Having just completed the Take That von Habsburgs! and Better Than Napoleon achievements in Europa Universalis IV, it's time for a new challenge. Paradox adds new achievements regularly, and Consulate of the Sea was added in version 1.18. The requirements for Consulate of the Sea are:

As Aragon, conquer all Mediterranean Centers of Trade. Own all of the following provinces:

Genoa
Venezia
Ragusa
Constantinople
Valencia
Hudavendigar
Tlemcen
Tunis
Alexandria

If you are familiar with EU IV, or the geo-political situation in the mid-15th century, you can see it's a tall order. Things can and will change, but at the start this would require taking territory from a who's who of Mediterranean powers, Ottomans, Genoa, Venice, Mamluks and Tunis. We won't consider Ragusa a power, but it's likely that they will have been annexed by someone stronger before we can get there. Valencia is ours from the off, as it is our capital.

Aragon is an interesting nation to play. Situated in eastern Iberia, Aragon is a nation focused on trade and sea power, and their National Ideas reflect that. Sea power will be vital to success. Aragon is Catholic and in a Feudal Monarchy at the start.

National Ideas (NI's)

Traditions (NI's that are intrinsic unique nation bonuses at game start) :

-- +20% Galley combat ability
-- +10% Trade efficiency
-- -10% Culture conversion cost (Ambition, unlocked when completing all NIs)

The galley boost is excellent. Galleys get a strong combat bonus in Inland Seas, which the entire Med is considered. Culture conversion discount may be the worst Ambition I've seen. Terrible.

National Ideas (A new one is unlocked for every three ideas taken from Idea Groups)

-- Mercenary Princes -25% Mercenary maintenance (Mercs aren't my style so this one is not very useful)
-- Protection of the Coastlines +10% National sailors modifier +25% Naval force limit modifier (superb)
-- Mediterranean Trade +20% Trade steering (useful, but not strong)
-- Consolidation of the Estates -10% Stability cost modifier (terrible NI)
-- Chartered Merchant Companies +20% Global trade power (superb, and will dovetail nicely with emerging trade empire)
-- Reforming the Administration -0.05 Monthly autonomy change (Very good. Autonomy affects money, manpower, trade. Lowering, faster, is good)
-- Protect the Little Folk +10% Morale of armies (Good. Our only land military bonus. We will need to fill in the weaknesses with Idea Groups. Sea power is important, but we will need boots on the ground)

All in all, a fairly average set of NIs, but synergize well with our goals for the most part.


The glorious nation of Aragon, and our great starting King. Good stats, good bonuses. Long may he live. His 6 Mil rating could give us a great jump start if he should live in to his 60s. Sadly, advisor and build discounts aren't very helpful early, since you can't afford these things. You can see our nation, the island holdings (Baleares, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta) and our subject Naples.




Aragon Advantages

Aragon is in a good geographical position. Fairly well protected, with the Pyrenees as a chokepoint and buffer to France to the north, and the sea to the east. To the west on the Iberian peninsula lie Castile, Portugal and Granada. Much depends on our relations with these nations. Early war is not desirable, so we can hopefully befriend or ally them. None of the required Trade Centers are here. Having Castile and Portugal as allies would help massively with any wars that come to Aragonian lands, as well as offensive wars we might prosecute.

Naples. Aragon begins the game as the senior partner in a Personal Union with Naples. While not too strong, Naples gives Aragon a free army and navy as well as a base of operations in the central Med. After 50 years we will also have the chance to integrate Naples into our nation, which will strengthen the nation and expand our borders. Doing this would open up most of the Adriatic for fabricating claims. A firm hand may be required to keep Naples loyal.

Navy. Aragon starts with a fair sized navy. And the NIs are tilted this way. A strong navy will be very important to achieve our goals. Venice and especially Ottomans have high naval strength, which we need to at least counter, and hopefully dominate. We will surely take Maritime or Naval Idea Groups, possibly both. As Naval falls under the military category, we probably can't take it since our land forces need so much help, those points will be better spent on Defensive, Offensive, Quantity or Quality.

Iberian Wedding. As of version 1.16, Aragon gained the ability to have the Iberian Wedding fire in reverse, achieving a PU over Castile. If this occurs early in the 16th century, it would be one of the very best things that could happen to Aragon. Win button.

Aragon Disadvantages

Military. Aragon's military gets no intrinsic bonuses aside from +10% land morale early in the 17th century. Considering most of our targets get land bonuses, and quite good ones at that, it puts us at a marked disadvantage on the battlefield. The gap will have to be filled with Idea Groups, alliances, opportunism and chicanery.

Regional powers. If either France or Castile begin the game as rivals to Aragon, it could get ugly fast. I won't be able to beat either of them on the field. To the contrary, I hope to ally each of them. In which case this becomes an advantage. But we will see what the RNG says about that.

North Africa. This is a pit of despair, and nothing good ever comes of it. But the achievement requires taking land here. To the truisms "Never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line"! we can add "Don't send your armies to North Africa". But we must, and so we shall. Reluctantly.

Ottomans. Luckily they are the farthest of the required targets, but I imagine we will be in conflict by mid-game at least. They are likely to ally Tunis, in which case it will be much earlier. Distant skirmishes with Ottomans could be advantageous should we win the wars they join as allies, perhaps checking their growing power.

Strategy

As with any game of EU IV, things will be taken in stride, and we must adapt to unforseen or unexpected changes. But as a rough sketch I envision opening by allying France, Castile, Portugal and/or SuperBattlePope. We will move to take Navarra and beat Castile to Grenada if possible. Take Corsica to open Genoa to claims. Then in to North Africa to begin moving east eventually to Egypt and Turkey. Assuming France is an ally, we can use Corsica to leap past France in to Genoa or Savoy.

By now hopefully we have integrated Naples and can look to leap across the Adriatic in the Balkans for Ragusa and a land route down to Constantinople. Doing so could see our armies closing in on Constantinople from north and south in a massive pincer.

I also have aims to eventually vassalize Portugal. Having the world's foremost colonial power as a vassal is immensely strong. But I tend to respect the sovereignty of nations that are game-long allies. Up to you then Portugal

I'll post updates and screenshots as the game unfolds, so hope you follow along. I'll add a starting position screen to this post later. Aragon Up!

Started the game with a bit of trepidation. The opening dispositions between nations have a random factor to them. Relations tend to be weighted toward this or that, but you can never know who will like you, love you, not care about you or hate you when you start a new game. It was possible that France, Castile and Portugal could all hate me, or rival me. That would be almost impossible to emerge from. On the other hand they could all love me, which while relatively safe, can complicate your ability to expand.

As it turned out France and Portugal were friendly, Castile had rivaled me. So I hitched my wagon to France. They are legendary in EU IV for their military, and always make a fine ally, especially if you border them. They have lost some luster from the early days of EU IV, but still are one of the strongest nations in the game. But they need a good start. Sometimes they got dogpiled early by a combination of England, Burgundy and Austria, and struggle to grow. Other times they move quickly to recover their lands and become a force. But for my Aragon, they clearly make the best choice for ally. Portugal allied both Castile and Aragon. This arrangement essentially tips the scale of balance in Iberia in favor of the defender. If Castile or Aragon fired the first shot, each would find themselves against Portugal as well. So a sort of stalemate existed early. I wanted Castile to go start the mission they had taken, the Reconquista, to retake the Moor lands in Granada. While Castile was involved in that, we would attack.

