EU4 Demo is out!!

[Carach]

i played for a while earlier as Austria and, well, im not sure what to think.

they seem to have removed your ability to micromanage your state, i much prefer the sliders to the system now in place where it feels like i have no control over whats going on at all and no idea how to influence my direction; im literally just on for the ride and get to choose something already pre-made for me once the tech bar goes full green and i have enough points.

talking of points, and agents etc - how the hell do i get more?
tradewise: i managed to gain a third merchant via whatever tech advance it was; what does transfer trade power actually do? because 'upstream/downstream' doesnt make much sense to me. is it a way of forcing business out of that centre and towards one of my own or something?

i think, frankly, the game's accessibility has taken a massive backwards step. EU3 was far easier to grasp.
also believe some modding will need to be done to sort out the bad boy points that seems to be extremely harsh.

perhaps i just need to take more time to learn it, but from someone who's played eu3, victoria and HOI games and still being..bamboozled; one can only imagine how it will feel for newcomers.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

In response to an earlier post, the Ottomans start off with a Naval Idea to counterbalance the old strategy of just blocking the straights of Marmara as Byzantium to take all of Greece.

[hellheaven1987]

they seem to have removed your ability to micromanage your state, i much prefer the sliders to the system now in place where it feels like i have no control over whats going on at all and no idea how to influence my direction; im literally just on for the ride and get to choose something already pre-made for me once the tech bar goes full green and i have enough points.

No they did not, sliders system is same as ideas system now, no big change at all; the only difference is you can grab some completely opposite effects together at once, like getting both Quantity and Quality in same time (human wave with quality troops? I like that).

talking of points, and agents etc - how the hell do i get more?
tradewise: i managed to gain a third merchant via whatever tech advance it was; what does transfer trade power actually do? because 'upstream/downstream' doesnt make much sense to me. is it a way of forcing business out of that centre and towards one of my own or something?

Technology research can give some agents, and of course idea groups. I don't get the trade system too though.

i think, frankly, the game's accessibility has taken a massive backwards step. EU3 was far easier to grasp.

Yes that is true, but Paradox does not create simple games; I would say the complexity of EUIV is somewhere between Victoria 2 and CK2.

perhaps i just need to take more time to learn it, but from someone who's played eu3, victoria and HOI games and still being..bamboozled; one can only imagine how it will feel for newcomers.

Not really, definitely not as bad as my first time playing Victoria 2 (still don't get some details of that game even today).

[Carach]

i dont get the tech side of things at all.
it levels up and gives me certain things at certain levels as it did in eu3, and then theres those little icons but theres only one available to pick so i dont actually have an option?
like, i cant figure out how to affect my economy directly either.

meh ill give it another go later on, im being overly negative right now though i was having no particular difficulty in actually playing the game politics-wise. was HREmperor, had several vassals and extra territories, had beaten france down in a war etc etc.
but now i say that it reminded me of something else; notifications.

several times when i sped things up i suddenly found previous allies were no longer friends, and actually hated me because i had dishonoured an alliance with them. i saw no notification of a pending war in the first place each time so was like "wtf". i liked the game telling me of other countries getting into conflicts and the game actually notifying me more than the little icons at the top that someone was warring or needing my assistance.... but ye, that annoyed me. Im sure theres some setting for that as there was in eu3 but alas.. was ghey cos i wanted to get into these wars, had maneuvered rather well, if i do say so myself, to take a lot of germany, just to end up the reject because i didnt get told any wars were actually occuring!

[Carach]

i dont get the tech side of things at all.
it levels up and gives me certain things at certain levels as it did in eu3, and then theres those little icons but theres only one available to pick so i dont actually have an option?
like, i cant figure out how to affect my economy directly either.

meh ill give it another go later on, im being overly negative right now though i was having no particular difficulty in actually playing the game politics-wise. was HREmperor, had several vassals and extra territories, had beaten france down in a war etc etc.
but now i say that it reminded me of something else; notifications.

several times when i sped things up i suddenly found previous allies were no longer friends, and actually hated me because i had dishonoured an alliance with them. i saw no notification of a pending war in the first place each time so was like "wtf". i liked the game telling me of other countries getting into conflicts and the game actually notifying me more than the little icons at the top that someone was warring or needing my assistance.... but ye, that annoyed me. Im sure theres some setting for that as there was in eu3 but alas.. was ghey cos i wanted to get into these wars, had maneuvered rather well, if i do say so myself, to take a lot of germany, just to end up the reject because i didnt get told any wars were actually occuring!

[hellheaven1987]

You cannot pick the bonus of tech improvement.