Is EU3 fun yet?

[Tamas]

Played England under MMP in the last few days. Started by making peace with France and giving them Gascony and Calais (keeping my cores on French provinces for later to buy them off if needed). Scotland immediately DOWed me but I managed to crush them, reduced them to Lothian and vassalized. Puttered about until the Reformation came, converted to Protestantism, country went to shit. Main wave of conversion happened under the otherwise unremarkable Queen Jane I. At the same time the Irish and France DOWed me and I honestly thought I was screwed, but it turned out that France is unable to land troops in Britain so eventually I made a white peace and crushed the Irish.
Once that was done I let some pretender rebels win and the next king James I was a prodigy (as was his son Henry VII). England is now well on the way to becoming a great power (although it devolved to a Duchy during all the clusterfuck, since prestige went through the floor). I'm steadily colonizing North America and have already conquered the Injuns there. Most of England and Scotland and part of Ireland are Protestant by now. Diploannexed Scotland and recently Leinster, thus taking over the British Isles entirely; now just waiting for cores on some Scottish provinces to declare Great Britain.

Anyway, this game illustrates my problems with MMP. European colonization is woefully late; Aztecs and Incas haven't even had contact with Europeans yet in 1600, Spain just barely began colonizing the Carribean and Argentina; Portugal painted Brazil green but ignored Africa and India; France started on Canada. I guess more expensive colonies are to blame, but it just doesn't feel right. Also, the eastern majors (Austria, Russia, Ottomans) are completely unambitious. Russia took over the other minors and is now just sitting there doing nothing; Ottomans took over the Balkans but have no interest in Hungary or Egypt; and Austria is still divided and has never been elected HRE (they are actually electing Protestants now). I hope MMP can fix these things somehow.

Russia prolly did not conquer the other minors: AI Muscowy annexes them by event at a given date

[garbon]

Colonization in the EU games is just flat-out broken and always has been.

I think one thing that has always harmed P'dox is not actually having wide knowledge of history.  You can't ever have an AI that will handle colonization properly, if you didn't actually know where you wanted it to colonize to begin with.

[Caliga]

  But whatever historical knowledge Johan and co. lack (and I'd never heard that accusation before) is made up for by beta testers, right?

For example, in the Vicky beta they asked the testers to come up with random leader name files for every nation.  I personally did the ones for the USA, CSA, and I think Canada and the UK.

[Habbaku]

(and I'd never heard that accusation before)

They don't even know how many days there are in February, so I don't expect much of them.

[Caliga]

 

[Barrister]

Colonization in the EU games is just flat-out broken and always has been.

I think one thing that has always harmed P'dox is not actually having wide knowledge of history.  You can't ever have an AI that will handle colonization properly, if you didn't actually know where you wanted it to colonize to begin with.

Paradox has never struck me as being ignorant of history.  Far from it.

And in EU3 they appear to have tried quite hard to stay away from highly deterministic history ala "Portugal must colonize these areas and only these areas"...

[garbon]

But whatever historical knowledge Johan and co. lack (and I'd never heard that accusation before) is made up for by beta testers, right?

I don't think that flavor things like random leader names have an large impact on historical performance.

Besides is p'dox concerned about historical performance? It seems that they create models of how they think states function and how to make warfare/economic fun and then let the chips fall as they may.

[garbon]

Paradox has never struck me as being ignorant of history.  Far from it.

They consistently fail miserably with regards to the rest of the world.  I have more thoughts on the colonization issue but I'm not at liberty to say them.

That said, P'dox is certainly leagues above their competition.

[garbon]

And in EU3 they appear to have tried quite hard to stay away from highly deterministic history ala "Portugal must colonize these areas and only these areas"...

That wasn't even the case in eu2. AIs often colonized random places much to the chagrin of many.

[Habbaku]

AIs often colonized random places much to the chagrin of many.

Or didn't colonize at all, in many cases.  Paradox has a habit of having major systems (colonization, Victoria's immigration system, HoI's air/naval combat) being broken at the outset.

[garbon]

Or didn't colonize at all, in many cases.  Paradox has a habit of having major systems (colonization, Victoria's immigration system, HoI's air/naval combat) being broken at the outset.

True, modders only discovered after a few years that eu2 AIs will not explore with more than one explorer at a time.

[Barrister]

The EU3 "colonial range" thing is quite a surprise to me.

I'm trying to jump start some colonizing in my Venice game.  I'm in the 1450s, managed to discover a few places like the Canary Islands - but its outside my range.

I did go out an conquer Granada so by the 1480s it should be a core province, but even then I imagine thatt the Caribbean will be outside my range.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The EU3 "colonial range" thing is quite a surprise to me.

I'm trying to jump start some colonizing in my Venice game.  I'm in the 1450s, managed to discover a few places like the Canary Islands - but its outside my range.

I did go out an conquer Granada so by the 1480s it should be a core province, but even then I imagine thatt the Caribbean will be outside my range.

concentrate on naval tech, take QotNW and see if you can find some colonial range boosting advisors. That should get your there.

[Warspite]

But whatever historical knowledge Johan and co. lack (and I'd never heard that accusation before) is made up for by beta testers, right?

For example, in the Vicky beta they asked the testers to come up with random leader name files for every nation.  I personally did the ones for the USA, CSA, and I think Canada and the UK.

Haha, I remember that. As a joke I plucked random football players for a few of the names of some of the Balkan state leaders. I wonder if anyone fighting an independent Croatia in Vicky has found themselves squaring up against General Suker or Field Marshall Boban. 

[ulmont]

concentrate on naval tech, take QotNW and see if you can find some colonial range boosting advisors. That should get your there.

Especially Quest for the New World, it gives an immediate +50% boost.

But yes, if you want to colonize early, you need to be able to jump off from the West Coast of Europe (or, even better, Iceland / Canaries / Azores).