Europa Universalis IV Catch-All

It's got some big differences, but probably half of the systems, or more, will be familiar, and of course the interface will be. Should take a little effort, but as we say, once you know one Paradox game, the others are much easier to learn.

It is a different focus, though.

I tried out Oman after it was suggested to me on Twitter. It is in a really interesting spot with a real mix of large and small nations nearby, a solid mix of religions and different tech groups in the area, solid trade possibilities, and its own set of national ideas.

My first claim and ally
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/m7JI6sQ.jpg)

I started out by conquering Najd which took a couple of wars. I peacefully vassalized Haasa and then proceeded to take bites out of Yemen after holding off the forces of Qara Qoyunlu in a defensive war. I was allied with Adal during the period I was taking bits off of Yemen and joined them in their own struggle against an aggressive Christian Ethiopia. I ended up occupying and militarily vassalizing Ethiopa to end the war. This upset Adal so much that they cancelled our alliance to join a coalition against me with Hedjaz.

In the next war I took most of Hedjaz and one province in Adal while giving Ethiopia three of Adal's territories. Adon stayed out of the next war as Hedjaz allied with the Swahilis and a couple of the OPM's up by the Ottomans that are usually eaten pretty quickly. At the end of that war I took the rest of Hedjaz, and I'm now focusing on building my infrastructure, coring up, and trying to build up enough to not be squashed by my new Mamluck neighbors to the north.

Near the end of my last war annexing what's left of Hedjaz
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/2KX63XF.jpg)

DonD wrote:

Is there any way to get the event choice boxes to pause the game? I know the notification boxes have a button in the lower right that allows you to click 'popup and pause', but for the events I don't see how to do it.

I don't think there currently is a way to pause the events automatically.

Tenebrous wrote:

I am thinking about getting this after loving CK2,

How hard is the learning curve? I had to sit down with a series of LTP videos for CK2. Will I have to do the same for this?

I'm in the exact same boat.

I'm loving CKII, in spite of totally sucking at it, and am chomping at the bit to pick up EUIV. It's crazy 'cause I've got dozens upon dozens of potentially unplayed hours in CKII, but I look at those screenshots of EUIV with the sexy new upgraded map and intelligent UI, and I just drool.

Good thing the game is still $40 so I can at least justify holding out a while longer and simply enjoy CKII. It certainly feels like I'm getting ahead of myself, that's for sure.

Just out of curiosity, for Paradox vets, how would you compare your satisfaction between CKII and EUIV? Is one like way better than the other, or are they just too different in theme to contrast?

PeterS wrote:

Urgh. If I never see the words "Catholic zealot" again, it will be too soon. Went Protestant as GB during the reformation because most of the British Isles had turned Protestant, and while that stopped the Protestant zealot revolts, it has led to insane hordes of Catholic zealot rebels, funded by France, led by amazingly good French generals with the lucky nations bonus (which can't be disabled in ironman!!!), equipped with state-of-the-art French technology, and more numerous than most European armies!

These guys were the tip of the iceberg. Note there's 42,000 Catholic zealots on the screen (split into two stacks), and this was something like the third or fourth wave of them in England alone. The previous Catholic uprisings were just as huge - even bigger in the case of the 50,000-man Catholic armies that overran Ireland - and honestly, I am getting a little irritated at being unable to make any progress due to an unending cycle of massive superman rebel armies, depleting manpower & going heavily into debt to fight the rebels, and then being left helpless before the next wave. I was having such a great time before then, too.

eta - and worst of all, where are the Protestant zealots who were so happy to rise up when my state religion was Catholic?!

Ouch! Rebels are definitely beefed up, but I've been enjoying them so far. All a matter of degree though. I know I had an extremely painful Reformation in my England game also, but no France to cause trouble in my case. Did I mention that France makes the best continental pet ever?

Aaron D. wrote:

Just out of curiosity, for Paradox vets, how would you compare your satisfaction between CKII and EUIV? Is one like way better than the other, or are they just too different in theme to contrast?

EUIV is way better than CKII for me, but that's because I just love EU. I should give CKII more time though. I think it comes down to personal preference between the two, both from a gameplay/scope perspective and which area of history interests you more.

Aaron D. wrote:

Just out of curiosity, for Paradox vets, how would you compare your satisfaction between CKII and EUIV? Is one like way better than the other, or are they just too different in theme to contrast?

