The Empire of the North - Part V

[unmerged(199)]

The Empire of the North

Part V

Imperium Universalis (1600-1792)

January 1, 1600
As the new century passes, I decide that it is time to end the destructive conflicts that repeatedly to engulf the globe, and bring order to the galaxy... err, I mean the Earth. To prevent a repeat off the misunderstandings with Russia, we commence a campaign to vassalize the English.

October 10, 1601
The English declare war on Scotland. The Iroquouis, who were invited into the alliance by the English break the alliance. This angers Emperor Christian, but he decides not to take action for the nonce.

March 1, 1602
Scotland quickly succumbed and paid England 176d in indemnities. The English, being far too trusting, bring the Iroquois into our alliance again. In the meantime, we have colonized Taiwan which will serve us as a base of observation against the Chinese and Japanese empires. Our Merchants have now invented a system of Protectionism to control trade.

January 5, 1605
After taking over complete control of trade in Nippon and China, our merchants initiate a trade war in Thrace. Much of the new revenue goes into the upkeep and expansion of our empire, as we improve the infrastructure.

January 1, 1606
King Christian IV has a fit of madness and makes a claim on the Iroquouis throne.

January 1, 1607
Turkey refuses us access to Thrace, and we respond by an immediate and effective declaration of war. Algiers, Aden and Oman decide to stand by their ally. The Irououis once again refuse to support us, and wearily, We give the order for their annexation. In February, Portugal and Spain declare war on us.

October 19, 1607
Aden is annexed in September. In October, the last remaining Portuguese strongholds of Tago and Tangiers fall to our forces and Portugal is annexed. This causes Morrocco to declare war.

April 7, 1608
The Iroquouis are annexed.

November 17, 1608
Turkey is annexed.

December 24, 1608
Algiers is annexed.

January 9, 1609
Spain submits, ceeding Malta and the Istmus, and paying 250d into our coffers.

March 25, 1609
The Army of Magyar invades the island of Zanzibar but to our great surprise runs into an army of 8000 cavalry. The veterans of the army stand their ground however, and with a withering fire of cannons and infantry defeat the forces of Oman. They then lay siege to Zanzibar.

August 1, 1609
Zanzibar falls and Oman is annexed.

June 3, 1610
After costly fighting, in which a whole army was wiped out to the last man by the massive Morroccan forces, we finally succeed in assaulting the last Morroccan stronghold - and the last non-Danish territory in Africa. Morrocco falls to our forces and is annexed.

December 16, 1611
New Liberal ideas gain acceptance in trade circles, only 4 years after the Manufacturing doctrine won acceptance in industrial circles. Progress is rapid nowadays. Heretics in the Finmark causes some concern to the Emperor's advisors, but we maintain our policy of religious tolerance.

December 15, 1614
We declare war on China and Spain who have both had the temerity to try and prevent our merchants from entering. England, angered by King christian's continual claims on the throne of their country dishonor the alliance.

January 1, 1615
England declare war on us. King Christian himself decides to take the field at the head of an army.

December 21, 1616
China is annexed after a lightning campaign by Gert Rantzau at the head of a few thousand men and 300 cannon. War weariness is beginning to take its toll on the empire, with rebellions appearing all over the place.

November 1, 1617
The Knights of Malta declare their independence from the Empire. Kong Christian IV sails around the Americas, first arriving at and storming the English fortress of Belle Isle in Northern Canada, then destroying the Spanish fortress of Mosquitos in Central America, carrying out huge island hopping raids through the Carribean with 30,000 men to destroy the 150,000 men garrisoning the Spanish Carribean empire and finally storming the island fortress of the Canary Islands.

January 28, 1618
Spain is annexed and Anglia falls. Finally, the Dutch Nationalism seems to have abated and Holland reverts to being an ordinary province of the Empire.

March 18, 1618
England is annexed.

March 13, 1620
We declare war on Japan without a cassus belli, as our spies inform us that the Japanese are preparing a slaughter of all Christian missionaries on the island. Shortly after, Scotland declares war on us. In May, Gert Rantzau dies in Japan - only three months before Japan is annexed by our forces.

February 21, 1621
After King Christian IV's return to Europe, Scotland falls swiftly and is annexed.

January 1, 1622
With the world at our feet, the destiny of the world is in our hands. But large parts of the world still do not enjoy the enlightenment of our just rule, and our armies now set out to bring order to the world.

