Post your (DW) Empire

[Arcas Cronifer]

I've done a pretty similar WC game as Austria, just using the PUs the Austrian missions set up. I thought it looked on from your first post. I suspect any Western OPM can WC via pressed RM claims, but my normal rule house rule on PUs is to disallow pressing claims via RM. Spies have enough disadvantages that I allow them but rarely use them. My Ottoman WC is the only one where I made extensive use of them.
I regard 1760 as quite late for GOV 53. If you had built enough trade buildings, you would have at least doubled your trade income. Its effectively quadratic in TE so taking 145 to 200 is a doubling, plus it makes it easier to kick everyone else out of your CoTs and get closer to 95% rather than 30% from your monopolies. Trade 6 buildings are very profitable to spam to the point of 200 TE in a large empire. Using that cash to get GOV53 20 years earlier cuts at least 5 years off the time to finish a BB limited WC.

Sorry for the almost 1 year late response. Since then I have started another WC attempt with a ridiculously overpowered Burgundy, involving an early PU with France, and looking forward a late HRE unification (just to try something else than simply destroying it, and thus maybe achieve the WC much earlier than my 2 previous ones with France and Bohemia). I suspended it around 1630 though, in the middle of a rather dull series of Holy Wars with careful BB management ; then I got busy elsewehere for a while. I plan to to get back to that game and finish it (and I'll certainly pay more attention to building Trade 6 stuff then).

About home rules, I must admit I might be pretty lax and allow myself a lot of shenanigans, including forced PUs, or spies that can do wonders when wars and diplomacy come at too high a cost or their outcome would be too random. As long as I have fun... and get things done.

For the moment I'll have another game that I'd like to post here... so please, let's keep this thread alive !

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

Maybe I don't need to tell too much, whoever comes here reading this could guess what happened...

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

They were looking for clove, they just got lead instead.

 

[Kovax]

Since then I have started another WC attempt with a ridiculously overpowered Burgundy, involving an early PU with France, and looking forward a late HRE unification (just to try something else than simply destroying it,

A few words of warning: Burgundy is not a Germanic state, so if they enact the final HRE reform to annex the other HRE vassal states, the game creates a country called "HRE", and it annexes the state that created it. Unfortunately, the process is backwards. The newly created HRE country will initially be Germanic, so the Burgundian provinces that are incorporated will be of a different culture group, and all of the province improvements from Burgundy will be lost. The HRE's culture will THEN convert to Burgundian, and the rest of the HRE will be annexed by it. The second half of the problem is that the improvements in all of those countries of Germanic culture will not be retained, either, as they are being annexed by a Burgundian HRE. Basically, you wipe out a couple of centuries of construction, and it will likely take at least the rest of the game to restore all of the lost buildings.

I had the same issue with Hungary becoming the non-Germanic head of the HRE and eventually annexing it. Lost EVERYTHING (except forts) that had been built up over more than 250 years. Back to square one, with not nearly enough Magistrates to do what needed to be done, but at least I had a decent income from the sheer number of provinces.

The game SHOULD change the culture of the HRE to match its creator BEFORE annexing its creator. You would still lose the province improvements in the rest of the annexed former HRE countries, which doesn't sound too unreasonable. Losing your own improvements because of what amounts to a name change seems absurd.

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

A few words of warning: Burgundy is not a Germanic state, so if they enact the final HRE reform to annex the other HRE vassal states, the game creates a country called "HRE", and it annexes the state that created it. Unfortunately, the process is backwards. The newly created HRE country will initially be Germanic, so the Burgundian provinces that are incorporated will be of a different culture group, and all of the province improvements from Burgundy will be lost. The HRE's culture will THEN convert to Burgundian, and the rest of the HRE will be annexed by it. The second half of the problem is that the improvements in all of those countries of Germanic culture will not be retained, either, as they are being annexed by a Burgundian HRE. Basically, you wipe out a couple of centuries of construction, and it will likely take at least the rest of the game to restore all of the lost buildings.

I had the same issue with Hungary becoming the non-Germanic head of the HRE and eventually annexing it. Lost EVERYTHING (except forts) that had been built up over more than 250 years. Back to square one, with not nearly enough Magistrates to do what needed to be done, but at least I had a decent income from the sheer number of provinces.

