To attack or not?

[General War]

I'm a complete noob at EU3, my first game, playing England (HttT) over a year ago ended in disaster . I'm now playing my second game, DW with Castile, soon to become Spain. I'm in mid 1500s and doing relatively fine. I've created a decent colonial empire in America, and have some footholds in Africa and Indonesia.

My biggest problem is France. They have cores in my border provinces and every 10 years or so they attack me with huge forces. Every war was fought in a similar way: they entered my territory, I retreated leaving scorched earth behind. By the time I could recruit more troops, half of Spain would be occupied. When the French troops spread out, I'd destroyed they armies one by one and sue for White peace. Only once I lost the war, but got away with no territorial losses. Fortunately in one of the wars I wiped out they fleet and they never recovered, so I have complete naval supremacy.

Each war had the same consequence - increased inflation and very high war exhaustion, which leads to huge revolts accros my empire (I conquered Inca, Maya, Morocco...). I had barely recovered from the last war and was expecting another. But France is involved in war against Austria and had left me alone for a while. All of a sudden some countries around France declared war on them, even some North Africans. They obviously smelled blood, I checked France, they have virtually no army and are full of rebels .

My question is, should I seize the opportunity and attack France? I have no CB, my stability is at +2, and I'm affraid that a drop would cause more revolts, not to mention loss of income. But it looks like France could be defeated, and I'd get rid of my biggest enemy. What would you do?

 

[brifbates]

Find someone at war with them to ally with for the alliance CB and attack.

At the very least you can force them to lose the cores on your lands. Better would be force release the French minors along the border so they no longer border you to get claims on your lands although hopefully Austria will instead so you don't have the future bother of defending the minors against reconquest. In which case you force release other minors just to weaken France further. If they are strong enough you might want to keep as allies but more likely just cancel alliance. It still slows France down as they have to wait 5 years to start reconquering everything.

 

[General War]

Find someone at war with them to ally with for the alliance CB and attack.

I tried, but they all rejected. I have bad relations with most of them, probably because of my infamy. I gifted some of them, but still no result. I may try to bribe some more, but I'm affraid I'm just throwing my money away.

At the very least you can force them to lose the cores on your lands. Better would be force release the French minors along the border so they no longer border you to get claims on your lands although hopefully Austria will instead so you don't have the future bother of defending the minors against reconquest. In which case you force release other minors just to weaken France further. If they are strong enough you might want to keep as allies but more likely just cancel alliance. It still slows France down as they have to wait 5 years to start reconquering everything.

That's more or less what I plan to do if I attack, force France to revoke cores and to divide them to as many nations as possible.

 

[Hatkah]

If france has been such a problem you should ahve kept a couple of 20k stacks in the mountains in the north of your territory and fought defensivly.
Not to mention using your naval supremecy to blockade all their ports.

 

[General War]

If france has been such a problem you should ahve kept a couple of 20k stacks in the mountains in the north of your territory and fought defensivly.
Not to mention using your naval supremecy to blockade all their ports.

I don't think my economy can support so many troops. I never had more than 30k in Spain. Perhaps I'm a bit overstretched, have to keep some troops overseas, and my fleet is costing me a lot.

 

[Hatkah]

Trade a bit. Get MoM adviser and mint ~10% of your income.
Never actually played a spain game but i would think supporting 70-80k troops would be managable.
Its rarely necessary to have many troops overseas due to tech disparity.

 

[General War]

Trade a bit. Get MoM adviser and mint ~10% of your income.
Never actually played a spain game but i would think supporting 70-80k troops would be managable.
Its rarely necessary to have many troops overseas due to tech disparity.

Like I said, I'm a complete noob, and my economy is probably way below its potential. I can only trade in my own CoTs, I have very low chance of succes in others. I have curretly some 50k troops, half of it is overseas. I'm making some 120 ducats yearly, with stable inflation.

Here is my situation, I would appreciate any advice how to improve it .

 

[unmerged(499943)]

Here is my situation, I would appreciate any advice how to improve it .

Always focus your investments in one tech category at a time, usually it's more beneficial to max out stability first. Don't develop your technologies equally but set priorities according to your situation. Government tech is usually universally good (btw. did you take the standardize measures etc. decision in your capital? It's extremely strong, check it out if you haven't), as well as land and production in your case. I would let the rest drag along from the neighborhood bonus until your economy gets better.
You can actually switch out the national idea Quest for the New World once you have sufficiently explored provinces and possess cores in your target colonization areas. National trade policy would usually be a good alternative to boost your trading, though in your case I would recommend National Bank to reduce that terribly high inflation of yours. You might want to wait for a positive stab event for the change, since it incurs a penalty of -3 stability.
You can usually reduce the upkeep slider to (almost) 0 in times of peace, especially for ships. This might not be the case if you suffer from severe rebellions, but that should not usually be the case.
Your trading is abysmal, but I'd focus on that at a later date, since there is no easy fix for that (NI choice, infamy, decisions & sliders needed).

