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ProfCC

Lt. General
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Jun 14, 2003
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Well, I did it. I’m still a newbie, at least to EU4, but with the help of many of you here, I was able to form Italy. I kind of thought it would take longer, but I did it by 1547. In the end, I took a lesson you guys taught me to keep Castile out of the war (allied to me and to the Papal States). So, now just looking over Italy, and I want to make sure I sort of see the direction offered by the missions.

It look likes the far left line of missions is aimed at taking the peninsula. The far right line is about the Adriatic, the Eastern Med and the OE. And the middle two lines are about Europe, split between France and Austria. Is that basically it?

I know you don’t have to necessarily follow the missions, but with the rewards about cores and claims and such, seems like the idea. Right? So, since I am currently allied to Austria, Castile (still not Spain) and the Commonwealth (Poland/Lithuania), I have some decisions ahead. If you saw my other thread, then you know Castile is on the southern part of the peninsula, so I guess that’s my first target since I want to control the peninsula. But boy I wish there was another way rather than war. I’d much rather have Castile being a threat to France’s southern border relative to wars with them. I didn’t realize that Italy could gain claims on southern France, but even if I didn’t want to go there, the Provence and Savoy areas are mine to claim. And then to go down the Adriatic puts me in conflict with Austria too since they still control Triest.

I‘d appreciate any thoughts about direction or warnings. Is there a chance that Castile just gives up Naples? What about waiting on the OE to come on up the Adriatic, taking Triest for me? Forget them all and go ahead down to Africa, Tunisia? Will Muscovy take out the Commonwealth—meaning, I remember in EU2 that Poland/Lithuanian could never hold it together against their enemies (HRE, Russia, OE)? One mission says to ally with Ethiopia, which I can now see….if I ally with them will that pull me into wars and issues too far away to really be useful?

I need one more rival, and my choices right now are France, Castile or Austria…seems like the game is pointing me to the same crucial set of decisions.

Oh…somehow, the southern part of Italy, including Rome, has become Protestant. And also Mantova is Protestant. I don’t remember getting any kind of choice regarding that for Mantova. When I tried to send a missionary, there was clearly no progress possible with 100% zeal. I left them alone for now, but having just taken some of the Papal States land to form Italy, I now have more provinces as Protestant. I plan on staying Catholic, so…not sure what to do with that? I was able to get my one missionary to work in Rome where the game says it will convert back to Catholic in six years. Just was surprised to see PS land as Protestant (along with the rest of the southern peninsula) and then to see that in general, my missionary could not convert them back. Is there some coded event after the Reformation motors along for a while that will decrease the zeal that will allow for my missionary to work?
 
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The way the reformation works is that religious centers appear on the map (3 protestant and 3 reformed) which target heretic (ie mostly Catholic, but if they run out, Orthodox too) provinces. After a province gets converted, it gains the 'religious zeal' modifier for 30 years, which gives -100% to conversions, so effectively you can't convert the provinces back for the duration. After the 30 years, you will be able to.

As for the mission tree, there are slim chances that Castile will ever give up Naples, so you will most likely have to go to war with them if you want to unify the peninsula. Very much will depend on the diplomatic setup changing in the future, but if I were you, with this current setup I'd use Austria and the PLC to beat down the Ottomans (maybe Castile too if they are rivalled to them and are willing to join), then when you have the Balkans think about abandoning Austria, pick up France as an ally, and use him and the PLC to beat down on Austra and claim the Eastern Adriatic for you. After that abandon Castile too, and use France to break him. If Castile integrates Naples (which usually happens), in the first war I would take just a single Neapolitan province, and one in northern and southern Aragon, so that you can release them as vassals and in the next war you can reconquest Naples and Valencia and Catalonia, then integrate them for yourself. Castile will be essentially finished by this, and you'll be strong on your own (with the whole of Italy, the eastern coast of Spain, and the Balkans under you) to finally break with France too and beat him for your claims on the south of France.
 
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The way the reformation works is that religious centers appear on the map (3 protestant and 3 reformed) which target heretic (ie mostly Catholic, but if they run out, Orthodox too) provinces. After a province gets converted, it gains the 'religious zeal' modifier for 30 years, which gives -100% to conversions, so effectively you can't convert the provinces back for the duration. After the 30 years, you will be able to.

