Hi, my name is Mark and I have never made a post on the forums before. So I hope this works out.
I would like to share my story with EU3 to everyone (as in, the few people who still check these forums).
I purchased EU3 Chronicles when I was in fifth grade (early 2012). I had done a bunch of research on cool-sounding computer games to ask for for Christmas. Ultimately, I decided I would ask for EU3 Complete with the logic being that "the last two expansion packs don't add more years so you're not getting any more for your money." However, I guess my parents didn't want me to spend my time playing computer games, and nobody bought the game for me. I had watched some YouTube videos of a guy playing as Teutonic Order (not sure what version he had but I do remember that it was pre-DW because when I got the game I was surprised it looked different from the video) and the game seemed like a lot of fun so I decided to buy it for myself. I did a bunch of comparison shopping and ultimately ended up getting Chronicles because it was basically the same price as Complete. I don't remember how much I paid for it (although I think it was pretty cheap; I could probably find that information somewhere). I ordered the game off of a really sketchy website and it took like a month or longer to arrive in the mail. That is one of the only things from my childhood I really remember waiting and waiting to finally get.
The day after the game arrived (I don't think I tried it the day that it came), I remember sitting on the floor during class (5th grade writing) and waiting and waiting for the day to end so I could go home and play my new game. I was definitely super excited. I came home by myself (I was a latchkey kid because both my parents had to work) and set it up. I remember waiting and waiting because it took soo long to load. Finally I was ready to choose a country. I picked Ming because... it was China and that seemed cool, and it was really big. The game was SO COOL. I spent more than half an hour clicking on all the buttons to see what the did, reading all the info boxes, looking around the world, starting troop recruitment because "I want to take over everything!"
Finally I was ready to start. There was just one problem - I didn't know how to unpause the game! I tried clicking everything but I couldn't figure it out. Ultimately I had to save the game, close out of it, go to the internet, and google how to do it. Oh, it was just pressing the spacebar. -__-
I don't remember everything super well because this all happened a long time ago. I do remember, in my game as Ming, that every time I could manage to get into a war (which is a little bit tricky with the factions) I would always take as much territory as I possibly could. Regardless of what CB I was using. Also, managing money was easy because you could just move the little slider in the economic window over and you could always start making more money.... I remember having around 50-60 infamy and there were SO MANY REBELS and then the game wasn't really fun any more....
I probably spent some time trying a few other countries but ultimately I picked Castille to start a new game. I don't know exactly when this was but I probably spent a lot of Saturday mornings playing EU3. I really sucked at the game, I do know that. I would take over random territories without considering how profitable owning them would be (so I took over all of North Africa). At the beginning I still minted a lot. I kept as large of an army as I possibly could and I was always trying to go to war because without war, the game was boring. I think I also put all COTs on max autosend merchants because I didn't understand the idea of compete chance and I didn't realize that perpetually high infamy made trade nearly impossible. I got QFTNW and lost more than one explorer because I went exploring in the North Atlantic with galleys.
I also had another problem - my computer was really slow. I didn't realize this was abnormal at the time, but I ALWAYS kept the game on max speed. And even then there was lots of time sitting there doing nothing. That's why I really always wanted to be at war - otherwise it was easy to get bored and there was nothing to do. I think even at max speed the game would only go at like 1 day per second. Or maybe it was even slower than that. If you consider all the time spent paused, I could play for hours and just a couple of years would go by.
My Castille game didn't go insanely well because I was still learning. I had extremely high inflation. My economy was very weak. I tried to colonize in Brazil but it was really expensive and bad for my economy. (Also, I don't think that I ever built buildings although I did eventually figure out that that was important).
I eventually got a new laptop computer for Christmas. I'm not sure when that was. It's the computer I'm using to type this message now. I think I was either in 6th or 7th grade but I can't remember for sure. Probably 7th actually.
When I got EU3 running on this computer, I was BLOWN AWAY by how fast it could go. The max speed was CRAZY fast. I think that probably I had stopped playing EU3 very much by this point because it was just so tedious (and also I was bad at it).
