Europa Universalis 3

[PraetorianX]

For trade, if you get the new Divine Wind expansion...you'll definitely want to carefully plan out what centers of trade you'll go for and certain ones you'll want to have at least one merchant in.

You can now get special bonuses for having access to certain percentages of trade goods. i.e. if you have access to 33% (or something like that) of the worlds naval supplies, you get a bonus to your naval force limits (+25% iirc). That's dead useful if you play a nation that needs a large navy (like say England).

Anyway, been playing DW most of today. So far I'm sticking in Europe though I plan to try one of the Hordes next before moving further east.

I like a lot of the changes so far though. The new building set up makes me have to strategize when and where to build buildings. Certain areas are going to be more specialized in certain things. For example, playing as England, I've built a Dock in Gloucestershire, Cornwall, Wessex, Kent and Essex. Those five provinces along in the south are where I usually build the vast majority of my fleet anyway.

And since each building takes an official, you've sometimes (especially if you have more provinces) have to decide which province will give you the most bang for your buck by putting a building there.

All very cool I think.

[Abe Sargent]

Perhaps I'll try it out as Ulm or Saxe-Lauenburg

[whomario]

can a stupid person get some help ? How do i install a mod ? Put it in the mod folder and upon start have still only the default option :confused:

My game version is 4.1b from Heir to the throne, the mod is the "magna mundi" one.
Also, if i check for updates he says "none available", is that correct ?

[Barkeep49]

can a stupid person get some help ? How do i install a mod ? Put it in the mod folder and upon start have still only the default option :confused:

My game version is 4.1b from Heir to the throne, the mod is the "magna mundi" one.
Also, if i check for updates he says "none available", is that correct ?
On the launcher screen you need to changed it from <default> to Magna Mundi.

[whomario]

On the launcher screen you need to changed it from <default> to Magna Mundi.

that´s the thing, it isn´t there :confused: the menu is there, it´s just that the only option is "default".
Just started one with the default one and took Portugal, will post questions soon i assume ;)

It´s not like i´d recognize much difference with the mod, it just sounded like it made the game more straight-forward and logical.
</default>

[JPhillips]

All I can think of is that you put it in the wrong folder. I'd reinstall and see if that helps.

My recollection of MM is that you'll see huge changes and it's a much more difficult game.

[whomario]

Can someone explain to me how i can re-allign my fleet ? Say i split up my main fleet and later want to put them back together ?
I want to send out multiple little fleets to uncover new provinces (playing as Portugal) but can´t find a way to later put them back together :confused:

Also, what size of a fleet do i need to sent out, just 1 ship or should i sent more for safety reasons ?

[JPhillips]

Put them all in the same ocean zone and drag a box around them. There will be an icon of two arrows pointing together. Click that and voila.

[whomario]

Put them all in the same ocean zone and drag a box around them. There will be an icon of two arrows pointing together. Click that and voila.

thanks ! Boy does this game not come naturally for me ... Still having fun and am commited to get a real game going after a couple short test runs.

been reading up on the strategy guides at Main Page - EU3 Wiki (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page)

some things really elude me as of now, like trading (where to send them ?) and for others i have a hard time finding "benchmarks" (how many armies to have, when and how many colonies etc, etc).

I sort of wish there was an option to have certain areas on "auto".

[lungs]

Anybody have any idea why after the opening cut scenes this game would kick to the desktop?

[JPhillips]

thanks ! Boy does this game not come naturally for me ... Still having fun and am commited to get a real game going after a couple short test runs.

been reading up on the strategy guides at Main Page - EU3 Wiki (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page)

some things really elude me as of now, like trading (where to send them ?) and for others i have a hard time finding "benchmarks" (how many armies to have, when and how many colonies etc, etc).

I sort of wish there was an option to have certain areas on "auto".

It's easier to start with a country that doesn't have a lot of possessions to manage. There are a lot of German states that you can play without need of worrying about much other than province management. After you get that you can move to a major Euro power and add a lot more complexity/management.

[JPhillips]

I've been playing a game as Austria. I've gotten tired of colonial management and wanted to see if I could form the Holy Roman Empire. Last night, in 1620 game year, I defeated Burgundy and formed the HRE. I went from controlling the initial Austrian provinces plus three provinces in northern Italy to most of modern France, the lowlands, all of modern Germany, most of the Balkans, and ironically, the biggest colonial empire in the world. I don't have anywhere near enough magistrates to keep up with my 2600 per annum income.

It's been a lot of fun sticking to European wars and politics, but now that I've achieved my goal I'm not sure what to do next. At least for the next couple of decades I'm going to work on suppressing rebels (thank you Paradox for the hunt rebels button).

[JediKooter]

Alright. I'm thinking about getting this game. Any recommendations (expansion packs, etc...)? What to stay away from or should I wait for EU4 to come out, if there is a EU4 coming out?

[Peregrine]

On Steam you can get EU3 Complete which includes the first two expansion packs, for 15 bucks, or EU3 Chronicles which includes everything, all 4 expansion packs, for 30 bucks. I feel Heir to the Throne is the essential expansion - has a lot of cool stuff and includes some of the earlier content. I haven't really tried out the game with Divine Wind that much but I don't get into playing on the Asian side too much.

