Best nation to conquer the world with

[unmerged(6147)]

Whoah! A Civil War every 3rd/4th month? That's quite heavy! Now if a civil war was just about provinces suddenly being controlled by rebels, it would be manageble. But with a sizable part of the army falling in rebel hands, how can you ever conquer the world at high BB? And you'll always rack up quite a few points when attempting WC. I got to "worse than dishonourable scum" on EC alone!

It is indeed heavy. I've gotten 2 in a row twice. The first time it occured between two BB rounds and the second time it was very late in the game when almost all territory already was mine. So I managed them without much problem.

The horror would be to get a CW say 1 month into round 1 of the BB wars. But it is very unprobable that this would ever happen.

So, CWs even on VH, during the BB wars and with high BB can normally be handled. You need some skill in preparing and handling them, and then, off course, it is of great advantage if you use Daniel's secret CW trick

 

[Grundius]

..., it is of great advantage if you use Daniel's secret CW trick

Which, if you don't mind me asking, is?

 

[Grundius]

England is the Best one to take over the world with during the 1800's campain

You mean the one in Hive's mod or the one in plain Eu2? Cause 1795-1819 does seem a little shabby for WC, even if you control an empire the size of England's.

 

[doktarr]

..., it is of great advantage if you use Daniel's secret CW trick

Which, if you don't mind me asking, is?

Keep your troops on boats, or moving toward boats. When the CW hits, unload the rebels into provinces where you have MA (or just a convenient high-attrition island).

 

[unmerged(24903)]

Well, I once got a civil war on plain 1.08 just when I hit +1 stab. Really! It sucked. And, with all due respect to Paradox for making this awesome game, I think these guys are putting too much effort in trying to things "realistic" by making CW so commonplace. At one point you just have to let playability be more of an issue than realism. And besides: what people do you know that, when their fatherland controls half the world and is still on top, rebel against their leaders because their reputation is bad? Sure they'll do it once. Maybe twice, but not twice in the same year, and certainly not within four months of the last cw.

I have to agree with you here. I love Paradox games - personally I think of them more as "historical simulations/models" than games, in that the design emphasizes realism and incorporation of details of history more than balanced game play. All in all, I appreciate this greatly. However, I think occasionally they go overboard with the realism/detail thing, and for me, CW is one such case. I do believe that CW is very much in the spirit of Paradox game design, and that it is implemented in a fashion that is more or less realistic, and from a modeling perspective, a reasonable drag on world conquest attempts. However, pursuing a world conquest game is in and of itself unrealistic (but a whole lot of fun! ). If Johan succeeds in making a game that is perfectly models the real world, then inevitably world conquest will become impossible, and the game (at least for some of us), will become less fun thereby.

Certainly, in the case where it fires with great frequency, this is a game ruiner, for me. In the one game I've played where I let BB spiral out of control, I did a mini-test that indicated CW would fire, on avg, w/in 3-6 months (if not less). This was on an earlier 1.08 beta, prior to the Nov 2004 release, but I'm not sure exactly which month.

I don't know how much Johan has toned down the CW frequency on the latest beta, but IMHO, I'd be happy to lose the CW "feature" altogether. Perhaps it would be appropriate to include CW in VH games only? Or better yet, make it toggleable, either through the options interface or an F12 command?

 

[unmerged(24903)]

Not to turn this into yet another thread about BB, but in the context of WC, I have a few BB management questions for the wc experts out there:


1) Is it possible in GC to do a wc where BB ends up under 60? I'm just starting my second wc attempt, playing England, and in 1609 I've got a BB of 66. I've attempted to keep my BB down, but I'm finding it very difficult not to go out wipe out those snot-nosed Portugese! But of course, if I start an offensive war and take 'em out, I'll rack up mountains of BB


2) I've figured out that I've under utilized diplo-annexing. I did use it as much as possible while England was still Catholic, then discovered I could no longer DA my (many) Catholic vassals. So I released all my vassals, and then ended up force annexing Ireland, of course picking up a wopping 6BB pts for Ulster (not at all a good bargain - but it had to be done!).

