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Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009



Europa Universalis IV is the newest iteration of Paradox Interactive's long running grand strategy series. Running from 1444 to 1820 you rule as one of a number of nations throughout history and attempt to set them up for greatness through conquest and diplomacy. Any country is playable from the Kingdom of France right the way across the globe to a Japanese Daimyo or Chief of the Cherokee with most having their own unique national ideas and situations to play around with. Boasting improved intelligence the AI is able to strike when you're down or gang up on a nation who's growing large and powerful at their own expense. Through straight up territorial conquest or colonisation there are many paths on the road to complete global hegemony and with Paradox's new DLC strategy (in the vein of Crusader Kings 2) there have been many new changes and additions to the game with many more to come!




Taking the role of a nation within this era of history it is your goal to remain independent and work your way towards becoming a global superpower. Like in past EU games you have control over your military with which you can use to fight your enemies on land and sea or, if force does not work, you might use your diplomatic cloud to organise grand coalitions or attempt to vassalise weaker neighbours through peaceful means. You might also want to try to achieve trade hegemony by using your merchants and navy to make your empire rich off the backs of others. Even then if the Old World does not appeal to you then you can organise explorers and conquistadors to head out into the Terra Incognita to find new lands for which you can send your colonists into with the larger and more powerful colonies eventually become nations within themselves with the potential to declare revolution and independence from the mother country.


Combat & your view of the game

It's important to note that EUIV is not turnbased (although you may change the speed with which time passes) with the GIF above demonstrating how combat takes place in the game. The strategy comes not from commanding the battles themselves but from army composition, the use of good commanders and an eye for the right terrain to fight on. For instance, fighting defensively on a mountain will greatly increase the amount of casualties your enemy will take and allows smaller armies to beat much larger ones often, especially with the right general. It is not just a matter of winning battles however as you will also need to occupy enemy provinces or blockade their ports to be able to enforce complete victories over opponents. You will need to both when it's the right time to start a war but also when you should end it as a prolonged conflict will often see you hurting at home as your war exhaustion increases and your population grows restless.



Most of the world in terrain view

Most of the time you will be playing the game in either the terrain mapmode or, like myself, using the political mapmode which colours provinces based on their owner. EUIV comes with a host of new mapmodes with more still being added and, while not all of them are useful to have on all the time, you will switch between some of them frequently to assess things like trade zones and to see a visual representation of who is in a coalition against you.




Just a short list of the improvements/changes in EUIV over its' predecessor:

  • New trade system that focusses on controlling and steering trade towards your home node
  • Improved AI & graphics so that your ships and soldiers look nice while they're being destroyed fighting over river crossings
  • Revamped Idea & Technology systems that allows you to focus your nation down specific paths and unlock unique national bonuses
  • Introduction of Monarch Points which, depending on your ruler and advisors, can limit or assist you in various ways
  • More stable multiplayer for when you all want to collectively crush France and be crushed by Russia
  • Steam Workshop integration which makes it easier to find new mods and keep the ones that you have updated
  • Using the converter dlc for CK2 you can even import your saves over into EU IV at any point with unique ideas for certain nations such as Roman, Jerusalem and a bunch of others!

Each major DLC has also expanded upon these heavily and the game is pretty much turning into EU 4.5 at this rate.

DLC
Paradox has been emulating the same successful DLC strategy that it used in Crusader Kings 2, that is to say, to continue releasing small and cheaper unit & music packs as well as also offering larger 'expansion' type content. Alongside this they will continue to things into patches that are free and, like before, if you play multiplayer only the host needs to have access to the dlc for you to be able to play with it.


Expansions
  • Conquest of Paradise - Aside from a bunch new Native American factions, new mechanics for them and the ability to play as colonial nations CoP is the first Paradox DLC that allows the creation of a random map. Specifically, you can toggle to have a 'random new world' when starting a new game which will then remake the Americas from the ground up, often into very unusual looking shapes.

