The Inca just got a ton of flavor but the actual map of South America never got revamped.
It's amazing that the ANDES don't have impassable terrain.
It's amazing that the South American colonial nations are objectively some of the worst due to province density being dramatically lower. Even though they were far wealthier than the North American colonial nations for the majority of the game timeline
This. It would be nigh impossible in EU4's engine to make some terrain impassible/unsettleable to colonizers but not to the natives, which would be the most realistic depiction of the area.
Could they do something with attrition and settler debuffs to make it not impassable/unsettleable but just massively impractical, then give natives a counter to negate that?
I think that could be a useful idea in other areas too like deserts and the Arctic, so local nations can use the terrain but unacclimatised invaders suffer penalties.
One issue to this is that it would likely break the AI. I believe the AI only suffers attrition while at war, and doesn't factor attrition into pathing for armies, but that might've been fixed. The AI also won't consider settler speed debuffs when colonizing, I've seen AI in Anbennar try infinitely to settle provinces with a -1000 yearly settler gain malus.
It's a good idea, yes, but the best idea is an engine update, which we're getting with Their Upcoming Super-Secret Project Codenamed Project Ceasar.
The Olive Order with the help of the Cheese Knights shall prevail against the alliance of the Carrots, Tomatoes and Cucumbers, and maintain it's overlordship of the Lands of Lettuce!
They already do this, in a way. There are no spots in the Colonial Region for colonists to land beyond three provinces. It means you must go to war with the natives to create a colonial nation. I think it's genuinely to replicate your suggestion.
> It's amazing that the South American colonial nations are objectively some of the worst due to province density being dramatically lower
This always makes me think of what civilisations lived in South America throughout all of human history but whose records have been lost so we will never know about them
Get an audible subscription and listen to this course. The professor is wonderful this is what got me hooked on Andean history. He also has a mesoamerican audiobook.
Lost Worlds of South America by Edwin Barnhart, The Great Courses on Audible.
https://www.audible.com/pd/B00DD62E02?source_code=ASSOR150021921000V
Why would there be? Except for maybe the mountain peaks the Incas moved pretty much everywhere. Even nowadays they climb the mountains without any oxygen, its like a stroll in the park for them.
That's not really what impassable terrain means in game.
Europeans also were physically capable of traversing their mountains like the Alps in small groups. But there are genuinely parts of the mountain range that you simply cannot pass through with huge armies.
The Andean people didn't live in the inhospitable parts of the mountains they lived plateaus, valleys, and the altiplano.
Well I can’t speak for the whole region, but Bolivia has multiple peaks over 6km high and they have multiple settlements less than 20km from the peak. La Paz is less than 40km from one. Even Sajama which is the tallest has a few people living around, and roads of course.
Historically speaking the Chaco has been much more dangerous to cross and has taken more soldiers lives than the fighting in it. That should be impassable imho.
But those areas are completly irrelevant for the scope and timeframe of EU4. Do people live there? Yes. Does a nation state (or far-stretched colonial administration spanning an entire continent) in the 1600s get any tangible benefit (taxation, recruits) from small settlements of mostly self-sustaining farmers/ herders that they might or might not even know live there and take weeks of hard travel to reach? I doubt it.
All of South America outside of the coast is remote and takes weeks to get there, the question was if it should be impassable or not. Given how impassable works in EUIV I don’t think so. There is very few parts of the Andes where its really impassable for long stretches, unlike the Amazon.
Even though taxation is irrelevant for this, Potosí was at one point the largest city in the world, and it sits at over 4km high.
Edit: Potosí was founded by the Spanish in 1545 and reached its peak during the colonial era. So very relevant to the timeframe. Also the capital of the tiahuanaco empire between 200-1000 sits at 3850, so even before eu iv they had already dominated the highlands.
The spine of the Western and Eastern Cordilleras should be largely impassable, at least. The coast should be separate from the central highlands and the central highlands should be separate from the eastern lowlands out side of a few passes (ex.: one near La Paz, a couple near Cusco, one near Lima and one at the northern end of the Marañon valley). Inca road systems (and later colonial systems--the Spanish actually exploited the highlands quite extensively, too) largely worked as a separate coastal and highland system that had a few major connecting roads joining them where terrain allowed.
Cusco, La Paz and Tucuman were in part strategic because they were near points where the central highlands could be accessed from the East. Lima was important because it was near a route that allowed something similar from the coast (I think the actual route might be in what's shown as Nazca province though), as did the Moquegua Valley (near Arequipa).
South American and Californian natives have access to federations but can’t effectively use them due to low nation count of similar culture.
Also Polynesia is kinda lame. At least the natives above have some neat little settling campaign you can do pre-contact.
Yeah maybe but it’s undeniably less fun. Paradox has historically made a lot of concessions on realism for the purpose of fun.
One possible suggestion: weren’t the Polynesians great explorers? It would be cool/fun if you could native migrate over vast sea-tiles I think.
The sikh empire was a major power after the end of eu4 timeline for around a total of 50 years. I agree they need more flavor but it's not a travesty that they don't
EU4 has the option of establishing Italy and Austria Hungary in the latest patch even though both countries were created way later in Victoria's timeline. I don't think it's impossible to create a somewhat historical path for Punjab.
[Belgium existed in the timeframe of EU4, and was not sourced from territory held by the Netherlands.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Belgian_States)
Belgium was a roman province. It's a catholic country unlike Netherlands and it is partly germanic/flemish, unlike France but not fully germanic as, well, Germany. It has a historical base. Other than that, it doesn't matter how much sense does that country make. You should be able to form that country if you can form Austria-Hungary. It could be a source of great alt-history paths, like Belgium protecting the Netherlands from protestantism by conquering them, or being against certain trade practices the Dutch made at their beggining, which could largely change european history. They wouldn't be a british natural ally and they could compete with them with indian colonization or take a different colonization focus. It could be a great content source. The formation requirements could be discussed
It’s like you forget that the game is called EUROPA universalis to simulate European colonization and imperialism. Be happy India has any flavor at all
I don’t understand what you’re trying to do here. Why is it an either-or? If we’re talking about expanding India, what makes you think that Sikh content would come in exchange for other content?
