Man is Espionage really as bad as it seems? I thought if ever it would be worthwhile Switzerland would be the time but it just looks so...terrible...
Interesting or "Unique" Countries?
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It's awful. If you're expanding militarily you need Religious early anyway, to prevent coalitions.
Hungary - one of thexstrongest NI sets in the game
Venice - their NIs are in top 10 aswell imo, and playing as Venice is a really unique fun
Tibet - a little bit stressful, but really unique country
Venice - their NIs are in top 10 aswell imo, and playing as Venice is a really unique fun
Tibet - a little bit stressful, but really unique country
Nah, both those countries have mediocre NIs. BBurg/Prussa, Sweden, France, Ottomans, Japan, Nepal, Muscovy/Russia, many Italian countries... all better than either Venice or Hungary.
Um... You must be joking.
Looking purely in terms of land power... thus ignoring naval and colonial focused NIs like Spain and Netherlands:
Brandenburg - Undoubtably better, yes.
Sweden - Sweden's NIs are basically watered down Brandenburg/Japan, only 15% Discipline and 15% Infantry power, its the country mods that make them overpowered.
France - They have the most overrated NI set in the game, not even that good. +2 diplorelations, +20% Land Morale, +10% Discipline, and -10% Tech cost, and France NIs are largely carried by the tech cost, and even then I would consider Hungary's better.
Ottomans - Yes.
Japan - Yes.
Nepal - You would have had an argument in 1.2, but 1.3 so badly castrated Nepal's ideas that, I would only consider them a contender for best NIs in India.
Muscovy - Yes.
Italian - No. The only thing they are notable with is that they are the second best NI set in the game in terms of NI sets that give Republican Tradition, because generally countries that have Republican tradition bonuses tend to have horrible NIs. However, the United States has a much stronger Republican Tradition NI set and one of the strongest NI sets in the game.
I wouldnt put Hungarian ideas as top 5 (Top 5: Brandenburg, Muscovy, Ottomans, Japan, United States) but very easily top 10. I would very easily put them at 6th or 7th place.
+200% Core Creation cost makes it much less likely that the AI is going to attempt to annex your provinces.
+5% Army Morale Recovery, I should not have to explain.
-1 Revolt Risk and Estates General means you can conquer vast swaths of heathen/heretic lands and not have to worry about rebellions.
+10% Discipline is fairly high, only Japan, Brandenburg, Sweden, and Poland will have better armies, quality wise.
Then you have +1 Free Leaders which, is important as larger empires will have trouble getting leaders for all the armies, since a leaderless army is pretty much only good for rebel hunting.
Finally +20% Production Efficiency will provide a very strong economy.
Top 6-10 would include Ming, France, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden, not in any particular order. Italian minors get an honorable mention due to being the second best NI set with republican tradition.
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I've been thinking Naples might be interesting. Get out from under Aragon's rule then expand up through Italy and out into the Mediterranean.
Ugh...tucking tail and running off to join the holy roman empire as...the roman empire. Somewhere Caesar is rolling over in his grave! I suppose if someone only cared about checking the achievement off the list this might be a good idea. I can think of many minors that could be played this way...but this is rome we're talking about here. A cowards strategy!
I tried hard when i brought up the subject of Byz not to make this the 6000th new thread about byz's opening moves... however i feel compelled to say this one thing; Lithuania. They are the key. If they get under a polish pu youre really in trouble, otherwise they are the tailor made ally to have against the turks. No other european nation will answer 100% of your offensive and defensive calls like they do!
Hang in there brother, dont give up after only a few tries, it can take even the best of us a dozen attempts before we dont die instantly to the turks lol.
(Side note: I actually think the strat to make Byz catholic and holy roman emperor is pretty neat, and fits into the idea of alternate history, which is sorta the point of eu4 right. However, to actually do it... the roman caesar swearing himself to a german/barbarian pretender?!?! Ugh.)
I tried hard when i brought up the subject of Byz not to make this the 6000th new thread about byz's opening moves... however i feel compelled to say this one thing; Lithuania. They are the key. If they get under a polish pu youre really in trouble, otherwise they are the tailor made ally to have against the turks. No other european nation will answer 100% of your offensive and defensive calls like they do!
Hang in there brother, dont give up after only a few tries, it can take even the best of us a dozen attempts before we dont die instantly to the turks lol.
(Side note: I actually think the strat to make Byz catholic and holy roman emperor is pretty neat, and fits into the idea of alternate history, which is sorta the point of eu4 right. However, to actually do it... the roman caesar swearing himself to a german/barbarian pretender?!?! Ugh.)
