Swedish Start Advice!

[cholliman]

So I tried out a game a Sweden, and had a very promising start. I got stymied mid-gamish and could use some advice!

Geographic Situation:
1. I conquered the Finnish territories Novgorod held around Neva and the Kola/Karelia provinces on the Eastern Frontier so I was happy with my expansion in that direction.
2. The remaining portion of Novgorod (Russia ate some too) was a vassal to the Swedish King.
3. Some minor expansion into the Baltics - a few provinces to start with more expansion in mind.
4. Took back the core from Norway (can't think of the name, maybe Jematland or something along those lines?).

Diplomatic Problems:
1. I was initially trying to ally with Muscovy. We were friends until we finished partitioning Novgorod at which point they became furious with me.
2. Muscovy, Denmark, Norway and Lithuania have formed a big snaking alliance against me (not all four with each other but any war calls all of them + some minors in). I am pretty much stuck and am barely holding on in defensive wars against them.
3. My only allies to note are France who is kind of far away and a diminished Poland.

Questions:
1. Who are the good natural allies for Sweden to have? I think I made a mistake with investing time in a relationship with Muscovy and should have maybe tried to get Lithuania on my side instead.
2. Should I have tried to kick the Danes out of my peninsula before expanding into Novgorod? I think if they lose Skane + that island south of it, the balance of power would definitely shift in my favor.
3. Any general advice would be appreciated .

 

[dstarsboy]

Ally-wise, I would say England (their navy is awesome against Denmark) and either Poland/Lith or Hungary (not both, because they're usually rivals) however, whichever one you choose, make sure you help them as much as possible since they'll get steamrolled by Russia.

I wouldn't bother with Austria since they hardly ever can help in wars because they're always defending the HRE.

I also wouldn't bother with France since they have to cross the HRE to help you, which is almost impossible unless Austria is in the war.

I would definitely have gone after Denmark first and because the provinces they hold are much wealthier than Novgorods... (especially if you can land Lubic or whatever that trade node is) that and you don't have to mess with Russia as quickly. Then you could have formed Scandanavia for whatever bonuses you get (actually, when I did this I recalled that forming Scanadavia actually gave you more negatives, I think).

I think Sweden nationally has a merc and infantry boost so that could help against Russia if you can unlock those ideas. Good luck!

 

[cholliman]

Ally-wise, I would say England (their navy is awesome against Denmark) and either Poland/Lith or Hungary (not both, because they're usually rivals) however, whichever one you choose, make sure you help them as much as possible since they'll get steamrolled by Russia.

I wouldn't bother with Austria since they hardly ever can help in wars because they're always defending the HRE.

I also wouldn't bother with France since they have to cross the HRE to help you, which is almost impossible unless Austria is in the war.

I would definitely have gone after Denmark first and because the provinces they hold are much wealthier than Novgorods... (especially if you can land Lubic or whatever that trade node is) that and you don't have to mess with Russia as quickly. Then you could have formed Scandanavia for whatever bonuses you get (actually, when I did this I recalled that forming Scanadavia actually gave you more negatives, I think).

I think Sweden nationally has a merc and infantry boost so that could help against Russia if you can unlock those ideas. Good luck!

TY for the notes sir! I'm going to try this out when I get home from work .

 

[rustic]

Questions:
1. Who are the good natural allies for Sweden to have? I think I made a mistake with investing time in a relationship with Muscovy and should have maybe tried to get Lithuania on my side instead.
2. Should I have tried to kick the Danes out of my peninsula before expanding into Novgorod? I think if they lose Skane + that island south of it, the balance of power would definitely shift in my favor.
3. Any general advice would be appreciated .

