Castile/Spain, a humble cry.

[1persona]

Good afternoon, I make this post to talk about the changes to castile since the disastrous dlc that they made. The main issue, omitting the absurdity and uselessness of topics like the marines or the expulsion of minorities, is the mission tree. Being this focused on the historical expansion of Castile and later on Spain we find that said tree contradicts itself and self-destroy itself, the clearest example of this is that while a mission invites you to subjugate Portugal, Portugal almost always colonizes the Caribbean (for some reason) and if Cuba and the Española (cant figure out how the island calls in english) are colonized by Portugal, you cannot activate the missions to colonize Cuba and the Española (despite technically being colonized by "the player") thus half of the mission tree is blocked by the other half.

But the question is that with the arrival of the new emperor dlc, the succession crisis from burgundy to castile is now also completely random and extremly unlikely and the tree has not changed to give a union cb to Spain, but continues with the practically unfeasible claims due to aggressive expansion. So if you ally yourself with the emperor (presumably Austria) he almost never gives you the low countries (it has never happened to me that he does so in the 15 or 20 games I have tried, rly, never ever, seems to be just a mith for me) and you cannot claim them if it is not by breaking the alliance and claiming them by force eating you a coalition from Protugal to Russia. so another branch from the mission tree completly blocked. Furthermore , naples now also adds to the list of frustrations that the player suffers with the new dlc since aragon 98% of the time cedes independence to naples and the tree, once again, instead of a casus belli of subjugation, gives only unfeasible claims on the boot destroying, yet again, another branch of the tree. And the same happens with milan, more impossible claims instead of giving the union restoration event that now happens to france and austria.

The result is that if with Castile / Spain you try to follow the events as they historically happens, trying to get the union with Milan at the beginning, waiting for the Iberian wedding with aragon and naples to later make a royal marriage with Austria, wait for a Habsburg on the throne and wanting to inherit burgundy and be ready to fight france and engñland for the true faith and complete the historical pathing of Spain in the game is just impossible, none of these thing will happen and the player has no chance to actively provoke them or make them happen in any case cos all the game mecanics are against the player for that matter.

Adding that colonization at the beginning, instead of being a path of immense wealth and prestige as it was historically, is a bottomless pit of losses until waaaay later on the game due to the senseless maintenece cost of the colonies (and those thousand of random event making u waste a ton of diplo mana and money) If historically colonizing had produced more losses than gains for the crown in the beginning, America would not have been colonized.

That said, I want to make Paradox see that playing Castile at this moment is not funto play, not even interesting but frustrating, extremely frustrating because 50% of the gameplay is based on rng, luck and save cuming 500 times or completely ignore the mission tree and history and play as if this did not exist or play Castile as u play any other random country of west europe just on yellow.

(Thank you if you have read all this, it has been quite long!! and I am sorry for the attacks against English that you have seen, it is not my native language and im quite bad!)

 

[Maxxie42]

About the Low Countries, it's normal to not get it at the time of the Burgundian Inheritance ; the way it works now is that first you let Austria get it, and then when the right conditions are in place (royal marriage, dynasty, rivalry with France) Austria gives it to you. The event is called 'A very strategic marriage', you can check the exact specifics on the wiki. So as Castille, getting the Low Countries is actually way less RNG dependent than before.

Naples is definitely a big loss, and I suppose it would make sense to inherit Aragon's Restoration of Union CB after the Iberian Wedding.

One thing I don't really agree with though, is that you say claims from missions are not enough because they are impossible to act upon because of aggressive expansion. But claims are what every other country in the world uses to conquer land. I don't see why Spain not receiving half of Italy on a silver platter, and instead having to manage AE like everyone else, is somehow outrageous.

The whole Portugal and colonies thing is a mess, it's not Emperor's fault, it's been a mess from day one of this mission tree. Best way to deal with it is to either rush the required provinces, or wait until you've taken them from Portugal to enforce the PU on them.


(Also Española is Hispaniola, and your English is perfectly fine )

 

[doken]

I've suffered some of what you mention, specially the Portugal part. You PU Portugal but then if he decides to colonize what you need for your missions, which is always, you can forget about the México and Perú claims until you inherit him. It's painful. Personally I've decided to just press the Block Settlement Growth button for the next campaign I play as Castile. I'd rather colonize slower. Best solution would be being able to tell them which Regions/Areas to colonize. I'd love that.

