Great Moments in Europa Universalis/Victoria/Hearts of Iron

anyone playing IV? during my tempquit of ILX i knew i would pick up another vice, and that very night i downloaded EU4. i had never played any of the previous entries. holy shit, what a game. i'm surprised there's not much chatter about it here, considering the love of civilization + the contingent of people who are into high learning curve games. coming at it fresh, i think it took me about 5-10 hours before i truly understood (most of) what was going on, but even now, in my first playthrough, 150 years, there are all sorts of things i'm still learning.

i'm playing as castille, which is kind of the first timer's choice because it's relatively easy, but man it's fun. diplo-vassalized Portugal just after they had explored a bit of the New World, and once I annexed i pretty much doubled my overseas territory - and no one else is even there yet. oh gawwwwd, so fun

for those who haven't played it, if you're into civilization but want to take it to the "next level", you need to check this out. fair warning: it's the kind of thing where you're going to have to read through a wiki for a few hours and watch a few videos. and even then, several hours something will happen, some game mechanic, or something won't work and you think it should, and you will shout BULLSHIT! but 1) after you learn it, it makes sense and you'll subconsciously rebuke your past behavior and 2) isn't it nice when something makes you care enough that you actually care, rather than the typical modern game that holds hand through everything? EU respects your intelligence enough to be really complex and trust you to stick with it and to be , and i appreciate that

no you're drinking

and then i reverse slam dunk after the awesome assist from john 'two timin'' stockton

Loved III but waiting on a mac port.

It came out a few weeks ago! That's what I'm playing. Now oh pick it up and ruin your life!

Gah!

i haven't played any of the previos EU games, or any Paradox game at all, so i can't really compare. however, since i've made many thousand trips to internet forums discussing EU4 to try to figure out various things and improve my strategy a bit, i feel like i have a decent grasp of what the critical reception has been among the hardcore EU fanbase. almost everyone seems totally, hopelessly addicted, and loves the game.

this is where i'm at right now as castile:

http://i.imgur.com/SQ5bu4h.jpg

It's one of my first attempts at EU4, and first time I've played this far (1511) without realizing I made a terrible mistake and starting over.

Early on, I decided to be friendly with Aragon. Apparently there's some very common random event that occurs when playing as Castile that gives you a Personal Union with Aragon early on in the game - which then lets you unite the two and become Spain. I also entered into a royal marriage with Aragon, just in case (doing this allows you a chance to make babbies and accomplish the same sort of integration).

I turned my attention to the gradual conquest of Portugal (now complete) and Colonization (I now have 5 colonies in various stages of colonization/coring in the New World).

But just now, a message popped up informing me that France and Aragon have entered in a personal union, with France as the majority partner. This is terrible news, because it means that in 50 years, if nothing changes, France is going to inherit Aragon. And then I'm totally fucked. I think.

It's such a bummer because honestly I'd rather just be a friendly nation that concentrates on colonization - I'm not really looking to conquer Europe or expand my territory there by much (although integrating Aragon would have been nice!). My only hope is that if I keep my relations with France on the good side, maybe there's a chance they'll just leave me alone rather than grinding me to dust.

Hopefully getting my computer fixed this week and then it. is. on.

I really loved a week I spent with Crusader Kings II, just obsessively scouring Europe for good breeding stock and betrothing 12-year-old claimants to my titles and manipulating my court and occasionally having a tiny little war. I was a little scared of it, tbh, like it was total historical-religious gaming crack to me, just staring at the map wondering how angry my bishops would get if a monophysite bride came to the court, & my absolute delight when Lollardy sprang up in my duchy. It's just such a 'BANG there go six hours' game, I couldn't afford the addiction at this point.

I think I will grab EU IV next time it's on sale on Steam, even though EU III never really grabbed me in the same way as CK II.

It's such a bummer because honestly I'd rather just be a friendly nation that concentrates on colonization - I'm not really looking to conquer Europe or expand my territory there by much (although integrating Aragon would have been nice!).

Good AI though, in that if you did happen to be a local power with aggressively expansionist tendencies then a decent sized country in your immediate vicinity whose modus operandi was "Look guys, I really don't want to fight, let's all just be mates pls" would be like a red rag to a bull. Gotta stand up to the bullies if you want them to leave you alone.

