Post your Europa Universalis 4 Empire

[dwelch]

It is acomplished! I finaly made something with really neat borders. Entire Africa under papal command, in Europe I only hold Italy and Avignon + Riga.
Holy Trinity - Kingdom of God - Colonial Papacy.

Spoiler

Spoiler

I've maintained 'the holy trinity' (the three holy order marches) under my command for the entire game, which was kinda awesome. I didn't bother with expanding Teuronic and Livonian orders' teritories, but I fed a ton of islands to the Knights. Also close up on Europe

I've always wanted to do a game where the Papal States focuses on owning Africa. What was your strategy?

 

[Vincenzo_667]

I've always wanted to do a game where the Papal States focuses on owning Africa. What was your strategy?

At first I focused on getting the holy orders vassalized before they got annexed by somebody to get the Holy Trininity achievement, that was a bit tricky, for first hundred years I was mostly just using strong alliances to get that done somehow, my starting allies were Austria and Hungary (to do the dirty work against Venice and Knights) eventually Poland and Lithuania for a short while to vassalize Teutonic and Livonian order (of course they began to hate me right after I did). Also I had to keep France happy in early game so that they wouldn't DoW me for Avignon.
I didn't join the HRE, instead I took advantage of the event that makes the norhern italian states leave the HRE before annexing most of them to avoid coalitions, I took the southern Italy lands from Naples early on instead (using an alliance with France/Castile/Portugal... can't remember) ^^.
I started eating Africa by conquering Jerusalem from the Mamluks (got CB on them by fabricating claims from Crete), cutting Ottoman from Egypt forever which eventually kinda triggered a butterfly effect of them getting completely wrecked by Poland.
Since I had a very specific goal on my mind (conquering all of Africa, abolishing slavery and converting it all to catholic) I just focused on that from now on. I annexed most of the 'infidel' states first, because that wouldn't piss off anyone in Europe, so Mamluks got annexed first, after that I blobbed into the Tunis and Ethiopian regions first, I started to colonize early on, took exploration as third idea group and got two colonial nations in Canada and Florida regions to boost my income, I dug my way through sahara and started taking land in central africa, once I got strong enough to actually fight bigger wars myself I declared on Portugal and Castile to take their colonies in Africa, then the last few native states in Africa like Kongo, Mutapa, Kilwa. Somewhere around then I conquered rest of Italy in Europe, declared the Kingdom of God and invaded Japan.
Eventually the only two nations which had provinces in Africa besides me were Mali and France, who were allied to each other, which was a real pain in the ass, because I let France unchecked, they blob'd out and conquered a huge part of iberia, Mali wasn't exactly undersized either, so I spent cca. 10 ingame years getting Austria to like me enough to join my war, then I declared war on Mali > beat France > seperate peace to take their colonies in Africa > annex Mali > done. Could've been much easier if I annexed Mali before they allied France, that last war was exhausting. Having the three march vassals was quite helpfull throughout the entire game since I had a lot of spread thanks to it (Teutonic Order had a lot of three star generals, the Knights were epic at naval battles), but it was also challanging to deal with having 3 diplo slots permanently occupied. Interesting playthrough.

some moar screenshots

Spoiler

First steps

The Swiss Guard event, also Mamluks being stomped

Jerusalem conquered and cored, main mission complete

The Pope condemns slavery

political map from 1644

Papal Italy

Papal Japan

Oh yeah and I built the Suez Canal.

 

[HenkieDePost]

Okay Henkie, I love you due to your Byzantium.

Also. THE HELL happened to Iberia?

Hehe what I do like about this comment is that you find Iberia strange but a huge Colombia in Western-Africa is perfectly normal I honestly don't remember anymore what happened there because this campaign is from a few months ago. Might be that I had to fight against Spain once and decided it was fun to release all the old Spanish Kingdoms, that would seem like something I'd do ;p

Nice Commonwealth! Catholic? Or Protestant/Reformed?

Pro tip - as Poland, eat Russian land fast via feeding Lithuania. Take Neva & Novgorod, plus the Catholic land of the Livonian Order, but feed the rest to Lithuania rather than other vassals or coring it yourself. The decision (to form PLC) will give that land all for free AND Lithuania's NIs + them getting Russian accepted early make eating the Orthodox land real easy. Historical friends with Lithuania makes it extremely unlikely they will ever rebel or have liberty desire issues.

First of all, thanks for the tip! That would indeed have been better than to feed Yaroslavl and Pskov all these Russian lands. I can remember it indeed took me alot of diplopoints to annex them. Might be that I start another commonwealth campaign in the future because I really like playing as Poland so who knows, might use this strategy next time. I am not really sure which religion I had while playing as the Commonwealth. I tried to load the save but it's from an older version so the game crashed and I don't really have the time at the moment to downgrade my game to the right version. I think I stayed catholic this time.

