Let's play: EU3 Burgundy vs. the world

[jebob]

Hi guys! I've got a bit of spare time between my studies and I've noticed a relative lack of LPs on the forums, so here goes.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/36/Eu3-win-cover.jpg
EU3 is a grand strategy game set between 1399 and 1820, with an emphasis on grand. The game simulates the entire earth, except for a few places; the Sahara, the deep Amazonian rainforest, that sort of thing. We take control of a nation and lead it to glory or abject failiure. Expect a fair amount of the latter, as I'm fairly new to this game! This is also my first LP, so shout at me if I'm doing something wrong.

First vote guys! We need to pick a nation, preferably one that doesn't wait around for two hundred years waiting for Europeans to show up and conquer it. Some interesting ones:

1) Castille, France or England. These are the superpowers of the day, and are only really threatend by each other. France is unbeatable on solid ground, England controls the waves, and Castille is a mix of land and naval. Some of the eastern europeans also fall into this category.

2) Burgundy or Muscovy. Burgundy start between France (dangerous) and the Holy Roman Empire (target-rich enviroment) and Muscovy has a similar situation with the Golden Horde and Novgorod respectively.

3) Milan, Aragon, possibly Bradenburg or Bavaria. These are middle powers, who have to fight their neighbours to build an empire worth talking about. Historically these guys tended to lose, so swimming uphill will be fun.

4) The Hansa, Venice and Genoa. These are the trading powers, the game for them revolves around dominating international trade to supplement their meager tax income.

5) Any of a host of minor countries, from Denmark to Algiers and beyond.

If you guys are particually interested, we can play starting from a different point, such as the declaration of independence for the USA for instance. Any preferences?

Europe, 13th October, 1399.
http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/613846549837541314/02347C7DEA28B9E7EBE5E90B8D38D03D11241DD0/

[jebob]

<Reserved>

[Weezer]

I'm definitely going to keep an eye on this, picked up EU3 in the steam sale last week and then got distracted by the Hearts of Iron III expansion that went on sale a day later...

I'll place a vote for Burgundy, be interesting for you to conquer France eventually, swapping the historical events.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I vote Hedjaz. Mecca shall be the capital of the world!

[Gaius Marius]

First of all, which expansion are you going to use? All of them up to Divine Wind?

Second of all, how experienced are you with this game? If you can handle yourself reasonably well, I'll be a jerk and vote Papal State :smallbiggrin:

Venezia or the Ottoman would be fun, tho

[Mando Knight]

France is unbeatable on solid ground

Historically, mostly because the HRE was a fractured mess. Pretty sure that if Brandenburg-Prussia was in a position to possess the rest of Germany during that period, Napoleon wouldn't have come as close to conquering Europe as he did.

[Vauron]

I'd vote for one of the Irish minors or the Papal State.

[doliest]

I vote Castille; start strong, because it will make the point where a horrible decision is made all the more horrific. :smallbiggrin:

[SirSigfried]

How about the Teutonic Order (somewhat easy) or The Knights (death wish) playing as a crusader state sounds fun to me.

[Mistral]

Historically, mostly because the HRE was a fractured mess. Pretty sure that if Brandenburg-Prussia was in a position to possess the rest of Germany during that period, Napoleon wouldn't have come as close to conquering Europe as he did.

Mmm, I kinda sorta very strongly disagree, considering that between the Wars of the Second and Third Coalitions which occurred more or less back to back, Napoleon was already fighting Prussia, Austria, the HRE, Russia, the Turks, Britain, Sweden, Sicily...well, it continues. The levee en masse, based as it was in the growing sense of vested interest in the fate of the nation by the common person as well as the "baton in every knapsack" mentality, was a fundamental shift in the nature of military composition that gave Revolutionary France a fundamental advantage, in that it could now tap a far larger talent pool than any of its aristocratic opponents. Prussia was thoroughly trounced not because of numbers (their army numbered 250 000, against the 160 000 wielded by Napleon), but because they were using tactics dating back to Frederick the Great forty years before in a bankrupt state with outdated weapons, which is why Napoleon and Davout could slice them to pieces and take 150 000 prisoners in a 19-day campaign from south Saxony right up to Berlin. It isn't until the defeats delivered to Prussia by Napoleon that it undergoes the first in the long series of reforms (starting with the end of serfdom, creation of Prussia's first officer training school, and adoption of cyclic short-term compulsory service to replace the previous ad-hoc conscription; going through the creation of the General Staff post-war; and culminating in von Moltke's expansion of the General Staff organization and his work on strategy that would underpin Wilhelmine German strategy for the late 19th and early 20th centuries) that would ultimately far surpass the glory days of Frederick the Great. Giving the Hohenzollerns the rest of Germany somehow would be no different in outcome than giving it to the Hapsburgs or Wittelsbachs, and before the Congress of Vienna which drastically empowered Prussia while signaling the end to the old rules of diplomatic conduct that restricted it, it would be far less plausible. You also, I think, may be underestimating the extent of the French demographic collapse in the 19th century. From before the Hundred Years War through the Napoleonic Wars, France was typically demographically the equal or superior of the Holy Roman Empire, especially after German demographics were gutted by the Thirty Years War; it was not a fluke that Louis XIV, a century before, was able to fight on equal grounds against the Hapsburg Emperors, Prussians, British, Portuguese, Dutch, Savoyards, and the Hapsburg Spanish pretender, with only part of Spain and the Elector of Bavaria backing him. With better leadership, they could have taken advantage of their larger army and defeated their opponents in detail.

