• 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.
Thanks! I like your placement of country name better though.
Dude if you conquer the ottomans it will stretch from mali to kamtchaka PLS PLS PLS do it
 
That's an amazing Japan, one that I'm jealous of, but I must ask; where do you get the admin points for this?!?! I find myself struggling to pay the coring cost!
A lot of that stuff are colonies = 0 ADM spent.
Many of the regions he conquered are low base tax = low ADM spent.
Some vassal feeding = DIP spent.
Not upgrading ADM tech if not needed = more spare ADM.

The only ADM intensive region is Ming, and he probably fed the 3 Chinese vassal brothers: Zhou, Shun, Xi.
 
Old British game started four, five months ago. The idea was to directly own every single coastal province in the game, and have English culture in all of them. Bonus was to be the only Catholic country in the game.

LJSpfq9.png

Europe was surprisingly easy to take... Once I reconquered some stuff. Won the Hundred Years' War, took the Iberian islands and allowed allies to take as much of their land as possible, then sold everything and moved to Bermuda (fun fact: the capital has not been moved since, allowing for convenient diplomat travel times). Once that was accomplished, it was a question of reacquiring the Iberian islands, taking back British Isles, and praying the French didn't figure out what was going on.

qpg06mQ.png

The game has now been abandoned, since I have been unable to circumvent colonial nations popping up in South America. It is possible that this could have been avoided if I had colonized the Americas sequentially from top to bottom. In any case, I had intended to finish the game before Art of War, and that is a deadline I can no longer meet given this complication. Back to the drawing board.

NIY1Sv0.png

I am certain that taking the remaining coastal province would not have been an issue, given my previous rate of expansion.

pQgC6AV.png

The primary concern proved to be the culture game. Converting the cultures meant annexing many a nation, which was certainly doable, but still a race against time. The idea to become the only Catholic nation proved to be a fantasy, one which could have become reality had I properly planned the game.

Very embarrassed to not have finished this game, but I figured I may as well post what I had gotten done thus far. I think I have an abandoned Hansa game around as well, but I doubt I'll post that since there have already been so many Hansa empires in the thread.
 
My play through as Poland. I've learnt SO MUCH during this game, considering I am still relatively new to EU4. I think it went well, but I know I could have done way better. Next time I will "reclaim"... "all"... "rebel provinces" <wink, wink> ;).

2j3it8z.jpg

30vne2u.jpg


I have a crap ton of these small colonized isles, it's hard to see them on these pictures though.
 
A lot of that stuff are colonies = 0 ADM spent.
Many of the regions he conquered are low base tax = low ADM spent.
Some vassal feeding = DIP spent.
Not upgrading ADM tech if not needed = more spare ADM.

The only ADM intensive region is Ming, and he probably fed the 3 Chinese vassal brothers: Zhou, Shun, Xi.
What do you mean he fed the Chinese brothers? I get the general concept, but I didn't think someone could vassalize Ming's brothers at their start.
Do you mean to release, conquest half of them, and then vassalize, handing the cores back?
 
What do you mean he fed the Chinese brothers? I get the general concept, but I didn't think someone could vassalize Ming's brothers at their start.
Do you mean to release, conquest half of them, and then vassalize, handing the cores back?
Conquer 3 Chinese provinces, each with 1 core. Release all 3 mini-Mings as your vassals. Fight Ming some more to return their cores.
 
Just wrapping things up before AoW release:

Dp3sq1Q.jpg


Ffful8w.jpg
 
I've been rushing to complete this one in advance of the patch for "The Great Khan" achievement. Unfortunately the achievement didn't trigger when I met the requirements this morning, so I'm at a loss to figure that out.

I got a late start on conquering Russia and the Timurids because I didn't finish westernizing until 1675 due to legitimacy problems (and missed reforming my govt 100 years earlier due to my ruler dying 1 month too early.) I did block Russia's expansion east early on at the Urals, though.

supHB1e.jpg


On this one I did complete the "African Power" achievement. I had Castille in a PU, so all of the Castillan colonies are mine.