 

[The Custodian]

My 'Sun Never sets on the Indian Empire' achievement run... Started as Nepal

 

[cold warpgates]

that

commonwealth

 

[Path]

Komnenoi Empire 1.13.1*

On the road to greatness. I shamelessly stole @TheMeInTeam 's opening gambit, seeing as it seemed more effective than slugging through the Caucasus right away. After a few restarts (QQ just didn't want to play ball) a friendly Poland-Lithuania helped the Komnenoi trash the Ottomans, after which it's been fairly smooth sailing (although Paradox' hotfix caused me to blunder into a coalition led by France and their 140 000 strong army, so Europe is currently in a state of cold war). Karaman's about to be integrated and the Petrarchy will be restored presently. I was going to post the rest of the images as well, but seeing how well this went I'm going to lead the Komnenoi to world conquest, so I'll save those for that.

Spoiler

Political map. featuring vassals Karaman, Syria, Styria, Kazan and Bashkiria.

Spoiler

All hail Basileus David Komnenos, the First of His Name.

Spoiler

Lagom, as we'd say in Sweden.

Spoiler

Getting there.

* Please stop "hotfixing" AE, Paradox.

 

[dwelch]

Spoiler

Also dat 'Murica. How on earth did Commonwealth and the USA get that stronk? Or Brazil, for that matter?

Also, is that Greece in Japan?? What is GOING ON? This belongs in strange screenshots as much it does in this thread.

 

[firecage]

Also dat 'Murica. How on earth did Commonwealth and the USA get that stronk? Or Brazil, for that matter?

Also, is that Greece in Japan?? What is GOING ON? This belongs in strange screenshots as much it does in this thread.

Can't be Greece, colour is to light. Colour seems more like Naples.

 

[dwelch]

Can't be Greece, colour is to light. Colour seems more like Naples.

Even so, if Naples is that tiny and in Japan...? That screenshot is nuts. I need a break down of what happened to satisfy my curiosity!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Haha, I get beaten down by 40 years+, and I had a decent time ^_^. I'm still trying piece together how you're getting that kind of land in first 100 years. I'm missing a piece of knowledge, micro can only explain some of it.

 

[Sousuke123]

Komnenoi Empire 1.13.1*

On the road to greatness. I shamelessly stole @TheMeInTeam 's opening gambit, seeing as it seemed more effective than slugging through the Caucasus right away. After a few restarts (QQ just didn't want to play ball) a friendly Poland-Lithuania helped the Komnenoi trash the Ottomans, after which it's been fairly smooth sailing (although Paradox' hotfix caused me to blunder into a coalition led by France and their 140 000 strong army, so Europe is currently in a state of cold war). Karaman's about to be integrated and the Petrarchy will be restored presently. I was going to post the rest of the images as well, but seeing how well this went I'm going to lead the Komnenoi to world conquest, so I'll save those for that.

Spoiler

Political map. featuring vassals Karaman, Syria, Styria, Kazan and Bashkiria.

Spoiler

All hail Basileus David Komnenos, the First of His Name.

Spoiler

Lagom, as we'd say in Sweden.

Spoiler

Getting there.

* Please stop "hotfixing" AE, Paradox.

What did you do? I've been trying to get this through Caucasus but QQ always happens to me in less than year.

 

[The Custodian]

Even so, if Naples is that tiny and in Japan...? That screenshot is nuts. I need a break down of what happened to satisfy my curiosity!

Unfortunately the Japan is not as special as it seems... I believe Its simply one of the Daimyos never uniting Japan and taking the mantle upon itself, or Mexico interfered at a point before it could unite and the option was no longer available.

I'm really fond of how North America turned out however. Other than my colony and Frances, everything was independent. AND Mexico and the USA were Castilian and English culture. What happened was both lost America and Mexico early on (early 1600's) , and soon after lost Louisiana. The result was Mexico and the USA slowly eating Louisiana up, with Haiti sneaking in to grab those gulf territories. As for Brazil... La Plata and her broke free in the 1700's. There was a short period in time where the new world was beautiful. Almost everything independent, nice borders... Then Brazil gobbled up all La Plata and so that dream was ruined...

As for Europe. The commonwealth is the obvious blob master here, but Aragon is under a PU with Russia, after dominating Iberia for so long. As for the PLC... They capitalized heavily on a declining ottoman empire, grabbing most of that territory in only 2-3 wars and somehow managing not to implode.Note, i didnt take London and Ireland until after Englands loss of its colonial holdings (1760's)

And proof it was Ironman, in case people were wondering

 

[RadRussian]

Barely, barely made it. I hate those easy achievements that take forever to complete. Saxony one is next.

