The Archbishophric of Bremen, 1591.
Not near the most impressive colonial empire, I know, but this is the first game where I played mainly a trader and coloniser. In previous games whenever I colonised I did in times when I had a ton of infamy to burn, or to retard the expansion of rival empires overseas. To my surprise the trade/colonial game is quite engaging on its own. I have five merchants in almost all the European CoTs (Burgundy keeps embargoing me so I keep losing my placed merchants in Antwerpen) and CoTs of my own in Havana and Muskogee. Shawnee has been quite the annoying impediment - in Miscmods it's a horde, and it had proved quite effective in curbing my North American expansion in the early years. Just ate a whole bunch of its provinces in the last war though, and it's not very long for this world.
I had planned to switch out of the theocracy as soon as possible, but I only realised fifty years into the game that the only way to switch out of the theocracy is absolute monarchy at gov. tech 27.
o It hasn't been so bad though, and because of the limit on the innovative/narrowminded slider I've discovered the benefits of narrowmindedness. Previously I would always go for innovative, and as soon as possible.
Interesting things on the world map: Kingdom of God in Italy, and the Jalayirids not only surviving but thriving, with steppe nomad Persia as its vassal. Also Sardinia-Piedmont. The shape of Poland is annoying, as is blobbly Korea yet again. I've played maybe five or six games, and Korea almost always blobs, which doesn't seem right.
My tariff efficiency suffers badly from my lack of big ships - at the moment I think it stands at 20% or so. I've been building big ships whenever I have extra cash, but I've also been colonizing a lot. I did save up to move my capital to NA, but then I realised that I would have to abandon the HRE to do that. I would, since I basically have no stakes in the Old World, but I don't want to lose the -10% tech cost Imperial Integrity gives me. Should I just suck it up and keep building big ships, or should I just leave the HRE and shift my capital overseas?
Another question: Why is Bremen called Bremen, when it's an OPM centered on Stade and has no cores on Bremen proper? What real-life entity was it supposed to represent?