I am new to this game and still a lil usless....

[The Andy-Man]

well, i just got the game yesturday, but i got it in a DVD box so the manuel is on PFD and is even harder to get to grips with. so i have just a few questions:

I am playing a game on Grand Campagne as the English, but it seems to me that i have much slower tech levels then everyone else, i mean, by 1540, spain new most of the americas and all i new was what i had stolen so, how do i build exploers and with the tech levels, everone seems to rave ahead of me, why does it seem to take me so long, is it just the english (like, do they catch up later on and stuff). By 1550, i was lvl 9 land military, lvl 10 naval not very useful for exploration.


Economy: Why do i always seem to only have 250ducets? even the big cash paybent every yr is like only 200 (max i had was 300), and i spend that pretty quick just to defend some provinces again, is this another fault of the british?

Peacful Annexation:
I 'know' how to do this but it dont work, hannover have been my vassels (or had been) for over 10yrs, and were in a military alliance with me plus we had a realtion of +200, but no annex option

And what happens if you take over an enemy (enemy being a gold shield nation) capital when he has no other provinces left, surley you elimintate them?

And any other advice would be nice.

 

[unmerged(4076)]

1) Welcome to the wonderful world of EU. Enjoy your stay.

2) You can't build explorers, they are awarded in random or historical events. Don't worry, you'll get some good ones later.

3) No, not specific to the Brits. A empty treasury is quite common, at least to me. What can I say? Send a few traders, build a manufactury.

4) You need a common landborder and even then it isn't sure if they'll accept.

5) No, not in the regular GC. In the GC major nations (goldy shields) are not annexable. Unless you edit the savefile which I do not advise you to, unless you know what you're doing. An easier way is to download the IGC. It makes any nation annexable, it adds some nations and interesting historical events. Highly recommended.

Phew. I hope you can find some reason in this. Good luck!

 

[The Andy-Man]

you say build manufactory, i never have 600ducets (i never have 60ducets)

i forgot to ask how i make my own provinces CoT's....

and thx for the help.

 

[Nikolai II]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
you say build manufactory, i never have 600ducets (i never have 60ducets)

i forgot to ask how i make my own provinces CoT's....

and thx for the help.

If you put your income slider all the way to the right you should have 600D within three years game-time, at least if you are niggling about what you spend it on during that time.

Anglia should become a CoT soon if it is not already. As for RotW (Rest of the World = Not Europe) you send colonists and traders to provinces and hope for luck. Delaware and two povinces neighbouring, and the Cape of Africa seem to be god bets, but there is a powerful random element.

Also, manual or not, EU1 has a steep learning curve and it usually takes a few tries to get a good feeling about the game. And as you might have noticed it pays good dividends to ask around this place

 

[unmerged(7288)]

CoTs in your own provinces eh?

Again you can't build them the computer dishes them out over time. But don't worry too much as Anglia becomes a CoT reasonably early on.

Have you got tax collectors in your provinces?

Are you sending merchants to CoTs?

How low down is your income slider? are you losing money monthly.

i also noticed that you have what I consider to be a very high land technology for England at the time. are you putting enough money into trade and infrastructure reseach. On the economy page you will see that trade and infrastructure have a % number next to the base value. As these levels increase so does the % thereby giving you more money per month.

Is your stability at +3? the higher the stab(ility) the more money you get from taxes.

Also England have a large navy and that is costly to keep. If you are not at war are you putting the maintenance sliders down. These are the shields with an anchor and soldiers head at the top left of the normal map mode.

Hope this helps

 

[The Andy-Man]

i always leave maintanence at 100%, and if i slide my income thing to the max, wont my reaserach take a bashing?

 

[unmerged(7288)]

Your research will get battered big time and just for extras your inflation will start to go up. Having said that it is good advice if you really need the money.

England don't start too brightly but they pick up at quite a frightening pace. If you think back on how England at the time was a back water and yet think of how the Tudors turned it around you get the idea that trading and colonizing are good ideas.

I also seem to remember that England get a conquistador about this time ( I don't play England all that often so I could be wrong though)
Send him to North America and follow him with trading posts. You will be amazed at how fast the money starts to roll in.

I never keep my maintenance at 100% unless in a war or so stinking rich that I can afford to, but I know other players do so it's swings and roundabouts because I also try not to attack other countries too much, so probably fight less as well.

 

[The Andy-Man]

i only ever fight if i have to at the moment (only places to really attack is north france, and then its a hell ofa time defending).

And the history o the british empire (1600-1945) is kinda my subject

its just i dont really want to be immensly behind with colonies when 1580 comes around

i dont need the money THAT bad (only enough to max out troops in france and annex scotland). i just want decent tech, do you thin it owuld be wise to keep military tech minimal and trade/infastructre max?