 

[Krajzen]

In this special case I will post AI empire, because it is amazing. 95% if it was autonomous AI Moroccan job, the only human interference was allying that and fighting one war with France and negotiating three Aragon provinces for it - to ensure perfect border - other than that everything has been made by AI Morocco... Without allies.

 

[dwelch]

In this special case I will post AI empire, because it is amazing. 95% if it was autonomous AI Moroccan job, the only human interference was allying that and fighting one war with France and negotiating three Aragon provinces for it - to ensure perfect border - other than that everything has been maid by AI Morocco... Without allies.

Spoiler

Wow! Did they colonize too?

 

[Krajzen]

Wow! Did they colonize too?

No, but the reason why is even crazier: it wasn't slow rise to power, for 200 years Morocco was fairly weak and part of.it was under Portuguese control. But then both Portugal and Spain fell into the most devastating crisis I've ever seen in this game: they had wars with everyone (including me though I 'just' took some colonies), civil wars, peasant revolts, bad events, bankrupcy (!) over the course of like 25 years so once top empires were reduced to a piece of crap. Then Morocco suddenly went mad:
1st war - reconquered all iberian provinces in north africa and granada
2nd war - in a single peace deal got southern half of Iberia, Madrit included
3rd-4th wars: euthanasia of remnants of Portugal, Spain and Leon (lol)

At this point I have allied them in case France attacked them, exactly that happened but our combined armies defeated france rather easily so I don't think Andalusia would lose provinces without my help.

No subsidies, gifts or fleets from my side; currently they are world's 5th-6th most powerful empire.

 

[arthaeon]

So this is from a game started back before Common Sense but I recently revisited it and ran it to completion. Brandenburg->Prussia->Germany and all that. Modded flag and map color.

Unfortunately I forgot to save a shot of the diplo mapmode to show the whole picture here.. Galicia-Volhynia is a bit of an abomination, released from Lithuania and fed more and more to be my shield over the Black Sea. Balkania and Anatolia are my client states carved out of the Ottomans. I later took Syria, released it, and fed it a couple provinces. I basically turned Tunis into Algiers as my latest vassal in the last few decades. Tunis always tended to ally the Ottomans after my annuled treaty demands ended, so it just wouldn't do to have them on the Mediterranean. Finally Norway is my vassal, released and fed from Sweden-formed Scandinavia.

Russia has been my staunch ally ever since I helped them as Novgorod vs Sweden, and Spain became my ally after I made France give them back the Pyrenees and a couple other provinces in the interest of sensible borders. A lot of vassals (good thing I'm technically the Holy Roman Emperor, no princes but I still get some lovely bonuses..) because I wanted to mostly keep neat continental borders.

If I had more time I'd at least remove the Ottomans from Iraq and the Arabian peninsula entirely, maybe help Russia and Persia take the rest.

Some more shots in the spoiler of overseas stuff:

Spoiler

German East and West African companies. Nothing too special. Towards the end of the game I started doing more overseas stuff, especially once I built the Suez canal. Also, that's a westernized Adal stretching through Yemen and Oman, with westernized Ethiopia and Mehdi Bahri (I think? The green one there) as vassals. In the last few years or so I allied them and guaranteed them for kicks, so the Ottomans wouldn't eat them.

German Coromandel and Indochina Companies. Plus a lot of random Pacific islands and part of Taiwan taken in the final annexation of Brittany. Almost every nation you see here is westernized, by the way, including Jaunpur, the giant Ming and its little brother of an ally Korea. Pretty much the only non western tech nations left are some central Asian hordes.

Lastly, North America. Neufundland was created after I took four colonized provinces from Scandinavia and briefly took exploration to colonize one province and turn it into a CN, then I switched to a different idea group and fed the rest of its land to it via war. Breton Canada, French Canada, and (Breton) Oregon are mine as well from annexing France and Brittany. Ugly borders, but hey, extra merchants. I didn't prioritize the new world at all really, but I took what came to me.

Mexico is Breton and allied to Great Britain. USA formed from the French Floride colony, which broke free with Spain's support in between my wars with France. Haiti is Portuguese.

No shot of South America but its nothing crazy. British Colombia, large and independent Portuguese Brazil, and the rest is held by the Spanish colonies.

 

[Clownie]

How does it feel knowing the AI can create prettier realms than you, Krajzen?

 

[Magnus Imperator Rex]

So this is from a game started back before Common Sense but I recently revisited it and ran it to completion. Brandenburg->Prussia->Germany and all that. Modded flag and map color.

you went Hitler style.

 

[Krajzen]

How does it feel knowing the AI can create prettier realms than you, Krajzen?

Humanity is endangered