so what are we doing with sweden's sliders.

I'm really far into the mid-game with Hindustan, can't annex Japan no matter what, there's 3 daimyos left to go with Japan, anyone help?

Vanilla DW game mini-AAR, hard difficulty, settler size 400, aggressive AI, everything else default

Started as Delhi, first act before I did anything was to declare war on Bihar and Gondwana so I could form Hindustan in 50 years time. Wasn't too hard to take over India, rebels can be a big problem since up to 14k fires in the bigger provinces but the solution is minting a big standing all-conquering rebel-fighting army and to hell with inflation. Got really lucky to have Timurids start falling apart from succession rebels and wars v Ottomans and Mamluks on its eastern front in 1440, was able to expand west towards Turkey and east conquering on the poor Asian minors. Yada yada, fought against a weak Ming tons of times, was able to form personal union via spies with successful warmongering Malacca and Brunei. Was able to get sliders to westernise around 1550, took ~50 years to get to +3 stability on western tech (-15 stab hits in the process), in the mean time I bribed my biggest western neighbours Sweden and Bohemia to not f me up since I'm massively behind in tech. Once there, pretty much focused entirely on Land tech aside getting trade to 7 to take QFTNW. Had 50-100/month from neighbour bonus in every tech, that was nice and had to catching up in land tech to my Euro neighbours.

But then.... mid-game crazy HRE formed by Bavaria which annexed everyone including a huge Bohemia, at 1621:



Yeah, that's right, they doing pretty good. They had all of modern northern Italy, Germany, Austria, Poland, Ukrain and Turkey. I insta-declared war since at the time of formation they only had about 120k troops to my 500-something, so I beat them pretty handily, but had to stop when my war exhaustion hit 16. I took 21 provinces iirc, that was nice. I think when a country is just massive, each province only costs 1-3% war score. 5 years later when I was able to declare on them again and looked again on the ledger, they had 700k troops to my 800k. Basically had to wait till they were involved in a war against France the only other superpower to do anything to them again.

Yada yada started to join the colonizing race to the Americas, kept around some tiny nomads to boost my settler production by 1.65 a year which is very gamey but whatever.



End game ZOMG income:



The 5th and 6th level trade buildings are GOAT, they're literally dozens if not hundreds times better than the equivalent production buildings with a big empires. If AIs priorities these buildings when they become huge blobs, humans players would have no chance. Colleges and cathedrals to boost magistrates and missionaries also GOAT.

End game Hindustan Empire at 1789:



I have 1.3 mil troops, HRE have 300k, next biggest have like 80k.

Pretty sure I can conquer the remaining world (except Japan due to bug) in 30 years if I go nuts and ignore infamy.

Dat world conquest. Why not multiplayer

World war has started!

Latest file:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1LG62RCR

To what degree is the game Euro-centric? Like, obviously the title would suggest that it is, but the fact that you can start the game as Hindustan or whatever would suggest it isn't. I ask because of this stuff on the stats page:

which seems to indicate that Christianity and the European continent is more important in the game than other religions/areas - is that accurate?

**** it, I think I'm gonna cave and buy this game. I love geography too much not to after staring at all these maps of Europe.

Game is very Euro-centric, Europe researches at 100% but everyone else slower rate until they westernize. For example in our MP game Russia is eastern tech and researches at 90% speed of Europe, Ottomans at 80%. Muslims research 70% i think, Indians 60, china/japan 50 iirc. Non-European countries also get worse units until they modernize their units. However non-European countries can become ridiculously strong, a fully modernized China pr Hindustan or Mughals for example is basically a superpower. They added a bunch of flavor and new events to asia in the newest expansion, especially in Japan.

http://www.europa3.ru/cgi-bin/mpstat...&yearsave=1492

Major events and thinks to see on the map:

Milan + Austria had no interwebs for the first 2 hours and were AI.

France had to go at 2:30pm EST and was AI for the next 2 hours.

First partition of Poland-Lithuania between Russia, Hansa, AI Austria, Ottomans. Russia ate most of Lithuania while Hansa took Danzig and some NW polish provices. Ottomans took a province or 2 in the south, AI Austria took 4-5 provinces in the southwest.

Portugal somehow became Emperor for a while when Austria was AI and their king had died.

Portugal with Mexico, South America, and Caribbean (minus Cuba). Future superpower.

