General Strategies and Other Notes

[MrWhereItsAt]

Vel strat help with EU2?! OOOOH BOY!

So when is the full guide coming out?

[Velociryx]

Excellent observations, Rav! Trade is a bit of an annoyance in 1.08....only played two games with this latest patch, so will have to experiment further on it to find ways around it (if possible).

As to the strat guide...Hmmm...I dunno....will begin by posting general strat notes about the nations I've played (under 1.08), and slowly build up...see what I've got!

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

Originally posted by MrWhereItsAt
Vel strat help with EU2?! OOOOH BOY!

So when is the full guide coming out?

Heh heh. The full guide is already out in all of Vels posts.
He just has to find a way to reduce the total size down to less than ten terabytes.

[Flip McWho]

A full guide?

I'd buy it

Any advice for beginners?

EDIT: For example: good nations to start with. Things I should watch out for. Just general tips so I don't get swamped and end up drowning, well not badly drowning at least.

[Velociryx]

The best advice I could give a beginner is GO SLOW!

EU2 is not...I repeat...is not a game of instant gratification!

If you make too many fast, sudden moves, you will find the weight of the world bearing down upon your head!

Start slowly....watch your neighbors....strike opportunistically. Build your resources carefully.

Countries that are kind to beginners would be France (esp if you start in 1492), England, and to a lesser extent, Spain (tho the bankruptcies will teach you a harsh lesson in economics!).

More on that later tho...I'm off to bed!

-=Vel=-

[pg]

1.08 is kinda of a pain i agree. i think it's mostly for multiplayer balancing, etc. i don't really care though i have to admit i've played out eu2 for the time being. maybe if daywalker can release a much improved computer ai i'll start up again but i can't stand the ai stupidity anymore. last few times i played i manually went through and gave the ai colonies, better research, etc every couple of decades. it helped quite a bit actually but it was a pain to do and inbetween the ai was still braindead. i'm ready for eu3.

[Velociryx]

something like this?

Venice: Italian, Slavonic, Greek
15k of 23k max. at war with croatia and hungary at game start. austria has a cb against you. you have cb shields on cypruss, morea, ragusa, and mantua.
23% (?) prod effie, 51% trade effie, land and nav at 1, inf at 2, trade at 3.

First Slider Adjustment: Cent +1 looks very attractive. You've already got a tech lead, and the 2% cost reduction will only help to widen it. Not to mention the fact that your trade effie doesn't need any help at present....Other noteworthy choices would be Aristoc -1, Innovation +1 (as you have scant need of colonists just now), or Land -1 (if you're not a Maritime power, then one does not exist in this game!).

Religion Slider: This is pretty much dictated to you by virtue of the fact that you control both Catholic and Orthodox provinces. Maximize Catholic, midway on Ortho, and none for Muslim. Anything else will see you constantly wrestling with rebellions.

Overview:
The Good News: You are held in high regards by most of europe, have the best trade effie in the game, and are significantly closer than most to Inf 5. You have a good naval commander (and a strong starting fleet), wonderfully defensive terrain, plus ALL your starting provinces have small forts in them. This, coupled with relatively low support limits in most of your territories makes you a tough nut to crack. Another huge boon is the game-start 500d in your treasury. 300d to promote bailiffs everywhere on Jan 1, 1419, and 200d to finance your first year. Your military is small but servicable (15,000 of a max of 23,000) (10k Inf, and 5k Cav), and adequate to the immediate defense of the realm.

The Bad News: Austria hates you....okay, so they don't HATE you at the outset, but they will, because they have a CB shield on Istria, so long-term, it's going to be a problem, and when they start getting their various inheritance events, you'll begin to feel the pinch. Another long-term problem is the Ottomans. They're big and scary, and they hate you, and pretty much the rest of Europe, but thanks to geography, you can expect to find yourself on the front lines of the Turkish invasion sooner or later, so that's out there on the horizon.

