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[Catastrophic lolcats]

So I had my first real game as Venice because I fell in love with them during the demo. I focused primarily on forming Italy which turned out a lot harder than expected due to Austria vassaling Poland and PU'ing Bohemia. Managed to form Italy in 1530 (a bit later than I wanted) but now I'm completely at a loss of what to do.
I got claims all over Italy and it didn't take me long to consolidate most of it into the state. Austria is much weaker and with the help of my English and French allies aren't too much a problem. I'm considering pushing into southern Austria for the gold and iron down there but there's going to be a bit of culture flipping. There's also no chance of forming the HRE easily due to Venice not starting in it.

I could play the colonial game as both Spain and Portugal haven't advanced too far, only a few provinces between them. I'd have to take some land in western Europe which sounds like a lot of effort.
The other possibility I was considering is conquering The Mamluks since I keep getting missions to conquer Judea and then build a fleet on the other side of the nile and colonise Africa from the east to the west before moving on to India. I know this worked rather well in EUIII but I'm not quite as sure how it would work in EUIV due to trade routes.

Another annoying thing is that provinces with religious zeal are extremely hard to convert. I've tried both advisors and ideas and I haven't even gotten close to the missionary strength I need.

[Tarran]

You can wait out the zeal. It does eventually go away.

[Inarius]

post to watch !

[Rakonas]

Ok, so from what I can tell, coalitions are completely fucking broken.  Its possible I'm missing something and this is a rant about nothing, in which case... oops.  But I'm pretty sure about this.

If you attack someone in the coalition, the warcore is calculated as if all the coalition members were in an alliance against you.  However, you can't make peace on them separately... and you can't make demands of them, except the one you attacked.  You can't ask for them to cede provinces, return cores, annul treaties, ANYTHING.  As far as I can tell, any money you ask for will come from the main target.

This means that if you wanted to annex 4 one province nations, and they were all in a coalition against you along with France, you would have to beat France 4 times to annex each one province nation individually, and you could never make any demands of France, unless you chose to attack them directly, at which point you couldn't annex any of the smaller nations.  On top of that, those four tiny nations could hate France's guts, but they would still join the coalition and fight to the death together.

It also means that if you're in a coalition, you essentially get a free war with no risk of losing land, unless someone else is attacking you.  Seriously.  Your armies scattered, your bitter rival occupied every last inch of your land?  No biggy.  Since you aren't guilty of anything other than joining a coalition sworn to fight said rival unconditionally, they'll have to forgive you, and leave your lands without taking so much as a single gold coin.  *incoherent rage*

The worse part is that even if you sit around at peace with them for 40 years (currently the state of my Ottomans game which I've given up) almost nobody leaves the coalition. Croatia, Hungary, the Mamluks and Naples are all in a coalition against me. I had all these claims on Naples and Croatia, but I can't declare on either of them because France will intervene and magically become the head of the coalition due to Defender of the Faith. If I knew that the AI was permanently bound in a non-expiring coalition I wouldn't have waited around hoping for them to see reason.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

The key to coalitions is that members will drop out at around +0 relationship. You can easily abuse this by improving relationship with a country you want to conquer until they fall out of the coalition and then go in for the kill. Very handy for expanding as a small power against a whole bunch of OPM and the like.

[snelg]

I had a coalition against me as France, but nearly everyone left it after only a year or two. This was early game though, so I hadn't really done anything but take back two provinces from England and one from Burgundy.

Also, playing ironman feels like I'm spending more time waiting for the game to save than actually playing.

[Wiles]

I don't think I quite understand the combat system yet.

I'm trying to fight Sweden as Norway and I can't win a single battle. Last time I tried I outnumbered them 31 to 22 and I lost horribly. I'm fairly certain that I am ahead of them in military tech and I have gone most of the way up the military quality idea tree.

The problem seems to lie in the fact that they seem to have a decent general while mine is pretty lousy. Does a general make that much of a difference? Does the lucky nation system play into it too?

I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.

I have more money, more tech and more men but I have no idea on how I should go about beating them. Any suggestions?

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.

If it's the same as EU3 you should save up as much power as you can before making generals, increases their base stats. In EU3 I'd always wait until 90%+ tradition before making generals, and they'd always be 4-4-4+s, not sure how EU4 works though.

Oh, and about the tactical side of things: Terrain is most important in Paradox titles. River+Mountain = attacker loses, bottom line. I wish EU had a more HOI-like system with flanking and pincer attacks. Otherwise; for wars like yours your only bet is to create doomstacks at a size just below attrition and mass wave them until you win.

Dunno if I'll pick this up. Seems to be a pretty normal Paradox launch, but with more rush. Will gladly wait until patches and mods to shore up the glaring mistakes in design main one I saw around was making state religion go to Christian with no goddamn option at all on westernization, due to the 'White makes might'* theory of Paradox titles. Coalitions, too, that bit scares me.

EU3 wasn't necessarily stellar in espionage areas, either, so I don't think I'll be very motivated to bother fucking with currently-broken coalitions at all. Feel like it'd just be a rush to grab all the minors you can before unbreakable coalitions form everywhere.


*Coined by A1s :]

Edited for butchering the English language. What I get for typing half asleep.

[Culise]

I don't think I quite understand the combat system yet.

