Time for a break from this game.

[Rain Envy]

Just turn off iron man and player with bonuses OP. Turn off lucky nations while you are at it. It seems like you need more practice to be good at a the game, doing those will be a step in the right direction. You have valid concerns but these concerns are manageable, all you have to do is look at the empires people have managed to create WITHOUT DDRjake hacks.

 

[josh127]

In 1542 A Peasant Rebellion known as the Dacke War broke out in Sweden. The Swedish Army, led by the Father-in-Law of King Gustav Vasa himself was defeated by the rebels. The rebels were only defeated after being starved out and having their morale lowered with propaganda.

I understand that you don't understand how armies worked in this time period, but Peasants are where you are drawing your own armies from. Until you have actually invested in training, through Ideas, Policies, Advisors, and Sweden's absurdly overpowered bullshit modifiers, your armies are themselves just as much a horde of peasants with barely any actual training as the rebels.

This is not the age of Professional Soldiers, well actually it is, but that's done by mercenaries.

Where's the option to starve out rebels? Haven't seen that one. Last I checked the only options are to actually fight them or pay an overly heavy ransom.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Go play a real country.

 

[Vendral]

Some good points in there OP, especially about the randomness of combat being too high, too bad most of the community wants all of the game to be Three Mountains-tier challenge for them "le epic" achievements and would never concede that something about the game might be broken or just downright frustrating.

As for the rebels though, they might be OP but that's about the only way you can model rebellions while making them somewhat of a threat to the player. Yeah, 20,000 pitchfork-toting peasants squarely routing 20,000 professional soldiers is not the best thing ever but as was said above there's not really a way nor real need to model complex situations such as guerilla warfare and logistics.

 

[Deo89]

As for the rebels though, they might be OP but that's about the only way you can model rebellions while making them somewhat of a threat to the player. Yeah, 20,000 pitchfork-toting peasants squarely routing 20,000 professional soldiers is not the best thing ever but as was said above there's not really a way nor real need to model complex situations such as guerilla warfare and logistics.

There were no 'professional' soldiers in the 15th and 16th century. At least not in number to compose whole armies. 20k Peasants vs 20k Soldiers would be quite an evenly matched battle.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

(@Orkonel - Regarding your post, placed below my comments)

They outnumber you by three thousand, but more importantly they have three flanking units, one INF and 2 CAV. That means your two CAV were flanked from day one, taking extra casualties. Since undamaged INF flank one space over, CAV flank two spaces over, you were probably rolled up from the edges. You lost 1396 CAV before your CAV's morale broke. You are essentially relying on good early rolls to overcome their powerful flanking advantage. Combat width is key.

The fact that the opponents are rebels means they have the same basic stats as you do, which runs counter to your belief that Swedish King's Army should always fight better than your no-longer-viking peasants... but since this can't hold true in every country everywhere in the world, that line of thinking is pretty much abstracted out of the game. I don't really know what to say about this.

This loss is not even that horrible. Pull some loans, build a merc army of 12 units or so, let the shattered army regrow a few months. You have the general you need to take them out. Time the two armies so the mercenary army reaches combat first and takes the center slots. Remember to recharge between battles, since you have three more rebel armies after that one.

No, this is exactly what happened to me. I got shitty rolls, and peasant rebels routed me. They outnumbered me by two thousand, which I guess was the deciding factor. Rebels are super strong now compared to earlier patches. In fact, they're often more competent than both your own and enemy armies for some reason. I'm obviously in the minority here thinking this is a problem, but I didn't expect a peasant revolt to utterly destroy my army. Loading the game, it was actually 12,000 vs 15,000 peasants. I actually quit the day that my army was shattered and here is a screenshot for you (I was a bit mistaken on the numbers, but it is my entire standing army from the independence war):

edit -
p.s. To summarize, since you let them flank you by coming in three units short, you changed the equation from "You should win due to awesome general" to "advantage:flanker... Better hope for good rolls or you're sunk".

