Also, as a player who's loved the Crusader Kings 2 -> Europa Universalis 4 converter, I just want to note my disappointment when I found out the Fervor system was a feature for the EU4 Reformed Religion (yeah, because everyone plays them all the time!), rather than the "reformed religions" of CK2 that can be converted to become legitimate religions in EU4 (the converter makes it possible for players to play EU4 using such religions as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, or even Norse Mythology).

Oh, almost forgot.... native colonization became REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY slow.  Colonial growth is now based on tech level.  At admin tech level 1, you're getting 10 colonists/year.  I'm actually considering using other natives to help expand my empire, by either selling other natives my colonies or by colonizing, going to war with a native near the province, letting the native take said province, then colonizing somewhere else.  But otherwise, it's pretty much worth it for me to not fully fund colonies, and instead rely on the % chance of my settler successfully colonizing a province (not to mention any boosted colonial growth resulting from completing a colonize mission).  Yes, that means keeping some nations alive and even... helping them grow!  *gasp*

Sikh doesn't really count.

Annexing costing diplo points just like westernization is great. I can annex small bitches in a few months instead of 5 years now! \o/

Look at Oman, smartass.  Ibadi was separated out (it replaces the Shia army tradition with naval tradition... which would probably be a step backwards, until you look at Oman's national ideas, which are all navy/trade focused.  Oman may not be too bad if you wanted to play a naval power other than England, as long as you can deal with the fact that nobody in the game has positive relations with you at game start.  That being said, considering many rivals will be sitting on army morale bonuses, Oman will be a serious pain for a player to build up).

They also separated out Coptic from Orthodoxy, putting Ethiopia in an even more awkward situation.  Now, not only are they in a bad tech group surrounded by Muslims, they don't even have others of the same religion to lean on for an unlikely alliance.

Incorrect.  If you're colonizing, colony growth is also based on diplo tech, as of this patch.  So if you want to win the colony rush, you'll want to invest for both the tech (to boost colony growth) and the ideas (and to REALLY maximize colonization, you'll need both the exploration and expansion ideas to grab that nice +1 colonist policy on top of the ideas).

Well I started as spain, first invasion to reunite Spain went well, then seemed like 100+ turns of nothing.. I tried to move troops to take another land, except a major power attacked it, so I tried intrigue, even bought a cardinal... nothing for it, had to disband my fleet for money issues, then rebellion, and wtf I give up man.

Plus... you know... there is an instruction manual that goes over how stuff works.  It's definitely not a game to do one playthrough, say "this doesn't work," and walk away.

You've got to be able to multitask. This is EU, not Civ!

Oh, and its not a game you'll be amazing at right from the start. Experience counts for everything in this game.

multi task he says, yes I multi task just fine X(

I send soldiers forward while trying to hold down the fort, only no science to support, and these damnable issues keep popping up and dragging me down.

I only ever had like 3 armies.

One problem I had was splitting and combining... lots of issues there. I had one mother of all armies and a bunch of draftees

http://martinweigel.files.wordpress.com … eement.jpg

Lemme explain the whole thing... which may shed some light on Arby's statement.

The divide system doesn't divide your unit up into equal numbers of soldiers.  Remember, soldiers are part of max-1,000 person regiments.  Even if there are 0 people in that regiment at the time, that regiment still exists.  As such, the game did divide your army up equally... but it divided the army by # of regiments, rather than # of soldiers, and you likely had a number of low-person regiments (most likely due to some losses from prior battles).

That being said, this system makes sense when considering other EU4 mechanics.  The attrition system places a maximum cap on the amount of soldiers that can be placed on any one province, with an excess resulting in monthly troop losses for the entire group present.  If the game were to have split things equally, it risked creating a false impression of the size of the army that could be placed in a particular province, relative to maximum supply limit in said province.  This way, you have one unit that may still be relatively close to where its maximum will be when any remaining missing troops are replenished... and one tiny army of 400 people that will raise an eyebrow and pretty much guarantee you check that army to see what's up.