Europa Universalis 3 - Losing all battles

[Destroid]

The combat system is also a little obtuse - mainly in the stats of the units. It's not really clear which ones are better suited to what tasks.

So I have 6 or so different infantry to choose from - each has a number of pips in different stats (shock/fire/moral offence/defece) and combat takes turns between shock and fire with each side getting 5 rounds of attack then defence each turn.

Is there some particular reason I would want a certain bias of stats for an invading army or for a defending one? It seems to me there is probably a single best unit, or a moderate paper/scissors/rock effect, but I can't really see it. Are some of the infantry better against cavalry? It's tricky to work out which one to use when you get multiple different types at the same tech level and the differences are not clear.

 

[Furious Flaming Faggot]

Offensive stats apply when your army is attacking, defensive stats apply when defending. More dots means higher stats, obviously. I believe the stats create the base amount of casualties done, while discipline modifies it and the dicerolls actually decide casualties. Casualties are also decided in relation to both armies, so casualties can change drastically and quickly, even in the same battle. Shock and fire have no base differences, the differences in casualties are decided by stats, rolls and generals. Good generals are probably the biggest deciding factor in battles. They provide direct and possibly massive bonuses to casualties done by directly modifying rolls. A 4 shock general gives a +4 to all shock rolls, for example. You also have military tactics which lowers casualties taken. It's increased by tech, and it's there so that battles don't become extremely bloody during the mid and late game.

With pirates just patrol your fleets through seazones and they wont pop up. You can hold shift to make your fleets and armies take more elaborate routes. If you're a faggot you can just put a single galley in a port for every seazone and pirates will never trouble you.

 

[Destroid]

Well, I tried to make Scandinavia as Denmark - I found the Swedish very tough to beat militarily and by the time I managed to break their back my war exhaustion was so high that I had to start cracking down on uprisings.

So I will try it with Sweden next.

 

[Destroid]

Well, I captured all of Norway's provinces, but needed 170 score to make them a vassal and apparently 100 is the max.

Dang.

EDIT: Well the economy is doing better, I have currently 40 merchants deployed. For some reason, the other countries have a really hard time kicking them out. Had a crack at getting the rest of Norway through marriage, but I lost my claim when the king died for whatever reason.

 

[Malakal]

Marriage or personal union?

When MARRIAGE leads to union or inheritance:
-they lack their own heir (the best situation) - requires highest prestige from all the possible competitors
-their heir lacks recognition (whatever that stat is I forgot)- allow You to CLAIM throne but You need high prestige and recognition (80+ in MMU IIRC) and then to win war of course

When UNION leads to inheritance:
-I have no friggin idea as it seems semi random, influenced by high prestige (>=0 or union breaks), low badboy, relations (>=0 or union breaks), possibly other factors like stability. Its harder in MMU and perhaps influenced by AE.

Also no nation will EVER agree to a peace offer costing more than 100 warscore.

 

[Destroid]

I claimed the throne but I think maybe my prestige went down so I lose the claim.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

They'll never accept your offer for a peace offer with 100+ warscore, but they may offer it by themselves. If you're looking to get a ton of territory out of a war, it tends to work better if you wait for them to sue for peace if you have a decisive advantage in the war.

 

[Destroid]

I tell you what, fighting against Russia is very difficult when you have a maximum of 18k manpower stockpiled. I've been drawn into war with them twice (once with Poland/Lithiania as my ally - Russia made them her bitch) and once earlier when I declared war on Denmark - Russia was allied with both of us.

I've yet to lose any territory but I have not managed to gain any yet either - Russia have a 4 fire 5 shock general and I have not managed to push my tradition above about 25% so whenever that guy is around I get curb stomped. Doesn't help that Russia probably has more than double my manpower.

The year is 1540, I've so far only managed to take 3 territories from Norway and 2 from Denmark. I had a series of bad events that meant my infamy stayed sky high for a long, long time.

Scotland seems to be doing remarkably well in it's war against England, although I suppose it's only a matter of time before they are defeated.

EDIT: I've also noticed it will be virtually impossible to trigger the 'form Scandinavia' event as Sweden, because you need cores on a bunch of Danish provinces. Although I have picked up a core on one of the provinces I took from Norway.

 

[Digital Monocle]

First time post here in the Codex, I have a question.

From the previous Playground topics about EU3, I got Complete + HTTT installed the beta. Finished a Byzantine game owning most of the Middle East. So now I am playing as Russia, expanding East and slowly swallowing up Norway/Lithuania.