I always get the fear when I look into this franchise. I tried playing Hearts of Iron a few years ago and was so far out of my depth. On the other hand I've never got into Civilisation and the new Total War is only just about so-so now a few mods have come out corrected the built-in deficiencies in Vanilla.

So maybe I should look into getting this. How complex is it to dive into for a noob? Same league as HOI?

I like the idea of the game but I get blocked by the impenetrableness of the design, like with many Paradox games. I loved Victoria, but can't get off the ground in Victoria II. This looks interesting but I think I'll have the same problem.

How complex is it to dive into for a noob? Same league as HOI?

i mentioned it earlier, but as total paradox n00b i estimate that i've probably spent about 5-10 hours outside the game reading up on certain concepts. i have a much better grasp on things now, though, and now when i do end up searching through forums and guides it's usually because i'm searching for some overarching strategy/tactics tips rather than trying to figure out how basic mechanic works.

I played EU2 for hours, didn't get into EU3, and decided to get CK2 instead of EU4 last week. CK seems so much more complicated! I'll think I've done really well with my first ruler, then he dies and everything falls apart. It feels like maybe I'm supposed to have much smaller ambitions than in EU, like maybe just unite the British Isles over 400 years instead of take over the entire new world.

I'll think I've done really well with my first ruler, then he dies and everything falls apart.

i haven't played CK2 at all, although i really want to. BUT, one of the main criticisms i've read of the game while trolling the paradox forums is that it seems like when your ruler dies, your kingdom falls into disarray and there are riots and all that shit until you establish a new ruler, seemingly no matter what you do. so it's possible that doing just fine and there's nothing much you can do about it?

I think that's right. You're just supposed to reconquer and carry on building. The mechanics of succession and marriage are impenetrable. In EU if you make a hasty royal marriage it's not really a big deal. In ck you're screwed for the next century.

there's a 'new ruler' penalty that starts at about -20 & fades over the years - everyone dislikes or distrusts you, so the handover tends to be really rough & you need to do a bit of politicking to get stable.

It's sort of fun as you think more dynastically - like you know you've got this terrible 70-y-o gluttonous coward on the throne, but there's a daughter with mad stats and a charming Croatian prince for a husband waiting to succeed him… except that your court hate her because they distrust a female ruler & she gets offed in suspicious circumstances very early etc etc it is just hypnotic.

The succession mechanics can be a bit crazy but make sense - so switching from gavelkind (split between kids) to primogeniture seems like a clever way to keep your kingdom together, but then your younger kids hate you and plot against you and the first-born.

Never even heard of CK2 but that sounds like some righteous Henry II shit right there.

The thing that catches me out is not knowing when giving someone a title keeps them under my control. Sometimes I do it and then the land disappears from my realm. Sometimes my ruler dies and the successor keeps control of the whole realm, sometimes everyone becomes independent before they've even had the chance to rebel. It is really fun to play and figure out tho.

played some EU III again trying to get the hang of the holy roman empire dynamics playing as thuringia. love so much of this game, and the feeling that i'm getting by with a v superficial understanding of lots of parts of the game. idk if i will bother to upgrade tho

xp

yes - that's the thing I was only beginning to get towards the end of my big play session - you have to manage the under-titles with some care, & I was(*) never sure of the consequences - I slid into civil war because I'd given a younger son a duchy or earldom or something to cheer him up and get him on side.

But the thing is, that's also great fun, everything going tits up. The Rock Paper Shotgun review that sold me on trying CKII captures that.

(*) I say 'was', but I've gone back in. I don't know what I'm doing here. I've got a dynasty to run.

yeah the collapses are still great once you know they're inevitable. Rock paper shotgun review otm.

Oh man I think that Rock Paper Shotgun write-up has sold me on this. Play of personalities is precisely my shit, and the amount of expansions / ASOIAF total-conversion mod is intriguing. Think I'll get this tonight.

Feel like this game could be as much fun to read about as to play. Yes, I am scouring the internet for enjoyable CKII AARs when I should be working.

uh I have 190 hrs on eu4 if anyone has quesitons lol.

this game can be hard as fuck and will kick you in the balls. ironman makes it even harder.

