The Other Paradox Games (Europa Universalis, Victoria, Hearts of Iron)

[Gormongous]

So, I think we should have a separate thread for the rest of the PDS games. With the Europa Universalis IV already demo out and the full game landing on Tuesday, it seems like the right time. I'll go ahead and put down my thoughts about the demo, though I really want to hear other people's reactions.

 

---

So... in an extremely questionable series of decisions, I finished my reading for the night, chugged two Dr. Peppers, and then played two games as Portugal (one a trainwreck, one not so bad), five as Venice (all trainwrecks), and two as the Ottomans (one a trainwreck, one an amazing game that had me googling for a save hack so I could keep playing it in the full game).
 
I like some of the things they're doing a lot. A lot, a lot. The trade node system is a bit obscure, but once you get your head around it thematically, it's a set of mechanics that's intuitive and makes sense, rather than the EU3 uber-mercantilist, uber-monopolist focus. Merchants are used to shape the flow of trade towards the node nearest you, where you can use a mix of economic and military force to exploit it. The administrative/diplomatic/military point system is an even better addition. They're generated by your ruler's stats, which are sadly randomized upon succession, but there's a neat sense that, since every action takes some points from one of the three categories, a strong and well-rounded ruler can do everything, but a weak or specialized ruler has to choose between winning a lot of small battles with only short-term consequences or losing them in the name of a greater goal.
 
The war system's still really wonky, actually more so now that they've changed the way that war score works. It used to be that battles, blockades, and occupations added or subtracted from a percentage, which represented the amounts of concessions that could be gotten by the winning side. It's still the same system superficially, but now nations are weirdly stubborn if you haven't exterminated all their troops and/or occupied their capital. During a war with Hungary, I was kicking the living shit out of them, they had like 60% war score in my favor after like a year. It was brutal! But they wouldn't back down, even when I only asked for two provinces totaling 35% value. The bonus/malus calculus on the diplo screen just said "Hungary still has its capital." Yeah, bloody good it does you with half your country under Ottoman boots! Stuff like this puts distance between me and the game, which is why I tend towards the personal touch of Crusader Kings II rather than the immortal god-emperor of EU or Vicky.
 
So yeah, I have this weird relationship with Paradox games on release. They're not the unplayable messes they used to be, but there are still odd edges that haven't been rounded off. One TMA podcast with Chris King mentioned that a lot of their balance testing is inter-office LAN games, where stubborn or stupid AI seems to be funny instead of frustrating, at least to hear him tell stories. The first couple patches usually shake these issues out, so I think I might be in for Europa Universalis IV, especially with so many good ideas keeping me up until two in the morning playing.
 
Clearly the caffeine hasn't worn off yet. Maybe I have time for Austria before bed...

[beardofzaius]

This seems a good place to ask, is there a valid historical reason that the EU games don't have a similar dynasty based system to Crusader Kings II?

 

I'm playing the tutorials for EUIV now and hoping it grabs me in the same way CKII has. Certainly looking forward to the whole world being available and exploration playing a larger part.

[Gormongous]

This seems a good place to ask, is there a valid historical reason that the EU games don't have a similar dynasty based system to Crusader Kings II?

 

The easy reason is that it's an older series, based on a board game, from before the first Crusader Kings was even developed, but I think it's more that each of the PDS games is about the motive force of a given age. For Crusader Kings it's family, for Europa Universalis it's the nation, for Victoria it's industry, and for Hearts of Iron it's war. As much as I like them, I don't think that Crusader Kings' character-based systems would make much sense in Europa Universalis, where the basic building-blocks of the game are nations, made up of provinces according to culture.