1. What religion are you? If the reformation has kicked in and you've turned Protestant, Bohemia can be a decent ally as they almost always go Protestant, they're midsized and fairly close. One or two north german minors can be enough to give Denmark problems (unless POL/LIT arrives at theater).
2. Yeah, you need to take back your cores ASAP, especially Skåne as that's the richest of them. Ideally you want to both take back your cores AND take a bunch of Novgorod's provinces. The provinces you take from Novgorod might not seem very valuable but just as important is that they WILL end up under Mucowite control otherwise, and you want to bereave Muscowy every bit of income and manpower possible in the early game.

 

[cholliman]

1. What religion are you? If the reformation has kicked in and you've turned Protestant, Bohemia can be a decent ally as they almost always go Protestant, they're midsized and fairly close. One or two north german minors can be enough to give Denmark problems (unless POL/LIT arrives at theater).
2. Yeah, you need to take back your cores ASAP, especially Skåne as that's the richest of them. Ideally you want to both take back your cores AND take a bunch of Novgorod's provinces. The provinces you take from Novgorod might not seem very valuable but just as important is that they WILL end up under Mucowite control otherwise, and you want to bereave Muscowy every bit of income and manpower possible in the early game.

I did go Protestant, and will probably do so in my restart assuming the reformation goes well. This makes England make more sense - I had discounted them as an ally, but if their navy dominates the Danish fleet that might help a lot. Going for Bohemia and one of the Pol/Lith/Hungary trio (going diplomatic ideas first) sounds like a good set of alliances now. Getting stuck in that Danish/Musowite/Norwegian/Lithuanian deathtrap last game was not good! Getting out of the PU was not hard as Denmark went to war last game and I just let them fail without my support, bombing their prestige. I can then go for Skane + Neva ASAP and hopefully vassalize Novgorod. In an ideal world I could then go to war with Moscow to have them return cores but we'll see how that goes!

 

[rustic]

If you restart the Reformation won't matter for a while, but don't forget that your diplomats can butter up potential allies before you get out of the PU - The Hansa is worth keeping an eye on as an possible ally early on, they border Denmark (or their vassal) and punches a bit above their weight due to the trade income.

Denmark does every now and then go on a rampage in the early game, I've seen them take Lübeck and Danzig without much effort. Those times are harder on a player-controlled Sweden!

 

[Jaol]

I agree with what others have said. England is a natural ally, as are Pol/Lit, and to a lesser extent the Hansa.

Denmark is also a natural ally once you take back your cores--once you have Skane, they will become "threatened" and will be happy to ally you.

Muscovy is also a natural ally in the early game, but will turn on you once Novgorod is finished. Still very useful to have on your side. 1) By drawing Muscovy into wars against your enemies, you keep it from allying them. 2) If you get to lead the wars against Novgorod, you can make sure Muscovy doesn't get any of the spoils. 3) Getting a royal marriage with Muscovy gives you a chance of getting a PU, which basically = winning the game.

Brandenburg is another natural ally, if you intend to mess around on the Baltic coast.

 

[DEY123]

In my sweeden game I also made sure to push Norway out completely as early as possible. In this way you can use a fleet at Skane (assuming you took this also) to force anyone at war with you to go around the long way (Through Finland) to attack you instead of being able to come straight into sweeden proper.

 

[grisamentum]

Questions:
1. Who are the good natural allies for Sweden to have? I think I made a mistake with investing time in a relationship with Muscovy and should have maybe tried to get Lithuania on my side instead.
2. Should I have tried to kick the Danes out of my peninsula before expanding into Novgorod? I think if they lose Skane + that island south of it, the balance of power would definitely shift in my favor.
3. Any general advice would be appreciated .

1. Lithuania should be a good one but you'd have to have start it from the start and it sounds like things went sour. You both hate Livonian Order and TO which you also want to kill. Central Euro powers are good friends.
2. Nah, not first. They tend to have good allies and more tax than you early on. Wait until you consolidate a little more in the Baltic.
3. You get a bunch of free missions to attack Norway later, so don't worry about that too early. Also don't form Scandinavia - it's a trap.

