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You play too much single player

I play only single player, I am too slow for MP. But I think an overconfident England might build too few ships, just as Pewt as France at the beginning built too few troops. Humans are fallible.
 
Yes, I probably should have phrased that better and asked if there was some trick to it other than just loading up your forcelimit worth of cogs and hoping you catch someone with their pants down.
If you scout out where the English fleet is (usually somewhere along the channel) and them come in opposite from that (say, Scotland) it's pretty easy to get away with it in the early game. But yeah, you basically just load up your forcelimit in cogs. You can also buy a bit more time by putting a galley in the seazone beside their fleet so that they have to fight it (which usually takes a while in the early game) before going after your cogs.

I play only single player, I am too slow for MP. But I think an overconfident England might build too few ships, just as Pewt as France at the beginning built too few troops. Humans are fallible.
Absolutely. It isn't unreasonable for England to be outbuilt by someone who is trying seriously to do so in the early game. In fact, as Venice (an admittedly more naval-oriented country, but still a tiny one when compared to England) I usually have outbuilt England by the end of session 1.
 
I felt like writing up a bit today, so I figured I'd do some paint drawings of how the major maneuvers in the war looked. All numbers are estimates, and I only put down the troop count in areas which mattered (so those aren't the total active armies for both sides).

Blue = Area controlled by French troops or vassals (not necessarily occupied or owned by France or French vassals).
Red = Area controlled by Austrian troops or vassals.
Green = Neutral provinces.

Yellow = Austrian troops and troop movements.
Purple = French troop and troop movements.

--

Initially, I moved in and occupied a bit of territory. As I mentioned in the AAR, Austria went for a surround, hoping to cut off the retreat paths of and wipe the men in Elsass. He failed to do so and had two stacks wiped shortly thereafter.

fqFPNFC.png


With Austria retreating mostly Northeast, I decided to pursue given my land tech advantage. I got as far as Ansbach, heavily damaging both our armies, when he acquired a 5 shock general. I attacked north into the 15 pictured (movement not pictured) briefly since his general wasn't there, and then turned back to reinforce.

gsDTWk3.png


After a few months of regrouping, Austria went for a major offensive with his general, trying to simultaneously beat up troops in Baden as well as potentially wipe stacks sieging Palatinate provinces. By the time he got to Worms I had my 4 shock general and was able to repel him. Meanwhile, his fight in Baden went very badly.

8YMHDBR.png


I pursued his retreating troops from Baden, but he managed to take the southern Baden province and bring a huge amount of troops in from the north. I realized my mistake and hoped to retreat into my controlled Swiss provinces, but unfortunately the troops were wiped as I had no practical way to defend them by the time they got to Wurttemburg.

OpOrTQ0.png


The force peace came only a few months after that, with not much change in the front and no major battles.
 
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That's very interesting, now I guess we get the idea.

What kind of software did you use to create the maps ? I would like to create something like that myself.
 
Currently working on it; should be done today or tomorrow (I'm pretty busy today). Not much happened to France in the session since I was stuck in two regencies which, combined, covered almost the entire session, so I'll be talking about general EU3 economy and such.
 
Pewt is just to lazy to write an aar these days boooo
 
Session 4
Player changes:
Elcyion is running Russia for the session because Pilis is off getting drunk or something.

Aftermath
With the war with Austria over, I had some breathing room again. I slowly built up my forces somewhat, got Land tech 12, and began coating my nation with Barracks. I was contemplating what my next move would be, if I wanted to make any such move at all, when it was decided for me.

Regency 1
My king died, and my heir followed shortly after, setting me up for a 15+ year potential regency, and thus accepted that I’d be doing little more than building buildings this session unless I was called into a large war which I was interested in for some reason (very unlikely to happen, unless something were to occur between Russia, OE, and Austria and create a 2v1 scenario). I hired a level 5 prestige advisor and an (unfortunately bad) Army Tradition advisor to fill my advisor slots since I had little better to spend them on without any Navy Tradition for a Trader, consolidated my trade income, burned inflation back to 0, slid towards centralization for magistrates and national decisions, and in general worked on getting my nation set up for teching and the next potential big war.

One thing which is hugely important in session 4 is setting up for the race to Land tech 18, which should finish near the end of session 4 or the start of session 5; the jump from 17 to 18 is so large that being significantly late can cause you to lose a war very quickly and brutally, similar to if you’re still at 9 when someone is at 11 or especially 13. At this point you should ideally have low infamy, good trade (assuming you aren’t aiming to stay mercantilist, something which not many nations can pull off), and have your nation in a non-messy position with regards to stability, revolt risk and the like. In this case, my giant income relative to my rivals and good (for the time) tech sliders put me in an excellent position to lead the race from the start, and I’ve consistently stayed far ahead in tech than most of Europe so far.

