Holland strategy?

[safferli]

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?

Hm, I'd be tempted to say too low MP for HRE. So disbanded HRE?

 

[maxirage]

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?

I am indeed emperor and most of that territory came from PUs, why would you suggest it didn't? Some parts were acquired using Imperial Ban, but early on it was mostly the diplo-annexation missions or eating into non-imperial parts of Burgundy/France.

Once I grew the Netherlands big enough, I could force PUs on everyone using Forge Claims with my superior military economy. You can fragment big players like Austria and then immediately PU the countries they released. Some would consider it a bit gamey, I suppose.

 

[przemo_li]

Here is the thing:

* do you want to engadge in europe
* do you want to leave europe alone

Have no advice for first case. But when choosing second plain old "Wait for Claims on Rivals" is very good, if you know what "waiting" mean:

* TRADE, TRADE, TRADE, preferably with manual merchant sending as there are some generic missions that will give you cash.
* TECH, TECH, TECH, but **only** Trade tech. As it coincidentally happened, you need Trade 7 for QFtNW, which also gives you access to all CoTs in europe (minus horde).
* Create best trade advisor, and use Free Trade slide change to gain up to 12% compete chance advisor
* MINT - one magical world and all problems with your enemies are gone (get inflation reduction advisor as second one!)
* With QFtNW explore Ceylon and annex it.
* TRADE TRADE TRADE in all CoTs but japan, china and americas (and ofc. horde CoTs are out of the reach )
* Get conquistador to explore all inland CoTs that do not belond to horde!
* Pay friendly visits to Aztecs, Incas, etc. Get **ONE** province and gold (lots of them). (Province letter on will be used to expanding colonize reach onto whole atlantic coast!)
* Colonize all islands near iberians, brazil, NA, so other have harder time reaching new world
* Colonize st. Hellene, Fernando Po, South Africa, so they have harder time reaching india
* Repeat visits to your best friends in new world to collect your gold (from their gold mines).

Meanwhile patiently wait for Claim on Rivals. We all know that its borring, but hey fun haven't yet started

PS I'm not author of any of above tactics, there is thread on paradox forums with exquizite strategy tips for Holland, but you know how "wonderfull" search is on this site.

 

[stnikolauswagne]

* TRADE, TRADE, TRADE, preferably with manual merchant sending as there are some generic missions that will give you cash.

Early on the key to trade as holland (and brittany by extension) is NOT sending merchants manually, they will stick anyway since you are vastly superior to any other nation in the world, at least as far as trade is concerned. The key is to get trade range into the med as soon as possible. This cuts of some 6 or so years from the time to qftnw. Its best done by either taking a province of Tunesia or switching through trade leagues (you can always trade in the cot of your league-boss).

* TECH, TECH, TECH, but **only** Trade tech. As it coincidentally happened, you need Trade 7 for QFtNW, which also gives you access to all CoTs in europe (minus horde).

Meh, focusteching gov 4 is preferable since National trade policy increases your speed by quite and later on you will run into a wall of ahead of time penalities.

* Create best trade advisor, and use Free Trade slide change to gain up to 12% compete chance advisor

You cant count on the trade advisor and neither do you need to, since your trade is vastly supperior to everyone else anyway.

* MINT - one magical world and all problems with your enemies are gone (get inflation reduction advisor as second one!)

I would even go so far as to get one first, but it doesnt matter anyway, you can get two 90 ct advisors within a year.

* With QFtNW explore Ceylon and annex it.

also take okinawa.

* TRADE TRADE TRADE in all CoTs but japan, china and americas (and ofc. horde CoTs are out of the reach )

thats why you take okinawa (or alternatively one of the spice provinces on the east coast of indochina.

Rest is decent advice, and sadly most of the stuff I would contribute is more applicable in MP.

