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Anyway, i hope In Nomine will solve the main problems of Balkans and so. I agree relations should be different like MasterVlad said - i should have been able to ally with Venece. Now with the personality feature enabled maybe will add some tags to ruler of Venece (personality: pro-moldavian or something :rolleyes: ). So i guess after In Nomine will be out - we won't have so much bugs and inaccuracies to talk about.

Btw...in a game recently with 2.2. default....Moldavia got as leader partner in a PU with Georgia! - and she survived against Persia and so. :D
 
I think many of those small countries that were routinely invaded had to become pretty badass in order to survive. It can be hard to model a country so that it has pretty good defending power, but poor power projection, though.

Have you tried playing MMG2, by the way? They have expanded the fort system, so that most places start with level 2 and places that were hard to invade in the first place get extra levels. Switzerland for one is level 5000 men. The forteress of the knights at rhodes is 8000 men.

It makes warfare slower, and you have to be pretty dedicated for a province to fall. It still happens, though : playing the other day, the ottomans did manage to take rhodes. It's just more of a hassle because sometimes sieges last years.
 
yeah i've played mmg2. It has some drastic changes. Bessarabia is fort 3. :D Allthough i got a little bored playing as a minor - too few diplos, no war, very hard to get an alliance so i quit :rolleyes:

and as a addition - my computer runs borring slower mmg2 - don't know why though.

Allthough all this i think it's a great mod - i like very much those events and modifiers (medium power) and so. Only the map is a little brown but i found the solution. :p
 
I've delayed my response to this thread in order to meditate on this problem. What trigged my frustation towards Johan was his lack of commitment to our concerns and his lack of empathy. I don't want to sound spoiled. Not many games offer the player to play the faction of their choice, and I realize that; on the other hand, that's what made EU so popular: it offers the player to play on his national identity. It's a psychological twist that Paradox discovered, but failed to pursue to the fullest extent.

So why is Western Europe inflated with regions and advancements, compared to the rest of the world? Well, because in Johan's mind, that's where the real market for EU, is.
 
In almost every game I've seen Moldavia is annexed by Poland in the first few years. I talked a bit about this either here or on the Magna Mundi forums because, quite apart from being annoying if you want to play Moldavia, it has wider implications - for instance it hurts the Ottoman Empire because Poland will declare war on them early - possibly while they're still fighting Hungary, Transylvania and Serbia. I wondered if Moldavia might start as a Polish vassal because of Petru Aron but this would probably just mean that it would be diplo-annexed instead of force-annexed. It was one of those nations like the little German states in the HRE, that survived because none of the great powers in the region wanted it to be owned by any of the others, combined with fierce resistance from some militarily skilled rulers.
 
Correct, The Impaler: Moldavia was used as a buffer state by the empires that surrounded it. At times, this was its curse: most of the time, it was its salvation. In the early 15th century, Hungary wanted to partition Moldavia with Poland, but Poland bluntly refused. It was also the geographical location of Wallachia and Moldavia, that gave way to the formation of Rumania. The great powers accepted our union in order to keep Austria, Russia, and the Ottomans away from each other. We were given a certain mandate to keep the Status Quo in the Balkans and as such, we invaded Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, to keep them from growing too strong.

Johan doesn't know of these things, nor does he care. As a Swede, he has an exotic impression of Eastern Europe. I'm sure that to his mind, if we achieved a few moments of greatness, they're not worthy of remembering; yet, little things lead to big changes; and we had our part in shapening and advancing the civilization of the day. Wicked as we are.
 
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Moldavia said:
Correct, The Impaler: Moldavia was used as a buffer state by the empires that surrounded it. At times, this was its curse: most of the time, it was its salvation. In the early 15th century, Hungary wanted to partion Moldavia with Poland, but Poland bluntly refused. It was also the geographical location of Wallachia and Moldavia, that gave way to the formation of Rumania. The great powers accepted our union in order to keep Austria, Russia, and the Ottomans away from each other. We were given a certain mandate to keep the Status Quo in the Balkans and as such, we invaded Bulgaria in the Second Balkan War, to keep them from growing too strong.

Johan doesn't know of these things, nor does he care. As a Swede, he has an exotic impression of Eastern Europe. I'm sure that to his mind, if we achieved a few moments of greatness, they're not worthy of remembering; yet, little things lead to big changes; and we had our part in shapening and advancing the civilization of the day. Wicked as we are.

