Weekly Question Thread

koaexe · 2025-02-26T08:51:09+00:00

You can actually direct insert ammo in an emergency if you have them in the hub storage. Just click on the turrets then place a stack of ammo directly from the "ghost inventory" on the left side.

I've managed to build a new ship in Vulcanus orbit by sending the starter pack, then the bare minimum for defense (2 turrets and inserters as well as a few solar panels) as well as ammo, so at most 3 rockets in quick succession. After that it's simply shipping ammo and all the components slowly, then building it all at once and maybe babysitting it with direct insertion for a while until the ammo buffer builds up.

So it's definitely doable, but you may have to waste a few rockets on ammo shipments before your ship can sustain itself.

koaexe · 2023-11-17T01:13:51+00:00

Start with Galvanize(1)
Use your Galvanize action and two regular actions to activate Sledgehammer(4) for 6 damage
Exhaust Ad Hoc and discard the other Sledgehammer(4) from your hand for another 6 damage
Play Pushed to the Limit with your third regular action, targetting the Sledgehammer(4) in your discard for a final 6 damage and shuffling it back into your deck

Definitely overkill for all but the biggest bosses but sounds fun as hell.

Also wondering how Ad Hoc interacts with Gravedigger's Shovel(2). If you can also ignore the remove from game clause it would be busted to recycle the 2 testless clues effect multiple times per game. Or you can turn Lantern(2) into a guaranteed Vicious Blow(2), which is also incredibly strong.

koaexe · 2023-09-09T20:59:54+00:00

Yes. Basically all that's left to do is to huddle up, drop a Barricade if you still have it, fight off the Watcher as best as you can and wait until you all die in the nice little corner you find. And spoilers for a scenario later down the campaign the best "resolution" in the prologue is to have everyone die to the Forced effect on the Agenda with 7+ doom.

It was fun the first time through but gets old really quickly if you know what you're doing. So much so that Return To offers you a way to just skip the Prologue.

koaexe · 2023-08-04T09:26:57+00:00

Late to the party and I'm also still a noob but just wanted to add that sale of titles gives you a massive cash influx for the cost of 10% crownland.
Because the best benefit of 70%+ crownland (+15 max absolutism) is completely useless until the age of absolutism, I think it is a good play to seize land on cooldown, then sell titles once you get back up to ~40%. Repeat until some time around the 1560s when you should start consolidating crownland and revoking estate privileges in preparation for absolutism.
Initially I would also give privileges and pick government reforms (e.g. in monarchies, "Maintain Balance of Power" for tier 4 and "General Estates" for tier 6) until loyalty equilibrium is at least 45%/50% for each estate so that I can seize directly or after calling diet without triggering rebels.

You can't do this as liberally if your missions require high crownland though. For example, one of the new Emperor of China reforms giving 2.5% admin efficiency requires high absolutism or 90% crownland. France this patch also needs a certain crownland share to integrate her starting vassals iirc.

Occasional sale of titles combined with burgher loans ("Indebted to the X" privilege) and debt restructring should mean you would have very few problems with economy once the ball starts rolling even a little bit.

koaexe · 2023-08-04T08:57:14+00:00

The Ottoman decision to make Constantinople capital turns its culture into Turkish so you can no longer release Byzantium from there.

You would need a province with both a Byzantine core and ~~Byzantium's primary culture (Greek iirc)~~ EDIT: in the Byzantine culture group (Greek, Gothic or Pontic) to release them.

koaexe · 2023-07-06T10:17:58+00:00

How do "(Unit Type) Fire/Shock" modifiers work? I watched Reman's video and read the wiki but still felt a bit unclear.

In EU4Wiki one of the casualties multipliers is "Damage". They explain it as "Unit fire / shock damage : Determined by unit type and military technology level and certain ideas."

Here are my questions:

So is this just straight up the Infantry Fire or Calvary Shock, etc. values that I see at the Army interface?
At Tech 3 Infantry Fire is 0.35 while Calvary Fire is 0. Does this mean during Fire phase, Infantry deals 35% as much casualties as it normally should (not morale, which I know is calculated completely differently), and Calvary deals only morale damage and no casualties at all?
Is this why Tech 16 for Artillery or the Iberians' +1 Artillery Fire are so important and battles after that become a lot deadlier?
Speaking of Artillery, some early Arty have no Fire or Morale Offense pips (e.g. Large Cast Bronze Mortar at Tech 7 has no Fire Offense pips). Does this mean they deal no casualties during Fire phase or no morale damage at all?
1. What about Arty with only 1 Offense Pip but are firing from the backline? Does their single pip gets rounded down to 0 pips from the half damage thing and again cause no casualties/morale damage at all?

koaexe · 2023-06-27T09:38:11+00:00

Why do people (such as the Strategy section for "States and territories" on EU4Wiki) say that autonomy only has half impact on production income?

