Montferrat: Part 14: 1599-1613: Monumental Exploits

I had a war with Castile coming, with extremely rare colonialism CB, that let me grab their colonies and colonial nations for cheap, and I got really close to containing them all to Europe, but warscore was just tiny bit lacking.

I had to demote Occitan, as too many accepted culture slots are taken by:

• Bedouin for Petra
• Castilian for Madrid monument
• Egyptian for Pyramids
• English for London monuments
• French for Paris monuments
• Greek for Parthenon

Bedouin of these is especially dumb, as it's such a shitty culture. The rest at least are somewhat significant.

I pressed the "request relative as heir" on Aragon to ask them to get my Palaiologos dynasty on their throne for 90 favors. This gives me 20 AE with every Catholic country, and there's a good chance they'll get hunting accident or whatnot, but it's a new button, so why not try it once.

I got Global Trade spawning in Pisa. The requirements (highest trade share in most valuable trade node) are such that if you don't get Global Trade spawning for you, then you're playing the game wrong.

England was getting wrecked by everyone so I force vassalized what was left. They're not getting London back, but a few years later I got them their cores from France and Scotland.

Anyway, let's get to the exploit I accidentally discovered. I asked Ayutthaya if I could just buy Bangkok, with monument already worth 1000 gold in it - and they sold the whole province, with one of the best monuments in game, for 780. Conquering provinces takes monuments down a level (so I'd need to rebuild it, pay 1000 + 10 years), but not any other change of ownership. Like Paradox forgot to update the charter trade company button to count monuments. Once fully upgraded it gives -10% AE, +15% government capacity, and like that isn't enough +1% yearly absolutism and +50% vassal force limit contribution. Insanity.

Oh wait, can I do more of that? They aren't actually that many monuments which are coastal, not religion-locked, and not in capital, but I also bought:

• Murud-Janjira Fort in Chaul from Bahmanis (just some naval stuff, but +1 naval tradition translates to more trade income) - just sold without any issues
• Bara Katra in Dhaka from Bengal - they wouldn't sell as they were threatened attitude, so I allied them, bought it, then broke the alliance with zero consequences

I also unsuccessfully tried to buy some from Majapahit (I had too many provinces nearby), Japan (they were too powerful), and Korea (it was their capital). If I knew about it before, I would have had all those monument provinces by now.

Age of Absolutism started, and I have no idea what's the meta at this point. I revoked some estate privileges, including the new one for +25 relations with all other Catholics. It's overpowered as hell early game, but at this point it doesn't really matter anyway. I have enough spare sword mana, that I guess I'll just spend that. It also increases +2.5 a year - +1 from high crownland, +0.5 from government reform, and +1 from that monument I bought from Ayutthaya and upgraded to tier 3.

Unfortunately there aren't any monuments that the much more desirable give max absolutism, so I'll have to revoke a lot of great privileges. I could then do Court and Country and grant them again, but that seems like such a hassle.

Right now it's possible to get (it's capped at 100):

• +65 base
• +5 great power
• +5 empire tier
• +5 max religious unity
• +10 max legitimacy
• +15 very high crownland
• +10 from two government reforms - Royal Decree and Political Absolutism, and they're both best picks unless you want a Parliament, which honestly isn't really worth it

So it's a total of 115, that's a budget of 15 to be spent on estate privileges, with no buffer for low legitimacy or low religious unity issues. Which is a shame as just mana privileges are 3 times -5, and Strong Duchies is -10. Going Court and Country would give me total estate privilege budget of 35. Alternatively some countries get extra max absolutism from ideas, government reforms, or mission rewards, so they need it less.

I was wondering why Religious Leagues weren't starting, and it turned out my code is messed up and they can start for every religion except Protestant. The previous time I played the Reformed league started which made sense, as there were some Protestant and Reformed electors, so I thought it was working. And now it's too late anyway, Saxony was the only Protestant elector and they got converted to Catholicism anyway, and by 1625 the whole league system expires. I saved Austria a lot of trouble here. Too bad, League Wars are always great fun.

I wish there was some mode that shows every country, except subjects get their overlord's color, and wastelands are colored too. Right now the only way to do that would be console-integrating subjects.

Also my vassal Leon setup New Leon in Florida, and is setting up another one in Columbia. That's the only way to get multiple CNs per colonial regions, and I'd get double the bonus if both are big enough (mostly another merchant, other bonuses don't matter all that much).

This is the weakest Reformation ever, and it's not even my doing, mostly HRE Catholics were really aggressive and destroyed two Centers of Reformation early. I guess I destroyed two more and I was Catholic Defender of the Faith all the time, so heretics couldn't attack back.

I think Catholic might be the strongest religion in the game now, but only if you actively engage in Pope game.

Montferrat: Part 13: 1581-1599: Monumental Expansion

I was planning to cycle between Castile, Mamluks, and France, but I noticed Aq Qoyunlu holds just a few provinces I need for mission that gives me permanent +25% manpower. And that manpower is really useful - for building monuments faster.

I eliminated the Mamluks, got another monument when I annexed Morocco, attacked Timbuktu for yet another monument.

