Jumping around, the 1.30 edition

[Sfan]

Hello there!

A few years ago, I had immense fun doing an AAR with very specific houserules.

To restrict myself, add some impredictability and enjoy a balanced world while still tryharding and pushing myself to the limit, I switch country repeatedly. This is something I have done consistently since years for fun campaigns, and this creates really interesting story lines. Now that we seem to have a more stable patch and I am back to EU4 with renewed enthusiasm, I wanted to relive this experience.

Basically, I pick a random country and I play it for about 20 years. There is no set rule for how long I have to play it, I stop when I feel like there is nothing more to achieve short term. This can go anywhere from 10 to 40 years, as it happened in one instance in my previous AAR. Once this is done, I leave the country into the competent hands of the AI and jump to a new country, which may be a nation I just destroyed or someone on the other side of the globe. Obviously, my previous nation can become a complete disappointment, or it can thrive. Seeing a minor nation I controlled in 1500 still be a regional power in 1700 is incredibly rewarding.

There are some specific house rules I use.
I try to leave the country in the best possible position. Basically, I don't conquer as much as possible by bankrupting myself, letting an empty shell with 5k debt, no manpower, rebels and a coalition. I leave the country if I'm confident they won't collapse immediately in AI hands. I also try to improve the economy as much as possible as this is the best way to ensure a country's survival long term.
This is also why I won't abuse Estates, given that I'm afraid that the AI won't be able to rebalance things. I will try to increase crownland if I can, especially as we near the Age of Absolutism.
This time, I decided to completely skip the New World and just reroll. It can be fun to play, but for an AAR it does not add much as the nation always disappoints and disappears.
I play in Normal because switching countries is my way of limiting myself. I pondered doing this in Very Hard, but more countries would be dead ends.
I don't use exploits and try to keep things realistic and stable if I can but I play extremely agressively in some dire situations. My previous AAR included several no CBs and trucebreaks, as this is the only way to play some nations. Some situations I will jump in may be more desperate than any situation in 1444. As I said, I will try to salvage what I can before leaving, but some nations were clearly doomed (looking at you, Timurids from last time). I will still avoid no CB and trucebreak if I see another realistic option to succeed.

What you can expect here is a mix of serious gameplay and hopefully useful advice (in all modesty, I'm pretty good at this game), some potential fun challenges if things don't go my way (an Icelandic North America might have slipped in my previous AAR), and the real feeling of history unfolding. That's what I really enjoy. To me this feels like a superior version of an observe game, as I can root for some countries and I am emotionally engaged.

 

[Sfan]

All of this being said, let's start right away! My first country could be anything from Ming to Ulm.

Welcome to Kedah. For those of you who don't know where Kedah is, this is one of the two small OPMs north of Malacca, trapped between Malacca and Ayutthaya's subject (the western dark red one). Well, that's some serious challenge thrown at me right away. Glad I did not chose Very Hard after all

Usually, I would just present the nation in the first post, but I wanted to offer some exciting gameplay from the get go, so I start playing right below.

A closer look tells us we are evenly matched with Pattani our neighbour who is obviously our only valid rival. We are a Plutocratic Monarchy, giving us an extra merchant that we can't use efficiently right now anyway. Our ruler is average and there is nothing else to note immediately about ourselves, so let's have a look at other nations.

Obviously, the big bully breathing down our neck is Malacca. They are the strongest nation in the area by a fair margin, they want our land and we can't attack them as they are a Ming tributary, we are not and Ming is not interested in Kedah.

We have a Force Limit of 7, and our ruler is instantly made into a very decent general (a siege pip !) That's obviously not enough to take out anyone easily, apart from Pattani. My logical move is to secure alliances. Ayutthaya and Pasai would be the next two nearby powers, but Pasai is actually hostile too and Ayutthaya is not interested.

I still manage to get Siak and Pagarruyung on my side, which opens interesting possibilities. Malacca is a no-go (because of Ming), and Ayutthaya too (they are way too strong). I can fabricate of my neighbour Pattani, and on Pasai on the other side of the strait.

Pattani is the weakest one by far, but I can't call in any ally unless I wait 10 years.

Their alliance with Palembang and Pasai means I will be 1v3. I'm confident I can stackwipe Pattani on day 1 but that leaves me in a precarious 1v2. I will be relying on the AI screwing their landing (they often do) and ideally not getting a land access. They will obviously have complete naval superiority, and that's the area in the world where this is really important to control the sea.

