Since the latest patch I am more or less convinced building a tax and production based empire is better than trying to go for a trade based empire. Before the patch came out I was experimenting with various NI that were regarded as weak and had some fun with them. I also play minor/small nations almost all of the time. A major nation to play for me is something like the Hansa or Switzerland as the larger nations bore me as you have more or less won the game before hitting the start button. 1.2 has made it a bit harder/slower to expand except in one area- colonialism. But then they nerfed the trade income. The solution seemed obvious build a tax and production based Empire in the Americas!!. Also move you capital over there as well. This means that it is a lot easier to move your capital if you are a small nation to start with as you need to have 1 province left in Europe before you can do this. Also barring some luck with monarchs Republics are the best to do this with as they can get a 3/6/3 leader without to many problems to rush the exploration tech tree. Being a republic however is not required it just seems the quickest way to get to the new world. The other key factor to the republic however is being able to take plutocracy early in the game as your second idea after exploration. This means you want to be an administrative republic or merchant republic at first and then switch to noble republic later in the game for the longer electoral cycle.
This means the list of good candidates for this is a little shorter. Sienna, Friesland, The Hansa are the prime candidates although a noble Republic like Tuscany can also work as you just take the ideas in a different order. The reason you want plutocracy though is for the extra merchant and 20% production bonus which stacks with the production boost from the economic and administration ideas. The 10% tech bonus is also nice but the 3 key ideas for a tax, gold and production game are plutocratic, economic and administration. Since you take exploration 1st your first 4-5 ideas are basically chosen for you already.
The second part of this strategy involves teching up to admin level 4 and taking exploration as your 1st idea. You also need a single barque and you switch to a diplomatic candidate either once you have exploration or as you get close. Some of the republics can afford a level 1 adviser so just switch him around as required. It is a bit harder/slower with someone like Friesland or Sienna compared to The Hansa. As soon as you get quest for the new world get an explorer ASAP and start exploring the sea zones to Mexico. Generally I turn back once my ship this 70% health. One can explore via crossing the sea zones near Arguin near Mali or sail north via Iceland and come down the east coast of America. I suicide explore once I have revealed enough sea zones to get close to Mexico. You want to reveal the Maya and/or the Creek. While you are busy exploring you want 5-6 cogs back home and at least 5-6 infantry although the more the merrier is nice. The Hansa can go higher than this, OPMs will be struggling if they break their force limits so 6 ships and 5-6 infantry regiments are about all you can do/need. Turn your maintenance up to full and either hire a free conquistador or convert your ruler to a general. Sale over to Mexico and DoW the Maya sucking up the stability hit. If you are an OPM the Mayan army could actually cause you some pain as you may only be land tech 4 but you can just avoid it until you siege out all their provinces. Annex them and release them as a vassal. You have to do this to get fleet basing rights of the Maya and to get early cores of conquered territory. Send a diplomat to them to get fleet basing rights. Reruit some more men if your force limits should go up and DoW the Zapotec as soon as you are ready. Also you may want to have coastal provinces revealed via an explorer as conquistadors can't explore even and provinces at war because you are so far out of range. You do not need to annex the Zapotecs but you do need to get Tohancapan to get access to the Aztecs. This means more stability hits most likely but attack them anyway.
Once you get Tohancapan you can core it regardless if you have fleet basing rights off the Maya. Once you get fleet basing rights you can start colonizing the Caribbean although if you are an OPM you may not be able to afford to so that is ok for now. Your next target is the Aztecs in any event. By now you are probably very close to completing the exploration tree or already have so you can get an easy CB vs the Aztecs. The Aztecs are to be annex as you want their goldmines. Once you have annexed them leave the HRE if you are in it and move your capital to Tohancapan or any coastal province you have cored. This will bump your income up to 12+ gold per turn and that is enough for two colonists. If you convert their provinces and core them you can get that income up to 25 gold or so once you annex the Maya. If you are planing on going protestant though just core them and wait for the reformation to fire before converting as pagan provinces convert fast compared to Catholic ones. From here is is really up to you but the most powerful play seems to be grab the Caribbean and start working on the Chesapeake bay area and take out the Creek. By 1520 you can get your income up to 60 odd ducats a months.
