Failed Ironman Run

[aperson456]

My failed ironman run. Initially, I was doing extremely well, I severely weakened Portugal, Castile, and England, got a PU on Scotland and vassalized Tyrone, solidifying my hold in West Europe, and also leaving the door wide open for American colonization. However, I had some struggles in the Castile war, with some questionable battles (30k lost to 10k, same tech), which severely weakened my armies. Immediately after, I got the Burgundy event, where I declared war without hesitation, as I wouldn't get another chance (to my knowledge, I may be incorrect). My recovering armies, which were in Paris, were engaged instantly by Burgundian armies, and I suffered a massive defeat, which led to the Burgundians sieging Paris (they did it in 116 days, because they won a battle there). While it may have been recoverable, bad luck with armies (reinforcements came out of FOW), and my AI allies being insufferably moronic, led to the Burgundians overunning most of my country. While it doesn't look bad on this map, its much worse, as basically all of my forts are besieged, the Burgundians have double the troops, my vassals armies are being repeatedly stackwiped, 25k rebels are about to rebel in Castile, and pretender rebels are rising in Scotland.

Am I bad at EU4? Is this fixable? Is Zlewikk reading this and will fix it for me? The world wonders.

 

[watchout86]

It's certainly recoverable, but not ideal. You lost the war (unless you go far in debt and get a lot of mercs, but to come back and win the war like that is probably more expensive than just giving Burgundy what they want), but you can still win the next one.

 

[Terixis]

That's nothing some loans and merc spam can't fix. Just be sure to engage them on either terrain with no penalties or where Burgundy gets penalties (might be difficult to fanagle if they have all of your forts).

Obviously it's too late at this point but if you restart Castille is the best ally possible for France as long as they don't start out rivaling you; they have a large army especially after the Iberian wedding and the only offensive wars they'll ever call you into are against Berbers and Mexican minors, all of which they can easily win without you actually sending troops to help fight. And then if you have Emperor you can backstab them later in true EU fashion with the Restoration of Union CB from the mission tree to take most/all of Iberia and their colonies for free.

 

[Restless Native]

You say the burgundy event? Is the that the Burgundian inheritance and who did it go to? Austria? Also what year is it?

The war is likely difficult to win now even with mercs but that’s not really a big deal. France is sting and can bounce back no problem. Consider accepting defeat in the war, rebuild your manpower and economy and wait for your chance at revenge.
In EU and all games the most enjoyable victories are those as revenge for a defeat.

As for the battles you mention there’s a lot of questions there. Terrain, generals etc. And for your vassals getting stack wiped, Jane you set them to attach?

Would you consider uploading your save?

 

[hermithill]

This war can probably be won, but frankly, you took a strange path - You took several provinces without a claim, and let Burgundy take your core provinces in Normandy. All you neighbours probably hate you, and be prepared to receive soon (depending on the truce timers) some declarations of war from Castitle, England and/or Portugal if the current war is too long as you will be weakened even if you win the war.

Edit: spelling

 

[PDXJon]

I’m confused because if this is the BI, why are all the lesser partners not automatically integrated? Did Burgundy lose them at some point? The remaining Burgundy isn’t that big. Who is fighting on their side? Is it a small prince or is it Austria? There is some context missing.

 

[Blackmoore]

I'd recommend restarting. This is kind of a mess -- no shame, I make a mess of many games.

A couple thoughts for your next France run:

• Kick England off the Continent. Take Ceuta from Portugal in the first English War. This gives you an avenue to expand against Muslims, which is important to distributing your AE.
• Take some land in Ireland -- so you don't have to deal with England's Navy later
• Ally Castile, they often rival Aragon early. Break Aragon open by taking their fort province on your border.
• Drop Provence, keep an eye on Provence and Savoy -- they are often Excommunicated in the early game.

 

[watchout86]

I'd recommend restarting. This is kind of a mess -- no shame, I make a mess of many games.

