Lusitania AAR

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(I'll post the ongoing campaign...latest IGC and EU 1.09, Portugal is the only major power, all settings normal...)


CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

We decided that the key to our expansion is to hit those strange-talking Spanish...so we tried every month to get into the France alliance and finally we succeeded.

1492-1502

Building troops, fortresses, and Bailiffs, and Tradeposts in our newly discovered lands cost us a lot of money...we went broke, stability dropped, we lost al our science because the scientists ran off.
We did however build tradeposts all over the Atlantic Southamerican and African coasts. There were small colonies build in South Africa (Cape Colony) and in the western part of South America so we have ports. The Cape Verdian Islands became a city.
Strange thing happeneed, we couldn't use the Azores as a port although it's a city! Magic probably of the ghosts of the Natives...

A south american and an african conquistador are running all over the continent...the african territories have slaves which are practically worthless. A CoT opened in the Cape Colony.

Still we are too poor, we should build a big army waiting for the Franco-Spanish War to start!

Another mysterious thing happened: our ally France (who actually hates us, they refuse to marry) got involved in a long war against some central European nations...we had to join them, although of course we didn't send troops...but then, our War Exhaustion was twice as big as that of France!!! Why is that???

 

[Avocado Aguila]

Everntually someone who plays the wonderfull bea(it)ches of Portugal ! Just like i had.

My advise is pretty simple. Forget about Europe - Portugal is not to fight any European wars. Just colonize and i mean EVERY SINGLE province. I've played Portugal that way and it was pretty fun (and fast - all the time passing @ 2-years speed, till you have new colonists/traders). Don't get engaged in any alliances - they bring nth and actually not too many countries want to get your a$$.

As soon as reformist gets introduced - go for it and spread your colonies even faster. hehe - Spain can forget about any colonies not that don't belong to them according to Tordesillas treaty - and i mean all the African, Asian and American colonies, you will soon have all the coastal provinces in Indian basin and noone will be able to get to ya in any way and yes CoTs, hehe are of course yours. As far as colonization is concerned - go for trade posts + some 8 colonies (say Delaware, Antigua, Diamentia, Table, Bombay, Jakarta, Amgoun and one on the Antipodes). Don't forget to exchange maps (esp with Spain) as often as you can - they will have nice CoTs you may be able to monopolize.

One more point about colonies - it's pointless to set try to set trade posts in colonies with low (under 60%) change of succes. Thus either remove the damm heathens before you set a TP or wait till some other country does it and leaves it for ya to colonize.

I move you don't get involved in colonial wars too fast - pointless and expensive. Just gather the terrain Later on you will have a good use for it

Good Luck !

Best regards,

Avocado

 

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(The gameplay with IGC and the update of EU went wrong...it was the worst of all bugs: I couldn't read my saved game anymore!!! So I started again now just with EU version 1.7 but I played the same, and everything went the same except I didn't get a CoT in Table

And thank you very much for your help Avocado!! I will need it!Portugal has a big colonial empire but it's weak...)



CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1502-1516

In 1509 France finally declared war on Spain and we sent out troops, some 15K each, into Andalusia and the Spanish capital...the Southamerican conquistador occupied the Spanish colony Uruguay.
Because Spain was involved with France it didn't defend itself against me and after the siege of Madrid and Andalusia went succesful for us Spian offered us Andalusia for peace...we needed that second CoT and it has a golden port, the only one Spain had, so it loses 1 coloniser.
France didn't end its Alliance with me...
And Uruguay which is in my Tordesillas-area immediately went to Portugal once it was occupied...does this mean Spain can do the same to me? I have several colonies now in the "Spanish" area...I have to ask the lawyers what loopholes this Traty of Tordesillas has...
The scientists are all working to find the trick to get monopolies...no succes yet.
Finally we landed in Cochin...strange that some areas were not discovered by us but became visible! Like Chile and the sea to India....
Africa has tradeposts and 2 colonies (to use as ports) all over and we're building a port in Cochin, and then our Fleet and Conquistador will land there who are now still in eastern Africa.
Money is still a problem but going broke once was enough..at least it gave us the chance to build Refinery in Oporto.
The Duke of Avocado give us sound advice about killing the natives...the succes percentages of colony and tradeposts rise with 15-20%. I hope the Duke of Avocado can enlighten me about religious questions...when he mentioned "reformed", did he mean counter reformed or the reformed you become after first becoming protestant...anyway that's for the far future!
First we will have to secure our colonies in the Spanish Tordesillas area...

