Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

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Gilg: Oct 10, 2002

Has there been any word on EU3 5.2 going official? I notice the beta hasn't changed since December.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 17:44

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# ? May 28, 2024 02:15

Patter Song: Mar 26, 2010; Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.; Fun Shoe

Wolfgang Pauli posted:

Has this ever been legal during the time period when migrating from one slave country to another? I can't imagine Romanian slaves would be allowed in America. Especially since it would basically be importing slaves, which was illegal even if slaveowning wasn't. Maybe just give slave owner POPs some cash when moving out of the country, to represent selling their slaves and estate?

Before the time period (and before the US banned importation of slaves in 1809), but during the Haitian Revolution a lot of rich Haitian slaveowners who got out early ended up in New Orleans, bringing some of their slaves with them.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 17:58

Neorxenawang: Jun 9, 2003

Has anyone ever run into any crashing issues with DH and AOD? I can no longer play either one, as they crash pretty much immediately on loading a game (sometimes before, when selecting a country). I used to be able to run them for a while (maybe an hour or two) before they would freeze up and require a reset. Other programs running in the background will keep going (like if I have Pandora running, for example). I've verified cache on steam, reinstalled, patched, etc repeatedly, and I couldn't find any solution on the paradox forums. I did switch out my RAM recently, which I suppose could cause some instability if it's defective or something, but I don't have this problem with any other programs. Any ideas?

# ? Mar 24, 2013 18:33

Reveilled: Apr 19, 2007; Take up your rifles

Darkrenown posted:

(At least until we do Sunset Invasion II: Quetzalcoatl's revenge).

I just want to confirm I am totally in favour of a DLC scenario for EUIV that continues the Sunset Invasion "storyline". I'd love a scenario that started with Europe divided between the Il-khanate, the Golden Horde and the Aztec Empire. Maybe with the Roman Empire in the middle to appease all the Byzantophiles you guys have on your forums.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 18:54

burnishedfume: Mar 8, 2011; You really are a louse...

WhitemageofDOOM posted:

If i remember right they removed the "Is slave" tag which prevents them from collecting a salary, but also prevents them from voting and migrating.

Darkrenown posted:

I don't know if APD does anything else that would affect it, but in vanilla rich pops can bring some slaves with them when migrating from one slave-holding area to another.

Ah, so either Romanian slaves are saving up because they heard slaves in the USA have it better than slaves in Romania, or rich Romanians are coming to the Land of Opportunity and bringing their enslaved fellow man with them :v:

. I haven't noticed too many rich Romanians, but they cold be assimilating while their slaves stay Romanians.

Darkrenown posted:

EU doesn't model any of the things that make adopting new inventions difficult, if you have the tech you can build as many units wielding them as you can afford, so instead we make it harder for some areas to get the techs.

That's actually something that I think may be cool for Paradox to look into for an expansion; a way for a nation to kinda have access to a technology but not totally, so you can do things like giving Native Americans guns to help you fight other Europeans, convert to your religion, increase the life rating of a colony, etc. I just always loved the idea of playing as the Cherokee or something and slowly amassing an arsenal from the Europeans until I can field as many musketeers as they can ship over and becoming the most powerful nation in North America :v:

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:01

Fister Roboto: Feb 21, 2008

Realtalk, that could be APD trying to model indentured servitude.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:03

Archaeology Hat: Aug 10, 2009

Reveilled posted:

I just want to confirm I am totally in favour of a DLC scenario for EUIV that continues the Sunset Invasion "storyline". I'd love a scenario that started with Europe divided between the Il-khanate, the Golden Horde and the Aztec Empire. Maybe with the Roman Empire in the middle to appease all the Byzantophiles you guys have on your forums.

I'd love more fantasy scenario DLC. I really like Sunset Invasion especially wi the CK2+ option to make it only fire some of the time.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:08

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Darkrenown posted:

EU doesn't model any of the things that make adopting new inventions difficult, if you have the tech you can build as many units wielding them as you can afford, so instead we make it harder for some areas to get the techs. It's certainly not the only possible way to do it, but if we used a different system it would still need to be be balanced so that Europe tended to come out ahead, because we want EU to follow the broad historical pattern of emerging European dominance, rather than, say, the Aztecs invading Spain (At least until we do Sunset Invasion II: Quetzalcoatl's revenge).

