Idea Choices for Florence --> Tuscany --> Italy?

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but then again is it still worth it [to take plutocratic] since I plan on forming Tuscany once I hit Admin 10 and playing the HRE game for a bit
Of course it is. It's always good to pick pluto: it gives you morale, manpower, loads of trade and cheaper technology. Its policies aren't bad either, no matter if you choose humanist or religious(both will be pretty useful for fulfilling your ambition).
 
Well, it's not that reliable. Aragon usually (in 70% games, I think) ends either crushed or under PU of Castille.
Happens quite reliably in my games. It may be related to me actively helping France to eat Castile, though.
 
Influence will give you less ae, less diplo annexation costfor vassals, and admin will give you -coring cost and less maintenance for mercs.

As Florence is in end node, you can conquer genoa trade node.

One thing worth mentioning: wait to conquer north italy until shadow kingdom fires. Go for genoa and provence (great nations to vassalise or to expand coring range from with remote port provinces), and open up fronts in France/iberia/black sea/ottomans thanks to invasions of genoa and provence.

Why do i say this? Because this style of campaign justifies taking religious as SECOND idea group, or even FIRST. And then go for italy provinces after reformation, and use holy war on all heretics that pop in italy!!

But a 'normal' italy campaign would benefir from influence and admin best I think..
Actually Florence is better joining the reformation as soon as possible. Rivalry with the papacy on day 0, high aggressive expansion summed with the current excommunication trend of AIs, conquest of Rome penalities all scream of leaving catholicism as soon as possible. It's not like Florence will gain any sensible amount of papal influence for decades anyway.

Of course religious still works since you can go conquest happy on catholics.
 
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Rivalry with the papacy on day 0
You are right, however you need to outperform the Papal State in the first decade (release Urbino and Avignon while conquering everything else, except Roma).
They will be frightened of you, and eventually give you loads of Papal Influence, despite you have their cores.
And taking Roma is clearly a disaster for Catholics early on (unless you have lucky alliances).


then again is it still worth it since I plan on forming Tuscany once I hit Admin 10 and playing the HRE game for a bit
Well, I have just console-checked, forming Tuscany does not change Plutocratic Ideas into Aristocratic (like it was some time ago I guess) ;)
So, you will definitely keep these bonuses.
 
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You are right, however you need to outperform the Papal State in the first decade (release Urbino and Avignon while conquering everything else, except Roma).
They will be frightened of you, and eventually give you loads of Papal Influence, despite you have their cores.
And taking Roma is clearly a disaster for Catholics early on (unless you have lucky alliances)
I find it very hard to start the game offensively as Florence in 1.17. You get a basically gauranteed excommunication during the first years due to Papal State rivalry. That is going to slow down your starting game since every Catholic hates you and your neighbourms have an automatic casus belli against you while you are still weak and vulnerable.

Later on all your conquests in Italy are going to produce a lot of aggressive expansion. And aggressive expansion is going to make you a primary target to excommunication anyway if you are still bordering the Papal State. And every time you get excommunicated you quickly lose (-10 yearly papal influence modifier) all your papal influence and turn the papal state hostile or outraged (because -200 relationship with theocracies while excommunicated). You then play losing frequently any catholic benefit, and also have to live with an hefty relationship penality with all the catholic nations (a relationship penality that would be lower if you were an heretic instead). You are somewhat saved by starting as a republic and that electing a new leader cancel the excommunication, but eventually you are going to be excommunicated again anyway.
Oh and if you somehow pull off a miracle and win the curia election you can't lift excommunication from yourself (tough you can then elect a new leader and be fine until the death of the new pope).
You can stop this maddnes if the Papal State stops being your neighborn, but that means conquering Rome.

You are better converting to protestant and say goodbye forever to Catholicism as soon as possible.
 
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You get a basically gauranteed excommunication during the first years due to Papal State rivalry.
Well, it is not that bad. Anyone can be Papal Controller at start (as I remember), and Pope will excommunicate Florence only if he is the controller.
Moreover, if you have 50+ relations with current Papal Controller, he will eventually lift any excommunication (IDK what it depends on, but seems similar to leaving Coalition).

Yesterday, for fun, I managed to take 2 provinces, release Urbino, left Avignon for attacking Provence, and Romagna for Ferrara.
One war with Ferrara (as co-beligerent, ofc--to core HRE provinces while at war), and Pope (left with Roma only) quickly turned from Rival attitude to frightened :) and I enjoyed Italian +2 papal influence bonus :p
Then I got destroyed by double anti-France war (I can't say no to defense calls), but that's another story :D

I am also not sure whether Pope can excommunicate during his war, or whether he can excommunicate two countries in a short period of time.
 