Then it was time for a big war - take Paris and London and 4 new monuments. I didn't take anything more, as I'm already tempting coalition a bit. There's a lot of untruced Sunni countries out there, but what's the worst that could happen? If I spend some time removing all the tiny African and Middle Eastern Sunnis, this would actually help me a lot. In a way it's a bit my fault, if I didn't steal so many maps, they wouldn't be getting any AE on me. So far I didn't even have an opportunity to use the guarantee-unguarantee exploit for free truces.

Right now I'm mostly interested in how stupid I can get my monument bonuses stack, and getting to press the Roman Empire button.

There are five tier-3 monuments, and the other monuments except the London, Paris, and Timbuktu ones I just got are tier 2 and most of them in process of being upgraded.

Monument bonuses I already got:

• Administrative Efficiency: 0.05
• Advisor Costs: -0.3
• Autonomy: -0.025
• Average Monarch Lifespan: 0.05
• Caravan Power: 0.2
• Clergy Loyalty Equilibrium: 0.25
• Diplomatic Relations: 1
• Diplomatic Reputation: 3
• Envoy Travel Time: -0.33
• Fabricate Claims Cost: -0.2
• Governing Capacity Modifier: 0.05
• Governing Capacity: 100
• Idea Cost: -0.05
• Income from Vassals: 0.1
• Liberty Desire in Subjects: -10
• Missionaries: 1
• Missionary Strength vs Heretics: 0.03
• Monthly Splendor: 2
• Papal Influence: 2.0
• Prestige Decay: -0.01
• Prestige: 2.5
• Reform Progress Growth: 0.35
• Resistance to Reformation: 0.3
• Tariffs: 0.1
• Tolerance of Heretics: 0.5
• Tolerance of the True Faith: 1.0
• Trade Efficiency: 0.05
• Treasure Fleet income: 0.1
• War Score Cost vs Other Religions: -0.15

It about double once I finish upgrading just the monuments I have. And the best monuments are in South-East Asia, so I guess I could take a trip there.

Overall I'm not hating the monuments mechanic, even if another round of nerfs would help. It's a decent mid-game goal, so you can do monument game even if you don't go for world conquest.

Before, Paradox added a lot of silly late game mechanics like furnaces, revolutions etc. that I never got to. This one is much more relevant.

Oh and I maxed out innovativeness already without doing anything special about it. It's a lot easier in recent patches as they doubled innovativeness gain. The whole "take innovative ideas first for bigger bonus" concept still feels silly to me - other groups are way stronger, and locking yourself out of whole idea group to get max innovativeness twenty years earlier feels silly.

Roman Empire is going global, I'm racing Castile for Indian Ocean islands, and I diplovassalized Warsangali and allied Ethiopia for some East African positioning.

The main goal are of course monuments. Especially two overpowered monuments, one in Pegu, and one in Ayutthaya - the rest there are mostly religion-locked. There's also decent trade bonuses monuments in Persia and Lisbon that are on my list.

In-game ledger is absolute trash for monument game, they put massive pictures, and zero information there, really their worst ledger page. I'm working of a list generated by a script.

Montferrat: Part 12: 1568-1581: Monument Spamming

I gave Roman Mexico another pile of uncored land. I've been sending them piles of money all the time as well, they might not recover stability before 1600s.

I got into a "AE is just a number" fight with Castile to get their monument slot as it provides governing capacity - something I lack the most. After that I released Leon for low-AE expansion, and allied the Pope again.

I'm forced to accept some stupid cultures for the monuments. Petra requires me to accept Bedouin. Madrid Palace requires me to accept the Castilian. Pyramids require Egyptian. There are French and English culture monuments on my way. I thought this is a total non-issue as spending one or two culture slots on that is not a big deal, but they really add up now, and it's a hassle. Fortunately new slots keep coming with diplomatic tech, but I had to un-accept Bulgarian and Serbian, and converted them all to my main Piedmontese culture just to free some slots. I might un-accept Occitan as well.

To be fair most of these cultures are big enough that I don't mind, but shitty Bedouin culture without one good province for Petra? Ugh. But Petra is totally great - at max tier it's +2 diplomatic reputation, +1 diplomatic relations, -20% cost to fabricate claims, -33% envoy travel time (which is pretty much like free diplomat once you have a global empire).

I had a quick crusade against the Mamluks, taking their Red Sea coastline, and the rest of Anatolia. Then took some land from France, including their Canadian colonies, just in time to prevent them from establishing a colonial nation and getting exclusive rights to Canada from the Pope.

It looks like it will be Castile, Mamluk, France, rotation, and because I can call allies to every single war with ease, that's not really going to be a problem.

I'm not sure why HRE Leagues didn't trigger yet. There's one Protestant elector who should have decent chance my now.

