Okay. Last couple of days I've played a lot of EU3. I'm still learning, and still haven't got beyond the mid 1400s before a series of stupid mistakes by moi makes me start again from scratch, but that's how I play games to start with and I'm slowly getting the hang of it. I've mainly been playing as Portugal and Scotland (I've got a soft spot for wee nations next to big powerful ones, if you could play as Canada or New Zealand I'd probably do that too! ).

I have two questions for you guys though.

1) If you deicide to help out an ally who's at war with someone, is there any way to ensure you can annex the territory you win? As Portugal I accepted a call to arms from Aragon against an Orthodox alliance lead by Muscovy. I sent a big army to conquer Istanbul/Constantinople and then take a couple of provinces from Georgia. But then Aragon goes and decides to make peace with Muscovy, taking southern Greece from the Byzantines but leaving me with nothing. Thousands of my loyal soldiers died for nothing! Do the "minor parties" in the war have any way of looking after their interests?

2) Ships. Which ones work as troop carriers and how many of each do you need to get one transport slot? Again, playing as Portugal I got the navy national ideal which halved the coast of building ships. So I spent about 100 building 5 carracks only to find out I couldn't load any men onto it...

You can annex territory (don't know why you'd want to - neither cored nor same culture group, 8 points of infamy per province and it's miles away. There are more things to war than territorial expansion) by making peace with either the nation whose provinces you're occupying or making peace with the enemy War Leader* before your War Leader and demanding those provinces.

Early on only Cogs can transport troops, one regiment per ship.

*The biggest and baddest nation will become the War Leader (I'm not actually sure if that's the proper term...) who decides when the whole war ends. The other allied nations can peace out as long as they're independent, but the war will continue until the opposing War Leaders make peace.

Sometimes, when you declare war on a nation, they call in their allies and one of those becomes their War Leader because they are stronger than the DoWed nation. Then they can call in their allies, and if one of them is stronger they can call their allies, and if one of those is stronger- you get the idea. This the cascading alliance system, it's annoying as hell and will cause problems. Especially when Bohemia or Austria get involved because they tend to be Holy Roman Emperors and you're in for a world of hurt if that happens. Not to mention that your target nation may have been guaranteed or you may have been warned.

Not sure if you guys have noticed, but the trade good a province has is random. In one of my games, the Canaries produces sugar, in another it produces naval supplies.

Three of the best trade goods - sugar, tobacco, coffee - seem to concentrate around the Caribbean, in the islands and northern S America. These provinces are the best in the game, I think, because the trade goods are so valuable and they're so easy to colonize. Spice, tea, and chinaware are worth slightly more, but they're far away in India and Asia and the natives tend to be organized into countries that can fight back.

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.

As for wars -- if an ally calls you into a war, odds are you won't get anything out of it unless you're the alliance leader. You can negotiate a separate peace in the middle of the war and get provinces that way, though, and it doesn't break your alliance.

Wiðercora wrote:...don't know why you'd want to...

Why would I want Constantinople? Because it's Constantinople! It's the last remnant of the Roman Empire. It's at the centre of the world, between east and west and north and south. Because I could have easy control of the Black Sea. And because I'm a good Catholic Monarch and would of used it as a damn to keep the Mohammedans out of Christendom. But noooo, bloody Aragon had to go and make a bloody peace treaty with those stupid Russians....



Spent about four hours playing as Portugal from the start. Focused on building up my coffers this time instead of mad invasions to the other side of the Mediterranean, although I did manage to get hold of Granada before Castile snapped it up. Tangiers is taunting me too, sitting just across the water full of heathens just begging to be forcibly converted to Christianity. And England keeps dragging me into wars with France and the bunch of duchies that hang off her like bulbous haemorrhoids. I guess grapes would of been a less disgusting and more apt metaphor but what the hell. Castile was playing silly buggers too. Dissolving our alliance and enforcing a trade embargo on me, but they changed their tune after I saved their southern provinces from rebellions whilst they were busy elsewhere.

What's all this talk about trade? I've figured out how to send my merchants to trading centres and how to automatise the system but how do you focus on specific goods? Is that something further down the tech tree?

MacIver wrote:
1) If you deicide to help out an ally who's at war with someone, is there any way to ensure you can annex the territory you win? As Portugal I accepted a call to arms from Aragon against an Orthodox alliance lead by Muscovy. I sent a big army to conquer Istanbul/Constantinople and then take a couple of provinces from Georgia. But then Aragon goes and decides to make peace with Muscovy, taking southern Greece from the Byzantines but leaving me with nothing. Thousands of my loyal soldiers died for nothing! Do the "minor parties" in the war have any way of looking after their interests?

