Italy Megacampaign: Part 15: 1600-1621: New Italy

And it's now time for the tag switch to New Italy!

Before I switched, Italy released kingdom of Jerusalem, kingdom of Egypt, and duchy of Fezzan as independent countries. I gave everyone alliances, max trust, max favors, historical friends, and so on, just so they wouldn't rival each other right away. Somehow kingdom of Egypt and kingdom of Jerusalem got Borromeo dynasty from Italy. Duchy of Fezzan got some local ruler.

So, New Italy, 3rd strongest CN in New World behind Castilian West Indies and New Venice Islands. But everyone suddenly became interested in colonization.

As name suggests America was named after Venetian explorer Amerigo Vespucci - disregard any Spanish claims to the contrary. The New Venice Islands got its colonial government. Then settlements of New Italy in Northern America, and Italian Brazil in South America got established.

Colonial government of New Italy claimed tho whole Northern continent, but when Senate funded colonies in Mississippi estuary, it put it under separate colonial government of Ferdinandia, named after the then ruling doge. What's worse, mandate of New Italy was also restricted to the North, under vague plans of setting up yet another colonial government there. The governor protested, but amount of political influence colonies had in the Italian Senate was very limited.

A much more urgent issue was budget. Of 10.6 income, 6.0 went for maintaining colonies, 1.8 for advisors, 2.37 for army, 0.68 for state administration, 0.56 for navy, and 0.38 for tariff payments. That's a very significant deficit.

New Italian industry was mostly fish, naval supplies, with a bit of furs and tobacco, nothing like gold and cocoa of Mexican natives. How did they get 12 gold producing provinces anyway? And 8 in Andes? Is that some Missions Extended thing? Unfortunately colonizing Mexico to get to the gold was also not in our mandate.

Well, the first order of business is sorting out my economy, so I spent a lot of points on developing my provinces, and moved traders around. I was barely making a profit, but then Italy doubled the tariffs.

Next I had to deal with the natives. First war got me into a fight against 40k natives with miserable tech, and cost me 10 war exhaustion, 4 loans, and a lot of devastation. I couldn't even reduce WE as Italy kept us at war with Pasai.

Once I reduced war exhaustion a bit, I started second war, where names of heathen barbarians changed, but the war stayed the same.

My initial 81dev, thanks to my conquests, Italy's conquests, my colonization, Italy's colonization, and my development grew to much more reasonable 363dev. That's 11th by dev, but only 24th by income since this is not good land. It will take a while until I convert the heathens to civilized ways.

Unfortunately Spain, Great Britain, Friesland, Holland, Norway all colonized lands which are rightfully ours, and even fellow colonial nation of Ferdinandia didn't fully respect borders.

I've been trying to cut them off inland colonization, but so far without much success. There's just too many directions from which they've been coming.

Meanwhile in the Old World, Egypt and Jerusalem beat up the Mamluks without anybody else's help. Fezzan which I specifically released seems to have accepted diplovassalization by Italy. Oh well.

Princes of the HRE elected duke of Burgundy as their hereditary emperor, and Burgundy is now happily wrecking France.

Before colonization rush, New Italy was just three tiny bits of coastline.

And now everybody's colonizing. I might actually defeat Provence.

The newly hereditary Reformed HRE.

AI tends to press this button as soon as it can, and that usually means a lot of countries stay out.

If something like an ongoing war blocks this button for a while so everyone joins, HRE will be 1900dev monstrosity, not far behind 2200dev Italy.

If it doesn't wait, it will still be strong second after Ming, Spain, and the Commonwealth, each a bit over 1000dev

Italy Megacampaign: Part 14: 1598-1600: South Tirol War

I didn't want to break my alliance with the Commonwealth, so I distracted them with Genoa war. Then I attacked Austria for the last remaining Italian clay. White I was at it, I grabbed the last two provinces in Venice node too.

Global trade spawned understandably in Venice.

Well, that ends what I'm going to do with Italy, and it's time to tag switch! But first, here's all colonial nations:

• New Venice Islands - Italian CN in Caribbean, 98dev
• New Italy - Italian CN in East Coast, 81dev
• Italian Brazil - Italian CN in Brazil, 61dev
• Ferdinandia, Italian CN in Louisiana, 35dev
• Castilian West Indies - Spanish CN in Caribbean, 120dev
• New Spain - Spanish CN in Mexico, 41dev
• Spanish Brazil - Spanish CN in Brazil, 35dev
• French La Plata - French CN in La Plata, 52dev
• Norway colonized 4 provinces in Canada, but not enough to spawn a CN
• Exiled OPM Portugal grew to 4 province in Brazil
• Province, Holland, Frisland, Great Britain, and Ormond all started colonizing Caribbean
• Burgundy and Denmark are wasting their colonists on increasing development

And trade companies' province trade power share:

• West Africa - Italy 81%, Spain 14%, France 5%
• South Africa - Italy 91%, Spain 3%, France 6% (there are no natives there, just trade companies and wasteland)
• East Africa - Italy 7%, Spain 1%
• West India - Spain 1%
• Coromandel - Spain 1%
• East India - Italy 6%
• Indonesia - Italy 14%, Spain 1%
• Moluccas - Italy 34%

Before I tag switch I'll need to do a few more things - grant independence to Egypt, Jerusalem, and Fezzan, make Egypt and Jerusalem kingdoms, ally all of them together, and add a ton of trust and favors. I'll also need to max out mutual trust between Italy, Spain, and Commonwealth, or else they'll rival each other in a week.