As for the mission tree, there are slim chances that Castile will ever give up Naples, so you will most likely have to go to war with them if you want to unify the peninsula. Very much will depend on the diplomatic setup changing in the future, but if I were you, with this current setup I'd use Austria and the PLC to beat down the Ottomans (maybe Castile too if they are rivalled to them and are willing to join), then when you have the Balkans think about abandoning Austria, pick up France as an ally, and use him and the PLC to beat down on Austra and claim the Eastern Adriatic for you. After that abandon Castile too, and use France to break him. If Castile integrates Naples (which usually happens), in the first war I would take just a single Neapolitan province, and one in northern and southern Aragon, so that you can release them as vassals and in the next war you can reconquest Naples and Valencia and Catalonia, then integrate them for yourself. Castile will be essentially finished by this, and you'll be strong on your own (with the whole of Italy, the eastern coast of Spain, and the Balkans under you) to finally break with France too and beat him for your claims on the south of France.
That seems like a brilliant strategy. I was thinking Africa too, but maybe two fronts at once is unwise. Does the PLC stand a chance to remain strong? I just remember that it seemed hard-coded back in EU2, at least for the ai, to never be able to remain, due to both internal scripted historical events and growing threats in the north (Muscovy and sometimes the Baltic powers).
 
Left alone PLC should fall behing Russia and OE. While the two others have way of expending, PLC is stuck in the middle of them and HRE. With lots of rebel problems (religions, cultures) and a not so great economy in the mid-late game, PLC most of the time gets slowly eaten out by all the ones around.

But you are in this story. You can give him ducats and troop to help, give him some land in the future wars to come and keep him strong. Or you can use him as a bait for the OE while you get the good stuff.
 
For North Africa, my usual solution as a Catholic European nation is to vassalize a small nation, or annex and release a nation and then feed the whole region to it. This way you don't have to deal with raids anymore, you have another army/navy to deal with blockades/sieges, or at least another front for your opponents to waste their manpower on. Plus it's all wrong faith, wrong culture territory, so giving it to a friendly Berber would be a good way to remove an annoying pain (raiding) instead of just replacing it with another (constant religious/separatist revolts).

I've found that Morocco is best, as they have cores all over the best part of North Africa. However Castile/Spain and or Portugal usually get most of their territory and can make them remove a lot of their cores, so that may not be viable for you.

In second place, you have the rest: Tripoli, Algiers, anyone else. Since all the Berber culture kingdoms have the same national ideas there's no difference in how any of them work, they're all equally useful.
 
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That's a big pain in the butt.

The direct way is fight Aragon, take their islands, then make claims on Tunis, to either take their islands and release Tripoli, OR take their coast and release Algiers.

Another, possibly better, way would be get into a war with an ally of Touggart, with the goal of vassalizing them during the war.
Your allies will help you kill heathens, you won't have to break alliances to attack into Africa, and no one in Europe cares what you do to African Muslim Berbers.
 
I have a different view of this. I agree that you need to throw Castile out of Italy. Is your navy strong enough to dominate the Western Med in a war? You will probably need to invade Spain to get enough war score to take more than one province. If you fortify the northern mountain passes and build a navy strong enough to dominate the Med, Italy is pretty secure. If you are going to fight Castile you need to do it before they consolidate Iberia and develop strong colonies. Otherwise, you’ll probably need to ally France or Morocco to distract Castile.

I favor the trading game and there is a great trade route that leads back to the end nodes in Venice or Genoa. Alexandria, Aden, Gujarat, Coromandel, bengal, Malacca. The key is wresting the Nile delta and Sinai from the Mamelukes, then expanding east. You can steal maps from most anyone in the area once you have ships that can sail the Red Sea and east. That way you don’t have to waste time with exploration ideas. You will need colonists but you can get them from the expansion idea.
 
The way the reformation works is that religious centers appear on the map (3 protestant and 3 reformed) which target heretic (ie mostly Catholic, but if they run out, Orthodox too) provinces. After a province gets converted, it gains the 'religious zeal' modifier for 30 years, which gives -100% to conversions, so effectively you can't convert the provinces back for the duration. After the 30 years, you will be able to.
States are easier to convert back than territories. Less time, less money. Also, remember that Conversion gives you prestige and papal influence. If you can become Curia controller before next age fires, you can declare a crusade against Mamelukes and, if you have an adjoining province (Crete for example) you get all of the amazing crusade modifiers in war with Mamelukes for 30 years.