Pasai is stronger, but Siak and Pagarruyung are interested in joining:

We know they are allied to Pattani, who I can still stackwipe on day 1, and Siak and Pagarruyung should take care of Pasai 2v1. The real issue here is Malacca. I need to somehow hold 1v1 without losing control of Pattani, when they have twice my force limit.

Hopefully, OPMs have ways of their own. The basic opener for all non European OPMs (and for weak nations in general) is to open by going insanely over the force limit and get into massive debt, but repaying it by multiplying your starting land multiple times in the first peacedeal.
So, deep I start digging, taking the 5 loans from the burghers (this is insanely good) and selling the land I just seized (this is bad, but I really need it as it is literally the equivalent of 8 loans in my situation).

And here we go! I hire a morale advisor, go 8/7 FL for now, but I am ready to hire mercs.

The numbers look good if you consider my 8k men will stackwipe the 3k Pattani immediately, but Malacca hasn't mobilized yet.

As expected, the war starts with an easy victory. There is definitely something wrong with AI OPMs this patch, they started with 5k men and disbanded 2k. All AIs field less troop in peacetime, which is not necessarily bad because it can help their economy (if they don't hire mercs then disband then re-hire, and I think that's what majors are doing right now, but that's another debate and I need more input to be certain). However, this is nonsensical for a nation that does not have the strategic depth to hire troops or to hide their main army before they can reinforce it. OPMs should have a different logic. Anyway, in Normal difficulty, you always could stackwipe any OPM as another OPM if you had a morale advisor and went slightly over Force Limit, so that does not change much here.

I hired the Free Company because Malacca is coming at me. I'm at 12/7 Force Limit and I am bleeding money.

Hopefully, the AI can be outmicroed by pausing every single day. This was already looking like the most micro-intensive war I have played in a long time.

I win that battle against Malacca and I can finally start making progress on my front. By now, my allies should have handily taken control of their own 2v1!

Are you kidding me? They are both sieging the same fort while Pasai is sieging them and has 2k spare men to reinforce Malacca. This is a complete disaster.

Hopefully, I manage to luck out on the fort and finish it before Pasai reinforces.

I don't peace out Pattani yet. This is extremely important. They can't build armies yet, but the ennemies will most likely waste time desieging their capital fort. If I peace them out my situation will actually be worse.

As expected, Malacca has started sieging with half their men and split their armies in the process allowing me to stackwipe 3000 of their men and to start sieging them. I can't stress out enough how important it was not to peace out Pattani to win the war. Meanwhile, Pasai has fallen to us, and Siak to them.

I want to see if I will be lucky and finish the siege of Malacca before they finish the siege of Pattani. That would allow me to actually take land away from Malacca (right now I can't because I don't occupy any fort).

This does not happen, and I have to peace out Malacca now or risk losing all the momentum, because Siak will soon be peaced out by Pasai, who unsieged their capital. I can ask war reparations from them which will help me a lot in the aftermath of what is now a certain victory, even if we have no warscore.

I can keep the mercs to re-siege Pattani and send my men to relieve my Sumatran allies.

I finally resiege Pattani and peace them out, but Siak surrenders to Pasai shortly after, as we were about to finish unsieging their capital (was at 49%...)

Still not a worry, as the war is won. We massively outnumber our ennemy and have naval superiority to ship troops and speed up sieges, so we can easily crush their army, chase them and stackwipe them:

I give some land to Pagarruyung (Gayo and Batak) but take the best provinces. This is important to keep trust with allies early game when you called them with territory. If you don't keep your promise (If they lose more than 10 trust), you won't be able to call anyone with the promess of territory for 30 years, and this is a very powerful tool as a small nation early game.

The 3 provinces I took were the trade centers. My empire is disconnected, but that's such a massive boost to our economy it is worth the risk.

We leave the war with a far superior position, although I would really have liked to break Malacca. Given how poorly our allies fared, this is still a major victory. The debt is insanely high for such a small nation, but we can disband our mercs, consolidate our troops and pay the loans back.

Our economy will massively improve once we finish our cores, and we are now in a secure enough position that we can reasonably expand. I leave it there for now, after these 5 first years. This war was clearly one of the best ones I've fought, and I must say I'm really proud of myself. I will talk about the rest of our Kedah campaign in another post, because this one is pretty long already. I let you guess where we will expand and what will happen to our country.

