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Bort Bortles posted:: It is worth noting that your mercenary pool increases your force limits, so this is also a +force limit idea. It is also worth representing China better.
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Jun 23, 2015 23:54
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I don't think maritime is a good first idea; which island nation did you have in mind? I can't think of one where exploration wouldn't be a better pick. It even has the extra force limits too.
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Jun 23, 2015 23:56
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Baronjutter posted:Can anyone explain combat a little more? Like Morale vs Discipline vs shock vs fire and all that? Combat mechanics always seem to be changing so I don't trust wiki articles, or are they more or less up to date? It's really hard to rate one stat versus another, and generally they stack multiplicatively so it's often best to double down on any good NIs you have and otherwise just get some of everything. Generally, here's how combat works. Two armies engage, and line up with infantry/cav in front and artillery in back, to a maximum of the Combat Width (modified by terrain). Infantry don't really do anything special, they're just cheap and average all-around. However they're you're bread and butter front liners and so things like +Infantry Combat Ability are very strong. Cavalry are able to flank, meaning they can engage units other than those directly in front of them. They go on the edges of your battle lines and inflict massive Shock damage, which means they're stronger in the first half of the game (before 1600 or so) and somewhat weaker in the second half. They don't have as good defensive pips as Infantry, especially for Fire, but nothing can match them in Shock damage. They're also highly efficient at looting. Artillery don't do much battle damage to start and are primarily used for supporting sieges. However, after 1600 or so they become increasingly powerful and eventually dominant in battles. They grant their defensive pips to the units in front of them, speed up sieges, and are the only unit type able to deal damage from the back line. Combat is divided into "phases" of 3 days Fire followed by 3 days Shock, repeat. Each phase both sides will roll a dice 0-9. This is then modified by terrain penalty, general stats, and the individual unit pips. The final modified dice roll is then converted into a number of base casualties. As an example, an infantry in Shock phase rolls for damage as follows: (Your general Shock + infantry offensive Shock - terrain modifiers) - (Enemy general Shock + enemy infantry defensive Shock - terrain modifiers) and from now on I'll just call that your dice roll. That includes generals, specific unit pips, and any terrain penalties for the attacking side. This dice roll is further modified multiplicatively by your Shock/Fire modifier (from tech) and by Discipline and Combat Ability. Damage to an enemy unit is reduced by their Tactics, which is modified by Discipline, so Disc double-dips both damage and "HP." Units at lower strength do correspondingly less damage, so if you're pushing aggressively it's often useful to consolidate into full-strength units. The casualties are then Dice Roll x Shock/Fire Modifier from tech x Discipline x Combat Ability / Enemy Discipline assuming you're at tech (Tactics) parity. A battle ends when you deplete the enemy's Morale. Morale damage is calculated as the above casualties * your morale, one of the reasons Prussian ideas are so ridiculous is they multiply all those modifiers for massive Morale damage and stackwipe your rear end. Stacking high values of multiplicative modifiers makes things really silly. Take an example of a Prussian infantry with +30% combat ability, +20% Discipline, and +60% Morale. Taken together that infantry does ~250% Morale damage 
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Jun 24, 2015 00:01
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One caveat about military ideas: picking one first can be fine as long as you know what you're going. If you have a 3+ military skill monarch, and are willing to park your focus on it, it's completely doable to flesh out a military groups while simultaneously keeping up in military tech. The critical thing to remember is that the Military Tactics bonuses from military techs 4, 6, 7 and 8 are huge. If you fall behind by one of those, you'll have a bad day. If you fall behind by two, you should probably restart and rethink your approach.Baronjutter posted:Can anyone explain combat a little more? Like Morale vs Discipline vs shock vs fire and all that? Combat mechanics always seem to be changing so I don't trust wiki articles, or are they more or less up to date? The wiki is pretty up to date, combat actually hasn't changed much since the big Discipline change. In a nutshell:
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Jun 24, 2015 00:10
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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aeglus posted:I always make it an end game goal to destroy all of the big navies in Europe. One stack of 30 big ships is usually enough to destroy everything. Naval combat in this game is dumb and the naval AI is even more dumb. Just 30? I usually add a little more than that. Just to be safe. You never know.  You could get so absurdly rich when Sevilla was an end node as Portugal.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:14
