The battle dynamics would take place as usual, but if your morale broke and the army attempted to retreat, it would only be into the arms of Neptune. Which is also why it is always advisable to keep a fleet nearby if you’re mounting an island invasion.

Can’t remember how many armies I’ve lost as Venice trying to hold the Med. islands against the turks. Keep a navy in each port. In time of war, put the fleet to sea. The enemy will have to fight your ships inorder to land troops on the island. Even if your fleet looses and is forced to retreat, sail right back into the sea zone as soon as you can to give your troops an escape route. Free babysitting games online. It’s a good idea to keep a fleet around when you’re garrisoning a newly conquered province too-I always put the fleet to sea when a Nationalism revolt occurs on a “just in case” basis.

Just a hint. Playing Portugal recently I’ve found out, that it is useless to defend islands with garrisons that can easily be beaten with almost any army having a solid general. Try to fortify your islands instead, and use armies on land where they can enjoy the benefits of manoeuvre. Besides, for besieging a medium-sized fortress your enemy needs quite a big army, not to mention the transporting fleet, which U will not have to count with for the time he is besieging your island. Spain always got distracted by wanting to take back the Canary islands when I played Portugal, sending sometimes 30-40k armies, which he was desperately needing on land after a couple of month of successful Portuguese invasion of Madrid.

Of course-with a big enough fortress besieging armies will just die of attrition on islands-for example, I ignore rebels on Malta if I conquer it as long as I’ve got a level three fortress-barring the bad luck of a defecting garrison the rebels will soon be gone with no effort on your part.

Never done that one, I’m afraid (I inherit rarely in my games). For you mac games download free today. Still, Venice normally has a good sized fleet lying around for you to pick up though-and those islands are bloody useful for “power-projextion” in the Eastern Med. area-Turkey’s “soft underbelly” as it were!

First time I’ve ever inherited anybody - I was playing as Spain the last few days just because I’ve been bored a lot, and after refusing to be vassalised five times running, I suddenly inherited them. Just because I happened to mention to my pet assassin that the Doge was being a real nuisance, doesn’t mean I actually intended him to do anything about it.

That’s pretty much all we can think of. But we alter them to +200 anyway because it’s plain stupid that you can’t support yourself in an election. If you own every single HRE province, then you ARE the Emperor, or something is very wrong. Do you REALLY need that much soldiers to take over the HRE? You aren’t that good at this game, are you?

HRE is Holy Roman Empire, when speaking about the leader we say Holy Roman Empire. The empire can be seen by picking the religious map in EU. The area within the red borders is the HRE. No real elections are present. The PC will appoint an Emperor every now and then. I assume you know the plusses of being Emperor? Yeah, but it’s a pain to become an emperor. Hey something strange, with my virtual villagers 4 game with france, I won like 3/4 of the world, and i got elected holy roman emperor, I mean, you would figure that they choose someone with better relation with catholics.

Right after I posted my question I figured out what HRE meant.I guess I looked kindda stupid asking what HRE meant while I carry the flag of Papal States. Why is it such a pain to become emperor? And I guess they dont elect monarchs of the far east countries unless you change the religion from pagan to catholic in the scenario file? I have a IGC game with Papal States but I havent played long enough yet to have the Austrian emperor die. Do they ever elect the Papal State monarch as emperor? I’ve had EU for a while but I just got really into it.

Depends what sort of game you’re playing. It’s expensive, and if you do a lot of conquering it’s hideously expensive. You tot up the +ve and -ve relations of each country which owns provinces inside the HRE outline, with every Catholic/CRC nation in the world (including itself, if it’s Catholic. The nation with the highest net relation gets the Imperial Crown. All things being equal, it tends to be Austria. If you own parts of the Empire, having a negative relation to yourself (which you get by annexing stuff) actually hurts your chances, because your own votes go to other people.

Peace and Love on Loading.

I’m looking at a possible bug I haven’t seen discussed yet. I’m saving (as Spain) at 4am with Golden Horde/Kazan beating the stuffing out of Russia AND a Poland/Mameluke/Persia alliance holding 3 Turkish provinces and besieging 5 more without any hope of relief. (All Turkish allies have had enough already, some even learn Italian now like Wallachia). Download great virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game today. Now when I reload, all those wonderful results go to the dogs because in the first 5 days both winning blocs sign a ridiculously even peace without taking anything for their pains. Turkey gets away with losing one province and Russia with an occupied capital loses nothing. Reload, now Turkey signs a status quo peace, Russia pays 39. Reload. Reload.. Same bloody nonsense. Has it ever happened to anyone? It’s not the first time I suspected something’s wrong, but now I’m convinced it’s more than coincidence. For some reason it appears all countries are in a hurry to make peace after reloading, no matter how unfair it is.

