Do you play sub-optimally?

[Josar]

You make it sound like influence and diplomatic are an either or choice when really you should take both.

Generally I do not try to play suboptimaly. Playing a weak nation is generally sub optimal enough.

 

[agonistes]

As someone with entirely too many hours in this game (let's just say it's in the thousands and leave it that), I take a certain pride in keeping up with the meta, optimal strategies, and the like, yet there are also ways in which I purposefully deviate from these strategies as well, and not always for roleplay or game goal (like clean borders)-related reasons either. For example:

Playing Castile, I always eat up Portugal in two wars in the 1440s/1450s. I know there is a PU. I know they can colonize for you and all that, but I just like having the rare game where Portugal doesn't leave green blotches all over the map (and extra Iberian development early isn't so bad either).

I am generally not the biggest fan of subjects (and not of Influence ideas either. Diplomatic for life). I'll happily diplo-vassalize and prop up the odd subject, but they're fated for annexation as soon as possible.

I really love Religious games, converting, and even oftentimes culture converting (something to use the dip I save above on, huh?). I know it's more efficient to just pick Humanist and essentially forget religions are a thing, but that's not me (usually).

Now my question to you all is: Are there ways in which you purposefully play sub-optimally, or are you a mean, lean meta machine?

Yes, I certainly do, but where my goals are concerned I will achieve those goals. If its just swatting a fly, I could care less about my technique. If its a major operation I will increase efficiency, particularly if its a situation I've never seen. Like in my last USA game when Portugal/spain/britain/russia and their colonies all dow'd me and I had no allies.

I never maximize expansion, but I do consistently keep europe fairly well balanced if I decide to be a power.

 

[Imiona]

If playing just for fun is considered sub-optimally, then yes .

 

[PDXJon]

I play pragmatically. Sometimes a situation requires it. If I’m up against the Great Green Giant, I’ll skip better idea groups and invest in military ones or I’ll take less optimal idea groups just so I can get good military policies.

Sometimes I play sub-optimally for a challenge. Playing games without humanist/diplomatic/quantity will force me to take idea groups that I rarely do. I still haven’t taken naval, however.

 

[TolHydra]

Most of my fondest memories playing these games were in eu3, so sometimes I still find myself refusing to go Quantity even if it'd literally make a run happen. Going for those meta ”strengthen noble privileges” clicks makes me feel like I'm doing deals with the devil. I absolutely do not enjoy developing land through clicks either.

Although I still haven't picked Maritime or Naval in all my 2k hours, so let's not go crazy here.

 

[Astalic]

Although I still haven't picked Maritime or Naval in all my 2k hours, so let's not go crazy here.

You remind me a game where i played Japan with maritime + Naval + quality for fun.
I sunk the british royal navy in this game (i wanted some portugese island in the pacific, they were allied... too bad for the brit)

Some people play space marines because stack wiping is funny. This is the same thing but you can call it "star destroyer" instead

If you want to try one day my advice is to play an island. So south east asia, japan or GB.

 

[Uskayaw]

No, I have no imagination and I play eu4 like spreadsheet simulator.

 

[leefnmajors]

Yeah... I basically don't care what the "meta" is when I'm playing, unless it's specifically supposed to be something competitive (hardcore MP or something of the like). I know I can do a one-tag WC; I've done it a few times with a few tags. That was enough for me to stop caring about being super optimal all the time. From there, I just wanted entertainment.

 

[Jespoke]

My biggest one is not optimizing Absolutism. I'm not into blobbing for the sake of blobbing, and getting rid of estate privileges and activating Court and Country are a hassle i usually don't feel like dealing with that far into a campaign.

Spreading out around the world to spread out AE is also something i usually restrict myself from in some form, because i will get FOMO from not conquering all the same boring easy land that i conquer every game if i don't stop myself.

Going Religious, and foregoing subjects are points from the OP i often do as well. Especially diplo-vassalizing and integrating tiny countries is far too much clicking for me to bother with.

 

[RobbieAB]

Although I still haven't picked Maritime or Naval in all my 2k hours, so let's not go crazy here.

I did strait talk by reducing Hormuz to just Hormuz, and opening Naval, Maritime, and never building an army.

It worked remarkably well.

 

[cuendillar]

I restrict myself pretty heavily, so I guess so. For example, I don't switch primary cultures except through events and the like. I'm not adverse to doing weird stuff within those restrictions though, like Romagnol pirate Mexico (started as Bologna, formed OPM New Providence and then Mexico). It took a capital move from Bahamas to the mainland but that felt within reason (and allowed for the Spaghetti Western achievement) compared to moving to the New World via some island. Bologna did quite well back in Italy even after I let go of them as they were well set up economically and diplomatically.

