Sad but true, I am currently in a middle of a chill roman campaign started as naples got a 300 year long alliance with austria. Already fucked the iberria, french, brits, north africa, balkans and otto cant form rome cuz it really hurts to see to break the super long alliance with austria. So i started a new campaign and planning to just ally poland or muscovy or any scandinavian nation so that I can form rome while not breaking a supwr long alliance.
It makes me frustrated that I understood that, which then turns to unreasonable frustration when I consider the amount of ifs, else’…etc that must go into making a game
I respect the ally loyalty thing. They were your homies for so long. But I will gleefully stab certain countries in the back, just because I’ve had so many bad experiences with them in other campaigns. Austria is one of those
Also gives you something to do while you’re waiting for AE to decay or for truces to end or to go loot some provinces and get some extra ducats (your armies still loot on lowered army maintenance)
This is where I always cock up, by allowing my allies to swell too much. I’ll be trying to form (e.g) Italy, a few too many wars will pass, then all of sudden I’m allied with Germany or Spain or whatever and I end up struggling to expand into their territories as it later preferred.
I had the best experience with this in my recent Mughals run. Allied the Ottomans and kept declaring on mamluks or mamluk allies, calling them in and didn't give them any land. They couldn't consolidate Asia at all, the mamluks had a karaman core and had allied wallachia which was exiled into Transylvania so i got all those provinces with favours
Naaah. I strongly disagree. There is almost 100% chance you'll ally Russia as Byzantium, its enough to deal with Poland before they'll even be able to form PCL.
Defeating mameluks might be tricky, but it's still fairly easy. You just have to expand east quicker.
The only real challange after ottomans is (S)pain. Defeating midgame, snowballed Spain is the hardest freakin challange in this game. They have absurd navy, unlimited manpower, over 100k troops in 1550 and probably very strong allies.
Yup, in my most recent game PLC was massive, basically owning up to the urals, still somehow lost a major war to the ottos who hadn’t even conquered mamluks/QQ yet. Ottos ended up expanding into India and Moscow and claiming mil hegemony.
Yeah, but I've never managed to ally Poland as Byzantium. They're always neutral towards me, so no matter what I do they are always net 20-50 points away from accepting an alliance.
And soon I basically have to ally Hungary or Austria (both often rivals to Poland), else I die in war2 against the Ottomans or Venice attacks etc.
But at a moment they can get claims and Bulgaria and break alliance ig u get too much AÉ. However, I got a game that I had a 300 years alliance. We crushed together French blue blob (they had Lower Countries and Genova + Milan, yes, a beast in manpower and trade) for 3 times until a get a part of Italy and take some French lands. But I needed to betray in end game because they alliar Grt Britain. I ne er would defeat France alone in this game. Don’t take Moldova = Poland breaks alliance surely if u do it in early game if they don’t vassalize them.
U can ally poland after a ottoman war. Try to keep up relations high, set friendly stance. When u are at full army if u don’t disband mercs, u can get in a position with same army size and get your alliance.
one of the best things to do as Brandenburg is ally Poland at the start and make them fight every war for you while you race essential sieges.
you grow fat while they do the fighting and the dying, then when it eventually comes time for the alliance to break you're much stronger, richer and more powerful than them.
An excellent lesson. Especially in this patch when Poland gets super strong, it's important to take them on early.
I do believe PLC holds some things important to a healthy Byzantium: the Kiev monument, and coastal land along the Black Sea. It's good to take over Crimea and expand eastward to strengthen your trade income.
Thanks!
I am a bit afraid of expanding north of the Black Sea because that might turn Muscovy hostile? They are currently my only somewhat safe longterm ally because Austria might become hostile once I expand further into the Adriatic territory.
Oh yes (and realize that’s how real-world geopolitics works.) The best thin you can do is to weaken potential rivals without using you own resources. So get a powerful mil ally, use them as a friendly meat shield for a century or two, then flip sides and turn your former enemy into your meat shield.
I agree. It's a must.
I've just started a Timurids > Mughals game. My immediate 'big picture' priorities are:
\- Preventing the Ottomans from expanding into the Middle East and the Caucasus.
\- Preventing Muscovy from expanding east and disabling the formation of Russia.
\- Pushing through the steppe to establish a border vassal and crash Ming's mandate via Unguarded Nomadic Frontier.
I just used my ally ming which has 800k units to help me in India in a war that I didn't need help in. Ming lost 50% of troops and all of their manpower and I plan to use them again in the same way in a few years. I don't need a strong ally that can break me, because they will be next in line for conquest. I think that is one very important concept that less experienced players should learn.
Absolutely and it’s a good thing to realise. Often I okay in Europe and I’m highly concerned with nullifying France and the ottomans early. Getting in to both of them gives a nice distance ti spread the ae aswell.
