Very Sus Celestial Andalusia: Part 01: 1444-1449: Very Sus Independence War

Mod Setup

I just wrote two posts about rebalancing idea groups (first, second), but actually I wanted to try something else -what if idea groups took no slots, so you can mix and match whichever ideas you wanted?

At first I tried to unlock 18 groups at tech 0 - but that meant all countries start with 7 tech groups already picked and pre-filled (why 7 and not 8 or 18? no idea), so that's awful. Then I tried to unlock all 18 at tech 4 - that worked for all starting countries, but then every released country started with 7 tech groups already picked and pre-filled, giving them huge headstart against everyone else. So as a good enough compromise I made idea groups unlock one by one for every tech from admin tech 4 onwards. Not quite what I wanted, but it seems to work.

To prevent stacking tech cost discount from ideas too high, I reduced the discount from 2% per idea to 1% per idea, all other costs are the same.

I wasn't happy with how China evolves. In 1.30 the only outcome is super stable Ming. In 1.29 there was second possibility was Ming collapsing and total chaos resulting, but the patch broke that. After a lot of tries, and a lot of AI only observe games I got combination of effects that make not just stable Ming, and total chaos possible, but also new AI China emerging. I never got it to pull the whole Qing, but I've seen stable new China with over 600dev, a bit over half of what Ming starts with.

Other changes I'm trying out for potentially including in future Fun and Balance releases:

• I removed building limit
• I massively buffed Support Rebels, and removed tech requirements from Infiltrate Administration and Agitate for Liberty.
• I tried to remove all straits to make naval combat matter a bit, and discovered that EU4 crashes unless there's at least 1 strait somewhere on the map, so I left one between Gent and Zeeland, as it seemed fairly irrelevant, bypassing just one province.
• I wanted to remove attrition cap, but old formula (which was quite brutal, and only saved by the cap) was at some point replaced by new formula which is about 10x more lenient, and cap really doesn't matter anyway, attrition is not a thing anymore.
• I unlocked unlimited number of estate privileges, as I'm interested in trying out some new builds, while still maxing out mercantilism. I was actually possible 1.30.0 to 1.30.3 except UI didn't show it. Only 1.30.4 actually banned this.

Campaign Goals

I couldn't decide if I wanted to play Iberia region and experience fun new missions there, or play someone like Ayutthaya or Oda in East Asia and have fun with the new Mingsplosions. But why not both!

• starting as Moroccan vassal Sus - a theocracy
• I need to get independent
• then form Morocco for first set of new missions, this will flip me into monarchy
• then form Andalusia for one of the best idea groups in the game
• then become Emperor of China - by the time I arrive that region might be super interesting
• and for extra difficulty I want to take Mandate of Heaven as soon as I can, not wait with it - that's suicidal in vanilla, but I think it should be fine in the mod
• and switch to some fun new religion - Ibadi is the most obvious as there's one Ibadi province in North Africa, and it was really high in the ranking
• I'll have to briefly switch to some Eastern religion for get China, but they're all terrible (except maybe Shinto) so I'll probably just go back to Ibadi
• maybe I'll Unify Islam as Ibadi on my way?
• and obviously I'd like to get trade end node like maybe Genoa

Opening Moves

Sus on bottom left of the map is a very recent addition to the game.

Morocco has full cores on all 3 of its vassals, so usually they all disappear by 1454

Morocco starts with 3 unruly vassals - 23dev tribal Tafilat with gold mine but without feudalism, 20dev emirate of Marrakesh, and our 28dev theocracy of Sus.

I got my diplomats working overtime to get Castile, Portugal, and Aragon/Naples all support my independence. 79k total.

On Morocco's side, it was Tunis, Grenada, and the other two vassals. 32k total.

My modding already backfired massively, as in vanilla there's a strait giving Iberians easy access to Maghreb, and this time they need to do the slow invasion by the sea.

I got 100% occupied, 20 war exhaustion, my whole army stack wiped twice, but I somehow managed to turn it around with battered remnants of free company, and I took 100% worth of warscore out of Morocco.

Now Morocco is just 53dev plus 20dev Marrakesh and 13dev Tafilat, and I have 73dev and the gold mine.

Of course my country is about to get overran by the rebels, I'm in a bit of debt, and Aragon and Castile have no love for each other, so things aren't great just yet.

Independence is the first step on the path to greatness

Bohemian Empire: Part 16: 1628-1635: Holy Roman Empire United

I was waiting for Court and Country and for my Imperial Authority, I started a quick war against Mamluks, and then Tunis.