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Node posted:Just 30? I usually add a little more than that. Just to be safe. You never know. Yeah, Ottoman's always have a giant galley navy in the hundreds if they aren't constantly beaten down.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:19
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Some screenshots and notes from my successful Frankfurt run. This has been really fun to play well into the 1700s. The 1400s were spent snatching up and expanding my vassals, getting Cleves and Munster first. I kept Mainz around to declare war on for a long time, they even flourished and expanded all the way out to Lorraine before I decided to let Cleves and Wurzburg eat them and France took the remaining bits. A small Burgundian inheritance fired and gave provinces to Milan. I picked up Munster and Wurzberg right in time for the reformation to pop in Ravensburg. Baden and I picked up the other two centers, flipping a lot of the HRE. Super-France and Super-Pope joined the Catholic League which made me think we weren't going to be able to get Protestantism as the faith but I caught France out when he couldn't join the war and we crushed it. Grabbed the "Bleed them Dry" achievement pretty easily. I then decided I wanted to unify the HRE in the one true faith, and get all of the remaining HRE provinces back from Poland/Pope/France.  Religion was easy as soon as I got the Imperialism CB. France willingly flipped in the middle of me convincing everyone in the HRE.  France was a tough nut to crack, I had to ally him and drag him into a war with Best Friend Spain by attacking a Spanish Ally and burn his army down to about 90K while helping me take it. I gave a few Spanish Provinces to France as a "gift" so he would never be friends with Spain again. The day after that war I canceled that alliance, allied his rivals the Pope and Ottomans and declared on France. It took three wars, the last one because I took Lothringen instead of Liege on accident at the end of the second. I should have really checked technologies as France went to Mil 26 and got god-tier infantry in the few days it took me to declare war on his ally OPM Brunswick. He absolutely crushed me in the last war but holding Brunswick let me get to exactly 10 warscore to take Liege via the peace with Brunswick. My only shame is vassalizing Bavaria without realizing that Bohemia made them an elector right before or during the war. We don't even have the first HRE reform passed (Development Cost!) because of that. 100 Development Frankfurt and its 500 Development of Vassals:  Growth is limited by how happy my vassals are, my money, and manpower to a point. I have three +1 Dip Rep Policies, the advisor, and Diplomatic/Influence and making 90 Development Aachen is making me push over 50% desire at times. In total my vassals have about 100 units to my 60. I can't field my force limit without running a deficit so I war random HRE provinces for money and war reparations frequently. Administrative would save me 6 ducats but I would still be negative at full maintenance. The base 10,000 manpower doesn't seem to be affected by policies and ideas. So my one 15 manpower province still has me below 20K max manpower. My 20 stack of cannons melts that down pretty fast so I'm usually unable to reinforce them by the end of wars. All my infantry are mercs. I'm terrified of having one of my vassals go above 100 development and getting more liberty desire, so I have 7 vassals between 70-90 development. They are a beast when they aren't sitting at home complaining about their overlord. Current State and Ideas:  Don't you feel dumb for leaving the HRE now Italian Minors? You could be cool and Protestant getting beaten up by me every few years for your lunch money. I don't really know what to do for the last 80 years. I'm limited by not being able to take land. I could just keep vassalizing HRE nations, watching liberty desire rise. Maybe I'll just dismantle the HRE... But then I lose my Free City status... I think this would make a good achievement. Have your vassals/marches outnumber your provinces 40 to 1 but still be loyal.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:51
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Node posted:Just 30? I usually add a little more than that. Just to be safe. You never know. It's amazing that your fleet is literally named THE RAPE BOAT and yet my gut instinct is more grossed out by the Roman numeral abuse.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:53
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Dibujante posted:It is worth noting that your mercenary pool increases your force limits, so this is also a +force limit idea. Is this still the case? I ask because extra merchants used to boost naval force limits and that's been removed. Koramei posted:I don't think maritime is a good first idea; which island nation did you have in mind? I can't think of one where exploration wouldn't be a better pick. It even has the extra force limits too. Venice could level it up for the forcelimits, since you're not wealthy enough to go over the limits enough to compete with the Ottomans, who also go over their forcelimits. Kinda a moot point when Poland will gladly smash them, but hey. Also Poland-Lithuania super strong now drat.
