EU4 Make America Great Again

Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-15 00:35:49 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 01: 1444-1452: Union over France

I decided to treat EU4 the way I treat CK2 and just drop in some random mods without prior testing:

• Better Tradenodes and Tradeflows
• Countries Can Collapse
• Dynamic Ages
• Impactful Devastation & Prosperity
• Missions Expanded
• More Realistic Trade Companies
• New Casus Belli - Cut Down to Size
• Unlock Idea Groups Faster

And Fun and Balance of course - all slightly modified to get rid of all the conflicts. I might remod it all half-way if it turns out they don't work.

The goal is to Make America Great Again, starting as England. What's America? I'm sure we'll discover that one. But first, we have unfinished business with France.

The mods give 50% minimum autonomy and various debuffs to pretty much everything not of your primary culture, and make Lubeck the only end node - with trade from Venice and English Channel getting there through Rhineland and other nodes - so the only way to capture all trade is now conquering the whole HRE, and then some more, as longest chain goes English Channel, Rhineland, Wien, Krakow, Baltic Sea, Lubeck.

So this England is a lot weaker than vanilla England. Now the optimal England strategy is to cheese it like by releasing Normandy to break Surrender of Maine event, but even nerfed England is still easy mode, so we'll do it the hard way.

I got the event March 1446. I made a lot of allies, but since I was attacker the only ones I could cash on in were Burgundy and Castile.

France got Denmark with juniors, Aragon with Naples, Genoa, Provence with its junior, and Switzerland. Total 88k vs 122k, so not too bad. I didn't do anything too clever. Just tried to micro better than the AI.

Unfortunately my allies abandoned me, I got War of the Roses, and at one point I was fighting outnumbered 4:1, not even counting rebels. It got so bad that peasants managed to take Paris, and my invasion of Denmark went so bad I had to buy fleet basing rights from Friesland to rescue my troops.

The war dragged on until 1452, but one by one France's allies got tired. I gave Aragon two provinces from Castile, the rest just white peaced exhausted. As winner of War of the Roses I got some AE discount, and that just barely saved me from a coalition for taking French throne. I even managed to squeeze so much gold from France that I repaid all the debt I took during the war.

As fun side effect of that prolonger war, 3 cultural estates (Norman, Francies, Gascogne) who shared culture group with my enemy are in almost open rebellion. At least the Welsh support me.

France has -200 opinion of me, and thinks it's 170% as strong as me - fortunately I have until 1466 to deal with that.
#eu4

All mods except one for more trade companies are huge England nerfs. Different trade map reduces English Channel's worth maybe by half. Countries Can Collapse wrecks culturally diverse nations. Fun and Balance let France take extra allies including Denmark.

Unlock Idea Groups Faster will probably result in all my enemies taking 5 military idea group, and me regretting it horribly. They unlock at tech 3-10, and game pre-selected administrative as first for me (without any actual ideas, so I could cancel for free, but didn't). I'm taking exploration second, obviously. Third I might actually take offensive, since opportunity cost is very low.

I tried to get all allies to whom I could promise land - so Burgundy, Aragon, and Brittany. Aragon allied France and broke up with me in just a few months. Brittany liked France too much. Weirdly Castile wanted France's province over that sea zone, that really helped.

I kept Portugal, and allied Austria, Hungary, and Lithuania (now under Poland) mostly as coalition protection, but AE discount fixed that as well.

The war looks nice, except my allies all bailed out. On the upside, I didn't break promise of land.

I never get random PUs, so it's a nice change, and this was fun uphill fight. After all allies left, France got tech 4 and still had 1.5x as many troops as me. Fortunately at that point warscore ticked up very high, and their war exhaustion was 20 to my 6, so they took the peace deal.

Even better - at this point I got new king from house York, with Habsburg consort and by event Tudor heir. Otherwise I might have to repeat this war on my ruler's death.

Short term plan is to clean up the isles, make France like me, and discover Americas.

Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-16 00:51:28 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 02: 1452-1468: Subjugation of The Isles

I got three independence war in 1454-1461, by various French minors. It looks like independence and civil wars are raging all over the world.

I got a stupid event for -1dev because of devastation, but devastation was just 0.69%/100%. And then a few more such events. The mod is going all in, they really ought to be toned down.

In 1462 I finally got 60% of my manpower at full force limit (mostly mercs), so I got mission that gave me vassalization CB on Scotland, and permanent claims on all Irish minors.

So I declared a bunch of wars, got all of Ireland. I thought I'd get all of Scotland too, but apparently vassalizing Scotland releases their vassal (2-province Isles), doesn't transfer it. And we have truce until 1480. So unfortunately I can't finish that mission yet. The peace dialog probably had some options to deal with that, oh well.

One massive pain was Aachen allied with one of Irish minors. They had 8k, and got 12k condotierri from Burgundy, and overran France. Mostly due to tech 6 to my 4 and French 5.

Because I had to rely so hard on mercs for those wars, had to take Renaissance, built some marketplaces and churches, and because burgers hate me by events, I got 1400 into debt, and I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to repay that. It's not that easy to have a profitable war, and I'm not really earning that much.

First idea groups: administrative, exploration, aristocratic.
#eu4

Ireland will have million separatists followed by an inevitable faction independence war. The mods are really nerfing English economy.

Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-19 11:40:40 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 03: 1468-1482: Discovery of America

After some more testing I figured out the mods I use are totally broken. Countries Can Collapse guarantees infinite cycle of rebellions and of course lies with tooltips. It also removes territorial cores, resets separatism, and is basically trying to be MEIOU Lite, with all the problems it causes.

