How is your EU3 Game going?

[Quintillus]

Heretic - On the economic tab (where you set funding for research) there is a slider near the lower-left for colonial expenses. It sounds like yours might be set low. If it's funded all the way, even the worst colonies should grow on their own - I'd expect Madeira to be gaining at least, say, 40 colonists/year. It's still worthwhile sending additional colonists yourself (and cost effective to do so), but if I'm colonizing, I want my colonies to be growing by themselves, too!

I have mixed feelings on the worthwhileness of colonization. The returns are low early on, and there are revolts late-game. Even mid-game, you need lots of ships (big or small, not galleys) to get your full tariffs. That said, a power with well-developed colonies does have a nice extra advantage over one that doesn't in sheer resources, as well as their usually-better-developed navy. I've only done one game with significant overseas colonization myself, however.

There ought to be an entry in the message settings (Escape -> Message Settings -> probably Diplomacy) that configures what type of notice you get when an ally breaks the alliance. I don't remember what the default is, but I recommend a pop-up so you don't miss that somewhat important event. The alliance will also end if you call them to arms and they don't honor the alliance, but you should get a pop-up about that, too. They'll end it themselves occasionally. Sometimes this doesn't mean a whole lot beyond them not thinking you are awesome anymore, but sometimes this is followed up by an invasion. If it's been a couple years since then, they probably aren't doing it with an eye to invading you. Usually they'd invade within a couple months if that were the reason.

joakim - 1900 AD? Does Death and Taxes go that far? That's well into the Victoria timeline.

 

[Angst]

I think D&T ends in 1930 or somesuch.

 

[Mosher]

D&T going into the 1900s is one of the reasons I no longer play it.

Also, my Bijapur game in Wiz's AzeriEU3 mod:

Spoiler :

For reference, this is Bijapur's starting situation at the beginning (AzeriEU3 is alternate history, and India is much different from vanilla EU3)

Spoiler :

http://i.imgur.com/kfKEa.jpg

It's been great fun; I modernized a few decades ago.

 

[SouthernKing]

^It's called EU3Plus now.

 

[Mosher]

It will always be AzeriEU3 in my heart.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Heretic - On the economic tab (where you set funding for research) there is a slider near the lower-left for colonial expenses. It sounds like yours might be set low. If it's funded all the way, even the worst colonies should grow on their own - I'd expect Madeira to be gaining at least, say, 40 colonists/year. It's still worthwhile sending additional colonists yourself (and cost effective to do so), but if I'm colonizing, I want my colonies to be growing by themselves, too!

I think i was reading it wrong, the colonies were growing but veeeeery slowly. It seems i did mess with the colony funding slider also. It worked properly after i fixed this and the colonies were growing steadily - one even turned into a province ! (after i sent lots of colonists)

I have mixed feelings on the worthwhileness of colonization. The returns are low early on, and there are revolts late-game. Even mid-game, you need lots of ships (big or small, not galleys) to get your full tariffs. That said, a power with well-developed colonies does have a nice extra advantage over one that doesn't in sheer resources, as well as their usually-better-developed navy. I've only done one game with significant overseas colonization myself, however.

Wait why is a good navy needed ?

There ought to be an entry in the message settings (Escape -> Message Settings -> probably Diplomacy) that configures what type of notice you get when an ally breaks the alliance. I don't remember what the default is, but I recommend a pop-up so you don't miss that somewhat important event. The alliance will also end if you call them to arms and they don't honor the alliance, but you should get a pop-up about that, too. They'll end it themselves occasionally. Sometimes this doesn't mean a whole lot beyond them not thinking you are awesome anymore, but sometimes this is followed up by an invasion. If it's been a couple years since then, they probably aren't doing it with an eye to invading you. Usually they'd invade within a couple months if that were the reason.

I tried going through the message settings but i was overwhelmed.

I think France went off when they were under a regent and i refused to honor a call to arms by them I THINK. But i managed to bring them back through bribes and when the regency was over.

 

[Yeekim]

Wait why is a good navy needed ?

Colonial income comes in the form of tariffs.
You need at least 1 big or light ship per overseas province (= colony) to get full tariff income. Having e.g. 20 overseas provinces and only 2 ships of appropriate type nets you just 10%.

 

[Quintillus]

^What Yeekim said, although I think that only applies to production income (which is received as tariffs), as opposed to tax income. Taxes have the -90% Distant Overseas modifier, however (except really close colonies, potentially including Madeira), however, so production/tariffs is more important.

