How is your first CS game going...?

[neaiskink]

playing as Poland.
Ate Teutons, paid insane amounts of MPs for cores.
Other than that, France allied Austria allied to Hungary allied to Muscowy.
Not much to do.

I allied austria as well and just keep sitting there without moving troops in their endless emperor wars (2 against ottos for genoa, one against the pope and 2 against burgundy and co)

Need more enemies to fight, but getting jumped by france, austria, hungary and muscowy at once would be deadly.

General feeling:
a) i love the missions giving ship discounts and legitimacy. cool stuff.
b) core cost are high, but make sense. no more crazy blobbing
c) Burgundy is a beast, allied to aragon able to fight both Austria and France to a halt (concede defeat).


My suggestion: NEED MORE OPTIONS TO DO POWER PROJECTION.

 

[Qantrix]

Currently playing a Burgundy - Netherlands game. France was pretty friendly to me from the start which was quite helpful during the expansion into the HRE. After forming the Netherlands (and joining the HRE as a Duchy not sure if WAI) I quickly became leader of the Protestant League. My old buddy France was on the other side which allowed me to recover Rethel. I was hoping to take Picardy too and perhaps even release Burgundy but had to prioritize Austria. Eventually a relatively lenient peace fired the Peace of Munster. Currently starting my first colonies which I haven't done in a lot of patches.

 

[ktk1212]

Currently playing a Granada-Andalusia game. I've conquered Tlemcan and Morocco, westernized, and taken a couple provinces off Castile/Aragon. Allied with France and Ottos and getting ready for the big clash with Castile where I hope to break their back. Turns out coring North Africa is really really expensive. I've been westernized for 30 years and I'm on tech parity with the Ming. Desperately trying to get my military tech to catch up to Castile (3 techs down at the moment), but mostly I'm hoping France will do the heavy lifting for me. Unfortunately, France has taken a beating and is currently split into two realms thanks to Brittany connecting up with Burgundy...

All in all, it's been a relatively easy game. Coring costs hurt but it isn't the end of the world, but diplo-annexing even a small berber country is insanely expensive. I vassalized Morrocco after conquering 3/4ths of their land, and they still cost 1k diplo points. It's also really easy to abuse Portugal, since they'll constantly declare war on you then you can just capture their fort in Africa. Suddenly, you have one of their few forts and ticking warscore, all you have to do is wait and eventually they'll surrender.

Also as a side note, I've noticed the potential for some serious income via vassals. With Iqta and Scuteage on, even poor vassals were giving me over 1 gold per month.

 

[zenisar]

I started campaign as Bohemia (as usually), got to 1470, then noticed it does not run Ironman (though I would swear I checked the box before starting) and deleted the saves in dismay. My observations so far:

Vassalization is easier than before. You can get vassals with 5 provinces for 72% warscore (Saxony) or 7 provinces for 98% warscore (Brandenburg). I suppose this is only possible at the beginning of the game when provinces are not yet developed. Expansion will be slowed down late campaign because of higher development of concquered provinces. Conclusion: the strategy of rapid early expansion known from Civ3 (a.k.a. landgrab) is essential for long term survival in EU4.

Agressive expansion: I got -35 AE for vassalizing Saxony with 5 provinces. It seems to me lower than before in HRE. Though that number was flat for all listed countries in vicinity. That is weird - I expect that AE be naturally impacted by distance, relationships and religion. I have no problem that countries in India are not listed anymore because who cares when I expand in Central Europe. However that AE is not variable anymore - well, I do not like that.

AI alliances are following some weird logic. First, Austria allied with Hungary, then with France. So, if the two most powerful nations in Europe ally at the beginning of the game and divide the world, what is the player supposed to do throughout the campaign? Sit and scratch head?

 

[JagLover]

Playing Musvoy and it has been the hardest vanilla game since my Morocoo playthrough long time ago. Those forts are very challening in terms of warfare, and fighting sweden and lithuania(without even poland!!) is the hell on earth. It's mid 17th century now and I think I barely have historical borders, eventhough I tried hard.

Haven't played as Muscovy yet but I suspected the changes would hammer them.