Given your map, I’d probably pick a fight with Tunis to get a province adjoining the Mamelukes.
 
Based on this screenshot, there's another possible avenue for you to get the Spanish lands in Italy. If the Ottomans eventually get around to conquering Rhodes, there's an event ingame where the AI pretty reliably reestablishes them on Malta, which for a small time is still a Neapolitan core. Once that happens, you should immediately declare on them (they'll have no allies if you do it day 1), conquer the province and release Naples from it as a vassal. If you own the Leviathan expansion, you'll be able to ask for the rest of the cores back from Castile/Spain. Mind you'll need lots of favors, since the individual prices are set on province development, but it would mean getting the provinces peacefully.

As for the strategy I've outlined, Muscovy in this patch is usually a buggy mess. In your game, hr doesn't even have the provinces to form Russia, which means he won't get the claims on the PLC. EU4 isn't as railroaded as its predecessors, and I see no immediate threat to the integrity of the PLC other than the Ottomans, but as he is a common enemy of yours, his, and Austria (who I presume is the Holy Roman Emperor), the three of you should be able to beat him down and chip away at him. And as Guibou said, you are there to help him keep it together should the need arise.

As for Africa, you should absolutely try going for that too. Beating the Ottomans will take a long time (if you 100% peacedeal them, which you should always do if you can), the truces will leave you with lots of time to move your attention elsewhere, in this case Africa. You can take provinces from Tunis to release tags for reconquest. My favourite is Tripoli, which has lots of cores in modern day Libya, and returning those offests the liberty desire penalty if you choose to enforce religion on them, but there's also Algiers, Kabylia, and it looks like he ate Tlemcen too. If you wish to easily convert those provinces, you should consider taking religious ideas, but middle- to lategame missionary strength gain from modifiers mean you could be able to do it without them, just slower.
 
Manwe—yes, Austria took over Burgundy’s lands. They weren‘t that small, but had been reduced to only a core northern section and Low Country.

Hayseed—I’m not sure what happened to England. At one point they were strong, still with land on the continent. Then, I looked back up and they were losing to Scotland.

I’ll get back to you on the naval comparison (I have like 55 ships), but in the meantime, I think I understand what you all are saying about feeding a vassal, but…. So, in a war in North Africa (elsewhere?), I fight a first war, win, and then after taking land somehow (probably through the diplomacy tab?) “release” them to be independent. Then later, fight more wars in which the vassal could be given more land through the peace deal. Right? So that in the end, the vassal (who would have the right culture and probably some cores on all that land [hence the suggestions you all have made]) becomes responsible for coring conquered lands, keeping down rebels and apparently raiding. I guess then, in the end, the vassal controls a ton of land if you keep on conquering (like much of North Africa?).

is that correct?
 
So, in a war in North Africa (elsewhere?), I fight a first war, win, and then after taking land somehow (probably through the diplomacy tab?) “release” them to be independent.
Yes, that's the way. You take the province for yourself in the peace deal, but instead of coring it, you go to the diplomacy tab (on your own country), and towards the lower right end of the box there's a button where you van release vassals from your country. The idea behind this method is that it incurs less overall AE to take a 'seed' province, release it as a vassal and then reconquest the cores. You can look for candidates in the province tab, where the cores are shown. Greyed out cores are countries that are no longer on the map, but can be released. If you want to convert their land you'll have to either enforce religion on them from the subjects tab (but keep in mind that doing this will give +50% LD to heretic and +100% LD to heathen vassals), or you can convert the land after you reconquested all the cores and integrated them. The first option usually means easier conversions, because converting the land while your subject has it means it's usually an accepted culture, so you don't get that penalty to your conversion speed, but you'll have to manage the liberty desire your subject gained because you enforced religion on him.

The second option means slower conversions, because you'll get the unaccepted culture penalty (unless you accept that culture of course), but it still can be overcome, especially once you are in the mid- or lategame, it just means your overall conversion speed will be a bit slower.