In the interim, we built some troops and ships to fill out the force limit, and as the economy was fairly robust for this early in the game we took a military (MIL) and administrative (ADM) advisor to boost our monarch point generation and provide modest bonuses, in this case +10% army morale and +10% tax income. For those new to EU IV, monarch points are the 'currency' a player uses to improve tech, reduce war exhaustion, core conquered provinces, increase stability and much more. Each ruler and heir have ratings in three categories -- administrative, diplomatic and military. Each month more monarch points accrue based on a variety of factors and modifiers. A great King can cause your nation to surge ahead, and a poor one can likewise cause it to fall behind. Oftentimes rulers will be strong in one aspect and poor in others, which can help shape the course you chart for your nation.

My great starting King lived for 9 years, enough to make Aragon the first to military tech 4, which grants a significant morale boost. If you can fight a level 3 army with your level 4 army you will have a big advantage.I had been using a diplomat to build a spy network in Castile and fabricated claims in all four provinces that we shared borders. In EU IV, to declare war a nation needs a valid reason. Called casus belli (CB), it is essentially the justification a nation has to attack another. You can at anytime declare war without one, but there are severe penalties to stability and relations. Later in the game more and more differnet CBs become available, but early on Conquest is the main one. And to use it you need to fabricate a claim on a border province.

But the problem was, France wouldn't join the war against Castile. Too risky to take on Castile and Portugal with only Naples at my side, I was forced to wait. Then, a miracle




And just like that Castile fell under my rule in a Personal Union. Nothing better could have happened. We shot to 3rd in the Great Powers list, and we weren't on it to begin with. An excellent development, I must say. So we needed a rethink, because we no longer needed to go to war with Castile. Looking at the map it has to be Tunis. They are sweeping through North Africa, and it's best to check them. So a spy network was started and claims fabricated near Tunis and Bizerte.

Soon another fantastic event. A new heir.




Should he rise to rule and live a long life, this man could do great things. Of course he could also die in a hunting accident. May the gods shine upon him. At this point we had rivaled England, Austria and Ottomans. Tunis wasn't in my list, otherwise I would have chosen them.

Around this time, Burgundy had gone to war with Provence, and ended up getting smoked. When they finally peaced out, I said aloud that France should pounce while Burgundy's armies were in tatters. It is 100% the correct move here, and surprisingly France actually did it.



I expected to be called in and would have answered, but I guess that Burgundy was so shattered that France knew it needed no help. Soon France had Burgundy seiged down. One of the most important events that can fire in EU IV is the Burgundian Inheritance. It can fire whenever Burgundy is losing a war before the year 1500. When it does, France and the HRE Emperor essentially split the Burgundy lands. Austria get the lowland provinces and France the Burgundian heartland. I just finished a game as France before starting this one. In it, I kept Burgundy at war for more than 30 years (not consecutively) hoping to get this event to fire. It did not, so we eventually vassalized them.

However, AI France has a bit better luck than I do





This event obviously makes both Austria and France stronger. And immediately after, Austria rivaled me (and I returned the favor). But it also serves to bring France and Austria in to direct conflict. Europe just got a whole lot more interesting (and my most important ally just became stronger).


A flavor event. Events like this that expire on monarch death are usually recurrable (did I make that word up?). I hope so, as this one is quite tasty, and the namesake of the achievement.




things just kept getting better for France and they became Papal controller, in charge of the Curia, which gives nice bonuses. And they immediately called a Crusade on Ottomans. But it's doubtful any Catholic nation will answer. Too bad, as it's the best thing the Catholic nations could do at this point. Ottomans have been running wild, they have fought at least seven wars that ended with full annexation. they need to be checked. It's only 1469 for crying out loud!

Another good flavor event. Fifty freakin' years? Yes please. take my money.



And the hits just keep on comin' This one lasts until 1821. Thanks very much. Take my money again! Fortune has certainly shone upon us so far. This happened a little later, 1474, and you can see we are in a winning war with Tunis, Morocco and Granada.





So all of this happened while we did virtually nothing aside from put down a couple rebellions. We've been active diplomatically, both overtly and covertly. But we have yet to fire a shot. Now that's the way to do it (disregard the above screenshot, as it's a bit out of sequence with my report, but obviously we are at war and the shooting did begin).


The state of affairs in Europe about 25 years in. Aragon has gained the most due to the union with Castile. France has expanded quite a bit, and now should look to kick England off the continent. We are gearing up for an invasion near Tunis. I don't want to do it. North Africa is a morass. Artificially high coring costs. Wrong religion. Wrong culture. Endless tracts of sand with little value of any kind and rebels in every hut. Any prudent King would stay far away. But not me.

The union with Castile has completely shifted the balance of affairs in Iberia. Portugal has acted correctly thus far, but if they fail to do so I will look to vassalize and let them colonize for me. Aside from getting a foothold somewhere and get expansion going, the best thing I can do for our long term outlook is try to knock England down a peg. The way things are shaping up, aside from France should they take Exploration early, only England can be a serious competitor in colonialism. I intend to honor the French call when it comes. Soon, I hope.

As related, we had a peaceful opening, growing in power without waging war thanks to the union with Castile. But we would need to start expanding if we wanted to reach our goals. Several options existed for the first war. Ultimately though I settled on North Africa, despite my misgivings. Castile held cores on Granada, which was allied to both Tunis and Morocco. If we won the war we would have the ability to take land from any of them, though the Granadian lands would be the least expensive as they were the war goal and we held cores. I completely failed to snap screens of this war or the peace negotiations. However, in the screen in the previous post for the 'Book of the Consulate of the Sea', the shot shows the war in progress. In the end our armies were victorious and we returned two Granada provinces to Castile and took Tunis for ourselves. It wasn't the best peace I could have gotten. Since Tunis was not co-belligerent, the province of Tunis cost extra. That left Granada with Gibraltar, but we now held, however tenuously, the second target Trade Center. I separately peaced out Morocco and forced them to released Sus as a sovereign nation.

In EU IV, there exists the mechanic of Idea Groups. These give various bonuses to your nation and shapes the course. You are limited in the number that can be taken, so choices have to be made. The opportunity cost must be weighed. For example if you take Naval, you may not be able to take Offensive later. For the first two Idea Groups we took Defensive and Humanist. Defensive, as the name implies, strengthens the defensive capability of your nation, through attrition bonuses, lower army costs, higher army tradition, increased reinforcement speed, increased fort defense and lower maintenance costs.

Humanist is focused on maintaining order, It reduces unrest, boosts religious unity, increases accepted culture limits and keeps your people more content. Since we will be hopefully taking territory from a wide range of nations, all with differing cultures and religions, I took Humanist to help quell the inevitable unrest and make integrating these lands smoother.





I've been thinking about Aragon and it's National Ideas. and the more I do, the less I like them. It's not that they are terrible necessarily, but more so that other nations exist with far better ones. So I began to think about how that might benefit us. Could we eventually form a new nation? Well yes, yes we can. Two of the most obvious ones would be Spain, after integrating Castile, and Italy. Both nations have NIs I consider superior to our current ones as Aragon. Forming Spain would be easy. Integrate Castile, press button. Spain. But forming Italy would be considerably more difficult. Not only am I the wrong culture, I also hold none of the required territory to form Italy. So with Spain being the obvious choice, I chose Italy. Why not, right? Compare these Italian NIs to the Aragon NIs in the first post.

Traditions:

+20% Global trade power (Superb. Aragon gets the same)
+50% Better relations over time (Excellent)

Ambition: +20% Fort Defense (Better than Culture cost discount anyway!)

