Europa Universalis IV Review - It Ain't Broke
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
I played the demo, and I've put a lot of time into crusader kings 2.
I didn't like the lack of characters and dynasty... it was one of the best parts of CK2 for me.
On the other hand, it does have a lot of stuff you can do, and you can actually look at the laws you've passed, unlike when you pass the turnip act, or pants act, or the hole in the wall act.
I didn't like the lack of characters and dynasty... it was one of the best parts of CK2 for me.
On the other hand, it does have a lot of stuff you can do, and you can actually look at the laws you've passed, unlike when you pass the turnip act, or pants act, or the hole in the wall act.
Well, the lack of dynastic emphasis makes sense from a historical perspective, after all, the Early Modern era was really a time of transformation from medieval feudalism, to bureaucratic nation states.Ralen-Sharr said:
The paradox games are rather faithful representations of their respective eras, instead of just treating every timeframe as a texture repack of the same generic board game. The Middle Ages were a time when diplomacy meant the personal relationship between some dudes, and a "country" was whatever list of territories a sovereign dude happened to possess.
The Early Modern era was not.
The trade system can?t be worse than the one is Europa universalis 3.
I pre ordered it knowing that it would be good but still worrying about it being buggy on release, nice to know that isn?t the case.
Going by the dev diary?s the game seems to pretty much fix everything that annoyed me about Europa universalis 3, unless those fixes create all new issues only rome 2 still has a chance to become my game of the year.
I pre ordered it knowing that it would be good but still worrying about it being buggy on release, nice to know that isn?t the case.
Going by the dev diary?s the game seems to pretty much fix everything that annoyed me about Europa universalis 3, unless those fixes create all new issues only rome 2 still has a chance to become my game of the year.
Well i have decided to play, for an hour or two just to get the feeling for the game. I believe it is now 5 hours later, and i had to eat 3 hours ago so.... i say, huge success.
I love the gameplay. The only issue i have is with the lag at the end of each month (no, its not the autosave, that one is even longer
)
But yeah, i have a bunch of new stuff to learn.
For example, dont make too many royal marriages - they eat up all your diplo points.
I have yet to discover the intricacies of trade streaming, i thought i understood them.... but it didnt work out the way i predicted.
Thing i love the most? Less randomness. YOU control core gain, YOU control religious conversions.
And the game gives you a lot more feedback than before. Relations for example, give not only their values, but also decay. When making alliances/marriages you get to know why they accept/refuse. Also love the "rival, friendly, outraged etc" relation status feedback, now i know what THEIR plans are.
Im still not so keen on westernization though... the way it works now is - dont make any advances in technology if you want to be any good, because then you get to westernize sooner. Instead of "i want to be advanced, so i will concentrate on technology" you have to game the system so you can even the scales sooner. I see the reasoning behind the rule, but i think it should be more flexible....
I love the gameplay. The only issue i have is with the lag at the end of each month (no, its not the autosave, that one is even longer
)But yeah, i have a bunch of new stuff to learn.
For example, dont make too many royal marriages - they eat up all your diplo points.
I have yet to discover the intricacies of trade streaming, i thought i understood them.... but it didnt work out the way i predicted.
Thing i love the most? Less randomness. YOU control core gain, YOU control religious conversions.
And the game gives you a lot more feedback than before. Relations for example, give not only their values, but also decay. When making alliances/marriages you get to know why they accept/refuse. Also love the "rival, friendly, outraged etc" relation status feedback, now i know what THEIR plans are.
Im still not so keen on westernization though... the way it works now is - dont make any advances in technology if you want to be any good, because then you get to westernize sooner. Instead of "i want to be advanced, so i will concentrate on technology" you have to game the system so you can even the scales sooner. I see the reasoning behind the rule, but i think it should be more flexible....
Europa Universalis II is one of my top 5 games of all time. It's sheer scope and accessibility are second to none in terms of really grand strategy. EU III just didn't feel as welcoming or as user friendly. A similar comparison can be made vis a vis Hearts of Iron II and III.
