• We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I just finished my Burgundy->Netherlands campaign, and I can honestly say that it's the one I'm the most proud of!

Since I wanted to form the Netherlands and not lose territory to France, I decided to annex France, which I managed to do before 1500, which was helped greatly by France actually going bankrupt! After France died, I diplovassalized and annexed the small nations in the North. The South was controlled by Bourbonnais, then Aragon, and then (due to rebels) by Toulouse. I diplovassalized Toulouse, but I didn't annex them or ever relieve England of Gascogne because it would make my borders look ugly.

My main goal was to own every single trade company province, plus some more provinces to make borders nice (including parts of Africa, South Korea, Japan, India, and Oceania). Originally, I wasn't going to go for the Pacific islands, but apparently, there are a couple of islands that are trade company provinces, so I had to take those and thus, to make the "borders" nice, I decided to take every Pacific island (except the Galapagos).

Thanks to the Holy War and Overseas Expansion CB's, conquering Africa and Asia was not too tricky, once I figured out how to avoid fighting the Ottomans. The Europeans, especially Britain, were more annoying since I had to land on islands and Britain was allied with the fully united HRE (I tried to ally the HRE multiple times, but the alliance always broke when the royal marriage did), but I managed to avoid fighting the HRE by DOWing Brittany with the warleader-locking Heresy CB while they were allied with Britain. Unfortunately, when Russia managed to somehow walk through my provinces to attack China, I decided I had to use the console to prevent the Russians from taking Chinese provinces, and once that can of worms was opened, I also used the console to make Castile accept a peace giving up all their Oceanic territory, even though they were winning battles in Europe (I should have attacked them with the HRE's help when I had the chance...) In any case, I managed to finally annex Ming in 1798, and I converted their last province (achieving religious unity) around 1805.

My other goal was to have the maximum number of merchants without being a merchant republic, which is 23. I placed some of them in Western Europe, London, Timbuktu, Kashmir, and Sevilla, in addition to nodes I completely dominated. With over 1000 in naval force limits, I was able to spam light ships. I initially privateered Sevilla, but I got annoyed with the frequent event that deducted 15% of my trade income, so I just collected trade from there instead.

I ended in 1807 partially because I had achieved all my goals (including my last goal of getting over 1,000 trade income), but also because for some reason, my save always crashed once I took ADM tech 30.

Here's a map of Europe: The borders in the West are nice, except for Gascogne and the Papal State (who I allied).
eu4_1379.jpg


I colonized every African province I could, and I was rewarded with a nice big "Netherlands" on the map! I would have preferred Ethiopia to annex Funj, but they were both Ottoman protectorates, so that wasn't going to happen. I managed to grab Yemen and Oman before the Ottomans got there. I considered taking Mecca as well, but it turned out I didn't need the extra missionary.
eu4_1380.jpg


Asia was the continent I looked the most forward to seeing my name over, but I was slightly disappointed that my country's name wasn't bigger...
eu4_1381.jpg


As I said, I colonized/conquered all of Oceania, and I named my colonial nation the only logical name.
eu4_1382.jpg


Here are the Americas. I forced Brittany out of Europe. It had a giant colonial nation in Mexico, which became independent but remained allied with Brittany. The Iberians took surprisingly long to colonize Brazil, and Castile went for Canada instead. Sadly, one province in Ohio was left uncolonized at the "end" of the game.
eu4_1406.jpg

eu4_1407.jpg


As I implied earlier, I converted every single province I own, so the Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Africans, and Southeast Asians are now good Catholics! Interestingly, the only 3 Protestant nations are Scandinavia, Ireland, and Brittany. Also, I have wiped out every single Eastern religion, and so only Christians, Muslims, and Pagans remain, and the latter only exist in North America.
eu4_1383.jpg

eu4_map_NED_1807_08_09_2.jpg


Here's my budget screen, which apparently shows how much base tax you have (over 2,000, in my case!). Unfortunately, most of that tax is lost to trade companies.
eu4_1384.jpg


I managed to break 1,200 trade income, surpassing my goal of 1,000. I'd like to have broken Myrten's "records" here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...&p=17491561&viewfull=1#post17491561...perhaps if I had spent some more points to build manufactories in China?
eu4_1393.jpg


