Europa Universalis: Rome/Vae Victus

[bgfan]

Well, I got a copy of this game with the Paradox Complete Pack. Up untill a couple of days ago I'd really only given it a couple of tries (I was more into EU3 at the time), but now I've found that I actually really enjoy it. The default EU:R is a little bit less enjoyable than Rome, but I've found that Vae Victus adds so much content to the game that it's difficult not to prefer it to the other titles in the series. The individual careers and stories of the important people in the players court can really become interesting. I've found that I prefer to start out as uncivilized nations and develope them over the decades. Anyways, what are your thoughts on this game?

And don't bother throwing links to previous threads concerning this game at me, as I do know that one or two of them already exist. Most of them aren't about the game itself, so much as asking if anybody would care for an online game.

 

[Dent]

I have it as well. It's very interesting and in-depth, but it gets a little overwhelming. I've tried playing the Picts several times without success. Having different factions at work, with different family members of each faction having their own ambitions and goals, it's too hard for me to manage my ruler's popularity and the loyalty of the other factions. Before you know it, civil war as my general revolts, then barbarian invasion once I can't fight them off.

 

[Lyze]

I didn't even know this game existed! Sounds interesting though...

[me=Lyze]searches for it.[/me]

 

[Phonemelter]

Wow, never realized I had this game on Steam.

 

[russik112]

I didn't even know this game existed! Sounds interesting though...

[me=Lyze]searches for it.[/me]

Interesting it is.

 

[bgfan]

I have it as well. It's very interesting and in-depth, but it gets a little overwhelming. I've tried playing the Picts several times without success. Having different factions at work, with different family members of each faction having their own ambitions and goals, it's too hard for me to manage my ruler's popularity and the loyalty of the other factions. Before you know it, civil war as my general revolts, then barbarian invasion once I can't fight them off.

It is very tough, I find the easiest thing to do is to leave all of my forces in Pictii and stick a good general at the head of the army. Thankfully the Barbarian threat in the areas closer to Pictii seem to generally remain low and thanks to low supply levels and attrition, most barbarian armies are much weaker than they otherwise would have been by the time they launch an assault. As long as you keep you're defense and morale reasonably high there should be no problem fighting off Barbarian threats. At the beginning of my current game I managed to fight off a force 16,000 strong (the horde was 25 units, but attrition drastically reduced the size) with a meager 4,000 warriors and a level 10 General. It also helps morale if reinforcements arrive at some point during a battle. Also, when going to war with factions in uncivilized areas, break your force up into segments of 2 units and have them move separately to avoid attrition. As for politics, good policies can help to reduce the effect of loyalty and popularity. I find it prudent to focus all of my bribes on my generals. Titles can also be a nice way to buy a little bit of loyalty. Oh, and assassination is another tool that should be made use of.

 

[Dent]

Ah, assassination. What gets me in the end is the process of civilizing the picts. If you want some civ value, you have to take big hits to loyalty and popularity.
You'd think there'd be more mods out there, but the ones they do have are alright. I'm still waiting for a full conversion of EU3 to antiquity.

 

[Dodes]

is worth getting if you have something like Europa Universalis III?

 

[bgfan]

It's extremely worth it. It shares many similarities with EU3, but it also branches off in its own direction, giving it the feel of being a separate title rather than a quick cash grab. If it was based in the Renascence or Medieval period I could die a happy man. Hell if EU3 just added in internal politics similar to the ones found in this game with the next expansion I'd be extremely pleased.

Ah, assassination. What gets me in the end is the process of civilizing the picts. If you want some civ value, you have to take big hits to loyalty and popularity.
You'd think there'd be more mods out there, but the ones they do have are alright. I'm still waiting for a full conversion of EU3 to antiquity.

I've never really bothered overly with civilizing them. I conquer and occasionally manage to take some fairly civilized provinces. Once you've eliminated your rivals on the British Isles, I'd strongly recommend building a decent navy and conquering the tribes across the sea. I'd recommend going after a tribe with access to horses first (believe me they come in handy later on when you're duking it out with more civlized nations) and then proceeding on to get stone. After eliminating pretty much every other tribe in the known world, begin to go after smaller nations without powerful allies. Eventually you'll get to the point where you can fight nations such as Macedonia (they may be smaller, but they're tough to beat thanks to a tendency to make good alliances) and Crete (they have a damn good navy considering they've only got one province, plus I tend to have weak navies). After you've taken somewhere in the range of 20 provinces, strike out into the nations near Egypt. Once you've given them a good beating, check on the progress of the war between Rome and Carthage (if they're not at war just give it a year or two, and they will be) and throw your lot in with the losing side (if they're not losing too badly). This will help to insure that no nation becomes too powerful for you to contend with, plus it's great to be able to take a nation by storm while they're fighting a difficult war on the front lines. Conflict should be your friend when dealing with the big boys, I wouldn't advise engaging any larger nation while they're armies are readily available to meet your assault. It also helps if you pick an early start point, before any Nations are too large and powerful.

