Hello, new player reporting

[Jopiedom]

Hello all, let me introduce myself.

I'm new to the Europa Universalis games. In fact, I'm (relative) new (compared with the members posting here) with any paradox games. The 'only' games i have played from them are Hearts of Iron 2, and it's expansion pack Doomsday. Both good games in which i managed to do really well, if i can say so.

Now i decided to buy this game: not because i read good reviews about it, but because it was made by the creators of Hearts of iron 2. Not many game studios out there trying to create a grand based strategy game.

I have followed this part of the forum 3 weeks before i bought the game, so that could give an explanation. An explanetion of what? Well, allow me to continu.

This is the first time i have played the full game, and I'm still playing with the country which I choose the first time i started this game. In fact, i have only played with this country (France). I did not used any save & reload tactic (what kind of gamer are you if you buy a 'grand strategic' game, only to choose another strategy when you fail? Isn't it part of the fun to clear the mess up that you created in the first place?).

Here will follow a brief overview of my country, of what I have done with it and how I did it. A few questions are included. After that you will see a few remarks/suggestions from a NEW player on things in EU3. I know my words on those things don't carry the 'weight' that you 'veterans' have here, but i'm positive that my complete newbieness gives an interesting 'other' opinion about things Advice on what i can do better would be greatly appreciated.


My Strategy:
I focus on trade and colonies. I don't have colonies for the sake of having colonies, but i have my colonies for the purpose of trading. My Badboy limit never has gone higher then 12, (that was because of the full diplo-annex. of Sweden.). But practically it has been always around 1-3. I use the money to invest in money/tech gaining buildings in France. Also an enormous amount of money is being invested in the techs. I have the leading tech in each category. Period.

Because of me being nice I have been the Ruler of the Roman Empire and I have been in control of the Papacy for almost 40-50 full years. My strategy of become the leader of the Roman Empire was simple: bribe the countries with votes, and kill off the countries who compete with you and can be become a threat to my chances of winning.

I have not really warred as much as I thought i would do. However, i still fought a lot, mostly due to allies getting in trouble. This explains why i have cities west of Moscow, etc. If i got into a war, i always made sure the war had only one front

All the allies that i have are also my vassals. Venice and Meckelenburg will be diplo annexed. The reason for this is that i want 100% control of all the trade centers in Europe, with the exception of the trade centers in Spain/Porta.

First off all, here is an overview of Europa.



(on a sidenote: atm there are 2 proposals of marriage being send to England and Castille: both with a likely chance. Waiting for an answer, so keep thagt in mind when you look at that screenshot)

Scotland left the alliance a few years after the start of the game, which was really a shame. Norway got lucky and inherited Denmark. After that Sweden got did not liked Norway anymore, and declared 4-5 times against them. Which leads to my first remark/question. The story of my alliance vs Sweden was pretty much the same. Norway would loose ground, untill my troops arrived. Then we would send them back, resulting in a (forced) peace. After the first war i made them loose all there claims on any norway city. After i transported my troops away however, the attacked right away, ignoring the truce. This happend 3-4 times after the first time. After the later wars I just forced them to become my vassault. Now my question: Is it normal for an AI country to behave this way and does the AI 'learn' from it's wars, as each war was basicly the same story all over again).

Another question is how do i have to deal with Britanny? They have never attacked me, and the relations between us have always been high. However, i can't get them in an alliance with me, regardless of my BB, making a diplo annext impossible, and i don't think they are worth a war. They are not in an alliance with any other major country. Just some small German one.


My Colonies


These are my colonies in middle and north America. You do not fully see here the countries that are there in the north, so i will discripe them. I control the north-east American coast cities all the way up to Manhatten. After that Norway has 2 colonies, and England has 3 colonies there.


Here you see all my colonies in South America. I basicly have no competition here from any european country, and i'm going to keep it that way. Venice has several colonies here too, but i took them from them after I defeated them in war. ALL the colonies here have 2000+ people in it.

