Thanks for the tip

So the best army composition would actually be 12/8/4 right now ?

More like 12/4, no?

Hey, I should prolly give you an update on what I did with France.

Mostly what I did was rebuild the army and fight the rebels from the war weariness. Then I built a modest navy (its already over the force limit but whatever) and conquered Benin. I took a decision that increased narrowmindedness and such because you really need some missionaries if you want to, first of all, convert the heretics in France and second of all, convert any potential colonial conquests like Benin. Even so the missionaries are slow to create. France is still under religious infighting event chain so its pretty important to convert.

Not very exciting or anything. FWIW, normally I'd say try to grab whats left of Asia but since the missionaries are so hard to come by I'd personally focus on colonizing Africa. Some of the provinces aren't bad.

you can flank 4 cav total, 2 per side. So in terms of maximizing flanking having 4 regiments of cav is all you need.

Artillery will lend half of its defense to the unit in front of it (if you look at the battle box you'll notice they line up in the back instead of the front). So to max them out you'd need equal numbers of them and infantry.

Course, it's not that simple. Those of us with better cav than latin knights may choose to use more than 4k cavalry just because our cav is better than our infantry. Also you have to factor in how big your support limits are in each of your provinces, generally speaking you don't want a standard army size that will take attrition in a lot of your provinces. Also, and this is personal preference, I find having at least 12k infantry in each stack is needed for efficient assaulting.

Right now my army is organized into 22 regiments per army. 4 regiments art, 6 regiments cav, 12 regiments inf

If you know you're going to lose a battle, is there some way to queue up a retreat asap? I waste a lot of time watching one particular battle, furiously clicking for my stack to gtfo as soon as the required 12 days are up.

So ya, a series of very specific and very memorable mistakes on my part lead to a negative or 0 stability for all of last session, an inability to compete in trade, no colonial potential, and the very direct and understandable animosity of DooM and members of his alliance. As far as laughably high inflation (down 5 pts this session, and still at 8%) and little, quality European territory, I am totally blaming that on coming to the game 2 sessions in with most of Europe vassalized and several periods of AI control.

My real goal on Saturday is to change the tone of my diplomacy, and I look forward to continuing this game and seeing how long I can hold off the great powers—tactical experience if nothing else. But I’m also going to second Ranok here and say that I’m looking forward to a fresh start in the relatively near future.

Fair enough, though i think i've given Sweden a fair enough go of it in the one session and a half i've played them. Main problem now is the computer left me with 10.3% inflation which I couldn't reduce last session.

As for the economy, going into Saturday's session my economy was pretty good, stats show i was generating even higher trade income than Hansa. But last session's Asian conquering spree (which i probably had to do in the long term) raked up infamy and destroyed trade. Once that goes and those provinces get better, it should improve.

Still it gives me a good decision and makes me reasonably attractive as an ally in that whilst wars go on in Europe i can force a fight on two fronts by fighting in Asia and at least do something (Unlike boring GB). At least that's my thinking.

I also am looking forward to a new game where i can start from the beginning - maybe as someone like Burgundy.

Yeah I finally realized I was Spain. TBH I'm also looking forward to next game as this was a learning curve, though we should probably finish this off with some clash .

Since many people are bringing it up, I'm ok with it if we decide to start a new game and call this one done. There's no clear winner yet, but the great powers are so far ahead of the others the strategic situation is kind of boring, we're just waiting for the next Hansa vs Milan war to decide who gets europe.

If we do start a new game I call dibs on the netherlands

I'd like to continue, this game has been pretty fun and its the longest we've ever gone, but I'm ok with starting a new game if everyone else chooses. A new game will likely be even better since everyone is more experienced and we would have another 3-4 people playing

yeah our last game with 12+ people was absolutely insane from the start

I just don't think much is going to change in this game anymore. Big 3 gonna Big 3.

Yeah my vote is still for a new game. Even if I win this war it'll just be another 2 sessions of boring colonial expansions until I can approach relevance.

This would be worth having though because it would be interesting. Total war.

I call Castile! And I promise to whoever plays as Portugal that I will not attempt to treat you like a redheaded stepchild.

btw, Daer, I had some more questions in this post if you could answer them.

If the three big guys want to have another session for a final throw down, I think they deserve that, and I would play in it whole heartedly...the armies would probably meet in Austria anyway, and I'd have a front row seat.

If we move on to a new game, I'd like to try out England, if Flyingbanana isn't planning to give it another go. I've been humming "Brittania rules the waves" all day.

I'm not Daer (much cooler ldo) but i can answer

My advisors are basically master of mint/diplomat (or w/e its called who is -infamy)/other. Other alternates between +legitimacy guy, theologist, collector (dat trade efficiency yo), colonial range if you are colonizing, really whatever else you need. Master of mint you should have 100% of the game because you should always have some inflation to remove and/or be minting. Diplomacy adviser also 100% of the game because you should always have some infamy to be reducing.

Cavalry start initially more powerful but that quickly changes as soon as you get men at arms/longbowmen. Muslims and eastern tech ppl get better cav with shock 2/3 that makes then very strong until later on. Cav is also much more expensive and takes additional terrain penalties for bad terrain.

I've been playing this game for like 2 years and still have no idea how the nuts and bolts of this work fwiw. How I do it is if I am fighting normally I get troops built for defensive, if I plan to rapidly assault my way across the enemy territory I get whatever infantry has the best offensive stats (so reformed gallogleigh etc over landskect).

I'd be happy with new game. A final throwdown with the old one before we start sounds fun though.

I have no strong preferences for a country. I only took England last game because it was one of the last countries remaining. Turns out I'm quite a peaceful coloniser. That will have to change next game.

If we restart I'd like one of these:

- Burgundy if no France, France otherwise;
- England
- Milan
- Ottomans

In that order.

The problem wrt Portugal is that it's fairly boring in MP but not having one makes Castille kinda OP unless multiple big powers guarantee it (and even then, since it will be so late to the new world Castille will be HUGE there).

Selim here what are we doing then.

I guess everyone list your top 3 u want to be

looks like 1 last session (you can sub as france again since DooM says he will be absent) where the Big 3 throw down for control of all of Europe.

For next game (which we might as well start organizing now):

1) Teutonic Order
2) Byzantines (if there are no ottomans)
3) Austria

Alright then.

Timurids
Muscowy
Poland

Castile, France, Burgundy? I dunno, I'm down for suggestions on what a noob should play in their first MP game.

My top picks for a new game:

Timurids
France/Burgundy
England
Castille
Venice
TO
Morocco

no desire to play any others