The intrest money is added to your treasury every month. It isn’t handled as other income though and doesn’t go into the budget. Because of this it cannot be used for reasearch and it doesn’t show up in the “balance sheet” with your other income. Try new babysitting games with new graphic. The interest goes to treasury on a monthly basis. You probably was not able to see any substantial additions as army maintenance is deducted from treasury and when it is empty from monthly income, reducing country’s spending on research. Btw, the subject you raised you should better address in General Discussions Forum for EU1, you will get more assistance there.

You will see the direct impact of your interest payments (received) in the upper-right hand corner of the game screen. Your treasury should be bursting. (Btw, the almanac listing for interest income is misleading. It really includes interest + all repaid loans for the year). All of the money for research will then come out of your regular income. It is important to make sure that you develop your economy by promoting officials and building factories to keep money filtering into research.

I’m not sure we’re on the same page, and I suspect it’s because my post wasn’t clear enough. Let me try again. Although it seems that I’m earning lots of money from interest payments, this money isn’t translating to direct cash in my treasury -I can’t use the money to purchase anything, including: troops, more ships, or city improvements. In fact, in the upper right hand corner, the spot denoting my available resources, I’m looking at 10D right now. Although I know, from looking at the Archive, that a steady stream of money is pouring in on a monthly basis from earned interest, I have no clue where that money is going as my available cash reserves consistently dwindle down to 0 by October or November of each year. The only exception is when one of my debtors pays off the loan - then, that amount appears in my available resources column. (So far, I’ve been taking the repaid loan and quickly reinvesting it in more loans).

Playing as Portugal circa 1502, I haven’t yet invested a single Denari in additional troops or ships. Can it be that my maintenance costs are eating away all my interest profits? It wouldn’t seem possible. Great mac game downloads today free. The only unusual thing in this game vs. the others I’ve played as Portugal, is that my army was automatically revamped with an investment of 250D. I was under the impression that this was a random event, but maybe it will help explain where the interest money is going.

It might be the army maintenance that is chewing them up: If you set your treasury slider to zero and everything goes to research, and you have nothing in your treasury, then the army maintenance cost is deducted from the amount going into research. BUT, because you have loan interest coming in which goes straight into the treasury, the army maintenance is coming out of there and you’re not noticing any actual money. Or it could be a foul-up. I wouldn’t know; I always find a major loan strategy just way too boring.

Hold your cursor over the treasury slider. If it is all the way to the left, how much of a monthly deficit are you running? It is possible that this deficit is eating up the extra income you earn from interest. If this is the case, nudge the slider over to the right a bit. More loans (more interest) should gradually decrease this problem. I leave the duration sliders at 36 months, and the interst sliders at 10%. That way you’re only messing with the amount slider. The 36 month duration keeps the assets relatively liquid - in case a sudden war breaks out, or if you’re racing to develop one of your colonies. I think the loan option keeps things interesting when playing as the small countries.

They’re like those barbarians in that Terry Pratchett novel ‘Interesting times’. They’re not immortal, they’ve just had a long experience of not dying.

After my lenghty battle with the formidable swedes I was experiencing a little discontent among the masses and wanted to end the war as soon as possible…obviously THAT plan didn’t work. Another wierd thing that happened. I received a message saying “Rochambeau awaits your command in Terra Incognita”. Completely mystified I clicked on the Go To button and sure enough, the minimap showed Rochambeau patiently waiting for me somewhere in a white fog in the heart of the African Congo. A year later, Rochambeau appears safe and sound in another army…In Romagna.

I got the same message once when a leader appeared in an army that happened to be on a ship. It took me some time to find him. Great new puzzle virtual villagers 4 game. That is also a small ‘bud’. I think Paradox should try to nip it.

Now to be serious (and back on topic), when you siege a city, look at the numbers shown in the circles. If their number is higher than yours, don’t even think about assaulting, even if they only have 41 men. Wait for their numbers to drop below 0, than assault. And don’t put 125k infantry over there. Split your army in two and send reinforcements as needed. 125k troops + WINTER = very high attrition.

One of the flaws of the AI… It has may related flaws… Like always attacking a mountainious province in winter with over 100k troops… It happens in Helvetia quite often.

It’s a small enough channel of water that you can manage with merchant shipping, hijacked fishing boats, or even lashed-together trees if you’re in that much of a hurry. Try this between Calais and Dover and 99% of your soldiers will drown. You need a proper naval fleet to invade England.

