Europa Universalis IV

[Luzur]

Unfortunately their music was the best in Vic1/EU2 and then went to shit when they abandoned the classical music in favor of that composer of theirs that cant hold a candle to real masters...

Paradox's musical peak:

The Cancionero de Upsala [sic] is the title commonly given to a volume of mostly anonymous Spanish music printed in Venice in 1556 and actually titled Villancicos de diuersos Autores, a dos, y a tres, y a quatro, y ya a cinco bozes...Venetiis, Apud Hieronymum Scotum, MDLVI. It survives in a unique copy at the Uppsala University Library and was edited in 1909 by Rafael Mitjana; the subsequent literature has mostly adopted his spelling "Upsala" ("Upsala" being the historic Swedish spelling of "Uppsala" until the major spelling reform of 1906). A facsimile was published by Alamire (Peer, Belgium 1984).

personally i just switched all the annoying songs in EU2-EU3 to baroque songs i got from youtube.

 

[Makabb]

I always knew EU 3 is better than EU 4 and something is off with EU4.

 

[Arrowgrab]

I always knew EU 3 is better than EU 4 and something is off with EU4.

Looking at just the starting image of that, one thing EU 4 does better is featuring European people on the box cover of a game called Europa Universalis. At least compared to EU 3's archetypal European samurai warrior.

 

[Tigranes]

It's... an Asia themed DLC, you illiterate cocknozzle

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I always knew EU 3 2 is better than EU 4 3 and something is off with EU 4 3.

I don't usually write I fixed it for you, but I fixed it for you. Paradox began to decline long before EU 4.

 

[Makabb]

I always knew EU 3 2 is better than EU 4 3 and something is off with EU 4 3.

I don't usually write I fixed it for you, but I fixed it for you. Paradox began to decline long before EU 4.

You mean For The Glory: an Europa Universalis Game, right ?

 

[Beastro]

I always knew EU 3 is better than EU 4 and something is off with EU4.

Looking at just the starting image of that, one thing EU 4 does better is featuring European people on the box cover of a game called Europa Universalis. At least compared to EU 3's archetypal European samurai warrior.

What does the "Divine Wind" mean? Did you notice it?

The original cover:

 

[Jason Liang]

... George Washington isn't Europe either...

 

[Delterius]

The real decline is when '''''grand strategy''''' transitioned to these new fangled computermens.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

I have gotten this game again, last time I touched it being when they launched Conquest of Paradise and.... holy HELL, did stuff change! But ah hell, fuck tutorials, I'm getting the hang of it. Playing as Brittany, trying to survive being between the French and the English. Almost at 1500, having a problem with the Clergy dominating my country.

My game-plan is pretty much migrating to the Americas and hoping England or France don't kill me before I can do that.

 

[Goliath]

I have gotten this game again, last time I touched it being when they launched Conquest of Paradise and.... holy HELL, did stuff change! But ah hell, fuck tutorials, I'm getting the hang of it. Playing as Brittany, trying to survive being between the French and the English. Almost at 1500, having a problem with the Clergy dominating my country.

My game-plan is pretty much migrating to the Americas and hoping England or France don't kill me before I can do that.

I am honestly disappointed that you did not start as Portugal with the goal of forming Brazil and building the great Brazilian Empire.

You lecture us all day about the alleged superiority of Lusitanians and then you play Cucktons..

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

The Barbary states did get a number of improvements a few expansions back, and due to their close proximity they won't lag behind technology much if at all, so yea they are a notably more dangerous neighbours early game now.

How about you instead ally with them against Castille? Or you just do the secret to succesful early alliances since, well, forever in EU and ally with France?

 

[trais]

Also, Aragon rivals and hates Portugal from the start, because...? I don't know really, seems ahistorical as fuck when I think of it, don't see any reason for Portuguese-Aragonese conflict.

Just like Hungary and Poland are hard-coded to rival each other, official reason given by devs was that having too stable alliances lead to degenerate gameplay. No, I don't know what that means either.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Aside from the historical friend/rival modifier to relations (don't recall that many of those off-hand), generally speaking the best way to control who is your rival and who is not is to up their opinion of you as much as possible. IIRC if it hits above 0 or close enough, the AI will cancel the rivalry. This however can mean that you need to be ready for event based bonuses to the modifier, and make certain not to be cozy with the other rivals or otherwise reduce the opinion (like, for example, being mutual rivals, which nukes opinion so hard the rivalry can only end by power disparity resolving it).

