Europa Universalis III

[Crazed Rabbit]

I just downloaded this game off Steam, 'cause I need something with greater depth and detail than ETW. However, I'm finding it very confusing. Ran through all of the tutorials, but the simplest things are very difficult to wrap my mouse around.

Does anybody know a place where there's a good n00b guide to EUIII? The wiki and the Paradox boards have lots of in-depth discussions of mechanics, but vanishingly little about, you know, simple how-to-click-and-move stuff.

How does one move merchants? How do you group an army? How do you send a colonist? Simple stuff, completely non-intuitive.

I have a feeling there's a great game buried under the weird interface, and I just need a guide to get me there. Links? Ideas?

Well you got the right game, since this is why I don't bother playing ETW (I can't fathom how I'd approach that diplomacy after the excellent interactions in EU3).

Yes, it's difficult to learn and the tutorials are useless; outdated and far from comprehensive.

You don't move merchants in the TW sense; you find a center of commerce and you can send your merchants there (click on the province, you should see a 'send merchant' option).

You have to have the army regiments you want to group in the same province, then select them all and at the top of the list should be a button to join them all together.

Colonists are like merchants; you have to select a territory that's not yet ruled by any faction and that's within range of your capital. You'll have the option to send a colonist in the province view panel.

Some stuff I only found out about after the AI did it to me ( you can seize colonies in the middle of a war without waiting for peace negotiations).

I found playing as England (reloading after screw-ups, or just starting over, repeatedly) helped me a lot to understand the mechanics.

CR

[scottishranger]

Although note as England, your going to lose the 100 years war. No, dont say "But I WANNA CONQUER!", you cant beat France. Your 13k army in Gascony is going to be destroyed. You might as well just cede Calais too. You dont need it

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Playing as Castilla and growing her into Spain is also smooth and fun.

You don't need to read the whole manual. Just consult it whenever necessary. The game gets intuitive after a few hours of initial frustration.

Again, do get Magna Mundi.
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[Monk]

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Again, do get Magna Mundi.
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Yes, but not right after you get the game! Wait until you actually have a grasp of how to play EUIII before you dive into MM imho. Magna Mundi is a fantastic mod but it is a complex . Jumping in when you're still not even sure on the basics of vanilla might be like diving into the deep-end without knowing how to swim.

If you have questions about EUIII take a look at the wiki. It's sorta like the Vicky wiki. This will help with trying to get a specific country on the right path as well as give you insights into any aspect of the game. The in game tutorials are pretty broken in EUIII - complete (due to NA and IN breaking them) so I would suggest giving the official forums a once over too.

[al Roumi]

I got EU3 in the steam sale and man, I haven't looked up in the last month. (My girlfriend and I have even been having rows about it!)

er, anyway. It is truly beguilling and awesome.

Never mind mods, get the 3.2beta patch, things will work better.

It took me about 2 weeks of reading the manual, wiki, forum and playing to get confident/proficient. I started and played about 3 campaigns, learning successive ammounts about what I could do etc. Don't expect to pick it up and run with it, unless you are some absolute genius -there's just too many layers to this onion. :D

Your first (serious) campian should definitley be as Portugal. It's relativley easy and introduces you to all the world colonisation & trade in a nice, safe way. Just make sure you stay friendly & allied to Castille, and that you keep Castille strong enough to stop France stomping into Iberia.

Follow the game missions as and when you can, they can be fun and advantageous, but don't limit yourelf to them. Canceling ones like de-stabilising Castille is probably a good choice...

From the point of view of your economy and research, ultimately, you want to keep the "treasury" slider as far to the left as possible, this will ensure you spend as much as possible on research and keep inflation down.

You can auto-send merchants, and set priorities on the trade theatres you want them to concentrate on. This is done through the "Stats/data" (graphs) screen on the bottom right tool-bar of the main map screen.

Warfare is not the primary tool of diplomacy in EU3, at least not to the extent it is in TW. Instead, warfare is what allows you to make a claim for more territory: you basically have to beat other factions up untill they relinquish their territory. Alternatively, if you have vassals, you can (providing you meet certain conditions -check the tool-tip) annex/absorb them diplomaticaly.

Single province factions can be defeated and annexed in one war. Factions that own two or more provinces must be reduced until only one province remains before you can "terminate" them.

My last tip is to keep your hand over the space-bar, or play with the speed right down -you need to react fairly quickly, especially when at war.

