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Do you think it would be possible for us to play a multiplayer game head-to-head?

Well I'd appreciate it, but I tend to play disconnected since my connexion is quite bad at home, and actually for that reason I don't practice multiplayer games. BTW I like that Burgundy game of yours, looks like there is an excellent balance of great powers in that Europe and you should play until you face Portugal, GB, Hungary, Russia, Sweden and the Ottomans into real world war...
 
Ok. I don't play multiplayer games, because people invented EU3 :).

I guess the balance was created because I hadn't engaged too much in the world affairs. I've been modding some things regarding the unification of Italy, so I started the game just to see how that would come off. Otherwise, missions are about the only time I get involved with great powers.
 
A fully modernized Manchu empire, just taking the most important decision of its history...

MAN1560pol.jpg

... but with so much juicy Ming cores to take, you'd rather get busy right now, otherwise your prestige is going to collapse very fast !

MAN1560dip.jpg

And after a rather easy war and a long and exhausting occupation... here is the biggest peace deal I ever got in this game, 32 awesome provinces for 0 infamy.

MAN1572dip.jpg


There were other points of interest. I rushed westwards after the Nomads because I didn't like those Mamluks dangerously snaking in my direction. I set a clear border between me and them. I also had to fight my excellent former ally Ayutthaya after they stupidly took some Ming provinces. And well, 40 years after, it seems the world has changed a bit (I mean the part that matters, the middle of the world ; what happens in Europe hardly needs to be noticed).

MAN1600pol.jpg
 
Do you think it would be possible for us to play a multiplayer game head-to-head?

I'm your huckleberry.

Jk, I'm pretty good. Used to play EU2 MP but it was so many years ago I lost my account

Let's do it, EU3 5.2 beta, both picking non-OP nations? Could be fun

(i've played this game probably about 1.5k hours, never played MP)
 
I'm your huckleberry.

Jk, I'm pretty good. Used to play EU2 MP but it was so many years ago I lost my account

Let's do it, EU3 5.2 beta, both picking non-OP nations? Could be fun

(i've played this game probably about 1.5k hours, never played MP)
Great. Do you know how to set it up?
 
"The Omen", or the Nasty Sons of Oman, fully modernized. Obviously, Vijaynagar is pretty doomed now. Watch out Ming, you could very likely follow.

OMA1593pol.jpg

I really like those guys. Good starting slider positions, awesome at trading and teching. They're just a bit lonely as the only Shia country in the world now, but it gives them fine religious CBs against everyone, long before being able to get the Imperialism CB. And they still can vassalize their petty Sunni neighbours and thus make friends.

Note : that big red Lan Xang is totally the work of the AI. Well done.
 
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Great. Do you know how to set it up?

Isn't there a MP option built into EU3? It can't be that hard

Add me on steam if you don't mind, name on there is TsT arbo -- if you can't find me, search for Arbo's Chess Club under groups, then we can chat in PM and maybe set up a group

(I'm also a member of the EU3 Divine Wind group on there, though people never get MP games going)
 
A classy Hindustan formed by Bihar, fully modernized, now at its debut as a superpower.
Also, one of the neatest maps of Asia I've ever seen in this game... with a glorious AI Lan Xang, again !

HIN1535pol.jpg
 
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After my excellent game with Manchu, I was wondering if Ming could do any better. Obviously, of course they can, since you don't have to pay the effort to conquer all that Ming territory. Actually all you have to do is westernize, so that you can get rid of the stupid faction system - which takes a long, peaceful and somehow boring time...

So I waited like all the XVth century, westernized by 1500 and did some more stuff for the following 100 years. Here it is in 1600, at the same point I had left my Manchu game :

MIN1600pol.jpg


Alas ! Ming still has some hidden weakness : you cannot change the government type (unlike what is said in the EU3 wiki). Even without the factions, it will remain the Celestial Empire. And although it's not so bad in itself, this one doesn't give you any convenient CB against muslims and christians (you can still use the heretic CB against other Asian religions : that's what I did to vassalize my small and poor neighbours, especially that Khorasan, which became a good ally... it was very well advanced in techs and managed to grow bigger later on, thanks to patriot rebels in Timurid territory).

