I'm starting to think EU France is so strong because they're leeching all the strength from their CK version. In my current CK game, France has imploded and is now a patchwork of other nations. I've never seen them hold together. I don't know if it's something I'm doing, or it's just part of the game.
That's not too surprising. From what I remember of French History (learned at the University of EU 2), France wasn't really unified until the early 1500's, after the death of the last Duke of Burgundy, the inheritance of Brittany, and then finally kicking the English out.
France was essentially united in 1491 with the acquisition of Britanny, but my understanding is that the fractured nature of France prior to that was more an aberration of the hundred years war than the norm, and that essentially France was a unified state from at the very latest Louis IX on.
Well I've got no idea about any of that without looking it up, so I'll just say it's weird to me to see Germany ruling in what I expect to be some sort of France.
The French king was comparatively weak from 1100 to 1400. At different periods Burgundy, Brittany, and England were technically vassals of the French. The French lands as we mostly know them were only 'unified' by around 1500.
At different points England held Normandy (Northern France), Gascony/Aquitaine (Southwest France), Anjou (Central West France) until they were forcibly removed from mainland Europe in 1453 at the end of the Hundred Years War (although they held a small region around Calais for quite a bit longer). Burgundy was annexed and its the lands in the Netherlands fell outside of France's sphere of influence to the Habsburgs in 1477. Avignon and Provence (as a focus on the HRE, Burgundy, Aragon, the Papacy and eventually France) were part of an independent county until the title passed to the French king in 1486. Louis XII managed to finally exercise his sovereignty over Brittany in 1488.
Burgundy - until its eventual dissolution/integration into France - sided with the English on nearly every issue (it was, in fact, the Burgundians who captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English). Similarly, until it was finally integrated into France, Brittany often sided with the English. Southern France and Northern France had disparate cultures for a very long time (Southern France is occasionally still considered Occitan to Northern France's French, despite the French government's aspirations of homogenizing the country in the last 200 years). That whole Albigensian Crusade in the 1200s is a further example of this strife.
The French king was comparatively weak from 1100 to 1400. At different periods Burgundy, Brittany, and England were technically vassals of the French. The French lands as we mostly know them were only 'unified' by around 1500.
At different points England held Normandy (Northern France), Gascony/Aquitaine (Southwest France), Anjou (Central West France) until they were forcibly removed from mainland Europe in 1453 at the end of the Hundred Years War (although they held a small region around Calais for quite a bit longer). Burgundy was annexed and its the lands in the Netherlands fell outside of France's sphere of influence to the Habsburgs in 1477. Avignon and Provence (as a focus on the HRE, Burgundy, Aragon, the Papacy and eventually France) were part of an independent county until the title passed to the French king in 1486. Louis XII managed to finally exercise his sovereignty over Brittany in 1488.
Burgundy - until its eventual dissolution/integration into France - sided with the English on nearly every issue (it was, in fact, the Burgundians who captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English). Similarly, until it was finally integrated into France, Brittany often sided with the English. Southern France and Northern France had disparate cultures for a very long time (Southern France is occasionally still considered Occitan to Northern France's French, despite the French government's aspirations of homogenizing the country in the last 200 years). That whole Albigensian Crusade in the 1200s is a further example of this strife.
An interesting point of interest that I only found out while reading a book about Byzantium (John Julius Norwich 2nd Viscount of Norwich) is that King Richard the Lionheart spoke little English and started his life as the Duke of Aquitaine.
I think Henry IV or Henry V are usually credited with being the first fluent, English speaking monarchs (late 1300s, early 1400s). Richard spent barely more than half his reign in England.
It's hard for English speakers to imagine, but until the late 1500s the two languages to know were Latin and French. Latin for the church and French for diplomacy. Even until the 1800s French remained the predominant language used in diplomatic affairs (one of the reasons it was one of the primary languages of the League of Nations and the UN).