I left my portugal campaign as it was on "easy" and I was getting bored of making so much money with such little challenge. I managed to colonise all the main access points to the new world before anyone else, only my ally spain has colonies in North America and Africa. The rest are a mine -for the moment).

I'm now playing as Switzerland (take that ETW!), and am on my way to claiming Northern Italy as my dominion -with only Piedmonte remaining. I am allied to France and Venice and wary of Austria and Naples...

Actually one more thing, the guys on the paradox forum are really helpful. They do a much better job than the manual, for sure!

[Lemur]

Not gonna try mods, no matter how good, until I can wrap my brain around the vanilla game.

Here's a stumper: How do you un-group troops or ships? The method is non-obvious.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Select your army. It must be immobile (not en route to another province) and unengaged (not fighting or besieging). On the top right there are buttons for grouping and ungrouping. If you've selected only one army then the grouping button will naturally be inactive.

Click the ungrouping button. Now you have two adjacent windows. Select which regiment will be in the new army and add them. If only I had some screenshots doing that... It must be not so tough.

It's the same procedure (and conditions) with fleets.
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[Lemur]

Just have to find this "ungrouping button." Dang it, I shoulda bought the box version. Anybody want to send me a printed manual?

[seireikhaan]

@Lemur- Does this help?

First, click the button I've highlighted in the square.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Then, for each unit you want to split into the new army, click the arrow in the circle next to its regiment name.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Click close, and voila, split armies.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Shinseikhaan, you truly are The Pure King.

Btw, that skull symbol stands for disbanding your army.
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[Crazed Rabbit]

Wait, what? We're supposed to get a printed manual with boxed versions and not just a big world province map?

I didn't ...

CR

[OverKnight]

I've found the Wiki very useful. Also the Paradox forum for EU 3 is informative. Most people don't seem to mind noobish questions.

I found reading some of the AARs very instructive on game play and strategy.

Also it seems that a lot of TW players are EU 3 players as well, so I'm sure we'd be happy to answer any questions.

As for the PDF manual. Just print it out at work, it's what I did. Or you could just have it open on your computer and alt-tab to it when needed. Just be aware that each expansion to the game has its own addendum to the manual.

Paradox games have a very steep learning curve, but are rewarding once you get the hang of things.

First noob lesson: You load troops onto transports by having the transports in an adjacent sea zone, selecting the troops and moving them onto the fleet.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Single province factions can be defeated and annexed in one war. Factions that own two or more provinces must be reduced until only one province remains before you can "terminate" them.

You can annex large territories in one single war if your enemy don't have fort 1 built. I've managed to conquer Mayans this way in demo.

Also, it seems that Latin Knights are the only units you need to conquer America.

But I've played only demo so .. don't know how much this can be used in EU Vanilla or in it's mods though.

This reminds my that I need to buy that EU3 I saw from a local store before I again miss the chance to do it!

[seireikhaan]

You can annex large territories in one single war if your enemy don't have fort 1 built. I've managed to conquer Mayans this way in demo.

Also, it seems that Latin Knights are the only units you need to conquer America.

But I've played only demo so .. don't know how much this can be used in EU Vanilla or in it's mods though.

This reminds my that I need to buy that EU3 I saw from a local store before I again miss the chance to do it!

In unmodded EUIII, animist provinces can be permanently seized by an occupier in the same way that colonies can be seized. Fort level, provincial population, etc... do not matter.

[al Roumi]

In unmodded EUIII, animist provinces can be permanently seized by an occupier in the same way that colonies can be seized. Fort level, provincial population, etc... do not matter.

To be clear, the above doesn't apply to the In Nomine (IN) expansion. Which you'll be playing if you bought the "complete" package...

In IN, the presence of a fort in a province means the fort must be successfully sieged before the province can be controlled. If there is no fort, you can control a province by simply occupying it with an army.

Irrespecitve of how you came to control the province (by occupation or siege), to Annex it you still have to claim it as part of a peace settlement.

[Tricky Lady]

*shakes dust off shoulder*
Aaah, it's been ages since I've visited this place :-)

I've had great fun playing EU3 too, and returned to play it after a year's inactivity. Unfortunately, I seem to have a huge problem on my campaign map: big parts of the map are "blinking" So now I can't play this game anymore without getting a huge headache.... Posted in the help section of their forums already, but I just wanted to ask: should someone of you know where I can solve this problem, don't hesitate to PM me.
Sorry for the hijack

[Martok]

Something I've been meaning to ask about this game for a long time now.... One of the reasons EU3 holds some appeal for me (despite being real-time) is because I've heard over and over how much better the politics & diplomacy is than in most other strategy games. Quite simply, my question is: In what way is this so?

