I'm really trying my best to like this game but...

[Gakumerasara]

it's seriously driving me crazy.

tl;dr - This is an "EU3 gripes" thread.

Maybe I'm just spoiled by what I now consider one of the best games ever made (Victoria II - AHD in particular), or maybe I'm doing something terribly wrong, but the fallout from EU3's SNAFU diplomacy has resulted in more demolished non-essentials around my apartment than any game I've ever played.

So I've been playing Divine Wind as Hungary for several sessions (a total of about 50 hours), and I always meet my end when World War 1 starts around 1420-40. Oddly enough, it's NEVER the Muslims that cause me problems. It goes something like this.

To use an example, Venice calls me into a war with Milan. I accept. I call upon Austria and my vassal(s). They accept. Milan calls all of it's vassals plus Burgundy. Burgundy has an alliance with some insignificant HRE nation like Ulm, who immediately joins in and starts spamming me with demands for concessions. "Ulm" is allied with Poland, thus Poland joins in, calling Bohemia, Lithuania, and Muscovy. Bohemia calls the Teutonic Order, and Poland allies with Mazovia during the war, who of course joins in and then immediately starts spamming demands, and then drags in its own ally Brittany, who draws in England in 6 other HRE nobodies by extension. My forces get wiped out, I get spammed with demands from nations that aren't even taking an active role (all of which I ignore), my entire meager alliance is swarmed by about 150k troops, then I accept peace with the leader of the enemy alliance (bonus if there's a second war declared on me during the war already in progress!), ragequit, and start over.

I feel the main problem here is that, unlike Victoria 2, the AI isn't fighting for a war goal; it just wants to fight. "Beat them down as much as you can and then demand everything they have" vs "we're fighting this war to fulfill a specific set of goals". Why does Burgundy care if Milan beats Venice when it's not allied with either? Why does Poland care about it's alliance 5-times-removed with Milan? It makes no sense whatsoever. And even then, let's say my alliance does get completely destroyed (as it always does), shouldn't the AI "know" that I'm not going to concede anything to any nation that isn't going to end the war entirely? Why is this diplomacy spam necessary?

Another problem is that being at war boosts your economy by 50% (war taxes, bonus if it's a Crusade), so you gimp yourself by not being at war all the time. Any time a Crusade is announced, I declare war just so I can get that extra 60% and never send a single unit into battle. That's no problem if it's a Crusade, and oddly enough I've never had the Ottomans declare war on me (ever!), but what if I get an "alliance casus belli", which is always a tempting excuse to collect war taxes but raises another major problem...

So my ally Austria starts fighting Bohemia. I want to join in and help Austria; I have a casus to do so. It even says "alliance" which saves me -2 stability. So I declare war and obviously I join the war as part of Austria's alliance, right? WRONG! Now I'm completely alone in a new war vs whoever they were fighting, and Hungary gets curbstomped when all the nations allied with Bohemia that FOR WHATEVER REASON AREN'T FIGHTING AUSTRIA decide to join in, invite their friends, invite their friend's friends, and ruin my life. This mechanic is seriously flawed. This SHOULD be like pressing the "+" button on the Wars screen in Vicky 2, where you join on the side of whatever alliance. Why is this not the case?

Several times, I've tried to plan ahead... "Ok, I'm about to declare war on Bohemia, they're allied with nations X, Y, and Z." So now I have to go find X, Y, and Z on the map, click on them, and see who they're allied with, then find those allies, click on them, and see who THEY'RE allied with, because I can guarantee every last one of them will join in. My favorite is when it's some nothing HRE nation with a name that's not the same as the name of the province; now I have to go open up Wikipedia on a different computer to try to find where it's located, then click around the area until I find it because it's not always obvious. fantastic.

It would be a lot easier if I were inclined to just save the game and reload it if things didn't go my way, but that's not how I play Vicky, and that's not how I'm going to play EU3. In Vicky, if you lose a war, you typically don't get crippled beyond all hope of recovery. In EU3, you stand to lose most of your very boring build-my-nation-with-one-click-a-year-to-avoid-inflation work, if not in that war, then in the one that's about to be declared on you the second your truces expire.

