Europa Universalis III

Shabbaman · 24-01-2013, 10:34

Perhaps it's worth to declare ASAP if they're not into many alliances at the start. You really need those provinces (especially Brabant, because of it's university (I guess Leuven is in Brabant) to make anything out of that starting position. I think your priorities are something like this:

1. Make sure Hainaut doesn't get you into war with Burgundy
2. Get rid of Hainaut
3. Get Friesland and Gelre
4. Make yourself unappealing for Burgundy

And use your diplomats accordingly. Maybe you could swap 2 and 3, I don't know if the PU allows you to wage war. So start like this:

1. Cancel alliance with Hainault. This should result in a rep hit with them, so perhaps you don't need to:
2. Insult Hainaut. Their king will die eventually, if you're below 100 you'll get out of the PU. Otherwise Burgundy might help you.
3. Attack ASAP, before they can get you into cascading war declarations.
4. Grant military access to Burgundy. Don't ask for it, offer it. If they have military access, they get a stability hit when they declare war on you. You can do the same with allies of Friesland and Gelre. Truce has a similar effect. I'm assuming the AI gets the same stability hit as the human player (hard to tell), but the AI will honor truce most of the time.

One thing you could do is to ally with France. I don't think you'll be harmed if Burgundy attacks you and France honors the alliance. The downside is that France and Burgundy will be fighting a lot anyway, so you might get Burgundy pissed at you at a time you might not want that. Note that Burgundy has provinces you want (and will get cores on), so you need to fight Burgundy at some point. The only way to win that war successfully is if Burgundy wages war on your allies, not on you, and you manage to steal one or two provinces (those with textile manufacturies obviously) and sue for peace.

24-01-2013, 10:34	#28
Shabbaman Administrator Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Costa La Haya Posts: 8,494	Perhaps it's worth to declare ASAP if they're not into many alliances at the start. You really need those provinces (especially Brabant, because of it's university (I guess Leuven is in Brabant) to make anything out of that starting position. I think your priorities are something like this: 1. Make sure Hainaut doesn't get you into war with Burgundy 2. Get rid of Hainaut 3. Get Friesland and Gelre 4. Make yourself unappealing for Burgundy And use your diplomats accordingly. Maybe you could swap 2 and 3, I don't know if the PU allows you to wage war. So start like this: 1. Cancel alliance with Hainault. This should result in a rep hit with them, so perhaps you don't need to: 2. Insult Hainaut. Their king will die eventually, if you're below 100 you'll get out of the PU. Otherwise Burgundy might help you. 3. Attack ASAP, before they can get you into cascading war declarations. 4. Grant military access to Burgundy. Don't ask for it, offer it. If they have military access, they get a stability hit when they declare war on you. You can do the same with allies of Friesland and Gelre. Truce has a similar effect. I'm assuming the AI gets the same stability hit as the human player (hard to tell), but the AI will honor truce most of the time. One thing you could do is to ally with France. I don't think you'll be harmed if Burgundy attacks you and France honors the alliance. The downside is that France and Burgundy will be fighting a lot anyway, so you might get Burgundy pissed at you at a time you might not want that. Note that Burgundy has provinces you want (and will get cores on), so you need to fight Burgundy at some point. The only way to win that war successfully is if Burgundy wages war on your allies, not on you, and you manage to steal one or two provinces (those with textile manufacturies obviously) and sue for peace. __________________ "Our spam is backed with COMETS!"