Oooh, strategy talk in the strategy forum! I'm in.

Who are ya? Got screenies with your borders and trade nodes? It must be said that I haven't played in a patch or two, so some things may be no longer true. I dunno. The key for me was always to get it flowing in the right direction, concentrating trade power in the contested nodes and attempting to bypass certain nodes if possible. There is sort of a strategic bent to the whole thing.

Probably the single best thing you can do is max out your merchants. Two things that are easy to overlook are the merchants you can get from your colonies, so help them grow. And Trade Companies. There is a high opportunity cost element to Trade Companies, so you have to weigh the drawbacks against advantages, but this can help swing the balance in your favor in certain nodes, and I found it especially useful in the East Indies when I was a European nation trying to steer that trade home. Once your Trade Company controls 51% of the trade power in it's node, an additional merchant is granted.

Look at the triggered modifiers and try to trigger the East Indian Trade Company one. There is also a East Indian Trade Company decision that might appear. Another thing that could be easily overlooked is which node are your transferring merchants actually transferring to? It doesn't always default to the most beneficial one, so be sure to check it and reset the direction where necessary.

New World trade is potentially very lucrative, but only a few nations are really in a good position to capitalize due to the way the trade routes flow.

For economy, buildings are self-explantory of course, and you want to invest in development when you can, especially if your provinces have high base tax. So much depends on who you are, where you are, where you are going. For example in my recent Germany game, I couldn't really hope to compete in trade, but I had high base tax so went more of a development route to a strong economy. Which Idea Groups you choose makes a difference too of course. In every game I play, unit maintenance is the highest expenditure. Getting ideas to reduce land and naval maintenance helps alot if you are expansionist. And who plays tall in EU IV? No one. This is one more reason why Defensive is my go-to pick. I always take it.

There is alot to this obviously, but maybe we can be more specific with some screenshots of your current setup.

Here's a shot from the Ideas Guy run I did a while back. Not a huge amount of ducats, but you can see on the right how many merchants were working (10) and where they were. The idea here was to transfer the trade from Asia and the East Indies, and direct it from Malacca to Zanzibar to Cape, where it was collected. This bypasses the Bengal, Aden, Goa, Ceylon nodes and that helps alot, because you can never get enough trade power everywhere, so cutting those out of the loop is great.

Thanks for the write up. Have to give this a good going through tonight.

No screenies at the moment, but I'm Piedmont-Sardinia and it's 1580, I control most of Northern Italy and have the most trade power in the Genoa, Venice and Tunis nodes. Largely through spamming trade ships...

I've given up on colonising the Americas and have taken expanision, which I think gives an extra merchant? Anyway I'm pushing down the African cost and hopefully will eventually take some land in India. The trade flows West, so best to head East right?

As for defensive that's always one of, if not my first ideas. I do tend to neglect ideas which reduce maintenance because it's pretty easy to go over the force limit with little difficulty. I guess it depends how aggressive you play, I generally try to mind my own business until neighbours find themselves in trouble then I pounce, steal their land and start looking for allies and targets.

This is true, except in the case of the New World of course. New World trade cannot be routed to your location, so east is the only choice really, unless you were able to take over the Sevilla node. But that's alotta work, so I'd go east too. Thing is, you'll need to route it through Aden/Alexandria which is highly competitive and the trade is being pulled in many directions. Personally I've not gone colonial when I've been in the Italian region, as it's really difficult to get the trade all the way home.

What I might do instead, if it's not too late, is to try and completely take over the Cape or Zanzibar nodes and make that my collection point. Once other Europeans are in the far east, they will all help pull trade through these nodes. And if you can lock one down, you can take it for yourself.

In those games where I am at the leading edge of colonial exploration I will often bee-line to Cape, and try to lock it up while Portugal and Spain are making their early efforts in the New World. Grab St Helena, and all of Cape if you can. Only coastal provinces at first, and the inner ones can be filled in later. This means that your competitors are seriously slowed as they have to make a long jump to get around it and will have to wait until they increase their colonial range to get in to the Indian Ocean. Getting those provinces near Kongo and Madagascar completes the set. But you'll be hard pressed to get it all as anyone other than Spain or Portugal. But if you can, the riches of the far east are yours alone. I've done this a few times, meaning the other Europeans had to come by the way of South America and that takes a long time, allowing you to grab much of the East Indies.

