I'd actually love to know, I'm kinda new to EU4 so it's a question I'm coming across right now
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I'd actually love to know, I'm kinda new to EU4 so it's a question I'm coming across right now
Thanks for the update.
The length of these is fine for me, but I am not a player of this game (yet). Those who are more deeply involved may have other opinions.
This is a fine teaching tool and I think when you are finished it will be an incredibly deep guide for new players. Well done so far.
First, my philosophy is that posting schedules have to work for the author. You have other callings outside the forum so those have to be managed first. It has to be fun for all, including you. If I had the time, I'd post more in my AARs but you have to find a balance.
The length of these is fine for me, but I am not a player of this game (yet). Those who are more deeply involved may have other opinions.
This is a fine teaching tool and I think when you are finished it will be an incredibly deep guide for new players. Well done so far.
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Okay. Good to hear.
Yes. I'm surprised such an important button is buried behind a tooltip. Glad to have helped you discover it.
Part of the reason for going into Ireland, other than growing our nation, is that it makes us closer to the New World. Munster is the closest European province to the Americas other than the Azores and Canaries which the Iberians will get. So, we will need to own the province directly to have access to the port.
Sure! I'll still mention those other benefits in a later chapter, but I didn't want to bog down the chapter too much.
So States, as mentioned, lower the autonomy floor to 0% from the normal 90% (or 50%, if half-stated).
They also allow you to enact Edicts over the provinces within the State. Edicts give different bonuses depending on which ones you turn on.
The third thing States give you is Prosperity. Prosperity is a bar that fill fill up over time in the State. The rate the bar fills is based on your ruler's skills. Once the bar is full, you get some very nice bonuses. These being:
- -10% dev cost in the State's provinces (affects how cheaply we can use our points to grow our provinces)
- +25% goods produced in those provinces (a very powerful modifier that I will explain more in depth in a later chapter. A great boost to our economy)
- -0.05 monthly autonomy change (affects how fast our autonomy ticks down to 0%)
I agree with you, real life is always first. I think one update per week is good enough, but since I have played ahead, I wondered if two chapters a week might be something people wanted.
I'm trying to keep these to roughly 1,000 words per chapter in my Word doc. The other thing to consider with length in an image-heavy AAR is not just word length but number of images. Right now this hovers at slightly over 10 shots per chapter.
Thank you! I've never written a guide before, but I'm glad everyone is enjoying and finding it informative!
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The length and number of images in this update is excellent.
Very good to know the true benefits of creating states. Also you explained a puzzle I'd developed over why I'd "core" a province and then have to core it again. So the first time only half cores.
Great to understand the mechanic about full strength regiments. But how far does that cause benefit? For instance I had a mercenary army that had gotten savaged and I consolidated so that maybe 4 of 9 regiments had 1,000 strength. And then the monthly manpower gave the resulting zero strength regiments 60 men per. How would a formation like that benefit, or would the minimal regiments cause problems?
Looking forward to your amazing of Munster!
Rensslaer
Very good to know the true benefits of creating states. Also you explained a puzzle I'd developed over why I'd "core" a province and then have to core it again. So the first time only half cores.
Great to understand the mechanic about full strength regiments. But how far does that cause benefit? For instance I had a mercenary army that had gotten savaged and I consolidated so that maybe 4 of 9 regiments had 1,000 strength. And then the monthly manpower gave the resulting zero strength regiments 60 men per. How would a formation like that benefit, or would the minimal regiments cause problems?
Looking forward to your amazing of Munster!
Rensslaer
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Is Ormond to be a vassal to be fed the remainder of the Irish minors? How much of Ireland does England own (1 province?)? How many Irish provinces are there? The shift/consolidate also allows the destruction of regiments (reduced to zero) to save manpower replenishment. I will read and not complain however often that you update. Thank you
One is good, two is better.
One is good, two is better.
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@Midnite Duke that's a good reminder. Consolidate will eliminate units of your own army if they go to zero, which can be useful to save on manpower, as you say, and to reduce penalties for being over forcelimit. But with mercenaries it doesn't permanently destroy units that go to zero - they will slowly reconstitute from the mercenaries' own manpower strength.
Rensslaer
Rensslaer
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Good. Glad I'm striking the right balance.
