This will be my first post on this forum and i hope to make it productive.
I have been lurking the forums for some time looking up various game and now that i finally got EUIV i have had a lot of fun with it and i think its a great game.
Still one thing that keeps bothering me is the strange tech group partition between western and eastern tech in europe.
In this thread i will try to elaborate on why i feel a change would be reasonable and preferable.
To start off there isnt much justification in sticking poland-lithuania,hungary and the balkan states into the "eastern" tech group.
Starting with the balkans nations,just to clarify im from croatia and so i do know a reasonable bit of history regarding the place,but i wont let that influence me in elaborating on why i feel the tech set up is wrong,this isnt just some nationalist rambling,its a thought out elaboration on why i feel the tech group is wrong.
It could be well argued that hungary was just as developed or feudaly undeveloped as any state in europe,from its nobility to its army it was as western as any other nation of that period and it was never seriously considered backwards when it became a part of the habsburg lands so sticking it in the eastern tech group is strange.
Moving on to croatia,croatia in the game period was firstly under the rule of hungary and then austria,as well as having its coastal areas under the rule of venice.
So to put it bluntly croatia spent roughly 500 years under the control of "western" nations and was very heavily tied to western culture and society.
For examples we can look to the croatian nobility who were all fluent in latin which they had to use in order to circumvent the outside attempts to influence their language and culture and which they used to write a reasonable amount of literature.
Speaking of literature croatian writers from the coastal cities produced numerous latin works that were reasonably well known and distributed across catholic europe further signifying the cultural connection.
Millitarily croatia was as developed as any european nation,croatian sailors were as good as any in the mediteranian and their piracy was enough to cause serious head-aches to any power that tried to dominate the eastern adriatic and croatian mercenaries were active enough during the protestant wars that they influenced french fashion and actively particiaped in the sack of magdeburg.
Lastly the republic of ragusa was as developed as any italian city and i never got how it was placed in the eastern tech group.
Now for serbia,i will skip over nations such as albania because of lack of knowledge.
Serbia could be considered a well developed nation before the ottoman onslaught,some of its national ideas even reflact that,from the allamaic guard which were germanic nobles to inviting saxon minors serbia was clearly well connected to europe,their emperor dushan was even married to a french princes.
Serbian armies also used basic european tactics from heavy knight mercenaries to feudal foot soldiers so i fail to see much distinction,sure they were the birthplace of the hussars but those same hussars later directly influenced western armies so i dont see why they should be cut out because of it,same applied to hungary,their cavalry tactics were adopted possibly everywhere but russia which still relied on its local horsemen levies from the tatar and cosack comunities.
While my knowledge of bulgaria is schetchy so il go past it,but if their empire is anything to go by they werent seriously more backwards than any run of the mill western feudal mess,similair to serbia.
Byzantium and the greek states.
Sure byzantium was perhaps culturaly more "eastern" but i never noticed anything in history that would suggest they were especially backwards,the event with the byzantine refugees even more complicates it because it suggests they had a better grasp of current tech than the HRE.
As for athens,given its italian leadership i find it strange that it would be "eastern" given the origin of its leaders,during that period the leadership defined the nation,not the peasant masses.
Same with naxos.
Cyprus is also an interesting case,a nation founded by western crusaders,how is it any different than the nations subjugated by the teutonic knights?
Lastly my knowledge of romania is schetchy but i never saw it as particularly eastern of the russian variety.
I know it might seem like a cheap excuse but i wont comment on things im not educated on,besides i already covered most of the balkans so 3 states can be excused especially when 1 was a mountain hermit,1 was occupied and 1 was a vassal.
As for poland and lithuania,i fail to understand how they can be eastern while stuck so deeply into the HRE states and the baltic knights,especially since their religion,culture and army werent at all that different from western varieties.
What im proposing is that the eastern tech group be restricted to the eastern slavic culture,slightly modified(kicking out the stratioti) and renamed to the "russian" tech group,similair to the anatolian one representing the turks.