[beardofzaius]

The easy reason is that it's an older series, based on a board game, from before the first Crusader Kings was even developed, but I think it's more that each of the PDS games is about the motive force of a given age. For Crusader Kings it's family, for Europa Universalis it's the nation, for Victoria it's industry, and for Hearts of Iron it's war. As much as I like them, I don't think that Crusader Kings' character-based systems would make much sense in Europa Universalis, where the basic building-blocks of the game are nations, made up of provinces according to culture.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. As I got to the end of the tutorials in the demo later yesterday I began to see the complexity was being applied to things like trade and the concepts of national ideas and such. Had that old 'kinda overwhelmed' feeling again. I'd imagine having the complexity of all the Paradox games rolled into one grand title would be quite nightmarish in many ways, not least for the developers  

[Gormongous]

Yeah, that makes sense. As I got to the end of the tutorials in the demo later yesterday I began to see the complexity was being applied to things like trade and the concepts of national ideas and such. Had that old 'kinda overwhelmed' feeling again. I'd imagine having the complexity of all the Paradox games rolled into one grand title would be quite nightmarish in many ways, not least for the developers

 

Yeah, that's kind of why I think that Crusader Kings II is the best game to recommend to Paradox newbies, however much people like to tout the Europa Universalis series as the most accessible. You just have one guy to look after, one guy, and the rest is really gravy. Yeah, gravy that fucks you fifty years in, but still. Europa Universalis IV, with its trade flow and monarch points, is just so much less intuitive. Fifteen hours into the demo, I'm still not exactly sure how to get the most out of a trade node, let alone be something crazy like Holy Roman Emperor.

[Dewar]

I still have a copy of EU3 laying around that I've never fired up. Is EU4 enough a jump that I should just wait?

[Gormongous]

I still have a copy of EU3 laying around that I've never fired up. Is EU4 enough a jump that I should just wait?

 

Is it the full Europa Universalis III with all the expansions? If so, it's pretty good, but else it's not worth your time. Only with the second expansion, In Nomine, did EU3 start to get interesting. Europa Universalis IV is more of an evolutionary game, taking all the elements that EU3 acquired over the years and integrating them into a single whole, but it is a complete package, as opposed to EU3.

[Gormongous]

I've now played as Burgundy in Europa Universalis IV up through 1650. I managed to swing a personal union with Savoy, which gave me a nice corridor between the ports of Antwerp and Genoa. I'm making big bucks from that near-monopoly. I thought I did a great job cutting France off at the knees in the mid-sixteenth century, but then Spain came up and ate the rest. Now they rule the world.

 

I could write a song about how much I hate Austria. The chorus would be a really raucous "Fuck you, Austria. Leave me the fuck alone!" If I don't want to tango with Spain, I've got to steal scraps from the Holy Roman table, which means that Austria can't resist kicking me in the balls. I hate Austria so much. I must have murdered at least a million of their men over the past two hundred years.

[Procyon Lotor]

I'm loving this game.  I have never been able to get into a Paradox game, try as I might.  Until now.  This is one for the Pantheon.

 

I'm playing as Portugal, 1444 start.  It's now about 1520.  I started off strong, pushing around the Moroccans and beginning an overseas empire in Brazil.  In 1490 I had 100 prestige, 100 legitimacy, and +2 stability.  My armies were strong, and my fleets were mighty.  It was a golden age.  But the apparent strength of the Portuguese Empire was built on a shaky foundation.

 

You see, I was a spendthrift.  In 1490 I went bankrupt.  I lost all my prestige and legitimacy, and crashed to -2 stability.  All of the problems lurking under the surface (angry peasants, angry Berbers, angry heretics, pretenders to the throne) all burst through to wreak havoc.  My demoralized armies were crushed by rebellious mobs.  I began conceding to the demands of everyone, which crashed my prestige to -100.  It took me about 20 years to claw my way out of that debacle. The "cure" involved firing all my advisors, scuttling most of my fleet,  reducing my army, and slowly boosting my stability.

 

Just when I started to get my feet back under me, Castile broke our alliance.  In desperation, I sought the affections of the beaten rump of Aragon and allied with them.  When Aragon and Castile went to war, I foolishly honored our alliance.  Castile squashed me, and took two of my Iberian provinces in the eventual peace deal.  I can barely stand to look at myself on the map, as the gaps of the lost provinces are like bleeding holes in my heart. 

