England in IN

[Shabz]

@Imaggitti How did you do it? I kept getting into war with France and their ally Scotland until I had Scots on their capital province only. This happened Basically after the second war, since the Portugese interfered and occupied two provinces (West Islands(?) and Highlands). Then I try to declare III war on them, but it turns out they are French vasals so I had to DOW France. I already sacrificed both Gascoigne and Sant(whatever) in the first two wars, and France refuses to hand over the remaining British province in their hands. Calais I held, until the Provence(?!?) occupied it. On the upside I have entire Ireland trough diploannex. Third war finished through white peace.

Somewhere between the third and fourth war with France, France annexed remnants of Scotland and the fourth war turned out to be epic war of some 90 years. I tried raiding Channel and Biscay coast with small stacks retreating to ships whenever monstrous French stacks of 20k troops started marching to the province. I managed to get them to WE of 11, but not more. I hold Scotland capital, and war score is only 2%. Thats when stopped actively pursuing war, and turned to colonisation as I got Quest for New world Idea.

Now it is 1530s, Reformation began and I am considering starting the fifth war now with Castille on my side (France holds some of their cores). I hold east coast of Canada and US, however Portoguese hold Manhattan (to my dissapointment). Should I declare war on France now or wait a bit to get Protestantism?

[lmaggitti]

A lot of what I could tell you (e.g., conquer Scotland early and form Great Britain - you'll need the conquer Scotland mission to do this right) won't necessarily help you now. And it's hard to advise you without knowing more details of your situation. Failing that, a few thoughts:

(1) Are you blockading them? That helps with WE.

(2) It sounds like you are doing this, but use the mobility of your fleet to keep striking on the edges of France. Go back and forth, keep them marching & countermarching (leads to attrition which will increase their WE). Relieve seiges on your continenetal possessions (though it looks like you've lost most of them) with quick strikes with overwhelming force. Don't neglect military access agreements with France's neighbors which will give you safe havens.

(3) Warn France - that will decrease the chances that you will have to fight her alone.

(4) Patience. Even without a high WE score, France's peace offers will get better the longer the war is.

(5) To the extent that you can (and I think it requires a positive war score), make them offer that they will refuse but which is "better than expected." They'll take a stability hit.

(6) Always use generals.

(7) If you have enough provinces to get the empire government option, take it. Better slider limits on centralization (you are maxing centralization, aren't you?) and morale benefits. It's worth the hit you'll take on your force limit.

I guess the other question is how far France has gone to consolidate their position. If they already own all of France & parts of Italy and Germany (and you say they have taken some of Castille's cores), they are likely much stronger than they are in my game, and thus the above tactics might not be enough.

Good luck.

Edit: there is also some good stuff here - http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Fighting_France - mostly elaborating on what I said, some of it not relevant to England, but a few additional nuggets which might help.

[lmaggitti]

I can't emphisize too much how important patience is as Britain fighting France. This is in part a "do as I say, not do as I do" kind of thing, as I screwed that up in my last war with France. Three years in, War score was + 30 (and not getting higher - it is tough just to maintain it at that level given that France still outnumbers me in troops about 2 to 1), with France's war exhaustion 14 and climbing, their stability -1 - I made peace, taking Piccardy, a little cash, and making them release Hanault. Not a bad peace, but I think if I had waited them out I could have caused a lot more damage & maybe even taken a second province.

As it is, though, while France has expanded a bit to the SE and E, since they have lost some important cores (3 in Normandy to an independant Normandy, and now Picardy to me), they are ranked 5th I think in income, less than half of mine (I'm first, my ally Castille a close second, and Denmark, owners of much of northern Germany, is third).

I think I need to bite the bullet and expand my army a bit for the next war - it's only 40,000, and my force limit as I recall is at least 50. Of course, as always, manpower is an issue as well; one of the reasons I made peace when I did (in each of the two last wars, actually) was that manpower was running out.

As I said, fun fun.

[lmaggitti]

I realize that this is getting a bit like an AAR, and I know England isn't exactly the biggest challenge in the game, but I'm finding it a good moderate challenge, at least played the way I'm playing (contain the BBB, eventual expansion onto the continent) and more to the point a good introduction to some .. well, maybe not advanced, but semi-advanced - tactics.

It's around 1490. The latest was a war with Burgundy after they had been warned. I took Vlandern (spelling?) and Brabant, so now I have a nice contiguous 5 province block in northern France/the low countries. Best of all France can access it only through Picardie, helping my defense immensely. I also grabbed a couple provinces from the Aztecs and one from the Maya.

