Finished My First IGC As Spain: Wrap-up Discussion

[yin26]

Actually, I'm still about 60 years from finishing, but it looks to be a simple matter of mopping up. The two most interesting stats are:

Victory Points: #1 Spain--4,000 #2 Austria--1,890. Yes, I've doubled the next closest nation. How?

Economy: #1 Spain--2,000 #2 ???--790. There you have it.

My settings were 'Very Hard' and 'Normal' AI. Perhaps I'd better put the AI on more aggressive? Will that help or make it play worse?

Although Spain had some touchy moments in its first 50 years, you can spread like a cancer before other nations even hear about the New World. I have claimed half of the United States (all provinces are cities now), most of the islands between Florida and South America, and the entire top 1/3rd of South America, which includes at least two major gold mines. All of them are cities, too...and all are fully upgraded with bailiff's, legal counsel, mayors, some with factories, etc.!

So my econ is through the roof! As well as my stability from having such a great infrastructure. Oh, and I've almost completely wiped France off the map just for the fun of it, but this did cause a few problems:

My badboy rating jumped up enough, I guess, that most of Europe decided to attack me. That was interesting because at the same moment, several provinces decided to revolt. It was quite a mess there for a while, and I even lost Jamaica to Portugal. But in the end, I was barely hurt.

The next interesting thing was a Civil War, which really scared me for a moment because supposedly my military had turned on me...but the military units turned into wimpy peasants, so it was easy to clear them off the map...why turn them to peasants?

I eventually ended up having 'police units' in each province (3-6,000 men each) to handle the various revolts that always popped up (I changed religion to Protestent just for fun...and the Catholics never seemed to get over it even as I tried to stay tolerant). UNLESS you do that, it seems that 'rebel scum' can only too easily take a fortress and make you waste a lot of time and money to get the province back. That gets really annoying. So my map looks so strange with units on EVERY province. I guess I was running a police state.

I have 3/4 million land forces spread around the world! I've lost nearly 2 million to attrition over the course of the game. With that many troops, it's just too easy to squash any problems...which is why the Civil War looked to be so horrid but was nothing, really, in the end.

I'm ahead on all techs, of course, because of the econ...so even when a nation makes a good effort to fight me, they are at a great disadvantage. I am considering trying to take over all of Europe, but to the game's credit, you can only gain 3 provinces max in any war before having to sign a peace treaty, and if you keep swallowing up land, eventually you DO get overextended and the coffers DO go empty, and other nations DO gang up on you and you CAN lose if you play that way. That's cool.

Overall, as the game itself says, Spain is 'Very Easy' to play, even for a first time player. I basically spread like a cancer early on and never stopped spreading. This soon gave me such a HUGE econ base, that nobody could touch me.

Any ideas for my next nation? I'm thinking of Korea (), but talk about contrasts! I'll have to be a diplomacy master trying to get ANYTHING. Perhaps there is a good middle-of-the-road nation to play first? England?

[HisMajestyBOB]

Spains the easiest country, along with France. Korea ought to be a challenge, try not to get eaten up by China tho!

[yin26]

It was kind of funny at one point in my game I saw a message that Korea was leading in trade or something odd like that! I just don't see how Korea could get very far, though. You can't take China...and mounting a naval attack on Japan would be difficult but doable I suppose. Don't know what Japan starts with.

Korea would need to pick its friends and its timing VERY carefully.

BTW, would playing as the Incas be too easy? With all the gold and relatively safe landmass...could be a kind of S.American Spain all over again. I suppose they start much slower, though. Could be fun.

[Kyle]

The Incas? As I recall, like the Chinese or Japanese, they cannot build fortresses or improvements. There's very little diplomacy, except for nearby, native nations. Basically, unless you want to see if you can repulse Spain, it probably wouldn't be all that interesting. Try the Uzbeks, Mameluks, or one of the German states for a little more challenge.


And what do you mean, "you can't take China?" If you mean annex them, you sure can. I've never done it, not my style, but it's been done several times based on AAR's on the official site.

[yin26]

Thanks for the suggestions. Being stuck in the middle of Europe could be fun. What I meant by the China remark was that Korea itself would have little hope against China unless China was weak and worried about other borders or something.

Korea would have to be an opportunistic vulture. Could be fun but with loooong stretches of not much going on.

[Velociryx]

Yin! Congrats on your first completed IGC!

I’ve been thinking a LOT about this game lately, and have come to the conclusion that, while I agree with all of our earlier discussions and comments, there are a few additional things that bug me about the game. Some of them, I see that you’ve already mentioned in your discussion summary (esp. the “troops = peasants in the event of a civil war”). Very odd, that.