If I were to be objective, they are probably too different in theme to contrast fairly. Subjectively, I like EU4 a lot more. Honestly, I also liked EU3 more even though CK2 was a much more polished game. I just enjoy EU's time period and focus on nation building, economy, and external diplomacy more than I enjoyed CK's earlier time period and focus on family dynasties, intrigue, and internal diplomacy. I thought CK2 was pretty darn good, and it made my top ten last year. I'll have to play something pretty amazing in the next few months for EU4 not to be my GOTY.

Aaron D. wrote:

Just out of curiosity, for Paradox vets, how would you compare your satisfaction between CKII and EUIV? Is one like way better than the other, or are they just too different in theme to contrast?

That's like asking which of my kids I like better. Personally, I still like CK2 more but not way more. But the satisfaction I get out of each game is different. In CK2, I like the scheming and personal politics, the personalities and "hand-on" feeling of running a virtual medieval desmense. In EU4, I enjoy the nation-building, the diplomatic give and take, the sense of the dramatic rise (and possibly fall) of a nation-state.

I think my preference for CK2 just comes down to preference for the period. And Vikings. But EU4 is excellent and is probably my GOTY too.

Guess what game just got shifted to the top of my Steam Wishlist?

Thanks, you filthy enablers!

Gunner wrote:

Ouch! Rebels are definitely beefed up, but I've been enjoying them so far. All a matter of degree though. I know I had an extremely painful Reformation in my England game also, but no France to cause trouble in my case. Did I mention that France makes the best continental pet ever? :D

I hate you so much, man.

I actually found the rebels a cool challenge (and thematically appropriate) at first - it's the endless waves that are grinding away the fun for me, especially as the French support means that they're better fighters than my own men. Tempted to just flip back to Catholicism and take my chances with the Protestant rebels again! I really hope that works - I don't want to abandon this campaign.

Aaron D. wrote:

Just out of curiosity, for Paradox vets, how would you compare your satisfaction between CKII and EUIV? Is one like way better than the other, or are they just too different in theme to contrast?

I think Gunner/tboon/Jasonofindy have pretty much hit the nail on the head, although I think EU4 places a greater emphasis on strategy, while CK2 places a greater emphasis on emergent storytelling. Personally, I prefer EU4, but I also prefer the EU4 time period, so that might just be bias on my part!

Jasonofindy wrote:
DonD wrote:

Is there any way to get the event choice boxes to pause the game? I know the notification boxes have a button in the lower right that allows you to click 'popup and pause', but for the events I don't see how to do it.

I don't think there currently is a way to pause the events automatically.

In all the older games you could just press right mouse button on any event (even in the status bar) and it gave you choices how this type of box should behave in the game. One of those was Popup and Pause. Note: I do not have EUIV yet, so this might not apply, but it is the same old engine, so try that.

EDIT: OK, I just tried that in the demo, doesn't work. However, if you open Menu, there are Message Settings for all types of messages. Under Events, just select that those you find important should pause when they popup (it's a bit obtuse as to which icon does what, so select the hourglass icon for Pause).

PeterS wrote:

Tempted to just flip back to Catholicism and take my chances with the Protestant rebels again! I really hope that works - I don't want to abandon this campaign. :(

HAHAHA, it worked! I submitted to the Catholic rebels' demands and made Catholicism the state religion. Presto, no more Catholic rebels. I then let PROTESTANT rebels run wild and then switched back to Protestantism under force majeure. No more rebels, stability is at +2, and I can now devote money and attention to the Americas again. Great Britain is back in business!

I find that I need to take a break from this game already because it is infuriating me.

What happened in my latest game is one example of things that have happened in each of my games, where I am making good progress on a goal, and suddenly there is a random event that wipes out a significant amount of gameplay time.

The most recent instance happened in Tangiers. I had conquered Tangiers and Casablanca to produce a nice little Berber nest egg on the north coast of Africa, with huge trade benefits for Portugal. Initially, it is impossible to convert these provinces to Catholicism, because their culture is not accepted. However, I got an event that made Berber culture accepted in Portugal. Excellent! All I needed was an advisor that boosted my missionary's abilities, and I could unify the provinces and reap the rewards.

Casablanca turned relatively quickly, but Tangiers said it was going to take ten years. I figured okay, I only have one missionary, but I can hold out for ten years without converting Aztec and Creek provinces I was working on in the New World. So my little missionary goes to work on Tangiers, and I go on about the business of conquering the New World natives.

