General Strategies and Other Notes

[Velociryx]

Some odds and ends that might be useful to those new to the game, and maybe for those not so new to the game....

General
Planning
Don't attack without a plan and a clear objective. Know what you want out of this war, and what the war's defining parameters are (how many allied nations are you facing? What is their strength? How many have military access agreements and can realistically REACH you?--ie, if you're England, and the Saxons declare war, without a port, how much of a threat are they?) How many allies are fighting with you? etc.

Also, are you the alliance leader in the fight? If so, you have vast flexibility....if not, you may want to focus in on a single objective and opt out quickly to make peace on YOUR terms, rather than getting whatever the alliance leader feels like granting you.

Understand your Slider Settings
Have some understanding of your governmental settings, your stability cost per point, and how long you can reasonably fight before war exhaustion kills your economy and prompts wide-spread rebellion (ie - if you are highly centralized, have free subjects, etc, you do NOT want a protracted war!...specifically, look at any and all settings that relate to rebellion delay and war exhaustion and come to grips with what they mean in terms of how long you can expect to fight without seeing trouble at home). Knowing whether your nation is quick or slow to bounce back from war is a key component to victory, and it also sets the stage for the beginnings of your strategy.

Specific Orders of Battle
Smother and Siege
A very effective tactic in EU2. Simply put, your enemy cannot recruit troops in any province you've got guys in. Yeah, if he starts recruiting before you get there (and assuming the province is fortified at least minimally), you'll have to deal with THAT group, but he won't be able to recruit any more from any province you've got a covering force in (est a cover force to be 1000 troops * fortification level of the province)(est a siege force to be 5000 troops * fortification level of the province).

So...if you don't want to deal with constant enemy efforts to feed newly recruited reinforcements against you, the best way to deal with him is to bypass his armies, let him invade your homeland and lay in a siege or two, and then shut down every province he has.

Yes, you'll be putting your own territories at risk in the short term (a few of them), but the benefits are obvious and compelling. If you have every single enemy province locked down, your opponent can't recruit troops. What he has in your territory is the whole ball of wax. If you can recruit troops and your opponent cannot, then the war is already won...it is simply a matter of when.

Obviously, this cannot be used in every situation, and there are other things to take into account (the allies of your enemy, military access treaties your enemy and their allies may have, and the like). Even if these limitors and considerations make it impractical to shut down an enemy nation entire, it is still quite easy to dramatically simplify your defense by shutting down large swaths of enemy territory with comparitavly few troops, and if you do this, my recommendation would be thus:

Maintain a large, imposing battle force, composed of a mix of Infantry and Cavalry. This force remains at the head of your advance, and its job is to give battle to any enemy force that threatens your siege crews and covering forces. His job is simply to bludgeon any enemy force that gets close to your more vulnerable siege and cover groups.

Behind this monster, are numerous bands of pure infantry (cheap). They splinter off into small groups to lock down enemy provinces until you have covered as many as is desired, at which point, they begin collecting in groups of (5k*fortification level) in enemy provinces to begin as many simultaneous sieges as you can maintain.

You gain pillage money out the wazoo, your main attack force keeps your pillagers and crews safe, and the outcome is never in doubt.

When you gain Mil 5 (assault), this can be modified by sending large ~15k, +6k per fort level beyond 1, groups of infantry into selected provinces in 3-4 consecutive waves, beginning your assault as soon as the first group arrives, relying on the feed in of reinforcements to keep morale high enough to end the siege quickly. Do that and repeat with as many such assault groups as you can maintain to capture huge swaths of territory quickly.

When you gain Mil7 (Artillery) this can be modified again by including 10 guns per fort level with your siege crews. Guns are EXPENSIVE to maintain, so I'd not recommend keeping many on hand, and in fact, I no longer use them at all against the AI.

With a dash of common sense, and some understanding of your own objectives and the fight you are currently in, this move alone can simply devastate most of the opponents you will face.

Counter-Punch
Does the enemy have a larger army than you, or an imposing leader that you can't match? If so, here's how you neutralize him:

1) Fight on ground of your choosing. Give yourself some advantages. Make the dreaded leader attack cross-river, and into forested or mountainous terrain. Stack as many of those kinds of advantages in your favor as you can, and let your enemy come.

