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This thread's gone pretty quiet so I thought i'd post the progress on my next campaign.
Extended Timeline mod, started as Vestfold in 867 AD. (At the start I had the 4 lowest norwegian provinces and the 4 Island provinces near and above scotland.
After 200 years....

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I am aiming for a world conquer... It'll be fun fun in the sun with these guys:

#forgettheottomansthisiswhereitsat
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Ironman with the last patch
England PU with France to the Empire.


I PU France, then i took the quantity ideas. Quantity really? yeah England have a terrible start. Even with France both country have a terrible manpower after 100 hundread years war. Burgundian may invade France and if you loose it almost over for you.
I invade for some core and diplo vassalise some guys in Ireland. Then i start to invade spain. I free Galice and vassalise it. Then i start to vassal feed him. It was still working for almost all spain.
I try to do the same with Fez but it didn't work. So i loose a relation with Fez for 10 years, really annoying.
I was able to prevent Spain from colonise with my constant invasion. Then i vassalise portugal leaving him only is capital in Europe. Brazil become free and i vassalise it diplomatic later in the game.

The main problem i got was Portugal. He colonise everywhere and his colony become independant when i annex it. USA form a personnal union with portgal mexico and portugal lousiana. It was not really hard to invade then since all the core was going back to my own colony.

The mid-late game become really boring. Coring was too long since i was a giant empire and i could'nt diplo feed. So i just focus everything on America and forming the Empire.

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In the orignal western Europe there was only 2 alive, Sweden and Aragon. Shongai did westernise. Japan colonise the west coast of America.
 
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Political mapmode
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diplomatic mapmode
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My Savoy -> Sardinia Piedmonte -> Italy -> HRE game

Started off just wondering what kind of a position Savoy starts at and played without a real strategy in mind. But thanks to the massive AE nerf bat it is so easy to expand you can blob anyway.

The beginning was quite slow though with at some point my nation being boxed in by Austria and France. A random unexpected PU on Austria and a win against big scary France in the succession war for Austria changed the tide and transformed me into a superpower.

My small starting nation and lack of strategy meant I did not pay much attention to things going on outside of my immediate neighbours (who were threatening enough as it was). This caused problems for expanding later on since cores had already disappeared on most of my possible expansion routes. This is what ended up saving Algiers since the only cores I could make them give back were those of the Mamluks (yes Algiers was doing that well) after that it was just not worth it anymore to core those provinces myself.

I made the decision to leave France and the Iberian peninsula alone. Whatever I took from France I took during wars that just happened to fall into my lap, and the Aragon territory I gained by just deciding I might aswell vassalize Aragon if I am allied with them anyway.

Castille was my ally for most of the early game, later joined by Portugal. While Castille ended up hating me Portugal stayed my faithful (yet mostly useless) ally for the entire game, their PU on England put them in 2nd place in score at the end of the game.

Fun fact:
Amount of commets during the ENTIRE game: 1

Achievements gained:
Agressive expander
It's all about luck
 
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I was playing a game of trying to save unlikely countries. My basic strategy was to release a country, ally it, then call it individually to war. Once it sieged down 25 base tax or 100% WS, I would peace out. Lots of little goodies came tumbling out. When they became a Great Power, I would drop the alliance and move on. I also went Aristocratic ideas for the extra +100% core cost, to discourage AIs from turning on me.

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Granada was released ca. 1550 and finished the re-Reconquista of Iberia, then won the succession war for Portugal against Spain around 1800. Byzantium was released as a vassal around 1520, added to the HRE, then released from vassalage (I had to sell the Balkans to prevent their missions from turning them hostile), and ended up not only being massive, but also putting France under PU. Pomerania formed Prussia with a Habsburg on the throne, then fell under PU with me. Finland and Greece revolted out of Russia and Crimea, and the new Great Power penalty to alliances apparently kept anyone from vassalizing them. Poland, Polotsk and Ukraine are my vassal workhorses.
 
I decided to do a Kazan run, except no reforming or westernizing. Bring back the great Khan!





