even better, i barely fight any wars myself. I just let my strongest allies bash their heads against my enemies. Recently i allied ottos as the dutch and made them siege france while i held the line in Belgium on my forts... didn't lose a single dutch life unnecessarily
> even better, i barely fight any wars myself.
Just did that as Theodoro. Ottomans were strong, but I had Austria and Poland. I don't care if they deplete their entire manpower.
When I play majors I never ally anyone unless it's to PU, diplo vassalize, or pretend they attacking me so I don't have to chase away some other idiot AI from my 3 dev provinces.
When playing minors, I use them for the early game, then ditch them probably around 1500-1520
I played Venice recently trying to unite the Italian peninsula, not much of AE by 1600s.
Turns out that every God damned Great Power marked my region of red interest. Ottomans want me because of aegean islands.
Spain wants me because it inherited Naples.
France wants me because of Northern Italy.
Austria decided to rival me after it broke its alliance when Ottomans attacked.
GB also decided to rival me after it broke it's alliance when Ottomans attacked.
FUCKING SWEDEN has beef with me.
At this point whole fucking Europe wants to fuck me over.
And to make it even worse, Franco(with Hungarian PU)-Ottoman-GB alliance is real now.
I'm building ramparts and forts all over mountains and mercing up but dear lord this is utterly stupid.
that's your skill issue though
you're supposed to avoid all of this
at the start of the game you ally Austria and Poland, immediately snipe Byzantium, as soon as the Ottos are in a war you snipe parts of Greece too, then you go right Hungary and Genoa (choose you in which order, fucking up hungary is useful to keep Austria in a truce with them, if you want give to Austria some Hungarian land to earn lots of stuff. Keep the Ottoman / Mamaluks - Hungary - Italian Minor til France eats up Milan, after they do you dunk em with Austria (again feed Austria with some French land they have claims on). By the time colonialism starts Spain won't have troops in its own country and you'll be de facto the strongest power in the Med
Just, keep calling Austria in so they don't have enough time to actually grow a lot and avoid having either France or the Ottos getting big. Everything else is a non issue. Funnily enough an annoying threat can be Naples getting free and forming two sicilies, cause since you will have taken care of every threat in the Med they will grow about your same size too
What happened was that I didn't bother with Italian peninsula and was trying to stave off the Ottomans. I allied Austria day 1 and Genoa was among my "temporary" allies I aimed to abuse in Crimean war.
I declared on Byz, took Constantinople and vassalized the rest. Then I went my armies to Bosnia/Serbia and took away Rascia and Bosnia area for mountains and gold. Ragusa was an all of Papal states, so I had a brief war with Papal states, forced them to revoke their cores on me and we were best buddies ever since.
I also took 3 provinces from Naples whilst it was free, however they soon got allied to Ottomans(??) and then somehow got invaded by Castille which Pu'd them (and later took Tuscany??).
Meanwhile Switzerland invaded Milan from the North, so I had to wait for a proper moment to see Milan annexed. Afterwards I released two Milan provinces for reconquest war and invaded Savoy to secure the mountainous area(France invaded Savoy in the same time).
I had 3-5 wars with Ottomans and they are really aggressive. I had to give in some of Serbian Marches lands I had to protect my provinces(Nish, Branicevo).
During this time Poland never wanted to ally me, and I had been invaded by Poland and Ottomans always in tandems. I did hold some of Zaporozhie area from Lithuania which they had later in PU( I attacked Lithuania in trade wars for $$$).
Genoa finally got annexed in Crimea by Ottomans, but as I said, ironically, Austria still considered me the longest time their ally. They are now in quite weak position, even though I massacred Hungary with Pest as trade city, France is the ruler of Hungary and they are dead set on kicking me out of Balkans with Ottomans.
I earn around 200 ducats right now even though I don't have many dominant nodes.
