Starting off

[Alpha Zeke]

First off, what combination of the complete edition, heir to the throne, and divine winds, should I purchase? I'm actually confused and which includes which and what, and it would be nice to get some input before spending 60$ on them all.

Secondly, where may I learn to play (well) because it doesn't seem like a hit and miss sorta game.

Thirdly, anything else you'd tell a noob that you wish you knew when you started playing

grazi

[molonthegreat]

Well I would suggest buying it when Steam has a sale since I did that and got EU3 complete and heir to the throne for 10 euro and I'm going to wait a while before buying Divine winds. The best way to learn to play is by playing it and by reading at the forum since it can be quite complicated in the beginning. As for something I wish I knew before I started to play was how to handle inflation, don't have a too large budget and live on the yearly income since otherwise your inflation is going to run rampant and that literally takes decades to fix. Furthermore unless you're having rebellions all over the place have your land and naval maintenance on the lowest possible during peace time since that adds a lot of money to the treasury, good luck!

[Alpha Zeke]

The sale idea is in the air. I'll buy it as soon as I get the money together, so if the sale comes then I'll get it sooner, if not, I'll buy when I get 60.

But whats the difference with Heir and DW compared to complete (which isn't complete apparently...)

[Akar]

I wish I knew to watch prestige and infamy when I first started playing. Having low prestige and infamy really hurt your relations with other nations.

[Musthavename]

All the expansions are successors of one another. That means you have to own all prior expansions before getting the next one. They go in this order:

Base Game -> Napoleon's Ambition -> In Nomine -> Heir to the Throne -> Divine Wind

The first three are the games included in "Complete". Honestly i'd just buy Complete first. Heir to the Throne and Divine Wind add a bunch of nice new features, but the game up to In Nomine (i.e. Complete) is completely playable. Play it, practice with it, and if you like it buy the other expansions.

As for learning to play, the best thing you can do is practice. Go to the Paradox forums, and try the Paradox Wiki (many parts are horribly outdated though). Most people there are fantastic at answering questions and very accomodating to newbies, so I highly recommend registering over there.

Finally, my newbie tip: This isn't Total War. Don't expect to take out an entire country in one war, or rampage across Europe with ease. If you understand that, the rest will follow simply by practice.

[Alpha Zeke]

Is it bad that I preferred to, in TW, be very diplomatic and tactful in my games?

I registered at paradox first move yesterday, but I can't post in the EU without registering a game, so I'm not quite sure where to post questions

Sadly I had a copy of Diplomacy locked away somewhere, but after I moved I lost the cd key. You don't think they'ed throw me another one if I reported it missing, based on the age and all?

Due to the amount of bugs I've read that were fixed with HTTT and DW (Not so much DW, but if I get DW with HTTT on steam HTTT is only 3 bucks so there is no way I'm buying them separate )

Also, Akar, any tips on managing these two resources?


I saw my brother play the demo for the fisrt original, and though he ran into a few bugs (Like a leader not dieing after the boat he was on sunk, but only because he was considered dead and heirless the day the region he was in went to peace with his country) but the game all together seems like a ton of fun, and offers a huge amount of re playability. As soon as I save up some more money (spent the last 40 bucks I had on things of protein :x) I will be getting this.

Thanks!

[Alpha Zeke]

Oh and quick question which I feel should be separated from the Wall of text, where do you think would be the best place to buy all four? Because I know very well not to mix and match CD and Online/Steam versions, but I also know steam tends to be overpriced.

[Akar]

Is it bad that I preferred to, in TW, be very diplomatic and tactful in my games?

I registered at paradox first move yesterday, but I can't post in the EU without registering a game, so I'm not quite sure where to post questions

Sadly I had a copy of Diplomacy locked away somewhere, but after I moved I lost the cd key. You don't think they'ed throw me another one if I reported it missing, based on the age and all?

Due to the amount of bugs I've read that were fixed with HTTT and DW (Not so much DW, but if I get DW with HTTT on steam HTTT is only 3 bucks so there is no way I'm buying them separate )

Also, Akar, any tips on managing these two resources?


I saw my brother play the demo for the fisrt original, and though he ran into a few bugs (Like a leader not dieing after the boat he was on sunk, but only because he was considered dead and heirless the day the region he was in went to peace with his country) but the game all together seems like a ton of fun, and offers a huge amount of re playability. As soon as I save up some more money (spent the last 40 bucks I had on things of protein :x) I will be getting this.

Thanks!

