Europa Universalis

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

I was recently able to buy EU1 really cheap, and because of recommendations
here, I did. And it is a really great game. I have one question, however:

Is there a good way to prevent revolts? A Chief Judge is rumoured to help,
but it seems to reduce the chance by only 1%, which doesn't really help.
Besides, it looks like often the city itself revolts too, and that
interrupts this long construction time. A Governor? Need more
Infrastructure for that. Stability? Again, not more than 1%. So, is
there a way to stop my provinces from rebelling? I currently have huge
armies patrolling the Crimea (annexed a couple of years ago), and the
chances of revolt in those provinces are all 9%, and it just won't stop.

Religion perhaps? Is there anything I can do about that? MTW had those
wandering priests and bishops, does EU have anything similar?


mcv.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

In article <427a19d5$0$163$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>,
mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>I was recently able to buy EU1 really cheap, and because of recommendations
>here, I did. And it is a really great game. I have one question, however:
>
>Is there a good way to prevent revolts? A Chief Judge is rumoured to help,
>but it seems to reduce the chance by only 1%, which doesn't really help.
>Besides, it looks like often the city itself revolts too, and that
>interrupts this long construction time. A Governor? Need more
>Infrastructure for that. Stability? Again, not more than 1%. So, is
>there a way to stop my provinces from rebelling? I currently have huge
>armies patrolling the Crimea (annexed a couple of years ago), and the
>chances of revolt in those provinces are all 9%, and it just won't stop.

It's been a while so I am a bit rusty. However:

You want to have high Stability. If you're not at +2 or +3, you may
want to work to get there - by not declaring wars without reason, by
getting out of prolonged wars and by investing money in stability.

If these provinces were captured relatively recently, you might have
nationalists adding up to +3% to revolt chance. This must simply be
weathered - it will drop by 1% every 10 (?) years.

You will want to stamp out active revolts going on around your
provinces as neighbouring rebels add to the %age. Send in the troops
the sooner the better.

>Religion perhaps? Is there anything I can do about that? MTW had those
>wandering priests and bishops, does EU have anything similar?

Adjust your religious tolerance levels. Check what the religion of the
revolting provinces is and make your nation more tolerant of that
religion.

Any single thing you do is unlikely to reduce revolt chance by much
more than 1% in the short term - there likely is no silver bullet to
solve your problem (with the possible exception of religious
tolerance). You need to attack it from multiple angles so as to add up
those 1% improvements into something that makes a difference.

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

In article <427a9891$0$150$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>,
mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>
>I tried that with England, at that time the leader of an attractive
>alliance that I wanted to join, but it just cost me lots of money and
>didn't help me a bit. I guess I'll have to get used to being the persona
>non grata in this game. I guess Russia can afford that more than anyone.

When bribing, it helps to have a diplomatic king.

>Will there come a time, in a century or two perhaps, that the world gets
>used to Russia being big and they start liking me again and forget that
>my ancestors were agressive warmongers?

No. As far as I am aware, it is a permanent rating that you simply get
stuck with.

>So far, I've not been paying much attention to attrition yet. Which
>sometimes makes me wonder what happened to that nice 50 strong army
>I just had. Also, my transsiberian expeditions keep running out of
>people. I thought conquistadors were good at survivng attrition, but
>I suppose a journey straight through this giant continent is just a
>bit too much to ask.

I ended up building a line of forts through Siberia. Expensive and
time-consuming, but it paved the way nicely for the annexation of
China and Japan

>I am behind in military tech, but I got the impression that that didn't
>really matter all that much. Was I wrong? Should I have invested in
>military tech instead of hideously expensive trade and infrastructure?

Tech can matter a lot, but, of course, it depends on how large the gap
is exactly.

Another factor that might be involved is leaders. If the enemy has a
good leader in his army and you don't, you may be in for a lot of
pain.

>A problem I had a few times (not very often though) was that after a
>failed assault, my morale is low, and a tiny enemy army that I'd usually
>slaughter in the blink of an eye, would suddenly be enough to lift the
>siege.

Yeah, that's a classic

>I already use artillery against small forts, but I'm wondering if that's
>such a good idea. I often end up besieging them anyway, my cannon are
>often in the wrong army, and sometimes they die, which can get pretty
>expensive.

Small forts I tended to just overwhelm with my trusty Russian cannon
fodder. Larger ones require decent amounts of artillery.

Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - bcd@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

James Gassaway <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>
> As for tech, it has been a long time since I played EU1. I play EU2, so
> there may have been some tweaking there that wasn't in 1. One or two levels
> difference, no big deal; five levels difference becomes noticeable; at ten
> levels or more, you're gonna get your a** kicked. Better tech levels will
> add to your troops' morale, so they will stand and fight longer; make them
> move faster; reduce attrition (IIRC); and give them better CRTs. So you
> really need to research all the techs IMHO. (Although as Russia you can
> probably skimp on naval tech.) I know there are some strategies proposed
> that call for not researching everything, but I can't get those to work.
> I'm too balanced in my approach to the game. (I.E., I want EVERYTHING to be
> better! )

I figured I'd do the economic techs first, giving me more money and
resources to remain competitive later in the game. I'm not sure how good
the others' tech is, but I get the impression we're unlikely to be more
than a few levels apart, but I could be wrong there. Can I check their
tech progress somehow?