For reference, I give our 1444 situation. I will compare it to our current one once we leave Kedah.

Development 1 province, 10 development
Income 1,98 (+0,84 at 0 army maintenance)
Army 4/1/0 (7 FL)
Tech 3/3/3, no idea group

 

[stnylan]

Will follow

 

[Sfan]

After that initial war as Kedah, we were in a really good position. Still weaker than some of our neighbours, but definitely in a less precarious state. Our first task was fixing our economy, and once we finished coring and stating our new provinces, our income skyrocketed.

We also needed to find new and better allies, especially because I had plans to turn on Siak and Pagarruyung eventually. Brunei was by far a superior choice.

Major diplomatic events were also occurring opening new possibilities, as Ayutthaya was getting destroyed by a coalition who would force them to release their subjects.

By that time, rebellions started plaguing both my land and Pagarruyung. I did not want to attack into the jungle and Pasai wouldn't let me get access to kill the Pasai separatists (how rude) so I had no choice but to find other ways of entering their land. The newly independant Ligor gave me the perfect opportunity.

Pasai was a dead state, and we quickly steamrolled their army and crushed the revolts.

Our ennemies were no match for our new strength, and we easily won the war and cleaned up our borders a bit...

... and expanded North:

That was also the time of our first government reform, and we doubled down on the Trade direction. Let's hope AI Kedah will become one of the richest nations in the world (who am I kidding, they will spam coastal batteries).

Our expansion wasn't over, and we clearly had more to do. Sunda had been beaten down by Majapahit, and they offered a perfect opportunity.

There was no real difficulty in the war, but our navies was almost entirely destroyed to allow us to pass the various straits freely.

I don't go out of my way with the peacedeal and my priority is really to unify the country and fix these borders to help the AI manage it. That's why I don't take anything in Java. I want to use the final years to connect my various holdings, but the Sunni disaster strikes.

Well... 11 years without wars is a big no. I will fix some things in the country and deal with some of the revolts, but then I will jump to my next country. My main task is to build a solid merchant navy to control the Malacca node and help the AI control the seas.

Even if they still have one loan, I'm sure they won't have any issue.

I leave Kedah in a very stable diplomatic situation, with strong allies to cover their back.

There were numerous expansion opportunities that I could not take. Let's hope the AI will see how free some wars are once they get out of their regency, especially this Ayutthaya.

In just over 20 years, we transformed Kedah.

1444
Development 1 province, 10 development
Income 1,98 (+0,84 at 0 army maintenance)
Army 4/1/0 (7 FL)
Tech 3/3/3, no idea group

1465
Development 13 provinces, 147 development
Income 10,17 (+3,58 at 0 army maintenance)
Army 8/4/0 (14 FL)
Tech 3/3/5, no idea group

I had a lot of coring to do, and I had to manually reduce war exhaustion to avoid collapsing from rebels, and I took the burghers' agenda to develop production for cash as often as possible. That explains the tech. Hopefully they will rebalance that on their own. I also could not develop for Renaissance at all, I definitely did not have the powerbase to do so yet. Development and income massively expanded, as expected.
Overall, I think we are in a really strong position. We have the most development and the most income of all nations around us (Ayutthaya, Brunei, Malacca and Majapahit are all slightly behind us), and only our ally Brunei . My only concern is our scattered possessions and the lack of naval superiority (we have no heavies).

 

[Sfan]

As the second part of Kedah was a bit short, I already introduce our next country. We move to another continent and leave South East Asia behind us.

Our new country clearly does not offer the same challenge. Mali and Songhai are the two strongest powers in West Africa. Mali did not expand at all, but at least they did not lose land either, and they are in prime position to control the region.

We already start in a war, but it seems it is a very easy one.

Technologically, West Africa still lacks all institutions. Feudalism grows in the capital of Songhai and Mali, however, because we are Feudal governments:

Religiously, 1.30 introduced an interesting tweak. A Sunni AI seems to ignore conversions altogether, and the new Dhimmi privileges are really interesting.

Overall, I think this new country will be an easy one. We can quickly expand and control a good chunk of the region. I will also try to keep up in tech and forcespawn institutions, and to create a strong economic powerbase. The real question is whether our impact will be big enough to offset the inevitable Spanish/Portuguese colonization, and potential invasion later in the game.

 

[stnylan]

I wonder if Kedah will still be strong in another twenty years. 50/50 maybe knowing the AI.