That being said, first impressions of EU IV look good. Though 1444 does seem a bit too late to start. Those halcyon days of the 100 Years War really should be enjoyed in all their butt kicking glory.
That being said, first impressions of EU IV look good. Though 1444 does seem a bit too late to start. Those halcyon days of the 100 Years War really should be enjoyed in all their butt kicking glory.
Wait, what?!Halyah said:Not the byzantine empire, literally -THE- roman empire(the culture is roman). It has it's own unique national ideas as well which is quite fun. Should be interesting when I get to the point where I can clash with the chinese empire in the east. Check this screenshot taken almost two decades after the start to see what I mean:wombat_of_war said:the byzantine empire following the norse gods? sounds like the varangian guard made quite the impactHalyah said:We have a converter for CK2 to EU4 at least. I used to export my game where the roman empire took back most of it's old territory and started following the norse gods while catholicism is protected by a barely surviving HRE with orthodox being pretty much extinct. This with sunset invasion enabled so now the Inca and Aztec empires are humongous in the americas, with good tech and tons of troops. With the coalition system, you can get some interesting "enemy of my enemy" scenarios as well. I used it to side with the Inca's when they attacked the Aztecs. *chuckles*wombat_of_war said:i had a quick play with it last night and i enjoyed it but ill properly get into it once i have my CK2 game ready. as a side note. even though i preordered EUIV it did raise an eyebrow when i noticed the converter was a $10 dlc. wasnt long ago they would give that stuff away.
normally i wouldnt even bother to mention it being a grand strategy game but its one of the best looking ones ive seen too. functional and pretty
now we just need a converter for ck2 > eu4 > victoria 2 > hearts of iron 3
If only we had a converter for EU4 to V2 now.... xD
Though varangians are also playable in this conversion(I set them free so I could vassalize them at some point), they are sadly orthodox because for some reason you can't convert them back to the norse religion. Also persia is zoroastrian.
It's quite literally back to being the Roman Empire, SPQR and all.
How does following the Norse Gods affect the gameplay? Is it just like any other religion with maybe an extra percent here or there on some stats?
Loving it so far. The interface is immaculate. The tech & ideas system forces you to make some difficult and irreversible choices about the path of your country. The battle system is much improved, even though I don't think it's changed much from EU IV. It makes wars a fair bit more exciting.
There are a few minor niggles, mostly in coring and diplo-annexing being altogether too easy. I've seen AI Denmark completely annex the Kalmar Union states and grab Bavaria. Also, the Steamworks multiplayer is unstable. EUIV hasn't really broken the Metaserver curse, forcing groups to use Hamachi. Hopefully just teething problems though.
This is definitely an improvement over EUIII. It's cut out a lot of the unnecessary bloat and focuses on a real depth of play.
. I hear the CK2-EU4 converter translates building level into base tax, not sure about the buildings themselves.
There are a few minor niggles, mostly in coring and diplo-annexing being altogether too easy. I've seen AI Denmark completely annex the Kalmar Union states and grab Bavaria. Also, the Steamworks multiplayer is unstable. EUIV hasn't really broken the Metaserver curse, forcing groups to use Hamachi. Hopefully just teething problems though.
This is definitely an improvement over EUIII. It's cut out a lot of the unnecessary bloat and focuses on a real depth of play.
Oh yes. Personally I'd like to see it have an impact on province stats - population, industry (turn each manufactory into one factory perhaps). Make it so that investing in EUIV has an impact on V2Halyah said:
. I hear the CK2-EU4 converter translates building level into base tax, not sure about the buildings themselves.
