LOL....just tried to zoom out to view the whole thread with the '-' key....been playing WAY too much the last 2 days. 
ErrantOne
ErrantOne
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I've done that too! Funny thing about "muscle memory" and other phenomena. Subject for a great OT discussion.
I am going to take a shot at summarizing potential differences from the three lines of research (yours, Cunctator, and Savant's - not to mention a number of other people's comments and experiences) in the new thread.
Meanwhile...(mini AAR)
I've finished (! first time ever) my Venice game. You "shamed" me into trying a minor again, instead of England. Great game! In prior minor games, I got bored very quickly because I could see how easy it was to become a major (all this before the economic tweaks). So I abandoned the games pretty quickly. Admittedly, I was not playing challenged countries like the Mameluks or Brittany. As it turns out, I turned Venice into something of a major, anyway, but it was great fun. I didn't get bored until about 1710, and then forced myself to play it out and had two very entertaining wars.
Venice, I imagine, is an easy minor to play since it has a rich CoT to begin with. Turkey is a formidable adversary, but fairly easy to handle. At least in this game, there were always poorly fortified provinces that could be taken to aid peace negotiations - I tried to be "ethical" in my playing - have my doubts, though. My one and only real restriction on play was that I was not going to be a colonialist. I was, and did, establish several TP's to bring in income and "move with the times", so to speak. Only half of those paid off, since some were in CoT's that were vigilantly monopolized, or not worth the investment. I ended up being THE power in the Mediterrean. Italy was controlled by my federation of states (Savoy, Genoa, and Tuscany). The Levant was mine (Lebanon, Aleppo, and Syria). I took the Hafsid in a fit of pique during one war. The Lebanon CoT that popped up three years after taking Lebanon probably made me. The whole Italy thing was a combination of desperate ally seeking that turned into a long term relationship, combined with a defensive war against Spain when it was vulnerable. Of course, the Papal State military annexation was raw, unbridaled expanionism
. But hey, my monarch commanded. In the end, I think I had three colonies - Table, the north tip of Madagasgar, and Manhatten. The first from a random conquistedor w/fleet - how far can he sail before attriting away? - drop the conquistedor off there. Madagasgar came as a result of harrying the Turks during one of seven or ten wars we fought. The last was out of boredom in the 1700s.This was the oddest game I have played in terms of what other countries have done. Spain never had any difficulties - losing its Italy holdings was it's only setback. France was hurt a bit early but became a huge powerhouse. The Netherlands (1520 scenario) were aggressive in Europe around their holdings, but really were not a strategic actor. The oddity is that all of these were never aggressive in Europe, they usually were subordinate in alliances and were only involved in wars because of other alliance members DoW'ing. England was marginalized early in Europe, and later in N. America. The Tuet's were everybody's whipping boy early and Sweden, the Hanse, Russia, and England ate them up. P-L was consistently eaten up by Russia, Turkey, Moldavia and Austria. Austria diplo-annexed Bohemia and concerned itself with central Europe early on. It later became the uber-country, but was, strictly, a continental power. Once I became secure, one of my objectives was to marginalize Austria while hurting Turkey. This worked quite well until Austria inherited Hungary (despite my +200 for decades while Austria was at +165). Hungary was the engine of my expansion. Turkey would DoW it and I would get no BB penalty provinces in the ensuing wars. This ended my expansionist period (1640-1690). The end game consisted of alliances like, Austria, France, England, Denmark, Saxony, and the Palatine. And, Turkey, England, and the Netherlands. My ultimate alliance, because of a never ending splinter war was - Spain, Portugal, Savoy, and Tuscany. Genoa was the black sheep of the Italian confederation and repeatedly allied with Russia and Persia. Really funny about the game engine. My worst relationship with Genoa in the last 100 years was +140. None the less, Genoa always refused to ally with me - it was neutral to very friendly with the other allies. Curious. It was also interesting to deal with the endless series of useless "monarchs" that Venice has. I went through more supreme leaders in the first couple of decades than England has in the whole campaign. If I were to be really serious, I would put together a series of rules (basically, the way missions should work), and randomly assign a "theme" to a monarch/political powers for a given administration - then play to that theme.
Anyway, a great deal of fun.
Sounds like a fun game! Always fun to hear of someone elses adventures. I have yet to try venice. Minors in general are very fun, especially when you can be overrun by the bigger neibors. If you like that region also consider trying Hungry. They are a smaller austria type play and very challenging early on.