In general, there is a pretty sharp learning curve so don't pick some huge kingdom to start with - pick someplace smaller and more manageable.

No EU4 has been announced yet, so if there is one it will be a long time in coming.

[JediKooter]

On Steam you can get EU3 Complete which includes the first two expansion packs, for 15 bucks, or EU3 Chronicles which includes everything, all 4 expansion packs, for 30 bucks. I feel Heir to the Throne is the essential expansion - has a lot of cool stuff and includes some of the earlier content. I haven't really tried out the game with Divine Wind that much but I don't get into playing on the Asian side too much.

In general, there is a pretty sharp learning curve so don't pick some huge kingdom to start with - pick someplace smaller and more manageable.

No EU4 has been announced yet, so if there is one it will be a long time in coming.

Awesome! Thank you Peregrine. I'll more than likely get the Chronicles tonight from Steam.

Ahh ok cool. I would imagine there's probably a good wiki or something out there to help out the newbs like me?

[Blackadar]

Alright. I'm thinking about getting this game. Any recommendations (expansion packs, etc...)? What to stay away from or should I wait for EU4 to come out, if there is a EU4 coming out?

Just get Crusader Kings II instead. Better game, better gameplay.

EU3 isn't a bad game - I've put over 50 hours into it now - but it's missing enough tools for the player to play the game. I know that sounds weird, but I often feel like EU3 is really playing me and not the other way around. It's easy to get into situations where decades of game time go by and there's literally nothing to do. There's just not enough levers to pull at times, so you're forced in a position of being reactive and not proactive. And if nothing happens, then there's nothing to react to.

For example, if you don't know the exact right starting moves as France, it's easy to get into a situation where you have Spain/Castille/Aragorn on one side and Burgandy on another and not being able to do anything to either. With the treaty entanglements the AI tends to make, you may not be able to attack any of the Italian states either. Diplomacy is very weak in EU3 (even after the expansions) and so you may just end up absolutely stuck for 50 or 100 years. Historically, that's correct - but in a game it's dreadfully dull.

Another example - you may want to build a building to expand your economy...but may have to wait 10, 50 or 100 years before you have the prerequisite technology to do so even though that technology is only one or two levels away.

If you're a player where getting that 1% advantage is exciting and waiting 75 years for that advantage to be tangible enough to exploit, then perhaps EU3 is for you. If you like taking over a small country and you're ok with your end-game goal (after 50-75 hours of game play) is to add 3 more small provinces to your meager holdings, then EU3 most definitely is for you. While I love long-term strategy, that kind of narrowly-focused strategy just doesn't do it for me.

[Abe Sargent]

Personally, I feel that the expansions ended this feeling with the missions, and various tasks, plus there's always exploration and colonization at your pace if the mainland is getting a bit stale.

[Blackadar]

Personally, I feel that the expansions ended this feeling with the missions, and various tasks, plus there's always exploration and colonization at your pace if the mainland is getting a bit stale.

I'm playing EU3 Complete and I still feel that way.

It's all personal opinion, but I've found that the missions are often counterproductive to your goals and you take a prestige hit if you cancel them. New World Colonization doesn't generally take place for 200 years into the game, which is like 20 hours or more. African Colonization can take place sooner (only if you pick the right perks) but it's often not really worth it.

If you had to recommend one, would it be EU3 complete for $15 or Crusader Kings 2 for $40? Because although I've only played the demo for CK2, it seems a lot more fun and interesting than EU3.

[Abe Sargent]

I haven't played CK2 yet. Clearly I will, and hard corps, but I generally wait for two-three months after a Paradox game's release before grabbing it. I can't compare, and it may be the better game, I wouldn't be surprised. After all, it was made later, and each game has been better than the previous one (CK the original was better than Eu2, Eu3 was better than Ck the original, etc). I just feel that a fully expanded EU3 is an amazing experience in gaming. And of course, views vary, and that's fine.

[Peregrine]

To be honest, CK2 is great but for me it's easy to still fall into the "not much to do" thing. Yes, I love keeping up with the characters and families, but with the HRE and Byzantines being faceless, monstro-empires, instead of the melange of constantly feuding mini-states they are in EU3, if you are in their area it can certainly feel that there's less to do.

[JediKooter]

Hmmm. Do both games have demos? Maybe I can try the demos of each first and then maybe pick the one I like better.

[JediKooter]

Welp, that was a complete disaster. Not impressed with Steam at all and not impressed with the game.

I don't like the fact that I have to have Steam running in order to run the game. Unless I'm doing it wrong and you don't need Steam running in order to run the game.

The tutorials for the game were pretty much useless unless you wanted to know what menu item was what or what icon was what. As far learning anything functionality wise (like moving troops or sending colonists somewhere), complete and utter failure on the games part. Looking online for help was pretty much a waste as well.

Oh well. It looked like it would be fun.

[Lonnie]

I hope you tried the demo.

I think you can launch Paradox games directly without Steam. Just have to go into your steamapps folder and find the launcher.

