So, would anyone be interested in a sort of succession game/LP for these? I was thinking four people, each taking one of the four in the continuous timeline (CK -> EU3 -> Vicky (2?) -> HoIwhichever). We'd also need someone relatively comfortable with modding things to make the transitions nice. Ideally someone with some sense of European history to include interesting events/missions/decisions depending on the game. I'd want EU3 if we did this, as it's the only one I think I'm reasonably good at.
Of course we could do a for real succession game like this one but I don't think we have the audience for it.
I think maybe more than four people. I don't know about the others, but playing through the entire EU3 timeline takes a fuck of a long time. I would sign up for this if I only had to play a small chunk though.
Anyone else get graphics bugs in EU 3? All unit flags, faction flags, and related tiles are black boxes to me. Its rather annoying. I picked the game up a while ago but haven't really played it until recently.
Anyway, I decided to play as the Ming Empire because the game said its relatively easy. I get a mission to destroy the mongol khanate, which I do. As soon as I declare war, however, the entire south of my empire revolts.
It seems that the recruitment and resources are both simplified compared to HoI, easy enough to understand. I have no clue how technology works though.
Anyone else get graphics bugs in EU 3? All unit flags, faction flags, and related tiles are black boxes to me. Its rather annoying. I picked the game up a while ago but haven't really played it until recently.
Anyway, I decided to play as the Ming Empire because the game said its relatively easy. I get a mission to destroy the mongol khanate, which I do. As soon as I declare war, however, the entire south of my empire revolts.
It seems that the recruitment and resources are both simplified compared to HoI, easy enough to understand. I have no clue how technology works though.
It's just some sliders. It's in your budget screen. You're going to research very, very slowly as Ming are huge and you're in a crappy technology group (the European civs have huge bonuses, then Orthodox are OK, then Muslims aren't great, then Indians/Asians are bad, then Africa is terrible, then Native Americans just don't learn things ever.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Makes sense. I took one look at the state of Continental Europe and fled, however. So many Alliances/guarantees.
For maximum arrrggghhhhh play as Venice or the Papal State and try to conquer Italy. Half of them are guaranteeing the other half, and the other half are in the HRE.
Makes sense. I took one look at the state of Continental Europe and fled, however. So many Alliances/guarantees.
For maximum arrrggghhhhh play as Venice or the Papal State and try to conquer Italy. Half of them are guaranteeing the other half, and the other half are in the HRE.
Sounds nightmarish. Looks like the pope starts with 4,000 men.
Is there a way to engineer a "just war" without relying on AI declarations? In Hearts of Iron you can mess with enemy nations diplomatically to frame them as enemies using propaganda.
Just played a little bit of AoD as Germany and just got my ass handed to me by Czechoslovakia. I think I'm going to have to go back and look over WWII strategies before I try that again, also maybe familiarize myself with some of the deeper things going on here.
The German strategy was to annex Czechoslovakia without a fight (see: The Munich Agreement or the original German Fall Grün attack plan).
In-game you'll want to make note of the individual province situation when you attack. The Sudetenland tends to be hilly/mountainous, which puts attackers at a huge disadvantage (you can counter this a bit with Alpine/Mountain divisions). Most of the provinces also have forts. War tends to start regarding the Munich Agreement or Annexation of Czech Lands - either in late September or mid-March...in which cases you may want to look for early snow or early thawing and muddy terrain (all of which are bad for attacking).
If you've played HOI2, keep in mind that AoD attempts to mimic frontage - if you have too many divisions attacking from the same province their effectiveness will deteriorate quickly. You'll want to use mountain divisions with artillery to minimize its effects while bringing the most force to bear on one point (at which time you can break into the flatter Czech interior).
Alpine troops tend to be very useful over snowy terrain and mountains, but their resource cost compared to regular infantry is pretty high, so only make as many as you'll need to save manpower and supplies for the longer war.
O yea I know about the annexation, I guess I just wanted to do things a little bit more aggressively and see what would happen. I did attack from multiple provinces as well. What it came down to though was a lack of preparedness and a lack of in-game knowledge. Plus my spies said they didn't have any armor, and all they did was counter-attack with armor. Yea that's good going there. I've got a lot to learn about this game.
As far as the succession game goes, I would be down for one limited to just EU3, for now anyway. The entire series would be quite an undertaking to just do straight away, even for multiple people. I'm familiar with most German, Russian, and some English history as well, so I'd be most knowledgeable as one of those factions but I'd give any one a try.
Also how much does "Heir to the Throne" improve EU3 Complete? Is it magnitudes better or can I pass on it for now?
3) Get Heir to the Throne with all its glorious casus beli.
Heir to the Throne is an amazing 20 some megabytes. So much better!
Key features:
1) Various casus beli that allow war declarations without stability loss, and lessen infamy charges and war cost for doing various things.
2) You can recruit advisers instead of praying someone useful shows up.