Also, don't forget the mission called "Expel the Moriscos" which you can't do anymore because of the Expel Minorities changes. You have to manually culture convert them, which is the stupidiest thing ever since Andalusian is part of the cultural union.

 

[doken]

And I know this is an old thing, but when multiple colonial nations in the same colonial region become yours, they have to merge. I know you'd get less merchants and force limit that way, but the border gore and subject managment it creates feels so wrong.

 

[Saat98]

Ok, I've recently made two Castile runs, trying to complete the Golden Century achievement. The first one I failed because I became emperor and I didn't have enough time to pass the reforms, but the second one I did complete the tree. Those two runs are some of the most fun I had.

Some advice with respect to your complaints:

Conquering Naples with claims does not give you mortal AE. The only countries that will get on a coalition for it will be maybe the pope, Venice and Ragusa. They will never declare because you are too strong for them. Also, when they become independent they will share dynasty with you and they will have no heir. So RM them, claim throne and declare on them, and you can get the union with Naples before the Iberian wedding. The northern Italy missions are... complicated, but I usually complete them until after dissolving the HRE, so you can diplovassalize easily, and if you have Austria under your PU you will never trigger a coalition since you will be more powerful than everybody else together (especially if Austria got Hungary).

The moment you have the Netherlands, you won't have any problems conquering/PUing GB.

The missions with the Caribbean are not difficult. I believe that if your own subject gets Tordesillas for a colonial region, you will not suffer the penalties even if you arrive after them. Now, I know that Hispaniolas mission is tricky since Portugal usually arrives first to Bani, and you NEED Bani. To solve this, there are two ways: colonize as fast as you can the rest of the island and build a church in Bani/Santo Domingo (even under control of Portugal). If there are five colonies (either yours or of your PU Portugal) completed on the island before Portugal forms his colonial nation and Bani has a church, you will complete the mission. Even if the fifth completed colony on the island would create Portugal's colonial nation (thus depriving you of the mission completion) you have a little time to reclaim the prize, since the colonial nation will not form until the next monthly tick. Just micro it a little. This is my favorite method and it never fails me.

If you want to go for a safest path, in the RoU war against Portugal just take Bani from them (or burn the colony) and you won't have any problem completing the Caribbean missions. If England still has Calais/Labourd, you won't have any problems to white peace England and then you could force a 100 ws peace deal on Portugal (but don't, since you need them happy). In that war I usually take only the union, without reps or money. If Mamluks is not DOF, maybe I take Ceuta and try to complete the continue the Reconquista mission early.

If colonization is too expensive for you, expel minorities from your lowest development provinces. Gibraltar is a 1/1/1, so after you get the idea that lets you expel minorities for free, you can expel from Gibraltar without any penalty at all, since you won't lose development. I believe that provinces in Corunna have 4 development, so if you expel minorities from there, you will only lose development once.

The only RNG that bothers me in a Castile run is whether Austria got or didn't get the Burgundian inheritance. If they did, your game is all set, since the very strategic marriage happens almost surely, as long as you have a RM with Austria and you don't have a heir. After that, maybe a couple of provinces will be missing to complete the mission and you won't trigger any coalition.

 

[mras0]

If you don't want to compete with Portugal for the new world and don't mind restarting a couple of times, you can:
- Wait until your ruler is 40 (he's 39 at the start so no big deal) to make you eligible for the Talented and Ambitious Daughter event.
- Get rid of Enrique
- Hope you get the talented daughter (or one of the other events that gives you a female heir), disinherit/refuse others (or restart)
- Once you she's old enough to rule, abdicate
- After the Iberian Wedding, enforce a PU on Portugal before they pick their first idea group

 

[GRWalker]

The mission tree provides you with opportunities, not necessarily historical accuracy. You get claims over Netherlands, which you may or may not also get diplomatically. IRL it did happen. You also get a PU over Great Britain, which IRL did not happen but it's certainly nice to have in EUIV! (it's slightly tricky if England doesn't flip Anglican or it gets a republican government, but still). Not getting the Burgundian Inheritance might also be a blessing in disguise if you don't want to deal with the Dutch Revolts.