Impactful Devastation & Prosperity mod is OK in principle, but it uses some crazy numbers, so I had to tone it down. And Extended Missions mod conflicts with Better UI.

So I tried to delete all events from Countries Can Collapse, but that instantly crashes the game. I pondered just restarting, since it's not been that long, but instead I wrote a script to deactivate all its effects, leaving a lot of do-nothing files behind.

I don't really have any issues with trade mods, and faster ideas is OK. New Casus Belli and Dynamic ages did nothing so far.

So I played on speed 4 for a while, repaying loans, keeping my subjects and Irish peasant in order.

Once things cooled down, I had to deal with Burgundy somehow, but they were allied with Austria. I had a great plan only to discover that in-game favor system lies a lot. So with some delay, I got Austria and Castile into my war against Navarra, Burgundy, and various minors.

In that war I liberated Flanders from Burgundian yoke, humiliated them, and took some money. Sadly taking even one province would mean HRE minor coalition. At least I could take Navarra and cleanup Islands for Scotland.

Oh and we discovered a new continent, and even stacked colonial range modifiers so we can just barely send some settlers over there.
#eu4

Setting up this war required double favors with Austria, papal legate to convince Castile, and throwing a lot of troops against Burgundy who had better military tech. In the end, it was probably worth it.

I considered not doing humiliation (it's really just useful for age bonus, and age is ending soon), and trying to bankrupt them instead.

A really nice part of this war is that I now border my hated rival Aragon. Based on gender of their rulers and heirs, I don't expect Castile/Aragon union this campaign.

Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-19 15:11:57 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 04: 1482-1493: Fall of Burgundy

I could just hope that freshly released Flanders would be available to conquer 15 years later and that it won't join the HRE or ally Austria, or anything else silly like that.

It was time to send some settlers and conquistadors to the New World, and to take expansion ideas as 4th. Maybe I'll mod it so all 18 are available, not just first 8.

The New World settlement for now are scattered all over the place, so settlers don't get any stupid idea about organizing.

Burgundy got HRE emperorship. This was actually amazing, as I could attack random OPM, and fight them as cobeligerent. There are so few ways to go around truce timers, and emperorship is one.

So I attacked Friesland, and took Holland and Brabant as new vassals. It feels like much, but that's actually 50% discount thanks to Transfer Subject age ability, so I'll never get them at such low AE cost.

That's a bit into coalition territory, but it's really just Burgundy, my new vassals, and North-West German minors. I'll probably get away with it by just taking my sweet time until truces expire.

Burgundy without its juniors is not all that threatening. I'll need to clean up the borders to get full control over English Channel's provinces at least (it will still leak due to minors' merchant), but that's now a lot less urgent.

We'll become America soon. But first I'll need to sort out European possessions and religion.
#eu4

So you've improved your control over the North Sea I guess then? Thus letting you get more of the money before it reaches Lubeck I guess.

Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-20 00:19:44 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 05: 1493-1518: Great Britain

There were 22 outraged countries without truce, but none wanted to coalition me, and I managed to calm them down.

Then came time for war with Flanders, but that looked like it would cause even bigger coalition, so I just let them transfer trade power to me and otherwise do whatever they want.

My king died, so I got 1/0/2 consort for 4/0/6 girl - at time when bird mana was most important. Oh well, with all the options nowadays I have a lot of flexibility with mana.

Bohemia briefly went Hussite. That didn't last, but HRE is now overran by various heretics.

Somehow province of Beja went from Portugal to Castile (they are allied!) and even lost Portuguese core. No idea which mod did it.

I got colonialism in Kent, but still didn't adopt it 18 years later.

I got "Great" part of Making America Great Again done. Now we'd need to become America I guess. I got 20 scattered colonies so far.

France is close to integrated, but I didn't get modifiers timed correctly and I'll lose a good amount of bird mana. Oh well.

My idea groups so far are: administrative, exploration, aristocratic, expansion, influence.

I'm not sure what to take far last 3, or for that matter if I should mod even more. Unlocking them that fast is a bit silly. Maybe something halfway would be a good idea for next campaign.
#eu4

There were no major wars in so long now.

Parliament gave me temporary 4th colonist, which was the first time parliament felt like not total downside. Choice of bonuses is random (lists 5 out of 32, but not all are possible depending on situation), and I didn't get it again.

I could attack Flanders again, they're currently allied with Denmark. Annoyingly becoming Great Britain didn't make me empire, so not feeling all that great just yet.

Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-24 21:54:04 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 06: 1518-1530: Imperial Church

Denmark dropped alliance with Flanders for whichever reason, so that was a quick end of Flanders.

I integrated France, lowered autonomy everywhere, assigned far too many parliament seats. I got an extra colonist again, so parliament maybe isn't quite as bad, but I'd still prefer nobility estate.

My ally electorate of Palatinate annexed electorate of Trier. I really wanted to setup HRE for a two-way war, but that would require every emperor and elector to take sides, and that just didn't work out.

I needed extra prestige to get empire rank, so I sent all my troops to fight natives. That's exactly when Austria decided to fight Burgundy, and most of that fighting took place in my lands. I tried to use my ships to fight Venice and friends, but while it wasn't a total disaster, I wasn't really there yet. I got Burgundy's only coastal province for that trouble.

I flipped Anglican and spent 2500 gold for center of reformation in London. That made Brittany break our alliance.

