The Far West: A Connacht HT3 WC

1429-1436: A Foothold

As soon as I switch to Quest for the New World, I start printing ducats nonstop, to try to make as much money as possible before my trade income goes into the toilet.

In 1430, we get a new king,



Just in time for colonizing! That is way nice.



Cape Verde and Erijksford and the first two spots we send colonists to. It will be nice to get cores on these ASAP, so as to extend our colonializing range greatly.



With all Navigators as advisors, we can just barely colonize Unamakik.



Woot!



+50% colonial growth for the national focus and provinces adjacent.



13.9 ducats per month is a hefty bill for colonizing, and my trade income has been cut in half after abandoning Shrewd Commerce Practices, my Trade Efficiency Advisors, and the resulting loss of a bunch of merchants.



Having spent all my colonists, it's time to rebuild my trade empire.



Burgundy asks me to become their ally. France is no longer any threat to England. Perhaps Burgundy can be a big enough threat to keep the peace.



Between my placed merchants, the "Beautiful Tapestry" decision, and my heir introduced, I am gaining cultural tradition super fast. By 1437, I have all two 4-star collectors and one 5-star collectors as advisors.

Interesting note: because the two colonies on Iceland are within 250 range of my capital, they don't count as "Overseas," despite the fact that they are considered part of the North American continent. The Azores, Canarias, and Madiera (off the coast of Africa) are likewise within 250 of my capital.

1436-1458: The New Ping-Pong

In 1438, I ally with Sweden as well as Burgundy. Then, Sweden declares war on Gotland. I think Connacht can back Sweden up on this one!

So many colonists, but it's so expensive (in terms of stability, lost income, and cultural tradition) to switch back and forth between full-colonial footing and full-trading footing.



Our old friend Tomas Lindschold has just been sitting there in the unemployed advisor pool since we fired him. It's so hard for a good Navigator to find work!

With Tomas, I am just barely in range of sending colonists to the Canarias and Madeira. It's way cheaper to send another colonist than pay for colonial maintenance to naturally "grow" 100 colonists.



I hire a Collector right after I hire Tomas, because I am maxed on cultural tradition. But for the first year, only Connacht can hire the newly recruited Collector. Plenty of time to use up all those colonists!

In general, I use the year-long exclusivity contract and the fact that you get cultural tradition on January 1st every year to maximize my advisors.



I spend a ton of money getting good relations with the Timaruds, then the Ottomans, so that they will give me military access.



Go East, noble Conquistador!

By 1446, the Canarias and Madeira have been grown to capacity, and we are maxed out on colonists. So it's time to switch back to QFTNW and Navigators for advisors!



The conquistador marches straight to Fars, as if by magic!

This CoT is a big disappointment. I was hoping it would be way bigger.



Sind is better as a CoT, but still not amazing.

All the while, I am colonizing the NW edge of North America. (Abnaki atm). I forgot to take a screenshot of that though x.X.



Byzantine Influx gives cheaper tech costs and +2.0 cultural tradition per year, woot!



Now here's a freaking market to exploit!

In 1451, England annexes France .



By 1455, I've switched back to Shrewd Commerce Practices and built back up my trade. In this picture, I've already hired my Collector that's going to replace Tomas Lindschold. I hire Tomas, send out a bunch of colonists, then hire back my Collector before his 1-year exclusive is up.

Everything is going swell. Then in 1458, all of the sudden, my income drops in half.



The CoT of Brescia has over 5200 ducats in value in this shot, but when you select it from the main map, it says it only about 200 ducats of value. About 5,000 ducats of trade value are now simply inaccessible to anyone, through any CoT.

A dreaded bug has derailed the game. Tomorrow, the fix!

1458: Bug

The closest save game I have to the start of the bug comes from January 8, 1458. Here's Brescia, post-bug:



Note that Brescia _has_ a CoT, but for some reason Brescia trades through Lubeck, not its own CoT.

I do some inquires and as it turns out, this is because Milan has traded away its "Cloth Trade Rights" to the Lubeck CoT (Hansa Trade League). So since Brecia creates cloth, its trade is routed through Lubeck.

Somehow this fact causes _everyone_ to want to trade through the Brescia CoT. (Brown with light blue swatches = Brescia).



So I load up Milan, cancel the cloth trade agreement, and on February 1, everything returns to normal:



Is this a known bug?

The explorers gave me the tradition to get the Navigators and Collectors. I tried to explore just what I "needed" in terms of the new world, then got the rest of my naval tradition from exploring random sea provinces in the middle of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. That way, the only knowledge of the new world the other european nations will get will be what I have colonized.

An OPM in East India? I like the way you think EURO!

1458-1461: The Giant Strikes

In 1460, the long awaited event finally happens:



My first response is to recruit as many mercenaries as possible and try to fight back the English onslaught. And then I discover that when it comes to combat in HT3, _everything_ has changed. England kicks my ass, hard.

No longer is it possible to harass an army twice your size to death with a handful of cavalry. Here seem to be the three big things have changed about war in HT3:

1) Cavalry move at the same speed as everything else.
2) The AI keeps their main army blobbed. In general, the AI is just better.
3) Siege assaults don't use the morale of cavalry.

For these reasons, trying to get the AI started on a ping-pong, where you are constantly getting the defensive bonus and the AI never gets a chance to reinforce, is super-hard. Also, because Connacht is low in manpower and using mostly mercenaries, it's super hard for us to reinforce.

And because cavalry keep their morale, you can't just wait for the AI to assault in a siege, then sweep in and knock over the now-low-morale army.

