Europa Universalis IV Catch-All

CptDomano wrote:

Booooo--can't install through Steam remotely! JEEZ NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT TO DOWNLOAD WHEN I GET HOME!

It is quite odd, you couldn't remote install the demo either.

Paradox pls

Kamakazi010654 wrote:
CptDomano wrote:

Booooo--can't install through Steam remotely! JEEZ NOW I HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT TO DOWNLOAD WHEN I GET HOME!

It is quite odd, you couldn't remote install the demo either.

Paradox pls

Not sure what changed, but now it works! EUIV is now happily making its way onto my hard drive!

RPS has already weighed in:

If you played CK II for the characters and plots, but aren’t sure whether the transition to a less personal politics will suit you, be assured that EU IV is equally gripping as a generator of narratives, and makes characters of its nations. And if you’re a veteran of the series, rejoice, because this is the strongest and most satisfying entry.
Robear wrote:

Installing now. Looks like someone could be arsed.

:)

I am really liking it so far. Quite a bit different from past offering, on the surface at least. So much to relearn though.

My first game was brief.

I chose Castille, in the first scenario (Rise of the Ottomans). The game said it was good for beginners.

I started out with a couple of easy goals, converting some culture. While the culture was converting, I sent diplomats around to make nice with my neighbors, even though Aragon hated me. I gradually built up my army. I was doing pretty well, at a leisurely pace.

When I had my army maxed out, Aragon gave me a Casus Belli by insulting me. I needed to have Aragon under my wing eventually, so I figured I'd answer the insult with my army, twice as big as Aragon's. I had just hired a noob general since my original guy died, but I figured, hey, double the numbers, he could afford to make some mistakes.. We feinted back and forth, sieging and skirmishing. Eventually I decided I'd had enough, so I gathered up my forces for a full-on assault.

Apparently Aragon had some kind of SuperGeneral leading their army, with incredibly high stats. I was massacred, lost over half my force, a defeat that would take me years to rebuild from. To top it off, my king died, and he was replaced by a Henry VI caliber idiot with 0/0/0 stats. Since I didn't really feel like a long uphill slog, that was the end of that game.

Hopefully I won't have that kind of misfortune in my next game.

Early Spanish kingdoms and principalities are where dreams go to die.

Have you tried marrying an Austrian? I hear it does wonders for those with small-empire syndrome.

Made it through the first 10 years and I just finished the Reconquista. Next up: Aragon.

Also, saving up for the Quest for the New World idea. I am digging on the new Admin/Diplo/Mil points mechanic. It really makes me grit my teeth to decide between spending some Admin points to get some more stability vs. continuing to save to tech up, in a way that EU has never really done. The tradeoffs were all there under the surface i the previous games, but by pulling them out and making them much more explicit, I think Paradox has made a really smart choice. We shall see how I feel after more hours put in, but so far I am really liking this.

Oh yeah, and so far, no Paradox jank that I have seen.

Hello all!

I am in! Thank you, Robear, for enabling me. Though, based upon my Steam library, it doesn't take much.

So as a veteran strategy player but a neophile EU player, what country/time should I try for my first foray?

Wow, 0/0/0? Talk about being thrown into the wilds from the get go.

Can't wait to get started today after work!

Moggy wrote:

Hello all!

I am in! Thank you, Robear, for enabling me. Though, based upon my Steam library, it doesn't take much.

So as a veteran strategy player but a neophile EU player, what country/time should I try for my first foray?

Personally, I think Castille is a good choice. It starts out pretty strong, there is a pretty limited range of things you should do to start off (hint: Reconquista), and later on you have a ton of opportunities to do different things: like colonization of the new world, armed aggression (either in Europe and/or in Africa), trade domination of the Mediterranean, or as an isolationist, depending on what you want to do.

England has similar strengths but starts in the Hundred Years' War with France. France might be good if you pick a later starting date but in the earliest date still has some obstacles to overcome, like England and Burgandy. Most other nations in Europe are viable but have one problem or another that makes them less friendly to a new player. Maybe Austria is the exception but they have fewer opportunities later in the game.

Most any non-European country is going to have a hard time competing and are probably left for later games. Except maybe the Ottomans, but they are not in the Western tech group so will fall behind as time goes on, despite starting really strong.

On the other hand, maybe a game as the Inca would not be so bad, for the first 100 years. Just know that they will probably get wrecked once the Europeans come a-callin' later. But they start relatively strong (for the new world), have a weak neighbor to pick on, and will be left alone for a while.

Depends on what you want to do really. To learn the game, though, I think Castille is probably the best choice.

tboon wrote:

Depends on what you want to do really. To learn the game, though, I think Castille is probably the best choice.

