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

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

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Dance Officer posted:

I wouldn't say that everything post-common sense is bad. Or that things were better before. Conquest of paradise, wealth of nations and el dorado are all older dlc that I think don't should have cost more than $10 or so. These, along with cossacks, mare nostrum, mandate of heaven and now third rome are really just small add-ons to flesh out certain regions or things.

So, just to make sure I'm getting this, the DLC to buy are:

Art of War, Rights of Man, and Common Sense for everyone
The rest if you're interested in certain play styles or regions?

Just trying to understand what's worthwhile since Steam reviews are a trash heap for EU4 :shrug:

# ¿ Jun 28, 2017 23:10

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 05:37

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

What's a good choice for a tutorial playthrough? I know the recommendation in CK2 is usually Ireland, curious if there's any consensus for EU4.

If it makes a difference the only DLC I have is Rights of Man, Art of War, and Common Sense.

Thanks!

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 22:44

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

CommunistPancake posted:

The Ottomans are fun for new players because you get to do something. There's pretty much no sitting around and waiting as the Ottomans.

Do the Ottomans feel too easy, or do they still have road blocks? I'm thinking of, say, early-ish Byzantine starts in CK2 where you can roll over most of the world as what I'm trying to avoid.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2017 23:17

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

So I'm playing Castile as my first game, took over most of Iberia and lucked into a personal union over England (which sent my Aggressive Expansion through the goddamned roof since I had to fight Austria for it) by 1500. England is the only other colonizing power so far so I have no real competition on that front.

I picked Exploration/Expansion as my first ideas. From searching online it sounds like most people view Expansion as a trap pick? I picked it up for the quick extra colonist but am curious about what everyone else thinks of it. I'm starting to wish I'd gone with Administrative instead since my coring costs are pretty intense and the bonuses from Expansion are much weaker than Exploration overall.

Are the military ideas relatively well balanced? I'm looking into picking up either Quantity or Offensive but leaning toward the former because my manpower is heavily depleted.

# ¿ Aug 29, 2017 19:32

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Wow, going after territory in the HRE as a non-member is a grind. Is there any trick to it? Diplo-annexing seems like it will never work given the -75 malus and going to war with the emperor every time means even trivial wars get bogged down.

Working as intended, I guess?

# ¿ Sep 2, 2017 07:28

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Fister Roboto posted:

Yeah that's pretty good advice, I guess I'll just resta-

I honestly don't know if this is good or bad.

France is probably gonna run over whoever they want with England bound up, since the AI never seems to press claims for its PUs. Or at least that was my experience with Brittany PUing over France.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2017 19:22

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Koramei posted:

If you're a Euro colonizer you're doing it wrong if you don't have a huger fuckoffer navy than them. You get tons of forcelimits out of trade companies and all those coastal provinces, trouncing any fleet in the game shouldn't be a problem by the time you've established yourself in Indonesia enough to actually want to contest Ming's tributaries there.

Speaking of trade companies, what's everyone's take on them vs. keeping those provinces as territories or states? I get that state maintenance ramps up based on distance from the capital so you don't want to state provinces in say, Indonesia but I'm wondering everyone's thoughts on when it's worthwhile to make a province part of a trade company.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2017 17:32

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

What happens if you integrate a subject nation that has colonial nations in the same region as your own? I know you get them as well, but I'm wondering whether they assimilate or if you'll just have two separate colonial nations.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 06:50

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Thanks! On the one hand, there will be direct gameplay benefits to keeping them split up. On the other, I won't get to paint the whole map my pretty color :shrug:

# ¿ Sep 11, 2017 16:04

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Mans posted:

I would put Res Publica way upper. At the very least above mandate of heaven and third rome.

It adds the monarch point focus thing which is super good compared to a dlc whsoe main objective is making Persia bow down to the Ming king of kings.

That was added to Common Sense too.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2017 20:17

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

What ideas do you all like for super blobby games? I'm playing as Spain, in the process of annexing my junior partner England and slowly conquering my way (via terrible Press Claim CB) into India and Asia. I already have Administrative, Exploration, Influence, and Quantity and I'm coming up on the tech level 18 idea. I have basically zero money worries because I control a lot of the world's trade nodes and will have even more once I'm done annexing England, the only other colonial power in the game. I'm not really having issues with unrest right now because I have armies in all my highest unrest areas, and the Spanish ideas are giving me enough missionary power to keep up with annexation (for now).

