New player needs help :)

Welcome here!

This question has been repeatedly asked and there exist definitely more answers to it than members in this forum Honestly, there are a lot of interesting and playable countries around, many of which have different strengths and weaknesses. Just to mention a few:
- for colonisers: Portugal, England, Castille
- for HRE matters: Bohemia, Austria
- for traders: Hansa, Venice
- for warmongers: France, Burgundy, Ottomans

Hi, I'd suggest you have a go at most of the countries Balou mentioned and play a few decades to get exposure to more game mechanics and concepts. When you find a country you enjoy playing play them a bit more seriously. At thtat point reading gameplay AARs should help with how to take things further.

Much as it pains me to say it my England AAR probably isn't that much help - I've been playing this game since it came out and I get slightly carried away.

If you are brand new and play as England, I would suggest selling your mainland provinces. Then go after Ireland and Scotland. Then the new world.

Which version are you playing? If In Nomine ("Complete"), I'd suggest France, which has subsequently been "nerfed."

Susanna said:

Which version are you playing? If In Nomine ("Complete"), I'd suggest France, which has subsequently been "nerfed."

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He's got Chronicles. France is still very easy though, as long as you beat Burgundy ASAP, which the Wiki guide covers very well (build as big an army as possible, guarantee Bar, then take non-cores).

I purchased Heir to the Throne some time ago, but never really played it. Recently I've been playing though, and my current game is as the Teutonic Order, and for some reason I can't beat anybody in any war. No matter if I outnumber them or not, I always lose, and they instantly move into the same province that I'm retreating to so they completely erase my troops after one engagement and I can't see how anybody can possibly win like this. I managed to annex Pomerania, Riga, and scored a few territories in a land grab against Lithuania with several other countries distracting them. My force limit is 18 regiments, and I'm maxed out on that, and 22 ships, which I'm also maxed out in. But it doesn't matter, they somehow can sustain 40,000 troops and more, and they instantly defeat me anywhere. I fought Sweden, with 2 carracks and 14 galleys against their 12 galleys and they rapidly sank my entire fleet. I don't even understand.

Selim Yavuz said:

I purchased Heir to the Throne some time ago, but never really played it. Recently I've been playing though, and my current game is as the Teutonic Order, and for some reason I can't beat anybody in any war. No matter if I outnumber them or not, I always lose, and they instantly move into the same province that I'm retreating to so they completely erase my troops after one engagement and I can't see how anybody can possibly win like this. I managed to annex Pomerania, Riga, and scored a few territories in a land grab against Lithuania with several other countries distracting them. My force limit is 18 regiments, and I'm maxed out on that, and 22 ships, which I'm also maxed out in. But it doesn't matter, they somehow can sustain 40,000 troops and more, and they instantly defeat me anywhere. I fought Sweden, with 2 carracks and 14 galleys against their 12 galleys and they rapidly sank my entire fleet. I don't even understand.

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I never played Httt, but I played both Complete and chronicles and your problem doesn't seem to concern the difference between those version so I try and answer.

There are several things that affect the outcome of a battle onf of the things you figured out:

1. Numbers. The more men, the greater dmg you inflict on your enemy and you increase your chance of winning.

2. Land tech(or sea tech for naval battles). Better tech gives you more morale and more dmg both at shock and later also on fire. It also increases your supply limit. Some techs gives a bigger advantages than others. Land tech 18 is the first one where one difference in land tech will matters a lot.

3. Generals. Generals can be purchased for the cost of 1 diplomat, around 50 ducats and a loss in land tradition. The higher the land tradition, the better the general. In the early years, fire sucks as you do next to no dmg, so shock generals is what you want. Manouver helps your troops moves faster, wich is usefull for defending bonus(see next point), and it also helps against attrition. Every point in manouver reduces attrtion with 1%

4. If someone attacks you, there is a chance you will get a defender bonus. Crossing a river gives a bonus at 1, defending in a mounting gives a bonus of 5 I think, forests gives a bonus of 2, plains do not give a bonus. If you hover your mouse over a province in the terrain mode you can see the chance of getting a defender bonus in that area. If it says 66% plains and 34% mountains, you will in 1/3 of the times get a defender bonus of 5(or more correct the attacker gets a -5 malus), the other 2/3 of the time you will not get a bonus. If it showes a river you will sometimes get the river bonus and sometimes not. So if you're going to loose a battle and you have a leader with a higher manouver bonus than the enemy, retreat them in to a province with mountains if possible so you atleast get a good chance of getting a defender bonus.

5. Upgrading units. Some units are better than others. As you go up in tech you will at some tech lvls get new units to choose from. Some will be good at defending either at fire, shock or morale wich means they will loose less men and morale then other units with fewer pips. If they got many pips on offensce they will do more dmg. One thing to make note of though: DO NOT change units in the middle of a war unless you're 100% sure you won't fight any battles for atleast 2-3 months becouse it makes your tropps loose all their morale and be an easy prey for enemy troops.