I was able to get tech 31 in all categories(I did ADM 30 and 31 together to get ADM 31 without a CTD) despite coring over half the world's population. This is because of National Focus and also the awesomeness of Dutch Republics: not only did I get to choose the higher ADM between 2 leaders each election, but I could also influence whether the guy I picked ruled for life or for only 4 years! Thus, even while coring and taking 3 ADM ideas IN A ROW, I usually had a surplus of ADM points!
eu4_1386.jpg


Here are the ideas I picked. Religious was critical for the Holy War CB against Africans and also for converting provinces to kill the revolt risk. Quantity was also crucial for me to be able to support an army large enough to both conquer Asian and to suppress the resulting rebels. Unfortunately, since I didn't take Offensive, Defensive, or Quantity, my troops were crap compared to about any other major European power, which is why I needed overwhelming numbers.
eu4_1387.jpg


Here are my trade companies, in all their glory! One of the really nice things about them is that apparently, they frequently trigger events that give you free forts in their provinces. However, they also have events that claim neighboring provinces (even if those provinces are not trade company provinces), which is nice unless you don't take those provinces immediately, since then you'll lose power points or trade power or gain revolt risk.
eu4_1394.jpg


When I ended, I had the largest army and the largest navy, but usually the HRE had a much larger army. For some reason, every time the HRE went to war, it literally lost all its manpower and at least half of its troops. My ideas gave my an insanely high naval force limit, but since spamming ships is annoying, I didn't bother spamming more light ships to London or Sevilla or Lubeck.
eu4_1401.jpg

eu4_1402.jpg


And here's the final world map!
eu4_map_NED_1807_08_09_1.jpg
 
Not as impressive as what others have managed to do, but I think this still is a reasonable achievement (Difficulty normal, lucky nations historical, no bonuses)
HjHNDc5.jpg

Also, dat Crimean khan that fought in the Crimean War for Independence against Poland.
 
Did you have any major wars against France, or did you just avoid them? Also, is that Teutonic Order north of Ottomans?

Both of our nations had rulers of the same dynasty so relations where pretty high for the most part until about the late 16 to 1700s then i declared some colonial wars and managed to take some provinces but it was costly ,the war in the Americas was a victory since i seized their colonial territories i didn't have to siege their provinces so that was quick and easy but the war in Europe was a problem. France had a multi front war, it was me on the west ad Austria on the east i declared war towards the end of Frances war with Austria(which was a big mistake) so my army was winning at first then came a huge stack of forces and my armies were eventually wiped which led to mercenaries being recruited but that didnt help. I got the provinces i wanted in the Americas but ended up releasing Portugal which i did annex them again later and released another vassal(dont remember who though its been a while). And i do believe it is the Teutonic Order.
 
Both of our nations had rulers of the same dynasty so relations where pretty high for the most part until about the late 16 to 1700s then i declared some colonial wars and managed to take some provinces but it was costly ,the war in the Americas was a victory since i seized their colonial territories i didn't have to siege their provinces so that was quick and easy but the war in Europe was a problem. France had a multi front war, it was me on the west ad Austria on the east i declared war towards the end of Frances war with Austria(which was a big mistake) so my army was winning at first then came a huge stack of forces and my armies were eventually wiped which led to mercenaries being recruited but that didnt help. I got the provinces i wanted in the Americas but ended up releasing Portugal which i did annex them again later and released another vassal(dont remember who though its been a while). And i do believe it is the Teutonic Order.

How did you take provinces and release Portugal at the same time?
 
How did you take provinces and release Portugal at the same time?

Okay so the provinces i wanted were being colonized by France so you have the option to seize colonies at the cost of mil power as you know. By seizing the colonies i think it doesn't add to warscore any longer. Although i got the areas i wanted the war still raged on. It was a victory in the sense i completed my personal goals but ultimately a defeat since my armies were crushed in Europe. Since the war with France still raged on they eventually started beating me where i had a negative warscore so i made tons of peace offers and so i released Portugal and another vassal to save me from getting other territories taken. Mind you this was an ironman game so i was desperate not to lose eastern Spain territories
 
Okay so the provinces i wanted were being colonized by France so you have the option to seize colonies at the cost of mil power as you know. By seizing the colonies i think it doesn't add to warscore any longer. Although i got the areas i wanted the war still raged on. It was a victory in the sense i completed my personal goals but ultimately a defeat since my armies were crushed in Europe. Since the war with France still raged on they eventually started beating me where i had a negative warscore so i made tons of peace offers and so i released Portugal and another vassal to save me from getting other territories taken. Mind you this was an ironman game so i was desperate not to lose eastern Spain territories

Ah, I see.
 
jnwMXrl.jpg


Sunset Invasion, Napoleon style.