Religious is looking mighty tempting just for Deus Vult, but it's so late in the idea group that I'm probably going to be at or near Imperialism by the time I finish it. I'm going to pick up Offensive eventually for when I finally bring the conquest back to the Euro zone but right now I'm just interested in expanding into Asia and India as quickly as possible.

Something else that might be worth mentioning is that annexing England has cost ~3000 diplo points, so I'd rather not pick up another Diplo idea just yet until I've had a chance to catch up on tech and ideas.

Thanks y'all! This is my first game and it's a lot of fun.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 15:51

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

oddium posted:

admin + influence i think have an admin policy that reduces diplo annex by a further 20%

anyway you can probably ditch exploration now as well and maybe take defensive for less attrition in the india jungles. even if you're not struggling with rebels Humanist can help bring down unrest far enough to start lowering autonomy, which means more money + manpower + absolutism

Yeah, I'm working my way towards that, but I'll be done annexing England before I have the diplo points for it. Trading in ivory turned out to be a bit of a mixed blessing by raising my diplomatic reputation, sending the amount of diplo points I spend towards annexation in a month way up.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2017 16:31

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Admiral Joeslop posted:

It's been a couple years since I've played and I have a bit of the itch again. I haven't kept up on my Steam Sale DLC purchases so I'm kinda behind.

I don't particularly care about music packs or stuff that just adds unit variety or whatever. Are any of the leftovers a Must Have? I've seen some negative stuff about Mandate of Heaven in here.

Get Cossacks and Rights of Man. Cossacks adds estate management and more importantly an improved diplomatic system for interacting with AI nations. Rights of Man adds CK2-style traits to your military leaders and rulers, making each ruler much more distinct.

Mare Nostrum has some good features (being able to set ships to repair then return to their fleet) and some that are more mixed (adding counterespionage, which is ultimately a good feature for balance but can be annoying when you are trying to fabricate claims).

The EU4 wiki has good write ups on all the DLC so you can decide for yourself whether the paid features sound worthwhile. http://www.eu4wiki.com/Category:DLC

FYI, the Paradox sale on the Humble Store just ended but they pretty much always do an encore at the end of their sales. Paradox Store sale is still up.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2017 20:29

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Fister Roboto posted:

I always have to brag about beating the Big Blue Blob.

How the heck did Provence get over there? Inherited Brittany?

# ¿ Sep 17, 2017 17:48

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Rapner posted:

What is the optimal colonial strategy for western European colonizers?

I'm thinking:

1) Any and all Centers of trade
2) As much Caribbean as you can
3) Form CNs if catholic to force out other catholics via ToT
4) Keep building CNs in valuable trade nodes you can chain
5) Get CNs to 10 provinces for merchants

You will probably want to get your colonial nations to size 5 pretty quickly since that will allow you to take over huge swathes of land for no coring cost (to you). Peru and Mexico are pretty densely populated and have gold and silver.

There's no diplo cost for unjustified demands for nations in the Americas, either. You can gobble up entire nations as long as you're able to keep liberty desire in check.

Definitely agree that the way to make real money is racing to Africa then through to Asia. If you can control Malaysia/Indonesia/Borneo and the chain that takes that West then you've won the game.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2017 15:47

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

appropriatemetaphor posted:

Poland-Lithuania unfortunately got massively trashed. Not sure exactly how, but Moldavia got real big, Kiev appeared, and poland/lithuania is down to like 8 provinces total. Krakow is even an OPM Also Poland had the PU on Lithuania, but now they've lost it somehow.

What's the map mod you're using? Digging the colors

# ¿ Sep 25, 2017 14:31

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

As a heads up, you can get a discounted Inquisitor advisor from your Clergy Estate (if you have that DLC).
If you have a different DLC (I cannot remember which), you can set an Edict that gives you +1% Missionary Strength in the state that the provinces in question are the wrong religion.

Estate DLC is Cossacks, Edict DLC is Mandate of Heaven.

