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If you aggressively use your loans as a large power you can grow even harder too. The only problem with loans is that you'll eventually have a ton of inflation but that's more of a minor hindrance than anything if you grew your one province minor into a great power.
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Jan 21, 2016 22:32
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You can also use loans to prevent AI allies from starting wars where they're banking on you doing the heavy lifting. They use the same logic that applies to AIs to estimate if you'll answer the call to arms, so if you just sit on 4-5 loans indefinitely, they will never call you into offensive wars.
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Jan 21, 2016 23:24
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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First game trip report: After taking the two southern provinces from the nefarious english, I waited several years and spent my time and money constructing markets and temples. When the truce expired and with military tech 5, I declared war again, but this time, my allies got in there, except Scotland.  Basically, someone yelled "A fight! Everyone, get in here!" and all my allies piled on Portugal while I took the three remaining english provinces. England never transprted his 30k troops to the continent, so only a few frenchies died to some random disease outbreak while sieging. Warscore was barely high enough to claim the three provinces. Yey! But just before declaring war, a random event fired up "a beloved heir died", so now I have a 60+ years old king with no heir, and if he dies I will be a junior partner with Castille, yikes! Angry Lobster fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 22, 2016 00:41
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Don't worry about it, you'll be stronger than Castile anyway, and you can ally with their other junior partner Aragon, and punch your way free together!
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Jan 22, 2016 00:44
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I know you guys love pretty borders: Mostly unremarkable Papal State run. Grabbed several achievements I didn't have yet. Only really interesting thing was Canada being the third most powerful country in the world after I had my way with Europe.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:11
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Tsyni posted:borders I finally understand that dumb tumblr trigger warning thing
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Jan 22, 2016 01:15
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I managed to get myself out of the debt spiral that I was in with my Byzantium game. I never managed to recreate even the Justinian borders, let alone go maximum Trajan. Lucky Nations is off so Europe actually got to go wild. I just decided to bulldoze the Arabian peninsula so I could lock down the Aden trade post. Getting bogged down for about 100 years in successive coalition wars and lost defensive wars alongside spiraling debt totally stalled my blobbing. From the 1700 mark onward I managed to get an unholy Alliance of Prussia, Russia, Bohemia, Burgundy and Castille on my side. Milan was actually quite a power before I dropped that loving doom hammer onto them. At 1770 they had the Po Valley under their control. Annexed half of it and then their former allies and the minor powers in Europe decided to dogpile them and cut them down to a OPM.     The problem I have with Vicky 2 is that I have outright no idea how to play it. But then again I think that's the problem with every player, including the developers. I debating playing as Toulouse or Normandy in Vicky 2.
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Jan 22, 2016 01:28
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Tsyni posted:*death in border form* This is physically painful to look at
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Jan 22, 2016 05:30
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PittTheElder posted:You can also use loans to prevent AI allies from starting wars where they're banking on you doing the heavy lifting. They use the same logic that applies to AIs to estimate if you'll answer the call to arms, so if you just sit on 4-5 loans indefinitely, they will never call you into offensive wars. Nah, AI uses different logic for players on CTAs and loans for this very reason.
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Jan 22, 2016 08:02
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Eej posted:If you aggressively use your loans as a large power you can grow even harder too. The only problem with loans is that you'll eventually have a ton of inflation but that's more of a minor hindrance than anything if you grew your one province minor into a great power. One of the hidden bonuses of the economic idea group is the national bank event, which lets you change your loans from 12 months of income to 24, effectively halving the inflation you take from loans. Economic is a pretty great idea group.
