A few random questions...

[unmerged(45852)]

You guys are a big help. For a game that was released so long ago, I'm amazed how many of you are still around...

1. One of the provinces I took has a theives guild and smuggler's ring. I've built all the buildings I can there, including a court of justice, but I think it has been about 10 years and they still havent gone away. They are ruining the province--is there a way to get them to leave? How long should I have to wait?

2. One of my provinces has become heretical and has revolted. Is there a way to stop this from happening, and reverse the effects now that it has?

3. I've been building every building that I can, excluding the templar house. It just doesn't seem worth the loss of income. What are your thoughts?

4. Is there a reason to tax less than the amount needed to keep my people 100% loyal?

 

[TempestDK]

You guys are a big help. For a game that was released so long ago, I'm amazed how many of you are still around...

1. One of the provinces I took has a theives guild and smuggler's ring. I've built all the buildings I can there, including a court of justice, but I think it has been about 10 years and they still havent gone away. They are ruining the province--is there a way to get them to leave? How long should I have to wait?

2. One of my provinces has become heretical and has revolted. Is there a way to stop this from happening, and reverse the effects now that it has?

3. I've been building every building that I can, excluding the templar house. It just doesn't seem worth the loss of income. What are your thoughts?

4. Is there a reason to tax less than the amount needed to keep my people 100% loyal?

Just shows you how great a game this is

1. Nope ... you just have to wait. Eventually the event(s) will fire that removes them. But I think that the MTTH for removing Smuggler's Ring is greater than the Thieves' Guild, and that one must be removed first. So it can take a long time before things are back to normal there.

2. Not much ... maybe hiring a Zealous diocese bishop will help end it sooner.

3. Meh .. eventually you will probably be making so much money that the small reduction in province income is negligible ... also many building have hidden effects .. like being triggers for events or influencing MTTH on events. I believe that Templar houses help religious conversion evetns ... though not 100% sure on that.

4. Not really ... unless you want to be a good, nice ruler (Role-Play) or just think you are making way too much money

 

[unmerged(45852)]

But on the third point, even if you have enough money, you always will want a bigger army, right? Less province income with a templar house = smaller army.

 

[Count of Reval]

1. One of the provinces I took has a theives guild and smuggler's ring. I've built all the buildings I can there, including a court of justice, but I think it has been about 10 years and they still havent gone away. They are ruining the province--is there a way to get them to leave? How long should I have to wait?

2. One of my provinces has become heretical and has revolted. Is there a way to stop this from happening, and reverse the effects now that it has?

1. First, make sure that your efficiency is above 50%. And second, keep your regiments in the provinces with a criminal activity unmobilized (this is critical). If you have court of justice built, then these problems should be over in couple of years.

2. Research Inquisition (Religious Stringency up to level 3). It will help you to cure heresy.

 

[TempestDK]

But on the third point, even if you have enough money, you always will want a bigger army, right? Less province income with a templar house = smaller army.

Perosnally I believe the effect i negligeble (again) on income and army size, when you are not a count.

But it is a personal preference whether you build them or not. I usually wait ... but that is because they do not help my efforts to do cultural conversion

 

[unmerged(45852)]

To add to the questions, does having a large number of demense provinces slow tech increases?

For example, if each province of Ireland has a count, I assume there are 13 provinces generating tech increases. However, if Ireland is the demense of just one king, then there is only 1. Under the king senario, I would expect tech changes to slow considerably.

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

To add to the questions, does having a large number of demense provinces slow tech increases?

For example, if each province of Ireland has a count, I assume there are 13 provinces generating tech increases. However, if Ireland is the demense of just one king, then there is only 1. Under the king senario, I would expect tech changes to slow considerably.

Correct, though how much it slows down I can't tell.

 

[unmerged(45852)]

Correct, though how much it slows down I can't tell.

So is there a way to at least move your capitol to a centralized location to cut down on spread lag?

 

[Gulluoglu]

I don't know if this is as big as a problem as you think, really. I glanced at the events for discovery and tech spread.

