Here is the translated text:
First, let's take a specific example: the well-known Byzantium. The Byzantine opening is generally considered a standard entry point.
Various difficulties and all sorts of bizarre ideas emerge endlessly.
However, in my observation, most ideas overly rely on assistance from other countries and deny the strength of the Roman people themselves.
Because the first reaction when starting the game is that Byzantium has only three territories and over ten thousand troops, while facing a giant like the Mughals.
Such a stark contrast in strength makes us hesitant to take action.
Step One: Correctly Understand Yourself#
Still using the example of Byzantium.
The common Byzantine opening requires no operation; as long as you understand the diagram above, I believe you have elevated your understanding of the game.
What kind of magic allows Byzantium to have over two thousand in the treasury in 1444?
We need to recognize the true potential of the country we are operating.
When you are short on money, this potential is the loan limit.
When you are short on troops, this potential is the manpower and mercenary limit.
Money and troops are what we generally consider national strength (in the game).
It becomes clear that what constitutes our national strength limit is the loan limit and army limit.
If you are a friend who has just understood what I said, I proudly say this is the gateway to a new world, and to some extent, I can tell you what lies behind this door. This is the significance of this post.
When we newbies first enter the game, playing Byzantium against a giant like the Ottomans can be very despairing because it is obvious we cannot defeat them; they have so many troops and so much money, and in a pinch, they can even take loans to hire mercenaries.
However, if we are given two thousand coins, the situation changes. The game returns to the kind we like the most: mercenaries charging in, directly attacking, and throwing money to crush them.
Many people know this principle. Even if they didn't know it before, they understand it now, but it is still hard to accept.
Most people have a stereotype: debts must be repaid.
If you are willing to abandon this concept in the world of Europa Universalis IV, I shamelessly believe that you will find reading this article very enjoyable.
This article intends to analyze loans and bankruptcy in the following order:
- What does bankruptcy really mean?
- Timing of bankruptcy.
- How to apply national potential.
- How to take out more loans.
What Does Bankruptcy Really Mean?#
From my observation, many friends are afraid of bankruptcy or even afraid to take out loans. The root cause is fear of the unknown and misjudgment of reality based on so-called common sense.
In simple terms, they have no idea what bankruptcy means, which is also related to some friends in our community who like to boast.
Many friends who have no concept of bankruptcy are scared when they accidentally go bankrupt. What is happening? My country has exploded, morale has dropped, legitimacy has emptied, stability is declining, allies have broken ties, and rebels are rising. Based on such experiences, they come to a naive conclusion: bankruptcy is not an option; if you go bankrupt, you are finished.
Many players who have never gone bankrupt also spread this viewpoint, which I believe is inappropriate.
The most absurd theory I have seen is that after bankruptcy, the AI will target the player.
In fact, this game does not have so many variables; almost everything can be predicted. The debuffs from bankruptcy are as follows:
As shown, let's debunk some rumors. First, let's talk about the most intuitive issue: rebellion.
The common theory that bankruptcy leads to a rebellion explosion is too romantic. In reality, bankruptcy does not directly cause national rebellion levels to rise.
The main rebellions are caused by the legitimacy dropping to zero, which brings three points of rebellion: zero legitimacy plus two and full faith tolerance plus one. A half-theologian can offset this. Moreover, if your monarch is very old and dies after bankruptcy, legitimacy will be directly restored.
Another thing people are very afraid of is negative three stability. I find that many people are wary of negative stability. Personally, I am used to it and don't care. In fact, bankruptcy does not pull your stability down to negative three; it only reduces it by three. If it was originally three, it will only drop to zero. Zero stability is generally not a big deal, right? So, a reduction of three stability translates to an increase of three to six rebellions.
The disaster issue will be mentioned shortly, but it actually gives us the illusion of many rebellions mainly because of the last point: all provinces recently had uprisings removed. It is well known that provinces that have had rebels will have a recent uprising debuff of minus one hundred rebellion. This is the most deadly aspect and what we should be most wary of regarding bankruptcy.
