Italy Megacampaign: Part 25: 1754-1770: Mare Nostrum Pacificum

Step by step just taking a few trading outposts turned into a plan to conquer more or less the entire Pacific Coast. There was no realistic way to grab every tiny island, but Australia was necessary and easy to take.

Afterwards I asked Ayutthaya and Champa to be my vassals - that's a new idea in American diplomacy.

Right, time to stop this retail fighting and go for the real prize - Ming. Simultaneously fighting all its tributaries with any coastline.

I finally expanded my 12inf 4cav 8art stacks to 16inf 4cav 10art. Nowhere near 30inf 30art style stacks people recommend for optimal fighting, there's no point throwing money away.

It was a true war between leading great powers. I had many 30k army stacks, but they were never in the right place. I had 4 fleets of 15 heavies and 30 transports each, as well as some lights and spare heavies near capital. Two of those fleets were constantly busy transporting troops to deal with rebels popping up on various islands and escort the transports. The other two I couldn't really use separately, as Ming had enough heavy ships to challenge that. Even 30 heavies in a stack wasn't really quite comfortable.

Because of this limited power projection, Ming's armies were far too numerous than what I could throw against them safely. In fact Ming invaded Alaska, and a big stack of revolutionary rebels spawned wiping out one of my 30k armies. Overall I had sufficient numbers, about half as much as Ming, which is usually enough, but limited capability of concentrating them where I wanted.

I crushed Ming's expeditionary forces in Japan, Java, and Alaska.

Most serious fighting was in Korea. There were a lot of close battles, some won, some lost.

I pretty much gave up the whole Southern front, my poor vassals possibly already regretting signing up. I only went there after everything else was over, and Ming abandoned its tributary Luang Prabang.

Eventually all the rebels were defeated. I managed to get into negative manpower and had to use my professionalism reserved. I didn't even get everything I wanted, that is Japan, but then does anyone ever?

The most important thing is that this is finally crushing Ming's mandate.

In all this mess, Italian rebels spilled into my country and they got independent 2 province Brunei. That's most annoying, as foreign rebels don't display their counter. There's been so many cases of rebels popping up somewhere, seceding, and then getting either sniped or guaranteed by another power. It makes the world feel a lot more dynamic.

I wanted to get into another war against Russia and Denmark to seize some Danish colonies, but Commonwealth dragged me into their pointless war against Nogai and Russia first. Oh well.

So instead I setup third vassal of Malacca and get them some land too.

In a hilarious turn of events Orthodox Egypt guaranteed independence of OPM Mamluks exiled into Arabian desert. Kingdom of Jerusalem got one of disasters and collapsed to rebels of all kinds.

Meanwhile, Vic2 converter is nowhere to be seen.

I'm not trying to exclude anyone, as Ming and Indian secondary powers are still huge, and everyone has random islands all over, but I'm clearly the dominant power of this hemisphere

Italy and Spain colonize extensively. Everyone else has some colonies.

I got some bases beyond Ceylon - Goa and on Northern Swahili Coast.

I definitely want to cleanup Korea and Japan, probably grab a bit more of Russian Far East, not really sure what would be other plans.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 24: 1733-1754: Panama Canal

I took over some Spanish colonies in the Andes, and a few more Indian Ocean minors. Everyone was guaranteeing everyone, so I had somewhat limited options without turning it into a world war.

There were rebels on a lot of random islands Europeans had, but with 5-10 year timer until defection, timer easy to reset, and disabled during wars, nothing ever happened with them. Wait, why don't I reduce it to 2 years? That's a pretty decent way to make rebels more meaningful.

I thought 2 years timers might also be just a bit too annoying, but rebels are so useless otherwise, that it was worth a try. And they now feel a lot more urgent. Also sometimes winning a bit against AI.

It was mostly random islands and tiny African colonies seceding this way, but surprisingly kingdom of Jerusalem fell apart too, with two big Orthodox states seceding. Quite often rebels like Animist Zealots sit occupy a province for decades, driving it up to 100% devastation, but it will never secede, since there are no same culture group animist countries to secede to. Should I make them secede my console? They've been de facto independent.

I was also waiting for something revolutionary to happen, but Revolutionary HRE declared "Spread the Revolution" war on Imerina - 3 province minor on Madagascar. Also Madurai, Kilwa (recently seceded OPM from another colonizer), and finally it attacked a bunch of German minors. Still, it's a very underwhelming revolution.

