Castile - what colonies after anexing protugal

[mrjohndoe]

Hello,

its 1494 in my game and I have almost anexed portugal. Aragon is "PU"ed. Now I want to go to the new world. As I can see I am the first on there.
I have taken cape verde and the azores and I am building a colony on the bermudas.
I plan a final war on portugal in ten years and fully anex aragon in 15. Unfortunatly france is at full force what makes me very nervous.

So can you give me some tipps how and where I should expand in the new world and how I can secure my country against all threats? I learn the game (on easy mode) so as I'm getting in colonisation I want also to learn to trade.

Regards

 

[maquis196]

Ally France. Never worry about them again... Until youre both in India.

 

[GChapman]

Ally Burgundy / Austria and beat France

 

[maquis196]

OP said they wanted to learn the game. Theres no beating France early easily.

Still, if you want to learn colonising, start as Portugal. If you want to learn about beating France, play as Spain and ally everyone else big and crush them!

 

[slv]

Focus on temperate provinces when colonising (part of brazil, Caribean, Fernando Po -> Cape ). Also consider conquering Tangier to have a monopoly on Seville.

Since it's impossible to send trade from Cheasepeak to Seville you might consider not colonising NA at all. Though basetax there is quite tasty.

If you are new player just ally Austria and if the war with France kicks stay in mountains. At some point AI will consilidate and it's possible to win that fight. Don't be aggressive, stay in mountains and hope Austria will do the job.

 

[yerm]

Ally France. Fighting France means you won't be learning much about the game other than fighting against France.

For colonies in the new world, I believe especially as a newer player you should look to focus fire 5 colonies into one area to form the colonial nation before moving on to another. You also want to make the Caribbean your prime target in general and limit how much other powers can establish themselves in it. I also feel securing Chesapeake is rather important; sniping the trade bonuses there is very handy. Your goal is to not just have as much territory in the new world as possible, but also to minimize how much wealth is leaving your wallet to anyone else. Letting another power get a strong hold on Chesapeake and pull trade north will hurt your income pretty badly. A safe bet is to get the handful of Caribbean areas in northern south America, get the Panama ones to the west, and the Brazil ones to the east, and have a block. Up top, you probably want to carve a line from New York down to the Aztecs (or whoever owns Mexico), who you will want to conquer.

For the other direction, you'll want to decide whether to colonize or conquer your way around Africa. If you colonize, Fernando Po (I think; the tiny island) is a good stepping stone to Cape, and around. You'll likely want to conquer East Africa because it's full of gold and ivory and extremely easy to do. You may want to conquer west Africa too, cause why not. Avoid colonizing into the Jungle provinces; it's extremely slow and the natives suck. If you want to avoid conquering (for instance, you don't want to deal with converting Sunni to Catholic), your colonies can stretch into the Indian Ocean (there's a few islands, think Bourbon and others) and reach towards Indonesia that way. India will depend on local circumstance; nothing outside Europe should pose an actual threat, it's just a matter of having to pick and choose which and where to hit, and opportunity costs.

Avoid Canada; it's largely useless for you. Avoid non-sevilla-trade-node North Africa. They give a really big increase to the cost to core, and all the pain of converting Islam. Avoid war with France if you can help it; read this forum for a good whine about their military usually every page or two for basically forever. If you want to go into Europe, you're often better off going into Italy.

 

[Viperswhip]

By 1494 you should be head of the HRE, have inherited part of Burgundy, be warring with France, taking away their coastline, vassalized or annexed Portugal, own Meath, and Ireland more generally, and be slowly conquering Britain in between wars with France. Stryria should be your ally, Brandenburg should be a March and one or two of the other electors be your vassals.

As you have not been very aggressive...well, the I recommend the Carib, and Central America, focus on paths that cut off your rivals from being able to colonize any further. In fact, this is one of the reasons why you war with Britain, so that you can seize their colonies, saves you time.

You can basically cut off every other country from colonizing the eastern Americas at all, well worth the effort. Colonial nations are pretty super crap now though, so be sure you want to bother.

 

[mrjohndoe]

Thanks for the tipps. France set me as a rival. So I can't ally them.