And since I'm switching to a new country, I'm going to reset their ideas to expansion, exploration, religious, administrative. I don't think I'll need to do any other adjustments.

Italy will have 220 years to fuck up. Many things can happen. I'd just prefer if they didn't derail the story in next week.

 Just one more war and all rightful Italian clay is unified.

Great Powers with terra incognita disabled

By actual power Burgundy is ahead of France and Britain as long as it keeps emperorship, which is rather unclear, Palatinate and Austria are both competitive

Renaissance and Colonialism are barely reaching India, and there's nice big tech gradient.

It feels both excessive and historically accurate.

There's plenty of space in New World, but very little African coastline left, so road to India might be closed for newcomers.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 13: 1586-1598: Italian Unification

I finally figured out how that new trade company investment stuff works. It's actually really powerful. 300 gold to get +2 trade power per province in a whole state. Doesn't sound like that much, but that's just base, so +100% trade company region, +25% coastal, +100% from 50 mercantilism, +10% from colonialism institution. So for 300 gold, if it affects 3 provinces, I'll get about 20 province trade power.

Then province trade power gets more bonuses applied to it. End result is that for very low investment I got myself another merchant. And two merchants are now spreading Orthodox faith in West and South Africa. What I didn't get is much gold, as best I can do is transfer to Sevilla, where Spain will steal most of that trade.

I got into small fight with the Mamluks, expanding my marches.

Then I finally got the rest of Naples. France was being obnoxious again, so I made them release Toulouse.

Then a few minor colonial fights with Kongo and Oyo. I have provinces all over the place, but zero provinces outside trade company or colonial regions, not counting the homelands of Italy, Balkans, Anatolia, and North Africa.

Netherlands rebelled against Burgundy. In an interesting development, Burgundy demanded Netherlands to be disbanded into 5 separate countries.

In spite of elections, they same dynasty keeps ruling. Lodovico Boromeo inherited after his father Ferdinando, and even named CN in Mississippi delta "Ferdinandia".

Since I wanted to start closing things before coming tag switch, I console-traded with Spain - 83dev of Italian islands, for 83dev of Tunisia and Tripoli. It's about equal value. All very well developed on both sides, Spain will need 1 not 3 culture slots, and it can transfer Tunis trade to Seville, but it can't transfer Genoa trade. It feels like both of us benefit here.

Then I console changed Savoie's culture from Piedmontese to Occitan, since I'm not sure how they'd keep their culture after being separated from Italians by impassable mountains for so long. And I tag switched to a few countries and gave them expansion ideas, as seriously, someone should do some colonizing. Great Britain, Burgundy, Provence, Denmark, Sweden, Toulouse, Frisland got them. Toulouse soon lost all its coastline to Provence, so maybe that isn't going to work all that well.

All that left just one province to go - South Tirol. HRE would not part with it for any amount of money, so I had to take it by force.

Awkwardly Commonwealth is allied with HRE emperor Burgundy, so I'd need some shenanigans if I don't want to break that alliance.

Oh and for funsies game decided to take away my merchant from some event, and removed one from Venice without informing me. So like thousand gold per year just disappeared like that. Sometimes Paradox games...

Borders following Sicily-Tunisia trade and another Spanish-French War

Transoxiana, Timurids, Afghanistan, and Qara Qoyunlu all doing well is unusual

Italy Megacampaign: Part 12: 1574-1586: Diplomatic New World Order Breaks Down

Success of diplomacy at Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem, and Diet of Frankfurt resulted in brief surge of optimism that perhaps now diplomacy and not war can be used to resolve international conflict. Predictably, that did not last long.

In informal talks, emperor Charles of Burgundy promised emperor me some help in resolving the issue of Italian-inhabited South Tirol, currently an Austrian exclave. It would be traded for some adequate monetary compensation, and thus Southern borders of the HRE would be settled just like its Western borders were settled with France.

Archduke Albrecht of Austria refused to even consider that, and Charles of Burgundy decided to bury his previous rivalry with Austria, and sided with them.

I backed down from this confrontation, but to avoid losing face before the Senate, I decided to deal with Genoa and Naples instead. That meant conflict with France.

Shockingly my navy - underinvested for generations due to lack of serious enemies - suffered two major defeats against much more modern French navy. First defeat seemed like just bad luck, but then in second one the French even managed to sink our flagship, as well as flagship captured from the Mamluks.

That needed to be avenged, so I sacked Paris, then forced that PU over Provence to end.

Then I was getting tired of Tlemcen's constant breaking of trade power transfer, so I vassalized Fezzan which broke away from the Mamluks and gave them half of Tlemcen's lands. I might release them later, since it's all basically worthless except for one gold mine still in Tlemcen.

After that Spain and Commonwealth attacked France in plain land grab. Spain lost this war and one border province.

The new diplomatic order was falling apart elsewhere too. Queen Margaret of Britain inherited throne of Liege, and Charles of Burgundy challenged that. In the end Britain's lack of continental allies was its doom, and Burgundy outright annexed Liege.

The diplomatic new world order collapsed completely when Reformed Sweden declared its independence against Protestant Denmark, bringing the half of Europe not busy fighting over Liege or Aquitaine to war. The most significant country which avoided wars in 5 years following it was probably Bulgaria. Which lasted 8 years before getting attacked by the Commonwealth.

My fleet got new flagship Santa Margherita, but it was at half it previous strength, with major ship building only started. So I didn't challenge Danish fleet and stay away from Baltic - landing in mainland Denmark and then in Norway, and walking from there.

