I'm hooked! I feel like back in high school! In other news, Byzantium rules :)

[oblio-]

I've heard about Europa Universalis III a long time ago and I'd seen some pictures but it seemed so... unpolished. I frankly had never heard about Paradox and its games.
Boy - was I missing a lot. As a history/war/general knowledge buff/freak - this game is AWESOME.

Back in high school and during college, rarely after I left college, I'd have rounds of playing non-stop for 4-6-8-10 hours, late into the night and maybe in the morning too. RTS games, strategy games, simulators, anything and everything that looked like it had real depth: Championship Manager, Panzer General, Age of Empires, World of Warcraft, Dota, Warhammer 40k: Rites of War, Close Combat, Starcraft, Warcraft, Transport Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Simcity, Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, etc.

I don't know how I could've missed such an awesome game concept. Strategy, military tactics, economy, diplomacy, reliving historic decisions and making countless "what if" choices... just incredible.


So I dove in EU IV knowing that I'd love the game and that I'll be barely able to really understand it the first few weeks. And as any real nut job would do, I chose Byzantium as my first game. Not Iron man, cause I wanted to experiment, but normal difficulty and not a lot of save scumming - about 6-7 restarts and maybe 6-7 reloads later on.

I barely finished a tech tree and picked completely useless technologies. I had something like 20 ideas at the end of the game. A military with hundreds of thousands of soldier that could not beat a Russian 30k stack.

I tried to stay within the historical Roman boundaries - territory + vassals. I initially had planned to do a full reconquest - including England and France, but boy, was I naive. I think I played for about 200 years without figuring out basic concepts like diplomatic relations eat up diplomatic points. I also threw around royal marriages like candy.
To top things off for the newbie, I think I had rulers with 1/0/1 stats for 100+ years.

I read a lot on these forums and on Reddit + the wiki. I think I still have at least 30-40 hours of reading and many hundreds of hours of playing until I can actually make optimized decision.
Still, a great ride!


In the end I think only my allies kept me alive in front of the imba Russia PUd with Great Britain and Portal and allied with Austria - covering half the world.


My next goal seems insane now, maybe a veteran can confirm it:

1. Iron man 1444
2. Wallachia
3. Form Romania
4. Only provinces of the same nationality and religion (each conquest = province completely converted before next conquest)
5. Within bounds of Dacia
   
   (vassals can be outside of them; BTW, does anyone know why Hungary has only Hungarian + Catholic provinces within it - historically it definitely wasn't so)
6. Survive until 1821

Thanks Paradox for a great game and thanks folks for your attention

 

[Inkshootr]

Thanks for the story, it made me smile!

As for Hungary, they begin with several Croatian provinces, one (or two, don't remember) Orthodox province in the east, and I think they have one Romanian culture province as well.

In any case, it's an abstraction of a complex cultural situation.

 

[Pilot00]

So I am not the only nutcrack who tried Byzantium as their first game without knowing what to do eh?
Mine is on easy mode though, here are the results by 1705:

I dont know what to do now...I am thinking for three days. Continue on my Way west (and start WW1 200 years earlier) or go east again?

Aragorn and Italy and Morroco are my vassals.

I did the same with the PUs and Alliances, allmost the entire game I had pitifull diplo relations but somehow I gave it all to the military research and I on the same level as france (though still eastern group).

 

[LemonMonk]

If you like deep, immersive games so much I suggest Crusader Kings II. It is character orientated, can be challenging [dependent on which character you start as] and has a lot of depth. Congrats on the ERE game there. Suprised you didn't get more NIs, but it didn't seem to stop your successful playthrough at all.

 

[oblio-]

So I am not the only nutcrack who tried Byzantium as their first game without knowing what to do eh?
Mine is on easy mode though, here are the results by 1705:

I dont know what to do now...I am thinking for three days. Continue on my Way west (and start WW1 200 years earlier) or go east again?

Aragorn and Italy and Morroco are my vassals.

I did the same with the PUs and Alliances, allmost the entire game I had pitifull diplo relations but somehow I gave it all to the military research and I on the same level as france (though still eastern group).

Do you have a decent army? If so I'd just slowly go West, and somehow reconquer as much of the Roman Empire as possible. How do your military rankings look like? Reconquering GB + France + the German parts would make a really prestigious empire IMO

If you like deep, immersive games so much I suggest Crusader Kings II. It is character orientated, can be challenging [dependent on which character you start as] and has a lot of depth. Congrats on the ERE game there. Suprised you didn't get more NIs, but it didn't seem to stop your successful playthrough at all.

