So my first real game of EU4 just ended with a coalition against me as Milan only just shy of forming Italy. I just had to wait for the core timer on Rome... oh well. RIP Milanese Republic, 1444-1556.
So what should I look into doing next? I have everything except Dharma
If you have rights of man, Great Britain is fun with the mission tree.
There are a couple bugs related to England/GB events atm. No event to get Henry Tudor after the War of the Roses, can't ever get out of English Monarchy without switching government type in Dharma, only can by going Parliamentarians without ('cause going Royalists in English Civil War no longer switches you to despotic monarchy or reform, and switching back to kingdom after Cromwell dies sends you right back to English Monarchy in Dharma)
Is there any way to cheat in EU4 without disabling achievements? This bug is really annoying me, it'd be great if I could open the console and change government types or something.
Edit: googling has got me the console, but no way to use the console to change government. I can also edit my save file, but can't then load it in ironman. Reading the save file and the disaster_eng_civil_war.txt event file is giving me an idea on why the event is broken, but unfortunately that doesn't help me fix it.
There are AFAIK three ways to get England as a Monarchy without English Monarchy with Dharma:
1. Climb the reform tree, leave the last reform unpicked until the English Civil War starts, go with Royalists and then use it to switch to Theocracy/Republic. End of disaster will switch you back to Monarchy.
2. Stick with the republic after going Parliamentarian in the English civil war, force a low Republic Tradition->Dictatorship->Monarchy switch.
3. Form England/GB as another nation. Scotland can form GB and England can release one of several nations that they can feed provinces to before re-integrating and then release again, choose to switch, and then conquering your old self to form England. Note that *none* of the England-GB achievements let you get them as a released vassal, and you *have* to start as England to get One Night in Paris. (Might have to for Anglophile as well, but I think that's actually because of a bug related to the War of the Roses mission that's confirmed fixed for the next update)
I'd say Option 3 is the best, specifically forming GB as Scotland; pretty much anything that switches your government type in Dharma gives you only enough progress for a single reform, and considering you're probably going to trigger this no earlier than 1620, you probably won't regain all the reforms you already had before the game ends.
So my first real game of EU4 just ended with a coalition against me as Milan only just shy of forming Italy. I just had to wait for the core timer on Rome... oh well. RIP Milanese Republic, 1444-1556.
So what should I look into doing next? I have everything except Dharma
If you have rights of man, Great Britain is fun with the mission tree.
There are a couple bugs related to England/GB events atm. No event to get Henry Tudor after the War of the Roses, can't ever get out of English Monarchy without switching government type in Dharma, only can by going Parliamentarians without ('cause going Royalists in English Civil War no longer switches you to despotic monarchy or reform, and switching back to kingdom after Cromwell dies sends you right back to English Monarchy in Dharma)
Is there any way to cheat in EU4 without disabling achievements? This bug is really annoying me, it'd be great if I could open the console and change government types or something.
Edit: googling has got me the console, but no way to use the console to change government. I can also edit my save file, but can't then load it in ironman. Reading the save file and the disaster_eng_civil_war.txt event file is giving me an idea on why the event is broken, but unfortunately that doesn't help me fix it.
There are AFAIK three ways to get England as a Monarchy without English Monarchy with Dharma:
1. Climb the reform tree, leave the last reform unpicked until the English Civil War starts, go with Royalists and then use it to switch to Theocracy/Republic. End of disaster will switch you back to Monarchy.
2. Stick with the republic after going Parliamentarian in the English civil war, force a low Republic Tradition->Dictatorship->Monarchy switch.
3. Form England/GB as another nation. Scotland can form GB and England can release one of several nations that they can feed provinces to before re-integrating and then release again, choose to switch, and then conquering your old self to form England. Note that *none* of the England-GB achievements let you get them as a released vassal, and you *have* to start as England to get One Night in Paris. (Might have to for Anglophile as well, but I think that's actually because of a bug related to the War of the Roses mission that's confirmed fixed for the next update)
I'd say Option 3 is the best, specifically forming GB as Scotland; pretty much anything that switches your government type in Dharma gives you only enough progress for a single reform, and considering you're probably going to trigger this no earlier than 1620, you probably won't regain all the reforms you already had before the game ends.
