Old EU3 Questions from a New Player

[Extreme Unction]

Howdy.

Just picked up the massive Paradox Interactive Complete Pack from Steam a few days ago, which contained many goodies, among them EU3 + all the expansions and DLC. Woohoo.

I have some limited experience playing Victoria: Revolutions from when I bought it a few years ago, but I never mastered the learning curve and never felt like I was doing anything other than floundering around somewhat ineffectually.

Looking at EU3, I'm having some of the same feeling.

Part of the problem is that there are so many things to fiddle with, I'm not sure what to fiddle with first.

I am trying to start a game as Novgorod, just because.

I am generally a turtling type of player, and my preference is to win via a commanding tech lead. Everybody says you should make your own goals when you play these games, so my goals for Novgorod would be:

Very short term:
-Put forts in the four provinces that don't have them.
-Build up an appropriate defensive force that won't bankrupt me.
-Hire some advisors and generals.

Short term:
-Form Russia
-Westernize

Long term:
-Transform Russia into wealthy, progressive, technologically advanced country able to withstand the predatory eye of its aggressive neighbors.

But.

I don't know how to tell how much of a standing army I should have. I start with four regiments. I'm pretty sure I need more. How much more? How do I tell?

Is there an easy way to find out how much maintenance a regiment will cost me? Like, I can see that my current land maintenance is 0.89. I would like to recruit more, but I would like to know in advance how much that's going to cost me in maintenance. Any way to find this out? Should I just assume that each regiment (regardless of cavalry or infantry) costs the same maintenance, and simply divide 0.89 by 4 to find the per-regiment maintenance amount?

I also don't know how to make money. I send merchants to a COT. But I still wind up with a deficit. I understand that there is "monthly income" which goes to the research sliders, and "annual income" which goes into my coffers. I understand that putting money in the treasury will raise my inflation, and is probably not a good idea for me until I actually know what the hell I'm doing. But I never have any money. I hire a couple of advisors at the beginning of the game, or build a fort, or hire a general, or build a few regiments, and I'm tapped out.

I've read a few of the guides on the EU3 Wiki, and also a couple of AAR Tutorials from Rhadok and Naggy. They were very helpful, but I have yet to find anything that really provides the info I'm looking for. Any help you folks feel up to providing would be swell.

 

[Icarium]

It's probably better to play something like Castille or England in your first game. Or if you want to be a trader, the Hansa is probably a better choice than Novgorod.

I would like to recruit more, but I would like to know in advance how much that's going to cost me in maintenance.

Select an army, hover your mouse cursor over any unit and the tooltip will show you how much it costs you. Cavalry is a lot more expensive than infantry.

As for the money it's normal to not have much in the beginning. You can convert some of the monthly income into money safely if you hire a master of mint advisor, or you can just gain some early inflation and burn it off later. As Novgorod, you have a CoT and should be minting (i.e. moving the treasury slider to the right) some of your trade income. The generals are expensive compared to your early income and unless you are currently in a war you don't really need them, plus I suspect your land tradition is low and you will gain only weak generals anyway. If you need one badly, convert your leader into a general.

Try to add more countries to your merchant league, the more trade passes through your CoT, the more money you will have. You don't need to keep your land maintenance slider on the maximum level in peace time, you can save up to half of the money spent on troops that way. Try to be close to your force limit, the AI countries love to attack when they think you are weak.

Good luck!

 

[richie]

I don't know how to tell how much of a standing army I should have. I start with four regiments. I'm pretty sure I need more. How much more? How do I tell?

In military screen you can see what is your land and naval support limit. It's a good idea to keep your land army having it maxed out (but not exceeding it - at least not in the time of peace).
And remember to cut your army mainteance costs when in peace. The higher cuts the better, but of course there is always danger of sudden DOW from your neighbours and it may cost you a province or two (morale of your armies and castles doesn't restore immediately...)

 

[Extreme Unction]

Okay, so: Starting a fresh game as Novgorod, I put my mouse over the Ducats icon in the top tool bar. I am informed of the following:

I have 68.7 ducats.
I lose 4.02 per month due to various expenses.
I gain 49.26 per year from annual tax income.
Net gain is 1.06 ducats per year.

Even building as much as one additional regiment will put me at an annual deficit.

Elsewhere I see that I have 4 merchants in my own CoT in Novgorod, and 1 merchant at a CoT in Astrakhan. I also have 3 additional merchants available to send wherever.

What are my options for increasing my cash flow?

 

[masteriw]

Open the ledger, Look for CoTs that you have a high chance of placing your merchants and set them to autosend with the lowest priority.

Then get a Master of the Mint and start minting. (Minting means moving some of your income to your "treasury" slider, in the tech screen).

 

[Extreme Unction]

Open the ledger, Look for CoTs that you have a high chance of placing your merchants and set them to autosend with the lowest priority.

Why is this more advantageous than sending merchants to my own CoT or to Astrakhan where I already have another merchant?

I don't doubt you, I just want to understand the mechanics here.

