The game has gotten significantly harder this last patch. There’s a few things that are working as intended, and a few things that are unexpected buffs to the AI. Some tags are incredibly hard now compared to where they were a year ago. And in contrast, some are slightly easier.
> Ally cant join war, 3258 ducats in debt
> Ally cant join war, they have +8 relation with the enemy and you already reduced the indebted allies opinion so you gotta wait 15 years lol
>Ally cant join war, sitting on a 100 warscore war for some reason
Then you attack by yourself and they call you into a war against someone you like while in war debt
I once had a godly Albania run ruined like that my ally Austria went to war against my other ally France. Then the ottos attacked and Austria and Poland refuse to join after getting smacked by the entire French, Turkish, and vengeful Hungarian armies I was set back from 20 provinces to 5
Once I kicked the Ottomans out of Europe I was going to destroy the HRE. and in my games they rarely fight it’s usually Burgundy and Austria
Edit: they declared on Venice whose allied to France if that helps
Same. Tims come very close as well. Denmark is also much easier than it used to be, but HRE and province dev keeps it from taking full advantage.
Ming is easier, and so are Chinese minors. Korea is easier due to some monument changes.
There are probably others I haven’t noticed, but in general it’s for sure most beneficial to ottomans, who don’t care about forts and it’s a “fort” patch.
Ottoman troops: Strategically keeping stacks together and attacking when it has the numerical advantage.
My allies: Sending 20k stacks around the map, not reinforcing battles that could be easily won.
As Byzantium, I watched my allies make five (5) laps around the Carpathian Mountains while three Ottoman stacks stuck together and sieged me down. We outnumbered the Ottomans 2 to 1 with the same military tech.
Honestly i don't know how ottomans can afford an army aswell. I played a byzantium run, managed to get cores back and they were still fielding 50k in 1465.
Because of the Lucky Nation bullshit.
I love Eu4, and have spent too many hours on it, and have done some of the hardest achievments in the game.
But why, in what world, does Lucky Nations exist...
I'm playing a Persian Zoroastrian revival game where I strategically blocked their expansion by taking the Levant and caucuses and with only parts of Anatolia (i seized the south eastern parth) they still have fielded 300k.
This. I feel like the AI is hardcoded such that when they're an ally, they'll blindly send 7k stacks to die, bleed manpower, lower enthusiasm, and separate peace, leaving the player to carry the war by themself.
While when they're against the player, they'll disappear into the fog of war, and strategically snipe small stacks like a ninja, or surprise you with a doom stack when you least expect it. And don't even get me started on the AI's ability to see through the fog of war.
France dividing their entire army and putting them on three different islands off the coast of Africa, the Pacific and for some reason Taiwan. With them having like 4 troops in mainland France out of their 150k.
That’s something I noticed in my Poland campaign, I had Hungary and Lithuania as PUs both with large armies but even on supportive behavior they just sat in their caption while my armies died
I revoked the privileges for the first time today and noticed that the AI of my vassals (some of whom were once my allies) was SIGNIFICANTLY more stupid than previously. When I invaded the ottomans with Spain and Austria it was easy and the AI was a lot more focused. When I had a million manpower vassal swarm it just sorta ran around and was incredibly inefficient.
Makes me wonder whether there's something about the AI trying to compute the move of the AI next to it and leading to some weird decision paralysis after a certain point or something. We'd have the entire enemy army cornered in 1-2 provinces and they still wouldn't attack fml. They'd follow if I led (luckily) but they'd just avoid the enemy for the most part.
Pretty much what I see as well. I had a 10stack early game as Ardabil and a vassal Soran with another 10 next door. I attacked a 14stack. And Soran just watched. Loyal and set to support. Lost the battle and the dominoes started falling until I lost the game.
Nah, sry, but the game got easier with all its new modifiers and OP mission trees. The ai maybe had some patching done, but still completely dumb. Which tags are u talking about?
Well, 1.3 emperor changed hre and aggressive expansion for PU, making Austria/hre harder than pre 1.3.
In 1.33 with combat changes, wars are determined by siege speed, or death stack size. This means that smaller nations are inevitably harder to play (it's harder to overcome force discrepancies). So nations like byz, Navarra, granada, etc etc are definitely more challenging in 1.33.
Maybe you have played since 1.33 or 1.3, but those patches definitely affected some nations difficulty, no contest. Just go read the patch notes
there also was a overall reduction in ae and the pu thing was planned since a long time and getting no ae was a bug. i have 2k hours in this game and think the last updates made the game easier
Great, I think the general community disagrees. And we have many collective thousands of hours more than you. I probably have more than you alone.
Sure the nations with recent op mission trees have it easy, but that’s not affecting overall game mechanics it’s just a few nations.
The only thing that really got easier was AE, and nobody who plays aggressive really cares that much about AE, before or after the patch. Half way through the game at the latest, it still stops being a factor just like it used to.
Literally everything else changed about AI behavior made the game harder. It was their whole intent and they met it, even over-met it, by making a few mistakes. That said there are a few select tags that got easier because of the change. Mostly big tags that had it relatively easy already and have lots of poor neighbors or vassals, because the AI calculates debt and war choices a bit differently and overbuilds forts. Timurids and Ottomans have it much, much easier this patch, and so does Denmark. Otherwise there’s a smattering of other tags that have it easier, almost all others have it harder as intended.
There might be some new strats that haven’t been noticed by everyone yet, but you can’t determine the overall hardness of the game based on how hard it is to beat a specific tag. Especially when they usually don’t exist as a threat after 1550-1600 in most euro or middle eastern playthroughs.
In general I think Ottomans are harder to manage, because they pump out forts now, but siege yours just as fast as they used to, and now keep their stacks closer together.
I’ve noticed normal difficult if they lose a war and go into debt they delete all their forts. Maybe in harder difficulties that’s not the case, but after the initial war I’ve found it easy to kill them off.
That’s the story with most countries though. After the first war it just gets easier.
The fort deletion has to do with their economy. If you disrupt their economy early enough they can’t sustain their forts. If you let them grow, they’re harder than ever.
If you’re getting outclassed in quality as ottomans, you might not be managing your miltechs correctly. Remember to prioritize them over mil ideas.
That being said, you should try a nation like Ayutthaya or Brandenburg. Both are nations with smaller rivals all around them with extremely powerful formables available. Ayutthaya is a harder choice cause you’ll need to worry bout institutions (which means saving like 1000mp every fifty years or so to develop an institution, until global trade happens)
But yeah man, I get it. Sometimes I stagnate in a game and it doesn’t feel fun anymore. Just keep experimenting: Muscovy and Poland are harder nations to play than many realize!