You have a more immediate problem than those, however. Hungary and Croatia hate you AND you start off at war with them. This is your first, most pressing dilemma. Best way to fight it out with them is to march the bulk of (if not all of) your army into Istria and simply hold the line. Odds are that a force will move to Dalmatia, but you lack sufficient forces to drive them off AND prevent a general advance to the gates of Venice, so best to protect the crown jewel and let Dalmatia fend for themselves. Expect to see waves of armies 2-3 times the size of your forces attacking you in Istria, but because of the terrain advantages and a handful of cannons at start, you can repel these fairly easily. Just park there and defend to boost your war score. Eventually they'll come begging peace for a bit of coin, and when they do, accept it and move on. Easiest way to deal with them on the opener. If you feel daring, you could try to make some territorial gains, but this is generally inadvisable given the sheer numbers of troops they can collectively throw at you. Easier from a logistics standpoint to defend one province than two, and you've got better things to do with your money in the early game than to blow it on raising troops constantly.

Speaking of new recruits, when training to boost your military to near-max, focus on infantry and train the recruits in Venice. Wait till morale is solid and then march them to reinforce Istria as needed. You've got a solid core of cavalry, and they'll (generally) take scant cavalry losses in any event if you defend in Istria.

General Opening Strategies:
* Make Slider Adjustment (Cent +1 being my recomendation)
* March the First Army to Istria and hold against the Maygars and Croats.
* Bailiff promotions in all territories you control
* Begin building a trade presence in every CoT you can see.

Trade is truly your lifeblood. Your provinces are not terribly valuable, and with such a stellar starting trade effie, this is truly the biggest stick you wield. Use it well and wisely. Those initial merchants are better spent in building a solid trading position in every market you can see, rather than attempting to maintain an early game monopoly. First goal is to get traders everywhere to provide you a widely dispersed income base and boost the bottom line, and this will take a number of years to accomplish. Once it is, re-assess the situation and begin focusing on one or two CoT's to make a monopolistic play in (with Venito being the obvious choice, initially). If Thrace gets her CoT, take swift advantage and shift your focus there, gaining an early monopoly IN Thrace (which, thanks to your trade effie, you'll keep longer than normal...and this holds true for the rest of the game as well. Always be on the lookout for newly formed CoT's and get there first with a flood of merchants. Good for the bottom line!

As soon as you achieve T4 (which should be quicker than most, especially given that you have two PRIME candidate provinces for Refineries!), make liberal use of your mercantile leanings to use trade as a weapon, limiting your competitors in Venice, and manufacturing CB's against you for people you're spoiling to fight anyways (they declare against you, and the end result is you get the fight you wanted without the BB hit for declaring sans Causa Belli)

Expansion options: Dicey. All your CB shields begin the game controlled by minor powers (one province minors, save for Byzantium, which prolly won't be around long anyway). This is bad, cos it means that expansion is expensive from a BB perspective.

Of your shields, Mantua is the most attractive of the lot, and you DO get one "freebie" annexation, since most of Europe adores you. After the first annexation, their ardor will cool significantly, but the point is, you can get away with it!

I'd advise sitting back initially, however, and letting the era's "first round" of warfare shake itself out before comitting to a particular course of action. Odds are excellent that the Italian peninsual will explode in random warfare, and if so, then Mantua might well be overrun by someone else (giving THEM the BB hit). At that point, you can pounce on the victor, and take a nominal hit for a free province with good Manpower and no revolt risk from the day the treaty is signed.

Ragusa would be an excellent choice to spend your "freebie" annexation on, and taken together, the two provinces will add handsomely to your bottom line, giving you a bigger base to work with (and 8 provinces officially makes you a "large empire").

Early in the game, you'll get a good military leader in the form of Carmagnola, and he should help even the odds, should you find yourself outnumbered in any of your early game fights.

Venice is short on historical events, so don't expect to be swimming in them like France, England, or Spain, but on the other hand, you have the perfect opportunity to write your own history.

Generally speaking, expanding into Italy is your best bet, because of the wealth and population values of the Italian provinces. If you want to get bigger, faster, then keep a close watch on the happenings in Italy, and steal provinces from anyone who overruns one of the smaller states (see the Mantua example above, always letting someone else eat the BB points for annexation). But of course, if a golden opportunity presents itself in any province you have cultural similiarities with, by all means, have at it!

