A little overwhelmed

[ed84]

So this is my first time playing this series but very excited about it. But boy is it overwhelming even after reading a bit about it.
My first game ended in minutes. As soon as I unpaused Hungary declared war on me and all their allies. My second game, I tried to move just one notch towards centralization, the rebels went nuts, and things went to hell. I'm Bosnia.

Any pointers would be helpful for a newbie.

 

[Conch]

Any pointers would be helpful for a newbie.

1st: dont play Bosnia
2nd: play Castille, England or Burgundy, they're starter friendly. France and Austria are strong, but not that starter friendly and could get in troubles really quick if you are unexperienced.
3rd: Don't ever move to centralization when you don't have at least an army of 8k soldiers in the beginning, as you got a 33 % chance of spawning rebels that field more men than most countries have at the start of the game.

 

[ed84]

I decided to take over in a year that was more favourable. It is my country so hard not to play it.

So far, I get the economy sliders, the policy sliders, etc but not neccesarily getting how you improve trade and get a greater economy. (Aside from the obvious, investing into trade/production) The only thing we have is wool through cot. What do I do with that info lol Obviously I can't invade anybody at this point get resources.

 

[mgoetze]

I'm sure Conch meant to write "Castille, England or Portugal" when he was listing the good nations for your first game. Burgundy ain't it surely.

The way to improve trade is to send merchants to CoTs. As a small nation in Europe you'll want to be at least part-way towards free trade in your domestic policy for this to really earn money. Try concentrating on less hotly contested CoTs such as Alexandria. If you get into Lübeck, Venezia or Genoa, you'll probably be kicked out again before your merchant has recovered his placement costs. Otherwise, in 1399, your economy is what it is. Later on in the game you will be able to invest into buildings to improve your provinces but they're not available immediately.

 

[ed84]

I first moved to expand bureacracy, then i centralized, then for national ideas (i did national trade policy) and then i did move towards free trade.

Thank you. Is that the only thing that you really do for the economy?

btw what is the point of the cabinet? What do they actually do?

how come national ideas can be changed? I thought those were unchangable?

 

[Felicity]

Burgundy is a perfectly good starting nation.
Perhaps it's trial by fire but it has an extremely strong starting position when controlled by a human.

And yeah, Bosnia is.. well, you need to be fairly experienced to survive as Bosnia. Sometimes it's best to put away those nationalistic tendencies and pick something more newplayer-friendly to learn before you make Bosnia into a super-power.

Trade definitely helps, and is one of the main parts of the early game- production comes in later, but there's no easy peasy way to jumpstart an economy without taking everything over. It's a patience game, sometimes.

 

[Conch]

I'm sure Conch meant to write "Castille, England or Portugal" when he was listing the good nations for your first game. Burgundy ain't it surely.

I'm sure you have no clue what you talk about. Stop thinking about what other ppl could maybe mean to write... just stick with what exactly they wrote.

 

[mgoetze]

And why exactly did you expand your bureaucracy? Did you feel like a negative national tax modifier would be a good thing?

 

[cywang86]

Because magistrate is a scarce resource. They provide you with better advisers through Cultural traditions and buildings if you can afford the ducats.

Compete chance adviser is def valuable if you can't expand or vassalize your neighbor anytime soon.
Master of Mint can let you mint for money without worrying about hurting yourself in the long run, and can negate some bad inflation events.
Tech investment advisers are great if you don't have a respectable income yet.

There are various other advisors but these are the obvious choices at the start when you're not worried about conquest or don't have the army/naval tradition yet.

As for changing NIs, you can change it at anytime, but it will cost you 3 stability for changing it. Best not to do it until you have a stable country with no infamy and war exhaustion.

 

[unmerged(448676)]

I feel you man,I want to play as Byzantium 24/7 since I am greek but that gets repetive and easy (if you get Greece and Asia minor you can take over the world).So playing as Bosnia will be the test of what you know so far.My advice is to start in 1399 as England and sell your cores to fracne to someone else (even for free) if not France will DOW you (declare war).Then you send all your navy to the coast where French ships are and atk Scotland and Ireland.After you have under your control the isles and have rebels under control you are free to do what you want (mainly colonize)

 

[ed84]

It is only -5% but it gave me a 0.25magistrate/yr. I then added bureaucracy as a national idea, +10tax modifier. I knew I would do centralization too improve production/tax revenue. So it seemed to go along together.

And why exactly did you expand your bureaucracy? Did you feel like a negative national tax modifier would be a good thing?

 

[Flammehav]

I assume Bosnia isn't a whole lot of more friendly than Norway is. In my first game(in EU 2), I picked Norway and crashed and burned badly. Getting frusterated becouse there was so little I could do. Went on and picked the biggest country in the world(Ming, haveing no ide about tech groups), and rolled over and took territory from and annexed all my small neighbours(I didn't know about BB points either and had no ide why I was hated throughout the world). Playing loanshark(1,02 version), got mad when Japan didn't want to pay me back becouse of my BB, attacked them and lost due to haveing no ide about naval fighting.