The mission tree achievement itself is quite easy to get, easier IMO than other "DLC name" achievements like Austria or GB.
Also, the achievement does not make you start as Castile, so you can incorporate it into other campaigns if you want.
I tried to do it in my Aragon campaign, making sure to culture shift first, but I had turned Protestant and the mission tree requires you to stay Catholic.
I made it a few weeks ago starting as Provence (all the PUs!). I didn't even have to pick Exploration, I just integrated my GB and Portugal.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

About the Low Countries, it's normal to not get it at the time of the Burgundian Inheritance ; the way it works now is that first you let Austria get it, and then when the right conditions are in place (royal marriage, dynasty, rivalry with France) Austria gives it to you. The event is called 'A very strategic marriage', you can check the exact specifics on the wiki. So as Castille, getting the Low Countries is actually way less RNG dependent than before.

But Burgundy very often loses the lowlands through Charles suicidal wars so you never get the lowlands without attacking the HRE.

It's something I've always contested with people. Sure, the Spanish mission tree is powerful if you can secure the lowlands, but if not, you don't get the PU over GB and you don't get the PU over Austria. The Spanish mission tree is very dependent on the Burgundian Inheritance which is bugged as hell.

In my Spanish achievement run, I did get very lucky and got the full Burgundian Inheritance (partly because I fought all of Burgundy's wars for him and Austria had weak allies) but otherwise it would have been a lot harder.

 

[GRWalker]

The mission tree requires you to either become HRE Emperor or dismantle the HRE, so either way expanding into the (ex-?) HRE shouldn't pose a problem in the long run.

Personally I can't be bothered with HRE emperorship so I usually dismantle it. As Spain, it is in your best interests to ally Austria and help them become big so that you can then get a nice junior PU. Usually you can call them into a war and feed them HRE land, which will both make them bigger and have them accrue HRE AE, hopefully making electors choose someone else like Bohemia or Brunswick. Then you ally some electors, use your claims to attack into the Lowlands, and dismantle.

 

[Sete]

If only the devs could have made a DLC that sorted out Iberia...
But hey we got Pirates of the Caribbean!

 

[1persona]

Ok, I've recently made two Castile runs, trying to complete the Golden Century achievement. The first one I failed because I became emperor and I didn't have enough time to pass the reforms, but the second one I did complete the tree. Those two runs are some of the most fun I had.

Some advice with respect to your complaints:

Conquering Naples with claims does not give you mortal AE. The only countries that will get on a coalition for it will be maybe the pope, Venice and Ragusa. They will never declare because you are too strong for them. Also, when they become independent they will share dynasty with you and they will have no heir. So RM them, claim throne and declare on them, and you can get the union with Naples before the Iberian wedding. The northern Italy missions are... complicated, but I usually complete them until after dissolving the HRE, so you can diplovassalize easily, and if you have Austria under your PU you will never trigger a coalition since you will be more powerful than everybody else together (especially if Austria got Hungary).

The moment you have the Netherlands, you won't have any problems conquering/PUing GB.

The missions with the Caribbean are not difficult. I believe that if your own subject gets Tordesillas for a colonial region, you will not suffer the penalties even if you arrive after them. Now, I know that Hispaniolas mission is tricky since Portugal usually arrives first to Bani, and you NEED Bani. To solve this, there are two ways: colonize as fast as you can the rest of the island and build a church in Bani/Santo Domingo (even under control of Portugal). If there are five colonies (either yours or of your PU Portugal) completed on the island before Portugal forms his colonial nation and Bani has a church, you will complete the mission. Even if the fifth completed colony on the island would create Portugal's colonial nation (thus depriving you of the mission completion) you have a little time to reclaim the prize, since the colonial nation will not form until the next monthly tick. Just micro it a little. This is my favorite method and it never fails me.

If you want to go for a safest path, in the RoU war against Portugal just take Bani from them (or burn the colony) and you won't have any problem completing the Caribbean missions. If England still has Calais/Labourd, you won't have any problems to white peace England and then you could force a 100 ws peace deal on Portugal (but don't, since you need them happy). In that war I usually take only the union, without reps or money. If Mamluks is not DOF, maybe I take Ceuta and try to complete the continue the Reconquista mission early.

If colonization is too expensive for you, expel minorities from your lowest development provinces. Gibraltar is a 1/1/1, so after you get the idea that lets you expel minorities for free, you can expel from Gibraltar without any penalty at all, since you won't lose development. I believe that provinces in Corunna have 4 development, so if you expel minorities from there, you will only lose development once.