 

[Jedevari1]

Looks like an interesting start

 

[Lauron]

The first EU4 AAR I remember was a country hopping one. And yours was soo good. I'm so happy right now <3

 

[Sfan]

Thanks to everyone for your kind responses. I'm glad to see familiar faces coming back. Even if you don't want to comment, don't hesitate to like my posts if you enjoyed because I'm an attention seeking insecure person it feels great to know that people are following.


Back to Mali. We were in the middle of a war, but the AI had taken care of most of it already.

We take 100% warscore from Mossi without any difficulty. I intentionally do not border Songhai because I want to keep them friendly, at least for now. I don't need to antagonise the only power that can rival me.

As it happens, they are even willing to ally. This removes any potential threat and I can safely start expanding.

Kong is my ally, but they hold a goldmine and they are an obvious target. This war will cement our regional dominance. We abuse the fact that they are split (and that Kong is drilling) to stackwipe them one by one and carpetsiege to prevent further recruiting. There is no real challenge playing as Mali, so I won't go in further details about the wars.

Kong and Jolof are gone, and Macina is several reduced. I stay clear of any land Songhai claimed for now, because I want to focus on internal matters.

First off, we develop Feudalism in our capital.

Regional events are also unfolding, and we have a new neighbour to our northwest.

The starting ruler of Mali also finally died, and I had disinherited the heir as one of my first moves. The horrendous starting rulers is the main thing preventing Mali from doing well, and I get a new decent ruler from a new dynasty, even if his low legitimacy creates the threat of a Civil War.

Finally, we also start hearing about European traders, who do not appear as a threat yet, even if we know they are the ones who might eventually topple AI Mali.

We turn our attention to Fulo, who will definitely not have survived long.

That also allows us to conquer Yatenga.

Now that I started developping for institutions (it made me fall behind Songhai in military tech short term), I know I will start coming back and I will eventually surpass them. I am also big enough to not have anything to be afraid about anymore.
I also finished developping Renaissance during the war, pushing the goldmine near my capital to 37 development and 19 production for 10,51 per month...

As a rule, always try to develop provinces in your capital area, especially if your capital is a center of trade. There is the generic mission to reduce dev cost in the capital area, the fact that I upgraded the Center of Trade in Joma to reduce it even further, and the fact that this is cheaper to place edicts in the capital area.

I keep on improving Mali by switching government form from Autocracy to Iqta. I really want that 5% RCC now that I expand extremely fast.

I use my new powers and clean the remaining tags around me.

However, the threat of Civil War is more and more pressing, and this is not something I'm really willing to deal with. This is the best way for me to screw the AI, so I try to release vassals and feed them my new land.

Timbuktu has nice cores on Songhai, so they are the choice of reason. My second vassal has more to do with where the heart is.

Dahomey has the best flag, the best color, one of the best timed achievements of the game, and I had one of my best games playing as them.

Meanwhile, Songhai rivaled me and they are our next target. I just need to surpass them in Military Tech, which I finally do in 1485. I devpushed two institutions, but I'm now easily catching up while they still have an 85% penalty.

The military 6 vs 5 gap and the number advantage make the war really easy, and I'm not worried at all.

I'm actually disappointed by how straightforward this ends up being. They are afraid of us and disturbed by our vassals. They spend most of the war sieging Dahomey and running away every time I come nearby. We reached the point where nothing can truly challenge us (until Portugal and Spain come ashore), and that's exactly why I'm glad to leave Mali soon after this war.

We just take the time to do a final war:

We feed Macina to Timbuktu and we annex and release Nupe, leaving only Benin, Songhai and our ally Katsina as neighbours.

This is now time to leave Mali for our new country, with two final screenshots.

We are the fifth great power but the best is yet to come, thanks to our goldmines.

We have the highest income in the world!


1465
Development 11 provinces, 91 development
Income 16,10 (+7,35 at 0 army maintenance, courtesy of the goldmines)
Army 11/4/0 (15 FL)
Tech 3/2/3, no institution (64% tech penalty)

1489
Development 37 provinces, 283 development + 113 development from vassals
Income 34,66 (+16,19 at 0 army maintenance, courtesy of the goldmines)
Army 28/4/0 (35 FL)
Tech 3/2/6, no tech penalty. All the coring and the devpushing made us fall really far back in admin and dip.