3) You can plan ahead a bit as far as monarchs go as you can see your heir's stats.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
So, would anyone be interested in a sort of succession game/LP for these? I was thinking four people, each taking one of the four in the continuous timeline (CK -> EU3 -> Vicky (2?) -> HoIwhichever). We'd also need someone relatively comfortable with modding things to make the transitions nice. Ideally someone with some sense of European history to include interesting events/missions/decisions depending on the game. I'd want EU3 if we did this, as it's the only one I think I'm reasonably good at.
Of course we could do a for real succession game like this one but I don't think we have the audience for it.
I think maybe more than four people. I don't know about the others, but playing through the entire EU3 timeline takes a fuck of a long time. I would sign up for this if I only had to play a small chunk though.
Same here. Splitting into 25/50/100 year chunks seems like the way to go.
EDIT: I think I'm ready to swear off monarchies for good in EU3. 100 years of waiting for decent leaders only have to them die in random accidents and leave me with decades of regency councils is not fun.
And don't get me started on nations that need to westernise. Had a 3 ADM Japanese Empress rule for 56 years, outliving all four of her 6-8 ADM heirs and leaving me with a regency council when she finally stuffed it.
They admittedly pack a lot of goodness into those 20 megabytes.
Milan->Italy->HRE seems like easy mode at this point. Maybe not quite "Playing as France" easy mode, but it has been so easy to become the dominant power in the world.
What are the repercussions of annexing the Papal States, anyway? They've got one province amongst the shattered remnants that once formed France, and I'd sort of like to just annex them and get it over with.
I think the only one that's a problem is keeping Rome proper, but I'm not 100%. I've only annexed them twice. Once I was the Byzantines re-establishing the Roman Empire and the other time I was Burgundy->France and just gave it back. Only to have the bastards seize the north half of Iberia which I then had to conquer.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
CK is the game I'm most unfamiliar with (modding-wise); HOI2 the most.
In general, I'd recommend the most convertible versions games: CK with Deus Vult; EU3 with Napoleon's Ambition and In Nomine (Heir to the Throne doesn't seem to have much conversion support ...although I'm not sure if anything converter-worthy is affected); Victoria with Victoria: Revolutions; and HOI2 with Armageddon (AOD doesn't seem to convert particularly well, even if it works). In order to give it long term playability you'd essentially have to create the events at scenario start for HOI2 and Victoria. Whoever passes it on would also need to provide their checksum to make sure the base files are consistent.
You'd probably also want to make it more difficult to make a booming mighty empire initially (like the Kingdom of Jerusalem game which became unreasonably huge in CK (I'm not sure how you'd want to do this specifically). Players have legitimately made 1 province minors into continent-spanning empires in EU3.
...I'd be for starting with Schwaben/Swabia in CK. You'd get to be the first Hohenzollern as a one province County. Which is a conceivable path to maintaining a powerful HRE in EU3 and unifying Germany in Victoria for some sort of massive war in HOI2.
Otherwise, someone in the CK thread mentioned a province having the last heirs of Charlemagne (I believe Vermandois which was the eventual family name of the German Kaiser when he got ousted for that whole "world war" thing.
I would be all for starting it up, but I've already got my SH3 LP on hold.
The Hohenzollern thing has been done already. Exceptionally well. The Charlemagne thing was my plan, actually.
We'll be playing with HttT because HttT is SO MUCH BETTER. I don't think any of the modding stuff would be affected. CK would be unmodded, we'll see how things go from there.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Suicide SlydeHaunts your dreamsof mountains sunk below the seaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
Well looks like more money spent, hopefully HttT will still be on sale still for payday.
I'd favour using the modern engine versions of the games in any succession game, simply because there are a lot less scripted events to work around. I think we'd need to re-implement half the game in HoI2 to get anything like WW2 to trigger.
Vermandois is in a fascinating position, I just played to the beginning of 1070 and I'm going to pare down the images and make an update in a few minutes. Also: insane luck in the first year so we're a Duchy. Which is good, because Counts are boring what with the unable to have vassals and thus have civil wars and have things completely fucking fall apart on you.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Unfortunately there's no Victoria to HOI3 converter, so you have to use HOI2 anyway.
CK, Victoria, EU2 and HOI2 run on the same engine.
EU3 and HOI3 (and Victoria 2) run on the same engine.
Converters exist for CK to EU2 and CK to EU3 as well as EU2 to Victoria and EU3 to Victoria. Victoria 2 is supposed to ship with a Victoria 2 to HOI3 converter; Victoria converts to HOI2.
You basically have to edit a save to create the conversion. And since HOI2 doesn't dynamically load the events, you need specify in the save file when you add a new event text file. Victoria runs the same as HOI2, so events you want relative to EU3 also need to be implemented into the save file.
Even within the same engine there's some variance. CK is unique in the Vicky/HOI2 bunch in that there's a way to affect MTTH (Mean Time To Happen), while Victoria and HOI2 rely on Boolean operators with specific conditions and dates of availability (prompted by the randomness of HOI2). You'd basically have to create a few events relating to the world as it is in the scenario.
