Adding Rome or Venice for instant westernization?

[Necurok]

How about adding adding Rome and/or Venice for the decision to instant westernize?

Along with Vienna, Danzig or Praque.

I was playing with adding Madrid(Barcelona) Paris and London also but they are a bit far away from the east

But i think Rome and Venice would be still plausible

 

[Deathlinger]

Madrid for any North Africans maybe?

 

[saegoto]

venice and papal state are coastal minors. it would be too easy for OE, berbers, mamluks

 

[Grand Historian]

I support this from a historical perspective, made a few threads about it in the past, but the problem is primarily that it would probably be too easy to take. If it were Firenze, since it's not coastal, perhaps.

 

[GiftGruen]

Vienna was added because of the sieges of Vienna by OE, which, if successful, may very well have led to a more Westernized OE, but I somewhat doubt it. Still, the cultural influence of a city like Vienna would probably have been high. It is also in most non-HRE campaigns capital of the Emperor and not easy to take. If the problem were that other cities would be too easy to conquer, add London, Paris and Madrid. If cultural influence were your main criterium, take London, Paris and Rome. If it were access from the East, add Prague, and London and Paris just because.

To sum it up: If I kill the BBB, let me auto-westernize off of Paris, please! London and Rome were the biggest cities in the timeframe iirc, and Paris was the center of court culture.

 

[Jomini]

The current three all require you to face down major states with major allies (Danzig means anyone but Poland is going to be hated by Poland) taking & holding the place thus shows a significant investment of resources and that you are indeed strong enough to be taken seriously. Rome and Venice are both too easy to grab. London is also a bit suspect as it is too easy to pick off a coastal province just by backing rebels when you have the 0-0-0 tanking mil tech, stab, and WE. Paris and maybe Madrid would both represent the type of effort it would take to get to Vienna.


What I would like to see would be an option would be Muslimization. Something like take Mecca and Constantinople as a Muslim (religion) state, and get a free boost to Muslim tech if you are Indian or Chinese. The process of technological emulation was not just becoming more Western European (though that was very common), it was also things like the Mughals adopting technology from the Ottomans (allies) and Persia (enemies).

 

[Necurok]

Well Danzig is als a coastel province and so easy to take

also if you take Rome a lot of countries are going to hate you cause you enslaved the most important christian city

 

[Anatur]

Im in favor of adding madrid.

Its inland so no cheap naval invasions and if the southern muslims managed to secure most of iberia there is no reason why they wouldnt be european.

As for italy i dont think rome is a good idea,historically speaking it would make the conqueror the crusading target of every catholic on the planet,hardly a way to be recognised as european.

 

[moscal]

London is nothing - on British Isles the most important cultural/civilizational/mental center was a Oxford.
Italy is great center of renaissance, so IMO any large Italian city (with good european infrastructure).

venice and papal state are coastal minors. it would be too easy for OE, berbers, mamluks

Danzig and Praha is too easy for eastern.

 

[Grand Historian]

London is nothing - on British Isles the most important cultural/civilizational/mental center was a Oxford.
Italy is great center of renaissance, so IMO any large Italian city (with good european infrastructure).


Danzig and Praha is too easy for eastern.

Venice, Rome, Naples and Florence are probably the best candidates.

 

[Jomini]

Well Danzig is als a coastel province and so easy to take

also if you take Rome a lot of countries are going to hate you cause you enslaved the most important christian city

Danzig will soon border Poland directly unless you either prop up the TO massively, feed the TO to Brandenburg, or proactively whack Poland. Poland has uniformly been the strongest state in my early games since 1.12. Any conquest of Danzig requires you to be strong enough to hold off Poland.

Rome has no AI that takes a serious interest in it; if an AI happens to get Rome as a Christian, it will spit it out as an easily takeable OPM. The major powers next door, while having no interest in taking Rome itself, routinely end up with the Pope as an enemy (France ends up wanting Avignon, and both France and Austria end up in conflict over Northern Italy). Rome is, by far, the easiest of all the proposed territories to take and hold.

 

[Jomini]

London is nothing - on British Isles the most important cultural/civilizational/mental center was a Oxford.
Italy is great center of renaissance, so IMO any large Italian city (with good european infrastructure).


Danzig and Praha is too easy for eastern.

The event says absolutely nothing about culture or centers of learning, nor should it. This was an era were the educated came to the elite. Getting learned men wasn't about holding the territory that produced them, it was about being acknowledged as the sort of place where they could have good position. Rulers never went to the universities, they hired tutors who had gone there.