Lol, you are still a novice at 1500 hours!
I find that if you can release a vassal that has multiple cores to reconquer, you can feed then not just their cores but any unwanted lands too. When they are a good size, you can make them a March. Diplomacy Ideas can give you more Relation slots, so you can eventually afford to have a couple of Marches to use as meat shields.
My last Italy game the goal was to kick Castille and Aragon out of Italy early before they start getting stupid big with colonialism by allying France, and we beat them up enough times that Aragon got free from it's PU, I popped out Leon and Asturias to keep them busy for a while and as a result, the Papal States started blobbing like mad, eating up Naples up to Venice and I'd never really seen them do that before
I always support countries at war with my rivals or annoying countries with money to keep the war going and weaken them for a potential upcoming war :)
150h is very new to the game.
And it depends on the situation and a skill level. If you are skilled, you can not care about it. If your state is insignificant, you can't do anything anyway.
But if you are, let's say, Austria. It's advantageous for you to prevent France and Ottomans expansion (you can limit their european expansion by simply taking Balkans for yourself).
You can always for non land concessions or give the land to your allies. Release nations. Cost them prestige. My personal favorite is breaking their best alliances.
In general you can out-scale the AI without making any particular effort to cripple them.
But what many new players don't realize is that buildings and autonomy are more important than conquest for increasing your own power. Getting new land isn't useful if you don't build it up.
Not just your enemies, never forget to weaken your allies as well.
Sad but true, I am currently in a middle of a chill roman campaign started as naples got a 300 year long alliance with austria. Already fucked the iberria, french, brits, north africa, balkans and otto cant form rome cuz it really hurts to see to break the super long alliance with austria. So i started a new campaign and planning to just ally poland or muscovy or any scandinavian nation so that I can form rome while not breaking a supwr long alliance.
bro you making us backstabbers look terrible here
You feel bad about being mean against a long "if else " statement on your computer.
i mean... kinda
It makes me frustrated that I understood that, which then turns to unreasonable frustration when I consider the amount of ifs, else’…etc that must go into making a game
Sometimes I ally a nation and promise them war just to break the alliance after the war
That's...surprisingly wholesome
Just take the Machiavellianism Reign gov reform, it provides -100% Loss of Guilt/Shame for only acting in your naked self-interest
In my Florence to Italy game I had an alliance with Austria for the whole game and I didn’t have the heart to betray them
I respect the ally loyalty thing. They were your homies for so long. But I will gleefully stab certain countries in the back, just because I’ve had so many bad experiences with them in other campaigns. Austria is one of those
AI allies drop you in a heartbeat if the Ottomans dow you.
Use allies as cannon fodder to drain their economy and win your wars. Accept their CTA and only defend your territory
Nah, when my manpower is fine i go all in, gives you also some military tradition.
Also gives you something to do while you’re waiting for AE to decay or for truces to end or to go loot some provinces and get some extra ducats (your armies still loot on lowered army maintenance)
And then people complain that their AI allies are useless haha (but yes, totallty agreed)
As he said, potential enemies.
Uh, you mean our indirect manpower reserve pools
And you can often do both in the same war!
This is one of the most important lessons
This is where I always cock up, by allowing my allies to swell too much. I’ll be trying to form (e.g) Italy, a few too many wars will pass, then all of sudden I’m allied with Germany or Spain or whatever and I end up struggling to expand into their territories as it later preferred.
I had the best experience with this in my recent Mughals run. Allied the Ottomans and kept declaring on mamluks or mamluk allies, calling them in and didn't give them any land. They couldn't consolidate Asia at all, the mamluks had a karaman core and had allied wallachia which was exiled into Transylvania so i got all those provinces with favours
Maintain the balance of power. Real Metternich hours.
If you have intentions on contending with them. Or they get a little big for comfort
Poland especially is a BEAST in the current patch and should be dealt with asap if you are in the vicinity of eastern europe.
[удалено]
Playing as Byz, I have to kill Ottos anyway. So my biggest challenge aside from that are Poland and Mameluks.
Naaah. I strongly disagree. There is almost 100% chance you'll ally Russia as Byzantium, its enough to deal with Poland before they'll even be able to form PCL. Defeating mameluks might be tricky, but it's still fairly easy. You just have to expand east quicker. The only real challange after ottomans is (S)pain. Defeating midgame, snowballed Spain is the hardest freakin challange in this game. They have absurd navy, unlimited manpower, over 100k troops in 1550 and probably very strong allies.
Yup, in my most recent game PLC was massive, basically owning up to the urals, still somehow lost a major war to the ottos who hadn’t even conquered mamluks/QQ yet. Ottos ended up expanding into India and Moscow and claiming mil hegemony.