Here’s some other stuff that REALLY bugs me….I’ll put these out here and see what comments they draw:

Provincial Development: Too limited, IMO, and it creates a significant mid-game drag. After all, each province can have one and ONLY one manufactory, and the three other “upgrades” you can give your territories (Bailiffs, Legal Council, Governor) all come pretty early in the game. What you’re left with then, is in the mid-early game, a lot of waiting around for cash, and when you get Infrastructure 5 (Governors), the game is essentially over….all you have to do at that point is run max. money—not researching anything--make all your upgrades to your initial provinces ASAP (controlling your inflation via governors at the rate of 1 per year).

That’s the other drawback. All the manufactory upgrades (except for the weapon’s manufactory) become available really early in the game. So, once you do a bit of research (say….30-40 years worth), you’ve got all the techs you need to pretty much end the game. Then, it becomes a simple waiting game.

IMO, what is needed is to break up the various effects into multiple (and cheaper) buildings, each with its own tech requirements. That way, you’d have to research more techs to get all the benefits of fully upgrading your territories, and the game would be much more active for it.

Hand in hand with that is the silly notion that your troops do not improve over time. History is filled with tales of the deeds of specific battle regiments….and those regiments, when taking the field continue to strike fear into the hearts of battlefield enemies even today. Thus, I think that for every x battles a specific combat unit wins, said unit should have a % chance to improve either maneuver, shock, fire, or siege….even better, would be to make the gain relevant to the battles won (ie – if the unit participates in lots of sieges, it makes sense that said unit would have a higher chance of increasing its siege bonus). Set the upper limit at 3 per category, which is good, but still not as good as some of the top of the line generals.

Or, if assigning bonuses to units (which would be permanent, unless the unit is completely destroyed in battle), then allow for “generic” leaders to gain experience in the same way. This would not be a perm. Bonus, and said leaders would die off over time, and you’d have to start from scratch.

The point is though, one of the cool things about RPG-type games is that sense of progression…of improving your characters. EU could benefit greatly from that same line of thinking.

The most common complaint I’ve heard from people is that EU is a fine, grand game that’s filled up with an awful lot of “hurry up and wait.” I think that the changes proposed above would be relatively easy to implement, and give players something to focus on while they’re….waiting….

Ahhh, and Master Yin, I’d recommend Portugal for your next game….you still have some colonists to play with, but you start off MUCH weaker than Spain….same basic strategy should work okay, though…it’ll just take significantly longer to ramp up for it. Still, you might not wanna play Portugal right after having finished the Spain game, since they will be so similar.

If no, then I’d heartily recommend any of the following for a superb challenge:

Papal States: 3 territories – uniting Italy is a tough challenge!
Brandenburg: - 3 territories – same style of game, ‘cept in Germany
Sweden – Those awesome Swedish generals!

-=Vel=-

[Kyle]

I can also recommend Bohemia. In the early game, you're very vulnerable because of your alliance with Austria. So when the inevitable war with Poland-Lithuania comes, it'll be a challenge.

I lost three provinces to Poland like that, but ended the game as the dominant power in central Europe. Very good starting place for a lot of action.

[faded glory]

Yin for a seroius challenge I recommend Uzbeks, Mughul, China, or Serbia.

Inca is difficult. You can fight off the Spaniards at first. But the gold piles up, and you can do anything but build troops. Eventually tho the European AI's will overrun you. Kill ration with Inca vs Europe is about 17-1. So you needs lots of Inca

[yin26]

LOL! Thanks for saving me a headache. Can the Incas not make some allies? Anyway, some good advice on the next civ.

By the way, I 'properly' finished the game by letting the last 40 years run on high speed. There wasn't much for me to do...but I realized this is a game in which you have to set your own goals otherwise once you reach a certain power level, things get dull. I really should have tried to take over Europe or something. Next time.

BTW, the final screen is a bit dull. I looks like Tropico in a way. But with the VERY thorough statistics, it's not exactly as if they leave you wondering precisely how well you did.

[yin26]

Vel: Thanks.

I think you are right that they abstracted a bit too much. I can certainly see that they wanted the focus to be on the political environment and not a micro-managed one. It seems as if they said: "Let's make a game in which strategically setting up alliances is the key to victory and NOT simply out-rushing or out-building somebody."

They did well on that, but us control freaks want more...well...control! EU2 is looking to do a bit of that, but again on the level of 'rule' with certain kinds of econ choices etc. It's a move in the right direction, but this is one area in which Civ3 offers the gamer some fun things to do with his money and strategic building.

[faded glory]

Yup I just played as Serbia. The trick is too allie with Venice, Greece, ragusa, the knights and Austria/Hungary (if possible, that is difficult to do)

But you must keep the turks away! They will gobble up the entire balkans. Most of hungary and Austria. All of Venice, ragusa. Eventually tho, It can be done. Depending on who the turks allie with.

But the turk AI is no pushover. when they attack, they really ATTACK. A few armys of 100,000 besieging several provinces . It does ruffle your feathers a bit. But you can pull of a victory, with help.

[Rogan Josh]

I took over all of Europe with Austria once. You can take more than 3 provinces at a time if you annex the entire country