November 1, 1625
Sicily delcares its independence.

March 1, 1627
Sicily is reannexed. Never again would any nation dare to oppose the Empire. Thus ended an era of endless war, and ushered in a period of unprecendented peace for most of the world, with the exception of sporadic and troublesome revolts in Spain, England, and Sicily.

February 1, 1640
After more than 10 years of saving up money, we decided to drastically improve employment, and constructed manufactories in every province of the world. Most of all we constructed refineries, unless the province had some regional specialty that was more advantageous. The total price exceeded 400,000 ducats.

The advances in the following years as we resumed funding of research was incredible, with reserach advances in the military sciences almost every second month.

January 1, 1648
King Christian IV dies, leaving behind an Empire of unprecendented economic strength to his son King Frederik III of Denmark. Our infrastructure and trade have been at pre-industrial since 1646, and this has resulted in an incredibly kickback of funds to our armed forces development.

November 2, 1660
My beneficial government policies resulted in a new deflation, though the inflation is as low as it has been for the past 100 years, and the deflation is therefore not of much use. Regardless, we spend 70,000 ducats on upgrading of harbors and reconstruction of a few rebel-destroyed manufactories (costing 23,000 ducats apiece) during this year.

October 13, 1665
A political crisis hit us, reducing the stability of the empire heavily. Using the opportunity, I forced through legislation making the Danish King nothing but a figure head, and centering all the power totally and completely into my hands. My position is now secure for as long as i live. Under my able administration, the Empire rapidly recovers its stability in a matter of years.

January 1, 1670
The merchants are unhappy due to the accession of King Christian V. However, I rapidly bring the situation under control.

January 1, 1675
Our scientists inform us that they have no further ideas for improving either the army or the navy. Shortly after, our army wipes out the last independent tribe in the world.

August 23, 1677
Poor government policies while I changed identities have once again resulted in loss of stability.

January 1, 1699
Frederik IV of Denmark rises to the throne. Reforms instituted during his father's life twice resulted in an increase in home province taxation.

March 19, 1710
Corruption increases inflation by 10% to 26%. I quickly bring the situation under control by instituting majors in 35 provinces of the Empire.

January 1, 1715
Our lengthy and costly war against piracy seems to finally be at an end.

October 4, 1716
Frederik IV suffers from a bout of temporary insanity.

May 4, 1720
A wave of obscurantism strikes the empire. 2 rebellions occur before we manage to manipulate our tolerance to prevent further problems.

January 1, 1730
Christian VI rises to the throne. During his reign, a rush of merchants appear - though we have more than enough. More useful is the rush of colonists that make themselves available.

June 3, 1735
Korfa - the last area of the world, is settled by a Danish trade delegation. Now all the world is under our control.


January 1, 1746
King Frederik V comes to the throne amid unhappiness of the artisans. In 1752 he declares a trade embargo on all nations (I am convinced he is insane).

October 22, 1762
Another wave of obscurantism sweeps the Empire - though this time without any revolts. We recover stability within a year.

January 1, 1764
A stock exchange opens in Copenhagen, promising that they will now be able to provide us loans of 1000 ducats at a time. This is very nice of them, in consideration of the 5,000,000+ ducats in the Imperial gold reserve.


January 1, 1766
King Christian VII comes to the throne. He almost immediately suffers from a bout of temporary insanity in 1671.


January 1, 1775
An explorer offers his services to the crown. I send him packing - he is 250 years too late.

January 12, 1788
Having relaxed a bit during these last decades, I find my administrators have been slack with poor government policies as the result. However, 3 short months sees fit to restore our stability back to the optimal level.

On December 29, 1792 I take stock of the last 300 years of development in the world. Starting with the tiny Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, we managed to build an Empire stretching over the entire world. For more than 150 years, the world has been at peace under our benevolent rule. I never did find what happened to Mssr Cabot - but perhaps, one day when we fare into the terra incognita of the Americas, Africa, or Asia, we shall discover him again... For now though, it is time to rest.

Screenshots and Conclusion will be posted in a moment.

 

[unmerged(199)]

The Empire of the North - Conclusion

Finally, a look at some of the statistics of the Empire.