I also have similar amount of time wasted on ck2.. ck2 gets way more byzantine (lol) when you have to deal with succession rules and crown laws in overlapping demesnes and all that crap but it has alot more role playing elements that makes you feel way more involved in your little fiefdom. eu4 is way less complicated than even eu3 but some of the countries dont have alot of fun flair type things that make them special unless you stick with some of the heavy hitters like ottomans, poland, france, england, etc.

also if youre way into the colonizing in eu4 the new dlc/patch should offer alot more flavor to it. now when you have 5 colonial provinces next to each other they'll form an independent colonian state that basically becomes a vassal with its own flag instead of like hungarian mexico (which I have done before)

Haven't had much time to play but I've got a killer Italian Empire going on in Victoria II. Trust me, guys: Italian Malaysia is going to pay off big time.

Downloaded the demo of CKII a couple of days ago and played through the tutorial, which was insultingly simple overall but at least established some familiarity with the UI.

Thing is, once I started an actual game I din't really have a clue where to go or what to do. I was King of Poland (one of only 4 choices) and he'd already got five vassals and a war going on when I started out, didn't really know where to start.

For those of you that have played, what is usually a good starting point, once you've got your fella married? I found myself just waiting for my wife to pop a sprog and kinda let the world carry on around me.

I still very much want to play the game but I think I'd like to start with Iceland or someone just to gain familiarity with the mechanics of internal politics before I branch out into the wider world.

I was King of Poland (one of only 4 choices)

This sounds wrong... I think you can be anyone if you click on their territory - I know it suggests some interesting people, but you can pick anyone.

The advice I heard most often (and followed) is to try one of the Irish provinces. They're sufficiently out of the way that you won't get invaded for a while, & there are local aims that you can be getting on with - building up your territories, looking to become King of the island. It lets you get used to the mechanics, as you say, with a bit of local warfare & scheming to keep things interesting.

We still talking about the demo here? I haven't bought it yet. This is why I'm undecided, I feel like the options I've got in the demo aren't really offering the best introductory experience for a new player, and I can't make up my mind as to whether to spend £30 for the opportunity to play as Ireland and find out.

Thanks for that advice though. I almost definitely will buy it sooner rather than later, the whole dynastic role-playing thing looks like too much fun to pass up. But maybe I'll wait until it goes up for sale on Steam.

oh sorry, at work, not paying attn properly, missed that about the demo.

As for stuff to do once you're married: I'd try to work up a casus belli by sending your chancellor to fabricate claims to some nearby territory, then go to war for it.

But if you're already at war in the demo, maybe that's not a good idea. Try to drag more people in to the current war? Marriage alliance, & call to arms.

Fuck it set up an antipope and see what happens.

This fucking game! I started as one of the petty kings in Wales. Spent 30 years with him taking out the neighbours until he created the kingdom of Wales. Then he died 5 years later and it all fell apart and his heir is now just a count, and not independent. I had a few goes at it and think I've got it under control after just arresting everyone. So now I'm a despised tyrant.

Maybe expanding too rapidly is the problem? It's not that unrealistic that a kingdom created by one great man would fall apart when he dies. So frustrating though! And I am enjoying it.

Starting as an Irish ruler seems like a good idea. I wouldn't rely on naval defence too much though. My ships always fail to intercept massive enemy fleets.

i think you've got a fair bit of breathing space in Ireland before you're likely to get hit navally- most of the neighbours have other things on their mind (eg England has to deal with Norman invasion).

do the different nations play quite differently then? always felt that my beloved ottomans were not v accurately modelled

nations dont play differently as much as religions do.. I guess it depends on what dlc you have. muslims/byzantines/westerners/russians have their own ways to play and their own challenges.

another good way to start is to pick a duke and try to graduate to a king. if you start out as a king it can get boring quickly. if youre a truly cool dude you start as a one province count and try to claw your way up to the top.

an easy way to keep your kingdom together but your personal demesne small is to use elective succession. gavelkind is default and totally sucks.

I've sunk so much time into CK2 recently. Started as an Irish count and worked my way through the neighbours until I was king. Then I got lucky with some marriages and inherited a big chunk of England. Took over Wales quite easily, then hoovered up enough English counties to usurp the throne. Only Scotland was left, so I pressed my brother's claim and got him installed as king. But obviously he wasn't my vassal so I assassinated him and his only child so that I'd inherit the crown. Finally I could create the empire of Britannia after 200 years of scheming. A week later the ageing emperor decided to rekindle his sex life and died from exertion!

