How do I stop wasting my time on this shit game
No part of it is engaging, if you play as a big country you've already won and if you play as a small country it's a cockblocking sim where every major power conveniently allies whoever you need to attack next
I have 500 hours and still it finds new ways to piss me off
maybe like 5 or 10 of those hours were actually fun
Large parts of the game are literally devoted to just trying to make you buy DLCs, okay you can pirate them but the core concept of it is fundamentally wrong
You can play for hours only to be completely killed by RNG, especially with alliances, and the nigger AI always has a fucking excuse not to join your wars
The only good games I've ever had were colonising everything as Portugal (got old before 1600) and reforming the HRE as Austria (got old as soon as I pressed the last button in 1560).
Never made it past 1600 in any game because stupid bullshit or boredom get to me first every time.
HOW DO I STOP PLAYING THIS AWFUL GAME?
How do I stop wasting my time on this shit game
I shit my pants
This
FPBP
>if you play as a small country it's a cockblocking sim where every major power conveniently allies whoever you need to attack next
So?
Try getting gud for once.
Play Underdog nations
based and redpilled
I sure do like being forced to fight Spain basically solo as a newly-formed Italy, user. Yup, that's a winnable fight.
Oddly enough, I can get into this game as much as Goy 4 and CK2.
It's extremely winnable, and you shouldn't be solo as newly-formed Italy. How bad are you? I'm impressed you even managed to form Italy without a French or Austrian alliance?
rolling this
based
indisputably based
Be glad I'm not on my computer, otherwise I'd be posting my Aztec run blobbing all Northamerica and some west europe
Get fucking good
Both of those countries hate my fucking guts, I actually calculated how to get away with the final attack on the Papal State only for Austria to pick that precise time to rival me which ruined everything as it meant they led a coalition including Hungary, Venice, and some g*rmoids. My only allies at this time were Savoy, and some g*rmoids that I allied just to waste my enemies' manpower.
Anyway Milan is fucking overpowered which is how I got Italy with no good alliances and beat that coalition.
Now I'm here though there's literally no direction I can expand in without going to war with Spain, they have completely cucked me, they are the no. 1 Great Power, their rivals other than me are the fucking Ottomans and Mamluks (fuck that), they are never at war with other Europeans, they are riding out a comfy colonisation game until 1820 I feel, and there's dick all I can do about it. Not as if I'm going to test it by just playing along for another fifty fucking years or so hoping they slip up somehow.
Unironically easy, just reform Nahuatl and btfo colonies when they form because for some retarded reason that doesn't call in the coloniser. When you have two continents to yourself it's pretty easy to then conquer Europe.
Did you get the Diplomatic ideaset and have constantly working diplomats to decrease your aggressive expansion? You absolutely do not need to rush to form Italy, and you shouldn't have a coalition if you start as a big state like Milan, Savoy, Venice, or the like.
Italy doesn't need to play the expansion game but if you want, North Africa is a good avenue to start with (Tunis is typically my first target in an Italy game, despite the ridiculous coring costs). But if you're that late in the game with expansion blocked off by the t*rks and Spain, and no allies, there's not much you can do. Restart and play as Savoy this time.
Italy is bullshit strong I guarantee you can beat any kind of shitty AI spain with the land you already have
Yes it and no.
The hardest parts of the game is the start, when you united all mesoamerica and the europeans start DoW'ing you, these are the cases in which you concede defeat and try to minimize loses as you try to reform asap.
Then you expand with 4 colonizers... which is actually quite comfy if I say so myself, it's always love to have my own pet northamerican tribes as vassals
The other part of Aztec gameplay, is landing on Europe, because you're forced to no CB a nation (mostly GB), if you take 3 or 4 and all western europe will form a coalition against you and fuck you in the ass, well not really, but it's a fucking hard battle
>You absolutely do not need to rush
I want to form Rome. As far as I know that means I should take any chance I can get to conquer some more of the necessary land.
As such I had a good laugh when Spain allowed the Knights to form in Malta and I declared on them the same day. In my mind, the limiting factor on forming Italy should be reaching Admin Tech 10. Well, I was a couple of years behind that benchmark, forming it in 1515, but pretty fast overall.
>play as Savoy
kek, no. Milan or Florence are the only candidates I'm considering for this.
Okay bro, sure. But there is also Portugal, and Austria, and Savoy to worry about. The problem in this game never seems to be the guy you're actually fighting, but the fact that you're fighting three or four at once.
Then you find the weakest link and use them to break alliances, or wait for a moment of weakness to jump on.
For example if it's any other game I'd assume poortugal has no other allies so you can use them to fight spain alone and break their other alliances to fight them again five years later before they get them back.
If you use your brain and learn how the retard AI works (and doesn't work) you can do whatever you want pretty easily.
also Savoy is by far the best candidate for forming Italy, try playing them even once and you'll see why
That's cool and all but say I pick a "weak link" like Hungary (still pretty fucking strong), I still have to face the reality of beating Spain, Austria, and Hungary to break all those alliances. And they might just form some new strong alliances anyway. No rivalries or anything prevents a fucking Franco-Spanish alliance, which would be absolutely unstoppable.
Also Portugal is allied to GB because, of course, Spain and GB somehow get along.
Basically the only two major western powers that actually hate each other are GB and France, and even they never ever go to war now GB is off the continent.
Even if I somehow get the upper hand on Spain, I'd probably have to beat them three or four times just to get the Italian provinces off of them because of AE. Like, fuck, just give me a break here. Though now I think of it the pro strat would probably to just take one Neapolitan province and release them as a vassal, and take the rest in the next war as a reconquest.
