This might be the paradox strategy game I finally get into.
The game is live on Steam.
Of course I got it. I’m an addict.
I broke down and got it - the discount was too good to resist.
So far, I’m greatly enjoying it. It’s a greatly polished improvement over previous EU games in general, with numerous simple choices - but which have very complex impacts. There’s a long-term balancing act between your points trio, prestige, and money, and the fun goodies like armies, technology, and ideas you use them to get.
What’s interesting is that I’ve heard many players say opposing things, such as “I spent heavily in technology and then got beat by superior ideas,” followed by another player saying the exact opposite. There’s also a lot of tension in your trio of points as well - it takes admin points to effectively improve your empire in several ways, so you have to choose how. Likewise, you need diplo points to expand both at home and abroad, but you can also take a penalty on them to have lots of diplomatic relationships which can give you the allies you need to win wars, etc.
So far, I think there’s a significant issue with missionary work, as you need to stack up some big bonuses to get any conversions done before The Apocalypse - you can’t do any conversions at the start and even if you have swing a couple percent, it’ll take a century to convert a single province. Advisors are a little random now - I suspect you can get better ones later in the game, but that’s fine as you couldn’t possibly afford a good advisor early on. Technology growth is much more even than in previous games, where often you had a few upgrades in the first two centuries, followed by massive accelerating growth thereafter.
The trade system is a huge upgrade. It used to be a major expense, but one which wasn’t useful or profitable unless you heavily invested in it, watched it constantly, and it was still pretty obscure in function. There’s now a flowing global trade network, which you manipulate to your advantage. You direct trade to nodes which favor you (in which you see the most favorable combination of “trade power” and node wealth) and harvest wealth from it.
One thing which ticked me off: Trying to unite Spain is STILL completely obnoxious. The historical precedents are easily replicable in the game, but the actual in-game events don’t reflect that. I.E., it amounts to getting an ahistorical and unlikely event, or you have to conquer them. Even if you’re going for the “diplomatic” method, you’re more likely to meet the in-game preconditions through military conquest. In fact, barring some really unlikely events (Aragon fails to produce an heir and completely loses its legitimacy AND you have a Royal Marriage AND you successfully claim their throne) you’d have to conquer them anyway.
Yeah converting Granada is an exercise in patience. I managed to get the western most province flipped but I’ve left the others for right now.
I like it a lot - especially Trade which is no longer the wack-a-mole Trade Center/Merchant annoyance it use to be.
For those new (or old for that matter) to EU - a link to the excellent Peter Ebbesen’s beta AAR with the 2 province Byzantium.
I’d be obliged if somebody could discuss the differences and similarities between this game and CKII, which is the only Paradox game that I’ve played.
CKII is about managing your dynasty and vassals within Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
EU4 is about being the guiding force behind a “nation” anywhere in the world from between 1440 and 1820 (or so). Think of it as Civ for the big kids :D. You’ll have to manage technological growth, diplomatic relations, religion, economic growth, exploration & colonization and warfare.
The linked AAR is a pretty good example of the things you need to do. Like Ck there are no victory conditions aside from the ones you set for yourself.
I think I might have to pick this up. Burgundy needs to rise.
Damnit you guys. I don’t need more games right now. And Rome II is right around the corner!
What would you like to see as the trigger for union? The current event’s requirements (Aragon and Castille aren’t at war, one has a female ruler, it’s before 1550) don’t seem so unreasonable to me.
In short, here are the requirements.
Form Spanish Nation Militarily:
Admin Technology 10+
Granada does not exist
Own & Core the major provinces of both Castille and Aragon
—This is not that difficult, but annoying and takes quite a while. Just getting Admin 10 and the cores will take some time, and it’s a brute-force method that’s also completely ahistorical. This is an option for both Castille and Aragon.
Form Spanish Nation Diplomatically
At peace
Legitimacy 100
Granada does not exist
Aragon is a Vassal of Castille/same ruler as Castille
—This one is almost impossible. Barring Aragon getting its heirs all killed off AND you spend immense time and effort buttering them up because Aragon will constantly snipe at you and treat you like their worst enemy, you still have a fairly low chance of making it work. Your best bet would be to squeeze in a Royal Marriage, which isn’t that easy since Aragon permanently suspects your every move. If they get low Legitimacy and Prestige, you can then try to enforce a Personal Union in a war. The only way to accomplish the union historically is to get extremely lucky and have your heir inherit Aragon’s throne.