Colonies not shown:
Several in Africa: the gold coast city by ivor coast (or somewhere there), Cape town and the city east of it. Funny enough Austria is the any other major country investing in colonies in Africa. Then i have also 1 city somewhere in Indonesia. Basicly no other European countries around here, The reason i colonised 1 city was because i wanted a friendly port in case i wanted to war any of the native countries there.


Build Up of my Armies
I used to focus on cavalry, but have stopped training them for a long time. I had 3 major mass cavalry armies, which were used to 'break'the enemy. and then would chase them till the opponent was dead. After the mass cavalry armies my infantery armies would come, who would then simply take the city. Due to my low amount of wars i have an enormous amount of manpower which i simply save (never let it down the 90k. Atm it's 114k i believe). This way i can offerd to assault relative fast and more often then other countries can. I don't feel like disbanding my horse armies, so the 2 major horse armies are being send to America, where they should perform well against Inca, etc... The last major horse army will disband: it's units however will join other armies.

I had 2 big fleets, but one of them sunk after i forgot sending them into a harbor

Finance and stuff

I would really like to know how to get my inflation down, besides getting the right national idea. Atm my monthly income that will go into my monthly treasure is large because i have almost no gold left. The war vs Venice really cost me a lot, (even though it was worth it)

I btw have 2 4 star advisors, and 1 5 star advisor. How said again it was hard getting good advisors? Only hadto use a 1 star advisor for 25 years or something




Nation ideas
As shown here, these are my idea's. I think they are well balanced and are really helping my country. However, i am disappointed in the yearly +1 military tradition: It does not benifit my country as good as it could have been, due to my low amount of wars. Does anyone has a good idea which new idea i should get in the future? A must have?

On a side note, you can see here on the background the religion in Europe. Who said again that there were no Protestant countries out there?
(I'm still catholic, but that's because of the extra colonist I get then. Have no intention of switching religions atm. The other 2 cristian religions are fully accepted in my country.)

If anyone has a good idea what to do next, what to do better or anything else, please say.

Also, almost forgot it to say, i have had the 5 merchants in the Trade centres in every major trade centre for a really long time. They are not competed away. However, getting the 6th one in is really difficult and usually doesn't hold his position long. Anyone got any idea's to improve this?


EDIT: FORGOT TO SAY, IT'S THE YEAR 1572


Suggestions and Remarks

- Please give a message when you have a fleet which is not in a harbor and is loosing units because of it. It's a real shame loosing your big navy fleet (6 big ships, 12 smaller ships) and don't even have the pleasure of watching them die

- Would it not be nice if in the next EU game an map editor would be included? So that you can create your own random maps fast: this way you also will avoid scenarios where you know precise where all the gold resources are

[Scott1964]

[Dysken]

Welcome to the forum. I must say that I am very impressed if this is your first game. I could not do that when I played EU2 the first time. Hats off!

[Gigalocus]

welcome, wow, you become a continental superpower, in my first game, i just picked on some indians and americans before i finally invaded france


(red = me = england)

in paint because screenshots are difficult to make, and it was for a email to a friend

[Seten]

Amazing , my past game as France (wich i stop at 1580) is 90% the same game as you .
Minor difference :
-i let norway die , i broke my alliance with them and scotland (wanted a strong england). Once i dplo annex my minor i was able to get in an alliance with britany (in fact you got a cap of the number of alliance you can have , thats why your stuck with britany =/ )
-I didnt colonise east coast of south america but went after the inca
Converting them was boring but the reward was so great (so much gold from my colonie and my mainland that made me stop the game)
- My natinal idea wich i found perfect for france : cultural revolution , quest for the new world , viceroy , bureaucracy , military drill

How did you manage to hold the position of your merchant? you tolerate lombard and dutch culture?

[Jopiedom]

Thanks for the friendly replies

Came up with a few more questions:

1. If you replay the game, the cities with gold will proberly be on the same place. This gives the human player a (small)(unfair) advantage. Does the AI, on higher difficulty levels, also know around which places the gold mines are?

2. The manual says that at higher difficulty levels (currently playing at normal) the game simply becomes harder: winning battles and managing your realm for instance. On normal, both sides (human and AI) have the same advantage. Does this simply mean that the AI on higher levels has an advantage over the player in battle etc, and does that makes it harder, OR does the AI simply plays smarter, resulting in, for example better balanced armies and therefor making battles harder?