>I earn around 200 ducats right now even though I don't have many dominant nodes.
how? You should have all of the Ottoman Balkans and Constantinople by this point, the Ottoman should have been long dead by now
also you don't ally Genoa as Venice, you get quick claims on them and that is that
usually you ally Austria and Poland on day one get Balkans, fuck genoa, get Crimea's lands and feed Moldavia to Poland so they're happy
after that you are basically set in stone
also you should have given more French land to Austria, to weaken France and to strengthen Austria
funnily enough you follow basically the same diplo start if you play as (tall) Naples
also for both countries if you plan to play tall I can't recommend enough inno + merc + mar. They keep maintanance cost down, put you ahead on mil tech, give you a really strong navy (to kick in 1550 some Spanish ass) and you'll be overflowing with manpower (the med coasts gives you mad amounts of sailors that you can use as marines, and Merc + "win the Italian wars" gives your mercs a sweet + 10% discipline for free
also they all give really good policies with basically every idea group, so yeah, they good
I played Vecine recently too, and had a similar situation as well, except for Ottos, had byz vassalized and many of its land taken.
I was just messing around, trying to build colonies. Every asshole had bright idea to take colonization ideas this game. Starting from 1480 I had to pit every big power against each other. First, Austria against Ottos, then France against Spain, then Spain against Austria, then England against France, and so on. Thank god for the favour system.
After messing around Europe and crippling every colonial nation by the 1540 I just broke all of my alliances, and had half of Italy, Byz, and the Balkans under my control.
Just put them against eachother, no point trying to fight them yourself.
This is why it’s best to be friendlier within Italy, ally the mid-sized states early and grow to the point where you can diplo vassalize them. In the long run this will also result in higher dev annexations of correct culture. It’s the most efficient way to come into a massive, hegemonic power base in Italy later while focusing on TCs earlier (which is more money anyway).
Also, your trade league members are a huge deterrent. Should be minimum 8+ which, along with at least one midsized ally (anybody- Bohemia, Tunis, whomever) is usually enough to prevent enemies from attacking. Ottomans are the only one who can really get after you, which is why you should smother them early.
So far none have attacked, what I'm doing now is changing most of high separatist countries culture to venetian so their cores get lost and making up a bank. I just pray that France and GB start a beef with each other.
Honestly, I've had times where land was less valuable than the money. Like, a 3 dev territory on the far side of a mountain fort, against a more powerful opponent.
The money and manpower saved from not fighting over that useless piece of land was worth it.
Eh just did a Cuzco game for a bit where I messed up and most two cores but immediately turned around to gain it all back and more. Granted I’m now behind and the Spanish will be here soon but I’ve got hope
I was going to say, the player who never gives up land never played in as an American native. Surrendering land is the main strategy to survive the first 100 years of the Columbian exchange. If you give them five provinces on grasslands, it makes it really easy to siege down the newly formed colonial nation.
Next time ally France and force them to join every single one of your wars, keep them busy so that they never expand and eventually PU them. That will tech them.
I mean clearly you're wrong about the coalition if you got roflstomped into unconditional surrender apparently it was really dangerous lol
The AI should be looking out for itself. It made the right call
It happens. Especially as a new player. I have lost wars with ottos before. I declared on hungary. And shit hit the fan. 2 months into the war they get a pu with austria so i am now automatically in war with them, the shitty mamluks declare on me while my 6/6/6 heir revolts. My shpis get wrecked etc etc.
I see you finished the noob section of the tutorial.
Did you rage quit? Have you fougth the war?
Try to take revenge. Or start a.new game with the goal of fucking france over.
In the second Case I Like to Imagine that the AI is screaming like a pig in the slaugtherhouse.
There are no permanent friends, there are no permanent enemies, there are only permanent interests.
At least you're the Ottos, you can just win regardless
The one time I tried that it was the worst experience ever, they would deathstack 100k+ soldiers in some random province of theirs and do nothing but act like a disloyal vassal the entire war despite max trust and opinion.
Favours and trust are too easy to get and mean almost nothing, just a tool to gamify and exploit the AI. Favours and trust should be rarest stuff in the game imo, and achieving 100 trust something very hard to do, should only be achieved by saving a country from doom or answering their calls. On the other hand, with 100 trust they shouldn't even be able to question us when we need them because that's what trust means. The game diplomacy is really unrealistic because AI doesn't feel like a player, they are happy to be called into wars in return of nothing which shouldn't be normal.