Actually, Richard the 1st spent less than a year in England... to a large extent the earliest 'English' kings viewed England as a big old piggy bank to withdraw money from to use while pursuing their real interest, the feudal struggles in France. Not until John lost most of the French possessions did the English king begin spending most of his time in England.
And certainly France had its moments of stronger consolidation during the 1100-1490 era, (eg, using royal power backed by the pope to exterminate the Cathars and Templars), but it also had extremely strong dukes that obeyed the king on their terms, not his. I suppose CK reflects this accordingly... a strong French king has loyal vassals, a weak one has to spend his time quelling revolts. And sometimes fails.
I think Henry IV or Henry V are usually credited with being the first fluent, English speaking monarchs (late 1300s, early 1400s). Richard spent barely more than half his reign in England.
It's hard for English speakers to imagine, but until the late 1500s the two languages to know were Latin and French. Latin for the church and French for diplomacy. Even until the 1800s French remained the predominant language used in diplomatic affairs (one of the reasons it was one of the primary languages of the League of Nations and the UN).
We still have the phrase 'lingua franca' today. And Henry V was the first, he wrote his letters home to England in English.
Latin and especially French were very important languages well into the 1900's. In the 1800's German starts to compete but if you were a learned Englishman you would always pick up one of the three and probably at least two. To this day many important works in older studies like theology can't be found in English.
I wonder what the chanses are of someone making a savegame converter from EU3 to Vic2. It seems to me like the old converter was made by fans, so unless they code the world and savegames very differently this time it may be possible.
Not likely perhaps, but I'll keep on dreaming!
I have been playing a really long game as Japan, with the self-imposed rule of only conquering islands. I am just finishing up my annexation of England in 1710 and then there are only a few islands left until I rule all the seas. I'd love to see how that world works out in a Vic2 game.
Did English predominance in language come through the British Empire or when United States stopped being isolationist?
Empire, I guess, but also simply because English basically an amalgam of latin and germanic languages, which makes it easy to learn for just about anyone in western Europe. And Europe, in turn, culturally dominated the world.
Ferrus on
I would like to pause for a moment, to talk about my penis.
My penis is like a toddler. A toddler—who is a perfectly normal size for his age—on a long road trip to what he thinks is Disney World. My penis is excited because he hasn’t been to Disney World in a long, long time, but remembers a time when he used to go every day. So now the penis toddler is constantly fidgeting, whining “Are we there yet? Are we there yet? How about now? Now? How about... now?”
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
For whatever reason my Ireland was really stable while excommunicated, but since I was childhood friends with the pope he let us back in. Right after that we had problems, and lost most of our continental possessions. It was almost like a dwarf fortress tantrum spiral. Holding things together made people hate me more. The more I tightened my grip, the more provinces slipped through my fingers.
From everything I've heard and from my games HOI 3 is loads of ass without the expansion. I'm hearing rumblings that its not so great with the expansion either. Their big feature of letting the AI take control at best can follow a straight line and at worst is a game ruiner. You have to give the orders just right, at the appropriate command level, and set the waypoints in the exact correct place, but don't set too many or it will go crazy and either advance unsupported until your divisions are destroyed or leave huge gaps in your line. Not to mention its love of reorganizing your carefully managed stacks of divisions into a useless mess. I tried turning AI on for just aircraft, but it will happily wear your squadrons down to nothing to little effect.
I think one is better off sticking to HOI2+expansions, or that third party spinoff they made using the HOI2 engine. At least until they actually fix HOI3 and release a bundle with the inevitable future expansion packs for a reduced price.
So, early impressions of victoria 2 are quite good. I started a game as sweden, played for a bit, set up some factories, then the liberals got into power so now I'm trying to figure out the best way to get some capitalists going.
