Stuff I've learned....

[Velociryx]

Well, since there's not an EXTREME amount of activity in this part of the forum, I thought I'd post a few notes (which may well be the faintest glimmerings of an EU strat guide....) here to foster some discussion.

The Army:
Good rule of thumb is to keep your fixed expenses (interest on loans and troop salaries) to somewhere between 10-20% of your monthly take. Any more than that, and you degrade your long term growth.

As far as troop ratios go, try this on for size...it works like a charm for me!

Cavalry - 1000 for every 2000 Infantry in an army group.

Artillery - 20 Guns for every 3000 Infantry in an army group.

Generals: Very cool guys, these....LOTS better than the run of the mill Colonels most of your units will have. Keep them with the biggest of your armies....every day they're in combat, there's a chance they'll get killed...seems a lesser chance the more guys you have with them. Also, be careful about letting Generals handle sieges! Unless they have a siege bonus, they'll not help you complete the siege notably faster, and you put them at risk of dying.

Combat in general: Lots of ways to go about it, but BY FAR the most effective method of combat I've found is something I have dubbed "smother and siege."

As you can see from the troop ratios I mention above, I put a pretty healthy emphasis on artillery, and it's that emphasis that helps end sieges quickly. I RARELY fight enemy armies in the field! Rather, my forces fan out to "cover" enemy territories, preventing them from recruiting troops close to my objectives, and then bring in a big battle group, armed to the teeth with cannon....it's this main group that goes around laying quick sieges to enemy territories. Once I've got 2-3 enemy territories under my thumb, it's easy enough to sue for peace, often gaining plumb territories and cash to boot!

Hand in hand with this basic strategy is constant attention to upgrading your fortresses! If your enemy has to waste time plowing through your level 3-4 forts, it'll take him FOREVER to capture even one of your territories, while you rip through his more lightly defended positions like a Ginsu Knife through...well, you get the idea....

Oh! And when you're fighting, wait til Jan 1st to sue for peace! The computer has just gotten paid, and you can rake in most or all of his annual "take" as well as getting your own cash!

Research:
In the early game, the most important thing is Land Tech 3 (artillery), so all your efforts NEED to go there first. After that, you want Infrastructure 2 (if you didn't start with it), and then....nothing but trade! Here's why:

If you have a higher trade tech level than everybody else, you can establish and KEEP long-lasting monopolies at the various centers of trade you know about. THAT'S what brings in the hordes of cash! And on that note, NEVER let the computer send your merchants! Good way to lose lossa money!

Once you're in a dominant position, trade-wise, pour everything you've got into Infrastructure again. The next "biggie" is Infrastructure 5 - which gives you Governors, and the ability to control your inflation, and here's the kicker.....

Once you get Infrastructure five, don't research ANYTHING. Put your slider so that you're bringing in nothing but cash--which will increase your inflation by 1% per year--and horde cash to start building manufactories! By this point in the game, even if you've not been paying attention to naval techs at all, you should be at or near Naval 5, which means that you'll be able to build Refineries and Naval Supply Manufactories, and Fine Arts Centers.

The only place you want a Fine Arts Center is in your Capitol, and in truth, they're slightly less valuable than the others.

Anyway, each Refinery you build helps your trade research, and each naval supply manufactory you build helps your naval research (which becomes more important later in the game, rather than earlier). So...start by building refineries in any provinces you control which produce wine or sugar, and then move to naval supply thingies in territories which have fish or naval supplies, promoting governers to reduce your inflation to zero BEFORE you start building (reason: even a 1% inflation rate will dramatically increase the cost of the manufactories!)

Once you get those built everywhere you can, the next big thing is the Goods Manufactory (I think it's Infrastructure 7?) - anyway, you'll wanna build those everywhere you can, as they enhance your infrastructure research.

Lots more, but I don't have my game notes in front of me, so I shall stop here for the moment, and see what discussion this brings about....

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

Hmmm, the 'smother and seige' tactic sounds perfect. Now what exactly does the 'cover' command do? They can't get troops or money from that province?

