EU3

[stoicblitzer]

din, how do i make money in eu3? im barely making anything and i dont want to increase my treasury slider too much.

[Dinadan of Logris]

Ah EU3! Make sure to "acquire" the 3 expansions: Napoleon's Ambition, In Nomine and Heir to the Throne, in that order.

Sorry, but if you're playing a small country (few core provinces), it does have to be the treasury slider, since you won't have much income from the Jan 1 census taxes. Cut military upkeep.
Be patient, use the time boost. It typically takes decades to get a good income with small countries, and your cash will come mostly from trade through the treasury slider. Consider using "national trade policy" & "shrewd commerce practices" to keep your merchants easier and not have to invest in them so often. Even in the early game you can keep inflation under control with a master of mint advisor and/or the "national bank" idea if you want to.

If you have Heir to the Throne (HTTT), there's an additional income source to help a tiny bit: you can always use up excess culture to create advisors you do not need (especially if you know a war is about to kill your culture). After you havn't hired them for a year, other countries will, and they pay you a few coins which you can spend on placing merchants. I create theologians, they barely help the AI, but it still hires them.

Also in HTTT, imperial decisions completed to the Gemeiner Pfennig will give the Emperor a ridiculous 50% boost to taxes, regardless of the size of the Empire.

And also in HTTT, place the national focus well and do the land reform provincial decision in your best provinces. Population census too if you are desperate.

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 8 2010, 08:40 AM

[stoicblitzer]

I have napoleon's ambition and in nomine. i am playing as England and I have taken over Scotland except their one core province. so I have the entire island except one province. I also have one province on ireland. I don't make any money unless I turn treasury slider way up. if i do that though, then it becomes harder to put down the revolts because armies take forever to build. also is there a way to use navies to make money?

i guess i should have been patient and waited for casus belli against scotland. i though the faster i took over stuff, the more money i would make. like in tw.

[Dinadan of Logris]

Get HTTT, it's like a 30 megabyte download that you can purchase (or not ). Conquest is much easier in it with a new system of casus bellis. At any rate, England gets babysitted with missions to conquer the isles, you are probably better off waiting for those.

You don't have to keep paying for new armies. Your standing regiments will be gradually reinforced from your manpower pool at the end of each month, free of charge. Mercenary armies don't get reinforcements and are 2x as expensive in upkeep as your own national regiments, make sure you raise the right type, i.e. not mercenaries

The treasury slider has nothing to do with the time to raise a regiment. Longer army build times are caused by war exhaustion, which is increased by starting wars, taking war taxes and attrition and decreased by peace and the administrative ability of your leader. War exhaustion also makes it harder to restore stability.

The only negative effect of the treasury slider is inflation, which slowly increases all costs over time, including research.

Conquering a province will not have its full income effect until the province becomes a core of your dominion, several decades later. Most provinces give rather low income at the start of the game, if you want good income from mindless conquest, maybe you should take away provinces in the Dutch lowlands from Burgundy, Holland and Brabant, they are fairly close to you. Of course that means war with the Emperor. Or take away rich French ones, I think England accepts cosmopolitane culture. Scotland is highly useless, it just allows you to form Great Britain later if they are not independent.

Navies have very little direct money making ability. When it's unlocked by naval technology, they can blockade ports of hostile countries by being stationed in a sea zone at the end of the month. That sends a small part the province's revenue to your coffers (and the enemy will have a big penalty on taxes, trade and tariffs) as well as giving you leverage in peace negotiations like an occupied province.
The indirect money making ability comes later, when you have colonies, as the income you make on tariffs is reduced if you don't have enough big/small warships.

Anyways, if you want to be rich, you should trade, not fight for Scottish cottages.

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 9 2010, 03:04 AM

[stoicblitzer]

welp i messed up then. I could have made scotland my vassal, but instead I told them to cede all their provinces to me except the one with the crown on it. that was my mission but I figured those missions were as useless as the ones in tw. FFS

[Dinadan of Logris]

Missions are moderately useful, you can cancel useless ones. It won't hurt you to have those provinces anyways, and you can annex the rest of Scotland the next time you fight.

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 9 2010, 06:52 PM

[stoicblitzer]

what does buying a centre of trade do?

