Part 2
Economy (46-61)
46: Raising war taxes raises your tax income for six months and the troops you can raise in a province, but results in a stability hit of -1 and a higher chance of revolts.
47: Inflation is an index of cost relative to the start of each scenario. An inflation of 100% means that a unit, structure, action etc that used to cost e.g. 10 ducats at the start of the scenario, now costs 20 ducats.
48: Each of your vassals surrenders to you, the suzerain, half of its monthly taxation revenue (not its full revenue). Your vassals cannot enter other alliances or Royal Marriages with other countries without breaking the vassalage.
49: Only take loans when there is no other way out of a crisis. Loans will raise your inflation, result in monthly interest payments and possibly eventually in bankruptcy, during which you will suffer lower army morale for 5 years. Bankrupt countries can reform, but are easy prey to enemies.
50: On the balance sheet screen, next to each source of your income (trade, production, tax) is a percentage. This is your efficiency for that source of income. Raise the efficiency of your higher income sources first to improve your economy effectively.
51: As trade embargoes last forever (or until you lose a war against the target country), you may want to embargo some countries while you are at war with them (thus not suffering the -1 stability hit) just in case you will gain one of their CoT in the war.
52: The trade value of provinces producing slaves increases as more cotton and tobacco provinces are colonized by all countries.
53: If your neighbors produce much gold, your inflation will increase as well.
54: Manufactories are worthwhile investments. Aside from the monthly economic bonus, they contribute to the growth of the province, reduce the revolt risk and result in free budget investments in their respective disciplines.
55: Getting a Monopoly in a rich Center of Trade is by far the best way to make money.
56: Your core (national) provinces have a small shield with your country's flag on them. If an enemy occupies any of these provinces, you get a Casus Belli (cause for war) against them. Never give your core provinces away.
57: Any changes you make in the budget window are taken into account only when you close the window.
58: The trade value of a province is added only to the controlling Center of Trade, not your monthly income. In order to profit from this you need to send merchants to the appropriate Center of Trade. Keep this in mind when setting up trading posts, as they generally have high trade values but very low tax and production.
59: Use the merchant Auto-send function with caution, it may not be the optimal way of distributing merchants to Centers of Trade (CoT) and can be very expensive.
60: Sending a merchant to a CoT can increase the number of merchants you have in it, kick out a merchant from another country creating an empty spot or simply fail. It pays to send merchants in batches rather than individually, since an empty spot can be filled immediately.
61: Sending merchants can be uneconomical if the CoT is far from your capital, very competitive or of low value. Check the report to see what the costs are versus the rewards for each CoT and decide accordingly. Sometimes it makes sense to let merchants expire.
Diplomacy (62-72)
62: You cannot enter a Royal Marriage with The Papal States or The Knights as another country.
63: Target your Letters of Recommendation and Personal and country Gifts carefully, they can be quite expensive. Create a nexus of friendly countries according to your strategy.
64: You cannot influence the number of diplomats available to you, except by going to war (+1) or shifting your relative domestic policy slider towards Aristocracy increasing the diplomatic rating of the Monarch.
65: Being the leader of an alliance gives you the power to negotiate terms on behalf of the alliance or to ban a member from it. It also prohibits you from leaving the alliance.
66: Each alliance is valid for 10 years after the last war in which a member was involved has ended. If during these 10 years a new war starts, the alliance gets renewed for the next 10 years automatically.
67: Diplomatically annexing a country is very difficult. The chance is higher if your monarch has a very high Diplomatic Rating, the country has lower relations with everyone else, and you have a much bigger country, a stronger economy and a bigger army.
68: You cannot vassalize or diplomatically annex a country if either you or they are at war.
69: Just before declaring war make sure that the country(ies) that you are targeting have no new alliances since you last checked! Also check for independence guarantee, and enemy land and naval technology levels.
70: Entering a Royal Marriage with a country will remove the fog of war in it.
71: If you want to maximize your chances of successfully exchanging maps, make sure that you have close to +200 relations with the country, that you know of at least some provinces which they don't, and that your Monarch's diplomatic rating is as high as possible.