 

[generalolaf]

Hsenwi, it turns out, is a really interesting nation to play. My game's up to about 1510 and I'm the foremost power in Southeast Asia. I'm allied with Ayutthaya (the second largest power) and until recently had stopped Ming from rivalling me. We're now mutual rivals, which should prove... interesting.

Tech's tanked. I think I went overboard on the new development increasing feature without realising the impact that might have on other areas. I've only just paid off the loans I took in 1450ish fighting Mong Yang.

 

[doktorstick]

Buggy. I've reported over a dozen separate bugs, and that's just me, one person.

As for my game, playing as England, now GBR. PU'd France with the mission casus belli. That caused a coalition war against all of Europe, and I lost causing the release of Guyenne, but maintained my grip on France. I own the northern coast of Europe up through East Frisia, Nevers as a 5 province march, Provence as a 200+ development vassal, and Savoy as a 200+ development vassal. I'm easting my way into the Venice trade node.

When my prestige was high and I had a young king, I switch to Protestant. France and I were in a PU "in name only", but I kept them busy by making them switch to Protestant, too, while I recovered my prestige.

Once the hotfix drops, I'll integrate Provence and Savoy, take trade control of Genoa and soon after Venice. In this run I've already grabbed:

- Bleed them Dry
- Full House
- This is My Faith

And am on track to finish with:

- Industrial Revolution
- All Your Trade are Belong to Us
- A Decent Reserve
- City of Cities

 

[ElCidtheConquer]

Had a bunch of test starts with France to figure out the best way of going for Big Blue Blob achievement. It's 1486 and I've taken much of the Balkans, Greece, Bulgaria, a few provinces in Naples, am diplo annexing Catalonia and have just taken a bunch of provinces from Norway. I am now 22 short. Next stop Sweden/Novgorod who are allied for some cheap cores there.

 

[spinoza013]

Scotland, 1460 annexed Ireland apart from Meath, Allied to Sweden, Spain and France. Just beaten England in the first of many wars. Money will be an issue going forward. Spending DIP for development at moment. Not sure if the best way forward but it's only way to boost economy while still staying relevant tech wise with England. Trying to keep 1 MIL tech ahead and going for Defensive ideas as soon as I can. Then I'll try and grow tall and hopefully go exploration. This is where spending DIP for development is going to bite.

 

[MetalTaberna]

I started up a Burgundy run, but England attacked and I found out that some of my provinces are not protected by forts.

Got the Subsidize Me achievement as Ottomans.

And right now I'm in a very exciting Ravensburg game, which manages to be very exciting despite me having only conquered one province in 15 years and playing mostly on speed 5.

 

[bbqftw]

mistakes were made, we're not a free city anymore:

hmmmm... this just doesn't seem right. Didn't even do anything cheesy. Got a bit lucky that Bohemia took the emperorship, and us being best buds allowed me to rampage through HRE after 1500 without nasty unlawful imperial territory penalty. Took Calais, deal with it France.

administrative -> influence -> economic. Yeah, the ultimate monarch point greed. There was a pretty hilarious point where I was getting chain-suicide-DOW'd by all my neighbors but I really wasn't in a position where I could safely take more provinces (was getting to the point where the southern HRE / Italy would coalition me). Once I got influence ideas AE reduction it was a lot smoother.

How to play the HRE like a scrub 101:

 

[Cymsdale]

A bit into a game as Utrecht. Taken all but one of the provinces to form Netherlands so far. Most of my gains were taken in defensive wars against suicidal neighbors who didn't account for my way better alliances, so I don't consider this run very legitimate.

 

[Lajinn]

I'm the Papal State, I've conquered Firenze, Venezia, and Ferrara, as well as part of Naples. I control nearly every trade province in the boot and have made Naples into my vassal. My allies are portugal(surprisingly strong in this playthough), Austria(still the HRE), and Switzerland(Intending on replacing him with someone else). Aragon has fallen into a PU under Castille and soon I plan on feeding the islands to Naples once Portugal is willing to fight(He despises Castille). France doesn't really like me, but can't defeat me right now due to my alliances and my forcelimit. I'm up on top for Military tech and I'm also the Curia Controller as of now, with a 1/5/1/0 general.

