I just finished playing my first ever complete campaign (Castille-Spain).
To me EU3 is great because it manages to keep you glued to the screen trying to balance many open ended choices and outcomes. True, I hate the way rebels behave. But the game still provides a great experience.
It is also quite complex, so these last few days I’ve been reading the forums a fair bit, trying to work out different bits and pieces. Among other things I’ve come to the realization that people talk fairly little about minting around here. Since the manual says that minting is dangerous, it seems as though most people consider it taboo. If anything, most people suggest that you should avoid it.
The truth is I minted shamelessly for the whole game, ending at over 200% inflation.
Yet, I did fairly well overall. I ended my campaign being the world’s largest empire by a long shot (as per number of provinces), while boasting the largest army and the second largest income. I had 16 COT monopolies, and was ranked #1 in terms of prestige until about 1810 (then Austria surpassed me). About 80% of my provinces were cores, and 95% of my empire was Catholic.
I can't see myself achieving this without minting.
Minting is a mixed bag, though. The advantages are fairly obvious, and in my case included:
The negatives?
From 1650 my Empire stood largely unchallenged. Nobody DOWd me. I think this is because I kept my BB very low from then on (it was 40+ in the 1500s) and only got into wars by honouring alliances with Christian countries (I did attack pagans and Muslims of my own accord, though). Maybe the fact that my army was twice as large as Austria’s (the #2 military power) also played a part. Be as it may, my weaknesses were never really exposed.
Besides my stab was pretty much +3 from 1450 onwards. Perhaps without these developments the panorama would have been grim; or maybe choosing a lesser power than Spain would have put me in a much more difficult situation. Still, the bottomline is that I minted like hell and things worked out ok (at least I did better than Great Britain, who had zero inflation 99% of the time, yet ended up completely occupied by rebels).
So yeah, what do you think? Is minting really that bad?
How much do you mint?
To me EU3 is great because it manages to keep you glued to the screen trying to balance many open ended choices and outcomes. True, I hate the way rebels behave. But the game still provides a great experience.
It is also quite complex, so these last few days I’ve been reading the forums a fair bit, trying to work out different bits and pieces. Among other things I’ve come to the realization that people talk fairly little about minting around here. Since the manual says that minting is dangerous, it seems as though most people consider it taboo. If anything, most people suggest that you should avoid it.
The truth is I minted shamelessly for the whole game, ending at over 200% inflation.
Yet, I did fairly well overall. I ended my campaign being the world’s largest empire by a long shot (as per number of provinces), while boasting the largest army and the second largest income. I had 16 COT monopolies, and was ranked #1 in terms of prestige until about 1810 (then Austria surpassed me). About 80% of my provinces were cores, and 95% of my empire was Catholic.
I can't see myself achieving this without minting.
Minting is a mixed bag, though. The advantages are fairly obvious, and in my case included:
- The possibility of raising and maintaining a big army and navy (and hence the ability to conquer neighbours Granada, Aragon and Portugal almost from the very outset)
- Containing superpowers like France, Great Britain or Austria.
- Having lots of money to spend on missionaries, colonists and buildings.
- Getting a big headstart in the conquest of the New World.
- Containing superpowers like France, Great Britain or Austria.
- Having lots of money to spend on missionaries, colonists and buildings.
- Getting a big headstart in the conquest of the New World.
The negatives?
- Things get more and more expensive over time (in my case all costs doubled from the beginning to the end of the game).
- “Things” includes tech. Which means that I fell hopelessly behind in technological matters. My highest tech group was Government, which stood at 24 in 1820. In other words, I had four National Ideas whereas quite a few countries had like seven or eight.
- By about 1650 I decided that my Land Tech could not compete in Europe, because I’d just get my ass kicked by middle powers such as Brabant or Sweden (let alone France or Austria). Just as well, since war mongering in Europe was never my intention (I wanted a colonial empire from the outset). The truth is, I eventually got into a couple of wars in Europe and fared ok. Still, I didn’t feel comfortable fighting nations with Land Tech 44 when I barely had 21.
- When a meteor was sighted in 1775 my stab went down to +2. Due to the effects of inflation, my expenses were so large that I couldn’t invest in stability. Thus I couldn’t recover the +3 level for the remainder of the game. This meant quite some work keeping rebels at bay.
- “Things” includes tech. Which means that I fell hopelessly behind in technological matters. My highest tech group was Government, which stood at 24 in 1820. In other words, I had four National Ideas whereas quite a few countries had like seven or eight.
- By about 1650 I decided that my Land Tech could not compete in Europe, because I’d just get my ass kicked by middle powers such as Brabant or Sweden (let alone France or Austria). Just as well, since war mongering in Europe was never my intention (I wanted a colonial empire from the outset). The truth is, I eventually got into a couple of wars in Europe and fared ok. Still, I didn’t feel comfortable fighting nations with Land Tech 44 when I barely had 21.
- When a meteor was sighted in 1775 my stab went down to +2. Due to the effects of inflation, my expenses were so large that I couldn’t invest in stability. Thus I couldn’t recover the +3 level for the remainder of the game. This meant quite some work keeping rebels at bay.
From 1650 my Empire stood largely unchallenged. Nobody DOWd me. I think this is because I kept my BB very low from then on (it was 40+ in the 1500s) and only got into wars by honouring alliances with Christian countries (I did attack pagans and Muslims of my own accord, though). Maybe the fact that my army was twice as large as Austria’s (the #2 military power) also played a part. Be as it may, my weaknesses were never really exposed.
Besides my stab was pretty much +3 from 1450 onwards. Perhaps without these developments the panorama would have been grim; or maybe choosing a lesser power than Spain would have put me in a much more difficult situation. Still, the bottomline is that I minted like hell and things worked out ok (at least I did better than Great Britain, who had zero inflation 99% of the time, yet ended up completely occupied by rebels).
So yeah, what do you think? Is minting really that bad?
How much do you mint?