I only sailed my new fleet late in the war, and we managed to sink Danish fleet including their flagship. Sweden got its independence.

Colonial race is finally starting. I have 3 CNs and 5 trade companies. Spain has 2 CNs and 5 trade companies. France has 1 CN and 1 trade company. Norway started settling Newfoundland. Russia is settling Siberia. So far there's abundant space for everyone.

Meanwhile Portugal, one of few remaining Catholic countries, converted to Protestantism.

 League Wars were avoided, but Swedish War of Independence (pictured here), War of Liege Succession, Spanish-French War over Aquitaine, Holy War For Napoli, and so many other wars added together added to just as much bloodshed

France also supported Swedish independence but since Commonwealth was on opposite side of Spanish-French War, it couldn't join

After embarrassing performance against France, I landed in Jutland and Norway to unsiege Sweden.

The other half of my armies fought Hungary, Thuringia, Brunswick, and then joined.

I had to go as far as sieging down Novgorod before this war ended.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 11: 1574: Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem

Emperor Ferdinando I Boromeo convened Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem, which was attended by representatives of churches of nearly all the Christian countries. Catholic moral authority was gone, and former Catholic countries were looking for fresh guidance.

Orthodox and Reformed delegation were both very persuasive.

Countries friendly to Italy like Spain, Poland/Lithuania, and Switzerland declared their allegiance to the Orthodoxy. So did Genoa, while it was very hostile to Italy, it was ruling mostly Orthodox population. Poland/Lithuania was allowed to form the Commonwealth even without owning Gdansk.

Delegations from the HRE were very worried about religious leagues. Almost all of Europe declared for Catholic or Reformed side, and whoever would win, the result would be utter devastation of Germany.

With Catholic cause gone, Reformed side decided not to push their luck, and agreed to religious peace. Emperor Charles of Burgundy accepted Reformed faith, as did most Catholic rulers whose peasants were largely following it anyway. Hussite king of Bohemia stopped fighting Reformed populace and switched too.

Denmark/Norway, controlling birthplace of the Protestant movement, declared itself Protestant. Strangely Sweden, which used to be Protestant, and in fact the only significant Protestant country so far, did not follow. It was recently overran by Reformed zealots, and it didn't want another civil war. That does not bode well for Danish-Swedish relations.

Then France declared for Protestantism as well. Having just lost a province to newly Orthodox Spain, and never fully accepting the now-Reformed Burgundy's presence in its lands, it decided to go third way. Its HRE allies Palatinate and Cleves followed.

In even more shocking development, queen Margaret of Scotland declared herself head of the British Church. English magnates, dismayed by state of their country, repeatedly overran by rebels and Frenchmen for decades now, forced English king Edward to abdicate in favor of his son, who'd marry her, thus creating union of Great Britain.

Somehow she even managed to convince her ally French king Henri to return devastated South England to her, in exchange for support for his claim to throne of Provence. France claimed Provence many times before, and it was ruled by Henri's cousin Jean, so there wasn't too much opposition to this. Emperor Charles of Burgundy managed to negotiate release of Provence's HRE territories of Lorraine and Bar, but French held Savoie was just officially abandoned by the HRE. This settled French-HRE border claims, and nobody took duke Jean's side.

In diet in Frankfurt soon after council of Jerusalem, further HRE reforms followed. In an absolutely shocking display of unity, HRE princelings agreed to three internal reforms at once, going as far as disallowing internal HRE wars! The HRE would still be elective, but Burgundy's dominant position would be difficult to challenge. All Reformed, Protestant, and Orthodox theocracies secularized and became hereditary imperial duchies.

Some countries remained stubbornly loyal to the pope in Upper Gelders. Kongo and exiled Portugal never even made it to the council. The Irish just enjoyed being difficult. And Naples could definitely see where this new world order was heading, and refused to accept it.

Neither of the two Coptic OPMs had much interest in those European affairs. Somehow Kaffa in Ethiopian mountains became Protestant a while ago.

And for the final matter, to avoid the Orthodox Church turning into an imperial puppet, due to imperial control over all 5 patriarchal seats, it was agreed that Egyptian coastline including Alexandria will become duchy of Egypt, and Palestinian coastline including Antioch and Jerusalem will become duchy of Jerusalem.

Those will initially be marches under protection of emperor of Rome, at least until the infidels are defeated. Their precise future borders and conditions for their eventual independence as Christian kingdoms were not fully specified, but they should more or less follow areas of Egyptian and Syrian cultures.

In exchange for renouncing direct control of the Holy Lands, and for emperor's support for French, Scottish, and HRE plans, Spain, Commonwealth, France/Provence, Scotland/England, Burgundy, and all HRE members except Pope of Upper Gulders agreed to fully withdraw all objections to past Roman expansion.

The heathens, as well as Hungary, Naples, and Genoa, understandably agreed to no such thing.

Coding all that took far too much time. I don't plan to do this often, but I'll probably have to do one round before tag switch, and then another before export to Vic2 (or maybe even MotE).

Notable changes include formation of Commonwealth, and Great Britain, and release of Egypt and Jerusalem. French PU over Provence will probably last required 50 years just fine.

I scripted it so all Catholic peasants just autoswitched, but no other religious minorities would.

That's 28 Reformed, 25 Orthodox, 9 Protestant, 7 Catholic, 2 Coptic, 2 Anglican, and 0 Hussite countries.

Western borders of the HRE are now settled (unless the Dutch revolt).

Italian claim on South Tirol, and claims with Denmark and Commonwealth were not settled.

