How is it going?

I just realized other than on World of Warcraft, I've spent more money on EU4 than any other video game.

Used a different strat this time. I've become Holy Roman Emperor in 1627 and got the same Dynasty as France. Right now I'm cleaning up the HRE it's a mess, it's gonna be interesting if I can manage to get the vassal swarm.

Sigh could've easily done it, but in the end I was tilted and bored and just let it run with minimum effort. I had two 1 Adminpower Rulers for the last 100 years of the game, I tried everything to kill them off but I just couldn't. This ruined the possibility of coring all of Europe and I just got tilted and stopped caring about the achievement as I knew I could do it by just vassalizing everything.

The endgame is just a grind where you have to micromanagment everything and it's just boring and not worth it just to get the achievement.

Yeah, I actually read your reddit post. I think I'll try it after new patch since I think institutions might make it quite a bit easier. I think I'll stick being Hindu, although having only 1 free missionary from modifiers makes it pretty hard to convert the world.

It's mostly an exhausting and at times boring grind honestly, it took me several iterations to get it done but I was lacking any experience as I pretty much went from learning the basics of the game to trying the achievement. I had like 200 hours played and now got ~500 or something. Don't think I'm gonna get the DLC, feels like I figured the game out and now only a nativerun or some self imposed restrictions would be there as a new challenge.

If you want a fun challenge, do the Frozen Assets while remaining Merchant Republic and under 20 provinces.

this game is just too easy once you figure out all the tricks

i think i'm glad i don't know any tricks then.


intensely looking forward to the new expansion

Btw. I think I still got 1-2 savefiles from the earlygame because that was the point of the game where I accidentally ****ed up my game several times(Not moving cap to Africa before the war just to find out I can't ask for provinces after the war was very fun).

If you are interested I can upload them and you can start from there, I have all DLCs but 1-2 I think(Conquest of Paradise I'm missing for sure).

Unfortunately new patch most likely won't work with old saves since it revamps the tech system so heavily.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ6KTI9Hhno

All the new changes. Not much poker happening next week I guess.

new dlc out, looks insane, first day 1 dlc purchase in a while for me

-15% in GMG

Good fun so far, trying to get a Kaffa game going and having a real tough time. Finally got out and conquered Ethiopia and then Mamluks and crew decided to jump on me, no idea hpw I will be able to get good enough alliances to stop that from happening.

My Brandenburg-game is going ok. Pity you have to convert to Protestant to form Prussia, I was the Emperor :/

Coloniazation started in England, still haven't spread anywhere else except Portugal in 1529. +50% tech will be brutal.

AI has gotten smarter, they now break off the combat if you think they'll lose instead of fighting to 0 morale.

I think the colonialism institution means I should take Japan, Korea, or Ming and make a beeline to to form an Alaskan/Californian colony then just wreck my Asian neighbors and then try to make a super rich trade node somewhere upstream in Malacca or Ceylon to get Global Trade, and actually forcing the Europeans behind in tech since they won't get it as long as my Ming/Korea has control of the richest nodes.

Yes, I am going to try this weekend.

Yeah, just no-CB some siberian horde and $$$.

So I was cruising in a Venice game where I am working on a red sea based trade empire. I looked north and saw Denmark somehow occupying almost half of Russia, all the way up to Moskova. 5 years later, Denmark declared on Muscovy with almost no manpower in reserve.

At this point I thought the AI was either a genius or a lucky idiot because it let Poland-Lithuania do all the work. I had never seen such behavior before.

Turned out AI was acting like an idiot by design. Danish king had "bold fighter" personality that makes him underestimate opponent strength.

I really like the new expansion, a lot. The way the personality traits and institutions will interact with the game will significantly randomize how the world will develop, I think.

EDIT: the idiot Danish king, without manpower, just went to war with France, which just integrated Castille via PU, to support Scottish independence. It's winning this one with Ottomans supplying the manpower and Denmark just blockading France. I think I am having more fun watching this idiot Danish king stumble into a giant empire than playing Venice.

Hm...

WIth the way technology works now, does this mean I can keep the steppe horde government type, and the free reinforcement bonus, to infinite warfare with high level mercs once I get past the early stages of embracing relevant institutions?

So many things to try.

The more I think about it, the bigger this patch looks. It's almost a different game now.

Seems like he is a genius.

He declared on Lithuania for a claim. Lost the war.

Gets Bohemia in a PU 5 years later.

Now he's warring Austria, and winning without help, because Denmark blobbed so hard and Austria is dealing with peasant revolts.

This is the most insane AI Denmark I've ever seen.

Screenshots!

http://imgur.com/a/RiyEP 1598. The Bohemian PU was 1949 or something and bold fighter guy died soon after white peacing Austria. (I strongly suspect it's because he couldn't core anything)

His successor fought off a coalition war.

Then nothing. Now it's getting its assed kicked by the Protestant league.

http://imgur.com/a/KIfSm

Better shots.

Denmark (well, actually Poland-Lithuania was, but Denmark took the spoils) was an absolute wrecking ball.

The war for Scottish independence was successful but the war went on for so long Scotland was exhausted and ended up turning into Gaeldom except for one province.

The coalition war, war with France, and war with Austria weakened everyone in the neighborhood so much Netherlands pretty much blobbed immediately after formation.

Muscovy was reduced to fighting Nogai off. Muscovy actually lost a couple provinces before recovering. Now it looks like it's going to just expand east into Horde territory.

Meanwhile, my plans of turning into a kingdom (done) and getting elected as HRE while dominating red sea trade are pretty much doomed.

PS: Scotland moved its capital to Rio de la plata.

This game is sooooo weird. I don't know if this is what I should expect going forward with the new expansion but I have to say just watching this whole alternate history develop has been very entertaining although my own plans are basically doomed.