Italy Megacampaign: Part 27: 1783: The End

I planned this as megacampaign, but it won't happen. EU4 to Vic2 converter doesn't look like it's going to get updated ever, and it's not just a matter of waiting longer, as next EU4 patches will come out, and mess with the export.

The world also turned out to be a lot more centralized than I hoped. Even with mid-game tag switch and taking things really slow last century or so, I can't see this being much of a challenge in Vic2. I planned to split the world a bit, but then it would be less an export and more a fresh scenario.

I felt that early game was a lot more fun than late game. It's not just the matter of being overpowered - there's just more meaningful entities to interact with. Early on there's like hundred countries that matter - if I'm Venice, then I need to care about Austria, Hungary, Ottomans, Pope, Milan, Aragon, France, Mamluks, and so on. And then their allies, and rivals. It's a rich complex universe.

By late game it's just a few fellow blobs, and the only thing keeping those trivial minors around is the guarantee spam blobs started doing a few patches ago.

Previous time I attempted to play till the end, late game lag forced me to stop early. This time late game performance was totally fine.

Some conclusions about experimental mods:

• restoring tech groups brought tech differential back (except with Ming and its free mana), but I'm not sure if that really makes the game better
• adding strong HRE emperor buffs is a great change
• unrest and rebel buffs mattered relatively little, but were mostly positive
• warscore changes mattered relatively little, but were mostly positive

As for my next Paradox campaigns, it doesn't look like anything new is coming to EU4, and the newly Imperator: Rome is universally panned as more an empty shell for DLCs to complete than a genuine complete game. CK2 on the other hand, that keeps getting great new content. Or I could check out what's up with new Kaiserreich.

Now that Google Plus is dead, I have two blogs where I sometimes post gaming content. Generally I'll post everything to my main blog, unless it's a campaign with crazy number of episodes, in which case it will go here. It's not great, but I don't want to open even more blogs.

Italy Megacampaign: Part 26: 1770-1783: Revolution comes to New World

I got Mong Kawng as another vassal and expanded them a bit.

I force vassalized Madurai. They were already at war with France and Provence, so I attacked Kikondja guaranteed by France to remove French stack from Madurai's capital. Interestingly Fetishist rebels took over parts of South Africa and defected to Kikondja. Surprise free Cape I guess, I didn't really plan to take it, but I won't say no.

Then it was time to crush Ming. Once more my fleets were too scattered, so I got defeated in early fights. Ming managed to even sink my flagship, but I sank theirs so it was only fair I guess. Another big reason why I was doing so poorly was that Chinese coast counts as inland sea for galley bonus somehow, and I had no galleys.

It was going rather unimpressively on land and sea, so I took some minor concessions and called it a day. Also started major fort and ship building program.

HRE declared a war on my ally Portugal - which by this time should really get renamed to Brazil. I did the silly thing and joined the war. The Revolutionary HRE had 200k mercs, many military ideas by this time, and some bonuses due to being revolutionary. My armies were scattered everywhere, without any mercs, and with fairly few bonuses.

Having to flip between all the different parts of the map definitely did not help. My armies fought extremely poorly overall.

And yet somehow I turned this -40% warscore around. I gathered my scattered navies, and got a lot of warscore this war. Then HRE invasion of South America got wiped out. Then one of Malacca. The HRE took a big bite out of our ally Toulouse, but it was hopeless to even attempt saving. Finally fighting in India got warscore to +1%, and then somehow crept to 10%, with white peace resulting from it all.

492k peasants and 148 ships got lost on attacking side. 301k peasants and 79 ships on defending side. With very little to show for it all.

Now I could get back to the main business of crushing Ming, but somehow still has 62% mandate.

I've been taking long breaks between episodes to maybe see Vic2 converter ready before I finish, but that seems increasingly unlikely. Oh well.

After first battles lost I was quite convinced that we're going to lose this war.

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.

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.