How is your EU3 Game going?

[Tee Kay]

Furthermore I am struggling with my age old nemesis again: inflation is high, in the 20s I believe, but atleast I know the reason, which puts me above my earlier games. Because of my delicate situation with two big threats on either side of my border I have a lot of troops, which makes my military expenses sky rocket.
And I am doing my best to correct this, but it is a slow process that gets interupted when I go to war with the big boys in europe.

Inflation above the mid 10s is bad, bad, bad. It slows down your research, stability regain, increase unit costs, everything. I was crippled as France by inflation of nearly 30% in my first game. Get National Bank idea if you don't have it. Reduce your military spending or disband your armies if you must (if you go to war just recruit them again). And hope for a Master of the Mint advisor.

Should I have annexed Liguria to get the CoT, and possibly enraged France further, or was this decision the superior decision?

It might be better, depending on your infamy.

Am I correct in the assumption that wars where the defeated nation only pays me ducats and gives up cores and releases nations/cancels vassals are ones where my BB goes down?

Your infamy/reputation only goes down with time + any effect of the ruler, modifiers or advisors you have IIRC.

And how exactly does prestige work? I win a lot of wars and usually demand the defeated nation to release countries and pay me and I have a few vassals, but my prestige still floats around the zeroes. I dont think I get the mechanic behind it.

Prestige decays over time (-5% per year IIRC) so that you'd eventually get back to zero in the end unless you have some modifier which slows, stops or (in extreme, unlikely cases) reverses it. Some modifiers/actions that affect prestige are listed here.

 

[Racsoviale]

Thank you for the replies.

You are quite right about my bad inflation. And i have begun taking the appropriate measures, I just dont dare disband my units.

Besides the high inflation I have a high War Exhaustion, meaning units takes 150% longer to create, and I have to have some huge cavalry armies to put down religious, nationalist and peasant armies. (Austria has begun spawning nationalists, and they are 3-4 points above me in land tech)

I think I found the cause of why my prestige is in the negatives: I am excommunicated and have been for quite some time. And although I have hired advisors to help change the problem I still get -2% a year.

But on the bright side I managed to balkanize France, through a series of long wars I managed to take a chunk out of south France for my self, and break the nation which lead to Burgundy, Brittany, Nevers, Provence forming.

These wars took 5-7 years of game time to win, and most of the heavy lifting was done by me, although England was allied with me I had the two french uberstacks of 50 regiments each running around in northern Italy.

Which eventually was worn down to managable chunks for my cavalry armies to kill off. When I finally had the initiative and began sieging french territory, the rest of europe declared war on them as well. Opportunistic little vultures....all of them.

One of the plus sides I discovered was that France was not the war leader in their alliance, Hainaut was, which meant I was able to get a much better peace deal.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Nice to see this thread revived again.

I've abandoned by Russkie game, as I had become so powerful that I could do anything, and that always signals boredom and the end of a game (plus I wanted to try out the new delicious beta-patch ).

So this time around, I've decided to play as Switzerland, as I wanted to try an economic game this time.

And well, I won't post a map (since it's the 1440's and I only know Europe, so I don't want to spoil the surprises the rest of the world could have in store for me), but I can say that's it's going extremely well. Using Switzerland superior government type and amazing sliders (plutocracy and free people maxed out, and eventually b/c of me free trade maxed out) for years now I have been able to keep 5 merchants in every European COT, making massive cash and teching like crazy (I'm a good 4 techs ahead of most of the continent).

But of course, my crowning achievement, has got to be the war I had just finished (like an hour ago). Do to me annexing the country of Tirol (I swept in and took them when everyone was busy in a massive war), I had an Austrian core and thus they had a reconquest causus belli on me. So of course, since they had an 20,000 man army and I had an 8,000 man one, they pretty much declared war on me without hesitation.