[JediKooter]

I hope you tried the demo.

I think you can launch Paradox games directly without Steam. Just have to go into your steamapps folder and find the launcher.

Could not, for the life of me, find the demo for it. I went to Paradox's website. then to their downloads page and I have to tell you, I've never seen a worse (well one of the worst) downloads page in my life. It was just awful. (Downloads & Patches - Paradox Interactive (http://www.paradoxplaza.com/support/downloads-patches)) I don't know if they think they are saving money by trying to squeeze everything onto one page or what, but, that is just pathetic.

Anyway, I'm ranting, sorry.

Ok that's cool. I'll look in the folder and see if it works from there.

So I tried to follow the tutorials and between it crashing every time I'd try and start the next tutorial and sometimes an almost complete lack of actual useful information in the tutorials, I still do not know how to move troops or send colonists somewhere. I've right clicked, I've left clicked, I've clicked and dragged and have yet to get it to work. I've got be doing something wrong, I can't imagine that it's that difficult to do that. I can zoom in and out of the map like a pro though. :)

[Shepp]

You would probably be better served on learning to play the game if you looked at the EU wiki site or YouTube.

[JediKooter]

You would probably be better served on learning to play the game if you looked at the EU wiki site or YouTube.

Awesome. I will check it out the wiki when I get home tonight. I was searching for walkthroughs and all it would come up with is a list of what each thing is ranked and it's statistics, but, nothing on actual game play. So this should help a lot.

[JPhillips]

The wiki has several country guides. and newbie advice.

[Lonnie]

I believe some of the tutorials were broken by the expansion packs. You should be able to just select your troops and right click on another territory and a movement path will display. If the game is not paused, they will start marching that way.

I agree check out the wiki and some youtube. EU3 is pretty deep.

[JediKooter]

The wiki has several country guides. and newbie advice.

Excellent! Hopefully I can get past the newbie stage after that. :)

I believe some of the tutorials were broken by the expansion packs. You should be able to just select your troops and right click on another territory and a movement path will display. If the game is not paused, they will start marching that way.

I agree check out the wiki and some youtube. EU3 is pretty deep.

Actually now that I remember, the tutorial did say to right click and select the territory, but, no movement path ever showed up regardless if the game was paused or not. I'll try again and see if maybe I was doing something different.

[Lonnie]

I just tried the tutorial with the troops. It has you raise troops in Ruppin and then move them to Brandenburg. However, once your troops reach Brandenburg the tutorial does not recognize that and just sits there telling you to move them.

That's the bug I was thinking about that was broken with the expansions. I recorded it, but it'll be a while before it's uploaded to Youtube. I'll post a link when it's done.

[JediKooter]

I just tried the tutorial with the troops. It has you raise troops in Ruppin and then move them to Brandenburg. However, once your troops reach Brandenburg the tutorial does not recognize that and just sits there telling you to move them.

That's the bug I was thinking about that was broken with the expansions. I recorded it, but it'll be a while before it's uploaded to Youtube. I'll post a link when it's done.

Yes, that's the one! Ok so it isn't me, that's actually a relief to be honest.

Awesome, thank you Lonnie.

[Lonnie]

Here is my video of the bug. I turned the speed up too fast, so I don't know if you can even see my troops move to Brandenburg, but when they do the hint still says to move them there.

Maybe not too helpful, but I wanted to see how much trouble it would be to upload a 1080p video.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yUitmzCeebM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[JediKooter]

Lonnie, that was definitely it! That helped out big time and got me going. Then it took about another 4 hours to figure out how to get troops 'on a ship' so I could them to far away lands. But that was ok, since I was playing as England and the Scots kept messing with me, so I didn't really have to send anyone across the water. Though when the French kept embargoing me, I got tired of it and sent more troops to Calis to show them I'm tired of it. That took a bit to figure out how to get them across the channel.

Now I'm trying to figure out the best way to keep the money coming in and the prestige from going down. Still don't really understand the way the sliders work for the different techs. They really don't seem to do anything, unless they are affecting something else that I'm just not seeing. For example, I wanted to see what would happen if I moved the government slider all the way to the right. I assumed it would research that tech faster. It didn't appear to. No biggie, just not what I expected.

I didn't expect the game to 'end'. So that was a little weird, but, not a big deal. Just threw me off.

[whomario]

Hey guys, just a quick FYI for those among you that don´t have all expansions (or the game as a whole even !) and get the Paradox Newsletter: The Newsletter today contains a free individual code for the "Chronicles" collection (full game and all expansions) on steam.

The Code can also be give away of course.

[MrBug708]

How do we find it?

[whomario]

be subscribed to the newsletter and hope it arrives in your mail like it usually does ?

(sorry ;) )

[britrock88]

Getting 503'd over at Paradox's forums, of course.

[Icy]

Got the code, nice!

[britrock88]

Grumble, grumble. Having enough trouble on their site that I won't put too much more effort into it. If any who gets the newsletter already has EU3 Complete and feels generous, I appreciate it.

[britrock88]

Hold on -- maybe I own Chronicles already? (Rather than just Complete)

Heh. I'll leave well enough alone, I guess.