Europa Rule the Waves

by on January 21, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the thirteenth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold
Common Sense: Uncommon Changes
The Cossacks: Cossack Estate
Mare Nostrum: Paradox’s Sea
Rights of Man: Institutions of Man
Mandate of Heaven: Mandated Ages
Third Rome: First Moscow
Cradle of Civilization: Immersive Cradle

The next expansion for Europa Universalis IV after dealing with the Near East was another immersion pack, this time focusing on the British Isles and surrounds—an area that had already gotten attention, such as the special British government type, in Common Sense. This drew some, deserved, ire from fans who had been hoping for something else, though Paradox certainly found things to do here. Rule Britannia was announced on February 6, 2018 released alongside patch 1.25 on March 20, 2018.

Missions

Missions had originally shown up in EU III, where they were a fairly limited system to give players an immediate goal they could work towards. In IV this had been improved by giving a choice of three missions instead of just randomly assigning one. As of this patch, this was scrapped for a new system.

Missions moved to a new separate tab in the country interface. This graphically shows the various missions available, and how they relate to one another. These relationships generally existed in the old system, but were hidden away, so the player could not see if there were more missions that might open up from accomplishing something, and what the conditions for them were. Decisions now had a tab to themselves, though in 1.26 the tab would also get an interface for policies (which had been introduced in patch 1.6, and were underserved at this point).

There’s a set of three chains of five missions each that a country will get if it doesn’t qualify for anything else, and of course a lot of missions based on particular countries, as well as regional missions, unlocked by the position of a nation’s capital.

Most of the expansions after this point have added further specific missions, but some earlier expansions got them too. Coptic nations get five missions with Rights of Man, and the smaller Russian nations (i.e., not Muskovy and Novgorod, which get their own sets) get ten unique missions with Third Rome. Rule Britannia itself of course has missions for England/Britain, as well as Scotland, and the various Irish countries, with the former two still having some unique missions without the expansion.

This resembles the focus trees from Hearts of Iron IV, though there’s still plenty of differences. The focus trees are generally something you’re always working with, whereas the missions may have to wait a while before you can get to some. For instance, one of England’s first missions is “The War of the Roses”, which requires either completing that disaster, or getting to the Age of Reformation. Which brings up the greatest weakness of the system. While multiple missions might depend on completing an earlier one, there’s no place where completing one locks out an alternate choice, nor is there any way to fail a mission (which might lead to other choices going in a different direction).

New Lands

The main focus of the patch was of course a rework of Northern Europe. Namely, Ireland was expanded to thirteen provinces, each of which start as a one-province minor (except for the English Pale, which is a province). Scotland was reworked a bit, and the Kingdom of the Isles split off. The Low Countries were also reworked into a larger number of provinces, with good development levels to showcase what was one of the richest areas of Europe at the time.

Naval Doctrine

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8642652/europa-universalis-iv-rule-britanniaThe big ‘general purpose’ addition of the expansion is the ability to set a naval doctrine for a permanent bonus. Any country whose naval force limit is above a minimal level (20), can do this.

Surprisingly, this takes money, not diplomatic power, to do, and is not cheap. It’s far from expensive, and as mentioned is permanent, though you can spend money again to change the bonus.

There are four common doctrines, which boost naval maintenance, galleys, trade power, or the chance of capturing ships in combat. There is also a selection of twenty-six optional ones (plus a Mamluk set which can replace the main four) which will take up the fifth slot. It seems like anyone will probably qualify for one of them, though there’s no “default”, so it may be possible to only qualify for the main four.

It’s a neat idea, but seems a little static. It won’t be hard to afford a bonus once and then ignore it for the rest of the game, which I imagine happens fairly often.

Anglicanism

The expansion includes a new Christian religion: Anglican. This is historically the English church as it evolved under Elizabeth I, but it is available to any country in the British culture group.

The religion grants discounts to development and technology, making it handy right there. It also uses the church power mechanic seen in other Christian religions, which is then used to buy a number of instant bonuses (instead of permanent aspects and the like). This includes the ability (with Rights of Man) to divorce the current consort for a bonus in monarch points, and to gain a consort, with a large boost to the odds of getting an heir.

The more “regular” bonuses are quite varied and can help international relations (…with other non-Catholic Christians) as well as various domestic stats. These all generally cost the standard 100 points, but there’s a good military bonus for 200, and a 200-point purchase to boost stability.

There are two problems: The event to convert to Anglicanism happens once, and even after that, you generally can’t convert to it manually. So if it passes you by for one of the other countries in the area, you’re probably stuck. The event does have an option to create a Center of Reformation for Angicanism, but that’s not the historical option, so it is unlikely from an AI player. The other trouble is that this isn’t in the timeline at all, so the only way to get it is through the event in play; you can never start with it.