I won Court and Country and I could give back all my estates +1 mana privileges. I had to temporarily revoke them for duration of the crisis.

Max absolutism is: 65 base + 5 empire + 10 two government reforms + 5 great power + 10 legitimacy + 5 religious unity + 15 crownland + 20 winning Cout and Conutry, or 135. So I can give away -35 absolutism worth of privleges and still have absolutism at 100%+ cap. Each mana privilege is just -5, so I still have some leftover. Overall new estate system is stupidly easy. I'd probably keep it a bit less than that.

So finally in 1635 I had enough IA to pass the last reform. And unlike previous reforms, this one actually has voting by each country. And unfortunately the new 1.30 interface won't tell me who'd vote for it.

When I tried pressing it at 50 IA , I got Sweden, Denmark, Oldenburg, Switzerland, Nuremberg, Genoa, Liege, and Utrecht rebelling. If I wait for 100 IA (just 6 more years or so), it's only Denmark, but by a lot, as they have huge AE against me.

Well, I could wait another 20 years or so for Denmark to accept it as well, but that would be rather boring, so here's the map of what HRE would look like if i just won the whole vote.

Great Powers map

Pasai is a rare contestant, narrowly overtaking Bahmanis at 9th

So some 1.30 conclusions.

HRE:

• HRE is overpowered if you start as Austria, or take it over early as another Catholic power; if you start late (in vanilla as Protestant; in F&B also as any other version of Christianity) it's a lot weaker
• forcing OPMs into HRE is nice; forcing huge (especially heretic) countries is actually a bad idea, as they'd never accept your religion, or accept revocation of privileges
• HRE CBs don't work too well unless your target is contiguous - and sea zones don't count
• latest hotfix nerfed it to the point wehre it's not too stupid
• nerfing influence ideas by removing AE reduction made playing in HRE less fun - AE doesn't make things harder, it just forces boring waiting; and there are no other good ways to reduce is (espionage ideas are seriously not worth it)
• overall it's OK change

Hussite:

• Hussite church powers are not as bad as I expected - those bonuess are fairly weak, but being able to switch them pretty much at will was useful a lot
• Bohemia has 3 paths - stay Catholic; go Hussite, then flip Protestant by event; or go Hussite and stay Hussite; Catholic path is definitely most powerful
• overall it's good extra flavor; a lot more interesting than Anglican for sure

Estates:

• new estates are stupidly OP, and have a lot less strategy involved than old estates; on the upside there's a lot less micro
• one really annoying issue with new estates is that you need to remember when its buttons (call diet and seize land) become available - old estates had notifications
• going full mana nad mercantilism privileges; then hard revoke 1610 almost everything for Count and Country; then give some back after winning Count and Country is a reasonable strategy; I'm not sure if it's optimal
• overall it's fine

Mercenaries:

• terrible change
• every AI blob now has infinite manpower
• especially Ming is indestructible after they just fixed it like one patch ago
• using mercs is really unfun, as they're impossible to split, and can only move as a group, so it adds up tons of extra pointless micro
• overall terrible change

UI:

• I had a lot of trouble with new trade company UI (which trade regions / states can build what), and notification goes to bad UI; but it turns out they made perfectly decent UI hidden in outliner - I only discovered it after finishing the campaign oops
• new HRE UI is not great - especially trying to figure out who'd vote for your reforms and why not
• building outliner is still terrible - building barracks / churches / workshops etc. makes sense as it shows you what you get (manpower / money etc.); but building courthouses for government capacity discount has no help whatsoever; and manufactory number has always been ridiculously wrong
• overall it's fine

Other changes:

• Bohemian mission tree is one of better ones in game. But if you play you need to decide what's your strategy before you even start, especially wrt religion and HRE.
• provoke revolt is the best button EU4 added in very long time
• playing without Religious and without Humanist worked OK, as EU4 rebels are ridiculously weak, and got even weaker now, but honestly I should have just picked Religious for the CB and its 25% AE discount
• administrative ideas are now basically mandatory; not only they save ton of paper mana, and ton of OE by reducing coring time; they're also the only source of that much extra government capacity. Even if you play tall, you should have administrative ideas
• I was spamming courthouses everywhere, took every government capacity bonus, and wasn't even growing that fast, and I was really close to the cap for last few decades. Admin efficiency doesn't affect the cap, maybe it should. Overall it's a very uninteresting system.
• Expansion ideas double what you get from non-state non-trade company territories, so if you play wide enough, you'll probably need them. Otherwise territories are garbage.