The learning curve in the EU series is tough, but it's fun too. The problem with small, weak nation as Norway and Bosnia is that there is so little you can do. In your first game you should learn how to fight wars, how to improve your economy in both trade, production, by building buildings, sliders etc,you need to learn about inflation, advisors, culture and BB, and you need to be able to make mistakes withouth it more or less ruining your game.

Bosnia is NOT a good country for a first timer how tempting it might be. Try someone stronger first, and when you learned a bit you can go back and play Bosnia when you're stronger. In my Norway game around 1540. I own half of both north and south America, + haveing some 20 provinces spread around in Africa.

 

[ed84]

Thank you for the post. You really pegged how I feel. I feel like I don't have many options, just feels I have little to do.

I'll def try what you suggested.

I was already considering looking at all the things in game, from the sliders, to the policies, etc and jotting somte notes etc. Get a game-plan. Never done that for a game. lmao

I assume isn't a whole lot of more friendly than Norway is. In my first game(in EU), I picked Norway and crashed and burned badly. Getting frusterated becouse there was so little I could do. Went on and picked the biggest country in thw world(ming, haveing no ide about tech groups), and rolled over and took territory from and annexed all my small neighbours(I didn't know about BB points either and had no ide why I was hated throughout the world). Playing loanshark(1,02 version), got mad when Japan didn't want to pay me back becouse of my BB, attacked them and lost due to haveing no ide about naval fighting.

The learning curve in the EU series is tough, but it's fun too. The problem with small, weak nation as Norway and Bosnia is that ther is so little you can do. In your first game you should learn how to fight wars, how to improve your economy in both trade, production, by building buildings, sliders etc,you need to learn about inflation, advisors, culture and BB, and you need to be able to make mistakes withouth it more or less ruining your game.

Bosnia is NOT a good country for a first timer how tempting it might be. Try someone stronger first, and when you learned a bit you can go back and play Bosnia when you're stronger. In my Norway game around 1540. I own half of both north and south America, + haveing some 20 provinces spread around in Africa.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

I'm sure you have no clue what you talk about. Stop thinking about what other ppl could maybe mean to write... just stick with what exactly they wrote.

In that case, he corrected a mistake you made. Burgundy's definitely not as newb friendly as Portugal since it borders France and is extremely susceptible to cascading alliances when doing its missions.

 

[Nunn45]

In that case, he corrected a mistake you made. Burgundy's definitely not as newb friendly as Portugal since it borders France and is extremely susceptible to cascading alliances when doing its missions.

Yeh Burgundy aint exactly a friendly nation for beginners

@thread: as others suggested its best to learn to play with more large stable nations like England before jumping into smaller difficult nations.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Yeh Burgundy aint exactly a friendly nation for beginners

@thread: as others suggested its best to learn to play with more large stable nations like England before jumping into smaller difficult nations.

I'd say Castile is even easier than England, since it doesn't have to contend with regular DoW's from France and Burgundy. There's also no highlander event from Scotland or cascading alliances from eating up Irish minors. All Castile does is to roflstomp Granada and the Muslims who don't really stand much of a chance unless Ottoman and Mamluks get involved.

 

[Nunn45]

I'd say Castile is even easier than England, since it doesn't have to contend with regular DoW's from France and Burgundy. There's also no highlander event from Scotland or cascading alliances from eating up Irish minors. All Castile does is to roflstomp Granada and the Muslims who don't really stand much of a chance unless Ottoman and Mamluks get involved.

with England though you have the bonus of being on an Island with easy missions on your neighbors if you actually build a navy and maybe cede those European holdings those cascading alliances mean nothing.

 

[mgoetze]

Oh sure, magistrates are scarce... but are they so scarce that Bosnia doesn't have enough of them? I was addressing the OP with my question because I would like to understand his thought process.

 

[Dankysh]

Oh sure, magistrates are scarce... but are they so scarce that Bosnia doesn't have enough of them? I was addressing the OP with my question because I would like to understand his thought process.

Early years you may have a point. A lot of countries don't need extra magistrates at the start as buildings are expensive then. (Though it is very good for cultural tradition and getting a great master of mint - which at early game is very important). However as the nation grows the need for magistrates exponentially increases. There becomes a point were a big nation would trade a significant portion of it's money to get those all important military buildings (especially in 5.2b with MP being hard to handle).

I always expand the bureaucracy as -5% tax is only very little (majority of nations will have trade/production as the main income) and the extra mag helps with getting good advisors. Then in the long run helps with the very important buildings.

 

[ed84]

There is an option to have a church tax..how helpful would that be?

Also, at the start of the game, is the investment into the advisors worth it?