This is something I've been stuck on and wanting to complete.. for... reasons
Objective is :
Starting at the Straits of Gilbraltar, own every single coastal province accessible within - every port city of the Mediterranean and Black seas. That means the Berbers, Mamluk, Ottoman, Crimea, Genoa, Venice, Italy, Southern France, Aragon, Castile, and Portugal are all targets.
Who would you pick in a 1444 start, and how would you achieve it?
I've started as the Ottomans; they have missions to acquire most of the southern area, are not too hard to westernize, and have some great income when they obtain all their cores. Coring discount, strong naval position... seems like a good beginning. But allies amongst the Europeans are scarce, and a delay of 20-50 or so years is inherent in both letting tech fall behind, westernizing, then catching up, all of which tends to occur sometime in the mid to late 1500's. After which national cores have started disappearing, blobs are forming, and big groups of allies make things rough to slog through.
Also considered using Castile - Portugal can either be PU'd or simply beat up at leisure, missions allow for point of entry into Berber's and using Tunisia/Tripoli as vassal feeds. Aragon (and hopefully Naples) gets merged, and staying Catholic allows for Crusading against the AI Ottomans which will never westernize. Castile's ideas are partly wasted on colonizing, though, which will probably be ignored, though the one colonist might be sent off with 4-5 troops to lazily assist Portugal in sending Caribbean trade back.
Any other good picks? Any HRE member could potentially unite and leverage those lands towards the southwest and southeast, but that means a century or two focus on diplomacy and conquest within, and being dragged into endless wars, not to mention being caught up in both reformations.
Objective is :
Starting at the Straits of Gilbraltar, own every single coastal province accessible within - every port city of the Mediterranean and Black seas. That means the Berbers, Mamluk, Ottoman, Crimea, Genoa, Venice, Italy, Southern France, Aragon, Castile, and Portugal are all targets.
Who would you pick in a 1444 start, and how would you achieve it?
I've started as the Ottomans; they have missions to acquire most of the southern area, are not too hard to westernize, and have some great income when they obtain all their cores. Coring discount, strong naval position... seems like a good beginning. But allies amongst the Europeans are scarce, and a delay of 20-50 or so years is inherent in both letting tech fall behind, westernizing, then catching up, all of which tends to occur sometime in the mid to late 1500's. After which national cores have started disappearing, blobs are forming, and big groups of allies make things rough to slog through.
Also considered using Castile - Portugal can either be PU'd or simply beat up at leisure, missions allow for point of entry into Berber's and using Tunisia/Tripoli as vassal feeds. Aragon (and hopefully Naples) gets merged, and staying Catholic allows for Crusading against the AI Ottomans which will never westernize. Castile's ideas are partly wasted on colonizing, though, which will probably be ignored, though the one colonist might be sent off with 4-5 troops to lazily assist Portugal in sending Caribbean trade back.
Any other good picks? Any HRE member could potentially unite and leverage those lands towards the southwest and southeast, but that means a century or two focus on diplomacy and conquest within, and being dragged into endless wars, not to mention being caught up in both reformations.
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