My experience is that you have many differents peaces if you try reloading, though it may depend on the tombstones and stars and the war exaustion of the beligerant countries at the moment of the save I think. The AI doesn’t have a memory: whenever you load in a saved game it treats it as a completely new scenario and the first thing it does, pretty much, is check to see if it’s at war. If it is, it probably wants out so it can make plans for things. It’s not capable of “remembering” that it already DID all the planning in order to prosecute this war: the savefile doesn’t handle stuff like that. So, saving when there’s a big war going on will tend to gum up the works. Although, even in this case if it’s holding three provinces and about to knock over five more, it ought to be trying to get a settlement in favour I would’ve thought.

Be prepared for some serious trouble. Btw I’m always amazed how fast the Dutch can build large armies. I only tried to annex them once, soon after their independence and had to place large armies in every province. So that was the big mistake. Well, adding the Dutch provinces to the reformed ones in France can shift the balance of power of the confessions. It might even be a good idea to convert.

How would you define Europa Universalis game.

Would you call it a Turn Based Strategy or a Real Time Strategy?

EU really is in a genre of its own. I really hate it when reviewers compare it to RTS`s like “Emperor: Battle for Dune”, and then complain about bad graphics in EU. Like those two virtual villagers 4 games have anything in common…. EU is far too involving for us to categorize it wether it is turn-based or not. It’s one of the few strategy games that is strategic rather than tactical. Most so-called RTS games are just tactical games with no semblance of deep strategy in them.

To appease rabid TBS fans in some EU II thread, somebody came up with “automatic turn TBS” or something (it was something else and much better). I have to disagree with this. Turn-based means there is an end-of-turn button you press to signal you’re done for this turn. For instance SSG’s Reach for the Stars is turn-based, but all players do their turn at the same time; when all signal they are done the turn ends and all moves processed.

A real wargaming grognard can easily recite the difference between tactical and strategic. Tactical games (in wargaming vocabulary) is defined as those that deal in the minutiae of physical combat apects of the game, e.g. managing the movement and orders of your hussars and dragoons and field marshals in minute to minute Napoleonic combat (this is just one example), or asking one of your colonels to “please send in air support”. Strategy games (in wargaming vocabulary) are considered those that are “grander” in scope, where political macromanagement is essential to the virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game, e.g. you run a nation/empire and you thus compete with and deal with rival nations and empires. Tactical games tend to be those that say “my team’s got bigger weapons than you guys and we’re more agile and we’re gonna outflank you and kick your ass”. Strategic games tend to be those that say “my empire may be small now, but give me a few years and I will enslave your people and you shall bow down to me as Emperor of the World”. Which re-iterate what Heyesey said…. EU is more a strategic game, not a tactical game. This game gives you very little tactical command, since EU does not care about the combat on the micro level such as platoons and regiments and brigades or even detailed orders in the combat mode. EU does however delve deeply into the macro aspects such as politics, international diplomacy, world domination, multinational alliances etc… all of which are strategic aspects, not tactical. In fact, EU is the epitome of what wargaming grognards call a “grand strategy game”, games that are so “grand” in their scope that it encompasses world conquest (or sometimes stellar or galactic conquest in SciFi games). And yes, EU is a very grand game at that.

Turn-based games means that you are given a set amount of time to complete your turn, and then you click “Done”. However there are also turn based games where all players do plot their moves at the same time, altho once they are all done plotting their moves and commands, the resolution is simultaneous. This tends to be the “fairer” system of turn-based games, since all players have NO CLUE how the enemy players moved or made orders until the Resolution Phase, where everyone’s movements and commands are revealed… and everyone is more or less amazed or surprised by what the other players did. Heroes of Might and Magic is an example of a one player at a time turn based game. And those kinds of games tend to be slooooow. Especially if you are playing multiplayer, it ends up becoming hatefully frustrating and it always ends up being: “Goddamit Mike, just end your frickin turn already, you moron! Its only supposed to take you 2 minutes to make your moves, not 15 minutes you retard! The rest of us don’t have all week to finish this game”! The Arabs invented one of the first turn-based game many centuries ago. It’s called chess, and many of you might have heard of this?