The most interesting thing about this campaign is testing monuments. These are current bonuses I have, not including wrong religion bonuses:

• Administrative Efficiency: 0.05 (Alhambra 3)
• Advisor Costs: -0.25 (Parthenon 1, Pyramid of Cheops 1, Santa Maria del Fiore 2)
• Clergy Loyalty Equilibrium: 0.05 (Pyramid of Cheops 1)
• Diplomatic Reputation: +2 (Alhambra 3, Petra 2)
• Envoy Travel Time: -0.25 (Petra 2)
• Fabricate claims cost: -0.1 (Petra 2)
• Global autonomy: -0.01 (El Escorial 1)
• Global tariffs: 0.05 (El Escorial 1)
• Income from Vassals: 0.1 (Alhambra 3)
• Liberty Desire in Subjects: -10 (Alhambra 3)
• Missionary Strength vs Heretics: 0.02 (Holy City of Jerusalem 2)
• Monthly Splendor: 1.5 (Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 1, Santa Maria del Fiore 2)
• Papal Influence: 0.5 (Duomo di Milano 1)
• Prestige Decay: -0.01 (Santa Maria del Fiore 2)
• Prestige: 1.25 (Doge's Palace 2, Holy City of Jerusalem 2, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus 1, Royal Palace of Caserta 1)
• Reform Progress Growth: 0.25 (Doge's Palace 2, Royal Palace of Caserta 1)
• Resistance to Reformation: 0.15 (Duomo di Milano 1)
• Tolerance of Heretics: 0.25 (Hagia Sophia 1)
• Tolerance of the True Faith: 0.25 (Hagia Sophia 1)
• Treasure Fleet income: 0.05 (El Escorial 1)
• War Score Cost vs Other Religions: -0.1 (Malta Forts 2)

That is seriously a stupid list. With my income of 400 a month (at peace time 300 pure profit), I can start 7 tier-3 upgrades in a decade. I haven't even been focusing on monuments particularly much - Morocco still exists as a vassal (they have decent monument for trade), Paris and London have 4 more monuments I could take, and so on. By 1650 those bonuses are going to be completely crazy - going tier 2 to tier 3 about doubles the benefits.

This is after massive nerfs from the first monument release.

Oh and conquest of Mecca nets me +1 missionary, +1 tolerance of true faith, and +0.5 yearly prestige as well.

For ideas so far: diplomatic, administrative, expansion, trade.

Just a usual day in Roman Mexico. Once they started stabilizing I annexed half of the remaining natives, as coalition prevention measure. Rebellion size scales to owner country, so they're very small compared to what I'd be getting, so my troops can crush them with ease.

AI is being really stupid here, they full state things before they deal with OE and stability, so they've been at -3 stab and massive OE for all that time - by now it could all be territorial cores, with all their issues fixed.

Roman Empire going global, by far the strongest colonial power without even exploration ideas. Was I massively overvaluing exploration?

I want to repeat the same thing in Peru, and I shouldn't have coring range (Brazil is Castile's exclusive, La Plata is Portugal's exclusive), but apparently Roman Mexico gives me colonial range to Peru and California.

Which is weird, as according to travel time, colonist goes around (out of reach) tip of South America, not through Mexico. Oh well, I'll deal with it in due time, currently working on Louisiana and Canada CNs to add to by Mexico, Colombia, West Indies, and Romerica.

Meanwhile I've been expanding in Africa to get access to Asian monuments. Timbuktu also has tech cost discount monument very deep inland, I guess I could grab that. Other African monuments all seem to be religion-locked.

Montferrat: Part 11: 1549-1568: Roman Mexico

I got some serious AE in the Great Crusade, but I had vassal core return CBs on France, Castile, and Mamluks, so for a while I could expand while letting AE tick down.

I got all the Gascony's cores on France, took one province to release Orleans, and diplovassalized OPM leftovers of Brittany. Then I had a quick core return only fight with Castile.

There are more important things to do, like monuments! I got Alhambra upgraded to tier 3, spending a lot of money and manpower to speed it up. Total upgrade const is 8500 and 70 years, but you can add 10k manpower or 250 gold for every 2 year speedup, so going from tier 0 to 3 costs:

• 8500 gold + 70 years
• 8500 gold + 350k manpower + no time
• 17250 gold + no time

Or some combination of them.

For low priority monuments - which is almost all of them - I'd just use the slow build option, unless my manpower is near the cap. Except for Alhambra, which got absolute priority, the rest of the monuments (and arguably a few others like Bagan Temples for +2 missionaries, Kanbawzathadi Palace for +2 diplo relations, or Krakow Cloth Hall for +2 merchants) can wait - I start tier 1 everything, then tier 2 everything. Once I finish all tier 2 upgrades and manufactories, I guess I'll upgrade them to tier 3.

I got into another fight with the Mamluks, just for Syria's cores, and Poland got curia controller and declared a new crusade on the Mamluks. Well, they could have done it a few month earlier. Oh well, it lasts a while. I took Mecca for +1 missionary - this is one of the few modifiers which they didn't turn into a monument.

I was trying to rush as many colonial nations as I can before someone else does, and I get papal ban. That meant sending a lot of troops to conquer Mexico. Unfortunately at the same time my French truce expired, and I had to attack them for vassal cores, but I couldn't actually do two wars so far away from each other. It's far too exhausting to keep flipping back and forth, so I had to leave French wars to my allies.

As I couldn't really fight the French, I instead went after Portugal, and took over their colonial nation on Caribbean. The Pope still bans me from colonizing, it, but there are no penalties for taking it by forces.