 

Then Tangiers came calling.  As it stands, I'm still at war with Tangiers.  I have no army.  I have a pitiful remnant of a navy.  The Berbers are besieging my core provinces.  In a massive kick-to-the-nuts moment, they conquered Lisbon right before the $500 March I ordered up was built, which destroyed it.  I'm probably going to go bankrupt again. 

 

Every horrible thing that has befallen me has been a result of a clear (and terrible) decision I've made.  I'm enjoying the hell out of this.

 

In any event, I've got 300 years of game left, and I'm Not.  Dead.  Yet.

[Gormongous]

That is an insane game, Procyon! The worst I ever got was eating 240.00% overextension after annexing five Italian and two Rhineland provinces from Austria because my game was ending in thirty years and I wanted pretty borders. It was a very long time of putting down twenty thousand-man rebel stacks while my money and tech went nowhere. If I hadn't already saved up a hundred thousand gold from dominating the Antwerp, London, Bordeaux, Genoa, and Venice trade nodes, I would have been screwed by my own hubris.

 

Anyway, I'll link my world map in 1821. It may not look like much, but I'm the (ahem) burgundy swath across central Europe. I came in first with army, taxation, and trade, plus top ten for everything else. I was only beaten by England, France, and Spain, who all had colonial empires bankrolling them. Portugal and the Ottomans were right behind me. I think I might try Portugal next, hopefully learning something from you, Procyon.

 

First, Europe:

 

 

Then, the world:

 

 

Fun fact! There was only one revolutionary republic. The little gray patch in Central America is the UPCA, which broke free in 1801. I was so excited to see something happen in the Americas that I allied with it immediately, precipitating a huge war with Spain and Portugal. I'm probably responsible for its survival, actually.

[Procyon Lotor]

That is awesome!

 

I played my Portugal game to 1600.  I managed to get back on my feet, and I even took my provinces back from Castile by pouncing on them when they were in the midst of a peasant rebellion.

 

I'm now playing an England game.  I abandoned the continent immediately, except for Calais. 

 

I then tried to annex Scotland through force.  My first war with them was a disaster.  I lost a key early battle, which had the effect of draining my remaining manpower.  It took a long time, but I was able to crush Scotland and besiege every province.  However, when I tried to peace out, I noticed that their ally Burgundy was actually the leader of the enemy side.  They had taken Calais, and had a much larger army than I.  I was suffering from significant war weariness.  I ended up peacing out by paying some money and surrendering Calais to Burgundy, despite the fact that I had squashed all of Scotland.

 

Fun fact: when England loses every continental holding, they get +1 stability and +50 relations with France!

 

Then the War of the Roses hit me.  Hard.  I chose York, and it quickly became apparent that Lancaster was going to win.  Then Armageddon came in the form of the infamous "Peasant War" event = -6 stability, and craploads of peasant stacks popping up everywhere. 

 

Lancaster won, and I dissolved most of their army to rectify a quickly deteriorating fiscal situation.  Then more peasant rebels arrived.  And some Lollard heretics in Cornwall.  And Welsh Nationalists.  It turns out the Lancasters were in no better shape than the Yorks. 

 

A savior finally arrived in the form of Christopher I Howard, Pretender to the Throne.  When he broke the country, Wales got its independence, the Lollards got their heresy, and Christopher the First became King of England.  Shortly after, I got the event to stop the peasant war.  I was sitting at 20 legitimacy and -100 prestige.  I got an advisor to start working on that prestige.  The Lancaster king had all but dissolved the Royal Navy to keep from going bankrupt during the peasant war, so I had very low upkeep.  I began to develop the infrastructure of the county to increase the tax base.  When my prestige got to around -50, I declared war on Wales and retook it.  With the various battle victories over Wales and their Scottish ally, I got my prestige back to zero.  Then I took the mission to vassalize Scotland, who was without allies.  I managed it in two wars, which drove my prestige back to +100.  Now the plan is to rebuild the Royal Navy, and sit back and develop. 