-- Not a Geographical Construct -10% Stability cost modifier (Still terrible, Aragon also gets this)
-- The Tradition of the Legion +15% Infantry combat ability (Superb. Now we're talking)
-- Mare Nostrum -15% Galley cost +20% Galley combat ability (Superb. Aragon gets the same combat bonus, but we add the cost discount)
-- The Office of Censor +33% National manpower modifier (Yes please. Excellent NI)
-- Italian Tax Reform +15% National tax modifier (Mo money mo money mo money. Italy's looking pretty good eh?)
-- Heir to the Empire +1 Yearly prestige (Another vaulable NI, excellent)
-- The Path to Citizenship -25% Core-creation cost (Fantastic. Icing on the cake. One of the best NIs in the game.)

But a major roadblock exists. Virtually all of Italy north of Rome is HRE, meaning to attack these nations for the required territory would call in the Emperor and all of his cronies. That's never good. And then even if the war is won, all HRE members hate you for holding what they consider Unlawful Territory. So what we need is a way to have these northern Italian nations leave the HRE. Ah yes, here it is...





Now that's nice. The Italian HRE minors leave the Empire enmasse. So with that we begin plotting an invasion. With Genoa being one of the target Trade Centers, we begin fabricating. Once all possible provinces have claims, we attack using a Conquest CB on Corsica, calling in France, who answer. Austria, the Emperor is in, but since Genoa left the HRE, Austria isn't called in as co-belligerent, meaning Austria can't also call in it's allies.




Genoa's navy is keen for a fight, but not up to the challenge.




Their army also offers battle, but the 15% morale bonus we get from the Defensive Idea group is enough to give us the edge.This brings us to one of my problems with the current version of EU IV. In this screenshot it shows that my army are getting both a negative terrain modifier (ok fair enough) and a negative river crossing penalty. Why?? Why is my seiging army, attacked by another, getting a river crossing penalty? It makes no sense to me. I hope this goes away from the game soon.




Just as it looks like we have them crushed and ready to sit down at the peace table, those treacherous English pig-dogs use a new feature of the game, the ability of a Great Power nation to intervene in a war they would otherwise have no business being in. Perfect, just perfect.




This intervention prolongs the war, as their involvement greatly increases required warscore. But prevail we did. And in the meantime, our great heir rises to rule. Long live the King!




Finally we peace out Genoa, taking Corsica, Genoa and some ducats. We have to be mindful of the Aggressive Expansion (AE) modifier to avoid becoming the target of a coalition.



The naval losses surprised me, but I reckon that when England joined, they caught the French navy at sea.

{Note: This is the second of two posts put up at the same time. If you clicked 'latest post' from the forum index and land here, you missed one post}

There have been sweeping changes recently in EU IV to the way technology spreads. The Westernization mechanic was removed, and replaced with Institutions. At preset intervals, a new Institution appears. These include things like Feudalism, the Renaissance, Colonialism, Printing Press and so on. The new Institution spawns in a province, and over time spreads from there to neighboring provinces. Spread speed is affected by the development in each province. The more developed it is, the faster it will embrace the new Institution. Once 10% of your development has embraced the new Institution, you can embrace it as a nation. There is a cost in ducats. The higher the percentage of development yet to embrace, the higher the cost you pay. But there is a penalty. For every year that goes by that you have not embraced the current Institution, your country suffers +1% tech cost. So if you haven't embraced in 20 years, you'll pay 20% more to upgrade tech than a nation who has embraced it. Nations located near the spawn location with high development will embrace quickly. Poor nations far away will not.

Here. Colonialism spawns in northern Portugal.




A quick glance at the army ledger sorted by force limits. This is one of my most visited screens, as I constantly monitor standing armies and manpower reserves, gauging who might be vulnerable, and who is full strength at the moment.




With Genoa cored and our army restored, we look for the next target. Having decided to go for forming Italy, I concentrate on gaining more territory in northern Italy. The nation of Florence had taken full advantage of my war on Genoa. Once we peaced out, Florence swooped right on in and took more of Genoa, which left me with claims on Florence. Problem is, Florence is allied to France, and if I attacked, I would both lose my alliance with them, and be at war with them. Not good. Not good at all.

But then France got in to a war defending Brittany from the treacherous English pig-dogs. Patience now. Just wait. When it became obvious France once again didn't need my help, I hoped they would win, but at high cost. If so, their war exhaustion and debt might cause them to refuse to answer. Patience.

Thankfully the English were stubborn, and that war dragged on to the point France would no longer answer Florence's call, and we pounced.




Having seiged down Florence with the help of my loyal subjects Naples and Castile, we peaced out, taking territory from Florence and releasing Milan as a sovereign nation. The plan was to ally, then vassalize Milan, eventually feeding them provinces from northern Italy. They readily agreed to alliance, but not to vassal status due to economic base. What? They have one lousy province that doesn't even make all that much. Best laid plans and all that. Perhaps as we grow more they will eventually agree. Or get crushed, one or the other.




Elsewhere in Europe...




Bohemia got the smack-down by a coalition led by Austria. Rewind a bit... Brandenburg had done well to beat a large Pomeranian alliance, and take most of Pomerania, but it was costly. Seeing Brandenburg with a much-reduced army, Bohemia pounced and trounced 'em, taking large chunks of Brandenburg and forcing Brandenburg to return Pomeranian lands, which triggered the coalition. In the end, with a few hundred thousand dead, the lines were more or less restored to where they began, though Bohemia was forced to release Silesia and Nitra, a big blow to them. Don't bite off more than you can chew as the proverb goes.

Here you can see the Colonialism Institution spread that we discussed earlier. It has been embraced in Portugal and Castile, and we are next, which can give us a marked advantage over nations further east, such as say in northern Italy




Ominous. No Christian nation is doing anything to stop Ottomans. Here you see they have already eaten Wallachia, all of Serbia and most of Bosnia. Something needs to be done.




Naples is finally integrated and becomes part of Aragon.




Earlier we talked about forming Italy. One of the requirements is to have your capital in a province with a culture that can form that new nation. So we needed to move ours. And so we moved our capital from Valencia to Naples, which is twice as developed. So a good move there, though it costs 200 precious ADM points.




Now it used to be that in order to do what is known as a culture shift in EU IV, you had to have your capital in a province that had the dominant culture in your nation. Integrating Naples made Neopolitan the dominant culture, 32% to 27% for Catalan. But when I looked I had no Decision available to do the culture shift. What the hell? A little research and it looks like either I forgot how this worked, or it was changed. Now it requires not only the dominant culture, but for that culture to be at least 50% of your development. Good grief. That sucks. I can get there by changing culture in provinces, but it's expensive and takes forever (remember the -10% Culture Cost discount I keep saying is terrible? Yeah, not so much now.) But I don't have that NI yet. Not only would getting to 50% take a long time, but it also means that any province I take from here on out would further reduce Neopolitan percentage. So any expansion puts me further from forming Italy. Oh the complications of being King. Heavy is the head that wears the big hat.

Great AAR! Playing the Iberian states is my favorite, although I usually choose Castille. Well done, looks like you are on the right track. Surprised France hasn't kicked the English off the Continent yet, but looks like the Ottomans are doing their job as the great Muslim blob from the East.

Thanks. France got around to it eventually, they're having a good run. Ottomans are insane and are closing in. I'm doing everything to avoid a showdown with them at this point. And i figured out a way around the culture shift issue I was having which I'll talk about in the next update.

