Victoria 2 / Europa Universalis 3 / Paradox Strategy General Thread

[NejinOniwa]

Let's stop invading the other threads for a moment, and conquer some land of our own!

-w-

LETS PLAY SOME STRATEGY GAMES AND CONQUER SHIT, AND REPORT ITT!


My current game is EU3, which is basically V2 with a bigger timeframe (i think). I'm ofc playing DEM SWEEEEDES, and I'm conquering the living shit out of everything.
HOW THINGS ROLLED:
I started off as the freshly liberated Sweden under Gustav Vasa somewhere 1523 or so. First thing I did was build up some forces and prepare to take back some territory from the Norwegians; this went much better than expected and after some 4 years I ended up conquering ALL THEIR STUFF except their capital and Iceland. Much winnage was had. Provinces gained: 8.
Also started colonizing Lappland, Finnmark and Österbotten, for moar ground.
After that it was time to pound some sweet Danish arse. I did. Carved like a hot butter knife through all their provinces, and when parts of the German states (and most of all the Hansa League) started bitching I fucked them over so badly they couldn't even stand. Just to make a point, I grabbed Lüneburg, Hamburg, Holstein and Slesvig in a fine little line beneath Denmark, and vassalized Oldenburg. As for the rest of Denmark, they'd managed to colonize some shitty parts of Africa, so I couldn't outright annex them - instead, I had to leave them with Jylland, Själland and Fyn. Gotland rebelled before I could get to them, so I had to conquer them separately; but Skåne and Halland were easy pie to grab, as expected.

Having teamed up a short stint with Russia, a short stint was done fighting ottomans by their side. This worked VERY well, and the swedish fleet increased its number of heavy ships rather dramatically, by capturing fucking everything they could. Good times were had.


It is now 1578, and I am now writing in past tense.
After having secured major parts of the baltic for his dynasty and started some basic colonization efforts in the north end of the New World, King Gustav decides (after kicking some obligatory rebel butt) it's time to pass the ball over to his homeboy Karl IX. He happily takes up his dad's skull-stomping, arse-kicking habits, and just to make obvious the Vasa dynasty's lack of weak links, he proclaims it's time for his kingdom to monopolize the baltic a bit more, and annexes the Livonian states of Riga, Livland and Estland into his reign, happily slapping the face of anyone who disagrees with his ideas. In particular, Brandenburg, who thinks they're someone just because they're in ZE HOLEY ROOMAN EMPAIYAH , is shown who's boss; to make sure nobody makes that mistake again, Vorpommern is also included in the package deal of conquest.

By 1595, this was all dealt with. In a short but very important conflict just following this, Lübeck was secured for the Swedish crown, granting the kingdom great advantage on the field of Baltic trade. Having secured that, Karl decided it was sweet time to secure some serious commitment from his Norwegian brothers - three years and one war later, boom, vassal state and happy about it for no apparent reason.
When the 1600's came around, Karl's homeboy Conquistador in the New World was running into some major stuff. As in, people who weren't just wild savages, but wild savages who thought they were something. Some displays of western gunmanship later, and the Huron tribes were annexed into the Kingdom, providing a center of gravity for the kingdom's colonies in Ontario and surrounding regions.
One very typical thing about savages, though, is that they don't LIKE being annexed. As so, it took the better part of 10 years before the Kingdom was stable enough for Karl IX to be in the mood for some conquest again. This time, though, he was hunting bigger prey than just the usual mettle. That's right - Russia was on the plate.

Allied with the Danes, the bastards, it took king Karl well over 2 years to stomp their (and the Danes', the stupid idiots who thought it wise to fight someone who had you surrounded on all fronts) maneuvers into the sand with brute Swedish Steel and Haakkapäliten Finnish cavalry (really, they were running ALL THE FUCK OVER THE PLACE.). By 1613, though, it was all over, and Russia's armies were in tatters; they were forced to abandon Kexholm, Novgorod with its massively important trading centers, and Ingermanland to the Swedes, and in an even shrewder move, king Karl had them release their present capital St. Petersburg, as well as the province of Karelia, as a fresh vassal state to Sweden. Thus, Finland - albeit a bit out of place, to be sure - was born.
Finally, a few years later, Norway felt no need to postpone things any longer, and so on the 15th of October officially let herself be peacefully annexed by the Kingdom.

Having finally attained his wishes, Karl IX felt it safe to leave things to his bustling son Gustav II Adolf, guided by the magnificent statesman Axel Oxelstierna. While his first years were mainly focused on stability, he was ever the shrewd tactician - when a war erupted within Sweden's sphere of influence, Gustav ordered war against the alliance of Brandenburg, Poland and Lithuania. Ever as easily hammered into pulps by the brilliant military boys Lennart Torstensson and Johan Banér, best bros and highest members of the official homeboy club of G2A. In a series of swift victories, seized were a virtual shitload of shining Polish moneys (hurrr), and the vital baltic trade center city of Danzig.

By this time, though, it was sadly time for the aforementioned G2A to pass along the hat to his boy Karl X (WAI I HAEV NO CHRISTINA I MAD NAO); and since his dad had pissed them both off rather fucking badly, the Lithuanians and Polish were at his neck from day one, hacking at his armies best they could (not that they managed much). At 1638 Karl had had enough of their shit, but unfortunately stuttered a slight bit when telling his diplomat where to go declare war on shit; so, England was brought into the whole mess without much warning at all, just as they were in the fuckwad middle of being conquered by the French. The French were scared as fuck by this move (as they had been solidly beaten back before as part of alliances against the Swedes), and promptly jumped ship the fuck back to frogland; the English were mainly perplexed, but figured they could handle this problem the way they usually do, with a bit of cannons, ships and invasion.