All in all I think it's quite a commendable job for your second game.

 

[Hatkah]

Ok your inflation is a bit high for my liking but its not a disaster.
You will get a new NI slot at govt17 so i would focus on that for now. Once you get it take National bank.
When investing focus on 1 thing at a time with stability being high priority. Based on your screen i would say max stability then get govt17 then make sure your land tech is at least as high as your main rivals.
Colonise as much of the caribbean as you can and build a CoT there. It will be very rich and you will monopolise it easily.
Build marketplaces in all your provinces that trade through your CoTs.
Try to get your cultural tradition up to about 90% and hire a master of the mint adviser. Also keep moving towards centralisation for the tax, don't worry about the red line it will only give you 1 RR which is pretty insignificant.
When not at war keep your troop and ship maintainance below 50%. I often keep mine at 10% if i dont plan to war anyone big.
Its good to see you are keeping your tariffs up. But for your 5th NI it might benefit you to take viceroys for extra tariffs.
You should try to keep your infamy under 10ish most of the time. Often its not necessary but its good practice to get into since high infamy has some negative effects you don't want (even when not over the limit) and it kills your compete chance.
Part of the reason france kept attacking you is because your army is WAY below your forcelimits. I would suggest getting those troop numbers to about 90k+ but slowly so you dont kill your economy.
Try to live off your census tax when it comes to troops and mint ~10% of your income for buildings etc. with your centralisation and MoM and NB this means your net inflation should be at least -0.12 per year which will help bring your inflation down over time.
If you are struggling for cash for buildings or colonies then raid the natives in central america and inca for ducats you can get 1k per time initially.
Once your tech is 27 you can build lvl 6 trade buildings. Spam these everywhere you can but focus rich overseas provinces first - caribbean being some of the best.
Try not to expand in africa since its poor territory and slows your tech down significantly
Indonesia can be good as you can get tea spice and chinaware.
I wouldn't suggest colonising the interior of north america as its mostly grain and wool there.

Thats all i can think of for the moment.
Hope it helps.

 

[General War]

Thank you guys, you've been most helpfull. I'll probably have some more questions in the future.

btw. did you take the standardize measures etc. decision in your capital? It's extremely strong, check it out if you haven't

No, I don't think I ever saw the option to do so. I have now checked the requirements and will pursue it.



I realised I forgot to put some maps, so here they are:

 

[n0thin]

You should use your next slider moves to Free Subjects, it has a 33% chance to decrease your inflation.
You should use a cultural tradition to get a high star MoM advisor. Pick the National Bank NI too, when you get your Gov Tech to 17.
France hasn't expanded that hard, you should be able to beat them quite easily. Build up an army to at least 80 or 90 regiments. If you have both a 5*MoM and National Bank, you can mint 10% of your yearly income and still decrease inflation by -0.1 a year + the inflation reduction from centralization.

 

[General War]

You should use your next slider moves to Free Subjects, it has a 33% chance to decrease your inflation.
You should use a cultural tradition to get a high star MoM advisor. Pick the National Bank NI too, when you get your Gov Tech to 17.
France hasn't expanded that hard, you should be able to beat them quite easily. Build up an army to at least 80 or 90 regiments. If you have both a 5*MoM and National Bank, you can mint 10% of your yearly income and still decrease inflation by -0.1 a year + the inflation reduction from centralization.

Ah yes, that slider was moved two pionts left by an event, under the threat of stability drop, at the time when my stability was already low. Considering the time between slider changes, maybe I should have taken the stability hit...

 

[n0thin]

Ah yes, that slider was moved two pionts left by an event, under the threat of stability drop, at the time when my stability was already low. Considering the time between slider changes, maybe I should have taken the stability hit...

Well, just make sure to use the next moves for it, not only because Free Subjects is quite strong, but because one of the three events after a slider move is -2 inflation if moving towards Free Subjects. That could be a huge help reducing your inflation.

