Europa Universalis IV

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Furry

WoW Office
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Guide? WTF like 99% of my fun in this game is thinking about and planning what the optimal strat is. someone telling me defeats the entire purpose of this game.

And the other half of the 99% of fun is reacting to the cursed things that happen. On my steam deck I started a game as France at work, another major power I'd never played before. Revoking the guarantee to Scotland seemed the smart thing to do, but expected Scotland to die in a fire to England. So after I beat up England in the surrender event, england immediately declared on Scotland. Unfortunately, the war of the roses crisis triggered the next day for England, and apparently that evened things up. I watched as the two countries had a back and forth for the next 5 years. Eventually scotland won, though didn't take land.

Scotland then immediately died in a fire to me and Denmark.

The most cursed thing in this game was my ally Aragon to the south. In 1454 or so the leader of their rival Castile died, and they got a PU over Castile. That lead to Portugal having no effective allies. Morocco immediately invaded, and Aragon also followed up with a quick succession war, and during that war his leader decided to keel over dead without an heir, and a royal of my family took up the throne (If he had kindly waited until the war was over, I'd have gotten a PU on all those countries). So the year is 1455, and I can claim the throne of Aragon, which has a PU over both Castile and Portugal (and Nevers). I know it's probably smart to wait for a more tactical time to do it, but I can't resist this war. Do PUs of PUs count toward aggressive expansion? I might make the most magnificent coalition ever if they do.
 

Kaines

Potato Supreme
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How do you play tall in EU4 anyways? Im assuming its just dumping your monarch points into province development, maxing out buildings, trade companies and edicts?
You are correct. I'm not a fan of that playstyle but that's typically how it's done.
 

Loser Araysar

Chief Russia Correspondent / Stock Pals CEO
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You are correct. I'm not a fan of that playstyle but that's typically how it's done.

I'm kinda over blobbing for a while especially after my last Mughal run where the only thing I didn't take was Western Europe, Africa, Scandinavia, Canada and South America.

Going to try a tall game with Riga
 
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Chris

Potato del Grande
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How do you play tall in EU4 anyways? Im assuming its just dumping your monarch points into province development, maxing out buildings, trade companies and edicts?
Yeah generating more monarch points and spending them on province development as well as tech, generating money and spending it on province buildings.

Like you can capture some extra regions to get more income and manpower, or make the ones you already have better.

What usually happens for me is that you get so powerful that you can go wide too. Development via monarch points is limited but money isn't so you scale that side of it up.
 

Chris

Potato del Grande
18,033
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Guide? WTF like 99% of my fun in this game is thinking about and planning what the optimal strat is. someone telling me defeats the entire purpose of this game.
2 reasons:

1) You haven't played for years like me, so need to learn new mechaincs.

2) You are playing something insane like Byzantium, 100 years war victory as England or play as a released vassal.

You play normal once established.
 

Furry

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wooop.jpg


LMAO. Apparently I got no AE for inherenting Aragon's PU's of castille, nevarra and portugal either. Coalition is tiny. This is the most absurd PU chain I can remember.
 
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Furry

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wooop.jpg


Lmao is this game serious right now. I was improving relations with burgundy to aim for the inheritance at some point after I got too big to be a rival for them. Instead austria inherented them super early. I've played this war from the other side, and usually isn't too difficult when burgundy holds so much, but I think I'm going to dick punch them into outer space. I was gonna chill on the continent and go for some gains in africa, ireland and england after I built a navy, but sure, why not add another PU.

Also what sort of cursed thing is happening in Teuton lands. Lubeck of all countries holds Danzig while Danzig formed without danzig?

Edit: Coalition after stomping out Austria and friends is all of the HRE, all of italy, and eastern europe. I'll probably die in a fire and have to give up land if the coalition triggers, but burgundy has a lot of value, so I'll definitely end up a net positive. I was expecting this from the first war, so still worth it.
 
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Jais

Trakanon Raider
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I just started playing this two days ago, never played an EU game. I've played some HoI4 but damn, a lot to unpack here. I'm stumbling around in 1488 as Brandenburg and being poor.
 