2) When he is defeated (and unless he just outnumbers you overwhelmingly, he almost surely will be defeated), don't just let him go....follow him back to wherever he's retreating to! Better yet, break your Cavalry off separately, and actually BEAT the enemy force back to whever he is retreating toward. With his morale shattered, you should have an easy time continuing to beat the hell out of him, and any time you can actually beat your opponent to wherever he's retreating to with your cavalry, so much the better!

3) Repeat till the dreaded force has been ground to dust.

Simple trick....numerous applications.

Defend him to death
Take note of where the enemy concentrates his forces, and bulk up passive defense systems there (ie - increase fortification level). A perfect example of this would be Tirol. If you're playing Austria, it should quickly become apparent that the AI LOVES Tirol, and they will happily stack mass tens of thousands of troops in that province, letting attrition and harsh winters kill LOTS of troops without your lifting a finger, so by all means, help them along! Build the biggest, scariest, meanest fort you possibly can in Tirol so that the siege lasts longer, and then let your enemies go there and ROT while you gut their country.

Show up First
Very simple trick, and useful if you're playing a minor with big allies, and it works because whomever arrives in a province first, regardless of how many troops that country brings to the party, they get control of the siege when sufficient total troops arrive to MAKE a siege. The only time this rule is excepted is when dealing with exceptional leaders, in which case, the highest ranking exceptional leader takes command of the siege. Fortunately, LOTS of minors get "Warrior Kings" who will trump even the most audacious Field Marshals of the majors....so, with a big ally bereft of leaders, or with a Warrior King in hand, a relatively small number of forces in the service of a country (even a one province minor with few troops) can take territory all out of proportion to their capabilities as your allies move in and assist.

Ambush
Another simple trick, and this one takes two forms. The crux of the matter is to inflate your war score. That's what you wanna do. Inflate that war score to the point where you can dictate the terms of peace. To that end, the two best ways you can do that are to:

a) Capture enemy provinces (even ones you don't particularly want)

and

b) Beat the hell out of enemy forces

So it's a matter of picking your fights. Let your enemy's biggest army alone! Let him go in and initiate a siege in whereverthehell and do his thing. YOU focus your big forces on his little pillage groups (odd bands of a thousand or so troops roving aimlessly through your lands), or his raw recruits (if you can't defeat raw recruits with "breaking" morale, you've got big trouble!)

Focus on those kinds of forces, and you'll win 1% War Score per victory, plus the points gained for capturing provinces, and you should see yourself with lots of padding.

Obviously there are times and conditions when it becomes impossible to ignore the enemy's main battle force(s), but with the right alliance family, those times should be few and far between, and when they occur, there are ways to meet even a significantly larger force on more than equal terms (see above, "Counter-Punch"). The main goal is to never get yourself in a situation where you're fighting a battle you don't want to fight. If faced with that, run away. It's worth -1% war score to preserve your force and morale, and wait until YOU can dictate the terms of the battle!

Army Composition
When fighting in mixed terrain, make sure that any mixed force you have, contains more infantry than cav....otherwise, you will be needlessly penalized.

Early game, Cavalry kills. Late game, cav is still useful for its sheer mobility and against natives, but cav-heavy armies against peer nations tend to fare poorly the higher you move up the tech ladder. 60/40 mix in your main battle force is good in the early and mid game, but steadily reduce the mix of cavalry in your main battle groups as the tech level increases (again, unless you're fighting natives or new world nations).

Also understand that the army is a tool. Nothing more. Use the right tool for the right job, and you find easy success. Try and force the wrong tool for a given job, and it may work, but will be costly. Worse, it may not work, and cost you a valuable leader and/or the expense of having to raise more troops. Thus, consider the following troop configurations:

All Infantry Stack: (size depends on need) - A good defensive force. Good for stationing inside newly conquered territory with nationalistic leanings (built-in revolt risk), good for supperssion opperations (covering or sieging enemy territory. Not so good till late game, for fighting enemy armies.

All Cavalry Stack: (6k or bigger) Expensive, in both raw gold and upkeep costs, but devastating to enemy armies. Can be used to control wide swaths of newly conquered enemy territory as a roving rebel-whacking force (which removes the need for stationing all infantry garrisons there for that purpose)

All Cavalry Stack (smaller than 6k): Good scouting and harassment force. Useful to run interference against groups trying to gain access to your siege crews, good for pillaging work, and raiding deep into enemy territory to whack raw recruits out the gate. Several of these forces can be combined very quickly as they maraud through enemy territory to assemble a genuine threat to the enemy from an unexpected direction.

