My Japan took Explorations. After all Americas is the only way to guarantee westernization eligibility.
Which is one of the most ridiculous things in a so-called 'historical' game. There's so many things wrong with EU4 vanilla ranging from zero national idea balance to the simply asanine and not-playtested at all coalitions, the fact that trade is stagnant and does not change at all over time, I get what they were trying to do but they basically made a simplified EU3 system [without dynamic nodes] and slapped-on trade routes, with varying amounts of historical accuracy..
Lisbon not being a goddamn trade center/node.
About trade:
How the new trade nodes work, with London getting a bonus to income due to being a 'center of trade' but places like the Gulf Of Aden trade node have no complimentary province, it should be consistent or have no province-specific bonuses at all. Unless everyone dinghied their goods into the middle of the ocean to trade goods at places like Bordeaux and Settsu..
I've simply stopped playing and picked up MEIOU 5.6 for EU3 again and remembered why I didn't like EU3 vanilla, and why I do not like EU4 vanilla. Waiting for MEIOU&Taxes with bated breath, otherwise I'm done with EU4. I don't think I'll be buying another Paradox launch until the total conversions [good versions] are out anymore.
Oh, I also severely dislike the simplified advisor system. Playing EU3 MEIOU reminds me how much depth there used to be to advisors and the choices you could make in them.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=172185692Oh, and I ran across this. Mod of the year.
So I got a PU with Britain as Scandinavia, then Poland(my ally) asked me to join a war vs britain.
I was confused so I saved before clicking yes, and I ended up fighting Britain, but the British troops had blue icons, instead of red.
Weird...
Naturally I reloaded and just took the prestige hit.
I guess Poland is next on the list now...
And yeah, for some reason you can be asked to join wars you'd otherwise be unable to join, the AI is absolutely foolish and does not take the same penalties you do if they refuse your request to go to war with someone they have PU/Alliance with. I've been asked to join a war by the Major partner on both sides, and a junior, and declining them all cost me 75 prestige. They didn't think to implement a 'Stay neutral in war' option. Refusing to attack an ally is not telling your other allies to piss off, i'd hazard a guess that a -20 'Non involvement' penalty to both parties would be good, but not massive prestige hits and annuled alliances. I do not form alliances unless I know they will be immediately useful and exploitable. There are no such things as long term alliances in EU4 anymore. They severely fucked up their own system, if they're not a vassal they are not your friend, no matter what their opinion of you is.
Hell, I released a country on my border and then a few months after their birth they coalitioned up against me with the same guy I released them from. Diplomacy does not exist in EU4 because they set AI aggressiveness/suicidal tendencies at a maximum.
On that note, I've had nations with royal marriages attack me before a truce was over, only to get no hit to stability. You'd think they would fix obvious AI cheating but hey, that's Paradox. Even a -1 to their stability would've been nice, to stop the AI from doing such things. Marrying to other nations and forming alliances only hurts you in the long run. Unless you know you
will PU/vassalize a country
do not ever get a royal marriage.
Works out better when you don't have those -1 stab hits laying around all over the goddamn place because AI diplomacy consists of 'coalition and human wave PC until they stop having fun'.