the most difficult aspect to control in this game

[AchedTeacher]

I want to love this game. I do. But I just keep messing every good start up. Say I start in India as one of the Hindu kingdoms. It's not a terribly difficult start but I always feel like I'm on a timer whilst playing most countries that are not in western Europe. I feel like if I'm not gobbling up everything around me ASAP, my enemies will and they'll outnumber me greatly. Then comes the fact that AE is a completely arbitrary number that I have no clue of (what is too high? is there even such a thing as a solid border between "okay" and "too much" AE?) and how some places (notably Europe) have just unworldly AE. You can't follow in the footsteps of a real country because you are being pelted by coalitions.

Mind you, this is not necessarily a complaint towards the game (although things could be worked on), but I feel like I had to share this. Does anyone else feel like this? It's that HOI-style drive and eventual futileness of aggression. Where is that case (save isolated cases like the Aztecs) where rapid expansion did work out in the game? Why does conquering 5 provinces in a single war make everyone hate me, while my AI neighbors that know to stay below 4 are absolutely fine, even though they commit similar "atrocities"?

 

[sumo0]

AE is relative. You can make 20 AE with a rival and see them join a coalition against you, and you can have 60 with some other state and have it be fine.
The absolute maximum amount of AE that i will take from a peace deal is 40ish.

Have strong allies/strong alliances or expand slower.

That being said i have messed up my fair share of games because of warmongering.

 

[Pugman]

I hear what you're saying. I've played this game more hours than I'll admit and I can't tell you how much AE you can build up before getting coalitions. The AI knows *exactly* how much though and will expand with perfect timing.

 

[Incompetent]

There are probably more things you can do to handle AE. Make claims and such.

You can also get Influence ideas (gives a global reduction to AE) and enact policies that reduce AE further.

I think countries that have rivalled you experience increased AE compared to neutral countries, so it's very difficult to stop them joining a coalition.

AE is also affected by religion, culture and distance - you can get away with a lot more in areas that are 'fringe' or 'isolated' in some sense (e.g. Scotland and Ireland). The worst place to conquer in terms of AE is a solid blob of land that is religiously and culturally unified.


I don't think the AI is specifically designed to avoid coalitions, it's just that the AI rarely expands at the rate of an expansionist human player and is reluctant to make unjustified AE-causing demands. Look at what the AI does when it has a major victory in a war - most of the time it takes war reparations, forces the release of some countries, and maybe takes a province or two that it is claims on.

 

[Easy Max]

I don't think the AI is specifically designed to avoid coalitions, it's just that the AI rarely expands at the rate of an expansionist human player and is reluctant to make unjustified AE-causing demands. Look at what the AI does when it has a major victory in a war - most of the time it takes war reparations, forces the release of some countries, and maybe takes a province or two that it is claims on.

You know. I wonder if this last point is true. It totally agree with your points in general, but I've seen some hinky looking deals go down. Something like France swallowing 3/4ths of Savoy, and no one bats an eyelash (I even check the AE the neighboring countries around him has. It's all around 10 to 15. If I expand one province into the HRE as a human, I'm sitting at 17 or more. And that's probably not a base tax 10+ area like Savoie...

 

[ahyangyi]

You know. I wonder if this last point is true. It totally agree with your points in general, but I've seen some hinky looking deals go down. Something like France swallowing 3/4ths of Savoy, and no one bats an eyelash (I even check the AE the neighboring countries around him has. It's all around 10 to 15. If I expand one province into the HRE as a human, I'm sitting at 17 or more. And that's probably not a base tax 10+ area like Savoie...

hinky = lucky?

 

[AchedTeacher]

Alright good to know this is at least an issue to some others and my concern is shared. I never noticed anything of this sort on these forums. My main problem is just finding that sweet spot of getting one or two coalition members, nothing more, while taking a big enough chunk of land from my rivals.