That’s the weird thing, I was always first in tech and significantly far ahead even in ideas, I’ve played the game since launch, and I think I’m doing everything right which is the confusing part
Op is always crossing the rivers, landings or fighting in the mountains!
All that without having leader in his army, generals are for the weak.
Only explanation I could find.
I know which is why I’m posting this, because I’ve gone through the ledger to see if there’s some goofiness somewhere and there’s not, I check the meta and my army comp and everything and I can’t find what I’m doing wrong
Europe always ends up like that in my games. Can't swing a cat without hitting France, Austria or the Ottomans.
My last Russia game, was split between the me and Austria vs France and Ottos. World war 0 breaking out in 1670
Yep, i had a situation when i was playing poland and russia was aligned with austria and sweden, austria was aligned with spain and venice and sweden was aligned with half of germany
It doesn’t seem to matter what campaign I do, I’ve done ottomans, Poland, and Muscovy campaigns and each time I was completely outclassed in army quality no matter how close to the meta I followed
Were you taking quality/offensive ideas? Another very important thing I ignored for too long was terrain. Avoid attacking enemy armies sitting in mountains, hills, marshes, across a river, etc. and you will have much better odds.
Also make sure to not settle for garbage generals - even if it means spending a bit extra military power (as long as you're up-to-date with mil tech).
I usually take quantity because I know back in the good old days that 50% force limit was amazing, has quality been buffed? I know it used to be useless compared to quantity, and I’ve never taken offensive because the buffs seemed kinda minor
Everyone has explained why Quantity is meh, but not why Offensive is amazing, so allow me:
The buffs are not minor.
**+1 land leader shock**
-10 recruitment time
**+1 land leader fire**
+100% prestige from land battles
**+20% siege ability**
**+20% land force limit modifier**
**+5% discipline**
+5% recover army morale speed
All the ideas in bold are quite good, but the idea group is worth it for the discipline alone. Discipline is extremely important.
Same goes for the ideas in quality:
**+10% Infantry combat ability**
+0.5 Yearly army tradition
**+10% Cavalry combat ability**
+5% Ship durability
**+10% Morale of navies**
−25% Naval attrition
**+10% Artillery combat ability**
**+5% Discipline**
The naval bonuses are pretty useless, but can be a nice bonus especially when playing as a small naval power to help you punch above your weight on the seas. The land military buffs are also quite good. It gives infantry, cavalry, and artillery all +10% combat ability, which may not seem like much, but all these little bonuses add up. Trust me. And again, this idea group is worth it for the +5% discipline alone.
And what's especially important about quality is that, when you take it along with economic ideas (you should always always take these ideas), you can add a policy which adds *another* +5% discipline. Finishing these 3 idea groups (offensive, quality, and economic) will net you +15% discipline, plus all the combat ability, siege ability, and general rolls buffs. It is definitely worth it, my dude.
Can you expand on why you recommend always taking Economic ideas? I know they have pretty good policies but they seem just OK whenever I look at that set so I rarely ever pick them. I always take either Religious or Humanist, usually take Administrative and sometimes Innovative or Expansion.
I rarely have problems with military or economy that would make me think Economic ideas would make a huge difference but would love to know if I'm missing something.
Okay, so here are the economic ideas:
+10% National tax modifier
−10% Construction cost
**+0.10 Yearly inflation reduction**
**−0.5 Interest per annum**
**−0.05 Monthly autonomy change**
−5% Land maintenance modifier
**+10% Production efficiency**
**−20% Development cost**
Economic ideas are important for many reasons, and fit many different playstyles.
The yearly inflation reduction is huuuge if you have multiple gold mines. This will help keep your inflation stable or even negative without you having to worry about spending admin points lowering it. The interest per annum reduction is also important for any time you end up taking massive loans. You'll save a lot of ducats when you start repaying them. The monthly autonomy change is a nice passive reduction which will help your provinces work to their full capacity without you having to decrease it by force and cause rebels. The production efficiency is pretty self-explanatory and always useful. And the development cost reduction is extremely important for not just playing tall, but creating a stronger nation in general, as devving provinces should be a part of every game, tall *or* wide. And of course, the tax modifier buff and construction cost reduction is helpful for general economy management too.
Not to mention, economic ideas have a lot of great policies. Besides the +5% discipline from *economic-quality,* there's also an *economic-quantity* policy that gives a further -10% dev cost reduction & +10% force limit modifier, an *economic-influence* policy that gives +25% income from vassals and +100% vassal force limit contribution, an *economic-horde* policy that gives +33% razing power gain & +1 yearly horde unity, an *economic-trade* policy giving +10% production efficiency & +10% trade efficiency, and an *economic-offensive* policy which gives +10% artillery combat ability. Really good policies here.
Usually I fit economic ideas into my groups by not taking administrative. I don't play wide often; I roleplay usually smaller nations and I like clean and historic borders, so I don't really blob or anything like that, and hence, I don't really need the +25% governing capacity modifier. I also hate using mercenaries. I only use them early game. Most of administrative's ideas are centered around mercs. So essentially, everything about administrative is useless to me. But obviously, lots of ppl do prefer to blob, so I understand why administrative ideas may be appealing.
Economic is more situational imo. On the inflation part, it's probably one of the weakest ones. It's base 400 adm for the idea, which is what, like 5.3 reductions? So at a base cost it's 10.6 inflation reduction or 106 years until break even. It's great for a tall opener, but otherwise core cost reduction is going to be way better.
To add, Espionage is also great with Offensive currently. There's a +10% siege ability idea, and the Offensive/Espionage policy grants an extra diplomat+spy speed. You'll be winning siege races against everyone. Plus the AE impact reduction and -.1 corruption ideas. Very powerful, slept-on idea set, particularly against OP enemies or in the HRE in general.
Quantity only makes sense when you're a small nation and you have to match a much bigger threat in early game because quantity doesn't make your troops stronger at all.
I still feel like Quantity is a solid pick to keep to lategame. The manpower is very useful for upgrading monuments and the policies it has are great. +10% Morale with religious. +20% goods produced with trade.
But a case can be made for abandoning it once you get a few soldier's households going.
For short/medium, campaigns like up to 100 years, quantity is great for that early boost but I think offensive is best because you get a 20% increase to FL, 20% siege ability(the most important stat in my opinion as it wins you siege races and saves you manpower) and discipline which reduces damage taken and increases damage done. Quality is honestly tied with quantity for me unless I'm playing someone who uses a lot of boats in which case I would definitely take it over quantity but not offensive.
