The Third Languish Sunday EU3 MP Game Thread

[Solmyr]

oh wait, have you guys actually played a 1453 game with an AI Portugal? 

The AI will colony-rush North America with them like it was nobody's business, in MP terms giving a LOT of free colonies to England or France in a matter of decade or two.

This mainly happens because the Azores are closer to NA than to anything else, so the colonial range goes there first. Someone (coughcastilecough) should just take the Azores from Portugal and they'll be nicely channeled more to the south.

[Tamas]

Number 3 kinda limits the mooselimbs and leaves Russia in the lurch.

All that's really needed is people not being afraid to break alliances when it's in their interest. Think of this as a more complex game of Diplomacy.

Yeah the only house rule which should be is that we dont throw hissy Slargosian fits over changing alliances.

[Habbaku]

All that's really needed is people not being afraid to break alliances when it's in their interest. Think of this as a more complex game of Diplomacy.

Right.  What will change things for the better is a shift in attitude towards something more cutthroat rather than friendly for each player involved as opposed to a series of house rules.  Simple things, really--don't get involved in a war that doesn't benefit you in any way "just because" your 'ally' is waging an offensive war.  Don't sell your provinces to help people launch into new colonial territories--keep them to yourself as long as possible.  Don't sell an East Asian Trade Port to let someone form their East India Company...Etc.

[Tamas]

oh wait, have you guys actually played a 1453 game with an AI Portugal? 

The AI will colony-rush North America with them like it was nobody's business, in MP terms giving a LOT of free colonies to England or France in a matter of decade or two.

This mainly happens because the Azores are closer to NA than to anything else, so the colonial range goes there first. Someone (coughcastilecough) should just take the Azores from Portugal and they'll be nicely channeled more to the south.

Right that will work out, handling the Spanish pwnage of Portugal as a favor done to the other players... 
We could use a Portugal I say.

[Solmyr]

I could just guarantee Portugal myself and laugh as they take all the prime Yank areas. Hey, AI Portugal loves allying with Castile anyway.

[Grey Fox]

I think you guys should try a AIPortgual game. Could be fun to see the AI fuck with all your colonizations effort.

[Habbaku]

I think you guys should try a AIPortgual game. Could be fun to see the AI fuck with all your colonizations effort.

More likely is that, unprotected, Castile will just annex them.

[Alcibiades]

I think you guys should try a AIPortgual game. Could be fun to see the AI fuck with all your colonizations effort.

More likely is that, unprotected, Castile will just annex them.

This

[Berkut]

I think the problem, from what I have seen so far, with EU3 MP is this:

1. Player A wants to go to war with Player B.
2. But if he does, and Player C comes in on the side of B, player A is screwed.
3. So most of the time, the war never happens - too risky.
4. If player A goes to Player C, chances are player C will maybe agree to join in with Player A to go after B. If not - go to step 3.
5. So now we have A&C against B. B gets their ass kicked.
6. B knows this is possible, so he enlists D to counter C.
7. Goto step 5/6, repeat.
8. Lots of alliances, war is now a huge affair. How about we beat up on the AI some more instead?
9. No war.
10. If in fact we get over this, and do get a war (maybe because B is so much a threat that everyone else gangs up on them), then the war ends up being a HUGE war.

And the results will be huge as well, especially if you are looking to bring down a leader.  See the anti-HRE and anti-Ottoman wars. You can't limit those to "only taking 4 provinces" since that does not do enough to solve the reason the war was started to begin with. Limiting province gains just benefits those who are best positioned to grab lots of provinces from the AI nations.

So rather than having lots of smaller wars, you end up with very few wars, but really big ones - and often not very interesting either, since the outcome is often pre-determined. All the "game-play" is in the run up to war, not the war itself. The war is the climax of the interplay, not the content.

Not sure what to do about that though. "Even" wars are risky - from a gameplay perspective, it is kind of foolish to go into a risky war, so why do it?

[Habbaku]

I nominate France as the guarantor of Portuguese freedom.

[Habbaku]

"Even" wars are only risky insofar as the player might lose a bit of territory--which, at the end of the day, is not the end of the world, or even necessarily a terrible outcome.  No one wants to lose even a single province (see : Slargos) and, so, they fight to the very end in a series of total wars wherein the outcome has to be the utter destruction of their country or all of their enemies'--the antithesis of this time period, save for the Napoleonic Wars and maybe the 30 Years War.

There are two major problems, as I see it.  The first is that people are too willing to fight for their "friends" to expand and thus get involved in a war that really has nothing to do with them whatsoever.  Why spend money in a war if which you will not gain?

The second is that, as other players start to expand, it seems as if everyone is falling asleep and ignoring the incredible expansion being done by the others, rationalizing to themselves that they can just "stop it later when they have others on board" rather than take steps to stop it before it even becomes a problem.  See : the HRE, the expansion of the Ottomans and the expansion of Spain in our Wednesday night game.

The game has mechanics in place to stop this--Proclaim Guarantee, alliances with minor powers, Send Warning against other majors, etc.  No one uses them, though or, worse, they think that the players adjacent to them are their "friends" and so they ignore the other guy's expansion.

[Berkut]

I think it is more a matter of "Why do I care about my neighbor expanding, when I am doing the exact same thing?"

Why fight over provinces ABC with my neighbor, when I can just take DEF myself, or take them from a AI minor?

It's not like the expansion of Spain happened in some kind of vacuum - everyone else was snatching up provinces left and right as well. Nobody is falling asleep - they are too busy trying to do the same thing themselves. Hell, *I* was the one who kicked off the race for India, and ended up getting more than I expected to, to be completely honest. I though someone other than just me and Spain would be involved though.

In fact, to be completely honest, I went when I did because I thought my main competitor for India would be the Ottomans, who were much closer, and more powerful than both Spain and England.

[Berkut]

"Even" wars are only risky insofar as the player might lose a bit of territory--which, at the end of the day, is not the end of the world, or even necessarily a terrible outcome. 

This is a key, I think. Losing a war should not be any big deal, so that taking the risk is actually worth it.

I am not sure that is the case though - in fact, my suspicion is that it is the opposite - 'small' wars between A and B probably help player C more than it helps either A or B, no matter which of them wins. Since the best way to expand is almost certainly grabbing unclaimed (by a player anyway) territory.

[Berkut]

I do agree that fundamentally a big part of the problem is that the players just don't play it as enough of a wargame, and more of a parallel SP game with some conflict thrown in now and again.

The problem is that I suspect that is actually the "smart" way to play. Kind of a prisoners dilemna sort of thing.

[Habbaku]

The trouble with playing it the "smart" way, though, is it will inevitably end the same way every time--players will expand to certain regions where they are seemingly "destined" to go to and others will do the same until we get to the point around ~1700 that just about everything is player-owned...and then you end up with a giant stalemate.  Far better, I would think, is to prevent the stalemate from coming about by weakening your opponent at a far earlier date.  Yes, you might set yourself behind by 10 years in the short term, but in the long-term, it's almost assured that you'd come out ahead of those who are just sitting on the sidelines.