Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reudh]

Been playing my Cornwall game that I converted over from CK2 following the update to the CK2-EUIV converter. France is goddamn terrifying, and they're constantly up against my borders. Even with rapid expansion to hit my force limit, I'm still less than 1/4 strength of France. The big blue blob is dangerous enough in normal games, but when it controls Leinster, Mercia, large swathes of Spain and Portugal, and even some land in the Maghreb, I'm terrified. I rushed alliances with French enemies; Carpathia and Austrasia happily took me up; Lombardy was also very excited to have me on their side. I'm assuming that having the Carpathians, Austrasians and Lombards in an alliance with me is enough to prevent France going all stabby on Cornwall.

So far it seems to have worked; i had enough breathing space to deal with Suomensko rebels and Scottish seperatists after I beat the snot out of Alban and made it Cornish. I finally got the Quest for the New World and found France already has colonised the Azores and that other island off Western Africa's coast as well. Piss. That would mean my only avenue for expansion at the moment would be... Greenland.

[WealthyRadish]

I think I've identified the major distinction that separated Europe from the rest of world in terms of technological advancement (or at least in terms that the game can model).

In 1444 there were around 46 universities in Europe, and many more schools attached to churches that taught literacy and had libraries. Conversely, that sort of an institution didn't really exist outside of Europe at that time; the Hindu-Buddhist institutions had long since fallen apart in India and Indochina, and the best examples elsewhere such as in muslim nations and Ming China only really reached that "monastic school" level of instruction.

So what I'm thinking is that the 3 types of development should be split into rural population, urban population, and educated population. When conditions are right rural population will become urban population (I think my work with the Dynamic Tradegoods mod will be the primary engine for that), and schools/universities will allow a portion of "urban" population to become "educated" population. It's then the provinces where these educated people reside that new institutions (around 40 for all the different individual technologies) come about and spread.

In player terms, they'd build schools and universities (and there would be a calculated monthly maintenance as well), and opt to give randomly appearing promising areas of study "patronage". War, looting, famine, and disease would disrupt this building of better population at the province level. I thinking modelling food production will be important, but that's one of the great strengths of modelling rural population.

With this system, Europe would have a massive head start (like they really did in 1444), but if a player somewhere else is able to build a successful economy that can support massive education investment, they could overtake them (while the AI would take the historical balanced approach that leads to them falling farther and farther behind).

I don't know why I post this stuff here. I guess I don't like the paradox forums very much.

[Karlito]

The upcoming update to the MEIOU and Taxes mod will have a system a lot like that.

[WealthyRadish]

Yeah, I was initially surprised to see that M&T came to a similar solution (I don't normally follow their development at all), but I think it's mostly because we were considering similar problems. It's difficult to write a hands-off system that allows development to increase and decrease without pissing off the player; my experience has been that while modelling things like famines and depopulation sounds like it'd be a nice feature, players really don't enjoy it. So it was desirable in my view to make these "natural" changes temporary, so when something bad happens players wouldn't think they're losing permanent progress. A more in-depth simulation that considers population and local potential is a natural conclusion, and it looks like we converged on that point.

With institutions, it's suddenly a problem worth caring about, since urbanization and education are a perfect mesh with province-level institution spread. I don't think that will be M&T's focus, though. My objectives and theirs are very different, and they have a great deal of dependencies they've accrued in a project that large.

[Rex_Nex]

I tried to conquer China as the Chagatai. Not recommended! Here's as far as I got before the interest was so bad that I could no longer field an army:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I made a mistake and kept Yarkand (who now starts as Chagatai's vassal) around, thinking they might be useful as cannon fodder. Sadly the new AI makes vassals not dumb enough to kill themselves, but not smart enough to contribute in any meaningful way. They mostly just walked around or hid in their capital during wars. I forgot Yarkand holds a gold mine, so I was screwing myself out of the majority of my income by keeping them around.

Oh well, I think I'll just play manchu if I want to do this again. If you aren't Tengri the entire process is too much of a pain, and you do not ever have time to flip tengri because you need to be stocked up on manpower/money and going to war every single time your truces end.

Also rip my superstar 6/5/6 event heir Johan to the tribals. You tried.

[CABL]

I just got my first 6 pips general in my game as Morocco. Do I need to say that he curb stomped Mamluks and Mali/Songhai alliance? 

Spoiler: Picture (click to show/hide)

EDIT: Everything is good right now.

Off-topic: What picture resolution is the best for this forum?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The picture is totally fine. Your BBCode was just messed up. Nothing serious.

[Iceblaster]

Is the game performing better for everyone? Because all of a sudden, speed five is obtainable for at least a little bit of waiting. Like skipping a few years and all

Regardless, been playing as Gujarat. It's fun. Only downside is that I am horrible at diplomat managing :v

[Iceblaster]

Double post!