Now I'm left with a shaky grasp on the emperor's title and four kingdoms. Not sure how to play it now - is trying to hold onto everything unrealistic? I was thinking I could focus on keeping England in the dynasty through primogeniture, and not worry too much about the emperor elections.

Once you start to understand the mechanics the game gets really absorbing. I still feel like I only understand a tiny amount of the rules but it's fun working them out. The random events are great as well. My king had some fun hanging out with Robin Hood for a while.

i am fucking with crusader kings 2 again. also the irish scenario oppet described above, although i'm only 40 years in and can confidently predict that i will NOT become an emperor.

can anyone recommend some good tutorials/strategy guides for marriage, succession laws, etc? i have a loose grasp but i still feel blindsided half of the time.

also can anyone recommend one of the DLCs to purchase? i just have the vanilla version of CK2 but i'd consider picking up one of the DLCs if it's beginner-friendly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP7VCmIDc_w

so funny tho i've been playing CK2 again too. i had a decent game as Duke of Silesia going and had most of Poland when the King of Poland rounded up my own in-laws (!) to put down my rebellion and retake Krakow which put the kibosh on that. i'd like to found the empire of russia as a russian for the achievement but i'm never sure the best way to go about it since all the starting dukes are like siblings. i guess that didn't stop me from conquering all of spain as leon but it's not clear to me the best way to start off grabbing land. lots of Rus border gore too - non-continental territory that i didn't even know belonged to me until some vikings started raiding it.

my recommended dlcs btw: legacy of rome (adds retinues and more flavor for byzantine empire), rajas of india (adds indian religions), sons of abraham (adds jews and a lot more other religious content), sword of islam (make muslims playable), the old gods (pagans and zoroastrians and adds 867 start date), the republic (merchant republics)

those are the ones i have. of those i think sons of abraham and sword of islam are best but i've loved playing as pagans recently.

charlemagne gives 769 start and the zunists (if you have old gods), horse lords lets you play as nomads (adds raiding adventurers, silk roads, forts), conclave not sure what that does, the reaper's due is the newest i also haven't played it yet but has better epidemics, hospitals, new disease mechanics, etc. way of life is supposedly kinda terrible and breaks the game since everyone starts taking the seduction focus and you end up getting constantly cuckolded by rando courtiers. sunset invasion i have but it's goofy - let's you play as aztecs and if it's activated at some pt the aztecs invade europe as /historical counter-factual/.

going off track but I really need to go back to my game of Victoria II where I united Italy and then colonised Malaysia (!)

of course the more you think about your game of Victoria II the more you realise you are an absolute cock

I need to play CK more as well

I went back to my Ireland game but I guess bc of the recent patches everything was fucked up so I started a new one. Conquered Ireland in about 25 years and now have my hooks in Scotland. Current dilemma: My heir (under primogenture) is my grandson who doesn't have any debilitating statistics but is fairly blah considering how long I've been trying to get positive traits into my genetic bloodline. My youngest daughter however is a genius! They are obviously related but only through me because her mother and his grandmother were different wives (and then of course he has an additional genetic infusion from outline the bloodline from /his/ mother). I'd love to marry them to each other but I'm worried about my inbred risks. Maybe I should roll the dice because genius is worth it, the chances should be fairly low I think?, and I can always force imbeciles to take vows or straight-up poison them.

Also wondering what will happen if I marry my heir off to my daughter matrilineally. Is there any chance she'll become my heir or will it pass to my second oldest son (obv oldest son died which is why my grandson is currently the heir)?

Oh, also my new Commander has a 32 (!?) in Militant skills because Jesus gives him military advice!!!!!!

thanks for all of the recommendations, mordy!

i think i got really lucky in my game and then shit the bed because i wasn't ready for the additional complexity.

after a 50-year reign as murmad THE CRUEL, i was all set to pass my crown to my oldest son who had just turned 16. i held off on betrothing the heir because i didn't see too many advantageous options. king murmad died from having too much sex, and the heir, Brian, took the throne. but somehow he was instantly married. i don't know how it happened - he was just instantly married to a lowborn who didn't have any listed family, had poor traits, and also followed a different religion. i guess i'll know for next time, but i thought that the game would at least allow me some input on what i wanted for the marriage of the new king.