Stability is relatively more important for Venice than other nations. Given your dependence on merchants to boost your income from day one (cos unlike France, for example, most of your real estate generates middling, but not exceptional revenues, which in turn forces you to play to your strong suit...merchants!), you get *seriously* punished when stability drops, so plan on spending more time than the usual maxing out your stability slider if you get some harsh events (political crisis, for example). Low stability will crush your mercantile empire (I have no hard data on this but EVERY TIME I have negative stability, I've seen my merchants booted out of CoT's en mass) in a big hurry, and that can be VERY hard to undo (income drops, making it harder and relatively more expensive to place merchants to recoup the loss), so best not to even start down that road. Keep your stability up. When you're rolling in coin, after building your first two or three refineries, build at least that number of Fine arts centers (starting in Venice itself, of course), as cheap insurance agasint a sudden drop in stability (and this will, over the course of time, reduce your need to have to spend extended periods of time plowing money into stab).

Hand in hand with this, it is important that you not bite off more than you can chew. This is another reason why Italy is relatively more attractive to you from an expansion standpoint than toward Greece. Since your national religion is Catholic, even if you can culturally assimilate Greek provinces, they're still off-religion, and will spike your stability costs, which you don't need. (at game start, Venice going full bore toward stab can gain a point in ~7 months). General recomendation is to wait until you have converted the two Orthodox provinces you already have before acquiring any additional Orthodox holdings (so if expansion into Greece is a priority for you, this should adjust the importance of Missionaries to your plan accordingly).

Alliances: Truly a wide open field here, as you are an attractive ally for the control you can bring on the Med region. Austria is unlikely to remain friendly for long (recommend a defensive Royal Marriage proposal with them to forestall the inevitable), and will be a pressing concern by the mid-game, as will the Ottomans, so plan your game around building your power base AND your alliance family with protection against these two threats in mind. Weakest diplomatic choice (but good strategic one) would be the Knights of Rhodes/Cyprus. If you go this route, do so with the foreknowledge that fighting the Ottos too early is no good for you, so plan to opt out of any war your smaller allies get mixed up in with Muslim powers. They're too small to make good on the CB they gain on you if you opt out of a fight, but you get coverage of having at least nominal allies in the meantime (which preserves your diplo standings in the rest of the world, as you're not constantly having to turn down alliance proposals elsewhere). Stick with this alliance until you can engineer one that better suits your specific purposes and the flow of the current game.

Colonization: A natural choice for you, provided that you actually GET some explorers (you begin with a naval orientation, so an early game explorer is not out of the question for you). Still, a couple of steps toward innovation until Inf 5 might serve you well, assuming you have not reached that hallowed tech before you're fully centralized. I would definitely consider that a short term move, however, and then back to narrow-minded to control stab cost and give you more colonists.

Map trading: DO THIS! Find people on the fringes of the known world, and spend some money to boost relations! When they're good, trade maps and uncover more of the world! Those countries on the fringes generally have VERY poor trading effies, and you're only adding to the competition marginally. On the other hand, you're uncovering more of the map, and more juicy CoT's! This is a VERY inexpensive way (especially given the diplomatic talents of many of your rulers) to gain better map information without the benefits of explorers and such.

[ravagon]

Bumpity bump (In anticipation of Vels imminent return?).

Somebody made a horrendous boo boo when installing 1.08 and didn't rtfm.
Installed it over 1.07 (I think) and that's what turned my first attempt at 1.08 into such a nightmare.
Having reinstalled 1.08 over a new-installation EU2 1.00 it plays like a whole different ballgame. *ahem*

Managed to get trade working much more effectively just by sending one merchant at a time to various CoT's (Started playing as Navarra which initially had a very high mercantile setting so I didn't have that many merchants to play with) to far greater effect than I would've otherwise thought.
As the AI tends to use it's merchants straight away it doesn't have too many options to exploit any CoT 'holes' it may generate - hence very-early February is a good time to scry around for those CoT's with <20 occupied slots.
I've generally been sending out groups of 4 at a time (if I can find 4 CoT's with empty slots) and almost always get at least one inserted - sometimes all 4 make it.
Getting to a position of actually dominating this way will take much longer and you can get hurt much more easily if you suffer any stability hits but it seems to be much more economically viable - particularly wrt embargoes - the advantage being that you're trying not to compete other merchants out.
The only embargo I've had levelled against me so far comes from Genoa and this even when my merchants fail to compete anybody out let alone actually getting into Liguria.
Not quite sure how they know it was me as I wouldn't even get a notice if it were my CoT and their attempt failed, still ...

