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1668-1669 : War with Poland, Portugal, Ming and Songhai

In September 1668, therefore, war is declared on Poland, Portugal and Ming.
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First Savoy's troops are routed.
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Granada is quickly peaced. Portugal's colony in Mandam disappears by the time our army gets there.
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Portugal's army catches us in Alentejo without general, but is routed.
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Meanwhile Venice spreads from West to East.
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Savoy is peaced - they pay 625 ducats. We gain a core on Wasuju, and therefore declare war on Songhai.
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Riga and Crimea are whitepeaced. The Portuguese colony in Udskoye is seized.
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We are at war with Polotsk and somewhat outnumbered in that theatre, but the first battle is won.
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But the second battle in this theatre is lost.
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By September 1669, though, we have occupied all the provinces we want to grab. After expanding our sphere of influence, we peace Poland and get the province Somogy .
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Songhai has to cede Wasuju.
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Ming cedes Xuan Fu.
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And Portugal doesn't cede anything, since there are no colonies left to grab - we used the colonialism casus belli. But still, it is good for prestige.
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Anyway, the mission is fulfilled and the next mission will be to vassalize Riga. We have a border with them - in India !. Otherwise, they own Estland and Livland.
This will have to wait, since we have just peaced them. Truce will expire in 1674.
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But we are still at war with Polotsk, Tripol and the Hordes. Diplomatic maps in September 1669.
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And a world map of our provinces, including vassals.
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1669-1673: War with Muscowy, the Hansa, Great Britain and Ayutthaya (1)

The war with Polotsk goes on. We defeat them in Cherkassk.
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But we don't really have a stake in this war. We peace them in November 1669.
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We get the event "Land Tradition Scorned" (-20 army tradition, +10 navy tradition) and therefore recruit a couple of generals before accepting.
We build a War College in Treviso (+1 army tradition yearly), a town where we are building army buildings.
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As of now, we have specialized most Italian towns. For instance, Verona and Brescia have trade buildings, Venice and Liguria have production buildings, Görz and Modena have navy buildings. In DW you can build lvl 5 and lvl 6 buildings in a town only in one of the tiers Government, Army, Navy, Production and Trade.
In June 1670, we get a core on Perm (Muscowy).
Technologically, we are still in the green.
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We finance "Commedia dell'arte". In February 1671, Dzungaria defects to us, which is important, since there is a COT there.
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Now "Venice" looks even nicer.
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In October 1671, I can change national focus. I move it to Eora, Australia, and I build a COT there. Malacca can use a split.
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In January 1672, both WE and infamy are low. It is high time to start a new war. Muscowy, Great Britain and the Hansa are our victims. Muscowy has a core we need, The Hansa has a COT and we want to vassalize them, Great Britain is at war with the Hansa and we don't like the way it is expanding in the former HRE. Spain and Mecklemburg join the war as well.
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We had positioned our army next to Lübeck and we quickly destroy their army. The siege can begin.
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The British are defeted in Dresden. Brandenburg is not our ally (we have military access though) but a British Brandenburg is something we don't want.
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In Meissen, we rout the British army.
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But oops, what happened here ? In Russia, I didn't position my armies well and reinforcements did not come in time. Anyway, we are at war with Ayutthaya as well.
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We get quickly a revenge - now we will invade Mother Russia.
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We rout the Russians in Pensa, but now we are going to get attrition. We can't help it, they have fairly big stacks.
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In May 1672, we vassalize the Hansa, who in the meantime has lost Holstein to Saxe-Lauenburg. So we control another COT - the COT of our nemesis. Infamy-wise, it would have been more efficient to annex it and then release it, but we don't want Lübeck to lose all of its buildings.
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Meanwhile, Great Britain is blockaded and loses its fleet. We are advancing against the Ayutthaya as well - we declared war on them to give our Asian troops something to do.
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In Russia, in July 1672, we destroy Muscowy's second stack. The third one is seiging Murom, who is our ally.
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The third stack is defeated in November 1672 and then routed in Ryazan.
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Meanwhile, we peace the Oirat Horde - we might have to release vassals or sell provinces. And we need to deal with overextension. Altai had defected to us as well.
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We have also invaded Great Britain and in February 1673, we win an engagement in Marches.
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You are conquering a lot in the world, but shouldn't you try to reannex your vassels?
You do get overextention, but I think that after some years you will always have overextension because of the other provinces you own.
 