anyway, i dealt with that (via poisoning the new bride) but i shit the bed about 10 years later. it turns out that after king murmad died, the widow got married somewhere way up the line in the county of York, and when she died, I (Brian) inherited the duchy of York. this took me by surprise. about 20 nanoseconds later, the Queen of England declared war on me. i was not ready at all for this, and still working on uniting ireland in fact, so i just surrendered and ceded York without a fight.

in retrospect, maybe i should have tried to ally with scotland and went to war?

i also switched my laws over from Agnatic-Cognatic Gavelkind to Feudal Elective. since i recently had handed out the majority of the duchys to various people in my court, this immediately resulted in a bunch of factions trying to murder my children.

whoops.

Oh, also my new Commander has a 32 (!?) in Militant skills because Jesus gives him military advice!!!!!!

how do i unlock jesus

two years later and my truce with the king of scotland has expired while he's in the middle of a crusade campaign in beirut with his entire army. alas my military leader is no longer inspired jesus now :(

that's awesome btw about inheriting York. i think i've maybe successfully inherited a distant county through marriage once ever. what was the queen's comparable strength? if you could've held her off with an alliance or a mercenary corp it might've been worth doing. even if you could hold her to a white peace you'd have gotten to keep york and a like 20 year truce out of it.

what's sad is that i had spent a considerable amount of time trying to pull the marriage inheritance thing off, by looking for men with titles willing to marry matrilineally (couldn't find any, although i invested a lot of time into it!) and various other shenanigans, none of which panned out. meanwhile the york thing just kind of happened on its own. i still don't fully understand, or even partly understand, the ways that titles and claims are passed on from generation to generation.

the queen's comparable strength was much higher than mine, probably not so much because of the strength of her alliances but because i was relatively weak over in ireland. i was spending most of my time trying to unite a bunch of vassals who were trying to murder my children, and wasn't thinking about broader military concerns.

conquered Scotland (waited like a courageous and virtuous ruler for the king of scotland to go crusading in jerusalem and then hijacked the bulk of his kingdom while he was gone) and most of Wales - now eyeing England. I have an alliance w/ the King of France (and my genius daughter is married to his heir and is his heir's heir's mother) so that should be useful. the problem is that even w/ vassals (which i try to resist using bc my own levies are robust) i only have like 15k soldiers and the king of england has 20+. i've built up a bit of a bank (1000g) but that doesn't feel like enough to overwhelm him w/ mercenaries and i'm concerned about relying on France to supply the missing firepower because NPC AI is not fantastic especially when you need to build up for a big army - doom stacks facing each other - they won't always coordinate correctly and stack w/ your army and then you end up losing.

i did get a genius on the throne - the son of my second son was a genius so i educated him up and then switched over to electoral monarchy so i could bypass my eldest's claim to the throne. he had married some dumbshit (w/ a cute portrait tho) in the meanwhile so i had to assassinate her (pope was extorting me for a divorce for like 400g so that was not happening) and then married my genius cousin to hopefully make some genius heirs to inherit. unfortunately w/ electoral monarchy i had my son (from the first marriage but that won't be a problem since i can just elect the right heir when he's hatched) set up to inherit the kingdom of ireland but one of my conniving uncles got enough support to become the inheritor for scotland and i sure as hell was not going to let scotland go after all the work i spent stealing it. so i assassinated my uncle too and now my dumb brat kid from my first marriage is set to inherit both kingdoms. luckily i'm young and my genius cousin is young so we should have time making genius babies and hopefully avoiding inbred ones.

achievement unlocked: United the Kingdoms

now to never play as anyone in the UK ever again

any ideas for what achievement to go after next? i've always wanted to unite Russia

http://www.ckiiwiki.com/After_the_End

that sounds p cool.

i united india in eu4, currently reenacting the classic 18th c land grab tug of war in the middle east between the ottomans, india and russia.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?attachments/secret_cult_screen_01-jpg.240720

WHAT

No Active Mission, eh?

tom do u play this game? it's really the greatest.

No I need to give this marriage a fighting chance

this goddamn game is FIVE. YEARS. OLD.

and still rules.

has anyone played Hearts of Iron IV? i'm about to start it up for the first time, and was just wondering if there is an obvious go-to resource/guide i should look for