Tips on Naples?

[unmerged(462318)]

Hey everyone, I've just started up my first game as none of the superpowers, and chose Naples. Any hints on what should be my main focus the first 100-200 years? Sliders & research-wise? I thinking I want to form Italy, compete in trade and take some north african provinces. Modest goals, as I'm still new to this game. Any tips welcome!

 

[chgrogers]

Naples has a core in Greece, Janina. Its a good jump of point for expansion in Greece. All of Sicily are cores and should be recovered quickly. Research-wise Govt 4 first, then land 5 or trade 7 depending on how you want to expand. Expanding into the HRE, remove the conquered provinces from the HRE with 1 magistrate will keep the Unlawful Territory event from firing? The one where the emperor demands your new province back get stiff penalties. Parma, Modena, Ferrara, Romagna, Firenze, Pisa, and Siena all have University take those and never worry about govt tech again.

So if you expand into N Africa you have to fight Mamluks, Portugal and/or Castille. Expanding to Greece places you into competition with Ottomans and maybe the GH. Expanding into Italy places you in competition with the HRE, Austria, Milan, France and whoever else guarantees the Italian minors. Oh Venice.

 

[Fishman786]

Hey everyone, I've just started up my first game as none of the superpowers, and chose Naples. Any hints on what should be my main focus the first 100-200 years? Sliders & research-wise? I thinking I want to form Italy, compete in trade and take some north african provinces. Modest goals, as I'm still new to this game. Any tips welcome!

Kill Sicily is an obvious one. You can use the diplomatic fallout of that war to vassalise the papal state too. Once you've done that aim towards diplo-vassalising Tuscany, Siena and Anacona. Use rebels to kick Milan out of Siena and Pisa. Once you have all of those countries under your control, diplo-annex them one by one. It should take 20 years to eat all three, plus another 50 for cores.

Beating Milan is the hard part. Try to use alliances to get into wars with them without the Emperor kicking your door down. Alternatively, attack when the Emperor is busy with France or something. You want to take as little territory as possible, just dismantle the country bit by bit until you can seize Lombardy.

Another way to remove Milan from the equation could be through inheritance, though obviously that's unreliable.


Once you own and have cores on the necessary provinces you can form Italy, which grants you an insane number of cores and the ability to conquer your way across the rest of the rich northern provinces. Including Venice and Genoa.

 

[unmerged(462318)]

Thanks a lot, guys! I started playing and I see now that I should've started with taking out Sicily as they declared on me and kept landing troops in sthe south, while I was fighting in the north... I'm gonna start over. But, yeah, excellent advice! Btw, what's the most common way to play Naples? Is it a bit of trade and a bit of war?

 

[apsycobear]

Naples has a core in Greece, Janina. Its a good jump of point for expansion in Greece. All of Sicily are cores and should be recovered quickly. Research-wise Govt 4 first, then land 5 or trade 7 depending on how you want to expand. Expanding into the HRE, remove the conquered provinces from the HRE with 1 magistrate will keep the Unlawful Territory event from firing? The one where the emperor demands your new province back get stiff penalties. Parma, Modena, Ferrara, Romagna, Firenze, Pisa, and Siena all have University take those and never worry about govt tech again.

So if you expand into N Africa you have to fight Mamluks, Portugal and/or Castille. Expanding to Greece places you into competition with Ottomans and maybe the GH. Expanding into Italy places you in competition with the HRE, Austria, Milan, France and whoever else guarantees the Italian minors. Oh Venice.

Don't you lose the universities if you take the provinces without cores though?

 

[chgrogers]

Don't you lose the universities if you take the provinces without cores though?

Just buildings are destroyed when taking over provinces without cores. Manufactures are kept.

 

[Nerga]

Go Free Trade. Naples is really weak due to how poor they are unless you go free trade. With Free trade you should have the income to be able to move into Sicily and Greece. Once you have a powerbase in Greece and Southern Italy you should be able to expand north, and through the Balkans. It is not worth going into North Africa generally.

 

[Cataphractoi]

if you're looking for a little less of a challenge, start ~1405, they start with roma and ancona and have cores on them too.