Even EU3 has quite a few events. They're just a bit more variable by In Nomine because they can be selected to fire by the player (via national/provincial decisions). One of the reason hulking behemoth empires are created in long-term LPs is because individual minors that only specific nations are 'favored' with events.
England, France, Brandenburg/Prussia, Spain (usually as Castille), Ireland (due to its remoteness), Russia, Italy (usually from Milan or Venice), Austria, Turkey, the USA, China (as the Ming or Nationalists) and Japan tend to have dedicated events, and develop into major nations. Germany as a defining nation in HOI2 is a bit of a quirk - the HRE dissolves fairly quickly in CK, much of Germany (if unaffected by the player) remains splintered in EU3, and Germany generally only has about a 40% chance of forming in Victoria. Plus all that fascist/nazi stuff happened in the years not covered by Victoria and HOI2 - so making a country fascist requires some save editing regardless. Since democracies in HOI2 won't declare war unless via event you'll end up with a very uninteresting, stagnant HOI2 political landscape.
And that's why most long LPs tend to have 15-ish huge empires by HOI2. France is just about the only sure bet (barring player interference), and sometimes that horse falters out of the gate in CK.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
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Suicide SlydeHaunts your dreamsof mountains sunk below the seaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
I think I'm just retarded when it comes to EU3, it seems every time things start going good for me my entire country just falls apart. Latest game playing as Castille, I was hemorrhaging funds badly after an expansion into North Africa so I had cut my army, as soon as I do that provinces start revolting, England declares war on me and I can't win a fucking battle to save my life despite having an army 2x the size of theirs. Also now I am facing rebellions in almost all of my provinces each with 2000/5000 minimum. I'm serious when I say that this happens every time about the same time in the mid-1400s no matter what country I'm playing as. Is this just designed to happen?
You just have to be a bit more patient. You can't grab too much new land too fast, as revolt risks can ruin you. I normally grab between 3-5 provinces at a go, depending on their layout and my other commitments. You also have to prioritize. In my current game I could easily take out Algiers, but I'm trying to maintain my focus on my colonial ventures, and know that at some point in the future I can get back to them (probably 50-60 years down the road).
That said, always be prepared to take advantage of a neighbours strife.
oldmanken on
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Suicide SlydeHaunts your dreamsof mountains sunk below the seaRegistered Userregular
edited July 2010
That seems likely, I guess I still have Total War coursing through my veins. The reason I pressed so hard into North Africa was Algiers internal strife, rebels controlled almost all of their provinces and it was just too good of an opportunity. I only grabbed 2 of their provinces but now that I think about it, I had just finished a war with Morocco, which I seized 3 provinces of theirs. There was probably a less than 5 year gap between the 2 wars. I guess I will go back to an older save and ignore Algiers as best as I can.
It all about having a single long term goal, and bringing it about by a series of slow short term plans. After, taking the whole of the Atlantic coast of Africa (down to Ifni) from Morocco and Fez, I let those buggers stew as OPMs for over 20 years. I waited for the most opportune time, not only for myself, but also looking at their situation.
Also, make sure you watch your Infamy level. If you are constantly fighting wars, this will go up, and neighbours will start to look unfavourably towards you. I normally keep mine in single digits if possible, but playing as Portugal I have to really watch this, 'cause I can't go toe to toe with my neighbours. As Castille, you can get away with running a higher Infamy, as you are one of the big dogs.
That seems likely, I guess I still have Total War coursing through my veins. The reason I pressed so hard into North Africa was Algiers internal strife, rebels controlled almost all of their provinces and it was just too good of an opportunity. I only grabbed 2 of their provinces but now that I think about it, I had just finished a war with Morocco, which I seized 3 provinces of theirs. There was probably a less than 5 year gap between the 2 wars. I guess I will go back to an older save and ignore Algiers as best as I can.
Unlike in total war, ownership of a province is not inherently good, and it is very easy to lose more money than you make policing wrong culture/wrong religion provinces. Think carefully about how valuable any province you want to take is worth versus the cost to maintain it. Only take loss makers if they have inherent strategic value.
(I made the same mistakes in my first game as Portugal. By the time I quit I had over 50% inflation)
Yeah, inflation is a big deal, as it effects the cost of everything. You really have to watch it and be in full control over it. I normally aim to keep it at zero, but am currently running at about 3% because of an event that I couldn't afford the cost to avoid. Seriously, I've had it at that level for a while, and even with the right advisors and NAtional Bank, it can be hard to get down.
Also, don't take a loan, the interest kills you by reducing your options. If you have to take a loan to get something, just wait until you can save more than enough money.
Yeah, inflation is a big deal, as it effects the cost of everything. You really have to watch it and be in full control over it. I normally aim to keep it at zero, but am currently running at about 3% because of an event that I couldn't afford the cost to avoid. Seriously, I've had it at that level for a while, and even with the right advisors and NAtional Bank, it can be hard to get down.
Also, don't take a loan, the interest kills you by reducing your options. If you have to take a loan to get something, just wait until you can save more than enough money.
