Please Help

[Sfan]

I don't think you learn anything by putting the game on Very Easy and disabling lucky nations. My first game was as Portugal, I was having a blast, allied France, called them in against Castile and expanded a bit. And then France rivalled me, I learned how not to antagonize your allies (back in the days getting caught building a spy network generated AE, and I did not improve my relations with France). Anyway, I decided to play it, France attacked me when we bordered around Barcelona, I got totally destroyed, because I did not know cannons did damage from the backrow so I did not see the point of cannons as they had less pips. I raged a lot, went to the wiki, understood how combat worked, and learned. Having no challenge is not really interesting, you have to fail a lot at the beginning to improve;

 

[Brynjar]

He survived rebels and got his PU. He got the perfect learning experience.

How do you know he learned anything? He says he got lucky. He may very well be correct in it being pure luck, getting the Iberian wedding early (the only way to avoid the civil war afaik) and AI rivalries and wars being in his favour. Another option is that he wasn't just lucky, but he doesn't know what he actually did to trigger his "luck". Neither of those scenarios will have thought him anything, and he may very well end up in similiar problems as he had the next time he starts a new game.

 

[Dominion]

How do you know he learned anything? He says he got lucky. He may very well be correct in it being pure luck, getting the Iberian wedding early (the only way to avoid the civil war afaik) and AI rivalries and wars being in his favour. Another option is that he wasn't just lucky, but he doesn't know what he actually did to trigger his "luck". Neither of those scenarios will have thought him anything, and he may very well end up in similiar problems as he had the next time he starts a new game.

Talking about the future, not the past.

He wanted a relaxed game, he got a relaxed game. He can now play his campaign exactly how he wanted to.

EDIT: And if he starts his campaign anew he'll at least know the position he wants to get in.
Fingers crossed he learned to avoid CtAs and how to kill rebels.

 

[Brynjar]

Talking about the future, not the past.

He wanted a relaxed game, he got a relaxed game. He can now play his campaign exactly how he wanted to.

"He got his learning experience." How is that talking about the future, if he didn't learn anything at all?

 

[grommile]

Castille can't even get declared on.
Compare it to other European powers.

In my experience, AI Lucky Castile is constantly getting its face pushed in by AI Aragon and sometimes AI Morocco as well. Newbie human is not Lucky and not necessarily smarter than AI.

England? Constantly at war with France.
France? Same, vice versa.

Both nations mean you start at war with a great power. That's not what I'd call suitable for beginners.

Human England can get AI France off its back permanently by accepting defeat in that war, at which point it then becomes the giant in the playground of the British Isles, and human France even in a beginner's hands should still have a reasonable chance of extracting clay from AI England.

 

[Dominion]

In my experience, AI Lucky Castile is constantly getting its face pushed in by AI Aragon and sometimes AI Morocco as well. Newbie human is not Lucky and not necessarily smarter than AI.

AI lucky Castille doesn't merc up when fighting rebels and has no clue how to handle a desaster.
It fights stacks, loses, drops to almost 0 standing units, gets declared on and loses its war.

Nobody, not even someone without any experience in EU4, can have fewer standing armies than AI Castille without intentionally deleting all of them.
That's why humans do better with Castille than the AI. At least early on.

Newbie human is not lucky, but most certainly smarter than the AI, at least in this situation.

Human England can get AI France off its back permanently by accepting defeat in that war, at which point it then becomes the giant in the playground of the British Isles, and human France even in a beginner's hands should still have a reasonable chance of extracting clay from AI England.

Your recommendation is for people to start by losing?
Because that's a surefire way to get people into a game.
"All you need to do is lose." is the opposite of appealing.

France in beginner's hands has no chance against England+Portugal.
Any nation in beginner's hands has no chance in any kind of war.

I lost against Portugal as Castille and almost lost against Venice as Austria when I first played the game.

Any nation that has "you will go to war against another nation" in its opening is a bad recommendation for new players.
That's why Ottomans and Castille are on par. You never have to declare on anyone.

"He got his learning experience." How is that talking about the future, if he didn't learn anything at all?

Wanna argue semantics? Because I'm totally up for it

Pretty sure you know what I'm saying. No need to be anal

 

[Brynjar]

Pretty sure you know what I'm saying. No need to be anal

If your point is that after several restarts he will now be able to continue his campaing and learn stuff, sure he'll get his learning experience from now on. It still doesn't make Castile a good country to play as your first campaign though. If your idea of a good starting country is to depend heavily on RNG before you get going, you may as well suggest Byzantium. At least you will know exactly what went wrong when you fail it.

