EU3

[LL!]

Yeah, I notice that France tends to keep its vassals in tact. I don't plan on keeping Connaught as a vassal for long, I'm just going to wait till I can expand a bit more to come back and take over when they least expect it.

Also that picture of Spain is hilarious. It's almost like if Portugal is there to accentuate the nose on the "head".

[LL!]

Jesus, how hard is it to make money in this game? I think I've only seen my money rise to 300 for like 2 days before it started another free-fall. Without money I can't hire advisors and without advisors I can't get merchants to compete in the trade market.

There has to be another way to make money. Do any of you know?

[Gongsun Zan]

Generally, it's best to lose money each month, and live off your annual taxes.

The alternative is to put money into your treasury in your finance screen (the very bottom slider). However, unless you have the national bank idea, or lots of tax accessors built everywhere, I'd advise against it, since it creates inflation, which just makes everything more expensive.

Oh, and also lower your army mantainence fees when not at war. It really helps to cut costs.

Also, train regiments instead of buying mercenaries.

[LL!]

So, I began to implement some of those tips Zan, and it worked wonderfully. Here's what happened.

A lot of nothing went by as we waited around year after year to try and raise money. Eventually, the current King at the time, King James V, kicked the bucket and in came Diplomatic Powerhouse, King James VI (that's right, in less than 100 years we're already in James VI).

I don't know what happened, but the money started rolling in like it was nobody's business. We became the leaders of not only the Papacy, but were voted as the leaders of the whole fucking Holy Roman Empire.

For the next few years we were untouchable as we began to build our army due to our allies such as England and Saxony being trigger happy and waging war against pretty much everyone. We needed to be prepared. Even then the money was still rising like crazy.

Just when the money reached about 20,000 ducats (!!!), sadly, James VI passed away, but Henry I took his place, and we remained at the top of the HRE (but not the Papacy). The good news came when, finally, the New World began to start revealing itself. We were all over that bitch.

We decided to begin colonizing Guantanamo (the province at the eastern end of Cuba), The Bahamas, Timucula (the top right province of Florida), and Seminole (the bottom province of Florida). About 10 years later all three were colonized and ready for our final touches. Meanwhile, the English had declared war on what was left of Brittany, so we swooped in and took Venees, considering we were allies and we joined the war with them. It happened just like the French did to me.

Luckily the settlements brought in EVEN MORE money. So, now, we're rolling in the dough. Henry I died rather quickly and for a short while we were run by a Regency which lost us some money until James VII came in a few short months after.

With the money back on the rise, I decided to build up my army a bit more on the mainland and then ship them off to The New World. We decided to declare war on the Creek Indians whom had the land just above Seminole and next to Timucula. Those lands included what is present day Georgia, Pensacola, present day Alabama, and some other province I forget the name of. Their main province was Mobile (present day Alabama).

Considering they weren't full-fledged colonies, taking over was easy. I would send my soldiers to say Pensacola and if there were no armies there I would immediately take over the province. Of course, the Creek had a not so nice friend to the north called the Cherokee. Luckily, England came to the rescue against them and took their land.

Anyway, we ended up obtaining, Pensacola, present day Georgia, and the other one I can't remember about as Tribute for peace after the war. They kept their main province of Mobile.

Shortly after that, for no reason whatsoever, Norway gave up that very tiny island right about our Scottish mainland to us. I still don't know why they would do such a thing. Whatever.

That's where I left off.

I love this game.

[stokeriño]

Success:

And aside from Calais and Gascogne (from England) and Avignon (from the Papal States), that was all through diplo-annexing as well. Okay, so Aragon still have Roussillon, but they're allied with Castille so I'm not particularly inclined to try anything that stupid at the moment. Still, looks much better doesn't it?

For some reason I've become plagued by the 'Hanseatic Kontor' event - as in, literally, getting it three or four times a year. It annoys the fuck out of me.

