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I'm starting to appreciate EU4's simplicity

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love sweden said:
What kind of strategy games are you playing where countrys all play more differently then the ones in EU4 and what the hell do you mean with "same idea goups"? What kind of person takes the same idea groups on every single nation with the exception of quantity, humanist/religious and diplomatic ideas.
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there are a total of 19 idea groups. you can take 8 in a campaign. there are idea groups that don't go together (religious humanist, plutocratic aristocratic), idea groups you take early or not at all (innovative) and idea groups which suck (maritime, naval) assuming you are not role playing (which i do often)
 
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blobdomp said:
there are a total of 19 idea groups. you can take 8 in a campaign. there are idea groups that don't go together (religious humanist, plutocratic aristocratic), idea groups you take early or not at all (innovative) and idea groups which suck (maritime, naval) assuming you are not role playing (which i do often)
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To expand on what you've said:
Religious and humanist go very well other. One gives you universal unrest reduction, the other gives you cheaper conversion and more tolerance for true faith. Not only that but humanist also makes it quicker for separatism go away while religious makes it cheaper to culture convert. They combo really, really well together but it is impractical and a waste to take them both. In fact, it is almost always a bad idea to pick religious no matter what.

From the 18, 2 are garbage (naval and maritimate), 2 are either must pick or never pick (exploration and expansion), Religious is unfortunately not good enough because you can go humanist, Innovative is a waste of a slot unless you want to stack military policies (kind of a waste in SP), ECO is situational (the only countries that make good use of it are those that have to dev for all institution and have easy access to hold mines), espionage is still really bad, aristocratic is situational, Diplo is a must have, Influence is a must have if you are going for vassals, Defensive and Offensive are really strong, quality is useful but not as good as the aforementioned ideas, quantity is oftentimes overkill as it offers a great selection of buffs, Trade is only worth if you are going for its policies and don't have an easy access to a lot of merchants.
 
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EarlKonrad said:
To expand on what you've said:
Religious and humanist go very well other. One gives you universal unrest reduction, the other gives you cheaper conversion and more tolerance for true faith. Not only that but humanist also makes it quicker for separatism go away while religious makes it cheaper to culture convert. They combo really, really well together but it is impractical and a waste to take them both. In fact, it is almost always a bad idea to pick religious no matter what.

From the 18, 2 are garbage (naval and maritimate), 2 are either must pick or never pick (exploration and expansion), Religious is unfortunately not good enough because you can go humanist, Innovative is a waste of a slot unless you want to stack military policies (kind of a waste in SP), ECO is situational (the only countries that make good use of it are those that have to dev for all institution and have easy access to hold mines), espionage is still really bad, aristocratic is situational, Diplo is a must have, Influence is a must have if you are going for vassals, Defensive and Offensive are really strong, quality is useful but not as good as the aforementioned ideas, quantity is oftentimes overkill as it offers a great selection of buffs, Trade is only worth if you are going for its policies and don't have an easy access to a lot of merchants.
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In my current run I am trying to form germany so I grabbed espionage for the -20% AE reduction. Did I make a mistake?
 
blobdomp said:
In my current run I am trying to form germany so I grabbed espionage for the -20% AE reduction. Did I make a mistake?
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It depends. Did you grab diplomatic and humanist before espionage? The HRE is the place where espionage works the best but I don't think it is strong enough for justify taking it before adm tech 14 (4th idea slot).

And, here is the thing, are you just playing for fun and to form Germany or are you trying to play an optimal game and form Germany? If you don't care for optimization, espionage is fine; if you do than you most likely won't be picking it in the early game and by the time you get around to picking it, AE accumulation won't be your bottleneck.
 
EarlKonrad said:
It depends. Did you grab diplomatic and humanist before espionage? The HRE is the place where espionage works the best but I don't think it is strong enough for justify taking it before adm tech 14 (4th idea slot).

And, here is the thing, are you just playing for fun and to form Germany or are you trying to play an optimal game and form Germany? If you don't care for optimization, espionage is fine; if you do than you most likely won't be picking it in the early game and by the time you get around to picking it, AE accumulation won't be your bottleneck.
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i chose espionage first

i am deliberately not doing optimal game. If I was then I wouldnt form Germany i would go for HRE
 
After my first game with the Emperor DLC, I have to say that the game has become even better than before. Diverse building options, new government progression system and estate mechanics really add to flavor. Paradox should expand from this and add more ways to customize each province and government archetypes. But more importantly, they should really do something about the tedious 'war - waiting for truce to expire - more war' cycle of mid/late game.
 
