Europa Universalis IV: Buying all the DLC is just Common Sense

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VDay: Jul 2, 2003; I'm Pacman Jones!

Just to double-check the wiki: Aragon can be my ally (as Castille) and the Iberian Wedding will still fire, right? They just can't be my subject? I managed to not be rivals with them at the start of the game and am wondering if it's worth it to ally them and help them grab up a bunch of territory before the Spain merger.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 06:32

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 19:00

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

Yep. Ally and feed.

For reference:

code:

# The Iberian Wedding
country_event = {
	id = flavor_spa.3716
	title = "flavor_spa.EVTNAME3716"
	desc = "flavor_spa.EVTDESC3716"
	picture = DIPLOMACY_eventPicture

	major = yes
	
	fire_only_once = yes
	
	
	trigger = {
		tag = CAS
		NOT = { exists = SPA }
		is_year = 1450
		NOT = { is_year = 1530 }
		is_subject = no
		ARA = {
			exists = yes
			ai = yes
			was_player = no
			is_subject = no
			is_neighbor_of = ROOT
		}
		NOT = { war_with = ARA }
		OR = {
			AND = {
				is_female = yes
				ARA = { is_female = no }
			}
			AND = {
				is_female = no
				ARA = { is_female = yes }
			}
			ARA = {
				has_regency = yes
			}
		}
	}

# ? Aug 3, 2015 06:42

Jackson Taus: Oct 19, 2011

Am I in good shape on this Sun God run? Just westernized. Still have to pick up an unfortunate number of techs (about 3-4 in each category). My general goal is to march that snake you see in the south up north along the Portuguese border to the wasteland and then fill it in. For ideas I have the first 6 in Exploration and the first 1 in Expansion. I'm assuming I go Defensive next?

TTBF posted:

That is some exceptionally bad luck in a lot of areas. Quite a few people here did Sun God runs not too long ago, and I don't think anyone mentioned Europeans showing up before the third reform was passed. I'd suggest trying again if you think your current game is unsalvageable. It's unlikely luck will be that bad again.

One thing that I found worked really well to speed stuff up in the early game was to force-vassalize the smaller Andean nations, wait 10 years, annex them, then lower autonomy. Lowering autonomy is 5 authority per province, so doing that to a 4-6 province Andean nation will ultimately get you a huge chunk of a reform and outweighs the tiny bit of extra authority you'd get from holding the land. Plus you get to balance spending diplo points and admin points, etc.

Dreylad posted:

In 1.13, though the Europeans seem to get to South America much faster. Basically by 1505-1510 they're going to have a few colonies in South America and by 1520 they're going to be exploring the west coast. I managed to conquer the Andes by 1504, reform my religion by about 1545 and immediately westernize, but about 10 years in I just had Spain declare on me. Not to mention that France, Holland, England, and Spain (but not Portugal, weirdly, I think they own all of the Caribbean though) are all colonizing parts of South America. One thing to try is to move your capital close to one colony and see if you can get a European power to declare you their protectorate while you finish up your reforms, colonize like a mad Inca, and westernize.

Wow. I didn't run into Europeans until I went looking for them in the early 1500s, and I had the Andes conquered before that (I ran into them by conquering Muisica and colonizing eastward until I hit Spain's Colombian colonies). I guess I massively lucked out.

Jackson Taus fucked around with this message at 07:18 on Aug 3, 2015

# ? Aug 3, 2015 07:14

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

Kersch posted:

I'm playing a Papal States game and these centers of reformation won't leave me alone. Like 75% of my country is wrong religion and there's nothing to do about it. What a big fart.

This happened in my Papal States multiplayer game too, and I see it happen to the AI every other game. The CoF are in England/Scandinavia and it will still convert provinces owned by the Pope first.

The really disturbing thing? I've not seen this mentioned as a bug or something fixed with the beta patch.