Unfortunately I don't have Dharma.
I believe I got it to work. I used EU4ConsolePatcher to enable the console in an ironman save, but there are no events that let you change to a monarchy - I think all the 'change to a monarchy' events don't work for English monarchy. However, I could use "event flavor_hol.3502" to change to an administrative republic, then "event flavor_hol.3502" again to change to an administrative monarchy, then 100 admin to change to a despotic monarchy. A real pain, but hopefully I can still get the Anglophile achievement.
So my first real game of EU4 just ended with a coalition against me as Milan only just shy of forming Italy. I just had to wait for the core timer on Rome... oh well. RIP Milanese Republic, 1444-1556.
So what should I look into doing next? I have everything except Dharma
If you have rights of man, Great Britain is fun with the mission tree.
There are a couple bugs related to England/GB events atm. No event to get Henry Tudor after the War of the Roses, can't ever get out of English Monarchy without switching government type in Dharma, only can by going Parliamentarians without ('cause going Royalists in English Civil War no longer switches you to despotic monarchy or reform, and switching back to kingdom after Cromwell dies sends you right back to English Monarchy in Dharma)
Is there any way to cheat in EU4 without disabling achievements? This bug is really annoying me, it'd be great if I could open the console and change government types or something.
Edit: googling has got me the console, but no way to use the console to change government. I can also edit my save file, but can't then load it in ironman. Reading the save file and the disaster_eng_civil_war.txt event file is giving me an idea on why the event is broken, but unfortunately that doesn't help me fix it.
There are AFAIK three ways to get England as a Monarchy without English Monarchy with Dharma:
1. Climb the reform tree, leave the last reform unpicked until the English Civil War starts, go with Royalists and then use it to switch to Theocracy/Republic. End of disaster will switch you back to Monarchy.
2. Stick with the republic after going Parliamentarian in the English civil war, force a low Republic Tradition->Dictatorship->Monarchy switch.
3. Form England/GB as another nation. Scotland can form GB and England can release one of several nations that they can feed provinces to before re-integrating and then release again, choose to switch, and then conquering your old self to form England. Note that *none* of the England-GB achievements let you get them as a released vassal, and you *have* to start as England to get One Night in Paris. (Might have to for Anglophile as well, but I think that's actually because of a bug related to the War of the Roses mission that's confirmed fixed for the next update)
I'd say Option 3 is the best, specifically forming GB as Scotland; pretty much anything that switches your government type in Dharma gives you only enough progress for a single reform, and considering you're probably going to trigger this no earlier than 1620, you probably won't regain all the reforms you already had before the game ends.
Unfortunately I don't have Dharma.
I believe I got it to work. I used EU4ConsolePatcher to enable the console in an ironman save, but there are no events that let you change to a monarchy - I think all the 'change to a monarchy' events don't work for English monarchy. However, I could use "event flavor_hol.3502" to change to an administrative republic, then "event flavor_hol.3502" again to change to an administrative monarchy, then 100 admin to change to a despotic monarchy. A real pain, but hopefully I can still get the Anglophile achievement.
Oh, if you don't have Dharma, than it's easy: Join the Parlementarians, and bring back the monarchy after Cromwell dies. That path, at least, will still get you Constitutional Monarchy, which you can switch to whatever government type you really wanted.
Your colonies have much more money than me, is there anything you had to do to make them more profitable? Should I have been building buildings for them? At 1720 it's probably too late to start doing that.
Mine are going ok, I'm making more money from them than from taxes and vassals combined, but not that much.
I subsidized them after forming and built manufactories for them, also kept raising tariffs. This is all of course much easier in a tall game since you have more money, time and monarch points to invest in them.
My colonies never made nearly as much money as yours, even after building all the buildings I could in every province they owned. Oh well, I was focused more on making a trade empire, and I made a buttload of money through production and trade. I have waaaaaaaaaaay more expenses than you though, all those mercs are hungry for gold.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
My colonies never made nearly as much money as yours, even after building all the buildings I could in every province they owned. Oh well, I was focused more on making a trade empire, and I made a buttload of money through production and trade. I have waaaaaaaaaaay more expenses than you though, all those mercs are hungry for gold.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
You don't want all the PUs for a vassal swarm, you want to Revoke the Privilegia and have a 40-odd nation vassal swarm.