Elsewhere in Europe, things were taking place at a slow pace, but a much faster one than in France. Brandenburg finally inherited their PUs, growing into a substantially sized nation, and contracted Russia to beat up the Hansa for them to take Hamburg. Meanwhile, Italy asked me for a NAP (which I granted) and used it to invade Great Britain a second time, this time sporting a rather large fleet. Great Britain was unprepared and Italy was successful, winning a sizeable portion of the New World. Russia entered into a Time of Troubles which would last the entire session, albeit one that left them relatively unscathed.

BujDIAX.jpg

I’m not sure why Brandenburg didn’t attack Hansa themselves.

Inter-regency (circa 1492)
After a bit more waiting, I finally got a rather terrible king, but a king nonetheless. Given that I had further centralized a few times and my income was skyrocketing, I decided there was little reason not to build up further towards my forcelimits; at this point my lead in the Land tech race was clear, so I had no particular desire to rush into war, but maintaining a large army still gives me the opportunity to adapt to the situation much more rapidly, and with such an economic surplus (I was nearing 5,000 gp in the treasury, even after having rejected a Sale of Titles) there was little reason not to.

Technically investing for ~15 years before you’re actually expected (in-game, not by the “ahead of time” penalties) to hit Land tech 18 in around 1510 is the way to go, but given how significantly I was leading the race I decided there was little reason not to branch out a bit and pick up some important tech levels elsewhere, such as monopolies; when you’re in such a long term tech race, cutting corners early only costs a fraction as much in the long term as you invested into it, given how bad the ahead of time penalties can get, especially with the bad slider positions you generally have in this era.

By now my trade was doing better than ever. Even though I lacked the ability to get some important trading bonuses such as the Trader (+6-10% compete chance usually) or a second free NI slot for Shrewd Commerce Practices (+10% compete chance), I was able to maintain 5 merchants in the most important European CoTs. The later on in the game you go the more decisions and such you need to maintain effective trade, but in the early game it’s pretty easy if you fulfill some or all of the following:
  • Have +5 Free Trade (or close: I think I started trading at +3).
  • Have at least one trade NI if possible.
  • Have high prestige (+100 in my case) and high stability.
  • Have low infamy (0 in my case).
  • Don’t keep lots of merchants in crappy CoTs (each merchant reduces your global compete chance by 0.5%).
  • Have a monopoly for the extra merchant per year.

Regency 2 (1495)
Before I had much of a chance to do anything with my newfound king, he died again, leaving a very young heir behind. Luckily, barring another heir death, my heir is set to inherit the kingdom before I’m likely to have Land tech 18, but losing the chance to seize opportunities for the rest of the session was frustrating nonetheless. I built up my army a bit more during this period, but for the most part the rest of the session was uninteresting; I teched to monopolies and then switched back to Land, and it’ll probably stay that way up until tech 18 (at which point government 18 for Administrative Monarchy is the next priority, due to its massive leap in magistrate gains in comparison to Empire).

Looking at the post-session stats and save presented somewhat of a surprise; Austria is most likely going to declare war on me first thing next session, although it doesn’t look as if any other players intend to support him. Currently he has slightly more men than me and similar manpower (something which will be fixed by swapping National Trade Policy for National Conscripts), but much lower morale and without any particular way to make the most of the short period before my manpower will outstrip his. He’s banked a fair amount on this war, annexing Palatinate to get reinforcement territory despite it keeping him at too much infamy to trade, and now is probably his best chance to attack given he’s bound to lose the Land tech 18 race.

Stats and Map
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...e=int&season=comp-2013&game=XVI&yearsave=1501
Qq2yG7R.png

The world in 1501.

Comments
Session 4 is usually pretty slow, and the double regencies didn’t help. I tried to fill it in a bit with talk about economy, but there wasn’t much to screenshot or talk about with regards to the session itself.
 
hmm ... Mughal have nearly unified India , Ming is expanding , the Ottomans are doing ... i dont' know what exactely, Hansa is more or less doomed.

Portugal is dropped or just absent?
 
hmm ... Mughal have nearly unified India , Ming is expanding , the Ottomans are doing ... i dont' know what exactely, Hansa is more or less doomed.

Portugal is dropped or just absent?
Disappeared halfway through the session if I recall correctly. Think he had to go or something.

Something I forgot to mention is that there's a lot of tension between the Mughals and Russia right now over Kazakh (a war which the Mughals are almost certain to lose should it come to that). Not sure what the Ottomans are up to.
 
Disappeared halfway through the session if I recall correctly. Think he had to go or something.