Unfortunately for them, Sweden had a bit too much of a prepared fleet available to counter their attempts with, and their tries at invading various parts of the Baltic were solidly shut down to the sandy bottoms of the Öresund strait. Royally pissed at this slight to his abilities, Karl proceeded to hammer the living shit out of their stuff until they gave him a good number of colonies to get him off their backs. During this time, the Polish and the Lithuanians were also pissed off, for unknown reasons. They were also beat to shitsticks, and Memel, yet another baltic port, was acquired, alongside stupid amounts of compensation money.


It is now 1640, and Sweden controls all of Scandinavia except central Denmark (which is just a matter of time and effort conquering their african colonies so they can be annexed the fuck out of), Greenland, all Baltic trade centers and some extra germanies, and all of northeast Canada. Next up, likely, is Spain - they seem to be in need of some boss-who-is-showing, as they're trying to grab important places like Alaska before we can. TRY TO STEAL MY NORTHS, WILL YOU? DAMN SPANIARDS, ONOYOUDIDNT!

...


ANYWAY. End of Wall of Text. Please post any and all adventures you've had in Paradox games ITT!

[Red-Machine]

In my latest run of Civilization IV, the British Empire dominates 2/3 of the world.  The other 1/3 is divided up between two nations: 3/4 of it belongs to my sister-nation Russia, and the rest belongs to Germany.  Germany is on the brink of economic collapse and will soon fall under either mine or Russia's control.  Even if it's Russia, it'll still be mine really.

[NejinOniwa]

Doing a new run on EU3, using Ryukyu/Okinawa.

Why pick this tiny fucking island with no apparent power at all, you ask? Just begging to be crushed beneath the fangs of China and Japan and all that?
Well, APPARENTLY there is an achievement list for this game. And at the very bottom, there is ONE entry on the "Very Hard - 100pts" category. That is, CONQUER THE WORLD AS RYUKYU.
Oh, and did i mention they are BLOODY HEATHENS, SO EVERYBODY HATES THEM WITH A PASSION, and they have like the smallest manpower and tech available like EVER?
So, well. I did some preparations and calculated things in my head to make sure shit would go as planned...


So, 30 years in or so, CONQUERING VIETNAM/THAILAND/LAOS/ALL THAT SHIT LIKE A BOSS. From 1 province that's an ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF FUCKNOWHERE to 1 island PLUS 8 provinces in central asia mainland AND 8 more provinces' worth of vassal states (3/3/2), NOT COUNTING that random province just south of the Himalayas that defected to me all on its own?

BRINGING DAT PAIN.

[Dr. Kraus]

I'm impressed Negi!

So far this is what has happened in Victoria II:

Started as Prussia in 1869 because I wanted to go for the whole German Unification objective and I wasn't having any luck with Bavaria because its so under powered as a German state and its tough doing German Unification with them. Anyway, I adjusted the economy to TAXTHELIVINGFUCK out of the Rich and collect spheres of influence in Europe along with building my Army up to WORLDDOMINATION strength. After collecting most of the German states under my influence and starting a war of unification with France, I created Germany! Most people go for the NGF (North German Federation) and then grab the SGF (South German Federation) but I went for the huge land grab.

After that I got Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland under my influence wars started up between Britain, Belgium, Netherlands, and me (Germany). Netherlands wanted some land from Belgium and Britain was going to help them, being the awesome dude I am I kicked some major ass, saving Belgium from rape and obtaining half of The Netherlands for myself. Not soon after, France started some dumb ass war against Belgium and wanted half of it, The Netherlands soon jumped at this attacking them from the north. So Belgium was about to get raped from both ends but I stepped in like the Pimp country I am and kicked the French back to Paris (Which I messed up bad) and the Orange people back to their rivers! Even though I did this, Belgium decided to give up half their land to France which caused me to get tried of seeing it be so weak.

Seeing this tiny sliver of land next to my border called Belgium caused me to contemplate something "Do I watch the French and Netherlanders (what ever you call them) destroy this small country and I gain nothing for defending it or do I just Annex it to ensure they are 'protected'?". I just annexed it causing every major country (Britain, France, Russia, Austria) to start a war of suppression on four fronts, everything was fine until Russia joined in the war causing me to have an opening on my Western Front while I was fighting the French to the East and the Austrians in the South (Britain could only block my ports, no big deal I can wait it out). I ended having to give in which cut my Military down to 12,000 men (when the military is NOT deployed) and I had to PAYTAXOUTMYASS for 20 years. 

After all this, I've been re-building my Military in huge amounts with all the upgraded tech (I did it all in 20 years, most of the other countries are lagging behind me) and I could kill off France if I really wanted to. The only thing keeping me from dominating Europe right now is that the game isn't based around warfare and more about economy and government...

When I play HOI3 (Hearts of Iron 3) as Germany, the battlefield will look like this most of the time:

[Red-Machine]

I'm starting to regret not buying that copy of Victoria 2 I saw for 99p...

[NejinOniwa]

The best part of my Ryukyu Conquest game is that my starting move was absolutely brilliant.

I took advantage of the fact that you can't annex someone in peace talks without holding all their regions, and that you can't take someone's capital region without annexing them. Champa, a nation of 2 regions, were alone in a war against Dai Viet; they were getting their asses pounded at their capital by 6000 men of Dai Viet, while I had only 2000 men total on my ships at the coast.
What I did; in a quick maneuver, I stepped in to siege their second region, south of their capital (Dai Viet was north of it). The Dai Viet forces ignored me and moved their forces to finish off the capital; however, as they didn't have all regions, they couldn't annex them proper. So, I simply finished quickly the conquest of the south region, and then marched on the capital, which wasn't even barely recovered from the previous siege, so I assaulted it and BAM.

Annex'd for the win. -w- from 1 regions to 3 in one swift motherfucking strike. -w-