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[Catastrophic lolcats]

That would be counter-productive to smashing the Europeans as early as possible. 

On a side note I've been playing a nice relaxing Savoy -> Sardinia-Piermont game. They have decent enough ideas but the allure to form Italy and get those ideas instead is pretty strong. Only the glorious colour holds me back.

Spoiler: big image (click to show/hide)

French expansion has been completely cut off and I plan to slowly nimble at them over time. The North Africans have mostly been subjugated and I'll focus on expanding into Alexandria soon. Italy is mostly divided between myself and the pitiful Aragonese, their time is limited.
Haven't been expanding nearly as fast as I could have but it's nice to have a relaxing game after the chaos that is Sunset Invasion.

[Tarran]

Actually Amerindians weren't at stone age level tech when Euros first arrive, my tribe use to use copper for a lot jewelry, but a few plagues from the good old trade route killed 90% of the Amerindian population. What Paradox should do is work on properly modeling plagues. That would lead to a lot more interesting games since you go first reach the west see massive empires and return fifty years later and see vast stretches of nothing. But nooooooo that would mean that France and the rest of Western Europe wouldn't be stupidly more powerful then they were.

I believe the MEIOU&Taxes mod has some modeling of said plagues, even though I'm playing an old version (so the newer version is probably even more well modeled). Provinces bordering Old World countries' colonies, and those bordering those suffer varying manpower and income and such penalties varying from a slight penalty to around -90%.

That said, rest of the mod may be a bit much if people prefer the vanilla taste, but I thought I might as well point out another thing a group of modders at least try to model while Paradox does not.

[Sergarr]

Tried playing as Japan TWICE, and it just seems fucking impossible.

You can't diplo annex the clans because some fucking genius at Paradox seems to think that all the clans appeared in 1444, and they always fucking gang up on you before the ten years is up!

EDIT: Also, is anyone here able to westernise? I find that westernising causes so many revolts and terrible events that by the time you're halfway through, you have no money, monarch points or manpower, and there's more and more rebellions.

You can try not clicking on events which cause rebels. Until you decide on a current event, another version of it won't appear.

[Sergarr]

Huh. I thought it auto-selected after a while.

"a while" equals six months. Still, additional six months of no-hell-events happening for each case are pretty useful. DDRJake uses that tactic a lot when he overextends.

[WealthyRadish]

I actually haven't played Japan as Japan, I always start as Hosokawa. Unifying as a daimyo is about building enough of a power base to eventually be able to fight everyone else in an all out civil war (sometimes with 0-2 allies), and then just coasting off of that bloody and tense victory to unification while everyone else's manpower is in the toilet. I think it's faster than unifying as Japan through diploannexing, and also saves dip points for rushing colonial ideas/tech.

And yeah, if you're overextended or westernizing, avoid clicking the dumb events and let them fire after the 6 months. With revolts it's also great to park an army in the province before it goes off, so you get the defensive bonus rather than the attacking malus.

[WealthyRadish]

In SteamApps\...\history\diplomacy is Japanese_alliances.txt, where you can change that. It's dumb that they set it to 1444, when they have other stuff in the history files that goes back into the mid 1300s...

[Rex_Nex]

I haven't played since whatever patch vanilla was in when Conquest of Paradise was released. I was curious about what you guys think of the current state of the game is - if you were in my position (having not played in a while), would the current state of the game be enough to pull you back in? I also see that the Art of War expansion hasn't been released yet - is that worth waiting for?

One thing that bugged me about EUIV was that there was a lot more peace than EUIII, and with little to do between wars... that can get annoying. Not only is there little to do, half the fun of EU is seeing the wacky nations that the AI manage to cobble together. In EUIV you could often sit there for a hundred years and see only minor territorial disputes (at least in europe). In EU3, you wait a hundred years and Morocco might own half of France. Has this changed? Are the AI still that passive?

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Surprised nobody bothered to bring up the latest dev diary. Right now Art of War looks like EUV rather than a DLC.

[Baffler]

I succeeded in uniting Japan fairly quickly as Japan, by guarunteeing and warning everyone next to me. It gives a convenient CB when needed, and keeps the Daimyo quiet while you get ready to diploannex them. It doesn't completely stop the chaos, but it gives you an opportunity to conquer everything the belligerent owns, and usually keeps the rest of your vassals on your side while you do it. I recommend letting the Daimyo do most of the fighting though, you'll need the manpower for when they start getting uppity. If you're quick enough, you can diplomatically annex enough of Japan that the pissed off independents won't have the strength to resist you.

[WealthyRadish]

So, EUIV and all its DLC are on sale on Steam. What do you guys think of Conquest of Paradise, Res Republica, and Wealth of Nations?

[Sheb]

Wealth of Nation is really great for the colonial mechanics.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

Wealth of Nations is the best DLC so far. Adds trade companies, reformed and Hindu mechanics. Most importantly it disables the awful vanilla pirate system and replaces it with privateers.

Res Publica is a tiny "micro-expansion". It adds decent flavour and mechanics for merchant republics, Poland/PLC and the Netherlands. Worth it primarily for the National Focus ability.

Conquest of Paradise is the biggest disappointment so far. It allows you to play colonial nations (meh, can't even be played in ironman mode) and gives new mechanics to Native Americas (North America only). The native mechanics are fairly gimmicky and extremely poorly simulated historically wise (no Great Dying for example).
CoP also adds the random new world which in theory sounds awesome. In practice it's horrible being both eye cancer and poorly constructed. I have never managed to play a game with it (yes it that's bad).
The only worthwhile addition CoP offers is being able to support independence for nations. This can be really handy for a Sweden/Norway playthrough for example but I don't think it's worth the price alone.

The only other DLC I would recommend is The Star and Crescent which is available in the Digital Extreme Edition. It adds a bunch of events for muslim nations (which are in the majority at the start of the game). These events tie into the Piety mechanic so they do have an affect on the game.

[FritzPL]

I'm about to start a campaign with my friend, he chooses Prussia. I want to play in such way that he won't be having a superior advantage to me, while at the same time not being too aggresive, as that is just not my way of playing. I'm torn between France and Russia.

[Culise]

I'm about to start a campaign with my friend, he chooses Prussia. I want to play in such way that he won't be having a superior advantage to me, while at the same time not being too aggresive, as that is just not my way of playing. I'm torn between France and Russia.

Prussia as in the Teutonic Order (the eventual Ducal Prussia), Brandenburg (the eventual Kingdom of Prussia), or a later-game start where Prussia itself is on the map?  And if the last, which year? 

[FritzPL]

Brandenburg, 1444. I decided to go France, but I'm open to any sweet elite tactics I could utilize against him. We literally just started the game.