 

[KalypsoKirin]

I have a pretty good grasp on the basics of Paradox games.
I've played enough Vicky 2 to know that cannons should equal your other troops.
The problem was that there was so much going on, and I was expecting something with a less hectic start.
A lot of things weren't properly explained in the tutorial, and I think I'm missing out on some decent quality of life features since I only have Art of War and Common Sense.
I do like the game, and when the next sale rolls around on Steam, I'll probably get the rest of the expansions.

 

[KalypsoKirin]

Looking at some stuff being planned for this game, I do think that "Mission Trees" will be much, much better than generic/specific missions for new players. It lets you actually direct your efforts, and tells you what your nation should be doing. It's an excellent way of setting for yourself goals as well. "I want X bonuses, so I have to do A, B, and C missions to get to those bonuses."

 

[Thrake]

Looking at some stuff being planned for this game, I do think that "Mission Trees" will be much, much better than generic/specific missions for new players. It lets you actually direct your efforts, and tells you what your nation should be doing. It's an excellent way of setting for yourself goals as well. "I want X bonuses, so I have to do A, B, and C missions to get to those bonuses."

General tip: check who is your rival, then check their own rivals and try to ally them. This is because rivals will want to declare war on you and rivals of your rivals will be eager to defend you against your rivals. Other AI SHOULD help you too though if they are in a tough spot they won't hesitate to let you down. That's the other tip: AI can drag you in many wars. Don't be affraid to turn them down when there is little for you in it. You really don't want to lose all your army and a handful provinces a few years later.

Also make sure to check your military technology and the ennemie's. Early military technologies offer massive bonus, and Castille starts with awful rulers, so you will very likely be behind. You will need a lot to make up for that. So time your wars accordingly (if you have the advantage, you might as well just plan a war declaration the very day you unlock it, it can be enough to win first battle even if the ennemy levels up its technology after that).

Castille is very good at colonizing, you'll swim in money but I don't think it will work very well without revamped colonization systems from DLC.

 

[Qoff]

I just got the game, and I feel like it's cheating me. Everyone says to pick Castiel to start, so naturally I do. I set myself a few short term goals and every time, less than 10 years into the game, everything goes south at the drop of a hat.
I typically beat up Granada just fine, they're pretty small, and their allies don't ever seem to want to join them when I attack, so, no problems there. But then, my allies start dragging me into big wars, or suddenly 200 k rebels spawn, or Aragon suddenly pulls 20 k troops out of nowhere after I destroy most of their army.
I thought Castiel was reccomended as a good start because it would be laid back and simple for most of the game. A few small wars early on, then smooth sailing to colonizing and maybe a large war or two after the midgame, where I'd have the ropes pretty well down, but it seems like the early years are non-stop threats and dealing with more threats than could possibly exist at a time.
No matter what I do, my country is ravaged by war, rebellion, etc. before the 1460's, and I just feel so overwhelmed I have no choice but to quit, start over, and try again and pray that I don't somehow get a million billion enemies knocking on my door.

Confirmation Bias

 

[CountKino]

I feel like learning this game is better as a regional power than as one of the major nations. Someone like Kongo/Mali, where you have a bunch of wars that let you get into it; obviously as a beginner, when the Europeans come colonising you're probably not prepared, but that's after a good 100 years of learning.

The first game where I really got into it was like this, as Uesugi. I could pick my wars, chip away, unite Japan, then spent the 1600s fighting Ming, once I had some clue what I was doing.

 

[PhoenixG]

I have a pretty good grasp on the basics of Paradox games.
I've played enough Vicky 2 to know that cannons should equal your other troops.
The problem was that there was so much going on, and I was expecting something with a less hectic start.
A lot of things weren't properly explained in the tutorial, and I think I'm missing out on some decent quality of life features since I only have Art of War and Common Sense.
I do like the game, and when the next sale rolls around on Steam, I'll probably get the rest of the expansions.

The main thing is the tutorial is very outdated. Lot of stuff that is added in later patches isn't updated. Not to mention about dlc features.

 

[Dominion]

We have a tutorial?

 

[grommile]

We have a tutorial?

It's like Highlander 2.