Aragon 1599 - Some questions / I need advice

[Gogels]

Hello fellow conquerors!

Here is my campaign as Aragon for Consulate of Sea (done) and Mare Nostrum (in progress). The main principle of this run was to focus on Mediterranean and don't even look at other parts of the world (like CN, TC or HRE).
The year is 1599 and so far I'm quite glad with how it goes... however recently I face some difficulties so I come here to ask for your opinion and advice. While I'm quite decent at early stages, but this will be (I hope) my first game past 1600 so I'm going into unknown right now.

As you see above, I've already conquered most of land I need to reform into Rome. In one year I finish integration of Portugal and Austria. I can also click decision to form Spain (probably I should do it long time ago, but I really enjoy Aragon). I have also PU over Sweden and vassals in Tlemcen and TO, which I don't want integrate at all. Looks good so far, so let's see problems:

1. Corruption - it's good that in next patch we will no longer see terr corr, but right now we have it... It is already 19 and growing fast (and will be much worse when I integrate my PUs). How you deal with it? Any tips? I can't really afford to pay it off, and it becomes a big problem. Notice that right now I don't have any overextension which contributes a lot as well most of the time (+0,5 at 100% OE which is 90% of time).

2. Economy - this leads to my economy which isn't so strong as I wish... Especially my trade income is rather low. So as forth idea group I've chosen Trade, but due to expensive integration in progress I had only one idea bought so far.

money leaks everywere

3. States and territories - below is my setup. I can make 4 states right now - which terr I shoud state up? You can choose also from Castilian (+ Low Lands), Austian and Portugese - those are full cores, so it will be free.
4. Cultures - the same question. I can promote 2 more.

5. AE & coalition - they don't declare on me and even if they do I think I can win - but this is not efficient war. Most countries I want to fight in the near future I keep on truces, but this becomes problematic. Any advice?

6. League War - Still didn't fire. I may join either side. I don't really care who wins. I have Deus Vult CB so probably it's better if protestatns win, but I'm open for suggestions. Maybe I should use it to deal with coallition inside HRE. What do you think?
Serbia is on the Catholic side, Pol is on Protestant.

7. Teutonic Order - all their cores are (and was) protestant or reformed. When I release them in Koningsberg they was reformed. Very next day they flip to Catholic. (Other provinces I've reconquered later). Bug or WAD ?

8. Last but not least - On what I should focus in next 50 years? My plan was early Mare Nostrum, and then we see... but more I think about it I'm more convinced that I should delay it, form Spain right now and go for TC land to get some money first.

9. Obligatory - is WC still possible??? I've never done it. Mayby this time?

Other info:
Institution: All so far. GT will spawn in my Genoa if I transfer from Champagne
Tech: Adm 14, Dip 12, Mil 16 (+100%)
Ideas: Defensive (full), Influence (full), Religious (full), Trade (only first Idea)
Ruler: 6/5/4 + 3/3/2 advisors
Diff: Hard
All DLC
One Loan (1,2k)

 

[Kane_hun]

1. Corruption - it's good that in next patch we will no longer see terr corr, but right now we have it... It is already 19 and growing fast (and will be much worse when I integrate my PUs). How you deal with it? Any tips? I can't really afford to pay it off, and it becomes a big problem. Notice that right now I don't have any overextension which contributes a lot as well most of the time (+0,5 at 100% OE which is 90% of time).

For this, I can say that you have a big unbalanced research penalty and its better to pay down corruption than not in my opinion. Its probably due to you integrating subjects, but try to max out the slider and reduce the research penalty. Imo try to balance your spending around your net income after max spending on corruption is considered, Perhaps delete some forts as well and leave the ones in strategically optimal places. Try to repay loans by reducing maintenance, saving you the interest as well.

On trade, Portugal and Castile probably eat a lot of the Sevilla node and if you collect in Constantinople and Venice, you should probably put states there (better hold onto that until others who are better than me share their thoughts as well). You probably should integrate Castile as well. If they have any CNs, the merchants will help you on that front as well. Then you can collect in the three end nodes or swap out Venice for a richer node. (Although the best setup might need some testing)

 

[KaiserJohan]

If you can nail down Ragusa consider pushing Constantinople into Ragusa into Genoa. Leaking from Tunis into Sevilla is fine if you can push most of it back into Genoa but you probably want to take down Castille. And build manufactories if you havn't already.