[Dinadan of Logris]

Do you know the basics? I'll make sure. Your income is built up of 3 parts in EU3, taxes, production (= tariffs in colonies) and trade. Trade income doesn't directly go to the owner of the province, but rather to a "centre of trade" (CoT). Nations can place merchants in the CoTs, which will then generate income mainly based on the market share, the value of the CoT and the nation's trade efficiency. There are 20 spots in a CoT, merchants will compete for them.

You can create a CoT in any national focus province (playing HTTT) that is part of a foreign CoT worth over 300 ducats a year, if you aren't in a trade league. This costs you 500 ducats. There's a trade view available, one of the icons over the minimap, to show what province belongs to what CoT.

When you make a new CoT, it will take over the trade income of surrounding provinces, typically the friendly ones. Depending on how much this is, you will have extra tax income in the CoT province. You'll also receive "harbor fees" for every merchant placed, ~60 ducats a year in a full CoT. But the main advantage is that the owner of a CoT, provided he runs mercantilist policies, may have a huge advantage competing with foreign merchants there. Other bonuses: extra merchants and extra colonists (latter only for shore CoTs). The province's population growth gets increased slightly.

CoTs that have little value will be closed down eventually. You may randomly receive a CoT if there's a large trade-rich area without one nearby (colonies).

Having a CoT is quite profitable.

Having a CoT in a non-core province gives a significant competition chance penalty though (or used to in IN, not sure in HTTT), so conquering them may hurt trade for a while.

[stoicblitzer]

thanks, din.

how did you figure all of this out? I watched the tutorials and there was nothing about this in them.

[Caradoc of Mercia]

Din waited for you to figure it all out and tell him, then invented a time machine and went back in time to tell himself so that he in turn could tell you.

Din is a rubbish mod btw, this is clearly off topic.

This post has been edited by Caradoc of Mercia on Apr 10 2010, 04:04 PM

[stoicblitzer]

i didn't want to make a new topic but i think we should. btw, i just got heir to the throne. 15MB expansion ftw?

[Caradoc of Mercia]

Well I suppose I could split it too.

This post has been edited by Caradoc of Mercia on Apr 10 2010, 04:13 PM

[Dinadan of Logris]

All the expansions are tiny, but quite a lot has been changed for the better.

I've even had EU2, so plenty of time to figure it all out.

EU3 has multiplayer as well, but you really must want to play if you go MP, since it's mostly done on low time multipliers, which has the potential to get tedious.. but then you can save and end the session at will of course.

BTW, there's an EU3 wiki, which covers pretty much everything:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Main_Page


This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 10 2010, 04:42 PM

[stoicblitzer]

i don't have any interest in mp right now.

[Dinadan of Logris]

Nice of you to leave it open for the future..

I didn't mean you ought to jump into MP without knowing the game

[stoicblitzer]

that's how we play(ed) tw.

[Dinadan of Logris]

Majestic plural?

[stoicblitzer]

i attacked burgundy with a force about 25,000 strong....they still beat me....

[Dinadan of Logris]

Should I put you up for the AIBMC? Cow has been awarded one for getting pwnt by ETW.

You can check the "ledger" in SP games to see national army sizes before you go to war, page 3 I think (ledger icon on the right-hand side). Burgundy is a major power, they will easily have 25K troops themselves, but you should be able to defeat them with that force.

Look up how battles work in the wiki if you don't have a clue.

Keep your morale high, give your troops time if needed - morale recovers a bit at the end of each month along with the reinforcements. Appoint a general to your army. Check out the terrain map to find advantageous battle areas - hills/mountains are better for defenders, plains for attackers. Keep an eye on attrition - avoid enemy provinces in harsh winter. Chase down the enemy if it's possible, but keep in mind that they reinforce quicker in their homelands than you do.

In the early game, use cavalry to win field battles - there is a reason they are more expensive than infantry.

Have a strategy

[stoicblitzer]

it's like i beat them initially, but like you said they reinforce a lot faster than me and just keep attacking over and over until i'm done. i need more spies so i can infiltrate administration. +0.2 per year...

[Dinadan of Logris]

When you take a province, it'll count as a home region for reinforcements, then if needed, you can stay in it till your army recovers.

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 11 2010, 04:30 PM

[stoicblitzer]

true. however, burgundy and france are allied so I don't think i can take them by myself. every time i land a 30K army on normadie, they both spam me to death.

like i don't get what i am supposed to do. in tw, there is nothing to do but try and take over everything. i'm realizing that eu3 is different...i like it but it's frustrating just sitting around waiting for stuff to happen. like if i don't go to war, then what's the point?

