Thought maybe i'd try and breathe some new life into this forum. I don't have any particular questions about the game (well, I do have one or two, but i'll get to that), so I figured i'd start a general discussion thread where people could talk about whatever is going on in their game that they find noteworthy (funny, frustrating, bizarre, etc).
I'm doing a Russia game now and i'm in the year 1612 right now, and I seem to be finally wrapping up a decade of sheer chaos.
It all started when my ally and vassal, Sweden, declared war on Crimea for no apparent reason (Sweden controls Lugansk, so they share a border). Crimea is allied with the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottomans haven't shown any interest in supporting them in any of their wars against me (they have no land connection to either Crimea or Russia, so that could be why). So fighting Crimea is easy. I send one medium-sized army that I had sitting in Astrakhan, and I quickly take Kouban, Kalmyk and Azov, about half their territory, in a rapid sequence of assaults. And a second army of mine destroys most of the Crimean military in Donetsk. It's looking good. I don't intend to annex any territory, because my badboy is already rather high (about 14 at this time), but I figure I can force-vassalize them.
Then suddenly Poland declares war on me. Poland, fortunately, has no allies (I had suffered some near-catastrophes in wars with Poland before, when they were allied with both France and Spain). Poland is a few tech levels ahead of me (I was at land level 11 and they're at 16), but not too far so no big deal. I'm well ahead of Crimea in tech, and in any case I had just crippled Crimea, so I figure I can primarily focus on fighting Poland, which is the bigger threat, while largely ignoring Crimea until the Poles are defeated.
The war with Poland goes relatively well at first. We're largely evenly matched on the battlefield, and I manage to take the provinces of Belgorod, Mozyr, and Lithuania from them. Then while i'm besieging Prussia, suddenly I get an event called "the time of troubles" or something like that, and the name alone tells me i'm in for a wild ride. It's something about a power struggle between different contenders for the Russian throne. I pick one option and it gives me a 13% increased revolt risk for 72 months. But no immediate revolts, so I figure ok, i'll just wrap up this Polish war as quick as I can and then brace myself for the chaos.
Then suddenly all hell breaks loose. A few months after I get the "time of troubles" event, i'm hit with a whopper: Unhappiness among the peasantry. I get knocked down three stability levels and I get revolts in three provinces, two of which go immediately to the rebels without a siege. So I decide to hurry up and end the Crimean war, and I accept a paltry indemnity from Crimea (like 50 ducats or so). This wasn't the first time Crimea was saved by me having to face craziness elsewhere.
But I don't want to end the Polish war yet because i've already done so much with it, and i'm hoping to capture their capital to see if they have maps of the new world (they've been in a few wars with Western European countries and may have stolen rudders in naval battles). But then the chaos intensifies: I start getting revolts because of that time of troubles event. I get like four revolts in one month, and again rebels start taking provinces without a siege. So I finally decide that continuing to prosecute the Polish war isn't worth it, and I accept peace in exchange for Prussia (which isn't bad; they had a naval equipment manufactory there). So finally I start focusing on fighting all these rebels.
I should probably describe my empire so you get a sense of what i'm dealing with. I own almost all of European Russia, Estonia and Latvia, the island of Gottland in the Baltic, the province of Skane at the southern tip of Scandinavia, a little bit of Central Asia, the entirety of Norway, Greenland, and a chunk of northeastern North America. I've only colonized a little of Siberia; it took me a while to get there because of so many wars with Lithuania, Poland and other culprits, as well as high badboy causing me to delay conquering the Golden Horde and its allies, so I focused my colonization efforts on North America. I have a few trading posts and colonies around Novosibirsk near Kazakhstan, and a few trading posts and one city on the Sea of Okhotsk (the city is Enkan, a gold-producing province). It's a fairly well scattered empire and it can take a while to get troops from place to place. I generally keep two standing armies in Russia (one stationed around Novgorod, one in Astrakhan), and one in my North American territory.
So right when I start fighting the rebels, things quickly go bad. I lose a few battles, and every couple months one or two more rebellions is popping up. I start hemorrhaging money and taking loans to raise armies to cope with all the rebellions, but I don't want to mint because my inflation is already sky-high (about 44%, partly due to a bankruptcy I suffered in the mid-1400s during an extremely costly Lithuanian war, and partly because i've never gotten a single deflation or exceptional year event in the entire game). Also, partly due to my inflation and partly due to the fact that i've moved my DP sliders to naval emphasis in the hope of getting explorers (which hasn't happened), land troops and especially cavalry are super-expensive.
