Oh wait I looked at the triggers and there's a MTTH of 120 days, so it might take a little while even with the requirements met.

I looked at the requirements too,and I think I've got the all met, so it's just a matter of the dice roll now.

Yep. And once you have those PUs Italy starts looking a bit more inviting

I've been thinking of starting a new run. I was going to try a daimyo as I mentioned, but I read a thread at the PDox boards about a 'tried a coup' event that kills your generals, wipes out your manpower and -1 stab to top it off. OK, that's fine. But evidently it happens too often, one guy claimed 20 times. Anyway, a dev said they would make it more rare so I might wait for the next checksum for Japan.

That leaves me uninspired There are 20 new achievements but many of them are of the timed variety. Not feeling it yet.

Man, you got the wedding and didn't even tell us about it. I'm feeling left out

I saw your thread on the official boards. Congrats, that sure changes things doesn't it?

Yeah, I was going to post tonight to be honest. The wedding takes the wind out of Aragon, and I'm feeling a little frisky towards some of those Italian provinces. First, as you already know, I've got to settle a little business with Morocco so I can form Spain diplomatically.

Yes, you must reclaim what is rightfully yours. I imagine you have a reconquest CB since Aragon has a core on Madeira correct? You should have no trouble unless Ottomans is on their side I suppose. Before you do so though, have a go at threaten war. You might be able to get it just by flexing your muscles and spewing nasty words

Here's my Spain run from a few weeks back. I was going for the Master of India achievement. It's a wide shot but you can see I integrated France after getting them in a PU. That's like really awesome

I had to fabricate a claim on Madeira, and after a relatively brief war, I took it. Aragon and Naples were practically useless in the war. Aragon had a high liberty desire, I think that may have been what kept them from generally kicking a little more ass than they did. I did form Spain diplomatically though. I was surprised that the force levels didn't add between the two countries - I wound up having to disband a bunch of land and naval forces to get down to the limit. Which reminds me of a question - do you go over the force limit in wartime? How do you handle it otherwise?

Here's my current game - I've managed to start colonizing and exploring a bit of South America.

Because of the DLC soup that can make two installs of EU IV very different, I can't say for sure which mechanics one player has that another does not. I have all of the expansions aside from Mandate of Heaven enabled. I've always been bad at knowing which DLC enables which features. Do you have states? When you formed Spain you should have gotten free cores on Aragon. But at first they will be territories which have a 75% penalty to FL. Because they are free cores, you can turn them in to states for free. So while forming Spain would not have raised your force limit by precisley Aragon's, turning all of Aragon's former provinces in to states will get you most of the way there. All separate nations get a base FL, so that even the smallest OPM can field 6 or 8 regiments. So by integrating them you lose that bonus and get the FL increase based on development only. So assuming you have states, which I guess everyone does regardless of DLC? go ahead and turn those territories in to states and your FL will go up.

If you've already done so kindly disregard.

As to the force limit question.... I never go over by design. It can happen under different circumstances for a brief time of course, but as long as I can afford it I build to force limit and no higher. I rarely use mercs, well close to never.

If a subject's liberty desire is higher than 50% they are disloyal and will not help their overlord in a war so could explain Aragon's uselessness.

Funny, after posting this I went into the game and found my force limits were much higher suddenly. I did just make a bunch of states, so that must have been it.

Let's talk money - how do I get more? Here's a shot of my finance page - is this a decent income for this point in the game or am I doing it wrong?

Oh man, economy is a broad subject and no way I can do it all justice in one post. However, looking at your screen a few things I will comment on. You're rocking three colonists and still turning a profit of 9 ducats a month. That seems good to me. Eventually you'll be making it hand over fist, but a profit of 9 is fine at this stage.

However, that is because you have your maintenance slider all the way off. At full maintenance you would be losing 3 ducats per month and that's no good. Are you over force limit?

A couple of things you could do straight off.... there is a penalty to have a merchant collecting in your home node. You automatically collect there. Reassign that merchant to steer somewhere, or even to collect in Genoa now that you have more power in that node. Trade is complicated and would take more than this post to go through.

You're paying 8 ducats a month for forts. Personally I only use a few forts, and only in specific locations (choke point/mountains). I don't know what level your forts are, so that could be 4-8 forts. If it were me I would destroy some, or if that seems too extreme you can mothball them, but it reduces your army tradition to have mothballed forts. The forts system zone of control sucks in my opinion and I play with very few forts for the most part.

You currently have 50+ Papal points so you could spend them on a 10% tax boost if you want.

Inflation is also eating in to your economy. You can hire an advisor or use those Papal points on that instead. Alternatively you can buy it down with admin points, but those are precious of course.

There are many more things we can discuss in regards to economy and trade.

Which idea groups have you taken so far?

I've taken Exploration Ideas, Quality Ideas, and Trade Ideas so far. I've completed Exploration and Quality and I'm about halfway through Trade.