 

[SuperSFX]

I had an extremely successful game as Sweden in which I managed to conquer basically all of Eastern Europe, almost all of Asia and the Middle and parts of Germany. Here's what I recommend. During your independence war, recover most of your cores. Make sure you get Denmark's prestige in the negatives so when their ruler dies, you get free anyway. That way, you have time to let AE wear off without worrying about any coalitions. Next, fab claims on Novgorod and plan to vassalize them after taking a province bordering muscovy. Ally either Poland or Lithuania (better Poland because they usually get a PU over Lithuania so its essentially 2 alliances for 1). Tear Muscovy apart and return cores to Novgorod. Take a province from Perm and release Perm. Possibly release another vassal if you feel like it. Feed Muscovy to vassals over successive wars. Take Expansion idea, go East, ???, profit.

Thats the beginning I used. Its pretty much imperative that you take down Muscovy ASAP. The longer you wait, the harder it will become.

 

[gaius valerius]

Questions:
1. Who are the good natural allies for Sweden to have? I think I made a mistake with investing time in a relationship with Muscovy and should have maybe tried to get Lithuania on my side instead.
2. Should I have tried to kick the Danes out of my peninsula before expanding into Novgorod? I think if they lose Skane + that island south of it, the balance of power would definitely shift in my favor.
3. Any general advice would be appreciated .

1. Not Muscovy, as a rule the game follows the "*insert-country-name-here* amica sed non vicina", you'll be my friend but I don't want you as my neighbour. When Muscovy becomes your neighbour - they most likely will - they'll quickly go all 'hey remember how we carved up Novgorod together? Great bro', I'll be having Finland now thank you'. I'd say pick your allies according to your needs and your not-needs I need an ally to support me but I don't need an ally to draw me into an unwanted conflict with greater nations. As Sweden I picked some northern German states as allies once, in the idea that they'd be a counterweight to the Danes, but it only led them to quickly pull me into northern German wars and before I knew it I saw the Austrians as Emperor march on me. Without succes since they don't often ally with the Danes but you try to make peace with the emperor as he's occupied all your petty allies. As said England might be a good choice for their navy cause initially the Danes do outmatch you in that field. As for land based allies, Poland-Lithuania work fine early on, France as you start to expand into Germany. All in all it depends on which direction you plan to expand.

2. Yes. Always go for Skane first, it is just as wealthy as - perhaps even wealthier than - Stockholm, owning it significantly increases your income and effectively locks the Danes out of your country, after which wars with them become easy victories => if they cross over into Skane you as the defending side will crush them time and time again as your armies are at least equally matched. Having Skane was what allowed me to field an army larger than the Danes.

3. Skane Also built up a trade fleet, it might seem a costly entreprise to build a 20 light ship stack, but it really really really pays off to control the Baltic trade node, I always try to maximise my naval forcelimits with just light ships. Just be careful when you wage war that your opponent doesn't outmatch you by having big ships.


My opening moves as Sweden were the following:

- Become independent and take Skane (often in the same war)
- Whenever the occassion arises, rip the Danes a new one. The occassion will arise often enough and victory after the fall of Skane as a rule will generally be your. Take their provinces piece by piece, you'll carve up the Danish lands sooner than you realise. Don't get to agressive of course since the AE will get you coalitions.
- Livland. Caught between ambitious neighbours the Livonian Order has few friends, I chose to begin my Baltic empire here, it has wealthy provinces, though coring costs and culture conversion can sometimes be rather costly, still worth it.

My other targets were the mouth of the Neva and afterwards the wealthy port cities of the Baltic: Ostpreussen, Danzig and of course Northern Germany with Mecklenburg, Lubeck and Pommerania. This is the thing with Sweden of course: the minute you'll want to break out from your Scandinavian confines you'll discover that you are essentially surrounded by larger states, hungry for land and hostile to any newcomer. Muscovy, Lithuania and Poland all field formidable armies and north Germany is a beehive of small states with their Imperial overlord, often a formidable foe.