Belgium! Oh how I have wanted a reason to play Flanders

Mod if Extended Vanilla Experience. Picked it up recently. Decided to play Flanders because Belgium can be formed. Woo formable nations!

EDIT: The Seeing the Real You event. It's bullshit. Utter bullshit. Either a random heir or a pile of cash. With an attached five year modifier for -2 prestige and -5 legitimacy. Like. Is my wife really that powerful that not having a child with her causes that much trouble.

[Rex_Nex]

I've always been put off from gameplay mods because of how patchwork their implementation is. It's not the modders fault - EU4 doesn't allow the kind of modding necessary to seamlessly integrate certain things into the game - but it still makes me cringe every time I try a mod and my Decisions list is full of the mods' options and manuals.

On a similar note, I really wish there was some mod out there that just fixed a few things and added flavor without going overboard or messing with the balance. Like a sort of community patch combined what would be akin to a lightweight flavor DLC. I've tried a few mods that promised something similar, but they all go too far - I dont want to feel like I'm playing a different game than someone in vanilla. It makes me wish I had enough free time to do it myself.

[WealthyRadish]

it still makes me cringe every time I try a mod and my Decisions list is full of the mods' options and manuals.

Spoiler: But... my decision submenus! (click to show/hide)

If you do decide to start making tweaks, use this thread for reference:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/list-of-effects-modifiers-scopes-triggers-and-localization-strings-oh-my.722090/

I wouldn't recommend the wiki. Nothing on it is information that isn't better found in the thread above or by using the vanilla files as examples.

The EU4 scripting language is designed mostly for exactly what you'd like to do, making tweaks to things that already exist. If you're finding little things that are irritating, I think you'll be surprised how easy it is to find them and change it, and since ironman now works with mods, there's really no reason not to besides achievements. You shouldn't change the vanilla files themselves though, you'll want to create a directory and .mod file in the "documents/paradox interactive" directory.

[SaberToothTiger]

I'm sure I asked this before, but could you guys tell me which DLC to buy (no unit packs or music packs - my budget isn't that great anyway)?

I can buy most of the DLC before RoM, and which should I buy? I also heard that ED and CotNW aren't compatible - what's up with that?

[Persus13]

I also heard that ED and CotNW aren't compatible - what's up with that?

Never heard of that. There are some abilities that both El Dorado and Conquest of Paradise gives you access to, but I've played plenty of games with both of them active.

Art of War is probably the most important, as it has stuff that makes life a lot easier when you're at war.

Star and Crescent gives Muslims some pretty good stuff for Muslims.

If you want to play as custom nations or the Aztecs/Inca/Mayan, get El Dorado.

As for the others, they tend to be more specific. El Dorado, Conquest of Paradise, and Wealth of Nations are nice if you like colonizing and flesh out new world stuff and trade. Res Publica only really affects republics.

I don't own Mare Nostrum, and I haven't played enough with Cossacks to give my opinion on it. I don't own Common Sense either and I don't plan on getting it.

[WealthyRadish]

Of the old DLCs, AoW is the most important by quite a wide margin. It's still pretty much essential. Res Publica is only worth it for the national focus, which can be gotten through Common Sense instead (but it is very cheap). Wealth of Nations is still quite cheap and has a few nice little things, but most of these things could be done by a mod or have been made irrelevant with patches. CoP for its cost is still not worth it by any stretch if you're on a budget.

The more recent ones are getting into strange territory, since some of them started to include mechanics that (depending on your tastes) may not even be an improvement. Common Sense for instance has a lot of nice little things (the most important by far being subject interactions), but you may find that the HRE, development system, and karma are worse than the game without it. There aren't as many little things in Cossacks (except for hordes), and you may find that estates are tedious or make the game too easy, while the diplomatic feedback system is worse than what preceded it.

Mare Nostrum's Condottieri may also be found to be irritating, while the other features are just incredibly minor for the price. El Dorado for its price offers extremely little in terms of gameplay, maybe tied with RoM and CoP for the least; whether it's worth it would hinge entirely on whether you really think you'll get any value out of the nation designer. I think most people play one or two games with it and then never touch it again.

Then there's Rights of Man, which looks to be the most overpriced DLC for the amount of content yet, offering nothing major. I don't think this is a bad thing, though. The ridiculous patchwork of paid vs free content that's come about has hurt the game quite a bit, and at this point buying the DLC is probably more about supporting the free patches where most of the meat is.

So I guess in summary, just get AoW, and then decide about the other ones after considering whether you think something on their feature list is worth it.

[ein]

common sense is pretty damn important if you want to play anything outside of europe

the new tech system they added with rights of man is more painful than the old one if you have to sit and wait for every institution to reach you in asia

if you only pick up two dlc, i'd recommend common sense and art of war