My only problem with this is that artificially strengthening Europe technologically, as a way to make sure it can dominate in Asia, would likely result in ignoring the mechanisms by which Europe did end up dominating. National ideas that give CB's on non-European states with political problems (low stability or high war exhaustion for example), along with ideas that make it easy to maintain, profit from, and annex overseas vassals would better simulate European dominance than the fantasy of European armies being far superior to their enemies'. It's not like technology is the only deciding factor in why some are conquered and others are not, political decisions matter a great deal. Just look at how the Danish kings farted away their dominance of the north over hundreds of years, or, on the opposite end of things, England realized its strengths was its fleet and needed banking to pay for it, leading to an enormous empire.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:13

Dibujante: Jul 27, 2004

Darkrenown posted:

I wasn't really talking about the game(s) there, we had a little history aside about guns.

Well again, my reply to an aside about how gunpowder was invented in China rather than the game's tech system.

But to answer you: No, not really. But it does matter that you have access to generally the same level of know-how, have access to similar resources, and are close enough to where <thing> was invented to see it in action (because people and even more so rulers and organisations like armies tend to be conservative and won't adopt a new idea just because someone tells them it's awesome, you need the "HOLY poo poo! France has something called a Flintlock and they're winning battles left and right, we need this before they invade us!" effect). Perhaps Denmark doesn't invent any new guns, but they can see how it affects the armies of their neighbours and pay some gunsmiths a bunch of money to come out and start an armoury. That's a huge simplification, of course, but that's kind of what the tech groups represent, even if you're not inventing new things yourself it's easy enough to adopt them from your neighbours.

EU doesn't model any of the things that make adopting new inventions difficult, if you have the tech you can build as many units wielding them as you can afford, so instead we make it harder for some areas to get the techs. It's certainly not the only possible way to do it, but if we used a different system it would still need to be be balanced so that Europe tended to come out ahead, because we want EU to follow the broad historical pattern of emerging European dominance, rather than, say, the Aztecs invading Spain (At least until we do Sunset Invasion II: Quetzalcoatl's revenge).

Yeah, which is why I am somewhat bummed that neighbour bonuses are no longer a technological factor, and economy has been decoupled from technology. I feel that both of those mechanisms allow for situations, like, say:
1. Spain and Portugal sail west and encounter the Americas.
2. Spain gets filthy rich off of American gold.
3. Spanish wealth allows them to develop a whole new military paradigm, the tercio.
4. The tercio kicks but left and right until everyone who is fighting against it figures out how to adopt it.

The way it currently stands, it seems like Spain's discovery wouldn't actually influence the technology, diplomacy, or military of Spain's cultural community at all until they began colonizing themselves.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:16

Darkrenown: Jul 18, 2012; please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

DrProsek posted:

That's actually something that I think may be cool for Paradox to look into for an expansion; a way for a nation to kinda have access to a technology but not totally, so you can do things like giving Native Americans guns to help you fight other Europeans, convert to your religion, increase the life rating of a colony, etc. I just always loved the idea of playing as the Cherokee or something and slowly amassing an arsenal from the Europeans until I can field as many musketeers as they can ship over and becoming the most powerful nation in North America .

That'd be cool (although it's not something we have planned ATM), I guess you could just give them something like TFH's elite units if they had a western backer.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:22

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Neorxenawang posted:

Has anyone ever run into any crashing issues with DH and AOD? I can no longer play either one, as they crash pretty much immediately on loading a game (sometimes before, when selecting a country). I used to be able to run them for a while (maybe an hour or two) before they would freeze up and require a reset. Other programs running in the background will keep going (like if I have Pandora running, for example). I've verified cache on steam, reinstalled, patched, etc repeatedly, and I couldn't find any solution on the paradox forums. I did switch out my RAM recently, which I suppose could cause some instability if it's defective or something, but I don't have this problem with any other programs. Any ideas?

