People often call Europa Universalis games challenging, very hard and sometimes even completely impossible.
That is not the kind of impression these games made on me. Sure, I did face a number of challenging situations in my runs, but for the most part the game was relatively easy to play.
Thing is this while this game is indeed at times unbeatable if you simply take direct headlong approach. However, if you think outside of the box and use more roundabout way, the game actually rewards you heavily for doing so.
And in the end, you will feel super smart outwitting them all and emerging on top.
Early Experience - Swiss, Croat, Sweden, Ansbach In Nomine
I began my very first run with playing as Switzerland, that was In Nomine expansion for EU III. I like Switzerland as a country, more on the reasons here.
After a while I fabricated claim on Wurttemberg and invaded them, however they and their allies outnumbered me, won and took one of my two provinces. With one province I was smaller than my neighbors and prospect of further conquest attempts looked grim.
While I was busy with Wurttemberg, Croatia was released, and I decided to try them instead. I did it accidently actually, I was just clicking on various countries to check them out and then loaded the save without clicking back on Switzerland, game loaded me as Croatia.
This time I did not invaded anyone; I was trying to figure out how the whole thing works. However, something 4 years in the game Hungary declared war on me, conquered the whole thing and annexed Croatia completely. Nowadays I know that it was because they have cores on the whole country, but back in the days it puzzled me.
This time I decided to try something even bigger and more remote, so that I can learn the game from the safe distance. I picked Sweden, Sweden is also a country I like. Not sure if it was the same save file I started as Swiss or entirely new one.
That was my first full run.
Norway was clearly weaker than me so conquering them was not too hard. Denmark was somewhat more challenging; I am not sure if I could conquer it all, but I took enough to form Scandinavia eventually.
I was short on money, so I used treasury slider to supplement my income, that eventually made my armies outdated and weak, but they were enough to beat Norway and Denmark.
I think I tried to fight small prices of HRE but got defeated. So, I decided to expand the other way, into Russia.
I think in first war I was actually able to defeat Russia. However, a second war they won. I did not want to give them land, so I looked at peace screen and tried to figure out how to do that. Eventually I figured I can simply give them money.
Treasury slider can produce plenty of cash so why not use it as a cheap way out of unfortunate war. Lands are something I fought hard over and do not want to give them back.
I fought many wars with Russia after that. Because treasury slider my tech was low, and my armies were weak. However, I figured out an interesting way to win regardless. When Russia fights a war with Ottomans, all their soldiers are in the south, so I can easily invade from the north and take all of their land there and take them in a peace deal.
If they peace out with Otto first and turn north, I can simply use money from treasury slider to pay them off. If they do not then I win and take their land.
By the end of the game, I managed to expand relatively far into Russia, as I mentioned I formed Scandinavia.
Second Game - Heir to the Throne Hansa
On my second game as Ansbach I somehow figured out alliances. Alliances pulled me in wars of my allies. I was able to occupy and take in peace deals various lands from my opponents while they were too busy fighting each other.
Other people complain about so called cascading alliances. I went the opposite way. Eventually I even developed cascading alliance doctrine of sorts where I will simply ally everyone available and then cascade into every war they start. Why solving the problem when you can simply be a problem. If it was the wrong thing to do, then France and Sweden would not have become the biggest winners of the 30 years war. Those who cascade, win.
Besides infamy is less if it is a defensive war.
At the time I still was running treasury slider on near full, so my armies were much more outdated than that of my opponents.
However, that did not prevent me from taking provinces. Eventually I conquered half of modern-day Germany.
Various apologists of Prussia style high stat army have nothing on me. As Lelouch says, 'tactics cannot beat strategy'. Why fight enemy armies when you can simply occupy their land and take them in peace when their armies are busy fighting someone else, or better yet fully perished in some distant war over something like a religion. A big brain moves.
I think I even managed to take some land from Austria while they were busy fighting Ottomans.
Then, however came Ottomans themselves. They had full tech and could crush my armies no matter how numerous I can make them. No one sizeable enough were fighting them elsewhere so I could not count on them being distracted.
Disparity between army strength was so huge that I finally noticed that something must be off. When I was fighting Russia as Scandinavia, difference was not that huge, as Russia is rather backward itself. Here however Ottos crushed my units as they were nothing.
I eventually quit and went to EU III forums for explanation to this mysterious phenomenon.
Third Game - Divine Wind Berry
EU III forums explained the treasury slider and tech importance. My Zimbabwe style economics with trillions of ducats due to treasury slider on max, were the reason for weakness of my armies.
I pick up some info about the game's various mechanics.
Heir to the Throne was released and this time I played as The Hansa. This time I conquered a big chunk of Europe and eventually even passed all HRE reforms and reformed into HRE.
With competent armies and modern tech, I was unstoppable.
