Source
r/eu4•
Cheimon

New player, hoping for some advice on my current Castile campaign

Forgive me if this is the wrong place for this.

The year is 1468. It all started smoothly enough, but I've run into a few problems. I conquered Granada and a bit of Morocco, which went fine. I annexed Navarre, which went really well. Then I inherited Burgundy (that is to say, mostly Holland with a couple of isolated provinces). That caused quite a lot of problems. And then I had the bright idea to attack Tlemcen, I took all but one of their provinces, then realised I couldn't core them, so I reloaded and took two: the trade centre and the one next to it. Oh, and the Iberian Wedding fired.

Problem One: I seem to have lost all my manpower. Whenever I fight, troops die in the thousands, and that seems to be the case for sieges as well. Even 1% attrition takes an awful lot off me. I can never get it back so fast that it won't all disappear the first war I enter. Wars always have to involve many sieges because forts stop me from just crushing the enemy army.

Problem Two: Everyone wants to revolt. I had the "bright idea" to lower autonomy in all those provinces I inherited, so every few years they're going to pull up 20,000 troops out of nowhere. My army has only just got to 18,000 again, so I have to hire mercenaries, but my manpower is still devastated every time.

Problem Three: I'm in huge debt (c.900). In order to fight these rebels (including 34,000 from a Granadan resurgence and 28,000 from the Iberian Wedding) I've had to hire lots of mercenaries. Unless they're looting the whole time, not really practical when fighting rebels, they seem to suck up cash like nothing else! I've got three loans out!

Problem Four: was there even any benefit to taking new lands? I thought inheriting Burgundy would give me lots of money and soldiers, but all it seems to have brought is rebels (and expensive forts - should I be mothballing them?). I thought conquering bits of Tlemcen would reduce the strain of pirates (I am hunting them at 99% in the Seville node, but apparently that means every few months they'll get through anyway) but I can't core their provinces and have a hope of advancing tech for colonies (and all the muslims in these provinces hate me). At this rate, I'm never going to reach the new world, since Portugal will have the only islands that can chain towards it, and I'm loath to attack them since they're a good ally and England would jump at the chance to crush my meagre armies.

I would appreciate any suggestions towards fixing these problems and avoiding them in the future.

Posted Oct 24, 2016, 11:13 AM UTC

221
Oldini•

One of the main skills I've found out to be useful is taking admin ideas, and using mercs. As well as just being at peace can be good to let manpower recover. Minimize attrition while sieging a fort using minimum number of companies, not 3000 troops in 10 companies of 300, but 3 1000 manpower companies to siege a capital fort.

Shift clicking The consolidate button on the right is very good for this as it lets you have the empty companies remaining in your command structure, and you can move them back home to recover from the losses slowly.

2
CheimonOP•

Thanks, I'll give it a whirl. I did consolidate at one point but I didn't shift-click, so I lost most of my army base.

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FaleyaMaster of Mint•

remove most of those forts.

lowering the autonomy this way was probably a bad move, but well, you live and learn :D

I recommend you move your capital to the Lowlands before 1550, else you will suffer another 100 years of rebells popping up there.

regarding your money: if you own cossacks you can assign the former burgundian provinces to estates and get a bit more money out them this way. mothball/remove forts in areas where they wont see any action in the foreseeable future.

consider waging some wars vs weak non-HRE nations just to take their money.

This brings me to your main problem, your army: if you lose CONSIDERABLY more troops in a fight than your opponent then that means that your modifiers suck. Generally this is due to one of the following reasons:

  • you have fallen behind when it comes to MIL tech. You should never do that. being behind 1-2 levels in admin or dipl tech is not an issue, but in MIL tech against someone you are waging a war, is very bad. Dont use mil points to reduce rebells spawns or to develop provinces, unless you have a good mil point income (which Castille doesnt at the start of the game) or know what you're doing.

  • you have attacked into bad terrain modifiers (worst: across a river into mountains). this gives something between -1 and -3 to all combat phases which is HUGE. also some Terrain (hills, mountains, forests) reduce combat width meaning not your entire army gets to fight and your cavalry might not be as effective. Try to avoid this by carefully selecting where you fight. Caution: sieging enemy forts turns you into the attacker should their army get there. so if you siege a mountain fort and get attacked you now attack INTO the mountains and YOU get the modifier. (without the fort the enemy would get them).

  • you have crappy or no generals while they have good ones. For combat the first and (most importantly) the second of the four values a general has are the deciding ones. the third one can decrease terrain mali from crossing and make your army move faster, but it wont help directly in a fight. the last one, siege is imho the most valuable earlygame but also wont do anything in a fight but will help you finish sieges A LOT quicker. How many stars a general has is only telling you how many total points that general has, but for example in a combat a 1-star general with 2/4/0/0 stats is far better than a 3-star 1/1/5/3 general.