I'm not really sure how the game files work with steam but for DH at least in the main game folder there will be two files called history and debug. Go to the bottom of the debug file and if there is no error message check to see if anything is in the history file, any error there will also be at the bottom.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:28

YF-23: Feb 17, 2011; My god, it's full of cat!

Dibujante posted:

Yeah, which is why I am somewhat bummed that neighbour bonuses are no longer a technological factor, and economy has been decoupled from technology. I feel that both of those mechanisms allow for situations, like, say:
1. Spain and Portugal sail west and encounter the Americas.
2. Spain gets filthy rich off of American gold.
3. Spanish wealth allows them to develop a whole new military paradigm, the tercio.
4. The tercio kicks but left and right until everyone who is fighting against it figures out how to adopt it.

The way it currently stands, it seems like Spain's discovery wouldn't actually influence the technology, diplomacy, or military of Spain's cultural community at all until they began colonizing themselves.

It is not unlikely that wealth can have an indirect effect, by making things that give points affordable for instance.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:29

Spiderfist Island: Feb 19, 2011

Reveilled posted:

I just want to confirm I am totally in favour of a DLC scenario for EUIV that continues the Sunset Invasion "storyline". I'd love a scenario that started with Europe divided between the Il-khanate, the Golden Horde and the Aztec Empire. Maybe with the Roman Empire in the middle to appease all the Byzantophiles you guys have on your forums.

As long as they also incorporate the "Incans were given guns by Chinese explorers" side note, I would be fine with this.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:31

Darkrenown: Jul 18, 2012; please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

A Buttery Pastry posted:

My only problem with this is that artificially strengthening Europe technologically, as a way to make sure it can dominate in Asia, would likely result in ignoring the mechanisms by which Europe did end up dominating. National ideas that give CB's on non-European states with political problems (low stability or high war exhaustion for example), along with ideas that make it easy to maintain, profit from, and annex overseas vassals would better simulate European dominance than the fantasy of European armies being far superior to their enemies'. It's not like technology is the only deciding factor in why some are conquered and others are not, political decisions matter a great deal. Just look at how the Danish kings farted away their dominance of the north over hundreds of years, or, on the opposite end of things, England realized its strengths was its fleet and needed banking to pay for it, leading to an enormous empire.

True. On the other hand, just having better units helps the AI out :v:

I kid a bit, but the more esoteric the system the harder it is for the AI the understand and made use of. I don't mean to say it's impossible, but it does get harder.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 19:43

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Reveilled posted:

I just want to confirm I am totally in favour of a DLC scenario for EUIV that continues the Sunset Invasion "storyline". I'd love a scenario that started with Europe divided between the Il-khanate, the Golden Horde and the Aztec Empire. Maybe with the Roman Empire in the middle to appease all the Byzantophiles you guys have on your forums.

They would die from a brain aneurysm, unable to decide whether it was good or not.

Darkrenown posted:

True. On the other hand, just having better units helps the AI out I kid a bit, but the more esoteric the system the harder it is for the AI the understand and made use of. I don't mean to say it's impossible, but it does get harder.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that it's one thing to write out even a detailed idea of how such a system would work (rather than just what I wrote, or even worse; "Like history, duh!"), quite another to actually implement it. It's not like what you're dealing with isn't a rather complex issue, and historians can't even agree on it! Still sad that such a system isn't in the works, but I guess we'll have to wait and see how it actually works before we get to write angry posts about it.* :v:

*Or mod it, which might be more productive.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 20:12

Phlegmish: Jul 2, 2011

A Buttery Pastry posted:

My only problem with this is that artificially strengthening Europe technologically, as a way to make sure it can dominate in Asia, would likely result in ignoring the mechanisms by which Europe did end up dominating.

I always felt like it would have made sense for EUIII to make a clear distinction between the Naval/Military techs on one side and the Government/Production/Trade techs on the other side. Superior military technology, in the purely material sense, is something that should spread fairly quickly across different culture groups because there are no real barriers to its adoption other than time and space. That's why the Taliban has always used RPG's and AK-47's even though these weapons were designed by their former enemies, the godless Russians.

