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[Wimdit]

What Iituem said. Unless you're willing to type up every post in a Scottish accent, in which case you should choose Scotland.

[Wild Goose]

The Ottoman Empire; make the Sick Man of Europe into the Awesome Man of the World!

Either that, or Ming.  Have president Bruce Lee revamp the Sick Man of Asia.

[Nirur Torir]

   Ugh, where to begin? Have you tried the beginning? What!? You can write in my journal? Why yes, yes I can. Now get on with it. Uh, okay. Well, it was the fourth day of summer vacation and I was at my dad’s house in Michigan, hanging out with my friends Johnny and Steve while playing Street Fighter. Steve brought over some weird drug he called Quarry Bush Leaves, which we were smoking. I’m not sure what it was, but I am NEVER smoking that stuff again. I had a really bad trip, which still hasn’t worn off. You wish. The trip’s over. Yea, right. I’ve never been schizophrenic before. Anyway, I saw a genie who gave me one wish which I could use to change anything in history. The Holocaust killed countless numbers of my Jewish brethren, so I wished it had never happened.
   Next thing I knew, I was floating in a great black void of nothingness, and all I could make out was voices arguing over countries, of all things. Suddenly I woke up in some medieval king’s room. It sounded like he was speaking German, but I understood every word. Well, some people are bilingual. Not me, I failed out of Spanish I. Twice. Blame it on the genie then. I’ll do that. As I was saying, the king had apparently been trying to figure out some complex political problem when I appeared. He assumed I was a magician of some sort, and told me that I had one day to use my magic to start a plan to make him him the Holy Roman Emperor.
   So here I am, locked in some tower somewhere. If I don’t figure out a good plan to make him stronger I’ll lose my head tomorrow morning. I barely passed World History, and only passed it because the teacher was too busy secretly drinking on test days to notice me cheating. Maybe you should have done your homework. Oh shut up. All I have is the clothes I was wearing, this solar powered electronic journal and a case of schizophrenia. Worst trip ever, but at least I’ll wake up after the execution.
Actually, no. You’ve really gone back in time. Just by being here you’ve changed the future. Your timeline no longer exists to return to; it’s succeeded or die. On the plus side, you can’t die of old age before you were ever born. Oh great, I’m doomed. Not yet. The voices can read what you write here, and then give you help. Some of them actually paid attention in history class. Really? Help me, voices!

I’ll draw them some pictures to illustrate Brandenburg’s situation. Brandenburg? What’s that, a drink? No. Brandenburg is the country you’re currently located in. Oh.

Spoiler: pictures (click to show/hide)

   First, I’ll be abstracting things a bit. Here’s an explanation of the basic domestic situation:

Manpower – This number increases each month, up to a maximum, as provinces provide men of military age to use during wartime. Each regiment takes 1000 men to create, and  each regiment that needs more troops will get up to 100 men each month if enough money is spent in the military. Great, a 6000 man army. Brandenburg can’t actually afford nearly that many.
Stability – I’ll rate it from -3 to 3. The higher it is, the less revolts there will be and the more taxes Brandenburg will collect. It’s pretty important to keep this high.
Ducats – Money makes the world go round.
Prestige – What other nations think of us. This has many small effects.
Now for people the king can send out to do things. He can only keep 5 at once, and more will join slowly if he has less then 5.
Merchants – The king sends them out to increase monthly income, which mainly affects research.
Colonists – Brandenburg won’t have much of a use for these, since it’s in the middle of Europe and not near unclaimed land.
Diplomats – They negotiate for such things as alliances, declare war, and deliver tribute.
Missionary – They will eventually convert a province to the state religion. In this case, Catholicism.
Spies – They do expensive acts of espionage or sabotage.
Armies – Brandenburg currently has 3000 infantry in active duty.
How do you know all this, anyway? Wait, is it really 1453? I don’t know, and yes. Now stop interrupting or the voices won’t help you.

This is where Brandenburg is:


There are many smaller nations nearby. Here’s the same picture with my own assessment of their threat levels. Please note that Brandenburg cannot reasonable expand to the east or southeast in the near future.


