The Netherlands...wow

[dralizaar]

was just fooling around and decided to try a small nation in eruope without going too small...and wow im rich, i have good tech and i have the 4th largest pop now <i own all but 2 provs of belgium after 2 wars...my troops have beaten off the british when they tried to help belgium the first war and beat the hell out of france in both wars...heck when i took belgiums offer of peace in second war i held 6 provinces of frances border to their taking the coast of south america from me...but i only wanted belgium so i took the peace..1 more war to finish em i have tons of manufacturies, resources, and manpower..although i am lacking on leadership and manpower <max 20/43 respectively i currenlty have 21 divisions along my french border ...ive also managed to fill almost all my stocks with 1000 of each resource and selling surplus beyond that which is giving me plenty to build and colonize with afterwards

seriously from all ive seen netherlands are the powerhouse of europe next game ill try prussia and invade em ...gonna try a long shot as tyhe dutch first though..gonna go for a foothold in china...starting to build a fleet to move troops and later ill build the armies..figure it will take 30 to 40 years before i have the manpower i need to invade china with any chance of grabbing any land and keeping it currently its 1851...but the manpower of china is calling me...with my tech and reforms they could be oh so productive ..i want em all..although i havent decided iuf im going straight for em..or hit burma, siam and annam first and use em as springboard to invade making them puppets i guess to avoid too much badboy

 

[treedom]

Wow. Bold plans. You should write an AAR...or at least let us know how it all turns out.

 

[Alain-Masque]

What difficulty are you playing on? I'm playing on Very Hard and my 80,000 Russian Death Shock Marines got bogged down in Afghanistan by 19 or so huge revolts=).

 

[dralizaar]

playing on vhard...been using the expeditionary forces from prussia my ally to good effect..least till they get too weak them i run em back to prussia and relase em for him to fix ...couldnt renew my alliance with austria for some reason the money is so good i have begun to cover the leftovers along africa coast and pacific with coal stations so my fleet can make the jounrey there with my army <even though tehcnically i could build my armies and such in indonesia i doing this way for roleplay purposes> as for revolts havent had a whole lot of em but then my wars have been very short relatively speaking and ive only foguth 2 of em ..prestige is in the 150's atm and will go up once i start claming my colonies

still havent commited to my invasion plans yet...still fearful of england rejoining belgium ..now that i have so many colonies im vulnerable to the british fleet and raiding and could lose lots of claims..so i may break my peace and take the prestige hit and finish belgium now before thingsd go that far..but not sure how much badboy that will wrack up and how much it may piss off my allies enemies and rest of the world hehe...kinda wanted to reduce belgium to 1 prov and puppet it...or allow my ally prussia to annex it and buy it off him later ...i wanted to use my cash to buy claims from england..but i dont want to make her rich cause that cash may be used to out colonize me and invade me lol

 

[unmerged(12885)]

you should see my war with the dutch over the east indies with japan. Jesus. Level 3 forts, railroads, terrible terrain for offense and ... so many divisions. Maybe 100 dutch divisions after they got serious about holding their land. Every step was bloody as hell.

I loved the amphibious assaults the AI was using. At one point there were over 15 provinces exploding in combat. Nearly every province on the screen either had partisans, amphibious troops, or land attacks / defense. I should have taken a screen shot, I've never seen anything like it in a paradox game before. Amazing.

I took a good chunk, but they made me pay for it in blood. Meanwhile I was expecting a walkover like every other paradox game!

Meanwhile, oddly enough - CHINA became a world power, and has an industry thats simply unstoppable. It was something like 8-10x the size of the US industrial score - even though they are WAY behind in tech. I think I gave them freedom of trade by accident, and they just exploded.


I give Vicky two big thumbs up. Best game in the series, by far.

 

[unmerged(2356)]

Ok, I just started 3 hours ago... tried Prussia, France, Denmark... I am losing about 100 Gold per day unless I cut funding to everything. What am I doing wrong?

 

[dralizaar]

hehe i keep trying to play china and giving up shes very hard to do without tons of revolts lack of trade <cant seem to win any trades to get the items i need to upgrade my peasants to clerks to raise tech / its all these failed attempts despite their huge potential that leads me to try and take their lands with another nation and do it lol

 

[dralizaar]

prussia is rich havent tried france yet... key is reduce your tax expenditures a bit at fiurst till you get feel for how much you need and where...i tedn to drop it all to 0 and max all my taxes at start to generate a lot of cash quick..then i set about buying every base resource i can afford as quickly as i can concentrating on the ones i dont produce and the ones my facotories use the most of..next you will need troops to bring your manpower back up[ so reassign some farmers to soldiers using some small blocks from vseveral provs or 1 big one from 1 prov...next you need to make sure all your facotires are maxed sometimes you need buy resources to afford to upgrade the farmers to crafters...next review what you produce in abundance and see what facotires you can build that use those items figure out which ones have best product sell price that you can get comps for easy or can buy cheap...usually early game clipper_convoys are great cash <dont sell any for first few days till price goes up then sell excess..matter of fact i turn all my goods to max 1000 sell at first cept for cement lumber and steel and metal gears to buy 1000 as these will be required <upgrading rail all over will use these the gears will allow future facotory building and expansion you never have too many of these..anyway the other goods being set for sell after 1k will settle out on market after few days..then you can see how effective your production is, what you need, whats avail on market, and what prices are before commtiing to sell and buying ..oft times ill pick one at time of cheap items and set buy 1k to fill it up then set to sell and mvoe to next item as cahs allows...in attempt to fill my resources up quickly early before i settle my taxes and social reforms back to where i need them

luxury furniture and luxury clothes are very good money makers if you can get the resources to keep those factoires fed...artillery is also very good as it explosives..however fertilizer hard to buy so youd need 3 factories..fertilizer to make explosvies to make artillery i beleive...while luxury cloths only takes 2..fabric factory and lux factory as does the lux furniture


oft times i have been known to splurge and make cement and steel factories..you can never have too much of these resources and being able to propduce them yourself saves a lot of cash long run and actually can gernate a small boost to your trade..although i tend to stock em not sell em. <fewer of these on market slower my enemeis are to expand>

 

[Alain-Masque]

Yeah in my Russia game The Netherlands just took Belgium down to two provinces it's currently 1846 too....

 

[unmerged(12885)]

I had great luck as japan going for artillery steel and steamers. Ammo is required for guns, and small arms make a decent profit plus you need them. Fert is a hassle, but whatever, you don't need that much once you get your railroad set up, and you can pick up small decifits on the market. I think it depends on what raw resources you have available most of all.

I don't micro trade much, just set it up to sell everything, then if you see your income spiking daily, set up buy orders for whatever you are lacking.

Was around +1000 as japan, with a few good level social programs, I think I went with healthcare and unemployment.