EU4 had terrible patch 1.31. Mostly I want to see if game is back in playable state in 1.32. I'm doing two big changes in addition to the usual Fun and Balance:
- all migratory natives removes
- all straits removed
I'm playing as Savoy's OPM vassal Montferrat. The interesting thing about them is that they're ruled by relatives of Eastern Roman Emperors of Palaiologos dynasty, where it survived fall of Constantinople by about a century.
I'm not really sure where I'll take the campaign. I could stay Catholic or go Orthodox, save East Rome, or go to New World, we'll see. For the first task I need to become independent.
Difficulty of Montferrat campaign mostly depends on:
- who rivals Savoy
- would Savoy's rivals support your independence
- who Savoy allies
I declared war as soon as it was possible, getting Austria, France, and Switzerland. Savoy managed to pull Aragon/Naples, Genoa, and Mulhouse.
As it's been quite a while since I last played EU4 for real (not counting 1.31 which doesn't really count as AI was broken), I followed the "hire mercs way over force limit, ignore how much they cost" strategy.
I got Mullhouse out of the war. I gave Aragon a French province and 10 gold to go away. Then Austria white peaced on my side, which mostly cost them their share of gold. For all my troubles I got 3 provinces, and 6 countries wanting to join a coalition against me. Fortunately I had truce with Savoy and Genoa, Milan foolishly guaranteed me, I sent diplomats to Ferrara and Lucca to get on their good side, so it was just my rival - OPM Saluzzo - who wanted the coalition. Also it's totally embarrassing to have an OPM rival.
After the war France remembered it actually hates Austria, so it cannot be allied to Austria's ally. Also that one French province I gave away, they were not very happy about that. I got Ferrara and Florence instead, which was definitely a big downgrade. Austria looks strong, but won't join in any internal HRE war, so they're actually not that useful. And Switzerland still hates me for selling that French province. Not sure why they do, while Austria doesn't care about that - they were all in the same war.
Milan broke their guarantee of me, and that created a two-sided truce between us. WTF? Since when does it work like that? I'm pretty sure it didn't before this patch. Really disappointing, as Milan is the only nearby country with no strong allies.
Inexplicably I got Renaissance in Montferrat. I guess it spawns generally in North Italy, but that was really random. I developed my capital to 30dev for age objective, and also because I was a bit stuck between alliance networks so couldn't really expand too well, but only after Renaissance spawned anyway.
With some clever diplomacy I got Poland as an ally. Overall that DLC-locked estate privilege that gives +25 diplomatic relations with all same religion countries is a bit paid-to-win level stupid.
There was a second war to do. By abusing the 1.31's "curry favors" mechanic, which is still very unbalanced, I got Florence, Ferrara, and Switzerland to join my war against Milan. Unfortunately even stacking all the opinion bonuses, I could only take two provinces from Milan, and break Lucca's alliance with Austria.
So far my dev went from 12 to 98:
- 12 dev - starting
- 21 dev - developing capital
- 40 dev - taken from Savoy
- 25 dev - taken from Milan
I can't really expand much faster, AE and paper mana are both blocking me.
So far the game is definitely a lot better than 1.31, but balancing is still quite questionable.
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