Europa Universalis

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-27 11:18:14

So, since Europa Universalis IV came out recently, and I just got it, I decided to make this thread. Didn't specify IV, because I'm not sure how many people actually have IV, being a brand new game and all.

What is this Europa Universalis thing?

Europa Universalis is the SimCity to Crusader Kings's Sims. Whilst CK focuses on court politics and personal relationships, EU is about the bigger picture. Having good trade connections is vital, war can be declared without a Casus Belli (although, granted, it's not a good idea in the slightest), you're not going to be stabbed in the back by your wife's sister's son's nephew, and so on and so forth. So basically: CK - Small, EU - Big.

Just Europe? Isn't that boring?
The EU games are... inaccurately named.

Where can I get them?

EU III and EU IV can both be found on Steam, and by extension, Green Man Gaming. In particular, GMG is running a 20% voucher right now, so there's that.

Justice4243 · 2013-08-27 15:29:42

Isn't EU IV the game you can port CK2 data into?

Definitely interested at some point. Though I need to finish even ONE CK2 game.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-27 15:37:51

the CK2-->EU4 save converter is unfortunately an additional $10. Because Paradox don't understand why day one DLC is bad.

of course, I plan to get it anyway, because Paradox is a good enough company that I can forgive them for it.

I've played a bit of EU4's demo and it seems really good. Especially with the option of peaceful annexation existing and with far more things to do in peacetime than CK2 in general.

I do not understand the trade system in the slightest though.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-27 15:39:58

The save converter was originally a pre-order bonus along with a copy of CK2.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-27 15:41:41

Fair enough.

There's still other day one DLC packs for me to be upset about.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-27 20:57:39

The pre-order pack was, well, a pre-order pack, the Call to Arms pack was a community exercise of some description. So the only reason it's being sold at all is to give other people a chance to get it.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-27 20:57:59

I meant in general.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-28 10:14:13

I do not understand the trade system in the slightest though.

Ok, so here it goes: *deep breath*

The world has a series of trade nodes. You automatically collect income from the node that holds your capital, and can increase that by 10% by sending a merchant there. You can also collect income from other nodes by sending a merchant there.

The income you make from a node depends on your trade power, determined by what provinces you control, having merchants in a node, performing trade missions with light ships, your nation's trade efficiency, and having power in a neighbouring downstream node.

Between nodes there are preset routes that change as the game goes on. Owning territory around these routes allows you to cut in on some of the trade money, by steering trade from an upstream node to a node where they are collecting income (optimally speaking, the node containing their capital.)

A province's individual trade power is determined by what buildings it contains, and any modifiers it has. Also, each province produces its own good, with the price affected by supply and demand.

...Phew.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-28 18:39:54

Started an Ironman (one savefile, autosaves monthly) game as Korea. Asian countries in EU are a bit of a tricky start, since the Ming dynasty is... well, the Ming dynasty, and as such, taking them on early is suicide, and there are a few other large countries vying for power in the area (namely, Manchu, the Mongol Khanate, and the Oirat Horde). The daimyos ally quickly, so attacking Japan was out of the question, so I went and annexed Ryukyu. Manchu kept trying to fabricate claims on Pyongyan, but thankfully, there were tied up in a war with Ming.

In 1455, I decided to try and spread somewhere a little less precarious, and invaded Champa. My (amazing) king died late in the war, and was replaced by his dumb-as-a-sack-of-hammers son, but I still took both provinces and annexed them.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 19:13:26

as a Paradox Person, what would you say is the best Asian start?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 19:19:02

I am now downloading a perfectly legal copy of this game, which is why I am asking.

Normally I would feel like a massive dickface for doing this, and to an extent, I still kinda do, but I'm going to buy it legitimately in like two weeks, so I don't feel as bad as I might.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-28 19:32:10

Japan's a pretty good start, since all the daimyos are vassals, but you do have to be a little wary about them going for your throat and trying to become emperor later on. Just be aware that, as part of the Chinese tech group, they get huge tech penalties.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 19:34:43

Hmm.

I'll note that.

Also, how viable is colonization in general?

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-28 19:39:18

It depends on your country, really. For example, Portugal is great at it, for obvious reasons.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 19:42:27

I actually really could not do it when I played as Portugal in the demo. Tried both getting tied up in that knotty France/England war and just ignoring it and neither worked out great for me. The latter was marginally more successful.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 21:55:41

are there any Ireland equivalents (newbie places) for EUIV?

Castille is recommended as a starter nation but I'm getting my ass kicked.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-28 22:11:25

England? Honestly, OPMs (one province minors) are some of the hardest places to play.

Korea got eaten by Ming, so I started a new Ironman game as Shimazu.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-28 22:16:03

yeah but in CK2 Ireland is an easy starting ground because of its relative isolation.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-08-29 17:09:17

Conveniently timed!

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-29 22:17:56

SO I managed to form Moghulistan (The Mughal Empire in-game, and in most places really) from the Timurids after a couple tries.

It was fun! I suddenly lost all my casus belli against the various Hindustani powers though and I'm not sure why.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 01:57:51

I am trying to convert Venice into a colonial power

I feel that this will not go well, as I have no idea what I'm doing.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 02:27:52

so let's try Castille instead I guess.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 04:01:15

aforementioned Mughal game. I didn't get much farther than this before a bunch of shit started happening

this happened too though

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 19:30:02

so in my current Castille game the Lancasters have taken over England and the Erlmeyers Austria.