Innovations

A surprising new feature with the patch is an innovation rating. Like many new features, it’s 0-100 track, but it is more complicated and nuanced than many more recent ones.

Getting a technology either first, or just after anyone else, grants a +4 bonus, and +2 for an idea (which is possibly a bit easier, as there’s a larger number of idea groups to pick from). However, the main shifts will be a +0.01/month from being ahead of time in at least one technology (as long as your ruler isn’t hopeless in all three, that can be done), or -0.03/month from being behind your neighbors.

So, most of the time, most nations should be able to get the slow increase from being ahead on something. The benefit is a reduction to all monarch power costs. There’s also a secondary benefit of a reduction to army and naval tradition decay. These cap at a fairly modest 10% and -1%, but over the course of the game, that can certainly add up.

To a certain extent, this is a ‘rich get richer’ effect, as the better-positioned nations will have a much easier time gaining some innovation than others (especially the great powers from Rights of Man, who are more likely to get the bonus monarch power from high power projection). Nations disadvantaged by the institutions will have a rough time, meaning this is an extra hindrance on them. I’d complain, but I already suspected that institutions are overall not as rough on many nations as they should be.

Industrialism

A surprising addition for the expansion is a new trade good: coal. Certain provinces can change from their normal goods to coal late in the game. These provinces are predetermined, with four of them (out of about 50) in England (plus one in Scotland). This means England is likely to get the trade bonus for the commodity, which is a bonus to goods production.

Coal has a very good trade value, and instead of building a manufactory in its province, it can get a furnace. You would expect that to just be another form of manufactory (+1 unit of trade good produced), but instead grants a global +5% goods production.

None of this happens without the Enlightenment institution, so it is restricted to post-1700. It’s meant to be on the same order of value as gold provinces, but for the late game. It’s a clever idea, and Britain certainly was going over to coal use during the later Eighteenth Century, but it seems a bit out of place, and there’s not a lot of need for more money in the late game.

Conclusion

I can see why people would complain about an expansion not having anything of general interest in it. But I disagree. The entire point of these expansions, and what makes them work, is that they are optional. They don’t have to have something for everyone.

And the effort to have general interest here falls a bit flat. I think having a naval mechanic like the army professionalism introduced in Cradle of Civilization would be a neat idea, but the single-bonus system here isn’t as interesting. Of course, naval matters are often limited enough to probably not deserve a more wide-ranging mechanic, but I still feel this is a missed opportunity. Innovation and Industrialism are better (especially the former), but it is layering on yet another complicated mechanic, and only recommended for someone fairly deep in the game.… who are also the people complaining, so, good audience targeting.

And I’m a bit mixed on missions. In general, I like idea, but would like to see even more flexibility than we have. Maybe a true rework of the concept in EU V would be worthwhile. At any rate, they are now the primary “draw” for any regional expansions, and will help make them worthwhile. And without that, there’s still enough different mission trees in the base game to make it work.

As for this expansion. Well, if you’re interested in playing in the British Isles, get it, naturally. Otherwise, I think the innovativeness rating is interesting, but not enough for a purchase, and the other features are good, but not worth a purchase either.

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Heart of China

by on December 8, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the fourth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Hearts of Iron IV. See the previous reviews here:
Hearts of Iron IV: Heart of Production
Together For Victory: Commonwealth of Iron
Death or Dishonor: Heart of Eastern Europe
After two country packs, the head Hearts of Iron developer put together a list of features they were looking at for improvements and changes for future patches, before announcing HoI IV’s first major expansion on November 15, 2017. Waking the Tiger was released with patch 1.5 on March 8, 2028. It, and the two earlier county packs, Together for Victory and Death or Dishonor, were incorporated into the base game as of March 14, 2024.

Ununified Support

National unity was broken up into stability and war support for this patch. Unity had been introduced in HoI III, to force countries to capitulate after the major sections were occupied, but now they wanted to add some nuance.

Stability represents a country’s internal processes, so strong party support adds to it, and at high values it grants industrial output and political power (the currency that lets you reform the government and work through the focus tree).

War support limits conscription and production laws, so a country with low war support can’t institute the higher levels of these laws. Fascist nations generally start with high support, but aggressive actions will cause high support in their victims, so they can put themselves in a bad position.

All of this came with new events and other options hooked into the new system. It’s a good idea, though it hasn’t interfered with me enough to give me a good idea of how it changes things.

Decisions

The biggest change for the patch was that a new top button was added for a decisions screen (or side bar). The primary goal was to allow more time-sensitive actions than the focus trees could allow, and add more flexibility to the game.

Even a country with no targeted content can expect to have a propaganda section, used to drum up support when world tension is already high. There’s also a good number of general political actions that can be used to steer away from particular factions, increase support, and a few other trade-offs.