Electors of Palatinate and Cleves are Protestant, the rest are all Reformed.

AE map now that all Western European issues are solved. Those two HRE OPMs in Hungarian coalition will leave on the next tick.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 10: 1560-1574: Emperor and the Senate of Rome

Government of Venice was controlled by grand doge elected for life by lottery. At least in principle, there's been frequent rumors of corruption, and nephews of previous grand doges had uncanny amount of luck. Behind the scenes, aristocratic, trader, and guild factions tried to influence the government.

Soon after capital moved to Constantinople, Senate got restored, representing Italian and Greek aristocracy. For a while now grand doges claimed imperial status, but their claim was not treated seriously abroad due to questionable way they were elected, and trading not being respectable pursuit of royalty.

Moving capital to Rome led to new reforms. Senate officially abolished the lottery, and in grand ceremony presided jointly by Orthodox patriarchs of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch, grand doge Leonardo Erizzo Borromeo was proclaimed Emperor of the Romans. His successor would be chosen by the Senate.

Some provinces were granted seats in the Senate. In others local burghers and clergy established their local power. Influence of old factions was negligible. Aristocracy of the Empire was still more focused on making money than in other European countries, but it was now balanced by other concerns. Newly developed central bureaucracy was focusing more and more on colonial affairs.

In terms of mechanics (picked using console commands):

• Power Structure: Elective Monarchy - enables the whole elective monarchy system, -30 absolutism, -1 unrest, +2 max states, +25% income from vassals
• Noble Privileges: Strengthen Bengali Traders (relabelled): +1 merchant, +10% trade efficiency
• Bureaucracy: Colonial Outlooks (from missions extended): +30% colonial range, +15 settler growth
• The Administrative Cadre: Meritocratic Recruitment: -10% advisor cost
• Deliberative Assembly: Parliamentarism: enables Parliament, disables noble estate, -1 unrest

International response was highly positive. It looked like now every king in Europe was now interested in dynastic alliances, and in convincing Senators that their nephew or cousin would be a great next emperor.

To celebrate it I order flagship San Guiseppe built - with +1 blockade, +1 speed, and +1 trade power per ship in fleet. So basically now all my spare galleys and transports can act as weak light ships during peace time.

I had a small colonial war to expand my West African company. Then a minor border correction in Piedmonte. It was a fun trick - I attacked Savoy who was guaranteed by Provence whom I couldn't cobeligerent. So I got them to return land to Savoy, then took it all from Savoy. It cost me some extra mana, but massively reduced AE. I diplovassalized Orthodox Samtstkhe in Caucasus, and conquered for them what was left of OPM Georgia.

Of course all that was just a prelude to another great crusade against the Mamluks. I took just the coastline and Jerusalem, but started giving Cyprus some Anatolian hinterland too.

Somehow one of my 3 missionaries disappeared. I says I have 3, but only 2 actually exist. That's the first time I'm seeing this bug.

During last years of the war emperor Leonardo died, and he was succeeded by his son Ferdinando I Boromeo.

Now that Jerusalem and all 5 patriarchal seats are in hands of the faithful, Ferdinando called for great ecumenical council of all 7 Christian denominations.

Hopefully attending all 71 Christian countries:

• Catholic - 30 countries including Spain, Poland, France, Burgundy, France, Denmark, Scotland, England, even Kongo somehow etc.
• Orthodox - 17 countries including Italy, Russia, Hungary
• Reformed - 17 countries including elector of Brandenburg, and a lot of North HRE minors
• Protestant - 3 countries - Sweden (overran by Protestant rebels) and two minors
• Coptic - 2 countrie - Ethiopia and Mahra
• Anglican - 1 country - The Isles
• Hussite - 1 country - elector of Bohemia

I'll write some narrative, and maybe roll some dice, as to what might be the outcome of this. Mostly in religious terms, but also future of HRE, administration of liberated holy lands, and fate of some failed states like England .

Oh and New Italy CN finally spawned, with capital in Delaware. I'll probably tag switch to them at some point, but not really anytime soon.

There's also a bit of a coalition against me, a bunch of annoying countries like Hungary, Austria, Genoa, might get joined by Sunni minors, and that would be quite awkward.

Beyond this narrow strip of coastline live barbarians.

With Orthodox recovery of all holy sites, Reformed success in HRE and Sweden, not to mention smaller Hussite, Protestant, and Anglican movements, Catholic moral authority is gone.

Nobody takes the "Pope" in Upper Guelders seriously.

Great Ecumenical Council of Jerusalem will convene to resolve religious and possibly also political conflicts of the modern age.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 09: 1550-1560: Empire of Italy

My AE in Europe was really high, and I had too much manpower for a change, so I decided to finally deal with the Mamluks. I got Spain and Commonwealth to help me.

I tried to cobeligerent Candar and Karaman, as they were in a 3-way alliance. Karaman's AI did its bullshit, where it wouldn't respond to call to arms from Mamluks, so I couldn't cobeligerent them, but later responded to call to arms from Candar. Seriously, you should only have a chance to refuse once.

Naples and Tlemcen decided to trigger a coalition against me, so I had to take a detour to take their money.

I captured Mamluk's flagship, I'm still not really sure what "flagships" do. Then I took a lot of coastline, including two patriarchal seats.

After that one quick war with Florence, and I had all the provinces needed to form Italy. That did not make rest of Europe happy, I even had to bribe France with 700 gold to get off my case. My spending on influencing minors is really too high, and now I need to pay France too? Awkward.