Mixed Infantry/Cav force (with possible artillery support): The meat grinder. With proper mixing of these two troop types and (potentially) a leader, this is your heavy hitter. Designed to chew up and spit out enemy armies.

To be truly effective as a fighting force, you should arrange your force such that you have all of these ingredients at the ready for whenever the need arises, stationed properly as the needs and demands of the game dictate.

Making War Profitable
War Taxes
If you plan to raise them, wait till July or later...tax money in your coffers!

Pillaging
If you're short on coin, set your mint slider to max WHILE you're pillaging and watch the moolah roll in! (on the other hand, it's a great way to speed your way through research if you don't need the cash)

Army Size
Don't keep a bigger army than your "natural" support limits in the long term! That's a sure way to wreck your economy. Going above the support limit marginally, or even not-so-marginally in times of crisis (ie - when fighting a significantly larger opponent) is fine, but cull out most, if not all of that overage when the fighting is done. Too expensive to maintain otherwise!

Try for keeping your army to between 10-20% (when at 50% maint) of your total monthly economy. There are some nations and some circumstances when this will not apply, but it's a good rule of thumb to abide by, and it will give you resources to exploit your nation's other raw materials (diplomacy, trade, colonists, etc).

More later....just wanted to jot some ideas down....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Diplomacy
Diplomacy is both a sword and a shield (assuming you have a passingly good (at least three yellow dots under diplomatic finesse) diplomat for a leader. If you do, you will find yourself able to do some fairly amazing things for your country.

Just as in battle, the goal is to always fight at the time and place of your choosing, so to, can diplomacy be seen as an extension of this.

If you KNOW you're going to annex a rival nation, you already know what the effect will be. Your neighbors will get pissed. So, to deal with that well in advance, begin bulking up your relations WITH those neighbors, so when the negative relation hit comes, it doesn't surround you with hated enemies.

Also, if you're planning on a war with one neighbor, improve your relations with the others so you don't get surprised and find yourself in a nasty, draining, two-front war.

Simple, elementary tricks, but if a 33d gift can save you the expense of having to raise a new army to defend a new front, spare you pillage damage through untold numbers of your territories, and give you fewer headaches in general, then that's 33d well spent! Cheap insurance indeed.

Offensively, Diplomacy is also useful in the extreme. You can use it to manufacture CB's to preserve your BB rating by selectively warning neighbors, guaranteeing a small nation's right to exist (especially if said small nation has a high BB....GREAT way to get lots of free CB's!), lay claim to enemy thrones, and peacefully annex your neighbors to grow your Kingdom. LOTS of offensive uses for diplomacy, and if you're not using them (or diplomacy in general), you're not getting 100% out of the nation you're playing. USE your native strengths to better serve your goals. If you have a leader with strong diplomatic skills and aren't making use of that, then it'd be like having a hellish good general and keeping him out of the thickest fighting on purpose! Nobody would do that, but all too often, people completely neglect diplomacy. Your nation will be hugely more effective if you don't!

Trade as a Weapon
Yep....even your merchants can be used as a "weapon" of sorts, and in a couple of different ways!

If your rival controls a center of trade, FLOOD it with six merchants and keep doing it. If you are a decent trader (50% or better trade effie), you will gain financial benefits from doing it, and sooner or later, the CoT owner will have enough of you and embargo....which of course, is an instant CB for you!

Also, you can ravage your rivals' economies by purposefully flooding CoT's where your rivals have trade presences....if you're after Spain, for example, take a close look at where Spain has her strongest trade presences, and use your merchants with an eye toward limiting Spain's ability to trade. Crippling, especially in the late game.

On the flip side, if you find yourself in control of lots of valuable centers of trade, then an embargo against specific nations can be utterly devastating, for a mere 1% penalty in trade effie (offset by simply building a refinery, which is as good as a "free pass" to embargo others.