But, I digress. Let's see, we have one here with Algiers already. Trade is rather imbalanced in vanilla, Burgundy has hilariously good slider settings and strategic position...oh, I know. How about one of the Seljuk Turk states? There's Karaman, Ramazan, Dulkadir, Candar...no? I suppose we could always raise the old standard of the Imperial Purple and play as the Byzantines, but I would recommend advancing the start date a couple years to after the Osmanli Turks get historically hammered by Timur Lenkh at Ankara if you aren't feeling completely confident, since it gives them additional territories and the Ottomans a civil war. I can't recall the specific date off the top of my head, but if you scroll a year or three, you'll see Macedonia get washed in purple.

[ReluctantReaper]

I vote Castille

[jebob]

First of all, which expansion are you going to use? All of them up to Divine Wind?

Second of all, how experienced are you with this game?
I'm using EU3 complete from steam, so thats all the expansions. I'm unmodded, at least until Magnus Mundi comes out for DW in January or February. I've played a few hours, but I struggle with a midpower on medium.

So far we've had interest in Burgundy, Hedjaz, Venice, the Ottoman Empire, Papal state, Teutonic Order (I refuse to play the Knights), Algiers, Byzantines and Castille. I might go for the Papal States, as they seem pretty cool. Converting the entirety of North Africa to the true faith as the Castillians or reforming the Byzantine Empire has its attractions though.

[doliest]

I second Castille. It's a great 'Starter-Power' if one wants to jump into the world at large, and in a great position to, if a player choses, ignore Europe by beating the rest of the world to America by a several decades at least.

[Murska]

I would go with Papal State, but if you're rather new to the game it might be difficult.

Burgundy is a really fun nation to play, and not that tough yet it has its share of trouble. Go with that. Castille is both too easy and too isolated to make for a good Let's Play, in my opinion - after unifying Iberia and conquering North Africa, you either colonize or take on France, and if you kill France then there's nothing to threaten you ever again, and if you colonize then there's nothing to threaten you ever again either. :smalltongue:

[Gaius Marius]

Check out to be sure. "EU3 Complete" only included Vanilla, Napileon's Ambitions and In Nomine.

Maybe that changed, but "Complete" ain't as complete as advertised.

Papal state is tough, as you can't inherit kingdoms with Personal Unions like any monarchy. Also, be ready to be a master diplomat: Rome is a tempting target.

Also, the Holy Roman Empire was actually pretty powerful at times it was more Centralized. It would have kept getting more powerful with the Hapsburg at it'd head had not France (and the Cardinal Richelieu) proved to be a master on intrigues and led the Thirty Years War against the Emperor.

(that's right, England wasn't the most important rival of France at the time! Eat that, anglocentrist historical revisionists!!!)

It should be noted that Heir To The Throne expansion allows to try to unify the Holy Roman Empire into a single superpowerful block.

[Kzickas]

I'd say moscovyy, they're a lot of fun. Especially early on

[jebob]

Friday 14th October, the day after the Coronation of King Phillipe II de Bourgogne
"Gentlemen. We are gathered here to discuss our strategy for the ascension of Burgundy to a superpower without equal. To achieve this, we must accomplish three goals:
1) Successfully unite the Netherlands under our rule for use as a power base for future expansion.
2) Remain independent of the French, splinter them into a thousand pieces before uniting those pieces under our rule.
3) Declare independance of the Holy Roman Empire. While a necessity, the Empire is neither Holy nor Roman nor a true empire. It is a sham, and we must leave it as soon as possible.
My cabinet, what is our state of affairs?"
http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/8547/2012010200027.jpg These are the Great Men of the court. They grant various benefits, I have chosen a land tech guy, a government tech guy and a morale guy for the short term.Joseph de Scorailles, the closest thing the King had to a friend, stood up, bowed to the King and continued, "My King, your lands are rich and fertile. The people of south Burgundy are wealthy and willing to fight for you, while the textile factories of the north are a growing and profitable industry which supplements our income."
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/7213/2012010200013.jpg
"Our forces compose seven thousand infantry and cavalry, with two transports and three warships, but the latter are draining a significant quantity of resources. I recommend immediate disbandment."

"I object, your majesty!" Henri-Jules de la Porte rose. "We need those ships for naval transport around northern europe, the diplomatic mess caused by sending an army through the Empire would be horrific."

"The navy is costly and nonessential. Disbandment would allow us to raise a regiment of Knights for our land conquest."

"I concur with Joseph, our army must take priority, please continue." Phillipe's word was law, and even one day into his reign he knew how to wield it.
http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/8472/2012010200016.jpg The sliders are our domestic policies, our natural inclinations if you like. These offer great benefits, but can only be changed slowly. I have just moved the land/naval slider one point towrds Land, for a bonus to troop morale and recruitment costs in exchange for a penalty to naval construction costs.Joseph began to outlay his plan for securing Liege, while Simon de Rochebaron talked about the possibility of ties of marriage with France. Phillipe's passionate declaration about how he would never allow the King of France to lay a finger on a relative of his shocked all in the room but Simon, who had made it his business to know the Royal household.