6. Morale. Several things affects morale, one thing is at mentioned earlier is land tech, the pips on morale helps, you can have the national ide that gives + 1 in morale, some religion gives + in morale as do some decisions, if you go towards land on your land/naval slider you will also get some bonus there. Ofcourse it's always the maintenance slider. When at peace it
should be at 50%(the lowest possible) to save money, but at war you need to put it up tp 100% or you will most likely loose all the battles unless you are vastly superior in tech lvls.

7. Dicipline. Troops with better diciplinces fight betters than troops withouth.

8 . And finally the thing we all have choose to love and hate, and that I know have caused many EU3 players to quit and realod without saving: LUCK. If you constantly rolls 0,1 and 2 and your opponent rolls 7, 8 and 9 you need to have a pretty good lead on him otherwise to win that battle. A general with 4 points in shock will add 4 points of roll value in every shock face. If the enemy also have a general with shock, but he only have 2 points. You will get 2 points bonus and he will get none. The roll numbers is also the same as the malus you can get from the terrains as explained in 4.



So as you can see, numbers is just one of many things that affects the outcome of a battle. If you go through that list I hope one or several points helps explains to you why you loose your battles. On extra trick that doesn't effect a single battle, but can better your odds in front of it is attrition. Every province have a supply limit. If you controll ans enemy province that numbers gets muliply with 3, same goes if you got MA. If you OWN and control a province you get to multiplicate with 5. Each whole numbers equals to 1000 troops or 10 cannons. For every 1000 men you go above the support limit,your troops will loose 1 ekctra % at the end of the month. Attrition doesn't only reduce the number of troops you have it also increase your WE, wich among other things increase your revolt risk, wich will ofcourse cause more revolts, but it will also lowers your tax income.

So how to use this to your advantage. Prawnstar got some nice tips in his AARs on attrition, and while I don't reccomend trying to play the game like he does, some of the tips and tricks he uses can be usefull in somewhat easier missions. One thing is to fight at home grounds. Let the enemy come to you, and let them loose men while siegeing in your provinces, if possible, scorch the earth and retreat so the attrition will be bigger. If they assault and fail, attack them shortly after, while thei're low on morale and are easy pickings. Go after then and retake the forts when they only have 100-300 defenders in them. If you get the chance attacks small stacks. This will both improve your warscore and take out some of the tropps without much loss of your own. When you think their doomstacks is beeing reduced enough for you to take them on, go in for the kill, with your mains tack and best general. When most of their army is gone, then it's time to move into enemy territory and start to carpet siege.

Also watch your own attrition, don't go around with doomstacks of your own in low supply enemy provinces, don't assault, if you don't have atleast 10 000 men for every fort lvl, as you will loose a lot of men. Avoid the enemy doomstacks until they are reduced from attrition. Rest in your own provinces. Ther you will get 200 soldiers back pr unit at the end of the month. If you got MA or the enemy province is under your control, you get 100 soliders pr unit, in an enemy province you don't control, you will only get 20 soldiers pr month, pr unit. This will not help your WE, but it will help you get back to full strenght faster, assuming you got the manpower for it.

Well that's quite a lot to remember haha. Thank you. After reading that I reloaded my game and realised that Sweden and Poland both had a land tech level of 8, to my 6. I was investing in techs in a balanced manner, so I figure if I start over I'll be better off investing heavy in land tech and less heavy in other techs? It said I was allowed to build men-at-arms and longbowmen, but none of my provinces allowed me to train either. I also noticed that my forces were balanced, leaning towards a higher proportion of infantry, while the enemy's armies were almost all cavalry. I'd look at Poland's doomstack for example, and it would say "1,000/13,000" with the overwhelming majority cavalry. I didn't assign any generals to any stack, so of course I had no bonuses there, and I was invading them and fighting them probably on terrain favourable to their defenses. So I was pretty much doing it all wrong.

What version are you playing? If you play IN(complete), wich is the highest you have registered cavalery is vastly superior to infanteri, especially in the early years. Only exeption to this is if you attack in mountains. If you play Httt or DW, you need more infanteri than cavalery or your tropps wil fight very badly.

As for tech, you should go for the techs that are more relevant for you. Most people first got for +3 in stability. That reduces revoltrisk(And so increase tax income), it also increases tax income directly. Secondly, at the start you will go for governement tech 4 to get your first national ide. If you are planning on fighting a lot you should pick a military ide. One of the best is the once that gives +1 in moral, the one that increases your forcelimites(or was it MP?), can also help you field a bigger army, if you play a small nation. Production increases your production income, so if you get a lot of income from producing, you should focus on that. If trade is your thing, investing in trade tech will both increase your trade income and increase your chance to compete. If you feel you can't keep up with all, choose the tech that gives you the most increase in income.

If you're going to play a warmonger though, focus on land tech. If you don't plan on colonizing or do a lot of naval battles, that is also a tech you don't need to focus to much at. I do reccomend to not let government slip to far away though, as that is the one that sometimes will give you acces to a new NI and it also allows you to change they way you rule, like a despotic monarchy or a merchant republic etc. Each of the differnt ways to rule, gives different bonuses and restriction on your sliders. Going over the restrivtion gives you + 1 revolt risk for each point you are over.

