Europa Universalis IV

DickTrickle said:

Just finished what is probably the biggest war I've ever fought.

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Went up against a Portugal that had about 95% of the new world. Portugal's army alone was 850k and, unlike a lot of colonial nations, all of it was on the mainland in Iberia. I played very sloppily because I was just giving it a shot as a test run so my army management was terrible and when I moved to the New World, I was definitely having manpower issues despite starting with 500k. However, I did have some friends...

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Thanks to the insane Majahapit CB, I was able to vassalize Portugal, thus effectively taking everything you see in red below in one war (when I diplo annex Portugal, I will get their CNs).

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The funny thing is that I'll actually be able to diplo annex them at all. With the right combination of monuments, ideas, policies, placating, positive opinion, and the Age of Revolutions abilities, it won't even be a problem. Because I'm Shogun, all the above vassals and tributaries only compare their power to me (not to all other vassals), so all I have to worry about is their development.

Was quite a fun ride and I think I'm probably done now that I've finally tamed the beast in the West. This is the first long campaign that I've played in the Asia area. I'd argue the monuments in that area are better than the West and going as Hinda with Buddha deity opens up so many of them. Definitely strongly recommend a Majahapit Shogunate to anyone wanting a crazy run.

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Being able to vassalize a country that takes up half of the world seems to be really broken, but maybe thats the whole point. I would have never thought of doing Majahapit Shogun, respect to people who figure shit like this out, while I'm wondering after 2,000 hours of gameplay if courthouses increase GC.

Being playing my Ming game on and off for past few weeks. Wanted to play an Asian country which I never done before and since Im a bit weak on Chinese history, thought this would be informational. Also, they supposedly just overhauled them in the latest patch with new missions, etc.

The new mission tree is a little lackluster and at least 1 final mission is straight up broken and incompletable. So not much good to say there. The meritocracy (replaces legitimacy) mechanic is interesting at first but gets boring real quick since you just always pick one 2 out of the ~20 options (10% off core cost, or 25% more tax). The Mandate of Heaven mechanics are similar and there isnt even an achievement for doing all Celestial reforms. Regardless, this is probably my best run yet

I picked Exploration as my first idea set and went straight for Alaska, California and Ecuador. Fought a bunch of wars there over the next 250 years and got pretty much most of it locked up, will claim the rest in the next 1-2 wars with Spain and Britain, which Spain managed to PU sometime in the 1600s. Portugal was part of their little club too so it made for some tough fighting. I took land in the first war, but by second war I realized it would be way easier to demand they break alliances as part of war demands so I could pick them off easier. I split Portugal from them by demanding they break alliance and now Portugal is a minor player.




France is completely gone, I took them out in Africa and South America, but Spain/Britain did all the heavy lifting in Europe to destroy them, with Austria finishing them off. Austria is pretty chonky now and their discipline and morale is off the charts. Discipline is something like 128% and morale is 8.86 or around there. Fighting them is a slog every time.

I built this unbroken strip of shoreline from the Pyrenees all the way into Asia so I could move my troops easier between Western Europe and Asia when cycling through wars between Ottomans, Commonwealth, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Britain, etc. Built a beachhead in Britain for the "Copium Wars" achievement. The other thing I started doing is grabbing land in chokepoints, upgrading the fort to max level, turning on the Defensiveness edict permanently for that province and building ramparts. I got these chokepoints now in Nile Delta, Aden, Gibraltar, Constantinople and on the West side of the Pyrenees. Make the wars much easier and manageable.




Most of Africa is conquered, will mop up Brits and Portuegese in next 20 years.




Most of Asia is taken too. Japan, Korea and some of the nations near them are all my tributaries. Vijayanagar is a long time ally but they are becoming less and less useful as every war except fighting Ottomans is now a "distant war" that they dont want to participate in, So I'll probably turn on them as soon as they stop helping me fight Ottomans.




This is probably my best game ever, its also the first time I unlocked the 1001 provinces achievement and I still got 70 years to go. Dont know if I'll be able to do a total WC but I'm going to try. Definitely playing much more aggressively and much more comfortable with fighting 2-3 wars at the same time, dragging 200% overextension permanently and being constantly starved for admin points. However this is one of the more boring games I played. You start off as #1 country, all your biggest threats are scripted in-game events about peasant uprisings or the Yellow river flooding every 10-20 years and knocking off 2 stability points and reducing your Mandate of Heaven (more unrest malus). No real external threats and the mission tree is pretty bland.

Oh yeah and I got 500%+ more dev than the Ottomans in 2nd place

I flew too close to the sun

Overextension is just a number! Better get some autonomous suppression going.

My work game is ottomans. It's not even 1550 and I'm already fielding close to 400k soldiers to give you an idea of how sickeningly huge I've gotten. Never mind that I'm also the biggest colonial power, cause why not.