> And as for everyone hating you, your Bad Boy rating (and yes, that is what
> it is called in the game *grin*) will _very_ slowly go down over time. The
> better diplomatic rating your king has, the faster, but we are still talking
> decades for everyone to get over you annexing some tiny barbarian nothing
> country. It goes up when you declare war (by varying amounts, depending on
> how many others you are betraying in the process), take provinces in peace
> treaties and annex other countries.

Usually it's my neighbours who declare war against me, even if I do
manage to end up with a few Polish provinces each time they do, but
my annexations of Kazan, Golden Horde and Astrakhan early in the game,
and Crimea later, were due to my declarations of war. Not sure about
Sibir. I declared war against them a couple of times but failed to
conquer them because others interfered, and they declared against me
a couple of times. I think I started the war where I finally annexed
them, but I'm not entirely sure.

> EU really is a game that calls for patience. I've had times where I spent a
> hundred years slowly, quietly, building up my economy, then building up my
> army, while watching the rest of Europe beat itself over the head in
> pointless wars.

I like the fact that it's not an easy "conquer the world" game like MTW,
but I figured Russia was supposed to grow quickly during this period, so
that's what I did. In retrospect, I think I'm way ahead of schedule there.
Wasn't it Ivan IV who conquered most of those Khanates, and Peter the
Great who finally took the Crimea and expanded to the west? Way ahead
of schedule there, it seems. Perhaps I should slow down.

I have had a few decades of peace while suppressing the Crimea rebellions
and doing that Infrastructure research I just lost, but them Poland
declared war again.

> I've had times when I wished to bleep I _didn't_ have
> allies because of all the stupid wars they drag me in to. Its either not a
> good time for me to be at war at all, or I've been building up to fight
> someone else entirely and now I'm gonna lose half my army for no gain and
> have to start all over again.

I noticed that often when I'm dragged into a war, I can immediately make
peace again. In fact, when everybody joins in to vulch me to death when
Poland gives the signal, I can usually get an immediate white peace with
Sweden, Denmark and Persia, before any battle has happened. Seems to me
they need to figure out what they really want before they declare war
on me.


mcv.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Bent C Dalager <bcd@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
> In article <427a9891$0$150$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>,
> mcv <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote:
>>
>>I tried that with England, at that time the leader of an attractive
>>alliance that I wanted to join, but it just cost me lots of money and
>>didn't help me a bit. I guess I'll have to get used to being the persona
>>non grata in this game. I guess Russia can afford that more than anyone.
>
> When bribing, it helps to have a diplomatic king.

I should probably let my ambitions be led more by the talents of my kings.
Conquest when it's a warrior king, peaceful research when he's bad at
everything.

>>So far, I've not been paying much attention to attrition yet. Which
>>sometimes makes me wonder what happened to that nice 50 strong army
>>I just had. Also, my transsiberian expeditions keep running out of
>>people. I thought conquistadors were good at survivng attrition, but
>>I suppose a journey straight through this giant continent is just a
>>bit too much to ask.
>
> I ended up building a line of forts through Siberia. Expensive and
> time-consuming, but it paved the way nicely for the annexation of
> China and Japan

My trading posts can't even keep up with those conquistadors. I figured
I'd better use them while I had them, because a recent attempt with
Spain had all my explorers constantly die as soon as I had them where
I wanted. Or they died to attrition on sea without giving me an advance
warning, which is really incredibly annoying.

In any case, two of my conquistadors did reach east Asia, where one just
died, and the other is still active. I wasted the third on a stupid
attack on 12000 natives guarding some chinaware on the Persian border.

>>I am behind in military tech, but I got the impression that that didn't
>>really matter all that much. Was I wrong? Should I have invested in
>>military tech instead of hideously expensive trade and infrastructure?
>
> Tech can matter a lot, but, of course, it depends on how large the gap
> is exactly.
>
> Another factor that might be involved is leaders. If the enemy has a
> good leader in his army and you don't, you may be in for a lot of
> pain.

Good point. I have two decent commanders now too, but in the last war
with Poland, I noticed I had some big armies with generic commanders,
while my kick ass general was all by himself. Next time I'll do better.
If they're still alive by then.

>>I already use artillery against small forts, but I'm wondering if that's
>>such a good idea. I often end up besieging them anyway, my cannon are
>>often in the wrong army, and sometimes they die, which can get pretty
>>expensive.
>
> Small forts I tended to just overwhelm with my trusty Russian cannon
> fodder. Larger ones require decent amounts of artillery.