I define russian society as one where the nobility were firmly subjugated by the tsar of muscovy to the point where he had little to fear from them and where the army could call upon large manpower reserves to suplement its hereditary soldiers and overwhelm less commited oponents,also relying to an extent on tatar cavalry tactics and cosacks in the open steppe.
The type of warfare usefull for russia with its size and culture would have been utterly useless to the balkans where battles werent decided by attrition or steppe cavalry but by pitched battles and ability.
A balkan army would either be shattered(krbava or mohac),pull off a draw(like kosovo) or a great victory(like sisak),it would never intentionaly utilise attrition to the point where it would burn its lands and throw men at the enemy,because there was simply nowhere to pull back to,while the habsburgs were reasonably secure in the HRE the balkan and hungarian nobility wouldnt throw themselfes under the ottoman steamroller simply to inflict some attrition,they either fought as proffesionaly as any frenchman or englishman or they were crushed.
The balkan mountains were almost alien to russia and required a degree of millitary proficiency that wasnt common among the peasant rabble that passed for russian armies,and i am aware of the strelsky but they were preaty unreliable and their various revolts didnt help the matter.
A croat or serb that fought the ottomans was on par with any western soldier to the point where many croats were employed in HRE wars and the serbian cavalry tactics were readily adopted.
So between the linguistic and cultural connections and interchanging of ideas and literature to the millitary proficiency,tactics and actuall performance i suggest the balkans,greek states,cyprus,romania,hungaria,poland and lithuania be turned into western tech nations while the eastern slavic nations like muscovy,novgorod,pskov,polotsk.tver,yaroslav,perm,ryazan as well as the ukranians are turned into a "russian tech" group
to better reflect historic reality and make the playing of all nations mentioned more enjoyable and immersive.
The russian tech group could also justifiably get more and better cavalry while the west would contend with run of the mill hussars for everyone after the knights go utterly out of fashion(even the serbian empire relied on heavily armored knights so its not an inconsistency).
I hope my thread was constructive and wasnt a drain on your patience
I have been lurking the forums for some time looking up various game and now that i finally got EUIV i have had a lot of fun with it and i think its a great game.
Still one thing that keeps bothering me is the strange tech group partition between western and eastern tech in europe.
In this thread i will try to elaborate on why i feel a change would be reasonable and preferable.
To start off there isnt much justification in sticking poland-lithuania,hungary and the balkan states into the "eastern" tech group.
Starting with the balkans nations,just to clarify im from croatia and so i do know a reasonable bit of history regarding the place,but i wont let that influence me in elaborating on why i feel the tech set up is wrong,this isnt just some nationalist rambling,its a thought out elaboration on why i feel the tech group is wrong.
It could be well argued that hungary was just as developed or feudaly undeveloped as any state in europe,from its nobility to its army it was as western as any other nation of that period and it was never seriously considered backwards when it became a part of the habsburg lands so sticking it in the eastern tech group is strange.
Moving on to croatia,croatia in the game period was firstly under the rule of hungary and then austria,as well as having its coastal areas under the rule of venice.
So to put it bluntly croatia spent roughly 500 years under the control of "western" nations and was very heavily tied to western culture and society.
For examples we can look to the croatian nobility who were all fluent in latin which they had to use in order to circumvent the outside attempts to influence their language and culture and which they used to write a reasonable amount of literature.
Speaking of literature croatian writers from the coastal cities produced numerous latin works that were reasonably well known and distributed across catholic europe further signifying the cultural connection.
Millitarily croatia was as developed as any european nation,croatian sailors were as good as any in the mediteranian and their piracy was enough to cause serious head-aches to any power that tried to dominate the eastern adriatic and croatian mercenaries were active enough during the protestant wars that they influenced french fashion and actively particiaped in the sack of magdeburg.
Lastly the republic of ragusa was as developed as any italian city and i never got how it was placed in the eastern tech group.
Now for serbia,i will skip over nations such as albania because of lack of knowledge.
