MIL tech is super important until lvl 9 (+12 is huge spike), after that it is fine to be behind level or two you have quality ideas.

It is a bug, will be fixed in the hotfix that should come out within days.

Learn to disinherit aggressively. I usually don't accept any heir with stats less than 10. As a non-Christian there is really no downside to it as you can't even fall under PU.

Yeah I got rid of the bum and his son is running the show now. Also went ahead and got Defensive ideas even though I'm not done filling out Quantity, I figured now was the time to load up on MIL since I finally have a non-terrible leader MIL-wise. Got the 2nd Defensive idea giving me +15% morale stacked on the +10% morale advisor so my troops are winning fights they should win now, at least.

Anyone want to goof off with a low-pressure MP game this evening (say about 7 PM server time)? I have an itch to just sort of do that for a while. We can decide who hosts (I have only three DLCs so maybe not best)

Remembering EU3 made me remember EU3 mp games of years past, and they were glorious, especially when we were posting AARs and diplomatically negotiating between sessions. I posted a few writeups with screenshots and stats (anyone remember that awesome russian stat site?) on reddit if anyone is further interested, but check out this sexy world map. Note to those who didn't play EU3, it had a much earlier start date (1399), and several of the EU4 North German minors in the lubeck trade league (lubeck, bremen, hamburg?) were instead united as Hansa, which was basically the Venice of the north.

This game was one of the most fun iirc (this was 6+ years ago) featuring me as Hansa, Daer as Ottomans, YourDoom as France:
Looks like we played 5 sessions from 1399 - 1545. Map from last session:
Full writeup with tons of screenshots: https://www.reddit.com/r/paradoxplaz...h_screenshots/
Stats/world maps from that site (holy **** its still up???): http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpstat...&yearsave=1545

tl;dr game ended after the session with the first global war/ww1 when we missed a session or 2 due to holidays iirc and then decided to start a new game. Final war was Hansa + France attacking Milan over their unopposed conquest of China which threatened the balance of power. Austria was allied with Milan, and Spain had a secret alliance negotiated w/ Milan during their partition of India. France and Austria were both crushed and occupied, but Spain had shipped all its forces from India back to Europe, leading to the Ottomans intervening, invading Spanish India and the Austrian Balkans/Hungary. Hansa and France eventually were forced to sue for peace, with France losing much of its southern coast and Hansa having to release several of its South German vassals. Ottomans fought on alone for years before an eventual white peace.

EU4 used to have Hansa too, it was the nation I spent the first 200 hours of this game with. I think it was split into Lubeck and friends with Mare Nostrum as that introduced trade leagues. Lubeck is still one of the most fun nations to play, OPM that makes more money than many majors even early on.

I was actually thinking of that game a couple weeks ago.

I remember it basically ended at the point where all the players should start getting into wars because Milan wouldn't let anything happen, which they had done most of the game.

I think you and Milan were the only veterans and everyone else was basically playing their first MP game after only starting to play Eu3 a coupe months prior.

I remember Austria failboating basically right from the start and being propped up by Milan because they were IRL friends. And the Castile player was particularly bad and constantly making threats they couldn't back up until basically everyone wanted to kick his ass but Milan wouldn't let anything happen to him.

As Ottomans my strat was to basically ignore Naval the entire game so I could keep up or ahead in Land Tech. Castile kept bullying Portugal so eventually I allied Portugal and he wardec'd Castile. Portugal then ferried (or protected my transports, don't remember if Eu3 allowed transport on allied ships) my army to Iberia where we crushed Castile. Castile then made the laughably terrible deal of giving up the New World, after already failing to get any provinces in North Africa. After that Milan basically wouldn't let anything happen to Castile, who went back on the deal and starting colonizing in the New World again.

I think that is what caused the second Portugal/Castile war but this time Milan intervened and wouldn't let Portuguese ships into the eastern Mediterranean or my ships to sail west. They teamed up on Portugal and forced him to give all his Iberian provinces to Castile so he could form Spain.

Austria had been failboating for a solid 150 years at this point (including being carpet sieged by rebels several times) and it was decided enough was enough. Ottomans and Hansa went to war against Austria, I'm not sure if we were allied or just decided to wage simultaneous wars. Austria was completely destroyed and carpet sieged by both countries but Milan wouldn't let the war end and eventually the Hansa/Austria war ended and it was Ottomans vs. Austria/Milan.

Milan then immediately landed an army in Constantinople and sieged it down and messaging me saying, "I have your capital, lets discuss terms." Keep in mind I have Austria still sieged at this point, every other province unsieged (~120), have suffered no military defeats, and have three 32k armies 1 province away from his 24k army in my Capital. I thought the message was hilarious so I remember taking a screenshot of my three armies surrounding his. I basically responded wtf are you talking about, the war was over Austria, which had been occupied for like 10 years. But Milan wouldn't allow any peace where Austria had to cede anything. While we were discussing this we had called a ceasefire and I remember Austria during this ceasefire either reconquering their own provinces or starting to conquer some of my vassals.

At this point we were at a standstill so I kicked Milan out of my territory and took back Constantinople. Milan/Austria preceded to unsiege the Austrian territory and Milan blockaded my Mediterranean provinces which had zero effect on me since basically none of my income was from trade, my armies were large enough to deal with rebels, and I had a land-bridge around the Black Sea so it didn't even disrupt my army movements. It was a stalemate and I basically went back to focusing on India and a while later got a message asking for a whitepeace and I just said whatever and accepted it.

