Europa Universalis IV announced

[Liep]

Speaking of saves, is there anyway to delete them?

Right click

[Liep]

Is there any legitimate way for a stack of 12 early game (1457) Hungarian Patroits with no artillery to siege a formerly Hunagrian province in 4 days?  It has a level 2 fort.

If they're coming from inside the city?

[Josquius]

So it's good then? It's not HOI 3?

[Legbiter]

So it's good then? It's not HOI 3?

It's very, very good by Paradox standards, a polished and enjoyable game right at launch. 

[garbon]

I'm not sure how well thought out the national ideas were. Seems strange that you'll typically have them all by the middle of the 16th century (aka 100 years ) in.

[dps]

Is there any legitimate way for a stack of 12 early game (1457) Hungarian Patroits with no artillery to siege a formerly Hunagrian province in 4 days?  It has a level 2 fort.

Had the province just changed hands right before that?  Sometimes the garrison strength hasn't built back up yet if a new besieger moves in right away (at least, it can happen that way in EU3).

[Queequeg]

How the hell does trade work? Why can't I shutdown Novgorod, and why is all my sweet fur money going to a Mongol CoT? Trying to play as Dutch, still confused.

[Viking]

How the hell does trade work? Why can't I shutdown Novgorod, and why is all my sweet fur money going to a Mongol CoT? Trying to play as Dutch, still confused.

This actually explains it well

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?707915-Oooh-Shinies!-A-Guide-to-the-EU4-Trade-System

To shut down Novgorod AND make a profit as the dutch do as follows. Assuming the mongols are collecting at Novgorod (not a given, if they are transferring then you just need to direct it).

Assume 2 merchants and 20 light ships.

Initially place the merchants in Baltic Sea and Novgorod. One they are deployed place 5 ships in each. You can remove the baltic merchant immediately and if there is a merchant directing trade to the baltic in novgorod you can leave there as well, the ships will stay and continue working. Then place the merchant in lubeck and add 5 ships there and deploy the last 5 ships in antwerp. At this point you can probably just send your merchants to do something else, but assuming nobody else directing trade from novgorod you leave a guy there and you keep your guy in the home node making that +10% extra.

At that point you have 32 (30 for ships 2 for merchant) trade power base in novgorod, probably more than the mongols and you should be sending on half. If you embargo the mongols you should be sending on even more still. You have 30 in the Baltic, but you are opposed by sweden, livonia and TO since they have their capitals there and are collecting and have much more trade power than you, denmark, hansa, pommerania and norway might be helping you out though but you won't be sending on too much, hopefully more than left novgorod. Lubeck is also a dark hole of trade, only here denmark, hansa, pommerania and norway are collecting rather than transferring. The rest of the node is OPMs and they always collect locally. Your ships will do some good, not too much, you will get help from the other dutch nations as well as burgundy.

Basically what you want is to spam Novgorod (directing it at baltic), Baltic (always directed at lubeck) and Lubeck (always directed at antwerp) with ships so that their trade is transferred on rather than collected locally. You also want to spam Antwerp to maintain a high percentage of trade power to collect the most.

[dps]

Sounds like trade is a heck of a lot more work than it was in EU3.

[garbon]

I think it is more interesting. Also once you got it setup, then it is just a matter of adjusting here and there as circumstances change.  (As Portugal I was funneling all East Indies trade through Ivory Coast to Caribbean where I was collecting to avoid all the competition in Seville. Unfortunately, Spain now got wise to that and is taking a lot of my Caribbean trade. I think I'm going to have to shift to collecting in an African node now to maximize profits.)

edit: I'm also trying to improve my tax base as my nation is pretty dependent on trade (near 75% of my monthly income) which can get disrupted during war - and may become an issue as the Netherlands and England start to flex their colonial might.  France is a non-issue for me as I believe they have 4 provs. Rest is parceled out among Spain, England, Burgundy and Brittany.

[garbon]

Is there any pattern to how monarch stats are generated? I see France, Burgundy and Austria often getting monarchs with 6 and 5 values with a lowest value of 4 (of course they do get shitty monarchs as well).  As Portugal, the best dude I ever got was something like 6-3-4.

[Berkut]

What I really want to know about trade is not so much whether or not it is more or less work, but whether or not it is an interesting means of creating conflict in the game. Especially MP.

Is there a feeling of being able to "fight" another power through trade? Some kind of actual conflict happening (which means actual tactics/strategy that must adjust/react to what the other guy is doing), or is it just a matter of understanding the mechanics well enough to know how to maximize your numbers better than the other guy?

[DGuller]

Sounds like trade is a heck of a lot more work than it was in EU3.

Yes and no.  There is a lot less micromanagement, but a lot more planning out.  It also gives your country a direction for expansion and/or conquest.

[ulmont]

Is there any pattern to how monarch stats are generated? I see France, Burgundy and Austria often getting monarchs with 6 and 5 values with a lowest value of 4 (of course they do get shitty monarchs as well).

Turn off lucky nations or France and Austria will always get god-kings.

[garbon]

What I really want to know about trade is not so much whether or not it is more or less work, but whether or not it is an interesting means of creating conflict in the game. Especially MP.

Is there a feeling of being able to "fight" another power through trade? Some kind of actual conflict happening (which means actual tactics/strategy that must adjust/react to what the other guy is doing), or is it just a matter of understanding the mechanics well enough to know how to maximize your numbers better than the other guy?

Well if Spain was played by a human in my game, it is totally possible they'd have gone after me militarily to stop my siphoning of trade away from them (I was preventing most lucrative trade from entering their home node). Similarly, when France started building up colonies in the Caribbean, I declared war simply to knock them out of the running.  I can see that even being more the case when you factor in trade from the east.

That said, some nations like Portugal and Spain are "natural allies" as they share the same home node. So if one player doesn't decide to be greedy then the opposition is really France, Netherlands and England - all of whom who rely on other nodes.