Alongside my AAR games, I like to play games where I don't need to take notes all the time. Here's a brief summary of a recent one, as England.
England declared war on Scotland in 1492, having first loaded an army onto ships and stationed it off the coast of the Highlands. When war was declared, the army swept down through the Scottish mainland (reinforced by others ferried round the Scottish blockade in the Marches. When Scotland was annexed in 1495, most of their army came with it. I held back for some years from other foreign adventures, and though I supported Spain in her frequent wars, I did so morally rather than physically. Meanwhile, I was disbursing 6 random colonists to best effect, in Isle Royale, a couple of North American provinces, and in the gold-producing province of Jalisco, which I got to before the Spanish. Once the Spanish arrived in the vicinity of Jalisco, it was time to switch to Protestant (I remained Protestant all game), to prevent the Tordesillas effect.
Soon after turning Prod, Spain (thanks to hefty bribery) allowed me back into her alliance, just in time for the first Franco-Spanish war (which came later than usual in this game). I toyed with allowing the French to take Calais, but my pride got the better of me, and my boys went postal in northern France, ending up with Caux and Picardie. Spain signed a white peace later on. Incidentally (and this seems to be a pattern in my games) I protected my colonial adventures in America by being allied to Spain for the entire game bar a couple of years here and there.
I truly bound myself in as a European power in the mid-1500s when I took Friesen from Cologne (who had taken it from Spain in an earlier war). That gave me a toothing-stone in Germany, whereby I was able to diplo-annex Hannover, Hesse and Kleves, before forcibly taking Baden and Cologne from France. My self-set goal of uniting Germany under England's rule was never fully achieved, although I did later manage to annex the Hansa, who had earlier taken Western Prussia from Poland. Right at the end of the game, in two years, Venice, Hungary and Bohemia were all diplo-annexed, leaving me as easily the predominant power in Central Europe.
The French were a weak colonising force in this game, and I'm not sure why, since their power in Central Europe was strong (we partitioned western Germany between us). Perhaps they spent their money on armies rather than colonies. Either way, I had North America north of Texas to myself (bar Florida [SPA], the Baffin Bay area [Knights and DEN], and a Chinese colony (yes) in Olympia.
Spain controlled central and South America as you'd imagine. Poland managed to cut Russia off from a port for some time, meaning that the Russians never colonised the Pacific Coast. I reached the Pacific coast first, in the late 1730s, from my strong base at Mekong. Australia and NZ were both English, although I left the Victorians with some work to do in India. Portugal were strong in the Indonesian islands, but the Netherlands were nowhere to be seen. South Africa was English, the rest Portugese and French.
I'll post some screenshots soon, but a few vignettes:
* Several wars with Russia as our colonies in the far east met up in about 1760. Level 6 fortifications in the deserted wastelands of Siberia put a stop to their rampaging armies of 2,000.
* Chaos in the Rhine Valley: Burgundy declared independence, including Franche-Comte, Lorraine and Alsace (revolting from French rule), Luxembourg, Hainault and Flanders. I took the opportunity of the call-to-arms from Spain to grab Flanders for myself, but left the rest alone as a counterweight to France's advance into Germany. Thirty years later, and the whole lot had been inherited by Venice! So Venice has this long string of territory (having earlier annexed Milan), stretching from the Med to the North Sea, interrupted only by Switzerland. It then 'committed suicide' by refusing to enter my alliance (even though it was my vassal), and losing all but one of its Burgundian provinces in constant defensive wars with France.
Zagloba
England declared war on Scotland in 1492, having first loaded an army onto ships and stationed it off the coast of the Highlands. When war was declared, the army swept down through the Scottish mainland (reinforced by others ferried round the Scottish blockade in the Marches. When Scotland was annexed in 1495, most of their army came with it. I held back for some years from other foreign adventures, and though I supported Spain in her frequent wars, I did so morally rather than physically. Meanwhile, I was disbursing 6 random colonists to best effect, in Isle Royale, a couple of North American provinces, and in the gold-producing province of Jalisco, which I got to before the Spanish. Once the Spanish arrived in the vicinity of Jalisco, it was time to switch to Protestant (I remained Protestant all game), to prevent the Tordesillas effect.
Soon after turning Prod, Spain (thanks to hefty bribery) allowed me back into her alliance, just in time for the first Franco-Spanish war (which came later than usual in this game). I toyed with allowing the French to take Calais, but my pride got the better of me, and my boys went postal in northern France, ending up with Caux and Picardie. Spain signed a white peace later on. Incidentally (and this seems to be a pattern in my games) I protected my colonial adventures in America by being allied to Spain for the entire game bar a couple of years here and there.
I truly bound myself in as a European power in the mid-1500s when I took Friesen from Cologne (who had taken it from Spain in an earlier war). That gave me a toothing-stone in Germany, whereby I was able to diplo-annex Hannover, Hesse and Kleves, before forcibly taking Baden and Cologne from France. My self-set goal of uniting Germany under England's rule was never fully achieved, although I did later manage to annex the Hansa, who had earlier taken Western Prussia from Poland. Right at the end of the game, in two years, Venice, Hungary and Bohemia were all diplo-annexed, leaving me as easily the predominant power in Central Europe.
The French were a weak colonising force in this game, and I'm not sure why, since their power in Central Europe was strong (we partitioned western Germany between us). Perhaps they spent their money on armies rather than colonies. Either way, I had North America north of Texas to myself (bar Florida [SPA], the Baffin Bay area [Knights and DEN], and a Chinese colony (yes) in Olympia.
Spain controlled central and South America as you'd imagine. Poland managed to cut Russia off from a port for some time, meaning that the Russians never colonised the Pacific Coast. I reached the Pacific coast first, in the late 1730s, from my strong base at Mekong. Australia and NZ were both English, although I left the Victorians with some work to do in India. Portugal were strong in the Indonesian islands, but the Netherlands were nowhere to be seen. South Africa was English, the rest Portugese and French.
I'll post some screenshots soon, but a few vignettes:
* Several wars with Russia as our colonies in the far east met up in about 1760. Level 6 fortifications in the deserted wastelands of Siberia put a stop to their rampaging armies of 2,000.
* Chaos in the Rhine Valley: Burgundy declared independence, including Franche-Comte, Lorraine and Alsace (revolting from French rule), Luxembourg, Hainault and Flanders. I took the opportunity of the call-to-arms from Spain to grab Flanders for myself, but left the rest alone as a counterweight to France's advance into Germany. Thirty years later, and the whole lot had been inherited by Venice! So Venice has this long string of territory (having earlier annexed Milan), stretching from the Med to the North Sea, interrupted only by Switzerland. It then 'committed suicide' by refusing to enter my alliance (even though it was my vassal), and losing all but one of its Burgundian provinces in constant defensive wars with France.
Zagloba
