What does a n00b need to know about EUII?

[CerberusIV]

What I am finding is that stability is crucial. Playing Russia with the objectives of controlling all my core provinces and colonising Siberia I am struggling because of the size of my country. I was doing OK on stab +3, having survived the Time of Troubles (I got 2 scheduled and 1 random revolt risks for a total of 16, lasting 143 months and even Moscow had a rebellion at one point) then got a string of random events that reduced my stability to -3. Income is down, revolts are up and I just found out the hard way that you are not allowed to declare war at -3 stability.

Due to size, it takes 10 years to regain one point unless I pour all my investments into stability and virtually freeze everything else.

[Jagdtiger]

Originally posted by CerberusIV
What I am finding is that stability is crucial. Playing Russia with the objectives of controlling all my core provinces and colonising Siberia I am struggling because of the size of my country. I was doing OK on stab +3, having survived the Time of Troubles (I got 2 scheduled and 1 random revolt risks for a total of 16, lasting 143 months and even Moscow had a rebellion at one point) then got a string of random events that reduced my stability to -3. Income is down, revolts are up and I just found out the hard way that you are not allowed to declare war at -3 stability.

Due to size, it takes 10 years to regain one point unless I pour all my investments into stability and virtually freeze everything else.

And that's the fun part

When you're at -3 stab, your manpower has just run out, you've taken 3 loans out, treasury empty, all provinces with 10% revolt risk, 10% war exhaustion, and JUST when you finally sign that last peace deal...

CIVIL WAR!!

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by Jagdtiger
When you're at -3 stab, your manpower has just run out, you've taken 3 loans out, treasury empty, all provinces with 10% revolt risk, 10% war exhaustion, and JUST when you finally sign that last peace deal...

CIVIL WAR!!

No civil war yet but every time I drag my stability off the floor (it takes 5 years and all my investments to regain one point) I get plague or a peasant revolt and back down it goes.

On the plus side I have no loans, no war exhaustion, 200k troops (50% maintenance) to keep my neighbours at bay and squash peasant revolts, full manpower and my BB is less than 10 (it was at nearly 30 at one point). I currently control all my shield provinces and have some successful colonies in Siberia.

There are several good events just round the corner during Peter the Great's reign so if I can just hang on for the next 20 years or so things should improve.

[pg]

i almost never invest in stability as a big country. it's a total ripoff. there are so many negative events in the game it's not worth it. unless i can get +1 stability in about 8 months i don't bother with it. stability really isn't that important anyways if everything else in your country is in good order. the extra income is nice at +2/+3 but even civil war risk is really low to none at all(don't remember exactly) at 10 centralization.

[GePap]

As I found out during my times of troubles as China, if you can get some other guy to declare war on you, even at -3 Stability, you can raise war taxes, and BOOM, whole new armies. That is just what happened when half my massivce empire was in the control of Rebels- had sopme dinky neighbor declare war on me, then raised several armies, and not only crushed the puny neighbor but used those forces to bring the rebels back in line.

[CerberusIV]

Well, I decided I had learnt all I was going to from that Russia game so I quit and upped the difficulty level to normal/normal and tried Nippon. Fairly quiet really. China annexed Manchu and Korea early on so no chance of getting a few provinces there.

Research was painfully slow. I sent the 1603 explorer south and then lost a colony to the natives which put a stop to that expansion. After converting to christianity I discovered how expensive it was going to be to convert the remaining konfucian provinces and stopped there.

Now trying England. I abandoned France in favour of annexing Eire and Scotland early to sit out the War of the Roses and then go colonial. Research is going a bit better.

For merchants I have taken to focusing on just 3 or 4 affordable and not too competitive CoT's, checking monthly and placing a merchant whenever there is a vacancy. This seems to give a good success rate but they don't always stay long. As Japan I could sign trade agreements with most of the competitors and maintain 5 merchants in each of 4 CoT's but that isn't possible in europe early on.

Still learning and enjoying.

[binTravkin]

After converting to christianity I discovered how expensive it was going to be to convert the remaining konfucian provinces and stopped there.

If your monarch's ADM skill is 7-9, then it takes 1.5 missionary for each conversion, conversions in Japan cost (IIRC) ~300 due to large population..
It's a very good investment to go christian with Japan and convert all those provinces!

BTW, how did you get the conversion?
By a random or historical event?

Now trying England. I abandoned France in favour of annexing Eire and Scotland early to sit out the War of the Roses and then go colonial. Research is going a bit better.

"to sit out War of the Roses" is very silly IMO, as if you choose "Yorkish and Lancaster Kings alternate in making policy", you will thereafter get the Bosworth field giving you a few VERY useful changes in DP sliders, for example "-5 aristocracy", also a change for serfdom, innovativeness, centralisation (IIRC)..

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by binTravkin
It's a very good investment to go christian with Japan and convert all those provinces!

BTW, how did you get the conversion?
By a random or historical event?

I had the original 6 provinces plus Taiwan. 3 converted as part of events. Two of the rest would have cost about 300 each to convert. Kyoto would have cost just over 1800 and the province north of it (starts with T) about 1200.

Historical. If you choose not to persecute the christians with the first edict the second one (Tokugawa?) comes up with 3 choices, one of which is to convert to christianity in 1613.

"to sit out War of the Roses" is very silly IMO, as if you choose "Yorkish and Lancaster Kings alternate in making policy", you will thereafter get the Bosworth field giving you a few VERY useful changes in DP sliders, for example "-5 aristocracy", also a change for serfdom, innovativeness, centralisation (IIRC)..