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Jun 24, 2015 00:55
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Poland-Lithuania are like Ming West. They're crazy powerful and if you can keep everything together for 150 years and abolish the Sejm, you'll come out the other end and be unkillable. But there are like 3-4 major events that are all dangerous, and the elective monarchy system constantly keeps you stab low thanks to all your rulers constantly dying because they're 50 when they get elected.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:45
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Anyone heard when the next patch might be released? Trying to weigh how much time I want to spend working toward a few achievements vs. waiting until after the changes to development particularly
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Jun 24, 2015 01:47
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Koramei posted:Never open with a military idea, is the main rule. I don't think it depends all that much though- influence if you're somewhere where you'll likely expand through lots of vassalization (i.e. the HRE), exploration if you're in Iberia, and admin in most every other situation since admin points are super scarce this patch. As a tiny country where you literally don't have enough money to survive and overreaching with your conquests is unlikely I guess trade might be tempting, but I tend to think of it as a bit of a trap if you're western, since there are better ways to get merchants if you're going the trade game, and if you're not going the trade game it's not very useful anyway. Just wondering how you get extra merchants if you are not colonizing? As far as I know without getting 10+ size colonial nations or 50%+ trade power in node trade companies there are no good other ways to get merchants? Except through ideas I mean. The 3 extra merchants give you 30% more trade efficiency in your home node if you are using them to transfer trade power in addition to the other bonuses you get from the idea set. And you can leech trade from more nodes back to your home one. I am not sure how this is considered useless. Especially in the early game when income can be a real issue. More ducats is always good. Losing a war? Time to merc up. Hryme fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 01:51
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   Imagine I pressed the right button and The Holy Trinity achievement popped up here  Pretty much everyone revolted in North America by 1700. Meanwhile south America is completely filled out and still loyal to Portugal and Spain.  I think the hallmark of a good run is creating a map where you take one good look at it before burning it up. I recommend doing a Papal State run if you got Common Sense, they're in a really strong position right now.
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Jun 24, 2015 01:58
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AnoMouse posted:Is this still the case? I ask because extra merchants used to boost naval force limits and that's been removed. Unfortunately no.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:15
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Vanilla Mint Ice posted:
Your borders offend me
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Jun 24, 2015 02:31
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Is there any reliable means of breaking up an AI nation's alliance? Hungary has been allied with France for what seems like forever. Last time I fought France they touched my butt so I really can't eat Hungary until their alliance is dead.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:51
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Can you ally France or Hungary? If so, do that, get them into a war on your side, then declare on the other while they are helping you out. Take what you want, and leave enough space in your warscore to get rid of the alliance. Make sure to wrap up the alliance breaking war before the other, or the one you allied will jump in against you once the war ends. You might have to eat a few months of call for peace if you accidentally clear up the first war too quickly.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:53
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Unfortunately France is my rival, and Hungary won't ally me because their ally (France) is my rival and I'm allied to one of their rivals (Austria). I wanted to try a proxy war with one of their allies (Milan or Naples) but I can't get a CB on either of them.