The only RNG that bothers me in a Castile run is whether Austria got or didn't get the Burgundian inheritance. If they did, your game is all set, since the very strategic marriage happens almost surely, as long as you have a RM with Austria and you don't have a heir. After that, maybe a couple of provinces will be missing to complete the mission and you won't trigger any coalition.

I got the golden century archivement aswell but the question is not whether it is possible or not, it is how frustrating it is when u add the dozens and dozens of little shits that you have to swallow playing with castile.

Ok I can accept that Portugal destroys my missions or I can prevent it from colonizing, but that is frustrating. ok I can not take naples and conquer it by force in a bad way, but it is frustrating. I can not have burgundy and dismantle the HRE to conquer the netherlands that burgundy has surely lost in some suicidal war but it's frustrating. I can see how the colonies in which I have invested thousands of ducats have thousands of troops and hundreds of ships and still do not go to any war outside of America, but it is frustrating. I can push out minorities to artificially lower costs but it's frustrating. ok i can attack morocco instead of granada? because grenade? almost always completely randomly allies with the otromans, but it's frustrating. Yes, I can go 48 diplomatic technologies below because the game requires me to conquer the Aztecs and maintain 10 relationships above the limit by eating their vassals or keeping 40k soldiers in Mexico for 200 years because there are going to be 200 revolts, but it is frustrating. The simple fact that a completely random event that I have no control over cuts more than half the mission tree is frustrating.

Can u play as castile and have a fun run? yes of course u can, can u play as castile and complete the mission tree? of course you can. But the mere fact that the mission tree is not organic, the colonization is not organic, the historical route is not organic and I have to know and EXPLOIT the mechanics of the game to do what the game tells me to do is absurd. "Hey player, expel the minorities of andalusia in order to make them all castillian. oh but expleling the minorities to the new world now doesnt make them castilian, fuck you good morning " thats what the game is telling me. "Hey player your country and their missions require you to be catholic and fight for the true faith in every corner when u form Spain, but u will lose all your religious ideas when u form Spain, fuck you good morning " etc.

And yes i can easily go for a WC with Spain with his retarded op ideas and so on, but thats not the point.

 

[1persona]

I got the golden century archivement aswell but the question is not whether it is possible or not, it is how frustrating it is when u add the dozens and dozens of little shits that you have to swallow playing with castile.

Ok I can accept that Portugal destroys my missions or I can prevent it from colonizing, but that is frustrating. ok I can not take naples and conquer it by force in a bad way, but it is frustrating. I can not have burgundy and dismantle the HRE to conquer the netherlands that burgundy has surely lost in some suicidal war but it's frustrating. I can see how the colonies in which I have invested thousands of ducats have thousands of troops and hundreds of ships and still do not go to any war outside of America, but it is frustrating. I can push out minorities to artificially lower costs but it's frustrating. ok i can attack morocco instead of granada? because grenade? almost always completely randomly allies with the otromans, but it's frustrating. Yes, I can go 48 diplomatic technologies below because the game requires me to conquer the Aztecs and maintain 10 relationships above the limit by eating their vassals or keeping 40k soldiers in Mexico for 200 years because there are going to be 200 revolts, but it is frustrating. The simple fact that a completely random event that I have no control over cuts more than half the mission tree is frustrating.

Can u play as castile and have a fun run? yes of course u can, can u play as castile and complete the mission tree? of course you can. But the mere fact that the mission tree is not organic, the colonization is not organic, the historical route is not organic and I have to know and EXPLOIT the mechanics of the game to do what the game tells me to do is absurd. "Hey player, expel the minorities of andalusia in order to make them all castillian. oh but expleling the minorities to the new world now doesnt make them castilian, fuck you good morning " thats what the game is telling me. "Hey player your country and their missions require you to be catholic and fight for the true faith in every corner when u form Spain, but u will lose all your religious ideas when u form Spain, fuck you good morning " etc.

And yes i can easily go for a WC with Spain with his retarded op ideas and so on, but thats not the point.

I dont want an OP Spain, I want a Spain that feels like Spain when u play it, and i would take away half of they stupidly strong military ideas and even the goldmine in la mancha in change for a feel of discovery and wealth of been the fisrt colonizer in America or that religious fervor to conquer the last Nazari kingdom of granada.

