It is, but only if you have an overwhelming force against your enemy. If your foe can defeat your units, they're effectively trapped and can be easily stackwiped.
Ondřej Šaroun I think it's to simulate that your armies are on on the coast of the Aegean Sea, therefore they can just walk around the forts, but it doesn't make sense how you are able to teleport regiments to the other side of the forts by changing what army they're assigned to.
Good grief Paradox. It's not surprising people come to the conclusion that the system is broken or that the AI cheats when the way it works is absolutely nonsensical.
I'll have to play for a while to make sure, but I don't think it's actually that hard to understand, most of the rules he cites are edge cases (so you might not internalize *everything* that's going on right away, but the main points, the bulk of the system, will make sense right away if you think about it right). The real trick, and the real problem for people understanding it, I think is that they're too focused on the fort, not noticing the return province. That's how I've been thinking. I think that once I get into a game, knowing that the return province is the important thing, I'll internalize the system, probably without remembering all of the edge cases, but knowing the bulk of what's going on. But I'll have to play for a couple of hours before I know for sure whether that's the case.
fixing the system would be ez! Make forts that are sufficiently surrounded (the amount of troops you need to siege it) lose their zone of control because they are BESIEGED! Ain't noone projecting any zone of control from there! And/Or make zones of control block off the supply routes (like distant oversea provinces used to work) instead of restricting movement so harshly, making troops operating without supplies suffer MASSIVE attrition. The way it works now is shit and has been so since its introduction. It was meant to deal with the exploity carpet sieging, but it went the wrong way. Now you can't even pursue armies and you get trapped and wiped for no real reason other than an intricate mechanic forbids your 30k stack to pass by that run-down fort with 100 men in it.
Yeah, I'll buy that it doesn't make sense that a besieged fort exerts ZOC. However, a fix using attrition wouldn't work, since they nerfed attrition with the cap.
who at paradox thought of this system lol, when there's 20 stacks running around everywhere during war in the lategame its impossible to figure out where each one can go and cant go even with the ZoC mapmode. At least give us a mapmode which lets us click on the stack to show exactly where it can and cant go given its current return province or something. Or better yet make a less convoluted system that still has a decent level of complexity from which players can make decisions off but dont have to spend 5 minute studying the map everytime a few stacks arrive at a new front on your boarder or a fort gets taken somewhere
@@Muck006 Why not just make it so that armies can never travel to more than two provinces under enemy zone of control consecutively, which force them to have to siege down a fort to keep going???
I'm thinking once you can get the hang of some weird game mechanics like this you're good to go for university. This is some logic puzzle stuff. just wtf.
Now that I finally understand how forts really work, I am baffled at how Paradox could possibly create mechanics like this... Bypassing forts is simply unfair and gamebreaking in any situation.
More than likely it was much simpler in the beginning but it led to exploits, so they kept adding more and more 'special rules' to stop exploits but turning it into spaghetti rules.
Bullshit, it’s not bypassing, it means you left an opening by not considering all possible routes of attack. It is great that this kind of strategic mistake is possible in EU4, which a kindergarten fort system would not allow.
I don't really think it's particularly difficult, or complex to be honest. It's just poorly explained, poorly visually indicated and poorly communicated and as such incredibly difficult to internalize but when you're a dev who's played a bazillion hours of eu4 and now the ins and outs of the game and designed the system your self I'm sure that it makes a lot of sense. I think this is another case of the classic Paradox problem of what's probably a brilliant system entirely hamstrung but poor communication and tutorialization.
Something I've found in my games that may explain why players think AI cheat on these rules is: if you path an army before forts are unmothballed and then the forts get maintained even if you wouldn't otherwise be able to move to the province where they're heading now that the forts are on because the game calculated the path before there were any zones of control your army will be able to move to its destination. This results in armies being able to skip forts that were not maintained before the start of the war so long as the pathing movement was calculated before the forts were maintained. I suspect that players who often keep their forts off and do not manually turn them on before the start of the war but rely on the checkbox to automatically raise forts and army maintenance when at war feature will see enemies 'cheating' when it comes to their forts because the enemy will have a day at the start of the war when all the forts haven't updated their zones of control because they were just turned on that day. This day gives the enemy's armies a chance to pathfind wherever they want in the player's land. The other side of this is you can get multiple of your enemy's forts if you declare war when they're mothballed and before you unpause direct an army to each fort in the enemy's land.
Okay, thank you, you've made me understand the system more, which only made me even more sure that it's absolutely fucked. No army movement should work like this in any game ever. I can't understand why they couldn't come up with something other than this convoluted, unenjoyable bullshit.
all i learned is if you make one fort, then leave one empty province and then in next ANOTHER fort, u make an wall, so i made a wall across the balkans and anatolia, if i am defeated or sudenly attack i always have a time to respond Now making fort in midlle of russia is nonsence to me
@@Lawrance_of_Albania So far i’ve done the same fort building for borders except I leave two provinces of space in between the forts, and its worked it saves you from building more forts.
Thanks. And don't worry, I have plenty of videos planned. I'm juggling about 30 ideas for new videos right now, spanning everything from new guides, in-depth analyses, mod spotlights, nation spotlights, and other random interesting things you can do/have happen in the game. And those are just my ideas for EU4 videos! I'm planning on getting into Stellaris and CK2 videos as well.