"The arrangement is more political than romantic my lord. We find a young pair of nobles from our houses, and formally endorse their marriage. The knowledge of shared blood forces them to think twice before invading us, giving us more time to prepare for the coming war." Thus satisfied, similar propasals were sent to Denmark and England while propasals from various Irish petty kings were accepted. The Swiss also signed a treaty of mutual defence, as they had no nobles to wed.

As the business of the day was finished, Joseph stood up. "Now is the time to strike my King. The troops are ready, and Liege is relatively undefended. They have no allies, and Bohemia, the current Emperor, has stated its neutrality in this case. This should be an easy conquest, nothing could go wrong!"
I have played a year ahead, which should be sufficient for now. I disbanded the navy because my laughable naval force limit (two) was forcing me to pay 250% upkeep for my navy of dubious worth. The conquest of Liege (and Ghent and Antwerpen :smalltongue:) will proceed in the next update

[Murska]

I suggest unifying the two halves of Burgundy as soon as possible so that you don't have to have good relations with France or a bunch of HRE minors to be able to defend your capital from attack. You should get a mission to take over or vassalize Bar sooner rather than later as Burgundy.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Lorraine should be yours buy right. As the spiritual ancestor of the kingdom of Lothar, the Kingdom of Burgundy/the Kingdom of the Arelate should rise once more! From the North Sea to the Meditteranean, as far as ROME!

Also, you should definitely take a spiritual trip to Bornholm, which is, as far as I know, the earliest known home of the Burgundii.

[jebob]

War Room, 9th Novemeber
The Council had chosen to meet over a map of North Burgundy:http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/2671/2012010200009.jpg
Joseph opened the meeting. "On the 23rd of October, Liegerian forces cross the river into Valenciennes, fleeing the approaching Burgundian Army. Our troops entered Liege the next week, and after detaching garrison regiments the main army assaulted their troops against the Scheldt River in Valenciennes. They had however prepared for this eventuality and fled across the river in rafts, delaying their annihilation by perhaps a month.

"We find ourselves in a state of total victory, at least until this morning: a messenger has arrived declaring a state of war now exists between Friesland and Liege due to their alliance."

"I thought we had confirmed that Liege was unallied?" Phillipe replied. "Besides, isn't Friesland small enough that they are not a threat?"

"It would appear that they formed the alliance while Liege was under siege. Presumably they think us too distant to effectively strike at them. Unfortunately, they're right, at least for the moment. Barbois has also made preparations to attack, but have not formally declared war yet." The council meeting thus concluded, Joseph turned his mind to the annexion of Liege.

Bar attacked South Burgundy, but was quickly destroyed by the main army despite the Bar's superior defensive positions. The King of Bar entered into secret negotiations with King Phillipe, resulting in a public apology from the former. Strategists hypothesise that the reason he got off so lightly was some form of blackmail. Friesland forces struck at North Burgundy with predictable results, given the recent recruiting drive there. Liegian forces took months to hunt down but were finally destroyed.

Seeking to boost the national economy, Simon de Rochebaron sent merchants to Lubeck to buy stocks of wine and fish to enrich the burgundian lifestyle. Denmark agrees to a military defense pack, securing the coastline from marauderers.

While Namur Castle fell quickly, Liege Castle showed no signs of surrender. An assault was ordered, and succeeded on the third attempt. Liege gave it's unconditional surrender, growing the Burgundian Kingdom.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6130/2012010200026.jpg
assimilated on the 12th of January the

[Mistral]

I suggest unifying the two halves of Burgundy as soon as possible so that you don't have to have good relations with France or a bunch of HRE minors to be able to defend your capital from attack. You should get a mission to take over or vassalize Bar sooner rather than later as Burgundy.

I'll second this. In addition to the military benefits, the economic benefits of being able to exert effective control over your lowland holdings should be significant, and your ports there will be counted for your naval force limits (which is why you had a limit of only 2 ships starting out). I would make Bar and Lorraine your first priority. Just try not to catch any halberds with your head (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nancy) in the process. Cleaning up your cores in the north is also productive since the cost is pretty low, all things considered, but it seems like you're already going through with that.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Urgh, that's a pet peeve of mine with EU3. The game puts all non-vassal Monarchies as Kings and all vassal Monarchies as Duchies. Of course, this is patently ridiculous! Burgundy and Bar were Duchies, and Holland a County! There was only one King in the entire Holy Roman Empire, and that was Bohemia.

It's one of the reasons I had to switch to mods. Mind you, my MEIOU keeps bugging up in that whenever a country is released by another country, it gains the government and tier of the releasing country, which ends up with strange things like the King of Nice, but that's besides the point.

[Hajutze]

Napoly vs the world
http://i39.tinypic.com/6f8rwl.png

For me the best starting countries are England (huge fleet, pretty much no one can touch your islands) and the Papal country (you can excommunicate everyone you want ... them catolic bastards :smallbiggrin: ).

On my current campaign I'm trying to play it more casually ... got England and my primary goal is to bash France and Castille ... them frenchs surrender way too easily :smallbiggrin:

[Closet_Skeleton]

I'd have suggested picking Yaroslavl. Just to be cruel. Going from 1 province to Russia takes a lot of save/reloading when LPs are more fun if you keep going after massive screw ups.




It's one of the reasons I had to switch to mods. Mind you, my MEIOU keeps bugging up in that whenever a country is released by another country, it gains the government and tier of the releasing country, which ends up with strange things like the King of Nice, but that's besides the point.

That's not a bug.

