Europa Universalis IV: Buying all the DLC is just Common Sense

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skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Yvonmukluk posted:

I have a quick query. I currently have the base game, Conquest of Paradise, Res Publica, and Wealth of Nations. I'm totally new to the game and somewhat limited on funds. What, of the available expansions, is a good addition to grab on the sale?

Are there any good tutorials/starting nations to be found? I remember there were some good CKII/Vicky II tutorial LPs, but it seems there's no LP for EU IV.

Also: is it possible for the Ainu to claim the Mandate of Heaven?

Art of War and Common Sense are both the most obvious ones to have. Cossacks and Rights of Man are slightly less important but also very good.

The loading screen tips suggest starting as the Ottomans. They have a couple of unusual foibles but don't need to worry about some of the weirder mechanics in the game and are overall a really strong nation with probably the most leeway for rookie mistakes of any country. I don't know of any good instructive LPs of the game but if you can play Vicky, you can definitely get a handle on this with time.

Ainu definitely can, but that's a tough goal for a weak start. I'm not sure what the best way would be to go about it -- maybe become tributary, colonize Siberia a lot for gold and force limit, and try and snipe provinces from the Manchus or rebel daimyos until you can take on the shogun?

e: also this probably should go without saying, but I'm pretty sure you do need to own Mandate of Heaven to claim the Mandate of Heaven

skasion fucked around with this message at 22:13 on Jun 14, 2017

# ? Jun 14, 2017 22:04

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# ? May 10, 2024 01:00

Futuresight: Oct 11, 2012; IT'S ALL TURNED TO SHIT!

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

You still be able to use the old patch if you really wanted to finish that game.

If they let you run 1.21 as a beta. Which they haven't.

# ? Jun 14, 2017 22:06

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Futuresight posted:

If they let you run 1.21 as a beta. Which they haven't.

Uh, yes they have. In fact I'm doing it right now.

# ? Jun 14, 2017 22:07

IncredibleIgloo: Feb 17, 2011

1.19 for ever baby!

# ? Jun 14, 2017 22:10

Futuresight: Oct 11, 2012; IT'S ALL TURNED TO SHIT!

skasion posted:

Uh, yes they have. In fact I'm doing it right now.

Ah I see now. It was not in the order I expected.

# ? Jun 14, 2017 23:52

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Senethro posted:

Any predictions on how cheap EU4 and DLC will go in Steam summer sale?

Oh yeah, the Summer Sale! I should probably wait until that kicks off before I pick up anything else.

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

I have a hard time parsing the DLC so I will not comment on that. Good starter nations include the Ottomans if you want to be able to expand and learn war and whatnot without too many existential threats nearby. Castille is good if you want to be a bigger nation and colonize while still probably needing to be involved in Europe; Portugal if you would like to learn naval stuff and do exploration + colonizing. I could go into more detail about why I think they are good if you would like.

Please do!

# ? Jun 15, 2017 00:00

I Love You!: Dec 6, 2002

Groogy posted:

I think you got it in reverse, they will not be fine with being over their relation limit. They will now be okay however that you are over your limit.

Oh, ok. guess 1.20 is the last patch i'll ever play

# ? Jun 15, 2017 00:49

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Yvonmukluk posted:

Please do!

Sure thing! One preface is that these are my opinions based on the amount of time I have played, my playstyle, and the selection of countries I have played. A few may disagree or have their own suggestions as well, but my goal is to at least point you in the right direction/allow you to make an informed decision.

Ottomans:

They start off large and there are some nearby cores of yours that you can conquer easily.
They have excellent ideas, a cool government, and start with a fantastic ruler (dont make him a general).
You bridge two continents and can expand easily in multiple directions; countries gain Aggressive Expansion (AE) on you at a higher rate if they are part of the same culture group and/or religion of who you are conquering. Therefore if you kick Serbia in the nuts, other Orthodox South Slavs will be super pissed, other nearby Christians will be mildly upset, and no one else will care. Thus, for example, you can beat up Serbia, then Qara Qoyunlu, then Georgia, then the Mamluks, and none of them or their neighbors should be joining a coalition against you. However, if you beat up Venice, Hungary, and Bosnia and take a lot of land, you will have a ton of AE with Christians in Europe (Austria, Poland, the Pope, Bohemia, ect) who, combined, could kick the poo poo out of you.
Early on the only threats to the Ottomans are strong neighbors who ally; notably Hungary, Poland (who gets a Personal Union over Lithuania 75% of the time), and the Mamluks. Austria is also close enough that they often get involved if they dont like you. I have seen Hungary ally the Mamluks, which makes it hard to beat either because it would be a nasty two front war. They are unlikely to attack you early individually but if they join a coalition or ally with each other (which is kinda rare, I guess) they could be a concern. Otherwise you can expand at your leisure. The key is that you start off large enough and can expand rapidly enough that you do not have a larger neighbor that will kick down your door.
The Ottomans are rich enough to mix mercenary infantry into their stacks and essentially keep them there, which keeps your manpower high, which is a good thing for many reasons.

