Europa Universalis General Thread

[Overdriven]

I was about to form Great Britain, waiting on my stability to go from 2 to 3, then the middle finger came. My entire country decides to rebel against my current government. Suddenly, all the major countries in the vicinity declare war, even countries I haven't even heard of, who have no chance of even reaching the continent of Europe. All this with an infamy rating of less then 20, good legitimacy, and high prestige. What I really need help with, is the government system and rebellions. In all of my provinces, I had a high national revolt risk, yet all of the rebels were heretics. What am I meant to do in such a situation?

Hmm as England (well UK) I had that infamy of around 30. I guess my limit was high lol.

Sounds like your problem may have been war weariness. For everyone to rebel and to have such a high chance of rebelling it seems likely. As for everyone attacking you, I found with the UK that happened a lot because of chain alliance. The Irish kingdoms have a nasty habit of picking very good allies. Allies who are usually allied with A LOT of other people. For instance when I took one of the Irish kingdoms their ally was Brittany who were allied with Sweden, The Hansa ect ect which meant I had around 10 nations at war with me all at once. I learnt as England that you do have to be careful. Abandon/sell off your continental provinces, unless you really really want to focus on that, and focus simply on the UK. Don't attack Scotland unless you can lure them into a war of some sort but I'd definitely recommend against initiating it. Usually when one of the continental powers decide to attack you Scotland will join in. I then made sure to make peace with the continental power ASAP leaving me to focus on raping Scotland from a defensive standpoint. If you initiate it you will definitely get a lot of continental powers on your arse. Only attack one Irish kingdom at a time and be prepared to have a chain alliance invading your shores. I generally kept an army in England and an army in Ireland. I also slowly worked on my navy until my UK defence fleet had about 40 caravels. Once I reached that level I was never invaded again. After my colonial expansion I had about 200 ships  O and early game with England I hardly had any money because of the constant wars and having to maintain a very large anti-invasion army.

I focused on offence because I always tried to make sure my armies were larger than the enemies, generally meaning they wouldn't attack me so offensive made sense for me. I also went with quality and it seemed to work.

Regardless, early UK is pretty intense because of the constant invasion/Scotland issue. I had to reload saves several times because I played it wrong and ended up having my armies wiped out by invasion forces. Once you build that navy though you are set because as soon as you go to war you can set the fleet to patrol from Ireland to Eastern England, stopping any invasion force.

[Teeth]

Except if you want an additional 150 gold income per month, in which case it is best to keep your infamy as close to 0 as possible. Merchants are awesome.

Does not outweigh the enormous stable income you get from those 20 provinces you conquered, which got you the infamy in the first place. These provinces get you loads of other advantages as well, whereas being a merchant country just gives you money, while forcing you to expand at a snail pace as well. What is the point of all that income if you cannot use it subdue the world?

Besides, just conquer yourself a few CoT's and that infamy will not obstruct your trading at all.

[Zanze]

Not a snails pace. As a republic you just need to pick Diplomat rulers. With 8-9 Diplomacy rulers you get cores faster than you can declare war on people. Also, those 20 provinces wont give you anything but revolts until you core them out. Merchants definitely are better than having high infamy. More gold is never bad. Ever.

[Kafein]

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Unless you are the papal state securing the papal controller title as another country is tedious though.

Does not outweigh the enormous stable income you get from those 20 provinces you conquered, which got you the infamy in the first place. These provinces get you loads of other advantages as well, whereas being a merchant country just gives you money, while forcing you to expand at a snail pace as well. What is the point of all that income if you cannot use it subdue the world?

Besides, just conquer yourself a few CoT's and that infamy will not obstruct your trading at all.

Even owning CoT's doesn't guarantee a monopoly (besides, mercantilism is not a good choice even if you never invest in any CoT abroad), and I am not exaggerating when I say 150 gold per month. In my Papal State game trade is almost one quarter of my income. 20 uncored provinces won't even give you 30. And anyway, if you always keep a 5/6 diplomat and take the cabinet value whenever you can, keeping low infamy becomes very easy. Also, don't forget being smaller gives you better research and allows higher centralization.

[Lizard_man]

(click to show/hide)

Hmm as England (well UK) I had that infamy of around 30. I guess my limit was high lol.

Sounds like your problem may have been war weariness. For everyone to rebel and to have such a high chance of rebelling it seems likely. As for everyone attacking you, I found with the UK that happened a lot because of chain alliance. The Irish kingdoms have a nasty habit of picking very good allies. Allies who are usually allied with A LOT of other people. For instance when I took one of the Irish kingdoms their ally was Brittany who were allied with Sweden, The Hansa ect ect which meant I had around 10 nations at war with me all at once. I learnt as England that you do have to be careful. Abandon/sell off your continental provinces, unless you really really want to focus on that, and focus simply on the UK. Don't attack Scotland unless you can lure them into a war of some sort but I'd definitely recommend against initiating it. Usually when one of the continental powers decide to attack you Scotland will join in. I then made sure to make peace with the continental power ASAP leaving me to focus on raping Scotland from a defensive standpoint. If you initiate it you will definitely get a lot of continental powers on your arse. Only attack one Irish kingdom at a time and be prepared to have a chain alliance invading your shores. I generally kept an army in England and an army in Ireland. I also slowly worked on my navy until my UK defence fleet had about 40 caravels. Once I reached that level I was never invaded again. After my colonial expansion I had about 200 ships  O and early game with England I hardly had any money because of the constant wars and having to maintain a very large anti-invasion army.