As Sweden you'll have at least one advantage, namely that most of your foes are Eastern Tech group and soon enough you'll militarily outrun them. Take note though that this 'edge' you have is countered by the fact that you have lower manpower than they. My personal goal was to recreate the empire of Charles XII, I got cocky and effectively did a Charles XII and decided to 'finish off' the Polish army completely and chased them down into Ukraine, ran my manpower in the ground and realised that some historical realities do tend to play out in EU IV By the mid-game I found myself allying with France against the Emperor, since I was carving out pieces of HRE territory in the north, this alliance paid off really well. Becoming Protestant saw me butting heads with Spain more than once. Scotland/England (a rare occassion the former took over the latter) was my staunch protestant ally and their large fleet full of big ships destroyed many of my Iberian foes at the high seas, however, an evil twist of fate saw Scotland and Spain forming a personal union, not in my favour. This forced me to field a stronger fleet, which I did, and Scotland sadly stayed in union under Spain untill 1820. Military ideas work out really well for Sweden, I tend to take Defensive with them first, cause I fight wars defensively and wish to preserve what scant manpower I had, howeever as you grow I always take the other 2 ideas for the Discipline bonus, the strenght of Sweden really lies in their qualitative armies - works magic against larger eastern tech doomstacks.

 

[grisamentum]

I had an extremely successful game as Sweden in which I managed to conquer basically all of Eastern Europe, almost all of Asia and the Middle and parts of Germany. Here's what I recommend. During your independence war, recover most of your cores. Make sure you get Denmark's prestige in the negatives so when their ruler dies, you get free anyway. That way, you have time to let AE wear off without worrying about any coalitions. Next, fab claims on Novgorod and plan to vassalize them after taking a province bordering muscovy. Ally either Poland or Lithuania (better Poland because they usually get a PU over Lithuania so its essentially 2 alliances for 1). Tear Muscovy apart and return cores to Novgorod. Take a province from Perm and release Perm. Possibly release another vassal if you feel like it. Feed Muscovy to vassals over successive wars. Take Expansion idea, go East, ???, profit.

Thats the beginning I used. Its pretty much imperative that you take down Muscovy ASAP. The longer you wait, the harder it will become.

Actually I would not kill them, but vassalize Muscovy. Then let them colonize for you. You can take a different idea group after that and let Muscovy colonize; they will be faster than you anyway with their +colonist from UNIs.

Also then you can give Muscovy all the Russian provinces back so you don't lose taxes from them. Just keep all the Baltic provinces for yourself.

 

[tdpatriots12]

Why exactly is forming Scandinavia a trap? Honest question.

 

[FearTheAmish]

i always split my wars every 5 years i am either at war with Denmark/Norway or at war with Novgrod/Muscovy. Mostly because you need to take as much of Scandinavia to form it from Norway/Denmark until you can vassalize them. And you HAVE to hit Muscovy over and over if you don't they become a monster.

Basically at start you have two roads in front of you....

Diplomatic: Break the PU by insulting Denmark every chance you can get this will cause the Union to dissolve when their monarch dies. Use time to build up economy/military. Also use this time to pick out allies you can't ally them but you can get relations very high so second you get free you can ally up. This also gives you a chance to see who's going to die off and who's going to get strong so you can pick your buddy that compliments you the best.

Military: dismiss your entire navy EXCEPT for your galleys and then rebuild to limit with Galleys. Build up your army as large as you can afford and place near Norway. When Denmark attacks Teutons/Livonians DO NOT join war just sit back and save your MP. Once war ends and their troops return they should have taken a nice MP hit. Move your galleys to block the their army in Denmark then declare war. This will keep Denmark bottled up and allow you to destroy Norway's army at your leisure. Once you do this go ahead and carpet siege Denmark's provinces and keep a hunter/killer stack in Norway to destroy any new armies. Wait till warscore gets high enough to request independence DO NOT request anything else besides cash/trade rights (you don't want to skyrocket your AE this early).