Rules: 1. 3:30 You can always move from an empty province to any other province 2. 3:41 You can always move to previous province; this won't exile your troops 3. 4:04 You can always move to a sea province 4. 4:18 You can move to any province up to *2 distance away* from return province 5. 6:28 You can always move into adjacent fort if in ZoC 6. 8:38 You can always move to/from friendly Zoc. The map can be misleading 7. 10:01 Occupied forts have no effect on yourself Rules 4, 5, 6, and notes e and f are the ones to remember. Try to not have 1 province thin ZoC walls Notes: a. 1:10 Types of provinces b. 1:40 Return province basics c. 2:54 or 5:26 Distance from return province extends into accessed countries d. 5:47 or 6:58 Rule 4 or 5 allows you to "ignore" forts on coasts if return province is the sea. Not sure how these are different e. 7:25 ZoC never crosses enemy borders, regardless of occupier f. 8:02 ZoC extends into neutral territory g. 9:30 Occupied forts do not have a friendly ZoC
Rule 1: You can go from any empty province to any other province Rule 2: A unit can always return to the last province it was in previously Rule 3: You can always move from a land province to an adjacent sea province regardless of any forts Rule 4 (Distance Rule): Units can move to any province that has a distance of 2 or less from the return province Rule 5 (Fort Rule): Units that are on a zone of control province can always move to an adjacent province Rule 6 (Friendly Zone of Control): You can always move to OR from provinces with friendly ZoC Rule 7: When your troops take a fort, the province reverts to whatever it would be if the fort was deleted (but it still generates a hostile ZoC against enemies)
Great videos man keep them coming. I am loving the quality and effort you put in. Considering setting up a Patreon as I am sure this takes up a lot of time and it would be nice to support someone condensing all of these wiki's. Keep it up!
This is the best EUIV vid I've ever seen. I learned more about this daunting game mechanic in a few minutes than in hours of playing and watching others complain about the 'broken' fort system.
First up, good video on explaining something I simply could not figure out at all by just playing the game. As an avid EU3 player I have just recently switched it up with EU4 and all the expansions (July 4th sale and all) this was one of those things as an EU3 player I had never encountered and was just baffled by. My intro game (playing England) and is playing around with the controls this was massively complicated and infuriating to the point I almost rage quit several times. I totally understand the desire to change things up, but man have they (Paradox) gone overboard with the changes, still learning, a little uneasy about how complicated the game has become. One of the reasons I never adopted Heart of Iron was the insane complication of the game mechanics making it very very hard to get into and to navigate around when your country/empire got too big, alas I am fearing a similar predicament, hoping some sort of automation comes along when I learn more taking away the need to pause every 30 seconds or so to just get a sense of what is actually happening.
The end of this video was like watching the god of knowledge download information directly into my brain. I finally understand movement mechanics after only a few hundred hours!
Great video explaining a terribly presented mechanic! UI elements being obscure (return province) UI elements being incomplete (friendly+hostile ZoC overlaps) UI elements being completely absent (distance rule) Then there's the completely counter-intuitive & unrealistic results that the mechanics create. Oh yeah, and the loopholes relating to the transferring of units between multiple armies...... A terrible convoluted mess of a design.
More really amazing and helpful information. Probably more actionable information per minute than I have ever seen before on a channel like this. Truly stupendous stuff!
if this game keeps getting more complicated it is going to require a college course to understand Watched video and wow that is complicated as hell. Would you say it if more advantageous to build your forts one provience back or is it still effective to put them right in the boarder as they'll project a zone of control once you've started pushing the boarder back?
Fantastic video as always! Seeing a new Reman upload always makes my day. You've got a little background buzz on the audio though FYI, audible around the 4:11 mark.
Thank you! This was a huge help! Thanks for the great visuals, both from the custom gameplay and post-editing. You made it really easy to understand something I'd been struggling with. Love your videos!
he articulated one of the 'commonly held misbeliefs' from this video as if it were true, then when it wasn't true, he was sad. specifically thought the return province, and distance from it, had nothing to do with zone of control, and that each province had a specific fort it was tied to... thats what i thought too, this video is awesome.
No he wasn't. He even showed in the video, he tag switched to France and he tried to replicate the exact movement that France did in his LP, Yet he wasn't able to do the same thing france was able to do it. So this comment by Reman is wrong, the AI can cheat the fort system whenever they feel like doing it.
If this isn't bad design - rules so complicated you can't grasp them and largely undocumented, and no UI element to show that 'province of origin' or anything else about it...
Since the introduction of ''devastation mechanics'', having forts withing you territory and not just the border is very valuable. Devastation ticks down at 0.08 a month whereas you can get 10-15% devastation in one little war. It would take forever to tick down, but, provinces within the zone of control of a fort get an additional 0.80 down tick a month for a total of 0.88 a month. That is 11 times faster with a fort than without one. I have a fort in every state just for this reason alone. I can recover in 2 years from a war whereas without forts, you would need 20 years between wars to recover your 'devastation'... Anyways, great video :D
Man I saw few of your videos. Your videos are so good, informative and well made.. great job man. I played this game since it was published, and I learned from your videos... I am so amazed... keep the good work. sorry for my broken ENG
"A bunch of enemy forts grouped together introduces no additional complications" except that you can occupy a fort inbetween others, but when you go back to where you came from its suddenly unreachable. Example: macedonia, edirne and constantinople are forts, start in tarnovo. move to plovdiv, occupy it, move to edirne, occupy it, move back to plovdiv. plovdiv still counts as zoc, edirne now also does. by the distance rule edirne is now unreachable. should it be retaken by its owner, you can suddenly move in.