 

The common thread in my two games is surviving and overcoming a crushing disaster.  It can be frustrating and disheartening to watch your country descend into 20 years of anarchy.  But if you hang in there and play your cards right you can make a comeback.  And I've found that coming back is more fun than getting there in the first place.

[Irishjohn]

Has anyone played Europa Universalis IV yet? I'm encouraged by the reviews citing the game's relative accessibility. I own III but never quite got into it. Love CK2.

[Gormongous]

Has anyone played Europa Universalis IV yet? I'm encouraged by the reviews citing the game's relative accessibility. I own III but never quite got into it. Love CK2.

 

Well, that's what this thread's been about, thus far. I'm giving it a general positive impression, although I'm not entirely sure all the checks and balances of the system are ship-shape yet.

 

I just finished a game as Vijayanagar-turned-Hindustan. Uniting India was by far the most fun I had, using all my claims from becoming Hindustan to force half the remaining subcontinental powers to be my vassals and then leading them in a massive alliance against those who'd refused. I'd planned to attain the borders of British India and then wait until the Western powers came knocking so that I could westernize. Well, I'd united all of India by 1600, but no ships came from the lands of the setting sun. Once I got a better awareness of the world, mostly through secondhand discoveries, I found out that they were leaving a buffer zone around me while they gobbled up smaller powers. I hadn't realized it, but at that time I had the most provinces and soldiers of any nation on Earth, which the AI was taking into account for some reason.

 

Well! I started a hard push towards the nearest colonies in the East Indies. By 1821, I had annexed all of Greater Indochina, but was still a couple wars away from sharing a border in Java with Portugal. It's not like I wanted to be westernized like them anyway.

 

 

Other observations from a pretty successful Ironman game:

• I'd mostly wanted to westernize to get rid of the terribad non-Western unit types, but it didn't matter in the end. I had lvl. 31 military tech, just one or two behind the big powers, and I had triple the manpower of them, so yeah. It feels like there's just not enough to spend military monarch points on, unless you're paranoid about revolts or want leaders for all your armies. The primary sink for military points, the buildings, just aren't that good. Forts and armories? No.
• Once you get to a big enough size, everyone will hate you for even the smallest hostile action. My first conquest in southeast Asia was annexing a two-province nation that I had full claims on. Didn't matter, everyone's opinion slammed into "outraged" territory and I never recovered. I even released Ming from the Shun, who had conquered them, in the hopes that one or the other would cozy up to me. Instead, they both allied against me, even though their claims should have made them mortal enemies.
• And you know what? It didn't matter. By the time the AI had gotten its shit together enough to be throwing coalitions my way, I had more manpower than all of them combined. I could fight more or less nonstop, which meant that the big powers could never recover from every little war of conquest I started. By the nineteenth century, Shun, Ming, and Muscovy were in nonstop revolt. The only credible power to oppose me was Portugal, who'd guaranteed Aceh in a last-ditch attempt to keep me from getting a land border with them. Yeah, I was still using Caravels for my fleet, but any army they could land on my soil was instantly annihilated. I shiver to think if I had managed to westernize.

I like the game, but the AI is still a bit too slow to recognize a credible threat and way too stubborn to deal with it over the long term. I'm sure a patch or two will redress that, though.

[clyde]

What is the benifit of westernizing? And what does that look like as a mechanic? Is it just establishing a trade route with Europe or something like that?

[Irishjohn]

Ugh, a cardinal sin on my part. ... Off to read the rest of the thread. I think this may be a purchase once payday comes calling. 

[Gormongous]

What is the benifit of westernizing? And what does that look like as a mechanic? Is it just establishing a trade route with Europe or something like that?

 

Non-western cultures (basically, anything east of Austria, west of Spain, or south of the Mediterranean) get three penalties graded on how "backward" Paradox considers them: increased tech costs, inferior units, and penalties to monarch-point income. For instance, in the Indian culture group, technology costs 150% more, the units that those techs give you are three generations behind their Western equivalents, and you get one less point a month from each monarch skill. It's probably the most extreme form of historical determinism in any of Paradox's games. China will never pull itself together without Western help because it has even more massive handicaps than bankruptcy inflicts on Western nations.