Victory Points

22145 Victory Points
Battles: 1582
Diplomacy: 269
Discovery: 383
Economical: 15146
Establishment: 632
Missions: 1431
Peace Resolution: 2701

It is notable that this is actually a pretty bad score, in that I never actually really went for victory points in the game. A much, much more profitable course in terms of scoring victory points would have been to let Spain, England, and Holland stay alive, and simple conquor them two provinces at a time. By 1600, those military victories could be carried out in a few months and with no cassus belli problems (Spain always being ready to go beserk over its COTs), I could easily have amassed at least 500-600 points every 10 years from peace resolutions alone from 1600 and after. This would also have permitted these nations to carry out the colonizations instead of me - with the result that I would have had even more cities in the new world than I was able to create with Denmarks meager colonist pool, and thus result in an even better economy score. So a score of 30,000 - 40,000 should be quite easy to achieve - if one has the patience.

My badboy at the end of the game was 632, but it probably peaked around 1621 when it lay at 668.

Military Records:

Total losses (infantry): 6211418 infantry
Breakdown: 3161719 combat losses, 3049699 attrition losses

Of these losses, about 1 million are likely to have occured through the loss of fortresses in sieges. The losses up to 1621 (world conquest) amount to 5,2 million infantry, of which only 2,4 were losses in combat. Subtracting the presumably 1 million lost in sieges, it can be seen that my actual losses of infantry in combat were only about 1,4 million, which reflects quite well my doctrine of never entering a battle when it is possible to avoid it.

Total losses (cavalry): 1282795 cavalry
Breakdown: 870360 combat losses, 412435 attrition losses

Of these losses, only 600,000 occured before 1621. The reason for the marked increase in cavalry losses is due to my use of primarily cavalry to eradicate the natives (due to their greater killing power and faster movement). The proportions remained the same both before and after 1621.


Total losses (artillery): 2379 artillery
Breakdown: 1992 combat losses, 387 attrition losses

This number is heavily skewed due to the loss of cannons during sieges. I estimate that about 1600 of the artillery lost occurred due to enemy sieges of my fortresses, leaving only some 700 losses in regular combat and attrition.

Total losses (warships): 341 warships
Breakdown: 172 combat losses, 169 attrition losses

I lost some 50 warships in battle and 100 warships to attrition prior to 1621. Again a reflection of my use of ships (and the game's design), that ships are not intended for use in combat at all - the best use of warships are as fast transports. After 1621, I was forced to take up the battle against piracy myself, which resulted in the additional 200 ships lost - primarily in combat. I lost a goodly number of ships to attrition through simple forgetfullness - especially during explorations.

Total losses (galleys): 16 galleys
Breakdown: 3 combat losses, 13 attrition losses

The galleys I took over from Venice and Turkey were put to brief use in the Mediteranean campaigns, especially for transporting armies out to rebellious islands. Otherwise, they saw little service.

Total losses (transports): 55 transports
Breakdown: 3 combat losses, 52 attrition losses

As usual, the primary loss of ships (14 in one case) came about through forgetfullness. This is something that must (or at least should) be fixed in EU2 - and ought to have been patched for this game, IMO.

No sensible numbers for the losses of the AI powers can be made, and certainly not in comparison to mine own. But by 1607, Spain had lost some 2,4 million infantry, only 400,000 of these being due to combat - but already 150 warships (almost all in combat). Turkey's losses were simmilar, though the 200 warships they had lost were all through attrition!?

It is easier to consider the non-AI powers. In all, 3500 pirate ships went to David Jones locker, 2000 of those losses being taken after 1621 (an exchange rate of 10-1 in my favor despite technical parity). 800,000 native infantry and 100,000 native cavalry were destroyed - about half of that number being losses after 1621. Somewhat shockingly, this indicates a loss of maybe 300,000 cavalry to defeat 600,000 natives - a very expensive bargain indeed. And finally, 11,000,000 rebels soldiers (including 1200 artillery) were wiped out - 3 million being losses in the rebellions of Spain and England after 1621. In the same period I lost almost 1 million infantry and probably supporting 300,000 cavalry fighting rebellions - ouch!

The mainstay of my armies throughout the war was the 6060 army (6000 infantry, 60 artillery), with a weight of 12. It has the advantage of having just enough men to be able to fight a small battle and take attrition, and still have the 10000 men required to besiege a small fortress. Most provinces have supplies sufficient for 10,000 men and with 60 cannon, one gets the maximum modifier possible against a small fortress. In China, I went instead with 3030 armies, which are more than good enough for minimal fortresses. A possibly better organisation would be to use 70 cannon (in a 5070 organisation), since this allows the army to loose a few cannon in battle and still remain effective. As I rarely allowed myself to be engaged in field battles though, I preferred the smaller cannon component, which also permits a larger infantry component.

