Europa Universalis III

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

I am extremely glad I got this!


Its 1450, and King James the first of England has just been named the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire!


I Allied early on with Burgandy, because from prior knowledge I know I can not take France with my manpower I made a powerfull web of allies, and due to that France has not to this day declared war on me. I sold Gascony and the other French mainland province, keeping Calais. From here I Decided I would focus on forming GB. Saw my chance in Connaught, which was allied with only Scotland! I allied with the other two Irish nations, even managing to Vassalize Munster at this point.

Used my army to smash Scotland to pieces, Took it all, but held back on a peace deal till my army finished off Connaught, and annexed it. Took everything but its capitol from Scotland, and then sat back to wait for a bit.

Let my Reputation fall down to zero again, getting my economy in order. I got pulled into a few wars from Portugal, mostly with Morroco and Granada. Got my hands on Gibraltar that way, thought a port down there will help me when I start colonizing my way to India. And then the news came, I was leading a personal union with Portugal! That was pretty awesome.


After that I had little to do in the warfare department, as France allied with Castille..... The two of them together are tougher then anything I can throw at them, and with my Manpower my armies are really a Glass cannon. So I sat pretty and once again worked out my economy.


I vassalized all of Ireland, not knowing when I annexed them I would take a hit to centralization, which is a pain, but I got to live with it. (at this point 2/3 are annexed, just waiting on Tyrone..... Have the mission unite ireland, so as soon as he is annexed I have a core on all of them), the biggest problem I face is the fact the remnants of Scotland were vassalized and then annexed by France...... That is going to be a pain to get a hold of.



From here I saw that I was the papal Controller, which has given me all sorts of options. I Decided I was going to vassalize Western Germany. All of Western Germany. The plan is to form a power base that can help me take on France. I used my abilities to excommunicate a single available target, then declared war. This would normally mean I had to fight 3 or so small minors, and the Emperor. With my allies and my big army I was able to roll down them, Vassalize each independently (remembering to get a peace deal with the leader of the alliance last of course) and take what money I can. Each time I captured and Vassalized the Emperor a new was elected, and after 5 wars like this (with about 10 years between each for my armies to recuperate and my manpower to go back up) I have pretty much all of the Electors vassalized and most of far western Germnay. (only nations I was already friendly to me or those I can't get by excommunication or alliance of an excommunication, are left free) After the latest war, I am now Emperor, and I hope the extra manpower helps my fragile armies

(this last war was a tough one, got me down to my lastr legs trying to take out them all. from the 34000 I had, about 7000 are left)


While this was happening Burgandy was reduced to almost nothingness, and forced to give up Flanders..... Uhh ohh. I was not even allowed to join in, because they were wars done by Castille on Aragon, who I am not allied with.)

So my main buffer state is pretty much gone.


I am now waiting for my cores to finally show up on Scotland, I am hoping this will speed up my research, which is agonizingly slow. I have not even been able to get Trade seven yet, so no Quest for the new world. That should happen in a year or so, and then I can start colonizing slowly.


In all a wonderful game, Took me many false starts, but I think I knwo what I am doing now.


Edit:
I just looked at my new Manpower. 64,000 should be good....... From 13k, that is fine for me.

[The Wizard]

Make sure to spam merchants all over to get more income to invest into tech. It'll really help your tech development. And yeah, the HRE adds several modifiers, amongst which is an increase to manpower.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

I do have one question..... Why do all of my Generals Suck? I have decent army tradition, yet I have not ever gotten one with better than 1 Shock or Maneuver. And forget about siege, that is even less likely Its gotten to the point where I don't see a reason to recruit any, as I know they will be useless anyway.

[miotas]

If you've got less than 50 army tradition then you will get bad generals, and you get the best generals obviously when your tradition is at 100. I find that unless I am a really warmongering nation, my best generals are my leaders.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

It's really just random. I think I once got an amazing general with just 50 tradition - he had like 4 shock, 3 maneuver, and 1 siege. Mopped the floor with most stacks and generals.

In the same vein, I always get horrible shock rolls when something important is actually on the line. :/

[al Roumi]

It's really just random. I think I once got an amazing general with just 50 tradition - he had like 4 shock, 3 maneuver, and 1 siege.

Not so, Miotas is right:

If you've got less than 50 army tradition then you will get bad generals, and you get the best generals obviously when your tradition is at 100. I find that unless I am a really warmongering nation, my best generals are my leaders.

The % of army tradition is what governs the overall skills of a general. How the general's "pool" of skills is distributed accross fire, shock, maneuvre and siege (e.g. how many points in each) is random afaik.

Rulers' quality as generals depends on their millitary score (remember they have 3 attributes: administration, diplomacy and military). A leader with a low military score will be a bad general.

