Go Savoy!

[Fisherking]

Interesting development.

I have not seen it happen in any of mine so far. I don’t know what they did to get the cash to build all that.

Any ideas what else they did in that game?

[Monsieur Alphonse]

I have seen that once. And Wurtenberg has destroyed France also once. But France has also taken Savoy on a coupe of occasions. Sometimes late in the game the French are starting to expand into southern Germany and Northern Italy, but most of the time they stay at home drinking wine and make like rabbits. That is why they end up with such an enormous population.

[Azlahn]

If you play as France, there's a 99,9% chance the Savoy(t)ards will attack you at some point, unless of course you attack them first. Never thought they would actually have a chance though :P

[Tora]

Minor states seem ridiculously over-powerful at times. In my Ottoman campaign, after assisting them to ward off a Russian invasion, it's 1707 and the Crimean Khanate has taken 2 Russian provinces and is invading a third, while I'm strolling to St Petersburg with impunity, meeting minimal resistance.
Yet to combat Georgia I've had to build 2 forts on the border to keep them out and still havent been able to build a big enough force to take Tblisi, despite wiping out 3 full stacks they've sent into my territory.
I'm desperately trying to take them out before Dagestan decides to join in, having bad memories of taking them both on in my now deceased Russian campaign, when they always seemed to have twice as many armies than me despite only having one production city apiece.

[JRCDave]

I agree that the minor powers are a little too powerful. They should be a challenge but not game changers vs major powers. I would like to see more coop in diplomatic moves with minor powers. More options to enter into allied campaigns against major powers. Options to attack an enemy or province for a certain number of turns or options to move armies to city x in x turns. The strategic options would be useful. Threaten city x with allied army y causing power A to move forces to cover city x. Move your armies to cover the hole left. This might be too complicated for the code writers.

I would also like to see an option to pick which of your allies to go to war with instead of all of them. The strong German states are useful as an early game buffer between France and Prussia or Austria if you are playing as Prussia or Austria. This allows you to have a one- or two front war instead of fending off France too.

[andrewt]

The problem is that each faction has a base "other income" of around 3000 (I've seen only 3000 but others might have some other value). This works like the king's purse used to. Also, money from trade is only lightly proportional to number of provinces. So states with only 1 province have too much money in comparison with larger states, who have to build spread out forces.

[Skott]

I sent rakes into France just to see what was going on. Apparently Savoy invaded for whatever reason. Like I said I dont know who originally attacked who because I was concentrating on taking over Italy at the time and wasnt paying attention to France, who I was friendly with and in a trade agreement. Anyway once I saw some smoke coming from a burning town I sent in rakes to investigate. By the time my rakes got in there Savoy had three armies going around looting and burning. French armies were more or less ignoring it too. There was one French army in Paris, two armies in Alasce-Lorraine, one army in western France where the English channel and Atlantic meet, and the French had an army down in Eastern Spain for some odd reason. France and Spain were allied.

About three turns after I got my rakes in place to observe the goings on one Savoy army took Paris. At that point the French armies in France began to get active and actively seek out the Savoy armies but they lost every fight against Savoy. After a couple of turns the French only had one badly beat army left in Alasce-Lorraine I then declared war on France and took Alasce-Lorraine thus destroying the French nation for good.

I quickly made a trade agreement and alliance with Savoy for 10,000 and took Flanders, Lombardy, Naple, and Sardinia from Spain. Which is where my campaign is so far. Savoy controls Savoy and France and allied to me and Spain is awaiting my assault. I may however go after France and Savoy first and then move onto Spain itself. I'll have to wait and see if Spain accepts a cease fire first or not.

I just find it amusing little Savoy took on and captured France. I've never seen Savoy do that before. Past times they just sit there and happily move their little armies around Savoy until attacked.