 

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CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1516 - ADDENDUM ABOUT TORDESILLAS

We had our experts on Roman Law study the Treaty of Tordesillas...and it basically says that the Spanish will take over and annex ANY catholic province (tradepost, colony or even city) just by moving an army on it, without war!
The only way to defend it is put an army there...so we have to start a convoy to send our armies to southamerica NOW..and become protestant in a few years. Damnation, lose -3 stability...but I suppose the whole of South America is worth a little heresy...

 

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CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1516-1528

The first Spanish army appeared south of the Aztec army where I built some clonies...but just as it took over my colonies a French army appeared and kicked them out again. Lucky me! Our economists developed the Art of Monopoly so more money came in.
When in 1523 Martin Luther invented Protestantism we were the first to convert to it! Stability went from +3 to -3...I coould't take another 1000 D and go bankrupt over it because I didn't want to lose all my scientific economic progress. Protestantism did bring in 1800 D and our south american conquistador that had landed in Florida could build a string of colonies all over the North American Atlantic coast all the way to Kebec..unfortunately the conquistador died while killing the 100 or so natives..stupid, I should have split the North American army into the conquistador-army and a second army without conquistador to do the actual killing of the natives...but maybe the conquistador died of old age anyway.

First colonial city founded in Uruguay, it starts pumping out armies...it only has 700 inhabitants but can build 3K armies at a time...mysterious.

Aluquerque the famous Explorer discovered Ceylon...but then I completely forgot about him so he died, waiting for the command to return to port that never came...

A new conquistador Francois-Xavier has arrived in India and is discovering it, while a new explorer is carefully explring southeast Asia...they're the only discoverers I got so I should be careful.

France refuses to ally with me because I'm protestant, our relations are quite negative...Persia offered me an alliance and I accepted...my Fleet is in India and I don't want the Persian fleet to harass it.

America, Africa and South India are my turf now...but they're weak, many tradeposts and only one city Uruguay...and the problem is that instead of building cities and spending 6 colonists for that I like more to gain 6 provinces by placing one colonist in each one...anywy, with the discovery of India I will place one tradepost in each newly discovered province because they are far too heavily populated to be exterminated.

 

[Avocado Aguila]

tt

Actually Aires (which is Spanish acc. to Tordesillas Treaty) is a very very good place for a fast growing colony - if it's not Spanish yet - i move that you go for it If ya place there 10k army - it should do for the next 200 years

Btw another good province for future colony is Quebec Who actually said its name was not Madre Dios ???

Congrats on your great achievement in Andalusia These bloody Spaniards can well forget S American colonies, hehe.

I'm just a poor soldier, fighting for the Portugese glory - and i actually meant Reformist (upgraded Protestant - you get 2 additional colonist/year - pretty nice solution when you are running Portugal). And i've actually implemented Protestant+Reformist at one time to prevent doubble Stability loss).

Good Luck to ya !

Best regards,

Avocado

 

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CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1528 -1549

(You are just a soldier you say..well our King will see to it you become Duke, to thank you for your excellent advice! It's a good idea to combine protestant, reformed and maybe even bankrupcy...and same war taxation as well. Also your idea to close of the coast of America and India is excellent.)

