I'm playing Portugal, vanilla 'New world' 1492 scenario getting a handle on game mechanics. I set treasury slider almost 30% to fund Brazil colonization, and have a nice profitable setup developing. I dishonored starting alliance with England because false start playthrus always ended up with me broke going to war that early. Now I've read about 'draining the Incan's coffers', and tried that in earlier playthru, just ended up with a landlocked province with a small army parked, so this playthru I've made friendly and opened their COT while focusing on developing colonies. So I've got a group of colonies, a nice fleet, first Shipyard in Lisboa and first barracks in Porto, and in the black with finances neck deep in colonies and opening foreign COT's thru diplomacy.
By this time in Europe, it's 1504 and Castile has finally shook loose of Aragon and set sights on Navarro and I was flush with cash although remember my tech is hampered by my treasury settings, and with no land action I have 0 land tradition. I get a little cocky thinking I could make things up with cash flow, and start looking to entertain myself in Europe. I begin to break ties with Arag. and buddy up with Cast., just as France makes a surprise move and quickly annexes Navarro. I'm allied up with Cast. to go along for the European action ride, so now we're at war with France. Austria comes in on Frances side, Aragon breaks treaty with France and sits things out, so I start cranking up troops in my first Barracks. France spills into Burgos from Navarre right off the bat so I enter Castile with my 12k guys, had just got cannon tech so had what I thought was a fairly reasonable force. Things went downhill fast.
My army got spanked so fast it wasn't funny, Castile's stack got obliterated, and then a horde of French, Austrian, burgoundian, and other 1 province dark side allies pour in like a dam breaking. The remains of my army couldn't even make it back to Portugal and then to top it off, my fleet of caravels gets slapped back into port off Castile's northern shores.
My navy at least, I thought would do well, but they stood up from that point only to lesser numbers and are mostly in port repairing. French/allied stacks between 15-45k have now captured forts across northern Castile, besieging most of the rest, and have reached me in Portugal, and I barely put together another 14k stack only to get insta-spanked again. I estimate around 100k+ Dark Side forces between Castile and I, with more OTW, and we are absolutely helpless beyond my slipping fleet out after stragglers and running silly spy missions out of spite.
How did France become an absolute monster that would put Napolean to shame in 1504 and what could I do (besides whatever they want me to) to salvage this playthrough as a learning experience?
By this time in Europe, it's 1504 and Castile has finally shook loose of Aragon and set sights on Navarro and I was flush with cash although remember my tech is hampered by my treasury settings, and with no land action I have 0 land tradition. I get a little cocky thinking I could make things up with cash flow, and start looking to entertain myself in Europe. I begin to break ties with Arag. and buddy up with Cast., just as France makes a surprise move and quickly annexes Navarro. I'm allied up with Cast. to go along for the European action ride, so now we're at war with France. Austria comes in on Frances side, Aragon breaks treaty with France and sits things out, so I start cranking up troops in my first Barracks. France spills into Burgos from Navarre right off the bat so I enter Castile with my 12k guys, had just got cannon tech so had what I thought was a fairly reasonable force. Things went downhill fast.
My army got spanked so fast it wasn't funny, Castile's stack got obliterated, and then a horde of French, Austrian, burgoundian, and other 1 province dark side allies pour in like a dam breaking. The remains of my army couldn't even make it back to Portugal and then to top it off, my fleet of caravels gets slapped back into port off Castile's northern shores.
My navy at least, I thought would do well, but they stood up from that point only to lesser numbers and are mostly in port repairing. French/allied stacks between 15-45k have now captured forts across northern Castile, besieging most of the rest, and have reached me in Portugal, and I barely put together another 14k stack only to get insta-spanked again. I estimate around 100k+ Dark Side forces between Castile and I, with more OTW, and we are absolutely helpless beyond my slipping fleet out after stragglers and running silly spy missions out of spite.
How did France become an absolute monster that would put Napolean to shame in 1504 and what could I do (besides whatever they want me to) to salvage this playthrough as a learning experience?