My colonies never made nearly as much money as yours, even after building all the buildings I could in every province they owned. Oh well, I was focused more on making a trade empire, and I made a buttload of money through production and trade. I have waaaaaaaaaaay more expenses than you though, all those mercs are hungry for gold.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
You don't want all the PUs for a vassal swarm, you want to Revoke the Privilegia and have a 40-odd nation vassal swarm.
Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for... but to get there I currently have Bohemia and Hungary under me in PUs, Norway and Sweden as vassals, and a Habsburg on the throne of Castile, Aragon, Naples... just need them to look a bit weak so I can snaffle them up too.
My colonies never made nearly as much money as yours, even after building all the buildings I could in every province they owned. Oh well, I was focused more on making a trade empire, and I made a buttload of money through production and trade. I have waaaaaaaaaaay more expenses than you though, all those mercs are hungry for gold.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
You don't want all the PUs for a vassal swarm, you want to Revoke the Privilegia and have a 40-odd nation vassal swarm.
Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for... but to get there I currently have Bohemia and Hungary under me in PUs, Norway and Sweden as vassals, and a Habsburg on the throne of Castile, Aragon, Naples... just need them to look a bit weak so I can snaffle them up too.
Keep in mind that while IIRC your HRE vassals won't care about relative size between all of them and you, any vassals you have *outside* the HRE will.
My colonies never made nearly as much money as yours, even after building all the buildings I could in every province they owned. Oh well, I was focused more on making a trade empire, and I made a buttload of money through production and trade. I have waaaaaaaaaaay more expenses than you though, all those mercs are hungry for gold.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
You don't want all the PUs for a vassal swarm, you want to Revoke the Privilegia and have a 40-odd nation vassal swarm.
Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for... but to get there I currently have Bohemia and Hungary under me in PUs, Norway and Sweden as vassals, and a Habsburg on the throne of Castile, Aragon, Naples... just need them to look a bit weak so I can snaffle them up too.
Keep in mind that while IIRC your HRE vassals won't care about relative size between all of them and you, any vassals you have *outside* the HRE will.
Right, so I'll have to integrate vassals before I get that far, but can keep my PUs. Assuming I can survive with the Ottomans and France tag-teaming me.
I swear to god, the only time Hungary willingly PUs with Austria is when I'm allied to them as Byzantium.
Well, at least they stayed around long enough to win the war with the Ottomans. Between what we did, the Venicians for attacking Albania, and Mamluks (who in true Mamluk faction, still got curbstomped by Ottomans' Allies, AQ, Tlecmen and Tunis before taking any territory for themselves.) Ottomans are *merely* a midrange power
Still bigger than me, but with luck Round 2 can go off before my luck strikes again and my backup to Hungary Aragon gets Iberian Wedding'd first.
I swear to god, the only time Hungary willingly PUs with Austria is when I'm allied to them as Byzantium.
Well, at least they stayed around long enough to win the war with the Ottomans. Between what we did, the Venicians for attacking Albania, and Mamluks (who in true Mamluk faction, still got curbstomped by Ottomans' Allies, AQ, Tlecmen and Tunis before taking any territory for themselves.) Ottomans are *merely* a midrange power
Still bigger than me, but with luck Round 2 can go off before my luck strikes again and my backup to Hungary Aragon gets Iberian Wedding'd first.
Bloody Ottos. Last game I didn't touch them until money wasn't an issue, so I could just throw wave after wave of mercs at them. This game I need to be more careful, but they seem capable of conjuring 80k manpower out of nowhere whenever I think they're looking a bit soft.
(Rumors of Polish dominance since the patch were, at least in this game, greatly exaggerated, It was effectively gone before the Religious War, even though it did get a PU with Lithuania.)
If there one thing this run has taught me, is that I really don't know jack shit about budgeting a country:
Had to declare bankruptcy twice, only to go back deep in debt just a few short years later. First time was because I lost Austria as an ally to the bankruptcy and couldn't get them back before all the peace treaties that were protecting me went away. Second time was an Internal Conflicts disaster that was... something. Twice did I get hit with a completely not-related-to-event stability hit just months before I would have ended the disaster. (I have never scream so much as I did at that fucking comet... like the game was actually trying to get me to rage quit.)