OK, _this_ is confusing! But it's a lot better than the understanding I had previously. And at the very end of your video, I think maybe you've cleared up a puzzle for me. Thanks! I had a problem as Korea invading Ming. At one point, I took their fort and moved past it into open land (their land) that had no zones of control. But then I couldn't get out again. It was like a one-way door. I could roam around taking provinces that weren't within a zone of control, but I couldn't escape from them even through the province with the fort (which I still controlled). Eventually, I just made peace, so I could get my armies out of there. I controlled all of the provinces - the one I was moving from, the fort province, and the province I was trying to moving into. But if I understood you correctly, I reset the "return province" when I went into enemy land that no zone of control (because I'd taken the fort that had established that zone of control). That still seems screwy to me. But next time I play, I'll have to look for that "return province" icon. I never even knew it existed. So this video will help, even if I still don't understand everything. Thanks!
I don't like the fort system. It's overly complicated. If I have to calculate graph traversals for something as basic as movement, the game design has failed. Also the UI in EUIV is too primitive to display the ZoCs properly, maybe PDX could look at XCOM or Civ for UI/UX a bit, not that Firaxis does a perfect job, but a lot of it is easier to grasp/use.
No not zone of control, but other ui elements that display zones, like city radius in civ, bombardment range, or area markers in xcom like granade or possible locations for graple or melee, or other zones displayed OVER the map/units.
Civ has had zone of control for a long time. They have even had different rules over the years. However, Civ is a turn based game so they can do things with ZOC (like slowing your progress) that EU4 doesn't do.
EU4 is also turn based. Every Day a turn. Only difference to Civ is, that all Players make their turn at the same time, and there is no end turn button but "game speed" and Pause.
Thanx for this video! I didnt even knew about this complex fort control system. Now I can use it in my benefit, instead of feeling frustrated about it.
Awesome Guide! Great work with with explaining it. I was getting kind of frustrated because I was playing Castile, and at war, England beached troops in Vizcaya, but was able to move between all the coastal provinces up there. Now I get why they could do that.
This is really helpful. One thing, though; the AI does *kind of* cheat. They can't access provinces that they shouldn't, however, if they can reach a province by any of these mentioned rules, no matter how far or how long it would take them, they can take the most direct path. This was apparently added to prevent exploits, however, it is easy to see that it could lead to them walking straight through a fort and thus people come to the opinion that it's broken.
There's no "kind of" about it. If the AI is allowed to make moves that would be invalid for a player in the same situation (which it is), then the AI cheats.
Wow, the 2 province rule enlightened me. Now i understand why the ai can make moves that i could not fathom. Question: If the sea province is set as the return province, does the 2 province rule apply? Means you could move 2 spaces inland way from the water? Can you run THROUGH a fort with the 2 province rule ?
>If the sea province is set as the return province, does the 2 province rule apply? Means you could move 2 spaces inland way from the water? The fact that it DOES apply is why setting the sea province as the return province allows you to march around the coast. >Can you run THROUGH a fort with the 2 province rule ? This is also shown in the video, multiple times at that.
What is shown is that you can move 1 space away form the sea province as every province borders the return province. It was there that he showed that you can run through forts but they all were adjacent to the sea province, my question would be if the rules change if you try the same on only land? Run from the border through a fort to siege a fort behind which is only 2 provinces away from you. Another question i have is that i read somewhere if you split your troops behind enemy lines they will lose the return province, is that correct? Or will only one army have the return province set and the other one has none set?
Great video! The reason that people say that the ai cheats is because if they can get to a province in any way, they're allowed to take the shortest route to the province. This causes some problems, because the ai should sometimes only get to your province by taking the long route through Siberia, but they can just walk through your forts in India if that route exists. Edit: Clarity
I like the mechanics. Thank you for the explanation. The last video about trade helped me a lot by playing as the Mayans and making a fortunes in Chesapeake Bay .
I have been waiting for a video like this for a long time. It is really awful to see so much misinformation on fort ZoC, so many baseless accusations of the AI cheating and so forth. I am glad to finally have a link I can shut that down with.
Except the AI does cheat with it's short cut rule. Now, you could argue that it isn't a big cheat, but it is something the AI can do which the player cannot.
Agreed, I count the short cut rule as a pretty aggravating cheat myself. It isn't necessarily the "computer can do whatever it wants" kind of cheat, but it is still a pretty frustrating cheat as it isn't always apparent where that one province hole in some backwards part of your country the computer is using as an excuse to ignore your zoc is.
Remus, would you care to take a crack at that one? I would love to hear how that happened, and it would also make a good example for the mechanic. Also, Paradox literally said the A.I. doesn't cheat in any way.
It seems that its close to what Remus said, but more than that! In Arumba's LP, its was the ZoC of his capital, Berlin, that the AI France by-passed! It shouldn't of, because it was a fort level 2+1.
Thank you! I would guess that most people have the same problem I did: Not aware of the return province mechanic, that this is what really matters. I had no idea that the return province was the main thing the game used to calculate, so nothing made sense. I think I'm going to be using and abusing a lot of the things I've learned. For example, there might be more border gore between myself and an AI that I plan to attack in a later war, as I take provinces that can serve as amazing return provinces and let me access a ton of land with the forts the enemy has up.
Great video, didn't understand everything, but that rule of the return province will be so useful. I always play carefully anyway, and I try to not overlap ZoC with my forts to avoid problems. I think that's the simplest rule for building forts at least. If you don't overlap ZoC, you will see a more expected behavior.
One thing that I've learned to be cautious about is merging armies during a siege. I typically split my armies to avoid attrition, but when you merge them, the return province can get lost. I once got stuck on a single province I couldn't leave with an army too small to siege down the fort it was on, and couldn't disband it either.
Great Video as always! The only thing I didn't know is that sea zone can be return province, because that situation almost never occurs naturally. It explains why Spain was able to bypass my forts when I played Mali, situation in which I assumed that AI was cheating :)
I didn't want to watch your video because of arrogance but your reputation you've made with being a very informed player forced me to watch it and i'm glad I did. The biggest takeaway from this is: The AI doesn't cheat.
