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This game, while extremely enjoyable single-player, is even more of a blast with some friends. For example, my two friends and I are currently in run (me as Hungary, one friend as Poland, and the last as Byzantium), and we have had a blast playing a "protect the VIP (who rotates)" style.
Of course, initial VIP was Byzantium, with us eventually helping Byzantium up to the point that they released the Ottomans as their vassal. Next VIP was the Commonwealth (Poland) trying to fend off the advances of a large Russia. And the most recent VIP was myself, Hungary, in an epic war to enforce a personal union with Austria.
Since then I have integrated Austria, and we are poised to help the Commonwealth go through Bohemia (with some tricks to avoid coring with Bohemia's darn +200% core cost). But we move forward with an air of uncertainty, surrounded by Russia, France, Great Britain and Castille. We are sticking to our East European heritage and refuse to westernize, meaning the ever increasing tech discrepancy will keep things ever challenging.
TL;DR: Playing cooperatively with friends lets you shoot for lofty and extremely entertaining goals.
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I think diplo relations also helps with that. Otherwise releasing nations will reduce AE by a lot, depending on the nations size, but then, what's the point? n_n
50 negative opinion from AE is barely anything, I think the standard rate of it dissipating is roughly 4.5 points a year. So you can still have a friendly relationship with another nation. As far as I know it'll switch if they're negative at the end of a month, but I'm not sure how exactly it works.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
does annexing provinces, then selling them to a vassal will increase AE? (I guess you'd still take an AE hit but it'd be less?)
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To my knowledge, the only AE hit is when you choose to annex a province. Selling to a vassal after that would be for the purpose of not coring it yourself/not dealing with revolt risk/etc.
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I think releasing vassals reduces your AE, though selling provinces probably doesn't. That is also exactly how it worked in EU3.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
looks like it 
so far I've been able to avoid alienating france to the point where it joins the coalition of perpetually aggrieved italians (savoy / genoa / ferrara / mantua), however they are constantly bouncing between -70 and -20 relation to me so I'm not sure how much danger I am in of getting randomly attacked. I do hold provence which borders france and they do have a claim on it, I also have an alliance with Castile which might give them some pause attacking me?
I did have an interesting war between me + venice + vassal train vs france + naples + ferrara + savoy -- the only reason I took the war was because france and austria were at war with burgundy. Managed to force a province out of naples, and barely get enough warscore to annex the wargoal (modena) before bailing from the war. Though seeing as france was at its weakest point during that war (manpower drained from fighting burgundy, and combined forces were at even numbers), maybe I should have gone for it...if only castile (my other ally) didn't DOW venice (I literally have no idea what happened, castile also randomly attacks switzerland during the war, maybe they were bored and had truce with aragon?)
assuming I am able to annex Milan without france attacking me, I should be in a reasonable position. I'll vassalize Naples if they don't get any good alliances soon (currently have truce), and can eventually force aragon to return Naples its sicily cores.
I guess my goal this campaign is dismantling HRE - I can do this without having a monarchy right?
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
So I invaded Ottomans, annexed a single province, converted it to catholic then released byzantium (so they would have state religion catholic)
I start some wars and force Ottomans to return some more byzantine cores, then WTF i check the map randomly and byzantines now have Kaffa (in the Crimea)?!?! I thought it was some rebellion -- a bunch of rebel stacks were owning Crimea -- but byzantine doesn't even have a core (the previous owner was Crimea). Byzantium is my vassal so its not like they started a war for it.
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Kaffa is greek cutlured and BYZ is the cultural union for this culture. That means that if patriot rebels successfully enforce demands in Kaffa it gets annexed to BYZ.
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Sweden800 Posts
And I am quite sure that the byzantines start with a core in Kaffa.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
if so, by that point in the game they had lost the core
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nationalistic rebels wanting to break off of the ottomons don't really need the core to spawn they're just regionaly formable nations. it can either be a random event or a chance based thing if their revolt risk modifyer gets out of control.
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Sweden800 Posts
Precisely! Cores disappear in 50 years if they have not been contested. But since I think the byzantines can spawn from just greek rebels they can form even without cores if the culture is greek in a province that rebels.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
for the purposes of "distant overseas" - if I have capital in constantinople, do the narrow strait land bridges into anatolia count as land connections?
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The purposes of distant overseas only applys if you dont have a land connection even across strights so contiguous asian possessions don't count for distant overseas.
iberians being able to have full value north african possessions would be halarious overpowered.
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On December 08 2013 02:15 Sermokala wrote:
The purposes of distant overseas only applys if you dont have a land connection even across strights so contiguous asian possessions don't count for distant overseas.
iberians being able to have full value north african possessions would be halarious overpowered.
Are they still counted as overseas if you take over a strip through Italy, Ottomans etc to connect it? Perhaps that would be a worthwhile goal as Spain?
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On December 08 2013 03:19 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2013 02:15 Sermokala wrote:
The purposes of distant overseas only applys if you dont have a land connection even across strights so contiguous asian possessions don't count for distant overseas.
iberians being able to have full value north african possessions would be halarious overpowered. Are they still counted as overseas if you take over a strip through Italy, Ottomans etc to connect it? Perhaps that would be a worthwhile goal as Spain?
That might take an entire campaign by itself (fighting France, Provence, Italians, Venice, Balkan countries, Ottomans, Mamluks, and all the North Africans). Maybe that's a good idea for a challenge run.
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Is there any indication of the start date getting extended to 1399 like with EU3?
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
the france in my game is some massive raidboss, fought austria, spain, great britain, tuscany (me), lithuania and still managed to force spain and great britain out of the war. though it didn't help that austria decided to spend the first half of the war sieging serbia with 2 40k stacks
its not even like france is that big:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fcZEgju.jpg)
I am not sure whether lucky nations affects die rolls or something (equal tech, I had offensive ideas completed with france having no military ideas), only could destroy their two 30k stacks after baiting them into a river crossing + -3 terrain penalty AND outnumbering them 3 to 1 and even then it was rather close...
luckily I managed to leverage superior numbers + force march into sending a 10k man army to loot all the central provinces due to that fact that france was fighting a 3 front war, also useful stomping newly formed units
after that war, my ally bohemia immediately starts a war with 5 medium sized countries whyyyyyyyyy
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One thing you didn't mention is generals, which can be a major factor. A 6/6 general will wreck a 3/3 one in roughly even fights. You need -3 terrain to even the odds with that guy. I've had a horrible war when Austria managed to get a 6/6 general, which meant i just could not engage that army, ever.
Also the amount of cannons is very relevant, the later the game becomes, the more you want a 50:50 relation of cannons to other stuff. Maybe a bit more other stuff to reinforce in longer battles, but generally speaking you want a full line of cannons behind your frontline.
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
yeah, I have no idea what are ideal army compositions in this game
also, atheist rebels:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/UzcRL1t.png)
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EPT