Mali was clearly a success, but there was no real challenge. The game is not in my hands anymore, and it really depends on how successful and agressive Portugal and Spain will be. There is nothing Mali can do if they coordinate well and focus on them early, but they have all the tools in their hands to prepare and become a regional power.

We now take the direction of our third tag. I won't say who it is for now, but we go back to the joys of OPMs.

 

[Jedevari1]

I hope our next nation is in europe to see the new things that 1.30 implemented there

 

[stnylan]

A nice rich Mali to plunder later, no?

 

[Lauron]

@stnylan but we will root for every country played with :O

 

[Sfan]

Before discovering our new tag, I want to thank everyone for the kind responses.

Sadly, our next country isn't in Europe, there aren't actually that many European tags, but at least we discover a new area and we don't interact with our former country.

As for Mali, they have a nice base but I don't see them being rich long term. Gold is the best early game income, but the area lacks good tradegoods and the trade is really bad, so they will get outscaled. That was still a really pleasant surprise to have the highest income.

Of course, this all depends on what the AI will do. Segway to...

Kedah had many opportunities to expand, neighbouring a weak Ayutthaya and having good allies. My main concern was that I could not unify their holdings because of a regency.
Let's see what they achieved:

Kedah lost 2 provinces. Pattani got released, and Malacca gained one province from them on Sumatra. This is clearly disappointing. At least, they kept their allies and they are still a strong power. Most of their issues seemingly came from a war against Ava and Lan Xang, and Ava is burning in rebels after conquering Ayutthaya, so that might be an opportunity to come back.

We leave Kedah behind, and we forget about Mali for now. Time to discover a new OPM.

Hmmm, sure... Nice one. We are locked tiny Ennarea, one of the only surviving Coptic minors who are already really hard to play in 1444 when they can at least expand in the area. At least we are allied to Ethiopia. And in a war against Adal.

This looks winnable, but we don't really have much to gain from that. Our entire army, strong of 4000 infantry, is busy sieging a fort with Ethiopia.

We can also see that Ethiopia is our only ally, and that we are rivalled with Damot.

Damot is also Coptic, but they don't have any ally. They are a promising target. The only promising target, as we have 2 neighbours, Ethiopia and Damot.

1489
Development 1 province, 7 development
Income 1,34 (+0,88 at 0 maintenance)
Army 4/0/0 (6 FL)
Tech 5/6/7, no Renaissance, has unlocked Religious but not taken any idea

I honestly don't know what to expect there and I'm not sure how long I'll play. First, let's win that war for Ethiopia. Then, let's attack Damot. And then, let's hope Ethiopia did not take the province at the border of Adal and Damot, so that we can declare on Adal with Ethiopia once the truce is up? That's a plan. We could always no CB towards Lake Victoria, but I will try to avoid it.

 

[MachopPower69]

> OPM
Check
> No insititutions other than Feudalism
Check
> Generic Ideas
Check
> Blocked by a very powerful ally
Check

Yep, goodluck!

 

[stnylan]

I am sure everything will go swimmingly.

 

[MachopPower69]

I am sure everything will go swimmingly.

Yeah, "swimmingly". Maybe a naval Ennarea?

 

[Sfan]

I was clearly not afraid of dying. If anything, more afraid of having nothing to do. Being landlocked and completely surrounded by Ethiopia and wastelands, this is really hard to get something, even from a no CB.

Anyway, we had a war to win.

This honestly went really well. I was surprised by how useful Alodia was. I managed to grab a few occupations to prevent Ethiopia from completely encircling me.

Meanwhile, some news from our North:

And our truce with Damot is up. With the war won, we can start expanding:

Ethiopia peaces out. We gain many favors to boost trust and cement the alliance.

But the real question is what did they left for us?

Well... They released Welayta, but else, they clearly cut us off. More worrying, we don't have access to a colonizable province, we are locked near wasteland. Even after conquering Welayta we would be one province off from being able to take Expansion and colonize towards Ajuraan, they locked that path. That's what I wanted to do.

You can have a closer look at the geography once we annex Damot:

You see the three wastelands to our west, southwest and southeast. We would need Dawaro, owned by Ethiopia, to colonize Afder and Ogaden.

At least nothing prevents us from conquering our new neighbour.

We also develop the goldmine in Kaffa. We are in no position to spawn institutions and Renaissance will come by itself eventually. But some extra money does help.

We finish our last war and we are left with pretty much no option.

