Bought Chronicles in the sale...what do I do? :S

EU3 is much more complex than HoI, as you have found out. I consider EU to be the stepping stone between HoI and Vicky.
In regards to the economy, get your cultural tradition high (90%+), you can increase cultural tradition by using the "Commission a Painting" cultural decision. It uses 1 magistrate and gives you 5 cultural tradition. When you have enough cultural tradition, get a level 5/6 Master of Mint and set your treasury slider to just enough to not gain any inflation.
Also it's good to focus on a certain tech. If you plan to be doing most of your expanding by land, then focus on land over naval tech, etcetera.

For your first games, don't take any nations other than a European nation, and definitely don't take a horde nation (Massive research penalties, constantly at war with everyone you border, etc). Once you've done that, leave it paused for a bit and look around your nation, get your slider movement done, that's up to you which one to do. Then if you have a decent treasury, disband your entire starting army and rebuild it from scratch.
An important thing regarding armies is make sure to keep your unit types updated. There's no use having max level tech if you haven't changed your preferred unit type from the starting infantry. With navies you will just have to rebuild your fleets when better ships come out.

Sorry if some of it doesn't make sense, I'm pretty tired right now. You should head on over to the EU3 wiki, it has some useful information and strategy guides for different countries.

EU III is not complex, but there are some gameconcepts which are important. I would recomment you to play farnce its one of the strongest nations to start. You don`t need to disband your army... wtf this is the worst you can do, as it upgrades and you lose soldiers and money when disbanding them.

Two basic economic pointers:

- Reduce your military maintenance when at peace (don't forget to bring it back when war approaches!)

- Having monthly losses is normal and nothing to worry about, as long as your country has a yearly surplus. Census taxes are paid at the end of the year, and that's the money you get to "play" with.

EU3wiki.com

TrueCoppa said:

EU3 is much more complex than HoI,

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Than HoI1? Can't say, I haven't played it. Than HoI3? Certainly not (unless you leave most of your country in the hands of the AI).

grommile said:

Than HoI1? Can't say, I haven't played it. Than HoI3? Certainly not (unless you leave most of your country in the hands of the AI).

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No, he said HoI, as in Hearts of Iron, presumably towards Hearts of Iron 3.

That being said, Hearts of Iron 1, playing it now, is really simple and easy. Whereas Hearts of Iron 3 is probably more complex than Eu3, and requires much more micromanagement.

Anyways, there are also several tutorials on YouTube, here is the link to one of them.

Castus said:

EU III is not complex, but there are some gameconcepts which are important. I would recomment you to play farnce its one of the strongest nations to start. You don`t need to disband your army... wtf this is the worst you can do, as it upgrades and you lose soldiers and money when disbanding them.

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I like to do that if I have the money, it's a personal preferance thing. I like to build my armies from nothing instead of tediously going through each individual unit and removing/adding regiments.

For me, this game had a pretty steep learning curve. I finally got into it after watching a few Let's Play videos on YouTube. I also found this tutorial very helpful. Along with reading bits and pieces of the manual.

For One Post said:

For me, this game had a pretty steep learning curve. I finally got into it after watching a few Let's Play videos on YouTube. I also found this tutorial very helpful. Along with reading bits and pieces of the manual.

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There's a manual?

TremblingBlue said:

Well, I saw chronicles in the sale on Gamersgate and I couldn't say no to 75% off.

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Right on, TremblingBlue! I got Chronicles and all the spritepacks for $10.50. Just the incentive I'd been waiting for.

Of course I had the first two expansions already, but I haven't played HttT+DW yet so I'll have to learn and relearn a few things.

My advice is:

1) As much as possible, avoid minting. Do things to gain bonuses to minting so you can print money without inflation.

2) If you get bored or run your country into the ground, don't quit the game. Save and reload as a different country that looks like it would be interesting to play.

3) Pick a strategic approach that suits the country you're playing and stick to it.

Good luck!

Just play a campaign and learn as you go. Portugal is an excellent starting nation. I remember my first big game being with Austria, then I had a Scandinavia game, then Italy. You just have to play, you'll manage in the beginning and get better as you progress.

One solid piece of advice: don't get too powerful, limit yourself a bit. Yes, once you've got the military aspect down, you can easily conquer France as Spain or vice-versa, but the game will hardly present any other challenge afterwards. Keeping larger nations alive will assure an interesting late game, otherwise you can be the best and strongest nation by 1650 and not have anything left to do.

TrueCoppa said:

I like to do that if I have the money, it's a personal preferance thing. I like to build my armies from nothing instead of tediously going through each individual unit and removing/adding regiments.

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It just does not make sense at all. There is no difference between the fact you build a new unit and you use the starting units. Just split and reorganise them and your fine. And with the new beta will will need every man.

Manchu got major tech panalities, not as much as the african and american nation, but still tech way slower than latin countries. Ofcourse you wo't notice this until you actually meet these nations and wich point you should have made sure to get your sliders ready for westernisation, or you will get steamrolled. An experienced player should be able to handle it without to much trouble, but you need luck to survive as a new player if you are not ready for westernation when the european comes.

TremblingBlue said:

Well, my initial plan was to not go after the Ming and just try and stick around in Siberia and maybe get Karafuto...but it seems like someone else might come from the west.

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Yes. In 5.1, it's quite likely to be Snakehemia or Snakestria who colonize their way across the hordes. In 5.2, it's much more likely to be one of the Russian countries (who will not be Russia due to neither of Muscovy and Novgorod ever having had a crushing upper hand against each other).

Manchu's an interesting choice for a first game. I've never tried that one, but there's no reason you can't have a good time with it. The most engtrossing games I've had with EU3 have been with countries in awkward positions that aren't recommended for beginners. Byzantium, Ethiopia, Rajputana for example.

Just remember, if you get bored with Manchu for some reason, you can save and switch to a different country. I mention that a second time because when I started doing that EU3 became much more fun for me. I almost always finish the entire timeline.

Yeah the first time you will probably make loads of mistakes and screw up your game more or less. You shoudl stick with it for atleast 200 years or so though. That way you get most of the newbie mistakes out of the way by the time you start your second game.

I started out with EU3 and I think HOI is harder. So many units and so many things you can do with them.

Manchu will probably be hard for a first game. If you have trouble with Manchu, move to a big country in Europe.