Yes. As you might imagine, this is one of those systems that was added during a patch/DLC. Before the Mare Nostrum DLC (released 8 years ago) everything was a "State" so to speak. Every province could go down to 0% autonomy, and there were no half-cores.
Something that was introduced by this system is now obsolete. Right now EU4 uses governing capacity to limit the number of states you have. But before, there was just a hard cap based on your government type and other factors.
Looking at the article on the wiki, I forgot how many things were added that patch: Corruption, spy networks, the system of naval missions.
Strap in, this is a long explanation.
Smarter people than me have delved into the game's code and found the equations for combat. Thankfully, they've posted such equations on the wiki. The following is summarized from there:
EU4 has multipliers to the base strength damage and morale damage units take in battle. The equation for those multipliers is:
multipliers = (strength/1000) x (tech modifier/military tactics) x (1+combat ability) x (1+discipline) x (1+(battle length/100))
This equation is applied to each unit individually.
The first variable, "strength" is what's relevant here. Strength is the number of men in a regiment. So you'd want your army to have the most regiments at 1,000 men possible, because that number is then divided by 1,000.
So for your example, you would have 4 units at 1k strength, giving you a full "1" for each of those units (I'm only doing the strength/1000 part of the equation, not the rest).
Your 5 other units at 60 men each would each give 0.06 (multiply this by 5 for each of the units and you get 0.3). But if you consolidated those 5 together, you'd get 300 men. That 300, when put into the equation, would give you 0.3.
Now, even though both results give you 0.3, the first result is better. Why? Because your separate 60-man units are more likely to break and retreat out of the battle. With one 300-strength unit, you've instead concentrated your strength.
I hope all that makes sense.
Munster will be ours!
We'll see what happens to Ormond in the next chapter.
Yes. They own the province of Dublin.
There are, including Munster and Dublin, 13 provinces.
Clicking consolidate without holding shift destroys the 0-strength units. Holding shift alloows those units to be kept for later.
Thank you for your readership! I might consider it, but I think one is enough for most people. Maybe only if there's something important to show off.
Yes. Usually if you're really far over the forcelimit you want to regular consolidate your units to save money. But mercs don't work that way.
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In broad, what mechanic determines whether you get a cardinal? So for instance in my Frisian game I’m up to 1714 (playing, not yet all written up), have remained resolutely Catholic during the Reformation, was Defender of the Faith for a while and remain a great power. Never once have we had a Cardinal.
This and the subsequent explanations were useful, thanks.
Nothing wrong with one if stretching to the next natural end of arc point is just too far
Yes, works for me. Especially as you are incorporating lots of explanation into things. I will be trying to bring my EU4 chapters back under control a bit, rather than trying to cram too much elapsed game time into each one.
Smart thinking.
Useful info.
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Unfortunately, getting a Cardinal is mostly just RNG. It sounds like you were just really unlucky. The only way to kind of force it is to conquer provinces that already have Cardinals in them and steal them.
The wiki gives more info on the selection process. But it is very RNG-dependent.
You're welcome!
Yes. The natural endpoint feels like whenever we consolidate Ireland under us. But that would be a VERY long chapter. So I had to break it up.Nothing wrong with one if stretching to the next natural end of arc point is just too far
I'm not sure how you go about writing your AARs, but gameplay ones seem to get out of hand rather quickly. For this, I cycle through each screenshot I've taken and then write however many paragraphs about each screenshot. It definitely leads to long chapters.
Thanks!
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Exactly the same - I use them as story boards, with some just being reminders and not published as edited screen shots.
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@Rensslaer and @jak7139, I am mildly allergic to mercs and loans. I have not really played EU4 since the change from generic missions to mission trees. I did not really like the battle winner getting a morale boost. My favorite battle was a series of three. Me v. other, then me v. his ally (who watched him lose), then my ally (who watched me lose) v. his ally.
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@Bullfilter Yeah most of my screenshots are just to remind me what was going on and what was influencing my thinking.
I had mentioned my process earlier, but let me expand a little on how I try to keep the updates under control.
I tend to scroll through the screenshots as if it's a story, and identify the key places I want to begin the story and end the story. "What fits in this update, and why?"
And once I've decided the beginning and end points for the update I look for the best way -- best screenshots, combinations, data, "this needs to be in there" -- to present that whole range of events in about 10-12 screenshots. I throw out anything that would make the update longer than that, because I want the update to be an easy one-session read.