Religion as a weapon
Some religions (counter reformed Catholics, for example) can "force" another nation to convert to their religion as a peace condition, and this can RUIN a rival nation's economy. -6 Stability, and the economic hit for being "off-religion" (and "off culture") is devastating, and can make even the richest of provinces next-to-useless. That's the kind of damage that will take decades to recover from.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

A country…whatever country you choose to play, is more than just the sum of its parts. Those parts and assets can be made to work together in harmony, or they can work against each other and weaken the whole.

Wise is the player who seeks synergy and balance, and strong will his nation be.

When playing, regardless of what nation you select, the goal should be to make your chosen nation sing…to take it to new (and perhaps undreamed of) heights, and to make all of its various assets (and even the lowliest of nations has a staggering array of assets to work with) work in harmony to create a cohesive whole that is far greater than the mere accounting of its individually-considered parts.

All nations have the following in common:
• The ability to maintain a standing army of some size
• Some mercantile ability
• Research cabailities (often, in the case of tiny nations, intimately tied to the abilities and capabilities of that nation’s leadership)
• The ability to convert heathens to the true faith
• Colonial ambitions, and at least some tools to see those ambitions bear fruit
• The ability to conduct at least limited diplomacy
• The ability to wage war
• Access to credit and/or the option to become a creditor
• Exceptional leadership on the field of battle

All of these elements exist in varying degrees in every playable nation. The trick is to recognize which of these areas represent your nation’s strong suit as the game developes (and bearing in mind that over the course of time, the answer TO that question will change and evolve), and maximize the effects of those areas, while doing your best to minimize the negative impacts of the areas your chosen nation is sorely lacking in.

Do that well and consistently over the course of the several hundred years you’ll be the steward of your chosen nation, and you WILL succeed. You may not achieve every goal you set for yourself, but your nation will be stronger than when you initially took over, and you will find it increasingly easier to achieve your goals.

The first, most basic place of beginning when you take the helm of a nation, is to come to some reckoning of exactly what the nation in question is capable of achieving in the short term, and to make longer-term plans with those initial capabilities in mind.

Critical to this task is to review the following:
Your nation’s starting governmental slider settings and their implications to your future (ie – are you set up such that stability is easily recovered, and your people don’t mind long, protracted wars? What’s your production efficiency? Trade efficiency? How many troops/ships do you have right now? What’s the maximum number you can normally field? How much do replacements cost? How much money do you have, and what are your immediate needs? What tech levels do you already have under your belt? Of your neighbors, are there any who love/hate you? Are your starting territories of a single culture (or at least, are all of them of cultures that are “yours”. What about religions? If you have a homogenous religious society, you’ll have an easier time out the gate….if you have lots of off-culture, off-religion provinces, you’ll be faced with high stability costs and the possibility of rebellion from the get-go. Your starting monarch…does he have any skills of note? If so, this is a potential card you can play. Any glaring weaknesses? If so, begin thinking of how you might go about compensating for them, or at the very least, minimizing their impact to the nation.

Only when you understand the above (at a minimum) can you fully appreciate your starting position, and begin devising plans and strategies to improve your lot in the future.

As such, your first slider move (available at game start), is of critical importance. It’s your chance to begin implementing your strategy, and you’ll not see another opportunity for ten long years, so make the most of it!

Small Nations vs. Large Nations
As a general rule, the littler you are, the more aggressive you will need to be, in order to grow. The aggressiveness does not necessarily have to be militaristic, but it certainly can be. A small nation (especially one that begins with the control of a Center of Trade), can be a hyper-aggressive trader, and grow a vast financial empire, even though his land area may be quite small. Long term, this attention to financial matters over territory will translate into HUGE gains in efficiency and technological innovation (small nations have lower tech costs). Of course, a small nation can just as easily go on the offensive, militarily, and if so, you’ll need to choose your alliance family carefully, with an eye toward selecting an alliance that will provide room (and opportunity!) for growth! One way or the other though, if you’re small, and you want to thrive, you will NEED to be aggressive, and the level of aggression you must be prepared to meet your opponents with will be in direct proportion to your overall size compared to theirs.

Larger nations (unless confronted with enemies on all sides) can usually play a much more measured, low key, non-aggressive game, and this is something to keep in the forefront of your mind when choosing a nation to play. If you don’t WANT to be aggressive, then don’t pick a small nation, surrounded by big nations.