Why the fuck am I getting raped as Russia against the OE? They seem to have more manpower than me and they have less provinces and every doom stack I send at them ends up completely obliterated. Frustrates the fuck out of me! Our Tech levels are similar, I have 3 star Morale yet they don't even give up when I capture 4 provinces!

 

[Destroid]

Defending is much cheaper than attacking, in terms of manpower. Especially doomstacks will eat your manpower bad on offence, if you are over the support limit of the province and sieging it really screws you up.

 

[Digital Monocle]

They can get away with similar doomstacks of 35K, I send in 45K and I still cannot beat them. I can field a max army of 150K men and they seem to be sending everything at me and it's more than enough!


They are one of the strongest in the world in my game, they have raped entire Balkans and even into Bohemia/and some of Croatia.

I'm thinking of trolling their asses by landing a 10K stack at Judea and move on up and obliterate every territory while I fight their doomstacks. *Edit* Then fix my entire focus on conquering China/Korea/Mongolia.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Well, there's a ton of reasons that may be happening, honestly. It's more than just a numbers game. They may have better generals, higher discipline, or maybe you're attacking some places with huge territory modifiers (Transylvania is especially a bitch to attack... it seems like the attacker always gets a -4 to shock).

 

[Erzherzog]

Historically, the Ottomans fared very well against the Russians during this timeframe.

When I played as Russia for a while, I focused solely on beating down the Ottomans as often as possible. You need to be as efficient as possible against them and study their AI behavior. Whittle them down as often as possible.

 

[Digital Monocle]

Historically, the Ottomans fared very well against the Russians during this timeframe.

When I played as Russia for a while, I focused solely on beating down the Ottomans as often as possible. You need to be as efficient as possible against them and study their AI behavior. Whittle them down as often as possible.

I've Westernized my technology and Military. I have been whittling down their entire alliance and Lithuania since OE was hungry for their territory so I took away that opportunity.

Every time I wait until they get into a semi big war with another faction, I declare war, they truce and then go and rape my forces. I have the numbers and technology similar to theirs (they are slightly ahead). Yet my army continues to get destroyed. Even fresh new 22K Stacks get obliterated with little or no opposition to their doom stack. I do the same and they run away.

I try to use my spies and are totally ineffective at destabilizing them. While they have spies up the wazoo. I try to weaken them by going after an Allies' sphere of influence and annexing but the Ottomans always seem to use that as a Declaration of War. Even my allies don't call to my aid when I need it against the OE. While everyone and their mother come against me. What the fuck!


This is what I don't get and could be a major flaw in the game, if a strong Russia and OE are duking it out, wouldn't the Ottoman enemies see this as an opportunity to lay waste on their provinces with little or no resistance?

 

[Furious Flaming Faggot]

OE was easily capable of taking on any European power up until very late in EU3s time frame, and even then they were pretty powerful. The OE eventually declined, so the Europeans started kicking them around. The OE probably has superior troops to you in most respects. Higher discipline, higher morale, better leaders. Muscovy generally starts with a very shitty quantity based army. Ottoman troop types are also pretty good, with jannissaries.

As a rule you can't rely on allies to be a decisive force on your side, just as a useful aid. If the OE is capable of crushing a huge Eastern European empire with little difficulty, then i doubt their smaller weaker enemies would want to stick around and fight. If they've got slightly superior numbers and tech to you, as well as a troop superiority, then they're obviously going to beat you unless you begin a huge scorched earth campaign across most of your southern territory.

 

[Digital Monocle]

OE was easily capable of taking on any European power up until very late in EU3s time frame, and even then they were pretty powerful. The OE eventually declined, so the Europeans started kicking them around. The OE probably has superior troops to you in most respects. Higher discipline, higher morale, better leaders. Muscovy generally starts with a very shitty quantity based army. Ottoman troop types are also pretty good, with jannissaries.

As a rule you can't rely on allies to be a decisive force on your side, just as a useful aid. If the OE is capable of crushing a huge Eastern European empire with little difficulty, then i doubt their smaller weaker enemies would want to stick around and fight. If they've got slightly superior numbers and tech to you, as well as a troop superiority, then they're obviously going to beat you unless you begin a huge scorched earth campaign across most of your southern territory.