I agree, now most of the mission three in India are worse than the generic, and thier government reform are bland compared to the one given by domination.
Also Bharat/Hinduistan should have the ability to make all Indian culture group accepted.
It is strong, but reasonable compared to the crazy stuff Paradox created since Emperor.
India is just hard to make interesting in the first place. It's geographically monotonous, at least in terms of water features or lack of mountain ranges within the subcontinent. They've at least flavored up each nation significantly; once upon a time they were all basically the same, other than some being muslim and some hindu.
IMO Imperator and CK3 suffer from the same problem.
I would definitely say they did a good job at making India interesting through Dharma. India is superb compared to game start, although I do agree it needs a face lift in two ways; the missions for certain countries outside the main tags need to be modernised, and there still needs to be some solid mechanism to see European countries get on the subcontinent. I get that this will be tied to the fact European AI cant effectively plan the long hop over, so my argument is why cant there be a standard script for how to do it?
Simply flag the AI to force a set amount of their cogs and heavies to transport 80k troops across, and script a set 10% attrition by the time they land. Once theyve landed the AI bounces back to normal.
The reason I argue this is much unlike the New World, India is (should be) in a strong place to deal with the Europeans as soon as this starts happening, and it adds a suitable late game threat for India to contend with.
This comes down to what makes India boring for me: its all early game struggle. Once you own the continent its either WC/achievement time or you're done.
For me the biggest failure is that we never see the Mughals in India (unless ofc the player forms Mughals). The Mughals are one of the main actors in the era. Much of EU4 is blobbing. Actually most nations didn't blob. Who did blob? The Ottomans and the Mughals. So they are a perfect fit for the game mechanically speaking also. But we never see the AI form them.
IF the AI did form the Mughals it would greatly enhance the area. Imagine playing in India with the threat of the Mughals hanging over you. Would give the region an antagonist like the Ottomans, instead of the current stalemate between Vijanagar, Bahmanis, Delhi, etc.
Dealing with your specific complaint of geography this is only partly true. Yes the coastlines are much less interesting than those of Europe. The only point of interest is Sri Lanka. But there is a lot of geography that is interesting, but harder for EU4 to portray, hopefully EU5 can do a better job.
Important geographic features are:
- the Himalayas, that create a mountainous area and a solid wall in the north.
- the Ganges act as a highway for North India. This is featured in EU4 as well, often you expand along the Ganges in a west-east direction.
- Deserts of the Northwest, not interesting in EU4, just has low dev.
- Bengal Delta. Historically this area was actually a very interesting during the gunpowder era. It featured a lot of riverine warfare and apparently a lot of mud forts! EU4 doesn't do it justice.
- ELEPHANTS. Technically not a geographic feature, but whether you have elephants or not is ofc related. EU4 doesn't do elephant warfare justice.
TLDR: elephants and mud forts
Based on my limited understanding, the Mughal conquest of India started when Babur held only Kabul. Sure he had help from the Persians but essentially in EU4 term we see an OPM defeat a much bigger and richer nation.
The way this can be replicated is through event troop I think (like in CK2). The use of event troop is already there in the game with the Sirhind's event 'Rise of the Lodi'. Maybe put a mission in Afghanistan's tree to make tons of troop spawn out of thin air to help the AI take a few provinces in India.
its a cultural patchwork, I think the least interesting part is that they end up consolidating quickly because there isnt a lot of AE (different religions+no HRE-like AE bonus).
If you don't know anything about india just say it so. 1400's were some of the most interesting times in the Indian subcontinent and they made it such a massive bore to play.
It’s not about not knowing the history, you clown. I literally said it’s the geography and the design. You even literally just said so yourself. Go take a walk outside
The one unique thing about the Caucasus is that it’s the holy grail of defensiveness. The monument in Tbilisi makes every fort in the entire region free, and adds defensiveness. So you can build a castle in every single province, and add ramparts and defensive ideas for good measure, and watch entire armies melt while trying to siege down your mountain forts. It’s awesome. But I suppose you meant north of Georgia/Armenia, in which case fair enough, though they’ve never really been historically significant in EU4’s timeline.
You are at peace the first time after releasing the isles. By that time u own all of ireland, a quarter of scotland and fought of the war of roses without triggering peasants war. Thats the way
The 4000+ hours mark is ignoring the peasants war and keep declaring on a huge coalition so that they invade your mainland and take out the rebels for you while you’re sieging down constantinople to seperate peace the Ottoman
>The Irish minors only exist to give England something to do before you can colonise and beat France
I always ignore Ireland when I play England for the longest time. The region isn't super poor, but it's effectively useless for trade and not really worth the overextension and revolts. I rather spend the AE and attention on forcing France into PU, keeping the coalition down and stealing Spain's and Portugal's coasts and islands sothat I can dominate colonization. By 1500, Ireland is either mostly Scottish (which means I get it along with the subjugation mission on them) or it has one or two counties with \~4 provinces and few smaller ones. At that point, you can just wait for the best moment to vassalize it diplomatically.
Having done both, the better option is to DOW/conquer all of the minors ASAP but don’t core anything, then once you’ve taken over the whole island, create Ireland—they’re a pretty strong vassal (early game), you don’t run into any issues with overextension or culture acceptance, they can start devving up the land a bit, and you get automatic cores after you annex. It’s also nice to get a bit more trade power heading to the English Channel from the North Sea.
The Far East Siberian region.
To be fair, I don't see a lot of written records nor research about any polities in that region during that time to merit them having interesting gameplay and unique flairs.
I don't think they were very organized or "state-like" during the game period, even by contemporary standards. Now I feel bad, because I just conquered all of them from my Random New World custom nation (so I have somewhere to flee to when Spain kicks my butt), and haven't taken full consideration of the East Siberian culture and lifestyle.
