EU3

[The Sultan of Swank]

I need a way to make some more money, I'm only making about 78d a year and about 1 per month without having my inflation rise.

[Farmer Reil]

The Great Cypriot Adventure did not go well

After a few years of relatively good rule, we had the lofty idea of colonising the new world despite only being a small island in the Med. Then tragedy struck, as the Explorer, Conquistador, only army regiment and only naval fleet that we'd painstakingly saved up for... sank, just after the army got back on board after discovering Labrador. Luckily, we had just enough money to send colonists there, but unlucky, they got eaten. As if Canadians would know how to fight. Pfft. They have 1 for aggression AND ferocity.

But then, in 1464, someone did something retarded. And it wasn't me.

Lorraine declared war on France.

France, at this point, were allied with or were owners of:

Brittany, Orleans, Bourbon, Provence, Foix, Armagnac, Auvergne, Orleans, Rousillon, Saxony, the Teutonic Order (which was a bit random...), Norway (and hence Denmark), Scotland, two of the Irish states, Aragon, and most beautifully of all, CAS-FUCKING-TILLE.

We were allied with Athens, the tiny group of islands near Athens that begin with an N...

...and Lorraine

Needless to say, we didn't stand an awful lot of a chance. Cyprus became Scottish.

I think maybe a change of tact is in order. Rather than trying to learn how to play the game by staying out of everyone's way with a tiny country, I should learn how to play by taking a fuck-off big country and making it fuck-off bigger. Norway, here I come!

Edited March 30, 2007 by Farmer Reil

[The Sultan of Swank]

My Castille is slowly expanding. Portugal was inherited by the English, Morocco took Grenada so quickly I escaped with the Grenada province as my only vassal and I'm making moves on Aragon, and am about to swallow up Valencia and Barcelona before going after their islands. Now here's the fun part. I've got 13,000 muslim cavalry which are better than my Eruopean ones sitting to the south of me. They haven't made any moves yet, but they're just sitting there in Gibralter... waiting. England and I have a pretty good relationship(+200) and they only have 1,000 men in what was formerly Portugal. They've focused their efforts on colonizing and every year or 2 I learn about more land in Africa that the English found. I also have a military access pact with them. The one that's worrying me is France. My navy isn't powerful at all, but I've got around 20,000 men roaming around Castille. About 12,000 in the East where they'll siege Aragon for their remaining 2 Continental Europe provinces. Once my war is finished, and I've hopefully annexed the Aragonians, It's going to be a cold war for me as I'm going to build up at least 15,000 men and knights in each of the two provinces that bottleneck Europe from Spain. It obviously would be foolish to attack the french with only 30,000 men... would it? I need some strategy help.

The other option is hoping the French stay out of my business and take the islands from Aragon and use them to set up shop in Sicily(bastards have gone to war with me already) and work my way north.

Help?

[stokeriño]

Reil, face it. You are really shitty at picking countries. I won't even go into how badly Sweden always rapes Norway in my games. >_>

It obviously would be foolish to attack the french with only 30,000 men... would it?

Oh Christ yes.

Pay the French off. As long as you keep them sweet you can leave that border relatively secure and do whatever the fuck you want elsewhere.

[Gongsun Zan]

I think the problem with France is that they get a ton of soldiers at the start of the game to represent the Hundred Years War, immediately giving them a huge boost when it comes to killing off Savoy/Lorraine/Burgundy/England/Aragon

[The Sultan of Swank]

So I've started sucking French dick in exchange for not raping me, but I need some help now.

I need to find a way to make more money, I get about 6 merchants a year and I send then out to profitable CoT's in pairs of 2 or sets of 4, I'm only making about 78-88d a year which is a real pain in the ass for me. I know that right now a lot of the trouble for my monthly income is due to the fact that I've raised an army of well over 30,000 men to destroy Aragon and Sicily so after the war I'm cutting off the maintenance to the army and disbanding some of the units.