I am an inflation hawk, but I'm not as concerned about loans. Some games (Tuscany) I couldn't have won without the use of loans. But for a big country like Castille you should never need one.
Especially early in the game it's a bad idea to take any province that's not highly useful. This is less of a problem if you're playing in the remnants of Charlemagne's empire or the Byzantine core, but in other regions there are a lot of shitty provinces. Especially if you don't have/can't get cores on the territories you're taking until 50 years. Later when you're all powerful you can go nuts.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
That seems likely, I guess I still have Total War coursing through my veins. The reason I pressed so hard into North Africa was Algiers internal strife, rebels controlled almost all of their provinces and it was just too good of an opportunity. I only grabbed 2 of their provinces but now that I think about it, I had just finished a war with Morocco, which I seized 3 provinces of theirs. There was probably a less than 5 year gap between the 2 wars. I guess I will go back to an older save and ignore Algiers as best as I can.
Adding a province in EU3 really isn't a clear cut benefit. Away from the capital, no big population, no big revenue? Fuck that.
Increases in stability & research costs are sometimes not worth it.
Edit: Also, do not be afraid of inflation. You need minting? Well, mint away. Just be sure you have a plan how you're getting it back down and what exactly are you minting for.
Tax assessors later on and the national bank idea whenever you can are more than enough to manage almost any %.
Also if you want control over an area but can't afford to take the provinces consider vassalisation or forcing them to release countries (they emerge as your ally).
I love these games. My most fun game ever was to play as a Venice in EU3, and try to become a colonialist power. In the course of the game I ended up doing something even more funnier, forming my own "answer" to HRE. Basically, when on the first few years I conquered Achaea and Byzantium, I didn't annex them - I vassalized them. The vassal system is pretty useful, you get half their income (I think) and their armies automatically fight in the wars you declare at. You don't get to direct their armies, but they usually go where you want and force your enemy to divide it's attention. Their armies can siege and conquer provinces, and when they do they become under your rule and count towards your victory percentage in a war.
So, though I had intended to ignore the Balkans, I got involved in the ever shifting power balances in there. I gave up all my provinces in Greece to my newfound underlings to make them a bit stronger, put my fleet at the Bosphorus strait so the Ottomans would be made less powerful if they ever declared a war at me or my vassals, and started slowly putting the Balkan peninsula under my rule. I never tried to attack the Ottomans, because they still had greater armies there even if they weren't able to bring any from Anatolia. Nothing stopped me from conquering all the tiny countries or splintering rebellious provinces in the region.
Albania was the first to fall, then Montenegro who I gave to Albania. When the Islamic Emirate of Bulgaria split up from old man Hungary, I was there to gobble it up. Any time a rebellion succeeded Venice was there to seize the leftovers, and either divide them between the vassals it already had or make a new one. I made sure to ally with my closest threat in Europe - Milan, who could have conquered me in seconds if I didn't have part of my fleet in the Sea of Venice to stop anyone from threatening my capital. When Naples conquered Epirus, I knew i wouldn't stand for that shit and declared war. To my surprise, Milan did too...and with the help of my other vassals, I managed to conquer and vassalize Naples, which held a third of Italy.
Sicily was soon to follow, I shattered their paltry ships and the armies of my vassals crossed over to conquer the provinces. Aragon had a mission to conquer Sicily though, so over the next decades I fought six separate wars to defend my new vassal. I could never conclusively beat Aragon since it had a far greater army and Milan was reclutant to put anything then it's ships in the battles - but my better fleets were able to beat Aragon's, and I got Baleares off them as a naval base and Sardinia and Corsica as new vassals.
Eventually, what I feared most happened - Ottomans declared war on me. For quite a time I had to fight my damndest just to get a white peace in countless different wars, only thing stopping them from conquering my Balkans the fleet that stopped 90% of their forces from ever taking part in the conflicts. The gridlock was however broken when Russia unified and attacked Ottomans - holy shit. They absolutely steamrolled over them, conquering all their Arabian holdings (Arabia was part of the Russian Empire to the end of the game) and part of their core provinces in Turkey. As Ottomans were getting their asses kicked by Russia in Asia, me and my Vassal alliance attacked them in Europe - and conquered everything there. Ottomans were left a rump state in Anatolia in the greatest war of conquest I've ever seen in my game. They were in top 5 when the war started, they were left somewhere around #150 after it was over.
By the end my Balkan vassals were 4th/3rd rate powers in their own right since I divided all the land spoils between them. Byzantium was close to being a 2nd rate, it actually had more provinces and a bigger army then me, though I was vastly wealthier and my vassals being my armies had allowed me to build the greatest fleet in Europe (though Castille and Britain were always nipping my heels there). Bulgaria wasn't far behind, and in fact it was the last remaining powerful Islamic country in Europe. Also, if any of my vassals would revolt, all the others would attack them. The power standing in my vassalliance was something like this:
Venice
Byzantium
Bulgaria/Naples
Sicily/Albania
Achaea/Sardinia/Corsica
Corfu/Naxos (two shitty island vassals you have from the start)
Between my vassals and me I had around 80-90,000 soldiers at my disposal. Nothing compared to the big players like Milan (who had built up a massive realm with more provinces in rest of Europe then Italy and was leading the HRE) France (who was well, fucking France, last boss of EU3) Austria (who had been eating up German and Slav minors like they were candy) Castile (more specifically MegaCastille - they had been colonializing since the beginning, and had 90% of Africa and large parts of South and North America under their influence) and Russia (who owned most of Eastern Europe and pretty much all of Middle East after conquering Poland, Ottomans and Hungary).