Are alliances more meaningful? Are declarations of war less frequent and/or at least make sense when they occur? Can you help cause a civil war in an enemy nation? Can you manipulate civil wars if/when they break out (e.g., give financial backing to the rebels in hopes that if victorious, they'll be more friendly to you than the current government)? I know you can have vassals and protectorates, but are they useful and/or worth having?

I'd love to hear details on this!

*shakes dust off shoulder*
Aaah, it's been ages since I've visited this place :-)

Welcome back, Tricky Lady! Good to see you again after your extended absence.

[seireikhaan]

Something I've been meaning to ask about this game for a long time now.... One of the reasons EU3 holds some appeal for me (despite being real-time) is because I've heard over and over how much better the politics & diplomacy is than in most other strategy games. Quite simply, my question is: In what way is this so?

Are alliances more meaningful? Are declarations of war less frequent and/or at least make sense when they occur? Can you help cause a civil war in an enemy nation? Can you manipulate civil wars if/when they break out (e.g., give financial backing to the rebels in hopes that if victorious, they'll be more friendly to you than the current government)? I know you can have vassals and protectorates, but are they useful and/or worth having?

I'd love to hear details on this!

Well, I'll try to touch on the questions posed:

1) YES, alliances are meaningful. Allies are required on the onset of a war to declare whether they come to the aid of their ally, regardless of whether the war was aggressive or defensive. For the most part, the AI will back the alliances it is in, though there is the occasional "dropping" of the alliance.

2) Yes, declarations of war are fairly infrequent. Usually, they occur in logical manners, as well. For example, England is much more likely to war with France than it is to war with, say, Bavaria. Further, wars are usually resolved in manners that are sensible for the time period.

3) There are not really "civil wars", per se. However, every nation/kingdom has a stability rating, ranging from -3 to +3. When stability is negative, rebellions are much more likely to break out, tax income drops, and generally bad things can happen if you let the status sit. There are espionage options for attempting to hack down an enemy's stability, and there are also options to fund rebels in a province, though its not guaranteed to trigger a rebellion even if you do succeed. I've not fiddled with the options a ton myself, so other might be able to answer better.

4) Vassals and protectorates are very much worth having, particularly if they are of the same religious group as yourself. After ten years of vassalizing a foreign kingdom, if you are able to keep relations high enough, you can demand direct annexation, which may or may not work. If nothing else, vassals are useful for controlling the direction of the game. A prime example of this would be to play as Ming China. Annexing southeast asia can be a hassle, due to rebelliousness. However, smacking around the native kingdoms a bit until they've all bowed their heads in tribute works quite nicely for making sure that nothing nasty arises out of your southern border, as well as having plenty of allies if war breaks out in a nearby area. Another great example would be in the Holy Roman Empire. Making vassals out of the electors(usually small principalities with little individual might of their own) can make it much, much easier to keep a hold on the title of Holy Roman Emperor, as vassals have "special incentives" () to vote for their overlord.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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Welcome back Tricky Lady!

Well, funny things do happen in this game, graphics wise. But usually they disappear after a reload. Have you looked into your video drivers? Or some custom settings you made such as brightness/contrast adjustment for videos or desktop etc.? They tend not to work well with 3D games all the time.

Their support forum? lookie...
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[al Roumi]

Something I've been meaning to ask about this game for a long time now.... One of the reasons EU3 holds some appeal for me (despite being real-time) is because I've heard over and over how much better the politics & diplomacy is than in most other strategy games. Quite simply, my question is: In what way is this so?

Are alliances more meaningful? Are declarations of war less frequent and/or at least make sense when they occur? Can you help cause a civil war in an enemy nation? Can you manipulate civil wars if/when they break out (e.g., give financial backing to the rebels in hopes that if victorious, they'll be more friendly to you than the current government)? I know you can have vassals and protectorates, but are they useful and/or worth having?

I'd love to hear details on this!

To add to what Shinseikhaan said, and only because I'm a bit of an EU3 groupy at the mo':

Firstly, I have found "diplomacy" a hugely susbtantive part of the game, having come from CIV and TW games. I'd argue that diplomacy is deeper and wider in EU3 than either of the other franchises (its certainly at least on par with civ).

That said, diplomacy is probably an inadequate term for what really is international relations, i guess.

