ความคิดเห็น

• gamedeal user

  Dec 6, 2015

  (TL;DR at the bottom) I have over 2,000 hours in EU4. I play it almost daily since release, I am majorly obsessed and I read changelogs like it's my favourite novel. I always buy the EU4 DLC because that's just how I am, however I am bitterly disappointed with this release. And this is going to be harsh, forgive me Johan. Basically, I feel like this was a rip off considering the quality and size of the features. After waiting enviously for the release of this DLC as I always do with all EU4 DLC, this just felt very poor. Perhaps the best feature of this expansion would be the Random New World, but that isn't even technically a part of this expansion, but rather a fix for the first expansion of EU4, Conquest of Paradise. This is really disappointing. I'll go through the features below and my thoughts on each one, and beside it I will list the 'value' that Paradox assigned each feature, this value being what they use to justify the price of this DLC, and how much you paid (USD) for the feature according to Paradox roughly. (src: [url=https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/eu4-dev-diary-december-3rd-2015.894626/]Paradox Forums EU4 Dev Diary December 3rd[/url]) The last paragraph in my blurbs on each feature discusses the value of the feature. Link to expanded feature review offsite due to review character limit: [url=http://freetexthost.com/euxq3zwkpw]Link.[/url] [h1]Conclusion/TL;DR[/h1] So, after a break down of the worth of each feature packaged in this DLC, the Cossacks, we can come to a conclusion on how much I think it was actually worth. For note: I judged what should be a mega, major, medium and minor feature on what Paradox judged as those within the Common Sense expansion, which arguably was higher quality than this expansion and was cheaper, despite still being a fairly sub-par expansion. [list] [*]1 Semi-Major Feature (Diplomatic Feedback) - 4.5 points - $1.95 [*]1 Medium Feature (Horde Unity + incl. Raze) - 3 points - $1.30 [*]6 Minor Features (Tengri, Build Directly to Army, Improved Espionage, New Subject Interactions, Native Policies, Construct in Subjects) - 9 points - $5.85 [*]10 Worthless/Should be Free Features (Estates, Advanced Change Culture, Name Your Heir, Victory Cards, Concede Colonial Area, Distribute Spoils, Threaten War, Forced Migration, Declare Colonial War, Raze??) - 0 points - $0.00[/list] [h1]Therefore, in total I value this DLC pack at: [b]$9.10[/b][/h1] I came to this figure using Paradox's own point scoring system, and what I consider to be value for money with each feature, taking into account the usefulness, the application of the feature and how much it adds to the game. Overall, pathetic honestly. This is the second DLC that Paradox has released that has been incredibly sub-par, which is very saddening as I hold PDX with very, very, VERY high esteem. I think they're one of the best development studios ever, and I love their PR and their friendly approach to the community. However, criticism is due when criticism is due. The price was too high, and no Paradox, I don't consider 'time' to be a reasonable excuse to increasing the cost of an item. It could have taken your team ten years to implement advanced culture changes. It'd still be useless. The time you spend working on free content and on paid content should be inconsequential to the price as we do not pay you to work long, we pay you to provide us with good features. It annoys me if a studio thinks time is a reasonable excuse to increase the price of an item, despite its quality. The Cossacks is an expansion pack that was not only over priced for what it contained, but also a slap in the face to me as a dedicated Europa Universalis IV fan, and a dedicated Paradox fan. Please, please, PLEASE Paradox don't let this slip of recently poor DLC lead to a continuous repeat. Cossacks, Horse Lords and Common Sense have been hard misses, but I know the team has the skill to produce good DLC, it just isn't coming out in the end result. I don't know if it's a time issue, or an application issue, but I plead to address it. But this review has been honest and I've given credit where credit is due, and criticism where criticism is due. This is of course my opinion, and everyone is free to disagree. But I felt compelled to share as I felt this DLC was very much on the wrong track, and it's a direction that makes me scared for future EU4 DLCs.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 1, 2017