What you see here (including about half the corruption) was as much about me going "fuck it, I'm getting the cheevo and calling it in" and tossing money at the last few provinces I need as it was poor money management, but know I should be raking in way more money than that by this point, regardless of the climb it took to get there, and not be sitting on 50%+ inflation for most of the game (actually peaked at 80% before the second bankruptcy.)
Maybe when I'm better at making money I'll come back to try to actually complete the mission tree (has a unique one w/ the Byzantium mini-dlc) but I think I need to watch some youtubers first.
Well, don't watch Arumba, because he's really bad at the game nowadays. It's more his attitude than anything else. I saw him play with tributaries for the first time and it didn't take him one minute to dismiss them as something which can be useful (for the record, they produce a potentially massive amount of MP and any tributary you have is also not eligible to join a coalition, so it is the most powerful AE management tool in the game - just make all the really small countries which would normally end up in a coalition into tributaries).
@Foefaller not that it helps you now, but for future reference, you can sit on an open event window for several months (I want to say it's 6 months, but I'm not positive) without choosing an option. Just be careful with choice events, as it will auto-select the first option if you leave it past the invisible deadline.
It could have potentially let you solve your disaster earlier. It's also pretty useful if you're integrating multiple vassals at once, as the -3 diplo rep penalty doesn't go into effect until you click the button on the successful integration window. So if you mistimed the integrations, it gives you several months of cushion to finish up the others after the first.
My first world conquest is going ok, though it's going to come quite close to the time limit. It's 1785, I have 9 countries left to conquer (all between 30 and 300 development), and 7 vassals to swallow.
Don't think I'm going to make One Faith though: I have around 300 provinces left to convert. Around 10 months each, and I have 5 missionaries... I think it'll be done around 1830.
World conquered with plenty of time to spare. Vassals annexed with about 15 years to spare. Didn't make One Faith, but I did learn that ducats cap at 1 million.
Thinking my next game will be Poland Can Into Space, take a bunch of military ideas, build a bunch of forts, and be that weird isolated military country that doesn't talk to anyone.
Decided to play Nevers on Very Hard, got a PU over France in 1550 - it's pretty easy to get a Valois since you start with a middle-aged ruler and you can disinherit your heir right away.
Considering now whether I just wanna twiddle my thumbs until I can integrate France for the achievement or I'm gonna do some more.
I'm playing as Poland around 1500, saw they had two wars going in Persia and decided to try to hurt them a little. Called in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania with me, rushed Constantinople, and was able to siege it down. After a few wars they had more troops than all of us combined, but I was able to peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and Constantinople.
Around ten years later, they're at war with Castile, Aragon, Naples, Venice, France, and assorted minors in two different wars. I jump in again, calling in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania again. They have about 100k troops + manpower. We kill some 40k troops, the other countries win some battles, we end up controlling all of the Balkans and some of Turkey but then 60k troops come marching towards me so I peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and some of the Balkans.
Less than ten years later and they're winning a war with the Mamluks and have the biggest army in the world. They've got more troops now than they did when I started our last war!
Where the hell are they getting all their troops from? I've taken their richest land, but they still have nearly double my income. I've cut their Balkan land off from their Turkish land, they've had at least 3 rebels pop up that I could see, but they still ferried enough troops around to put them down. And it's not mercenaries either, they've only had about 5k mercenaries every time I've checked the ledger.
I'm playing as Poland around 1500, saw they had two wars going in Persia and decided to try to hurt them a little. Called in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania with me, rushed Constantinople, and was able to siege it down. After a few wars they had more troops than all of us combined, but I was able to peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and Constantinople.
Around ten years later, they're at war with Castile, Aragon, Naples, Venice, France, and assorted minors in two different wars. I jump in again, calling in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania again. They have about 100k troops + manpower. We kill some 40k troops, the other countries win some battles, we end up controlling all of the Balkans and some of Turkey but then 60k troops come marching towards me so I peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and some of the Balkans.