Castile dragged me into some silly war in Africa against Ashanti, which could never end as Ashanti was sieged by Bonoman in another war - but Bonoman didn't have enough troops to actually finish. Castile's whole army stood next to that, but wouldn't join. So I had to travel all the way from Europe to do it for them.

After I won the war for them, I was finally able to form Italy.

I got my first CN - New Venice Islands. Pope thought nothing of it, and granted the whole region to Castile who was clearly second. Oh well, I'm mostly focusing on Indian Ocean for now.

Reformed League formed, but basically all of Europe joined Catholic side. Reformed side was just Russia and a few HRE minors. Well, that means I'm joining the Catholic side too, better Pope than Calvin. Pope respawned inside the HRE too.

England went Anglican, but Catholic zealots would have none of that. England controls zero of its provinces, between French, Catholic zealots, and Noble rebels, it's all occupied.

Now that I formed Italy, I got fresh missions. I also lost my Venetian unique government (with elections by lottery, and rulers until death) and need to pick one of the three:

• Plutocracy - regular merchant republic, elections every 4 years, extra merchant, -50 absolutism. Except it looks like I can't pick that and parliamentarism (so I'd have to disable parliament for 10 corruption).
• Oligarchy - regular republic, elections every 4 years, -40 absolutism
• Noble Elite - regular republic, elections every 8 years, -20 absolutism

This is a good time to think about mid-campaign modding. What would be a good government for reunited Orthodox Venice-Italy? I'll just code some combination that makes most sense.

• republic or monarchy are both sensible, and some hybrid system would feel even better
• theocracy is a stretch, but we are on the way to restoring pentarchy, and have very high patriarch authority, so a story here would be possible
• it definitely needs to have some sort of a Senate
• it should have some sort of trading or economic bonuses - even if it's not using merchant republic mechanics anymore, it should at least get +1 merchant or some trade power bonus out of respect for 1000 years of Venetian history
• it should not be overly expansionistic, or absolutist. Italian ideas are expansionistic, but that's not the campaign I'm having here.

I'm a bit tempted to make it elective monarchy, with parliament, for nice hybrid system.

Look at this fully striped England (better visible if you click on it)

My alliance with Commonwealth can realistically last the whole campaign, but Spanish alliance surviving this long is sort of amazing. We have conflicts of interest pretty much everywhere - New World colonies, African coastline, Genoa trade node, access of colonial goods, control over Italian islands. They probably still have missions on Morocco too. Just looking at the map, I'd have guessed that Italy and Spain are rivals.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 08: 1539-1550: Conquest of Rome

I really needed diplomatic reputation advisor, and I spent years and years paying candidates to go away to get one. Most countries have estates, which conveniently have most of the good advisors, so they don't have to suffer from it. Also monarchies have far easier time with diplomatic reputation, that +1 from maxed out legitimacy is huge.

France got into a rivalry with my ally Castile, and almost joined coalition against me, I had to write a strongly worded letter to Denmark to make France reconsider.

I took it slow for a while to let my manpower reserves recover. Naples took half of Papal States, so in my next war I could get Rome and Umbria without too much AE.

As I was finally annexing some vassals, and I got backstabbed by Austria and the Mamluks, I started looking to unconventional allies. Switzerland and Qara Qoyunlu seemed like decent counterweights to those traitors.

It will take me another decade or so to form Italy. I'm about to spawn my first CN in Carribean. I sort of want to switch to a CN at some point, but it will probably be US, Mexico, or Brazil area. And in any case, not for a while.

Printing Press spawned in Hungary of all places.

Somehow Nassau got emperorship. After that electors couldn't agree on anyone so they picked Catholic duke of Burgundy, who then added all his lands to the HRE.

Ottomans are now an OPM, about to get annexed. Candar and Karaman who divided Ottoman lands are basically in Mamluk sphere.

HRE controlled by hostile Burgundy is bad news.

Naples is very well protected now, but alliance networks rearrange themselves often.

Especially so if HRE leagues trigger.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 07: 1522-1539: Great Council of the Venetian Empire

Orthodox rebels managed to flip Hungary Orthodox.

After some minor fighting in North Africa, I noticed that France would dishonor their alliance with Genoa, and nobody else would help them. I got two provinces there.

Hungary and Bavaria decided to use this as excuse to start a coalition. That brought in Muscovy and Denmark/Norway/Sweden as well as some minors. As usual, extremely painful for manpower, but in the end their allies got tired, and half of Hungary got partitioned between me, Serbia, Bulgaria, Wallachia, and Cathoric Nitra.

However, the true goal of this war had nothing to do with Hungary! Actually Florence was attacking Ferrara who I really wanted to diplovassalize. I couldn't attack Florence, but it was conveniently allied with Hungary, so I started this partly overlapping war to unsiege Ferrara and destroy Florence's army. Even more conveniently Florence's big allies like Burgundy got tired and did not resiege.

After that I thought it would be totally sensible to attack Savoy and Pope. It turns out to have been a rather poor idea - Austria somehow chain joined enemies, and those HRE minors added up to a lot more than I expected.

After far too much pain, I took two provinces from the Pope, released Urbino, took another province from Savoy (I needed it so I can diploannex Montferrat), and returned one core to Ferrara - sadly without any AE discount. And I converted a lot of those bastard to Orthodoxy.

I think I dumped 1000 sword mana into recruit generals to increase professionalism, slacken recruitment standards to get some manpower loop. Playing with limited mercs is harder.

All that fun got me to 1000dev, so now I'm en empire. Also I got parliament via reform - Venetian Great Council. As Venice I don't get any estates, so I didn't lose one here.