Oh sure, if you accept you get +2 prestige, +2 Merchants, [some province] +10% tax income for 30 years, BUT you also get a -1 stability hit as well, so I can't go around accepting them all over the place. I've only accepted two thus far, and the rest I had to decline which gave me -2 prestige and Aristocracy +1. So now I'm full on Aristocracy (which I don't especially want), and my big healthy prestige is being eaten away more quickly than normal. It's kind of like how I'd get the "Italian Engineer" event every other week while playing as Austria, although at least that time declining only gave a simple -1 prestige hit. As I said, these events annoy the fuck out of me.

[NobBe Nobbs]

I really want this game, but I have no money to buy it with.

Damn.

[stokeriño]

The event that's whoring on me now is the 'Colonial Expansion' event, where for the tidy sum of a mere 30 ducats I can get a 200 population increase in a random colony, plus a +2% colonist success chance and -10% colonist cost.

Needless to say, this is one event whoring I am actually liking. Which is probably why I've spent the last two hours of this afternoon just sweeping colonies across North America (not building them up yet, just throw 100 people in and move on). I've literally got the entire of Canada and am working my way south through the Mid-West. The only other major colonial power in North America is Castille (no doubt soon to be Spain, since they inherited the throne of Aragon a while back), which basically has your typical US colonies (that England ought to have), though expanded westwards through to around Tennessee. I'm actually allied with Castille though, which allows me to peacefully swoop round and cut them off from the rest of America without any trouble. Hopefully by the time they catch on to what I'm doing, my colonies will have become cities and I'll be virtually unstoppable.

[LL!]

You coniving bastard, I knew you'd come to the dark side.

However, HOW DARE YOU pick France? My most hated enemy in this game. I was all "can I have military access, you know, considering we did help you about 100 years back when you were at war with everyone and everyone hated you?"

And they were all "No."

The war I will wage on them soon will destroy them... verily.

[stokeriño]

I hate Castille far, far more than France, so it's when I play as them that I'll have officially been turned to the 'dark side'.

I've actually had Scotland as my vassals for aaaages, alwyas on +200 relationship, and for a while now I've had the little 'crowns' tab at the top to say "Just in case you were so dim-witted not to have noticed by now, YOU CAN SO VERY, VERY EASILY DIPLO-ANNEX SCOTLAND. DO IT".

But I don't want to annex Scotland. All that will happen is that England will say "we want Calais back" and twat all my Scottish provinces in short order, thereby putting me in a bit of a pickle so far as victory score is concerned.

Fuck Europe. Canada's where the future is.

[Gongsun Zan]

I dare you to try and invade Ming.

...as a European nation.

[stokeriño]

Fuck off. I went to war with Ming as Japan already (unintentionally, since apparently Korea had somehow managed to ally with them in the previous few seconds before I declared war) and that's just death waiting to happen.

[LL!]

Speaking of Diplo-Annexing, I totally buttered up Connaught and Diplo-Annexed them. Something I forgot to mention in my last post. I'm so deliciously evil.

[stokeriño]

Greatest. Screen. Ever.

[LL!]

That is just... wow... You are more ludicruously evil to time than I am.

I'll type up an update tomorrow, lots of stuff going on, including LOTS of expansion into the New World pretty much taking the whole south.

[stokeriño]

...

This game has officially passed into the realms of insanity.

Edited March 26, 2007 by stokeriño

[LL!]

What's funny is in my game, I've already entered into the 1600's and Spain still hasn't been established.

[stokeriño]

It never got established in any of my other games either. They just got lucky this time by inheriting the throne of Aragon via random event.

What's amusing is that Castille rebelled against Spain and now holds sovereign control over the Canaries. It's sort of a China/Taiwan situation.

Edited March 26, 2007 by stokeriño

[ONO]

So, I wanna start a 1600 version of Hitler and the Nazis, invade countries and stir up a lot of shit. Can I do it in this game?

Edited March 26, 2007 by Lost Soul

[LL!]

You'd have to start from the 1400's and build up your army focusing on Land Technology advancements and military-biased Government technologies.

I'm saying cause it might take a while and you'd need a very strong army to do it.

[The Sultan of Swank]

Tonight I'm gonna start a new game. Someone recommend me a nation. I want to have a most powerful army, but I need to make lots of money to do so. In fact someone tell me how to make lots of Ducats because I can never make much more that 60 or so a year and 1 or 2 a month.