Sunday, January 2, 2022

Montferrat: Part 15: 1613-1629: Roman India

Nobody seemed to care about my aggressive expansion, so I just kicked Castile out of Europe completely. Now they're in Peru.

I got to 5th idea group, and I really ran out of good ones:

  • It couldn't be any diplomatic ones, as I didn't even finish trade, and I was hurting like crazy on bird mana. Mostly due to annexations, and due to paying so damn much on CBs without Holy War.
  • I could take Religious for Holy War CB now, but Imperialism CB is coming ~1680
  • Innovative is bad as innovativeness is so easy to get anyway, and advisor cost discounts from monuments make them nearly free anyway
  • Humanist was always bad, I guess max promoted cultures +2 got a bit better
  • Economic is bad unless you spam development cost reduction, and I just don't like that
  • I guess Offensive for siege ability? But I'm really not struggling on that. And I've been spending my sword mana on absolutism. They only times when sword mana is in short supply are when game starts and when absolutism starts.

In the and I did the boring thing and picked religious, as I'm low on bird and sword mana, and everything else in admin ideas is just bad. I'd be so much better off if I picked it earlier instead of trade.

The heir I requested from Aragon did not get the throne, dying or something. What a waste. So I'm trying it again with Poland.

I got a bit distracted and diplovassalized Khorasan and force vassalized Vijayanagar, both with a huge number of unowned cores. I need all of Iraq for Restoring Roman Empire, which already makes no sense, so why not take a chunk of India as well? Those wars in the east were a lot more hassle than ones in Europe, as I can't have my allies do all my work. Oh well.

In Europe I just got Lisboa and their monument slot, I'll need to clean up remains of Portugal and France eventually. Other than them, it's just Fars, allies Pope, Aragon, and Austria, and HRE-protected Provence, Cilly, Savoy, and Flanders who hold land I need for the Roman Empire button. I'm not really sure how I plan to do the cleanup, especially since my target-allies are also cross-allied so I cannot easily drop just one, and occupying Rome would cost me a lot of bonuses.

My monthly income is over 750, and at 1000 I'd be able to go economic hegemon. Bonuses for that are so good (+20% gov capacity, +25% goods produced, -20% autonomy in territories; also merc stuff, but mercs become obsolete long before anyone gets hegemony) they might be worth -100 relations with everyone else.

Military hegemon bonuses are much weaker, but still totally respectable too (-10% province warscore cost, +20% siege ability, -3 unrest, +10% movement speed; also -20% attrition but there's hardly any in recent patches), but it takes army of 1000k, and I barely have 238k of my 454k force limit - I get people to build me monuments, not fight wars. But both are achievable by late 1600s.

Meanwhile naval hegemony is just stupid. It takes the dumbest thing imaginable to achieve, having 250 heavy ships, which nobody ever needed in history of EU4. And the bonuses are ridiculously bad (more sailors, blockade efficiency, subject liberty desire, naval engagement width; and I guess "artillery damage from back row" might be worth tiny amount) there might just as well be no bonus.


For some crazy reasons I need Iraq for the decision, and alliance chains of various holders go all the way to India, so one thing let to another and I took a good chunk of it. Just one war with Fars and then I can ignore that part of the world forever.

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