Best version/patch to play now ?

[Black_Rider]

Hi all!

I want to start a discussion, which of the older patches you guys think is best for the overall EU 4 experience ?

My main focus areas would be AI and general smoothness of the game mechanics (without bloat).

 

[danielgue]

AI suffered immensely since years. Devs dont make it use the new features from DLCs or re-balancing costs too much efforts anyway. They leave it up to modders but they are limited because of the engine.

Mostly the economy and not the ability to maintain armies is the big problem, and them running around pretending to be smart. Writing an AI is difficult in the first place, but IMO the game it pretty much at its end now. Patches introduce new issues while they try to fix the old ones.

Pretty sad to watch throughout the years. I suggest multiplayer perhaps. Or going back to patches like 1.11.4 to have a somewhat basic gameplay and AI not overwhelmed to place and pay for forts and other issues.

 

[Black_Rider]

Unfortunetly, now we can back only to 1.16.3 in Steam Beta..

 

[Lightdestroyer]

Unfortunetly, now we can back only to 1.16.3 in Steam Beta..

Well after the latest bundle i gave 1.33(.2) a chance ..
*i don't own origins .. so didn't experience this dlc yet

finally discovered estates, i like the idea .. but honestly its just some details.
It flavors the game, and adds a dimension but somehow its not linked enough to randomn events.
Link it to revolts/uprisings for example loyalty of some estates surpresses or increases unrest in low/high devved provinces .. there is a lots of potential in this estate that didn't came to fruition yet.

govermence capacity .. to state .. not to state .. tc galore ... << better off without it .. again i get the idea .. But lower administration gives your country the possible to conquer more land ???
it should be the inverse ... -__-

Splendor you gain so you get a temp bonus .. and suddenly its *poof* gone << not even getting the idea .. if you don't even got renaissance embraced .. you should stay in the age of discovery even if western europe progressed to the next one ..
poor idea .. even worse execution .. << better off without it
devving up .. very costly .. hurts you in the but cause of governence capacity .. only used to get institutions ;; besides that if you go wide .. you remove dev .. (huh .. breaking your country so you can become bigger .. this just doesn't make sense .. i bet you can grown bigger without paved roads!! wait still hitting your capacity as country?? Let's return to goat trails .. yes that did the trick now we can govern our country once more efficient!
If we grow again we'll destroy our granary's and go back to hunter/gathering so we can serve our empire even better \o/
Seriously did nobody ever comment on this ??? :s

Fort misery .. wars are speed runs who can siege the fastest a fort .. which makes sense if you see forts as free big cities, but some lonely castle .. but not being able to pass a whole province of one fort somewhere on a tall mountain Oo << again better off without the whole fort thingy
Maybe check the roman-eastern nation wars .. yes they were about sieges .. but the best rulers got the biggest conquest by .. you guessed it to just ignore the forts and go with a big army into the land of the opponents .. thats 100-700 .. we are playing 1440-1810?

Institutions instead of fixed penalties and "westernisation" .. i like it .. i didn't got to so far if you still can get western armies as modern asian/african country .. but honestly historical if that isn't possible .. thats kinda allright .. even westernised countries were looked down upon in that time frame (russian/western troops learned the hard way vs for example japan that wasn't the whole truth) << improvement? Sure why not .. well its different ..

Lack of building space .. still ridiculous a whole province isn't able to build one market .. or a town hall at the same time ?
In practice the only thing you do is spawning state buildings to reduce governence costs .. remove that out of the game .. and remove building slot limitter .. would make waay more sense (tc somehow don't have any limitations .. you build "buildings" on a cloud somewhere)

So to mine opinion: i would still nominate 1.11.4
*you get normal war .. no fort misery
+playing war agains an ai suddenly goes better ;p
*you can build all the buildings you want but with a price .. so you dont spawn everywhere every building cause you have the money (buildings do cost mana points)
*no governence capacity crap
*no limitations besides money and cap by sailors ..
in that time period getting "sailors" recruited was litterally luring poor folks on a ship where they were the slaves of their officers .. don't make the time period more positive as it was .. being a sailor on a military ship or even merchant was only a few steps above being a slave ..
Only a few exceptions existed: Venice with their free sailors on their galleys and even they couldn't keep that up ..
-Less difference between cultures/nations ..
-No missions/flavors/immerse packages: they really did increase the experience/made some nations more unique.
-Some religions have only a bonus and thats it ..
*Somehow i blob less then in 1.33 .. i don't know why cause in 1.33 there are lots of anti blobbing mechanics introduced .. maybe cause wars take longer ?
-Westernisation .. stalling for a while and then being western .. not really historical .. and the idea that when a country is suddenly Western its "superior" in every way and lots of difference between it and a generic western country is gone .. yeah institutions are a better idea. The devving up so it spawns in my country and then i pay a huge sum of money .. *tadaa* .. not really

I spend 3000+ hours connected with steam (a lot more when having no internet connection/not paying iron men) on version 1.11.4 so somehow eu4 equals 1.11.4 to me.
So i'm a lot biased

Sadly returning to this versions requires jumping around a lot of loops/holes .. so the biggest disadvantage of this version is: not longer in the beta list
Maybe one day if eu4 is finished they will remove minor beta versions and add 1.11.4 again to it ..