I've recently been studying more about the Napoleonic Wars, and realized when I first recognized that EU IV was increasing the morale of the winning army that it kind of made sense. If that hadn't happened for Napoleon's armies, he would never have been able to do what he did. They were running on adrenaline and hope half the time, but they almost always prevailed.
That was largely from a morale boost from having won.Rensslaer
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I like to avoid taking loans if I can help it. Same with mercs. Unfortunately, Brittany isn't in a position to not take any yet. It's that or bankruptcy. Though there are some strategies we have to keep our debt under control which I'll explore later.
Funnily enough, this was a patch/DLC change. I don't remember which patch, but I do remember people making a big deal out of it when this was announced.
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This is a really great tutorial. Lots of good information, hints and tricks. I find the posting length ideal. Go Brittany!
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Yeah, the game definitely cheats, and it does seem that "territory" has little use as a term or mechanic.
I think the birds in this image are backwards, frankly. You could have posted the math without the meme or "you do you"-ing Jak. The tone really detracts from what was, overall, a fascinating and informative comment.
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Thanks!
Agreed. There is no benefit to having a territory instead of a state unless you assign it to a trade company. The problem with many of EU4's systems is that they were all added piecemeal and don't interact with each other. So this leads to many mechanics feeling unnecessary or redundant.
Yes. But I decided to rush in anyway. Overconfidence you could say.
Interesting. Never realized that about the globe projection/colonial range. I've played far enough forward for the range issue to come up. Though I think Ireland helped a little with this.
TO ALL: Next chapter is written. I just need to sort through some of the screenshots. Next update coming shortly.
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CHAPTER FIVE: The Fall of the House of Munster (June 1450-January 1452)
CHAPTER FIVE: The Fall of the House of Munster
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(June 1450-January 1452)
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(June 1450-January 1452)
I notice that our army in Munster isn’t reinforcing. In fact, its strength has gone down due to the attrition of the siege. I build 2 more infantry, bringing us up to our forcelimit of 11. All 3 of our new regiments should be done before 1451 rolls around.
Our loans from the Estates are being chewed through quickly. We’re already down to 62 ducats by August. It’s not even been a year since we took them. Luckily, one of our diplomats has been building favors with Burgundy, and we now have enough to ask them for some money (the other diplomat has been spying in Munster to help speed up our siege). This costs some of our favors but keeps us afloat for a little while longer.
In October we get one of the many events Catholic countries receive regarding pre-Protestant grumblings. This one gives us some money in exchange for some Reform Desire. We take the money because, as the event says, we need it.
By the 1st of December our new troops are done. This fulfills the requirements for the mission “Build to Forcelimit”. We could take it now, but I hold off. The extra morale for our troops could be useful later, and we don’t need it when fighting the Irish. I’d much rather save it for a potential big war versus England or France.
Now that it is December, I check the Innovativeness alert again. There are 41 days left. Every January, the “ahead-of-time” penalty for tech ticks down. We are not ahead in any technology category. However, every January still has a chance for us to get a discount. The AI likes to take tech in January, so if one of our neighbors takes a tech we don’t have, our tech becomes cheaper. There’s also the possibility of us getting an event for decreased tech cost.
So, I like to wait until January, or as late as possible, before I take Innovativeness from tech. Sometimes I unfortunately miss out because I am doing something else and not paying attention to the number of days left. But I think the discounts are worth it. Points are precious. We take the tech on January 1st. It costs 568 diplo points, the same amount as it did back in June. We didn’t get any discounts this time. But we can always try again later.
January 1451 also heralds the beginning of the Renaissance in Italy. This will make techs that are tied to the Renaissance Institution harder to get if we haven’t adopted the Renaissance beforehand. You can see which techs are tied to which Institutions by the little yellow paperish pictures next to the clocks on the Technology screen. Our admin and mil techs (both at level 3) only require the Feudalism Institution, something all Europeans start with. The next level of diplo tech (5) will be more expensive if we haven’t embraced the Renaissance by that point.
I also take the next military tech level (4) since it will help with Ireland and it isn’t ahead of time. I have a quick look over at Italy to see which province the Renaissance appeared in. It’s in Milano, the capital of Milan. Seems our war with them didn’t stop the arts from flourishing.