By 1525 (81 years in), Aragon was on the rise. We had gained the union with Castile and integrated Naples. We had gained a foothold in northern Italy and now held three of the required nine Trade Centers -- Valencia, Tunis and Genoa. At this stage I had decided to try to form the nation of Italy. Two main hurdles existed. First, I was wrong culture. A Catalonian can't form Italy, for obvious reasons. And I held none of the required provinces.

The main culture problem was, that in order to form Italy, I needed to be Italian culture. To culture shift I needed to have at least 50% of my development be of the same Italian culture. You can manually click a button on any province and change it's culture. But you can't just go and make say Barcelona, Neopolitan. Not that simple, and would make little sense anyway. So how to do it? I could release the Iberian lands as vassals, but that is tough to take. Then I thought about the new state/territory and estates mechanics. Why couldn't I revoke state status in Iberia, reverting it to territories and therefore not counting as development in the culture percentage calculation? That would raise the Neopolitan percentage, I could then shift culture, and then return the territories to states. But Paradox doesn't make it easy, they think of every way to prevent players from gaming the game, or at least making it high cost when they do. First, you can't make a state in to a territory if it's controlled by an estate, which most of Iberia was. So to do this I needed to revoke the estates. That of course makes them angry, and I played whack-a-mole on revolts for a while, but they were small, 10k or so stacks. I could have avoided the revolts by reassigning those estates on the Italian peninsula one by one as I revoked them. But so what, the men could use a little practice anyway.

And with that, we culture-shifted to Neopolitan and the Decision to Form the Italian nation was unlocked. That would require cores on a bucketfull of rich northern Italian provinces, which we will get to in a moment. With Iberia now mostly territory I wanted to convert it back to states, as this was costing ducats, force limit and manpower. But there's Paradox again...you need to pay full coring price to do so. I bit the bullet and got it done. So the first hurdle to Italy, culture, was overcome. The second would be to conquer the rest.

The Italian Wars 1530-1620


Aragon had taken Genoa in 1515, gaining a foothold in the north. After integrating Naples, we also held the south of Italy, including Sicily and Malta. That was good, but none of the required provinces were there, and the Pope divided the peninsula and blocked access to the north. I could have easily allied the Pope, but Rome was one of the provinces we needed to take, as it becomes the Italian capital upon forming. Italy is one of the only nations that can hold Rome without massive Catholic penalties. Because of that, we would have to be sure and take Rome last, so we could flip the switch right after.

The first target was to be Florence. Florence is the one that had jumped in the vacuum left by my war with Genoa, acquiring some land on which I held claims. They quickly became a vassal after a spirited war. I called in no allies. This put me over the Diplomatic Relations limit, but since Milan refused to be vassalized, I planned to cancel my alliance with them. We would need some of their territory later anyway.




All the while I am keeping one eye on Ottomans. They have been aggressively fighting their way through the Balkans and in to Egypt as well. And they are not friendly. No, not at all. This shot shows the areas they have fabricating claims on (yellow striped). You'll note, no doubt, the claims they have on me.




The fall of an Empire? Austria take a beating and lose a lot to France, in Poland's war! Well played France.




In 1548 we advanced our administrative tech sufficiently to change our form of government. Administrative Monarchy will increase our income and reduce autonomy, though we do lose some manpower and unrest.



Our ally Portugal got themselves in to a colonial war with England and called Aragon in. We answered. England is our rival, and we would gain Power Projection (PP) by answering, and more if we won. I did absolutely nothing. I patrolled the western Med with my navy. Comprised mainly of galleys, it's no blue-water fleet, so we didn't venture beyond Gibraltar. England never came our way and eventually they peaced out of one of the lamest wars ever fought in EU IV.




We did gain 22 favors though for doing nothing. So there's that. The next target in Italy was Sienna. they are currently a one province minor, or OPM in EU IV-speak.



The next tech Institution, Printing press, spawns, but far from Aragon. So it will be a while before it reaches us. Luckily, all of our current and near-future enemies are about as far away so won't get a tech jump on me.




Ottomans give me more reason to keep an eye on them, and insult Aragon! The dirty rotten scoundrels!. We really aren't in any position to go to war with Ottomans, even with our alliances. They can field an army in excess of 200,000, while I can muster about 40,000, not counting allies, if you can count on them at all.






In 1553 Sienna falls to the victorious Aragonese armies.





And in 1566 Modena follows suit. Between each war we have to let the Agressive Expansion (AE) modifier tick down as much as we can. Anytime you take territory from another sovereign nation, the nations around you get an AE score based on things like proximity, religions, culture and so on. Essentially is represents how outrageous they think your actions are. Around -50 AE the nations will look to form a coalition against you. If you're naughty enough, you could find yourself facing a huge war by all of your neighbors. So you have to proceed with care, can't just go blitzing your way through everyone else.

Around 1570, the League Wars kicked off. This is essentially EU IV's version of the Thirty Years War. Most European nations align themselves with Catholic or Protestant. Eventually a spark hits the tinder and all of Europe erupts in war. But I didn't sign up. Usually I do, as I have a vested interest usually in being on the winning side. In this run, I didn't feel compelled, and thought perhaps I could profit from another's misfortune as a result of that war. We are Catholic, and it's fine if we remain so. But I'm OK flipping to protestant too. We'll let them fight it out and see where things stand when the smoke clears. Around this time, Ottomans and Tunis became allies, and I'm surprised it took this long. I decided I needed another ally that would answer in wars with Ottomans, so we cast coy glances Poland's way. They were growing, allied but not in a union with Lithuania, and on-tech (though Lithuania lagged several techs behind). So Poland were added to our Stable, which still also held France, Portugal and our subject Castile.

I've taken alot of screens for this AAR, and I have ones of Sweden winning Independence (on the third try), of us becoming the world's leader in trading wine (more stab cost discount. Great!) But As SimHQ is hosting these shots I will try to keep the curios to a minimum.


The Italian Wars continued in measured fashion. The next target was Milan. They had grown a bit since we released them years ago. After allowing the truce from breaking our alliance to end, we attacked. You can see on the left the advantages of being opportunistic. I'm constantly looking for an edge and waiting for the right time. Sometimes that means you wait for a better opportunity that never comes. But the flipside is diving in to a situation that might not be favorable. In this shot you can see all of the red X's of nations that refuse to answer Milan's call. I hate it when that happens... to me.




Our technology continues to improve, and for Idea Groups we have added Influence and Offensive. Influence helps diplomatically, gives a Better Relations boost (faster decay on AE!) and reduces the cost of integrating subjects. For a player that likes to use vassals, it's a no-brainer. Offensive increases the capability of your generals, increases force limit and makes armies better at sieges, among other bonuses. Good generals are so important in this game, and between Defensive and Offensive you get +1 to maneuver, fire and shock. Earlier I mentioned taking Humanist, and want to add that the finisher on that Group is -10% Idea Cost, which is quite powerful



The League War finally ends, with hundreds of thousands dead. The heretics won. Austria's fall continues.




In 1589 our vassal Florence is integrated.




By the year 1580 only two nations still held provinces we needed to form Italy, Venice and The Papal States. Venice was the strongest of the Italian minors, and had a strong navy as well as a capable army. They had as allies The Knights Hospitaller from Rhodes (weak), and Savoy, who we my immediate neighbor to the northwest, between us and France. They had gown quite strong, taking most of Switzerland and more. It was a fair match. So I called in France, because fair wars can be lost.



