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I always fail at war. Help. Scotland making a lot of troops.

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Europa Universalis III 46143 EU3 - After Action Reports (AAR)
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I always fail at war and I sometimes have the feeling the AI cheats, even though I guess/know it's not what really happens. but seriously, playing as England, I declared war at scotland and I don't know why but it reaches a moment where I can't recruit more regiments while scotland keeps recruiting men. My manpower lowers almost to zero, but when one of my armies goes from 12k to 6 from a lot of fighting, suddenly I see an scotish army of 15 come from the north. All this previously having taken down a lot scotish troops by winning and chasing.
I really don't get it. I feel like I can't do anything to win seriously.
 
As the poster above said Scotland has a number of stupid advantages meant to protect them against England which sounds good on paper but in the game it backfires and they demolish England 9/10 times. To beat Scotland you want to let their army march into England, crush it, do some safe sieging (don't spread out and carpet siege all of Scotland) and wait for the Highlander event to fire and destroy that stack as soon as it spawns.

If you want to mod it out it's event number 960 in "randomprovinceevents.txt" in the "events" folder and they also have some bonus modifiers at the bottom of the "triggered_modifiers.txt" in the "common" folder. Always back your files up before making any changes to them.
 
What I don't like about that stupid event is that it makes it totally unfair.
One country in this game, should be strong by how it is played by the AI, how well it can manage it's things, not because it has some events other countries don't have.
That is a bad thing in this game. It just should not be there.
I really was not good ever at this game. Of course I assume you can also do that if you take Scotland as your country. I know Scotland should be able to defend itself, but not like that.
Furthermore, Scotland starts out being Allied with Portugal also if i'm not wrong and other countries as well. Isn't it enough protected yet just to give it an overpowered event?

Even if I can edit the text file I prefer not to do it. It's just a matter of principles.
If anyone knows about a good mod that apart from being good, removes this thing and makes it more balanced, please let me know.

And sorry for my english if I made any mistake, it's not my native language.
 
Actually, England starts the game allied to Portugal, not Scotland. Scotland usually allies with France. Also, if you conquer and annex the Highlands, the Highlanders won't arrive again.
 
Yes, sorry, I think I said it wrong. Actually, Scotland being allied with France makes the thing even harder, cause you only have to sum Scotlands event with France being powerfull too.

But I have another question related to war and casus belli.
I want to conquer and take the province and independent nation of Leinster. They are apparently not allied with anyone. I want to declare war on them but I currently haven't any casus belli and if I declare war on them with no reason I lose 2 stability.
I don't want to lose stability cause i'm not very good economically either and my inflation is really high and i'm trying to lower it even though it's quite slow to acomplish.
How can I make my country to have a casus belli on them? I send them insults but nothing happens, i can't excomunicate them, spy actions are not very reliable and my chances are really low.
 
Thanks. Leinster was easy after that. But Ulster and Munster Kingdoms are allied with Scotland and Portugal.
And remember if I enter war with them, Scotland is going to enter the war which is going to result in getting my ass kicked.

In fact I'd say I'm a angry and upset with this game.
I saved the game before trying one thing.
I supported revolts on Scotland first. Then I declared war to Ulster which was allied with Scotland.
What is my surprise when my allies don't want to support me. Not only that. Because I'm at war with Ulster, Scotland joins his sie. But then it starts madness to happen. Then another country joins scotland. Let's call those countries A, B, C etc.
A joins to support Ulster. Then B joins to support A. then C joins to support B and that continues until I was at war alone against 6-7 countries, plus the highlanders event of Scotland. I decided not to continue that war. I suppose i'll try to wait more after i try to declare war on Ulster again.
If all of that was not enough, nobody wanted to sign an alliance with me and my actual allies didn't want to help me at war.
So yes. or this game as a stupid OP AI or I must be doing something wrong or missing something. I feel like it is totally imposible. I don't ask for it to be super easy, but all that happened to me is like being ultra hard difficulty, the AI trying to f**k your ass everytime. Even with decisions. I don't really know how it works, why did every country allied against me.
I don't have any infamy, my legitimacy is at 100. I don't get it, really.
 
the conquer ireland mission usually fires first. If you dow all the irish minors before starting the game, no one else will join and your job is easy.


As for Scotland, tech government first until you unlock your first idea. Take military drill and build up to 40k troops, declare war on Scotland and mop up any troops, as soon as possible occupy the highlands with ~10k you will get a terrain bonus against any armies spawning there and should find it easy to mop up the survivors.
 
Scotland is intentionally made difficult to conquer because in the earlier editions England always annexed it quite early and not having Scotland in the game was quite unhistorical.

I don't know about EUIV but diplomacy in general should have larger impact on everything featured in the game.

Also, if the AI country is a lucky nation it will be more difficult to conquer.
 