I know there was some revision over time, but the region you're in should have some of the highest base tax in the game. You should be able to capitalize on that with buildings, policies and development.

Capes already British and I don't really want to go to war with them, yet. But Zanzibar I can do. Getting there slow and steady. I initialy went for Guinea and the slave/gold coast simply because I didn't have the range to do anything else.

You're right about development, especially one of my early rulers was a 4/5/5.



I think he ended up dying at 83 or so. got a good 65 years out of him. Lost the HRE though.

Probably a bit of confirmation bias, but my good ones never seem to live very long. Usually killed in a hunting accident while still an heir, completely mucking up the works. That means that if I am lucky enough to get another heir, he will be so young that when the current King kicks the bucket that I am rewarded with a long regency. Theocracy for the win.

Zanzibar will do fine. Be sure to work it with as many ships as you can. Some trade will still get through, but you should be able to grab most of it. My advice is to concentrate on Philippines, Molucca and Malacca. Don't bother with India. Put a transferring merchant in Malacca and send it directly to Zanzibar, where you will have a collecting merchant. Malacca is competitive, so alot of power is needed there to get it re-routed to Zanzibar. Don't keep a merchant in your home node, get him out transferring. The best transferring targets are those nodes where trade can flow in more than one direction. Malacca for example. The Moluccas are one node where it only flows one direction. But a merchant adds trade power, so getting them all lined up should be the goal. The challenge is getting enough merchants in the first place. The point is when faced with a choice due to having too few merchants, choose one where you can redirect the trade to your benefit.

Trade steering seems very important, you'd think anyway. But frankly I have trouble seeing it's effect. It's worth considering making these provinces Trade Companies, especially the ones with trade power bonuses. The 75% autonomy means you won't be getting much manpower or tax benefit anyway, so might as well as far as I'm concerned.

In the screenshot I put up you can see how the trade snowballs down the line. Australia, Canton, Siam, Hangzhou, Philippines and Molucca all send a little bit to Malacca, where the total value is 78.74. By Zanzibar it has grown to 118.83 and then to 255.52 in Cape. I can see I do have a merchant in Gulf of Aden that grabs a little bit, 7.78. And I put another collecting merchant downstream in Ivory Coast, to grab a little of the trade that managed to sneak past Cape.

Been over a month so I started a new game as one province Ragusa. Or rather restarted, since the first game was a bad start. No good allies and the Ottomans invaded Serbia.

Second try is off to a good start, I got friendly with Hungary and Poland. Within the first year or so the Ottomans went after Venice for their islands, so I took the opportunity to gut Bosnia and Serbia for their land. That's really all I want at the moment, land. I'm holding off on tech and trade, just dumping all my points into development. I'm going to be facing off against at least three big empires (Ottomans, Hungary and Austria) so I'll need a large tax base and a lot of manpower.

Down the line I'd like to carve out a Balkan realm, become a kingdom and start colonising the East!

Difficult region. Gotta get off to a good start and keep those three countries you mentioned in check I would think. Basetax isn't very high around there is it? I know there is a little gold nearby though and you are sitting astride several lucrative trade nodes/routes, or rather, will be.

I have a fixation with the city of Constantinople, and in every game I play I have a look at the feasibility of incorporating it in to my realm. As Ragusa, I'd make it one of my goals. I think at the start I'd aim to span from Venice in the west to Constantinople in the south/east and the Austrian border to the north. And if the Austrians are feeling froggy I'd look to take Tyrol and Vienna if possible.

Good luck and hope that Austria doesn't get their PU over Hungary.

Thanks,

Speaking of PUs Castile inherited the Burgundian lands and somewhat worryingly has an alliance and marriage with France...



Yes, the starting region is quite poor, there's gold in Serbia so I get to enjoy plenty of inflation.
Yeah, your plan sounds good. I too would like Constantinople, in fact I desire all the Turkish lands West of the Bosphorus.

That's about right. I'd do the same, or attempt to anyway. Maybe even invade the Italian peninsula if any of those people look at me sideways. Strategic interests, of course. Your starting location is so well placed to dominate Mediterranean trade, as long as you expand. And from the little I can see in your screenshot, it looks like you're well on the way.

