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With regards to France, Austria, and Prussia: I feel like when your entire able bodied male population is in the army, your production should suffer considerably.
With regards to Spain: You should feel like a monster for forcing your old, blind, crippled, terminally ill, children, and even some women to serve in your armed forces.
 
Unfortunately there's no real way to fight a country half a continent away from you unless one side is overwhelmingly stronger (such as me vs NL); the defender's advantage is just too massive

The problem is that the 3 of the 4 strongest nations are in a never ending alliance. (Prussia, France and Ottos)
 
The problem is that the 3 of the 4 strongest nations are in a never ending alliance. (Prussia, France and Ottos)
That's not even remotely true. OE has declared in no uncertain terms that he's going to jump on any war that happens against Austria regardless of whether anyone wants him to; I tried to get him to stay out of the big war.

That said, it really doesn't matter because Prussia and I made an agreement before the NAP was signed and the way the next 50 years turned out means the strongest two nations are now cooperating, which I fully agree is very bad for the health of the campaign. Prussia would be crazy to attack me again after what happened every other time he and Austria tried, and I'd be crazy to attack Prussia for no reason at all.

Austria really got himself into this situation, though; he attacked me over and over and refused my overtures, and now it's backfired on him.
 
Seeing all these massive armies made me wonder: when you DOW/get DOWed in multiplayer, do you normally
a) Assume your units will get wiped and go on a massive recruiting spree in advance or
b) Conserve manpower for reinforcements?
 
Seeing all these massive armies made me wonder: when you DOW/get DOWed in multiplayer, do you normally
a) Assume your units will get wiped and go on a massive recruiting spree in advance or
b) Conserve manpower for reinforcements?
Wipes happen, but nowhere near the level that they do in single player. During the last war I lost 150-200 units (out of ~1 million), and most of those were a single big wipe when having trouble playing with lag while frapsing.
 
I also have a question: How do you get so absurd high piles of money?
I heard a popular tactic was building the trade efficiency high level buildings, but since you built conscription centres that would be out of the picture. I also don't believe you mint, since you would fall behind on tech. Am I wrong on that? Or do you get your money simply through monopolizing COTs?
 
I also have a question: How do you get so absurd high piles of money?
I heard a popular tactic was building the trade efficiency high level buildings, but since you built conscription centres that would be out of the picture. I also don't believe you mint, since you would fall behind on tech. Am I wrong on that? Or do you get your money simply through monopolizing COTs?
I mint on average 10% or so of my income, which is more than enough. That said, having lots of money is as much about avoiding spending as it is about generating more money. Other than that, learn which decisions are important and hunt them down; even with relatively little active commitment (NIs/advisors/buildings/etc) trade is quite profitable if you build your country correctly, but most people aren't aware of the wealth of decisions available nor the compete chance penalty for active merchants.

--

Trade building spam is something which is highly encourage by people who play single player because they are in a situation where there is no military threat. In a scenario where you need the manpower and forcelimits, trade building spam is an excellent way to die. You can occasionally get away with some trade buildings as your manpower and force limits go higher (for example, Russia has some due to the extra force limits and manpower from being so huge, but even so I'm not convinced it's a very good idea), but they're definitely no replacement for Conscripion Centres.
 
You left out the possible viability of hunting for the resource bonuses (33% of world supply). Not always feasible, of course, but still possible.
There are a few good "Trading in X" bonuses, but the production leader bonuses are pretty useless if those are what you're referring to.
 
I mint on average 10% or so of my income, which is more than enough.
How do you counter inflation? Standard lvl 6 Master of Mint?

Other than that, learn which decisions are important and hunt them down.
I know "Found East Indian Trading Company" and "Guilded Iconograhpy" from the AAR, which else come into your mind?

trade building spam is an excellent way to die.
So it wouldn't be possible to be a rich merchant country that succeeds with diplomacy and well-placed bribes? Would it be possible in multiplayer to buy other player's favor and to have a "Divide et Impera" strategy where you make the others attack each other instead of you?
 
How do you counter inflation? Standard lvl 6 Master of Mint?
Yeah, MotM entirely early on. Later on you get a Tax Assessor and Centralization inflation reduction.

I know "Found East Indian Trading Company" and "Guilded Iconograhpy" from the AAR, which else come into your mind?
Education Act, School Establishment Act, Militia Act, Merchant Shipping Act, Statute of Monopolies, Joint-Stock Companies Act, Enlist Privateers, Test Act, Act of Uniformity. Probably missing a few, but you can load up a save from the stats and check my country modifiers if you'd like.