# ¿ Sep 27, 2017 22:05

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Rapner posted:

Blut und Eisen!

-----

Any advice for an idea progression for a hyper-colonising Castile? I have started with Exploration, got Burgundian Succession and waiting on Iberian Wedding.

Thinking Exploration Expansion Quantity/Defensive Influence/Diplomatic/Administrative... Not really sure about later game.

Game is multiplayer with France and England - lots of colonial competition. Given the Burgundian succession I'm going to try to take HRE emperor...

Expansion is pretty weak overall. I'm playing Castile and took it temporarily for the extra colonist but between exploration and national ideas you'll get up to 3 anyway, which is plenty.

Could do an earlier Admin instead for coring costs and mercs.

# ¿ Sep 29, 2017 14:35

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Marxalot posted:

I'm not super worried about them.

However...

e:

seriously what the gently caress poland, I also just lost about 15k to a 20k army in an even match with a tech advantage

Did you watch the battle to see what happened? Like, were the rolls just bad, were you on disadvantageous terrain, did you have crossing penalties? They might have military ideas already too. (Doubt they have any of the significant bonuses Poland gets yet, though)

Take a look at this army composition spreadsheet by tech level and try to always max out your combat width to take advantage of flanking. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ITH6oNHsIlVHo2LJnR92wP5LEKiON0k2rZJ82YbYaB0/edit#gid=0

Some fights will still be swung by a string of 0 rolls but that will maximize your chance of winning a given battle.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2017 16:56

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

skasion posted:

Terrain is very important. Bad terrain is a flat penalty to every roll the attacker makes in combat. Don't attack equal, much less superior forces over water or in mountains (or to a lesser extent, hills or forests) if it can be avoided. Conversely, you can sometimes repulse stronger forces than you might think if you are defending with these advantages, though you should always strive for numerical superiority. Terrain is actually more complex than I just made it sound (it also restricts your combat width and some nations get different bonuses or penalties) but yeah, be aware of terrain and you will win more fights.

Just FYI, I think they took out terrain effect on combat width: http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare#Terrain

So only like 8 mechanics you need to track to pick battles optimally.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2017 23:20

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Poil posted:

How else could you solve the problem with Ming? The only way is to make other already strong nations more powerful to compensate.

Doesn't Paradox get together to play MP? I don't understand how they haven't noticed how imbalanced unique nation mechanics like the Streltsy are.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2017 16:27

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Atreiden posted:

Yea Poland-Lithuania, Portugal (maybe Spain if you don't plan to conquer Italy), Austria (same deal with Italy as Spain + HRE mechanics) and Hungary are really to only ones where it might make sense to stay Catholic.

Spain should definitely stay Catholic, one of their national ideas is just a bonus to yearly papal influence (not sure if it converts somehow if you do) and you should be colonizing trade company regions, which have plenty of high-development provinces to convert and keep influence topped off.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2017 16:04

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Groogy posted:

Then I don't understand the "Paradox is ebil they only look for profit for investors".
Of course things changed, but we had share holders before we became publicly traded and we liked profit back then as well.

I think people are trying to reconcile things like:

a) Mandate's changes haven't been toned down
b) Prices for DLC remaining pretty static
c) Systems (like army professionalism) are starting to feel bolted on

And an easy answer is that there's limited profit incentive in changing any of them. Not trying to gang up on you or anything, just explaining where they're coming from.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2017 15:56

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

oddium posted:

tell me about it

definitely have the time to take this one all the way but it's so tedious

Asking because I'm still relatively new. Is there much reason to form Rome aside from achievements/fun? Losing your culture group seems like a big price to pay for the pretty color.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2017 01:16

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Detheros posted:

Sounds like someone asked for some border gore.

France is currently in a PU under Salzburg.

I'm the Teutonic Order that somehow beat Poland

# ¿ Oct 20, 2017 16:17

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

AnoHito posted:

They can only see what they've explored, and you can only see what you've explored. For example, Spain/Portugal have probably long since discovered South and Central America, yet it's probably still hidden to you.

I think it automatically spreads at some point way in the future, but I've never quite understood how that worked.