EU's "complexity" is a mirage. An illusion created by a large number of variables, of which most have little impact, if any. It is wide but shallow. That being said, I don't know many games that even attempt to cover as much ground. It is a simple, primitive at times, game, where most variables are either always important (if you are not maximizing ADM mana you are playing wrong) or so niche as to be ignored (e.g. I've never had a problem with colonies' liberty desire despite always ignoring it).

To say that EU4 gives a breadth of possibilities is misleading. Sure, technically an alternative to going to work may be literally banging one's head against the wall all day, but it can hardy be called that with a straight face and so is the case with many of EU's options, there are some choices that are always better and over time players tend to always choose the best options ignoring many virtual alternatives.

Nevertheless for all of it's simplicity, it is still an ambitious project that had to fail, but by no means did it fail big. Sure, some systems do not work or are grossly imbalanced, but it still provides tons of entertainment and many hours of fun. It's good at what it does, not perfect, but perfection is but a fleeting dream.
 
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EU4 is way simpler than it looks like. Much of the complexity is caused by obfuscation, either because the interface actually lie to you or hide informations from you, or becasue a lot of options you see are actually fluff, I estimate than a good 40+% of the game options are basically never used or used in very specific situations (who ever used embargoes on not-rivals, just to say one).

Kryndude said:
After my first game with the Emperor DLC, I have to say that the game has become even better than before. Diverse building options, new government progression system and estate mechanics really add to flavor. Paradox should expand from this and add more ways to customize each province and government archetypes. But more importantly, they should really do something about the tedious 'war - waiting for truce to expire - more war' cycle of mid/late game.
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They should add something interesting to do between a war and the other, or (dare I to even think it?) to do rather than going to war.
 
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Me_ said:
EU's "complexity" is a mirage. An illusion created by a large number of variables, of which most have little impact, if any. It is wide but shallow. That being said, I don't know many games that even attempt to cover as much ground. It is a simple, primitive at times, game, where most variables are either always important (if you are not maximizing ADM mana you are playing wrong) or so niche as to be ignored (e.g. I've never had a problem with colonies' liberty desire despite always ignoring it).

To say that EU4 gives a breadth of possibilities is misleading. Sure, technically an alternative to going to work may be literally banging one's head against the wall all day, but it can hardy be called that with a straight face and so is the case with many of EU's options, there are some choices that are always better and over time players tend to always choose the best options ignoring many virtual alternatives.

Nevertheless for all of it's simplicity, it is still an ambitious project that had to fail, but by no means did it fail big. Sure, some systems do not work or are grossly imbalanced, but it still provides tons of entertainment and many hours of fun. It's good at what it does, not perfect, but perfection is but a fleeting dream.
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Just curious: what game(s) you consider better on those respects?
 
SC:BW and SC2 are both more complex than EUIV (deeper but not wider) they just also have mechanical component which causes the games to be not only about strategy but also about dexterity and stamina.
 
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randomgamer71 said:
EU4 is way simpler than it looks like. Much of the complexity is caused by obfuscation, either because the interface actually lie to you or hide informations from you, or becasue a lot of options you see are actually fluff, I estimate than a good 40+% of the game options are basically never used or used in very specific situations (who ever used embargoes on not-rivals, just to say one).


They should add something interesting to do between a war and the other, or (dare I to even think it?) to do rather than going to war.
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emabargoes can be useful in certain situations, before you control your home node.
 
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EU4 may not be the impossibly complex game many newcomers frequently think it is, but I wouldn't call it simple by any stretch of the imagination, especially compared to the likes of civ.
That said, there is one aspect that may make this comparison with civ fair.
Civ has strict victory conditions, while EU4 doesn't, you're encouraged to set your own goals.
That means civ's complexity is very well defined, while EU4's isn't.
In EU4, wether you're going for a one culture WC as ulm or just cruising through to 1821 as the Ottomans, you're going to have vastly different games in many ways, one being clearly "simpler" than the other, and then there's anything in between.
So if your playstyle is indeed to simply "cruise through" the game as a big nation, it may indeed feel quite simple, but it's not representative of the whole.
 
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