EU4 Dev Clash #10 - Rule Britannia - Tuesdays 15:00 CET

[Monphat]

Don't underestimate the Western Hugbox, they have two countries that are almost equal to Byz in income and France by itself can match Byz numbers, never mind Spain and England. Also they are getting the colonial lands online that will be sending more and more money back into Western Europe and they have a clear expansion path into Africa for Spain. A move down the coast to visit Nutsoman in Mali and sieze province there as well. England can project force into the Scandanavian regions for additional pickups and France needs to munch more into the HRE area but they should be able to keep up and pass Byz in dev growth next session. As long as they can do that it favors the Western powers.

If Byzantium attacks Starnan then the Western Powers can reinforce, or they can take their piece of flesh as well and they should be able to take more by spreading AE over multiple countries (England, Spain, France and Holland)

Well, if you look at it from strictly on paper, numerical perspective, then yes, West is doing pretty well and has what it takes to beat down Byzantium with some help.

But on practice you have to take into account player behavior, showings and skill levels. The picture changes completely.

 

[Viperswhip]

Nah man, I agree with you completely, never give up and wait to die.


In-game was he a good sport? Up to the current episode on YT, he was not. Post game last week with the constant crying 'i told you so i told you so' after he got defeated, is that being a good sport?

Even though Twitch is shit if you are not watching live, that's still where I watch the Dev Clash because you can see the chat, which is often funny in context. Bratyn is a good guy, and if he is slightly salty that nobody took his warnings about Kaiser seriously, then fine, I can agree, but again, I want Kaiser to win, in a few weeks he will be laughing as they all die one by one to our great Roman Emperor.

 

[DystopianAlphaOmega]

How I imagined Denmark forming Prussia:

 

[Leron]

To be fair, I had to random my nation and could get pretty awful nations for a multiplayer. I said prior to multiplayer starting that letting winning team pick nations will be a disaster.
I still think this can be a decent campaign. I think me, France + Castile would have a chance against Hungary + Byzantium. I don't think they are as strong as everyone says.

cmon bruh you can deceive other devs but you cannot deceive twitch chat we all know you plan to upkeep status quo between west and east until you pass that 7th reform and squash everyone

 

[NimitzOfStars]

Well, if you look at it from strictly on paper, numerical perspective, then yes, West is doing pretty well and has what it takes to beat down Byzantium with some help.

But on practice you have to take into account player behavior, showings and skill levels. The picture changes completely.

Keep in mind that in the first coalition france messed up and let their armies be stackwiped individually and also Johan was not playing and had a sub for England. Also France did not have Elan so they were behind the curve on morale. As they get more and more ideas they will be more equal quality wise to the Byz troops until they catch up at tech 15 and pass them at tech 19. The long game favors the western powers.

 

[Lordban]

Considering Johan's sub in that session, I'd count him as an advantage. Meneth is an excellent military player.

 

[Ketilsen]

It meant that Muscovy -> Russia and Novgorod -> Russia could be two quite different games (rather than one just being a harder start than the other.)

I should have specified: I see the gameplay reasons, just not the flavour reasons.

 

[Imanuglyfish]

It meant that Muscovy -> Russia and Novgorod -> Russia could be two quite different games (rather than one just being a harder start than the other.)

I should have specified: I see the gameplay reasons, just not the flavour reasons.

It is the flavour reasons he is describing and not the gameplay...

The flavour then being that you can keep your Novogrodian merchant heritage while still declaring yourself Russia. Tag is just a tag, what you want is the backstory. It would be silly to take that away only because Kaiser manage to find a way from Ottoman to Byzantium.

 

[Monphat]

Keep in mind that in the first coalition france messed up and let their armies be stackwiped individually and also Johan was not playing and had a sub for England. Also France did not have Elan so they were behind the curve on morale. As they get more and more ideas they will be more equal quality wise to the Byz troops until they catch up at tech 15 and pass them at tech 19. The long game favors the western powers.

That's not what I am arguing about. You are correct, on paper France has a lot of advantages as do other Western powers. But that wouldn't really matter if a player in France wouldn't be able to utilize all that potential.

 

[Meneth]

Considering Johan's sub in that session, I'd count him as an advantage. Meneth is an excellent military player.

My military skills were quite irrelevant to the coalition war, since I never landed any troops; England's only contribution was its fleet.

Whether English troops would've made a difference if they'd been present I guess we'll never know. My guess is that it would not quite have been enough.

 

[grandad1982]

Frankly I can't believe that Byzantium has been aloud to get away with what they have. Its sort of impressive but I want more backbone from the rest of the players!

 

[neondt]

How I imagined Denmark forming Prussia:

View attachment 349439

Savage, but fair.

 

[Viperswhip]

Frankly I can't believe that Byzantium has been aloud to get away with what they have. Its sort of impressive but I want more backbone from the rest of the players!

To be fair, the Top Cop (Johan) was not in the game until last session and I guess he didn't want to rock the boat overmuch.

 

[Viperswhip]

My military skills were quite irrelevant to the coalition war, since I never landed any troops; England's only contribution was its fleet.

Whether English troops would've made a difference if they'd been present I guess we'll never know. My guess is that it would not quite have been enough.

I assume you were on Kaiser's side though based on your actions in that war and that you are a double agent.

 

[Mekriff]

when 3-4 players out of about 15 go for the top spot and everyone else is content with a participation trophy, is really not ok.

