What's the best strategy for forming the Russian nation? Requirements are...

- Cores in Moskva and Novgorod
- Core in Nizhny Novgorod or Vladimir
- Core in Tver or Yaroslavl
- Core in Chernigov or Smolensk.

I was playing as Muscovy last night and I start with cores in Moskva/Nizhny Novgorod/Vladimir, so that's taken care of. I got a mission to vassalize Tver that rewarded me with a core on it, and a mission to vassalize Novgorod that gave me a core on it. Which leaves Chernigov or Smolensk...no missions or anything for those like there are for the other nations. Do I have any options other than just steamrolling them and waiting 50 years?

(was annoying from an infamy perspective, the game never actually gave me the subjugation CBs for those vassalization missions, lol - plus I had to take some of Novgorod's provinces in two diff wars to even be able to vassalize them in the third)

On defection:
Also, the wiki says it has a mean time to happen of 25 years. Not really a strategy I would use.
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Pr...efection_event

I believe there is a mission to conquer smolensk goofy, at least I remember there being one.

The missions for Chernigov and Smolensk have always been random 'unite our cultural/religious brothers' type missions AFAIK. SO you need some luck to get them, or just get the conquests early on and wait 50 years.

My nation of Portugal has, with no clear conscience undertaken operation cockroach. The Germanic trade nation of Mecklenburg has with shocking speed displaced our merchants from 2 entire centers of trade. The merchant ambassador to the king, consulting with his finest military advisors have formulated a plan of a sneak attack with the entire Portuguese military. With the swiftness that our merchants have been forced to retire, and well, beg us for handouts to feed their worthless families, we will conquer and storm their province before their numerous allies have the chance to react and bog us down into another worthless power struggle. Demanded of them will be either 250 ducats for reparations to the royal treasurey, or full annexation and transfer of control to the Arabs of Tripoli, our vassal. Hah, imagine the social awkwardness and unease the peoples of Europe will feel when a Portuguese backed Arab state attempts to coexist with them side by side. The king was reported to have been giddy after hearing the plans. We feel the shame of Denmark's last botched 'conquest' will be afresh in their minds before they finally collect the nerve to take the lands back.

Also, the viceroy from the Azores has formulated the new foreign policy FGFCC (Foie gras, fishnchips, chicharones).

We shall colonize and conquer all areas unsuitable for national control, and with the charm of an evil seductress, offer these lands to the nations of France, England, and Castille. We hope that this will not only strengthen relations and make them feel we are friends and placate their naturally bloodthirsty ways, but also placate their colonial appetites and bog down their economies. We shall call these lands "The Grassland presents"

There's enough time to still find a sub from here or the paradox forums for saturday imo.

I'd prefer not to switch as I think the first session is pretty important for Vijay for it to expand quickly to take down all potential resistance quickly and also try and get all the cores for Hinduistan fast.

Haha, That's what I did in my Netherlands game - anytime one of my NW colonies popped up fish/naval supplies I sold it 4 free to those poor bastards in Castille.

Anyone know how to see what penalty the "time at sea" modiifier is if you are in supply range? Cus its kinda annoying not knowing and I guess it is a big factor in naval battles cus I just lost my entire 35 ship fleet to Britain's 45 or so ships in a blink of an eye ya they had a 5 fire admiral but my ships shouldn't have been rolled like they were.

time at sea has nothing to do with battles

Did your ships take a bunch of attrition for some reason?

No they shouldn't have had any attrition we were fighting off the coast of France. Unless the time at sea was a form of attrition hence my question

lmfao England might have sunk my fleet and send me 10 years+ backwards but raping their stability with deals they are refusing FTMFW

This game is very strange indeed. Up until a short while ago their war capacity was at 100% and once they knocked out my fleet mine plummeted to 7%. They wouldn't accept my white peace even though the war score was about 50% in our favor. So I started attacking their stability with money demands and a province they refused 2 times. After the second refusal the war capacity for both of us was about 45% so they took the deal. Stability might have a huge affect on war capacity and that # seems to be just a big as factor as the war score.

yeah war capacity is a messed up measure, no idea what goes into it and it rarely correlates with actual strength.

LOL AI.

Brandenburg, once you get out of the shackles of the PU and get your legitimacy up/can finally get some CB's going, can be fun.







.. dat AUSTRIA:



Worst. Shape. Ever. That's got to be the most inefficient territory.

And this is where the game broke:



Inheriting France that early removed all challenge. It was fun to keep playing and unite Prussia, but from that point on it was all a steamroll.

The reason I post these pics is that the biggest flaw with the game is the inconsistency (at least in SP) in the difficulty. I tried to play on very hard and it was very tough in the early years. However, in normal mode, when you pass the first century or so things get very easy. This is because the AI sucks at inflation. Look at my numbers above, I have little inflation with a middle power (starting), BB. Meanwhile, France and Spain have huge inflation and so on for the other countries. I guess Austria and GB aren't doing too bad yet but I'd have to check my latest game save for that status. Mind you, I maintained a strong (non-max though because I took NI's and other things that made for very big Force LImits) army all game and was plenty active. I also built a ton of buildings.

Obviously inheriting France in ~1500 also made the game a LOT easier. I thought hard about just letting them separate at my King's death but I had never inherited France and wanted to.

So, is there any way to fix this inflation madness with the AI? Does playing with no inflation make the game better in terms of fun playing vs the AI over long periods?

I think my next game will be a Prussian start in ~1700-1720 and try to unite Germany. Because AI will start at same level as me, I think it should make for a fun late-game challenge.

In my Netherlands game, Austria had somehow taken a huge chunk of Golden Horde and Anatolia, while the Ottomans expanded into the Balkans and started taking a chunk of Austria's European holdings. Austria was basically an Asian power. lol.

My game Burgandy is the new France and France is the new... Brittany I guess lol they got 3 provinces left at the Italian Austrian border

I haven't played that much SP beyond this game and a cool .nl game. Does Austria alwasy expand like a ******? Why don't they go after the Balkans, as traditional?

How about colonization? In my game it's 1600 and less than 10 provinces in the New World have been colonized. By Scotland and Savoy, at that.

fish provinces and naval supplies aren't thaaaaat bad are they?

generally speaking the AI is a tard. Any half-good human will wipe the floor with it

To be fair, the Balkans are pretty terrible

You can support more troops and ships sure, but your stability and research costs are disproportionately penalized.
One good thing about them is that if you have at least 10 throughout your empire, your new colonies are less likely to to start producing them.

We're playing tomorrow morning right?

Yes

11am east coast US?
Hamachi details please

the hamachi server is eu3 2+2

I think the password is "wat"