We took two required provinces from Venice, and then attacked the Pope. So sorry old bean, don't fancy it, but you do realize Rome is needed to form Italy. The Pope didn't like it, as I wouldn't expect he would. Hungary fought in this war with the Pope. At one stage they sent an army and tried to hide it in neutral Ferrara. So we kindly asked Ferrara for military access. Oops. You don't want to be on the receiving end of this.





That's gotta hurt






And Rome falls.





We peace out the Pope with profuse apologies and cases of Brandy hoping they'll wake up and think it was all a dream. We even left them Romanga so that at least they had a place to take Absolution. But Ferrara then crushed them there and honestly I can no longer find the Pope. Don't know where he went. Not nice Ferrara, but I would have done the same. Probably.


Here, we take the Decision to form Italy. And I want to apologize now to any readers that the color I am about to be is hardly different from Ottomans. I don't like it either, and have wished for years that paradox would allow choosing a map color.

We are also given the option to swap Italian National Ideas with Aragon's. Yes Please.




Forming Italy gives us Permanent Claims over all of the Italian region. That is awesome. It also removed the Catholic penalties I suffered while waiting for Rome to be cored. And Italy was now a thing.



After integrating Florence I began integrating Castile, which has a very high Dip cost. They never took the Exploration Idea group, which would have made them far more valuable. Castile does get one colonist from their NI's, but none of the other Exploration bonuses, so they were far behind Portugal, England and France. They had a few west Africa posts, including the valuable province of Gold Coast, and had begun colonizing modern day Florida. But so slowly that it was doubtful that it would grow to a colonial nation before integration was complete, about 30 years.


The Rise of the Ottoman Empire


In 1614 Castile was fully integrated in to Italy. And with this influx of development, Italy advanced from Kingdom to Empire rank, gaining several bonuses that Kings like. An additional diplomat, an additional general or admiral, faster autonomy reduction, higher state limit and best of all, a cultural union over all Latin cultures.





Forming Italy and integrating Castile made us one of the world's leading powers, and brought us closer to a clash with Ottomans. Ottomans have grown without stop. They've overrun all in their way and were at the gates of Budapest. At this stage we held three of the required Trade Centers, Valencia, Genoa, Tunis. Venice remained, and then Ragusa, owned by Bosnia, Constantinople and Hüdavendigar owned by Ottomans, and Tlemcen, otherwise known as Algiers, owned by Tunis. So it's obvious that war with Ottomans and their allies was inevitable. I still don't feel ready, but we can do well at sea by concentrating our navy and catching them divided. But on land, I worry.

In 1616, Ottomans attacked our ally Poland. Better them than us. But I wasn't going to shy away. It's now or never, we need to begin reversing the trend and start knocking Ottomans back, if we can. What the hell Saxony? Seriously?





The Curia seems to approve.





Soon after joining this war, the last of Castile's colonies finished, giving us four provinces in Florida. Five are needed for a colonial nation. Since I have no Exploration ideas, Italy cannot colonize (though I could choose them as the next Idea Group). Instead I noticed that adjacent to the Florida colonies there was an OPM tribal native province. sorry, but I must. War was declared and quickly it was over, gaining the fifth province and the new Colonial Nation of Miami was formed.





Back to Europe... The struggle with Ottomans, Morocco and Tunis was epic. Poland, Bohemia and Lithuania fought the majority of the battles in the Balkans, while I dealt with the sea and Iberia. I had to keep two strong field armies near Venice to deal with Ottoman incursion. That left a smaller army to defend Iberia. Before I could react properly, massive Moorish armies crossed the Gibraltar strait and began seiging Iberia. We had been invaded!

Skirting the enemy's main forces, I looked to force favorable battles on the fringe. When things come together, this is the result. Battles like this help to swing the course of wars.




This shot is after the majority of the big battles were fought there, and we are in the process of reclaiming our lands.





Eventually, all involved had had enough without anyone gaining a telling advantage, and a white peace was agreed. That's a big war for nothing. However, my navies did a job, and for a while at least, Italy rules the waves.




With a truce in place with ottomans, I quickly moved to leap across the Adriatic to take Ragusa from two-province Bosnia, the fifth required Trade Center. The war was quickly over.




And that's where it stands in 1629. I took two provinces from Hungary who came to Bosnia's aid, landlocking Hungary and causing me a dilemma. I want to release a vassal in the Balkans to feed territory to. The Hungarian provinces (Lika and Zagreb) could be released as Croatia. They have good ideas, but would be released as Reformed religion, which isn't advantageous for me, resulting in alot of avoidable religious conversion should I choose to annex them later. Or I could release Bosnia, giving up Ragusa for the time being, but they have worse military ideas but would be Catholic. What to do?

A quick update, I'll post a full one soon. But I want to apologize for a rather important omission. I completely failed to mention or show the Second Aragonese-Venetian War from which we took the city of Venice and a little more. That gave us the fourth of the required nine Trade Centers. Ragusa, as related, became the fifth. The four remaining are Algiers, Alexandria , Constantinople and Hüdavendigar, which is located just to the east of the Bosphorous. The next update will contain some moving and shaking. Italy is on the rise! Stay tuned!

At the end of the quick war with Bosnia and Hungary I was left with a decision. I wanted a vassal in the Balkans to feed territory to and provide a buffer to Ottomans to the south. Croatia has the best military ideas of the three choices I had. Here you see them, Croatia, Ragusa or Bosnia. As related, Croatia would be released as Reformed, which I don't want. Ragus would only get the province of Ragusa, meaning I wouldn't be able to core the province inland, Hum.




I settled on Bosnia. It means I have to give up Ragusa, but Bosnia takes Religious, and are Catholic, so they would do the job of converting the heathen lands I fed to them. Italy is in a great position to have the world's leading navy, and I devote sufficient resources to ensure we do. Here, Italy surpasses Ottomans and nets some fine bonuses.




Having advanced administrative technology, we are able to once again change our form of government. Absolute Monarchy has always been my favorite (well, along with Monastic Order, but that's rare and nation-specific). This government gives us increased discipline which will help our armies in the field.





The Fall of the Ottoman Empire: The Beginning

We had been gearing up for another go at Ottomans. We need to keep the pressure up. If we can cause them severe losses, we might be able to fight a weakened nation in subsequent wars, never letting them fully recover. This could enable us to fight them on a more or less equal footing, and negate their sizable manpower and force limit advantage.

Our new vassal Bosnia held cores on territory that Ottomans had taken from them, and we declared war using a Reconquest CB once our truce had expired. Reconquest is one of the best CBs, because it has reduced AE and province cost at the negotiating table. Other nations don't get angry when you are retaking your rightful territory. We call in Poland, but both sides have allies who either don't want to join, or cannot.




When we are fighting Ottomans more or less on even terms, it a far less daunting prospect. Truth is, the player is always going to have the advantage here. We can do a better job of coordinating our offensive, and have armies mutually supporting each other. We have a marked advantage at sea, and if we can force favorable battles at the start of the war on land, the rest of the war should go our way as the enemy needs to recover his losses. All the while we are pushing slowly forward, but always keeping our armies close together to enable them to rush to reinforce should Ottomans attack one. With the way the game currently gives all of the negative terrain penalties to the attacked besieger, you need to be alert or could find yourself with a shattered army in short order. This war goes according to plan however, and eventually Ottomans have depleted their manpower replacing their losses.




