PDOX Games VIII: Communism Will Win

[Valrifell]

With the Crusade of Italy and the overthrowing of the Cathar King of England, Catholic rulers across Europe have sent a clear message to the heretics of Christ: you will not be tolerated here.

Already, Inquisitions and priests are sweeping in to provinces where heresy has taken root, envigored with a new faith in the Church and the Pope, conversions are already occurring en masse.

The Emperor of Spain, Yngvar, has dispelled any rumors that he still clings to Germanic Paganism and has been succeeded by his grandson, Strykar.

Catholicism is saved.

[Genivaria]

My current ambition is take the Norse and mix their raiding and adventuring with Bloodthirsty.
Gonna make a culture of raiders who sacrifice their victims to dark gods.

So you won't really be changing anything at all?

That wasn't normally the Norse's thing.

[Impaled Nazarene]

The best time to have a crusade is during the Black Plague.

[Ostroeuropa]

Struggling to handle Doom as Aztecs in Eu4.
I'm already sacrificing kings every opportunity, and i'm now burning army professionalism for manpower in order to launch wars purely for the doomyscore, but can't bring it under 50. I'm only 10 provinces at 8 doom a year. I'm also hiring Mercenaries now and slowly whittling away my savings. It's a matter of simply not having enough people to war at. If I can get this next reform out i'll be down to 6 a year, which might be manageable, but that's a big if.

[Impaled Nazarene]

Struggling to handle Doom as Aztecs in Eu4.
I'm already sacrificing kings every opportunity, and i'm now burning army professionalism for manpower in order to launch wars purely for the doomyscore, but can't bring it under 50. I'm only 10 provinces at 8 doom a year. I'm also hiring Mercenaries now and slowly whittling away my savings. It's a matter of simply not having enough people to war at. If I can get this next reform out i'll be down to 6 a year, which might be manageable, but that's a big if.

sounds like your problem is that you didn't plan out your campaign. The Aztec religion requires that you plan your campaign out from the get go until you can reform out of doom. Sounds like you're still in an ok position but be warned that said games need massive planning.

[Ostroeuropa]

Struggling to handle Doom as Aztecs in Eu4.
I'm already sacrificing kings every opportunity, and i'm now burning army professionalism for manpower in order to launch wars purely for the doomyscore, but can't bring it under 50. I'm only 10 provinces at 8 doom a year. I'm also hiring Mercenaries now and slowly whittling away my savings. It's a matter of simply not having enough people to war at. If I can get this next reform out i'll be down to 6 a year, which might be manageable, but that's a big if.

sounds like your problem is that you didn't plan out your campaign. The Aztec religion requires that you plan your campaign out from the get go until you can reform out of doom. Sounds like you're still in an ok position but be warned that said games need massive planning.

Yeahh, restarting now. I'll go for two reforms before expanding to 8 provinces, then three before 10, before four for 12.

[The Imperial Reach]

So you won't really be changing anything at all?

That wasn't normally the Norse's thing.

Generally speaking if you allow or encourage your worshipers to sacrifice people in your name then you're probably not one of the "good" gods.

[Bralia]

The symbiosis I have with France and Spain is so strong in my EUIV games lately that I've getting the partner's dynasty every single time. Louis de Trastámara. Enriqué de Valois. I normally have an innate hatred towards this sort of thing, but it's just too fitting of how much I care about always having an alliance between them.

[Phoenicaea]

i ve got an issue to discuss, i view a preview of imperator: rome, and it is this. not a greater topic, a rather practical topic.

the issue is 'the issue click'. i ve seen in most cases, to levy armies (not mercenaries), to promote, migrate pops, you have to 'click' each. it sill mean click, click and shift.

do you believe it is a thing to be solved easily, with some 'more-all click button', do you find this is a base-concept issue

there is no 'bar', instead you have got 'laws'; so do you find with analogy they could have followed it also in 'click' and make a promote, levy, 'spike' (all or none) option, as in the laws.

[Rannoria]

Hey, I'm not sure if anyone put this up yet, but I'll do it just in case.

https://www.humblebundle.com/games/paradox-bundle-2019?hmb_source=humble_home&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_2_layout_type_threes_tile_index_3

Humble Bundle has released and awesome Paradox bundle, allowing you to get CK2, Magicka 2, DH, and AoW 2 for only $1. For around $6 you can get EU4, the Old Gods, and AoW 3 with it. The $11 deal isn't the best for me, but you can go ahead and check it out. Overall, the bundle is a great opportunity to get CK2 and/or EU4 if you don't have them yet.

