Questions coming back to EU3 after all these years

[jhhowell]

Denmark annex the Hansa

Yes indeed! Denmark wisely decided to restore the Hansa almost immediately - I had moved troops into position and was just waiting a month for naval morale after putting maintenance to full. I assume that was RNG rather than the AI actually noticing and responding to my troop movements.

Partly inspired by Poland in this game, I'm pondering my next game already. Thinking of using Lithuania to become the Central Asian great power, with the "-90% if Province: culture is Khazak, Kirgiz, Siberian or Tartar; Owner state culture is East Slavic, West Slavic or Baltic" clause in the Cultural Assimilation event. Lithuanian culture doesn't actually border Tartar, but I'm thinking I could either make a CoT in Crimea, or eventually take Astrakhan and start the culture-flipping there. Does this plan seem workable, or is there a problem I've overlooked? This would be another game that's super-boring for the first 100-odd years, but that was the case for Brandenburg too.

 

[TheArchMede]

Having the GH pounding you is not going to be boring. You've got to fight them off, break up with Poland, make sure that its you, not Muscovy colonising their way through the hordes.
Its quite possible to take over Asia as Lithuania. I played a Lithuania where I stayed Noble Republic for the entire game, didn't Westernise, went Reformed religion and took the tolerant ideas and took over most of Europe and half of Africa as well. At the moment I'm trying to take over Europe, Asia and North America as Lorraine.
When you colonise north of the hordes, those provinces get your culture and are a source for culture spread southwards.

 

[Kovax]

I'm finding that I still don't really understand the HRE (and I'm the Emperor...). What is the use of the Imperial Liberation CB? For example, Venice holds Brescia and Verona and refused the event to return them. They're Milanese cores, and Milan still exists. I could DoW and take them for 1 BB each, but then I'd be the one with unlawful Imperial territory, and I couldn't even release them as a vassal since their rightful owner still exists.

Similarly, I had been thinking of annexing Prussia, since that's what the missions overwhelmingly want me to do. But that would result in holding four unlawful Imperial provinces up around the Gulf of Riga, and short of releasing Prussia again I don't see anything I could do about that. Looking at the requirements for the Prussian Military Reforms decision, I don't think there's any point to annexing Prussia anyway. Form Germany in 1552, or wait to get Land 30 around 1650ish to get the bonuses from that decision first, not a hard call.

Will the AI ever add or remove provinces from the Empire? I've seen AI Emperors add provinces, but have never yet seen an AI non-Emperor add a province or remove a province from the Empire. I find the idea of Champagne joining the HRE entertaining but I'm not sure it can happen in practice. And Hungary has a couple provinces I'd rather they removed.

The Emperor gets a core on the FIRST HRE province retaken from a non-HRE country with that CB, so taking more than one HRE province in a war may leave you stuck with a non-core HRE province that you cannot get rid of. This is a HUGE problem for several Baltic provinces, where the culture does not match the core, so the core is lost upon conquest (or voluntary return to the Emperor upon random demand) and cannot be liberated if you hold it, yet you suffer the illegal HRE province penalty for holding it. Venice holding Brescia and Verona would be prime bits of real estate for the Emperor to reclaim for the HRE, but only one per war. Annexing a 4-province country like Brandenburg without your own cores would indeed stick you with a +1.00/year infamy penalty, which would be a very infamy-expensive way to expand.

The AI will sometimes add an HRE province, even from a non-HRE state. Bohemia often adds the one non-HRE province of Aquileia, and in my current game, AI Urbino was granted admission to the HRE by AI Bohemia,. but instances like the latter are VERY rare, and I've only seen it happen a couple of times in all the campaigns I've played.

Most expansion within the HRE ends up being either through annexation of mission-granted cores, random border disputes granting cores, or inheritance via PU as cores if both are within the HRE. Forcing a PU and inheriting them within the HRE is fairly overpowered, but annexing vassals within the HRE is a lot more expensive than normal in terms of Infamy., due to the non-core penalties, so it balances out.
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The discussion about Tatar lands reminds me of a previous Hungary campaign, where I used the cultural conversion decision to create a cultural path through Ruthenia and Moldavia to reach the Tatar provinces beyond, and it spread like wildfire from there, half-way across Asia by the end of the game. Most of the conversions were at the expense of Tatar and other nomadic cultures. Lithuania would be in a great position to exploit that, and could use spies to prompt revolts in order to prevent any rivals from holding those provinces long enough to convert them. The challenge from the GH will only last for a few decades, as you will gradually eclipse them in military technology, and can raise superior horde cavalry of your own in annexed provinces, which will then operate with your steadily improving modifiers, while those of the GH will remain pretty close to where they began. Played right, the nomads aren't even remotely a threat by 1500, and the Golden Horde will be very much a Golden Opportunity for free land, if you can get it first.