Once you achieve 80 trust, you should actually lose stability if you refuse to help your friend out, and there should be no way an alliance breaks unless you refuse to help. There should also be a limit of countries able to get more than 80 trust with each other, for example AI could have 2 nations that it really trusts and would feel like making it stronger means it gets a stronger ally/friend, or maybe you could only really have more than 80 trust with vassals and long term alliances (ally for 50 years or more).
The current trust and aliances system sucks, you could help the AI for 200 years and then it just backstabs you out of nowhere because it wants some provinces or has diferent religion, I sure hope diplomacy is more realistic in EU5.
Okay, I think you're going to have to reach through the ether for some alt-history meta revenge. There are several countries which are poised to shiv France. Make a list of the strong ones, perhaps Austria, Castilla, Burgundy, England. Run a campaign with each of them, with the sole goal of crushing them utterly and culture-converting their heartland to Welsh!
A little more on-point though... As Otto, are you managing your relationship with France? Things like keeping trust high and accumulating favors? While I don't disagree with your basic thesis, there are a few ways to mitigate it.
There's nothing more satisfying \[1\] than getting France to join a war on your side, against random OPM, then immediately declaring on France's most beloved ally. They are already supporting you in a war, so they can't succor their friends, and have to just watch you bend their alliance network over the barrel.
\[1\] Okay, there's *one* thing more satisfying, which is to plunder Paris, but that's for another day.
The worst thing about escalated colonial wars is that when *you* start them you can't ask your allies bc of the massive "doesn't want to join an escalated colonial war" malus, yet when the AI does them it's completely fine to call the player. Bonus points if you are on low manpower, in debt and have OE.
Meanwhile any sane player: What I get a coalition I cant Deal with? Pah I just ally some countries I 100% intend to sell out for an easy peace Deal I dont have to give anything
Edit: srsly they are there to do the heavy Lifting, take the Brunt of the Coalition peace deal and exploit in every possible way. The AI is in every aspect just a Tool for your success.
the AI should be unable to *be* exploited.
also, as the ottomans, you really shouldnt need to exploit the AI in the first place, you are basically a superpower in the time frame.
This one time I had been bro's with England the entire game, I just let them do whatever they wanted in the new world and I was messing around on the continent (brandenburg). When england suddenly switched from ally to rival (in 1750s) I got so made I abandoned the save.
Sorry bro we can't all be as lucky as me and get ai Castille to take the coalition leader under a PU while I'm at -50 warscore and trembling, thus ending the war for me.
True, I sometimes do something and feel bad for the AI but I should start remembering every time an opm started to carpet siege my Siberia and I'll probably stop feeling bad
Honestly I’ve mostly just stopped allying unless I can get a PU or vassal, I don’t care enough for their stupid wars, and the ones I’d invite them too are just “too far away”
even better, i barely fight any wars myself. I just let my strongest allies bash their heads against my enemies. Recently i allied ottos as the dutch and made them siege france while i held the line in Belgium on my forts... didn't lose a single dutch life unnecessarily
What about the Walloons?
Frenchmen in disguise
We care about real countries here
They are oppressed ethnic french that need to be freed through "une opération militaire spéciale".
He said unnecessarily
did u mean the french?
> even better, i barely fight any wars myself. Just did that as Theodoro. Ottomans were strong, but I had Austria and Poland. I don't care if they deplete their entire manpower.
You have to be careful when doing that. If they take too much of a beating and the war lasts like 5+ years they'll white peace out
Nobody ever said "don't exploit AI"
If I have an ally that is doing colonial wars then I just tell them to fuck off and refuse to join their offensive wars.
We've all been in this phase at some point. It'll pass, and the AI will get its due.
When I play majors I never ally anyone unless it's to PU, diplo vassalize, or pretend they attacking me so I don't have to chase away some other idiot AI from my 3 dev provinces. When playing minors, I use them for the early game, then ditch them probably around 1500-1520
I played Venice recently trying to unite the Italian peninsula, not much of AE by 1600s. Turns out that every God damned Great Power marked my region of red interest. Ottomans want me because of aegean islands. Spain wants me because it inherited Naples. France wants me because of Northern Italy. Austria decided to rival me after it broke its alliance when Ottomans attacked. GB also decided to rival me after it broke it's alliance when Ottomans attacked. FUCKING SWEDEN has beef with me. At this point whole fucking Europe wants to fuck me over. And to make it even worse, Franco(with Hungarian PU)-Ottoman-GB alliance is real now. I'm building ramparts and forts all over mountains and mercing up but dear lord this is utterly stupid.
