Europa Universalis IV

[Lucas]

Demo now available on Steam; product releases on August 13th.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/236850

Here's part of the press release straight from the Paradox Forums:

Europa Universalis IV demo content
- The Demo of the empire building game Europa Universalis IV allows you to play as one of the four nations below through 28 years of history.
- All single player capabilities as well as an extensive tutorial and hint-system are included in this demo.
- There are no multiplayer capabilities, and please note that the ability to save & load have been disabled.
- English only and Windows only.

Trade/Venice
Venice was a prominent Italian Free City and played an important role in Mediterranean trade. Their fleet was important for gaining dominance over the Mediterranean Sea and securing the spice trade from India. Venice is a good choice for playing the trading game and seizing trade opportunities in the Mediterranean.

Warfare/The Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire was a major power up to its fall in 1922. The Ottomans dominated land from the Balkans to the Arabian Peninsula. In Europa Universalis IV they are a strong choice for playing a warmonger game because of their cheaper coring costs and powerful early troops.

Colonization/Portugal
Portugal is a natural choice for exploring the colonization part of the game. The nation was important in the exploration of the coast of Africa and the New World. Portugal lies isolated in the western part of the Iberian Peninsula and lacks natural enemies. As long as they keep good relations with Castile they should be able to peacefully explore and colonize.

Diplomacy/Austria
Austria was a major power through the renaissance and up to World War I. The Habsburg family ruled Austria and controlled the Holy Roman Empire for a large part of its existence. Diplomacy is important for keeping the title of Holy Roman Emperor, as it is an elective title. Keeping good relations with the electors will greatly improve your chances of keeping the crown. Austria is a strong choice for a diplomatic game because of their inclination towards holding the title of Emperor.

[Bungee]

If only I still had the time to play such a title. Loved the EU and HoI series...

[Teleku]

It's out.  I left it downloading on steam for the night, and can't try till I'm off work.  Somebody tell me how it is.   

[Ceryse]

I'm enjoying it. I've already dropped a number of hours into it and it has a number of changes from EU 3 that are really nice. Feels more streamlined and simple (though it still has that similar EU learning curve). A number of the big changes, like coalitions and revamped coring and peace negotiation systems are better than the previous games.

The new trade system takes a bit of getting used to, though, and has aspects to it that I'm not fond of in the least -- but its a small price to pay for a lot of the other improvements. Game makes it a bit harder to blob up as a human player (harder for the AI, too, but its an EU AI so it struggling to cope with things like rebels is not surprising), at least so far with the over-extension mechanic and how a lot of systems can slow or make others more expensive if you let things get out of control.

On the whole I'd say I like the core system changes. I vastly prefer it to CK2 and a good bit more than EU 3, but I'm not as big of a fan of the CK/Sengoku character based Paradox games as I am the EU series (and I still put around 160 hours into CK2). Number of the systems require a big change in how you approach the game and it is a bit easier to get RNG-fucked (if you get a streak of shitty rulers and advisers good luck getting your monarch points high enough to do anything). Trade locked into flowing one way annoys me, given how I don't tend to play the Western European nations that benefit from it. Trade should be able to flow primarily to my glorious empire if its strong enough! How dare everything go to Antwerp and Venice without my say-so. Oh well.. I'll conquer them eventually.

It'll be interesting to see where they go with the expansions in the future.. and there are some small features from the later EU 3 expansions I miss already.

[WayAbvPar]

I am very angry with Lum for pimping this on Facebook. Now I can't stop thinking about it and really want to buy it. But comes right on the cusp of my annual Fantasy Football/NHL/FIFA spending spree (Might even add Madden this year), so I am about to be poor 

[Tannhauser]

Played the demo as Portugal.  Not bad.  I like the Ideas and the 'quest' system but the trade system sucks.  Little choice in buildings and units.  Map is gorgeous and I did manage to colonize the New World but the gameplay doesn't feel especially 'sticky'.  Maybe because I played a rump nation and not one in the mix. 

I'm 50/50 on this one. 

