Old EU3 Questions from a New Player

[unmerged(204522)]

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.

england conquering sicily would be good for you-if you inherit sicily, you wont get cores on their italian provinces, so when you get the "italian ambition" mission you will get cores on 3 low value provinces in the south of italy instead of having the opportunity to grab 6 or more high value cores in the north of italy. goto EU3wiki.com and read the following chapters: general missions, specific missions that are only available to the country you are playing and the strategy guide for the country you are playing-may take a couple of hours, but the knowledge will last for ever. or, at least, until the next patch or expansion.

 

[brifbates]

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.

Minting only affects the first of the month income usage. The oddball incomes are from advisors born in your lands being hired by another nation.

 

[brifbates]

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.

Having started with the EU series back with the original and its excellent (particularly for Paradox) tutorial, I can't really say how hard it would be to dive in at EU3. However, there are a lot of things going on "under the hood" that are quite different from other strategy games out there that take some getting used to.

I personally can't really play HoI or Vic; HoI because it's sheer micro-management hell and Vic because I loathe the SoI minigame crap you have to deal with once you grow to major power status. It can be great fun to take an uncivilized nation or minor nation and become a great power but then it turns into suckville IMO.

 

[Extreme Unction]

Started a new game as Novgorod. Was feeling pretty good. Managed to annex Tver and Yaroslavl in one go, since Tver had conquered Yaroslavl themselves a year or three earlier.

Lithuania and Poland were beating up on Muscovy, and one of 'em managed to get Muscovy to release Nizhny Novgorod and Murom as independent states. So Muscovy was reduced to four provinces. Later on, I managed to annex the entire country, laying the foundations for the rise of Russia.

And then in 1415, Sweden declared war on me. I consulted the ledger and discovered that the combined military forces of Sweden and Scotland (Sweden's ally who joined in on the war) were 16k. Compared to my 26k army.

Well! No problem, right?

And then Swedish troops came barrelling in with a Shock 5 general...

 

[unmerged(204522)]

as a republic, you should always make your ruler a general-if that isnt enough, retreat and let attrition ruin your enemy before you step in to finish him off.

 

[Extreme Unction]

How do I increase my forcelimits? I thought that I got a force limit increase by annexing more territory. But I diploannexed Moscow in my game and my force limits stayed the same.

 

[gela1212]

How do I increase my forcelimits? I thought that I got a force limit increase by annexing more territory. But I diploannexed Moscow in my game and my force limits stayed the same.

It's all variable. You really only start getting the benefits from territory when the provinces core. Another way is if you are LATE in the game, then you can build conscription centers (+5 Land forcelimits)

Naval forcelimits really only go up when you get coastal provinces, if that's what you're referring to.

In the early stages of a Republic, I always choose Military (especially as Novgorod, who's constantly in wars) and only switch to Diplo/Admin later on.

Hope this helps.

 

[Caban]

It's a bit tougher... but I typically look for extremely high population provinces to take. One 100,000+ province can be worth quite a few extra units.

In my Mongol Khanate game I took a 999,999(max population) province and tripled my forcelimits. Crazy stuff.

 

[brifbates]

It also generally doesn't help that Sweden has 2 or more clicks quality than you do, also a bunch of aristocracy. Both of which will help their troops slaughter yours.

Novgorod is not one of the easier nations to play. In fact, I would say it is the hardest of the eastern powers with the possible exception of Lithuania.

 

[Caban]

Yeah... My strategy would be to immediately give and request access to all the nearby powers to force a stab hit and reduce the chance of a war declaration, then wait out the Golden Horde until they become weak from stability hits and war exhaustion and steal some provinces. Could try and steal relatively populous provinces from Muscowy between wars if you think you can take them.

 

[El Jojo]

Sweden takes attrition like everyone, especially this early in the game so you don't have to worry : 26k troops is good enough, don't attack unless they're outnumbered, let them siege a bit, maybe take a fort (that you'll instantly retake when they move to the next province). Then you take with crushing numbers. 10k men will not resist 20k men if they're weakened by attrition and you do not attack them in good defensible grounds.
Then once you've defeated their main army you can counter-attack and slowly siege their provinces and ask for the release of Finland, this way you won't be bordering sweden anymore and Finland is too small to dare attack you.

 

[Extreme Unction]

Why is the cost of my buildings increasing despite the fact that my inflation is going down?

 

[unmerged(204522)]

Why is the cost of my buildings increasing despite the fact that my inflation is going down?

the cost of manufactories increases every time you build one.....

 

[Extreme Unction]

the cost of manufactories increases every time you build one.....

Ah, but I'm building churches.

 

[Extreme Unction]

Well, I seem to have gotten the hang of the game somewhat:

 

[TAMBOURINESNAKE]

Well, I seem to have gotten the hang of the game somewhat:

*slowclap*

Russia can into space.

 

[brifbates]

Why is the cost of my buildings increasing despite the fact that my inflation is going down?

Certain decisions increase the cost of buildings up to a total of 3-5% as I recall. Probably some events do as well, it's hard to remember all of them. You can browse through your modifiers list to see which you have and when (if applicable) they expire.

 

[Derahan]

Well, I seem to have gotten the hang of the game somewhat:

There is no RUssia without Ukraine.....well RUssia does exist but you shuld conquer Ukrain and unify the Russian brothers!

 

[Extreme Unction]

I'm even a world tech leader!

 

[unmerged(202023)]

I'm even a world tech leader!

Way to go! So your inflation's probably not too bad either.