The game SHOULD change the culture of the HRE to match its creator BEFORE annexing its creator. You would still lose the province improvements in the rest of the annexed former HRE countries, which doesn't sound too unreasonable. Losing your own improvements because of what amounts to a name change seems absurd.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not quite sure this is how it works. Maybe in earlier versions of the game ? I've formed the HRE a dozen times, including with Burgundy and Italy, 2 of my favorite countries, none of which losing any of their cores in the process. I just checked one of my my old saves with Italy->HRE : on the very day of the final HRE reform, I keep all my cores and gain some others at my previous borders in the HRE (plus in what looks like some random remote HRE states such as Liege or Pomerania), with a lot of buildings already achieved there. I don't think a cultural shift can make you lose cores you already hold, actually.

 

[Kovax]

Hmm, maybe that was before the final patch, I do recall very clearly losing all of my cores when annexing the HRE, and that definitely did happen using the final expansion.

I believe that's a good excuse for me to annex the HRE again, and see if it was changed.

[ I suspect that it was the 5.1 patch for DW, rather than the final 5.2 patch. ]

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

May I elaborate a bit about this ?

I started playing Malacca. Not a big deal : getting MA from Aceh and an alliance with Brunei prevented me from getting preyed upon by my Sunni neighbours early on. I just DoWed Ayutthaya who was already squabbling with Khmer and Pegu, took 4 of their fortless provinces and got away with it. Brunei helped me destroy Majapahit and I vassalized Makassar. Then I managed to get a PU with Aceh. When I eventually inherited them, I took QFTNW, discovered and colonized the 4 provinces in Java thanks to the colons I earned with my CoT, then formed Malaya and DoWed Brunei with the Reconquest CB.



After that I focused on consolidating my country for some decades. Being rich with good starting sliders, I performed the earliest westernization I could, starting in 1488, complete in 1502.



Sure, I could take on Ming by then, it's easy ; but it's also time-consuming, and everybody has already done that. I just let them be. Nonetheless, I wanted to fix Vijaynagar and destroy their fleet, although they were not as strong as usual, failing to get rid of Deccan - most of Northern India is thus held by friendly Sunni states I have no reason to mess with... and Gujarat is my vassal since they had the bad idea of being allied with Vijaynagar, who had previoulsy force released them from Deccan.

Anyway, instead of building my empire in Asia, this is how I started contemplating the crazy idea of reverse colonization, CK2 Sunset (or more accurately, Sunrise) invasion style...
Actually, poor Castile never knew where the shot came from : in 1520 Indonesia was still Terra Incognita to them, they weren't even dreaming about clove and spices. But they were on their way to form Spain, had taken a couple provinces in the Near East, and their enormous fleet was rambling around the globe, with QFTNW and some colonies on the African coast and South America. I decided to destroy them first, and establish my stronghold in Europe where mighty Muslims once ruled : Andalucia.

Portugal obviously took advantage of this. Their fate in this game was quite peculiar. They had vanished for quite a while during the XVth century, getting dismembered by France and England during their wars. Then a 3PM Portugal revolted away when England was in trouble, made peace... then married, PUed and inherited them in less than a decade. When they finally recovered the rest of their provinces from France, took what I had left from Castile and started colonizing faster than ever, I decided to deal with Portugal. It was a long war because they were allied with my good friend and westernization partner Holland, who also had some good colonies, and that involved a lot of sailing between continents, fighting naval battles and occupying former England... but I ended up seizing or demanding almost all of their overseas possessions.



This is how, coming from these distant lands beyond the Indian Ocean, I managed to own that large Atlantic and European colonial empire, long before I was able to start a single colony there by myself.

Here are maps of the world a few years later, in 1593. War with France seems inevitable at this point. It's gonna be epic, they have like a 100k army here on their homeland. And this is not even the middle of the game...

On a side note, Lithuania and Persia are completely out of control and will probably jump at each other's throats sooner or later for the control of Siberia. Russia was formed by Novgorod and looks modest in comparison ; they're just busy colonizing what's left of some Horde.

 

[TheArchMede]

I've exiled Portugal to many places, but never England.

 

[TheArchMede]

I've been doing a couple of HRE games. Forming it while staying Catholic required the authority from bringing in a pretty large chunk of Siberia and took me until about 1810. I was carefully taking enough territory to core before 1820, and then got a couple of lucky Defence of the Empire boosts to finish a bit earlier after a couple hundred years of everyone being too scared to attack the Empire.

Current one is a Hanseatic Republican Empire. Switched to Protestant Monarchy when Luther appeared and used the authority from turning the Empire protestant to form the HRE and then switched back to merchant republic. The unusual place for an exile in this game is the Pope in Normandy. Liege force released it from France when France got dogpiled, so it became a bishopric and since I had turned all the HRE bishoprics protestant before grabbing Rome, the Pope didn't have a lot of choice.