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Jun 24, 2015 02:58
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Trying to get a Wallachia game off the ground is not easy. The Ottomans warn you seemingly every time, and if you don't ally Poland fast enough you're first on the chopping block. The one game I managed to survive for a meaningful amount of time Hungary fell under a PU with Austria, leaving me no routes of expansion. I managed to get on Bosnia's side in a war but Serbia had too many alliances to make any gains on them.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:08
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Deutsch Nozzle posted:Unfortunately France is my rival, and Hungary won't ally me because their ally (France) is my rival and I'm allied to one of their rivals (Austria). I wanted to try a proxy war with one of their allies (Milan or Naples) but I can't get a CB on either of them. Just eat the -2 stability.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:11
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Koramei posted:Huh even with the buff this last patch I don't really get the appeal of naval, I should look at it more. But I don't understand the maritime hate at all, just the repairs-while-not-docked thing alone completely changes the naval game (and so, colonial and trade games too). And the extra force limits are phenomenal. If I have any aspirations outside of my home continent (which I always do), I nearly always take maritime. I used to think it was bad even for an island but if you're playing an island focused only on your navy I would pick it up. Admirals play an even bigger role in naval fights than generals do on land. If you have an admiral with a higher maneuver than the enemy admiral and the enemy has more ships then some of their ships will fire at each other. Fire is pretty important too. I'm not sure how much shock actually does for an admiral but naval gives you both. Galley combat ability and the prestige boost are pretty useless but 20% heavy ship combat ability and 10% more durability are huge. The maintenance doesn't hurt either. A lot of ducats can be made from trade when you have 1000 light ships and stack naval maintenance modifiers. It's still really situational. I wouldn't recommend it for island nations if you want to be able to dominate on land, and the AI is pretty easy to catch with their fleets apart anyways so it doesn't matter in singleplayer. Trujillo fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 03:19
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I kind of wish Paradox would just release patches with no warning. Whenever I know a patch is on the way I never want to start up a new game until it hits.
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Jun 24, 2015 03:32
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Thanks for the tips on ideas guys.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:08
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Can someone give me a Dumbass's Guide to Playing in the HRE or something? I tried a game as the Palatinate a few patches back and it never really felt like I was going anywhere. All my other games have been outside the HRE and I haven't bothered with it. What should I be doing if I'm playing one of the smaller princes?
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Jun 24, 2015 04:19
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Vanilla Mint Ice posted:
Can you tell me how you started out as the Poop for the Holy Trinity achievement? And how you made sure to secure all the three orders before they were gobbled up by their neighbors? That is the achievement I'm looking at doing soon and I can't quite figure out how I am going to save the TO from Poland and Brandenburg.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:24
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lost HRE to France (!) then got it back again. aren't I supposed to have a CB to declare war on the enemy religious coalition leader? right now neither us have any actual CB against the other, so we're just staring at each other while the 30 years war fails to happen...
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Jun 24, 2015 04:34
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PleasingFungus posted:lost HRE to France (!) then got it back again. aren't I supposed to have a CB to declare war on the enemy religious coalition leader? right now neither us have any actual CB against the other, so we're just staring at each other while the 30 years war fails to happen... Are you the Catholic or Protestant leader?
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Jun 24, 2015 04:42
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Arzakon posted:Some screenshots and notes from my successful Frankfurt run. This has been really fun to play well into the 1700s.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:47
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Schlesische posted:Are you the Catholic or Protestant leader? Catholic. It might have something to do with me showing up 50 years after the leagues were started?