 

[JagLover]

Speaking as a relative newbie (bought EU4 with Art of war and have racked up 150 hours of gametime) I would say they have got the difficulty level spot on with one exception.

As mentioned on the thread before The Total War series (which I played from the beginning until Napoleon) just became too dumbed down and easy. Even on the hardest level of difficulty it doesn't create much of a challenge, even despite bizarrely aggressive AI at times.

EU4 by contrast is now accessible for all the basics of running your empire but represents a challenge for the casual strategy gamer at normal difficulty levels. The more experienced can select higher difficulty settings and/or start as a minor power.

For the most part the more complex aspects of the game, such as dynastic relations, can be ignored by the more casual gamer, while representing alternative strategies for the more experienced. I was just very pleased one day to discover I had inherited the Hansa (ally in royal marriage) and now Mother Russia bordered Holland, how this happened I am not entirely sure. The exception to this would be trade which is a basic part of the game which is very hard to understand.

I would say most of the game mechanics are either intuitive or can be figured out from google searches.

 

[wingzero890]

I think he was referring to the fact that "Janissary Infantry" is the name of the unit type that the Ottomans get at certain tech levels, even though the entire army wouldn't have been composed of janissaries.

Yeah this.

 

[pkderek]

(@Orkonel - Regarding your post, placed below my comments)

They outnumber you by three thousand, but more importantly they have three flanking units, one INF and 2 CAV. That means your two CAV were flanked from day one, taking extra casualties. Since undamaged INF flank one space over, CAV flank two spaces over, you were probably rolled up from the edges. You lost 1396 CAV before your CAV's morale broke. You are essentially relying on good early rolls to overcome their powerful flanking advantage. Combat width is key.

The fact that the opponents are rebels means they have the same basic stats as you do, which runs counter to your belief that Swedish King's Army should always fight better than your no-longer-viking peasants... but since this can't hold true in every country everywhere in the world, that line of thinking is pretty much abstracted out of the game. I don't really know what to say about this.

This loss is not even that horrible. Pull some loans, build a merc army of 12 units or so, let the shattered army regrow a few months. You have the general you need to take them out. Time the two armies so the mercenary army reaches combat first and takes the center slots. Remember to recharge between battles, since you have three more rebel armies after that one.

edit -
p.s. To summarize, since you let them flank you by coming in three units short, you changed the equation from "You should win due to awesome general" to "advantage:flanker... Better hope for good rolls or you're sunk".

1000 hours and doesn't even know this. This post epitomizes the fact that the amount of time you spend doing something does not mean you are any good at it.

And even then this post pisses me off. What a casual. It's ok to bully and beat up on the AI, but as soon as you take a hit you're out? As Spain what can they really do to you? Release Galicia and force loans? Even take a couple provinces? Wait out the truce then beat them back down. I've lost PU's, I've lost vassals, I kept playing and I had more fun doing so. Not every playthrough is meant to be a WC, this is not TW. This is EU, and the sooner you start playing for the experience with a "realistic" goal in mind (not WC), the sooner you'll have more fun.

I find the most fun in playing with Lucky Nations off and trying to use as little cheese strats as possible.

EDIT: Even if say the BBB takes half your country, keep playing. Build up your alliances, especially with the new expansion you'll be able to build up your provinces and armies, then when the AI bites off more than it can chew (and it will), use the CB they put in the game to reclaim your cores. Maybe you'll even get more.

EDIT2: Just want to give a huge shoutout to the people explaining why Peasant Rebels should be competitive early on. Your armies are pulled from the same pool of people that are rebelling. People don't all of a sudden become better just because you call them a soldier. Everyone knows how to hit someone over a head with a stick. Your advantage of being a soldier vs peasant rabble is the fact you get a general and they don't. Then, as the game goes on, your ideas and modifiers represent the training that your army receives as compared to said peasant rabble. By mid-game you should be wiping them easy; I usually have double their morale and a decent general to stack wipe. No general means they won't linger like religious or noble rebels. I really hate those.

