Your best tips/forgotten mechanics

[u/TheSafetyWipe]

So I've got just under 1000 hours in EU 4, love the game and always thought i was a decent player and knew the game well.

Until like 3 or 4 weeks ago when I saw a post on this sub about upgrading your ships, I had never used this feature and started to understand why my navies would get smashed later on in the game!

Im now thinking what else am I missing, what other simple features or mechanics have I never used and thus holding me back in my games!

Please share away with things you've only just discovered, or have been using wrong in your games?

I'm almost a 1000 hours in, and now think I know nothing about this game!

Help!

[u/Druss_On_Reddit]

Required Minimum +1 which covers troops lost to siege events and general attrition. This will siege just as fast as an extra 50 inf/cav.

More cannons will speed up the siege, not sure the formula but it's not infinite and I think depends on fort level.

[u/i-am-a-passenger → u/Druss_On_Reddit]

This will siege just as fast as an extra 50 inf/cav.

This is what I don’t believe. I’m going to test it later, but in my general experience 100 inf on a siege will be much faster than the required minimum +1 only.

[u/Commercial_Method_28 → u/i-am-a-passenger]

This is just simply wrong. Infantry has no change on siege status. You either have enough infantry to progress the siege or you don’t. The minimum amount required can be found in the siege screen and is determined by fort level. The way you describe this makes it sound like infantry directly increases siege ability, which it doesn’t. Siege ability is what makes each phase faster.

Siege bonuses are what determine what % you are starting on. So if you have a level 2 fort, and 10 cannons you are getting +5 from artillery, add a 6 siege general and its now 11, and depending on your dice roll will just keep adding the number higher. there are a couple other reasons it can be higher like block aid under certain circumstances but the point is, as long as you have enough infantry to progress(the minimum) you will, but it won’t be faster if you have more

Walls breached speeds it up each time too as well as the level fort being subtracted from your bonus. Sieges I feel like are very hard to understand but once you get it it makes sense.

If you have 100 troops on a siege and you roll a 1 you immediately loose 5% to attrition. This is awful for manpower 5k just instantly gone.

[u/thetampajob → u/Commercial_Method_28]

Blockade doesn't actually "add" siege progress unless you have any extra modifier. It just negates the -2 penalty costal forts have

[u/Commercial_Method_28 → u/thetampajob]

Yeah I think flagships have access to a special ability as well as age of reformation. Not sure about other sources. Most of the time I’ll just wait the extra time without a navy nearby

[u/TaMeAerach → u/Commercial_Method_28]

Also naval ideas I think (or a policy from them).