Man you need to take it easy. :wacko: Maybe Moldavia and eastern Europe are represented unfairly in the game(they should stand a chance in war versus the west) but I dont think Johan purposely tried to make Moldavia and eastern europe bad in the game. I think Paradox(not just Johan made this game ;) ) tried their best to balance all the countries in the game to make them as strong as they where historicly. But think of the scale of Europa Universalis, it has hundres of countries. Imagin making research for all those countries(kings,wars,unions) and make a good representaion of them all in the game. It's invetiable that some countries don't get their approriate strength. And if the nordic countries where so overpowered(with their extra provinces and other benefits) how is it that they get crushed by their neighboors in most games and divided betwheen different blobs?
 
First of all, I never played EU3, not even the demo, so I'm not affiliated with EU3 by any means :) . I only played EU2.

The EU engine is not capable of handling minors very well. A country with one province may get annexed pretty easily; once the enemy army is in, the province will be captured sooner or later. To get as much realism as possible, the province system would have to be abandoned, and the game would have to be an RTS or something like that. A battle in a country's only province represents a struggle for the control of that province. If the defending country loses and has no allies, than it's almost certainly toast.
That's not how things happened in real life - for one thing, strategical or tactical genius of a leader (such as Stefan cel Mare) will make a big difference. Like I said, to get great realism, you need to scrap provinces and come up with something else, but provinces are what makes this game unique and fun.

Moldavia said:
So why is Western Europe inflated with regions and advancements, compared to the rest of the world? Well, because in Johan's mind, that's where the real market for EU, is.

Correct - Paradox Interactive is a company and has to come up with a product that will make a good profit. If more attention is going to be put in Western Europe and North America, the product will make a better profit. If attention is put into Asia or Balkans instead, the product will make less profit. Why can't you put as much attention in Asia and the Balkans? Like any company, Paradox has limited resources (time and money). Resources have to be allocated wisely. The way Paradox allocated their resources resulted in a commercially successful product - EU3.

On a slightly different note, check out the boxshot for EU1:

http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?page=product&what=view&sku=DD-EU1&cat=all

(I would post the screenshot here in post, but I don't know how :eek:o )

There are four flags on the boxshot - Swedish, US, French, and I think English. From a marketing point of view, those are very good choices. Even though the game EU1 ends in 1792, and you have less than 20 years to play as the US, US flag is on there. I'm sure this has netted Paradox quite some $.

Yet still, Johan decided to give something more to the gamer, so he made the game extensively moddable. In EU2 it is possible to simulate Moldavia fairly well within the limits of the game engine. From what I've heard, you can mod the map easily in EU3. Try modding Moldavia and see what happens when you give them more provinces and opportunities in general. If you succeed, than play the mod you made and you should be satisfied.

Johan said:
Johan doesn't know of these things, nor does he care. As a Swede, he has an exotic impression of Eastern Europe. I'm sure that to his mind, if we achieved a few moments of greatness, they're not worthy of remembering;

By only playing EU3, there is no way you can possibly know that. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. The game was first and foremost made to represent territorial exchanges between big countries and things like colonization or religion. Eastern Europe was a secondary priority.

I have skimmed through the thread and read some of your remarks. Here's one more thing I would like to comment on:

Moldavia said:
That's the difference between Johan and Sid Meier: when Sid starts to make a research, he bloody makes a research;

Again, it takes resources to conduct research. And Mr. Meier's research is not perfect either - in his game a republic or a monarchy can construct the pyramids, but some reading and critical thinking will inevitably lead you to the conclusion that such a feat as the pyramids can only be constructed by a despotic government (due to issues with labor efficiency, allocation, and administration schemes). I doubt Johan had to do less research than Mr. Meier - while the latter's game spans the history of human civilization, the former had to take many more factors into consideration.

You can have a long and interesting discussion about the philosophy of making commercial strategy video games, but you will most likely arrive at the conclusion that a company has to put emphasis on making profit.

Personally, I think Johan is cool. He released the source code of his previous games, and it seems to me that he really does care about the casual gamer.
 
mmrnmhrm said:
First of all, I never played EU3, not even the demo, so I'm not affiliated with EU3 by any means :) . I only played EU2.

The EU engine is not capable of handling minors very well. A country with one province may get annexed pretty easily; once the enemy army is in, the province will be captured sooner or later. To get as much realism as possible, the province system would have to be abandoned, and the game would have to be an RTS or something like that. A battle in a country's only province represents a struggle for the control of that province. If the defending country loses and has no allies, than it's almost certainly toast.
That's not how things happened in real life - for one thing, strategical or tactical genius of a leader (such as Stefan cel Mare) will make a big difference. Like I said, to get great realism, you need to scrap provinces and come up with something else, but provinces are what makes this game unique and fun.



