Hi all, I asked a few days ago for some help in regard to playing the Ottomans. I’ve played a bit over the last few days and starting to feel a little stuck again. And wanting advice on how to improve from here??
I have provided some photos and can provide more if needed.
Hello, my first question here!
I have started an England campaign recently and I cannot understand how am I supposed to annex all my smaller vassals, especially those in whales and Ireland. I have already taken some vassals from France from HYW events and the borders are very gory in continental Europe also.
Last time I played eu5 was 6 months ago when the vassal swarm was still a thing, but now the annexation time for even a one province vassal is around 20 years at the beginning, so forming GB seems tedious by just diplo annexing.
Should I release them and no cb war them or what? Or are there special events where I can just annex them (that would be very good), like the one where you instantly integrate that location in the north?
I’m playing as Spain, and managed to control much of the New World. The viceroyalty of New Spain which constitutes Mexico and Central America has a total population of around 16.6 million (the 4th most populated country), 5% of which are Iberian pops. I also control Peru and New Granada, of which 3% and 13% make up Iberian pops respectively. Meaning that while the Great Pestilence did happen, it was nowhere deadly enough. The colonies are using slavery, and they’re enslaving the native pops. Historically this did happen, but the treatment of Native slaves was so bad that many died. This again lowered the population of these areas even more. In my game, with such high amount of pops, there’s no workforce issues that should be happening. The colonial nations are also accepting all the non Iberian pops. There is no process of “hispanization” of the native pops also.
I have been Plutocracy pilled for a while, and maybe this isn't useful information to most players here. Skip to the end if you just want my conclusion.
However, if you have been defaulting plutocracy..Hear me out.
Plutocracy is great. The bonus to trade building cap really pumps up your economy, and there are lots of other reforms and laws one can lean into that makes trade go wild.
Despite that, I have been trying out both on the same nations to see how the econ actually plays out, and I am starting to lean Aristocratocy as a preferred value.
Mid game, Burger power can be difficult to keep at or under 25% if you are handing out the privaledges that benefit you. Prosperity, production efficiency, etc. plutocracy creates more burgers, gives them more power, and allows you to spam more merchant buildings which employs a lot of burgers. This challenge to crown power hurts income a touch, but the estate still prints money so, it's generally acceptable. If going republic, this is actually ideal, but I digress.
The boiled down pro and con for plutocracy, without getting into the nitty gritty of various laws, is that you can really bolster burgers and charge up your econ, especially through trade. The con, is that it gives the class a lot of power.
Now, For Aristocratocy, the pros are simple. You get access to a bunch of discipline and some flat legitmacy generation, which is as good as cash.
The Aristocratocy discipline bonus is 10%, which is not nothing. However, the value also increases your total nobles as a proportion of your population, which can also give up to 10%. I found that when I was 250 years into a game that switching from Plutocracy to Aristocratocy made a huge impact here. With Plutocracy, I had a 3.5% bonus, but when swapped over I was closing in on 8% after a couple decades. I think had I stayed Aristocratocy from the start, I would be at 10%. Either way, the differential in discipline ultimately ends up around 15%, which is significant. Early game, this is a lot.
Its easier to also grab more + legitmacy leaning Aristocracy, so despite the court cost being higher, you can actually save some money here.
Next, paired with serfdom and disenfranchised peasants, you can tax peasants much less and keep your overall satisfaction higher. This is a side benefit, but worth keeping in mind.
Essentially, I found being able to tax the burgers more, paired with pulling a large amount of revenue from the nobles combined with less need to spend on legitmacy meant that my income ended up being roughly the same going from Plutocracy to Aristocratocy. Meanwhile, my army was significantly stronger. The enhanced power of my army alone pretty much made up for the differential in trade value.
Now, I know that you can collect half the burgers piggy bank frequently, but they burn that reserve up building stuff at 4x the normal cost, so I personally value taxing them before they blow it.
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My conclusion for the time being is that for a Monarchy, the economic benefits of plutocracy don't outweigh the benefits of combat power and less obvious economic bonus's of Aristocratocy. When looking at the players total end of turn income and the ability to project power and win fights, Aristocratocy may actually tend to come out ahead.
To clarify this, I am talking more so about the game start to the halfway point. Generally I find that late game, the player is just doing victory laps so nothing really matters. I have no opinion on which value and in which context is optimal past year 300.
What do you think?