Castile somehow got Iberian Wedding - that's allowed until 1530, I misread that on the wiki and thought it's be too late.

For whichever Castile also called me into war against some natives, and I took this opportunity to take over Brittany (allied with both of us not so long ago), getting me two missions.

Next parliament debate I got extra missionary - between 3 missionaries and center of reformation, I got to 50% unity in eight years, so not too bad.

I'll soon be able to start migration to the New World, but that requires piles of paper mana. Or I could stay a bit longer to take part in HRE League Wars, as that's my best chance of wrecking the HRE.
#eu4

HRE almost totally overran by assorted heretics. I converted Gelre to Anglican, but they got attacked by a bunch of countries, so I doubt they'll survive.

Until I fix religious situation, I'll need to babysit rebels. Oh and I'm still allied with the Pope, they forgot to check that in the code.

Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-25 02:22:50 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 07: 1530-1545: Fall of the HRE

I continued converting my peasants. Finally stars aligned, and I could throw HRE into a huge war - and somehow without even involving Poland in that. It cost me alliance with Austria as that's the only way I could get Bohemia in, but that's a fair price. Also alliance with Cologne due to chains.

That was extremely painful war, and a few times it almost failed - my allies electors of Utrecht and Palatinate were kicked out of it, and if Liege knew better it would force them to break our alliance, failing the war.

And even after I finally managed to kick Denmark and other minors out, capital of electorate of Mainz got occupied in another war, so it was a matter of either luck or waiting really long time.

After I destroyed the HRE I seized Burgundy and Picardy states for my mission, which got exactly 99% overextension. I even converted some minors to true faith, and there are now 10 Anglican countries worldwide.

I have negative manpower, rebels everywhere, some debt, the usual. But I have buckets of money, 76% religious unity, and no more need to remain in Europe.

Ideas I took so far: administrative, exploration, aristocratic, expansion, influence, religious, offensive. Final one will probably be trade.
#eu4

The war was long and very bloody, but definitely worth it. For a final twist Liege managed to lose wargoal province to Gelre by 5 year rebel timer. I didn't even notice that, I was so focused at alliance networks.

It would probably have been easier to wait until 1550s - leagues force HRE into two camps, so in any big war all electors will participate anyway.

I didn't even save that much time going for it, and it had decent chance of failing due to how strict the rules are.

That's how the war started. I think a few minors might have joined after this screenshot.

Aragon is rebellious, so actual forces were about even - and for whichever reason ours fought a lot worse. Oh and I had to defeat Castile's 50k rebels and unsiege their land or they'd bail out early, so actually we were weaker.

It was especially embarrassing how Denmark was crushing me, Castile, and Portugal at open sea.

The strategy was to kick minors I could out of the war fast (those 10k stacks add up). Then I had to just cause maximum mutual bleeding until Denmark got tired of it, as I couldn't really defeat their weirdly strong navy.

Once they lost all support, and Castile was still somehow on my side, I could outfight and outsiege them.

Post 8 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-25 14:50:47 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 08: 1545-1556: New York

Just as I was trying to give my peasants a break after HRE wars, but Aragon war of independence started, and I was standing on the way between Aragon and its supporters like Austria/Hungary, Venice, and Muscovy.

I got involved in cleanup of German minors, getting Palatinate, Pommerania, Saxony, Wurzburg, and Bavaria as vassals; and taking over Lubeck and a few minors. I had more plans, but Germany without imperial protection turned into endless war of everyone against everyone. Oops.

Well, it was time to move to the New World. Current rules are quite complicated, basically the easy way is to bounce through another continent with just one province. So I got one colony in Africa, made it a state, made it my capital. Then I made New York a state, and moved capital there. New York is new capital starting 1553.

I didn't switch to USA yet, as that would remove my English missions. I'll need to think about that, or just mod it so I can keep the missions a bit longer.

At least now I can colonize whatever I want, not 4 provinces per colonial region.

I'll need to clean up German borders a bit, as my vassals are disconnected, and lack many important centers of trade.
#eu4

I'm not entirely sure what's the goal of this campaign. Definitely remove all natives from New World is on the list. Maybe removing all other New World countries? Dominating English Channel (and possibly Lubeck etc.) sounds like a good idea as well.

I guess I'll mod it so I can do both British and American missions, and then doing them all will be a nice goal. All this means conflict with Castile and Portugal at some point, so I'd be better off letting Aragon rebel, but I tend to be better ally than AI ever is.

Post 9 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-25 23:21:01 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 09: 1556-1567: USA

I modded the game so I'd keep British missions when switching and also get American missions. USA only gets 4 missions, and first is independence, and 3 others are just very unambitious colonize some place.

As I became USA I kept English monarchy, parliament, and burgers estate, but I now lost the clergy.

It was time for rapid expansion. I was moving my armies between New World and North Germany, Burgundy got divided between me and Austria.

I got to 5 colonists - 3 from idea groups, 1 from USA ideas, and 1 temporary from parliament. That's very decent expansion speed - even if a lot less than having 13 CNs, each with own colonist.

I got an event for falling in love with a lowborn consort. And then she actually became regent for a while. Good job.

I was wondering why Spain and PLC aren't forming, but apparently both are waiting for admin tech 10. The tech leader Tuscany is at 14/14/14 now, a few years ahead of time. It looks like nearly everyone is behind on admin tech, and I have no idea if it's one of the mods, or just bad luck with institutions.
#eu4

I have missions for basically controlling historical starting USA, so that's a reasonable direction. For now there's plenty of empty land and natives to conquer.