I like your troops ratios. I have so of informally been doing something similar, but I still have little idea how to wage war.

Your econ understanding is so far ahead of mine it ain't funny. Well, it's pretty funny.

I won't have much to say until I can get back on the comp and run some of your notes through the paces. Many thanks, Sire!

[Velociryx]

That's exactly right, and just the way you go about executing a "smother and siege" operation.

In general, when I get into a war, I've got at least 3-4 battle groups, with something on the order of 12,000/6,000/40+ (Infantry/Cavalry/Cannon).

When war is declared, one of those battle groups moves into an enemy territory. When he arrives, I click on him and hit "cover." This breaks the unit into two pieces. One that's just large enough to hold the territory, preventing troop recruitment. If he's there more than a month, he'll also plunder the province (you'll see little..."dustclouds" flying up around the castle of plundered territories), which halves the tax revenue from that territory. The other (larger) portion of that battle group moves to the next territory and issues another cover command. One battle group of the size mentioned above is usually good for covering 2-3 enemy territories.

So....I use 1-2 of my battle groups for smothering the enemy, keep one at home to put down any rebellions that might arise, or strike opportunistically at enemy armies (ie - like when they execute an assault on a castle of mine....their morale drops rapidly, and the battle group can swoop in and crush them like a beer can!), and the remaining battle group goes into the smothered territories, links up with the covering force and puts the territory under the gun.

Note too, that by creating a line of "covered" territories, you can easily deny your enemy a supply line (which dramatically increases attrition....vital to whittling a really LARGE enemy force down quickly), and extend your own supply line deep into the heart of his territory.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Ahhh....I almost forgot. The Siege option is rather like the Cover option, 'cept that it leaves a force behind that's large enough to actually start doing damage to the castle walls.

I don't use it very often, as I'm quite fond of my smother and siege approach, but it has come in handy a time or two!

Also, consider "pathing." That is to say, intentionally DON"T smother certain territories of the enemy, leaving a path open to your territory.

For some reason, the computer seems DRIVEN to get to your turf, and if you leave him a way open, he'll mostly ignore your covering forces (which aren't really big enough to be threatening to him anyway), and drive for you.

The good thing is, since you're the one setting up the path, you know exactly where the enemy will be coming from....::evil grin::

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

I see. Highly intelligent plan there, Vel. Question: When you 'cover' a province, why can't the fortified troops keep pounding on you with ranged fire or something? I guess they do, but they don't lay waste to you? I suppose what you are really doing is blockading...and that's why the enemy really should go after the blockade and not the 'path of death.'

Still that has to be a better option then what I tried last night: 'Assault' I think it was. I ordered my men to run up against a stone wall and die like flies.

It was a brilliant tactical maneuver...for the OTHER guy!

[Velociryx]

Right again, good sir! The troops in the territory are assumed to be some distance from the castle proper, and milling about in the various villages not shown on the map.....essentially, their presence in the territory is disruptive enough to prevent recruitment and halve taxation....and, since they're not close enough to the castle proper, the stationary troops of the garrison can't really do anything to them!

Ahhhh yes, the assault command! Excellent if you time it right.

Big thing about the Assault command though, you gotta wait till the walls of the castle have been breeched if you want to have a good chance of succeeding with the assault.

You'll know that the walls have been breeched by looking at the "siege graphic"

As you have seen, as the walls degrade, you'll see more and more fire inside the city, BUT.....you know the walls have been breeched when you see a little "V" shaped graphic on the wall itself (looks like a chunk of the wall is missing).....when you see that, assuming you have more infantry and cannon than the defender, your assault stands a good chance of succeeding.

It's a bit of a tradeoff though. Yeah, you'll finish your sieges faster by assaulting when the walls are down, but you'll lose a good number of men (most of your losses will be infantry).

Because of that, I generally don't assault until I'm working on the last territory I mean to capture.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Notes on Loans:

I regard loans as a hellish bad idea, for the most part. Here's why:

1) Every loan you take out, increases your inflation rate by 1% (same thing as if you had set your slide-bar all the way to max cash for a solid year).