I'm just going off of my memory here, but I would guess that 7th-8th grade is when I was most into this game. I learned a lot more and I spent a lot of time reading AARs. Later on I also spent a lot of time reading the wiki. I'm pretty sure that I've read every single page on the wiki multiple times over by now. I remember having snow days and spending my time playing this game and reading AARs. I also got Victoria 2 and convinced some of my friends to get it (I think like 4-5 friends got it). IIRC it was only like 10 bucks for the base game at the time and I thought we would be able to play multiplayer together and I would be able to show them all how good I was at this strategy stuff. I did spent a decent amount of time playing Victoria 2 in 8th grade and I don't think I really played EU3 at all for like a 1 year period or so. Unfortunately, not only did my friends suck at playing Victoria 2 to the point that they quit out of frustration, but we were unable to get multiplayer to work. Which was really a bummer for me.
After I started high school I didn't have a lot of free time. However, I had of spurts of interest where I would get really obsessed with EU3 again and play it really seriously. This happened during like 2 of my summer breaks and 2 of my winter breaks or something like that. However, I basically have hidden that I played this game from my parents. And I spent a decent chunk of time playing it. I mean I'm sure they know that I played it some but not to the extent that I did at the times that I did. I honestly have been embarrassed about playing this game and generally don't tell people about it, except that it sort of a joke/meme with my closest friends.
Last summer I got my first job and I don't think I played EU3 at all (or maybe I did, I can't recall) although I did play a little bit of Victoria 2 for the first time in several years. (I also wasted a lot of time playing surviv.io).
In June I graduated from high school and I haven't been working for the past month. I'm moving in to college in a month. I may go back to my job for the next month (possibly starting tomorrow but as of right now I'm still unsure about that actually happening). The past 2 weeks I played EU3. My childhood is over and this is a game that, although I know it's played by a lot of adults, I will always associate with being a kid.
For a long time EU3 made me excited in a really special sort of way. The sound of a certain bird (IDK anything about birds) always reminds me of waking up early on Saturday mornings to play EU3. I will always associate this game with snow days and with hot summer days being home alone. I remember my dad told me to make sure I was staying hydrated so I would sit at the computer and continuously drink water and refill the glass, with the effect being that I had to go pee practically every 20 or 30 minutes. Now I'm an adult and ready to move on.
(Oh and to be clear, I didn't spend my whole childhood playing computer games. I liked reading a lot when I was younger and spent a lot of time doing that. I played soccer up through 9th grade and then started doing track, which, although I was not great at it, I was dedicated to it and spent a lot of time on it. I did debate for a year and a half and also got serious about quizbowl - where I occasionally was able to use my EU3 knowledge
).
-
Now, let me post my DW empire! Hopefully the pictures will show up!
I started as Luneburg. I began this game coming off a game as Poland where I had been able to form a giant eastern empire by the mid-1600s and get elected HRE, but everyone in the HRE hated me and I wasn't able to progress with imperial reforms. I wanted to play a game that was different than basically every game of EU3 I had played before:
- Almost all of my games were as countries that began reasonably powerful. I wanted the challenge of starting off as an OPM.
- Trading. I had never tried to be a trading power and I wanted to do it.
- HRE. I hadn't really tried to navigate the HRE through diplomacy and that was a good challenge.
- Colonization (or the lack of it). Most of my games, which were usually as large countries, ended up with me trying to colonize as much as possible. In this game I wanted to ignore the colonies and focus on Europe.
- The Reformation (?). Maybe this is a thing I'm adding in hindsight because I don't really remember for sure, but I know that I had never tried to convert my country to Protestant/Reformed.
I'm not sure when I started this game. It may have been the summer after 10th grade (so 2 years ago), or it may have been after 9th grade (3 years ago). I do know that it was summer, and I went long periods of time without playing at all. I probably completed the whole campaign in like 3 or maybe 4 periods of serious interest (or obsession).