Rich Nations vs. Poor Nations
Face it, some countries got it good. Centers of Trade, vast riches in the form of gold mines or other extremely valuable trading commodities….they’ve got cash coming out of their ears, and it should come as no great surprise that this relative affluence gives them more options….persue enhancing their infrastructure and trade, or go with a more militant focus? Poor nations…nations that have little in the way of vast riches or highly demanded products (fish, sheep….stuff like that), don’t have as many options. Sure, you can improve what infrastructure you have, but if you don’t have much to work with, then you don’t have much to improve….on the other hand, if your NEIGHBORS have better lands, then an investment into your army’s prowess is a no-brainer….

So....your nation is either large or small, rich or poor compared to her neighbors, and this, coupled with the answers to the questions mentioned above, will handily outline for you what needs to be done to get you firmly on the path to greatness (ie – if you are poor and small, surrounded by larger, richer neighbors, then the solution to the problem at hand is rather harshly dictated to you, and the most obvious play would be an aggressive military campaign against one of your larger neighbors, preferably timed such that you strike them while they are pre-occupied with something else). On the other hand, if you’re a large, wealthy nation, with generally friendly relations, you have many more options available to you at the outset.

Study your nation. Study its neighbors. Devise your initial strategy from that.

Taking Advantage of Opportunities
This is easy. Essentially, in order to take advantage of any given opportunity, all you have to do is not make any glaring, obvious mistakes that will plant the seeds of your own destruction, and recognize the opportunity for what it is.

During the course of the game, empires will rise and fall. Nations will go from strong to weak. Watch them…especially your neighbors, and when one of them falls from grace…when one of them suffers a setback….that’s the sweet sound of opportunity knocking, and your chance to grab a bit of the spotlight for yourself.

Is your hated rival locked in a protracted war with one of his other enemies? Did he just see his greatest army shattered in battle? A strike now will net you easily won territories and extend your power in the region at the expense of your enemies. If you wait, others will strike in your place, and THEY will gain power, and your position in the region will weaken.

Creating New Opportunities
This is vastly harder. In order to reap the benefits from opportunities that fall into your lap, all you basically have to do is show up, not screw up, and recognize the opportunity for what it is, but to CREATE an opportunity where none existed before….that is another matter entirely, and takes care, cunning, and imagination. There’s no exact science here….no surefire book of recipies that will automatically allow you to create an endless stream of opportunities. Rather, you must look for means to do so, often in the unlikliest of places. Things like….if the REAL target of your hatred is in the same alliance family as you, declare a war, or arrange a war that you know said enemy will not support. Call the alliance family, and when your real target drops out of your alliance family, you are free to declare against him. If caught between two strong powers, make friends with one and give him military access, then forget him and begin befriending the other, especially if they hate each other. Let them beat the stuffing out of each other, and then, when one or the other is at the point of its greatest weakness….strike. Use your colonists, traders, and diplomats to change the very fabric of the game in your favor, unlocking and uncovering opportunities that were simply unavailable before. The essence of creating opportunities where none existed before is to study the metagame. To understand the ebb and flow of the game’s current….to be able to read that current and realize where the game itself (and especially as it relates to your region), and to use that understanding to your benefit.

If, for example, you see that the flow of the game has shifted against your alliance….if they have been weakened by constant warring and seen minimal gains…if key members despise each other, then it’s time to take the -1 stability hit, leave the alliance, and find a new one. Read the game. Find out who the rising stars in your region are, and sign on with them. If it means backstabbing a one-time friend….well…the game is set in Machievellian times…do it!

More later…just amusing myself on my last day at this job…

-=Vel=-

[Main_Brain]

Yes, you'll be putting your own territories at risk in the short term (a few of them), but the benefits are obvious and compelling. If you have every single enemy province locked down, your opponent can't recruit troops. What he has in your territory is the whole ball of wax. If you can recruit troops and your opponent cannot, then the war is already won...it is simply a matter of when.

But dont try with Prussia's Two Provinces ;=)

[Cookie Monster]

Love your "Smoother and Siege" strategy. Never thought of that but sometimes the obvious stares you in the face and you don't stare back!