Its pretty funny when you use the teutonic order to make your enemies release theocracies all over the place.

I can't play MEIOU because I found the buildings so dull and underpowered (plus unrealistic, how many non-monastic state funded hospitals were there in the middle ages). Why bother saving up the money when they give you a national focus based province decision that gets you a better bonus just by spending magistrates. Plus they slow down the game by representing tiny german city states you can't get CBs against to conquor and don't have any of the trade importance that made them interesting in real life.


Giving the Hohenzollerns the rest of Germany somehow would be no different in outcome than giving it to the Hapsburgs or Wittelsbachs, and before the Congress of Vienna which drastically empowered Prussia while signaling the end to the old rules of diplomatic conduct that restricted it, it would be far less plausible.

Prussia gets too much hype in general. They were pretty much irrelevant unless Frederick the Great or Bismark was leading them. If anyone in the 1810s had known that a) coal was going to be really important in 30 years and b) the ruhr had a lot of it then Frederick the Great would be a historical curiousity and nobody would care about Prussia.



3) Milan, Aragon, possibly Bradenburg or Bavaria. These are middle powers, who have to fight their neighbours to build an empire worth talking about. Historically these guys tended to lose, so swimming uphill will be fun.


Milan's the best country in 1399 because you can just annex tuscany and the pope* right off the bat, become emperor and then in 50 years you can unite italy and everyone else is a joke due to your countless universities and high value wine provinces.

*you need ancona and rome to make italy. The pope owns rome and under the AI always declares a war of aggression to annex ancona. Guarantee ancona before you unpause the game, wait for the pope to annex ancona and then annex him and you just need florence

[Murska]

I wouldn't say Milan is necessarily easier than France, Castille or England. I mean, any country is easy when playing against AI, but in a multiplayer game being the Emperor or forming Italy doesn't guarantee victory.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Well, maybe not a bug, but certainly very annoying, and a feature that I hope can be undone.

[Elm11]

I'm gonna follow this one for sure. I've recently been playing tonnes of EU3 as Germany (formed the pre 1918 German land empire!), but I've played an American conquest game as Scandinavia and an old world empire game as the Byzantines.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I wouldn't say Milan is necessarily easier than France, Castille or England. I mean, any country is easy when playing against AI, but in a multiplayer game being the Emperor or forming Italy doesn't guarantee victory.

In multiplayer then you have other people who can aim for more powerful unions like germany or you can have someone who knows what you're doing stop you making italy.

Doesn't change the fact that Milan is the easiest country to get a union nation with on a 1399 start (other than denmark I suppose but I don't think scandanavia is as powerful as italy) and that union nations (except for fake ones like Romania or sardinia-piedmont) beat any AI run country.

[Mistral]

In multiplayer then you have other people who can aim for more powerful unions like germany or you can have someone who knows what you're doing stop you making italy.

Doesn't change the fact that Milan is the easiest country to get a union nation with on a 1399 start (other than denmark I suppose but I don't think scandanavia is as powerful as italy) and that union nations (except for fake ones like Romania or sardinia-piedmont) beat any AI run country.

I'd probably consider France or Castille to be easier for union nations, the former by virtue of starting as one, and the latter by virtue of requiring a single "Enforce PU" war right at game start. Both also don't have to concern themselves with the HRE rules, either, though they can't really play Emperor as easily. France in particular is also eligible for the hilarious Italian Ambitions mission, which gives you cores on all Italian provinces you own once you take at least one. Union tags really aren't that much of an advantage as you suggest, either, basically just being free almost-accepted cultures when you can get accepted cultures just by taking enough land; it's more like a sufficiently clever human can beat any AI-run country, even if they're playing Trabzon or Ulm.

[Murska]

I don't know if I can find it, but one of my friends has a screenshot of his Frankfurtian Empire throughout the entire Europe.

He inherited France and Poland-Lithuania before 1440.

Same guy annexed the Soviet Union with Finland in Hearts of Iron 3.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Union tags really aren't that much of an advantage as you suggest

The tag isn't that great. The cores are. Or the rediculous +1 tax everywhere in the case of germany. Spain is pretty pointless because if you can form it you probably already have those cores anyway. Unless you're Portugal or Granada.

France and Castille can expand quicker. But a more focused Italy isn't weaker than a bloated French or Spanish empire. Castille's only real advantage is that it can raise a ton of troops and ships at the start. As a long term powerbase the iberian peninsular isn't actually very good.

With a little patience you can easily turn a weakly positioned country into a powerhouse that outechs and out-incomes all the competition.


France in particular is also eligible for the hilarious Italian Ambitions mission, which gives you cores on all Italian provinces you own once you take at least one.

France sucks so much it needs to steal Italian land to be good?

Owning some good provinces + a ton of worthless ones isn't always better than just owning a few really good ones. AI spain always annexes nigh worthless north africa. Players who know what they're doing only do that if there's nothing better to do and no challanges left.

That mission is only any good for annexing savoi. Unless you pause and annex a ton of nations at once but I don't know if that works.

[Murska]

Yes, well. Against AI, any HRE minor can rather easily form either Germany or HRE, and win the game. Any Muslim power can Westernize early while conquering the parts of Europe they want while they have the better troops. France can conquer the entirety of Europe, no sweat. Castille can conquer France and then the entirety of Europe, no problem. England can pretty much do anything, from forming the HRE to colonizing the entire planet. Scandinavians can take Russia and the Baltic. Ming can overwhelm everyone with numbers, or westernize.

