I have more than 400 hours on the clock and a few completed campaigns under my belt, but so far I have always played as continental powers: Muscovy, Ottomans, Austria, Brandenburg, Ming, Hindustan, etc. etc. Only diplomatic ideas taken were usually Diplomatic and Expansion. I used trade before, but never really had many merchants to create elaborate trade networks and my territories were usually very compact, no islands or 1-2 province outposts in the style of Macau or Goa. I think I'm still stuck in some ways in the EU 3 ways.
I want to try something different now and I'm thinking about Portugal 1444 start. I played a test game until 1600, mostly at pretty high speeds, it went okish until a monster Spain, which PU'd and absorbed Aragon which controlled 80% of Italy, decided to switch their priorities and pick on me, for which I was completely unprepared. Basically the other big powers which fought Spain constantly were France, Austria and Great Britain. As a good ally I helped the Spanish a lot. When they decided to backstab me, I had no potential allies since every big power of any use against the Spanish hated me for fighting alongside the Spanish for a century. I'm still not sure whether I am impressed or deeply frustrated by the Spanish AI. In any case I wasn't planning to continue because it was my first attempt at creating a trading empire reaching India, China and Indonesia.
My steps were:
- annex Tangiers, Melilla and Casablanca; got decent bonuses from missions which helped to offset the ridiculous coring costs; also gave me more trade power in the Sevilla node and eventually the Barbary Pirates defeated modifier, still not sure whether it was worth it, but it occupied me while waiting for colonial range to kick in
- colonised a couple of provinces on the West African coast; didn't really explore unless I had enough colonial range to colonise; didn't want to spread discoveries too early, I couldn't reach Cape Verde immediately and Spain nabbed it before me
- took exploration, didn't get lucky and didn't have a Colonial Range extension advisor, bought some +2 diplo advisor to help power through the diplo ideas and diplo tech; this is one of my major problems; I was very unlucky with monarchs, had plenty of 4-5 admin and military, but consistently 0-2 diplomacy so I was struggling badly with idea and tech progress; maybe I'm approaching this wrong by trying to go for BOTH colonisation and trade, but it looks to me that I want to get too many Diplomatic group ideas: exploration seems necessary for extra range, colonists and ability to recruit explorers after the starting ones die plus you really need Viceroys to make Colonial Nations worthwhile; Expansion gives you a merchant, colonist, increases colony growth, gives more trade power and provides ability to expand easily against Indian and Chinese tech group nations; Trade ideas are self explanatory and Naval Ideas are pretty important for force limits, combating the British and Spanish navies and unlocking a bunch of really nice decisions; then you need to progress through the diplomatic tech tree to get range increases, growing trade efficiency and better ships and trade/naval buildings. It seems like with my approach I am very heavily dependent on the RNG to give me a high diplo monarch. In the test game, I tried to get the Legacy of the Navigator Portuguese bonus by rushing through Explorations ideas (requires 6 ideas unlocked), I lagged badly in diplo tech, but I got big neighbour bonuses and it wasn't hard to catch up, once I reached diplomatic tech 7, with a Colonial range advisor, I could more or less reach any province I wanted to colonise.
- colonised along two directions, West Africa-> Brazil->Caribbean; didn't continue, but in retrospect I could have pretty easily conquered the Aztecs; other directions was West Africa ->Fernando Po -> Cape -> Mahe (island north of Madagascar as a base for invasion of India) -> conquered a province in India -> enough range to colonise Indonesia and later Philippines. Two Colonial Nations were created, one in Brazil, one in Caribbean; do they create only in the Americas? I had more than 5 provinces in South Africa and Indonesia and they remained my territory. I pushed the tariffs high, but made sure to keep Liberty Desire at 40% maximum to have wiggle room in case of random events pushing me closer to 50% LD. They both created decent sized armies and fleets, there were no pirates on their coasts, but in war the AI was very hit and miss. Caribbean Portugal invaded British West Indies, but also sat there and didn't prevent a BWE invasion of their own provinces, so they ended up occupying each other.... In Brazil, the Spanish CN had trouble fighting a 25k British stack. Spanish CN had 15k troops, my CN had 19k troops. We could have easily wiped out the British, but my CN troops refused to help in the Allied lands just across the border. So far the Colonial Nation implementation has been very mixed. I like the liberty and tariff mechanic, I like that I don't need to worry so much about patrolling, but what sucks is that the AI seems to be pretty bad at using their troops and fleets and that the nations themselves seems very inert; they never colonised or explored anything or did anything of much use
- tried to set up a trade network; initially just collecting in Genoa and Seville, as I received merchants and colonised, I started collecting in Brazil, once I had 4 merchants I went Brazil->Mauretanian Coast->Western Europe -> Seville. As I received more merchants I gave up on America and switched around the African coast going towards India and South-East Asia If I understand correctly, you don't really need merchants in Cape, Luanda or Ivory Coast (no one really pulls significant trade North in IC), AI was putting enough merchants there to keep the trade flowing towards Europe. I ended up with merchants which were steering trade like this: Canton->Johor->East Bengal->Ceylon->Zanzibar (steering towards Cape)-> here I had a bunch of empty nodes along the African coast since it looked like Spain and GB were pulling the trade to Western Europe for me; Western Europe->Seville (only place were I was collecting). I tried to build up trade power in Seville, Mauretanian Coast and around South Africa to allow for high trade power without the need for light ships. Ended up using my light ships to pull trade from Western Europe trade node towards Seville and to help compete in my small outposts in India and South East Asia. In retrospect, I could have pretty easily expanded at a much faster rate in Indonesia, Malaysia and India, I had plenty of admin to spare due to not taking admin idea groups, getting high admin monarchs and not conquering as much as I do when I play a continental power; but became somewhat lazy in the test run. I'm still not sure whether protectorates are worth it. I need at least two to enact certain decisions, but other than that, I'm not really sure about their benefits.