Ming was much more active and it grabbed some land in South America. Then they declared war on Provence which was being guaranteed by HRE, but HRE neither joined the war, nor cancelled guarantee. Is this some new AI cheat?

Well, I had enough, so I went to war with Ming. First goal achieved day one - break Portugal's silly tributary status. Second goal is to return land Ming took in New World to La Plata. I didn't take anything for myself.

The war demanded huge expansion of my fleet, but even fleet I had was scattered, so I started building Panama Canal, which only finished in 1754. Cost of 30k gold and about 600 mana from events.

That got me thinking - Japan is basically part of Indonesia, right? So invasion it is. Japan also held Kamchatka, so I took that. Then logic demanded that I take Russian Pacific Coast to connect it all. And for that matter Australia is part of Indonesia, right? Maybe my 1821 goal should be turning Pacific into Mare Nostrum.

Also I've been developing a lot of coal provinces and building furnaces for +5% goods produced bonus each. Colonists help a little, but mostly just pressing development button, as late game development discounts stack quite high.

8 properly developed Coal provinces mean +40% goods produced bonus, plus extra +10% for Coal production leader. I'll probably get up to 20 or so furnaces by the end of the game. Bonus is huge, but it takes a lot of gold and mana to set it up.

And yet I'm still not global economic leader. Italy leads with 1375/month, and I'm second at 1305/month. HRE's 525, Ming's 375, Spain's 325, and Commonwealth's 275 are far behind. Nobody except that has a serious claim to being a great power, secondaries like Russia, Great Britain, Denmark and so on are 100-ish or less.

The Future Mare Nostrum

It started when I purchased a province with coal from Brunei.

Pursuit of coal continues to drive it. But also rivalry with Ming.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 23: 1723-1733: Enlightenment and German Revolution

I never played this late, so I want too see the Revolution. Unfortunately:

• I'm outside Europe, so it can't be me - and it would be a bit boring as I don't want to invade Europe
• only countries with 30+ provinces can get it
• France has unique version, and it just needs negative prestige (or one of 4 never-gonna-happen conditions), but it has just 29 provinces - well, it's all BS, it has 12 provinces in Europe, and 17 overseas provinces, and is not even a proper secondary power
• for non-France countries, they'd need to stay at negative stability for very long time, and that's basically impossible for AI - it will just spend its points to stab up
• Europe feels far too unified for a good revolution. Most countries wouldn't even be able to go on a good rampage.

Oh wait, there's one obvious choice - Burgundy turned into HRE, it holds Paris and half of France, accepts French culture, and is sufficiently menacing. It also has 116 absolutism. So I guess they can get special French system instead of France.

EU4 disaster system is so promising, but almost all disasters require conditions which can be averted with some mana (paper mana for stability, bird mana for war exhaustion, sword mana for legitimacy), so it's exceedingly rare to see anyone get disaster, except those triggered on purpose.

And of course they defeated the revolution in a few months. Seriously?

Meanwhile, I got into minor fights for remote islands. New Venice Islands got Enlightenment, and that was really my only way to get it anytime soon, so I conquered them. It still wasn't enough, so I had to dev push third time.

I got two furnaces right away in coal producing provinces I dev pushed. For others, well, colonists were slowly developing them up to 20dev. I'm slowly catching up to Italy on income. Having spent 17k on Enlightenment it's time to start saving 30k for Panama Canal.

Commonwealth dragged me into their war against Russia and Denmark, but it was fairly uneventful.

Well, it's my first time playing this late, and I really want to see what it does, so I made revolution in HRE start again and win by console. Let's see what happens time. Price of Popcorn +20% until end of game.

A small downside of this idea is that "Revolutionary Holy Roman Empire" breaks UI in multiple places.

Colonization of Indian Ocean, and native empires of Ming and Bahmanis.

I got Ceylon, bits of Brunei, Sumatra, and Sulawesi, and a few scattered ports.

Really just getting scraps, as I joined this race too late. 

Cultural unification effort largely successful. Colombia is mine all the way to border with Portugal (Brazil basically).

I might move a bit further down Pacific coast, but not going to expand too much.

I also have a single province in Kamchatka, feeling like getting a bit of land over there maybe since it's basically West Alaska.

Revolution happened here, on second try.

