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Europa Universalis IV

fantadomat

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In EU there is nothing else to do than paint the map. Also i have played more than enough OPMs,rarely i do play as a big nation. The game just doesn't have anything else to do,it is just a conquest simulator. As a whole i do dislike the "Aggressive expansion" mechanics in Paradox games. They are very unrealistic and put only to hold back the player. I too like Vicy 2,you do get to do a lot of shit while in peace,it is not just pushing a development button every few minutes.

You can still swap nations and work against the one you built up.
Nah i like to roleplay my nations,that is why i like the new mission system. I could go for a 200 year and accomplish all the missions and then maybe evolve the tag. Still there is not enough countries with missions. The last DLC did add a decent amount of fun in India,but that just shows how half assed the rest of the dlc were and how undeveloped the rest of the world feel in that aspect.
 

Beastro

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In EU there is nothing else to do than paint the map. Also i have played more than enough OPMs,rarely i do play as a big nation. The game just doesn't have anything else to do,it is just a conquest simulator. As a whole i do dislike the "Aggressive expansion" mechanics in Paradox games. They are very unrealistic and put only to hold back the player. I too like Vicy 2,you do get to do a lot of shit while in peace,it is not just pushing a development button every few minutes.

You can still swap nations and work against the one you built up.
Nah i like to roleplay my nations,that is why i like the new mission system. I could go for a 200 year and accomplish all the missions and then maybe evolve the tag. Still there is not enough countries with missions. The last DLC did add a decent amount of fun in India,but that just shows how half assed the rest of the dlc were and how undeveloped the rest of the world feel in that aspect.

I do too, but I set upon a historical end to meet, then once satisfied I switch. With myold nation safely in the AIs hands it can then reproduce the decline and fall of that nation over whatever period it takes.

Cept in CK2 when I played it, then I'd reach a point and then often deliberately engineer the fragmenting of my empire as I moved onto another part of the world and my dynasty would evolve with that, as well as produce off shoots as I'd fiddle with the save file to create cadet branches.

My favorite was one years ago where reformed pagan Saxons fled to Morocco before Charlemange rushed em, then expanded in Iberia and North Africa against Islam under a Saxon empire of Vanadalusia before reaching Egypt, then the empire fragmented with the Egypt rump continuing on to invade India and create an Erythrean Empire that then fragmented with parts of Persia and the Steppe continuing on to face the Mongols which were due by then. I got bored and took a break, then lost my saves. :(
 
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Does anyone else really dislike the new government system? It feels really soulless and forgettable. I endup going the same rout with every nation and is just the addition of a nu small bonus to my country. There is no big difference between a peasant lord and a Tzar or emperor,it is really meh.

Yep, it's crap. It seems designed with the intention of having 4-6 choices per rank yet most of them only have 2 or 3, unless you play the DLC nations which sometimes have 1 special one. Furthermore it's pretty clear what the best choice per rank is.
 

Serus

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That is true. Also most bugs are obvious in single playtrough to the end. But the retards just play for 100-200 years and say that the rest is boring.It is preaty hard to see the bugs when people eat all the AI in the first 150 years. Those cucks really piss me off,hope that a bunch of sandniggers enrich them well in the ass.

So it's not just all the LPers who love painting the map but the developers as well?

Painting the map is fun as a newbie, but then I'd assume you'd seek something more and want to build a historical course of your own with the raise and fall of empires and people's given how easy it is to dominate their games.

At the very least stop with your mega-empire and pick an underdog to do what you can to destroy what you created as a challenge (IN Vic2 and EU I can go through as many as 3 nations before the game runs out of time doing this).

If anyone cares how my game ended...

Congrats on getting to 1820, I have never had a single game go to the end date in any Paradox title...

Do you just do a lot of speed five, ignore everything to get that far??
I play on speed 5 at all time,also have disabled 99% of alarms and annoying popups. As you can see in the screenshot there isn't any alerts up there. I only have left the ones i need. Also i always finish my games. Sadly after certain point the game begins lagging because of stupid AI and some bug,it was a problem since release but paradox are too incompetent to even noticed it,let alone finish it.

