Returning player - need some guidance

[joos]

After a long hiatus of more than a year, I decided to play EU4. The last I played was before institutions/states came into the game. The concept of age/era is also new to me.

I started a game as England - my plan is to just emulate historical England and leave Europe to its own devices for the most part, to colonize big and establish a global trade network, to totally dominate the English Channel, and to constantly play the European policeman, checking the big blobs.

With a few months, I got the Maine surrender event. I promptly surrendered Maine to France and also gave up one of my cores. I am trying to see if I can return France's provinces to her before she declares on me.

Meanwhile, the War of the Roses happened and I supported Lancaster. I now have the Tudor dynasty on the throne post the civil war.

It is now 1471, I am earning quite a decent amount in trade and taxation. I have already diplo-vassalized a couple of Irish minors. Sligo is going to need to be militarily annexed, however, as they are too big to be vassalized diplomatically. The Scots are allied to France and making noises from time to time. My Norman and Aquitaine lands are still under my control. Burgundy still exists, big and nasty. I have just embraced Renaissance (a whole year after France did!). I have chosen Exploration as my first idea group.

So, specifically, here are the places where I need some help:

1. Is it possible to completely surrender all the French lands to France without getting into a war? I am surprised France hasn't DoWed me for them, but that could be because I am allied to the Emperor. If a diplomatic option is not possible, I am willing to lose the war and give them their stupid lands.

2. From what I understand of institutions, I picked Exploration first so as to trigger Colonialism in my country. Is that a valid strategy and worthwhile to do?

3. I have Cossacks and I noticed that there are no nobility estates in England. Instead, there seems to be seats of parliament. So I am only having to balance between the burghers and the clergy. Is this a good thing? I certainly like the parliament debates and the bonuses they give.

4. Has the mechanics of the Burgundian Inheritance event changed? Earlier, Burgundy would be white and blue in less than ten years of starting the game. Can I depend on this event to fire or can Burgundy survive? On a related note, is the Iberian Wedding still an inevitable event that will fire sooner or later?

5. What should be my priorities as England aiming to dominate colonialism and trade?

 

[Dominion]

You can declare on them and surrender or simply sell them their provinces.

 

[Vetgirig]

1. Sell them. Or release them as Normandy and let them handle it themselves.
2. Yes. Very.
3. It depends.
4. No
5. Colonize Caribbean. So you can steer all trade in America to English channel. Also get Ivory coast, South Africa and spice islands.

 

[DarkBlue]

1. Delete the forts on mainland so they can never get enough war score to stab hit you in the future war. Alternatively, sell them to nearby countries or release Normandy and cancel vassal.

2. You need some luck to see it spawn first in England, but if you want to embrace it, you don't have save-scum once you reach the requirements. It should spawn quickly in London and all coastal provinces.

3. In my view the estates are mainly useful for that free 100/150 monarch points every 20 years, although clergy is useful for new conquered land since they lower the unrest & increase missionary strength when loyal. Since you are a colonizer your main concern about estate should be to farm points only, but beware of their influence.

4. My recent 2 games see Burgundy survived through the first two centuries... something is wrong in this patch I suppose
Iberian Wedding fires every time I played, but it is just my personal experience

5. Definitely Caribbean, then Mexico or Columbia

 

[joos]

I am unable to sell France my lands because we rival each other. But release them as vassals and granting independence seems like a valid strategy for me. At any rate, I don't want to lose PP by losing to France. Destroying the forts in those provinces also seems like a good idea, but don't want to do that if I am going to release a vassal there.

Another question is: how do I deal with the pesky Dutch traders? How should England figure the Low Countries in its grand view of the world? Vassalizing Netherlands a valid strategy for the future?

 

[Orkonkel]

Look at the Age Abilities and you will find one that lets you take vassals at half warscore cost. This also reduces the aggressive expansion by half, which lets you take the Burgundian juniors in the lowlands without dying to massive coalitions (just not all at once and make sure you improve relations with HRE). If you do decide to press into the lowlands to secure the channel, having AE reduction makes a huge differences. The main sources are prestige (up to 10% reduction at 100 prestige), being the Curia controller (20%), Age of Exploration ability (10%), and Influence ideas (20% + more on occasion from events).

Now, being a colonizer, you won't be getting Influence anytime soon, but stacking these bonuses are useful in high-development, same religion areas, especially the HRE.

Another solution is to just conquer 1-3 provinces per war, focusing on estatuaries and centers of trade, let aggressive expansion cool down, and slooooowly eat your way into dominance of the English channel.

 

[DarkBlue]

I am unable to sell France my lands because we rival each other. But release them as vassals and granting independence seems like a valid strategy for me. At any rate, I don't want to lose PP by losing to France. Destroying the forts in those provinces also seems like a good idea, but don't want to do that if I am going to release a vassal there.