All the big dogs had at least 110,000 soldiers on their own. But they were busy with revolts and eachother, so after Ottomans were taken off my back I thought I could embark on some colonializing myself. I was also filthy rich since all my micro-managing had gone towards trade, Venice was the biggest Center of Trade in Europe. I had a tiny war with Aragon again where I conquered the Canaries and Azores from them to use as jumping points for my quest for the new world, and it didn't take long for Venetian ships to hit upper South America. Over the next 50-100 years or so I conquered everything that Castille, Britain and Aragon had not conquered, which was about half of South America.
Interesting times went on when Milan fell apart under it's own weight. It had pissed off too many people in it's ruthless quest for power (honestly, I am so goddamn lucky it never attacked me) and was facing revolts from it's own provinces and wars from Italian minors, France and Austria. The entire Holy Roman Empire was in a civil war. The Venetian Empire on the other hand was doing pretty swimmingly, the entire wealth of upper South America was flooding into my coffers, and I only had like four provinces in Europe (later with Milan falling apart I conquered it's vassals Aquilea and Croatia to gain access to massive amounts of gold and another COT in Gorz) . So nobody really had any reason to mess with me. I was also feeding massive amounts of cash towards my vassals to keep them placated.
With Milan destroyed (it had two provinces when all had been done), I decided to side with one of the victorious European powers since they would without a doubt turn against eachother. I chose France, flooding it with massive amounts of cash to gain +200 and an Alliance with it.
My last years in game were spent in getting myself in top 1 position. I participated in absolutely massive wars between France and Austria. My wealth finally enabled me to field large armies while Byzantium and Bulgaria happily swallowed the remaining Austrian allies and non pro-Venetian states in Balkans - Bosnia and Serbia. I had a colonial war with Mecha-Castille (it was actually bigger in land size then Russia at this point, no kidding) with Great Britain, Portugal and my old nemesis Aragon at my side (MCASTILLE had conquered European Aragon long time ago, it's capital switched between Uruguay and Senegal depending where Castille threatened it). I colonized what was left from Western North America and watched Castille crush Estados Unidos under it's foot when it emerged in Castilian North America. One of the Native American nations was pretty powerful and alive as well, which was pretty interesting.
I tried to unify Italy, but didn't have enough game time left to do that so I just vassalized all the Italian minors.
In the end I was the wealthiest, most powerful naval power in the world. I feel I had usurped Britain's place in history - Great Britain in my game didn't actually had England - had declared separate independence. Scotland and Ireland were independent too. And oddly enough, so was Cornwall. In the end, Venetian Empire comprised of South America, Italy, Balkans, and Western North America. But thanks to the AI and difficulty, in pure power I still fell short of France, Austria, Russia and Castille on crack (it was ridicolously huge).
Goddamn I wish I could understand anything about coding so I could import this save to Victoria and make it work because every moment rocked. I can't even imagine WWI with these motherfuckers.
Man, just when you think you have things figured out, the games springs shit on you.
I started over as a European nation, as it seems that the Ming have massive issues with stability (always historically accurate with China, of course.)
Selected Bavaria and carefully engineered a war with the Palatinate, seized Franken, and carefully maneuvered my armies to defend my own provinces from counter attack. The end result was a huge boost of 11 prestige.....and an income hit of 11 gold a month. o_O Not sure where that came from, so I saved my game until I could figure it out.
Don't worry about your Empire falling apart on you. I see EU3 as like Dwarf Fortress, losing is fun. And the games are so damn long there's always time to mount a comeback.
Don't worry about your Empire falling apart on you. I see EU3 as like Dwarf Fortress, losing is fun. And the games are so damn long there's always time to mount a comeback.
yeah, the pleasure of being beaten into pulp to a point of annihilation and then getting peace after giving up a single province is part of the eu3 experience.
Every German state is allied with each other and all of them have military access, so I don't think I can expand any further. No non-German states seem to be at war in Germany to provide any sort of distraction. That's some annoying shit. They literally can attack from every single side.
Pretty much exactly what I was worried about. Sucks, because Bavaria at least produces enough gold to finance small wars.
Posts
I think maybe more than four people. I don't know about the others, but playing through the entire EU3 timeline takes a fuck of a long time. I would sign up for this if I only had to play a small chunk though.
Anyway, I decided to play as the Ming Empire because the game said its relatively easy. I get a mission to destroy the mongol khanate, which I do. As soon as I declare war, however, the entire south of my empire revolts.
