Europa Universalis 3

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by Alan T

I haven't come across the strategy guide on the EU3 boards so far, I played through the tutorial, and while they helped some with the basic ideas, by no means could they dig into the incredible amount of depth in this game.

I ended up picking Scotland to try to learn with. Its not really an easy country and most people seem to suggest to try to learn with a country like Portugal. So far though I've been left alone and plodded along trying things and figuring out how they work. I think I have the trade system down now.. but some things I am completely in the dark on.

I still have no clue what i am doing when it comes to most of the sliders, I know the tooltips tell you their effects, but its hard for me to grasp exactly what those effects will mean for my country. I also am thinking only short term and have no long term strategy.

Alan, the game is complex and takes a while to pick up for people that are new to the series, there are just so many variables it can be difficult to figure out what's going on. I guess I recommend that you decide on one area to focus on, it's easier that way. For example I'm playing Venice in my current game, and I started in around 1580. Venice is a huge trading power, so that's what I focus on heavily, especially with national ideas, by that time in the game starting government levels are around 15 so you have several national ideas, and taking all or most of them in trade really boosts your abilities there, plus getting advisors that add extra merchants helps more. I pretty much just have to keep sending them to the COTs and make sure I keep monopolies in as many as I can (6 merchants in a COT is a monopoly and gives you a really nice boost of income) and the money just rolls in. In terms of sliders a lot of them affect trade, but anything that boosts trade efficiency is key, you're getting so much income that any increase in your multiplier (seen on the left side of where your money/tech sliders are) is huge.

If you want to be a military power, it's a bit trickier, as there are other factors to consider. You have to keep a good level of technology in land or naval, think about your morale levels, manpower pool, unit types, forcelimits, etc. These are scattered around the sliders but Land-Naval, Quality-Quantity, and Offensive-Defensive are primarily concerned with military affairs, though they can affect all kinds of things, from costs of building units to bonus stats for your leaders in various areas. I recommend trying out a strong military nation at some point and focusing only on that, it will give you a good idea of all the factors involve. Some of the military National Ideas are very strong!

Another tip I have is that when you're first learning, it can be more difficult to play in an earlier timeframe. It's harder to build up from nothing because it takes a long time and you don't really have a good idea where you're going. I suggest trying a practice game where you start later on, maybe 1650, you'll have pretty high levels of tech across the board and you'll have a lot more choices in terms of unit/ship types, governments, national idea combos, and especially province improvements. I think for learning the game you can't go too wrong in playing a big country like France, you're so strong that you can do a lot of things and it's a lot harder to make a disastrous mistake.

Related to my earlier tips, it's helpful to sort of mentally group the many variables in the game into what area they affect, be it Stability, Technology, Military Power, or Trade. It's not critical that you know all of them, but it's helpful to know that the general category of Stability includes things like Revolt Risk, Tolerance, Province Culture and Religion, etc. (Checking out the various factors that affect revolt risk in a province is pretty helpful, though revolts are much less of a problem, it seems, than they were in previous EU games.)

Anyway, this is rambling on, I'd be glad to answer any specific questions anyone has, as a veteran of the series.

[Peregrine]

dola - Another bit of advice is to make sure to read through the ledger frequently, there's tons of useful info in here, I really like to read through the breakdowns of income and expenses on pages 14-15, page 7 is also good, I'm sure you'll find the ones that are useful to you.

[Alan T]

Thanks for the pointers. I chatted with Barkeep some on AIM this morning about it too. I'm just trying to take it slowly and figure everything out. The reason I say I "think" this is the game I wanted is as someone who has purchased a few different MTW and Crusader Kings, I always felt they were lacking something.

So far I dont have a complaint about this game lacking stuff as there is so much I haven't figured out yet.

[MikeVick7]

So being that this game has so much depth to it and I've never played any of the other games in the series, how would it compare to picking up Civ IV, for example, and playing that series for the first time?

Do most of these games have the same learning curve or are others easier to get into?

[Deattribution]

Originally Posted by MikeVick7

So being that this game has so much depth to it and I've never played any of the other games in the series, how would it compare to picking up Civ IV, for example, and playing that series for the first time?

