Europa Universalis IV
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Releasing cores seems to work alright. The couple times I've done it, the country I gave back to went and lost them almost immediately. I've just changed my tactics to only take high tax areas. Egypt especially has expanded into a lot of poor areas, and they can keep them!
So, my question today is how do you guys deal with the AI stack that doesn't want to get caught? Every time I fight Egypt, Lithuania sends help, so I'm already fighting a 2-front war. However the help from Lithuania just leads my armies on a merry chase. My stack would defeat it easily, but my stack isn't big enough to split into 2 to help hem them in. Do I really got to do a 2-fer-1 for every stack that doesn't decide to fight? Will make the sieging slow going.
Also, what size stacks and composition do people tend to field? I'm trying 10-5-5(infantry-cavalry-artillery), not sure I like it. Wondering if I should go 5-5-10.
So, my question today is how do you guys deal with the AI stack that doesn't want to get caught? Every time I fight Egypt, Lithuania sends help, so I'm already fighting a 2-front war. However the help from Lithuania just leads my armies on a merry chase. My stack would defeat it easily, but my stack isn't big enough to split into 2 to help hem them in. Do I really got to do a 2-fer-1 for every stack that doesn't decide to fight? Will make the sieging slow going.
Also, what size stacks and composition do people tend to field? I'm trying 10-5-5(infantry-cavalry-artillery), not sure I like it. Wondering if I should go 5-5-10.
DiddleySquat
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 458
- 17
Split your army in 2 stacks when you're trying to catch an evading opponent's army. Pin them with one stack and the other can join the fight. Just keep them close enough so they can join fast enough.
Stackwise, I go withninf, 4 cav andn-2 arty.
DiddleySquat
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 458
- 17
So apparently the cpu does not defend its colonies at all...france is at war with castille in my game...and france took over 25 colonies in new world with...a regiment...of 2 infantries...
Playing as Uzbekistan at the moment, fun game with never ending wars (to the point that when you stop warring you have rebellions because you are seen as weak). Army is few inf for sieging, tons of cav and few art. Inf are useless for a very long time as your armies (but art) can't upgrade but you get bonus on cav. That is, until you can change your gov.
Still a very fun game but moscovy share too many borders with me and have a real army, also you can't really have friendly neighbors because of tribal frictions.
Hoping my alliance with Ottomans will deter them while I rape others countries, but I must eventually invade Crimea to get near Genoa to westernise, and they are allied with Ottomans too..
Still, a westernised nomad tribe, with their huge bonus on integration, must be scary fast for expension.
Still a very fun game but moscovy share too many borders with me and have a real army, also you can't really have friendly neighbors because of tribal frictions.
Hoping my alliance with Ottomans will deter them while I rape others countries, but I must eventually invade Crimea to get near Genoa to westernise, and they are allied with Ottomans too..
Still, a westernised nomad tribe, with their huge bonus on integration, must be scary fast for expension.
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Can a country reach a limit of how many loans it can take out? I declared war on Lithuania, they have 46k available manpower but aren't recruiting any units. Lucky for them, Poland came to bail their asses out with a 55k stack and a fucking FIVE pip fire leader. So, yeah, gonna savescum their asses instead of Lithuania.
Does the game change at all after reaching the middle game? I've kind of settled into a routine around 1563:
Find most powerful neighbor, fabricate claim.
Besiege 3-4 of their richest provinces while playing musical chairs with their army.
Besiege as many more provinces as your war exhaustion will allow. Hopefully you'll go long enough to empty their manpower and maybe drive their war exhaustion high enough to cause revolts.
Offer piece, keeping the rich provinces for yourself and using extra war score to give cores back to their neighbors.
Core provinces you got, convert heathens and culture if necessary.
Repeat.
Yes, that's 7 steps, but it's getting kind of boring. The trade game is boring as Ottoman because trade from the east is lackluster. So yay for steering shit profits. Tried building a fleet to protect Constantinople node, didn't even pay for themselves. Same trade directions make most overseas colonies not worth the time.
I'm kind of reminded of the mid to late game of R:TW. So many damn provinces. EU4 is bigger and even slower! Is it just the Ottomans or are most countries boring once you establish yourself?
Does the game change at all after reaching the middle game? I've kind of settled into a routine around 1563:
Find most powerful neighbor, fabricate claim.
Besiege 3-4 of their richest provinces while playing musical chairs with their army.