  I have read a lot of reviews before purchasing The Cossacks. Plenty of those were negative due to "estates sucks" and "diplofeedback+new ally favor/trust mechanics are useless and make game harder". I have decided to give it a try. Estates are awesome.. if you take time and read how to manage them properly. Ofc there is a risk if you push for the most benefits (so dont risk too much)... but the gain in monarch points is great. You can get adm and dip advisor lvl 2 (and lvl 3 when you can afford it) for half price (so you are not dependant on events giving you those advisors), you can get adm+dip+mil monarch points straight away. I have never been able to wage war constantly (need of adm MP), invest in ideas, keep up in techs and also use MP for development (push for Renaissance and Colonization), with estates its possible. On top of all.. general with 40 tradition is great. Later on you are probably going to have better army tradition, but at the start its a helluva difference between 0/1/2/0 crap you usually get and something like 2/4/1/1. So I would reccomend it. New ally favor/trust mechanics perhaps makes it harder for smaller nations (you cant use allies to "fight your war for you" right away), but it rewards you in time. It makes you rly help your allies in their (offensive) war = you get more favor (and use it to build trust or invite them to your offensive war for 10 favor). Imagine France call you in war against someone like Brittany (who has no allies), you run like hell to beat their army and siege at least one fort, your contribution to war is like 60% ...and voila.. you get plenty of favor! I am sure it happend to you too: You are allied to France, you outgrow your rivals and only possible rivals for you are France and Ihategreenblob (Ottomans). Same goes for France (you and Ott are only possible rivals). Suddenly France rivals you and there goes the aliance:/ With Cossack It shouldnt happen when you build trust above 80.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 5, 2015

  This is the first review that i've ever written. I have nearly 1600 hours on EU 4 (and about the same on EU 3!), but this DLC is almost a complete disapointment (I've bought all of them- including music and unit packs). Estates are more annoying than interesting and the new "Favor" system in Diplomacy is excruciating. By far my biggest disapointment is in the nerfing of the colonization system. Why make changes no one asked for? It used to be fun and exciting to send out a couple of conquistatadores and discover gold or pick up some extra Monarchy points- but now nearly all the events are bad, and according to the Developer Diary, events overall have been lessened. Why? It was one of the most fun aspects of the game. The lack of returns on colonialism makes playing as any of the colonizing nations very unattractive. Paradox is very good at responding to what their customers want, so I hope enough people raise this issue that they will make a change.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 12, 2016

  Firstly: I hesitate to recommend this expansion for the price. If there was a "wait for it to go on sale" option, I would have pushed that instead. With that out of the way, I think people who criticise this expansion for not adding significant features must not be playing the same expansion I am. The new diplo feedback system addresses a lot of the annoyances that previously came with managing alliances (like allies stubbornly refusing to join wars while expecting you to join every war ever), as well as some of the major strategic flaws and absurdities the game has always had (like some allies being willing to completely ruin their country fighting your wars for you, even when they stand to gain nothing). As a whole, the new system is much more consistent and, most importantly, more transparent. This gives the player much more strategic choice than they had previously, and, in my opinion, already makes Cossacks a good expansion. The estates system is not as fleshed out as I think we were initially led to believe, but is still interesting and, if managed well, gives the player excellent ways to min/max their economies. For some, this might end up just being annoying micromanaging. However, I would argue that if micromanagement isn't your thing, then you might be playing the wrong grand strategy game. The changes to Hordes can seem a bit brutal and demanding at first, or at least they were to me, but I think they go a long way toward finally giving Horde nations unique identities, rather than simply being technologically backwards blobbers. It also opens up some hyper aggressive strategies for hordes, which would previously ultimately lead to complete ruin and disaster for most players. I haven't played around much with the new native interactions, but they do seem a bit weak, in all honesty. It gives you some room to roleplay as a peaceful explorer/colonizer, but min/maxers will continue rolling over natives as quickly as ever. And it doesn't seem to do North American nations any favors. Lastly, Tengri gets a religion mechanic. Take it or leave it. All in all, I would say ignore a lot of the criticism aimed at the diplo feedback and estates systems, especially if they are coming from before patch 1.15, which addressed several of the issues and bugs that were prevalent on release. But again, $20? That's for more than this is actually worth. I would say if you can get it on sale for 5-10 bucks, then it's a good buy.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 3, 2015

  I absolutely adore EU4 (1200+ play hours, and fully expect 1200 more before I even think of retiring this game) and have played it since release, buying each expansion (including Cossacks) on the day it was released. For the previous six expansions I've been anywhere from excstatic at the additions/very satisfied with the pricing down to pleased with the additions/ambivalent about the pricing. I was initially shocked at the $20 USD price tag because from the developer diaries/patch notes it didn't sound like that large of an expansion (Art of War was the same price and had a great deal more content), but I love Paradox and I love this game, so I dropped the money anyway. This is the first expansion that has left me upset, not with the content (it's fine, I mean it adds layers of depth to a game that I already love for its layers of depth) but with the price. This is ABSOLUTELY NOT a $20 expansion. Even at $15 I would say they are pushing it, but based on past DLC this would be a fair $12. If you're a fan of this game, yes, pick this up at some point, but not until it goes on sale. Edit: Wiz (the head developer of EU4 at Paradox) did address pricing concerns regarding Cossacks in a new developer diary. While I'm very pleased at their quick response time and explaining their pricing formula, his argument was that in fact the features in the expansion were larger than we realized and that (in typical/lovable Wiz fashion) dismissed complaints as stemming from not being familiar with the game development process. He listed how the EU4 team categorized features ranging from major to minor as a deterimination of price, and the disconnect with customers clearly stems from the team overinflating the value of certain piece of content (the additional espionage options being one example). While I'm still looking forward to future EU4 DLC, I hope the team takes this as a lesson for pricing in the future.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2015