Let me tell you a Story about Meissner Porzelan and the Saxon way to reach China

I got the achievement and the ugliest borders ever. After eating my vassal Astrakhan I ended up with a production income of over 600 ducats a month and I learned you can't have trade companies if you have a land connection.
For anyone else doing this, I would go full out production or full out trade if I did this again. If you go full out production you need Admin ideas for the coring cost, ending up as HRE by accident also helps with that. If you go full out trade you will want protectorates.

Bonus fun point? I reached the Philippines before Portugal and blocked Russia from Siberia with my colonies.

Tahirovic fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Aug 3, 2015

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:20

420 Gank Mid: Dec 26, 2008; WARNING: This poster is a huge bitch!

Kersch posted:

I'm playing a Papal States game and these centers of reformation won't leave me alone. Like 75% of my country is wrong religion and there's nothing to do about it. What a big fart.

Pope and Defender of the Faith (for Catholicism) should get CB's on any holder of a Center of Reformation

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:29

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Tahirovic posted:

This happened in my Papal States multiplayer game too, and I see it happen to the AI every other game. The CoF are in England/Scandinavia and it will still convert provinces owned by the Pope first.

The really disturbing thing? I've not seen this mentioned as a bug or something fixed with the beta patch.

Which reminds me: How is religious unity calculated? I vaguely recall that tolerance of Heretics/Infidels now influences it but I'm not sure.

Edit: For Sun God filling out Expansion may not be ideally so no Quantity policy. I say go for Defensive and let them bleed in your mountains.

genericnick fucked around with this message at 10:51 on Aug 3, 2015

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:32

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Jackson Taus posted:

Am I in good shape on this Sun God run? Just westernized. Still have to pick up an unfortunate number of techs (about 3-4 in each category). My general goal is to march that snake you see in the south up north along the Portuguese border to the wasteland and then fill it in. For ideas I have the first 6 in Exploration and the first 1 in Expansion. I'm assuming I go Defensive next?

Go quantity for the extra colonist policy, and to try and crush Western troops that will be up on ideas and tech compared to yours with superior numbers.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:46

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

420 Gank Mid posted:

Pope and Defender of the Faith (for Catholicism) should get CB's on any holder of a Center of Reformation

I feel you should also get a CB on the owner of a CoF that is converting a province of yours.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:46

420 Gank Mid: Dec 26, 2008; WARNING: This poster is a huge bitch!

genericnick posted:

Which reminds me: How is religious unity calculated? I vaguely recall that tolerance of Heretics/Infidels now influences it but I'm not sure.

It used to be % of basetax that is the True Faith + modifiers (like humanist ideas) = Religious Union

Now I don't know if it is only tax development level, or also takes into account other development levels. Tolerance does not change unity, it only lowers the penalties for wrong-faith provinces.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 10:50

Pyromancer: Apr 29, 2011; This man must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart

genericnick posted:

Which reminds me: How is religious unity calculated? I vaguely recall that tolerance of Heretics/Infidels now influences it but I'm not sure.

It's based on number of provinces not following your religion to total number of provinces. Positive tolerance makes heretic/heaten province count as less than 1, it's 0 at +3 so it doesn't lower religious unity. Negative tolerance doesn't make it any worse than 0 tolerance.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 11:02

VDay: Jul 2, 2003; I'm Pacman Jones!

Jackson Taus posted:

Am I in good shape on this Sun God run? Just westernized. Still have to pick up an unfortunate number of techs (about 3-4 in each category). My general goal is to march that snake you see in the south up north along the Portuguese border to the wasteland and then fill it in. For ideas I have the first 6 in Exploration and the first 1 in Expansion. I'm assuming I go Defensive next?

