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Dirk Pitt posted:I am playing as Portugal and took a huge part of the Caribbean, but my Cuban and Dominican possessions became a colonial nation and now they are agitating to leave completely with taxes at 20%. Is there a way to prevent colonial nations from happening? Colonial nations are really good, you don't want to turn them off. It's like having a super-vassal; they've got all of the advantages of a vassal but without taking up a diplo-slot, and you get an extra merchant for each CN with at least 10 provinces. To prevent colonial nations from rebelling you can decrease tariffs and you make sure that you've got a good-sized army. Regarding trade, it's kind of a complex mechanic and I'm probably the wrong person to be explaining, so I'll keep it short. Ideally you want to 1) don't bother putting a merchant in your home trade node (aka Seville in your case) unless you literally can't put a merchant anywhere else; the benefits for putting a merchant in your home node in Collect mode are very marginal, 2) place merchants in nodes with a lot of trade value that you can redirect toward your home port, so the Caribbean is a really really good trade node to have a merchant in. tl;dr: When you're playing the Colonial game, put merchants in the trade nodes where you have colonies and have them Transfer Trade Power. Do not put a merchant in your home port. Build up your colonies so that you get more merchants so that you can steer trade from more places back toward your home port.
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Jul 25, 2016 07:01
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You can also spend prestige to placate subjects (such as colonial nations) on the subjects screen
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Jul 25, 2016 07:51
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QuarkJets posted:Colonial nations are really good, you don't want to turn them off. It's like having a super-vassal; they've got all of the advantages of a vassal but without taking up a diplo-slot, and you get an extra merchant for each CN with at least 10 provinces. Ok cool. So do I steer trade around the world, eventually winding up in my home trade node? Or do I collect from multiple places? Right now I steer trade from Ivory coast to Caribbean, Caribbean to Seville. New York (lol) to Great Britain, which I think is not doing anything for me. Then from Goa around the Cape of Good Hope to the Ivory Coast. I feel like I am losing on the Indian trade because I don't understand the mechanic.
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Jul 25, 2016 08:33
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Dirk Pitt posted:Ok cool. So do I steer trade around the world, eventually winding up in my home trade node? Or do I collect from multiple places? Right now I steer trade from Ivory coast to Caribbean, Caribbean to Seville. New York (lol) to Great Britain, which I think is not doing anything for me. Then from Goa around the Cape of Good Hope to the Ivory Coast. I feel like I am losing on the Indian trade because I don't understand the mechanic. In most circumstances you just want to steer toward your home trade node. Don't bother putting merchants in places where you have no trade power. Collecting trade actually has a big trade power penalty associated with it, so you only want to Collect trade if none of your downstream nodes look appealing; so for instance you might collect in Goa if you just don't have any trade power in the immediately-adjacent downstream nodes from Goa. This advice doesn't apply to your home node; there's no penalty for collecting in your home node, but it happens automatically so you don't need a merchant there, and putting a merchant there just gives you a small trade power boost. For the Indian trade you've got a long way to go, and a fair amount of your trade might be getting siphoned off along the way. What you can do is colonize/conquer the south and southwest african trade nodes, which iirc will let you circumvent having to follow the trade routes that go along the coast of northeastern africa. Of course, none of that matters if you don't have much trade power in India to begin with. QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 08:42
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Is it possible to modify your number of states in the game's code, through a console command, or using a mod? I'm playing a cheat-y WC game and just want to turn all my territories into states rather than spending a ton of time figuring out what's optimal.
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Jul 25, 2016 15:25
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How do you build a better economy in this game? I feel like the early game, I am struggling for 1 or less ducat with army maintenance turned down. If I save, I can start getting like 2 to 4 during the 1500s. Any good advice?
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Jul 25, 2016 15:32
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Mooseontheloose posted:How do you build a better economy in this game? I feel like the early game, I am struggling for 1 or less ducat with army maintenance turned down. If I save, I can start getting like 2 to 4 during the 1500s. Any good advice? Hit your neighbors with sticks until big sacks of gold fall out.
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Jul 25, 2016 15:51
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The Iberian Wedding event just fired in my Aragon game in the early 1500s. If I eventually integrate Castille, do I get their colonial nations too?