 

[unmerged(3627)]

For general strategy tips, and also for some advice specific to playing England, check out the FAQ forum thread "Advice for EU beginners" which links to my post "Strategy Guide for Major nations"

There's lots of other good stuff in those links as well. Hope that helps you out. England is always very very slow to get moving, but after about 1560, they tend to explode. Conversely, Spain expands enormously in the first 100 years and builds a vast lead in VP standings, but spends the next two centuries trying to fend off a total collapse. So if you've reached 1547 and Spain has sixteen times as many VP's as you do, I wouldn't worry too much

 

[The Andy-Man]

i gotto 1560 on a trial game, and spain only had dbl my VP, so that must be a good thing.......

 

[unmerged(7288)]

Better than I did with my first time as England

It really is worth playing out the whole scenario because England get a LOT better. I always play most countries with a minimum size army/navy with low inflation and a strong economy (except in multiplayer games where everyone knows this and kicks the crap out of me )

Those Scots are a right pain in the ass thats true and after Brandon you are left waiting for a leader for ages, so it's always one eye over the shoulder.

As for France either take Picardie if you can so you can station an army permanently near his capital or give up Calais completely if you keep taking a beating. Go for the Hanseatic League instead. This gives you borders near you natural allies (Saxony and Hannover)and a CoT to boot

 

[The Andy-Man]

only prob with this is stability problem

I like having calais though, it gives me good acsess to attack flanders, AND france. Onl problem is, if i am at war with one more then likely the other joined in against me and then i am a bit stuck.

 

[unmerged(3627)]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
only prob with this is stability problem

I like having calais though, it gives me good acsess to attack flanders, AND france. Onl problem is, if i am at war with one more then likely the other joined in against me and then i am a bit stuck.

Keeping the continental presence via Calais is the high-risk-high-reward strategy for England. It can be done, if you're clever and/or lucky, but if it goes wrong you get butchered

The boring-but-safe strategy is to cede Calais at the earliest possible opportunity, which removes the French CB against you and leaves them and the Spanish free to kick lumps out of each other while you concentrate on building infrastructure improvements. On this basis, you won't take any provinces from anybody for the first seventy years, but after that, you're in a very strong position indeed because you've already built all your tax collectors and chief judges, and can concentrate on raising armies.

 

[unmerged(7288)]

I wouldn't touch Flandres with a barge pole! In the game that is, I've been there in real life and it's very nice

When the Netherlands kick off they do it in style! I would wait until they gain independance and then do it if you must (unless they are already independant in which case ignore me. Its been a long day )

England can usually barely afford one war let alone two, you are right there but with the exception of Portugal they also have to be far more picky about their fights. As England (and Portugal) I find that my wars are planned about 3 years before they happen as opposed to say Turkey or Russia who can muster a frightening amount of troops in a short space of time. Forget the quality see how quickly those bodies can form a ramp over walls

 

[unmerged(1047)]

England tends to get a lot of explorers, conquistadors, and colonists later than Spain and Portugal do - you should be at least on par with France in this respect. Neither France or England gets much before about 1550 - but soon after that, between changing religion and the coded-in historical events and colonial dynamism, you'll be off and running. Going Protestant, or even Reformed, will increase your colonists even more. Protestant is the best for your income though.

Militarily, the best option before the colonial period is conquering Scotland. (Unlike in history, England doesn't automatically gain Scotland when King James comes to power.) Usually I give up Calais in the first war with France. Having no land borders (except with Scotland) makes defending yourselt with a rather smal army relatively easy. In fact, except when you're about to go after Scotland, you shouldn't need to build any troops at all until the colonial period.

Economically, the best choice early on is to pump everything you can into research, and use whatever cash you have for tax collectors, judges and naval manufactories in your fish provinces. (Getting to navy tech 16 will allow you to build a shipyard, which will seriously boost your shipbuilding capacity and also give you an extra colonist every year. BTW you can't get multiple extra colonists by building more than one shipyard!)

As far as money is concerned, I usually will set the budget sliders to put all the income toward research and use only the annual income for my use. This way you don't get any inflation. Later on you can deal with inflation, as building mayors will cancel 1 point of inflation per mayor, and in the colonial period, you have lots of places to build mayors! Sending merchants to nearby COTs will increase your research, as will those naval manufactories (navy research only in this case).

If you really want to create your own COT - well, you can't in Europe, as there's enough already (though one will generate in Anglia and another in Holland later in the game). But in the colonies, you can. If you build one colony and a lot of trading posts in a region a COT will appear in your colony. If you don't care where it is, go ahead and build colonies. (Trading posts will also stake out territory if you don't have the funds for colonies.) North America is usually the slowest in this regard, as it's relatively close to Europe. if you can get one in India or Indonesia it may steal most of the trade from the Chinese, Indian and Japanese COTs and thus be extremely valuable.