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Jan 22, 2016 08:21
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Trip report: The Third Way achievement (start as an Ibadi Muslim and eliminate other Islamic schools completely) I recently had a successful Jihad run (conquer 500 provinces and convert them to Sunni as Najd, which starts with whopping 18 points of development across six provinces), so I thought what the hell, let's play another Arabia game. Oman is Ibadi and a one of the larger three Arabian kingdoms (Hejaz and Yemen are the others). The quick walkthrough for Jihad and Third Way is pretty much the same: Snuff out out the local powers. Ally Mamluks ASAP, then declare consecutive wars against Qara Qoyunlu, Timurids or Persia (if it forms), and let your ally do all the work. When Mamluks and Ottomans almost unavoidably collide, betray Mamluks and ally Ottomans. Cockblock Ottomans from expanding to Levant/Egypt by dragging it to your own wars against Mamluks, hog all the land for yourself and only give your ally (besides a long truce period  ) just enough to avoid the opinion malus. If you also manage to block Ottomans from expanding East beyond Armenia, it isn't unreasonably difficult to overcome it soon.I found TTW to be considerably more difficult than Jihad, especially in the first 100-150 years. - Securing and keeping alliances is a lot of harder when all Muslim great powers consider you a heretic (-20 opinion, -40 if you share a border). - All the land you take is heretic, so your religious unity is in the shitter all the time. You need religious rebels available on call, because by giving in to their demands you get an increase to heretic tolerance at the cost of a decrease to tolerance of the true faith. The other option is endless waves of separatist rebels. - You can't reliably convert provinces without the religious ideas, but your expansion is slower without the administrative ideas. One has to be the first, and the other will be the third. This is all on top of the usual problems of the land being poor with both money and manpower. Avoiding debt is difficult. I had a truly odd run happen. - Two "Foreign Military Expert" events (a general with 100 tradition) in the first 25 years of the game. - Poland ends up losing a war big time against my buddy Ottomans, and loses the Lithuanian throne. Tag team Golden Horde and Muscovy completely obliterates Lithuania by 1520 and splits it between themselves.  - Timurids was looking stable, so I took the Persian core that QQ has, and formed it as a vassal. The plan was to take as many Persian cores directly for myself as I could, so that Timurid province defections don't cascade into me having a gigantic rebellious vassal that I cannot annex. It worked out mostly fine, you can see from the previous screenshot how far I got before Timurids disintegrated. - Smooth sailing until goddamn Ming decided that it has interests beyond India, and supported the Persian independence. I don't know if the AI thought that Ottomans can't help me because we don't share a land border, but Armenia gracefully gave me passage. Otto and I wrecked Ming's poo poo, conveniently resetting Persia's defection event disloyalty malus, which I had planned to wait a hundred years to disappear.  - The AI seems now a little too willing to make alliances across religious divisions in relatively early game. Here's Tunis allied to not only its usual buddy Ottomans, but also Spain, in 1564.  - Ottoman's allies: Oman (me), Tunis, Kilwa (East African Sunni superpower), and... Muscovy.  Turkey and Russia, the Ayyyld Alliance... - Here's tiny Castile, its capital in Canarias, coexisting with Spain. I don't know how this is even possible, because I know that Castile received the Iberian Wedding event earlier.  - I wonder how the colonizers are doing. Oh, England is being demolished by Ireland, and something odd has happened between Spain and Portugal. S & P were best buds in 1600, but by 1650 the latter existed only as a French vassal in exile at Ivory Coast. Brazil (English), Mexico (English) and Argentina (Portuguese) are independent.   - This here is the point at which Ottomans, itself reaching almost to the Baltic, decided that I got too greedy in the Caucasus and disbanded our 150 years long alliance. In retrospect I probably should have kept a larger standing army to deter such betrayals, but at this point I Russia had set me as a rival and was still allied to Ottomans.  I have never been in such a delicate situation at that point of the game when you can consider your country a superpower. Russia declared a war on me pretty soon, and I swore a lot, but managed to peace out Ottomans and drag the Russian war until their manpower was completely gone. At that point Ottomans declared their own war on me, I peaced out with Russia, allied Ottomans' rivals (mainly Austria) and whacked it pretty bad. Wasted 20 years but it was pretty fun and amazing in retrospect. - So at this point the game was pretty much settled. There were a couple of complications (France grabbing a few Sunni provinces in Indonesia and not converting them), but everything was going fine until... GODDAMN OTTOMANS, WITH HUMANIST IDEAS AND HEATHEN TOLERANCE THROUGH THE ROOF, STARTS TO ACTIVELY CONVERT ITS EUROPEAN PROVINCES. It shouldn't do THAT! Some provinces flipped by event, but there were definitely some missionaries in there too. I thought I had all the time in the world to take the Turkish provinces and give the European lands to whoever wants them, but now it was a race against time to make sure that somehow, someone will make all those European Sunni disappear. The result was this:  There are zero Shia provinces and three Sunni provinces in the world. The first two are the colonizable provinces in the middle corridor to central Africa. The third is the Greek island of Euboea, with misisonary zeal (-100 missionary strength) extending to late 1821. tl;dr: A rather hard achievement failed at 1820 because of a missionary zeal modifier extending about 12 months too far. (Yes I know now how I should have handled that situation, but I wasn't familiar with truly esoteric revolt gimmickry when all this was happening.) I both love and hate this game.