 

[brifbates]

A significant issue for you is your merc/free trade slider. You want to either send it all the way left or all the way right, the middle is just terrible. I would go stab then trade 15 and monopolise Andalucia. It won't be as easy (or, most likely) as valuable as if your merc slider was maxed but it will still help with powering up your other techs. Only being able to trade in your own CoTs isn't a huge problem for a blobby nation like Spain as you can get 2-3 extremely valuable CoTs with only your merchants in them and make a lot of money. You also don't have to worry about your economy tanking when the trade leagues get monopolies and large nations start tossing embargos.

It looks like you may have an excess of large/medium ships for tarriff efficiency. If so, you might want to scrap a couple of carracks to get away from the over limit penalty on your naval upkeep.

 

[General War]

Well, just make sure to use the next moves for it, not only because Free Subjects is quite strong, but because one of the three events after a slider move is -2 inflation if moving towards Free Subjects. That could be a huge help reducing your inflation.

I'll do that, and hope I'll hit those 33%.

A significant issue for you is your merc/free trade slider. You want to either send it all the way left or all the way right, the middle is just terrible. I would go stab then trade 15 and monopolise Andalucia. It won't be as easy (or, most likely) as valuable as if your merc slider was maxed but it will still help with powering up your other techs. Only being able to trade in your own CoTs isn't a huge problem for a blobby nation like Spain as you can get 2-3 extremely valuable CoTs with only your merchants in them and make a lot of money. You also don't have to worry about your economy tanking when the trade leagues get monopolies and large nations start tossing embargos.

The slider used to be one point towards mercantilism, but I moved it right hopeing that I'll have a better chance trading outside my own CoTs. It seems I made a mistake. Now that I have 3 CoTs, would it be better if I go for mercantilism?

It looks like you may have an excess of large/medium ships for tarriff efficiency. If so, you might want to scrap a couple of carracks to get away from the over limit penalty on your naval upkeep.

Actually iI'm one ship short for max eficiency, and I'm already slightly over the limit. .
That's why I slowed down my expansion for a while.

 

[brifbates]

The slider used to be one point towards mercantilism, but I moved it right hopeing that I'll have a better chance trading outside my own CoTs. It seems I made a mistake. Now that I have 3 CoTs, would it be better if I go for mercantilism?

It isn't necessarily a mistake to move towards FT, the mistake is in not chaining moves until you hit the -4 or 4 range once you start. The Merc/FT slider punishes you for being "on the fence" much more than any other slider. It leaves you somewhat vulnerable at home without the strength of being able to effectively trade away from home. At the start of the game you need to decide if you're going to go with FT and if so you start going that way using every move and event until you hit at least +3. If you are going merc there is a bit more leeway on time but you certainly want to be in the -4 range by the time monopolies become available.

 

[General War]

It isn't necessarily a mistake to move towards FT, the mistake is in not chaining moves until you hit the -4 or 4 range once you start. The Merc/FT slider punishes you for being "on the fence" much more than any other slider. It leaves you somewhat vulnerable at home without the strength of being able to effectively trade away from home. At the start of the game you need to decide if you're going to go with FT and if so you start going that way using every move and event until you hit at least +3. If you are going merc there is a bit more leeway on time but you certainly want to be in the -4 range by the time monopolies become available.

I did originaly planned to go for free trade, untill I realized I had no chance because of my high infamy. And I'm a bit of a warmonger, so my infamy is probably going to be high forever. . Perhaps it would still be worthwhile to pursue the free trade to the end, since the slider is already in that direction...

edit: I do have the monopoly now, in all my CoTs. And I doubled my trade income. Nothing spectacular though, from 13 to 27, but it's a start

 

[glen55]

. . . I'm a bit of a warmonger, ...

 

[unmerged(499943)]

I did originaly planned to go for free trade, untill I realized I had no chance because of my high infamy. And I'm a bit of a warmonger, so my infamy is probably going to be high forever. . Perhaps it would still be worthwhile to pursue the free trade to the end, since the slider is already in that direction...

edit: I do have the monopoly now, in all my CoTs. And I doubled my trade income. Nothing spectacular though, from 13 to 27, but it's a start

Dont forget that you get a free FT move from the Statute of Monopolies or so if you havent already. Enlist privateers and the merchant shipping act are both great decisions for trading, though you should probably take the latter one at a later date. You should be going for a Found Indian Trade Company by naval tech 20 as well and you'll be able to start dominating trade.

 

[General War]

Dont forget that you get a free FT move from the Statute of Monopolies or so if you havent already. Enlist privateers and the merchant shipping act are both great decisions for trading, though you should probably take the latter one at a later date. You should be going for a Found Indian Trade Company by naval tech 20 as well and you'll be able to start dominating trade.

That's nice to know, thanks. I'll definitely go for free trade.