ErrantOne
I have yet to try venice. Minors in general are very fun, especially when you can be overrun by the bigger neibors. If you like that region also consider trying Hungry. They are a smaller austria type play and very challenging early on. ErrantOne
That is different!
You had Genoa as part of a federation while playing Venice? I found Genoa always too hostile and too expensive to buy their friendship. And of course, my venetian heritage would prevent me from doing so.
Also, how did a new COT form in Lebanon? I have never seen a new COT form in the med basin before - never, and that through 10's of games! Have you ever had that happen before? What could have caused that? I had no idea a new COT in the old world was possible.
State - I am looking forward to your summary of the perspectives. I think we all agree that we need to reconcile differences so that we can make progress and then assess the suitability of a base configuration. Please post that in the new IGC+ thread so we can build on it?
You had Genoa as part of a federation while playing Venice? I found Genoa always too hostile and too expensive to buy their friendship. And of course, my venetian heritage would prevent me from doing so.
Also, how did a new COT form in Lebanon? I have never seen a new COT form in the med basin before - never, and that through 10's of games! Have you ever had that happen before? What could have caused that? I had no idea a new COT in the old world was possible.
State - I am looking forward to your summary of the perspectives. I think we all agree that we need to reconcile differences so that we can make progress and then assess the suitability of a base configuration. Please post that in the new IGC+ thread so we can build on it?
Venice plays a lot like England, except with fewer leaders and no good monarchs.
* It has the option of being heavily involved in European matters, or to simply stay alive in Europe. It is very vulnerable to Austria and Turkey, but the other super powers are distant and have to use fleets to get at Venice. Venice has a large navy and enough money to keep the research up. Turkey and Austria are both managable by taking provinces from them as fast or faster than they take them from you. This, in fact, is my standard war tactic. I used to try to have field engagements and defend provinces and so on. Not anymore, I play like the computer. It is a race for stars. I, however, choose better provinces to attack than the computer. I do restrain myself by only choosing provinces that it "makes sense" to attack. In a role playing sense, I have objectives that I try to achieve. The such and so army will be dispatched to Lebanon and then retake the holyland. Things like that.
* In human hands, Venice could be used to create a massive colonial empire. It has lots of colonists. It has no explorers, but will eventually get maps from stolen rutters and the odd random event. I took Thrace once and learned a lot about Asian provinces.
* A major difference is warfare in the Balkens vs. western Europe. The mountains, especially in winter are a death trap! Attrition rates are remarkable. In end game, my massive siege army took 60% casualties (infantry with 10 out of 260 cannons attriting) marching two provinces after peace! Just my army involved, no others.
On topic
Two things. One relevant, but perhaps not for this thread, and the other an observation on the game system that I am going to verify by further research.
1) Infra and Trade investment. I noticed that once level six in each of these, the ai countries lowered their investment rate. I know this belongs on Cunctator's thread, but it is in my head right now. This may have been an end-game effect since I have never gotten past 1740 or so, before.
2) Income from controlled provinces. I had noticed a long time ago that you get the trade tariff income if you are occupying a CoT province. Now I have observed that you get gold income and production income. CoT and gold income seem to kick in as soon as you take the province. I suspect that production income does not kick in until you have held the province for a year (the pillaging has worn off).
I actually had a prolonged debate with myself in one war. I had taken a province I really wanted, and had six stars, and I was not the alliance leader. On the other hand, my seperate peace in another war caused a lot of hardship on my alliance and some significant territory and money indemnities. I wanted to avoid this. Holding Thrace, I was getting Turkey's trade tariffs, and holding four or five of his provinces, I was denying it their income (and getting it myself as it turns out). In the spirit of role playing, I decided that I would assuage my allies and domestic critics by holding a long protracted negotiation with Turkey. I started with asking for three provinces a couple of times, turned down Turkey's (generous) counter offers, and finally wound my way down to a three star peace - Lebanon and 250D.
Which leads to a question. I haven't been able to figure out when monies kept distributed amongst allies and when they don't I suspect any peace made by an alliance leader on behave of the alliance results in the money being distributed. So, a seperate peace by the alliance leader will spread the money, but a seperate peace by an alliance member will not. I'm going to reread all the FAQ's as part of the IGC+ research, anyway - I'll see what they say.