You are conquering a lot in the world, but shouldn't you try to reannex your vassels?
You do get overextention, but I think that after some years you will always have overextension because of the other provinces you own.

Well, if I had a ruler with decent administrative skills, I would not have overextension. I will probably annex just vassals who own provinces that I have a core on - otherwise, I might release other vassals instead (Bihar for sure, and possibly Iraq - I am just waiting for their provinces to become Catholic).
 
1673-1675 : War with Great Britain, Muscowy, Ayutthaya and Hansa (2). Forming Italy.

We are advancing on the Ayutthaya front as well.
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In April 1673, after defeating the British a second time, we get a new "Duce", who has also low administrative skills. Overextension stays.
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Our WE is meanwhile very high and therefore, in June 1673, we decide to finish the wars. After expanding our sphere of influence, we peace Muscowy. They cede Perm, on which we had a core.
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In Great Britain, after some pingponging, we rout the British main stack.
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Our armies have retreated and we peace the Ayutthaya. They just have to cede a province, Ligore, and pay 550 ducats. Our war score was not very high.
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But we do have a high war score with Great Britain. They cede Essex, Norfolk, Stade and Oxfordshire, although Stade will belong to Brunswick, who has a core on it. We get two universities and these new provinces fit our long-term plans - we are going to expand in this area since our next targets will be the COTs in Antwerpen and Artois. Flanders will be a great prize - they own a Cot, one university and two manufactories in their four provinces.
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In August 1673, our diplomatic map stretches up to the North Sea.
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But our WE is outrageous - 9.38 - we are definitely doing something wrong here. No wars for a couple of years. But I understand that the AI might have some trouble dealing with it.
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We get Baroque Music. And soon after that, God shows us that He is at our side. An event gives us 11129 ducats.
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And then a Gold Rush gives us other 400 ducats.
In February 1675, Roma and Romagna core. Do you know what that means ?
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Well yes, we can! From a gameplay point of view, forming Italy makes now completely sense. The push toward centralization is definitely going to help us. And I don't have a house rule "Not to Form Italy".
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So now, we don't have Venice any longer, we have Italy, ruled by an (evil?) "Duce" ! Will take a while getting used to that. But I don't dislike neither the flag, nor the colour - I think I am not going to miss the San Marco Lion after all. It is not Italy's current flag - it is the "Kingdom of Italy"'s flag, a Napoleon's puppet state.
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Though "Italian North America", for instance, sounds a little weird. But we will get used to that.
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Somehow, I am still the papal controller, but the game mixes the Italian and the Venetian flag.
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Well, the income is looking great. Now if we can get on with our plans, it will easily reach 30k ducats a year. Now, in March 1675, it is 26367 ducats.
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Our plans: vassalize Riga (to fulfill the mission), claiming the Italian cores, annexing Flanders and getting Artois from the French, release Bihar to get back the East Indian Trade Route bonus, and get the Smithian Economics NI (20% Production Bonus).
 
Roma and Romagna core and you know what that means? You can now dig your way to Australia? Of course, you form italy. I rather like the flag. Will you keep Venice as your capital? Overextension with its revolt risk has been you almost constant companion. It's been a real burden. You've succeeded even so.

I miss that huge Netherlands. It wouold be kind of fun to take them on and play them, once you've finished this game. You already know the pig's ear the ai will make of Vence.
 
Roma and Romagna core and you know what that means? You can now dig your way to Australia? Of course, you form italy. I rather like the flag. Will you keep Venice as your capital? Overextension with its revolt risk has been you almost constant companion. It's been a real burden. You've succeeded even so.

I miss that huge Netherlands. It wouold be kind of fun to take them on and play them, once you've finished this game. You already know the pig's ear the ai will make of Vence.

Not sure what I will do, but I still hope Venice could actually survive on her own... Haven't though about the capital
Overextension isn't that bad, unless you need to take stability hits.
 