Random ****ty 2 provinces in W Africa that AI France decided it wanted

Hansa in the new world in SE USA area after conquering natives there. Hansa also with Cuba, purchased from Portugal for 1000 gold at the start of the session which funded Portuguese expansion.

Castille conquered East Africa including gold.

England with a Kongo, Ceylon and the Maldives, England and Castille seem to be competing for India but AI Vijayanagar holding strong

Bohemia is a junior partner in a personal union with Castille.

Portugal + Ottomans + England vs Castille + AI Austria, separate war of Hansa + Russia v. Castille/Bohemia. Hansa took 2 provinces from Bohemia in a fast war. Portugal enforced demands on Castille to refrain from colonizing anywhere in the new world, taking 3 colonies during the war. Castille has since defied the apparent agreement again, colonizing a province in the Caribbean

Non-Euro can be fun too. Ottomans have an awesome starting position and get go East or if you want a challenge go West. Convert Europe to the one true faith! Playing as one of the Indian provinces and forming Hindustan is fun. Haven't tried a Far East nation yet. You could also be a New World Civilization I guess, sit around for 50 years and then get euro-raped.

Being a Regency Council for half the time really curbed my expansion this session. I would at least have the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by now. Maybe could have beat Castille to some of the eastern coast of Africa too.

Oh well India beckons next session.

Hanseatic empire 1492 showing vassals and colonies



Hansa colonial empire consists of Cuba (unfortunately inhabited by Portugese culture settlers), Cape Verde, and Hanseatic Shawnee, originally inhabited by Creek and Cherokee pagans who had been conquered by Shawnee, now being mass converted to Christianity and Hanoverian culture.

India going to be interesting, you still gotta plow through Timurids to get there tho. 3 way between Ottomans/Castille/England, maybe Milan if they go colonial too? Idk

I'll have Indian territory in 5 years.

To set up windowed mode (everyone should do this IMO):

1) go to your EU3 main directory, find the text file 'Settings.txt' and open it
2) Find the line 'fullscreen=yes' and change it to 'fullscreen=no'
3) in the size bracket above you can customize the resolution to anything; I recomend whatever your desktop's background is. When you load the game you might need to drag the window a tiny bit to make everything visible.

Well worth it IMO since you no longer need to alt-tab completely out of the game.


====================

Some comments:

lol at Milan having lost it's core on Siena. It would (and defo should by now) be Italy if it had it. Sucks

Austria really needs to get moving. Hansa is way ahead of them in the german race for control. Castille leadinga PU with Bohemia is no good either. And they need to build their own CoT, or join Hansa - I recommend staying Mercantilistic and building a COT in Wein ASAP (Wein to get the most of the CoT manpower bonus). (Note that building an Austrian COT will screw over Venice and make Bent unhappy, so don't listen to him if he's advising against it :P )

Russia is quietly getting fat over in the East. Converted to Empire too, they seem to be doing v nicely. Economy sucks but that's Russia for you :S They still have a long way to go towards Ming, at least.

France as AI took QFTNW and started colonizing north-west Africa. Will be interesting to see what they decide to do. They do have a respectable fleet built up now too. But still a lot of German minors left, they could get pulled into fights over them with Hansa/Austria/Milan. Will probably have to pick one or the other.

Hansa has a lot of pull in the new world imo. They snuck in and took the US-area natives before anyone else (most likely England, who took out the nearby Huron in Canada) could get to them. And the only other new world colonizers, England and Portugal, are in the Hansa's league. They also have Cape Verde as a potential base for growing into Africa, if they want to try and take a slice there.

England is colonizing a lot slower than I am. I guess he actually gives a damn about his economy and wants to maintain a slower, more sustainable pace, whereas Portugal has obviously taken on the 'take everything and deal with it later' approach. He's also much more spread globally, with a base in Africa and Ceylon.

Sweden looks to be in good shape if Flying Banana's friend can get his computer issues sorted out. Vijay is also doing very well in India and will probably be very hard for any colonizers to take on straight up. Better tactic would be to take over someone small and nearby as a base (like England has in Ceylon), move troops in, then go all out.

Reformation is coming up in the early 1500s too - will be interesting to see who goes to which religion. I'm undecided as to whether or not to convert, myself. Catholic is obv the strongest for getting colonies going, but has nothing else going for it really. Putting the brakes on that growth wouldn't hurt me economically speaking, either.

Ranok plays shaco?