Less than ten years later and they're winning a war with the Mamluks and have the biggest army in the world. They've got more troops now than they did when I started our last war!
Where the hell are they getting all their troops from? I've taken their richest land, but they still have nearly double my income. I've cut their Balkan land off from their Turkish land, they've had at least 3 rebels pop up that I could see, but they still ferried enough troops around to put them down. And it's not mercenaries either, they've only had about 5k mercenaries every time I've checked the ledger.
Damn you ottomans, why won't you die?
From my own understanding and observations, it boils down to basically five things:
1. With CoC, Ottomans can spend MIL instead of manpower for infantry by raising Janissaries.
2. As an Anatolian tech nation, they will give heathen land to the Dhimmi, giving them more opportunities to raid them for manpower (yes, the AI can use some estate interactions, including the ones that give free manpower)
3. With the wealth of Constantinople, Ottomans can keep their armies constantly drilling, letting them burn professionalism for manpower (yes, the AI can slacken recruitment standards as well)
4. With the wealth of Constantinople, Ottomans can afford to make siege stacks that are mostly artillery to get the maximum artillery bonus for siege.
5. With the extra Army Tradition the AI gets, thanks to the constant wars the Ottomans are in since they spend so much time conquering everyone, they have amazing generals with siege pips that can command the siege stacks.
Combined, Ottomans suffer surprisingly little attrition from sieges because they cap forts so fast, recruit significant amount of elite infantry without spending manpower, and are better able to acquire more manpower as needed from professionalism and estates.
Also, more specific to your point in time; Ottomans almost always hit their Golden Era before the Age of Discovery is over, so they're probably riding the high on the bonuses from that. This also means they have their unique age ability, and are taking even less attrition from siege because their Siege ability is so high.
On the flip side, as Poland in I believe the first half of the 17th century your units are going to be at their strongest relative to your neighbors, and the Ottomans will be at their weakest. Just keep them contained, build up yourself, and you will have your day around then.
2. As an Anatolian tech nation, they will give heathen land to the Dhimmi, giving them more opportunities to raid them for manpower (yes, the AI can use some estate interactions, including the ones that give free manpower)
3. With the wealth of Constantinople, Ottomans can keep their armies constantly drilling, letting them burn professionalism for manpower (yes, the AI can slacken recruitment standards as well).
I think this is what I wasn't accounting for. Their armies were strong enough that nobody was killing tons of their men, and then they'd just get free manpower to make up for it.
It's OK though, they had another war with Spain and sent all their troops to Africa, so I raided their homelands again and got their war exhaustion up to 10 without fighting a single battle.
I'm trying to play with army professionalism and without using mercs, but enemies just keep trying to flood with merc armies if you don't do the same
There just isn't enough manpower to really deal with mercs
This will probably go up to one million, note that they only lost 30.5k due to attrition (at least that's what the game makes you believe) - also this isn't even lategame
Funny, I very rarely buy mercs, partly because I rarely have the economy in the early game to support them.
The side effect of this is there are quite a few periods where I'm chillaxing while waiting for manpower to replenish. And why I nearly always take Quantity.
It's just that 100% Army Professionalism is in no way worth not using mercs - Army Professionalism also has nasty events which regularly kill off your manpower which reminds me of the old negative Aristocratic events which they removed
I tried to play as Mann (released right after game start without taing any actions as England) on Very Hard and I thought it was going pretty well - I didn't take over the British Isles because it didn't seem possible on VH starting from Mann, instead I colonized south to Africa and then eventually arrived in Indonesia. Unfortunately it got to a point where everyone was declaring war on me, England for Mann, the Iberians for the Cape, various nations for the land I took from them.
I haven't played Normal in a long time but on Very Hard it seems you can't be friends with any colonizer as soon as you put down your first colony. Trying to put a finger on what I could've done better (I also tried to monopolize Ivory Coast but I only got 30% of the trade money despite owning everything which is quite something to consider).
Dusted EU4 off for the first time in awhile and I'm chugging along in a spain campaign.
Good lord can the Ottomans get disgusting by the late 1600s if they aren't taken out before then. Everyone else throwing a few 30-50K armies around and then these guys roll in with a half-dozen 90K stacks at once..