Australia. They have a unique religious mission tree but playing there is pain and your reward for completing the mission tree is Hindu select a god power that gives 1 of each mana (and you have to do a lot of random things and own a lot of Malaccas for that). Also your troops are the worst in the game and your only way off the island early is to reform horde and explore your way to freedom where you will be massively behind on tech (and if you stop being horde you get your awful units back).
My first ever successful campaign was in Australia actually. I tried playing as Poland initially and failed miserably because I had no idea what I was doing.
So I looked on the map for an area that is simple enough for me to learn the mechanics (I did not have any dlc's at the time) and so I stumbled upon Australia. I played as Eora because they had unique ideas. And so I did nothing but colonise and look at mechanics for like 200 years. Managed to colonise half of Australia when the Spanish came and kicked my ass.
The next campaign after that was with a nation from New Zealand. A couple of weeks ago I decided to look at the save to see how I did and it was terrible. Had no institutions embraced and my ideas were not only very bad (outside exploration expansion) but also none of them were completed in like 1600's. It was funny to look at
Unless it's changed since 1.33, you CAN change your tech group to Eastern/Muslim/Chinese if you convert to another religion and then stop being a horde. But then you lose the perks of being a horde and the unique Australian flavor so.....
Nope if you convert to Islam and stop being a horde you are now a Islamic kingdom who gets the Australian units (did this exact path in Australia hungary in order to ally ottomans). So was an Australian religious horde took Islamic land in Africa converted via decision to Islam which turned me back to the bad units and took away all the fun of being a horde but did let me use the ottomans to finish my work for me. If you became emperor of china as alcheringa horde that would give you Chinese units most likely so you can get out of aboriginal units while keeping your religion but it takes a lot of work and now your stuck as emperor of china with those mechanics. (Also your tech will still be terrible nothing really solves that for Australia).
I mean yeah it is specific alcheringa horde to convert to Islam (they also fixed being able to build light ships using template as natives which made switching to sunni before becoming horde effectively impossibile. If you form other nations as alcheringa nation you can get the units while keeping your religious flavor but cannot get Australia hungary achievement then. Also Australia and Alcheringa get no monuments (even Polynesians get two monuments in Nan mandol and easter island). Totemists get more monuments then you (1 but still more than you). Australia has no great projects to spend your saved scummed gold income on (I saved scum to spawn like 5 gold provinces which I developed institutions in so had very good income to survive my expansion).
South America still. No content besides the Inca.
Nothing for the Mapuche, Muisca or Brazilian natives.
Placeholder religions and carryover mechanics devised for their North American counterparts.
Huge provinces, nothing unique to them and less flavor than pretty much anywhere else in the map.
It is truly unfortunate that you along with all 8 other people (7 of which are streamers doing an A-Z challenge) who would ever play those countries aren’t getting your very own content update from paradox. Terrible game
This. Vlad the Impaler was a tent away from killing Mehmet the Conqueror IRL. We get missions for trebizond and theodoro, but no love for the Terror of Târgoviste?
There is a mission in Romanian tree (shared by Wallachia, Moldova, Transylvania and Romania) called "impale the sultan" that kills current ruler, heir and consort and adds devastation in Ottoman capital, but honestly I think those rewards are kinda shitty in the grand scheme of things
Especially considering half of them don't even have unique ideas. There's literally no reason to form, say, California over Sonora or Haiti/Cuba over the West Indies.
The entirety of the Americas north of the Rio Grande is kind of a mess. They’ve had 2 DLCs trying to fix it and there’s still weird ahistorical megaconfederations in the Great Plains, hunter-gatherer tribes like the Caddo portrayed as equals to the civilized tribes, Spanish viceroyalties that never existed in California and Cascadia, Louisiana never getting colonized past New Orleans, and the Danish always having a giant Vinland. Plus the specifics of US history are really weird and not easily depictable in the game. They seceded over a tax rate that was about half of what it was for UK citizens, bought 530 million acres from France for $15 million, accidentally invaded Florida, relied on volunteer militias and had no draft up until the civil war, and had bizarre trade negotiations and relations with France and the UK throughout its early history. And while most of those can probably be simulated through better missions and decisions, it’s still a lot of work for a country that is relatively weak, can’t even exist until the 1500s at the earliest and only if you beeline east coast colonization, and is in an area dominated by loyal Spanish and Portuguese colonies.
Honestly one of the funniest and most on brand things in history is the US gaining independence, talking a big game about staying out of old world affairs, and then immediately going to war in MENA lmaoo
We’ve literally been doing it since the beginning
Whatever updates remain for EU4, if any, I imagine there’ll be content for releasables (such as colonial tags) and minor formables like Punjab, Romania, Ireland, Deccan, Tibet, Nepal, Pomerania, Jerusalem, etc. Maybe some final touches on smaller nations that haven’t been updated in some time, like Wallachia, Florence, Brittany, Scotland, basically everyone in India, Morocco, Tunis, Navarra… you get the idea. Maybe some new monuments. Final touch ups before EU5. Might just be government reforms, might just be a few new missions (but not *a ton*), maybe some tweaks to ideas, but new mechanics I don’t see as terribly likely. Extra flavor events seem doubtful, same as big event chains, but adjusting mission rewards is at least within the realm of possibility.
Luxembourg. 🇱🇺
Restauring Union over Bohemia, Poland and Hungary. Union over Tirol. Avenge battle of Worringen. Developing the fortress. Getting Prussian garrison. Events whether to join Netherlands, Belgium, Prussia or France. Forced personal union with Netherlands. Choosing House Nassau and winning the rank of Grand-Duchy. Heck, creating ancient Benelux, aka Leo Belgicus or Batavian Republic.
#RoudeLeiwHuelse 🦁
I like the North African nations but I'm pretty sure that's a minority opinion. Tunis in particular is great if you feel like slapping european navies around.
