Hi everyone, I haven't played EU4 for a loooong time, must be more than a year and a half. Has something changed in the meantime? Has the balance changed, some new meaningful mechanics? Is espionage good now, maybe?
Please update me on the state of the game
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The game is still in pretty bad shape. Military access is still broken by design. The AI now deletes forts to avoid debt cycle, but this also means there is even less importance to geography in warfare (honestly I'm amazed Paradox managed to make this worse), and the AI still has no idea how to manage armies and just either aimless meanders across the map with no objective or goes on random suicide missions.
Just wait for EU5. There is no saving this game in its current state.
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You'll be waiting a while then...
Game is fine OP, all the mechanics are reasonably balanced now and the bug fixes have made Leviathan actually pretty decent. Origins is probably one of the most fun DLC we've had for a long time, and well worth it. The game is really fun still.
There are still a few issues, however none are "major". If you want to be really safe, wait for 1.33 which brings sweeping balance changes and bug fixes across the game. It's due out by the end of this Quarter so in the next month or so.
But, if you were to jump into the game today, you'll have fun.
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I'm not willing to spend money on the game until I actually see important things get fixed. I don't want more buttons, or the bugs those new buttons bring. I want the AI to be able to use the buttons that currently exist, that have existed for 6+ years, and that it still can't utilize correctly, namely attach armies and allow armies to attach).
Its not even like the AI does something that is wonky but acceptable. The AI literally doesn't form its armies into reasonably sized stacks. Its doesn't utilize the attach army functions. It doesn't even keep its smaller stacks near each other. They all just aimlessly meander the map doing nothing slowly getting picked off. The minors are even worse. They try to siege a capital + level 2 fort with 5k men. It can't progress the siege. Its like the minors are expecting the majors to attach to them! Allies are effectively worthless as anything other cannon fodder and a distraction (or possible a deterrent to aggression). Even when I attach to the AI, the AI, despite having the largest stack on the field, still just endlessly meanders while achieving nothing. No pitched battles, no sieges. Just wandering in circles, taking the occasional unfortified province, particularly provinces that aren't near the wargoal.
Sure, Paradox may have fixed the comically broken nonsense they introduced with Leviathan, but all that did is get us back to where we were two years ago, when the game was also still in a bad spot. All of this without mentioning the broken by design military access system that I've detailed multiple times why it is bad for the game. Combine that mechanic with the shattered retreat mechanic and now there is literally no penalty for blitzkrieging across half the map as your army will safely retreat back to the capital if you happen to lose, all while reinforcing and gaining moral, so a defending army can't actually capitalize on its own success.
The game doesn't need balance changes, it doesn't need flavor packs, or anything with regards to content. It needs the AI to be able to make basic decisions correctly. No player Muscovy would ever have their their 50k man army spread across 4 stacks when fighting the Ottomans, yet this is exactly how Muscovy fights this war. The playerbase has been complaining for years about how minors don't form common armies and instead go on suicide missions. It doesn't benefit the AI minors to do that, yet they do it. No player is blitzing Constantinople with their 10k man stack when they could hug their army up against a bigger allied army. And it isn't like the problem is attrition. The AI still does all of this despite being 20k troops under the supply limit of the majority of the provinces they would be in. Even then, when the human player create multiple stacks to stay under the supply limit, they keep their stacks together, not spread as far apart as possible each aimlessly meandering the map. Even if the AI couldn't focus a target, just getting the AI to actually compose its armies would significantly improve the game. Oh, and even when the player does use the attach army function, the player's armies might still get dropped off on some random province for seemingly no reason, so that function doesn't even actually work correctly. Or maybe give me the option to have my army and the attached armies reach the destination together so that my flanks aren't getting blasted in the opening phase, leading to a hole in the center of my line when the allies finally do show up.
As for waiting for EU5, I know. Paradox is going to milk this cow as long as it can. EU4 should have been put out to pasture 4 years ago. I go on 6 month plus hiatuses, come back to the game for a bit only to realize none of the important stuff got fixed.
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Well well, you seem to be playing an entirely different game than I am!
The AI are better than ever from what I've seen, I was just recently crushed by AI France as Castile with England and Austria as my Allies as France picked of England by killing their landing armies, then sieged down burgundy (Austria's PU) and used the Ottoman's declaration on Austria as advantage.
They then proceeded to siege all of my Netherlands territory and then come down in big 30-40K stacks and wiped out my armies and sieging back their provinces.