I made it a point not to break the major AI powers too early, to provide challenge for mid and late game. But it seems that I have little choice when it comes to Spain. No matter how much I try to placate them, royal marriages, alliances were I fight hard on their side, giving them provinces they want in peace deals, etc. sooner or later they seem to switch against me which screws me up completely as I don't have the ability to fight in Iberia against a unified Spain. They seem to end up at war with every power which could offer protection against them. I still need to figure out this conundrum. Somehow make them like me more (I don't know how), ally another great power in Western Europe (but I'll end up at war with Spain pretty quickly since they hate the French and the British) or just scheme from day one to try and break Castile in the first 15-25 years (ally Aragon before Iberian Wedding, hope for English help before the Reformation, ally the French maybe). Maybe my game just turned out unusual; Burgundy never broke and together with Castille it beat up France pretty badly, eventually the French came back a bit, but from 1444 until the 1600 Western and Central Europe was in constant flux and no clear winner. In the meantime Aragon absorbed Naples, conquered large parts of Italy and then Iberian Wedding happened. Fast forward thirty years and Spain has all of Iberia except Portugal, almost all of Italy and was able to take on every combination of enemies. Protestantism was extremely successful as well, with almost the entire HRE converting, Austria included, as well as GB, Scandinavia, Low Countries, half of France, all of Hungary and a third of Poland. I really hoped that I'd be able to keep friendly with Spain since we were the armed arm of Counter-Reformation, protecting the Catholic Church, but it was not to be. Apparently Spain decided it would protect Catholicism, by uniting the flock, which sadly included my lands
Frankly if I were Spain in that position, I'd have done the same so no hard feelings there.
Any inputs on setting up a better trade network, better technology and idea progress, different colonisation options maybe, etc. are welcome.
I want to try something different now and I'm thinking about Portugal 1444 start. I played a test game until 1600, mostly at pretty high speeds, it went okish until a monster Spain, which PU'd and absorbed Aragon which controlled 80% of Italy, decided to switch their priorities and pick on me, for which I was completely unprepared. Basically the other big powers which fought Spain constantly were France, Austria and Great Britain. As a good ally I helped the Spanish a lot. When they decided to backstab me, I had no potential allies since every big power of any use against the Spanish hated me for fighting alongside the Spanish for a century. I'm still not sure whether I am impressed or deeply frustrated by the Spanish AI. In any case I wasn't planning to continue because it was my first attempt at creating a trading empire reaching India, China and Indonesia.
My steps were:
- annex Tangiers, Melilla and Casablanca; got decent bonuses from missions which helped to offset the ridiculous coring costs; also gave me more trade power in the Sevilla node and eventually the Barbary Pirates defeated modifier, still not sure whether it was worth it, but it occupied me while waiting for colonial range to kick in
- colonised a couple of provinces on the West African coast; didn't really explore unless I had enough colonial range to colonise; didn't want to spread discoveries too early, I couldn't reach Cape Verde immediately and Spain nabbed it before me
- took exploration, didn't get lucky and didn't have a Colonial Range extension advisor, bought some +2 diplo advisor to help power through the diplo ideas and diplo tech; this is one of my major problems; I was very unlucky with monarchs, had plenty of 4-5 admin and military, but consistently 0-2 diplomacy so I was struggling badly with idea and tech progress; maybe I'm approaching this wrong by trying to go for BOTH colonisation and trade, but it looks to me that I want to get too many Diplomatic group ideas: exploration seems necessary for extra range, colonists and ability to recruit explorers after the starting ones die plus you really need Viceroys to make Colonial Nations worthwhile; Expansion gives you a merchant, colonist, increases colony growth, gives more trade power and provides ability to expand easily against Indian and Chinese tech group nations; Trade ideas are self explanatory and Naval Ideas are pretty important for force limits, combating the British and Spanish navies and unlocking a bunch of really nice decisions; then you need to progress through the diplomatic tech tree to get range increases, growing trade efficiency and better ships and trade/naval buildings. It seems like with my approach I am very heavily dependent on the RNG to give me a high diplo monarch. In the test game, I tried to get the Legacy of the Navigator Portuguese bonus by rushing through Explorations ideas (requires 6 ideas unlocked), I lagged badly in diplo tech, but I got big neighbour bonuses and it wasn't hard to catch up, once I reached diplomatic tech 7, with a Colonial range advisor, I could more or less reach any province I wanted to colonise.