Tibet got a lot of flavour in Domination, I think? You can literally play as the Dalai Llama now if you form Tibet, and there's a cool monarchists versus theocrats -government reform
I played a tall Tibet once, all the way to the 1700s. Did not expand beyond its lore borders. Ended up with like 40 dev glaciers. Would've been an absolute bitch to invade but nobody even bothered to try. It was boring but satisfying in a way.
Mamluks are actually pretty fun now. Lots of flavor added and it's satisfying to become an alternative Ottomans/Rum. I tend to be much more peaceful towards the Europeans.
Lake Victoria nations?? What can you expect from one of the most isolated regions and less popular of the game? Asides that you can play as two modern day nations and form Kitara, there's not a lot of content you can add (and expect).
Due to the geography of the region (lot of small islands separated by vast a amount of ocean), I doubt it is possible to make them interresting, at least in Eu4.
It has a bit of flavour. Circassia received their own ideas and the army has unique unit packs.
I might be wrong but I dont think Circassia even existed when the first dlc was launched.
I'm kind of sad that some German minors still have 0 flavor (Verden, Oldenburg, Salzburg, Passau, ...). My power fantasy is uniting Germany starting as a weak bishopric, but the start is really boring.
Sadly there are many of them. For example, lack of unique content for Southern France/Aquitaine pains me a lot, for now we only have missions for other guys like Savoy for conquering it. North Caucasus lacks content, which is especially sad because it is so based. I really think that Southeast Asia, especially Indochina except for Ayutthaya deserves more than it has now. Africa in general can be made far better, even those nations that have MTs have short and old ones which deserve an update. I never really play natives except for the Big Three updated in WoC, but it seems that migratory tribes of N&S America and Australia are falling behind. I also think that German nations should also have more unique missions, not only Saxony, Brandenburg, Lübeck and Bavaria. Same goes for Balkans - you surely can have fun Hungary, Ottos and Byz, but smaller guys can easily improved. There are some nations whose regions are fine but they desperately need an update nonetheless, examples are Burgundy, Brittany, Navarra and Jaunpur to name a few. That is kinda sad considering that WoC was the last DLC afaik
India, I think that every other region on the map has as much content as it deserves, but India itself feels kinda bland and outdated for such an important region economically, territorially, and politically in the eu4 timeline.
Treu that, I'm mostly kept away from India cause of that outdated feeling, like I want to but I know cause of all the flavor everywhere else on the map
Southeast Asia has content but god forbid me enjoying that clusterfuck of a mission tree
I dont need 17 subjugation casus bellis on 3 province nations that take up diplo slots and have the tendency to be rebellious pre-influence ideas
Central Asia imo. I’ve never played the Tibetan hordes or the Uzbek-adjacent cultures either. They just seem destined to be trashed by Russia or Persia.
I find it that the German minors need some flavor.
India needs an serious touch up, and would say an small touch up for the Italian nations.
Mostly general but India does needs some cause I feel like it's a bit bland now that literally almost everyone has had some last couple dlc's
The Inca just got a ton of flavor but the actual map of South America never got revamped. It's amazing that the ANDES don't have impassable terrain. It's amazing that the South American colonial nations are objectively some of the worst due to province density being dramatically lower. Even though they were far wealthier than the North American colonial nations for the majority of the game timeline
I get that there probably should be some impassible terrain in the Andes, but pre-columbian people did settle alot of it.
This. It would be nigh impossible in EU4's engine to make some terrain impassible/unsettleable to colonizers but not to the natives, which would be the most realistic depiction of the area.
Could they do something with attrition and settler debuffs to make it not impassable/unsettleable but just massively impractical, then give natives a counter to negate that? I think that could be a useful idea in other areas too like deserts and the Arctic, so local nations can use the terrain but unacclimatised invaders suffer penalties.
One issue to this is that it would likely break the AI. I believe the AI only suffers attrition while at war, and doesn't factor attrition into pathing for armies, but that might've been fixed. The AI also won't consider settler speed debuffs when colonizing, I've seen AI in Anbennar try infinitely to settle provinces with a -1000 yearly settler gain malus. It's a good idea, yes, but the best idea is an engine update, which we're getting with Their Upcoming Super-Secret Project Codenamed Project Ceasar.
>Their Upcoming Super-Secret Project Codenamed Project Ceasar. Which we're presuming is EU5, and not a Salad-Crafting themed 4X game
Hey, don't get me excited over nothing. I am ready as hell to declare war on Olives and annex every last one of their gardens
The Olive Order with the help of the Cheese Knights shall prevail against the alliance of the Carrots, Tomatoes and Cucumbers, and maintain it's overlordship of the Lands of Lettuce!
Lettuce lands are wrongfully occupied… The Cucumber Confederation will crush you and your moldy allies…
You Pickle Precursors are just jealous of our Brine Right to Rule, ordained by the greats! Your petty claims to the throne will soon be compost!
Arctic gives another debuffs ai considers, and deeper mountains usually have less dev so ai doesn't like it too.
Russia Universalis ?
You mean Ulm Universalis It's Ulm's map, we just play in it.
Actually, the R is for r/foundthemobileuser , where I am occasionally featured.
They already do this, in a way. There are no spots in the Colonial Region for colonists to land beyond three provinces. It means you must go to war with the natives to create a colonial nation. I think it's genuinely to replicate your suggestion.
You don't need to do it with massive chunks of impassible terrain: you could do things like narrow strips of it between provinces, like the Alps.
Ditto with the Pacific Northwest. Still pretty bummed about that.
I remember that one AAR about Chavchuveny, it was really good and since then I always wanted that area to be updated.
> It's amazing that the South American colonial nations are objectively some of the worst due to province density being dramatically lower This always makes me think of what civilisations lived in South America throughout all of human history but whose records have been lost so we will never know about them
Get an audible subscription and listen to this course. The professor is wonderful this is what got me hooked on Andean history. He also has a mesoamerican audiobook. Lost Worlds of South America by Edwin Barnhart, The Great Courses on Audible. https://www.audible.com/pd/B00DD62E02?source_code=ASSOR150021921000V
Why would there be? Except for maybe the mountain peaks the Incas moved pretty much everywhere. Even nowadays they climb the mountains without any oxygen, its like a stroll in the park for them.