[Sandman]

Some religions (counter reformed Catholics, for example) can "force" another nation to convert to their religion as a peace condition, and this can RUIN a rival nation's economy. -6 Stability, and the economic hit for being "off-religion" (and "off culture") is devastating, and can make even the richest of provinces next-to-useless. That's the kind of damage that will take decades to recover from.

I'm going to correct/add to this, if I may.

I don't think that forced conversions cause -6 stability, but converting back (as they usually do) does. The economic penalty for having the 'wrong' religion is not too bad (30% tax malus), the real problem comes in the form of vastly increased stabilty costs. Culture (and therefore manpower) is not affected in any major way by changing religion.

A good tactic is for the two Muslim sects to convert each other, since, unlike the Christians, they can't convert back. This results in the converted country sending out missionaries to change the religion of their provinces: you can speed this up (and improve their opinion of you) by sending gifts. One hundred years down the line and they'll have converted a good number of their provinces and will be ripe for vassalisation and diplo-annexation.

I also consider vassals to be a good 'low risk' investment. You get half their yearly tax returns (although not their census taxes, tolls or production) and you don't get much reputation damage, troublesome rebels or increased stability costs. Vassals seldom break with their suzerain, in my experience, so they'll keep giving you income for the rest of the game.

[Ecthy]

Great stuff in here, must not let it die

[Velociryx]

^Bump for the new players in the ranks...

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Additional notes not covered in the above:

Research Focus

I've played a ton of games, as a ton of different countries (including a *beautiful* Cherokee game! Much fun!)

What I have discovered is that Military techs, while useful, pale in comparison to Infrastructure and Trade.

In most cases, I play countries that do not start with a CoT, nor a particularly compelling trade effie %. That suits me fine, cos in the early game (all techs at L3 or lower, and usually L1 across the board), Trade isn't that big of a component of your income.

Early game, you can bet that the vast bulk of your income is gonna come from Taxation. The amount of coin you get from taxation is directly tied to your production effie. For me then, this almost always translates into a game-starting slider move of Centralization +1....that's a 2% gain in production effie, and -2% to tech costs...win-win, no matter how you slice it. A bit stronger on the econ, and slightly cheaper techs...good stuff. (Two other noteworthy slider moves to consider would be Aristoc -1--which gives you a boost in both Prod AND Trade effie--or Innovation +1 to cut your tech costs down by 5% from day one (this, on the thinking that early on, you're not going to have the spare money for colonization anyway, and scant opportunities to do so besides.

Understand that EU is a game of tradeoffs. In the early goings, you simply lack the money to do everything you'd like to do, so don't try.

I personally don't bother sending merchants at all until I have at least a 50% trade effie. Just not terribly cost-effective to do so prior to that.

And, given that the early game gravy is in production, I tend to focus all my efforts and attention on Infrastructure research.

There are a NUMBER of ways to speed through the Infrastructure tree. First, maximize your research slider to infrastructure (obvious).

Secong, get yourself into a war and pillage enemy provinces. Since you're slider is not set to cash, all the "money" you make in pillage is plowed straight into Infrastructure, and this will greatly speed you along.

Third, manufactories! With an "All Infrastructure" focus, you can quickly gain the ability to build the best, most important manufactory in the game....the refinery. And DO IT! REPEATEDLY!!!! You will get a richer province out of the deal (more tax dollars) and free research toward Trade techs (which will be crucial later on).

The goal is rapid Inf. Advancement to Inf 5, at which point, you will find yourself firmly in the driver's seat.

Inf. 5 allows for Mayors, and Mayors combat inflation.

Even better, once you HAVE no inflation, Mayors allow you to mint a bit of coin each month WITHOUT inflation!

This means that you move from a situation of praying for tax revenues in January and hoarding those ducats all year long, to getting a steady stream of money coming in each month.....and the flexibility that allows is just HUGE!

Inf 5 is probably THE lynchpin tech in the whole game. I cannot think of a more important tech in terms of immediate, direct benefits for your game. And the quicker you get there, the better off you will be.

Always, always, ALWAYS promote TC's and Justicars in all provinces! Remember, early game is all about production income, and these two promotions directly impact (increase) the money you rake in. Maximize the value of each province you control...make the promotions!

Once you reach Inf 5, take a break from researching the finer stuff, and catch up on Military tech....this should be easy to do with Inf. 5, cos your economy will be on fire, and you'll no doubt have a hefty "neighbor bonus" to augment your research.

