Small aside, I was confused why Castile went domineering over me, but apparently they got PU CB over me from their mission tree.
Successions are happening more often than I'd like, but they came with only minor challenges:
- I can ignore peasants rebellion in Navarra, all they want is increase autonomy, but Navarra is OPM anyway, so autonomy in their capital is fixed at 0%
- Naples will hopefully fight its pretender rebels, lose some troops, and be easier to deal with if they actually declare independence. AI is not smart enough to lose to pretenders on purpose to skip independence war.
- My inward focus would slow down by expansion, but I'm AE limited anyway.
The big problem is still that 6 countries rivaled me, and 4 are supporting Naples independence movement. And Naples actually pressed that button, with only Milan and Papal States staying as my allies.
It was not quite as bad.
- France supported Naples, but because Austria dragged both me and France into one of their silly wars, France couldn't join war against me
- England is too far and useless
- Ottomans are busy fighting Venice
- Castile and their PU Burgundy were busy fighting Austria
And all I needed was white peace anyway.
Probably the hardest war of this campaign. Of participants, Naples, Castile, and Burgundy are all in my realm now, and Ottomans got many beatings by me. England still unpunished.
So I was optimistic, but my army was actually stuck in Africa, and England landed their army in Aragon itself. Well, loans, mercs, and if it bankrupts me so be it.
And then, for the first time ever - Poland did great power intervention on my side!
Well, I kicked Castile out of the war thanks to my merc spam, but I ended up 1000 gold in debt, and then I had to take even more debt to get Renaissance.
I allied Austria and East Rome despite their betrayal. My other ally Milan fell under Hungary PU - I allied them to have a chance to get it myself but that didn't work out either. So I added Poland as my ally instead.
I thought it was over, but all the assholes now piled up to declare support for my disloyal vassal Granada. But then I instantly inherited them by event anyway. This didn't discourage my asshole rivals, so they supported my another disloyal vassal Tripoli.
They were just barely near 50% disloyalty level, but AI was just waiting for exact moment it went a bit over 50%, and independence support! Well, soon I got them integrated by event as well, but that meant border with the Mamluks.
I didn't see any way out of my debt other than by conquering Tafilalt gold mine.
Ottomans declared against East Rome after all, but I was so far in debt all I did was sending some boats over.
Castile inherited Burgundy by vanilla event, then I got PU over Castile by Iberian Wedding, making me second Great Power after Ming, and this time everyone was even loyal! Fortunately Castile already took exploration ideas - subjects normally don't take them, but they'd continue filling them if taken.
But I noticed one downside to it all - after inheriting Burgundy, Castile is too big to insta-inherit to form Spain, so I'll need to pay the mana price. I could make them lose 10 provinces by losing a war on purpose, or I could pay a few thousand bird mana for it. If Iberian Wedding triggered event happened before Burgundy inheritance event, it would be me getting Burgundy for free, and then getting Castile with button click. Well, that's a problem for a future ruler.
There's also another problem - my color is really terrible. 5 European major powers - Aragon, England, Poland, Denmark, Hungary - as well as all their subjects - have almost the same salmon-ish color. And some minors like Serbia as well. Once I form Spain it will go away, but that's a fairly distant goal.
Anyway, now that I had Castile's army on my side, I might as well try to win their war for East Rome. We got that warscore to 50%, transferred all occupations of Roman cores to them, but all they took for it was some cash.
Now that I had one gold mine, why not another? I diplovassalized Albania, and used their claims on Kosovo gold mine.
Meanwhile my ally Poland decided to fight the Ottomans, dragging me into another war. No big deal, and Poland took some clay.
I originally planned to do one episode per ruler, but it's been going for quite a while already, and my ruler is only 41, so we'll continue Joan III's story in the next episode.
Inward Focus expired after 20 years, and during that time I spammed temples, workshops, barracks, and even a few marketplaces and farm estates. With this and two gold mines I got my monthly income to 47 (behind Ming, Castile, and France), and I repaid most of my debt.
It's all been such a casual game, and I'm now casually number one great power.
The most interesting mod events from this episode were Hungary getting Bohemia and Milan as PU juniors, but then Milan getting pretender rebels on succession who actually won, so now Hungary and their disloyal Bohemia is fighting a war to get Milan back. I'm a bit tempted to help Milan.
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