Only one solution to this problem, and it's kinda disappointing when you've enjoyed playing as Ming for so long : wait until 1644 and change to Manchu Empire. Then you can freely change your government type to Absolute Monarchy for instance, and get the Imperialism CB against everyone.

MIN1644pol2.jpg

So it's what you do when you get short of other options to finish the conquest of India and SE Asia...

MIN1644pol.jpg

(My war against Persia has been a very lucky exception. For some reason persia appeared... but as a Horde. I rushed and colonized its wealthy provinces, to prevent the Mamluks and the Ottomans from getting them).

In my previous post about Manchu, I wrote that nothing of interest was happening in the West. But hey... have you noticed what we have here ?

MIN1644polHRE.jpg


Bohemia made it through all the HRE reforms, congrats ! They also inherited Sweden and Lithuania, forming that impressively coherent territory. Maybe the AI has become really smart after so many years playing EU3 DW on VH difficulty level...

Now I just wonder if it is wise to want a CB against everyone, after all :D
 
Beware of the Chocolate Republic !

SWI1518disHRE.jpg


Long story short, I began allying Burgundy and Milan (Switzerland is big enough to be considered a relevant ally by these powerful neighbors), then used missions and CBs to conquer and vassalize around. Then felt confident enough to convert to Protestant and get myself in a war situation that would allow me to dismantle the Empire.

SWI1524pol.jpg

I know Switzerland usually looks lame, but it's a fairly good country if you have the patience to spend the first 20 years doing little apart from improving your starting provinces and techs. And come on, isn't it more attractive with this darker map color ? The red army flags look like cherry bits on a Forêt Noire cake :p.

EU3_MAP_SWI_1524.5.3_2.jpg
 
Here's my Burgundy game, started a month and a half ago:
View attachment 323287
Add Scotland to that and it would look surprisingly similar to my own current Burgundy campaign, except that mine is currently in the 1480s.

I note that Hungary pushed eastward in your game, and Austria followed them, basically shifting everything over. England is also heavily fragmented in my game (Gee, I wonder who could have done that?), with Ireland released into individual states, Wales and Cornwall independent, and one lone Aquitaine province remaining on the continent. France is in marginally better shape, but I don't want to split them up when I've got a reasonable chance to inherit them as-is. Currently Burgundy is Emperor of the HRE, with 5 of the 7 of the electors solidly behind me and the other two vassalized or annexed by other aspiring wannabes (and zero chance that they'll unify those votes against me).

I'm still occasionally dabbling with the final decade of my Hungarian Empire game (now in the 1810s), but I won't get cores on all of England's holdings until a couple of years after the end of the game, I probably won't inherit anything else with the mediocre heir currently in line, and I'm not about to pass the final reform to inherit the entire HRE (despite having 90 of the 50 points required) because that would change my country's name to "Holy Roman Empire", erase all of the existing improvements in the inherited lands (because they're not my own culture), and then erase all of the improvements in my own lands (because they're being inherited by the HRE, which is German, NOT my current culture group). Basically, it would put all of Europe, half of Asia, half of North America, and large portions of both Africa and South America back into the Dark Ages economically, with only a decade left in the game to rebuild everything from scratch.
 
I started a game with Hesse, just because I was bored.

Hesse has nothing special, really, except the fact they start with 3 provinces and thus can expect to be slightly more powerful than their immediate neighbors, without any strong realm around to be afraid of : Burgundy, Austria and Bohemia are all several provinces away from them.

Vaguely thought about trying to form Germany - which for sure would not have been my very first try, but I tend to quit long before it is done cause it's just too damn long until you get the 10 cored provinces you need, while struggling to solve the problem of spending long decades with illegitimate HRE territory. But I got quite lucky from the beginning this time and decided to keep on.