 

[Nirvash]

After a few years the game became harder. ("very" hard is a new setting?)

I gave up my savoia > tall italy game, got most neighbors fast but then did the bullshit mistake of going reformed (since pope keep exc my sorry ass) when france or MASSIVE commowealth always had defender of faith and gigaspain got naples.

Now doing tuscany, can't even find a single ally.

The Barbary states did get a number of improvements a few expansions back, and due to their close proximity they won't lag behind technology much if at all, so yea they are a notably more dangerous neighbours early game now.

So true, i had morocco and friends kick spain ass 3 times in the early game, i never seen before granada surviving.

 

[Goliath]

did the bullshit mistake of going reformed (since pope keep exc my sorry ass) when france or MASSIVE commowealth always had defender of faith

Defender of the Faith is the title of a ruler, not a country. Just config your message settings so that you get a pausing popup message the moment the DoF dies. You then have a window of opportunity to declare a war while there is no DoF at all.

Alternatively you can also use the oldest trick in the book: indirect war declaration. Just find a target allied to a non-Catholic country and attack that country while setting your actual target as a co-belligerent. This won't call in the DoF.

Last but not least the DoF loses his title when he loses a war. So you want to keep an eye on the DoF's wars too.

 

[Space Satan]

DD: Mission rework

Spoiler

Good morning all. Tuesday has arrived and as usual delivers double excitement: the next episode in the EU4 Dev Clash, and a new development diary. Last week @Trin Tragula took the wheel and showed off the map changes which will roll out with the upcoming 1.25 update. Before we start talking about the features that come with its accompanying yet currently unannounced Immersion Pack, today I will be showing off another free change with 1.25, which is the Mission System.

Missions in EU3 were a real gamble. You hoped for a good or even possible mission and without hitting up the wiki or trawling through the game files had no idea what you could even be tasked with. You got said mission without choice and would either cancel or try to complete it. EU4 improved on this but always offering you up to 3 missions, one of which you would select and either complete or cancel before getting a new batch of missions. While it was an improvement, it still had the shortcomings of you not being quite sure what all missions you would be able to get for your nations, how to unlock them and even getting missions which would be detrimental for you to do. The missions system is something new players often look to for guidance and when it tells them to simply get 50 prestige or to improve relations with their rival, well, you can see why advice for new players can often counter intuitively be to ignore missions.

All this changes in 1.25 with the new Mission System. rather than picking from a short list of missions, all missions for your nation will be available from the very start, and as you fulfill the criteria for them, you will be alerted as such and can go to the newly segregated Missions tab to claim your reward. Rewards have been accordingly made more relevant, longer lasting and often grant claims towards more missions down the line. Let's take a look at the mission chain from one of my favourite nations, Byzantium, with their Purple Phoenix missions.

humble expansion from my casual Byzantium campaign. Art/layout not final

All Byzantine missions are visible from the start and the progression through them is shown. When the budding Byzantine player reconquers Greece, they will be given a timed reward as well as the claims to help fulfilling the next missions: Recover Albania and Conquer Bulgaria. Once these are completed, they will again be able to claim their reward and work down the mission chain. The mission paths are also split for their different directions to go in, catering towards Western expansion, Anatolian recovery and reclaiming the islands. Mission rewards must be claimed in order, although all missions can be completed throughout a campaign.

End of the Byzantium mission chain without Purple Phoenix

All nations with specific missions are having those transferred over to this new system. Additionally we have added generic missions for all nations as well as region specific missions so that Europeans can have different missions available to them than, say, Africans or New World Natives. We have also taken the opportunity to clean up older missions while we adapt old ones to work with this new system.

French Missions, complete with lovely coder art. Something seems odd about the Hebrides though...

This mission change is a free part of the 1.25 Update and our aim is to have the missions feel more relevant for nations, as well as serving as a guiding light for newer players.

I'll try to pre-emptively answer some questions:

• How do I select a mission?
  • Unlike the previous mission system, you do not select your missions, they are all visible from the game start. All missions at the top of the mission trees will be "active" and when you fulfill an active mission you can go to claim its reward, making any missions below it connected by arrows in its chain active,
• In the old system selecting a mission would give you the claim/CB you need for the mission, how is that handled now?
  • In most cases, preceding missions will give claims/CBs as a reward which can be used to fulfill the following missions.
• How does mission gating work?
  • A mission can both be a prerequisite for multiple missions a well as require multiple missions to be completed before it becomes active
• How moddable is this?
  • Extensively.

