Europa Universalis III

[Skwerl]

Any suggestions for a new player?  I've played other Paradox games extensively (Victoria and HOI II) and was able to get a grasp on them fairly quickly.  This game on the other hand has me completely baffled.

[Pete Dero]

Best way to learn :

Europa Universalis III - England by Quill18

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL643FF17A29C05991

Europa Universalis III - England Let's Play/Learn by Aruma :

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLH-huzMEgGWDxqIifUFmKcYyTt3WaJsnn

[JasonPratt]

Any suggestions for a new player?

Play EUIV. ;)

[undercovergeek]

Definitely recommend Arumba for all things eu

[Nefaro]

Any suggestions for a new player?

Play EUIV. ;)

This.

;D

[Boggit]

^^Although when you've invested in all the dlc for EU3, it's hard to justify it - or is it?

[MetalDog]

Any suggestions for a new player?

Play EUIV. ;)

This.

;D

Thirded  >:D

I tried to like the EU series starting with 2.  I'm considered reasonably intelligent by most of the folks I know, and I have to say, that game escaped me.  3 was much better in terms of my understanding, but, it still seemed unnecessarily difficult.  On the other hand, 4 was easy and intuitive in a lot of ways that 2 & 3 are not.

Having said all of the above, I enjoy Paradox games for their subject matter and time periods.  A steep learning curve, while a challenge, is not enough to deter me.  At least until I have proven to my self that I am just hopeless at it.  Then it's ok to move on ;)

[Skwerl]

Thanks for the help!

[Nefaro]

I can't say EU4 is easier than EU3 but #4 definitely got rid of some of the really annoying mechanics in EU3 (yes, including all it's DLC).  Never gonna look back now!  O0

[glen55]

First, pause.  You have a lot of stuff to do.

Do your policy slider movement.  You only get to move 1 tick every 10 years, so you need to have a long-term plan.  What your plan should be could be the subject of a whole book.  And the best way to get that info is to browse the forums and the wiki.  There is nothing new under the EU 3 sun, and everything is pretty fully explained somewhere.  There are gigotons of guides, suggestions and discussions on those sites.

But at any rate, don't waste your tick and try your best to come back and do your next tick in exactly 10 years, not 10 years and 1 month, so that you can get the maximum slider movement during the course of the game, and as early as possible.

Buy your advisors if you can afford them and there are good ones.  Early in the game, the advisors that give you research are the best buy (if you can afford them), because the points that they add to your research will dramatically increase your amount of early research.  Later, they continue to add the same points of research, and it's not such a big deal.  Example:  at the beginning of the game your total expenditure on government research might be 8 points. Buy a 6-star government advisor and you get 18 more points, which more than triples your total expenditure on government research.  200 years down the road, you may have 200 points of government research and your 18 points for the 6-star is less than a 10% boost. These numbers are just made-up, not accurate, but that's the general picture of why research is good early on, and may help you get out in front of your opponents.  Later on, you may have specific needs, like inflation - philosopher is always good in the late game.  (Remember, though, that research gets more and more expensive when you get out in front of the curve in a field, whereas you get some free research in a field you're behind in.)

I dump all my research into stability at the start and try to get my stability up to at least 2, perhaps 3, before I spend significant research on anything other than stability.  Stability is huge.  (In fact, if you want to cheat in this game, and who doesn't, one of the more effective cheats is to run from backup whenever you take one of those painful random stability hits.  A new RNG will be generated and it likely won't happen again.  If it does, go back to an earlier save and it probably won't.)

Once I'm spending on research, I mostly spread my research around, because they're all good, and you get more total when you don't focus, but production is critical to open up some opportunities to purchase economy buildings.  Unless you're England or somebody who feels they can defend with the fleet (and alliances), land is a crucial tech.  Some countries can pretty much ignore naval.  You might ignore trade if you do the no-trade strategy, but most countries need trade.

At any rate, I try to keep the treasury slider set all the way to the left so that I create 0 inflation.  Other players play differently, and I have heard it said many times that is is "impossible" to get started with this or that country without a little inflation, but in my experience that's typically not true, you just have to go through a period of austerity with little research or spending and then you come out the other side without inflation while everybody else has it.  Having said this, don't freak out about a little inflation, because while it's practically impossible to get rid of through the standard mechanics of underspending, random events that take inflation aware outnumber random events that have it, and over time, a small amount of inflation will go away.  Just KEEP IT SMALL or, like me, none at all.

What you do next very much depends on what country you're playing.  You may have a specific military opportunity in front of you, and if so, you may need to spend a bunch on building new units, e.g., if you are England you probably want to pop out a few to start about the business of unifying the isles (or a lot if you want to get aggressive and fight France); or you may have some specific mission that requires a military force (but don't try to execute missions that will get you in trouble, just abandon them (or, better yet, start over til you get a good mission)).  If you are Austria or Bohemia you want to start bribing electors early and it is a major focus of your economy.

Also, before you unpause, try to make royal marriages and alliances.  The big players are available for alliances at the very beginning of the game, but if you wait a month you're hosed and may go the entire game without that sweet alliance with France or England or whomever would be most helpful.

If you don't have a specific military goal or mission, consider spending just the minimum on military.  Save your money to buy economic structures.  They're all good in my view, except you might not want the trade buildings if you aren't going to play a trading strategy.  however, in the long run, trading is good for most nations.  This is another subject that could have an entire book written about it.

And yeah, EU IV is better, but EU III is pretty sweet.  Do you have the version with all the expansions?  Make sure you have the latest patch, the patches have massively changed the game for the better.

Another tip: if it's all patched up?  The manual is all but worthless, everything has been superseded.  The ONLY way to figure out how to do the little details that have to be done is through the forum, the wiki or trial and error.

And speaking of trial and error, save early with different saves. YMMV, but my personal saving mechanism is to save it once every 4 years, with 5 rotating saves, so I always have a save that is 20 years old (because you may not realize how badly you've hosed yourself for several years after a particularly bad noob decision).  I set the game to autosave every 6 months, although every month ain't bad, either.  When I am about to go to war or do something else very complex, I will make a special save that I call "War" and then I will make War1, War2, etc. and so on, so that I'm not stuck with a single "war."  So that's three different categories of saves and usually about 10 choices of a save to go to.  Multiple choices of saves is really key to this game when you don't fully understand what you're doing.

I'm kinda rusty, or my advice could be more specific.  I have played a very great deal of this game, even more than I've played EU IV.  If you have questions, ask and I'll check back later.

[jomni]

I can't say EU4 is easier than EU3 but #4 definitely got rid of some of the really annoying mechanics in EU3 (yes, including all it's DLC).  Never gonna look back now!  O0

EU4 for me too.  It's got some automation stuff and better game mechanics.

[endfire79]

I started with EUIII after a big delay (like 5 years delay, I didn't have time to catch up since EU II).  Then EUIV came out and I had to say it blew me away (same Clausewitz engine as Crusader Kings II which was a blast). 

Go EU IV, you will not regret it.

[Pete Dero]

Any suggestions for a new player?

Play EUIV. ;)

And now you can try EUIV for free this weekend : http://store.steampowered.com/app/236850/