Tips on my current Danish campaign

[unmerged(471065)]

Its 1463, I inherited Norway, Diplo-Annexed Holstein, joined the HRE, and, I've taken Vastergotland from Sweden, my first NI was NTP. The few questions I have are:


1. National Decisions. I have read from older games about talking Church Attendance Duty, but My realm isn't that large so I feel that can wait til later. I'm a 9 so I figure I should take Press Gangs then, Quest for the New World. England is the only one i see that can threaten me, so i want to pump out a large navy as fast as i can. Any other ideas?

2. I'm in consant war with Sweden, using PU cb, should I gobble up as much as i can? Or should I slowly eat them up, keeping infamy low? I figure slowly eating them is ideal, but, I don't want to start colonizing, then every 20 years or so, have to fight them.

3. Should I cancel my current mission, Danish Trade? There's a few CoTs that are available, but they'd be a total pain to try and get. Should i start my own? if so what are the requirements?

 

[cywang86]

Its 1463, I inherited Norway, Diplo-Annexed Holstein, joined the HRE, and, I've taken Vastergotland from Sweden, my first NI was NTP. The few questions I have are:


1. National Decisions. I have read from older games about talking Church Attendance Duty, but My realm isn't that large so I feel that can wait til later. I'm a 9 so I figure I should take Press Gangs then, Quest for the New World. England is the only one i see that can threaten me, so i want to pump out a large navy as fast as i can. Any other ideas?

2. I'm in consant war with Sweden, using PU cb, should I gobble up as much as i can? Or should I slowly eat them up, keeping infamy low? I figure slowly eating them is ideal, but, I don't want to start colonizing, then every 20 years or so, have to fight them.

3. Should I cancel my current mission, Danish Trade? There's a few CoTs that are available, but they'd be a total pain to try and get. Should i start my own? if so what are the requirements?

1. It's not a bad idea to do that, but if you think your economy can handle it, you can certainly take up QftNW and Colonial Venture, and eventually Land of Opportunity.
Since you've inherited Norway, you should be able to colonize some NA provinces. You can also squeeze some money out of the American/African natives if they're already unified and no other European nations have reached them yet.

2. Have a bigger army than Sweden, and he'll stop trying to break the PU with you. Since you've inherited Norway, it shouldn't be that much of an issue.

3. There's a Create/Destroy Center of Trade button next to the CoT info on any of your province. Creating a CoT requires you to be not in a trade league, have $500, and said province must be covered by a NF and a CoT worth more than 800 ducat. You can also look into Novgorod and see if you can get a bite out of him. Easier than Lubek anyway.

 

[unmerged(471065)]

I have QFTNW, colonizing greenland as we speak. What should I do with my sliders? I have Vornedskap, Liquor Act and Licensing of the Press Act... what should I move my sliders too now?

 

[cywang86]

oh.

When you're colonizing, pick provinces with high base tax. 5~6 is ideal. So the original 13 states of US, the Caribbeans, NE South America provinces should be your first choice.

As for sliders, if you're ever planning on expanding within the HRE, aristocracy is a must.
If you're not planning on going for a conquering spree, Free Trade and Plutocracy will be great choices to boost your trade income.
Otherwise, move trade sliders according to w/e national decision you wish to enact.

Centralization is a no brainer, just don't move it past the red bar or you'd get 1 RR per bar beyond that point.
Narrowminded can help you on a lot of things including colonial growth, so use that and take up Free Subject to negate the tech cost.

Naval is very important for a colonial empire. Quality is usually better than Quality.

As for Def/Offensive, there has been heated debate on it, but it really doesn't matter for SP games, leave that for last.

 

[YagabodooN]

Don't worry about the missions, and take little infamy early on as there are fewer ways to shed it before you can get the embassy and cabinet idea.

as for navy, successful AI england will always win because they usually go for superior seamanship and excellent shipwrights ideas which makes their ships godly. Press gangs is good if you can't afford having big ships, but ultimately it won't win you any battles. Military drill I find is a must have idea for any nation because nations that dont get it eventually start loosing wars to nations that do, badly.

and most importantly, don't waste time and money on colonizing unless its Caribbean, central America or Brazil, because they make the best trade goods.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

oh.

When you're colonizing, pick provinces with high base tax. 5~6 is ideal. So the original 13 states of US, the Caribbeans, NE South America provinces should be your first choice.

As for sliders, if you're ever planning on expanding within the HRE, aristocracy is a must.
If you're not planning on going for a conquering spree, Free Trade and Plutocracy will be great choices to boost your trade income.
Otherwise, move trade sliders according to w/e national decision you wish to enact.

Centralization is a no brainer, just don't move it past the red bar or you'd get 1 RR per bar beyond that point.
Narrowminded can help you on a lot of things including colonial growth, so use that and take up Free Subject to negate the tech cost.

Naval is very important for a colonial empire. Quality is usually better than Quality.

As for Def/Offensive, there has been heated debate on it, but it really doesn't matter for SP games, leave that for last.

You don't get much tax from overseas provinces, right?

 

[ktk1212]

You don't, it's all about the tariffs. And Tariffs are primarily based on A) number of big ships (as long as you have 1 for each overseas province, you get 100% of your tariffs) and B) production of the good in the province. You can't know what a province is going to produce, but regions tend to produce certain things. North America has lots of Tobacco for example, which will bring in a lot in tarrifs.