* It has the option of being heavily involved in European matters, or to simply stay alive in Europe. It is very vulnerable to Austria and Turkey, but the other super powers are distant and have to use fleets to get at Venice. Venice has a large navy and enough money to keep the research up. Turkey and Austria are both managable by taking provinces from them as fast or faster than they take them from you. This, in fact, is my standard war tactic. I used to try to have field engagements and defend provinces and so on. Not anymore, I play like the computer. It is a race for stars. I, however, choose better provinces to attack than the computer. I do restrain myself by only choosing provinces that it "makes sense" to attack. In a role playing sense, I have objectives that I try to achieve. The such and so army will be dispatched to Lebanon and then retake the holyland. Things like that.
* In human hands, Venice could be used to create a massive colonial empire. It has lots of colonists. It has no explorers, but will eventually get maps from stolen rutters and the odd random event. I took Thrace once and learned a lot about Asian provinces.
* A major difference is warfare in the Balkens vs. western Europe. The mountains, especially in winter are a death trap! Attrition rates are remarkable. In end game, my massive siege army took 60% casualties (infantry with 10 out of 260 cannons attriting) marching two provinces after peace! Just my army involved, no others.
On topic
Two things. One relevant, but perhaps not for this thread, and the other an observation on the game system that I am going to verify by further research.
1) Infra and Trade investment. I noticed that once level six in each of these, the ai countries lowered their investment rate. I know this belongs on Cunctator's thread, but it is in my head right now. This may have been an end-game effect since I have never gotten past 1740 or so, before.
2) Income from controlled provinces. I had noticed a long time ago that you get the trade tariff income if you are occupying a CoT province. Now I have observed that you get gold income and production income. CoT and gold income seem to kick in as soon as you take the province. I suspect that production income does not kick in until you have held the province for a year (the pillaging has worn off).
I actually had a prolonged debate with myself in one war. I had taken a province I really wanted, and had six stars, and I was not the alliance leader. On the other hand, my seperate peace in another war caused a lot of hardship on my alliance and some significant territory and money indemnities. I wanted to avoid this. Holding Thrace, I was getting Turkey's trade tariffs, and holding four or five of his provinces, I was denying it their income (and getting it myself as it turns out). In the spirit of role playing, I decided that I would assuage my allies and domestic critics by holding a long protracted negotiation with Turkey. I started with asking for three provinces a couple of times, turned down Turkey's (generous) counter offers, and finally wound my way down to a three star peace - Lebanon and 250D.
Which leads to a question. I haven't been able to figure out when monies kept distributed amongst allies and when they don't I suspect any peace made by an alliance leader on behave of the alliance results in the money being distributed. So, a seperate peace by the alliance leader will spread the money, but a seperate peace by an alliance member will not. I'm going to reread all the FAQ's as part of the IGC+ research, anyway - I'll see what they say.
Genoa
I started the game with loose objectives of destroying Genoa and Turkey.
After several decades in Austrian alliances, Austria decided to not have me as an ally. Hungary was a friend, but in the Austrian camp. I now had no allies and Turkey was looking at me with crossed eyes. Conveniently some alliance ended or broke up, and Tuscany and Savoy were unaligned. We had a decent relations, and an alliance was formed. Genoa became available shortly after that. Our relations with them had gone from -200 to 0 in a matter of 60 years or so. I figured, why not ally? The problem with this alliance was that none of these countries were adjacent. Savoy had a fleet. Genoa would be a good addition with its fleet. I then fought one of two "bad" wars. Austria had taken Milan after a French or Spanish annexation. France had annexed Modena, which repeatedly would revolt to independence and be reannexed. I wanted a land bridge to my allies. We hated France, anyway, and it was busy elsewhere. I DoW'ed France with its Papal States allies. A prolonged war requiring most of southern France to be taken resulted in Emelia to me, and Modena to Tuscany. We later added Hungary to the alliance to counter the Austrians, and provide some muscle against Turkey. This form of the alliance lasted about 40 years until Hungary was annexed. Genoa jumped ship a little later when I was a bit slow on renewing the alliance. The remaining alliance with Portugal added in lasted another 80 years or so till end game. I violated one of my normal rules of not maintaining permanent alliances. There was never an opportunity to switch things up. Constant war prolonged most alliances for extensive periods, and most everybody hated me, or were aligned with countries that hated me. By end game, the relationship pattern I saw was that Catholic countries were neutral to me unless we had a long term relationship. Austria, on the other hand hated me almost the entire campaign. The Papal States while they existed were pegged at -200. Protestant, Muslim, and RotW countries were pegged at -200. Reformed countries were neutral. France went from disliking me to hating me to neutral over 200 years without any apparent reason. Spain went from neutral to liking me to disliking me and back to neutral without any apparent reason. My one French and one Spanish war both occurred while they disliked me.