A couple thoughts for your next France run:

• Kick England off the Continent. Take Ceuta from Portugal in the first English War. This gives you an avenue to expand against Muslims, which is important to distributing your AE.
• Take some land in Ireland -- so you don't have to deal with England's Navy later
• Ally Castile, they often rival Aragon early. Break Aragon open by taking their fort province on your border.
• Drop Provence, keep an eye on Provence and Savoy -- they are often Excommunicated in the early game.

Yup, these are good suggestions if you want to restart (though, I'd argue that it's better to stick with this game -- no sense constantly restarting every time you lose a single war).

A slightly alternative (or additive) suggestion: only take max money (35 WS from money + war reps) from England and the two Gascony provinces in the initial war with England (that you start, as a reconquest of Bordeaux). That leaves more WS to easily reach in your second war with England (when you take the Normandy lands, plus the province in Ireland), allows England to be a more helpful early game bank to build up your country (while simultaneously keeping England weak), and shortens how long you need the first war to last, allowing you to go after Aragon's border fort earlier.

 

[aperson456]

You say the burgundy event? Is the that the Burgundian inheritance and who did it go to? Austria? Also what year is it?

The war is likely difficult to win now even with mercs but that’s not really a big deal. France is sting and can bounce back no problem. Consider accepting defeat in the war, rebuild your manpower and economy and wait for your chance at revenge.
In EU and all games the most enjoyable victories are those as revenge for a defeat.

As for the battles you mention there’s a lot of questions there. Terrain, generals etc. And for your vassals getting stack wiped, Jane you set them to attach?

Would you consider uploading your save?

It's a bit odd actually. Burgundy lost a war to Liege, and gave up all their subjects. Nobody inherited them, but I just got an event that said I could declare war on them and get a P.U. I never really paid attention to the B.I stuff when it was in development, and I'm not much of an expert on event chains like this in EU4. Also, its ironman.

 

[aperson456]

I’m confused because if this is the BI, why are all the lesser partners not automatically integrated? Did Burgundy lose them at some point? The remaining Burgundy isn’t that big. Who is fighting on their side? Is it a small prince or is it Austria? There is some context missing.

Sorry, my post above should explain that.

 

[aperson456]

You say the burgundy event? Is the that the Burgundian inheritance and who did it go to? Austria? Also what year is it?

The war is likely difficult to win now even with mercs but that’s not really a big deal. France is sting and can bounce back no problem. Consider accepting defeat in the war, rebuild your manpower and economy and wait for your chance at revenge.
In EU and all games the most enjoyable victories are those as revenge for a defeat.

As for the battles you mention there’s a lot of questions there. Terrain, generals etc. And for your vassals getting stack wiped, Jane you set them to attach?

Would you consider uploading your save?

Also forgot to say, don't know the exact years, but its the early 1490s.

 

[aperson456]

I think I answered most of your questions, but I need to answer a few more.

Q: Why does Burgundy own Normandy?
As I have said previously, England ceded Maine, which gave me a truce with them. After that, Burgundy immediately declared war on England. England went to war with me 1450ish, War of Scottish Succession. I won, but I was unable to take Normandy, as Burgundy beat me to it. Why they kept it, that will be answered next question.

Q: Why did I take a bunch of random provinces?
A: I wanted to weaken colonizers as much as possible. In my second war with England, that's what my objective was. I took the entirety of southwest England, to basically weaken England permanently, or long enough to be able to finish the job at a later date. About 5 years before the Burgundy war, Castile had a P.U over Naples and Portugal, and was fighting Aragon for a P.U. For my colonization plan, that was a huge red flag. I immediately declared war, and freed Portugal, and weakened Castille. However, as I said, my army was significantly weakened, leading to Burgundy walking into Paris and nearly stackwiping my 3 armies, all of which had half of their normal troops.

