Best Italian Nation to Restore the Roman Empire

[FoundFiend574]

I tried campaigns as Milan and Savoy to restore the Roman Empire with no luck. What is the best (easiest/has most options for expansion) Italian nation to restore the Roman Empire as? Obviously the Pope won't work as he can't form Rome. Venice might be good to get a head start with Greece, the Balkans, Anatolia, or even Egypt, but it starts outside the HRE, so uniting Italy will take longer. Plus, there's always the looming threat of Austria. Florence is also a good idea, considering their good ideas and god-ruler at the start of the game, as well as the ability to switch to a monarchy upon forming Tuscany. However, they're surrounded by powerful neighbors and are far more isolated than others, making it harder to ally Austria, France, or Castile. Any suggestions.

 

[Natz]

Well they all have their pros and cons.
Florence has a great starting ruler, but being rivalled by the Pope can be a huge pain in Italy. Venice indeed suffers from being outside the HRE (if you don't mind being gamey you can use an exploit by, in the starting screen, going to the 1800s and then back to 1444 before starting the game, it puts Venice in HRE, but does screw with some mechanics, notbaly no Center of Reformation.).
My personal favorite is Milan, if you own Cossacks going for the early Pope election can be really really worthwile, it's a huge reduction in AE, which is the main bottleneck in Italy. You can also ally burgundy, austria, hungary, savoy or aragon quite easily. Additionaly with the buff to republics comming with Darhma, Ambrosian Republic could be insanely good, if you can wait a few weeks. But you are indeed a bit restricted as far as expansion routes. You can circumvent that with the age ability to transfer subjects and war Aragon for Naples. Then expand into Muslim land while the AE in Italy is too high. Note that if you take one of the islands in that war from Aragon, you can also release Aragon once Spain Integrates them, allowing for a lot of reconquest.
Other than that I did it the first time as Aragon, by culture switching to Naples culture. It was a nice run, Aragon has a lot more expansion paths.

 

[FoundFiend574]

My main issue with Milan is that while it has many minors next to it, many of them just join a trade league with Venice or Genoa, making its RNG insanely difficult to overcome. Venice has quite a few benefits, such as being able to defeat the Ottomans and conquer the remains, getting a head start in restoring Rome while you wait for the Shadow Kingdom to fire. Of course, there's still the looming threats of Austria and Hungary. However, if you're lucky, Austria won't rival you, and you might be able to ally them.

 

[giovdb]

I did with Venice. Formed Italy first then Rome.

 

[TheDungen]

Done it as Florence. Formed the hre as Milan.

 

[sesn]

I tried campaigns as Milan and Savoy to restore the Roman Empire with no luck. What is the best (easiest/has most options for expansion) Italian nation to restore the Roman Empire as? Obviously the Pope won't work as he can't form Rome. Venice might be good to get a head start with Greece, the Balkans, Anatolia, or even Egypt, but it starts outside the HRE, so uniting Italy will take longer. Plus, there's always the looming threat of Austria. Florence is also a good idea, considering their good ideas and god-ruler at the start of the game, as well as the ability to switch to a monarchy upon forming Tuscany. However, they're surrounded by powerful neighbors and are far more isolated than others, making it harder to ally Austria, France, or Castile. Any suggestions.

It depends how confident you are that you can beat the Ottomans early on. If you can think that you can do it, Venice is best. Vassalise Byz early on and beat the Ottomans in timely fashion and you've gotten the biggest roadblock out of the way and can expand much faster in multiple directions, splitting AE. You can spend your AE in Italy on the Pope for the first 50 years while northern Italy is still in the HRE. At this point, there may even be some tags that can be vassalised and fed. Or you take a bigger country, find some allies that want land of them and split them up, you ending up with them as a vassal and feeding them their land back at minimal AE.
Other than that, I'd go with Milan, they also have more avenues of expansion than Florence. Personally, I am very fond of using above describes strategy on switzerland together with Savoy and Baden. You get all of modern day Switzerland for minimal AE and they make a good march in the Alps for you. You will be slow to expand into the non-Italian regions, though.

Remember that France has some nice tags to release and feed. And that Naples is basically free when they are annexed by Spain and you can feed them.