Portugal is finally on its way to conquer Mexico.

Brazilian native OPMs finished. At some point I'll deal with Incas. Also with Africans for those extra merchants - mods add some extra trade companies, so it's even more valuable.

No more &quot

Post 10 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-26 23:35:07 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 10: 1567-1580: African Adventures

PLC and Spain formed.

Newly formed Hannover decided to coalition me, so I had to declare a small war to get it out of the way.

I ran the AE script, and apparently I'm far from highest AE country. Portugal, Venice, even Afghanistan were all higher than me.

I got "sale of Florida" event, which cost me 0 money, and gave me all Spanish possession in Eastern America colonial zone, for free, with cores. Well, there's only been 3 of them plus 1 colony in progress, but it still counts.
Of course Spain didn't think much of it, and started building new colonies.

I broke alliance with Bohemia to get my vassals' cores back. Brandenburg finally integrated its PU over Ansbach, so now they agreed to become my vassal. That's clean enough borders that I can live with it, but I'll still need to beat up some countries to get my 85% trade power mission.

I got my first African colony of Kongo coast. Then I got Inca and Muisca coastline. Portugal and Spain have been somewhat aggressive, so that's a nice way to make sure we won't have any conflicts over where.

Somehow I got a bit more serious coalition, Hannover, Liege, and Austria/Hungary, but I doubt they'll pull the trigger.

Former HRE is really close to unified. North-West of my line of vassals there's just Hannover, Hamburg, Utrecht, Cleves, and Liege. To the South-East it's Bohemia, Austria, and Switzerland. Or counting by pre-1490 borders, also Savoy, Avignon, Tuscany, Mantua, and Genoa. I'll probably clean up North-West German minors at some point just for sake of cleaner borders, but they've been cleaning each other up quite effectively.
#eu4

Finally connected my German holdings, with only a tiny coalition bothered by that. I'll still need to clean up borders, mostly for that 85% trade power mission. Or I could just beat up everyone and force them to transfer trade power long enough for mission to succeed.

There's just 5 Protestant and 5 Reformed countries in the world, and they won't necessarily last long. Anglican religion is sort of compromise position between Protestants and Catholics, and it's the dominant religion among Germans now.


In progress. Mare Nostrum, entire Atlantic. Kano will have to go due to confusing color. I'll get enough of Africa to get a bunch of free merchants (since colonial nation merchants are not happening this campaign), then it's time for India I guess.

Mamluks also started colonizing. I'll need to do something about that.

Settlements which started in New York and St Louis are sort of connected, but the bordegore is severe, and I have multiple other disconnected parts.

The only challenge here is avoiding natives joining coalition with Austria due to poorly timed truces. Fortunately it's mostly over.

Post 11 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-27 14:53:11 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 11: 1580-1594: Native Conquest

Coalition got predictably bored on save reload.

I took trade ideas as final group, but it did a lot less than expected due to way modifiers stack. It would be such a different game if they ever switched to more intuitive multiplicative stacking.

Hilariously Missions Expanded mod adds mission for trade ideas, for 95% control over home node. Yeah, that's totally going to happen, once I conquer Denmark or something.

Well, it was slowly creeping up. After taking trade ideas, annexing Cleves, forcing Utrecht to give me their trade power, and spamming newest ships I just barely got it, next missions in that chain are for Hanseatic cities of Lubeck, Bremen, Gdansk, and Riga.

I got into war against Denmark by accident. The way guarantees for non-primary war participants work is basically random, this time it triggered when I attacked Bohemia, allied with Hamburg, guaranteed by Denmark. Sometimes it doesn't. Oh well, it was bound to happen eventually. Denmark's navies lost quite convincingly this time, and their entire army got stackwiped.

I took one mission province from them, and broke them up with Commonwealth, but Commonwealth decided to become Defender of the Catholic Faith, so they'll get into my next fight with Denmark anyway.

Pope picked up a fight with Spain, so I dropped the Pope. Sadly this cost me the much needed diplomatic reputation.

North American natives are gone. I still have 8 disconnected areas not counting minor islands. I've been using my colonists to bridge those gaps so it looks like something sensible, but even then it's still a snake.

I exapnded in Africa a bit, but still zero merchants out of it all, and no trading in ivory bonus for +2 diplomatic reputation, which is probably the best of all trade bonuses.

Those two mods I use - one changing trade nodes, and one adding extra trade company regions - are somehow clashing, and a few provinces in Africa are bugged and not really in company region even though UI implies they are. Well, that's what I get for using two mods that try to modify same thing.
#eu4

And here ended Danish naval power. If I take peninsular parts of Denmark and annex my vassals then I'll have 100% trade power in Lubeck end node. It would be silly not to grab this opportunity.

On global scale Coptic is overachieving a little, but we already knew it's the best religion (or arguably the Orthodox). Anglican gets ridiculous amount of church power, and I've only been using it to increase my mercantilism.

In regular game, Anglican is really poop tier, as mercantilism massively increases colonies' liberty desire, and the way bonuses stack it's not even as great as it sounds.

I guess there's also money button, stability button, and two completely worthless consort buttons. Well, England is overpowered as hell, so it doesn't need powerful religion as well.

If I ever play England again, I wonder how hard would it be to go Coptic (or Orthodox, or at least Shia or Shinto) from this starting position.