After the obligatory waiting period, I fought the Iberians solo at first to get a foothold in Europe, then allied the Netherlands, Austria and Brandenburg to take down France, eventually betraying the Netherlands in order to get Amsterdam. Around 1800, I lost my alliances with Brandenburg and Austria as well, and everyone joined a coalition against me, but thanks to Russia taking war leader, I was able to go on a Napoleonic spree and vassalize the Dutch and the north Italians (south Italy joined peacefully). The last war was for Gelre against everyone else, lasting from Jan. 1819 to Sep. 1820. GB got a free pass thanks to going Protestant and me not going Religious.

Good times! If you're itching to give the Aztecs a go, the main tricks are to 1) prevent colonizers from landing troops with lots of carracks, and 2) get Castilian/Portuguese culture accepted, then steal and conquer their colonies to supercharge your growth. Stack military ideas like there's no tomorrow.
 
Last edited:
C1hLqcA.jpg


Doing really well in this Poland/Commonwealth run. I managed to crush Muscovy, and Crimea and Sweden vultured them pretty hard too. Religious unity is above 100%, I've got humanism, offensive ideas, and diplomatic ideas and am westernized. Pretty poised to start making incursions into the HRE and start vassalizing electors. Somehow the Ottmans were losing to Crimea and Qara Qoyunlu (the latter controls most of the Arabian lands). Burgundy also made it past 1500 without losing their king, so that slowed France down quite a bit, and will make Austria much weaker than usual.

Also the Byzantines managed to break free at one point and had Constantinople and Achea (I fed them some cores too), but I couldn't quite keep them strong enough for them to hold it. But the Ottoman's capital isn't there anymore, so I can capture it fairly soon.
 
Finished my game from Extended Timeline Mod. Game was fun. Was started in 2014, was completed in 2114. 100 years gameplay of Present Day. I achieved my goal at 2070-2080, then I stopped expanding till 2114.
I vassalized my vassals for protecting them, not for power show.

Allies: Russia, Korea, Japan
Vassals: Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Yarkand, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Finland, Belarus, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan
Rivals: India, Germany, China

Stayed in Secular.

28 July 2026
eu4_38.png

21 March 2034
eu4_39.png
10 October 2037
eu4_40.png
16 May 2049
eu4_41.png

28 November 2053
eu4_42.png
31 December 2055
eu4_43.png
7 July 2064
eu4_44.png

29 July 2071
eu4_45.png
9 April 2074
eu4_46.png
5 August 2074
eu4_47.png

16 November 2090
eu4_50.png
30 August 2114
eu4_53.png

Final Diplomatic Map
eu4_54.png

Diplomatic Map at 28 July 2026 (China was my ally but something happened and they added me as rival) (Okay, they remembered Xiong-nu, lol)
eu4_36.png
Final Religious Map
eu4_55.png

Final Political Map of World
eu4_map_TKY_2114_08_30_1.png

Final Diplomatic Map of World
eu4_map_TKY_2114_08_30_2.png

Armies
eu4_49.png
Navies
eu4_56.png
Economy
eu4_48.png
Trade Nodes
eu4_57.png
Subjects Page
eu4_362.png
Military Page
eu4_382.png
Stability and Expansion Page
eu4_392.png

I was want to make an AAR but my English isn't super powerful for making an AAR and that time thing.
 
Last edited:
This is my German mainland trading empire! Started as Hansa with a few house rules:

- To not start a war if 2 or more nations are in a coalition versus me.
- To keep overextension less than 100%
- Keep my borders pretty
- EDIT: Also forgot to mention that the most important rule was never to change the Merchant Republic government form :D

Muscovy was my ally since the start and we never ever rejected a call to arms to each other. Here are the results:

Europe:
Sj0dMzI.jpg


Asia:
bSMDl5U.jpg


End Screen:
lNQMagU.jpg
 
Last edited: