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Europa Universalis III 46143 EU3 - After Action Reports (AAR)
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gja102 said:
Ahh, EUI. How quick people are to forget their own history!

For what it’s worth I completely agree with the OP; the vast majority of players (myself included) start at the earliest possible start date to ‘get the most playing time available’, then quit after 200 years. Meaning most people’s game experiences are shaped by an unlikely medieval trio of Byzantium, Burgundy and Bohemia. It’s just wrong.

EU, to my mind, should be about the great European powers facing off over Europe, America, and eventually, the world. A 1399 start date leads to very poor balance, and makes the eventual emergence of what should be the game’s main themes increasingly unlikely.

The EUI 1492 start date gave you a unified France, a unified Spain, an England no longer fighting the 100 Years War, a Muscovy ready to form Russia from the ruins of the Mongols, a strong, Istanbul-centred Ottoman force, and an Austria poised to auto-inherit an empire. Bar Prussia and Holland, you had all your great powers up and ready to go (and that game only let you play a great power, none of this conquering the world with Ryukyu rubbish).

I can’t tell you what the absolute best start date would be, but it has to be somewhere between 1453 and 1540.
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Actually, the best option should be a compromise solution

If the default date was set to something like 1492 (or the Demise of Burgundy, or the start of Hapsburg Spain, whichever is better to reflect the birth of the Balance of Power between the European Dynasties from the 16th Century to the French Revolution, which is what EU3 should focus on IMO), but the Earliest possible starting date could be as early as 1399 (or 1356, which would require a reworked China, to say the least), I'd imagine far more people will start with 1492, instead. Especially if the game was designed and balanced for a 1492 or 1453 scenario instead of a bizzaro ATL 1399.
 
Bluntly, though, the reason it starts at 1399 is that people demanded it and wanted their Byzantine Empire back. Picking quirky minors seems to be very popular as well, and there's a LOT more of them in 1399 than 1453, let alone 1492. Plus, the most people will always play the longest game. Given that, I doubt a later start date is really in the cards for euIV, though who knows, I suppose. I truthfully wouldn't care much for it since I have no interest whatsoever in playing a European great power in EUIII, but it's always good to hear the full spectrum of opinions.
 
Fishman786 said:
EUIII doesn't end in 1836, and EU:R doesn't end in 1000 AD. There is always a bit of a gap between the games. I can cope with 1399, since that's basically the very late middle ages, but adding lots of medieval mechanics just intrudes on the rest of the game. Look at all the effort put into Byzantium, for example. That time could easily have gone into more cool stuff for Poland-Lithuania, but it was instead used to create a set of fantasy missions for a dead Empire with only symbolic importance. Then there are all the releasable French minors, constant holy wars and a strange 'crusade' system.
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Sir, you don't get to diss the great Byzantine Empire like that :mad:
 
I think also for the later start dates to more enticing would be to rewrite a lot of the achievements to make you start in1453 or 1492, instead of the "grand campaign"
 
Jos de trol said:
Sir, you don't get to diss the great Byzantine Empire like that :mad:
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Long live the Sassanids!
220px-Sassanid_empire_map.png
 
Jstebby said:
I think also for the later start dates to more enticing would be to rewrite a lot of the achievements to make you start in1453 or 1492, instead of the "grand campaign"
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Not a bad idea for those interested in achievements.
 
Frankly if EU IV starts in 1492 I am very unlikely to buy it right away and would most likely wait to see if an expansion changes that. Even 1453 would make me less likely to buy it right away, though at that date I would consider it in a few months when it went on sale as I know a modder would find the way to set the date back. Where with an early start date I would either preorder or buy it shortly after release. The reason for 1399 is that a whole lot of us like to play nations that only exist in the time frame like Byzantium.
 
I never got the obsession with the Byzzies. I've had one good game as them, but for me, empires with the same plausibility as forming the Kingdom of Gondor (and no, you don't need to remind me about the joke mission) only get me 1 game per tag tops. Maybe if Timur completely crippled the Turks they'd be able to survive, and maybe, just maybe retake Western Anatolia, but that's already stretching it.

However, I personally greatly enjoy the option of the 1356 start date in mods. It opens up entire regions (notably the Balkans) that would otherwise be unplayable (at least from the point of plausibility), and a lot of cool stuff is going on around the world at that start date. It's really cool to see China enter a new Warring States era, or to take control of Timur when he's just starting his conquest.

On the other hand, though, it also causes plausibility to fly out the window much earlier, and if the nation I want to play is available at a later start date, I'll usually pick that.
 
mudcrabmerchant said:
I never got the obsession with the Byzzies. I've had one good game as them, but for me, empires with the same plausibility as forming the Kingdom of Gondor (and no, you don't need to remind me about the joke mission) only get me 1 game per tag tops. Maybe if Timur completely crippled the Turks they'd be able to survive, and maybe, just maybe retake Western Anatolia, but that's already stretching it.

However, I personally greatly enjoy the option of the 1356 start date in mods. It opens up entire regions (notably the Balkans) that would otherwise be unplayable (at least from the point of plausibility), and a lot of cool stuff is going on around the world at that start date. It's really cool to see China enter a new Warring States era, or to take control of Timur when he's just starting his conquest.

On the other hand, though, it also causes plausibility to fly out the window much earlier, and if the nation I want to play is available at a later start date, I'll usually pick that.
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It's not about plausibility. It's about the fact that the player can be Rome, and restore it to its former glory.
 
And the cost of that is that a game that's supposed to be about the early modern age ends up being about the late middle ages, because once the start date get pushed back everyone play at the start of the game and the game is over in 200 years, and the features are increasingly concentrated in these first two centuries.

