Starting as England - Tell me what you think.

[Dean3000]

Okay, whilst Steam reinstalls (bit of a rage earlier) I thought i'd go through my starting policy regarding my all time favourite to play - England.

0. Give up Calais, Gascogne & Labourd - Temporary surrender of the Continent, emphasis on TEMPORARY.
1. Conquer Ireland - I always aim to get the mission first off, I don't bother cancelling missions because it's a waste of Prestige.
2. Vassalize Scotland - The harder lynchpin in my strategy, it can either go really well or really bad.
3. After a few years, DA Scotland into my own territory - I'll do this with a mission.

I'd say after this it's pretty much easy on the English, the last time I did this I was able to reconquer the ENTIRE Norman coastline from Calais to Normandie from the French, as well as lead a particularly successful liberation war against Castille in North Africa.

From what I've wrote though, do you think this is a decent strategy?

 

[unmerged(463662)]

Seems solid.

When I attack the Scots, I usually wait till I have about 40 units, you never know who's going to get called into the war.

There are two gamey exploits that might be useful:

If you're planning to diplo-annex Scotland via mission, I think that if you take Fife during vassalization, you should automatically get a core on Aberdeen as well as the 2 ones by England, which should mean instant GB. I've never done that myself, but I'm sure others can verify.

If you can get an alliance with Castille day 1, you'll be able to join them in their war against Granada. Get in there quick and you can annex Gibraltar 300 years early, then use the muslim cavalry units it provides against the Scots. I usually do that at the same time as conquering Ireland.

 

[Dean3000]

Ah, Gibraltar and GB...

This might sound like a noob/rookie move but im really fanatical about reserving GB until such a time when GB came about ahistorically - 1707 or even earlier before that (i limit it to 1650, not a year before that) just purely because of the aesthetics, i like it better liek that

 

[unmerged(463662)]

That's fine. We all have our own definitions of the best game.

 

[Van Tuber]

eh, never mind.

 

[unmerged(204522)]

follow your missions, especially the one that gives you cores on half of france-you dont ally castille, you use your alliance with portugal to emasculate them-anyone who would voluntarily give away 3 cores isnt fit to play as england-go and play as france you surrender monkey.

 

[Qemarar]

follow your missions, especially the one that gives you cores on half of france-you dont ally castille, you use your alliance with portugal to emasculate them-anyone who would voluntarily give away 3 cores isnt fit to play as england-go and play as france you surrender monkey.

What's the point of hanging on to some strips of land if you aren't even going to fight France from the start. Just because you go charging in doesn't mean everyone has to. I played a game of England by taking over France and another game of leaving France alone. They were both fun games.

 

[tuareg109]

I'd say after this it's pretty much easy on the English, the last time I did this I was able to reconquer the ENTIRE Norman coastline from Calais to Normandie from the French

Why not reconquer the entire Angevin coastline?
From Bayonne to Calais, including Anjou and Maine.

 

[grommile]

From what I've wrote though, do you think this is a decent strategy?

All strategies that don't make you lose horribly are decent. This one is weird, though - neither fish nor fowl. The strategy for newbies is to give up mainland Europe permanently (since there's a mostly-empty continent a few thousand miles away to devour); the strategy for real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri omits step zero, and takes rather more of France than just the Norman coastline

 

[unmerged(463662)]

Alpha Centauri

I wish they'd update that game.

 

[Dean3000]

follow your missions, especially the one that gives you cores on half of france-you dont ally castille, you use your alliance with portugal to emasculate them-anyone who would voluntarily give away 3 cores isnt fit to play as england-go and play as france you surrender monkey.

Wow. Cheers for your input but I doubt i'll pay much more attention to it apart from this.

 

[miguellima]

If you plan on conquering france look at this thread. http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?675006-Poor-France...&highlight=

I wanted Scotland first because in earlier games it went like this: Conquer Ireland->Brittany gets called in to defend Irish minors->Burgundy DOWs me->France DOWS me bringing Scotland with it->Lose

I don't like relinquishing my cores on mainland Europe because when i want to start a war with France i can't have a foothold to place my doomstacks

 

[tuareg109]

I don't like relinquishing my cores on mainland Europe because when i want to start a war with France i can't have a foothold to place my doomstacks

You can use Burgundy or allied Castille as footholds, but I agree. NOT AN INCH SHALL BE GIVEN! SCREW THE SI SYSTEM, EDWARD III HIMSELF COULDN'T MAKE ME CHANGE MY MIND!