Do most of these games have the same learning curve or are others easier to get into?

I can't really speak for EU3 as I haven't put enough time in it to get past the curve (there is alot to learn) but Civ IV is pretty easy to learn I thought. Not easy to be great at but after a run through the tutorial you have the basics down and youre ready to go.

[Peregrine]

I would say the EU series is definitely tougher to learn than Civ, the basics of Civ gameplay are easy to pick up, but then you have to learn the tech tree, etc. With EU it's harder for new players to understand the basics, though once they pick them up they do fine. Also since the EU games are so open-ended and are basically set up to let you do what you want with your nation, that can be tricky for people who are used to different games.

[JPhillips]

I think one of the hardest things to grasp about the whole Paradox lineup is that there isn't really a way to win. The player sets their own goals and either lives up to them or not. You can quite literally chose any country and attempt to do almost anything. The only measurement of winning is your own assessment.

[Flasch186]

so any thoughts on the game after playing it for a while? Paradox has been successful in parting me from my money but I ahve yet to fall in love with any of their games. Will this be any different? How the AI?

[Barkeep49]

Well I'm only about 10 hours into the game. Haven't really seen how the AI is yet (I traditionally play England for my first game before going for a more continental power), but I will tell you the user interface is a TERRIFIC upgrade. A lot of the other stuff is fine, I mean the 3D graphics are whatever for me, and the national ideas is cool, but so far the UI is what's really captured my attention. I also think the fact that countries are less shoehorned into their traditional roles is nice.

[Barkeep49]

Alan T and I did some multiplayer tonight. It was a trying experience, quite buggy, but it was fun. We played 30 years and Alan was at war I think 29.5 of them

[gi]

My soon to be wife and I are playing multiplayer right now. Co-op. Fun, but there are a number of bugs. I'm hoping the second patch will fix them. I also hope they add locking features for allocation of tech.

[Peregrine]

What do you mean by locking features? Do you mean something specific to multiplayer or just in general? I haven't tried multiplayer but normally you just double click any slider to lock it in place.

[gi]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

What do you mean by locking features? Do you mean something specific to multiplayer or just in general? I haven't tried multiplayer but normally you just double click any slider to lock it in place.

I'd like the ability to set my individual techs, like Government to .4 and lock that allocation in. So if I make adjustments to other tech areas, Government stays at .4

This would apply to single or multi player.

It is a real hassle adjusting tech right now.

[Peregrine]

Right, that's what the double clicking does, the slider will turn white and will lock at its current level. It's a lot easier than some of the earlier, more annoying slider locks in the series.

[gi]

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Right, that's what the double clicking does, the slider will turn white and will lock at its current level. It's a lot easier than some of the earlier, more annoying slider locks in the series.

Man...my fiance is throwing some serious love your way right now.

She is in charge of allocation and her job is a lot easier.

Thanks!!!!!

[Eaglesfan27]

I'm getting close to winning my first game of Medieval War 2 and shelving that until the Total Realism Mod has advanced some.


So, I'm debating on getting this game. I've never really gotten into previous versions that well (although I enjoy Crusader Kings quite a bit.) From what I'm reading, there are considerable bugs in MP still. Are there still a high number of bugs in the SP game?

[Barkeep49]

I've always found double clicking sometimes moves the slider. I prefer to left click to lock in place.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I've always found double clicking sometimes moves the slider. I prefer to left click to lock in place.

Hmm I think I right click them to make them go white.. I usually do that for treasury right away always. Usually end up doing it for stability too.


Like Barkeep said, playing multiplayer was alot of fun. I was England and Barkeep was Portugal. I ended up getting involved in a pretty lengthy war to start off with France + Scotland + Brittany + a bunch of smaller irish provinces. I ended up dragging it way too long though much to Scotland's dismay.

I finally ended the war owning most of Scotland and was ready to try to get rid of the war fatigue when Austria decided to come after one of my provinces in mainland Europe. I conceded it not really wanting to be in a war with that crazy powerhouse.