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Jun 24, 2015 04:51
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Node posted:Can you tell me how you started out as the Poop for the Holy Trinity achievement? And how you made sure to secure all the three orders before they were gobbled up by their neighbors? That is the achievement I'm looking at doing soon and I can't quite figure out how I am going to save the TO from Poland and Brandenburg. It's definitely a timed mission. I started out allying Austria so I can get into the HRE and have free rein to conquer within the HRE. Just note at some point Austria is going to get a mission to claim northern italy so be prepared to face Austria sooner then later and to lose the alliance. For me I just abandoned the alliance when they were getting piled on because holy loving poo poo everyone loves to blockade Rome because Rome itself is worth a bunch of warscore even as a non co belligerent and you are not going to be able to field a navy early on to protect it. I also started out allying Castile, the idea was to use them to help in the war against Aragon for Naple's lands but as it turns out me and Castile never managed to be in the same war against Aragon/Naples. Still it worked out in the end when Castile was occupying Aragon so I declared on Naples and managed to take like two provinces (because italian provinces are expensive as gently caress both in warscore and ae) while Castile nullified the vassalage; Castile would not come for an offensive war against an independent Naples so I ended up conquering the rest by myself with no help from Castile or Austria. Luckily in my game Austria and Hungary were rivals and I recommend restarting the game until they start out as rivals because Hungary was mucho excelencia in fighting Austria and Ottoman. I wouldn't worry too much about the Knights since they are easy to get to and you can vassalize them anytime in any of your wars against Venice. TO and LO got buffed this patch by the virtue of having more provinces so they won't die super fast like they did pre common sense. But it is a timed goal so you just have to expand as fast as you can so you can go north and also protect yourself against Austria/France who get a mission to go after Italy. Keep an eye out on TO and LO as if they get eaten up you got 50 years to fight their conqueror and make them release them back.
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Jun 24, 2015 04:56
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In case anyone was wondering, Denmark is now small enough to join the HRE right away at the start, without selling any provinces or anything. That makes them a crazy strong start. Sweden will almost always declare war on you in the first couple years but they're not too tough to beat back, the main key is making sure the TO doesn't start rivaled to you. If the TO rivals you, they'll support Sweden's independence and you're probably hosed.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:11
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One King to Rule and Winged Hussars down Anyone gotten the African Power achievement? Thinking about trying a Kongo game since Africa is the last region I haven't played in yet and it seems like a neat challenge. It seems like they have a decent mix of NIs with a little bit of everything thrown in, but I'm not sure where to go with ideas after the obvious start with Exploration. Is going for Trade worth it to try and cut the flow of trade to Europe, or will the Europeans out-muscle me with navies anyway? Do I try to box them out by colonizing the provinces closest to Spain first and then working back towards me or do they get enough colonization range that it won't matter and they'll find a foothold eventually anyway? I'm planning on converting to Catholicism when I get that event chain, so I assume religious ideas are a must? How long does it usually take for Portugal to discover me and trigger those events? Other than that just looking for any general tips on playing in Africa as well. I imagine bee-lining for Cape is important as it's one of the few decent provinces in my half of the continent, but other than that my only real starting strategy is to go pick a fight with the central African nations and hope I don't die.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:24
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Pellisworth posted:In case anyone was wondering, Denmark is now small enough to join the HRE right away at the start, without selling any provinces or anything. That makes them a crazy strong start. Sweden will almost always declare war on you in the first couple years but they're not too tough to beat back, the main key is making sure the TO doesn't start rivaled to you. If the TO rivals you, they'll support Sweden's independence and you're probably hosed. The good thing about this is that on a Poland start, since the TO always backs Sweden's independence, they'll assuredly be dragged into the war against Denmark which usually ends right around the time you set up your PU with Lithuania and you can declare on them while their manpower is still drained, assuming the AI was smart enough to transport any troops across the Baltic in the first place.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:30
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Vanilla Mint Ice posted:It's definitely a timed mission. I started out allying Austria so I can get into the HRE and have free rein to conquer within the HRE. Just note at some point Austria is going to get a mission to claim northern italy so be prepared to face Austria sooner then later and to lose the alliance. For me I just abandoned the alliance when they were getting piled on because holy loving poo poo everyone loves to blockade Rome because Rome itself is worth a bunch of warscore even as a non co belligerent and you are not going to be able to field a navy early on to protect it. I also started out allying Castile, the idea was to use them to help in the war against Aragon for Naple's lands but as it turns out me and Castile never managed to be in the same war against Aragon/Naples. Still it worked out in the end when Castile was occupying Aragon so I declared on Naples and managed to take like two provinces (because italian provinces are expensive as gently caress both in warscore and ae) while Castile nullified the vassalage; Castile would not come for an offensive war against an independent Naples so I ended up conquering the rest by myself with no help from Castile or Austria. Luckily in my game Austria and Hungary were rivals and I recommend restarting the game until they start out as rivals because Hungary was mucho excelencia in fighting Austria and Ottoman. So you had all that time to bulldoze your way through Germany so you could fabricate claims against the TO/LO. Interesting. I've heard one strategy is to ally someone that neighbors the TO and do a no CB war against them, and vassalize them that way.