Another question is: how do I deal with the pesky Dutch traders? How should England figure the Low Countries in its grand view of the world? Vassalizing Netherlands a valid strategy for the future?

If I were you I won't give a piece of free land to France, but either sell the provinces to Burgundy/Brittany/Spain for a good price, or delete the forts and let France declare war on England. They can't win enough war score anyway, why not keep those land for yourself instead of feeding a colonial competitor?

As for the Dutch, don't even touch them unless you want to face massive rebels/want to cultural genocide them with diplomatic points. But if you really want to boost your trade income, you can take one of two centres of trade and convert them to English culture.

 

[Sfan]

1. Is it possible to completely surrender all the French lands to France without getting into a war? I am surprised France hasn't DoWed me for them, but that could be because I am allied to the Emperor. If a diplomatic option is not possible, I am willing to lose the war and give them their stupid lands.

Well, if they don't declare, keep them for now. It's better to have them. Austria is probably the reason, yes. And the moment they declare, surrender the land if you don't want to fight. But you don't have to surrender it before they pull the trigger, this is sweet land, especially Normandy which helps to control the Channel.

2. From what I understand of institutions, I picked Exploration first so as to trigger Colonialism in my country. Is that a valid strategy and worthwhile to do?

As England, I would pick Exploration second, because you need Dip Tech 7 to reach the Americas (or a colonial advisor from the westernmost province of Ireland and the third idea of Exploration?). If you pick Explo first, you lose a bit of time not colonizing, so the idea group is a bit wasted and I would recommend picking it second. But if you don't try to play perfectly that does not really matter.

3. I have Cossacks and I noticed that there are no nobility estates in England. Instead, there seems to be seats of parliament. So I am only having to balance between the burghers and the clergy. Is this a good thing? I certainly like the parliament debates and the bonuses they give.

Yes, and burghers don't ask for land. Give burghers only Centers of Trades and Estuaries, and the Clergy the minimum amount of land, prioritizing high autonomy land or land with bad trade goods. Give parliament seats to good provices you don't plan to give to any estate, as it boosts the province to have a Parliament Seat.

4. Has the mechanics of the Burgundian Inheritance event changed? Earlier, Burgundy would be white and blue in less than ten years of starting the game. Can I depend on this event to fire or can Burgundy survive? On a related note, is the Iberian Wedding still an inevitable event that will fire sooner or later?

This has always been RNG for both. Afaik it has not changed. Iberian Wedding is slightly more frequent now that you can disinherit (Castile always disinherits Enrique now so they can have the event chain sooner).

5. What should be my priorities as England aiming to dominate colonialism and trade?

It depends on how much you want to dominate. For a simple game, controlling Caribbean is key, and everything flowing in it (ie ignore Brazil and Argentina, but colonize the rest). My priority as England would be Caribbean > Thirteen Colonies > Mexico > Rest of America. You can also try to control both the Americas and the Indian Ocean trade as England historically did. The way to do is then to also control the Ivory Coast, then the Cape and Zanzibar. It's a bit harder as you need to colonize/conquer in 2 different directions, but nothing insurmontable.

 

[Brynjar]

2. From what I understand of institutions, I picked Exploration first so as to trigger Colonialism in my country. Is that a valid strategy and worthwhile to do?

It is, especially considering that you don't have blobbing as a goal. You may already be aware of it, but you'll need to have unlocked the first two ideas in the exploration idea group, and have discovered America to be eligible to spawn it (assuming you don't move your capital away to some single province island). After that it is rng based, but you'll usually have a very good chance if you fulfill the requirements before 1500.

Once you actually spawn colonialism you should keep in mind that institutions spreads a lot faster to nearby provinces which are owned by countries which you have a positive opinion of. If you want to slow down France, Burgundy, Brittany, and any other countries you border, either on land or by bordering the same sea zones, you'll need to have a negative opinion of them.

5. What should be my priorities as England aiming to dominate colonialism and trade?

Personally I would get my hands on all the centers of trade and estuaries in the English channel trade node. That comes at a cost though, as the Dutch will eventually rebel, and those rebellions will be fairly large and frequent.

Although control of the Caribbean trade node is very good, I would probably try to colonize the coast of Africa early on, as the Portugese usually move towards the Cape early on. Getting there before the Portugese will make it a lot easier to control the trade from India. The cape is the only center of trade in that trade node, and that single province will usually give about as much trade power as all the other provinces in the node combined. When colonizing early on, focus on getting centers of trade/important natural harbors and maximizing your colonial range.