Right when I got peace there though, a 1 province Scotland with France declared war on me once again. Meanwhile during all of this I am pretty sure Barkeep has colonized all of South America

[MrBigglesworth]

What the heck?

Error: Pixel Shader 2.0 is required to run this program

This glorified text sim needs a better graphics card than Rome: Total War? GD, I love their games, but Paradox always finds a way to screw me in the backside.

[Emiliano]

Error: Pixel Shader 2.0 is required to run this program

Exact same thing happened to me (with the demo). I have an ATI 9000, 128 mb. It's old, but still a fine graphic card for my use. Is there any workaround to this?

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by Emiliano

Exact same thing happened to me (with the demo). I have an ATI 9000, 128 mb. It's old, but still a fine graphic card for my use. Is there any workaround to this?

Actually that's the same exact card I have. I don't play a lot of high tech graphics games, so I don't need a great card. I was just surprised that, graphics wise, EU needed more pep than the Total War games.

[Emiliano]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

I don't play a lot of high tech graphics games, so I don't need a great card.

Yeah, me neither. I was interested to try this game, but right now I'm not upgrading my card just for this, as I've never even played this series, so I don't know if I like it or not.

[Barkeep49]

I know it's a point of controversy on the board, but haven't paid attention to this. I do know there is no work around at the moment.

[Alan T]

There isn't anything you can do unfortunatly. My work laptop has an integrated Intel video card which doesn't support Pixelshader at all. So I have problems with several of the newer games out there that have been released lately.

Not sure why, but looks like Pixelshader is something alot of games are starting to do this year and I keep running into this problem. You'll have to ask someone more familiar with game programming why people choose to use it. If you have a desktop computer, you can get a cheap $50-60 card that supports pixelshader. If you have a laptop like me you are out of luck. I can only play this on my desktop computer at home.

[Esquared1]

Is anybody using a computer with the min. requirements to play this game? Mine falls in that catagory, and need to know if I need an upgrade.

Thanks all!

[JPhillips]

After playing from the earliest starting date to 1500 I recommend starting at 1492. A lot of bugginess went away when 1492 rolled around.

I'm having a lot of fun with this game although I'm sure I'm not playing very well. One great new feature is the roll of leaders that shows you what provinces were gained and lost under each ruler. I wish Crusader Kings had that.

[SirFozzie]

I might do a mini AAR on the dynasty forum if I can figure out how to take screenshots

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

I might do a mini AAR on the dynasty forum if I can figure out how to take screenshots

Good old Print Screen always works for me.

[gi]

Originally Posted by Esquared1

Is anybody using a computer with the min. requirements to play this game? Mine falls in that catagory, and need to know if I need an upgrade.

Thanks all!

My fiance's computer is min. I turned down all the graphics to the lowest and turned off music. She had crashes with the graphics turned up to medium. Once we made the change to the lowest setting and no music, no more crashes.

[Groundhog]

Man, my flatmate bought this game and I booted it up last nite for a couple of hours. I can honestly say I had no idea what I was doing for either of those hours.

I picked Japan, spent a few months clicking on things and adjusting sliders that had no determinable meaning to me. Then in year 2 one of my provinces rebelled. I tried to send troops to put down the rebellion, but I'm really not sure if they attacked or just moved in to the province, drank lemonade, and cheered on the rioters.

While this was all going on I set my sights towards foreign affairs, deciding to annex the Ryukyu islands and enslave their peace loving people. I brought a ship to the province my army was in, tried to send them aboard the ship, but our men had not yet mastered the skills of "ship boarding" and could only stare at our 15th century ships and scratch their heads.

More years passed, another province rebelled, and I became further convinced that I really should have tried playing the tutorials before clicking "New Game" on the main menu.

[Peregrine]

Groundhog, I recommend focusing on a few things first, like if you want to attack some nearby nations, focus on land or naval tech and try to improve the morale of your forces (the vertical green bar in the upper left corner when you select an army or fleet) through the domestic policy sliders, the good ones are Land/Naval, Quality/Quantity, etc. You can hold the mouse over all of the options there and it will show you exactly what the change does.

