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On November 04 2015 04:26 SCguineapig wrote:
So I realised something funny, when playing ironman mode as the ottomans, my godlike 6-3-6 heir (after a bunch of weak sultans) got an event where he would die. So in my infinite wisdom I closed the game (using task manager) apparently this gets past the "autosave" whenever you exit eu4 ironman through the main menu or alt f4. So if you ever find yourself in a position like me, you can always just quit the game and restart to avoid such annoying events. This is unfortuante though because it breaks a part of what makes ironman mode difficult.
This has been working forever and is the basis (though I doubt they will admit it) of many "seems impossible" one tags (that Foix one tag comes to mind). In theory you can replay every month until something ridiculously good happens to you.
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On November 04 2015 12:26 Blackfeather wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2015 04:40 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
I have a question for you progamers in the thread. I'm currently emperor in 1519 and my next reform is Ewegier Landgefride or whatever it's name is. I have never played as HRE emperor before but with the reformation coming up would passing the reform be incredibly stupid? (I have like 4 IA right now but it seems pretty easy to increase so I could probably have it by 1530 or so?)
Currently me and the boys curbstomp anyone who annexes anything inside the HRE and that was my intention for anyone choosing to switch religions as well. But if I understand it right I can't declare war if I pass the reform and then the reformation would run rampart because I can't shut down the centers of reformation? I have religious ideas pretty soon so I don't think I will have any trouble with it myself but it could mess up the HRE for me? Nakama might be able to give you a more precise answer, but according to my experience ewiger landfriede is pretty good thanks to the massive bonus peace in the HRE gives you to IA. It really depends on the center of reformation-spawns and spreads though, since it means you cant force convert people anymore, so yeah when 10 or more states become protestant or reformed you essentially loose the bonus again (which will happen over time). So yeah it all depends on how fast you can revoke the privilegia. Because after that you usually dont care that much anymore about religion.
I vad to restart because the save corrupted but generally I would say wait unless you can get hereditary empire before reformation. The reason is that cor works so that the 3 first countries to convert gets a cor. So if you keep states small as you should the probability is that all cor will pop up next to eachothers as they chain convert and then they can be dealt with in a single war. Because opm minors mean you can force concert in one go. Other possibilities include vassalazing and forcing conversion or if its a bigger target taking the province but its pretty hard to convert. Since conversion happens when a country has more protestant provinces opm generally convert first. The nightmare is if france or poland gets a cor on your border, then wait for the 2 other ones to spawn kill them and then reform and try to get to hereditary adaptic.
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Hey guys, I've got a few questions about my current game. Playing with all expansions. Earliest start with Portugal.
I went to war with Castille at the start before France started their war and along with Aragon. I tried several times to get this right but what is the best way to devour Castille? I took about 4-5 provinces from the first war including Sevilla and Canaries, I picked mainly by manpower and development level. I tried to release Leon and selling them some provinces then diplo annexing Leon but it took way too long and cost me diplo rep. So in the second run I just cored all the provinces I took. I then took one of Granada's provinces and demanded they cut all alliances in hopes of diplo annexing them later. I sold my African continent so I have no land there.
Castille then took Granada, I started another war after my first truce and eventually split Castille in half with Aragon and diplo annexed the rest of the continents on my side. This process slowed my colonization by a good amount but I thought since I took Canaries, I could wait a while. I cored all my provinces before upgrading tech.
Second question is regarding colonization, what are ways to make the most money the fastest from colonizing? I got two colonial nations up and running asap, Carribas and Brazil. I built marketplaces in the ones with high trade power before forming the nations. I kept tariffs low at around 25% so their liberty desire was low. I send a merchant to transfer at Caribbean and Brazil and have ships to protect. I ended up getting ten provinces each CN for the bonus merchant but I'm still not making a lot of money and my tariffs income is meager. I know my tariffs are low but I'd think I should be making more. Should I have not tried to get CNs running and take worse provinces but expanded to Africa faster?
Some small questions:
Do I need merchants at trade nodes that only export in one direction?
Is it ever worth getting techs way early and pay the ahead of time penalty instead of waiting and investing the points?
When is it a good idea to assign province to trade company? Only when it has high trade power?
Do I want more or less catholic reform desire? Does reformation help or hurt me?
Do colonial nations build their own buildings? If so then should I build any for them?