72: You can only annex an enemy country as a result of peace negotiations if it only consists of 1 province, the capital one (TPs and colonies do not count). Reduce the country to 1 province, then try again.
Religion and Culture (73-83)
73: Converting to Protestantism will give you a large one-time economical boost.
74: Countries having a Reformed religion get a bonus on their monthly stability investment.
75: The armies of Reformed and Shiite countries receive a bonus in their fighting morale.
76: You cannot change the Culture of a province unless it is of Pagan culture or does not contain a city, in which case sending a colonist (or a missionary) can change the Culture to one of your country Cultures. You can change the culture of a Pagan province even if it contains a city.
77: Having a Conquistador present in a province at the time of sending a colonist will increase the chance of success. The Conquistador does not have to wait for the colonist to arrive.
78: An army consisting only of cavalry and headed by a Conquistador suffers less attrition because of the Conquistador presence and the high movement rate, and is thus the best way to explore Terra Incognita.
79: If your country religion is catholic, you get an automatic Casus Belli (cause for war) with any country that is at war with the Papal States. This Casus Belli lasts for the duration of the war.
80: If your religion is Sunni you get a Casus Belli (cause for war) against all Shiite countries. Similarly, if your religion is Shiite, you get a Casus Belli against all Sunni countries.
81: The chance of a successful religious conversion by a missionary is determined at the time he is sent to a province. This chance is higher if your monarch has a high Administrative Rating, the province has a country culture, and the population is low. Some religions (e.g. pagan) are more easier to convert from.
82: Setting the religious tolerance sliders directly affects the revolt chances in each province. You can change these sliders by clicking on the sign of your country religion in the monarch window.
83: Your country cultures can be found in the monarch screen. Any province you control that doesn't belong to any of these cultures will be penalized by a 30% decrease in tax income and a higher revolt risk. A further 30% decrease in tax income is applied if the province religion is not your country religion.
User interface (84-97)
84: You can switch countries in a saved scenario if you start a new scenario as the country in question and then reload your saved scenario without exiting EU2.
85: While besieging you cannot reorganize your armies, but you can move individual armies by selecting them by pressing the appropriate morale bar.
86: You cannot load troops on a navy in port. Move the navy to an adjacent sea zone.
87: Selecting a friendly port as the final destination for a navy with troops loaded, will automatically unload the troops at the destination.
88: You can hold down the 'shift' key to add additional destinations to a unit's movement path.
89: You can right-click on the mini-map to filter the display options.
90: The little square to the right of the status bar of a navy indicates it has troops loaded. Clicking that icon is a shortcut to the 'Unload Troops' button.
91: If you find conquering the world too easy, try harder starting settings. Playing without pauses also brings new flavour to the game. Or you can try roleplaying, that is making sure that all your actions would have been plausible in historical terms.
92: Setting difficulty at "Very hard" results in more frequent declarations of war by the AI if you expand your country a lot.
93. Use messages that pause action wisely, for example: To not waste time when colonizing, set message for colonist to pause, then hit "go to" and send another one immediately. When a province or sea is discovered, set the message to pause so you can give instructions to your explorer or conquistador without wasting time and thus extra attrition. Set the stability increase message to pause so that you remember to reset your treasury slider to your required inflation level.
94: Double-click on a slider in the budget window to lock it in place (grayed out). This is useful if you want to move some sliders without affecting others. Double-click on the slider again to unlock it.
95: After you reach a stability level of +3, all prior stability investment goes to the treasury and the treasury slider shifts accordingly to the right. Check that the resulting inflation is acceptable.
96: If you don't get a message after an event or diplomatic action (e.g. map exchange), check that your message display option for that event is not suppressed.
97: Use the in-game help system. Hover the mouse over each number in every window and wait a bit. You'll almost always see a useful breakdown of the factors that affect it, or a suitable explanation.
Multiplayer and Other (98-99)
98: Diplomatic Relation Values have no game effect between two human players. Let your actions speak for themselves!
99: Visit regularly the EU2 forum on the web at
http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/index.php for answers to your questions and more tips and discussions.
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edit: proofreading changes, thanks Lib.