The Cyclades come within 50m of the mainland at the strait called Euripos. Although there was a prexisting (fortified) bridge, the Turks built and used a pontoon bridge to march their army across. The Venetian adimiral had a chance to cut the bridge, but chickened out - and Venice lost the Cyclades (in 1471). This is definitely a case where marching onto an island should be allowed. I don’t know exactly how wide the Straits of Messina are, but since a bridge is currently being built across them, it can’t be that much. I imagine it’s entirely feasible to make shift with local fishing boats and whatever comes to hand to make your way across. I’m not sure that marching from Sicily to Apulia wasn’t included only so that Spain could diplo-annex Naples.

American Campaigns in EU game.

I’m a recent recruit to EU, which I really enjoy. My main area of interest in the period is American colonialism. I’ve already played the AWI scenario as the US (and lost!); are there any other scenarios where I can play a mainland American nation so I don’t want to have to worry about maintaining a base in Europe?

Just finished a Vinland IGC yesterday and had a blast! I was amazed that for the first time ever, I only had to deal with one fortified city the whole virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game! I think I made less than 200 cannon the whole game, which is a phenomenal low number of cannons. Didn’t conquer the whole world or even all of NA, but did get the whole coast from Isle Royale to Mosquitos under the Vinland flag, and had 90% of NA to the Missippi colonized. Cool game and the lowest BB ever for me (never went over 10 the whole game). Ter’s also a downloadable scenarion in the depot that let you play as the Aztec Empire and try to whitstand the european hordes. The name is “Heathens Unite” and is very fun to play. Pretty close too.

Getting victory points.

I am playing Austria on very hard IGC and am doing pretty well. I ‘ve conquered half of Europe, crushed France, have a few colonies, and am rolling in cash. However, right now it is 1750 and I am still trailing Spain by like 300 VP -(2900 vs 2600). How can I catch up? I’ve already promoted bailiffs and tax collectors everywhere and also built like 15 manufacturies, but this barely earned me a 100 points. SO what is the fast way to earn like 500 victory points in 40 years?

Bourbon, the answer is Economy. In my Danish IGC (also Very Hard, Furious), I had 3500 VP’s in 1670 (when I quit), and Spain, China and Portugal were struggling at 1200. Economy had given me 2000 VP’s, so that’s what I’ll advise you to go for economic VP’s.

I often play England in the IGC on Very Hard/Furious. Late in the game, when England is usually an economic powerhouse, my nearest Economy VP competitors will be Spain and China, both in the 1200+ Econ VP range. The last two times I’ve ended the virtual villagers 4 game with the majority of India in my possession (a few leftover Mughal provinces) and ownership of about 4 CoTs. If I recall correctly, my combined Econ VP score (Economy + Establishments + Discoveries) was 2200 at the end of the game.

I am playing Austria right now also on very hard. I am not sure that Austria can win based on economy. They get one colonist per year because of a shipyard. Very different from England. Also the succes probabilities for colonization are much lower than England’s and they have fewer Conquistadors if any. My plan is to ally with France. France has war with Spain quite often. Then take away Spanish provinces overseas. This will give VP for combat, peacetreaties and will also strengthen economy. And you avoid BB. At least that is my plan.

Has anyone figured out how economy VPs are calculated? Based solely on present conditions or contains historical element? I think if you need to make up 500 VPs only way to do it is make Spain’s government fall somehow. Not real easy late in the game because it seems 18th century doesn’t have much obscurantism.

Make good with every Christian nation, Even if they are not in the HRE border. Make sure your relations with the other Christian nation are on average better than say Spain’s average with all the Christian countries. Also look at your relations with yourself. If your relations w/ yourself are “dark red” then becoming Emperor will be a bit harder. Look at BiB thread about “How to be elected HRE while being -200 with everybody” or something like that. This will explain it all for ya.

Rebellions can occur both in- and outside of your fortress. if it is outside and you can defeat them, there is no problem, otherwise they will start sieging your fortress. If they are inside you can’t stop them and you have to take control over the fortress again. Perhaps you should look at the religious tolerance controls, getting much reolts is unusual.

Every now and then a rebellion automatically takes a fortress. Just think of it that the rebels are the ones inside the fortress. Your problem may be your religious tolerance (assuming nationalism is not there). If you look after more than 4 religions then you cannot keep them all happy so choose one for which you will have zero tolerance and then just let them revolt until they take the fortress and then go take it back. Each time the fortress falls (and during the siege), the population will fall. Once it’s below 5000 you can send a missionary to convert them to state religion. Islands are also quite good for this since rebels also don’t have negative effects on neighbouring provinces. Note also that you don’t want to be building up big fortress while you’re doing this. You want the fortress to fall as often as possible to make the whole thing quicker.

