How to not lag behind in tech?

[Prometheus_1]

Whenever I play in EUIV I have to use the diplomatic power , administrative and military to manage regions and other sutff , and the money is few, so how I do to keep in line with the technology of other countries ? As I always end up in red while all other powers even smallest nations have green and top tech !

 

[Avil]

- stop using powers on something else;
- start using expensive advisers, promote them;
- stop paying with institution penalties;
- stop having bad rulers;
- stop getting bad events;

Last two you can't address much, that's where the game shows, how much it wants you to do nothing but watch time go. Another 3 can be addressed, depending on how badly last two go. To fulfill the second, get more money, it means more land or subjects that pay. The third can be addressed by development in your capital (develop it when new institution is happening), or find another source if you can. First one is super obvious. If you can't stockpile power, you're handling your land wrong.

If you lose your points from events, than you have to google, why. Game may be cryptic about reasons behind events, but not always. Once I lost about 2 techs worth of military power in 50 years due to "division of council" event playing as republic. Flavour text says that's it's because we go against our republic traditions. From wiki I learned that you can get that event if your republic tradition is below 80, which means that you can have a decent ruler only for 5 years every 15 years, and everything else is decided by a roll of dice (i.e. how often bad events gonna trigger). I tried to keep tradition in around 70 (in monarchy, bad number of legitimacy is bellow 60). This session I learned, how amazingly awful republic government can be.

 

[Hoegaart]

It's hard to say what you doing wrong with the information given. In the very early game (pre 1500) you can't always expect to be completely up to date in tech and money is more scarce. Especially if you are playing nations with poor starting monarch such as Castille, this will improve as time passes. Disinherit terrible heirs to combat this.

What exactly are you spending power points on to "manage regions and other stuff"? It sounds like you are generally a bit too eager using your power points.

I can give a couple of tips, that you may find useful.
- Don't bother increasing stability past +1. The increased cost is not worth it.
- Don't harsh treatment rebels, let the rebels pop and stomp them. If possible let them start sieging a mountain fort, then attack. Harsh treatment is very expensive in military points, and early game military tech is very important.

 

[KaiserJohan]

I find rulers are a non-issue once you can generate enough Prestige to keep Disinheriting heirs (assuming your government allows it) untill you get a good one. Alternatively, if you get rebels that installs a new ruler, check his stats, you might want to make him enforce demands. Last resort, make your ruler a General and try to get him killed, the stab hits may still be worth it.

 

[Ketilsen]

Generally, when an event makes you choose between spending monarch points and spending something else, it's usually better to do "spend something else" (though of course give it a think as to whether it's worth the price). Also, just in case you've been doing this: the "Strengthen government" and "gain mercantilism" buttons are not worth pushing unless your Legitimacy/Tradition is dangerously low, it's usually not worth paying to get Stability up to 3 (up to 2 is fine), and it's usually not worth manually developing your provinces unless you're capped on MP and don't have any tech/ideas to buy.

Don't buy tech when the Institution penalties are high (though if it's below 10% you can do it), don't buy tech ahead of time (except maybe military tech if you really need to keep pace with your neighbours), and it's usually better to finish an Idea Group before buying tech in that category rather than getting the technology "on time".

As for advisors: figure out how much you can afford to spend on advisors, and spend that much. Meaning: if you're running a surplus of 2-3 + what it would cost to get/promote to a better advisor, do it. Remember that you can get discount advisors from your Estates.

 

[bbasgen]

The order of operations for using monarch points starts with technology, and then ideas. Developing provinces is worth it when in service of technology (e.g. kick starting an institution in your country).