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you should try to get an ally or another advantage. while france is rich and populous, germany and austria blobbing in the baltic and balkans with the possibility of a joint assualt and the prussian +25% discipline decision does not really look too good. an allaince with italy or russia seems your best possibility, but with proper naval advantage you could try to establish a full blockade of the adriatic and sond to mount naval behind the lines offensives. if you can get some spies to lift FOW you could gan yourself a incredible advatage as you get free shots at places liek danzig, lubeck and the like
I've already talked to everyone with a significant army about joining the war in exchange for money. Nobody is interested; after all, I'm somewhat of a superpower and everyone is perfectly happy to see their rivals' money being wasted. PMR will be a pain but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, hopefully with more provinces.

None of that other stuff is a good idea. Having a navy is more expensive than them paying someone to wipe it (given it'd be pathetic), they don't have much trade now as it is so a blockade doesn't matter much, and leaving armies that far away from the front is an excellent way to get them wiped (not to mention I can't spare any men at the front if I want to keep pushing). There is little room for cute stuff in a 2v1.
 
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Austria accidentally announced in public around February or so of 1545, rather than private chat, that an unnamed person (who was obviously Prussia, since Italy was NAPped) should prepare to declare war in July

[Insert Austria Player Name] embarasses the court.
 
wow , I once played MP , and was utterly destroyed in a 3v1 assault ... that's impressive to hold like this , alone!
yeah Russia and OE are going asian , and they'll be insanely powerful after that ...

10 infamy and 2 stab are annoying , but if those were required to fight the war , so be it.
you weem to fight wars vs Austria/Prussia half of the time , though.
 
I wonder how the war would have played out if Austria hadn't shown its cards...

Otherwise I think France, Austria and Prussia may bleed each other out and other players may take advantage of it - or not, as long as they have room to expand.
 
I wonder how the war would have played out if Austria hadn't shown its cards...

Otherwise I think France, Austria and Prussia may bleed each other out and other players may take advantage of it - or not, as long as they have room to expand.
I'd've had maybe 40k less manpower, but given how this war has gone I doubt it mattered much in the long term (it was only 3-4mo after all). Still a nice warning to have, don't get me wrong.

How quickly will the Ottomans finish expanding in Asia?
No clue. I don't think he's in any particular rush though.

wow , I once played MP , and was utterly destroyed in a 3v1 assault ... that's impressive to hold like this , alone!
yeah Russia and OE are going asian , and they'll be insanely powerful after that ...

10 infamy and 2 stab are annoying , but if those were required to fight the war , so be it.
you weem to fight wars vs Austria/Prussia half of the time , though.
Unfortunately newer players often have the tendency to try to prove that older players are overrated and seem to think 4v1 or more is a good way of doing so, so you get used to ganks after a while (not that this situation has anything to do with that). That said, their ability to pay attention to two places at once is very annoying; I've lost a few stacks due to focusing on one of them while the other attacks me in a weird place.
 
i was mainly talking long term, constructing a fleet without FOW lifted and in the middle of a war isnt that smart.

what is your strategy? bleed them dry? incursions into austria?(although given this being open i get it if you dont respond)

more long term talking though, how do you think things will end? holland, OE and russia seem to be racing to control asia, and whoever does will come out stronger and richer. there's also the castille moved to SA, and whoever owns america is quite strong (if he has naval dominance) as well.
 
i was mainly talking long term, constructing a fleet without FOW lifted and in the middle of a war isnt that smart.
Even long term, MP is very focused on either picking land or naval and sticking with it. This game I might be able to consider getting away with it since there are no serious naval

what is your strategy? bleed them dry? incursions into austria?(although given this being open i get it if you dont respond)
Coming next week! Would love to be able to answer this properly, but... yeah, fellow game members read this thread so no can do.

more long term talking though, how do you think things will end? holland, OE and russia seem to be racing to control asia, and whoever does will come out stronger and richer. there's also the castille moved to SA, and whoever owns america is quite strong (if he has naval dominance) as well.
I don't know. OE and Russia having so much stuff also means they have little incentive to go west, so it's feeling more and more like a standoff between myself and the Germans, unless Italy or someone decides to get involved. We'll see how future wars go, but my performance in this war so far has given me good hope even for future 2v1s between the three of us.
 