You're absolutely fine, and I'm jealous of how many uncolonized provinces the Europeans left for you. In my Sun God run when I was around the same date as you about a quarter of South America was already colonized by Spain, GB, and Portugal by the time I found them. If you just cut Portugal off like you're planning to and focus on picking up every valuable interior province, you should be more than fine when it comes time to kick the Europeans out. If all else fails, just hang back and build your economy/army up. There's like a 90% chance that the Europeans' colonial nations will become independent at some point, even if you decide not to help them. Once you get the imperialism CB, most provinces are so low in development that you'll probably swallow up entire CN's in one war. Don't forget to build a ton of heavy ships as soon as you can afford them. Keeping the Europeans out by boxing them out with a superior heavy ship fleet lets you just sit on the ticking warscore and win a war without having to deal with any massive armies or the hassle of trying to invade Europe.

Tahirovic posted:

Let me tell you a Story about Meissner Porzelan and the Saxon way to reach China

I got the achievement and the ugliest borders ever.

Amazing

Tahirovic posted:

I feel you should also get a CB on the owner of a CoF that is converting a province of yours.

This makes sense but I get the feeling that it's not already in the game because the AI would go insane with all the CBs once the reformation hits and the result would be some incomprehensible mess, leaving the HRE even more in ruins than it's supposed to be.

Speaking of wars in the HRE, has anyone else noticed the Pope declaring wars against minors in the HRE that he just has absolutely zero chance of winning? I thought I noticed it happening in my last game, and now starting a Castille game and while restarting a couple of times just to get a feel for things I noticed it happening quite a bit. We're talking the Pope, with just his starting provinces and maybe an alliance to a medium-sized nation, declaring war on Ferrara and dragging Austria in...and Hungary...and France...

I can't tell if it's the AI just overestimating its own strength or if it's a legitimate bug. We're talking about like a 3:1 disadvantage in total army/troop numbers, so it feels like maybe the AI isn't calculating the fact that the HRE emperor gets called in as a co-belligerent into wars against HRE members instead of just a regular ally.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 12:25

TTBF: Sep 14, 2005

VDay posted:

Yeah Ottos, the blue is just because it's an in-game screenshot in coalition mode since I figured that would show me vs the rest of the world the clearest. Started off just going for the Sultan of Rum achievement since I realized I didn't have it. I just kind of went about expanding into Africa and Asia like I normally would and it wasn't until I realized that I could grab a ton of land fairly easily in about 1600 just due to the way alliances/coalitions were going that I actually buckled down and started grabbing provinces every chance I could get. In a way I guess it actually kind of helped since I got to build up my economy to a silly point before aggressively expanding

How far into Africa do you usually go? I felt that due to not being able to capitalize on trade in Safi and Tunis it felt like kind of a waste, and that the Horn of Africa didnt' give me much aside from helping me 100% the Gulf of Aden.

Jackson Taus posted:

Am I in good shape on this Sun God run? Just westernized. Still have to pick up an unfortunate number of techs (about 3-4 in each category). My general goal is to march that snake you see in the south up north along the Portuguese border to the wasteland and then fill it in. For ideas I have the first 6 in Exploration and the first 1 in Expansion. I'm assuming I go Defensive next?

You are doing amazing, but you need to go Economics next. It will really help deal with the massive inflation you're sure to have. Don't do a miltech until you're caught up with your European neighbors.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:06

TomEmanski: Dec 29, 2008

Dreylad posted:

I've been messing around with Cusco/Inca for the achievement and just recently went from 1.12 to 1.13. What I noticed is that in my 1.12 run the Europeans showed up pretty late, around 1550 or so, which gave me time to get ready despite me forgetting about history and the civil war that spawns soon after you get hit with the first rounds of smallpox, and in the process losing my capital and 2 religious reforms to pretenders. I ended up giving up my 1.12 game because I played for a while with the 601 day colonization bug without realizing it, pretty much making it impossible for me to finish the achievement.

In 1.13, though the Europeans seem to get to South America much faster. Basically by 1505-1510 they're going to have a few colonies in South America and by 1520 they're going to be exploring the west coast. I managed to conquer the Andes by 1504, reform my religion by about 1545 and immediately westernize, but about 10 years in I just had Spain declare on me. Not to mention that France, Holland, England, and Spain (but not Portugal, weirdly, I think they own all of the Caribbean though) are all colonizing parts of South America. One thing to try is to move your capital close to one colony and see if you can get a European power to declare you their protectorate while you finish up your reforms, colonize like a mad Inca, and westernize.