Obviously, this means no formation chains to maximize mission modifiers which seems to be the meta nowadays. I also tend to pick different idea goups based on country NIs and position, but I doubt that doing so is suboptimal compared to always taking the same ones in the same order.

 

[PDXJon]

My biggest one is not optimizing Absolutism. I'm not into blobbing for the sake of blobbing, and getting rid of estate privileges and activating Court and Country are a hassle i usually don't feel like dealing with that far into a campaign.

Spreading out around the world to spread out AE is also something i usually restrict myself from in some form, because i will get FOMO from not conquering all the same boring easy land that i conquer every game if i don't stop myself.

Going Religious, and foregoing subjects are points from the OP i often do as well. Especially diplo-vassalizing and integrating tiny countries is far too much clicking for me to bother with.

I’ve exceeded 13k hours and I’ve never forced that disaster. It‘s too much work and absolution is still powerful even if you’re sitting below 100.

 

[bokorthedust]

I'm an achievement hunter, so I always stick to optimum plays to finish my goal as soon as possible and move on to the next one that looks fun to me. Because of that, I detest achievements that require you play until the end of the game (for example the horde achievement that requires you to have all institutions). But considering the meta you could still say I play sub-optimally, because I prefer Religious for the CB and converting over Humanist, and Offensive over Quantity, and I never do Court and Country. I rarely change up idea groups I take (mostly when doing an achievement that needs you to colonize), because I got used to the ones I take that enable for me the playstyle I consider the most optimal, meta notwithstanding.

 

[Borgratz]

I usually set myself some roleplay rules to determine in what situation I will chose that option no matter what (I will be anglican, I will never ally the Ottomans, stuff like that) and then try to play as well as I can. Which is still very much suboptimal, because I only play one game every 6 month or so

 

[Shogun96]

And i have the "nice border" mental illness, i can't play with half state

nice borders gang

 

[Methys]

Of course I play sub-optimally. The game requires way too much concentration and time to play optimally. I usually have more attention and play better in the first 50-100 years and after that I get bored unless I am going for a hard achievement. To play perfectly optimally you would need to play day by day on speed 1/2 as well as know the mechanics inside out.

 

[necro84]

I dislike the meta and try to find my own sollutions but often it can be better than meta. E.g. look at the Timurids - most people would go into India to form Mughals as fast as possible and instead I ally the Ottomans and go west. After defeating Ajam I declare on QQ, release Syria as a vassal and use my ally Ottomans to reconquer Syrian provinces from Mamluks. Ottomans are never strong in my games because without Syria and Egypt they have less development and trade income.

Is it optimal if I don't do what is best for my nation but I'm trying to prevent others from getting stronger?

 

[Nostalgium]

I dislike the meta and try to find my own sollutions but often it can be better than meta. E.g. look at the Timurids - most people would go into India to form Mughals as fast as possible and instead I ally the Ottomans and go west.

We were granted two hands; one to punch east, one to punch west.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I’ve exceeded 13k hours and I’ve never forced that disaster. It‘s too much work and absolution is still powerful even if you’re sitting below 100.

Since crown land, you can get >100 regardless. So it's more whether you want to carry an extra 1-2 privileges w/o penalty.

 

[iClipse]

It really depends on what the goal of a campaign is. When playing with mods I often just try to complete the mission tree and that's that (Anbennar, missions expanded)

Playing optimally is often not all that fun to be honest. I mean, it's stretching your nation to the limit, juggling truces, juggling aggressive expansion, being constantly at war, often with no treasury, and mercs and lack of manpower (especially earlygame and playing as a Horde), while it can be equally fun to just sit back and make your nation prosper. At least it's more 'chill'.

But, to each its own. It's a sandbox game for a reason, i.e. you set your own goal and abide by your own set rules.

In general, I like playing somewhat optimally, but always add in my own spice. For example, I usually take one 'wildcard' idea group early in my run to facilitate a certain way I want to play that game. In my three mountains run for example I took innovative ideas as my second group (after exploration) and kept it until I reached 100 innovativeness. It worked out decently well in the end. In the current patch I'm testing out opening with espionage ideas, but I'll often taken subpar ideagroups to make my run more flavorful. Trade ideas (them policies) is my personal favorite 'subpar' ideagroup.