I wish GB was better

[Frozen Yakman]

Also during gameplay, England will never gain a PU over Scotland, since both desire each others lands and are usually hostile to one another, which is historically accurate but damages any chance of the AI diplomatically forming Britain as happened in history. What I suggest is an event that will happen to give England a PU over Scotland and puts a Stuart/Scottish monarch on the throne of England, which will occur if England is protestant and has an Queen with no heir. Let's call it the virgin queen event.

Why would England get the event? Scotland formed the PU over England. It was James VI of Scotland that united the crowns.

 

[SuperGeek89]

England would get the personal union over Scotland because the game doesn't allow you to transfer the senior partner to the more powerful realm. Historically James ruled from London not Edinburgh and in fact only returned to Scotland once after being crowned King of England and Ireland effectively making England the senior partner.

Beyond that point I agree that Great Britain feels wrong, but believe that the best way to fix it is to some how make navies more relevant.

 

[DeftSwede]

Why would England get the event? Scotland formed the PU over England. It was James VI of Scotland that united the crowns.

Yeah, but after James VI inherited the crown of England, he moved his seat of government to London, thus making Scotland the junior partner, but current eu4 PU rules don't allow this

 

[MCBC6]

You can state all your blockades and trade wars but the fact is the path to EU dominance is military might and military numbers.

England has neither - which is alright, because historically it sort of had neither.

But in EU4 terms that significantly diminishes its influence (especially coupled with poor military crossing AI).

Now England/GB isn't weak but the path it took to dominance (industrial and naval) aren't effective play styles in EU4.

I wish they were, and they might do eventually, because it offers another play style and another challenge in the late game.

To summarise, GB didn't come to dominate global politics because it had more soldiers or gathered more land from its neighbours, because it didn't. But EU4 has no alternative mechanism to obtain power and so the player is shoehorned into following that route. That just means GBs shortcomings are drawn into even sharper focus.

I see this a lot, and even agree with this somewhat. However, this type of play style IS viable to reach, say, Great Britains standing in this historical period. Only near the end of the timeline was GB the preeminent nation in the world, but it still had to deal on an equal footing with other major states. In EU4, the players goal is (usually) to obtain enough power to ignore diplomacy, politics, or anything else in their way. Dominating the world is much easier (and more satisfactory) to do by taking land, and leads to the weaning of your enemy.

In short, Britain can easily obtain its historical outcome through development and a focus on navy, but world domination is what we seek, and taking land is more fun and has outcomes which are more clear.

 

[Ixal]

In short, Britain can easily obtain its historical outcome through development and a focus on navy

In a SP game against the dumb AI yes, but so can every country. Against human opponents it is doubtful as I just learned in my MP game. Because GBs strengths do diddly squat against human players.
Naval supremacy? Rather useless. You can be blockading ports all you want the human enemy does not care and without winning land battles you never get the warscore high enough to cause stability hits so unlike the AI the human opponent can refuse peace deals indefinitely.
Industrial capacity? Not modeled at all and even if, the bonus to production efficiency wouldn't do much with the few provinces GB usually has.

Sure, Britains core land is pretty save from invasion, but mostly because other players won't feel the need to invest in such a large navy to threaten Britain. After all it lacks any real form of power projection and can easily be overrun by countries with more manpower and forcelimit once it steps off its island (except maybe the carribbean)

 

[Bouchart]

Forming Great Britain lets you integrate Scotland for free. Done properly it means hundreds of saved dip or admin points That's good enough for me.

 

[aqvamare]

In a SP game against the dumb AI yes, but so can every country. Against human opponents it is doubtful as I just learned in my MP game. Because GBs strengths do diddly squat against human players.
Naval supremacy? Rather useless. You can be blockading ports all you want the human enemy does not care and without winning land battles you never get the warscore high enough to cause stability hits so unlike the AI the human opponent can refuse peace deals indefinitely.
Industrial capacity? Not modeled at all and even if, the bonus to production efficiency wouldn't do much with the few provinces GB usually has.

So wrong, use the trade war wargoal, use your light ships to blockade ports. Have no cores outside of islands. And you will rule as UK in every muliplayer game from early to lategame.
Your homeisland alone, without anythink else gives you with the right ideas, from 1715+ 400 Naval forcelimit. When you have colonies, which you should have as england, even more.

You can simply sit the last 100 years of the game from 1715 -> 1820 in a perma war, were you make expansion for the rest of player impossible.
I speak about a navy from 2000-3000 ships after 1715, when you have colonies

Countries like france or spain will simply loose there cores in africa and america, because they cannot send there troops over the ocean or mid sea.

 

[Ixal]

So wrong, use the trade war wargoal, use your light ships to blockade ports. Have no cores outside of islands. And you will rule as UK in every muliplayer game from early to lategame.

That was maybe before the requirement for causing stability hits for refusing peace was increased. Now you can blockade ports all you want and even take several islands, you will not get the warscore up high enough to force another player to accept the peace as he can sit at 40% Ws and blockaded ports with very little penalty indefinitely.

Yes, you can take land in America, assuming the enemy doesn't simply build troops there to counter yours. No need to transport them over. And the benefit you get from even larger colonies is low as once you control the trade it ends up in your nodes anyway no matter who controls the colonies and the income from tarifs is small. And you have to deal with all the Liberty Desire from your colonies as, because they are large, they get a big increase for relative military power compared to your small land FL.

 

[aqvamare]

It is not about the warscore and forcing peace. It is about the perma war. As england, you can easily get 50% trade power in all endnotes, even during a war. You force alliances like france+spain+austria (italy) into a war ex running and reduce there income (a blockaded province get -75% trade power). So that there counteralliance like prussia+russia get the advantage. You force human players from only land army to fuck we need a navy.