 

[egolend]

I like 1.32 and would go for 1.33 if it wasn't the export to variable bug that is a big deal with some mods.

If you want tighter strategy then simplier games with less going on may well be tighter. If you like the flavour and immersion targets (like missions) then 1.32 is my favourate.

 

[TolHydra]

Depends on the nation, if the run can't happen without early reliance on allied AI, I'd play on 1.32

 

[danielgue]

Sadly returning to this versions requires jumping around a lot of loops/holes .. so the biggest disadvantage of this version is: not longer in the beta list
Maybe one day if eu4 is finished they will remove minor beta versions and add 1.11.4 again to it ..

I really enjoyed reading your summary and arguments why such an extremely older verion is still relevant. As I also suggested this version, I completely agree.
It is amazing how much direction the game has lost over those many years.

I just wish they could add the "Quality of Life" improvements which have been added over time, maybe the new provinces (if it does not slow down the game too much), have the "institutions" over old "westernization" and keep everything else, as it was in 1.11.4.

It is almost like having "World of Warcraft Classic". Bring back the glory of the past as a new standalone expansion --> "EU 4 The Art of War - Classic"!

 

[vaLor-]

I really enjoyed reading your summary and arguments why such an extremely older verion is still relevant. As I also suggested this version, I completely agree.
It is amazing how much direction the game has lost over those many years.

I just wish they could add the "Quality of Life" improvements which have been added over time, maybe the new provinces (if it does not slow down the game too much), have the "institutions" over old "westernization" and keep everything else, as it was in 1.11.4.

It is almost like having "World of Warcraft Classic". Bring back the glory of the past as a new standalone expansion --> "EU 4 The Art of War - Classic"!

The game development already lags behind enough. Creating such a large workload for a small audience is not worth developers' time.

 

[Black_Rider]

Is someone know, how to back to 1.11.4 patch somehow ?

 

[moscal]

Return to 1.0

 

[Black_Rider]

Return to 1.0

What ?

 

[Jayavarman]

Try out the MEIOU mod.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forums/m-e-i-o-u-and-taxes.839/

 

[moscal]

What ?

Original version without patches.

Normal game without incompatibles mechanics etc.

 

[cuendillar]

I always just play the latest version, unless an older one is needed to keep playing a particular run. I can rarely finish runs before another major patch or DLC comes out.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

Return to 1.0

The game launched at 1.1 and I don't think there ever was a publicly available 1.0

At a certain point, may as well boot up EU3 if we're going that far back

 

[egolend]

The game launched at 1.1 and I don't think there ever was a publicly available 1.0

At a certain point, may as well boot up EU3 if we're going that far back

Back then it was probably distributed on CD. That meant that there was often either an earlier review copy or V1 was on the cds but you had to do an update to play which would take you to 1.1. It looks like until 1.5 there were patches ever couple of months (first 4 in 8 months) and only DLC Conquest of Paradise which was random new world and north America tribes (although I am not sure you would want to play as them often.). 1.6 is probably where content started changing (rather than just gaps being filled in).

 

[DerGrößteRitter]

I am still on 1.30.6

 

[EarlKonrad]

AI suffered immensely since years. Devs dont make it use the new features from DLCs or re-balancing costs too much efforts anyway. They leave it up to modders but they are limited because of the engine.

Mostly the economy and not the ability to maintain armies is the big problem, and them running around pretending to be smart. Writing an AI is difficult in the first place, but IMO the game it pretty much at its end now. Patches introduce new issues while they try to fix the old ones.

Pretty sad to watch throughout the years. I suggest multiplayer perhaps. Or going back to patches like 1.11.4 to have a somewhat basic gameplay and AI not overwhelmed to place and pay for forts and other issues.

To be fair, as far as Cossacks the AI wasn't being taught how to use the shiny new mechanics. That DLC added the original version of states which the AI didn't know how to use that system so they just wouldn't interact with it at all, meaning that any Human player would have an inherent resource advantage over the AI.

That is to say, new mechanics that the AI fail to use competently or use at all isn't something new in the game, nor in the genre at large.

 

[BlazeKnight_]

The answer is "use mods."

 

[Ferdinand_Bardamu]

I think 1.32 was overall a good update.

Most of the major bugs were gone, the game had some nice new features, things were not ideal but the game felt overall smooth.

The combat changes in 1.33 have been a massive downgrade.

I still have a soft spot for 1.30.6. It had bugs, exploits and whatever but it felt like that was the last version before the game really got overbloated by features, natives and whatever else.