I also kept utilizing strategies I developed in my previous run. I still cascaded in other people's wars because avoiding fighting their armies was as smart now as it was before. I was an eye of the storm who waited until they will finish killing each other and then descend on their defenseless provinces to occupy them.
I also made some new cunning exploits.
This time around I made plenty of vassals. Partly to avoid infamy, partly because they were very useful. Since I am lazy, I liked the idea that vassal swarm doing all the fighting for me. Since my armies still were not the most competent out there, it was very useful to have vassals to compensate for that.
Bigger countries like France, Poland or Austria were still somewhat of a challenge. However, I figured how to weaken them. In peace deal I will take provinces in a strategic way to separate bigger countries in several enclaves. That way they will not be able to defend effectively next time around.
As a bonus some of these enclaves could have patriot or nationalist rebels. I took advantage of this and supported anyone who can revolt and defect. Revolter nations start with good opinion on you, so it is easy to immediately vassalize them after they are finally independent. So, over the duration of truce, I managed to get more out of defeated nation using espionage and my brains. And all that I get this way was completely infamy free.
I have screens of this game.
(Black preview images actually show the picture if you click on them)
I can feel that I am so powerful and I can do whatever I want. I achieved god mode without any cheats. I could laugh quietly when someone on EU III forums again whined about cascading alliances or anything of sorts.
It was as I was in their EU, cascading into all the wars they start. They were crying and I was laughing.
I became a god of EU III
Fourth Game
I picked Berry, new tag added in Divine Wind, I think. Its map color was nice and coat of arms looks good. Besides I liked something about Duke of Berry. He liked fancy things, such as illuminated manuscripts and I felt that I could relate. Besides my previous games were in Germany so I thought to play in France this time around.
Sure, you start as vassal to France and have to break free first. However, I was so OP, I decided it will not be such a problem. After all France is nothing more than a scrub compared to my genius.
That was somewhat harder that what I expected. I took out a series of military accesses to get myself a second province in a HRE so that France would not be able to annex me.
However, France proven to be rather tenacious opponent. The sit on occupied Berry for something like 50 years, refusing to peace out without taking it.
At first, I waited, but then just started playing in HRE just as before.
This game further refined my approach to game to its extremes.
After taking enough direct control provinces to create bulk of a country go for almost exclusively vassals.
As many micronation vassals as possible. Taking last province of a country is 8 infamy, but vassalizing them only 4. Besides you can vassalise even 2-3 province nations.
Only take provinces myself when there is no better alternative, such as no releasable tags or such.
That of course produced more border gore, then even people who are doing border gore intentionally could manage to produce. Voltaire will shoot himself if he sees that.
Lo and behold my Berry in all its glory. Pretty much all that is on the map is my vassal.
Early Europa Universalis IV - East Frisia, Nassau, Friesland.
Then came next installment of EU franchise. Sure, expansions added more interesting stuff to EU III, HttT even made it slightly prettier.
However, EU IV was a big deal. It was real step forward in terms of everything. Finally, out dear EU looks like modern day game. Its advantages over its predecessor are many and obvious so there is no reason to list them all here. Overall, IV is better than III
However, there were few things that got broken.
Rebel mechanics became pretty much useless. In EU III it was a really smart way to expand and avoid infamy, but in EU IV you cannot readily produce any rebels no matter what you do. Unfortunately, despite Paradox efforts to make rebels great again, it did not achieve any results. Thus, it is no longer a valid way of expanding.
Vassal swarm that I enjoyed in III also no longer possible in its original form. As there is a diplo relationship cap. Infinite allies and cascading in every war simultaneously are also no longer possible.
Cascading alliances were nerfed much to jubilation of the forum crew. That resulted in much less concurring wars going on in game overall. After some time with no call to arms and wars to cascade to, I eventually had to start fabricating my own claims to start my own wars. Just like these anti-cascading alliances plebs I used to laugh at.
This resulted in somewhat smaller empire than before.
However overall, the game seemed more solid and realistic. I could easily grasp the prime concept of expansion: enemy of my enemy is my friend. Basically, set your three neighbors as rivals, then ally other people who also made them rivals, then start the war and conquer your rival.
Of course, once you conquered you rival and took all their land without sharing with your allies, they will dissolve the alliance and rival you. However, you can simply rival them back, ally with their rivals and then conquer them yourself. To avoid allies backstabbing you, you can simply backstab them first and win.
That also produces an easy route for expansion as you simply go over the corpses of your former allies. Borders in some places do end up swirling like ducal Prussia multiplied by 5, but overall, much less of a border gore than EU III.
This snaking through the rival's way of expanding was much less chaotic than cascading into every war and taking what is easy to get.