Our brave conquistadors were busy exploring North America and Asia onto China...we made some very stupid mistakes to lose Albuquerque, so no Explorer to find Indonesia...and we built in Spanish Tordesillas provines which forced us to become protestant too early...and then Oporto became protestant as well! Bad luck because we will become reformed when we can combine it with a bankrupcy (overdrawing of 2500 D) which will happen when every science will go one step ahead, which will be around 1564. Then we'll have four religions to consider...)
Cochin is a city now, and pumping out armies. Each 15 K army will then move along the coast to exterminate the natives to build a colony. Same proces in America although there the armies need only be 4 K big, they are ferried in from Portugal. The Azores port still can't be used but the ferry goes all the way to America. I also avoid the mistake of letting the Conquistadors do the ethnic cleansing..it's better to let a follow-up army do that.
Spain is busy fighting Dutch nationalism and a long war with Turkey and its Arab allies...which is good because if Spain wanted it could take Portugal. All our army builds go to India now.
Taking the coast went well...I hope those armies of the three Indian states (66 K each) will wait before they attack me.
I didn't promote a Bailiff in Cochin or Uruguay...I want to minimise the risk of a revolt when a big war against me starts.
I can only build 10K armies each year...how can I increase that?
The only thing I have enough now is money, thanks to the 3 extra CoT's that opened in the colonies, and that lucky one in Andalusia...
Still it worries me that anytime it wants Spain can occupy Portugal! I must try to get an alliance with France again...just try again and again because there's no use for those diplomats anyway (I used them to marry all the other protestants). Spain has some territory in Mexico and Chile that's all...good because I like the Aztecs and Inca's to survive (unless of course they declare war on me but the Americans are not agressive it seems.)

In 1549 I was lucky to get a random Explorer...he's on his way to India, and from there, on to Indonesia!
Money I have enough now to build colonies...but I need soldiers especially in Portugal to fight the coming attack of Spain. And I will keep 250D ready to offer immediately to Spain when it attacks.

 

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CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1549-1568

I found out that the natives grow back again! So from now on I kill them all methodically.
France build some tradeposts and colonies in Africa...I realised our brave Portuguese can just occupy that territory because France is still catholic!
We have 1 city in Noth America (Kebec), 1 in Africa (Table), 1 in South America (Uruguay) and 1 in India (Cochin) and that's all we need because we can only produce 10K each year anyway. Colonists are lower so after we finished our inventions we plan to borrow 2000D, build factories, and go bankrupt. (We already took a 500 D loan) and then become reformed..maybe better to become bankrupt twice in a row.
Our only explorer and conquistador are discovering Indonesia.

We also build an army in Portugal proper and have an Alliance with England. The pacific coast of America is settled. The Atlantic coast and India are slowly exterminated.
Problem is the cheating of the computerplayers, their ships don't suffer from attrition.

 

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Sounds like one of your first games if you've only just discovered the natives recover unless you kill them all. But I've a few tips for you.

1) DON'T GO BANKRUPT: This increases the price index by 33%. It will cost you 1650D to appoint the governors to bring it back and all for having borrowed 1000D!! Alternatively you can not appoint governors but this is even worse. If you are spending 1000D per year for 200 years, thats 200,000D in total. If the price index is 1% for this time instead of 0%, that extra 1% will cost you over 2000D. Which is why governors are superb value.
2) You don't have to kill all the natives. Just place enough troops to suppress their impetuous revolts and let the colonies grow to full cities in their own time. IIRC, 200 colonists on the east coast of North America will grow to a full city with 150 years.
3) The problem with the 10K troops a year is probably due to manpower limitations. The only way you can improve this is by having more cities.
4) Troops building capacity in a particular province can be increased by building tax inspectors and chief judges. Building one or both of these will raise the productive capacity by 1000K troops in that province but I don't think it will solve the manpower problems
5) And next time: Don't waste your conquistadors unless you are France, Spain or England in which case you get about 17 of these every year.

And Good Luck

 

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Originally posted by Coeur de Lion
Sounds like one of your first games if you've only just discovered the natives recover unless you kill them all. But I've a few tips for you.

1) DON'T GO BANKRUPT: This increases the price index by 33%. It will cost you 1650D to appoint the governors to bring it back and all for having borrowed 1000D!! Alternatively you can not appoint governors but this is even worse. If you are spending 1000D per year for 200 years, thats 200,000D in total. If the price index is 1% for this time instead of 0%, that extra 1% will cost you over 2000D. Which is why governors are superb value.

My idea was to go bankrupt when my stability would be -3 anyway because of changing religion, and win 5000D that way....

2) You don't have to kill all the natives. Just place enough troops to suppress their impetuous revolts and let the colonies grow to full cities in their own time. IIRC, 200 colonists on the east coast of North America will grow to a full city with 150 years.