I was a little slow in conquering the northern countries due to their network of alliances. Perhaps I should have been more aggressive there in forming Inca. I'll have to try the lowering autonomy trick on annexed vassals to speed things up next time.

Here's a picture of my situation when Spain DOW'd me.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:10

Gitro: May 29, 2013

genericnick posted:

Which reminds me: How is religious unity calculated? I vaguely recall that tolerance of Heretics/Infidels now influences it but I'm not sure.

Edit: For Sun God filling out Expansion may not be ideally so no Quantity policy. I say go for Defensive and let them bleed in your mountains.

You've got three different answers already, but I'm pretty sure it's percentage of total (not just tax) development held by true faith provinces. Heathen/heretic tolerance 0 or below makes them count 0% of their development and I think it's 25% per point of tolerance, up to a maximum of 3. So if you had 100 total development, and 20 of it was held by heathens and you had the maximum +3 tolerance you'd have 95% religious unity (80 from true faith, 20*0.75 for 15).

Actually no, just read the wiki and it's 25% of development from wrong religion provinces starting at 0, so at +3 tolerance across the board your unity will never dip below 100.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:23

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

gently caress, you need to be Western Tech to get Trade Companies? My plan to go east as Novgorodian Russia, build a fleet in Siberia, and colonize Asia from the other direction has just gotten a lot more complicated, and it was already tricky as gently caress since I'm spending a lot of admin points on all sorts of poo poo.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:37

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

You could just conquer Vienna and westernize via decision, afaik it is available for the entire Eastern tech group.

Edit: actually even easier, get Danzig.

Wiki posted:

If your tech group is Eastern technology group Eastern or Ottoman technology group Anatolian, Westernisation can be much simpler. By having Danzig, Wien, or Prague as a core province with no separatism and 1 Icon stability.png stability, one can westernize via decision if at peace.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:39

Gitro: May 29, 2013

Danzig is almost definitely going to be easier to reach, unless you do something funky with a black sea port or vassalising Hungary.

I don't really get why Prague is an option. Pretty much anyone who can take that decision will be able to take either Wien or Danzig long before they can core Prague.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:45

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

Poland and Lithuania are my mortal enemies, so I guess it's workable. It's just that I rather stay in Russian regions, though I could snipe it and turn it into a death fortress of attrition until seperatism is up.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 13:55

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Gitro posted:

You've got three different answers already, but I'm pretty sure it's percentage of total (not just tax) development held by true faith provinces. Heathen/heretic tolerance 0 or below makes them count 0% of their development and I think it's 25% per point of tolerance, up to a maximum of 3. So if you had 100 total development, and 20 of it was held by heathens and you had the maximum +3 tolerance you'd have 95% religious unity (80 from true faith, 20*0.75 for 15).

Actually no, just read the wiki and it's 25% of development from wrong religion provinces starting at 0, so at +3 tolerance across the board your unity will never dip below 100.

Didn't even think to check the wiki since a lot of pages seem out of date. Thank you.

TTBF posted:

How far into Africa do you usually go? I felt that due to not being able to capitalize on trade in Safi and Tunis it felt like kind of a waste, and that the Horn of Africa didnt' give me much aside from helping me 100% the Gulf of Aden.

The only reason in my view for going into Tunis is the Uniting Islam decision. Which itself isn't worth much. Wouldn't bother otherwise, considering all the poison cores there. In my current game I think I'll at least try to get those inland gold provinces. Even though my expansion is mostly limited by overextension at the moment and there are still parts of India I haven't grabbed.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 14:04

Gitro: May 29, 2013

toasterwarrior posted:

Poland and Lithuania are my mortal enemies, so I guess it's workable. It's just that I rather stay in Russian regions, though I could snipe it and turn it into a death fortress of attrition until seperatism is up.

