Chapter 7 - Grinding down spain
Morning lads. The age of absolutism has arrived. We are in the midst of court and country and hopefully have our main source of admin efficiency complete. We will get 30% from absolutism, 10% from the viceroyalty of deccan and 5% from alhambra. Temporarily we will also get 5% from splendor during age of absolutism. Technically there are a few more sources, but it would come with opportunity costs. We won´t get the 30% from admin technology, which is a major bummer, but hey you guys aren´t here to see that, right?
What´s up next? We have two major threats in europe. Austria is the most powerful and has the most dev, spain is a close second but maybe even more annoying to deal with. They pretty much own the new world, which gives them a massive boost to income and troop numbers directly. Their colonial nations have crazy troop numbers as well, so we can´t occupy those lands. Spains weak point is their main land in europe, which we can overrun with austrias help. So the plan is to do just that, since austria is still on our good side. The only problem with that is that we will have to deal with a massive austria in late game. Half of europe super blob, full of forts and reduced admin efficiency and time running out. Oh boi, what did i get myself into
I´m revoking my priviliges. Only one´s I keep for now are the ones that give +100 gov cap.
Try to make good on dip tech before imperialism cb, which will be a huge help. Slowing down on vassal integration, which set us back a lot as well as peacing out seperately.
Gaining 17 dip power each month. Our current ruler earns us 6 and we have level 5 advisor everywhere. They hardly cost anything because of several advisor cost reductions.
Half of subjects dev.... 1774. That means spain is currently owning colonial nations with 3750 dev in the new world, while only owning 1500 himself.
Austria isn´t joining.
War´s cost money. I get that. Here we go.
We good? Let´s do this.
First we occupy the french... while fighting several smaller war´s in africa.
After france is out... we only canceled their alliance with otto... Otto is next. Notice how little land we can take from those european super blobs with one war. This is actually a 100% warscore peace deal. We have to fight so many wars against them. Without the help of our allies those war´s each would also ruin our manpower and probably eat up all the available mercs as well.
Something different for a change. Gb is pretty isolated since france would be their only natural great power ally, and well... let´s say they don´t like each other. My plan of releasing scotland and returning cores, actually did not work out, since gb failed to wipe out scotland completely. They moved to the new world where I can´t reach them for the moment :/
Huh, russia is taking care of sweden for me. Spasibo.
I´m so happy that stackwipes are back
I don´t want gb in the coaliton yet, so we are for the most part only take their colonial nations.
Only central africa remaining. I don´t know when they changed that, but that was actually one of my fears of not being able to reach the nations where kitara is right now, because we won´t be able to get colonists from ideas. It would have been a hassle to get a vassal to colonize for us down there. Guess kongo gets a mission nowadays.
Kongo fields a big army, but they are no match for our battle hardened troops.
Pfew, one worry less.
King of Kong(o).
Our troop limit is rising, but no snowballing. We could pay for much bigger armies, but manpower is an issue as well. I try to conserve it whereever i can.
Yay!
105 max absolutism. That means we actually can afford one more little privilege. No worries from going below 100, from being low on legimacy... as we don´t have any.
1k surplus. We collect most of our trade in hormuz currently.
Next round with spain.
War´s become a little bit easier against spain, since we have slightly better access to the spanish core land. Make no mistake though, this is still brutal and I have to kill all of spain´s europe forces which is 400k or so. If only for the warscore. Owning the war goal gives us ticking, but ticking takes a long time. By that time spains colonial nations have overtaken our new world holdings. It is impossible right now to 100% them, which is very annoying as it significantly increases the number of war´s I have to fight against them.
We do get some colonies going in north america, but they are outnumbered 10:1 by the spanish cns.
Man, can we stop with those doomstacks out of nowhere... please.
Austria... how about some help here?
Half of the spanish army tends to move into africa, which I´m fine with. Shall they run arround there, while I siege down iberia.
Annoyingly I don´t have real naval dominance due to being behind in dip tech, so I can´t chase the troops in africa, because spain is blocking the strait of gibralta. My troops are standing there and hold their d*cks in their hands. Maybe we got a window now...
Ha, smart dog. Portugal intercepted the blocking spanish fleet for us.
Now we can breach the fort and also get the warscore for the spanish provinces in morocco.
Not again ^^
Almost full absolutism.
Africa finished.
More reform progress, how nice. The accepted culture mechanic from diwan unlocks quite a few great projects for us. With all the cash coming in we can instantly boost them to level 3 immediately.
1.25 reform progress per month. Sweet.
Alright, 50% admin efficiency and 75% ccr currently and 7,8% all power cost reduction from innovativeness. I can work with that. At this point I´m at 999 admin points most of the time, because i don´t know what to spend them on.
61% Warscore seems the highest we can get. Each war I´m torn between returning cores to our vassals or taking new world land. This time we go for colonies.
Ae with austria has reached 34. Have to watch this very carefully. They do at least half of our fighting. It would be a major problem if they turn against us now.
The best way to keep them loyal is to constantly involve them in wars.
Check out our losses. Even though you´d might think that otto is pretty much toast, which he is, who am i kidding. We still suffer major losses. I have to watch carefully that most of the actual fighting is only done by our mercs.