 

[Zwirbaum]

Where's the option to starve out rebels? Haven't seen that one. Last I checked the only options are to actually fight them or pay an overly heavy ransom.

Peasant Rebels do not reinforce and suffer from standard attrition. So, there is chance to starve them enough to not present any threat.

 

[Haldan]

Just turn off iron man and player with bonuses OP. Turn off lucky nations while you are at it. It seems like you need more practice to be good at a the game, doing those will be a step in the right direction. You have valid concerns but these concerns are manageable, all you have to do is look at the empires people have managed to create WITHOUT DDRjake hacks.

Those are not hacks, those are strategies.

 

[TenshiN]

Er...This game is easy. After playing Victoria 2 and finding myself screaming at the monitor because my factories does not work as i want them to, i find EU4 GENUINELY easy. Most of the fails are mainly because you might fail to take some modifiers into account, like, losing to peasants because you probably attacked over the river. Coalitions are easy to avoid if you take measures to lower your AE just by taking smaller bites, vassal-feeding, returning cores. Of course they would get mad when some random outsider would declare a union war to a most influential country of the time! I fail to understand how someone with that much playtime does not understand such simple mechanics, which are pretty commonsense. And EU4 was never close to the history simulation. No game would ever be close to history simulation unless it will just get rid of the player role and will let the AI's dish it out to eachother in a perfectly predictable way that will get boring after 2-3 tries. Randomness is what makes this game fun to play over and over.

People who blame the game (job, math problem, etc.) because they can't achieve the results they want to are the worst.

 

[Orkonkel]

Go play a real country.

Your post was laste edited at 18:21. This amuses me for reasons.

 

[Orkonkel]

1000 hours and doesn't even know this. This post epitomizes the fact that the amount of time you spend doing something does not mean you are any good at it.

And even then this post pisses me off. What a casual. It's ok to bully and beat up on the AI, but as soon as you take a hit you're out? As Spain what can they really do to you? Release Galicia and force loans? Even take a couple provinces? Wait out the truce then beat them back down. I've lost PU's, I've lost vassals, I kept playing and I had more fun doing so. Not every playthrough is meant to be a WC, this is not TW. This is EU, and the sooner you start playing for the experience with a "realistic" goal in mind (not WC), the sooner you'll have more fun.

I find the most fun in playing with Lucky Nations off and trying to use as little cheese strats as possible.

EDIT: Even if say the BBB takes half your country, keep playing. Build up your alliances, especially with the new expansion you'll be able to build up your provinces and armies, then when the AI bites off more than it can chew (and it will), use the CB they put in the game to reclaim your cores. Maybe you'll even get more.

EDIT2: Just want to give a huge shoutout to the people explaining why Peasant Rebels should be competitive early on. Your armies are pulled from the same pool of people that are rebelling. People don't all of a sudden become better just because you call them a soldier. Everyone knows how to hit someone over a head with a stick. Your advantage of being a soldier vs peasant rabble is the fact you get a general and they don't. Then, as the game goes on, your ideas and modifiers represent the training that your army receives as compared to said peasant rabble. By mid-game you should be wiping them easy; I usually have double their morale and a decent general to stack wipe. No general means they won't linger like religious or noble rebels. I really hate those.

Wow, you sound like you're really mad that someone on the internet made a post you didn't quite agree with. You find the most fun to play with lucky nations off, but I don't say you're a crappy player because of it. You say this is not TW, I say this is not 'The Sims: The Renaissance'. People enjoy this game in so many different ways, which is part of why it is so appealing in the first place. Taking shots at other people because you don't agree with their playstyle makes you come across as unicornsing unicorn. I've had a lot of fun playing this game (or I wouldn't have played it so much), and now that I started playing it again, there had been a lot of gameplay changes that frustrated me.