From France I took vassal cores and setup Burgundy as new vassal for the next war. I also want to take Paris and London for all their monuments (2 each!), but that might need to wait.

It's like Roman conquest of Gaul all over. I'm more than halfway there to Restore Roman Empire button, and I don't think I ever actually bothered, so I guess it's this campaign.

Subject Overextension is just a number. I handed over my Roman Mexico 340dev (only 28 cored) and there's about 200dev more to handover. I have 2 CNs so far, but I'll have 2 more soon (Caribbean just wait for cores, and East Coast only waits for last colony). I guess I can just seize French Canada and Castilian Brazil at my convenience.

Recent patches introduced different colony types etc. but for now I've been mostly spending tons of resources for some pretty colors on the map. Which is very historically accurate.

Montferrat: Part 10: 1541-1549: The Great Crusade

I really didn't want to fight Castile and Mamluks at the same time, as both their navies were very strong, and could prevent me from moving my troops around. Removing straits from the game really drastically improves me like that - all those considerations would be completely missing in vanilla with magical bridges everywhere.

So I attacked Mantua, who was allied with Castile, Pope, and some HRE minors. The main goal was to force Castile to break their alliance with the Mamluks - and secondarily:

• take Alhambra monument slot, even if it costs 2x AE, whatever
• remove Dithmarschen and Munich Reformed centers of reformation
• convert some HRE minors to Catholicism
• remove Mantua from the map
• get some gold from everyone

One issue with this is that I had very limited time until Pope's crusade expired, and then I'd lose Holy War CB on the Mamluks.

I removed 2 of 3 Reformed centers of reformation, somehow only 1 of 3 Protestant center was left, Anglicans and Hussites never spawned theirs, so it was just 2 out of possible 8. And England was pretty wrecked between Catholic France and Catholic Scotland. It's overall pretty good Catholic showing.

Overall it went really well. Favors are ticking up like crazy so every war I have multiple allies backing me.

Finally with preparations out of the way and brief peace to get my troops back home, The Great Montferratian Crusade against Mamluks could begin, with less than a year left before CB expired.

I had 35% war score cost vs other religions (10% from being max harsh on council of Trent; 25% from age ability) and I intended to obliterate the infidels. Coalition is after all just a number.

Tunis - full annex, finally being able to take revenge for a century of coastal raids (literally had no CB until that time). Morocco - vassalize, as I couldn't core all those non-coastal provinces in any reasonable way. Mamluks - I really wanted to 100% take land, but they army was never properly broken, coalition would be really annoying, and I really just needed their monument places and coastlines for now. By our next war Sunnis will forget about the AE, and Mamluks won't be able to afford that kind of army.

After the war I restored Eastern Roman Empire, using unique Montferrat decision.

Unfortunately my Kosovo gold mine got depleted, but I'm past the point where that matters much.

Well, time to turn around and deal with France, as our truce just expired, and Gascony needs their clay back.

It's my first time playing with monuments, so here's what I have so far:

• Athens (Parthenon) - tier 1 - -10% advisor cost
• Constantinople (Hagia Sophia) - tier 1 - +0.25 tolerance of true faith and heretics
• Florence (Santa Maria del Fiore) - tier 2 - prestige decay -1%, monthly splendor +1, advisor cost -10%
• Granada (Alhambra) - tier 1 - +10% income from vassals, -5% subject liberty desire
• Mentese (Mausoleum of Helicarnassus) - tier 1 - +0.25 yearly prestige, +0.5 monthly splendor
• Milan (Duomo di Milano) - tier 1 - +0.5 pope mana, +15% resistance to reformation
• Venice (Doge's Palace) - tier 1 - +10% reform progress growth

Need some preconditions first:

• Jerusalem (Holy City of Jerusalem) - already tier 1 but I need to convert it to true faith for bonuses to start working
• Cairo (Pyramids of Cheops) - need to statify and accept Egyptian, then build them

Those bonuses are really starting to add up. For example Florence, Athens, and Cairo together at tier 3 would give 55% advisor cost discount. Malta would be 15% warscore cost vs different religions, Granada 5% admin efficiency and so on.

There are good numbers but Poland/Lithuania mostly kept losing and costing me warscore

This work of art is called "Overextension is just a number". The few coastal Mediterranean provinces I don't control mostly belong to my allies Aragon and Poland/Lithuania.

It's mostly poor clay, but it feels like I doubled my size on the map in this one war.

Castile, France, and Mamluks are all my targets, so I'm heading towards fairly Roman Empire borders.

Montferrat: Part 09: 1530-1541: Defending Scotland

I took a few easy years, started a few new great projects, integrated some subjects, diplovassalized a few more (Circassia, Theodoro).

A big war I started war for whatever was left of Venice, defended by France. France had nearly as many troops as me, and they were stronger. Fortunately I could count on my allies to overwhelm them with numbers.

During that was my Defender of the Faith backfired and I was called in to defend Catholic Scotland from Anglican England. My Defender of the Faith also fell from tier 5 to tier 4.

Scotland was dragging this damn war forever, even after I sunk whole English and allied navy, killed every last of their soldiers, and had every province under siege, they still would keep going just to spite the damn English.