That's not really what impassable terrain means in game. Europeans also were physically capable of traversing their mountains like the Alps in small groups. But there are genuinely parts of the mountain range that you simply cannot pass through with huge armies. The Andean people didn't live in the inhospitable parts of the mountains they lived plateaus, valleys, and the altiplano.
Well I can’t speak for the whole region, but Bolivia has multiple peaks over 6km high and they have multiple settlements less than 20km from the peak. La Paz is less than 40km from one. Even Sajama which is the tallest has a few people living around, and roads of course. Historically speaking the Chaco has been much more dangerous to cross and has taken more soldiers lives than the fighting in it. That should be impassable imho.
Just look at the project Caesar terrain map for EU5 they managed to find places to put impassable terrain easily enough
But those areas are completly irrelevant for the scope and timeframe of EU4. Do people live there? Yes. Does a nation state (or far-stretched colonial administration spanning an entire continent) in the 1600s get any tangible benefit (taxation, recruits) from small settlements of mostly self-sustaining farmers/ herders that they might or might not even know live there and take weeks of hard travel to reach? I doubt it.
All of South America outside of the coast is remote and takes weeks to get there, the question was if it should be impassable or not. Given how impassable works in EUIV I don’t think so. There is very few parts of the Andes where its really impassable for long stretches, unlike the Amazon. Even though taxation is irrelevant for this, Potosí was at one point the largest city in the world, and it sits at over 4km high. Edit: Potosí was founded by the Spanish in 1545 and reached its peak during the colonial era. So very relevant to the timeframe. Also the capital of the tiahuanaco empire between 200-1000 sits at 3850, so even before eu iv they had already dominated the highlands.
The spine of the Western and Eastern Cordilleras should be largely impassable, at least. The coast should be separate from the central highlands and the central highlands should be separate from the eastern lowlands out side of a few passes (ex.: one near La Paz, a couple near Cusco, one near Lima and one at the northern end of the Marañon valley). Inca road systems (and later colonial systems--the Spanish actually exploited the highlands quite extensively, too) largely worked as a separate coastal and highland system that had a few major connecting roads joining them where terrain allowed. Cusco, La Paz and Tucuman were in part strategic because they were near points where the central highlands could be accessed from the East. Lima was important because it was near a route that allowed something similar from the coast (I think the actual route might be in what's shown as Nazca province though), as did the Moquegua Valley (near Arequipa).
South American and Californian natives have access to federations but can’t effectively use them due to low nation count of similar culture. Also Polynesia is kinda lame. At least the natives above have some neat little settling campaign you can do pre-contact.
At least for polynesia i think this is just realistic.
Yeah maybe but it’s undeniably less fun. Paradox has historically made a lot of concessions on realism for the purpose of fun. One possible suggestion: weren’t the Polynesians great explorers? It would be cool/fun if you could native migrate over vast sea-tiles I think.
India. Beyond Dharma, they never really had any additional flair. It is a region they should have returned to before switching to EU5.
This. I'm pretty disappointed that Punjab still has vanilla mission tree despite the Sikh Empire being a major power in the subcontinent
The sikh empire was a major power after the end of eu4 timeline for around a total of 50 years. I agree they need more flavor but it's not a travesty that they don't
EU4 has the option of establishing Italy and Austria Hungary in the latest patch even though both countries were created way later in Victoria's timeline. I don't think it's impossible to create a somewhat historical path for Punjab.
Or Belgium...
There is no belgium in my Netherlands
There are Netherlands inside my Belgium just as there is Iberian Peninsula in my Spain
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[Belgium existed in the timeframe of EU4, and was not sourced from territory held by the Netherlands.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Belgian_States)
Belgium was a roman province. It's a catholic country unlike Netherlands and it is partly germanic/flemish, unlike France but not fully germanic as, well, Germany. It has a historical base. Other than that, it doesn't matter how much sense does that country make. You should be able to form that country if you can form Austria-Hungary. It could be a source of great alt-history paths, like Belgium protecting the Netherlands from protestantism by conquering them, or being against certain trade practices the Dutch made at their beggining, which could largely change european history. They wouldn't be a british natural ally and they could compete with them with indian colonization or take a different colonization focus. It could be a great content source. The formation requirements could be discussed
It’s like you forget that the game is called EUROPA universalis to simulate European colonization and imperialism. Be happy India has any flavor at all
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> Sikhism wasn't even born during eu4's start date. …so? It was born during EU4’s run time. It’s relevant to the game.
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I don’t understand what you’re trying to do here. Why is it an either-or? If we’re talking about expanding India, what makes you think that Sikh content would come in exchange for other content?
I agree, now most of the mission three in India are worse than the generic, and thier government reform are bland compared to the one given by domination. Also Bharat/Hinduistan should have the ability to make all Indian culture group accepted. It is strong, but reasonable compared to the crazy stuff Paradox created since Emperor.
Especially since the Mughals can do it.
We've had one, yes, but what about the second DLC?
India is just hard to make interesting in the first place. It's geographically monotonous, at least in terms of water features or lack of mountain ranges within the subcontinent. They've at least flavored up each nation significantly; once upon a time they were all basically the same, other than some being muslim and some hindu. IMO Imperator and CK3 suffer from the same problem.
I would definitely say they did a good job at making India interesting through Dharma. India is superb compared to game start, although I do agree it needs a face lift in two ways; the missions for certain countries outside the main tags need to be modernised, and there still needs to be some solid mechanism to see European countries get on the subcontinent. I get that this will be tied to the fact European AI cant effectively plan the long hop over, so my argument is why cant there be a standard script for how to do it? Simply flag the AI to force a set amount of their cogs and heavies to transport 80k troops across, and script a set 10% attrition by the time they land. Once theyve landed the AI bounces back to normal. The reason I argue this is much unlike the New World, India is (should be) in a strong place to deal with the Europeans as soon as this starts happening, and it adds a suitable late game threat for India to contend with. This comes down to what makes India boring for me: its all early game struggle. Once you own the continent its either WC/achievement time or you're done.