Sienna
The Hansa
The Hansa are getting more because they can expand faster (58 vs 64). In these games The Hansa went protestant, Sienna stayed Catholic and is the Papal controller. To put it another way Both of these nations are getting around 5 times the income of Castille in 1444 a mere 75 years into the game starting. That is enough income to support 3 advisers and 4 colonies with change left over. Moving your capital also has a massive impact on your force limits. Sienna went from an OPM with around a ducat per month income and force limits of 6 regiments and 7 fleet to 51 infantry and 79 fleet by 1520. I normally take exploration, plutocracy, economics as my 1st 3 ideas although as Sienna I took economics second as innflation is getting up to 10%. For the most part inflation can be ignored and it is not that expensive to pay down and you can afford level 2 and 3 advisers anyway to get the points to pay it down economics not required. inflation will also go down as more of your income comes from sources that are not gold mines as the Aztecs have 6 of them. Once you have Cheasepeake Bay and the Carribean more or less secured the world is your oyster although I normally make a play at grabbing the Peruvian gold mines or you could think about going for trade around the cape and into Asia. Onne is also not required to go after Cheasepake Bay either.
2nd Hansa Game.
Or you can paint the Americas your color.
As I said plutocracy is not required although I would not dump economics. I normally follow it up with administration as my 4th idea and innovative or a military tech as my 6th idea. A more militant focus could skip the economic ideas and maybe grab exploration, economics, offensive, administration for merc spam. Noteice however that administration also has an inflation reducing idea and a +20% production boost. These are key for massive gold mine abuse once you grab the Incan gold mines. An extra gold mine can usually be found in California and another 3 or 4 in Brazil/Peru trade nodes. I think my record is maybe 12 or 13 gold mines with inflation actually decreasing. Economics also gives you a 20% reduction in build coasts and by stacking these ideas you have enough income to spam manufactories in the new world. All the Mississippi, Mexico, Panama and Peruvian trade has to go through the Caribbean and you steer it to Chesapeake Bay. California also has a tax 7 levle province, often a gold mine and several tax 3-5 provinces and their trade goes to Mexico. Put all of this togather with the ideas I mentioned and annex the Shanee/Huron/Iroquos etc and you can break 300 ducats a month in the early 1600s with 3 merchants (2+1 via plutocracy). To put that in perspective it is around double the income of a united Germany and more than I can make as a trade Republic out of Venice with 8 merchants in the early 18th century. Plutocracy, Administration, Innovative also give you massive discounts on Mercenaries. Your tax/gold/production empire can come online faster than a trade one can with the possible exception of Castille and in 150 odd years you can create an empire that is more powerful than France or a united Germany and you can probably do it quicker as well as expansion in Europe is rough. At that point one can look at major wars in Europe or go take a different idea or two and go for the Ivory Coast/Asia. Either way you are exploiting Mexican gold mines to fund everything else.
This means the list of good candidates for this is a little shorter. Sienna, Friesland, The Hansa are the prime candidates although a noble Republic like Tuscany can also work as you just take the ideas in a different order. The reason you want plutocracy though is for the extra merchant and 20% production bonus which stacks with the production boost from the economic and administration ideas. The 10% tech bonus is also nice but the 3 key ideas for a tax, gold and production game are plutocratic, economic and administration. Since you take exploration 1st your first 4-5 ideas are basically chosen for you already.
The second part of this strategy involves teching up to admin level 4 and taking exploration as your 1st idea. You also need a single barque and you switch to a diplomatic candidate either once you have exploration or as you get close. Some of the republics can afford a level 1 adviser so just switch him around as required. It is a bit harder/slower with someone like Friesland or Sienna compared to The Hansa. As soon as you get quest for the new world get an explorer ASAP and start exploring the sea zones to Mexico. Generally I turn back once my ship this 70% health. One can explore via crossing the sea zones near Arguin near Mali or sail north via Iceland and come down the east coast of America. I suicide explore once I have revealed enough sea zones to get close to Mexico. You want to reveal the Maya and/or the Creek. While you are busy exploring you want 5-6 cogs back home and at least 5-6 infantry although the more the merrier is nice. The Hansa can go higher than this, OPMs will be struggling if they break their force limits so 6 ships and 5-6 infantry regiments are about all you can do/need. Turn your maintenance up to full and either hire a free conquistador or convert your ruler to a general. Sale over to Mexico and DoW the Maya sucking up the stability hit. If you are an OPM the Mayan army could actually cause you some pain as you may only be land tech 4 but you can just avoid it until you siege out all their provinces. Annex them and release them as a vassal. You have to do this to get fleet basing rights of the Maya and to get early cores of conquered territory. Send a diplomat to them to get fleet basing rights. Reruit some more men if your force limits should go up and DoW the Zapotec as soon as you are ready. Also you may want to have coastal provinces revealed via an explorer as conquistadors can't explore even and provinces at war because you are so far out of range. You do not need to annex the Zapotecs but you do need to get Tohancapan to get access to the Aztecs. This means more stability hits most likely but attack them anyway.