HRE is finally getting into heretic infighting. Protestantism basically fizzled, but Brandenburg went Reformed, Bohemia is still Hussite, and overall 10/36 princes disagree with emperor on church matters.

France and England keep fighting over and over in a mirror version of Hundred Years War - France has small holdings in England and really wants to expand them. It even managed to take London. I checked and Anglicanism can spawn even without London, just with worse mtth. England is overran by noble and Irish rebels, it wouldn't surprise me if it fell apart now.

And Castille finally reached the New World. The game really wants to be a megacampaign, everything is taking a lot longer than usual.

England is doing really poorly, and Austria lost its gold mines to Switzerland, as part of English-French wars.

Hungary got partitioned.

Reformation finally started happening

Will we see Catholic vs Reformed league wars? Without any player intervention?

What kind of F&B sorcery is that?

Italy Megacampaign: Part 06: 1509-1522: The Orthodoxy

I destroyed Ragusa getting into a war against the Turks. Then Albania getting into a war against Hungary.

Once that was done I went Orthodox. This did not bring me much love among the Catholics. I spent some money to influence everyone, and I had 4 diplomats somehow, but that wasn't quite enough.

Djerid and Naples joined a coalition, so I attacked them in a quick demonstration war.

Another coalition started with Switzerland, Ferrara, Wurzburg, Florence, Savoy, Genoa, Augsburg, and Baden. It ended without any fight.

I went over my limit, and diplovassalized Lucca and Siena.

So far it's been the weakest reformation I've ever seen. Bohemia is Hussite due to missions mod, and that's the only heretic country of note. Livonian Order and East Frisia are Protestant. OPM Teutonic Order is Reformed, and somehow it managed to join the HRE.

Hungary being overran by Orthodox rebels might actually be more impactful than that whole "Reformation" business. Overall it's bad for me, as strong reformation would help me unite Italy.

Castile dragged me into its war against Portugal, breaking my alliance with the Pope - and also there's very little Portugal left. They're both colonizing African coastline, but nobody except me even discovered the New World yet - or even anything in Africa beyond Ivory Coast. So that's also massively behind schedule. Meanwhile I got circumnavigation, sent colonist to Cape and I'll probably spawn my first CN in next decade or so.

I got my religious unity to 74% and patriarch authority to 30% in very short time. All those extra costs and penalties are not a big deal.

All this not blobbing business is getting really annoying. Those leftover countries like North African minors (I only grabbed coastal states) will join every coalition for next century - and I might generate more such annoying bastards once I resume coastal expansion.

Castile/Aragon and Poland/Lithuania are very strong.

Hungary will flip Orthodox by rebels unless someone helps them. That's definitely a consequence of my rebel rebalancing - actually the first visible consequence so far.

This is the worst case of Reformation fizzling I've ever seen.

3 Indian OPMs going Sikh is more impressive than that.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 05: 1501-1509: Hungarian Wars

So it turns out none of my allies had any easily returnable cores, so coalition war had to be fought the hard way, at least for a while.

After horribly bloody war, at about 2:1 kill ratio, we finally agreed that Castile would release Morocco for 35% warscore, and we'll call it a day. Morocco then released OPM pirate state which started raiding everyone.

Castile instead of trying to reconquer the bastards, decided to guarantee them. AI guarantee spam is almost as bad as in HoI4.

Hungary was so happy about their victory, they attacked and annexed Bulgaria right away. Bulgaria really liked me, so I could have intervened, but ever since they removed warleader switching I no longer bother.

Instead, I declared war on Serbia, calling in Bosnia, and that chained to Hungary. With just Austria helping me (for double favors cost, and at much lower value since they no longer had HRE troops), I was able to beat up Hungary a bit, and take their money, leaving them 1500 ducats in debt. Then I vassalized Serbia, annexed Bosnia into my new vassal, without causing too much outrage.

I also diplovassalized Montferat (which somehow reappeared) and the Knights. It's not just AE, I'm also constantly really low on paper mana.

Meanwhile, Theodoro attacked Ottomans, and Ottoman's only ally Qara Qoyunlu was too scared to defend them. Oh and Ottomans somehow got (Coptic!) Aq Qoyunlu as junior PU partner, I guess that's from extra missions mod. Theodoro lost. Somehow Ottomans lost Aq Qoyunlu PU.

And France somehow got itself some land in England.

Now I need to decide religions. I need to decide now before spawning any colonial nations, as it will get a lot harder afterwards.

By dev, my country is: 274dev Sunni, 255dev Catholic, 200dev Orthodox, 7dev Fetishist, and 4dev Ibadi.

Options are:

• remain Catholic, for best diplomacy, at least until I try to take Rome. Also once I tag switch and form Italy the whole Treaty of Tordesillas mechanic will bug out.
• move capital to Constantinople, go Orthodox, for really nice bonuses
• follow the peasants and go Sunni, really pissing off everyone in Europe, but getting maybe even better bonuses - I can almost just accept rebel demands, as I'm nearly 50% Sunni by province count
• be the first Protestant country
• wait for Reformed to appear and go Reformed

Protestant or Reformed would sort of make story sense, but Protestant is bad, and Reformed is outright garbage tier.

Orthodox would actually be OKish diplomatically longer term - I'd get half penalty with both Catholics and Protestants instead of bonus with one and full penalty with the other.

And I guess Orthodox wouldn't be too crazy. Venice was sort of a bridge between Catholic and Orthodox world over thousand years, so setting up Orthodox patriarch of Rome would be a way to achieve unity of the faiths.