I could try to find allies to turn on Ethiopia, but I don't see who. I don't see how I could win 1v2 vs Ethiopia and Alodia eitger. A no CB vassalization of a minor is always an option, but that takes time to payoff and that's extremely risky for the AI to have scattered posessions and to rely on military access/walking through natives. Finally, I chose the safest option and embrace my fate. I'll try to make Ennarea stable and to create a strong Coptic front.

I take my time and convert the new provinces to Coptic and deal with the revolts. We don't want Ennarea to collapse.

We definitely boosted our income with the goldmine, so I abandon the preselected Religious (which the AI wouldn't use at all) and pick Economic ideas. They're the best ones to play passive and we really need the Inflation reduction.

Even with the inflation reduction, and an advisor, inflation is on the rise. That's the only real concern.

1489
Development 1 province, 7 development
Income 1,34 (+0,88 at 0 maintenance)
Army 4/0/0 (6 FL)
Tech 5/6/7, no Renaissance, has unlocked Religious but not taken any idea

1504
Development 4 provinces, 43 development
Income 13,10 (+7,86 at 0 maintenance)
Army 6/4/0 (9 FL)
Tech 5/7/8, no Renaissance, Economic 3

Overall, I'm not satisfied with Ennarea, but I did not expect much. A player can get out of that isolation, but an AI can't, and I did not want to play for 30 years as such a small nation just to setup the AI in the right direction. Let's say we multiplied our income by 10. That's something.
I genuinely think the Coptic Front (we are all allied together) is strong enough to repel the Mamluks. If that's the case, we should keep our 4 provinces and Ennarea may very well be the exact same nation by 1821.
That was a very short one, and honestly not very enjoyable to play. The next nation will have a lot more possibilities.

 

[stnylan]

Well sometimes one has to adjust one's aims - the Coptic Front may well be a worthy achievement of this spell if it holds together.

 

[Sfan]

Saving the Coptic Faith might indeed be an accomplishment. If that's the case, I guess that saves the 15 years of Ennarea. Of course, that all depends on the AI now. Segue to...

Kedah had lost 2 provinces after seemingly losing a bad war against Ava (and maybe one against Malacca too earlier). They still had their alliances with Pagarruyung, Siak and Brunei.

They regained one province, and the region consolidated a bit. Siak has been gobbled by Pagarruyung. Did Kedah dishonor the alliance? It seems like it. That does not really change much, the land there is still controlled by their ally. My main concern is that they don't comeback in tech at all, despite not expanding. The 2/0/2 ruler does not help.

As for Mali, we left them in a really strong position.

It seems they defeated Benin, and that triggered their Civil War. So much for me trying to prevent it. I still think they are in a secure position. They are currently pulled in a war against Kano + Songhai + Yao by their ally Katsina, and they still have their 3 subjects. They might soon be left completely out of expansion opportunities, but at least their position is really secured.


I introduce the next country right away, because I played ahead and the next tag is the most interesting so far.

This one is definitely a major power already, even if the diplomatic situation in India can be really tricky.

As expected, we lack any good allies as we are the only major Hindu nation. We are allied to the small 2 provinces nation of Kolathunad, on our west coast. They wouldn't accept vassalization as we hold one of their cores, and this alliance is a complete waste. They just take away some of our trade.
Our other ally is Kalahandi.

I have a soft spot for them, they have a super cool flag and I did a very enjoyable Ganges Khan run with them. And at least they would agree to a vassalization.

Our last friendly neighbor is Andhra:

It seems they were forced to annul their alliance with us and they are left without any ally. They transfer their tradepower, but I see no reason why we should not invade them instead.

This leaves us with our two hostile neighbors.

Gujarat isn't that impressive, and we beat them in a recent war. At the same time, their alliance with Jaunpur might be annoying, and their land isn't our priority.

Bahmanis is obviously A LOT stronger. Their alliances with Delhi, Malwa and Bengal are extremely scary. But their land is more valuable. They have some of our cores, this is the proper trade node and this would make us a lot more compact.

Finally, no institution has spread to India yet. This will need to be adressed too.

I see opportunities to unify the Hindu nations by conquering Andhra, breaking my useless alliance to conquer Kolathunad, and vassalizing Kalahandi. The rest might be a lot more complex if we don't get ourselves out of diplomatic isolation, but this is both exciting and interesting.

 

[stnylan]

Yes, some definite possibilities.