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Jan 22, 2016 08:32
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Wiz posted:Nah, AI uses different logic for players on CTAs and loans for this very reason. For Serial? I mean I know it's anecdotal, but I could swear that the AI will only call you if you don't have loans. Does the AI actually play by the rules that apply to the player, where favor must be accumulated? Sidebar: I don't really expect you to answer, since it would only make it easier for us to exploit the AI, but I really am curious.
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Jan 22, 2016 09:57
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PittTheElder posted:For Serial? I mean I know it's anecdotal, but I could swear that the AI will only call you if you don't have loans. Does the AI actually play by the rules that apply to the player, where favor must be accumulated? The AI uses a set of secret rules to determine if the player is just taking out loans on a lark or is actually in trouble. They will remain secret for the above mentioned reason.
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Jan 22, 2016 10:06
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vuohi posted:tl;dr: A rather hard achievement failed at 1820 because of a missionary zeal modifier extending about 12 months too far. Yep, missionary zeal is a bitch for Third Way (nevermind the world religion achievement). Also there's actually three tiers of difficulty for Third Way, in ascending order: Oman, Mzab and then Pate. Pate is theoretically not too bad if you can carve your way south and grab all the gold mines but still pretty rough in a bad spot in the world.
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Jan 22, 2016 10:59
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is this the place for hosed up maps because lmao 
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Jan 22, 2016 17:15
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Fister Roboto posted:One of the hidden bonuses of the economic idea group is the national bank event, which lets you change your loans from 12 months of income to 24, effectively halving the inflation you take from loans. Economic is a pretty great idea group. I had the bright idea of taking the 6 month income option, on the grounds that I would be paying the loans back quicker. Then I ragequit after I realised it hadn't changed the inflation costs and I was taking 4 times as much inflation as I needed to. What a dumb option!
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Jan 22, 2016 17:21
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I had my first reload, later I will expand about it, but for now I'm only going to say this: loving coalitions and gently caress the HRE.
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Jan 22, 2016 18:08
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I sat out Common Sense but got up to date on DLC over Xmas. Is there such a thing as a best start to drag me kicking and screaming into understanding forts and development (or alternately coassacks stuff too, but that seems a bit more immediately graspable)? I was up to dicking around with intermediate starts like Muscovy to Russia and Ethiopia before the CS. I booted it up shortly around Xmas and all the new stuff felt like hitting a wall, but that might have also been part of having an Xmas buzz.
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Jan 22, 2016 18:41
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England's a good start for forts; since Scotland is guaranteed by France at the start, there's a good chance you'll have to go to war with both at once, and forts really help you deal with both fronts simultaneously. In my game I put a fort up on my border with Scotland and left them occupied with it while I went to deal with the armies on the continent. They also get parliament mechanics at the start which were added in Common Sense, you'll only have to balance 2 estates at once which is slightly less confusing, and there's an achievement for developing England's provinces if you're so inclined for that. Development isn't really something to build strategies around though (unless you start as an OPM), it's just more of a dump for when you have extra points.