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

I've been doing a couple of HRE games. Forming it while staying Catholic required the authority from bringing in a pretty large chunk of Siberia and took me until about 1810. I was carefully taking enough territory to core before 1820, and then got a couple of lucky Defence of the Empire boosts to finish a bit earlier after a couple hundred years of everyone being too scared to attack the Empire.

Current one is a Hanseatic Republican Empire. Switched to Protestant Monarchy when Luther appeared and used the authority from turning the Empire protestant to form the HRE and then switched back to merchant republic. The unusual place for an exile in this game is the Pope in Normandy. Liege force released it from France when France got dogpiled, so it became a bishopric and since I had turned all the HRE bishoprics protestant before grabbing Rome, the Pope didn't have a lot of choice.

Well, I'd appreciate a screenshoot about that Hanseatic Republic. Never seeked to play them properly I guess, or other merchant republics. I fail to think like a trader and as I get annoyed by the downside of bad reputation in this field as well as bored by their specific missions, end up changing their government type at the wrong moment, ruining their economy. Also, the Pope in Normandy sounds funny, celebrating mass with cider...

 

[TheArchMede]

Well, I'd appreciate a screenshoot about that Hanseatic Republic. Never seeked to play them properly I guess, or other merchant republics. I fail to think like a trader and as I get annoyed by the downside of bad reputation in this field as well as bored by their specific missions, end up changing their government type at the wrong moment, ruining their economy. Also, the Pope in Normandy sounds funny, celebrating mass with cider...

You have to stay on good terms with Sweden, or you'll be virtually unable to get generic missions. Its pretty difficult to get and keep England into the League too, so that mission will keep coming back. As long as Antwerp is a decent CoT not owned by the Hansa, England will not want to be in the League. I managed to succeed a couple of times at Unlikely or Very Unlikely by siphoning off trade with rights and expanding the League into states that would otherwise have traded through Antwerp, but I was stuck with that mission for a lot of the time. I pay the prestige to get a different one other every 5 years and then its back again.

Initial play in the HRE is picking on small states, and gradually build up the vassal league one or two at a time to keep infamy low. There are plenty of trade CBs as states defect and get forced back again to keep adding to the vassal horde. Use such missions as do become available to help with the infamy and acquire cored provinces in the HRE.

The vassal horde on becoming Emperor. I didn't keep anything earlier than this. There's a strip of Hansa territory that runs all the way to Holland, you can just make out the armies in it under the popup. All grabbed as cores via events/missions. Denmark was dealt with after it fell out with Sweden, to prevent the Sound becoming Swedish and who doesn't want Danzig in their Empire?

After several decades of bribing, the first reform is passed. There are still lots of states available to be converted for the authority to pass more reforms. Brabant has been added via annex mission.

As more convert passing reforms gets easier so its a slippery slope all the way to

This could have been done a lot more efficiently, there's a massive amount of uncored territory that could have been avoided by delaying to diploannex a few strategically placed vassals and there will be an awful lot of rebels to be dealt with due to the terrible legitimacy and overextension penalties as well. There are several inherited colonies in the Americas as well as the ones in Africa. It took me a while to work out that I had to change to an Admin Republic before I could get the decision to go back to merchant republicanism. Hansa could go directly, but HRE had to be a republic first.

Current situation. The Pope is in Normandy, the Hansa is in London, and England has been inherited by Castille.

Will full innovation I decided I needed Rome for the missionaries, so the Pope had to find another home, and there's a large swathe of "Imperial Mamelukes" from Judea to Mecca as well. Also Quality, Defense, Mercantilism. The Leagues are traders, but they are mercantile traders rather than free traders. I used a 5* trader for a while during the early game and didn't push that slider until Empire time.

 

[TheArchMede]

I decided to go for owning and monpolising all the CoTs, and keeping England and Sweden in the League. When I say "keep", it seems only possible to keep vassals. Even states that are Very Likely to accept an invitation will almost immediately leave again, so they had to be forcibly reincorporated each time they left. England had to be force released from Castille so that it could be forced into the imperial League.
Also territory that had left the Empire had to be brought back. This was completed with the diploannex of Hainault.

Non-core CoTs don't help the chance of trading in foreign CoTs, and as can be seen in the breakdown of my 1% chance of trading in the Muscovite CoT of Perm, there are a lot of them. Also, since Perm is currently the Muscovite capital, I've had to take all the provinces around it in order to be able take it in a future war. Muscovy got forced into the trade league a lot in order to prevent it promptly building a new CoT after I'd taken its older ones. Castille and France also got this treatment.