 

[przemo_li]

1) Nice thing about switching trade league! But musli tech group and beeing in PU make wars in africa somehow impractical at the beginning, also it adds tech hit from noncore, pispoor, oversee province.
2) Agree. NTP + changing trade league to Venetian is better. On the other hand how fast you can get QFtNW with that path? QFtNW give you 5 new CoTs to trade in (or more depending on your setup, and busy conquistadors with militarry acces with certain coutries ).
3) That was remark for those who do not mind to reload at the beginning of the game if they get weak set up. On the other hand 12% compete chance would be good for keeping your traders in CoTs while you focus on Gov thech. So it is good. (ok I do not advise for hunting for 12% one since it can be up to 20 reloads just 3 or 4 stars will be fine) On the other hand trade tech adviser is must (or gov tech adviser).
4) Minting is not as important if you are still in PU, so you should get chance to get 2nd before it matters. Other lowlanders tend to leave you alone then. Though I do not understand letter part so no comment there.
5) Ceylon gives necessary province for east india company. So if someone prefer colonization and/or expansion in europe to expansion in asia, Caylon have benefits over Okinawa. Though Okinawa (Ryoku) have good CB. So maybe both? (And right now I got illumination, that venturing into mexico to get one province should give trade range there too, making ALL non-horde CoTs available to your Traders

That thing about changing trade league is new to me. So I need to experiment more (I'm still not sure if trade rush for QFtNW isn't better in 50y perspective).

PS manual sending traders offer prioritization and 5 gold if mission for sending traders to CoT fire

 

[stnikolauswagne]

2) Agree. NTP + changing trade league to Venetian is better. On the other hand how fast you can get QFtNW with that path? QFtNW give you 5 new CoTs to trade in (or more depending on your setup, and busy conquistadors with militarry acces with certain coutries ).

Only thing i can comment on, playing a MP game right now.
With this tactic you can get QFTNW in 1416 or 1418, even under MP conditions.

 

[przemo_li]

DW 5.1 and changing trade league do not make venetian CoT accesible.

What game version do you have?
Oh and I manage QFtNW around 1420.

 

[stnikolauswagne]

DW 5.1 and changing trade league do not make venetian CoT accesible.

It does, you need to set up autosend, you cant send them manually, i have no clue how and why it works.

 

[przemo_li]

Oh! Thx!

 

[stnikolauswagne]

4) Minting is not as important if you are still in PU, so you should get chance to get 2nd before it matters. Other lowlanders tend to leave you alone then. Though I do not understand letter part so no comment there.

What i meant is this: Ideally you only want to get advisors from above 90% cultural tradition since it guarantees a 5 star-guy. So it only takes a few months to get two advisors from that number since you will spend all your mags on commisioning paintings anyway.

5) Ceylon gives necessary province for east india company. So if someone prefer colonization and/or expansion in europe to expansion in asia, Caylon have benefits over Okinawa. Though Okinawa (Ryoku) have good CB. So maybe both? (And right now I got illumination, that venturing into mexico to get one province should give trade range there too, making ALL non-horde CoTs available to your Traders

Ceylon should be taken too, but it doesnt give trade range to china, where the most valuable cots in asia are located.

PS manual sending traders offer prioritization and 5 gold if mission for sending traders to CoT fire

Indeed, the 50 gold you can get per cot may be worth it. Keep in mind though that once a different mission fires (like say, build a navy) and you cant cancel it then waiting for the mission timer to run out before sending merchants is not ideal.

 

[chgrogers]

What i meant is this: Ideally you only want to get advisors from above 90% cultural tradition since it guarantees a 5 star-guy. So it only takes a few months to get two advisors from that number since you will spend all your mags on commisioning paintings anyway.

Ceylon should be taken too, but it doesnt give trade range to china, where the most valuable cots in asia are located.

Indeed, the 50 gold you can get per cot may be worth it. Keep in mind though that once a different mission fires (like say, build a navy) and you cant cancel it then waiting for the mission timer to run out before sending merchants is not ideal.

I like taking a loan out on day 1. Then once you get finish the first mission repay our loans mission fires most of the time. Over the next 5 years build up 1.0% inflation. Basically free money to build all the Tier 1 buildings. I also attempt have 5 merchant and usually abandon the poorest COT to make the Trade in X COT mission fire.

 

[ATBKING]

Hahaha

ive read the first three pages of this and I must say im dying of laughter. I have personally formed Netherlands in 1407 at the fastest.
1) if you can get a ruler with a high Diplomacy rating(higher the better), you get a claim on rivals event.
2) Ally with burgundy or something. you know they are always at war.
3) attack a nation not in the empire and form a large nation. once your strong enough, start bribing other nations with royal marriages or alliances or whatever to make them vote for you. once your emperor, take all the land around you and wait for it to core.they will consider you for emperor.