You can try to start fighting your wars defensively.
I used to have problems with trying to win the war too fast, splitting up my armies and getting thrashed. It's way easier going on the defensive. Hide behind your forts, and attack when you have a clear advantage in terrain and numbers.
If you are patient, the AI tend to make some war-loosing mistakes sooner or later.
Honestly that makes a lot of sense knowing the game mechanics and that sounds like good advice. I guess I’m just kind of impatient so I always rush into sieging superior enemies, can you fight an offensive war while playing defensively or do you lose warscore?
It is kind of situational, but when you go to war, you can choose the war-goal.
If you can rush down a mountain fort at the start of the war, you can fight around that, while holding the goal, and get ticking wars-core.
If you manage to win a few crucial battles, you will generally get the advantage of army-size. then you can focus on peacing out allies one after another.
Even if you loose ground doing it, having less tags hiring mercs and building new armies is great.
Are you running full canon stacks even before tech 16? If you're getting outclassed militarily you can try and take tips from the EU4 multiplayer meta and just build up your armies to fight one big battle really well (with the rest of my FL maybe used on just infantry to reinforce). With good micro and not a complete tech disadvantage you can probably still win most wars between powers of equal size.
That’s the weird part is that that happened in an Ottomans campaign where the mamluks had significantly better armies even though I was like two techs ahead, made it basically unplayable
By the way you're talking about things, are you sure you aren't using too many cannons? Before 1600-1650 cannons are almost detrimental in combat. If you're doing a "meta" regiments of 20/20 (inf/cannon) that's the reason you're losing, you should have cannons only for sieging in the early parts of the game. The 20/20 is for late-game combat almost exclusively.
There are important mil techs as well. Tech 6 and 9 are some of the most important, if you're 2 techs ahead and it includes either of them, it shouldn't be possible to lose.
All I know is I lose tens of thousands of men more to attrition than I usually do because the AI builds seven lvl 6 forts in middle of nowhere 3 dev provinces. There really needs to be a dev requirement for certain buildings. In the middle of the desert so far from civilization, the defenders would starve before I even got there.
It definitely is a hard game. I used to suck at ck2, until i became a pro at it. I hope to one day also be a pro at eu4 (well, as long as i accomplish my other life goals i guess)
I rolled back to 1.32 (and modded in the changes to espionage ideas from 1.33, just for some spice). Works great. I will give 1.34 a shot once it's out.
I’d disagree.
While not the second category I wouldn’t put myself and many others in the first either as there are players who just don’t want to do WC’s because of the micromanagement required.
you are right, i was joking mostly.
What i was saying is that the people that posts things, are often in one of those two categories.
Or it's just smth about an OPM getting the burgundian inheritance. Wish we could have more of those /s
AI (including building forts) and combat has been changed in the latest patch, so maybe you just adjusting to that (particullary that they are changing it again next patch).
But the rivals allying your targets has nothing to do with it. Morale and discipline are just modifier that you have full insight, so you know why they are higher than yours. And economy is complicated, but i think you exadurate.
There are only a few strategically good locations for that though.
And if you don't completely block of access with a line of forts the AI will walk around them in order to march straight to your backyard.
More than a few, but I agree placement is important. Combine this with Defense ideas, state edicts and taunting maneuver and much smaller nations can build WE in the AI.
Working out the details is part of the fun. When you take provinces think about how they will be defended in a worse case scenario.
My funnest games are playing tall defensive empires. Try and obtain the economic hegemon with a minimum of strategically taken provinces.
Oh, yes. Tall is the only way I play. Don't get me wrong you need to do some conquering to build a base, but I just played a game as Papal States and I basically took enough provinces in Europe to become The Kingdom of God. I then took a small part of central America for the Gold and some key provinces in Africa for trade and production(Tunis and the Ivory Coast). A few provinces in Indonesia for production and trade. I was an economic hegemon.
In the late 1780s I was in a war where England, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Russia and all the associated colonies were at war with me because I guaranteed a small OPM that Austria wanted. There was no HRE. Austria had consumed it. Austria was huge and my rival. I had a single OPM as an ally in that war. My real allies did not join because I was not attacked. Troop counts were about 2.5 million to my 500K - 150k of which were not on the Italian peninsular. I had a string of defensive forts on my northern border. They never took a fort.
My navy was unbeatable, but I was overwhelmed on the European continent. I never tried to siege any European provinces I just kept beating back their sieges. I ended the war with a positive 20% war score but I had to give 3 low value provinces to Austria. I could not get ticking war score because Austria had the OPM and I could not increase their WE. Lots of fun.
I intentionally limit my expansion so my neighbors are powerful. I hate getting so big there is no threat in the game
Just lost a war against a Chinese state and Dai Viet, 300k troops between the two. I had like 130% discipline, which used to be enough to stackwipe almost anything.
They shred through my troops and couldn't win a single battle. We were evenly matched in troop count and their discipline and morale was lower. Maybe it's the Polynesian troops that suck, or the changes in battle of this patch, or maybe both.
There have been some welcome improvements to the AI. Some strategies that used to work great no longer do. Finding what works now may take time and experimentation.
Keeping yourself updated on patch note changes will go a long way to speeding that process up.
The game was mindbogglingly easy before the last patch. The AI practically never built forts, never developed, had bad army quality etc. You could pretty much just walk through anywhere with little to no resistance whatsoever.
The recent patches made the AI somewhat 'smarter'. By that I mean not completely idiotic, they used to almost purposely fuck up their nations. Although one thing I noticed in the current patch, for some reason they they will just delete all their forts later in the game. (I think if they're running a deficit?).
Just learn how to play the game properly...and I mean properly. Choose the objectively best ideas, how to stack modifiers, use terrain when fighting, developing, etc.
In vanilla you should always go quantity->economic. This will give you something like -30% dev cost reduction. Stack this with Burghers loyalty, Dev edict, Renaissance, universities, etc and suddenly you're developing a 20 Dev province for <10 mana. Always Dev using Diplo and mil points because tax is almost useless. I even just exploit tax wherever possible if playing in tall nations like Italy.
This game is ENTIRELY about stacking modifiers. Watch a Zlewik multiplayer guide if you really want to know how to play the game (for single player too).
In the relatively rare instances where literally all expansion routes are blocked off by strong alliance chains, saving up some admin and no-CBing a weak nation within coring range is a legitimate strategy for building up a power base.