 

[TheDungen]

Well Florence is unbeatable if you want to form an Italy inside the hre. With the exception of Austria they are the only ones in a relatively good position to prevent Italy from leaving.

 

[braunschweig1]

Naples starts with a big tax base and a lot of soldiers. Restart until France rivals Aragon, they will support your independence and you can take Sicily in your independence war. Boom, in one war you have half of Italy under your control and a strong ally to help you expand north. You may or may not want to wait until Shadow Kingdom before you move past Romagna, though, but with France on your side you should be able to beat Austria handily (just like real life!)

 

[Person012345]

Naples starts with a big tax base and a lot of soldiers. Restart until France rivals Aragon, they will support your independence and you can take Sicily in your independence war. Boom, in one war you have half of Italy under your control and a strong ally to help you expand north. You may or may not want to wait until Shadow Kingdom before you move past Romagna, though, but with France on your side you should be able to beat Austria handily (just like real life!)

The only Italian nation I've done a game with was Naples and it was pretty easy to find strong nations to back my independence when I did it. I think I had france and austria both on board in my game, and there were others who would have helped I believe. I wasn't going at it super hard so I just formed italy and was satisfied with that, but yeah they worked out pretty good when I played them, they have a strong start once you break from aragon.

 

[alexti]

I don't think that there is an easy way with any of the Italian nations. It will probably take a century or so to do it no matter what nation you start with. You need to conquer a lot of land and defeat most of major European powers, so you will need to build a decent power base. None of Italian nations have particularly useful idea set for this challenge. I think that Genoa might be marginally better than the others. It has good coring range coverage right from the start and it has a set of missions very useful for this challenge. You get claims in almost all areas where you need to expand so you'll be in position to take opportunities. You can also handle Ottomans right from by vassalizing BYZ.

Somewhat alternative approach might be to take emperorship, feed required area to HRE nations, pass 7 reforms and then diploannex princes holding land required for the Roman empire.

 

[makaramus]

Me:
start as venice
conquer byzantium force convert orthodox
conquer italy form italy
culture switch greece and form byzantium
easy roman empire

 

[Prometheus_1]

I did with Venice. Formed Italy first then Rome.

View attachment 399464View attachment 399463

How dd you do ? In the whole timeframe of the game I was barely able to form Italy ...

 

[giovdb]

Honestly, it was a while ago so don't quite remember. Looking at screenshots, looks like I allied with France and Poland. Made Bosnia my vassal. Looks like Austria got crushed and a bunch of other countries released. Don't remember if I did that, but probably. I then managed to get a PU over France - yeah that was awesome. Here is a few more screenshots from that run.

 

[Prometheus_1]

Honestly, it was a while ago so don't quite remember. Looking at screenshots, looks like I allied with France and Poland. Made Bosnia my vassal. Looks like Austria got crushed and a bunch of other countries released. Don't remember if I did that, but probably. I then managed to get a PU over France - yeah that was awesome. Here is a few more screenshots from that run.View attachment 399633 View attachment 399634 View attachment 399635

How many patches ago? It seems almoust impossible to do now, but would you be up to reproduce that achievement ? I would be interested to follow your progress on a forum thread .

 

[giovdb]

How many patches ago? It seems almoust impossible to do now, but would you be up to reproduce that achievement ? I would be interested to follow your progress on a forum thread .

Date on the screenshots is July 2016, so awhile ago. I'm sure it's still achievable. I know the game so much more now that I don't think it would be an issue. Just remember to make the big alliances and take a little at a time. And no, won't be doing it again. Working on finishing a One Faith run before Dharma. Then I'll be focusing on India

 

[bly08]

I don't think it matters too much, just pick the one with the highest dev.

 

[tip001]

Just start as France and switch to Italy. Easy peasy

 

[alexti]

Just start as France and switch to Italy. Easy peasy

OP asked for the best *Italian* nation

 

[tip001]

OP asked for the best *Italian* nation

I know. It's just a workaround

 

[FoundFiend574]

IMO, in terms of Milan, I think a lot of people overestimate the power of the Ambrosian Republic. I barely see any difference between it and a normal republican government.