EU3 Modification Question

[Barrister]

You've convinced me - I'll try SRI once I'm done this game.

Which at the rate I play, should be August...

[Queequeg]

Does it have all the new religions of MMP?  Oriental Orthogox, Bogomil, Ibadi, etc..?  The new culture?

[alfred russel]

I very rarely play colonizing powers, anyway.  Not for me.

I love playing ahistorical colonizers myself.

I once had a great Hussite Bohemian North America empire going in EU2...


And I was starting to get bored or my Scotland game, but you guys just reminded me I'll hit the Reformation any day now...

Unfortunately, the reformation is screwed up. It seems Sweden is almost always Catholic. However, Austria is protestant in my current game. I strategically stayed Catholic as Brandenburg because I'm next to Poland who can snuff me out at will, but most of my provinces never converted anyway.

[Queequeg]

Alfred, if you want a challenging non-European game try Persia after Tahmasp Ist.  You are smaller than present day Iran, and on both sides of you you have more innovative religious enemies who just happen to be two of the largest Empires in the world.  Very challenging, and not in a frustrating way.  Starting with the early reign of Abbas I is really fun, as you have a great monarch and much work to do.  It is also a great tutorial in the usage of espionage, as you are a monoethnic, monoreligious state with the national idea going up against two huge no-majority states whose most important areas are heathen.   

[Tamas]

Whats that key again to make that global screenshot?

[Tamas]

I think I have ran my Burgundy game to the ground.

Having not recovered from the religious civil war at all, barely reaching -2 stability, I declared war on the Creek and Shawnee who bordered my growing American colonies, in a fear of letting the spanish or french conquer them, since the Hurons and Iroquis had been gone to these powers already.

I did manage to conquer them, but with the liberal realm I had built, stability became a major issue. Revolts have been following each other. Natives in America, and freckin' Protestant Zealots at home. Even some Quebec separatists in Canada. BTW I became a merchant republic somewhere along the way to can become more plutocratic.

With inflation running amock, my inflation is out of control, and following a crushing defeat against a big zealot army, I dont really have the money to build a big army in a reasonable amount of time.

Gonna start a game as Ottomans I think.

[Solmyr]

Whats that key again to make that global screenshot?

F12 I think.

[Tamas]

Dammit, Austria at GC start is STRONG. As OE, I had to resort to running: when they attack, I just run back to Asia, seal off the Dardanelles with my navy, and wait until war exhaustion makes the Austrian sign peace in exchange of some money.

I was not helped by the fact that by 1515 they have Hungary, Croatia, and Bosnia, and they are Emperor. Funnily enough, when they were first Emperors, formed Imperial Demense out of most of western Hungary, but after two non-Habsburg Emperors they have got the title back.

Bohemia regularly guarantees my independence, clearly in order to seek a joint fight against Austria, but the tricky Austrian AI just DoWs one of my Balkan vassals, getting around that problem. Altough by now only Moldavia remains as a European vassal of mine.

In other news: I managed to Westernize, I had two very talented Sultans following each other, the first managed to strengthen the country, the second was talented enough to pull Westernization off, so now I am in Latin tech group, but can't come out of -2 stability since.

Funny war: Genoa guaranteed me recently, and I think this was the reason why France declared war on me because they never attempted to land, just went after Genoese territory in Italy. Their ally, Spain, was happy to wage war on an other guarantor (?) of mine, Algiers. And I just sat there.

But there was also a recent gang-up on me which started around 1504 or so: When Austria came for his latest war, the Mameluks, whom I have started to take apart, declared war also. So I just sealed the Dardanelles off and proceeded to attack them, but then Georgia felt like hitting me, which prompted the Knights-Morea-Naxos-Cyprus alliance to join the fun. So I had to give Kosovo to Austria, and also cancelling my vassalization of Serbia, but I got Damascus and Cyprus out of it.

Two interesting developments: Denmark was lucky enough to inherit both Norway and Sweden so they are now called Scandinavia, and England, sorry, Great Britain is really on steroids in this game: by 1515 they already annexed Creek, Shawnee and the Aztecs. 

Here is teh world:

[alfred russel]

The game with Brandenburg has been interesting--I think the house rule of reducing stability by 1 for every non core province owned was a good idea. It hasn't kept me from slowly becoming the major European Power mid tier power. I've stayed closely allied to Poland for protection, and have actually had to use diplomacy to keep the balance of power in line within northern germany. The major problems I face going forward are Russia moving into Poland which damages my major ally, and Austria moving into north Germany. But the game is still fairly easy, unfortunately.

How is Hungary? They seem like they could be difficult as they share borders with Austria, Poland, the OE, and sometimes Russia, but then they always seem to start with a lot of territory so under a player's control they may be fairly easy as well.

[Queequeg]

Tamas; I think you are largely boned as the Ottomans.  Keeping stability costs down is the main goal as the Ottomans, at least until you are big enough to not care that much anymore.  That's the primary problem with multinational Empires, especially if in SRI Turkish is under the Turkic rather than Semitc branch, as you'll have loads of problems conquering the Arab World. 

[alfred russel]

The HRE changes had such promise, but are so totally screwed up. Russia has become a monster in my game, and keeps getting elected emperor despite not having much land in the HRE (maybe a couple provinces). This is after one and two province countries kept getting elected earlier in the game.

As far as I am concerned, electors should be prohibited from voting for a different religion and then should vote based on army size and prestige, with army size carrying most of the vote. That way if a majority of electors stay catholic, Austria will almost always be emperor, which just happens to be what actually occurred.

[alfred russel]

So I finished my game with Brandenberg as  the worldwide tech leader with about 35k ducats in the bank and a good chunk of northern germany--I was bigger than prussia was in 1820. I don't think any of my neighbors could beat me in a war, including France (even though they had a much larger army, mine was very high quality and not led by the AI). The house rule of reducing stability by 1 for every non core province was crucial to keeping the game interesting.

Russia was totally jumping the shark in my game though. It was in the process of conquering China when the game ended and it already had Iran and much of the middle east. Even with an army 7 times greater than mine, I was able to beat it in a war fairly easily--I don't think the AI could manage all that territory. I was getting waves of small armies sent against me which I easily handled.

[Josquius]

Not being able to take capitals in peace is teh suck.

And the HRE is really odd.
Somehow Burgundy became the Imperial Demense and now passes between whoever is the empire- mostly rather small nation.

[ulmont]

Not being able to take capitals in peace is teh suck.

You can do that, at least in vanilla, although I think you may need 100% occupation to take the capital (and it becomes the only province you take in the peace).

[alfred russel]

Not being able to take capitals in peace is teh suck.

And the HRE is really odd.
Somehow Burgundy became the Imperial Demense and now passes between whoever is the empire- mostly rather small nation.

The HRE had such promise how they introduced it into the game, and then they totally screwed up the process of selecting emperor. That seems odd considering how easy it would be to fix that, in one of the many patches or expansion packs.