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Jun 24, 2015 05:36
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PleasingFungus posted:Catholic. Pretty sure only the non-dominant faith gets the CB to start the war.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:46
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PleasingFungus posted:Catholic. Yeah, only the Protestant leader gets the CB. If the Protestants never challenge the Catholics, Catholic will get locked in as the Official Faith by default.
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Jun 24, 2015 06:48
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VDay posted:Anyone gotten the African Power achievement? The Kongo is, in my experience, the toughest game of EUIV you will have. Certainly a 'unique' challenge. You will absolutely need exploration, as you said, but don't expect to be making money or even breaking even while colonising, because you won't. Also each colony will take an eternity until you get that idea fleshed out a bit, after which it will only take half an eternity instead. Colonise EVERYTHING you can that is coastal in Africa. Portugal, France or Britain will turn up and they will beat the everloving poo poo out of you if you don't. You might be able to westernise off of them, but if they turn up and DoW you, then your plans will be delayed by a looooong time. Also, they will steal your trade money. Prioritise the Gold Coast as an early colony. If the Western tech nations get to Africa early, you at least want that province for yourself. Their colonial range will almost certainly see them taking some land down there. You probably won't be taking that back for a loooooong time, however. Your second idea should be Admin, because you will need to reform the government, and you won't be developing anything in Africa so Economic ain't too great for you. You will get more out of Admin than you will Economic. The reduced coring cost from Admin will be extremely helpful and save you a boatload of admin, and the merc maintenance is essential since Africa is just attrition hell. Trade won't be too helpful at the start for you unless you go and colonise Asia to take trade from there, which since you are taking all of Africa, you will. Maybe your fourth or fifth idea. You will only have two nodes worth trading in, the Ivory Coast and the Cape, and the Cape doesn't feed into anywhere but Ivory. The only other important node for you won't be until later on, when you can take the Gulf of Aden to direct all the trade South to you. If you do decide to go and colonise Asia, colonise ALL of the Cape, and then around 1600 you should forsake the Ivory Coast and make the Cape your capital trade node. It is much harder for the Western tech nations to steal your trade from there if they manage to get some provinces in Africa, which you won't be able to take back for a while. Your third idea should be quantity. No question about it. You will not be beating the Westerners off of troop quality, morale or discipline, just sheer numbers, reinforcing your army while your men die repeatedly. Also, attrition will do hell on all of your troops no matter who you fight. You will want to form most of you main fighting stacks out of the best mercs of the time, yes, but you will still need actual manpower in battle too, either cav or artillery, and you can only afford so many mercs before you need regular troops on the front lines too. Religious ideas will also be extremely important to you. As the Kongo, you can go in two directions. You start as Shamanist. You do not want to stay that way though. You can either go Sunni, and get a great low piety tech discount (which stacks with your Admin idea discount, and your miltech NI discount), or you can go Catholic through an event you should get from Portugal and get the holy war CB on all of the Sunni states. If you go Sunni, you will have to convert loads of crappy Animist lands, and the Catholic land of Portugal who will almost certainly take land on the West and the North. There are also a load of Shia province on the North, which you will probably have to convert too, which would take forever without Religious ideas. If you go Catholic for the CB, then you will need to convert everything or you will have rebellions all day long, and Sunni land is hard to convert. That is just ideas though, there is more. A few things you should expect to happen: Peasants war. This will almost undoubtedly happen because one war can drain all of your manpower quickly. Pretenders. Lots of them. Before you reform the government, you will be seeing pretender rebels out the rear end. They will also not help on the manpower front. If a war goes badly, then you might get into an economic situation which won't recover for a loooong time, so you will have very low legitimacy, especially since