I'm liking Victoria 2 so far. It keeps the good stuff about the first one and refines a lot of features. The wargoals and sphere of influence mechanic really capture the dynamic of the period. There's the typical Paradox new release weirdness. There are revolts when they shouldn't happen, like liberal rebels getting pissed when your government is liberal and you are enacting liberal reforms. And a few performance hiccups. Overall nothing that can't be tweaked in the next patch.
Yeah, I liked the demo, though it ran a bit slow even on the fastest setting on my poor old computer. I'm a bit broke though so won't be grabbing it for a while.
enlightenedbum on
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I'm liking Victoria 2 so far. It keeps the good stuff about the first one and refines a lot of features. The wargoals and sphere of influence mechanic really capture the dynamic of the period. There's the typical Paradox new release weirdness. There are revolts when they shouldn't happen, like liberal rebels getting pissed when your government is liberal and you are enacting liberal reforms. And a few performance hiccups. Overall nothing that can't be tweaked in the next patch.
Weird crap I've noticed so far that needs to be fixed in a patch:
Sphere of influence is way the fuck too economically powerful. The great power gets first right of refusal to the production of the country. This means as a great power I can bankrupt a state by simply building the same factories as it or vice versa. For example, I have a liquour factory in sardinia. France decides to build three liquor factories. All my fruit beyond that which is needed for pop needs now goes to france first, even if my liquor factory has been running for years.
This is quite frankly absurd. For direct satellites and puppet nations it may make sense, but spheres can be obtained with no input from the subject nation. Its frustrating to be bankrupted and unable to industrialize for no other reason than that I'm 10th on the power list rather than 8th, without any options to change it. Unlike a satellite I can't even declare war to get out of the situation.
Factories bankrupt WAY TOO QUICKLY and need either some kind of grace period along the lines of a couple of months, or you should be able to subsidize them even in lasseiz faire government. Regularly minor disruptions in supply chains or labor kill factories, which is insane. Also, what plutocratic government run by clerks and capitalists is against factory subsidies? "My business is going bankrupt because of fluctuations on the world market, but damn it fuck those corporate subsidies that are keeping me in the black".
Liberals seem to be impossible to please, and even though I've done every single reform the upper house will allow me to do, I still have anarchists all over the place. Not only that, but every single other country in europe does too. What makes this even worse is that if I do manage to get voting rights passed, my entire economy self destructs, because liberals won't let me subsidize factories and capitalists build factories that are reliant on the world market and highly unstable.
Honestly right now the game is very difficult if not impossible to play as a country that isn't either a major power or an autocratic regime far enough from europe that it doesn't get in anyone's sphere. This ends up making countries like sweden and sardinia harder than countries like china and japan, which is just messed up.
Ok yeah the revolts are out of control. I had to stop playing my USA game, it was massive revolts non stop for 10 years. Just about every province east of the Mississippi was spawning rebels. And I can't enact any reforms that the people are clamoring for, the game won't let me. I don't know what makes social reforms allowable, does it have to do with the ruling party differing from the upper house majority? All the rebels want are some trinket pensions and a minimum wage. To make matters worse my voters have elected a socialist president, so I can't even lower taxes to make people happy. Fuck democracy, I'm playing a dictatorship next.
Well, the problem is that the parties are messed up in what they'll allow.
The manual says "Conservative parties prefer no reformations, Liberal prefer Political reformations, and socialists prefer Economic reformations, but all with pass any reformation if militancy is high enough.
This is a dirty lie. When I'm getting countrywide revolts every 2 months, MILITANCY IS FUCKING HIGH ENOUGH. When CPU austria has revolts in every non-austrian province 20 years after the liberal revolution is over, militancy is high enough.
Jealous Deva on
0
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
So I am on EU3 now, working my way to Vic2. Anyway, England was able to swiftly and easily conquer the British Isles and in 150(something) they formed Great Britain. The first modern power to form.
About twenty years later I notice that they have imploded most dramatically! Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Norway (which England conquered long ago) are now free. Great Britain is back to its English holdings with rebels err'where and Scottish troops pouring in from the north. I have zero idea what happened. They seemed to be doing so well.