Once you get Tohancapan you can core it regardless if you have fleet basing rights off the Maya. Once you get fleet basing rights you can start colonizing the Caribbean although if you are an OPM you may not be able to afford to so that is ok for now. Your next target is the Aztecs in any event. By now you are probably very close to completing the exploration tree or already have so you can get an easy CB vs the Aztecs. The Aztecs are to be annex as you want their goldmines. Once you have annexed them leave the HRE if you are in it and move your capital to Tohancapan or any coastal province you have cored. This will bump your income up to 12+ gold per turn and that is enough for two colonists. If you convert their provinces and core them you can get that income up to 25 gold or so once you annex the Maya. If you are planing on going protestant though just core them and wait for the reformation to fire before converting as pagan provinces convert fast compared to Catholic ones. From here is is really up to you but the most powerful play seems to be grab the Caribbean and start working on the Chesapeake bay area and take out the Creek. By 1520 you can get your income up to 60 odd ducats a months.
Sienna
The Hansa
The Hansa are getting more because they can expand faster (58 vs 64). In these games The Hansa went protestant, Sienna stayed Catholic and is the Papal controller. To put it another way Both of these nations are getting around 5 times the income of Castille in 1444 a mere 75 years into the game starting. That is enough income to support 3 advisers and 4 colonies with change left over. Moving your capital also has a massive impact on your force limits. Sienna went from an OPM with around a ducat per month income and force limits of 6 regiments and 7 fleet to 51 infantry and 79 fleet by 1520. I normally take exploration, plutocracy, economics as my 1st 3 ideas although as Sienna I took economics second as innflation is getting up to 10%. For the most part inflation can be ignored and it is not that expensive to pay down and you can afford level 2 and 3 advisers anyway to get the points to pay it down economics not required. inflation will also go down as more of your income comes from sources that are not gold mines as the Aztecs have 6 of them. Once you have Cheasepeake Bay and the Carribean more or less secured the world is your oyster although I normally make a play at grabbing the Peruvian gold mines or you could think about going for trade around the cape and into Asia. Onne is also not required to go after Cheasepake Bay either.
2nd Hansa Game.
Or you can paint the Americas your color.
As I said plutocracy is not required although I would not dump economics. I normally follow it up with administration as my 4th idea and innovative or a military tech as my 6th idea. A more militant focus could skip the economic ideas and maybe grab exploration, economics, offensive, administration for merc spam. Noteice however that administration also has an inflation reducing idea and a +20% production boost. These are key for massive gold mine abuse once you grab the Incan gold mines. An extra gold mine can usually be found in California and another 3 or 4 in Brazil/Peru trade nodes. I think my record is maybe 12 or 13 gold mines with inflation actually decreasing. Economics also gives you a 20% reduction in build coasts and by stacking these ideas you have enough income to spam manufactories in the new world. All the Mississippi, Mexico, Panama and Peruvian trade has to go through the Caribbean and you steer it to Chesapeake Bay. California also has a tax 7 levle province, often a gold mine and several tax 3-5 provinces and their trade goes to Mexico. Put all of this togather with the ideas I mentioned and annex the Shanee/Huron/Iroquos etc and you can break 300 ducats a month in the early 1600s with 3 merchants (2+1 via plutocracy). To put that in perspective it is around double the income of a united Germany and more than I can make as a trade Republic out of Venice with 8 merchants in the early 18th century. Plutocracy, Administration, Innovative also give you massive discounts on Mercenaries. Your tax/gold/production empire can come online faster than a trade one can with the possible exception of Castille and in 150 odd years you can create an empire that is more powerful than France or a united Germany and you can probably do it quicker as well as expansion in Europe is rough. At that point one can look at major wars in Europe or go take a different idea or two and go for the Ivory Coast/Asia. Either way you are exploiting Mexican gold mines to fund everything else.
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