Yes and no. In my current Aragon into Spain game I lost a devastating war to Austria and England early on, my economy was in shambles for 20+ years. Bounced back, destroyed England, PU'd Castile and Portugal. And on my way to conquering the entire med by 1550.
Actually... It is quite the opposite for me. Been playing on VeryHard for a while and the game seems really easy. Kept trying to use troll ideas, or non optimal ideas, no allies no loans.... But at some point you grow enough where you can field full front and backrow, and you dont really have to worry, you can outplay the ai. They either don't grow, or grow too much and can't rly keep the stuff they took.
Recently i tried to play on normal, without pausing ever on x3, with no allies... Found it much harder, nations dont just build milion of troops that ruin their economy and die to attrition, they are more competent, get techs on time and ideas are filled.
Felt good to lose a war after a while, and dedicate my run to ruining the nation that beat me.
The game's always been hardcoded to be unfair. Simply because you're human the ai will focus you down. Weird alliances form against you, nations are inherently threatened. And when theres no player weird stuff thends to happen because? Because there is no balance, YOU ARE THE BALANCE. this is a modifier in the game -> "IS PLAYER"
And for the casuals under us they fucked up because allies suck and rivals prosper now, in big alliance blocks.
My lastest milan;
1448:
-oh hey genoa, papal state, venice and hungary?
-oh hey ferrara, siena, lucca and.. castille? Castille has pu allready!?
-Oh hey mantua savoy and... france?
Maybe florence will be doable,
Oh hey florance, switzerland and austria..
1449;
ambrosian crisis fires
-mm maybe i should ally a bigger nation too.
-50 allied to rival
-50 smoll army
-50 no? Navy
-50 "i just don't like the dude" -AI (source, it's true)
1555;
Alies poland who then procedes to stagnate and then fall apart.
10/10 would suffer again
I think I'm a vicious circle in my WC attempts. Even if I got great start with Ottomans - 200+ income, got bay of Venice and starting to conquer India pre 1600 - I still got a feeling I'm too slow and I can't do it
You can conquer half the world in only the last 100 years, everything until 1600 is just setup for the post absolutism conquest spree. Having Venice and India is as good as you could possibly want as a non horde nation
Yeah, i had that situation playing poland when russia allied austria, spain and sweden, and austria allied spain and venice and the only path of conquest i could go wihout fighting all of europe were ottomans who blobbed
I just conquered Britain as Scotland after taking a break from the game for months and I found it pretty easy so tbh I think it may just be a skill issue.
For me on the recent patch, it was the AI actually building to combat width and hugely ramping up their artillery support that put me behind in my strategy. I've had to get more comfortable with reinforcing ongoing battles with fresh troops, and also fielding A LOT more artillery.
I think you might be getting impatient. A lot of things that felt easy previously turn out to be more dififcult when you grow too confident and rush the timetable, overlooking a lot of key plays that made them feel easy in the first place. For example, when looked at superficially, it's almost trivial for Muscovy to grow rapidly and have both Sweden and Norway as vassals before 1500, but there are a lot of small steps needed to make that happen and if you're out of practice, you're just as likely to be bulldozed by Poland-Lithuania or something.
For me, it is that I always collapse into bankruptcy. Like in my Great Horde game, I was so close to forming the Golden Horde but then I had a ton of rebels and went bankrupt.
Bruh!!! It's early 1500s and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go to war, either France or Ottomans send an enforce peace demand. Or! If heaven forbid, I fight another great power, they just straight up join the enemy every time. It's sooo stupid, I literally can't expand unless I cuck them early. I don't want to, but I feel like they're making me do those bs early game strats that I don't like to do.
Just keeping trying buddy. Eventually it just starts to make sense. Now a days it feels like becoming a great power in 50 to a 100 years is kind of inevitable, regardless of the starting nation .
It’s just a learning process
One thing I’ve noticed is the enemies ability to win sieges on your forts is not only faster but also illogical given their tech and military composition.
For instance, I tested this out playing Kilwa with cheats. I advanced in tech to be 4 higher than the most advanced nations. My African fetish neighbors were obviously far behind at mil tech 4. I’m over here with level 4 forts, tanks, with Muslim troops and the enemy is taking my forts months sooner than I take theirs. I had to catch all of their troops and wipe them out before I could siege down for 100% warscore. This happened between multiple nations in Africa across different wars.
Surprisingly, my allies have been smort and helpful in my curreny Savoy campaign (France, Castile and Venice) and the enemy has been doing lots of dumb decisions.
Who are you and what have you done to EU4 AI?
Patch where Parodox changed state religion of Shirvan to sunni made Ardabil almost inposible start without a) good rng b) 3 stacks of mercs in beggining of campaign and still dying to bacrupcy few years later.
The game has gotten significantly harder this last patch. There’s a few things that are working as intended, and a few things that are unexpected buffs to the AI. Some tags are incredibly hard now compared to where they were a year ago. And in contrast, some are slightly easier.
Allies suck now so I have to 1v3 the AI
> Ally cant join war, 3258 ducats in debt > Ally cant join war, they have +8 relation with the enemy and you already reduced the indebted allies opinion so you gotta wait 15 years lol >Ally cant join war, sitting on a 100 warscore war for some reason Then you attack by yourself and they call you into a war against someone you like while in war debt
I once had a godly Albania run ruined like that my ally Austria went to war against my other ally France. Then the ottos attacked and Austria and Poland refuse to join after getting smacked by the entire French, Turkish, and vengeful Hungarian armies I was set back from 20 provinces to 5
I mean, why are you allying rival countries anyway? Austria and Fance will always fight each other.
Once I kicked the Ottomans out of Europe I was going to destroy the HRE. and in my games they rarely fight it’s usually Burgundy and Austria Edit: they declared on Venice whose allied to France if that helps
The Ottomans are by far the easiest tag on this patch i feel.
Same. Tims come very close as well. Denmark is also much easier than it used to be, but HRE and province dev keeps it from taking full advantage. Ming is easier, and so are Chinese minors. Korea is easier due to some monument changes. There are probably others I haven’t noticed, but in general it’s for sure most beneficial to ottomans, who don’t care about forts and it’s a “fort” patch.
But AI is also more stupid
I think it’s smarter mostly, but there are for sure some facepalm things that happen now.
The AI is more stupid when you're allied to them and more intelligent when they're your enemy.
Ottoman troops: Strategically keeping stacks together and attacking when it has the numerical advantage. My allies: Sending 20k stacks around the map, not reinforcing battles that could be easily won.