  • Wealth of Nations - This DLC expanded the trade mechanics of the game and allowed the use of privateers to steal trade power from nodes, allowed the building of map changing canals like the Suez and expanded the Reformed religion a bit with the Fervor mechanic, among other changes.
  • Res Publica - Expansion of Republics was the main focus of this content. In particular, the Dutch Republic was added as a unique government type and all nations were given access to the 'National Focus' which allows nations to focus on a particular type of Monarch point to gain more of at a detriment to the other two.
  • Art of War - Considered the most expansive Paradox DLC to date Art of War massively changed the game alongside its province increasing patch. Art of War added unique mechanics for the 30 Years War, better management of army/ship recruitment and tonnes of new events across the map. If you only get one DLC it should be this one!
  • El Dorado - If you're planning to play in Central/Southern America this is crucial. It added additional religions to the nations in that region and multiple events for them. El Dorado also added the ability to completely randomise the map with nation deployment and the ability to create your own nation with unique ideas.
  • Common Sense - The newest DLC adds the ability for 'vertical' nations by allowing you to increase a provinces development. It also adds in Forts that completely change how wars are fought, alongside some more province rebalancing inside of Europe and other minor features.
Flavour Packs
  • American Dream
  • Purple Phoenix
  • Star and Crescent
  • Women in History

Unit & Cosmetic Packs
  • 100 Years War Unit Pack
  • Catholic League Unit Pack
  • Common Sense Content Pack
  • El Dorado Content Pack
  • Evangelical Unit Content Pack
  • Indian Ships Unit Pack
  • Indian Subcontinent Unit Pack
  • Trade Nations Unit Pack
  • Conquistadors Unit Pack
  • Horsemen of the Crescent Unit Pack
  • Winged Hussars Unit Pack
  • Native Americans Unit Pack
  • Native Americans II Unit Pack
  • Colonial British and French Unit Pack
  • Muslim Advisor Portraits
  • National Monuments Cosmetic Pack
  • National Monuments II Cosmetic Pack

Music Packs
  • Guns, Drums and Steel
  • Guns, Drums and Steel Volume 2
  • Conquest of Constantinople
  • Songs of the New World
  • Songs of War
  • Songs of the New World
  • Republican
  • Songs of the Community
  • Songs of Yultide

eBooks
  • Anthology of Alternate History
  • Art of War
  • Wealth of Nations
  • Common Sense



Yep and it is much more stable than in previous EU games having been integrated with Steam. You can find games in two ways:

1) The Europa Universalis Goons Steamgroup
2) The Paradox Multiplayer Forum

More detail about the Goon group can be found in the link but here's just an example of some of the things we've gotten up to recently (more to be added when I check back through the thread):




Useful Links

Last Emperor fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Jun 9, 2015

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Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009

Reserved for Cool Things

Kurtofan
Feb 16, 2011

hon hon hon
You linked the wrong link in the previous thread.

YouTuber
Jul 31, 2004

by FactsAreUseless
I don't like the new changes to rebels and stuff that doesn't have forts on it. The second separatist appear they siege it down and give province a separatist state for 10 years. Unless you're placing your armies directly ontop of these places you'll never get there before it's been sieged.

axeil
Feb 14, 2006
Dunno if you just haven't updated it yet but I'd argue Common Sense is just as if not more important than Art of War these days with all the changes it made.

Fuligin
Oct 27, 2010

wait what the fuck??

Repostin' here :How's peoples performance? Mine has definitely gone down significantly but I've seen reports on the Paradox forums that it's much better than before, so I'm not sure what's going on. Also I'm having some weird zoom issues.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

There really needs to be a way to sort by development cost in the build manager. That poo poo is annoying to search through.

Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009

Kurtofan posted:

You linked the wrong link in the previous thread.

Thanks dude, fixed.

Has anyone tried out Songs of the Community?

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

I just bought 2 previous expansion packs at full price last night so I was "up to date" for today :(

BgRdMchne
Oct 31, 2011

Fuligin posted:

Repostin' here :How's peoples performance? Mine has definitely gone down significantly but I've seen reports on the Paradox forums that it's much better than before, so I'm not sure what's going on. Also I'm having some weird zoom issues.