Also when you get new units, you will need to change tehm manually first. After you get the message that you get them, go to your military tab and click on the tab that says latin infanteri or somethign like that, there you get a list of all the untis you can currently choose from. If you choose another one, all your EXSISTING units will imidatly be upgraded to your new unit type(this does not apply for mercenaries), but they will loose all their morale, so onlyu do this when you're at peace. You will now also be able to recruit the new units types in any province you have a core on.

You can not upgrade ships, but when you get access to new one, all new ships of that type, will be build the at the new version. There are 4 types of ships, big ship, light ship, Galley and transport. Gallyes should only be used near land as they will sink fast if used in open waters. Also they will be less effective later in the game. In the early game they can be quite effective if used near land though, since they are quite cheap to build and maintain. If you colonice on the other hand, you will need one Big ship or one light ship for every oversea province. Gallyes and transpot ships , doesn't count.

If you want cheaper ships, you can build naval buildings or take press gangs as a national ide. Naval buildings also gives you faster ship buildings and increased naval forcelimits, Land building gives you cheaper land units,(and also cheaper maintenenace), faster building time and lots of manpower bonus. If you build the lvl 6 building it also give you 5000 extra to your forcelimits, but only the 3 first buildings make them cheaper. If you had 18 before with that one you will have 23. You can only build one type of lvl 5 and 6 buildings in each province though, so choose visey before you build any of them.

Other factors in the effectiveness of your troops are in the sliders. It's almost always a good idea to increase centralization, quality, aristocracy, and others as far to the left as possible for a better army. This was my policy as soon as I started as Brandenburg in the Death and Taxes mod. 200 years later as Prussia, my army was second to none and the strongest in the world. High morale, quality, aristocracy, discipline, generals, and more all make a deadly army. It just takes time, so do what you can to defeat the enemy.

Oh, and when necessary, watch out for Burgundy in the early 15th century. It is a conquering machine.

Thanks again Flammehav, I'll try out everything you said and hopefully that will reverse the situation. The version I'm playing is Httt, and I set up corps of 2 infantry regiments and 1 cavalry regiment each, and they get whipped really fast. The national idea I picked was the attending Church service one, since I kept taking random stability hits from random events, and because it increases the chance of changing province culture to your national culture, as the Teutonic Order virtually every province I hold isn't German.

I hear you. Fortunately I'm far away from Burgundy, but I was notified that they annexed Switzerland, and then I was notified that France moved its capital to Lyons, because Burgundy had taken all of Northern France and had Paris completely surrounded. I figured the AI realised that their capital was just Burgundy's hostage in every war and decided to just give it up and move South.

DJLENNON said:

Hi Everyone.
Can anyone suggest a country that's fairly easy to start as and learn the game? My first game was with England and lets just say it didn't go as planned. However, it was a good experience and now i feel like I understand the game quite well.
So thank you in advance and I hope someone can give me some good advice

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It depends really. France is (usually) a good starting point. Though i took my lessons through multiple Muscovy-Russia/failure games. Usually you want to start with France, then move to England. Then you move to Castile/ Portugal. Austria/HRE games come after this. Then you look at the Turks or the byzzies choose one and say "like beating the world mercilessly with them". After that you move to Ruissan games, and then to India/Japan/Ming. The real challenges are the Americas, Africa, And Ryukyu in that order. but everyone has thier own learning whatsits. this is simply a general guide

DJLENNON said:

Thanks Everyone I'm going to start a campaign with France and see how it goes.

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France is easiest if you dont' start at 1399, but after it's gathered, but on the other hand, 1399 gives you a chance to try your hand at diplomacy integrating your vassals, and some fighting to drive the english from your land. To get your province you need to hit the english at home though, somethign that is VERY hard as England start with the largest navy in the world. If you want you can use a gamey tactic, with getting MA from Scotland and land your forces there before declaring war. A lot of players see this as a very gamey tactic on the borders of cheating, but for a newbie, it might be the only reasonable way to beat the english unless you get lucky and that big scary navy get busy somewhere else.

I picked England as my first ever game of any EU game. I simply kept my navy up from the beginning and this meant I controlled who goes where and when. No one can touch you when they cant bring armies from they mainland to your isles because your navy is 5 time larger than the next biggest, and it takes you one month to move your men from a few jungle provinces in america, while they walk for almost a year at 1-2 months per province . Manouravability>Numbers, is what I learnt. by 1650 I am by far the largest nation, I own 50% of america. However I picked up the Map Generator from the mods section, and I'm starting a new game as a small europeonish isnland country in a random gen world! Awesome sauce Also I'm a big fan of defensive bonuses, I like to break enemy armies on my +5 bonus. Defender of the faith is a great bonus to your army, but you need to be rich/big to keep it up, I changed to reformed religion, so I get less competition for it Sneaky me.

One thing I'm surprised no one mentioned is the military upkeep sliders. Having those at less than maximum during any competetive war is asking for disaster.

brifbates said:

One thing I'm surprised no one mentioned is the military upkeep sliders. Having those at less than maximum during any competetive war is asking for disaster.

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I did mentioned it in point 6 in my first post.