Then, over an hour of real time later, with one month left to convert, another random event fires: oh, by the way, we hate Berbers now. Which means they are once again impervious to missionaries.

Now, I know some people might say "ha ha, that is what makes EU so great." But I don't like having my time wasted like that by a roll of the dice. I sort of put myself in that missionary's shoes, and think of the poor man who just wasted ten years of his life, and he was so close to finishing. That's the kind of thing that breaks a man.

And it did in fact break my will to continue playing EU4.

I'm going to play a different game. One where if you play by the rules of the game, it respects your gameplay time and efforts and rewards you with success. Pretty much any game, really. Except maybe Dark Souls.

wanderingtaoist wrote:
Jasonofindy wrote:
DonD wrote:

Is there any way to get the event choice boxes to pause the game? I know the notification boxes have a button in the lower right that allows you to click 'popup and pause', but for the events I don't see how to do it.

I don't think there currently is a way to pause the events automatically.

In all the older games you could just press right mouse button on any event (even in the status bar) and it gave you choices how this type of box should behave in the game. One of those was Popup and Pause. Note: I do not have EUIV yet, so this might not apply, but it is the same old engine, so try that.

EDIT: OK, I just tried that in the demo, doesn't work. However, if you open Menu, there are Message Settings for all types of messages. Under Events, just select that those you find important should pause when they popup (it's a bit obtuse as to which icon does what, so select the hourglass icon for Pause).

I think we're talking about two different types of messaging. You are correct that most types of notifications can be completely customized. All of these messages are black and semi-transparent when they pop-up. In the settings you can go through and choose pop-up, pop-up and pause, message log, etc., or you can click the box in the lower right hand corner of the message and change how you want that message type to behave (as shown in the images below:)

Also note the handy small message box above the mini-map which is customizable to allow you to follow what important items are happening to countries you choose to follow. This is handy for keeping track of if someone you are worried about has entered into an alliance or a war. (visible in the top screenshot with some messages about Austria.)

Changing it when it pops-up
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/s1IMrJE.jpg)

Changing them all in the message settings options
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/CVlo8ON.jpg)

Like I said earlier in the thread, I would suggest for new players to go into the settings and set all of these messages to pop-up and pause to begin with. Then as you are playing your first game and messages pop-up and pause, you can decide which types you want to keep and which ones you want to deprioritize using the little button in the lower right of the box once you understand what the different messages mean.

However, I think that DonD was asking about these event choice messages that appear on tan scrolls:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/owIuXdm.jpg)

As far as I know these do not currently pause the game and aren't governed like the other message settings. I'm pretty sure that they behaved this way in EU3 as well, but in CK2 they not only paused the game but wouldn't let you resume until you made a choice.

EDIT:

That does sound really frustrating BadKen. I can definitely understand why you are turned off by the random events. (including multiple damn comets) I'm in the camp that is frustrated when they happen, but think that overall they add to the game by making things unpredictable like life. They basically create "Jesus what else not under my control can go wrong right now moments." and help make sure the player's empire has a chance to ebb and flow. On the other hand, I completely get why you would hate something like that which can wipe out so much progress.

BadKen wrote:

Then, over an hour of real time later, with one month left to convert, another random event fires: oh, by the way, we hate Berbers now. Which means they are once again impervious to missionaries.

That is a shame. One thing to keep in mind though is that accepted cultures aren't random though, unless Portugal has some country event specific to the Berber states. You gain an accepted culture when it represents 20% or more of the base tax value in all your core provinces. When that value falls below 10% you then lose the accepted status.

So, it was probably something like coring provinces in the New World that did you in. Not sure if that makes you feel much better, but at least it wasn't entirely random.

If the game had told me that, it would have made a big difference.

Maybe those kind of triggered events should have a "why did this happen?" button on them for people who want to peek behind the curtain or just not be frustrated all the time.

BadKen wrote:

If the game had told me that, it would have made a big difference.

Maybe those kind of triggered events should have a "why did this happen?" button on them for people who want to peek behind the curtain or just not be frustrated all the time.

I agree that sucks. It's one of those mechanics that's been in the series since the beginning and hasn't had an interface overhaul since. The solution is to just play more EU so you learn all of the little quirks.