They effectively and efficiently killed my attacks, are you SURE you're on 1.32.2?
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I can almost picture how this war went down, and it isn't a complement to the AI. My guess is Austria and Burgundy never united. England probably tried to land in France proper instead of ferrying its troops from Dover or London directly into port in the Netherlands, and that England, Burgundy and Austria never actually united their armies to match the size of France's largest doomstack despite England, Austria and the Burgundy having greater numbers. More or less, France fought four 1v1 wars where it could ping-pong between battles, sieges and lifting enemy sieges when in reality it should have been fighting a 3v1 war.
My question here is what exactly were you doing? Were you pushing alongside Austria and Burgundy or were you trying to hold an isolated front in the Pyrenees? If you were concerned about protecting Spain then trying to secure a route from Aragon to Italy would have been the highest priority so that you could ping-pong between your mountain fort and the main front in Burgundy. Either that or just abandon Spain altogether and push with Austria.
Anyway to clarify my point, the AI is head and shoulders above any one of its enemies, it can fight a reasonably competent war. When the AI is weaker individually, but its alliance is stronger, it fights terribly. France, the Ottomans, Ming (before Mandate) are all examples of the AI fighting well, simply because they are hands down stronger and more numerous than any other power. The flipside to France looking good is, why did two major AIs lose to one major AI?
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Espionage is not good. Not many major changes tbh. If you buy leviathan you get wonders, that’s probably the biggest change.
I forget exactly where things were 1.5 years ago. The horrible debt spiral AI issues are fixed, as are most of the other AI consequences of the merc rework (I think you left after the merc rework? If not, it’s a rather huge change). AI is pretty decent now, though obviously not human level and will always have annoying issues.
There have been some really neat UI changes. Some improvements to the macro builder, the ability to see the declare war screen without a free diplomat, a vastly improved co-belligerent experience (this last one is not purely UI).
Other than that, mainly content for south east Asia and Africa. The SEA content from leviathan is quite fun, haven’t played the newer dlc so can’t speak for it.
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This was an early war, Aragon was not involved as I had not yet gotten the PU. Austria had only just inherited Aragon and England hadn't been fully kicked out of France.
England sent their troops to their territories in France, mainly Calais and met up with Austrian + Burgundian troops in my land within the Netherlands. They then attempted to defend the Netherlands, Burgundy and England's lands unsuccessfully as the French walked over with large 30k stacks while their vassals carpet sieged small non-fortified provinces. I should mention, Austria had just been declared on by the Ottoman's shortly after I called them into war, so they had to defend that too.
While this was happening, I was capitalising on the fact France's armies were in the North so was sieging as much land as I could north of the Pyrenees, which was not a lot as my general roles were awful and my advisor had no good bonuses so I was stuck in a siege fest until France came back down with their huge stacks.
The French AI used it's vassals effectively by making them carpet siege with small 5k stacks while it consolidated huge stacks to siege down forts and break armies. England was too weak to fight them on their own so they tried to team up with Burgundy however even then they were not strong enough. Austria had to defend 2 fronts and ultimately failed.
My point is that the AI is significantly better than you make them out to be. From my experiences, I cannot justify your claims in any way.
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So what your saying is England and a BU weakened Burgundy got rolled by France because Austria was in the Balkans and you failed to move your army to Burgundy. Again, AI France and AI Otto fight well because they are stronger than every other power in the game. I doubt some of what you are describing. I'd say its more likely that France managed to corner each countries stacks individually and then the others tried to jump in after France had already weakened the others. I've literally never seen two majors keep their armies near each other to functionally work as one stack. Also, how did you not have Aragon but the Ottomans already bordered Austria? Did the Ottomans attack Genoa?
Also there is a contradiction from the previous post. You said France was fighting off the English as they landed. Here you said England managed to land, consolidate its army and form up with Burgundy.
Counterpoint:
We've got a 9k stack, and 8k, stack, a 9k stack and a 6k stack for Muscovy. You've got Perm off in the middle of nowhere, Pskov and Rostov by themselves and Yaroslavl and Beloozero are on top of each other for a combine 8k man stack. Meanwhile Uzbek has a 13k man stack. The supply limit through here is predominantly 17k.
I unpaused real quick. Rostov has locked itself into a fight with Uzbek. The lower Muscovite stack looks to be heading there as well along with Beloozero, Yaroslavl and Pskov. The upper Muscovite army is heading North into Vologda! Oh and Kazan is moving South. So two big questions here. Why is Rostov leading a suicide mission against Uzbek and why is the main Muscovite stack running away while the other Muscovite stack goes towards the fight? There is no enemy north. There is no war north. Nothing of value is north.