There are few tough nations to play, such as the Native American groups or several minor states in positions where they're often killed immediately by a larger aggressive neighbour, but against AI, the game simply is not difficult. It's why you need mods. :smalltongue:

Plus, Castille's main advantage is early entrance into the New World as well as an easy route into Africa, both of which give insane amounts of money.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Any Muslim power can Westernize early while conquering the parts of Europe they want while they have the better troops.

Only with rediculous difficulty. Superior units are pretty much worthless when all of europe gangs up on you and has enough troops to assault and take all your forts in three months and blast your navy to pieces because you only start with gallies.


France can conquer the entirety of Europe, no sweat. Castille can conquer France and then the entirety of Europe, no problem.

Taking all of Europe is easy. Unless you do it so slowly that you might as well have started with a weaker country then holding it is somwhere between very hard and completely unfun.


It's why you need mods. :smalltongue:


I've tried loads of mods and never really found one that made the game more fun or fixed the real problems with the base game without ruining features I liked.

[Murska]

Once you have Europe, holding it is easy enough - just kill any rebels that pop up with your ridiculous amount of troops running around everywhere. It's not fun, though - once you've won, the game's not fun anyway. It's why I almost never play to the end, really... I tend to end up with my challenges overcome and then there's nothing to do.

As for muslim powers, the easiest one is the Ottomans - just first kill the Timurids, then start building ships while your troops walk up the Balkans, take over Austria and Hungary and you're pretty much set. With Mamluks, it's the same except you start by killing the Ottomans who are weakened by the Timurids (as the AI doesn't know how to fight them). With the smaller ones, it basically calls for either a little diplomacy in getting the Europeans to fight each other or a bit of strategic skill in keeping your armies in one piece and carving out enough of the Mediterranean coast to fund yourself a massive and insanely powerful army with which to conquer whatever you want.

I mainly play with Magna Mundi nowadays, but I've found even the vanilla game is plenty of fun with either a roleplaying goal in mind or with a bunch of friends playing something like Ryazan, Tver and Yaroslavl.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

I've never actually played more than a few years in-game in Vanilla.

Also, I just read an interesting chapter in a book about Burgundy. Interesting history, the Burgundies have.

[Mistral]

The tag isn't that great. The cores are. Or the rediculous +1 tax everywhere in the case of germany. Spain is pretty pointless because if you can form it you probably already have those cores anyway. Unless you're Portugal or Granada.

France and Castille can expand quicker. But a more focused Italy isn't weaker than a bloated French or Spanish empire. Castille's only real advantage is that it can raise a ton of troops and ships at the start. As a long term powerbase the iberian peninsular isn't actually very good.

With a little patience you can easily turn a weakly positioned country into a powerhouse that outechs and out-incomes all the competition.
Cores are free after 50 years in vanilla anyways, or instantly with a PU in your culture group (and that used to be even worse back before Paradox implemented that fix).

Well, yes, but if you're playing ubertecher, you don't necessarily need or want to race for any union tag from the start anyways, since annexing any provinces boosts your tech costs. Just sit as an OPM, push your sliders to Free Market, and trade trade trade.


France sucks so much it needs to steal Italian land to be good?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all, and you know it as well as I do. You know what, just no. I simply won't be baited that easily anymore. If that's the way you want to act, then fine, but I won't let it get to me.

[Murska]

The single best way to do Italian Ambition is, in a multiplayer game, have the mission as France just as another player unites Italy. Move in with a massive army and force him to relent most of Northern Italy in peace.

/been there done that :smallamused:

[Closet_Skeleton]

Well, yes, but if you're playing ubertecher, you don't necessarily need or want to race for any union tag from the start anyways, since annexing any provinces boosts your tech costs. Just sit as an OPM, push your sliders to Free Market, and trade trade trade.

Depends if you want a balance between being rediculously high teched and able to do stuff.

Elsass is fine if you just want to be the best teched county around but doesn't let you actually do anything.

There's a sweet spot between having not enough provinces to drastically slow you down but having the provinces you do have with good base tax + rediculously high populations for production and manufactories. Italy's still the best place for that.


No, that's not what I'm saying at all, and you know it as well as I do. You know what, just no. I simply won't be baited that easily anymore. If that's the way you want to act, then fine, but I won't let it get to me.

If you want to ignore my terrible attempts at humour ignore them.

If you don't want to let something get to you its better to just laugh it off. I'm sorry if I offended you but a sharp personal response like this kind of upsets me too (I'm pretty useless at laughing things off).



As for muslim powers, the easiest one is the Ottomans - just first kill the Timurids, then start building ships while your troops walk up the Balkans, take over Austria and Hungary and you're pretty much set.

If you're fast enough. Otherwise Austria becomes invincible and you're better off conquoring siberia and persia.

Ottomans aren't easy at all. You actually need tactics to get anywhere with them and even then you end up with a ton of countries ganging up on you for no reason at the worst possible time.

[Murska]

If you're fast enough. Otherwise Austria becomes invincible and you're better off conquoring siberia and persia.

Ottomans aren't easy at all. You actually need tactics to get anywhere with them and even then you end up with a ton of countries ganging up on you for no reason at the worst possible time.

