Europa Universalis IV Catch-All

Thanks for all the info. Transferring is probable what I need to do.

Lastly the music in this game is hilarious. It's such a strange mix. Loved the one that sounded like a German drinking song.

master0 wrote:

Thanks for all the info. Transferring is probable what I need to do.

Lastly the music in this game is hilarious. It's such a strange mix. Loved the one that sounded like a German drinking song.

Until the fiftieth time. Uhhh- uhhhh- uhhh - uhhh!

I just like that there's a "skip track" button for the music.

Michael wrote:

I just like that there's a "skip track" button for the music.

Some of those are funny / cool once and then I can’t take it. Where the heck is the skip track?!

Up on the menu thing in the top right there's a little music note button. Press that and it brings up a small menu for pausing, switching songs, or bringing up a bigger music player where you can see all the tracks.

BushPilot wrote:

Assuming that Portugal is your ally, it sounds they they've already occupied it. That is, it should have hatching in Portugal's colour, and there is something in the province tooltip or the province window that says 'occupied by Portugal.' If that's the case, then there's no need for you to siege it further, as it's already controlled by your side, and you should be able to see that you have a positive ticking warscore in the war overview window. The war is probably still going because Portugal needs more warscore to actually take the provinces it wants in the peace (usually far more occupied territory is necessary to get enough warscore to take a single province), or Portugal is waiting for you to transfer specific additional provinces to them. You can see how much warscore a province will cost in the province window, but there are other limiting factors too that are more opaque.

It can also be that you have the war goal, but if there is no enemy fort occupied near it the war goal can't be taken in the peace yet. So if there's no fort in Tangiers but there is one in the adjacent province (Casablanca?) you or Portugal might need to occupy that first.

Yep, you nailed it. It said occupied by Portugal and had their colors striped. A few other provinces have my stripes, but I'm thinking that was due to my vassal going there.

BTW, once you start playing this game, is it normal to be planning and scheming while you're away from your computer? I keet coming up with questions and ideas all day. It's kinda weird.

On rare occasions, I've actually dreamed about it

BushPilot wrote:

On rare occasions, I've actually dreamed about it

Yeah. I definitely start plotting my next moves. Usually, they’re terrible and wind up dragging me into a coalition war.

Yeah, once it gets its hooks in you, you start thinking about it a lot.

Yup, same here, the ai and it's exploitative behaviour means you end up thinking a lot about how to plan out your next moves, once you get beyond the starting out of a new game it always gets you thinking about it loads.

It took half a dozen colonies, bribing the pope, the worlds largest army, and getting some very specific bonuses from the idea list. But Burgundy is finally loyal and paying me taxes. A whole 1.5 gold.

Think I'm done for my first game. I could keep playing but I feel I'm at a point where it's enough. I took over all of the Spanish sub-continent. Have colonies everywhere which are constantly growing without my interaction. While make 40 to 70 gold a month. Very fun ride to this point.

As for the tech thing I mentioned earlier. I definitely see how France could jump so far ahead now. Near the end I was maxing out my military points bucket.

master0 wrote:

It took half a dozen colonies, bribing the pope, the worlds largest army, and getting some very specific bonuses from the idea list. But Burgundy is finally loyal and paying me taxes. A whole 1.5 gold.

Think I'm done for my first game. I could keep playing but I feel I'm at a point where it's enough. I took over all of the Spanish sub-continent. Have colonies everywhere which are constantly growing without my interaction. While make 40 to 70 gold a month. Very fun ride to this point.

As for the tech thing I mentioned earlier. I definitely see how France could jump so far ahead now. Near the end I was maxing out my military points bucket.

That's basically how I play these days. Keep going until things get too tedious and then I stop even if it means I'm not even close to the end date.

I've had a couple of really fun games wrapping my head around things in the game I've never understood. First as Austria with the Holy Roman Empire mechanics and then republic stuff as Venice. I think my next step is to play some non-European nations.