ZjSTjr0.jpg


In this game I was experimenting with how ridiculous I could make a Merchant Republic colonial trade empire. I have a monthly surplus of over 300 ducats, and naval force limits of over 400. Prussia is my vassal, and would be a march if this were AoW. My Canadian colony is bordering on great power status. I still have yet to force my way into the Chinese, Japanese, and Thai trade markets. Aztecs are my westernized/Reformed ally.

bc9eYvl.jpg


More screenshots below:

St2gkxO.jpg


EacerFw.jpg


MB6OQlx.jpg
 
Last edited:
Had a highly enjoyable game of pushing the Saracens out of the Holy Land, then changing course and establishing an iron grip on Levantine trade. Slow start — achieved literally nothing other than pillaging the Turks a few times for dosh before I finally managed to get a foothold outside Rhodes by annexing Cyprus in the 1550s.

8CFC807B6A5494D050CA76B9A31B7D9DB0CF1681


Notably, the Hunyadi dynasty at its height ruled Hungary, France, England, and Russia. Corvin Mátyás stronk?
 
Had a highly enjoyable game of pushing the Saracens out of the Holy Land, then changing course and establishing an iron grip on Levantine trade. Slow start — achieved literally nothing other than pillaging the Turks a few times for dosh before I finally managed to get a foothold outside Rhodes by annexing Cyprus in the 1550s.

8CFC807B6A5494D050CA76B9A31B7D9DB0CF1681


Notably, the Hunyadi dynasty at its height ruled Hungary, France, England, and Russia. Corvin Mátyás stronk?

Well done brother, well done. You did a great job.
 
Had a highly enjoyable game of pushing the Saracens out of the Holy Land, then changing course and establishing an iron grip on Levantine trade. Slow start — achieved literally nothing other than pillaging the Turks a few times for dosh before I finally managed to get a foothold outside Rhodes by annexing Cyprus in the 1550s.

8CFC807B6A5494D050CA76B9A31B7D9DB0CF1681


Notably, the Hunyadi dynasty at its height ruled Hungary, France, England, and Russia. Corvin Mátyás stronk?

I'm so looking forward to the ability to form Jerusalem as Cyprus / The Knights. My Knights game was in 1.4 I believe and I still remember it fondly was one of the most fun I've ever done.
 
Poland can into Space … and empire

Here’s my Poland can into space achievement-run finished yesterday, barely 1.5 days before AOW-release:
eu4_map_HLR_1819_08_08_1.png

The game was fun, Poland’s mechanics are definitely not broken and Poland itself is rather strong – I guess even good World-Control-material considering that I stumbled into emperorship and did a lot of role-play and testing of some mechanics and how they play out. Taken seriously and especially not going for all techs at level 32 I could have driven them far, far further.
eu4_1243 - Kopie.png


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Even though there have been some threads during the last few weeks a brief reminder of some of Poland’s peculiarities, which are not given so clearly in the wiki: You get elective monarchy almost at the beginning by event.
Very soon you can enact a decision to get Lithuania under you as PU. (Check decisions for details. If you should lose the option due to bad luck before you can gather enough monarch points, consider re-starting. (And that should be the only re-start, because now your power base is good enough!))
At Admin-level-10 you can decide to form the Commonwealth of Poland & Lithuania. I pushed that decision a bit, because annexing TO took some time due to AE. Afterwards you can try to collect Personal Unions. (I didn’t, but some people suggested that the elected monarchy would be especially good at it.)

Getting out of the elected monarchy is no-where explained properly. (I browsed the event files to be sure, because even forum entries contradicted themselves.) There is an event-chain leading to absolute monarchy, which grants an achievement and is really neat in itself.
First let’s look at elections: There are foreign rulers (average to bad values, but good relations with the winner of elections) and there are local rulers (good values, but bad legitimacy and you have to lower it yourself in order to support them). In order to start the event chain you have to have an incompetent king, so that the nobles can enforce strong concessions on you (Pacta Conventa), which can really hamper you – especially when happening too early. After 1600 another event happens triggering a power struggle – nobles against you. Beating up all rebellions, you become an absolute monarchy. I did not have this Pacta Conventa and thought, I would have broken the game by not doing any of the concession-options of the flavor event, but no.
What you have to do is easy: No concessions ever, keep local ruler ever (--> no Pacta Conventa), after 1600 allow foreigner with at least one stat 0 or 1 (that is bad enough for Pacta Conventa), than the power- struggles will kick in soon. When there is no active rebellion left, a final event makes everything good again and turns your government into absolute monarchy.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


