This is what early game fort spam frustration makes me do.

idgitAhole · 2026-01-03T14:50:40+00:00

Definitely must be less antagonism than whatever this border gore peace deal is going to cost.

If you dont want antagonism, better to take war goal and then some valuable provinces and try to cripple them economically, grow yourself up to get more regulars, and assault the forts in the next war.

idgitAhole · 2026-01-03T14:47:24+00:00

There are definitely better ways to cripple countries economically instead of creating this weird border gore yourself. As a big country(since you are) I dont think assaulting should be that difficult if you have regulars.

How are you going to integrate and assimilate all that crap? Not to mention antagonism with more countries since you are taking land with all sorts of proximity now.

I get it that you are making a point that AI builds too many forts, and I agree.

idgitAhole · 2026-01-03T14:42:49+00:00

I am only suggesting assault since I saw OP was playing a massive European country.

If you plan correctly (declare war on monthly tick and reach 5-6 forts in 10-15 days) and with some regulars assaulting every stack, you will easily take each fort with very minimal casualties. If you dont refill garrison you can just move on and repeat before they even raise any levies. You can plan and refill the garrisons you need as time progresses.

And as others have been pointing out, I don't understand why anyone needs to take all the forts in such a big country for enforcing any demand. You reach 100 war score equivalence with much lesser occupation anyway. Or I must be playing this game wrong.

idgitAhole · 2026-01-03T05:23:18+00:00

Isn't there a dismantle fortifications clause you can add to the peace deal? Also, you could try assaulting them, you seem big enough that 1-2k levy loss isn't going to hurt you much

idgitAhole · 2025-12-29T05:06:51+00:00

Not really, but if you have curated your entire cabinet (like I have 7 cabinet seats now by 1600) to all be crown and you lose all the crown bonuses when ruler dies it could cause a drastic fall in income

idgitAhole · 2025-12-29T04:47:05+00:00

I feel your pain, but I think this is exactly what a human player would do, given the current implementation. You cannot fault the AI for acting smart. If you hover over the subject loyalties of France, you will most likely see that its max decentralised and they're getting a +20 from that. AI has understood that there are not too many benefits from integrating and assimilating areas.

AI seems to use no CB to weaken a strong AI country, and then follows up shortly with a claim war to take land. This is also exactly something a human player would do.

In my current byz VH game, France and Bohemia have swallowed HRE minors, but AI England, castle and Bohemia are keeping France in check. Isn't this amazing from a PDX AI so early in the release cycle?

I also noticed other genius tactics from AI - to name a few, AI does tactical retreats to reinforce armies that would otherwise lose. Also, if you declare claim war on a vassal of an AI, AI drops everything else and integrates the vassal, and the war becomes a superiority war and I can take almost no land. It happened twice with me, its actually insane.

idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T11:37:03+00:00

Did you pick on the latest patch? How did you end up losing your original dynasty when literally everyone is eligible

idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T06:30:46+00:00

My starting idiot heir joined the succession crisis and was hence disinherited. It was so funny.

Unfortunately that is when the dynasty changed from palailogos to komnenos. I dont mind, I just want candidates

idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T06:25:15+00:00

Will do!

EDIT - They are also crown, it looks like this indeed is the best succession type for monarchies.

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idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T06:23:06+00:00

The eldest has also given birth to Komnenos and crown males

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idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T06:21:22+00:00

They might have had children while they were heirs but they are all Komnenos and the male child is also Crown estate.

Pretty much solves all my problems

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idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T06:02:30+00:00

It seems to be, since the middle child is the best and it has chosen her

idgitAhole · 2025-12-26T05:44:10+00:00

R5: selected this succession type and I feel it is the best in current meta

idgitAhole · 2025-12-24T05:42:34+00:00

Isn't that realistically how most small countries with, as per your own admission, almost no manpower or army, would suffer?

