Sounds like good advice. Castile is also at war with Aragon so hopefully they won't have too many troops to spare. I'm off camping this weekend so I'll have to wait until Sunday night before I can get back into it.

A very good game though. The complexity is what I've been missing playing Total War are these years.

MacIver wrote:Sounds like good advice. Castile is also at war with Aragon so hopefully they won't have too many troops to spare. I'm off camping this weekend so I'll have to wait until Sunday night before I can get back into it.

A very good game though. The complexity is what I've been missing playing Total War are these years.

Yeah - imagine if the 2 games combined!

I actually fear that happening!

Tbh, I have a game largely written (not coded) out that effectively does this, although my tactical battles are from an isometric perspective with tiles, movement points, terrain etc. Unfortunately, I can't find a decent coder willing to do this for very little cash... one day though!

Spearthrower wrote:

mraltair wrote:
Annexing was too expensive and I saw my infamy was 58, ....

58!!!!!!!!!

Surely that's over your limit? I don't think I've ever seen a limit higher than about 40?

Generally, if you go over the limit you will not only get nasty events happening, but also all the other nations get a free CB on you... which they seem to gleefully do! I've never tried it, but apparently it's a common tactic in World Conquest games to get your country up and running economically, build a shed load of troops, then push your BB over the limit to get the entire world to declare on you!

I'm surprised you haven't already had the 'dishonourable scum' cited at you yet as France pours over your border!

My only friend in the world, that isn't a vassal, is Milan. No idea why they like me, maybe they fear me. My BB after the war with Aragon went up to 63 my limit is 40-something.

mraltair wrote:How do I reduce infamy quickly? I've already created 3 vassals and released Morroco as a vassal but I can still feel the angry eyes on the back of my neck.

Get a diplomat advisor.- Been looking not seen one all game.
Build an embassy. - Done.
Support the Florentine School. - I can do this with 2 more of those dudes.
Be the HRE. - Too far away unless I declare war...no wait.
Be the Papal Controller.- Excommunicated twice in 70 years. Won't hold out hope for this.
Cabinet national idea
Build a glorious monument (maybe later in the game though)
High diplomatic-rating ruler - outside your control though unless you're a republic.

Thanks, my BB goes down by 0.9 a year so if I can hold of wars for long enough I should be able to take southern N.America.

This is turning out to be my most successful game so far plus I won't stop trying to colonise/annex the world till 1821. Usually I reach a point of success and just sit about waiting till the end.

mraltair wrote:

This is turning out to be my most successful game so far plus I won't stop trying to colonise/annex the world till 1821. Usually I reach a point of success and just sit about waiting till the end.

I've never reached the end. I tend to get myself to a position where there's no competition, then stop playing. I've got at least 12 games that are in the late 16th to early 17th century where I've either conquered the majority of Europe, or have colonised the majority of the Americas. Either way, you know there's no one left to face you. I'm kind of in that position now in my current game, but I think I will try to continue on to the end, by not munching the remainder of Europe too fast, but instead focusing on taking India, Japan, or some other moderately rich asian nation.

mraltair wrote:
Get a diplomat advisor.- Been looking not seen one all game.

Just spotted this - are you playing with historical leaders? I don't understand why you can't just buy one of the type you like with your cultural tradition?

I saw a great AAR that is still in progress yesterday.

I just read the Randomness AAR, and got the idea to switch my country each time my ruler dies.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?599235-King-Hopping-AAR

I might try this myself with a random choice of next nation to make it even more interesting. I like how you may go from a huge naval power like England to a tribal nation like Aztec then to a trading nation in the HRE. But building up a huge army as France ready to invade Aragon to then die and get assigned Aragon might cause some issues.

Spearthrower wrote:

mraltair wrote:
Get a diplomat advisor.- Been looking not seen one all game.

Just spotted this - are you playing with historical leaders? I don't understand why you can't just buy one of the type you like with your cultural tradition?

I forgot you could do that

I think I have a decent cultural tradition as well so it's probably my best shot at people liking me again.

mraltair wrote:I saw a great AAR that is still in progress yesterday.

I just read the Randomness AAR, and got the idea to switch my country each time my ruler dies.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?599235-King-Hopping-AAR

I might try this myself with a random choice of next nation to make it even more interesting. I like how you may go from a huge naval power like England to a tribal nation like Aztec then to a trading nation in the HRE. But building up a huge army as France ready to invade Aragon to then die and get assigned Aragon might cause some issues.

That sounds fun.... but how to choose the next country randomly?

I really want to find the time to sit down and make a save game in 1399 where every country has released every possible vassal and de-vassalised them, released subject nations etc, so it's a really fragmented world. Having thought about it a bit, there's a glaring problem in Castille. I think I'd have to create some more nations with cores in Castille to make this work.