If you choose the first option, I suggest you enforce religion on the new vassal first thing, while they are an OPM. Then in subsequent wars, returning the cores will reduce their liberty desire which will help offset the +100 they gained from their forced conversion to your religion. If you are going into vassal play, you should also pick up influence ideas, which give bonuses the annexation cost, liberty desire, an additional relation slot and +2 diplo rep, which essentially means a further LD reduction, because every diplo rep point you have is -5% liberty desire.
 
Yes, that's the way. You take the province for yourself in the peace deal, but instead of coring it, you go to the diplomacy tab (on your own country), and towards the lower right end of the box there's a button where you van release vassals from your country. The idea behind this method is that it incurs less overall AE to take a 'seed' province, release it as a vassal and then reconquest the cores. You can look for candidates in the province tab, where the cores are shown. Greyed out cores are countries that are no longer on the map, but can be released. If you want to convert their land you'll have to either enforce religion on them from the subjects tab (but keep in mind that doing this will give +50% LD to heretic and +100% LD to heathen vassals), or you can convert the land after you reconquested all the cores and integrated them. The first option usually means easier conversions, because converting the land while your subject has it means it's usually an accepted culture, so you don't get that penalty to your conversion speed, but you'll have to manage the liberty desire your subject gained because you enforced religion on him.

The second option means slower conversions, because you'll get the unaccepted culture penalty (unless you accept that culture of course), but it still can be overcome, especially once you are in the mid- or lategame, it just means your overall conversion speed will be a bit slower.

If you choose the first option, I suggest you enforce religion on the new vassal first thing, while they are an OPM. Then in subsequent wars, returning the cores will reduce their liberty desire which will help offset the +100 they gained from their forced conversion to your religion. If you are going into vassal play, you should also pick up influence ideas, which give bonuses the annexation cost, liberty desire, an additional relation slot and +2 diplo rep, which essentially means a further LD reduction, because every diplo rep point you have is -5% liberty desire.
Ok. And is it vassaling to then move to diplo-annex at a later date (after the subsequent wars to feed them), or is it to leave this power vassal as your main ally in the region? And where does the concept of trade companies come into play…or is that a completely separate thing?
 
Ok. And is it vassaling to then move to diplo-annex at a later date (after the subsequent wars to feed them), or is it to leave this power vassal as your main ally in the region? And where does the concept of trade companies come into play…or is that a completely separate thing?
Either leaving it in place or diplo-annex is fine. If it has land you want, you annex. Otherwise it can be a useful, if somewhat stupid ally that you have more control of. Remember that you cannot annex a vassal once it has 100 development. As pointed out by Bokorthedust below, this statement is incorrect. You cannot diplo-vassalize a nation once it has 100 dev. You can annex a vassal of any size. Also, it will take up one diplomatic relations slot. Several ideas give additional slots as does the powerful dutchies nobility estate privilege

Trade companies are different. You add provinces to a trade company to get better trade value,but at the cost of little manpower and little sailors. Also, governance cost is much less. Trade companies are useful for building a trade chain that will produce gobs of money. Essentially, you have a merchant in your endnode (the node where your trade capital is (probably Venice or Genoa). And then you build a chain of trade companies on the routes that are upstream from there. Example: if Genoa is your home node, Genoa, Alexandria, Aden, Gujarat, Coromandel, Bengal, Malacca. You want to put a merchant in each of those trade nodes. And you want to get more than 50% of the trade power in each node because that gives you a free additional merchant. Some people like to get more than 50% - it depends on what your goal is. Light ships protecting trade also add trade power (and naval tradition) and the more advanced light ships add more trade power per ship than 5hevearly ones.

The home node merchant collects trade. All the others transfer trade.

With a chain, 1 ducat generated in Malacca is increased in each node it passes through.

You get trade power primarily by colonizing or conquering provinces in the node with high trade power or which have trade centers (which can be upgraded for additional benefits and power). Also, you can make trade company investments. You will see those by looking at the territory tab (open a province screen, click on the top tab that has the name of the territory it belongs to and you will see the trade company investments that are available on the bottom half of the screen).

Note that in the new world, once you get five provinces in a colonial area, a colony forms, so trade companies are less useful in the new world unless you don’t plan to be a heavy colonizer.
 