What do I want to do? What do I want to DO?

RULE THE WORLD! of course!

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a go.

I learned with France during unification, because I didn't have to worry about fleets much. But Castille is a decent choice. However, if the Reconquista goes bad, it *really* goes bad.

In EUIII at least, England was a pretty easy country to start with. You start at war with France, but you can end that quick by just giving them the mainland provinces and then you're pretty much free to do whatever you want without being pulled into many mainland situations.

So - is anyone playing this on a Mac? CKII runs great on my iMac, but the requirements for this one include a 1GB GPU, which my iMac definitely does not have.

I must be missing something on the religious side, because my second game ended in woe as province after province had heretic rebellions. I even invested in +3 stability and cultural shifts, but it didn't seem to matter.

And just as I was getting ready to make some inroads into Aragon, the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand event came up, rendering all my previous years of fighting moot.

I guess I'll stick to fighting the Sunnis for my next game.

Kind of dumb to have those mission choices if only one of them is really the "right" choice.

Gunner wrote:

Wow, 0/0/0? Talk about being thrown into the wilds from the get go.

Yeah, Henry VI was struck by long periodic bouts of insanity, which helped bring about the Wars of the Roses.

Portugal was always a favorite starting country of mine. Rich and with a good navy which sets you up for the New World.

It may just be because I'm playing as Venice and dealing with the forces of Austria and the Ottomans, but it really seems like the AI is much better at combat tactics than in EU3 and does a pretty job of choosing where to fight for terrain bonuses and of deciding when to use a couple of large stacks and when to use multiple smaller stacks.

EDIT: The Coalition mechanic has been very helpful versus the Ottomans so far.

Yikes! Just had a rather terrible start as England. See below.
IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576745738810526034/9AEB512A9B58B40C5A0F8CC2350136B48FDCB4A9/)

After managing to get a White Peace out of France in the 100 Years' War, things started falling apart when Lollard rebels from an event slowly built up to a critical mass. At the same time rebels in Normandy seized both of those provinces, which led to their recent declaration of independence.

But hey, at least I have alliances with Brittany and Savoy in preparation for the next war with France! We'll call those moral victories at this point.

Have you guys been going with Ironman so far? I like getting achievements and losing the temptation to reload on things like bad leader recruits, but the delays from the constant autosaves are starting to get a bit annoying. I've also always liked the option to save and try little things out in Paradox games while I'm learning the mechanics.

Am I the only one who's having trouble reading the text in the UI? Playing at 1920 x 1080 on a 24" monitor and it looks blurry to me. I tried decreasing the resolution, but it didn't make that much difference.

*sigh*

"Damn you old eyes!"

This just might be the first game to make me start wearing my reading glasses at the computer.

"Hey! You! Get off my lawn!"

Just finished the tutorials and - like the tutorials in versions 1 through 3 - they told me lots without actually telling me anything

Next up, the Spanish tutorial campaign. Let's see what happens. Basic goals:

- Unify Spain
- Smash Portugal (if at all possible)
- Conquer the New World.

I started a new game as Ironman. Castille again, still figuring things out. Up to 1472. Finished the Reconquista again and fought two wars for Aragon. I think the next one will finish them off, as a continental power (they have some islands in the Carribean I don;t care all that much for). Also, discovered the New World!

BadKen wrote:

I must be missing something on the religious side, because my second game ended in woe as province after province had heretic rebellions. I even invested in +3 stability and cultural shifts, but it didn't seem to matter.

And just as I was getting ready to make some inroads into Aragon, the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand event came up, rendering all my previous years of fighting moot.

I guess I'll stick to fighting the Sunnis for my next game.

Kind of dumb to have those mission choices if only one of them is really the "right" choice.

Not sure what you mean there. I had the event fire and took the other choice ("marry the local talent"). There's no right (or wrong) choice there.

Not sure what to say about the heretic rebellions. I have had a couple but nothing too horrible.

Now some screens:

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594760137301076621/F773F1C5472A467854E31BE7732B07D71E0D385E/)Reconquista, er, reconquista'd.

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/594760137301073061/9BF84385409A57AD4F31F8039503C2372BC0D2C1/)Aragon, you tried my patience for the last time! Feel the wrath!

IMAGE(http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/594760137301078764/A30F8BB08712FC6DFB384DD1A4D5909FA7A98169/)In 1468, Filipe Cienfuegos sailed west from Spain in the Mercutio and the El Natividad and discovered a New World! Soon to be ground under thoughtfully exploited colonized by the iron heel enlightened despotism, uh, management of Castille.

