Europa Universalis III: Discussion + Help

[Dragor]

So, EUIII. Currently there's an LP on it by Lord Herman- you really should give it a look, hint hint- (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155120) and it out of interest for the game being rekindled, I bought it on Steam, narrowly missing the offer on it. Grr.

Now, EUIII is my second experience of grand strategy after Hearts of Iron II. And, like HOII, I'm totally hopeless. And there must be other players out there who are just as bad as me (but hopefully not), so I made this thread to ask a few questions of my own, and maybe other new players to EUIII will chip in too.

1) The economy. Good God, the economy. I've still not worked out this beast. I know about the yearly census, and I think I understand Centres of Trade (high income port + merchants + merchant compete advisor = money]. But people talk about having kick ass economies, whilst if I try and pull myself over the +0.00 mark, I usually have to dig into some tasty, tasty inflation. :smallfrown: Any advice on how to build a kickass economy?

2) Wars. So far, I've been horribly bad at them. I start right at the start, so usually all I have is Knights + Footmen. If I can afford it, I'll dig into my coffers and by a general, and maybe assign my leader as one. Build a few more troops, make sure they're suited to the province I want to invade first, and then go! But armies which I outnumber and technically should be doing better than seem to trounce me. What's the gist? Can somebody break down the extra values- 'shock', 'fire', etc- without confusing me?

Currently I've been playing as the European nations, and I've had most fun as Venice, simply trading and middling around with Greece and the Greek Islands, making most of them my vassals. Just had a war against the Ottomans, with a lot of friends on my side, and divided and conquered the entirety of Eastern Europe. It's a very, very fun and addictive game, but I need to understand it more, and the tutorials really aren't that great, and crash loads for me.

--EDIT--

I own EUIII Complete, which means I don't have HttT. I think.

[Aragehaor]

2) Wars. So far, I've been horribly bad at them. I start right at the start, so usually all I have is Knights + Footmen. If I can afford it, I'll dig into my coffers and by a general, and maybe assign my leader as one. Build a few more troops, make sure they're suited to the province I want to invade first, and then go! But armies which I outnumber and technically should be doing better than seem to trounce me. What's the gist? Can somebody break down the extra values- 'shock', 'fire', etc- without confusing me?

Currently I've been playing as the European nations, and I've had most fun as Venice, simply trading and middling around with Greece and the Greek Islands, making most of them my vassals. Just had a war against the Ottomans, with a lot of friends on my side, and divided and conquered the entirety of Eastern Europe. It's a very, very fun and addictive game, but I need to understand it more, and the tutorials really aren't that great, and crash loads for me.

Out of curiosity, how low is your discipline? low discipline causes your troops to be less effective, while low morale causes them to be cowards.

Sadly i know little about the extra values myself.

Question of my own Playing as Denmark: is there a way to declare war on a German state without the holy roman emperor marching upon you relentlessly? (also, is there an event that causes norway to be annexed by me or do i need to do that myself?)

[Dragor]

Out of curiosity, how low is your discipline? low discipline causes your troops to be less effective, while low morale causes them to be cowards.

Sadly i know little about the extra values myself.
)

... Huh. I'd completely forgot about discipline. :smallmad: *bangs head against desk*

[Ellye]

About inflation: do not mint. Only mint when you absolutely need it (war, for example) or only as much as your Bankers and National Bank allow you to without generating inflation.

Also, do not pay military maintenance if you're at peace and doesn't expect immediate conflict. And be careful to not exceed your force limits, or your maintenance will sky-rocket. And never keep mercenaries, they charge a lot.

As for war: Early game you'll want to have one army composed of only Cavalry, and one properly mixed army. The Cavalry-only army should be used to chase enemy troops as they retreat from combat so that they have no chance to recover.

Early game, Shock is much, much more important than Fire. Morale is always important. Anyway, keep an eye on your General and your opponent's General. They have a lot of influence in the conflict.

And finally, get Heir to the Throne. Totally worth it. :smallwink:

[Cespenar]

Oh, and also keep in mind to "consolidate regiments" every time after an unit engages in a battle. Otherwise, your troops would fight much crappier than they actually can.

[Kzickas]

Not much to say on the economy really, keep your investment consentrated on one bar at a time, don't mint, build workshops, conquer provinces with high tax base, keep your stability high

[Ellye]

The quickest way to huge incomes is by focusing on Trade. Get Trade-related National Ideas, get sliders that benefit your trading, improve your trade technology. After a while, you'll be able to maintain monopoly in all known Trade Centers.
The drawback of this route is that it all start falling apart if you start warmongering. Your Reputation (now more aptly called "Infamy" in HttT) strongly affects your trading chances in a negative way.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

As everyone on any EUIII help thing always says (you probably already know this, but just to be safe), you want to run a monthly deficit, but a yearly surplus.

