What am I doing wrong?

[donagel]

I have not registered the game yet, but I have just finished my first game and I had wanted to see where I went wrong.

I started as Meath and wanted to conquer the world so I printed a ton of money and built a huge navy and army. However, for some reason I could never get my tech very high, lost lots of battles and would have gone down to defeat except that AI is completely stupid in terms of strategy. Due to its blunders, I managed to get the rest of Ireland. I know I was pushing my luck, but I decided to attack England next, but for the life of me I can't get my troops on the transport even though they are both in the same province.

Since I seemed stuck on Ireland, and needed more cash, I embarked on a trading strategy, but have not made any inroads anywhere. I keep sending Merchant after Merchant, and even when I manage to get into a COT, they usually get forced out within a few months. I am convinced that this does not work, or at least is not worth it.

Thinking I should start over, I suddenly inherited Poland (which was three times my size!) and figured I could start the WC again. I didn't know who to attack since all the small easy states seemed to have been gobbled up by this point (which, if my American public education was any good, does not sound historically correct at all).

Being quite frustrated, I decided to go the colonization route, but when I looked I found all the Americas were already taken up and it’s only 1603!!!! I tried to soldier on, but quite frankly by the end of the game, the AI basically just sat on its arse and did nothing to stop me.


Am I missing something????





http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?t=292934&page=1&pp=20

 

[AndrewT]

for the life of me I can't get my troops on the transport even though they are both in the same province.

You move the troop ship into the sea province next to the port where your troops are (not leave it in the port) then march the troops into that sea province, just as you would move them to any other province.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Starting as Meath, eh? I've never done that one before... You only need one unit for each of your Irish neighbors, especially if they haven't built any troops yet.

Early game, horses are for winning battles through dominating the shock game, soldiers are for sieging forts faster. Neither one kills enemy troops too efficiently (until higher tech levels) so combat will take time if you don't shock them into defeat. Late game horses are totally outclassed by cannon and soldiers. Well, at least they move faster right?

Transport: Well, well. You are trying to move troops to a transport. You have at least one transport per unit in the army that you're trying to move, correct? (Army of four units can only move into a navy with four or more empty transports.)

Trading: You put some effort into increasing your trading efficiency, and took on some Trading National Ideas to increase your success and "stickiness" rate, right?

Colonization: Starting at 1453 gets Portugal and Spain (and sometimes England) doing the quest for new world as soon as they can (opening up the colonization game much earlier than real life). Those three countries really need to be kept busy in wars and whatnot to siphon money away from their colonization efforts (not that you can stop them completely since both Portugal and England always go for North America from the get go in my games). You don't need the Quest for the new world to start having provinces show up for you but that doesn't happen until the 1500s, so the nations that do an early "Quest" get first dibs. Start in 1492 or later if you want to have a shot at a real time frame of colonization. You can start a game from any day in the time period or start from one of the suggested scenarios.

 

[Ofaloaf]

I have not registered the game yet, but I have just finished my first game and I had wanted to see where I went wrong.

I started as Meath and wanted to conquer the world so I printed a ton of money and built a huge navy and army.

Wait, you put your treasury slider all the way to the right?

How many loans did you take?

What was your badboy rating by the time you attacked England? That could be a major source of diplomatic issues for you.


In my Burgundy game, a large amount of the American east coast is already colonized and it's only 1510. If you really want colonies, just declare war on a colonial power and steal some of its colonies.

 

[dharper]

I have not registered the game yet, but I have just finished my first game and I had wanted to see where I went wrong.

Not bad for your first game! But you're making some (understandable) mistakes.

First of all, printing money is a bad strategy - it creates inflation, which makes everything cost more. That includes technology, so if you're wondering why you could never get your tech very high, that's probably the culprit! The other problem is that the more you print every month, the less gets invested into technology - again a problem!

Most players tend to keep their treasury slider all the way to the left, so they're actually LOSING money every month - they pay their bills using their end-of-year taxes on January 1st. Yes, this makes it hard to fight costly wars, but it means you won't screw your long-term chances. (You could also take national banks, which let you print some money without getting inflation).

For your first game, starting as Meath was quite brave! It's a small, poor state and England is a huge problem for you. Most folks would recommend playing France for your first game - it's rich, large, and the biggest power in its neighborhood.

To put troops on transports, move the transport to the ocean, then 'walk' your army onto it in the sea. Looks weird, but it works.

Trading is a fantastic way to make money, but it's hard to do! The best thing to keep in mind is: send 3 merchants at a time. Often one will 'compete out' a rival merchant but be unable to fill the vacancy. If you send 3, there's a much better chance of getting 1-2 in.

Also, keep in mind that the worse your reputation (also known as 'badboy' - hover your mouse over your reputation to see your score), the worse your chances of getting merchants in are. Usually, nations end up becoming traders, OR they conquer their neighbours - not usually both at once.

Colonization is screwed up in the vanilla game (vanilla just means unmodded, the one that comes on the disk). Since any nation can get the 'quest for the new world' idea when they get government 1, about 5-10 nations in Europe will choose it around 1460...and since even 1 explorer can usually explore half the known world, it means the best colonies have been taken by 1500! That's very weird.

I highly recommend looking into the mod directory of the forums and checking out the Magna Mundi mod, or the Combomod - both solve the colonization issue (by giving countries a national idea at the beginning so it's harder for them to learn Quest For The New World, among other things).

Good luck! Welcome to EU3.

 

[Stolen Rutters]

Wait, you put your treasury slider all the way to the right?

How many loans did you take?

Ooh, I didn't notice that. No wonder your tech rate is so slow! You finances have to support your armies AND progress your tech research.

The more loans you take out, the less you can afford to send to your tech research.

Building more armies than your nation can afford does the same thing. Build only enough armies to safely take on your given target (and use allies to spread out your enemy). Overkill wastes money. You are a one province minor take provinces from two or three province minors, or annex other one provinces minors (though neighbors get angry at wartime annexations it is necessary sometimes). Once you are a small multi-province minor, you can expand to take on small majors with allies. As you grow, you can support a larger military and still keep up your tech progress.

Some of the tricks for keeping up with tech from EU2 still work, but it's not as gameable. You can't power through one tech (like trade) and pick up a commanding lead in income the same way as the previous game. Staying ahead in trade tech still seems to work to keep your merchants in power longer but it's not a five tech lead over second place like it was before. Badboy seems to have a bigger effect though.

 

[donagel]

feeling kinda of bad

thanks for all the advice, but you might want to check out the little tiny link at the bottom of the original post.

regrets....

 

[unmerged(4444)]

The sad thing is that such a post is so plausible...

 

[unmerged(11600)]

The sad thing is that such a post is so plausible...

Except for the "I started playing as Meath" part.

-Pat