Europa Universalis IV

[No1newts]

Yeah the development is listed at the top of the province, it's the combined total of the three tax/prod/manpower things.

It's a bit of a pain, but you do benefit long term from the extra development, especially if you are a smaller nation.

In the institutions section of whatever province you are developing, you can see it will embrace the institution a little more each time you develop it further. You probably need to go from 14-18 right up to mid 30's to get it fully established though.

Spot on, I'm away all week but might smash a load a load of development on Beijing with it being the capital.

Wish there was some way to reverse the flow of trade, feels although all trade (bar a couple of nodes) all flow away from China.

 

[HungryHippos]

Beijing is normally a great trade node to steer trade to and collect. You fan also clean up house with the spice islands (colonising them) and the malacca trade nodes.

 

[No1newts]

I've grabbed Phillipines but their trade steer toward the Brunei node (name escapes me) which then just pushes it away from me. Do you draw anything from a node if it isn't your main one or can you just shunt it or just get tax income? Find it a little confusing.

I think the only node I don't own which pushes trade into Beijing is the Japan/Korea one hence my desire to hit Japan soon.

 

[No1newts]

Finished my first playthrough as Ming, I was first score wise right until the last 20 years then dropped to third as Spain and Ottoman exploded.

I found I lagged hard in military when I encountered western powers due to the institution penalty which slowed my expansion a lot. In retrospect I should have been more aggressive throughout and spent my gold to overwhelm them with numbers.

Nice to see a full playthrough though, not sure who to go on next.

 

[Tombstone]

If I could have 1 thing for EU4, it would be a gigantic Civilization scope version of the game, starting in the ancient world and going through to the HOI era. I'd friggin love that

 

[bJN]

If I could have 1 thing for EU4, it would be a gigantic Civilization scope version of the game, starting in the ancient world and going through to the HOI era. I'd friggin love that

Extended Timeline mod, give it a look

There are also converters available that will convert saves from one game into the next, so you could do EU up until it's end date, then Victoria 2, then HoI etc

 

[No1newts]

If I could have 1 thing for EU4, it would be a gigantic Civilization scope version of the game, starting in the ancient world and going through to the HOI era. I'd friggin love that

That would be epic but you would need to add all the extra tech and many more ideas etc to buff it out or everyone would be "top" level extremely early. It does sound cool though!

I'm trying England on Ironman now, only 1495 and I'm 3 territories from forming Britain already. Just being held off by some irritating amounts of Scottish relationships. Trying to use proxies to eat them doesn't help either as they all have good allies

 

[Tombstone]

Extended Timeline mod, give it a look

There are also converters available that will convert saves from one game into the next, so you could do EU up until it's end date, then Victoria 2, then HoI etc

Holy !!

That sounds like the sort of thing I dream of, have you tried it? Is it any good?

 

[HungryHippos]

Played Extended Timelime, it's not bad but I think the standard game is better, both for balancing, and for general length of the game as well.

 

[No1newts]

Chaps, is there a good way to deal with aggressive expansion?

My Britain game has gone amazing, I'm top of the scores, kept all my Colonies happy and I own most of Africa with colonies in east Asia. Best achievement was smashing France early through a proxy war from which they never recovered. However that's the nub, through repeated proxy wars against France my AE score went daft and if I even cough aggressively in mainland Europe at the moment military coalitions form against me.

Can I minimise the penalty so I can remove France from the map in Europe? It's a purely "I want to do it" job as whilst they have extensive colonial holdings I can easily crush them in any military conflict. I just want the pleasure of crushing them

 

[suenstar]

If you haven't already, the Influence idea group is a huge benefit for fighting back aggressive expansion as it'll make you pick up less for taking land in wars and it'll reduce quicker outside of war (after unlocking the ideas).
Alternatively, if you ally some of the really big nations then aggressive expansion isn't as much of an issue as a lot of the coalitions won't want to risk a number of great powers defending you and tearing them a new one.

If you want to ruin France without aggressive expansion being an issue, a fun but somewhat tricky way to ruin them is to get their rebels unrest really high so that they start appearing during the war. You let the rebels take control of most of the land and then declare a white peace... then you can sit back and watch the rebels tear their country to pieces.
It doesn't always work, but when it does it's a glorious way to ruin a large rival country.

 

[No1newts]

Ah I didn't take influence and with 80 years to go probably too late to take it and get the best from it.

I like the separatist idea, I'm hoping to war with them and bring along Castille (been allies since first turn) as they can help me smash colonies whilst i deal with Europe.

I'm tempted to just go for it and consequences be damned considering I'm allied with Castille, Portugal, Bohemia and Brandenburg where between us no one can even get close unless Scandinavia and Commonwealth allied against but considering they are Rivals I'm probably safe there.