Post 12 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-08-27 20:57:03 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 12: 1594-1605: Trading in Lubeck

One of the mods I'm playing with adds some CBs so it was high time to try one, "Cut Down To Size" against any other great power - starting with the Commonwealth. It disallows taking land, but includes cheaper vassal release, core return, and such. Basically fixed version of useless humiliate CB.

Possibly first battles ever with over 250k soldiers total were fought. But it was easy. I got Austria to cancel their alliance, and got PLC to release 5 minors. Unfortunately Lithuania was still too big to release. It also missed my chance of forcing Austria to abandon Hungary, as they integrated it soon after. Oh well.

I only had 4 free slots for 5 vassals I released, but Prussia conquered Masovia in zero time, freeing one slot. Prussia then rivaled the other 3 minors, and broke our alliance a week before I could offer them vassalization. Well, I sorted it out eventually.

Then I got into a fight with Denmark, and it turns out they got their navy back in order, somehow. The Pope joined them, so I grabbed Rome for extra missionary. Also Commonwealth joined because they keep getting themselves involved in everything. I was too busy with diplomacy with those released minors and missed my window of opportunity where Denmark was banned from alliances. At this point it doesn't matter terribly well.

Oh well, I had more money than I knew what to do with, so I rebuilt my fleet and tried again. This time Denmark lost.

As a result I now control almost all Lubeck node. I'm still leaking a ton of trade value as I'd need a bunch more merchants. My three African trading companies are all ~45% trade power, so I'm getting zero merchants from them. Fortunately this can be fixed in a few nice clean wars.

Absolutism is coming, and as English monarchy with no estates except burgers I'm in really horrible position. Oh well.
#eu4

I forgot this screenshot for previous post. Austria got my dynasty early on, and it started spreading like Habsburgs, without me doing anything. Well, once I've seen this map I put my cousins on some vassal thrones, but Austria/Hungary, Commonwealth (elective), Spain, Portugal, Savoy, and Moldova got it on their own.

Obscene amounts of trade now, and it will be even more once I get my overdue 3 African merchants.

That leaves just Hannover on European conquest todo list, and maybe those coastal Polish Baltic CoTs (I grabbed one in Norway as it way very cheap).

Mission tree's todo list definitely includes Egypt and India.

I've been such good friends with Spain and Portugal that I probably won't break it if they won't. There's so much free clay in the New World, why fight each other?

Post 13 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-01 00:15:33 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 13: 1605-1617: Overextension is just a Number

Before absolutism started I got some clay from Incas and Africans. Portugal started spamming guarantees to contain me, even though we're allied and at 100 trust. It's one of recent AI changes which are bad for immersion, as if nonsensical AI behaviour wasn't already a major problem.

Since I was planning to get to India, and nobody in India proper wanted to ally me, I allied Ming and Ethiopia to have some vaguely regional allies, not so much for India, but to help me with however far inevitable alliance chains would go.

Austria fought Ottomans alone but in spite of good early progress the best it could get out of it was a white peace. A bit of a shame really.

Age of absolutism came. I couldn't get too much absolutism, but I annoyed burghers anyway for mass autonomy so I could decrease it. In the end my max autonomy was only 60 (despotic monarch has 95), so I can't win Court and Country (max of at least 85 is necessary to win, or 80 and burning golden age) anyway. Because I only have one estate, I could only got to 40 first month, and slowly creep up from there.

Now that I had some absolutism, it was time to hit European trade networks hard. So I attacked everyone - it was fun as I had far more troops than they did, and then my allies Spain, Portugal, and their CNs threw another times as much in.

It still took some microing to get good result, and Cloud decided to sabotage me and increased game speed to 5 by using keyboard as a pillow. Whose side are you on kitty?

Pileup by Austria and Tuscany managed to wreck my navy, which was quite impressive of them. Fortunately my allies got them while I was rebuilding.

After that I released Milan and gave some land to Bavaria, but due to all absolutism penalties I couldn't really get OE below 100%, so I just took the penalty.

At this point I might just as well conquer everything in Central Europe. Spain and Portugal are my allies. Ottomans and other Muslims won't care the slightest bit. Russians might care a bit, but not really all that much. Well, they're already guaranteeing Denmark, so I'll get into a fight there anyway.

Tuscany, Denark, Austria, and Commonwealth will die in 2, 3, 4, and 5 wars respectively. Other than that, there's just Cyprus, Knights, Papal States, Ragusa, Savoy, Switzerland, and Hannover - all edible in one chunk, and some might not even last enough to fight me.

The only downside is that it feels like a distraction from India.
#eu4

Just fight everyone. I wanted to use Cut Down To Size CB, but it's actually not big enough discount to force them to release Hungary or Lithuania, so instead using Holy War Land Grab CB.

Spain, Portugal, and my vassal swarm is quite strong and very close, and my armies are really big nowadays, so the only real risk is inattention. Or cat on the keyboard I guess.

Stacked siege bonuses from offensive, aristocratic, professionalism, army tradition, proper stack build etc. meant I go through the forts like they're pillow forts. It would all have been so much easier with proper absolutism. Oh well.

Huge land grab - with some naval bases in Treviso, Rome, Dalmatia, and Crete now.

Milan, Bavaria, Silesia, Prussia, Livonia, and Estonia are my vassals, and I can grow each one of them to manage future OE.

I sort of want to fight Mamluks and Ottomans for Egypt, but my AE in Europe is stacked so high getting massive AE with Ottomans feels like a really bad idea.

Russia allied to Ottomans and guaranteeing Denmark is annoying too.