Once you draw even, military tech wise, get back to the good stuff, and focus on bumping up your trade effie. Target is 50% or better. Use p. 34 of your stats screens to compare your tech level with the rest of the world. The moment you top 50% effie, you're a contender, the moment you are tied with, or surpass the rest of the world in trade effie, you're unstoppable, and start sending those merchants!

Monopolies are soooooo completely worth the effort to get and maintain. I used to be a big fan of forgetting monopolies and going for a wide dispersion of 5 merchants in every cot I could see.

Ineffective, at least in terms of raw income.

By focusing on monopolies in the most lucrative CoT's out there, I found my income nearly tripled over the old way of doing it. (and by late game, if your Trade income isn't bigger than everything else combined (and often, several TIMES larger), you're not getting all you could be out of your country!)

Once you get here (and it's possible to "get here" ~halfway through the game), the world is literally at your command. You're swimming in money, can easily renew your focus on land and naval techs, BLOW past the opposition, and find yourself with the world's largest economy, biggest army, most feared navy, highest tech levels....the works!

At that point, the game becomes very much a matter of diplomacy, finesse, and control. As the head of the strongest alliance family on Earth, you are free to pursue whatever objectives you set for yourself....or, sit back and enjoy the rest of the show, financing the building or destruction of empires as it suits your purposes....

-=Vel=-

[dojoboy]

Very nice Vel, I always enjoy your writings, starting back in the days of SMAC. Right now, I'm staring at my copy of Vel's SMAX Guide, version 4.0. Those were the days.....

Currently, I'm playing as Sweden. Still early, but I'm glad one of my instincts are noted in you last post re: not even bothering w/ merchants in the early game.

[Flip McWho]

Vel you are a God . I just brought EUII and this is gonna be a godsend. Thank you.

Now that I've read the whole thing:

[Velociryx]

Glad you guys got some use out of it!

I've been toying with the notion of putting together some thoughts on all the majors, and a few of the minors....it'd be far too daunting, I think, to even attempt a comprehensive strat guide on a nation-by-nation basis, but I've got plenty of notes to make a region-by-region guide at least....

Will toy with that some!

Oh....some observations re: patch 1.08 that are changes/tweaks to the above:

Colonization is significantly more difficult, requiring 10 colonists (1000pop) to create a colonial city, rather than the old seven...so it's more of a comittment, definitely, and now comes with a longer payoff period. I'm finding that if I have only limited colonists per year to play with (translation: If I have enough cash left over at the end of the year to SEND a colonist, AND places I can send them to, then I have too few colonists!), I'll hook a colony up to 8-9 and let it grow the rest of its way over time. That way, I still GET the colony, but just have to wait a bit longer for it, and conserve what colonists I DO have.

Trade is harder (and more realistic) now. ToCs will go away!!! Imagine my shock during my latest game (as Songhai)....was MUCH fun! I had never had such trouble with gold-driven inflation before....intriguing to deal with!

Figuring that if I added enough provinces to my fold, I'd be able to squesh the gold inflation, I went a-conquering....DoW'd Pagan Ashanti *one day* before they joined the Benin/Dahomey alliance, and ate them in one bite (two tasty Ivory provinces). Still had gold inflation.

Got Timbuktu from Mali shortly after the war with Ashanti (defection). Pottery...sweet. Still had the inflation tho.

Ten years later, I waited till the Benin/Dahomey alliance expired, and one day later DoW'the homeys....poof. Two more provs, and I'm really getting BIG! Still got the inflation tho (0.12 per year at this point...started at 0.2).

A few years to recover, and I'm at it again....eating Benin in a single bite, and snagging the Ivoria ToC! With this rich land under my belt (converted them to Sunni on the second try, too!), I figured it'd be easy street once I hit Trade 3 and Monopolies....

No luck...and despite having 5 merchants in Ivoria and TC's everywhere, I STILL had 0.11 per year inflation.

So...I ate Mali too (which did not solve the inflation problem either!)

By this point, the only other nation I could see was Morocco, and they did not see my ToC.

Two years later, it vanished due to lack of competition.