How lucky ? Well, my starting king died after 8 months without an heir and I got a new one from the Luxemburg dynasty, with excellent diplomatic skills. He soon got the "Claim on our rivals" event... Then I kept on getting fine missions which granted me cores on several of the required provinces to form Germany. Then I became HRE and could use that powerful special CB : Imperial Ban... against the Teutonic kinghts who had gone too greedy on HRE territory.

HES1472war.jpg


At that point I was starting to feel quite confident that I would possibly manage to form Germany before 1550. To be honest I must say that there was a certain amount of save & reload when I wanted to keep on getting the appropriate missions... when it's time to annex your vassal and get cores on his key provinces, and you're very focused on this goal, you don't really want to waste your time and money in a naval race against England or building a University in a random province.

HES1516pol.jpg

Here I was well on my way and suddenly noticed that my 6 stars diplomat was still inservice after 82 years... not bad. I didn't feel very comfortable about my heir's awkward name though.

I was concerned about Burgundy for quite a long time, but I punished them at the right time and released Flanders, that I force-PUed some years after... I didn't have to deal with Austria : for almost 50 years they had an Empress who couldn't compete for the HRE crown, and remained without an heir... so I just had to wait and get lucky again until I PUed them as well. Then I inherited both these powerful realms at once with a bunch of wealthy cored provinces. Oh, and I also vassalized Bohemia, Switzerland and Savoy, so I would not have any serious opponent left in the HRE - and Prussia of course.

And finally, here we are. I kept feeling sorry about that Adolf Kaiser, so I might have chosen a certain date to form Germany...

HES1545pol.jpg


... 18 years later, the unification of Germanic land was complete - here my prestige is low because I had to dump a lot of vassals in order to immediately annex them with the Reconquest CB, rather than diplo-annexing them one by one every 10 years.

GER1563pol.jpg


I think I'll stop that game here. Of course, there still would be some work to do about the HRE territory, and actually, anything else would be possible to do from that point - I don't think I've ever been so ridiculously overpowered that early with any other country. Germany is truly blessed. But you know, here in Europe we have mixed feelings about the mere concept of Germanic expansion :D... I already wanted to apologize to Poland for stealing so much territory from them.
 
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I'm pretty happy with my Timurids -> Mughals game:
map.png


Ruled from Delhi. Huge chunk of Asia and all of Africa owned (the only land we owned that wasn't contiguous was Madagascar and Socotra - other than that we didn't bother getting islands that we couldn't walk our troops to):
1.png


We're pretty much the one-stop shop for Islam in the world:
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Though ours is a pretty multicultural empire (necessarily), Uzbek culture dominates large parts of it:
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Meaning that stability cost isn't too bad. We could generally gain a level of stability in 6 months:
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And tech was awesome. We were the leaders of the world!
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Oh, and I built a wall with Europe because of the number of stupid invasions I was getting from tribal nations like Ukraine and OPMs with some bizarre belief that they could defeat me. Donald Trump take notes! :D
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I'm pretty happy with my Timurids -> Mughals game

That's awesome ! Must have been a pain to modernize the military though, the Timurids are powerful but they start with terrible slider positions and it takes a long time before they can change them. Also, did you get a lot of tribal crisis before you could form the Mughal Empire ?
 
That's awesome ! Must have been a pain to modernize the military though, the Timurids are powerful but they start with terrible slider positions and it takes a long time before they can change them. Also, did you get a lot of tribal crisis before you could form the Mughal Empire ?
I started out knowing what I'd need to do. I was able to form the Mughals surprisingly quickly in something like 50 years. Only had a few succession crises. Getting to full centralization from full decentralization is pretty much a goal that you work towards over half the game. By the time military modernization came around we had mostly cored provinces and very good stability so there weren't too many rebellions.