Originally Posted by
Herbert
Name of the AAR: BYZAAR!
Start in 1399 as Venice, all standard, no lucky nations and low aggressiveness. You can set the game to hard if you want, but that is not the point, the point is fun.
Home rules: you stay a republic, always. You can change into other forms of republics, of course. You go full naval. You don't expand beyond the goals below and what is given to you from missions. You never go red on infamy. Yellow is ok, but only when strictly necessary. You are normally allowed within the green zone.
You should complete the following goals in the given order, but you can make small exceptions, like conquering provinces in Egypt (belongs to goal 2) in order to get the Thalassocracy (belongs to goal 1).
1st goal: enact the Stato da Mar and Thalassocracy decisions. That's your easy "get-to-know-the-country-before-twisting-it" warm-up. Remember, have fun.
2nd goal: form Byzanthium, of course. Which means that you have to change religion to orthodox, change primary culture to greek, and get yourself the required provinces. Oh, and kill off the pretendent guys in Costantinople. As Venice, you did it already once. This is your twisted path to your manifest destiny, have fun through it.
3rd goal: extend to plausible borders, meaning Anatolia, Greece, Bulgaria, Egypt, and the Roman bits of the Middle East. Grab Mecca, and the south of Italy including Rome. You can get yourself a land connection to the Shatt-el-Arab and plant your flag there, if it makes you tingly inside. Get the Pentarchy modifier and enact the Theme System decision. This is when you power up and feel good, but not yet crushing all opposition with your death star.
4th goal: then it strikes you, you are not the Empire, you are the Republic! You are the good guy! So the obvious thing to do is to colonize the North American continent, as well as Colombia and Venezuela for exclusive possession of your new pond, and move your capital there. A new beginning, a new hope. A new Rome, a new Capitol Hill. Relax and breathe, Anakin.
5th goal: you cleared your doubts about your identity, you are finally ready to do good. So you liberate people, right? First of all you rid yourself of your european and asian holdings, releasing vassals. BUT, you have to find a way to create orthodox Greece on the greek lands. Of course orthodox Ethiopia must rule the whole of the Nile. You have to liberate Italy, too, so you can conquer-and-gift the required provinces to your vassal. You can do what you want with the asian coast, have fun.
6th goal: since you are the Republic (and the roman republic to top it) you need to take care of your arch-enemy, the Empire! Disband the HRE and liberate it as you see artistically fit. It's done, you walked through the sixth fold path, you carved your name on the far end of the world!
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Looking forward to you going on a conquering spree in Greece 