I had a game as Spain with a fort in Navarra and France walked right through it. It was not mothballed and it was a level 4 fort. This was since the update that added the Pyrenees Mountains.
I think the better way to do implement forts would be 1) blocking the movement between hostile forts or between hostile fort and the area with no access 2) high attrition/morale hit for passing through a province in the zone of control and slowed down movement through the zone of control, prevent reinforcements if a path to the friendly territory which is unrestricted by forts does not exist or is too long
Reman you know your stuff but for any one watching your video's they are watching to learn maybe slowing down your pace of talking on most of your video's would help many of times I have rewind it as you talk that quick. Still great knowledge and thanks for all your tips as well as HOI4.
a bit slower would help tbh most of the time he has finished explaining something I am still trying to find the province name he said at the start of the example.
I believe, being able to only go the way you came was a previous itteration of forts, a large part of the confusiuon with forts is that they have worked diffierantly in past patches.
Watched this, institutions, and your trade ones. Very much like how you break it down (With edited help, like the arrows / #s), provide examples, and tips at the end. Only thing was at 5:35 ish, you where referring to reds land, but still in the fort mode. Hard to see where red was if you missed where Olonets was. Maybe add a little red arrow / box next time? Please make more. Some ideas off the top of my head: Navy / Naval combat. Army / Land combat. Exploration / colonies (Maybe added in with Naval / Army?) Leaders (Maybe added in with Naval / Army as well? Or at least respective ones) Diplomacy Culture / religion. (How to form X nation, maybe HRE etc)
This video makes sense, but imo the fort system itself is convoluted and overly complicated. Thanks for clearing up the return province thing tho, I've never heard of it before today.
Just thank the devs that there is a fort system, it used to take a long, long, long time to seige down a big country as it took a year or more for every single province. Yes, at the beginning of the game, you could do it with one troop, but that made them much more vulnerable.
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but: If you issue movement orders ON THE DAY YOU(not when you get declared on)DECLARE A WAR, you can bybass forts entirely to go sit on whatever province you want. This is a very wonky bug and not 100% reliable, but I've used it to great affect, especially with Imperialism. *Yes, fully garrisoned forts. I repeat. Not mothballed forts.* It may have to do with a conditional access override bug, where you have conditional access that doesn't get canceled before you move your troops. Or it could just be some other type of bug. Or some other excuse(perhaps mechanics DO let this happen naturally and it makes sense code-wise but isn't intended. Or or or or. Point is, there ARE situations where you CAN ignore ZoC and just march wherever you want. Rare, unreliable, and I wouldn't bet my TTM run on it, but it happens.
Step 1: Watch the entire video and try and keep up. Step 2: download the video and watch again. Step 3: listen to in on repeat while sleeping And of course Step :4 play a game of EU4 with this new knowledge and pause 42 times in the first 2 wars to review and figure out “what the heck did he say about this situation?!?”
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It´s like solving one of humanities greatest mysteries!
Yeah, but it's like a scientist solving quantum mechanics, because I still wouldn't understand it, anyway. LOL
dude this is so true
That sea return province looks so broken..
It is, but only if you have an overwhelming force against your enemy. If your foe can defeat your units, they're effectively trapped and can be easily stackwiped.
Ondřej Šaroun I think it's to simulate that your armies are on on the coast of the Aegean Sea, therefore they can just walk around the forts, but it doesn't make sense how you are able to teleport regiments to the other side of the forts by changing what army they're assigned to.
In that case it would make sence to allow that even without boarding the ships first
It is pretty situational and you need naval supremacy in the province first.
does the boat need to stay to keep the return province on the sea? if it leaves will they be trapped?
Good grief Paradox. It's not surprising people come to the conclusion that the system is broken or that the AI cheats when the way it works is absolutely nonsensical.
The new system was not better then this.
Eeki the new system was broken in a different way, if both are shit then I prefer to have the one I'm used to than some new one equally as bad
I'll have to play for a while to make sure, but I don't think it's actually that hard to understand, most of the rules he cites are edge cases (so you might not internalize *everything* that's going on right away, but the main points, the bulk of the system, will make sense right away if you think about it right). The real trick, and the real problem for people understanding it, I think is that they're too focused on the fort, not noticing the return province. That's how I've been thinking. I think that once I get into a game, knowing that the return province is the important thing, I'll internalize the system, probably without remembering all of the edge cases, but knowing the bulk of what's going on. But I'll have to play for a couple of hours before I know for sure whether that's the case.
fixing the system would be ez! Make forts that are sufficiently surrounded (the amount of troops you need to siege it) lose their zone of control because they are BESIEGED! Ain't noone projecting any zone of control from there! And/Or make zones of control block off the supply routes (like distant oversea provinces used to work) instead of restricting movement so harshly, making troops operating without supplies suffer MASSIVE attrition. The way it works now is shit and has been so since its introduction. It was meant to deal with the exploity carpet sieging, but it went the wrong way. Now you can't even pursue armies and you get trapped and wiped for no real reason other than an intricate mechanic forbids your 30k stack to pass by that run-down fort with 100 men in it.
Yeah, I'll buy that it doesn't make sense that a besieged fort exerts ZOC. However, a fix using attrition wouldn't work, since they nerfed attrition with the cap.
who at paradox thought of this system lol, when there's 20 stacks running around everywhere during war in the lategame its impossible to figure out where each one can go and cant go even with the ZoC mapmode. At least give us a mapmode which lets us click on the stack to show exactly where it can and cant go given its current return province or something. Or better yet make a less convoluted system that still has a decent level of complexity from which players can make decisions off but dont have to spend 5 minute studying the map everytime a few stacks arrive at a new front on your boarder or a fort gets taken somewhere
ikr, isn't studying the maps fun!