Then I noticed in a recent war w/ Spain that I can in fact force convert (I was under the impression that only Counter-reform Catholics could do that). So, is it a practical strategy to get into a war (possibly even an offensive war, if necessary), then force convert Catholic nations, and then in that war or a follow on war force vassalize them, thus re-opening the option to eventually DA them? If I can do this to Catholic nations, can I also do it to Muslim nations?

2a) If I force vassalize a nation, does that mean that that nation will in turn release its own vassals?


3) As I understand it, after you've taken all your cores, the best you can possibly do to minimize BB is 1 BB/province (taken from non-pagan nations, of course). As such, unless I've missed something, defensive wars are the only alternative to diplo annexation, and I've tried to get the most that I can out of the defensive wars that come along, however, once I get a powerful econonomic engine running, and I start to rack up tech levels, other nations soon become afraid of attacking me, and I see few (if any) defensive wars come along.

In my current game playing England, I am playing around with feigning weakness, and so far, Austria is the one nation that has displayed a continuing willingness to attack me. I have been keeping my land tech level slightly lower than Austria's, which seems to be key to their continuing willingness to attack me.

Does anyone out there have any pointers on milking defensive wars? And/or suggestions on provoking nations into attacking? I've got -200 relations w/ pretty much the whole world, and beyond that the Insult option doesn't seem to do any good. I have gotten better at using warnings and trade to pick up CBs, but I've never managed to provoke an attack.

 

[Grundius]

Keep your troops on boats, or moving toward boats. When the CW hits, unload the rebels into provinces where you have MA (or just a convenient high-attrition island).

So how's that for realism, Paradox ?

Don't you get problems with defending and with "normal" uprisings? What if you get a revolt in the midst of the Siberian coridor and your closest army is on a ship in the Chinese sea?

 

[unmerged(4344)]

in the context of WC, I have a few BB management questions...
1) Is it possible in GC to do a wc where BB ends up under 60?

No.

Even with full aristocratic, and on easy, you shed less than 0.6BB per year (considerably less with most monarchs and/or on harder levels). That's 240 BB over the course of the game. Well, there's something like 600 provinces that someone owns at the start of the game. You simply cannot wipe out all other countries while staying below the BB limit.

2) ... is it a practical strategy to get into a war (possibly even an offensive war, if necessary), then force convert Catholic nations, and then in that war or a follow on war force vassalize them, thus re-opening the option to eventually DA them?

Before the BB war kickoff? Well, the problem is they may or may not stay force-converted. However, you can certainly try it. Might work. After the BB wars start, just annex them.

If I can do this to Catholic nations, can I also do it to Muslim nations?

No. You cannot force-convert except between Muslims, or between western Christians, and everyone can force-convert pagans.

2a) If I force vassalize a nation, does that mean that that nation will in turn release its own vassals?

No.

Does anyone out there have any ... suggestions on provoking nations into attacking? I've got -200 relations w/ pretty much the whole world, and beyond that the Insult option doesn't seem to do any good. I have gotten better at using warnings and trade to pick up CBs, but I've never managed to provoke an attack.

Well, I'd bet they'll attack if you drop your pants - disband all your armies and see what happens. Not sure this is prudent, but you did ask. It helps if you have absolutely massive manpower, so you can rebuild to deal with the attacks without too much WE.

Regarding defensive wars, the way to get into them it to join them. Find small nations with no allies (usually isolated pagans), or just any alliance leader. Now bribe them up. You'll know it's high enough when they start asking you to join their alliance. Don't join - yet. Now wait for someone, anyone, to attack one of your pets. Eventually they'll ask you to join their war, and you do, and proceed to smash the enemy. However, this can be annoying as the pet is the warleader, and will usually peace out for just some money. However it is great against single-province enemies. Either you conquer them and vassalize, or your pets do, and force-annex. Then you quit the alliance and in due time return on the other side.