Victory! However, the trading chances are by no means secure, unpause and some monopoly or other will be lost, and there'll only be a month or two before some 2PM like Armagnac or Sharjah decides there has to be a non-Imperial CoT in the world. Armagnac was where you'd expect it to be, but Sharjah built its CoT in Whangerai.

I played on for a bit to see if I could stabilise the situation, but when Chagatai became the latest 2PM to somehow find the funds for a CoT and had a truce till the end of the game, I decided to finish. The Pope is still in Normandy, but had to shift provinces due to building a CoT in Caux. You can see the shading showing Sweden and England are in the League.

 

[BurningEGO]

I've exiled Portugal to many places, but never England.

You cannot ever exile Portugal!

... For instance, I am from there, and I come here somtimes just to watch your posts, Archy.

Will you ever grow tired of EU3?

 

[Kovax]

You cannot ever exile Portugal!

... For instance, I am from there, and I come here somtimes just to watch your posts, Archy.

Will you ever grow tired of EU3?

There's no growing tired of EU3 unless EU5 turns out to be an improvement. Some of us find no enjoyment in playing EU4.

 

[BurningEGO]

There's no growing tired of EU3 unless EU5 turns out to be an improvement. Some of us find no enjoyment in playing EU4.

Well, that was the same when EU3 launched and many saw it as a devolution from EU2. Many people didn't like the randomness or the ahistorical features like random leaders / monarchs (I didn't and kept playing EU2 for a good while specially in multiplayer). EU4 nowadays, compared to EU4 at launch, is very different, you should try it with all the DLCs one of the days, mignt be worth subbing if you got the time... and the will!

 

[TheArchMede]

You cannot ever exile Portugal!

... For instance, I am from there, and I come here somtimes just to watch your posts, Archy.

Will you ever grow tired of EU3?

I was an Eu3 fanboy at the release, but NA really annoyed me, and I went back to EU2 until some time after Complete. Then HttT failed to deliver on what I wanted from including heirs, and I stuck with Complete until the DW and the Hordes. Hordes was a new mechanic that attracted me an d I still want to do another horde campaign, but the ping pong battles that require Westernisation to get rid off are diabolical, and I've never been able to bring myself to fighting through them again after losing a campaign to a corrupt save in the 1480s.
I've been following the Tinto talks but I'm afraid it'll be too gameified and not pay enough attention to Occam's Razor for me. (i.e. it'll complicate its mechanics for the sake of complication rather than for the sake of better representation of historic processes) EU3 is worse than EU2 in some regards, the military mechanics got steadily less realistic since EU1, but some of the EU3 changes were badly unhistorical in my view. EU1 had solid military mechanics for the 1500-1750 period, but they don't extend well to earlier and later periods. There are good reasons why the tabletop rules I used 40-50 years ago used substantially different mechanics outside this period. While supply may benefit from the extra features in EU5, I fear the battle mechanics will be extremely gamey.

 

[BurningEGO]

I was an Eu3 fanboy at the release, but NA really annoyed me, and I went back to EU2 until some time after Complete. Then HttT failed to deliver on what I wanted from including heirs, and I stuck with Complete until the DW and the Hordes. Hordes was a new mechanic that attracted me an d I still want to do another horde campaign, but the ping pong battles that require Westernisation to get rid off are diabolical, and I've never been able to bring myself to fighting through them again after losing a campaign to a corrupt save in the 1480s.
I've been following the Tinto talks but I'm afraid it'll be too gameified and not pay enough attention to Occam's Razor for me. (i.e. it'll complicate its mechanics for the sake of complication rather than for the sake of better representation of historic processes) EU3 is worse than EU2 in some regards, the military mechanics got steadily less realistic since EU1, but some of the EU3 changes were badly unhistorical in my view. EU1 had solid military mechanics for the 1500-1750 period, but they don't extend well to earlier and later periods. There are good reasons why the tabletop rules I used 40-50 years ago used substantially different mechanics outside this period. While supply may benefit from the extra features in EU5, I fear the battle mechanics will be extremely gamey.

So you will stay with EU3? Thats fine, but just remember who did this before DDrjake, then, and we will be all fine!

Post your (DW) Empire

I expect great things from you, o intrepid and brave thread-stub. Other 'Post Your Empire' Threads Heir to the Throne In Nomine How to make screenshots, and worldshots * F11 takes a screenshot of the current game * F12 takes a "worldshot"...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Joking of course, but now speaking of WC, did you do one as Ryukyu yet, archmede?

 

[TheArchMede]

So you will stay with EU3? Thats fine, but just remember who did this before DDrjake, then, and we will be all fine!