Without this rule forts would become meaningless ... sort of.
@@Muck006 Why not just make it so that armies can never travel to more than two provinces under enemy zone of control consecutively, which force them to have to siege down a fort to keep going???
Jesus this is way more complicated than I thought
I'm thinking once you can get the hang of some weird game mechanics like this you're good to go for university.
This is some logic puzzle stuff. just wtf.
Now that I finally understand how forts really work, I am baffled at how Paradox could possibly create mechanics like this... Bypassing forts is simply unfair and gamebreaking in any situation.
More than likely it was much simpler in the beginning but it led to exploits, so they kept adding more and more 'special rules' to stop exploits but turning it into spaghetti rules.
Bullshit, it’s not bypassing, it means you left an opening by not considering all possible routes of attack. It is great that this kind of strategic mistake is possible in EU4, which a kindergarten fort system would not allow.
That's true, Arumba has no clue about it LOL
I don't really think it's particularly difficult, or complex to be honest. It's just poorly explained, poorly visually indicated and poorly communicated and as such incredibly difficult to internalize but when you're a dev who's played a bazillion hours of eu4 and now the ins and outs of the game and designed the system your self I'm sure that it makes a lot of sense. I think this is another case of the classic Paradox problem of what's probably a brilliant system entirely hamstrung but poor communication and tutorialization.
@@zackslaststand I'd say you just pointed out a great p a r a d o x....
Man I always thought that return provinces had something to do with retreating armies... Thanks for the thorough explanation!
Something I've found in my games that may explain why players think AI cheat on these rules is: if you path an army before forts are unmothballed and then the forts get maintained even if you wouldn't otherwise be able to move to the province where they're heading now that the forts are on because the game calculated the path before there were any zones of control your army will be able to move to its destination. This results in armies being able to skip forts that were not maintained before the start of the war so long as the pathing movement was calculated before the forts were maintained. I suspect that players who often keep their forts off and do not manually turn them on before the start of the war but rely on the checkbox to automatically raise forts and army maintenance when at war feature will see enemies 'cheating' when it comes to their forts because the enemy will have a day at the start of the war when all the forts haven't updated their zones of control because they were just turned on that day. This day gives the enemy's armies a chance to pathfind wherever they want in the player's land. The other side of this is you can get multiple of your enemy's forts if you declare war when they're mothballed and before you unpause direct an army to each fort in the enemy's land.
thanks man
Bruh the ai cheats so much its obvious and kinda frustrating
Okay, thank you, you've made me understand the system more, which only made me even more sure that it's absolutely fucked.
No army movement should work like this in any game ever.
I can't understand why they couldn't come up with something other than this convoluted, unenjoyable bullshit.
Even after playing for hundreds of hours you can always learn something new in EU4.
I am at 800 hours now and I still don't know how forts work lol. idk if i will ever understand it or care to lol xD
I've watched this video for the last 3 years and I still don't understand forts
all i learned is if you make one fort, then leave one empty province and then in next ANOTHER fort, u make an wall, so i made a wall across the balkans and anatolia, if i am defeated or sudenly attack i always have a time to respond
Now making fort in midlle of russia is nonsence to me
@@Lawrance_of_Albania
So far i’ve done the same fort building for borders except I leave two provinces of space in between the forts, and its worked it saves you from building more forts.
Please teach me more buddeh
Vujo Gaming
It's you!
Pls make more vids like this, you're so great
Thanks. And don't worry, I have plenty of videos planned. I'm juggling about 30 ideas for new videos right now, spanning everything from new guides, in-depth analyses, mod spotlights, nation spotlights, and other random interesting things you can do/have happen in the game. And those are just my ideas for EU4 videos! I'm planning on getting into Stellaris and CK2 videos as well.
You are my drug
+Trader Vic like urbino
Rules:
1. 3:30 You can always move from an empty province to any other province
2. 3:41 You can always move to previous province; this won't exile your troops
3. 4:04 You can always move to a sea province
4. 4:18 You can move to any province up to *2 distance away* from return province
5. 6:28 You can always move into adjacent fort if in ZoC
6. 8:38 You can always move to/from friendly Zoc. The map can be misleading
7. 10:01 Occupied forts have no effect on yourself
Rules 4, 5, 6, and notes e and f are the ones to remember. Try to not have 1 province thin ZoC walls
Notes:
a. 1:10 Types of provinces
b. 1:40 Return province basics
c. 2:54 or 5:26 Distance from return province extends into accessed countries
d. 5:47 or 6:58 Rule 4 or 5 allows you to "ignore" forts on coasts if return province is the sea. Not sure how these are different
e. 7:25 ZoC never crosses enemy borders, regardless of occupier
f. 8:02 ZoC extends into neutral territory
g. 9:30 Occupied forts do not have a friendly ZoC
You are the unsung hero of eu4
best eu4 youtuber hands down
This seems needlessly confusing and it makes me angry
This one time it was physically impossible for me to finish off the enemy, I got soooo mad and rage quit.
Rule 1: You can go from any empty province to any other province
Rule 2: A unit can always return to the last province it was in previously
Rule 3: You can always move from a land province to an adjacent sea province regardless of any forts
Rule 4 (Distance Rule): Units can move to any province that has a distance of 2 or less from the return province
Rule 5 (Fort Rule): Units that are on a zone of control province can always move to an adjacent province
Rule 6 (Friendly Zone of Control): You can always move to OR from provinces with friendly ZoC
Rule 7: When your troops take a fort, the province reverts to whatever it would be if the fort was deleted (but it still generates a hostile ZoC against enemies)
Rule 5 only applies to Fort provinces
Great videos man keep them coming. I am loving the quality and effort you put in. Considering setting up a Patreon as I am sure this takes up a lot of time and it would be nice to support someone condensing all of these wiki's. Keep it up!