Roke wrote:
master0 wrote:

It took half a dozen colonies, bribing the pope, the worlds largest army, and getting some very specific bonuses from the idea list. But Burgundy is finally loyal and paying me taxes. A whole 1.5 gold.

Think I'm done for my first game. I could keep playing but I feel I'm at a point where it's enough. I took over all of the Spanish sub-continent. Have colonies everywhere which are constantly growing without my interaction. While make 40 to 70 gold a month. Very fun ride to this point.

As for the tech thing I mentioned earlier. I definitely see how France could jump so far ahead now. Near the end I was maxing out my military points bucket.

That's basically how I play these days. Keep going until things get too tedious and then I stop even if it means I'm not even close to the end date.

I've had a couple of really fun games wrapping my head around things in the game I've never understood. First as Austria with the Holy Roman Empire mechanics and then republic stuff as Venice. I think my next step is to play some non-European nations.

I did have a lot of fun as ethiopia

Anyone got any experience of streaming with EUIV? I've done it in the past, but with both OBS and Nvidia built in streaming, I'm not seeming to get any game audio. I thought it could be Twitch, but PUBG seems to work fine!

Clusks wrote:

Anyone got any experience of streaming with EUIV? I've done it in the past, but with both OBS and Nvidia built in streaming, I'm not seeming to get any game audio. I thought it could be Twitch, but PUBG seems to work fine!

If you don't figure it out you might try asking in here - folks seem pretty helpful.

BlackSheep wrote:
Roke wrote:

That's basically how I play these days. Keep going until things get too tedious and then I stop even if it means I'm not even close to the end date.

I've had a couple of really fun games wrapping my head around things in the game I've never understood. First as Austria with the Holy Roman Empire mechanics and then republic stuff as Venice. I think my next step is to play some non-European nations.

I did have a lot of fun as ethiopia :)

These days I usually start with some sort of difficult goal in mind. Sometimes it's an achievement; sometimes it's something I've just cooked up. Once I either get bored or get the achievement I usually quit.

One of my more fun recent games was to try and make Egypt and the Levant into a Jewish stronghold. There are only two Jewish provinces at the start of the game, both in Ethiopia. So I started as Ethiopia, immediately released Semien (Beta Israel) as a three-province subject, and switched to playing as them. The early hurdles went pretty well: I successfully converted to Judaism, managed to gain full independence from Ethiopia, and overpowered and destroyed my neighbours, and even successfully took on my larger rivals like the Mamluks, Persia, and Kilwa.

It was pretty fun for a while. I rushed religious ideas to gain access to the Deus Vult CB. Since I was the only Jewish Nation in the game, that gave me a very good CB against every other country on my borders (even by sea). I used this to blob in all directions, but the Ottomans proved to be an unstoppable juggernaut. Their major European rivals (Hungary, Poland/Lithuania) kept losing territory to them and refused to ally me anyway because of the religion penalty. We started to clash over the Nile delta and Arabian peninsula, and I even managed to eke out two marginal victories (where I took 1 or two provinces from them) when they attacked me. Ultimately, though, they could always recover and attack me again when I still had crippling debt from the last war, and I finally gave up after losing the third war in a row to them with no apparent avenue to turn things around. They had an absolutely massive numbers, development, and economic advantage over me.

If I'd kept at it I might've been able to stay alive by pushing hard in the other direction to keep my power level up as I ceded territory to the Ottomans, though accessing institutions to keep up in military tech was going to become a problem as well. I might give it another try in a few games, maybe adopting a more aggressive early stance toward them, or maybe leaving the Mamluks alone as a buffer to buy me an extra few decades of expansion in other directions before conflict with the Ottomans. Even if I never go back, I have fond memories of playing in the horn of Africa. I like the challenge, but I'm just a little bit reluctant to try again because the Jewish religion mechanics aren't as fleshed out as most of the other religions in the game.

