An EU2 Newbie, at last!

[Dinner]

Try conquoring the world with Trebizond.

Loan sharking is the only way to make that work.

[Dinner]

Another interesting one is to be one of the Hindu states and try to liberate India from the muslim rule before all of the Hindus get converted. It can be done but is very difficult without resorting to cheating or exploits.

[Odin]

Denmark is quite fun, I gotten some good events (annexing Norway, Holstein, and Oldenberg). I am still wondering if I should either conquer Sweden and some of the little German principalities and carve out a continental empire, or start colonizing North America and get rich off of Virginia tobacco.

[Dinner]

China is a very easy country. It's 1600 and I've conquored Manchu, Korea, Vietnam (minus one hindu minor in the south), Loas, Tibet, Chinga-tai, and I've vasalized all the remaining buddhist nations of southeast asia. Currently I have 4 manufactures (3 fine arts, 1 distillery) and I've colonized most of Indonesia along with 5-6 proviences in Siberia. China's 6 land tech and 5 sea tech while most of the Euros are 12/6 but I won't be fighting Euros so it really doesn't matter.

I'm starting to get bored since the AI doesn't really fight back.

[Nikolai]

The rebels will soon fight back on you Evil Empire!

[Dinner]

They've been fighting back like a bunch of sore losers.

[lord of the mark]

How do you sequence developments in conquered new world pagan provinces - improvements first, or conversion first? and why?

on the one hand putting in a tax collector into a wrong religion, wrong culture prov, increased revolt risk. OTOH missionaries are damned expensive, given that you have to send several per province, and Id like to have more ducats first.

[Nikolai]

I always convert the pagans first, except when it comes to the two fantastically wealthy provinces in the Aztec empire.

[Jonny]

Originally posted by Nikolai
I always convert the pagans first, except when it comes to the two fantastically wealthy provinces in the Aztec empire.

Me too. Convert first, then build. (Unless I'm running short on missionaries, then I'll start building tax collectors or governor's offices while I'm waiting for more).

[CerberusIV]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
How do you sequence developments in conquered new world pagan provinces - improvements first, or conversion first? and why?

For pagan provinces I always convert before promoting a tax collector due to the RR. If it is later in the game and I have Infra 5 I often promote a governor first to help keep inflation down (or rather to increase how much I can mint before inflation rises) but even then I leave tax collectors until after conversion.

One issue here is how good your monarchs are as the monarchs admin rating affects the % chance of a successful conversion. In the case of Spain, Isabel y Fernando is good, as is the next monarch and the one after that is OK but from about 1560 onwards they are pretty poor. So I usually mint enough money to get the pagans converted whilst I have a decent monarch and worry about getting inflation down with governors later in the game.

For Spain conversions and colonising, both of which increase your non-gold income, are the best things to spend money on.

[chequita guevara]

Remember, infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. Try and hit Infra level 5 before bothering with anything else. When you do that, youre economy will be so strong that you will make up the difference in other areas very quickly.

[Spiffor]

Infra 5 rocks: the ability to hoard money without inflation is really a huge boon.

However, as such, Infra doesn't bring nearly as much money as trade. In my current game (Portugal GC, 1770), I have really begun to take off when my trade was beginning to soar. I make about 80 a month from taxes + production (despite having settled like crazy), and I make about 260 a month from trade.

Trade is something too serious to be left automated. When I automated trade, I had only one monopoly or two (in Lisboa). When I stopped automating, and did the trade myself, I reached 15 monopolies in a few years, and my trade income almost doubled, despite my politics becoming more mercantilist (special event). Besides, managing trade myself allowed me to see who my trade rivals were, and to make them sign timely trade agreements (i.e., when I was the monopolist of their CoT)

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Infra 5 rocks: the ability to hoard money without inflation is really a huge boon.

However, as such, Infra doesn't bring nearly as much money as trade. In my current game (Portugal GC, 1770), I have really begun to take off when my trade was beginning to soar. I make about 80 a month from taxes + production (despite having settled like crazy), and I make about 260 a month from trade.

But once you get infra 3 you can start building breweries and not have to worry about funding trade research.

Trade is something too serious to be left automated. When I automated trade, I had only one monopoly or two (in Lisboa). When I stopped automating, and did the trade myself, I reached 15 monopolies in a few years, and my trade income almost doubled, despite my politics becoming more mercantilist (special event). Besides, managing trade myself allowed me to see who my trade rivals were, and to make them sign timely trade agreements (i.e., when I was the monopolist of their CoT)

I can rarely hold a monopoly for more than a couple months, unless it's in some real far away exotic location that has almost no competition at all.

[Spiffor]

I can rarely hold a monopoly for more than a couple months, unless it's in some real far away exotic location that has almost no competition at all.

I have signed trade agreements with pretty much every European power. As such, I only compete against weak nations (often exotic ones, that don't even know how to have a monopoly). Getting a monopoly in a Euro ToC takes more time that way, but they last longer. And the exotic countries are little threat to my commercial might.

But it's important to know who threatens you, so that you can strike good deals with them.

[Sparrowhawk]

Before tonight I hadn't attempted to convert anyone. Seemed too costly and with low percentage chances of success (still playing my first game).

however tonight I sent out 4-5 Missionaries over a period of 10 or so years and have 100% success rate so far. It seems very much to be worth the investment, though I am not positive of the benefits beyond decreased revolt risk (does it also increase the tax value or trade value or both.....or perhaps the population?). I seemed to get increases in my gold after ever successful completion too......what's that about?

Anyhow, it is too late to convert many more as I am at about 1811 and most of the conversions left would take longer then the end of the game to complete I will keep this in mind for Game #2 however

/me