Dusted EU4 off for the first time in awhile and I'm chugging along in a spain campaign.
Good lord can the Ottomans get disgusting by the late 1600s if they aren't taken out before then. Everyone else throwing a few 30-50K armies around and then these guys roll in with a half-dozen 90K stacks at once..
Yeah I dusted this off recently as well. Played an England-as-colonizer on a random New World and the Ottomans are really a giant green blob that nothing can stop. I should be able to beat their score, but it will be a near-run thing. I almost feel like you need to deliberately gank them even if they aren't a neighbor or they'll just steamroll and blob out.
Dusted EU4 off for the first time in awhile and I'm chugging along in a spain campaign.
Good lord can the Ottomans get disgusting by the late 1600s if they aren't taken out before then. Everyone else throwing a few 30-50K armies around and then these guys roll in with a half-dozen 90K stacks at once..
Yeah I dusted this off recently as well. Played an England-as-colonizer on a random New World and the Ottomans are really a giant green blob that nothing can stop. I should be able to beat their score, but it will be a near-run thing. I almost feel like you need to deliberately gank them even if they aren't a neighbor or they'll just steamroll and blob out.
I can sorta stop them, in the sense of prevent them from blobbing in a particular war, but I can't chop the blob up more than a province or two at a time because there's nothing you can do to defend against 500,000-750,000 troops pouring in on the same target. Which is kind of a pity, because if I could break an attack like that I could start breaking them up...
Oh, for extra fun they're utterly steadfast allies of the HRE. Anytime Austria or Lithuania gets big eyes eastern Europe just kind of goes away for a decade.
Posts
There are AFAIK three ways to get England as a Monarchy without English Monarchy with Dharma:
1. Climb the reform tree, leave the last reform unpicked until the English Civil War starts, go with Royalists and then use it to switch to Theocracy/Republic. End of disaster will switch you back to Monarchy.
2. Stick with the republic after going Parliamentarian in the English civil war, force a low Republic Tradition->Dictatorship->Monarchy switch.
3. Form England/GB as another nation. Scotland can form GB and England can release one of several nations that they can feed provinces to before re-integrating and then release again, choose to switch, and then conquering your old self to form England. Note that *none* of the England-GB achievements let you get them as a released vassal, and you *have* to start as England to get One Night in Paris. (Might have to for Anglophile as well, but I think that's actually because of a bug related to the War of the Roses mission that's confirmed fixed for the next update)
I'd say Option 3 is the best, specifically forming GB as Scotland; pretty much anything that switches your government type in Dharma gives you only enough progress for a single reform, and considering you're probably going to trigger this no earlier than 1620, you probably won't regain all the reforms you already had before the game ends.
Unfortunately I don't have Dharma.
I believe I got it to work. I used EU4ConsolePatcher to enable the console in an ironman save, but there are no events that let you change to a monarchy - I think all the 'change to a monarchy' events don't work for English monarchy. However, I could use "event flavor_hol.3502" to change to an administrative republic, then "event flavor_hol.3502" again to change to an administrative monarchy, then 100 admin to change to a despotic monarchy. A real pain, but hopefully I can still get the Anglophile achievement.
Oh, if you don't have Dharma, than it's easy: Join the Parlementarians, and bring back the monarchy after Cromwell dies. That path, at least, will still get you Constitutional Monarchy, which you can switch to whatever government type you really wanted.
Your colonies have much more money than me, is there anything you had to do to make them more profitable? Should I have been building buildings for them? At 1720 it's probably too late to start doing that.
Mine are going ok, I'm making more money from them than from taxes and vassals combined, but not that much.
Got most of the achievements I was after on this run: Trade Hegemon, Rising Sun, Grand Armada, Magellan's Voyage, Industrial Evolution, All Your Trade Are Belong To Us, and Anglophile. Wanted to get Master of India too, but dang India is big and takes some serious conquering. Tried to get We Bled For This too, but at about 980,000 enemy troops killed they just gave up and stopped trying.
I think my next game I'll go for world conquest. I feel like I need to paint the map one colour to prove to myself I can do it, before I do a different playstyle. I got really sick of micromanaging all the wars I needed though, so I think I'll try a game as Austria, get all the PUs, and have a vassal swarm do all the fighting for me.
