Beginner's Guide to: Not Failing at War
(The guide is not finished, nonetheless it should be very informative. I may or may not come back to it.)
By Oldman
If you are new to the game and keep getting destroyed in all wars, and you think the game is unfair, and you really hate it - this text will guide you through to victory or at least prevent you from losing. The purpose is to bring your attention to things of which you may not be aware. It is mostly about always relevant theoretical knowledge, rather than step by step instructions and numbers. Although I will provide EU4 Wiki links if you need to read up on something, I'm going to assume that you have at least rudimentary understanding of mechanics driving the game. I put effort into the phrasing and layout to make it an easy read.(The guide is not finished, nonetheless it should be very informative. I may or may not come back to it.)
By Oldman
The Golden Rules:
- Use the Ledger and stay informed
- Think about consequences
- War should be waged whenever resources allow for it
- Outgrow then conquer
- It does not matter if you are bigger, what matters is how much bigger
- Conserve resources
- Opportunism and patience are key
- Never neglect internal affairs
- Adapt - "A plan that cannot be changed is a bad plan"
At heart Europa is a resource management game which is why most of the Golden Rules involve resources in some way. Before declaring any war you should always do the research:
- Who is the target allied with and who of those allies would join the war on his side
- Who of your allies would join on your side
- Using the Ledger, find out what is the: Manpower, Forcelimit, Gold reserve and income of all the potential participants
- Estimate rough totals for each side
- At war, Manpower could be called war fuel, whoever runs out of it first will either lose or switch to depend solely on gold if they have it
- Gold reserve translates to Manpower and number of mercenary regiments
- Running out of any of the above resources will cause War Exhaustion or Inflation and other long term problems such as loss of opportunity
- Running out of both means complete defeat on top of what the above point describes
- Although anyone can go slightly over their Forcelimit, it is a good indication of how many regiments a country can muster at one time
- High gold income shows strong economy which allows for prolonged wars and more strategic / tactical flexibility
The best example of numbers not being all that important a defensive Swedish-Muscovite war in the early game. Sweden is one of the best if not the best country when it comes to defensive wars. Here are some advantages they have over Muscovy:
- Sweden has a bonus of +20% Infantry Combat which means they will always cause Muscovy more loses than Muscovy will cause them
- Sweden has reduced Mercenary Maintenance by -25%, in turn mercenaries reduce issues with Manpower, meaning that war can be maintained longer.
Last, but not the least advantage they have is their geographical position. At the early stages of the game they will always have a bigger fleet than Muscovy, allowing them to block all straits and forcing Muscovy to march all the way around the northern Baltic in order so siege Stockholm, which takes time and consumes a lot of manpower due to attrition. This is only increased by the large numbers of soldiers Muscovy needs to provide in order to match Swedes. Meanwhile, for Swedes it is only a brief stroll across Aland, allowing them to poke at Muscovy from the rear, further prolonging the war and increasing Muscovy's War Exhaustion. All this makes it difficult for Muscovy to occupy Sweden enabling them to maintain their economy and thus mercenaries for longer periods. Sieging capital provinces is very important, especially with AI as it greatly impacts their War Enthusiasm and monthly War Exhaustion and of course gives a decent amount of warscore. Why would Sweden want to prolong the war? Because although they have less resources than Muscovy, in the long run they are better at conserving them! When "Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics", Sweden is truly terrifying. Different strategies and tactics will be more optimal for different countries.
Remember that prolonged wars put strain on economy and can increase the costs beyond gold and manpower, the consequences can drag on even till after the truce is already over. For instance, you might be forced to take loans, which you have to return at some point and they cause inflation, which you can decrease by spending administrative points. Similarly, you should pay close attention to your War Exhaustion which can cause rebels to spawn. Reducing War Exhaustions costs diplomatic points or takes time, getting rid of rebels costs more manpower or gold if you need to hire mercenaries. Things can really spiral out of control this way. And any new lands you take are sure to have unrest. It is sad when after a tough war rebels break your country apart, and you cannot stop them, because you have no resources. Note, if you take too much land, other countries can join a coalition against you. This does not have to be the end of the world, but it can be!
What you might not recognize is that in this game opportunism is of absolute importance. In other words, you are successful at the game if you keep hopping from one opportunity to another. This is where experience comes in, because sometimes you need to be patient and sit on your hands, other times you must recognize and weigh the opportunity cost and take chances. Sometimes it is a choice between small risk leading to small reward and high risk leading to high reward, other times it is a choice between two of the same. To clarify, opportunity stands for the ability to achieve something at a lesser expense of resources such as manpower and gold than otherwise.
Just to give an example, if you attack France as Spain head on, although unlikely, you might win at a huge loss of aforementioned mentioned resources. This will hinder you in the future after the war is over by preventing you from acting upon arising opportunities, and by making you an opportunity other nations might take. However, if you wait until France is fighting England, and is attacked by Burgundy, and your ally Portugal is willing to join the war, and Iberian Wedding event has happened making Aragon and possibly Naples your subjects, and France's ally such as Austria is stuck in another war, you effectively divide the cost and risk of the war. I did similar thing myself only yesterday, completely destroying France without even raising maintenance of my troops.
The Watch-out-for List:
- Keep up with military technology
- Assign a general to the fighting army
- Attacking in difficult terrain such as mountains will put you at a disadvantage
- Spreading armies too thinly allows the enemy to snipe them down
- Attrition is very harmful to manpower
- War Exhaustion causes unrest which causes rebellions
- Avoid conflicts on multiple fronts
- Do not be afraid of loans
- Beware of overextension and coalitions
Lastly, in my humble opinion the two best ways of learning how to play Europa: first by watching YouTube let's plays or streams such as DDRJake, second by participating in small private multiplayer matches with someone who is willing to explain things and answer questions, and restart over and over. The EUIV Wiki is a decent source of information
Thanks for reading. I will be satisfied if this helped at least one person
. Like I said, ask away if you have any questions. Likewise, feel free to make suggestions. There is still a handful of things I would like to cover, such as more step by step explanation of how to gain advantage over another nation of similar strength, and I'd like to add some images with annotations, and some more links to other guides, but I don't have the time today. It's a shame it came out so long, but there is so much to cover!Would be nice if this was made sticky or something to make it more noticeable for newcomers.
EDIT1: I rephrased the opening paragraph and amended the list of things to watch out for and the golden rules.
EDIT2: I Completely rephrased the first paragraphs with new layout to break the daunting wall of text. Wish I had the time to do all of this at once...
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