 

[Gabeed]

It's essentially Crusader Kings' characters blended with EU III's mechanics.  While I like the game and its internal politics a lot, it does have several issues, one of the generally-agreed foremost among them being the "cascading alliances" where most wars turn into a WW1 wherein, for example, one's attack on Sparta turns into a war involving Carthage, Rome, the Seleucid Empire, Macedonia, Pontus, Bithynia, the Ptolemies, and half of Gaul.  This was introduced in an update (in part, I believe) to turn Gaul into a confederacy that would work together to fight Rome, but it gets ridiculous sometimes.  Another issue is the the raw power of large states--rare is the game where the Seleucids fall apart, since there's arguably too much political centralization, and the map doesn't go east far enough for a Parthian homeland.  The map is really rather small, with a significant portion being worthless, untouched, barbarian-filled Germany that will likely not impact the game.  Civilization values start too high and spread too fast.  This issue, combined with a general AI aversion to naval conquest, leads to the Rome AI always sweeping into Gaul and southern Germany rather than Greece, Spain, Asia Minor, or North Africa.  And personally, I don't think the EU III casus belli/stability system works well for this period, nor the EU III peace treaties where you completely conquer a kingdom in a war, then take merely 3-5 provinces that aren't their capital in the peace agreement.  For example, it's hard to imagine the Scythians' realm getting wracked with a stability loss due to an unprovoked attack on the Bosphoran Kingdom.

Alas, it doesn't look like the Reign of the Ancients 2.0 mod is going to be coming out anytime soon, which would alleviate some of these problems and give the game some needed depth.  EU: Rome is a game in need of a patch or another expansion or something, but nothing's really changed for the last year or two.

 

[Amagic]

I jumped into this game and thought "Hey, I'm a EU3 veteran, this should be easy". Now I'm just as confused as when I first picked up EU3. 

 

[bgfan]

The interface is a lot more difficult in this game. I wouldn't recommend it if you're not an EU3 veteran. Gabeed makes some valid points, as well. My biggest gripe has always been the map size, it's just much too small.

 

[Gabeed]

If it was based in the Renascence or Medieval period I could die a happy man. Hell if EU3 just added in internal politics similar to the ones found in this game with the next expansion I'd be extremely pleased.

You really, really should play Crusader Kings if you haven't already.

 

[bgfan]

I gave it a go once over at a buddy's house. I didn't really get into it at the time, then again I had just recently gotten bored of playing EU3 after spending a week or so of pretty consistant play.

 

[Amagic]

The EU: Rome wiki doesn't have any useful information so I'll ask my questions here, if anyone can answer. Right now I want to know why I can't annex my enemy when I have conquered their tiny nation? I should have enough warscore, though the tooltips don't give much information on that. I'm playing as Rome btw.

 

[Gabeed]

You have 100% warscore, right?  And also, how many provinces do they have?

 

[Amagic]

2 provinces. But I think this has something to do with the Senate being idiotic again.

 

[Gabeed]

I can't remember whether you can annex two-province nations in vanilla, or need to whittle them down to one province first.  I also can't recall whether the Senate can potentially dislike certain peace proposals.  If there's a red dot next to Annex (as opposed to a green or yellow dot), then indeed, your Senate won't allow it . . . but I thought that the Senate only had a reaction towards a peace treaty in general.

Incidentally, starting out as a republic like Rome or Carthage is probably the most confusing way to start a game.  I actually randomly started out as Macedonia (a monarchy) when I first played it, and it's probably the best faction to start out playing as.

 

[Seltus]

The senate will always support ending a war, when the war score is 100%. I'm not sure how annexing works exactly, but I've annexed nations with more than 1 province before.

So does anyone else play with the Epigoni mod? Finding it quite good, personally.

 

[Ebin]

This is the first EU game I played, though before the Vae Victus expansion, though it added a lot to the game as I came to find out. Brought Carnutes to become a major world power and only because Egypt and Carthage destroyed Rome and inhabited it, apart from the Roman rebellion which formed a new Italian faction with Rome vanquished. The only threat that ended up being my downfall after that was Macedonia. Egypt, Macedonia, Carthage, and Me kind of waged a Cold war for a while until I overstepped the border between peace and a Casius belli. The game is really fun when you don't have rome in the picture.