Having enough troops is hard for Portugal, and another problem is that the chance of succeeding with your colonist is smaller with natives left...but see the AAR...

3) The problem with the 10K troops a year is probably due to manpower limitations. The only way you can improve this is by having more cities.

Yes, and I think your total population counts here, not your cities.

4) Troops building capacity in a particular province can be increased by building tax inspectors and chief judges. Building one or both of these will raise the productive capacity by 1000K troops in that province but I don't think it will solve the manpower problems

I'm afraid of the +2 to rebellion that will cause...I only have 1 city in each of the continents so if one will be lost it's hard to reconquer it.

5) And next time: Don't waste your conquistadors unless you are France, Spain or England in which case you get about 17 of these every year.

Absolutely!! Portugal has to discover everything in the first few years!

And Good Luck

Thx Lionheart! Brave king of Britain, you gave us excellent advice!!

CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1568-1584

Our brave conquistador discovered Australia and New Zealand, but was then savagely murdered with his whole army! Actually it was my fault, I should have sent him a bigger army than 2K to fight the Maoris...I got used to the peaceful Aboriginals in Australia. The inhabitants of Australia are actually all so peaceful and the chances of building a colony are so big that I decided to build a colony in each province without culling the natives first. Only a Discoverer left, or how do you call the guys that can only discover at sea...anyway they are sometimes lucky enough to discover land too.

I changes religion to protestant and reformed, but I couldn't bankrupt myself! After a short while there was a revolution and my government was changed back to catholic! I became protestant and reformed about five times and all the time I was kicked back into catholicism, I simply couldn't get bankrupt! Finally I realised my government fell all the time because many colonies were rebelling, so I occupied the rebelling colonies (there were no actual rebels in them) and this time I stayed reformed. Becoming protestant and reformed about five times had given me more than 10000D so I could pay back the loan of 2500D and didn't need to go bankrupt after all, and could also build improvements in every city. (In version 1.9 this harvesting of money by becoming protestant/reformed many times is not possible anymore I think...but I'm still playing 1.7)
I started an alliance with Holland, hoping that there will be a war between Spain and Holland so I can pick up some Spanish provinces...but Holland declared war on Tunesia instead! So I am placing my armies for a quick invasion of Spain...it's got to be quick because many of my American, African and Indian provinces are still only occupied by tradeposts which can be destroyed easily in a long war. A large French army kills the natives in an African province and I quickly build a colony in "their" province...it seems the French general looks very sad now! The same trick with a British army in the Thailand area. The other players only have a few provinces, but because there are so few all the French and English provinces are cities.

There's money enough now so I'm building a giant fleet but still only 10K troops every year. I need more population, my empire is a bloated giant. In 1585 we will declare war on Spain! (Although we have the same king now...)

A stupid mistake was trading maps with Britain. I thought I blocked all entrances to the inland, but apparently England can still build cities on the Great Lakes without acces...teleportation maybe?
My relations with England are very friendly, after all we are all reformed! Although my statereligion is reformed no province has the reformed religion so our tolerance for that religon is zero! The tolerance for catholicism and protestant is maximum and for islam is high...orthodoxy also has a zero tolerance from me.

 

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CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1584 - 1586

At the end of 1585 we finally invaded Spain, losing -2 stability...our Dutch and Hessian allies helped us, but Spain had Navarra and the Aztecs in their alliance!
Our armies marched into Spain and started besieging three provinces, but were attacked by a Spanish army under Don Juan and Navarra. In America we occupied three tradeposts, 2 in Mexico and one at the southern point of South America, which we burnt and replaced with colonies. Them Spain offered a white peace, after just a few months of war! The battles were still raging on in Spain and we even had defeated a Spanish army that was just built in a border province...and we accepted. All those tradeposts I have can be easily burnt and the colonies can be occupied just by marching through...my colonial armies are weak, and although Spain has just a small number of provinces in Mexico and Chile left they are all cities.
So I won three colonies for the price of losing -2 stability.
In 5 years we will attack Spain again, if Spain doesn't build huge armies in Spain...in the meantime we will chanche our most vulnerable tradeposts into colonies. We need population!

