• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
How many years of peace does paying tribute to hordes bring?

Until they decide it is not enough or you decide that you are stronger. At least you're getting 5years of peace due to a truce.
 
So I checked a country's alliances in their province window (there were none), but when I DoW'd, other countries joined as "Wurttemberg has honored their military alliance with Frankfurt" or something. How does that work? Are these guarantees?

Also happened when Sweden declared war on me (they had only one insignificant ally), but then Castille (BYB in my game) came in on their side as allies. Huh?

It's just that I like knowing what I get into...
 
So I checked a country's alliances in their province window (there were none), but when I DoW'd, other countries joined as "Wurttemberg has honored their military alliance with Frankfurt" or something. How does that work? Are these guarantees?

Also happened when Sweden declared war on me (they had only one insignificant ally), but then Castille (BYB in my game) came in on their side as allies. Huh?

It's just that I like knowing what I get into...

Did that happen immediatly or after the DoW? They could have made the alliance after the DoW.

Or if they were in their SoI/guaranteed/protected by the Emperor. Those count as alliances as well.
 
Newer player here, great thread.

Is there a way to improve the quality of your great men? It seems that the quality of your potential advisors is good at the beginning of the game. From there they seem to suffer in both quality and variety. So I look to the culture tab to recruit great men. However they never seem to be of good quality. Two stars is what I seem to get most of the time.

So, is there a way to improve their quality?
 
Newer player here, great thread.

Is there a way to improve the quality of your great men? It seems that the quality of your potential advisors is good at the beginning of the game. From there they seem to suffer in both quality and variety. So I look to the culture tab to recruit great men. However they never seem to be of good quality. Two stars is what I seem to get most of the time.

So, is there a way to improve their quality?

Advisor quality depends on cultural traditional. 100% almost always gives 5-6 stars, while 20% is more like 1-2. Army and navy tradition are also important for advisors that require them.
 
Get more cultural tradition. It works with Great men the same way Army/Naval tradition works with Army/Naval leaders.

Though some great men have hybrid tradition requirements. Army Tech requires Culture + Army tradition, Naval Tech req. Culture + Naval Tradition.

There are a few ways to increase your Cultural Tradition(CT).

Buildings: Fine Arts Acads,+1%, really only viable later game. Glorious Monument +1%, limited to 1 in your country, again viable later on.

Magistrates:This will be the bulk of your CT early on. Under your culture tab theres certain decisions you can enact, Tapestry, Renaissance ones, Endorse Culture, Epic, etc. But the majority of your early magistrates will(and should imo) be spent on Paintings. Not to discount the other options, but they usually have a set duration and can't be selected again after thats up(if at all). This is +5 CT per painting. This is a very useful thing to know early game when you don't have the money/tech to build buildings and thus your magistrates are essentially taking up space. Make them work for you!

Ideas:patron of the Arts will give 3% CT. This offsets the decay of CT which is also 3%. How ever there are generally more important Ideas to take(Drill, Trading, Colonists, QFTNW, etc) given the next option.

CAD/GI Switch:When I reach Govt. tech 4 I always do the fallowing. I Choose Church Attendance Duty, reduction in Stability costs. In itself the idea can be powerful for large multi-ethnic and multi-religious empires, of which few countries fit the bill at the point you reach govt. 4, what makes this important is not the stability but the Gilded Iconography idea that is enabled under your cultural tab. CAD+1 Temple(anywhere in your country iirc) enables this decision which does a number of things(Prestige, missionary chance, etc), but most importantly gives you 3% Cultural Tradition. The same as the PotA Idea and the same as the decay. Thus you can offset you decay and make your spending magistrates on Paintings and other cultural decisions more efficient. After you get GI you can switch CAD, or not, if the situation warrants it(more often then not it does) for a better Idea, trading or Drill for example. The Gilded Iconography will stick around after you switch and give you the benefit of essentially a free National Idea(and then some).

Utilizing the CAD/GI switch and proper use of magistrates I run a constant cabinet of 5 to 6 star advisers.
 
Last edited:
That's a cool post about CI. Thanks.

Switching Ideas involves a -3 stability hit, right?

Which is why you do it w/ your first idea and most peoples Stab is low and easy to recover. If it isn't, well keeping CAD may be worth it rather then switching.
 
OK, another question. This one is about Centers of Trade.

I am playing as the Ottomans. It's 1456 and I have a pretty good empire going at the moment. Constantinople is now Istanbul. I hold Jerusalem(has benefit) and Mecca(no benefit?). The one thing I'm not happy with right now is my income via merchants. I just read up on some of the contributors regarding the success of your merchants and plan to make some adjustments. However, I still want to consider creating a CoT within my Empire.

There is one in Alexandria. I do plan on taking that province eventually if Algiers or somebody else doesn't beat me to it. Would having two centers of trade be a bad thing?

It appears that it'll cost me 500 ducats to start one. Before I start one is there any advice you all could share regarding placement, start-up and other factors(unknown to me) that I should consider before doing it?

I've never had a balance above 350. Spending 500 is going to be huge for me. I may mint a few Ducats to get there since my inflation is at zero.

Thanks for any advice.
 
Two quick questions:

1. Is the Imperial Authority number shown the IA of the current emperor or is it my IA that i had if i would become the emperor?

2. Is it a bad idea to change from catholicism to protestantism if only one province actually is protestant right now? Do i have to convert all the other regions manually? I'm thinking about this because i get constantly excommunicated (everyone who's big friend with the pope seems to hate me). I know that i cannot be emperor when i'm protestant.
 
1. Is the Imperial Authority number shown the IA of the current emperor or is it my IA that i had if i would become the emperor?

I think you "inherit" the IA, so it's the IA of the current emperor and the prospective emperor as well.