For some reason I lost the ability to annex my vassals. I've gone over ever estate reform and law and can't find anything stopping annexation. Please help.
It took me 359 hours to get them all. First time in a Paradox game so I feel very accomplished lmao
Some of my favourites runs were Saladin's Legacy, Mare Nostrum, and House for Hus
Least favourite by far was definitely The Great Great Wall
10/10 would do it all again (except for The Great Great Wall)
Context:
Korea game. Tall. Felt like calming the mandate at some point near the end of the age of reformation. Rich beyond rich.
Took the mandate. -4k ducats instantly. Why? -10K FOR TRIBUTES??? Ok. Who is getting this money? ALL OF INDIA IS TAKING 2K DUCATS EACH, AND I CANT EVEN KICK THEM OUT WITHOUT LOSING LEGITIMACY, WHICH TRIGGERS A DISASTER WHICH COOKS YOU EVEN MORE???
Oh but the bonuses, right??? There's a decree that gives you like + 30% tax efficiency!!!
At make tribute (10k a month rn), you only get 0.10 MANDATE A MONTH....... And if you do the decree (5 mandate), it uses 0.10 mandate a month...... so you get NO MANDATE AT MAX TRIBUTE...
Ok, just release some tributaries! I own all of Manchuria through a fiefdom!
+0.01 mandate a month at all +200 opinion and 100 loyalty. there's like 30 freaking tributaries and it lags my game out.
And also you lose trade with the outside world, cooking your income for a while.
And the disaster sucks, is super easy to accidently trigger, and takes 4 yrs minimum to get out due to some BS with "enacting" policy through a cabinet member...
Oh by the way, you cant kick your vassals out of the Middle Kingdom, so even if you kicked everyone out the kingdom (costing you absurd amount of prestige and legit), you will still pay an absurd amount to your VASSALS...
BLUF: Let Wu or Ming or wtv keep the damn mandate and beat them up every 8 years as they continuously collapse due to the BS mandate distaster that never goes away.
So basically the last game I played was in 1.1.9 a few months ago I think February. Haven't played the game since or watched any videos, and now I'm interested to play again and updated to 1.13.11. what are some new things I should learn and new interesting things in general?
I fought and finished the war of religions situation as Lutheran Sweden. I was the leader of the Protestant Union, and enforced the faith of the HRE yet did not get the achievement. Did I do something wrong?
I've been playing a lot lately, and I've been kind of lost on market size and location. I've watched some videos, read some threads, etc. and the consensus was that small markets are much more efficient. That being said, how big should I make my markets province wise? Obviously some markets at the start of the game are super bloated (London, Paris, Constantinople, etc.) and I'm struggling to figure out how many new markets to make. Can I get a ballpark estimate on the amount of provinces/areas that I should aim for my markets? I'm not overly worried about lack of resources because it just increases demand from my other markets, so I can make it work, I just need some help figuring out the best sizes. Thanks in advance
im playing as ottomans as you can see and when i want my heir to marry a noble, they are all african(shown in the image). but its not the same when it comes to men tho. also whenever they marry a lowborn its always a person of lur descent. How do i change this
I am new and looking for fun flavored nations to play as, what are your recommendations?
I have about 300 hours in game and one thing I’ve noticed is that Stackwipes are extremely common. Two levie armies can go toe to toe, one with 8k and one 10k, and the 8k gets completely wiped while the 10k loses 1k. Battles that should be slogs that result in pyrrhic victories are stomps in favor of the side that just barely outclasses the other.
Combine that with how long it takes for levies to regenerate, and how suicidal the AI is, results in some pretty crazy war outcomes, like major regional powers regularly having zero military forces that they can call on. The AI rarely capitalizes on this (in my Byzantium run I had 750 levies to my name for 3 years since my 20k peasants were angry and no one bothered to attack me), but it makes things insanely easy for the player. Pretty much every country will have some period of time where they have zero army to their name.
I feel battles should usually result in fewer casualties, with a chance for losses during battle to be temporary (wounded or fled the battle), along with a mechanic where you can raise emergency levies at incredible stability cost if you have less than 25% levies or something.
I know in a semi recent update they changed how Pronoias work. In particular with Inheritance. I’m pretty sure you can’t put an elderly woman in power. But that’s it.
I have put castrated characters in charge but they still get an heir. (I imagine that is a sibling of theirs)
Can create a colonial nation in Sicily but not in the Caribbean.