I think that was maybe the last session since it became clear Milan wasn't going to let anything happen, they did similar cockblocking with France/Hansa and anyone who attacked Castile or Austria. Over the course of the game Portugal, England, and Russia basically gave up trying to accomplish anything in Europe and just colonized.

Heh I was just reading about Hansa (Hanseatic League) the other day when researching some other HRE province I was thinking of trying

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseatic_League

Bentguru was on Milan so that all sounds about right. I think I was still the strongest in terms of income/economy/whatever, but Milan/Spain were set to partition all of asia and the game would have just turned into endless anti-Milan coalitions. Also didn't help that per that writeup from 5+ years ago, Russia didn't participate in a single PVP war, and England barely was engaged in pvp either. I think we subsequently in future games we tried to avoid permanent alliances, since it always would speed up the consolidation of all remaining players into 2 blocs and turn the game into endless global wars with the same combatants.

O man going back through that thread, more maps:


1536, all country map instead of players only. Almost all of the minors around Austria were Austrian vassals (I was Austria). Also plz note Austrian Somalia, GOAT colony. Ottomans had been AI for the previous 2 sessions and we were discussing their partition before game eventually died out. England player also was AI for 1+ sessions.

edit: found screenshot of my lands:



1529, I was Morocco. I think this was the last eu3 game we played.

France remembers all too well, especially the vile sneak attack after an AI session!

Not sure how it is in Eu4 but I remember in Eu3 the AI could just absolutely **** you if you had to drop for a bit or missed a session.

Ugh. Novgorod opening is so hard. I've restarted 4 or 5 times now. You never can ally anyone because there are no other strong Orthodox nations (Scotland is basically your only even mid-sized ally since they rival your rivals). Muscowy will attack in first few years. The war is winnable although hard (I'm often able to keep war goal + siege something down so I can peace out for small gains) but then Denmark hits you too in the next years which is too much. I just wanted to see how republican dictatorship works now in Dharma :/

Arumba has a decent start strategy for that where you do it as a trade conflict or something and can get ticking war score easily, white peace out without too much vrutality, and big time to get better allies

When I got the achievement to make that trade node most valuable, I restarted until I could ally Poland by rivaling Teutonic Order then I basically played it like it's Bradenburg game and let the future common wealth wreck Muscovy for me. Then I supported Swedish independence and went from there.

It took a few restarts but if you get a solid ally (Scotland doesn't qualify, mostly because AI sucks at shipping troops), win the first war vs. Muscovy and grab a couple of the vassals, that's good enough.

You have to constantly fight Muscovy because they just eat up the hordes during truce. If you just sit still they'll get too big and will want their old provinces back.

still getting 0 gold offers for trade provinces since the hotfix

Going to start an 'all welcome all fun' mp if anyone wants to join/hotjoin. Mbe just join someone elses game, idk.

killed off yet another 0 MIL heir, a month later the queen died, now I have a 63 year old king with no queen and no heirs, should be interesting

Start forming royal marriages...

Mughal green Timurid area does not look like Kool-Aid Man. Kinda disappointing.

The Mughal Empire ca. 1588 stretches from Cairo to Bengal. Central and Southern India is Vijay (and everyone that Vijay is guaranteeing, dammit) -- not that I couldn't win that, but you know.

Finally got an opening to obliterate Uzbek as Ming no longer guaranteed them (again, not that I couldn't win that, but it totally wasn't worth it). It's the first time in quite a while that I've been willing to DOW someone with my armies halfway across the continent, just because I didn't want them to reinstate the guarantee.

Gotta say I'm not feeling this change where big powers can buy trade company provinces. It gives Euros even more reach when they already have the most reach of any regional powers in the game.

I mean



It's enough already dealing with the regional powers in spice islands + the Euro colonizers like Castile, but on top of that we've got Ottomans, Brandenburg, GB, Papal State, Brittany, Commonwealth, Austria, and France buying nearby (developed!) real estate from which they can fab claims and backdoor you because they have massive funds.

I guess it adds another element of realism to the game but it unequivocally makes it even more difficult to play with smaller, already-difficult nations, while giving an unneeded boost to the big boys.

Honestly if you're still worrying about getting backdoors by the time AI is buying trade company provinces you're probably behind and not really on pace to fight the inevitable blob... whoever that blob is.

So my Mughals game is going OK I guess (currently need to figure out expansion avenues, which is likely going to involve fighting someone Ming is guaranteeing, so that's fun)... and decided to take a gander over at Europe. I knew Spain was going well, having gotten a really early wedding and also the Burgundian inheritance (they lost most of it to Netherlands eventually, but still have a few provinces near France).

Also a fairly monster Savoy and a The Palatinate large enough to have its full name be legible.

That, however, was not the unicorn.

Pic of Europe? I've got a pretty sizable Sardinia-Piedmont in my malwa run. Also 1st rank GP Ottomans have lost 2 coalition wars but are still like 400 dev ahead of everyone else

what map mod is that?

Also, is there a way to tell my stupid colonies to not wage war on colonies of my vassals?