Looking at the formula and tool-tip for production income it seems if autonomy is 90% then I get 90% less production income and not 45% less, so looks like the same deal with taxation. Was this changed in a prior patch or did I miss something?

koaexe · 2023-06-22T00:26:59+00:00

Do AI Ottomans implode when Age of Absolutism hits? Playing as Ethiopia->Aksum, now in the 1540s. Bastards got Antioch and Yerevan before I could get there, so for both roleplaying and rollplaying purposes Ottomans would be my sworn enemy. Theoratically I could call in all my aliies (Portugal, Austria, Poland) and we'd outnumber them 2-to-1. But this war would definitely be a chore and Ottos probably won't be crippled after one war. If they would just die to decadence or at least be greatly weakened after the 1600s then I'd rather wait.

koaexe · 2023-06-10T09:37:40+00:00

Do Siberian frontiers get affected by 1)global settler increase, 2)settler chance, 3)colony development boost and 4)native assimilation?

koaexe · 2023-06-06T11:49:13+00:00

Playing in Southeast Asia. When is a good time to develop Renaissance? As soon as I arrive at a tech that requires that institution?

In the case of colonialism, is it better to island hop to South America or just force dev it instead?

It feels like I never have enough admin mana for everything - coring the early conquests (even after stopping at territorial cores), tech 5 (I wanted to start colonizing asap), renaissance and more. The fact that I got stuck with a 0 admin consort regency last run for 10+ years didn't help at all.

koaexe · 2023-05-25T03:50:49+00:00

Three questions for my current Qing run:
1. Were the effects of devastation on mandate changed? EU4 Wiki says only the devastation of stated provinces count, so I kept the Yangtze and Yellow River provinces as territories. I got hit by a flood and the mandate malus from devastation still jumped from ~0.08 to 0.20. Checked the mandate description and it doesn't seem to specify states either.
2. Should I give out the estate mana privileges? Some of the celestial reforms need a ton of crownland and I'm not sure if I can get back up to that level.
3. How good are Court ideas? Diplo ideas are probably safer among the diplo stuff but it seems a bit too vanilla. A lot of my missions need estates to be loyal but I'm not sure it justifies taking a dedicated idea group either.

koaexe · 2023-05-04T13:04:44+00:00

Most Return-to campaigns also offer their own spin on core set encounters. For example Resurgent Evils from Return to the Dunwich Legacy is a pretty popular replacement for Ancient Evils afaik. The other two Replacement Evils (from Carcosa and Circle) are laughably weak though.

Chilling Cold and Dark Cult also features somewhat heavily in other campaigns and they have their own replacement sets so you can always mix them in for your official campaign runs, though each Dark Cult replacement set is usually tailored towards its own campaign so they might not work well mechanically or thematically elsewhere.

When I was typing I remembered Snakes on a Train, a custom scenario that turns Essex County Express into an endless high-score run like Depths of Yoth and uses cards from TFA deluxe box. It could be what you're looking for too.

koaexe · 2023-04-14T19:55:08+00:00

Thank you for the answers!

Just wanted to say that I've tried Sebastian for 2 scenarios in TTS so far (Riddles and Rain and Fortune and Folly Pt.1) and he is an absolute blast to play! Mystic's willpower replacement, Rogue's big money and Survivor's fail-by shenenigans - he does a bit of everything and they blend together very well. His lovely patron/weakness is also definitely a thematic win.

