EUIV: Tactics, Tips, Strategies, Questions....

[Nefaro]

I ended up paying Portugal fleet-basing rights long enough to get a couple of colonies going in Brazil, then canceled the contract. Once they grow into provinces I should be able to start exploring the rest of the coast and up Central America.

Yep!  They just have to finish colonizing into a regular province, not cored, in order to provide a port and it's associated fleet range.

I think they need to be cored before they count towards fleet/colonial range. When they first become a province there's a 1 or 2 province radius that is in supply but I believe anything beyond that need to be cored. That's at least what happened when I first colonized Brazil, my fleets took attrition damage all the way up to the coast until they where cored.

Yeah, maybe you're right about having to Core for the extra naval ranges.  I must've been thinking of being able to repair your ships in port there, without a core, so you can at least still stop there with a fleet and fix it up if you've suffered during a long trip.

[Nefaro]

I (maybe?) encountered a bug (and my first rage quit moment tonight). Was trying to crush a stack of ~15 rebels. I send a stack of ~30 troops against them, I beat them 5-6 times in a row, and each time their morale was broken and they would retreat to the next province. When I send my army after them they would go from broken morale up to full. Then on the last battle they retreated to the one province they had taken and the stack reinforced from 10 understrength regiments to 40 full strength regiments.

The morale boost sounds like a possible bug, but the extra regiments showing up may well have been more of them spawning in and greatly boosting up the overall morale while doing so. 

Regarding the morale boost - I've only had defeated Rebel armies be completely wiped out after the battle.  They wouldn't retreat, they'd just die.  I've not seen them actually retreat to fight another day.. at least when you kill them in the province they originally spawned.  Once they cap the first one and become mobile, this may be what happens.  That or if some nationalist rebels cross your border from a foreign province they just captured. 

As for the extra regiments popping up, I've seen that happen on an isolated island of mine without any meddling from me.  It happened when the revolt risk at that location was very high.  Like over 10% (was probably about 12 to 15 percent).  I left it alone for awhile, as I was already in a war, and it spawned two extra armies into that location very quickly.  Of course, if it spawns a bunch of new rebel troops in then they'll have full morale that will wash out any recently defeated smaller army's morale loss due to there being so many more full-up fresh troops. 

That would be my first guess anyway, as I've seen some similar rare cases such as that.  But it may well be a bug causing extra troop spawns or something.  *shrug*

[Kushan]

Regarding the morale boost - I've only had defeated Rebel armies be completely wiped out after the battle.  They wouldn't retreat, they'd just die.  I've not seen them actually retreat to fight another day.. at least when you kill them in the province they originally spawned.  Once they cap the first one and become mobile, this may be what happens.  That or if some nationalist rebels cross your border from a foreign province they just captured. 

They had captured the original province they started in, but even when I had crushed them in that province they still retreated. Maybe part of the design? Was just frustrating to use up 15k man power in reinforcements for one stack of rebels, especially when they should have been wiped out multiple times. By the time this stack of rebels appeared my over extension was down to about 15%. Don't think that had much to do with the increased stack numbers.

Either way think I'm going to be starting a new game. I've got a CK2 game running on auto. See who survives to the end before I choose who I'm going to play as. Also planning on giving Venice a try soon.

I want to try and do a small mod to increase Spain and possibly Portugal's colonial range when the Columbus event happens. Give them a little bit of a head start on colonization that I think they should have. Maybe (if possible) increase their supply range with the event too so Spain at least can get the Caribbean without taking the long way.

[son_of_montfort]

Well, I successfully took the Aztec empire as Spain, but it took me much longer than the actual conquest. The Overextension rules meant that I either had to totally annex the Aztecs, but suffer a 220% OE penalty - and thus suffer incessant rebellions, huge diplomatic hits, and general "bad luck" events throughout my empire - or I had to conquer a large piece, do a truce, core all the provinces, rinse and repeat. While that worked fine, it was a little less realistic to what actually happened.

I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.

[Nefaro]

I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.

The low-tech nations tend to have lots of highly profitable goods but their tax rates are generally pretty poor, and taxes are the basis for determining force limits if IIRC.  They also don't tech up much so they don't get a bunch of new buildings (perpaps almost none at all?) & units to buy as the game goes on.  Having small armies, almost no buildings, and decent production income so after the game has progressed quite a ways, they tend to build up lots of wealth that they can't spend. 

Once a foreign power beats the snot out of them, they have tons of cash so the conqueror can demand large amounts in a peace treaty. 

[son_of_montfort]

That seems "gamey." I guess it can signify the amounts of pelts, gold, slaves, spices, etc. that are given to me in tribute?

[jomni]

I also managed to extort the Iroquios out of 4000 gold. That has to be a bug.

The low-tech nations tend to have lots of highly profitable goods but their tax rates are generally pretty poor, and taxes are the basis for determining force limits if IIRC.  They also don't tech up much so they don't get a bunch of new buildings (perpaps almost none at all?) & units to buy as the game goes on.  Having small armies, almost no buildings, and decent production income so after the game has progressed quite a ways, they tend to build up lots of wealth that they can't spend. 

Once a foreign power beats the snot out of them, they have tons of cash so the conqueror can demand large amounts in a peace treaty.

While I was playing the Aztec I was able to stockpile more than 2000 gold during peace time.  Nefaro's analysis is correct.
I lost them all in a peace treaty with the Portuguese.

[Nefaro]

While I was playing the Aztec I was able to stockpile more than 2000 gold during peace time.  Nefaro's analysis is correct.
I lost them all in a peace treaty with the Portuguese.