Looking back, I can see that the Burgundy P.U event definitely wasn't a good decision for me, as it obviously resulted in my failed save. Due to my limited knowledge of the B.I, and my relative incompetence at EU4, led to my downfall.

 

[Restless Native]

Well there’s lots of suggestions about what you should have done but I wouldn’t worry. I think it’s still recoverable. I’ll have a go this evening. France can bounce back very easily in this game.
So burgundy suicided against the HRE over Liege. Don’t ever change Burgundy.

 

[Sharples88]

First things to immediately notice is that your seizure of land is pretty subpar. Generally the first war you do is to take back your cores in Normandy and Labourd. Seize Pale as well since that gives you a very easy landing ground to take out the Irish Minors, invade Scotland (lucky PU you had I suppose). Since Pale doesn't have any fort connection, it's pretty easy to demand. The next war with England should be Taking London, taking one piece of land in Wales and Northumerland to release those nations. I would then recommend relocating your trade node to the English Channel and pulling trade in there.

When you did the Castile/Portugal war, you made a very bad choice in taking Bragana (next to Porto). This means you won't be able to core it until the core in Porto is finished; This will cause longer overextension and is effectively little gain for little return. You should also take Ceuta fort and make it into a trade company. Taking the fort is Castile was a good idea, I would've also released Leon as a vassal in Asturias.

If you're stuck on lack of diplomatic slots, don't take land you want to release to vassals until your integration of French lesser vassals is completed.

The fact that Burgundy even got Normandy is generally a bad sign that something went wrong. These are your cores. They have zero autonomy when you take them, there is no administrative points to spend, they contribute massively to economy and forcelimit. Not taking land in England is fine for your first war because realistically, nobody is going to take that land anyway.

Personally I'd recommend restarting rather than trying to recover the situation.

 

[Sharples88]

Also, I just tried your save file. And although I don't know what your DLCs are in this save, I've added all of the main expansions, but if you want to play this save file again, it's going to be without ironman.

It took me about an hour, but it's totally possible to save this game. You started in 1503 and I ended it in 1509. I've attached this video if you want to see how I saved it.

A breakdown of what you should look for:

• Spend your Papal points! You had the maximum 200 just laying around. Never let it reach 200. Catholicism got buffed, so I would recommend taking morale, national tax, manpower.
• Your idea set is kind of weird. Exploration and Offensive. Usually if you're going to go colonial, you want expansion with exploration. Offensive is an all around good military idea group but France absolutely does not need military ideas early game, in-fact it doesn't need any. Though for novice players, I'd recommend you do take one, and probably either defensive/quantity.
• Keep an eye on your war exhaustion. Nearing +10 and having a lack of diplomatic mama is never good. Thankfully you were surprisingly stable with +3 stability.
• Pretender rebels break PU's. Scotland had a 20k pretender stack while you had next to no troops in France. Luckily Scotland managed it themselves but the AI might not be able to handle it in a different playthrough.
• Force PU'ing Burgundy is very, very nasty. Especially if they've expanded more. It took 89.0 AE!! To PU them. I had to improve relationship with so many German minors that micromanaging them is going to be hell for novice players. Make sure you almost always take the splendor bonus for -10% AE. Keep prestige high too.
• Exploit development. Your manpower and troop numbers are so dire that it would help so much. Not sure if you have the DLC for this.
• Hire merc units immediately. (There's one with 3 siege) It also helps that once you exploit development, you get cannons. Again; Dependant on DLC?
• Siege back Haut-Poitou immediately. There's only 400 garrison in there.
• Get a level one admin and diplo advisor. Your military advisor is fine considering the circumstances, but if he dies try to get a morale advisor.
• Estate management; This looks to be a lacking area. Estates are made to be abused. Get monarch power from all the estates.
• Shift consolidate your troops. Very important to win battles and stackwipes.
• Remove all your edicts. If an enemy is sieging a province, put the defensive edict on.
• Alencon vassal has 'No Religion'? Probably a bug from my end.
• Royal Marry all available vassals.
• Increase autonomy in Burgos/Asturias to prevent rebellions.
• Don't be afraid to take loans. You didn't even have one at the start of the save.
• Your ally, Papal State will eventually peace out. He will help in your war in the meantime.