I doubt I'll have time for EU 4 AND CK2 right now. I plan to play Wallachia - form Romania, try Ethiopia, try an Oriental country (maybe something around Vietnam), try an American country... I think I still have at least 150-200 hours of EU 4 left till I get bored. Plus work and a bit of social/sports life

About NI:

1. a lot of DIP points on converting provinces to Greek - probably a thousand DIP or more
2. a lot of DIP in relations that only amounted to Alliances (no PUs - even though I tried to claim the throne several times; I also didn't know about the PU CB) - again, 3-4 x 12 months x 100 years until I figured out about the diplomatic relations limit
3. a lot of MIL points on harsh treatments - I was really scared about rebellions (no reason to be, my army could have stopped even major rebellions...)
4. a lot of ADM cause I cored everything myself + fought Mamluk coalitions 3x until I figured out why they were giving no land (so tens of years wasted + war exhaustion + other war-related resources)

So I was incredibly inefficient. The alliances saved me cause Russia + GB + Portugal would have wiped the floor with my really bad army. But another 50-75 years and I would have been doomed to be a Russian vassal

 

[sonofliber]

You suck, you coudnt do a world conquest with opbyz? Lol noob uninstall plox

Just kidding, but really try ck 2, if you want more upclose and personal experience ( and if you want to have the posibility of banging your sister, yes thats the only reason i play karen, stop looking at me like that)

 

[Pilot00]

Do you have a decent army? If so I'd just slowly go West, and somehow reconquer as much of the Roman Empire as possible. How do your military rankings look like? Reconquering GB + France + the German parts would make a really prestigious empire IMO

Yeah, but the problem is that I am not westernised and right now everyone is on a Coalition against me

Ledger sais I am first at everything, but Castille has more colonies and I cant reach their score in time

They inheritted England And Burgundy just to spite me on the colonial front.

 

[zodium]

So I am not the only nutcrack who tried Byzantium as their first game without knowing what to do eh?
Mine is on easy mode though, here are the results by 1705:

I dont know what to do now...I am thinking for three days. Continue on my Way west (and start WW1 200 years earlier) or go east again?

Aragorn and Italy and Morroco are my vassals.

I did the same with the PUs and Alliances, allmost the entire game I had pitifull diplo relations but somehow I gave it all to the military research and I on the same level as france (though still eastern group).

Byzantium is a great country for learning the ropes, actually. I usually recommend it as a second play, following up on an Ottomans game. That way you can learn the fundamentals/basic mechanics from a powerful but flexible position, and get a taste of empire first thing. Once you've done that, a game as Byzantium is ideal: same amazing starting position, main villain is the one country you know fairly intimately, tight early game that requires solid strategy and execution to pull off, etc. It's difficult but familiar, which is perfect for learning.

 

[Wonderlust King]

It's nice to meet fellow Byzantine emperors!

Due to my passion for Roman Empire and for challenges, I had deciced to play my first EUIV game as Byzantium... on Ironman mode. It took me many tries to work out the initial 5-10 years, leading to the climatic first true war with the Ottomans. When I finally managed to acquire some land from them in a war, the future had seemed really bright, I won the next conflict too, but I expanded too rapidly, thus becoming a victim of my own success.

First, Naples allied with Provence and Switzerland decided to take my hard-earned Epirus - I dealt with them through a great effort, depleting my resources. The Ottomans noticed my weakness and struck me with 20k troops bent on revenge. I had no means to defend myself, therefore I was forced to give them back Izmit and release Bosnia and Wallachia as vassals. I could've recovered from that, unfortunalely that wasn't the end of my calamitous string of events. Soon after I made peace with the Ottomans, Venetians arrived. I was helpless at that moment, and had to cede to them most of Greece... Meanwhile Bulgarians (I had made the Ottomans release them earlier) broke the alliance and started the war. That was the moment when it became apparent I need to start again.

Oh, and I was westernising when Naples declared war upon me.

Here's my supposed-to-be-successful attempt:

I've learned my lesson:

My goal now (the same as some of you here have) is to restore the Roman Empire borders in its prime. I think that is quite possible now that I have PU with GB under me.