Edit: oh righ, I'm also a member of the HRE

 

[Flamingo-Sini]

Started as OPM Mainz, aiming for theocracy Germany. I went with my usual strategy for a german minor playthrough, allying France and keeping them on my good side to use as mighty attack dog against Austria. So far it worked very well as you can see, even tho protestantism POPPED UP RIGHT IN MY CAPITAL OF MAINZ. I had to switch, but we're still allied.

Its the year 1555 (huehuehue):

Going pretty well so far. Two things:
1. Expansion is definitly more expensive, but manageable i guess. I expect to get all needed Provinces for Germany around 1650-1700.
2. AE is again a huge bitch inside the HRE. Take more than 2 provinces in a peacedeal and get a coalition of half the HRE. After that, sit for ten years to wait for AE to cool down.

After Austria got dealt with, Brandenburg and Bohemia need to get cut down, then i can establish german dominance.

Another thing: France definitly has a weaker start. Its easier to beat them down in the beginning, but after they recover they can still be strong. But a bit weaker than before. They never got hold over Bretagne, England was forced to release Normandy by someone (not france) and bretagne gobbled them up, as well as provencalian anjou. France and Bretagne are allied now (i expect to see some breton colonies). France only recently (last 20 years) took Provence+avignon from vatican and took these spanish lands.

The rest of europe is pretty boring and static, as someone already stated for Common Sense.

Close up:

Spoiler

Look at Austria. Look at it. Its glorious. Never have i been more gleeful about the utter destruction of an AI enemy in a game, like when i see Austria getting destroyed.

First England released Flandres from them after the inheritance. In a war 20 years ago i released Tirol and Luxembourg (and took Baden and Breisgau from them), at the same time Flandres, lüttich and switz jumped on them and took what you can see. The last war 1 year ago i really only declared war on them to release Styria with the 100% warscore.

They are still emperor, which is actually good for me. They are a much weaker emperor now than a Brandenburg or Bohemian Emperor would be.

edit:
So far i really like the theocracy government. The national ideas are actually decent and to my liking, the devotion is easy to keep at 100 and you dont have heir problems. I dont get crappy rulers, a 1/1/5 now and then, but usually something like 3/4/5 or even 5/4/4. I cant use royal marriages, but so far that wasn't as needed as much, even for diplo vassalizing. I dont get heir problems and i dont loose stability on ruler death, i very much like that.

PS edit:
Oh, and another thing i noticed in Common Sense: Its much more easier to stay over 50 power projection with the humiliate option. I never was able to reach 50 PP before.

 

[MetalTaberna]

I started up a Burgundy run, but England attacked and I found out that some of my provinces are not protected by forts.

Got the Subsidize Me achievement as Ottomans.

And right now I'm in a very exciting Ravensburg game, which manages to be very exciting despite me having only conquered one province in 15 years and playing mostly on speed 5.

 

[RedBstrd]

My first game was with Lucca, where I played "tall" and just remained a Free Imperial City until I got the achievement for 60 development. Everyone else around me blobbed and the current patch is pretty unforgiving toward OPMs, so I restarted to get Lucca to Lucknow.

With the Free Imperial City, if I lost a battle, my capital would get sieged and captured, then I would get spammed with demands to give up cash and reparations. They'd send one per month and I'd drop to -3 stability and be forced to accept before allies could help.

Doing it as an expansionist Lucca, I had no problems. Past the initial growth period, the game play was pretty familiar despite the differences.

Now I'm doing a Ceylon game, which is going well. I only have the bottom third of India so far, but it's fun.

I took a break to try getting screenshots on a bug I reported because I didn't take them at the time. When trying to reproduce it, I tried Trebizond. Holy hell is that tough without a relocate strategy.

I picked up some land when the Ottomans warned all of my neighbors and me. Aq Qoyunlu ignored the warning, so the Ottomans entered the war on my side and pummeled them down. I got 3 provinces out of it. Then I expanded a bit into Georgia and Qara Qoyunlu before making the mistake of taking Genoa's Crimean provinces. Crimea dragged the Ottomans into a war against me, while my only ally (Muscovy) was going through a peasant war. I couldn't recover.

I'll try Trebizond again later once some of the bugs are hammered out and I know what to expect with the current state of the game.

