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

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I just realized what the big problem this session had: no surprises! There was never a war where you didn't already know the outcome 100% beforehand, it was always "how can I lose the least" or "how can I make them suffer too." Session 2 was great because of that huge coalition which was repulsed (incidentally, session 1 sucked for similar reasons; people were just interested enough in Byzantium to not care).

Playing the diplomatic game may be good for winning... but it sure is boring. I demand blood!
Poland clearly needs to start singing different Sabaton lyrics; "Last Dying Breath" comes to mind...

(It really does though:
"War begun, the Kaiser has come
Day or night, the shells keep falling
Overrun, but never outdone
Street to street, denying defeat"

and
"In haste, our lives are erased
Forward to glory for king and country!"
)

Poland can learn the Serbian trick: if you can find glory in defeat you'll never be a loser. ;)
 
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Honestly they should let the worst players pick first if anything: Imagine the Starnans and KaiserJohans of the world being the small fry Mecklenburg and Pomerania of an HRE-fish tank dominated by Austria-Groogary. :p
Eh, I'd like such a game rule to be an incentive to do well, not badly. ;)
 
They should simply use a list of the five last clashes. The players that are new or down the list pick first, the winners pick last.

Getting trophies is enough reward to play good, no need to get kickstarted for the next trophy. ;)
 
But some of us, like Groogy, actually intended to lose and get replaced in other nations (obviously) - it's all part of a cunning, cunning plan.
 
I always thought it was a bit weird that you had the option to keep the old idea set when changing tags. If you aren't prepared to rethink how you do things, as a people, why would you go to the effort of changing your collective identity (through a renaming)?

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 find it interesting how people are so convinced people will now suddenly band up against Byzantium, after I spent an entire week trying to get people to do just that. What is the rationale in waiting until half of the potential coalition has been destroyed or has flipped sides before you make a stand? Especially when Byzantium alone outgrows the entire Western alliance, and together with his new allies probably has outstripped this session's growth of every single other European player nation combined?
 
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Bratyn, you will not be forgotten. Your heroic deeds will be shared and told for years to come.
Thanks for the entertaining stream, everyone’s being a good sport about it keep it up.

Although the Byzantine is far above anyone at this moment, if people rally to the banners like Bratyn did, the false Rome will fall... but do people have the strength to carry on what Bratyn started, only time will tell.
Hold the door Bratyn.jpg

fn0Kc
 
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Bratyn, you will not be forgotten. Your heroic deeds will be shared and told for years to come.
Thanks for the entertaining stream, everyone’s being a good sport about it keep it up.

Although the Byzantine is far above anyone at this moment, if people rally to the banners like Bratyn did, the false Rome will fall... but do people have the strength to carry on what Bratyn started, only time will tell.
Brake the Byzantine. Brake the -tine. Bra th in. Bratyn.
 
I would wonder what the pope man had to say about that. Wasn't he a prince as well?

If you vote against the revoke then your country isn't vassalised, but the emperor gets claims on you. If they made a deal that those claims wouldn't be used (and we know StarNaN keeps his deals), the Pope and Bohemia would maintain their independence.

I'm kidding but also I'm not kidding. Reforms accelerate once you pass the Ewiger Landfried. StarNaN's got three reforms done by the early 1500s, and footholds for expansion in Scandinavia and Prussia where territory can be added to the empire relatively easily. Given how weak the reformation is within the HRE, unless there's an explosion of Calvinists, or he abandons trying to manage the empire in favour of eating it, or other people make a really concerted attempt to unseat him from the Imperial throne, he's on-track to revoke by 1650. If the Pope and Bohemia decided to help him rather than oppose him, it'd be very, very hard to stop him.

I want to believe.
 
Honestly the western hugbox shot themselves in the foot with those two coalition wars against holland they had to fight and because of that they were not expanding which is why burgundy is still around. They really should have been eating more land and dev. Afterall it doesn't matter if the Byz is growing as long as you are growing as well and the dev rich states in europe do provide a better return since you will be limited by the number of states you can have. Austria has been eating up a lot of dev each session, it is France who gained no new provinces in session 2 that is the issue.

Dev gains during session 2-
Byz 268 with 27 new provinces (9.9 per province)
England 98 with 11 new provinces (however they have some major dev gains in some of the missions plus a good amount of monarch points) (8.9 per province)
Castile 60 with 3 new provinces (20 per province)
Austria 137 with 7 new provinces (19.6 per province)

Then factor in the penalties for wrong culture vs primary culture/accepted culture/culture union vs same culture group.