The siege armies were often supported by "Defense Corps" of nominally 15,000 men (5000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry), whose primary use was to support the siege armies if engaged and beat down rebellions in the rear areas. These armies only rarely ventured into enemy territory - were usually too busy marching around beating down rebellion (and often got decimated by the rebels - grrrr), and only rarely engaged enemy forces. Later on in the game, when finances allowed, many of these armies increased in size to 25,000 - 30,000 men, usually all cavalry or with a very small infantry component. The consideration behind this organization was the high cost of Danish units, which laid natural boundaries on what I could afford to build.

During the period of world conquest, the army gradually and slowly increased in size to 300,000 infantry, 300,000 cavalry and 2000 artillery. For most of the period though, the army stayed at only 200,000 infantry, some 60,000 cavalry (the massive cavalry recruitment only came after the 1580s), and some 1400 cannon.

Economy

Treasury: 6,811,353 ducats
Yearly income: 85,888 ducats.
Inflation: 0.001667

This with all city provinces updated with all upgrades and a manufactory. Since trade income exceeds production, I built refineries almost in all provinces that did not have an "obvious" manufactory choice, which resulted in the 357% or thereabouts trade income. I only had trade posts in the large majority of the world - I balk at the thought of how these numbers would look with Spain, England, or Portugal performing world conquest (or if I had permitted the other nations to carry out my colonization).

Tech research stayed very low in the period up to 1621 (except in trade and infrastructure, which I always try to get to lvl 5 ASAP). After 1621, I saved up money (no research) for something like 20 years in order to have the funds to carry out the manufactory upgrade of all provinces. When I once again turned back on the research, I got a new level several times a year for a little while.

Summary

Did I enjoy this game: well...yes, at least up until the 1560s, after which any shadow of a challenge in the game mostly vanished. I played at normal aggressiveness, which proved to be a drawback since the AI seems to be extremely passive in this mode. I think the number of AI started wars in this game can almost be counted on one hand. Only Turkey and the Mameluks had a few independent wars of the conflicts against my Empire. On the other hand, every nation on which I bordered (except curiously the Ottomans) would rabidly declare war just as soon as I opened up the ball for another round of badboy wars. An easier option (and possibly better) option would have been to set to aggressive (which is what I normally play in any case).

The idea behind the badboy factor is a good idea, I think, but the implementation and its effects in the game are close to catastrophical for the AI, IMO. Portugal - engaged in countless badboy wars, never ever managed to develop its empire. When I finally conquored it, it had only 2 trade posts in Brazil and 1 in india. Though I had burnt 2-3, this is a catastrophic performance for what is supposed to be a colony nation. England only ever managed to build up 2 colonies by 1621 - a simillar poor performance. The Carribean was equally bare, Spain only having developed 3 colonies in the islands. Granted, they did manage to build up most Central America, but this is still far below the efficiency one usually expects from Spain. A good indication of the dissolution and weakness of Spain was given when I conquored their homeland - not a single province had been upgraded with bailiffs or chief judges by 1621. Russia never managed to get started on Kazan et al., because it was too busy helping fighting my wars for me.

The obvious culprit in all of these cases is the badboy factor, which makes nations behave with complete senselessness. For Moldavia alone to declare war on an Empire the size of half of Europe in support of the Teutonic Order is stupid - regardless of how much badboy that nation lies under. We can only hope that a future patch does something about the broken AI.

Several threads have discussed whether or not conquest of the world is possible with such and such country. My final conclusion on that matter is YES. As this AAR shows, world conquest is possible in less than 150 years even with a country with as lousy leaders and as expensive troops as Denmark-Norway; with better leaders or cheaper troops, this war would have been over long before. The only difference between Denmark and lesser countries is the time it takes before one is ready to take on the world. Denmark took only 30 years to be prepared. A lesser country such as the Navarra, Wallachia, et al., might require 30-120 years, but the end result would be the same. A steamroller force that can easily roll over any opposition, regardless of its size.