So it wouldn't be possible to be a rich merchant country that succeeds with diplomacy and well-placed bribes? Would it be possible in multiplayer to buy other player's favor and to have a "Divide et Impera" strategy where you make the others attack each other instead of you?
It just makes no sense from a gameplay perspective, however much sense it seems to make from a roleplaying perspective. In addition, it puts an awful lot of reliance on other players acting outside their own interests, which is a bad plan.

At the end of the day, EU3 is a game about having a big stick. If you have a bigger stick than the other guy, you win. There are a number of ways to get a bigger stick: you can invest in growing the stick longer, you can invest in money to buy a bigger stick, etc. While all of them are important, it turns out in the end investing directly in the stick is better than investing in money as an intermediary point to buy a bigger stick.

Ultimately, what does income do? It buys you tech, which makes your army better. It pays your maintenance, which makes your army bigger.

That's it. Done. Finished. People like to have income size dick measuring contests, but at the end of the day EU3 is a military game, and income (like anything else) only matters insofar as it, directly or indirectly, allows you to field a bigger and/or better army. As it turns out, Conscription Centres and Naval Bases are better at doing that than Customs Houses because of manpower and because of the exponential growth of maintenance when you're over your forcelimit. Much, much better.

Buying players works in theory, except for two things:

  • If you were strong enough to get that going on, why not cut out the middleman and just be the person with the big army doing things for yourself? That way you aren't relying on other people.
  • At some point someone will realize that it's a lot easier to attack you and take your money than it is to fight someone else with an army to be paid. At that point, you die.
 
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Yeah, MotM entirely early on. Later on you get a Tax Assessor and Centralization inflation reduction.

Education Act, School Establishment Act, Militia Act, Merchant Shipping Act, Statute of Monopolies, Joint-Stock Companies Act, Enlist Privateers, Test Act, Act of Uniformity. Probably missing a few, but you can load up a save from the stats and check my country modifiers if you'd like.


It just makes no sense from a gameplay perspective, however much sense it seems to make from a roleplaying perspective. In addition, it puts an awful lot of reliance on other players acting outside their own interests, which is a bad plan.

At the end of the day, EU3 is a game about having a big stick. If you have a bigger stick than the other guy, you win. There are a number of ways to get a bigger stick: you can invest in growing the stick longer, you can invest in money to buy a bigger stick, etc. While all of them are important, it turns out in the end investing directly in the stick is better than investing in money as an intermediary point to buy a bigger stick.

Ultimately, what does income do? It buys you tech, which makes your army better. It pays your maintenance, which makes your army bigger.

That's it. Done. Finished. People like to have income size dick measuring contests, but since at the end of the day EU3 is a military game, and income (like anything else) only matters insofar as it, directly or indirectly, allows you to field a bigger and/or better army. As it turns out, Conscription Centres and Naval Bases are better at doing that than Customs Houses because of manpower and because of the exponential growth of maintenance when you're over your forcelimit. Much, much better.

Buying players works in theory, except for two things:

  • If you were strong enough to get that going on, why not cut out the middleman and just be the person with the big army doing things for yourself? That way you aren't relying on other people.
  • At some point someone will realize that it's a lot easier to attack you and take your money than it is to fight someone else with an army to be paid. At that point, you die.

Great comment, Pewt.
 
Buying players works in theory, except for two things:

  • If you were strong enough to get that going on, why not cut out the middleman and just be the person with the big army doing things for yourself? That way you aren't relying on other people.
  • At some point someone will realize that it's a lot easier to attack you and take your money than it is to fight someone else with an army to be paid. At that point, you die.

Normally naval nations do buy land nations to do the fighting. If you are a naval nation and realtive isolated from the land powers buying people can be worthwhile.
I.E England did buy Russian support to trow Italy out of British islands.


Anyway when will you write next post and explain why you created the alliance of doom and lost in the end?
 
Normally naval nations do buy land nations to do the fighting. If you are a naval nation and realtive isolated from the land powers buying people can be worthwhile.
I.E England did buy Russian support to trow Italy out of British islands.


Anyway when will you write next post and explain why you created the alliance of doom and lost in the end?
Naval nations have leverage though; they have a giant navy.

Next post will be done in a day or two, and I'm enjoying Russia's being in denial about the campaign ending and the entire diplomatic situation.