Started first game of EUIV.
Colonial Japan!
Oh, this is kind of neat, everyone is vassals.
YOU CAN DIPLO-ANNEX VASSALS WITH GOOD RELATIONS? This is AMAZING!
Oh, it takes forever. Oh well. Trying to get into some colonial action, but I keep taking event stability hits and that just eats away my Admin powers. Thinking I should have started as one of the vassals instead of Japan, since apparently they have higher tech levels at the beginning of the game. That'll be a test for next time.
Legitimacy hit for diplo-annexing vassals? Oh... okay? Whatever.
Oh god, my legitimacy is ultra low and I'm not liking it dipping that far down. Luckily I have craptons of gold from not having to fight any wars. Unfortunately, Nippon is like the least interesting/worst trade route ever. It's fed by a trade node that's way off in the East, probably with the Americas, and there's not that much gold going through it (I think?). It also has one out path. Lame.
YEAH, EXPLORATION! COLONIES! OH GOD, MING, WHAT ARE YOU DOING. WHY DOES ZHOU AND SHU AND THE ORIAT OWN SO MUCH OF YOU? MANCHU, WHAT THE HELL? ORIAT VASSAL WITH TWO PROVINCES AND KOREA IS GIANT! I don't like any of this! MING STOP DYING! Crap, crap! Gotta figure out how to make an alliance to stop having two giant superpowers right next door! By this time in EU3 I owned Korea, come on! How was I even distracted long enough for this to happen!?
Alright! Taiwan is colonized, and now I can pull in trade from China! Can't do anything else useful with it, but it's a little more income! An actual job for my second merchant, hurra- ZHOU. ZHOU STOP THAT. STOP TRYING TO MAKE A CLAIM. ZHOU, NO. STOP ZHOU. WHY YOU DO THIS. No seriously is all you're doing trying to force claims? I stopped you like 20 times in a month already. Well, except for that just then. Damnit.
UNITE JAPAN! YEAH! Wait nothing happened. What the hell? Ohhh, it's the other event I need for it to do something other than change government. Damn. *savescum*
Heeeeeeeeeeeeey. Ming. I see you barely holding on over there. I made a rival out of Korea, so now my own relations are high enough to Alliance with you. Sooo... wanna Alliance? Alright! Sweet. Now, let's hope that intimi- oh god seriously?
IT'S OKAY MING, I GOT YOU. I SEE YOU HAVE LIKE 4 PROVINCES OCCUPIED, BUT I OWN LIKE 5 OF KOREA'S, WRECKED ITS NAVY AND WE HAVE POSITIVE WARSCORE. JUST HOLD O- ... or... you know... just hand them a couple provinces. That's fine. Whatever.
Okay, ruler died, got 100 legit, vassals not freaking out about getting annexed so I can start on a couple more, I colonized The Land of the Gods and working on the Kurils and that little peninsula of Siberia. Damn, this is kind of late in the timeline. Maybe I didn't own tons of stuff by this time in EU3 like I thought. At least colonization is way less painful and the vassals thing is super cool. Wonder why they changed the Divine Wind setup. I didn't see it at all throughout the timeline when I checked all the historical starts.
ANOTHER WAR AGAINST MING!? I'm not prepared to fight Korea AND Zhou right now! Wait... wait... YES! THEIR ALLIANCE DISSOLVED! Just me and you, Korea. Just me and you. Well, Ming's there, but- WHY THE HELL AM I THE JUNIOR PARTNER TO MING? MING HAS LIKE 1000 TROOPS AND FOUR BOATS. This is dumb. Whatever, at least I broke up that alliance. Let me just eat Korea's navy, blockade all of its ports, take it's homeland... or not. At least I got my troops out. To the eastern Korean coast! Why the hell is 15k troops wreaking my 27k stack? I mean, I win every time but it's Pyrrhic all day, every day. Shit, actually lost a couple. At least I like the ping-ponging WAY MORE than in the other EU games. And stacks can actually die, you don't need to hound them for a year until you kill the last 400 trying to hold on. Lost my little 3k stack, but it set up a victory over their 15k with my depleted 27k now at 18k, so that's okay. Hey, Ming, could you... you know... do anything useful? I own a handful of Korean provinces, they literally have a handful of boats at individual ports, they're down to a 13k stack and this 5k I'm chasing around... but I can't do peace. Because I formed a coalition trying to help with the whole Korean superpower going on. And now I'm waiting for you to force peace. Also, this is for "Show Superiority". Did you start this war, Ming? I can't find out where to check. If you did, I hate you, because I'm not getting anything out of this other than 0 Manpower and setting Korea back some. What if Zhou tries to attack you right now, Ming? I have nothing to help you with. JUST DO THE PEACE, MING. DAMNIT, MING, DO THE PEACE.
And now it's time to take a break. Saw a few bugs, mostly graphical. That Siberian peninsula has its colonial range bugged, though. I owned Kamigawa but it was reading the range from Takehito (I think it was Takehito?) which made it just out of range. Kamigawa wasn't blockaded either. Kind of silly. Oh, and there was a "Gain a merchant" event when it was impossible to get a merchant (maybe intentional? Doubtful), and a couple uprising events in Okinawa that didn't actually spawn rebels. The last uprising event actually did spawn rebels, so maybe it was just events telling me things weren't doing too good and to expect an uprising and I just wasn't paying attention.