After the war I finally was able to release Gascony as a vassal, with a lot of French cores.

I tried to diplovassalize Crimea, but Poland attacked them first, calling me into their war. Fine.

My truce with Castile and the Mamluks is almost gone, and it would be so much more convenient if Poland didn't call me into their stupid war.

Scotland is the biggest winner of the decade. Naples is slowly getting provinces from Aragon, another 15 years and they will have all their Aragonese cores back. Still need to get some from Castile.

Colonial race started. I have one province in Guyana I took from France (there's almost no AE for that), and 2 colonies being built in the Caribbean.

Stupid Pope decided that Portugal built CN in Caribbean first, so if I create any new colonies there, that means basically zero papal influence going forward.

Castile is about to finish Brazil CN, they'll get regional claim too. I guess I should conquer Mexico or something before all the clay is claimed.

They have 3 colonists each and a big headstart, while I only have 1 so far.

Montferrat: Part 08: 1524-1530: Aragonese War of Independence

The hardest wars are ones where AI is the warleader. The fight was against Castile, Mamluks, Mantua, and Florence.

Mantua, Florence, and Castilian holdings in Italy were easy pickings. Unfortunately Mamluks and Castile were both much stronger than me on the seas, so I couldn't do much about Mamluk attacks on Anatolia and Sicily. I tried to do some naval warfare, but I ended up losing almost all of my war fleet. No big deal, as I was about to unlock next tier of ships anyway, so they'd be all useless. I only had 1 Barque and 5 Galleys left after the war, which I all sold to Aragon, and built new navy from scratch.

During the war I got just over 1000dev and made myself emperor. I also finished convincing Candar to become my vassals while the war was going on, but really they just offered more free warscore for the Mamluks, so maybe it was a bad timing.

Aragon was dragging it on for far longer than they should - and in the peace deal they have me 2 provinces which were Naples cores I didn't want (as they would have no AE discount as wrong CB was used), as well as Gibraltar. I asked for all of Grenada territory as I wanted Alhambra as soon as possible, and Gibraltar was 4dev there, so I guess they didn't completely ignore me. Oh well.

While the war was going on, I took expansion ideas, and sneaked a single ship into the Atlantic to help with map stealing. I've been stealing maps like crazy from England, France, Castile, and Portugal. It's nice to have so many diplomats. I have 7 - 2 base, 1 from government rank, 2 from diplomatic ideas, 1 from policy, 1 from curia controller. After the war ended I took expansion (without exploration) ideas, and started colonizing basing it all on stolen maps, starting with the Caribbean.

Council of Trent triggered while I was curia controller, so I ignored all the cardinals voting, and took all the harsh positions:

• +2% missionary strength vs heretics
• +30% institution spread in true faith provinces
• +10% manpower in true faith provinces
• -10% warscore cost vs other religions
• at cost of -40 total opinion from Protestants and Reformed

Which is somewhat embarrassing as my ally Switzerland went Reformed, but they'll get over it.

I'm not sure why there's even any voting, conciliatory positions are all terrible.

After the war ended I managed to stack my diplomatic bonuses so high I diplovassalized 71dev Florence.

Apparently it's now also possible to trade favors for return core, so I just politely asked Aragon to return a province to Naples, and they did it. The cost is really steep, but it's free clay.

Portugal managed to be Great Power as its the first to embrace Colonialism. Nobody has a single colonial nation yet, so I didn't join too late.

Breaking the Castile/Aragon PU is a huge change in European affairs, even if the maps look just like they did before. I'd like to expand into Mamluk lands, but without vanilla's magic bridges that really needs a serious navy and they're allied to Castile, so I'd be fighting two very strong navies. So maybe just beat up France or Aztec natives instead?

Montferrat: Part 07: 1510-1524: Conquest of Venice

I got Lucca as a diplovassal, annexed some previous ones, got involved in minor war against Genoa and Epirus, where they got annexed, finally giving me decent level of control over my home trade node.

The coming big problem was Castile/Aragon, who took most of Naples over by force. That couldn't be allowed. Fortunately one fun thing Fun and Balance is doing is moving a few extremely rarely used diplomatic options from very late game into early game too.

So let's try Agitate for Liberty. 50 spy power for +25% liberty desire of one subject for 5 years. It's been in the game for very long time, but it's locked behind diplo tech so damn late nobody ever used it outside Extended Timeline mod. So I moved it to always being available, and then I used it on Aragon, and promptly supported their independence before they change their mind, as they were very barely over 50% disloyal even with my help.

It's still up to them to actually start the war, and nobody else is supporting that, and so far they're not very interested.

I declared myself Defender of the Faith, at level 5 it's quite nice, but I might get called into some HRE nonsense, hopefully on Austria's side.

I started a war against Venice and what was left of Naples, and my ally the Pope foolishly picked the wrong side. Pope tends to have a lot of alliances - I suspect it's because of estate mission to get +100 relations with the Pope, so all the Catholic countries do that, and then when choosing allies, they notice there's already a country they like a lot, so why not ally them.

I specifically did not call Austria into the war, as I knew they'd want the same provinces as me - so Austria decided to declare their own war instead almost immediately after I started mine, with messy race for who can take the land first.

