Poland's struggle for victory.

[przemek]

Europa Universalis II v. 1.09
The Grand Campaign, normal/normal

This is my attempt of getting the highest score with Poland in TGC.


Here she is, isn’t she beauty? Large army at start and enormous urge to do something with it. Army costs a lot especially this size at start. It would be a shame to waste it and we need access to the Baltic Sea.

But first things first. We access the Trade section and set auto sending merchants. Then a visit to religion sliders. Full on Catholicism, cause it’s our only religion right now. Then we move to main sliders managing our country. I went with centralization to boost the speed of new inventions (that can be a mistake if you plan on expanding excessively). My main goals were: plutocracy, centralization, innovativeness, free trade, offensive doctrine, land, quality and free subject. It would be great choice if I would play Holland. Now I know.


Moving on to budgeting. I blocked sliders on naval technology and stability at zero and on :
- 01.01.1419 declared war on Prussia. Soon Mecklenburg, Pommern, Bremen, Kleves, Holstein and Teutonic Order joined the war against me, myself and Lituania. I had an advantage, I was bigger than them and could mobilize more troops what soon brought effect.
- June 28, 1424 : Pommern accepted our generous peace offer. Hinterpommern is mine.
- July 24, 1428 : Prussia accepted our generous peace offer. We’ve gained Danzig, Memmel and military access.

[Duke of Wellington]

A good aggressive start, those are some handy gains. Where to now? Russia? Are you sure that autosending merchants is a good strategy though?

[Chief Ragusa]

A Polish plutocracy? That must given the Sejm a good laugh when you announced that policy. Still sturdy gains in the war and you own CoT. The Hanse will rise again through Poland.

I like the touch with your autosending of merchants as though you have not yet learned to master the ways of the merchant.

[przemek]

Well, since this AAR is already finished, long story short.

By the 1604 I merged with Lithuania, crushed Brandenburg, Prussia and Teutonic Order, which gave me bright look at the future and in case of partition of Poland event I would have one opponent less. My eastern frieds had their way with Crimea and this is the result:


This was the time when I decided to concentrate on internal development. Well, back then I had some territory, easy to control dissent and basically no revolts. The idea was simple, set slider responsible for money flow at near zero and every time I reached 400 gold pieces invest 200 in infrastructure, trade or land technology. I also decided to develop international relationship. I was without alliance and could easily take marriage duty.

At that time I was something. The sky was more blue, sun was brighter. water more transparent and atistrophic filtering didn't slow down my computer so much. Those were the times.

Russia was foolish enough to attack me. Since I had just 40 thousand people in active duty in two regiments they felt tough. When my army rose in gazilions and moved on Petersburg, there were no survivors.
Tzar gladly gave me Pskov, Tver, Moskva, Ryazan and Saratov just to make me leave his party. Well, I know when I am not welcome

In 1720 I had friends all over the Yrup.


I was so fun, that on 1732 they made me Defender of the faith.


Well, maybe not they, but I made myself DOTF, but it was fun nevetheless.

Paradoxally easy win against Turkey (Dobrudja, Bujak, Kaffa, Anatolia) made me realize something. That time I was in alliance with Austria. I was making my way through Turkey's provinces like knife makes through a butter on a hot July day. Well, Austria just demolished them like a gargantuous bug crushing smaller bug. I was so sure of my supremacy that I haven't noticed that Austria left behind whole Yrup and world.



It was year 1772 when Austria declared war on Poland:
- September 4, 1772 : Austria declared war upon us!

I just hoped they would be gentle on me. I arranged an alliance with France and wanted to stop the war as soon as possible. For some time I have been struggling 80% inflation (no idea why), revolts due to the centralization, plutocracy and 4 different religion inside my borders. Luck was on my side. I needed time and on October 12, 1773 I gave Brandenburg to Austria.

I had little time. I had to prepare for invasion, my life was at stake(this is how you write this?). I moved money slider to the right as far as I could and started raising armies. It was already to late to worry about high inflation.

While fighting hordes of unhappy citizens I was thinking of a plan how to survive to the end of the 1819.

December 18, 1778 : Austria declared war upon us!
Yeah, I had plenty of men (most of them dealing with rebels). My tactics was simple. Deal with the revolts, concentrate on building cheap infantry and recapture cities. Since they never crossed the Wisla (Vistula) river it wasn't difficult. Why they didn't you might ask. Well, he is stupid, it was a bad time for them to wage war since they had to taunt French in the West (they were fleeing to Portugal!) and deal with their own revolts, and they had plenty of them. I took control over Sochi and Kerch and continued my struggle against rebels still recapturing cities.
On January 3, 1795 : Austria accepted our generous peace offer. Since it was pretty late, I was tired and had exam in the morning I decided to concede Anatolia and Dobrudja to Austria since those provinces were nothing but revolts, plus they wer sunni.

