Learning EU4 : England AAR 1444

[EvcRo]

Hi

this is my first time playing EU but i played a lot of HOI3 so it should not be that hard to grasp the basics.

England 1444
normal
Historical Lucky
No Bonuses

Shortcuts:

1444 Peace out France keeping all continental provinces
1450 First Scotland War
1463 Henry I dies, what a relief
1469 Scotland is conquered
1474 Continental Europe expansion resumed
1475 Starting Ideas
1504 First colonies
1507 Welcome to Paris
1510 First North America provinces
1515 Overview of the empire, More wars in Europe
1515 Great Britain is born
1516 Learning to trade
1518 Richard III dies, Jane is next queen
1523 Making money, the grand way
1525 Over extension in North America
1529 Going the catholic way
1536 Enforced Personal Union on Spain
1553 Few wars, lots of gold, mostly thinking how to continue
1555 Inca vassal, Shawnee conquered
1560 African Vassal, Americas are kind of finished
1566 Foothold in India
1576 New vassal in India after 2nd indian war
1582 1st vassal annexed : Creek

I played the first 3 years many times until i learned how to defeat France from the starting position.

I made an alliance with Navarra and moved the bottom army there, leaving only 3 regiments, to siege on and off and force France and allies to dispatch troops there. As you can see 26k french troops are doing nothing

While on the north coast, after requesting access from Britanny and saved the troops in Normandy, the french army is defeated

English army sieged french capital while the rest of the french army stood in Poitou, probably they are afraid to attack if they don't outnumber

Now you will have to excuse my merchant in Antwerp, 2 days ago i was just learning the game

to be continued ...

 

[EvcRo]

Peace with France with keeping all continental provinces seems to have a been a boost to the english 0/0/0 monarch "domestic" power and a nice heir has arrived! Not like the 6/6/6 Castile/Portugal/Austria/etc gods but 5/2/4 is so much better. Now i just hope the monarch dies soon (fast forward tip : i didn't suicided him in battle so he lived 19 years )

 

[Belgiumruler]

sub bebbel

 

[EvcRo]

sub bebbel

thanks

First Scotland War - March 7, 1450

Scotland was allied with Burgundy so no easy thing here it seemed. First war was only to grab a province and make Burgundy go away. After this war, every 5 years, i slowly chewed Scotland.

At the start all my troops were in Scotland trying to siege fast while Burgundy was messing around with Normandie and Calais. They will pay later keeping their troops divided on multiple sieges while my 30 or so transports will land on their heads ...

After dealing with Scotland army and leaving only few troops for sieges, my army lands on top of Burgundy sieging forces. I don't know why i beated them so badly, this was played few days ago, it might be possible that i beated them initially in a close outcome battle and this was the 2nd mopup for a low morale army.

1451 and the peace is signed

 

[EvcRo]

James Lancaster I - 1463 to ???

Finally Henry the 0/0/0 nightmare dies after 19 years.

Between 1451 and 1463 Scotland was allied with a couple of irish nobles so i slowly chopped few provinces every 5 years.

First ideea group that i took was Offensive, because

- i play the game for maneuvering in big wars mainly
- admin and diplo points seemed to be tight. every couple years for recovering stability + cores + tech advances seems no go for admin ideas.

Good or bad, idk right now, will see what happens

 

[EvcRo]

Scotland's Last War - 1467 to 1469

After royal marriages and relation improvement England is allied with Portugal and Castille (which is in PU with Aragorn). So the final war against Scotland started like this

Picking smaller armies before they join up in big stacks makes short work of them + many troops listed in the France coalition are Novgorod's which will never see action. So in 1469 Ireland, Scotland and England form a nice harmonious place, with a few beach resorts on France coast's.

 

[Nikolai]

You do well! My first and so far only game as England made me the laughing stock of Europe...

 

[EvcRo]

You do well! My first and so far only game as England made me the laughing stock of Europe...

thanks

i play at speed 1 most of the time and speed 3 max at peace when absolutely nothing is going on, mostly looking around at all screens the game has and stuff

after 40 hours played im in 1505 doing quite well allied with Spain and Portugal but Spain is growing to and at some point the big boy's fight will have to happen

 

[EvcRo]

1474 - A few more provinces added to continental England

5 years gone and the truce expired and the dismantling of the France continues

This pattern goes on for a couple of more times (till AE gets to high and i'm afraid to start a war every 5 years cause all world hates me)

In 1487 almost all Holland coast is conquered. By this time the wars were extremely easy. In fact, excepting the first 1444 war which was very hard all the rest were easy. Hunt enemies first half an year, siege 10 province at once after, get 3-4 provinces, core, repeat.

Keeping troops and navy maintenance extremely low for the 5y truce periods also helped stockpiling a safe quantity of gold.

