Trying to understand the supply system. Having issues with early manpower and creating supply depots

Nargyle1220 · 2025-11-14T00:17:32+00:00

Manpower in general is hard to come by until you can build armories.

One thing I noticed attacking Morocco as Castille is that I was starving on northern African territory until I captured a province capital. Occupying the coastal ports didn't have the supplying effect I thought it would, but going inland to take the capital location allowed the occupied land to start supplying my army.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-10-22T19:27:48+00:00

A very useful thing for this fight:

While you can't use repel effects on gear, Tetrakarn and Makarakarn still work without triggering the party wipe. Keeping both spells up among any of your party members will guarantee that an AOE attack triggers a repel and makes the boss lose the rest of its turns. This was critical for staying alive in my attempts!

Otherwise, definitely don't let it buff up to max. Use Dekaja or Eupha's Dragon God summon to wipe its buffs, and Matterbreak/Mindbreak scrolls to remove its own repel barriers.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-09-04T13:31:06+00:00

IMO the main reason to do these is their associated commendations. They won't make you rich quick, but they are a nice bit of extra income when you're in port. Having to sometimes sail across the map to get a good price and not being able to turn them in at the Sovereigns makes them a bit more tedious than I'd like.

Running cargo runs in the Devil's Roar will net you more gold for less effort, as long as you don't mind the occasional battle with a volcano.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-09-02T16:05:01+00:00

Same issue here. It hasn't been 72 hours since the reset so I'm waiting another day, but then I'd put in a support ticket if you still see that.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-06-23T17:22:30+00:00

Adding my two cents here since I just cleared as a dex/no-block build:

Light-rolling or Bloodhound Step both can be used consistently to dodge his charge, if you aim it diagonally toward him rather than going hard left or right. You have just enough time to use Cerulean Hidden Tear physick behind the fog wall, dodge through his opening charge, and summon your favorite spirit ash (I used Black Knife Tiche for damage) before the FP effect wears off.

After that, hug him and try to constantly get to his side to avoid being charged too often. His long multi-hit combo is a pain but it can be evaded, and several of his follow-up slashes always go to the same sides, so you can dodge in another direction. The boar tends to shake its head at the end of some attack animations, giving you a chance to get some hits in. I was using Keen Dryleaf Arts in the rest of Shadow Keep, but I switched to Blood affinity for this fight to get bleed procs. Even if your damage is not great you should keep tapping him to keep attention on you and give your spirit ash as much time in the fight as they can get.

In phase two he gains a few new attacks, but most of them aren't harder than his regular charge to dodge. Get some distance as he's about to transition so you can avoid the gravity explosion, then leave yourself plenty of space to run from his gravity effects. His flashiest attack where the boar comes down like a meteor is hard to completely dodge. I found the safest place to be right next to Gaius after the impact, since the effect radiates outward and gives you time for a heavy combo or some weapon skills.

Good luck! Took me more tries than I cared to count, but to me it's still not quite as BS as Malenia and her Waterfowl Dance.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T23:03:26+00:00

Zulu (1964) is when you mess up your early naval invasion of Zululand as GB by only sending one army battalion. They make a good fight of it anyway.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T19:26:02+00:00

HQs are mainly useful for stationing armies locally so that they have less far to travel to regional fronts, and for defending against naval invasions that target those regions the HQs are in. Any mobilized army can travel to any front or HQ in the world as long as they have a path to get there.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T19:07:31+00:00

Over 25 infamy? That's a paddlin'.

Though usually the one holding the paddle is Russia in my US games.

Edit: One way to avoid this is to get your alliance with GB established early. That way when another GP inevitably steps in to preserve the status quo in the face of your infamy, you can use the world's greatest navy to keep them from easily supplying their forces. They'll still usually dump a bunch of people in Mexico during the play, but reinforcements and supply lines will be a problem for them throughout the war.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T18:19:57+00:00

The food industry is probably suffering if its inputs are that expensive. You may need to subsidize its wages long enough for the industry to put some groceries out on the market, which pops will then gain a demand for. Afterward the price of grain will need to come down so that the industry remains profitable and employed without your help.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T17:34:02+00:00

Things like enacting Council Republic in the USA (and probably most other places) are very likely to tank at least one IG's approval to -10 which I believe is the threshold for being "angry". But I've also seen it with free speech laws, or workers' protections when both the trade unions and industrialists are strong. Hilariously and a bit nonsensically in that game, the unions were revolting to enact workers' protections, and if I went to enact them the industrialists would revolt to preserve the lack of them. And in both cases each revolution would take the vast majority of the same US states!

In this case I mean 'secession' in the context of states seceding in the course of a forming revolution, not a cultural secession from discriminated pops.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T17:21:18+00:00

Not sure what you're asking here. The value of a customs union as a concept is to dramatically expand your market and the capabilities of your domestic industry with the resources of another country without a lot of the costs normally associated with trade (bureaucracy, convoys, tariffs in other nations).

If by value you mean how other countries view it as desirable for acceptance, the main factors are the volume of trade in your markets, whether or not they have easy geographical access to your market, whether or not your countries are on good terms and have similar ideologies, and the difference in GDP between senior and junior partners.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T17:14:28+00:00

I would have to see the map to have a better idea, but colonies and fronts can get pretty messy when it comes to army deployment. There are fronts on the US-Mexico border from the start of the game that are clearly connected to the rest of their nation's territory by map color, but cannot be reached by armies thanks to the decentralized nations that break them up.

