Europa Universalis 3: Why Can't I Fight?

[OzzyKP]

Ok... this is getting rather puzzling/frustrating. I am playing EU3 (no expansions) and I have huge troubles with war. I can beat up on small, backwards civs easily (though sometimes even then with considerable losses) but civs with comparable tech levels destroy me utterly.

My current game I am Portugal and I've got most of North America, a good chunk of South America, and all of North Africa. I got a fair amount of "bad boy" from my African conquest so Castille (my ally) declares war on me unexpectedly. I am currently the world leader in technology in every category. But Castille is only like one or two levels behind me.

They utterly crush me. I'll loose like 4,000 men in a battle to their 200. I don't at all understand it.

[Nikolai]

How high is your military maintenance?

Also, what is your army composition?

[Kataphraktoi]

Use more cavalry and stay on open ground, get a good leader, adjust sliders towards land\quality\offensive\etc, get the defender of the faith if you can(castile might have this), and always check maintenance of course

Basically if your leaning towards naval\quantity with no leaders versus a nation with max everything military and a good leader, tech levels wont do much good

[OzzyKP]

My military maintenance is maxed out, I'm right in the middle on the offensive/defensive scale and quality/quantity scale, and I lean more towards naval.

Composition I think I am heavy on infantry, but have several cavalry in every stack.

[Nikolai]

Eh, an idea: Have you changed your troop types as new techs has given you new and better troops?

[Dry]

A friend of mine had this with England.
Despite all sliders maxed, his army morale was down to nothing.
He was way up in the BBs and at war with everybody.
IIRC, he was in some 'bankrupt' troubles. I do not remeber all the details, but I remember that by hooving the mouse over the morale indicator, we got the info.
There was nothing to do. In the end, the rebels took London and the country collapsed.

BTW: I found this on Bankruptcy:

- Bankruptcy is now much more severe on morale. It halves the morale for the units after all other modifiers during five years.
- Tweaked formula for interest from loans. Less emphasis on amount of loans, and more on annual income.
- It is no longer possible to abuse lag in MP to get more than maximum bankloans.
- Bank-loaning system have been recoded, you can no longer voluntarily take out bankloans unless
you can afford the cost. However, you can always go up to 2 loans unvoluntarily before bankruptcy. You can now loan alot more if you have a high monthly income.
- Bankruptcy now creates some revolts.
- Bankruptcy only increases inflation by 10%+1% for each failed loan now..

[conmcb25]

If you are a semi serious fan of this game get Napoleaon's Ambition and In Nominae. In Nominae makes it a totally new and much better game. The only reason I say get Napolean's Ambition is because you need it to load In Nominae.

I believe Paradox just announced all three parts of the game in one package on Disks available in brick and motar stores soon, the end of the month I believe.

[Boris Godunov]

IIRC I bulked up on cavalry, was oriented more towards land and was able to pretty much cream anyone as long as a I had a semi-competent general leading.

[conmcb25]

Only good pre In Nominae, you now get a penalty for having too much calvary proportional to your manpower, I believe its a large maintenance hit.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by conmcb25
Only good pre In Nominae, you now get a penalty for having too much calvary proportional to your manpower, I believe its a large maintenance hit.

How else dose IN effect the EUIII gameplay?

[conmcb25]

A new mission system that sort of steers you towards historic play, and changes to maintenance that make taking over the world no easy task as before.

Limits via maintenace on the cavalry stacks of doom.

More realistic and harder colonization. The colonization model was changed, and severly limits your ability to spam colonies all over the place.

There are probably a lot of others I am missing but its such a significant change, I can't imagine playing one of the early versions any longer.

[conmcb25]

Start in October 1399 and the coronation of Henry IV of England. Experience over 50 more years of gameplay, experiencing the Byzantine Empire, Tamerlane and the end of the Hundred Years War.

Better overview of the decisions needed to shape the future of your country. Strive to create Great Britain, Make Paris worth a Mass, or institute an East Indian Trade Company. Act, rather than react, and implement decisions on both country and province level, with the new decision system, including hundreds of different decisions depending on situation.

Experience the new Mission System, where the player and AI alike will be given goals to achieve, providing endless replayability by guiding history along different tracks every time.

Rebels with a Cause. There are countless types of rebels, all with different goals, and different abilities. You may get colonial rebels in your colonies determined to get representation or independence, you may get reactionary nobles rising up to put the serfs back where the belong. Crush them by force, or negotiate with them, or even worse, watch them enforce their demands on your country.

Religious tolerance now depends on the ideas and decisions you take, making it a new layer of strategy. As cardinals stay loyal longer, the power of the Papal Controller has grown, as he can now excommunicate rulers, and call crusades against infidels.
Revised AI, focusing on strategic top level goals, with support for fully scriptable logics.

From Gamersgate, not sure why they didn't discuss the Colonization and combat changes that I mentioned but those also are implemented. It basically makes EU III, a much more playable game IMHO.

[Vesayen]

You also need IN for the Magnus Mundi mod.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=403

Consider it a free expansion. It adds enormous depth and SO many features and other awesome goodies. It makes conquest harder but the AI is also less aggresive. There is just so much more TO DO.... it's great, really. I can't imagine playing without it.

[Blaupanzer]

So what did you do, OzzyKP?