 

[brifbates]

What i meant is this: Ideally you only want to get advisors from above 90% cultural tradition since it guarantees a 5 star-guy. So it only takes a few months to get two advisors from that number since you will spend all your mags on commisioning paintings anyway.

At game start it takes Holland ~2.5 years to get the 2nd advisor after the first (assuming you only recruit at 90+ CA) since you get 1.6 magistrates/year (less time if you first expand the bureaucracy and/or expand SoI) . While this is short in terms of the overall game it is hardly "a few months". This is on top of the multi-year climb to get to 90 in the first place (8+ years minimum).

 

[unmerged(463662)]

ive read the first three pages of this and I must say im dying of laughter. I have personally formed Netherlands in 1407 at the fastest.
1) if you can get a ruler with a high Diplomacy rating(higher the better), you get a claim on rivals event.

I've been inspired bythis thread and have started a pacifist holland game.

Had a dip9 guy for 40 years, no claim on rivals event.

Is it really best for holland to form the Netherlands in 1407? In my game, if you leave everyone alone, nobody touches you, so you can just trade trade trade.

 

[brifbates]

I've been inspired bythis thread and have started a pacifist holland game.

Had a dip9 guy for 40 years, no claim on rivals event.

Is it really best for holland to form the Netherlands in 1407? In my game, if you leave everyone alone, nobody touches you, so you can just trade trade trade.

This is the drawback to any strategy that depends on getting certain events/random missions. While you can take some steps to maximize your chances rng can still bite you in the rear. An event like claims on our rivals is even worse because if you have any real success the nations you need it to fire against can easily be removed from your rivals list.

The drawback to a pacifist strategy is when you have a lucky neighbor that is bigger than you they WILL eventually get a border dispute and attempt to steamroll you.

 

[unmerged(463662)]

Yep, there's absolutely no chance of me getting a claims on my rivals event. Holland is no. 1 in the world...

edit...

just got one, 48 years into my dip9 king's rule, got 10 prestige and nothing else.

 

[ATBKING]

Had a dip9 guy for 40 years, no claim on rivals event.

in my frankfurt game, i had a guy with a 7 and i got it three times in one year. i guess it depends on luck.

But in my opinion, the only drawback is if you take too long to become netherlands. its the same as playing with Ireland except ireland is weaker. when you play as Holland, you only need Freisland, Brabant or Brenda, and ?Utrect? to form netherlands. once you get them and switch, they give you cores on Antwerpen, and like two or three other provinces. That being said, even before you take antwerpen, your allowed to hold 20 units. after you take Antwerpen, i can take down Burgundy and France single handed.

 

[unmerged(463662)]

It was a bit rough and ready, as I got steamrolled and my armies annilihated twice whilst making this, but Nederlands was formed in 1410, and now with all cores plus Ghent 1419. It all could have been done faster. I was stupid in the first war: got occupied by the english and portuguese, and spent time building infrastructure before the third war.

It's slower than pure Holland, tech wise. QFTNW will be 5 years later. & to be honest, it doesn't make much difference, as the neighbours respect a quiet Holland, and I conquered Gibraltar to compensate.

However, the only time you'll ever get the claims on your rivals event that is worth anything is in the first decade.

 

[maxirage]

Relying on the "claim on rivals" event is a terrible idea, as most of the time it won't fire when you need it. Using the "annex x" mission strategy I explained earlier is a far more reliable and better idea.

 

[przemo_li]

The thing nobody seam to adress.

What gives forming Netherlands? 40g income? MP?
What it takes? Trade suffer a bit. Tech progress slower.

Is it worth it when if you focus on QFtNW solely you can get trade in mexico, NA (if they have any at such early time in game), africa, asia, china.

Than uniting Ntherlands give the same benefits but:
Tech progress superfast anyway, trade is harmed but since you have large portion of it in places where you are dominant anyway (new world, africa) dent is smaller.

And for that to happen you need to wait (and mint to have large standing army) 50y (20y to QFtNW, ~30y to get 5 traders in all those CoTs).
Than it may happen that you already have claims on rivals, and have progressed enough in tech that you can bite HRE emperor, event though you are 2PM

(Anyway that is good strategy for those who want to escape from europe, since additional land in europe make it harder)