Jason, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Since I have the speed at 4 or 5 most of the time (except in war), I really wish it would pause when I have to make a choice. There is not a choice to close the box without responding, so you have to make a choice.

The information boxes (your diplomat has returned, for example), I'm happy to just send to the log and keep time moving. That seems OK.

DonD wrote:

Jason, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Since I have the speed at 4 or 5 most of the time (except in war), I really wish it would pause when I have to make a choice. There is not a choice to close the box without responding, so you have to make a choice.
.

They are actually worse than that. You are correct that those tan scrolls don't stop time when they pop up. They also can't be manually dismissed by the player without making a choice. However, if you're clipping along and multitasking on another screen, after a few months the game will actually choose FOR YOU if the choice could spawn rebels and you aren't lucky enough to have an unrelated pop-up pause the game for you while the tan decision scroll message is on screen.

I know some EU3 players used this quirky behavior to their benefit by using the fact that the decision message doesn't stop time in order to move troops into position to deal with the problems that selecting their choice will generate. This is gamey and silly, and it would be much better if the tan decision scrolls always STOPPED time and made you make a choice to resume.

I need to remember to double check who is in the coalition against me before I launch a war. What was supposed to be a short war to finish taking Brunei ended up with 65 Spanish units and some not-insignificant number of Portugese units rampaging through Burgundy. My hastily cobbled defense forces were shattered and then wiped out completely. Nothing I offered would get Spain to agree to a peace; I selected every single concession and all my money and they still weren't having it Rather than wait for them to rack up a 1000% warscore or whatever, I just ended up resigning in 1766.

Think I'll try Castille this time.

Question for the experts: is it possible for Ming China to colonize the New World in this game, or is that tech locked away for them? (i.e. do they need to westernize?) I've only played about an hour and see the massive depth of this game. Naturally I fear it. But I'd love to be able to do an extended video series for my site in which I try to prove those crazy theories about China's voyages to California correct.

I have a problem: I woke up at 7AM on a Sunday for no other reason than to finish a war. After staying up until 2:30 starting it.

This game is killing me.

Oh and the Ottomans are good fun.

Just had an interesting event occur as Scottland. England declared war on one of my Irish allies. I didn't think I had enough military to mount an effective defense and counterattack. But then something amazing happened. The Scottish Highlanders mobilized for war. I instantly had another 14k troops. England didn't even know what hit them. I marched all the way too London and sacked it.

Grubber788 wrote:

Question for the experts: is it possible for Ming China to colonize the New World in this game, or is that tech locked away for them? (i.e. do they need to westernize?) I've only played about an hour and see the massive depth of this game. Naturally I fear it. But I'd love to be able to do an extended video series for my site in which I try to prove those crazy theories about China's voyages to California correct.

It may be, but I'm not quite sure. The Ming have some unique mechanics related to one of 3 internal factions being dominant in the country at any time. This article has an overview of the system. My guess is that you'd need to keep the Eunuch faction in control and take the Exploration idea group right away.

Tkyl wrote:

Just had an interesting event occur as Scottland. England declared war on one of my Irish allies. I didn't think I had enough military to mount an effective defense and counterattack. But then something amazing happened. The Scottish Highlanders mobilized for war. I instantly had another 14k troops. England didn't even know what hit them. I marched all the way too London and sacked it.

That is awesome!

England Ironman update time!

After about 80 years of integrating I've finally brought France into the fold in 1571. Behold:
IMAGE(http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/578998455394825527/1782FE3E44B5245C94BF64AA6C6BB5352E4C1399/)
IMAGE(http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/578998455394827904/663DBC341D44761EF4D418EEF0E07256CC69C88F/)
IMAGE(http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/578998455394820742/FC69D0A7C1EEA6C0C84A37AF61CB174AEA769B5F/)
Right after the integration I got Cosmopolitan as an accepted culture, which was a major relief. Two important things I noticed about integrating a personal union is that while you do receive cores on all of the inherited provinces, they lose all of their non-fortification buildings like when you conquer a province. So, I had to spend a huge amount of monarch points getting the French infrastructure back up. France actually did a surprisingly good job colonizing Brazil, which was nice bonus.

At this point I could probably consider the game 'won' if I'd like to. I'll keep going until it starts dragging though. Items on my agenda are to (1) lay a total beat down on Spain, (2) continue colonizing the Americas and Asia, and (3) see how viable an Indian trade route strategy is. Dismantling the HRE might be fun too.