Lebanon CoT
I'm going to post this and the production income thing in the GD forum. I should have highlighted this in my AAR. I was astounded. I, too, have never seen a new CoT in the Mediterrean. And, it was a (modestly) rich CoT. It had 2/3 of Anatolia, the Caspian Sea areas, some of the Steppes east of the Caspian, and half of the Red Sea. I suspect it would have had more of the Red Sea if there hadn't been a CoT in Zanzibar.
CoT distribution was a bit funny. The anomolies: Only two N. American CoT's (west coast and interior). Three African CoT's (W, S, and E). And, of course, Lebanon. I attribute this pattern to very low level of colonization in N. America.
I started the game with loose objectives of destroying Genoa and Turkey.
After several decades in Austrian alliances, Austria decided to not have me as an ally. Hungary was a friend, but in the Austrian camp. I now had no allies and Turkey was looking at me with crossed eyes. Conveniently some alliance ended or broke up, and Tuscany and Savoy were unaligned. We had a decent relations, and an alliance was formed. Genoa became available shortly after that. Our relations with them had gone from -200 to 0 in a matter of 60 years or so. I figured, why not ally? The problem with this alliance was that none of these countries were adjacent. Savoy had a fleet. Genoa would be a good addition with its fleet. I then fought one of two "bad" wars. Austria had taken Milan after a French or Spanish annexation. France had annexed Modena, which repeatedly would revolt to independence and be reannexed. I wanted a land bridge to my allies. We hated France, anyway, and it was busy elsewhere. I DoW'ed France with its Papal States allies. A prolonged war requiring most of southern France to be taken resulted in Emelia to me, and Modena to Tuscany. We later added Hungary to the alliance to counter the Austrians, and provide some muscle against Turkey. This form of the alliance lasted about 40 years until Hungary was annexed. Genoa jumped ship a little later when I was a bit slow on renewing the alliance. The remaining alliance with Portugal added in lasted another 80 years or so till end game. I violated one of my normal rules of not maintaining permanent alliances. There was never an opportunity to switch things up. Constant war prolonged most alliances for extensive periods, and most everybody hated me, or were aligned with countries that hated me. By end game, the relationship pattern I saw was that Catholic countries were neutral to me unless we had a long term relationship. Austria, on the other hand hated me almost the entire campaign. The Papal States while they existed were pegged at -200. Protestant, Muslim, and RotW countries were pegged at -200. Reformed countries were neutral. France went from disliking me to hating me to neutral over 200 years without any apparent reason. Spain went from neutral to liking me to disliking me and back to neutral without any apparent reason. My one French and one Spanish war both occurred while they disliked me.
Lebanon CoT
I'm going to post this and the production income thing in the GD forum. I should have highlighted this in my AAR. I was astounded. I, too, have never seen a new CoT in the Mediterrean. And, it was a (modestly) rich CoT. It had 2/3 of Anatolia, the Caspian Sea areas, some of the Steppes east of the Caspian, and half of the Red Sea. I suspect it would have had more of the Red Sea if there hadn't been a CoT in Zanzibar.
CoT distribution was a bit funny. The anomolies: Only two N. American CoT's (west coast and interior). Three African CoT's (W, S, and E). And, of course, Lebanon. I attribute this pattern to very low level of colonization in N. America.
I think this is correct. At least it seems that way to me too.
A couple people have mentioned this happening. I have yet to see it myself.
I have seen all but gold now that you mention it.
You probably already know this, but in a case like this it is best to divide up and disperse your attack army for the walk home. Even if you have to move them into other austrian provinces that are a bit out of the way. Those mtns have very low attrish limits.
Free Finland....