I have a couple of friends who also play EU3, and they have similar experiences. To paraphrase one of them, EU3 is no fun and all frustration. As I said, I'm really trying to like this game, and it should be great, but this diplomacy makes it almost unplayable. Someone tell me what I'm doing wrong here.

 

[unmerged(134922)]

just dont accept to go to war that earlier in the game. not with a highly allied coutry cause its a death trap.

 

[pevergreen]

You just have to learn to manage the cascading alliances.

It was worse in 5.0 if that makes you feel better.

Suggestion thread for 5.2 has it being reduced to only 1 warleader change, but no idea if that will actually go into a patch.

 

[diegoami]

For me it's the opposite. I love EU3 , and I really tried my best to like Vicky 2, but I couldn't.

 

[unmerged(375644)]

This used to annoy me a great deal when I moved to Divine Wind (as cascading alliances were not in EUIII before this), but now it doesn't get to me too much as I have learned to manage it. A good tip I find is to strike when their allies are at war elsewhere, or have low stability, or you know they have high war exhaustion, so they will be less likely to join in, meaning they can't chain in as many new allies.

 

[Kurblius]

Yeah, the alliance system in EU3 is complex, but a like it. Some specific things I noticed in your post:

- Only alliance leaders can call in their alliance members. So Ulm shouldn't be able to call in Poland because Ulm isn't the alliance leader... Unless Poland is its vassal or they're in a personal union.

- raising war taxes also raises your war exhaustion by .1 per month so its not always advisable to raise it.

- To locate a country that doesn't have the name of its province, I use the first page of the ledger, which has the names of every nation you've encounter so far. Sort the names by alphabetical order and look the country up that way.

- You should wait for Austria to make a call-to-arms rather than use the Alliance casus belli as that will allow you to join on the side of Austria. This is particularly important if Austria is fighting a defensive war, which I believe was the case in your situation. The AI often won't or can't call in his allies if he's the aggressor nation, which was probably the case against Austria. However, when you used the Alliance casus belli, you were the agressor in that war, and all Bohemia allies immediately get a call-to-arms.

- Finally, countries in world history often join in a war where they don't have any interest in the war objective, but they do it any way in order to honor their alliance. There's a "trust" factor which goes up if you honour call to arms, and goes down if you don't. You also lose prestige if you refuse a call to arms. All that is historical. Canada joined the war in Afghanistan not because we had any particular interest in Afghanistan, but because we were honoring our alliance call-to-arms by the US - who started it because of 911.

 

[unmerged(420690)]

I'll just pipe in about using war taxes simply for income. That is easy to mod. I doubled war exhaustion on war taxes so one would never use it more than 2 decembers. Coming from IN to DW was a big change for the number of countires in a war. I think it made the game more challenging. FOr sure it makes who you ally with more critical.

 

[Flann]

so you gimp yourself by not being at war all the time.

In my opinion it's the opposite, because while being at war you lose cultural tradition at the end of the year and you gain less magistrates at the beginning of each month.

 

[unmerged(297342)]

Wars are difficult.
Sometimes you aren't fighting the war you thought you were.
Sometimes you get dogpiled.
If you make it out alive, you make great gains.

 

[chals]

just go one lvl down or/and play a mod like MMU(need to go down a lvl for that).. The Cascading alli was added in the newest update.. dont play with that part

 

[Ruanek]

just go one lvl down or/and play a mod like MMU(need to go down a lvl for that).. The Cascading alli was added in the newest update.. dont play with that part

I assume you mean reverting to HTTT? In my opinion DW offers too much for that.

You just have to be a bit more careful. If you have a major power (England, Castille, Austria, Bohemia, etc.) as an ally you'll find yourself doing a lot better.You can have up to three alliances (the AI refuses if you have more, unless they're related to PUs or vassals) so get a few big ones. Declare war when the enemy is weak and/or their allies are busy (like if they're in another war). Always try to have a large army and low war exhaustion so you don't look weak. Be cautious when declaring war on those large powers, and when declaring war involving the HRE. Early in the game, if you're in a position to do so, you can try expand outside of Europe - it's generally much easier.

If you do get into a difficult war, scorch the earth in front of your enemies to rack up their attrition. And if you can't win, try to have stuff you're willing to concede that doesn't hurt you too much (money, reducing your sphere of influence, etc.). You should try to ensure that you always have enough to satisfy an enemy without losing valuable stuff.