This is the best EUIV vid I've ever seen. I learned more about this daunting game mechanic in a few minutes than in hours of playing and watching others complain about the 'broken' fort system.
First up, good video on explaining something I simply could not figure out at all by just playing the game.
As an avid EU3 player I have just recently switched it up with EU4 and all the expansions (July 4th sale and all) this was one of those things as an EU3 player I had never encountered and was just baffled by. My intro game (playing England) and is playing around with the controls this was massively complicated and infuriating to the point I almost rage quit several times.
I totally understand the desire to change things up, but man have they (Paradox) gone overboard with the changes, still learning, a little uneasy about how complicated the game has become. One of the reasons I never adopted Heart of Iron was the insane complication of the game mechanics making it very very hard to get into and to navigate around when your country/empire got too big, alas I am fearing a similar predicament, hoping some sort of automation comes along when I learn more taking away the need to pause every 30 seconds or so to just get a sense of what is actually happening.
Oh man this explains a lot, thank you sir!
The end of this video was like watching the god of knowledge download information directly into my brain. I finally understand movement mechanics after only a few hundred hours!
Great video explaining a terribly presented mechanic!
UI elements being obscure (return province)
UI elements being incomplete (friendly+hostile ZoC overlaps)
UI elements being completely absent (distance rule)
Then there's the completely counter-intuitive & unrealistic results that the mechanics create.
Oh yeah, and the loopholes relating to the transferring of units between multiple armies......
A terrible convoluted mess of a design.
More really amazing and helpful information. Probably more actionable information per minute than I have ever seen before on a channel like this. Truly stupendous stuff!
if this game keeps getting more complicated it is going to require a college course to understand
Watched video and wow that is complicated as hell. Would you say it if more advantageous to build your forts one provience back or is it still effective to put them right in the boarder as they'll project a zone of control once you've started pushing the boarder back?
Valosar based on what I see it makes the most sense to build them one province back
Honestly it already takes more brainpower than many courses
My brain hurts
Fantastic video as always! Seeing a new Reman upload always makes my day. You've got a little background buzz on the audio though FYI, audible around the 4:11 mark.
Holy shit, Reman, ANOTHER video? You're on a roll!
Now you are officially my God .
Reman your voice is butter for my cavities
That was actually much simpler than i thought it was. Thanks!
Holy crap, this was frustrating me so much in a game the other day and I didn't even know this was a thing! Thank you Reman. Love your videos buddy.
Thank you! This was a huge help! Thanks for the great visuals, both from the custom gameplay and post-editing. You made it really easy to understand something I'd been struggling with.
Love your videos!
arumba was wrong confirmed
This is what happens when you become too arrogant. Start blaming the game for your lack of knowledge.
I can certainly blame the game for making something too complicated for most people in an area of gameplay that clearly doesn't benefit from it.
he articulated one of the 'commonly held misbeliefs' from this video as if it were true, then when it wasn't true, he was sad. specifically thought the return province, and distance from it, had nothing to do with zone of control, and that each province had a specific fort it was tied to... thats what i thought too, this video is awesome.
No he wasn't.
He even showed in the video, he tag switched to France and he tried to replicate the exact movement that France did in his LP, Yet he wasn't able to do the same thing france was able to do it. So this comment by Reman is wrong, the AI can cheat the fort system whenever they feel like doing it.
He was right
Oh my god the sea rule! How did I miss that! And I thought I understood it well, great vid!
If this isn't bad design - rules so complicated you can't grasp them and largely undocumented, and no UI element to show that 'province of origin' or anything else about it...
Once again an excellent video. Great watching you - concise, informative, essential info. Great job.
Since the introduction of ''devastation mechanics'', having forts withing you territory and not just the border is very valuable. Devastation ticks down at 0.08 a month whereas you can get 10-15% devastation in one little war. It would take forever to tick down, but, provinces within the zone of control of a fort get an additional 0.80 down tick a month for a total of 0.88 a month. That is 11 times faster with a fort than without one. I have a fort in every state just for this reason alone. I can recover in 2 years from a war whereas without forts, you would need 20 years between wars to recover your 'devastation'... Anyways, great video :D
Man I saw few of your videos. Your videos are so good, informative and well made.. great job man. I played this game since it was published, and I learned from your videos... I am so amazed... keep the good work. sorry for my broken ENG
I have never paid attention to the return province, thanks for the great video clearing things up.
Two videos in a week? Reman you'll spoil us!
"A bunch of enemy forts grouped together introduces no additional complications" except that you can occupy a fort inbetween others, but when you go back to where you came from its suddenly unreachable. Example: macedonia, edirne and constantinople are forts, start in tarnovo. move to plovdiv, occupy it, move to edirne, occupy it, move back to plovdiv. plovdiv still counts as zoc, edirne now also does. by the distance rule edirne is now unreachable. should it be retaken by its owner, you can suddenly move in.
Everything in this game is quantum physics. Reman, you're a goddamn hero.
OK, _this_ is confusing! But it's a lot better than the understanding I had previously. And at the very end of your video, I think maybe you've cleared up a puzzle for me. Thanks!
I had a problem as Korea invading Ming. At one point, I took their fort and moved past it into open land (their land) that had no zones of control. But then I couldn't get out again. It was like a one-way door. I could roam around taking provinces that weren't within a zone of control, but I couldn't escape from them even through the province with the fort (which I still controlled). Eventually, I just made peace, so I could get my armies out of there.