Mountain Biker

Trakanon Raider
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I just started playing this two days ago, never played an EU game. I've played some HoI4 but damn, a lot to unpack here. I'm stumbling around in 1488 as Brandenburg and being poor.
If you find yourself struggling too much just watch some YouTube videos for beginners. It's a lot to learn...
 

Chris

Potato del Grande
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Got a couple of good games in.

Took all of southern Manchuria and Japan as Korea but got cockblocked by Ming who was protecting literally anyone I could get to and could beat me despite me also being a great power.

Now I'm on Florence -> Italy. Got everything except Naples and the islands, which are owned by Spain who are allied to France who hate my ally Austria. Will have to wait for that to fall apart, currently swapping allies from Austria to France. May go on a crusade for Jerusalem and Mecca while waiting lol.
 

Furry

WoW Office
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Got a couple of good games in.

Took all of southern Manchuria and Japan as Korea but got cockblocked by Ming who was protecting literally anyone I could get to and could beat me despite me also being a great power.
with Ming, it’s usually worth having a go even if you think you’ll get stomped. They often look a lot scarier than they actually are, kinda like colonial Castile, and with their size I feel it’s easy to just cause lots of chaos.

Getting into the learning of paradox games, I picked up hoi4 and thought I’d share my kinda universal method of learning their games. I usually pick a minor country in a precarious position and don’t mind if I die in a fire. I find that approach helps me learn. In HOI4 I picked Estonia, while being hostile to the Soviets. And oh boy I sure died in a fire the first dozen games, but now I find myself clicking through the interface knowledgebly, and in my most recent game I think I’ll die in a fire a lot less slowly than any of the other ones. I just slowly learned from my mistakes and refined my plan, trying different strategies to see what was most effective. I find I learn best when I have to struggle to survive. Debasing currency, exploiting development, taking out lots of loans. If you pick a big safe country you will probably avoid these things, but if you pick a really challenging country they can be entirely necessary to take on a country above your weight.
 

DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
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I feel like a lot of wars against bigger opponents could be done quickly for an advantage that you peace out as long as they had some forts near you.
 

Zajeer

Molten Core Raider
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So dev diaries for next patch have been coming out. So far the Ottomans, Muscovite/Russia, Japan, and France are getting major updates similar to what they did in Lions of the North. Really cool changes announced so far - I'll probably play a Japan game finally
 

Aaron

Goonsquad Officer
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Lot of people pissed at the focus on Russia and calling for a boycott lol. Wouldn't be surprised if they caved. Euro Truck Sim 2 cut their planned Russian expansion that was basically ready to go after the invasion.
 

Deathwing

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Where are these pissed people? Only contention I've seen is the mention of France getting more updates despite already recently getting some.
 

Zajeer

Molten Core Raider
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Yeah, all of the feedback I've seen has been very positive so far.

The previous France update was super minor wasn't it? All of the countries getting updates really haven't been touched since missions were implemented years ago
 

yerm

Golden Baronet of the Realm
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The majors could use an update. Really I think the lucky nations should get spoiled kid treatment, aka every patch is also their patch. Adding some branching missions for scandinavia? Austria should have had a unite germans vs balkan empire branch and england a continental vs naval branch etc. New governments for shitholes like forming zulu? English need updates and france needs a cool one too.

I actually really like what they did with leviathan even if it doesn't seem as heavy as the africa and viking regions. Khmer is a fun play for example. I'd love to see for example france get a pummeled start like khmer they need to crawl out of, matched with some buffs to their land to balance it, resulting in more weakness blobbing early and more op later. I'd like to see ottomans similarly touched up, the janissary disaster is out of date. I'm hella hopeful for the next few rounds of changes. Vicky 3 is out so my cynical thought process is they may have been a bit poached during (stellaris temporarily poached eu4 at times) and hopefully they should be back to normal now. All they need to do is take the best of their last few updates and apply it to the coolest nations too.