You guys play on Saturdays, right? Maybe I'll have enough of a clue by then.

**** AI France

Ottomans would be agreeable to some sort of agreement.

Yeah so far we've played 3 sessions at 10am est, 11am est and Noon est. I'm guessing 11am EST is the goal for a regular time.

wanna play a game now goofy ?

Me Castille you France ?

Can't, don't have any time today.

I don't even own Shaco, so nop, sorry. I'm not Ranok in LOL anyways though.

Its a really great game with all of the expansions, like most of the paradox grand strategy games. Unfortunately (like most paradox games) the AI is relatively bad, so once you hit a certain level of competency you will get bored by 1550ish as any country since you will be #1 in income by 2x the 2nd place guy.

However thats where multiplayer comes in. I'm a hardcore vet of many rts franchises, usually being a top player. Me and djstu were 2 of the best HW2 and CoH players for example (not barging just saying), but EU3 multiplayer is the most fun I've had in multi. Even our current multi game isn't quite as good as it can be, but its still fun. Eventually once everyone is very competent in multiplayer you get pvp wars starting almost immediately which makes the diplomacy, grand strategy, and wars completely insane. It also leads to the most butthurt/rage possible in mp games.

For example, the last game we played organized over the other forums me, ranok, and djstu played on, we had 10-11 people, I was France, ranok Burgundy. Me, ranok, and the english player had negotiated for something like 2 weeks prior to starting the game because we knew that we would have a day 1 war for supremacy of France. Ranok had made a deal with England to help him (or at least stay out of the war, idk), but i subsequently made England a better offer and he betrayed Ranok. I beat him in the opening war and I believe Ranok never forgave the english player.

I'm guessing that the next multiplayer game will me even more nuts, once all of these original players in the 1st game have multi experience, you and

SELIM **** YOU

What happened was I made a deal with England to attack France with me on day 1, since that was the only chance either of us would have at it (HTTT days). When it came to game time he basically said 'oops nope, not gonna do that anymore, sorry' so France raped me (DO saw the backstab and took it a bit easier).

Couple weeks later, England had taken some bits of Holland, which obv I wanted (to eventually move to and form the Netherlands, only other thing Burgundy can do once their French aspirations are crushed*). So we negotiated a deal during the week where I would buy those 2 or 3 provs from him for lots of cash. Come game time I warred him and took them instead, to get back at him for screwing me over in France. As far as I was concerned we were even then, having both screwed the other one hard, but he took that score-evening screwing of mine as a further personal insult and basically made it his game goal to kill me. Every future war I got into, England joined in against me. It got to the point where I was about to throw down and invade/capture England proper just to stop him, but I ragequit cause of the ****ty non-funnness of that grudge instead.

So really it was caused by both of us being douches, but him out-douching me by a huge margin (not surprising).

The funniest part was that was our 4th or 5th mp game as a group (core of me, Nonfiction, djstu, and this guy). First game me and him were tight allies, being the strongest player together p easily and poised to possibly win, before it collapsed due to quitters.

Played some more of my Castille game last night, I did some more work in North Africa by vassalizing Tripoli (I attacked their provinces, then forgot that I was at war with them not because I'd used my Holy War CB but because they were allied with one of the countries I was fighting earlier, drats!), declaring a Holy War on the Ottomans (they had the two provinces in between Tripolitania and Libya, as well as two provinces in northern Algeria), finishing off Morocco once that truce expired, and after getting a border dispute CB with Brittany (who had Oran, in Northern Algeria) I took that province back.

On the European front, I became Papal Controller somehow (lol? my papal influence was becoming drastically smaller due to my infamy being in the 20s, not sure how that happened), so I excommunicated Aragon and used the CB I got to declare on them and take Aragon (the province) and Valencia. Really wanted Barcelona but even after occupying it, it wasn't an option for me to take - anyone know why? I thought I read that you can't take an enemy's capital in some situations, but their capital was Aragon, not Barcelona. Maybe you just can't take their richest province?

Anyway, I'm pretty much fresh out of CBs now (the only one I have is on Tripoli, my vassal) and not really sure where to go from here. I think I could become Defender of the Faith and keep rolling through the Muslim world, I guess, but since Very Easy is in fact Very Easy I'm curious what challenges you guys think I could take on stepping it up to Easy and maybe picking a nation that requires a different playstyle.

You sure Aragorn wasn't just their national focus ( big crown )? The capital has a tiny crown.

As for a challange, go for world domination Take something like china or india or whatever!

Play on normal imo, im sure easy will be wayyyy too easy as well.

I'd try Austria for a more central european position, helps you learn HRE mechanics, personal unions, and you will prolly be involved in a lot of wars. Austria is rich and has lots of manpower, just make sure to not take provinces in the HRE that you dont have cores on because you will get hit with unlawful territory penalty which really sucks. If you get in wars w/ people in the HRE, just vassalize them unless you have cores. Go for Hungary and then try to become HRE, while taking any provinces you get cores on, and trying to get some personal unions in the process.