I don't mean do nothing, rather I will concentrate on internal changes, including events, during the 1400's in order to be ready to start exploration and colonisation when the first Cabot appears.

[binTravkin]

I don't mean do nothing, rather I will concentrate on internal changes, including events, during the 1400's in order to be ready to start exploration and colonisation when the first Cabot appears.

My point was that you are trying to prevent the Rose wars (are you?), but IMO the Rose wars is the most useful event for Englands DP in entire 15th century!

[MrWhereItsAt]

/me reads on with interest, waiting for the time he has a moment to play again...

[binTravkin]

I had the original 6 provinces plus Taiwan. 3 converted as part of events. Two of the rest would have cost about 300 each to convert. Kyoto would have cost just over 1800 and the province north of it (starts with T) about 1200.

So if you hadn't Taiwan at htat time, you'd have to only convert 2 provinces..

even if it costs 1800 to convert you can afford 2 tries (which will return success if the monarchs ADM is 7+) because different religion will cost you 30% of province income + increased stability costs

For the province with same religion stab cost modifier is 20, but for different - 60!

If you pay 3600, it will payback in less than 100 yrs unless your province income is less than 10/month (I suspect for Tokio it's much more)

[CerberusIV]

As with my try as Russia, I felt I had got all I was going to out of playing Nippon. Both have been useful for my current try as England.

I dropped out of France quite quickly and let all the provinces apart from Calais go as vassals. I am waiting for someone to have the balls to take Calais but no-one is up for it yet despite Orleans and France having CB's on me. I used the troops (and the leaders - I had 7 split amongst only 4 armies at one point) to take Eire and Scotland (take it all and grab all but the capital, wait 5 years then force annex). It is now 1465 and the nationalist revolt risk has disappeared in Scotland and Eire. I just completed my 3rd FAA (in anticipation of expanding my territory and increased stab costs later). All the english provinces, Wales and Meath have bailiffs. I am close to completing level 3 research in trade and in infra (I should have the cash for a couple of refineries and will be able to get monopolies by the time the Anglia CoT opens).

My BB points are steadily declining and are down to 13.7 (were over 20 after the 2 FA's). I went with the Yorkist option for the Wars of the Roses. 19,000 troops desert and RR 6 but it moves the sliders more in the way I want to go. A couple of early revolts but with +3 stab and nationalism expired the only province with any revolt risk at all is Wales and it's only 1% there.

Trade is going well. I currently get 4 merchants a year and check twice a year (early May, early November) for vacancies in the cheaper CoT's and place one merchant in each of 2 CoT's each time. So far I am getting more merchants out than I am losing (my trade efficiency is just a bit higher than most european countries because I locked land, naval and stability sliders to minimum to concentrate of trade and infra for now).

I feel this is going quite nicely to take advantage of the events at the end of the War of the Roses and start a colonial expansion once I have an explorer. I am inclined to go Protestant as soon as I can and before converting TP's to colonies so that when I do colonise they will be the right religion.

[CerberusIV]

I think I'm starting to get the hang of the merchants business. I am currently getting 3.6 per year. Every time I accumulate a total of 5 I place 2 in CoT's. I concentrate on Flanders, 2 ducats, and the next price band, all 9 ducats. I have around 35 to 40 merchants currently in place, implying a lifespan of at least 10 years and probably get, and retain, about 50% of those I place. On that basis as long as they each average 2 ducats a year the whole thing is profitable. I have 25% in four CoT's and 20% in two more. Within a decade I will be able to try creating monopolies so hopefully that will be more profitable still. I have limited trade agreements to the CoT owners and a few aggressive trading countries - I am banned from Veneto and Liguria though.

It is worth retaining a few merchants is stock for the times a new CoT opens as the AI is slow to fill it. I got 4 merchants into Danzig before it filled up and have 5 in Moscow, which still isn't full after 15 years or so. Once I have found the CoT's outside Europe where the locals aren't well developed in trade I should be able to clean up.

Burgundy took Calais so that is sorted. Richard III is king after Bosworth Field and everything is going nicely. The only cloud on the horizon is that I wanted to use Eiriksfjord as a base for Cabot to explore North American waters. I got the map from Norway early on and have military access from Denmark but the stupid AI hasn't developed Eiriksfjord into a colony so no harbour (it has developed the next door province into a colony but that one doesn't get a harbour). So I will have to go from Iceland and develop a colony as soon as a province is spotted and hope the second Cabot can finish the job.

[pg]

actually the biggest trick to making loads of money with merchants is to play eu2 for a few hours at a time(longer the better). when you play that long(or longer) the ai falls asleep and seems to not send many merchants at all. of course when you load your game again the ai wakes back up and you'll end up losing a lot of merchants. the ai may have fallen asleep in your game if denmark didn't colonize eiriksfjord.

i almost never go for monopolies in contested cots as they don't seem to be worth the effort of all the clicking even if you might make a bit more money(which i'm not sure of).

[CerberusIV]

Yes, I'm not entirely convinced by monopolies in european CoT's. I have monopoly positions in eight but only three are benefiting from empty slots to get the extra free trade. One of those is Andalusia which has only just opened and has one Spanish merchant and six of mine. I may try and compete others out of Flanders as that is cheap to place but for the rest it is really only equivalent to having six merchants rather than five.

The AI certainly does seem to go quiet on placing merchants after half an hour or so of play.