Serbia could be considered a well developed nation before the ottoman onslaught,some of its national ideas even reflact that,from the allamaic guard which were germanic nobles to inviting saxon minors serbia was clearly well connected to europe,their emperor dushan was even married to a french princes.
Serbian armies also used basic european tactics from heavy knight mercenaries to feudal foot soldiers so i fail to see much distinction,sure they were the birthplace of the hussars but those same hussars later directly influenced western armies so i dont see why they should be cut out because of it,same applied to hungary,their cavalry tactics were adopted possibly everywhere but russia which still relied on its local horsemen levies from the tatar and cosack comunities.
While my knowledge of bulgaria is schetchy so il go past it,but if their empire is anything to go by they werent seriously more backwards than any run of the mill western feudal mess,similair to serbia.
Byzantium and the greek states.
Sure byzantium was perhaps culturaly more "eastern" but i never noticed anything in history that would suggest they were especially backwards,the event with the byzantine refugees even more complicates it because it suggests they had a better grasp of current tech than the HRE.
As for athens,given its italian leadership i find it strange that it would be "eastern" given the origin of its leaders,during that period the leadership defined the nation,not the peasant masses.
Same with naxos.
Cyprus is also an interesting case,a nation founded by western crusaders,how is it any different than the nations subjugated by the teutonic knights?
Lastly my knowledge of romania is schetchy but i never saw it as particularly eastern of the russian variety.
I know it might seem like a cheap excuse but i wont comment on things im not educated on,besides i already covered most of the balkans so 3 states can be excused especially when 1 was a mountain hermit,1 was occupied and 1 was a vassal.
As for poland and lithuania,i fail to understand how they can be eastern while stuck so deeply into the HRE states and the baltic knights,especially since their religion,culture and army werent at all that different from western varieties.
What im proposing is that the eastern tech group be restricted to the eastern slavic culture,slightly modified(kicking out the stratioti) and renamed to the "russian" tech group,similair to the anatolian one representing the turks.
I define russian society as one where the nobility were firmly subjugated by the tsar of muscovy to the point where he had little to fear from them and where the army could call upon large manpower reserves to suplement its hereditary soldiers and overwhelm less commited oponents,also relying to an extent on tatar cavalry tactics and cosacks in the open steppe.
The type of warfare usefull for russia with its size and culture would have been utterly useless to the balkans where battles werent decided by attrition or steppe cavalry but by pitched battles and ability.
A balkan army would either be shattered(krbava or mohac),pull off a draw(like kosovo) or a great victory(like sisak),it would never intentionaly utilise attrition to the point where it would burn its lands and throw men at the enemy,because there was simply nowhere to pull back to,while the habsburgs were reasonably secure in the HRE the balkan and hungarian nobility wouldnt throw themselfes under the ottoman steamroller simply to inflict some attrition,they either fought as proffesionaly as any frenchman or englishman or they were crushed.
The balkan mountains were almost alien to russia and required a degree of millitary proficiency that wasnt common among the peasant rabble that passed for russian armies,and i am aware of the strelsky but they were preaty unreliable and their various revolts didnt help the matter.
A croat or serb that fought the ottomans was on par with any western soldier to the point where many croats were employed in HRE wars and the serbian cavalry tactics were readily adopted.
So between the linguistic and cultural connections and interchanging of ideas and literature to the millitary proficiency,tactics and actuall performance i suggest the balkans,greek states,cyprus,romania,hungaria,poland and lithuania be turned into western tech nations while the eastern slavic nations like muscovy,novgorod,pskov,polotsk.tver,yaroslav,perm,ryazan as well as the ukranians are turned into a "russian tech" group
to better reflect historic reality and make the playing of all nations mentioned more enjoyable and immersive.
The russian tech group could also justifiably get more and better cavalry while the west would contend with run of the mill hussars for everyone after the knights go utterly out of fashion(even the serbian empire relied on heavily armored knights so its not an inconsistency).
I hope my thread was constructive and wasnt a drain on your patience
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