Well, prestige goes down yearly (By 5% iirc) and the quickest way to get that is through war, weather by defeating armies, navies or in peace deals. Other ways, ideas, pop-ups, having cardinals, being pope/HRE or even being a member of HRE can add yearly prestige so that can counter act the yearly loss. Sadly the quickest way is also the way you get infamy, so you have to balance the two. The only way to get infamy is through war or by getting unlucky in a random event. It is far more important to keep a low infamy then keeping a high prestige and having a low prestige mostly effects the AI nations chance to accept your offers, although not as much as good relations. Where as having too high of an infamy can cause nasty events and causes your relations with ALL other nations to lower each year.

Oh and quick question which I feel should be separated from the Wall of text, where do you think would be the best place to buy all four? Because I know very well not to mix and match CD and Online/Steam versions, but I also know steam tends to be overpriced.

Steam would probably be the easiest way to get them all in one place. I've never seen stores carry any of the EU games.

[Alpha Zeke]

Thanks a bunch! So glad I decided not to be your enemy during minecraft

Will using steam cause a problem for getting the beta patches? I read somewhere in their forums that you must copy and paste files and then patch those files, which doesn't seem so bad.

JC, how did you get your copies?

[Akar]

Thanks a bunch! So glad I decided not to be your enemy during minecraft

Will using steam cause a problem for getting the beta patches? I read somewhere in their forums that you must copy and paste files and then patch those files, which doesn't seem so bad.

JC, how did you get your copies?

It wont affect anything, just copy paste the files into your Program files, Steam, Steamapps, Common, Europa univeralis iii - complete.

Edit: Actually we were enemies

[Alpha Zeke]

Shush. No one else knows that.

I barely knew that

Alright, thanks guys. I'm pretty set on getting the game now if I can, but I won't have this thread closed in case anybody else would like top drop some advice in.

[Musthavename]

I'd advise getting the Gamersgate version over the Steam version. Paradox used to own that site, and I believe they still have a stake in it. It will also give you separate .exe's instead of forcing you to run the latest version. Another important note is if you want to get into the Multiplayer side of the game, you'll want the Gamersgate version, as the Steam one will have a different "Checksum", meaning you can only play with others who have the Steam version, where most of the Multiplayer community has the Gamersgate version.

Oh, and an aside: Heir to the Throne and Divine Wind are download only. You can however find Complete in stores, though expect it to be rare (i'd imagine you'd have luck with big online retailers such as Amazon).

Ofcourse, if Steam is cheaper, go with them. It works fine with Beta Patches aswell. After the fiasco with Divine Wind taking a month longer to be released on Steam i'm buying any new releases (that arn't expansions) on Gamersgate (or boxed from Amazon) from now on though.

[Alpha Zeke]

The only reason I'm buying from steam (because I hate them) is because HTTT is 4 dollars if bought with DW in a bundle.

But my brother is also buying the game from Steam, so I'll be playing it with him How is the multiplayer anyway?

Also just curious, is there some guide to making money for a beginner?

[Musthavename]

I'll try and give a basic overview of the money system. There's two kinds of income. Monthly income, and yearly income.

Yearly income is very straightforward. At the end of the year, each province gives you an amount of money based on tax. This is heavily penalised if the province is not a Core, and overseas provinces are heavily penalised for tax as a whole.

Monthly income is where most people struggle to understand at first. When you click on a province, you'll see three bits of "income". Taxes, Tariffs, and Production (Note, Tariffs are gained overseas, Production at home or by factory income). All of these go into the monthly pot. If you go to a CoT (Centre of Trade) and send Merchants there, you'll also earn Trade Income, which again goes into this monthly figure. Now comes the tricky part.

You don't actually earn any of that monthly income. That monthly income is instead invested into technology. So if you get more trade income, you won't notice, but you'll regain stability and research tech faster. There is however one way you can turn this into income. That's by instead of investing your monthly income, you mint some of it. This incurs inflation depending on how much you do, and anything you mint is money you won't be spending on tech. You'll want to mint some of your income (if you're playing post HTTT, get a Master of Mint, just so you can mint a bit). If you don't mint however, your monthly balance will be zero, since all that income is spread across those 6 other sliders.

Ofcourse, you have monthly costs aswell. Primarily, your army and navy upkeep. Because of this, you'll almost certainly incur a loss every month. This is something you need to accept. Simply minting enough to give you a neutral balance / a profit every month will quickly cause you to fall behind in tech. What you want to do is to make sure you make profit every year. Use your yearly income to pay your armed forces. If you have things like buildings you want to construct, build them at the end of the year where you know how much you'll have to spend.