 

Later in the game, you can get into the Western tech group and remove all those penalties, but you have to share a border with a European power and endure fifty to a hundred years of "westernization," during which your stability score drops to -3 and all your monarch points are set at -100. Basically, your nation gets thrown in the toilet and your hands get tied. General agreement on the Paradox forums is that it's not worth it, but then again general agreement on the Paradox forums is that the Native American culture group, which has 250% tech costs, stone age units, and -2 to monthly monarch point income, is 100% historically accurate and needs no changing or critique. I don't know.

[clyde]

I don't know either, but it sure is interesting.

[Nappi]

Non-western cultures (basically, anything east of Austria, west of Spain, or south of the Mediterranean) get three penalties graded on how "backward" Paradox considers them: increased tech costs, inferior units, and penalties to monarch-point income. For instance, in the Indian culture group, technology costs 150% more, the units that those techs give you are three generations behind their Western equivalents, and you get one less point a month from each monarch skill. It's probably the most extreme form of historical determinism in any of Paradox's games. China will never pull itself together without Western help because it has even more massive handicaps than bankruptcy inflicts on Western nations.

 

Do they use the Hobbes' Scale of Savagery, Barbarism and Civilization ?

[Gormongous]

I played one more game before Total War: Rome II comes out and steals me away. I used the converter to take the 867 start from Crusader Kings II and make it the 1444 start. I played as Wessex and had a fun fifty years unifying the British Isles against Scotland and Tara. After that, I gobbled up all the islands in the Atlantic and started pushing colonization in North America hard.

 

I feel like I've seen the heart of this game after three full-length playthroughs. As far as I can tell, there are three phases: first, acquiring territory and building infrastructure until you have a strong and stable nation; second, using colonization, trade, or both to blow out your monthly income; and third, boredom because money isn't actually that important in Europa Universalis IV, unless you don't have any. I've played the first phase in innumerable strategy games, but the second still feels really fresh to me. Now that I understand how trade works, with the longest possible path between origin and destination, the process of optimizing it is really satisfying. By the end of the game, I had all of North America under my control, so trade goods flowed up the Mississippi and through the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay, then joined with the trade from Hudson Bay to cross the Atlantic, before my fleet of ships came to safeguard it from Denmark as it made its way to London. If I'd had a hundred more years, I could have brought Central America and the Caribbean under my control, adding three more stops to the trade and probably topping out my income around six hundred ducats a year. That's a marvelous brass ring to reach for, if I do say so.

 

But I am going to take a break, and not just because of Rome II. The third phase I mentioned has me convinced that there is something seriously wrong with how Monarch Points work. Simply put, it's the illusion of choice. You think that you get to decide whether to use, say, your Administration Points for coring, for buildings, for stability, for ideas, or for tech. And yeah, to a point. But there is a correct path, and that's to spend as little as possible on everything but tech. Everything else is a dead end in that it just earns you money, of which you need only enough to pay for military to defend you and for your advisors to give you more Monarch Points. That's why trade is king, because it requires no Monarch Points besides those already spent on tech in order to make the big bucks, unlike taxation, production, or even colonization. The closest thing to a true competitor to tech for use of Monarch Points is ideas, but ideas stop paying dividends after you've invested in it seven times, which tech progresses infinitely, unlocking better units, new features, and larger bonuses along the way. There's simply no contest, so an advanced Europa Universalis player will soon be able to be judged just by how stingy they are with Monarch Points, because that is the sole path to victory, unless Paradox ups the "neighbor" discount for tech dramatically or make Monarch Points "spent" rather than "saved" unlock tech in a later patch. Who knows, bigger changes have happened in Crusader Kings II post-release cycle.

 

Anyway, here's the world of 867 Britannia at 1821:

 

 

Note that, while France has a Brazil infection down south, glorious New Wessex stood no such thing. I brutally put down insurrections by colonists hoping to form Quebec, Louisiana, Mexico, and the USA as independent states.