For whatever reason I seemed to have gained the Roma province and the Papal State is now situated in Iceland. Not sure how that happened either.
edit- On closer inspection, England is also free of Great Britain. Huh.
edit 2- Another oddity. It is 1539 and not a single European power (great or small) has set foot in the New World. Does HttT change things? Usually in my games the New World (and damn near any colonizable coast) has been claimed by now.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
So I am on EU3 now, working my way to Vic2. Anyway, England was able to swiftly and easily conquer the British Isles and in 150(something) they formed Great Britain. The first modern power to form.
About twenty years later I notice that they have imploded most dramatically! Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Norway (which England conquered long ago) are now free. Great Britain is back to its English holdings with rebels err'where and Scottish troops pouring in from the north. I have zero idea what happened. They seemed to be doing so well.
For whatever reason I seemed to have gained the Roma province and the Papal State is now situated in Iceland. Not sure how that happened either.
edit- On closer inspection, England is also free of Great Britain. Huh.
I saw France completely implode and be eliminated from the game during the hundred years war once, only to revolt from burgundy in the 1600s and take all of its territory back to become a major power again. It was pretty impressive.
So I am on EU3 now, working my way to Vic2. Anyway, England was able to swiftly and easily conquer the British Isles and in 150(something) they formed Great Britain. The first modern power to form.
About twenty years later I notice that they have imploded most dramatically! Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Norway (which England conquered long ago) are now free. Great Britain is back to its English holdings with rebels err'where and Scottish troops pouring in from the north. I have zero idea what happened. They seemed to be doing so well.
For whatever reason I seemed to have gained the Roma province and the Papal State is now situated in Iceland. Not sure how that happened either.
edit- On closer inspection, England is also free of Great Britain. Huh.
I saw France completely implode and be eliminated from the game during the hundred years war once, only to revolt from burgundy in the 1600s and take all of its territory back to become a major power again. It was pretty impressive.
Apply the rebels and reforms fix and capitalist/craftsmen pop fixes. This will make the AI nations and overall economies a lot more stable.
You still can't industrialize without becoming a GP, but that's something I think may have to wait for some kind of patch/rethink of the sphere system (and regardless at the very least gives you a motivation for conquering all of indochina, japan, and madagascar in the first 5 years of the game as Sardinia )
If someone wants to play a game of Vic 2 with me grab me in steam. Display name is Sonar or but make sure the user is Merad.
Sonar on
I'm building a real pirate ship. Really. Wanna help? Click here!
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
0
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited August 2010
Man, having Lucky Nations off can produce some awesomingly weird things in EU3.
Some things of note in my game:
The Papal States of America.
Great Britain has displaced Sweden while England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales run roughshod in the British Isles.
Meckelenberg(sp?) has slowly, ever so slowly, taken over Bohemia and Austria. They did this without lifting a sword. Lucky bastards.
Mecklenberg is also the Holy Roman Emperor. The HRE has hereditary rule now, effectively making the rest of the HRE Mecklenberg's little play things.
No other European Power is in the New World aside from the Papal States who are based out of Iceland.
Castile is slowly taking the African coast, while I force my way through the center.
France, Great Britain, and I (Lorraine) are currently the only Protestant nations in Europe. Protestantism swept through my provinces like freaking wildfire.
Question: How the fuck do I get explorers? I have QftNW, enough naval tradition, and the right people to use. Yet I cannot make Admirals, Generals, Explorers, or Conquistadors. It has been very annoying.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Anyone played EU 3 as the Papacy? Did you try to unite Italy first? I'm not quite sure whats the best path. Naples attacked me a month after the game started, so I took one of their territories, then I annexed all of Tunisia and restored it to the true faith, but I'm not sure what to do next. Algiers has a bigger army than me, and my allies only actually sent substantial troops to Africa during my first war.