Next week we'll start talking about what's coming with the yet unannounced Immersion Pack, due to release alongside 1.25. until then, we shall admire the Ottoman missions in the new system, in all their behemothic glory.

The Iron Mountains: E

 

[Raghar]

official reason given by devs was that having too stable alliances lead to degenerate gameplay. No, I don't know what that means either.

That means gameplay is utterly boring.

 

[Anthedon]

The mission rework looks juicy. Now countries that have an extensive mission tree can follow follow a clear route, instead of praying to RNGesus for a certain mission to become available.

 

[Space Satan]

it is fucking annoying to wait for a mission to Subjugate Novgorod and game gives you shitty Build up your Navy along with unrealistic defeat Ottomans or Ming

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

now we need something similar for events and how to push their triggers, maybe a reverse-crisis system, because i'm sick of praying for the castille-aragon union, i want to know beforehand if i can wait for it to happen or i should have just crushed aragon and conquered its land.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Did they pretty much transform the missions into something akin to Focus Trees?

Interesting, that. It does seem a bit too linear - for example, playing Byz and I recover Bulgaria before Greece (because its closer to Constantinople or some strategic consideration), but Bulgaria is downstream from Greece. Seems to stimulate linear gameplay.

 

[Nirvash]

Defender of the Faith is the title of a ruler, not a country. Just config your message settings so that you get a pausing popup message the moment the DoF dies. You then have a window of opportunity to declare a war while there is no DoF at all.

Not viable since before that i already need to use the "other" window my target big allies are busy.

Almost done my game as florence, did well, super tall italy and even 1 world power, CAMPIONI DEL MONDO.

The new "age perks" are very situational but can be very powerful, using the "can get enemy vassal in war" i got 6 prov milan (vassal of opm mantova) as a 6 prov florence, in a defensive war, for 25 puny badboy points.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

Started a Milan game this weekend. I took like four or five provinces from Super Firenze and I had to beat back two coalition wars. I would have been utterly gangraped if Austria and Burgundy weren't my buddies. At some point I think 3/5 of my army was mercs, because I ran out of manpower for a normal army. Ever try fighting Mantua, Savoy, Ferrara, Naples, Switzerland, France, Salzburg and Ryazan (!!!) at once? Oh yeah, and then I got attacked by Baden, Augsbach and Venice in the middle of that war.

Luckly France had lost land to Burgundy and England in a earlier war, so it wans't as OP as it could have been. I had Burgundy, Austria, Papal States, OPM Vassal Siena and a rump Hungary on my side of the ring.

Its ok when my neighboors wanted to rape me and eat my flesh, but it got kinda strange when a bunch of german minors in South Germany decided they wanted to fuck me up, too. I don't even border you asshats.

Now I'm going to sit pretty at 100% maintenance, because Austria now rivaled me (why?), Venice keeps looking menacingly, the Papal States now hate me too. No idea what I will do next, I plan to ally with Poland to get me a friendly big power to counter-act Austria, and maybe England or Spain if I can. Even Naples would be a great ally if I could make friends with them. I tried making buddies with the Ottomans but it didn't work.

I also need to build a decent fleet in case Spanish or the Ottomans come knocking up, and for when I'm ready to boot those damn Spanish out of ttalian islands.

Idea groups: Offensive, Administrative. Think I'm going to pick Trade next because my next rulers will be super-high on diplo, and I'm getting good cash from trade. Also, I need the money to fund the Imperial Army of the coming Newer and Better Roman Empire. Or something that helps with Agressive Expansion, if I go on another conquest spree I'm sure everyone will fuck me up.

I'm stuck between hitting Genoa, Venice, Austria, Spain or Naples next.

Oh btw, I have been excomunicated a few years ago. I'm this close to pressing the "Fuck the Pope" button, I swear I'm gonna do it. If Waldensians were a thing in this game I would have already pressed it. Fun fact: Rome is already protestant, lulz. Wans't me, I swear.

 

[Goliath]

Idea groups: Offensive, Administrative.

If you play the newest version with all DLC never pick Offensive first. Defensive is much better in the beginning of the game because of the Morale bonus.

Morale is much better than Discipline in the early game. For the same reason you should always pick a Morale boosting military adviser during early wars.

The reason is that Discipline modifies damage and in the early game your units do little damage thus that 5% bonus means little.