Judaism at its greatest extent, in 1614:IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/8FLV5ed.png)

This campaign, like many of my others, spurred me into looking up a bit of the history of Judaism in Ethiopia. I'd never heard of the Beta Israel, but it's actually a pretty interesting story.

I think achievements in this game are where I get why they're a good thing, because there's so many in there that give you a really cool long goal that is pretty much achievable with some good strategy (you probably need some RNG for some of them, but on the most part, I'd say strategy overcomes it).

That’s one I’ll have to try. I focused on Africa as Ethiopia and tried to keep buffers between myself and the ottomans.

The other fun game I had was as one of te Irish states awhile back. I raced over to the new world, moved my capital there and the fought off the British for a long while before both the British and Spain spanked me. It was a lot of fun as well. I wish I had awesome screenshots to show.

OK, so in my quest to unify Islam with the Ottomans, I'm almost there, I only have three provinces to get, with around ~200 years left to do it. Here's the problem though - they're all owned by France! At the start of the game, Aragon allied France and started digging into Castille. Eventually, France got a personal union with them and has integrated them. I'm a bigger country than France, but they also have Poland and the Papal State as allies, meaning they're a big force to take down. My main ally is Russia, but they have some how found themselves 10k in debt and don't seem to be making any moves to remedy that situation, so I can't declare a war and call them in. I also allied one of the Indian states just so I could get a few more numbers on my hand, but I'm wondering if I should actually try ally Great Britain instead? My experience with them has generally been that they don't help you whatsoever (but that has always been early game).

How do I tackle this problem? I HAVE to attack France to get these places. My big plan was to:

- Accumulate loads of money
- Build a huge army of mercenaries
- Send an insult to France
- Use the mercenaries to wear down the man power of the enemies
- Then use my regular army to fight

Alternatively, I could look into attacking the Papal State or Poland and seeing if that could drag France in?

I can't recall, what sort of tools do you have to push these provinces to attempt to rebel and leave France?

Clusks wrote:

OK, so in my quest to unify Islam with the Ottomans, I'm almost there, I only have three provinces to get, with around ~200 years left to do it. Here's the problem though - they're all owned by France! At the start of the game, Aragon allied France and started digging into Castille. Eventually, France got a personal union with them and has integrated them. I'm a bigger country than France, but they also have Poland and the Papal State as allies, meaning they're a big force to take down. My main ally is Russia, but they have some how found themselves 10k in debt and don't seem to be making any moves to remedy that situation, so I can't declare a war and call them in. I also allied one of the Indian states just so I could get a few more numbers on my hand, but I'm wondering if I should actually try ally Great Britain instead? My experience with them has generally been that they don't help you whatsoever (but that has always been early game).

How do I tackle this problem? I HAVE to attack France to get these places. My big plan was to:

- Accumulate loads of money
- Build a huge army of mercenaries
- Send an insult to France
- Use the mercenaries to wear down the man power of the enemies
- Then use my regular army to fight

Alternatively, I could look into attacking the Papal State or Poland and seeing if that could drag France in?

You need Poland out of that equation for sure, especially if they’re blobbed up or still have a pu with Lithuania.

200 years is a long time - I’d look to find an ally and attack them and bring France in through them. Problem is, if they’re a co-belligerant, they can call their allies. What about Austria? Denmark as alllies?

France gets into a lot of wars, alternatively, you could want until they’re in one and see if theirs and their allies war weariness gets pushed before going in as well. They’ll have less manpower and more fronts. If you’re blobbed, just make it a hundred year war and literally run around your provinces while he takes attrition. Putting up high level forts can be a pain to take

The problem is, Russia won't join if it's an offensive war due to their ridiculous amount of debt. Poland is actually under a personal union with France, so they'll have to be taken on regardless. Their only other allies, apart from colonies, are the Papal State, but attacking the Papal State would just bring Lucca into the war. I've allied Great Britain and they'd answer the call to arms, Austria is a no go as they ate up Hungary, so sit right on my border and are my rival. It's only three provinces I need, but they're all owned by France, which is the annoying part!

