|
TorakFade posted:Tried the Japan start, got my butt kicked. The emperor has no money, daimyos are assholes in constant war, if you take as much as one province during an enforce peace you get loving 10k stacks of rebels. Maybe I should just try harder. Start as Uesugi or Hosokawa instead of Japan and go wild conquering your fellow Daimyos. Hosokawa starts with better land, but Uesugi borders Takeda which have the only gold province in Japan and will generate an absurd amount of money compared to any other province in Japan, especially once you develop it to 10 production. Once you get big enough, Japan will get pissy and declare on you, so make sure you're murdering as many of the smaller Daimyos as you can. The difference between someone with one province and three is minuscule these days, so you want to leave Japan with fewer, larger vassals instead of a lot of small ones, otherwise you just can't beat their number of troops. Starting as Japan also works, but it is slow as poo poo integrating all your vassals compared to starting as a Daimyo and just conquering all of it.
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 14:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 06:44 |
|
|
TorakFade posted:Tried the Japan start, got my butt kicked. The emperor has no money, daimyos are assholes in constant war, if you take as much as one province during an enforce peace you get loving 10k stacks of rebels. Maybe I should just try harder. Ayutthaya used to be pretty stacked vs. any of its neighbors, but that was before the major map rework, and I haven't played there since.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 14:33
|
|
|
DStecks posted:Ayutthaya used to be pretty stacked vs. any of its neighbors, but that was before the major map rework, and I haven't played there since. Ayutthaya has a small but sufficient edge on most of its neighbors. It isn't an easy start, but it's far from the worst. The main trick is to war dec Pechu or whatever it is that's to your NW day one. Otherwise they set up invincible alliance networks. You also need to keep a very close eye on your vassal and not fed them up too much because it is easy for them to get too big and they have no problem finding allies to support their independence. TorakFade posted:Tried the Japan start, got my butt kicked. The emperor has no money, daimyos are assholes in constant war, if you take as much as one province during an enforce peace you get loving 10k stacks of rebels. Maybe I should just try harder.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:26
|
|
|
DStecks posted:Ayutthaya used to be pretty stacked vs. any of its neighbors, but that was before the major map rework, and I haven't played there since.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:30
|
|
|
TorakFade posted:Tried the Japan start, got my butt kicked. The emperor has no money, daimyos are assholes in constant war, if you take as much as one province during an enforce peace you get loving 10k stacks of rebels. Maybe I should just try harder. Play as a Daimyo instead. Alternatively, in addition to the other good suggestions, Malacca is also a beast, and in human hands has no trouble taking down Ayutthaya.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:33
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
PittTheElder posted:Play as a Daimyo instead. Alternatively, in addition to the other good suggestions, Malacca is also a beast, and in human hands has no trouble taking down Ayutthaya.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:34
|
|
|
Play as Ming, beat up on the world.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:35
|
|
|
I'm playing a Bengal game right now and it's the first non-Europe/Ottos game I think I've played since a Manchu game right when EU4 first came out. It's a pretty fun start; you're making enough trade money to float a lot of mercenaries right off the bat (India is kind of lovely for manpower, so merc infantry is a godsend) and you can easily pick up a solid vassal or two on either side of you. I think it's only ~1500 and I'm one province away from Hindustan. Between myself and my vassals I have about the eastern third of modern India solidly under my control and I've started pushing into Burma as well. I'm also following the thread's advice and taking Exploration as my first idea group so I'm hoping that investing heavily in Indonesian provinces pays off. I'll probably try to get some provinces in East Africa in a bid to get my westernization done before Europe comes knocking with claims on literally every coastal province in India 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
My France game just came to a grinding halt when I ended up in three separate wars with pretty much the rest of Europe within the first five years of gameplay. I went for a quick Brittany war at the start of the game, then Navarra called me into the Aragon conquest, with Aragon allied with Burgundy, Portugal and the Papal States. Even the Burgundian Inheritance didn't help me get a victory. Then England declared a war on Reconquest on me, and when my manpower was almost at nothing Austria also declared, which was when I gave it up for a bad job. I also appointed my heir as general, where he was amazing, and then the very next day he fell ill and died. Is this how France games usually start or did I just have a very bad run of luck?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:02
|
|
|