The Baltic is pretty nice to collect in if you've got a merchant spare. You don't need too many provinces to get good trade power, Danzig being the biggest one, and you'll catch any value that leaks from Novgorod as well as the decent chunk of value that's there by default. Breaking Poland/Lithuania would probably secure your western borders forever, too, especially if you grab Moldavia or Mazovia and feed them up.

genericnick posted:

Didn't even think to check the wiki since a lot of pages seem out of date. Thank you.

I've found the vicky2 wiki to be utter poo poo, and I remember having issues with the eu3 one, but the eu4 wiki is really, really useful, even the pages that say they're outdated. Pretty much all the main game mechanics are up to date and have good write-ups.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 14:14

Jackson Taus: Oct 19, 2011

TomEmanski posted:

I was a little slow in conquering the northern countries due to their network of alliances. Perhaps I should have been more aggressive there in forming Inca. I'll have to try the lowering autonomy trick on annexed vassals to speed things up next time.

Here's a picture of my situation when Spain DOW'd me.

You've pretty much got to handle the Andean nations first (and before 1500). It's definitely doable if you're aggressive. I got a clutch diplo-vassalization of Chachapoya so keep an eye out for stuff like that. I think I only had to fight one or two wars where I was outnumbered, and I could do that by just preventing the allies from linking up.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 14:31

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

I'm pretty sure that reformation centers work this way:
-They spawn in the furthest non-overseas province you have from Rome. Overseas counted from your capital, not from Rome. For example if you're playing as England it'll show up way up north but not on F�r�arna or Iceland if you happen to own them.
-They begin by converting your lands starting near itself.
-Once done they will convert provinces as far away as they can reach and towards Rome.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 15:03

420 Gank Mid: Dec 26, 2008; WARNING: This poster is a huge bitch!

TomEmanski posted:

I was a little slow in conquering the northern countries due to their network of alliances. Perhaps I should have been more aggressive there in forming Inca. I'll have to try the lowering autonomy trick on annexed vassals to speed things up next time.

Here's a picture of my situation when Spain DOW'd me.

You're missing out on a LOT by leaving the Andes loose. You get huge Authority points for lowering autonomy so conquering those lands, and either coring or annexing them to lower unrest, and then lowering autonomy lets you reform religion much faster. You should be looking at having all the Andes minors integrated and 3 or 4 reforms passed by ~1510 and before you first find the Iberians lurking around SA's Northwest coast.

Poil posted:

I'm pretty sure that reformation centers work this way:
-They spawn in the furthest non-overseas province you have from Rome. Overseas counted from your capital, not from Rome. For example if you're playing as England it'll show up way up north but not on F�r�arna or Iceland if you happen to own them.
-They begin by converting your lands starting near itself.
-Once done they will convert provinces as far away as they can reach and towards Rome.

It would be nice if instead of rushing into Italy, they would instead seek to spread the new faith to provinces in the same region (France/Germany/Italy/etc.), who share the same culture, or provinces that have higher autonomy.

420 Gank Mid fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Aug 3, 2015

# ? Aug 3, 2015 15:27

Tahirovic: Feb 25, 2009; Fun Shoe

That is how they usually work, what I've seen happen in a couple of games is that the CoF spawns in Scandinavia or England and instantly starts converting provinces owned by the Papal State, this almost ruined my own Papal States game and made some other europe games a huge mess.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 15:28

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

toasterwarrior posted:

gently caress, you need to be Western Tech to get Trade Companies? My plan to go east as Novgorodian Russia, build a fleet in Siberia, and colonize Asia from the other direction has just gotten a lot more complicated, and it was already tricky as gently caress since I'm spending a lot of admin points on all sorts of poo poo.