COTs are also more likely to appear in your territories if you have a relatively high trade level. You also gain more from merchants in this case. (If you run up to level 7 or 8 early on, and with a good India or Indonesia COT nobody knows about, you can easily boost your monthly income by 100-150 a month). If you have a monopoly in a COT outside of Europe that's rather valuable, you can try trade embargoing other nations in order to keep them out of it. It will give them a CB against you, but if they don't have a land border, that's not usually a problem.

 

[SideshowBob]

You are failing to notice your explorers, some have come and died again if you are in 1540 as England. That is how Spain is finding the new world, not by having high Naval tech. Your first explorer as England is 1497 Cabot. They look like normal leaders except they have a gold sextant (exp) or a gold helmet (conq) next to their name. EU1 only has new leaders appearing in the scroll bar down the bottom as a default, may i suggest you change your message settings to get them to appear in a pop up box.

Also right click on the mini world map and choose explorers and it will put a red dot where they are.

 

[unmerged(6159)]

England (especially) needs to research trade. Keep that slider near 50% (except when your pulling cash to build something). Be careful about where you send merchants - autosend wastes a LOT of your money. To me land 9 and Naval 10 by 1550 sounds like you're way ahead of where I'd be, so I suspect you'd be richer if you focussed more research on trade. With a high trade tech you can catch up with the other techs whenever you like.

 

[The Andy-Man]

ok, i started a new game with england (and i did notice the explorers, stupid, should a bin in a pop up).

So, in 1530 this is the situation:

3 colonies (manhatten, delleware andnova scotia), with 2 other provinces still to be colonized.

I decided to stick to Catholosism till reformed, because all of the trouble with the stability etc isn't worth it at the moment.

I have keept calais and it now has 60troops, i took flanders which has 100 (i know that france is ready for war with me), i peacfully annexed Hannover (i had taken Friesen off of spain), Kleves are my vassels and brandenburg are my allies (not vassels, i think there army is to big to accept the offer).

i have saved up 1000, but built a refinery so (after the yearly money thing) i have 500 with alot of troops in the euro provinces.

upto lvl 6 for land, lvl 5 (or 6 i think) for navy, lvl 4 for trade (but this is now low so i can getto lvl 11 land quicker) and lvl 5 for infastructure.


And getting to lvl 16 navy is hard enough,m let alone getting the money to start building shipyards!!!

And is there a way i can get mnore colonists as a Catholic?

 

[unmerged(6909)]

Originally posted by The Andy-Man
And getting to lvl 16 navy is hard enough,m let alone getting the money to start building shipyards!!!

And is there a way i can get mnore colonists as a Catholic?

No (besides becoming countereformed for a small period of time), you can get colonists from
-religion (orthodox:1, protestant:1, reformed: 2, counterreformed: 1, rest: 0)
-shipyard (1, no matter how much shipyards you build)
-random events
-explorer and conquistadors (1 per each of them)
-colonial dynamism.

Religion and CD are the most interesting for england. CD should start at 1560 iirc and rises from then on.

Getting to higher land or naval levels can be hard. There's a penalty if you some levels ahead. Wait a bit for the others to catch up and invest in trade/infra instead.
You may have noticed that some levels are cheap while other are very expensive. Land tech 10-13 is expensive while it's very cheap afterwards for several levels.

There aren't many "available" shipyards early in the game. Venice (their capital), Lisbon (same) and Andalusia (difficult to hold but worth the try if you're clever).

What you can do to get more colonies: War against colonial powers. Usually they defend their colonies very poorly. With a good navy you should be able to take enough cities right after the DOW to make peace for two provinces right after the invasion.
This works against Spain, but I always felt like cheating when doing so. Too easy.
You should fortify your newly gained provinces and station some troops there because Spain/Protugal can retake them simply by walking until you change religion.
Islands were my preferred provinces when doing so.

 

[SideshowBob]

Not really much of a chance of more colonists. They come from religion, going reformed +2, prot +1, counter reformed +1

Golden ship yards +1.

Colonial dynamisum + variable ammount depending on country and year.

Everytime you get a new conq or Explorer +1?

Random event, rush of colonists, +3?

I'm not 100% sure on my numbers but 95%

If you hover the mouse over your colonist picture top toolbar it tells you where everything is comming from.

Don't worry too much about your tech, you will find as England later in the game that tech will come much faster. Build a few Naval manufactories and you need never invest anymore in Naval it will go up just by itself. Land tends to go up much faster as well, just as long as you have a good infrastructure and trade the rest take care of themselves.

Also as England later in the game (after 1700) you will own so much of the world, have so much money that you won't be able to spend it fast enough.

I don't like reformed as England myself, i find that from about 1550-1650 i can hardly afford to send all my colonists as it is (i go Prot, the extra from reformed plus the tax penalty would be too much. Remember you can't store more than 6 colonists so any others are a waste.