[Dinadan of Logris]

You're supposed to fight the right countries at the right time

France and Burgundy is one of the nastiest alliances. But alliances do not last forever..

If you don't like your mission (retake Normandy I suppose), do something else. Cancel the mission if you want. England has a conquer Scotland and a conquer Ireland mission, they might pop up instead. The French-English struggle will keep giving you its conquest missions till 1475, provided you do not change into Great Britain.. there's time.

[stoicblitzer]

ya reconquer normandie is the mission. i already did the ireland mission and i have taken all of scotland except their "crown" province. i'll just cancel it. been trying it for like 20 years. u know the mp has coop?

[Dinadan of Logris]

MP is exactly the same as SP, except some parts of the ledger are unavailable and some countries are played by a player. Behaviour will depend on the people you play with.

I've never got to play a war against anyone so far.

[Pete of Yorkshire]

ill second cow's motion!

[stoicblitzer]

i started a castile campaign. i colonized a lot of western africa getting as far as Kongo. I thought it was possible to make a lot of money in africa! i'm still losing 50 annually. my colonial maintenance is low since I have already populated most of the places. I have 8 overseas colonies making 1.7 in tariffs (100% efficiency). is there any way to get in the +200 annually without maxing out treasury slider. I maxed out for about 10 years and gathered like 4000 ducats then went back to 0 to reduce inflation. now i'm at around 2000 ducats and steadily dropping. I have minimal armies/navies which is leaving me unprotected and i'm getting spread thin. btw I have monopolies in both of my COTs...

I was reading wiki like 2 minutes ago and realized that the larger I get the more I have to spend on research...Do colonies make a lot of money in the long run? cuz right now they seem to not be profitable. u don't go on steam anymore?

This post has been edited by stoicblitzer on Apr 22 2010, 02:58 PM

[Kay of Sauvage]

Been a while since I played, but...

There are things that give ducats at the start of every year for your spending without any inflation. And then there are things that give money in your budget that you can choose to invest invest in tech or take as cash with inflation. Check the ledger to see where your incomes are coming from mainly. I think you get annual money from your taxes (as well as monthly investment money) but no annual money from production or trade. Vassals also give annual money I believe.

I always tried to keep my cash on hand fairly low... keeping enough on hand for random events and for what I might need for a quick military expansion due to a war, and only took more when I had some city improvements to make from new technology levels.


And yes, technology becomes more expensive as you get larger. I forget how it works exactly, but basically it can be more advantageous to just try to take mainly high-value provinces that give the most money, have the same culture, religion, land connection to your capital, etc (ie. fewer penalties). I think technology costs were a per-province cost, while stability costs increase per-province too but with additional penalties for differences in culture and religion.

So I think it's a good idea to vassalize a nation that has no high value provinces, unless you need the land to form a land connection to somewhere else you want to expand to. This way, you'll get a good amount of extra income and spending cash, while your tech stays strong, stability costs stay cheap, and you have less revolts to deal with.

[Barrett of Maidstone]

Bomb them all

[stoicblitzer]

i have a over 100 provinces now and about 10 colonies. ughhhhhh

[Dinadan of Logris]

Playing as a western tech group country, you will not be seriously impeded by empire size, ever. I've even seen a huge AI Russia outtech small western trading AIs.

---

Invest your money when you can. There is no point in having 4,000 on hand, unless you want to spend it on a manufactory. BTW, you can get huge amounts of cash from peace offers for no infamy, so if you must have a large army.. use it. Right-clicking the + button in a peace negotiation window ups the demanded sum by 100 instead of 25, useful to know that

---

Colonies typically provide lower incomes than European provinces, but they are a way to expand without becoming infamous. Trade is a relatively high portion of the incomes coming from colonies, be sure to earn it yourself.

Africa is not much worth colonising. It has tropical penalties in most areas, which means both much slower colonial growth and reduced incomes from developed colonies. (You can find out if a province will have tropical penalties by checking out attrition in the province info window.) South Africa is an exception, and on the east coast, there are several gold provinces to conquer from natives. If you are lucky, they won't have converted to islam yet, and sending your missionaries out will not only make them christians, but also change the culture to yours.
North America is more worth your money than Africa, and so are the islands in the Caribbean, especially Cuba.
When building a colonial empire, it's a good idea to get an early foothold in Asia, like Ceylon or Dadra. Owning an "east asian trade port region" province (doesn't need to be a CoT) allows you to found your own East India Trading Company, which is one of the best national decisions.