 

[frmwrk123]

Here a short summary of my experience with the new DLC so far with England:

* alliance with Austria, RM with Austria
* alliance with Denmark, RM with Denmark
* RM with Portugal
* rival France, Burgundy and Castile
* embargo on France, Burgundy and Castile
* no fertility event
* Burgundy goes to war with France about a province
* I declare war on Burgundy with help of Denmark
* I conquer all northern lands of Burgundy and their vassals (with help)
* Burgundy wins war against France
* I peace out, get Picardie, war reparations and humiliate Burgundy
* alliance with Leinster
* Connaught? conquers Munster, Tyrone and Leinster
* alliance with Papal State
* Connaught breaks up alliance with Scotland
* I declare war on Connaught to get Tyrone and Leinster
* I win the war and get the provinces
* France declares war on me to reconquer Labourd
* all my allies are automatically called in on my side
* France eats shit and is beaten by Austria, Papal State (they only have 13000 troups)
* I conquer Poitus? and Austria sieges down Paris
* I have 99% war score on France and everything but the very south province is conquered
* I peace out, get Armagnac, force France to abandon the cores in my posessions in France (Caux, Normandie, Labourd, Gascogne), humiliate France and get war reparations
* I declare war on Connaught to get the remaining two provinces
* Papal State attacks Ferrara, calls me to war -> I decline
* Austria is called into the same war as emperor and asks me for help -> I join
* I win the war against Connaught
* the war against Papal State runs well, I battle with Brittany
* France declares war on Brittany
* Ferrara slowly forces everyone but the Papal State out of the war
* I move my army to Rome and siege it down, war is over shortly after
* NOW

Now the WOTR related stuff:
* no fertility event
* get heir event (new heir 6/5/6)
* WOTR doesn't happen
* new ruler event (wife becomes queen)

In the mean time I was once the Papal Controller and had 7 cardinals (now 6). The first idea group unlocked after all this (roughly). So I have to say that England has been buffed (at least early game) and France has been dramatically nerfed. All of that was in Ironman by the way (so no reload if things went south).

 

[TomosCaerllion]

I'm playing as Jianzhou and I've just formed Manchu and conquered half of Korea, but Yeren are vassals (I only took their capital and vassalised what was left). It's around 1470 now and I'm just about ready to take the rest of Korea. Ming are being very stable so far, and are in a defensive alliance with me that pretty much saved me from destrction when Korea and Haixi first attacked.

I'm loving the new changes. Particularly the forts. The feeling of strategic depth is very satisfying, and forts feel very important now, rather than being frustratingly omnipresent and the thing I upgrade late game when there's not much else to do.

Being able to hide behind a screen of forts to recover from lost battles is a vast improvement on the previous international Benny Hill chase. The fort system also makes the steppes feel a lot more vast and open. Whereas invading Korea requires you to knock your way through layers of forts, invading Oirat is much more like the old game, where you can move very freely, but you just occupy unfortified land as you go. It's a vast improvement.

The vassal mechanics are nice too, although I'm not sure why I'd ever use scutage: a tiny vassal wouldn't give enough scutage to be worth anything, and a larger one would provide much more useful allied troops.

I've not noticed a single bug so far, but it is early in the game.

 

[Wodin]

I am playing as Sweden. I broke free of the PU with Denmark and eventually annexed them. I am in the process of diplo-annexing Norway now. I have also slowly begun taking over the Baltic area, with Pskov and Osel now part of my realm.

I have the highest manpower, nearly 60000, at 1515. I took Quality, Economic, then Quantity.

I have 100% religious unity and am allied with Brandenburg. Here is where it gets interesting.

I just went through a religious war in which the HRE, controlled by Austria, was forced to convert to Protestantism. Because I did not start the war, apparently I do not get the Lion of the North achievement. I have decided I will one day be the HRE. I think I will break the alliance and DOW The Hansa for Holstein. Hopefully over several wars I can vassalize electors.

How does that sound to you?

 

[MetalTaberna]

It's 1470. I just found out I had AI Bonuses turned on when I just found out that everyone else has a 50% buff to their forcelimits. I'm an OPM in the HRE.