It depends on relative strengths. If you become the leader of the alliance, the game will notify you - otherwise, if you answer a call to arms, you are only there to help your buddy out.

You can snatch land (the AI will do it to you often enough), but you've got to be quick and lucky. The other problem is that, as you don't have a CB, you will get the full Badboy from it.

MacIver wrote:2) Ships. Which ones work as troop carriers and how many of each do you need to get one transport slot? Again, playing as Portugal I got the navy national ideal which halved the coast of building ships. So I spent about 100 building 5 carracks only to find out I couldn't load any men onto it...

The transports are Cogs > Flyte > Merchantmen > East Indiamen

1 ship, 1 slot.

The types of ship are: Big ships, Light ships, Galleys, Transports.

In the early game, galleys pack a serious punch (you can see stats in your ledger) but as the game progresses, you will want to focus more on Big and Light ships for your fleets. You can keep any galleys you make and send them to reside in colonial provinces to stop piracy. Your total tariffs from all your colonies also depends on the number of ships you've got. Increasing your ships will increase your income from overseas.

Mid game, I will tend to have a ton of galleys dotted around the map as pirate blockers, and 2 - 3 large fleets. The fleets will at this point consist of Big and Light ships. It's also worth considering keeping a stack of light ships by itself as they move far faster than Big ships.

Shagz wrote:Not sure if you guys have noticed, but the trade good a province has is random. In one of my games, the Canaries produces sugar, in another it produces naval supplies.

Yeah, that changed in one of the expansions. In vanilla EU3, the goods were fixed - so there were particular territories you'd want to get (i still recall where all the gold mines used to be).

But afaik, the only ones that are random are ones you colonise. Any province already owned at the start of the game has a fixed trade good. When a colony reaches 300 population, an event will fire with a mean time of 6 months.

Shagz wrote:Three of the best trade goods - sugar, tobacco, coffee - seem to concentrate around the Caribbean, in the islands and northern S America. These provinces are the best in the game, I think, because the trade goods are so valuable and they're so easy to colonize. Spice, tea, and chinaware are worth slightly more, but they're far away in India and Asia and the natives tend to be organized into countries that can fight back.

As they're random, it's entirely possible to have a game where you colonise all the Indonesian islands, and get no chinaware, or 10 provinces with chinaware - my Manchu game was very lucky with that!

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?

MacIver wrote:

Wiðercora wrote:...don't know why you'd want to...

Why would I want Constantinople? Because it's Constantinople! It's the last remnant of the Roman Empire. It's at the centre of the world, between east and west and north and south. Because I could have easy control of the Black Sea. And because I'm a good Catholic Monarch and would of used it as a damn to keep the Mohammedans out of Christendom. But noooo, bloody Aragon had to go and make a bloody peace treaty with those stupid Russians....

A good Catholic monarch? In the 13th century the Latin church sacked Constantinople, and in 1453 many of the Ottoman attackers were Christian mercenaries.

Well, steam did its thing and I've been trying to learn the game. Just entered as Connacht on 14th October 1399 to see if I could handle a small nation. 15th October 1399 England declared war on me, with their ally Portugal joining. By 15th December 1399 I had 11k soldiers knocking at my door...

Any tips?

By the way, does anyone have any good suggestions for game sliders? What difference does historical/event/normal leaders and advisors make?

EUIII is not a game you can learn by starting small. I'd advise you to pick one of the nations suggested at the start of the game. You'll probably get stomped the first few times you play because unexpected things will happen. That will allow you to get a feel for how much of an army you need to maintain to guarantee your safety and how your economy works, so don't be surprised if you have to start over a few times.

I haven't actually seen those sliders myself but I'm guessing they will decide whether or not you get historical events (like the reformation), how many random events will happen and what the average quality of your generals and advisors will be.

Thommo wrote:By the way, does anyone have any good suggestions for game sliders? What difference does historical/event/normal leaders and advisors make?

My advice for sliders would be to choose the options whose effects have more green numbers than red.

Normal leaders means that you purchase Generals, Admirals, Conquistadors and Explorers from the leader tab (press F1, then click the fella in the blue bicorn hat).

Historical leaders means that you are given leaders which crop up in line with your nations history. On the plus side, it means you can save the 50 ducants and Army/Navy tradition and you can get Explorers as early as 1415 if you're playing an Iberian nation. However, once they're dead that's that. You have to wait for another to come along.

I don't know what Event Leaders are.

Yes, avoid one-province minors until you're a bit more competent. You will get steamrolled at first.