Besiege as many more provinces as your war exhaustion will allow. Hopefully you'll go long enough to empty their manpower and maybe drive their war exhaustion high enough to cause revolts.
Offer piece, keeping the rich provinces for yourself and using extra war score to give cores back to their neighbors.
Core provinces you got, convert heathens and culture if necessary.
Repeat.
Yes, that's 7 steps, but it's getting kind of boring. The trade game is boring as Ottoman because trade from the east is lackluster. So yay for steering shit profits. Tried building a fleet to protect Constantinople node, didn't even pay for themselves. Same trade directions make most overseas colonies not worth the time.
I'm kind of reminded of the mid to late game of R:TW. So many damn provinces. EU4 is bigger and even slower! Is it just the Ottomans or are most countries boring once you establish yourself?
DiddleySquat
Bronze Knight of the Realm
- 458
- 17
Well in EU you set your own goals, so if you feel like you won, you won. Start a new game with a whole different nation, or change your goals to something challenging again, like 'conquer England' or 'Colonize South America' with the Ottomans.
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- 7,767
Time for Deathwing's idiotic question(s) of the day! Someone explain trade to me because I think I'm missing out on a huge source of income.
Transfer trade power, should I use that and when?
Trade steering, how do I determine which node to send my merchant to trade steer? Obviously you want to steer trade towards your capital node.
Collect trade, at any point is this better than trade steering to your capital?
How do you determine if building a light ship will at least pay for itself in trade power? How do you determine the best place to send light ships to protect trade?
Bonus topic! Colonization is another big mystery to me. Every time I send boats to find the new land, fuckers just get lost and drown. And if I create a colony, should I eventually core it? I heard you lose the tariff income when doing that.
EU4 tutorial is much improved over the CK2 tutorial, but they still leave a lot of shit unexplained.
Transfer trade power, should I use that and when?
Trade steering, how do I determine which node to send my merchant to trade steer? Obviously you want to steer trade towards your capital node.
Collect trade, at any point is this better than trade steering to your capital?
How do you determine if building a light ship will at least pay for itself in trade power? How do you determine the best place to send light ships to protect trade?
Bonus topic! Colonization is another big mystery to me. Every time I send boats to find the new land, fuckers just get lost and drown. And if I create a colony, should I eventually core it? I heard you lose the tariff income when doing that.
EU4 tutorial is much improved over the CK2 tutorial, but they still leave a lot of shit unexplained.
Briefly, the way trade works is a bit complicated but makes sense once you get the hang of it. Basicaly you have trade nodes in which there's a set amount of Trade Value. This is the ducats that will come out of this particular node localy. This can be improved by certain buildings in provinces that belong to this trade node. Then there is Trade Power, this is to calculate the share of trade value that you possess. Say you have 100 power and another country has 100 power, you both will have 50% not considering bonuses from ideas, etc...
Your capital always collects so sending a merchant there will only boost your trade power by 2...which is basicaly a waste and you should never have a merchant there. In trade nodes where you possess at least one province, you can send a merchant to collect trade. However this will incur a penalty since he is not collecting at your capital's trade node. In every other trade nodes (including the ones where you ahve porovinces aside from your capital) you can choose to transfer trade power. What this will do is take the trade value that is currently in that trade node and send it downstream in the path of your choosing. The amount of trade value that goes in a particular direction (trade steering) is influenced by your trade power in that node and passives (trade steering).
Now in a trade node where a few countries have provinces but not capitals or merchants, what will happen is power will be transfered by defautl equaly amongst all paths coming out of the node. If you are the only one to send a merchant to transfer power, you can transfer 100% of the value of the node in one direction since you are the only one doing it. This comes in handy when a cpu steers somewhere you need and no one challenges him...you then do not need to send your own merchant as he will add nothing.
Everytime a merchant transfers trade power, he adds 20% value to the trade value being sent to the next node. If another merchant transfers from the next node, the bonus will then be + 10% towarsd the next node, etc...
So all in all, these are all the factors to consider when trading. Right now I am bringing in 95 ducats from trading where my main collection is in chesapeake bay and 2nd is my capital in germany (luchet?). I use one merchant to collect in chesapeake bay and every other merchant is used to either stter from the carribeans to chesapeake to counteract castille and portugal trying to steer directly towards their capitals. To make sure enough value goes towards me, I built a fleet of 150 trade power to give me the highest trade power in the node. Every other merchant is steering from other regions to maximise the places I collect at, including for example north sea, nippon, etc...