The actual war itself is not easy. But Burgundy is effectively out of manpower, their allies are weak. Eventually a couple years in you can get your boats over to their ports and block them, then immediately peace them out. Battles should be selected opportunistically, sieges should be done at the right time, capital fort needs unsieging as soon as you can. I can't really explain how you do battles here very well, you'll just learn in time.

Next steps from the save I did? Relax a little, integrate your vassals. Improve with Burgundy to +0 opinion. If your king dies before you get to that threshold, you'll lose the PU. It's RNG and yes, it's very frustrating. Let your manpower recover; And keep improving with German minors. There are so many countries that can join a coalition against you if you don't keep them above zero; I did for your sake, but maintain it. Five countries (including Austria) can join right now, but hopefully all your vassals/PU strength outweigh it forming.

 

[aperson456]

First things to immediately notice is that your seizure of land is pretty subpar. Generally the first war you do is to take back your cores in Normandy and Labourd. Seize Pale as well since that gives you a very easy landing ground to take out the Irish Minors, invade Scotland (lucky PU you had I suppose). Since Pale doesn't have any fort connection, it's pretty easy to demand. The next war with England should be Taking London, taking one piece of land in Wales and Northumerland to release those nations. I would then recommend relocating your trade node to the English Channel and pulling trade in there.

When you did the Castile/Portugal war, you made a very bad choice in taking Bragana (next to Porto). This means you won't be able to core it until the core in Porto is finished; This will cause longer overextension and is effectively little gain for little return. You should also take Ceuta fort and make it into a trade company. Taking the fort is Castile was a good idea, I would've also released Leon as a vassal in Asturias.

If you're stuck on lack of diplomatic slots, don't take land you want to release to vassals until your integration of French lesser vassals is completed.

The fact that Burgundy even got Normandy is generally a bad sign that something went wrong. These are your cores. They have zero autonomy when you take them, there is no administrative points to spend, they contribute massively to economy and forcelimit. Not taking land in England is fine for your first war because realistically, nobody is going to take that land anyway.

Personally I'd recommend restarting rather than trying to recover the situation.

I didn't go to war with England until 1450, England ceded Maine, and Burgundy got Normandy before I could declare war.

 

[aperson456]

Also, I just tried your save file. And although I don't know what your DLCs are in this save, I've added all of the main expansions, but if you want to play this save file again, it's going to be without ironman.

It took me about an hour, but it's totally possible to save this game. You started in 1503 and I ended it in 1509. I've attached this video if you want to see how I saved it.

A breakdown of what you should look for:

• Spend your Papal points! You had the maximum 200 just laying around. Never let it reach 200. Catholicism got buffed, so I would recommend taking morale, national tax, manpower.
• Your idea set is kind of weird. Exploration and Offensive. Usually if you're going to go colonial, you want expansion with exploration. Offensive is an all around good military idea group but France absolutely does not need military ideas early game, in-fact it doesn't need any. Though for novice players, I'd recommend you do take one, and probably either defensive/quantity.
• Keep an eye on your war exhaustion. Nearing +10 and having a lack of diplomatic mama is never good. Thankfully you were surprisingly stable with +3 stability.
• Pretender rebels break PU's. Scotland had a 20k pretender stack while you had next to no troops in France. Luckily Scotland managed it themselves but the AI might not be able to handle it in a different playthrough.
• Force PU'ing Burgundy is very, very nasty. Especially if they've expanded more. It took 89.0 AE!! To PU them. I had to improve relationship with so many German minors that micromanaging them is going to be hell for novice players. Make sure you almost always take the splendor bonus for -10% AE. Keep prestige high too.
• Exploit development. Your manpower and troop numbers are so dire that it would help so much. Not sure if you have the DLC for this.
• Hire merc units immediately. (There's one with 3 siege) It also helps that once you exploit development, you get cannons. Again; Dependant on DLC?
• Siege back Haut-Poitou immediately. There's only 400 garrison in there.
• Get a level one admin and diplo advisor. Your military advisor is fine considering the circumstances, but if he dies try to get a morale advisor.
• Estate management; This looks to be a lacking area. Estates are made to be abused. Get monarch power from all the estates.
• Shift consolidate your troops. Very important to win battles and stackwipes.
• Remove all your edicts. If an enemy is sieging a province, put the defensive edict on.
• Alencon vassal has 'No Religion'? Probably a bug from my end.
• Royal Marry all available vassals.
• Increase autonomy in Burgos/Asturias to prevent rebellions.
• Don't be afraid to take loans. You didn't even have one at the start of the save.
• Your ally, Papal State will eventually peace out. He will help in your war in the meantime.