That gives Revolutionary HRE enough bonuses and CBs that it should be able to beat up anyone in Europe. Unless HRE AI marches all its troops to Indonesia or something.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 22: 1705-1723: Global American Empire

Enlightenment spawned, and I really needed it, as it unlocks coal. So I dev pushed one of coal provinces, and it turns out that's not even close to helping me. Dev pushed province is just 2% of my development, and penalty for being on wrong continent is just enormous, so all the universities, neighbour bonuses, and institution spread bonuses, still don't add up to that much.

So I second dev pushed my capital to 50dev. This was mostly to get age bonus. Still nowhere near needed 10%.

I even chartered a trade company in Borneo in place prospectors claim coal might be found.

Then I chartered another one on Ceylon, which due to some minor misunderstandings with the natives soon turned to control all of Ceylon's coastline. This was a fun little fight - 24k transport and small single stack against enormous fleet and over 100k angry Indians. Some fun diplomatic race and throwing ships away as delaying tactics, but it worked.

I really needed Panama Canal and relevant trade nodes, so I invaded Caribbean of South America. That's practically North America. It was mostly CNs and some leftover native OPMs, but one thing it meant was war against Ormond, Toulouse, and Switzerland - with alliance with Commonwealth being surprisingly of some use.

Then I followed the same invasion trick with Friesland, except it didn't go quite that well, together with Clever they had bigger army and bigger navy, fortunately sacking their capital fast was enough to convince them to give me half of their New World holdings at least.

That left Provence as the last minor to deal with, except Ming got there first, with 29k stack landing in Costa Rica. Ming, seriously? And it turns out Ming is a serious global power with up to date tech and half of Japan under its control. Fortunately Ming only took their money.

So, fun war against Provence and France. HRE guaranteed them, but did not follow its word. I had to hire port in Brunswick to transport my troops in multiple waves.

Il Presidente for life, elected at age of 21, died at age of 26. What the hell is this? The Reaper's Due on max settings?

I finally ran out of uncolonized lands, so my now free colonists are now increasing development in coal regions. I doubt they'll get them to required 20, but it will still save me some dev pushing. If Enlightenment ever comes that is.

I never played this long, so I have no idea what's going to happen in age of revolution. Is it going to trigger on its own somewhere, or should I help the AI?

It doesn't look like Vic2 converter is getting anywhere. If it doesn't happen in about 2 weeks, I guess I'll need to either abandon this megacampaign idea, or do a lot of coding.

Most notable on this map are enormous Egypt and Jerusalem. They far exceeded expectations.

All countries big and small are grabbing random land all over the world. I'm a bit late to this, best I'll be able to get will be a few scattered ports of no economic value (but it's still a free merchant to get to India).

Italy Megacampaign: Part 21: 1687-1705: United Continent

German unification attempts continued and not just with HRE annexing minors. Switzerland and Friesland attacked Austria and Brunswick in world's first openly nationalist war.
Unfortunately my alliance with the HRE ended. HRE was so offended by attempt at teaching Dutch settlers proper Italian. How is that a bad thing? Well, I allied the Commonwealth and Portugal instead.

I discovered something interesting. EU4 has this mechanic of colonial wars where CNs and primitives can attack other CNs without automatically calling the overlord. It turns out that it applies to anyone who has capital in colonial region, so I could freely attack anybody I want without automatically involving Europeans. Well, in theory they could enforce peace on me, but I've never seen AI actually do it.

Taking advantage of this and a few threaten war, I got rid of almost everyone else on the mainland. Then again, where does North America end really? And isn't Caribbean part of it? Well, trade graph definitely thinks so at least.

Funnily enough, there's a ton of micro-countries now in Central America - Toulouse, Denmark, Friesland, and Provence all have their tiny colonies there.

In a rare reversal, Toulouse's CN of Alaska got overran by last native tribe of Blackfoot, and reduced to an OPM. Not bad considering Blackfoot were at mil tech 16 to Alaska's 22. Of course Blackfoot didn't have time to core its conquests.

I finally built some kind of fleet - 24 transports and 22 lights - and took pirates of Bahamas. It's been 52 years and nobody lifted a finger while pirates were raiding all over the Caribbean Sea. Then I had to build 11 lights Pacific fleet to reach all islands off Pacific coast. Maybe we should build a canal or something.

Back when I tag switched, I chose exploration, expansion, administrative and religious as initial ideas. Then I took plutocratic - and I'm still not sure which governments are allowed to have it, so I had to console check that it won't just disappear - and economic, as this country really needed a good construction spree.