Many parts of the world have further resources available by taking a decision to “develop” them. This generally requires some level of excavation or construction technology, and takes time as well as civilian factories to complete.

There are of course, lots of more specific decisions for the big countries, revolving around various historical options. Some focus tree events will trigger new decisions (for other powers), and some independent events have been moved to decisions, mostly so they are not things that must be dealt with that instant, bogging down a busy multiplayer game.

Overall, it’s definitely a good addition to the game, and opens up a lot of flexibility on how to handle things. My main problem with it is just being used to not handling things that way.

Revisions

The new focus trees from the previous two country packs had as part of their options some true alternate history bits to send each country towards the other factions. This had proved much more popular than originally thought, so Paradox added these kinds of options to Germany and Japan at this point.

Germany’s full tree has not changed since (that I can see) but the major political branch is only available with Waking the Tiger. This has elements of the army start a civil war to throw Hitler out, and Germany can either go democratic or constitutional monarchy (unaligned) from there.

There’s still a lot of choices within that tree, and it can even get a sixth research slot. There is no branch of the focus tree that gives a communist government (there are still other ways to do it), though there is a part of the army branch that can give a full alliance with the USSR and disband the Axis in favor of the “Berlin-Moscow” faction.

Japan got a redone tree with the political parts also hidden in the expansion (more understandable, but Germany should have been free to start with). There’s the historical fascist branch, an unaligned branch, and a democratic branch. The last causes a civil war, and forces Manchukuo independent, and in control of Korea.

The Communist branch is even worse, with a civil war that sees most of the generals and the Japanese navy go over to Manchukuo. But all ideologies are available, and Japan is capable of starting a faction in any branch, though some are simply to take the place of a major faction abandoned by someone else’s abandoned historical route.

Past that are the usual paths to boost research, get the fifth research slot, and other effects. However, Japan does have three unique units available. Army expansion leads to bicycle infantry, which has slightly better speeds in some terrain, and better suppression (of insurgents). The naval branch has torpedo cruisers (an alternate light cruiser type to represent Oi and Kitakami, who were outfitted with a very large number of torpedo tubes). The air branch allows for kamikazes.

Additionally, Japan gets an extra national spirit with Waking the Tiger: Interservice Rivalry. This starts balanced, but there are decisions to swing it towards the army or navy, which change dockyard and military factory production, and the decisions themselves have good effects.

Personally, I find the wilder political options too unbelievable to be a fan. Apparently, I’m a minority, but I’d like a middle ground with some options, just not as ahistorical as these often get. I’d also have thought it’d be a good idea to keep the full German tree available to everyone (they are the most popular power to play), and just put the full Japanese tree in the (thematically appropriate) expansion.

China

China is struggling with a civil war through this period, and is broken up into two ‘name brand’ nations: (Nationalist) China, and Communist China, which each get their own focus tree, and a number of warlord states, which all share a general tree for them.

Nationalist China gets five new national spirits with the expansion, three of which severely limit China’s military. Army corruption makes all units half as effective, and take longer to train. This can be earned off with the army reform focus, followed by a series of decisions, which all cost army experience, so it won’t happen until deep into a shooting war. Incompetent officers reduces the new command power currency to nearly nothing, and can be bought off after the army reform.

There is also low inflation, and a number of focuses will raise or lower that. One of the goals of the Chinese government is to introduce a welfare state, which will raise stability and war support, but will generally increase inflation. Naturally, it is harder to reduce it, though it can be done.

Communist China is currently on the losing end of the civil war, and with the expansion has four national spirits that only have negative effects. There’s multiple routes to getting rid of them, but they’re also far from the only problem. Non-violent solutions to the civil war are included, but have their own, quite high, costs (generally in political power, but also possibly in infantry equipment).

The international section of both focus trees are the same, and deal with inviting various Western powers into the country to help out (including possibly collaborating with Japan, but the historical parts deal with things like the Burma Road).

A new behind-the-scenes feature is that the shared focus tree above is really ‘shared’ at the coding level. The warlords’ focus tree has a branch to support the Nationalists, which will then swap out their focus tree for the main Chinese one, and a branch that does the same for the Communists. And then there’s a branch that puts them into opposition to both, side with Japan, and proclaim themselves as the true Chinese government.

Finally, there is a concept of political support points, to shift who is in charge of China as a whole. This becomes important a little into the game, once actual political maneuvering is underway. Basically, each province contributes some points to showing who has legitimacy. Part of the Communist abilities is to undermine this and get provinces they don’t control supporting them.

Also, Manchukuo (Manchuria under Japan) gets its own focus tree, with a copy of the general Chinese foreign investment branch. The other part of the tree splits between staying obedient to Japan, and going independent to reclaim China and expel Japan on its own. The ruler of Manchukuo is actually the heir to the Qing Dynasty, so it can form the Chinese Empire under the right conditions.