Now, I'm not sure what the threshold is, but I'm betting 2-3 other countries, minimum. Will experiment on it later....just be aware that if you are TOO good at trading, you'll lose your ToC! (I lost all ability to trade in that game, because the whole rest of the world had shut me out of their markets, after I demolished the ToC's in Thrace, Persia, and Anglia)....it was interesting to see where the trades would go next...for a while, the ToC handling africa was the one in Japan!!!

Anyway...all that to say, be careful how you trade...it can have unexpected consequences. Don't utterly demolish the competition in any given market, unless you just want to rob someone of their ToC (which, now that I think of it, is a fantastic form of "attack" )

Maybe it was just this runthrough with 1.08, but the AI seemed VERY historical with one exception.

Ottos were friggin HUGE, and right on target.

France formed nicely, as did Spain.

England was a financial powerhouse with significant American holdings.

America formed!

the only thing that was unusual was....

No Russia! Lithuania and Sibir had devoured the Russian principalities before they could gather any steam (Sibir was a 16 province juggernaught).

Aside from that, it was....eerily familiar.

Well, except the fact that Songhai controlled the entire western portion of Africa down to Lundsomethingorother, and the southern end of South America....

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

PS: My inflation hit its high-water mark at 33.7%, and I was worried that I'd never get it down from there, but....once I hit Inf 5 and let the mayors work their magic (well, that coupled with a trio of deflation type events in that period)....sweet music indeed....

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

Interesting to hear more observations re: 1.08.

After playing around for a bit as Sweden, Venice (again) and Byzantium I've come to the firm conclusion that I absolutely loathe it.

Trade, as you mentioned in there somewhere, was my chief dislike. Or at least it would have been if I'd been able to accomplish any.
No matter what I did I just couldn't keep merchants in a CoT.
I could wait and wait for a year or more until I'd saved up a half dozen of the blighters and send them all at once to a single center. ~50% of the time I never even got a single one in (although I generally managed to compete one or two of the opposition out this didn't often seem to translate into my guys getting in).
About 45% of the time I did manage to get a single merchant in only to see him gone the next month (on a few rare occasions one of them lasted for a second month but never any longer - nowhere near long enough to regenerate my supply of merchants or to pay the cost of sending them).
Once in a blue moon I managed to get two merchants in. This was pretty bad as it always resulted in an embargo (well, except when I was playing Venice and sending merchies to my own CoT I guess ).
Basically, at the end (just before I gave up and went back to 1.06) I'd given up on trade completely, locked my slider in at 0 and just began treating CoT's as rich provinces.
Sending merchants, even to my own CoT at a cost of 3D each, just wasn't worth it...
I'm still not sure about what went wrong - My trade efficiency was generally about 10-15% greater, stability was high and my monarch admin rating was pretty good. Just no trade. My merchant just always seemed to be knocked out first.

The other thing that really ruined it for me (playing as Sweden) was the frequency of destroyed Industry's. In the first 40-odd years I scrimped and saved up to build an Art gallery. First time my capital was looted (just for a few days) and BOOM!
A couple of decades later, after rebuilding, during a minor scrap with Denmark it happened again - a Danish force attacked me late in the month and was annihilated but not before the end-of-month turnover.
Province therefore became looted and BOOM!
Just before the turn-of-century, after a long drawn out scrap with Novgorod, it happened again, to my single refinery this time. Near end-of-month revolt carries over into the next month and BOOM!
Two provinces, looted a total of 5 times in less than a century, and 3 lost manufactory's.

I miss the 1.08 TC/Governors, Strait Coding and a whole ton of other stuff but 1.08 basically replaced too much of the enjoyment with frustration.
I've gone back to 1.06 (The state-of-the-art patch when I first acquired EU2) and am finding it much more enjoyable.
Currently playing as Navarra - starts out in bit of a tight spot but with French and Iberian cultures. :salivate:

[CerberusIV]

Playing 1.08 at Normal difficulty as England I am having no trouble with inflation (having several specific deflation events helps! )

Gold inflation kicks in when gold provides more than 25% of your total income (there is a page in the ledger that gives a breakdown of income by source).

I got lucky in my current game and grabbed the four Aztec gold provinces before Spain could and they started producing 24.7% of my income If you are getting gold inflation you can only get rid of it by increasing your income from other sources, as Vel suggests. Note that if you put a governor in a gold province it will increase the production income and possibly your inflation will rise by more than the reduction from the governor.