It took a long time to establish myself as a trading power. It took a lot of slider moves; my first two national ideas were the two trade-oriented ones. I remember getting dumb missions like Arms Race Versus Neighbor! where I would build up my army and then disband the troops immediately after completing the mission. Finally, I started to make more money from trading after like 25-30 years of careful management. Then I got claims on our rivals which helped me expand. Also, at the beginning, I made royal marriages with everyone that I could. This paid off when right at the beginning of the game Ryazan of all countries got into a PU under me. That was quite surprising. (Side note: I later accidentally inherited Ryazan and then released them as a vassal because I did not have access anywhere near the province at the time. I finally annexed them near the end of the game by cancelling their alliance/vassalization and annexing them through war because they had a republican form of government.)
Basically I had all the provinces surrounding Luneburg plus a couple of really rich provinces in the Netherlands, and I was bringing in lots of money due to trade. When I got involved in wars I would vassalize small countries whenever I could (even for 4 infamy, although I made sure to keep my infamy down). I eventually was able to vassalize enough electors that I was able to put myself in line for the HRE. Finally, the old emperor died and my dude was elected. I generally had good relations with a lot of people in the HRE and I tried to keep it that way. I think I passed the reforms relatively quickly.
When the Reformation started, my provinces were among the most affected. More than half of my provinces converted to Reformed and then I made the decision to convert as well. This ruined my relations with most of the HRE. So I spent a lot of time trying to improve them again. However, then I was able to make countries convert to reformed and gain imperial authority for doing that. Which made passing getting the imperial authority a lot easier. Later on, my of my conquests in Europe were using Unam Sanctum/Cleanisng of Heresy. (Personally, I think it's weird that Holy War no longer works but Cleansing of Heresy is perfectly acceptable until 1821, but whatever).
I remember having several really tough wars against France, where my army of vassals came to save me. France was my biggest enemy as Luneburg, basically. I didn't have a large army, even when I formed the HRE.
Also, even though I didn't plan on doing any colonization (and for a while, even after getting a port, I didn't make any ships), there was some point in the 1500s where I discovered the Americas and basically no colonization was happening. I ultimately started colonizing some of the West Indies because basically they were too nice to not take and they were just sitting there. And then... I had to build some ships to protect my tariff efficiency.
I went back and have the before and after forming HRE pictures. However, I'm not going to add any more pictures from pre-end of game because it take SUPER long to load my save games (probably I would need to go delete a bunch of old save games but I'm not planning on playing any more any way.)
No sure how my infamy went down.... I just noticed that.
If you're wondering how I managed to get Austria, which was quite powerful, to be my vassal, I think I got pretty lucky. Austria actually offered me an alliance out of the blue which I accepted, and then they called me to arms against the Ottomans. Since we were allied in a war I don't think they could have declared war on me by declining to become my vassal when I passed the reform, so they accepted. A few countries did decline, unfortunately, but I got 'em all eventually.
From this point I had clearly already won. Before this game, I have never played a game past mid-1600s (I think). I'll give you a quick run-down of what happened.
I went after France with Cleansing of Heresy. I took like half of their European provinces. Then I used Obscure Documents to get them in a PU. (That's something that I never used before this game and it's pretty cool and makes your life a lot better.) I also went after Poland. Later I got Poland and Lithuania in a PU and inherited them at the same time I inherited France. From France I think I got a lot of American colonies (especially Southern South America and maybe some other parts. Poland also had some South American colonies. Before 1650 I attacked Ming twice and stole as many valuable provinces as I could. (I also went to war with Japan using Holy War but I couldn't take their provinces for 1 infamy, that was really annoying and I didn't get anything out of it.)
England formed Great Britain and I did attack them at some point and took their most valuable provinces. Later I got them in a PU and then inherited them.
Basically I cleaned up a lot in Eastern Europe in the last 100 years. I took a lot of the Russian provinces. I didn't make the land connection to Eastern Siberia until less than 50 years before the game ended, and the land connection to China didn't happen until the last 20 years of the game. (I took a bunch of land from Novgorod using the Revolution/Counter-Revolution CB). When I got the land connection to China the Chinese provinces suddenly became all of the highest-production provinces in the country.