And it feels so good be untouchable.

In late game MP the landpower oversize there army land force limit like crazy. When they get from one to next day -30% income, it hurts.

 

[Ixal]

Money is no issue. Most bigger continental power get enough from production to not need trade income. You are sitting there with a perma war against everyone which does exactly nothing to them.

 

[aqvamare]

Money is a issur, if they have to much income, than there army is to small and not dopple there forcelimit.

 

[Ixal]

Money is a issur, if they have to much income, than there army is to small and not dopple there forcelimit.

To do what? Fight Britain on land?

You are assuming quite a lot of things only to make having a large navy useful.

 

[aqvamare]

Again, in lategame multiplayer there is 100% two powerblocks. UK is the only coutnry, who can hold one of this blocks into a perma war. And pressue them all time.
In old version of the game, you could even merc assault hit and run provinces, since you need wall breaches, this is not possible anymore. But sill you can use 1k siege stacks to siege provinces, evacuate, if you see small stacks resieging, you land big sack, stack wipe and repeat.

In early game, when they have PU and vassals, you can use fyn and kopenhagen to stackwipe AI allies from the country you fight.

Do not forget, there is a moment when boht sides get the ticking war ex debuff. I hurts them with blockaded ports far more than you as UK.

 

[IHateThisCo]

Again, in lategame multiplayer there is 100% two powerblocks. UK is the only coutnry, who can hold one of this blocks into a perma war. And pressue them all time.
In old version of the game, you could even merc assault hit and run provinces, since you need wall breaches, this is not possible anymore. But sill you can use 1k siege stacks to siege provinces, evacuate, if you see small stacks resieging, you land big sack, stack wipe and repeat.

In early game, when they have PU and vassals, you can use fyn and kopenhagen to stackwipe AI allies from the country you fight.

Do not forget, there is a moment when boht sides get the ticking war ex debuff. I hurts them with blockaded ports far more than you as UK.

I am interested in how long a GB with Innovative and DotF could ignore the ticking war exhaustion.

 

[aqvamare]

UK gets:
-0,05 parlament
-0,03 DotF
-0,05 Innovative
=
-0,13 per month

Desire for peace
+0.01/month

Enemy gets:
+0,1 100% ports
+0,5 * x% of provinces with core sieged.

Desire for peace
+0.01/month

So, UK can offset +0,13, or 13 stacks of Desire for peace, before War ex starts to rise. (1year and 3 month
When enemy is at +0,23 (9 month for 2 war ex = 75/9 = 8+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
-----
Atfer 8 month:
UK +0,21(10 month for 2 war ex = 75/10 = 7+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
EN +0,31(7 month for 2 war ex = 75/7 = 10+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
----
Atfer 15 month:
UK +0,28 (7 month for 2 war ex = 75/7 = 10+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
EN +0,38 (5 month for 2 war ex = 75/5 = 15+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
----
Atfer 20 month:
UK +0,33 (6 month for 2 war ex = 75/6 = 12+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
EN +0,43 (4 month for 2 war ex = 75/4 = 18+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
----
Atfer 24 month:
UK +0,37 (5 month for 2 war ex = 75/5 = 15+ dip power per month needed fo offset)
EN +0,47 (4 month for 2 war ex = 75/4 = 18+ dip power per month needed fo offset)

Now, UK normally has only accept culture in lategame.

Both sides can use dip power for reducing, were UK should have advantage, because they do not need to focus mil power.

And your Enemy had +0.1 war ex since the start of the war, so he should already run low on dip power

 

[aqvamare]

Atfer 9 years of war:

UK total war ex : 12,25
UK total war ex : 6,66 (parlament, DotF, Innovative)


Enemy total war ex : 23,15
Enemy total war ex : 15,12 (DotF, Innovative)

 

[Praetorian44]

I agree with having an event that creates a PU between England and Scotland. Several countries already have this (Brandenburg/Prussia, Castile/Aragon, and Austria has a few), so why not an England/Scotland one as well. However, I don't think that it should depend on having a female ruler. The fact that the PU happened had nothing to do with England's ruler being a queen. It happened because James had a claim on the English throne and the English Privy Council arranged for him to peacefully become king of England. In fact, Elizabeth did more to impede the successful arrangement then she did to help it, since she refused to deal with the matter until she was on her death bed.

 

[covya]

Put the Scottish king on the throne of England, then give England the PU over Scotland? Logic.

 

[DeftSwede]

Put the Scottish king on the throne of England, then give England the PU over Scotland? Logic.

This actually happened three times within the eu4 period, the first one being with Scotland in 1605, the second in the glorious revolution with the Netherlands in 1688 and the third in 1714 after the act of union and because of the act of settlement with the elector of Hanover. In every case, the monarch moved their seat of government to London because the power base was much stronger, even though William only wanted the PU to help him fight France and George only cared for Hanover, but parliament demanded it.

It probably would have happened in the same way had England won the hundred years war too. The monarch would probably have moved his seat of government to Paris and England would have ended up the junior partner before the end of the century.

 

[tinculin]

Scotland / England should have a PU event but I don't think it should automatically favour England - James was king of Scotland first.

A PU is a ruling house establishing itself as sovereign over both nations at which point the player is effective ruling over 2 nations.

As long as it's the player who meets the criteria (ie) has the surviving dynasty then they should become primary partners in the PU.

It makes no sense for England to become a primary partner when their dynasty has effectively become extinct and the Stuart's inherited the English throne. With that said, the scenario should have the possibility to play out both ways (as should the castille / Aragon wedding) but the issue in my opinion is that the scripted PU events are too rigid and the mechanic would be better if overhauled.