Russia has a special event chain that makes it easier IIRC.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 15:31

Poil: Mar 17, 2007

Oh, man. I'm playing as Novgorod and Pomerania attacked the Teutonic Order and grabbed Danzig. Later Poland invaded, took some land and set Danzig free. One quick no-CB war later and I'm just waiting for the admin tech. Devilish luck. :toot:

# ? Aug 3, 2015 15:50

PittTheElder: Feb 13, 2012; Yes, it's like a lava lamp.

toasterwarrior posted:

Poland and Lithuania are my mortal enemies, so I guess it's workable. It's just that I rather stay in Russian regions, though I could snipe it and turn it into a death fortress of attrition until seperatism is up.

Release Danzig, diplovassalize, wait 10 years, integrate, Westernize. Piece of cake.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 17:27

toasterwarrior: Nov 11, 2011

PittTheElder posted:

Release Danzig, diplovassalize, wait 10 years, integrate, Westernize. Piece of cake.

Brilliant! Once I kick off the Great Eastern Attrition-fest, I'll have something to force on the Poles come the finish.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 17:29

VDay: Jul 2, 2003; I'm Pacman Jones!

TTBF posted:

How far into Africa do you usually go? I felt that due to not being able to capitalize on trade in Safi and Tunis it felt like kind of a waste, and that the Horn of Africa didnt' give me much aside from helping me 100% the Gulf of Aden.

I wasn't originally planning to go into Africa at all because it's rarely worth it, but once I got Jerusalem/Mecca/Medina for the free missionaries/prestige and decided I have a chance at the 1,001 province achievement it was pretty easy to work my way down the eastern and northern coasts. I mainly expanded into Africa whenever I needed to take a break in Europe/Asia from too much AE. If I wasn't going for the achievement I'd probably just swoop down the gulf of Aden and grab Mutapa's gold provinces for the free money.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 17:51

Prop Wash: Jun 12, 2010

Control of the gulf of Aden is pretty key if you want to divert some Asian trade up toward Alexandria. The gold provinces are pretty awesome too. Plus if you take the cape you can drain away whatever trade would otherwise move towards Western Europe.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 18:13

OneTwentySix: Nov 5, 2007; fun
FUN
FUN

I can not stress how amazing the Cape is if you control the eastern coast and some of the nodes upstream. It's really easy to get 100% control over, and you can collect there for a ton; I was pulling in over 100 ducats/month in the mid 1600s in my last game - though I had most of India at that point, you can still make a killing there in a more normal game.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:02

Tsyni: Sep 1, 2004; Lipstick Apathy

Gitro posted:

Danzig is almost definitely going to be easier to reach, unless you do something funky with a black sea port or vassalising Hungary.

I don't really get why Prague is an option. Pretty much anyone who can take that decision will be able to take either Wien or Danzig long before they can core Prague.

In my current game I went for Prague to westernize as Russia because Poland got to Danzig super early and they were my only ally at the time. Bohemia being the emperor helped since they aren't as tough as Austria (who effing inherited Hungary early).

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:03

AAAAA! Real Muenster: Jul 12, 2008; My QB is also named Bort

Prop Wash posted:

Control of the gulf of Aden is pretty key if you want to divert some Asian trade up toward Alexandria. The gold provinces are pretty awesome too. Plus if you take the cape you can drain away whatever trade would otherwise move towards Western Europe.

As the Ottomans it is a lot harder to control Alexandria (Europeans love parking a merchant and fleets there to funnel trade to Venice/Genoa; Aleppo cant go to those) compared to Basra + Aleppo so I would suggest, if you come to dominate the Gulf of Aden node, to funnel trade to Istanbul through the Persian Gulf rather than the Red Sea so you keep more of it.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:21

VDay: Jul 2, 2003; I'm Pacman Jones!