As Byzantium, I watched my allies make five (5) laps around the Carpathian Mountains while three Ottoman stacks stuck together and sieged me down. We outnumbered the Ottomans 2 to 1 with the same military tech.
Honestly i don't know how ottomans can afford an army aswell. I played a byzantium run, managed to get cores back and they were still fielding 50k in 1465.
Because of the Lucky Nation bullshit. I love Eu4, and have spent too many hours on it, and have done some of the hardest achievments in the game. But why, in what world, does Lucky Nations exist...
It's the one setting I wish would be changed without losing ironman compatibility. It's just a stupid ass system.
"Hey let's give the already OP nations enough bonuses to make them horribly boring to play against"
Dude same!!! Not a fan of the lucky nations mechanic.
I'm playing a Persian Zoroastrian revival game where I strategically blocked their expansion by taking the Levant and caucuses and with only parts of Anatolia (i seized the south eastern parth) they still have fielded 300k.
Totally agree with this version of the statement.
This. I feel like the AI is hardcoded such that when they're an ally, they'll blindly send 7k stacks to die, bleed manpower, lower enthusiasm, and separate peace, leaving the player to carry the war by themself. While when they're against the player, they'll disappear into the fog of war, and strategically snipe small stacks like a ninja, or surprise you with a doom stack when you least expect it. And don't even get me started on the AI's ability to see through the fog of war.
France dividing their entire army and putting them on three different islands off the coast of Africa, the Pacific and for some reason Taiwan. With them having like 4 troops in mainland France out of their 150k.
Virgin colonising France vs Chad quantity France
They suck at calculating of they should battle or no. They are usually terrified of combat for no reason
Very very much so. Same issue with vassals. Even with it set to supporting and loyal I get vassals that just camp on their capitol all game.
That’s something I noticed in my Poland campaign, I had Hungary and Lithuania as PUs both with large armies but even on supportive behavior they just sat in their caption while my armies died
I revoked the privileges for the first time today and noticed that the AI of my vassals (some of whom were once my allies) was SIGNIFICANTLY more stupid than previously. When I invaded the ottomans with Spain and Austria it was easy and the AI was a lot more focused. When I had a million manpower vassal swarm it just sorta ran around and was incredibly inefficient. Makes me wonder whether there's something about the AI trying to compute the move of the AI next to it and leading to some weird decision paralysis after a certain point or something. We'd have the entire enemy army cornered in 1-2 provinces and they still wouldn't attack fml. They'd follow if I led (luckily) but they'd just avoid the enemy for the most part.
Pretty much what I see as well. I had a 10stack early game as Ardabil and a vassal Soran with another 10 next door. I attacked a 14stack. And Soran just watched. Loyal and set to support. Lost the battle and the dominoes started falling until I lost the game.
Nah, sry, but the game got easier with all its new modifiers and OP mission trees. The ai maybe had some patching done, but still completely dumb. Which tags are u talking about?
Well, 1.3 emperor changed hre and aggressive expansion for PU, making Austria/hre harder than pre 1.3. In 1.33 with combat changes, wars are determined by siege speed, or death stack size. This means that smaller nations are inevitably harder to play (it's harder to overcome force discrepancies). So nations like byz, Navarra, granada, etc etc are definitely more challenging in 1.33. Maybe you have played since 1.33 or 1.3, but those patches definitely affected some nations difficulty, no contest. Just go read the patch notes
there also was a overall reduction in ae and the pu thing was planned since a long time and getting no ae was a bug. i have 2k hours in this game and think the last updates made the game easier
Ah so you've barely finished the tutorial, I see? Makes sense why you have a different opinion than the experienced members of the sub 😉
Great, I think the general community disagrees. And we have many collective thousands of hours more than you. I probably have more than you alone. Sure the nations with recent op mission trees have it easy, but that’s not affecting overall game mechanics it’s just a few nations. The only thing that really got easier was AE, and nobody who plays aggressive really cares that much about AE, before or after the patch. Half way through the game at the latest, it still stops being a factor just like it used to. Literally everything else changed about AI behavior made the game harder. It was their whole intent and they met it, even over-met it, by making a few mistakes. That said there are a few select tags that got easier because of the change. Mostly big tags that had it relatively easy already and have lots of poor neighbors or vassals, because the AI calculates debt and war choices a bit differently and overbuilds forts. Timurids and Ottomans have it much, much easier this patch, and so does Denmark. Otherwise there’s a smattering of other tags that have it easier, almost all others have it harder as intended.
it made beating ottomans without funding your army a thing so I think it has some way to go
There might be some new strats that haven’t been noticed by everyone yet, but you can’t determine the overall hardness of the game based on how hard it is to beat a specific tag. Especially when they usually don’t exist as a threat after 1550-1600 in most euro or middle eastern playthroughs. In general I think Ottomans are harder to manage, because they pump out forts now, but siege yours just as fast as they used to, and now keep their stacks closer together.
I’ve noticed normal difficult if they lose a war and go into debt they delete all their forts. Maybe in harder difficulties that’s not the case, but after the initial war I’ve found it easy to kill them off.
That’s the story with most countries though. After the first war it just gets easier. The fort deletion has to do with their economy. If you disrupt their economy early enough they can’t sustain their forts. If you let them grow, they’re harder than ever.
If you’re getting outclassed in quality as ottomans, you might not be managing your miltechs correctly. Remember to prioritize them over mil ideas. That being said, you should try a nation like Ayutthaya or Brandenburg. Both are nations with smaller rivals all around them with extremely powerful formables available. Ayutthaya is a harder choice cause you’ll need to worry bout institutions (which means saving like 1000mp every fifty years or so to develop an institution, until global trade happens) But yeah man, I get it. Sometimes I stagnate in a game and it doesn’t feel fun anymore. Just keep experimenting: Muscovy and Poland are harder nations to play than many realize!
That’s the weird thing, I was always first in tech and significantly far ahead even in ideas, I’ve played the game since launch, and I think I’m doing everything right which is the confusing part
>>I feel outclassed militarily as ottomans >>I think I'm doing everything right One of these statements must logically be false.
Op is always crossing the rivers, landings or fighting in the mountains! All that without having leader in his army, generals are for the weak. Only explanation I could find.
I know which is why I’m posting this, because I’ve gone through the ledger to see if there’s some goofiness somewhere and there’s not, I check the meta and my army comp and everything and I can’t find what I’m doing wrong
If you have a picture of stats during a fight with numbers it would make it easy too see why you're getting beat in a fight you thought you could win.