And yeah, the message settings are overwhelming. You can also change-them by right-clicking on message notifications (including in the log at the bottom of screen), and then changing settings for that message type. By default, you don't get a notice if the alliance ends because you didn't honor a call to arms.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Colonial income comes in the form of tariffs.
You need at least 1 big or light ship per overseas province (= colony) to get full tariff income. Having e.g. 20 overseas provinces and only 2 ships of appropriate type nets you just 10%.

^What Yeekim said, although I think that only applies to production income (which is received as tariffs), as opposed to tax income. Taxes have the -90% Distant Overseas modifier, however (except really close colonies, potentially including Madeira), however, so production/tariffs is more important.

I don't have to actually do something with the ships tho, right ? I'm probably not going to go nuts with the colonisation, but i should keep an eye on my ship limit.
Btw colonising west africa is impossible (without an invasion force to kill the tribes) - too much aggressiveness, ferocity, tribe size.

And yeah, the message settings are overwhelming. You can also change-them by right-clicking on message notifications (including in the log at the bottom of screen), and then changing settings for that message type. By default, you don't get a notice if the alliance ends because you didn't honor a call to arms.

Oh, this will help a lot. I actually want a few more message types on screen too.

 

[uat2d]

I don't have to actually do something with the ships tho, right ? I'm probably not going to go nuts with the colonisation, but i should keep an eye on my ship limit.

You don't have to do anything with the ships but I'd advise you to keep at least one light ship in the harbour on every coastal tile as that was pirates can't spawn.

You can check the revolt risk map mode to better control pirates though, if a sea tile is red then pirates can spawn there and it's advisable to station at least a ship in one of the harbours of said tile to prevent such thing from happening.

As for the ship limit, chances are it will be considerably higher than what your tariffs efficiency requires.

Btw colonising west africa is impossible (without an invasion force to kill the tribes) - too much aggressiveness, ferocity, tribe size.

In the early game I'd avoid Africa because of this and because of its low incomes, it will for the most part be an added burden as it takes forever to pay off the investment in colonising, converting and properly protecting it.

The most I might do is to colonise the coast as these areas tend to bring in much bigger revenues (Gold coast, Angola and South Africa, for example) and it shuts off the continent, making it much more difficult for the AI to expand.

Oh, and whenever the natives have aggressiveness over 5, I just kill them all to prevent the nuisance that can be them constantly delaying and killing off my colonists.

 

[Angst]

My colonization of Africa is going pretty well and I think it's fun, but then again, I've colonized America so many times it's begun to be completely boring to do, and I like to give myself SOME KIND of a challenge after the snowball effect has taken place: Ie when the AIs move capitals to America after I take their mainland European provinces, I can make intercontinental warfare.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

You don't have to do anything with the ships but I'd advise you to keep at least one light ship in the harbour on every coastal tile as that was pirates can't spawn.

You can check the revolt risk map mode to better control pirates though, if a sea tile is red then pirates can spawn there and it's advisable to station at least a ship in one of the harbours of said tile to prevent such thing from happening.

As for the ship limit, chances are it will be considerably higher than what your tariffs efficiency requires.

And i just found out why i need ships to have a colonial empire. About 25 years after i started my first colony, pirates showed up in almost ALL new provinces. My almost non-existant navy had to be built up.
It's good to know that if i station a ship in each province this will be avoided !

In the early game I'd avoid Africa because of this and because of its low incomes, it will for the most part be an added burden as it takes forever to pay off the investment in colonising, converting and properly protecting it.

The most I might do is to colonise the coast as these areas tend to bring in much bigger revenues (Gold coast, Angola and South Africa, for example) and it shuts off the continent, making it much more difficult for the AI to expand.

Oh, and whenever the natives have aggressiveness over 5, I just kill them all to prevent the nuisance that can be them constantly delaying and killing off my colonists.

Yea i think i will only colonize some of the peaceful provinces in south africa.

 

[Mosher]

I don't like colonizing Africa because you can only ever have the outline of Africa, which makes for ugly borders

 

[bestbrian]

As Oman, I love colonizing West Afica. Lots of gold, Ivory, Slaves, and once you take out Yemen/Adal it's no longer overseas.

 

[W|M]

You mean East Africa? West Africa is a bit far away.