But, since you dare to take these territories, it is expected that there will be rebels (those late-game Orthodox can easily surpass hundreds of rebellions, which is not a big deal). Why not have confidence in eliminating these rebels? This leads to the next two questions: how terrifying is a morale drop of fifty?
In fact, bankruptcy only reduces morale by fifty. These bonuses are calculated additively. Let me give you a practical example.
Taking my France as an example, Prussian ideas give 20 morale, full power projection gives 10 morale, full military tradition gives 10 morale, faith guardianship gives 5 morale, and gold gives 10 morale. You can also hire morale advisors. Moreover, many land warfare experts do not actually place much importance on morale; I don't understand the theory, so I won't embarrass myself.
It offsets. At most, it means using a few more troops than usual, which is not particularly exaggerated. So, a reduction of fifty morale is still manageable; don't underestimate yourself.
Here, we exclude an important influence: prestige. This is the second issue I want to mention.
Prestige is a good thing. In fact, the biggest impact on bankruptcy is the reduction of one hundred prestige, in my opinion. However, in the current version, you can earn small country prestige through various means without aggressive expansion, so prestige has become much cheaper and does not pose a problem.
Next is the thing everyone fears the most: negative one hundred monarch points.
Let me interject here; I am talking about the current version 1.25. I heard that version 1.20 made significant changes to bankruptcy. I used to go bankrupt often, but I didn't study it deeply, and I mainly play CK, so I won't comment on the old version.
The explanation for negative one hundred monarch points is chaotic; I don't know if it was like this in the old version or if friends have rich imaginations.
In short, in the current version, it simply forces your adm, dip, and mil to become -100. There isn't anything so magical about it.
Note that regardless of how many points you originally had, it is forcibly changed to -100 (what if it was originally -999?).
So, before we click on bankruptcy, we should spend our points. Everyone knows how to use points, so I won't elaborate.
To put it irresponsibly, you can use your points to invest in mercantilism, advance technology, or anything else. Once spent, bankruptcy means -100 adm, -100 dip, -100 mil. Is that really so scary?
I see some friends raising objections. Let me add something: I am talking about planned bankruptcy.
Please do not use unexpected bankruptcy situations to refute me. What I am doing now is to eliminate unexpected bankruptcies and make bankruptcy a planned and normalized process.
Also, regarding core buildings and culture.
Cancel the core progress; just wait until you finish building before going bankrupt.
For buildings within five years, you can lay out a wave of buildings and then declare bankruptcy after five years.
I haven't dealt with culture, so I won't embarrass myself.
In short, these issues can be avoided through planning. As mentioned above, we need to leave room for maneuver; it doesn't mean you have to spend all your money before going bankrupt. Leaving a few hundred coins before bankruptcy is also fine; after all, not everyone can be so skilled at perfect utilization.
Next, many friends know this point, but it is not covered in the encyclopedia: after bankruptcy, you will be cut off from alliances and targeted by the AI.
It does feel like that, but the reason is that bankruptcy reduces your alliance inclination by fifty. This is something that even players who play at a high level understand; it is quite uncomfortable.
Allies who originally had an alliance inclination within fifty will break ties once you go bankrupt. This can also be planned; don't make it sound like the sky is falling. Your allies didn't love you that much to begin with.
I also heard that a morale drop of fifty will affect strength evaluation. In summary, I haven't seen any reliable data on this. There might be some impact, but it is definitely small. From my experience, the main factor is the number of troops. Of course, if all your mercenaries are disbanded, your troop count will decrease.
I won't go into detail about the overall desolation level and the reduction in manpower recovery, or else it won't connect with the above.
In short, just like the morale calculation mentioned earlier, it doesn't mean that a reduction of one hundred means no manpower recovery. You can weigh it yourself; I actually don't have the qualifications to evaluate this. I haven't played normal strategies for a long time.