One thing to consider, as you steer and gain power in nodes, the computer will also re evaluate his merchant and fleet choices to maximize his own profit from trade so sometimes you will have to send less trade power to a node to make sure you get a bigger share since it remains profitable for the computer.
I think that about covers it from my experience. One thing I dislike are the somewhat limited trade nodes and routes at the moment and would like the system to be improved a little bit with more choices.
Your capital always collects so sending a merchant there will only boost your trade power by 2...which is basicaly a waste and you should never have a merchant there. In trade nodes where you possess at least one province, you can send a merchant to collect trade. However this will incur a penalty since he is not collecting at your capital's trade node. In every other trade nodes (including the ones where you ahve porovinces aside from your capital) you can choose to transfer trade power. What this will do is take the trade value that is currently in that trade node and send it downstream in the path of your choosing. The amount of trade value that goes in a particular direction (trade steering) is influenced by your trade power in that node and passives (trade steering).
Now in a trade node where a few countries have provinces but not capitals or merchants, what will happen is power will be transfered by defautl equaly amongst all paths coming out of the node. If you are the only one to send a merchant to transfer power, you can transfer 100% of the value of the node in one direction since you are the only one doing it. This comes in handy when a cpu steers somewhere you need and no one challenges him...you then do not need to send your own merchant as he will add nothing.
Everytime a merchant transfers trade power, he adds 20% value to the trade value being sent to the next node. If another merchant transfers from the next node, the bonus will then be + 10% towarsd the next node, etc...
So all in all, these are all the factors to consider when trading. Right now I am bringing in 95 ducats from trading where my main collection is in chesapeake bay and 2nd is my capital in germany (luchet?). I use one merchant to collect in chesapeake bay and every other merchant is used to either stter from the carribeans to chesapeake to counteract castille and portugal trying to steer directly towards their capitals. To make sure enough value goes towards me, I built a fleet of 150 trade power to give me the highest trade power in the node. Every other merchant is steering from other regions to maximise the places I collect at, including for example north sea, nippon, etc...
One thing to consider, as you steer and gain power in nodes, the computer will also re evaluate his merchant and fleet choices to maximize his own profit from trade so sometimes you will have to send less trade power to a node to make sure you get a bigger share since it remains profitable for the computer.
I think that about covers it from my experience. One thing I dislike are the somewhat limited trade nodes and routes at the moment and would like the system to be improved a little bit with more choices.
collecting anywhere else from your capital incurs a pretty large penalty to your trade power in that node (i think its 70% or something around that). Steering puts 100% of your trade power in that node towards the direction of your choosing and puts a 20% increase on the trade value being sent.
Sometimes collecting will be more profitable, sometimes steering towards your capital (or towards another node you collect in) will be more profitable, it's really a case by case scenario.
Chris
Potato del Grande
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- -10,733
Thanks
Right so is this correct...
Collect from the trade node your capital is in, you don't need a merchant there. Steer the other nodes towards your capital node and put merchants in them, you get a % of the gold from the node proportional to the trade power there just like if you'd collected, but there is also a 20% bonus?
Are there any penalties for steering? Do you need merchants in a non capital nodes in which you control most of the trade anyway because you own all/most of the regions in it?
Right so is this correct...
Collect from the trade node your capital is in, you don't need a merchant there. Steer the other nodes towards your capital node and put merchants in them, you get a % of the gold from the node proportional to the trade power there just like if you'd collected, but there is also a 20% bonus?
Are there any penalties for steering? Do you need merchants in a non capital nodes in which you control most of the trade anyway because you own all/most of the regions in it?
Yes where your capital is, you auto collect from trade without penalty in that region...I've found adding a merchant to boost this does very little and is usualy wasted.
No penalties from steering, you need merchants to choose where to steer in any node that isnt your capital. If you own a province in a node, all it will do if no merchant are present is transfer power downstream equaly amongst all output trade routes.
No penalties from steering, you need merchants to choose where to steer in any node that isnt your capital. If you own a province in a node, all it will do if no merchant are present is transfer power downstream equaly amongst all output trade routes.
I think I'm getting bored of this
It seems to me CK2 had a lot more depth with managing duchies and kingdoms, leaders, councils, etc. After 2 playtrhoughs I'm already trying to find mods to add complexity for more fun.