Overall, the expansion really does a good job with China, and gives it mechanics that make it operate in a much more realistic way. The biggest problem is the political support points are under-explained, and often just not visible, even though they’re extremely important.

Resources

There are two basic reworks of resources as part of the patch. First, the amount of resources from an area is dependent on the infrastructure there, so building infrastructure in your resource-rich states now grants more resources. They also redid the interface to show this and better show the current infrastructure while building more.

Synthetic oil production was also redone. It used to be every level of the technology allowed another refinery per state. Now, the first level always lets you build up to three, and there are two branches under it.

Each technology in one branch adds one oil production to every synthetic oil refinery, and the other branch adds one rubber production. This means you can now concentrate on the resource that is causing all the trouble. (Or take both, if you’re short on both.) It’s a very nice change, and makes the refineries even more useful.

Enhanced Command

The patch introduced some unit hierarchy. Army groups became collections of armies, and field marshals can be promoted from generals to lead them. The general idea is you can now do planning at this level, and let the system assign frontages to each army, and so on. You can even work out plans at both levels, and once an army plan is done, it’ll default to the army group plan. And if you skip the army group level of command, the field marshal in charge will still provide bonuses to everything under him.

It is a far cry from the full chain of command from HoI III, and personally I’d like to have corps as an optional container to order several divisions at once. But, it is a good enhancement to the existing army system, and there are places where it’s very handy.

They also reworked the basic leader stats. They still have an overall skill level, but this is now generally for determining when/how they level up, which grants three points in four skills, attack, defense, logistics, and planning (for generals, admirals use maneuvering and coordination in place of the last two). So, now some leaders are much better at defense than attack, for instance.

Some of the trait system was reworked to go with all this. There’s a bunch of mini-trees of traits, which can be earned by experience, but you now have to go in and confirm them. Overall, I like the changes, but I don’t care for how the traits are now organized, nor the need to micro-manage.

Conclusion

For some, this expansion is a bit disappointing, as it can definitely feel like a country pack writ large. There are some important overall changes here, but they’re mostly on the patch side. Possibly the most valuable patch feature is one I haven’t mentioned, where you can attach air units directly to armies. The air unit will then follow it around, reducing micromanagement of air assets.

That said, there is a lot of content in the expansion; I’m surprised they generally just mention China and Japan for the focus trees, when there’s four different Chinese focus trees. More general content is a bit low, however, with the field marshals being the main standout.

At one point, I’d have probably given this a limited recommendation. Japan and China is an important part of WWII to flesh out, and if you want a proper global war game, that needs to be in the mix, and I think they did a good job with it. That said, if you’re the type to avoid naval warfare, you’re probably also avoiding Asia, and may not notice.

But now, it, Together for Victory, and Death or Dishonor are part of the base game. The stated reason is so they know the features from those expansions are available to everyone for building off of. I can only speculate which ones they have in mind, but the expanded German focus tree is a possibility. I suspect the enhanced puppet types from the first two are also part of the reason.

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Colossal Expansion

by on October 1, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the fifth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Stellaris. See the previous reviews here:
Stellaris: Paradox Among the Stars
Leviathans: There Be Dragons Here!
Utopia: No Place Among the Stars
Synthetic Dawn: Synthetic Intelligence

The second major expansion for Stellaris was announced on Jan 1, 2018, and came out on Feb 22. It continued the idea of large projects from Utopia, and patch 2.0 accompanying the release of Apocalypse was a major rewrite of the basic game.

This is the patch that I initially played the game, and so 2.0 is the version I generally referred to in the original review, and this one will still be primarily concerned with new features. But it is worth noting that the list of major changes in patch 2.0 is practically longer than this review. I’m also noting all the things the expansion currently unlocks, including things like origins, which did not exist at the time of release.

Marauders

A noticeable expansion feature carries on from the fallen empires of the base game, and the stations from Leviathans. A new type of advanced pocket empire can spawn as part of the setup of the galaxy. These marauders are about the size of a fallen empire, and start with many powerful fleets.

Most of the time they are quiescent like the fallen empires, but do take a much more active role. They have a highly violent militarized society, and will regularly extort resources from their neighbors. Not paying up means they send those big fleets after you and shoot up the neighborhood. At the same time, they can also be hired as mercenaries, either loaning a fleet to a regular power, the services of a high-skill admiral, or hired as ‘raiders’ who will target another empire (who is presumably currently at peace with you).

The good news is while much more powerful than an early player empire, they are a long ways down from a fallen empire, and as the game moves into the later stages, regular empires become much more powerful than they are. But they are a real force to recon with through the mid game, and their mid-game crisis event is a good shakeup to the game.

