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OOC, why did you stay Eastern tech for the whole game? Does westernizing hurt your chances of getting the achievement, or was it just an RP thing?

Well, the Winged Hussars achievement needs eastern tech (have winged hussars as your active unit with greater than +50% cavalry combat ability), and the winged hussars become available around military tech 26 or so, so I could have Westernized late, after that, but I'd heard it was very possible to stay viable through the endgame with eastern tech, and that it was possible to get to level 32 in everything with Eastern, so I wanted to test that out. I was pretty much the 2nd strongest military power in 1821, behind the HRE which regularly fielded near 500k troops.
 
Well, the Winged Hussars achievement needs eastern tech (have winged hussars as your active unit with greater than +50% cavalry combat ability), and the winged hussars become available around military tech 26 or so, so I could have Westernized late, after that, but I'd heard it was very possible to stay viable through the endgame with eastern tech, and that it was possible to get to level 32 in everything with Eastern, so I wanted to test that out. I was pretty much the 2nd strongest military power in 1821, behind the HRE which regularly fielded near 500k troops.

Hmm, I just looked at the achievement file, and it doesn't say you need Eastern tech?
 
Hmm, I just looked at the achievement file, and it doesn't say you need Eastern tech?

See here. The achievement requires the unit be Winged Hussars, which is an Eastern tech unit at military tech level 22.
 
I finally finished my England->Great Britain game! It's my favorite country (in part because Red is my favorite color). I won the HYW(and integrated France, getting the "One Night in Paris" achievement), and started colonizing. I wanted to stop the Iberians, so I took their 3 island provinces, but even then they continued colonizing, so I decided at that point to conquer Portugal and Spain so that I could monopolize colonization. To that end, I also had to conquer the Dutch coast and Norway. (This part of the game was in Patch 1.4, so I got no coalitions.) Fortunately, it was Novgorod that formed Russia, and they were never able to colonize Siberia since they were blocked by Kazan. That is how I ended up owning all of Western Europe.

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In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have wasted so much time and colonists colonizing West Africa, because then I may have been able to finish my colonies in the Pacific and also colonize more of South Africa. I originally planned to conquer Oman and Yemen to control the Aden node, but the Ottomans had lots of TP there due to transfer from downstream, and I was too lazy to spam it with light ships, so I just diverted Malacca's trade to Zanzibar and collected in Ceylon and South Africa.
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I made some protectorates. Kilwa was the most useful in getting me the trade value from Asia into South Africa.
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I was able to colonize every single province in the Americas, and my colonial nations did a LOT of colonizing on their own, which was really helpful! This was more than enough to get the "The Five Colonies" achievement. The names of my colonial nations are:
South America: British Brazil, British Guiana, British Colombia, British Titicaca, and British Falklands.
North America: British West Indies, British New Spain, Twenty One Colonies, British New France, British Canada, British Stanford (I go to Berkeley, and Stanford is our rival school, and their color is red), and British Columbia.

Unfortunately, New Spain colonized a lot of the California region, so Stanford has horrible borders, including an Arizonan province completely surrounded by New Spanish provinces.
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Fortunately, I had already gotten the "Master of India" achievement in my Ottomans game, since I would not have had enough ADM to conquer all of India, especially if I also wanted to still conquer all of Indonesia and Japan (the latter for the "The Rising Sun" achievement). In 1804, I got a regency a year before I was going to DOW Vijayanagar to annex them...in the 10 year interim, Vijayanagar had somehow picked up that province that I have that's not connected to the rest of my Indian holdings...this put them at 104% warscore to annex, and it was 1816, so I took the stab hit to DOW and annex them again. Fortunately, coring time had dropped to just over 2 years, but I was still unable to sell that province away, because of the bug which prevents you from selling provinces you can't core.

I also briefly took Hormuz from Persia to get the "Trade Hegemon" achievement, but I sold it back because it was 9 BT itself, and I would have had to conquer many more provinces to connect it with my Indian holdings.
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I managed to (barely) plop down colonies in every single Pacific island, though it did require running huge deficits for a few years and even taking one loan. Unfortunately, 11 of them remained unfinished at the end of the game, but I'm still pretty proud that I was able to colonize everything that I did.
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Bohemia became Emperor and passed only 3 reforms. Meanwhile, Austria was my ally for the latter part of the game, and they were really helpful in the war against Bohemia and Burgundy to take Luxemburg.
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I had been monopolizing the Curia since the 1600s...1.5 came out at around this time, which stopped my colonial nations from competing with me in the Curia.
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At the end of the game, I was able to support 12 colonies while not running a (large) deficit.
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My ability to support all these colonies was due in part to my very nice trade income. My tariff income from my colonies was also very substantial. It turns out that colonial nations do in fact give you lots of money, which is why I'm confused when people just colonize 4 provinces in every region because they think that will make them more money...
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This was the first game ever in which I was not able to get into space or finish all my ideas. My lack of ADM was obviously due to coring Western Europe/India/Indonesia/Japan. I took all 5 DIP ideas because the 1st 4 seemed necessary, and I took Naval so I could pass the 2 British decisions...I wanted to finish it to pass 2 more decisions, but I was 2 ideas short...
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I had cored everything besides that one province I was forced to take and couldn't core. I only had one missionary, so I wasn't able to convert all my provinces...it was really nice that Japan was mostly Catholic by the time I got there though...
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Catholicism is clearly the dominant world religion!
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Here's the endscreen. Ottomans had 150k more troops and 7 more ships than me, and I didn't feel like spammming more light ships since I had no more trade nodes I wanted to dominate (I didn't have a spare merchant for Aden).
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The final world map, and my new desktop picture! Look at all that beautiful red!
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Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with my Empire! I would have liked to conquer more of India, finish my Pacific colonies, and maybe colonize/conquer more of Africa and some of China, but I'm actually very impressed that I managed to colonize the entirety of the Americas and conquer all of Japan, Indonesia, Western Europe, and half of India! But now I think I'm going to take a break from colonizing games...
 