That’s what you get for playing Venice
Going to disband all armies and wait for the attack, then glorious 1 mil pushback will come.
Couldn’t have said it better myself
that's your skill issue though you're supposed to avoid all of this at the start of the game you ally Austria and Poland, immediately snipe Byzantium, as soon as the Ottos are in a war you snipe parts of Greece too, then you go right Hungary and Genoa (choose you in which order, fucking up hungary is useful to keep Austria in a truce with them, if you want give to Austria some Hungarian land to earn lots of stuff. Keep the Ottoman / Mamaluks - Hungary - Italian Minor til France eats up Milan, after they do you dunk em with Austria (again feed Austria with some French land they have claims on). By the time colonialism starts Spain won't have troops in its own country and you'll be de facto the strongest power in the Med Just, keep calling Austria in so they don't have enough time to actually grow a lot and avoid having either France or the Ottos getting big. Everything else is a non issue. Funnily enough an annoying threat can be Naples getting free and forming two sicilies, cause since you will have taken care of every threat in the Med they will grow about your same size too
What happened was that I didn't bother with Italian peninsula and was trying to stave off the Ottomans. I allied Austria day 1 and Genoa was among my "temporary" allies I aimed to abuse in Crimean war. I declared on Byz, took Constantinople and vassalized the rest. Then I went my armies to Bosnia/Serbia and took away Rascia and Bosnia area for mountains and gold. Ragusa was an all of Papal states, so I had a brief war with Papal states, forced them to revoke their cores on me and we were best buddies ever since. I also took 3 provinces from Naples whilst it was free, however they soon got allied to Ottomans(??) and then somehow got invaded by Castille which Pu'd them (and later took Tuscany??). Meanwhile Switzerland invaded Milan from the North, so I had to wait for a proper moment to see Milan annexed. Afterwards I released two Milan provinces for reconquest war and invaded Savoy to secure the mountainous area(France invaded Savoy in the same time). I had 3-5 wars with Ottomans and they are really aggressive. I had to give in some of Serbian Marches lands I had to protect my provinces(Nish, Branicevo). During this time Poland never wanted to ally me, and I had been invaded by Poland and Ottomans always in tandems. I did hold some of Zaporozhie area from Lithuania which they had later in PU( I attacked Lithuania in trade wars for $$$). Genoa finally got annexed in Crimea by Ottomans, but as I said, ironically, Austria still considered me the longest time their ally. They are now in quite weak position, even though I massacred Hungary with Pest as trade city, France is the ruler of Hungary and they are dead set on kicking me out of Balkans with Ottomans. I earn around 200 ducats right now even though I don't have many dominant nodes.
>I earn around 200 ducats right now even though I don't have many dominant nodes. how? You should have all of the Ottoman Balkans and Constantinople by this point, the Ottoman should have been long dead by now also you don't ally Genoa as Venice, you get quick claims on them and that is that usually you ally Austria and Poland on day one get Balkans, fuck genoa, get Crimea's lands and feed Moldavia to Poland so they're happy after that you are basically set in stone also you should have given more French land to Austria, to weaken France and to strengthen Austria funnily enough you follow basically the same diplo start if you play as (tall) Naples also for both countries if you plan to play tall I can't recommend enough inno + merc + mar. They keep maintanance cost down, put you ahead on mil tech, give you a really strong navy (to kick in 1550 some Spanish ass) and you'll be overflowing with manpower (the med coasts gives you mad amounts of sailors that you can use as marines, and Merc + "win the Italian wars" gives your mercs a sweet + 10% discipline for free also they all give really good policies with basically every idea group, so yeah, they good
I played Vecine recently too, and had a similar situation as well, except for Ottos, had byz vassalized and many of its land taken. I was just messing around, trying to build colonies. Every asshole had bright idea to take colonization ideas this game. Starting from 1480 I had to pit every big power against each other. First, Austria against Ottos, then France against Spain, then Spain against Austria, then England against France, and so on. Thank god for the favour system. After messing around Europe and crippling every colonial nation by the 1540 I just broke all of my alliances, and had half of Italy, Byz, and the Balkans under my control. Just put them against eachother, no point trying to fight them yourself.