YoSaff posted:My France game just came to a grinding halt when I ended up in three separate wars with pretty much the rest of Europe within the first five years of gameplay. You overextended yourself somewhat. I don't usually make my heir a general unless I am desperate, or if he has low stats, and almost never as France. Why would Navarra call you into a war, you were allied with them? You do want some decent allies as France still. Castile does the job at first. I usually like to take a nice slice out of Aragon before Castile and Aragon join. Poland is another good ally because they can counter-balance Austria easily if they have the PU with Lithuania, and maybe even if they don't. If Austria hasn't rivalled you, they can even be a decent ally at first, but that shouldn't last too long. First thing to do is get a decent ally, like Castile, and retake all your provinces from England. You can easily win this war for the most part because England often gets tied up with Sweden's independence war, you could even wait for that to start and then attack England. After that you're a lot stronger and can conquer the other smaller guys around you. Tsyni fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Oct 28, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:09
|
|
|
Tsyni posted:You overextended yourself somewhat. I don't usually make my heir a general unless I am desperate, or if he has low stats, and almost never as France. Why would Navarra call you into a war, you were allied with them? You do want some decent allies as France still. Castile does the job at first. I usually like to take a nice slice out of Aragon before Castile and Aragon join. Poland is another good ally because they can counter-balance Austria easily if they have the PU with Lithuania, and maybe even if they don't. Yeah, I was allied with Navarra in an attempt to diplo-vassalize them early on. I had a Castille alliance as well, but I couldn't call them in against Aragon and England declared on me right after they declared on Granada so they weren't any help there. Is Navarra not worth the effort in the early game?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:13
|
|
|
Not for france. Ally castile and use them to take a moon shaped slice out of aragon. Note the two trade bonus provinces in the genoa node. You want those. Ally castile. Use them to beat on england. Then aragon while mopping up your minors and taking shots at burgundy when appropriate then start working on savoy and northern italy ensuring you take genoa and florences trade provinces. At some point 100% Austria and release stryia. Expect castile to turn on you when they realise they want your half of aragon. Poland will happily be your buddy forever. Sweden makes a good ally if they get swole.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:21
|
|
|
FadingChord posted:I'm playing a Bengal game right now and it's the first non-Europe/Ottos game I think I've played since a Manchu game right when EU4 first came out. It's a pretty fun start; you're making enough trade money to float a lot of mercenaries right off the bat (India is kind of lovely for manpower, so merc infantry is a godsend) and you can easily pick up a solid vassal or two on either side of you. I think it's only ~1500 and I'm one province away from Hindustan. Between myself and my vassals I have about the eastern third of modern India solidly under my control and I've started pushing into Burma as well. That mission no longer exists, replaced with more targeted missions to take the important trade ports. If you want to pull off an early-ish westernization, you'll want to get all the way around to at least West Africa, or more probably South America, so you can pick up a border with a non-trade company province to westernize off of, without having to fight the always allied colonial powers.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:26
|
|
|
YoSaff posted:Yeah, I was allied with Navarra in an attempt to diplo-vassalize them early on. I had a Castille alliance as well, but I couldn't call them in against Aragon and England declared on me right after they declared on Granada so they weren't any help there. If you are doing the diplo-vassal route (and Navarra really isn't worth your time), wait to ally them until they have enough relations score to vassalize, unless you really really really want their province, because something like this can happen and they will drag you into a poo poo war you don't want. If/when you are taking chunks out of Burgundy, and be careful because with all those minors in a PU they are actually super tough, make sure to take their northern provinces, because if the Burgundian Inheritance fires you will usually get all the provinces in the France region (or is it based on culture?) anyway, just focus on taking from the north, and watch your AE.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:38
|
|
|
Bort Bortles posted:They have a slight edge on total development and have two vassals that each have a couple provinces, so they are the tough guy on the block. I liked Khmer's idea set and played a game as them once and managed to form some alliances and colonize the Phillipines to get an edge in development, but that was before Common Sense so I have no idea how well that would work right now. Lan Na also has quite a bit of development and has nice ideas if I remember correctly, but I think they border Ming. Khmer is cool and fun and has the extra benefit of being able to go Hindu on day 1.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 16:38
|
|
|
I just started up a Brandenburg game while waiting for the new content, and within a span of 20 years Saxony got in a PU with Bohemia, and Austria lost the emperorship to Hesse because of a regency council. Now everyone are voting for me as the next emperor. The HRE is going to be weird. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 17:16
|
|
|