I've also got an idea for an AAR, which unfortunately will probably never happen due to time constraints.

However, I am still going to keep the idea under my hat for now. Will share by PM!

Playing as Castille isn't very fun. Within 10 years I've annexed half of Africa and converted to an Empire, then started selling the surviving powers the provinces back for gold.

Think I may go back to trying a small guy, or maybe some Eastern power.

mraltair wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

mraltair wrote:
Get a diplomat advisor.- Been looking not seen one all game.

Just spotted this - are you playing with historical leaders? I don't understand why you can't just buy one of the type you like with your cultural tradition?

I forgot you could do that

I think I have a decent cultural tradition as well so it's probably my best shot at people liking me again.

Aha!

Yes, this is one of the parts of the game I obsess most about. As I said, when I am warring I don't concentrate on infrastructure at all - my magistrates tend to be spent commissioning paintings and trying to get level 6 advisors - if I know I am going to be gaining a chunk of lands, I will gain prestige and infamy, so I can swap my philosopher for a diplomat, or I can get a high judge for the next few rocky years. If I've got all the advisors I want (or I get a level 5 when i am trying to get a level 6), I let another country buy him so I get a bonus at the end of the year. I actually made just under 1000 gold one year early in the game from doing this - it was higher than even my census taxes!

Thommo wrote:Playing as Castille isn't very fun. Within 10 years I've annexed half of Africa and converted to an Empire, then started selling the surviving powers the provinces back for gold.

That sounds like fun though. You could sell each province to a different regional power, thereby giving them all 'colonial' CB's on each other, and sit back and enjoy the fireworks!

Thommo wrote:Think I may go back to trying a small guy, or maybe some Eastern power.

For a different perspective, but equal potential power - either Byzantium or the Ottomans are great. They are 2 sides to the same coin in many ways, although the Ottomans are MUCH easier, and Byzantium's a make-or-break kind of game.

The key to either is dominating that strait - you need to get the NI for 50% discount to ships (is it Pressgangs?), build a shedload of galleys, then you can all but rest assured that you can defeat the other side of the coin. Once you're in control of the few independent states in the East, and have your land in the West, you can also maintain a good army on both sides of the strait to deal with Timurids, and Hungary respectively. The good thing about playing these guys is that you have so many stepped goals that it keeps you involved for a long time, and it utilizes everything in the game - e.g. you don't have 5 missionaries sitting around fiddling with kiddies for decades - you actually get to send them off to Islamic/Orthodox provinces to fiddle with the kiddies there*! It's also one of those games you can play on quite slow speed the whole way.

Another interesting thing I recently saw the AI do was with Venice. While they have just 1 other territory in western Europe aside from their capital, they also possess some unique possibilities in the region around north of the Black Sea - i.e. modern day Ukraine, Romania, Russia. The AI Venice had lost it's other province in Italy, but it's hold in Greece had expanded across Byzantium, all the way up Bulgaria and Romania, spilled round to the East as far as Georgia, and they were in a war reclaiming parts of Novgorod. It was impressive. Unfortunately, the AI is utterly useless at not imploding - they throw all their troops outside their province as soon as war is declared. It's fairly effective in brute force against other AI, and against a small and unprepared human player, but its terrible strategy for the higher chance of revolts through being at war, and from war exhaustion. This eventually ended the great Venetian Empire, which is receding still and looks like it will one day end up as an OPM.





* just in case we get any squarkers reading this: the historical term's pederasty, and was almost certainly practiced by both these people: Köçek / paiderastia

Spearthrower wrote:

mraltair wrote:I saw a great AAR that is still in progress yesterday.

I just read the Randomness AAR, and got the idea to switch my country each time my ruler dies.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?599235-King-Hopping-AAR

I might try this myself with a random choice of next nation to make it even more interesting. I like how you may go from a huge naval power like England to a tribal nation like Aztec then to a trading nation in the HRE. But building up a huge army as France ready to invade Aragon to then die and get assigned Aragon might cause some issues.

That sounds fun.... but how to choose the next country randomly?

Another guy was talking about assigning a number to each nation and then using a random number generator to select the next country. It would have to be the first non-vassal because being someone's bitch is boring.

If I do play this I may do an AAR, but it will depend on whether I can be arsed.

MacIver wrote:
I might try again once I've played through this Portugal game. Things are going quite well, by coincidence I started a war on Morocco at the same time Algiers were fighting them (I hadn't noticed). The two of us and my English allies carved up their territory between us. But just as I was finishing last night Castile declared war on me. So I'm going to have to fight the inevitable uprisings in north Africa whilst protecting my Iberian provinces from the treacherous Spanish. Hopefully Aragon will be more open to my diplomatic advances now because England has buggered off. I'm going to need to build up my navy for the first time too I think to ensure I have easy access across the Gibraltar Strait.