I must admit that thus far I haven't been too impressed with the Indian trade route, especially considering that I have unlimited resources to throw at it. You seem to need to do so much conquering of local nations in order to get the flow moving unimpeded back to Europe, and even then the amount of trade I'm pushing is an order of magnitude less than what the Caribbean plus Chesapeake generate. Anyone else have any success with getting that trade around Africa?

Since I always love hearing about how others' general European situation develops, here are some points of interest that happened so far elsewhere:

  • The Netherlands declared independence from Burgundy around 1560 or so. They actually timed it during one of my wars against Burgundy, so things went quite well for them. We've been allies ever since.
  • Denmark managed to integrate Norway and Sweden at one point, but they've both since broken free.
  • For a good 30 years in the mid-16th century Spain viewed me with Friendly relations and we had a great alliance going. Poor Burgundy didn't fare well vs the Britain, France, Spain combo. We're now mutual rivals, as it should be.
  • Poland and Russia have both done a great job making uber Eastern empires. Glad they aren't near me.
  • Austria lost the Emperor title in 1524 and hasn't gotten it back since. There has been some pretty vicious religious fighting in the HRE though, which looked quite exciting from a distance. Austria, Bohemia, and Brandenburg are the major HRE players now and seemed to have mostly reached equilibrium.
  • Tuscany has almost united Italy. Sadly for them I just accepted a mission to restore Rome to the Papacy, so that should be the end of the unified Italian dream.

You guys play a lot faster than I do. My current game as the Ottomans is only at 1540.

IMAGE(http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/597012854161138236/39D663D2AF3E3809F92383C56B9EA90FF638944E/)

I have two drives: one to Vienna and one to Alexandria (want that trade node). I swap out which I focus one based on opportunity and how over-extended I am. There have been a couple of hairy moments with the damn Mamluks but they are beat down pretty far now; the drive to Alexandria should be complete in 50-60 years. I have been rigorous in coring, converting, and culturing any conquests. Having really good rulers has helped a lot; I am only just now starting to fall behind Venice in military due to the last couple of Sultans being horrible at military affairs. Other than military, I am on par in diplomacy tech and slightly ahead in admin tech (had a 6-4-0 ruler, he was awesome for admin ).

So far I have taken Quality, Administration, and Trade as my ideas. Really trying to get good trade going to fuel my military-industrial complex.

As in Gunner's game, there has been a ton of in-fighting in the HRE. Austria is down to 3 core provinces and part of the Netherlands. Bohemia and Poland look to be the top dog in the Empire; the Emperor has been Polish for 50 or so years and does not look like it will change soon.

The Papacy has been quite aggressive and is the biggest stake-owner in Italy. Venice mad a run for a bit but some disastrous wars (inlcuding one where I was able to get Ragusa with its trade node away from them while they were off fighting Savoy).

France has been France and I am happy to be far away from them.

At some point it looked like Aragon was going to win out on the peninsula but Castile has come back and is close to closing Aragon out.

Denmark has gotten super-big, eating Sweden and Norway. As far as I can tell, they have been mostly staying out of the affairs of the rest of the continent.

So far, there has only been one colony, made by France in Brazil. Nothing else. So the Ottomans still have a chance for some colonial adventures.

tboon wrote:

I have two drives: one to Vienna and one to Alexandria (want that trade node).

You probably know more about the game than me, but it already looks like you have provinces in the Alexandria trade region. You don't need Alexandria itself. The location of the trade node on the map is completely arbitrary; it doesn't represent a location. To control the node, you just need a trader in there and lots of light ships. Owning provinces in the region helps, but based on what I've read on the Paradox forums, protecting the node with a massive fleet is a lot easier. Going over your fleet limit is the path to trade riches, as long as you are going after nodes that have a lot of merchants from other nations in them, because each merchant adds value to a node.

That seems to be the key to Western European nations getting rich from India, too. Sending trade around the south of Africa multiplies its value because each trade center with merchants it passes through adds trade value.

I haven't accomplished this myself, but I saw it in this thread on the Paradox forums. This guy has literally hundreds of ships protecting trade - WAY over his fleet limit. He also has six or seven merchants.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/Wm7X06vl.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/q7fSNSWl.png)

(the map colors are trade zones, not countries)

Sure, but I believe if you control the province that the node is in, it is easier to maximize your trade power and your grab. Hence why I want it. Agree that controlling every trade node that touches your trade is nonsensical, though.