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Jul 25, 2016 16:08
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Elotana posted:The Iberian Wedding event just fired in my Aragon game in the early 1500s. If I eventually integrate Castille, do I get their colonial nations too? yes
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Jul 25, 2016 16:24
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PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 17:28
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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I'm playing an India game for the first time and it's a lot of fun! Though I'm having a little trouble memorising the names of the nations (for example, I'm playing as the big sky-blue country that starts with a "B"). I recently recaptured my cores from my biggest competitor, the yellow blob that starts with a "V", and soon might have to start turning against my allies around me in order to eat up their land. I find the remarkable levels of religious tolerance in my country real interesting, since "B" starts as a Shia country with nothing but Hindu provinces (or at least mostly Hindu provinces), and yet everyone's cool with it. Now I'm wondering whether to go for Religious or Humanism. Any tips?
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Jul 25, 2016 17:39
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Bahmanis and Vijayanagar, respectively. Properly, that's the Bahmani Sultanis and Vijayanagara Empire. Bahmanis, along with Bengal (the dark blue Sultanate, unsurprisingly located along the Bay of Bengal), and probably some of the other Sultanates, have +3 Heathen Tolerance in their ideas, which means they're pretty OK ruling all heathen territory. Like the Ottomans, when you combine this with Humanist, Heathens won't effect your Religious Unity at all, which is pretty great. To answer your question, either Religious or Humanist would be fine, so just pick whichever one you haven't done lately. Especially as a Shia (which few other people are), Religious will give you an awesome CB that works on just about everything. Humanist will make conquests far less likely to revolt, since they don't mind the religious differences, and there's a cut to Separatism too. Religious is probably stronger overall, Humanist is less micro-y.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:24
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I'd probably go for Humanism. You're already set up to where it will benefit you and you'll be expanding into various Sunni and Hindu lands (and if you do well, Buddhist and Orthodox). Bahmani unique ideas also include tolerance bonuses so there will be synergy. Deus Vult is great for expanding very fast but even with missionary bonuses converting your provinces is a huge pain in the rear end.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:27
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Is it possible to have higher tolerance for heathens/heretics than your "true faith"? If so, should I keep from sending missionaries out?
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Jul 25, 2016 18:34
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PittTheElder posted:But there is a decision that lets you inherit Castile for free to form Spain, so you don't want to integrate them manually. pretty sure not as Aragon, that only exists for Castile you can form Spain and switch to Spanish ideas if you want as Aragon, but you have to manually integrate Castile Jay Rust posted:Is it possible to have higher tolerance for heathens/heretics than your "true faith"? If so, should I keep from sending missionaries out? Yes it's possible but only in weird situations. Heathen/Heretic Tolerance is capped at +3 while there is no cap on True Faith tolerance. Usually your own Tolerance will be higher. Humanist would be alright but Religious is the better overall pick imo, the CB is still really strong and it's always better to convert provinces rather than have tolerated off-religions. The Heathen Tolerance bonuses most Indian nations get is really just making it smoother for you to convert everything to the one true faith.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:42
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I prefer humanist ideas for the better relations bonus, and the culture acceptance bonus really helps with India's clusterfuck of cultures.
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Jul 25, 2016 18:47
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Fister Roboto posted:I prefer humanist ideas for the better relations bonus, and the culture acceptance bonus really helps with India's clusterfuck of cultures. I would say it kinda depends on if you're Muslim or Hindu. Most Indian nations get Heathen Tolerance and can get Heathens totally accepted, but still have some problems with Heretics. If you're Shia, you're going to run into trouble with the significant numbers of Sunni provinces that will pop up. As Sunni, you have less of an issue unless you want to expand into Persia and the large numbers of Shia provinces there. So I'd say go Humanist as a Hindu, Religious as Shia, either works as Sunni. Edit: Hindu heretics are Sikh which are only going to have a handful of provinces. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 18:49
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Pellisworth posted:pretty sure not as Aragon, that only exists for Castile Oh poo poo you're right. That's really dumb.