Are your graphics drivers up to date? I've had similar problems with other games and an outdated driver.

Sorced
Nov 5, 2009

quote:

Okay, so the Burgundian Inheritance just happened... but somehow Milan got all of Burgundy's land. Saxony is the Emperor. What the hell just happened?

If I remember correctly you need a minimum number of provinces as the emperor to inherit burgundy. Saxony most likely didn't hit that requirement and milan had a royal marriage with burgundy. Thats enough to get it if the emperor can't claim it.

Fuligin posted:

Repostin' here :How's peoples performance? Mine has definitely gone down significantly but I've seen reports on the Paradox forums that it's much better than before, so I'm not sure what's going on. Also I'm having some weird zoom issues.

Yeah it feels slower then before for me too and I also have the zoom issue. I remember that issue from my old pc.

SSJ_naruto_2003
Oct 12, 2012



Baronjutter posted:

I just bought 2 previous expansion packs at full price last night so I was "up to date" for today :(

If you asked in the thread, they almost always discount previous DLC when releasing a new one. Sorry :(

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

GreyPowerVan posted:

If you asked in the thread, they almost always discount previous DLC when releasing a new one. Sorry :(

It's ok Wiz deserves a tip for putting up with the Paradox forums.

Alternative answer:
Wiz, put the extra money I paid into making the CKII converter better it's current state makes me feel like my guts were flayed.

PrinceRandom
Feb 26, 2013

Quick jump in. Is there a mod that adds simple tradegoods like livestock without adding 3 million new provinces and splitting grain up for some loving retarded reason

hopefully it's something Paradox will add like tropical wood.

PrinceRandom fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jun 9, 2015

Dandywalken
Feb 11, 2014

So Common Sense is pretty great? The steam page didnt really sound that amazing

Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009

Also, posted it in the last thread, but does anyone have any good/funny images to use?

Only ones I've really put are from some old MP games.

Also, does anyone remember an old program when EUIV first came out that would replay a map of your save if you uploaded it? I remember it being pretty cool.

Tanreall
Apr 27, 2004

Did I mention I was gay for pirate ducks?

~SMcD

Baronjutter posted:

I just bought 2 previous expansion packs at full price last night so I was "up to date" for today :(

If you bought it on steam you might be able to get a refund and rebuy them today.

quote:

DLC purchased from the Steam store is refundable within fourteen days of purchase, and if the underlying title has been played for less than two hours since the DLC was purchased, so long as the DLC has not been consumed, modified or transferred. Please note that in some cases, Steam will be unable to give refunds for some third party DLC (for example, if the DLC irreversibly levels up a game character). These exceptions will be clearly marked as nonrefundable on the Store page prior to purchase.

http://store.steampowered.com/steam_refunds

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!
My lovely rural dsl decided to crap out this afternoon, downloaded about 3/5th of the expansion, and then I've spent the last four hours and only managed to get another 4 meg or so downloaded. Steam is literally showing speeds of like 4 kb/s with expected download times ranging from weeks to months.

I'm so loving crabby right now. :mad:

Pooned
Dec 28, 2005

Eye contact counters everything
Why is the aggressive expansion so low? I vassalied Pomerania in the first war as BB and i got 17 AE? Expanding seems very easy now regarding AE.

Edit: Took Lauenberg and Lubeck from Hansa, gained 8.


:O

Pooned fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Jun 9, 2015

Chickpea Roar
Jan 11, 2006

Merdre!

Last Emperor posted:

It's important to note that EUIV is not turnbased

You made a pretty big mistake in your OP :rolldice:

Empress Theonora
Feb 19, 2001

She was a sword glinting in the depths of night, a lance of light piercing the darkness. There would be no mistakes this time.
I posted in the other thread before it got closed, so I'll ask again in here-- I haven't really played a full game since like before Art of War-- which both means like everything is different now and I'm rusty at what hasn't changed. I managed to get my rear end kicked in the opening of the game as France, of all places.