Eh. Not really. The AI is utterly atrocious at waging war, so much that you can easily beat the Timurids, Qara Koyunlu and the Golden Horde at once while fighting off the Christian powers. If worst comes to worst, you can retreat one province into your own territory, burn the land and watch attrition kill their stacks. I've won an Ottoman war against France, England and Spain at once by hiding my fleet in Thrace and popping it out to take down transport fleets as they ferry ridiculous numbers of troops into Crimea, instead of attacking Greece or Turkey. I ended up with upwards of 200 cogs in that war only, starting with 30 and 40 galleys.

Austria simply won't have time to become strong, as they don't start as the Emperor and all too often get into a war with Bohemia near the beginning. Hungary dies without any assistance by me to Golden Horde in half the games I play, or splits into a dozen warring pieces, and even if they repulse the Horde a stack of 20000 troops can take them out if microed properly, especially since your units are by far the superior in the beginning.

About the only annoying thing about the Ottomans is that their string of awesome missions that give them cores in high-value provinces all over and good casus bellis on various minor countries tends to get broken by a random 'annex the Mamluks' mission from time to time, which has to be cancelled or it'll take way too long to finish.


EDIT:

In fact, I'd say an early Milanese war against Austria or a Burgundian war against France can be tougher than the Ottomans. Burgundy is so small in the beginning, it's hard to maneuver around the French especially since you can't really find much support in the Empire. And the French have nigh' limitless manpower compared to you. It's a similar case with Milan, with no good allies, against an Emperor Austria in the first few years - you often won't have the room to take all of their stacks out before you lose too many troops.

And then there's the 'unwinnable' wars that sometimes happen when you start with, say, Luxembourg and get DOWd upon by Burgundy on the first day.

[Caewil]

Actually, if you play DW, the ideal number of provinces is infinite or rather, the maximum number that you an build level 6 production buildings in. They each boost global Trade efficiency and trade income modifier by 1%. So with a hundred provinces like that, each one now has double the production income and you'll make significantly more from trade. There's no practical limit to income after a while. It's especially funny in MEIOU where the number of already good provinces is pretty high.

[Murska]

Get either enough provinces or enough trade, and money's not an issue anyway. :smalltongue:

[Grif]

I find myself in the same position as Murska. There's never really any incentive to play the game to the finish after you accomplished whatever goal you set for yourself. I abandoned my Austria game after forming the HRE, which was my original intent. :smalltongue: (Got the whole Europe under my thumb too, except for Spain, Frenchies just rolled over.)

[Pahvimato]

Just noticed this thread. I'll be following this, that's for sure. I also think that, at least for now, uniting the two parts is probably the best idea. After that, I think I might have a few more unorthodox ideas...


I have to say that I also find actually finishing games hard in EU III. As Murska and Grif said, after you have finished the goal you set for yourself it's quite hard to keep playing. I, for example, usually play a few decades, save the game, switch to another save file and maybe come back later if I get an idea about a completely new, interesting goal for that particular nation.


Also,


I don't know if I can find it, but one of my friends has a screenshot of his Frankfurtian Empire throughout the entire Europe.

He inherited France and Poland-Lithuania before 1440.

Same guy annexed the Soviet Union with Finland in Hearts of Iron 3.

I believe this is the screenshot you were looking for:
http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt117/Pahvimato/EU3_2.jpg
As you can see, the year is 1467. Inherited France and Poland-Lithuania (Poland rebelled afterwards, it's that little blob in Krakow), and Milan a few years later. A bit of luck really helps if you are aiming for world conquest. Also, I'm the only member of HRE and am generating about 17 infamy a year (I could have formed Germany to prevent this, but what fun would there have been in that?). Need to do a lot of the good old "release nation, release vassal, annex nation" thing to keep infamy under control.

(This game was supposed to be hard, without changing the difficulty from normal. So I picked Frankfurt. Stuff happened, and this is the result. I stopped playing when I reached this point.)

[Grif]

Just noticed this thread. I'll be following this, that's for sure. I also think that, at least for now, uniting the two parts is probably the best idea. After that, I think I might have a few more unorthodox ideas...


I have to say that I also find actually finishing games hard in EU III. As Murska and Grif said, after you have finished the goal you set for yourself it's quite hard to keep playing. I, for example, usually play a few decades, save the game, switch to another save file and maybe come back later if I get an idea about a completely new, interesting goal for that particular nation.


Also,



I believe this is the screenshot you were looking for:
http://i603.photobucket.com/albums/tt117/Pahvimato/EU3_2.jpg
As you can see, the year is 1467. Inherited France and Poland-Lithuania (Poland rebelled afterwards, it's that little blob in Krakow), and Milan a few years later. A bit of luck really helps if you are aiming for world conquest. Also, I'm the only member of HRE and am generating about 17 infamy a year (I could have formed Germany to prevent this, but what fun would there have been in that?). Need to do a lot of the good old "release nation, release vassal, annex nation" thing to keep infamy under control.

(This game was supposed to be hard, without changing the difficulty from normal. So I picked Frankfurt. Stuff happened, and this is the result. I stopped playing when I reached this point.)

Holy crap that is impressive. Is that a piece of Scotland I see there being buried by all the English red? :smalltongue:

And what heck, is that Fez I see there? Why isn't Castile conquering North Africa yet?

[Pahvimato]

Holy crap that is impressive. Is that a piece of Scotland I see there being buried by all the English red? :smalltongue:

And what heck, is that Fez I see there? Why isn't Castile conquering North Africa yet?