Here is my empire:
Sweden and Cornwall are under a PU. My vassals are Bosnia, Epirus, Wallachia, Tyrone, USA, Dauphine, Sicily, and the Mamluks.
You might be wondering how I ended up with so many colonies from a "non-colonization" game. Well, I did stay true to my word and I never took QFTNW. I inherited a lot of them (especially in South America and Africa. Indonesia is super valuable and definitely worth colonizing. I actually kept getting cores on Castilian provinces in the Americas and took a bunch of their provinces that way. I also made Castille release Mexico and took their valuable provinces using Cleansing of Heresy (I did this right at the end of the game, though).
Well, that's basically the game! I have a bunch more pictures I'll put in below.
Interesting stuff that happened:
- There are now only 3 Catholic countries: Sweden, Castille, and Mexico. However, there were several more right up until the endgame, including: Sicily, which I got a vassalization mission in the last 10 years and force converted when vassalizing, Portugal (my vassal who I annexed in the last 10 years), and Norway, which I annexed in the last 5 years (for hundreds of years, Norway's sole province was the Canarias).
- Bourbonnais is located only in Africa, although they have some colonies in Oceania. It is a trading power. They have level 4 forts in all of their provinces and their capital had level 6 fort plus a march.
- Vijaynagar was the second largest in terms of army and income for a long time, but in the last 10-20 years of the game underwent a major collapse.
- I only annexed Aztec in the last 10 years of the game. (Previously they had been surrounded by Castille, and then by Mexico).
- Several hordes still exist and they seem to be doing alright.
- Minamoto converted to Catholicism at some point when they only had like 4 provinces left. Fujiwara was totally dominant in Japan and I thought they might be able to united Japan but they didn't quite manage it, even though Taira has just 1 province and is their vassal.
- I never had this much infamy during the game; I only ended with this much because right at the end I took the two Ottoman provinces that I needed to connect my Arabian holdings to Europe.
- I sponsored rebels in Murcia when it belonged to the Ottomans. It defected to Castille and the troops became Castilian soldiers that Castille combined with their army. Their army was then sponsored by me and was unable to fight my troops or siege my provinces for the last ~40 years of the game (and Castille and I were perpetually at war every few years)! (This was a problem earlier as well when I sponsored rebels that declared an independent Ukraine. When I went to war with Ukraine they could not fight me.)
Religion
Trade. Little countries in my vicinity kept making COTs and I kept having to take them over! I was at full free trade the entire game, although at some point I wasn't really able to compete in foreign COTs any more (part of this is that I stopped caring so much about trading). However, trade is by far my largest source of income still. In contrast to Europe, the Americas only have 4 COTs, and for a while there were only 3 with most trade going through 2 of them: Muskogee and St. Thomas. Both ended the game with 1 million population and at times both had a trade value of more than 3000. I counted and there are 43 COTs in the world, of which I own 29, including the 4 most valuable.
Tech. I was always way ahead, although small countries kept trying to catch up. I tended to vassalize and annex the annoying trading powers.
Here's my economic situation. Despite making tons of money from trade I still lose like 2k every year, apparently. I've always kept the minting slider at the lowest possible setting (and why I have national bank, I'm not sure, because I basically never did any minting, although I guess I did a little bit at the beginning). Ironically, my navy is my biggest expense - it was hard to keep at 100% tariff efficiency! I had to get grand navy because I was over the forcelimits and I was trying to reduce my expense there.
Charts!
I won't post the military screenshots. I have 704k troops and the next is Persia with 112k, Fujiwara has 84k, and Castille has 68k, Yemen has 66k, and Ming has 62k. I think the Ottomans would be up there except I just wiped out at least 70k of their troops or something like that.
I have a Navy of 202/189/6/230 for 627 total ships. Nobody else has more than 100. (Vijaynagar has 95).
Here's my kings. My current king took over at age 15 and already had a 6 year old son. That was weird. The original heir sucked, but he died. Eventually I got a replacement who was born in like 1808. Ironically, the new heir is 9/9/9.
For all of you who still play EU3 - thanks for reading! I wasted a lot of time on this game to be honest, but I'm moving on with my life now. Don't have regrets!