Is it worth buying this game yet?

[flyingchicken]

I've always thought @Wiz had the right idea with his lightweight mod design, and I think his direction has been great for EU4. Like, EU3 Plus was a breath of fresh air from all the other popular mods--Death and Taxes, MEIOU, Magna Mundi, etc--which were all beautiful in their own way but I've always like simplicity, clarity, and a minimum of computational overhead in my masturbatory map painting games. I've enjoyed EU more now playing EU4 with all the gameplay DLC than ever before since I first picked up EU2.

tl;dr EU4's terrible and unrealistic (why do we use mana in a history simulation game?), don't buy it.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

@cacra
I'm curious, what kind of historical are you looking for with combat? Total War style? HOI style? Surely not CIV style. From the beginning, EU has been dice-roll combat, line-up unit vs unit with modifiers for as long as I recall.

There are so many ways to define ahistorical. Breaking a unit, having them retreat one province then get killed by the fresh victors was even worse. Every combat engagement was just a stack wipe that required a few extra clicks to finish. If I recall, the shattered retreat move was meant to bring the combat back into balance between attackers and defenders.

Sure you then had your whole country as a combat zone, since it changed combat to "blanket the enemy to bring back the stack wipe strat." So the latest expansion reworked the fort system to restrict movement, which (supposedly) cuts down on the "win one battle, loser gets wiped, aggressor always wins" war game. It's an improvement, actually less ahistorical from a certain point of view (whoever loses the first battle always lost the war? VERY ahistorical), but I would never call EU combat "historical". It's still line-em-up, roll the dice, count the losses until someone breaks and runs. (edit - Oh, and try to get the other side to attack into a mountain province.)

I'm just curious which aspect of history you are looking for. Not that I can help you (I'm just a fellow poster here), but seriously I don't have the framework needed to understand what you mean when you say you want historical and fun.

 

[glorioso2011]

Is combat still terribad and does the game feel polished?

Yes stay away.

I think a cool solution for armies would that be that they "shatter" back to the nearest controlled fort.

 

[Kagemin]

Yes stay away.

I think a cool solution for armies would that be that they "shatter" back to the nearest controlled fort.

That would make for a whole lot of stackwipes, since the enemy can just follow them there and the distance likely won't be very big. So it'd have to be somewhere behind your frontline of forts to be somewhat safe.
I guess the retreat logic could be modified so that a "safe" location has some higher priority (if it's not already in there) but usually the current shattered retreat already brings armies to relatively safe provinces.

 

[cacra]

@cacra
I'm curious, what kind of historical are you looking for with combat? Total War style? HOI style? Surely not CIV style. From the beginning, EU has been dice-roll combat, line-up unit vs unit with modifiers for as long as I recall.

There are so many ways to define ahistorical. Breaking a unit, having them retreat one province then get killed by the fresh victors was even worse. Every combat engagement was just a stack wipe that required a few extra clicks to finish. If I recall, the shattered retreat move was meant to bring the combat back into balance between attackers and defenders.

Sure you then had your whole country as a combat zone, since it changed combat to "blanket the enemy to bring back the stack wipe strat." So the latest expansion reworked the fort system to restrict movement, which (supposedly) cuts down on the "win one battle, loser gets wiped, aggressor always wins" war game. It's an improvement, actually less ahistorical from a certain point of view (whoever loses the first battle always lost the war? VERY ahistorical), but I would never call EU combat "historical". It's still line-em-up, roll the dice, count the losses until someone breaks and runs. (edit - Oh, and try to get the other side to attack into a mountain province.)

I'm just curious which aspect of history you are looking for. Not that I can help you (I'm just a fellow poster here), but seriously I don't have the framework needed to understand what you mean when you say you want historical and fun.

HOI is dice-roll combat.

I am after combat that accurately mimics the combat of the time period and is fun. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[cacra]

tl;dr EU4's terrible and unrealistic (why do we use mana in a history simulation game?), don't buy it.

To please the 12 year olds this game is apparently aimed at.

 

[kviiri]

tl;dr EU4's terrible and unrealistic (why do we use mana in a history simulation game?), don't buy it.

It's not a simulation game. It's just a game. Sure, it has a historical backdrop, but the devs have repeatedly stated that realism will come second-place to gameplay.

 

[Sagif]

If ever anyone ever tries to make a fully historically accurate and correct game, well, I believe that it will be the most boring game ever...

 

[SolSys]

To please the 12 year olds this game is apparently aimed at.

Actually I'm 30 and been playing EU since 2007 while being in the service (and guess what? The game was more fun).
Also, if I wanted historical combat simulator I would've stayed in the army.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

HOI is dice-roll combat.

I am after combat that accurately mimics the combat of the time period and is fun. Nothing more, nothing less.

Ok, thanks.

I think that would require an overhaul of the diplomacy system. Hernan Cortez did not beat the Aztecs with 11 ships, 13 horses and 500 men (he actually scuttled his ships so his men couldn't turn back.) He gained support from the many tributaries the Aztecs had conquered and subdued, few had any love for the "overlords", and marched on Tenochtitlan with a much larger army of locals, mostly Tlaxcalan (some say a hundred thousand or more, very plausible considering the very high population density of pre-Columbian Central America). So you could create a modifier when you fight with nations suffering from internal unrest that could turn much of the enemy army to your side temporarily.

Second, combat in the more populated parts of the earth would be worked differently. For example, China, India or Central America appear to have had much, much denser populations compared to Europe at the beginning of the time period. The Americas (especially North America, not so much South and Central) emptied out within a couple centuries because of disease, but most of Asia and Europe had massive population booms from the new crops that came from the Americas, skewing army sizes upwards across the Old World.

Third, firearms developed rapidly in the game time period, but the early firearms were not terribly deadly compared to good archery units. Many societies were caught without a good defense or iron-making industry when firearms finally upgraded, while some like Japan were early adopters of the improved weapons. This means early game combat and late game combat are immensely different. Compared to 1450, there were comparably few Bronze age societies left by the year 1700, for example. How to model that better? I don't have a clue.

 

[Lessing]

To please the 12 year olds this game is apparently aimed at.

Then why do you post this topic in the first place?

Some mod close this crap down please.

 

[Had a dad]

Thread closed