 

[Garak]

To your point about the "one-click-a-year" building up of your country, try turning off inflation. It makes that aspect of the game less sadistically punishing.

 

[BritNavFan]

tl;dr - This is an "EU3 gripes" thread.

Yeah, the cascading alliances seriously hurt the game.

In terms of realism, they're not realistic. The period divided into three parts. In the early years, wars were local. Castille and Aragon might fight the Moors but they wouldn't get into wars with the Ottomans, and vice-versa. Nobody had the capability to project military power that far. The middle period was the 30 Years' War, war about religion, which was complex but not exactly cascading alliances. In the final period, there were certainly cascading alliances, but they cascaded both ways: the aggressor's alliance and the defender's alliance both grew, resulting in the continent-wide wars we all know and "love".

In terms of gameplay, they're not fun and they only make the game harder when your country's small. When you're a OPM fighting another OPM, France intervening is a big deal. When you're the biggest country in the world and DOW'ing France, who cares about France's alliances?

You say Vicky 2 doesn't have cascading alliances? I might have to check it out.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well in MP this AI, is just meat that get eaten, unless allied with or protected by a strong player. But in SP, this is quite annoying...

 

[Ivashanko]

I assume you mean reverting to HTTT? In my opinion DW offers too much for that.

Depends if you're using mods or not, I guess.

 

[Gakumerasara]

Thanks for the replies; I've made some adjustments and seem to be doing much better this game, or maybe I just got lucky.

just dont accept to go to war that earlier in the game. not with a highly allied coutry cause its a death trap.

One of the major changes I made was: instead of declaring war (on anyone, really), I've just been waiting until I get called into a war against them and/or declared on myself. Then, instead of taking any land I don't have "core" on, I just vassalize everyone (or ruin them otherwise; breaking off nations, etc. until I can vassalize). I have 15 vassals so far, and every war I get 2-3 more.

You just have to learn to manage the cascading alliances.

I tried an experiment - declaring war on Austria after I had already mapped out its alliances. The "Ulm" in this case was Brandenburg, which I had knocked back into the stone age. Via Austria's alliance with little-old Brandenburg, ~6 additional nations were called in against me. I waited a few years in-game, Austria declared war on me without the backing of most of Europe, and I balkanized the south Germans in the aftermath.

This used to annoy me a great deal when I moved to Divine Wind (as cascading alliances were not in EUIII before this), but now it doesn't get to me too much as I have learned to manage it. A good tip I find is to strike when their allies are at war elsewhere, or have low stability, or you know they have high war exhaustion, so they will be less likely to join in, meaning they can't chain in as many new allies.

I haven't been able to figure out where to find an AI's war exhaustion; probably somewhere obvious.

1 Only alliance leaders can call in their alliance members. So Ulm shouldn't be able to call in Poland because Ulm isn't the alliance leader... Unless Poland is its vassal or they're in a personal union.
2 raising war taxes also raises your war exhaustion by .1 per month so its not always advisable to raise it.
3 To locate a country that doesn't have the name of its province, I use the first page of the ledger, which has the names of every nation you've encounter so far. Sort the names by alphabetical order and look the country up that way.
4 You should wait for Austria to make a call-to-arms rather than use the Alliance casus belli as that will allow you to join on the side of Austria. This is particularly important if Austria is fighting a defensive war, which I believe was the case in your situation. The AI often won't or can't call in his allies if he's the aggressor nation, which was probably the case against Austria. However, when you used the Alliance casus belli, you were the agressor in that war, and all Bohemia allies immediately get a call-to-arms.
5 Finally, countries in world history often join in a war where they don't have any interest in the war objective, but they do it any way in order to honor their alliance. There's a "trust" factor which goes up if you honour call to arms, and goes down if you don't. You also lose prestige if you refuse a call to arms. All that is historical. Canada joined the war in Afghanistan not because we had any particular interest in Afghanistan, but because we were honoring our alliance call-to-arms by the US - who started it because of 911.

