EU4 Poland is completely broken

[TheMeInTeam]

Manchu Ideas are better. My argument: -20% Core Creation Cost.
Manchu ideas might be the best non-formable ideas in the game.

Manchu is formable. Unlike earlier patches, it's not even limited to the Jurchen tribe starts. If you want, you can form Manchu as Poland, though that will probably take you a while.

And yes, their ideas are fantastic for WC. -20% core cost coupled with -10% tech cost and -2 unrest is a great pairing. I put the set ahead of Rome and Italy, about even with Mughals, and a bit behind Yuan among formables. Access to banners isn't technically part of the group but is also amazing.

*Rival AI allies another rival AI so they can stand a better chance against the player menace* - "OMFG, unplayable! AI should not do anything even remotely clever!"

Too bad for the AI, it still vomits guarantees all over the place completely undermining its own alliance logic as the player simply cancels them then dismantles before they can re-establish it.

So please, armchair commander, what else could I have done to prevent this?

Pick Bohemia instead of picking Austria and win your own wars if you must, which was the opening that led to my position earlier in the thread. Bohemia did help distract Denmark at one point though, you get favors with them pretty fast.

 

[Bibor]

While Bulgaria and Anatolia is good clay to have, I would first focus on taking land in trade nodes that can transfer to Baltic Sea

Which puts you into direct conflict with Muscovy and/or Denmark. Primary income in the first 100 years is from tax, followed by manufacturing, not from trade. Even by controlling the Baltic Trade node, you don't control Novgorod (again, Muscovy problem), and even if you do, that one kicks in with Depletion of European Beaver and Developments in Ironworking.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Which puts you into direct conflict with Muscovy and/or Denmark. Primary income in the first 100 years is from tax, followed by manufacturing, not from trade. Even by controlling the Baltic Trade node, you don't control Novgorod (again, Muscovy problem), and even if you do, that one kicks in with Depletion of European Beaver and Developments in Ironworking.

Muscovy + Scandinavia are the easiest direct expansion routes though, certainly better than going early HRE or Ottomans. In contrast to those this route is something you can realistically solo without complete debt-tanking, and you get trade in addition to decent contiguous land.

 

[Foefaller]

Don't get me wrong, I don't claim to be even a halfway-decent player, and I'm far from Poland is easy, you just suck attitude.

What could have you do differently? The first thing that comes to mind is decline Austria's call to arms. Any alliance can and should be broken as soon as it stops being profitable to you - and being dragged into a clearly hopeless war with vastly superior foe is far from profitable. Hungary would never declare war on you, having less than half of the forces you, your vassals and Lithuania have. And with Austria fighting a loosing war, they wouldn't have anyone to back them up.

As for Kalmar Union - you need to take Danzig to be able to support Sweden's independence, but the second it's possible, you should do it. Even if they don't declare war for independence, high Liberty Desire will prevent them from helping out in any of Denmark's wars.

But again, I agree that it's easy to sit in your chair and give advice without having the full picture.

I did eventually dump them for round 3, mainly because I still hadn't fully recovered from the last one.

Like I said before, it was a *winnable* war... well, maybe not in a gain territory way, but enough so the Big Blue Blob wouldn't get bigger and weaken Austria and the HRE even more.

That didn't stop Denmark et al and Muscovy starting a second war later... though this time I was able to bloody them enough to force them to break their alliance, and once they were no longer friends, sharing borders they quickly became enemies.

As for Sweden... their Liberty Desire was oddly low for almost the entire 15th century, never accepted any independence support one I had a port until after the reformation hit. After that, with no Sweden and no Russia ally, Denmark's former LO holdings are easy pickings.

Pick Bohemia instead of picking Austria and win your own wars if you must, which was the opening that led to my position earlier in the thread. Bohemia did help distract Denmark at one point though, you get favors with them pretty fast.

Actually had Bohemia and Brandenburg at first... but then Bohemia dumped me for being friendly with Brandenburg... who by the way, has never once abandoned me (which is probably why I was able to win my three-way war), and only asked me to join one war... splitting Bohemia between the two of us

"Course, when I get back to that game, I'm going to have to stab Brandenburg in the back, because both them and Sweden are currently allied with Russia, are Russia's only allies, and with Hungary allied with France, Russia and the HRE is the only real paths of expansion once all parts of Denmark that are in reach are mine.

 

[Jetstreamed]

You need to practice a bit and check the wiki for useful information about the game.

None of what you've said here is really a problem, especially in SP. really, if you can't beat denmark-TO, then just wait a bit. Get a tech advantage and take out a mil idea as your first idea, maybe defensive ideas. For that matter, just look at one of those guides, where ever they are, that have "meta ideas" and just use those. You'll get a good army off of that and should be able to easily beat the AI as long as you're patient. Once you get used to beating the AI with OP army, just start scaling back on ideas until you get more used to garbage paper troops.

1. Poland has the best National Ideas in the game bar none. There is no conceivable argument with merit that can be made to deny this.

Prussian ideas are better.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

For SP expansion calling either Prussia or Poland top NI set is completely ridiculous. There's some merit there in MP, but only on crowded maps where you don't die early.

 

[mag_zbc]

Denmark's former LO holdings are easy pickings.

Maybe that's the root of the issue? Denmark can't integrate Norway if they don't take additional land - even after annexing Holstein they don't have enough provinces (you need to have more provinces than the nation you're trying to annex) and they usually go for Osel, because they get a mission for it. You can deny them this land by taking it in the very first war with LO - that's what I did.

 

[CoolSpin]

Well.. I finally did the polish achieves and made it to 1821.