They put their entire 20,000 man army into one army, and attacked me at the province of Tirol. I had already stationed by 8,000 man army there (as I knew they were going to attack). Amazingly, with the defensive bonuses and those bonuses only, I was able to destroy the entire 20,000 man army. They gained 18 war exhaustion from the battle alone. I was able to sweep in an annex them after a couple months of seigeing their territory.

I now own all of their territory, along with my 5 merchants per COT. I foresee a glorious future for my country.

 

[cardgame]

Just zoom out as far as you can go and take a screenie of your empire from the normal screen, if you don't want to see the rest of the world.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

In my game as Portagal, it's the year 1402-1403. The only major thing I have done is vasalise Granada due to a war (will annex in 10 years).

 

[Joecoolyo]

Just zoom out as far as you can go and take a screenie of your empire from the normal screen, if you don't want to see the rest of the world.

Good idea! I almost forgot about that

Here's the Swiss empire



Neutrality can suck it!

 

[cardgame]

Make sure Burgandy lurves you, or they will stomp you

 

[Joecoolyo]

Well, I won't need to any more, since I gave up this game as well. Due to new HRE modifiers in the beta patch, my infamy skyrocketed after I took Austria, this in turn destroyed my economy (it was all trade based) and caused my inflation to jump.

Now I have no idea who to play as.

 

[Jos Ballenbak]

Japan?

Brabant, unify the Provinces!

Milan or Venice and create Italy

Bohemia and kick some Austrian ass, again.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I gave Japan a whirl in my first game, and that didn't go very well.

Brabant would be very difficult having to deal with Burgundy, I want a more laid back game.

I've already done a (very) successful Italy game.

Bohemia seems interesting, though that might require a little to much work for a laid back game.

I was thinking of a country that isn't very threatened and doesn't require that much upkeep. I just want a game where I can sit back and watch the world burn

So, I was thinking something along the lines of Portugal.

 

[cardgame]

Try Naples?

 

[Joecoolyo]

Nah, I'm bored of Italy. I think I'm going to go ahead with Portugal.

 

[Jos Ballenbak]

England is also possible for a more laidback game

 

[Love]

England is also possible for a more laidback game

Oh yeah. Just build up a navy and keep the french fleet away.

 

[Tee Kay]

Play the Ottomans!!!

If you had a go already, try the Golden Horde and rebuild the Mongol Empire!

 

[Kyriakos]

Can someone post of a pic of the state of the Byzantine Empire in 1300 something? Iirc the game in the latest expansion begins in the early 14th century?

 

[Tee Kay]

Can someone post of a pic of the state of the Byzantine Empire in 1300 something? Iirc the game in the latest expansion begins in the early 14th century?

Game starts in 1399. The Byzantine starts with two provinces; one is Constantinople, surrounded by Ottoman territory. The other is Morea in the Peloponnese IIRC. It has cores on all of Greece and parts of Asia Minor. They usually get gobbled by the Ottomans early but apparently they're not difficult to play as a human player, though I haven't tried them (and sometimes the AI rebuilds the Byzantine Empire on its own if the Ottomans are weakened).

 

[Kyriakos]

Is that so in the final expansion as well? I know it has two provinces in the previous ones, but i thought that the final one begins earlier

 

[Tee Kay]

Is that so in the final expansion as well? I know it has two provinces in the previous ones, but i thought that the final one begins earlier

No, the final one adds royal marriages, trade blocs, casus belli and such. Doesn't change the start or end date (of course you can mod this yourself ).

 

[Joecoolyo]

England is also possible for a more laidback game

I've already done an England game, which was incredibly easy

Play the Ottomans!!!

If you had a go already, try the Golden Horde and rebuild the Mongol Empire!

Ottomans are too much work, with all the wars they start with, it's crazy.

Though the Golden Horde looks nice for a future, war aimed game (except for every time your leader dies, it's like a total civil war ).

Instead of Portugal, I think I might try a lowlands country (much smaller, but isn't too hard to cope with).