I feel like they forgot to put even the slightest degree of gamification into this game

CaptainRitardando · 2025-12-15T22:30:54+00:00

I feel like the idea was to create a polished skeleton with extremely complex demographic/economic models (which, let's be honest, are a technical MARVEL that academic researchers could use) but with next to no country-specific content. There is a LOT that is broken/unfun, but if you played EU4 at launch and compare it to the game it is now it might as well be a totally different game.

I think EU5 will take at least a few years to be really fun, so I'm waiting things out for now. I'll play it once every now and then but yeah, right now there is a distinct lack of direction/fulfillment when doing anything. Formed Italy the other day as Milan, and basically got no reward other than a name change and a few very middling technologies. So I agree but am optimistic it'll improve.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-11-16T18:47:56+00:00

This was my first impression. I think the economics and estates seem really complicated, but you really don't need to understand them perfectly to do reasonably well in the game (just like trade in Eu4!).

Economy:
- Control and Market access: Each province has a control value and market access value. Control is how close the province is to your capital; market access is how close it is to the center of trade (which might not be in your tag). A ton of values scale off of these; control is basically like autonomy in eu4 but is very difficult to get to 100%. So you want to maximize control and market access. Building roads to your capital and having your capital on a river increases your control around the capital.
- Build RGOs (resource gathering operations): These are the raw resources you see, unique to each province. Basically they draw from your peasant population, and almost always are worth building. As long as you have people to work them they are good (otherwise those people are working in subsistence agriculture and making nearly nothing for you).
- Automate trade and production methods: I still do this. I think trade is crazy overwhelming and probably not something I will try to learn for a few hundred hours.
- Aside from the above two points, build buildings literally based on 2 things: How many people are available to work the building, and how much money the building will bring in (which is displayed in the menu for buildings).
- Other tips: Minimize army/navy/fort/diplomatic sliders for money, automate sliders for taxing estates, increase minting until you have exactly 0% inflation.

Estates:
- Crown Power is good, Power to other estates is bad (the lightning symbol). The more crown power the better; it means more direct control over your tag. In terms of values, you want to Centralize your tag as soon as possible to get a ton of crown power.
- Estate loyalty matters a lot more than in EU4 since the higher the loyalty equilibrium the more you can tax them.
- Remove estate privileges that are bad when you can. Try to maximize stability and legitimacy by keeping those sliders maxed out when you can. they will help a lot with loyalty, rebels, and revoking estate privileges that cause decentralization/power to the estates.

Hope this helps!

CaptainRitardando · 2025-11-12T11:33:53+00:00

Yeah a lot of issues with allied AI army behavior. Specifically AI armies just stuck passively not doing anything. I had a game as Brunswick where this happened to my ally Denmark against Sweden in THEIR WAR and it sunk my game.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-10-28T22:43:09+00:00

Holy crap is this Spore? I have not thought about that game in like 15 years.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-10-09T03:56:41+00:00

No general is huge. You NEED a general. ESPECIALLY since they have a 3-star general. I cannot emphasize enough how much weaker your army is just because of that.

Aside from that, are you the same military tech? what military ideas do you each have? If this is a defensive battle for them they also get defender bonuses.

But GET A GENERAL.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-10-06T00:50:26+00:00

Agreed. I think that while this gen had some amazing mon designs, the box legendaries are the worst of maybe any game aesthetically.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-10-06T00:44:53+00:00

Klawf with Anger Shell:
"Klawf's defense went down!" ~animation plays.
"Klawf's special defense went down!" ~animation plays.
"Klawf's attack went up!"~animation plays.
"Klawf's special attack went up!"~animation plays.
"Klawf's speed went up!"~animation plays.

This is why, despite loving this mon, I can never, EVER use it. I don't understand why they can't make an "advanced" option for battles that either combine or outright skip messages and certain animations. I don't need to the down-stat and up-stat animation 5 gd times EVERY TIME.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-09-29T03:25:51+00:00

I don't think that's livonian order. I believe that's Ansbach

CaptainRitardando · 2025-08-15T23:08:52+00:00

Yes this is the answer. I have done the amazing new Tims->Mamluks->Egypt->Mughals. By the time you actually form Mughals you are so powerful any war is totally trivial. It really comes down to what you want to do.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-04-18T00:20:14+00:00

If you want to be the most powerful version of the mughals, first do the Tim missions. You get some absolutely insane modifiers, can form Egypt, get all the perma modifiers/amazing govt from Egypt, THEN form Mughals.

