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1399-1821 Switzerland. No expansion. No vassals. No alliances. :p

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switzerlandworld.jpg


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Basically played it through as a survival challenge, to turn Switzerland into a relatively neutral armed camp that nobody wanted to mess with. Nobody ended up declaring war on me, though I did participate in several wars - including two against Austria.

It was difficult at times to hold myself to my self-imposed restrictions. No grain provinces mean no Grain Depot, and no port connected to Bern meant my trade was restricted to Europe. Early on, when I could at best eke out 30k-ish troops, France and Austria made me really nervous. I built a CoT after the MRs switched to Administrative.

I started a few trade wars to help build up my Military Tradition so I could keep running a level 5/6 Army Organizer, Commandant, and Sergeant Major General as my advisers. I ended finding a better technique for building up my Tradition - rebel hunting. I became the mercenary rebel hunter of Europe and the Middle East, just give me Military Access and I would sweep them away. :)

It helped finding a large country that was suffering a high revolt risk. I started out doing a lot of hunting in France, before moving on to Georgia and Russia. Helped out my relations quite a bit too.

Austria was quite the bully towards the end of the game. I ended up guaranteeing both Georgia and Russia to discourage Austria from continued expansion in their direction. They tested me once by attacking Georgia, and got their nose bloodied for their trouble. They did get off light, though, since it didn't make me war leader and Georgia settled for a white peace by the time I cut Austria's army in half.

My other war against Austria was one I started, so I could briefly take Tirol in order to enact the Gold Standard decision - then sell the province off the next day. :p

Fun country notes:
The Netherlands was going strong about 20-30 years ago. Then La Plata (which apparently includes Madagascar) revolted, and Austria decided to give the Dutch a beatdown, forcing them to release Brabant and taking some provinces in Scandanavia.

Brazil in West Africa, with a couple provinces in Bolivia thrown in for good measure.

Quebec revolted in Quebec, aside from its capitol which was the Turks Islands. Looks like Finland took most of it back.

Haiti actually in Haiti.

Siena and Genoa migrated to the New World.

"Trebizondian Pattani"

"British Colombia"
That is most impressive! It must not have been easy to resist the temptation to expand, even a little.
 
This is my Byzantium > Roman Empire in my most recent game of the Death and Taxes mod, which, incidentally, is a great mod. The decision to change to the Roman Empire gave cores on the Balkans and Italy; the Imperialism CB did the rest. Notice, also, Austria, which is snaking its way around what's left of the HRE. And for the record, it's a really good feeling to fight desperately against Iberia and France in the beginning, and then in the late game just consume their entire European holdings.

EU3_14.jpg


By the way, LOOK AT ALL THAT GREEN! That is, in my untrained opinion, a gorgeous Economic map.

EU3_13.jpg

You should have dismantled the HRE now that the real deal is back from it's hiatus!

As much of a fan as I am of the old Roman Empire, I think it just looks wrong in EUIII, still, each to their own!:)
 
This is my Byzantium > Roman Empire in my most recent game of the Death and Taxes mod, which, incidentally, is a great mod. The decision to change to the Roman Empire gave cores on the Balkans and Italy; the Imperialism CB did the rest. Notice, also, Austria, which is snaking its way around what's left of the HRE. And for the record, it's a really good feeling to fight desperately against Iberia and France in the beginning, and then in the late game just consume their entire European holdings.

EU3_14.jpg


By the way, LOOK AT ALL THAT GREEN! That is, in my untrained opinion, a gorgeous Economic map.

EU3_13.jpg

If you can make it.. Conquer the North African Coast (To the Mediterrean)
 
The joy of slow-playing.

Playing a Milan-Italy game, just got a beastly Austria to release Croatia* and then vassalised them. A seedling of an empire to be sure, but what name placement!
EU3_55.jpg


EU3_MAP_MLO_1523213_2cropped.jpg

Playing it nice and slow, surprisingly fun (used to hack 'n' slash empire building). Austria, which has yet to become emperor (phew) was getting larger and larger, so I sprung a trap on them, all other wars with them had gone awry due to them having great generals; they had 40k at my vassals borders, I stacked my 80k at the borders and BAM! declare war and half their army is gone before they get a chance to mobilise! Not exactly Cannae but it gave me a kick. :)

(Plan is to form Italy, annex vassals, take up to Montenegro and give the rest to the adorable Greece that I've been feeding scraps to under the war-room table.)

*as well as Tirol and Trent for me, Serbia for Albania (got the idea from NATO) Bulgaria and Silistra for ickle Greece.
 
Sexy borders for your vassals in the Balkans. The Byzantines need some fixing though. I think you need to evict some Anatolians and Franks from Italy and the East
 
Playing a Milan-Italy game, just got a beastly Austria to release Croatia* and then vassalised them. A seedling of an empire to be sure, but what name placement!
EU3_55.jpg


EU3_MAP_MLO_1523213_2cropped.jpg

Playing it nice and slow, surprisingly fun (used to hack 'n' slash empire building). Austria, which has yet to become emperor (phew) was getting larger and larger, so I sprung a trap on them, all other wars with them had gone awry due to them having great generals; they had 40k at my vassals borders, I stacked my 80k at the borders and BAM! declare war and half their army is gone before they get a chance to mobilise! Not exactly Cannae but it gave me a kick. :)

(Plan is to form Italy, annex vassals, take up to Montenegro and give the rest to the adorable Greece that I've been feeding scraps to under the war-room table.)

