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

[tgb]

200 years in and I'm doing pretty well as Spain.  Now that I've shown those heathen Incas the error of their ways, I pretty much own South America, and am well on my way to colonizing the Eastern Seaboard, with my only competition coming from France.  Portugal no longer exists (I took over the throne during the Iberian Succession event), have annexed Aragon, and am both Defender of the Faith and on my way to controlling the Holy See.

[Nefaro]

Something I don't understand.

Two of my allies go to war against each other (Austria vs Naples). I get a call to arms from Naples, and not wanting to lose my alliance with Austria I decline. When I refused, I got a refusal to join war from both sides, and both cancelled the alliance. If I never got a call to arms from Austria, why would declining the Naples call to arms hurt my reputation with Austria?

I've had what I thought to be a single click actually select the same reply on two stacked decisions before.  Don't know if it was my fault for ham-fingering the mouse button when letting go or whether the game is overly sensitive if you're slow on letting off.  Perhaps this happened to you? 

[undercovergeek]

Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income

[Nefaro]

Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income

OMG!  12k trade income!?  Insanity!
Granted, the guy looks to be dominating pretty much all trade in the world minus that from the Atlantic side of the Americas.

[undercovergeek]

he explains how hes done it which i thought might be handy - it looks like hes pushed all the trade as far as possible to get all the multiplier bonuses - apologies if this sounds complete gobbledigook as i havent played it yet

[Nefaro]

he explains how hes done it which i thought might be handy - it looks like hes pushed all the trade as far as possible to get all the multiplier bonuses - apologies if this sounds complete gobbledigook as i havent played it yet

Yeah, that's the ideal way of doing it.

When you place one of your limited amounts of merchants in a trade zone you can either have him collect directly from there for you (adding your trade bonuses to the node) or you can have him "push" the trade further up the chain to the next node.  This also supposedly adds a tiny bit of extra income bonus to the previous node in the trade lines, too.  The big advantage of pushing that trade to the next node is the larger trade income bonuses it gives.  If you can control a large percentage of numerous trade nodes, in a line, you can make a killing with your merchants doing that. 

Sounds like he has an absolutely massive naval fleet out guarding the trade lanes, which adds bonus to the trade power in that node for each light warship there, and thus increases your share.  I read that there is supposed to be diminishing returns on doing this, but I don't think that's the case.  More like diminishing returns once your total trade power percentage in a node starts getting pretty high.  I think the sweet spot for a good return on investment is around 66 to 75% depending on whether another nation is sending it's own warships to dominate the node in question.

[undercovergeek]

yeah, everyone has questioned the force multiplier coming into effect, it appears hes 3 times over the limit but not really suffering for it - there are calls for it to be nerfed, as is always the case, you can play the game, or play the system, this guy has just gone all out trade and captured each node on his plan - a plan which falls apart should the AI capture the ground he has there

[Nefaro]

yeah, everyone has questioned the force multiplier coming into effect, it appears hes 3 times over the limit but not really suffering for it - there are calls for it to be nerfed, as is always the case, you can play the game, or play the system, this guy has just gone all out trade and captured each node on his plan - a plan which falls apart should the AI capture the ground he has there

Admittedly, my trade income was high enough for me to run well over my landlimits and eat the large extra costs, too. 

At the same time, I have so much territory to defend that I must have the extra armies.  The landlimit just doesn't go up much at all in relation to how much territory you own so you're kinda forced to do so.  I'm not even the third largest empire, either.  The limits are obviously not meant to be a hard ceiling and the large penalties for going over are a good money sink for the larger powers.

[Kushan]

Still not reading this until im ready to start the game but i did come across this at Paradox - theres a lot of 'how? NOOOOO! cheat!' in there but there is also a lot of very informative trade info

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?711726-Post-your-ridiculous-trade-income

Nice accomplishment. If that was me I would have probably quit before I reached that point. Playing the game systems like that so you have more money then you can possibly ever spend just doesn't seem like much fun to me. To each there own though.

[sandman2575]

Is anyone playing EUIV with mods?  If so, which?

...I only just now figured out that I had to register my game with Paradox in order to access the mod page.... I had no idea there were already so many mods available... ???

[Nefaro]

I've not really felt the need to mod anything right now.  This soon after release, I'm not even sure what I would want changed.  Besides, the mods probably aren't all that large anyway, more like tweaks at this point.

[sandman2575]

I'm just surprised at how many mods are already available, from graphics enhancements to more serious overhauls.  Many are still in progress, but a lot are already up & ready to go, it appears --

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?709604-Master-Mod-List

[Kushan]

The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.

[Nefaro]

The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.

Did you not take the Exploration idea as your first?  I thought you could boost up your colonial range with only a couple increases in it?

I suppose if you want to find the New World in 1450, then going through South America is the way..

[tgb]

The only thing I can think I want to mod/have modded is a modifier for Spain and Portugal to increase their colonial and supply ranges at the beginning of the game. Its a little annoying that in order to colonize the Caribbean you need to go through South America first. I laughed when I got the Columbus event as Spain and it says that he crossed the Atlantic in 30+ days but yet my carracks suffered massive attrition with no way of surviving a round trip.

Did you not take the Exploration idea as your first?  I thought you could boost up your colonial range with only a couple increases in it?

I suppose if you want to find the New World in 1450, then going through South America is the way..

The Exploration idea track gets you colonists, explorers and conquistadors in the first two choices.  You have to research Diplomacy a level or two before colonial range starts to increase. If you are not playing Portugal, you can always pay P for fleet rebasing until you get a toehold in the New World.