2) You really don't get that much money. 200d on the spot, yes, but that figure is degraded by the monthly interest you pay (1d per month, even at the lowest interest rate, and further degraded by having everything you buy become more expensive--higher inflation rate).

Far better, IMO would be to wait until you are bringing in at least 15d per month, and simply allocate max cash for a year if you need the money. And of course, the more you make per month above that, the better deal you're getting in exchange for that 1% increase in inflation.

Of course, there are exceptions. I mean, if you're getting pasted by the bad guys and NEED troops now, then the 200d on the spot might save your life.

Likewise, if you get lucky enough to get a "deflation event" then you can take five loans with no hit to inflation, and use the money to buy a couple of manufactories on the cheap.

And of course, if you're playing a really small country (like Lorraine, or Brandenburg), you can use debt to finance growth, and use it quite effectively.

Otherwise though, I avoid loans like the plague....

-=Vel=-

[yin26]

Excellent points. I just had the Deflation event a few years ago. I didn't think of it in terms of a good time to get loans and invest in infrastructure. Wow...pretty deep game...

[Velociryx]

Yes, that would be me, still awake at nearly one in the morning and waiting for the laundry to dry....::sigh:: think I might have to call in dead tomorrow or something....LOL

Deep game indeed....the loans-timed-with-deflation only occured to me when I was playing Lorraine, and financing my growth by guiding that tiny nation through a series of controlled bankruptcies....I noted that when deflation hit, for the remainder of the year, my inflation rate was negative (though it reset to zero on January 1 of the following year), and then went snooping around. Sure enough, everything but diplomatic overtures was cheaper, and in the case of Manufactories, SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper!

All that to say, right on! Watch for those deflation events....PRAY for those deflation events, and when they happen, build infrastructure like there's no tomorrow!

-=Vel=-

[Garth Vader]

One note about composition of armies. Rule of thumb for sieging, have 30 cannon per level of fortress. So 30 for a minimal, 180 for a maximum.

[Velociryx]

OH@! Good point indeed! Tailoring your force specifically to the castle you're sieging! Good thinkin'!

-=Vel=-

[ravagon]

Vel, your smother & cover with pathing on top tactic seems to imply a very aggressive AI. I'd be interested to know the settings you were playing on (aggressive, very hard or somesuch?) and whether or not reducing the aggression factor makes any significant difference (less aggressive AI smashes your rather vulnerable covering forces perhaps, instead of going straight for your home territory?). - might (albeit in a weird sort of way) make things more difficult with a less aggressive opponent, given the strength of the defensive...

cheers

[Velociryx]

Hiya Rav! So far, I"ve done limited experiments with all the settings, but the most "normalized" to me seems to be "hard" with "normal" aggressiveness (with the "Chaos Kills" option enabled).

It's been my experience in tests so far, that altering the aggressiveness of the game mostly impacts the AI's willingness to go to war....set to "furious" they'll literally wreck their countries/kill their stability just to attack you. At the other extreme, NOBODY attacks...well, hardly ever anyway. But so far, I've not noted many battlefield difference once the wars start. That's an excellent question raised though, and I'd DEFINATELY be interested to hear more about that if anybody has noticed other trends!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Losing yer religion....

Getting the most mileage out of your religion:

Keep in mind that so far, I’ve only played European nations that began Catholic, so I don’t know enough about Orthodox, or the Muslim religions to comment here…yet…I’ll get to them eventually.

Catholicism: Main strength is the number of diplomats you get per year. Main weakness is money (-20% from baseline). If you know you’re planning to switch to some other “flavor” of Christianity later, you NEED to play to Catholicism’s main strength while you’re there….that means, laying a solid diplomatic foundation with people you’ll want to ally with later on.

True, you don’t have a ton of money to play with, but you’ve got enough diplomats that you can arrange Royal Marriages (free) with 2/3’s of Europe in no time flat…and letters are cheap (25d), so use the HE…ck out of them! Also keep in mind that when a country really likes or really hates you, it takes a LOT of effort to change their opinion, but when they’re neutral, they can fairly easily be swayed. Thus, use cheap letters to slowly coax them down to the “neutral” range, and then hit them with a more extravagant gift once they’re “in the zone” in order to catapult yourself into their good graces.