 

[Gogels]

Thanks for response.
Unbalanced research is problem, which I have to deal sooner than later... but this means that Trade Ideas should wait and I'm not sure about it. And its only 0,2 corr in comparison with 0,5 from terr corr and from overexertion.

Stating provinces doesn't actually help this much with trade. In Venice and Constantinople I have ~70% because I don't control all CoT there. I've done little test and state 4 states in Constatinople trade node (with CoT) and my income there increase only by 1 ducat from 18,25 to 19,13. not so much

You are right about Sevilla. They take most of trade. I let it be like this because I hope they colonize for me for this money, but it's doesn't work great. Portugal has one CN which provide me merchant and some land in Ivory Coast (but only 3 of 10 CoT there). Castille is even worse with one CN in Brazil (5 provinces). BTW - because of that CN I have to give up some low dev Castillian cores to Gascony to put them back under 45 provinces so I can integrate them via decision for free.

 

[Gogels]

If you can nail down Ragusa consider pushing Constantinople into Ragusa into Genoa. Leaking from Tunis into Sevilla is fine if you can push most of it back into Genoa but you probably want to take down Castille. And build manufactories if you havn't already.

Transfering from Ragusa to Genoa helps and probably could help even more after integrating Austria who thanks to caravan power steals a lot of trade there. Thanks

I've already build manufactories in my most valuable provinces (even in wine if I have low autonomy there).

 

[Cancerofthehead]

Getting rid of the unbalanced research penalty and fully rooting out corruption would mean you have essentially zero change at 100% OE. Get ahead of time and you get an additional -0.1. You can’t do much about too many territories so best just ignore it as a factor and look at what you can manage. You really want to get the corruption under control because it will just cause you to fall further behind in tech and ideas.

For economy, If you are struggling dropping advisor expense should be the first thing. It seems to me like a lot of naval maintenance, I would get rid of heavies and get your ships protecting trade. Integrate Castille so they stop taking the Seville trade. Going for TCs would dramatically increase your income. You should be able to go to Indus via Evyot now so no colonizing required.

What do you have for ideas?

 

[Gogels]

My Ideas: Defensive (full), Influence (full), Religious (full), Trade (only first Idea)

 

[Cancerofthehead]

My Ideas: Defensive (full), Influence (full), Religious (full), Trade (only first Idea)

You really should have admin ideas.

1) Less admin points to core so you can spend them elsewhere.
2) Less time to core so faster getting rid of OE.
3) Integration cost policy would be huge.
4) More state slots to reduce corruption.

I would be tempted to dump Trade to get it. While the merchants are really nice if you don’t go outside Europe, you will fall further behind in diplo tech and deeper into corruption pursuing it.

 

[Kayno]

What i would do is to halt expansion for the moment and reorganize you´re economy and expenses.
Because 19 corruption is way too high for a non horde and you should push it to a reasonable level asap.

1. set the corruption slider to the max
2. reduce payment for forts (you pay 34 ducats, maybe you can delete some useless ones)
3. reduce expenses for you´re army (maybe you have some mercs in there you don´t need or too much troops) --> always set the army slider all the way down in peacetimes and if no rebels will spawn)
4. only hire lvl 1 advisors

Increase trade income :
Form spain via decision (Free states in you´re culture group, Sevilla will be less contested)
I would only collect in genoa and like johan said push from Constantinople to ragusa (set all you´re light ships protecting trade in ragusa) and from ragusa to genoa.
When you have extra merchants put them into sevilla, egypt and champagne (extra inland tradebonus when a merchant is present there)

Probably go speed 5 until you have corruption at a reasonable level and when you´re economy is in good shape you can start to conquer territory again.
For a world conquest the economy is probably too weak and you´re corruption too high. It would be still doable with planned bankruptcy and conquering tc regions, but that wouldn´t be a fun run and not doable if you havent done a wc before.

Edit: Also get power projection above 50 (for 1 extra mana point) and wait with buying ideas until you have less corruption (increases mana cost)

 

[krelian]

Dump trade, it will not save you. If anything, it will hurt you as you end up spending more DIP points on a mediocre idea group and struggle even more with unbalanced research.

You have to get your corruption and economy under control or it will eat you alive. If you can't do anything about corruption and it keeps going up, eventually you are dead because every action becomes a massive drain on monarch points so you end up with a maxed out slider on reducing it and unless you have a high trade income then you will run out of money for troops.

For ideas you should pick espionage and administrative next. Espionage is huge since you get -0.1 corruption directly from it and you get access to 3 policies that each give -0.1 corruption: Espionage-Defensive and later on Espionage-Admin, Admin-Defensive. Administrative is great for Coring Cost reduction, more states and strong policies like the Vassal Annexation discount from Admin-Influence.

But the problem is that you let unbalanced research to happen, so taking a DIP idea group now will be very hard. You should put your national focus on DIP if you haven't done it already. Also, after you finish the integration of Portugal and Austria (since they are already on 95%), do not integrate anyone else. Castille might be the exception since you can integrate them via a decision and with all of Iberia, you have Sevilla secured and can push all of it to Genoa.

But priority number 1 is to get rid of unbalanced research. If you are above relationship limit, break alliances, royal marriages. Try to delay taking the next MIL tech for as long as possible. It's not "only" 0.2 corruption. It's 0.2 corruption on top of what you get from overextension and territories. Which is the difference between you having it more or less under control and it slowly spiraling. Also, corruption from territories is something you can't control in this patch if you play very wide. Unbalanced research you can control. Global Trade is about to spawn and once the Age of Absolutism starts, you will have a good reason to use MIL points to farm absolutism with harsh treatment and legitimacy boosting which should let your DIP tech catch up to your MIL. It will also help a bit for economy since you will get another merchant once embraced.

I'd hit the breaks on expanding in Europe. Let my AE cool down. Probably use the 4 free states on land you get from integrations. 2 in Portugal, Castille and Sevilla/Cadiz area? Either way, until you get TC cash, you will be screwed. Colonial Nations would take way too long to dig you out of your problems since Portugal and Castille have both failed at colonising and you are in no shape to do it yourself. Charter a couple TCs in India and start eating. You have two routes really. First is to go straight to India and then funnel trade to Aden->Alexandria->Genoa. The benefit is that you can set this up faster as you have much of the needed land. The more powerful long term setup is to eat Syria and Iraq and funnel Indian trade through Basra and Aleppo as this also give you the opportunity to siphon trade from the Persian node. But this is very long term as you don't have the merchants for it. Spanish ideas give you a colonist. Use him (and probably run 1 extra over the limit, more your economy probably can't handle) to get whatever colonial nations you inherit to 10 provinces to gain another merchant. Once you hit 10 provinces in one CN, move on to help expand the next one. When you conquer TC land, try to get to 10 provinces ASAP. Gujarat, Coromandel, Malacca, Molucca can all be done fairly quickly. Once you have 7-8 merchants and a foothold in Asia your economy will revive.

 

[Guibou]

You've already got many good solutions regarding corruption and your run in general but i'd like to point 2-3 things not mentionned. Your merchant are collecting in other trade nodes then your capital one (you get a malus on trade income when you do this), you should try to divert trade to genoa instead of collecting, for exemple, tunis with egypt you get a chain bonus that should increase your income compared to the present situation. If your situation is indead better than a chain, then why state tunis and egypt ? just core venice/genoa entirely, you don't use the trade power of those CoT anyway, i know the tax part of revenue is affected but far away state cost more maintenant so if you only use one facet of it, it might not be that worthy. Wich lead to my next point.

Your state maintenant seems really high, make sure you don't have edicts that are better turned off/not used anymore.

As other suggested, take a break on expention to refocus on your economy and research. in 1600 you will get absolutism and if you want to get the court and country event, it last 10 years. So if you go this way, you are not entirely waisting your time. Delaying to be better in 1610.

 

[Gogels]

Thanks for your responses. It's nice to hear different points of view from my own. I have to rethink some of my principles, but for sure I don't want to abandon idea for this campaign of focusing on Mare Nostrum first and then I can go to India via Aden. I have already done some campaigns before where I first go to India via Cape, and I'm aware how powerful this strat is. It is also boring.

I have to agree I was too expansionist without proper financial base. I was hoping that controlling Mediterranean basin can provide me enough money, but it apparently can't. People claiming that in current patch you have to go for TC first was right. Especially I was not prepared to deal with corruption from territories so early. Eastern Mediterranean don't provide me enough power and money to compensate cost it generate. The same with my Baltic subjects. They are more liability than valuable asset.

You are right that Admin Ideas is way to go. Best if taken as first or second idea group. I should do this. I could save around 2,5k admin and maybe even more dip points so far. Not bad. I've just didn't expect so rapid expansion, so I go with Religious instead because I was rather afraid of problems with unrest due to most of conquered lands being heathen or heretic (+subject unable to convert). And I really enjoy this +8 tolerance of true faith I've got, resulting in very stable country. It's very tempting to restart this campaign to try this way.

Not so sure about espionage ideas through. Choosing this idea group for minor +0,3 corruption reduction isn't in my opinion worth it. Maybe late game. Any way - I don't have MP for Ideas right now, so we come back to this question in 10 years.

As you suggest, right now I focus on dealing with this unbalanced research and reducing corruption. That's why I can't afford firing my advisors. I have to find money to maintaining them. 18 ducats for 8 MP in total is worth it I believe. To pay off corruption I will integrate Castille to transfer trade money from Sevilla (and Ivory Coast). For next 10-20 years I will limit my wars to truce juggling (still have to manage coalition) and maybe minor conquest of key CoT which provide me significant income increase right now. No more waste land like Anatolia

I will be actively looking for further savings, starting with turning off state edicts which I forgot about - it's over 10 ducats monthly saved (thanks Giubou). (Please Paradox - can you make notification that there are edicts which cost a lot and do nothing... Please). About my army expenses... well - coalition war is last thing I want right now, so I can't really disband any troops, but no more drilling - thats for sure. As for my navy... it's actually too small for my needs (I need to conquer London + York sooner than later and Indian states have significant navies too) - but it is actually not up to date, so maybe I will get rid of it and just buy new when I need... not decided yet. When it comes to forts it is... well... deleting them is quite immersion breaking for me, so they stay. For now at least.

It looks like I will not have time to play before weekend, so if you want to add sth you are welcome.

There is still open question nr 3&4 about which states and cultures should I accept. What are your principles when it comes to this? Right now I think I will go with 4 highest dev Iberian states, but I'm open for suggestion. It is shame to keep Dutch as territories, but what I can do with it...

Once again - thanks for your advice.

 

[Cancerofthehead]

You can get by without TCs, it is just much more difficult and you need to be more frugal.

For the Navy, a massive stack of light ships should be enough to get your troops to England if you hold a channel port, just keep feeding small groups into the British Navy while your troops land elsewhere and they boost your economy while at peace. For India, get one province and you don’t need a Navy.

Heavies should be considered a luxury only when you can afford them and it just takes two years to replace them if you get your economy straightened out. Not a problem.

In terms of advisors, if they are preventing you from rooting out corruption I would absolutely dump the military advisor to level one and probably the admin advisor until you get your economy going. Diplo I would keep as high as I can afford to catch up on Diplo tech (in fact I would take a level four Diplo over a level three military right now if you can get a good discounted Diplo advisor). One note on tech, the neighbour bonus only resets at the monthly tick, so you should save up enough Diplo points to buy two or three techs at once (and even more bonus if your corruption starts going down by rooting it out).

With your army, you can potentially save money without shrinking it too much. Check if you can delete some mercs and replace them with infantry that are much cheaper. Also remove any cavalry you have in favour of infantry. Cavalry are a luxury you can’t really afford. Also think about paring down you artillery so you are limited to one combat stack. Are you drilling your armies? If you need to keep maintenance up and aren’t using an army to fight you should be drilling.

In terms of having forts, I like having lots around but absolutely mothball them until your economy turns around.