Kindly, go unicorns yourself.

Er...This game is easy. After playing Victoria 2 and finding myself screaming at the monitor because my factories does not work as i want them to, i find EU4 GENUINELY easy. Most of the fails are mainly because you might fail to take some modifiers into account, like, losing to peasants because you probably attacked over the river. Coalitions are easy to avoid if you take measures to lower your AE just by taking smaller bites, vassal-feeding, returning cores. Of course they would get mad when some random outsider would declare a union war to a most influential country of the time! I fail to understand how someone with that much playtime does not understand such simple mechanics, which are pretty commonsense. And EU4 was never close to the history simulation. No game would ever be close to history simulation unless it will just get rid of the player role and will let the AI's dish it out to eachother in a perfectly predictable way that will get boring after 2-3 tries. Randomness is what makes this game fun to play over and over.

People who blame the game (job, math problem, etc.) because they can't achieve the results they want to are the worst.

You say people who blame the game (not understanding game mechanics) are the worst, but in the same post you suggest using vassal-feeding as a way to avoid AE. You do realize that giving a vassal a province nets you exactly the same amount of overextension as taking it yourself, right?

Personally, I think that people who are smug hypocrits are the worst.

 

[BFTeixeira]

Recently, i managed to get the Prester John achievement against an Otto allied with Russia (i had Commonwealth). And it's probably the most difficult achievement i got so far, so i'm not that good of a player. Seriously, people should analyse before giving a step. Just because you had a game where you went with steps A, B, C, doesn't mean that you can always go with those steps.
And i'm currently in a run with PLC, lost a war that went out of control when France and Ottomans decided to participate, had to release Pskov and Wallachia, and i just vassalized them and integrated Pskov, and used Wallachia to eat the Ottomans. Why would i rage quit? It's a challenge.
I guess the OP should analyse his gameplay and understand where he made some mistakes, and improve his skill.

 

[BarskiPatzow]

Your post was laste edited at 18:21. This amuses me for reasons.

What reasons?

 

[BFTeixeira]

That's the point, though. AI is not smart. AI is not good. And to compensate, Paradox introduced huge coalitions and huge rebel stacks with good morale. I think these are literally the two least interesting ways to make the game harder, challenging, and more engaging to the player. To each their own.

Anyway. Ottomans -did- take all of Hungary in a single war. Which borders HRE and Poland/Commonwealth. Trying to take 100% warscore in that part of the world would be far worse than heading to the Iberian (returning cores to Catalanya gives 0 AE because of balance, I guess). It's obvious that my expecations of what a reasonable coalition is does not match the majority of the peoples' opinions.

You have unrealistic expectations.

 

[josh127]

Peasant Rebels do not reinforce and suffer from standard attrition. So, there is chance to starve them enough to not present any threat.

That's nothing like starving them out. They will continue to siege and then move on. You did not gain any sort of control over them.

On a side note, don't misinterpret my meaning. I'm not saying that peasant rebels are a problem, but I feel that the justification that was given in that regard was quite unfair. Actually, the better way in game mechanic terms to fight peasant rebels if you don't have the forces for a quick fight is to attack them and shattered retreat yourself a province away after part of the fight, regroup, and attack them again. If necessary you can do this multiple times, you just need enough units to survive the 10 days.

 

[Mamluke]

You say people who blame the game (not understanding game mechanics) are the worst, but in the same post you suggest using vassal-feeding as a way to avoid AE. You do realize that giving a vassal a province nets you exactly the same amount of overextension as taking it yourself, right?

Personally, I think that people who are smug hypocrits are the worst.

1st of, you mean Agressive expansion.

2nd, he was talking about Return Cores! those net you 0 AE, yes, including your vassals, taking provinces from transfer occupation would give you the same amount of AE though,

pls check your facts before insulting others mkay?

 

[Gustav91]

What reasons?

Game ends 1821.

(I found it fun too)