How quickly will the Ottomans finish expanding in Asia?

Sadly my heir is an admin 4 ruler. So ill have to wait for a few years in order to continue my expansion, since otherwise ill risk getting the overextension modifier, which is quite a pain.

The only way to prevent that would be to move to admin republic, which would cost me around 30 monthly or even more due to the reduced production income not even considering the additional tech/income losses through the 4 stab hits.
 
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Pewt you need allies, 2 vs 1 can easily turn into 3 vs 1.....
Easier said than done; nobody is interested in joining my side for fame or fortune. That said, other people have other rivalries, so a 3v1 has a much better chance of becoming a 3v2 than a 2v1 does of becoming a 2v2.

--

Since so much of the game’s basic combat mechanics are not very well understood, here’s an explanation of the simpler bits. I’ll be talking strictly about land combat, since it’s both more complicated and more important. Maximizing every value mentioned here is important, and they have a surprisingly huge effect on how well your armies perform compared to how small some of them seem.

What information do I have about a battle in progress?
Here’s an example battle to reference:
Qf3alkR.png


The attacker is on top, the defender on the bottom. Each side has a total troop count, a general, a combat modifier box, and a morale bar. The first two are straightforward. The combat modifiers are as follows, and the final modifier for each side is the sum of all modifiers on that side (so all modifiers with equal values are equivalent):
Gnugp9O.png
The roll, from 0 to 9. This is updated to a new random value every time the combat’s phase changes.
rQFvdeS.png
9v0kFnu.png
These general-derived die modifiers are applied to the side with the better general for that phase, and is the difference between that general’s fire or shock value and the others’. Note that once a general is selected, later-arriving better generals will not replace it unless the original general’s army leaves the fight.
DyGbdQi.png
The terrain penalty. This is always applied to the attacker and can range from 0 to -5, depending on how harsh the terrain is. When a combat starts, it has a percent chance to occupy any terrain type in a province (visible on the terrain mapmode) based on the percent of the province which contains that terrain. This number is selected on round 1 and remains unchanged for the rest of the combat.
6hdOhtG.png
The crossing penalty, ranging from 0 to -2. Crossing a river costs the attacker 1 point, while crossing a strait or unloading from ships costs 2. Note that, if I recall correctly, it is possible for these to change mid-combat based on new armies arriving, but only for the worse.

Combat modifiers are not the only thing that influences how much damage your armies deal and take, but they’re the only one which can vary by battle with all other things remaining the same.

The morale bar is the average morale of units on the battlefield compared to the maximum morale of the highest morale unit in either army. It can fluctuate wildly as armies participating in the battle enter and leave the battlefield, and over all isn’t very useful.

On the top left we see a flag telling us that it’s impossible to retreat from the battle. This lasts 4 phases.

Finally, closer to the middle we can see both sides’ battlefield layouts and which phase it currently is (Shock or Fire). The phase changes every 3 days and begins with fire. The battlefield layouts are relatively complicated and not very important, but it’s useful to know that as deployed unit counts dwindle on the battlefield it’s an indication that you’re running out of morale, since units with 0 morale cannot fight. When your morale bar suddenly fills up, it’s due to a new wave of units on the battlefield. Mousing over a unit’s square on the battlefield will tell you which regiment from your army it is.

What information do I have about leaders?
Here’s an example leader pane for reference:
pJDc6b3.png


Tradition tends to decay yearly, although you can get regeneration from Battlefield Commissions, War College, Veteran’s Home, The Last Jousting Tournament, an Advisor, and a few other sources. As a general rule, each point of yearly army tradition moves your stable (no net gain/decay) tradition by +33%. It is mostly gained by fighting battles and completing sieges. Hired generals’ stats are largely determined by it, and as a general rule generals with less than about 30% army tradition will be underwhelming while generals with over about 60% army tradition will be excellent.

