Maximising Science and other questions

[unmerged(4857)]

Wotcher, folks,

I'm currently playing my first game of EU as Spain. This is the IGC, you understand.

Question one: How do I maximise science? I seem to remember having read somewhere it's to do with the number of provinces you own over their espective quality.

Even though this is my first game, I've already hammered the world badly, and violently annexed Algeria, Tunisia, the Mamelukes, carved France up like a humiliated cake and made major headway into the Americas. Needless to say, my empire is matched only in it's grandeur by my bad-boy and also by my poor rate of science.

Question two: How do I minimise my bad-boy if I enjoy playing muscular, expansionistic games? I am told total-annexations are out of the window...

Question three: Expansion without conquistadors. As Sapin, I enjoyed a glut of Conquisadors in my first few years, but sadly I had wasted many of them by letting them sit on their hands whilst I tried to work out how to use them and what difference they made. By the time I worked out how valuable they were, they seemed to dry up. It's now 1592 and I've got my first Conq. in what seems like an aeon.

The problem was that I couldn't 'do a Cortez' and expand into those juicy Aztec territories because they remained terra-incognita. I tried to reveal the Aztec lands by mooring a non-explorer fleet of ships off the Aztec coast-line, but no joy. I realise that I can wait until my armies and navies can all gain explorer capabilities eventually, but until then, and without Conquistadors, the wait is painful, and seems frustratiingly wasteful. Any tips?

Question four: Vassalisation and Diplo-annexation. I have fulfilled all the conditions to vassalise Naples, but for some reason, the computer will not let me. I think Naples starts the game as Spain's vassal, but it certainly isn't at this point at time. Why can I not even offer vassalisation? Also, what is this diplo-annexation I hear so much about?

Thanks for any replies in advance

 

[unmerged(4783)]

Hi Brass Eye, welcome to the forum.

1) What do you mean by science? You have a set of sliders that control how much you invest in Land technology, Naval tech, Trade, and Infrastructure. Just move the slider to the right on the technology you want to prioritize. This will affect the other sliders. If you want to fix a slider in position, double-click on it.

2) Avoid total annexations if you can. Wait a few years and consolidate, before you start a new round of conquest. Being Spain, you have a lot to explore and colonize. Rest a bit in Europe while you colonize the Americas, and viceversa.

3) Use your conquistadors and explorers wisely. Without them, you need land tech 11 to explore land, and naval tech 21 to explore sea zones. If you know that some other country is exploring aggressively (Portugal, Netherlands), declare war, defeat them in sea battle (steal their rutters) and occupy their Capital. That should give you their maps.

4) Diplo-annexation is taking over a country after at least 10 years as your vassal. If you cannot offer vassalization, something's wrong. Do you have an RM? An MA? Relations above 190? Is the other country at peace? These are all factors.

Good luck,

Santiago y cierra España!

 

[dralizaar]

also on 4,,,if you want to make someone your vassal it helps if you park a army on their border ..ie Sicily in your case..or rather the other half of the island..make sure its bigger then the naples army ..or as close as you can get it to increase the chance...also its notoriously harder to get success while at high bad boy..you need to keep them 190 relations for a logn time before trying as the shock impact of your dirty deeds wears off

as for 1...provinces themsevles only affect research in 2 ways 1 the amount of taxes they generate which you assign using the sliders int he research section...2 i have been told and it appears to be true..that the bigger you are the more research points are required to make each breakthorugh..so it isnt always the best idea to grab all land...just the good ones...make sure the taxes generated by new lands will make up in the long term the icnrease its gonna cost to get tech up

2 generally its not too good to go total war early in game..this is a 300 year playing time for a reason...you do too much and you get screwed eventually...there is no way around it without cheating <ie editing the save game files to lwoer it...no one would like you anymore if you did that...we know we have eyes everywhere watching watching watching lol j/k> you will lose 1 badboy for every 4 years of time passing and 1 for every european prov you surrender in battle..if need be go to war and let them take the less important provs...dont get too attached to owning everything...not all of it is worth owning..specially north africa...except for a staging base i wouldnt evne bother owning that shoreline untill you get to mameluks..and if you have them the heck with the rest of coast..look at their tax values..generally if taxes under 15 it aint worth taking or fighting for...unless of course its all you got to work with..and its got a cb shield on it hehe there is national pride for that

3 each nation has historical leaders assigned..spain and portugal get alot of them early that have explorer or conquistador ability...there are also random evejnts that can provide generic versions of these...they arent quite as good but they get the job done

 

[unmerged(3627)]

Anywhere outside of Europe, you can avoid badboy problems by taking three provinces in a war, every five years, without annexing anybody.