[Rannoria]

nul

[Ostroeuropa]

Of course not. CKII is centered around dynasties; this makes theocracies in general unplayable as they were not dynastic.



>actually entertaining heathen delusions

No, no, no, sir, you're playing the game wrong. You have to adopt a bigoted mindset when playing CKII and purge everyone from your realm who isn't of your culture or religion. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to brand you an apostate now. Enjoy the dungeons.

My current ambition is take the Norse and mix their raiding and adventuring with Bloodthirsty.
Gonna make a culture of raiders who sacrifice their victims to dark gods.

Nooo.

Ragnarok - Enatic.

(Also if you switch to Norman and become a horse first that'd be great.).

More seriously there's something great about Heavy Cavalry Germanic Valkyries. Shieldmaiden is also a ridiculously powerful buff for an Enatic empire, giving +15 relations with other shieldmaidens.

Sea queen +25, shieldmaiden +15.

It also means that raiding other empires can net you an absurd amount of bloodlines since matrilineal marriage preserves patrilineal bloodlines, and you can kidnap princes and force them to marry your daughters and so on.

Going Norman also means you can shift your capital to the Kingdom of Britanny, which is a great province set.

[Ostroeuropa]

Play as the Pope.

Of course not. CKII is centered around dynasties; this makes theocracies in general unplayable as they were not dynastic.

you can have vassals of any religion with no downsides,

>actually entertaining heathen delusions

No, no, no, sir, you're playing the game wrong. You have to adopt a bigoted mindset when playing CKII and purge everyone from your realm who isn't of your culture or religion. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to brand you an apostate now. Enjoy the dungeons.

If they rebalanced things slightly and made Religious Tax compatible with Cosmopolitan it would make a good set up, but otherwise it simply isn't worth it. I wanted a Romuvan Republic game with Cosmopolitan, Religious Tax, Stability, and Autonomous, since this would maximize the set up pretty well, but unfortunately nope.

Can't religious tax as cosmopolitan, despite the two being obviously synergistic, because obviously 100% religious equality is normal for the medieval era instead of a more "You're tolerated but we tax you" set up. (Cosmopolitan preserving the usefulness of religious tax and religious tax making cosmopolitan viable.).

Another good one is Berber cultured Peaceful-African, since this stacks demesne and stewardship but preserves raiding.

[Bralia]

Of course not. CKII is centered around dynasties; this makes theocracies in general unplayable as they were not dynastic.



>actually entertaining heathen delusions

No, no, no, sir, you're playing the game wrong. You have to adopt a bigoted mindset when playing CKII and purge everyone from your realm who isn't of your culture or religion. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to brand you an apostate now. Enjoy the dungeons.

If they rebalanced things slightly and made Religious Tax compatible with Cosmopolitan it would make a good set up, but otherwise it simply isn't worth it. I wanted a Romuvan Republic game with Cosmopolitan, Religious Tax, Stability, and Autonomous, since this would maximize the set up pretty well, but unfortunately nope.

Can't religious tax as cosmopolitan, despite the two being obviously synergistic, because obviously 100% religious equality is normal for the medieval era instead of a more "You're tolerated but we tax you" set up. (Cosmopolitan preserving the usefulness of religious tax and religious tax making cosmopolitan viable.).

Another good one is Berber cultured Peaceful-African, since this stacks demesne and stewardship but preserves raiding.

Cosmopolitan Romuva must be the worst combination in the game. It's probably literally impossible to convert Old Romuva, you'd be living with revolts in your core territory until the end of the game.

[Ostroeuropa]

If they rebalanced things slightly and made Religious Tax compatible with Cosmopolitan it would make a good set up, but otherwise it simply isn't worth it. I wanted a Romuvan Republic game with Cosmopolitan, Religious Tax, Stability, and Autonomous, since this would maximize the set up pretty well, but unfortunately nope.

Can't religious tax as cosmopolitan, despite the two being obviously synergistic, because obviously 100% religious equality is normal for the medieval era instead of a more "You're tolerated but we tax you" set up. (Cosmopolitan preserving the usefulness of religious tax and religious tax making cosmopolitan viable.).

