Europa Universalis IV

[Average Manatee]

Another EU4 DLC, another number to make higher so you can unlock and stack more bonuses. EU4 really shows the pitfalls of DLC (as opposed to CK2), with all of these mechanics just feeling like stuff piled on with no forethought or interaction.

 

[Grif]

What's this civ garbage doing in EU? Get that rubbish out of my GSG.



Johan you absolutely lost the plot

Spoiler

2 patches ago.

 

[Ranarama]

How many shit DLC have they released? All of them since and including Cossacks?

 

[Castozor]

So how does one annex/vassalize a one province nation when they have a far off ally? I had the situation before as Castile vs Granada/Morocco and now again as Muscovy versus Novgorod/Scotland. Scotland doesn't actually do anything but because they do join the war I can never get Novgorod to accept their annexation which frankly to me seems dumb as shit. Now with Castile I eventually just kicked the shit out of Morocco too but sailing all the way to Scotland seems extreme especially since they never actively support anyway.

 

[trais]

After a while, you should be able to make a separate peace with target's ally/allies, which should give you 100% warscore on your target. Failing that, after you occupy a province in a war for long enough it will defect to you even without peace.

 

[FreeKaner]

So how does one annex/vassalize a one province nation when they have a far off ally? I had the situation before as Castile vs Granada/Morocco and now again as Muscovy versus Novgorod/Scotland. Scotland doesn't actually do anything but because they do join the war I can never get Novgorod to accept their annexation which frankly to me seems dumb as shit. Now with Castile I eventually just kicked the shit out of Morocco too but sailing all the way to Scotland seems extreme especially since they never actively support anyway.

For Granada you can just occupy them and sit on them, after a while they accept annexation. As for Novgorod in my hundreds of hours in this game and as Russia I never have seen them ally with anyone, just declare war on them ASAP and they'll be without allies.

 

[Average Manatee]

After a war has lasted a certain amount of time the warscore mechanism changes and you'll get 100% just occupying the war leader. I believe its 3 years after the war has started but it might be 5. It's basically a fallback mechanism for exactly this situation, was way more important in EU3 where spaghetti map nations could be landlocked and getting military access was impossible.

 

[Grif]

So how does one annex/vassalize a one province nation when they have a far off ally? I had the situation before as Castile vs Granada/Morocco and now again as Muscovy versus Novgorod/Scotland. Scotland doesn't actually do anything but because they do join the war I can never get Novgorod to accept their annexation which frankly to me seems dumb as shit. Now with Castile I eventually just kicked the shit out of Morocco too but sailing all the way to Scotland seems extreme especially since they never actively support anyway.

For Granada you can just occupy them and sit on them, after a while they accept annexation. As for Novgorod in my hundreds of hours in this game and as Russia I never have seen them ally with anyone, just declare war on them ASAP and they'll be without allies.

Eventually Novgorod will ally with either TO and/or Denmark (if Denmark didn't implode by then). But for the first ten.. twenty years? Yeah, they'll be hated by everyone nearby.

 

[Castozor]

I forgot about the separate peace mechanics and didn't know about the auto-cede, thanks. Fwiw, the game is about 40 years in or so, and I don't know why they allied Scotland but I'm firm allies with Denmark so that might have something to do with it.

 

[Jason Liang]

Huh? Why is 1620 the divide between Reformation and Absolutism? Shouldn't it be 1648- end of the 30 Years War, the recognition of Calvinism and the beginning of Louis XIV France?

 

[Grinolf]

I don't know why they allied Scotland

Because Norway has borders with Scotland by owning Orkney and Sweden borders Novgorod with Finland. Both countries are owned by Denmark at the game start so AI of Novgorod an Scotland treat and being treated by Denmark as neighbors and this promotes mutual rivalries and seeking alliances with his rival's rival. This is very annoying issue that existed in the game for a pretty long time, as this alliance is strategically useless (Novgorod and Scotland can't help each other against Denmark because Danish-Swedish-Norwegian fleets dominate the sea) and just result in them being dragged in the far away wars against much stronger opponents (Muscovy and England). This is not the only example when AI don't take naval situation into consideration for his actions and there is a big chance that it wouldn't be fixed at all in EU4.

 

[Delterius]

So, I played a short game as a Colonial Nation and half way through things got kinda of weird.

I started in 1540 as Portuguese Brazil. In that stardate the Spaniards already hold much of their historical empire and are likely to expand further. Other colonial nations such as the Scots, the French and the English took apart the rest at Guyana and North America. Funnily enough, the french colonized the Thirteen Colonies and the English colonized Canada.

As a result, I was Portugal's only colony and continuously corresponded to a major percentage of their military power. I cruised the game at max speed and built tall enough that Portugal had the highest income in the world despite not growing at all beyond Brazil and 2 provinces in Africa. What got weird is that they continuously bankrupted themselves to invest on me. They sunk so much gold and (mostly) monarch power on me that I quickly reached -1000% Liberty Desire. Declaring war of independence kept getting postponed because Portugal's best friend, Spain, kept getting ridiculously more powerful. They inherited a PU with Austria and Poland/Lithuania. But as Portugal developed all my tropical provinces to the low 20s and built in every avaiable slot, it was kinda like I didn't even pay tariffs or transferred trade power to them.