This somehow turned to be an advantage. I took nearly 100% worth from Venice, and Austria took only one province and released 4 Italian minors. They now start auto-guaranteed by releasing country (Austria), but Austria didn't care for them, and cancelled their guarantees one by one, and I attacked 3 of them immediately. Ferrara managed to fgeh some allies before that, so I diplovassalized them instead.

Austria joined my support of Aragonese independence, and after 14 years of preparation, Aragon finally decided to declare their war. It's not amazing, as huge Mamluks and my former ally Florence are on Castilian side. Oh well, I guess I'll have to get some new allies elsewhere.

I started working on Great Projects, and I have a few but none of the really good ones. I think South-East Asia got most of the best ones, as they were introduced in South-East Asian patch. Still, they're not expensive (1000 + 2500 + 3500 for three tiers), and those bonuses add up. I have 4 (1 Orthodox-only so unusable), my subjects have 3 more, and there's like 10 more owned by my likely targets.

My ally Austria preventing me from getting my rightful clay again

If we manage to win this, it will greatly weaken Castile. And my vassal Naples has a lot of cores on Castile (also on Aragon, but one thing at a time).

Montferrat: Part 06: 1499-1510: Kingdom of Montferrat

I got to annoying side of the 1.32. Now institution tech penalties are based on tech level, not on year from institution spawning, so mil tech 9 has 15% penalty for not having Colonialism, even if Colonialism didn't even happen. Oh well.

I got some breathing room with governing capacity, getting +100 from admin tech and finally unlocking courthouses, which basically let me buy a bit more governing capacity at really awful exchange rate, but that's the meta.

I attacked Venice, hoping to get some ports on East Italian coast, but Austria which I called also wanted them for themselves, so in the end all I could take was some Balkan land and some gold. Oh well, it still weakens them a lot.

I got Leonardo Da Vinci by event, and he had an affair with my wife. What is this, Crusader Kisngs?

I really needed to get to 50 prestige to become a kingdom (the fact that I had PU over empire somehow didn't count), so I picked a fight with Provence and some HRE minor for prestige farming. Provence was also allied with Portugal, and Portugal would not let the war end early, so I ended up occupying Lisbon and then seizing Madeira and Tenerife for some potential future colonial range. I don't think I'll be doing any colonization this game, but it's nice to have an option.

That war barely got me to 50 prestige, and I left the HRE, and crowned myself a king. Austria was not happy about it, but I've been improving our relations for long enough they could live with that -100.

During the war I had opportunity to check if heavier or galleys are stronger - it looks like Portugal's heavies are, and by a lot. Oh well, rebuilding the fleet one more time.

Somehow I'm now number 1 Great Power, because Ming doesn't have all the necessary institutions.

Castile/Aragon made a move against Italy, and have been fighting Naples, Venice, and Pope, quite successfully. They're also allied with Mamluks, Florence, and Mantua - the alliance obviously setup against me.

France used to meddle as well, but somehow ended up fighting against Genoa, and it broke their alliance, so I might have an opportunity to clean up the mess.

Ottomans are gone - Mamluks and Candar cleaned up the remains.

If I take oven Venice and Italian minors, that's a pretty decent Roman Restoration

Montferrat: Part 05: 1492-1499: Fall of the Ottomans

Protestant Reformation started unusually early, but I'll likely stay Catholic as I never experienced the Emperor DLC's Council mechanic. Going Orthodox would likely be the better call, but whatever.

I got Bologna, Saluzzo, and The Knights as vassals diplomatically. There's so many OPMs everywhere, often with crazy strong allies, fortunately at this point I can convince them to join the greater cause.

Switzerland got me into a silly war, but I wanted to declare on Ottomans on the clock - so I did, and had Poland and Austria do all the fighting. I even had Holy War CB, as I was very briefly curia controller, and had the Pope declare Crusade on the Ottomans, which is a rare case how you can get the CB without religious ideas (I took diplomatic and admin).

I eventually sent my troops there. What was left of the Ottomans was a total pushover, and the Mamluks attacked them just after I was done with them. The most annoying thing is that if Mamluks fully annex the Ottomans, they'll get their vassal Crimea for free, and that would be quite annoying.

My main problem now is that I only have 300 governing capacity, and I'm already over that, even without statifying Bulgaria and Bosnia, so in the upcoming war with Venice, I wouldn't be able to take anything. I can either way for next admin tech for +100 capacity, or leave the HRE to get kingdom rand and +200 governing capacity (that would still need 50 prestige which I don't have, as I spend it for swimming lessons for bad heirs).

If I leave the HRE, then I'll likely lose Austria as ally, and they're still really useful both for protection, and to fight my coming wars against Venice.

Balkans, West Anatolia, and North-West Italy is a good start for restoring the Roman Empire.

I wonder if Austria or someone already destroyed third Protestant Center of Reformation as there are 6 Protestant countries but only 2 centers.

It would help my AE if Venice or Naples went Protestant, but for now it doesn't really concern me. Praha province is still Hussite somehow.