There are ofcourse some situations where you will need to make a monthly profit via minting, which are very small trading based nations. Medium sized nations or above however (in Cores!) will make plenty in yearly taxes to do all they wish to do, and should keep minting low.

[Alpha Zeke]

Well, after playing 5 games,

I suck

[Musthavename]

Keep trying. I played two games that both ended 100 years in with me WAY behind in tech and army numbers before I even gained competency.

[Alpha Zeke]

well I just ended my latest game. As Poland, by 1430 I controlled all the lands in a circle around me, including all of the Teutons, Ukraine, and half of Lithuania.

My infamy hit 50. Austria invaded me "in the name of the Emperor" (because I had taken Bohemian lands during a DEFENSIVE war) and crushed me with his 8 allies, while 2 of mine said ill help and the other 2 deserted. No one wanted to be my ally after that, I lost most of my lands, and from then on I was beaten repeatedly by Teuton rebels, Polosky or whatever it is, the Mongols and Portugal.

I'm only curious now how to learn to use things such as attrition, war efficiency, the little things.

[Akar]

well I just ended my latest game. As Poland, by 1430 I controlled all the lands in a circle around me, including all of the Teutons, Ukraine, and half of Lithuania.

My infamy hit 50. Austria invaded me "in the name of the Emperor" (because I had taken Bohemian lands during a DEFENSIVE war) and crushed me with his 8 allies, while 2 of mine said ill help and the other 2 deserted. No one wanted to be my ally after that, I lost most of my lands, and from then on I was beaten repeatedly by Teuton rebels, Polosky or whatever it is, the Mongols and Portugal.

I'm only curious now how to learn to use things such as attrition, war efficiency, the little things.

See what I meant about infamy?

[Musthavename]

Yeah, don't break the infamy limit. The game should tell you how much infamy things will incur, so don't agree to a peace that tips you over the limit.

As for attrition, it's essentially this. Each province has a natural base supply limit. This is then modified by various things. For example, Forts increase the supply level, and a nation's tech levels will increase it. The major modifier is then what relation you have to that province. If you're just walking through an enemy province, it's x1. If you're sieging it, it's x2. If it's a foreign Core, it's something like x4, and if it's your own province, x5. There's also modifiers for occupation and military access.

Now the attrition bit. If the size of an army in a province is greater than the supply limit (all factions count together for this - you don't have separate counters!), that army begins to take attrition. Attrition is heavier in provinces that are deemed as "winter zones" (i.e. Russia), or "tropical zones" (i.e. Africa). If you move through foreign lands, or a month passes while in foreign lands, you'll then take losses in your army equal to that attrition penalty (%-wise). This also incurs War Exhaustion. Keep in mind you may actually not notice attrition, as it's possible for it to be small enough that your army reinforces those losses instantly, but you'll still be taking manpower losses and gaining war exhaustion.

I have no idea what "War Efficiency" is, I suspect you mean something else. War "Capacity" you see in the War screen is just a measure of things like how much manpower you have left, and it really only effects the readiness of the AI to agree to a peace. War "exhaustion" is something incurred by battles, attrition, and war taxes, and lowered every month by being at peace, or by your ruler's Admin skill. War exhaustion is BAD. Each point of War Exhaustion will increase Rebel Chance by 1%, it'll cause boats to take longer to build and armies to take longer to raise, plus other effects. Point is, if a country goes up to the limit in this, they're going to find it very difficult to raise troops and they're going to be swamped in rebellions. For the player, letting it get too high can be your downfall. For the AI however, they manage it VERY badly, and it's possible to absolutely annihilate a large nation without simply taking their land by destroying their armies, occupying them till you max out war exhaustion, and then peaceing out. They'll not be able to raise soldiers, and rebels will be commonplace, and it likely won't take long for them to just collapse.

[Alpha Zeke]

Thanks for all that helpfullness

And yes I was referring to War Capacity, I just made a mistake with the wording

Some more questions, if you feel like it (BTW you are way more helpful then the Paradox forums...)
When does the GH collapse? As Poland its almost impossible to hold out to them, and then they either make me sound outrageous peace treaties because they want to basically kill me, OR they go for white peace even though they are dominating. The AI nations always get a white peace much sooner then I with them, but I've never seen the GH go back to war with the AI nations like Muscowy.