Europa Universalis 2 question

[Vesayen]

Once I defeat the military forces of a country and occupy it(and beat it through siege or assault), how do I make it my own? (i.e. be able to build stuff in it).

[Seeker]

Offer peace.

depending on how the war went, you can demand things from the enemy country:
-provinces (not their capital)
-gold
-vassalization (makes them a 'protectorate')
-Religious Conversion (useless, they'll typically switch back sooner rather than later)
-Military Access

If they accept your peace offer, then you'll have a Treaty for a while. Breaking treaties is really bad, hurts Reputation, Stability, Bad Boy points.

Conquering a whole country takes a while, at least two wars if they have more than one province.

When you have conquered the last province (capital) or the only province of tiny country like Cologne, you can annex them.

It is really, really hard to fully conquer a big colonial power. They are so big war exhaustion catches up with you.

Interesting thing: No one has to accept peace offers in EU2! You can fight on if you want...but there will be more and more war exhaustion.

[Apocalypse]

Demand that province in a peace deal.

[Vesayen]

Seeker ah okay thanks =).


In my first game I am England and I declared war on Austria(weakest neighbor), and I have almost all of their provinces but I cant get them to become proper holdings.....I'll go do that now thanks!

[Ecthy]

How exactly does war exhaustion work? What do those "...months" things in connection with war exhaustion mean?

[Seeker]

War exhaustion:

After a certain length of time in a war, the revolt risk of all provinces goes up. The longer the war, the more the revolt risk.

This allows for a very nasty strategy if you are fighting a big, multicultural, religious, Innovative, Centralized country.

If you are very Decentralized and Narrowminded, you get much less War Exhaustion. So, even if they kick your ass and win every battle, just don't give them peace. Just hang in there, soon that big techological empire will be splitting apart at the seams, go in and mop up.

If you refuse the 'This is the best we can expect' peace offer it seems to increase War Exhaustion too.

Some other EU2 secrets:
-Cavalry are almost COMPLETELY ineffective in broken terrain provinces (Moutain, Jungle, etc)
-You'll notice certain provinces with harsh climates suffer negative pop growth. Grow it to 1000 with colonists and this penalty disappears. So you can get nice colonies in Greenland or wherever if you want to.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Seeker

-You'll notice certain provinces with harsh climates suffer negative pop growth. Grow it to 1000 with colonists and this penalty disappears.

Doesn't help in Africa.

BTW, your strategy has a fatal flaw, Seeker, rejecting good peace deals drops your stability, which can cause revolts, which can overthrow your government, which can lead to everything being turbo-annexed.

[uh Clem]

The Location penalty goes down with increased population, and growth usually turns positive at 1000. For some really loser locations like Mtawa and Sulawesi, I've seen it stay negative up to 2000. (Yeah, I kept feeding them Colonists......)

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by uh Clem
For some really loser locations like Mtawa and Sulawesi, I've seen it stay negative up to 2000. (Yeah, I kept feeding them Colonists......)

I found that out too.

In regions with bad growth I ensure I send all colonists there until they are self-sustaining.

[Dauphin]

Also helps if you grab a CoT in order to capitalise on the growth bonus.

Building a manufactory in a colony with no "location" problems and a CoT can give high growth potentials.