That this shouldn't be possible in any game that leans toward historicity is another matter entirely, and one which has (and is) discussed elsewhere...

Europa Universalis has - to the benefit of every wargamer - demonstrated that there is still a market for historical grand strategy games (I know of at least 2 other historical games in development now - apart from my own Imperium project), and for that alone deserves support from any wargamer/strategy gamer who appreciates quality games. It does fail to live up to my expectations of historicity in something that calls itself a "historical" strategy game, in that there is very little of the atmosphere and pressures of history properly represented in the game; and its AI is anything but Powerful. With all the respect and appreciation I have for the wonderful work that has gone into Europa Universalis, I can not consider it as one of the best strategy games of all time. I would consider it the best historical strategy game - though that is more due to the paucity of the competition, than anything else.

With all that said though, Europa Universalis is a good and (for a while) fun strategy game - and one that I have not regretted buying. The numerous patches have certainly prolonged its life on my HD, though it is now slated to be consigned to the shelf space beside such venerable classics as Civilization, Civ II, etc.

Hopefully, it shall not be too long before EU II and Imperium can compete for space on my HD.

 

[unmerged(2073)]

Well that's very impressive.

Spain and Portugal with such pitiful colonial holdings. Did you burden them with debt earlier in the game? This is a sure fire way of crippling a supposedly powerful nation.

I tend to agree with the small siege army tactic. It's brutally effective against the AI and an easy way to capture 2 or more provinces in the time it takes their 200K forces to take one of yours.

Interesting tactic of maxing out treasury for a while and then dumping loads of manufactories all over the place. I might try that one in my current Portugal game.

 

[The Danish King]

Two thumbs up!

 

[Vulture]

Wopsy, even more impressive then the Russian world conquest game...
Doing it as Denmark is harder me thinks
Just wztch my Milan AAR closely in the future.
I can't do world conquest of course, but I do become great in Europe
Hahaha

 

[unmerged(199)]

CdeL - nope, never did anything directly against them during the game. I really don't understand why Portugal failed so miserably, except it would be because they were engaged in badboy wars from 1540. Spain's problem was clearly the badboy wars - they ended the last 50 years of the game with having a permanent -2 stability because they were constantly declaring war.

Maxing out the treasury when you want to build a large number is the only way, IMO. The price rises too steeply otherwise. The last manufactories I built cost over 60,000 ducats apiece.

 

[Shaytana]

Congratulations. This makes me think I should look for my Wallachian savegame and go for full world conquest. I wonder if Wallachians can equall the Danes. Probably yes actually, although world conquest is an exercise in tedium. Can we say rebelliooooooooooooooooons?

 

[unmerged(3525)]

Just a thought on the colonisation front since you mentioned that you used traders instead of colonists for the extra success rate.

One way of picking up lots of colonies is to take ready made ones from the other colonial powers. Tricky in your case since all the colonists seemed to be rather a failure. But the principal would be to let them do all the work and you take ready made cities later on. Using this strategy, you might want to take out Spain and Portugal early since they don't do a lot late in the game. The Dutch and English may be better left to get on with their colonisation before you capture their provinces. Russia is probably not one you want to risk. In any case, sending colonists to most of Siberia is a complete waste of scarce resources.

There is another tactic you can use which should help to get the maximum number of full colonial cities. You probably want to kill the natives to get the extra boost to the success probability even though you only need six colonists (usually) to create a colonial city with natives. But even without natives, don't send seven colonists. Try to keep several budding colonies going at once. If it's a high growth area like North America, the colony will grow by itself from 600 to 700 in around 15 years (and 35 years from 500 to 700). Obviously will lower growth rates it's a little longer. Also if you simply can't afford to send that many colonists then just claiming the land with a trader is simpler.

I'm trying this tactic out at the moment after returning to lots of my older American provinces that only had the one colonist group. After around 50 years, they're up to 170 already.

btw the sound of all those manufactories finishing at once is too scary. It's the sort of noise the computer makes before it crashes to desktop.

 

[unmerged(199)]

Yep - if I wanted to earn points, the best course of action would have been to wipe out the colonial powers slowly, and let Spain, England, and Holland colonize for me. However, in the event I decided to get it over with as soon as possible.