I don't know; I am still trying to figure trade out.

tboon wrote:

Sure, but I believe if you control the province that the node is in, it is easier to maximize your trade power and your grab. Hence why I want it. Agree that controlling every trade node that touches your trade is nonsensical, though.

I don't know; I am still trying to figure trade out.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...

Frankfurt", "Gibraltar" and those nodes are not actually located in a specific province. On the map it displays them on specific provinces, but actually, these names refer to an entire area around those provinces. Who owns the name-giving province, does not matter so much. You might not own Frankfurt province, but still control 99% of the trade in the Frankfurt node because you just are that awesome.

So it's a bit like the CoT areas in EU3, but the CoT does not exist any more, it's just a disembodied set of numbers for a specific area.

BadKen wrote:
tboon wrote:

I have two drives: one to Vienna and one to Alexandria (want that trade node).

You probably know more about the game than me, but it already looks like you have provinces in the Alexandria trade region. You don't need Alexandria itself. The location of the trade node on the map is completely arbitrary; it doesn't represent a location. To control the node, you just need a trader in there and lots of light ships. Owning provinces in the region helps, but based on what I've read on the Paradox forums, protecting the node with a massive fleet is a lot easier. Going over your fleet limit is the path to trade riches, as long as you are going after nodes that have a lot of merchants from other nations in them, because each merchant adds value to a node.

You want Alexandria because it has the "Important Center of Trade" province modifier which gives +5 local trade power (plus a naval force limit bonus). Rashid next door also happens to be the Nile Estuary, giving another +5 local trade power bonus. These bonuses are used for your base trade value which is then multiplied by mercantilism and trade buildings, so the trade power from these guys can really rack up. London in my current game is both an estuary and important CoT, so with my trade power with those and the ~100% modifier from buildings and mercantilism equals 28.9. These province modifiers are scattered all throughout the world and should be prime colonization and conquest targets as you're trying to expand your trade empire.

You're absolutely right though about hordes of light ships being a total game changer when it comes to trade. Spain, Portugal, and I have a combined 50 light ships in the Caribbean right now competing with each other, easily dwarfing the local provinces' trade power. I'm sure going totally nuts with a light ship strategy is the way to go for perfect min-maxing trade achievement. To me it seems like a bit of an exploit to go substantially over your force limit to take advantage of a mechanic like that in a single player game, but hey, everyone enjoys their games in different ways. I'd be quite interested to see how trade wars shake out in high level multiplayer games.

Another quasi-abuse/exploit I've discovered is taking huge sums of money from non-Western nations that don't seem to have anything else to spend it on. At one point in my game the Mali and Swahili had over 10k gold just sitting there waiting to be taken in a peace deal. The Creek, Huron, Aztec, and Inca were all sitting over 5k as well. I think the issue is that these are fundamentally profitable nations that lack the external competitors that would usually act as money sinks. In any case, it's trivially easy to 100% these guys and get multiple war settlements over time that yield over 5000 gold each. All with no inflation, overextension, or aggressive expansion penalties to hold you back. Hopefully a patch will address this in the future, but it'll be tough to get around with EUIV's new economic model.

Gunner wrote:

Another quasi-abuse/exploit I've discovered is taking huge sums of money from non-Western nations that don't seem to have anything else to spend it on. At one point in my game the Mali and Swahili had over 10k gold just sitting there waiting to be taken in a peace deal. The Creek, Huron, Aztec, and Inca were all sitting over 5k as well. I think the issue is that these are fundamentally profitable nations that lack the external competitors that would usually act as money sinks. In any case, it's trivially easy to 100% these guys and get multiple war settlements over time that yield over 5000 gold each. All with no inflation, overextension, or aggressive expansion penalties to hold you back. Hopefully a patch will address this in the future, but it'll be tough to get around with EUIV's new economic model.

I call that a feature! How else is little Portugal going to afford to build out its infrastructure without pillaging native gold!

I don't know much about that history, but historically weren't there Spanish galleons loaded to the gills with gold? And didn't Mali have more gold than they knew what to do with?

Okay, maybe there should be some cost to getting a 5000 gold settlement from running over a low-tech native people. But that's one exploit that I'll happily exploit - I have enough trouble with this game without trying to survive on a shoestring budget.