Is EU3 fun yet?

[Tamas]

Assuming you are playing HttT (if not, you fail big time), if the naval AI thinks it can beat you, it will go against your main fleet(s) with a vengeance. But if not it will hide.

[katmai]

Anyone have a decent guide on the sliders and managing them? No real idea what is desirable there - centralization seems good, other than that, just kind of going by what seems desirable from my 21st century ideals.

Um iirc
Cent, plutarchy, free subjects, free trade, innovative, and since England naval and quality over quanity??

But ask Habbu as he has that shit down pat.

[Solmyr]

You can move the sliders beyond the limits (and events will do so), it just gives you extra revolt risk for each step over the max, IIRC.

[sbr]

Anyone have a decent guide on the sliders and managing them? No real idea what is desirable there - centralization seems good, other than that, just kind of going by what seems desirable from my 21st century ideals. If I am limited to a max centralization of 0, does that mean that if I am at 0 and an event fires that would give me +1, it won't actually happen, or is the max only relative to what I can adjust via moving the slider?

Each step past the max gives you +1 RR.

Centralization is the best slider by far, after that it depends on what you are doing.  If you are going to colonize you should go towards Navy and Free Trade, IIRC

[DGuller]

I tend to go with centralized, aristocracy, narrowminded, free subjects, and defensive.  I think that innovative has too many penalties, and you can now get the tech boost by free subjects as well.  I also wouldn't go with aristocracy if playing without many diplomats weren't such a bitch.

[Agelastus]

Well, I should kill whichever of you convinced me to try HTTT with their "how good it is" posts. 

This is EU3 as it should have been. The new Casus Belli system is wonderful, as is the expanded college of cardinals.

I'm playing with "lucky nations off" as England, and I've been on it for most of last night and today. France is GONE (initially assraped by Burgundy and opportunistic old me, then it disappeared when pecked to death by a coalition of smaller powers and their own rebels - I even missed its' final moment. Southern and Eastern France are the wildest hodgepodge of competing countries.) Burgundy is almost GONE!!! One war too many, reduced from about twenty provinces to one in something like fifteen years by various combinations of its' neighbours, and, of course, the rebels who had a free run when I'd butchered its' armies.

Bavaria grew and shrunk. Austria grew and shrunk and grew again. Byzantium is still holding on somehow. Castile seems to be obsessing over North Africa (their empire looks very "Carthage-like". And we are only in the late 1450s

I have no major powers on my border...my colonisation of North America has begun...I am loving it...

To those who don't like my posting ( Garbon) be reassured I'll probably be fairly quiet for a few weeks.

[dps]

I tend to go for centralization, aristocracy, innovative, free subjects, defensive, and quality.  Some details:

Centralization/Decentralizaton:  Centralization is always better than decentralization in the game.  Notice that when you move a slider, that on of three other things besides the slider move itself will happen?  Notice that if you move toward centralization, all three of them are bad?  That's because a more centralized slider position is always better, so they had to put something in to make you at least think about moving something else instead.  And yes, going more centralized should almost always be your first priority, unless you are already as centralized as your government type will let you be without extra revolt risk (and you should at least consider moving past the limit if you can deal with the revolt risk).

Aristocracy/Plutocracy:  While I usually go for full aristocracy, that's because I'm usually doing a lot of conquering.  Expanding through conquest will usually kill your merchants' chances to compete in foreign CoTs, so I pretty much blow off trading in any CoTs except the ones I own.  Therefore, I wouldn't really get most of the benefits of going plutocratic.  In your England game, it sounds like you're not going to do much conquering, so going plutocratic and doing a lot of trading is probalby better for you.  I generally don't see moving this slider as a high priority.

Serfdom/Free Subjects:  Going free subjeccts gives you a big boost to your tech advances, so it's aways desirable.    However, I like to wait a bit to move this one.  One of the effects of a  slider move toward free subjects is "Better Administration". which lowers you inflation.  So to me it makes sense to wait until you have some inflation to lower to make this move.

Innovative/Narrowminded:  Innovative is better, because you always need to stay on top of tech adances.  Howver, the more innovative you go, the fewer missionaries you get.  Even if you're not conquering foreign provinces which religions other than your state religions, as a Catholic nation, you're going to most likely have some prvinces go either Protestant or Reformed (likely some of each) once the Reformation starts, so you'll still need some missionaries.  There are ways to get missionaries even when highly innovative, but some of them won't be available to you for a while.  What I generally do is go as innovative as possible and still get a few missionaries.  A fairly high priority slider to move.

Mercantilism/Free Trade:  I usually go for mercantilisme, for much the same reason as I go aristocratic.  Again, though, in your game, Free Trade probably makes more sense.  A low priority slider for me, but if you're going for a trading statefy, it may have a higher priority.