You don't want all the PUs for a vassal swarm, you want to Revoke the Privilegia and have a 40-odd nation vassal swarm.
Nagaur opening on Very Hard
Yeah, that's what I'm aiming for... but to get there I currently have Bohemia and Hungary under me in PUs, Norway and Sweden as vassals, and a Habsburg on the throne of Castile, Aragon, Naples... just need them to look a bit weak so I can snaffle them up too.
Keep in mind that while IIRC your HRE vassals won't care about relative size between all of them and you, any vassals you have *outside* the HRE will.
Right, so I'll have to integrate vassals before I get that far, but can keep my PUs. Assuming I can survive with the Ottomans and France tag-teaming me.
Well, at least they stayed around long enough to win the war with the Ottomans. Between what we did, the Venicians for attacking Albania, and Mamluks (who in true Mamluk faction, still got curbstomped by Ottomans' Allies, AQ, Tlecmen and Tunis before taking any territory for themselves.) Ottomans are *merely* a midrange power
Still bigger than me, but with luck Round 2 can go off before my luck strikes again and my backup to Hungary Aragon gets Iberian Wedding'd first.
Bloody Ottos. Last game I didn't touch them until money wasn't an issue, so I could just throw wave after wave of mercs at them. This game I need to be more careful, but they seem capable of conjuring 80k manpower out of nowhere whenever I think they're looking a bit soft.
(Rumors of Polish dominance since the patch were, at least in this game, greatly exaggerated, It was effectively gone before the Religious War, even though it did get a PU with Lithuania.)
If there one thing this run has taught me, is that I really don't know jack shit about budgeting a country:
Had to declare bankruptcy twice, only to go back deep in debt just a few short years later. First time was because I lost Austria as an ally to the bankruptcy and couldn't get them back before all the peace treaties that were protecting me went away. Second time was an Internal Conflicts disaster that was... something. Twice did I get hit with a completely not-related-to-event stability hit just months before I would have ended the disaster. (I have never scream so much as I did at that fucking comet... like the game was actually trying to get me to rage quit.)
What you see here (including about half the corruption) was as much about me going "fuck it, I'm getting the cheevo and calling it in" and tossing money at the last few provinces I need as it was poor money management, but know I should be raking in way more money than that by this point, regardless of the climb it took to get there, and not be sitting on 50%+ inflation for most of the game (actually peaked at 80% before the second bankruptcy.)
Maybe when I'm better at making money I'll come back to try to actually complete the mission tree (has a unique one w/ the Byzantium mini-dlc) but I think I need to watch some youtubers first.
It could have potentially let you solve your disaster earlier. It's also pretty useful if you're integrating multiple vassals at once, as the -3 diplo rep penalty doesn't go into effect until you click the button on the successful integration window. So if you mistimed the integrations, it gives you several months of cushion to finish up the others after the first.
3DS: 0963-0539-4405
Turns out Brandenburg owns the greater part of it
Worst thing is though that they're Catholic and so is almost everyone else in Europe
Don't think I'm going to make One Faith though: I have around 300 provinces left to convert. Around 10 months each, and I have 5 missionaries... I think it'll be done around 1830.
Thinking my next game will be Poland Can Into Space, take a bunch of military ideas, build a bunch of forts, and be that weird isolated military country that doesn't talk to anyone.
There was one patch where theocracies would get nobles from non-Christian countries all over the world, then become monarchies
And you would see stuff like Mali getting a PU over Savoy
Paradox is doing an insane four day full EU4 game with something like 100 players (shared countries).
Considering now whether I just wanna twiddle my thumbs until I can integrate France for the achievement or I'm gonna do some more.
I'm playing as Poland around 1500, saw they had two wars going in Persia and decided to try to hurt them a little. Called in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania with me, rushed Constantinople, and was able to siege it down. After a few wars they had more troops than all of us combined, but I was able to peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and Constantinople.
Around ten years later, they're at war with Castile, Aragon, Naples, Venice, France, and assorted minors in two different wars. I jump in again, calling in Austria, Hungary, Brandenburg, and Lithuania again. They have about 100k troops + manpower. We kill some 40k troops, the other countries win some battles, we end up controlling all of the Balkans and some of Turkey but then 60k troops come marching towards me so I peace out for 2000 ducats, war reparations, and some of the Balkans.