You can load a conquistador on board ship, move him to unexplored coast and disembark him, as another way of uncovering specific provinces. It's gonna cause some attrition though.

Vassalisation requires a Royal Marriage, an alliance - with yourself as the alliance leader, same religion, +190 relations, and both countries at peace. Diplomatic annexation requires 10 years' continuous vassalship, +190 relations, an alliance and both countries at peace. Not all of these requirements are actually mentioned in the manual

 

[mcicet]

hi the eye

Question one =holding the mouse over the ? button at the end of the silder lists the various levels along the path of that tech type. decide what you need (mayors/embargos/bigger forts/ manufactories etc..) alter your sliders to get something focused on a need, later as your economy builds you have less need for the treasury slider & are set on max tech, also watch your sliders , when a new level of a particular tech is complete, see if you actualy need the next level right away, if not , slide it back to 0. (hold mouse over bar to check completion status)
Question two =from the sound of your carving up of other catholic nations, BB is something you will have to live with, just be stronger at all times.
Question three =as pirate scum so aptly noted, when at war with other colony powers, use you fleets to attack & steal rutters.
tip with conquistadors is to make sure he rocks around with 5-10k of artillery, they last a while with him out front.
Question four =it takes money, keep offering , keep imporving your relations with gifts, and as the others said RM + Mil Allie helps
also after wars you've been in together, if you annex a nation of the same religion as your vassal, your to rating with them gets worse.

 

[unmerged(4857)]

Nice

First off, many thanks for putting so much effort into your replies, gents.

Vassalisation requires a Royal Marriage, an alliance - with yourself as the alliance leader, same religion, +190 relations, and both countries at peace. Diplomatic annexation requires 10 years' continuous vassalship, +190 relations, an alliance and both countries at peace. Not all of these requirements are actually mentioned in the manual

AH HA! That would be it. I keep involving myself and my allies in these ruinously expensive bad-boy wars. Peace is such a foreign concept at the moment that it's no wonder Naples won't let me offer vassalisation.

If you know that some other country is exploring aggressively (Portugal, Netherlands), declare war, defeat them in sea battle (steal their rutters) and occupy their Capital. That should give you their maps.

Right, didn't know about the capital thing. Lisbon, here I come.

...there is no way around it without cheating <ie editing the save game files to lwoer it...no one would like you anymore if you did that...

Whilst I have no qualms about checking my diplomatic standing by checking said files, I would sooner dine with the very devil himself than tinker with them. Cheating of this kind is amongst the most base and cowardly acts I can think of, and culprits should be dragged over hot coals.

i have been told and it appears to be true..that the bigger you are the more research points are required to make each breakthorugh..so it isnt always the best idea to grab all land...just the good ones...

Damn, so those glorious North African campaigns were worse than a waste of time? I'm netting a good 600 ducats at the start of every year, but this is all for naught, because all the neat, little European countries have state of the art armies that can take on forces belonging to me that are twice their size!

Time to start again with a bit of experience under my belt, or carry on 'til the bitter end, my glorious empire unravelling before my very (Brass) eyes?

 

[PatMaster]

Umm, you do lower your BB.
1 pts in 4 years actually
Not much, I agree, but they get lower.
Another way is to give up land and offering other countries your territories.

 

[unmerged(4943)]

Like someone said before, do not annex all the time. Annex. costs 1 BB/province (if in Europe) and DO NOT annex states with the same religion! That will cost you another 5 BB.
You should also try not to attack other european countries without a casus belli. You can try to get a CB by flooding your oponents CoT. One can always get a CB on Spain that way. And when I say always, I mean it.

 

[PatMaster]

Well, just make sure not flooding theire CoT before they hit Trade tech 4.

 

[unmerged(4943)]

Speaking of flooding CoT´s - I´ve only been refused trade by Spain. The other countries doesn´t seem to care that much.

 

[BiB]

I got banned from a few more COTs I find the exotic ones easy to be banned from

 

[PatMaster]

I had the Mughals, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands refusing me trade once.
And I had merchants on autosend

 

[unmerged(4943)]

I tried to flood Venice´ CoT a couple of days ago when playing Austria. I have no idea whatsoever how many merchants i sent. Did I get my CB? Hell no!

 

[PatMaster]

Well, its not like you get it every time

 

[BiB]

Originally posted by G-spot Tornado
I tried to flood Venice´ CoT a couple of days ago when playing Austria. I have no idea whatsoever how many merchants i sent. Did I get my CB? Hell no!

They're quite liberal

 

[Xanadu]

Geez I get stonewalled from everybody it seems when I send Merchants. Spain,France,Netherlands,Turkey,Persia,Mughal,China

Spain mostly.