Impressive amount of luck, that is. And yes, that is Scotland (and they are independent, not a vassal of the English!), and the other nation is Wales. The purple in Sicily is Naples (Sicily is in Malta), White in Albania is the Papal State, Hungary is in a union under Ragusa and the Mamluks control Thrace.

Castille did start conquering northern Africa, but the Frankfurtian invasion to the Iberian peninsula gave Fez the chance to reclaim those territories.

I think that Frankfurt uniting Europe causes some mishaps when compared to the historical timeline.





And I think this game is an excellent example of how luck can factor how hard/easy the game will be. So it's not just about whether you start as France or Ryukyu. :smalltongue:

[Maelstrom]

I've never actually played more than a few years in-game in Vanilla.

Also, I just read an interesting chapter in a book about Burgundy. Interesting history, the Burgundies have.

As I live here in the Capital of the Ducs de Bourgogne, if you need any info/pics/what have you, let me know..

[Closet_Skeleton]

Frankfurt is actually pretty powerful for a single province country. Its tax and manpower put it above some of the two province countries in the holy roman empire and its starting sliders are quite good, the terrible centralisation is even an advantage if you're expanding fast. You also don't have any really big immediate neighbour to smack you down, (like Ulm who are very similar to frankfurt has in bavaria). Of course that becomes irrelevant pretty quickly if you're expanding that fast.

The holy roman empire's one province monarchies are way weaker than its republics. They can expand through marriages but that's really slow.


As I live here in the Capital of the Ducs de Bourgogne, if you need any info/pics/what have you, let me know..

Dijon, Ghent or Bruges?

The Burgundians were more dutch than burgundian. They only called it Burgundy because that was the duchal title rather than the counties that made up most of its territory. All of its territory except for the small area around Dijon was ruled by the count of flanders before their male line died out. If you trace the fortunes of burgundy on the female line the story is completely differant. Instead of the descendants of a throwaway son of a french king becoming randomly powerful and then vanishing you have a bunch of dutch princesses having succesively powerful sons until it culminates in the most powerful king to ever live until the British steal his "an empire on which the sun never sets" description centuries later.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Which of the 15 states called Burgundy?
There's 7 Kingdoms, 2 Duchies, one Count Palatinate, 1 Landgravate, 1 united "States of Burgundy", 1 province, 1 Imperial Circle, and 1 contemporary region, all of which bore the name Burgundy, and quite a few were kicking around all at the same time.

[Maelstrom]

Frankfurt is actually pretty powerful for a single province country. Its tax and manpower put it above some of the two province countries in the holy roman empire and its starting sliders are quite good, the terrible centralisation is even an advantage if you're expanding fast. You also don't have any really big immediate neighbour to smack you down, (like Ulm who are very similar to frankfurt has in bavaria). Of course that becomes irrelevant pretty quickly if you're expanding that fast.

The holy roman empire's one province monarchies are way weaker than its republics. They can expand through marriages but that's really slow.



Dijon, Ghent or Bruges?

The Burgundians were more dutch than burgundian. They only called it Burgundy because that was the duchal title rather than the counties that made up most of its territory. All of its territory except for the small area around Dijon was ruled by the count of flanders before their male line died out. If you trace the fortunes of burgundy on the female line the story is completely differant. Instead of the descendants of a throwaway son of a french king becoming randomly powerful and then vanishing you have a bunch of dutch princesses having succesively powerful sons until it culminates in the most powerful king to ever live until the British steal his "an empire on which the sun never sets" description centuries later.

Dijon.

Yes, originally the Burgundian tribe is thought to be from the Island of Bornholm (or were a Hunnic tribe from the east, depending on who was writing the history), Goths from Götaland, etc... But since about the 4th century, the region of Burgundy was established in North-Eastern/South-Eastern Gaul, initially as a kingdom (upper and lower), then a duchy and a county. Dijon has been the seat of the Ducs de Burgogne since around the 11th century...

Anyway, I digress, and am well of topic :) Hit me up via PM, and we can discuss further (I love history to talk history!)

[Closet_Skeleton]

Which of the 15 states called Burgundy?
There's 7 Kingdoms, 2 Duchies, one Count Palatinate, 1 Landgravate, 1 united "States of Burgundy", 1 province, 1 Imperial Circle, and 1 contemporary region, all of which bore the name Burgundy, and quite a few were kicking around all at the same time.

The Valois appanage duchy created in 1362. The one that was more interested in being Lotharingia than Burgundy and is only called Burgundy because for some reason the small region of french Burgundy got to be a duchy while the larger and richer region of flanders was only a country.

Its the only one that's really relevant to EU3 unless you mod it to cover earlier periods of history or ahistorical scenarios. Or history in general (excluding local history) past the (not really so) 'dark ages'.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Mmm, well technically the Count-Palatinate of Burgundy, often called the Franche-Comté, and the Imperial Burgundian Circle also should make an appearance, but the Franche-Comté was a feudal vassal that was folded into the larger Duchy of Burgundy, which was a French Duchy from 843-1384, got it's independence and messed around in the Netherlands until 1477, as the States of Burgundy, when it was reannexed to France, the Franche-Comté became Imperial, and the Burgundian Netherlands became Habsburg.

Magna Mundi and I believe SRI have the Imperial Burgundian Circle represented, and the new Magna Mundi: the Game will have an even better version of the Holy Roman Empires, with full Imperial Circles and everything.