For me, the key would be naval strength. Venice and Ottomans always have powerful navies, and being able to take control of the seas is so vital during a war in this region, isn't it? I just had a look at Ragusa's NI's and as I would have expected, they are heavily weighted for sea power and trade. That 20% force limit is excellent, especially when you start with so little coastline, and therefore ports. And the 15% morale is excellent as well. I forsee a massive Ragusan galley fleet dominating the central and eastern Med.

You mentioned colonizing... it will be interesting to watch if you keep on with this run. Ragusa seems ill-suited (geograhically) to benefit from it unless you are able to dominate the Aden area and somehow pull the ducats through there to home. But that certainly is not to say it isn't possible or even profitable. I just wonder if the effort will be worth the payoff. By not taking Exploration, it means you can get Diplomatic, Influence, Trade or Maritime instead, all of which seem good choices for Ragusa.

Yeah, I'm really liking Ragusa's NIs, I've already taken quality ideas so that should give me a little boost over the competition.
As for colonisation, I wasn't thinking of the Americas or taking the Expansion/Exploration ideas. Instead my plan was to set up 'trade posts' around the Med and Africa then move to India. Start by taking key cities in each trade zone, such as Tunis and Alexandria.
Not sure if it's the best plan but it seems the right thing for a merchant nation.
Speaking of which as of 1490 I am no longer a republic, deliberately tanked tradition and now I have a Prince on the throne, re-elections got him up to 6/4/4 or something. Unfortunately he's in his fifties so he probably doesn't have much longer. I have an heir, I'll have to check his stats. Some more mil points would be nice right now...

Edit: He's a 4/3/1

So you became a monarchy? I admit to doing something similar with Poland. I grew tired of the elective monarchy, so I allowed pretender rebels to siege down my capital and install some other sort of monarchy. It was rather ridiculous to see that small band of rebels surrounded on all sides by large armies loyal to the current King while they sieged Warsaw. This was to protect the rebels from any of my allies or vassals that might have attempted to help put down the rebellion that I was doing nothing to prevent. So gamey. But hey, I got the gubment I wanted.

Your merchant republic (err, monarchy) plan seems sound to me, though the challenge will be to support a navy large enough to both protect it, and to generate the sort of trade power that will be needed to benefit economically from the 'trade posts'. Certainly doable, but you'll need some more force limit bonuses I would imagine. Do you plan to take either Maritime or Naval?

Gamey tactics can be fun. But of course the one time you want rebels is the one time they won't appear...

Yes, I was planning on taking maritime for the +50% force limit and ship repair. Both are at the end of the idea chain so it'll take a lot of dip power to reach.

Do you have whichever DLC enabled the National Focus ability? Common Sense or Res Republica I think, but don't recall with any degree of certainty. I find it helpful when I want to err, focus, on a particular monarch power path. It's potentially restricting early on, but the 'cooldown' decreases as your gubment level increases. I'm sure you're well aware of this. But I've found it quite helpful in some situations to accelerate certain strategical paths.

Yeah, once you get to Kingdom and above the 'focus' is quite useful, I often just leave it set on admin though since I'm always low on adm points!

So... what do you think my chances are?

I'd say fair to middlin'. Wouldn't that be nice?

Well I'm Habsburg for three generations now. Hopefully their magic will rub off on me...

It's 1580 and I have accomplished my main objective, own all South Slavic/Greek provinces and hold off the Ottomans. One of the hardest games I've ever played in EU, I lost more than my fair share of land and suffered a few disasters but we won!



Edit: Europe 1615 AD



Those Habsburg ladies sure get around



Allies, vassals and colonies, I'm also building up in Guinea and Colombia against the Brits.

Remember what I said about not reforming the Roman Empire? I lied.

Quick little update.

North America 1665



And in 1685



The Hispanic States of America

Si muy bien.

Did you capture Constantinople?

Nevermind, I see you did in the previous shot. That's a molto buona.

Yes, sorry there's not really much to say about this run, ever since I beat down the Ottomans (which was a real challenge) things have been pretty easy, just coasting about, avoiding the big Europeans and nicking land in Africa. I have small colonial nations in Colombia and Mexico (only had one colonist through expansion ideas) and the big boys took most of the south before I even landed.
Initially I thought I'd just leave the Americas while I cleaned up Africa but now that many colonial nations are gaining independence I think it might be time to land a few invasion fleets in the USA...

Then again I'm only getting about 5 ducats a month from tariffs, might not be worth taking troops out of Europe.

Edit: It's happening!