On April 1817 I saw Sweden beating Russia and felt the urge to join them, and so I did. In October war has started, it didn't change anything though.



I failed .





It is like World Championships in Korea and Germany all over again. But at least I've tried.

Now to comparison:
- I had pretty high inflation (studies thought me nothing) 99.1% was 9th worst result. All old countries had something around 90% inflation (England 95,4, Spain 99,8).
- I had the worst trade level! 12.0!! To tell you the truth I know nothing about sending merchants, that's why I send them automatically. I don't want them to bother me. That's a mistake, now I know. But trade level being so low, I can't explain that, I had loads of unhappy merchants though. Maybe I sticked with Mecantylism too long?
- Second infrastructure. 69,0. Sweden had 72,0
- Land technology - 27. From the old countries Austria was leading with 60! Sweden had 39 and France 29. Events at the end of the game caused major dissent from which I couldn't recover, I had chance doing better.

Conclusion

I should have gone with decentralization and free trade from the beginning (I had mercantylism up to 1700). I had much land but of poor value. I can't compete with Austria that takes full advantage of having German, Bohemian and Hungarian culture, and those are good lands.

It is tricky though, cause at start Prussia and its allies are pretty tough. If Lithuania won't fail it is possible to tease Bohemia, but Hungary are challenging opponent. In case of war with both countries it is gon'na look bad.

More thoughts on this soon maybe.

Any ideas what you wold do or change, please post. I'd love to listen some ideas of more experienced players.

[Duke of Wellington]

Oh well you may not have come out on points but to hold your own against that big Austria as pretty good too.

[Dark Scipio]

Oh well you may not have come out on points but to hold your own against that big Austria as pretty good too.

Indeed. Its still an impressing Poland. Perhaps you also should not invest ot much in Quality, but try to get more cheap troops a poland, espaccally when fighting in the Russian winter.

[przemek]

Thanks Dark Scipio, that's a good idea. Going through some AARs I understood that maxing out sliders isn't always the best way. Next time I'll try to go less with the centralization, cause it can bleed out whole country.

[Grundius]

Thanks Dark Scipio, that's a good idea. Going through some AARs I understood that maxing out sliders isn't always the best way. Next time I'll try to go less with the centralization, cause it can bleed out whole country.

The advantages of full centralization imho outweigh by far the negative sides. Now free subjects raises your stability costs, so for a large nation, being too free may be a problem. Innovativeness again works against stability, and high stab = less revolt risk, more income, more merchants, among other nice things.

I am no expert at sending merchants, but there are several techniques to do it effectively described here.

High inflation effects the cost of everything in the game. To avoid it, you set your treasury slider to the far left. The deficit that is then created is subtracted from your research investments, and will only cause you to go under 0 treasury (requiring a loan) when you pay more military maintenance + loan interest than monthly income. Inflation will stay at 0% with this strategy.

[przemek]

Thank you Grundius, that's mighty helpful. Got your hands on Europa Universalis III?

Played for a while yesterday, still i find the graphics kind of weird. It's a shame that the time span is so short, hopefully we will get CK II, Vicky II and HoI III totally compatible with each other. I am working right now on some AAR that would start in CK through EU II and then Vicky. Well, we will see, still a bunch of exams to pass...

[Grundius]

Thank you Grundius, that's mighty helpful. Got your hands on Europa Universalis III?

Played for a while yesterday, still i find the graphics kind of weird. It's a shame that the time span is so short, hopefully we will get CK II, Vicky II and HoI III totally compatible with each other. I am working right now on some AAR that would start in CK through EU II and then Vicky. Well, we will see, still a bunch of exams to pass...

I'm waiting on my copy of EU3. I don't know how valid those tips are in EU3 however. From what I've played in the demo and seen in AARs, going on a wild rampage of conquering the world seems easier, so that's great! Good luck with the exams.

[przemek]

I just updated all screenshots in this post. Finally all are visible and in decent size. Thank you Photobucket!

[Lord Skane]

How did you move the Russians capital? As you took Moskva

[przemek]

How did you move the Russians capital? As you took Moskva

Well, they had an event of moving capital from Moskva to Petersburg and they became aggressive. I had to show them their place and took over Moskva among with some other provinces.