Paradox Grand Campaign

[The Comrade]

[The Comrade]

[John Galt]

eu4 does not blow. it jsut has some major issues. the majorest of which is cores disappearing in 1694. also combat can take a nod from CKII.

EU:Rome - haven't played. obviously covers the roman era...

Crusader Kings = game of dynasties. think Game of Thrones. they made it specifically with Game of Thrones in mind (and tried to get the rights to call it that, etc). you play as a character in a dynasty. if the dynasty ends, so does your game. else, you become your heir, and so on through history. you have lieges and those who swear fealty, you make your little fiefdom into something grand. covers 867 - 1453

Europa Universalis = game of nations. grand strat for your nation state. covers from the fall of hungary in the last crusade until napoleon's death, Nov 11, 1444 - 1821. allows start at ANY date among that continuum

Victoria - game of powers/influence. become one of 8 great powers, exert influence. i had battles literally last years in this game. it covers industrialization until WWII. need to set up industrial supply chains. this game teaches you how terrible it is to tax the rich, as your country will suffer for it. tax the poor, and tax them highly. only two start dates, the first one, and the outbreak of the american civil war. which i always get steamrolled if i play the south. i want the south to rise again goddamnit.

Hearts of Iron - i haven't played. covers WWII. assume it's game of military strategy.

East vs. West - not out yet. this game will cover 1945 - 1991 as an expansion to Hearts of Iron. and you can nuke people. specifically targeting civilians.

[The Comrade]

it has some major issues that, as far as i've read, are working as intended. what they fixed from 3 doesn't make up for what they broke from 3

[John Galt]

which ones are wad?

i think the peace process needs some serious work, so does the allying system/causes belli. in victoria II, allies can add their own war goals to wars, and will do so when they are going well. you can find yourself crippled quite easily. for example, i was japan, and got pulled into something, and the other great powers won. i contributed near nothing, aside from keeping the russians occupied. well, they added the war goal of "japanese disarmament". until someone declared war on me (which they did, quickly), i had no more fleet, no more army, and couldn't build any

[The Comrade]

over extension is one big mechanic that just does not make sense the way they implemented it. the AI, being allowed to cheat, also takes way too many alliances than it should have, and often they all ally with large powers. every game i've played of eu4 hungary, bohemia, poland, and the teutonic order remain in a permanent alliance, on top of the 3-4 shifting alliances they have with other countries, on top of their military access and royal marriages. alliance cascading was annoying in eu3 but every war in eu4 is like a war of spanish succession. also, you can't make a separate peace with a country in a war if they're the subject of a war goal. well i don't give a shit if austria is the war leader even though i declared war on venice. if venice isn't a vassal of austria, they can make their own peace. and the fact that they took out population just boils my blood. the population mechanic could have used some tweaking but it made infinitely more sense than the arbitrary "Base tax" system now. it allowed provinces to improve over time naturally if you focused on growing the population and most economic,cultural, and religious modifiers, decisions, and mechanics made a hell of a lot more sense when they were based off of population.

all of which, as far as i know, are WAD. the alliance thing might get changed eventually, but the others most likely will remain the same.

[John Galt]

[The Comrade]

yeah i pretty much agree on the whole getting dragged into stupid wars over OPM thinking they're gengis khan. and OE is just atrocious the way it works. i was playing as the oirat horde before i got MEIOU and taxes and by 1700 i'd managed to take manchuria, korea, and everything in china the same latitude as beijing. 300 years to basically take ~30 provinces because each one was 30-40 over extension. m&t fixes the OE problem but the mod still isn't great because a lot of the problems we've described are hard coded and can't be changed.

[John Galt]

release and feed vassals. i go over diplo somtimes like 16/8 relations. i have taken over half the world with 90 years left in my best shot at WC (90% of new world, 70% africa, 70% europe, 30% asia), but that is with austria, because the diplo game is where it's at as a workaround to just straight up conquest. only majors left are france, russia, and a very beaten ottoman empire. byzantium exists once again in my game, and i fed it all its cored provinces and then some (i modded my game so that cores never disappeared naturally, only through peace deals). sunni bulgaria took provinces that were the wrong culture. i spend barely any admin points. most difficut time is if i have multiple wars, i can't sell a province when im in a war (which is dumb). the ristrictions are harsh -- you get minus reasons for being different religion, minus for different culture. i have free missionaries so i'll convert if necessary but i won't spend my admin coring.

always take diplo ideas first. i did the same in muscovy game. muscovy itself is quite small but owns everything around it. i just gobble up one to get more places to fabricate claims then vassalize that nation, and repeat. it's nice because i can spread the ae by expanding in different directions

[John Galt]

levies in 2.0 were nerfed way too hard. its difficult to muster very many troops when you are a OPM or an empire. when you're a real big duchy it's good. but beyond that.... extremely difficult. even if you reach theoertical max levy sizes you're still talking about two of your own dukes nearly meeting the amount of troops you can muster. so they really need to fix that. but i did see this would be fixed in the hotfix:

Fixed an issue with ridiculously powerful Mongol stacks if there were Jews in the world


also, i did get the gates of hell event last night... i was annoyed by the + martial because it was temporary (and martial is needed for more levies)