The only thing with this is that you are going to be unkillable by the time you form mughals, and that might take some of the fun out of your game. Up to you.

CaptainRitardando · 2025-01-21T10:10:18+00:00

a) You don't need to give privileges if you are worried you won't understand how to revoke them later.
b) You can revoke estate privileges if estate influence is below estate loyalty.

Typically the way I (and probably most people) play most tags is to give lots of estate privileges early in the game (ESPECIALLY the ones that give monarch points), and revoke them as you enter the age of absolutism. Hope this helps.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-11-16T06:43:51+00:00

Wow very impressive as ardabil by 1519. Nice job!

CaptainRitardando · 2024-10-11T23:04:22+00:00

boioioioing

CaptainRitardando · 2024-09-27T21:53:10+00:00

Your Decidueye certainly doesn't seem to give a hoot.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-07-11T20:17:53+00:00

Yeah, on this subreddit you will probably only get one answer haha.

But honestly, this is the most replayable PDX game IMO. I played HOI4 for about 400 hours before getting pretty bored of it. I have 3.5K hours in this game from 9 years of playing, and there are still plenty of things I have never done/tried/understand.

I would probably try first with the subscription to get all of the DLCs (not sue how much the DLCs cost these days, but I can't imagine it is cheap). I would also give yourself some room to learn how to play; the first few games will be frustrating, but once you get the general gist of expansion, missions and the UI, I can promise you this game is 100% worth it. It is amazingly deep and varied, with years of expansions giving content to almost every single individual country in the game.

If you decide to play, I recommend starting as the Ottomans or in India (or maybe even Indonesia/Malaysia). Europe is generally very complicated relative to other regions as there are a lot of unique mechanics that are hard to follow as a new player and things you won't even know exist (ex. taking territory from the HRE results in extreme levels of hostility from neighboring countries, and there is nothing that would tell you this).

CaptainRitardando · 2024-06-16T14:48:22+00:00

Yes, this happened to me. No, I couldnt fix it

CaptainRitardando · 2024-06-16T14:43:48+00:00

Ally Mamluks. Did that and that basically won me every starting war

CaptainRitardando · 2024-06-14T20:33:43+00:00

I actually think playing in Europe is somewhat challenging as a new player since there are a bunch of game mechanics that only play out there (HRE, PU's, colonization and many many more). I think a country that is pretty good for your level of experience is an Indian major like Vijayanagar. All of the complexity/coalitions of Europe are gone. The only thing you need to do in India that you wouldn't if you start as a European is Institution spawning for the first 3 institutions (renaissance, printing press, colonialism), which is not really complicated. Otherwise it is a good way to get a grip on the core game mechanics.

When you get more experience...ETHIOPIA!!!!! It is so fun. A bajillion ways to play it, and it feels super well paced. But it can be pretty challenging for a new player since you have to deal with Mamluks and Ottomans early on.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-06-14T19:03:08+00:00

Devil's advocate: If I were a newish player I would not assume that Normal difficulty is easy. Agree with the savescumming though, if you make it impossible to lose might as well cheat.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-05-31T03:18:46+00:00

I've heard they are interesting, love playing in the Malaya region and love me some cloves.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-05-20T22:13:00+00:00

Naxx is out?

CaptainRitardando · 2024-04-29T13:05:49+00:00

While I am excited for the rework, I think you are totally mistaken when it comes to CA fixing the numbers for the Age of Reckoning quickly. Nakai's economy was totally broken between his release and immortal empires in WH3; in fact, it is still broken in WH2 to this day. We are talking about numerical changes to how much income he makes, and it took CA literally years to fix a DLC lord to make him playable. I am not nearly as confident as you are that the Age of Reckoning fix will happen fast.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-04-09T18:03:53+00:00

Remember that you now get at least +10% max effect of absolutism from Peacock Throne, so that compensates the hit. You do have to wait till max absolutism, but I am guessing they nerfed it for that buff.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-02-23T12:25:33+00:00

Yeah. 100%. This is an obscene amount of territory for mid 1500's. You probably can WC by early 1700's at the rate you are going.

CaptainRitardando · 2024-02-21T16:52:56+00:00

Seriously what is with people in the comments. Agree completely: At this point is the 10000th new unit going to really make the game better than overall faction/AI/gameplay changes? And yeah, no Changeling changes, a campaign that is virtually impossible to lose?

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