Also, consider that building up your colonies is expensive, but stealing them off other great powers is cheap. Once conquered, you can change the culture of a colony with less than 10,000 inhabitants into your own with a provincial decision that costs you 1 colonist but no money at all.

---

400 profits p.a. with a maxed out slider is quite bad for a 100 province empire. My guess is that your trade incomes are not high enough to finance your armies. After the first 100 years, you should be able to have 5 merchants each in the 5 best centres. Basic economical goals are to get a workshop in each province and at least 20 working merchants. Here's most econ advice I can think of:


Keep your tax incomes high by:
- building workshops and constables
- keeping stability high
- keeping revolt risk low (allowing war exhaustion to settle, building courthouses)
- either converting or tolerating your heathens/heretics
- going on a crusade against distant heathens without actually doing any fighting (requires good admin monarch for war taxes)
- making peace only after having collected the Jan 1 census taxes if war taxes have been raised
- not allowing foreign navies to blockade you
- making provincial decisions around the national focus
- becoming HRE Emperor and completing imperial decisions to the Gemeiner Pfennig
- converting to protestant christianity
Keep your trade incomes high by:
- monopolizing your own CoTs
- having many many merchants in foreign CoTs (high prestige and low infamy helps)
- picking the national trade policy idea, preferably along with shrewd commerce practices
- converting to reformed christianity
- building marketplaces in areas where you compete well
- formalizing weights & measures (govt tech 10 capital province decision if in national focus)
- making provincial decisions around the national focus (tech 10: post office, tech 20: canal)
- founding an East India Trade Co. in the 1500s (national decision)
- being an administrative republic
- owning Skane+Sjaelland+Fyn (triggers Sound toll)
- owning Edirne+Bursa+Thrace+Bithynia (triggers Bosporus trade)
- owning Muscat or Dadra (triggers eastern trade route)
Keep your production high by:
- converting to protestant christianity
- building manufactories in the provinces where they give a bonus
- being a constitutional republic
- making provincial decisions around the national focus
- picking the Smithian exonomics idea (late game)
Keep expenses low by:
- disbanding mercenaries when not needed anymore
- having a military upkeep level that gives max +1.2 morale in peacetime (eventually adjust back to +2 for rebellions, or use military drill)
- having an army (much) smaller than your army support level
- staying in port and having naval upkeep on zero cost in peacetime until blockade is allowed by naval tech (i.e. pirates can appear)

---

Havn't been on Steam for a while, but I'm here

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 22 2010, 11:55 PM

[stoicblitzer]

i make like +1200 per yr with slider all the way up (last time i tried it). thanks for the tips. there are some obvious things i didn't think of. i only have merchants in my COTs lol. doh.

[Dinadan of Logris]

Trade earns a lot, you'll see. BTW, North America usually has a northern native country, Hurons or Iroquis with a CoT. Getting 50+ relationship with them (by sending gifts) allows you to ask for open markets, and since other great powers rarely do this, it's easy to be the only nation with merchants there and make several hundred ducats a year with your six merchants, if the CoT draws enough colonies. The same is true for Mexico, but those natives often get conquered quickly.

This post has been edited by Dinadan of Logris on Apr 23 2010, 02:14 AM

[stoicblitzer]

i'm austria. i'm at war with the entire european continent except spain and england.

i've spent like 20 hours trying to win the wars. there are periods of complete peace but when i answer the call of a HRE member to assist them in their own meaningless fights, it takes about a year until europe declares war on me again. they all fall on me. i'm trying to get my infamy down which is what I think is causing the wars. it's at 39 now. was at 61 when this all started like 3 days ago.

i was making countries cede their provinces to me so that I could fulfill HRE requirements and grow a little. i gained enough HRE influence to pass a ton of reforms which i guess is the point. i think i should have slowed down my expansion, tho...

LOL...i'm gonna give up now...or take a break and start from a previous save. this is way too harsh. i'm up to the 4th time when almost all europe declares war on me. ZOMG!!!!

[YellowMelon]

It's just like TW logic. The enemy can march around ure ###### but as soon as u enter their territory the pope is like YOU ARE HEATHEN, yOU DIE NAO!