[MTS]

Morgoth, on 21 January 2014 - 10:00 AM, said:

Now, to find some way to become Protestant. Romagna has converted, but that's the only one of my provinces to do so.

In the religion tab, in the top left there should be an arrow pointing to the right - click that and it allows you to convert (costs around 3-4 stab I think and nets you some cash). You won't get the mass conversions (generally) unless you are Protestant yourself or near where it started, which explains why only Romagna has converted. How long has it been since the Reformation started?

@Tapper, generally the only thing you don't want to be behind on is military tech, it's not that big a deal if you let the other two slide. That said, if I'm Western I usually tech up as normal and use the period I'm ahead of time in tech to buy ideas (I rarely buy tech ahead of time). Now that tech cost goes up every level (and is lowered by ideas) that might not be the most optimal strategy but it's working well so far.

[Gothos]

I've generally embraced the counter-reformation so far in my games, except for my one Commonwealth non-ironman game where I got bored and being 100% catholic I decided to convert to Reformed. Funny.

[MTS]

Gothos, on 21 January 2014 - 01:18 PM, said:

I've generally embraced the counter-reformation so far in my games, except for my one Commonwealth non-ironman game where I got bored and being 100% catholic I decided to convert to Reformed. Funny.

It's generally the preferred play if you are able to dominate the Curia (and you mostly should be able to), but otherwise Protestant is far and away better if you can't. Most nations who either start small or expand in Italy won't ever be able to get enough influence to keep it, thus my advice to Morgy. Never gone Reformed personally, it always seemed like Protestant without the perks.

Funnily enough my New England colonial nation (who was Catholic when I converted and never changed) is the Curia Controller right now, while I'm the big swinging dick of the Protestant nations. Makes for an interesting dynamic, finding myself at war with the Ottomans when they declare war on a Catholic minor.

This post has been edited by MTS: 21 January 2014 - 01:33 PM

[Morgoth]

I think EU4 lacks some way to build a truly enlightened society. Or, to be more specific, a good way to deal with the religious disunity modifier. Without playing as Hungary.

As of now, with a few Sunni holdings, some Protestant, some Reformation and lots of catholics, losing stability becomes absurdly expensive.

At any rate, I guess winning the crusade against Algeria and vassalizing Tunisia and Tripoli made something snap within Austria. They turned from +200 relations to hostile within a year, breaking our alliances and trading France for Tuscany as their third rival. They still, strangely, trust me utterly. So, I decided to ally with Hungary, which was too happy to oblige. Thankfully, my alliance with Spain and France is as strong as it ever was, they're also Allied to each other, leaving us three as a strong Block that all border each other. As such I should be able to keep Austria in check, and to be honest, their relentless Northern expansion meant I had to break the alliance myself at some point.

Alas, I couldn't chose offense as my fourth idea because of the whole religious unity thing. It didn't mesh well with the idea of reneissance Tuscany, but the choice fell on Religion. It will provide me with what I need to convert those frustrating Sunni provinces, and I'll be able to become Protestant much faster when I chose to go that route. I've never chosen the religious idea before, so it'll be interesting either way.

[Gothos]

Well, granted, I don't think relentless expansion this meshes with reneissance Tuscany either, so there you have it.
If you want religious unity, Polish Traditions give +25% Religious Unity, and Polish Ambitions give +3 Tolerance of heretics.

[Morgoth]

Well, I must save the North Africans from economic decline and cultural irrelevance.

It is the right thing to do.

[Gothos]

Ahahahaha nice reasoning you should go exploration or expansion next to bring the flame of enlightenment to Africa! (I guess the americas and phillippines are off the market by now)

[MTS]

Morgoth, on 22 January 2014 - 07:58 AM, said:

I think EU4 lacks some way to build a truly enlightened society. Or, to be more specific, a good way to deal with the religious disunity modifier. Without playing as Hungary.

America can do it, as well as the Muslim sultanates of India to a lesser degree but not many go those routes. You're right though, as it stands I can't think of any upside to a tolerant, religiously diverse nation within the game mechanics. It's either be 100% unified or suffer the consequences. Same goes with culture really.

