Let's Compile "House Rules"

[AlanC9]

Here are a couple more:

1): No mercenaries. The AI can't use them, so neither should you. Makes Sweden a bit more interesting since you have no real manpower base. (I'd make an exception if you're playing Byzantium, which historically relied on mercenaries anyway.)

2): No NA colonization until 1600, unless the AI plants one before that. It just didn't happen -- the latest historical theory is that until smallpox devastated the populations there, colonization was impossible without a major military invasion.

3): Build no more than three manufactories of each type.

 

[unmerged(9341)]

When making peace, If I can give my allies provinces in it, they get their's first, mine are leftovers.

 

[unmerged(7398)]

Originally posted by AlanC9
3): Build no more than three manufactories of each type.

Ow. Ow ow. Ow.

A somewhat (ok, way) less severe restriction on manufactories that I use is to only build them in provinces where they get +12 ducats a year, even though this is the smallest benefit that they give. (Damn fishy provinces, I'd rather have another refinery by far.)

 

[unmerged(5824)]

What about explorers and conquistadors? How do you get yourselves to send them pottering around at random, rather than heading straight for Recife/Manhattan/Jakarta?

For me this is the most difficult aspect to stick to: I have no problem with not retreating from battles or making loans, and have never reloaded except after a CTD.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

Transport capacity.

Do you accomplish this by editing the statistics in the game files for naval units? Anyway, I don't know if this is logical. Ships of the line (i.e. warships) could in fact carry a great many troops, and did in many occasions.

While it's true that warships sometimes carried troops, they did not, as a rule, carry 1000 armed ground troops or 1000 armed cavalry plus mounts or even 10 fully-equipped pieces of field artillery -- not to mention the seige trains and miscellaneous stores, equipment and baggage that invariably followed a land army. I prefer the rule to reflect the rule rather than the exception. The naval logistical arm for ground troops, throughout history, has been the transport, not the warship. For example, of the 130 ships in the Spanish Armada, only about 70 were considered warships (and many of those were merely armed merchantmen). And the invasion failed, in part, because the Duke of Parma, in Flanders, had nothing but transports and wasn't convinced that the Armada could adequately defend them. EU2 currently simulates virtually none of this; I doubt anyone ever builds more than a handful of Transports in the game. My house rule attempts to make the Transport a real necessity instead of just a little-used curiousity. And to require some planning and expense to become a true naval power.

As for implementation, I just use will power -- I don't move it unless I have enough Transports to move it. Imperfect, but it works.

Recruitment of armies.

Olafs idea about not recruiting from conquered provinces make sense, but I'd rather say wait a few years. Perhaps untill nati. is at 2 %. In WW2 for instance, Germany recruitted quite a lot of anes to Waffen SS, and even more to other corps. That just goes to show that there will always be someone willing to join the invaders army... and even more in this time, when nationalism were not as common.

True, but the bulk of the seasoned armies of most nations throughout this period consisted of either homeland troops or mercenaries. This is especially so for top-quality units. (I think your examples prove that.) For example, a source I have says that England sent about 90,000 troops to France between 1415 and 1450 and describes the contribution of Normandy and other mainland provinces as "negligible." EU2 doesn't distinguish between the quality of troops recruited at home and those recruited in some distant province that you just conquered, and that seems highly unrealistic to me. The rule I actually use (I was in a hurry before) is that I recruit Cavalry and Artillery only from core provinces. Any reinforcements from other provinces can be infantry only, and I limit myself to mercenary infantry (I disband the cavalry/artillery components) from foreign provinces until they have a governor. This maintains the qualitative advantage of using homeland troops.

Together, the two rules greatly enhance the game, I think. For example, I just started a 1419 GC as England and found that it was virtually impossible to hold Gascony against a concerted assault from France and her allies if I couldn't build troops at will in Gascony. And since I had only six transports, I had limited ability to ship troops from England -- and could do so only at the cost of having my transports unavailable to ship reinforcements to Henry V. Far from being the usual cakewalk, I actually had to work and plan to hold on to Gascony while still supporting the main thrust with Henry V. Much more realistic and fun.

 

[Olaf the Unsure]

Originally posted by Seneca


What happens if the whole party dies of attrition before they get back? At what point do you decide it's OK to start colonising?

No hard and fast rule. If a ship is a couple of months "overdue," I'll send another group out to look for them. Or if other European powers start laying down colonies in the newly-discovered area, then I consider the area to be "public knowledge" sufficient to start my own colonies. I'm not trying to be too rigid about the rules, but I do hope to add an element of realism and a self-imposed check on the whole matter of exploration.

 

[Drakken]

Never ever change DP settings by yourself. By events only.

Drakken

 

[unmerged(4260)]

Musowy/Russia gets Mongol culture until Peter the Great...

 

[EUnderhill]

Ever since I learned that the AI didn't change it's settings, I have developped the habit of editing my neighbors' settings to reflect the changes that I would make. I only give them the stab hit if I'm in an unpleasant mood. It must really shock the Europeans to find the NA tribes living in more centralized societies than they do.

