Too many ducats ...

[londoner247]

I'm wondering what other players do with their ducats.

I'm playing my first EUIV game as Great Britain (from England). It is now 1777 and have a modest monthly income of about 100 but I have cash reserves of some 55,000. I can't spam buildings (other than military building) because I need my admin and diplomacy points for technology or ideas.

I know that I could build up an enormous military and run at a hefty loss for the rest of the game whilst walking all over my European neighbours but was just wondering what else I might spend my money on.

Any suggestions?

 

[americanu197]

unique and special buildings ...lots of money less admin points

 

[Demusch]

running +3 advisors?

 

[londoner247]

unique and special buildings ...lots of money less admin points

Got all the unique buildings but the special ones give me the same issue. I can build the military ones but still can't justify spending a months worth of admin or diplomacy points on trivial buildings just to get the four I need to access the special buildings.

running +3 advisors?

Doing that ...

 

[americanu197]

nuclear program , space program , death star , new york to britain bridge ?

 

[hwoosh]

Regular buildings aren’t ‘trivial’. More buildings over the course of the game -> more money over the course of the game -> more money to spend on military -> more conquest -> more basetax -> more money -> ad infinitum (well, until 1821).

(Temples and stock markets are also vital for diplo-vassalizing.)

18th century is quite late to start investing in infrastructure though. Other than that, you already named the best use: your military. Build over your force limits, keep your maintenance high, and watch your rivals change attitude to ‘threatened’. Highly useful.

 

[Rubidium]

Gifting your less fortunate neighbors with free cash so they like you more?

Spending a years income on the "Improve forts" decision that briefly boosts defensiveness and is pretty much never worth it?

Taking and repaying loans repeatedly to watch your inflation go up to the point at which you no longer have a surplus?

Hey, you never said you needed good ideas.

 

[londoner247]

Regular buildings aren’t ‘trivial’. More buildings over the course of the game -> more money over the course of the game -> more money to spend on military -> more conquest -> more basetax -> more money -> ad infinitum (well, until 1821).

(Temples and stock markets are also vital for diplo-vassalizing.)

18th century is quite late to start investing in infrastructure though. Other than that, you already named the best use: your military. Build over your force limits, keep your maintenance high, and watch your rivals change attitude to ‘threatened’. Highly useful.

If I didn't have the monarch points cap (which seems to be a replacement for the annoying magistrate cap from EUIII and so still artificially penalises wealthy empires preventing them from developing fully), then I'd build everything but as I have to pick and choose I'm finding it difficult.

But I'm interested in your comment about the temples and stock markets. What impact do they have on diplo vassalising?

Gifting your less fortunate neighbors with free cash so they like you more?

Spending a years income on the "Improve forts" decision that briefly boosts defensiveness and is pretty much never worth it?

Taking and repaying loans repeatedly to watch your inflation go up to the point at which you no longer have a surplus?

Hey, you never said you needed good ideas.

I've got enough money to buy my neighbours but I can't get more than 25 relations boost so it doesn't help!

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Building manufactories in all your provinces?

 

[TheBloke]

Using gold for diplomatic boosts is definitely worthwile. It caps out at +25 relations, but that can cost hundreds of gold with larger nations.

Of course, you're helping them by doing that; but the times when you want to boost relations are usually when you're not likely to be imminently fighting them, so it's usually still worth it.

I'm amazed you managed to amass 55k gold though, with only 100 income! Have you been buying nothing?

I guess I'd buy a huge Mercenary army, so that I could fight, fight, fight without even thinking about Manpower. And yeah, whatever buildings you can within the monarch point limits you're defining. Obviously not really bothering with any buildings whose main purpose is to make more money..

 

[londoner247]

Building manufactories in all your provinces?

I've done that for the weapons manufactories but have the same monarch points issue for the others so I've just prioritised the high value trade goods to put more into the trade system for me to collect in London.

 

[alanschu]

(Temples and stock markets are also vital for diplo-vassalizing.)

Wait what?


EDIT: Oh, just to raise the base tax?

 

[Xara]

Go hundreds over your force limits and start invading everyone.