I have been playing as Austria, getting to be HRE meant I had a v high Army tradition, since passing one of the HRE reforms which includes an annual decay of army tradition, I am finding it hard to keep the score up... Taking the great idea for army tradition is helping but not enough as I've almost been too successful in fracturing the powers in and around the HRE -France is a mess of minor states, half of which joined the HRE. Fighting during the reformation, trying to force convert heretics is probably easier with larger states (>1 province states).

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

That's what I meant by random. I mean, if you want to be guaranteed a great general you'll need to wait until you have 100%, but if you're in a pinch you can try to get at least a 1-shocker at around 30%.

[Beskar]

What is everyones usually set-up for armies?

My all-rounder stacks of 20 consisting of 10 infantry, 7 horses and 3 cannons. These usually over everything in an invasion.

[al Roumi]

What is everyones usually set-up for armies?

My all-rounder stacks of 20 consisting of 10 infantry, 7 horses and 3 cannons. These usually over everything in an invasion.

Depends on the troops, enemy's, era and offense/defence.

tbh honest I've not played a game much longer than the stage of getting Maurician inf (usually mid 1500's), by that point I've achieved my initial and medium term objectives and get a bit bored - the micro managing and time involved in conquering more than half of central europe or achieving trade dominance in the east is too off putting for me. Flakey player!

As such, My armies have alway been cavalry heavy and split by type (so all cav stacks, all inf stacks etc), but i always try to at least get cav and inf in the same battle unless I have the enemy on the run.

@ Alexander the Pretty Good (was going to abreviate, but someone already gets reffered to as AtPG!), sorry I misunderstood your post.

[The Wizard]

Early game, no artillery, about 15 regiments, 10 inf and 5 cav, but I have no real system. Late game I mix in tons of artillery (1 arty regiment for every inf) to maximize firepower. My armies get slow as a snail but they cause such high losses to the enemy that I win by WE and depleting the enemy's MP. Admittedly, I haven't played more than two games into the late game, though (1788 and 1700 is when I quit respectively).

[Beskar]

What is always interesting is the amount of wars and battles that go on. Also, what is quite depressing, is that you cannot leave the game on very fast for any real length of time, without something major happening, or something that requires your attention.

[al Roumi]

What is always interesting is the amount of wars and battles that go on. Also, what is quite depressing, is that you cannot leave the game on very fast for any real length of time, without something major happening, or something that requires your attention.

For me that is kind of the appeal of the game: waiting for events to coalesce into an opportunity for me to strike and beat something out of someone. Once I achieve a degree of omnipotence, I find it hard to sustain that interest and opportunism. I start feeling quite disencentivised when the most available conquests are in non-accepted culture regions. As in history, complacency is my downfall! Except of course that i turn off before that happens...

[The Wizard]

The major difference between EU3 and another Paradox favorite of mine, CK, is that in EU3 it is very unlikely for your empire to collapse once it's been set up. Especially in Europe, once you pass a certain threshold of provinces, which in that area always have a high tax base and support limit, you're basically unbeatable by anybody else, whether Latin tech or not. Which kinda saps a bit of the fun out of it. It makes late game against the AI a rush for world conquest or nothing much interesting. I'd advise you to perhaps try out a non-Western game.

In CK, meanwhile, even if your empire has stood for over a hundred years, it can still collapse overnight. Which is part of that game's appeal.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Ahh that explains it, my land tradition is not that high.



Well, Still awesome. Struck at the beasts belly, attacking Flanders to draw Castille (and only castille!) into a war. They broke quickly enough, and now Granada has conquered them completely. With that done I can watch France for my opportunity to strike.
Colonized Greenland and am working down Africa. Working out well.

[The Wizard]

Granada? That's amazing I'd like to see a map :)

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Not even sure how it happened..... I think Granada rebelled (it had been conquered a while ago) and used the war Castille was in to make some major gains. After I was done Castille got attacked by France, who mopped up its last few thousand troops. Then it fell into a massive rebellions, and Granada took advantage of it.


I am actually kind of scared they will turn out to be as powerful as Castille......

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Oh wow!

Though their research is probably going to be pretty bad, no?

[al Roumi]

Oh wow!

Though their research is probably going to be pretty bad, no?

Can't remember what tech group Granada are in. Tbh, they are usually instagibbed in the games I have played. Seeing a reconquered al-andalus motivates me to try such a game...

Nevermind all that phil-hellenic resurgent byzantinium rot, what about restoring and reconquering the Caliphate of Cordoba whilst kicking the brutish Visigoth descendants back into the pyrenees. :D

Given the starting strength of Castille compared to that of Granada, it would take some doing! Conquering europe as the Almohads was my most enjoyable game in MTW, but that campaign starts earlier, before the rot set in and the Caliphate fractured.

[miotas]

I think he meant that their research would be slow because most of their provinces would be non-core.

