Unifying the EU

[DaedalusSA]

So i'm just wondering how to unify the best way, should I try to get the big nations like Germany and the UK before any of the smaller ones or is it better if i get a lot more smaller ones instead and unify faster?

[Flaming]

I just grab what I can manage control point-wise. I find in early game if you go EU route you will end up with a lot of mission control overall. Small nations don’t add up to much in income usually. If I recall Switzerland doesn’t want to join the EU even when it’s surrounded by all of it.

I wish I could offer more and better info but the main issue is just grabbing what I can and when I can.

[Bishop-Six]

With every neighbour country under your control it will get easier to get a big country.

So i always start with grabbing smaller EU countries like Austria and Czech Republic. During that time i already push public opinion in Germany.
Once i have taken a few of the smaller neighbouring countries and increased public opinion, i grab Germany.

Then i grab the rest CPs of the smaller countries i started with, proceed to all neighbours of Germany and in the end i grab France and UK.

After that a long time of consolidating and grabbing CPs in EU when there is a chance. Baltic states you can grab and instantly release again to save CPs.
Once you are the biggest might in EU you can start unifying.

I just federate everyone into EU or even merging when the chance is there from long time occupied countries from the start like Austria.

[debott]

My guess is we are only talking about unifying EU at game start, no? Not much later in the game.

- France is of course prio no.1 Always get that ASAP to start unifying.
- the 4CP countries are usually the honey-pots, I prefer getting those first if I can.
- surrounding small countries can be used to open doors into the bigger ones, so it's recommended to take those first (especially Belgium-Luxemburg borders both FR & GER, just saying)

I find one of the more elegant ways is to get France and UK early, unite them, and you'll get 2 info age armies+navies. Then you can try to unite the rest peacefully. Or not, if any smart country needs some 'extra convincing'. Unification by conquest is counter-intuitive, but sadly stll a superior strategy in many ways.

[DaedalusSA]

How *do* you conquer EU nations quickly?

Can someone show me a example?

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

How *do* you conquer EU nations quickly?

Can someone show me a example?

Control the US. Use its armies to clobber anyone that has foolish ideas of "independence" or "self-determination". Do what Napoleon could not.

[DaedalusSA]

That doesn't seem possible that early with how expensive the US is to control together with France and the UK

[debott]

Originally posted by DaedalusSA:

How *do* you conquer EU nations quickly?

Can someone show me a example?

Using the US is the best case scenario for later in the game. Maybe you'll need a third army besides the 2 pre-existing. But when conquering antoher nation, you can steal ther build army prio, and therefore indeed do what Napoleon could not.

I admit, I've never done this strategy myself, as I prefer to take US/India/China before. But I want to try that it some point.

[Swat__Raptor]

I merge the 4 control point nations as fast as I can. Italy, UK, Germany, the bit nations ip focus on boost early on.

The smaller nations I leave out until that nation hits it mc cap, then I get around to merging them.

Simple reason is smaller nations are much more efficient producing MC and funding.
Also smaller nations are easier to regain control of.

Early on you wanna secure early boost and start developing MC and funding to fuel you space economy.

In the end the EU will have a lot of MC, funding and if you get the big nations early then putting the EU together won't tie up your councilors and you can do things like turn enemy councilors, complete main quest objectives and steal all you main opponents useful orgs.

[Ericus1]

There is zero reason to do any military conquest in the EU. Not only are you damaging the stats you don't want to damage, like economy, there is simply no reason to rush formation of the EU. The reasons are multi-fold.

If you want a strong starting RP output, go US first. The whole point of the EU is to max MC and that takes time, especially for the big nations like Germany or the UK. Rushing them first or conquering them does not help this goal. Start with the smaller, uncontested nations the AI generally ignores early, and let them fight over the minor-majors while you quickly fold in all the little nations first since they are still part of the federation. The AI is just going to be building the MC, boost, funding, etc. for you anyways that you will gain for no effort when you get around to focusing on the bigger nations.

If they leave the federation, who cares? It's only adds an additional 6 months to diplomatic unification, 6 months you'd probably need anyways to max out MC in those bigger nations. You can usually knock out the 2-3 MC cap of the smaller nations within the base 6th month executive CP cooldown, but even assuming the AI was building MC in Germany it'll probably still take you another year to max it out, so you really aren't losing anything. It's the little nations you won't need all that extra time, so go for them first. And given you're looking at a 3-4 year time frame for full unification, simply go to those nations the AI had leave the federation last, after the "left federation" cooldown has expired. You're rate-limited by your CP cap, so it kind of all works out nicely.

Not to mention, the game time spent working on the smaller nations first gives your councilors the XP to level up their stats/gain orgs so that contesting in the big boys because something you have decent odds at doing. If you fight the AI for the big boys and displace them out of those they simply use their freed up CP cap to then move to the smaller nations, which means those that you likely wouldn't have need the extra time in to max MC in will leave the federation and result in a lot more "wasted" time.

In my current 0.4 game I started US/Kazakh, and took control of France executive. Then, as my CP cap organically expanded I took places like the Baltics, the Balkans, Portugal, the Nordics, Spain, Ukraine (quickly ending that war for a white peace) - all places that were still empty, or an AI faction had taken one CP in then abandoned to stay under cap, or were otherwise just being ignored. If I maxed out MC I'd usually just run funding or boost as appropriate. I then worked my way up the EU country chain, ending with Germany/UK/Netherlands and fully unifying about late 2026/early 2027 with the EU providing around 130 MC, 1.4K funding, 17 boost, on top of ~1.3K RP.

[DaedalusSA]

Hmmm, I'll try that out then.

[Penguin_of_Doom]

Make sure you got a counselor with high spy and the purge ability, cause he's gonna be doing that all day. Very few orgs give that ability.

[corisai]

Originally posted by Ericus1:

There is zero reason to do any military conquest in the EU. Not only are you damaging the stats you don't want to damage, like economy, there is simply no reason to rush formation of the EU. The reasons are multi-fold.

Still have a reason to do it if you're doing a US->EU rush as EU is the best research nation in the game, while using full US army to conquer small countries is doing a little damage.

P.S. Rush strategy sacrifice EU output a bit, yes. But having 10+k RP around 2027-28 is waaaay better then anything you can squeeze out from poor EU.

[Fevv]

Its next to impossible - especially since the Servants can now immediately bypass any defense and flip control point instantaneously even before mind control tech

[Ericus1]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Ericus1:

There is zero reason to do any military conquest in the EU. Not only are you damaging the stats you don't want to damage, like economy, there is simply no reason to rush formation of the EU. The reasons are multi-fold.

Still have a reason to do it if you're doing a US->EU rush as EU is the best research nation in the game, while using full US army to conquer small countries is doing a little damage.

P.S. Rush strategy sacrifice EU output a bit, yes. But having 10+k RP around 2027-28 is waaaay better then anything you can squeeze out from poor EU.

Literally, why? Why would you declare war on them when you can just eat them for free with no war and get extra MC and funding out of them. That makes zero sense, and 10K RP out of Europe? What? That makes even less sense. Nothing about unifying the EU by warfare is going to decrease your RP rates.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Fevv:

Its next to impossible - especially since the Servants can now immediately bypass any defense and flip control point instantaneously even before mind control tech

What are you on about?
Servants never get an ability that lets them flip a CP other than Purge. The aliens do. They also have that not very long after the start of the game. And that ability doesn't bypass "any defense". It certainly has a higher chance of success, but it's still affected by country GDP and researched modifiers.