I actually got really unlucky here. In PU war for Mughals with Ottomans, Austria (my ally) got blocked. I still won that war with evasive tactics, but only had 19% war score. Austria at that point in time would have rolled them, and I'd have been able to do the "release and feed Mamlukes" just like I did with Persia...would have been even bigger.

I also screwed up not rushing more for Ming, Xi's cores disappeared FFS.

Staying horde was much easier than I expeced. It was barely harder than the other "Derp European conquers East" plays. Between recruiting some combination of Eastern, Western, Muslim and (briefly) Indian units and the horde bonuses, it got stupid. Usually, the only enemy troop type I could recruit was cavalry. That would normally be a bad thing, but with a horde? I went Aristocracy + Quality, so with admin ideas I had +30% cavalry and +21% discipline. Towards the end of the game, I was using Latin Chasseurs.

Latin Chasseurs have 55 pips, the 4th highest the game has to offer and not too far behind the Nap squares, and I had them backed with flying batteries. As you can see, I also never really fell behind in military tech even with 2 full idea groups.

Needless to say, on the off occasion where Britain or someone else wound up in my land during a late-game alliance CTA, my massive cavalry boosts + horde plains/desert on home ground advantage + max pious Sunni was absolutely disgusting. When I started this game, I expected to have to rely almost entirely on vassals and allies late game, but the reality it was the opposite; they fell further and further behind what the great khan's empire could field.

Even before the Chaussers, I was running around with crap like Blanche Cavalry, Eastern Cuirassers, and earlier Indian cavalry archers (off Mughals).

It's not exactly cutting edge optimal, but I was definitely surprised at just how easy it is to stay a horde all game long. Even better, there's no regency, easy PU fishing through heir event-killings due to no war, and if you have a succession crisis it often winds up being a net benefit due to the legitimacy and stab boost.

If you want to actually make cavalry relevant in a game, try the hordes using enemy units :).
 
Yemeni sultanate, 1820. Westernized in the first half of 1600, and then steamrolled everything in India. I was very lucky at the start, picked the 'conquer Najd' mission on day1, vassalized it and then vassalized Oman, Haasa and Hedjaz; then I conquered Mamluks+Ethiopia (helped by Tripoli) and eastern Africa. I turned to India when I encountered Europeans in Africa, but in late 1700 I managed to take Venad in India and almost half of Indian coast+south Africa from Castilleyemen.jpg
 
Playing as Aragon(Ironman), managed to win the first war against Castille, and took some southern provinces, then annexed Granada. I got really lucky and got a random PU with Castille(not event). My dynasty died on the way here and I got a Lancaster on the throne(Same as England). I then had an opportunity to claim their throne, which I did. My ruler then died and left me a regency council for 13 years. So I couldn't form a PU with England, unfortunately.

Though I think it was a bug with me integrating Castille as I got their colonial nation as a junior member of another PU, when I integrated them it immediately made a new colonial nation.

France is really scary, and it was only because that I integrated Castille(1520) mid-war and got their armies that I could win the war. Of course I am the one getting jumped by neighbors when I have no manpower and almost no army. France's situation was even worse but of course no one wanted to jump them. I made them release Toulouse which I then diplo-vassalised and annexed. We have had peace since that war but I will need to crush them sooner or later. Their releasable countries(Dauphiné etc) have lost their cores so it will be very costly to core the provinces.

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Well... here is my little empire, looking the last ones doesn't look too big :blush:

Japan united at 1489:


My first colonial nation... bye bye my sweet gold mines :excl: :


Expanding as much as I can, taking power... bribing Russia when they come to me "friendly", but this is the last one, now I'm gonna kick your ass comrade!


And this the final result and the global situation:






 
Well, here's my England-GB game. I'd like to point out that although I've played countless Vicky 2 games , I've never had a EU game that's lasted more than 2 years, so this is my first full game playthrough. Looking back, I know I could have done ten times better on a re-run, it took me about 200 years to figure out trading for instance :p Oh also I don't have the expansions. Anyway here goes;

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A few things. I tried to recreate the real British Empire, so I went straight for the 13Col, Canada, Malta, and South Africa. I managed to get Aussie later aswell, as well as a few extras such as Madagascar, a decent chunk of Guyana (I had more but Portugal annexed some) and India, which was really fun. It feels awesome looking at it in the British colours, cos it was hard work getting enough admin points to core it.

