What are your Opening Moves?

[principes]

Empire is a litle different than the other TotalWar games/mods.
Considering diplomacy, 3 maps and land composition.

Soo...I find that I am totally lost and my fine Swedish Empire remains poor and daft with weak militia.
When I see the huge stacks of my enemies walking around and check out even the smallest nations tech advances...I get a bit puzzled...

What are your priorities in your first 10 rounds (for any nation)? :hmmm:

Do you use your agents at all?--How??? :hmmm:

Is it at all possible to turtle in this game and survive? :hmmm:

What game setting are you playing at? :hmmmmine is vh map - m battle)

[Daergar]

Sweden.
I disbanded almost all my military units, kept some near Ce... the minor faction on the Baltic east coast for when they declare war (happened every time so far, third time testing).

Send your rakes out to spy a little, just by standing there. Upgrade everything that makes money first. Move all your gentlemen (or is it just one?) into Uppsala (school near Stockholm), helps with research.

Form trade agreements with two nations. Transform Ingria's port to a trade port, form two more agreements when it's done. I kept Visby as a fishing port, can change that one to trade as well if you wish.

Research what makes sense, but try to get rank fire sooner rather than later, it makes you mighty, rawr.

I can't get my trade theatres to work (Indiaman on trade icon along a trade theatre coast), so no advice there. Seems nice for the AI though.

Eventually, you will take over Denmark-Norway. On vh/vh, make sure you are ready for the fight at Copenhagen. After that, it will be Russia and Poland, and if unlucky, all three at once.

Form an alliance with Prussia if you can and gift some land to them near Poland, helps keep you safe (they have yet to betray me) and lets you focus on Russia.

With all that said, try to be at peace for as long as the AI will let you. Every year spent with a weak standing army is one were you make a tidy profit, allowing you to upgrade faster. Upkeep costs are what kills you. A single 20 stack tends to cost over 6000k in upkeep.

[principes]

Yah, upkeep is very draining. Usually in totalwar games one can fortyfy cities with low-end unit and roam the countryside with an elite stack..but here? Nope, I can only afford one stack with militia in the beginning, not much ompf when facing the mighty danes

Trade theatres seems confusing. I plant a trade ship with 3 battle ships on it, but I see no financial benefit! O.O

...also...I seem to be a pirate magnet.
The A.I civs have seems to be getting mountains of gold from their trade routes and they are also pirate repellant :/

[Ightenhill]

You can turtle too much ..because you run out of time I found to my cost...

[kungtotte]

My early years as Sweden (Normal/Normal difficulty) went something like this:

Get my gentleman to Uppsala and have him tech economical things primarily.
Upgrade all industrial buildings as far as tech will allow and as fast as money will allow.
Following the declaration of war by Courland, I gathered my forces in Estonia and invaded the out of them. Shortly thereafter Prussia offered to trade me Courland (worth less than 1000/turn) for East Prussia (something like 2500+/turn) and I agreed.
Then I bribed Russia and signed an alliance with them, and I bribed Poland-Lithuania (using state gifts or whatever they're called).
That's when I invaded Denmark and Norway simultaneously. Once those two regions were secure I dispatched an army to clear out the danish soldiers left on Iceland.
I also made sure to make as many trade agreements that my trading ports could support. For the first 15-20 years or so, about half my total income consisted of trade. I also raised taxes as far as I dared.
After that I gobbled up the smaller states in northern Europe (Hannover, Würrtemberg, Westphalia, Prussia).

Once I got to that point (~1715-1720) there was never any problems with income for me. I just made sure to disband (or relocate, to save recruitment costs) any garrisons I didn't need, and not build more armies than my income could sustain.

If you're not signing trade agreements, this could explain why you're running low on funds in early game. I never could get the trade theaters to work either, but I didn't need to as I was pulling in so much from regular trade routes.

[guerra]

Well, Trade and economic development is the most important. If I go British, I put my school to research naval technologies, I remove all units but one for each town, throw all my men into a boat, build some more troops in London and send them off to take N. America. I start as many trade deals as possible, upgrade economic buildings and farms.

If you aren't using an army, disband it. But I recommend using your armies often. Just make sure not to suffer too many casualties. Artillery is the key. Force the enemy onto your position.