I always love a long peace in late Vic2 where it begins to lag horrible from all the units everyone has, then a world war happens and it slowly speeds up again once millions have been wiped out.
In EU there is nothing else to do than paint the map. Also i have played more than enough OPMs,rarely i do play as a big nation. The game just doesn't have anything else to do,it is just a conquest simulator. As a whole i do dislike the "Aggressive expansion" mechanics in Paradox games. They are very unrealistic and put only to hold back the player. I too like Vicy 2,you do get to do a lot of shit while in peace,it is not just pushing a development button every few minutes.
AE mechanics were a lot worse when it was called badboy or whatever it was. Aggressive expansion at least makes some sense as it isn't equal across the board, those closer to the annexed territories, those who shares same religion and what else get higher AE. IIRC in EU3 (and EU2 as well if memory serves) you got always the same amount with the whole fucking world. Annex a province X in Europe for Y amount of BB - every minor in East Asia who should not even know about what is happening in Europe hates you the same as the neighbours in Europe. THAT was bad.

As to not having anything to do other than expansion in EU. That's why Crusader Kings or even Victoria are the superior games (at least in theory) - in those games they at least try to give you something to do other than painting the map while leaving the map painting present as well.
 

fantadomat

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In EU there is nothing else to do than paint the map. Also i have played more than enough OPMs,rarely i do play as a big nation. The game just doesn't have anything else to do,it is just a conquest simulator. As a whole i do dislike the "Aggressive expansion" mechanics in Paradox games. They are very unrealistic and put only to hold back the player. I too like Vicy 2,you do get to do a lot of shit while in peace,it is not just pushing a development button every few minutes.

You can still swap nations and work against the one you built up.
Nah i like to roleplay my nations,that is why i like the new mission system. I could go for a 200 year and accomplish all the missions and then maybe evolve the tag. Still there is not enough countries with missions. The last DLC did add a decent amount of fun in India,but that just shows how half assed the rest of the dlc were and how undeveloped the rest of the world feel in that aspect.

I do too, but I set upon a historical end to meet, then once satisfied I switch. With myold nation safely in the AIs hands it can then reproduce the decline and fall of that nation over whatever period it takes.

Cept in CK2 when I played it, then I'd reach a point and then often deliberately engineer the fragmenting of my empire as I moved onto another part of the world and my dynasty would evolve with that, as well as produce off shoots as I'd fiddle with the save file to create cadet branches.

My favorite was one years ago where reformed pagan Saxons fled to Morocco before Charlemange rushed em, then expanded in Iberia and North Africa against Islam under a Saxon empire of Vanadalusia before reaching Egypt, then the empire fragmented with the Egypt rump continuing on to invade India and create an Erythrean Empire that then fragmented with parts of Persia and the Steppe continuing on to face the Mongols which were due by then. I got bored and took a break, then lost my saves. :(
:lol: You are weird mate,still nothing bad about it,play the game as you see fit. I am more of a absolute authority guy,i want to rule them all and exterminate everyone who opposes me! I don't give any land to estates after the last patch! In CK i like that you could bone your younger sister while having 10 other lovers/wifes.

Does anyone else really dislike the new government system? It feels really soulless and forgettable. I endup going the same rout with every nation and is just the addition of a nu small bonus to my country. There is no big difference between a peasant lord and a Tzar or emperor,it is really meh.