France is a deceptively hard start because they can overextend themselves very quickly. It's tempting to try to punch in all directions at once but you can get dog piled, especially by burgundy, who are in a better position than you'd think. Best advice for France: unless you're going for big blue blob, just slow down and take it easy for a while.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 17:57
|
|
|
You just have to pick your targets wisely. Also pick your alliances wisely. I like to be friends with Castille and Austria early on unless Austria rivals you which makes things more difficult, that will dissuade most other countries from even thinking about attacking you. If Castille has rivalled England, which they usually do, you can quickly declare on England/Portugal and Spain will take care of Portugal for you while you take back your cores from England. Retaking your cores barely earns you any AE. I usually take out Brittany shortly after that since they rarely manage to get any alliances going and you can start your war with them while you are waiting for the England war score to tick up high enough for them to peace out and give you your cores. After I reclaim my cores and finish coring Brittany, I usually am able to vassalize Connaught. I love them because they are almost always millitaristic and will have claims on the rest of Ireland. Help them retake the island and now you have a great staging point to take out England and/or Scotland in the future. Other than that, just be opportunistic. Wait until your neighbors get into stupid wars and pounce on them. Take their best provinces to make the most of your AE and spread out your fighting. With patience and by spreading out your gains, you will quickly grow to the point that most silly coalitions won't even slightly worry you.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 18:09
|
|
|
In more 1.14 news, Wiz announced on his twitter there'd be 25 new achievements, and five of them would be for custom nations Humble Origins: With a custom start of 50 points, have 2000 total development Back to the Piast: Form Poland as Mazovia or Silesia Blood for the Sky God: Have Nahuatl as your Syncretic faith
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 18:23
|
|
|
Bort Bortles posted:What? Common Sense is the most important to get, followed by AoW. How so? It seems that aside from development and a few monarchy tweaks, the rest of the important stuff appears patched in. Not that this matters incredibly either way, next sale im going to snag the final expansions I don't own, including that and WoN.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 18:42
|
|
|
Tendronai posted:In more 1.14 news, Wiz announced on his twitter there'd be 25 new achievements, and five of them would be for custom nations Humble Origins actually sounds pretty fun. Can you become a formable as a custom nation? Edit: looks like they keep their original ideas. Darn. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Oct 28, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 18:49
|
|
|
Avocados posted:How so? It seems that aside from development and a few monarchy tweaks, the rest of the important stuff appears patched in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 19:50
|
|
|
 Kutai is a fun start in Asia. You start out as a Hindu among non-Hindus (other than Mahajapit) so Religious is fantastic. Plus you get to be that lovely shade of purple. I have Ayathutta and Mahajapit as vassals and I'm unsure how I'm going to handle mega-Ming. They have 3 full idea groups already on top of being on-par with tech levels. I have religious and exploration because they're kinda necessary for the start and I've picked Defensive as my third idea although haven't actually bought any ideas yet. Still not sure if I should take Quantity instead. I also have some colonies over in South Africa, next to Portuguese Cape and Mutapa. Still considering if I can handle a war with Portugal (who is allied to England and Spain) just to be able to westernise. It doesn't really seem like there's any point in attacking Mutapa for all their goldmines when everything will have 75% autonomy.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 19:55
|
|
|
MrBling posted:
You just need to start a snake...a snake through Ming, through India, through Persia, potentially through the Ottomans.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:00
|
|
|
FadingChord posted:I'm playing a Bengal game right now and it's the first non-Europe/Ottos game I think I've played since a Manchu game right when EU4 first came out. It's a pretty fun start; you're making enough trade money to float a lot of mercenaries right off the bat (India is kind of lovely for manpower, so merc infantry is a godsend) and you can easily pick up a solid vassal or two on either side of you. I think it's only ~1500 and I'm one province away from Hindustan. Between myself and my vassals I have about the eastern third of modern India solidly under my control and I've started pushing into Burma as well. You can probably get to Cape before the Europeans if you start off colonizing your way west rather than focusing on Indonesia first. This is a tremendous advantage for almost any Asian nation because if you own South Africa the European colonization of Asia is severely delayed because they'll remain out of range.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:05
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:Humble Origins actually sounds pretty fun. Can you become a formable as a custom nation? You can with a historical start. You keep your custom ideas. Lazy man's Japan, for example, is just too make a custom daiymo that owns all Japan except Kyoto, and then conquer the Japan tag and get an instant event making you Japan. You sadly can't with randomized ai nations though, because the formable tags will exist (FRA becomes three province Dublin or whatever) and thus can't be formed. (Maybe if they're annexed?)
