why am i losing prestige?

[moloko]

arrrgh....this is getting so frustrating. here's the set up.....i'm playing as russia and its mid 1700's. i'm in second place with 67 presige points and austria is no. 1 with 99 points. several decades ago iwas no. 1 witn 100 points and the lead would change every month or so between me, brittany and austria. then as time went on i seemed to stagnate at 73 points for awhile and now i'm steadily losing points at a rate of about 1 per month. meanwhile austria has been at 99 forever. i don't understand why mine is going down and theirs isn't. neither of us has been at war for awhile. both of us have huge empires but i'm pretty sure i have many more provinces. i certainly have many more territories (colonies built up into cities). in addition to siberia i have extensive holdings in indonesia,the carribean, s.america and w.africa. i have more money than i can spend (400+ monthly\1,000+yearly). i am the sole defender of my faith (which by the way seems to be useless, if not a hinderance). they probably have won bigger battles and greater victories, they had a couple big wars against france in which they totally dominated, i had a couple of wars against the ottoman\persian alliance. i can't say i totally dominated in battle but i was the one who had the 99% war score. in short i added territory to my realm at their expense (mostly but not all were my cores), they are ahead of me in trade and production efficiency, something they managed to do despite being at -3 stability for nearly the entire game. they used to be a bad boy, though now they are considered honorable, i have never been anything worse than slightly tarnished. i just dunno, i'm expanding and improving colonies like crazy, my army is large (approx 160 inf regt, 70 cav regt, 25 arty regt), i can use money as kitty litter, i'm so called faith defender, i have 3 vassals, a couple royal marriages and i'm losing prestige at a steady rate. i know the manual says if its high it tends to slip back down so why isn't ausrtia's? is fighting a war a good way to get prestige? if you take provinces that aren't cores do you lose prstige? is austia doing so well have something to do with the HRE? maybe they are one of those "lucky nations" that i've read about, if so i'd like to be able to turn that feature off. funny thing is when i started the game i wasn't concerned about winning by being top dog, i had my own agenda. but the game has a way of making you dislike certain countries and then you want to beat them. austra has been a thorn in my side in many eu games (mostly eu2). now i want to beat them......bad.

 

[Reuel]

Have you been using spies alot?

 

[moloko]

Have you been using spies alot?

no, early on i used them a bit, but not in the last 150 years or so

 

[unmerged(69495)]

Not sure how your colonization has been going lately, but if I recall correctly, you gain prestige each time you establish a new colony? In which case, maybe Castille has been doing more colonization than you have? Just a thought.

-noct

 

[moloko]

Not sure how your colonization has been going lately, but if I recall correctly, you gain prestige each time you establish a new colony? In which case, maybe Castille has been doing more colonization than you have? Just a thought.

-noct

my colonization has been great, far beyond what i expected to do as russia. once i took the explore the new world idea (or whatever its actually called) pop ups of newly discovered land flooded my screen. some of them had lists of territories so long they wouldn't fit on the screen. at any rate i decieded to forgo siberia for the time being and started colonies in the west indies. my first was that big 3 province island just east of cuba. i now have all the winward islands, jamacia, puerto rico and cuz- something or other. i also have mosquito coast and nicaragua and bermuda. sometime later i started a bastion in indonesia atarting with ceram. i now have a nice collection of high income provinces in that area as well. i would say overall that castille has done more colonizing, but not much more. austria has only four colonial expansions that i know of, cuba and one on africa's west coast. castille is pretty far down on the prestige list, its austria that i''m trying to knock out of the top spot. anyway thats part of what is confusing me,i consider my colonial expansion to be quite extensive and profitable but it doesn't seem to be helping my prestige any

 

[knaak250]

become emporer and taking patron of the arts NI would help ya with your decay. being emporer gives +1 prestige and patron of the arts gives ya +2.

you can also capture jeruzalem and rome, both give +1 prestige

 

[moloko]

become emporer and taking patron of the arts NI would help ya with your decay. being emporer gives +1 prestige and patron of the arts gives ya +2.

you can also capture jeruzalem and rome, both give +1 prestige

how does that decay work anyhow? mine is +5 in red numbers.

 

[tonythetiger]

There are also certain advisors that increase your prestige. Just a thought.

Also, who are your allies, or do you have any? Not sure if that affects prestige.

 

[gigau]

how does that decay work anyhow? mine is +5 in red numbers.

You'll have green positive values and red negative values. The sum gives you your decay. Some advisors or modifiers can add some positive values and slow down the decay.
Once i was most fortunate to have two good advisors who gave me +3% each, against the -5%... i was actually gaining prestige without doing anything (but paying my advisors of course).

Battles and peace terms give you prestige. So if you are at peace, or at war but not fighting any battles... your prestige will decay.

 

[unmerged(19870)]

The fastest way of gaining prestige is to win big battles, and the fastest way to lose it is to lose big battles. If you lose a battle with 20,000 men a side, even if you go on to win the war you may well lose prestige overall.