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had a question for all.

i'm currently playing a florence game. it's currently the 1550s, and i want to hit the "form italy" decision. i have pretty much all of northern italy EXCEPT for milan, held by genoa. problem is, france has the "annex genoa" mission, and if i annex/vassalize genoa, France will almost immediately break the alliance despite me having 100+ relations with them. then they immediately become hostile.

i'd like to keep France as an ally just so i have a bat to wield against Castile and Hungary, whom are my rivals. Castile/Aragon has a PU with Naples, so if I go south I will certainly need France's help.

what should i do, just let France swallow up Milan? we're both in seperate wars against Genoa so if I peace out France will immediately seize Milan.

form Italy or keep France as an ally? if I form Italy, I can get an alliance with Poland+Lithuania but that doesn't seem like a good trade off.
 
is it their vital terrritory? assuming so, if they took the mission.. Does france get claims on entire milan if so?

if so, then they will break alliance for sure if you take milan.

you might be able to start favour wars and stall their effort for the mission, and at some point it will fail. maybe he'll shift his vital territory elsewhere then.
 
what should i do, just let France swallow up Milan?

Don't. If it annexes Milan, your alliance is forfeit anyway, because it'll start marking italian lands as "vital interest".
If you have enough favors, you could call them in war against Castile as soon as you annex Milan, then give them lots of lands in peace and buy trust with favors earned. With high enough trust your alliance is safe.
Otherwise, get another ally. Poland-Lithuania may be worse, but it'll be enough; as Italy, you're quite the strong power yourself.
 
i'd like to keep France as an ally
1) Have a diplomat advisor (+1 reputation).
2) Build relations with your ally-France to maximum, offer them military access, and maintain relations even if they are at maximum.
3) Make allies with French allies, sometimes it is vital.
4) Increase Trust at least to 60.
5) Get a better military technology (especially with tactics advantage); you may even want to pay +30-50% cost for being 'before time'
6) Declare war to Genoa's ally, and make Genoa co-beligerent. Annex Milan and core it during war. Do that alone, and don't call France.
7) After war, don't decrease maintenance of your troops/
8) Pray for the French monarch to die.

OR simply screw France, and destroy it staying in the mountains.
 
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With high enough trust your alliance is safe.

sorry to say, but that is simply NOT true.

80+ trust only prevents alliance breaking due to taking YOU as a rival.

It won't prevent 'France desires your provinces for -200+ relation penalty' alliance breaking, if they got militaristic ruler that borders your nation.

And it won't prevent France from getting same modifier if you take land that is claimed by them/vital territory.

You can get away with taking few vital territory that isn't claimed by them usually (gives small 'wants your provinces' malus to opinion but keeps alliance intact if you can keep positive opinion), but you might need a NON-militaristic ruler in France for this.
 
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sorry to say, but that is simply NOT true.

80+ trust only prevents alliance breaking due to taking YOU as a rival.

It won't prevent 'France desires your provinces for -200+ relation penalty' alliance breaking, if they got militaristic ruler that borders your nation.

And it won't prevent France from getting same modifier if you take land that is claimed by them/vital territory.

You can get away with taking few vital territory that isn't claimed by them usually (gives small 'wants your provinces' malus to opinion but keeps alliance intact if you can keep positive opinion), but you might need a NON-militaristic ruler in France for this.
Even with 100 trust and relations maxed? I thought those modifiers could keep alliance from breaking over the "wants your provinces" penalty.
More reasons not to let it conquer Milan, then: with France interested in Italy it would be impossible anyway to mantain an alliance relationship.
 
Even with 100 trust and relations maxed
OFFTOPIC: 100 Trust is not a panacea. Your 100-trust ally will break alliance if you join another side of the Religious Leagues.
 
Playing as Florence but with meiou and taxes. The influence idea is not an option so I was wondering what would its equivalent be?
 
I did haha. Where would the correct forum to post this be?
 
Ok thank you! I thought there was a forum for it perhaps considering the pages upon pages for treads dotted throughout the website! It would have taken hours to find it
 
Ok thank you! I thought there was a forum for it perhaps considering the pages upon pages for treads dotted throughout the website! It would have taken hours to find it

M+T does have its own forum. I would advise you to post there. Look in the modding forum and I believe there is a subforum for M+T.