tech level, diplomacy, CoT questions

[treedom]

Okay, I have some questions to bug you with...

1) Tech

Everytime I play, I always seem to be lagging behind in tech-level. Is there some secret here that I'm not privy to? How can I get them to go up quicker? Usually (unless there's a national emergency or something) I set the slidebars so that the money and stability are at nothing.

It pains me to use the 200d investment, because it's a lot of money and it seems to make so little difference unless that's all I do year after year (and I need the cash for armies and other things as well). What to do?

2) Diplomacy

Everyone always seems to hate me. And, again, the gifts don't seem to make too much of a dent. For example, I'm playing Russia now, during Ivan IV's reign, and I'm trying to get Austria to like me, and maybe eventually ally with me, because Poland scares me. Ivan's got a pretty good diplo rating, so I thought my luck would change. I send letter after letter, but it barely crawls up. Would it be better to send a one time huge wad of ducats (the state gift perhaps)?

Would it be better if I staggered my gifts more? Do they appreciate each more if they're sent less frequently?

3) Centers of Trade

I'm scratching my head at this one too. It gets expensive to keep sending those merchants and stay competitive, and the returns seem so low. What's the point of this? I mean, I spend 8d to send a guy over. Then, it says I get 2d or something from there (is this per month or year?), and a few months later I've been squeezed out of the place. So I have to send more money over.

Thanks in advance.

BTW, playing Russia, as I said, and it's great fun. So far, it's my favourite nation to play. I love the cheap troops, I love the long all-encompasing winter (keeps me safe from the Poles and the Swedes), and I love the Siberian corridor (I'm about half-way through now). But most of all, I love it because all those things are so freaking historically accurate. Wow, when EU2 comes out, I'm first in line.

 

[State Machine]

1) Tech level. If you are not playing on the latest patch (1.09) download it. It addresses problems with tech advancement. If you do have it, it has a thing called "neigbor bonus" which adds money to your investment when you are behind in your tech level compared to other countries. The farther behind, the more it adds.

One thing many players have taken to doing is to minimize inflation as much as possible. This means keeping your treasury slider as far to the left as you can bear, ideally living off of your annual income. This increases the amount of money that is invested in technology. This does mean keeping out of wars if possible, or, again building troops, etc. out of annual income. I'm not a big war-monger - I'm sure people experienced at that can give better advice.

3) CoT's. The high-value CoT's are worth heavy investment. Small CoT's (100D or thereabouts) arn't usually worth too much investment. Your Trade tech level is important in the amount of money you gain. Having good relations with the owner of the CoT is important. If you own a small CoT, it is not worth trying to get a monopoly - you will earn more from the tariff on other country's traders than you will in income. Fighting for monopolies always causes constant losses of merchants - it is often better to establish yourself with 3 or 4, or 5 merchants and stay there - you won't lose merchants too often. Except when the owner is trying to monopolize the CoT - it can be difficult to compete then unless you want to be dedicated to fighting for trade position on "general principles", compared to direct return on investment.

 

[SideshowBob]

Once you have suffient land and Naval tech to build cannons and all types of ships, focus on trade and infastructure early on. Once you start colonising the Siberian corridor, as Russia, you should get your own CoT that not many other people know about. If you have got your trade tech upto a decent level, (say 5 or 6) you will earn quite a decent income from this. You will also find that since many people dont know about it that the competition isn't that bad.

You can then switch back to Land and Naval tech and you will be investing more money per month. Also as the game goes on and more CoTs open up overseas other countries will send less merchants to the european CoTs, so its worth prehaps going back to some of them later in the game.

Regarding relations, if you have a high BB your relations tend to drop faster than if you're a good boy, so it can be quite hard as Russia to maintain decent relations. Try to maintain a select few that you keep good relations with and sod the rest. I mean even if they invade, just let general winter wipe them out.