What other option am I supposedly missing? Note that even your version, which I don’t see is an option at all, is pretty unlikely. Female rulers are less common than male ones, and you’re probably going to see 1500 roll around before you even have a chance of popping a female heir, as your first heir is set. Admittedly, your default heir is a 0/0/0 ruler so you actually have a direct interest in getting the useless bastard killed off.
There’s an event (“An Iberian Wedding”) with the triggers I mentioned that forms a personal union between Aragon and Castille. It makes Form Spanish Nation Diplomatically trivial if it fires.
Yes, it depends upon a female ruler but then so did the actual marriage that united the thrones, right?
Yep. Just had that fire last night but I’d been previously warring with Aragon and friends. My troops were in tatters, my supply pool was 1k, the peasants insisted on looking up at the skies and my ruler died giving me a -2 stability.
The event has it so that if you do accept 24k of rebels pop up in Andalusia.
It took a moment to pull everything back together after I took it.
As an aside, troop resupply is a lot slower and more painful in 4 compared to 3.
So I was watching some of the videos linked here and I have to ask about the royal marriage diplomatic option. One would think that to have a royal marriage you actually need royal children to marry off, but it seems like the guy can just offer these willy nilly, there doesn’t seem to be a royal daughter/son count or even a sense of “you both only have princes, and unfortunately in the mid 1500s gay royal weddings weren’t on the table so don’t even ask”. Am I misinterpreting what’s meant by the option, or is there a sense of this stuff and I’m missing it?
It’s a royal family, basically. Your heir is just the individual directly in line, with public position and approval. The family has various relatives with royal status you can marry off. Likewise, Royal Marriages count as an ongoing diplomatic relationship, and those cost Diplo points if you go over your limit.
It’s somewhat unusual due to how abstract the royal family system is otherwise. I suppose I can save/load until I get a female heir. I’ve still got 80 years until then. I’ve been wrecking Portugal and leaving Aragon alone, on the grounds that Porti’s a colonial rival.
My next trick is to attempt to kneecap Morocco and Algiers and colonize the Canaries. It starts play as a colony, not a province, and has no defenses, so it’s easy to wipe or grab in war. Also, Portugal can’t actually colonize it at the start of the game, so if you squish it (or get a bad event which wipes it out) they can’t recolonize it. Then if you colonize it, it gives you an advantage in the colony race.
One thing I’ve discovered: Rivals are vital, but the AI doesn’t always make wise choices. England and France usually choose Castille at the game start, even though there’s no reason for them to do so at that time. If someone views you as a rival, they’re going to have a distinct military advantage unless you do the same. But as with Castille/Aragon, rivalries make it hard to keep the peace.
I’m curious as to what options people took regarding their first ideas. As Castille, I went straight for Exploration even though it doesn’t give me much immediate benefit, so that I can jump on the colony bandwagon as soon as possible. I’ll probably grab a military idea next - probably Offensive or Aristocratic, but I can’t quite decide yet as they’re all good options. I’m investing in Admin technology and have Cores to make as I devour Portugal, so I’m holding back on Admin Ideas for now. I’m thinking Religious & Economic down the line.
I’m still working out the Rival/Enemy piece though I’m thinking it makes for an interesting starting point when trying to build alliances - “Hey! I hate Lithuania too! Quelle Suprise!”
As for tech, I’m struggling to allocate ADM points properly so I’m forever too low to get a good feel for my options. I grabbed Economic:Bureaucracy for the increase in the national tax base since I was too stretched to start colonizing anything just yet.
I really don’t understand how trade works.
You only have 2 merchants to use - Venice gets 3 I think and you can acquire more if you dive into the trade ideas.
So 2 merchants, put 1 in your local trade hub to grab a piece of the action. The other should likely go to a trade node upstream (back along the flowing arrows) and redirect trade to the downstream (in this case your local) hub.
Depending on how many provinces, coastal provinces, trader, trade efficiency and light ships you have assigned to a hub your power will grow. The system looks at everyone at the hub and parcels out ducats based on relative power.
At least that’s how I’m doing it so far. Castile doesn’t really need it right away so I’ve only dabbled.
Thanks for the explanation.
Damn game plays slow on my computer.
You automatically collect income from your local trade node (having a merchant there gives a +10% bonus to income). So you can usually make better use of your merchants elsewhere.