I thought collecting from from a different node other than your home node had a penalty.

What's an acceptable inflation rate?

Funny thing about the forts - I didn't build them, I think they are in provinces I took over or were there when I started the game! But yeah, trashing or mothballing them are probably a good idea.

OK, trade helps the economy, but the other two groups have no benefit. Consider quantity or defensive to help reduce army maintenance. Do you have any mercs in your army? Disband them if so.

You can invest in development of your provinces. Build buildings in the best production and tax provinces.




You are correct, but what I mean is that a merchant collecting in the home node has less benefit than putting him in any other node. Do you hold any power in the Carribbean? This is a key node as Spain. Control the Caribbean and everything south of North America flows to you.



Every player is different but I always keep inflation as low as I can. That's essentially putting a 4% increase to the cost of everything. If I ever get to 2 I usually buy it down. But I will usually run an advisor or the Papal thing to avoid getting there. It's probably coming from the gold province you have.



Yes that's natural. In my Spain run I just did I only had two forts in Iberia. The Capital and Gibraltar to block any Moorish invasion. I had another in Sicily to give me a fall back position should my Italian garrison find itself overwhelmed. If France hadn't been my ally/PU junior I would have put one or two on that border as well.I do like to have them in far flung valuable colonial outposts to buy time to get a relief army there should it be invaded. But at least at home I think they are just a ducat-sink.

I didn't get to the Carribbean before Portugal, so I lost out there. I did grab Brazil and La Plata as well as Ivory Coast. I'm also working on the Chesapeake area. I picked up a province
from France that I had a claim on when I joined an ally in a war against them, and I got a few more provinces in North Africa from Morrocco and Tlemcen, and integrated Naples as well.







I also went ahead and started collecting with all my merchants instead of steering and it made a bit of a difference. My inflation has been at 0 for a while, but I had a few random events that bumped it
up just recently.



I've been using Papal Influence to buy stability, decrease inflation, or add Mercantilism. The plan is to keep on colonizing and growing where I can. I've got a CB against France, who is getting the snot beaten out of them. I may try to take a few of the provinces
I have CB with, but I'll have to make sure I bring as many allies along as possible.

Looks good JC. What happened to your alliance with France? You now hold Labourd is it? That was French at one point no?

Trade from the Chesapeake region cannot flow to Sevilla, so you'll need to collect there as well. It's a great way to deny it to England though. I see you have a bit of a SuperPope™

Good job getting the economy righted, that's a healthy profit.

How does it go when you have native uprisings in your colonies having the maintenance all the way off? I always keep full maintenance after the early bits have passed, once my economy can stand on it's own. Rebels and uprisings can crush the low-maintenance garrisons.

i was called to join a war with an ally (Austria or Papal State I think) and I didn't really pay too much attention when I joined it, and it turned out it was either against France or France was an ally. I joined to avoid the diplomatic hit with the plan of not involving myself in it, but France started occupying some of my provinces, so the gloves came off. I had a core on Labourd to I took it and also occupied a bunch of surrounding French provinces. When the war ended, I kept Labourd (not sure how or why).

The Papal State has been quite the powerhouse. They get into a good number of wars, Milan has been a frequent target

I am or will be collecting from Chesapeake as soon as I get another merchant. I get to the point where I've got a couple thousand ducats to spend and nothing to spend it on, so I've been spamming buildings to get more.

Yes, you probably got a permanent core on Labourd when you formed Spain. For whatever reason they changed it at some point so that Labourd is Spain region.



This is an interesting part of the game. When you answer the call in an ally's war, you always have the chance that they will grant you territory in the peace deal. Your war leader ally will look to see which provinces you have occupied that you either:

a) Have a core on
b) have a claim on
c) have set as strategic interest

If any of those are true you may be granted one or more in the peace deal. So as you play you sort of read the tea leaves and ensure you have claims on nations that your allies might declare on if you would also like some of that land. Get your troops on these provinces straight away. Not only do you have a chance to get it, but you have denied your ally the chance to take territory you have eyes on. This also reduces the chance that you will get a diplo-hit for having claims or cores on your ally's provinces.

If you have enough spy network points it is a good idea to slap down some claims quickly before you answer the call.

Strategic interest (assuming this is in your DLC-soup) can be tricky. Alliances can be broken over two nations having designs on the same territory.

I figured it was something like that. Knowing this, I'll have to pay more attention to these details in the future.

Yes, there is a lot of depth to the game once you drill on down. I've logged 3000 hours and still have plenty to learn.

I am using the term strategic interest, but it might actually be vital interest or something else entirely

I'm also coming to grips with the "strategic patience" you need for this game. It seems like you make a few selections, set up a few things (moving units, new advisers, build ships/land units etc) then you let the game run for a bit until something else comes along to do. It's taken a while for me to be ok with that - I've got this urge to have to be actively doing something far more often than seems necessary for this game.