 

[chegitz guevara]

Originally posted by Olaf the Unsure


Together, the two rules greatly enhance the game, I think. For example, I just started a 1419 GC as England and found that it was virtually impossible to hold Gascony against a concerted assault from France and her allies if I couldn't build troops at will in Gascony. And since I had only six transports, I had limited ability to ship troops from England -- and could do so only at the cost of having my transports unavailable to ship reinforcements to Henry V. Far from being the usual cakewalk, I actually had to work and plan to hold on to Gascony while still supporting the main thrust with Henry V. Much more realistic and fun.

I think the Black Prince mostly raised his troops in France, and that wasn't so long before the time period of the game, just about 70 years.

 

[unmerged(5129)]

What about:
- Never use all cav armies beyond 3k?

 

[unmerged(5664)]

Originally posted by Karhu
What about explorers and conquistadors? How do you get yourselves to send them pottering around at random, rather than heading straight for Recife/Manhattan/Jakarta?

For me this is the most difficult aspect to stick to: I have no problem with not retreating from battles or making loans, and have never reloaded except after a CTD.

Most house rules, boiled down to their most essential, are "no doing what the AI can't do".

The AI sends its explorers on bee-lines for the Caribbean, and Indonesia. The AI also does it attrition-free.

I have no qualms about sending my explorers right where I want them to go.

 

[Prince Eugene]

Originally posted by Korath

4. No merchants in CoTs not in your country's sphere of influence.

Why? This would prevent countries like England from competing in the spice trade unless they conquered some land over there.

 

[Duuk]

I'm sorry to say it, but most of the house rules that have been offered here are just plain stupid.

The only ones I use are the simple ones that the AI can't deal with, and historical limits on myself.

No AI loans.

No DoW without CB.

No intentional turbo-annexing (though, as noted, that's an insane strategy in 1.05 anyway )

Keep BB below "tarnished". If "tarnished", no actions allowed which increase BB.

--

The covering armies tactic is actually a fairly historical tactic used by England prior to Jean d'Arc in France. In effect, the English and Burgundians kept raids and unsettling spoilers on a constant basis, thus unsettling the French peasants and keeping a war mentality going in France. This kept the French King tied down and almost helpless. Worked well for them.

Russia's wars were almost totally about supply and demand. If Napoleon had conquered the provinces and not simply destroyed the armies and left covering forces, then he might have won.

The AI does do this on occassion, just not as effectively as they should. It is a tactic that makes good sense.

--

 

[unmerged(7398)]

Originally posted by Prince Eugene
Why? This would prevent countries like England from competing in the spice trade unless they conquered some land over there.

This depends on what you define as your sphere of influence. I have no problem with England sending merchants to Oriental CoTs once they've explored there on their own, and probably dropped a colony or two in India. This is more for the IMO more ridiculous placements, like a human Helvetia maintaining 5 merchants each in Astrakahn, Isfahan, and Delhi.

 

[Jens Z]

My favourite (SP and MP):

Switching from CRC to catholic religion allowed only ONCE.

By this you cannot just use the advantages of CRC during wartimes and revert back for the advantages of catholic in peacetimes.

 

[unmerged(9074)]

Exactly who is the "house rules" for?
Everybody with a "house rule" suggestion seem to have a sort of a "fair play" morale anyway.

And some of the "house rules" are in same line of historical accuracy that Lelextreme argued for.
Why play a GAME in a historical setting if you're not supposed to use parts off it?
For example the religion tolerance slider and DP-slider.
A big advantage of the game is that you can alter history, or did I missunderstand something about the idea of the game???
I want to be tolerant to other religions and faiths to avoid rebellions.
As Poland I want to cripple the trecherous aristocracy.

 

[Lt. Tyler]

Originally posted by Ledhead
Exactly who is the "house rules" for?
Everybody with a "house rule" suggestion seem to have a sort of a "fair play" morale anyway.

And some of the "house rules" are in same line of historical accuracy that Lelextreme argued for.
Why play a GAME in a historical setting if you're not supposed to use parts off it?
...

House rules are for anybody who wants to play with them. And it's not only about maintaining historical accuracy, but IMO, is more to help make the game a little more challenging.

Maybe you don't want to use them because you are, as they say in Sweden, a material player?

 

[stapper]

Troops in Gascogne

For example, I just started a 1419 GC as England and found that it was virtually impossible to hold Gascony against a concerted assault from France and her allies if I couldn't build troops at will in Gascony.

Olaf, I don't see why you can't build troops in Gascogne. They considered the duke of Gascogne (ho was by mere fate also king of England) as their natural prince and did fight against the French. It took Duguesclin p.e. 15 years to submit the province and the southern county's like Biaritz and Soule never give up before the treaty of Amiens.

 

[unmerged(9043)]

Ye Gods! No war without CB, no retreating, no mercenaries, no changeing DP sliders without events, massive colonization restrictions, massive BB restrictions. Why make a perfectly good strategy game into a game of sheer luck and starting position (random events, CB shields, and complete reliance on random outcomes in battle)? These might help make an SP game more challenging, but they would ruin MP. In MP who cares if the AI can handle it; MP should be about human v. human. If you can't use every aspect of the game to your advantage (F12 and file editing, obviously excepted), you're probably not as clever as you think you are, and you should be sticking to SP with a foe that also can't handle every aspect of the game