Protestant: Can you say cash cow? 30% more money when you switch equals a whopping 50% increase in money if you’re coming from a Catholic environment…that’s HUGE! Add to that the fact that you get more merchants, and you’ll soon find yourself swimming in money! Drawback: 2 Diplomats a year! UGH…that’s hateful….and if you’re not careful, it could mean that you’ll find yourself in a war you can’t gracefully exit from, since you may not have another diplomat for upwards of six months. It also means that you’ll usually have to make peace with the head of an enemy alliance, and be less likely to make peace with individual alliance members to quiet a specific front—unless you plan well ahead. This then, totally changes the character of war. If you’re used to having plenty of diplomats under Catholicism, the change can come as a rude surprise. Also, you get a nominal (1) colonist per year. Not great, but it’ll get you started.

Reformed: No money (even worse than the Catholics), but you DO get better morale for your soldiers and an extra colonist per year. The low money, in fact, is a little deceptive when you consider that the extra colonist will enable you to found new cities more quickly, thus increasing your tax base fairly rapidly….so what if you’re getting a lower percentage, if you have a significantly larger tax base to begin with! The morale is a real kicker, too, especially if you play minor nations with no significant leadership. Oftentimes, a “generic” war leader can lay waste to a famed General’s army, thanks to the boost to morale.

Good overall strategy:
Start Catholic (as if you have much choice in Central/Southern Europe!), and make lossa friends….especially make friends with countries who you KNOW will be turning Protestant later on…they’ll make good allies when you’re all in the Prot-boat together. While you’re in your “Catholic Period,” now’s when you wanna pour on the diplomatic offensive….use those guys with a vengeance!

When you’re ready for the switch (a good time would be at around Infrastructure 5….nicely timed with about when you can build Naval, Cultural, and Refinery Manufactories, and also promote Governors), go Prot, get your stability back up (probably take 2-3 years), and then pour all that money into building a top-notch economy. Now’s also a good time to build lots of defense works.

As far as colonists go, mostly build trading posts with your “token colonist.” The important thing is to claim the territory….you can bulk it up later….right now, just stake your claim. Also note that if you can, attempt to pick a fight with someone who has a shipyard, so you can take it, rather than waiting till Naval Tech 17 to build your own….that’ll double your yearly colonists!

Reformed: The OPTION to reform will be available long before you’re ready to, in all probability….hold your Prot-stance until you’ve done everything you can with your economy….build up a decent cash reserve to help you cope with the sudden loss of funds, and then switch. Again, first focus on getting your stability up, and then….you’re ready to colonize! Focus on building up your tax base by replacing trading posts with colonies, and growing selected colonies into cities (especially colonies founded near friendly native tribes…the population boom you get is HUGE, and cannot be overstated!). Rest assured too, that if you get in a fight with your Catholic/Protestant neighbors, you’re armies will be able to hand them defeat after defeat, courtesy of the morale boost.

Once you’ve colonized all you care to (yeah…riiiight), you can switch back to Prot and rake in utterly obscene amounts of cash! (note – I’ve never actually done this…always run out of time…but in theory, that would be the next logical step….).

-=Vel=-

[Garth Vader]

Well orthodox nations can't change their religion, and I don't think Muslim can, although I haven't played one yet.

One thing to note, changing religions is a huge undertaking. Even though it says you lose 5 stability I always seem to go right down to -3. Plus you get a number of revolts in provinces and colonies. Yes your 200 size colony may revolt and produce 50 rebel infantry who will run around causing trouble if you don't have forces everywhere or at least in enough places so they can get anywhere fast!

If you have a number of religions the low stability can cause other revolts. Always check your sliders IMMEDIATLY after changing religion because even if you have locked the sliders they will move around.

While you are at -3 stability with revolts all over the place the AI is likely to declare war, especially if there are some with a CB on you.