Montferrat: Part 04: 1482-1492: Serbian Gold

I was now bordering Serbian gold mines. After that, in a series of quick easy wars, I took all of the Western Balkans, except for the coastline to which Venice got first.

War with Milan was going to be really easy, except Venice guaranteed them. Well, Austria and Pope were willing to join, so I'm not going to say no to that. I removed Milan from the map, took Venice's gold, and broke the Venice-French alliance. Even on sea my puny navy (10 transport and 5 galleys) and not much more impressive navies of my allies was doing decent, as AI now always keeps half their navy to protect their capital, so all the sea except Gulf of Venice itself was very contested.

France inherited what was left of Burgundy, but that wasn't much anyway, and they were forced by HRE ultimatum to release the Dutch half of it anyway. In the end France got 3 fairly rich provinces for free, not too bad.

Castile lost their PU over Portugal, not sure how, as I wasn't really paying attention to that part of the map.

The ranking now has me as #5 Great Power, but it's all bullshit anyway. By income or army size, I'm more like #10. But it feels like 2 more wars with Ottomans and Venice each, a few diplo-annexations, and some cleanup, and I basially restored Eastern Roman Empire of Justinian the Great. Likely before 1550.

I'm also still in the HRE, and that means I'm limited to duchy rank, and that really hurts my governing capacity. If I integrate my subjects, I'll probably be forced to leave just to keep it from overflowing. Alternatively I could try to get elected as the Holy Roman Emperor, but that would be a lot of work.

"NoCB Byzantium" is the meta when playing in Europe. The funny thing is that I didn't do this, and the game just told me "fine, I'll do it for you". And that got me whole Balkans basically for free, Austria and Poland did almost all the work.

Meanwhile in Italy, I barely started expanding.

Once I connect my Italian and Balkan holdings, that would be pretty much game won.

Unless something stupid happens like Castile PU over Naples, French PU over Naples, or Mamluks starting Sunni coalition against me, I'm not sure what could even go wrong at this point.

Montferrat: Part 03: 1467-1482: Great Power Montferrat

I had quick war with Provence for their coastline and humiliation. France started to meddle in Italian affairs - they allies Venice and Lucca, and warned me against going to war with any of their neighbors. Which is Papal States as the only one we share (they hold Avignon).

Pope was allied with Austria, and protected by France, so I just allied them as well, can't really fight them anyway, and they could be useful.

Then I had a show strength war against Milan to steal 3x100 of their mana. It's unclear what that's even supposed to represent, are we stealing holy relics from their churches so our clerics can cast stronger spells? Anyway, my AE was too high for taking any land. Best I could do was stack up diplomatic modifiers and look elsewhere.

Ottomans started their recovery by taking Karaman, which briefly swelled after Venice gave them a bunch of Ottoman lands. They also got Crimea as free march by event. If they were allowed to keep expanding, they could potentially threaten the Christian world again, so we had to strike before that happened.

After the war, I got all East Roman cores, released Bulgaria as a vassal, and got a few provinces on Anatolian coast with spare warscore. I finally became a Great Power, for now only #6. Of course the real reason I wanted Bulgaria is that it borders Serbia, and Serbia has gold mines, no allies, and generates almost no AE.

Even my AE it Italy is low enough now that I should be able to take over Milan in the next war. There are still significant challenges to connecting my realm into one and becoming the dominant power in the world, but it feels like the hard part is mostly over.

Castile is doing a bit too well, it took Portugal's throne by force. France is doing great as well. As is Venice, who'd be a great power if they counted by income. They all annoyingly want to interfere with Italian politics.

First Ottoman War we had 3:2 advantage. Second Ottoman War it's 3:1.

Super fast favor accumulation makes it way too easy to just use the AI to win your wars.

But I'm definitely loving not having magical straits crossings, I'll need to build a proper fleet now.

I might have to fight the Third Ottoman War alone, as my allies might consider it too distant next time.

My realm is big but divided into too many parts, with far too few ships. At some point I'll need to fight Venice and various minors to connect it all, but it shouldn't be too hard as long as France and Castile stay out of it.

Montferrat: Part 02: 1456-1467: Constantinople Restored

The game took a weird turn when I accidentally got PU over Eastern Roman Empire - or the one province they were left with. I guess that sort of happens when we're the same dynasty. Then my ruler died and I got a regency.

Austria called me into their war against Burgundy, and then another with Wallachia, I didn't do much, but got some favors anyway. Since 1.31 favors accumulate way faster anyway, even without diplomat currying them.

I was attacking Sienna to get Provence to break alliance with France, the usual shenanigans, when Shadow Kingdom triggered extremely early, and every North Italian country except me left the HRE. Well Sienna is my vassal now.

Austria got Hungary PU by event. Poland had Lithuania and Moldova. Ottomans were somehow losing war against Albania, Venice, and friends. I did the extremely opportunistic thing, and called them into a reconquest of Constantinople, hoping they do most of the fighting for me. Even though they were mil tech behind the Ottomans, maybe it will work. In theory we massively outnumber them, and it's not like Tunis or Granada are going to show up.