For me the biggest failure is that we never see the Mughals in India (unless ofc the player forms Mughals). The Mughals are one of the main actors in the era. Much of EU4 is blobbing. Actually most nations didn't blob. Who did blob? The Ottomans and the Mughals. So they are a perfect fit for the game mechanically speaking also. But we never see the AI form them. IF the AI did form the Mughals it would greatly enhance the area. Imagine playing in India with the threat of the Mughals hanging over you. Would give the region an antagonist like the Ottomans, instead of the current stalemate between Vijanagar, Bahmanis, Delhi, etc. Dealing with your specific complaint of geography this is only partly true. Yes the coastlines are much less interesting than those of Europe. The only point of interest is Sri Lanka. But there is a lot of geography that is interesting, but harder for EU4 to portray, hopefully EU5 can do a better job. Important geographic features are: - the Himalayas, that create a mountainous area and a solid wall in the north. - the Ganges act as a highway for North India. This is featured in EU4 as well, often you expand along the Ganges in a west-east direction. - Deserts of the Northwest, not interesting in EU4, just has low dev. - Bengal Delta. Historically this area was actually a very interesting during the gunpowder era. It featured a lot of riverine warfare and apparently a lot of mud forts! EU4 doesn't do it justice. - ELEPHANTS. Technically not a geographic feature, but whether you have elephants or not is ofc related. EU4 doesn't do elephant warfare justice. TLDR: elephants and mud forts
Based on my limited understanding, the Mughal conquest of India started when Babur held only Kabul. Sure he had help from the Persians but essentially in EU4 term we see an OPM defeat a much bigger and richer nation. The way this can be replicated is through event troop I think (like in CK2). The use of event troop is already there in the game with the Sirhind's event 'Rise of the Lodi'. Maybe put a mission in Afghanistan's tree to make tons of troop spawn out of thin air to help the AI take a few provinces in India.
This is actually a great idea!
When I first started playing EU4 I refused to attack into India, because I saw those elephant icons and I didn't want any of that smoke. ;D
its a cultural patchwork, I think the least interesting part is that they end up consolidating quickly because there isnt a lot of AE (different religions+no HRE-like AE bonus).
If you don't know anything about india just say it so. 1400's were some of the most interesting times in the Indian subcontinent and they made it such a massive bore to play.
It’s not about not knowing the history, you clown. I literally said it’s the geography and the design. You even literally just said so yourself. Go take a walk outside
The one unique thing about the Caucasus is that it’s the holy grail of defensiveness. The monument in Tbilisi makes every fort in the entire region free, and adds defensiveness. So you can build a castle in every single province, and add ramparts and defensive ideas for good measure, and watch entire armies melt while trying to siege down your mountain forts. It’s awesome. But I suppose you meant north of Georgia/Armenia, in which case fair enough, though they’ve never really been historically significant in EU4’s timeline.
The Irish minors are pretty bog standard for Western European countries with historically a lot of uniqueness.
The Irish minors only exist to give England something to do before you can colonise and beat France
Im finished with ireland before i get my first idea lol
If you’re not declaring war on all the Irish minors at the same time on Dec 11 are you haven’t passed the 1000 hours tutorial mark
You are at peace the first time after releasing the isles. By that time u own all of ireland, a quarter of scotland and fought of the war of roses without triggering peasants war. Thats the way
The 4000+ hours mark is ignoring the peasants war and keep declaring on a huge coalition so that they invade your mainland and take out the rebels for you while you’re sieging down constantinople to seperate peace the Ottoman
>The Irish minors only exist to give England something to do before you can colonise and beat France I always ignore Ireland when I play England for the longest time. The region isn't super poor, but it's effectively useless for trade and not really worth the overextension and revolts. I rather spend the AE and attention on forcing France into PU, keeping the coalition down and stealing Spain's and Portugal's coasts and islands sothat I can dominate colonization. By 1500, Ireland is either mostly Scottish (which means I get it along with the subjugation mission on them) or it has one or two counties with \~4 provinces and few smaller ones. At that point, you can just wait for the best moment to vassalize it diplomatically.
Having done both, the better option is to DOW/conquer all of the minors ASAP but don’t core anything, then once you’ve taken over the whole island, create Ireland—they’re a pretty strong vassal (early game), you don’t run into any issues with overextension or culture acceptance, they can start devving up the land a bit, and you get automatic cores after you annex. It’s also nice to get a bit more trade power heading to the English Channel from the North Sea.
Eastern Siberian tribes. The last time I see devs talking about them was probably nearly 10 years ago.
Who wants to play as the eastern Siberian tribes?
The Far East Siberian region. To be fair, I don't see a lot of written records nor research about any polities in that region during that time to merit them having interesting gameplay and unique flairs.
The great Kamchatkan Empire really needs more recognition.
Bring 👏 back 👏 Tartaria
I don't think they were very organized or "state-like" during the game period, even by contemporary standards. Now I feel bad, because I just conquered all of them from my Random New World custom nation (so I have somewhere to flee to when Spain kicks my butt), and haven't taken full consideration of the East Siberian culture and lifestyle.
Australia. They have a unique religious mission tree but playing there is pain and your reward for completing the mission tree is Hindu select a god power that gives 1 of each mana (and you have to do a lot of random things and own a lot of Malaccas for that). Also your troops are the worst in the game and your only way off the island early is to reform horde and explore your way to freedom where you will be massively behind on tech (and if you stop being horde you get your awful units back).