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Jul 25, 2016 19:46
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As a complete newbie to this series, and having watched the first four videos in this series I must confess to being overwhelmed. I like the premise of the game and love complexity, but when I tried playing my own game as Castile, I got horribly crushed, even taking that video series' advice into account. Is there a guide for a complete beginner out there? For reference, the last strategy game I played was Civilization 4. Edit: I only have the base game, no expansions. ScarletBrother fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 19:53
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PittTheElder posted:Oh poo poo you're right. That's really dumb. yeah it's weird and seems like an oversight, I only know because I was considering an Aragon playthrough and checked the decision files ScarletBrother posted:As a complete newbie to this series, and having watched the first four videos in this series I must confess to being overwhelmed. I like the premise of the game and love complexity, but when I tried playing my own game as Castile, I got horribly crushed, even taking that video series' advice into account. Is there a guide for a complete beginner out there? For reference, the last strategy game I played was Civilization 4. well for one, start as Ottomans, Castile is a deceptively tricky start. Castile is a strong start, but it's not one I'd recommend for newbies
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Jul 25, 2016 20:15
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Pellisworth posted:yeah it's weird and seems like an oversight, I only know because I was considering an Aragon playthrough and checked the decision files Yeah I agree - it's a bit overwhelming because it's so open. You've got the option to do basically anything, but that's only useful once you've played enough to know that all those options exist and how they play together.
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Jul 25, 2016 20:30
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awesmoe posted:Yeah I agree - it's a bit overwhelming because it's so open. You've got the option to do basically anything, but that's only useful once you've played enough to know that all those options exist and how they play together. They also start with a terrible ruler and heir, the new Castilian Civil War is fairly nasty, and depending on how rivalries shake out you could well be facing Aragon/Naples AND France which is not at all fun. Also the new strait crossing at Gibraltar means the North Africans can dogpile you now too.
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Jul 25, 2016 20:41
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Castile was the baby pick in EU3, which is probably why it remains a common suggestion. It's lost most of the qualities that made it a perfect choice, like relative diplomatic isolation - France never did things like care about Navarra or really give any indication that they knew about the existence of anything beyond the Pyrenees in EU3. Portugal is the better Iberian nation for newbies for sure, now.
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Jul 25, 2016 20:47
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As you start to play more you realize the game is A) a slow grind compared to other games, so immediately going to war is not a great idea and B) sometimes its ok to say no to allies.
Mooseontheloose fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Jul 25, 2016 |
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Jul 25, 2016 21:02
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Jazerus posted:Castile was the baby pick in EU3, which is probably why it remains a common suggestion. It's lost most of the qualities that made it a perfect choice, like relative diplomatic isolation - France never did things like care about Navarra or really give any indication that they knew about the existence of anything beyond the Pyrenees in EU3. Portugal is the better Iberian nation for newbies for sure, now. Portugal is a very boring rec for new players. It will teach you how to colonize, but not much else. Ottomans can be fun even if you don't know what you're doing, but I think France is probably the best start for someone who wants a pretty easy start for similar reasons: plenty of flavor, the geography gives you clear goals, you have a decent selection of wimp neighbors to beat up and can probably find at least one strong ally, you aren't immediately up against the wall if one nasty alliance against you forms, and (unlike Ottos) you don't need to worry about wrong culture/religion problems right off the bat.
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Jul 25, 2016 21:16
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 This is my first EUIV game, and I've reached a somewhat intractable situation as Brandenburg. The issue is that I've kind of run out of room to, ahem, anschluss my neighbors. I am rivals with Denmark and the Teutonic Order, but Denmark is allied with Poland and the Teutonic Order is allied with Hungary, who are both much larger and more powerful. I have Bohemia and Sachsen as my primary allies, Anhalt as a vassal, and I maintain good relations with most of the rest of the HRE (except Magdeburg and Lüneberg, those little pricks). The biggest issue is not having a large enough warchest. I tried taking the colony national idea as soon as I annexed and cored Pomerania, but I didn't realize how restricted colonization range was, so that hasn't made me much. So, the question is, how do I make a lot more of those sweet ducats? By the way, I already have my army set at half-maintenance.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:13
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I still strongly support playing England as a first nation and immediately selling or gifting away you French/Mainland possessions. Then you can consolidate your islands, explore and conquer overseas, and meddle in Europe as you please protected from the AI stomping you by the Channel.