There was a coup attempt against Il Presidente Massimiliano Il Pico di Mirandola, but it got crushed. A while later Il Presidente Vittorio Amadeo I Caccianemici, 21 year old 5/6/3, got himself elected Il Presidente for life.

Enlightenment spawned in North Italy, really close to almost every other institution spawn. The only exception was Printing Press in Hungary. I have no idea how I'm ever going to get it, and it looks like I need it to use coal. At least that's step one of coal of so many.

I never played this long, so I have no idea what's going to happen in age of revolution. Is it going to trigger on its own somewhere, or should I help the AI?

Is this what a Peasant Republic looks like?

Due to stupid mechanic that rebels can't enforce their demands while at war, and Italy being at some war continents away, peasants kept running the whole country for years.

The continent is quite close to fully unified, but font placement is horrible due to those uncolonized gaps.

Trade is still leaking like crazy. I'm not sure what counts as North American mainland, but Panama canal surely does, as does Caribbean trade node, as it's the only way to get money from Mexico.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 20: 1671-1687: Endless German Wars

I had to change HRE's primary culture from Burgundian French to Dutch German, so it wouldn't have all its lands as non-accepted. There's no way to have two culture groups accepted.

I also needed to add back some trust. Due to a support independence bug that exists for I don't know how many patches now, HRE thinks I promised it land and didn't deliver. Just reverting that to some reasonable values.

And I needed to console switch for a second, to HRE to give them new missions as that's not automatic, and to Italy to convert the remaining kebab into spaghetti.

So, now that Parliament's role was reduced to simply electing Il Presidente, and not actual ruling, I could finally press that reduce autonomy button hard, and start playing the inevitable rebel whack-a-mole.

The newly independent country was still in serious debt, behind in tech, with far too many heathens, and far too many people who couldn't speak proper Italian. Also disconnected by Ferdinandia and with 3 of 4 ships sunk during Independence War.

So I was just cleaning up natives, and rebels, and teaching people proper Italian, and the right way to pray.

HRE continued its rampage in Germany. I got called into a seemingly hopeless coalition war. So another war with Italy it is then! I was mostly on the offensive this time, but enemies were coming from so many directions, and it was a micro nightmare.

I did totally disproportional part of the work to push it over 51% warscore limit needed to win coalition wars. The game bugged out and didn't appreciate it, counting HRE contributions at 70%, mine at 1%, and 29% at nobody's. 70%:30% sounds about right - there was a lot of fighting in New World.

I managed to repay my debts, build a small transport fleet, which even won a few naval skirmishes against enemy lights, and the program of educating peasant heathens is going quite well.

It looks like when I formed USA, Clergy estate got replaced by Planters (Nobility) estate, and I didn't even notice that for a while. Estates have weird rules now since they changed how governments works.

Orthodox Egypt declared war on Coptic Adal to cleanse their heresy. I did not see that one coming.

King of Egypt claimed throne of kingdom of Jerusalem. King of Jerusalem claimed throne of Egypt. Then both of them got heirs, and it was all pointless. Both of them as well as Italy are back to the glorious Borromeo dynasty.

Meanwhile I managed to roll a 1/0/1 as better of the two choices, fortunately only for 4 years. The alternative was giving 1/0/3 presidency for life. So far nobody rules longer than 4 years, even though those 4 years are more and more absolutist.

To express our gratitude for help in Independence War, we're helping the HRE.

Every single enemy province in mainland North America got sieged down by me at least once, but there were too many enemy and rebel stacks, so a lot got unsieged, resieged, and so on. I'm stronger than all those colonial minors put together now, but distances between frontlines are too long to control everything, and my navy is still a work in progress.

What do you mean you want to end this? We're just starting to have fun! This screen is so American.

Sweden was on our side too, it lost some land to Denmark.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 19: 1668-1671: American War of Independence

I'm awfully unprepared, but Independence time it is! Italy got dragged into war between Egypt and Yemen, so its armies were all in Asia and Africa. Awkwardly Spanish army was in the New World.

Total troop balance was 433k vs 737k. On seas it was 168 vs 859 ships. Basically the plan would be that we'd hold our ground in New World, Burgundy would win in Europe before Italian armies have chance to return, and that somehow would result in a peace deal.

New World balance of powers was 80k on my side, vs 50k Spanish expeditionary army, 22k Ferdinandia, 19k New Venice Islands, 26k Castilian West Indies, and 13k Italian Mexico. New Spain and Cascadia both got 0k, for 130k total.