1 - I'm not sure I understand this, unless every independent nation is an "alliance leader", otherwise the results of my Brandenburg experiment don't make sense.
2 - At the time I had a leader that reduced war exhaustion by .11, so I just assumed it was always .11
3 - very useful; thanks!
4 - exactly what I've been doing; thanks for this as well
5 - True, but there's a difference between being "at war" and throwing everything you possibly can at your enemies. The AI doesn't understand this difference.

I'll just pipe in about using war taxes simply for income. That is easy to mod. I doubled war exhaustion on war taxes so one would never use it more than 2 decembers. Coming from IN to DW was a big change for the number of countires in a war. I think it made the game more challenging. FOr sure it makes who you ally with more critical.

I don't think I would ever use it in that case.

In my opinion it's the opposite, because while being at war you lose cultural tradition at the end of the year and you gain less magistrates at the beginning of each month.

I wasn't aware of that until you said it; thanks!

just go one lvl down or/and play a mod like MMU(need to go down a lvl for that).. The Cascading alli was added in the newest update.. dont play with that part

I had read that DW has a bunch of new features and so I didn't get the other expansions unfortunately. though it is becoming more manageable

You just have to be a bit more careful. If you have a major power (England, Castille, Austria, Bohemia, etc.) as an ally you'll find yourself doing a lot better.You can have up to three alliances (the AI refuses if you have more, unless they're related to PUs or vassals) so get a few big ones. Declare war when the enemy is weak and/or their allies are busy (like if they're in another war). Always try to have a large army and low war exhaustion so you don't look weak. Be cautious when declaring war on those large powers, and when declaring war involving the HRE. Early in the game, if you're in a position to do so, you can try expand outside of Europe - it's generally much easier.

If you do get into a difficult war, scorch the earth in front of your enemies to rack up their attrition. And if you can't win, try to have stuff you're willing to concede that doesn't hurt you too much (money, reducing your sphere of influence, etc.). You should try to ensure that you always have enough to satisfy an enemy without losing valuable stuff.

very useful information

To your point about the "one-click-a-year" building up of your country, try turning off inflation. It makes that aspect of the game less sadistically punishing.

This sounds tempting, but right now I'm at 0% and my Ottoman neighbors are at 34%; I don't want to lose this advantage.

Yeah, the cascading alliances seriously hurt the game.
In terms of realism, they're not realistic.

You say Vicky 2 doesn't have cascading alliances? I might have to check it out.

I agree 100%. Vicky 2 seems much more polished to me; if I could play EU3 with Vicky 2 rules and interface, I'd be in heaven. I really miss being able to click a single button and see every war in progress, who's on which side, who's winning, and what the casus bellis are for everybody involved.

Thanks again for the responses. The changes I've made to the way I play the game at your suggestions have made it much more enjoyable.

 

[Emperor Hans]

Try to get some vassals early on, these non-backstabbing AI countries will be some great help for you as you'll be guaranteed a larger force on your end of the war than you have yourself.

Secondly, luck is a factor, but so is skills.
If you see a small country ( Aachen ) allied with Savoy, check Savoy too, as they'll most likely be war leader.

 

[Gpeterse]

This game isn't for everyone and if you are breaking things out of frustration it may be that this game does not meet your game playing needs.

 

[grommile]

1 - I'm not sure I understand this, unless every independent nation is an "alliance leader", otherwise the results of my Brandenburg experiment don't make sense.

Sounds like you're playing unpatched DW 5.0. Get the 5.1 patch.

(In 5.0, alliances cascaded freely. In 5.1, alliances only cascade if they bring in someone the game thinks is "bigger" than the existing leader on that side - and only the defender's side can have its leader change in this way.)

 

[Flammehav]

Sounds like you're playing unpatched DW 5.0. Get the 5.1 patch.

(In 5.0, alliances cascaded freely. In 5.1, alliances only cascade if they bring in someone the game thinks is "bigger" than the existing leader on that side - and only the defender's side can have its leader change in this way.)

I did a test with this(saved the game first) and declared was on Scotland in 1403. They was allied to Denmark and France. They both joined the war and France got warleader. They called in all their vassals ofcourse, but Denmark did also call in all their allied, not only Norway, but 3-4 others too, AFTER France had become warleader. How is that possible? I do have the 5.1 patch installed and I thought that that ment only France coudl call in allies and not Denmark too?