I lost out on New Z and the Falklands to Portugal, who merged in a union with Spain, which created an Iberian superpower. Though on the other hand it forced Iberia to release the Spanish holdings, such as Mexico and California. Aragon survived the game, which I did not expect.

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France were poor all game, they colonised Florida and a few Oceana provinces, also a small portion of Canada. I took their North American holdings, and when they became Rev. France, the entire world turned on them, resulting in what you see there. MYself, Portugal and Austria gangblasted them until they gave up, giving Austria the Netherlands back which France had took, giving Portugal a lot of South American territory and me, well, a lot of France :p At the end game they were getting stomped again by the HRE for something trade related.

The HRE were poor aswell, only passing one reform and spending the entire game fighting each other rather than banding together an destroying Poland etc. Denmark were my favourites, they formed with Sweden very early on and rivalled me, and were a thron in my side all game, I had around 6-7 wars with them. Apart from mine, they had the biggest navy, and keeping them in check in the North Sea trade was super hard.

The Ottomans, well they just gobbled up everything, even a random piece of Asia (sorry for the ugly borders). The Timurids and Golden Horde are their protectorates aswell. I think that's everything lol
 
My Grand Ansbach Empire! Started as a opm in the HRE during 1.3 (before the AE nerf) making it one of the hardest starts (I faced crazy coalitions constantly) I've ever faced. I grew to be a true contender for the title of HRE emperor and miraculously got my dynasty put on the French and Polish Throne. I fought hard for a PU over the Polish and then turned my sights on France. I allied Burgundy and went to war with France. Luckily, my 21 troops were greatly supplemented by Burgundy's military and we pulled off a triumphant victory. I then managed to vassalize enough electors to become the Emperor, in all this time pulling more people into the coalition and making my neighbors hate me. Finally, it all culminated in this war that made me rage quit until just a week ago.
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Despite Spain instigating WW1 over a single county in France (this wasn't even a coalition war!), Ansbach managed to emerge relatively unscathed. After passing several reforms, I decided not to simply take the easy way out (keeping along the same theme as my Prussia playthrough a couple pages back) and passing the last reform. Instead, I used my 8 diplomats to annex them all 7 vassals at a time. At the same time, I set my sights on the rest of Europe. By the end, I managed to push Russia completely out of Europe and become the sole power left on the continent. A miracle happened in the last 10 years (1812), my dynasty got put on the Spanish throne who had previously inherited the Portugal throne. I PUed Spain and became Europe. After finishing this, I think this is my greatest accomplishment (mostly because of the difficulty of the start associated with 1.3 AE in the HRE). Without further ado...
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Right before successfully managing to revoke everyone!
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Annexed everyone but the Netherlands because if I annexed them, I'd lose substantial income and troop count from their colonial holdings.
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Diplo View
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All bow down to the mighty moave monarchy!
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World view - my vassals have substantial colonial holdings, making Ansbach a world power!
 
Damn i can't conquer all that with france :p.Can't imagine how hard it would be to do it with Ansbach...

I let France/Habsburgs/PLC do the fighting for me, even when I play Spain or England ;)

In fact, in most cases thats easier with medium/small nations because they don't rival you (early on).

Not to say Ansbach is easer, because its not, but also not rocket science difficult.
 
So i finally had the patience and willpower to pull off a WC. Behold the orthodox Ottoman empire. Could have pulled it off like 100 years before 1780 but i was minding my own business coring provinces, converting and then adding to HRE. And i wanted to have the "rising sun" achievement as well so that took some time as i was under 100% OE all the time.

And yes. That is basicly empty Brazil as i annexed and never released any colonizing nations. Not even Brittany. Only took exploration as fifth idea to be able to conquer native american tribes.

Now... should i press that cute button renovatio imperii or not...

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My modest Byzantium on 1.4:




I aimed (what can easily be inferred) to reach the bordes of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent, but taking Britain down was not an option and I wasn't lucky enough to get even a single PU throughout the entire game.

On the bright side, at least Mediterranean is Mare Internum again :p