Grand Strategy/Paradox

[Void]

This game is excellent.  I'm simply "forced" to get it.

[MrTony]

The campaign ended already.

I fail,I meant the final thoughts.Btw,I kept staring at Darth Nihilus lol.

[Jubin]

When this game ends I would like to have the Baltic Sea as my empires inner sea. That is the goal I have set for myself and that pretty much leaves me the only option to deal with all those big countries in some point in the game as well as I have to deal with other German nations, which is a bit difficult, as they look after each other as they are part of the Holy Roman Empire.

That was the goal I sat for myself when I started the game and when the campaign ended, I did not meet the criteria, although I wasn't far off. Only thing separating me from the goal was Sweden, who just wouldn't become my vassal. Although it is logical, seeing that he actually also had some territories in North America:

 :ps: USA does exist, but it is just in Central America todays Nicaragua.

Now other thoughts. Well as a Teutonic Order I could have done a lot better from the start if I would have built a decent navy from start. It doesn't have to be big, as AI usually don't bother with big ships at also building 10 big ship is quite enough for start. The benefit as a Teutonic Order/Prussia owning  a navy is its location. To get trough to Prussia if not having a border with it, is only trough Danish waters, and if owning big enough fleet there to guard that area, there is literally no chance to trouble Prussian territories. In later time of the game that was basically how I kept 3 to 5 country simultaneously away from me, while I was fighting one of my neighbors.

Also, try to keep your wars short and best if it as few participants as possible. Mostly because when there is a lot of participants the war tends to get big as those participants have allies, who also have another allies and so forth. That is for example the reason, I had a losing war against Austria, who actually thought wouldn't enter at all as I started the war against Sweden - who had allies Scotland and Portugal - both who I can keep off with my navy. Then again Portugal had Austria as ally and it had 3 times bigger army, and a border with me.
Another one is that you can get more with a good word and a gun than just  with a good word, but other countries tolerate a lot more if you gain territories with just a good word.

Now I am thinking what country should I try next.

[Jellyfish]

Kinda reminds me of 'Risk'
Although it probably isn't anything like it with the advanced storyline,graphics and gameplay.

[Jubin]

just bumping this topic as I would like to see other players AAR's.

[Oliver_Daniels]

I inherited Ming and Manchu as Japan, got cores on all of their territories.
Yay me.

Read all of Jubin's campaign and I think I'm going to do a game as well. Just need to think of a country now, maybe I'll go for uniting Saudi Arabia.

[JayL]

I'll show a couple of pics and highlights of my game as I don't have the habit of taking screenshots, but here we go.

First off I started as Muscovy. First mission was to get Yaroslavl and so I immediately beat Tver to it. Not long after the initial truce with Golden Horde was broken so I started to have a tribute load in my economy. For that I hired a Master of Mint and with him I managed to stabilize my economy.

And so it went with Golden Horde - truces all the time until 1450 where I took the offensive along with other countries and got the largest slice of the pie. By 1430-1440 I already had Novgorod in my hands thanks to a concentrated surprise attack with which I could safely pick all their provinces (in two wars) as the truce strategy with Golden Horde was working.

After the war with Novgorod I had a good army, good territory and with a National Bank and Master of Mint I finally had a safe income to afford an attack. So there it went - launched my offensive and not long after other neighbors started to attack Golden Horde, most notably the Ottomans. I spent nearly whole 1460-1560 colonising the Golden Horde territory (plus a few off-guard neighbors such as Sibir) and expanding my empire. Russian nation was formed at some point in the early 1520s.

This period was relatively calm for me excluding the Golden Hordes as the potential threats (Lithuania and Poland) were easily overriden and later split between a bunch of Western power enclaves. Besides I kept a relatively friendly relation with Ottoman Empire, which arose as the main Arab power, and Persia which was expanding significantly. Manchu, Tibet and Korea were not even heard of.

During 1600-1700 I continued to expand my empire towards the Pacific Ocean - a period of relative peace; my army had grown to 100-120k troops and so I could maintain it distributed through the entire country to counter any revolts. By about 1660 I had stacked a good 20.000 ducats and I was preparing the entire country for a war with Western neighbors...

From 1700s onwards I turned my attention back to Western Europe. My first enemy was Sweden - they had taken Karelia and Polotsk earlier so I had to reconquer these two territories. I managed to get half of the provinces of Eastern Sweden but their retaliation was strong so I backed off to Karelia and Polotsk (mainly due Land Technology disparity which I did not initally pay attention to - I had double of their manpower). By this point Sweden's mainland was the Baltic region as their Scandinavian territories were occupied by several colonial powers such as Portugal, and their neighbor Norway.

After the war with Sweden I did the last preparations to my focus at the time - the Baltic region. By 1730 Sweden was kicked out of it and Bohemia had taken over, coming to my borders. They made a significant expansion in a short amount of time, which posed a big threat to me. I massed a 135.000 men strong army at the border and declared war. First phase I took defensive positions - they sent massed armies to my front but they were picked off one by one. After the bulk of Bohemian military was taken over I stretched my army all over Bohemia (I had no allies at all as they proved to be useless).

Great Britain, Portugal and Saxony joined the war on Bohemia's side, though their overstretching with colonial matters only allowed them little resources against Russia - the regiments sent against me were easily crushed by my armies, giving me control of Warmia which was in British hands.

