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Rhadok and Naggy, great updates!. You guys are both very good at making things clear. One small thing, Naggy: in the bit where you say,"The province trades that good in a Center of Trade (CoT), based on:" It is a little unclear what you are saying. Maybe the wording can be improved? Something like, " What determines which CoT a province uses" maybe? Also, clarifying the importance of each of the factors deciding where a province trades. It's a little fuzzy as to whether they're listed in order of importane, or whether they are all equally important. (Of course, I understand completely what you are saying, but, to someone brand new, it might be a bit unclear).

That's all very, very minor stuff, though. The thing I think most important is this: National Ideas. I'm well aware that what I'm about to ask is quite big, and would require a lot of work on your part, but I honestly think it is very important. For a new player, deciding what National Idea thay should use when, and under what circumstance, can be very difficult to figure out. I'm thinking that a good addition to this AAR would be a section on NI's. You could have a very brief explanation of each, since they are all explained by pop-up. Here comes the important part for newbs. You could put in a sentence or two for each, explaining under what circumstance each is best chosen. For instance, you could say that National Bank is a good choice when you foresee yourself needing to mint a bit for the foreseeable future, or the one that improves your armies' discipline (forget what it's called) is a good choice if you are playing a minor who's going to have problems defeating his larger neighbors. (These are just examples, from someone who hasn't got the firmest grasp on the game's strategy, so they may be wrong in specifics, but I think give a good idea of what I'm asking for.)

I'm aware that this would entail a large update almost entirely for itself, but I think it's one of those things new players overlook. Planning ahead, knowing that you are going to get x NI as soon as it's available, followed by y NI, and knowing why you'd want to do so, adds alot to the strategic element of the game, on top of shedding light on something many new players might not stop to consider.

This is just a suggestion, and maybe it might take more work than it's worth to implement, but I thought I'd throw it out there.
 
Great stuff naggy! Really, very nicely done! Now you got me with a question though, as a colonizer nation, it looks like free trade is better, even with owning a CoT. I always though mercantilism was better for bigger nations.

Ah yes your comment thebigj_a. I am a bit ahead of you. When we reach GOV 4 all the NI's will be explained, I don't know to make that an intermission like naggy's, but it will definitely be discussed. The work as a whole is tremendous for an AAR like this, but I don't mind :).

I finished chapter 8.

Now if someone could make clear whether one can retreat his own forces after 10 or 12 days, that would be fantastic. It's Panopticon vs naggy respectively on this one.
 
thebigj_a: It's vague partially because I don't think anyone is 100% sure what the order of importance is. I'll go back later today and fix my wording though - I'm running off to work!

Great stuff naggy! Really, very nicely done! Now you got me with a question though, as a colonizer nation, it looks like free trade is better, even with owning a CoT. I always though mercantilism was better for bigger nations.

I would say that if you are planning on being peaceful and not having any non-core CoT's, then Free Trade is better, especially given how rich you'll be from dominating the best CoT's in the world. Mercantilism's decisions and triggered modifiers add up to be huge, but the triggered modifiers require you to take provinces from Denmark, Sweden, the Ottoman Empire, and India (and the East Indian Trade Route one is dependent on some existing CoT's not stagnating) - it's a pretty big undertaking to make Mercantilism beat Free Trade.

As for the retreat rule, it's 12 - both from experience, and from one of the release notes. ;). It was 10 back when phases were 5 days long.
 
Mercantilism's decisions and triggered modifiers add up to be huge, but the triggered modifiers require you to take provinces from Denmark, Sweden, the Ottoman Empire, and India (and the East Indian Trade Route one is dependent on some existing CoT's not stagnating) - it's a pretty big undertaking to make Mercantilism beat Free Trade.

One that I undertake quite happily :D. It is a matter of play style. You can't be a warmonger and go free trade. And if and when you do fight a war as a colonial power, you will need to manage your infamy very very carefully.
 
Can't wait to see how this plays out, England is one of my favorite countries I guess. Hope you have a good war plan waiting for France though they're pretty tough to beat in the medieval period I think, you can't blockade them yet, and you gotta pick your fights and avoid massive french cavalry stacks.

The problems that I've had while playing England generally come when I start colonizing, I just tend to run out of money in order to finance my army and navy, and then when I get big revolts, it becomes harder and harder to destroy the rebels, grow your colonial empire, and fight back enemies of the crown.

I tend to accumulate quite a bit of infamy, and I'm quite stubborn when it comes to warfare, especially with France, I rarely accept their demands for my continental territory, I prefer to keep fighting, until their war exhaustion ramps up and they're filled with rebels, then they usually white peace? Of course it becomes easier with naval tech 6, when you can enact blockades against France. And when you get longbowmen at land tech 5.

Then again, I tend to have the problem of the menacing purple Blob, Burgundy always fills the power vacuum that's left after I've taken a couple of provinces from France, or even weakened France with an exhaustive war.
*Sigh* keeping the power balance in Europe seems pretty hard, :confused:

Then again, maybe I'm too focused on European matters. I mean, can colonies really boost Britain in such a way that you can for example take on a strong France on the continent, in mid-late game?

How about the monetary situation being a colonial empire? What sliders would an optimal colonial Britain have, is it better to align towards free market from the start of the game for example? What about offensive/defensive slider and so forth?
 
12 days. 2 sets of 3 day fire and shock phases, I believe.
 
12 days. 2 sets of 3 day fire and shock phases, I believe.

As for the retreat rule, it's 12 - both from experience, and from one of the release notes. ;). It was 10 back when phases were 5 days long.