My achievements:
  • One King to Rule!
  • Winged Hussars
  • Aggressive Expander (I usually do tall empires.)
  • The Emperor’s new clothes (I usually do heavy house-rules and mostly republics.)
  • Poland can into Space
  • A Kaiser not just in Name


eu4_1248__FINAL.png
Here are my Ideas:
  • Humanism (7)
  • Aristocracy (7)
  • Diplomacy (7)
  • Religion (7)
  • Quality (7)
  • Trade (7)
  • Administrative (2)
  • Offensive (3)
Humanism is almost a must-have as first idea. Even with it, I had religious turmoil, until the counter-reformation kicked in. However rebellions overall even then have been rather small and manageable throughout the game.
Aristocracy and Quality are good for the Winged-Hussar-achievement and are as well good as sufficient for you anyways. Aristocracy is all-around good and if Pacta Conventa should hit you early due to bad luck, the diplomat is nice, too.
Religion is nice for conversions and for going east and south-east. (The locked war-leader did not work always, but that is becoming obsolete anyways.)
I should have taken Administrative earlier and filled it out completely – perhaps as 3rd and at latest as 6th. For the first 5 or 6 ideas I did not get the feeling, to lack admin-points for coring, though that was probably the case. Most importantly at the end there is a trade-off between coring, admin-efficiency and idea-slots. Had I filled-up Administrative earlier the coring and teching, would have been cheaper especially when it counts.
My general plan was to have two military and two diplomacy ideas including those with the 10%-finishers for Poland-can-into-Space. Trade was more spite and diddling around with inland-trade-effects than necessity. Had I pushed in to the HRE earlier and more coordinatedly, Influence would have come in handy.


Timeline
Apart from-vassal-Brandenburg, my main allies were Austria and Sweden, which I supported for independence. I could keep both for a while as Sweden slowly gobbled up Scandinavia and supported me loyally against Muscovy. At the beginning I was too greedy and had to fight with both Baltic orders and Muscovy in a near permanent coalition. At times Hungary joined and brought France into the fun too, until it became France’s junior-partner and then integrated.
The formation of the Commonwealth was late due to high AE of the TO … and me annexing anybody else did not help either. Muscovy was tough, but having reduced it to two provinces and Siberia, I let them be. Thus they colonized for me with an accepted culture and my power projection stayed high, while their army size was rather small-ish.

The rift between Sweden and me was gradual and I pushed for it after they had outlived their usefulness, i.e. after Muscovy was safely contained and Scandinavia would only grow stronger while siphoning away my trade.
Only then I went slightly east and mostly into the HRE, because I like to fight challenging wars and the hordes started to become mere paper-tigers. Having Austria as ally I could not attack HRE-members directly, but draw them into wars and keep their lands without punishment.
At this time I allied Venice in order to have two potential neighbors for Western-Arms-Trade (Austria & Venice).

The whole HRE thing was entirely uncoordinated – I just grabbed whatever land I could get without increasing the border with Austria too much. I even annex elector repeatedly. Only after 1650 or 1690 I realized that I had a realistic shot at emperor-ship or word-control or both, if I gave up Poland into Space. However since I wanted just that achievement and had hampered myself already repeatedly, I abstained. After all, I had already paid too much in order to weaken the HRE and Austria started to diplo-annex the rest of it.
So when I became emperor, I got a romp-state and guaranteed my re-election by eating up three of the electors and having two of the remaining four as my vassals. The force-limit was of the size of the level-6-army-building in Liege. The last four of the seven reforms were done almost exclusively by adding provinces. I did those only when there were Austria, me and 7 others including 5 being my vassals left. (The last two reforms I did in 1819.)
So the whole HRE-thingy was mostly titular and for achievements, but no vassal-swarm for world-control or so.

Had I been only a bit more planning-ahead or had I not conquered 100 basetax in northern France and 50 more at the Caucasus after 1800 alone, Master of India had been possible. Furthermore a better HRE-handling and no Poland-can-into-Space-achievement could have led to word control. In fact, I believe Poland is very good for that.
However I am a compulsive micro-manager and this was tough enough for me. And while I can appreciate the tricks and moves of others, no WC for me.


Fun-event: Turko-Polish Tension: Basically being a neighbor to the Ottomans and not being cozy with them, showers you repeatedly with man-power.