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:11
|
|
|
Fintilgin posted:You can with a historical start. You keep your custom ideas. Lazy man's Japan, for example, is just too make a custom daiymo that owns all Japan except Kyoto, and then conquer the Japan tag and get an instant event making you Japan.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:18
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:Play as a Daimyo instead. Alternatively, in addition to the other good suggestions, Malacca is also a beast, and in human hands has no trouble taking down Ayutthaya. OK that works a lot better, I grabbed all northern Japan and that gold province, and I also am allied with the other good Daimyo (hokosawa I think?) Now though I still have an 8k force limit, and the shogun alone has a 15k army, I'm guessing I don't want to piss him off just yet. What's the next wise move here? I guess I should wait a bit, until my new provinces stop being rebellious at least.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:32
|
|
|
TorakFade posted:OK that works a lot better, I grabbed all northern Japan and that gold province, and I also am allied with the other good Daimyo (hokosawa I think?) When I did my japan run at this point I saved up a bunch and then merc spammed the shogun's army to death, at which point you can use your regular troops for sieging. And I did it as an Ouchi daimyo, so you should have no problem with that gold mine. EDIT: remember that forcelimits are only a suggestion to the rich. Sarrisan fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Oct 28, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:41
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:Edit: looks like they keep their original ideas. Darn. Next patch they've changing it so for every nation forming decision, you get to choose whether to go with the new ideas or to keep your own. I dunno for sure if that's gonna extend to custom nations but I imagine it will.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 20:56
|
|
|
Koramei posted:Next patch they've changing it so for every nation forming decision, you get to choose whether to go with the new ideas or to keep your own. I dunno for sure if that's gonna extend to custom nations but I imagine it will. One of these days I hope there will be dynamic nation-forming decisions. E.g. replace the Spanish nation decision with a decision that allows anyone who owns/vassals/PUs 100% of the "Spanish Region" to "Form <region uniter tag>" and in doing so instantly inherit+core all provinces in that region that are vassals/PUs while leaving the rest. So you could form Spain in any number of permutations of Castile/Aragon/Leon/Navarra controlling any permutation of territory / each other - as long as you control the entire area and have <some prereq> the game just sorts it out. Then just splatter these regions across the world. or just use the new "region" demarcations.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 21:57
|
|
|
TorakFade posted:OK that works a lot better, I grabbed all northern Japan and that gold province, and I also am allied with the other good Daimyo (hokosawa I think?) The Shogun can't attack you until you have 10+ provinces. So get to 9, build up your strength (read: manpower), then go and grab as much territory as possible in one war. If the Emperor tries to wreck you, spam mercs all day. Loans are super easy to pay off later.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 22:21
|
|
|
PittTheElder posted:I don't know what they changed, but it seems way less common these days. A bit of a shame really. It has a 500 month MTTH, which is lowered by having a leader ruler, leader heir, having no heir, and greatly by having negative warscore. Burgundy used to get slammed by France/Austria/coalition 10 years into every single game and it would fire. With their 3 PUs now they seem a lot stronger so they don't lose a bunch of consecutive wars and they don't try to annex 5 HRE provinces in 1445 and launch an eternal coalition. If Burgundy has a leader ruler, no heir/heir leader and -75% warscore, the event has about a 5 year MTTH, and you can just camp them at 100% occupation until it fires. I've done it twice this patch, as Bohemia and Austria.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 22:47
|
|
|
Religious ideas as a pick for Poland was a great suggestion. At a glance Poland is tailor-made to take Humanist but that really cramps your ability to expand into non-Christian territory at a decent pace. I hadn't made much use of the Religious CB recently but man, I'm not sure it's much less potent than the Expansion CB for cleaning up Asia. Sure Expansion is great for breaking up big blobs, but most of the time you're just going to carve out enough provinces so you're not overextended and Religious is just fine for that. Plus, nations like to Westernize which makes Expansion CB useless.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:13
|
|
|