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More info and questions:

Regarding the fleets:
  • OE--86 limit/89 built [7-10-51-21]
  • Castile-- 46limit/48 built [6-8-6-28] + Aragon--31/31 [2-5-9-15] = 77/79 [8-13-15-43]
  • Italy--65limit/56built (with 9 more being built to limit) [current-->4-14-29-9]
  • Mamluks--40limit/41built [4-12-16-8]
Questions
  • If planning to leave the vassal as is (alive, not annexed) do you still spend the effort to force-convert them to our religion?
  • I think I have too many forts in the north. There is a level 2 fort in Como, Milan, Brescia, Mantova, Verona and Treviso. Should I destroy the one in Milan and Brescia, lean Como due to the Mountains...or keep the one in Milan due to the zone of control? Or keep it and Como? I think I understand how forts work, but trying to think strategically about it.???? I also don't think I need the one in Mantova, right?
  • And should I then add one over in the west, near France, like at Saluzzo or maybe, due to ZOC, choose Cunea? And what about in the south? Should I put one in Perugia for ZOC or maybe instead either Ancove or Urbina to better protect the coast and take advantage of the hills?
 
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Remember that you cannot annex a vassal once it has 100 development.
That is just plain wrong. Any vassal can be diplomatically annexed, regardless of size, it just takes longer and costs more. Stacking annexation cost reduction modifiers helps loads with this.
If planning to leave the vassal as is (alive, not annexed) do you still spend the effort to force-convert them to our religion?
If you leave them alive, there's little point to force religion of them. It's actually better to leave them, because if you feed them at least they won't get extra unrest from the newly acquired land being different from their religion. They also won't get the liberty desire they would get if you enforced religion on them. So, enforce only if you want to annex them, and don't if you wish to keep them around indefintely.

I think I have too many forts in the north. There is a level 2 fort in Como, Milan, Brescia, Mantova, Verona and Treviso. Should I destroy the one in Milan and Brescia, lean Como due to the Mountains...or keep the one in Milan due to the zone of control? Or keep it and Como? I think I understand how forts work, but trying to think strategically about it.???? I also don't think I need the one in Mantova, right?
You are right, that is a lot of forts. What's your country's development? You need 1 up to date fort/every 50 dev to get the +1 yearly army tradition, which helps keep it high and means you'll recruit better generals for your armies. For example if you have 500 dev, you'll need at least 10 active, up to date forts to get the +1 tradition.

Do the math on your country, and if you have more than you need, you can start deleting some. Brescia and Mantova should be on the top of your list to get rid of, as they are not really blocking anything, because Verona and Treviso already do that.

I would for the time being leave both Como and Milan (Como is a natural border mountain fort that is protecting the northern entry into your country, while Milan is providing ZoC against armies coming from the west and northwest. You should definitely build one in Saluzzo, as that would completely block off the western entry and is a mountain, just as Como.

In regards to your other forts, you should keep the one in Rome because that's your capital, and having a high level fort there is a must to prevent the easy occupation of the capital. Building one in Perugia would be good if it wasn't next to your capital, as it is inland (generally try avoiding coastal forts because they can be blockaded by a superior enemy navy and fall faster, plus give you extra war exhaustion. For the time being I'd leave your fort setup in the south as is, and after you've managed to get Naples from Castile, there's a nice inland hill province (I don't remember the name) where you should put a fort for ZoC and protecting the coast, while of course deleting the one in Napoli itself.
 
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According to the ledger, my development total is 607 (had never looked at this before). I am fourth:

  • OE--822
  • PLC--778
  • France--622
  • Italy--607
  • Castile--575
  • Mamluks--525
After that the next country is down in the 300s.

So, based on what you said, I need 12 forts? I guess I need to just build a few more but not tear any down at this point. I mean, if the 1/50dev is important?
 
It's more of a preference, really. I am of course all for forts and high army tradition, while other people completely ignore them and just delete them as soon as possible. If you want the full bonus, you'll need 13 forts for 607 dev, because the fractions also count.

Having high/higher army tradition is good to have in my opinion, because it translates into better generals. Better generals mean faster and more efficient wars, while the forts also protect your heartland and built up prosperity. But of course they cost money, both to build and to maintain, and you don't get the army tradition if you keep them turned off in peacetime.

So obviously, it's your choice how you want to approach this. But if you want to fight the Ottomans, the Emperor and Castile down the line, you'll need every possible military advantage you can squeeze, and having better generals then your enemies could mean the tipping point.