 

[zodium]

I think that is quite possible now that I have PU with GB under me.

Very nice comeback, and what a comeback that is for a first game. Does GB retain any continental provinces?

 

[HolyOne]

So I am not the only nutcrack who tried Byzantium as their first game without knowing what to do eh?
Mine is on easy mode though, here are the results by 1705:

*screenshot*

I dont know what to do now...I am thinking for three days. Continue on my Way west (and start WW1 200 years earlier) or go east again?

Aragorn and Italy and Morroco are my vassals.

I did the same with the PUs and Alliances, allmost the entire game I had pitifull diplo relations but somehow I gave it all to the military research and I on the same level as france (though still eastern group).

*giggles*

 

[Wonderlust King]

Very nice comeback, and what a comeback that is for a first game. Does GB retain any continental provinces?

They possess Navarra and Gelre.

 

[oblio-]

Thanks for the story, it made me smile!

As for Hungary, they begin with several Croatian provinces, one (or two, don't remember) Orthodox province in the east, and I think they have one Romanian culture province as well.

In any case, it's an abstraction of a complex cultural situation.

I just checked, no Romanian provinces in Hungary in the game. They have 5 provinces which are partially/completely in Romania and yet in 1444 all of them miraculously, are Hungarian/Catholic as a majority. I'm not expecting all of them to be Romanian, but at least 1 or 2 could be. There are the Croatians (ok) and the Ruthenians (which be considered as the representatives of the Ukrainians + Slovaks as Slavs in the northern part of the country). I'm saying this because it's super annoying if you want to form Romania - Catholic religion + Hungarian traditions everywhere = almost impossible to control those provinces, IMO.

Probably a game play decision to have a stronger Hungary in Central Europe to tone down Austria's blobbing... Not that it always works

 

[Labrynian Rebel]

Well since you can import your Crusader Kings II game into Europa Universalis IV they're kind of "two phases" of the same game IMO,

 

[Pilot00]

Byzantium is a great country for learning the ropes, actually. I usually recommend it as a second play, following up on an Ottomans game. That way you can learn the fundamentals/basic mechanics from a powerful but flexible position, and get a taste of empire first thing. Once you've done that, a game as Byzantium is ideal: same amazing starting position, main villain is the one country you know fairly intimately, tight early game that requires solid strategy and execution to pull off, etc. It's difficult but familiar, which is perfect for learning.

The only problem is that you need huge amounts of luck (well it aint a problem from a historic POV but still...). If the Ottos just dont loose their armies quick it aint looking good. Also vassalising/allying the Balkans and having a solid relationship with Hungary is the meaning between life and death. I got an allience with Castille at some point and in each war they were sending me stacks of 30k.

*giggles*

Asside from the obvious, its also Grananda

 

[Wonderlust King]

Also vassalising/allying the Balkans and having a solid relationship with Hungary is the meaning between life and death.

Siding with Hungary never proved to be a reliable strategy for me. They would just abandon me in the most inappropiate moment or break the alliance after 2-3 years. Next downside of tightening relationship with Hungary is fact they are almost always rivals to either Austria or Poland, sometimes even both thus leaving you with very limited choice of allies in the region. True, sometimes you can get one of the Iberian powers to fight for you (I had an alliance with Aragon for some time), though there may come a moment in which they won't assist you, due to "Distant war" factor or being involved in some other conflict, either in Iberia or with France (I'm only pointing out these factors I was able to pinpoint from my own game).

All that being said, I'd advise allying with Poland having PU over Lithuania and then getting Austria. In the best-case scenario, you can get 3 really strong countries to crush the Ottomans for you, in the worst - you get 2 of them, aforementioned Poland with PU - double the power for only 1 diplomatic relation.

 

[zodium]

The only problem is that you need huge amounts of luck (well it aint a problem from a historic POV but still...). If the Ottos just dont loose their armies quick it aint looking good. Also vassalising/allying the Balkans and having a solid relationship with Hungary is the meaning between life and death. I got an allience with Castille at some point and in each war they were sending me stacks of 30k.

You'd think so, but luckily the forums managed a very robust strategy which Wolfmaster1979 wrote up a guide for here, http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=178794534.