- colonised along two directions, West Africa-> Brazil->Caribbean; didn't continue, but in retrospect I could have pretty easily conquered the Aztecs; other directions was West Africa ->Fernando Po -> Cape -> Mahe (island north of Madagascar as a base for invasion of India) -> conquered a province in India -> enough range to colonise Indonesia and later Philippines. Two Colonial Nations were created, one in Brazil, one in Caribbean; do they create only in the Americas? I had more than 5 provinces in South Africa and Indonesia and they remained my territory. I pushed the tariffs high, but made sure to keep Liberty Desire at 40% maximum to have wiggle room in case of random events pushing me closer to 50% LD. They both created decent sized armies and fleets, there were no pirates on their coasts, but in war the AI was very hit and miss. Caribbean Portugal invaded British West Indies, but also sat there and didn't prevent a BWE invasion of their own provinces, so they ended up occupying each other.... In Brazil, the Spanish CN had trouble fighting a 25k British stack. Spanish CN had 15k troops, my CN had 19k troops. We could have easily wiped out the British, but my CN troops refused to help in the Allied lands just across the border. So far the Colonial Nation implementation has been very mixed. I like the liberty and tariff mechanic, I like that I don't need to worry so much about patrolling, but what sucks is that the AI seems to be pretty bad at using their troops and fleets and that the nations themselves seems very inert; they never colonised or explored anything or did anything of much use
- tried to set up a trade network; initially just collecting in Genoa and Seville, as I received merchants and colonised, I started collecting in Brazil, once I had 4 merchants I went Brazil->Mauretanian Coast->Western Europe -> Seville. As I received more merchants I gave up on America and switched around the African coast going towards India and South-East Asia If I understand correctly, you don't really need merchants in Cape, Luanda or Ivory Coast (no one really pulls significant trade North in IC), AI was putting enough merchants there to keep the trade flowing towards Europe. I ended up with merchants which were steering trade like this: Canton->Johor->East Bengal->Ceylon->Zanzibar (steering towards Cape)-> here I had a bunch of empty nodes along the African coast since it looked like Spain and GB were pulling the trade to Western Europe for me; Western Europe->Seville (only place were I was collecting). I tried to build up trade power in Seville, Mauretanian Coast and around South Africa to allow for high trade power without the need for light ships. Ended up using my light ships to pull trade from Western Europe trade node towards Seville and to help compete in my small outposts in India and South East Asia. In retrospect, I could have pretty easily expanded at a much faster rate in Indonesia, Malaysia and India, I had plenty of admin to spare due to not taking admin idea groups, getting high admin monarchs and not conquering as much as I do when I play a continental power; but became somewhat lazy in the test run. I'm still not sure whether protectorates are worth it. I need at least two to enact certain decisions, but other than that, I'm not really sure about their benefits.
I made it a point not to break the major AI powers too early, to provide challenge for mid and late game. But it seems that I have little choice when it comes to Spain. No matter how much I try to placate them, royal marriages, alliances were I fight hard on their side, giving them provinces they want in peace deals, etc. sooner or later they seem to switch against me which screws me up completely as I don't have the ability to fight in Iberia against a unified Spain. They seem to end up at war with every power which could offer protection against them. I still need to figure out this conundrum. Somehow make them like me more (I don't know how), ally another great power in Western Europe (but I'll end up at war with Spain pretty quickly since they hate the French and the British) or just scheme from day one to try and break Castile in the first 15-25 years (ally Aragon before Iberian Wedding, hope for English help before the Reformation, ally the French maybe). Maybe my game just turned out unusual; Burgundy never broke and together with Castille it beat up France pretty badly, eventually the French came back a bit, but from 1444 until the 1600 Western and Central Europe was in constant flux and no clear winner. In the meantime Aragon absorbed Naples, conquered large parts of Italy and then Iberian Wedding happened. Fast forward thirty years and Spain has all of Iberia except Portugal, almost all of Italy and was able to take on every combination of enemies. Protestantism was extremely successful as well, with almost the entire HRE converting, Austria included, as well as GB, Scandinavia, Low Countries, half of France, all of Hungary and a third of Poland. I really hoped that I'd be able to keep friendly with Spain since we were the armed arm of Counter-Reformation, protecting the Catholic Church, but it was not to be. Apparently Spain decided it would protect Catholicism, by uniting the flock, which sadly included my lands
Frankly if I were Spain in that position, I'd have done the same so no hard feelings there. Any inputs on setting up a better trade network, better technology and idea progress, different colonisation options maybe, etc. are welcome.