Using these rules, I have diplo-annexed so far (1628) the following countries: 1. Bohemia; 2. Hungary; 3. Bavaria; 4. Venice; 5. United Prussia; 6. Wutternburg. Next on my list is Helvetia (it’s already a vassal), and Savoy.

In my current game it seems like i don’t have to spend money to annex them.. I just get a RM an alliance and 200 then after a while i get a event “we have annexed XXXX”…. and no cheat…
This way i got The Hansa, United Prussia, Saxony and hannover before 1609… Sometimes you have the random events on your side.

I normaly give comments in the French Section and I always play with France. I have 3 principles : no early wars; diplo annexing is de major weapon of great countries; no cheating. I diplo annexed Lorraine, Helvetia, Savoy, Navarra, Milan, Genoa (!), Modena, Venice (!), Baden, Wurtemberg, Thuringen, Bavaria and Bohemia by 1517. Note please: 1. difficulty normal/ aggr: normal; 2. the AI helped with random effects.

In my virtual villagers 4: the tree of life games I can never make a Royal Marriage with the pope, so I can’t vassalize or annex him!

Well, as Russia, in my first GC game (normal diff., easy aggression), during the glorious reign of Peter I, I did not go to war, but instead worked on diplomacy. Here’s the list of diplo-annexations: Thuringen, Bavaria, Hannover, Hanseatic League, Holstein, Denmark, Wurtemburg, Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, Teutonic Order, Lorraine, Savoy, Helvetia. At the same time, Russia discovered Governors, inflation was sent spiralling, land and naval technology increased, and the Russian empire stretched unbroken from France to the Pacific.

I remember one game I was the Papal States and I had united all of Italy by 1503, and around the year 1700 I had a huge wad of cash in my back pocket, so I decided to use some diplomatic tactics. I made an alliance with Savoy, Helvetia, and Austria around 1640 and started introducing the german states around 1683. France was strangely quiet for most of the game, though after I had united the HRE they went nuts. Anyways, here’s the list of diplo-annexations I made. Savoy, Helvetia, Austria, All but one of the little HRE states, I left a one province Brandenburg alive,
Denmark. Made quite the bb war after it was all over, but luckily for me the game ended before I would have to start ceding provinces. I left the one HRE state alive and kept +200 relations so I would always be the Holy Roman Emperor, just for the title.

I’m not really a diplo-annex man myself, I prefer a good old military annexation, except for those poxy one province countries (which in my experiance are far more usful as allies than as part of your empire).

Most diplo-annexations in one game? I don’t know, but a lot…As Brandenburg in the GC (v1.08 Hard/Aggressive):
1. I militarily annexed the Hanseatic League in the first 10 years, then settled down to a policy of diplomatic expansion. One by one I diplo-annexed every Protestant (& then Reformed) state in Germany & Central Europe. I also diplo-annexed Scotland (it had taken Bremen from the Hanse, so we shared a border) the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, & the Teutonic Knights. The Knights were the hardest, stubbornly refusing my friendly advances for over 100 years. I was working on Sweden when I suddenly received them by the dynastic inheritance event. This set off a wave of BadBoy wars, which I won handily as Frederick the Great appeared soon after…
2. I didn’t finish the game, because it was turning into a cakewalk, but I imagine I could have diploannexed most of Italy if I had stuck it out for the last 40 or so years. I’m sure someone else has diplo-annexed every minor in one game at one time.

How do you annex more then the occasional nation here and there? I’ve heard of people annexing all of Germany and stuff like that, but I’ve rarely done more then 3/4 a virtual villagers 4 game, usually small allies that I want to trade for say Sweden or England in my alliance. I mean I know the rules and the means, though mroe often then not, even when everything feels right, I fail.

That was uncalled for I know the AI ain’t the strongest I’ve seen (though perhaps most honest would be nearer the mark), but it’s not as though all players are honest, and things like save & reload are so common (I do a lot of it myself!), it makes people (like me) cynical whenever players report exceedingly good outcomes.

And I thought that my three (Genoa, Lorraine and Cologne) was good going with Naples, Bavaria and Parma on the way.

But then playing as CRC Spain makes it a little difficult to annex a lot of the German minors and Naples does insist on fielding over 100k troops on its territory. Now I’ve decided I’ll just build a huge infantry force and march it into Naples to get the attrition working on the locals. Bet they’ll love that. Then it’s diplo-annex and yet another space in the alliance for the next contenders. Shame there are so few Catholics left since I also try to keep the BB down. That forced conversion is absolutely useless. One of these, Wurtemberg, converted back within six months! But once the EoT comes along I’m back in business.

