An EU2 Newbie, at last!

[lord of the mark]

I ended the war, and didnt manage to vassalize Nav - it didnt show up even with a 100 victory score - do they need to be down to one province for force vassal? Or maybe i misinterpreted the screen. In any case I took Bearn, and all the ducats Navarre had left. Will go for the rest of Navarre later, I suppose. Stability is up to 2, so ive ended investment in stab, i have over 270 ducats (even after sending out one more batch of settlers to the Canaries) so im keeping monthly income close to zero and putting everything into infra and trade. would work on diplomacy to improve lowered relations, but king is low on diplo due to event. Ive kept the army but reduced mtnce to min - ive got about 10k cav and 20k inf, well below my support limit. Having taken Bearn France now has CB on me, so i need to be careful.

I dont yet have money for a FAA - should that be my goal? I suppose a shift in the DP sliders could be by next move - perhaps toward centralization?

[Nikolai]

If they already were a vassal of someone, you can't vassalize them I'm afraid. The one province rule only applies to annexation btw.

As for the slider move, check out this sticky. In the FAQ section over at Paradox, you can find an answer on quite a few questions btw.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Nikolai
If they already were a vassal of someone, you can't vassalize them I'm afraid. The one province rule only applies to annexation btw.

As for the slider move, check out this sticky. In the FAQ section over at Paradox, you can find an answer on quite a few questions btw.

Navarre is really a pain then. I wonder if releasing Bearn as a vassal would be a good idea? Would it drop the French CB?

Ive lurked at the Paradox forums, and have just registered there. Id like to post here for a while though - my questions arent that challenging, I think, and i find this place easier to navigate.

[Dinner]

Most of the people here also go to the Paradox site so you can get everything you need to know right here without having to ask strangers.

[ravagon]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

Navarre is really a pain then. I wonder if releasing Bearn as a vassal would be a good idea? Would it drop the French CB?

In order, probably and yes it would.
However, a newly created Baern likely won't survive on it's own for very long - Either France, Aragon or Navarra could probably swallow it quite easily as it won't be able to build armies immediately.
Your best bet would probably be to invite it into your alliance if you do so ...
Having Baern as a part of Castille will increase your tech/stability costs disproportionately to its size as it has Basque culture rather than Iberian (your only native culture).
This reduces it's tax value (-20%) too and I don't think it's that high to begin with.
Revolt risk will similarly be higher here for the duration of the game due to the off-culture.

France would no longer have a CB on you but then the French will probably be far more concerned with England, Burgundy and the French minors for some time to come as far as a DoW against you goes. Particularly over a piece of territory so peripheral to their own empire.
Your relations will suffer in the meantime of course.

[lord of the mark]

yeah for auto save! it saved in 1453, just a few game months before EU2 crashed to desktop - right in the middle of a war (im not sure exactly where i was at the save, but i think i got most of the important stuff by then)

Scotland joined the alliance with me and Port. Scotland then went to war with England, and called for help, which i gladly extended, so I now could go after Navarra without a big stab hit. Annexed Navarra, took Gascony from the english, won a naval battle, and sent an army into Oporto to take on an English invasion of Portugal - one more good blow should finish off the English army and give a more substantial peace - i want ducats from them, not territory at this stage. After thats done I'll release Bearn as vassal and try to lower BB (now 11). Need to get peace quickly, as Alvaro just died.

Then it crashed - but i think the save was well into the war, and i wouldnt mind redoing that.

[Nikolai]

Autosave is your friend.

[lord of the mark]

well that worked, and the war ended.


Then a few years later a bunch of things happened relatively fast - id left the PC to go do other things, assuming the popups would pause it whenever something important happened - somehow when i was cleaning up popups, or something, i disavowed alliance with vassal Bearn when Aragon attacked, and this hurt stab, and I think BB.

Just when im getting things back under control, Aragon attacks ME, for reasons that arent quite clear - just my BB are up, and im nearby, AFAICT. A war I really dont want. Took a while to beat them sufficiently to get a white peace (gad these sieges go on and on) didnt help when there ally Genoa sent over a large army.

BTW, Enrique IV is a lousy king, ISTM.

Finally at peace again. Was up to Stab 2, and focusing on infrastructure research, and ducats to build a FAA - then i get a plague, Stab back to 1. There seem to be plenty of stab lowering events, and when stab goes to zero or less its a pain - so id like try to keep it at 2. (maybe then increase centralization) BTW, does a monarchical succession automatically lower stab?

[Nikolai]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
BTW, does a monarchical succession automatically lower stab?

No.

[Dinner]

Many monrachs are more skillful and so your stability, technology, and tax income actualy go way up.

[Nikolai]

That's right, but the change itself does not alter the stab or anything.

[lord of the mark]

ok, so i wish i knew why my relations with Aragon are so poor. theyre like -200 and theyve attacked me twice. Is it cause Id annexed Navarra? last time they attacked Nav was my vassal. Or just cause theyre aggressive and im the only one in the way - other than france which they dont seem to want to take on.

now its like early 1470's, and ive got the 5 year truce, but im afraid these idiots will attack again in time to mess up the spanish wedding events. Grrrrrr!

[Dinner]

If you go to war with a country then your relations with them fall apart. One war and you'll be near -200.

[lord of the mark]

Ok - its 1477 or so. I got the two Viva Espana events - first became Spain, and then got Aragon as vassal. I havent checked the ruler on Aragon - I presume that should be Ferdinand now?

I finished FAA in Castile/Madrid. Isabel's skills help with stab, civ research, and diplo. Stab is up to 3 - i will move another step to centralization, but cant do that till 1483. Should finish next level of Infra in 1480, then can build refineries - will try to do so in Andalusia and Canaries. But im short cash, only 300 or so, and inflation is growing. Is it worth it investing in trade - i manage to place some merchants and get some gold from that, but i have no COT and dont expect one for some time.

Austria has inherited Burgundy. Strategic threats are OE and France. OE has big chunk of balkans, and 2 provs in Italy (Tuscany and one next to it, I think) Aragon, Papal, Venice, Genoa at war with OE. I sent an army to Genoa (with whom I have MA) to move into OE provs - turns out they are held by Papal army - should have looked more closely at the flags. So Im now thinking i WONT DOW OE, and will stay at peace.

France by now has almost all their historic provs, except for a half dozen or more still held by England. And is starting to push into Germany - is currently at peace with Genoa - are they playing more cautiously, now that Austria holds their eastern flank?

Im reluctant to move toward war with France now, even by guarentees to her neighbors (EG Genoa) My Imp2 instincts would be to reach out diplomatically to Austria or England, but thats costly, they probably wont ally anyway, and im not sure the best way to do that.

My BBs are steadily going down.

Not sure what else to do in next three years while waiting for infra to go up.

[Jonny]

Trade is worth investing in. The higher your trade level, the more income you get from trade and your merchants are less likely to get competed away - so you spend less money replacing those. It's also imperative that you at least have level 3 when COTs start to show up in the colonies, as the European nations are very reluctant to trade in non-European COTs, so those are easy to monopolize.

BTW, I believe Spain gets a COT in Andalusia in 1500 by event.

Austria will be the much better ally than England... Austria could help you versus OE or France, and they'll stay Catholic, and they won't get in your way during colonization (for the most part).