Top 10 EU4 Changes

I’ve spent over a thousand hours on Europa Universalis IV, and yesterday I deleted the game and hid it from my Steam library. As part of the grieving process, here are…

The top 10 changes needed for EU4 :

1. I’ve lost too many battles because my AI allies wouldn’t join in, even when they’re in the next province over. It’s always a crapshoot whether they’ll join in. Allow me to mark a battle, or an upcoming battle, as a priority for my allies. Also, this would be useful for dealing with rebellions, which allies sometimes help with, but not always.
2. Alliance webs: Nation A is allied with me; I’m allied with A, B, and C. If Nation Z attacks me, or I declare war on them, I’m in great shape, but if Z attacks A, then I’m screwed and outnumbered if I defend A. Allow me to suggest alliance webs to my AI allies, so A will also be allied to B and C.
3. When declaring a war/accepting a call to arms, show the number of men on each side. The game already calculates which nations will join the war, and I can get the armies’ sizes by going into the ledger. Including that data in the Declare War/Call to Arms windows would just save time.
4. In the latest update, if you’ve mothballed forts or reduced your army maintenance slider, it automatically re-ups it if you get into a war. This is great, and amazing, but if I’m having a bunch of colonial conquest wars and don’t need my forts in the homeland, that means I have to re-mothball forts every time. At a certain point, fort maintenance is expensive, so this is necessary. Add a third option: Not Mothballed, Un-Mothball at War, and Stay Mothballed.
5. The latest update added a bunch of notifications, which is great – being reminded that I’m at negative stability is a huge help. That said, especially in Ironman mode, there are some edge cases that I would love more pop-ups and notifications for. Can we get notifications when a battle is projected to occur, when an enemy army comes out of the fog of war, and when nations can convert to Protestant/Reformed?
6. AI allies are great, but they follow a different battle plan than me – I’d rather hold the line against the primary enemy and knock off a few of their satellites, but my allies charge right into the French meatgrinder without me to support them. Allow me to set rough battle plans: Aggressive vs Milan, Defensive vs France, etc. Otherwise, the best use of my armies is probably to support whatever the AI is going to do anyways, because at least then we’ll be working in concert.
7. I’ve played a lot of games as Austria; please add more notification for Electorships and Free Citydoms. It’s easy to miss that you don’t have eight Free Cities or seven Electorships, and I’d love to have a notification for that, like you get if you have negative Stability. (After all, these are about as impactful.) Also, I’d like to see a list of all states that would accept the offer of a Free City, as it’s normally hellish to find one, and who a state would back for Emperor if granted an Electorship.
8. When mousing over an enemy army, I’d like to see the average morale. It’s good to have the green percentage bar, but I’d rather see the flat amount as well – like if France has a base morale of 8, that’s pretty pertinent information before I attack. Same for Pretender armies, which I always forget have a morale boost, and I’d like to know the morale of more primitive nations’ armies.
9. There are plenty of effects and modifiers that get thrown around, but their effects are pretty unclear. Can we get results displayed alongside a modifier being granted? For instance, if an event gives +10% Trade Efficiency, also display the increased income that’s predicted to result from that.
10. We’ve got data that helps us predict when and where rebellions will happen, with a little work; can we see how big the rebellions will be? Other methods that spawn rebels, specifically events, tell you how large the rebel armies will be.

Note: These are changes needed from the perspective of a veteran of the game. There are a ton of changes that would help new players – a link to the wiki in every popup would be a start.