Clusks wrote:

The problem is, Russia won't join if it's an offensive war due to their ridiculous amount of debt. Poland is actually under a personal union with France, so they'll have to be taken on regardless. Their only other allies, apart from colonies, are the Papal State, but attacking the Papal State would just bring Lucca into the war. I've allied Great Britain and they'd answer the call to arms, Austria is a no go as they ate up Hungary, so sit right on my border and are my rival. It's only three provinces I need, but they're all owned by France, which is the annoying part!

Spain? Portugal? Any other major hre empire? Holland?

I’ve found that the computer as GB will help quite a bit — late game Prussia is always have them as an ally.

If you really don’t want the Papal States in this, then declare ware on Lucca, and as a war reparation, demand that the Papal States break their alliance with France.

That game your in sounds awful if you’re anyone but France in Europe.

I’d likely wait until they’re in a good war with someone before delcaring, no matter what else I do.

So, big plot twist here. Russia finally got out of their massive debt (somehow) and I allied Britain. I was slightly hesitant as I wanted a moment where Russia and Britain both were both not in a war and had a decent enough man power. I'm was also slightly hestitant as I whimped out of taking on the French beast a bit!

But the conditions finally seemed right and I thought I might as well just go to it. Then, for some reason, Britain appeared in France's ally list when I went to declare war. I went to a few other countries to try this out and they were there. I was ready to ask about this "bug" when I read the text at the top which said Britain are now defender of the faith for Catholicism! They won't join France, but they won't join me either now. It appears this game has auto-elected itself for very hard mode!

I'm a bit mythed about defender of the faith though. If I call France into a war Britain will not accept. If they don't, will they lose their title and I can THEN call them in after the fact? Or have I just got to wait for ruler to die? Or go it with just Russia?

Clusks wrote:

Then, for some reason, Britain appeared in France's ally list when I went to declare war. I went to a few other countries to try this out and they were there. I was ready to ask about this "bug" when I read the text at the top which said Britain are now defender of the faith for Catholicism! They won't join France, but they won't join me either now. It appears this game has auto-elected itself for very hard mode!

I'm a bit mythed about defender of the faith though. If I call France into a war Britain will not accept. If they don't, will they lose their title and I can THEN call them in after the fact? Or have I just got to wait for ruler to die? Or go it with just Russia?

If Great Britain refuses the defender of the faith call against you, they will lose the defender of the faith title. I don't know, however, if that means you could simply call them into the war after the fact or if they are prevented from this (I suspect they would be allowed to join but I don't actually know for sure). At the very least, check what their reasons are for not joining you in the initial attack by mousing over the red x in the declare war dialog - if those reasons are unlikely to change when they lose defender of the faith, then they still won't join after the fact even if they aren't technically prevented from it for some reason.

Note also, that if you wait for their ruler to die but they still have 500 ducats and enough prestige they can just re-up defender of the faith as soon as their new ruler ascends.

What muslim provinces does France have? I rarely see France actually take any muslim land in EU4.

Palermo, Messina (Italy) and Córdoba (Castille) are needed for the achievement and are all owned by France.

The thing is, I have more positives than negatives for Britain to join on my side, but the red x is still there, I'm guessing it automatically won't let them join if they're defender of the faith.

Clusks wrote:

Palermo, Messina (Italy) and Córdoba (Castille) are needed for the achievement and are all owned by France.

The thing is, I have more positives than negatives for Britain to join on my side, but the red x is still there, I'm guessing it automatically won't let them join if they're defender of the faith.

Ah I see. I didn't realize specific provinces were required - I thought you just had to get all the muslim ones around the world. Also, a France that owns both Iberia and Italy/Sicily sounds terrifying! Did they get a lucky personal union over Castille/Aragon/Naples?

If it's only a couple of provinces and you can get claims, you might be able to use 'threaten war' to get them, though likely not if France is very powerful. As for getting Britain to join after they refuse the defender of the faith call, it seems likely to work, but I'm really not sure. I'm a bit dubious that GB would be much help on land against the superFrance you describe anyway. They have a tendency to land poorly-planned stacks on the shores of the channel that get stackwiped after a couple of battles and cost you warscore.

