Tips for Aragon

[EmperorUesugi]

I have recently been playing as Aragon. My alliances were with France Portugal and Savoy. I rivalled England, Burgundy and Genoa, Tunis when possible too. I saw that expanding into Italy before the Shadow Kingdom event triggers would be suicidal, so focused on Conquering North Africa. i went after Tunis and took 3 provinces that allowed access towards the desert nations, and attacked Djerid next. I vassalised Djerid, which led me into a war with Touggourt and Fezan. I annexed them both and fed Djerid their provinces, while keeping one that bordered Mzab and Tunis. I used warnings on the surrounding nations so they didn't attack each other. By this time my truce with Tunis was nearly over, however, I found they had allied with Otto. I had 2 weak rulers in this time who were Admin focused. Austria attacked Otto, dragging Tunis into that war, I attacked Tunis as soon as my truce ended as Otto was not joining them. At this point I learned that I should have pushed my military tech up sooner as my army was destroyed by Tunis, Despite having twice their number they were technologically superior. i could not call in any allies, Naples and Djerid did not have enough troops to support me.

I an now starting over again with Aragon. What could I have done better?

 

[abedfo]

Ally France smash Castille and Portugal until you can vassalize them, have them colonise world for you. Probably leave North Africa alone.

 

[Thorum]

Keep/get your subjects, form Spain, get the Emperor achievement and go colonial. With augmented coring costs, the Maghreb shouldn't come first.

Or go for the trade game completing the Genoa node and profit from the other Iberian colonies.

 

[TheDungen]

Wait with north africa, when you get a union over castile you can feed as much of north africa to them as you cna before forming spain, that way they core it and you get those expensive cores for free.
Well at least it works that way with castile feeding it to aragon, should work vice versa.

 

[ArzhurG]

As a player Aragon a different version of the Iberian Wedding will fire where you will get a PU over them instead of the other way round.

When I played as Aragon I was very aggressive. I allied Castile and Austria. When you form Spain you can get a Hapsburg heir if you are married to them and you both rival France.

Then I attacked Navarra with the subjugation CB that you get from a mission before anybody could ally them. I annexed then instead of making them a vassal so that I could fabricate on England. If you attack them early you can release Gascony as a vassal from their provinces. As Gascony has many cores on France you can conquer a lot of land without much AE.

Before attacking England I no-CBed Byzantium to vassalize them. Before the peace the Ottomans attacked them so I became the defender against them, allowing me to call in my allies. Try to take as few Byzantine cores as possible as you will be paying full AE for them. Edirne is still worth it to block the straight.

 

[ElGranCapitan]

As a player Aragon a different version of the Iberian Wedding will fire where you will get a PU over them instead of the other way round.

When I played as Aragon I was very aggressive. I allied Castile and Austria. When you form Spain you can get a Hapsburg heir if you are married to them and you both rival France.

Then I attacked Navarra with the subjugation CB that you get from a mission before anybody could ally them. I annexed then instead of making them a vassal so that I could fabricate on England. If you attack them early you can release Gascony as a vassal from their provinces. As Gascony has many cores on France you can conquer a lot of land without much AE.

Before attacking England I no-CBed Byzantium to vassalize them. Before the peace the Ottomans attacked them so I became the defender against them, allowing me to call in my allies. Try to take as few Byzantine cores as possible as you will be paying full AE for them. Edirne is still worth it to block the straight.

Or instead of the whole Habsburg thing you ally/marry France..your king and heir are both very old giving you a good chance of getting the french dynasty really early, once you are Spain you can enforce the PU
France PU > Austria PU

I agree with the Byzantium no cb, that is really worth it..also keep in mind that Aragon gets a +2% missionary strength event rather early making it possible to convert Sunni decently, so don't be afraid of taking Anatolian land

 

[otaats]

I like to go for dominating Mediterranean, allying France, and getting the PU with Castile.

Favorite opening move: wait for Ottomans to attack Albania. They will move their whole army to the Balkans. Swiftly no-CB on them, smash their fleets with your nice admiral and transport your troops to Anatolia. quickly occupy the provinces that cross into the Balkans. Keep guarding the crossing and destroy their fleets over and over if they decide to try to sail out. If you are going for Consulate of the Sea, it's likely the best early move you can make. Other than that, ally France - you're basically safe in that case.