From about the 1620-1645, my armies were eradicating natives all over the world (I know - not PC) and got rid of all the pesky natives. However, with just 3 colonists a year though, a 50% chance, especially since the colonization number is incorrect - at least in my experience - it is not viable to go for a serious colonization strategy. Even with the 95%trade post success, I only got finished by 1735 (Siberia isn't that bad - lots of furs, and 2 gold provinces + the growth rates of colonies is respectable).

 

[unmerged(3555)]

My favourite bit:

January 1, 1764
A stock exchange opens in Copenhagen, promising that they will now be able to provide us loans of 1000 ducats at a time. This is very nice of them, in consideration of the 5,000,000+ ducats in the Imperial gold reserve.


My second favourite bit was the trade embargo on all other nations...

 

[unmerged(2073)]

Originally posted by strategy
Yep - if I wanted to earn points, the best course of action would have been to wipe out the colonial powers slowly, and let Spain, England, and Holland colonize for me. However, in the event I decided to get it over with as soon as possible.

From about the 1620-1645, my armies were eradicating natives all over the world (I know - not PC) and got rid of all the pesky natives. However, with just 3 colonists a year though, a 50% chance, especially since the colonization number is incorrect - at least in my experience - it is not viable to go for a serious colonization strategy. Even with the 95%trade post success, I only got finished by 1735 (Siberia isn't that bad - lots of furs, and 2 gold provinces + the growth rates of colonies is respectable).

What do you mean by "the colonisation number is incorrect"?

 

[unmerged(199)]

Originally posted by Coeur de Lion

What do you mean by "the colonisation number is incorrect"?

Th quoted percentage chance for a colonization mission succeeding displayed by the game is incorrect. That is my inevitable conclusion, after repeatedly failing to colonize an area in which the game insists I have a 50-60% chance of success and wasting 8-10 colonists on each (the chance of that happening, even once, is something like 2-3%). The same experience has been stated by several other players on the General Discussions forum.

Funnily enough, the trade post percentage seems accurate - its just the colonization percentage that is incorrect.

 

[unmerged(3620)]

Strategy, I'm impressed and humbled by your gaming prowess. To make so much out of such pitiful material as the Danes (just kidding...)

It clearly pays of to attend to your trade/diplomacy game. I can't be bothered to do so personally, setting merchats to auto-send from day one and never using diplomats for anyting but DoWs, but you prove that it's very effective indeed if properly attended to. Guess my kill-crush-n'destroy antics are more fun though ;-)

Way to Go! I'll be having a Tuborg to celebrate now!

 

[unmerged(2073)]

Originally posted by strategy


Th quoted percentage chance for a colonization mission succeeding displayed by the game is incorrect. That is my inevitable conclusion, after repeatedly failing to colonize an area in which the game insists I have a 50-60% chance of success and wasting 8-10 colonists on each (the chance of that happening, even once, is something like 2-3%). The same experience has been stated by several other players on the General Discussions forum.

Funnily enough, the trade post percentage seems accurate - its just the colonization percentage that is incorrect.

This is something I'll have to look at. I'm not saying it's wrong but I know from personal experience that I tend to see continued failure to colonise as some omen that it was not meant to be.

While, in an individual case, it is unfortunate if one colony fails time and time again, it is also easy to forget the number that work first time. If we take an example of colonies with a 50% success rate then the chance that you will need to send at least 5 expeditions before the first success is just over 6% and the probability of needing at least 8 is less than 1%.

However, if you consider 20 colonies (not a high number) during a single game, then the chance that one of these will fail on the first four attempts is 75% (fairly likely) and the chance that one will experience at least 7 initial failures is around 15% (about the chance of rolling a 6 with a die).

 

[unmerged(199)]

Colonization percentage

Originally posted by Coeur de Lion
This is something I'll have to look at. I'm not saying it's wrong but I know from personal experience that I tend to see continued failure to colonise as some omen that it was not meant to be.

I am not definite on this yet since I haven't bothered to calculate and document (and probably won't be, since I no longer really play the game); its mostly a matter of gut feeling. But then again, when it comes to strategy and tactics my gut feelings tend to be right.

And it wouldn't be the first place in EU where the numbers in the interface don't make sense.

 

[unmerged(4493)]

I don't know much about the game yet, but is this colonization problem is a constant thing or just something that happened here? I also believe that you were very lucky in several things (the AI is very predictable and the random events favored you), but that doesn't take away the fact that it was an impressive drive and that you build yourself to proof this point. Of course that is what I think.