Oh, I forgot to mention the most important point: during bankruptcy, you cannot declare war. In fact, it is only for five years. Not being able to declare war for five years is something you need to weigh yourself; I also don't have the qualifications to evaluate this for the same reasons.
Isn't it just that your points are all gone? Taking a break for five years isn't bad. Also, you can declare a war in advance and then drag it out for five years without peace. This way, your allies won't break ties with you (allies in the same war), and you can still collect war taxes while your allies help you suppress rebels.
If you can accept the viewpoints I have presented above, there isn't really much of a viewpoint; it mainly revolves around mechanics and theory. The thing that might affect you the most is probably the next point.
Interest +5. This is the highlight of my last chapter. You might think it is insignificant now, but if you fully accept this strategy, you will still find it inconsequential. Let's put that aside for now.
Timing of Bankruptcy#
Two friends are eagerly looking for my mistakes, but brothers, I haven't finished speaking yet. Don't nitpick for the sake of nitpicking.
Even though I advocate for normalizing bankruptcy, I do not encourage random bankruptcies. There must be some preparation. You can't just click bankruptcy when you can't play anymore and then complain about how bad bankruptcy is.
Now I will start analyzing the timing of bankruptcy.
Let's first take a short-term bankruptcy example, which is easier for beginners to accept and operate. There are generally two situations.
The first is when a country needs to unleash great potential in a short time but cannot affect future expansion, so it chooses to explode and then go bankrupt, recovering in five years.
That's right; I am talking about the Byzantine situation. Otherwise, if we go bankrupt with a pile of IOUs, it will still be very uncomfortable.
The second is to enhance national strength. For example, Ming starts with level four technology, takes loans to build nationwide, and then declares bankruptcy five years after completing the buildings. This is to make future gameplay more enjoyable.
This is a common situation and is also recommended for beginners. The purpose of bankruptcy is still to be a good child; after bankruptcy, one must still behave well.
By the way, the biggest premise is that you should judge whether you need to go bankrupt based on your operational strength. Everyone's basic operational level is different, and the value of loans and even bankruptcy varies for each person. I want to leave this issue for the next chapter.
Long-term bankruptcy requires a grasp of the overall situation. It isn't that mysterious; it just means being in deep debt and then going bankrupt at a reasonable time with elegance.
In fact, people find bankruptcy frightening mainly because they haven't made proper plans. As long as we know what we will face after bankruptcy, we can take corresponding preventive measures to reduce costs.
As long as we ensure that we do not collapse (personally, I don't think being surrounded and beaten counts as collapsing), at worst, we can surrender. Many times, this one hundred points doesn't matter; it is just our players' pride and stubbornness that solidify our unwillingness to surrender.
I digressed a bit. We should try to minimize losses as much as possible, but those basic losses are unavoidable, such as troop morale, dismissal of mercenary advisors, and adm, dip, mil.
So, what I mean by minimizing losses is to use up all resources outside of these basic losses before going bankrupt. For example, mercenaries: spend them all, fight until they are merged, spend all points, and try to use up the loan limit, then choose bankruptcy. We can minimize losses this way.
Let me digress again and share the origin of the theory of normalizing bankruptcy. Many people know that I am currently playing a Brandenburg save, planning to conquer Europe by 1550, but I have no diplo to cede land (simply ***, just declare with an Orthodox excuse). Mainly, it is about the Catholic sentiment.
So, I came up with this theory of normalizing bankruptcy mainly to cheat diplo. I previously mentioned that bankruptcy forces the three types of points to become -100. So, if my diplo is -999 at the moment of bankruptcy, once I go bankrupt, the society will give me 899 diplo for free.
After discussing the reduction of resource losses, what we players focus on is still the situation. It is best if bankruptcy does not have too much impact on our expansion situation. Therefore, we generally prefer to go bankrupt during a gap in expansion, such as during a truce with most countries. This is too specific; breaking it down is too troublesome, so just judge for yourself.
How to Avoid Collapse After Bankruptcy#
The first urgent effect after bankruptcy is that alliance inclination drops by fifty, leading to allies breaking ties. This can be avoided by maintaining a state of war.