The most effective way to quickly build a colonial empire is to annex all the natives. Before you complete the colonialism idea group, you'll need to have provinces bordering them (not provinces owned by your colonial nations), but you don't need to finish colonizing the province before fabricating a claim. If you attack the Mexican natives, make sure you don't fully annex the Aztecs while they still have their vassals. That will cause you to inherit their vassals, and you don't want 4 mesoamerican natives filling your diplomatic relation slots.

You may already be aware of it, but to create a colonial nation you need 5 provinces which are connected to each other, in the same colonial region. This means that if you annex a large native, you'll only need to core up to 5 provinces. When the coring is done, the rest of the provinces will automatically be given to the colonial nation. Apart from getting an extra merchant from colonial nations with 10 provinces or more, they also always have expansion as an idea group. When they can afford it, they will start colonizing themselves. If they don't start colonizing themselves you can consider subsidizing them so that they can afford the 2 ducats per month. Their choice of provinces to colonize may end up annoying you though.

The Iberian wedding usually fires, but not every game. And Castile seems to be struggling in patch 1.24, so Aragon has a good wanting to declare independence.

I can't really answer the more England specific questions, as I've never played them properly.
PS! The British isles and the low countries is the focus of patch 1.25 (release date unknown), with new provinces and more region related stuff.

 

[Sfan]

Just saying that you don't need the Cape if you have Ivory Coast. Cape flows in Ivory Coast only, noone collects in Cape, so feel free to ignore Cape, that's a waste of time and a common mistake. Let Castile/Portugal lose time colonize it, they will steer towards Ivory Coast, focus on controlling Ivory Coast instead.

 

[YuriiH]

That comes at a cost though, as the Dutch will eventually rebel, and those rebellions will be fairly large and frequent.

OR one can have a Dutch march (Holland/Brabant/Gelre) there and divert all its trade.

 

[joos]

Thanks for all the helpful tips. I noticed one poster suggesting me to use the age related bonuses. I wikied them and I realized I need MoH to access these bonuses. I don't own the DLC yet and didn't realize the age mechanics are tied to that. Without the DLC, I guess I don't have to bother with the ages, right? If I were to get the DLC, will it be compatible with my current save game?

 

[Brynjar]

Thanks for all the helpful tips. I noticed one poster suggesting me to use the age related bonuses. I wikied them and I realized I need MoH to access these bonuses. I don't own the DLC yet and didn't realize the age mechanics are tied to that. Without the DLC, I guess I don't have to bother with the ages, right? If I were to get the DLC, will it be compatible with my current save game?

No it's not compatible, at least not if you play in ironman mode. Even if you don't play in ironman, I doubt it's fully compatible.

 

[Brynjar]

Just saying that you don't need the Cape if you have Ivory Coast. Cape flows in Ivory Coast only, noone collects in Cape, so feel free to ignore Cape, that's a waste of time and a common mistake. Let Castile/Portugal lose time colonize it, they will steer towards Ivory Coast, focus on controlling Ivory Coast instead.

Transfers from trade downstream will really hurt your trade power in the Ivory Coast when you don't blob though. In that case it may very well be more profitable to monopolize the cape and collect there (yes Zanzibar is more effective, but requires you to fight a few wars against Kilwa and whoever controls Madagascar, and you'll want the range to core those provinces). Another benefit of colonizing the cape is that it always seems to slow down the other colonizers a lot on their way to Asia.

 

[Sfan]

I don't understand why you would say it can be profitable to collect in the Cape without controlling Zanzibar. The Cape produces almost nothing, so if you don't control Zanzibar it will give you 5 ducats at best to collect in Cape. The road via the Cape is only interesting after you fought these wars against Kilwa and co. As a non blobbing England, I would put 100 light ships in Ivory Coast and secure all CoT, that should ensure most fo the money goes to the Channel. Ivory Coast also controls Brazil, that's why it is superior to Cape, albeit harder to control. This way you can have the steer trade bonus to trade all the way from Malacca to the Channel to increase it by a good 50%.

 

[Brynjar]

I don't understand why you would say it can be profitable to collect in the Cape without controlling Zanzibar. The Cape produces almost nothing, so if you don't control Zanzibar it will give you 5 ducats at best to collect in Cape. The road via the Cape is only interesting after you fought these wars against Kilwa and co. As a non blobbing England, I would put 100 light ships in Ivory Coast and secure all CoT, that should ensure most fo the money goes to the Channel. Ivory Coast also controls Brazil, that's why it is superior to Cape, albeit harder to control. This way you can have the steer trade bonus to trade all the way from Malacca to the Channel to increase it by a good 50%.