A few particular rebel pockets are emerging. They have one city in North America and are besieging a couple others. They hold two provinces in Norway and are besieging a third. Two separate rebellions break out on the island of Gottland, so a massive combined rebel army (about 20,000) is besieging that city. They take much of the central Volga region, including Saratov, Tambov, Ufa, Kazan and Samara (the last one really hurts because it's a gold province and I desperately need that money). One rebel army besieges Moscow, though it's too small to effectively continue the siege (thank goodness for General Winter, which was a close ally to me for much of this period). They take over most of Kazakhstan, and another group of rebellions takes much of the Latvia/Estonia/Belarus area. As soon as I put down one rebel army or take back one province, another rebellion happens in a nearby one. And whenever rebels take one province, their armies march to a nearby one that hasn't had its own uprising. My troops are being depleted by constant battles and assaults.
After a couple years, it's starting to look like i'm getting a handle on things, my stability is coming back up, and although the "time of troubles" event lasts about 6 years and has a while to go, it looks like i'm getting things under control. I finally retake Narvik (which was under rebel rule for so long I was afraid it was going to defect to Sweden) after an enormously costly and lengthy siege, I crush an uprising in Oslo, and after a few attempts I defeat the massive Gottland rebellion. I get most of the Volga under control, and finally regain Memel after a couple years of rebel occupation (I had to fight through Pskov, Polotsk and Belarus to get there). Things are looking good. Then: unhappiness among the peasantry. Two more rebellions, two more stability hits. Uralsk and Ust-Urt come under rebel siege. A couple months later, my worst nightmare: a rebellion in Enkan, my faraway gold province on the Pacific, where I have no troops within a few thousand miles. I get one uprising in Greenland while my North American army is already battling rebel armies and trying to regain Nova Scotia. Kexholm goes straight to rebel control, so one of my depleted armies coming back from Norway has to deal with that before it can liberate Moscow.
I spend another two or three years playing whack-a-mole with rebels. At one point the Kazakh Horde declares independence, which is a problem because I have to re-annex it and my badboy is already high. But I can't just leave it there either, because it's blocking the way to Siberia. I'm still pissing money raising huge amounts of troops, and finally I start minting again because I can't risk taking any more loans. I'm getting almost no tax income because the majority of my provinces are looted, occupied or besieged, including most of the really valuable ones. Luckily my Swedish allies for some reason are marching around my country aimlessly, and help me retake a few rebel provinces.
Finally that time of troubles event ends in 1609, my stability is gradually coming back up, and I manage to pay off one of my loans. I breathe a sigh of relief. Then, a few months later, my favorite event: unhappiness among the peasantry. Third time in less than ten years! Two more stability hits, three uprisings, one of which results in immediate rebel control without a siege.
At the time of writing, i've defeated all the rebels except the ones in Enkan. And that's an interesting story in itself. I sent about 15,000 cavalry from Kazakhstan to the Sea of Okhotsk. They were attacked by natives in every single province along the way. Combined with winter, they were about 6,000 by the time they got to Enkan. When we get there, we find a rebel army consisting of: a single cannon. That's it. And you know what? We lose! My 6,000 cavalry can't beat one cannon. They retreat, I wait until they're strong again, I send them back in, and they lose again. To that one cannon. I'm not sure what to do about that; I guess I have to send an infantry army across Siberia, and just hope Enkan doesn't defect to China or something before it gets there.
So, that's my exciting tale of my adventures in EU2. Lol. What are yours?
By the way, I do have one game question: what are the prerequisites for getting explorers? I'm frustrated because I haven't gotten any. My knowledge of North America is limited to what little I had gotten in map information when I defeated Denmark. I've spent about a hundred years in a little corner of North America, and haven't gotten one single explorer (a few conquistadors, but i'm boxed in by other European countries' trading posts on land, so other than bringing down the cost of colonizing provinces, the conquistadors are useless), so I can't expand any further. I was really counting on getting into the Aztec lands and taking some of that gold. I looked at the EU2 wiki, I know you have to have the land/naval slider set at high naval (which i've done), but there's one thing i'm confused about: do you absolutely have to be at naval tech 11 or higher to get random explorers? You can't get them at all if you're below level 11? Because i'm only at naval tech 4. I would be higher by now, but right when I was starting to really throw my investment into naval tech, this decade-long peasant unrest forced me to put all my money into raising stability instead.