Castille

Castille is on the periphery of Europe and generally after the first 50 years of the game, will only share a border with Portugal and France. This lets you, if you chose, focus on taking over some of Africa (not advised because North African nations have a coring cost penalty; other parts of Africa are far away and generally poor (except South Africa, which is great)) or focus on colonizing like crazy. This is an easy option because Portugal tends to love you forever and if you play your cards right you can ally with France and then just ignore Europe except for the occasional war that France will call you in to.
Castille also has strong ideas.
Castille gets an event to get a PU over Aragon (and thus Naples if Naples is still in a PU under Aragon). You can then integrate Aragon for *free* once you hit a certain tech level, as long as Aragon is not too large (you can feed them land, just dont feed them too much land)
Can get super rich from trade because of colonizing and pull trade from Asia to Africa to Seville and the Americas to Seville.

Portugal

Portugal is on the very edge of Europe and can easily ally Castille, and stay allied all game. This lets you focus on learning other parts of the game; like managing your navies, other allies and enemies, and colonizing. This can get boring though. They do have some interesting Achievements that you can go for, if you play Ironman. They get some neat events and can quarrel with Morocco if you so desire. Like Castille, can get super rich from trade if you play the colonization game well.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 01:26

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

castile does get some harsh events/disasters in the first 50 years though

# ? Jun 15, 2017 01:36

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Senethro posted:

Any predictions on how cheap EU4 and DLC will go in Steam summer sale?

My prediction based on past sales: $5/DLC for the older stuff, $10 or less for Rights of Man, $10-20 for Mandate of Heaven

Yvonmukluk posted:

I have a quick query. I currently have the base game, Conquest of Paradise, Res Publica, and Wealth of Nations. I'm totally new to the game and somewhat limited on funds. What, of the available expansions, is a good addition to grab on the sale?

Are there any good tutorials/starting nations to be found? I remember there were some good CKII/Vicky II tutorial LPs, but it seems there's no LP for EU IV.

Also: is it possible for the Ainu to claim the Mandate of Heaven?

Art of War and Common Sense are the highest-value, some might say must-have. After that Rights of Man and Cossacks, then everything else

# ? Jun 15, 2017 01:44

AnoHito: May 8, 2014

For good beginner nations, I would also add

England:

It's probably best to surrender your provinces on mainland Europe at the beginning unless you're feeling particularly gutsy
Keeping a good navy pretty much completely prevents the AI from really invading you
Focus on uniting the British Isles, then you are pretty free to colonize until you're a massively wealthy powerhouse. Dealing with the Irish minors and Scotland is usually not too hard, but you may have to keep and eye on AE while doing it. Scotland starts guaranteed by France, but remember that they're probably not going to actually be able to land on you anyway.
Keep in mind that expanding into Norway via the islands off the coast of Scotland can be a good idea if the opportunity presents itself

# ? Jun 15, 2017 01:49

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

England and Castile were both good learning nations for new players at one point but both now have rather irritating civil war-type disasters that are quite likely to trigger early on which makes it hard to recommend them.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 01:58

Jabarto: Apr 7, 2007; I could do with your...assistance.

skasion posted:

England and Castile were both good learning nations for new players at one point but both now have rather irritating civil war-type disasters that are quite likely to trigger early on which makes it hard to recommend them.

Agreed, England in particular used to be my go-to recommendation (unless you need to learn the absolute basics in which case I"d go Portugal), but the Hundred Years War and the War of the Roses are likely to trip up new players.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 02:42

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Yvonmukluk posted:

I have a quick query. I currently have the base game, Conquest of Paradise, Res Publica, and Wealth of Nations. I'm totally new to the game and somewhat limited on funds. What, of the available expansions, is a good addition to grab on the sale?

Are there any good tutorials/starting nations to be found? I remember there were some good CKII/Vicky II tutorial LPs, but it seems there's no LP for EU IV.

Also: is it possible for the Ainu to claim the Mandate of Heaven?