3. In the Manual of the Benelux version, there is something wrong with page 134 & 135: on the discribtion of the buildings on page 134 are the pictures of the buildings from page 135, making it hard to read from the manual what the buildings on page 134 actually can do. Not a big drama, but i thought i would report it anyway

4. When i click to automatic update this game, it says page not found. In fact, when i get the launcher asking if i want to play the game, update it etc it says page not found, making it impossible for me to update this game. Now i downloaded the patch the old way, but i don't really get what i have to do with it afterwards. If anyone knows what to do, please say so.

My standard browser is mozilla firefox, and internet explorer works like it is supposed to do if i start it normally.

5. Even though getting and keeping 5 merchans in a Trade Centre is not really a problem, getting a 6th one in AND keeping him there is really hard. In fact it is so hard that i stopped trying it, because if i got a 6th one in, he/she/it would not stay there any longer then 1 month. Anyone has an advice how to get AND keep a 6th one there?

6. As i am in full control of the Europe Trade Centres, with the exception of the ones in Spain, I always like to embargo a country before I invade. This sudden loss off income should force them from getting there money elsewhere, disrupting there economy. So far for the theory. However, i had several times that a country which was first under the influence of my trade centre switched trade centres. A logically decision ofcourse, but as shown in one of the screenshots, this can really make the map look like a 5 year old just threw some randomly painted the map. Now this will change in the years, so I'm wondering: How is this changed? Which factors decide to which trade centre a city 'belongs'? For instance, first the trade centre in Paris controlled all the trade in France. Now however, the trade centre previous owned to Milan is controlling the southern France cities. Now both trade centres are mine, and both trade centres have not being blockaded anyway in this game. Could not find it in the manual, so if someone has something to say about this, please do so




In reply to Seten:
I got fairly lucky in the beginning, causing vlaanderen and brabant to join my side. So those 2 cities, and those cultures became very fast part of my empire, and therefor got really fast accepted.

Atm i have a badboyscore of 11 (!) due to my annex. of Sweden. Even so, my merchants are still not getting competed away. I suspect that my national idea of, i believe 10% competence (can't really check it at the place I am in now, will check it later. The idea is shown in one of the screenshots below) has a rather big influence, together with my lead in the trading tech.

Besides these obvious reasons, i think that my ability of never getting in long wars has a rather large influence too. I don't know precise how large this influence is though.

In reply to Gigalocus:
Playing with those stinky Brits?
In my game they don't really do much. Keep in mind they inherited, in my game, Portagual around 15 years after the game start. Made me crap my pants

In reply to Dysken:
Thanks
But i have to admit I played the demo

In reply to Scott
Thanks. Oh, and nice 'picture' btw

[Sling Shot]

Originally Posted by Jopiedom

- Please give a message when you have a fleet which is not in a harbor and is loosing units because of it. It's a real shame loosing your big navy fleet (6 big ships, 12 smaller ships) and don't even have the pleasure of watching them die

Welcome to the forum.

There is an event for this. It says something like 'a ship has been lost while traversing the dangerous waters of [insert seazone here]'.

[Seten]

1.As far as i know ai doesn't change on higher difficulty leel , and player always got advantage for gold province. Thats why i stop my game , for a nation like france wich already can be the richest if she go in dutch and lombard province going in gold mine too is close to be a game breaker. In my game i made 4time more gold than china once i converted everything

2.see one , if things haven't change in eu3 in paradox game ai just got bonus. One good thing is that its easy to mod the bonus

3. -

4.Post this on the technical support (but look first if there is not a thread adressing this issue first)

5.I think handle this game , but i never focused on trade and therefore don't know the trick , but for the little i know player usually avoid getting monopoly and focus on having 5merchant per cot

6.Dunno for this =/


I ddnt have the chance to get lombaard or dutch culture in my game =/ i wait but being bored i launched my new world invasion , once they were all converted (took time) they become all metropolitan , therefore didnt have no more chance to gain new culture