I'm doing a Russia game now and i'm in the year 1612 right now, and I seem to be finally wrapping up a decade of sheer chaos.
It all started when my ally and vassal, Sweden, declared war on Crimea for no apparent reason (Sweden controls Lugansk, so they share a border). Crimea is allied with the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottomans haven't shown any interest in supporting them in any of their wars against me (they have no land connection to either Crimea or Russia, so that could be why). So fighting Crimea is easy. I send one medium-sized army that I had sitting in Astrakhan, and I quickly take Kouban, Kalmyk and Azov, about half their territory, in a rapid sequence of assaults. And a second army of mine destroys most of the Crimean military in Donetsk. It's looking good. I don't intend to annex any territory, because my badboy is already rather high (about 14 at this time), but I figure I can force-vassalize them.
Then suddenly Poland declares war on me. Poland, fortunately, has no allies (I had suffered some near-catastrophes in wars with Poland before, when they were allied with both France and Spain). Poland is a few tech levels ahead of me (I was at land level 11 and they're at 16), but not too far so no big deal. I'm well ahead of Crimea in tech, and in any case I had just crippled Crimea, so I figure I can primarily focus on fighting Poland, which is the bigger threat, while largely ignoring Crimea until the Poles are defeated.
The war with Poland goes relatively well at first. We're largely evenly matched on the battlefield, and I manage to take the provinces of Belgorod, Mozyr, and Lithuania from them. Then while i'm besieging Prussia, suddenly I get an event called "the time of troubles" or something like that, and the name alone tells me i'm in for a wild ride. It's something about a power struggle between different contenders for the Russian throne. I pick one option and it gives me a 13% increased revolt risk for 72 months. But no immediate revolts, so I figure ok, i'll just wrap up this Polish war as quick as I can and then brace myself for the chaos.
Then suddenly all hell breaks loose. A few months after I get the "time of troubles" event, i'm hit with a whopper: Unhappiness among the peasantry. I get knocked down three stability levels and I get revolts in three provinces, two of which go immediately to the rebels without a siege. So I decide to hurry up and end the Crimean war, and I accept a paltry indemnity from Crimea (like 50 ducats or so). This wasn't the first time Crimea was saved by me having to face craziness elsewhere.
But I don't want to end the Polish war yet because i've already done so much with it, and i'm hoping to capture their capital to see if they have maps of the new world (they've been in a few wars with Western European countries and may have stolen rudders in naval battles). But then the chaos intensifies: I start getting revolts because of that time of troubles event. I get like four revolts in one month, and again rebels start taking provinces without a siege. So I finally decide that continuing to prosecute the Polish war isn't worth it, and I accept peace in exchange for Prussia (which isn't bad; they had a naval equipment manufactory there). So finally I start focusing on fighting all these rebels.
I should probably describe my empire so you get a sense of what i'm dealing with. I own almost all of European Russia, Estonia and Latvia, the island of Gottland in the Baltic, the province of Skane at the southern tip of Scandinavia, a little bit of Central Asia, the entirety of Norway, Greenland, and a chunk of northeastern North America. I've only colonized a little of Siberia; it took me a while to get there because of so many wars with Lithuania, Poland and other culprits, as well as high badboy causing me to delay conquering the Golden Horde and its allies, so I focused my colonization efforts on North America. I have a few trading posts and colonies around Novosibirsk near Kazakhstan, and a few trading posts and one city on the Sea of Okhotsk (the city is Enkan, a gold-producing province). It's a fairly well scattered empire and it can take a while to get troops from place to place. I generally keep two standing armies in Russia (one stationed around Novgorod, one in Astrakhan), and one in my North American territory.
So right when I start fighting the rebels, things quickly go bad. I lose a few battles, and every couple months one or two more rebellions is popping up. I start hemorrhaging money and taking loans to raise armies to cope with all the rebellions, but I don't want to mint because my inflation is already sky-high (about 44%, partly due to a bankruptcy I suffered in the mid-1400s during an extremely costly Lithuanian war, and partly because i've never gotten a single deflation or exceptional year event in the entire game). Also, partly due to my inflation and partly due to the fact that i've moved my DP sliders to naval emphasis in the hope of getting explorers (which hasn't happened), land troops and especially cavalry are super-expensive.