Also , even now im not sure whats better now that i have Antwerp (and will get half of the Europe slowly), collect or steer in Antwerp? Will be worthing moving the capital from London to Antwerp? (im in 1515 currently so its still early).

 

[MiniaAr]

What were you choice of idea groups?
Good work so fat, I can also see strong ottomans there, so I'm glad.

 

[EvcRo]

What were you choice of idea groups?
Good work so fat, I can also see strong ottomans there, so I'm glad.

First idea was Offensive Ideas. Helped with troop numbers, to get comfortably over the point where all wars in France are easy. Also i had more military points available.

2nd ideea was Exploration. By 1515 im still 2 years away from building core in Bermuda and start spamming colonies, also have provinces in NA but i cant core them yet, also dropped a colony near Mali and started to milk them for money (got 1000 gold first war + 1 province)

by 1515

Exploration is filled up to viceroys (last 3, from viceroys up, i find them not worth for this stage of the game)
Offensive is filled all except last (discipline +10%) that will follow very soon
I took 3rd idea as Trade Ideas because i don't want to put diplo points in Viceroys/Global tarifs+10% on nothing, those are worth when i have a horde of overseas provinces, imo.

Still having a lot of SS to post, will catchup in the next days

 

[EvcRo]

Good work so fat, I can also see strong ottomans there, so I'm glad.

thanks
i'm working to ally Poland (one of the few who is only at -40 relation lol) so i will be in touch with Ottomans soon

 

[EvcRo]

February 1504 Overview

I have 3 colonies, Bermuda, Masachusets and once more. Later i realized i should have plant one near Shawnee to pillage them but you can't have it all at once.

I asked for port access from Spain to be able to reach them, after planting the colonies i canceled the 3gold/month access.

At peace time i can support those 3 colonies, income is not spectacular mainly because i didn't spammed buildings yet. Only in high provinces like London and a few more.

The next monarch in line is Jane (bad bad bad because he is a woman and i can't use her as general). As stats she is only 1 point lower (current monarch 13 vs Jane 12 points when summed up)

 

[EvcRo]

1506-1507 : Welcome to Paris

When truce expired i though to declare war alone because i didn't like Spain pushing up north, getting provinces in southern France. Was a mistake, this allowed them to get 1 more province because they declared war alone.

So, when you are the coalition leader, there is absolutely no reason not to call your allies. They will get nothing if you are worried with their expansion

After defeating their bigger stacks i experimented siege war on low cost, didn't noticed any differences in siege speeds compared to wars where i kept high upkeep 100%

Capturing Paris and one more province and France can be considered done. Now i'm more looking how to plan the Spain take over.

 

[EvcRo]

September 1510 - First North America provinces

In 1510 first 3 colonies in North America become provinces, unfortunately i could start core only on Bermuda. Probably i could core the last 2 if i got port access from Spain but didn't bothered, after Bermuda is cored i will have all the range for America's.

Than i noticed Mali fortune and also noticed a spot near Mail is within colonial range....

Fabricating a claim against Mali. When Bermuda finish core i will land near all the big cash empires for periodic visits.

 

[EvcRo]

1512-1515 : Containing Spain expansion

Limousin is the next target for war. Spain is slowly fabricating claim/annex one province at the time and going up in southern France. I need to cut the off and contain them to the Spanish peninsula.

This time i called everybody to war, even my new Sweden allies. On the other site Austrian troops will be very annoying but nothing that can't be handled.

I lost a province to Spain last war even if i sieged it first but they had more troops and a leader. So no Richard III with 24k troops will camp war target Limousin till red english stripes appear on Limousin.

Technology at the start of the war. I leading or -1 tech behind overall leader at all times so i'm keeping up nicely. Rule is research till next one is ahead of time, when ahead of time put in ideas. I built somehow few buildings i think, this war i was extremely stretched out on money, had to run navies on low moral at all time.

Ideas:

War lasted 3 years, the cash from Mali war was a relief.

Got few provinces from this war but, most important, cornered Spain a little

 

[EvcRo]

Great Britain is formed in 1515

 

[EvcRo]

1515 - Nobody (almost) likes me

I think i will wait 10 years for the next war, i'm getting very close to something i can't handle. In this next 10 years i could spam colonies and pillage Mali/Shawnee/Huron.

 

[EvcRo]

For a moment i though forming GB will make them forget. All countries left the coalition against GB but few joined back later.

Currently waiting for Bermuda core to finish so i can run the next batch of colonies.

 

[EvcRo]

Just found out that my merchant in Bordeaux was steering towards Antwerp, switched to London, +10 gold/month

so i lost aprox. 3000-6000 gold in the first 80 years, how refreshing