2 questions ...

[unmerged(77251)]

Hi,

Playing EU2 for over 2 weeks now, i'm still wondering following questions:

1 - What kind of manufactories do you guys build on grain / whool / furs / ivory / salt / gold and so on ?

2 - Can you become Emperor as Netherlands ?

Thanks for your time,

qwerkus

 

[unmerged(9599)]

1 Usually breweries simply because I get them first.
2 Yes any catholic nation can become emperor

 

[QuidProNihil]

...I have a third question.

...the Netherlands is Catholic? I thought they were generally Reformed? (or at least don't take long to get that way)

I'm probably just ignorant, though.

 

[ShoGuL]

The religion of your provinces will change as the game progresses, according to historic religious movements.

 

[unmerged(61727)]

I think by Catholic he means Catholic, Protestant and Reformed.

 

[Ericus1]

No, he meant Catholic, although in this case Holland doesn't have to be. Members of the HRE can be any religion and become Emperor, but if you are not part of the HRE then you must be Catholic to be eligible to run. So only a Catholic England could be the HREr, but since Holland is part of the HRE they should be able to be any religion.

Very few nations in vanilla have scripted religion changes. Your provinces will change over time, but to change the religion of your nation from what you start with at the scenario start you have to do it yourself. Most of the nations that can become Holland start as Catholic.

I usually build 50 FAA's, which I build in the non-matching good provinces. Also, refineries are pretty much the most useful manufactury, and I tend to run out of matching goods provinces so I start building them elsewhere too. I usually build in provinces that are unlikely to be invaded (so the manufactury doesn't risk getting burned down) and has a high production value good, like gold, that will take the most advantage of the population growth boost the manu provides.

 

[unmerged(77251)]

No, he meant Catholic, although in this case Holland doesn't have to be. Members of the HRE can be any religion and become Emperor, but if you are not part of the HRE then you must be Catholic to be eligible to run. So only a Catholic England could be the HREr, but since Holland is part of the HRE they should be able to be any religion.

Very few nations in vanilla have scripted religion changes. Your provinces will change over time, but to change the religion of your nation from what you start with at the scenario start you have to do it yourself. Most of the nations that can become Holland start as Catholic.

I usually build 50 FAA's, which I build in the non-matching good provinces. Also, refineries are pretty much the most useful manufactury, and I tend to run out of matching goods provinces so I start building them elsewhere too. I usually build in provinces that are unlikely to be invaded (so the manufactury doesn't risk getting burned down) and has a high production value good, like gold, that will take the most advantage of the population growth boost the manu provides.

Thanks for your great help, all. According to eu2wiki, FAA are not worth the investment for most players. If i'm right, many FAA will greatly help recovering stability (even if build on non matching provinces ?) - so if i'm going to warmong a lot, I definitely want them - right ?

I did not manage yet to become Emperor; Brandenburg ALWAYS grabs the siege, and bribing all the electors cost A LOT of ducats, and even so much DPs . Some tips here to "get them into one's pocket" would be very helpful.

Again, thanks for your time,

qwerkus

 

[unmerged(4344)]

I don't think they are worth the investment, but I suppose opinions may vary on that. It depends on your situation, really.

On very hard, you don't have to DoW after you kick off the BB wars, excepting a very few countries. So, stability won't be a problem. Any stabhits taking you below 0 will quickly be corrected by DoWs from AIs.

On hard or below, though, to conquer the world (if that is your goal), you do need a lot of stability investment, because after a point most or all of the DoWs must be yours. And as you get big, incorporating lots of wrong-religion provinces, your stability cost will be very high. Also, once you are "over the hump" in a world conquest, you don't really need tech any more. You'll have plenty of income. In this situation, FAAs are probably the best thing you can build. This is probably the situation that Ericus1 up there was thinking of.

For any sort of game where you don't conquer the world, you can select which provinces to take, and should generally not have many wrong-religion ones. You may have pagans or wrong-religion same-culture provinces for a while, but you'll convert them. In this sort of game, income (and tech) matter, and you'll want to be buying breweries.

 

[Sejong]

Thanks for your great help, all. According to eu2wiki, FAA are not worth the investment for most players. If i'm right, many FAA will greatly help recovering stability (even if build on non matching provinces ?) - so if i'm going to warmong a lot, I definitely want them - right ?

They provide some free stability investment, which isn't too bad .. but that investment is wasted once you're at stab +3. It might be better to focus on income increasing manufacturies and then investing all income into stab for a few months to improve it and then go back to using your greater income to invest in technology. Don't know if direct comparison's have been made though.

I did not manage yet to become Emperor; Brandenburg ALWAYS grabs the siege, and bribing all the electors cost A LOT of ducats, and even so much DPs . Some tips here to "get them into one's pocket" would be very helpful.