In terms of boats, you need to make sure you have enough transport ships for your army, one for each regiment. At the bottom of a navy it will say "Room for X regiments" and if you don't have enough, your guys can't board the ships.

Provinces may rebel if your stability is very low ( the -3 to +3 number shown on the upper left bar, very important to a lot of things) or if there are religious or other issues, like you just conquered them. When you click on the province it will show the revolt risk, if they revolt just send some troops in and they will either take it back over immediately (if there's no fort) or beseige the fort in the province (you can click on the army to see how it's going.) In any case, once you're back in control your flag will appear on the province instead of the rebel flag.

[Esquared1]

Originally Posted by gi

My fiance's computer is min. I turned down all the graphics to the lowest and turned off music. She had crashes with the graphics turned up to medium. Once we made the change to the lowest setting and no music, no more crashes.

Cool. I don't need the music, or the graphics.

I'm assuming one can start with any group, including one of the many Native American peoples. . . I enjoy doing that.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Esquared1

Cool. I don't need the music, or the graphics.

I'm assuming one can start with any group, including one of the many Native American peoples. . . I enjoy doing that.

You can start with the native americans, but the game has a heavy european slant to it. The way they try to model after history is by giving penalties to other parts of the world such as the native americans. Chances are you never will catch up to a Spain or Italy in research.

-------------------------

So last night, I had a few extra spare hours for once to play some. So I decided to start up as Mecklenberg. Things were going great for me at the start, one of the top income countries, and had pretty decent relationships with everyone around me. My first King was elected Holy Roman Empire and lived for another good 20 years at least. My second king was also chosen to be the HRE.

As will happen in early Germany, countries started eating up other countries, and soon I found my little alliance of Mecklenberg, Brandenberg and Hamburg to be drawn into a war with Lithuania, Bavaria and Sweden.

My armies wern't the best in the world, but we had a pretty decent defense set up.. We went on a good 25 years of war, holding them off. In the end though, both Lithuania and Sweden were just too strong and my poor country got annexed.

The timing was ok though since it was bed time for me In hindsight I should have cut loose Brandenburg (my vassel at the time) when they were attacked. I had held off Poland for many years previous, so figured I could do the same here. Maybe next time


-----------------------------

This got me thinking, such ashame my schedule is often hectic and unflexible.. I think it would be alot of fun to have some 2-3 hour a week night setup where we could do a FOFC game together.

[SirFozzie]

I'd be in for that

[sabotai]

First lesson learned. If you are a small nation, find yourself a "big brother" to ally with and that's it. Do not get into an alliance with several small nations. One of those small nations will drag you into a war you can't win. I just got ran over by Burgundy. I was Bavaria, allied with a few of the small nations around me, they say "Help us fight The Palatinate" and I'm all "Hell yeah, more land." What's that? Burgundy is in the war too? ....Shit.

[Alan T]

I feel your pain

[sabotai]

Second attempt went better as Bavaria. Allied with Austria and no one else at first. I went after some surrounding provinces and ended up doubling the size of my kingdom by getting Salzburg and Wurttemberg. Things were going good. I was even elected leader of the Holy Roman Empire. Sweet.

Wait, what the hell is that 6.6 on my treasurey screen? Inlfation? Well, that must not be too bad. Let me check the ledger and see what my neig.....damn....All I see is my line going up and up and up and everyone else's stay flatline.

So yeah, second lesson learned. Keep inlfation in check. It doesn't look like a lot, but that extra 6% in cost for everything adds up quickly.


So Bohemia becomes a power and ends up controled by another power, Hungary. Austria gets in a fight with them, and I come to the aid of Austria. I take over a few of Bohemia's provinces, but then Austria chickens out once Hungary starts taking some of their provinces and signs a peace treaty.

By now, Austria is broekn up into 3 seperated parts, all connected to me. A few years later, they come calling back to me and this time I tell them No. The Alliance is broken and I cut off their military access as well.