 

[richie]

Check your colonial mainteance. Probably you have some colonies in the north, they may cost you a lot. Later you will laugh at these few ducats per month but for now halving it is a neutral option, they won't grow but you won't lose them also.
You want to keep 5 merchants in your COT, and get some cake from other COTs (especially Lubeck) but be reasonable - the more merchants you put in the COT, the harder is to keep them here. Some minting and inflation is not that bad.
You want to get as much of trade through your COTs as it's possible. This will get your merchants more $$ for tech monthly investment but also it will get you more direct cash for your COT (total value of trade/50 I think). So get to your league every country it's possible. Even if they are trading through Novogrod naturally, this may change if they are invited to another league!
Invest in your stability first, at least until you get +2, you'll get tax bonuses. And centralize (but beware of rebels - build some units first).

 

[richie]

Why is this more advantageous than sending merchants to my own CoT or to Astrakhan where I already have another merchant?

Generally sending merchants to your home is cheaper and you get higher probability of success. You can also be embargoed by other COT's owner and lose all your profits there. So even if your home COT is dirt poor, getting there 5 merchants shouldn't hurt (later you get possibility to send six and create monopolies).

 

[magitsu]

Lower your army maintenance to 0 if you are in no danger of rebellions. Navy maintenance can be 0 always when not in war.

 

[Pewt]

Why is this more advantageous than sending merchants to my own CoT or to Astrakhan where I already have another merchant?

I don't doubt you, I just want to understand the mechanics here.

Just because the game starts by placing your merchants in certain areas doesn't mean they are therefore worth trying to trade in (although it doesn't mean they they aren't worth trying to trade in either). For example, look at who starts with merchants in Lubeck on Oct 14 1399 and then who's trading in it a year or so later.

If you attempt to trade in CoTs where you have a low (I generally go by <70% for Europe being low) compete chance you're usually just wasting money because your merchants get competed out.

 

[brifbates]

Before you start any game I recommend doing the following while the game is paused:

1) examine available advisors, hire the one(s) you feel are worthwhile, don't just hire 3 to fill the slots, remember to look again exactly 1 year into the game when all the starting advisors become available, don't bankrupt yourself though
2) put your full income into stability investment unless you can recruit a master of mint and want/need to do some minting
3) nation specific for Nov: put 5th merchant in Novgorod CoT, you might want to send a couple to Lubeck but I wouldn't, chances of them actually staying in long enough to pay for themself aren't that great since the entire Hanseatic League will have a sky high chance to compete there due to the trade league mechanics
4) figure out what you want to do diplomatically, can vary wildly depending on your mission, send diplomats accordingly
5) reduce expenses (colony upkeep, military maintenance, naval maintenance) as desired, (nation specific: I would scuttle any non-transports in the navy, if you need an actual navy something is very wrong and pirates aren't an issue until someone hits naval 9)
6) move the slider of choice (if moving one that affects land/ship costs you might want to put in your build orders for additional land units first depending)

 

[Witty Name Here]

Here are a few things you should know.

Playing Eastern European (Especially Russian) Nations is much, much, more difficult, and I don't really recommend it if you're a new player.

Anyways, technology works a bit differently in EU 3 compared to other games, how fast or how slow the tech advances depends entirely on the wealth of your provinces, if you do something like expand into africa, or make overseas expansion into india, you end up pretty far behind in Tech thanks to all the poor provinces.

A good way to tell how many troops you need (or at least how many you can have) is looking at the "Land Forcelimits" in the Military Tab, that tells you how many regiments of troops you can have before it starts becoming costly.

You'll have to worry about inflation sooner or later, so I might as well tell you now. Depending on how much of your currency you "mint" (The slider at the bottom of the economic tab) it raises (or in some cases, lowers) inflation. Inflation causes everything to be very expensive, so it's generally a good idea to "mint" as little as possible (Keep the slider as far to the left as you can). This may cause you to have a low monthly income, but don't panic! If you hover your cursor over where it shows how many ducats you have, you can see whether you have a net gain or net loss each year, as long as you have a net gain, then don't panic over how much you lose each month, if you have a net loss, then you might want to Mint just a tad bit more.

 

[Extreme Unction]

After reading this thread on the Something Awful forums (it's an excellent tutorial for newbies, and if you're a new player you could do a lot worse than to read it), I swallowed my pride and started a game as Castille.

10 years on and I have taken back Granada from the Moors. My plan is to form Spain. But there's currently a hitch.

Navarra got conquered early on by Sicily. After taking advantage of Sicily's disputed succession with a claim on the throne and a war, I was able to force Sicily into a Personal Union.

The problem is that they were also at war with England. And England is going through and sieging Sicily's provinces. And I don't have any (obvious, easy) way of stopping England from taking over Sicily. England's troops waltz right past my troops and merrily lay siege to the forts. I tried expanding my sphere of influence to cover Sicily, but apparently England is grandfathered in and I don't get a casus belli on 'em.

Not really sure what to do now.

 

[brifbates]

After reading this thread on the Something Awful forums (it's an excellent tutorial for newbies, and if you're a new player you could do a lot worse than to read it), I swallowed my pride and started a game as Castille.