When I conquer the whole middle american trade zone (is this possible?) is that enough? Can other countries not just use other harbours to colonize south america?

Greetings

 

[KrupPato]

Hello,

its 1494 in my game and I have almost anexed portugal. Aragon is "PU"ed. Now I want to go to the new world. As I can see I am the first on there.
I have taken cape verde and the azores and I am building a colony on the bermudas.
I plan a final war on portugal in ten years and fully anex aragon in 15. Unfortunatly france is at full force what makes me very nervous.

So can you give me some tipps how and where I should expand in the new world and how I can secure my country against all threats? I learn the game (on easy mode) so as I'm getting in colonisation I want also to learn to trade.

Regards

Don't diploannex aragon, when you hit level 10 adm you can annex free for form spain.

In new world colonize all caribbean's island and then declare war on minor for mexico.

In africa fernando po, cape and then island hopping for the spice island.

In europe if you have naples in PU or when annex aragon go to italy from malta.

EDIT: oops, I had not seen that other said the same things.

 

[Viperswhip]

Don't diploannex aragon, when you hit level 10 adm you can annex free for form spain.

In new world colonize all caribbean's island and then declare war on minor for mexico.

In africa fernando po, cape and then island hopping for the spice island.

In europe if you have naples in PU or when annex aragon go to italy from malta.

EDIT: oops, I had not seen that other said the same things.

You can also wait for Aragon to annex Naples before you take the decision.

I have never once had France rival me on Day 1 or soon thereafter. The easiest way to contain France in the early game is to be their ally so that you can siege provinces they want and wait until they white peace.

 

[Pilot00]

By 1494 you should be head of the HRE, have inherited part of Burgundy, be warring with France, taking away their coastline, vassalized or annexed Portugal, own Meath, and Ireland more generally, and be slowly conquering Britain in between wars with France. Stryria should be your ally, Brandenburg should be a March and one or two of the other electors be your vassals.

He said he is learning the game....

 

[Kipperian]

By 1494 you should be head of the HRE, have inherited part of Burgundy, be warring with France, taking away their coastline, vassalized or annexed Portugal, own Meath, and Ireland more generally, and be slowly conquering Britain in between wars with France. Stryria should be your ally, Brandenburg should be a March and one or two of the other electors be your vassals.

As you have not been very aggressive...well, the I recommend the Carib, and Central America, focus on paths that cut off your rivals from being able to colonize any further. In fact, this is one of the reasons why you war with Britain, so that you can seize their colonies, saves you time.

You can basically cut off every other country from colonizing the eastern Americas at all, well worth the effort. Colonial nations are pretty super crap now though, so be sure you want to bother.

How?

 

[KrupPato]

You can also wait for Aragon to annex Naples before you take the decision.

Well, he said have only Aragon as PU. I think in his game Naples breaks the PU with Aragon. It happens to me very many times

 

[Aries666]

OP said they wanted to learn the game. Theres no beating France early easily.

Still, if you want to learn colonising, start as Portugal. If you want to learn about beating France, play as Spain and ally everyone else big and crush them!

France is very easy to beat early, fab a claim day 1, ally Burgundy and Austria, declare war, win, make France release vassals etc. In 1st year dow on France with Burgundy and Austria will have you outnumbering them 3:1 whilst they are still tied up in the HYW.

By 1494 France will have consolidated but with Burgundy and Austria they are still defeatable, especially with Aragon under PU and Portugal gone.

To the OP, if you can and want to avoid fighting France ally them but bear in mind that when you reach India/Spice islands they will break the alliance. To counter this you need to expand faster than they do. You may want to take North Africa I would use a vassal for this. Focus on colonising the Carribean first then Chesepeak bay. After that its up to you but with Portugal gone you will be making obscence amounts of cash meaning you can afford lots of mercs even if a war with France is going poorly.

 

[Aries666]

You can also wait for Aragon to annex Naples before you take the decision.

If Aragon still had Naples in PU it would have transferred to him upon PU'ing Aragon.

 

[Kipperian]

It isn't easy to become Emperor before the King of Burgundy dies to inherit the territory.