It's really quite easy to get 2-5k ducats once your nation has grown in size, and especially in Trade.  I've been up over 6k at one point, because I didn't really need to spend them on a lot at that point.  The Monarch Points have become the bottleneck, so dumping a huge amount of monthly income into higher-tier Advisors is where it's begun to go.  Last I looked, I was making over 80 ducats a month in Trade income alone. 

Anyway, my point is that you can build up that much loot fairly quickly with a large colonial & trading power, so it isn't quite as massive as it seems compared to game start (when everyone is dirt poor) or compared to a one or two province nation.  Sure it's pretty large, but it's still only a one-shot deal AFAICT anyway.  We could probably just consider it the initial pillaging, looting, and ransom of a conquered native nation. 

[son_of_montfort]

Hmm... I routinely only have around 8-9 ducats a month and I have a Spanish Empire that encompasses the Aztec, Maya, much of what we call the Thirteen Colonies, the Iroquois, and I have a Personal Union with Portugal (which will eventually be integrated into my realm... that will be awesome). But I have huge military expenditures, so that could be the problem.

[bbmike]

I really must be missing something economic-wise. I finally was able to form Great Britain and even started a colony on the west coast of Greenland. The whole game my monthly income would fluctuate between .5 and 1.8 a month or so. My overall balance stayed at about 0 and I had to take a couple of loans. Once Reformation hit the rebels went wild (inspiring the Scottish to rise up as well) and I decided to board the royal yacht and move to what would eventually become Brazil (though in this alternate universe it'll probably be known as Le Brazileaux.  :P

Maybe I'm not building enough buildings in my provinces? Do you guys build markets, temples, docks etc. everywhere?

[Kushan]

Maybe I'm not building enough buildings in my provinces? Do you guys build markets, temples, docks etc. everywhere?

Yes, you should be building trade improvement in building in any province that is in a trade node you control. What you really want to go for as early as you can is diplomatic tech level 7. It gives access to constables and temples. 1 of them increases the tax income in the province it is built and the other increases the tax base. Build them in every one of your provinces. Pay attention to the guild menu, it will overlay on the map what the increase in gold/man power/etc from building any particular building is going to be. Build in those that give the biggest boost first then work your way down.

[tgb]

Also, if you don't already do so, during peacetime army maintenance can be turned all the way down.  If you are really strapped you should be able to turn naval maintenance down to about 60% without affecting trade too much. Speaking of which, make sure you have light warships (as many as you can afford) protecting your trade routes.  That and exploration are pretty much all they are good for.  Only develop one colony at a time, no matter how many colonists you have, until you are making a substantial profit each month.   Colonial development is very expensive.

[Nefaro]

I tend to keep my army maintenance slider, during peacetime, at about 50%.  One reason:  it only takes 1 month to recover to full morale so the next time it hits the 1st, after raising it to full, my armies should be at full morale. 

Another is for when you have some rebels popping up.  You can generally fight and win without having to raise your slider up, especially after getting a some Military tech-ups that give bonus morale, and perhaps some Ideas.  Just make sure you outnumber them and put move your general into the rebel-stomping army in question. 

You want to construct buildings in provinces, but only build ones appropriate to what you need.  The Temple, which gives +1 tax per year, is always a good choice for anything.  While it'll take ~50 years to make that back (or less if you have tax bonuses), it's still a way to increase your monthly income and therefore offset your expenses along the way.  I also construct Trade Power bonus buildings - especially for provinces in my home trading node.  It may be a good idea to build land and naval recruitment specialized provinces because the reduced cost bonuses also translate into reduced upkeep costs of the units created there.  I tend to keep just one land recruitment province in each specific land area separated by water and just build all my units there once it's up to par.  If you're a large colonial/trade/naval power, it may be best to have a few naval bases to build ships in, since they take longer.  The main point of these military provinces is to save upkeep (primarily) and build a bit faster when in need.

The buildings that provide spy defense are very situational.  If you have a territory in which someone is constantly placing claims on, those can slow it down.   Dunno how much more toil that will cause your aggressor, but perhaps it can delay his plans a bit?  It may be a good idea to raise these up for your capital, however, since I suspect that some general spy missions will target your capital province every time.  The only time I've used the Goods Production increase is when I've achieved domination in a trade good and it's a close-run thing.  Pumping up production of said trade good can help you retain your advantage there, especially since the other nations are always getting bumps to it and attempting to knock you down below the required 20%.

The really cool thing about the Build Mode view (the crossed hammer button in the top left of the UI) is that when you select a building, it will calculate how much of a bonus each eligible province will get, after appropriate modifiers.  So you can see which provinces will profit the most from a specific building type and construct accordingly.  Since buildings use monarch points, in addition to money,  you'll only be constructing only small amounts at any one time.

[bbmike]

Thanks for the tips, guys! I'll try them tonight when I start Great Britain II: The Wrath of Gussie Fink-Nottle.  ;D

[Kushan]

Does anyone know if its possible to raise your countries opinion of another? Started a game as Austria and two of the missions have to do with Burgundy. One is to form an alliance, the other is to get a royal marriage. The Burgundy opinion of Austria is easy to improve. But Austria's opinion of Burgundy is -2. How do you increase Austria's -2 to a positive number? I ran into the same issue in my Castile game with England. I wanted to form a alliance with England, so I sent a diplomat to improve relations. I got the English opinion of Castile improved, but Castile still hated England for a variety of reasons (most notably they were protestant and they were a competitor for world domination)