This post has been edited by MTS: 22 January 2014 - 11:32 AM

[Gothos]

Well, for culture there's at least accepted cultures, which can let you create multicultural empires. Woe if your insider cultures are at like 15% of our base tax... Enjoy the diplo point dump.

[Gothos]

from a post down at Paradox Plaza:

Quote

Fleet Basing can currently be used to short-circuit the intended Range requirements.

For example, it was easy in 1.3.2 and before to quickly colonise the Americas: As soon as you discovered Creek, you could boost your relations with them to about +90 - easily done in under a year - then get Fleet Basing, and use that FB to immediately start colonising around them. You could then place down a colony that bordered them, Fabricate Claim, DOW them, Full Annex, and then bathe in the tears of their broken dreams and exploited naivety.

I haven't actually tried that. I'm of a mind to rush to start a new colonial game using this.

Mind you, don't you think the caribbean is absurdly rich in base tax compared to the rest of unsettled land? pretty much every tiny island is BT 5-6...

[MTS]

Gothos, on 23 January 2014 - 10:20 AM, said:

from a post down at Paradox Plaza:

Quote

Fleet Basing can currently be used to short-circuit the intended Range requirements.

For example, it was easy in 1.3.2 and before to quickly colonise the Americas: As soon as you discovered Creek, you could boost your relations with them to about +90 - easily done in under a year - then get Fleet Basing, and use that FB to immediately start colonising around them. You could then place down a colony that bordered them, Fabricate Claim, DOW them, Full Annex, and then bathe in the tears of their broken dreams and exploited naivety.

I haven't actually tried that. I'm of a mind to rush to start a new colonial game using this.

I wouldn't, it makes the colonial game horrendously boring as you're so far ahead by the time the others get there curbstomping the other nations is trivial. I suppose you could do it as Japan though.

Quote

Mind you, don't you think the caribbean is absurdly rich in base tax compared to the rest of unsettled land? pretty much every tiny island is BT 5-6...

Not only that, it's got all those rich trade goods like sugar, cotton and tobacco. Mind you, it was pretty lucrative for Europe in real life as well, and the American eastern seaboard probably rivals it in basetax as well.

By the way, from the hints at Paradox Plaza it looks like the next DLC will focus on the East Indies and trade. Hints were an elephant, a sliver of a portrait of Venetian Doge Andrea Gritti and the logo of the East India Company.

This post has been edited by MTS: 23 January 2014 - 01:20 PM

[Gothos]

yeah I saw the EIC logo too. that's pretty good, since they made stuff for american colonialism, they could do something for the east indies / phillippines now.

mind you, does alliance give your allies coring range like fleet access? I've had Castille bunny hop straight to Trinidad from Canaries (I had the tip of Brazil at the time) and I don't know how I failed to block them off...

[MTS]

Gothos, on 23 January 2014 - 01:29 PM, said:

yeah I saw the EIC logo too. that's pretty good, since they made stuff for american colonialism, they could do something for the east indies / phillippines now.

mind you, does alliance give your allies coring range like fleet access? I've had Castille bunny hop straight to Trinidad from Canaries (I had the tip of Brazil at the time) and I don't know how I failed to block them off...

It shouldn't that I'm aware of, on the naval side all it allows is to make use of their supply range. What was their dip tech like? They may have had the range to go from there, since I think it's like 350-400 in range. That's also sort of what they did in real life too.

[Gothos]

They were like 2-3 diplo tech ahead of me due to me taking Exploration and Expansion ideas to rush to 3 colonists. Still, eastern Caribbean is about as far as I had range from my cores in Brazil, only just barely reaching Trinidad etc. That's with +50% colonial range from Exploration as well. I think they did take exploration, though, maybe it's just their range here. It's annoying because I was spamming the tip of Brazil to catch all the easiest entrypoints to SA and possibly seal Castille off long enough that I can colonize further before their diplo tech goes up enough to hop over me.
Ah well.

Another thing: I did spawn Portuguese Brazil, but after 10 years or so all they do is sit on their asses. They don't colonize at all. So I'm wondering if I should focus on getting 4 colonies in each colonial zone ASAP or get my baby additional provinces. Thoughts?