Any religion flipping now will really mess with my anti-coalition diplomacy, turning +25 into anything from -10 to -40. There are currently 30 countries unhappy about my expansion, but I'm placating them all. Fortunately most of them are only borderline outraged, so I could just wait a few more years and then flip safely.

Balkans are basically divided between me and Hungary.

Hungarian-allied Albania, and OPM Ragusa are the only leftovers, and probably not for long.

Castile beat up Portugal, France beat up England. Overall the map is rather typical.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 04: 1483-1501: The First Coalition

I was fighting in North Africa, trying to preventing any of those bastards from providing aid to the Ottomans.

Meanwhile Ottomans just fell apart, with rebels spawning enormous Karaman of 75dev, leaving Ottomans with just 162dev. Oh well I'll need to clean up North Africa regardless.

Coalition of 18 HRE members attacked France. That might be the first time I've ever seen AI France get coalition treatment, and none of the mods affect that that I know of. France crushed them all.

Naples somehow became independent of Castile/Aragon.

During those wars Shadow Kingdom happened, so I immediately went to war against Ferrara and Milan, for crime of stealing money in Venice trade node. Unfortunately just taking 2 provinces from Milan so outraged everyone, that I only took money from Ferrara and kept them free for now.

Then I had another war against the Turks, with Mamluks and Commonwealth on my side. Immediately afterwards Mamluks decided to rival me.

Palatinate somehow got HRE emperorship. That's bad as it severely weakens my ally Austria.

After I took Mantua coalition started with one of African minors, which of course meant next day war.

A bunch of HRE minors joined, which didn't bother me terribly much, but then Hungary and Burgundy joined too, and Hungary decided to attack me.

All that over 3 provinces in North Italy. I guess I could have waited for reformation to start, as that lowers AE a lot, but unification of Italy needs to start somewhere.

I'm not terribly worried about the result, since coalition wargoal is taking my capital, which just so happens to be on an island, and my enemies barely have any navy. It can still be really annoying, for far too long time.

And Colonialism spawned for me, so at least that's working.

The main risk would be if my allies decided to abandon me.

I could peace it out quick giving away Polish land to Hungary,

or I could fight the long war.

That African war is intentionally separate and I'll finish it soon enough.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 03: 1468-1483: Second Turkish War

Tlemcen attacked Tunis, and Ottomans dishonored their alliance, so it would be a shame not to join that fight, even with my still very weak army. It's all worthless heathen land, but those ports bring me ever closer to riches of India. Also those bastards keep raiding my coasts, and that's punishable by removal from the map.

Mamluks called me and Candar into war against the Turks, promising land. The war featured Tlemcen, Bohemia, and Crimea on the Turk side. As well as crazy number of rebels. It was pretty good deal for the Mamluks - we all slowly advanced into Anatolia, while everybody was busy sieging my land in Europe. I got 2 provinces, Mamluks got 2, and Candar got 1. For me, it wasn't really worth it.

Ottomans were left overran by rebels - peasant rebels, noble rebels, Karamanese rebels, Bulgarian rebels.

This war shows that even weakened, Turks are still a menace, and need to be weakened. I can't really deal with Bohemia or Crimea, but North Africans can get wrecked for sure.

I got my first colony on Tenerife, then another in Ivory Coast. Road to India is long, but we'll get there.

For my second idea group I took religious. Once I integrate duchy of Constantinople, I'll have more or less Orthodox majority, so I'll need to achieve religious unity one way or the other.

Those black stripes look good on light green.

Not being war leader sure sucks, I'd have wrecked the Turks a lot harder, but it will have to do for now.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 02: 1458-1468: Avenging Varna

The Turks allied France, Hussite Bohemia, and Morocco. Fortunately the French king was a bastard with no intention of actually upholding their alliance.

The Turks also subscribed to "naval force limit is just a number" philosophy, which forced me to do the same. I got curia control, and called for crusade against the Turks. Poland/Lithuania joined with promise of land, Knights joined because it's their duty, mercs because there's loot to be had, there were Greeks looking for revenge, and Venetian sailors there to show who rules the seas! On August 1459 to war to avenge Varna begun.

Turks had their armies split between two sides of the straits, and completely failed to coordinate with their allies. Moroccan navy stayed in its ports and its army limited itself to sieging down my North African holdings. Bohemia was only interested in fighting Poland.

In this campaign taking provinces is more expensive, but returning them is much cheaper. So I gave Poland one province I promised, and Byzantium got everything they could. I even gave a province each to Albania, Serbia, and the Knights.

I didn't quite notice this messes up my trade league, as Albania and Knights are no longer OPMs. Oh well.

I wanted to kick Turks out of Europe, but there was not enough warscore for that, at least not without invading Morocco. But that actually messed them even worse, as now most of their army is trapped in landlocked Bulgaria, while Karamanese and Dulkadiri rebels are running rampant in Anatolia. As if that wasn't enough, Turks dishonored Tunisian call to arms, losing them another ally.

I'm technically a great power now, but I have permanent zero manpower. No matter, I took exploration ideas, so hopefully we'll find a way to India. It's much more important than some European clay.

And somehow Mamluks agreed to ally me. They'd have been a lot more useful back when Ottomans were a great power. At least they'll disregard what I plan to do to Tunis now.

Together with my vassal I'm strong majority Orthodox, so I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to just switch Orthodox already. Then again, it would be hard to convert my core lands without religious ideas.

I had to spend a lot of money on mercs and galleys over force limit, but it was unique opportunity of breaking alliance between the Turks and the treasonous Frenchmen.