Moggy wrote:

Am I the only one who's having trouble reading the text in the UI? Playing at 1920 x 1080 on a 24" monitor and it looks blurry to me. I tried decreasing the resolution, but it didn't make that much difference.

*sigh*

"Damn you old eyes!"

This just might be the first game to make me start wearing my reading glasses at the computer.

"Hey! You! Get off my lawn!"

Just finished the tutorials and - like the tutorials in versions 1 through 3 - they told me lots without actually telling me anything

Next up, the Spanish tutorial campaign. Let's see what happens. Basic goals:

- Unify Spain
- Smash Portugal (if at all possible)
- Conquer the New World.

Saw on steam forums that there is a mod on the developers site that increases the text font.

Take two of England is going much better. Decisively beat France and, against my better judgement, enforced the personal union wargoal. It just seemed too implausible for Henry VI and the English to give up on the entire point of the war even if taking a few provinces makes more strategic sense. So, I fully expect a revitalized France to come knocking in a decade or two when the king knocks off. Should be interesting regardless!

Moggy wrote:

Am I the only one who's having trouble reading the text in the UI? Playing at 1920 x 1080 on a 24" monitor and it looks blurry to me. I tried decreasing the resolution, but it didn't make that much difference.

Totally there with you. I have my 27" 2560x1440 monitor set to 1920x1080 in game. Even better though is this mod I found that embiggens the tooltip popups. Super easy to install and highly recommended. Sometimes Paradox requires you to register your game before you can reach the mod sections of their forum, so try that if you come across issues.

That mod helped quite a lot. It's only for tool tips, but it looks like there's work being done for the main UI as well. It seems a simple font substitution to replace the blurry Paradox font with a sharper one might solve the problem.

Here's hoping.

Meanwhile, I'll be starting my first campaign tonight!

Gunner wrote:

Take two of England is going much better. Decisively beat France and, against my better judgement, enforced the personal union wargoal. It just seemed too implausible for Henry VI and the English to give up on the entire point of the war even if taking a few provinces makes more strategic sense. So, I fully expect a revitalized France to come knocking in a decade or two when the king knocks off. Should be interesting regardless!

Moggy wrote:

Am I the only one who's having trouble reading the text in the UI? Playing at 1920 x 1080 on a 24" monitor and it looks blurry to me. I tried decreasing the resolution, but it didn't make that much difference.

Totally there with you. I have my 27" 2560x1440 monitor set to 1920x1080 in game. Even better though is this mod I found that embiggens the tooltip popups. Super easy to install and highly recommended. Sometimes Paradox requires you to register your game before you can reach the mod sections of their forum, so try that if you come across issues.

Does this help with CK2?

tboon wrote:

Not sure what you mean there. I had the event fire and took the other choice ("marry the local talent"). There's no right (or wrong) choice there.

Well, it seemed to me that gaining Aragon via personal union, and the other benefits from that marriage, far outweighed the other option.

By "right" choice, I mean Reconquista first. Delaying that lead to nothing but grief for me, twice. It's probably more to do with me stumbling around not knowing what I'm doing, though.

For example, I couldn't figure out how to split a force once it started a siege. I had the bulk of my army tied up in a year long siege when I could have used most of them to chase down the remains of Aragon's army and defend the borders.

Anyone try multiplayer?

PWAlessi wrote:

Anyone try multiplayer?

I dunno how the multiplayer would actually work in this game, to be honest. My games are spent at like 80% on the fastest speed, then pausing whenever there may be something that needs my attention. I couldn't imagine the MP for a game like this to be too terribly exciting if you have to play the game at normal speed the whole time. Unless maybe the host dictates the speed? Only problem I see with that is if other players are busy trying to analyze the game or trying to set up specific tasks they might get left behind.

I didn't think about it until this morning, but Ironman mode really messes up the way I did AARs and story recaps in EU3. Normally, I would just play for 10 years or so with saves every 6 months, and then when it came time to do a writeup, I could think about what important things happened and have saves to load up and take relevant map and overlay screenshots. I never really took screenshots as I played except for special event boxes as often the narrative arc of a play session isn't really clear until after it is over. Plus screenshots are rarely on my mind while I'm playing.

Thing I realized last night right before declaring war on Granada:

Build your army BEFORE you declare war, silly. It's definitely not like CK2 where you just click a button and you have instant armies. Also, holy crap the AI armies love to bounce around a lot more, don't they? Definitely needed to split up my army into two groups in order to keep the small Granada army from causing a ruckus.

So far though, I'm enjoying myself and surprised by how easy it seems to get into after dumping the time in CK2