So 1.30 Emperor gets 3/5 stars from me.

Bohemian Empire: Part 15: 1616-1628: Hereditary Holy Roman Emperor

I had no idea what to pick for my 5th idea group. Eventually I decided that the build is: Diplomatic, Administrative, Influence, Trade, Expansion.

I started some colony in South America, but it will be completely insignificant this campaign.

I fought Tunis for Italian islands.

On death of my emperor I inherited my PU minors Brandenburg and Saxony. This is actually quite annoying, as that costs me my Electoral College votes, and now I need to make some alies, or demand a recount or something.

I started Court and Country in February 1623, pretty much by accident. I did the absolutely right thing and passed another HRE reform and declared war to get Sweden inside the Empire the same day.

This war was awkward as Britain joined on Swedish side, and sunk a third of my fleet as I was sailing from Mediterranean to Baltic. I tried building a small heavy fleet to secure the route, but Britain showed me that it's completely inadequate.

Somewhat surprisingly their side lost more ships than our side, but that really didn't matter, I couldn't blockade London, so I had to wait 5 years until full occupation of Sweden got me to 100% warscore.

After that I managed to make HRE hereditary. Just 7 years left to revoking the privilegia. 

Holy Roman Empire, not counting my other lands in Syria and Commonwealth, and without Danish non-HRE lands. It's huge.

Bohemian Empire: Part 14: 1599-1616: First Coalition

I took a break from HRE fights and attacked the Mamluks, taking Jerusalem and some forts for myself, and releasing Syria as vassal to manage AE.

I allied Shia Persia as well, for AE management.

My maximum absolutism was just 21%, due to all the privileges I granted, so start of age of absolutism meant mass privilege revocation. Turns out revoking privileges is super easy, barely an inconvenience, and by the time Age of Absolutism started, my max absolutism was up to a much nicer 69%.

I passed 5th reform, and unfortunately then I noticed that my Expand Empire CB on Sweden expired, as I lost Age of Reformation bonus for 20% warscore discount. And it would be so nice to get Sweden into HRE.

I was happily fighting Mamluks in a second war, when Pope tried to start a coalition against me. Well, it's amazing it took that long. I attacked the Pope day one

Of course I couldn't let them actually form a coalition, so I declared war on them day one. This did not discourage a bunch of other countries from coalitioning me anyway.

I got a few new minors into HRE, and then I noticed that Bourbonnais I just made join is being attacked by France. Well, that's the first time I use Enforce Peace ever I think. France refused, all HRE minors got +50 opinion modifier with me.

We 100%ed France, and Bourbonnais took 5 provinces and even handed over one to Spain for some reason. I allied Spain after this, since I might have to expand into Tunis or France soon, and they have no other allies, and lost most of their colonies, so they're exactly the kind of weakened state that could use some protection.

Coalition is just Genoa, Anizah, and Hormuz. I don't know why they thought that would be enough. Genoa and Hormuz even have slightly positive relations.

There was also a minor issue - I declared Expand Empire war on Orleans, and winning it made some of their lands join HRE, but not their capital, so they're still a non-HRE power, and now there's an imperial province controlled by foreigners (that is Orleans) costing me some IA.

I still hope to stack up absolutism so high I can get force Sweden (really close) and France (very far, but it keeps getting smaller, so maybe) into the HRE. That would cost some stupid amount of AE, and drag me into war with my ally Muscovy.

Then again, if I broke up Muscovy into pieces, and made them join the HRE too...

I'm not sure how far this campaign will go, I'll probably declare it won at Revoke The Privilegia, and I'm already 5 reforms in, with 4 to go (ignoring some optional ones).  

There were a few awkward simultaneous wars, Great Britain got dragged into this due to their Defender of the Faith, but AI doesn't know how to transport troops, so I usually just ignore them.

I could have pushed the Mamluks harder to get Mecca for +1 missionary, but I wasn't sure if I'd be fighting coalition with Denmark and who knows else just right away, so I only took Syrian cores and some cash.

Bohemian Empire: Part 13: 1590-1599: Denmark in Empire

So I have Expand Empire CB, which I can use to make countries join - and that gives me some free IA.

I got Moldova, Ferrara, Savoy, and Naxos. And while at it I made some of their allies release a bunch of OPMs like Corsica, Lucca, Parma, Donauworth, Bamberg.