Bigger Ships

The expansion enables two new ship classes. The easier one to get at are titans, large capital ships with their own limit on construction (instead of the ‘pool’ used by all corvettes, destroyers, etc.). Like with the regular ships, getting access to this size requires researching a technology.

However, once that is done, a shipyard starbase requires a special module before construction can be started, so there is a lead time to being able to build them (which of course takes a while) after getting the technology. Once you have the technology, you can always build one titan, the limit goes up from there depending on the empire’s overall naval capacity.

The second new class are colossi, even bigger ships that can only be gotten at by having titans and taking an ascension perk to enable them. They also require a starbase module at a shipyard to build, and have a much harder limit on construction (generally, one).

They also only have a single weapon slot (type “W”) as opposed to titans, which are essentially battleships writ large. These do one thing: destroy planets (or something equivalent). The main version just puts an impenetrable shield on the planet, making it effectively dead, but with a society research bonus, while the world cracker will destroy it, leaving a mineral deposit. There’s another three more specialized variants, plus two more available in combination with other expansions.

A third addition is actually the ion cannon, a special type of defense platform that can be built at starbases (but only at the most advanced, “citadel” type). They eat a number of platform ‘slots’, and have relatively high upkeep, but have the basic type “T” weapon of a titan, and can destroy most ships at extreme range.

Both of the ships are space opera ideas, and pretty much straight out of Star Wars, with the titans being Executor-class star destroyers, and colossi the Death Star. Even titans can be a pain to get to, but despite some tries at giving smaller ships their own things to do, big ships generally dominate everything else in combat, so building titans is always worth going after. I’ve never gotten to using a colossus, since I’m generally content to defeat someone militarily. Though some planets have an amazing number of ground forces….

New Knick-Knacks

There is one new civic available with the expansion: barbaric despoilers. This can’t be removed later, and demands militarist, authoritarian, or xenophobic ethics. It unlocks a couple of fairly marginal effects, but prohibits migration treaties and some federation types.

Two new origins are unlocked by Apocalypse: life-seeded and post-apocalyptic. The former indicates a species was “seeded” there some time in the distant past, and means they start out on a max-size Gaia world with features to generate the three main strategic resources. The latter merely means the empire starts on a tomb world, and there are a few civics they can’t have. It also means they have the survivor origin species trait that grants good tomb world compatibility (but does not give them a tomb world preference), and adds to leader lifespan.

Humanoids

Humanoids is a species pack to add extra variety to humanoid aliens, featuring new portraits, city art, and ship models. Originally released when species packs were mostly just extra art assets, it has since become a fairly extensive package of new civics, origins, and other traits. It was originally released on December 7, 2017, with patch 1.9.

It includes a new preset empire, the Voor Technocracy. They’re a materialist authoritarian science directorate from an arctic world. They have a good mix of species traits (quick learners, talented, adaptive, and repugnant), but don’t actually use anything specific to the expansion (most of which was added later anyway).

The clone army origin gives an empire whose population is… well, warrior clones, whose original masters have disappeared. They start with cloning technology, and get an archaeological site on their homeworld. The population all get the clone soldier trait, which gives them shorter lifespans, and only reproduce through cloning. They do get a bonus to ground combat, and the trait may be replaced with one of a pair of enhanced versions (clone soldier ascendant/clone soldier descendant).

Three new civics are included. Pompous purists is a xenophobic civic that helps with establishing diplomatic relations, but can only initiate interactions, and cannot receive them. Pleasure seekers can increase population growth and amenities, while allowing the decadent lifestyle living standard (extra upkeep in return for happiness and trade value). Masterful crafters replace artisans with artificers to generate more consumer goods and trade value. With MegaCorp, the last two can be used as the corporate civics corporate hedonism and Mastercraft Inc.

Two new negative species traits are included: psychological infertility is the opposite of existential iteropathy (available in the base game) and lowers population growth during wars and crises. Jinxed increases the maximum number of negative traits a leader can have (a concept not introduced until 3.8 and Galactic Paragons).

These are all secondary, or specialized traits and the like, but it is a large collection, and I recommend getting Humanoids on the strength of all the new options. The original point, art assets, are just an extra bonus.

Conclusion

Under older models of development, patch 2.0 would have been Stellaris II. A lot of the basic underpinnings of the game changed, more than any old, large, expansion would have bothered with. There are people out there who miss the 1.x version of the game, and I can’t speak to that, as I haven’t really played that version. From what I’ve seen, I think the original version was a bit too ambitious, trying to borrow mechanics from every other space 4X game. 2.0 went to an easier to work with system for warfare, and a lot of the changes hang off of that.

In the meantime, the expansion features seem small in comparison, especially as it is supposed to be a major expansion, but it doesn’t add much in the way of new mechanics. But the marauders and titans are really good additions, and I recommend the expansion on their strength.