You might be able to call GB into a different war on your side, then while that war is still active declare war on France. This should prevent a defender of the faith call, as they can't be called in against you if they're already on your side in a war. However, I'm not certain that you'd still be able to call them into the war with France after that. Maybe if you do some fancy timing with ending the other war quickly then calling GB in against France (assuming they can't still be called as DoF after you end the first war)?

If you're so inclined, you might use this opacity in the mechanics in this instance to justify a tiny bit of save-scumming around the war declaration. Wish I could help more.

Yup, allied Aragon early and they ate up Castille, with France getting the personal union. France also has a personal union with Poland making them the scariest nation I've ever seen on the game. I just got GB to try and eat away at their numbers a bit, my plan was to use most of these nations and mercs to just batter them a bit and build up their exhaustion. It's the whole defender of the faith getting around I can't work out whether it will work.

I don't mind doing some slight save-scumming just to if I would be able to call GB into the war after the fact, will there be a backup save from a previous date I can go to? (I'm playing iron man mode.)

Also, would it be worth going over my allowed diplo relations for this one? Is the penalty for too many just a loss of diplo points? I'd rather have a few allies (Scandinavia or a large Africa country are tempting to get the numbers up) on my side.

Clusks wrote:

Yup, allied Aragon early and they ate up Castille, with France getting the personal union. France also has a personal union with Poland making them the scariest nation I've ever seen on the game.

Yikes. I don't think I've ever had to face anything like that.

Clusks wrote:

I don't mind doing some slight save-scumming just to if I would be able to call GB into the war after the fact, will there be a backup save from a previous date I can go to? (I'm playing iron man mode.).

I think the game checks to make sure that ironman saves aren't edited, but it doesn't check to make sure they've never been copied. So if there's a big event like this war declaration that you want to scum around, just make a save in the game, then use Windows to make a copy of that save file and label it so you recognize it as the copy - you should still be able to load that game up. I think the saves are in %documents%\paradox\europa universalis iv\savegames
The game also keeps limited backup/autosave files, but if you exit ironman normally these will be synced up so that you can't go back in time (though force closing may be an option).

Clusks wrote:

Also, would it be worth going over my allowed diplo relations for this one? Is the penalty for too many just a loss of diplo points? I'd rather have a few allies (Scandinavia or a large Africa country are tempting to get the numbers up) on my side.

The penalty for being over the relationship limit is 1 diplo point per month (working in the same way as being over the general/admiral limit). It's often worth it to get a critical ally to deter a coalition, to secure military access during a war, or to shore up your emperor bid. To get an extra ally on your side in war you'd need to be over the limit for long enough to build up 10 favours (usually 10 years if you're the larger country) so that you can call them into the war, so that would be around 120 diplo points total. You could call them in without favours if you can find someone who would join on a promise of territory (this might be a DLC thing?) - likely someone adjacent to France who isn't friendly to them.

There are ways to increase the number of diplomatic relations, but the ones I can think of probably don't apply here or wouldn't be worth it to save a mere 120 points: become the HRE emperor, take particular idea groups, certain government types.

Totally worth the one diplo loss a month If you need to. There are a lot of times my country is running over here and there, especially if it’s an HRE country or someone close to France or Austria and they’ve decided that I’m a rival; for instance, burgundy, the Netherlands, or Venice in particular.

Heck, I even ended up running over with Britain when I had too many Irish, Scottish, and French continental vassals. Those are fixable by annexing, but that can take time. Still sailed off to the new world in 1487 and was busy colonizing with the slight deficit.

BushPilot wrote:

The penalty for being over the relationship limit is 1 diplo point per month (working in the same way as being over the general/admiral limit).

To clarify, it's one point per relationship over the limit. You could get 4 extra allies for 4 diplo points per month.