How is your EU3 Game going?

[Angst]

Same as with any penalty in the game.

Nope. I like challenges. But rebels aren't a challenge. They're just annoying. When they're a challenge, I'm having fun. (I love civil wars.) I like the Comet Sighted event too simply for being humerous - but rebels are pathetic, weak, annoying... And it doesn't help they're on an island, having me look for some stupid unit big enough, click 20 times, wait a couple of months, disembargo manually (In order to not be unlucky and have the unit dissolve due to not being able to return to ), wait a week, return the unit to the ship, then click 5 more times and be back to status quo, going through a lot of bother, but not really being challenged in any way. If I want to play bothersome click-game, I'll pick up a bad MMO or Diablo III or start grinding in Pokémon to level everyone to lvl 100 with the right EVs, traits etc. But bad MMOs and Diablo III bore me and Pokémon is Pokémon. When I play EU3 I want to be challenged.

It's practically the same reason I dislike the game after I become a Great Power (I usually play medium to minor powers) because the snowball effect makes the rest of the game a clickfest of kicking ass and rebel pingponging. It's the main reason I'm looking forward to EU4 - dat coalition system and perhaps, perhaps rebels are fixed.

 

[Quintillus]

Hey, if you don't watch your WE, you're the one to blame. And even in that case, your colonies are far far less likely to revolt considering and the revolts there will spawn much less rebels.

Usually, yes. But there are some wars where the question isn't if the war exhaustion will get too high, but when. A quarter-million troops on each side, human opponents... both sides hit maximum war exhaustion at close to the same time. For a more dramatic instance of this, I recommend reading the Double Domination story on Paradox.

 

[shadowplay]

When should I start using spies?

 

[SamSniped]

If you've got enough income, go ahead and use them for whatever you need. That's what I do, at least.

 

[Angst]

When should I start using spies?

try playing as ulm and making patriot rebellions /notveryoriginal

i usually use them to lift fog of war or to incite rebellion. throne claims should be good too, but i haven't played with that yet.

 

[madviking]

I never get any spies cuz I the first thing I do (occasionally) is move the slider away from mercantilism.

 

[shadowplay]

I get the impression they're not very important.

 

[Angst]

You can certainly succeed without them. I mostly use them when I'm bored.

 

[uat2d]

I only seem to use them when I can get away with fabricating claims

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I used spies to great extent in the ottoman conquest of Anatolia by inciting rebellions in provinces i had cores on. If the rebellion could win the province then it joined my empire after a few years !

 

[Nintz]

I often use spies if I am a colonial power attempting to get a nice long piece of land. "Incite Natives". Sadly, I typically don't have a lot of spies until far later, when I go full plutocratic.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

^
Oh yea, i do that a lot too. Got 2 gold colonies that way ! Screw you Spain !

 

[Dell19]

Playing as Aragon I had united most of Iberia and then France got a core on one of my provinces and they immediately declared war. I think ultimately I had been playing the game from a EU2 perspective where war would be unlikely so at the time I had 30k troops with another 50k of manpower whilst they had over 100k troops and much better land based sliders. I have 6 or 7 small vassals but limited hope of getting anyone else to join the war.

Basically my question is there anything I could do to draw the war with that being the case? Or is it just a case of losing the war horribly and hoping the next war is better.

 

[Mosher]

You can give them a limited peace deal or scorch all your land and let them take attrition.

 

[Dell19]

Here is a screenshot of the situation:

Spoiler :

Its vanilla EU3 Divine Winds so I'm tempted to upload the saved game if anyone wants to have a go at saving Aragon. Castille usually declare war as well and bring in Portugal although if you ignore France then its straight forward to defeat them both.

I think it might be a saved game that I periodically come back to and see how well I can do each time.

Edit: It turns out there is a reasonably simple solution of gifting the province that France has a core on to Navarre and then they go to war with Austria instead.

 

[NBAfan]

That's a big mean France.

 

[Bowsling]

Usually, the AI likes to break their invaders into groups of ~12,000 and assault forts. If you keep two armies of 20,000 with solid generals and whack demoralized stacks that just assaulted forts, you can have some success. I manged to occupy Paris (and win) against France by doing this when I faced a similar predicament in a game as the Palatinate.

 

[Angst]

Yeah, actually - if you manage to assault their capitals, they're much more prone to accepting a favorable piece because ai program.

 

[uat2d]

I'd say scorch the land and build up your forces.

 

[shadowplay]

France is doing seriously bad in my current game as Portugal:

Spoiler :