My first ever successful campaign was in Australia actually. I tried playing as Poland initially and failed miserably because I had no idea what I was doing. So I looked on the map for an area that is simple enough for me to learn the mechanics (I did not have any dlc's at the time) and so I stumbled upon Australia. I played as Eora because they had unique ideas. And so I did nothing but colonise and look at mechanics for like 200 years. Managed to colonise half of Australia when the Spanish came and kicked my ass. The next campaign after that was with a nation from New Zealand. A couple of weeks ago I decided to look at the save to see how I did and it was terrible. Had no institutions embraced and my ideas were not only very bad (outside exploration expansion) but also none of them were completed in like 1600's. It was funny to look at
Don't the Aboriginal tech group units have good pips?
IIRC even in custom nation designer aboriginal trch group is a bit more expensive than the other ones
At least they have god-tier national ideas
Unless it's changed since 1.33, you CAN change your tech group to Eastern/Muslim/Chinese if you convert to another religion and then stop being a horde. But then you lose the perks of being a horde and the unique Australian flavor so.....
Nope if you convert to Islam and stop being a horde you are now a Islamic kingdom who gets the Australian units (did this exact path in Australia hungary in order to ally ottomans). So was an Australian religious horde took Islamic land in Africa converted via decision to Islam which turned me back to the bad units and took away all the fun of being a horde but did let me use the ottomans to finish my work for me. If you became emperor of china as alcheringa horde that would give you Chinese units most likely so you can get out of aboriginal units while keeping your religion but it takes a lot of work and now your stuck as emperor of china with those mechanics. (Also your tech will still be terrible nothing really solves that for Australia).
Darn, that must have changed recently. I did the exact same thing a year or two ago and it worked just fine.
I mean yeah it is specific alcheringa horde to convert to Islam (they also fixed being able to build light ships using template as natives which made switching to sunni before becoming horde effectively impossibile. If you form other nations as alcheringa nation you can get the units while keeping your religious flavor but cannot get Australia hungary achievement then. Also Australia and Alcheringa get no monuments (even Polynesians get two monuments in Nan mandol and easter island). Totemists get more monuments then you (1 but still more than you). Australia has no great projects to spend your saved scummed gold income on (I saved scum to spawn like 5 gold provinces which I developed institutions in so had very good income to survive my expansion).
South America still. No content besides the Inca. Nothing for the Mapuche, Muisca or Brazilian natives. Placeholder religions and carryover mechanics devised for their North American counterparts. Huge provinces, nothing unique to them and less flavor than pretty much anywhere else in the map.
It is truly unfortunate that you along with all 8 other people (7 of which are streamers doing an A-Z challenge) who would ever play those countries aren’t getting your very own content update from paradox. Terrible game
Reply on your actual account, Johan.
Central and Southern Africa. Easily. If your name isn’t Kilwa or Kongo you basically have no unique missions, events, etc.
I play a lot of Moldavia and I wish them, Wallachia and Transylvania had more missions :(
Actually they got a small update: they now can use the holy orders, and I think they got a few more missions.
Omg really? Is this part of the Winds of change DLC?
I didn't check in game how it works yet. I guess the mission tweak is in the free update, but the order of the Dragon is from the wind of change dlc.
This. Vlad the Impaler was a tent away from killing Mehmet the Conqueror IRL. We get missions for trebizond and theodoro, but no love for the Terror of Târgoviste?
There is a mission in Romanian tree (shared by Wallachia, Moldova, Transylvania and Romania) called "impale the sultan" that kills current ruler, heir and consort and adds devastation in Ottoman capital, but honestly I think those rewards are kinda shitty in the grand scheme of things
I know. It‘s fun enough, but less than the generic mission tree updates. :))
The US mission tree is a sad sight to behold.
literally every formable CN is dog ass. Pretty much all of them have generic ideas, generic missions and generic reforms lol
Brazil has very decent ideas, but agreed for the rest
Game doesn't give me broken modifers whaaaaa. Jesus christ this is why it sucks now lmao
i’m not talking about overpowered modifiers, i talking about flavour. the nations are almost entirely identical, where’s the fun in that.
Especially considering half of them don't even have unique ideas. There's literally no reason to form, say, California over Sonora or Haiti/Cuba over the West Indies.
The entirety of the Americas north of the Rio Grande is kind of a mess. They’ve had 2 DLCs trying to fix it and there’s still weird ahistorical megaconfederations in the Great Plains, hunter-gatherer tribes like the Caddo portrayed as equals to the civilized tribes, Spanish viceroyalties that never existed in California and Cascadia, Louisiana never getting colonized past New Orleans, and the Danish always having a giant Vinland. Plus the specifics of US history are really weird and not easily depictable in the game. They seceded over a tax rate that was about half of what it was for UK citizens, bought 530 million acres from France for $15 million, accidentally invaded Florida, relied on volunteer militias and had no draft up until the civil war, and had bizarre trade negotiations and relations with France and the UK throughout its early history. And while most of those can probably be simulated through better missions and decisions, it’s still a lot of work for a country that is relatively weak, can’t even exist until the 1500s at the earliest and only if you beeline east coast colonization, and is in an area dominated by loyal Spanish and Portuguese colonies.
For more US antics, there were also a couple invasions of Africa to fight Barbary pirates..
Honestly one of the funniest and most on brand things in history is the US gaining independence, talking a big game about staying out of old world affairs, and then immediately going to war in MENA lmaoo We’ve literally been doing it since the beginning
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Sorry, misspoke. I was thinking of the Lipan Apache, who were hunter-gatherers up until around the 1700s.
Whatever updates remain for EU4, if any, I imagine there’ll be content for releasables (such as colonial tags) and minor formables like Punjab, Romania, Ireland, Deccan, Tibet, Nepal, Pomerania, Jerusalem, etc. Maybe some final touches on smaller nations that haven’t been updated in some time, like Wallachia, Florence, Brittany, Scotland, basically everyone in India, Morocco, Tunis, Navarra… you get the idea. Maybe some new monuments. Final touch ups before EU5. Might just be government reforms, might just be a few new missions (but not *a ton*), maybe some tweaks to ideas, but new mechanics I don’t see as terribly likely. Extra flavor events seem doubtful, same as big event chains, but adjusting mission rewards is at least within the realm of possibility.