Basically, I feel like I need to learn the game from scratch again-- it's like trying a new Paradox game when you're familiar with Paradox games in general but not the one you're playing. What are some good opening moves for France to make? Since clearly picking a fight with Provence and England one year into the game and then getting dogpiled by all of my neighbors wasn't a very good one.

I guess I could also use some advice about best practices for fighting wars these days. I get how the new changes to movement cancellation and forts work in theory, but I don't know how I should be fighting wars in practice anymore (when to attack, how to bait enemies, how I should prioritize besieging forts vs. hunting down enemy armies, etc.)

Maybe I should just try England again, since I'll be able to just sulk on my own island while I learn how to play the game again. :v: Although I'm not really sure what to do as England, either, since back in the day my usual opening moves as England were to just get out of the HYW ASAP and get out of the Continent until later in the game.

PrinceRandom
Feb 26, 2013

Also Europa Gooniversalis is completely dead right?

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender

Last Emperor posted:

Also, posted it in the last thread, but does anyone have any good/funny images to use?

Only ones I've really put are from some old MP games.

Also, does anyone remember an old program when EUIV first came out that would replay a map of your save if you uploaded it? I remember it being pretty cool.

POOP LOL

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Zurai
Feb 13, 2012


Wait -- I haven't even voted in this game yet!

Node posted:

POOP LOL



Clearly a cross-promotion with Cities Skylines.

Vivian Darkbloom
Jul 14, 2004


Dandywalken posted:

So Common Sense is pretty great? The steam page didnt really sound that amazing

The patch is pretty great, though it seems to have introduced some issues too. I bought Common Sense but haven't tried out many of the features - it doesn't seem to be quite as cool as Art of War but it's worth buying I think.

Arzakon
Nov 24, 2002

"I hereby retire from Mafia"
Please turbo me if you catch me in a game.
From last thread -

Trujillo posted:

My Ceylon run was going good until the seperatist rebels I had been keeping a close eye on went from 70% to 140% in one month. I would've gotten a screenshot but it was during the monthly autosave, and when the first day ticked they rebelled and wiped my armies. I thought it could only go up by 10% a month at most

I think this happens when a rebel faction is building in a province and that province starts building support for a different faction that already has progress. The progress carries over and gets added to the already growing faction. I've never seen it jump to 100+ before probably because it would only be there for the tick of the month. I have seen a 20% and 60% merge into a single 80% group before. Were you converting one of the provinces and had that finish the prior month?

Kanfy
Jan 9, 2012

Just gotta keep walking down that road.
Going by my one game so far, France definitely seems to have a harder time. Burgundy's stealing all their coastline in 1484 and even the Brits are still around.

Node
May 20, 2001

KICKED IN THE COOTER
:dings:
Taco Defender
Thoughts on the new achievements? It looks like two pretty tough achievements have been included with this patch. Meissner Porcelain: As Saxony, have you or your vassals own all Chinaware producing provinces in the world. Basically branch out of the HRE and do an Eastern Conquest. You're stuck in the middle of Germany, so you can't start colonizing anytime soon.

Big Blue Blob... I don't know. You just have to own 100 European core provinces as France. By 1500. With coring costs getting even more expensive, is that going to be ridiculously hard? I don't actually know, I've never played as France. And this patch weakened them since they don't start with vassals.

VDay
Jul 2, 2003

I'm Pacman Jones!
Is El Dorado pretty skippable if I don't plan on playing in the Americas basically ever? Catching up on all the expansions I missed since the last time I played EU4 and I'd rather just wait until it's also ~$5 if it doesn't add anything super important outside of those areas.

Trabisnikof
Dec 24, 2005

There are OS X trackpad issues since the most recent patch, you can workaround them by using a mouse, but don't expect to play without one until they get fixed.

Futuresight
Oct 11, 2012

IT'S ALL TURNED TO SHIT!
I think the biggest thing from El Dorado for non-Americans is the automated exploration. If that doesn't sound enough then yeah you can skip it. Oh and nation designer which I forgot cause I don't use it ever.