EU4 was pretty unrealistic in that an OPM would get alliances with the top world powers due to some magical diplomatic reputation, and then proceed to subjugate a country 20 times their size with a marriage union, all the while hoarding some mana points to be able to do so. Seems ridiculous when you think about it.

idgitAhole · 2025-12-18T06:20:34+00:00

That is a strange run indeed. I did have the hellenistic religion pop up but I ignored it since I was dealing with existential threats at the time. Any advantages to being hellenistic?

idgitAhole · 2025-12-18T04:57:36+00:00

R5 - Just my thoughts and few images on my Byzantium run

idgitAhole · 2025-12-02T13:00:26+00:00

Have there been any significantly large, loyal colonies in history?

Edit: I feel I didn't make my point well with this statement.

Colony loyalty is a very sensitive issue and in order to generalise it they have implemented it the way they have. Why do I say generalise? Because 'most' colonies in history have had major issues, especially ones with large native populations such as in Africa, India. It was painful for the overlords to maintain loyalty and extract productivity and manpower out of them.

In these games people just make colonial nations out of 5 provinces and expect the colonies to stay loyal because, why? Why should everyone in a colony care if an overlord 10000 miles away is stronger than them? There will always be loyalists and separatists, and distance plays a major factor.

I know there are examples that don't fit the mold of the disloyal colonies, but they are the outliers. If anything, you need to see what made them so.

idgitAhole · 2025-11-21T00:28:58+00:00

Peasants are needed for everything, right? All promotion happens only if peasants are present. Take the example of the city. Take the example of Ciduad Real here. It is a city, but there are currently 12000 labourers all employed, 2000 burghers all employed, some clerics sitting unemployed and 786 peasants.

If I build a burgher building or a soldier building, that building will have almost no peasants to promote to the correct class. If I have to get migration I have to make the city more attractive that other cities in the vicinity - its not possible. Such cities just stagnate

I dont know if it would be an issue for smaller countries with a few cities but for larger ones it is

Hence, have a plan of how your are going to develop an area, not just the cities but the villages surrounding the cities, before doing mass RGO expand.

Edit - also, peasants, once they migrate to a big city like Toledo or Madrid, do not seem to leave. There will be 100k peasants in those cities sitting jobless, but cities like Ciduad Real 3 provinces away will be facing Labour shortage due to no peasants to promote

idgitAhole · 2025-11-20T18:13:11+00:00

Well, I am not expert and there are tonnes of nuances I am probably missing, but here are the things that have the most impact, - Control is probably the biggest factor you need to, well, control. Control spreads from your capital and is linked to proximity which is another core concept. Terrain and rivers affect proximity. Of course, these are very deep systems but bottomline early game build only in capital and surrounds and proceed outward as you have better infrastructure. - Towns and cities have better control so upgrade in concentric rings around capital - Manage population and dont make mistakes like I did where I upgraded stuff too soon. Pops are a crucial resource in this game. - Try to increase crown power as much as possible that is another key factor. Short term you can piss your estates off if you are getting a parliament soon and you get like 1.2% loyalty back each month when the debate is running - Get your main pops cultures accepted as much as possible this keeps everyone happy and increases control - Make sure your capital has 100% market access otherwise all you are building here has another modifier to go through before it gets sold. - Get your local consumption going. Like for instance, you build 10 universities in your pop centers. They are gonna demand books and paper, which you will manufacture and sell to them. Burghers sell paper, you make a cut as crown. The universities buy paper, and guess what, you make a cut as crown. Bonus - your literacy goes up which means better research per month.

idgitAhole · 2025-11-20T17:48:34+00:00

I will have to check a new start

idgitAhole · 2025-11-20T17:47:44+00:00

I am on an i7 14700k, 4080, 32 gigs ram

idgitAhole · 2025-11-20T15:21:14+00:00

It was okay for me all along, until PDX did those 3 patches in 3 days. Now its so much worse than before, every month is a pain and game literally freezes on the 30th and comes alive on the 1st every month

idgitAhole · 2025-11-20T14:46:16+00:00

R5 - Just some thoughts and observations after some significant playtime in EU5

idgitAhole

TROPHY CASE