Don't neglect trade, it's the easiest way to increase your income. The great thing about it is that if you focus on improving trade efficiency it feeds even greater efficiency.

For example, building breweries gives you an increase of +1% trade efficiency, which increases your trade income, which in turn funds even more breweries, etc .. it's definitely possible to get 200%-300% trade efficiency. On top of increased income from trade, they provide you with free trade research, increasing your trade efficiency faster, which leads to even more income from trade .. trade income basically snowballs if you have enough land to build dozens of breweries.

 

[Brian Roastbeef]

Fine Arts academies aren't bad. If you're playing a conquest game and will need something to help the high stability costs, then they're useful, if you build loads of them.

I still think Breweries are the way to go, though. It boosts your trade efficiency, meaning more income, more growth of your COTs, and more ability for your merchants to get and stay in a COT.

Also in a game that's going well, I'll have so many that I don't even have to research Trade past level 4 or so. You can build them so early, that they really boost tech at a crucial time in the game...

 

[Ericus1]

You have to realize, when I say I build 50 FAA's, that's like 50 out of hundreds of manus on VH. I've had 'Turn the Whole World My Color' games where I have run out of matching provinces for refineries AND goods manufacturies.

I also like to stay fully centralized and free peasantry, so my base stab costs are significantly higher than most WC'ers, and being at +3 stab is much more important with the higher war exhaustion max. The -50% to my stab costs from having 50 FAA's really helps offset both.

It's kind of comical when you load up a game and the 'built manufacture' horn sound goes on continously for about 60 seconds.

 

[Sejong]

You have to realize, when I say I build 50 FAA's, that's like 50 out of hundreds of manus on VH. I've had 'Turn the Whole World My Color' games where I have run out of matching provinces for refineries AND goods manufacturies.

I also like to stay fully centralized and free peasantry, so my base stab costs are significantly higher than most WC'ers, and being at +3 stab is much more important with the higher war exhaustion max. The -50% to my stab costs from having 50 FAA's really helps offset both.

It's kind of comical when you load up a game and the 'built manufacture' horn sound goes on continously for about 60 seconds.

Out of curiousity, what would be a typical figure for you stab costs with 50 FAAs at the time that they're most useful? I'm interested because I imagine that having 50% more TE would have more net effect than a 50% stab reduction .. but that's a guess only at this point.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

TE works on the base of world trade, which is variable, but I doubt is going to get much above 20000 ducats/year. In 1600 I tend to see about 10000d/year total trade.

Stabcost can be much higher than this, especially for Christians once they start taking over the non-Christian world. There are about 260 provinces which are Christian to start with, while there are 330 or so non. Of those, 90 are pagans (easy to convert). That still leaves 240 or so which are hard to convert.

Each non-Christian province has a base stab cost of 100, so 92 for Catholics. Even with full narrowminded and full serfdom, being over the BB limit gives a net stab cost of 103 per province, times inflation. So, owning say 400 Christian provinces (250 same religion, 150 other Christian) and 100 non, gives a net stab cost in the 25000 range, before inflation.

If you've racked up considerable inflation on the way to your world conquest, it multiplies the stab cost, whereas it does not affect trade or production income. So the more inflation you have, the better FAAs look relatively.

Of course, getting 50% more TE gives a steady stream of income, whereas the reduction in stabcost only applies if you are buying stability, i.e., below stab 3.

 

[unmerged(64049)]

Im with Sejong (although I see the pro FAA point of view), refineries are always the way to go, in fact I never buy any other kind of manufactory.

Stab means nothing when Im in BB wars and conquering the world (being always at war, civil wars never happen) what is stability to me?

 

[Ericus1]

Just for some actual numbers, my last WC game my monthly income was around 10K, of which my base trade income was 1,726 with a TE of 238% for an actual income of 4,126.

My stab costs were around 110K per point, AFTER being cut in half by 50 FAA (40% inflation in 1813, BB in the hundreds, full centralized, full free subjects, full narrowmindedness). And I had done a decent job converting the world.

So, 50 more refineries would net me an additional 900 ducats per month, but the 50 FAA save me around 110K ducats in stab costs. Since I can get a stab point in 11 months fully funding stab, that's only an additional 9,900 ducats of income versus 110,000 in savings.

By that point in a WC techs are maxed and income is irrelevant (hell, that was true mid 1600's), all that matters is getting to +3 stability as fast as possible and staying there for as long as possible, since I have higher war exhaustion due to being centralized.

 

[unmerged(64049)]

I understand ur point Ericus1, but I was aiming for highest posible monthly income in my WC, i forget what my TE was (I think about 360) and i forget what my income actually was (I deleted the pics I had in a rush of blood )

Btw - what nation u play in ur last WC?

 

[Ericus1]

A UK that had won the HYW, AGCEEP non-Mymap. I was two provinces away from having at least a colonial city in every province on the map in 1818.