This is how other nations view Brandenburg:


A royal marriage makes them like us more. We have a higher chance of getting an alliance with them, but Mantua is a bit far away to be a useful ally:


Here are the possible advisers Brandenburg can hire, but there is only room at the king’s table for three:


Brandenburg’s income and research status:


Being from another time, we are able to influence the types of cavalry and infantry Brandenburg can field:


I don’t understand what all the little squares mean. It’s just a basic graphical representation of their strengths compared to each other. Red is for offense, green is for defense. If 3 offense was going against 2 defense, the 1 remaining offense point would be cause the unit to be roughly 10% more effective. Here’s the costs to train more regiments:


Infantry cost 5.8 ducats, while cavalry cost 16.3 ducats. Cavalry are much more effective in combat, but cost much more. Regiments require around 25% of their cost each year in maintenance, but it can be reduced to half that during peace time. Brandenburg currently earns 27 ducats each year. This is the king:


I’ll give future kings stats from 3-9 in the areas of administration, military, and diplomacy. This is the current status of the Holy Roman Empire. Since Austria’s king is the emperor, Brandenburg will be in an unwinnable war if it declares war on anyone in the HRE.


Here’s the current government:


Various policies are rated from -5 to 5, shown on a slider for easy reference. The people will only accept one policy change every 10-15 years or so, so you other voices should probably decide which way the policies will eventually be set, and the order they will be set in. Their affects:

Code: [Select]

[b]Centralization:[/b]
+2 to how bad war exhaustion can get (Not a good thing, but minor)
+20% taxes
+15% production efficiency (More money)
+5% spy efficiency
+5% spy defense
0.05% annual inflation reduction

[b]Decentralization[/b]
-2 to how bad war exhaustion can get (Not at all worth taking decentralization for)
-20% taxes
-15% production efficiency (More money)
-5% spy efficiency
-5% spy defense

Centralization vs Decentralization: Centralization is always better; the choice of when do become more centralized is important. Some events move towards decentralization as a penalty.

[b]Aristocracy[/b]
-25% cavalry cost
+3 diplomats per year
+1 leader shock (Same as +1 to a regiment’s offense)
-5% regiment cost

[b]Plutocracy[/b]
+25% cavalry cost
+2 spies per year
+1 merchant per year
+5% trade income
+20% merchant chance.

Aristocracy vs Plutocracy: Cheaper cavalry and better leaders, or more spies and slightly more income.

[b]Serfdom[/b]
-30% infantry cost
-0.2 land morale (Minor)
-25% spy defense
+20% all technology costs
-25% stability costs (Good. Fairly high, too.)

[b]Free Subjects[/b]
+30% infantry cost
+0.2 land morale (Minor)
+25% spy defense
-20% all technology costs (Good)
+25% stability costs

Serfdome vs Free Subjects: Cheaper Infantry and more stability is nice, but technology is rather important

[b]Innovative[/b]
+25% stability costs
+2 to how bad war exhaustion can get (Bad yet minor)
-15% technology costs
-1 missionary per year

[b]Narrowminded[/b]
-25% stability costs
-2 to how bad war exhaustion can get (Good yet minor)
+15% technology costs
+1 missionary per year
+25% colony growth
+10% spy defense

Innovative vs Narrowminded: Innovative has a decent technology boost, I usually go as far innovative as I can while still getting a trickle of missionaries. Other religions revolt more and produce less, so converting them is a very good idea.

[b]Mercantilism[/b]
+20% spy defense
+25% merchant costs
+1 spy per year
+40% merchant compete chance in Brandenburg’s own centers of trade
+50% merchant placement chance in Brandenburg’s own centers of trade

[b]Free Trade[/b]
-20% spy defense
-25% merchant costs
+25% merchant compete chance in foreign centers of trade
+10% trade income
+2 merchants per year

Mercantilism vs Free Trade: Mercantilism is important for large empires, while free trade is for everybody else. Merchants from warmonger nations get kicked out of centers of trade frequently.

[b]Offensive[/b]
+0.1 land morale (Minor)
+25% artillery cost
-25% defensiveness (Enemies don’t need to besiege Brandenburg’s provinces for as long)
+1.25 leader shock

[b]Defensive[/b]
-0.1 land morale
-25% artillery cost
+25% defensiveness
+1.25 leader siege (Generals siege faster)

Offensive vs Defensive: Defensive, no question. It’s nice to force the AI to spend more time on sieges, and there’s an annoying event for offensive people that randomly destroys expensive forts.