On the one hand, yes it might be a bit faster logically because with a bunch of counts, those are 10 (or however many provinces are in Ireland) different spots all generating possible new techs. But the event scripts for discoveries provide special boosts to both dukes and to kings that counts don't get to help increase their rate of discovery in their one location (capital) -- 25% faster for kings, 15% for dukes.

Similarly, in the events that spread techs, there is a big boost given to provinces which are ruled by the same ruler which looks like it would help mitigate any kind of advantage a ton of creation points might generate, but as Veld says, it's really difficult to say how much things are affected in practice.

Basically, I wouldn't sweat it.

 

[Count of Reval]

If you are interested in maximizing the amount of technological advances, maybe you could strike the best balance between discovery and spread, when you (as a king or duke) would give your land to old unmarried childless ladies temporarily, making them one-province countesses. When they eventually start to die one by one, you will receive land back (if you have a proper inheritance law) with accrued techs. As those lands will be part of your demesne now (once again), the spread of meanwhile acquired advances into your other personal provinces will be accelerated. After waiting couple of years and letting an information-sharing process to flow, you could repeat that vassalization cycle.

 

[unmerged(203645)]

To add to the questions, does having a large number of demense provinces slow tech increases?

I noticed this in my game as well. When I was a Duke with few Vassals the tech advances scrolled across my screen regularly but the larger my area & now Kingdom the fewer "pinged" across the screen.

Could this be that the new advances happen rapidly at the beginning of a game but as time goes on the rate of advance slows down?

And- is there something you should do or change when one of these tech advances rolls by? If it has to do with farming should you switch to farming to get the next level quicker?

 

[TempestDK]

I noticed this in my game as well. When I was a Duke with few Vassals the tech advances scrolled across my screen regularly but the larger my area & now Kingdom the fewer "pinged" across the screen.

Could this be that the new advances happen rapidly at the beginning of a game but as time goes on the rate of advance slows down?

And- is there something you should do or change when one of these tech advances rolls by? If it has to do with farming should you switch to farming to get the next level quicker?

I think Lvl 1 techs are faster to achieve, than later levels ... so in the start of the game, you could see alot of Lvl 1 techs being researched all over the place, while later on this slows down when you get to Lvl3 and 4 techs.

 

[Gulluoglu]

I think Lvl 1 techs are faster to achieve, than later levels ... so in the start of the game, you could see alot of Lvl 1 techs being researched all over the place, while later on this slows down when you get to Lvl3 and 4 techs.

Yes, this is true. The low level techs have fast MTTH scores across the board, so the early parts of the game is full of discovery of low techs and then discoveries seem to naturally slow down as you begin filling up your techs because the MTTH steadily goes up for the higher level techs. For instance:

shortbow - 50 months
longbow - 100 months
composite - 250 months
reinforced - 500 months
marksman - 1500 months

So, on average you should learn shortbow in about 4 years of focusing on bow tech, but it will take an average of 125 years to get marksman weapons after you already have reinforced bows (although this is assuming no other conditions are factoring on the tech discovery, which is highly unlikely because there are numerous).

 

[Count of Reval]

I noticed this in my game as well. When I was a Duke with few Vassals the tech advances scrolled across my screen regularly but the larger my area & now Kingdom the fewer "pinged" across the screen.

Could this be that the new advances happen rapidly at the beginning of a game but as time goes on the rate of advance slows down?

And- is there something you should do or change when one of these tech advances rolls by? If it has to do with farming should you switch to farming to get the next level quicker?

You can get advances by a discovery (happens only in a capital province), advance spread (from some bordering (or trade-route connected) province that already has a tech), and - on rarer occasions and only limited selection of techs (military and religious mostly) - by some other events. Most of the techs you will get by a spread, but it obviously presupposes that someone has already discovered the advance. Speaking of advance discoveries, indeed, as TempestDK and Gulluoglu already wrote, higher tech levels take more time to research (on average - because of the MTTH-based event system you can always have an exceptions (for example, you might get level 4 in Noble Customs much faster than level 3 (but not before it, of course)). Different advancement fields do not share always the same expected research time for a particular step or level. Just to give an idea about a variation and "most common level" of unmodified MTTHs of different advancement areas:
Level 1: 40-250 months (most common appears to be 50 months)
Level 2: 100-600 months (most common: 150)
Level 3: 250-1200 months (most common: 500)
Level 4: 500-2500 months (most common: 1000)
Level 5: 1500-5000 months (most common: 2500)
(The hardest of all is a research of Thought, which has exceptionally high MTTHs.)
However, as game progresses, you will usually have more and more province improvements that will function also as modifiers that help you to lower MTTHs of discovery and spread events - so there is a progressive balancing effect that will alleviate higher expected research times for higher advance levels.