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Jul 26, 2016 00:47
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Triggerhappypilot posted:
Brandenburg has a pretty weak economy, you're right-- what you want to do is conquer some of the important trade provinces in the Lubeck node, like Lubeck itself, Hamburg, and Sjaelland. Then you rack in mad bucks by collecting your trade there. You should be able to take on the TO and Hungary with Bohemia and maybe another good ally if they're willing to join your fight. Look at who has set the TO and Denmark as rivals, then see if you can buddy up to those nations. They'll be much more willing to help smash their rivals than countries that are neutral towards TO and Denmark. You're really in a fine place given the date. Watch your Aggressive Expansion carefully, you probably can't expand much faster than you already have without pissing off other HRE members royally. Brandenburg is a slow starter for exactly the reasons you describe: your economy is kinda poo poo and you're surrounded by larger neighbors that make it difficult to expand. Just keep looking for opportunities and play diplomacy to see who you can get to gang up on your enemies. Eventually you'll hit a critical mass of size and unlock your National Ideas which turn your armies into absurd Prussian space marines who will walk all over everyone else. Yeah, Exploration and colonization is not a great pick for your situation, I would suggest refunding that idea line. Edit: also, Poland certainly hates the TO's guts, see if you can ally Poland (they may be rivaled to your ally Bohemia in which case not likely) or just wait for Poland to pounce on TO and declare your own war to dogpile them. It looks like Sweden might be a good bet for helping against Denmark, or maybe England. You picked a slow starter that becomes super strong in the mid-1500s or so and requires a lot of diplomacy. Keep at it and play with the diplomacy some more to work alliances to your favor. Pellisworth fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 00:52
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Poland and Teutonic Order will eventually get caught up in some other war. Be ready to spring when that happens. You could use another alliance too; I had a very lasting one with Muscovy/Russia in my latest Brandenburg game. I also buddied up with Austria a lot, but be prepared to dishonor the alliance if they end up fighting France. Not worth it. As a side note, prepare to work towards becoming either HRE emperor or Germany. You have to choose, and not realizing I wanted to form Germany meant I spent too much time working into the lowlands and too little into South Germany. If you want to be Emperor, choose your intra-empire targets carefully.
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Jul 26, 2016 01:07
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Yeah England is definitely a good newbie pick thanks to the channel, much moreso than Castille. They're big enough to have their pick of allies, they have a ton of OPMs right next door that no one else ever cares about, and Scotland provides a natural target for either diplomacy or serious warmongering. They can also rake in some great colony income, it just takes a little more effort to get the colonial range that you need. Portugal is kind of a boring game but it also keeps your options straightforward: expand into North Africa and try to colonize everything. Ottomans is the best newbie pick because the missions and the core/claim layout is great for introducing tons of good mechanics
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Jul 26, 2016 01:22
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Castile is a fine starting pick if you start friendly to Aragon and/or France. If you can ally one or both of those at the start, you're fine. If both of them are rivaled to you as is often the case, start over. Newbie tip: don't be afraid to restart the game a few times until you get a favorable diplomatic setup with which nations are friendly or rivaled to you.
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Jul 26, 2016 01:35
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Triggerhappypilot posted:
In addition to the other advice you've been given about being opportunistic with your rivals, do the same with your small neighbors. Maintain at least one claim on all of them. Periodically check in on the weak ones (looks like Brunswick, Magdeburg, Luneburg, Mecklenburg). Eventually one will have no allies that would defend and you just swoop in, one battle one siege and you take a single province. It often happens right after a war if alliances get revoked or if a new nation gets released. It just takes patience. Eventually more and more of your neighbors will be in that "small" category and you're expanding without much trouble every time a neighbor loses a war. It helps to use the alert system: right click on the nation's shield in the province view and click the star to get alerts for that nation. I set wars and peace deals to "popup and pause" so I can check for an opportunity every time a war starts or ends near me. Those are the best times to take advantage. The other source of opportunities is if you end up in a war with a bunch of nations, it could be that you're already on the same side as one of your neighbor's allies so they can't defend them. It's sometimes possible to create this situation but for now just be aware of the possibility. You really need Austria as an ally though (assuming they're the emperor). Eventually you'll have enough favors and can wage a larger war against a target outside the HRE (I only say that because inside you'll want to limit it one province at a time). More importantly, it will prevent you from getting the illegal territory malus (forget what it's called). I'll disagree with Vegetable, only turn down a call to arms if they have no chance of winning. There's not a lot of reason to be cautious if France has