 

[FreeKaner]

Pocket support Portugal.

Same happens when you play as Sweden and stay around under Denmark instead of declaring independence from day one, Denmark develops your provinces around. In fact it might even be worth to stay a bit now since Denmark is stronger and they cede you provinces when they declare on Novgorod or Muscowy if you occupy them.

Also show map of Spain with PU over Austria and Commonwealth. In my last game as Austria, Aragon stole Milan PU from me but later Castile got both Iberian wedding and Burgundian Inheritance that they had their Phillip II European borders. Habsburgs got put on their throne and I claimed their throne and successfully got it. They got rebellious instantly however, in fact all my subjects did because I had Hungary (with extra provinces), Bohemia, Naples, Milan, Aragon and Castile under PU while I had a post-shadow-kingdom emperor Austria with over force limit army but it wasn't enough. I rage quit that game shortly after but mainly because 3 times in a row I failed to get some PU's because 70+ year old rulers refused to die without heir. Savoy, Brandenburg and Palpatine. I probably could get the liberty desire under control if I inherited Hungary or Bohemia, which I had high chance to on next monarch.

 

[jaydee2k]

Is there any crack around that i could play version 1.19.2 without steam.
I could open the game without steam but then the launcher does not
recognize my dlcs. I hate steam to death and would be very thankfull if
somebody could help me out with that. I know that i could go the easy way and
pirate any edition with alls dlcs and crap but I don't want to.
I just want to crack my legitimate copy of the game...
Hope I'm not violating any forum rules.

 

[Space Satan]

Is there any crack around that i could play version 1.19.2 without steam.
I could open the game without steam but then the launcher does not
recognize my dlcs. I hate steam to death and would be very thankfull if
somebody could help me out with that. I know that i could go the easy way and
pirate any edition with alls dlcs and crap but I don't want to.
I just want to crack my legitimate copy of the game...
Hope I'm not violating any forum rules.

Do you realise the have a sticky thread on their main forums about how to play previous versions?

 

[jaydee2k]

Yeah but with steam. I will play completely without it. I know theres a rollback feature in the beta tab...

 

[trais]

Just pirate it. Why do you even care where does your copy of the game comes from if want to crack it anyway?

 

[jaydee2k]

Thought a little handy crack could do it's job and then I could store my copy forever.
But I guess I have to load the complete game then...

 

[Tigranes]

Rights of Man, are people using it? Does it make a notable difference in diplomacy / peacetime actions? For the good? I know MilesBeyond liked it in this thread, and then some potatoes started arguing about Russian manpower

 

[Grinolf]

Rights of Man, are people using it?

Key things were in the patch. DLC add things of convenience (GP actions, almost no regencies for monarchies) which could hardly be classifies as vital for the game, but I personally find very uncomfortable to play without after playing with them. But some of GP actions could feel very gamey, like paying your enemy's ally debt so he will join the war against you. There are also special stuff for Prussia and copts, but I didn't try it, so can't say anything about it.

 

[trais]

Unless you have a huge hard-on for Prussia then I'd say it's on the "get it while it's on sale" tier of DLC.

Because other than giving Prussia it's own special snowflake type of government the only major things it adds are:
- Great Powers mechanics, which means you can sporadically fuck with top nations if you manage to become one yourself. And do some other stuff with smaller ones, like tell them to break one of their alliances, or pay off their debts for them. But it's very situational and overall kinda bare-bones.
- gives rulers personalities which translates to minor boni or mali, depending on whether or not RNG likes you and chooses a positive or negative personality traits for your kings.
- adds consorts, who are generally useless, but occasionally provide a minor bonus and can rule instead of regency councils.

 

[vmar]

I think it's worth it but some of the great power actions do seem a little overpowered. I did a Ming game and was able to get weaker nations to break alliances pretty much whenever I wanted so I could 1v1 them with my massive army or fight their bigger ally without interference. Taking on bigger countries was a lot easier since I could just force their allies to break alliances before declaring war. You get a truce when you force a break, but the AI usually didn't re-ally the same nation before the truce was up, so I could chip away at larger nations and conquer their smaller allies during truce time. Lan Xang in particular kept allying with the same 2 nations and I'd just break their alliances every time before I eventually wiped them out.

 

[thesheeep]

Agreed. The great power mechanics seem absurdly overpowered. At least the ally canceling.

 

[Grinolf]

but the AI usually didn't re-ally the same nation before the truce was up, so I could chip away at larger nations and conquer their smaller allies during truce time.

It's not just that they don't want to renew an alliance, but they simply can't do it. Similarly to "Annul Treaties" peace deal it not just annul current treaties, but prevents new deals to be made between two chosen targets for about a duration of an average truce. It also affects player if he or his ally is target of such peace deal or GP action.

 

[Delterius]

The thing is that there aren't other Great Powers near Ming. In Europe you'd be trying to break a minor's alliance with another Great Power, which I think is generally harder to do. Or at least it should be.