 

[Kergan]

I'm not sure I agree on leaving North Africa alone. Maybe do so very early in the game, but do grab that territory sooner rather than later to avoid wasting money on allies warding off pirates.

As Portugal I usually grab Tangiers for myself (the mission pays for the coring), and I release Fez as a march that I feed the North African coast to. Fez will still pirate, mind you - but not my provinces. When Fez reach admin tech 10, force convert them to catholic, and diplo-annex when they're done - or keep it around... it won't lag too far behind in tech since you'll be feeding it institutions. As an Italian minor I usually release Algiers to the same effect.

If you're patient, an alternative is to vassalize the Knights as some point after Admin tech 8 and feed it North Africa - they pirate too, and they'll have +2 missionary strength by then (on top of often taking Religious if you've waited long enough).

 

[bradles0]

Wait with north africa, when you get a union over castile you can feed as much of north africa to them as you cna before forming spain, that way they core it and you get those expensive cores for free.
Well at least it works that way with castile feeding it to aragon, should work vice versa.

NO DO NOT DO THIS!!!!

You cannot hit the form spain button if castille has more than 37 cities. I believe that castille starts the game with around 30, take out the 4 from granada and navarra and you're almost out. And if you go over that amount you have to give away castille's provinces to someone else before you can form spain, or you will have to manually diplo-annex them. (and you can't use seize province because they're a PU and not a vassal)

the same is also true for the other direction (and also for england/scotland forming GB and poland/lithuania when forming commonwealth)

 

[TheDungen]

NO DO NOT DO THIS!!!!

You cannot hit the form spain button if castille has more than 37 cities. I believe that castille starts the game with around 30, take out the 4 from granada and navarra and you're almost out. And if you go over that amount you have to give away castille's provinces to someone else before you can form spain, or you will have to manually diplo-annex them. (and you can't use seize province because they're a PU and not a vassal)

the same is also true for the other direction (and also for england/scotland forming GB and poland/lithuania when forming commonwealth)

Just keep an eye on them so they don't blob over 37 and you're fine.

 

[bradles0]

Just keep an eye on them so they don't blob over 37 and you're fine.

well the suggestion that i'm telling him not to take is to give castille the entire north coast of Africa. Not blobbing over 37 is like 2 provinces.

 

[makaramus]

Ally France smash Castille and Portugal until you can vassalize them, have them colonise world for you. Probably leave North Africa alone.

what the... why? there is no purpose O_O YOU CAN GET IBERIAN WEDDING FOR YOURSELF TOO O_O
also allied portugal/vassal portugal almost no diffrence both of them answers your war calls and both of them brings trade to seville
here is my strategy
while waiting for iberian wedding conquer coasts of mediterrian(province, papal state,bosnia/serbia,venice etc... when shadow kingdom fire conquer italy too)
when iberian wedding fire feed castille with berber lands (give him richest lands) reason is you can annex him for free and avoid idea group of berbers when you do.
or if you are not gonna colonize yourself you can keep castile as your union partner and let him colonize for you instead.
pick religius idea group + trade idea group. trade is really good for aragon because you can play with entire mediterrian trade nodes with this idea
When you are ready invade france and send trade to genoa
you can allways try to be holy roman emperor its good bonus.
try to race annexing mamluks if you annex them up to jerusalem before ottoman you can defeat them

note:becarefull that if castile has too much land you cant annex him. do this only if you want him as colonizer . if you dont want him then give him provinces like Fez etc... if you do a mistake and over feed him relase nations in peace deal or return cores

 

[ElGranCapitan]

when iberian wedding fire feed castille with berber lands (give him richest lands) reason is you can annex him for free and avoid idea group of berbers when you do.