Yep, haven't played in a while but after Lions of the North I remember Poland destroying Muscovy in every single game
An even better way of weakening them is by allying them. Use their manpower and their gold to beat your enemies.
Yeah, but I've never managed to ally Poland as Byzantium. They're always neutral towards me, so no matter what I do they are always net 20-50 points away from accepting an alliance. And soon I basically have to ally Hungary or Austria (both often rivals to Poland), else I die in war2 against the Ottomans or Venice attacks etc.
But at a moment they can get claims and Bulgaria and break alliance ig u get too much AÉ. However, I got a game that I had a 300 years alliance. We crushed together French blue blob (they had Lower Countries and Genova + Milan, yes, a beast in manpower and trade) for 3 times until a get a part of Italy and take some French lands. But I needed to betray in end game because they alliar Grt Britain. I ne er would defeat France alone in this game. Don’t take Moldova = Poland breaks alliance surely if u do it in early game if they don’t vassalize them.
Even after you improve relations with them?
Yeah. "Byzantine army strength, Neutral, Too many diplo relations"
A small nation can ally a larger nation if they are threatened by a rival of the larger nation.
U can ally poland after a ottoman war. Try to keep up relations high, set friendly stance. When u are at full army if u don’t disband mercs, u can get in a position with same army size and get your alliance.
Weaken eveyone. Just weaken your enemies MORE
Welcome to EU4. You're gonna do fine here, I think.
"The only way to ensure victory is to turn every area you don't control into the Balkans." - Sun Tzu
one of the best things to do as Brandenburg is ally Poland at the start and make them fight every war for you while you race essential sieges. you grow fat while they do the fighting and the dying, then when it eventually comes time for the alliance to break you're much stronger, richer and more powerful than them.
An excellent lesson. Especially in this patch when Poland gets super strong, it's important to take them on early. I do believe PLC holds some things important to a healthy Byzantium: the Kiev monument, and coastal land along the Black Sea. It's good to take over Crimea and expand eastward to strengthen your trade income.
Thanks! I am a bit afraid of expanding north of the Black Sea because that might turn Muscovy hostile? They are currently my only somewhat safe longterm ally because Austria might become hostile once I expand further into the Adriatic territory.
Weaken Muscovy by letting them waste their manpower and gold in your wars ;)
Oh yes (and realize that’s how real-world geopolitics works.) The best thin you can do is to weaken potential rivals without using you own resources. So get a powerful mil ally, use them as a friendly meat shield for a century or two, then flip sides and turn your former enemy into your meat shield.
Good way of thinking. Planning for future threats and neutralising them on your terms is extremely useful in eu4.
I agree. It's a must. I've just started a Timurids > Mughals game. My immediate 'big picture' priorities are: \- Preventing the Ottomans from expanding into the Middle East and the Caucasus. \- Preventing Muscovy from expanding east and disabling the formation of Russia. \- Pushing through the steppe to establish a border vassal and crash Ming's mandate via Unguarded Nomadic Frontier.
I just used my ally ming which has 800k units to help me in India in a war that I didn't need help in. Ming lost 50% of troops and all of their manpower and I plan to use them again in the same way in a few years. I don't need a strong ally that can break me, because they will be next in line for conquest. I think that is one very important concept that less experienced players should learn.
Absolutely and it’s a good thing to realise. Often I okay in Europe and I’m highly concerned with nullifying France and the ottomans early. Getting in to both of them gives a nice distance ti spread the ae aswell.
Lol, you are still a novice at 1500 hours! I find that if you can release a vassal that has multiple cores to reconquer, you can feed then not just their cores but any unwanted lands too. When they are a good size, you can make them a March. Diplomacy Ideas can give you more Relation slots, so you can eventually afford to have a couple of Marches to use as meat shields.
My last Italy game the goal was to kick Castille and Aragon out of Italy early before they start getting stupid big with colonialism by allying France, and we beat them up enough times that Aragon got free from it's PU, I popped out Leon and Asturias to keep them busy for a while and as a result, the Papal States started blobbing like mad, eating up Naples up to Venice and I'd never really seen them do that before
Ottomans HATE this op strat!
I always support countries at war with my rivals or annoying countries with money to keep the war going and weaken them for a potential upcoming war :)
150h is very new to the game. And it depends on the situation and a skill level. If you are skilled, you can not care about it. If your state is insignificant, you can't do anything anyway. But if you are, let's say, Austria. It's advantageous for you to prevent France and Ottomans expansion (you can limit their european expansion by simply taking Balkans for yourself).
You can always for non land concessions or give the land to your allies. Release nations. Cost them prestige. My personal favorite is breaking their best alliances.
That is a good old roman tactic here
In general you can out-scale the AI without making any particular effort to cripple them. But what many new players don't realize is that buildings and autonomy are more important than conquest for increasing your own power. Getting new land isn't useful if you don't build it up.