I would say Common Sense, Art of War, Rights of Man, Cossacks in that order. Development is super-important now for any start outside of Europe.

EDIT: I think Ethiopia is a good starting nation now especially if you have Rights of Man for the Coptic bonuses. There's a nice sensible escalation of difficulty where you can spend the first few decades messing around with the tiny nations immediately around you and then graduate to the Muslim states in the Horn, then the Mamluks and eventually the Ottomans. Also you can dip into the colonization game with interior Africa / Indian Ocean islands.

Elotana fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Jun 15, 2017

# ? Jun 15, 2017 04:20

Fintilgin: Sep 29, 2004; Fintilgin sweeps!

Siberian frontiers on a custom American nation is friggin' hilarious. Pretty sure an aggressive player could pull off some crazy poo poo. Annexing natives with a land connection lets you spawn frontiers off that new province... it's nuts.

If you want to play with it, I'd get in on it now, it's bound to be patched soon.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 04:26

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

To be honest given how utterly tedious that achievement was, I hope they never fix it.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 04:40

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jJkdRaa04g

# ? Jun 15, 2017 05:04

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

Do these colonies work like normal ones in terms of +settler growth?

# ? Jun 15, 2017 06:41

Groogy: Jun 12, 2014; Tanks are kinda wasted on invading the USSR

Blorange posted:

Seriously, all that penalty does is make things miserable for the player, and it's dropped in with no developer commentary whatsoever.

But I just did....

Also pretty sure AI not wanting to go over their own limit has always been in the game.

Groogy fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jun 15, 2017

# ? Jun 15, 2017 07:33

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

He means there was no explanation why the free diplo slot the AIs kept for the player went away.

You explained that the patch notes mean AIs wont give us diplo penalties if we are over the relations limit. Which doesn't explain why the AI free slot was removed.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 07:35

Groogy: Jun 12, 2014; Tanks are kinda wasted on invading the USSR

Tahirovic posted:

He means there was no explanation why the free diplo slot the AIs kept for the player went away

There's never been one. They have a free diplomat, not slot.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 07:42

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

From Paradox:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru.../#post-22874668

There hasn't been a player-reserved relation slot since 2014.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 08:50

Jabor: Jul 16, 2010; #1 Loser at SpaceChem

Does anyone still have 1.20 installed? If so, perhaps they could get some screenshots of what it looks like when offering an alliance to an AI that's already at the relationship limit.

I suspect that, even if it wasn't an intentionally designed thing, the diplo bugs that got fixed in 1.21 had the emergent effect of the player not having to contend with other AIs filling up all the relationship slots of the nation they want an alliance with. So fixing those bugs without introducing an allowance for the player has ultimately had a negative effect on the game.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 10:49

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

France is also a really good beginner nation.

You are the most powerful army in Europe, but at the same time, you have to be very careful not to overextend yourself. You have the Super Iberian Brothers to your south, England to your North, and the Holy Roman Empire to your East. You can build up to a pretty healthy navy, and you can start colonizing the Americas pretty easily.

France lets you do pretty much whatever you want in relative safety - You have the largest army around, but you aren't quite as monstrous as the Ottomans and your neighbors can really gently caress you over if you aren't careful. It's similar to playing Ottomans (you're the scariest army in the neighborhood), but gives you more choices while making you slightly less invulnerable.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 10:56

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Jabor posted:

Does anyone still have 1.20 installed? If so, perhaps they could get some screenshots of what it looks like when offering an alliance to an AI that's already at the relationship limit.

I suspect that, even if it wasn't an intentionally designed thing, the diplo bugs that got fixed in 1.21 had the emergent effect of the player not having to contend with other AIs filling up all the relationship slots of the nation they want an alliance with. So fixing those bugs without introducing an allowance for the player has ultimately had a negative effect on the game.

I'm playing with 1.21.1 right now, so I took some screenshots and compared that to 1.19.2.

http://imgur.com/a/q4J4m

I started a game as Castille and went to 5/4 relations, then tag switched to Navarra. In 1.19.2, this resulted in -20 for an alliance acceptance, due to too many relations. In 1.21.1, this changed to -100.

When Castille was at 4/4 relations, in 1.19.2 this resulted in -0 for an alliance acceptance, vs -50 in 1.21.1.

This is mentioned in the 1.21 patch notes:

quote:

AI now cares more about not getting above number of allowed relations (-50 instead of -20).

