Greetings!
Congratulations on this game, it is even better than the dev diaries and other preview material made it seem! After playing the Serenissima (Venice) a couple of times I wanted to give some feedback and a big thank you:
1) The trade system is a stroke of genius: instead of just owning one very rich province, e.g. Venice, and doing little else for trading other than (automatically) sending merchants to (previously prioritized) CoTs, trade now ties into every single aspect of my Venice-game. I have to conquer strategically, on the one hand provinces in the nodes that feed the Venice node to steer as much trade there as possible, on the other hand as much of the provinces in the Venice node itself to suck the most out of the trade value that I steered there. In the longer run (the full version) I can easily see myself going for Egypt to control the Alexandria node and then expanding to steer the Indian trade my way while cutting off the African route… In sending my fleet to project trade power where I need it, trading is also very dynamic and leads to historical results – the lager your trading focus, the bigger the trading fleet and the navy to protect the trading fleet. I also like that you can very actively sabotage your enemies (e.g., the Ottoman Empire) by denying them trade income through steering it away. Combined with the possibility to take your enemies trade power in a peace deal, embargo warfare and the fact that mercantilism finally makes sense for a trading power (same as today: enforcing free trade on everyone else and staying mercantilist yourself benefits you the most) and you have a system that is easy to learn, hard to master and does excite historically plausible results, e.g. trading nations expanding along the trade routes and battling it out for more trading power in a region.
2) The mechanics for republics are great, I like the tradeoff between keeping the republican tradition high and holding on to that really good leader that keeps getting better the longer he stays in office. The fact that mercenaries are now actually an option: if you are rich but low on manpower it is game changing. I was able to beat the Ottoman Empire by keeping a grand navy and relying on mercenaries to occupy Anatolia while closing the Strait of Marmara.
3) Monarch points work really well (except for some balancing issues like culture flipping etc.), I like that I have to choose between tech and ideas, harsh treatment and conversion etc. pp.
4) Loans are now much better than in EU IV: Paul Kennedy describes in “Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” the mechanics of warfare in that time and underlines the importance of who could take loans at what interest for winning or losing wars (hence the power of the Netherlands and England in that period, compared to the ultimate demise of the Spanish Empire). This is now reflected in the game.
5) Interface: I have been an avid EUIII player since 2007 and sunk more than a thousand hours in it, but the interface was (also due to the number of expansions) cluttered and, well, sort of clumsy. Nothing of that in EU IV: recruiting and building with 2, max 3 clicks! Immediately seeing how much a building will bring in extra income, manpower etc. while at the same time being able to compare it to all other provinces. I can’t return to EU III ever (except perhaps to reminisce)!
6) Suggestion: As has been mentioned in other threads before, galleys should be able to project (some) trade power as well as light ships, at least in the Mediterranean. It would make sense.
My Conclusion: This is a great game (judging by the demo) and I thank you for evolving EU III into something utterly amazing! Keep up the good work!
P.S.: I have a question and hope someone can answer it: in my game yesterday I was in a war against Spain and England (me playing Venice). The Spanish Fleet came and dropped 7 regiments on Verona while I had my Fleet in the same ocean province. They didn’t engage in battle until the Spanish Fleet had dropped off its army safe and sound. Why would my fleet, which outnumbered the enemy’s fleet 3:1 wait with engaging the enemy until he has completed his landing maneuver? I found that quite annoying because I don’t understand the reason for it – I had stationed my fleet there on purpose to block the landing of hostile troops.
Congratulations on this game, it is even better than the dev diaries and other preview material made it seem! After playing the Serenissima (Venice) a couple of times I wanted to give some feedback and a big thank you:
1) The trade system is a stroke of genius: instead of just owning one very rich province, e.g. Venice, and doing little else for trading other than (automatically) sending merchants to (previously prioritized) CoTs, trade now ties into every single aspect of my Venice-game. I have to conquer strategically, on the one hand provinces in the nodes that feed the Venice node to steer as much trade there as possible, on the other hand as much of the provinces in the Venice node itself to suck the most out of the trade value that I steered there. In the longer run (the full version) I can easily see myself going for Egypt to control the Alexandria node and then expanding to steer the Indian trade my way while cutting off the African route… In sending my fleet to project trade power where I need it, trading is also very dynamic and leads to historical results – the lager your trading focus, the bigger the trading fleet and the navy to protect the trading fleet. I also like that you can very actively sabotage your enemies (e.g., the Ottoman Empire) by denying them trade income through steering it away. Combined with the possibility to take your enemies trade power in a peace deal, embargo warfare and the fact that mercantilism finally makes sense for a trading power (same as today: enforcing free trade on everyone else and staying mercantilist yourself benefits you the most) and you have a system that is easy to learn, hard to master and does excite historically plausible results, e.g. trading nations expanding along the trade routes and battling it out for more trading power in a region.
2) The mechanics for republics are great, I like the tradeoff between keeping the republican tradition high and holding on to that really good leader that keeps getting better the longer he stays in office. The fact that mercenaries are now actually an option: if you are rich but low on manpower it is game changing. I was able to beat the Ottoman Empire by keeping a grand navy and relying on mercenaries to occupy Anatolia while closing the Strait of Marmara.
3) Monarch points work really well (except for some balancing issues like culture flipping etc.), I like that I have to choose between tech and ideas, harsh treatment and conversion etc. pp.
4) Loans are now much better than in EU IV: Paul Kennedy describes in “Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” the mechanics of warfare in that time and underlines the importance of who could take loans at what interest for winning or losing wars (hence the power of the Netherlands and England in that period, compared to the ultimate demise of the Spanish Empire). This is now reflected in the game.
5) Interface: I have been an avid EUIII player since 2007 and sunk more than a thousand hours in it, but the interface was (also due to the number of expansions) cluttered and, well, sort of clumsy. Nothing of that in EU IV: recruiting and building with 2, max 3 clicks! Immediately seeing how much a building will bring in extra income, manpower etc. while at the same time being able to compare it to all other provinces. I can’t return to EU III ever (except perhaps to reminisce)!
6) Suggestion: As has been mentioned in other threads before, galleys should be able to project (some) trade power as well as light ships, at least in the Mediterranean. It would make sense.
My Conclusion: This is a great game (judging by the demo) and I thank you for evolving EU III into something utterly amazing! Keep up the good work!
P.S.: I have a question and hope someone can answer it: in my game yesterday I was in a war against Spain and England (me playing Venice). The Spanish Fleet came and dropped 7 regiments on Verona while I had my Fleet in the same ocean province. They didn’t engage in battle until the Spanish Fleet had dropped off its army safe and sound. Why would my fleet, which outnumbered the enemy’s fleet 3:1 wait with engaging the enemy until he has completed his landing maneuver? I found that quite annoying because I don’t understand the reason for it – I had stationed my fleet there on purpose to block the landing of hostile troops.