Nah, I didn’t have to, I don’t know why. I just went on a massive conquest, then by the time Peter I came, I got a bit bored so started diplo-annexing. Anyways, Russia can’t change religion, can they? By the way, as a note, I did not cheat, though I may have saved and reloaded, but that’s not techincally cheating, is it? Anyway, by that time I had so much money I could just afford to throw diplomats and gifts at so many countries (especially with 5 diplomats a year).

France will need artillery before the second war with Spain, and will also need to avoid combat with the Spanish armies again. Spain will have an excellent leader (Cordoba) who outshines both Foix and La Palice. Still, with interior lines France can win against Spain.

I used to take Flanders and Hainault in the first war but Spanish forces really make trouble up in the north when you declare an early war. And your gallies become next to worthless after the first few years. So I wanted to put the gallies to use.

I sent the gallies, loaded with troops, to meet my northern fleet similarly loaded. My two leaders attack Andalusia in a two wave assault in July of 1492. July 1492 is when Spanish troops begin marching north. And they keep going north even when I take Andalusia in August. Sometimes Andalusia holds but I have contingencies.

Then I’m seiging Toledo and Castille as Spanish forces face a destructive winter in Champagne with all support lines cut by my small forces in surrounding Spanish territory. Let Spain march north, otherwise more than Champagne will be pillaged. Play virtual villagers 4 game new version.

Spain tries building troops in Est…?? (province next to Portugal). It is an unfortified territory that I just walk into to stop production. When Champagne, Toledo, or Castille falls, Spain heads back south. But I have months to finish my seiges and assaults on Toledo and Castille. In 1493 Spain will readily accept peace even though a superior army with only 20K is bearing down on Castille. Without Spain’s help Naples is a pushover. And the war is over in 1493.

So what do you do with French gallies in 1492? If your not attacking Naples or Andalusia anytime soon, I suppose that you just scrap them, right? The gallies are only good against the Spanish navy in the first few years. With all your warships and help of your gallies, you can easily defeat the Spanish fleet off the coast of Andalusia in 1492. That frequently gives you rutters of Saudi Arabia and 25 VPs. I think it’s a pretty valuable prize, along with Andalusia and Toledo. There’s only a short window of opportunity. When the gallies become worthless as combat vessels, your fleet is very poor indeed.

I scrap the galleys, unless I decide to go after Naples early. The French won’t have any artillery for awhile, so I try to keep the early wars short and simple. With artillery, I take off the gloves. By then, I can also build an adequate fleet of warships and a few transports. However, if I leave Naples alone the Spanish will diplo-annex it, then I take it in the umpteenth Spanish war.

One reason I leave Andalusia until the third war is I don’t have much for the settlers to do until after 1520, when France starts getting explorers. Taking Andalusia at about 1503-05 will give me enough settlers until then.

I don’t want to completely cripple Spain and England, as they can do a lot of settling in the new world and make it easier for me to get colonies there. Also don’t want to cripple Austria early, as it can absorb some of the smaller countries, again making life easier for France.

I’ve thought about annexing Venice early in the game, like I do when I play Turkey (Venice is annexed no later than 1493). This would give me a strong fleet. But I would then have to garrison that area, and would be fighting the eastern powers too soon. Turkey could be a serious problem, with that excellent army and good leaders.

I never worry about Spanish armies in the lowlands. Stationing Foix with a good army in Hainault will ensure their destruction, as well as Cologne and The Palatinate. They all send their armies to Hainault if France controls it, and they all have to attack across a river. Major French victories. Foix can even beat Cordoba’s large army from that position (but La Palice is not as effective as Foix).

If you take Spanish maps in 1493, something will be discovered for colonizing in the Carribbean. Having a port city in Puerto Rico shortly after 1500 is nice don’t you think. If you take rutters of Saudi Arabia, there is one place available for a colony. With a city there, it may help you to capture a nearby port easing your way to India someday. Unfortunately, Muslim nations may take it in a war.

In any case, you DoW on Spain in 1498 and get their maps again. Even if you didn’t make a single colony, you will have colonizers banked up and ready to go. Works great either way it goes.

Try playing this virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game by never going over 10 BB. Its a roller coster ride because you’ll often have this wicked opertunity to stab Spain and grab it all and embroil yourself in BB wars, but you can’t be cause you grabbed Kleves earlier that year….. Its fun too, with a touch of realism (you can’t exploit the AI that much).