Well that's a shame. I loaded my HRE game in EU3 to V2, it had some weird results for my colonies. I like to max out everything. Population, industry (past 5000), and cash (600 mil as England).Halyah said:And no they don't translate into base tax. Appearantly they wanted it to, but it caused balance issues appearantly so they dropped it. Which I can understand as CK2 ai is -horrendous- at upgrading their buildings. I've tested it countless times by giving them a bazillion gold to see if they use it. They don't. At all. So yeah...
Anyway if paradox doesn't make a converter for EUIV to V2 then the community eventually will I'd guess. They did for EUIII to V2 and I've
used that one. Tended to have some rather.... hilarious results to put it mildly.
And yes, I wish they'd just invest, damnit, progress. EUIV AI seem a bit better in that regard.
How does the converter work in terms of cores? Are all provinces you start the game with automatically cored, or only if you have a "de jure" claim on the province?Halyah said:
Also cultures. Are all cultures inside your empire/kingdom/etc. accepted, or only your own?
That is so awesome. Keep us updated on how it goes! I really want to see you take on China/India and invade the americas.Halyah said:Not the byzantine empire, literally -THE- roman empire(the culture is roman). It has it's own unique national ideas as well which is quite fun. Should be interesting when I get to the point where I can clash with the chinese empire in the east. Check this screenshot taken almost two decades after the start to see what I mean:wombat_of_war said:
Though varangians are also playable in this conversion(I set them free so I could vassalize them at some point), they are sadly orthodox because for some reason you can't convert them back to the norse religion. Also persia is zoroastrian.
So, I had a good run of this in the weekend and I've even taken my hand to modding a few things (like making conversion actually possible, done by giving TEMPLES a base increase to local conversion chance - temples are destroyed when someone else captures a province so the whole deal is balanced)... and I'm loving it.
Even playing the non-European powers is great fun, managed to create the second Siamese Empire and even caused China to fracture back into 3 kingdoms after an alliance with Korea, the local Hordes and some of the western Indian tribes.
I like the new "infamy" mechanics rather than the previous flat one of EUIII... now only people who are close to the borders of the provinces you take in war are "alarmed" by your expansion. Those on the other side of you don't give a damn... until it's too late! Brunei doesn't care right now that I just took everything directly South-West of and including modern day Hong Kong from China. But now I've got incredibly high military and naval tradition so my generals are second to none and I have my eyes on their Muslim lands and their island I can easily blockade. Being an island only works defensively if your navy is stronger than the person invading you.
Of course it's probably all going to be pissed away when Europe comes knocking - or maybe I'll sell a province to them, form an alliance and Westernize ASAP.
Even playing the non-European powers is great fun, managed to create the second Siamese Empire and even caused China to fracture back into 3 kingdoms after an alliance with Korea, the local Hordes and some of the western Indian tribes.
I like the new "infamy" mechanics rather than the previous flat one of EUIII... now only people who are close to the borders of the provinces you take in war are "alarmed" by your expansion. Those on the other side of you don't give a damn... until it's too late! Brunei doesn't care right now that I just took everything directly South-West of and including modern day Hong Kong from China. But now I've got incredibly high military and naval tradition so my generals are second to none and I have my eyes on their Muslim lands and their island I can easily blockade. Being an island only works defensively if your navy is stronger than the person invading you.
Of course it's probably all going to be pissed away when Europe comes knocking - or maybe I'll sell a province to them, form an alliance and Westernize ASAP.
The single largest difference, in my opinion, is the replacement of all the bajillions of sliders in EU III with the points system of EUIV. It makes expansion, tech, and national ideas much more accessible. The old infamy system is dead and gone, folded into the diplomacy system as an "aggressive expansion penalty" - which feels much less arbitrary and strange.Korsgaard said:
I'm playing as poland right now, as politically as I can. My only war has been an allied war with Austria against Ottomans and Crimea, but I've managed to annex Teutonic Order, Mazovia, Brandenburg, and Pommerania anyways. Hungary is trying to stir up trouble. I'm in personal union with Lithuania, trying to form the Commonwealth, but getting to administrative tech 10 is a huge pain.