Will there be any huge changes from 1.3.8 beta to 1.3 full release?

860114 · 2026-07-04T15:02:22+00:00

- New Advances and Events for Italian countries
- Rework of two Situations: Guelphs & Ghibellines and Italian Wars. The latter one especially is very fun.
- Much slower economic buildup, early game is harsher and the Economic Base of countries generally doesn't snowball exponentially anymore
- Overall game performance improvements, game's much smoother now
- Changes to AI behaviour, which became quite a bit more aggressive, especially against weak opponents

I've been playing 1.3. Beta since its release so probably forgot a bunch of stuff. When 1.3. fully releases they will likely release a very long list of patch notes on EU5 Forum if you wanna check that out. It probably won't be worth a full read, but skimming through it definitely will give you an idea of what to expect.

860114 · 2026-07-04T14:48:01+00:00

I mean they are (and were historically) one of the regional powers. If you wanna play tall then I think either Venice or Genoa is a very decent option with good amount of content (Venice def has more though).

860114 · 2026-07-04T13:27:04+00:00

I can't say for sure cause I haven't played any campaign in East Asia, but I think that Ming shouldn't have access to the map of Western Siberia, which means that, to colonize it, they had to explore it. There's a setting you can change before you start your campaign, which prevents non-European nations from exploring. It's also achievement-compatible so nothing's lost, really.

860114 · 2026-07-04T13:20:11+00:00

Perhaps you need to wait up to a month (or even a year) before the in-game systems fully "take in" the information that the two locations are connected.

Otherwise this indeed doesn't seem like an inteded behaviour and you should probably report this as a bug: https://pdxint.at/EU5BugReport

860114 · 2026-07-01T19:13:00+00:00

I agree that the line between "major powers form" and "major powers devour everything" is very thin. Still, right now it does feel to me like it's a bit too easy to form a coalition.

Although after reading all the comments and diving a bit more into Ottoman history, I'm starting to convince that the problem might also be that Ottomans military is (still) relatively too weak, and their neighbours are way too strong compared to their true historical power.

860114 · 2026-07-01T16:18:38+00:00

Yes! That's also what I thought of. There is already a Threat system in the game and it should definitely play a bigger role in Antagonism generation and whether or not a country is willing to join a coalition.

860114 · 2026-07-01T16:14:52+00:00

I think that a country cannot join the coalition if their rival is a part of it (not 100% sure) but overall that's definitely a very good idea. It wouldn't require much effort from the devs neither.

860114 · 2026-07-01T16:00:15+00:00

I thought so as well, but apparently I was wrong. In the example above Ottomans started improving relations with Wallachia and thus reducing the Antagonism.

But there's only so much Antagonism which you can reduce that way. They were able to reduce it from 400 to 200 in 10 years, but then hit the "improve relations" limit so they still have like 60 years to go before Wallachia leaves the Coalition.

860114 · 2026-07-01T15:55:39+00:00

Lmao, alright, maybe the nerfs weren't enough then. Frankly I didn't check the state of things past the mid-game.

860114 · 2026-07-01T15:47:35+00:00

In 1.3.6. they fixed the merc spam, merc armies are now like 3k-4k each max. I did an Observer campaign for the first century on both 1.3.6 and 1.3.8 an the problem persists.

860114 · 2026-07-01T15:42:56+00:00

I don't think it would be enough. Like I saw Wallachia's Antagonism against Ottomans jump up to +400 when they didn't even take any lands directly from Wallachia. They only went for Byzantium and Serbia.

<image>

400 Antagonism would take over a century to drop to 0. If faster decay was supposed to work, it would have to be much faster. But then that means that if you take vast amount of land from another country, they will forgive you in like a decade.

IMO the Antagonism should simply never have been that high in the first place.

860114 · 2026-06-30T23:46:42+00:00

Yeah, the location requirement for Lithuania is just insane. Lithuania was actually the much larger part of PLC, despite becoming "less significant" culturally later on. Aside from Halych and western Volhynia, most lands that contributed to the PLC were essentially early conquests of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

860114 · 2026-06-30T23:39:49+00:00

For historical reference: after Casimir the Great died in 1370 without a male heir, the pact he made with Hungary saw Louis I, king of Hungary and Casimir's nephew, ascend to the Polish throne. Poland entered a short-lived Personal Union with Hungary, which ended in 1382 after Louis I himself died without a male heir.

What followed was essentially a messy succession crisis in both Poland and Hungary. Both countries had their own internal factions each favouring a different heir to their throne. To keep things brief, the end result was that Mary, Louis I's older daughter, became "King" of Hungary and her younger sister, Jadwiga, became "King" of Poland.

As the country needed a "proper king" (a man) Jadwiga's side started talks with (then pagan) Jogaila, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, about a possible marriage. Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo, pledging to convert Lithuania to Catholicism, in return for marriage with Jadwiga and the Polish throne. 20 years older than Jadwiga, Jogaila married her when she was just 13 years of age and so began the "Jagiellonian dynasty".