Alternatively if you want a slighter harder challenge (still ez tho), try out Milan (or venice) and try to unify italy. North Italy is 1 of the best areas in the game, super rich provinces, 2 CoTs, lots of manpower, and most provinces have a free university which one gives +5 to govt research. You will still have to deal with the HRE a bit but large parts of Italy are not in HRE so you can grab them a little easier.

Become HRE as an african country

I`m up for a game tonight. However it's been tough getting people in. I'll chat in the hamachi tonight when I get home from work.

Started a new game as Bengal with the intention of forming Hindustan. Got destroyed within 2 years. Repeat x 3. Finally survived. Muslim Hindustan incoming. Eventually.

Speaking to the 'eventually it just gets too easy vs the AI,' here is the game I started as Burgundy and played a few hours of last night:



4x Personal Unions, with Bavaria, Normandie, Champagne and Guyenne. The rest are all Vassals. France got crushed by England and I but is clawing back. Then I beat England down p hard, and they've been suffering ever since (got beaten by Scotland in 2 wars, but dumb AI Scotland didn't demand enough and is now getting slowly beaten back). I'm currently on the Italian Ambitions mission, and already have Savoy as a long term vassal - too easy.

What difficulty is this on?

I thought about playing Burgundy for some of the same reasons Nonfiction mentioned Austria.

That's normal difficulty with all default options.

Some other things I forgot to comment on, France just started to make a comeback. I removed all his vassals, but they're still all allied together. Venice was allied with Provence in the mandatory France vs Provence war, which was delayed til 1435 due to my beating on France. So Venice took Poitou (atlantic france prov between Brittany and the English ones in the SW), which immediately rebelled. Rebels walked north into Provence's 2 provs and captured them, so they defected. Previous to that France had only 2 provs in the north - Paris and it's neighbour to the west.

Eastern Europe is crazy. Golden Horde destroyed early game, including taking most of Hungary and vassalizing the 2-3 provs left over. Now Austria and Poland are pushing them back hard. Lithuania is down to 1 prov and Moscow has taken most of what they had, but in turn, Moscow's russian provs are almost all Horde-owned. Brandenburg and Austria have both expanded heavily (Milan doesn't exist anymore).

Also Castille is stuck in some random war vs Aragon. Mainland Aragon has been completely occupied for a looong time, but no sign of peace coming anytime soon.

Also, just to clarify, my 3 PUs with French minors were very cheesy. I got England/France to release them in wars, which made them be my immediate allies w/ high relations. They'd accept royal marriages for sure like that. But they start off with no heirs, so it only takes a few diplomats to go Royal Marriage->Claim Throne -> Dissolve Alliance -> War for the PU. The Bavarian one was luck, I had an older RM and their heir died, so I claimed and warred. After all the PUs were done I gifted (all 4, many times) to get my relations positive so the PUs would remain. ninjaedit: Also I lied, I have a 5th PU with Dauphine; they were released as the result of that Venice+Provence vs France war, same cheesy insta-claim move.

I also have most of my vassals/unions in my sphere of influence, which is giving me a TON of extra magistrates.

lol I just started again, in February (screenshot is from January) my king died and I inherited all 4 of the french minors. Some luck.

Burgundy so op

Well Hindustan formed. Dat cores.



Currently at war with the country getting raped to my west. Problem is after that, every single country surrounding me is allied to each other. To my east are a bunch of nations in the oriental techgroup which will eat through my troops.

So in 1499 the map is revealed and I can see Europe. lol Europe.



Persia and Baluchistan have been around forever. Timurids however used to have half of northern India. I jumped on Vijayanagar while they were in a war with someone else earlier so they haven't been seen for 60 years. Maldives at one time owned the entire southern half of India.

France gonna France I guess.

Ottomans kept allying with me even before I could see them. They kept calling me into wars, I'd accept and just raise war taxes until the game auto whitepeaced.

Mamluks doing work.

Austria is the HRE and own a chunk of the Balkans and well as a piece of northern Africa.

Scotland has been kicking Englands ass. Scotland owns Denmark. Oh and thats more Scotland on either side of Novgorod. WTF. Pretty sure they got that land from a personal union. Lucky nations are off btw.

Pic was taken in 1506. Prussia is formed, no other unifications seem to be happening.

The Reformation just hit a year or so ago in Bar. Castille immediately converted.

Speaking of lol Castille, Granada is not only alive but has expended in Castillian territory.

Austrian Tunisia is... interesting

LOL Castille, can't believe Granada beat them down so bad that they were like "yeah and you better make our friends in Galicia free!" and Castille was like "okay "

LOL Ottomans

LOL England

LOL my schedule I don't have enough time to play this game

War taxes seem kinda broken, what are the effects of war exhaustion? If you can be like "sweet, I can declare war on this guy and do nothing but collect war taxes!!11" then that mechanic isn't right.

Here are the effects of War Exhaustion:



You generally don't have to worry about it if you're just beating up a small neighbor but in a war between equals it can build up over time pretty good. And if you start getting your ass kicked it can shoot up very quickly.

Revolt risk is the big thing, rebels popping up all over the place can be a huge pain in the ass.

Iiinteresting. What level of war exhaustion is causing that?