Arzakon
Nov 24, 2002

"I hereby retire from Mafia"
Please turbo me if you catch me in a game.

VDay posted:

Is El Dorado pretty skippable if I don't plan on playing in the Americas basically ever? Catching up on all the expansions I missed since the last time I played EU4 and I'd rather just wait until it's also ~$5 if it doesn't add anything super important outside of those areas.

Nation Designer was also an expansion feature along with some things for colonial expansion/exploration.

Full Notes: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-1-10-full-patch-notes.837924/

Last Emperor
Oct 30, 2009

PrinceRandom posted:

Also Europa Gooniversalis is completely dead right?

Nope.

Sammut/Trujillo has been working on Multiplayer Europa Gooniversalis right up until the last patch, it's pretty much how we always played our big MP games.

It's obviously not updated to work with Common Sense yet but Dibujante and I will be taking over its development now and basically rebuilding it from the ground up.

VDay
Jul 2, 2003

I'm Pacman Jones!

Higsian posted:

I think the biggest thing from El Dorado for non-Americans is the automated exploration. If that doesn't sound enough then yeah you can skip it. Oh and nation designer which I forgot cause I don't use it ever.

Ok thanks, sounds like it's going to be a pass for now (until it goes more on sale during a summer sale).

Arzakon posted:

Nation Designer was also an expansion feature along with some things for colonial expansion/exploration.

Full Notes: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-1-10-full-patch-notes.837924/

Yeah I checked out the notes, but with that stuff it's always kind of hard to tell how important/impactful a feature is if you haven't played for a while like I have which is why I was asking. Sounds like there's not much that I'll be missing from not having it though and just sticking to Europe and Asia.

Arzakon
Nov 24, 2002

"I hereby retire from Mafia"
Please turbo me if you catch me in a game.

VDay posted:

Yeah I checked out the notes, but with that stuff it's always kind of hard to tell how important/impactful a feature is if you haven't played for a while like I have which is why I was asking. Sounds like there's not much that I'll be missing from not having it though and just sticking to Europe and Asia.

Automated exploration makes exploring a little less gamey because you are only offered exploration areas your colonists might be able to reach. But you don't have to do anything other than click "Go search the waters of the Caribbean" and dude just goes and explores all those zones.

Lprsti99
Apr 7, 2011

Everything's coming up explodey!

Pillbug
Ugh, I have everything but Common Sense ( :v: ) but I'm too broke to buy it. guess I'll have to wait til I find a new job :(

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

Pooned posted:

Why is the aggressive expansion so low? I vassalied Pomerania in the first war as BB and i got 17 AE? Expanding seems very easy now regarding AE.

Edit: Took Lauenberg and Lubeck from Hansa, gained 8.


:O

Expansion is easier in terms of AE, but the monarch point cost is a lot more expensive. 10 ADM/DIP per development point is pretty high, and also the discount for having a claim is now only -10%. I'm starting to wonder if this change didn't tip things too far in favor of vertical growth.

Thunder Moose
Mar 7, 2015

S.J.C.
Common Sense is pretty great - my favorite feature is that you can demand land in a war you haven't actually conquered yet: opens up a whole new dynamic to waging war.

Spiderfist Island
Feb 19, 2011

Trabisnikof posted:

There are OS X trackpad issues since the most recent patch, you can workaround them by using a mouse, but don't expect to play without one until they get fixed.

Yeah, I'm also having these trackpad issues as well, and to top it off the built-in keyboard shortcuts don't even work anymore. Plugging in a mouse makes zooming take forever now, and the game seems to be burning up my computer considerably more than it did previously.

Also, everyone is a King or Empire level title, for whatever reason. There are no Ducal countries in my game files at all.

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PrinceRandom
Feb 26, 2013

Last Emperor posted:

Nope.

Sammut/Trujillo has been working on Multiplayer Europa Gooniversalis right up until the last patch, it's pretty much how we always played our big MP games.

It's obviously not updated to work with Common Sense yet but Dibujante and I will be taking over its development now and basically rebuilding it from the ground up.

ah. cool. divided china is real fun.

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