If Castille declared was on you early in the game, you're probably screwed as Portugal. You probably made a few rookie mistakes.

Here's how to play Portugal. Castille is a huge powerful nation next to you and you're puny, so you have to do everything you can to keep Castille from declaring war on you early. Luckily, you start with pretty good relations with Castille, if I remember correctly (it's been a while since I've played this game), and you can easily get a royal marriage with them (if you don't already start with one). Royal marriages reduce the odds of them declaring war on you dramatically and tend to keep relations good. If you can manage to get an alliance with them, even better, as I've never seen the ai declare war on an ally. Keeping good relations with them is not too difficult; just don't go to war with nations they like, don't block them from any CoTs you own, don't let your infamy get too high.

I'm guessing you annexed a lot of provinces and let your infamy get too high, which is why Castille declared war on you. Early in the game, you want to avoid annexing too many provinces. Avoid getting involved in wars if you can. Concentrate your tech research on government until you can get the Quest for the New World idea and start exploring and colonizing the Americas. Then concentrate on trade tech; many people don't realize how powerful trade is in this game, and having a high trade tech is vital if youre a small nation.

Here's how trade works. Every province produces a trade good. All the trade goods produced in a province go into whatever Center of Trade services that province. Basically the trade goods are converted into cash in the CoT, and that cash is divided up unequally between all the merchants in that CoT. There can be only 20 merchants at most in a CoT; if you try place a merchant into a CoT that already has 20, you have to "compete" against a merchant to replace him. A big part of your compete chance is based on your trade tech, so a high trade tech means your merchants have a higher chance of competing out and replacing another nations merchants, and have a lower chance of being competed against once in the CoT.

Early in the game, while I tend to concentrate on trade tech, I usually dont bother too much with trade. The reason is because, early in the game, your compete chance against other merchants is gonna suck, unless you happen to be Venice or The Hansa. At game start there are shitloads of tiny countries in France and Germany, and all these shitty little countries are all sending their merchants into the CoTs; your merchants are going to have constant competition from hundreds of other merchants, and the amount of ducats you make in the CoTs will probably not make up for the all the ducats you spend constantly sending merchants.

However, once your trade tech is high enough above most other countries, then you can really start raking in the ducats. Higher trade tech means higher compete chance, which means you have to spend less money sending merchants; also, higher trade tech means you get a higher cut of the profits per merchant.

Now image youre Portugal in 1600. Youve explored the Caribbean and colonized most of of it, and you have a lot of nice provinces colonized, most of them producing tasty trade goods like coffee, sugar, and tobacco. First, lets not even get into all the money from trade taxes theyll produce, which is separate from the trade in the CoT. Probably your very own CoT will spring up on its own somewhere in the Americas to service all your new world provinces -- in my game it was in Bermuda. Most of the countries in the game cant even see this CoT, meaning that competition will be low there. Odds are, the few countries that can see it have lower compete chances than you, so you easily dominate this CoT. All these high priced trade goods going to a single CoT is going to result in a CoT that is worth an insane amount per year. In my game, it was over 3500 ducats, and could be even more if you colonize even more provinces. Your cut of that is going to be a very high percentage. But thats not all. Youll also have merchants in all the other high priced CoTs in the game, and probably get the lions share of the profits in all of them, too. All this money is going to result in you being dominant in all the techs, eventually. It means that going to war with Castille is actually kind of trivial. Even if you somehow exhaust all your manpower, which probably wont happen, youll have more than enough money to hire enough mercs to kick their ass. Youll also have enough money where you can begin to construct manufactories, which are expensive, but important, buildings. Imagine having a manufactory in every home province, and you can see how Portugal is quickly becoming the most dominant nation in the world.

If that seems complicated, it isnt really. You dont really have to understand the details of how it works. Just remember this formula: high trade techs == world domination. Just get that trade tech up and turn on autosend merchant in all the good CoTs.

Spearthrower wrote:

Shagz wrote:I'm not sure, but I think the demand for certain trade goods goes up as more "buildings" are built in everyone's provinces. So it's not just the buildings in your empire, but all the buildings everywhere. I think I've read that some of the crappy trade goods like grain and fish go up in value a little as the world population goes up.

Yeah, I can confirm that the price of trade goods varies over time, so this may well be it. Perhaps buildings like markets create demand?