A few particular rebel pockets are emerging. They have one city in North America and are besieging a couple others. They hold two provinces in Norway and are besieging a third. Two separate rebellions break out on the island of Gottland, so a massive combined rebel army (about 20,000) is besieging that city. They take much of the central Volga region, including Saratov, Tambov, Ufa, Kazan and Samara (the last one really hurts because it's a gold province and I desperately need that money). One rebel army besieges Moscow, though it's too small to effectively continue the siege (thank goodness for General Winter, which was a close ally to me for much of this period). They take over most of Kazakhstan, and another group of rebellions takes much of the Latvia/Estonia/Belarus area. As soon as I put down one rebel army or take back one province, another rebellion happens in a nearby one. And whenever rebels take one province, their armies march to a nearby one that hasn't had its own uprising. My troops are being depleted by constant battles and assaults.
After a couple years, it's starting to look like i'm getting a handle on things, my stability is coming back up, and although the "time of troubles" event lasts about 6 years and has a while to go, it looks like i'm getting things under control. I finally retake Narvik (which was under rebel rule for so long I was afraid it was going to defect to Sweden) after an enormously costly and lengthy siege, I crush an uprising in Oslo, and after a few attempts I defeat the massive Gottland rebellion. I get most of the Volga under control, and finally regain Memel after a couple years of rebel occupation (I had to fight through Pskov, Polotsk and Belarus to get there). Things are looking good. Then: unhappiness among the peasantry. Two more rebellions, two more stability hits. Uralsk and Ust-Urt come under rebel siege. A couple months later, my worst nightmare: a rebellion in Enkan, my faraway gold province on the Pacific, where I have no troops within a few thousand miles. I get one uprising in Greenland while my North American army is already battling rebel armies and trying to regain Nova Scotia. Kexholm goes straight to rebel control, so one of my depleted armies coming back from Norway has to deal with that before it can liberate Moscow.
I spend another two or three years playing whack-a-mole with rebels. At one point the Kazakh Horde declares independence, which is a problem because I have to re-annex it and my badboy is already high. But I can't just leave it there either, because it's blocking the way to Siberia. I'm still pissing money raising huge amounts of troops, and finally I start minting again because I can't risk taking any more loans. I'm getting almost no tax income because the majority of my provinces are looted, occupied or besieged, including most of the really valuable ones. Luckily my Swedish allies for some reason are marching around my country aimlessly, and help me retake a few rebel provinces.
Finally that time of troubles event ends in 1609, my stability is gradually coming back up, and I manage to pay off one of my loans. I breathe a sigh of relief. Then, a few months later, my favorite event: unhappiness among the peasantry. Third time in less than ten years! Two more stability hits, three uprisings, one of which results in immediate rebel control without a siege.
At the time of writing, i've defeated all the rebels except the ones in Enkan. And that's an interesting story in itself. I sent about 15,000 cavalry from Kazakhstan to the Sea of Okhotsk. They were attacked by natives in every single province along the way. Combined with winter, they were about 6,000 by the time they got to Enkan. When we get there, we find a rebel army consisting of: a single cannon. That's it. And you know what? We lose! My 6,000 cavalry can't beat one cannon. They retreat, I wait until they're strong again, I send them back in, and they lose again. To that one cannon. I'm not sure what to do about that; I guess I have to send an infantry army across Siberia, and just hope Enkan doesn't defect to China or something before it gets there.
So, that's my exciting tale of my adventures in EU2. Lol. What are yours?
By the way, I do have one game question: what are the prerequisites for getting explorers? I'm frustrated because I haven't gotten any. My knowledge of North America is limited to what little I had gotten in map information when I defeated Denmark. I've spent about a hundred years in a little corner of North America, and haven't gotten one single explorer (a few conquistadors, but i'm boxed in by other European countries' trading posts on land, so other than bringing down the cost of colonizing provinces, the conquistadors are useless), so I can't expand any further. I was really counting on getting into the Aztec lands and taking some of that gold. I looked at the EU2 wiki, I know you have to have the land/naval slider set at high naval (which i've done), but there's one thing i'm confused about: do you absolutely have to be at naval tech 11 or higher to get random explorers? You can't get them at all if you're below level 11? Because i'm only at naval tech 4. I would be higher by now, but right when I was starting to really throw my investment into naval tech, this decade-long peasant unrest forced me to put all my money into raising stability instead.