So my Bahmanis->Hindustan game was quite fun and I'd really recommend an unifying-India run to anybody who is burnt out on Europe, it's much more blobbable and if your starting nation is at all decent you can pretty much keep on feeding and annexing and feeding your vassals right up till you hit Iran on one side and China on the other, while colonizing the entire eastern coast of Africa and the entire East Indies even if you are poo poo at this game, like me. However my hopes of being a Sikh and getting badass permanent modifiers did not come to fruition. I think I broke Sikhism somehow, they showed up in one of my provinces and sat around for a while, but I couldn't convert through the religion menu, I never got an event to convert as far as I noticed, and I couldn't force convert because sending a missionary only stirred up the local nationalists and not zealots. Sikhs never showed up in any other province and I didn't see any further events concerning them before the province randomly event-converted back to Shia in the mid-18th century. I think my next game will be Delhi->Mughals and I'd like to convert the right way this time. How do I get Sikh gains, bros?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:21
|
|
|
Pellisworth posted:Religious ideas as a pick for Poland was a great suggestion. At a glance Poland is tailor-made to take Humanist but that really cramps your ability to expand into non-Christian territory at a decent pace.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:22
|
|
|
I tried France again, this time not bothering with Navarra and heading straight into a gently caress-England start. Unfortunately Castille rivalled me out of the gate so I was stuck with Aragon, who helped me out in my first England war and then married Castille a week into my second. Unfortunately I took a province of Savoy and massively underestimated how much AE taking a HRE province would give me as a non-member so I got coalitioned into hell. Won't be underestimating them again any time soon.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:23
|
|
|
YoSaff posted:I tried France again, this time not bothering with Navarra and heading straight into a gently caress-England start. Unfortunately Castille rivalled me out of the gate so I was stuck with Aragon, who helped me out in my first England war and then married Castille a week into my second. Unfortunately I took a province of Savoy and massively underestimated how much AE taking a HRE province would give me as a non-member so I got coalitioned into hell. When expanding in dense wealthy parts of Europe, always hover over the AE gain in your peace treaty and see who might join a coalition against you. If it's more countries than you can handle, you might want to start removing provinces from your peace deal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:26
|
|
|
Bort Bortles posted:Does not compute - please explain. I always find it easier to expand when my provinces dont revolt and I have more money and manpower because all of my cultures are accepted... I know there are posters in the thread that are big fans of Religious and might have additional advice and opinions, I don't often take it myself. However: -The CB is huge huge huge. If nothing else it is saving you a lot of diplomatic points and diplomat time (for claims) that you'd otherwise need. -Unless you have enough Tolerance to fully accept Heretics/Heathens, I think Humanist is worse long-term. As Poland you can take Humanist and give zero fucks about Heretics, same for Ottomans and Heathens. However, if you expand eastward into the steppes and Asia as Poland or aggressively into Shia as Ottomans your ability to convert them will lag behind your conquest and you're unable to get them fully tolerated so there will be growing pains. With Religious, you conquer, core, convert, lower autonomy once and put down a revolt and they will never revolt again. It's more effort short-term but you don't really need to worry about them ever again. With Humanist unless you can get +3 tolerance you'll want to convert eventually, so even though there's less revolt risk and more manpower/money (from accepted cultures) in the short to mid-term, you're putting off the pain until later. Humanist is good it just feels suboptimal if your goal is to GET HUGE. Edit: I also just can't be assed to try and collect and maintain accepted cultures. It's a lot more efficient to engage in horrifying snake-like border gore than getting conquered cultures accepted and keeping existing ones above the threshhold. Edit2: also, if you're making use of the overseas province coring discount to cheaply core Asia and Africa, all those provinces are going to be at 75 minimum autonomy for a long time, so Humanist isn't really going to help them contribute much more. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Oct 29, 2015 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2015 23:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 21, 2024 06:44 |
|
|
So the new patch's AE change has made Granada a lot harder because I can no longer aggressively carve Castille up like a turkey without getting a -100 or more AE hit from Aragon and a Portugal. Rolling the coalition dice to claim Madrid and Toledo to feed to Leon is cramping my style. Maybe the safest thing to do is to form an actual contiguous state with claimable Andalusian provinces first?
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2015 00:38
|
|
