Upkeep!

[Oaty]

I have never seen religious unrest higher than 2, which is pretty laughable when you are in the red by 30 (good ol' Vienna).

If there's more than 2 different religions the unrest can get high.

I've seen religous unrest get as high as 6 with 4 different religions

With 3 different religions I believe the unrest is 3

[FactionHeir]

Highest i've seen is 10 for the barbary states when i conquered them as france.

[AussieGiant]

I'm now at 1780 as a Prussian Monarch and unrest is getting to be a real issue.

I had about 8 uni's going nuts for the last 30 years but now I'm selectively shutting them down in certain provinces to reduce clamour for reform.

I've also lowered tax on the peasants to the lowest and risen the nobility tax to the second highest to compensate. It's a good solution as I'm just about to have all the techs done by the end of the game. It's been well balanced actually.

I took the UP states and had massive unrest until I realised I didn't need the two new Uni's at all so I shut them down and opened churches instead. Now I need a few Dragoons to crack heads and I back onto attacking France for the last 20 year push.

It's getting a little exciting.

-EDIT-

And I've found the upkeep to be just about right. You can't have full stack armies running around at the start of the game. That comes with time and patience.

Now as the dominant military faction in Europe I can field 3 and half stacks and a total of 1 and a half naval stacks. half are 3rd rates with two 2nd rates then a frigate flotilla with 5th, 6th and brigs for the northern sea.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

In my Spanish campaign I can field ten stacks, two very expensive (all above third rates) fleets and a squadron of 6 medium ships. I am at the year 1780 also. Having a lot of trade does make a difference.

Since I have changed my government early in the campaign to a constitutional monarchy (CM) I had hardly any unrest problems. In 1770 I captured Istanbul and within a couple of turns I was able to leave the city without any garrison. Since CM doesn't have any unrest problems other then clamor for reform, I just wait a couple of turns and build a theater so resistance to foreign occupation and religious unrest are hardly a problem.

[AussieGiant]

Interesting to hear Monsieur Alphonse. That's a hell of a lot of stacks.

I guess it makes sense. I got a trade route to the spice islands at the beginning but then could not really afford a proper navy until about 1740. That's nearly half the game running on just two sea trading spots.

So much for the Spanish being hard to get going.

[Fisherking]

Oh! I quit my Spanish Campaign when I saw I was not shipping any tobacco from the Americas only to find later that it was an undocumented change to the trade game. That was sure fun!

I was a little frustrated after just getting enough money to start improvements, only to have to spend everything I had on three ships to free my one trade port from blockade by Genoa. Who by the way had been a friendly trade partner up until then…

That was like 1711. I am glad that after about 60 years of suffering Spain can begin to show something.

Every campaign is a bit different. Some go your way others don’t.

I'll try again some time.

[Monsieur Alphonse]

It took me 25 turns to get the mission done and have New Spain join me. By that time I could field some 2 and a half stacks. My fleet was very tiny consisting a small squadron of two galleons, a fifth or fourth rate and some light vessels. I was very lucky especially during my two wars with France. Development was slow but you need to upgrade those buildings. Once you start to expand the administrative taxes are going up so capturing more regions doesn't give you more money. From around 1725 / 1730 I was able to use my taxes to pay for my army (4.5 stacks) and navy (growing) and use the income from trade to pay for new buildings in my regions. By researching enlightenment techs you will get lower recruitment costs and lower upkeep.