
>>321611243
because no matter what you play you can't just walk into the HRE without Austria putting you ont he shitlist, Muscovy and the PLC lurking like a fucking giant behind your back, and you can't really attack the scandinavian union unless you're strong no matter who you play as.
there's so many fronts that are just barred off unless you're ridiculously good at the game
>>321611716
>Play Teutonic Order
>Sweden becomes Charles XII, Poland is the pink Ottomans with an endless legion of lithuanian hounds to devour you, and Brandenburg is a spoilet brat begging for Father Austria to eat you
>Play Sweden
>Teutonic Order goes full Deus Vult, Muscovy is a ticking time bomb, Livonian Order suddenly grows a spine
>Play Livonian Order
>All the above combined