[calapine]

I am very angry with Lum for pimping this on Facebook. Now I can't stop thinking about it and really want to buy it. But comes right on the cusp of my annual Fantasy Football/NHL/FIFA spending spree (Might even add Madden this year), so I am about to be poor  

Just remind yourself that:

• Paradox games usually need months of patching to be balanced and really shine.
• Even then the most "perfect" game experience will often depend on using mods - which aren't out at release.
• They release tons of minor DLCs that add to the game, but are really kind of high priced. Even right now there is: EU IV €39,99 + Call-to-Arms Pack €3,99 + Extreme Edition Upgrade Pack €7,99 + Pre-Order-Pack €6,99 + CK2-to-EU IV savegame converter €9,99 = €68,95.
  To see how bad it will get: EU III currently has 11 different DLCs totaling €40,89.

Which leads to the conclusion that the optimal decision path in this situation is:

• Forget about the game until it's winter time and perfect gaming weather.
• Buy at the next Steam Paradox or Weekend sale.  
• Get the Extreme-Ulitmate version that includes all DLC at a discounted price.  
• Take a quick look at paradox forums and see if there are any mods or total-conversions that are billed as "needed" or which seem interesting to you, install those and never worry about that again.  
• Enjoy the game!

Edit: I always wanted to start an advice column!  

[naum]

Really want to buy this but I need to upgrade the gaming machine first.

Plus, Football Manager 2014 is coming out this month too.

[Ingmar]

How old is your gaming machine if it can't run a Paradox game? 

[naum]

How old is your gaming machine if it can't run a Paradox game? 

4 years old, but 1Gb VRAM (recommended) requirement is 512Gb more than I have.

[calapine]

How old is your gaming machine if it can't run a Paradox game? 

4 years old, but 1Gb VRAM (recommended) requirement is 512Gb more than I have.

Upgrade the card. AMD Radeon HD 9000 series will be launched in October, which should lead to some price movement for "older" AMD and Nvidia cards.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Bought this about a week ago, really like it.

AI is much better overall over EU3 and even somewhat over CK2. Acts a lot more logically in terms of ambitions and also does a much better job of managing its armies so you can't so easily cheese it. It knows how to carpet siege with minimal forces now while leaving it's main armies together to fight yours and overall seems more aware of their existence and operates accordingly (it won't go bee-line for token siege corps or bait regiments if it sees your real army skulking around).

Works fine on my 4 year old mid-range PC. I'll post specs later when I get home.

[Speedy Cerviche]

ok AI could still use some work after being sick this weekend and playing a lot. The stuff I said mostly holds up but one thing the AI needs to be more aware of is mountain and hill terrain. It should completely avoid attacking armies in this terrain unless there's only token defenders and no chance of reinforcing. It's way too easy to draw them into fights there where the combat width is 6-12 and they have massive attack penalties. As Venice I beat Hungary + Austria + Bohemia + France + Russia minors fighting them in like that in the Austrian alps, a bunch of massive battles that took years won at 1:5 odds.

Felt dirty abusing such cheese but I justify it because that alliance cascading made no sense when I wardecced.

[Teleku]

Be careful about wardeccing a country that is in a personal union with another.  When you look at that country it wont show them as having alliances, but it will draw in anybody allied with the other country they are in Union with.  Found that out the hard way when I declared war on a vastly reduced Poland and managed to get most of the Holy Roman empire to wardec me.   

I'm enjoying this quite a lot.  They fixed a lot of the game play issues that have hounded the series and added more depth, while still keeping it straight forward to play.

[Speedy Cerviche]

probably something like that since they had PU with Austria and royal marriage with France (now have a Valois king after the Habsburg queen died!)

[Mithas]

This is on sale right now for 50% off. The general consensus is that this is a decent game right?

[Korachia]

Yep definitely decent. It's well worth the few coins it costs.

[WayAbvPar]

How far down did EU III eventually drop in price? I don't even remotely have time to play this, but am interested and wondering if I should pick it up while it is on sale. I can just see it being $10 on Black Friday though.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Yeah good game.

I don't think they'll drop it 75% until next year...