How long does it usually take for my army to reach full morale, as in how long before should I put the maintenance slider on full if I expect fighting?
Do I need to keep the maintenance slider at full even if I'm just exploring South America? Do armies not reinforce at anything less than full?
Do I need an admiral for trade ships? Does maneuver help?
Thanks for help, this is my first time playing in more than a year so I am still trying to learn the game mechanics.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
I can't believe a Paradox dev actually wrote this:
Sorry, but from the things you listed off in your rant, and not understanding that Novgorod is actually one of the hardest countries in the game
lmao Wiz please
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I know my tariffs are low but I'd think I should be making more. Should I have not tried to get CNs running and take worse provinces but expanded to Africa faster?
tariffs are pretty garbage, you make the real money with trade. Generally you want control of Ivory coast because that is where Brazil node steers to. If I recall Brazil node only has one exit so you don't need a merchant there, but you do want a merchant steering in Ivory Coast (to Sevilla). As a rule of thumb you want a merchant steering wherever there is a trade node with multiple exits.
Add all your overseas provinces in Africa + India to trade companies if you can.
If you want to really make money via exploration strats its better to conquer around Africa, secure Zanzibar trade node, get strong control in Aden then steer Indian trade moneys around Africa to Ivory Coast->Sevilla (collecting in Zanzibar is also a strong option).
I took about 4-5 provinces from the first war including Sevilla and Canaries, I picked mainly by manpower and development level.
Things to take from Castile in order of priority:
1) Sevilla
2) their gold mine (La Mancha)
3) stuff they use to colonize
So you did pretty good. Tangiers is not horrible to grab early despite hostile coring cost modifier, so you have practically all the trade provinces in Sevilla. It'll be kind of rebellious though.
When is it a good idea to assign province to trade company? Only when it has high trade power?
pretty much every province you can
Do I want more or less catholic reform desire? Does reformation help or hurt me?
reformation is hardcoded not to really affect Iberia. I guess if you want to participate in league wars then you want a decently strong reformation (so the league war actually fires) but not too strong.
Do colonial nations build their own buildings? If so then should I build any for them?
They'll build their own if they are rich enough (like in Caribbean)
How long does it usually take for my army to reach full morale, as in how long before should I put the maintenance slider on full if I expect fighting?
~6 months
Do I need to keep the maintenance slider at full even if I'm just exploring South America? Do armies not reinforce at anything less than full?
they reinforce at lower than usual rate at lower maintenance. For guarding colonies its probably acceptable to keep slider at 25%~ ish
Do I need an admiral for trade ships? Does maneuver help?
No, and its probably not worth the mil leader slot, but admiral maneuver does increase trade power from protecting trade.
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On November 07 2015 06:08 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Hey guys, I've got a few questions about my current game. Playing with all expansions. Earliest start with Portugal.
I went to war with Castille at the start before France started their war and along with Aragon. I tried several times to get this right but what is the best way to devour Castille? I took about 4-5 provinces from the first war including Sevilla and Canaries, I picked mainly by manpower and development level. I tried to release Leon and selling them some provinces then diplo annexing Leon but it took way too long and cost me diplo rep. So in the second run I just cored all the provinces I took. I then took one of Granada's provinces and demanded they cut all alliances in hopes of diplo annexing them later. I sold my African continent so I have no land there.
Castille then took Granada, I started another war after my first truce and eventually split Castille in half with Aragon and diplo annexed the rest of the continents on my side. This process slowed my colonization by a good amount but I thought since I took Canaries, I could wait a while. I cored all my provinces before upgrading tech.
Second question is regarding colonization, what are ways to make the most money the fastest from colonizing? I got two colonial nations up and running asap, Carribas and Brazil. I built marketplaces in the ones with high trade power before forming the nations. I kept tariffs low at around 25% so their liberty desire was low. I send a merchant to transfer at Caribbean and Brazil and have ships to protect. I ended up getting ten provinces each CN for the bonus merchant but I'm still not making a lot of money and my tariffs income is meager. I know my tariffs are low but I'd think I should be making more. Should I have not tried to get CNs running and take worse provinces but expanded to Africa faster?
Some small questions:
Do I need merchants at trade nodes that only export in one direction?
Is it ever worth getting techs way early and pay the ahead of time penalty instead of waiting and investing the points?
When is it a good idea to assign province to trade company? Only when it has high trade power?