 

[Big Bad France]

But Burgundy very often loses the lowlands through Charles suicidal wars so you never get the lowlands without attacking the HRE.

It's something I've always contested with people. Sure, the Spanish mission tree is powerful if you can secure the lowlands, but if not, you don't get the PU over GB and you don't get the PU over Austria. The Spanish mission tree is very dependent on the Burgundian Inheritance which is bugged as hell.

In my Spanish achievement run, I did get very lucky and got the full Burgundian Inheritance (partly because I fought all of Burgundy's wars for him and Austria had weak allies) but otherwise it would have been a lot harder.

You need the inheritance to get a reliable PU over Great Britain early enough for it to be useful, but you don't really need it to get a PU over Austria. If you ally them and rival France, you get a Habsburg by event, and then it's just a matter of hitting them when they are without an heir.

 

[Saat98]

I got the golden century archivement aswell but the question is not whether it is possible or not, it is how frustrating it is when u add the dozens and dozens of little shits that you have to swallow playing with castile.

Ok I can accept that Portugal destroys my missions or I can prevent it from colonizing, but that is frustrating. ok I can not take naples and conquer it by force in a bad way, but it is frustrating. I can not have burgundy and dismantle the HRE to conquer the netherlands that burgundy has surely lost in some suicidal war but it's frustrating. I can see how the colonies in which I have invested thousands of ducats have thousands of troops and hundreds of ships and still do not go to any war outside of America, but it is frustrating. I can push out minorities to artificially lower costs but it's frustrating. ok i can attack morocco instead of granada? because grenade? almost always completely randomly allies with the otromans, but it's frustrating. Yes, I can go 48 diplomatic technologies below because the game requires me to conquer the Aztecs and maintain 10 relationships above the limit by eating their vassals or keeping 40k soldiers in Mexico for 200 years because there are going to be 200 revolts, but it is frustrating. The simple fact that a completely random event that I have no control over cuts more than half the mission tree is frustrating.

Can u play as castile and have a fun run? yes of course u can, can u play as castile and complete the mission tree? of course you can. But the mere fact that the mission tree is not organic, the colonization is not organic, the historical route is not organic and I have to know and EXPLOIT the mechanics of the game to do what the game tells me to do is absurd. "Hey player, expel the minorities of andalusia in order to make them all castillian. oh but expleling the minorities to the new world now doesnt make them castilian, fuck you good morning " thats what the game is telling me. "Hey player your country and their missions require you to be catholic and fight for the true faith in every corner when u form Spain, but u will lose all your religious ideas when u form Spain, fuck you good morning " etc.

And yes i can easily go for a WC with Spain with his retarded op ideas and so on, but thats not the point.

If you want the historical outcome always, then you don't want to play a game. History, as well as this game, has a thousand little events that can go one way or another, and change the outcome radically. If you want to get the game as close to possible to the reality, you will have to have the same outcome fir most of these little events. I need to remind you that in real life, Afons did split Naples from Aragon and then France PU'd Naples, and a while after that, Aragon seized Naples again.

The Burgundian inheritance went IRL to Austria because Mary didn't trust the French. She thought that the french had too much of an appetite for her lands. But let us remember that technically, Burgundy was a vassal of France that got autonomy by playing both sides in the 100 years war. Thus, it could have been possible that the Burgundian inheritance went to France, and ingame you would be way more pissed of having to conquer the lowlands from France, while having to shoulder the HRE's AE. Historically, it would be outright impossible for Castille to obtain the lowlands if the Burgundian inheritance went french. Moreover, if Charles the Bold had not died without a male heir, the emperor has all the reasons to try to weaken Burgundy. It was a menace from the west. Thus, you complaining about not getting the whole inheritance because Burgundy suicided against Liege is not a valid complaint.

I agree that Granada should not get alliances with Ottos or Morocco or Tunis. Granada in its last years was a mere rump state. But I don't get why should it be frustrating to you. Just build heavies to your force limit (you must build to force limit to get the claims in Granada), and declare on Granada. With some 7 heavies, Morocco+Tunis+Ottos won't be able to contest your control of the strait, so you only have to battle Granada and wait for WE to build up. A couple of years later they will take full anexation, even if you didn't occupy a single province of other participants.