So at 4/4, I should be at -50. That follows. But in 1.19.2 I was at -0. This could suggest that the player used to be given special treatment for diplomatic relations, but the developers have stated otherwise; rather than being a "special slot" this could just be the result of someone changing a number somewhere, IE the negative modifier gets applied at (NRelations > NMaxRelations) instead of (NRelations > NMaxRelations+1). And coupled with the larger negative modifier this made things a lot harder. Either way, this 1-digit difference is significant and doesn't seem to be in the change log

e: for clarity, I'm going with the developers; there hasn't been a special player-only diplo slot since 2014, alliances are harder to secure because the AI was reminded that N != N+1 and was also given a stronger opinion against going over the diplo relations limit, and this is provable by loading up an older patch, loading up a nation way over the diplo limit, tag-switching, and then checking the AI's reasons for not accepting an alliance; pre-1.21, the AI has modifier 20*(NRElationsOverLimit), after 1.21 the modifier is 50*(NRelationsOverLimit-1)

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 16, 2017

# ? Jun 15, 2017 11:39

Futuresight: Oct 11, 2012; IT'S ALL TURNED TO SHIT!

Koramei posted:

To be honest given how utterly tedious that achievement was, I hope they never fix it.

Funnily enough this achievement was the one I was working on when the patch hit so this change is... convenient. I'm like 5 years in to a new game I started this patch and it's already looking like it'll be faster than just finishing my other run that's almost 1600.

Tahirovic posted:

Do these colonies work like normal ones in terms of +settler growth?

It doesn't appear to without timing it and running the number and whatnot. Looks like it only does a special version of the settler chance part of colonising.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 13:19

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Geisladisk posted:

France is also a really good beginner nation.

You are the most powerful army in Europe, but at the same time, you have to be very careful not to overextend yourself. You have the Super Iberian Brothers to your south, England to your North, and the Holy Roman Empire to your East. You can build up to a pretty healthy navy, and you can start colonizing the Americas pretty easily.

France lets you do pretty much whatever you want in relative safety - You have the largest army around, but you aren't quite as monstrous as the Ottomans and your neighbors can really gently caress you over if you aren't careful. It's similar to playing Ottomans (you're the scariest army in the neighborhood), but gives you more choices while making you slightly less invulnerable.

I disagree with you very strongly about this. France can get hosed over much much more easily by their situation and position. They have an event that potentially gets them into a war early on. Dealing with the HRE is a huge pain that is best learned over time. As a newbie I would NOT know to not conquer Brittany + Burgundy and her vassals as fast as I could, which would get me coalitioned super fast. Austria is a likely foe who can inherit the low countries, making them very strong, England is strong(er than it should be in this time period), and Castille can be really strong once the Iberian Wedding fires. Between the Iberian Wedding and Burgundy getting inherited by someone there are a lot of things that can happen that could hamper and potentially wreck a newbie's day.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 13:29

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

losing is how you learn and if france loses they lose in good ways and not to rebels or bankruptcy

# ? Jun 15, 2017 14:42

Flip Yr Wig: Feb 21, 2007; Oh please do go on; Fun Shoe

Senethro posted:

Any predictions on how cheap EU4 and DLC will go in Steam summer sale?

Can't speak to that, but the customary new expansion sale is up now.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 15:17

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Fintilgin posted:

Siberian frontiers on a custom American nation is friggin' hilarious. Pretty sure an aggressive player could pull off some crazy poo poo. Annexing natives with a land connection lets you spawn frontiers off that new province... it's nuts.

If you want to play with it, I'd get in on it now, it's bound to be patched soon.

This is indeed amazing. I'm not even playing especially aggressively and have still conquered all the Inti, Maya, and Nahuatl minors, colonized all of Colombia, about half of Brazil, and about half of the Caribbean, and become the third ranking Great Power, and Colonialism hasn't even fired. You can expand unbelievably fast, I'm sure I'll still have to fight the Euros at some point, but I'm going to be insanely tanky by the time I do. Once you get the age bonus for +1 tax, production and manpower per colony, your development just skyrockets.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 18:27

oddium: Feb 21, 2006; end of the 4.5 tatami age

colonial nations no longer call their parent nations into a war if the attacking (maybe defending too i dunno) nation has its capital in the new world. so i just let them get five provinces and then swiped them from spanish brazil or whatever. and then repeat

the parent nation will try to enforce peace on you pretty quickly though

# ? Jun 15, 2017 18:39

Chickpea Roar: Jan 11, 2006; Merdre!

skasion posted:

This is indeed amazing. I'm not even playing especially aggressively and have still conquered all the Inti, Maya, and Nahuatl minors, colonized all of Colombia, about half of Brazil, and about half of the Caribbean, and become the third ranking Great Power, and Colonialism hasn't even fired. You can expand unbelievably fast, I'm sure I'll still have to fight the Euros at some point, but I'm going to be insanely tanky by the time I do. Once you get the age bonus for +1 tax, production and manpower per colony, your development just skyrockets.