So for now I can just ignore artillery all together. My treasurer will
like that advise. I'll probably be needing artillery once I start
laying siege to those big European cities to the west, but that's
something for the far future.


mcv.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:427b2c92$0$161$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> James Gassaway <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
> >
> > As for tech, it has been a long time since I played EU1. I play EU2, so
> > there may have been some tweaking there that wasn't in 1. One or two
levels
> > difference, no big deal; five levels difference becomes noticeable; at
ten
> > levels or more, you're gonna get your a** kicked. Better tech levels
will
> > add to your troops' morale, so they will stand and fight longer; make
them
> > move faster; reduce attrition (IIRC); and give them better CRTs. So you
> > really need to research all the techs IMHO. (Although as Russia you can
> > probably skimp on naval tech.) I know there are some strategies
proposed
> > that call for not researching everything, but I can't get those to work.
> > I'm too balanced in my approach to the game. (I.E., I want EVERYTHING
to be
> > better! )
>
> I figured I'd do the economic techs first, giving me more money and
> resources to remain competitive later in the game. I'm not sure how good
> the others' tech is, but I get the impression we're unlikely to be more
> than a few levels apart, but I could be wrong there. Can I check their
> tech progress somehow?
>

Forgive the massive snippage. Hover your mouse pointer over their capitol.
*g*

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

mcv wrote:
> Bent C Dalager <bcd@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
> Will there come a time, in a century or two perhaps, that the world gets
> used to Russia being big and they start liking me again and forget that
> my ancestors were agressive warmongers?

The badboy rating goes down by one on the first day of every leap year
IF you are at peace.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110549

--
Leons Petrazickis
import java.lang.Disclaimer;
http://slashdot.org/~LPetrazickis/journal/

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Petrazickis <spamPETRAZIspam@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> mcv wrote:
>> Bent C Dalager <bcd@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
>> Will there come a time, in a century or two perhaps, that the world gets
>> used to Russia being big and they start liking me again and forget that
>> my ancestors were agressive warmongers?
>
> The badboy rating goes down by one on the first day of every leap year
> IF you are at peace.
>
> http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110549

That is very useful to know. So I should try to be at peace during all
leap years. Although that would be taking advantage of game mechanics,
which doesn't really suit this game.


mcv.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

James Gassaway <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
> "mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
> news:427b2c92$0$161$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
>>
>> Can I check their tech progress somehow?
>
> Hover your mouse pointer over their capitol.

I only see their stability when I do that. When I click, I get information
about their monarch and their power in various areas, but it doesn't
look like that's the same as their tech level.


mcv.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:427caaf9$0$169$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> James Gassaway <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
> > "mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
> > news:427b2c92$0$161$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> >>
> >> Can I check their tech progress somehow?
> >
> > Hover your mouse pointer over their capitol.
>
> I only see their stability when I do that. When I click, I get information
> about their monarch and their power in various areas, but it doesn't
> look like that's the same as their tech level.
>

Maybe that got added in EU2. In that if you look at the country information
(king's name, his abilities, etc.) it will also give you their Land and
Naval tech levels as well. I really recommend getting EU2. All the
mechanics and game play are the same and Paradox added more provinces,
missionaries, cleaned up some problems, etc. One of the few times when a
"sequel" was actually better than the original.

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

mcv wrote:
> Petrazickis <spamPETRAZIspam@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>>mcv wrote:
>>
>>>Bent C Dalager <bcd@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
>>>Will there come a time, in a century or two perhaps, that the world gets
>>>used to Russia being big and they start liking me again and forget that
>>>my ancestors were agressive warmongers?
>>
>>The badboy rating goes down by one on the first day of every leap year
>>IF you are at peace.
>>
>>http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110549
>
>
> That is very useful to know. So I should try to be at peace during all
> leap years. Although that would be taking advantage of game mechanics,
> which doesn't really suit this game.

Actually, reading the thread, that only applies to 1.07 and earlier.
There's a new formula in the latest patch:

Badboy will also decrease after a certain amount of time dependant on
your monarchs diplomatic skill.

X= decline each month
dip= diploskill of monarch
Y= number dependant on difficulty
240 for normal
360 for hard
480 for vhard

X=dip/Y

--
Leons Petrazickis
import java.lang.Disclaimer;
http://slashdot.org/~LPetrazickis/journal/

 

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Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic (More info?)

Petrazickis <spamPETRAZIspam@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> mcv wrote:
>> Petrazickis <spamPETRAZIspam@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>>>mcv wrote:
>>>>Bent C Dalager <bcd@pvv.ntnu.no> wrote:
>>>>Will there come a time, in a century or two perhaps, that the world gets
>>>>used to Russia being big and they start liking me again and forget that
>>>>my ancestors were agressive warmongers?
>>>
>>>The badboy rating goes down by one on the first day of every leap year
>>>IF you are at peace.
>>>
>>>http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110549
>>
>>
>> That is very useful to know. So I should try to be at peace during all
>> leap years. Although that would be taking advantage of game mechanics,
>> which doesn't really suit this game.
>
> Actually, reading the thread, that only applies to 1.07 and earlier.
> There's a new formula in the latest patch:

I noticed that too in that thread. I need to check which patch I have
(and then probably install the latest one).


mcv.