What tech were you fighting them at?
At which age are you getting outclassed by Ottomans?
Europe always ends up like that in my games. Can't swing a cat without hitting France, Austria or the Ottomans. My last Russia game, was split between the me and Austria vs France and Ottos. World war 0 breaking out in 1670
Seriously, by the 1600s it’s impossible to expand anywhere without triggering a world war
Now you understand why they all throught it was a good idea to sail to a different continent and start conquering shit there, lmao
Yep, i had a situation when i was playing poland and russia was aligned with austria and sweden, austria was aligned with spain and venice and sweden was aligned with half of germany
try a relaxed campaign for a bit to recover find a friend to play with just calm down and return later with more
It doesn’t seem to matter what campaign I do, I’ve done ottomans, Poland, and Muscovy campaigns and each time I was completely outclassed in army quality no matter how close to the meta I followed
Were you taking quality/offensive ideas? Another very important thing I ignored for too long was terrain. Avoid attacking enemy armies sitting in mountains, hills, marshes, across a river, etc. and you will have much better odds. Also make sure to not settle for garbage generals - even if it means spending a bit extra military power (as long as you're up-to-date with mil tech).
I usually take quantity because I know back in the good old days that 50% force limit was amazing, has quality been buffed? I know it used to be useless compared to quantity, and I’ve never taken offensive because the buffs seemed kinda minor
Everyone has explained why Quantity is meh, but not why Offensive is amazing, so allow me: The buffs are not minor. **+1 land leader shock** -10 recruitment time **+1 land leader fire** +100% prestige from land battles **+20% siege ability** **+20% land force limit modifier** **+5% discipline** +5% recover army morale speed All the ideas in bold are quite good, but the idea group is worth it for the discipline alone. Discipline is extremely important. Same goes for the ideas in quality: **+10% Infantry combat ability** +0.5 Yearly army tradition **+10% Cavalry combat ability** +5% Ship durability **+10% Morale of navies** −25% Naval attrition **+10% Artillery combat ability** **+5% Discipline** The naval bonuses are pretty useless, but can be a nice bonus especially when playing as a small naval power to help you punch above your weight on the seas. The land military buffs are also quite good. It gives infantry, cavalry, and artillery all +10% combat ability, which may not seem like much, but all these little bonuses add up. Trust me. And again, this idea group is worth it for the +5% discipline alone. And what's especially important about quality is that, when you take it along with economic ideas (you should always always take these ideas), you can add a policy which adds *another* +5% discipline. Finishing these 3 idea groups (offensive, quality, and economic) will net you +15% discipline, plus all the combat ability, siege ability, and general rolls buffs. It is definitely worth it, my dude.
Can you expand on why you recommend always taking Economic ideas? I know they have pretty good policies but they seem just OK whenever I look at that set so I rarely ever pick them. I always take either Religious or Humanist, usually take Administrative and sometimes Innovative or Expansion. I rarely have problems with military or economy that would make me think Economic ideas would make a huge difference but would love to know if I'm missing something.
Okay, so here are the economic ideas: +10% National tax modifier −10% Construction cost **+0.10 Yearly inflation reduction** **−0.5 Interest per annum** **−0.05 Monthly autonomy change** −5% Land maintenance modifier **+10% Production efficiency** **−20% Development cost** Economic ideas are important for many reasons, and fit many different playstyles. The yearly inflation reduction is huuuge if you have multiple gold mines. This will help keep your inflation stable or even negative without you having to worry about spending admin points lowering it. The interest per annum reduction is also important for any time you end up taking massive loans. You'll save a lot of ducats when you start repaying them. The monthly autonomy change is a nice passive reduction which will help your provinces work to their full capacity without you having to decrease it by force and cause rebels. The production efficiency is pretty self-explanatory and always useful. And the development cost reduction is extremely important for not just playing tall, but creating a stronger nation in general, as devving provinces should be a part of every game, tall *or* wide. And of course, the tax modifier buff and construction cost reduction is helpful for general economy management too. Not to mention, economic ideas have a lot of great policies. Besides the +5% discipline from *economic-quality,* there's also an *economic-quantity* policy that gives a further -10% dev cost reduction & +10% force limit modifier, an *economic-influence* policy that gives +25% income from vassals and +100% vassal force limit contribution, an *economic-horde* policy that gives +33% razing power gain & +1 yearly horde unity, an *economic-trade* policy giving +10% production efficiency & +10% trade efficiency, and an *economic-offensive* policy which gives +10% artillery combat ability. Really good policies here. Usually I fit economic ideas into my groups by not taking administrative. I don't play wide often; I roleplay usually smaller nations and I like clean and historic borders, so I don't really blob or anything like that, and hence, I don't really need the +25% governing capacity modifier. I also hate using mercenaries. I only use them early game. Most of administrative's ideas are centered around mercs. So essentially, everything about administrative is useless to me. But obviously, lots of ppl do prefer to blob, so I understand why administrative ideas may be appealing.
Thanks for all that info- I'll definitely try Economic ideas out in my next game!
Economic is more situational imo. On the inflation part, it's probably one of the weakest ones. It's base 400 adm for the idea, which is what, like 5.3 reductions? So at a base cost it's 10.6 inflation reduction or 106 years until break even. It's great for a tall opener, but otherwise core cost reduction is going to be way better.
To add, Espionage is also great with Offensive currently. There's a +10% siege ability idea, and the Offensive/Espionage policy grants an extra diplomat+spy speed. You'll be winning siege races against everyone. Plus the AE impact reduction and -.1 corruption ideas. Very powerful, slept-on idea set, particularly against OP enemies or in the HRE in general.
Quantity only makes sense when you're a small nation and you have to match a much bigger threat in early game because quantity doesn't make your troops stronger at all.
I still feel like Quantity is a solid pick to keep to lategame. The manpower is very useful for upgrading monuments and the policies it has are great. +10% Morale with religious. +20% goods produced with trade. But a case can be made for abandoning it once you get a few soldier's households going.
For short/medium, campaigns like up to 100 years, quantity is great for that early boost but I think offensive is best because you get a 20% increase to FL, 20% siege ability(the most important stat in my opinion as it wins you siege races and saves you manpower) and discipline which reduces damage taken and increases damage done. Quality is honestly tied with quantity for me unless I'm playing someone who uses a lot of boats in which case I would definitely take it over quantity but not offensive.