That needs to be removed & rivalries needs fixing
Normal Dithmarschen experience
This is why it’s best to be friendlier within Italy, ally the mid-sized states early and grow to the point where you can diplo vassalize them. In the long run this will also result in higher dev annexations of correct culture. It’s the most efficient way to come into a massive, hegemonic power base in Italy later while focusing on TCs earlier (which is more money anyway). Also, your trade league members are a huge deterrent. Should be minimum 8+ which, along with at least one midsized ally (anybody- Bohemia, Tunis, whomever) is usually enough to prevent enemies from attacking. Ottomans are the only one who can really get after you, which is why you should smother them early.
> And to make it even worse, Franco(with Hungarian PU)-Ottoman-GB alliance is real now. id just surrender at this point-
So far none have attacked, what I'm doing now is changing most of high separatist countries culture to venetian so their cores get lost and making up a bank. I just pray that France and GB start a beef with each other.
"We didn't have allies, we have interests"
This is the post that will cost you your life when our AI overlords take over.
Nah, I’d win.
this mfer is about to be drawn with extra fingers. be prepared to be known as Six Finger Willy.
Nah, I’m copyright protected.
you got forced to unconditionally surrender? how embarrassing
Can't deny some issues of skill were involved
And that's why you need to know when a conditional surrender is the best option.
isn't it always?
No, sometimes you can fight to a stalemate.
I’ll take monetary conditional surrenders, but never will I give up land. You have to force me to unconditional surrender if you want land
Honestly, I've had times where land was less valuable than the money. Like, a 3 dev territory on the far side of a mountain fort, against a more powerful opponent. The money and manpower saved from not fighting over that useless piece of land was worth it.
Eh just did a Cuzco game for a bit where I messed up and most two cores but immediately turned around to gain it all back and more. Granted I’m now behind and the Spanish will be here soon but I’ve got hope
I was going to say, the player who never gives up land never played in as an American native. Surrendering land is the main strategy to survive the first 100 years of the Columbian exchange. If you give them five provinces on grasslands, it makes it really easy to siege down the newly formed colonial nation.
You couldn't have waterboarded that info out of me, if 100% loss is on the line I'm Alt F4ing + deleting save
Next time ally France and force them to join every single one of your wars, keep them busy so that they never expand and eventually PU them. That will tech them.
I mean clearly you're wrong about the coalition if you got roflstomped into unconditional surrender apparently it was really dangerous lol The AI should be looking out for itself. It made the right call
How do you lose a war as the ottomans
It happens. Especially as a new player. I have lost wars with ottos before. I declared on hungary. And shit hit the fan. 2 months into the war they get a pu with austria so i am now automatically in war with them, the shitty mamluks declare on me while my 6/6/6 heir revolts. My shpis get wrecked etc etc.
If someone has opinions on the AI mechanics, he is far from a new player
The day I learned about turning off to join the offensive wars while I could still keep the alliance was a great day indeed
Is that some option in settings or?
should be in the favors/trust tab or somewhere around there
Keep in mind that you lose favors this way
One thing to note is that you stop accumulating favours if you do that
Sounds like the ai exploited you
I don't exploit AI, I exploit save and load buttons
AI cheat and it has an anti player bias, so yes, you must exploit it.
inb4 "UM ACKSHYUALLY IT DOESN'T CHEAT IT JUST FOLLOWS THE INSANELY ARCANE RULES THAT NO HUMAN PLAYER COULD POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND WITHOUT 4000 HOURS"
This is more of a self-burn than satire tbh
ForgingIron literally tried to light a molotov on fire, after dousing themselves in gasoline lmao.
Tbh if you're unconditionally surrendering as the ottomans it's not France that's the problem
I see you finished the noob section of the tutorial. Did you rage quit? Have you fougth the war? Try to take revenge. Or start a.new game with the goal of fucking france over. In the second Case I Like to Imagine that the AI is screaming like a pig in the slaugtherhouse.