For some stable alliances, this does not need to be considered. The second issue is being declared on by the AI. This mainly happens with sudden bankruptcies; once mercenaries are disbanded, your strength evaluation will drop significantly. The morale drop of fifty also has some impact, but the main issue is still the number of troops.
So, the solution is simple: after bankruptcy, continue to take loans and hire mercenaries.
Or, as many people know, preemptively attack the countries that want to declare on you; this is also a strategy. If you can do this, it is the most secure.
Now that we know what we will face after bankruptcy, we can make judgments about whether to go bankrupt, what the benefits are, and what the costs are.
Taking the Byzantine opening as an example, whether to choose bankruptcy, I will analyze it broadly.
First, the benefits are obvious: two thousand coins. Money is a good thing, of course, it also depends on whether it will be used. This is a question for the next chapter, so I won't elaborate.
But what about the costs? First, after bankruptcy, you cannot declare war for five years. This is hard to weigh because everyone can do different things in five years. If you say you have taken the Greek cores, twenty-plus aggressive expansion is a bit high; I want to see the sea, then that has no impact.
If you say that in five years, you want to destroy the Ottomans, turn Georgia into a powerhouse, and then revert to Byzantium, then the cost is enormous.
Mercenaries will be disbanded. This has been mentioned before; you can waste mercenaries however you want. After all, they won't be yours anymore; just go all out.
Three points -100 must be taken seriously. Generally, you should at least upgrade military tech before going bankrupt. At the very least, you should use your points to invest in agriculture. In short, use them until they are around zero. We can roughly calculate that the total loss in three types of points is about 400.
Legitimacy: starting with over fifty legitimacy for John, you understand, right? In short, at worst, it will only add three rebellions and reduce one diplomatic prestige.
Prestige: this is quite painful, but it is not difficult to obtain.
Stability drops by three: from negative three to zero stability. To raise stability, there is no debuff for positive stability; it only requires 100 adm as a base point. Without considering any other stability reduction costs, it will roughly cost 300 adm. If you are really afraid of negative stability, you can raise stability to three before going bankrupt, which will waste about 400 adm.
I also forgot to mention that manpower and sailor recovery will drop sharply. I haven't calculated exactly how much, but it seems to be quite a lot.
After saying all this, it still looks quite terrifying. The costs are not small, but a small broken country at the start can still call the shots. If you feel the compensation is satisfactory, then choose bankruptcy. If you feel unsatisfied, then don't go bankrupt.
I often speak casually here. In some situations, what I refer to as bankruptcy is not just the act of bankruptcy itself but the overall idea this post aims to convey: playing with the mindset of bankruptcy.
The value of this mainly depends on our control over losses and our utilization of benefits. After discussing how to control losses, the next topic is the most enjoyable: how to spend money.
How to Apply National Potential#
This should be connected to the previous chapter, but I always want to say a bit more.
What is maximum national potential? This was mentioned at the very beginning. Note that I am talking about this game.
The loan limit and army limit: here, the army limit refers to the number of troops you can mobilize for battle at the same time. It generally manifests as the standing army plus the mercenary limit; we won't consider the navy.
Your national potential is how many years you can sustain without going bankrupt after fully mobilizing these two aspects. If you do not go bankrupt, we often cannot feel this.
Some experts playing as chiefs or in the last few years of the game will choose to spend money wildly; after all, the game will end anyway, but I cannot accept this behavior. They refuse to bear the consequences of massive loans.
If you cannot default on your debts, what kind of big man are you?
For example, we know that the Mughals start very strong, but just how strong are they? The Mughals start with no operations, a loan limit of ten thousand. What does ten thousand mean in 1444?
This example is not well chosen; I haven't played the Ottomans. In my case, I played as Brandenburg turned France; in 1500, my income was 110, and my monthly expenditure was over 300. This seems crazy to many experts, but what many don't know is that my loan limit is fifty thousand (how I did that will be discussed in the final chapter). I won't calculate how many years I can sustain.
