Sooooo, I recently upgraded my dinosaur of a computer and was able to get the most recent expansions and updates for EUIV. Some of the new features are awesome, some are an adjustment (I was coming from 1.15 previously, the last XP capable patch.) Game is enjoyable as ever. My issue however stems less from a new feature and more onto an old one, that seems to have been tweaked a bit since 1.15- Rivalries.
I decided as I always do to do a simple Portugal colonizer run as my first game, somewhat challenging, but not Byzantium levels of masochistic. My problem stems from the fact I just cant leave the damn heathens in North Africa alone. Not that I cant handle them, even with the new mechanics its not hard- but i beat on them just a little TOO hard maybe, and now my only possible rival I have not superseded is Castile. Castile- my good friend and my ally, my shield against any dumb European involvement. Castile already has the Iberian wedding, and having a powerful rival right next door is not a good idea. I usually betray Spain later on when Im stronger, as the fact that i steal all his potential colonial nations and dominate the Sevilla node mean Spain becomes a paper tiger later in the game. However right now I cant handle him. France would make a wonderful replacement, but they arent rivals and france has too many diplo relations. England is allied to castile now and i dishonored a call to defend calais from burgundy anyway, so they are out. Austria is really just too far away to make any difference, same for anyone east of them. My only other idea is to colonize right next to Mali since they have been blobbing and I want cayor anyway for the trade boost in ivory coast (they took it from jolof early in the run). That would waste a colonist when I really need them right now to block off castile from easy colonization options and beat them too all the important early CNs. they did take exploration first as well so I will be racing them for the next 30 years to get what i want. Also no guarantee a border with mali will open them up as a rival anyway. My last option is to simply wait it out and let my PP tank until England or someone else becomes available.
Curious as to what you all think I should do, the game year is currently 1479 for reference.
I decided as I always do to do a simple Portugal colonizer run as my first game, somewhat challenging, but not Byzantium levels of masochistic. My problem stems from the fact I just cant leave the damn heathens in North Africa alone. Not that I cant handle them, even with the new mechanics its not hard- but i beat on them just a little TOO hard maybe, and now my only possible rival I have not superseded is Castile. Castile- my good friend and my ally, my shield against any dumb European involvement. Castile already has the Iberian wedding, and having a powerful rival right next door is not a good idea. I usually betray Spain later on when Im stronger, as the fact that i steal all his potential colonial nations and dominate the Sevilla node mean Spain becomes a paper tiger later in the game. However right now I cant handle him. France would make a wonderful replacement, but they arent rivals and france has too many diplo relations. England is allied to castile now and i dishonored a call to defend calais from burgundy anyway, so they are out. Austria is really just too far away to make any difference, same for anyone east of them. My only other idea is to colonize right next to Mali since they have been blobbing and I want cayor anyway for the trade boost in ivory coast (they took it from jolof early in the run). That would waste a colonist when I really need them right now to block off castile from easy colonization options and beat them too all the important early CNs. they did take exploration first as well so I will be racing them for the next 30 years to get what i want. Also no guarantee a border with mali will open them up as a rival anyway. My last option is to simply wait it out and let my PP tank until England or someone else becomes available.
Curious as to what you all think I should do, the game year is currently 1479 for reference.