War exhaustion and a chain reaction of revolts significantly halted my conquest of Bohemia, so I had to negotiate peace with my enemy at all costs. However I faced a problem - my infamy allowed me to claim only about 40% of the territory despite I had Imperialism casus belli. So I came with this move: demanded an ''isolation perimeter'' of provinces, effectively splitting Bohemia in half - one half was encircled by my territories and the other half got overriden by Ulm and Austria. At this time things went relatively calm again and I expanded my army to 250.000 troops.

As soon as I got out of the war, the Koreans suddenly declared a war on me. However Korea had a largely backward land technology so I barely needed to mobilise additional armies into the Far East for defense.

After a bit of maintenance (building manufactories, improving provinces, etc) it was Persia's time to declare war on me. Just like Korea though they had a large technology disadvantadge and asked for peace as soon as I had my Moscow armies arriving at the border. Not much action came out of it. However it was not enough - came the Ottomans and played their bit by attacking me.

However the Ottomans were at a large disadvantadge - their European exit was blocked off by Serbia, Kosovo and Bulgaria rendering that route ineffective for an attack. I moved an army of 15.000 men to provinces of Cheson, Abkhazia and Crimea which were not garrisoned at all. The fact that their only attack route proved to be the provinces of the Caucasus I quickly set up a massed defense belt and once again picked their massed armies bit by bit. With this I conquered provinces of Black Sea and the Caucasus, which delayed my plan of overtaking Bohemia as I had to wait for my infamy to cool down again.

With the Far East fully colonised and developed, and Caucasus, Crimea, Karelia and Eastern Baltic under my control, I had two priorities left: annex the reborn states Lithuania and Ukraine which got a stripe of provinces through nationalist revolts during the war with Bohemia, and take the Bohemian land which I encircled. Lithuania and Ukraine were reconquered and so I was a step closer to my final objectives.

Now I am at 1791 and a few curiosities:
- entire America is heavily fragmented, with La Plata and Chile emerging as independent nations in the South.
- contrarty to the expected, the kingdom to experience tremendous revolts was Austria and not France, making Austria the first Revolutionary Republic in Europe
- Spain is still not united, with Castille being the main colonial power and Aragon having small shares of land scattered through different continents. Castille is the only one of the ''old colonial vanguard'' to keep its strength
- Portugal mainland moved to North America as most of their original territory was taken by Castille
- Great Britain, France and Portugal are weakened: limited army, overstretching and constant territorial gains/losses in mainland (France); most notable European countries at the moment being Russia and Austria
- Ottoman Empire is meeting its demise. After the failed war with Russia their military was severely weakened and several territories were lost, leaving them only a bit of what they originally had
- Southern Slavic states such as Serbia seem to finally conquer their survival, as until now they were constantly made independent and then annexed again. Moldavia is still constantly attacking Serbs, though

A few screenshots (1791):
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_16.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_17.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_18.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_19.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_20.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_21.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_22.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_23.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_24.bmp
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61812758/eu3/EU3_25.bmp

Conclusion: Muscovy/Russia is an extremely enjoyable game, specially considering it's my first EU3 game - things such as harsh start with Golden Horde and initial land technology disadvantadge to countries like Sweden made me learn with bad mistakes and overcome them, as well as having a lot of fun going to war with others and what not. I'd recommend it as a option to new players, instead of Castille.

[ElMartu]

That Portugal, man. They always change their capital to America.

I'm playing Granada cheated. I conquered pretty much the entire Iberian peninsula by now, but France is giving me a really tough time. The plan is to make entire Europe muslim.

If enough people are interested, like, really enough (at least 5), we could try playing multiplayer... Me and Oliver played quite a bit already but it'd be nice to try it out with you, Jubin and whoever else, man.

[Jubin]

That Portugal, man. They always change their capital to America.

I'm playing Granada cheated. I conquered pretty much the entire Iberian peninsula by now, but France is giving me a really tough time. The plan is to make entire Europe muslim.

You need hell of a lot of luck for that.

[ElMartu]

Doable, man. I'm at what? 1480? And I've conquered all Iberia but 3 provinces, and all the 'shaft' of Italy. I've got a permanent Holy War CB on all my catholic neighbors so it's rather smooth sailing. I figure I'll eventually be able to beat France in a war of attrition.

[Jubin]

Doable, man. I'm at what? 1480? And I've conquered all Iberia but 3 provinces, and all the 'shaft' of Italy. I've got a permanent Holy War CB on all my catholic neighbors so it's rather smooth sailing. I figure I'll eventually be able to beat France in a war of attrition.

France, Great Britain, Austria, whole of Germany, Poland-Lithuania, Scandinavia etc. If nothing else, then the stability from all the wars or infamy which takes too long to go down to get all of Europe.

[BKP]

This game is much too complicated for me  :roll:

[ElMartu]

France, Great Britain, Austria, whole of Germany, Poland-Lithuania, Scandinavia etc. If nothing else, then the stability from all the wars or infamy which takes too long to go down to get all of Europe.

We'll see in 300 years ok

But it's getting a bit complicated, yes. I recently got into war with an overly powerful Hansa, around the meditarranean (Spain, islands and Italy). Their superior navy was a huge problem, and Overextension and 9 war exhaustion had me struggling a bit, but I was winning.

Then France declared war. I quit then and there.

This game is much too complicated for me  :roll:

Well man if you're really interseted, there are a lot of videos and tutorials you can watch or read. There is a great one on the Something Awful forums about Castille, but apparently you have to sign up now. You can also ask any questions in this thread.

[Jubin]

Or check paradox forum and the wiki of EU for good hints, AARs

[ElMartu]

Or check paradox forum and the wiki of EU for good hints, AARs

I thought you couldn't read those unless you bought at least one of their games.