To start with, you really feel as if your state stands among its peers. You also have a diplomatic standing, based on a range of factors (prestige (+ or -), reputation (how much of a bully you are), stability etc) which affect your relations with other states, and are themselves affected by your own actions.

One of the basic features of EU3 is that almost all actions undertaken have consequences, and that these are carried through to future decisions. There are few quick wins and you have to learn to take the opportunities you are presented with.

On diplomacy/foreign relations in particular, your range of actions is huge. You can make all sorts of agreements (trade, military access (each way), alliances, guarantees), you can take 'negative measures' (insult, warn, embargo). Through spies, you have even more options: fund a range of different rebels/uprisings (dependant on conditions in the province), magic up a cassus beli, incite against the nation's merchants, infiltrate their administration (to see their "view" & units), have advisors removed... the list goes on.

Finally (not really, its just that this post will get too long), you actually have to beat peace agreements and trade bargains out of your enemies. This is done through 3 basic options of "white peace", giving tribute or receiving tribute. Tribute can be anything from cash, territory, renouncing claims to territory, releasing subject nations to diplomatic agreements such as personal unions or vassaldom.

[Tricky Lady]

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Welcome back Tricky Lady!

Well, funny things do happen in this game, graphics wise. But usually they disappear after a reload. Have you looked into your video drivers? Or some custom settings you made such as brightness/contrast adjustment for videos or desktop etc.? They tend not to work well with 3D games all the time.

Their support forum? lookie...
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Hi :-)

I was actually referring to the EU3 Tech Support forum, and I got some replies there. I tried everything, but without success.
I think I'll just try to do a full reinstall of my system. Last resort, I know, but I want to get this thing sorted out.

To be honest, I think I can play the game with the view set on "Political map" - then the blinking is not THAT annoying (but it's still bugging me because I just keep on noticing it - can't ignore it).

*sigh* Why can't it just be simple?

[Lemur]

Okay, I had a nice, long run on Portugal last night, and I didn't bankrupt my nation or start any unwinnable wars. I even kept my economy in the black, which felt like a minor triumph.

However, reputation seems to be a bit of a black box. I was cruising along with a +15 rep, and the next time I looked up it was -20. No major events had taken place. I had not lost any battles. I had not missed a mission. It seemed to just plummet for no reason. What could have done this? And what are the consequences for a low rep? (Note that everybody still thought we were an honorable nation, etc., we just dropped in status all of a sudden.)

I was amused at a couple of "do not start any wars for any reason" notifications I got from distant kingdoms. That was funny.

-edit-

Oh, and how do you deal with rebels? Seems like if you go in with a similar-sized army, they just keep retreating through your provinces, and you have to attack them five to six times before they vanish. Is there some trick to wiping them out? (Besides going in with overwhelming force?)

[Tricky Lady]

However, reputation seems to be a bit of a black box. I was cruising along with a +15 rep, and the next time I looked up it was -20. No major events had taken place. I had not lost any battles. I had not missed a mission. It seemed to just plummet for no reason. What could have done this? And what are the consequences for a low rep? (Note that everybody still thought we were an honorable nation, etc., we just dropped in status all of a sudden.)

This happened to me a few times too: IIRC it was because my King died (had influence on rep), and in another case it dropped because an advisor died. Can't remember that big a difference in reputation though

Don't enemy spy actions have a (bad) influence on your reputation as well?

[Jolt]

Okay, I had a nice, long run on Portugal last night, and I didn't bankrupt my nation or start any unwinnable wars. I even kept my economy in the black, which felt like a minor triumph.

However, reputation seems to be a bit of a black box. I was cruising along with a +15 rep, and the next time I looked up it was -20. No major events had taken place. I had not lost any battles. I had not missed a mission. It seemed to just plummet for no reason. What could have done this? And what are the consequences for a low rep? (Note that everybody still thought we were an honorable nation, etc., we just dropped in status all of a sudden.)

I was amused at a couple of "do not start any wars for any reason" notifications I got from distant kingdoms. That was funny.

-edit-

Oh, and how do you deal with rebels? Seems like if you go in with a similar-sized army, they just keep retreating through your provinces, and you have to attack them five to six times before they vanish. Is there some trick to wiping them out? (Besides going in with overwhelming force?)

Being in the province they retreat to destroys them completely more often than not. But that's on the In Nomine I played at a freinds house.

[Ibn-Khaldun]

Btw, I'm interested which map to you use the most - political or that with nature?