Do I want more or less catholic reform desire? Does reformation help or hurt me?
Do colonial nations build their own buildings? If so then should I build any for them?
How long does it usually take for my army to reach full morale, as in how long before should I put the maintenance slider on full if I expect fighting?
Do I need to keep the maintenance slider at full even if I'm just exploring South America? Do armies not reinforce at anything less than full?
Do I need an admiral for trade ships? Does maneuver help?
Thanks for help, this is my first time playing in more than a year so I am still trying to learn the game mechanics.
large questions:
getting slightly behind on colonisation is less bad if your eliminating one of your 2 main competitors for collonization out of the race(if you fully annex all non colonial nation castille you get their colonial nations for free that have not revolted yet, you might even release castille as a one province minor with return province after that to keep them as a colonising vassal, making a country a vassal frees their colonial nations but annexing a vassal that has made colonial nations while being vassal transfer them to you),
So do not diplo annex castille if you want their colonial nations for free as the act of vassilizing ends all overlord relations of the country being vassilized.
you should expand to Africa too, but de trade of the colonial regions is going to explode big time as all uncolonised provinces are not yielding trade value yet but that is going to go through the roof, in Africa just make sure you have all the centers of trade and estituaries, control of ivory coast is the most crutial one here and absolutely make sure you do control it(colonize gold coast if it is still open), Azia yields even more trade income eventually but generally later then when the colonial nations start picking up steam, and generally you dont need to actually colonize alot there, just use oversea expansion to nap some provinces and all the trade centers and estituaries, you actually make more money if you leave some provinces to locals after dominating the trade in that node(and your points are better spend at getting more trade centers further up stream), because they get a rather large goods produced bonus due to your trade company(if you have those).
1) usually not necissary unless your either losing alot of trade value in the province due to nations collecting trade locally, just keep a tab on what your trade screen says the local trade value is, if that value is high(or all if no nations are forwarding trade) and you have alot of trade power there, sent a merchant there, just keep tabs on where you lose the most trade value due to either rerouting or local collection and use your merchants there.
2)if you control most of spain your manpower base should easily be high enough that its worth it to make a habit of adding most stuff to trade companies, atleast till you get the bonus merchant from the province, but generally you dont want to take to much more if you completely dominate the trade in a node(at first) and just move on to the next.
3) I like reforming with el dorado as i dislike treaty of .. with a passion(and it often even prevents you from colonising in regions of your vassal, or areas in control of your former portugal provinces if you form spain) , and i find catholic bonuses to be slightly lackluster unless your dominant enough or the reformation is succesfull enough to get papal bonuses at a reasonable interfall as the curia bonusses are amazing, personally i like protestant as colonizer, just realise that the transition period can be relatively rough if your to late to get a center of reformation and you have no religious/humanist.
4) they make their own buildings
5)i think 3 months from empty maintenance
6)army maintenance does definatly not need to be full if your not at war, at to low you might start fighting bad even vs native uprisings though if you have an conquistador exploring. I think army reinforces at somewhere between full and empty but i am not completely sure
7)i do not keep an admiral for tradeships but maneuver does help your trade ships
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
yeah, Catholic is very much a warmonger religion as you need that juice from conversions to keep it competitive with other religions
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Thanks guys for the answers.
What counts as dominating a trade node, ~60%?
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51% is when you get the extra merchant from trade companies. The node has more output if there are non-western countries who produce goods in the node, because they get a boost from your trade company.
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Having played a lot of HRE politics lately I thought I should try to gather the tips I got and the things I discovered on my own in one place.
You absolutely need either full diplo tree asap or full influence. I prefer diplo, you can't vassalize that much either way early game. If you don't have significant + diplo relations managing the HRE is very frustrating.
On gaining IA:
The best way to gain IA is to cycle the improve relations mission as mentioned above. You can get this mission if an elector has between 1 and 50 relations with you. If they have above you will instead be offered "Make them vote for us mission" which gives +1 diplo relations.
- this mission competes with other missions so the best way to get it is to try to have as many available electors as possible within the range and as few other possible missions available. So if you have a mission that keeps popping up try to get rid of it (Defend lower netherlands, drive turks out of Europe etc).
- you can't get a mission twice in a row so either pick an easy one (which also gets rid of them like "Rival of my rival") or cancel immediately. Do not sit on a useless mission forever unless you have to ("Decline in Hungary" which gives you a PU over them as an example).