Sorry, for some reason I was thinking of Tuscany's NIs. They're definitely better than Hungary's; same discipline bonus, very early tech cost and idea cost reduction. Same thing with France, except you also have the huge morale bonus. I guess I don't see why you think morale bonus is that important? If you think Hungary's are good, France's are just as good.
You're definitely smoking something when it comes to Sweden. Sweden has more discipline, combat ability (hungary has none), and manpower recovery speed (almost nobody has, especially not hungary). The legitimacy bonus is huge for annexing vassals. Are Sweden's combat NIs better than Prussias? Of course not, but so what? They're way better than Hungary's.
Same thing with Nepal: Hungary has a single bonus, to discipline. Nepal has 5%, but also the combat ability, the morale, the manpower recovery, forcelimits? Theyre nearly as good as the OP Jomsvikings.
Hungary gets a bunch of +money NIs. Doesn't sound that good to me.
Also, what the hell. This is either just disingenuous argument or ignorant. 10% is extremely common:
Burgundy
England
Byzantium
Ethiopia
France
The Knights
Manchu/Qing
Ottomans
Persia
Poland
Punjab
Switzerland
Tuscany
Vijayanagar
all Rajput
generic theocracies
ALL have 10% discipline, not to mention the countries that have better (Sweden/Prussia/Japan). If you think Hungary is remotely good because it has 10% discipline you are kidding yourself, because half those countries also have other military bonuses that Hungary doesn't have.
Not to mention countries like Nepal and Songhai that have better overall military bonuses even though they only have 5% discipline, or countries that do nearly as well with 10% infantry combat power, no discipline, and good other NIs (Milan, Korea, Dai Viet, etc.) Hell you must think Dai Viet has some of the best NIs in the game. Gotta be top 10, right?
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Personally I love The Hansa. if you are looking for a dominant trading power they are for you
Papal State
If youre trying to find a different playstyle, you should probably start an ironman papal states game. Conquer judea and release Jerusalem then and form the kingdom of god later. Conquer Mekka, push the Muslims out of Europe. No royal marriages and much hate around in italy...this will take some time and by 14th of Jan youre ready for the aztec-achievement in a dynamic north Amerika.
If youre trying to find a different playstyle, you should probably start an ironman papal states game. Conquer judea and release Jerusalem then and form the kingdom of god later. Conquer Mekka, push the Muslims out of Europe. No royal marriages and much hate around in italy...this will take some time and by 14th of Jan youre ready for the aztec-achievement in a dynamic north Amerika.
I also remember Brittany being interesting. You can leap into the anti france bloc early on and gain some land in france to provide a buffer. If this coalition is never really made usually you have some time until france looks at you, giving you time to colonize or maybe steal some of southern England away during their civil wars.
In spite of the reworked India map in EU4 the provinces still have pathetic tax and manpower, as you said random chunks of the Steppe are more valuable than wealthy coastal regions in India. When you add in Hindus having virtually no religious bonuses or decisions (and thus having a terrible time trying to convert provinces) it's just not much fun
In spite of the reworked India map in EU4 the provinces still have pathetic tax and manpower, as you said random chunks of the Steppe are more valuable than wealthy coastal regions in India. When you add in Hindus having virtually no religious bonuses or decisions (and thus having a terrible time trying to convert provinces) it's just not much fun
Its even worse than you imagine. India is full of cloth, wool, and cotton provinces, which are next to useless. Steppes at least have some gold, salt, and fur which are far superior resources. On top of this, your trade as a Pan-indian empire will be drained fairly badly by Middle Eastern countries dumping hundreds of light ships on your trade zones, wheras Steppe trade, so long as you monopolize the trade zones, remain entirely untouched by foreign influence. After all, without light ships or provinces, a lone merchant cannot do much at all.
Switzerland turned out to be really boring, unfortunately, and it turns out I really don't like being a republic - although it adds some nice flavor I find managing the elections/tradition tedious.
Other than Byz, countries interesting to me that have been mentioned include:
Muscovy - I'm guessing the plan would be to unify, expand as far to the east as possible, then try to conquer Europe endgame?
Sweden - Someone already provided a nice breakdown of their strategy. I'd probably focus less on Eastward expansion though (that's a Muscovy game if I want it). Plus the games where you destroy your probable rivals early (e.g. Burgundy wipes out France during HYW) are boring. The chance to play with their strong country modifiers and NIs is tempting.