Apologies for undoubtedly making someone repeat themselves from earlier ITT, but where do I start? The game manual was like "we recognize this can be daunting, try out the tutorials", and I'm most of the way through those and still have no idea what to do once I start an actual game.

Tutorials are only good for learning the UI

Try this:

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...inners-A-Guide

And this for information:

http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page

Easiest countries for beginners are France, England, Castille, and Austria probably. Read the Country Guide for whatever country to want to play as and just start imo. Trial and Error. Start on Very Easy difficulty.

Other than that if you have a specific question just ask. And re-read this thread. Some other people had questions and they were answered in thread as well.

Or play for 50 years and then upload the save somewhere and one of us can give suggestions on how you've done/things that can be improved on.

biggest hint off the top of my head is make sure to keep your military maintenance slider at a minimum during peace, it will save you a ton of money a month and make balancing the budget possible, on easy i dont think you have to deal with inflation tho

Kingdom of Portugal, 1459-1492

Reign of King Joao III the Great, 1433 - April 17th, 1485

Joao III continued his policy of oppressing - erm, bringing the word of God to the Mayan natives. It went quick - in 1460 the 2nd Portugese Conquest of Maya ended, resulting in Maya being cut in two, leaving the capital and a rebellious western area. To the west another group of organized savages was met, the Zapotec, along with their small Aztec vassals. The Aztecs were quickly conquered, and tribute was taken from the Zapotec. With the natives broke and broken, their final conquest was a set of small and easily won mop up wars.

In the mean time, the great King knew he needed to find a solution for his country's economic troubles. He hired a Trader, one Gabriel de Alburquerque, and adopted a National Trade Policy, both aimed to help organize Portugal's merchants. Those merchants were immobilized, first establishing trade in the Ottoman capital of Thrace, and soon after the Hanseatic city of Lubeck. They were quite successful, and started bringing in a large income from their trading activities, nearly doubling Portugal's income.

In Lubeck, the Hansa's merchants and leaders took note of Portugal and listened carefully to the stories of newly discovered lands. Intrigued, they agreed to buy one of the larger islands from Portugal, in exchange for a payment of 1000 ducats. Portugal was also invited to join the Hanseatic League, bringing the spoils of the new world with them, and gaining from the Hansa's influence on European trade. This helped Portugese traders expand into some of Europe's smaller centers of trade. Centers of trade were also conquered from the new world natives, which Portugese merchants occupied as soon as they were able to. The Portugese Economic Miracle was in full swing, and Gabriel de Alburquerque would later be recognized as a Saint, at least in Portugal (lol Saint event).

The mission of colonization was also continued, with colonies being expanded in Brazil and throughout the Windward Isles of the Carribean. Conquistadors went south and encountered another tribal nation, the Incas. They were much better equipped to fight the Portugese travellers, but would eventually fall anyhow. Their massive stores of gold were taken back to Lisbon, along with half their country. Widespread rebellions in Portugese Maya and Inca required military attention and prevented to total conquest of said Incans, though Portugal's armies are in the area, poised to finish the job.

The Great King Joao III passed away peacefully in April of 1485, leaving Portugal much better off in every measurable way than he had found it. He is remembered in Portugal with the epithet 'Joao the Great.'


Reign of King Pedro II, 17 April 1485 - 28 November 1489

Joao's much younger and significantly less capable son Pedro took the throne after his father's passing. Pedro looked to continue his father's work in colonizing the Carribean, but was soon informed that Castille had claimed three small islands! He remembered well what his father had taught him - that Castille had refused peaceful diplomacy, and obviously must want nothing more than to burn fair Portugal to the ground. He consulted with his English allies, and they decided that an aggressive war to put an end to Castille's colonial ambitions in the Americas was needed. Preparations went underway, with armies being trained in Portugese Morocco with their Imperial manpower. But Castille took the first move - Austria declared a Crusade against the Ottomans, and Castille being allied with Austria foolishly followed them in. The Ottomans were themselves allied with Portugal. King Pedro took advantage of the free war and decided to force Portugal's colonial rights on Castille, since they had refused Joao's diplomatic offerings.

Portugal's navy immediately and effectively blockaded Castille's in Andalucia, preventing Castille from using it to move troops to other theatres - Iberia would be the only field of battle. Castille invaded first, splitting their initially small army in two and moving in. They were surprised to find a Portugese army just as large as theirs, but Portugal's elite cavalry made quick work of Castille's infantry formations, defeating them soundly. Realizing that Portugal would not be the easy conquest they'd hoped for, Castille started a massive military build up; Portugal emulated it, ordering more regiments trained in Africa. Castille's larger area let it build up a large army quicker, and Castille quickly took the offensive with their advantage. However the majority of Portugal's army escaped by sea to Morocco.