- the best ways to increase an electors opinion is to improve relations up to 75 and then send them a gift. It's the fastest way and also tanks their relations pretty quickly afterwards to get them down to the right level.
- the best ways to decrease their reputation is by insulting them. It also have the benefit of fading really quickly so getting back up to a 100 is easier.
- Other ways are forming alliances for +50 which can either be broken for a significant malus (which can be hard to overcome) or just declare some intra HRE war to get rid of it. You can also marry/divorce if you have full influence without suffering a stability hit.
- before completing the previous mission check relations with all electors to maximize your chances. Remember you can get this mission from your PU countries!
Keeping many small states are important early game. Make sure to take pauses to do some "gardening" and release annexed princes. Also get rid of enemy held provinces as soon as possible, it's a significant drain in the long term.
Killing of your ruler is a great way to get extra IA so keep him as a general if the throne is secure. But if you manage to inherit more than 2 electors who are in PU with you only 1 vote counts! So keeping 3 electors happy at all time is a good safety net. Also try to not kill your ruler when your close to 50 already.
Also note that having a PU over an elector (Bohemia for example) doesn't cause you to lose massive amounts of IA like having a vassal does, but it does give -50 on the others voting per PU'd elector.
Save IA by having high diplo rep and timing when you hit 50 so you don't have a lot of over extension. Having just annexed a vassal and having 70 % OE will make it close to impossible to get the votes you need, if your not overextended and have high rep (papal legate is great for this in a pinch) will let you pass reforms almost instantly.
On dealing with reformation
You need religious as a third idea to survive if reformation hits you badly. It's also great for HRE in general.
If the centers form at some OPM minors let it spread to 3 centers then war them. Cleansing of heresy if possible but OPMs can be converted if they are allies in a war so check their alliances and fabricate on them. Having 1 or 2 scattered provinces in the corners of the empire (say 1 on the west coast and one at the baltic coast) helps immensely.
If it's a large country try to war and just take the COR, with Austria and religious ideas to +3 strength and/or missionary adviser you can convert it before it does to much damage.
You can also diplo annex a small country and force them to change their religions in the subject tab, this also gets rid of the COR. Good if you just released a prince who got converted and has a truce with you.
If you get lucky spawns you can shut down the reformation before it even begins.
However if you get unlucky spawns (my last game had a border province of the commonwealth who were allied with a blobbed Scandinavia and Castile...) note that the reform that makes the title hereditary also gives religious peace if the leagues haven't formed! Which basically negates the penalties for heresy in the empire.
So eliminate any COR of opportunity, leave the one that's to much trouble and get Ewegier Landgefriede. The +0,1 for peace will mostly cancel out any heresy until you can get to the next one, I added a shit ton of provinces to get there but IMHO it was worth it.
General tips on expansion
Don't expand into the HRE unless you absolutely have to. The AE hits are massive, just a few provinces can give -100 relationship with over half the empire. You can't add the provinces either. Your best bet is to PU in empire when you can, expand outwards like in the Balkans. Once Italy leaves you can also beat OPMs out of the larger states and diplo vassal them without AE, keep them for 10 years and then annex.
Also keep abusing alliances. Ally, go to war, then go to a smaller war to release a prince to get out of your alliance. Intra HRE wars is a good way to gain gold and army experience but it drains your manpower pretty quickly.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/gMmNnxy.png)
Ok, I've eliminated / vassalized pretty much any significant threat in West Africa, and still waiting for the Portuguese missionaries event to flip to Catholic.
I knew I should have just gone Sunni, but I figured the event chain wouldn't be terribly hit-or-miss.
I sometimes wonder what sort of play paradox is balancing for - go afk for 4 decades or something?
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On November 07 2015 08:21 419 wrote:I can't believe a Paradox dev actually wrote this: Show nested quote +Sorry, but from the things you listed off in your rant, and not understanding that Novgorod is actually one of the hardest countries in the game lmao Wiz please
In the context in which he said it it's little less silly though. Since the guy was ranting at how hard EU4 is. I can imagine Novgorod not being easy for lesser skilled players since you get Muscovy on you real fast.