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Jan 22, 2016 18:50
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Koramei posted:They also get parliament mechanics at the start which were added in Common Sense, you'll only have to balance 2 estates at once which is slightly less confusing, and there's an achievement for developing England's provinces if you're so inclined for that. Development isn't really something to build strategies around though (unless you start as an OPM), it's just more of a dump for when you have extra points. Yeah, development is just a better abstraction of provinces than the old system, and you have the option to increase it but even stacking the available discounts it's almost strictly a point dump. Gold mines are worth slamming a bunch of DIP points into to raise production to 10, it's a great way to bootstrap your early game economy. Other than that it's a point dump, not a bad idea to prioritize unlocking building slots if and when you do throw down some development.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:17
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Yeah (other than the aforementioned gold mines, which can more than double your income in some starts) the main benefit of development is being able to unlock more building slots, not the actual income increase it gives you, which is usually like .02 ducats or something for practically the same price as increasing stability or culture converting. Whenever I have points to burn, I go to the development tab in the macrobuilder, sort the provinces by development level, and increase all the ones that say 9 or 19. You get a new slot for every 10 development in a province, and since Common Sense, buildings are very much worth building. I really don't know why Paradox is so conservative with the development discounts though, even the capital bonus with a loving huge empire only goes up to 50%, which for a 20 dev+ province means jack poo poo. I get not making nationwide development discounts strong, but for individual provinces it seems strange. Right now stacking development on a single province is pretty much just a vanity thing. What's the point of 5% discounts on farmland and centers of trade? Those might as well not even be there and nobody would notice.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:35
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Is there an easy way to get another country's stability low? Other than giving them "reasonable" peace offers that they refuse anyway.
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Jan 22, 2016 19:47
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Wiz posted:The AI uses a set of secret rules to determine if the player is just taking out loans on a lark or is actually in trouble. They will remain secret for the above mentioned reason. Can you make the so care about my manpower? Declaring a hard war when I'm on a few loans and at 0 manpower is both suicidal and retarded.
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Jan 22, 2016 21:32
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Anyone played Novgorod lately? I'm thinking of doing Frozen Assets, but I remember how much of a grind it used to be in like 1.2. Is it still all earth scorching to run down Muscovy's manpower, and hoping Kazan jumps on them? Broguts posted:Is there an easy way to get another country's stability low? Other than giving them "reasonable" peace offers that they refuse anyway. Nope.
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Jan 22, 2016 21:57
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Actually you can, just bankrupt them in a war and that's -3 stability
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Jan 22, 2016 22:01
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"just" they've purposefully made it really hard to break other nations like that, you're not supposed to do it. Bankrupting someone means spending an obscene amount of time at war with them unless you declared on them at just the right time. PittTheElder posted:Anyone played Novgorod lately? I'm thinking of doing Frozen Assets, but I remember how much of a grind it used to be in like 1.2. Is it still all earth scorching to run down Muscovy's manpower, and hoping Kazan jumps on them? Might not work, but I did a Golden Horde game just recently where I allied Novgorod and used them to
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Jan 22, 2016 22:05
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PittTheElder posted:Anyone played Novgorod lately? I'm thinking of doing Frozen Assets, but I remember how much of a grind it used to be in like 1.2. Is it still all earth scorching to run down Muscovy's manpower, and hoping Kazan jumps on them? Yeah I did a Frozen Assets run, it's pretty good fun. It's extremely helpful if you can get Poland on your side, but even Livonian Order + Novgorod is enough to put up a good fight against them early on. You just need to not get steamrolled by them at the start, then it pretty much plays like a slower Muscovy. One important thing to note: it's really easy to have the highest trade value in White Sea, but it can be a little tricky to have 90%+ power because England gets an early, high-likelihood event that gives them a permanent +20 base trade power. You'll need to build up White Sea a bit with marketplaces and have a decent size trade fleet to get the achievement.