Yep, it's crap. It seems designed with the intention of having 4-6 choices per rank yet most of them only have 2 or 3, unless you play the DLC nations which sometimes have 1 special one. Furthermore it's pretty clear what the best choice per rank is.
Yeah,in reality you have an only one option. Most of the choices are no brainer at all. It is really bad,seeing how there is a final option to change your government type and most AI do like to fuck themself up. The old government system was a lot better.
 

fantadomat

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AE mechanics were a lot worse when it was called badboy or whatever it was. Aggressive expansion at least makes some sense as it isn't equal across the board, those closer to the annexed territories, those who shares same religion and what else get higher AE. IIRC in EU3 (and EU2 as well if memory serves) you got always the same amount with the whole fucking world. Annex a province X in Europe for Y amount of BB - every minor in East Asia who should not even know about what is happening in Europe hates you the same as the neighbours in Europe. THAT was bad.

As to not having anything to do other than expansion in EU. That's why Crusader Kings or even Victoria are the superior games (at least in theory) - in those games they at least try to give you something to do other than painting the map while leaving the map painting present as well.
I agree with you,i was using AE generally. Vicy 2 has the worst AE system,it was really random and annoying. You could have just save scummed it.
 

Beastro

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Messages
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Infamy is easy to control as it's a simple save edit to eliminate. As I said, I don't just expand willy nilly, but depending on how I want things to go with goals in mind so it's just a nuisance easily wiped away searching a save file for your factions capital privince, the look for badboy to set to below 10 to not have everyone dump you as an ally.
 

fantadomat

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Infamy is easy to control as it's a simple save edit to eliminate. As I said, I don't just expand willy nilly, but depending on how I want things to go with goals in mind so it's just a nuisance easily wiped away searching a save file for your factions capital privince, the look for badboy to set to below 10 to not have everyone dump you as an ally.
In Vicy there is an event that lowers you BB,save editing is not necessary.
 

Preben

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In EU there is nothing else to do than paint the map. Also i have played more than enough OPMs,rarely i do play as a big nation. The game just doesn't have anything else to do,it is just a conquest simulator. As a whole i do dislike the "Aggressive expansion" mechanics in Paradox games. They are very unrealistic and put only to hold back the player. I too like Vicy 2,you do get to do a lot of shit while in peace,it is not just pushing a development button every few minutes.

You can still swap nations and work against the one you built up.

And repeat the process, ie. conquer everything. Because there's nothing else to do. Everything else but conquering, including internal politics, is reduced to abstract modifiers which in most cases can be either ignored or quickly remedied by another abstract factor (like the use of 'mana' to magically stabilize the realm).

We should just accept that EU4 is a unredeemable borefest, too late in its lifecycle to expect any fundamental changes in most basic mechanics. Let's just hope that Paradox took note and EU5 will be character-based like CK2 and (presumably) Rome 2.
 

Space Satan

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Paradox's eternal war against fun have a lot of fronts but main is surely Europa Universalis IV. War against map painting, limiting THE reason people play it, nerfs to expansion, colonization, conversions.
 
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Now how about the target for 1.27?

Italian_Renaissance_montage.png
 

Serus

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Paradox's eternal war against fun have a lot of fronts but main is surely Europa Universalis IV. War against map painting, limiting THE reason people play it, nerfs to expansion, colonization, conversions.
Not the reason for me at least but then maybe I'm not "people", who knows. Map painting got old for me around the time of EU2 (and yes i played first EU when it was the only one). For me the problem is not with Paradox weak and in misguided attempts to add some challenge to the game. This game BADLY needs challenge so something is better than nothing even if it's implemented in a retarded manner. The problem as I see it, is with them failing to add anything interesting other than map painting to do for the player. If the player had something interesting to do other than conquering - we wouldn't even have this conversation about "map panting being THE reason".
 

XenomorphII

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That tends to be my position on it as well. You want to make conquering a difficult choice? Sure do that, but for the love of God give me something to do other than conquering and waging war that is fun. I swear anytime I try to go colonial or play tall, I zone out in the first hundred years or less and just stop because its about as fun as watching paint dry. At least with conquering there are fun moments and moments of revenge in a campaign.
 

Fedora Master

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B-b-but muh multiplayer balance!*



*Excluding Ottomans because Ottomans are the glorious master race
 

Agame

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This is why CK2 is the most fun Paradox game.