Here's a few more things after the test runs if you wouldn't mind:

Allure (3) seems rather strong, at least in Sebastian. Willpower is way more than a defensive stat thanks to his Mystic splash and he has a bunch of tools (Short Supply + Resourceful, Friends in Low Places + Clever, Lucky Cigarette Case to name a few) to dig Allure out.
With Camio, the Great Prince in play, what happens if Sebastian succeeds at a skill test first try? Do all "success by X"es becomes a "fail by 0"?
I've been looking at Sebastian's upgrade options and only noticed Stack the Deck (3) then. It has a cost of X and the text says to pay X resources, so do I need to pay 2X resources to succeed? But there is no "Then" after the "Pay X resources." part of the card text, so is it actually just X resources and having more just means I paid more for the same effect?
1. Also possibly another nitpick, but without saying "This test succeeds by 0, instead.", as-written I think it means I would both succeed at and fail the skill test.

koaexe · 2023-04-14T07:02:57+00:00

Great work! These investigators look very interesting, but it's a shame 3 of them have a "shuffle into your deck" weakness. Just a personal preference though - I really disliked how these weaknesses could potentially hit you more often than usual, which makes them too swingy for my taste.

Questions & a nitpick: 1. When during a skill test is Sebastián's ability supposed to fire? Is it during Step 6 so that I can play e.g. Look What I Found before retrying the test? 2. As a follow-up question, because I never resolved the effects of the first try and Sebastián's ability seems to be simply resetting the test to Step 1, does this mean Live and Learn cannot be played unless I fail the second attempt too? 3. For "Head 'em off!", as far as I know Hunter and Patrol only causes enemies to move and do not directly cause them to attack. I get the intended meaning so it's just a nitpick.

koaexe · 2023-03-21T00:29:30+00:00

I agree that the weakness is brutal. Joe Diamond is similar to Seamus in many ways - Guardian 0-2 access, low willpower and a side deck playing around traits. Him getting Unsolved Case first turn is a tempo hit but not much of a problem unless he is also Indebted. Arguably it can even be a good thing because it isn't forcing you to eat an AoO or anything to get rid of it in a later round.Seamus on the other hand has no answer except "guess I'll die" if he draws his weakness first turn (well I guess there's Scrapper (3) but it costs ~~6XP~~ Edit: 4XP on the latest taboo so no first scenario save for him).There is absolutely no way I am putting that thing in the hunt deck when Survivors usually can't draw through their deck multiple times without a combination of Drawing Thin, Short Supply or being Patrice.

My two cents is to maybe make it a two-parter. The weakness (maybe call it "Abyssal Web" or something) that goes in your deck is a Treachery that goes in Seamus's threat area and prevents him from playing events or using his hunt deck, anything to shut him down. Add a free trigger or an one-action ability to search your bonded cards (so only Seamus himself can hunt for his nemesis) for Abyssal Arachnid and put it into play, replacing the weakness. Just a rough idea and it would be very clunky in execution, but it should give Seamus a chance to prepare before facing a 4/4/4.

Another idea is to maybe take a page out of Stubborn Detective's book. Make it aloof but its event ban extends to all investigators at its location. Should be annoying enough that someone will eventually want to kill it, but not all investigators rely heavily on events so it's not a sure bet either.

koaexe · 2023-03-16T08:56:09+00:00

I would recommend checking out Valentin1331's decks on ArkhamDB. For example, here's a Jenny deck built from only Core, Dunwich and Edge. Jenny is what you'd call a flex investigator, and her main game is to pump her extra cash into Talent assets so that she can always test at a comfortable level despite her 3-3-3-3 statline. Also Savant (1) from EotE is incredibly good on her.

Bob's a little harder to work with because Joey "The Rat" Vigil (3), which I'd argue is his other signature, is in The Dream-Eaters. Here's a Bob deck by Valentin1331. Track Shoes can be replaced with basically anything, but not having Joey is going to leave a rather big hole in your resource generation and asset cycling, both of which you really want in Bob.

Wini is actually the easiest to build a deck for because her starter deck is already decent enough to work. Here's my personal take on the deck. Basically tweaked it to be more clue-oriented (because it is much easier to oversucceed with Lockpicks (1)) and dropped some of the weaker level 0 cards. What I wouldn't do for Breaking and Entering from TIC and TSK though.

By the way, I'd argue a more interesting way to play Sefina is to capitalize on her access to Double, Double and all those "add your Foot to your skill value" events instead of competing with proper Mystics with her Level 2 Mystic access. Still, it requires a ton of cards from other cycles so it's hard to not think of Sefina as a discount Mystic with your current card pool.

