If your provinces are turning protestant, you can either turn protestant yourself which gives you a 5 stability hit and destroys relations with all catholics (but protestant gives better bonuses than catholicism), you can go counter-reformation which gives you bonus to missionary chance so you can convert your provinces back to catholic, or you can get the national idea Ecumenism which gives you tolerance of heretics. Best move is to see how many provinces are protestant, if its like 1/2 or more, convert to protestant, if its less than 1/2, do counter reformation and convert back to catholic

You could convert them back to catholic after the penalty to convert protestants wears off.

Personally I'd get my Land Tech up, Take the Unam Sanctum national Idea, Convert to Protestant, and wtfpwn the rest of Europe. Unless everyone else converts to Protestantism. Then don't convert and wtfpwn them.

ok super advice guys will try that out and will let you know how it goes. sorry for the noob questions just picked up the game one month ago, learning curve is super steep.

just about ally calls, it seems that they like to siege the provinces I really want, and then I can't get them. how to avoid that ?

Also just noticed you have way too many Cavalry.

50k Infantry to 91k Cavalry. Cavalry do really bad in mountains which could also be a reason you are losing fighting in central Europe. You also get a bonus if less then half of each army is Cavalry, thats why in your armies the number of cavalry is in red, you aren't getting the bonus.

Cavalry are also useless in sieges. Once you destroy an enemy countries army split your army up and have 2k infantry siege each province.

You have your armies in 15k stacks. I would go 10k Infantry, 5k Cavalry.

I usually have my armies in 16k stacks and go 12k infantry, 4k cavalry.

If you are leading the alliance it doesn't matter. You can annex a province your ally sieges. Just be aware that your allies can make peace before you and take a province.

Also if you are at war and your war exhaustion is low be sure to raise war taxes.

this isnt true, only if your vassal/PU sieges. If I am france, allied w/ milan, I dec switzerland and milan joins, milan occupies switzerland, if i make peace and take provinces, those provinces go to milan and france still takes an infamy hit. Its pretty dumb imo.

Right. Forgot that, yeah its lame.

Best thing to do is just continue sieging all the enemy provinces, once all provinces are sieged your allies will usually peace out. If they don't takes their provinces you can just re-siege them.

Or just vassalize everyone :O

oh I just read somewhere that cavalry was much better in the beginning so I just produced mass cavalry

It's true, up until somewhere in 1550, even if you lose the combines ars bonus. But you gotta use it in flat areas and not for sieges.

hansa strategy ftw

Hello all,

I am said housemate above. First things first, I'll declare I'm a noob and I am still learning the game. That's fine as i will get better before Saturday.

I looked at the save file and most choices are pretty ****. I guess Sweden will have to do BUT, given that i'm a noob and that the computer left it in a horrible state can I suggest some changes are made? (I don't know if these changes are possible)

Changes thus:
Inflation severely reduced.
I believe Hansa said I could have Skane. I would also have Agdar, both for free.
The national idea doesn't seem at all useful but i have little insight into what would be better. Can this be changed without penalty.
The cultural tradition is dreadful.
The income of Sweden as a whole is dreadful. I guess i'll have to consolidate the position, send merchants etc.
I don't know how good really the sliders are, perhaps they could be changed?


Additionally:

I do not want to fight Russia or Hansa. That wouldn't do.
Anyone have any good advice over what the best course of action is to take?

Why is cavalry better? My infantry in 1500 have something like 5 shock/5morale whereas my stupid cavalry is the same as that at the beginning of the game, 1/1 or something like that. Maybe this is because I've never had charge cavalry? I've played Castille and HRE countries so far and by 1500 I have 0 cavalry in my army.