France took another province from Burgundy as well, and is looking blobbish in the SE (Switzerland/Savoy/Piedmont, etc.). But it's deceptive; they have a bunch of non-cores, some different cultures, and some poor provinces, and are missing some key provinces in the other directions. So now my income is more than double theirs; they have slipped to 7th.

Going forward, I see myself slowly chipping away at France. They are still tough but I keep getting stronger relative to them in income, manpower, and force limits. I'm allied with Spain; still no joint wars against France. That could accelerate my conquests; OTOH I find that more often than not when confronted with two strong opponents the AI buys one of them off.

I'll probably grab a couple more provinces from Burgundy as well. For now expansion in Germany is constrained by Denmark, though in the long run it should actually be easier to take provinces from them rather than a welter of small nations (from a stability and BB perspective). At some point I'll probably turn on Brittany and Normandy, for now they are helpful allies and, in Brittany's case, a vassal.

And I'm just about 10 years from cores in North American foothold. I don't think I'll go crazy at first on colonization; mainly strategically placed colonies and start slowly filling coastal NA and Brazil. Interestingly, Azores is still open, but I don't need it now; it would accelerate my push into the Indian Ocaean by maybe 10 years, but there are other ways to do that. (My biggest mistake so far was probably not grabbing something on coastal Africa 50 year ago for that purpose). Research still a tad anemic but adequate and it will improve. I have plenty of money, mainly from the usual practice of using non-European nations as ATMs, though I haven't done nearly as much of that as I could have.

And then the Reformation beckons; I haven't played it as England. I know the real history of course but there might still be some surpises. It does tend to effect bigger empires more severely.

Funny fact, irrelevant to me except to the extent that it constrains France, but Italy is mostly owned by ... Bavaria.

[OrangeYoshi]

Bavaria in Italy.

[Shabz]

As I said, fun fun.

France in my game is already Le Blob. I declared war on them, and Castille (now known as The Turncoats) has dowed me!!! Turns out they had Casus belli against Portugal, my ally, who held Valencia (how and why I don't know ) and an alliance with France and me at the same time.

As you said... Fun fun...

[lmaggitti]

France in my game is already Le Blob. I declared war on them, and Castille (now known as The Turncoats) has dowed me!!! Turns out they had Casus belli against Portugal, my ally, who held Valencia (how and why I don't know ) and an alliance with France and me at the same time.

As you said... Fun fun...

Ack!! By the time they are the BBB I would think they would be pretty tough for England to take them on (on the continent anyway); look up thread and see some good advice (which I followed!) that as England you really needs to stop them from forming the BBB in the first place. I know, that doesn't help you much now.

Final update on my own game - 5 more wars in just over 10 years, 3 against France and 2 against Burgundy, I keep chipping away at both. Fighting France is now challenging in a different way - they don't have much coast left, and I now have 15 continental provinces, so I can't really make as much use of my naval mobility & other raiding tactics. I'm still outnumbered, and France has a slight one-on-one quality edge. So what ends up happening is that I start out with allies (all wars lately have been via warnings, and I always end up with a strong ally at first) and just smash em, but they peace my allies, turn their armies on me, and I end up making peace taking a couple provinces. I'm sure if I was better I'd just completely stomp them in a longer war, but so far that result is elusive.

What's remarkable is just how resilient France is. They have lost 6 or 7 provinces to me (a couple of those weren't theirs originally) and 3 from the forced release of Normandy, but with their expansions to the east (& absorbing vassals, only Provance is left) they keep going strong, continuing to field large armies. What's funny is that if you compare France at the start to France now, they have a somewhat similar number of provinces (a few more overall I think), but they have moved east. Burgundy also. Almost like when the barbarian invasions pushed other barbarians west, but in reverse. Maybe I'll eventually push France into Balkans. Though more seriously, they are increasingly constrained by semi-powerful neighbors to the east (Denmark, conquerers of northern Germany), Bohemia/Italy, and to a lesser extent Austria).

[Shabz]

Ack!! By the time they are the BBB I would think they would be pretty tough for England to take them on (on the continent anyway); look up thread and see some good advice (which I followed!) that as England you really needs to stop them from forming the BBB in the first place. I know, that doesn't help you much now.

Well, yeah they are a handful to take on. They have those big stacks everywhere within week or two, no matter where I land... I think I will restart the game, and try to constrain them a bit early on. Or not If I get every province on the islands. I do not really care about the continental affairs to much. I want to be what GB always was - a deciding weight on the continent. But I cannot really form GB if I don't get all Scotish provinces...

Anyway I am just getting ropes of the game really. Just bought it last month. Although I was an avid fan of EU I and II. And England was my favorite choice. Beside the Ottomans.

Thanks for your advices. I will probably put them to good use in next games.