Got into this game just recently, and while playing Tuscany I finally started to understand the game. I'd been trying to play Belgium before, but kept getting smacked down by big powers.
By the way, I play the game with Age of Colonialism mod.
So with Tuscany I opened up with an alliance to just Austria. Then right off I grabbed a two-province country to the north (think it's Modena?). That cranked my infamy way up to 20.
Next I picked a state capitalist ruling party and concentrated on economy. I researched steam, then lots of industry. Even though I didn't have coal, I knew from my previous Belgium attempts that cement always becomes a hot commodity and with lower prestige I may not be able to buy any. Cement was a good move, it fed the rest of my industry and stayed profitable.
I forget how I got mixed up in it, but at some point I got in a shooting war with the Pope. I took advantage of the opportunity and added "annex Romagna" as a wargoal. It was a tad close, with me and Austria fighting France in Italy but before too long we won and I had some more territory.
At this point my economy was starting to hum along nicely (was tough since Tuscany isn't industrialized to start out with). I'd made researching steam ships a priority, so I built a steam convoy factory. That ended up being very profitable, at the height I had 3 factories each making like 200 pounds a day (even after importing the raw goods).
My infamy was way too high to attack anyone civilized at this point, so I built a fleet and headed for Egypt. When I got there I noticed Two Sicilies already there in a war. They went after western Egypt and I went for the east. At first I got greedy and added a second annex state wargoal. So who do you think decides to stick their nose in where they have no business? USA of course! :rofl: I had a good laugh about how historically spot-on that was.
Anyway USA smacking me around was too much to handle so I had to backup to a save game and this time I just did one annex state wargoal. Everything went smooth and before long I was a Great Power as Tuscany! That was nice, to start out wimpy and become a GP.
A while later on I grabbed another Egyptian state, and Two Sicilies did the same. All during the game, liberal agitation was a problem.. somehow I managed to beat the movement down and turn things back around to conservative dominance. I even got a game message about "winning a revolution" though I never had rebel armies. Anyway it was welcome.. the liberals were whacked down and I got a -6 militancy on liberals and a big prestige boost.
At this point it's about 1860ish. The CSA has made a truce with the USA. Russia has colonized a bit of the American northwest. France has been expanding slowly but steadily. UK seems to have stayed about the same. Before the Civil War, the US became a big industrial power and still is.
Where I'm at now is stuck in a screw up. I was trying to make furniture and paper (paper was very profitable). Oh, and the steamer convoy business crashed and I had to close two factories with just one that made 50 pounds per day (down from 3 making 200 a day). So anyway I was having big problems getting enough wood for the lumber mill which then fed the paper and furniture factories plus pop needs for lumber.
I don't know why I could never get enough lumber.. neither wood nor lumber were in high demand, shouldn't have been a problem. I had a couple timber provinces in the Romagna state, so I thought maybe my problem was that I had too many craftsmen there working in factories instead of laborers doing timber.
So I destroyed my Romagna factories and set national focus to encourage laborers. Well that was a mistake.. timber gathering went up a bit but the rest of everything else crashed and I lost GP status to Austria. The economy got so messed up that it didn't even need the timber anymore so now I'm just going to go back to an earlier savegame and just get out of lumber business.
That about wraps it up.. has been a lot of fun, and I was pleased that events seemed historically plausible.
By the way, I play the game with Age of Colonialism mod.
So with Tuscany I opened up with an alliance to just Austria. Then right off I grabbed a two-province country to the north (think it's Modena?). That cranked my infamy way up to 20.
Next I picked a state capitalist ruling party and concentrated on economy. I researched steam, then lots of industry. Even though I didn't have coal, I knew from my previous Belgium attempts that cement always becomes a hot commodity and with lower prestige I may not be able to buy any. Cement was a good move, it fed the rest of my industry and stayed profitable.
I forget how I got mixed up in it, but at some point I got in a shooting war with the Pope. I took advantage of the opportunity and added "annex Romagna" as a wargoal. It was a tad close, with me and Austria fighting France in Italy but before too long we won and I had some more territory.
At this point my economy was starting to hum along nicely (was tough since Tuscany isn't industrialized to start out with). I'd made researching steam ships a priority, so I built a steam convoy factory. That ended up being very profitable, at the height I had 3 factories each making like 200 pounds a day (even after importing the raw goods).
My infamy was way too high to attack anyone civilized at this point, so I built a fleet and headed for Egypt. When I got there I noticed Two Sicilies already there in a war. They went after western Egypt and I went for the east. At first I got greedy and added a second annex state wargoal. So who do you think decides to stick their nose in where they have no business? USA of course! :rofl: I had a good laugh about how historically spot-on that was.
Anyway USA smacking me around was too much to handle so I had to backup to a save game and this time I just did one annex state wargoal. Everything went smooth and before long I was a Great Power as Tuscany! That was nice, to start out wimpy and become a GP.
A while later on I grabbed another Egyptian state, and Two Sicilies did the same. All during the game, liberal agitation was a problem.. somehow I managed to beat the movement down and turn things back around to conservative dominance. I even got a game message about "winning a revolution" though I never had rebel armies. Anyway it was welcome.. the liberals were whacked down and I got a -6 militancy on liberals and a big prestige boost.
At this point it's about 1860ish. The CSA has made a truce with the USA. Russia has colonized a bit of the American northwest. France has been expanding slowly but steadily. UK seems to have stayed about the same. Before the Civil War, the US became a big industrial power and still is.
Where I'm at now is stuck in a screw up. I was trying to make furniture and paper (paper was very profitable). Oh, and the steamer convoy business crashed and I had to close two factories with just one that made 50 pounds per day (down from 3 making 200 a day). So anyway I was having big problems getting enough wood for the lumber mill which then fed the paper and furniture factories plus pop needs for lumber.
I don't know why I could never get enough lumber.. neither wood nor lumber were in high demand, shouldn't have been a problem. I had a couple timber provinces in the Romagna state, so I thought maybe my problem was that I had too many craftsmen there working in factories instead of laborers doing timber.
So I destroyed my Romagna factories and set national focus to encourage laborers. Well that was a mistake.. timber gathering went up a bit but the rest of everything else crashed and I lost GP status to Austria. The economy got so messed up that it didn't even need the timber anymore so now I'm just going to go back to an earlier savegame and just get out of lumber business.
That about wraps it up.. has been a lot of fun, and I was pleased that events seemed historically plausible.
