I am an EU/HOI/Victoria veteran but never bothered buying EU II. The AAR is from my third game started in EU III Gold v 1.3 without modifications. Its main purpose is to serve as a kind of tutorial for newbies - I found the tutorial coming with the game not too helpful. This justifies the choice of Burgundy as one of the 6 western European main powers from that time period (the others being England, Austria, France, Castille and Portugal).
Burgundy is a good choice for a newbie and at the same time a challenge.
Plus: Country is rich in taxes, starts with a good monarch and really decent choices for advisors, a textile manufactury and an university for bonusses on government and production research, a trade center. Access to the noth sea from the start.
Minus: Country is separated into two not connected parts, capital does not have sea access therefore unable to colonize from scratch, sea access via waters controlled by England and France, tight manpower compared to France, buffer state between German minors ripe for force unification by Austria/France/Poland, lots of English and France cores thus bound for the inevitable "keep the core" wars, fully decentralized considerably raising stability recovery costs (and time).
Start date: 1473 instead of 1453. Why? The tech achievements (notably land tech 2) could most likely not be accomplished starting 1453. With Liege and Friesland 2 more provinces are already Burgundian lands. The AI choice for Conscripts as the first national idea makes up for the lack of manpower nicely.
Goals (not necessarily in that order):
- Prevent Frances grow into central and south Europe
- Inherit all of Burgundy heartlands (Burgundian culture) which necessities the annexation of Lorraine
- Get ahead of every major power in tech, especially land (I always liked to be ahead of the pack in strategy games). Burgundy is in fact best suited of the major European powers to do so as its richness comes from packed provinces in Europe which means it does not need THAT an awful amount of them to rip tons of money from production (tech cost is directly linked to number of provinces controlled)
- Receive and hold position as HRE emperor thus keep as many German minors alive as possible and keep good relations with them
- Add most if not all Lombardian provinces to Burgundy as soon as possible. This way you easily establish an additional accepted national culture (they are all rich thus reaching the 20% tax treshold for an accepted national culture fast), you get access to the Mediterranean, you effectively separate Austria from France, you solve the manpower problem finally and you receive enough universities to overtake the world in government tech without actual budget investment (following Italian provinces start with an university - Parma, Pisa, Romagna, Ferrara, Piemont, Modena, Florenz)
- Add most if not all cosmopolitan provinces to Burgundy effectively reducing France in Europe to a stretch at the Atlantic coast
- Conquer India in the late 17th century
The most daunting task for a newbie will be to wage his/her first wars against France and to conduct them effectively.
Okay. Targets set, 1473 - Start.
Look around - as expected. Austria, France and Castille have the "lucky" tag (they belong to the 8 starting nations receiving a little extra boost by trade competition advantages and generally mor positive events from game developers to present the player - you - a late game challenge). Did not bother to find the others (you have to study the trader chances in the trade centers one by one. Some will show an extra green 10% labeled "Luck". These are the lucky countries
First things to do - hire/exchange advisors and move a slider.
You can move one of 8 sliders one notch in one direction - except the first one (Aristocracy - Plutocracy) which is limited by your monarchy type and will most likely stay that way for a long time.
In principle the slider moves have a tremendous long term effect on gameplay. Keep your mouse over the sliders for a moment to study the tooltips presented. You want to warmonger? Move sliders so that the effect decreases war weariness, increases army morale and/or manpower allowance, decreases stability costs. You want to colonize early and intensely? Move the sliders that provide additional colonists and missionaries (i.e. towards mercantilism and narrow minded). You want to be the tech leader? Prefer innovative and decentralization.
As one of the goals for Burgundy is tech leadership, the first move is one notch towards innovative. Burgundy is already fully decentralized so this looks like a perfect contribution to lower tech costs.
Lessons learned: Every decision has a price! In Burgundys case, which strated decentralized and moved fully innovative in the course of the game, the price is an extremely low amount of yearly colonists when Burgundy started colonizing late 16th century.
First investments - army units, with a focus on knights. Especially early in the game (up around land tech 15 to 20) knights do considerably bigger morale as physical damage than the infantry and moves much faster. You can always build additional infantry at or short before the start of a war, so cavalry is the army core of choice especially for a rich country.
First trade moves: Send additional traders to Flandern and Isle of France. Bad move - (small) waste of money.
Lessons learned - for big countries or/and warmongers trade only gets an option after the number of contenders (small countries) gets vastly reduced, you are at high trade levels and able to boost yout traders chances by national ideas and advisors. And at peace! As rules of thumb (peacetime, positive stability, reasonable reputation): 1 of 2 traders will make it for chances shown in the trader send screen bigger 65% but will not live long, 1 of 2 will make it beyond 75% and stay for some time, 2 of 2 may make it beyond 85% and even stay for years, even with best chances possible (95% and above) a monopoly (6 traders) in a high value TC will only last a few months. Without advisors the most influencing factors for trade are your image, your stability level, your trade level and the effect from slider settings.
First diplomatic moves - alliance offers to Portugal and Aragon, royal marriages to Austria and England. If you want to focus on france, you will be glad for good allies, especially when you plan to go without a fleet for a long time (which Burgundy can afford to do). Long term goal is to keep good relations with Austria to secure eastern borders and an alliance with England and Portugal. As it turned out later that was not going to happen.
First small scale aggressive war started 1475 - Lorraine (allied with Palatinates=Pfalz). After a couple of months Lorraine was fully occupied, the peace terms included 2 provinces - Barrois and Metz - to reduce Lorraine to the one province minor allowing the annexation in the next war. Burgundy always will fight fast and limited wars to avoid war weariness and revolts.