[b]Land[/b]
-25% infantry cost
-25% cavalry cost
+25% non-transport ship cost
-25% tariffs from colonies
+25% manpower
+25% colony cost
+0.1 land morale
+25% max supported land units

[b]Naval[/b]
+25% infantry cost
+25% cavalry cost
-25% non-transport ship cost
+25% tariffs from colonies
-25% manpower
-25% colony cost
+0.1 land morale
+25% max supported naval units

Land vs Naval: We’re landlocked.

[b]Quality[/b]
+12.5% infantry cost
+10% discipline (+10% greater killing power for the same morale damage)
-12.5% manpower
+1.25 leader fire

[b]Quantity[/b]
-12.5% infantry cost
-10% discipline (10% less killing power for the same morale damage)
+12.5% manpower
+25% reinforce speed

Quality vs Quantity: This one’s actually pretty balanced. We can have more troops, or better troops.


I have no idea what you just wrote in the last few pages of my journal. Don’t worry about it, the voices will know. So, voices in his head, decision time: Brandenburg can have two alliances. We probably can’t ally anybody stronger then us, but do we want to ally people closer to us or further away from us?

Which three advisers should the king hire?

Should Brandenburg scatter guarantees around to weak people? If we do, we’ll get called into wars when someone attacks. Austria will be on our side, since we’re helping the defenders. If we’re fast enough, we might be able to take land from the attackers.

We need policy settings and an order in which to get them.

Vote on the technology priority. Government will let us select new ideas like National Conscripts. Production or trade increase income. Land makes our troops better and eventually unlocks new ones.

Select troop types and the infantry/cavalry composition of our army. Currently we have 3 regiments of infantry.

Also vote on cruel things to do to this guy I’m possessing. Hey, I do have a name you know! It’s Anthony. Oh, right. In that case, vote on cruel things I can do to Anthony. Hey, wait. That's not nice. You said you would help me! No, I said they would help you to live. Slight difference.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Lulz...
Did I see my flag there?

Oh well...

Advisor:

First, the 5-star man, R. van der Weyden. Not only do he active for 23 years, he's almost free, and got great bonus to boot!.

After that, take Wilhelm.

idk after that...

[SniHjen]

Are the three armies to the southwest aggresive?

yes: hire as many soldiers as you can and reinforce the western and southen county.

No: attack and annex hinderpommeren now.

ally with:
Denmark.
the pope?
England
Italy

policy: all sliders to the left.

technology should center on:
Stability, seriously, nothing to ruin a good assraping of the enemy as your counties rebelling.
Quality of soldiers.
Stuff that increases population.

Fuck cavalry.
are there anti cavalry? spearmen?
get 1/3 spears 1/3 swords 1/3 bows

[Iituem]

Alright, let's take the three finance guys.  We might as well make our tiny empire as rich as we can.  If better advisors in other fields arise (at least 3 stars) later, we can rotate them out as needed.

Make friends with the island and with Hamburg, both of those are small enough not to abuse us but have a good chance of being attacked by someone we want to eat.  Find out if there's an honourable way to hit Altmark and do it, otherwise hit the nearest honourable objective we can within the given annexation sphere.

Take out weak countries, preferably of one county or less.  Avoid countries with more than one ally if possible until we can take multiple on at once.  Keep picking on those smaller than us to grow.  Get a war machine moving.

If we can afford it, a 2:3 or 1:2 cavalry/infantry ratio would be lovely, but otherwise as much cavalry as we can plus infantry.  Of the infantry, if we can get a good third to half (but not more than half) as archers and defend them with armsmen that would be ideal.  Longbowmen are our friends.

Quality over quantity, remain artistocratic, start on free trade until we're large enough to reap the benefits of mercantilism.  How useful are spies to us?

[mainiac]

If you are going to be a warmongerer, national bank is THE national idea to have, don't leave home without it.  Also, if you are going to go around gobbling up little minors, you are going to need diplomats else the badboy will become crushing.  You don't have any diplomats available though, so that means no annexing OPMs.  Might as well pick up an artist since everyone financial is one star.  Regarding sliders, I say go with free subjects, the tech will be killer in the long run and infantry isn't as important in the early game if EU2 is any guide.  Naval could be very useful later on, your neighbors have coastal provinces just begging for your liberation.