[WayAbvPar]

It was $22.49 for the deluxe version or whatever on Steam yesterday so I pulled the trigger (bought PayDay II as well...Merry Christmas to me!). Had to be in the office today so I haven't had a chance to do anything other than download it. Any tips for a soft landing when I do start to play?

[Ceryse]

It was $22.49 for the deluxe version or whatever on Steam yesterday so I pulled the trigger (bought PayDay II as well...Merry Christmas to me!). Had to be in the office today so I haven't had a chance to do anything other than download it. Any tips for a soft landing when I do start to play?

Easier nations to play as tend to be nations like Portugal (get an alliance and Royal Marriage with Castille and you generally won't have to ever worry about an invasion of your European provinces even mid to late game, and it buys you time to learn the game in the early-game as there are no real threats to you -- as well as letting you dabble with conquest against the Morrocans, trade system, and colonization), or the Ottomans (large-ish country that can safely expand in a few areas for awhile with little threat.. but can be a pain later on when their units start to get out-classed when the European nations start hitting Military Tech 15 and beyond). Some say Muscovy is also a good option as a beginner, but it can run into serious trouble if some of its neighbours actually look its way instead of in-fighting, or Lithuania doesn't get revolts and the player hasn't gotten some additional land to knock out at least one of its neighbours as a threat.

If you've never really played an EU game, I'd strongly recommend the tutorials as they do a decent job of laying the basics out so you aren't completely lost when you start a game. Other than that, I'd recommend to pausing a lot and take your time to consider how your decisions can impact other areas (grabbing three advisers early on can be great in buffing up aspects of your nation and getting more monarch points, but can easily send you into bankruptcy as they can be quite expensive, especially the tier two and three advisers, as an example).

And if you run into issues.. just ask for help. Fairly sure there's a number of us here who are fairly well versed in the game. Learning curve can be a bit steep, but its probably the most accessible EU game in the franchise.

[WayAbvPar]

Thanks! I played III a bit, but have almost no recollection about how it works. I am fairly certain I didn't really know how it worked when I WAS playing it, tbh  Glad it hear the tutorials are useful- I will start there.

[pants]

If you have played III, paradox have put out a EU IV for EU III players guide, and a more general EU IV strategy guide.  I got them hotlinked in a paradox email, but if you search around their website or forums, you should be able to find them.

[Severian]

Europa Universalis IV is $9.99 for the next 15 hours at the Humble Store.

Expired.

[Malakili]

Picked it up during this sale yesterday since it game with a steam key.  I've been thinking about picking this up for a while anyway and $10 seemed like a reasonable price point.  Haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

[Yoru]

I picked this up last weekend and promptly played three long streaks of 10+ hours each. This game is dangerous.

It's basically EU3 with the shitty rough edges polished off. I haven't really wrapped my mind around force composition or how to properly manipulate alliances, but I generally have had decent luck allying with large nations that border large nations that border me - enemy-of-my-enemy sort of thing, I guess.

So far I have a hopeless Scotland game where Scotland owns the Spice Islands, Australia, New Zealand and the entire New World north of Panama (except Hudson Bay because fuck Quebec), but is hopelessly hamstrung by low population/forcelimits and most of the income from the Scottish colonies gets stripped away because of the overseas naval requirements.

I also have a promising Japan save where Japan owns 75% of Manchuria and all of Korea, is Westernized, has huge forcelimits and highly-developed territory, and owns a massive standing army. It'll probably gobble up all of China before game's end. The only problem is the god-damned Christians causing religious unrest. For some stupid reason, knowing about Christianity makes it harder to convert provinces, even if those provinces are non-Christian, and I haven't yet been able to convert to Christianity, nor do I know if that will even remove the -5% conversion rate modifier.

Fun game, but I definitely turned the music off after an hour or so and put on my own collection of classical. There's only like 3 songs in the game, as far as I can tell, and they get old fast.