With time, Spanish Brazil 12k, New Gradana 15k, Italian Brazil 19k, and Italian La Plata 5k might join, but maybe Nova Hollandia 3k and Burgundian Colombia 7k would join our side, bringing the ratio to 90k to 181k. I was also behind on mil tech, with no military bonuses worth mentioning, and 5/4/6/2 general from event being my only asset worth mentioning.

Congress was split between Statists vs Monarchist factions. The first president was elected for 4 years, but strong faction supported electing presidents for life, just like old doges, and just like emperor of Italy is elected. Nobody seriously suggested hereditary succession. I finally got clergy and burgher estates, and that meant 4000 of free money, so I won't need to go bankrupt after all I guess.

The war in the New World went poorly, but not too poorly. I got 150k of various rebels, bad stability events, I had to accept peasant demands, as I was really not in shape to fight that as well. My troops were losing even battles, and Italy soon landed 37k more troops, squashing any hopes that we might be able to get superiority with some extra mercs.

War in Europe was going amazingly well. Palatinate and Switzerland got wrecked and gave us reparations. Then Rome was being besieged within year of the war beginning. After Spain lost the war, I wanted to prolong it to get not just independence but also war reparations and a bit of land, but Italian army got to Europe, took Constantinople, and it really wasn't worth it at this point.

After the war Diet of the Holy Roman Empire decided to form a real country. That weakened it massively, of total 361k troops, it's now down to 173k force limit, and economically it's probably just as bad.

The world is now truly multipolar, with 7 true Great Powers: Italy, HRE, Ming, Spain, Commonwealth, USA, and Russia. There's a huge gap between them and secondary powers like Denmark, Great Britain, Bengal, Bahmanis, Gujarat, Japan, Madurai, Qara Qoyunlu and so on.

It's now time to get my newly independent country in order.

Nice global war. Egypt joined a bit later on enemy side.

It was my only good shot as HRE uniting means they'd lose half their troops.

Great Powers of the world, plus Qara Qoyunlu. Maybe I should change that HRE grey.

Even thought we're playing with tech groups, so Commonwealth/Russia should have penalty, and Ming should have massive penalty, actual tech order relative to current is:

HRE (+1), Italy, Spain, Commonwealth (0), Ming (-1), USA (-2), Russia (-4)

Italy Megacampaign: Part 18: 1656-1668: Is It Time?

I took enormous loan for 5000 to adopt manufactories pretty much as soon as possible.

I got screwed by the new mechanics. Corruption from too many territories forced me to make more states. Which forced me to give more provinces seats in parliament. Which then destroyed what little absolutism I had. Which all resulted in a lot higher coring cost, and corruption. And so on.

There's not too much too do. There's a few natives left, but really it's mostly over. So I'd just slowly repay my debts, culture convert, and settle what's left unsettled. Not terribly exciting.

However, I just have a rare opportunity. Burgundy just rivaled Italy, and they'd support my independence. If I wait, they'll form the HRE and that will cost them a lot of power.

For an awkward complication, Spain allied Italy back, and they have basically all their armies standing just next to me. I'm also mil tech 19 to everyone else's 21, and that means poor tactics. My armies are generally bad.

So it's either now - basically hoping that Burgundy will invade Italy while all their armies are here. Or waiting very long time until I've grown sufficiently myself to fight Italy.

I'm even tempted to hire all the mercs now, fight to the death, and if it's too much money, I might even just go bankrupt. I probably won't need to, I'll have tons of money after Italy is no longer leaching my trade.

If it wasn't for Ferdinandia, it would look very sensible

It's a very impressive Commonwealth. Denmark might still revert Swedish War of Independence.

Egypt and Jerusalem doing a lot better than I hoped.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 17: 1639-1656: Mexican Gold

In July 1640, Italy broke alliance with Spain due to -171 "wants your subject's provinces". If Senate wants the war, so how about I take them! Florida was in my CN, so it was obvious. Much more interesting was the New Spain - they're in Mexico so now I have completely disconnected territories. And also direct access to heathen gold mines.

I started seriously falling behind on tech. Instead of getting institution, I built 5 universities to have at least one of age goals fulfilled - in the end I had to take 1000 gold of loans to get global trade. I'll have to do it again for manufactories and enlightenment, there's no way I'll be able to afford enough buildings.

I was wondering where the hell was my absolutism going, turn out assigning parliament seats costs a lot of it. I had no idea just how bad republics and parliaments are in this game. And now that my ruler is a shitty 4/1/1 every time, slowly getting better while throwing republican tradition at them? Just awful.

