On September 03 2013 23:35 Baobab wrote: When I started playing CKII, I found a good Let's Play on the somethingawful forums that really did a good job explaining the basics. That's what got me into the game.
I just picked up EU4, and like CKII there's just so much stuff to learn that it's very daunting. Does anyone know of a good Let's Play for it? The rub is that I'm not looking for a video, I'd MUCH rather read an article with some nice pictures.
Check the Paradox forums for an informative gameplay AAR.
On September 04 2013 03:29 Darkdwarf wrote: Anyone knows how to get past the "creating borders" phase of start-up without crashing? =(
Look in the paradox forums they have fixes for most issues there. You got to have a legitimate copy and register though . Its a nice anti pirate for their buggy games.
This is pretty crazy. if you have the sunset invasion on the entire world fucking changes. the inca invent gunpowder and the aztec are a high military society that wants to colonize the old world.
Also jomsvikings become the new prussian beast and europe is plunged into a massive series of holy wars between reformed norse axemen and the catholic world proper.
On September 08 2013 08:52 Sworn wrote: Is this game worth getting? I've played a bunch of Civ so this game has really interested me.
The diplomacy side is infinitely better than civ, really. And the empire management is more realistic. The game still need a bit of tweaking (paradox games usually do), but it's pretty good.
holy fuck. Those Roman ideas are insane!
Didn't know that there was hidden nations like that :p
The jomsvikings ones are pretty good too. Free casus belli against non-pagans? Seriously :D But yeah, Rome is stronk. +10% discipline at the start is huge. And the coring cost is big too. But eh, if you managed to recreate the Roman empire in CK2, you could conquer Europe with the basic national ideas in EU4, no real challenge...
I really need to get CK2, play and convert a few games...
On September 08 2013 08:52 Sworn wrote: Is this game worth getting? I've played a bunch of Civ so this game has really interested me.
Depends, it hasn't a lot of common points with CiV so its hard to say. I personally think both are good games with CiV still being my favorite among the 2. If you want some quick comparisons: -CiV has a lot more random from one game to another, different map, different opponent etc. EU4 has a fixed earth map and many nations will always follow some ideas (for example spain will always try to colonize). -EU4 is trying to be realistic so its not a balanced game when it comes to nations. France and Spain are superpowers and some random indian country is garbage in comparison. Western countries will always get a tech lead no matter what. -EU4 doesn't have an objective or wiinning condition, you set your own. Only points are given according to nations performance. It's a very sandboxy game. -Eu4 thrives in its complexity. CiV is very easy to start playing and quickly do stuff even if you don't understand a lot. It also has a clear goal and intuitive steps to get there. On the other hand EU4 can be very overwhelming for a new player. You almost do the same thing from start to finish (on different scales) and as a result the amount of options available straight as you begin can be daunting for some. But its part of the game, you have to read tooltips try out stuff and if things go badly you can start over. -The best part of EU4 is the feeling of crafting the destiny of a real life nation and see how well it does after the 400years of game. The main aspect being chosing national ideas and making decisions that will increase a specific area of the nation (its trade, its military, etc). Historical accuracy is part of the gameplay in EU4 whereas CiV history is only a flavour of the game. -EU4 uses a lot of random events impacting you. -Diplomacy is a much more important part of EU4, making alliances, annexing vassals, embargoing people, etc. Half of the game is played there and it will be the difference between surviving, winning or angering everybody and die. CiV 5 in comparison, diplomacy is only about RA, Selling stuff and bribing wars, pretty simple. -EU4 has a very passive way of resolving wars. You move troops mainly and just making sure you have the best chances of winning battles (which you dont interact in): better tech, better general, better numbers, better terrain etc. Everything else about winning wars is about what you did in peace time... making sure to have strong allies, enough manpower, good tech and attacking someone you know you can beat. -EU4 games last way longer than CiV. I can play a standard game of CiV in 4hours, I need a few dozens to beat a single game of EU4 on constant medium speed (3x, no pause).
So I was playing Creek, one of the indian tribest around Florida. Counquered all the other indian tribes in a few years, built every building I could, was sitting on 3000 gold and started colonizing all of the south. Then England showed up and was like "YEAH THIS IS OUR LAND NOW". What are you supposed to do ? Just keep a massive army far above landlimit?
On September 09 2013 07:55 Intact wrote: So I was playing Creek, one of the indian tribest around Florida. Counquered all the other indian tribes in a few years, built every building I could, was sitting on 3000 gold and started colonizing all of the south. Then England showed up and was like "YEAH THIS IS OUR LAND NOW". What are you supposed to do ? Just keep a massive army far above landlimit?
Die. :D
Yeah, going above force limit long enough to destroy their foothold may be necessary. You have the money for it, anyway.