[MTS]

Gothos, on 23 January 2014 - 02:49 PM, said:

They were like 2-3 diplo tech ahead of me due to me taking Exploration and Expansion ideas to rush to 3 colonists. Still, eastern Caribbean is about as far as I had range from my cores in Brazil, only just barely reaching Trinidad etc. That's with +50% colonial range from Exploration as well. I think they did take exploration, though, maybe it's just their range here. It's annoying because I was spamming the tip of Brazil to catch all the easiest entrypoints to SA and possibly seal Castille off long enough that I can colonize further before their diplo tech goes up enough to hop over me.
Ah well.

The diplo tech would probably be why they were able to go straight to the Caribbean. Odd that they did though, usually they go North Africa -> Brazil -> Caribbean -> Mexico in the 1.4 games I've played so far.

Quote

Another thing: I did spawn Portuguese Brazil, but after 10 years or so all they do is sit on their asses. They don't colonize at all. So I'm wondering if I should focus on getting 4 colonies in each colonial zone ASAP or get my baby additional provinces. Thoughts?

Do they have Exploration ideas? I'm pretty sure they need Exploration ideas in order to colonise just like (most) anybody else, and it's not a given that they take those first (I think my first colony took it as their third?). It's not optimal, but what you can do is colonise yourself and sell them the unfinished colonies when they're at 990 or so. The eventually finish them and because the colonial nation colonised it they get the province even if the colony is in a different region. Thus you could potentially have one colonial nation controlling all of the Americas.

Regarding tariffs, I've discovered to not increase them too much, because there aren't many ways to actually decrease it (seriously, who thought of that...?). That means if you set it too high you'll actually almost permanently cripple the nation and they won't be able to afford to colonise (made that mistake with my West Indies colonial nation), because the AI is terrible at managing its economy and force limits, and often goes into horrendous debt to pay for armies well over its force limit that it can't afford (West Indies force limit? 54. Standing army? 75. Debt? 5000 ducats).

[Morgoth]

It's surprisignly easy to reamin on +3 stability when playing a republic. My administrative tuscan republic has enjoyed several decades of unheard of stability.

You know, I really do not understand why they decided to remove population as a metric in EU4. I want to see my cities grow! It really annoyed me when I played as Najd that the Capital of the second greatest Power of the world, controling the world's most profitable trade route still was a backwater when it came to taxable income. In EU3 Najd would have been a sprawling metropolis by 1821.

[Gothos]

Stability is... very luck based. Army reform event, comet, disgruntled nobles event (personal favourite, choose between -2 stab or -1 stab and -billion ducats), monarch deaths... not easy, just random.

As for tariffs, I don't raise them, I know the effects on them. Just feeling a bit... cheated out of the Gold I was mining in the tip of Brazil.
Think I'll start a new game as Portugal again but with 1444 start, not 1492. Maybe I can be faster with this.

Population - yeah, it's annoying. In a different vibe, I was annoyed that the capital of my converted Wendish Empire, Stettin, was the most developed single county in the whole game when converting, and in EU4 it has just the standard 6 base tax. Danzig next door having 12, Vienna 14... Meh.

Oh and new DLC. Wealth of Nations for EU4, Rajahs of India for CK2. Also, Hearts of Iron 4.

This post has been edited by Gothos: 24 January 2014 - 07:40 AM

[Morgoth]

Better trade and incom systems are exactly what I want for EU4. Now, if only you could influence the direction and connections of trade routes.

[Gothos]

So I bought Conquest of Paradise.

Started a game as Iroquois in a random new world. Isolated start in a northern big island with just one other tribe which I overrun straight away. From there utilize native ideas and bonuses to form a federation of mostly every native tribe except for like three. Smooth sailing forward, finally reached ADM4, took exploration, cleared some fog of war to discover portugal, great britain and caraibas in my back yard. Colony, reform, westernize, and now I'm in a position to completely dominate the new world.
Native ideas and government reform are fucking overpowered.

[Tapper]

HoI4.... yeesssssssssss.

I started an Iron Man as Austria. Holy crap manpower requirements.
It is one thing to play cop-of-the-empire and beat tiny states into submission at a loss of about 2k of soldiers for each campaign to take their conquests and set them free again to reassure my re-election, but it is something else when their 10k-an-army Elector allies (who are often my allies, too) come calling in waves, with Burgundy ever threatening on the horizon.
500 man a month replenishment is suddenly not wildly extravagant.