10 years on and I have taken back Granada from the Moors. My plan is to form Spain. But there's currently a hitch.

Navarra got conquered early on by Sicily. After taking advantage of Sicily's disputed succession with a claim on the throne and a war, I was able to force Sicily into a Personal Union.

The problem is that they were also at war with England. And England is going through and sieging Sicily's provinces. And I don't have any (obvious, easy) way of stopping England from taking over Sicily. England's troops waltz right past my troops and merrily lay siege to the forts. I tried expanding my sphere of influence to cover Sicily, but apparently England is grandfathered in and I don't get a casus belli on 'em.

Not really sure what to do now.

As the senior partner in a PU with Sicily you should be allied with them, or have a very easy time becoming allied. This gives you an alliance CB against England that you can use to start a seperate war and beat them into submission. Make sure you stay at war with them until they make peace with Sicily though or they will undo all your work during the truce period.

 

[Extreme Unction]

Under what conditions can I use the "Scorch the Land" option? It's greyed out on all of my troops, regardless of whether I'm at war or at peace, and regardless of whether I'm in enemy territory or my own.

 

[unmerged(202023)]

Under what conditions can I use the "Scorch the Land" option? It's greyed out on all of my troops, regardless of whether I'm at war or at peace, and regardless of whether I'm in enemy territory or my own.

Only for your own territory when at war. It's great to lure big enemy stacks into (now) high attrition provinces.

 

[Extreme Unction]

Does minting only tick over at the first of the month? Or does it provide continuous cash flow throughout the month?

I just started a new game (again as Novgorod). I lucked out and got a 4-star Master of the Mint with my starting advisors, so I'm minting at 0.00 inflation to raise my bankroll. And I notice that my ducats are increasing during the month. Like, five ducats will be added to my treasury on August 13th or something. Is that from minting? Or is that from something else? I hadn't noticed it in my other games with minting, but maybe I just missed it.

 

[T.j. Arnold]

Is EUIII really that complicated to newcomers, or have I played it for so long that it just doesn't feel like it is?

I mean, really, there isn't that much to it, you build structures, an army, trade, and declare war.
The economy is not that hard to grasp and requires little to maintain (other than keeping an eye on merchants), and all you have to worry about for your army is monthly manpower increases.
Warfare is just letting bigger stacks attack smaller stacks, or turtling the AI to exploit defensive edges.

Maybe it's just that the game feels super simple to me when compared to the economic aspects of Victoria II or micromanaging the Eastern Front on Hearts of Iron III...

But, this is why I love it, I can come home from a long day and get into a game that doesn't require me to think incredibly hard and still get a grand-scale game out of it.

 

[Flammehav]

Is EUIII really that complicated to newcomers, or have I played it for so long that it just doesn't feel like it is?

I mean, really, there isn't that much to it, you build structures, an army, trade, and declare war.
The economy is not that hard to grasp and requires little to maintain (other than keeping an eye on merchants), and all you have to worry about for your army is monthly manpower increases.
Warfare is just letting bigger stacks attack smaller stacks, or turtling the AI to exploit defensive edges.

Maybe it's just that the game feels super simple to me when compared to the economic aspects of Victoria II or micromanaging the Eastern Front on Hearts of Iron III...

But, this is why I love it, I can come home from a long day and get into a game that doesn't require me to think incredibly hard and still get a grand-scale game out of it.

I remeber when I first started playing(EU2). Dumb as I was I started out as Norway, couldn't do anything since they are so weak at the start of the game and shelfed the game for about 8 months. When I picked it up again I picked the biggest country I could find wich was Ming(I didn't know about different tech groups). I quickly discovered the loan shark exploit, since I hadn't discovered these pages yet I still played on 1.02 where you could offer a loan to someone for 10 years with 10% interest and they would accept almost every time. So I lend out all my money to Japan and after a decade or two I could live large on the interests. I also went around conquering every little nations in site. I had no ide about the military parts, but I won by pure numbers. When I looked around on the differnt tabs I couldn't understand why it stood that I was hated through the entire world, yes I had no ide that BB even existed, far less how it worked, I got furios when Japan refused to pay back the loan I gave them, probably due to my high BB and went to war with them, but since I hadn't figured out the naval part yet, I was lucky to get a white peace.

So yes the EU games have a VERY steep learning curve, but when you spend hundreds and hundreds of houers in the game it just feel so natural it's hard to rememeber how you struggeled yourself. By now you does'nt only know the basics, but almost every little trick, and all together these little tricks and pieces of knowledge makes it far easier then for a new player. + if you play a rich nation you can afford to mess up pretty bad without ruining the game. If you had played a german OPM and a player that have never played this game even once had taken Castille or France, you would probably be in better shape than they by 1500.

So to all thew new players hang in there, it's a steep learning curve, but you have endless of houers of fun once you get the basics down and then you can just come down to the forums and ask if it's something you wonder about. After 7 years I still learn new things sometime, and this forum is the most helpfull and polite forum I've ever seen on the internet.

 

[ODaly]

+1 to Flammehav

I've been playing EU3 since just after DW came out and I still sometimes feel like I'm just putzing around.