Why do I incur such a large loss? First, my interest is very high. Many people think this is a huge loss, and it indeed is. However, when you are spending hundreds of coins each month, you won't care about the loss of a few dozen coins; I am too lazy to calculate it.
Second, my military expenses are nearly two hundred coins. Why? Because I raised mercenaries to the limit; with a limit of ninety thousand, I exploded into an army of one hundred twenty thousand.
So, can’t you just take down two chickens with a hundred thousand troops? Whether you need to mobilize such potential is the key to determining whether you need to go bankrupt.
If your imagination is rich and you can utilize national potential, I suggest you try.
If your basic operations are limited and you need the country to unleash great potential within a certain timeframe, I also suggest you try.
If your imagination is limited and no matter how many troops you have, you can only do the same thing, then I think you don't need to.
If your basic operations are excellent and you do not need or want national potential, then this method is simply ***.
Understanding national strength greatly affects our evaluation of the benefits of bankruptcy. If you are truly a player with a shocking basic operational level like me, take my advice: just listen to what those experts say. The playstyles are different; don't overestimate yourself.
I seem to have not elaborated on how to apply it. In fact, I don't know how to say it; it's still not embarrassing. In short, I believe we need to correctly recognize our basic operational level. Many flashy operations and theories are actually beyond our capability, so positioning must be clear.
How to Take Out More Loans#
There is a section in English above; the author’s cultural level is too low to understand it. In fact, it mainly reflects the author's own ramblings. This image is to let you know that the author is not just talking nonsense.
The loan limit for a single loan is half of the development level. The Byzantine opening has a development level of 41, so the loan limit is twenty coins per loan.
Oh, I took a closer look, and many data in this image are incorrect. In any case, take what I say as the main point.
Each loan will increase inflation by 0.1. You can weigh this yourself; I personally don't care.
The calculation of the loan limit is very complex; I don't know it, but there is a practical formula that has a small margin of error.
In short, when your interest equals your income, your loans reach the limit.
It becomes clear: to increase the loan limit, there are two direct methods.
First, increase your income.
Second, reduce your interest.
For me, these issues are best solved through military means, such as demanding war reparations or forcing trade transfers.
A more peaceful method is to plant gold mines.
The methods to reduce interest are shown above.
The ideas are easy to understand. There is an effect that is often overlooked by players called revanchism. This is extremely powerful; as long as you are defeated in war and then cede land, you can cede your ally's land. After all, many friends stubbornly refuse to cede their own land. Ceding a few provinces can yield a lot of revanchism.
Another direct method to reduce interest is to pay off the loans. This statement is not a joke.
We know that the loan limit reflects the amount of a single loan and the number of loans.
For a specific example, if my loan limit is one hundred loans and the amount for each loan is one hundred coins, my theoretical loan limit should be ten thousand coins. However, if my IOUs contain ninety-nine loans of one coin each, after taking out another loan, I will reach one hundred loans, but my actual loan amount is only two hundred coins. At this point, the game will inform me that I have reached the loan limit because I have already borrowed one hundred loans.
So, when we reach the loan limit, these small loans will affect the actual amount of money we can obtain from the bank. This can be easily resolved by paying off small loans and taking out larger single loans.
This mechanism seems quite silly from this example, but it is indeed quite silly, so we can exploit this loophole. Next is a practical tip.
Previously, I mentioned that I would explain this image in the battle report; this is the loophole.
When I had a development level of 41, I took out 113 loans, but later I released Morea and Achaea.
As a result, my single loan amount became eleven coins, my income decreased, and my loan limit actually increased.
Because the game mechanism considers all my loans to be eleven coins.
This method is quite practical. For example, if you have taken a lot of land but cannot digest it, you need to release vassals together. After you take it down, you can take out several high-value loans while your development level skyrockets.
Such high-value loans can effectively increase your loan limit before your development level exceeds the current level.