no desire for your territory. And the upside is pretty high. If Austria wins the defensive war and grants you 30 favors for helping out, you now have 3 "win a free offensive war" cards which you can use to beat a rival into submission, taking a couple provinces, humiliating them for that sweet power projection, and leaving them weak for when the truce is up. Don't worry too much about money at this point. Loans are OK and ducats are simply not the bottom line resource they are in other games. The most important commodity is allies (and favors with the powerful ones). Then manpower. Early game, before trade and your economy ramp up, the best way to get ducats is through war. If you're only aiming for one province per war (inside the HRE) you can get some cash with the rest of your warscore. You can also get a good amount of money from looting provinces. Sometimes it's worth prolonging a war just to loot everything down. SurgicalOntologist fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 01:40
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Pellisworth posted:Castile is a fine starting pick if you start friendly to Aragon and/or France. If you can ally one or both of those at the start, you're fine. If both of them are rivaled to you as is often the case, start over. That's a bad newbie tip. If I had to restart the game a bunch of times because of bad RNG I probably wouldn't have gotten into EU4 at all. That advice also runs contrary to the idea of riding the waves of history come what may, which I see as the spirit of the game
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Jul 26, 2016 02:05
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Mooseontheloose posted:As you start to play more you realize the game is A) a slow grind compared to other games, so immediately going to war is not a great idea
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Jul 26, 2016 04:16
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skasion posted:Portugal is a very boring rec for new players. It will teach you how to colonize, but not much else. Ottomans can be fun even if you don't know what you're doing, but I think France is probably the best start for someone who wants a pretty easy start for similar reasons: plenty of flavor, the geography gives you clear goals, you have a decent selection of wimp neighbors to beat up and can probably find at least one strong ally, you aren't immediately up against the wall if one nasty alliance against you forms, and (unlike Ottos) you don't need to worry about wrong culture/religion problems right off the bat. I mean if by colonize you mean paint the Americas then yeah, that's boring, but why is that always assumed to be what a Portugal game is about? A proper game as Portugal involves focusing on Africa and Asia, which is every bit as exciting as fighting in Europe without the game-wrecking potential of a nasty European coalition, as African and Asian nations aren't pushovers anymore. It's not a very good nation for learning to fight defensive wars since you rely on big brother Castile for that part, but certainly you get plenty of experience being on the offense without being the biggest nation on the block. The only part of the Americas really worth caring about is the Caribbean in such a game, you'll need all of your colonization efforts for dominating the east. That is, after all, what Portugal was going for in actual history. Jazerus fucked around with this message at 05:10 on Jul 26, 2016 |
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Jul 26, 2016 05:06
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Okay yeah, that's all accurate. And the African route also nets you tons of papal influence if you're conquering and converting the natives, so there's a lot of opportunity to learn about papal interactions
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Jul 26, 2016 05:36
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Can I get rid of the HRE somehow if I'm the emperor? I wanna form Germany but didn't realize until now that I can't do it if I'm the Emperor 
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Jul 26, 2016 13:04
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Elman posted:Can I get rid of the HRE somehow if I'm the emperor? I wanna form Germany but didn't realize until now that I can't do it if I'm the Emperor Even with just two reforms, though, I think being Emperor confers more advantages than being Germany. Germany will be a more straightforward game but the little bonuses to diplomatic relations and manpower are just too good. Had to make this very tough choice myself in my Brandenburg game when I conquered all the necessary provinces for Germany and realized it wasn't any better than remaining Emperor.
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Jul 26, 2016 13:25
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Vegetable posted:Nope. Piss off a few electors so you won't get elected next time round. Or convert to Protestant/Reformed; in a Catholic Empire that'll qualify you as Emperor and remove you immediately. Bismarck is spinning in his grave.
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Jul 26, 2016 14:36
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So you guys think we might be seeing more DLC? I have been reading the discussion, and I must agree: EU was pretty much a regular game in my library until Cossacks, then I haven't touched it since Mare Nostrum. I don't see how you can add more stuff reliably without some serious thorough revision, and the effort might be more worthwhile in a new game? It's been three years already since release, and Paradox has grown and improved a lot since. (this is also to say "hopefully Clausewitz manages to have a global map for the next games", but I don't know if the intention is to make a EU V or a new game for the period)
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Jul 26, 2016 16:51
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