By the way, if you attach your images, then grab the URL, you can then paste the URL in the Insert Image Link feature and get bigger non-thumbnail screens.

Thanks for the tip, tried it in my AC screens thread, worked great.

I finally finished my Ruthenia game, feels strange having two parallel Russian Empires that hate each other stretching through Asia.
Didn't mention it earlier but I took administrative for my second last idea group, didn't really get much use out of it since all I wanted was the second 'unlock' -25% coring cost, which is very nice.

Will add screens/answer questions later, I'm starting a new game in Italy since I have today off

Edit: That later being right now
Ruthenia, looks quite impressive. Then I remember those players who can do world conquests before 1700. :dizzy



Other highlights include - AI Egypt, Orthodox Anatolia, Bulgaria leading PU with Eretna, Animist Australia and Carib kicking arse.



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Nice work SDE, and that LO is just insane. Wow, they must be your ally? Just looking at your screens leads me to the next thing I want to say, and that is my non-ironman run didn't pan out at all like I had envisioned. The screens you put up in the last post show how I was hoping it would go. Like Bulgaria where Ottos should be, the huge LO, Denmark integrating Norway but losing Sweden, just more sandboxy than the usual LN results. I'm genuinely interested in knowing why our results are so different. I don't think this is simply a matter of a single sample, but something more. Maybe somehow due to DLC.

In my Prussia run it was essentially business as usual. Some whacky stuff went on in France, but otherwise the results weren't too unexpected. I ended up running wild with my space marines but called time in about 1770 as there was nothing left to do really. And besides that I tend to run out of inspiration once there are level 8 forts everywhere. I think EU IV has the effectiveness of forts backwards. Fortifications became less effective through time, not the other way around. Trying to siege your way through a nation carpeted in level 8 forts sucks.

As players we tend, I think, to remember or notice all of the bad things, or unfair things that happen and not the good things, which can sometimes be seen simply as payback for all the bad stuff. It's the foundation of confirmation bias and I think we all fall victim occasionally. But in that Prussia run I didn't fail to notice the incredibly long string of good rulers I had. The worst one here is a 3/3/2 and that's my starting King and heir. After that, all good. The Prussian monarchy is supposed to guarantee at least a MIL rating of 3. After this I think it should say, at least 6!



So with that run in the bag, what to do?

I decided to play as Bengal for the Bengal Tiger achievement. All it requires you to do is start as Bengal and core Samarkand, which is owned by the Timmies at the start. That's it, how you do it is up to you, and it's OK to form Hindustan along the way. Got off to a fantastic start, being quite bold and aggressive. We will see how it goes,

We've talked about if before, but the institutions mechanic has limited my play in the RotW. This time though I was proactive. When the Renaissance hit I started pumping MPs in to my capital and it wasn't long (40 total dev) before it was present and shortly after I embraced. This gave me a bit of a tech lead



Doing this I embraced the Renaissance before France if you can believe it.

Nice list of Kings! But what exactly is going on with Anne Tudor? Regency?
What do you think the best strategy for institutions is? I know some have special requirements to spawn but in general is high development the best way to go?

As I mentioned earlier I started an Italian game as Naples, we start out under a PU with Aragon, I figure this isn't a real problem as Aragon typically doesn't last long. As it is we get a pretender in 1447, he's currently besieging my capital.







New King is only a 2/1/1 but we are independent and gained 9k infantry from the rebel stack which is nice.

She was a queen consort regency, yes.




To get one to spawn there are very specific requirements yes. These can be seen by mousing over the year on the institutions screen. But aside from getting the spawn, yes I think development is the way to go, in general. But for example with Manufactories, you will get it going in each province that has one. So you can try to build as many as possible before 1650. Putting these in the high dev provinces is a great way to get it going, regardless of where it happens to spawn. The same is true for Universities for Enlightenment in 1700. High stability is also important since it speeds up the spread rate. Apologies if I told you what you already know.

And by the way, nice way to get out from under the union. I recently had a Naples run. In my case, as you may recall, the strength of the alliance I formed caused Aragon to abandon the union 'cause they were scared Same thing happened in the Holland run I did. Good luck, Naples was fun to play. Great starting location. Gotta decide what you're going to do about the Pope. Live in harmony or attack? My first King after breaking free was crap too.