It makes sense to concentrate on advancement areas that you are interested in for some reason and stick with them until you have the desired level(s). If you don't have any preferences, then it might be wise to research (almost) all the advances, just level by level (changing every time something gets discovered your research focus to the next advancement area on the list that has a lowest level researched relative to others), as it gives you probably the greatest number of advances during some fixed period.

 

[unmerged(203645)]

The hardest thing by far is coming to grips that this is a day-by-day game that lasts 400 years.

Saying that something could take 1500+ months (over a century) to discover just boggles the mind when you are used to playing games that last just a few month, hours or even minutes in duration.

Also just sitting and not moving units or attacking for 10+ years doesn't seem "normal" ( ) which is something else I have to get used to. It really is hard to think centuries in terms of playing this game when you attack like crazy in "Civ" type games.

Other players have mentioned waiting for an Empire to implode so they can be picked to pieces. How long do you actually wait for things like that to happen- 100 years?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Other players have mentioned waiting for an Empire to implode so they can be picked to pieces. How long do you actually wait for things like that to happen- 100 years?

I once played a count (though I did control 5 provinces at some point) for over 120 years .

The reason for that is that I always decide first which duketitle (and then kingtitle) I want to have as my first one. And the one I wanted didn't come available untill then.

 

[unmerged(203645)]

The reason for that is that I always decide first which duketitle (and then kingtitle) I want to have as my first one. And the one I wanted didn't come available untill then.

Still trying to figure this out- how did it become available?

1. Does that mean that you had a claim on a Duke title you wanted that wasn't in your demense & you had to wait for that Duke to die to go get it?

2. Or that you held all the required provinces of that Dukedom but the title was held by someone else?

 

[Veldmaarschalk]

Still trying to figure this out- how did it become available?

1. Does that mean that you had a claim on a Duke title you wanted that wasn't in your demense & you had to wait for that Duke to die to go get it?

2. Or that you held all the required provinces of that Dukedom but the title was held by someone else?

The duke-title (that of Toulouse) was held by the king of France

 

[unmerged(45852)]

Two more random questions:

1. If I have a bunch of counts as vassals, but want to instead have those counts be the vassals of a duke that is a vassal to me, is there a way to do that (reducing the number of vassals I have). I'm playing with a house rule against revoking titles.

2. In EU3 I made things tough for myself by playing a religion out of place in the area. For example, a protestant portugal, or a catholic russia. If I make my initial monarch catholic and only marry catholics while playing eastern europeans, wouldn't that accomplish much the same thing? And would that add any difficulty to the game?

 

[Count of Reval]

Two more random questions:

1. If I have a bunch of counts as vassals, but want to instead have those counts be the vassals of a duke that is a vassal to me, is there a way to do that (reducing the number of vassals I have). I'm playing with a house rule against revoking titles.

2. In EU3 I made things tough for myself by playing a religion out of place in the area. For example, a protestant portugal, or a catholic russia. If I make my initial monarch catholic and only marry catholics while playing eastern europeans, wouldn't that accomplish much the same thing? And would that add any difficulty to the game?

1. I think it's not possible, at least not directly. Only when your count-vassal escapes you first and pledges your duke's allegiance (if his/her province belong into duke's natural title area).

2. If you play as a catholic duke or king in Eastern Europe (having orthodox (or other non-catholic) vassals), then it's going to be a problem, yes, because vassals with a different religion compared to their liege will increase a probability of the occurrence of Realm Duress.