It seems that the recruitment and resources are both simplified compared to HoI, easy enough to understand. I have no clue how technology works though.
I think it would be pretty cool to do a succession game with each new king as a new player. Then we could worry about EU3 if we reached the end.
edit: Thanks, Rex, I had forgotten there was a dedicated CK thread.
It's just some sliders. It's in your budget screen. You're going to research very, very slowly as Ming are huge and you're in a crappy technology group (the European civs have huge bonuses, then Orthodox are OK, then Muslims aren't great, then Indians/Asians are bad, then Africa is terrible, then Native Americans just don't learn things ever.
For maximum arrrggghhhhh play as Venice or the Papal State and try to conquer Italy. Half of them are guaranteeing the other half, and the other half are in the HRE.
Sounds nightmarish. Looks like the pope starts with 4,000 men.
Is there a way to engineer a "just war" without relying on AI declarations? In Hearts of Iron you can mess with enemy nations diplomatically to frame them as enemies using propaganda.
1) Have a core in their territory.
2) Fake a reason with a spy.
3) Get Heir to the Throne with all its glorious casus beli.
O yea I know about the annexation, I guess I just wanted to do things a little bit more aggressively and see what would happen. I did attack from multiple provinces as well. What it came down to though was a lack of preparedness and a lack of in-game knowledge. Plus my spies said they didn't have any armor, and all they did was counter-attack with armor. Yea that's good going there. I've got a lot to learn about this game.
As far as the succession game goes, I would be down for one limited to just EU3, for now anyway. The entire series would be quite an undertaking to just do straight away, even for multiple people. I'm familiar with most German, Russian, and some English history as well, so I'd be most knowledgeable as one of those factions but I'd give any one a try.
Also how much does "Heir to the Throne" improve EU3 Complete? Is it magnitudes better or can I pass on it for now?
damn it.
Key features:
1) Various casus beli that allow war declarations without stability loss, and lessen infamy charges and war cost for doing various things.
2) You can recruit advisers instead of praying someone useful shows up.
3) You can plan ahead a bit as far as monarchs go as you can see your heir's stats.
Same here. Splitting into 25/50/100 year chunks seems like the way to go.
EDIT: I think I'm ready to swear off monarchies for good in EU3. 100 years of waiting for decent leaders only have to them die in random accidents and leave me with decades of regency councils is not fun.
And don't get me started on nations that need to westernise. Had a 3 ADM Japanese Empress rule for 56 years, outliving all four of her 6-8 ADM heirs and leaving me with a regency council when she finally stuffed it.
Milan->Italy->HRE seems like easy mode at this point. Maybe not quite "Playing as France" easy mode, but it has been so easy to become the dominant power in the world.
What are the repercussions of annexing the Papal States, anyway? They've got one province amongst the shattered remnants that once formed France, and I'd sort of like to just annex them and get it over with.
In general, I'd recommend the most convertible versions games: CK with Deus Vult; EU3 with Napoleon's Ambition and In Nomine (Heir to the Throne doesn't seem to have much conversion support ...although I'm not sure if anything converter-worthy is affected); Victoria with Victoria: Revolutions; and HOI2 with Armageddon (AOD doesn't seem to convert particularly well, even if it works). In order to give it long term playability you'd essentially have to create the events at scenario start for HOI2 and Victoria. Whoever passes it on would also need to provide their checksum to make sure the base files are consistent.
You'd probably also want to make it more difficult to make a booming mighty empire initially (like the Kingdom of Jerusalem game which became unreasonably huge in CK (I'm not sure how you'd want to do this specifically). Players have legitimately made 1 province minors into continent-spanning empires in EU3.
...I'd be for starting with Schwaben/Swabia in CK. You'd get to be the first Hohenzollern as a one province County. Which is a conceivable path to maintaining a powerful HRE in EU3 and unifying Germany in Victoria for some sort of massive war in HOI2.
Otherwise, someone in the CK thread mentioned a province having the last heirs of Charlemagne (I believe Vermandois which was the eventual family name of the German Kaiser when he got ousted for that whole "world war" thing.
I would be all for starting it up, but I've already got my SH3 LP on hold.
I am pleased by the lack of consequences. Annex time!
We'll be playing with HttT because HttT is SO MUCH BETTER. I don't think any of the modding stuff would be affected. CK would be unmodded, we'll see how things go from there.
CK, Victoria, EU2 and HOI2 run on the same engine.
EU3 and HOI3 (and Victoria 2) run on the same engine.
Converters exist for CK to EU2 and CK to EU3 as well as EU2 to Victoria and EU3 to Victoria. Victoria 2 is supposed to ship with a Victoria 2 to HOI3 converter; Victoria converts to HOI2.
You basically have to edit a save to create the conversion. And since HOI2 doesn't dynamically load the events, you need specify in the save file when you add a new event text file. Victoria runs the same as HOI2, so events you want relative to EU3 also need to be implemented into the save file.