What was going real well was expanding. I had 4 colonists, I was taking land from other colonizers, and now I had access to Mexico area.

After taking Mexico as a state, gold mines provide 15/75 monthly income.

In August 1642 Burgundy pressed that Revoke Privilegia button, but far too early, getting only handful of minors. AI can screw things up no matter how much setup I do. Then it tried to conquer Germany by force, and got coalition against itself - including Italy and me.

And surprisingly Burgundy managed to crush the coalition. Actually it makes a lot of sense, all those troops coalition was counting on were mostly in colonies. HRE's were almost all in Europe. Burgundy took a big chunk of Switzerland.

Now that it's been shown that Italy can be defeated, with Spain breaking up with them, and with our much greater power, many members of the colonial assembly are openly talking about independence. Many taxes are unpaid due to protests and boycotts, but half of our trade is still diverted.

If we got support from Spain or Burgundy, and possibly alliances with some other colonies, it would be a realistic possibility. For now it's not quite that urgent.

Maybe I should have modded it so this button is only clickable when at 100 IA? HRE is very strong, but it could have been far stronger. Oh well, Vic2 has ready-made events for that.

Latest patch added a button to expel minorities, so all the Welsh, all the Portuguese, many Tunisians, and other randoms ended up in the New World. I started culture converting them all, but it's slow.

Germany causing World War, who would have thought? Those numbers look like 5:3 for coalition, and 3:1 in navy, but it's deceptive, as there's no way colonies are sending anyone, and most of Italian army was away.

I expected long, bloody, and painful fight, instead Burgundy just wrecked the coalition. It didn't weaken Italy in any way, but let's just wait for the final HRE button.

This is not a pretty map, but we'll fill in those gaps later. Sadly I discovered I can't block my overlord, so Italy colonized those provinces in Illinois and gave them to Ferdinandia.

There's now also a pirate OPM in Bahamas, but they have 5 heavies, so it would cost a fortune to defeat them.

It's a race between me and Italy, who grabs more of Mexico.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 16: 1621-1639: Colonial Assembly

Colonial Assembly was founded, and its first act was changing colors to more distinct than Italian colors. We have a lot of issues regarding Italian actions, but even rapidly increasing development from 363dev to 592dev, we're still a tiny country compared with Italy, and nobody would even consider supporting us.

We could continue expanding until we can take them, but we'd also need to fight Commonwealth, Spain, all the Italian and Spanish colonies, and who know who else.

Right now our best hope is that Burgundy will manage to unite the HRE and rival Italy. Or that somehow Italian allies Spain and Commonwealth who are rivals end up at war, drag Italy into it, and one will then rival the other. Spain on our side would mean also Spanish colonies, and then we'd have much easier time defending our independence. Oh well, there's still plenty of time.

My attempts to cut off expansion of colonists from other countries didn't go too well, so I took alternative approach and just took over Provencial Canada.

Britain kept colonizing into Canada, so I had to attack their colony of Newfoundland, even if that risked escalating into major European war. They did not defend them, but then after war ended they just happily resumed colonizing. Maybe instead of blocking them I should let them come, then take over?

Instead of just taking a loan and taking global trade, I waited for it to spread, but it really doesn't want to spread beyond the coastline, and now it's actually twice as expensive. I guess I could take massive loans to unlock two institutions and then declare bankruptcy? In Old World it's just so much easier to beat up some big weak country for war reparations instead, but I don't really have any big weak countries around. Or in old patches, I could take all the money from countries with gold.

One more idea I had was invading Mexico and grabbing some gold mines. My country wouldn't be contiguous, but does it really matter? Maybe I can connect it through California and Alaska someday. Notably as colonial nation I can't colonize outside my region except just next to provinces I already own, so I can't send colonists to Mexico. I can still take land there.

French La Plata, with Spanish support, declared independence from France, and won that war. France also lost Paris to Burgundy, and is generally miserable.

Now in new colors. Why didn't I do that in any previous campaign? It's a fairly obvious save game edit. I'm trying to strategically cut everyone off as much empty land as possible, but it's not going great. It's also all mostly really bad land, low development, and full of heathens who can't even speak proper Italian.

Great Powers. Great Britain and Burgundy are rivals due to very similar colors, but Burgundy might go grey soon.

Portugal, exiled to South America, somehow became Ming's tributary. I guess that's one way to avoid getting conquered.