[Mouzafphaerre]

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I use terrain by default and occasionally switch to political to behold the might of my kingdom.
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[Meneldil]

Okay, I had a nice, long run on Portugal last night, and I didn't bankrupt my nation or start any unwinnable wars. I even kept my economy in the black, which felt like a minor triumph.

However, reputation seems to be a bit of a black box. I was cruising along with a +15 rep, and the next time I looked up it was -20. No major events had taken place. I had not lost any battles. I had not missed a mission. It seemed to just plummet for no reason. What could have done this? And what are the consequences for a low rep? (Note that everybody still thought we were an honorable nation, etc., we just dropped in status all of a sudden.)

I was amused at a couple of "do not start any wars for any reason" notifications I got from distant kingdoms. That was funny.

-edit-

Oh, and how do you deal with rebels? Seems like if you go in with a similar-sized army, they just keep retreating through your provinces, and you have to attack them five to six times before they vanish. Is there some trick to wiping them out? (Besides going in with overwhelming force?)

Are you talking about prestige or reputation? AFAIK, reputation cannot get lower than 0, and the less you have, the better.
Then you have reputation between two specific countries. You might have had +15 with a given country, and -20 with another one. This reputation varies for every country, according to a whole lot of factors (your culture, religion, your state's overall reputation, how you behaved toward said country and its allies, etc.). For example, I know Portugal has good relations with Aragon and England at the beginning, and bad relations with Castille and France.

As for prestige, you can take pretty big hits to it without noticing. Failing a mission = bad. Breaking an alliance = very bad. Being screwed up at the end of a war (ie. you have to give up land, or conclude a white peace while you attacked) = very very bad.
You also have a yearly decay, I think something like -1%.

[al Roumi]

However, reputation seems to be a bit of a black box. I was cruising along with a +15 rep, and the next time I looked up it was -20. No major events had taken place. I had not lost any battles. I had not missed a mission. It seemed to just plummet for no reason. What could have done this? And what are the consequences for a low rep? (Note that everybody still thought we were an honorable nation, etc., we just dropped in status all of a sudden.)

I think, as Meneldil explained, that you mean Prestige (displayed next to treasury and stability at the very top of the screen).

There is an annual 'wastage' of prestige (as with most factors) which ultimately normalises your prestige to "0.0".

AFAIK, prestige is otherwise only altered (+vely or -vely) through your actions or things that happen to you -which you will be notified of through pop-ups.

-20 prestige would have come from a fairly sizeable event, or a lot of minor diplomatic cock-ups.

To add to Meneldil's breakdown of Prestige modifiers:
-successful diplomatic advances net ou a +ve bonus, un-successful offers net you a -ve bonus
-warning, insulting & embargoing also give you a -ve bonus
-renegging on your diplomatic agreements also drops your prestige (cancelling millitary access)
-being on the end of someone else's "negative" diplomacy, or being excomunicated will also drop your prestige.
-losing battles (in the same way as winning) also drop your prestige

Basically, anything that you do which goes well will give you + prestige, and anything bad you do or that happens to you gives you - prestige.

Oh, and how do you deal with rebels? Seems like if you go in with a similar-sized army, they just keep retreating through your provinces, and you have to attack them five to six times before they vanish. Is there some trick to wiping them out? (Besides going in with overwhelming force?)

Chasing rebels (or any enemy) accross provinces (ping-pong) is unfortunately a feature of the game. As you said, you can only be sure to wipe them out if you have overwhelming numbers (and win). Having troops stationed in a province when the rebels materialise seems to make it more likely you will knock them out straight away, but not always.

You really have 2 options, either station infantry throughout your rebelious provinces, or (once your provinces have forts!) keep a single Cavalry squadron handy to cover and rush in as soon as the rebels appear and besiege your fort.

As with normal combat, cavalry-only stacks will also move faster than the AI's combined armies, so your cavalry stack can be in position to defend (and recieve a defensive bonus) in the province the rebels/enemy retreats too.

[johnhughthom]

Just got this today and I have a question for you fine folk, on the options menu when starting a new game what does "spread of land/sea provinces" represent?

[al Roumi]

Just got this today and I have a question for you fine folk, on the options menu when starting a new game what does "spread of land/sea provinces" represent?

Er, i don't know and I can't find it in the manual (not really a surprise). I suspect it may have something to do with travel times over seas? The size of province is kind of irrelevant.

If i were you, I'd just play on the default settings... (Maybe easy for your first game though)

Have fun!