  I like it, it has added a shit ton of features that I welcome. This expansion does feel like some change for the better, however, it's not worth 20 USD. It's a great DLC, maybe even the second best for EU4, but at best it's worth 15 USD. Only buy at twenty if you really want to support Paradox.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2015

  Features are nice, but let's face it, €20 is overpriced.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 17, 2015

  I have seen a lot of negative comments about this DLC and most of them were based on sheer ignorance and unwillingness to learn and adapt to the new mechanics (I have come to this conclusion from reading the Steam reviews as well as the posts on the official forum), so I'm actually writing my first proper review to give my opinion about the content of this expansion. The major complaints I noticed about this expansion are the price, the amount of bugs it had on release and the unimportance of the new features. Well, nearly all the bugs got fixed not even one week after release through several hotfixes, so this point is basically moot by now, as the game is perfectly playable with the expansion as of right now. The high price of the expansion still stands as valid complaint though. Because of character limit, I can't comment on all the new features, so I'm gonna have to keep it about the two which got the most complaints. [h1]Diplomatic feedback[/h1] A good addition to the game. Finally you can actually see and affect the current trust you have with your allies. Setting your own attitude towards other nations is also really helpful, as it helps you gain alliances or shows your vassals that they can fabricate on your target. People are complaining that alliances break way too often now, but that hasn't been true in my games so far. Especially when I pump up my trust to 100, unless I share like 30+ provinces of vital interest with the AI, the alliance is basically bound to last forever. It does take some actual work though to manage this new system. You can't just sit back and be lazy, but you actually have to put effort into keeping the alliance alive, by spending favours and earning these favours by participating in your allies' wars. If your 60 trust ally (remember, 50 is base trust with neutral nations, so 60 is not much) breaks the alliance because you don't help them in their wars, then you only have yourself to blame, not the "dumb AI". Provinces of vital interest needs some balancing as of now though, because the AI will go crazy with it, but unless you set like the whole continent as vital interest at gamestart, it doesn't break the game. Keeping your vital interests to the provinces you want to conquer in the next ten years in one war and updating your interests according to conquests of other nations, especially allies or rivals, is enough to avoid any great conflict with your allies, in my experience (it's also not as much work as it sounds like). I would wish for Paradox to tie the rival system to the new provinces of vital interest system though, because the nations you share a ton of vital interests with, normally tend to become your rivals anyways at one point. [h1]Estates[/h1] Ooohhh boy, Estates People either seem to love or hate this new feature. I personally love it and it's my main reason why I would recommend someone to buy this DLC. I noticed a shocking pattern with people who say this feature is bad, annoying, micromanagement or minor (or should be even free): All these people seem to actually have no idea how to properly use the estates and what benefits you can gain from them. To put it simply: They're ignorant of the mechanics, can't adapt to the new changes and are unwilling to learn (especially a common pattern in the complaints about estates in the official forum) Estates are an amazing new feature which improve gameplay by a lot in my opinion. However, to fully utilize them, you have to actually put some effort into learning how to use them though (shocking, I know? A new feature actually demands from you to learn it, instead of you instantly knowing how to use it. What a concept.). You won't be able to maximize your benefits from Estates right on the first run, because you actually have to look at and get familiar with them, but when you got the basics down, it's actually really damn easy to manage and have a really enjoyable game with them. The benefits you can get from them are amazingly good. You get all these local modifiers and on top of that national modifiers and then you can also take decisions for some really fancy stuff. 50 to 150 of each monarch point type every 20 years, a 50% cheaper to hire Inquisitor at demand or 5 heavy ships for free(!) are amazing and totally justify the 25% autonomy you get from assigning Estates a province (who said it had to be a high development province in the first place). The system is pretty flexible too. You can literally assign the Clergy to a newly conquered province for the +2% missionary strength and reduced unrest and as soon as the province converted, you can take the land back again and assign them some other province. That way you can shuffle through new conquered land and integrate it quickly. This will result in a net loss of loyalty, but if you can balance this loss out, you will have a way easier time integrating new land. Of course, to get these bonuses in the first place, you have to actually manage their loyalty and influence level well enough. This is the real challenge. You have to actually plan ahead with Estates, as every decision will be an important one. If you maximize your benefits too much, a random event can totally screw up your balance and make an Estate disaster start ticking (and trust me, you want to avoid those disasters from happening). Every event will have a big impact on your plans with how to handle Estates and every time a multi-choice event pops up, you have to actually think about the consequences every option will bring with it. This is a real breath of fresh air for the game, in my opinion, and is a good change from the constant mindless conquest or colonization. The big impact of the Estates system on the gameflow is also kinda of a drawback though. Because if someone does not wish to engage with the system, he can just ignore it completely. You can literally just assign the minimum number of provinces to an Estate and then ignore them for the rest of the game. You won't really get any of the benefits then though and in this case, Estates can really become really annoying, because a bad event can bring you into a red area. This is totally missing them point of it though. [b]You will basically just get as much enjoyment out of the the new Estate system as you're are willing to put effort into engaging with it.[/b] This was a really long review, so let's get to the conclusion. I definitely recommend buying The Cossacks DLC, but only if you are willing to engage in the new Estate system. If you're not interested in Estates, there's no real point in getting this DLC in my opinion, because while the other features are really good, the Estates have such a big impact on the game, that if you don't manage them at all, it will really reduce your enjoyment you will get out of the DLC and the game in total. 20€ might be a bit much though, this is a point I can agree on. I personally would have preferred a 15€ price tag, especially because provines of vital interests still need some balance work. But it's just a 5€ difference, so if you think you will really enjoy the Estates, definitely get this DLC, especially when it's gonna be on sale. Not buying this DLC doesn't mean you will miss out though, because the game is still totally playable without all these new features.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 3, 2018