I reload and try the war again. (If you consider this cheating, well, I would not argue with you.) This time, at great bloodshed and great cost, I barely manage to destroy the main English army of 8,000 with my 10,000 troops.

And then England, easy-as-you-please, lands 14,000 troops.

I reload for a third time at the start of the war. New plan: LET THE WOOKIEE WIN!



England had been warning me, so I was holding off on DOWing an East Indian country.

Why Pegu you might ask, rather than the OPM islands like the Maldives or Makassar? Well, the problem is that you need an "East Indian" port province in order to get the East India company, and none of the small islands of SE Asia are flagged as East Indian (which you can see in the new region map mode). And Pegu had no discernable army when I cruised by. . . . but I forgot to look for a navy.

Still, my troops managed to land before the transports were destroyed, so I managed to take the capital. Then, with land military access through Attuyaha, I marched on over to besiege Pegu's one other province.



*shakes fist at Portugal*



You may have won the war England, but you shall not get the prestige from winning the battle!



A mad-dash, Dunkirk style evacuation then takes place. All my transports are in south-east Asia, save one. With the 41-ship English fleet bearing down, the Connacht fleet escapes to Galicia!



With that, the last troops on the Irish mainland are annihilated.



My navy uses Castillian ports to dash out, kill a Portugeuse ship, then go back to port before the English navy can arrive from England.



I take Portugal's white peace. They still have the Azores though.



A second peace treaty with Pegu! And then,



Woot!

But even in this moment of triumph, England beseiges Munster, Connacht's last remaining bastion on the Irish mainland.

Prawnstar: Yep, most of Connacht is in Terra Incognita. As I started exploring in 1430, it should be invisible until at least 1480.

Euro: More devious, always!

Panopticon: The nice thing about being so small and so rich from trade is that stability costs are super-cheap. I can easily go from 0 to +3 in less than six months.

I'm pretty sure in non-expansion EU 1.3, the cavalry's morale is used in the assault. Makes sense that they fixed it way before HT3.

I'm not sure how long England was warning me before they attacked. Since at least 1418, when I got the core on Munster.

England is keeping its navy in groups of 41 carracks. Sometimes I've seen 10 or so. But either way, such fleets are too big for me. Gone are the days when the AI would send one or two ships out as easy pickings.

And yes, there are few things that I find "too gamey," tis true.

1461-1480: Strangeness and Royal Strangers

I go to the peace treaty to see what kind of deal I can get with the English giant. I hope I can get away with only losing one Irish province, but am prepared to give up two if absolutely necessary.



"They would accept this offer." I only have military access through all those inland Indian nations, and the only reason I got it was so I could discover some inland CoTs.

After spending about ten minutes saying "wtf" to the computer screen, I click accept. The first thing I hope the patch changes is that CoT bug. The second thing I hope it changes is this 15% for just military access nonsense--or else make it much harder to get military access from freshly discovered New World and Indian nations. It makes sense for alliances to be worth about 15%. But for just military access, only about 5% makes sense. And make such cancellations a big relations hit, so you can't just reget military access for free. As it is, the player can pretty easily build up a massive peace score "buffer" and never have to give up anything to the AI.

For this game, England is no longer a concern.



Don't mind if I do!



Connacht is the wealthiest nation in the world, straight-up.



I've stopped going for Free Trade and started going for centralization, trying to prepare for the day when Connacht will no longer rely on trade. (If I had the game to do over again, I would instead go hard free trade, as I continue relying on trade income for much, much longer than I expected.)

Later in 1467, Tenassarim is converted. Woot!



Hopefully that will keep England busy and off our back. Though in truth, since they still have not yet got "Spread of Discoveries" for the colonies, it's not that much of a concern.



The mainland of SE Asia is constantly wracked with revolts. So I just keep my troops in a transport that sits off the coast of Tenassarim.

Sometimes Ayyathuya has its act together, and sends in troops to kill the rebels for me. Sometimes the rebels end up taking Tenassarim. When that happens, I wait for them to march away, then take Tenassarim back. With this system, the East Indian trade port is super easy to hold against all rebels. I could do it with a single cog and 1,000 troops.



I'm getting bad heirs with bad claims in droves. A succession war over my throne between Sweden and Castille. That sounds... interesting?



I'm not really sure what's going on here. Maybe Castille got significantly more prestige than Sweden since the last screenshot, so now a Castilian nobleman sits on my throne? If I maintain high prestige, would my native dynasty have kept the throne?



Hey, with an heir like that, the Castilians can come to my throne any day!

It was much later in the game that I discovered the Grand Marshal advisor, that gives +1.0% legitimacy per star per year. In my next game, I'll definitely use Marshals to keep legitimacy up.

1480-1494: The Renunciation of Europe

In the early 1480s I gain a core on Cape Verde.



The first Connacht colonists take up residence in South America!



With a new core on Innu, it's time to switch back to QFTNW. Go forth my colonists!

Now I have two NI slots, so I can keep one as Shrewd Commercial Practices, and thus not lose my trade empire.



Post offices are awesome!



Both Portugal and Castille took QFTNW as their second NI. Connacht faces competition in the New World for the first time.



Goodbye to Europe!

I had to wait until I got cores in the New World to do this, as you can only switch your capital to a province with a core on it.



Munster and Leinster are released, and Connacht becomes but a distant overseas colony.



There is no need for a fleet of many ships, for all my new colonies in North America are not distant overseas possessions any longer.



Connacht's colonists race down the coast. Sugar is worthless at this point in the game, and one cannot predict where the gold will pop up, so instead I just go for all the provinces with the highest taxes.



Castille asks me for an alliance. I eagerly accept.



A second war with the hated Reds!