Byz was expanding into areas outside of the Levantine culture group so they are taking a penalty on those provinces, the others should be expanding in their culture group so they are taking less of a penalty and once they hit 1k dev and can be an empire that is going to disappear.

Now this session with taking down to Jeruslam Byz is back into their culture lands but state and 0 or 25% autonomy vs non state at 75% autonomy is a huge difference in income, manpower and force limit.

Also Austria at 3 reforms and good dev base is fine as long as they and their allies can navigate between the other two alliance blocks.
 
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They should simply use a list of the five last clashes. The players that are new or down the list pick first, the winners pick last.

Getting trophies is enough reward to play good, no need to get kickstarted for the next trophy. ;)

While I agree having a strong player in a strong nation surrounded by weaker players in weaker nations isn't ideal... Having new/weak players in the main nations isn't ideal either, since they're often unable/unwilling to make anything happen, and the stronger players in weaker nations can't really make anything happen without getting "coalitioned" by other strong players in weaker nations combined with some scared strong nations.
 
While I agree having a strong player in a strong nation surrounded by weaker players in weaker nations isn't ideal... Having new/weak players in the main nations isn't ideal either, since they're often unable/unwilling to make anything happen, and the stronger players in weaker nations can't really make anything happen without getting "coalitioned" by other strong players in weaker nations combined with some scared strong nations.

Not sure if tight-spawns help or make it worse. Maybe having AI primarily in the large nations is better?
 
Finally caught up on this, and wow, isn't this situation brutal... We now literally have a player controlling an Empire complete with vassals and tributaries, with the strongest country around.

... but...

Standing Army
Byzantium 78,000
France 75,000

Austria 58,000
Hungary 44,000
Great Britain 42,523
The Papal State 41,000
Spain 40,000
Transoxiana 32,000
Persia 30,000
Bohemia 30,000
Mamluks 27,057
Sweden 26,000

Triple the development doesn't yet tell the story, too few states available. It is still very possible to take down the Orthodox Sultan if there is a will - and there lays the entire issue at the end of the current stream: there isn't a will.

And at some point, if people stay and side with Byzantium while waiting for their time to come or the right Victory Cards to spawn, KJ is going to end up consolidating more efficiently than his neighbors can. Except, as was already very well stated, they'll have run out of people able to come to their aid.
 
Not sure if tight-spawns help or make it worse. Maybe having AI primarily in the large nations is better?

Nah, I would say that one of the bad things with the Asian Dev Clash was the blobbed Ottoman AI who really messed with the dynamic in the game.

I think the problem with this dev clash mostly come down to player actions, IE - a lot of experienced player ganged up and left the new ones isolatet. Setup wise the only problem was that the only real threat to Otto/Byz got eliminated when a player was placed in Hungary. Usually Hungary, PU or only ally with Austria, gives some leverage and substance to some cooperative moves from a regular alliance web to counter the rapid growth that you now manage with Otto/Byz. Now he instead supported it, a smart move from Sidestep indeed, but power balance wise it kind of put things off balance.
 
I think that Starnan should try to rally people behind him putting Hungary under PU. It's a lot to ask, but he has some balance-of-power arguments:
- Austria is the only nation powerful enough to contend with Byzantium. Detaching Hungary from Byzantium's hip and giving it to Austria will bolster his position to protect western Europe from the Byzantines.
-Hungary PU war goal will give the allies focus. This will make coordination easier.
- The coalition should try to recruit Persia by offering to go to war again to strip Byzantium of any Persian land.
- Johan would probably be open to joining the coalition. The last time that Johan played England he saw himself as upholding the balance of power. If he joins the war then England's navy will be a huge tool, especially if the allies capture Constantinople.
-Most of the big powers are probably persuadable. Kaiser Johan already threatened to put the King of Aragon on the Spanish throne. England has nothing to lose being so far away. Sweden might join if offered bits of Denmark, but even if ForzaA doesn't join on the side of the allies, he'll probably stay neutral like always. France might join if offered bits of central Europe. Pretty much everybody else is a target, or will be.

Persia is too isolated to be anything but something for KJ to farm warscore out of if taking part. That said though, forcefully aligning Hungary away from Byzantium is indeed probably the best move the western power block have at the moment.
 
Well, another strong session by Kaiser, to see Rome starting to form is exciting. Kaiser has good and rational allies who I think will benefit from his supervision. The Western alliance is about to fragment as two members have victory cards on the central one, and I imagine all future cards will also be on France.

I don't know who Kaiser's next card will be against, probably Mamluks again.