Alright, Rostov started the fight, and lost almost instantly. Muscovy decided it didn't want to engage. So Rostov just committed suicide. The stack in Murmon is now heading east. Why isn't it waiting in Murmon to consolidate and lift the siege by Uzbek? On the next tick the army in Suzdal reached Murmon and is heading towards Uzbek's army. Rostov lost, the army then stopped moving in and now everybody is moving east except for the main stack that is still going north. That army reached Velsk, then went back south to Murmon then went east. So now most of the armies are in Tyumen. The main muscovite stack reached Tura, then turned back to Perm, then turned back to Tura, then turned south because the random 1k stack in Bashkortostan got attacked, then stopped and did nothing as the Kazan army moved on the Beloozero stack in Bashgird, a mountain province, perfect for defending. Then it moved to Tura, and the Kazan stack just stopped. So after a lot of nothing happened the Muscovite stack moved back West and the minor Muscovite stacks and vassals sieged Uzbek capital. Uzbek is still in war. Muscovy won some fights in the West but is allowing its other stacks to get stackwiped. It eventually signs a peace with Uzbek, I've sieged Crimea, so its clear Kazan is going to lose this war. However, the army management for both sides was terrible. I'm only able to talk about Muscovy because I can see their troops. Hot damn, they white peaced the war after sieging Kazan. The AI just white peaced with near 100% warscore. At least I got Crimea from that separate peace.
From a different game. Ottomans have a 43k man stack and a random 3k stack. Muscovy has 4 o 5 stacks of 11K men. There are 55K Russian troops on screen between Muscovy and vassals, but they are about to get wiped by the Ottomans because they are just spread out randomly. Also no pictured is the Russian vassals that never left Russia.
Another different game. Here the Ottomans are concentrated on Candar, you've got the suicide trickle going into Constantinople. You've got these miniscule Russian stacks on the Crimean steppe, and the main Muscovite stack is in Georgia along with another random Muscovite 10k stack.
I'm not sure what happened here while all that was happening in Muscovy. This is the same game as the first screenshot. 13k Lithuanians, 13k Genoans, 5k Manutans and 2k Salzburgers are successfully defeating the 42k Ottomans. I am assuming the tide will turn as the Ottomans are likely somewhere in Europe right now, but its still interesting. As expected the Ottomans came back from Europe and won back the Balkans. Still begs the question why they let the Balkans fall in the first place without taking anything else.
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France was fighting off English armies as they were landing, but they also had troops there already.
Austria did not border the Ottoman's, I have no idea why the Otto's declared but they did. Austria did not have all it's armies in the Balkans it had them in Europe defending the Otto stacks coming up north, Austria was actively trying to help in the war, but French stacks caught them in the HRE as they were travelling to link up with my Netherlands territory.
You seem to focus heavily on Muscovy and Russia. Maybe their AI is borked? But seriously, I have never experienced anything you mention or show here, they almost always arrive in a country in one big stack and then maybe split up to carpet siege or stay together for a siege.
Right now I am redoing my Castile run, just sieging Granada down, and Aragon linked some of it's army to my main army in order to help siege and the rest linked with Navarre's army and is attacking rebels in my north. This goes directly against what you say the AI always does, which is split up into tiny stacks and never link up.
You can say what you want, but I am going to believe what's happening on my screen.
I sat out Leviathan and only recently returned to EU4. Biggest differences I notice are: 1) New World tribes, especially in North America, team up to clobber the AI colonizers and took over at least half of the colonies there; and 2) tribes all seem to have high-dev capitals rivaling the largest in Europe. Otherwise it seems like EU4 from a year ago.
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The game is in a workable state. I have fun and the variety is pretty fair. It’s fun. I haven’t had any games ruined by bugs. Could late game be improved yes. Mission trees are wildly unequal. Ming has like 9 missions, meanwhile all of Australia has like 20. Estimating. I always have fun. No mods. The ai is easy to beat however I read some replies saying they uselessly wander. I disagree.
subjects are super useful, I love a good vassal swarm. After like 1650 my vassals do all the fighting and I just wait for the end of the game unless I’m fighting one of the top 8, and even then my vassals and allies can handle the enemy.
Play as Austria and do the personal Union game and you’ll see the Ai using their units just fine.