One thing that's not in the guide yet is this: in the first Ottoman war, they will likely still outclass you at least a bit. To win handily, you must win the war with Venice and demand the return of either Corfu or Naxos. When the Ottomans bring their doomstack around, bait them to Corfu or Naxos, use Scorched Earth one day before they arrive, then lock them there with your galley navy (just keep at least one ship in the sea province). This will leave the Ottomans standing around taking 10%+ attrition per month, with no means of preventing you from sieging everything.

 

[Wonderlust King]

One thing that's not in the guide yet is this: in the first Ottoman war, they will likely still outclass you at least a bit. To win handily, you must win the war with Venice and demand the return of either Corfu or Naxos. When the Ottomans bring their doomstack around, bait them to Corfu or Naxos, use Scorched Earth one day before they arrive, then lock them there with your galley navy (just keep at least one ship in the sea province). This will leave the Ottomans standing around taking 10%+ attrition per month, with no means of preventing you from sieging everything.

Fighting Venice whilst the Ottomas are still in their prime is a really dangerous endeavour. If things go really bad, you may still be embroiled in war with Venice or be exhausted after it when the Ottomans will come for you. More stable strategy is to build a fleet consisting of 20-25 galleys, hire an Admiral, wait for the Ottoman army to translocate to Anatolia, block the straits and enjoy your first victorious conflict as your army besieges their defenceless territories in Europe. Occasionally they might even get drawn into a conflict with the Mameluks; should that ever happen, it'll be almost a crime if you waste it.

As for Greek islands: I never got them until the Ottomans were long gone. Given the fact that they rebell quite often, I acquired Crete, Cyprus and Rodos with a single war.

 

[zodium]

Fighting Venice whilst the Ottomas are still in their prime is a really dangerous endeavour. If things go really bad, you may still be embroiled in war with Venice or be exhausted after it when the Ottomans will come for you. More stable strategy is to build a fleet consisting of 20-25 galleys, hire an Admiral, wait for the Ottoman army to translocate to Anatolia, block the straits and enjoy your first victorious conflict as your army besieges their defenceless territories in Europe. Occasionally they might even get drawn into a conflict with the Mameluks; should that ever happen, it'll be almost a crime if you waste it.

As for Greek islands: I never got them until the Ottomans were long gone. Given the fact that they rebell quite often, I acquired Crete, Cyprus and Rodos with a single war.

Venice will usually declare war for Albania sometime after you vassalize them, especially if you antagonize them a bit. They're easy enough to beat, since they start with only 8 transports and have to land in Albania, which is a hefty -4 malus. You only need either Corfu or Naxos, not both, and the proper islands are tactically irrelevant, so you can often get what you need from battle score alone. If you've been a very good boy/girl and managed to built up a galley fleet, you can beat their fleet and steal some ships, then go loot Venice and make them cede everything Greek.

 

[Pilot00]

Siding with Hungary never proved to be a reliable strategy for me. They would just abandon me in the most inappropiate moment or break the alliance after 2-3 years. Next downside of tightening relationship with Hungary is fact they are almost always rivals to either Austria or Poland, sometimes even both thus leaving you with very limited choice of allies in the region. True, sometimes you can get one of the Iberian powers to fight for you (I had an alliance with Aragon for some time), though there may come a moment in which they won't assist you, due to "Distant war" factor or being involved in some other conflict, either in Iberia or with France (I'm only pointing out these factors I was able to pinpoint from my own game).

All that being said, I'd advise allying with Poland having PU over Lithuania and then getting Austria. In the best-case scenario, you can get 3 really strong countries to crush the Ottomans for you, in the worst - you get 2 of them, aforementioned Poland with PU - double the power for only 1 diplomatic relation.

Austria and Poland never seemed to want to join my wars early on, and by the time I was able to deal with Ottos myself Poland was non-existant and Austria was in a million wars of its own. It tried Lithuania but but they become broken into three seperate territory zones surrounded by Muskovy, later Russia.
I dont argue your points dont work, they should in most cases but in my play they powers we are talking about were more or less broken early.

@Zodium, I agree that Venice must be dowed at some point, but given how the patches changed things, blockading in the early game is not that much of an option, Venice even when at war with the Mams (99%) of the time, will always send a humongus fleet to chace me down and land troops at Greece. You really dont want an early war on two fronts. I prefer to waste income on the hope of rebels to be honest. A war with Venice is more plausible if you have Austria as an ally I think.

@wanderlust king. Unfortunently there is no such thing as defenseless territory due to the Ottos getting military access from anyone now days.