As for the more 'cultural' techs, I think EUIII's culture groups were actually a fairly good way to model those. Cultural development and philosophical innovations were and are much more path-dependent than purely technological progress. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment were dependent on revolutionary attitudes and ways of thinking that remained mostly limited to Western Europe for a very long time; even today they're anything but universal. This is because cultural change is always diffuse and ideologically loaded and not something that can simply be imposed or adopted.

I think it makes sense for Europe to have an ever-increasing cultural lead throughout the game (the scientific method or gradually more efficient modes of organization, for instance), but their military superiority should come about at a slower rate, for the simple reason that non-Europeans have always been quick to adopt useful technological innovations coming from Europeans. It's too easy in EUIII for a European power to conquer half of Asia by 1600. Historically speaking, Europe didn't become truly, crushingly hegemonic (in the physical, military sense) until the early 19th century. For example, the last European slaves in the Maghreb were only freed in 1816.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 22:11

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Phlegmish posted:

I always felt like it would have made sense for EUIII to make a clear distinction between the Naval/Military techs on one side and the Government/Production/Trade techs on the other side.

Pretty much agree with everything you wrote, and I have actually considered the idea of creating a distinction between different technologies, though I never did write it down. Your thoughts about how tech groups actually make sense for cultural development is pretty astute, and very relevant to the question of European hegemony. Very much looking forward to seeing what possibilities EU4 allows for modding stuff like that.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 22:33

Wolfgang Pauli: Mar 26, 2008; One Three Seven

Darkrenown posted:

EU doesn't model any of the things that make adopting new inventions difficult, if you have the tech you can build as many units wielding them as you can afford, so instead we make it harder for some areas to get the techs. It's certainly not the only possible way to do it, but if we used a different system it would still need to be be balanced so that Europe tended to come out ahead, because we want EU to follow the broad historical pattern of emerging European dominance, rather than, say, the Aztecs invading Spain (At least until we do Sunset Invasion II: Quetzalcoatl's revenge).

My beef isn't with the technology model itself. I know full well that no single mathematical model is going to cut it, and any combination that's jury-rigged together will be as far away from fun as you get. My problem is that splitting up countries into arbitrary tech groups is so forced and, ultimately, Eurocentric. The farther from Europe you get, the more you begin to enter fantasyland. It's to the point that you can build a New World randomizer and it wouldn't even matter if the same Native American nations were in it. Or if any nation was in it at all. The rest of the world ends up being filler content that's there to make it a little more difficult for the player to conquer poo poo. The first step of any mod trying to fix the tech system is to burn it all down and start over.

And as long as we're talking about fantasy fantasy-DLC, I'd give you all my money if there was a Years of Rice & Salt DLC. Actually, it'd be incredible if there was some kind of deal with Bantam/HarperCollins that gives you a PDF of the book for an extra $2 or something. There are so many people who would love Kim Stanley Robinson but have no idea.

# ? Mar 24, 2013 22:58

Tomn: Aug 23, 2007; And the angel said unto him
"Stop hitting yourself. Stop hitting yourself."
But lo he could not. For the angel was hitting him with his own hands

Darkrenown posted:

EU doesn't model any of the things that make adopting new inventions difficult, if you have the tech you can build as many units wielding them as you can afford, so instead we make it harder for some areas to get the techs.

On a side note, would it make sense, at all, for upgrading troops to a new unit type to come with a monetary cost based on how many units are getting converted? Seems like it would help, in part, model how very large armies might be slower to upgrade even if they know how.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 02:17

Vegetable: Oct 22, 2010

Something messed up happened in my EU3 game. I vassalised Dulkadir, but then it was occupied by Ottoman rebels and subsequently integrated into the Ottomans. Then I forced the Ottomans into a Personal Union with me. While I was not noticing, the Dulkadir provinces of the Ottomans rebelled and declared independence. Apparently the game still recognised them as my vassal and forced me to declare war on the Ottomans. What a clusterfuck...

# ? Mar 25, 2013 09:51

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

Wolfgang Pauli posted:

And as long as we're talking about fantasy fantasy-DLC, I'd give you all my money if there was a Years of Rice & Salt DLC. Actually, it'd be incredible if there was some kind of deal with Bantam/HarperCollins that gives you a PDF of the book for an extra $2 or something. There are so many people who would love Kim Stanley Robinson but have no idea.