If French king wasn't malevolent, balance of power would look far worse.

Somehow I became Great Power and Ottomans lost the status, but that's completely fake based on institutions. They still have more dev and armies than me, and a lot of bonuses. If their army wasn't trapped they'd probably be conquering Syria from the Mamluks right now.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 01: 1444-1458: Venetian Constantinople

I thought about joining the HRE, but I'm barely within allowed range, and getting my relationship with Austria to necessary 180 would take forever, since I can't guarantee them, can't royal marry them, can't even bribe them properly without taking a ton of loans, and their rivals are not really countries I'd like to rival myself. Scornful insult is one thing I could do, but diplomacy would still take until 1448 or so and by that time Ottomans might wreck the rest of my plans.

Hungary rivaled me, which was a shame as I wanted to be their ally. So I allied Austria, Castile, and Poland, and formed a trade league of Ragusa, Mantua, Nuremberg, Ulm, Memmingem, Albania, The Knights, Siena, and Lucca. That got me to 6th position among known countries by income. Of course Ming is far ahead of us all, and Timurids and Indian blobs will soon be quite income competitive.

My actual first war was against my eternal arch-rival duchy of Nicaea which illegally occupied Constantinople and broke the union between Latin and Greek churches reestablished by council of Lyon in 1272. To be honest it was only half about those heretics, and half about preparing grounds for a big coming war with the Turks.

After that, Serbia was holding one of my cores, gold mine next to it, and while I was at it, I might as well get the rest of that state and some money.

A while later I did something I almost never do, and declared a no-CB war on newly released Tripoli. They had 2 CoTs, and I needed just that many for age objectives. All that trade will flow to Genoa node regardless, so it won't do me much good anytime soon, but I need to think a bit longer term. And presence on two continents is another age objective. As is having 30dev province - it took only three clicks to get my capital there. And for last reason, there's no way I'll get a CB on those North African minors anytime soon, so might just as well take the stab hit and jump the easy war.

Renaissance spawned it Lucca. I thought about dealing with the Turks, but I'm considerable behind on tech already, and Renaissance is taking its sweet time. I finally paid for it in 1458.

Unfortunately my ally Castile got Aragon and Naples very early - often Aragon loses Naples before the wedding, or wedding never happens, and that would have made it easier.

I got nepotism government reform, and got a nephew of previous doge as next doge. Before that it was a bunch of men over 70.

One gold mine, a bit of coastline, and a new vassal.

It's more about preventing Turks from capturing Constantinople than any value for myself.

Poland/Lithuania is ugly but strong.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 00: 1444: Modpack and Campaign Goals

Google+ is shutting down soon, so I'll be posting my AAR on this blog. There are no comments per picture, but it's close enough.

The modpack starts with:

• EU4 1.28.3 (latest patch)
• Fun and Balance
• Missions Expanded
• Dynamic Ages
• Better UI
• (no mods changing trade nodes except for tiny unrelated South America tweaks)

Tech groups are back:

• tech groups are back roughly comparable to earlier patches - penalty to all tech, but lower for adm/dip and higher for military; also penalty for institution spread and embracement cost
• on the other hand lack of institution penalty is reduced to 25% (feudalism still at 50%)
• institution embracement cost doubled for everyone
• institutions can only start in Europe, but last 3 institutions still quickly spread from every trade port / manufactory / university
• overall this mostly fixes late game tech spread
• it only slightly inconveniences Eastern/Ottoman/Muslim - they were up to or close to best tech in every simulation game
• it significantly inconveniences Indian/Chinese/East African, and they'll generally fall behind a bit
• Ming, as long as it keeps mandate and tributaries, it will keep up on tech regardless thanks to all the money and free points - and advanced Ming helps its whole region
• horde, new world, West/Central African natives are pretty much screwed, as they should be

And some experimental code like:

• increased warscore cost for outright taking land
• reduced warscore for for releasing countries, cancelling vassals, force converting, and such
• none of CBs hard-block anything, so you can humiliate rival or trade war and take land in them (for full cost)
• big HRE emperor buffs, as flat modifier proportional to number of princes, so it matters a lot early game, and is very minor late game
• every religion can spread by trade policy (trade company regions only)
• ramped up unrest and rebels a bit in various small ways, but nothing crazy - rebels will be bigger nuisance
• unrest varies by age (discovery: -1 own +1 heathens; reformation: -1 own +1 heretics; absolutism: +2 everyone; revolutions: +4 everyone) - otherwise late game everyone had so many bonuses there were no rebellions
• rebels more likely to be dangerous separatist or zealots, fewer pointless particularists

Plan for this campaign is to start as Venice and establish dominance over Mediterranean trade. Then try to get my hands on New World and/or Indian trade.

At some point I'll probably form Italy and stop being merchant republic. I might also flip religions, probably to Protestant, Reformed, or Orthodox, as I'm not going to be on best terms with the Pope.

I might at some point tag switch to one of my New World colonies.

I'd like to continue until 1821 and then export this game to Vic2 and then maybe to HoI4, but there are many technical difficulties preventing this.

My initial enemies will be countries holding significant Mediterranean coastline, like Aragon/Naples, Ottomans, and the Mamluks. Other powers like Castile, France, Austria, Hungary also encroach on rightful Italian soil, but we can come to some arrangements.

It all brings memories of my Venice EU3 campaign, where I became a monarchy and unified the HRE, for my first time ever I think. Those were good times.

Venice start. Lack of love from Hungary bothers me for sure.