 

[BiB]

Spain has the highest monopolist rating of the lot so it's quite easy to get banned

 

[unmerged(4857)]

More questions

If I could just interrupt, I have a few more questions if you would be so kind as to answer them:

Question Five What do you mean by merchant flooding? Do you annoy other powers if you flood their CoTs with merchants? Does this have a noticeable effect on relations, or even your badboy?

>>>> Every merchant u knock out makes ur relations with that country drop with 5 points, easy way to get relations down

Question Six Trading Posts. Given that cheap colonies/trading posts do not generate money, and that to maximise science, I must cultivate a few, very lucrative settlements, are trading posts a complete waste of time? All I have used them for so far is to lay claim to juicy provinces that I want to exploit in the future, or to provide a cheap, initial population boost to provinces that might end up with a negative rate of growth, so that I don't end up having to send eight full cost colonists when some die off, to make a full size city. Also, is there a badboy/relations penalty for burning trading posts during wartime?

I sometimes have a nice TP empire going, usually with Holland or Portugal. LEss money there, COT bonuses and those huge far east COTs are handy to monopolise

Question Seven Australia. Is it all permanent terra-incognita or just the western side? My explorers would be most grateful if I don't send them all the way round just to find out.

U can settle the East Coast.

Question Eight Deleting saved games. Tea-time, end of a work break, bed-time...All these inconveniences spoil a good game of EU, and naturally I save every time I switch off. What this has left me with is a swathe of massive saved games files that I want to get rid of...unfortunately, there seem to be two or three files per save. Any tips for a efficint prune of the saved games folder?

Just use Windows Explorer.

Question Nine Pirates. If, on my travels I blow away some pirates that are hassling the coast-lines of a foreign power, will that improve my relations with them?

Nah

Question Ten Say I begin the siege of a fort, and decide to speed things up by assaulting it. Half a minute later, the assault has failed, and the siege continues. The morale of my troops has been shattered, but although the assault has failed, have I brought the eventual fall of the fort any closer?

Hardly But could be a bit hwoever assaults are a good idea if they succeed

Question Eleven (Still awake?) Catholicism vs. Protestanism as a major (colonial) power like Spain. Presumably, tinkering with religion is something only little powers can do. As Spain, if I even think about going Protty just for the sake of that extra revenue and colonist, revolution tears my suddenly destablised empire to shreads. Is conversion simply out of the question as a far-flung nation?

No, it's too easy to do

Question Twelve (Almost there) How am I doing? At the end of my last session, I'd racked up a score of 3500+. Is that OK? Bearing in mind this is my first game, of course. What are the great, legendary scores that I have to set my sights on as a long-term player?

Well, if you got through that lot, and were kind enough to give me some answers, you can have 100 VPs, and the promotion to Regent is in the post!

 

[unmerged(4783)]

5) Every time that you send a merchant to a CoT, several things can happen:

a- Nothing, merchant is unsuccessful

b- Your merchant competes for trade, and you lost a merchant (actually, I'm not sure if this happens when you send a merchant, but when some other country sends a merchant).

c- Your merchant successfully expands trade.

d- Your merchant competes for trade, and takes the place of other country's merchant.


When D happens your relations with that country go 5 points down.

6) TPs are good to generate trade income. However, I always convert them to colonies if they're worth the effort. Other nations hate you for burning their TPs, just as you hate them when they do it to you.

7) Just the western side. Although you shouldn't know that.

8)There are two files associated with each saved game: an eug and an eug.cfg (or viceversa). Make sure that you delete the right pair. I only keep the most recent save with each game, to save space.

9) I'm guessing that you mean your relations with the foreign powers, not with the pirates. I really don't know, can anybody help us out here?

10) You may have. Look at the numbers in the circles on each side of the siege screen. As the siege progresses, if you're succeeding, your number should grow and the enemy's should decrease (algebraically, there may be negative numbers). If, after the assault fails, the enemy's numbers have gone lower than yours, it was worth the attempt. Also, the color of the bar on the main map, and its length, are rough indicators (green to yellow to red, and shorter as time passes).

11) Some nations can convert, but make common-sense conversions. Why should Spain go Protestant? England, on the other hand, could remain Catholic, go Protestant, or even Reformed. I've heard people taking all these options successfully (not at the same time).

12) How well did the other nations do? I have garnered almost 5,000 VPs as the Russian, but I'm sure it's nothing extraordinary, since I didn't conquer the entire known world, as other people have done in this forum.

Whheeeeeewwww!!! I think that's it.

 

[BiB]

I edited instead of quoted Still, u got ur answers