So far I've made allies with France, Savoy and Bosnia. I attacked the Pope after he got into a war with Provence. I wanted to take his central Italian territories before anyone else did. Then I was 'forced' to release Rome. No problem but I got excommunicated... bring on Luther!

Have you ever decided against the correct course of action because of a name or map color? Here is my Bengal just short of the halfway point. I'm well on-course to get Samarkand, which isn't that far to the west. I have fulfilled all requirements for forming Hindustan. From an optimal play point of view, forming Hindustan is the right choice. I would gain a cultural union over all of India, and I love cultural unions. I would also get permanent claims over the entire region. And! I would get an early Empire rank. I mean what's not to like?

But the map color would change from this nice shade of blue to ugly green. And it would say Hindustan. Bah! So I'm still Bengal.

All that blue so close together. Looks like Mong Yang and Tibet are in need of liberation, there can only be one blue nation!

Took Defensive as my first idea group, reaffirmed alliance with France, saw Florence at war and decided to take all their provinces even though I couldn't core them (almost all Hungary was occupying one) so now I've got a small-ish coalition against me. On the plus side all these high develpment provinces are great for my income, I'm running over force limits with cash to spare for emergency mercs and constructions.
Northernmost Italy is a mess of alliances and decent sized states so I'm not in a rush to push too far.
Maybe take Quest for the new world and see if I can get some colonies? Distance might be a problem, perhaps North Africa is the place to go...

Oh yes and Italy is a great place for institutions.

Quite right. So I formed Hindustan, as can clearly be seen. And no ugly green. I read that permanent claims give a 25% discount to coring cost instead of 10%. I didn't know that. With the +50% Indian core cost in so many provinces that permanent claim discount is really helpful. I also took Administrative for the additional 25%.

I got Manufactories to spawn in Bengal Delta which was nice. Tech has been no problem at all. I've been on-tech the whole game and at times close to the leader in the world. I had to pump dev in to three provinces. The cost for doing this has been in ideas. When playing a western European nation I always have all NIs filled out well before 1600. In this Bengal run it wasn't until 1632 that I did so because so many MPs were sunk in to development for the institutions.

Lagging tech was the reason I shied away from playing outside of Europe, but no longer now that I see how easily it can be overcome.

As for your Naples run, will you form Italy? Italy can hold Rome without the huge penalties. And I really like the Italian ideas if you choose to swap them. You should form Italy and destroy (or become) the HRE.

Nice Hindustan, I see you're really rolling in the dough. For some reason I never seem to have more than a few ducats. Maybe it's my obsessive spending on buildings?
With all those high dev provinces in Northern India, I take it you're much more powerful than your neighbours? Who are your allies? Unified India before 1700?

As for Naples, I'm not sure I want to form Italy, it's great and all but I've done it before twice. Maybe I'll go for the Two Sicilies, see what they're like. Also don' t need Northern HRE provinces to form them.
That said destroying the HRE is always nice.

By the way, do you know if Dynasty names are somehow hardcoded? I know there are lists based on culture but this must be the third time playing in Italy that I've ended up with the Gori family.

That's my Hindustan in 1699. Nothing can stop us, as I'm annexing Hindu provinces and all the major players are not Hindu, so I can amass tons of AE and no one cares except the nations I am eating. My allies are Ottomans, Lan Xang and Pegu. Sind, the brown nation between us and Persia, are my newly acquired vassal. But really I haven't used any of them, haven't needed to. And yes I am much more powerful than anyone except Ottomans, and I've almost caught them. I'm second-ranked Great Power (about 1300 dev). You're exactly right about the provinces. I have alot of rich farmland, a number of CoTs and lots of silk. I've been swimming in ducats right from the start. In the economy screenshot below you can see that production is my leading revenue source. Quite a change from that Brandenburg run I just did where money was tight for a long time until I took over the Lubeck node.

Not long before this I was clearing 100+ ducats a month, but embargoes, corruption and merchant slandering have cut it considerably.



