I want to hear more about Forming Netherlands as Hansa. Especially in terms of MP. Are you stronger then Hansa NL or Burgundy NL?
Starting as the Hansa in the beginning of the campaign, you will face pretty uncomfortable situation: you have three provinces separated from one another, 5 diplomatic relations (with respective penalty in diplomatic points) and Denmark and its lapdogs to the north. So if you wish to make the Hansa one of the Major European Countries, you should consider expansion right from the beginning. Since the north of Germany is initially formed mostly by OPMs, which are easy to conquer, you are not the only pretender. Despite at least one of your missions suggesting you to go to war with Denmark, you'll have to acquire a strong and, more importantly, local allies to do it. So even if you are friends with Austria (which you probably might want to become, since the Emperor ignoring your expansion makes life easier), it won't help a lot because they are relatively far away. On the other hand, being allies with Denmark will make your expansion inside the HRE very easy.
In summary, the first things to consider are: befriending Austria and Denmark, losing three of five of your initial OPMs allies, and then taking them over and whatever else comes along.
Why Hansa can into netherlands? Hansa has events and missions that give big trade and ship bonuses till end of campaign in 1820.
+5 provincial trade power from mission, +0.5 Trade value from tagfahrt event, +5% Trade efficiency and+10% National trade income modifier
and -1% Diplomatic technology cost fromlubeck krantor national decision, and the adler von lubeck national decision will give -2% Heavy ship cost, -2% Diplomatic technology cost , -30% Shipbuilding time and +20% Morale of navies.
Convinced yet?
NO?
Ok well,
Hansa is merchant republic, and the bonuses from merchant republic government form will synergise well with the national ideas from the netherlands (free merchant, +10% trade range and +15% trade efficiency, not to mention the navy bonuses) You get double ship bonuses, load of trade bonuses, and you can try domineering the ANTWERP node *and* Lubeck. In theory you can steer trade from Ragusa inland towards Hansa (lubeck node) only to collect in antwerp. The bonus to inland trade steering the merchant republic gives, is HUGE.
Main goal should be to Ally Austria and later on France, and kick the snot out of Burgundy, to conquer the entire antwerp trade region. Later on, you can dismantle france and feed trade from genoa over bordeaux to antwerp aswell.
You can also invade England/Scotland for the ability to send trade ships to the sea node feeding into antwerp (hmmmm, or did they change that in 1.8, didn't look at it yet)