Posts
France was essentially united in 1491 with the acquisition of Britanny, but my understanding is that the fractured nature of France prior to that was more an aberration of the hundred years war than the norm, and that essentially France was a unified state from at the very latest Louis IX on.
At different points England held Normandy (Northern France), Gascony/Aquitaine (Southwest France), Anjou (Central West France) until they were forcibly removed from mainland Europe in 1453 at the end of the Hundred Years War (although they held a small region around Calais for quite a bit longer). Burgundy was annexed and its the lands in the Netherlands fell outside of France's sphere of influence to the Habsburgs in 1477. Avignon and Provence (as a focus on the HRE, Burgundy, Aragon, the Papacy and eventually France) were part of an independent county until the title passed to the French king in 1486. Louis XII managed to finally exercise his sovereignty over Brittany in 1488.
Burgundy - until its eventual dissolution/integration into France - sided with the English on nearly every issue (it was, in fact, the Burgundians who captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English). Similarly, until it was finally integrated into France, Brittany often sided with the English. Southern France and Northern France had disparate cultures for a very long time (Southern France is occasionally still considered Occitan to Northern France's French, despite the French government's aspirations of homogenizing the country in the last 200 years). That whole Albigensian Crusade in the 1200s is a further example of this strife.
An interesting point of interest that I only found out while reading a book about Byzantium (John Julius Norwich 2nd Viscount of Norwich) is that King Richard the Lionheart spoke little English and started his life as the Duke of Aquitaine.
It's hard for English speakers to imagine, but until the late 1500s the two languages to know were Latin and French. Latin for the church and French for diplomacy. Even until the 1800s French remained the predominant language used in diplomatic affairs (one of the reasons it was one of the primary languages of the League of Nations and the UN).
Actually, Richard the 1st spent less than a year in England... to a large extent the earliest 'English' kings viewed England as a big old piggy bank to withdraw money from to use while pursuing their real interest, the feudal struggles in France. Not until John lost most of the French possessions did the English king begin spending most of his time in England.
And certainly France had its moments of stronger consolidation during the 1100-1490 era, (eg, using royal power backed by the pope to exterminate the Cathars and Templars), but it also had extremely strong dukes that obeyed the king on their terms, not his. I suppose CK reflects this accordingly... a strong French king has loyal vassals, a weak one has to spend his time quelling revolts. And sometimes fails.
We still have the phrase 'lingua franca' today. And Henry V was the first, he wrote his letters home to England in English.
Some people have already started it. :winky:
In my completely unprofessional opinion, I'd say British Empire up until WWII, then USA from then on.
Empire, I guess, but also simply because English basically an amalgam of latin and germanic languages, which makes it easy to learn for just about anyone in western Europe. And Europe, in turn, culturally dominated the world.
And Disney World is nowhere in sight.
Otherwise it's just a long string of victories, countries crushed and brought to heel, the usual.
Isn't that true of all the PI games? You get so much manpower and money that no one can really stop you.
If you're careful, and don't build up tons of BB and revolt risks and such, you can shepherd a pretty big empire. But if you aren't, it can implode.
I think one is better off sticking to HOI2+expansions, or that third party spinoff they made using the HOI2 engine. At least until they actually fix HOI3 and release a bundle with the inevitable future expansion packs for a reduced price.
probably going to start off with Mexico and curb down on American imperialism, I never got off doing that in Victoria I.
EDIT: I love how fast Paradox games install.
I love their choice of screenshots. Three shots of maps, and ten shots of spreadsheets and graphs.
Weird crap I've noticed so far that needs to be fixed in a patch:
Sphere of influence is way the fuck too economically powerful. The great power gets first right of refusal to the production of the country. This means as a great power I can bankrupt a state by simply building the same factories as it or vice versa. For example, I have a liquour factory in sardinia. France decides to build three liquor factories. All my fruit beyond that which is needed for pop needs now goes to france first, even if my liquor factory has been running for years.