I wanted to have a glorious fight against Spain for Naples cores on Sicily, but it turns out they expired, as Paradox split Neapolitan and Sicilian cultures. Those silly microcultures are seriously annoying.

Well, what else can I do? Turns out I can force Denmark to join the HRE. I didn't expect that. France which I recently allied was on their side, but everybody in Europe really hated Denmark, so I had a huge alliance on my side - all the while France was busy fighting Spain.

I made France and Pope release some minors, and got Denmark to join the Empire. A small problem is that they're heretics, but I'll get to it eventually. Not sure how, as Denmark -200 hates me, and even if they loved me they're enormous, but opportunities show up every now and then, and heretic penalty is per country, so they only cost me as much as Ulm would.

Than unfortunately only added mainland of Denmark, not Norway or Livonia, so if I force them to release Norway or Livonia, they'll leave the Empire. Quite annoying.

That costs 25% AE cost, the same as returning cores, so it wasn't quite free, but I managed to convince everyone to please not coalition me just yet.

After that war, I passed the 4th reform. It's going to be about 15 years between reforms by just ticking IA, so counting all other sources I'll be able to revoke about 1650-1670.

Once our 15 year truces expire, I plan to add about 5 more countries I recently released to the HRE, if they're still around. It would be great if I somehow managed to fragment France so much that what's left can be added, but I'm not sure if I can make it.

Playing as Austria, and having all those CBs by 1470s would be really powerful - this late they're just less amazing.

Oh and there's supposedly some way to make countries join peacefully, but I have no idea how that even works.

Danish War. Spain's separate war with France distracted their troops, so it wasn't too bad.

My navies were getting wrecked by pretty much everyone, and wargoal was on an island, so that was a bit awkward, but it somehow ended up working out fine.

Bohemian Empire: Part 12: 1575-1590: End of the Turk Menace

Third Swedish War of Independence erupted - it was Sweden, me, Muscovy, and Great Britain vs Denmark, France, and Pope.

Brits sunk Danish ships, so we had supremacy in the North, but French and Papal navies turned out to be stronger than mine in the Mediterranean.

Sweden decided to troll me, and gave my vassal Naples most of its cores from Pope, without any discount as this is wrong CB. This is of course total bullshit, core return should always be at AE discount, but EU4 CB system is just not smart enough to support that. And that's after I annexed what was left of Mantua. Together, that meant France and Spain both in coalition territory - fortunately France was already involved in Swedish Independence War, so we'd have a long truce.

I integrated Hungary, mostly to get proper control over Ragusa trade node, and that was another opinion hit with all HRE members.

Then I destroyed what was left of the Ottomans, and that was the last straw for the Mamluks, who broke our long alliance. I allied France instead, so if Spain coalitions me, they can get some French land maybe.

I passed 3rd reform, this time without any extra delays. That gave me Expand Empire CB which I can use to force minors into the HRE. Sounds like fun, except people say it's bugged.

Bohemian Empire: Part 11: 1563-1575: Finally Reforming HRE

So I read the files, and that Imperial Incident that makes junior PU partners join HRE, it doesn't happen for the emperor. It's baffling why, but that means Commonwealth won't autojoin, and so I'll need to pay mana to integrate them someday.

Anyway, I just noticed that Naples got severely beaten my the Pope, and have very little land left. Then I cleaned up Venice, and got some land from Aq Qoyunlu. Georgia emerged, so I diplovassalized them, and threaned war for one of their cores.

Naples separatists even occupied half of Papal States, and had army five times bigger than the Pope, but EU4 rebels mechanics are so pointless that never amounted to anything.

All that got me over diplo relations limit, so I integrated Stettin, and that made the whole HRE really angry at me. Fortunately there's nobody strong to back all those minors, so no coalition happened so far.

I attacked Ragusa, Ottomans respected their 1444's silly guarantee, so I broke their alliances with Muscovy and Tunis. Mamluks took full advantage of it and attacked them right away, taking half their land. Guarantees should expire after like 30 years, this is just silliness.

I was finally had IA to resume reforming HRE, but Muscovy dragged me into some pointless war with Nogai, so I wasted 24 IA before I was at peace and could press the button, basically half another reform. I hate AI allies.

I have no idea how I managed to keep alliances with Muscovy and Mamluks for so long.

Mamluk alliance hinges on me sending insults to Ming or Spain on a regular basis

Muscovy alliance on using diplomatic trickery to fight their allies without fighting Muscovy itself

Of all the great powers, Denmark/Sweden is really due for destruction. The Sweden want independence, and this time I can support it without it being too much hassle.