Wow, I'm in awe of your Cherokee British Isles, @Kekvit Irae! Was that through personal union or outright conquest?

I've been enjoying Conquest of Paradise so far, tried a few games as Native American nations but I tend to get steamrolled once Britain or France get to me. I've lasted long enough to reform my government from Native Council, but haven't been able to cope with the combination of westernising (darn nasty events!) and very powerful, wealthy neighbours...

Can the AI-controlled colonial powers turn me into a colonial subject (as I can when the boot is on the other foot?) or do they conquer me outright? I've tended to quit once all my hard work is undone by 2000 British infantry!

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That is rather extreme... you should be able to beat that many with pure numbers. You should be colonising and expanding your own influence and subjugating your numbers into your federation. Once the West comes, the manpower you can field alone usually defeats their efforts. Then you go through the Westernisation, with the possibility of converting Christian then you simply steamroll the continent and the inept Colonial States if they manage to form into any real size.

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The Byzantine one, Russia was from an extremely lucky PU, the rest from pure force. I never even planned on the PU, I just got a popup saying I became the war leader against France. I checked, and sure enough Russia was my new pet. Because of their many, many wars with Austria, France couldn't get military access. The war was then just a wait until I could white peace. I DID have a PU with France later in the game, with an outright chance to inherit Aragon, but then Napoleon showed up and said "NOPE" and turned the country into Rev. France and breaking the PU. I hate Napoleon.

The Cherokee one was ALL conquest. Right now, I own the entirety of the British Isles, and completely annexed Great Britain. Every five years on the dot I went to war with GB. I learned from my Brazil game that if an American nation needs to succeed, Naval ideas are an absolute MUST. With the best navy in the world, I was able to put down the Brits easily. Though, not too easily, as I made a fatal mistake in the second war against them. The first war was to claim their colony on MY land. Not a problem, never had the Brits do anything about it. Then the second war was to get some land in Ireland so I could expand into Europe. The mistake I made was that I slow-sieged the Irish provinces instead of assaulting them outright, causing my navy to take massive attrition. The next dumb thing I did was moving my badly-damaged fleet to engage the British transports that were undocking from Ireland. My fleet of 50+ Heavy Ships were so badly damaged that I had to retreat them, and the AI decided that the best route for them to take was through several open seas. My entire fleet was lost to attrition, the Brits were carpeting my lands, and my main army was stuck on Ireland. I had to white peace.

I came back in five years, and learned from my mistakes. It was that one stupid war that made me decide to completely and utterly destroy the British Empire.

EDIT:

Mostly they just want your land. One trick is to get Exploration ideas the moment you reform your government, take Quest for the New World, send some poor sap in a barque over to explore Europe, and then rival France. All the big colonizers absolutely hate France (who doesn't?), so you'll easily get an alliance with one of your bigger neighbors. Just remember that until you finish Westernization, everyone will have cause to gang up on you. If you see your ally break their alliance, that's a sign they are gearing up for a war. Surviving is hit-or-miss, so don't expect miracles to happen. I did, however, get through Westernization without getting attacked, but that's because the other powers were too busy in Europe.

EDIT 2: Here is what my North America looks like. Until you reform your government, vassalization and diploannexation is vital for survival. With your super cheap stability cost, taking the -2 stability hit for having no CB is not a problem.

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75% off EU4 DLC

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Sadly, most EU4 DLC are garbage.

American Dream stuff only happens in/after 1776. Even if you start in 1444, create a colonial nation, release/play as, then form the USA, you still have to wait until 1776 for any of the events to happen, if they ever happen (due to MTTH). Not only this, but a formed USA never gets the 1776 USA national ideas.

Call to Arms DLC is just sprites.

Pre-order DLC does have the Purple Phoenix, which helps quite a bit if you are going for a Basileus run. With the changes in 1.4, it's now even harder to survive as the Byzantines.

Digital Extreme DLC has the Stars and Crescent, which allows you to convert to Shia and/or Unify Islam. Not all that fantastic.

The big deal of the lot, however, is that the base game is 75% off. You're looking at 10 USD for many hours of sweet, sweet map painting.

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How detailed is combat in EU4 compared to CK2?

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EU4 combat is far more in-depth than CK2. In CK2, battles are just throwing men en-masse into the fray and waiting for the Skirmish phase to change to Melee phase and then finally (for good or bad) the Pursuit phase. Each unit has an attack and defense stat, and each army has morale.

In EU4, you have two ranks of units per side, with a combat width base on your technology. While the variety of units is smaller (infantry, cavalry, artillery), the individual units all are different based on your technology. Infantry and cavalry can only attack from the front rank, while artillery can attack from the back rank (and protect units directly in front of them with half their own defense stat). Each unit has attack and defense rating, just like CK2. During battle, infantry will attack units that are either directly in front of them, or one space to the side (flanking). Cavalry is the same, but they will attack up to two spaces to the side if they aren't already engaged with an enemy in front of them. Combat rotates every several days between the Fire phase and the Shock phase, until one side breaks and runs or is utterly destroyed.

I guess the better way to describe it would be to link to the wiki.
http://www.eu4wiki.com/Land_warfare

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New Expansion: Europa Universalis IV: Wealth of Nations

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