On September 09 2013 07:55 Intact wrote: So I was playing Creek, one of the indian tribest around Florida. Counquered all the other indian tribes in a few years, built every building I could, was sitting on 3000 gold and started colonizing all of the south. Then England showed up and was like "YEAH THIS IS OUR LAND NOW". What are you supposed to do ? Just keep a massive army far above landlimit?
You usually need to find some things to exploit to win or delay a war for 50-100 years without losing all your stuff while you westernize.
In EU 3 that meant:
Don't have coastal provinces (If you do give them to someone and unally/unvassal them once the europeans arrive) meaning that you will only have to fight the guy that conquered the coastal provinces instead of all europeans
Try to bribe one of the europeans into not killing you and maybe even ally with you
Get forts before the europeans arrive.
Westernize as fast as possible.
In the horrible 100+ years during your westernisation, scorch the land, reduce the european troops through hunger. Try to draw them further landinwards, continue to scorch the land and thin their armies while reconquering behind them if possible. Then, once at least 3/4 of them have succumbed to hunger and cold, drown the rest of their army in bodies. Keep that up with all the additional troops they will keep on sending for this time. Maybe you can sometimes get a peace that lasts 5 years.
I really wish there were more information on coalition mechanics. The basic mechanic makes perfect sense to me: Be too aggressive and other countries get together to stop you. However, it seems so random, as if you're not supposed to be able to play smart against it.
At first, I though it had to do with aggressive expansion... the higher you have with a country, the higher the chance that it joins a coalition against you. However, I've had countries join coalitions against me even if they have 0 aggressive expansion and I haven't touched them diplomatically. Sure, I'm a huge powerful country close to them, but it seems like if they haven't gotten any aggressive expansion, they shouldn't care about that.
Another weird aspect: I had like 5-6 countries in a coalition against me as sweden. Then I formed scandinavia, and every country left the coalition. Why?
Could it be related to the ratio of uncored vs cored provinces in your control? You said you just formed Scandinavia, that implies you just cored the last remaining provinces to do it.
Small countries seem to join coalitions based on their alliances even if they don't really have anything against you.
Coalitions are simply broken. It's an awesome idea but practically a mess and I never join them anymore. Some of the reasons include;
1. You cannot peace out in a coalition war. Makes no sense WHATSOEVER, both gameplay and history wise, to not be able to do it 2. Only the nation in the coalition which DOW'd gets to negiotiate. And he will get ALL the spoils. Even if it's little OPM Lorraine DOWing France and the rest of the world doing all the work. 3. As the target of the coalition, simply destroy the nation which DOW'd you and the war is OVER... so as france, if Lorraine DOW's you, just occupy lorraine and POFF, coalition war is over...
On September 09 2013 19:11 daemir wrote: Could it be related to the ratio of uncored vs cored provinces in your control? You said you just formed Scandinavia, that implies you just cored the last remaining provinces to do it.
Small countries seem to join coalitions based on their alliances even if they don't really have anything against you.
Nah, I had no overextension... I formed scandinavia at that time because I diplo-annexed Denmark, which includes cores.
The only thing which really changed by the forming of scandinavia was my tolerance of Danish, Norwegian and Finnish culture groups.
Am I the only one who gets super confused by the trading system? Could anyone maybe explain it briefly for me, like a "EUIV trading for dummies"-guide? Like, how can it benefit you to send trading downstream to another node, rather than collecting it directly?
On September 09 2013 21:13 PerryHooter wrote: Am I the only one who gets super confused by the trading system? Could anyone maybe explain it briefly for me, like a "EUIV trading for dummies"-guide? Like, how can it benefit you to send trading downstream to another node, rather than collecting it directly?
You get a massive malus from collecting outside of the tradenode where your capital is situated, while you automatically collect everything your tradepower lets you take from the tradenode with your capital. So if you can steer trading from trade nodes to your capital node, you get way more money out of it, especially since you get a bonus to trade which has traveled from far away.
While there's a lot of math if you want to min-max, the basics are simple: Put a merchant to collect in your capital node (gives a bonus and some decent trade power), then send a merchant to steer trade towards it from the closest trade node with the most trade value. If you ever get enough trade power in your capital node to keep all of the gold, move the merchant from there to some other upstream node. You pretty much just want to make sure you have as much trade power as humanly possible in your capital node, then try to steer as much trade to it as you can.
On September 09 2013 21:13 PerryHooter wrote: Am I the only one who gets super confused by the trading system? Could anyone maybe explain it briefly for me, like a "EUIV trading for dummies"-guide? Like, how can it benefit you to send trading downstream to another node, rather than collecting it directly?
sending trade adds your trade steering as a % bonus to the ducats that you got from the node to the tradevalue you recieve in the next node. Also, trade collecting comes with a penalty to tradepower if you dont collect from your capital.
tradepower determines how much % of the tradevalue in the node belongs to you.
EPT
. Its a nice anti pirate for their buggy games.