I cant agree as CK is actually my least played Paradox game, I am an HOI guy!

But I do think CK is one of the best games from a design point of view. Both CK and HOI have focus that is lacking in EU.

HOI is purely combat and map painting (playing Axis is literally designed to do WC, its historical!). All its systems are designed and focused on combat and conquest, so there is purity of design and it is a great game, it knows what it wants to do.

CK is the same, the focus is creating a dynasty, psuedo RPG character building with a bit of map painting conquest on top. Again all the systems work towards this and make a great game.

EU has a split personality problem, you are supposed to build an empire (its the age of empires!) so there is all the conquest, but to keep things semi-historical/balanced there are all the mechanics to slow you down. Now the game says stop map painting! Do other empire stuff! Eg. Trade, colonising, diplomacy etc. The problem is all these systems are incredibly shallow, tedious and boring (mostly result in clicking on buttons with timers, to get money/mana.)

So there will always be this problem with EU. They have to radically redesign basic systems that model things such as internal empire management. The estates system was supposed to do this but its a terrible failure and should be scrapped or completely reworked. As both Vic and CK have, there has to be fun and challenging gameplay that happens during peace time to make the game more dynamic. At the moment once you have enough hours in the game to understand all the systems and realize how shallow it is EU basically becomes a TW game minus the real time battles. And thats just pathetic. It has potential for so much more.
 

JarlFrank

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Yeah, I enjoy HoI4 a lot too, a pal gifted it to me a while ago and I played a fun game where I conquered Europe with Germany, researching tank techs and steamrolling the French. The combat in this game is actually fun, and getting other nations into your alliance is also fun because once they're in, you get a massive boost to your war effort.

The EU series has the issue that it's too generalized compared to the other Paradox games. It tries to do all the things at once but doesn't do any of them as in-depth as the other games do.

HoI has better combat. CK2 is a great dynasty sim with RPG elements. Victoria is a great economy simulator. And EU4 tries to do conquest, dynasty building, and trade, but isn't very deep in either of those (yes there's some element of dynasty building, you get royal marriages and your ruler's stats are somewhat important).
 

fantadomat

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Yeah, I enjoy HoI4 a lot too, a pal gifted it to me a while ago and I played a fun game where I conquered Europe with Germany, researching tank techs and steamrolling the French. The combat in this game is actually fun, and getting other nations into your alliance is also fun because once they're in, you get a massive boost to your war effort.

The EU series has the issue that it's too generalized compared to the other Paradox games. It tries to do all the things at once but doesn't do any of them as in-depth as the other games do.

HoI has better combat. CK2 is a great dynasty sim with RPG elements. Victoria is a great economy simulator. And EU4 tries to do conquest, dynasty building, and trade, but isn't very deep in either of those (yes there's some element of dynasty building, you get royal marriages and your ruler's stats are somewhat important).
HoI4 is only good with mods,base game is nearly unplayable. Go and download Kaiserreich and have jizz play! Also i am unstopable with "superiority firepower" and nice thick soldier core and shit tone of artillery! Unstoppable force is a nice definition of it ;).

Well EU does well the conquering part,it was pretty strategical before they fucked up the AI.
 

Serus

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This is why CK2 is the most fun Paradox game.

I cant agree as CK is actually my least played Paradox game, I am an HOI guy!

But I do think CK is one of the best games from a design point of view. Both CK and HOI have focus that is lacking in EU.

HOI is purely combat and map painting (playing Axis is literally designed to do WC, its historical!). All its systems are designed and focused on combat and conquest, so there is purity of design and it is a great game, it knows what it wants to do.

CK is the same, the focus is creating a dynasty, psuedo RPG character building with a bit of map painting conquest on top. Again all the systems work towards this and make a great game.