Believing the war won with Portugal's army chased off, Castille's forces spread out and seiged all of Portugal's homeland. But the Ottomans had succeeded in holding the Austrians back, and had a large army on the way by sea. England also joined the war on Portugal's side, as they'd discussed earlier. When England landed, a Portugese army returned to destroy some of Castille's seigers, before against being chased back to the sea by Castille's larger main force. The Ottomans finally arrived, and took to work removing some of Castille's smaller forces from Portugal. Castille finally engaged them in Alentejo, with Castille's 21k facing off against the 15ish thousand strong Ottomans. The battle was fierce - the Ottoman's lesser numbers were made up for by their superior troops, and the two armies fought each other bloodily. King Pedro led Portugal's army - the very one that had escaped earlier - back to the battle, leaving their seige at Cadiz to help. The arrival of Portugal's fresh forces tipped the battle in the allies' favour, and Castille quickly retreated, but not before King Pedro was gravely wounded, having heroically led the battle's final charge.

Knowing their army was beaten, Castille finally accepted defeat and asked for terms. Portugal demanded the surrender of Castille's two remaining Carribean colonies (one had already been seized, since they were undefended) - one to Portugal and the other to England. Further, the allies demanded that Castille cease colonization in the Americas, recognizing the rights of England to North America, and Portugal to Central and Southern America. In return, Portugal would not colonize in Africa or Asia, two areas Castille had shown interest in. The Ottoman allies were also consulted, but asked for no compensation on their part. Castille finally accepted, with much grumbling and general discontent. The island of St. Thomas was given to England, and St. Barthelemy to Castille as agreed, and the allies rejoiced, having brought Europe back to peace.

King Pedro II died of his wounds shortly after the war, on November 28, 1489.


Reign of King Joao IV, November 1489 - ongoing

Pedro's infant son Joao was named King, but a Regency took control of the court in Lisbon during the King's youth. Immediately, a new Castillian colony on Hispanola - a Carribean island, and directly adjacent to Portugal's own colony in Les Cayes - was noticed. The Lords were furious at this development - a new colony, clearly violating the peace treaty who's ink hadn't even dried! The Castillian king pled ignorance, not having understood the treaty well enough, and offered to sell the province to Portugal for the low sum of 50 ducats. But before they made good on that offer, Castille got tangled up in some Indian war, preventing the sale.

All of Europe's good and righteous rulers are outraged at this blatant violation of a peace treaty negotiated in good faith, as they should be. Portugal's future is as cloudy as ever: they must continue to expand colonially, while also finding a way to deal with the suspicious Castillians.


For reward: Army Tradition (that's 2 cultural, 1 Army)

I colonised slowly because I had reached as far as I could go with my naval tech, even with the advisor extending the range. Also I had a ton of random stability hits, at one point getting down to -2 so I couldn't pump out the naval tech. It was only in 1478 when Iceland became a core could I expand a bit further into North America.

naw I mainly jungle Nocturne, sometimes Fiddle or Udyr

Is there a way to read this without paying $10?

Anyway, started a game as Castille, took the obvious route and declared on Granada with my reconquest CB, wiped them out in a couple years. Is there any way to make sieges go quicker, or am I generally just chilling and waiting for the cities to give in or get a wall breach to finish off the province?

I'd kinda like to start colonizing for fun, starting with maybe the Canary Islands or the Azores, but neither are visible on the map for me (the land, specifically, I've been in the ocean around them which was on my map at the start of the game) - do I need a conquistador? (and if so, that means I can't even colonize European/African islands without adopting the New World idea?) I'm still miles away from my first National Idea, don't think I'm due to tech up in Government until 1414 or so. 1401 right now.

After annexing Granada I was still at war with Morocco and Algiers (who joined Granada via alliance) and neither seems to be interested in peace with me, even after Granada got curbstomped. I sent some troops into Tangiers and Ceuta but retreated when a much larger Moroccan army came at my expeditionary force. Thinking about maybe attacking Portugal since I just got a CB on them through one of the alliances I joined.

What concepts should I be trying to learn right now? Stuff like trade (I have a CoT in Andalucia, no idea what to do with it), economic policy, and provincial buildings are completely over my head atm.