A Years of Rice & Salt DLC would own so hard, it's kind of a completely new game.
As for KSR, I want an RPG where I can play Frank Vanderwal.

HoI3 question!
I am playing as Germany, so far I've annexed CZ, PL, AUT. France, Scandinavia (gently caress Finland that took ages) are occupied. How do I get my AI controlled armies to attack England? I already got Ireland to occupy NI, but I want to kick those Brits off their island for daring to oppose me.

vvvvvv I want my own armies to do it, as I think they should be able to now with all the landing boats and paratroopers. Basically I don't understand manual Army control and the AI seems to have worked so far to conquer everything.

Tahirovic fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Mar 25, 2013

# ? Mar 25, 2013 09:55

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Tahirovic posted:

HoI3 question!
I am playing as Germany, so far I've annexed CZ, PL, AUT. France, Scandinavia (gently caress Finland that took ages) are occupied. How do I get my AI controlled armies to attack England? I already got Ireland to occupy NI, but I want to kick those Brits off their island for daring to oppose me.

First, click on a province to bring up the province information sidebar on the lower left
Then, click on the little arrow thing on the bottom-right of the province information sidebar to open up the "Allied Objective" sidebar
Then, click on the nation that you wish to order to attack the selected province

# ? Mar 25, 2013 10:26

Evil Agita: Feb 25, 2005; Lord Fool, give me another chance. I'll prove my strength to you!

Whats that random new world map eu3 mod?

# ? Mar 25, 2013 10:53

Wolfgang Pauli: Mar 26, 2008; One Three Seven

Tahirovic posted:

A Years of Rice & Salt DLC would own so hard, it's kind of a completely new game.
As for KSR, I want an RPG where I can play Frank Vanderwal.

I'm not resting until I get my Sax Russell citybuilder/terraformer. I think we're slowly moving into a world where Forty/Fifty/Sixty would work as an HBO show, too.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 11:50

Guildencrantz: May 1, 2012; IM ONE OF THE GOOD ONES

Wolfgang Pauli posted:

And as long as we're talking about fantasy fantasy-DLC, I'd give you all my money if there was a Years of Rice & Salt DLC. Actually, it'd be incredible if there was some kind of deal with Bantam/HarperCollins that gives you a PDF of the book for an extra $2 or something. There are so many people who would love Kim Stanley Robinson but have no idea.

That can be modded in though. There was a Rice & Salt-inspired scenario in MiscMods for EU3, at least, though obviously releasing an actual themed DLC with the names and such kept would need a lot of loving around with copyright. And I don't recall Paradox ever doing any adaptations of other people's IP.

That said, there seems to be a lot of overlap between Paradox fans and KSR fans (no surprises there) so I could certainly see an unofficial thing with a crippled/empty Europe happening.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 11:55

Elukka: Feb 18, 2011; For All Mankind

I haven't read the book (Should I? It sounds really interesting but I've also heard it's dry and boring.) nor played any EU games but that sort of scenario would totally appeal to me, perhaps more so than EUIV itself.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 12:51

Wolfgang Pauli: Mar 26, 2008; One Three Seven

KSR is a naturalist writer and his characters are people, not mythological heroes (unless their myth is built up in the world of the story, even then the myth and person are two separate entities). It's not Tolstoy or Chekhov level of Nothing Ever Happens, it's still full of Exciting Stuff, but it's more on a human level rather than something like Game of Thrones. His characters are the most realistically drawn people I've ever read in scifi, and his portrayals of the Scientist as Hero are probably the best that's ever been written. (And I could talk for days about his merging of Science and Mysticism, but I won't draw out this tangent any further.)

MiscMods does have a Rice & Salt scenario where Europe is there for colonization. I've never actually played it, though. Has MiscMods been updated for 5.2 beta?