*as well as Tirol and Trent for me, Serbia for Albania (got the idea from NATO) Bulgaria and Silistra for ickle Greece.
From those screenshots i can see you've been busy :p
France, Castille and Golden Horde look like they're going to be biiig problems soon.

who are you allied too out of curiosity?
oh and a screen of HRE would be interesting as well.
 
From those screenshots i can see you've been busy :p
France, Castille and Golden Horde look like they're going to be biiig problems soon.

who are you allied too out of curiosity?
oh and a screen of HRE would be interesting as well.

Allies? Other than Vassals nobody. I WAS allies with Austria, but then they got the Northern Italy mission that plunged me into two unwinnable wars (had a small army in Venice that would come out and take back provinces when it could, sucked up the WE knowing they were too and White Peace'd them). They then turned Protestant and there was no going back. Relations are pretty poor with other nations, with such strong empires if I want an alliance I'm going to have to spend hundreds of ducats I don't have on gifts. My vassals contribute aprox 30k to me, so it's like having a mid-sized ally.

Just as a side-note, I vassalised Switzerland on a Discovered Spy CB, teach them to meddle:p

HRE you say, your wish is my command!
EU3_57.jpg

I'm finding this to be quite an interesting game, so thought I'd post some other tid-bits.

Europe:
EU3_56.jpg
Religion:
EU3_58.jpg
Income of nations:
EU3_59.jpg
Tech:
EU3_60.jpg
Top Generals: (note the skill of my neighbours generals, makes wars a pain when mine have 5 overall tops.
EU3_61.jpg
Armies: (Austria had 90k before I annihilated them, don't think they'll recover before I next cleanse the heresy:))
EU3_62.jpg

P.S. Vijayanagar only needs Ceylon's southern province to form Hindustan.
 
Sexy borders for your vassals in the Balkans. The Byzantines need some fixing though. I think you need to evict some Anatolians and Franks from Italy and the East
Yeah, when I took Thrace off of Venice I released Byz, next war with Venice I gave them their eastern Anatolian provinces, then when finishing off the Ottomans I gave them what was left. Essentially they're a placeholder for when Greece cores enough of it's gifted land to handle different cultured lands.

As for Castille/France, they're both tough cookies, I'll have to wait for an opportune moment I think...
NetherlandssSSSssss! But I don't think GH will be a problem, since Bohemia seems to be beating 'em up

First time I've seen them form funnily enough! They seem to have forgone trade (don't own Antwerpen) for land, they're an over-sized German nation rather than the tech/trade wunderkind they usually are.

GH does pretty well at holding them back, you're right though, seems only a matter of time before one Golden Horde gets replaced by another (we should really start calling Bohemian blobbing GH2, even their colour is right!).
 
My Yaroslavl game 1550, Novgorod and Lithuania are in a PU, Mazovia is a vassal and I have westernized (not modernized military yet)
 

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My Yaroslavl game 1550, Novgorod and Lithuania are in a PU, Mazovia is a vassal and I have westernized (not modernized military yet)

Nice! With that grey you look like a Russian Prussia! Will you be going east or west? I wouldn't bother forming Russia, Yaroslavl is far cooler!

P.S. I like the Ottoman reservations in Byz! I look forward to seeing casinos like 'Sultan's Palace' pop up.
 
Allies? Other than Vassals nobody. I WAS allies with Austria, but then they got the Northern Italy mission that plunged me into two unwinnable wars (had a small army in Venice that would come out and take back provinces when it could, sucked up the WE knowing they were too and White Peace'd them). They then turned Protestant and there was no going back. Relations are pretty poor with other nations, with such strong empires if I want an alliance I'm going to have to spend hundreds of ducats I don't have on gifts. My vassals contribute aprox 30k to me, so it's like having a mid-sized ally.

Just as a side-note, I vassalised Switzerland on a Discovered Spy CB, teach them to meddle:p

HRE you say, your wish is my command!
EU3_57.jpg

I'm finding this to be quite an interesting game, so thought I'd post some other tid-bits.

Europe:
EU3_56.jpg
Religion:
EU3_58.jpg
Income of nations:
EU3_59.jpg
Tech:
EU3_60.jpg
Top Generals: (note the skill of my neighbours generals, makes wars a pain when mine have 5 overall tops.
EU3_61.jpg
Armies: (Austria had 90k before I annihilated them, don't think they'll recover before I next cleanse the heresy:))
EU3_62.jpg

P.S. Vijayanagar only needs Ceylon's southern province to form Hindustan.

Your stability is a little low, but with such a massive income and army i don't think that will be such a huge problem.

the religion looks like alot of Europe reforming that's interesting very interesting.

Jesus French manpower is scary i can definitely see a showdown between you and them :O.

So are you part of the HRE then? hmmm interesting.
with a decent navy cutting off Castilles holdings in the East would be child's play, i know Castille often have issues holding all of their foreign parts properly. in fact they declined quite a bit in my game, although i am at end-game now.

goodluck
 
Just a preview to my upcoming empire ^^

am i lucky or am i lucky?

14v2qsh.png

Seems their Ruler died during a fight with one of the hords

I don't know if that's lucky. They probably won't stay in the PU, since they're larger. Though if you stay at war I think you could be ok, because I think they won't send insults while at war.