I don't think that Austria needs to be a barrier to wars if you are careful.  Go for a royal marriage and, if possible, just ally with them.  If you can't ally Austria, recruit some drunks allies in southern Germany to act as meatshields.  I don't recommend gobbling up the one province minors because of badboy, but see about peeling territories off two province minors.  Unless Austria is going to be your alliance leader, consider allying with a bunch of one province minors near you so you can diploannex them later and they might be a useful source of wars.

If you aren't going to be a warmonger, free subjects+financial advisors+marriage fest+ally OMPs.

[Nirur Torir]

Okay, I managed to survive another day, but only by convincing the king that the big area to our north is rightfully his.
Missions assigned completely randomly. Brandenburg will be more stable if the mission is completed, but that will take two wars.

Aw, you're still here? Where else would I be? Anywhere other then in my head? Nah, sorry. Right. The king didn't want to hire a general to lead the army, so he will be leading it personally unless your voices really don't want him to.


Two fire and Two shock, out of six. The other two spaces are for maneuver and siege, respectively. Fire is nigh useless at this stage in history. If the king dies in battle Brandenburg will be destabilized and probably get a worse king.

All of the infantry will be the same type, and all of the cavalry will be the same type. The names mean nothing; we have no direct control over battles.

If it is decided that Brandenburg is going to declare war, I'm waiting until Austria is in a war themselves. They have 8-10 provinces, and it would take several strokes of very good luck not to lose half of our land to them.

[EuchreJack]

Anthony, tell the king he really sucks at combat, and needs to hire a general.

Considering the small size of Brandenburg, and the history of the German People, you'll want to go with quality over quantity.

Germans are also famous for their scientific ability, so free them to think!

Brandenburg is small, so I'd go with free trade initially, then swing back to merchantile as the Empire expands.

You're land locked, and those northern ports will eventually be blocked by britain (trust me here).  Either go for Land-Based warfare (you can walk to most of the countries of the world, right?), or quickly acquire those northern ports and blitz the naval while the future UK fights among itself.

[nahkh]

So. Here's my two ducats worth:

Go for an alliance with Denmark. Alliance with Mantua would be in-name only, since they couldn't help us with our local wars and we don't want to be drawn into theirs. Denmark on the other hand will be starting a mess of lucrative wars around.

For advisors, Weyden, Linkendorf and von Dessau.

Throw guarantees around. Plenty of easy-to-annex targets nearby. In my opinion, our overall strategy should be to either annex Mecklenburg (which has a center of trade, to all y'all who don't play EUIII) or go for unifying Prussia. It's usually easy (and desirable) to get either Pomerania or Mecklenburg to ally with you, so choose your ally to reflect your strategy (CoT or Prussia).

Sliders: Go for quality. We can't afford mass armies, so having better modifiers is crucial.
Once you have it maxed out maybe free market? Although that choice should wait until you're done with the quality slider.

Tech priority: Government, definitely. We needs em national ideas. (National ideas are like superpowers. Only boring and accountant-like)

Army composition:
Well, in a perfect world we would have maybe three stacks of 10000 cavalry, and smallers stacks of infantry. The cavalry would beat up the enemies armies and the infantry would siege their castles. Having maybe 3/6 cav inf would be feasible once you're going to war. (Don't increase your piecetime army though. 3k is fine for keeping your smaller neighbors out of your hair and won't be threatening to Poland, who should have their own problems I hope?)

Cruel things:... Nope. Nada.

Some nice things: Keep your inflation in check, don't piss off Poland, try to ally with Denmark and annex Mecklenburg.

And as a public service announcement, I'm going to offer a crash-course in EU3 warfare to our less educated watchers:
Wars in EU3 are always fought between two opposing alliances. When we go to war we automatically ask all our allies to join in (who may join or not), and our opponent does the same. Once war is started, each side selects the country with the highest prestiege to be the leader of the alliance. The leadership lasts until the end of the war (so it doesn't matter if someone else gets more prestiege than the the current leader).
In war there are three objectives to be met:
1) Conquer as many provinces as you can while preventing the enemy from conquering yours
2) Destroy the enemys ability to carry out a war (ie. Kill their armies and deplete their manpower and coffers)
3) Destroy the enemys will to fight (Beat them until they lose morale)
The war can only end when conditions 2 and 3 are met. The game keeps score of who's winning, and it's measured in "warscore". The higher the warscore is the more stuff you can demand from the enemy.
Negotiating for peace is done between the leaders of each side. The leader always negotiates for every country in an alliance (note: we want to be the leader). The leader can also negotiate with junior partners on the opposing side to make them drop out of the war.
War also has some long-term effects. The more nasty stuff we do (like starting wars without cause (ie without a casus belli), annexing small countries, taking territories that we don't have a core to), the worse our reputation gets. The game measures them in "badboy points" or bbs. Forcing the annexation of a small country is especially bad for diplomacy (ie cost a lot of bbs), so it's often smarter to force them to be our vassal instead. (Vassals are awesome, they give us half their taxes and are in a strong alliance with us)