  Don't buy this DLC. They will make main feature estates free in 1.26 without replacing it with any other good feature, this is extremly scummy way of doing things.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2015

  The new features are nice, but this expansion is buggy and unbalanced. Decided to try my hand at Byzantium again in ironman mode, because I'm a sadist or something, and watched a 32k stack of Poland and Lithuania troops completely wiped by a 17k Ottoman army. And by wiped, I mean completely gone from the map in 1461. No retreat, no "pass go and collect 200 manpower," no nothing, just... gone. I know the Ottomans start out with some nice bonuses and as a lucky nation, but jesus, to map wipe that much stronger of an army is ridiculous. Oh, and I'll also note that this was right after the Ottoman stack had just completely wiped my 12k at full moral and upkeep. Literally a 3 sec battle between my troops (wiped), when the Poland-Lithuania force hit right after (wiped); I stuck around long enough to watch my other allies, a released-from-Venice Albania and Wallachia get their stacks completely wiped, well before the main Ottoman army was even involved, before I bailed. This is unacceptable. What started out as a 19k Ottomon stack just completely map wiped 58k troops. Again, gone, no retreat or reinforcing. I think the entire process on 3 speed was over in 20 seconds. For the record, I'll note that each of the countries involved in this war were at military tech 4. Incredibly unbalanced. Paradox needs to go back to the drawing board and fix this. I haven't tried another game yet, but stuff like this is increasingly going to take the fun out of playing any nation other than a great power; which sucks because I like to play as very small nations and work my way up. A few other notes about the DLC: [list] [*] With the new estate system, and the disasters, and newer events from previous expansions, increasingly the random events are becoming total game-killers, especially if you're a small country. Most everything is a bad event now, or at least a "pick 'a' and be screwed or pick 'b' and be screwed, just in a different way." I seem to recall more good events happening in previous builds, which made the game fun, because you weren't always getting porked at random and losing control. Now I just feel like I'm campaigning in-between random events were everything I've built can come crashing down all on the whim of some randomly triggered popup. It's like the game just wants me to sit there and horde monarch points just-in-case a whole bunch of terrible events happen in quick succession. It really takes the conquest and "painting the world" aspect of the game - and thus the fun, and arguably the point of the game - away. [*] Estate system is kind of cool and introduces something for peace-time, but it looks to me to take a lot of micromanaging for benefits that seem 'meh' at best. [*] I'll have to play around with it more, but the new diplomatic system seems like a waste of time and/or isn't even working properly. I toyed around with it trying to select different nations I was either attempting to befriend or otherwise selecting enemies to backwardly gain allies. Didn't seem to matter. None of the options ever changed the other countries opinions of me or increased my relations. Every core diplomatic action still revolved around my increasing relations the old-fashioned way. Setting it and leaving it for years seemed to have no effect, nor did setting it for just a few months. [*] I haven't played a horde nation in the DLC yet, but their mechanics from afar seem to be improved. I saw the Golden Horde raze Crimea to two provinces within 15 years. [*] I seem to be encountering some fort and troop movement bugs, including blockade issues when there isn't a blockade. [*] Game seems to load and run somewhat smoother though, so kudos. [/list] This game is great and I'm sure this expansion in time will be a fine add-on, but for $20, I feel like I got ripped off. I may return it on Steam and wait for a sale.