Something I forgot to mention is that there's a lot of tension between the Mughals and Russia right now over Kazakh (a war which the Mughals are almost certain to lose should it come to that). Not sure what the Ottomans are up to.

Its not tension its just that Mughal needs to bend over and take it or hes ganna get wrecked
 
Session 5
Player changes:
Lutai (Hansa) subbed Ming for about 3/4 of the session, and cacra (Venice) left halfway through (don’t think it’s permanent). Lord_T (Portugal) disappeared for most of the session.

The War of Austrian Retribution (Session Start— Late 1503)
As I expected, Austria declared war pretty much instantly after the game started. I queued up a bunch of men and switched National Trade Policy to National Conscripts, and both of us bought the title of defender of our respective faiths. He was ahead by about 50 men and 1 shock on generals (his best were a 5 shock and a 4 shock, whereas my best were 4 shock and a 3 shock), but behind on around a point of Morale due mostly to prestige. Knowing that the troop advantage wouldn’t last for long, he rushed forward in an attempt to seize a good amount of territory, leading to a few major battles in eastern France. There were a few scary moments, but the morale difference really showed.
nlEke1Q.jpg

Austria pushes forwards.

I won both battles pictured, but Austria managed to retreat in good order and regroup. By this point he had lost his momentum, though, with freshly built reinforcements arriving from western France and a huge disparity in both morale and manpower regeneration (I had ~350k max manpower vs his ~250k). I pushed in for a counteroffensive, and simultaneously realized I had forgotten several stacks in Brabant, which I brought south, allowing me to recapture a fair amount of territory in a series of large battles.
STU7qb3.jpg

Normally I wouldn’t fight with so much of my army in one stack, but given I was essentially guaranteed to win these fights I figured I should leave my options open on the off chance I had a chance to wipe some or all of his men.

A few more battles later and Austria was driven out of France and slightly into his territory. I attempted to attack a few times, but already being a point behind on generals getting an extra 2 points’ penalty on terrain was painful and meant the odds of me accomplishing much on the offensive were unlikely. Figuring that he probably had similar manpower to me and the war wouldn’t end any time soon, I offered a white peace, given I was very ahead on the race to LT18 so I’d be better off pressing that advantage than trying to grind out the war here.
6rWBU9n.jpg

The borders just before peace.

As it turns out, Rayzee was almost out of manpower and feared the worst, so I probably should’ve kept going given my 150k remaining, but hindsight is 20/20 and I had no way to know that before peacing (I asked him afterwards).

During the war, Italy managed to quickly and efficiently annex most of Aragon from Castille; a move I would’ve opposed had I been able to (Italy and I had a NAP, but I could’ve raced him to Aragon) and which was no doubt why he attacked Castille when he did. After another war shortly afterwards, Italy was able to convince Castille to sell him the rest of Iberia (or die trying to defend it), so Italy managed to swiftly become a major land contender while Austria and I were busy fighting one another, and it will be interesting to see where his nation goes in the future.

The Ten Years’ Peace (Late 1503—1513)
The war left my country in surprisingly good shape; I had regained the stability from NI switching, had only 8 war exhaustion, had plenty of manpower, and had only lost 30ish men to wipes. Land tech 18 was only 8 or so years away, and given that it was nearly twice that far away for most of the rest of the world (Ottomans was only about two years behind me, but everyone else was much worse off) I was in a good position to cause some havoc. Unfortunately I had no CB on Austria, so after quickly rushing to Land 18 I decided I was better off teching Government 17 for a National Idea slot to allow me to pick Bill of Rights for a CB; the stability wasn’t an issue, but the infamy and war exhaustion penalties would be somewhat annoying and I was by no means in a hurry.

Talking to Russia, Prussia, and the Ottomans revealed that Prussia had some sort of defensive agreement with Austria at least as far as Land tech 18, while Ottomans would’ve intervened should such an agreement not have existed. Neither was particularly worrying, what with Ottomans’ distance (fighting wars from allied territory is much more difficult) and Prussia’s similar tech to Austria, but nonetheless I wanted to get an idea of what I was fighting. Finally in 1513 I hit Government 17 and built up a sufficiently large army to ensure a swift and brutal army no matter how prepared Austria and Prussia were.
6HTiDWB.jpg

Going this far over your forcelimit is pricey and I had to inflate a bit, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I wasn’t about to take any unnecessary risks.