Ottomans have had enough. Our armies had pushed deep in to Anatolia and Ottomans sued for peace. From this war we reclaimed all of Bosnia's cores and the entire east coast of the Adriatic as far as Athens. We even threw Poland a bone for helping out This war is the most important one we will fight I believe. The previous Ottoman war answering Poland's call was important as it helped to check Ottomans and slow down their advance. But this one succeeded in knocking them back. We needed to reverse their course, not just check it. While they are huge and the land we took was only a small percentage of what they held, it was still a significant victory. From Athens, Constantinople is not far away. The crown jewel, The City of World's Desire, was within reach. Anyone that has followed any of my EU IV posts here at SimHQ knows that I have a fixation with Constantinople, and look to capture it in every game I play. It isn't always possible of course, I'm probably not going to own it as Sweden or Brunei for example. But if it's even remotely possible, I will try.






A fine event. Army Tradition (AT) is a very important, but probably often overlooked mechanic. It is essentially Paradox's attempt to represent professional armies. AT is gained through fighting battles and also by not reducing the maintenance on any forts you have. AT gives boosts to army morale, manpower recovery speed, morale recovery speed and siege ability. So keeping AT high as possible will grant important advantages to your army. But most importantly perhaps, the quality of your Generals is directly influenced by your AT level. High AT means fine leaders. There is a parallel mechanic for the navy as well, that works in the same manner.





Well, how do you like that? Look, the Pope is resurrected! The Pope is released in Avignon, which was home in the early 14th century. Unfortunately for him, it wouldn't last long, as France stomped him later and he was gone again. But it was fun while it lasted!




Having finished the Ottomans war and with a truce in place essentially securing the eastern flank for the time being, I turned toward Tunis. As related throughout this AAR, North Africa is a black hole. I hate it there, and I probably would have never set foot there if Algiers and Tunis weren't objectives for the achievement. But now we were here, and Algiers was still Tunisian.

At this stage we were allied to Poland, France and Portugal. Tunis was allied to Morocco. They had been allied to Ottomans as well, but I made sure to force Ottomans to cancel their alliances with Tunis in the previous war in anticipation of this one. I wanted to call in France and Portugal for this war. I began shifting my forces from the east to the west to get ready to jump off when war was declared. With France and Portugal also allied to each other, the worst thing that could happen would be for either of them to declare war somewhere before I did so on Tunis. Allies typically won't join a second offensive war. While I was still staging, the new leader trait system bore fruit.





Due to the 'Loose Lips' trait I learned that Portugal was gearing up to go to war with England. That would surely take both Portugal and France out of the war with Tunis, so I had to strike now. So war was declared on Tunisia using a Conquest CB on Algiers. I checked the box to make Morocco co-belligerent. Their only ally was Tunisia, so it made sense. A co-belligerent is an ally that can call in it's own allies. But their territory costs the normal amount in peace negotiations. It's rare you'll do this, as you don't typically want to bring in even more enemies. But here, Tunisia was the target, so no drawback to making Morocco co-belligerent.




As always, I look to force favorable battles. The 'stack wipe' is a term in EU IV for a battle in which one side loses their entire force, every man. Stack wipes change the course of the war. We were able to trap an enemy army in Mzab, and with that Tunisia's prospects took a turn for the worse.





Soon we had overrun all of Tunisia.

With their entire country under occupation, Tunis sued for peace, From this war we gained Tlemcen (Algiers) and more territory along the Barbary coast. From this I released Algiers as a vassal and fed them some of the booty. I don't want any of this godforsaken land so I might as well create someone to give it to. And with that, Algiers, the sixth required Trade Center, is ours.




Meanwhile, in America....


My Colonial Nation of Miami was in pathetic shape. The morons made that tribal province I captured to complete the CN their capital. So they had a capital with the wrong culture. SMH. And all of the territory they had was worthless swampland. So I endeavored to prop them up and sent an army. This army then swept through neighboring native territory, essentially tripling Miami's size. They are still pathetic, but bigger anyway.





That's where it stands in 1693. Italy is now number one on the Great Power list. We have the world's largest army and navy. We have the 3rd most provinces, the highest income and make the most from trade. There is no stopping us now. From here, I will look to keep the pressure on Ottomans. They hold all three of the remaining trade centers. Muscovy (Russia) has gradually come 'round to my way of thinking. We have been working on relations for the past 150 years. I think they might make a fine ally, now that they have also rivalled Ottomans. Perhaps I should ask them...

More to come.

The Decline of the Ottoman Empire

It's a sign of the changing balance of power when I am eager to jump in to war with Ottomans even when none of my allies can or will join. But Italy is on the rise, and Ottomans are in decline. Once our previous truce expired, we again went on the offensive, declaring war using a new CB, Imperialism. This CB has slightly reduced costs at the negotiating table, but the main advantage is no claims are necessary. Claims are still valuable, as they reduce both the negotiation cost and the time and cost to core captured provinces by 10%. The drawback, if it could be considered one, is that the wargoal of an Imperialism CB is always the enemy's capital. As capital cities tend to be the most well defended, and have high level forts, they tend to be tough nuts to crack. High level forts take ages to successfully siege, and all the while your besiegers are vulnerable to being attacked and suffer the terrain penalties. Here, we declare for Constantinople. Ottomans call in Persia, who are formidable, but several tech levels behind. And Alodia, whoever they are.



A quick glance at the ledger shows Ottomans and Italy more or less even in standing army and manpower, though nearly a third of their standing army is comprised of mercenaries.




Ottomans try to sneak an army through North Africa toward my strongholds at Tunis and Algiers. I had pulled all garrisons out of North Africa for the war, and it is undefended, aside from a small Algerian force. To counter this incursion, I land an army near Oran, you can see them having just disembarked. Soon though I spot a second Ottoman army in the area, in all about 110,000 men. With my armies already committed elsewhere, I resort to seaborne guerilla tactics. Using the mobility of my fleet, I bait Ottomans to chase me. While they are trudging overland through the sand, I re-embark and sail behind them, attacking the smaller siege armies they are leaving behind. Each of these battles causes their main army to head off to the sound of the guns, and then I fall behind them once again.



Constantinople falls to the glorious armies of the Italian Empire!




Ottomans, getting smacked around in Anatolia, decide to go for the weakest link, and siege down Algiers.




While those Ottoman armies are so involved, our offensive continues apace, surging through Anatolia, running up the warscore and looting the the Ottoman cities.



Using the seaborne guerilla tactics described above, Italy lands an army to attack an isolated Ottoman force in Algiers. Gotcha.




Eventually, Ottomans can take no more, and sue for peace. The magnificent city of Constantinople becomes part of the glorious Italian Empire. From this war we gain more territory in Serbia, Bulgaria and Thrace. Not huge tracts of land, we took everything shown here in bright green, but Constantinople is the jewel. Constantinople is one of very few cities in the game that get two Trade Center bonuses. It is the gateway between east and west. And a game long goal. That is the seventh required Trade Center, and we rejoice.






As we have reached the year 1700 (121 years to go), let's take a look at the geo-political situation in Europe. Great Britain has formed. England had overrun Ireland, vassalized Scotland, and eventually annexed them, forming Great Britain, our only suitable rival remaining aside form Ottomans. Austria never did die as I though they would. They rebounded from some severe setbacks and stabilized more or less as they started the game. Well done, though later Austria and I would come to blows over a rather interesting event.

Denmark still lives, but barely. They continue to hold their union over Norway, but Sweden is hostile, and I doubt Denmark will survive to the end. Persia has emerged as a force in their region, though in this shot you can see they have been invaded by Muscovy, and would go on to suffer a stiff defeat in that war. Poland has done very well. They held their traditional union over Lithuania for a long time, but somehow lost it, then allied Lithuania. But Poland is a player. Strong, aggressive and on-tech. Good ally.