 

[Vulture]

Screenshots? Are there any coming up?

 

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Actually the Great Lakes colonisation problem is a common mistake. Done the same thing several times myself but I'm not complaining since it's earned me 5 ready made English colonies from Superior to Milwaukee

But be careful with the religious tolerance thing because your colonies will be reformed.

 

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When I found out how to make a homepage easily I'll post the maps...
btw Coeur de Lion how did you pick up those english colonies?

CHRONICLE OF LUSITANIA

1586 - 1591

We need population to build armies! So Spain has to be our objective. After the Second Spanish War we spent the five years from 1585 to 1590 just building an army in Portugal. The area around the Great Lakes was filled with colonies. Our last Explorer was discovering the pacific area. Our diplomats accepted an Alliance with the Netherlands, and when the able Netherlands drew France in the alliance too and the five years of peace had passed it was time to start the Third Spanish War!

France and Sweden betrayed the alliance, but the Netherlands and Hessen were faithful!
We had five large armies of 20K each in Portugal. Our battle plan was to enter the three border provinces between Portugal with an army each, send a fourth army to Madrid, and the fifth army with our only general Crato was to win the assault; my idea was that the besieging armies would assault the cities and be reinforced when their morale went down assaulting the city with the Crato army.
In the first province where I tried this, Estramadura, the province between Portugal and Madrid, it went wrong because the assaulting army had already given up the assault when Crato arrived. The army that was supposed to besiege Madrid also got stuck in Estramadura. Three armies were besieging it and I couldn't extract any of them without lifting the siege.
We did win some easy victories against armies Spain was building in the provinces we were besieging, and slowly but surely we were conquring them. In the meantime a huge Spanish army was besieging Andalusia and their only general Don Juan was besieging Tangers.
In the meantime stadtholder Maurice was busy clobbering Alba and the Spanish in the Lower Countries.
Then disaster struck: France who was our ally only months ago declared war on us! We declined asking the Netherlands for help (no doubt the devious French had planned us asking the Dutch for help so France could attack the Netherlands...)When Spain offered us Leon we accepted. No use in waiting to get a province more when a huge French army could use that time to march through Spain!

The few tradeposts of France in the Americas were burned and changed into our colonies. Spain declared war again, taking the -5 stability loss! The Netherlands supported us again, with Hessen and Scotland too in the alliance. We had only two big armies left. One under general Crato quickly marched on Toledo, assaulted it and the assaulted Madrid succesfully. We offered Spain peace if it would give us Toledo and Artois to the Netherlands, which it did. Excellent, because the Netherlands can now take Paris from their country and we can take Madrid. Then huge armies of France were landing in Portugal! Our main fleet was in South Africa and it sailed north, while a huge shipbuilding project in our Shipyard got underway. France also started a siege of Andalusia and landed in Pondicherry in India, burning our tradepost there. The resulting battles against the numerically stronger French, although we won the battles, eroded our armies. But finally our battlefleet of about 40 warships was ready and although we could do nothing against the two strong French armies in Portugal, France accepted a white peace probably because it had lost so many battles. We were lucky that France didn't go on and burn our tradeposts in India and conquer our homeland provinces because there wouldn't have been a thing we could have done about it!

1591 saw us in an interesting position: AGAINST US: No army, and our only general Crato passed away just days after the end of the war, a Franco-Spanish coalition, and only 1000D of our 10,000D warchest because we converted to protestantism many times with many provinces; FOR US a huge battlefleet, 90% of Africa, America, India and Australia ours, factories in all our cities, and a military potential of 14K a year and a strong coalition with the Netherlands, Hessen and Scotland.

 

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Mmm, I think one thing you must be careful about in converting to Protestant or Reformed is to make sure that you immediately reset the tolerances. The computer will give you a default which will make some provinces prone to revolts while the stability hit will make revolts more likely.

Hainvg said that, the extra 10,000D in the kitty couldn't have been too bad.

Just to answer your question, I gained the English colonies by capturing them during wars

 

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Hmmm... I always tend too make historical choices when it comes to religion, however you can do it otherwise!!!