The actual war itself is not easy. But Burgundy is effectively out of manpower, their allies are weak. Eventually a couple years in you can get your boats over to their ports and block them, then immediately peace them out. Battles should be selected opportunistically, sieges should be done at the right time, capital fort needs unsieging as soon as you can. I can't really explain how you do battles here very well, you'll just learn in time.

Next steps from the save I did? Relax a little, integrate your vassals. Improve with Burgundy to +0 opinion. If your king dies before you get to that threshold, you'll lose the PU. It's RNG and yes, it's very frustrating. Let your manpower recover; And keep improving with German minors. There are so many countries that can join a coalition against you if you don't keep them above zero; I did for your sake, but maintain it. Five countries (including Austria) can join right now, but hopefully all your vassals/PU strength outweigh it forming.

TYSM! I'm not very good at EU4, but some I can explain.
-Scotland had like 8k troops when it spawned, and I thought the pretenders would win, which would lose the P.U (I knew that).
-I have all DLCs except for Origins, just I don't use some mechanics
-I didn't want to lose like 50 batallions (or whatever they're called) from consolidating, I didn't want to spend hundreds of ducats on remaking them
-I forgot about the edicts
-Not on your end, Paradox bug it seems.
-I already did, but it seems you increased it further.

 

[Sharples88]

I didn't go to war with England until 1450, England ceded Maine, and Burgundy got Normandy before I could declare war.

Generally what you want to do with France is declare war on England on December 11th 1444 with a French core. If you let the Maine event fire, you'll still win, but you'll take very heavy AE for taking back your own cores. It's simply more efficient to declare on England in 1444 and get those most/all cores back (and Pale). Portugal will help them, but France has two incredibly good generals at the start of the game.

TYSM! I'm not very good at EU4, but some I can explain.
-Scotland had like 8k troops when it spawned, and I thought the pretenders would win, which would lose the P.U (I knew that).
-I have all DLCs except for Origins, just I don't use some mechanics
-I didn't want to lose like 50 batallions (or whatever they're called) from consolidating, I didn't want to spend hundreds of ducats on remaking them
-I forgot about the edicts
-Not on your end, Paradox bug it seems.
-I already did, but it seems you increased it further.

The Scottish pretender rebels, and interestingly enough I learned myself that they can't enforce their demands until the war is over. (At least if the UI is being correct). So there's no time limit if things go awry and Scotland fails against the Pretender rebels. If you want to engage them later in the war when Burgundy is secured, send your army over there and then peace out when the provinces are sieged back.

Also, you won't lose any units if you shift consolidate. When you hover over the consolidate button, just hold shift. It'll keep your 0 strength units in there and they'll start to reinforce; So you don't have to re-buy them all again.

The fact you weakened three major powers (England, Castile and Portugal) is pretty nice and show you're on your way to becoming a better player. Keep it up!