I'm doing this now with Manchu culture :getin:

# ? Jun 15, 2017 18:42

I Am Fowl: Mar 8, 2008; nononononono

QuarkJets posted:

From Paradox:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru.../#post-22874668

There hasn't been a player-reserved relation slot since 2014.

Then why is it so much harder to get alliances now?

# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:40

AnoHito: May 8, 2014

Mr. Fowl posted:

Then why is it so much harder to get alliances now?

Looks like a case of an unintentional bug making the game a bit better. There was probably an off by one error wrt the AI choosing to accept alliances where they would accept one more than their relations slots allowed. However, they would only ever seek out enough relations to fill their slots, leaving an "extra" slot that would usually stay open until a player asked (and also presumably cost them diplo points if the AI doesn't cheat on that). So they fixed the bug, then got confused what everyone was complaining about.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:47

Mantis42: Jul 26, 2010

Do you need the Russia pack thing to make the Siberian frontier idea so OP? Because it only gives me 1 free colonist as a custom nation. Which is nice, but not as game breaking as has been made out.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 20:56

skasion: Feb 13, 2012; Why don't you perform zazen, facing a wall?

Mantis42 posted:

Do you need the Russia pack thing to make the Siberian frontier idea so OP? Because it only gives me 1 free colonist as a custom nation. Which is nice, but not as game breaking as has been made out.

Sounds like it. The way it normally works it doesn't give you any colonists at all, you don't send a colonist to the province normally but click on an icon of a dude in a fur hat at the top of the uncolonized province menu.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 21:21

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Mr. Fowl posted:

Then why is it so much harder to get alliances now?

Look about 3 posts below the one you quoted and you'll find the answer

(the answer is that there was never a "player-only" slot, there was an off-by-one error for the AI determining whether the relations cap was filled and they also changed the penalty for being at the relations cap from -20 to -50; this off-by-one error applied to all tags, including AI nations, and not just the player, so the end-result is the AI is accepting fewer relations in general, not just fewer player relations)

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 21:30 on Jun 15, 2017

# ? Jun 15, 2017 21:25

QuarkJets: Sep 8, 2008

Mantis42 posted:

Do you need the Russia pack thing to make the Siberian frontier idea so OP? Because it only gives me 1 free colonist as a custom nation. Which is nice, but not as game breaking as has been made out.

Yes, definitely. On the bright side, Third Rome is half the price of a normal expansion

# ? Jun 15, 2017 21:27

Blorange: Jan 31, 2007; A wizard did it

Groogy posted:

Also pretty sure AI not wanting to go over their own limit has always been in the game.

Sorry Groogy, I think I've pieced together what's happened, and possibly why we've been talking past the devs on the issue. Check out these patch notes from 1.21:

1. Fixed bug that caused AI to get way over allowed number of diplomatic relations.
2. AI now cares more about not getting above number of allowed relations (-50 instead of -20).

In an attempt to fix issue #1, change #2 was made and eventually made it to the final release. Unfortunately, that didn't fix the problem. The real root cause was that alliance requests never checked the recipient's relations limit at all. This lead to runaway alliance webs, because as soon as a country, such as France, got a critical number of allies, every AI in Europe decides it's a good idea to ally France to avoid getting attacked by the ever growing mob of allied countries. France, receiving the alliance requests, never applied the 'Too many relations' rule and accepted all of them. Even though the real issue was eventually resolved, the attempted fix #2 was never reverted.

The players got an experience whiplash from those combined changes. The penalty for allying an AI at their relations limit just went from -0 (because the rule was never applied) to an insurmountable -50. Because the AI fill their relation slots as quickly as possible, it has become very difficult to find proper allies unless they are diplomatically isolated. If the AI acceptance penalty could be reverted back down to -20, I imagine that players could still ally nations in good relations with them without feeling punished by the change.

# ? Jun 15, 2017 21:30

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# ? May 10, 2024 01:00

Eej: Jun 17, 2007; HEAVYARMS

There's so many Russian minors now I wanna play with them all

e: wow that can be taken really wrong out of context

# ? Jun 15, 2017 21:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Europa Universalis IV: Buying all the DLC is just Common Sense

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