I controlled all of the provinces - the one I was moving from, the fort province, and the province I was trying to moving into. But if I understood you correctly, I reset the "return province" when I went into enemy land that no zone of control (because I'd taken the fort that had established that zone of control).
That still seems screwy to me. But next time I play, I'll have to look for that "return province" icon. I never even knew it existed. So this video will help, even if I still don't understand everything. Thanks!
I don't like the fort system. It's overly complicated. If I have to calculate graph traversals for something as basic as movement, the game design has failed. Also the UI in EUIV is too primitive to display the ZoCs properly, maybe PDX could look at XCOM or Civ for UI/UX a bit, not that Firaxis does a perfect job, but a lot of it is easier to grasp/use.
Does Civ or XCOM have anything resembling zone of control?
No not zone of control, but other ui elements that display zones, like city radius in civ, bombardment range, or area markers in xcom like granade or possible locations for graple or melee, or other zones displayed OVER the map/units.
Civ has had zone of control for a long time. They have even had different rules over the years. However, Civ is a turn based game so they can do things with ZOC (like slowing your progress) that EU4 doesn't do.
CleverClothe i ment the ui aspects of it, sorry if I wasn't clear.
EU4 is also turn based. Every Day a turn. Only difference to Civ is, that all Players make their turn at the same time, and there is no end turn button but "game speed" and Pause.
Thanx for this video! I didnt even knew about this complex fort control system. Now I can use it in my benefit, instead of feeling frustrated about it.
That trick of moving all your units to the "relief force" can save many games!
Awesome Guide! Great work with with explaining it. I was getting kind of frustrated because I was playing Castile, and at war, England beached troops in Vizcaya, but was able to move between all the coastal provinces up there. Now I get why they could do that.
This is really helpful. One thing, though; the AI does *kind of* cheat. They can't access provinces that they shouldn't, however, if they can reach a province by any of these mentioned rules, no matter how far or how long it would take them, they can take the most direct path. This was apparently added to prevent exploits, however, it is easy to see that it could lead to them walking straight through a fort and thus people come to the opinion that it's broken.
There's no "kind of" about it. If the AI is allowed to make moves that would be invalid for a player in the same situation (which it is), then the AI cheats.
Wow, the 2 province rule enlightened me. Now i understand why the ai can make moves that i could not fathom.
Question:
If the sea province is set as the return province, does the 2 province rule apply? Means you could move 2 spaces inland way from the water?
Can you run THROUGH a fort with the 2 province rule ?
>If the sea province is set as the return province, does the 2 province
rule apply? Means you could move 2 spaces inland way from the water?
The fact that it DOES apply is why setting the sea province as the return province allows you to march around the coast.
>Can you run THROUGH a fort with the 2 province rule ?
This is also shown in the video, multiple times at that.
You can't because you only count empty zones for the 2 province rule.
What is shown is that you can move 1 space away form the sea province as every province borders the return province.
It was there that he showed that you can run through forts but they all were adjacent to the sea province, my question would be if the rules change if you try the same on only land? Run from the border through a fort to siege a fort behind which is only 2 provinces away from you.
Another question i have is that i read somewhere if you split your troops behind enemy lines they will lose the return province, is that correct? Or will only one army have the return province set and the other one has none set?
I´ll bet this guy is a teacher. He´s great at this
Great video! The reason that people say that the ai cheats is because if they can get to a province in any way, they're allowed to take the shortest route to the province. This causes some problems, because the ai should sometimes only get to your province by taking the long route through Siberia, but they can just walk through your forts in India if that route exists.
Edit: Clarity
This video is amazing. It felt so mysterious before!
I like the mechanics.
Thank you for the explanation. The last video about trade helped me a lot by playing as the Mayans and making a fortunes in Chesapeake Bay .
Finally figured out what that fort with the flag means, thank you!
I have been waiting for a video like this for a long time. It is really awful to see so much misinformation on fort ZoC, so many baseless accusations of the AI cheating and so forth. I am glad to finally have a link I can shut that down with.
Except the AI does cheat with it's short cut rule. Now, you could argue that it isn't a big cheat, but it is something the AI can do which the player cannot.
The shortcut rule is fake news
Agreed, I count the short cut rule as a pretty aggravating cheat myself. It isn't necessarily the "computer can do whatever it wants" kind of cheat, but it is still a pretty frustrating cheat as it isn't always apparent where that one province hole in some backwards part of your country the computer is using as an excuse to ignore your zoc is.
Remus, would you care to take a crack at that one? I would love to hear how that happened, and it would also make a good example for the mechanic. Also, Paradox literally said the A.I. doesn't cheat in any way.
It seems that its close to what Remus said, but more than that!
In Arumba's LP, its was the ZoC of his capital, Berlin, that the AI France by-passed!
It shouldn't of, because it was a fort level 2+1.
3:15 confuses me, why would olonets be a 2? wouldn't it be a 1 since its an neutral right next to the neutral 0?
Great guide! Really nice job, achieving to make EU4 seem clear, and teaching stuff to 1000+ h players. Thanks a lot
Thank you! I would guess that most people have the same problem I did: Not aware of the return province mechanic, that this is what really matters. I had no idea that the return province was the main thing the game used to calculate, so nothing made sense.
I think I'm going to be using and abusing a lot of the things I've learned. For example, there might be more border gore between myself and an AI that I plan to attack in a later war, as I take provinces that can serve as amazing return provinces and let me access a ton of land with the forts the enemy has up.
Thank you, this guide is extremely helpful. I think I'll have to watch for these things ingame to really understand them but I get the basics now.