Someone else said they leave Toledo alone. But Toledo is more than just gold. It is also a fortified mountain province adjacent to both Castille and Andalusia. If you take Andalusia, you will want an adjacent territory so that your troops have a place to retreat when they get beaten by massive revolts. Otherwise you have to kep a bunch of ships in Andalusia to allow retreats to sea. Because Toledo is next to Castille, it makes unwanted wars against Spain very short. Without Toledo, it is tough to take Castille in a couple of months. Enemy controlled Toledo allows only 11K of troops (with a leader) to pass through without attrition. Supply to Castille is also less if you do not possess Toledo. Besides, if you go for Andalusia early, Toledo is just necessary as it is on the way to Castille. In my war of 1498, I go after Flanders and Valencia. I will take Hainault instead of Valencia. Then, I’ve got money for settlers and maps and all.

IMHO, the role of France in the beginning of the game is in central Europe / Mediterranean. The game gets more exiting if Spain / Portugal / England can develop colonies. Until that tima I usually focus on the Mediterranean and Italy, not on Germany. From a military position, a conquest in Germany is not bad, but it brings youu far too much BB points. Reorganize the spanish border in a first war with Spain, but do not weaken them too much, otherwise the fun in the end fails I guess I am too sadistic in this matter.

Well, I like the opening battles against Spain so much. I go for the most ambitious goals because that is basically the only way to make it challenging. Getting Andalusia and Toledo quick is so fun. The battles, seiges, and assualts can go so many ways. You need contingencies for lots of possibilities. You must quickly mobilize and coordinate troop movements. And there is the possibility of not being able to all you are after. All in all it’s a fun sequence of battles. July, 1, 1492 France DoW on Naples, who would have thought history could be so mistaken?

It took me to 1497 to control my most desired territories. It cost over 1000 ducats, cost more in stability, not sure about BB, war exhaustion, and isn’t often repeatable. It’s an unlikely strategy to use for building a real game to play for the full campaign. For a short one hour play, it’s fun although chance of success is low.

Alawar Friday’s Games recently released Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High, a full featured hidden objects adventure game. In fact, this game is more of an adventure game than the other games previously released in this series. You are spending so much time working to solve both inventory and item manipulations that you forget that you’re playing a a hidden object game until a hidden object scene suddenly appears to remind you.

Each of the ten chapters of the game occurs in a location that’s made up from a few rooms. When you mouse over the background, tool-tips are revealed that indicate characters, objects, and exits. When you see a magnifying glass appear, this means that an object should be examined further. A set of gears will appear to indicate that an object can be physically handled and a doorway shows an exit that Natalie can use. The player can add useful object to Natalie’s inventory by clicking on them.

Most of the puzzles are solved by clicking on an object in the inventory and then clicking on the screen where you’d like it to be used. You can use wrenches to remove bolts, darts to pop balloons, keys to unlock doors, and all the other staples that go along with adventure gaming. Natalie is simply unstoppable in her quest to efficiently repair every single gadget she comes across. Somehow she just know that broken piggybank clocks and toy helicopters will help her in the future.

You can see what you’re supposed to be trying to accomplish by viewing Natalie’s goals at the bottom right side of the screen. If you have any doubts, click on everything. You will find clues in the most unlikely places!

Hidden object scenes are pretty standard for this hidden object games genre and do occasionally pop up. In a cluttered little room or a purse that’s stuffed ridiculously full, you’ll be expected to find ten objects, some of which will be added to the inventory for use later in the game. Thank goodness there’s no penalty for random clicking! Hints are plentiful when you click on the hint button, which happens to recharge quickly.

Each of the chapter contains several mini-games or logic puzzles. For instance, you might have to use a spider as bait for catching maggots, steer a boat toward a rendezvous, connect a few wires, and enter a variety of secret codes into some strange locks. These puzzles can be skipped after several seconds of effort if you don’t feel like doing them or if you’re seriously afraid of maggots.

The clean, crisp graphics seem to pop from the screen and the majority of the rooms have that nice smooth, curvy look with a comic book appeal. Some are of course better than others, but Natalie Brooks: Mystery at Hillcrest High seems to be somewhat inconsistent but not enough to come off as amateurish. The game is pretty lengthy and doesn’t really have a strong replay value. However, the background score is enjoyable and I sure wish I could purchase it at iTunes.