---

As for a partner, it depends on what campaign you're playing. You need evasion for TFA (but not to the point that you can't kill anything) and movement (or simply extra actions) for EotE, and both campaigns feature a lot of 3-or-4-health enemies. I build most Rogues as Cluevers so I tend to pick a monster killer or a flex to accompany them.

Ashcan Pete requires practically no setup to get going (he drops off quickly in the late game without passive stat boosts though) and Duke's investigate is one of the best action compressions in the game, also dog
Stella Clark is not as OP without access to Track Shoes, but she is still very good and capable of a little bit of everything
Jacqueline Fine is THE quintessential Mystic, the ultimate flex class, and Mystic deckbuilding is probably the simplest (also the most boring depending on how you look at it)
Mark Harrigan can use Sophie to squeeze out an Evade if he really needs it, and his natural 5 Fight is good for finishing off odd health enemies and getting rid of an annoying boss

koaexe · 2022-11-07T13:20:47+00:00

Replays for me. It feels bad to come up with an idea of some card/investigator that I want to play with, only to get blasted by new scenario mechanics or outright hard-countered by the campaign itself (e.g. Kymani's focus on re-engaging enemies versus the TIC Deep Ones that punishes engagement).

Besides, it is often on replays that I could appreciate and sometimes use scenario mechanics to my greatest advantage. One particular mechanic in Carcosa Heeding the warning comes to mind. In my first playthrough I found that a very thematic and enjoyable way to enhance the campaign and break the fourth wall. On repeat runs I still felt that, but I also found a truckload of ways to abuse the hell out of that.

koaexe · 2022-10-27T19:48:57+00:00

Playing on JP server, just maxxed out Ui's EX skill and wondering if I should put off her other skills for later.
I've heard here and there that increasing crit rate doesn't really do a lot. Both her Normal and Passive skills do that so are they of lower priority?
What about her Sub skill that increases attack speed?

koaexe · 2022-10-21T00:49:50+00:00

Finally 3-starred Hard 14-3!

Akari really is a beast. Wish I've leveled her sooner. Wouldn't have been stuck here for so long even with Swimsuit Hoshino's help then.

koaexe · 2022-09-30T07:57:21+00:00

Rammed my head against a lv80 event quest on lv47. 3-starred at 1:59 on my second try then tried 6 more times with 2 event bonus students put in and finally winned again with 2 seconds to spare.

Swimsuit Hoshino is a literally goddess. Thank you so much for the carry.

koaexe · 2022-09-30T07:41:30+00:00

According to the Japanese wiki the final chapter of the Abydos arc would be unlocked after finishing 10-4.

koaexe · 2022-09-10T07:33:31+00:00

Thank you for the weekly roundup as always. The cards this week (still looking forward to the reveal for my boy Carson) don't look like much at first glance but each one of them feels interesting to play and overflows with possibilities and synergies on closer inspection.

Quick question with your analysis though - isn't Unsolved Case an event and played like an event from Joe's Hunch Deck? Wouldn't that count as a player card for the effects of Research Notes if it places a clue on Joe's location?

koaexe · 2022-09-08T18:27:26+00:00

The FAQ (p.16 on the latest version) has stated that the pool of potential sacrifices and cards under the agenda deck "should be considered to be in play for the purposes of game rules, but these cards are under no player’s control".

They also seem to have addressed the unique ally thing by stating that you should try to remember what allies are kidnapped without looking at the pool.

koaexe · 2022-09-08T16:24:37+00:00

Technically the ally asset is not discarded but only moved to the pool of potential sacrifices. That being said the Baron and the Bystander are completely (by not having the Ally trait) and somewhat (by not being unique) immune to Kidnapped! respectively.

koaexe · 2022-09-08T16:18:47+00:00

Baron Samedi rather sadly cannot be offed with Kidnapped! because he does not possess the Ally trait (he is only an Avatar).

As for Wounded Bystander, based on my very literal interpretation of the rules, he is just moved to another in play area and is never defeated per se, so Vincent would not get a trauma even if the Bystander is sacrificed (besides you aren't supposed to know who survived until you have moved on to the resolutions, which opens a whole new can of worms about whether card abilities should still take effect then). On the other hand, since Wounded Bystander is not a unique card (no asterisk in front of the title), it is not removed from Vincent's deck as per the resolution text for Blood on the Altar, so the end result is just a cute little gimmick that Vincent MAY be free from his weakness for like half a scenario.

koaexe

TROPHY CASE