France. France always seems to grow to about the size you see here in my games. I'm not sure why they never seem to move in to HRE lands. They are certainly capable. Just once I would love to see France head off toward Lubeck or Vienna. Regardless, they make a fine ally as well. Brittany survives, and not only that, have carved out a big colonial nation in Canada.

Saxony has been Emperor for half of the game, essentially ever since leading the Protestants to victory in the League Wars in the late 16th century. It's difficult to see in this screen, but they are the horseshoe-shaped grey nation in northwest Europe. They have expanded considerably, but never suffered a coalition. Good to be Emperor I guess.

At one stage Brandenburg had grown very large. But they are in a difficult position. They tend to have to fight off Poland/Lithuania. Bohemia, Sweden, Pomerania and more. Despite their fantastic armies, they rarely get really going in a a game of EU IV. Just too many nations to deal with, and here you see they have returned to mediocrity.

The region between the Black and Caspian Seas, around Georgia and Armenia is still mostly sovereign surprisingly. Ottomans put all of their efforts in to expanding through the Balkans and Egypt, before getting the smack-down. Usually either Ottomans or Muscovy/Russia annex this land, but so far it lives aside from the former Genoa land taken over by Ottomans.

Colonially, Great Britain are the leaders, holding virtually all of Mexico, Central America and the Andes region. Portugal hold most of Brazil and Louisiana. Norway have several colonial nations spread throughout the New World. Only Great Britain have an substantial presence in Indonesia.

In the far east Ming has grown to massive size, and if it weren't for the severe tech penalties they have, they would be the world's leading Great Power instead of Italy.

And a few words about Portugal. I mentioned in the first post that I would look to vassalize them if I could. That would let them colonize for me, and eventually I could annex them, taking over their entire colonial empire. They got in to another colonial war with England at one point. Portugal stands no chance of defeating England on the high seas, and consequently struggles to support their far-flung empire. In earlier versions of EU IV Portugal's navy was the leader, a match for anyone, even England. But now, while strong, they never grow large enough to counter England. So when they go to war, they have little chance of sending relief armies to the New World. And so it was, they lost another war and England forced Portugal to cancel alliances with Italy and France in the peace negotiations. That was the opening we needed. Portugal without allies was very vulnerable, and I could have easily vassalized them in two wars. But you know what? I didn't. As I mentioned in the first post I tend to respect the sovereignty of nations that are good allies. Portugal however, straddled that line. Relations were always good, and they never did anything remotely aggressive toward me. But they dragged me in to many lousy wars that they had no chance of winning. In that sense they were a lousy ally. On balance, they cost me far more than they ever helped. But still, the little green heart representing our relations was enough for me to allow them to live in peace.

By the early 18th century, things were looking up for the glorious Italian Empire. Of the nine Trade Centers required to complete the Consulate of the Sea achievement, only two remained, Hüdavendigar and Alexandria, both owned by Ottomans. So we staged for another go at Ottomans to take them. I mentioned earlier our rosy relations with Muscovy. Muscovy had recently rivalled Ottomans, not sure why it took so long, and they formed Russia. Russia is always formidable with their vast reserves of manpower, but their size, relatively poor land and distance from the institution spawns saw them lagging behind in military tech. But as I had no desire for their land, I requested an alliance which was quickly agreed. If they would answer my call in an offensive war, their huge armies would be a huge help. Italy could attack from the west, and Russia from the north through the Crimea.

Ottomans were forced to move their capital when we took Constantinople, and it was now in Sugla. In 1710 we struck, but we needed to promise Russia land to have them agree to join the war. No problem there. I could just hand over a some worthless territory in Crimea to keep them happy. War was declared using an Imperialism CB.




Hit from two directions, Ottomans struggled to resist. Here, the war progresses. Our allied armies are attacking in Tunisia, Egypt, Anatolia and Crimea.




The war continues, and our armies continue to surge forward.



Eventually Ottomans were again defeated, and we peaced them out, taking territory in Anatolia, Egypt and Syria, including both remaining required Trade Centers. There is a modifier, called administrative efficiency, that affects the cost of coring and integrating newly acquired territory. Late in the game this modifier has increased to the point that huge swaths of land can be taken without costly too much and without too much overextension. In this peace deal we take twelve provinces, and throw Russia a bone, as promised.




A secondary goal all along was Jerusalem. As a Catholic, retaking Jerusalem from the heathen infidels is very satisfying. The Pope would be so pleased! If there actually was a Pope that is. He hasn't been seen since France forcibly removed him from Avignon. Holding Jerusalem gives a nice bonus, an extra missionary, which since I haven't taken the Religious Idea group doubles my total. That is so great, I have been taking huge tracts of Sunni territory and this doubles the rate at which I can convert them to Catholic. Plus it's just very cool to own Jerusalem.




Taking these two important Trade Centers unlocks the Thalassocracy decision. Yes please. First time I've ever managed that one.




This war put the hurt on Ottomans, as we've now taken virtually all of their provinces with any value. Their economy and armies will suffer greatly unless they can reclaim these lands. But there's litle chance of that now.




And the Great Powers list.



For Idea Groups we have now taken Defensive, Humanist, Influence, Offensive, Maritime, Aristocratic, Quality and would later take Trade. The first four were discussed earlier in this AAR. Maritime was taken to bolster my navy. It increases force limits, sailors (manpower for navy) and leader maneuver, improves repair rates, reduces cost and increases naval tradition.

Aristocratic is interesting. It's under the military category, but features a diverse set of bonuses, including improved cavalry and lowered cost, a 25% manpower increase, higher vassal income, increased hostile core cost, an additional diplomat, reduced army and navy tradition decay, reduced cost to lower war exhaustion and mil tech cost and an additional free leader. A good all-around group.

Quality gives combat bonuses to both the army and navy, as well as a boost to Army Tradition.

To gain the Consulate of the Sea achievement we need to hold cores on all required Trade Centers. Having relinquished Ragusa when releasing Bosnia as a vassal, we began diplo-annexing Bosnia. It would take five years, and when done, the achievement should fire.

I haven't played this game and don't know the mechanics of it; but this is a very good AAR and I am enjoying t.

Thanks OG, 'old grognards' are just the sort of folks I hope enjoy it. Thanks for the comment.

After defeating Ottomans in 1713, Italy enjoyed a short period of peace and prosperity. We spent the time building our forces, integrating newly conquered territory, converting religion and converting territories to states. Looking around and assessing our situation, I attempted to map out the short term course. We would re-engage Ottomans no doubt, but there was a truce on, and that would have to wait. The remainder of Tunis was a possibility. We've come this far taking over North Africa, so might as well go all in. But our plans soon changed.


The British Succession War of 1722





Great Britain's King had died without an heir. They were to fall under a Personal Union with Austria. Italy was given the opportunity to contest this union. If we went to war over England, and won, Great Britain would instead fall under a PU with me. But as I would be the attacker, all of Austria's allies were sure to join in and defend the union. And England and all of it's colonies and subjects would unite against Italy as well. The main challenge here for me would be strength of alliances. Poland was my ally, but also Austria's. If I went to war, Poland would leave my stable and join in against me. Russia could consider this a distant war and want nothing to do with it. Only France would be likely to join with Italy, given that they are rivals with both Britain and Austria. That would put us at a severe disadvantage in land force size. And at sea Great Britain is strong, a true blue-water navy, with the most heavy and light ships, further reinforced by the navies of their vast colonial empire.\. My navy is slightly larger overall, but a high proportion of Italy's naval strength is galleys, which are poor in the open ocean, or anywhere outside the Med and a few other inland seas like the Baltic.