This is quite frankly absurd. For direct satellites and puppet nations it may make sense, but spheres can be obtained with no input from the subject nation. Its frustrating to be bankrupted and unable to industrialize for no other reason than that I'm 10th on the power list rather than 8th, without any options to change it. Unlike a satellite I can't even declare war to get out of the situation.
Factories bankrupt WAY TOO QUICKLY and need either some kind of grace period along the lines of a couple of months, or you should be able to subsidize them even in lasseiz faire government. Regularly minor disruptions in supply chains or labor kill factories, which is insane. Also, what plutocratic government run by clerks and capitalists is against factory subsidies? "My business is going bankrupt because of fluctuations on the world market, but damn it fuck those corporate subsidies that are keeping me in the black".
Liberals seem to be impossible to please, and even though I've done every single reform the upper house will allow me to do, I still have anarchists all over the place. Not only that, but every single other country in europe does too. What makes this even worse is that if I do manage to get voting rights passed, my entire economy self destructs, because liberals won't let me subsidize factories and capitalists build factories that are reliant on the world market and highly unstable.
Honestly right now the game is very difficult if not impossible to play as a country that isn't either a major power or an autocratic regime far enough from europe that it doesn't get in anyone's sphere. This ends up making countries like sweden and sardinia harder than countries like china and japan, which is just messed up.
The manual says "Conservative parties prefer no reformations, Liberal prefer Political reformations, and socialists prefer Economic reformations, but all with pass any reformation if militancy is high enough.
This is a dirty lie. When I'm getting countrywide revolts every 2 months, MILITANCY IS FUCKING HIGH ENOUGH. When CPU austria has revolts in every non-austrian province 20 years after the liberal revolution is over, militancy is high enough.
About twenty years later I notice that they have imploded most dramatically! Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Norway (which England conquered long ago) are now free. Great Britain is back to its English holdings with rebels err'where and Scottish troops pouring in from the north. I have zero idea what happened. They seemed to be doing so well.
For whatever reason I seemed to have gained the Roma province and the Papal State is now situated in Iceland. Not sure how that happened either.
edit- On closer inspection, England is also free of Great Britain. Huh.
edit 2- Another oddity. It is 1539 and not a single European power (great or small) has set foot in the New World. Does HttT change things? Usually in my games the New World (and damn near any colonizable coast) has been claimed by now.
I saw France completely implode and be eliminated from the game during the hundred years war once, only to revolt from burgundy in the 1600s and take all of its territory back to become a major power again. It was pretty impressive.
For those having rebel problems in Vic2:
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=492091
Apply the rebels and reforms fix and capitalist/craftsmen pop fixes. This will make the AI nations and overall economies a lot more stable.
You still can't industrialize without becoming a GP, but that's something I think may have to wait for some kind of patch/rethink of the sphere system (and regardless at the very least gives you a motivation for conquering all of indochina, japan, and madagascar in the first 5 years of the game as Sardinia )
caffron said: "and cat pee is not a laughing matter"
Some things of note in my game:
The Papal States of America.
Great Britain has displaced Sweden while England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales run roughshod in the British Isles.
Meckelenberg(sp?) has slowly, ever so slowly, taken over Bohemia and Austria. They did this without lifting a sword. Lucky bastards.
Mecklenberg is also the Holy Roman Emperor. The HRE has hereditary rule now, effectively making the rest of the HRE Mecklenberg's little play things.
No other European Power is in the New World aside from the Papal States who are based out of Iceland.
Castile is slowly taking the African coast, while I force my way through the center.
France, Great Britain, and I (Lorraine) are currently the only Protestant nations in Europe. Protestantism swept through my provinces like freaking wildfire.
Question: How the fuck do I get explorers? I have QftNW, enough naval tradition, and the right people to use. Yet I cannot make Admirals, Generals, Explorers, or Conquistadors. It has been very annoying.