 

[jhhowell]

Having the GH pounding you is not going to be boring. You've got to fight them off, break up with Poland, make sure that its you, not Muscovy colonising their way through the hordes.
Its quite possible to take over Asia as Lithuania. I played a Lithuania where I stayed Noble Republic for the entire game, didn't Westernise, went Reformed religion

Is it not practical to become a tributary very early on? That seemed to work nicely for Persia in my Hindustan game where they became the Russia-equivalent power. Or will the AI only agree to that with another AI, and will be murderously stubborn with a human player?

Not Westernising and going Reformed is exactly what I have in mind. The AI is so bad at managing inflation that I'd expect Eastern or Ottoman tech groups should keep up just fine.

I haven't yet seen Muscovy being competitive. It all belonged to mother Persia in the Hindustan game, and it looks like a race between Novgorod and Poland in the Germany game, with Novgorod having a significant edge.

I discovered something hilarious, which I'm sure you guys already know about. Germany was dragged into a war Morocco declared against Savoy to reconquer some North African provinces. I'm the Emperor, Savoy is in the HRE, sure I'll "help" (figuring I'd just white peace at some point). But since I'm the leader, I can give away provinces from my co-belligerents, even if the war score doesn't remotely justify it! Congrats Morocco, you get two cores back from Savoy and one from Castille; Ottomans (who in this game have been a pathetic 4-province minor for almost the entire game, only marginally more powerful than the Byzantines - who still exist in the 1560s!) get the four provinces in Asia Minor that Castille took from them in the 1430s or so, and Tripoli gets Gabes from Castille because why not.

Germany's cores weren't quite as extensive as I'd thought - no East Prussia, Switzerland, Netherlands, or Flanders (I'd figured since it was a cultural union title, I'd get cores on all of the German culture group provinces). I'm not really seeing how to get Riga or Switzerland, since they're a theocracy and republic respectively. I could force-vassalize Switzerland, but seven HRE provinces without cores is all kinds of nope. I'm thinking well done to Paradox for constructing the map and rules in a way that almost compels Switzerland remaining independent through the entire game as they historically did.

 

[TheArchMede]

Switzerland requires long term occupation to drive down the peace value, and the longer the game has been running the higher its province values will get. If you complete all the reforms to form the HRE you can grab them. Also if you arrange to leave the HRE and then regain the Emperor (or disband the HRE) you can take them over too. If you have vassalised the electors you can flip from monarchy to republic, leave the HRE, flip back again, and on the next election you will be emperor again but without the infamy penalties for holding illegal territory. Or just beat up the new emperor and disband the HRE rather than wait for re-election.

 

[Kovax]

As long as you're playing a Germanic state, the HRE decisions will eventually allow you to vassalize and annex all of the HRE member states. The problem is, if you play a non-Germanic state such as Burgundy or Milan, annexing the HRE will first have you annex all of the HRE provinces as cores, but you will NOT get the province improvements from any that are not of your own cultural group, and then you will in turn be assimilated into a new HRE country, which being Germanic, will not get your own province improvements. At that point, your entire country will be reduced to having only Forts, and nothing else in each province. Consider the number of Magistrates that you will need to replace even the most basic improvements in every province. To me, that seems like a first order disaster. Beating up the Emperor, vassalizing the electors, disbanding the HRE, and annexing the pieces seems like a better solution for a non-Germanic country.

The good point about being in the HRE is the ability to inherit other HRE countries as cores, but getting OUT of the HRE afterwards can be problematical, as the Emperor will then begin to randomly demand the return of each of those HRE provinces, with a stability hit for each of them if you refuse.

 

[jhhowell]

What determines War Capacity? I'm stuck in a forever war with Castille because the game believes I'm at 47% War Capacity, even though I'm stronger than ever. War Exhaustion is zero, I've won literally every battle (already peaced out with Scotland for Antwerp), manpower is very close to full, my navy is stronger than the Castille/France alliance, and total troop numbers are about even. Which doesn't really matter since neither Castille nor France dares to attack me. Castille had a 24k army camped in Flanders not doing anything until I came over and destroyed it, and France keeps moving troops back and forth between Lyon and Franche Comte, just taking attrition on Burgundian territory. That Castillian army must have been taking attrition in Artois as well, so both opponents should be well below full manpower. Yet somehow they're at "100%" War Capacity and I'm not? Is it heavily weighted by fraction of support limit in use? I have by far the largest army in the world, but I'm at something like 150/350 on army support limit because the Emperor's support limit is ludicrous.