I think that's about it for tonight.

EDIT: Oh yeah it's also possible to annex other countries diplomatically but I don't think anyone here cares about that kinda pansy-ass crap.

[Nirur Torir]

Oh, so prestige is what sets the alliance leader. I figured some obscure measure of strength would set that. Thanks, voice.

I checked Brandenburg's coffers, and it has barely enough money to train one of the diplomats as a general. The guy knows noticeably less about tactics then the king does, and there wouldn't be any money left to hire troops.

Are you sure we should hire that guy who's slightly better at raising taxes though? 1% of 3.2 doesn't add up to the 0.1 monthly fee he demands for his services.

I'll go suggest to the king that he send out alliance requests and look for wars that we don't belong in, then say what happens. Sometime tomorrow morning. Don't be ridiculous. Even I know that a war would take a year at the very least, these medieval armies are slow. Oh, right, sorry. Status update will go up in around three years, unless something more interesting happens before then.

[nahkh]

No, I'm not sure about the tax guy. It's either him or that Münchov guy. Taking any of the other stability modifier guys would be a waste of money (at least with the addons, you said you had both addons, yes?), since Brandenburg is such a small nation that stability is cheap anyways, plus it maxes out at +3.

Don't waste money on generals at this point. If you don't have a high army tradition any generals you hire will be utter crap. The screenies you posted don't show the miltrad but it usually starts very low.
Don't even think about hiring generals until your miltrad is over 50%.

(A word on military tradition. Whenever you fight land battles it increases, and it decreases over time and when you hire generals. The higher your military tradition, the better the generals. I think there are a bunch of events and national ideas that affect tradition too. (Note: there's also naval tradition, same thing for ships and admirals, but it's all greek to us Brandenburgers since we're landlocked))

A friend of mine who plays EU3 quite a bit more than me has this brilliant strategy for conquest:
Make a whole mess of troops, send them over to a neighboring country. Either they win, and conquer land, or they all die so they won't have to be paid. It's win-win!

[Nirur Torir]

Spoiler: All pictures should be spoilered. Just cause. (click to show/hide)

The king has successfully secured an alliance with both powerful Denmark and the rich lands of Macklenburg to Brandenburg's northwest. Bavaria then offered to ally us. Since they have as much land as we do, the king accepted. They should all be useful in the next war we find ourselves in.
On my advice the king took steps to train our armies better, and a great man came forward, calming to be able to make our troops fight 6% better:


Unfortunately, the artists had all left the court by the time I advised the king to hire one. Sorry, we'll keep looking for other advisers.

Schwerin suggested that Brandenburg establish Marches. They'll double the effectiveness of the forts on the border provinces, but they'll make an already highly decentralized Brandenburg fully decentralized, and reduce taxes in the provinces until they're surrounded by Brandenburg's other provinces. Personally, I think they'll help a lot when Poland declares war.


They'll make it take twice as long to siege the province, and make forts twice as hard to storm. Sadly, the capital cannot have one.

[nahkh]

Those alliances sound good. So I take it our objective now is Pomerania?
Pomerania in itself isn't hard to conquer, but we need to be careful of the Emperor, Austria.
Too bad about the advisors, it happens.

Don't establish Marches. They cost us far too much in taxes. They're only viable if war is imminent (Poland starts throwing its weight around, or our relations with Austria significantly worsen.)
Poland has some pretty big enemies around that time if I remember correctly. They probably won't bother with us unless we get too uppity.

Oh yeah and time for today's fun fact:
If you annex or forcibly-vassalize the current HRE, you automatically become the HRE. Might makes right.

[nahkh]

Just bumping the thread and asking for updates.

So what's going down with Brandenburg these days.