Navarra seems to have enormous potential to me - Native Basque + French + Iberian cultures and can actually become France on top of it.
When I think about all of those French NA provinces and the Spanish/Portugese territories that almost always seem to crop up all over the world ... :drool:

Problems exploring? Not when Madrid/Lisbon are but a hop skip and jump away! World Maps galore!
No point in taking out the biggest colonizing nations when they can do it all for you with their abundant 'attrition-free' explorers/conquistadors right?

[Velociryx]

Exactly right, Master Rav!

I have not yet played Navarra, but I understand that they also get a HUGELY talented, "immortal" leader to play with, which can tide you over till you become France, and speaking of that, this tells me that the way to expand is toward the French at the early game (thus giving you access to all the groovy French events and leaders).

Mmmmm....sounds like a tasty game coming up!

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

A nice leader huh?
Hopefully just around the corner. I could've used him in the last war but one alright.

Didn't start off too badly - joined up with the French Alliance in an attempt to grab Gascogne and Poiteau (sp?) from the English. Captured them both but couldn't make any inroads on any other English territories against the larger armies clashing to the north so I settled for Poiteau (not connected to my home provinces and I couldn't really afford to split my miniscule army so I just had to hope I didn't get any rebels - the French (curse their name ) certainly didn't want to give me access).
Almost immediately thereafter Aragon issued a dow against me - with my allies still busy with England and Burgundy
It took a lot of dancing around but I managed to lay siege to and capture the pair of provinces adjacent to my own (Gerona and ... I forget the other one) while only losing my capital.
By this time the French minors had joined in and hurt the Aragonese both on land and at sea so I was able to retake my own capital plus Valencia and their capital Catalunya.
A quick peace deal returned Catalunya and gave me everything else - all of it without a bit of French aid.

Then came a bigger problem - Castile/Portugal issue a dow and go after Valencia in huge numbers that I couldn't hope to match - at least they're taking heavy attrition losses - and France is busy annexing Provence and Bourbonais.
Auvergne tries to help out but they can't do much more than I.
Valencia has nearly fallen by the time the French wake up although I've nearly sieged Cumbria in return.
Then they (the French ) show up in Cumbria with 40k+ men and a leader - I take massive attrition losses myself, lose control of the siege, and have the French army fight a couple of large battle against the Castillans.
France then makes peace - returning control of Cumbria in exchange for a pittance and leaves my 14k men facing twice as many Portugese and a rapidly rebuilding Castile
With no ability to counter what they can throw at me if they really put the effort in I have to surrender Valencia - a bitter pill indeed - and exit this alliance (the French now hated me - due to a diplomatic insult in there somewhere and their ongoing CB against me, no doubt - and so would certainly reject a request for aid during the next war).
As if by magic a saviour arrived - England. (Not quite sure how it happened but my relations were still over +100 inspite of having sieged two of their provinces in the last decade). Their invitation into an alliance with Eire and Burgundy (who had been badly hurt in a war with Geldre/Friesland and Brittany apparently - Geldre had Flanders!) was immediately accepted!

France had lost heavily in the bloody fight with Castile - including their leader (who's name escapes me) and they were immediately embroiled against the aforementioned alliance of dutch minors.
Their heavier numbers eventually took their toll on Brittanian armies but at another heavy cost - their forces weren't being replaced nearly as quickly as they were used up.
With utterly exquisite timing Eire issues a dow against French-alliance-member Scotland () and Navarran forces surged upwards into the almost undefended French underbelly.
Splitting forces into two, we crushed the opposition in four French provinces in less than 10 months - with the occasional sally into enemy territory to crush newly built formations. France offers us 3 of the 4 provinces in a peace deal - an offer too good to refuse.