Thommo wrote:Well, steam did its thing and I've been trying to learn the game. Just entered as Connacht on 14th October 1399 to see if I could handle a small nation. 15th October 1399 England declared war on me, with their ally Portugal joining. By 15th December 1399 I had 11k soldiers knocking at my door...

Any tips?

By the way, does anyone have any good suggestions for game sliders? What difference does historical/event/normal leaders and advisors make?

Yes: start as a bigger country!

Seriously, Irish provinces are in for a rough ride!

It would be a better idea to pick a more robust country for your first game!

Alright thanks. One more thing, what's an appropriate level of inflation to aim for early game and/or later? I had a quick flick through some online literatute and it advised 0% inflation, but that only seems possible if you entirely disband your army and don't raise funds for anything other than tech research, so it doesn't seem right.

Thommo wrote:Alright thanks. One more thing, what's an appropriate level of inflation to aim for early game and/or later? I had a quick flick through some online literatute and it advised 0% inflation, but that only seems possible if you entirely disband your army and don't raise funds for anything other than tech research, so it doesn't seem right.

Well, naturally the best inflation is 0%, but it's very difficult to achieve this with many countries if you also wish to expand.

My suggestion would be to only mint towards particular goals. If you need another 20k troops to achieve that goal, mint up some reserves, get your 20k troops, get your objective then disband those troops and start working your inflation down.

Don't forget the 2 main methods of controlling inflation: National Bank (idea), and Master of the Mint (advisor). Generally, a level 5 or 6 MotM should give you enough funds to keep a positive yearly balance and boost your army. Don't worry too much about monthly income, keep your eyes on that 1 January tax income.

Another way round this is to focus on trade early game. If you've got a nation with the right sliders, get your merchants into the richer CoT's, get yourself Shrewd Commerce Practices/National Trade Policy, and possibly a merchant compete chance advisor, and your income will be strong enough to not need to mint.

Again though, it's all dependent on which country you are playing. Someone like France, Austria or Castille doesn't really need to mint if they keep their objectives modest.

Centralisation reduces inflation, too.

Personally, I wouldn't go near inflation with a barge pole.

Me neither. I try to keep inflation at zero at all times.

The only time I mint is if I'm in danger of going below zero due to emergency expenditures during the year (normally I just wait until december and then spend what's in the kitty), because the only thing I hate more than inflation is autoloans.

I have no issue keeping inflation at 0. Keeping the slider to the far left means I can spend more on tech.

If you find you need more money just start a war and take their's, grab some land to farm while your at it.

-----------------------------

My Castille game is coming along nicely, I took your advice and wiped out the Mayans and Aztecs which made Aragon (along with Navarra Hainaut and Scotland) declare an opportune war on me. They thought they were so clever....

Well, I annexed Maya in a couple of months then turned my 20k N.African army to take on Aragon along with the 6k defending Castille and started recruiting another 10k. Aragon had 11k in total.

Annexing was too expensive and I saw my infamy was 58, getting as much land as I could would gain another 12. I didn't plan on having every European nation declaring war on me every few weeks so I took a few and all their gold but I'm turning my attention to expanding my colonies north of Mexico and reducing infamy for a while.

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.

Have any of you tried playing as a non-Western country?

Minting just ain't an option at times!

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!

mraltair wrote:getting as much land as I could would gain another 12. I didn't plan on having every European nation declaring war on me every few weeks so I took a few and all their gold but I'm turning my attention to expanding my colonies north of Mexico and reducing infamy for a while.

That's pretty much the way colonialism works for me. I have annex-wars up to as much BB as I can afford (depending on whether I am getting my income from trade or production), then spend the next 20 years colonising and building up infrastructure. Generally, other things will happen in those 2 decades that adds a little infamy here and there, but I find it very difficult to do both warring in Europe and concentrated colonialsm/exploration concurrently, as you have to pay attention to too many things!

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.
Build an embassy.
Support the Florentine School.
Be the HRE.
Be the Papal Controller.
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.

I tried as China on my second game. But I got annoyed that the eunuchs wouldn't allow me to grow a big army so gave up. I also tried as one of the Japanese nations but had quite a hard time conquering the rest of the islands.

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.

MacIver wrote:I tried as China on my second game. But I got annoyed that the eunuchs wouldn't allow me to grow a big army so gave up. I also tried as one of the Japanese nations but had quite a hard time conquering the rest of the islands.

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.

Ouch!

Are you going to be able to stave off Castille? I generally find that they have around 20-40k troops in the Iberian peninsula, so things might get a little hot.

Well worth considering scorching a province where Castille looks like its going to plop down a large stack and siege. It's less tax for a year, but you can take a 20k army and turn it into a 12k army with poor morale in just a few months!