I focused on offence because I always tried to make sure my armies were larger than the enemies, generally meaning they wouldn't attack me so offensive made sense for me. I also went with quality and it seemed to work.

Regardless, early UK is pretty intense because of the constant invasion/Scotland issue. I had to reload saves several times because I played it wrong and ended up having my armies wiped out by invasion forces. Once you build that navy though you are set because as soon as you go to war you can set the fleet to patrol from Ireland to Eastern England, stopping any invasion force.

You're probably right, war weariness would have been a big part of my problem, and the chain alliances are a pain, and it never stops...

That's pretty much how I've gone about it on my new play through. I managed to annex Scotland and Ireland very early on, and for the moment, infamy and the chance of revolt are dropping to a decent level. I also have a large fleet for defence, and I'm pretty much just haressing my enemies with small armies when I get the chance. But for the most part, playing very defencive for the moment. I think it's going pretty well. Managed to form an empire, got some trustworthy allies that always seem to back me, and I've vassalized Brittany.

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Gonna try and focus on trade now, try and get my compete chance up. I'll post an update soon, as it's still pretty early game...

[[ptx]]

Well, at least you still have France as a power, rather than Burgundy.

Beating France in an early war usually results in Burgundy subsequently taking over the area. And man, is Burgundy a bitch :/

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

Well, at least you still have France as a power, rather than Burgundy.

Beating France in an early war usually results in Burgundy subsequently taking over the area. And man, is Burgundy a bitch :/

That's why you gotta beat Burgundy and release Flanders before beating France.

[Teeth]

Not a snails pace. As a republic you just need to pick Diplomat rulers. With 8-9 Diplomacy rulers you get cores faster than you can declare war on people. Also, those 20 provinces wont give you anything but revolts until you core them out. Merchants definitely are better than having high infamy. More gold is never bad. Ever.

A republic? I have barely ever gotten to the point in the game where I can even become a republic because my high infamy expansion has already made me too much of a powerhouse that I get bored. Yes taking those provinces is long term gain, but once you get cores and get your production buildings going, that will get you a lot of money and manpower and basically everything without having to waste any ideas on trading. Does a high diplomacy ruler get you cores?

Even owning CoT's doesn't guarantee a monopoly (besides, mercantilism is not a good choice even if you never invest in any CoT abroad)

In my experience it does, which is why mercantilism is a decent choice. How exactly would free trade be better if you only trade in your own Cot? No wonder that does not get you monopolies, the compete chance gets rather low.

I am not exaggerating when I say 150 gold per month. In my Papal State game trade is almost one quarter of my income.

150 gold a month and 600 total is not that impressive when talking about a game that is in 1636, I rarely ever played until that time, but I am willing to bet I can get a shitload more income comparatively with the Papal State by doing balls to the walls expanding. The cabinet idea is Gov 30, so that does take a while, until then it is like -0.70 infamy a year, if you get lucky with a good ruler, which is not a whole lot. Not all of us are catholics with lots of cardinals.

[Christo]

How much infamy do Cardinals burn?

I don't think I'll have a chance to see it in this Hungary game now, I let everyone practice whatever they wanted. Also went full innovative.

[Kafein]

In my experience it does, which is why mercantilism is a decent choice. How exactly would free trade be better if you only trade in your own Cot? No wonder that does not get you monopolies, the compete chance gets rather low.

Well, that is true only if you have high enough infamy to need the higher compete chance of mercantilism. Otherwise, the trade income bonus of free trade is better.

150 gold a month and 600 total is not that impressive when talking about a game that is in 1636, I rarely ever played until that time, but I am willing to bet I can get a shitload more income comparatively with the Papal State by doing balls to the walls expanding. The cabinet idea is Gov 30, so that does take a while, until then it is like -0.70 infamy a year, if you get lucky with a good ruler, which is not a whole lot. Not all of us are catholics with lots of cardinals.

The speed difference between expanding while keeping your infamy under 20 and that of expanding while keeping your infamy under 10 or so is negligible, as infamy doesn't go down faster when you have lots of it. If anything, keeping it lower allows you to get more provinces out of random opportunistic wars you didn't prepare for.

How much infamy do Cardinals burn?

I don't think I'll have a chance to see it in this Hungary game now, I let everyone practice whatever they wanted. Also went full innovative.

Each cardinal gives -0.1 infamy iirc. There are about 15 cardinals total so when you start owning a significant part of the catholic provinces + max relations with the papal state + papal influence values/slider settings, you can easily get -1 infamy per year only with cardinals. And this is why the "Kingdom of God" decision as Papal State is the worst ever, because it destroys papacy and you lose all cardinal and papal controller bonuses.

[Lizard_man]

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

So, this is where I'm at with my current game. Pirates are a fucking pain though, I take them out, and by the time I've completed a circle, they're back...

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

lol, dat Ottoman Empire.

Also, I'm proud to announce that as always Castille has gotten wiped out in my current game, me (granada), and Moroco share the vast majority of spain and portugal.

[Zanze]

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

So, this is where I'm at with my current game. Pirates are a fucking pain though, I take them out, and by the time I've completed a circle, they're back...

Put your outdated Carracks in stacks of 2 and put them on patrol. It owns pirates in peace, and frees up force limits in war.

[Lizard_man]

Put your outdated Carracks in stacks of 2 and put them on patrol. It owns pirates in peace, and frees up force limits in war.

Thanks for the help, but I already looked into it and have stopped the pirates from spawning. Docked a ship here and there, sorted my problem...

[Abay]

strange, I try to get screen shots of the map with pritn screen button and it takes my desktop's