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yqt1001

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Dec 24, 2011
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I decided to try a challenge for my latest game, I've never played as a republic and I've never converted to a new religion during the reformation. So I decided to try Holland and eventually aim for a reformed, admin republic Netherlands. It's 1475 and I've formed the Netherlands, got most of my cores from Burgundy and I got QFTNW and colonized The Canaries (colonial range too minimal at this time for even Portugal to colonize the Caribbean or NA/SA).

As I've said I've never changed to protestant or reformed before so I have no clue what to expect. As it is right now my economy is really fragile, even the slightest blip and I simply lose all money and power. I allied with France a while back when they were crushed by a war with Burgundy and they are supplying my main source of protection. Right now my forcelimits allow for a decent military about 2/3 of theirs (which is roughly the same as England and Austria). I know that converting to reformed will make them hate me so that leads me to my first question.

When is the best time to convert? I know that I'll be the largest reformed nation and I'm wondering when during the reformation is the best time to minimize diplomatic chaos. Also what is the direct relation decrease associated with converting?

What type of economic chaos does converting have? I only have 8 provinces, so most of my money comes from trading, how can I expect my trade and tax/production income to change with the conversion?

Is it possible to have the entire HRE gang up on me? As it is right now I could probably manage a war against Austria, but not Austria + Bavaria.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Make sure your infamy is zero, both to maximise your trade income and take away one reason for everyone to hate you. Changing to reformed will give you 10% higher trade income but 10% lower province taxation; I assume if you've been playing as Holland you have all the trade NIs, a maxed Free Trade slider and a monopoly in three-quarters of the CoTs of Europe? So this change should benefit you hugely in terms of income. Short-term you'll suffer for two reasons, though: the hit to your stability from converting, and the fact that for a few years many of your provinces will have the Wrong Religion income penalty. So, it's best to have a reserve of cash saved up to tide you through that difficult patch (and pay for all the missionaries you'll need.)

Converting will break all your alliances, including the one with France, so that's the moment of maximum vulnerability. Try to time it so any likely hostile powers are at war with each other. You could then try using cash to buy up your relations again; it's not impossible, just harder if you're different religions. You might get ganged up on, but it's not inevitable. Try and keep yourself looking as strong as possible: so make sure your army is at full force limit or even over it, and do your best to avoid getting involved in any wars during the conversion period. If that fails, it can start a snowball effect as other nations perceive you as vulnerable.

If you're planning on going colonial it's obviously best to convert as quickly as possible, so you don't have to send missionaries to all your colonies as well (but beware of the 'Pilgrim Fathers'-type events that give you +400 population in a colony but converts it to a heretic religion). You could try and wait to see if some of your provinces convert anyway, saving you the cost of a missionary, but it' a random chance and maybe not worth it ifyou're fairly small anyway. Just make sure you have enough missionaries: go narrow-minded and take the relevant NI if necessary - and as I said before, try and save up a reserve of cash to pay for them - although you do get money as a bonus of converting anyway.
 
Thanks. :) Played 7 more years of the game today and somehow my land forcelimits jumped quite a bit and I now have the fifth largest army in the game, half of Austria but at least they aren't the emperor anymore. Looks like I'm set to convert when France and Austria get into a huge war again.

What type of relation drop will occur to my vassals? Should I diploannex my last core (Gelre) before I convert?
 
Money shouldn't really be an issue as you get a nice cash bonus upon converting. What is an issue is you get a 200 relations drop with every catholic and protestant nation. Make sure you are at 200 relations with every nation you want to keep an alliance with before you convert and get ready to send a lot of gifts.
 
What type of relation drop will occur to my vassals? Should I diploannex my last core (Gelre) before I convert?

I would recommend doing so, yes. You will lose 200 relations and break the alliance (not any RM or vassalization though), several diplomats plus a decent chunk of money to fix. The other concern you will have as Holland is HREmp spamming you to convert back and going to war to enforce it. It might be an idea to leave the empire to avoid this.

If you have a good trust level and aren't rivals with France then regaining the alliance after converting shouldn't be a huge deal, if not then you may end up hanging in the wind.
 
Thanks for the help guys.

Some how I managed to become a world superpower in the 30 years between when I posted this topic and when I converted. Otherwise, I had roughly 33 provinces when I converted and a forcelimit near 100. Went really well, my vassals and I have a combined strength of roughly 120 units so there have been no wars since I converted. My economy imploded for about 5 years but I collected 4k ducats and only lost about half of them. I lost my alliance with France though, but at this point I'm nearly larger than them so it doesn't matter.

conversion.png


Unfortunately, the reformation wasn't really strong in this game and I'm the only reformed/protestant nation with more than 3 provinces.
 
Convert France >:D
 
Convert the world!
 
With the addition of the enforce religious unity dip+cb the reformation has really turned into a bit of a joke. Particularly when combined with all the religious decisions and such that allow christian nations to get plenty of missionaries with 15+% per year success chances. While I don't miss the old "spend half a year's income, wait 5 years, blow a die roll, raaaaaaage!!!!" method, I do think it is too easy to keep the map painted yellow.