To compound matters, the wargoal of a succession war is for one side to defend the capital of the would-be subject, while the other side needed to capture and hold it. Since England was the subject, that means London. To take London you need to have control of the English Channel, to be able to land armies near London. That would be a tall order against England's strong fleet.

A look at the ledgers shows the relative army and navy strength of the various leading nations of the world, sorted by force limits.







Presented with such an opportunity, to attain a union over the world's leading colonial empire, was too great to turn down. So Italy challenged the union and entered war with Austria, Great Britain, Poland and a handful of others, along with all of their subjects. France joined eagerly, but Russia would not. They had huge debts and declined. But I very much needed their manpower, especially against Austria while we attempted to gain control of Great Britain. Our objectives had to be three-fold.

-- Reduce Austria. They had a very strong army and alliance. It would be important to defeat them in battle and occupy their territory. Doing so would cause their economy to tank, and it would be difficult for them to recover their manpower and we could win a war of attrition against them. Russia's armies would be perfect to accomplish this part of the plan.

-- Gain control of the sea. This would be difficult given my navy's composition and the fact that France's navy wasn't strong and Russia, if they would join, had none to speak of, at least in Europe. The key would be to concentrate our navy and strike when the enemy had divided their fleet. Success there would swing the balance of power on the high seas.

-- Invade England and capture London. If we gain control of the seas this should be the easiest phase of the campaign. That's a big if. But the truth is that Great Britain's armies are among the worst in Europe. They don't get the land bonuses that other nations do. Their strength lies with their navy. If you can push aside their navy, their army is vulnerable. To ensure success we would need to land at least two field armies and maintain control of the Channel.

The war opened with several set pieces along the southern Austrian border. Great Britain sent armies. While that made the mainland fighting more difficult, I preferred fighting them here, and leaving their home island open to invasion. My armies were involved in most of the battles fought, alongside France. But I kept an sharp eye out for any landings the English attempted to the rear. Soon they attempted to land in Ragusa, but I had held back an army or two just to counter this sort of move and we managed a stackwipe of the English. They failed to send a general, and our was top-shelf. They really stood no chance, and that was one fewer army to defend London.




Even with results such as that, we were still vastly outnumbered in this war. The French were doing all they could to maintain control over their own lands, and I was holding off Austria and Poland in the east. We were making inroads, winning most battles. But by this stage of the game, nations have the ability to build the highest level forts, and build them they do. So while we were winning battles, we weren't making much progress in occupying their lands.

So I made two moves to help correct this situation. With our vast trade empire and complete control of the Mediterranean, Italy is swimming in ducats. Our coffers are quite full. I gave Russia a gift of 2000 ducats to pay off their debts, and that would hopefully cause them to join the war. There is an option as a Great Power nation to pay off the debts of another. But that option doesn't exist if the other nation is also a Great power. So I couldn't be sure how Russia would actually spend the money. They could use it to build trade ports in Siberia for all I knew. So it wasn't without some risk. But they did the right things, and agreed to join. Russia was in.

The second thing was to spend my built up military monarch points and overspend to raise my mil tech well ahead of time. Mil tech level 26, Light Infantry Companies is an important one, granting a full +1.00 to land morale, as well as increased combat width and new types of both infantry and cavalry. Doing this should give my armies a marked advantage on the field of battle.




Our vassal Bosnia is integrated in to the Empire. And with that, Ragusa, the final required Trade Center is cored, gaining the Consulate of the Sea achievement.




With Russia moving in to Austria, I shifted my attention to France. We helped France battle along their northern frontier and staged two invasion armies in Normandy. Our naval strategy began to tell, and after many battles the British fleet was mostly contained in their ports. Our massive fleet moved in to the Channel, and our armies began to cross.





We fought many battles against small English stacks that formed as they were built. But our armies kept the pressure on and after 2 years, London fell. The wargoal was in our hands.

This shot shows the situation about 3 years before the end of the war. Russia is sieging in Austria, Italian armies are occupying England, and French and Russian armies are trying to trap the Austrian army near Calais. The Austrian army had no way to relieve Britain across the channel, and got boxed in.




By 1731, Britain and Austria had had enough, peace reigned and Great Britain fell under our rule as a subject nation.








Gaining a union over Great Britain is fantastic, and vastly improves our power and global reach. It was completely unforseen of course. I use royal marriages in this game, but I more or less ignore the whole dynastic side to it. I don't claim thrones or pay attention to disputed succession like the most attentive and complete players do. But every now and then these webs of marriages and dynasties pay off handsomely. Truth is, I could have lost this war. The enemy was very strong, and the fact the wargoal was on an island made deciding to dispute the succession risky. But to allow Austria to have it was not something we could allow really, which was at least as important as gaining the union ourselves. This union makes Italy far and away the most powerful in the world.

Would you consider this game session being "exceptionally lucky", as far as the early events and then this one is concerned?

Yes, lucky it was, particularly because of the unions. Getting the early union over Castile through the Iberian Wedding, and then the union with Great Britain, were both very fortunate. I've played a hell of a lot of EU IV over the past few years. Gaining personal unions happen in only a small percentage of my games, less than a quarter. And to gain two in one game, especially unions over such powerful states, was luck of the first order. Though it must also be said that the union with Britain was gained through war. It was Austria that had the union fall in to their lap. So in that sense I earned it.

That said, plenty of bad stuff happened too. Great heirs dying prematurely, massive revolts, economic disasters and the like also occurred by event. But that's true of virtually any EU IV playthrough. In order to gain EU IV achievements, the game must be played in what is known as 'Ironman' mode. It simply means playing a single-save game with no reloads. So the player is forced to live with everything that happens, good and bad, which I enjoy. No re-loading or save-scumming is allowed.

In addition, Ironman mode features 'Lucky Nations', which is Paradox's attempt to give bonuses to select historically successful and powerful nations with the goal of having a more or less historical outcome. The nations who were most successful historically stand the best chance of doing so in a game of EU IV. These nations are granted a whole host of bonuses. This serves to make each of them much stronger, ensuring, or at least encouraging, their success.

In the current version of EU IV, the following are Lucky Nations. The player's nation cannot be a Lucky Nation, even if choosing one from that list.

Castile
Ottomans
Muscovy
France
Austria
Prussia (if formed)
Netherlands
Portugal
Brandenburg
Sweden
Poland


Each of these nations receives the following bonuses


+1% Missionary strength
-10% Stability cost modifier
+10% Global Institution Spread
-25% Mercenary cost
-20% Embracement Cost
-20% Advisor cost
-1 Interest per annum
+25% Manpower recovery speed
+10% Fort defense
+5% Siege ability
+10% Spy network construction
+25% Improve relations
-1 National unrest
+0.5 Yearly republican tradition
+1 Yearly legitimacy
-25% Aggressive expansion impact

Those are very strong, and makes the game far more challenging for the player when using the Lucky Nations modifier. Lucky Nations is rather controversial in the EU IV community. Whichever side of the fence the player may fall, I must say that Lucky Nations makes the game more challenging, and that without them, the game would be far easier, and I don't want that. Ideally, Paradox would find a way to make these nations more successful through better AI, not artificially propping them up with arbitrary bonuses. But until that happens, I'll live with Lucky Nations to keep the challenge level high.