you need to colonise. The Ottoman. They will probably hold a lot of Egypt. Good luck with that one. Alliance woes. Nobody will ally you at the start of the game. At all. You will be too far, and too shamanist for them to want to be your friend. No CB war. You will probably have to declare one if you want to grow fast, probably on Benin or one of their neighbours. You neighbour nobody but vassals at the start, so growth is impossible outside of a no CB declaration. Save up some Admin, because it will be rough getting out of the stability hole. Also, build cogs. You do not want to march through the crap land to your North, which will attack you on almost level tech. Wait for someone near Benin to get into a war, wait a while for their allies to get tired, and then declare. In the peacedeal, take an inland province which borders someone from them, and vassalise them too. You want that province to declare other wars. Look out for nations who started big, but got cut down into tiny nations. Declare on them, vassalise them, and then reclaim all of their cores before integrating. Admin is usually precious, and it has never been more precious than it is as the Kongo, between reforming, stabhits and your crap tech group. You will have to core some land, but try and reduce it by having your dip points shoulder some of the burden. Another Person fucked around with this message at 06:57 on Jun 24, 2015 |
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Jun 24, 2015 06:54
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Nitrousoxide posted:So, I just came across Wiz's post about taking out the 5 monarch point increase per development. code:code:At 3 development : 0.77 At 10 development: 0.5 At 20 development: 0.33 At 30 development: 0.25 At 40 development: 0.2 At 50 development: 0.17 Which is a massive discount, especially for more developed provinces. It would perhaps not be entirely unreasonable to have the percentage cost increase per level of development be greater at the start of the game, and then have Development efficiency reduce that number over the course of the game. Even starting the percentage increase at 11%, compared to the current 1% still wouldn't make it more expensive than it is currently, though it wouldn't exactly result in huge savings either. Starting at perhaps 7%, and then dropping that by 1% at for example ADM 15/20/25/28 would produce the (apparently) intended effect of making province development cheaper, and cheaper over time, without nearly completely nullifying the cost increase for developing already developed provinces.
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Jun 24, 2015 07:00
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Thanks AP, some good stuff there  Ottomans definitely seem like the final boss of the challenge, since I'm hoping I'll be able to get some alliances to deal with Portugal/Spain by the time I finally make my way up to Iberia. I don't usually use a lot of mercs so I'm looking forward to taking admin second and finally getting some use out of that after going Influence in a bunch of my previous games. Any thoughts on taking Defensive maybe after Religious? Most of the bonuses are just good in general, and the attrition bonus/enemy malus seem like they could be pretty powerful in Africa's lovely lands. Or do you think it wouldn't make a difference or really come into play if/when the European countries decide to come down and push my poo poo in?
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Jun 24, 2015 07:13
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VDay posted:Poland-Lithuania are like Ming West. They're crazy powerful and if you can keep everything together for 150 years and abolish the Sejm, you'll come out the other end and be unkillable. But there are like 3-4 major events that are all dangerous, and the elective monarchy system constantly keeps you stab low thanks to all your rulers constantly dying because they're 50 when they get elected. I've been playing an ironman game of Poland where I started out culture shifting to Prussian and joining the HRE, and it's been literally the easiest game of EU4 I've ever played. Not having Polish culture apparently turns off all of the bad events you can get, so you can let yourself get an Austrian king every single election and be permanent buddies with Austria, even if you choose to go Protestant/Reformed and Austria stays Catholic. The only situation I've been in that's been remotely scary was when the Jagiellons died out, and Lithuania broke free. Austria was enough to restore the personal union, but I got some massive aggressive expansion penalties from it, so I basically had to sit and wait for a while. And then I formed Prussia 
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Jun 24, 2015 08:49
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