Post 14 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-01 21:15:52 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 14: 1617-1634: Conquest of Alexandria

After my big wars in Europe, rebels started spawning everywhere, and Spain decided to call me into its war against Africans. That nearly emptied my manpower pool, so I decided to maybe not attack Denmark with their Russian guarantors just yet.

My ally Portugal was being a real bitch - not only it reguaranteed African countries we just fought to stop me, it declared itself Defender of the Catholic Faith. It then proceeded to disregard all DoTF calls to arms, and redeclare itself four times in a row next day. It's really annoying, there should seriously be a timeout of some kind.

So I attacked Protestant Austria, chain allied with basically everybody else, and due to truce timers I had to do it solo. Denmark had overly strong navy again, which feels sensible except when I'm playing basically England, so shouldn't I be able to crush them? Oh well.

I did the reasonable thing, and setup narrow Finland to separate Denmark from Russia, as that usually breaks AI guarantees. And it worked this time as well.

I finished conquest of Congo area. I got into my first fight against the Mamluks over Cyprus guarantee. I grabbed 3 Mamluk provinces as I have mission for them later, but most of Egypt is already Ottoman.

The Dutch revolt events happened so I picked option to give them all 100% autonomy.

I still have 13 British, and 3 American to do. Also some number of idea group missions, but they're often bugged or silly, so I'm not really putting much thought into that.
#eu4

My European enemies have been beaten into no-longer-GP status. Hungary is a heavily fortified circle, which will get its cores in the future, until Austria disappears completely.

Spain is dragging me into their pointless African war as usual. They got some inland claims they can never actually take, so they keep fighting that over and over.

Bengal will need to go due to Confusing Color CB. India is definitely on the menu, but I'd like to get some closer port than Kongo.

Missing from the map as usual - New Zealand. Colonizing some islands down there unlocks missions for India. Or I'll get to imperialism CB 1687 or so.

Post 15 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-02 13:42:19 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 15: 1634-1647: Problems with Portugal

Since I had far more money than I knew what to do with, I massively increased number of colonies. To 12 (432 total monthly upkeep) at one point, but that was somewhat questionable planning - I sent a lot of colonists to clean up the map, and then realized I need quite a few for strategic reasons.

Russia and Ottomans ganged up on undefended Commonwealth, grabbing some clay, and releasing Moldavia. I diplovassilized Moldavia and Siak.

I dealt with some natives all over the world from what was left of Incas to Central Africa to Indonesia, these were easy fights, but my army and navy is now scattered by necessity.

Damn Portugal decided to get defender of the faith for 10th time, and this time it would defend Denmark, Commonwealth, or Savoy against me.

Well, Portugal, how about you join me in totally necessary war to... blockade Morocco's ports I guess? Yeah, that's a matter of greatest urgency! They've been pirating in Ivory Coast node.

Then I was able to start a lot of wars Portugal was blocking. Unfortunately the only way to fully milk that opportunity was to accept >100% OE while at war for a year, since my cores-in-progress couldn't complete while I was at some of the war. And then rebels stopped some coring.

I also had an awkward moment when freshly constructed level 6 fort in Egypt got immediately takes by Tunisians, as I somehow thought it was operational already, so I can leave that alone.

In the end I grew Moldavia, Finland, and Hungary a lot. After all was done, Portugal decided to guarantee Tunis just to spite me.

Still 12 British and 3 American missions to do.
#eu4

Conquest of Europe almost complete. I lost another naval battle to Denmark, but now that I have convenient crossings from every direction it doesn't even matter.

To complete my missions I'll need to deal with Portugal, Spain, and Ottomans.

Portugal is being such a shitty ally I'm really tempted to just let them honor one of their guarantees, force them to break up with all allies (me, Spain, and Ming), and watch all their CNs rebel. After that Spain can eat the leftover - they have permanent claims on Portugal from their missions.

Mostly using too many colonists to clean up that mess in North-Eastern USA. I could probably color those African wastelands beautiful blue without too much effort.

Mamluks are pretty much exiled into deep Africa now. I even had my first war with Bengal, at least on paper, due to some African alliance chain.

I have decent Indonesia base for invading India, but it would be nice to get some bases in East Africa and possibly Egypt too.

Post 16 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-05 01:17:30 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 16: 1647-1659: Union with Spain

PUs have been nerfed so hard that I almost forgot they're still in the game. But not this time:

• Portugal and Spain both have my Tudor dynasty
• Spain has weak claim heir
• AE is just a number

So royal marriage, break alliance, truce break. I was completely unprepared, so I queued 120k troops and 95 ships day one. Also because I had missions for those ships. Overall balance was about even, and microing all colonies was a pain - I even lost my capital in New York. But I could flood Iberia with my troops, and there was nothing they could do about it. Well, one thing they could is cheating fort zones of control, but that's pretty much a given.

That accidentally finished me two idea group missions (have a PU for influence, have 100 light ships for trade), as well as my force limit mission. Sadly Gibraltar mission counts only direct control, and I can't seize land from PU juniors, so that one is locked for very long time.

Amazingly in spite of having manufactory in every province, it spawned in Madurai.

Well, to pass time I cleaned up Aztec, African, and Indonesian minors. Also took over Mamluk South Africa.

I made Portugal break with Ming, and their alliances with me and Spain broke during our big war. I wanted to support their CNs' independence, but because they're pirating me, and that has ridiculous -100 relationship penalty, I'm not allowed to. I should probably just mod that.

