Sort of... In practice, it's usually a bit different. For the start even with loans it's hard to blob like crazy on VH, so you blob only moderately. When you get large enough to lose few provinces (which likely have brewing rebellion), you lose the war to some minor and give them those provinces (need to reduce LA before starting the war though). Usually you can get something 50% revanchism at that point. This still allows you to refinance with cheaper loans and benefit from more taxes and unrest reduction. Then you continue to blob and lose some of the newly conquered land in another war. Basically you don't want to wait 15 years. Often, the minor who won the first war against isn't able to keep the land (due to rebels or due to being attacked by someone else), so it's hard to know who you will be taking the land back from. One consideration is that AI may often raise LA (and if the provinces change hands few times it can get to 100%). So your choice is either keep trading this land for revanchism (reduce LA before losing it again), or try to hold on to it after the reconquest. In the latter case you don't have separatism and you've managed to handle the situation right you'll even have fairly low LA. Typically, if you are planning for the latter you want to try to lose the war to someone with religion and culture matching the land you are giving away (if that land is in their states, even better). In real games it's hard to predict how AI will act and what's going to happen, so usually you'll have a bit of both scenarios.
At this stage you aren't in position to repay loans yet, you are just trying to reduce interest payments (or loan more without increasing the interest payments).
Revanchism is always ticking down at 10%/year rate, so you need to replenish it. It is additive, so if you lose cores in another war your revanchism will increase by corresponding amount (but it can't go over 100%). So typically you are trying to maintain it somewhere in 50-100 range. Interesting question about losing land to non-co-belligerent - I don't know the answer. If it works the way you've suggested that will be a nice extra tool
I don't know about guides either.I see. It would help your income a bit, but for the purpose of this challenge it wouldn't make nearly as much difference as interest rate reduction.
I like Ceylon because it has so many CoT provinces - if you take them you get a nice trade power. In most other nodes, the trade power is more spread out. I used some DIP and ADM to make full cores and accept cultures - not sure if it was efficient, but I was too lazy to fight some more wars for a few extra provinces
Yeah, I think it's mostly ability to blob. It's also easier to eliminate competition in trade nodes in Asia. I am not sure how well you can do it in Genoa node. You would need to conquer much large dev to have the same share and AE might also be an issue in Europe. Maybe you can try to occupy everyone in Genoa node shortly before 1485. You can certainly try and see if it can work better. Another advantage is that Ternate start is reliable, you don't depend much on luck of alliances and what AI does. You also have a cheap stability at the start - good for quick no-CB wars to jump into a different region
4th admin idea effectively increases your final total by factor of 4 - you won't get that big increase if you spend that ADM on coring. Besides, you get coring cost reduction on the way, so you'll make a good portion of that ADM back and spend it on coring anyway.
I think Hormuz sees that area at the start, so it might be an option. Though I think it would be challenging to get both the gold mines and trade up.