Another good one is Berber cultured Peaceful-African, since this stacks demesne and stewardship but preserves raiding.

Cosmopolitan Romuva must be the worst combination in the game. It's probably literally impossible to convert Old Romuva, you'd be living with revolts in your core territory until the end of the game.

Not if you don't have Romuvan core territories and put your capital in Estonian Suomensko provinces, which I was planning on doing in order to obtain the best impact from religious tax. Then you just need a bunch of counts on old Romuvan territory and they'll convert. I was intending to turn the Romuvan Territories into vassal republics, or perhaps give them to the Patricians. The entire point of the concept was that Romuvan is a small religion and so you can maximize religious tax benefits and use them to fuel colonization of the tribal/steppe lands.

Religious tax + Republic should lead to a ridiculous amount of money. You'll have +25% money from trade posts and provinces in the Estonian kingdom, which if you stack cities there, will be obscene, more than sufficient to hire mercs to put down revolts if you stay there.

Autonomous Romuvan gives more diplo, and there's not much point in a religious head as cosmopolitan except GHWs but meh, it's a struggle not to World conquest anyway. With Syncreticist Paganism choice from autonomous you'll get +10 with wrong religion vassals anyway. Coupled with Stability, civil wars won't be a major thing. Just put locals in charge of things.

[Purpelia]

But what's the point of choosing anything that does not give you access to maximum holy wars?

[Valrifell]

But what's the point of choosing anything that does not give you access to maximum holy wars?

Min-maxing with the other stuff might be the more optimal route, but temporal/warmongering is just always too tempting.

I get to paint the map all kinds of pretty colors.

[Serrus]

Sooooo I bought the portraits pack.
I decided to then perform basically reverse eugenics and make the most diverse Europe possible.
Mostly, I've been seducing various African courtiers. Also arranged marriages several times over. I'm doing something similar with the random Jewish courtiers (i.e. marrying them off to random vassals and other courtiers so that I can then spread Judaism through Europe, for no other reason than chaos).

[Abserdia]

So for some reason I have the College of Cardinals screen unlocked.
I don't have SoA.
I can't do anything on the screen.
No other SoA feature is available.
I don't understand.

[The Imperial Reach]

Sooooo I bought the portraits pack.
I decided to then perform basically reverse eugenics and make the most diverse Europe possible.
Mostly, I've been seducing various African courtiers. Also arranged marriages several times over. I'm doing something similar with the random Jewish courtiers (i.e. marrying them off to random vassals and other courtiers so that I can then spread Judaism through Europe, for no other reason than chaos).

How'd you get the African courtiers?

[Impaled Nazarene]

Sooooo I bought the portraits pack.
I decided to then perform basically reverse eugenics and make the most diverse Europe possible.
Mostly, I've been seducing various African courtiers. Also arranged marriages several times over. I'm doing something similar with the random Jewish courtiers (i.e. marrying them off to random vassals and other courtiers so that I can then spread Judaism through Europe, for no other reason than chaos).

How'd you get the African courtiers?

I've found if you get close to southern Spain, Sicily, or Egypt they start to appear. I assume they flee the courts of others.

[Serrus]

Sooooo I bought the portraits pack.
I decided to then perform basically reverse eugenics and make the most diverse Europe possible.
Mostly, I've been seducing various African courtiers. Also arranged marriages several times over. I'm doing something similar with the random Jewish courtiers (i.e. marrying them off to random vassals and other courtiers so that I can then spread Judaism through Europe, for no other reason than chaos).

How'd you get the African courtiers?

The Abyssinia/Nubia area. I just asked very very nicely.

[Valrifell]

How'd you get the African courtiers?

I've found if you get close to southern Spain, Sicily, or Egypt they start to appear. I assume they flee the courts of others.

You can also get some through events that involve travelling merchants.

But, yes, most will just be fleeing other courts.

[Dawetid]

How'd you get the African courtiers?

The Abyssinia/Nubia area. I just asked very very nicely.

Written “ask very nicely”, pronounced “keep giving money”.

[Abserdia]

So for some reason I have the College of Cardinals screen unlocked.
I don't have SoA.
I can't do anything on the screen.
No other SoA feature is available.
I don't understand.

It's gone now?
Is anyone else getting this bug?

Anyways...

Shortly before I invaded Hungary with the permission of the Pope, someone also usurped Poland while under vassalage of the Kaiser.