Cav have been severely nerfed as EU3 had more and more expansions. Originally, it made no sense to use any infantry until land 18, as cav moved 2x as fast and did something like 4x the damage, it was absurd. Now, cav have been nerfed to have the same movespeed, and the terrain penalties are terrible. However, cav retain movement 2, meaning that they are awesome at flanking. However iirc the max cav u can have flanking is 4 or something, so the best army comp is 4 cav + X infantry. Early on, cav stacks will still destroy infantry fighting on open ground, but i think cav now suffer 2x terrain penalties so all cav stacks suck now. That said, I'm pretty sure charge cav stacks still wreck everything. Latin knights just suck cause of only 1 shock

Ya don't worry, you will get heavy edits to fix the ai destroying you. If you aren't totally set on Sweden, you could be Poland. Poland is stronger imo and actually has some areas of expansion. Russia wants some of its eastern lands but I'm sure some deal could be worked out.

Loading up both of them to compare, cheating both to +3 stability so i can see max income:

Sweden (note that all of these are without Skane, which would give more manpower, income, and stab cost):
13210 max manpower
6005 base manpower
20.8 monthly income at +3 stability
67.37 end of year census taxes
7/8/8/7/7 technology
1250 stability cost
Sweden has Norway as a vassal

Poland:
33116 max manpower
13246 base manpower
17.0 monthly income at +3 stability (wow this is lower than i thought)
60.58 end of year census taxes
5/6/6/6/8 technology
1014 stability cost
Poland is in a Personal Union with Lithuania and has Teutonic Order as a vassal. Poland also has claimed the throne of Livonian Order and will get a PU with them on their ruler's death

So Sweden is actually better off economically at the moment compared to Poland, but Poland will be much stronger when it inherits Lithuania. Poland also has a huge advantage in manpower with more than 2x Swedens and will probably have 4x Swedens manpower after it inherits. However it may take decades to inherit. Up to you who you want to play really, Poland will be a major player in any European wars given its location and relatively large manpower pool whereas Sweden will be on the periphery.

If you are deadset on Sweden, I'd give you Skane, and Banana will give you Agder. I'd also suggest Banana giving you Sjaelland as well, which would allow you to form Scandinavia which should boost your economy a decent amount. While you wait for cores to do that, I'd try to expand in the one uncontested area currently available, the Baltic. That area is relatively poor, but that means no one will really be contesting you if you move in there.

I noticed after loading up that you can claim Livonian order's throne at start, which you should do. Poland is also claiming it, but if you dec Livonian order you can force a union with them before Poland can do ****. Lithuania will protect Livonian order, but I know Russia wants some of their lands so I'm sure Russia would be more than happy to invade Lithuania while you finish LO. After that I guess try to conquer more of the Baltics and northern poland/lithuania. Maybe go and try to colonize, idk.

Sweden current sliders:
0
-2
3
0
-3
-3
-1
-3

Sweden start sliders:
3
-1
2
0
-3
0
-1
-2

Since hes relatively poor, I'd say good fix would be give him the starting sliders but with 4 slider moves towards free trade and 1 slider move towards centralization. I'd also say switch Glorious Arms (lol AI) to either National Trade Policy or Military Drill. Also reduce inflation from its current ~7 to 3-4 and give him constables all over. I know there was disagreement about potentially giving Poland constables all over, but this is 60 years into the game, p sure any normal human player would have constables all over Sweden. Lol AI.

So, should I use latin cav? Basically no past the very early stages (i.e. as soon as inf gets shock?)??

no, cause longbowmen are better than latin cav right out of the gate.

I keep 4 Cav in my army for flanking (since that's the max u can flank), and the rest infantry.

If you have access to charge cav tho, that changes things. Charge cav are sooooo much better.

Quick summery for everybody who doesn't know the nuts and bolts of the mechanics.

How good a unit is depends on two things, its base shock/fire/morale pips and the tech dependent modifiers applied to them. So for latin cav, a fire 0/0, shock 1/0, Morale 2/0 unit you take the initial pips and multiply them by the modifiers listed next to the unit on the military screen. Usually it's something stupid like .8 or whatever to start for shock, but that increases with tech. Generally speaking cavalry have much higher shock modifiers than infantry, while infantry have much higher fire modifiers.

Comparatively the Longbowman is a fire 0/0, shock 2/1, morale 2/1 unit. It's shock modifier is half that of the latin cav's modifer, so realistically it's a shock 1/.5. But that's still better, and it has better morale as well.

Now that you know how that works evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of various units should be pretty easy.