So here's how things have been going in my game. I have 1 province in Grenada as my vassal. The Moroccan's took the other two and have 13,000 men(mostly charge cavalry) in Gibralter. I've started an arms build-up in my border province to Gibralter, I think I have 9,000 charge cavalry there with another 5000 longbowmen in a neighbouring province. I decided that I wanted the highly valueable land of Valencia because Castille doesn't seem to be too profitable a nation. So I declared war on Aragon. After some initial trouble(Still getting used to waging war) I quickly secure the provinces of Piniero and Aragon and settle for peace with myself getting the two provinces that I seiged and 50d. I spend the better part of the next 4 years raising a navy of 14 Carracks and 5 Cogs. I've also added some more troop divisions in Aragon and Piniero. I declare war on Aragon again and send in 3 army groups. One, of 9,000 Knights and a leader, one of 7,000 knights and my King and one of 2,000 knights. I quickly destroy what armies they have and lay seige to Valencia and Aragon. I also float my navy into their waters and make quick work of the combined navies of both Aragon and Sicily(Both of whom no longer have a navy). I move armies onto their islands in the Med and within a year have seiged all of them into my occupation. I tried to annex Aragon but because I was in a war with both them and Sicily I was not able to do so. So later today I'm waging my ground campaign from Messina across the strait into southern Italy. It shouldn't take too long to do. And I'll have secured a piece of Europe that I can use to continue my expansion without running into the smelly French.

[stokeriño]

In case you're wondering, I am now officially Hated Throughout The World.

[The Sultan of Swank]

How do you make so much money?

[LL!]

Doesn't it feel great?

[stokeriño]

How do you make so much money?

Put simply, like this:

There's an old expression: Expand or Die. Every new colony that becomes a city earns me more tax, gives me more places to build workshops, customs houses, and other such money-producing structures. Right now I am earning 1237.1 ducats a year in my census taxes, while monthly I receive a gross income of 355.5 (313.6 of which goes into tech research, and after military mantenance etc. I get +28.7 ducats a month. Inflation is negative).

And LL, it's been one month so far and the following countries have declared war on me:

England

Poland

Mecklenburg

Oldenburg

Portugal

Savoy

Sicily

Algiers

Morocco

So I'll answer your question after I've seen how this pans out.

[Farmer Reil]

That's what I love about EU3.

In M2:TW, an Alliance is basically a pact that you won't attack the other country. Maybe. For a month or two. Sometimes, you MIGHT even help them out if they get attacked.

In EU3, an Alliance is an alliance, rather than a mere verbal peace treaty. A war is a proper fucking war. Norway, France and Scotland go to war with Sweden as a proper Alliance. Three on one, not one on one with maybe some help later on.

Sweden allies with England, England sends troops over to help Sweden out, and boom; France are laying siege to Wessex and Scotland take Northumbria.

England beg for peace and France get Calais into the bargain, no more war. England run away, Sweden are annoyed because their war didn't achieve anything at all due to circumstances beyond their control, and in the meantime Norway nab Lappland from under their noses.

One thing I haven't worked out yet though: If you ally with a country, and go to war with someone, are that countries allies at war too? Say, England are allied with Portugal. If France ally with Portugal and declare war on Spain, are England then at war with Spain too, in a friend-of-a-friend kind of way (assuming they're not still at war with France, or the Franco-Portuguese alliance wouldn't be possible in the first place )? Or is it only direct allies?

Edited March 31, 2007 by Farmer Reil

[stokeriño]

Only direct allies of the original two involved in the war declaration, definitely.

Prevents a string of alliances bringing the whole continent down every time Saxony and Brandenburg have a little spat.

Edited March 31, 2007 by stokeriño

[Farmer Reil]

Yeah, I was thinking that must be the case, or declaring war on someone would have to be the most thoroughly researched thing ever, just to find out who's actually going to be involved ¬_¬

[KevinStorm]

I just tried the demo with my 1.79 Ghz AMD Turion, 128 MB video card, and 1 GB RAM, and it runs, but is so slow I gave up on the screen after clicking Single Player.

I guess the "1.9 Ghz" requirement isn't an overstatement.

[stokeriño]

Indeed not.

Even if you'd been able to run the beginning of the game at a reasonable rate, by the time you'd got to the 17th century it'd be agony.

[KevinStorm]

I just bought this laptop last August, too. Oh well. I guess I will just have to live vicariously through reports from other people.

[Gongsun Zan]

Indeed not.

Even if you'd been able to run the beginning of the game at a reasonable rate, by the time you'd got to the 17th century it'd be agony.

[Farmer Reil]

Yeah, it seems to actually get faster the further on you get, due to there being less countries, and thus less 'turns' to take.

[The Sultan of Swank]

I need somem help here. I entered a royal marriage with Sweden(I'm Castille). My king dies in battle and I became the lesser partner in a personal union essentially making me their vassal and ally. Now here's the problem I'm in. I can't declare war on anyone, and I can't declare war on Sweden, why, because I'm their ally now. So to be able to declare war on them I'd need to end the alliance, but my role as a vassal and #1 country in the world, won't allow me to do so.

What do I do?

[stokeriño]

Wait for Sweden's king to die.

As the lesser partner in a personal union, you can't do shit because he's the one in charge. When he dies, you'll get a new monarch of your own.