Time to take over Austria. I build up an army, declare war....and my troops get slaughtered (well, not slaughtered, but I win one battle and lose several), even though I outnumber them 2:1. I check their Diplomatic screen and see "Land:3" and go "That's why. Duh Sab." My Land is still at 1. IOW, their military technology was much better than mine. Luckily for me, Bohemia and Hungary saw this as a perfect time to invade as well. Austria gets crushed by them while I get to keep hold of my land.

So ends the saga of Austria. And Bavaria. By now my inflation has gotten up to over 9, I have little money left, my technology is lagging behind the super powers around me, and I'm pretty much out of allies.

And so far I am loving this game.

[Peregrine]

Yeah Sabotai, you learned the lesson of inflation, it's lethal to a country. There are some things that can knock it down but they come in much later in the game at high government tech levels. Basically keep as tight a lid on it as possible, if you are a smaller nation and not rolling in cash, I recommend trying to basically live on your yearly money alone and running around 0 monthly, the less money you take for yourself monthly (bottom slider) the better.

Also, Austria knocked out? Wow! They are usually pretty dominant in my games, they are a strong nation.

[Alan T]

Yeah, I learned the hard way that you just don't want to mess with inflation as a smaller country. If you are already having problems keeping up with the research of larger countries, inflation will only cause you to slow down further. THe first things I do as a smaller country when I start is push the treasury bar and stability bars all the way left to 0.0 then I right click both so they freeze and won't move dynamically. (I can later move the stability bar if I am having issue with -Stab hits on events).

Its funny about Austria, any time I have played in Italy, Austria has always been an issue. THe times I played as a german state, Austria seems non-existant. I always end up having more problems with Poland and Lithuania.

One thing you can do to combat the low land research compared to others is build up your land tradition earlier on with smaller battles against other near by countries before the big Austria or Lithuania juggernauts get rolling. Once your land tradition is pretty high, spend the money on a good general and get one with pretty decent shock rating.

Once you have your general, you can cool down the wars for a bit and try to repair peace among the nearby countries that you had chosen to war with. Having a strong general with your troops seem to help counter the better trained troops from other countries at times.

[MrBigglesworth]

They way to play EU2's grand campaign was to set the monthly money slider all the way to the left and invest in trade and infrastructure early. It's rough going early on, but you end up in a much much stronger position a couple hundred years down the line.

That works when you are any of the big countries, I don't know about the smaller ones.

[Barkeep49]

Alan and I had some fun last night playing as Saxony (me) and Brandenberg (him) starting later on (I forgot what year we ended up starting). We both gobbled up a bunch of the smaller countries, but became effectively boxed in by the giant Poland, who had much of Scandanavia and Austria. I had just launched a war against Austria, after nearly a decade of preparation, and it was anyone's guess about who was going to win when the game crashed. By this time it was very late and so we are currently in limbo about what's going to happen in what was looking like it could be a great victory or an AWFUL disaster.

[Butter]

This game is HARD.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Alan and I had some fun last night playing as Saxony (me) and Brandenberg (him) starting later on (I forgot what year we ended up starting). We both gobbled up a bunch of the smaller countries, but became effectively boxed in by the giant Poland, who had much of Scandanavia and Austria. I had just launched a war against Austria, after nearly a decade of preparation, and it was anyone's guess about who was going to win when the game crashed. By this time it was very late and so we are currently in limbo about what's going to happen in what was looking like it could be a great victory or an AWFUL disaster.

1579 was when we started this time.

I had alot more fun this game than the previous one we did. I think having a bit more clue how some things worked help. Short version: With Poland to the East/Northeast, Austria to the South/Southeast and Spain/France to the Southwest. We were limited in our early options.

Barkeep pushed West through some of the smaller provinces and through the netherlands to the sea. I pushed out at the coast along Pommerania, Mecklenburg, and the northern part of the Netherlands. Right when I was making the Netherlands a vassel through war, Denmark declared war on me and I ended up making them a vassel. (I had no desire for any of their territories other than one that they vultured earlier before I could finish taking it. (Hamburg)

When we went to war with Austria, I went in with 34k Calvary, about 4k artillery and about 30k Infantry. I have no idea what Barkeep had in the way of troops or what he faced. He was pushing to their capital through Bolivia, needing to take 2 or 3 provinces in the core of their giant country. I mainly was trying to be a diversion and keep Austria's eastern forces away from the bulk of the fight around the capital.