Interesting stuff.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 21:42:14

so I somehow managed to get my Khan's monthly Diplomatic Power gain in my Timurids game into the negatives, am I fucked or is there some way to fix this?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-30 22:35:00

so there's a bug where if you load into a save shortly after the death of a monarch that triggered the "pretender revolt" event, the event triggers again.

So now I'm facing 50+ pretender regiments.

Justice4243 · 2013-08-31 02:22:42

That unfortunately hilarious.

Still, let's hope they fix that.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 02:24:24

Hilarious until it breaks your game.

Of course I am still stuck with a pirated copy until the 9th, so I can't exactly grab any patches they might roll out.

I'm playing a comfortable Portugal game right now, but my monarch's yet to die, so that may not last.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 14:12:02

So, there's not been a ton of historical diversion yet, but what's there has been interesting:

The Protestant Reformation was started by a Polish monk living in Silesia, rather than Martin Luther, though his name was not given

A Protestant noble named Guy de Herbert seized the throne of England at some point.

What little is left of Scotland is a republic now.

Spain's colonial ventures have yet to really take off, especially in comparison to my own. I own large stretches of land in Africa and Brazil, they've only got a single province near Morocco, which they keep getting involved in stupid wars with.

Speaking of stupid wars, after the expensive and pointless war with the people of Kongo, King Alexandre de Avis is deciding that aggressive colonialism is not a thing that should be done.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 15:04:19

Man I cannot figure out how to translate hypothetically profitable colonies into actual money.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 16:11:34

so The Shawnee have formed a pretty sizable state in North America, I think they've subjugated all the other North American nations and they're rivals with the Aztecs.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 17:34:23

Vassalization makes weird things happen.

Though, you'd think that the Portugese would change the title of the leader of their vassal to something other than "Tribal Elder" which is a silly thing in the first place. Like "Prime Minister" or "Governor General" or something.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 19:20:56

France has disentegrated after a war with Spain that lasted several decades and a bunch of peasant revolts. It now consists of :deep breath: Champagne, Auvergne, Normandy, Alincon, Avignon, Armagnac, and finally France itself, which has turned into a thin strip of land.

Justice4243 · 2013-08-31 23:45:44

Reminds me of The Byzantine's in my CK2 game who where slowly chewed at the edges by lots of nations (including mine) until the Fatimid nation came and gutted them. I'm not sure if they're even around still, if so, they only have a handful of territories.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-08-31 23:46:27

Each country actually has a "Break Meter" in this game though, if you hit the limit it automatically balkanizes your country afaik.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 00:00:29

Mojave Music said:
Each country actually has a "Break Meter" in this game though, if you hit the limit it automatically balkanizes your country afaik.

Nope. There's even achievements for world conquering. There's a reason that France is called the Big Blue Blob. And that conquering the world as Ryukyu is considered the hardest challenge in the game.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 00:03:06

Then what does that meter do? Because when France filled it up it got turned into like 10 different countries.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 00:25:44

What meter are you talking about? The overextension meter? The rebel break meter? Something else?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 00:27:23

Ah yeah the rebel break meter.

I don't have it in front of me and I didn't remember the name offhand, apologies.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 00:38:37

Rebel break meter basically means that if the rebels control enough cities, you instantly lose and listen to their demands.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 00:48:49

Given that France had fully absorbed all of its vassals earlier, that's a pretty impressive amount of rebels.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 00:49:12

So, dumb thing: Started a game as Tyrone and fabricated a claim on Connacht. Scotland were allied with them, but did literally nothing to defend them as I spent a few months crushing them into dust. However, because Scotland is the war leader somehow, I can't annex them, and there's no way I can kill Scotland. Also, it's counted as no CB, because the war was declared on Connacht, not Scotland.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 00:59:15

That tends to happen when you get involved in Hindustan too.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 01:10:41

I hope they fix that, because I should not have to conquer half of Scotland to take over an OPM.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 01:20:06

Apparently a lot of the code was copied verbatim from EU3, and this has caused a lot of bugs.

That is, however, a (possibly ridiculous, I know nothing about coding) rumor.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-01 01:23:53

If the similarities between each sequel is, say, comparable to the Civilization series, then copying huge chunks of code and attempting to beat it into submission functioning in the new environment would make a lot of sense.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-01 01:25:18

In semi-related news, this thread at least got me to pick back up CK2 again.

Maybe by the time I'm done the game will be nice and cheap and I can continue my quest to rule everything.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 01:26:18

If they follow the CK2 trend it'll go on sale like next year.

Get the save converter at any rate.

Justice42 said:
If the similarities between each sequel is, say, comparable to the Civilization series, then copying huge chunks of code and attempting to beat it into submission functioning in the new environment would make a lot of sense.

I have to imagine they've got some reason for using the piece of digital shit that is the Clausewitz Engine.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-09-01 01:27:27

Also, EUIII is a great game in its own right and is on sale. Right now. :P

Salix Babylonika · 2013-09-01 18:38:29

So France in my game continues to get more and more fucked up.

For awhile it was a noble republic, but then the Prince Elect declared himself King, and there are still rebellions going on within what's left of France proper. So idk what's going to go on there.

Justice4243 · 2013-09-01 23:13:16

I love that there's a few countries strung together and some blotches here and there still trying to hang on.

This get's sadder when, say, the Byzantine Empire gets hosed and there's just a handful of random counties labeled "Byzantine Empire".

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