Edit: never mind, it's a little more complicated. From the EU4 wiki (https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Colonization#Discovery):

Discovery of individual provinces will occur based on contact with other nations. In general, a province will be revealed to a country if:

The country in question explored any adjacent province at least 25 years ago
Any country, that owns provinces undiscovered by the original country, discovered the capital province of the original country at least 30 years ago.
Any neighboring country, in the same culture or religious group as the original country, explored a province at least 75 years ago.

Eldred fucked around with this message at 17:56 on Oct 23, 2017

# ¿ Oct 23, 2017 17:53

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

If you form the Roman Empire, do you still receive events for your previous nation? I couldn't find a list of events for Rome on the EU wiki.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2017 19:53

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Cossacks is good, comes in right behind Rights of Man, Art of War, and Common Sense in the must-buy category. Adds in Estates and the ability to set your own diplomatic interests.

Mare Nostrum adds quality of life features for the naval aspect of the game, so it might be worth picking up.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2017 19:48

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

All right guys, I'm pretty new to EUIV and I just don't know how to make Portugal work. Like, I've restarted some six or seven times by now because something always ends up ruining my plans, usually Morocco and/or France.

My last attempt goes something like this: I'm trying to do as the missions suggest and conquer Tangiers - it has high trade value, looks like a sweet grab. But I can't go for Morocco alone early, so I ally Castile and Tlemcen and see if I can get them to help me out. Morocco meanwhile allies Aragon and Granada. I rival Granada thinking I can snatch up Gibraltar, at least. Portugal has a truce with Granada until 1449, but Castile's truce ends in 1448, so they grab Granada before I can. I still manage to get Gibraltar somehow, but Castile spend the next goddamn decade on that war and end up signing a truce with Granada and Morocco that lasts until 1461. Okay, fine, I guess I'll wait it out; I need more favors before I can drag them in anyway because they have no claims on Morocco. Meanwhile, Tlemcen just implodes while I wasn't paying attention - they didn't even ask me to help them, so now that entire area is Tunisian/Moroccan and my only ally in the region gone. 1466 rolls around while I'm waiting for the Castilian civil war to end and to tick up 10 favors - boom; French reconquest of Bordeaux drags me, England and Castile into war with France. While that's going on, Morocco declares on me over Ceuta, and Castile and England both ditch our alliance because they're too busy getting their poo poo pushed in by France. Morocco has higher military tech, more manpower, higher force limit, a better general and doesn't have to contend with a -2 strait crossing penalty, so honestly I feel kind of boned here if I still want to go for Tangiers.

Some variation of this seems to happen every time I give Portugal a go. Either Castile or England drag me into lovely wars with France and/or Aragon and then refuse to help me fight Morocco, defensive or otherwise. Sometimes Aragon mysteriously eats half of Castile, or they get forced to annul treaties and Morocco seizes the opportunity. On one occasion Morocco allied Tunis and Aragon and just sailed right up on Algarve - I'm not quite sure how their navy destroyed mine, but they did. Or it's France, Aragon and Naples/Provence/Venice that just march straight across Castile (which they sometimes ally) and murder my army and wreck my economy. I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to be doing if I want to capture Tangiers before 1500 - suggestions?

With Portugal you're surrounded by stronger powers initially and won't have much opportunity to expand into Spain or North Africa. What you do have, though, is ideal footing for exploring and colonizing elsewhere to build up your power base until you're ready to expand in Europe.

There are two real routes for colonizing, to the New World and down Africa, which will eventually take you through to Asia. Between starting with an explorer, your island holdings, and your colonial range national idea, you are going to beat everyone else to colonizing. Ideally you want to capitalize on both routes of expansion, and have missions about doing so.

You still want to maintain defensive alliances, but your focus initially should be on maintaining your Portuguese holdings against the land superiority of your neighbors while you gear up to outspend everyone with your trade income.

# ¿ Oct 31, 2017 20:46

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Sephyr posted:

My Scandinavia run was going quite well, until suddenly my troops got crap morale overnight in the late 1700s. I have Offensive, Quantity and Quality ideas, Tradition usually around the high 60s, good discipline and absolutism. Did they implement anything? I saw that pretty much all of my enemies suddenly got a "being drilled" morale more of +15%, which I don't have. Is it something from Mandate of Heaven?