One thing I've been trying recently is intentionally losing battles to keep my warscore down. In theory, if you lose enough battles you should be able to get arbitrarily low warscore, and then proceed to occupy every single enemy province, no matter how many. As the last one falls, your warscore will go from, whatever, say -10, to +100 (all provinces occupied). Then you IMMEDIATELY make peace grabbing as much as you think you can get.

In practice, losing that much is mighty tedious. Better to just take the BB hit and vassalize them, then annex later.

One other thing you might try for kicks is allying with pagans and helping them take over local colonies (new world) or Muslim nations (west africa). Then you can leave the alliance and get those provinces BBfree from the pagans. In theory, you could help a pagan conquer the world, and then take them over yourself, leading to a low-BB world conquest. I doubt the AI would actually cooperate, though.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Which, if you don't mind me asking, is?

Well, if I told you about it, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it

Many have asked, a few have gotten hints, none has revealed it.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Keep your troops on boats, or moving toward boats. When the CW hits, unload the rebels into provinces where you have MA (or just a convenient high-attrition island).

Nah, doktarr, this it is not. While your suggestion certainly has merit, the secret trick is better, much better

 

[unmerged(9404)]

Well, if I told you about it, then it wouldn't be a secret anymore, would it

Many have asked, a few have gotten hints, none has revealed it.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Hehe, yes Iron is one of those few who have gotten hints.

And the reason why his post lacks words is

1. that he is bound by a promise of silence, never to reveal anything about the hints or info he got

and

2. that he is a gentleman and hence stays true to his promise

 

[unmerged(9404)]

Hehe, yes Iron is one of those few who have gotten hints.

And the reason why his post lacks words is

1. that he is bound by a promise of silence, never to reveal anything about the hints or info he got

and

2. that he is a gentleman and hence stays true to his promise

The reason why the post consists of only a rolleyes smiley is because you never told me what your trick was even though you promised to do so.

But if you want to keep it to yourself that's your choice, just don't brag about the fact that you know something special but don't want to reveal what it is.

 

[Grundius]

Daniel A,

Share the wealth man! The people are hungry!

 

[unmerged(29041)]

IMHO, it's easily Spain, starting in 1419 though. Spain was the best game I ever had and I got the most VP's with it. They're awesome because you get a CB against nearly every non-Catholic country in the world,

Not to mention the kick-ass monarchs and leaders that you get. The only thing that is bad about Spain is that after the War of Spanish Succession, you either have to go with a French or Austrian monarch. Whenever I play as Spain I always choose to side with Austria though

Hey, we Spaniards would have chosen the Habsburgs also if they have asked us then. We got shortchanged as the Borbons are amongst the worse kings one can get. Fernando VII for example is probably the worst king Spain has had ever, which is a lot to say. From time to time we kick them out, but they keep coming back

 

[unmerged(6147)]

The reason why the post consists of only a rolleyes smiley is because you never told me what your trick was even though you promised to do so.

Well, you did not fancy continuing on the mystery path to enligthenment

... just don't brag about the fact that you know something special but don't want to reveal what it is.

Hehe, of course I will brag, cause I'm so proud of my preciousss secret...

 

[unmerged(29041)]

Well, you did not fancy continuing on the mystery path to enligthenment

I also gave up on it because it didn't take me anywhere. Masters are supposed to teach not to confound pupils

 

[unmerged(6147)]

I also gave up on it because it didn't take me anywhere. Masters are supposed to teach not to confound pupils

Well then two of my three apprentices has reported in the thread.

And none of you had the patience needed to reveal the clouds of mystery. Ah, how sad...

The third one of you were actually the one who got furthest but not even he reached the core. And now he is sadly missing from our community, although not banned anymore.

 

[unmerged(29041)]

And none of you had the patience needed to reveal the clouds of mystery. Ah, how sad...

Well, once I moved from 1.07 to 1.08 (no patches) I stopped suffering CWs so both I lost the motivation and the possibility to experiment, since CWs cannot be induced. Perhaps in 1.09 I will revive my interest. Still if you want to tell me you know my PM and e-mail... I still have an academic interest.