2. Is it a bad idea to change from catholicism to protestantism if only one province actually is protestant right now? Do i have to convert all the other regions manually? I'm thinking about this because i get constantly excommunicated (everyone who's big friend with the pope seems to hate me). I know that i cannot be emperor when i'm protestant.

You can become emperor if you're protestant, it's (generally) just harder, because the "wrong" religion will make it very unlikely that states vote for you.

You'll have to convert all provinces that are not your state religion, so if you only have one province protestant it might be a good idea to wait for more, or not change religions at all. Depends on what you want to do. If you want to become protestant, just switch and take the brunt ;)
 
Is the AI programed to take advantage of your troop movements? Twice now I've moved troops through Hungary to the Ottoman border in preparation for starting a crusade (as Austria, HRE, Papal Controller, Defender of the Faith) and each time right before I declared war an ally did and stayed as war leader. The first time it was France, which I expected to stay on as war leader, but as soon as I captured a single province they ended the war for a minor nation being released and some money without even sending ships. The second time it was Guyenne (which I made France release later because I was mad, along with Flanders and Champagne) and for some reason the 5-province, 4000-man army country stayed as war leader despite my 15 or 20 provinces and 60000-man army, and they also ended the war after I captured one province without sending anything themselves.

Is the AI being intentionally annoying, or is it for another reason?
 
I'll have an attempt before I ask my questions, though I'm not well versed in everything.
There is one in Alexandria. I do plan on taking that province eventually if Algiers or somebody else doesn't beat me to it. Would having two centers of trade be a bad thing?
It wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, if they are some distance apart then they may reach more provinces than one alone.
I would however not recommend if they were to be close together, as this could ultimately lead to the stagnation of one CoT anyway (and you'd have to place and maintain merchants in two CoTs as opposed to one).


My quick questions:
Is it possible to get Trade Efficiency over 100%? I have the +10% TE NI so would like to know in advance whether to drop it or not once my Trade Tech gets high enough.

I cannot really tell if there are any disadvantages to being in the HRE, aside from the occasional policy that is better for the Emperor than the members, but is there something I'm missing?

Thanks!
 
Is it possible to get Trade Efficiency over 100%? I have the +10% TE NI so would like to know in advance whether to drop it or not once my Trade Tech gets high enough.

I cannot really tell if there are any disadvantages to being in the HRE, aside from the occasional policy that is better for the Emperor than the members, but is there something I'm missing?

1) Yes, you can have a TE of more than 100%.

2) Generally speaking, there is no disadvantage of being in the HRE. You get extra protection from the emperor and some nice bonuses.
 
OK, another question. This one is about Centers of Trade.

I am playing as the Ottomans. It's 1456 and I have a pretty good empire going at the moment. Constantinople is now Istanbul. I hold Jerusalem(has benefit) and Mecca(no benefit?). The one thing I'm not happy with right now is my income via merchants. I just read up on some of the contributors regarding the success of your merchants and plan to make some adjustments. However, I still want to consider creating a CoT within my Empire.

There is one in Alexandria. I do plan on taking that province eventually if Algiers or somebody else doesn't beat me to it. Would having two centers of trade be a bad thing?

It appears that it'll cost me 500 ducats to start one. Before I start one is there any advice you all could share regarding placement, start-up and other factors(unknown to me) that I should consider before doing it?

I've never had a balance above 350. Spending 500 is going to be huge for me. I may mint a few Ducats to get there since my inflation is at zero.

Thanks for any advice.

I personally like to try to keep the number of CoTs with in my empire as few as possible. This is mainly for effectiveness of Merchant use. Why spend 18 Merchants on 3 CoTs of 400 when I can spend 6 on one CoT of 1,200? Though its not required you trade in your own CoTs, but they're generally the richest ones by games end given this behavior on my part and the AI's need to put a CoT every fucking where.

That said there are benefits to having more CoTs, more colonists, more possible Monopolies(+1 Merchant per iirc), more RICH provinces. Etc. So having two CoTs wouldn't be a bad thing in itself, I just prefer not if I don't have to.

Also consider whom you're pissing off. CoTs size seem to correlate to relations and culture/religions. I've noticed this most often when Castile up and eats the Mameluks for what ever reason. Alexandria will go from trading throughout the Mid East and Anatolia to being confined to its immediate environs and Castiles NAfrian holdings. Your provinces will also prefer to trade in your CoTs, though other factors intervene which I'm not solid on that make this not 100% true all the time. So it may be a better idea to just take Alexandria and trade in that while it encompass the majority of your holdings.

In the end its generally only suggested you put the CoT in a coastal province as that will give you extra benefit(+.10 colonists). Other then that I just try to not make them compete with each other.

Is the AI programed to take advantage of your troop movements? Twice now I've moved troops through Hungary to the Ottoman border in preparation for starting a crusade (as Austria, HRE, Papal Controller, Defender of the Faith) and each time right before I declared war an ally did and stayed as war leader. The first time it was France, which I expected to stay on as war leader, but as soon as I captured a single province they ended the war for a minor nation being released and some money without even sending ships. The second time it was Guyenne (which I made France release later because I was mad, along with Flanders and Champagne) and for some reason the 5-province, 4000-man army country stayed as war leader despite my 15 or 20 provinces and 60000-man army, and they also ended the war after I captured one province without sending anything themselves.

Is the AI being intentionally annoying, or is it for another reason?

The AI does things in its own self-interest. Your war aims and their may not necessarily mesh. They may indeed be polar opposites. How many times have you been dragged into a war you don't care about only to WP out of it? This is essentially the AI doing the same thing, just for what ever reason they have Leadership at the time and screwed your pooch.

Is there an estimate or target on when the patch will be official? I'd use the beta patch but I'd like to keep achievements :-\

"Soon."