Here are screenshots of my empire as of 1644:

And here are the Turkish Scum:

I agree that OE should be powerful but it wasn't even a contest in this war, it was just massve rape of epic proportions! My tercio army were no match for the Turks.

*Edit* I would play MM, but my computer goes to a crawl while I play it.. basically unplayable for me.

 

[Malakal]

Yes, MMU for me too is very slow. Still I find vanilla to be way too easy.

Get some military national ideas (morale and discipline, stats for generals), go quality, free subjects and offensive. If all that doesnt help well tough luck, time to swarm them. First bleed enemies using scorched earth and defending and then counterattack.

Still thats amazing for OE, what startdate? OE usually performs weakly in 1399 since they dont have Constantinople.

 

[Digital Monocle]

Yes, MMU for me too is very slow. Still I find vanilla to be way too easy.

Get some military national ideas (morale and discipline, stats for generals), go quality, free subjects and offensive. If all that doesnt help well tough luck, time to swarm them. First bleed enemies using scorched earth and defending and then counterattack.

Still thats amazing for OE, what startdate? OE usually performs weakly in 1399 since they dont have Constantinople.

The problem is that I am getting mainly Military NIs since the Russian Army was atrocious when I started. My start was in 1453 or 1499. Something along the lines. But it seems that no one can even stop the OE other than myself.

I had my second war with OE, I scorched the Earth and had 3 50K Stacks waiting for any Turkish invaders. I quickly decimated Astrakhan and took two provinces as a peace settlement. OE were no match for the 50K Stacks and for some reason did not sent their bulk armies and settled for white peace. It helped that finally I got some Revolt Spies creating a ruckus in the Balkans.


Next major move will be annexing Mongol Khaganate and Oirate Horde and bringing a big Korea to their knees so I can get better provinces than the Siberian ones that I currently hold. But OE may force me to just annex Lithuania and Poland.

 

[Destroid]

What sort of computer do you have? MMU runs just fine for me and I don't have a fancy rig, just a core 2 duo 2.5ghz and 2gb memory. It's a cheap core 2, only 1mb L2 cache.

EDIT: On windows 7 64 bit.

 

[Digital Monocle]

What sort of computer do you have? MMU runs just fine for me and I don't have a fancy rig, just a core 2 duo 2.5ghz and 2gb memory. It's a cheap core 2, only 1mb L2 cache.

EDIT: On windows 7 64 bit.

Core2 3.0 Ghz, 4Gb of RAM, ATI 4970 and Win7 x64 and it runs like crap.. it takes forever to go through years... so slow it was unplayable.

EDIT:
The only mod that is playable for my system is Dark Ages mod but that game is too hard to play... I rape everything in sight as the Roman empire and get so many rebellions even after I start unifying the Italian boot


Edit #2:
Where would be the next place to expand? I'm thinking of three places.
1) Completely annex Lithuania and take most of Poland.
or
2) Take out Korea/Mongolia in a War which would not move my Western Arrmy out of front on the OE borders, just create another 10K stack near Korea.

 

[Malakal]

Aim for India/China. Polish and Lithuanian provinces are poor and mostly worthless. Same could be said about most Russian and Scandinavian too.

 

[Digital Monocle]

Only reason why I would annex Poland/Lithuania is to not let the OE have it for themselves. Every Catholic nation hates me, with the exception of Sweden and Norway. But they dishonor any military action... it's sooooo annoying. I'm pretty much the only Orthodox nation in the game other than a tiny Byzantine province in Naxos.

I'll definitely consider taking out Korea and Mongols first to soften up China to be carved up before the Euros come in. I just need to build forts on my new provinces in order to keep Korea from annexing them on the go. I really need that National Idea to get more Missionaries because I can't get any right now and all those revolts need to be put down with an Iron fist of hate.

 

[Destroid]

The order by income in my game is currently (in 1564):

Portugal
(big gap)
Spain
(big gap)
France
Russia
Ottoman
Sweden (me)
(big gap)
England
Poland (merged with Lithuania)

Although I'll admit, >50% of my income is from trade.

 

[Destroid]

Ok, I'm in a funny situation - I'm trying to take over Denmark, and I'm at war with them - but my ally in the war Brandenburg has taken all of their provinces. I'n the peace talks I can ask them to cede provinces currently controlled by Brandenburg - Will they cede the provinces to me (leader of the war) or to Brandenburg?

 

[Gold]

They would cede them to whoever holds them. So in this case Brandenburg.