[Meneldil]

Muslim is the third research group and the gap only becomes important from the middle game onward. Plus they must receive huge research bonii from their neighbhours and might have a chance to westernize at some point.

[The Wizard]

Granada is actually the closest of any non-Western nation to being able to Westernize at the start of the game (1399). You can Westernize right away (at least, in 3.2...). Of course, it could be different after re-appearing due to a rebellion...

Still, I've never seen this happen before. Very interesting game!

EDIT: BTW Cultured Drizzt fan, is Granada Christian, perhaps? Could happen if they rebelled from a converted province.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I think he meant that their research would be slow because most of their provinces would be non-core.

I meant being part of the Muslim tech group, but that's a good point too. By the time half of Spain cores, if they're still in the Muslim tech group they could be hurting. And westernizing will be painful...

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Granada is actually the closest of any non-Western nation to being able to Westernize at the start of the game (1399). You can Westernize right away (at least, in 3.2...). Of course, it could be different after re-appearing due to a rebellion...

Still, I've never seen this happen before. Very interesting game!

EDIT: BTW Cultured Drizzt fan, is Granada Christian, perhaps? Could happen if they rebelled from a converted province.

They are indeed. A good catholic kindgom! They have higher tech than me, so they can't be too bad off.

[The Wizard]

Sounds like a power to be reckoned with...

In my England game I've finally decided to form Great Britain (coulda done that back in the 1480s, but waited until 1524 simply 'cause it felt wrong to see the UK flag that early... but I couldn't resist the benefits in the end). Currently I'm rapidly expanding my holdings in Brazil to try and take the whole coast of that country. At the same time, I'm shaping up for a fight with Spain. Inexplicably, they've warned me despite having an RM, and it's annoying me. They might have almost 90k more troops than me, but my navy is far stronger, and they're way over their MP, so I'm confident of being able to split their forces and beating them piecemeal. All I'm worried about is France backstabbing me, and Portugal (my ally) getting overrun. After that, taking the three Irish provinces I don't yet control, and then back to assaulting Indonesia...

EDIT: Oh, the Reformation has fired, and I'm keeping the UK Catholic. How's that for twisting history

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Decided to attack france...... There armies seem to have be invincible. I need to almost double them to take them out, and even then I take huge casualties. I seem to always get horrible rolls fighting them, while they slaughter me with ease.....

[miotas]

You mentioned that your research is really slow right now, they probably have more advanced troops than you. They also might have better generals than you. Have you moved your sliders towards quantity at all? If you have and France has gone towards quality, then that difference in discipline could also be contributing to how superior they seem.

[Cultured Drizzt fan]

Maybe.... I ended up ending the war as soon as I was able to get a hold of Lothian in a peace deal. It does not slow down Frances power, but they are going to find it hard to expand now they have hit my wall of Vassals. I am going to expand overseas to get more cash.



I need to speed up my tech.....

(no I have not moved towards the quantity slider, but you are probably right about the tech things. )

[miotas]

Colonies are a very long term investment, and will reduce your tech quite a lot in the short term. The quickest way boost to your tech is to develop your trade.

[ubik]

And as far as I'm concerned, I'm not that excited about a Magna Mundi standalone game (there's already a thread about it, btw). MMP is just a patchwork of various mods pastiched into one big package, and technically not a real full-blown mod, and has all the problems coming with that. In addition, I don't like MMP's premise, because I feel it clamps on too tightly to history and doesn't give enough room for changing it. Just like Vicky and EU2.

Just to provide some detailed info on the bold part... :)

90% of the Magna Mundi mod was done inhouse, meaning during the development cycles of new versions. With the exception of Dar Zarwesitch ship names (this, as you'd guess adds real names to ships in the database), the Hiring fair and Ad Infinitum, nothingmore was imported from other mods into Magna Mundi.

In fact, Magna Mundi gave to the community two of the best mods outside its own scope: SRI and Dei Gratias. I was the one that encouraged Helius and dharper to release their work WITHIN Magna Mundi as standalone products. They deserved to be on the spotlight for their own merits. An this from November 2007 onwards. So, if anything, Magna Mundi is big enough to give light to other big mods. To this day, it continues to benefit from those modders talent in an integrated team, with distributed responsibilites and answering in a very clear hierarchy. Any newcomer who enters the team is always surprised on how we work together. Then, those who don't like Magna Mundi, may indulge themselves in SRI or Dei Gratias, now knowing their mods are being developed inside Magna Mundi. :)

As a rough estimate, I'd say 90% of Magna Mundi development is inhouse with 8 of the reamaining 10% being solely Ad Infinitum.

[Jolt]

MM explanation

Holy it's ubik! :D

ubik, don't forget to make Portugal uber-powered! Your countrymen demand it so!