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Immersive Cradle

by on August 26, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the twelfth in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Europa Universalis IV. See the previous reviews here:
Europa Universalis IV: A Fantastic Point of View
Wealth of Nations: National Trade
Res Publica: A Tradition of the People
Art of War: Reform-Minded Patch
El Dorado: Expansion of Gold
Common Sense: Uncommon Changes
The Cossacks: Cossack Estate
Mare Nostrum: Paradox’s Sea
Rights of Man: Institutions of Man
Mandate of Heaven: Mandated Ages
Third Rome: First Moscow

The second regional “immersion pack” for Europa Universalis IV was announced on October 13, 2017, and released a month-and-a-half later with patch 1.23 on November 16. Cradle of Civilization concentrated on the Middle East, with a number of new features for governments in the region. Follow-up patch 1.24 was released on December 12th, focused on optimization.

Previously On

The most noticeable free update was a new startup screen. Similar to the one introduced to Crusader Kings II in patch 2.4 back in 2015, it has four tabs, the first of which describes recent history and what is going on in the area. At this point, 29 countries had individual histories, with everything else getting regional ones, and they’ve only added to this with every pretty much every major patch since.

The other three tabs talk about your religion and government, and features of the general area you are in. Any features particular to expansions you have will be pointed out with that expansion’s icon in the text (features from expansions you don’t have will not be mentioned).

This is a great addition for new players, and frankly can be very helpful for anyone when starting in an unfamiliar area. For example, the situation in the Timurid empire (mentioned below) is nicely spelled out, letting you know what’s coming.

Reworks

The map was refreshed in a number of places. One of the most obvious was the Arabian peninsula, where Yemen was split up into a number of competing states, as there were multiple claims to power and civil wars in the area in 1444, with Yemen itself still directly controlling a few provinces, but it is also formable by the other states in the region. The rest of the area got much the same treatment, especially the Hejaz.

Egypt was reworked into much better looking provinces along the Nile, while a couple new countries were added to Syria to represent some of the tribal confederations (the same was done in Arabia). Armenia was made a new formable nation south of the Caucasus, and Georgia is now formable (as well as historically existing in 1444, but now split up a bit).

The Timurids are split up into a central (still powerful) state, and a number of vassals, representing the various governors. It’s got modifiers to keep it stable, until Shah Rukh dies (which historically happened in 1446), when civil wars and breakaways become likely.

The Ottomans had already been detailed in Rights of Man, but now other Turkish countries can potentially claim their title of Sultan of Rûm and take over the Ottoman mechanics introduced in that expansion. Additionally, that government type gains the ability to assign pashas to states, which increases autonomy, but reduces costs.

Islam had started out with an extra mechanic of the type that was later instituted in various expansions for other religions. Piety measures a scale from mysticism on one end to legalism on the other. This was brushed up for the patch, with rewritten events, and then new abilities that can be triggered with the expansion. In addition, the expansion gives each Islamic country gets a school of law, which grants an extra bonus trait, but also affects diplomatic relations depending on how two countries’ schools get along (-25 relations if they hate each other…).

A last notable change of the patch was the addition of five new trade goods. Gems, glass, incense, livestock, and paper were all added to the trade network. They have no real outstanding qualities, but of course provide their own unique bonuses for controlling trade or production of these new commodities.

Military Reform

The expansion introduced two new mechanics for the military, both dealing with the transition to highly-drilled professional armies in the period.

Drill is tracked on every regiment separately, and high drill increases damage done and decreases damage received, so a force with high drill will have a substantial advantage against a force with no drill.

The problem is that drill naturally trends downwards, and replacing losses naturally sucks all the drill out (the replacements are considered completely undrilled). The only way to increase drill values is to… drill your armies. This requires the army have a leader, and reduces morale to low levels, and forces that army to full maintenance costs, meaning that a poor country won’t be able to drill often or effectively.

The good news is that drilling has a chance of increasing the leader’s abilities, and increases army professionalism, the other new mechanic. Professionalism makes mercenaries less desirable, as recruiting them is the main way to make that value go down.

Professionalism is another 0-100 meter, and every twenty points grants a new ability, such as building supply depots, which raises supply limits and lets you reinforce in captured territory as if it were the home country. At the same time there’s scaling bonuses to damage dealt and siege ability.

Overall, while it’s “just another mechanic”, it’s a fairly natural one, and naturally lines player motivations up with historical trends, which is really nice to see. However, the passive professionalism bonuses are a bit small to my thinking, while the drill does much more heavy lifting in combat. In general this is all fine, but I am concerned that armies lose too much drill after combat from replacing losses. The real problem is there’s no counteracting veterancy caused by having been through a battle.