You can not keep them out of your fortress. It is a random event which sometimes occure only as revolting troops, or like in your case in revolting troops and a revolting city. I am curious that you have problems with religion. Do you have any islamic provinces? If not, set the tolerance to zero. Now you should have enough tolerance for Catholics and Orthodox. To have a look why they revolt move the marker to the number behind revolt risk. Wait a moment and he will show you what is the matter. And no, it is impossible to change religion in a city larger than 5000 yourself (with cheats it is possible, but tsk, tsk, tsk,….). Only a change by a random event is possible.

Changing the tolerance levels should fix the problem…If you find yourself with revolts in Orthodox provinces, just cut the toleration for some other religion and boost the Orthodox toleration. Massive unrest in the Greek provinces is not just a simply matter of religious tolerance slider. I know exactly what his problem is. He is playing the IGC. And guess what? The IGC by default has preset “Turkish Unrest” turned on, which means that many Greek Orthodox provinces in the initial Turkish region *will* stage massive massive revolts. It does NOT matter what country owns those province at the time. They will stage a massive Dutch-style rebellion against any empire currently owning those provinces. In fact, this massive rebellion is what pisses off a LOT of Turkish players when they play the IGC. Some of them have reported of the Greek nation being born and taking Thrace (Constantinople) with it, therefore forcibly relocating the Turkish capital so some other God-forsaken hell hole. You wanna know how to solve this? Simple. Next virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game you play, turn OFF the Turkish Unrest setting in the IGCConfig. If you do that, the Greek provinces will no longer stage a Dutch-style revolt.

Taking unwanted game loan.

I have been playing EU game for quiet a while and keeping inflation dawn is always amongst my top priorities. For this reason I always try to spend all my money in January and then push the budget slider way left to avoid inflation to accelerate. Playing major countries never causes any problem, however, it seems that this strategy can not be applied to smaller countries, when at war. If I am at war and I have absolutely no money and push the budget slider way left nothing happens with major countries, however with (same situation) small countries I am always forced to take a loan. Did anyone experience anything like that, and is there an explanation to WHYYYYYYYYY THIS HAPPENS. IT DRIVES ME NUTS!

Economics is deffinately not my strong point but with small countries I always have to struggle against inflation. So your not the only one. I don’t believe however that having money IN your treasury does anything to your inflation. It’s how much you have going TOO your treasury. So I don’t think there is any need to rush to spend all the money in January as you said. I usually just keep my slider to the point where I break even and still sometimes get 40% inflation in a bad year. Sliding it all the way to the left will only force you to take loans as you empty the treasury. Especially if you are spending all your money in January. If inflation is really bad, I’ll set aside 20 to 30 ducats and set the slider to a slight negative value to keep the inflation slowed down a bit.

I have tried several times to push the budget slider to the point where it should be in balance (break-even) but the problem with this is that once You have foreign trade and PIRATES (GOD I HATE THOSE BASTARDS) in fluctuates greatly!! One month Your budget might be in balance but the next month You produce revenues thus inflation. Therefore if You push the budget slider way left You normally end up in loosing money from Your budget, but if You do not have any as a major country You are just fine. As a minor, and at war You take game LOANS!!!!! That is the ****** problem!

If you slide the budget slider at !!!ALL!!! to the right it will generate inflation. The inflation is generated as how much money you take out of taxes and put into the economy. Basically you may slide the budget slider to the right and still be lossing money, but, you will still be taking money and pumping it into the economy. As a weak minor I personally have found 60% inflation to be about the worst I get and I really don’t hope for less than 30%. (That is before mayors) As a moderate power minor (IE. Brandeburg, Bohemia et cetera) it’s generally about 40% highest or 30% lowest for me. You just can’t avoid infaltion as a minor nation. Two tricks I’ve found to minimize it though as a minor:
1. Maintain a small countinental presence !!!just remember to gain a seaport!!! nad colonize when you can. I don’t particularly like this strategy myself, its way too slow.
2. Focus on taking out two or three other minor nations at the beginning of the virtual villagers 4: the tree of life game and then use the next 50 years or so to !!!diplomatically annex!!! other smaller nations. Playing in the germanic areas, this strategy can almost always finish with you as a moderately sized nation (15 provinces or so) by the late 1500s / early 1600s. By then Spain, France and their henchies should be much fun for you.

Another annoying thing is when you have 150d left, and spend 100d to upgrade something… and suddenly get the “Fresh Capital” message… I’m not that happy about taking loans when I don’t need them, and ESPECIALLY not when I haven’t accepted it… This happens very often in multiplayer (at least in 1.09), but also sometimes in single player… What’s even more strange, is that when playing multiplayer as Russia, taking loans involuntarily seems to happen almost all the time, but while playing Brandenburg or Prussia, I’ve had it happen only once… Am I the only one who has experienced this problem?