EU has a split personality problem, you are supposed to build an empire (its the age of empires!) so there is all the conquest, but to keep things semi-historical/balanced there are all the mechanics to slow you down. Now the game says stop map painting! Do other empire stuff! Eg. Trade, colonising, diplomacy etc. The problem is all these systems are incredibly shallow, tedious and boring (mostly result in clicking on buttons with timers, to get money/mana.)

So there will always be this problem with EU. They have to radically redesign basic systems that model things such as internal empire management. The estates system was supposed to do this but its a terrible failure and should be scrapped or completely reworked. As both Vic and CK have, there has to be fun and challenging gameplay that happens during peace time to make the game more dynamic. At the moment once you have enough hours in the game to understand all the systems and realize how shallow it is EU basically becomes a TW game minus the real time battles. And thats just pathetic. It has potential for so much more.
HOI4 right now is extremely simplistic to the point that it's ridiculous once you figure out the basics. From a historical WW2 simulator in HOI2 or 3 (not an extremely complex one but still serious enough) the series devolved into another map painter in HoI4. Fun to play a few times but without depth or complexity (not to mention balance) it gets old very quickly in my opinion. But what you say applies to HOI2 and 3.
 

Agame

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The EU series has the issue that it's too generalized compared to the other Paradox games. It tries to do all the things at once but doesn't do any of them as in-depth as the other games do.

Pretty much what I was trying to say. They need to find a core gameplay and focus on it, as HOI and CK have. It could be something like the estates, I have read some good discussion on this on the Paradox forum, to make estates work they need to be tied in to the base game, so be part of diplomatic system, war system etc. But this requires EU5, god knows when they will ever make that...

Failing that if they really just want EU to be map painting conquer game then combat system needs to be utterly revamped. The reason HOI is great is because combat is interesting and challenging, you spend 95% of the game doing it so it has to be. EU4 combat has a slight learning curve, and then it just becomes brain dead wack-a-mole over and over and over. As much as I love Vic2 it also has this problem, the combat is even more wack-a-mole than EU4.

HOI4 right now is extremely simplistic to the point that it's ridiculous once you figure out the basics. From a historical WW2 simulator in HOI2 or 3 (not an extremely complex one but still serious enough) the series devolved into another map painter in HoI4. Fun to play a few times but without depth or complexity (not to mention balance) it gets old very quickly in my opinion. But what you say applies to HOI2 and 3.

Yes, HOI4 is completely gutted and streamlined. They designed it 100% for multiplayer and casuals. HOI3 will forever be the best and only game for a full global WW2 grand strategy simulation scenario. I do enjoy HOI2 for more streamlined unit management, so I think both games are great for different reasons. And there are obviously fantastic mods for HOI2. World in Flames is great if you ever want to play through a truly brutal and grueling operation Barbarossa as Germany. I have never had so much fun losing!
 
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As much as I love Vic2 it also has this problem, the combat is even more wack-a-mole than EU4.

Funny enough, V2 actually works fairly well in multiplayer. Since everything takes expensive supplies to reinforce Great Wars become much more about economic strength than anything else, and you can't set up a supply chain or acquire more raw materials overnight. I've done some ridiculous shit like winning an offensive great war against most of Europe (France/Italy/NGF/Russia/UK) as Austria-Hungary alone based purely on a heavily min-maxed and micromanaged state capitalism. Sure, the initial battles were 10:1, but front width is small enough that every battle involving 500k takes months to finish, during which I could rotate my troops out to replenish while the world market was dry and everyone else couldn't reinforce for shit. All I had to do was blitz to get atop my war goal then wait for the WS from battles and holding it to get to 100%.

Granted V2 still has tons of problems especially in MP. But everything about playing it well nicely ties back into the centerpoint of the game: Pops and economy. In comparison EU4 is supposed to be about Colonization and the Renaissance and the rise of Nationalism and similar ideals yet these are incredibly simple and monotonous things that hardly matter and/or act as window dressing. EU4 MP is a bunch of players playing GPs standing around talking about whether to make the next war a 3v4 stomp or a 4v3 stomp.
 
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