Early Ideas: Defensive or Diplomacy either work basically if one isn't the first should be your second.

General Flow: You want to make sure you have an ally in Eastern Europe to help contain Muscovy (Lithuania/Poland is never a bad option), and a naval power (England is probably the best option). At start ignore the HRE you want to focus on eating Denmark/norway till you can vassalize them and form Scandinavia (hold off on this till late game just keep as vassals, if you do it early you lose a lot of Swedens awesome events). When ever you aren't at war with them you wanna be at war with Novgorod/Muscovy, if you do not kick Muscovy when its down it will become a danger later game. From their basically its up to you stay even in Mil tech and have fun.

 

[grisamentum]

Why exactly is forming Scandinavia a trap? Honest question.

It disables the really good Swedish-specific events, like Karl Gustav's reforms of the military. And there's no real benefit to except making Danish and Norwegian (and Finnish?) into accepted cultures, which is a really small bonus since the number of provinces and their value is quite low.

 

[Pandadan]

When Denmark attacks Teutons/Livonians DO NOT join war just sit back and save your MP.

I find the inevitable war against the military orders very useful to join. I leave my army at home on minimum maintenance, ask my citizens to do their part with war taxes, and send my vicious galley fleet to get get some prestige, naval tradition, and the occasional captured ship from my foes. Taking over the blockade of Danzig or whatever is also a slight bump to income.

 

[Heliocon]

Question in tangent to this thread topic, is it worth building production and trade buildings in your provinces with fur? They seem very costly for the small 1 trade power gain you would get, I understand doing it for important locations like Neva etc but what about the 1 base tax fur provinces?

 

[SuperSFX]

Actually I would not kill them, but vassalize Muscovy. Then let them colonize for you. You can take a different idea group after that and let Muscovy colonize; they will be faster than you anyway with their +colonist from UNIs.

Also then you can give Muscovy all the Russian provinces back so you don't lose taxes from them. Just keep all the Baltic provinces for yourself.

Then you waste time not expanding into Asia, not to mention you will still have to feed Muscovy to vassals over 2-3 wars before you can even vassalize them. In the end, its simply faster to expand rapidly by colonizing yourself and conquesting the hordes. You lose too much time waiting for Muscovy to expand east.

 

[gaius valerius]

Then you waste time not expanding into Asia, not to mention you will still have to feed Muscovy to vassals over 2-3 wars before you can even vassalize them. In the end, its simply faster to expand rapidly by colonizing yourself and conquesting the hordes. You lose too much time waiting for Muscovy to expand east.

That is if that is your goal of course. In my Sweden game one of my main goals was to make Russia happen. If I was just destroying my mighty neighbour I'd basically be out of challenges until 1820. Depends on playstyle of course, I play in a historical fashion, as Sweden my goal is the Swedish Empire of the 17th century and a succesful colonising effort in mainly SE Asia, something historically ended in failure due to the Dutch and so. Regardless I never "go for the kill" with my enemies. With Sweden part of the experience is the fighting of large wars with Russia, the PLC, the Emperor, etc. In fact I got exactly what I wanted in that regard, Russia and the PLC remained in existance, the latter not as glorious as it used to be but still large, while Austria had acquired a large piece of Germany. From 1650 onward all my wars were consequently against these blocks and it felt really got to take provinces from a giant like Russia.

 

[Djoums]

At some point you may get a mission to vassalize Norway, giving you an awesome CB that will greatly reduce the warscore needed to vassalize them.
For some reason that discount also applies to any of their allies joining the war, so if you're lucky enough Norway will be allied with Denmark and you can vassalize both of them at the same time. If Norway is still under a PU it should work too, because vassalizing Denmark means you indirectly control Norway then (although idk if you get the mission in that case, but I think you can).