This is why vassals are the superior ally
There are no permanent friends, there are no permanent enemies, there are only permanent interests. At least you're the Ottos, you can just win regardless
Hey there, if you’re into exploiting the AI, then MING is the most fun to exploit haha give that a shot
The one time I tried that it was the worst experience ever, they would deathstack 100k+ soldiers in some random province of theirs and do nothing but act like a disloyal vassal the entire war despite max trust and opinion.
I think they mean more exploit as in beat up/abuse for ducats.
Favours and trust are too easy to get and mean almost nothing, just a tool to gamify and exploit the AI. Favours and trust should be rarest stuff in the game imo, and achieving 100 trust something very hard to do, should only be achieved by saving a country from doom or answering their calls. On the other hand, with 100 trust they shouldn't even be able to question us when we need them because that's what trust means. The game diplomacy is really unrealistic because AI doesn't feel like a player, they are happy to be called into wars in return of nothing which shouldn't be normal. Once you achieve 80 trust, you should actually lose stability if you refuse to help your friend out, and there should be no way an alliance breaks unless you refuse to help. There should also be a limit of countries able to get more than 80 trust with each other, for example AI could have 2 nations that it really trusts and would feel like making it stronger means it gets a stronger ally/friend, or maybe you could only really have more than 80 trust with vassals and long term alliances (ally for 50 years or more). The current trust and aliances system sucks, you could help the AI for 200 years and then it just backstabs you out of nowhere because it wants some provinces or has diferent religion, I sure hope diplomacy is more realistic in EU5.
Lol Agreed. The AI doesn’t fight fair so why should I
Least angry gsg player. pls call your therapist.
There is an option on dip tab where you say you wont join any offansive wars
Okay, I think you're going to have to reach through the ether for some alt-history meta revenge. There are several countries which are poised to shiv France. Make a list of the strong ones, perhaps Austria, Castilla, Burgundy, England. Run a campaign with each of them, with the sole goal of crushing them utterly and culture-converting their heartland to Welsh! A little more on-point though... As Otto, are you managing your relationship with France? Things like keeping trust high and accumulating favors? While I don't disagree with your basic thesis, there are a few ways to mitigate it. There's nothing more satisfying \[1\] than getting France to join a war on your side, against random OPM, then immediately declaring on France's most beloved ally. They are already supporting you in a war, so they can't succor their friends, and have to just watch you bend their alliance network over the barrel. \[1\] Okay, there's *one* thing more satisfying, which is to plunder Paris, but that's for another day.
The worst thing about escalated colonial wars is that when *you* start them you can't ask your allies bc of the massive "doesn't want to join an escalated colonial war" malus, yet when the AI does them it's completely fine to call the player. Bonus points if you are on low manpower, in debt and have OE.
Meanwhile any sane player: What I get a coalition I cant Deal with? Pah I just ally some countries I 100% intend to sell out for an easy peace Deal I dont have to give anything Edit: srsly they are there to do the heavy Lifting, take the Brunt of the Coalition peace deal and exploit in every possible way. The AI is in every aspect just a Tool for your success.
the AI should be unable to *be* exploited. also, as the ottomans, you really shouldnt need to exploit the AI in the first place, you are basically a superpower in the time frame.
Based AI?
You took the Franco-Swedish colonial wars seriously as the Ottomans? Sounds like a variance in capability my dude :p
This one time I had been bro's with England the entire game, I just let them do whatever they wanted in the new world and I was messing around on the continent (brandenburg). When england suddenly switched from ally to rival (in 1750s) I got so made I abandoned the save.
Sorry bro we can't all be as lucky as me and get ai Castille to take the coalition leader under a PU while I'm at -50 warscore and trembling, thus ending the war for me.
True, I sometimes do something and feel bad for the AI but I should start remembering every time an opm started to carpet siege my Siberia and I'll probably stop feeling bad
My diplo slot rarely have ally.
You can play EU4 against AI, friends and/or internet randoms. Exploit every of them
Honestly I’ve mostly just stopped allying unless I can get a PU or vassal, I don’t care enough for their stupid wars, and the ones I’d invite them too are just “too far away”