Even within the same engine there's some variance. CK is unique in the Vicky/HOI2 bunch in that there's a way to affect MTTH (Mean Time To Happen), while Victoria and HOI2 rely on Boolean operators with specific conditions and dates of availability (prompted by the randomness of HOI2). You'd basically have to create a few events relating to the world as it is in the scenario.
Even EU3 has quite a few events. They're just a bit more variable by In Nomine because they can be selected to fire by the player (via national/provincial decisions). One of the reason hulking behemoth empires are created in long-term LPs is because individual minors that only specific nations are 'favored' with events.
England, France, Brandenburg/Prussia, Spain (usually as Castille), Ireland (due to its remoteness), Russia, Italy (usually from Milan or Venice), Austria, Turkey, the USA, China (as the Ming or Nationalists) and Japan tend to have dedicated events, and develop into major nations. Germany as a defining nation in HOI2 is a bit of a quirk - the HRE dissolves fairly quickly in CK, much of Germany (if unaffected by the player) remains splintered in EU3, and Germany generally only has about a 40% chance of forming in Victoria. Plus all that fascist/nazi stuff happened in the years not covered by Victoria and HOI2 - so making a country fascist requires some save editing regardless. Since democracies in HOI2 won't declare war unless via event you'll end up with a very uninteresting, stagnant HOI2 political landscape.
And that's why most long LPs tend to have 15-ish huge empires by HOI2. France is just about the only sure bet (barring player interference), and sometimes that horse falters out of the gate in CK.
That said, always be prepared to take advantage of a neighbours strife.
Also, make sure you watch your Infamy level. If you are constantly fighting wars, this will go up, and neighbours will start to look unfavourably towards you. I normally keep mine in single digits if possible, but playing as Portugal I have to really watch this, 'cause I can't go toe to toe with my neighbours. As Castille, you can get away with running a higher Infamy, as you are one of the big dogs.
Unlike in total war, ownership of a province is not inherently good, and it is very easy to lose more money than you make policing wrong culture/wrong religion provinces. Think carefully about how valuable any province you want to take is worth versus the cost to maintain it. Only take loss makers if they have inherent strategic value.
(I made the same mistakes in my first game as Portugal. By the time I quit I had over 50% inflation)
Also, don't take a loan, the interest kills you by reducing your options. If you have to take a loan to get something, just wait until you can save more than enough money.
I am an inflation hawk, but I'm not as concerned about loans. Some games (Tuscany) I couldn't have won without the use of loans. But for a big country like Castille you should never need one.
Adding a province in EU3 really isn't a clear cut benefit. Away from the capital, no big population, no big revenue? Fuck that.
Increases in stability & research costs are sometimes not worth it.
Edit: Also, do not be afraid of inflation. You need minting? Well, mint away. Just be sure you have a plan how you're getting it back down and what exactly are you minting for.
Tax assessors later on and the national bank idea whenever you can are more than enough to manage almost any %.
So, though I had intended to ignore the Balkans, I got involved in the ever shifting power balances in there. I gave up all my provinces in Greece to my newfound underlings to make them a bit stronger, put my fleet at the Bosphorus strait so the Ottomans would be made less powerful if they ever declared a war at me or my vassals, and started slowly putting the Balkan peninsula under my rule. I never tried to attack the Ottomans, because they still had greater armies there even if they weren't able to bring any from Anatolia. Nothing stopped me from conquering all the tiny countries or splintering rebellious provinces in the region.
Albania was the first to fall, then Montenegro who I gave to Albania. When the Islamic Emirate of Bulgaria split up from old man Hungary, I was there to gobble it up. Any time a rebellion succeeded Venice was there to seize the leftovers, and either divide them between the vassals it already had or make a new one. I made sure to ally with my closest threat in Europe - Milan, who could have conquered me in seconds if I didn't have part of my fleet in the Sea of Venice to stop anyone from threatening my capital. When Naples conquered Epirus, I knew i wouldn't stand for that shit and declared war. To my surprise, Milan did too...and with the help of my other vassals, I managed to conquer and vassalize Naples, which held a third of Italy.
Sicily was soon to follow, I shattered their paltry ships and the armies of my vassals crossed over to conquer the provinces. Aragon had a mission to conquer Sicily though, so over the next decades I fought six separate wars to defend my new vassal. I could never conclusively beat Aragon since it had a far greater army and Milan was reclutant to put anything then it's ships in the battles - but my better fleets were able to beat Aragon's, and I got Baleares off them as a naval base and Sardinia and Corsica as new vassals.
Eventually, what I feared most happened - Ottomans declared war on me. For quite a time I had to fight my damndest just to get a white peace in countless different wars, only thing stopping them from conquering my Balkans the fleet that stopped 90% of their forces from ever taking part in the conflicts. The gridlock was however broken when Russia unified and attacked Ottomans - holy shit. They absolutely steamrolled over them, conquering all their Arabian holdings (Arabia was part of the Russian Empire to the end of the game) and part of their core provinces in Turkey. As Ottomans were getting their asses kicked by Russia in Asia, me and my Vassal alliance attacked them in Europe - and conquered everything there. Ottomans were left a rump state in Anatolia in the greatest war of conquest I've ever seen in my game. They were in top 5 when the war started, they were left somewhere around #150 after it was over.