From a gameplay perspective, Oxford would be better than London, but even there, England is just a cakewalk to take down until they finish the War of the Roses, and with a single good whack (say taking just London & Oxford), they can be completely nerfed in one go. Danzig and Prague both require you to fight off or through Poland which is a pretty solid achievement. Now for Poland itself, sure taking these territories are cakewalks, but then so is Vienna (literally, just whack Hungary once and Austria once; both of which will likely end up in big wars with the Ottomans and France/Burgundy so you can hit them in the back). Frankly, I don't worry too much about Poland having it too easy to westernize, they really should start as Westernized.

 

[GiftGruen]

But what non-western nation has an easy way of coring London and Oxford before WotR ends? From the south, you would need to eat and core a province of Portugal, Castille, France or England, from the Northeast either Denmark or the HRE.

 

[moscal]

Wars of the Roses rarely is active.

Polish conquest Danzig in most.

 

[Martin_Mortyry]

Danzig and Prague both require you to fight off or through Poland

Unless you're Hungary, Wallachia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Transylvania, Croatia, Bulgaria or Byzantium/Greek Minors... oh, also Albania.
Taking Rome might not seem to be hard to achieve, but neither is Prague, really. It's more about luck, for example in one of my Serbia playthroughs the Papal State was allied with France, Aragon AND Austria. If I were to conquer Rome I'd have to fight pretty much third of European military.
Besides, Rome is one of symbols of the western civilisation(you know, Roman Republic/Empire or that big German empire a little bit further north, calling itself ROMAN), it would be just natural for an owner of this city to be considered western.

 

[Jomini]

But what non-western nation has an easy way of coring London and Oxford before WotR ends? From the south, you would need to eat and core a province of Portugal, Castille, France or England, from the Northeast either Denmark or the HRE.

Every Eastern and Ottoman tech nation in the game, or that is everyone who currently has access to the decision.


If your capital is in Europe you can just declare war on somebody in Ireland, vassalize them, and them use that for coring range (I can't recall if you can just vassalize one of the Irish OPMs or if you need to vassalize one, take out an adjacent one, and then core the land of the second). England itself has several viable releasable vassals (e.g. York or Cornwall) that can let you core the place with just a few provinces (e.g. if we make Oxford the important province, you can take Cornwall, Glouchestershire, and Oxford, release Cornwall and then core inland). As long as your capital is in Europe, life is fine here.

Nor is it particularly hard to hold London and later back fill to core it up if they ever nerf the vassal tricks. Starting from the south you can hit up Grenada, Portugal, Brittany, and get coring range to England. From the East, Denmark is normally a pushover unless they ally Poland once you support the Independence of Sweden; even with a Polish alliance you can normally do okay with enough galleys to hold the straights and just take the Danish islands. Moving on from there, you just need to there, if you take the Islands, you might need to alliance chain into East Frisia, but completely doable.

Even taking the hard route via the HRE, is not actually bad if you can ally the emperor, just get into a joint war and then pick off some OPMs with poor allies, preferably when they all killing each other in one of their eternal wars that breaks out whenever the emperor is looking the other way. Sure you have to overcome distance and likely religion penalties, but common rivals, gifts, and nearby conquests (like Venice, East Frisia, Bornholm or Provence can help.

Absolute worst case scenario is something like this, I no-CB Ulster ASAP. I vassalize it. For some reason I'm not based in Europe, so I wait 10 years to annex the sucker. WotR fires before I can annex them. So I declare on England (supporting the rebels), when England is mostly beaten, but the last fort has not fallen (and I take care that I control the sieges, not the rebels), I declare on Scotland & take control of Ayrshire (needs only be momentary). I transfer control of Ayrshire and a path of provinces to London (or Oxford). I make peace with England - taking London via Ulster and grabbing land on the Scottish border. I make peace with the Scots for the English land they want. Now I have long truces with both powers, I annex Ulster, and if Ulster hasn't cored London, I can do so with my new coring range. Pretty much I can pull all this off with a medium rank power or maybe even a minor, as long as I don't have TI to worry about and can build transports anywhere in the Med or Black Seas.

England is isolated territory, it has few natural allies, none of whom are good at supporting fighting on the Isles themselves. It has multiple major rebellions early and the king is 0 mil leader that I can almost always beat to good mil tech. As an added bonus it likes to fight in France, often has wars with Scotland, has few forts on the Isles (so you can covered just about everything with just one fort falling).