Generals have four values: fire, shock, maneuver, and siege, the first three of which are rated from 1 to 6 while siege is rated from 1 to 3. Fire and Shock determine the general’s modifier during the corresponding battle phases. Maneuver primarily affects an army's move speed on the world map and vulnerability to attrition (stack weight). Siege affects the time between siege progress events and the chance at good ones, but is not very useful overall.

Discipline is also on this tab, although it has little to do with generals. Your army has a discipline value, affected mostly by advisors, the Quality vs Quantity slider, and the Militia Act, although certain nations get special decisions and there are a few other modifiers. You can think of discipline as your army’s percent effectiveness, with 100% being average.

Finally, Military Tactics is another value sort of like discipline; it's only listed very inconveniently in the ledger, but since it ties in nicely to discipline I’ll mention it here. It starts off at 0 (1 if you keep less than the cavalry maximum in an army), increases at certain tech levels, such as 18, and reduces your losses in combat significantly.

What information do I have about my troops?
The Military tab has a fair amount of information:
7tKwE0U.png


On the top, you’ll see your currently selected Infantry, Cavalry, and Artillery types, which are the units your core provinces will offer. Each one has its own Fire, Shock, and Morale rating, with both Offensive and Defensive substats. For the most part, you can treat Offensive and Defensive pips as the same field (so total Shock = Offensive + Defensive), and Morale pips are seemingly rather unimportant in comparison. Which of shock or fire is better depends on your generals and modifiers.

Beside the unit type selected, you’ll see how many of that unit you have, as well as your shock and fire multipliers. These multipliers are a mostly hidden value which increases nonlinearly with tech, and have an absolutely massive effect on how much damage you deal; for instance, they’re why Fire damage is so weak until Land tech 22 and still much weaker than shock for a few more levels, as well as why Cavalry are so strong despite their seeming lack of pips. You can’t control them in any way other than increasing them with tech, but being aware of which Land tech levels yield important modifiers can be critical to winning a close war. Here’s a reference list. Looking at this list makes some things such as the huge jump in unit power from Land tech 9 to Land tech 11 much more intuitively obvious.

At the bottom, you’ll see your Morale, Force Limits, and Maintenance. Maintenance determines your reinforcement rate as well as adding between 0 and 2 points to morale. Your force limits apply a modifier to maintenance, with your total maintenance being equal to (base maintenance * Max(1, force limit/unit count)), which causes maintenance to skyrocket if you’re much over your force limit, since each additional unit penalizes every existing unit as well as itself. Mousing over morale stars and force limit gives you a breakdown of where they’re coming from, which can be highly useful in determining why your morale is so far behind someone else’s.

Anyhow, hope this helps. This isn't a totally in-depth look at the systems, but this is all you particularly need to know to perform well in land combat.
 
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Maneuver affects an army’s morale, move speed on the world map, and chance to wipe out an enemy army that attempts to retreat at 0 morale.

Do you mean that a losing army doesn't get to retreat from battle and is instead destroyed if the winning general has high maneuver? Also, I had no idea that it affects morale.
How many people can edit wiki?

Finally, Military Tactics is another value sort of like discipline; it isn’t listed here or anywhere else, but since it ties in nicely to discipline I’ll mention it here.

Isn't it listed in the ledger, on 16th page?
 
Do you mean that a losing army doesn't get to retreat from battle and is instead destroyed if the winning general has high maneuver? Also, I had no idea that it affects morale.
How many people can edit wiki?
Oh, the phrasing on that is kind of awkward. It doesn't affect morale, it increases the chance that an enemy army brought to 0 morale is destroyed instead of retreating.