Mamluks and Tribes

Part of the rework of the Middle East was the introduction of two new government types. The Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Qoyunlu (along with some smaller Arabian countries) are tribal federations, who get bonuses to conquering territory with a lower cost to take it in a peace, and less separatism once they have it.

All of this was in the patch, with the expansion adding the ability to gain tribal allegiance. (I believe this was later added into the base game.) Tribal allegiance is another 0-100 meter that naturally empties over time, but winning battles and humiliating countries in wars can drive it up fast, and then used to buy bonuses, much like principalities and veche in Third Rome. In this case, they can get a good general, a bonus to cavalry, or get six free cavalry units (which will need maintenance, but you don’t pay to hire them).

The Mamluks got the unique Mamluk Sultanate. While they have the normal legitimacy mechanic for monarchies, they do not use the normal rules with heirs and consorts. Instead, they always choose an heir when the current sultan dies, with one choice having high legitimacy, and having Circassian culture. The other choices will have a culture from within the sultanate, but their initial legitimacy will be quite low (and if you have spare military power, the strengthen government action can help with that…).

The sultan’s ratings for administration, diplomacy, and military also power government abilities of the same style that seen in the new Russian governments of Third Rome, but using them largely depends of having provinces of the same culture as the sultan, so the Circassian choice is safe (high legitimacy), but doesn’t have access to all the special abilities (as Circassia is outside the Mamluk’s initial borders).

Back East

Patch 1.24 added a fair amount of detail to the Philippines, with three new nations in the north, and another four in the south. There’s a mix of religions in play, and each region has their own idea groups. About half the area is occupied now, still allowing colonization to happen, but giving some of the more organized parts their due.

Also, the Oda clan was added to Japan, with their own idea group. Nobunaga doesn’t show up until 1551, but they get some good warlord-oriented ideas, starting with better infantry, featuring extra pips for leaders in shock, fire, and siege, and a bonus to fire damage.

Conclusion

First off, I am always happy to see good map reworks that put in more historical nuance. And both patches did a very good job at that. I also think the new introduction screens are well done and overdue. The new trade items are nice (especially with the expanding number of provinces), but all the new events and nations are the bulk of the patch and very nicely done.

The main general expansion feature is army professionalism and drill. I’m a little mixed on that. It does nicely align player motivations with what they’re representing, which is great. But I think it falls down a bit as there should be some way for battle experience to factor into the mix (which would also keep mercenaries from never being any better than non-drilled troops, even though, as mercenaries, they were largely better experienced than early armies). Thankfully, it’s not a really big complication, though ignoring it may leave your military outclassed in the late game, when dealing with armies with high professionalism and high drill.

The religious and government mechanics are to be expected… and frankly just don’t feel that special. There’s too many special government types, and the Mamluks borrow a mechanic I didn’t care for from Third Rome. The tribal federations seem to be well done, but I don’t have as much experience with them.

So… at the very least I’m happy to have this to support all the non-expansion work that was done. I also do like the drill and professionalism mechanic, despite some reservations. But despite the low (especially on sale) price, I don’t think it can carry the expansion by itself. That just leaves completionism for religious and government mechanics. I’d more get it for the tribal federations in the Syria region than for the Mamluks, though even they get interesting decisions. If you aren’t playing in that part of the world… I’d give this a pass, despite army reform.

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Off-Panel Dragon

by on July 23, 2024 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Computer games

This is the eleventh in a series of reviews looking at the evolution of Crusader Kings II. See the previous reviews here:
Crusader Kings II: The Second Crusade
The Old Gods: That Old-Time Religion
Sons of Abraham: A Little of Everything
Rajas of India: My Elephant for a Kingdom
Charlemagne: Back in Time
Way of Life: The Short Way
Horse Lords: For the Horde
Conclave: Lords of the Realm
The Reaper’s Due: Crusader Kings: Pandemic
Monks and Mystics: Secret Mystic

Over half a year after the previous expansion, CK II returned with yet more scope extension. This time the game would look at the subject of China (which had recently gotten a look from the EU IV team in Mandate of Heaven). Jade Dragon was announced on August 24, 2017, and released on November 16, alongside patch 2.8.

Tibet

While China stayed off-map, Tibet was already in the area of the current map, but was largely unusuable wasteland. This was now developed into a playable region.

The area is generally under monastic feudal government, with four related cultures. Two of the smaller cultures can have Absolute Cognatic inheritance, allowing female rulers. Most of the area is Buddhist, But Bön is a defensive pagan religion, and there’s a couple of reasonably powerful rulers in the 867 start for that religion (the rest of the time, there is a dominant Buddhist empire).

The rulers of the area are generally playable with the Jade Dragon expansion, or with either The Old Gods or Rajas of India (depending on religion). It’s a fairly stable region, with tough terrain… and direct access to one branch of the Silk Road.