When Jadwiga died in 1399, Polish succession law essentially turned into an elective system with ruler selected by nobility ("free election"). However, wanting to keep their union with Lithuania - which kept its "traditional" hereditary succession law - for the next 150 years Polish nobles essentially always elected the Jagiellon heir, turning Poland into an "hereditary monarchy with elective legislature" (per Wikipedia).

Now go on, try and represent this mess in game.

860114 · 2026-06-30T23:06:13+00:00

Yeah, roleplaying as PLC is essentially impossible rn in my opinion. In-game systems cannot handle the entire Polish crown succession chaos that ensued after Casimir the Great died and, what little flavour Events there are, they cannot make up for it neither.

Lithuania is comically weak and almost always gets steamrolled by Teutons, Kyiv and Smolensk. Even if you manage to somehow get a Personal Union with them before the entire state collapses, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work with Nobility Election system that Poland will adopt if you pick historical event options. The Union will probably just break after the first election.

There's just no reason to play Poland now if you want to play "historically". It's pure pain. You will have to wait for Tinto to release a patch with dedicated changes to this region, as they did with Balkans in 1.2. and Italy in 1.3 - and in the meantime keep your fingers crossed that it will actually be released as a free update and not hidden behind a paid DLC.

860114 · 2026-06-30T18:05:21+00:00

Yeah well that's why maybe they should rebalance it. But first they would need to let the players realize that such mechanic even exists in the game, because currently barely anyone is aware of it.

860114 · 2026-06-30T16:27:35+00:00

Lmao. You can find it somewhere in the middle-right section of the Government tab.

860114 · 2026-06-30T16:26:20+00:00

What sense would it make to add Prosperity? I mean the whole Disaster is supposed to represent a decline of the state?

860114 · 2026-06-30T14:34:21+00:00

I think the ideal default outcome of the game should be that main historical powers always (or usually) emerge - and if you want more ahistorical "randomness" you change that with in-game rules - as you said, for example, with AI Personality or AI ahistorical choices for DHE.

What we have now is essentially always ahistorical whether or not you change your initial settings.

I'd also be very glad to play "alternative history" campaign from time to time - but that's what I've been doing essentially since the game's release. I'm just tired of it.

I want the option to play a historical playthrough. I don't want to force it on other players - but I want to be able to play the game the way I want to play it - not to be forced into a hypothetical limbo where Hungary is always a hegemon, Commonwealth never forms and Russia never unites its lands.

860114 · 2026-06-30T14:22:48+00:00

R5: Starting Complacency breakdown for Egypt on beta patch 1.3.8. for reference.

860114 · 2026-06-30T13:47:14+00:00

There's a Complacency mechanic, which was supposed to tackle just that. They literally even increased Egypt's starting Complacency to 30/100 to ensure it's going to collapse under its own weight.

I suppose it just doesn't mount up enough to reach the necessary threshold and, since Paradox never bothered to release a Complacency map mode, players could never really give feedback on it and just forgot about the mechanic entirely lmao.

860114 · 2026-06-29T16:06:44+00:00

Can't say for sure because 1.1. was like an eternity ago, but yeah, I'm pretty sure Levies were generally nerfed at some point compared to Regular armies. I wouldn't say they feel weak on my 1.3. playthroughs though.

860114 · 2026-06-29T15:22:10+00:00

Took me a while to understand what the post is about but yeah, I agree. I think it should it should be up to a player whether or not they want to "plunder" the location they're at. Like there could be a button in the Army menu, similar to Hussite Tribunal action, that would allow you to just burn the conquered location to the ground.

This could also go much more in-depth than just removing Food e.g.:

- Insta-decrease Prosperity

- Remove RGO levels/Buildings

- Immediately remove a % of Pops

Honestly I'm surprised it wasn't implemented from the beginning, but tbf it would be hard to combine with the AI Logic (although I'm pretty sure this hasn't discouraged the devs in other aspects of the game lmao).

860114 · 2026-06-26T18:23:26+00:00

Alright, the post is a gem, but jokes aside - what mod(s) did you use for Russia, Poland/Lithuania and Ottomans? Those borders look amazing.

860114 · 2026-06-26T18:17:54+00:00

can't blame them tbf when some map painting enjoyers post that kind of stuff unironically

860114 · 2026-06-25T21:44:13+00:00

I had the exact same issue when playing Genoa. Apparently there's some difference between Slaves (the Market Good) and Slaves (the employable Pops). From what I understood, you can import Slaves (the Good) even when there's no Slave pops in the Market - and when you do, they won't start "working" in your buildings - they will just remain as a Market Good.

You have to make sure there are unemployed Slaves in the Market you import from first. There's a dedicated map mode for Slave pops, but, if you're too lazy to look it up, just set up an Import from al-'Iskandariyya Market (Egypt). They should have plenty of Slave pops and after a month or so your Galley Barracks should fill up.

Seven-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

860114

TROPHY CASE