Are you reinforcing from neighboring provinces as troops start to break? With Quantity especially you want to pile on troops to make up for the morale deficit.

Can you get army morale from other sources? Defender of the Faith, Religious/Quantity, etc.?

# ¿ Nov 2, 2017 18:43

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

metasynthetic posted:

Playing my first game as Castile after watching some Youtube tutorials, it's 1467. Early on I allied Navarre, succesfully defended them against Aragon and eventually annexed them diplomatically, then Reconquisted Granada, and fabricated some claims on Aragon which I decided to press.

During the 2nd war with Aragon, my 2nd heir (managed to kill Enrique the 1st through having him as a general) suddenly died of sickness. The new heir is Isabel, which the wiki tells me lets me fire a special event to get her wed to form Spain, so sweet. Because of this, I decided to go light on Aragon since I'm (hopefully) going to get them anyway, and I only claimed 3 territories: Zaragoza, Alicante, and Valencia.

Now I have Catalonian separatists. None of these counties are in Catalonia. What

They have Catalan culture, I assume?

You can see some weird stuff happen with client states and separatists later on but you're not there yet. If you take a look at the counties, Catalonia should have a core on them because of the culture.

# ¿ Nov 6, 2017 05:51

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:

Here is today's Dev Diary: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-development-diary-7th-of-november-2017.1053654/

20 new Achievements. You can promote Advisors to get them up to +5 to their MP boost now. Each promotion costs 5 years worth of their salary. You can only promote advisors that are of your accepted culture(s). Also added two new manufacturies and modified the goods that use which manufacturies.

Have they said if advisor promotion is expansion-only or if it's in the free patch? I'm guessing the former but you never know.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 16:21

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Mr. Fowl posted:

"Protect the Secret - As Yemen, prevent any European Nation from owning a Coffee-producing province in the Old World until 1700."

...How are you supposed to pull this one off? Conquer the new world from Mexico on down and then all of the South Pacific? It sounds like the moment any Euro gets a coffee province you're locked out.

Similarly, the Around the World in 80 Days achievement sounds really hard.

Unless I'm missing something, doesn't "old world" specifically mean you don't need to worry about the Americas?

# ¿ Nov 7, 2017 19:40

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Lucas Archer posted:

I had no idea that spy networks increased siege speed. That changes my strategy. Awesome, thanks.

I think that's an expansion feature, Mare Nostrum. Still sound advice though.

You'll have a pretty easy time training mercs if England manages to land a significant army on the mainland. Don't be afraid to go into debt if it means a significant win over England, taking some of their English Channel trade power will pay off in the long term.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2017 16:56

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:

I thought I understood coring mechanics but why the hell can I core anything here

Do you have a dependency with whoever owns Rzhev? IIRC you can core anything adjacent to a vassal core.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2017 01:35

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

PopetasticPerson posted:

Also got a quick question, did the "hard" difficulty lobotomize the AI in a recent-ish patch? Playing as Austria fighting Bohemia and Silesia I found that sitting a stack on Prague infuriated them to the point that they, continually, send stacks of 1-10 units against my single 20 stack army. I stack wiped no less than 4 armies like that. The worst part was they had 20 stacks to begin with between Bohemia, Silesia, and Brandenburg. Was this a bug or do I need to play on normal to make the game harder? :???:

Did they have a larger army somewhere that they were trying to "unite" those small stacks with? To save on performance the AI only gets a certain number of armies they are actively controlling, with the exact number depending (I think) on nation size. The rest will usually just brainlessly zerg towards the actively controlled army.

This is of course, documented precisely nowhere :shrug:

# ¿ Nov 12, 2017 17:35

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Autism Sneaks posted:

I will probably never play Ming because after my run where it became the junior member in a PU with me, Japan, in 1470, I know I will never come close to having that much fun with China again

How did you keep their liberty desire below a million percent?

# ¿ Nov 15, 2017 07:23

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 05:37

Eldred: Feb 19, 2004; Weight gain is impossible.

Linear Zoetrope posted:

Surely we all get some sort of CB if it's not that.

Restoration of Title

# ¿ Nov 16, 2017 07:16

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