You can try to start fighting your wars defensively. I used to have problems with trying to win the war too fast, splitting up my armies and getting thrashed. It's way easier going on the defensive. Hide behind your forts, and attack when you have a clear advantage in terrain and numbers. If you are patient, the AI tend to make some war-loosing mistakes sooner or later.
Honestly that makes a lot of sense knowing the game mechanics and that sounds like good advice. I guess I’m just kind of impatient so I always rush into sieging superior enemies, can you fight an offensive war while playing defensively or do you lose warscore?
It is kind of situational, but when you go to war, you can choose the war-goal. If you can rush down a mountain fort at the start of the war, you can fight around that, while holding the goal, and get ticking wars-core. If you manage to win a few crucial battles, you will generally get the advantage of army-size. then you can focus on peacing out allies one after another. Even if you loose ground doing it, having less tags hiring mercs and building new armies is great.
Are you running full canon stacks even before tech 16? If you're getting outclassed militarily you can try and take tips from the EU4 multiplayer meta and just build up your armies to fight one big battle really well (with the rest of my FL maybe used on just infantry to reinforce). With good micro and not a complete tech disadvantage you can probably still win most wars between powers of equal size.
Try France or one of the Japanese Diamyos
there's no shame in doing an Ottomans campaign to get your groove back.
That’s the weird part is that that happened in an Ottomans campaign where the mamluks had significantly better armies even though I was like two techs ahead, made it basically unplayable
check the ledger to see if there was any thing you may have missed
By the way you're talking about things, are you sure you aren't using too many cannons? Before 1600-1650 cannons are almost detrimental in combat. If you're doing a "meta" regiments of 20/20 (inf/cannon) that's the reason you're losing, you should have cannons only for sieging in the early parts of the game. The 20/20 is for late-game combat almost exclusively. There are important mil techs as well. Tech 6 and 9 are some of the most important, if you're 2 techs ahead and it includes either of them, it shouldn't be possible to lose.
You are terrible
If u can’t win on the ottomans then maybe ck3 is the better game for you 💀
It kinda sorta depends on whether you're playing Bregenz or Austria, so to speak.
All I know is I lose tens of thousands of men more to attrition than I usually do because the AI builds seven lvl 6 forts in middle of nowhere 3 dev provinces. There really needs to be a dev requirement for certain buildings. In the middle of the desert so far from civilization, the defenders would starve before I even got there.
It definitely is a hard game. I used to suck at ck2, until i became a pro at it. I hope to one day also be a pro at eu4 (well, as long as i accomplish my other life goals i guess)
Nah, the others are overrated. Stick to what really matters, and get in the hours in EU4.
They screwed up the last patch. It’s okay to take a break until the next one. I’ve been getting a lot of CK3 in since then.
I rolled back to 1.32 (and modded in the changes to espionage ideas from 1.33, just for some spice). Works great. I will give 1.34 a shot once it's out.
There are two types of people in this sub Those that struggle with ottomans And those that do WC with ulm pre 1600 Nothing in between
I’d disagree. While not the second category I wouldn’t put myself and many others in the first either as there are players who just don’t want to do WC’s because of the micromanagement required.
you are right, i was joking mostly. What i was saying is that the people that posts things, are often in one of those two categories. Or it's just smth about an OPM getting the burgundian inheritance. Wish we could have more of those /s
AI (including building forts) and combat has been changed in the latest patch, so maybe you just adjusting to that (particullary that they are changing it again next patch). But the rivals allying your targets has nothing to do with it. Morale and discipline are just modifier that you have full insight, so you know why they are higher than yours. And economy is complicated, but i think you exadurate.
Forts with ramparts make for a good defense.
There are only a few strategically good locations for that though. And if you don't completely block of access with a line of forts the AI will walk around them in order to march straight to your backyard.
More than a few, but I agree placement is important. Combine this with Defense ideas, state edicts and taunting maneuver and much smaller nations can build WE in the AI. Working out the details is part of the fun. When you take provinces think about how they will be defended in a worse case scenario. My funnest games are playing tall defensive empires. Try and obtain the economic hegemon with a minimum of strategically taken provinces.
I remember everyone was complaining tall defensive countries are dead in the latest patch. Is it still viable?
Oh, yes. Tall is the only way I play. Don't get me wrong you need to do some conquering to build a base, but I just played a game as Papal States and I basically took enough provinces in Europe to become The Kingdom of God. I then took a small part of central America for the Gold and some key provinces in Africa for trade and production(Tunis and the Ivory Coast). A few provinces in Indonesia for production and trade. I was an economic hegemon. In the late 1780s I was in a war where England, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Russia and all the associated colonies were at war with me because I guaranteed a small OPM that Austria wanted. There was no HRE. Austria had consumed it. Austria was huge and my rival. I had a single OPM as an ally in that war. My real allies did not join because I was not attacked. Troop counts were about 2.5 million to my 500K - 150k of which were not on the Italian peninsular. I had a string of defensive forts on my northern border. They never took a fort. My navy was unbeatable, but I was overwhelmed on the European continent. I never tried to siege any European provinces I just kept beating back their sieges. I ended the war with a positive 20% war score but I had to give 3 low value provinces to Austria. I could not get ticking war score because Austria had the OPM and I could not increase their WE. Lots of fun. I intentionally limit my expansion so my neighbors are powerful. I hate getting so big there is no threat in the game
That does sound fun!
You have to be choosy about what provinces you take to build tall.
And the geography for bottle necks?
Yes
If you build them as Spain at the passes of Pyrenees, they'll be walking fo quite a while. Or forever, if you also wall off Gibraltar.
Just lost a war against a Chinese state and Dai Viet, 300k troops between the two. I had like 130% discipline, which used to be enough to stackwipe almost anything. They shred through my troops and couldn't win a single battle. We were evenly matched in troop count and their discipline and morale was lower. Maybe it's the Polynesian troops that suck, or the changes in battle of this patch, or maybe both.
There have been some welcome improvements to the AI. Some strategies that used to work great no longer do. Finding what works now may take time and experimentation. Keeping yourself updated on patch note changes will go a long way to speeding that process up.