Dunno whether I'm missing something here, but Scotland should be pretty easy to conquer as England. England is rich and can probably throw 20-30k troops at subjugating Scotland (doesn't it get a mission to do that?) Anyone who Scotland is allied with in Europe is irrelevant - the mighty English navy can stop them landing any troops on British soil.
 
jez9999 said:
Dunno whether I'm missing something here, but Scotland should be pretty easy to conquer as England. England is rich and can probably throw 20-30k troops at subjugating Scotland (doesn't it get a mission to do that?) Anyone who Scotland is allied with in Europe is irrelevant - the mighty English navy can stop them landing any troops on British soil.
Click to expand...
Bingo.

You may be at war with 8-9 countries, but you ONLY need to fight Scotland on land. The Royal Navy should be more than sufficient to keep any mainland forces from ever reaching English soil (or until you've got your own troops waiting to teach them a lesson, if you feel like doing so). With a couple years of buildup to create a real army, you should be able to deal with those pesky Highlanders. Don't try to take them on with your pathetic starting army on day one. 12K troops is a drop in the proverbial bucket for a major country, and you've got sufficient time to defeat their other units before you face the Highlanders. If not, pull back and let them besiege a province to keep themselves occupied, while you mop up the other Scottish forces piecemeal. THEN crush them. It's not that difficult.
 
In fact, I just tried it last night and successfully vassalized Scotland first try. I was a bit sloppy and let Norway and Sweden land some troops, but England is so rich I could still throw a load of mercenaries at them and win anyway.
 
Going to sound like a bit of a braggart here, but on my current 'England save' I managed to ward off the Scots whilst I took chunks out of France and her vassals within the first decade or so of the game (Grand Campaign) - granted, it was with the minor assistance of Portugal and Castille. Vassalised Scotland in the second war against them and the French.
 
Without the aid of Portugal and Castille (the former generally reneging on the alliance when France gets involved), I've never had much luck with taking provinces from France early on (I can keep the ones I've got by landing diversionary troops wherever France's "doomstacks" aren't, and evntually forcing a "White Peace"), but grabbing a few chunks of Scotland in one war and vassalizing the rest in a second is quite doable in the first decade.
 
Kovax said:
Without the aid of Portugal and Castille (the former generally reneging on the alliance when France gets involved), I've never had much luck with taking provinces from France early on (I can keep the ones I've got by landing diversionary troops wherever France's "doomstacks" aren't, and evntually forcing a "White Peace"), but grabbing a few chunks of Scotland in one war and vassalizing the rest in a second is quite doable in the first decade.
Click to expand...

I essentially ignored Scotland in the first war, concentrating solely on France until (with the help of Portugal and Castille) they were no longer a threat to my continental territories. Once they were dealt with, I consolidated my forces, brought them back across The Channel, and claimed back the couple of territories Scotland had advanced to.
Only then did I make terms with the French. Granted, it was a rather long, drawn out conflict.
 
Well in my game as England, I immediately sold off my European territories. In my first war (against Scotland, I had the vassalize Scotland mission), Scotland had helpfully allied with Norway. So, I could take Orkney too. :) I vassalized Scotland, took Orkney, and got the "conquer Ireland" mission. Now I've annexed Scotland, conquered Ireland, and I am waiting to core so I can form Great Britain. Meanwhile, I have focused on Trade to get to trade tech 7 and Quest for the new world, and have colonized The Azores. Why am I doing this? Well, I have a rather optimistic goal - I want to colonize ALL of the Americas. I'm going to get as much of a headstart as I can on colonization, and try to form a "wall" of colonies along the east coast of the Americas so other European powers can't colonize it (no prizes for guessing that my next NI will be colonial ventures, so +2 colonists per year - later I will convert to Reformed religion to get increased colonial growth). I'm going to annihiliate the native americans, and my aim is to have every province of the Americas be part of Great Britain, with our culture and religion (obviously we will be moving our capital to the Americas at some point, and collecting our "distant overseas" tariffs from the British Isles :) ).

The only slight annoyance I have is that I can't set up a British coastal centre of trade. If we leave the Hanseatic trade league, we trade with Antwerpen, whose trade value is not above 800. So we can't form our own CoT in London or something. It would be nice to have that, as well as the extra 0.10 colonists per year that it brings. I tried to invade France and take Antwerpen so I could dismantle it but France kicked my ass. :) Ah well. I guess we need France to fall apart but right now with their mighty army it seems unlikely. If we got rid of Antwerpen, we'd probably trade with Ile de France. That might just get over 800 with Antwerpen gone.
 
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jez9999 said:
The only slight annoyance I have is that I can't set up a British coastal centre of trade. If we leave the Hanseatic trade league, we trade with Antwerpen, whose trade value is not above 800. So we can't form our own CoT in London or something. It would be nice to have that, as well as the extra 0.10 colonists per year that it brings. I tried to invade France and take Antwerpen so I could dismantle it but France kicked my ass. :) Ah well. I guess we need France to fall apart but right now with their mighty army it seems unlikely. If we got rid of Antwerpen, we'd probably trade with Ile de France. That might just get over 800 with Antwerpen gone.
Click to expand...
You might embargo France to get your provinces to trade through a different CoT. Just a tip :)
 
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