Prestige decays at the rate of 5% per year (used to be 5 points but now it's a percentage). If Austria has the Patron of the Arts idea, is Defender of the Faith and Emperor and has a philosopher adviser worth 1% prestige, its prestige won't decay at all. Austria may well be Papal Controller (another 1%) if it has more Catholic provinces than anyone else.

In one game I became similarly frustrated, coincidentally with Austria, and found that they had two top-notch philosopher advisers. I assassinated one of them.

The best ways to hurt Austria's prestige are:

1) Beat them in war. Apart from the prestige hits from losing battles, they'll lose the Defender of the Faith title.

2) Assassinate any good philosopher advisers they may have.

3) Throw gold at the HRE electors until they want to elect you Emperor.

By the way, capturing Jerusalem gives extra prestige only to Catholics. Unlike Rome, which benefits any Christians.

 

[moloko]

The best ways to hurt Austria's prestige are:

1) Beat them in war. Apart from the prestige hits from losing battles, they'll lose the Defender of the Faith title.

2) Assassinate any good philosopher advisers they may have.

3) Throw gold at the HRE electors until they want to elect you Emperor.

unfortunately as an orthodox country i have no sway with the hre

i'd love nothing more than to beat them in a war. however i have a bad record when it comes to fighting austria. this is my first eu3 game but i've played many in eu2. one game of note i was playing as the ottomans. one of my personal goals was to take vienna. well there was just no friggin way. first of all i couldn't beat them. their land tech was double or more the entire game. the real frustrating part was when i did manage to beat them in a war. i lost several battles but in the end i was able to overwhelm them with numbers. i managed to take all but two of their provinces, including vienna and thought, there you bastards, now you're gonna pay. to my dismay the war score was only something like 20%. ok, they beat me in the big battles but i now had control of 90% of their country. i've had other experiences like that with austria, no matter how bad their situation seems the war score is low. it happened earlier in my current game. i had won several small battles against them and took a province and had a war score of 10%. i just wanted to get out of the war and thought 10% would be good enough for a white peace. no, they refused. so i tried offering money. no, they refused. so they let the war drag on a few more years and finally asked for white peace, which i accepted. it seems like austria doesn't make peace unless they are the ones making the terms. i,m really starting to hate them

 

[unmerged(20077)]

become emporer and taking patron of the arts NI would help ya with your decay. being emporer gives +1 prestige and patron of the arts gives ya +2.

you can also capture jeruzalem and rome, both give +1 prestige

Not Rome - only Muslims should capture Rome for the prestige; if a Catholic has it they will keep getting the message that the Pope wants it back. It's Mecca you should capture.

 

[moloko]

arrrgh....this is getting so frustrating. here's the set up.....i'm playing as russia and its mid 1700's. i'm in second place with 67 presige points and austria is no. 1 with 99 points. several decades ago iwas no. 1 witn 100 points and the lead would change every month or so between me, brittany and austria. then as time went on i seemed to stagnate at 73 points for awhile and now i'm steadily losing points at a rate of about 1 per month. meanwhile austria has been at 99 forever. i don't understand why mine is going down and theirs isn't. neither of us has been at war for awhile. both of us have huge empires but i'm pretty sure i have many more provinces. i certainly have many more territories (colonies built up into cities). in addition to siberia i have extensive holdings in indonesia,the carribean, s.america and w.africa. i have more money than i can spend (400+ monthly\1,000+yearly). i am the sole defender of my faith (which by the way seems to be useless, if not a hinderance). they probably have won bigger battles and greater victories, they had a couple big wars against france in which they totally dominated, i had a couple of wars against the ottoman\persian alliance. i can't say i totally dominated in battle but i was the one who had the 99% war score. in short i added territory to my realm at their expense (mostly but not all were my cores), they are ahead of me in trade and production efficiency, something they managed to do despite being at -3 stability for nearly the entire game. they used to be a bad boy, though now they are considered honorable, i have never been anything worse than slightly tarnished. i just dunno, i'm expanding and improving colonies like crazy, my army is large (approx 160 inf regt, 70 cav regt, 25 arty regt), i can use money as kitty litter, i'm so called faith defender, i have 3 vassals, a couple royal marriages and i'm losing prestige at a steady rate. i know the manual says if its high it tends to slip back down so why isn't ausrtia's? is fighting a war a good way to get prestige? if you take provinces that aren't cores do you lose prstige? is austia doing so well have something to do with the HRE? maybe they are one of those "lucky nations" that i've read about, if so i'd like to be able to turn that feature off. funny thing is when i started the game i wasn't concerned about winning by being top dog, i had my own agenda. but the game has a way of making you dislike certain countries and then you want to beat them. austra has been a thorn in my side in many eu games (mostly eu2). now i want to beat them......bad.

ok i figured a few things out. i loaded a saved game and started as austria. they are not losing prestige because they control the curia, are defenders of their faith and have patron of the arts ni. so they are pretty much entrenched at 99% prestige. i however, with only my defender of the faith title am forced to keep attacking people in order to stop losing prestige. i'm no expert on the geo-politics and such of this period, but is it normal for a large, rich and powerful nation to have to fight to gain or maintain prestige? because the truth is i can probably beat anyone in the world at this point, and the fact that no one will DoW me may attest to that.
so, in order for me to win by having the highest prestige i need to start wars that i would not otherwise start. i beat up on poland\lithuania\france, bringing up my prestige a bit and giving me more territory bordering austria. then i took on the ottoma\persian alliance, again to give me more room to deploy against austria and because they had orthodox provinces that i wanted. now with 20 years to go i'm getting ready to take on my nemisis. its game 7 vs. austria

 

[Darkrenown]

Well why don't you take the NI and/or focus on the control of the pope and HRE and/or get advisors that give you prestige? If you want to be #1 in prestiege you have to work for it.