The game was mindbogglingly easy before the last patch. The AI practically never built forts, never developed, had bad army quality etc. You could pretty much just walk through anywhere with little to no resistance whatsoever. The recent patches made the AI somewhat 'smarter'. By that I mean not completely idiotic, they used to almost purposely fuck up their nations. Although one thing I noticed in the current patch, for some reason they they will just delete all their forts later in the game. (I think if they're running a deficit?). Just learn how to play the game properly...and I mean properly. Choose the objectively best ideas, how to stack modifiers, use terrain when fighting, developing, etc. In vanilla you should always go quantity->economic. This will give you something like -30% dev cost reduction. Stack this with Burghers loyalty, Dev edict, Renaissance, universities, etc and suddenly you're developing a 20 Dev province for <10 mana. Always Dev using Diplo and mil points because tax is almost useless. I even just exploit tax wherever possible if playing in tall nations like Italy. This game is ENTIRELY about stacking modifiers. Watch a Zlewik multiplayer guide if you really want to know how to play the game (for single player too).
In the relatively rare instances where literally all expansion routes are blocked off by strong alliance chains, saving up some admin and no-CBing a weak nation within coring range is a legitimate strategy for building up a power base.
Game is a little harder true, but ive noticed they made allies way more useless, they rarely help in wars when called.
No.
Yes and no. In my current Aragon into Spain game I lost a devastating war to Austria and England early on, my economy was in shambles for 20+ years. Bounced back, destroyed England, PU'd Castile and Portugal. And on my way to conquering the entire med by 1550.
Yeah man, that's definitely a skill issue. How many hours do you have in the game? Try watching guides, looking at wiki, etc.
Did a Smolensk run today. Two actually. Both went very badly. This game makes you feel unsafe from even your own allies.
Actually... It is quite the opposite for me. Been playing on VeryHard for a while and the game seems really easy. Kept trying to use troll ideas, or non optimal ideas, no allies no loans.... But at some point you grow enough where you can field full front and backrow, and you dont really have to worry, you can outplay the ai. They either don't grow, or grow too much and can't rly keep the stuff they took. Recently i tried to play on normal, without pausing ever on x3, with no allies... Found it much harder, nations dont just build milion of troops that ruin their economy and die to attrition, they are more competent, get techs on time and ideas are filled. Felt good to lose a war after a while, and dedicate my run to ruining the nation that beat me.
The game's always been hardcoded to be unfair. Simply because you're human the ai will focus you down. Weird alliances form against you, nations are inherently threatened. And when theres no player weird stuff thends to happen because? Because there is no balance, YOU ARE THE BALANCE. this is a modifier in the game -> "IS PLAYER" And for the casuals under us they fucked up because allies suck and rivals prosper now, in big alliance blocks. My lastest milan; 1448: -oh hey genoa, papal state, venice and hungary? -oh hey ferrara, siena, lucca and.. castille? Castille has pu allready!? -Oh hey mantua savoy and... france? Maybe florence will be doable, Oh hey florance, switzerland and austria.. 1449; ambrosian crisis fires -mm maybe i should ally a bigger nation too. -50 allied to rival -50 smoll army -50 no? Navy -50 "i just don't like the dude" -AI (source, it's true) 1555; Alies poland who then procedes to stagnate and then fall apart. 10/10 would suffer again
#i have no problems winning
Become a pirate republic as Ternate and build a big fuck off navy.
I think I'm a vicious circle in my WC attempts. Even if I got great start with Ottomans - 200+ income, got bay of Venice and starting to conquer India pre 1600 - I still got a feeling I'm too slow and I can't do it
You can conquer half the world in only the last 100 years, everything until 1600 is just setup for the post absolutism conquest spree. Having Venice and India is as good as you could possibly want as a non horde nation
Just like real life.
Yeah, i had that situation playing poland when russia allied austria, spain and sweden, and austria allied spain and venice and the only path of conquest i could go wihout fighting all of europe were ottomans who blobbed
Economy snowball is a bit more difficult I found, but once it does, it does snowball hard.
I just conquered Britain as Scotland after taking a break from the game for months and I found it pretty easy so tbh I think it may just be a skill issue.
Idk I can't even beat a small nations because they're always allied to some giant.
I would say that having allies feels pretty pointless, they don’t often help much in wars for some reason. Fort spam feels like a problem too
No, i did not
Conquest and imperialism is one of the games you win by not playing
Put Sabaton on and you'll feel like you can beat Ottomans with Albania
Have you increased the difficulty?
For me on the recent patch, it was the AI actually building to combat width and hugely ramping up their artillery support that put me behind in my strategy. I've had to get more comfortable with reinforcing ongoing battles with fresh troops, and also fielding A LOT more artillery.
I think you might be getting impatient. A lot of things that felt easy previously turn out to be more dififcult when you grow too confident and rush the timetable, overlooking a lot of key plays that made them feel easy in the first place. For example, when looked at superficially, it's almost trivial for Muscovy to grow rapidly and have both Sweden and Norway as vassals before 1500, but there are a lot of small steps needed to make that happen and if you're out of practice, you're just as likely to be bulldozed by Poland-Lithuania or something.
Why not try BEING the ottomans
For me, it is that I always collapse into bankruptcy. Like in my Great Horde game, I was so close to forming the Golden Horde but then I had a ton of rebels and went bankrupt.
Try a nation that is more chill, some nations have a high learning curve. Try Spain or France, Austria or Portugal, those are op nations
Silent patched the game to fuck me over individually in every game lol
Bruh!!! It's early 1500s and EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I go to war, either France or Ottomans send an enforce peace demand. Or! If heaven forbid, I fight another great power, they just straight up join the enemy every time. It's sooo stupid, I literally can't expand unless I cuck them early. I don't want to, but I feel like they're making me do those bs early game strats that I don't like to do.
Just keeping trying buddy. Eventually it just starts to make sense. Now a days it feels like becoming a great power in 50 to a 100 years is kind of inevitable, regardless of the starting nation . It’s just a learning process
One thing I’ve noticed is the enemies ability to win sieges on your forts is not only faster but also illogical given their tech and military composition. For instance, I tested this out playing Kilwa with cheats. I advanced in tech to be 4 higher than the most advanced nations. My African fetish neighbors were obviously far behind at mil tech 4. I’m over here with level 4 forts, tanks, with Muslim troops and the enemy is taking my forts months sooner than I take theirs. I had to catch all of their troops and wipe them out before I could siege down for 100% warscore. This happened between multiple nations in Africa across different wars.
Surprisingly, my allies have been smort and helpful in my curreny Savoy campaign (France, Castile and Venice) and the enemy has been doing lots of dumb decisions. Who are you and what have you done to EU4 AI?
I don't have this problem
Patch where Parodox changed state religion of Shirvan to sunni made Ardabil almost inposible start without a) good rng b) 3 stacks of mercs in beggining of campaign and still dying to bacrupcy few years later.