Yeah it can be a little tricky to send everything to Constantinople as the Ottomans, at least until you invade Italy and the HRE at which point you can think about relocating to Venice. But even then the Ragusa trade node between Venice and Constantinople acts as a really obnoxious siphon that European nations have a surprising amount of trade power in, so you want to make sure you actually kick them out first because otherwise you're going to be sending a ton of value their way like I accidentally did in my Ottos game. Freaking Hansa had like the third most trade power in that node thanks to their crazy bonuses or mercentalism or whatever it is they have that lets them be a continental trade giant while only controlling like four provinces by Denmark.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:50

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

VDay posted:

Yeah it can be a little tricky to send everything to Constantinople as the Ottomans, at least until you invade Italy and the HRE at which point you can think about relocating to Venice. But even then the Ragusa trade node between Venice and Constantinople acts as a really obnoxious siphon that European nations have a surprising amount of trade power in, so you want to make sure you actually kick them out first because otherwise you're going to be sending a ton of value their way like I accidentally did in my Ottos game. Freaking Hansa had like the third most trade power in that node thanks to their crazy bonuses or mercentalism or whatever it is they have that lets them be a continental trade giant while only controlling like four provinces by Denmark.

Yeah this is because of Caravan Power (replaces what used to be Steering Toward Inland bonus, but same thing).

When you have a merchant steering to or from an inland node, they get a bonus development / 3 (max of 50) trade power as a Caravan Power bonus. Merchant republics get an innate bonus to this and when you tack on Trade or Plutocratic ideas, trade steering, power bonuses, they can siphon a ton of trade without any land or naval presence in a node. Hansa specifically is steering Ragusa -> Wien and on to Lubeck, I think. There aren't any other good caravan routes coming off Constantinople but Hansa and other HRE minors can project an annoying amount of trade power steering Ragusa into Wien.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 19:57

RabidWeasel: Aug 4, 2007; Cultures thrive on their myths and legends...and snuggles!

Caravan Power makes Persia into some kind of crazy super node if you blob into India so that's cool.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 20:54

Jackson Taus: Oct 19, 2011

VDay posted:

Yeah it can be a little tricky to send everything to Constantinople as the Ottomans, at least until you invade Italy and the HRE at which point you can think about relocating to Venice. But even then the Ragusa trade node between Venice and Constantinople acts as a really obnoxious siphon that European nations have a surprising amount of trade power in, so you want to make sure you actually kick them out first because otherwise you're going to be sending a ton of value their way like I accidentally did in my Ottos game. Freaking Hansa had like the third most trade power in that node thanks to their crazy bonuses or mercentalism or whatever it is they have that lets them be a continental trade giant while only controlling like four provinces by Denmark.

Yeah but at the same time, if you're an Ottomans who is pushing into the Gulf of Aden and Persia and all that, you're probably not hurting for money too badly.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 22:18

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

Jackson Taus posted:

One thing that I found worked really well to speed stuff up in the early game was to force-vassalize the smaller Andean nations, wait 10 years, annex them, then lower autonomy. Lowering autonomy is 5 authority per province, so doing that to a 4-6 province Andean nation will ultimately get you a huge chunk of a reform and outweighs the tiny bit of extra authority you'd get from holding the land. Plus you get to balance spending diplo points and admin points, etc.

OK 1) I'm an idiot for not realizing that lowering autonomy would give me more authority points. I noticed with the Chimu event that raising autonomy cost a chunk of authority, not sure why I didn't think it would work the other way. 2) The tooltip really needs to explain how autonomy affects authority in more explicit detail.

I've been following your strategy, mainly in order to save as many Admin points as possible, but that makes it wayyy better. The faster you get your reforms, the more monarch points you probably save in the long run.

When you're conquering the Andes generally you can alternate northern and southern wars without running into any treaty issues and by the time you have an atrocious amount of AE there wont be anyone left to coalition you. You should aim to eat/vassal a country or two every war, and also lean heavily on mercs since your manpower will inevitably run out. Figure out who is rivaling who, forge alliances with the rivals of people you want to attack and let your allies do as much of the fighting and sieging as possible to preserve manpower. With a decent general you can take on larger AI stacks in the mountains as long as you're defending.

Try to push hard for Potosi since that will give you a buttload of income and let you start running three adivsors to provide some decent bonuses (inflation admin advisor is great) and help get you as many monarch points as possible.