BTW, if you have not playing the free finland (and like the baltic area) you should try it. It is quite fun. Odd thing about the Fin tag is when you change to prot. and reformed you only go to -2 stab. In my current Finland game we had a 60+year war with russia that was awesome. Russia and finland when back and forth with each side almost winning. In the end we had a status quo piece. It was really touch and go at first becuase the silly danish king thought we were and easy victim for his expansionist desires. Odd thing happened. DAN DoWed Finland. Russia and Pskov joined. Was able to force Pskov out of the war quickly. Then spent 20+years trying to get denmark to settle. After a very touch and go time period finland and denmark settle the war, but russia is in a 'seperate' war with finland even though it started with DAN DoWing us. I have seen his happen a couple of times(with other countries) and can't figure out why. It seems to happen with VERY long wars.
Misc game engine things....
There seems to be a relationship between your BB number and your diplo numbers. The higher the BB, the lower your diplo will be and it will not raise higher, which leads me to believe the BB has some kind of modifier on diplo. As the BB decays the diplo number can raise up until it hits the new high number as determined at least partially by BB. I have been watching this over the last few games. On a general note, there seems to be other 'max' kind of modifiers. One of which seems to be if you hold a national territory. Another might also be related to colonization. In one game a while back ENG had serious troubles at home and started colonizing WAY late. Up to that point my country (forget which) was at or near 0 diplo. After a few years the number started decaying fast as ENG only had a few places to colonize in NA. The only thing that changed was ENGs desire to colonize (as far as I could tell). I just mention it as a 'theory' in case anyone else notices something related.
EVERYTHING is updated at the end of the month.....
*Want instant army morale? Change army sliders to 100% on last day of month. Next day you are at max.
*Want to reduce attrition? Detach your artillery (or even infantry from your cavalry)and move your unit to next province starting on 1st day of month and as long as you arrive before the end of the current month....no attrition. btw, artillery seems to attrish alot slower.
*Only have galleys and want to minimize your attrition while you move troops around? break the whole fleet into little 1-2ship fleets. Then you can move the whole army onto the fleets. The army will automatically breakup into small pieces for transport. This works well for everything by sea assults on enemy provinces.
There are more but cant remember them right now.
ErrantOne
Errant
I do now...
Diplo relations
Yes, there must be a few interrelations that are not obvious. My BB was almost always zero with a couple of notable exceptions. It spiked to 4 in a war of aggression against Papal States and France. Hit 4 again with annexation of Hafsid and taking of 2 Spanish provinces. And it hit 11 or something like for annexing the Papal States. The latter caused a -100 diplo drop w/Austria and subsequent freefall to -200. I bet Spa and Fra also dropped precipitously. I never held core provinces except of Austria, Turkey, and the Papal States. I have wondered whether controlling CoT's that another country's provinces are in is an irritant. It certainly is to me if they are TP's or colonies!
BTW, check out the GD forum. I did post the Lebanon CoT and controlled province things.
The income thing has a potential tie-in to your revolt tactics. The REB's get the income when they control provinces. Getting other folks provinces to revolt removes income from them (if you haven't already covered that angle).
I do now...
Diplo relations
Yes, there must be a few interrelations that are not obvious. My BB was almost always zero with a couple of notable exceptions. It spiked to 4 in a war of aggression against Papal States and France. Hit 4 again with annexation of Hafsid and taking of 2 Spanish provinces. And it hit 11 or something like for annexing the Papal States. The latter caused a -100 diplo drop w/Austria and subsequent freefall to -200. I bet Spa and Fra also dropped precipitously. I never held core provinces except of Austria, Turkey, and the Papal States. I have wondered whether controlling CoT's that another country's provinces are in is an irritant. It certainly is to me if they are TP's or colonies!
BTW, check out the GD forum. I did post the Lebanon CoT and controlled province things.
The income thing has a potential tie-in to your revolt tactics. The REB's get the income when they control provinces. Getting other folks provinces to revolt removes income from them (if you haven't already covered that angle).
What do rebs do with money? Go shopping on the black market for new weapons?
maybe they do research?ErrantOne
They finance BiB's computer gear so he can post like crazy.
Note, as more games of EU are sold and played, BiB's post count goes up exponentially.
Note, as more games of EU are sold and played, BiB's post count goes up exponentially.
I *did* sport the shield for 3000 posts ...
The in game rebels don't get to do nowt with their money in the game!
Annexing a same religion state will definitely bring u in diplomatic dire straits.
The in game rebels don't get to do nowt with their money in the game!
Annexing a same religion state will definitely bring u in diplomatic dire straits.