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On November 08 2015 03:26 RvB wrote:Show nested quote +On November 07 2015 08:21 419 wrote:I can't believe a Paradox dev actually wrote this: Sorry, but from the things you listed off in your rant, and not understanding that Novgorod is actually one of the hardest countries in the game lmao Wiz please In the context in which he said it it's little less silly though. Since the guy was ranting at how hard EU4 is. I can imagine Novgorod not being easy for lesser skilled players since you get Muscovy on you real fast.
The only thing challenging about EU4 is how fast you do stuff. Novgorod is pretty faceroll imo.
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On November 08 2015 01:59 419 wrote:Ok, I've eliminated / vassalized pretty much any significant threat in West Africa, and still waiting for the Portuguese missionaries event to flip to Catholic. I knew I should have just gone Sunni, but I figured the event chain wouldn't be terribly hit-or-miss. I sometimes wonder what sort of play paradox is balancing for - go afk for 4 decades or something?
Haven't played in a while, but I've had games where Portugal goes full retard. And I'm not even talking about losing big wars , I've seen them (with horrible dip monarchs admittedly) take ~30 years to get to Explo3, then continuously start colonies in coastal Africa only to have them wiped out by natives. I'm aware you only need to be discovered by them, but lack of range might influence how the AI explores around Africa.
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On November 08 2015 03:40 Fildun wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2015 03:26 RvB wrote:On November 07 2015 08:21 419 wrote:I can't believe a Paradox dev actually wrote this: Sorry, but from the things you listed off in your rant, and not understanding that Novgorod is actually one of the hardest countries in the game lmao Wiz please In the context in which he said it it's little less silly though. Since the guy was ranting at how hard EU4 is. I can imagine Novgorod not being easy for lesser skilled players since you get Muscovy on you real fast. The only thing challenging about EU4 is how fast you do stuff. Novgorod is pretty faceroll imo.
Once you are experienced, yes. But if you don't have 200+ hours of the game already, and don't know how the mechanics work yet, things are hard.
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There's still a couple dozen nations that are harder than Novgorod though.
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On November 08 2015 05:20 nothingmuch wrote:
There's still a couple dozen nations that are harder than Novgorod though.
Yeah but for a new player it's definitely not a good starting nation. People are supposed to start with Castile, France, Ottomans, Austria for a reason. Like a new player can literally start with allying everyone who proposes alliances first week and end up with 3 OPM's as allys. New player is puttering about building light ships to dominate trade and then Muscovy and the bois roll in and the army that is sitting on farmlands next to the border gets wiped immediately and it's GG. I can see Novogrod being incredibly frustrating to play early on.
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On November 08 2015 05:20 nothingmuch wrote:
There's still a couple dozen nations that are harder than Novgorod though.
Obviously you can't compare Novgorod to some ridiculous minor in Asia or landlocked HRE OPMs or whatever, but there's no denying it is a much more challenging start than just about any nation of 'relevance'. Even if you mess up diplomacy and get into some bad wars as France or Ottoman or whatever, you have at least a very good shot at recovering and getting whatever you lost back and more. As Novgorod, losing an early war can be pretty much game-ending.
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I have a question guys. I'm in 1570 and about to revoke the privilegia (just need a few more points of IA so I can't all aboard).
Currently the strongest country in Europe by far even compared to the other big blobs. What can I do with this? I guess WC is out of the question?
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On November 08 2015 19:48 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On November 08 2015 05:20 nothingmuch wrote:
There's still a couple dozen nations that are harder than Novgorod though. Obviously you can't compare Novgorod to some ridiculous minor in Asia or landlocked HRE OPMs or whatever, but there's no denying it is a much more challenging start than just about any nation of 'relevance'. Even if you mess up diplomacy and get into some bad wars as France or Ottoman or whatever, you have at least a very good shot at recovering and getting whatever you lost back and more. As Novgorod, losing an early war can be pretty much game-ending.
"One of the hardest nations in the game". <-> harder than Ottomans or France.
gg ?
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On November 09 2015 00:49 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
I have a question guys. I'm in 1570 and about to revoke the privilegia (just need a few more points of IA so I can't all aboard).
Currently the strongest country in Europe by far even compared to the other big blobs. What can I do with this? I guess WC is out of the question?
Well that depends on how far you've gotten with the rest of the world/colonizers. But from there being "other blobs" in europe, and you taking that amount of time to revoke, I would guess wc is a goner.
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EPT