Mini-Intermezzo : The Italian Nomads (1)

You would think Italy is pretty safe. There are plenty of vassals, there are plenty of troops, it should manage to handle those rebels. What about a test run ?
I let the game run as Naxos on a spare notebook, starting from 1675, till it crashed around 1795. I loaded the autosave file and entered as Italy.
"Even if you thought you prepared for the worst, reality will usually exceed your expectations".
After I load the game, I notice a strange icon. "There are settlements on our soil". What is that supposed to mean ? Anyway, America looks bad for a start.
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Europe... where the hell is Italy ? Venice belongs to Austria, Bohemia and Switzerland are huge, I recognize Iberia but otherwise ... everything is lost. How come ?
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Well, there is an "Italian Asia". That's the only region left I could find so far that still belongs to Italy. Italy by the way... is now a "Steppe Nomade". Religion is Reformed. Obviously, Italy collapsed and the government changed to the worst possible kind.
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There are only THREE provinces who are now controlled by Italy and are not occupied. Here is Taiwan, but of course, there are rebels there too.
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No provinces left in Africa. Normally I would be happy to see Venice there, but now I am not.
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The occupied provinces are being colonized. So by the end of the game, most likely Italy will not exist.
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You don't want to know how low Italy's income is by now.
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No army, no navy.
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The two other unoccupied provinces are also besieged by rebels, the only reason they haven't fallen yet is because the rebels are fighting each other.
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South America, North America, Oceania, Asia.
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Do we have vassals ? No we don't, but we do have many cores. And I thought vassals would be reliable. I guess we lost them when Italy collapsed and became a Steppe Nomade.
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No. We are not ready. It went even worse than the "original" nightmare. And it is not even 1821.
 
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But hey, you've got twenty five years to put things right :)
 
That's just ugly. On the bright side, you know Venice will survive. That's still a stupendous collapse by the ai in about a century. Italy is now a Steppe nomad nation.That's an "interesting " result, even for the ai.
 
Obviously, all vassals are integral parts of Venetian/Italian power, without sufficient participation from Naxos, everything goes south!
(Really, how the hell did the horde-collapse happen?)
 
(Really, how the hell did the horde-collapse happen?)

Religious zealot rebels from horde lands which cause your country to collapse force your country to become a Steppe Nomad. It's very rare and very difficult to make happen even if you want to, but in the right hands, they can be pretty damn sweet

Paradox have stopped this from being possible in DW5.2 though.
 
Well, it is like I said once in the HoI III forum once: Paradox hates Italy :p

But really , I thinked that what the AI had done to Venice was bad , but from world empire to forgotten and rebel-filled horde in 100 years ... that is a full level above in incompetence ;)
 
NO,NOT UGLY BORDERS,THEY BURN!!!!!
Although you can still play as Venice:p
 
Mini-Intermezzo : The Italian Nomads (2)

Since some of you have been asking, I'll try and go through what happened to Italy in this other nightmare / analysis.
I have save games from 1725, 1749 and 1781.
In 1725, Italy is suffering from the usual problems of a big empire ruled by an AI. Already, the Italian provinces in Asia have been cut from the ones in Europe.
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Italy's presence in Asia, while still strong, is marred by rebels.
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As are the provinces in Africa, South America and North America. Most of the rebels are Italian particularists.
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But Italy is still fairly big. 306 regiments and 708 ships.
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Now, moving on to the year 1749. In this year, Italy has already collapsed and become Reformed and a Steppe Nomad. The history says this. It happened in 1746.
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As a consequence, almost everything is lost or about to be lost in Italy and Europe.
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But in Asia, Italy is a full grown nomad.
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Africa and America are being visited by rebels. Most rebels are Catholic zealots.
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But Italy is far from finished. It has still the highest income (4800 ducats yearly), 226 regiments and 79 ships. It might still be playable.
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But most of the vassals are gone. Not sure how.
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Now fast forward to 1781. Well, the situation is not very different from the one in 1795. Some selected maps.
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The Capital has moved to Santa Lucia. The Italian Nomads are in a few places.
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I wonder how the Italian Nomads looked like ? Maybe like this ? And their women ?
 
Will you play on from before you switched to Naxos?