Also
>Shia
You dog.
It is actually impossible to lose as Italy. You have so much fucking money from the two endnodes you control. You should be able to outtech and outmerc any opponent as Italy.
Well currently not quite enough money to support level 3 advisors. My current plan is to drop down to level 2 and try to win at least some wars with mercs, but the time pressure is getting to me.
buy vic2, get HFM, get yourself sphered by britain or germany, enjoy building factories to give your people full luxury needs
You've already lost then, watch some videos about economics and trade.
Time pressure does not exist before 1700. absolutism and admin efficiency ramp up expansion so hard it's not even comparable. to anything before.
Nigga if I collect trade in genoa and tell all the other merchants to transfer trade from nearby nodes what the fuck else is there to do
I've seen videos and outside of truly autistic micromanagement for every little bit of money I don't see what more there is I can do
Well, if it's acceptable to not even own the entire Italian region by 1600 then maybe I'm in with a shot. But somehow it just doesn't seem feasible even if I do everything I can to lower coring costs and reduce AE.
>it's another "I'm bad at the game therefore the game is bad" episode
Spawn particularist rebels (anger merchant estate) and accept their demands a day before the third age starts and lower autonomy everywhere for an absolutism jumpstart, and do everything to increase it after that. Then next time you fight someone see how much more land you're allowed to take and realize how almost anything you've done before 1610 does not matter.
>shia
>not converting the entire world to Catholicism as the Papal States.
They are reworking the estates mechanic and it's looking like it will be challenging to be big now.
Stared playing again for the "To the End of the World" chivo (As the Seleucid Empire or Bactria, conquer the regions of Gandhara, Mahdyadesa, Pracya, Maru, and Avanti". Really liking the changes, its now less mana centric than EU is. Looking forward to 1.2, and some fucking content for arabs and tibet fuckk
If you've formed Italy you can fight Spain easily
Based?
>play as medium nation
>follow the script
>accomplish goal
>repeat
Someone save me from purgatory
use your human brain and come up with things to do outside of the boring mission trees, or go after achievements or something
currently playing a Brabant --> Netherlands game and I'm at the same date as him
despite only having 1 end node as opposed to Italy's 2 I already have more money than I can possibly spend and I'm not even good at this game
that said, anyone know what it would take for Muscovy to realize that they can leave this PU whenever they god damn well please?
Fucks sake it's been a century and they still haven't bothered to do anything about it
when the first post is the best post
>challenging to be big
>in eu4
FUCK HABSBURGS
Which idea group should I took first?
humanist unless you want rebels forever, admin if you want to save admin in the long run, and definitely both asap
No seriously, look at the recent Dev diaries on their site. Reworked Estates mechanics completely replacing the old ones, and a new system for mercenaries replacing the old one as well.
They are actively trying to put constraints on blobbing and eliminating Merc spam.
defensive for op early 10% morale
Just get good.
ryazan has no alliances?
you will need to handle religious unrest as ethiopia. get religious for that, easy early blob and diplo points. humanist is just worse if you dont have any tolerance modifiers. dev push your gold mines cos you'll need the money
alternatively you could change to sunni and take something else like admin or influence
offensive or quantity will be much better for when he has to fight mamluks
estates wont change anything for blobbing, at worst people will revoke all crown land and pass on the modifiers
removing merc spam will make the game easier cos big nations will no longer have infinite troops. manpower management is easy af already except late game with lvl 8 forts or monsoon, and they are buffing base manpower so it wont be a big deal either
humanist has tolerance, huge religious unity bonus, -separatism AND flat unrest everywhere, it's far better for handling unrest than religious is, nevermind the garbage current state of conversions making it even less appealing
>estates wont change anything for blobbing, at worst people will revoke all crown land and pass on the modifiers
Maybe, depending on how well it's balenced. If you do that you may be weaker than your neighbors, and you would have revolts to deal with if you do that.
The Merc spam was because of money=soldiers. It's no longer the case so you will have to lose precious manpower when you fight wars. Slowing expansion.
tolerance of true faith can stack much higher than heretic or heathen, you can easily offset separatism and global unrest from humanist with it. -11 unrest provinces by 1600 is quite common with religious
conversion cost is overblown cos people cant wait for autonomy to lower, it only gets retarded when converting +20 dev provinces with 100% autonomy. with the -50% cost idea and low dev provinces you can convert right after conquering as long as you are managing well your economy. i would agree with you if he was playing in italy or india but around ethiopia there are like two provinces with high dev in mamluk territory and some +10 dev provinces in yemen
>you would have revolts to deal with if you do that
the way they were talking about it in the dev diary implies that rebel size depends on percentage of land owned, so revoking crownlands will actually avoid them
>The Merc spam was because of money=soldiers. It's no longer the case so you will have to lose precious manpower when you fight wars. Slowing expansion.
mercs are op because when your nation gets big money doesnt matter and you can throw it away so that you dont need to bother with manpower and do mindless blobbing. managing manpower, along with base buffs, will require more micro but wont slow expansion at all. the fact that you can wage wars of attrition against the ai will actually make the game easier
Stacking TTF with orthodox trivializes the game by the way.
with any major religion as long as you can keep converting provinces. nowadays i only take humanist when my country has tolerance of heathen bonuses e.g. ottomans or indian sultanate, when it basically removes unrest and rebellions as a mechanic. otherwise it's religious 95% of the time
Play it multiplayer
its so much more fun
Though hoi4 is more fun mp, and probably vic (though i never played with randoms)