 

[londoner247]

Using gold for diplomatic boosts is definitely worthwile. It caps out at +25 relations, but that can cost hundreds of gold with larger nations.

Of course, you're helping them by doing that; but the times when you want to boost relations are usually when you're not likely to be imminently fighting them, so it's usually still worth it.

I'm amazed you managed to amass 55k gold though, with only 100 income! Have you been buying nothing?

I guess I'd buy a huge Mercenary army, so that I could fight, fight, fight without even thinking about Manpower. And yeah, whatever buildings you can within the monarch point limits you're defining. Obviously not really bothering with any buildings whose main purpose is to make more money..

The income has been higher at times hitting about 220 at one stage. But now that I have the biggest army and navy in the game the profits have been squeezed a bit!

I have built quite a lot (although can't find a simple summary in the ledger to quote from) - I needed to get shipyards in every coastal province just to help my naval force limits, for example. That was a killer on my diplo points though!

Was I wasting my admin points coring all my North American colonies? Would they have been better spent on buildings?

 

[alanschu]

If the colonies are like the Siberian ones in my game, they probably aren't that expensive in terms of admin points. Though in my Russia game I found myself reaching the cap in both diplo and admin due to not having an active idea slot for them, being ahead in tech, and a string of good leaders/regencies.

 

[londoner247]

Go hundreds over your force limits and start invading everyone.

I don't find that very satisfying because you can't do much harm to your enemies (unless I'm doing something wrong). For example, Austria formed the HRE in my game so I'd quite like to tear them apart but getting them to release nations needs a massive war score and even then you only get one or two provinces out of them.

 

[TheBloke]

Was I wasting my admin points coring all my North American colonies? Would they have been better spent on buildings?

I always do this, too. New World is the only place that I do, elsewhere it's all vassal feeding.

New World provinces have a big Admin cost discount, and I personally usually improve that yet further with the Administrative Ideas -25% coring cost discount.

So you usually spend 5 - 20 admin points per NW province, which I think is very reasonable, given that annexing those nations is giving you gold mines, dominance over one or more trade nodes (particularly Chesapeake), boosted Papal Influence (when Catholic) for every converted province, tariff income and trade goods bonuses for e.g. tobacco, coffee, fur. It's all good.

True, you don't have to core to get many of those benefits. But then you're fighting rebels forever after, which is a pain.

If the Admin cost was any higher than it is, then I wouldn't do it. But with the costs as they are, I always do it.

Maybe one problem is that you've had poor monarchs? If you've had a bunch of 0/0/0s or similar, then yeah I can see being starved for points. Or maybe you took 4 x Admin Idea Groups and bought all the ideas, spending them that way?

I'd certainly say that coring of NW would not be any kind of major cause in a later lack of admin points. There must be another cause. Other regions/provinces, yes, if you don't vassal feed, that's going to cost lots of points. But NW, no.

 

[londoner247]

Maybe one problem is that you've had poor monarchs? If you've had a bunch of 0/0/0s or similar, then yeah I can see being starved for points.

This may be it. Looking back, I've had more 0s, 1s and 2s than 5s or 6s. I also struggled to get my head round the diplomatic relations cap at first so hampered myself there a bit too.

 

[TheBloke]

This may be it. Looking back, I've had more 0s, 1s and 2s than 5s or 6s. I also struggled to get my head round the diplomatic relations cap at first so hampered myself there a bit too.

Fair enough. If you're playing a diplomatically focused game, I highly recommend Expansion and Diplomatic Idea Groups, for the Diplomatic Relations bonuses they bring. And Diplomatic Reputation, that helps a lot too. As England/GBR you also get +2 DipRel as a National Idea, after unlocking 9 Ideas , but I presume you got that ages ago.

 

[londoner247]

Fair enough. If you're playing a diplomatically focused game, I highly recommend Expansion and Diplomatic Idea Groups, for the Diplomatic Relations bonuses they bring. And Diplomatic Reputation, that helps a lot too. As England/GBR you also get +2 DipRel as a National Idea, after unlocking 9 Ideas , but I presume you got that ages ago.

Hmm.

I went for Exploration, Economic, Quality, Trade, Quantity, Naval and Innovative. Looks like I still have a lot to learn ...