Pretty sure that if I could get the game to understand that I'm in an incredibly strong position, this stupid war can end and I can get on with more productive activities... I really miss CK2's war score system at times like this!

Re: general HRE stuff - I'm happy where I am. I've passed the first three reforms, so being Emperor is about as helpful as it can get. I'm certainly not going to form the HRE state and lose my cultural union tag as Germany! With 16 vassals, I had to grudgingly accept that I'm staying Catholic this game (was hoping for Protestant initially). The Imperial Ban CB can get multiple cores per war - just grabbed both Brescia and Verona from Venice.

 

[TheArchMede]

I don't know why the details on why war capacity is lower for the player.
Have you called all your allies? I'm not sure if thats relevant or not, but its one of the things the AI does much more than I do.
Are you in multiple wars? That can hurt your war capacity a lot even if you can comfortably handle it.
Support limit might well be relevant, though I tend to just recruit to 100% of what I would have without the Emperor bonus and use the bonus to fill the reserve.

Castille AI (and a few other AIs in traditional great powers, like England/GB) is set to be stubborn at peace making. You have to be much stronger than them, or they won't give anything away until you stab hit them and they may take the stab hits all the way down to -3 until they give anything away. Its pretty hard to take anything off them without invading Spain, which can be ridiculously easy because the interior forts don't get built up so you can assault your way across it extremely fast with a big enough army. You'll have to do a Sherman on them.

Vassals shouldn't prevent you going protestant. You'll have to spend diplomats to get alliances and relations back, but they stay vassals and you get a lot of Imperial authority out of compelling them to follow you. Its only non-vassal allies you'll lose permanently.

I checked how long it took to get the score to vassalise Switzerland to drop in my current game. Started out at 104 and took 7 years to start dropping. 102 after 7 years, 98 after 8.

 

[jhhowell]

I did not call allies, since I didn't need them and they'd just be exposed targets Castille or France could feasibly attack. Germany is pretty compact, but add Nevers, Corsica, Siena, Gelre, etc., and there'd inevitably be an opening for the AI to cause trouble. I was not in multiple wars (I was initially, but the rest ended about the same time I peaced out with Scotland in this one). I'm very much a fan of short victorious wars, which is why this war was so annoying. One year for Antwerp, then another six years and all I get is Argentina (three provinces now, but spies can probably keep the rest clear).

I suspect the game weights all units equally, whether they're Portuguese galleys or German artillery. Paying Portugal $25 to go away made the War Capacity numbers make sense again. Germany jumped from 70% to 100%, Castille dropped from 89% to 12%.

I did have to stab hit them (I remember that well from the EU2/FtG days, but I'm not sure I've seen it in EU3 before!) and occupy a fair bit of Spain. Castille did a better job building their Fort 2s in this game than in yours - only a few provinces in ex-Granada and ex-Aragon were still at level 1. Now in restored Granada and Aragon.

Vassals shouldn't prevent you going protestant.

Ah, thanks! I can never remember what relationships are or are not broken by conversion, so I just assume everything is broken. Just need to vassalize Tunisia, Granada, and Aragon, and we should be good to go blue!

Yeah, Switzerland seems quite hard to take. They were at 140% to vassalize in my war to take Breisgau, so I just took my core and moved on. I'll wait and see if there are any helpful Border Disputes.

Interesting to compare Germany and Hindustan. German tax and manpower values are incredible! Then again Hindustan's spices, cotton, tea, etc. were fantastic too.

 

[jhhowell]

A couple of frustrations:

Is there any way to get the AI to knock it off with the damn spies? Lorraine (and others, but they're the most annoying) is begging me to blow up my BB by annexing them, since that's the only way I know of to make them stop sponsoring stupid pointless revolts anywhere and everywhere whenever they have a spy available. Some sort of "Stop spying or I will end you" CB would be nice...

I have no clue how to evaluate naval strength. Germany now has a substantial fleet of caravels and galleons. Portugal's main fleet is about 20 of each type of ship (exact models unclear, but probably not very important). I figured my 50 Big Ships and 4 Light Ships would do OK, but that was very much not the case. Superior Seamanship surely made a difference, possibly also Excellent Shipwrights. I don't have any admirals because I have no tradition, because this was my first attempt to fight a naval battle in this game. What should I aim for to take on an enemy fleet of 20/20/20/20 plus Superior Seamanship?