  • check that you're not starting wars with lowered morale (takes a few months to recover if reduced during peacetime) and that your army doesnt consist of too many cavalry (or artillery) units.

  • dont siege forts with your entire army. my recommendation is using a stack of 4/7/10k troops for forts size 1/2/3 respectively, ideally led by a general with siege abilities and cannons when you got some.

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CheimonOP•

Thank you, these look like some helpful rules of thumb when looking at warfare particularly. Terrain sometimes seems unavoidable and I'm not always able to get a good general (at least, without feeling like I'm wasting military points) but it all sounds worth bearing in mind.

1
FaleyaMaster of Mint•

sure, fighting in hills or woods cant always be avoided, but dont ever attack into mountains crossing a river - unless that mountain province has a fort in it that you own (because then the enemy gets that huge -3 malus and not you).

1
D_a_v_z•

I think the first thing u must do is decide exactly what u want from this playthrough, if u want dominance over the rest of Europe u should focus on that, if u want to go to the new world and colonizate the shit out of everyone u should focus on that.

It's hard to keep that much stuff going on even for more seasoned players and u are new to this so focus on something especially and let the game flow.

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CheimonOP•

I suppose so. I'm really interested in trying a bit of everything, at least while I'm new to the game.

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Demjan90Statesman•

Something that I didn't learn at first is to pay attention to army width when assembling armies. Also, use only infantry as mercenaries because they take the most casualties in battles so it doesn't hurt your manpower while it's still the cheapest merc to employ. Yeah, shift+consolidate helps to lose less money while reinforcing, but that way it takes more time to reinforce.

1
CheimonOP•

Thanks, I'll look up army width a bit more.

1
Meshkent•

Re problem 2: never lower autonomy manually, in fact, increase it a few months after taking a province. Conquests pay for themselves only in the long run. (Autonomy ticks down over time given your government rank).

Other things you can do: ensure you're at +1 or +2 stability, hire a national unrest advisor, put 20k stacks in rebellious provinces (wait until separatism ticks down, then you can move them out), take Religious ideas and covert or take Humanism to not worry about religious unity so much. Basically, you need to give yourself some time between conquests - don't rush so much. The game lasts almost 400 years - you have lots of time.

1
CheimonOP•

Thanks, I'll try to keep all this stuff in mind.

1
LegionEx_Marc•

I would not say so, raising autonomy should only be done if really needed. Those 25% autonomy you raise take about 15-25 years to go down. So a province you conquered takes 15-25 years until you can get benifits from it, if you raise autonomy.

In fact you should always lower autonomy in a way rebellions spawn in your favour. You can abuse this to make a rebillion spawn in moutains for example giving you the defender bonus.

Also since he lowered autonomy in such a wide area he cannot use stacks to surpess.

My advise would be check your army and only have infantery mercs, if you have cav mercs delet them immediatly they take to much money.

Addtional devolp the production of La Mancha your gold mine you can get 2-3 duckets more a month this way. If you are ahead in admin and diplo tech debase currency 1-2 times and pay back loans, you need money in the bank or as soon as you look waek BBB will come and punch you down.

0
Meshkent•

I would not say so

Sure, it's situational. What I tend to do is wait for coring to be done, and then increase autonomy. That way the province isn't a useless 100% autonomy one. I won't do so if I'm not planning any wars soon (and can thus afford to have lots of troops around), but lowering autonomy is a great way to pacify unrest if you've conquered a lot of land, your empire is very large, or you need your army for your next conquest.

Lowering autonomy to spawn a rebellion in a particular province is something I have done, but the problem is the effects last for 30 years, so it can spawn another rebellion a decade or more later if you don't have Humanism or something.

1
tws101•

  1. Manpower - Choose your engagements Wiley. Your big stack vs a small one does not mean to be careless with your stack. Watch the terrain.

  2. Revolts - Raise Autonomy and use estates to work for you by recovering a high autonomy provinces highest value.

  3. Huge debt - Early on you need to focus on your buildings. Cas, has high adm provinces. You need to build churches early on to boost income. Beyond that you are clearly doing poorly in war. As a general rule 95% of your offensive wars should never take half your manpower pool or cause you to take a loan. Play smart.

  4. Yes taking land is worth it. Yes in peace mothball ALL forts. If you think you will be invaded active the border forts.

1
CheimonOP•

Thanks for the advice. Manpower makes sense: I think I'm tending to rush in because it's so rare to get a chance at the enemy around all those forts (I'm too used to Crusader Kings II).

Estates I'm not sure I fully understand. Is there some sort of simple guide? I've looked at the wiki but it seems like a mass of tables without clear practical application. I give rubbish land to the church, trade centres to the burghers, high manpower to the nobles...but I'm still not sure I see all the benefits.