Tuscany - I've never actually tried a unify Italy game. Is Tuscany a kingdom? Not sure what I'd do once I unify Italy, though.
The Hansa - I'm guessing they're a republic of some sort or something with elections? Intriguing otherwise. I'm not sure how a trade game without colonies would go - what do you concentrate on? Steering trade somehow?
Right now I'm leaning towards Sweden. Challenging early game, with a fun middle game that can go in any direction I want. Second choice at the moment, Tuscany. I think a Tuscany game where I choose innovative and try to construct a unified Renaissance Italy would be lots of fun.
Other than Byz, countries interesting to me that have been mentioned include:
Muscovy - I'm guessing the plan would be to unify, expand as far to the east as possible, then try to conquer Europe endgame?
Sweden - Someone already provided a nice breakdown of their strategy. I'd probably focus less on Eastward expansion though (that's a Muscovy game if I want it). Plus the games where you destroy your probable rivals early (e.g. Burgundy wipes out France during HYW) are boring. The chance to play with their strong country modifiers and NIs is tempting.
Tuscany - I've never actually tried a unify Italy game. Is Tuscany a kingdom? Not sure what I'd do once I unify Italy, though.
The Hansa - I'm guessing they're a republic of some sort or something with elections? Intriguing otherwise. I'm not sure how a trade game without colonies would go - what do you concentrate on? Steering trade somehow?
Right now I'm leaning towards Sweden. Challenging early game, with a fun middle game that can go in any direction I want. Second choice at the moment, Tuscany. I think a Tuscany game where I choose innovative and try to construct a unified Renaissance Italy would be lots of fun.
Don't think I've seen it mentioned yet, so I'ma go ahead and mention Ming. I've done two Manchu -> Qing games before, but never a serious Ming game till today. They seem to have a lot of flavour events (even more so than Manchu), the faction system seems more interesting than it was in EU3 (as far as I remember anyway!) and you've got a few different avenues to explore.
I've gone Sunni Ming for example and that was pretty fun to pull off.
I've gone Sunni Ming for example and that was pretty fun to pull off.
Sweden is -the- eastern power for players. Player-led Muscovy runs into the problem in that, yes, you can field obscene quantities of troops, but at the most you will only be able to field 4 stacks of 70K in any meaningful capacity because of your limited number of leaders. 6 Stacks if your willing to send your monarch/heir into combat. Thats only 420,000 troops. My lategame Sweden, with Muscovy, Norway, and Ming as vassals, had 400K land force limit, so I can see Muscovy's extra force limit being wasted. However, Muscovy as AI performs much better with extra troops since they get +1 Free leaders for being an AI, and another +1 Free leaders for being lucky, and they use their monarch/heir so they end up with 7 leaders (AI Muscovy does not pick innovative).
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...s-4-Empire&p=16532177&viewfull=1#post16532177
My only mistake is that I probably should have tried to grab Plutocracy sooner, and I should have picked Religious instead of Economic. Economic was completely unneeded since I was drowning in ducats, but I was constantly short on monarch points. I could have also converted my empire without picking defender of the faith which adds a nasty +5% to tech costs.
Ming is fun, but I dont talk about my games with Ming too much since that would reveal the exploits I pull off with them. Considering Paradox's habit of nerfing everything not Sweden, my silence ensures that at the very least Ming has the capability of matching Sweden in raw bonuses.
Though, one of the exploits is public, and I will reveal that one: If you get Tech 20 (not hard, Eunuch faction gets -75% Tech cost which reduces Ming's tech penalty to only +35%) in administrative and pool 200 admin points, you can get Scheming Bureaucracy event that converts your Ming to a republic. You will lose internal perfection but keep factions. Then you can westernize and have Western Ming with no internal perfection and with factions.
I think Crimea is seriously underplayed out of all the hordes out there. With a great alliance with the Ottomans, quite easy expansion around the Black Sea and a fairly straightforward westernization route thanks to the nearby Genoese colonies, they are all set to create a solid counter-weight to Muscovy and Poland in the region.
Yea. You did right by Poland in Eu4. Strong NIs, solid provincial income, good route to union with Lithuania, missions to rid of Teutons and plenty of fun events. And at the end, there's no partitions. ;-)
Yea. You did right by Poland in Eu4. Strong NIs, solid provincial income, good route to union with Lithuania, missions to rid of Teutons and plenty of fun events. And at the end, there's no partitions. ;-)