By the end my Balkan vassals were 4th/3rd rate powers in their own right since I divided all the land spoils between them. Byzantium was close to being a 2nd rate, it actually had more provinces and a bigger army then me, though I was vastly wealthier and my vassals being my armies had allowed me to build the greatest fleet in Europe (though Castille and Britain were always nipping my heels there). Bulgaria wasn't far behind, and in fact it was the last remaining powerful Islamic country in Europe. Also, if any of my vassals would revolt, all the others would attack them. The power standing in my vassalliance was something like this:
Venice
Byzantium
Bulgaria/Naples
Sicily/Albania
Achaea/Sardinia/Corsica
Corfu/Naxos (two shitty island vassals you have from the start)
Between my vassals and me I had around 80-90,000 soldiers at my disposal. Nothing compared to the big players like Milan (who had built up a massive realm with more provinces in rest of Europe then Italy and was leading the HRE) France (who was well, fucking France, last boss of EU3) Austria (who had been eating up German and Slav minors like they were candy) Castile (more specifically MegaCastille - they had been colonializing since the beginning, and had 90% of Africa and large parts of South and North America under their influence) and Russia (who owned most of Eastern Europe and pretty much all of Middle East after conquering Poland, Ottomans and Hungary).
All the big dogs had at least 110,000 soldiers on their own. But they were busy with revolts and eachother, so after Ottomans were taken off my back I thought I could embark on some colonializing myself. I was also filthy rich since all my micro-managing had gone towards trade, Venice was the biggest Center of Trade in Europe. I had a tiny war with Aragon again where I conquered the Canaries and Azores from them to use as jumping points for my quest for the new world, and it didn't take long for Venetian ships to hit upper South America. Over the next 50-100 years or so I conquered everything that Castille, Britain and Aragon had not conquered, which was about half of South America.
Interesting times went on when Milan fell apart under it's own weight. It had pissed off too many people in it's ruthless quest for power (honestly, I am so goddamn lucky it never attacked me) and was facing revolts from it's own provinces and wars from Italian minors, France and Austria. The entire Holy Roman Empire was in a civil war. The Venetian Empire on the other hand was doing pretty swimmingly, the entire wealth of upper South America was flooding into my coffers, and I only had like four provinces in Europe (later with Milan falling apart I conquered it's vassals Aquilea and Croatia to gain access to massive amounts of gold and another COT in Gorz) . So nobody really had any reason to mess with me. I was also feeding massive amounts of cash towards my vassals to keep them placated.
With Milan destroyed (it had two provinces when all had been done), I decided to side with one of the victorious European powers since they would without a doubt turn against eachother. I chose France, flooding it with massive amounts of cash to gain +200 and an Alliance with it.
My last years in game were spent in getting myself in top 1 position. I participated in absolutely massive wars between France and Austria. My wealth finally enabled me to field large armies while Byzantium and Bulgaria happily swallowed the remaining Austrian allies and non pro-Venetian states in Balkans - Bosnia and Serbia. I had a colonial war with Mecha-Castille (it was actually bigger in land size then Russia at this point, no kidding) with Great Britain, Portugal and my old nemesis Aragon at my side (MCASTILLE had conquered European Aragon long time ago, it's capital switched between Uruguay and Senegal depending where Castille threatened it). I colonized what was left from Western North America and watched Castille crush Estados Unidos under it's foot when it emerged in Castilian North America. One of the Native American nations was pretty powerful and alive as well, which was pretty interesting.
I tried to unify Italy, but didn't have enough game time left to do that so I just vassalized all the Italian minors.
In the end I was the wealthiest, most powerful naval power in the world. I feel I had usurped Britain's place in history - Great Britain in my game didn't actually had England - had declared separate independence. Scotland and Ireland were independent too. And oddly enough, so was Cornwall. In the end, Venetian Empire comprised of South America, Italy, Balkans, and Western North America. But thanks to the AI and difficulty, in pure power I still fell short of France, Austria, Russia and Castille on crack (it was ridicolously huge).
Goddamn I wish I could understand anything about coding so I could import this save to Victoria and make it work because every moment rocked. I can't even imagine WWI with these motherfuckers.
EDIT: Wow, that ended up longer then I thought.
I started over as a European nation, as it seems that the Ming have massive issues with stability (always historically accurate with China, of course.)
Selected Bavaria and carefully engineered a war with the Palatinate, seized Franken, and carefully maneuvered my armies to defend my own provinces from counter attack. The end result was a huge boost of 11 prestige.....and an income hit of 11 gold a month. o_O Not sure where that came from, so I saved my game until I could figure it out.
yeah, the pleasure of being beaten into pulp to a point of annihilation and then getting peace after giving up a single province is part of the eu3 experience.
Pretty much exactly what I was worried about. Sucks, because Bavaria at least produces enough gold to finance small wars.