I like the prestiege decay system, it's all very well to be powerful, but the other nations are going to ask what you've done lately.

 

[moloko]

Well why don't you take the NI and/or focus on the control of the pope and HRE and/or get advisors that give you prestige? If you want to be #1 in prestiege you have to work for it.

I like the prestiege decay system, it's all very well to be powerful, but the other nations are going to ask what you've done lately.

i like the prestige decay system too, prestige should have to be maintained. it just seems like the game doesn't really reward anything other than victory in battles. i can't influence (at least i think i can't) the holy roman empire because i'm orthodox. i can and will take the patron of the arts national idea as you suggested, but i'd hardly call that "working for it". besides i thought expanding colonies and making discoveries also garnered prestige but it doesn't seem to be the case in my game. so, i'll work for it by kicking austria's tail. and i will work too, they are going to be tough, a nice finale so to speak.
don't get me wrong, i love the game and am not complaining, just pointing out that prestige should be more than military prowess. the game does offer other methods as you mentioned, but they are limited, especially if you are not catholic.

 

[TKaz84]

You actually don't have to be catholic to become HRE, merely Christian will do. If you look at the strange screenshots thread you will see many examples of nations like Ethiopia and Trebizond becoming Emperor.

 

[moloko]

You actually don't have to be catholic to become HRE, merely Christian will do. If you look at the strange screenshots thread you will see many examples of nations like Ethiopia and Trebizond becoming Emperor.

doesn't it require a special event though if your not catholic? incidentally, one of my provinces is a member, is there a way i can use that to open the door? hmmm, i'll have to check the manual again.

 

[unmerged(19870)]

i like the prestige decay system too, prestige should have to be maintained. it just seems like the game doesn't really reward anything other than victory in battles. i can't influence (at least i think i can't) the holy roman empire because i'm orthodox. i can and will take the patron of the arts national idea as you suggested, but i'd hardly call that "working for it". besides i thought expanding colonies and making discoveries also garnered prestige but it doesn't seem to be the case in my game. so, i'll work for it by kicking austria's tail. and i will work too, they are going to be tough, a nice finale so to speak.
don't get me wrong, i love the game and am not complaining, just pointing out that prestige should be more than military prowess. the game does offer other methods as you mentioned, but they are limited, especially if you are not catholic.

You can get prestige from colonising, too. In my current game as Japan, although well behind on most technologies I have the highest prestige mainly through colonising Siberia - since conquering Korea and the Manchu I've fought very few wars. The Timurids' hour of doom is approaching, though...

By the way, in that game the AI Austria was completely destroyed by a Burgundian-Saxon alliance, with the Saxons annexing Vienna. Austria has just reappeared (in about 1730) as a one-province state in Steiermark.

Oh, and do try bribing the HRE electors, especially those who support Austria. Even if they don't elect you Emperor (and they might, even though you're Orthodox) it might cost Austria the title.

 

[moloko]

i was wrong

so i have to admit that i felt that the game was in part flawed because i couldn't catch austria in the the prestige race unless i won battles. i felt that because my nation was so large, wealthy and powerful that i shouldn't be losing prestige. looking at it more objectively i can see that a nation like mine would gradually see it's prestige rating slip unless it was still doing the things that made it great. while i am still building up colonies i haven't created a new one in over 50 yrs. if i hadn't fought those two wars of aggression against poland and the ottomans my military would have been idle for nearly 50 yrs. though my nation is what it is, it still lags pretty far behind a lot of other nations in trade and production efficiency. and, as far as europe is concerned i'm somewhat insignificant being outside the HRE. besides, russia is supposed to be an enigma
anyway, to get the top spot i had to knock austria down a couple notches. with my newly won provinces i was able to amass a formidable force to march directly on their capital and adjacent provinces. an expeditionary army and requisite transport was made ready to invade cuba, austia's bastion amidst my west indies "sugar empire". the initial assault armies were backed up by large advanced cossack armies and artillery was plentiful in those armies that would conduct sieges. the other armies were organized as "killer armies" with thier own large cavalry component and my most competant generals. working with the cossack armies they were to defeat the standing enemy armies and then keep them routed. i used the dv ni to avoid the stab hit for my dow. i also took patron of the arts and finally got my hands on a prestige advisor (forget what their actually called). this way, once austria has been taught a lesson i can take and hold the no. 1 spot.

 

[unmerged(15723)]

I would recommend using paragrahs & period. Much easier to read your posts then!

I'm glad for your success btw!

Using spies wrecklessly is btw one way of quickly destroying your prestige.