[Hajutze]

http://oi42.tinypic.com/2m2e3x3.jpg

Guess which one am I :smallcool:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Bulgaria, called it.

[Weezer]

I think he's Great Britain, it's a fascinating tactic, running from the French all the way to North America.

[Grif]

Judging from his ducat reserve, it's most definitely France.

[Weezer]

Judging from his ducat reserve, it's most definitely France.

And also the fact that it says "France" right at the top of the screen, but that's no fun :smallamused:

[Hajutze]

Bulgaria, called it.
Ah ... if only I could start with it but sadly the game starts little after Bulgaria gets conquered and stops 50ish years before it gets liberated ... all I can do is free them and fight the urge NOT to bash them as soon as I can


Judging from his ducat reserve, it's most definitely France.
I had 300k at one point ... and for some reason I started building univercities everywhere ... few decades later my reserve dropped down to 0 ... didn't even notice it :smallbiggrin:

[Murska]

Manufactories get pretty expensive over time, yeah.

Lithuania looks interesting to play as on your map.

[Hajutze]

It was quite big at one point, going all the way down to the Ottomans .. but I had to connect my european and asian zones. And the France label looked quite ugly with them in the middle :smallbiggrin:

[Storm Bringer]

Ah ... if only I could start with it but sadly the game starts little after Bulgaria gets conquered and stops 50ish years before it gets liberated ... all I can do is free them and fight the urge NOT to bash them as soon as I can


I had 300k at one point ... and for some reason I started building univercities everywhere ... few decades later my reserve dropped down to 0 ... didn't even notice it :smallbiggrin:

did you know that you can load a savegame as any nation in that save? i.e. you can start a game as whoever owns bulgaria, release them, save the game, then load as bulgaria as play as them form then on?

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

did you know that you can load a savegame as any nation in that save? i.e. you can start a game as whoever owns bulgaria, release them, save the game, then load as bulgaria as play as them form then on?

Aye, but a word of warning if you have the Magna Mundi mod, this will break all balance in your game, as the game sets which nation is the player-nation on Day 0, for balance reasons.

[Weezer]

did you know that you can load a savegame as any nation in that save? i.e. you can start a game as whoever owns bulgaria, release them, save the game, then load as bulgaria as play as them form then on?

That's one of my favorite features in Hearts of Iron III, I love playing through a war as both sides quasi-simultaneously.

[Murska]

That's one of my favorite features in Hearts of Iron III, I love playing through a war as both sides quasi-simultaneously.

Mainly because the AI is horrible, though. :smallfrown:

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

Aye, it's one of the great draws of ANY PI game. EU, Vicky, HoI, CK, and I suppose Sengoku as well, though I haven't played it.

[Hajutze]

http://oi43.tinypic.com/2vtb6t3.jpg
How to conquer Europe without actually playing*. I am still having that one zone I started with. The only time I had more than 1 zones was when I wanted to take something and give it to one of my vassals.

I'm particulary happy with Bulgaria.

Btw ... now that I know ... I'm gonna start with Ottomans, release them, remove the as vassals and have some fun with them. Thanks for the info :smallbiggrin:

*All I do is declare a war and I watch some AI vs AI action :smallbiggrin:

[Saithis Bladewing]

Whenever these pop up on here you guys always managed to pick the easy countries. xD

[Hajutze]

Whenever these pop up on here you guys always managed to pick the easy countries. xD

Meh the country you start with doesnt really matter that much against the AI. After 50ish years or so you can always manage to take 2-3 zones and after the first few the rest is kind of easy.

The real game is only during the first 100 years or so.

[Murska]

Meh the country you start with doesnt really matter that much against the AI. After 50ish years or so you can always manage to take 2-3 zones and after the first few the rest is kind of easy.

The real game is only during the first 100 years or so.

Try playing with the Native American tribes, or the infamous Ryukyu World Conquest. :smalltongue:

[Hajutze]

Challenge accepted.

Gonna reverse history - natives conquering ****ing brits and hispanics :smallbiggrin:

[Hajutze]

Challenge accepted.

Gonna reverse history - natives conquering ****ing brits and hispanics :smallbiggrin:

Managed to bring down only the Brits.
http://oi43.tinypic.com/2urmbo5.jpg

Not that spectacular but I did manage to fight down the first wave of europeans, drive them away and take down Great Britain (They were left with only 2 of their original lands - London and those islands on the north)

Btw can someone explain me how did I manage to smuggle 77 worth of land/liberation/money with 0% ?
http://oi44.tinypic.com/219aoa0.jpg

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

War Exhaustion, and power ratio, is my guess.

[Hajutze]

War Exhaustion, and power ratio, is my guess.

Should be the War Exhaustion. We had war I killed their ships, occupied few zones. After we made the peace treaty Austria attacked me and they joined ... Poor bastards I took more from the 2nd treaty than the 1st ..

[Hajutze]

Not exactly EU III but there isn't a topic for CK II (for the record, I started with the county of dorostotum; 1st campaing, still on normal dificulty)

http://oi41.tinypic.com/f02c9g.jpg

[Copper8642]

I never really did pick up the "easily take on 3 enemy nations" bit of this game. I still usually did well, but... I must be missing out on a lot of tricks or something.

@ Hajutze: Crusader Kings II (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=233139)

[Hajutze]

Now how did I miss that ... (the other topic)