On February 9th, something major happens. France and England are now at peace. France took all of the continental holdings except Calais. They also, helpfully for us, released Meath (Dublin) and the Isle of Mann. England is weak and we have more land to grow into. Sweet!
While I was discussing with you all about Innovativeness and Technology, I quietly shipped our entire army over to Munster. We are now successfully sieging the province. Hopefully, it will fall soon.
Our Transports take over the blockade of Munster temporarily while I tell our Light Ships to go repair in Penn-ar-Bed. They take 2 months to repair and are back in the field (sea?) by May.
Just before that, on the 20th of April, we get one of the many marriage events throughout the game, detailing the relations between our ruling family and our consort’s family. This one is positive (and it’s where I finally noticed Isabel’s Scottish heritage). We get a small amount of diplo points and a medium-sized relations boost with Scotland. Let's hope more relatives will come to feast in the future.
All goes well. Then in July comes news…
England has recovered quickly, and is already on the warpath against the Irish!
They're at war with Clanricarde and Tyrone. England’s 2 Irish allies, Leinster and Kildare, join against their brothers. We’ll need to move faster.
I start a Spy Network on Desmond (the Irish nation to the north of Munster). This also reminds me to switch our Merchant’s focus in Bordeau back to Maximizing Profits since we aren’t using the spy bonuses in France at the moment.
In November we get another Estate event. Although it angers the Bourgeoisie even more, I take their money. We are down to 28 ducats, and the event brings us up to 39. We’re losing roughly 3 a month.
On December 17th, after 593-day siege, Munster’s castle falls. I recall a diplomat and send our army north to Ormond. We destroy Ormond’s army easily and begin a new siege. I also mothball our new Irish fort to save a little bit of money. Munster’s navy (5 Lights and 3 Transports) is kicked out of the province and into our waiting fleet. They are no match. We destroy their whole fleet, capturing one of the Cogs.
Our diplomat arrives and I send a white peace offer to Ormond. With their army destroyed and their only province under siege, they have no choice but to accept. I would’ve liked to annex them, like we’ll do to Munster, but we have no land or sea connection to them, making this impossible. The best we can hope for is the 5-year truce white peacing gives us and that England will leave them alone.
We peace out Munster, annexing their nation and taking 10 gold. It is January of 1452.
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Was there a way to get cash from Ormond or was the cost of continuing the war greater than any expected benefits? Was the separate white peace necessary or could peace with Ormond be part of the Munster accord? Thank you
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Thanks for the overview, I try not to take tech too early, because I'm not sure what innovativeness does for me. My own philosophy is
1 - Am I being penalized to pay extra?
2 - Am I maxed out on points? (Happens with Military every now and then)
It lacks nuance, to be sure
Seems like Leinster and Kildare don't realize England's ambition will soon involve them.
Breton possession of the tip of Ireland, a temporary footnote in history, or the start of a major initiative?
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Well, since we didn't have any warscore against Ormond itself, a white peace was our only option. To get the warscore needed, I would've had to siege them. But at that point, the war had been going on for so long, and we would be in other wars soon enough, that I wanted a few months of peace to lower our war exhaustion.
Munster would've only accepted annexation at 100% warscore. But with Ormond still in the war, half that amount was taken up by them. So, they needed to be peaced out separately.
Innovativeness gives, mainly, "All Power Costs." This is exactly as it sounds, anything and everything you spend your monarch points on will be cheaper. At 100 Innovativeness, the bonus is -10% cost.
Generally, if I'm paying over 700 points for a tech, I wait. It will usually become cheaper if I wait. The exceptions are if I really need the tech (to win a war, get a new idea group) or if I can get Innovativeness. As mentioned in this chapter, I still like to wait to make the Innovativeness as cheap as possible.
If I'm maxed out on points and ahead on tech, I like to spend those extra points on other things (Stability, Development, lowering inflation). Military Development can be especially powerful if you want to field much larger armies than your nation's small size.
Many of EU4's features can be described by this sentence. I love EU4 since it introduced me to Paradox games, but it is definitely a bloated game with many random buttons at this point.
Perhaps they're hoping to get in England's good graces. But we'll see how this all plays out over the next few updates.
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