The Lightning War (1513)
The war was short and brutal; I moved into Prussia with about 100 men and the remaining 300 or so rushed into Austria in several groups, wiping army after army as they moved forward. While my generals’ Shock wasn’t quite up to par with Austria’s—something which wasn’t an issue given the giant gap between Land tech 17 and Land tech 18—my maneuver was apparently significantly better, meaning if he started moving away from my armies when he saw them coming it was already much too late, and most battles ended in a wipe rather than a retreat. Within 6 bloody months my men were nearing on Vienna, and the resistance on both fronts had crumbled, leading to my opponents surrendering two provinces apiece.
NDn12nb.jpg

French armies pillage Austria.

The Long Peace (Late 1513—Session End)
After the second war with Austria, the session as a whole entered into a period of relative calm. With everyone reaching Land tech 18 and my disbanding of some units to allow me to stop minting as much, there was no great chance for anyone to start another war.
L6XLRbK.jpg

French borders at the end of the Lightning War.

A few minor incidents occurred, with Venice attempting to attack Portugal and Netherlands unsuccessfully and then the Netherlands invading Ming China later, but for the most part little occurred. I reached Land tech 19 for Regimental Camps near the end of the session, finally got my sliders looking decent, and converted to Protestant (via a fake war with Italy) after passing the Edict of Nantes. For the most part, the world outside of Austria, Netherlands, Venice, Italy and I seems to be content with peace.

Stats and map
http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpsta...e=int&season=comp-2013&game=XVI&yearsave=1530
GoCSA2J.png

The world in 1530.

Comments
I was cleaning my keyboard for the second half of the session and thus wasn’t paying very much attention to the game, but nothing really happened. It was surprising how violent the first 15 years of the session were and how quiet the rest were, with the majority of countries fighting at least one war by 1515.
 
400 on 150 limit? crazy! :D
you released them as vassals? you expect integration missions on them or just to keep infamy down?

Italy suddenly became really powerful ...
Ming apparently lost to Netherlands.
Hansa is getting Mali
Sweden is colonizing Japan? weird , i thought they were not worth it now.
Oh , you missed them loging Denmark to Prussia, too.
 
400 on 150 limit? crazy! :D
you released them as vassals? you expect integration missions on them or just to keep infamy down?

Italy suddenly became really powerful ...
Ming apparently lost to Netherlands.
Hansa is getting Mali
Sweden is colonizing Japan? weird , i thought they were not worth it now.
Oh , you missed them loging Denmark to Prussia, too.
Japan is only good if you want to move your capital there and be a naval nation, but since Sweden isn't taking indonesia I don't get it either.

And I released them as vassals because:

  • Infamy (half the infamy means income loss for half as long, and less income loss during that time).
  • I'm slowly annexing my French vassals and running out of sphere, so more sphere is nice.
  • I don't really need wrong cultured provinces right now.

It's unlikely they'll be reannexed any time soon. In retrospect, I maybe should've taken them out of the HRE first, but who knows... this forces Austria to not annex electors lest he lose emperorship to me.
 
I don't know about mechanics of multiplayer, but Italy seems to be outstreching. Land borders with both with you and Austria and again colony developments in N. America (Statitistics say she has the most colonies on going).
 
I don't know about mechanics of multiplayer, but Italy seems to be outstreching. Land borders with both with you and Austria and again colony developments in N. America (Statitistics say she has the most colonies on going).
The naval scene this game is pretty weak, so I assume Italy is banking on that to keep his colonies, and Austria and I are currently a little too busy with each other to worry about him which is how he got away with this at all. No doubt we'll see whether he tries to play us off against each other more or tries to conquer Languedoc/Roussillon/Provence for a land border.
 
Quite the blitzkrieg by Italy. Just wondering how could Castille overextend to a point where he can't defend Iberia.
The first war was a surprise attack since up until the day I dowed Spain we had been quite friendly. I went over my forcelimits and invaded with 120k while he only had around 40k in iberia and I had naval supremacy. There was also a land tech difference of 14 to 11. It seems he did not expect me to dow again straight away after the truce was over so he was again caught without many armies in Spain and again the land tech difference was high. After losing 10 provs and being behind in tech he decided there was no way to win and so he sold the rest of his country for 4k.

I don't know about mechanics of multiplayer, but Italy seems to be outstreching. Land borders with both with you and Austria and again colony developments in N. America (Statitistics say she has the most colonies on going).
I don't want to be involved in anything that is going on between Prussia, Austria and France so hopefully I will be able to remain at peace in europe. At the moment im leaning slightly towards Austria since France does not seem happy that I took Spain while Austria does not seem to mind. If I am attacked by either France or Austria then I will immediately side with the other guy and become a junior alliance partner for a while. Britain is the only threat to my american colonies so I will try to nap him again and if he refuses I suppose we will begin a naval cold war and I will await his attack.

Also venice is going to be annexed soon so I think he is gone for good.