Likewise, is there a good list of "rules of thumb" for when to build things? In CK2, buildings were often just a cash sink, and I felt much better off letting other people worry about them.

1
tws101•

Development and Provinces

For each province you have Tax, Production, and Man Power. These three things are a number and there total is the development of the province.

Autonomy and Development

When a province has autonomy the output of each of the three development numbers is reduced by the autonomy. For example 80% autonomy means you are only getting 20% of the output.

Estates and Development and Autonomy

Estates have effects on autonomy. Clergy makes Tax autonomy 0% even if the province is at 100% autonomy. Burgers does the same for Production, and Nobility does the same for Manpower.

So when we take new land EVEN IF the nobility or clergy does NOT want territory an estate shuffle can and should be done. Example, New land has 90% autonomy and the province is a 7/5/2. Give that to the clergy and start collecting the FULL 7 gold per year from tax, as opposed to 10%. If clergy has too much land simple remove an older province that is at 25% autonomy from the clergy's hands. For centers of trade and estuaries, (See trade map mode) even if the province is 12/8/2, you will nearly always give it to the burgers to get the trade power.

Estates are not here to just take land from you. They are here to WORK for you and should be made to do so at EVERY opportunity.

Estates are one of the big things that separates a player that makes money from one that does not.

Full list of money makers:

Early Buildings (If poor subsidize through war)

Estates Usage (Simple micromanagement to do this)

Gold Mines (Theses can be huge but watch inflation, take them early)

Trade Income (This is the biggest money maker but is not always possible due to nation or current trade flow)

1
lawberdasherMap Staring Expert •

  1. When you conquer a province you should raise the autonomy, not lower it! Some people will say to do this situationally. I say do it all the time. As you grow, give those newly conquered provinces to your estates - and remove estates from your low autonomy, same culture, same religion provinces closer to home. The clergy estate is a fantastic conquest tool - they give full tax benefits, lower unrest, and make it easier to convert religion.

  2. Mercenaries. As a general rule of thumb I build this army template with western nations - 3 infantry (2 mercs, 1 regular), 1 reg. cavalry, 2 reg. artillery. Once my economy can handle it, I make all infantry mercenaries.

  3. As Castile, how's your trade setup? You're probably still collecting in Lisboa, so make sure you've got more power there than Portugal. You got Burgundy's land so you probably also have power in the English Channel and should have a merchant collecting there too.

1
CheimonOP•

Raising autonomy is purely to gain the -10 unrest, right? Also, if I take away a province from an estate, is that roughly equal to giving one? Should I be using this to try and make sure all estates have the "best" properties for them?

Army composition - thanks, this makes sense. I'm still fairly early in tech but I've just unlocked artillery (I've played a bit further since I posted this).

My trade setup is to collect in Seville. I don't have more power than Portugal, but I'm struggling to get that. I don't really want to fight Portugal because they seem nice (and I don't want to attack England) but I'm not sure how else to resolve it. I'm also collecting a bit in the English Channel node because I own Holland. I've got 6 light ships, but I don't really know where to put them.

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lawberdasherMap Staring Expert •

Raising autonomy is absolutely for the -10 to unrest. When you grant it to an estate it'll give you the effect of 0 autonomy for tax, production/trade, or manpower depending on clergy, burghers, or nobility. Give trade centers and estuary provinces to burghers, give decent tax provinces to clergy, and give the rest to the nobility. Make sure each estate has enough land to keep them happy but remains under 80 influence. In the event that you can't accomplish both, keep them under 80 influence even if it means they have less land then they'd like. It's better for them to be less loyal then the disaster that happens when influence goes over 80.

Make sure to build marketplaces in your centers of trade and river estuary provinces. Send trade ships to Sevilla. Later in the game, Genoa and English Channel are more powerful places to collect trade, especially once colonization happens. Once you absorb Aragon, you'll want to transfer from Sevilla into Genoa and collect in Genoa. You'll also want to focus on some European conquests through southern France and Northern Italy to lock down that trade node.

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ultimatox•

you obviosuly need to pace yourself.

low manpower, bad economy, rebel problems are all usually rooted in overextending yourself.

Give your Country time to recoup between wars. Focus on putting down rebellions and getting a handle on your economy. set army maintenance to 0 and mothball all the forts unless there is and imminent rebel uprising, and use time to your advantage. spend your time positioning yourself diplomatically for the next war maybe 5-10 years down the line, get the right allies, and fabricate claims on all high value provinces you kow you will want. Focus on exploration and colonization for a while.

lowering autonomy is usually a recipe for at least 2 rebellions firing in that province, so most of the time it is a bad idea.

1
CheimonOP•

Thanks, this all makes sense.

1