 

[Dreadheart]

AE is/should be controlled by frequent use of your diplomats to maintain high relations with all countries that will be offended by your expansion. An AI can never join or start a coalition unless they have negative relations with you and enough issue with you to become Outraged (If you see a Hostile or Threatened nation with negative relations, get those relations up pronto!). A worthwhile strategy is to, during war, check which nations will take offense when you take provinces and boost relations with them a good 10-15 points over the negative relations threshold (including in the calculations the anticipated AE you'll attract with them). Another way to keep AE in relative check is through Allies: Nations you have allied have an absolutely stupid reduction in AE gain towards you, so a tactic is to mass-ally in order to ensure AE is kept to a minimum; it might hurt your diplo point gain, but diplo points are useless points anyway. It's fully possible to outright conquer somewhere between one third to half the HRE before even seeing a coalition against you if done right.

 

[raw]

I want to love this game. I do. But I just keep messing every good start up. Say I start in India as one of the Hindu kingdoms. It's not a terribly difficult start but I always feel like I'm on a timer whilst playing most countries that are not in western Europe. I feel like if I'm not gobbling up everything around me ASAP, my enemies will and they'll outnumber me greatly. Then comes the fact that AE is a completely arbitrary number that I have no clue of (what is too high? is there even such a thing as a solid border between "okay" and "too much" AE?) and how some places (notably Europe) have just unworldly AE. You can't follow in the footsteps of a real country because you are being pelted by coalitions.

Mind you, this is not necessarily a complaint towards the game (although things could be worked on), but I feel like I had to share this. Does anyone else feel like this? It's that HOI-style drive and eventual futileness of aggression. Where is that case (save isolated cases like the Aztecs) where rapid expansion did work out in the game? Why does conquering 5 provinces in a single war make everyone hate me, while my AI neighbors that know to stay below 4 are absolutely fine, even though they commit similar "atrocities"?

The fundamental issue with EU IV is that it is crap.
All these forced mechanics like AE, OE, Rebels and whatnot are terrible. They exist in the game solely for the purpose of giving the player a "challenge" against the AI, but as you are already aware, they do not give you a challenge, what they really do is annoy you in a "being in the way" kind of way. Unfun.

Fortunately, in MP, the core mechanics of EUIV kind of take a backdrop to the general schemeing amongst other people, which makes the game somewhat tolerable. A solution to the issue? There is none. Paradox needs to rethink their design from the ground up instead of bandaiding some of EU IIIs flaws while trying to be super clever (and failing) at other places. They try to keep EUIV too close to the board game, while the scope of the computer game has long left that port behind. Paradox does not want EU to be as complex as victoria and rather want it to be an 'easy to learn hard to master' kind of game, but in doing so they implement artificial barriers to circumvent neccessary complexity, resulting in a game that is neither complex nor easy to learn.

FWIW, for the next iteration, the entire game goes to the design table. Not everything from the Board Game is wrong, but most everything in EU IV is wrong.

Edit: The newer mechanics are getting better designwise btw.

 

[KillingMeSoftly]

AE is/should be controlled by frequent use of your diplomats to maintain high relations with all countries that will be offended by your expansion. An AI can never join or start a coalition unless they have negative relations with you and enough issue with you to become Outraged (If you see a Hostile or Threatened nation with negative relations, get those relations up pronto!). A worthwhile strategy is to, during war, check which nations will take offense when you take provinces and boost relations with them a good 10-15 points over the negative relations threshold (including in the calculations the anticipated AE you'll attract with them). Another way to keep AE in relative check is through Allies: Nations you have allied have an absolutely stupid reduction in AE gain towards you, so a tactic is to mass-ally in order to ensure AE is kept to a minimum; it might hurt your diplo point gain, but diplo points are useless points anyway. It's fully possible to outright conquer somewhere between one third to half the HRE before even seeing a coalition against you if done right.

This is absolutely key to keeping Coalitions in check, and why I love having extra Diplomats. Good diplomacy blunts the impact of aggressive expansion. Keep relations with as many people around you as high as possible, and prep your wars with this in mind. Put those diplomats to good use and don't leave them sitting around with nothing to do.

Another good tip for controlling your AE is to open up wars on multiple fronts, so that your total AE is spread out among many different nations instead of concentrated within a certain region.