[Muffled]

Force composition for those who care:

The larger combat width (CW) of the two nations involved is always used, certain terrain (mountains, hills, forests) reduces this width by a percentage.  Assume you're fighting at mil tech 2, CW 20 in open terrain.  You have no cannons at this level, so you can largely ignore what goes in the rear rank of troops; they will only be used to reinforce as the front row dies.  Infantry will take the front center out to the 3 spots on each edge.  If you have at least 14 infantry and 6 cavalry, that's what will be in your front rank, cav split on the sides.  That is the minimum amount of cav that you want for an army, at least 6 for the flanks.  Depending on your tech group you will want as much cavalry as you can support while still fielding a full width army, up to the ratio limit for that group.  For westerners that's >50% cav in the force.  Bear in mind that this means 50% of the live soldiers, not 50% of the regiments, and infantry tend to die substantially more quickly.

TLDR: early game, at least 6 cav per unit, and if you're rich as much as you can get.

Once you get cannons, the second rank comes into play.  Cannons support whichever unit is in the rank in front of them, but are terrible fighters if they're forced to fill the front rank themselves.  You now want the same ratio of infantry and cavalry in the front rank AND enough cannons to fill, as nearly as possible, the entire second rank.  If you're fighting in open ground at Mil tech 7, the first time you get cannons as a westerner, you'll have CW 24 and thus ideally would want 24 cannons.  Actually being able to support that is unlikely, but having more cannons is only a liability if you run out of infantry/cavalry to fill the gaps in the front row.

TLDR: once you get cannons, as many as you can afford but less than your combined infantry and cav.

Later in the game infantry catch up to and by cost outperform cavalry in a straight fight, eventually you'll want to drop cavalry down to a minimum to occupy your flanks in most cases.

The actual ideal ratio of each unit will differ as you get later military tech, more ideas, nation specific bonuses, depending on where you're fighting, or depending on your tech group.  If you're in central asia and fighting almost exclusively on open terrain, investing more into cavalry for their greater power in a wide line makes sense.  If you're fighting in the Alps and constantly in mountains (-66% CW), focusing on cannons and infantry makes sense as neither side will outflank the other very often.  Finally, keep in mind that the infantry, and in some cases the cavalry, are going to die off quickly.  You'll need quite a few extra infantry regiments available as reinforcements so that the cannons don't end up overrun.

The way I usually end up building armies as a westerner is: infantry equal to combat width +30% (so I have some replacements), 6-10 cav, and as many cannons as I can afford.  I haven't played much with the other tech groups, so I can't speak specifically to their units.

[Yoru]

That explains it. I've been fielding armies of 10 inf + 5 cav + 1 cannon, and combining these into a mega-army if I need to take down a doomstack (I prefer to let attrition bite into these first). It works fine for mopping up Asian nations and natives but gets wrecked when faced against anything less than 1.5:1 odds.

[Teleku]

Heh, I was creating my armies using that exact same ratio Yoru, and getting similar results.  Woops!

Thanks for the outline Muffled, that will help a lot.

[Yoru]

It'd be really nice if you could see your battle order on a given army without actually committing them into a battle. Just like, "show me my battle order on the current province's terrain" so you can kinda visually judge whether it's shit or not.

[Speedy Cerviche]

The terrain for battle is random. Mouse over a province on terrain map to see what % chance any likely terrain is.

[Draegan]

Necro.

I bought this game on Steam Sale over the weekend, and all I managed to do was log on for 1 minute and not knowing what to do. So I ended up watching Quill18's Burgundy to Norway line of 20+ videos of a 10+ hour game. I don't have time for 4x games anymore. Looks fun though.

[Teleku]

Its a lot of fun, and they've improved it even more with all the expansions.  So much good shit know if you have all the DLC's.  After many false starts, managed to Ironman my way to victory with the Hansa in a long tense play through.

[Speedy Cerviche]

Waiting for this 1.9 patch to drop in a few weeks I guess before I play a new campaign. Thinking Venice for Venetian Sea achievement. Setup some of these new marches on the side. The latest 'Art of War' DLC looks spiffy but it seems to have created some AI bugs which I don't feel like dealing with.

[Teleku]

What sort of bugs?  Played through a whole campaign as the Hansa with art of war dlc.  Didn't notice any bugs, and it was a ton of (challenging) fun.