EU4 1.36 Sad Prussia (2024)

Nah, i hate the way Paradox buff a country with a DLC, i once thought eu4 was a history simulator game, but nah.

In europe, we have spain dlc, eng dlc, france dlc, sweden dlc, ottoman dlc, russia dlc, etc
Lets guess, we still got prussia, austria and italy are weak af.

Are you seriously claiming that Prussia is weak ? They have the best military in the game, a large mission tree, and to my knowledge they are the only country in the game that reaches the cap of 90% admin efficiency by just playing a normal campaign and going down the mission tree.

I won't even get into your claim about Austria, which is largely considered the easiest candidate for a World Conquest.

Italy's missions are a bit generic, but they have a top tier idea set, including the rare 25% CCR.

Are you sure you're playing the same game as the rest of us ?

Maxxie42 said:

They have the best military in the game

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See Also

Patch 1.36 - Europa Universalis 4 WikiPatch 1.36 - Europa Universalis 4 WikiEU4: 1.36.1 Hotfix is now LIVE! Checksum [fab8] - Not For Problem Reports!Europa Universalis IV - 1.36 'Byzantium' Changelog

With each passing update the gap between their military potential and other nations military potential closes. Whatsmore, there are many other nations that get strong mil buffs without any downside while Prussia has to contend with the -50% GC.

EarlKonrad said:

With each passing update the gap between their military potential and other nations military potential closes. Whatsmore, there are many other nations that get strong mil buffs without any downside while Prussia has to contend with the -50% GC.

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I felt that way for a while about Prussia, especially after militarization got nerfed. But then I realized that their -50% GC is not a locked reform. So if you want to play wide rather than tall, for the cost if 50 gov reform progress you can get rid of it, and then you're left with the best military idea set in the game, an outstanding mission tree and a prime spot to form Germany.

Maxxie42 said:

They have the best military in the game

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Far from it.

They might be a contender for highest military quality, but even then they are a fair bit away from the top top countries like Polan.

Jarvin said:

Far from it.

They might be a contender for highest military quality, but even then they are a fair bit away from the top top countries like Polan.

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I'm surprised to read that from someone who has historically been so strongly anti-cavalry

But yes, I won't dispute the fact that with Polish ideas and winged hussars you can potentially make a much stronger army than Prussia's, but it requires heavy investment into it to really shine. For starters, you'd want cavalry ratio, which isn't trivial, plus significant CCA and cavalry cost ; whereas Prussia's ideas are self-sufficient.

And yes, their power is completely quality-focused, so you could argue that something quantity-focused like Russia can give it a run for its money. But all in all, I still think Prussia remains overall the best military idea set there is. (Obviously I'm talking about SP here)

Maxxie42 said:

been so strongly anti-cavalry

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Well that's the thing, isn't it?
Paradox knows that the general consensus is that cavalry sucks, so they tried to "fix" it, but since they also seem to have a philosophy of generally not doing broad rebalances of anything, they instead just put a wild amount of bonuses into a limited number of countries that tipped the scale entirely in the other direction in an unreasonable manner.

I also don't like cavalry just for how its designed. The way it functions rn, cavalry is literally just.. infantry, but different, which means that effectively if you try to balance cavalry, the best you can achieve is that it'll become a replacement for infantry, which is what happened with Poland, and which just doesn't seem particularly interesting nor balanced.

Anyways, Poland has a mission that can give it +50% cav ratio, -10% cav cost
You really don't need to do anything "cav-specific" like pick aristocratic or whatever to get Poland's cav to absolutely bonkers levels.

If we factor in Prussia's struggle to scale, Poland was already an arguably stronger pick than Prussia for military-related stuff even before 1.34, even if you just went for an infantry-only army. Just look at its ideas & geography.
1.34 just added a ton of broken bonuses on top of that.

There are some other contenders too.
Oda/Shimazu - for instance, though I'm not entirely sure how that works post 1.35+
Back in the days at least you could stay an independent daimyo, be shinto with some really powerful military events that last 50 years, and have an ideaset that was at worst just below Prussia's.

Terixis said:

The -50% gov cap penalty for militarization is probably a bit steep these days compared to the crazy powercreep that recent mission trees have. But Prussia is by no means weak, and Austria is a top 3 tag in the entire game.

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Even then there are a significant number of ways to reduce government capacity. I like to think of Prussia being limited as a money resource than a government capacity; As state houses provide the greatest benefit; That's why I aim to focus on the English channel to fund the infrastructure. The rest such as admin ideas, estates, exploiting development are all pretty much known.

klingonadmiral said:

Prussia is unfortunately burdened with the single-worst tier 1 government reform of any monarchy.

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Again, not much of a burden since it isn't locked.

Maxxie42 said:

Again, not much of a burden since it isn't locked.

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Then it's still burdened with being forced into Protestantism when there is no European major (other than England, but lol) that favors going protestant.

And both of BBurg and the Teutons, which are the most popular candidates for forming Prussia, have better options.

These nations aren’t weak. But absolutely they should get more flavour

The historical and current playing stats are clear that nations like Brandenburg and Austria are far, far, far more popular than Delhi, Ethiopia or the Aztecs

So perhaps a rework of the HRE mechanics and the relationship with Italy can be on the cards… not power creep, but flavour and some alternative future scenarios players can work towards.

klingonadmiral said:

Then it's still burdened with being forced into Protestantism when there is no European major (other than England, but lol) that favors going protestant.

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FYI, if you want to stay Catholic, TO can form Catholic Prussia.