I was considering to release and conquer our vassals mongolia and uzbek. Russia would have immediately attacked them though. Had to pay full price.
Level 5 advisors for 14 and 9 ducats a month
Naughty france has to be punished.
Another bite out of otto.
We do have a cb on one of the remaining native tribes. This will be used to attack pretty much all of them. It looks like we already own the whole west coast, but there is one massive ichisi federation with almost the same color as us.
Operation overlord. Meanwhile russia betrayed us.
I´m always talking about austria and spain, but russia actually brought some decent numbers to the table.
Stack-u-wipu.
Let´s get that into our belly, before spain does.
We took a few trade centers from britain and actually made them a tributary by force here. The thinking is that for the time being i take them out of the potential coalition as long as I can manage their liberty desire.
New vassal, gascony.
Hmm, hmm. Only two remaining rivals. I´m not sure if I want to add russia yet. They might enter into annoying alliances with maybe spain or whoever. They are rivaled with austria at least.
Maybe I gave new mughals a little bit too much oe.
Wait I thought you can only do that if you are allied?!
The french with their alliances... that settles it.
Wait a moment... new ruler.
Ha, how lucky can you get. I was already thinking of ways how to murder them. Hmm, shall we take it? Hmm, hmm.
Spain... again
Now I´m torn again about taking more european land from spain. New Spain and brazil have high liberty desire and field massive armies. If I can get spain itself weak enough, they might call idependence. Then I could attack them direcly. What to do, what to do?
Spain also has some colonies in the spice island and oceania, which is quite a nuissance. Besides from them stealing trade, I have to conquer those provinces and jump between theatres of war each time. They do cost a lot of warscore though. That´s why i let them keep it for now.
Those colonies weren´t finished yet, though... snatch.
Running out of investments. All the available local ventures build.
Since Manpower is a major issue, i´m checking out the trade company investment that gives manpower next.
Works only in provinces that are actual trade company lands as it seems, not the whole state like with local ventures.
Still very much kicking....
Better get our top man to the front.
Damn, they keep coming....
Nah, screw that ^^
Cancel alliance. Let´s me guess. Go back to otto? ^^
Yay, we have reached 100 army professionalism. I have been saving up to get some extra modifiers.
Hurry, dip tech 20, en par... level 23 coming up.
Let´s see if that increases mexicos and brazils thirst for independence.
Oh shit. I wanted to use prepare war on austria, but they need 50 opinion with us. Dangerous, dangerous.
I guess we did not go with the option of re-allying with russia. Gotta set an example against betrayal I guess.
Generals cost only 15 mil.
I´m constantly exploiting development. First I do taxes, but I have to do dip now too if there is no tax left to exploit. Manpower I will do last.
With austrias help, russia was easily defeated, compared to spain. You basically only have to conquer most of their european provinces.
No, no, no austria. No going alone!
I start to build training fields everywhere. EVERYWHERE.
Give up otto. You are no match for us. 1k mughals vs 27k otto stack.
We start another war with denmark to shorten our truce with russia.
Otto to finally shrink a bit more.
A much needed upgrade to our gov cap, +250.
2664/2783
New vassal, norway.
Next war against russia. Sure more innovativeness, why not. 93 now.
New spain formed an alliance with brazil. Maybe now things get going.
Russia is cut down to its european holdings.
We also build conscription centers... Everywhere!
France gets punched next. We also get the first hre nations in a potential coaltion. Not that this matters much, just have to stay clear of austria.
Our force limit finally moves up a bit.
War against spain... AGAIN. How many friggin more?! ^^
Uzbek integrated.
Ha, we had the highground... and also tech advantage.
Manpower is constantly drained. Fortunately slacken standards pays off by now. I try to keep professionalism above 80% to get the bonus to morale damage.
Men are dying like flies.
Spain still has almost as many troops then austria and us combined. Crazy, and we can hardly get warscore on him.
New Spains armies are doing nothing, our colonies still get overrun by spains other cns.
Over time they grow tired furtunately.
Free tributaries. Not as many as i´d wish for, but I take what I can get.
Three for one.
I guess now or never. We go for the last reform. Don´t really need it, but when finished we can make vassals out of tributaries. Not sure if it´s worth.
Easy war.
Lul, only cost 336 mandate to make a vassal out gb.
Yes! Imperialism. This will help a lot, as it also lowers warscore cost by 25%.
This speeds things up a bit. Starting to go over 100 oe more often now.
Building, building, building. Building isn´t actually that bad, it is the removing of buildings to get enough space that is really annoying.
- 3 stab for war on subject. Call in austria to have them in a war still when we peace out france.
We do have lot´s of stab cost reduction.
Next war against spain.
That´s what I´m thinking most of the time.
Don´t look that much. Spain got a pu over brittany. By taking all of brittanys land we get their colonial nations for free.
Norway returned to glory.
Concentrate dev.
... and aragon annexed.
Finally we get a bit of a snowball going, but austria is still a close second. They are starting to eat up the hre. Brutal, this will be brutal.
Alright. That´s it for another episode. I have some free time on my hand so i will try to get 2 more in todays. We will see. Laters!
