Didn't see Poland and Spain suceed since Third Rome

[Vince75]

So, I just wanted to have other reviews and talk about this.

In 9/10 of my games since Third Rome went out, I always see Poland and Iberian countries fail. Does it happen to you also ? Does it bother you ?

Thank you guys !

 

[f.l.]

Same happens in my games. While I do not see a big problem in Poland failing, the failure of castile/aragon/portugal has a lot of gameplay implications:

• The power vacuum creates outcomes ranging from Ibero-France with superpower status to a recreation of Andalusia
• Colonialism spawns in England ~75% of cases
• The new world takes a lot longer to be colonized, Inca/Aztec are not getting conquered, Europeans do not make it to East Asia until 1650+ and sometimes you can even 'snipe' South Africa in 1650+

While all this can be really nice if you play a colonisation game outside of europe (Japan/Indonesia/Indian Ocean), it feels a bit artificial and distorts european alliance dynamics.

 

[String]

Why would it be the case though? What has changed in mechanics for the Iberian peninsula? I can understand with poland that they are counteracted by the stronger Muscovy/Russia. But Iberia??!?

 

[f.l.]

I do not know where this may come from, but one (of many) reasons may be the following:
I have the feeling that Aragon allies France more often now and beats Castile with french help. Then England joins by declaring on Castile as well. On top, there is the chance of Castilian Civil War breaking out. This leads to a situation in which Portugal might either cancel their alliance with Castile, weakening them even further, or in which Portugal helps Castile against France/Aragon/England/Civil War. In the second case, Morocco is highly likely to declare war against a weakened Portugal to conquer back Ceuta (and potentially the southern portuguese provinces). If Morocco does not declare against Portugal, Tlemcen/Granada/Morocco might still as well declare against Castile.

 

[oros]

I've seen a lot of Teutons + Danemark/hungary alliances, leading to a suicide from Poland on them.
I don't know if it was happening that much before. Don't forget also that since RoM, Lithuania lost some dev, so it can also explain this.
I think there were also some AI improvements, making strong nations more stronger. So you can see Ottomans doing better than before, so they can kill Poland more easily.
Poland also lost lucky nation with RoM.
I don't think the issue comes from Russia, I have the feeling they are doing way worse in the early game since Third Rome in the early game (but they look a bit stronger later in the game).

About Castile, AI is no more genociding Enrique, and can sometimes stay with this useless 0/0/0 ruler, making them badly behind.

 

[Horn and Ivory]

As always, partly just confirmation bias.

I think the fights over Iberia have gotten more vicious since the change where if you control both sides of a strait a navy can't block it, but in my games it's mostly just resulted in Portugal taking over huge swathes of the Maghreb, and I've seen Castile both get partly eaten by France and partly eat France, same as it always used to be. Likewise, Poland seems to me to be doing mostly the same as always, though in my last two games I've interfered with them too much to tell for certain.

 

[Oddb@ll]

I dunno, I've had a few games with third rome and Commonwealth and Spain look normal to me.

 

[morphysghost]

I just finished a russian game. Spain rolled over the Mediterranean, but Lithuania got torn apart while i was busy with Novgorod and Kazan, whcih seemed to slow the Poles a lot.

 

[Dsingis]

Colonialism spawns in England ~75% of cases

This, this and so much this.

In every single one of my games, in which I was not colonizing myself, Colonialism spawned in England and was trapped there, because France and England hate each other.
This is so freaking infuriating, since I have to develop it myself every single time >.<"

Also, yeah I've seen Iberia being a mess more than usual.

Something seems to be wrong with Castille, I mean in my last game they outright refused to colonize anything and instead went on a conquest spree in north africa. Wich resulted in them having 5/9/9 tech at some point xD

 

[Hootieleece]

In My Current Game (Songhai) in 1580 BOTH are faring well. Spain formed and inherited/integrated Naples and is a pain along the West African Coast. Poland is its usual self but as usual has problems with Ottomans.

 

[Albert I]

It's a sand game, sometimes this countries succeed sometimes not. We don't need a determinism game.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

I've seen a lot of Morocco eating into Iberia.

 

[f.l.]

It's a sand game, sometimes this countries succeed sometimes not. We don't need a determinism game.

I would second this in general, but features like the institutions and ages are already quite deterministic and, in my opinion, only work properly, if an adequate level of determinism is given in other places as well.

It is just sad to see cases where Port/Spain screw up heavily early on and no other country takes their place. It would probably suffice to enable a shift in AI priorities, e.g. a strong Aragon or Morocco taking the place which Port/Spain had in reality. In the end, one could argue that it is the region of Iberia which is strategically/historically best suited to explore and conquer the world (also resembled in-game by the trade node of Sevilla). Whether the colonizing countries are Port/Spain or Morocco/Aragon/Al-Andalus might not be too important.

 

[ponasozis]

portugal seems to be getting rekt by morocco and then france reking spain


while poland seems to be suiciding into denmark teuton hung livonia alliance

 

[makaramus]

at my game yesterday aragon formed union with castille
it felt... weird ? O_O

 

[evilcat]

Wait, isnt random outcome exacly what players want?
Like Ottomans colapsing. I would not mind seeing that more often.

In my few games Poland generally collapses. Austria is generally weak.
Spain and Portugal all kind of outcome. Sometimes Aragon form Union (cool).

Poland has cool NI. And getting free PU over Lithuania is cool enought. My main concern is that when playing PLC we cant do anything fun with sejm. We cant pick and support specific candidate. And we cant interact with Sejm in any interesting way.

On the Iberia frontier: AI sucks at colonizing. Spain is very interested in colonizing Ivory Coast whle ignoring New World. They hardly ever use estates.

Also Spain early on has 2 horrible rulers, then Noble rebels (they will never accept demands, better suicide armies on it), then civil war, then Moor rising. But it is ok if sometimes Castille falls.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

Yes Austria, they never seem to do anything other than get the Union with Hungary. Barely touch Northern Italy. Hungary gets rekt by the Turk and Poland.

 

[Agoria]

Portugal has always been broken in EUIV. It just can't do anything without Castile because the in-game Portugal is far to be able to do what actual Portugal did (i.e. conquering Moroccan coasts or reaching India by 1500).
It just became slightly worse because of Aragon.

 

[Vince75]

It's a sand game, sometimes this countries succeed sometimes not. We don't need a determinism game.

I totally agree. So why does Ottoman and Ming never lose now ?

If I post this, it's cause it happened in all of my recent games, that's all. If it was 50/50 I would be very happy.

 

[Agoria]

This might become the big deal of EUV. Editable historical accuracy. I definitely want a quite historical thing. Not the exact true thing, but something close. While conquering Europe as Aztecs can be funny, the most satisfying way to play, to me, is to see how much I can change a nation's destiny in our world. Making Navarra a colonial Empire in Canada and Venezuela would not have had the same flavour if my neighbour is a restored Almohad Empire and that my main competitor as a colonial Empire in South America is Mali.