Objectives on Provinces works for me, albeit slowly.
The enemy Ai sieges friendly provinces. Have plenty allies separate peace because they were being sieged down.
subjects are super useful, I love a good vassal swarm. After like 1650 my vassals do all the fighting and I just wait for the end of the game unless I’m fighting one of the top 8, and even then my vassals and allies can handle the enemy.
Play as Austria and do the personal Union game and you’ll see the Ai using their units just fine.
Objectives on Provinces works for me, albeit slowly.
The enemy Ai sieges friendly provinces. Have plenty allies separate peace because they were being sieged down.
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Nobody talked about it but new mercs system is still broken in my opinion, and I really wish PDX have a look on it: bad comps, bad size, too much costly in professionalisme and the worste part of it: attached armies button is broken as hell since more than one year.
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I actually find attach armies works perfectly for me now as long as no Allies are involved. But I agree with the rest. I avoid using mercs (other than the first really cheap company if I need it) because they’re just annoying to deal with and come with too many downsides to be worth it.
That said, I don’t really miss the old mercs. Arguably very limited mercs is better for the game.
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So you were beaten by AI France and ottomans combined. AI is a genius.
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I tend to agree with @Stratagyfan101 in his views that the AI is pretty weak in warfare, and I too, would like it to present a better/harder challenge to the player. But I also know that it's not gonna happen. The development direction over the years always catered to the masses, which is of course understandable from Paradox's point of view.
Out of the playerbase, only a small minority can be qualified as someone who has mastered the game to the point they can get through any situation/starting condition, and that is with what the current level the AI is on. Making it more competent would mean resources spent on diminishing returns, because less people would play the game and get on the DLC train. It is clear from comments (from Youtube, Reddit, here on the forums and from wherever else) that the huge majority of players wants content like OP mission trees, OP monuments (even though it hasn't even been a year since they came into existence), e.g. things that further diminish the challenge the game provides, not increase it.
So while I agree with his sentiment, I'm also conscious that it's not gonna happen. Not in EU4, and most probably not even in the next iteration(s) of the game if and when it happens. I myself have accepted that, and I am still having fun with the game despite all of it. I am also appreciative of the devs work with fixing bugs and introducing new content, I really found Origins, and to a somewhat lesser extent Leviathan good additions to the game, knowing the underlying design direction they came from.
Out of the playerbase, only a small minority can be qualified as someone who has mastered the game to the point they can get through any situation/starting condition, and that is with what the current level the AI is on. Making it more competent would mean resources spent on diminishing returns, because less people would play the game and get on the DLC train. It is clear from comments (from Youtube, Reddit, here on the forums and from wherever else) that the huge majority of players wants content like OP mission trees, OP monuments (even though it hasn't even been a year since they came into existence), e.g. things that further diminish the challenge the game provides, not increase it.
So while I agree with his sentiment, I'm also conscious that it's not gonna happen. Not in EU4, and most probably not even in the next iteration(s) of the game if and when it happens. I myself have accepted that, and I am still having fun with the game despite all of it. I am also appreciative of the devs work with fixing bugs and introducing new content, I really found Origins, and to a somewhat lesser extent Leviathan good additions to the game, knowing the underlying design direction they came from.
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I came back after a 2 year break and I am loving it. The game has advanced in so many stages that used to stagnate, a lot of issues that have plagued it since its inception have been improved on or even fixed.
I am having a blast right now. Every campaign I start I discover a new situation where I think "this doesn't work bc of this bug" or "this behavior doesn't exist" and the game keeps surprising me positively.
As opposed to when I left, where every game I discovered a new bug or unintended behavior.
It's in a really good state right now. Best it's been in since I started in 1.12
I am having a blast right now. Every campaign I start I discover a new situation where I think "this doesn't work bc of this bug" or "this behavior doesn't exist" and the game keeps surprising me positively.
As opposed to when I left, where every game I discovered a new bug or unintended behavior.
It's in a really good state right now. Best it's been in since I started in 1.12
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Ey? I wasn't at war with the Ottoman's. Austria was. At no point did the Ottoman's help France in any way nor the other way round, they were 2 totally separate wars.
Europa Universalis IV - Development Diary 25th of January 2022
Hello folks, Gnivom here. Today I’ll talk about some of the many AI updates coming in the next patch, 1.33. At the end I’ll also mention some minor but impactful changes to the rules of land combat. Our last major update, we shipped some AI...
Looks like the AI have some significant changes on the way.
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