 

[Quintillus]

And i just found out why i need ships to have a colonial empire. About 25 years after i started my first colony, pirates showed up in almost ALL new provinces. My almost non-existant navy had to be built up.
It's good to know that if i station a ship in each province this will be avoided !

Oh yeah, we forgot to mention pirates. Indeed, they can be quite a nuisance. You don't actually need a ship in every province, however. A ship in harbour can patrol up to a couple of sea tiles around, so you can do it a bit more efficiently than one per province. I don't have it down to a science yet, but I use the Revolt Risk Map Mode to help - if the water is red, there's a risk of pirates, and you need a ship nearby, if it's green, there isn't currently. The italics are key, as the reason there isn't currently might be some other nation's ships passing by. But if you keep checking, eventually you'll have your ships divvied up properly so that there is no risk of pirates. Using this method, I've been able to use just three ports to keep pirates away from about six provinces in the Philippines in our multiplayer game - and often it's possible to do better than that.

Colonialism can be a good motivator to take up some Naval national ideas. Press Gangs is my preferred one as it makes ships dirt cheap to buy - if I care about a navy, I almost always take it unless I'm already dirt rich. Grand Navy can be good if you don't have many naval buildings, although even at over force limits, naval maintenance doesn't usually cost a whole lot.

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My Horde had their second Tribal Succession Crisis, and fared slightly worse than during the first one, as a snaky Novgorod broke away from Finland and myself. This hurts a bit as some of those provinces would have been fairly early cores. But, my troops were too far away securing Switzerland and northern Italy, and didn't get back in time... oh well. It shall be reconquered.

The rebellions have hardly ended, and the next succession crisis is already coming up in 12 months. This time, thanks to the regency, I know when it will be, and my armies are all retreating to core territory or just off of it to ensure the closest-to-core lands are secured first. But I fully expect war exhaustion to be a major problem by the end of the next crisis. A 3/3/3 regency is killer, mostly due to the 3 Admin trait and its poor effect on war exhaustion. Staying at war with Nogai to avoid HRE stabhits really becomes painful then. Thankfully me next Khan is 7 or 8 in Admin.

So the plan is, survive the crisis, lose as little as possible... and then, go for the jugular of the HRE. All electors are now my neighbors, and with proper coordination, I expect to be able to have all their capitals belong to us at the same time, thus be able to dismantle the HRE and end the silly Nogai war that is 22 years old. A stab hit of 2 to take DoW tribute-paying Bohemia may hurt, but will be quickly made up by lower war weariness. With that, and cores forming soon thereafter, the Horde hopes to regain the stability needed to avoid collapse.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Here i am getting ready to leave for new years and i have questions about the game !
So protestantism happened. Random provinces everywhere converted. The scandinavians made either prot or reform their state religion. I have about 5 provinces that converted to those 2. Now, i'm not sure if i should send missionaries because i'm not sure if i'll convert or not - i keep waiting to see how the rest of europe will greet this. I just don't want to be left out of the european cool kids club.

How does the AI usually deal with the reforms ? Should i actively combat them in my provinces or wait until policies that increase tolerance become available ? Tolerance toward heretics is at -1. How bad is it if i just leave the provinces do whatever ?

Bye, and Happy New Year

 

[Quintillus]

Most of the time, the Reformation is somewhat underwhelming in EU3. Scandinavia usually converts, as do a number of Holy Roman States - but usually only minor ones (usually not Austria or Bohemia, maybe Bavaria). Britain usually gets a fair amount of Protestants/Reformed, but rarely actually converts.

You still have primarily Iberian provinces, right? In that case, remaining Catholic is likely the right idea. You probably won't get many more provinces that auto-convert, so you'd have a lot of work to do converting provinces if you changed state religions. Iberia and Italy are not hot spots for the Reformation by any means.

Happy new year!

 

[madviking]

I once formed Italy and did the Reformation damn-the-torpedoes style. I converted to Lutheranism as soon as I could and force converted all of Italy. It's awesome since you get the 'Conquest of Rome' benefit will really helps your missionaries.

 

[uat2d]

I once formed Italy and did the Reformation damn-the-torpedoes style. I converted to Lutheranism as soon as I could and force converted all of Italy. It's awesome since you get the 'Conquest of Rome' benefit will really helps your missionaries.

That doesn't make up for the revolts, the stability hits, the money and time spent on missionaries, the missionaries themselves it takes to convert everything, the end of the holy wars, the loss of the cardinals and the impossibility to control the curia.