During this run, I constantly had to have extra vassals, finance them, build stuff, develop, just so they could reinforce me when im about to lose a battle. I usually lost a lot more units when winning.

at the end I had 4 marches (bohemia, augsburg, cologne, palatinate), Lithuania as subjects. I was paranoid of ottomans and russia attacking, so I had France, Sweden and mixing between big milan and papal state, depending on which got annul treaty with me from their own warring, as allies.

After all NI were completed, I was ready to rock. Only to hit rock bottom. First big war I had to merc up with loans, because I just took so many casualties. That said, I will fight until I win or is overrun, max loans, debase, whatever it takes. So I won, but PL OP? Then I started making marches, and sat speed 5, accepted call to arms and let my subjects do the fighting, couldn't be emotionally bothered to witness the paper units under my control getting rekt and raked.

Well, except when Ottomans went bankrupt. Spent the rest of the game playing with pu mechanics.

But im never touching this nation again.

Anyway, this was my story, if you do great as pl, good for you, I sit now feeling I wasted life for some achievements. Blergh.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Poland taking military ideas is nearly as far away from paper military as possible. If that's happening with Poland, you're going to get raked through the coals playing the same way with nations that actually lack military ideas. Might we worth working on unit composition and staying up on mil tech...

 

[ThatRabidPotato]

A few people have touched on it, but as Poland you should usually be able to ally France. They'll almost always be rivals with Austria, so rival Austria and improve relations, and voila you have the second strongest country in the game on your side. PLC + France is strong enough to deter Ottoblob + Muscovy, especially if you're being proactive and looking for any weak allies or guarantees of Muscovy to lever the alliance open and weaken Muscovy.

 

[bigaristotel]

Your average AI Poland:

P.S. They've got PU over Austria before 1500.

 

[Sfan]

That's what I was about to say. Judging by borders, I was about to bet they got a PU over Austria.
More curious about the Papal Balkans, first time I see it happen. And the Netherlands somehow owning half of Denmark is also quite unusual.

 

[bigaristotel]

More curious about the Papal Balkans, first time I see it happen.

Pope was quite powerful. He owned almost all of the Italy while I've built my Lucky Lucca empire. Then I've decided that Italian clay is my rightful property.

 

[JRMurphy]

Use them cheatcodes.

 

[CoolSpin]

Edited this post several times since first posted, if you have email notifications on, please read through.

Poland taking military ideas is nearly as far away from paper military as possible. If that's happening with Poland, you're going to get raked through the coals playing the same way with nations that actually lack military ideas. Might we worth working on unit composition and staying up on mil tech...

So Poland, like kind of Brandenburg and Portugal, is a one-ideas-set-trick-pony?

I don't remember all idea groups i had now, but I did pick aristo and kept spamming Bessarabia for Cossacks, and at a half army composition had minimum 6 cav.

By half army composition, I mean the other identical stack was near to immediately reinforce the other stack, taking up max combat with, plus extra infantry for losses

If aristo + NI + Cossacks estate + Raise Cossacks spam, wouldn't be an ok baseline, what good is Poland then?

If Poland is such a narrow case as Brandenburg (influence +quality i think, for inf combat abil. policy), id like to know what's the most perfect way for Poland idea set is, ideas at least 1-6.

Now BB is in HRE, PLC isn't, so BB has the advantage of that (avoid emperor rage). This is why I remember I always take Influence near HRE, so I vassalize rather than take provinces myself.

If Poland is a one trick pony, and must have more than offensive and aristo, just to be on par... Well...

Well, teach me.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Edited this post several times since first posted, if you have email notifications on, please read through.



So Poland, like kind of Brandenburg and Portugal, is a one-ideas-set-trick-pony?

I don't remember all idea groups i had now, but I did pick aristo and kept spamming Bessarabia for Cossacks, and at a half army composition had minimum 6 cav.

By half army composition, I mean the other identical stack was near to immediately reinforce the other stack, taking up max combat with, plus extra infantry for losses

If aristo + NI + Cossacks estate + Raise Cossacks spam, wouldn't be an ok baseline, what good is Poland then?

If Poland is such a narrow case as Brandenburg (influence +quality i think, for inf combat abil. policy), id like to know what's the most perfect way for Poland idea set is, ideas at least 1-6.

Now BB is in HRE, PLC isn't, so BB has the advantage of that (avoid emperor rage). This is why I remember I always take Influence near HRE, so I vassalize rather than take provinces myself.

If Poland is a one trick pony, and must have more than offensive and aristo, just to be on par... Well...

Well, teach me.

This is the idea groups I chose in order, and it was not optimal:



I don't think idea group choice is your issue, likely some combination of tech/managing combat width/arty backing. 15% morale and 5% disc are strong military NI boosters even if you ignore cavalry.

 

[CoolSpin]

This is the idea groups I chose in order, and it was not optimal:



I don't think idea group choice is your issue, likely some combination of tech/managing combat width/arty backing. 15% morale and 5% disc are strong military NI boosters even if you ignore cavalry.

I should add I usually declare if Im 1 tech ahead, or same tech to opponent, but have better NI or idea setup comparatively to them. Exception is where I can steamroll a low dev/few provinces enemy/map paint fixing.

With all this information, and previous of my posts included, I was really surprised to rekt as I was.

So perhaps AI just picked a combination of ideas and policies that countered me better? I'll post my end screen once I can, for tips and mistakes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I don't think Poland with equal tech and any military idea group except naval should be losing wars in single player. Very early vs Ottomans is hard, but aside from that it should be easy at equal tech. If you're losing despite that, there's something off with unit control/composition most likely.