 

[suenstar]

Depending how big the coalition is at present, you could make them fight you before everyone joins so that a portion of the coalition has a truce with you and prevent them from all piling on at once.

 

[No1newts]

To be fair the coalition is about 8 nations but they are all minor powers and I think I could probably take them solo though to do so I would need to strip my colonial land armies and navies and then hit some serious debt so I'm a little reluctant as it would take some recovering from.

 

[No1newts]

Is there any way to get achievements retrospectively applied?

Just finished my Britain game, finished first amazing game and due around 6-7 achievements and I was not credited any of them (I was in Ironman mode) no idea why I didn't get them and more than a little vexed right now!

 

[No1newts]

Is there a benefit to building to building the Suez Canal?

Got an amazing ottoman game going but winding down toward the end with no one to really fight and making about 100g a month despite a standing army of 200k just looking for something to spend money on.

 

[No1newts]

I've had a brilliant Brandenburg campaign (now formed Prussia) and after a very hairy mid game where everyone hated me due to my agressive expansion I've levelled out and I just need Cologne to form Germany (which I really want to do)

Issue is my one ally is France who are owning everyone and I need them onside, but in the last war France occupied and then took Cologne and made it French

Is there any mechanic in game to try and get France togive/sell me the province or am I going to have to go to war with them and try the impossible task of creating a coalition that can even touch the sides against them?

 

[Panos]

Moved the discussion here from the Thrones of Britannia....

Superb, you wont regret it! Well, you might if you lose your partner, family, and job...

Indeed I have not. It might not have RPG elements, like CK2, but all that exploration to New World etc is what I was looking for to a game.
Had to watch Quil18 tutorial for beginners, that taught me all that I needed to have my first two failed games with Castile, of which were great to improve just a bit the knowledge of the game.


Also not two games were the same from same starting position. Something I cannot say for CK2, even at early start. More or less it gets bit predictable the first 100 years, if you do not meddle with the big empires.

On the first one, Aragon wanted an alliance from the start, while the allied Anglo-Portuguese alliance was CB all the Iberian peninsula also, so I had to ally with Tunis & Morocco for a war against Portugal & England. Which lasted quite some time. When the war ended my ruler and straight away the (useless) successor died. That triggered the War of the Castilian Succession. Making the war of the Spanish Succession (from history) just a minor conflict of two tribes in Africa. Had to abandon the game, because Castile had become wasteland.


Second game, even if Portugal was friendly decided to kick them. Aragon was aggressive but thought I could manage. It only took a failed Anglo-Portuguese war against France, which beat them so hard that kicked England out of mainland Europe and broke the alliance between England and Portugal. 7 hours of gameplay I found myself battling level 2 corruption, constant revolts and demands of money due to really low unrest, that at one point had 3 loans, while in the mean time I had conquered Andalusia and Portugal (latter two 2 wars). However due to my lack of mechanics about core, had spend 60 years worth of admin points to core Portugal.
But that drop be very well back to research, which added corruption, which added revolts and son on. I went to the new world using the exploration missions, but decided to abandon the game, as I am 100 years behind on Admin tech than anyone else.

And Castile supposed was the second easiest start after the Ottomans, lol.

Thank you. Had seen the game for years, tried the demo but never took the leap of faith.

Is different than CK2, but more interesting due to a lot of random stuff going on, and the New World exploration that I find intriguing.

 

[HungryHippos]

If you don't have any of the DLC it changes a fair bit of the game and I believe most of it is currently on sale. There is a reasonable looking article here about them: https://www.strategygamer.com/articles/europa-universalis-iv-dlc-buying-guide/

I'd prioritise art of war and common sense, but I actually own them all as I've had the game for a long time. As a newer player buying them all in one go is quite daunting to the wallet.

level 2 corruption is fine, if you take territory early game then at some point you can expect rebels to pop up, especially if the land is wrong culture/religion compared to ones your nation accepts. If I am in a punishing war I can hit corruption of around 8-10 as I debase currency to avoid taking extra loans.

As Castille though your income should be decent, you also have a gold mine I believe which is insanely good for income.

Humanism as one of your first idea groups is not a bad idea as it drastically reduces rebellions and increases your overall stability.

Castille start should be relatively easy, you get a PU over Aragon/Naples with some reliability pretty early on. You can normally ally Austria pretty easily as well, sometimes even France although I do quite like eating baguette when I can. Learning the ropes though you can just ally Austria and use your union to keep France from attacking you due to relative power.

Killing Portugal is a good idea, although vassalizing them isn't a bad one either. If you make them a vassal they will colonise the new world for you, and later you can intergrate them.

 

[No1newts]

I love this game but how is it that the computer just spanks out non stop armies in wars and are constantly at war? Do they just pile into absurd debt and hire a load of mercs?

Ive had some really successful games (Brandenburg, England, france and ottoman) but I find it frustrating a lot of the time as wars seem to be a real struggle.