Using the same argument: Why control Zanzibar when you don't control Malacca/Gulf of Aden? It's one province, it gives enough trade power in the trade company to get a free merchant for the rest of the game, it's on the way to Asia, and it significantly slows down the other colonizers heading to Asia early on. In addition, it gives you the range you need to start securing the rest of the Asian trade. Also, to reach the Cape you do actually need some colonies on the way, so it's not like you completly ignore the Ivory coast. Getting the centers of trade there, and the Cape is perfectly possible. That's even before considering the production income from the province. Feel free to come up with a handful of provinces, which can be colonized as early, that by themselves gives better bonuses.

 

[Vetgirig]

Just saying that you don't need the Cape if you have Ivory Coast. Cape flows in Ivory Coast only, noone collects in Cape, so feel free to ignore Cape, that's a waste of time and a common mistake. Let Castile/Portugal lose time colonize it, they will steer towards Ivory Coast, focus on controlling Ivory Coast instead.

Taking Cape will give an extra merchant since it's a trade company region. And you usually has not competition so you automatically get over 50% by just owning the CoT.

Transfers from trade downstream will really hurt your trade power in the Ivory Coast when you don't blob though. In that case it may very well be more profitable to monopolize the cape and collect there (yes Zanzibar is more effective, but requires you to fight a few wars against Kilwa and whoever controls Madagascar, and you'll want the range to core those provinces). Another benefit of colonizing the cape is that it always seems to slow down the other colonizers a lot on their way to Asia.

I agree holding Cape is a good way to turn Zanzibar into an virtual end-node for trade and you can get most of trade from india/china into it.

I don't understand why you would say it can be profitable to collect in the Cape without controlling Zanzibar. The Cape produces almost nothing, so if you don't control Zanzibar it will give you 5 ducats at best to collect in Cape. The road via the Cape is only interesting after you fought these wars against Kilwa and co. As a non blobbing England, I would put 100 light ships in Ivory Coast and secure all CoT, that should ensure most fo the money goes to the Channel. Ivory Coast also controls Brazil, that's why it is superior to Cape, albeit harder to control. This way you can have the steer trade bonus to trade all the way from Malacca to the Channel to increase it by a good 50%.

India/China/Spice island produce ALOT. Zanzibar can be turned into an de facto end node for all trade from them - if you control 100% in the Cape.

 

[Sfan]

India/China/Spice island produce ALOT. Zanzibar can be turned into an de facto end node for all trade from them - if you control 100% in the Cape.

Yes, if you collect in Zanzibar as I suggest. Not if you collect in the Cape as Brynjar suggests.
We all mostly agree with how you steer Asian trade, I was just baffled someone would say the Cape can be worthwhile to collect in without owning Zanzibar. As you say yourself, the idea of controlling the Cape is to make Zanzibar an endnode, this and the merchant are the only 2 uses of that node. I simply reacted to the idea of collecting in Cape which produces nothing if you don't control Zanzibar or the Ivory Coast, as stated there:

Transfers from trade downstream will really hurt your trade power in the Ivory Coast when you don't blob though. In that case it may very well be more profitable to monopolize the cape and collect there (yes Zanzibar is more effective, but requires you to fight a few wars against Kilwa and whoever controls Madagascar, and you'll want the range to core those provinces). Another benefit of colonizing the cape is that it always seems to slow down the other colonizers a lot on their way to Asia.

That's what I disagree with, the two part of the post. First, either the Indian trade does not flow and you don't control Zanzibar, and then the Cape brings like 3 ducats, and it is usless, or the Indian trade flows and Zanzibar will always be more interesting to collect in than the Cape (easier to monopolize, you don't need to colonize anything and there is no "transfer from traders downstream" so long as you colonize one province, The Cape). And then, imho, to slow down the other colonizers, colonize just The Cape and let the other provinces there empty, Spain will usually colonize them one by one and lose decades.

 

[joos]

So if I understand this correctly, if I am playing as an Indian nation, it is imperative that I conquer Zanzibar trade node provinces, colonize Cape, and move my trade capital to Zanzibar and collect from there?

 

[Bodi]

You don't really need to go that much upnode playing as an Indian nation. You can already get a ton of trade by steering whole Asia to Indus. Zanzibar, Cape, Ivory Coast is more useful for West European nations that want to bring wealthy Asian ressources home along with their American trade or for Colonial/Primitive nations to bridge Asia and America. The latter mostly only apply to Human players or Fantasy New World as you'll rarely see American Nation compete on a global scale with colonizers.

It's worth noting that the longest you fully control a chain of trade node, the more you'll make at the end but you don't need 1000 developments to become rich. If you unify both your islands and maintain a strong navy you should have an excellent colonial game even without a Continental presence. If you want to accelerate your colonizing, you can conquer Iceland or one of the Southwestern Iberian Islands.

If you're really lucky you can get an Explorer from pirateering.