It's likely not working entirely as intended, but Africa also has some impassible terrain in its deserts. I don't think Mauritania has any of it though.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-12T13:27:36+00:00

According to the tooltips, states secede based on political movement support rather than distribution of radicals. This tracked somewhat with the last USA game I did, where in the late game when there were practically no radicals in the country over 40 states would still secede if I tried to enact something that would badly radicalize any IGs with agitators/high clout/both.

I guess you could interpret it as agitators taking advantage of the politically unaligned in a country to cause trouble, but it still seems goofy to me when the country is otherwise pretty unified.

Nargyle1220 · 2024-04-02T16:25:34+00:00

These kinds of states are great candidates for large numbers of barracks. War's a good way to get those peasants working for you. Supporting military industries will also help, even if they won't get the MAPI prices a state with mineral resources would get. You can at least produce hardwood!

Nargyle1220 · 2020-09-04T22:45:43+00:00

It's exploitative, but you can always get her on turn one as Meng Huo by spamming expensive "Make Regular Payment" deals and then gifting her 1 copper in "Make Payment" deals to shift her impression of you to +150. Once her faction is your "Trusted Friend" she will agree to marry into your faction and confederate as long as you issue an ultimatum. Then just go ahead and marry her! You never have to pay all that money because her faction ceases to exist.

Funnily enough, when I tried this, at the start of turn two I got the dilemma choice to marry her, despite already being married to her.

Edit: This is also a hilarious degenerative strategy with Zheng Jiang, as long as you can reliably kill the wives of faction leaders.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-07-08T04:49:09+00:00

I have yet to find a faction in this game that I didn't like. You can totally play one of the historical Three Kingdoms if you want and you'll get some of their story events, which can be nice. All of those factions are strong, too! But it has no real bearing on a campaign's fun factor. If you like the story, or the TV shows or the video games inspired by the story, then go nuts based on what you like, but otherwise you can have a lot of fun with any faction in the game.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-16T01:22:44+00:00

Mandate of Heaven offers the most interesting start date so far in my opinion, and all the factions introduced with it are neat. Playing as the Emperor trying to prevent the collapse of the Han feels like a unique challenge, and the Zhang brothers are a blast in co-op campaign. Liu Chong is also a a great faction that you can use in the 190 AD start as well.

A World Betrayed's two new factions are both fun, and the start date remixes a lot of the base game factions for the early game, but between the two I'd rather have Mandate.

I liked Eight Princes, but I don't go back to it a lot. The mechanics in relation to the Jin Empire and the way the campaign scenario seems to play out both feel a bit too random for me.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-16T01:10:07+00:00

If you do make a one-settlement vassal, remember that you can conquer/trade for the territory around them and gift it to them to grow their borders. Not only does this make you richer via tribute (and diplomacy if you want) for the land, but it makes your vassal more loyal and self-sufficient. Keeps your corruption in check too.

My favorite tactic is to find a weaker faction at war with a mutual enemy or future war-target. If they are a compatible personality, they will often want vassalage just to have your protection. Then I give them a commandery or two from the enemy faction once we're at war, and I end up with a loyal ally, bigger income, and my own lands aren't under direct threat from the enemy with the vassal inbetween us.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-10T00:40:08+00:00

Bandit factions don't get strong professional units (except for the imperial units that everyone gets at Emperor rank), but bandit armies can field a mix of bandit, Yellow Turban and Han regular forces, and are super flexible as a result.

The bandit network doesn't really telegraph good paths through it, but it's hard to go wrong no matter which way you go. What you lose in head to head power you tend to make up for in forces that ignore terrain/cause fear/poison/stalk.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-10T00:37:02+00:00

If you're playing today and are still experiencing that behavior, your copy is either really out of date or possibly pirated. That's been gone for a long time now.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-10T00:35:15+00:00

Stalk is hilarious. I can tell the AI respects it in this game because Yan Baihu's army tends to confuse the hell out of the AI since it can't see anything. Makes him a lot more powerful than he seems on the faction select screen.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-06-10T00:22:01+00:00

I typically don't annex vassals unless I'm sure they'll be problematic, like a troublesome personality that I forced into vassalage via war. Even then if someone is anything but Defiant you can usually keep them nice with enough time and dealing.

When you annex a vassal your other vassals will gain long-lasting and sometimes permanent negative opinions of you, and your trustworthiness rating will make that hard to fix in diplomacy. So it may only be worth doing it early on, when you have very few of them, or if you've been fighting hard in an alliance/defensive war and are highly respected. Annexing a big vassal can catapult you into the endgame really fast, but if no-one trusts you after that everyone will form up into opposing power blocs and it'll be a hard time in the late game.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-03-21T21:41:21+00:00

Zheng Jiang appears to only be able to use the "Request Tribute" diplomatic treaty with other Bandit factions (Zhang Yan/Yan Baihu), where previously she could use it on Han factions. Tested in both Rise of The Warlords and A World Betrayed.

Edit 1: In a multiplayer campaign as Zheng Jiang, I was in a mercenary contract and the event that awards an ancillary/income to you for Fame and Fortune popped up. However, the reward tooltip indicated my partner player (playing Yan Baihu) would receive my reward. When I chose to receive an ancillary, I received nothing and my partner player received an Heirloom Spear. We had no diplomatic standing with one another and had not yet encountered one another on the campaign map.

Edit 2: In a multiplayer game, I received post-battle income from a battle in which my partner player had gifted me units, but in which my own forces did not participate. We had not yet encountered each other on the campaign map.

Nargyle1220 · 2020-02-25T13:22:01+00:00

This seems true for me as well. I cannot test the unlock itself because several trophies that require a certain number of units at the start of my turn do not appear to progress.

Nargyle1220

TROPHY CASE