Historically, the reason that Portugal didn't got to the Americas first was because they already had the Cape route for arriving to India, and they didn't need to bear the risk of crossing unknown oceans to go there. On the other hand, Castille was desperate, because the treaty of Alcácovas forbade Spain from using this route. But ingame, the exploration is riskless, so Portugal is heavily favored to get to the Americas first. Even if exploration had some risk, the fact that us, modern players, know that the Americas exist is an advantage that historical Portugal didn't have. Thus, it is not surprising that Portugal can win the race to the most important cities. Also, historically Spain did not recruit heavily from its colonies (heck, up to the Spanish succession war, it did not recruit from Aragon, only from Castille proper!), so even that the colonies have a significant army is a plus, even if they don't send it to Europe.

The only part of your complaint that I find valid is getting all the vassals of the Aztecs when you conquer it. You can be a little gamey and leave them with one province and avoid that, but I will accept that it is frustrating.

But my point is: the mission trees are not supposed to be easy to complete, and you will need to do stuff that you might find frustrating/boring/unhistorical to complete it. Take the five mamluk wars you need with ottos, building wine manufacturies in all your provinces and conquering all of Spain with Portugal, or subjugating Poland with France, which often is too big to subjugate, so you'll need multiple wars just to make it small enough to use the subjugation (or alternatively, conquer some provinces from them and create client state, which for me, is just as gamey).

 

[Travis_Bickle]

You need the inheritance to get a reliable PU over Great Britain early enough for it to be useful, but you don't really need it to get a PU over Austria. If you ally them and rival France, you get a Habsburg by event, and then it's just a matter of hitting them when they are without an heir.

But that's only if you rival France, which I don't consider optimal for Castile/Spain.

France acts as a good barrier between you and Europe, a good protector from coalitions, and they very rarely declare war on anyone but England or Savoy, so they're a useful ally to have until you've conquered the rest of the world and can throw a million man army at Europe.

 

[Eruth]

I've suffered some of what you mention, specially the Portugal part. You PU Portugal but then if he decides to colonize what you need for your missions, which is always, you can forget about the México and Perú claims until you inherit him. It's painful. Personally I've decided to just press the Block Settlement Growth button for the next campaign I play as Castile. I'd rather colonize slower. Best solution would be being able to tell them which Regions/Areas to colonize. I'd love that.

FYI, block settlement growth has no effect on colonization. It prevents the vassal from sending the colonists to promote settlement growth (though it doesn't recall them or force them to stop in a province they were already promoting growth on). Does not prevent them from colonizing.

 

[TheSpider]

In a few of my games, I've had good luck PUing Burgundy the old fashioned way after they remained independent way and completed the Spanish Netherlands mission that way - it's not uncommon for you to spread your dynasty to them since they lack diplo slots, so if you don't get the BI it's not game over. In all honesty, it's easiest to completely ignore the Spanish mission tree until late game if you want to get the Spain achievements. Just let Portugal do its thing and integrate them in the 1700s, claim up Mexico and Peru manually., dismantle the HRE and conquer the lowlands when you're powerful enough to ignore coalitions etc.

 

[Oglesby]

Is poaching the two close English territories when France and England fight over Maine still possible or do Frances vassals make that unlikely?

 

[Blizzrd33]

The only RNG that bothers me in a Castile run is whether Austria got or didn't get the Burgundian inheritance. If they did, your game is all set, since the very strategic marriage happens almost surely, as long as you have a RM with Austria and you don't have a heir. After that, maybe a couple of provinces will be missing to complete the mission and you won't trigger any coalition.

I thought you also needed France to be your rival and/or for you to have rivalled them for the "very strategic marriage event", or has this been changed in a patch recently that I didn't notice?

 

[Big Bad France]

But that's only if you rival France, which I don't consider optimal for Castile/Spain.

France acts as a good barrier between you and Europe, a good protector from coalitions, and they very rarely declare war on anyone but England or Savoy, so they're a useful ally to have until you've conquered the rest of the world and can throw a million man army at Europe.

France tends to be my avenue of early expansion when I play Castile. Aragon gets claims on a lot of their land, and I like to feed them up to their maximum number of provinces with the highest development land I can find before integrating all of it for free. Between using Aragon and Gascony for expansion, I can take religious ideas over administrative in the first tier and not really miss out on many admin points.