So, if longbowmen are superior right out the gate, why use cav at all? Because cavalry can flank. Whenever there is a battle the two armies line up opposite each other (that little battle screen you see). The length of the line is dependent on the size of the smaller army as infantry can only line up opposite another infantry regiment. So like if I have 20 regiments of infantry attacking 10, only half my units are initially fighting while the rest fill in the front line if anybody breaks.

Cavalry, however, can extend your line 2 units beyond where the other dude's line ends on each side. So you increase the amount of damage you can do if you outnumber the enemy. Which is why it pays to have 4 cav regiments, but not really any more than that.

Kingdom of Portugal, 1428-1459

As we all know, I had some alarm trouble and arrived 30 mins late, which turned out to be about 3 years in game. The AI had control of Portugal until then, and had taken the 2 provs I wanted from Algiers. They also disbanded most of my army, including replacing my Muslim Charge Cavalry with ****ty Latin Knights (WTF!!!!!!!!!!). When I took over in 1431 I recorrected those crimes, and finished upgrading buildings in the Portugese homeland. I also cancelled my awful mission and got missions to discover and colonize the Azores and Madeira, which were quickly completed. Sometime in here I lost my crappy king and got a good one: Joao III.

As soon as I was able to, I declared war on Algiers again, whose allies in Tripoli also came to their defense. Both were quickly beaten and vassalized, painting a pretty 'Portugese Africa' across north africa, from Atlantic Morocco to the Egyptian border. Castille didn't think it was such a pretty sight though, and started freaking out about 'how much I had expanded' and other silly things. He sent me a Warning (pointless btw since we have no neighbours except one another) and positioned a 7k strong army on my border, which obviously freaked me out too.

Needing protection, I saw an opportunity: Daer's Ottomans were at war with Venice over some Greek provinces, but couldn't finish them off due to Venetian control of the seas. I offered to kill Venice's navy in exchange for a guarantee of independance & defensive alliance, which he accepted. My navy was quickly dispatched and sent Venice's to the bottom of the Aegean sea.

With the Iberian situation resolved temporarily, I switched NIs to QFTNW and set to exploring. My great explorer Duarte de Alburqurque discovered West Africa and Brazil - the vast New World. Colonization was immediately commenced, and Portugal now has a decent foothold in Brazil. Going further West he found the Carribean and it's islands, and eventually the Mayan civilization flourishing in Mexico. Portugal has claimed Maya as it's own, and the subjugation of the Mayans is well underway. We hope that eventually their lands will make a suitable new home.

On the downside, colonization is expensive, and my small country's economy is now straining hard to keep up. Making matters worse, my COT in Lisbon disappeared, presumeably falling victim to small size and stagnation. The future has many faces: Colonialism offers great opportunity to remake Portugal in a safer area, but tensions with Castille and a deteriorating economy make things all the more difficult to balance.


For reward: Cultural Tradition please, for both weeks.

So just for something to do I played JLBorloo's French savegame.

Disbanded a bunch of cavalry and switched to Empire. I converted France to Protestant and spent a bunch of time chasing rebels and converting provinces. Expanded a bit then decided to get into a war. Dat Bohemia.



Before:



After:



France in 1567:

All my land is Protestant too.



For the colonies I just had colonists sitting there so I sent them to the only land I could reach at the time without making an effort. lol New World.

World:

Poland is in a way more interesting situation in east-central Europe than Scandinavia, IMO, FWIW.

rofl brohemia

I would sooner be Sweden over Poland because the peripheries of Europe are more desirable to me than the centre at my current level of ability.
I'm happy with the slider moves you suggest although would maybe prefer more towards centralization. Deffo change national idea, to national trade policy. Constables is a good idea and the inflation drop.

Thanks for this, looking forward to it, poor position regardless.

Comrade, we are allies at the moment and have royal marriage, but eventually I will come for Neva and my cores.

Hey Daer, since you played my save a bit more, what did you think about my economy and of my sliders ? One problem I had was not getting any missionaries. Also as far as production was concerned I tried to build constables/marketplaces a bit everywhere, but unsure what strategy was optimal there ?