I don't know if I've had exceptionally bad luck but I always find that if your initial starting Cusco ruler doesn't die pretty early, his heir will. And that's not counting the few time's I've had him die in battle.

Dreylad fucked around with this message at 22:28 on Aug 3, 2015

# ? Aug 3, 2015 22:20

Jackson Taus: Oct 19, 2011

Dreylad posted:

OK 1) I'm an idiot for not realizing that lowering autonomy would give me more authority points. I noticed with the Chimu event that raising autonomy cost a chunk of authority, not sure why I didn't think it would work the other way. 2) The tooltip really needs to explain how autonomy affects authority in more explicit detail.

Yeah, it does say in a tooltip somewhere that lowering autonomy grants more authority, but it's easy to miss.

Dreylad posted:

I've been following your strategy, mainly in order to save as many Admin points as possible, but that makes it wayyy better. The faster you get your reforms, the more monarch points you probably save in the long run.

So long as you get the colonist reform ASAP and you have all the reforms before you encounter the Europeans you'll be fine - it's not really worth it to truce-break or take too crazy of risks to get reforms 4 & 5 a bit faster. It also accelerates, since Authority/year is based on the amount of land held, so while you start out at 1-2 passive Authority gain per year, that'll quickly be up to 3-5 as you conquer and colonize.

Also, I personally found that getting the Manpower Recovery and the Morale reforms were more helpful than the coring cost reduction, since my expansion was much more Manpower-limited than Admin-limited.

Dreylad posted:

Try to push hard for Potosi since that will give you a buttload of income and let you start running three adivsors to provide some decent bonuses (inflation admin advisor is great) and help get you as many monarch points as possible.

If you're vassalizing someone, it doesn't cost any extra warscore (and only slightly more AE) to grab a province or two off of them. I usually try to grab the most strategically useful (lets me forge claims on the next guy) or profitable (super gold-mine Potosi :getin:

) province from whoever I vassalize (unless they're a TPM with useless provinces like Chachapoya or something).

Dreylad posted:

I don't know if I've had exceptionally bad luck but I always find that if your initial starting Cusco ruler doesn't die pretty early, his heir will. And that's not counting the few time's I've had him die in battle.

Yeah, it's probably just luck, but I lost the heir kinda early too.

Dreylad posted:

When you're conquering the Andes generally you can alternate northern and southern wars without running into any treaty issues and by the time you have an atrocious amount of AE there wont be anyone left to coalition you. You should aim to eat/vassal a country or two every war, and also lean heavily on mercs since your manpower will inevitably run out. Figure out who is rivaling who, forge alliances with the rivals of people you want to attack and let your allies do as much of the fighting and sieging as possible to preserve manpower. With a decent general you can take on larger AI stacks in the mountains as long as you're defending.

Pretty much everything in that quote applies to basically every other aggressive start too. The round-robin war strategy I call the "circular dick-punch" and I find it's really effective from the Ottomans & France on down to TPMs - AE is based on culture and distance, so it's super-helpful if your enemies on opposite sides are different cultures or (in other starts) culture groups. "Aim to eat/vassal a country or two every war" is probably a bit much in most instances, but I think it translates rather well in other starts to recognizing that it's worth it to run up the warscore most of the time to get most of your goals rather than stopping when you get one objective. Mercenaries are basically mandatory in the early game where you're often manpower-limited.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 23:41

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 19:00

Pellisworth: Jun 20, 2005

As I recall, Cusco starts with god-stat ruler and heir. You should be aware that rulers with higher stats are more likely to die, so while it may be bad luck the game mechanics will also kill them off faster.

One important thing I'd add to what Jackson Taus posted is AE is heavily dependent on religion in addition to distance and culture. That's one reason why the Ottomans is a really great start for learning conquest, you can alternate wars between the Christian Europeans and Muslims to the east, they don't really give a gently caress about your AE against the other religious group. Helps they're also different cultures and far apart.

# ? Aug 3, 2015 23:47

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