Sorry, don't know anything about how the dynasty names are handled, but my guess is the list isn't very long, hence your thrice-repeated dynasty.



What do you mean by this?

Form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. See what sort of ideas they have.

Another shot updating my progress. Fed Sind and am now annexing, you can see about 85% done. Got Samarkand and cored it for the achievement. Not much to it really. Just keep expanding until your wave sweeps over the target Interesting region to play. I kinda wish I had let rebels flip me to Hindu, but maybe another time.

Do you have a mod for this? This isn't a formable nation in EU IV right?

SOrry, yes it's part of a mod that adds in several formable nations and unions.

Good job with India, could you post a screen of your idea groups please? Maybe next game I'll go back to the East.

Thanks, and sure, here ya go....




I would feel better showing you my idea groups for any other run really. These are unimaginative and mil-heavy. The thing is that this was one of the easiest runs I've had in a while. Diplomacy was not an issue like it is playing around Europe and the HRE for example. And India is so rich there was no need to take anything to boost the economy. So I just went full-bull militaristic. I took Defensive first of course. As you know that's a given for me except in very specific circumstances like rushing exploration or playing as Austria. I then took Influence as vassals were a cornerstone of my plans and it paid for itself in the run.

I should have taken Humanist instead of Admin really, but my army was strong and I could easily put down any rebellion, so even though Humanist would have been nice, it wasn't needed really and I took Administrative as the only admin group. And even then you can see I didn't fill it out. Administrative is quite popular with the player base as you know from the PDox boards I'm sure. But I think it's sort of mediocre, especially for the way I play. I rarely use mercs. I never take loans, though now and then I'm forced into it. Depends on the nation and the start. So the only useful ideas for me are the -25% core cost and the -10% tech cost. So I almost never take it. The only reason I did here was I really didn't need any of the admin groups and much of India has a +50% core cost modifier. So I took this group to mitigate that.

Religious would have normally seemed a no-brainer, but the first NI for Bengal is +50% religious unity which made religion a non-issue. I could convert at leisure with a single missionary. Deus Vult would have been very helpful early, but once I formed Hindustan and got permanent claims over the entire region it wasn't missed.

Maritime was semi-useful, although I didn't face any navies as strong as mine. But all of the military groups were key.

Of course when I'm not around...



....Europe is interesting! That Iberia is not common for me. Cologne blobbed. Naples almost formed Italy, and now Milan is shoving them back and could do the same. Austria is like perfect. If I were playing as a non-expansionist HRE-police Austria I would want exactly what they have carved out. They have a long front through the HRE and that lets you fabricate and enforce religion on just about everyone. And they created a nice buffer against France, which did quite better than usual. Ottomans got beat down by a huge Russia. Almost 500k FL Russia has. Poland and Lithuania were game long enemies. The Kalmar Union was broken very early. I should stay away more often

You can see in the first screen I have integrated Sind. Calling time. At this point I am more than 1000 development clear of second place.

Thanks, as you say quite militaristic, I think I mentioned in our other idea group discussion that I don't really use Quality ideas. Like you I often take defensive as one of my first and try to fill it out quickly, lots of useful bonuses there. In a way you don't really need anything other than mil ideas, since your armies can be used to improve the economy through removal of competition.

As you mentioned, humanist is good for keeping down rebellions, if you're in Europe so is the Reformed faith, the 'Stability' fervour gives -2 unrest and +1 dip reputation, you can run it alongside the 'War' fervour (for a few months at least) which gives +10% morale to armies and navies, both very useful. In my Naples - Two Sicilies game I converted as soon as I could. Mostly because the pope hates me and converting removes the 'Conquest of Rome' malus.

Turns out when you form Two Sicilies you keep Neapolitan ideas, no problem though, as they're pretty decent.



A rather ordinary Europe for once.

Future moves? Colonies and HRE smashing!

So I was alt-tabbed out doing some reading and when I came back I was greeted with this!



I think my plans just got a whole lot more ambitious.

Hmm, alt-tab you say.... gotta give that a go. I want a PU over France too.

Only good can come of this. I wonder...