Offensive/Defensive:  Offensive looks nice, but there's a hidden cost--if you're on the offensive side of the slider, events can fire which cause you to have to choose to lose money or a fort level in a random province.  On the other hand, if you go defensive, you get events which give you free fort upgrades.  There's nothing wrong with a "0" middle position, and aslong as youj aren't getting the bad events for being offensive, moving this one can wait till more improtant sliders moves have been done.

Land/Naval:  I rarely move this one, but going naval makes sense if you're playing a heavy colonizing game and aren't going to have to do much fighting on land.;  Massive continental empires (think Russia) can afford to go towards land.  But it's not a high priority at all.

Quality/Quanity:  I prefer to go full quality--having good troops is nice, but some countries, particularly island countries (or a country like Portugal, that is only going to have a few provinces on the same continent as its capital, but a large colonial empire), can get badly strapped for manpower and may need to go for quantity.  (Also, I'm told that yuo can get swamped by your rivals in multi-layer if you go towards quality;  I don't know about that, and indeed, all of my advice is based on solo play.)  If you do go for quality, make it early, because the bonuses for having high-quality troops will have thir biggerst impact when unit morale levels are low overall.

[sbr]

Going Naval give pretty big bonuses (or removes penalties) for overseas provinces.

[DGuller]

Innovative/Narrowminded:  Innovative is better, because you always need to stay on top of tech adances.  Howver, the more innovative you go, the fewer missionaries you get.  Even if you're not conquering foreign provinces which religions other than your state religions, as a Catholic nation, you're going to most likely have some prvinces go either Protestant or Reformed (likely some of each) once the Reformation starts, so you'll still need some missionaries.  There are ways to get missionaries even when highly innovative, but some of them won't be available to you for a while.  What I generally do is go as innovative as possible and still get a few missionaries.  A fairly high priority slider to move.

In HttT, your narrowmindedness also affects your influence with the Pope to a great extent.  Being able to control the Pope and excommunicate countries is huge in HttT, because it allows you to get a very favorable CB against a European country.  Stability cost is also important.  You can't research much if you constantly have to spend a couple of years to bring your stability up by a point.

Offensive/Defensive:  Offensive looks nice, but there's a hidden cost--if you're on the offensive side of the slider, events can fire which cause you to have to choose to lose money or a fort level in a random province.  On the other hand, if you go defensive, you get events which give you free fort upgrades.  There's nothing wrong with a "0" middle position, and aslong as youj aren't getting the bad events for being offensive, moving this one can wait till more improtant sliders moves have been done.

I disagree about the middle, middle is not a good ground for that slider.  At full defensive, your default leader gets an extra point of siege skill.  That doesn't look like much, but it is, given how the siege formula works.

Quality/Quanity:  I prefer to go full quality--having good troops is nice, but some countries, particularly island countries (or a country like Portugal, that is only going to have a few provinces on the same continent as its capital, but a large colonial empire), can get badly strapped for manpower and may need to go for quantity.  (Also, I'm told that yuo can get swamped by your rivals in multi-layer if you go towards quality;  I don't know about that, and indeed, all of my advice is based on solo play.)  If you do go for quality, make it early, because the bonuses for having high-quality troops will have thir biggerst impact when unit morale levels are low overall.

IMO, quality doesn't make your troops that much better.  The slight morale boost isn't worth the loss of manpower.  In the early game, I'd rather opt for the national idea that instantly gives you +1 morale, which is HUGE, and make you obliterate the countries without it unless you're greatly outnumbered.

[Habbaku]

AA's boobs and DGuller's summaries are pretty concise and give you just about all the information I can think of on the various sliders.  I would weigh in on the Innovative side of the I/N debate, but that, just as most of the sliders, depends on your country.  A gigantic, Spanish Empire usually doesn't want to go Innovative, for example, simply due to stability costs.  A more modest-sized French or British one, however, will likely find it to be beneficial.

[Berkut]

OK< so I took over Scotland so I can do the Great Britain thing, and conquered every province. However, when I Sue, it will let me pick any provice *except* the one I need (Lothian). Any reason why?

[sbr]

OK< so I took over Scotland so I can do the Great Britain thing, and conquered every province. However, when I Sue, it will let me pick any provice *except* the one I need (Lothian). Any reason why?

Is it their capital?  You cannot take their capital until you make them a one province country, then annex them.

[Razgovory]

OK< so I took over Scotland so I can do the Great Britain thing, and conquered every province. However, when I Sue, it will let me pick any provice *except* the one I need (Lothian). Any reason why?

Is it their capital?  You cannot take their capital until you make them a one province country, then annex them.

I thought you could if you surround the capital with your territory from previous wars.

[Jaron]

What the fuck was the name of the song that played when you booted up EU2?

[Sophie Scholl]

The falalalan thing?