Post your (DW) Empire

I expect great things from you, o intrepid and brave thread-stub. Other 'Post Your Empire' Threads Heir to the Throne In Nomine How to make screenshots, and worldshots * F11 takes a screenshot of the current game * F12 takes a "worldshot"...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

Joking of course, but now speaking of WC, did you do one as Ryukyu yet, archmede?

I play Prawnstar style no cheese, low badboy games. I'm pretty sure that Ryukyu would require lots of cheese or excessive badboy. Portugal is the weakest starting position I've done WC. Timurids and GH are the only ones I think might be possible that I haven't done. I wasn't expecting Portugal to work, but I got lucky and the final patch manpower changes have made it a lot harder for the hordes to steamroller Europe without running out of troops.

 

[BurningEGO]

I play Prawnstar style no cheese, low badboy games. I'm pretty sure that Ryukyu would require lots of cheese or excessive badboy. Portugal is the weakest starting position I've done WC. Timurids and GH are the only ones I think might be possible that I haven't done. I wasn't expecting Portugal to work, but I got lucky and the final patch manpower changes have made it a lot harder for the hordes to steamroller Europe without running out of troops.

I don't remember much, but I do remember I had revolts over and over again. I did many runs in order to get things running properly, but I believe I moved capital somewhere in Indochina. This was before hordes had become powerful. Obviously I did go over the badboy numbers.

Steam Community :: Screenshot :: First Ryukyu WC in EU3 which allowed me to be in the top 10 of Paradox Connect

Steam Community: Europa Universalis III. First Ryukyu WC in EU3 which allowed me to be in the top 10 of Paradox Connect

steamcommunity.com

My biggest issue was Japan though. Before a determined patch, you had to wait till Japan united in order to conquer it. The japanese AI was terrible at the job, so it took me decades of killing rebels and waiting just for that to happen. I promised myself never to do such a crazy run again. I actually think I only managed the WC because 5.0 patch landed and I was lucky enough to have my save converted and then all it took was straight invasion of Japan since restrictions had been lifted. I do remember that I was having rebels non stop in the last few years but I cannot remember if this was because of the new patch itself or because I broke truce in order to conquer Japan and get the achievement done quickly and to stop playing since it was making me go MAD.

But yeah I can understand your playstyle. Most of the time I also prefered to stay below BB limit. I still do with aggressive expansion (there is no bb) on EU4.

 

[Arcas Cronifer]

Mostly inspired by you folks, I, a mediocre but faithful and consistent EU3 DW player, finally had the nerve to try my hand at Ryukyu.

Maybe not 'the manly way' though, for whatever that means.

The early game was all about getting used to Japan DoWing me every 10 years and offering peace for gold or even White Peace just because they were worried at Ming's fleet destroying theirs. After failed attempts at colonizing Taiwan which attracted instant invasion and seizing, I decided to go for the Philippines, cowardly expecting that I would be safe there as long as it was Terra Incognita to others. At this point my puny armies hardly could stand against the fierce natives who lived there.

Flash forward to the 1520's. Ryukyu was completely westernized and modernized by then. I still had no friends and got randomly aggressed by Japan, Ayutthaya and others, but could easily fend them off, and survival was no longer at stake. I got deeper into reading Ryukyu AARs and found the American colonization strategy pretty interesting. It was something I had never tried before with an Asian country. So I got there - it was not difficult with the tech levels I already had - and conquered Central America. Europeans were already there though, and started randomly DoWing me as well, pissing me off and pushing me to try and actually get something out of these wars, rather than White Peace. I even got to invade and occupy Holland, who I knew quite well for having chosen them as my Westernization partner. I took their colonies in former Mayan territory and some gold, IIRC.

I also started to slowly colonize Siberia. It was tedious, but my first goal by doing so was to get in touch with nomads and gain extra colonists ; and my second goal, in the long run, was to move my capital there and adopt this part of the continent as my animist homeland. I chose Jugjur for that matter, renamed it after my country's name and the city after my first two rulers (Bunei).



After a very long series of defensive wars against not only Japan but Ming, Vijaynagar and Novgorod (and in America, other Europeans), I switched my government to Absolute Monarchy and finally could plan my first large imperialistic war.



And that's how I got there in 1645, with still some stuff to achieve, such as the complete conquest of Japan (some understandable resentment here) and Ming's porcelaine factory coast. But real challenges are over, and I feel I have gained all the experience I could expect from that Ryukyu game.

(Oh, I remember I actually played a bit further and finished this war against Aragon, when I could get England's colonies in Central America in the peace deal. But I have no screenshots for that, sorry).

I was not done with the idea of conquering America with a Far East nation though, and started thinking Fujiwara would not be bad at this... But that's another story.