Lessons learned in the war: Even good leaders on the other side do NOT turn the tide against overwhelming odds . A screenshot overview of Burgundy in 1482 will be the starter for the next issue. And there is nothinbg more annoying than an ally already sieging a province you want to take (first in place seems to be siege leader).
Burgundy is a good choice for a newbie and at the same time a challenge.
Plus: Country is rich in taxes, starts with a good monarch and really decent choices for advisors, a textile manufactury and an university for bonusses on government and production research, a trade center. Access to the noth sea from the start.
Minus: Country is separated into two not connected parts, capital does not have sea access therefore unable to colonize from scratch, sea access via waters controlled by England and France, tight manpower compared to France, buffer state between German minors ripe for force unification by Austria/France/Poland, lots of English and France cores thus bound for the inevitable "keep the core" wars, fully decentralized considerably raising stability recovery costs (and time).
Start date: 1473 instead of 1453. Why? The tech achievements (notably land tech 2) could most likely not be accomplished starting 1453. With Liege and Friesland 2 more provinces are already Burgundian lands. The AI choice for Conscripts as the first national idea makes up for the lack of manpower nicely.
Goals (not necessarily in that order):
- Prevent Frances grow into central and south Europe
- Inherit all of Burgundy heartlands (Burgundian culture) which necessities the annexation of Lorraine
- Get ahead of every major power in tech, especially land (I always liked to be ahead of the pack in strategy games). Burgundy is in fact best suited of the major European powers to do so as its richness comes from packed provinces in Europe which means it does not need THAT an awful amount of them to rip tons of money from production (tech cost is directly linked to number of provinces controlled)
- Receive and hold position as HRE emperor thus keep as many German minors alive as possible and keep good relations with them
- Add most if not all Lombardian provinces to Burgundy as soon as possible. This way you easily establish an additional accepted national culture (they are all rich thus reaching the 20% tax treshold for an accepted national culture fast), you get access to the Mediterranean, you effectively separate Austria from France, you solve the manpower problem finally and you receive enough universities to overtake the world in government tech without actual budget investment (following Italian provinces start with an university - Parma, Pisa, Romagna, Ferrara, Piemont, Modena, Florenz)
- Add most if not all cosmopolitan provinces to Burgundy effectively reducing France in Europe to a stretch at the Atlantic coast
- Conquer India in the late 17th century
The most daunting task for a newbie will be to wage his/her first wars against France and to conduct them effectively.
Okay. Targets set, 1473 - Start.
Look around - as expected. Austria, France and Castille have the "lucky" tag (they belong to the 8 starting nations receiving a little extra boost by trade competition advantages and generally mor positive events from game developers to present the player - you - a late game challenge). Did not bother to find the others (you have to study the trader chances in the trade centers one by one. Some will show an extra green 10% labeled "Luck". These are the lucky countries
First things to do - hire/exchange advisors and move a slider.
You can move one of 8 sliders one notch in one direction - except the first one (Aristocracy - Plutocracy) which is limited by your monarchy type and will most likely stay that way for a long time.
In principle the slider moves have a tremendous long term effect on gameplay. Keep your mouse over the sliders for a moment to study the tooltips presented. You want to warmonger? Move sliders so that the effect decreases war weariness, increases army morale and/or manpower allowance, decreases stability costs. You want to colonize early and intensely? Move the sliders that provide additional colonists and missionaries (i.e. towards mercantilism and narrow minded). You want to be the tech leader? Prefer innovative and decentralization.
As one of the goals for Burgundy is tech leadership, the first move is one notch towards innovative. Burgundy is already fully decentralized so this looks like a perfect contribution to lower tech costs.
Lessons learned: Every decision has a price! In Burgundys case, which strated decentralized and moved fully innovative in the course of the game, the price is an extremely low amount of yearly colonists when Burgundy started colonizing late 16th century.
First investments - army units, with a focus on knights. Especially early in the game (up around land tech 15 to 20) knights do considerably bigger morale as physical damage than the infantry and moves much faster. You can always build additional infantry at or short before the start of a war, so cavalry is the army core of choice especially for a rich country.
First trade moves: Send additional traders to Flandern and Isle of France. Bad move - (small) waste of money.
Lessons learned - for big countries or/and warmongers trade only gets an option after the number of contenders (small countries) gets vastly reduced, you are at high trade levels and able to boost yout traders chances by national ideas and advisors. And at peace! As rules of thumb (peacetime, positive stability, reasonable reputation): 1 of 2 traders will make it for chances shown in the trader send screen bigger 65% but will not live long, 1 of 2 will make it beyond 75% and stay for some time, 2 of 2 may make it beyond 85% and even stay for years, even with best chances possible (95% and above) a monopoly (6 traders) in a high value TC will only last a few months. Without advisors the most influencing factors for trade are your image, your stability level, your trade level and the effect from slider settings.
First diplomatic moves - alliance offers to Portugal and Aragon, royal marriages to Austria and England. If you want to focus on france, you will be glad for good allies, especially when you plan to go without a fleet for a long time (which Burgundy can afford to do). Long term goal is to keep good relations with Austria to secure eastern borders and an alliance with England and Portugal. As it turned out later that was not going to happen.
First small scale aggressive war started 1475 - Lorraine (allied with Palatinates=Pfalz). After a couple of months Lorraine was fully occupied, the peace terms included 2 provinces - Barrois and Metz - to reduce Lorraine to the one province minor allowing the annexation in the next war. Burgundy always will fight fast and limited wars to avoid war weariness and revolts.
Lessons learned in the war: Even good leaders on the other side do NOT turn the tide against overwhelming odds . A screenshot overview of Burgundy in 1482 will be the starter for the next issue. And there is nothinbg more annoying than an ally already sieging a province you want to take (first in place seems to be siege leader).
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