So, I am playing EU2....

[Az]

... and after dicking around as Castille in the grand campaign ( and learning how to own everybody ), I have decided to take upon the mission of being the Roman Empire (lulz), with the grand total of Thrace and that **** province in the south.

It's 1492, and the Ottoman is history. I have all of it's possessions in europe, except Macedonia ( funny story, it belongs to Venice now), all of its possessions in Asia, as well as annexing all of those ****ty little muslim prinicpalities in modern-day turkey, except Trabzond or whatever the name of that on the north-east. ( I have managed to enrage what I think amounts to half of the planet fighting them the last time, so I am with-holding).

I've made a tense but solid peace with various muslims. however, as always, haters gonna hate. I have now 2 alliances against me:

Venice: with "THE KNIGHTS" and Serbia ( serbia are vassals).
Moldavia (wtf?!!!): with wallachia on their sides.

my only buddies are Moscow, and Nubia ( ) everybody else is either indifferent (georgia) or hates me.

Another great news: due to my holy duty of kicking away the muslim menace from europe, I bankrupted a ****load of times, sooooo.

Tech level is 1 for practically everything.
Inflation is 102%



Is there hope for me yet?

I have a savegame where I am not at war with anybody from circa 1988. should I go back more?

[Nikolai]

That inflation will slowly kill you.

[Az]

yeah well I had little choice... I will try to reduce it slowly now I only intend to survive in similar borders...

[Nikolai]

It's hard, but it is doable to survive without any bankruptcies. It's VERY hard though.

[Az]

it seems that the odds are so stacked against me. I check out the stats of the monarchs around me... It's ****.

I have no military leaders. I have... NOTHING...

[Nikolai]

Restart, make all cavalery, destroy the OE's armies and then siege away. If you are lucky, you will win in time for the economy to survive without bankruptcy.

At least if I remember right from the old EU2 days.

[Az]

ok, so in 10 years, I have reversed the trend militarily vs venice, owned the **** out of them in the eastern med, captured sargusa, and started moving on their possessions in the adriatic.... only to have the game crash.

.
.
.


great, now I'll be playing all night

[Nikolai]

[Az]

ok, quick update. I made some progress from the last post, as I've said.

a) Wallachia was annexed, but I lost another province to Moldavia - don't give a ****.
b) was able to own venice and other misc. catholics very well. Actually found a savegame from 1511 ( forgot that I saved?)

for some reason, though, every time I load the game, the Papal states ( who control Albania) declare war on me.

EVERY****ING TIME.

that didn't happen originally. and venice doesn't want to give up a single province.


*sigh*

[Dry]

If it was EU3, what you experience: annexing all of those ****ty little muslim prinicpalities in modern-day turkey, sounds like a BB level hitting the roof.
Are there BB points like in EU3?

[Dinner]

The Knights of St John have some kick ass leaders with Greek, Italian, and French cultural groups but no manpower or money. If they can expand into Southern Italy then they can be a big problem for you but other wise once you sink their fleet, which is hard because of their great admirals, they're no problem.

I'd suggest a restart. Take out loans, build nothing but cav and ships. Use your fleet to stop Ottoman troops from Asia Minor from crossing into Europe while your cav roams around rolling up the Ottoman armies in Europe.

[Dinner]

It's hard, but it is doable to survive without any bankruptcies. It's VERY hard though.

The method I've seen used most often is to use the pillage feature. If you "set fire" to a province then you get half of its monthly income because your troops have pillaged the province so hopefully the Ottomans ally with a large but weak power like the Golden Horde. If so then just send 5k cav or so into the Golden Horde's land to run around pillaging the hell out of their numerous provinces, if you see a small army with low morale then kill them to get your war score up, and remember that in the winter move south to keep your army out of the high attrition snow. Do this long enough and you'll pay for most of your war plus when you make a seporate peace with the Golden Horde you'll be able to demand a large cash payment which you can use to repay the loans you took out.

Once you've used this method to peel off all of the Ottoman's allies then try to get their ethnic Greek provinces in Europe so that you have the manpower and income to wage the second round of wars. Just remember divide and conquer and keep a good navy off the coast of your capital (and in some mods off the coast of Macedonia as well) to prevent the Ottomans moving armies from Asia into Europe.

[Az]

I'd suggest a restart. Take out loans, build nothing but cav and ships

That kind of thinking got me into trouble the first place. I built loads of cav, for taking the plains of asia minor, greece and macedonia. I couldn't afford to pay the upkeep for them, the loans, and all that other ****.

reminder that the Ottomans start with some >100k troups around Thrace, as well as 1k ducats.

tell me more about pillaging. does that mean that just by placing an army in a foreign province I am at war with, I get half the income? that's way cool. didn't know that.

Also, played that game of mine till the end, survived until 1600. It was all fun and games until a untied Austro-Hungary decided to show up with level 9 land tech. Which would be understandable... but how on earth did the knights get it when all they have is Rhodes???!!!!? you cannot trade tech in this game, right?

[Nikolai]

The Knights had one province with the right culture and religion. No wonder they are technological superior.

[Az]

eh? culture? religion? how do those affect ****?

haven't read the manual. (coz I ain't got one )