1652-1701
When I left off, I had just finished a war against Portugal to claim my core area. I used my conquistador to aid in colonizing the coast, and then passed the time waiting for the truce with the Songhai to run out.
I figured the only way I was going to expand beyond north Africa in this game was by getting some more maps, so I looked for a nation to trade maps with. The problem was that (1) all of the european powers hated me, (2) most of them knew either too many maps too be willing to trade, or too few to be useful, and (3) most of the exploring nations were ridiculously expensive to bribe. But as luck would have it, one-province Brittany had revoted during the wars of religion, and had never ben re-absorbed. They were reasonably cheap to bribe, and after I brought them from -200 to +190 I was able to get a map across the atlantic and down the north american coast.
But with my low naval tech, this was not going to be enough. I needed military access, and I also probably needed Caribbean maps. So, I decided to try to bribe the Portugese. This was more expensive, but reasonable unlike Spain or France (~80d for a letter of introduction). During this period, I also left and re-formed (as the leader now) my alliance with Morocco, brough Mali into the alliance, gave them a royal marriage, bribed them a bit, and diplo-vassalized them. Hey, when you've got a monarch with good diplo skills, make the most of it, right?
When the truce expired, Morocco was the first to declare war, so I didn't have control of the peace negotiations. Mali took three provinces in a seperate peace, and I was able to grab two provinces (Kano and Niani) before Morocco called off the war. They did get me the two provinces in the settlement, at least.
Anyway, I managed to exchange maps (and get military access) with Portugal around this time, and I found that the coast was well colonized from Portugese Brazil through Spanish central America into French Louisiana, with only a couple open slots. At first, I wasn't really sure what I could do with my discoveries, since I only had one colonist left, and trying to launch a war on a north american tribe using galleys and without a CRT advantage didn't seem like a good option. But as luck would have it, I got another random conquistador at this point. Somebody likes me...
Since I couldn't build transports, and warships were extremely expensive (being an aristocratic land-based nation), I decided to try to brave the seas with galleys. This may have been a poor decision. The two province hop across the ocean from Africa to Brazil tended to cost me about one quarter of my ships, unless a storm hit, in which case it was three quarters. But I made it through, and with the help of my conqustador
I managed to found two colonies, one in Venezuela and one at the mouth of the Rio Grande. While these two colonies will probably never become cities for me, they have enormous strategic value as waystations for my ships, and even more importantly, as wedges that keep Spain from grabbing the entire coastline and blocking my expansion into the interior.
As an aside, I'd like to share with you
the worst CoT coloring scheme ever conceived. If you can't decipher it, Cuzco is French-blue, Zacatecas is Sweedish-blue, and the Spanish colonial CoT in Baja California is also French-Blue. Note that after discovering the Incas, I got my second monopoly there, which became even more profitable when the Incas annexed the Chimu a few years later. Zimbabwe finally annexed Xhosa around this time, too, which opened up five slots in Zanzibar for my merchants. Oman embargoed me, but relented a few years later. I tried to put some merchants in the Spanish colonial CoT too (which was a 20/20 monopoly for them), but they (predictably) embargoed me, and they did not reverse their decision.
After my conquistador died, I spent several years trying to ship over enough troops to fight a decent war in America. I also declared war on Songhai (without a CB, but my BB is so low for this late in the game I don't care) and reduced them to a 1-province minor. As soon as I reached land 9, I switched my investment to naval, so that I could get naval 4 and build some much-needed transports.
In 1689, Morocco did the honors on the Final DoW against the Songhai, although I did the honors of rushing Gao and assaulting before Morocco's leader could arrive. After militarily annexing Songhai, and diplo-annexing Mali,
western Africa was one big swath of Moroccan and Kongolese grey.
Around 1690 I finally got naval 4, and I quickly got my troop total in Rio Grande up to about 11,000, which seemed like enough to take on the Navajo. I declared war and quickly overran them with my fire phase, cavalry, and CRT advantage. I didn't have enough troops to siege everything, so rather than assaulting in turn I played it safe and brought more troops in from Africa. And despite a "cities demand old rights", "political crisis" , "plague" and "temporary insanity of the monarch" (can't blame him, really) I was able to fight through revolts at home and still win the war abroad.
After annexing the Navajo, I got a population boom event, which I used to place
TPs in the inland gold province of Venezuela, and the one remaining unoccupied border province of the Azteks. You may notice the new CoT that spawned in Sacramento. Yes, I tried to put some merchants there, and yes, the English embargoed me.
A really good monarch had risen to the throne, so I decided to take time out for some conversion work. Once one of the Navajo provinces is converted, I'll be able to produce troops on the continent, which will make things a lot easier. I plan to take out a couple more easy marks like the Dakota and the Shawnee, before I proceed to the main events - the Aztek and the Inca. Capturing their territory may put me over the top in VPs. I'm also considering trying to diploannex Morocco, although I doubt I'm strong enough to pull this of yet.
For those who are curious, here's
the situation in Europe and
the situation in Asia. France and Austria can only be stopped by Austria and France. Russia is taking care of business, having just won a big war agianst Poland. The Ottomans remain an afterthought, but the Mughals have clearly taken the banner for the Muslim world (except perhaps for those African upstarts). Maybe the most absurd thing of all is the Uzbekh Khanate holding two provinces in Tibet for well over a century, and converting both. Buddhism and Hinduism are really hurting in this game, with only one Hindu state (Indonesia is all Muslim) and several of the SE Asian states revolting away from China with Confucian religion.