It seems that people trust release notes and the like a little to much. ;) It's perfectly ok to retreat on day 11. I just tried it to be really sure. There are no sets of phases, they just count days. And the number of days are 10. Tested twice the last minutes now. :)
 
It seems that people trust release notes and the like a little to much. ;) It's perfectly ok to retreat on day 11. I just tried it to be really sure. There are no sets of phases, they just count days. And the number of days are 10. Tested twice the last minutes now. :)

Oh dear. I'll leave this one for you guys to figure out :)

Ok, Britain has formed on the 11th of April in the Year of Our Lord 1409. Took me 2 wars to get it, continental possessions are lost to France. I ceded them in the first war. A CoT has already been established in London thanks to our big friend war taxes. We have left the Hansa, no gamey exploits of leaving, making and joining on the same day ;). Ireland was conquered in the wait between the truce with Scotland. So you know where I'm headed. To me this seems the perfect time to relay a save of mine to naggy to write about the war aspects. Or should we wait until at least some colonies are established?

Oh and...first NI? National Bank. I don't use it, but I thought the newcomers might. Tomorrow (Tuesday that is, it's been officially midnight so today it is) a new update will be written about the first war with Scotland and the ceding of the provinces to France. Also will there be a part explaining cores. After that a chapter about the conquest of Ireland and the formation of Great Britain.

phoo...it's hard work an AAR! :)
 
Ok, Britain has formed on the 11th of April in the Year of Our Lord 1409. Took me 2 wars to get it, continental possessions are lost to France. I ceded them in the first war. A CoT has already been established in London thanks to our big friend war taxes. We have left the Hansa, no gamey exploits of leaving, making and joining on the same day ;). Ireland was conquered in the wait between the truce with Scotland. So you know where I'm headed. To me this seems the perfect time to relay a save of mine to naggy to write about the war aspects. Or should we wait until at least some colonies are established?

I have been promised that this week will be pretty much a week of rest at work (given my average of 50-55 hours over the last 2 months), so I can start on the war part of the AAR starting Wednesday.
 
Looking at England's missions, the best HYW mission (Occupy Paris - get cores on Gallia) is England only, so the war tutorial AAR may be better starting from scratch.. It'll help me showcase war-only missions.
 
As an EU III noob, I find this AAR to be of great use :)

I have one question though, and it's a little off-topic but are stab costs supposed to be as high as they are? I find myself investing into stability year after year because it keeps falling down before I've even managed to raise it one step :(
I don't want to be at -1 or 0 for the rest of the game!
 
As an EU III noob, I find this AAR to be of great use :)

I have one question though, and it's a little off-topic but are stab costs supposed to be as high as they are? I find myself investing into stability year after year because it keeps falling down before I've even managed to raise it one step :(
I don't want to be at -1 or 0 for the rest of the game!

Wrong religion and wrong culture provinces add a flat modifier to stability cost. Innovativeness and free subjects add a percentage modifier to stability, and infamy adds a percentage modifier based on how much you have, so yes, it's easy to get astronomical stability costs if you're conquering away.

On the other hand, small to medium nations (especially if they become Holy Roman Emperor) regain stability very fast. As Bar, I was HRE and was able to switch NI's and regain all 3 lost stability within 6 months.
 
Wrong religion and wrong culture provinces add a flat modifier to stability cost. Innovativeness and free subjects add a percentage modifier to stability, and infamy adds a percentage modifier based on how much you have, so yes, it's easy to get astronomical stability costs if you're conquering away.

On the other hand, small to medium nations (especially if they become Holy Roman Emperor) regain stability very fast. As Bar, I was HRE and was able to switch NI's and regain all 3 lost stability within 6 months.
So basically I just have to get used to being on low stability? :eek:
 
So basically I just have to get used to being on low stability? :eek:

Lower your infamy, consider being narrowminded, become Holy Roman Emperor, and build temples (which give a flat stability discount, before any percentage modifiers). If you already have sky-high infamy, then yes, you have to get used to low stability.

You can try to hire 5-6 star advisors (no matter what they are), and pray for the Great Man event that gives +2 stability.
 
I've played EU3 some, and of course I played the earlier games in the series extensively, but I'm still going to follow along (and perhaps post a short bit about what happens as I play along just for comparison) because I never do very well at all. Maybe throwing out everything I know and starting from scratch would help me... ;)
 
Lower your infamy, consider being narrowminded, become Holy Roman Emperor, and build temples (which give a flat stability discount, before any percentage modifiers). If you already have sky-high infamy, then yes, you have to get used to low stability.

You can try to hire 5-6 star advisors (no matter what they are), and pray for the Great Man event that gives +2 stability.

There are several religious decisions that will lower your stability cost, at the expense of lower tax income for some religions.

What is your war exhaustion? WE is another % multiplier to stab costs. Make sure you reduce it to 0 (or close to 0) before going to war. If you are at war, don't raise war taxes!

You can have lots of wrong religion and/or wrong culture provinces, and still regain 1 stability point in under a year later in the game. High production efficiency, high trade efficiency, and monopolization of several good centers of trade is key. Your monthly tax income is dependent on stability, but the other two aren't.

In my Germany game, I was regaining stability in 9 months or so, despite having accomplished a world conquest at the end. Monopolizing every major CoT in the world and having high production and trade efficiency helps a lot later in the game.
 
I've posted the first chapter of the Combat Tutorial AAR.

Feel free to take a look and/or comment!
 
Firstly, Rhadok great job with this thus far.

I've been watching along silently.
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Going way back - for Message Settings.

For a new player I think just playing the default settings is plenty.

But I would recommend telling new players for their 2nd game, don't bother reading the message settings, just turn on everything.
And then as the game plays right click and turn off the ones you decide you don't want.

Do that about every 3rd game until the player feels like they have the settings where they want.

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Every message has a purpose, but only experience will tell the player which ones they care about....

Thanks - again Great Work.