Take a look at this site if you want to see what affects the trade good prices.
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Trade_goods

Shagz wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:

Shagz wrote:I'm not sure, but I think the demand for certain trade goods goes up as more "buildings" are built in everyone's provinces. So it's not just the buildings in your empire, but all the buildings everywhere. I think I've read that some of the crappy trade goods like grain and fish go up in value a little as the world population goes up.

Yeah, I can confirm that the price of trade goods varies over time, so this may well be it. Perhaps buildings like markets create demand?

Take a look at this site if you want to see what affects the trade good prices.
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Trade_goods

Wow - ok, that's pretty complex!

Looking at this:

Demand for exotic goods is affected by the following factors unless otherwise stated:

- Province does not have a marketplace: -80%
- Province has a customs house, a constable, or a treasury office: +50% each
- Province has a town hall: +100%
- Province has a cathedral: +200 %.....

There are lots of ways of boosting the demand!

Thanks for sharing!

Now image youre Portugal in 1600. Youve explored the Caribbean and colonized most of of it, and you have a lot of nice provinces colonized, most of them producing tasty trade goods like coffee, sugar, and tobacco. First, lets not even get into all the money from trade taxes theyll produce, which is separate from the trade in the CoT. Probably your very own CoT will spring up on its own somewhere in the Americas to service all your new world provinces -- in my game it was in Bermuda. Most of the countries in the game cant even see this CoT, meaning that competition will be low there. Odds are, the few countries that can see it have lower compete chances than you, so you easily dominate this CoT. All these high priced trade goods going to a single CoT is going to result in a CoT that is worth an insane amount per year. In my game, it was over 3500 ducats, and could be even more if you colonize even more provinces. Your cut of that is going to be a very high percentage. But thats not all. Youll also have merchants in all the other high priced CoTs in the game, and probably get the lions share of the profits in all of them, too. All this money is going to result in you being dominant in all the techs, eventually. It means that going to war with Castille is actually kind of trivial. Even if you somehow exhaust all your manpower, which probably wont happen, youll have more than enough money to hire enough mercs to kick their ass. Youll also have enough money where you can begin to construct manufactories, which are expensive, but important, buildings. Imagine having a manufactory in every home province, and you can see how Portugal is quickly becoming the most dominant nation in the world.

Just to note that this information seems to be from pre- Heir to the Throne.

Now, all taxes in overseas provinces are converted to tariffs, which are handled very differently; the most important consequence of which is that production will be far more valuable in the mid to late game than trade, now.

Secondly, CoT's no longer appear - you have to have a national focus nearby, then pay 500 ducats to build a CoT. This means you can strategically locate your CoTs to maximise your profits.

Finally, trade's much easier in the early game - you can normally get 5 traders in most of the European CoT's without too many difficulties. The mercantilism / free trade slider has very different benefits than before, plus plutocracy really powers trade values.

Well, thanks for the thread guys. This has turned out to be quite the fun game. Not sure how it would work in multiplayer, but I really appreciate the effort that Paradox have put into the diplomatic aspects of the single player. The difficulty of playing smaller countries is largely political it seems, unlike Civ 5, which was entirely "cheat" difficulty of giving the AI more and stronger units and faster growth and research.

Ok, one more question for you pros! How can I see my force limits?

Edit: never mind, found it on the military tab after all.

Force limits are my eternal bane. So is being an island which lacks neighbours to gain a tech boost from. Worth it for not being able to be invaded properly, though.

Here's how to play Portugal. Castille is a huge powerful nation next to you and you're puny, so you have to do everything you can to keep Castille from declaring war on you early. Luckily, you start with pretty good relations with Castille, if I remember correctly (it's been a while since I've played this game), and you can easily get a royal marriage with them (if you don't already start with one). Royal marriages reduce the odds of them declaring war on you dramatically and tend to keep relations good. If you can manage to get an alliance with them, even better, as I've never seen the ai declare war on an ally. Keeping good relations with them is not too difficult; just don't go to war with nations they like, don't block them from any CoTs you own, don't let your infamy get too high.

You can ask for and give military access, too. Each provides a pretty big stability hit for declaring war. Though for some reason, the AI is more inclined to give military access than accept it from you.

I had a strange situation once, I was allied with both Hungary and Austria. Austria went to war with Hungary and both called for my help. I decided to side with Hungary (siding with Austria would have given me a -2 Stab. hit) but still retained the Alliance casus belli on Hungary. So, for kicks, I declared war on them and I was simultaneously at war and allied with both Austria and Hungary in a war against each other.

Personal unions are bloody frustrating. I've been in one with The Palatinate for 3 monarchs now, and even with 'trust us utterly', 200 relations, all positive treaties, and either not at war or in a mutual war, but they just won't become part of France!