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Holland strategy?

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Europa Universalis III 46143 EU3 - After Action Reports (AAR)
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I am like 90% sure that Denmark is far over 100% warscore! Look at frikin switzerland, they are at 110 WS, have as much provinces as Denmark, but they are all bt 2-4 wool provinces. Better vassals are Savoy and Brittany, since they are both within the 100% rule. And please, for the love of god, Iwanow, dont start with something as complicated as France vs. Austria in MP when you typically get killed within 2 sessions. Look at the following stats: http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...I&league=int&season=comp-2012-2&yearsave=1567
JPVG's France could probably kill my austria without breaking much of a sweat and there is little I could have done differently, so it does not even depend on player skill.
 
I get the impression that base tax has more weight than production goods in the WS calculation.

I am not going to comment on the France vs. Austria MP thing, because that's some wild tangent that Ivan somehow decided to start when I commented on the applicability of his input w.r.t. the OP's question.
 
ywhtptgtfo said:
I get the impression that base tax has more weight than production goods in the WS calculation.
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Probably not as much as you'd think, look at the brittany vs. Savoy thing. Savoy has 4 very rich provinces while Brittany is mediocre at best. Yet the WS costs only change by 8% IIRC. Cant really explain it.
I am not going to comment on the France vs. Austria MP thing, because that's some wild tangent that Ivan somehow decided to start when I commented on the applicability of his input w.r.t. the OP's question.
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Whoops, did not read enough of the thread, thought that was something that has been discussed for the whole time here.
 
Blimey, what happened to this thread?

Anyhow, I restarted as Holland last night and I'm faring a bit better this time although I'm still not doing great and it was frankly rather boring.
I hunkered down and played nice with everyone, being a more careful with the RMs while beelining for colonization research-wise. No wars whatsover in the first 5 decades or so, except for breaking free from Hainaut.
Burgundy got decimated almost from the get-go (dogpiled by France, England and a bunch of minors), France has nearly gained its contemporary borders and England is doing fairly well too. Brabant became a bit too strong at one point but I received a core on Friesland, whom they were guaranteeing. A bit of inflation and a lot of mercenaries later I gained a few more Dutch & Flemish provinces.
After nearly 70 years I've still not formed The Netherlands though, which is not great as I stated. I considered more diplo-vassilisation/annexation for a while but even for the Alliance requirement I had "unlikely" at best with all my neigbours (no I wasn't allied with anyone at the time and had a good rep) :(

My North American colonisation efforts on the other hand were thwarted by Portugal who decided to do some carpet-bombing style colonisation of their own in exactly all the provinces I could reach with my limited colonial range. They must have phenomenal bonuses going through missions or something because I don't remember being able to do that financially - although the AI doesn't consider inflation an issue - nor with my colonial range limits when I played Portugal myself :glare:

I'm beginning to wonder whether an aggressive, opportunistic approach is perhaps the better option after all. The missions for Holland are plain abysmal ("make X vote for us" when Austria has a 200+ favour lead is a, um, favourite) and waiting for a sufficient tech edge to tackle neighbours perfectly safely would be a snorefest for probably at least a century. On the other hand, Holland can certainly handle a bit of infamy without suffering too much in the trade department.
The only thing that makes me hesitant to take the more aggressive route is the constant looming threat of strong neighbours (France, Burgundy and England)
 
Portugal will often take a lot of provinces in my games as well but they hardly ever are able to make them grown. Usually the growth is in the minus and almost always a well used spy van agitate the natives into a assault on fledgeling colony destroying it. A colonist send at that moment will mean you can take over the province for yourself.
 
stnikolauswagne said:
http://i.imgur.com/tO0rZ.jpg
There you are 108% warscore, thus not trivially vassalizable.
Click to expand...

Well, 108% is quite easy vassalization, you just need to make one of their province defect to sweden. Or just take the one yourself in war before. Still you are right, it is not so trival. But anyway, as i sad, last time i played netherland nation was in 1.3(which means eu3 vanilla) so i just wondered if it would not be a good move.
 
Tourmaline said:
Blimey, what happened to this thread?