Have you ever seen bike racing? It looks exactly like that. You forget the power of drafting and using a teammate's (or, if possible, an alliance of competitors) power to save yourself from the later game.

Kaizer is the breakaway. He is a single player using all of his power for rapid expansion to hope he makes it to the finish line before everyone else does, but he is expending a lot of energy and diplomatic possibilities to do so. The other players can either

A) Ignore the breakaway and build up strength to hopefully catch up (StarNaN)
B) Fight the breakaway by expending more energy than he is despite being behind him (Bratyn)
or
C) Join the breakaway, ride on his heels, and grow with him (Hungary, Persia, Aragon, etc)

B is the most interesting, but A and C are usually the best options. In fact, Bratyn almost did C.

You know, after this, I NEVER want to see Bratyn playing again. You lost mate, shake the other players hand and get over it, don't be a bad sport and try to mess up other players games by being an asshole over and over. Just disgraceful sportsmanship.

As a Go player, I understand that it is polite to resign instead of prolonging a game. I understand that what Bratyn did was maybe a bit overboard.

But I also understand that this is not Go.

Bratyn showed his hand in the coalition war and lost. He expended all his resources to make this happen and it didn't. He was out of diplomatic and military might. Utterly defeated. Naturally any Go player would resign.

However, I like to see these wars as sort of a last hurrah before resigning. A 'Hail Mary' play as it were. He was hoping for a miracle, anything would suffice, before resigning. Like a last ditch invasion in a Go game that looks wrong but *just might* work. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down fighting.

 

[Viking]

Thing is, if BjornB had joined Bratyn in the stab dec KJ would have been in real trouble, with ongoing 99% OE. KJ would have been unable to take any land in any peace, only releasing minors for dip points he might not have access to due to WE. If both Bratyn and BjornB had done this they would just have to make sure they had 100 adm lying around when they get stab hit out of hte war so they can re-stab dec and just keep KJ locked at 99% OE.

Sadly, to do something like this you need awareness of KJ's OE, it should have been obvious that it was high and you could see it from the RR in his provinces. But, again, it seems Bratyn has an ability to see the big picture he lacked in in the previous dev clash when he let KJ take all of europe as prussia which BjornB doesn't yet have.

 

[Inquisitor Silenus]

The thing about Bratyn is I don't think anyone mind's him going down with a fight. The question is whether it was ok to do so using the specific mechanics he used: i.e. repeatedly declaring war simply to obligate KJ to occupy his land and prevent coring. That's not going down with a fight, it's laying over to get eaten, but slathering yourself vinegar and iodine before you do so. Or maybe just trying to shove yourself into the dragon's mouth and make him choke on his food. Either way, much like the abuse (intended or not) in the Indian Thunderdome where Unconditional Surrender was used to completely destroy a country, it's the sort of behavior that you'd rather not become a thing everyone did all the time, even if you did think this specific instance was justified.

 

[Dragonzord]

As a Go player, I understand that it is polite to resign instead of prolonging a game. I understand that what Bratyn did was maybe a bit overboard.

But I also understand that this is not Go.

Bratyn showed his hand in the coalition war and lost. He expended all his resources to make this happen and it didn't. He was out of diplomatic and military might. Utterly defeated. Naturally any Go player would resign.

However, I like to see these wars as sort of a last hurrah before resigning. A 'Hail Mary' play as it were. He was hoping for a miracle, anything would suffice, before resigning. Like a last ditch invasion in a Go game that looks wrong but *just might* work. If he was going to go down, he was going to go down fighting.

Go has very specific rules on what you can and cannot do. EU4 usually does too, because the AI doesnt truce break, but a player that's given up and wants to be annoying can exploit this feature until the very end of the game, unable to be defeated properly, and unable to win themselves. I don't see anyone stepping in on Byz's side to help him take away Kazan's lands, there's no reason to help a major threat get stronger already, and so he could literally do this till the end of the game.

The hail mary... While the concept of it is sound, if Kazan couldn't defeat Byz WITH all of Kazan's allies, what hope is there that he could possibly do it alone? None. At that point it's just being a troll and exploiting a mechanic after he'd given up on the game for himself.

There's no need to resign, though. He still could have stayed in it and tried to convince other players to help him, but instead he chose to strap on a suicide vest and run at Byz over and over to try to take them both out of the game after he'd honourably lost.

 

[Mekriff]

it's the sort of behavior that you'd rather not become a thing everyone did all the time, even if you did think this specific instance was justified.

That I can understand.

My question is why coring isn't allowed during war is a thing at all... If anything must be done, coring should maybe be slowed, but I don't see much reason for that feature.

Also: I'm not sure if this is the case currently, but shouldn't truce breaking only be possible at +3 stability so you get the full impact of the drop (and to space out trucebreaks)?

I'm not sure if I would classify this act as bad sportsmanship, but I can see why it would be viewed as such, since it can be very annoying to certain players and has only limited effect or ability, so it would be wise to implement barriers to this kind of play (or at least reduce the incentives).

 

[Meneth]

it's the sort of behavior that you'd rather not become a thing everyone did all the time, even if you did think this specific instance was justified.

Assuming that's the case though, it is great that he did it.
Unconditional surrender got several tweaks as a result of how it was used in the Indian Thunderdome. A major goal of the DevMP is to find out if there are edge cases that should be handled.
Which means either that this was fine and won't be changed, or that it was fine because it will be changed.