Great video, didn't understand everything, but that rule of the return province will be so useful. I always play carefully anyway, and I try to not overlap ZoC with my forts to avoid problems. I think that's the simplest rule for building forts at least. If you don't overlap ZoC, you will see a more expected behavior.
One thing that I've learned to be cautious about is merging armies during a siege. I typically split my armies to avoid attrition, but when you merge them, the return province can get lost. I once got stuck on a single province I couldn't leave with an army too small to siege down the fort it was on, and couldn't disband it either.
guy in 2020 here .... I love you man!
Great Video as always! The only thing I didn't know is that sea zone can be return province, because that situation almost never occurs naturally. It explains why Spain was able to bypass my forts when I played Mali, situation in which I assumed that AI was cheating :)
I didn't want to watch your video because of arrogance but your reputation you've made with being a very informed player forced me to watch it and i'm glad I did. The biggest takeaway from this is: The AI doesn't cheat.
Superb guide! Now I understand the mechanics assaulting large hostile territory is so fun! As long as you have the manpower ;)
Thank you very much for your guides. They are outstanding! Hopes you will keep making them :)
Again great video!!! Man where are you? Give more EU4 content cheers!!!
Holy shit! It actualy makes sence.
This has been so helpful
I had a game as Spain with a fort in Navarra and France walked right through it. It was not mothballed and it was a level 4 fort. This was since the update that added the Pyrenees Mountains.
This guy speaks enchantment table
I think the better way to do implement forts would be
1) blocking the movement between hostile forts or between hostile fort and the area with no access
2) high attrition/morale hit for passing through a province in the zone of control and slowed down movement through the zone of control, prevent reinforcements if a path to the friendly territory which is unrestricted by forts does not exist or is too long
thanks for teaching me what pedagogically means
An excellent video, detailing an extremely dumb and over complicated system in a way that is actually understandable.
Reman you should unironically write a book with all the complicated mechanics.
This cleared up SO MUCH. Thanks for the explanation!
Reman you know your stuff but for any one watching your video's they are watching to learn maybe slowing down your pace of talking on most of your video's would help many of times I have rewind it as you talk that quick. Still great knowledge and thanks for all your tips as well as HOI4.
a bit slower would help tbh most of the time he has finished explaining something I am still trying to find the province name he said at the start of the example.
Shouldn't Olonets at 3:14 be labeled "1"?
I believe, being able to only go the way you came was a previous itteration of forts, a large part of the confusiuon with forts is that they have worked diffierantly in past patches.
Oh my god! I knew I recognized that song, I've been a longtime listener to iamsleepless (:
At 3:14, is there a typo? You have a 2 over Olonets, but shouldn't it be a 1? Sorry if I'm wrong. Great video though, really explained the mechanics.
Watched this, institutions, and your trade ones.
Very much like how you break it down (With edited help, like the arrows / #s), provide examples, and tips at the end.
Only thing was at 5:35 ish, you where referring to reds land, but still in the fort mode. Hard to see where red was if you missed where Olonets was.
Maybe add a little red arrow / box next time?
Please make more. Some ideas off the top of my head:
Navy / Naval combat.
Army / Land combat.
Exploration / colonies (Maybe added in with Naval / Army?)
Leaders (Maybe added in with Naval / Army as well? Or at least respective ones)
Diplomacy
Culture / religion. (How to form X nation, maybe HRE etc)
Liked, Subbed, and I'm contemplating putting your video in my Sig for EU4 boards
thx for that. this was giving me a headache for quite a while. Cheerz.
Will you ever post more videos, Reman? You got me into EU4, and I've enjoyed every single thing you've put out.
15:15 This is some serious gamebreaking strat man :D !
This video makes sense, but imo the fort system itself is convoluted and overly complicated. Thanks for clearing up the return province thing tho, I've never heard of it before today.
you're simply awesome, Reman
the g in pedagogue is a hard g, like gift.
yes, but that's not pronounced the same as "pedagogy", which is what he said. Pedagogue is pronounced equivalently to prologue (i. e. like prolog).
Nicely done. Very useful information. Thank you.
This is much needed. Thank you.
BTW you should be Paradox's new minister of clarification.
Just thank the devs that there is a fort system, it used to take a long, long, long time to seige down a big country as it took a year or more for every single province. Yes, at the beginning of the game, you could do it with one troop, but that made them much more vulnerable.
this needs to get simplified so much
amazing analysis 👍 certainly gives me new informations
Thank you Sifu Reman.
What this video did for me is that before, the fort system makes me rage, now it’s just a sigh.
I wonder how many wars this video will win people.
I don't know if this has been mentioned, but: If you issue movement orders ON THE DAY YOU(not when you get declared on)DECLARE A WAR, you can bybass forts entirely to go sit on whatever province you want. This is a very wonky bug and not 100% reliable, but I've used it to great affect, especially with Imperialism. *Yes, fully garrisoned forts. I repeat. Not mothballed forts.* It may have to do with a conditional access override bug, where you have conditional access that doesn't get canceled before you move your troops. Or it could just be some other type of bug. Or some other excuse(perhaps mechanics DO let this happen naturally and it makes sense code-wise but isn't intended. Or or or or. Point is, there ARE situations where you CAN ignore ZoC and just march wherever you want. Rare, unreliable, and I wouldn't bet my TTM run on it, but it happens.
Step 1: Watch the entire video and try and keep up.
Step 2: download the video and watch again.
Step 3: listen to in on repeat while sleeping
And of course
Step :4 play a game of EU4 with this new knowledge and pause 42 times in the first 2 wars to review and figure out “what the heck did he say about this situation?!?”