I diplovassalized Circassia, as that's prime star fort land for any war against Russia or Ottomans. Also Malindi, Warsangali, and Mahra for nice East African and Arabian ports. Still working on Malacca and a few others. There's not that many small countries left on the map, but I want to do the proper British thing and establish a chain of bases.

Ming called me into their silly war. Oh well, I can even help them a bit.
#eu4

One of the biggest wars yet, at least in theory. In practice I let them have the seas after just a few minor battles, and simply took over their  European possessions.

I was starting to recruit additional colonial armies, so it wasn't clear either way who'd win in colonies, but Portugal bailed out early after taking Lisbon, and there was little war beyond that point.

Wasteland coloring system really makes me want to conquer Africa. I'm really close to India from West (those three minors between Kilwa, Ethiopia, and Haasa are my vassals) and East, and I recruited a lot of troops and ships for Spanish war which turned out to be quite unnecessary.

Spain accepted my rule surprisingly easily. They're not switching to Anglican, but their colonies aren't yet. It's not totally clear to me what I'll do after I integrate them (after 1700).

Here's some nonsense - why Ottomans can walk through my land to Austria?

Russia attacked Commonwealth, calling Ottomans in. Commonwealth was allied with Austria. Portugal was Catholic Defender of the Faith. I provide military access to one of Portugal's CN. And that somehow chains all the way. At this point why even bother with access rules?

This is actually annoying, as my truce with Tuscany and Austria just expired, and I'd really like to eat them, but if they're occupied by someone else that doesn't quite work.

I have almost no AE with anyone except Tuscany, Austria, Commonwealth, Denmark, and Spain. That's quite amazing considering how blobby I am and how I just truce broke an ally.

Post 17 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-07 00:45:51 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 17: 1659-1670: Damn Portugal

I modded down that stupid "pirated us" modifier from completely ridiculous -100 down to -25, so I could actually support independence of Portuguese CNs. Portugal did the classic trick of being in permanent state of phony war, which usually prevents AI CNs from declaring independence. It just kept chaining one war after another, and now that it got Imperialism CB ahead of time, it will have CBs forever.

I got another damn regency council. I got almost the whole East African coastline and some bits Indonesian land. Haasa tried to drag me into a war against nearly whole India, but I didn't let them do it. I couldn't progress in Europe until Portugal business was solved one way or the other.

Then I got a queen-regency for a 3 year old. My monarch are dying so often like it's CK2.

So it ended up as decade of pretty much nothing happening. It would be nice if Portuguese war triggered. Otherwise I'll get imperialism CB quite soon, and then I'll just attack some Indians or Portugal directly.

Russia guaranteed what's left of Commonwealth, which is great, as it would let me fight them and break them from Ottomans, but that would also drag Portugal in as Defender of the Faith. Denmark and Austria are also in somewhat complicated diplomatic situation.

I didn't complete any new missions - 14 still to go, a lot of them are blocked by either integrating Spain, enlightenment, or invading India.
#eu4

I put some effort into colonizing along wasteland borders to get my color over wasteland, but without success yet, and  Great Powers man wouldn't show it anyway.

Best case scenario (and my plan going into this part) is that I can chain conclusive wars - Portuguese CN independence, break Russia from Ottomans, cut Ottomans down to size, cut Russia down to size, then invade India and cleanup Europe.

Sadly this relies on Portuguese CN AI, and so far it's been awful. I still have minor cleanup in Africa and Indonesia to do to keep myself busy.

Post 18 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-07 21:52:46 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 18: 1670-1682: First Indian War

Number of remaining independent countries is shrinking rapidly. Just 43 and falling rapidly. What remains is basically in a few spheres of influence, in order of power:

• USA + Spain
• Ottomans + Russia + North/East African Sunnis
• Portugal
• North Indian/Central Asian Sunnis (Transoxiana, Delhi, Bengal, Afghanistan)
• Ming
• Vijayanagar
• Ayutthaya (not even a GP) and South-East Asian minors

Each sphere with a lot of minor allies, tributaries, and subjects. Unsphered countries are not doing well.

While fighting Aden I got my first port in India in Gujarat, which let me diplovassalize Malwa and Nagaur.

Well, and then it was finally time to break that Sunni alliance, to get Malwa's cores and my long overdue mission for Bengal Delta. I had 178dev in India before that first proper India war.

Before that war even properly started Austria and Commonwealth decided to coalition me. AE shit is about to hit the fan, so I had to act, attacking them and Austrian ally Tunis, even if it wasted my idea of using Russian guarantee for Commonwealth to break them up with the Ottomans. Well, I just sacked Wien, took war reparations, and let them go.

My whole Indian Expeditionary Force got wrecked in one 168k vs 183k battle. Well, time to send in more troops. It was really long, really painful, but my Indian holdings increased to 516dev, and Bengal and Delhi both fell off great power list - making space for Transoxiana and Japan.

I allied Vijayanagar to get more cannon fodder for likely coalition war featuring Ottomans. So far it's not happening. Also I'm supporting two different Portuguese CNs and neither of them is willing to pull the trigger. Seriously AIs.

I accidentally completed 3 idea group missions, and 1 of my Indian missions. That leaves 13 missions to go.

I reached max mercantilism in 1675.

Also fun story, I've been accidentally sending Nagaur 150 gold a month for 6 years before I remembered to cancel that. Oops.

The world is shrinking so fast. It went to just 32 independent country in a decade. Potential coalition has 8 members, so I can probably still manage it. Can't coalition you if they don't exist, am I right?
#eu4

Ottomans not interfering with this is sure nice. My troops being so scattered makes it hard to project power where I want, even if on paper I outnumber them massively.