[Dragor]

As everyone on any EUIII help thing always says (you probably already know this, but just to be safe), you want to run a monthly deficit, but a yearly surplus.

Yeah, that's something I always try to do, but generally my expenses begin to weigh me down. I'm getting better at it, though. I've still not played the game past 1420 as anyone due to going broke. :smallannoyed:

So yeah, war. I wish you could form aggressive alliances with people, because currently, even if I've fabricated claims over somebodies land, or even if I DO have genuine claims, my allies will abandon me, except Genoa and Savoy, usually, because they really do love to go to war on my games. What gives? This usually means I have to bail out of a war before I can annex every province, or start on the familiar spiralling staircase to defeat.

Also, I can only win fights on Very Easy. :smalleek: Good God.

Despite my failures, this game is damn addictive...

[Lord Herman]

So far, my solution to inflation is not to worry about it. Which has caused me in my Castille game to have over 100% inflation in 1700 AD. I guess I should try this 'monthy deficit, yearly surplus' thing to avoid the same from happening in my Let's Play.

One thing that has really helped me understand the game is the EU3 Wiki (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page).

[Dragor]

Dammit, why didn't I look this up before? I now understand a lot more about military than I first did. Thanks for the link, Herman.

Just a quick question: playing as England, should I really try to hold on to the French territories early on, or just let them go? To be honest, don't think they're worth the hassle; Calais is easy to keep, but the entirety of Aquitaine is just pretty much hard to defend from the initial French cavalry onslaught, which I just can't match. Because I'm planning to play my first 'Now-I-Understand-The-Bastard' game of EU3 as my native country, and my past experience against France has been pretty grim.

--EDIT--

Well, my first hyper-aggressive game went quite well, but my ambition really caved in on me. I managed to conquer Scotland in a quick victory, using a bulky Infantry army to hold them in place, and then slam in with a cavalry army. Ireland was just a matter of patience. My reputation in relative tatters, I pushed my ambitions further whilst maintaining a good economy (+500 gold, put my National Idea on better taxation) and easily divided and conquered Burgandy, taking the northen Belgian coast and Antwerp along with it. Sadly, I'd neglected my fleet in favour of land power, and France and Spain began to easily take Ireland off my hands. Balls.

Still, that was my first successful game, and I now am a lot better at EU3. Next I may take up the Castille challenge again: I'm pretty confident I could take on Portugal and Aragon at the same time now with relatively little problems. :smallbiggrin:

[Ilena]

Well ... my first game i tried Japan :D figured i would have samurai and have fun ... well ... i decided to take the island south of me and assembled a host of 6000 men to do it, that went fine, just their allie ... ming ... things did not end well. But i spent the last 4 hours reading the wiki so i know a lot more then i did last night! :D

[potatocubed]

Is there a quick and easy way to remove or amend the 'ignorant savage' technology penalty? I'd really like to try fixing Aztec culture and raising them into a colonial superpower, but I can't see how when they only get 10% of the base tech rate. =/

[Lord Herman]

According to the wiki, you can't. It says you can only westernise eastern european, middle eastern, and african countries. Japan can be westernised too, IIRC. But the article is horribly outdated, so it's possible that's all been changed in one of the expansions.

[Kzickas]

you can definitly westernize as native american. you can look up the details of who can westernize and how in the decisions files (I think)

[Selrahc]

According to the wiki, you can't. It says you can only westernise eastern european, middle eastern, and african countries. Japan can be westernised too, IIRC. But the article is horribly outdated, so it's possible that's all been changed in one of the expansions.

On this (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/American_Natives_Analysis) it talks about westernization of the native americans fairly extensively. It looks like it is possible(though often difficult) to westernize (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Westernization) any country.


As for war: Early game you'll want to have one army composed of only Cavalry, and one properly mixed army. The Cavalry-only army should be used to chase enemy troops as they retreat from combat so that they have no chance to recover.

I've heard that a pure cavalry army is the best way to go for most situations in the early years. It's easy to repeatedly strike and retreat to deliver punishing casualties to the enemy without getting bogged down in infantry friendly long combat.

[Folytopo]

That was changed in httt. Now combats last at least two fire/shock cycles. Several other changes were made to make pure cavalry less effective.

[Lord Herman]

On this (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/American_Natives_Analysis) it talks about westernization of the native americans fairly extensively. It looks like it is possible(though often difficult) to westernize (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Westernization) any country.

Oh, nice! That should make Native American and Asian countries more interesting to play.


As for cavalry, I feel their greatest weakness is that it takes a long time for better cavalry units to come along. While infantry improves steadily, you're stuck with latin knights until Land Tech 22. Then again, I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes in practice.