Less than ten years later and they're winning a war with the Mamluks and have the biggest army in the world. They've got more troops now than they did when I started our last war!
Where the hell are they getting all their troops from? I've taken their richest land, but they still have nearly double my income. I've cut their Balkan land off from their Turkish land, they've had at least 3 rebels pop up that I could see, but they still ferried enough troops around to put them down. And it's not mercenaries either, they've only had about 5k mercenaries every time I've checked the ledger.
Damn you ottomans, why won't you die?
From my own understanding and observations, it boils down to basically five things:
1. With CoC, Ottomans can spend MIL instead of manpower for infantry by raising Janissaries.
2. As an Anatolian tech nation, they will give heathen land to the Dhimmi, giving them more opportunities to raid them for manpower (yes, the AI can use some estate interactions, including the ones that give free manpower)
3. With the wealth of Constantinople, Ottomans can keep their armies constantly drilling, letting them burn professionalism for manpower (yes, the AI can slacken recruitment standards as well)
4. With the wealth of Constantinople, Ottomans can afford to make siege stacks that are mostly artillery to get the maximum artillery bonus for siege.
5. With the extra Army Tradition the AI gets, thanks to the constant wars the Ottomans are in since they spend so much time conquering everyone, they have amazing generals with siege pips that can command the siege stacks.
Combined, Ottomans suffer surprisingly little attrition from sieges because they cap forts so fast, recruit significant amount of elite infantry without spending manpower, and are better able to acquire more manpower as needed from professionalism and estates.
Also, more specific to your point in time; Ottomans almost always hit their Golden Era before the Age of Discovery is over, so they're probably riding the high on the bonuses from that. This also means they have their unique age ability, and are taking even less attrition from siege because their Siege ability is so high.
On the flip side, as Poland in I believe the first half of the 17th century your units are going to be at their strongest relative to your neighbors, and the Ottomans will be at their weakest. Just keep them contained, build up yourself, and you will have your day around then.
Yeah, I was doing that. Almost no mercs, ever.
I think this is what I wasn't accounting for. Their armies were strong enough that nobody was killing tons of their men, and then they'd just get free manpower to make up for it.
It's OK though, they had another war with Spain and sent all their troops to Africa, so I raided their homelands again and got their war exhaustion up to 10 without fighting a single battle.
There just isn't enough manpower to really deal with mercs
This will probably go up to one million, note that they only lost 30.5k due to attrition (at least that's what the game makes you believe) - also this isn't even lategame
The side effect of this is there are quite a few periods where I'm chillaxing while waiting for manpower to replenish. And why I nearly always take Quantity.
Baltic Crusader on Very Hard, no mercs ever
I haven't played Normal in a long time but on Very Hard it seems you can't be friends with any colonizer as soon as you put down your first colony. Trying to put a finger on what I could've done better (I also tried to monopolize Ivory Coast but I only got 30% of the trade money despite owning everything which is quite something to consider).
Good lord can the Ottomans get disgusting by the late 1600s if they aren't taken out before then. Everyone else throwing a few 30-50K armies around and then these guys roll in with a half-dozen 90K stacks at once..
Yeah I dusted this off recently as well. Played an England-as-colonizer on a random New World and the Ottomans are really a giant green blob that nothing can stop. I should be able to beat their score, but it will be a near-run thing. I almost feel like you need to deliberately gank them even if they aren't a neighbor or they'll just steamroll and blob out.
I can sorta stop them, in the sense of prevent them from blobbing in a particular war, but I can't chop the blob up more than a province or two at a time because there's nothing you can do to defend against 500,000-750,000 troops pouring in on the same target. Which is kind of a pity, because if I could break an attack like that I could start breaking them up...
Oh, for extra fun they're utterly steadfast allies of the HRE. Anytime Austria or Lithuania gets big eyes eastern Europe just kind of goes away for a decade.
Otherwise you just have to skyrocket your income (either by going to India or through colonies) and drown them in mercs
[edit] If you're playing on Normal and they don't have any ticking WE reduction you can also get them to 20 WE through blockading