Castile with Navarre (which they will diplo-vassalize pretty much always), Granada (their first war target) and a full Burgundian inheritance is exactly the maximum size that allows for the decision

Since in the early game the bottle neck ressources are AE>MP>manpower>money i'd rather save the AE in the lowlands/HRE than the little bit of money the pirates are costing me
Money is the most abundant ressource, spending other ressources to save money is almost never a good idea if playing a Euro major. Therefore i leave the Berbers alone until I got max Absolutism

As Aragon I always no cb byz and expand into Ottos and Mamluks, going Religious first with the extra missionary strength from aragonese event converting the sunnis isn't a problem at all

 

[makaramus]

Castile with Navarre (which they will diplo-vassalize pretty much always), Granada (their first war target) and a full Burgundian inheritance is exactly the maximum size that allows for the decision

Since in the early game the bottle neck ressources are AE>MP>manpower>money i'd rather save the AE in the lowlands/HRE than the little bit of money the pirates are costing me
Money is the most abundant ressource, spending other ressources to save money is almost never a good idea if playing a Euro major. Therefore i leave the Berbers alone until I got max Absolutism

As Aragon I always no cb byz and expand into Ottos and Mamluks, going Religious first with the extra missionary strength from aragonese event converting the sunnis isn't a problem at all

take granada to yourself and vassalize navarra if burgundian inheritence happen dow an opm and return cores in peace deal O_O

 

[Vulkandrache]

take granada to yourself and vassalize navarra if burgundian inheritence happen dow an opm and return cores in peace deal O_O

Great Idea.
Lets have Castille give up some really high dev land in an amazing trade node which we can get full cores on for free,
just so we can feed them some low dev shit land in Africa to save a few dozen Dip points on integration of a Berber Vassal after Absolutism.

 

[ElGranCapitan]

take granada to yourself and vassalize navarra if burgundian inheritence happen dow an opm and return cores in peace deal O_O

The thing you need to understand, not having to conquer Burgundy saves a very important ressource - Aggressive Expansion (imho the most important ressource, early game in Europe at least)
Not conquering the Berber land costs you a little money from the devastation the raids cause - money is the most abundant ressource, if you need some, dow a trade league and separate peace all members for money (Lübeck or Venice often give you 2k ducat in one peace deal even very early)

At some point once you got free relationship slots (in general mine are blocked early game by Castile, Naples, France and vassals that I use to expand like Byzantium and Syria), if the raids annoy you that much you can create a single vassal once you have integrated your PUs and feed him all the coast, make him catholic and then a march to clear the disloyalty and keep him around till max Absolutism
Or you simply stop caring for the raids - it's only money

 

[Monzon]

Keep an eye out for those excommunication CB's.

I believe you can enforce it on Provence early in the game to grab both Provence and Draguinan, which strengthens your presence in the Genoa trade node.

The Papal State will also often excommunicate states like Tuscany, Savoy and Genoa which have provinces in range of your land in Sardinia.

 

[makaramus]

Great Idea.
Lets have Castille give up some really high dev land in an amazing trade node which we can get full cores on for free,
just so we can feed them some low dev shit land in Africa to save a few dozen Dip points on integration of a Berber Vassal after Absolutism.

I didnt say relase dutch minors... I meant african lands -_-

 

[yyrkroon]

I'm deep in my own Aragon run right now. I've had some lucky breaks - including getting a PU over France - but I think the key with Aragon is to run an aggressive, spread offense. Initially, Aragon isn't quite a top tier power, but it is very well positioned to rapidly engage in multiple theaters.

I really like the No-CB Byz opening, after securing Ottoman thumping allies for the vassal-defense war.

I would have a plan to handle the North Africans someway - the raids become annoying as hell quickly.

 

[EmperorUesugi]

My thoughts are no CB vassalize Byzantium and turn it into a March and have Athens on scutage. Then eat into north Africa, giving Naples the province above Malta allows them to core the eastern Tunisian provinces. I've noticed that you have to be careful with how many vassals you have due to Liberty Desire. This new game I have started France is my ally, Castile my rival. I vassalized Byzantium and Athens, Otto did not attack Byzantium at the time so haven't gone to war with them. I then attacked Tlemcen who were at war with Tunis, taking the port in coring range plus a COT and forcing them to release 2 minor nations. I gave warnings to all nations in the area I can bully! While coring and making claims, I am letting my manpower force limit recover to full, and am raising my dip amd mil tech to keep LD down. When Athens can be annexed, I will feed them to Byzantium. Otherwise, I will feed north African provinces to Naples bearing in my mind province cap for integration. Once Iberian wedding fires up,will go after Portugal - they are a valuable colonising vassal! Once Shadow Kingdom event fires, I will target Genoa and the rest of Italy. I have Poland as ally and plan to add Austria once they PU Hungary. l plan to feed Balkan Otto and Venician Aegean provinces to Byzantium.