I don't have any idea how many troops Barkeep went up against, but I know I faced about 30k troops between Austria, their ally and their nearby vassel right at the start. By the time I pushed to Austria's capital, I had a decent seige going on in two provinces, but Austria had more and more troops rolling in, and my calvary was down to only about 18-19k.

I honestly have no idea how long I would hold out there so I hope Barkeep pushes through soon, or I would be toast. That is about where his game crashed leaving the suspense for another time.

[Alan T]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

This game is HARD.

I wouldn't necessarily say its "hard" as much as complex. There is alot more going on in it than in a traditional Civilization type game. I would argue that playing Civ 4 on the hardest levels might be just as difficult, but its a different type of game.

I think alot of times who you pick determines how difficult your challenge is in this game, and there really is no "winning", its just deciding what your goals for that game are and trying to achieve them.

[Coffee Warlord]

Held out as long as I could, downloading this now.

[Eaglesfan27]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

Held out as long as I could, downloading this now.

It's for sale via download? I would have bought this as an impulse buy a few times if I knew that.

[Alan T]

They sell it online at gamersgate.com I believe.. I bought mine in the store though.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by Alan T

They sell it online at gamersgate.com I believe.. I bought mine in the store though.

Yep.

[Galaril]

Here is a cool mod I found on the EU 3 forum that adds alot of country specific titles and governments names:


Description:
I've heard some "complaints" about lacking titles, all from german dukes to japanese shoguns. I'm sure there are plenty of modders out there who've solved this problem all for themselves, now is the chance to make it public.

First off, this mini-mod will mainly focus on the file common/governments.txt, since it's the government of the nation that decides the title. The mod is a mini-mod and also meant to be included in other mods since it's more or less just additional flavour if used alone. Adding titles will result in text.csv changes, either by replacing or extending the file. Changing the actual title of the countries will require a quick edit in the files found in history/countries/

Some government examples and ideas:
muslim_monarchy with title Sultan, should be pretty similar to either
feudal_monarchy or despotic_monarchy
caliphate with title Caliph, very similar to papacy and theocracy
khanate with title Khan, similar to tribal_despotism
hanseatic_republic with title Stadtholder, a "hanseatic" copy of
administrative_republic (which should be adapted to other states, perhaps Switzerland, not a republic but is it similar?)
feudal_duchy with title Duke (or Prince to include Russian principalities, otherwise the russians should get their own government), similar to feudal_monarchy
religious_order with title Grand Master, maybe a copy of theocracy
feudal_republic with title Knyaz or Posadnik (help me here), meant to include Novgorod and Pskov, typical feudal republics, similar to administrative_republic
electorate with title Elector, this might not be needed, depends on if it was considered a main title or secondary title, maybe similar to administrative_monarchy
shogunate with title Shogun, maybe similar to feudal_monarchy
empire (better name?) with title Emperor, maybe similar to administrative_monarchy, there should be a tribal_empire for Aztec and Inca as well

Then there's a question on details, should there be different governments for Dukes, Archdukes and Grand dukes? Differences between bishops and archbishops or princes and grand princes?
I considered using latin titles for early european governments (Rex, Dux) but I think I've droped that idea by now.
Lastly I thought about local names (like present Stadtholder or Doge) for the titles (which would require local versions of governments) such as:
Emperors: Tsar/Czar (Russia), Sapa (Inca), Tlatoani (Aztec), Huangdi (China), probably something for Japan and I'm sure there's an appropriate name for By...! Trebizond emperors.
Also, an Iroquis federation could use the title Tadadaho if I'm not mistaken.

Surely I've also missed a whole bunch of important titles.

hxxp://mu.nogo.se/eu3/atage/ATAGE_2006_02_11.rar

[Coffee Warlord]

Grr. I had to go in and make a bunch of mods to Scandanavia to make Denmark playable. Apparently they just are miserable at the onset, and Sweden mauls them basically every time.