 

[unmerged(471065)]

Next Idea: Colonial Ventures or Land of Opportunity? I started colonizing North East Canada, until i get a base so I can expand further south, are there any good provinces in Africa worth taking?

 

[jeraal]

The thing about Church Attendance Duty is that it enables the cultural decision Gilded Iconography. That will keep your cultural tradition growing. After enacting it, you can switch CAD to something else.

Also, @cywang86, "Quality is usually better than Quality" Is that like Zathras is different from Zathras?

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

The thing about Church Attendance Duty is that it enables the cultural decision Gilded Iconography. That will keep your cultural tradition growing. After enacting it, you can switch CAD to something else.

Also, @cywang86, "Quality is usually better than Quality" Is that like Zathras is different from Zathras?

He obviously meant quantity is better than quality.

 

[ryu2999]

Actually quality is better than quantity!

 

[yequr]

Actually, when it comes to colonizing, trade good chances are much, much more important than tax. NA always ends up with lots of Grain and Naval Supplies, for example the tax 1 provinces in southern Brazil with a much better chance of good trade goods are much more attractive in my opinion, that land will be richer. If you can get the range in time, that is. For reference: http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Regions_and_Colonial_Trade_Goods

 

[cywang86]

oops, quality > quantity due to the leader fire

As for taxes, you only get about 60% of your base tax as monthly income. 50% of BT + production will go into tariff. 10% of base tax goes to tax + census tax (unless you have other tax efficiency reduction, then it can become 0)
It also increase your force limit.

Trade good wise, Caribbeans is hands down the best area cause everything is expensive exotic good. Not to mention the high tax.
South America and North America becomes a toss up. South America has a better chance at better goods, but their inland province is very limited compared to the North America.

 

[Laurwin]

Next Idea: Colonial Ventures or Land of Opportunity? I started colonizing North East Canada, until i get a base so I can expand further south, are there any good provinces in Africa worth taking?

land of opportunity is regarded as the better NI, with 100 persons population, per each colonist, for the purposes of colonial empire. It cuts down on the time required to maintain the colonial growth until self sufficient, for your empire's colonies. (ie faster growth, more coastline seized for you!). Then you can also benefit from loosening direct colonial maintenance costs, but still get colonial growth from the national idea, if cash is tight.

Actually I recall the reasoning was that Land of Opportnity supposedly provides more overall colonial population per year, than compared to having +1.00 colonist, with some number of colonies worldwide.

Especially as Russia, Muscowy, I've felt that land of opportunity is pretty good once pushing back the hordes. You probably need to mint anyway to maintain army presence across siberian front, and protect your nascent russian colonies which move to the empty area left by the horde. Interestingly enough, in real life, Siberia was considered a sort of a land of opportunity in the 1700s-1800s, for Russian peasants hoping to strike rich and get away from Tsar's bureucrats and minions. Eventually Tsarist control did catch up though!

African colonies are pretty good, valuable goods slaves, ivory, gold. Sokoto, and Kongo countries have such provinces available for plunder. Although probably Caribbean, South and Central America are also very good abundance of colonial goods: tobacco, gold, cotton, coffee, sugar...

India and Asia have the benefit of established tax-rich provinces and trade connections, an area that you just need to break in to as a colonizer, exploiting the provinces, CoTs and colony opportunities. There's the more exotic colonial goods: chinaware, spices, tea in Asia.

 

[magitsu]

I started Danish game like this:

National idea:

Church attendance duty to enable Gilded iconography. You already have the required church. After that you are free to change. For example Patron of the Arts, if you plan on going innovative (PotA's architectural event gives two moves towards innovative).

Sliders:

Go serfdom -3 to enable national decision Vornedskap aka Danish serfdom. This gives +10% national tax, which with Liquor act +3% tax will compensate fully tax penalties from Expanded Bureaucracy -5% and Gilded Iconography -8%.
This leaves you with +0.25 magistrates, +2.5% missionary chance, +3 cultural tradition, +1% prestige for the price of +4% stability cost. You might get lucky and get an event which moves you two notches towards serfdom.

I took Granada and Gibraltar, converted both. My intention was to maybe sell the former, but eventually kept both as Castille didn't seem to want war. Gib does not have Cas core, so it's always a good catch for a colonizer.
Continued trading prestige for "Extend Influence" on North German minors (Dutch are better, because Hansa likes to steal influence from its neighbors back). Utrecht influence gave a chance to defend against Brabant, Brunswick, Hainaut & Holland. Me, Sweden and Norway puppeted everyone of them except Hainaut. Not only tax income, but vassals help me to up land force limit to a point above Sweden, so I won't get insult spam from them to escape from Personal Union.

 

[magitsu]

You don't get much tax from overseas provinces, right?

Generally nothing, but with +50% war taxes you get around 1 from the highest base tax provinces.
So tax enhancing buildings are rather useless in colonies. But base tax does affect tariffs.

http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Tariff

                             Production Income + base tax + workshops + CoT + CoT LV + National Focus   
Monthly Overseas Tariffs =  ------------------------------------------------------------------------ * 0.50 * ( 100% + Modifiers ) * Sea-Lane Efficiency
                                              12

As for Def/Offensive, there has been heated debate on it, but it really doesn't matter for SP games, leave that for last.

Def gives some more time to react to colonial rebels when sieging forts take longer.

 

[NoobRage]

Forming Scandinavia is important if you want to have a huge edge in colonising the Americas. It grants cores on Greenland, so you can easily colonise everything up to the Caribbean. Not even Portugal has such an easy time colonizing.