 

And here's a map of the trade flow I had near the end, with my dream network in white:

 

[Bury]

Have you played a land power like the Ottomans or Russia? I suspect that you had unlimited money simply because, as Britain, you are effectively able to fight wars only on your terms. I'm playing a game as Castille->Spain and all of my money is disappearing due to the massive land army I'm fielding as I sweep across Europe.

[Gormongous]

Have you played a land power like the Ottomans or Russia? I suspect that you had unlimited money simply because, as Britain, you are effectively able to fight wars only on your terms. I'm playing a game as Castille->Spain and all of my money is disappearing due to the massive land army I'm fielding as I sweep across Europe.

 

My first game was as Burgundy and my second as Vijayanagar, both huge land powers, so that's probably not the case. Like I said, I feel like there's just a certain point in the early eighteenth century where, if you've been keeping up with tech and are reasonably large, you're able to make at least three figures in trade income, which will end your financial concerns forever, because monarch points, which don't scale with size or tech, become the limiting factor on all major expenditures.

 

Are you exceeding forcelimits? That's the only way the expense of your army is going to exceed your income by any reasonable amount.

[Bury]

I'm pretty much at my forcelimits. It helps me expand faster, which creates more enemies arrayed in coalitions against me, which requires that I build more troops. It's a vicious cycle. But the forcelimit penalty isn't really killing my income, it's just the size of my army vs my income.

 

Have some screenshots!

 

The coalition is quite large:

 

You can also see that my dip tech is lagging from blowing it all on peace negotiations. Both other techs are somewhat limited too. Adm is going to stability and coring. Mil is going to cycling through a bunch of useless leaders (anyone with 0 siege gets sacked and re-rolled, anyone with 1 siege is subject to reroll too. and I have 95%+ mil trad)

 

Economy

 

Military and Forcelimits

[Gormongous]

Interesting. I'm always at max forcelimits, but I've never had a shortfall as bad as yours so late in the game. It must be a combination of factors (gold, inflation, overextension, no manufactories, no merchants)?

 

If you could clean up the Antwerp trade node and then use your fleet to force everything there, you could easily be making three times your current income in trade. Although, I'm not sure more war is the answer (yes it is).

[Bury]

Yeah, I was running about 300% overextension because my plan was to sell conquered provinces to my vassal for 0 gold. Except they wouldn't take it because the provinces were in the HRE. (really fun to figure that out afterwards, thanks paradox)

 

And yeah, I have a minimal amount of manufactories. I raided Swahili, Mali, etc for gold a few times.

 

My inflation was about 10% due to early-game fuckups but is creeping down.

 

Merchants: I have one collecting at Seville for the 10% bonus, one collecting at Bordeaux because my trade power is pretty high there and I don't have anything downstream, one directing at Caribbean because otherwise it gets directed to Bordeaux and I lose ~10g/month, and one collecting at Chesapeake because my trade power is like 95% there. Unfortunately my ability to collect from the Far East is nonexistent.

[Gormongous]

Yeah, I was running about 300% overextension because my plan was to sell conquered provinces to my vassal for 0 gold. Except they wouldn't take it because the provinces were in the HRE. (really fun to figure that out afterwards, thanks paradox)

 

And yeah, I have a minimal amount of manufactories. I raided Swahili, Mali, etc for gold a few times.

 

My inflation was about 10% due to early-game fuckups but is creeping down.

 

Merchants: I have one collecting at Seville for the 10% bonus, one collecting at Bordeaux because my trade power is pretty high there and I don't have anything downstream, one directing at Caribbean because otherwise it gets directed to Bordeaux and I lose ~10g/month, and one collecting at Chesapeake because my trade power is like 95% there. Unfortunately my ability to collect from the Far East is nonexistent.

 

If there's a vassal you can release in the HRE, then sell it more HRE provinces, that might work.

 

If you move your capital to Paris or something, you can get a four-node trade chain going on, which would be good.

 

I don't have any other ideas. I never push my overextension that high, but it seems to be working for you.