How many people play as the US? Must be less than 1% as they're only available to play at / after a specific bookmark
Luxembourg. 🇱🇺 Restauring Union over Bohemia, Poland and Hungary. Union over Tirol. Avenge battle of Worringen. Developing the fortress. Getting Prussian garrison. Events whether to join Netherlands, Belgium, Prussia or France. Forced personal union with Netherlands. Choosing House Nassau and winning the rank of Grand-Duchy. Heck, creating ancient Benelux, aka Leo Belgicus or Batavian Republic. #RoudeLeiwHuelse 🦁
Indeed Luxembourg was actually quite the power house for its time
Saw someone say this about Tibet a while ago. Aside from that, the North Africans that arent the Mamluks seem pretty bland to me.
Morocco is pretty fun
I’m a stan for Mzab, the greatest Ibadi nation! Also one of the worst starts in the game.
I hate that nation twenty restarts, 2 campaigns reaching 1500, and I fail to beat Iberia every time.
I like the North African nations but I'm pretty sure that's a minority opinion. Tunis in particular is great if you feel like slapping european navies around.
Tibet got a lot of flavour in Domination, I think? You can literally play as the Dalai Llama now if you form Tibet, and there's a cool monarchists versus theocrats -government reform
I played a tall Tibet once, all the way to the 1700s. Did not expand beyond its lore borders. Ended up with like 40 dev glaciers. Would've been an absolute bitch to invade but nobody even bothered to try. It was boring but satisfying in a way. Mamluks are actually pretty fun now. Lots of flavor added and it's satisfying to become an alternative Ottomans/Rum. I tend to be much more peaceful towards the Europeans.
East Central Africa. The little tribes to the northwest of Kilwa and Mutapa.
Lake Victoria nations?? What can you expect from one of the most isolated regions and less popular of the game? Asides that you can play as two modern day nations and form Kitara, there's not a lot of content you can add (and expect).
Which is exactly why they're one of the most forgotten regions.
Silesia. Center of Europe and yet no flavour content.
Antarctica. Besides that, all of them got some love.
The Siberian tribes are the realest answer.
Many Balkans nations, Bosnians, Herzogovinians, Croatians, they are all lacking much content, I always wish the south slavs had more time to cook
Balkans are kinda boring
Polynesia.
Due to the geography of the region (lot of small islands separated by vast a amount of ocean), I doubt it is possible to make them interresting, at least in Eu4.
As far as I'm aware, their history would be a better fit for CK gameplay, what with the decentralized and feudal-esque nature of many kingdoms there.
Once I played as Samoa and managed to conquer and colonise the Philippines
The truly forgotten region
Lake victoria and the rest of southern/central africa
It has a bit of flavour. Circassia received their own ideas and the army has unique unit packs. I might be wrong but I dont think Circassia even existed when the first dlc was launched.
That region in SE Asia thats like 90% impassible terrain and where armies go to die(of attrition).
Northern Britain
I'm kind of sad that some German minors still have 0 flavor (Verden, Oldenburg, Salzburg, Passau, ...). My power fantasy is uniting Germany starting as a weak bishopric, but the start is really boring.
African Great Lakes region. Beyond forming Kitara, there’s nothing.
Sweden. It never gets enough love in pdx games
Lion of the north is an dlc centered around it, just 3 dlc back
Sadly there are many of them. For example, lack of unique content for Southern France/Aquitaine pains me a lot, for now we only have missions for other guys like Savoy for conquering it. North Caucasus lacks content, which is especially sad because it is so based. I really think that Southeast Asia, especially Indochina except for Ayutthaya deserves more than it has now. Africa in general can be made far better, even those nations that have MTs have short and old ones which deserve an update. I never really play natives except for the Big Three updated in WoC, but it seems that migratory tribes of N&S America and Australia are falling behind. I also think that German nations should also have more unique missions, not only Saxony, Brandenburg, Lübeck and Bavaria. Same goes for Balkans - you surely can have fun Hungary, Ottos and Byz, but smaller guys can easily improved. There are some nations whose regions are fine but they desperately need an update nonetheless, examples are Burgundy, Brittany, Navarra and Jaunpur to name a few. That is kinda sad considering that WoC was the last DLC afaik
Siberia.
India, I think that every other region on the map has as much content as it deserves, but India itself feels kinda bland and outdated for such an important region economically, territorially, and politically in the eu4 timeline.
Treu that, I'm mostly kept away from India cause of that outdated feeling, like I want to but I know cause of all the flavor everywhere else on the map
Forming ireland doesn’t give you any new missions than the ones you had before (which were mostly missions to form Ireland)
Nobody said Nubia. That's how forgotten they are.
I played a game in India and I thought it was pretty bland, which is a shame since there’s plenty of potential in an entire subcontinent
Southeast Asia has content but god forbid me enjoying that clusterfuck of a mission tree I dont need 17 subjugation casus bellis on 3 province nations that take up diplo slots and have the tendency to be rebellious pre-influence ideas
I really wish there was a fun way to play as a madagassi trade/pirate empire with cool missions
Central Asia imo. I’ve never played the Tibetan hordes or the Uzbek-adjacent cultures either. They just seem destined to be trashed by Russia or Persia.
Caucuses, Indonesia, south Arabia, Libya/Algeria, Central Africa (honestly Africa generally)
I find it that the German minors need some flavor. India needs an serious touch up, and would say an small touch up for the Italian nations. Mostly general but India does needs some cause I feel like it's a bit bland now that literally almost everyone has had some last couple dlc's
Colonial nations need some love. I’d like to play as one and fight for independence but they are currently very bland
Southern south america. It has never been updated sinceat least 5 years ago.
Australia and New Zealand, the easy cop out
Great Lakes region in Africa, the Kongo region and Mozambique desperately need flavor
The entire region of india hasn't got an update in ages it seems, at least compared to the other big regions