Rome-worship isn't worth completely changing what the game is supposed to be about.

If we must have an implausible Rome, make it formable via decision once you fulfill certain conditions, don't dial back the game half a century or a century for it.
 
Guillaume HJ said:
1. And the cost of that is that a game that's supposed to be about the early modern age ends up being about the late middle ages, because once the start date get pushed back everyone play at the start of the game and the game is over in 200 years, and the features are increasingly concentrated in these first two centuries.
2. Rome-worship isn't worth completely changing what the game is supposed to be about.
3. If we must have an implausible Rome, make it formable via decision once you fulfill certain conditions, don't dial back the game half a century or a century for it.
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1. True. But EU3 is not very fun during the latter 200 years (unless some burden is there to hinder a blob's capacity. e.g. the faction of China).
2. True. But the plausibility of playing any nation existed is what EU3 is about, which may requires early dates.
3. No, it's not fun to form Rome with another blob...
 
mudcrabmerchant said:
I never got the obsession with the Byzzies. I've had one good game as them, but for me, empires with the same plausibility as forming the Kingdom of Gondor (and no, you don't need to remind me about the joke mission) only get me 1 game per tag tops. Maybe if Timur completely crippled the Turks they'd be able to survive, and maybe, just maybe retake Western Anatolia, but that's already stretching it.
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It's more interesting to play as deceased states or minor cultures since they're more "mysterious" and not as mundane as your everyday countries like England, France, and Spain.

Guillaume HJ said:
And the cost of that is that a game that's supposed to be about the early modern age ends up being about the late middle ages, because once the start date get pushed back everyone play at the start of the game and the game is over in 200 years, and the features are increasingly concentrated in these first two centuries.
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What features are you talking about? I don't see that big of a difference between a game in 1399 and one in 1599 except that the latter has Protestants and New World colonies.

You can change the start date to whatever you want, so I don't see what the big deal is. You could argue that there's too much focus on papal mechanics, but that's literally one feature in the game.

I'm saying this as somebody who avidly plays the default scenario and searches the timeline for interesting start dates.
 
Ruanek said:
It's not about plausibility. It's about the fact that the player can be Rome, and restore it to its former glory.
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I know that, I was just explaining my problems with it. To me, an empire means little or nothing if it's a work of fantasy only achieved by gamy methods. Myself and a lot of players like to create a narrative while we play the game, and I just can't get into when it includes stuff like the following:

"And lo, the great navy of Rome blockaded the strait which was surrounded by the countless cannons and fortresses of the Sultan, and their army was free to retake Europe, liberating the Bulgarians who were happy as always to live under Roman rule. Later, using this momentum, they were able to retake all of Anatolia, and they encountered similar acceptance from the heathen Turks who lived there, who were equally grateful for being liberated from the heathen Turk..."
 
ZomgK3tchup said:
It's more interesting to play as deceased states or minor cultures since they're more "mysterious" and not as mundane as your everyday countries like England, France, and Spain.
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I'd guess that a bigger reason is the lack of any challenge found when picking one of the major powers. Once you reach the size of France as a player, you're virtually invincible, and starting as an OPM increases the time it takes to reach that level.
 
Well, I also played about three games as Byzantium, but the last one got old really fast. In the end, I'd much rather see a strong Ottomans than a strong Byzantines. If they don't fall, the same empire will have existed for another 400 years by the game's end... I just feel there needs to be some change, and part of that is that Rome must fall, as a sign that a new time is coming. Some Greek minors still exist after 1453, you can make it so the Byzantines still have their Greek cores at the beginning, so you can liberate them in a crusade or something. Or simply rebuild Rome when playing an Italian minor.

I do start nearly always in 1399, but that's usually to fully prepare my nation for colonizing.
 
Fishman786 said:
Why does everybody seem to want to slowly add more and more medieval stuff to the game? Revived Roman Empire? Byzantine cores on central Turkey? Releasable Al-Andalus? A formable Caliphate? Surely these things belong in CK, not in EU, which is about the Renaissance and 'enlightenment' periods. The shift back to 1399 as opposed to 1453 was bad enough, but can be coped with. But EUIII doesn't simulate medieval politics at all, and pushing the game further back just makes things more and more unrealistic.
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For Eu4 one of my biggest wishes is precisely importing character-based politics from CK2, because they were still highly relevant in the Renaissance era.
 
The EU franchise should be split into two games. One game should be about forming European nation states, the other should be about the age of discovery. The first game would start sometime around 1300 and end around 1500. Core gameplay would be about turning medieval holdings into nation states. The early game would be dominated by the black plague. A schism would happen, the AI Byzantines would fall, and eventually the New world Would be discovered. Gameplay would be appropriate for the period, with an increase in the importance of monarchs/dynasties/vassals. It would not be as detailed as in CK. The second game would start in 1492 and go to 1836, when the Victoria francise starts. The emphasis would be on the exploration and conquest of the New World, and the Reformation and its consequences (30 years war).
 
A strong Ottoman Empire is really key to many of the developments in Europe at this time anyways. Age of Discovery, Renaissance, Reformation.... Pushing back the start date really screws them since they don't get many of the historical advantages they had. It's fun to play earlier, but as far as accuracy goes the 1453 start is probably the best.
 
Chamboozer said:
A strong Ottoman Empire is really key to many of the developments in Europe at this time anyways. Age of Discovery, Renaissance, Reformation.... Pushing back the start date really screws them since they don't get many of the historical advantages they had. It's fun to play earlier, but as far as accuracy goes the 1453 start is probably the best.
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You have a point there. Starting without assurance of the Ottomans really puts a ton of things into question.
 
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