Vienna and Prague are both deep inland with major HRE states to actually take the territory from. Neither have anything like the English rebel troubles nor the English mil tech hole. Likewise, there are strongish states right on the border (Hungary, Poland, Venice, Austria, Bohemia) who will likely pounce on a weak state holding choice real estate. Danzig is easier to take, but Poland has an insane modifier to take Danzig.

Sure some games taking and holding Danzig is easier than taking and holding London, but those are rare. London, Venice, Rome, even something like Amsterdam, Lisbon, or Stockholm is likely too easy to grab in most games. Madrid is likelier easier than Danzig and Paris might be as well (though I doubt it), but so many of the great western cities are far, far too easy to take early in the game.

 

[GiftGruen]

If you can afford investing so many resources and time into taking London, you may as well have the early westernization, but at that point you could just start as an Irish minor.

 

[Jomini]

Unless you're Hungary, Wallachia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Transylvania, Croatia, Bulgaria or Byzantium/Greek Minors... oh, also Albania.
Taking Rome might not seem to be hard to achieve, but neither is Prague, really. It's more about luck, for example in one of my Serbia playthroughs the Papal State was allied with France, Aragon AND Austria. If I were to conquer Rome I'd have to fight pretty much third of European military.
Besides, Rome is one of symbols of the western civilisation(you know, Roman Republic/Empire or that big German empire a little bit further north, calling itself ROMAN), it would be just natural for an owner of this city to be considered western.

Why ever would you have to fight all that? Do they never get into other wars? Can you not manage an alliance with one or more of them against some common rival and then pile the Pope while they are locked in war beside you against Castille, Burgundy or England? Can you not just use co-belligerents to chain something to strip away allies?

Again I know that some games go weird, but the vast, vast majority of the time, Rome is exceedingly easy to take and hold. At worst you have to pull some cheese to get the initial war to work, after that though it is just gravy to hold the place.

Taking Prague means you need to cut a path through the northern HRE, Poland, Hungary, or Austria (or engineer a vassal able to take Prague). Vienna means cutting a path through Hungary or Austria directly. All of them, however, incur long term knocks against major powers and insert you in the middle of some major power concentrations.

As far as the importance of taking Rome, well when the place was actually sacked just about nobody gave a damn and the Romans were ruling out of Ravenna (or for many in the west, Constantinople which after all inspired more commentary than the discovery of trade routes around Africa and the discovery of the New World combined). Rome was a symbol precisely because it wasn't a major locus of trade, wealth, or temporal power.

It would be one thing to consider Rome for Westernization if the AI was hell bent on liberating Rome and it meant a significant continued investment to hold the place (like with the others), but the Pope is too weak on his own, the nearby powers are often hostile, when they aren't they are busy elsewhere, and above all else, Rome is the single most common province in the game to be an unloved OPM. It has its own mechanism to spit out a OPM state that is easy chomping.

Historically, sure, Rome was a symbol. But in terms of real world power its days were long ago and would not return until more modern transportation reshaped Italy.

 

[Jomini]

If you can afford investing so many resources and time into taking London, you may as well have the early westernization, but at that point you could just start as an Irish minor.

What resources? 2 WE, a decent dollop of AE that will decay down unless you are fighting the Catholics elsewhere, and maybe a decade or two with an OExt penalty and the points to core some highly efficient development. Maybe a couple K manpower to put down rebels in London.

I was being exhaustive because right now you just declare in support of rebels, of which England has many to choose, take Cornwall, take London. Release Cornwall, use its coring range and have London.

The AI is terrible at managing rebels. The AI is terrible at fighting when down mil tech. The AI is horrid with naval invasions. England has all those in spades. It is quite reasonable to beat England with nothing but covering stacks and Lollards.

In 1444, England is the single weakest major in the game. At that point we may as well just say take Constantinople and Westernize. After all there were, you know, giant crusades to protect the place and its fall was a seminal event in western history (unlike those of say Rome, Paris, or London during the Glorious Revolution).

 

[moscal]

In 1444, England is the single weakest major in the game. At that point we may as well just say take Constantinople and Westernize. After all there were, you know, giant crusades to protect the place and its fall was a seminal event in western history (unlike those of say Rome, Paris, or London during the Glorious Revolution).

But for eastern and ottoman grooup dont have good naval and land invasion force in early game...