Anyhow, I restarted as Holland last night and I'm faring a bit better this time although I'm still not doing great and it was frankly rather boring.
I hunkered down and played nice with everyone, being a more careful with the RMs while beelining for colonization research-wise. No wars whatsover in the first 5 decades or so, except for breaking free from Hainaut.
Burgundy got decimated almost from the get-go (dogpiled by France, England and a bunch of minors), France has nearly gained its contemporary borders and England is doing fairly well too. Brabant became a bit too strong at one point but I received a core on Friesland, whom they were guaranteeing. A bit of inflation and a lot of mercenaries later I gained a few more Dutch & Flemish provinces.
After nearly 70 years I've still not formed The Netherlands though, which is not great as I stated. I considered more diplo-vassilisation/annexation for a while but even for the Alliance requirement I had "unlikely" at best with all my neigbours (no I wasn't allied with anyone at the time and had a good rep) :(

My North American colonisation efforts on the other hand were thwarted by Portugal who decided to do some carpet-bombing style colonisation of their own in exactly all the provinces I could reach with my limited colonial range. They must have phenomenal bonuses going through missions or something because I don't remember being able to do that financially - although the AI doesn't consider inflation an issue - nor with my colonial range limits when I played Portugal myself :glare:

I'm beginning to wonder whether an aggressive, opportunistic approach is perhaps the better option after all. The missions for Holland are plain abysmal ("make X vote for us" when Austria has a 200+ favour lead is a, um, favourite) and waiting for a sufficient tech edge to tackle neighbours perfectly safely would be a snorefest for probably at least a century. On the other hand, Holland can certainly handle a bit of infamy without suffering too much in the trade department.
The only thing that makes me hesitant to take the more aggressive route is the constant looming threat of strong neighbours (France, Burgundy and England)
Click to expand...

I do hate those make x vote for us missions. I really think that they should be limited to large nations in the HRE since they get bonuses to growth. With Utrecht being sufficiently scared of you getting into a war with them is a pain. They are opportunistic and will try to jump on you if they see a situation where you seem weak. Friesland Claim the throne and Vassalize or getting a PU works either way. I like to use every chance I get to vassalize the HRE minors in my area. That gives me enough power to keep Burgundy at bay.
 
Linx MP said:
Portugal will often take a lot of provinces in my games as well but they hardly ever are able to make them grown. Usually the growth is in the minus and almost always a well used spy van agitate the natives into a assault on fledgeling colony destroying it. A colonist send at that moment will mean you can take over the province for yourself.
Click to expand...
I don't have spies, nor missionaries for that matter. Holland's initial sliders settings + the slider limits are such that a lot of slider changes would be required to get either so it's not worth it IMO. Although that might have changed in DW?
 
Tourmaline said:
I don't have spies, nor missionaries for that matter. Holland's initial sliders settings + the slider limits are such that a lot of slider changes would be required to get either so it's not worth it IMO. Although that might have changed in DW?
Click to expand...

Holland starts with near-perfect sliders, so you have quite a few spare slider moves; especially with events considered, it's definitely worth going plutocratic, for the Spies and TE - unless you're doing a continental-expansion HRE game where you need the diplomats.
 
Iwanow said:
Well, 108% is quite easy vassalization, you just need to make one of their province defect to sweden. Or just take the one yourself in war before. Still you are right, it is not so trival. But anyway, as i sad, last time i played netherland nation was in 1.3(which means eu3 vanilla) so i just wondered if it would not be a good move.
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If you played without expansion, then it's possible. Maybe Denmark lost Skane by 1453. Suggesting defection is silly, because Holland usually has no luck with spy unless you move towards Plutocracy or Mercantilism.
 
Either you hope for a defection , or you wait more than 5 years , or you hope sweden comes in when you destroy Denmark , if you intend getting the modifier (requires not to be FT , but heh) you only need the southernmost province , you can hope Sweden takes Halland in the deal
 
funshine said:
And in america or asia africa ?

For asia im planning to to the the Mallaca cot
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In America, I'd go for an in-land province or a province in the west coast. The former prevents land-locked nations from trading there and the latter gives 0.1 colonist and blocks most countries from trading until trade range reaches that far.

In Asia, I'd just conquer Kutch and Nanjing. The Chinese probably made CoT's in other provinces too, so capturing one of that would also work.
 
To those wondering if going aggressive as Holland is worth it, here's my latest aggressive fast-forming Netherlands game:

netherlands.png


So I think it's worth it.
 
maxirage said:
To those wondering if going aggressive as Holland is worth it, here's my latest aggressive fast-forming Netherlands game:


So I think it's worth it.
Click to expand...

Some obvious questions come to mind. Are you still in the HRE? Emperor? From the looks of it I would say you are. Without using PUs to inherit cores how did you deal with so much unlawful territories?
 
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