Correct - Paradox Interactive is a company and has to come up with a product that will make a good profit. If more attention is going to be put in Western Europe and North America, the product will make a better profit. If attention is put into Asia or Balkans instead, the product will make less profit. Why can't you put as much attention in Asia and the Balkans? Like any company, Paradox has limited resources (time and money). Resources have to be allocated wisely. The way Paradox allocated their resources resulted in a commercially successful product - EU3.

On a slightly different note, check out the boxshot for EU1:

http://www.gamersgate.com/index.php?page=product&what=view&sku=DD-EU1&cat=all

(I would post the screenshot here in post, but I don't know how :eek:o )

There are four flags on the boxshot - Swedish, US, French, and I think English. From a marketing point of view, those are very good choices. Even though the game EU1 ends in 1792, and you have less than 20 years to play as the US, US flag is on there. I'm sure this has netted Paradox quite some $.

Yet still, Johan decided to give something more to the gamer, so he made the game extensively moddable. In EU2 it is possible to simulate Moldavia fairly well within the limits of the game engine. From what I've heard, you can mod the map easily in EU3. Try modding Moldavia and see what happens when you give them more provinces and opportunities in general. If you succeed, than play the mod you made and you should be satisfied.



By only playing EU3, there is no way you can possibly know that. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. The game was first and foremost made to represent territorial exchanges between big countries and things like colonization or religion. Eastern Europe was a secondary priority.

I have skimmed through the thread and read some of your remarks. Here's one more thing I would like to comment on:



Again, it takes resources to conduct research. And Mr. Meier's research is not perfect either - in his game a republic or a monarchy can construct the pyramids, but some reading and critical thinking will inevitably lead you to the conclusion that such a feat as the pyramids can only be constructed by a despotic government (due to issues with labor efficiency, allocation, and administration schemes). I doubt Johan had to do less research than Mr. Meier - while the latter's game spans the history of human civilization, the former had to take many more factors into consideration.

You can have a long and interesting discussion about the philosophy of making commercial strategy video games, but you will most likely arrive at the conclusion that a company has to put emphasis on making profit.

Personally, I think Johan is cool. He released the source code of his previous games, and it seems to me that he really does care about the casual gamer.
I must point out, that, due to the natural tech constraints, it is practically impossible to build the Pyramids in Civ as a Republic: considering that the Pyramids are the earliest opportunity you're likely to get to pick a higher-tech government! You're likely to be beat to the 'Mids by some crazy builder(in this respect, the French are just as hateable here as they are in EU3, stop building MY wonders dammit!)

As per the topic at hand, I tried. I really did. The best I could do was DOWing Crimea some indeterminate time after Poland-Lithuania had, and picking up scraps that way. It didn't work, even when I was able to get Zaprozheia, Cherson, Crimea, Azow, and Kaffa: I collapsed due to rebellions :( That doesn't count the times Crimea defeated me or Poland decided to DOW me. Even then, you're still horribly poor, because all of those provinces are non-core and suffer from different religion and non-accepted culture penalties which nearly wipe-out their contributions to your nation. Maybe if you took Humanist Tolerance as your first NI, the revolt risk would be more manageable, but you're still too poor to maintain a decent army and none of the major powers around you(Poland, Lithuania, and Hungary if it survives) like you, which means you'll likely end up in a war with one of them, if the Ottomans don't get you first. Really, nothing short of map-modding and/or a TW-esque map can fix this...
 
My recently game with eu3 the secret? Hungary, Bohemia and Poland attacked me in the first years - i ended up as Hungarys vassal - after that they allied with me and then i joined them in a war versus Crimea. In this war i had the possibility to negotiate peace alone so i got cherson. After 10 years, my relation with Hungary were +200, so i broke vassalization. Now i'm allied with a big Hungary and i have +100 with them and 2 provs and 3 mercs in thrace :D (i had 5) :D

eu33bh3.png


i started in 1459 by the way - i guess; don't remember anymore :eek:o
 
in MM2 the map isn't changed for the balkans. The level forts makes a differencte. Bessarabia has fort 2-3 i remember. Transylvania 3 and wallachia 2-2 i guess. ;)
 
Moldavia said:
Johan doesn't know of these things, nor does he care. As a Swede, he has an exotic impression of Eastern Europe. I'm sure that to his mind, if we achieved a few moments of greatness, they're not worthy of remembering; yet, little things lead to big changes; and we had our part in shapening and advancing the civilization of the day. Wicked as we are.
I think it's more a case that in EU3 the AI doesn't worry about balance of power and all small nations, East or West, are quickly eaten up by the larger ones as "blobs" form. Navarre, for instance, doesn't last any longer than Moldavia.
 
I could never think to play as moldavia, it is damned :p
But i've enjoyed reading of people who did it! Honor to you!!!
btw, i'm thinking of how high inflation will be in your games... :confused: have you managed to keep it low???