Isn't it listed in the ledger, on 16th page?
TIL. I don't use most ledger pages very often (just COT/Current Wars/Provincial Buildings/National Overview really).
 
This is a great read and I'm learning quite a few things, most importantly that I'd be eaten alive if I ever tried multiplayer. I initially skipped over it when I saw it start up but your post on r/eu3 made me reconsider and I'm glad I did.
 
wow, thanks! This is amazing and what I've been looking for forever.

Regarding land battle, you mention at land 18 cavalry is still much stronger than infantry, yet you seem to have 10x the infantry units that you do cav. Why?

Also, what are good army compositions at different levels? Particularly, I know cav to be strong but it has negative modifiers on hills and such. How do you balance that out?

For example, what is a good stack compo at land 18, 13 and late 20's? I tend to use 8/4 or 12/4 but recently have been toying with 10/6 because cav is supposedly much stronger.

Finally, I love to learn about land battles but decisions are also very complicated and hard to learn. For example, I did not know about the cultural decision to get +3% all game, I now see it is clutch and will start using it.
 
This is a great read and I'm learning quite a few things, most importantly that I'd be eaten alive if I ever tried multiplayer. I initially skipped over it when I saw it start up but your post on r/eu3 made me reconsider and I'm glad I did.

pewt is obviously an expert in a very good game; there are games with much more casual players. I am, for example, currently in a game from another forum where people hit land 18 in the ealry 1520's, much later than pewt here and where the wars are much less ferocious than here.
 
Regarding land battle, you mention at land 18 cavalry is still much stronger than infantry, yet you seem to have 10x the infantry units that you do cav. Why?
I mean strictly on a per-pip basis; Cavalry aren't actually super-powerful in combat after LT13 or so.

Also, what are good army compositions at different levels? Particularly, I know cav to be strong but it has negative modifiers on hills and such. How do you balance that out?
I usually just wing it, but it's generally a lot of infantry, a bit of cavalry, maybe a bit of artillery later on.

For example, what is a good stack compo at land 18, 13 and late 20's? I tend to use 8/4 or 12/4 but recently have been toying with 10/6 because cav is supposedly much stronger.
Between LT13 and LT21 you may want to just mass infantry.

Finally, I love to learn about land battles but decisions are also very complicated and hard to learn. For example, I did not know about the cultural decision to get +3% all game, I now see it is clutch and will start using it.
Indeed they are. I haven't sought out some of the good trade ones (such as Enlist Privateers) since my NIs and such have been occupied with fighting Austria, but for the most part you can get a good idea of which are important by which I've passed.
 
This is looking more and more interesting, I just can't get enough! The ferocity of the multiplayer is what is most shocking and different, in my opinion. I am wondering what the late game is going to look like if things go on like this. While I'm sure you and the German Alliance will clash again, I'm curious if Russia, the Ottomans, Italy or Great Britain will get involved. This recurring conflict is dominating west-central Europe, but the powers on the periphery are getting shockingly strong. I personally predict some tensions between Russia and the Ottomans, but I haven't seen the in-game chat, so I really don't know.
 
This is looking more and more interesting, I just can't get enough! The ferocity of the multiplayer is what is most shocking and different, in my opinion. I am wondering what the late game is going to look like if things go on like this. While I'm sure you and the German Alliance will clash again, I'm curious if Russia, the Ottomans, Italy or Great Britain will get involved. This recurring conflict is dominating west-central Europe, but the powers on the periphery are getting shockingly strong. I personally predict some tensions between Russia and the Ottomans, but I haven't seen the in-game chat, so I really don't know.

If you calculate the cost/benefit of a war between OE and Russia, youll see that a gain of a mere 5 provs per war(which is the maximum according to the rules) by no means equalizes its cost. A Russia/OE war would take a few years at least, costing both thousands of ducats for little gain.

The only way i would consider to war russia is if i get to LT 28 significantly faster than russia.

Both Russia and OE still have space to expand into (China/India); so for the forseeable future, theres simply no need to fight over anything.
 
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