I'm trying to fight Sweden as Norway and I can't win a single battle. Last time I tried I outnumbered them 31 to 22 and I lost horribly. I'm fairly certain that I am ahead of them in military tech and I have gone most of the way up the military quality idea tree.

The problem seems to lie in the fact that they seem to have a decent general while mine is pretty lousy. Does a general make that much of a difference? Does the lucky nation system play into it too?

I can't even get a general that isn't terrible. I spammed 400 military power hiring generals and they all had 1 or 2 points in a couple of categories.

I have more money, more tech and more men but I have no idea on how I should go about beating them. Any suggestions?

Generals can be quite important with bonuses comparable to your dice rolls, which you typically get with high tradition, which you can get in turn through ideas and fighting; even a poor general's +1 or +2 is better than no general at all.  I was sweeping up Sweden as Muscovy/Russia through the power of the luck, which granted me some rather useful generals with 4 pips in shock.  I really wonder about some of the retreat algorithms, though; I had an army lose in Tsaritsyn and decide to retreat clear to Ladoga, which was entertainingly terrible and put that army out of commission for months as it had to march all the way back. 

Handling Sweden as Norway, you don't have a lot of ground to fall back on, but winter attrition should help deplete them.  Try to force them to battle you in mountains or other difficult terrain, so that you get the bonus of terrain instead of them.  An EU3 tactic that worked was to cycle fresh armies into battle and exhausted armies out; if you have enough of a numeric superiority, you may be able to do that.  Also, try to get Moscow or Novgorod on your side; in planning my reclamation of Karelia, I set the stage diplomatically by allying with both Denmark and Norway. 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I really wonder about some of the retreat algorithms, though; I had an army lose in Tsaritsyn and decide to retreat clear to Ladoga, which was entertainingly terrible and put that army out of commission for months as it had to march all the way back.

This also worries me. Glaring issues in simple mechanics like this for multiple titles now does not bode well for their attention-to-anything rating.

Seriously. It's not hard to put in some goddamn if variables.

Troop retreating. Calculate adjacent provinces, strongest draw is in this order: 1st priority Quickest movement, 2nd priority friendly armies, 3rd priority best defensiveness. At the moment retreat algorithms look like: FLEE TO NEAREST PROVINCE.. 45km away is a mountain top while 50km away is a desert. Pick mountain and have enemy troops on you as soon as you arrive.

I feel like they just don't care about things that enhance the actual gameplay anymore if they don't even bother with that.

Spoiler: Warning, huge image (click to show/hide)

And it definitely hasn't gotten better..

[Drakale]

Was playing as Wallachia and one of my territory got nabbed by the Ottomans after I foolishly backed a neighbor war. I figured that I was pretty much screwed but kept playing to see what would happen. Turn out that the occupied locals where the belligerent sort and fielded armies vastly superior to what I could ever hope to muster. They wreaked some havoc on the ottoman but where ultimately repelled... to Moldavia. They conquered it easily and transferred control to me, essentially taking land from a vassal of Poland without them batting an eye, not even a relationship hit. I even got back my lost territory by getting in an alliance with Poland and getting them to support my reconquest.

[Rakonas]

It doesn't really make sense how armies can now retreat all the way back to their capital and be immune until they get there, even if they run into enemies on the way.
The christianizing westernization thing, are you sure it wasn't a "choice" like all of the westernization event choices? You either do x or lose stability kinda thing, which isn't a choice if you have -3 stability.
Personally I'm enjoying the game a lot more after raising the overextension threshold to 150%. Now I can actually get more than a couple provinces in a peace deal before my entire country explodes into rebels. Was able to annex the Mamluks in 5 wars instead of 300 like I would with 100%.
One other thing I have a big problem with is that Mecca and Medina offer no benefits. You'd think being a muslim empire controlling two of the holiest cities in Islam you'd get some kind of benefits, but nope. There isn't even any trade power modifiers in Mecca like there are for estuaries. You'd think that Mecca might be a mecca of sorts but instead it's a shitty 2 base tax province, while Judea gives +1 prestige and missionaries.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

One other thing I have a big problem with is that Mecca and Medina offer no benefits. You'd think being a muslim empire controlling two of the holiest cities in Islam you'd get some kind of benefits, but nope. There isn't even any trade power modifiers in Mecca like there are for estuaries. You'd think that Mecca might be a mecca of sorts but instead it's a shitty 2 base tax province, while Judea gives +1 prestige and missionaries.

'Mecca and Medina Bonuses DLC'

[snelg]

I've also had armies retreating in weird fashion, one army went from the northern coast of Burgundy down to my (France) southern border with Aragon. And promptly got whopped by the Austrian army sieging there.

'Mecca and Medina Bonuses DLC'

I've already lost count of the number of DLC's released... 

[yarr]

I'm bad at this game.
I start as Leinster(?), South Ireland. I "immediately" forge a claim on the province to the west, of which I forgot the name and take it by force. This usually goes smooth (I've already tried that scenario 3 times now). So now I have 2 provinces. However, once I try to take Connacht to the north I run into problems. Scottland or England gets involved and they just crush me. I then pay back all the loans I had to take for the next ~10 years and try again, but then they're allied with some other large nation which just proceeds to block my ports, so I run out of funds etc etc they crush me etc etc and I just lose.

I'm basically a noob at this game, having never played EU3. I have played CK2 tho and created Ireland there successfully. I just can't seem to do it in this game, any tips?