After the Hre I've posted, I'm thinking onto a colonization game myself, Seeing that you got no nonsense in your new world, any advice on how to block castille as Japan? I have no qualms with portugal, but I'm quite sick of seeing Spanish yellow, everywhere I look.

Unfortunately, my strategy of conquering all the colonizers won't work in 1.5 because of AE and coalitions, and especially not as a non-Europan nation since it's hard to conquer them directly.

However, one thing I could have done which may have made colonizing easier is to let the colonizers survive and just DOW their colonial nations to take those provinces. The nice thing about colonial provinces is that they're very cheap in warscore, and you don't have to core them yourself. If you don't have a colonial nation, and it spawns (which happens as soon as you have 5 cores in the region, so you can time it so a colony finishes right after you annex a large number of provinces), the new colonial nations gets cores on everything, even if you didn't have cores in the first place!

Even if you do have to core the provinces, it's okay because you also get no AE...unfortunately, I think you do get overextension (despite what one of the hints says), so yeah. Since you can't block them by conquering them, you can try conquering the colonies yourself. You could even try selling some of the colonies to the Portuguese colonial nations, if they have claims or something, since you said you're okay with Portugal having colonies.
 
You could also just have vassalized Spain and Portugal(and maybe even re-released France as a vassal) and let them colonize for you, to save colonists for the rest of africa and siberia :p

Nice empire though! The Red does look awesome on the map :D
 
You could also just have vassalized Spain and Portugal(and maybe even re-released France as a vassal) and let them colonize for you, to save colonists for the rest of africa and siberia :p

Nice empire though! The Red does look awesome on the map :D

Yeah, maybe...although when I inherit their colonial nations, they wouldn't become red, which would have been a problem...
 
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My Burgundy-Netherlands game.

It's 1670 and the Americas are ablaze in colonial conflicts among the CN's. The Dutch West India Company attacked the Castillian Antilles and were losing badly, so I had to step in and correct the situation. Castille was already in a colonial struggle with France and Portugal who were also fighting against the British. Hispaniola and St. Lucia were gained from this conflict. That chunk of Castillian Brazil, just to the east of Suriname is looking mighty tasty.

West Africa was originally a minor focus, merely a bridge to the Cape and the Indian Ocean. This changed when the local minors attacked my settlements and things escalated quickly. Trade is flowing from Malacca-Zanzibar-Cape-Congo to Ivory Coast were it is collected for a tidy sum. Wealth generated there rivals that any European market.

On the to-do list are Ethiopia's coast line and the Malabar as well as the complete subjugation of Aceh.

After returning five cores to Japan, through the colonial war over the Caribbean, Japan has sent over an alliance proposal. They have cores on Qin and I may just take the opportunity to grab Macao

The Danes have been allied with the Dutch since Burgundian days, they integrated Sweden about 15 years prior, Norway about 50 years ago. This alliance has the distinction of being the longest lasting of all European alliances. The Danes have benefited greatly with the second highest trade income in the world. Their navy is second only to the Dutch and with no real threats from Germany, their Army is focused along the Russian marches and possible expansion into central north america. Speaking of which, New Holland has gone from a focal point to backwater in the Dutch empire. This may change now that Britain has abandoned our alliance and is actively taking steps to challenge our supremacy on the seas.

Muscovy has not formed Russia yet, Lithuania holds a couple of the necessary provinces. They do however have a personal union with Lithuania, so it's just a matter of time. Wallachia subsumed Hungary and is Muscovy's closest ally.

Bohemia has been the Emperor for about 100 years. Within the empire there is a precarious balance between Bohemia and Austria. The Austrians are allied with France, Castille, Portugal and Britain while Bohemia is allied with the Dutch, Danes, Poles and Hessians. Effectively creating two super alliances, the Catholic League and the Protestant Union.

Speaking of the HRE, I never intended to expand my borders in Europe beyond the Picardie-Lorraine line. However, somehow, I ended up leading a P.U. with the Palatinate and inherited them 20 or so years ago. Those provinces have caused nothing but headaches, being Catholic and Rhinelander/Saxon. I've tried selling them but no one wants them. They do provide manpower and that is the only reason they've remained in Dutch hands. This may need to change soon however as it has embroiled me in one too many unwanted war.

It's a sad commentary that in 1670 there's very little left to colonize, islands in the pacific and some parts of north america. Castille/Portugal colonize at an insane pace, most of the Dutch territories in South American and Eastern Africa were formally theirs, as well as Ceylon and the Philippines. Colonization needs to be slowed down.

Full size map below.

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I finally take serious France game with goal to become Emperor and taking Rising Sun achiev... Also Spanish getting wrecked by mighty french army.. Btw do u if i become Rev. France i ll stay Emperor?

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Is the orange in China you or Qing?

Qing. They are split in half by Tibet and a Chinese minor whose name escapes me. Japan started a war against Castille since I posted this. Britain got screwed by their colonials, one attacked a Danish colonial the other a French one. Needless to say, Britain is in deep trouble.

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Byzantium is so fun, westernized in 1511... You can expand in 4 directions.... Once I take Rome I think I will man handle the mamluks again, core some territory and then eat more of the Muhgals, and then I will stab Russia. And then eat Hungary... So many choices.

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Leo Belgicus

You guys see the lion right? If not check spoiler.
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That is nice. :D

What's the mod in your screenshot?

I thought it might as well be time to actually play my own mod ^^

Spend a considerably amount of time on the mod, but had yet to actually play it. So this time I played at the start of the Dutch Republic, instead at 1444 (or the 1356 module)