Could've stayed engaged for a while longer I s'pose, until the alliance made peace, but I didn't know what I would've gotten out of it not being the leader - probably nothing anywhere near as good as the French offer.
My allies were in a pretty good position at the time too so I didn't feel too badly.

3 months later England signed a peace deal claiming Artois and the Brittanians (who'd managed to come back after England smashed much of the French force in Northern France) took Maine.

This is pretty much where it standsnow - about 30 years into the GC.

In hindsight I should've probably joined the English on day one and gone after France but I didn't really know how long the war would've lasted - wouldn't want to end up without any gains and then be in the firing line of the whole Iberian peninsula without an adjoining alley.

I'll stop now lest I clog up too much of a strategy thread with this AAR nonsense.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

does anyone have EU2 for mac and isnt using it and wants to send the CD to me for free?

[Velociryx]

Sounds like you're well on your way to dominance, Rav!

And you have inspired me to start a Navarra game! (not sure when tho, but it looks like fun!)

When I do, I think I'll do as you sugessted, and cozy up with the English early-on...am thinking tho, that I'll DoW France on my own, and hope that the English keep them so busy that I can make some solid gains against them (would need to use my first diplo to gain Mil Access thru English territory, provided good starting relations), DoW with the second and pray I have enough time to lay in some good sieges.

Once France is fatally wounded/altogether gone, it'd be easy enough to kick the Brits off the mainland, and then, using the full weight of Navarra (on becoming France) to invade the Iberian Peninsula (prolly starting with Portugal, so as to let the wealthier Spaniards do more colonization for me), to gain maps, and a foothold in South America.

From there, knock out Chimu and Inca to gain gold and a world-class economy, and it should be a simple matter to coast to victory!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

^ bump for LOTM and Spiff....

-=Vel=-

[lord of the mark]

Re: General Strategies and Other Notes

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.

Good general advice, and real worldy enough not to feel gamey. Ive tried to do this.

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.

Im still finding this a little confusing - first alliance leader IN THE FIGHT is not the same as leader of the alliance, right? at least not in 1.08? And Im not real clear on the limits to my peace offers if im not leader.

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.

Im kinda sorta starting to do this - doing it mathematically not only seems like MM hell, but unrealistically precise. The DP sliders, while fascinating, are an area where theres a LOT to learn. Much hidden depth in their interactions with each other, with state religion, empire size, tech group, war or peace status, economic level, etc.

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:

This seems to be a killer tactic, as Ive seen in your AARs forex. Im very interested in seeing how historical it is. I suspect it is to some degree, but perhaps is overpowered in EU2 - a force of a few thousand cant really stop ALL recruitement in an EU2 sized province -to that extent over use of it seems a little gamey - which again gets back to what we're trying to do with the game, which I ask in another thread.

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.

Makes sense, if youve got the forces.

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.

Again, getting precisely to the minimum number to siege is a bit of MM, and also a tad gamey - although i daresay ive already done it in instances.

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

I have no idea how pillage money works - i recall reading about it in the manual, but ive always got too much going on when Im at war to really check for it.

Counter-Punch


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.

Classic military strat. Makes sense.

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!

cav for pursuit is appropriate to the period - though i have a hard time doing it in game, with the interface - hard to split up a siege force deftly (and it automatically goes to siege when the enemy disappears, if its his province)

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.

Havent tried this yet - also id rather the AI was less predictable, if thats the case.

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!

Im not gonna complain about the gameiness of this, since the peace system almost forces you to do something like this.

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).

What point on the tech ladder?

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.

Ok. Ive probably relied too much on these.

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.

hmm.

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!

havent used them yet. Inflation effect?

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)

Should the cash or research show up when your army enters the province?

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

-=Vel=-

Thanks for the bump!

[Dinner]

He wrote the stuff about maintaining a large army before they patched the game to raise the cost of keeping a standing army.