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Jan 22, 2016 22:17
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Welp, the game suddenly and quite randomly bugged out and refused to let me hire mercs in half my empire. Apparently it is impossible to hire mercs overseas even if those "overseas" provinces are actually connected by land to the capital and it worked just fine a few in-game months prior. 
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Jan 22, 2016 23:07
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Are there occupied provinces in between?
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Jan 22, 2016 23:47
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Nope, and while there is a short but narrow 1 province wide corridor past a group of vassals to reach my Central Asian lands there is a fairly wide one down to Africa and neither place could hire any mercs at all (only inside Europe) until I saved&reloaded the game (about half a year before I got fed up with the lack of mercs to siege down heathens).
Poil fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Jan 23, 2016 |
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Jan 23, 2016 00:18
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vuohi posted:- Here's tiny Castile, its capital in Canarias, coexisting with Spain. I don't know how this is even possible, because I know that Castile received the Iberian Wedding event earlier. Heh, I've got tiny Castile in my game too. Aragon ate all their Iberian land, became Spain, and now Castile rules from Xhosa in South Africa! None of this was my doing. I'm going for Great Khan and I don't think I've ever actually fought either of them.
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Jan 23, 2016 04:23
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I hear that this thread enjoys discussions of European military history from 1444 to 1821 sometimes. Bonus longbows
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Jan 23, 2016 04:51
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Italy has some bomb rear end ideas. Holy poo poo. The only weak part is their ambition.
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Jan 23, 2016 07:27
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Italy is very much a top tier nation now. The only hurdle is forming them.
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Jan 23, 2016 08:02
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Can you form them and still stay a Republic yet? Also, Novgorod is actually really easy now. Just ally Tver and Ryazan off the start and build 6 units so Muscovy doesn't attack you immediately. Then get to improving relations with Poland; if you share a rival in Denmark or hire a Dip Rep adviser you can get an alliance with them, and then they'll demolish Muscovy for you. Building up Sweden seems to be a mixed bag, they keep picking fights with Denmark and all her north German allies, and is constantly in debt and thus pretty useless as an ally.
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Jan 23, 2016 08:37
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PittTheElder posted:Can you form them and still stay a Republic yet? I started as Lucca, formed an Empire, and formed Italy and I'm still a republic. Italy would be a serious contender for a WC attempt, but I think the beginning would be too slow due to all the time you spend waiting for AE to lower. 33% manpower, 15% infantry and tax modifier, 25% core cost reduction? Yes, please. If only you could start with the 50% better relations over time while you're still in the process forming Italy, it'd go so much faster.
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Jan 23, 2016 08:43
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Doesn't Italy still get an IA bonus. If you did something wacky like prevented Shadow Empire and then became HRE, you could get even more core cost discount.
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Jan 23, 2016 08:49
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Larry Parrish posted:Doesn't Italy still get an IA bonus. If you did something wacky like prevented Shadow Empire and then became HRE, you could get even more core cost discount. I don't see it in any ideas/traditions/histories or modifiers. I left the HRE when the Shadow Empire triggered. I like the modifier that basically tells you you're a pathetic shill for the Emperor if you're a big wuss and stay in the Empire and makes all the Italians dislike you.
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Jan 23, 2016 09:26
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The IA bonus just seems out of place; it was added before the whole Shadow Empire mechanic existed and back when forming Italy made you into a monarchy and didn't remove you from the HRE. The only time that bonus would actually be helpful would be if you managed to become an Elector or Emperor before forming Italy which seems unlikely to happen in most games. Fake edit: I just checked and it's a prestige bonus now which makes sense.
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Jan 23, 2016 09:28
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So after a couple hours of Novgorod, I really miss Estates. Is there some way to become a non-merchant Republic?
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Jan 23, 2016 10:07
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