Neustria: 1520-1545
Number of provinces: 37 (10th/10).
Income: 6th/10.
Army: Weak
Neighbors: Better.
After many sessions being exausted by wars against my neighbours, neustria finally achieved to have some time for itself.
The main goal of neustria became to find agreements with his neighbours to get peace for a long time.
3 agreements had been made during this session. One with Switzerland, which made us annex and took stabhits for annexing his vassals, against some lands in central america (included one gold mine). We also agreed upon borders in central america, where north zapotecs would go for him, while i'll get south zapotecs and mayas.
A second agreement has been made with Roman Empire, who would give me isles in the carribean against some ducats (300).
A third agreement has been made with Delian, which would result in the exchange of the CoT in america he got from Roman empire against Koln and Trier. 2 Cities which are cores for him but not for me.
All those agreements had been made for only one purpose : recovering.
During those years, we decided to keep neutral on all conflicts around us. We have seen Crimea being badly beaten by ingria, byzantines, moors and swiss ganging egypt.
A new area is opening for Neustria, where we need to mainly catch up our neighbours in technology (9th in 1520 and 5th in 1545).
The goal is nomore to become one of the 4 superpower (eire-moors-swiss-egypt), but more about being the 5th.
Neustria 1545-1568
Number of provinces: 48 (8th/9).
Income: 5th/9.
Army: Average
Neighbors: Peaceful
At start of the session, Eire asked me if i wanted a NAP. It already had been 40 years that we had been had peace, and we wanted to continue our reconstruction.
John allowed me to annex britanny, his 100 years' vassal. The effort has been made another time in the colonial policy, trying to create a sphere of coprosperity around cuba and haïti. Having a big and concentrated empire could allow us later to expand easier into Mexico (swiss lands), where are aztec gold mines and CoT, or into Moors lands in Incas. The 5th place was being done, since Bremen had been many times at war against Swiss and United Slavic States (that's the cost of being allied to john
)
But since those 2 are superpowers, fighting them alone would be simple suicide.
My position in the middle of 3 of the 4 superpowers is quite unconfortable, and it's already a miracle that Neustria is still alive in this earth. From now i think that Neustrian independance is quite safe, and i can finally do some real diplomacy without fearing being simplly destroyed by my greedy neighbours.
Neustria 1568-1597
Number of provinces: 53 (7th/9).
Income: 6th/9.
Army: Strong
Neighbors: Business is business.
Even if i had already been at war against John the bulimic many times, i usually consider this session as the real starting one. Real wars and diplomacy against others real powers could be made, which would finally end by letting neustria having a new place in the sun.
The session could have begin really bad, if i didn't agreed with John and Mats to attack Moors some years after the session. Moors were barely at peace during all the game, and were now the 1st country by far in the statistics.
Probably because John had a NAP with Moors ending in 1575, Aladar decided to attack me at start of the session. Our agreement against moors made Mats enter the war on my side. Of course i was totally overwhelmed by moors, but Mats achieved to get a white peace against them.
After some years of preparation, we finally started the war against moors. Mats invaded africa and me his colonies in south america allowed us to get the right warscore pretty fast to allow us to get everything we wanted. Some colonies in america, and a good defense line in north of Spain which will prove useful in the next war.
Some years later, i've seen Moors teching LT, probably to seek for revenge against anyone of us. Having hear that finally Moors were going to fight me, i've decided to forestall the moors and attacked them before they reached their LT. They were very prepared for the war (i've saw a lot of packs of 50-60k going to north of spain after war started)
This decision proved great, since the war was won, mostly thanks to the aragonese mountains. I've gained 3 more colonies and some ducats in the peace (stabhit) deal.
But after that war, i knew that i wouldn't be able to hold this line when Moors will reach his CRT. He's still bigger and stronger than me, and with the breaking of the Mats-John alliance which protected me against him at the start of the session, i entered negociations with Aladar to let him get back his 3 aragonese territory before another attack.
Finally i've been able to get a lot of new colonies in brazil and incas in return of those provinces + a NAP which allowed me to get the CRT myself before it ends.
Yeah i know there is still 100 years to catch up but that's still 3 aars so -3 infla.