# ? Mar 25, 2013 13:48

binge crotching: Apr 2, 2010

Vegetable posted:

Something messed up happened in my EU3 game. I vassalised Dulkadir, but then it was occupied by Ottoman rebels and subsequently integrated into the Ottomans. Then I forced the Ottomans into a Personal Union with me. While I was not noticing, the Dulkadir provinces of the Ottomans rebelled and declared independence. Apparently the game still recognised them as my vassal and forced me to declare war on the Ottomans. What a clusterfuck...

If you haven't do so yet, this is a place where pausing the game and using the console to fix things makes a lot of sense. Pause the game, hit tilde (~), offer peace to the Ottomans, tag swap to them (tag TUR), accept the peace, and then tag swap back (tag XXX where XXX is your tag, such as GOL, TIM, MAM). Make sure to have the game paused the entire time.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 15:29

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Tahirovic posted:

HoI3 question!
I am playing as Germany, so far I've annexed CZ, PL, AUT. France, Scandinavia (gently caress Finland that took ages) are occupied. How do I get my AI controlled armies to attack England? I already got Ireland to occupy NI, but I want to kick those Brits off their island for daring to oppose me.

Have you added transports to whatever command hierarchy you want to do the invasion with? Also in my experience getting England far along on surrender progress will usually trigger the soviets to invade so be ready for that.

# ? Mar 25, 2013 17:16

Koesj: Aug 3, 2003

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Have you added transports to whatever command hierarchy you want to do the invasion with? Also in my experience getting England far along on surrender progress will usually trigger the soviets to invade so be ready for that.

There always was a hard coded immediate Soviet DoW if you took London (I think) as Germany but I haven't done it in TFH yet :shobon:

# ? Mar 25, 2013 19:59

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

V2 question: What's the console command for giving a province over to a specific nation? The simultaneous US-Mexico and American Civil War left the borders an ugly mess and I need to fix it.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 04:13

brocretin: Nov 15, 2012; yo yo yo i loves virgins

I've just started playing EUIII, and I'm having one hell of a time trying to keep any sort of balanced budget. It seems like I'm always in a downward spiral of debt and eventual bankruptcy due to loan payments. Can anyone clue me in on the basics? I'm rather new to Paradox games and my only substantial experience is with CKII, so I haven't the faintest what I'm really doing here. A bit of advice about how the $ works would be lovely.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 06:39

The Narrator: Aug 11, 2011; bernie would have won

brocretin posted:

I've just started playing EUIII, and I'm having one hell of a time trying to keep any sort of balanced budget. It seems like I'm always in a downward spiral of debt and eventual bankruptcy due to loan payments. Can anyone clue me in on the basics? I'm rather new to Paradox games and my only substantial experience is with CKII, so I haven't the faintest what I'm really doing here. A bit of advice about how the $ works would be lovely.

Don't worry about having a monthly deficit, so long as you make money at the end of the year. Don't be afraid to mint, especially in the early game when you're still trying to get set up. Use the minting money to make armies and invade your little neighbours or start filling up centers of trade. Try and see what policies you can enact or what specialists you can hire to try and find ways for you to make money. Who are you playing as?

# ? Mar 26, 2013 06:48

brocretin: Nov 15, 2012; yo yo yo i loves virgins

The Narrator posted:

Don't worry about having a monthly deficit, so long as you make money at the end of the year. Don't be afraid to mint, especially in the early game when you're still trying to get set up. Use the minting money to make armies and invade your little neighbours or start filling up centers of trade. Try and see what policies you can enact or what specialists you can hire to try and find ways for you to make money. Who are you playing as?

I just tried out a game as Portugal where I almost immediately went to war with Morocco and snapped up a couple of their Gibraltar-area territories along with the little CoT they have in the south, but the war put me far enough behind on monthly income that, between the upkeep for the men in my new Moroccan holdings and the steadily-mounting interest on the one or two loans I had to take during the war, I was bankrupt by about 1415. Should I be waiting for the earliest tech upgrades to go to war? Also, does a small amount of inflation really matter this early on? The costs of everything seem too low for it to have any real effect.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 07:27

V for Vegas: Sep 1, 2004; THUNDERDOME LOSER

brocretin posted:

I've just started playing EUIII, and I'm having one hell of a time trying to keep any sort of balanced budget. It seems like I'm always in a downward spiral of debt and eventual bankruptcy due to loan payments. Can anyone clue me in on the basics? I'm rather new to Paradox games and my only substantial experience is with CKII, so I haven't the faintest what I'm really doing here. A bit of advice about how the $ works would be lovely.

Try to avoid loans (or more than one at a time) in the early game. That cash injection seems awesome, and the payments are so small and it's not due for ages, but don't be fooled, it is a real bastard.

Have short splurges of inflation instead and don't freak if it gets up to 10% or 15%. Just make sure you get the Bank as an early NI and you can start reducing inflation again gradually.

PROTIP: If you have the 'you're going to be broke at the end of the year' message, wait until December to jack your minting up far enough to get into positive territory. On 1 January move minting back down again. Better to get a small inflation hit for one month than be forced to take out a loan.

If your stability is negative, focus on getting it back to +3 asap. That will bring in more $.

Don't waste money auto-sending merchants. If you're scraping for cash, that can be a real hit.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 07:33

YF-23: Feb 17, 2011; My god, it's full of cat!

Basically don't be afraid of inflation. If you're going to war, pump up your minting to meet the new demands of your budget. There's no need mint *all* your money, and no need to completely avoid inflation; if minting 20% of your income's enough to cover the war's heightened expenses, well, there you go.

V for Vegas posted:

PROTIP: If you have the 'you're going to be broke at the end of the year' message, wait until December to jack your minting up far enough to get into positive territory. On 1 January move minting back down again. Better to get a small inflation hit for one month than be forced to take out a loan.

That's only helpful if they are going broke on December! Pumping up your income in December is no use if you are forced to take a loan in August! (Besides, in my experience the December->January income intake includes the end of year tax, meaning unless you are running such a deficit as to overtake that you're good without raising your minting)

# ? Mar 26, 2013 09:15

Darkrenown: Jul 18, 2012; please give me anything to talk about besides the fact that democrats are allowing millions of americans to be evicted from their homes

gradenko_2000 posted:

V2 question: What's the console command for giving a province over to a specific nation? The simultaneous US-Mexico and American Civil War left the borders an ugly mess and I need to fix it.

changeowner <tag> <provID>

("help" in console lists all commands and "help <command name>" gives more details)

# ? Mar 26, 2013 11:48

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Tried playing as Qing dynasty China in V2.

Oh my GOD!! It is such a drag! There's constant rebellions and the damned colonial powers always taking bits and chunks off of you. How humiliating! China truly is "the Sick Old Man of the East". I guess it's pretty historically accurate in that sense.

Are there any tips? It's 1855 and I'm about 65% to Westernization, and Britain just took a chunk of Canton out of me.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 14:37

Drone: Aug 22, 2003; Incredible machine

DrSunshine posted:

Tried playing as Qing dynasty China in V2.

Oh my GOD!! It is such a drag! There's constant rebellions and the damned colonial powers always taking bits and chunks off of you. How humiliating! China truly is "the Sick Old Man of the East". I guess it's pretty historically accurate in that sense.

Are there any tips? It's 1855 and I'm about 65% to Westernization, and Britain just took a chunk of Canton out of me.

I've never played an unciv game in V2 before, but I assume the best bet is just to try to beeline straight for civilized status.

I really want to try a Heavenly Kingdom game though.

# ? Mar 26, 2013 14:49

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# ? May 28, 2024 02:15

DrSunshine: Mar 23, 2009; Did I just say that out loud~~?!!!

Drone posted:

I've never played an unciv game in V2 before, but I assume the best bet is just to try to beeline straight for civilized status.

I really want to try a Heavenly Kingdom game though.

It's honestly kind of a drag, I don't particularly recommend it unless you have a great deal of patience. It's mostly just a matter of waiting for enough research points to build up to make another Westernization reform and hoping the Western powers don't gobble you up.

Though in my China game, I've had a lot of fun turning most of Asia into my puppets (for all the good it did me against the British :rolleyes:

). I even invaded and puppet-ized Imperial Japan!

# ? Mar 26, 2013 14:55

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Paradox Grand Strategy: From the Carnival of Lust to the Enlightened Times

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