While I was doing that, a small coalition formed against me, so I used the fresh new exploit (which I discovered because Milan did this to me), guarateeing and unguaranteeing various OPMs to get 5 year truce with them. Then I saved and reloaded the game, and coalition dissolved. Amazing.

I got them most of Eastern Roman cores back, but really didn't want to get to 100%, as rebels were occupying half my country back home.

Not like I even needed to, Venice and friends delivered another ass whooping to the Ottomans. They got beaten so hard they fell of the Great Powers list.

I'm not really there, at 98 own dev, 105 dev East Rome, and 20dev Siena.

All this doubling of my territory was completely unexpected. If I didn't accidentally that whole throne, I'd be still waiting for my Provence truce to expire, which it's about to.

I got diplomatic for my first idea group. Extra diplomats are going to be really useful with all the Italian AE.

So far game feels way easier than in the past. It's not obviously broken like 1.31.

Main two new bugs so far in 1.32:

• that guarantee trick letting you truce anyone you want
• trading favors for gold no longer working, as everyone income is crazy low, looks like about 10% of their actual income

Ottomans got themselves into this war, while already being beaten by the Venice alliance somehow

Removal of all straits might have something to do with it, as Venice has naval supremacy, so it could blockade Bosporus straits. We took over the Balkans, Venice took oven Anatolia.

I'm nowhere close to being a Great Power, I just allied Austria and Poland before they got their PUs and it paid off. Actually I allied Poland mostly because I wanted to curry favors for ducats (and that's broken in this patch), totally unexpected that it turned out this way

Montferrat: Part 01: 1444-1456: New Power in North Italy

EU4 had terrible patch 1.31. Mostly I want to see if game is back in playable state in 1.32. I'm doing two big changes in addition to the usual Fun and Balance:

• all migratory natives removes
• all straits removed

I'm playing as Savoy's OPM vassal Montferrat. The interesting thing about them is that they're ruled by relatives of Eastern Roman Emperors of Palaiologos dynasty, where it survived fall of Constantinople by about a century.

I'm not really sure where I'll take the campaign. I could stay Catholic or go Orthodox, save East Rome, or go to New World, we'll see. For the first task I need to become independent.

Difficulty of Montferrat campaign mostly depends on:

• who rivals Savoy
• would Savoy's rivals support your independence
• who Savoy allies

I declared war as soon as it was possible, getting Austria, France, and Switzerland. Savoy managed to pull Aragon/Naples, Genoa, and Mulhouse.

As it's been quite a while since I last played EU4 for real (not counting 1.31 which doesn't really count as AI was broken), I followed the "hire mercs way over force limit, ignore how much they cost" strategy.

I got Mullhouse out of the war. I gave Aragon a French province and 10 gold to go away. Then Austria white peaced on my side, which mostly cost them their share of gold. For all my troubles I got 3 provinces, and 6 countries wanting to join a coalition against me. Fortunately I had truce with Savoy and Genoa, Milan foolishly guaranteed me, I sent diplomats to Ferrara and Lucca to get on their good side, so it was just my rival - OPM Saluzzo - who wanted the coalition. Also it's totally embarrassing to have an OPM rival.

After the war France remembered it actually hates Austria, so it cannot be allied to Austria's ally. Also that one French province I gave away, they were not very happy about that. I got Ferrara and Florence instead, which was definitely a big downgrade. Austria looks strong, but won't join in any internal HRE war, so they're actually not that useful. And Switzerland still hates me for selling that French province. Not sure why they do, while Austria doesn't care about that - they were all in the same war.

Milan broke their guarantee of me, and that created a two-sided truce between us. WTF? Since when does it work like that? I'm pretty sure it didn't before this patch. Really disappointing, as Milan is the only nearby country with no strong allies.

Inexplicably I got Renaissance in Montferrat. I guess it spawns generally in North Italy, but that was really random. I developed my capital to 30dev for age objective, and also because I was a bit stuck between alliance networks so couldn't really expand too well, but only after Renaissance spawned anyway.

With some clever diplomacy I got Poland as an ally. Overall that DLC-locked estate privilege that gives +25 diplomatic relations with all same religion countries is a bit paid-to-win level stupid.

There was a second war to do. By abusing the 1.31's "curry favors" mechanic, which is still very unbalanced, I got Florence, Ferrara, and Switzerland to join my war against Milan. Unfortunately even stacking all the opinion bonuses, I could only take two provinces from Milan, and break Lucca's alliance with Austria.

So far my dev went from 12 to 98:

• 12 dev - starting
• 21 dev - developing capital
• 40 dev - taken from Savoy
• 25 dev - taken from Milan

I can't really expand much faster, AE and paper mana are both blocking me.

So far the game is definitely a lot better than 1.31, but balancing is still quite questionable.

It's such a total RNG who joins which side, I recommend just restarting if you don't get a good one. This one was one of the easiest. I didn't know they added such massive penalties for giving away allies' provinces, so I guess that's one balancing thing.

I feel like the strongest country in Italy already, as Aragon lost their PU over Naples. Italy won't quit the HRE for a few more decades, so best avenues of expansion would be Provence (allied with France), Pope (enjoy your excommunication), or Venice (which I don't even border). No-CB someone in North Africa is another idea, but I have zero ships.