Those Chinese minors are leftovers from that &quot

Malwa, Nagaur, and some direct holdings on both sides. Also Mahra and Warsangali any my vassals. After the war I even diplovassalized Luristan and some more African minors.

Vijayanagar holds lands I have mission for, but I have enough enemies already, so I allied them instead for now.

Post 19 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-08 01:58:52 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 19: 1682-1686: Fall of the Portuguese Empire

My truce with Austria and Commonwealth ended, so it was time to get on with that war against Russia. Breaking them up with the Ottomans is quite key. Good thing about Russia is that it's huge, so I could crush everybody else before first Russians even showed up.

Portuguese War finally triggered, with Caraibas, Mexico, and Brazil on independent side, and Australia, Louisiana, and La Prata on loyalist side. Unfortunately Ming guaranteed Portugal, so it joined on their side against me.

Portugal had ridiculous home fleet, but since Rule Britannia patch AI keeps half of its fleet to defend home, so I actually had naval superiority everywhere else. At least I would if I was interested in babysitting navies.

Another coalition happened, with Gujarat and Denmark, so I had to pull the trigger while two other wars were ongoing.

I pretty much ran out of manpower, but Portuguese colonial empire collapsed (relatively speaking, it's still 5th GP), Austria got annexed, Denmark and Commonwealth got reduced to nature reserves, coalition disbanded and seems unlikely to reemere anytime soon, and I'll have clean war with Russia alone soon, just to make sure it won't be a threat once it inevitably re-allies the Ottomans.

Oh and Portuguese Australia is already plotting independence.

A minor problem is that my two New World allies and Norway are taking too many slots, even with Ming gone - and I'd like to re-ally Ming before next Indian War.
#eu4

It would have been an easy clean war if other two wars didn't erupt simultaneously. Austria and Commonwealth got completely occupied in no time, but Tunis couldn't as Portuguese fleets prevented easy landing, and I needed to get those Tunis stacks to instead fight in Portugal and their African holdings.

Russia decided to go south I guess.

Finally got some of that wasteland to flip to you I guess.

Post 20 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-09-08 21:02:42 UTC

Make America Great Again: Part 20: 1686-1698: The End

I delayed action on Kilwa, and they reallied Ottomans. The game could really use a popup saying "that break alliance action you forced will end on this date". Right now it's absolutely nowhere.

The game decided to kill my 22 year old emperor, dragging me into another long regency, so I reloaded to nearest autosave. I'm getting this super early deaths ridiculously often. WTF is up with that?

I kicked Russia down by 291dev, releasing 6 countries. I got Crimea as vassal, the rest will at least keep Russia busy and hopefully avoid them getting back into Ottoman alliance. There are so few independent countries nowadays, it's good to release a few every now and then. Russia took most of them back into its zone and allied Ottomans back. Oh well.

I conquered Ethiopia/Alodia to improve my wasteland coloring. It was somewhat painful as Ethiopia stacked defensiveness modifiers and had a lot of mountain forts.

I either misread some tooltips or they lied, and I got "Burghers seizing power" disaster. Oh well, it's just some temporary penalties and a few stab hits.

Unfortunately game performance started suffering hard. It might be some of the mods I use, or it could just be late game accumulation of stuff (HoI4 was unplayable late game for many patches). I'm not sure how to even debug and fix such issues.

Technically I still have 13 missions to do, but integrating Spain will finish 7, and accepting enlightenment will finish 2, so it's really just 4 minor border cleanups. Basically it's as won as won gets.

I wanted to just casually play on high speed to get those victory popups, and maybe have a few extra easy wars (with my subjects I outnumber Ottomans more than 3:1, Indians barely have anything), but it's not really worth it with performance issues.

Overall it was a fun campaign. So mod review, ranked.

Good:

• Fun and Balance - amazing mod, needs a few tweaks to work better with recent patches' changes
• Better Tradenodes and Tradeflows - Lubeck as only end node and general rewiring made game better for sure, I'm tempted to integrate it in F&B (it already does some tiny trade map tweaks), but it's probably too big of a change to include by default
• Missions Expanded - it was OK, a lot of missions were questionable or bugged (bugs I found reported and fixed), but it's better than having no missions - it also conflicts with Better UI

Not really:

• New Casus Belli Cut Down to Size - it's still just too weak. F&B should probably include some more CB changes to turn useless CBs like Humiliate Rival into something worth using.
• More Realistic Trade Companies - nice mod; but it was a bad idea to use it and tradenode mod together, as my reconciliation script for two of them wasn't that great, and game got confused a bit. It's probably a bit OP, and will be even more so with 1.26 changes.
• Dynamic Ages - barely made any difference, criteria for picking those nation-locked bonuses are so limited that I managed to get only two (Portuguese settler increase and Dutch corruption decrease) - age bonus system is just inflexible, and needs more ambitious rewrite
• Unlock Idea Groups Faster - it was definitely entertaining early game, but it just messed up with game balance hard. Maybe increasing ideas from 8 to 10 like the 1356 mod would be nice.

Bad:

• Impactful Devastation & Prosperity - it's OK idea, but it's miscalibrated, especially as long as coastal raiding is in the game without any real counters
• Countries Can Collapse - this mod is MEIOU Lite, and not in good way - it's basically a trainwreck, and nowhere near usable level
#eu4

It's a very nice map, with a lot of pretty blue. It's also one solid Ottoman beating away from pretty much world domination.