 

[unmerged(199)]

I do not know. The problem is that EU uses floats for all its internal calculations, so there are often rounding problems.

Wouldn't call myself unlucky, but I don't believe the random events made much of a difference (perhaps speeded up the world conquest by a couple of years or so). Deflation is a nice event, but it doesn't really mean much for the game because the computer AI gets the same advantage from it as the player does.

Enjoy the game - and make sure to download the Improved Grand Campaign (IGC); it's well worth the effort, IMO.

 

[unmerged(2073)]

Just a few comments on the colonisation thing and Victory Points. I'm currently up to 1730 in my own game and things are going pretty well. I've just knocked out the last of the recognised minors (Iroquois!!!) so no it's just Spain, France and England left in the game.

Victory points are up to mid 15,000's so it may be touch and go to top your own score. That economy score is very impressive and I guess it's something to do with the huge income you were getting from manufactories. I think, in this respect, my mistake was to build a bunch of them quite early so that when I save up in the early sixties, it took about 10 years to get enough to build 20-30 at the time. I've just gone through another save and build program of over 10 years but since they were each costing me 6500, I still only managed to build another 68 manufactories. The current economy score is still only up to 6000 so I don't think I'm going to get close to your score.

OTOH, the battle and peace resolution score is higher than yours because I'm doing precisely what you were saying and keeping the others in the game to that I can take their colonies (3 at a time). Since my first war with England (a few years ago), they've been colonising like mad in India and to the West of the Great lakes so I'm confident of being able to take a few of these new colonies. Just the sight of those 6 ships leaving Anglia for Howrah, Santal, Cuttack, Iowa, Superior and Milwaukee brings a tear to the eye since I was never going to have enough colonists toeven begin to worry about these areas. Now, I'm pretty much at the stage where I need all my remaining ones to bring my existing colonies up to city level.

Spain and France are not quite so keen as the English one of my bigger mistakes was to seal of India earlier in the game leaving the English nothing to do there. Fortunately, I left a few natives around so I managed to get a few of my trade posts destroyed and let the English and French in on the game in that region.

Spain have done a nice job of colonising the poorer parts of Mexico while France was most useful in colonising parts of West Africa. Currently I'm up to almost 400 full cities (out of 830 provinces) and I would estimate that I'll gain another 120+ from battles and 90 from building self to take this up to around 75% of the total map.

All in all, I believe that a city everywhere is just about do-able but needs to be thought out from the start. The key trick is to do as little as possible to build colonies yourself but to leave gaps for other colonisers to operate in. Even better if you know the regions where they colonise so that they can be of most use to you.

Be careful of those in-land provinces in North America and, particularly in South America while Siberia is going to be impossible unless you have some help from Russia. Perhaps building up to Buriat or Angora (but this leaves a lot of colonising to do yourself) and then taking Russian colonies through war. The alternative would be to leave a line of free territories to the coast ahd then take them out piecemeal.

One peace of bad luck I had was the inheritance of the Netherlands, this took out a potential coloniser of the East Indies where no-one seems to be interested. Another was my stinginess with maps.

I'll post a little AAR once I'm finished - a few weeks hopefully. After that I plan to try it again more explicitly from the start with Spain making maximum use of map swapping and ToT . The early start is vital, IMO, to make maximum use of natural growth in the colonies.

 

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conquest

I'm amazed by your world conquest and would like to ask how you managed resources, armies, diplomacy, and all other aspects of your game in the early going so I can have a model for a game I've got going with Spain (not as difficult as denmark, I know). So far I've gotten spain, portugal, western france and all of Italy in 1545. Congratulations on your conquest.

 

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Diplomacy - don't engage much in diplomacy. If you read the other parts, you'll see that throughout most of the game, I had two allies, England and Russia (these are good for DK), whom I maintained by regular donatives. Apart from these, I basically ignored the rest - except when I really needed a rest from 8+ years of war; the trick to avoid being overrun by this is to make sure that you conclude a peace with everyone at approximately the same time.

Ressources - I only take as much taxes as I have to, to get a small monthly surplus. Apart from this, almost all of my resources went (by turns) into either infrastructure or trade - the only exception being that I quickly went for lvl 5 land (due to the firing bonus).

Armies - described in one of the above posts. I always maximise your armies to get the +3 siege bonus (30 cannons on minimal, 60 on small, etc.).