However, new way of expanding was somewhat more historical and logical. Countries back them did not have 50 or so allies and vassals, even though opportunism sometimes was more productive than careful planning.
In both cases there was hidden, but a clear enough way forward. Kind of like that transparent ladder in Gyakkyou Burai Kaiji. Once you figured it out, it was a smooth sail from there on.
And you feel like a god of the world, more ingenious than Machiavelli, Richelieu, Augustus, Lelouch, Light and Kaiji combined. World was your oyster.
You can only laugh on the plebs who struggle with the game as they were simply unable to figure out what to do.
Overall key elements of the game that made it fun were still mostly there. World conquest by using wit and gaming the mechanics in a creative way. Even 'cascading alliances' plebs, who got their way, simply became 'allies backstab me' plebs. I could laugh at them all the same.
Analysis
In both cases however analysis and monitoring of your enemies was essential. My analytical skills work well in both EU III and IV.
You analyze comparative strength of you and all your ally's vs them and all their allies. Pick the weakest target and then just take it. EU IV made this consideration the most important metric.
Picking opportune moment to strike is also as important as before.
As alliances change, countries start and finish wars. So, it is important to keep tabs on all your neighbors to make sure you will not miss the opportunity to get them when they are at their weakest.
And while you are checking on them you can also send a diplomat to improve relationship. This will be handy to keep them from joining coalitions.
Dip cap is a problem as 4 is woefully inadequate, but you can have dip and exp ideas to fix that. Idea groups back then really allowed you to tune your country to your playstyle.
Overextension and coring cost are simply a trap for amateurs. Professionals vassal-feed and then diplo-annex for no cost and never suffer from OE.
After playing with OPM that strike my fancy for one or another reason, such as awesome coat of arms or East Frisia and conquering half of the world with them, I decided that I need to do a proper WC and did it with England - Great Britain - HRE. World Domination to be precise as I cannot resist my urges to vassalize everything.
I only have screenshots of WC with my custom nation. I started as OPM in westfall, with heavy on diplomacy custom ideas to help me of course. and ended as HRE who controls the world. Some colonial nations or my vassals are show in grey, but the entire world is under my thumb.
Country is named after
Vlad the Impaler, as well as fictional vampire Count Dracula, based on this historical Prince and Domnator of Wallachia. I styled itVladimiri, like
Illidari
I did so because I like to dominate submissive girls.
Post Common Sence
However, the game kept changing further. Not all of these changes were introduced in Common Sence expansion, but I think it makes a good approximate threshold.
Devs were pondering more and more to the 'cascading alliances' plebs as well as 'as hard as possible' masochists.
Ideas started to give less and less bonuses, they started feel more like token bonuses rather than game enabling features. That made diplomatic game harder and harder. You can still go over the cap, but then dip research suffers.
Now there is diplo cost to diplo annexation too, it is no longer a free way out of coring cost, but it is still better than admin cost and OE of coring. However, since your monarch points are finite, you need both in that era.
Still, I found it better to be way behind in diplo tech to limiting the number of vassals I have simultaneously. Some games I will finish with diplo 23-24 in 1821.
Eventually, at Cradle of Civilization, I think game stopped being an open world simulator but simply became a challenge and hardship treadmill. Bad events are all over the place, as you grow and blob. Other countries also form in huge megablobs who do not fight each other to give you opening, but wait for you to start war, ready to unleash their full might on you anytime.
I could conquer the world as Austria, whose playstyle most fitting my own only by 23rd century or something to that end. Despite of course having my full vassal swarm of HRE.
There stopped being any smooth way forward.
You stopped feeling like Machiavellian god of conquest with world as your oyster, but rather felt like a pleb, who keep grinding a lot for a little gain.
People swear by absolutism mechanics, but I find it both insufficient and unrealistic. Why would you be able to conquer and administer more, simply because you oppressed some rebels. Besides, bonuses absolutism gives are not that numerous.
Drilling armies for army professionalism was even more pointless and underwhelming.
From a game of creative exploits to go big, it became a game of getting out of your way to accumulate various points that give little to no actual reward.
Common Sense makes no sense.
On Exploits
They say they eliminate expoits, but world was build on exploits. What this so-called Burgundian State, Angevin Empire or Charles V Empire are all build on series of cheesy exploits that let them have all that. Even something so small as duchies of Sleswig and Holstein are one big exploit by their dukes to avoid paying any tax to either Denmark or HRE.
So, I see no reason why we should not be able to do the same in a historical game such as EU IV.
Emperor and Beyond
I played one game on Emperor expansion, and it was better. I want to play Domination, but my current laptop cannot run it readily.
New changes make it easier to conquer and blob and I want to take them for a test drive.
Now of course it is much easier to conquer the world so even 'cascading alliances' plebs will probably manage it, but we have a way forward.
So
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