 

[Guibou]

Sometimes playing the game the way you want bring much more personnal interest than just the optimal way, I respect your view on this run. To me, your question 3 and 4 are related to your trade problem and will solved itself with it. Figure out what you want, with what merchant you will get once your idea is complete. 6 merchants (2 base, 3 idea, 1 global trade ?)+ capital. The way i would do it is collect in genoa and venice, transfer from seville, tunis, egypt, ragusa and constantinople. Then you state everything worthy in these trade nodes. You will probably find that egyptian and turkish are representing a 6-8% now and are worth to accept. I wouldnt go and state/accept the lowlands/france/england unless you plan on moving your trade to the english channel but i highly doupt it is worth it in your situation. Anyway, if you are that far behind in tech, i would get those before accepting new culture. If you state spain, it is part of your culture anyway with empire rank so just delay stating other nodes until you did the necessary adjustements.

Regarding trade again, since you are lacking diplo points, instead of integrating/stating/accepting austria.... you could just divert trade in the menu, scootage them if needed to keep liberty desired low, since they aren't really helpful as you said, bonus you save a merchant slot. Win/win.

 

[krelian]

When I suggested Espionage it was with the assumption that you are going for a WC from this specific position in 1599. If it's "only" Mare Nostrum then it's less useful. I've usually done WC or similar scale campaigns without Espionage, but I also had a much stronger economy before getting to permanent 0,8 corruption. And in WC you spend a lot of time at 90% overextension so I never let my corruption go up in very wide games because combination of OE and territories penalties means that for long periods of time even full slider will not reduce corruption penalties. At the end of the day you can throw money at the problem and in min/maxing terms money is always easier to get than mana.

Either way Admin would probably be my first choice instead of Trade as it will save you a ton of ADM and DIP (with the Influence policy)

question 3) you can do the 4 best Iberian ones since you can make them full cores without any extra ADM after integration; also, remember that you can always unstate land later, so low dev, crap terrain provinces can free up a state for something that's 60+ dev, the Mediterranean Islands are usually one of the first things to unstate for me once I hit the state limit
also, if you want to state up something you conquered, get the Iberian states anyway, get the 2nd Admin Idea and then pick what's best for you at the time

question 4) cultures just don't seem to matter that much to me in game because most people play very wide since any one culture will be tiny compared to a global empire and post 1620/30 your expansion pace can really pick up; so just pick whichever one has highest development and a lot of converting to do - Turkish sounds like a solid first pick, but until you remove the unbalanced research penalty, I wouldn't spend any DIP on this; accepted cultures are nice to have, but never really necessary. sometimes I even end up with free culture slots because it's one of the last things I spend DIP on and only remember about it to get the Multicultural Empire bonus

 

[ArzhurG]

Here are a few thing that might help.

There are quite a few provinces that you can't build a manufactory in because there are no free slots. It would be worth deleting useless buildings in order to build manufactories in provinces with good goods. The same for workshops (especially if you have a manufactory) and temples, but manufactories have the priority.

For the League War, do you remember for how long it's been going on? Considering the year, the Catholics could be close to a victory (the event can trigger after 30? years).In that case I would definitely join the Catholic side. If the war does trigger you will get +0.5 army tradition and -5% mil tech cost for 100 years, which is handy (you can't join once it's started though). Being on the victorious side will let you complete an age objective for the Age of Absolutism. Considering your AE and how everybody hates you, other nations might join the other side of the League War if you do join (I'm not totally sure of this).

For tech-ing up in diplo, but a spy network in a nation with high diplo tech and get trading in glass bonus if you don't have it yet (Venice is great for that). You could also try becoming curia controller, to get the -5% tech cost.

Remember to look at trade goods as well as dev when choosing which province to add as a state. The Castilian and Austrian ones with a gold mine would be the first two that I choose. It looks like Kosovo isn't a state either, so that would be the third. It starts with very low production, so may not be worth it and you don't have the diplo points to increase it, for now. The 4th would be another Castilian, or a Portuguese one.

Considering that you're about to get some provinces from Portugal in the Ivory Coast, it might be worth a quick war or two to get the West African gold mines. The ones in Kilwa, Mexico and Peru are further, but should also be worth it.

If you want continue collecting in Venice, a quick conquest war against the Papal States for the provinces in the node would be worth it, if they are also collecting there. Do the same with Gascony for the Seville node.

If you have Golden Century, a flag ship that adds trade value to all ships in the fleet could be useful, if you have a large navy that you want to keep.