China

The main goal was for the eastern edge of the map to feel like China is close and involved with affairs on the map. Considering that China was generally unified in ways the rest of Eurasia wasn’t during this period, I think not directly representing China was the best option. It would distort the game way too much to accurately represent what was going on there while not losing the feel for Europe, and the existing Holy Roman Emperor already causes problems by being too capable.

At the personal/realm level, the main interaction is grace. Imperial grace is akin to the Pope’s opinion of Catholic characters, as it can be used to ask for favors. However, it is tracked by dynasty, instead of personal opinion, so the death of the Emperor won’t remove accumulated grace, but civil wars can cause a change of dynasty, which will.

Of course, the easiest way to gain grace is to become a tributary of China. But that requires giving up much of your income and levy reinforcement, as well as being called into wars. On the other hand, you can request military support from China if you are attacked.

Past that, you can send various gifts to the emperor, who will have things he likes and dislikes. In addition to the obvious money, you can send eunuchs and concubines, and in special circumstances, physicians, commanders, or famine relief.

Getting favors tends to be expensive, so getting anything out of deals with China will take a while. At the high end, you can get the Emperor to dismantle a rival state (after a war, of course), or get an imperial marriage, but the more modest requests are guarantees of peace with China, and medical help.

All of this depends on China being stable (which is most of the time). Random events can send China into civil war, unrest, famine, and other problems, or start a golden age. Usually, when times are tough, China will be “open” with the silk routes operating normally. When times are good, China can go expansionist, trying to increase the on-map holdings of the Western Protectorate. And at times, China will close the borders, going isolationist, and closing down the Silk Road completely.

On the other hand, someone on the extreme east side of the map can go off map to trouble China itself. This can be merely to try to force the Silk Road open, but you can pillage or try to invade. I can’t say I’m anywhere near ambitious or skilled enough to give it a try, as China will spawn bigger and better armies than any other event in the game (actually, the Aztecs from Sunset Invasion can have bigger armies, but they have low quality, while China will have a high quality army).

Overall, it all makes sense, but I do find there are still odd problems. In my experience, even an open China is too likely to go after odd targets, like southern India. Chinese concerns were generally ruled by the dangers of neighboring tribes, and I don’t know of any serious desires to extend control along sea lanes, and certainly not past the (off-map) SE Asia area, so the AI needs reigning in here.

Religion

Bön starts as an organized defensive pagan religion, but borrows mechanics from the Indian Dharmic religions, and a couple of other places. Like most pagans, their power wanes throughout the timeline, though some provinces stay Bön during the entire period.

As well, a new heresy was added to Zoroastrianism, Khurmazta. It is also more eastern in flavor, with a patron deity mechanic akin to Hindus.

And Taoism was added to the game, with such characters being playable with either Jade Dragon or Rajas of India. Taoist realms tend to be stable, with no ‘short reign’ penalties, and an automatic +2 to stewardship to encourage larger demesnes. On the other hand, they are more restricted on declaring war. Also, China is usually Han and Taoist, and a ruler who is also both gets a bonus to imperial grace.

Trade

The Silk Road was enhanced in the patch. First the number of different routes was enhanced, more looking at what is known of overall major trade patterns, rather than just the famous route through the steppes.

Many of the provinces trade flows through can now have trade posts built. This is the same secondary holding as introduced in The Republic, but anyone who holds the proper provinces can build them.

All Silk Road provinces still get a status that regulates the value of trade, and it is more responsive now. Between the revamped mechanics and new trade posts, life on the Silk Road can be very profitable, but there is more to do than before.

To War

There were a number of changes to warfare in the patch. First, sieges were tweaked to go faster overall, but fort levels became more important (which means late game sieges drag out to the same time scale as before). Also, the ‘ticking warscore’ for a successful attacker was increased.

It was also decided to let just about anyone always go to war over a neighboring county-level title with the expansion. The new “border dispute” causus belli doesn’t completely replace the old method of fabricating claims, as there is a high up front cost to do it. It also causes a relationship penalty with all the members of the religion on both sides of the war, so declaring war on (say) a fellow Catholic will cause quite the relations hit with all other Catholic rulers.

Conclusion

Various properties have found, often after the fact, that it can be more effective to keep certain things permanently off-screen. And China is an excellent choice for that effect.

At the same time, China should have a massive effect on regions that are on the map, and the expansion does just that. The expansion comes with four new rules, allowing the new causus belli and setting the requirements for Chinese interactions.

Not mentioned in the review is the fact that Paradox also reworked the map of Persia and Arabia for this patch. I don’t know those areas well, but they were much better developed, and helped play in that area as well.

Overall, its a much-needed addition to CK II, though not worth a lot to people who stick with the game’s Western European roots. Its kind of a cross between an expansion in scope, and event package, and recommended to anyone playing in the eastern half of the map just to make thing feel more “real”.

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