At home, started a new game, wanted to play in the dutch area since I have never started there, and am going to play Brabant into the USA after my last game. Picked Brabant randomly. Fairly weak country that starts as a PU. Was surprisingly easy to break out of Burgandy's clutches. From there pretty much everything that can go wrong has. Super shitty ruler, super shitty heirs, no legitimacy or prestige, so I'm actually pretty behind on tech and ideas.

Plan was to bust into Ireland no CB and take it over quickly and go colonial. Ireland sorted alliances pretty well, so there was no open door for the first 30 years. Also was planning to join in the swedish independence war, so supported their independence super early.... And this late into the game I'm still the only one supporting their independence. Burgundy hates my guts, so everyone around me is either protected by them or france it seems. Emperor of the HRE is hesse, so france and poland are gonna be shitting all over HRE. As a cherry on top, I just keep getting tons of negative events. On the bright side, I should be able to start sending colonists within a year, and brabant's mission tree seems to encourage tall play.



Edit: Even worse... somehow Sweden broke free without having a war since I last checked... So scratch off sneaking off with norway in that war.

Deathwing said:

How are you handling eyalets? I think my strategy is ok but it has a ton of annoying micro. I try to keep some territorial cores on my border so that I can annex provinces in wars. Then I feed those provinces to an eyalet of the same culture group while keeping 1-2 myself for the next war.

This is nice because it lets me fortify the homeland since I never call my eyalets into war.

The "Grant Province" screen is annoying, especially if you're ensuring provinces go to the correct cultural eyalet. The maintaining a core on the border of the empire is really annoying too. Is there a better way to expand via eyalets?

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Not a huge fan of the eyalets. My first one cock-blocked my expansion, because you can't core on their borders, so after that I treated them like free useless vassals. I released them if it was to my advantage in the case of something like big reconquests, but there's been a lot of times where I'm like NAH and don't bother. Like in my current game, there is a massive austria, and I took part of Hungary the absorb. I could have just immediately released it as a vassal for reconquests, but decided to wait until the eyalet event popped. Free mana, don't care what hungary does, and lets me use it for some reconquests before I absorb it.

I did take the eyalets creation missions. Turning the mamluks into an eyalet and then absorbing them was cool, even though it took like 30 years.

Deathwing said:

Even with eyalets from missions but not granting them any provinces, I was running into gov cap issues. That's why I was trying to incorporate them as much as possible. With influence ideas, you can get a pretty high percentage of their tax, manpower, and force limit. Why not use them at that point aside from the annoying coring issue?

Only possible(haven't tested) workaround I've come up with is to force release a nation, force vassalize them, feed them all the cores that make sense(same cultural group?) and then turn them into an eyatlet. Can you annex a province for a vassal if they are part of the war? Kinda like you can change occupation of a province during war to an ally. Or do you have to deal with the coring bullshit there too?

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I had gov cap issues in like the late 1400s and early 1500s, but at some point I broke a barrier where money trumps gov capacity issues. Biggest thing I can say about gov cap issues is don't be afraid to give every estate the +100, and don't forget to asign pashas everywhere except your home state, and also don't be afraid to go way over gov cap. It's really not that horrible a penalty. By the 1550s or so, I'd gotten to the point where I have tons of excess gov capacity.

If you want to learn about gov capacity problems, play a game as Prussia. Fun country because of space marines, but the gov capacity issues are real.

I got 30 years left in my Ming game and Im actually close to doing a WC. Problem is that truces are fucking me up. What kind of shitshow am I looking at if I started riding 200% Overextension all the time with a -3 stab?

Currently all my unrest buffs add up to -16. Its -19 if you add the bonus from having a +3 stab

Can I keep warring at -3 stab or am I going to have to improve stability +1 after each war to get to -2, just to declare war again?

Am I going to get endless country breaking events and rebels or am I good as long as my Unrest stays negative?

Kaines said:

If unrest stays negative in individual provinces, you'll never spawn rebels. It's not the national unrest. And you have to have the stab to spend to truce break from what I understand. But you should be feeding client states at this point anyway if you are going for WC. Which frees up your Admin.

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im a retard and have no vassals

Started over as Brabant cause my last run kinda just felt cursed at wrong. Started with a better plan of attack and focused on my core states. Got a pretty strong little economy going, doing much better on tech and what not, since I got a few show supremecy wars in, instead of just focusing on conquering like last time. Was kinda wondering why the Maine event hadn't fired yet.

So it's 1470, I zoomed out, and saw one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen the AI do this early in the game. I dunno how the fuck this happened, but now I'm scared for my brosef france.


Edit: 1474... Disgusting.... One less colonizer though, I guess.

I just wanted to play a tall dutch lands into the US, but the England has me VERY CONCERNED, so I've been gobbling up the coastline. Had no plans to be this big, and it might result in disaster when I move my capital to the americas, but I can't just sit Idly by when this is next door. First great thing of the campaign though. Colonialism actually spawned right at 1500 in my country.. So not only am I swimming in ducats because of my location, but soon I'll be swimming in even more ducats sharing this knowledge.



And while my situation may not be cursed this go around, this sure the fuck is. This might be one of the most disgusting things I've seen the AI do, and it's only 1500.