Also frustrated again with alliance chaining, but there's nothing to be done about that. In the month between ending Prussia's vassalization and the DoW, they allied with Switzerland. That led to a huge war, chaining to include Hungary, Portugal, England, Naples, Avignon, and some irrelevant minors. All because they're somehow deeply invested in the fate of a country that was my vassal a month before... They're paying a brutal price for it, but this is not what I wanted to be doing with my time...

 

[TheArchMede]

If its only one, you should be able to shut it down with diplomats and counterspies. Keep relations high. Keep spy defence high. Minors with excess money and spies burning a hole in their pocket are going to use them on whoever looks like the best target. If you've been warmongering and blobbing in the HRE, its probably going to be you. Use the counter spy mission, bribe them up to +200, take the spy defence idea, hire a spy defence advisor. Always build the spy defence buildings in your capital, because some of the missions on the capital are a lot more painful than a random revolt, which you have to have troops available to suppress anyway because events generate random revolts too.
You don't have to start a war in the first place if a chain is possible and you don't want it. You can start up to 5 wars simultaneously to get you multiple wars rather than all chained into one. The really annoying chains are when a country makes a new ally while at war with me, calls that ally, and precipitates a chain when that ally takes over the leadership. Maintaining a huge sphere helps avoid the AI building up alliance webs.
Admirals are important. Running away rather than waiting till you lose is important. You can generally face the AI down with a larger fleet of weak ships, or lure it into battles with a weak squadron while reinforcements are just over the horizon. I generally find out what's enough by watching a battle and building more ships if I didn't have enough (or avoiding battles if its clear I'm too badly out teched/admiralled to turn round in good time). I generally don't take the naval ideas, just overrun the countries of those that do with my superior armies.

 

[jhhowell]

Thanks. I was wondering about the spy defense Idea. I seem to have a fair number of spare Idea slots this game, since I'm deliberately not putting much effort into colonizing. There are a lot of spy-happy minors out there - Lorraine, Champagne, Luxembourg, Armagnac, probably a few others. The down side of France just being the least-small of the French minors, I guess. Brandenburg got a College as soon as it could, and I've been working on getting Spy Agencies in the highest tax value provinces since those produce the biggest rebel stacks. It kind of rubs me the wrong way to send bribes toward these spy-minors, but if rewarding annoying behavior will stop the annoying behavior, it's worth it. Just really counterintuitive!

Normally I do the multiple simultaneous wars method (currently waiting for the last truce to expire to do another...). But that Prussia war had a lot of chaining. One ally gained in the month between de-vassalizing and DoW, then Switzerland's allies joined, then their allies, several layers deep... Hmm, perhaps the issue is that Switzerland is one of the few minors not in my sphere, because at times earlier in the game they were able to have a small sphere of their own (Flanders and Savoy are similar).

Very amusing event recently, that illustrates a key flaw in the game's rules. Claims on Our Rivals (I think because for the first time in ages I had a border with multiple rivals), a core on Castille ... in Arequipa! And a core on Vijayanagar in Mataram, two months after I took Surabaya to qualify for that tasty East Indian Trade Company decision. The flaw in the game rules is that I'll go from not being able to colonize anywhere because nothing interesting is in range of Antwerp and Argentina doesn't core until 1620 (and Peru in 1641, and Surabaya in 1658), to being able to colonize almost everywhere by around 1613 once I take those two new cores. Colonizing from Lima, not allowed for decades, colonizing from Arequipa, sure, that makes sense! Does EU4 separate the concepts of "de jure part of the country" from "we can colonize from here", or does silliness like this still happen?

Is there a bug in the East Indian Trade Company decision? It's supposed to give Hamburg a Grand Shipyard, but it is not doing so. I made sure to build Hamburg up to a regular Shipyard, in case that was the problem.

 

[TheArchMede]

There are a few decisions/events like that, where the location you get the reward is random and the information you have available to you beforehand is one of the possibilities rather than definitive. You will have got the shipyard in a different province. Inheritance chances is another thing that is indicative, when the die is rolled the result may be different.

 

[jhhowell]

You will have got the shipyard in a different province.

Aha, three free buildings in Antwerp to jump it straight to Grand Shipyard! That was not what I expected, but it certainly worked out nicely! Thank you for the clarification.