EUIII: frog domination

[Shabbaman]

Okay, after playing a reasonable amount of time on very easy with a rather easy starting position (France) I got the hang of it. Somewhat. This game is actually pretty fun (because it's HARD). Somewhere next year Europa Universalis IV will be out. From what I've read of it some of the good things of Crusader Kings 2 will be included. I wouldn't know what that would be, since I don't know CK2... but when that's on a discount I will pick that one up as well.

I started the Grand Campaign (in 1399) as France. I've added two pictures of the world as it is in 1399. Thumbnails... if you click the image and view them at full size you'll understand why ;) The image with all the pretty colors shows all the nations; France is blue. Unfortunately, other nations are blue as well, most notably Sweden and Bengal. The second picture shows my provinces in light blue, and my vassals in dark blue. You can see that France is nothing like it is today. Especially the english provinces and southeast of what is now France are the valuable provinces. Besides England (the archenemy) it's main rival is Burgundy (conveniently colored burgundy in the first picture).

I'm in short describing the events up to 1493. For a quick glance, just take a look at the third picture. In 1493 I'm hamstringed by a bad reputation, but at least I'm number one in almost everything besides trade (because a bad reputation gives a penalty to trade compete chance, and being in the Hansa prevents me to compete with other Hansa members... but their trade stations keeps my tax rates up and my revolt chance down). I made some poor choices in the first five years, but when I figured out what was going on I got lucky:
-Burgundy is part of the empire, and when I attack them the emperor inevitably backs them. Luckily for me the initial emperor, Bohemia, starts weak, so in my first war of conquest I managed to beat both Burgundy, the emperor and it's allies, so I chopped Burgundy in half (because I was stupid enough to let Burgundy have Bar). Shortly after I made peace, Burgundy went gung-ho on all the little states north of me, so after this war they were a lot stronger than before.
-Going after Burgundy again for the second time was a lot tougher, as the HRE had passed to Austria, and Austria is a beast. I could never beat Austria and Burgundy at the same time. The Austrian Emperor didn't live long though, and the HRE passed to... Burgundy. I declared war immediately, and no one came to their aid. They were too big to annex or vassalize, but I got the provinces France has a core on and freed the states like Luxembourg and Liege. After a third war I annexed the remaining Burgundian states.
-In the third Burgundian war, I vassalized Switzerland. It's a big country, and their army is usually decent. It's a good ally, helping me in many wars.
-England was a pain, but their king got excommunicated. All of Europe helped me to rape and pillage their country. Good times. It's still a poweful nation now that they got most of Scotland and all of Wales, but their fleet is still weak and that's what helps me.
-I was lucky to grab the Azores before Portugal. They clearly weren't happy with this, so they got them when I got in a war with them. They have a big fleet, but no army. So, I pillaged Portugal and got my islands back.
-Spain was rampaging through north Africa, so while their armies were abroad I rampaged through united Spain, freeing Aragon and some minor states in the process. I actually did this twice, so now I have the whole of north Africa as an ally.

So now I have colonies in Brazil, and some conquered land in North America. I will get a core on Cape Verde soon, so I'm fairly certain I can colonize most of the Carribean before anyone else. The only problem I have is stability cost, with this much provinces a stability drop cost me a lot of money. Most European conquered provinces become core provinces, so I get more tax income. When I get a core on conquered Liguria and the province in North America that happened to have a center of trade, I will finally be able to trade. That is, if I let my infamy drop ;)

[Shabbaman]

Sometime after the first english excommunication war and the second french conquest of Burgundy the English occupied Holland. So I made it my goal to liberate Holland. This was actually pretty tough, somehow the English didn't intend to lose these provinces. Somehow the dutch won't make a particular grateful country: I noticed yesterday that I annexed Holland and Liege during the third French excommunication war (or maybe the second, these excommunications are starting to blur into a continuous war), because the infamy cost of annexing these small states aren't that much higher than simply vassalizing them. All in all I end up with an increasingly poor infamy score... but declaring war on France shouldn't go unpunished.

[Shabbaman]

I noticed England is pretty close to forming GB now. That's a good thing, because what I did to Castille and Austria (slice and dice) didn't really work with England, because the provinces (Northumberland? Sounds like a bad car brand) that form a autonomous nation are too small to compete with England. But liberating Scotland should hamstring them for a while.

[Shabbaman]

Okay, minor update. Right after I picked my third national idea, the reformation started. I didn't know if I should pick Colonial Ventures or Church attendance duty. Colonial Ventures gives you additional colonists, and this seemed nice in my quest for the new world: I had occupied some indian lands and was slowly colonizing South America. I was pushing naval tech as well, so I could grab the carribean with it's valuable trade goods. I could go for those islands if I had the additional settlers from Colonial Ventures... OTOH, I kept getting missions to integrate the small french vassals into the empire of France, but I couldn't do this because of the stability drop this would lead to. Long story short, reformation hit and I was screwed. Protestants and reformed are popular people in la belle France ajourd'hui. Since I had neglected religion in every possible way, I didn't even have any missionaries to reclaim those provinces (which, like I found out later, would've been pointless with the religious zeal penalty that converted provinces get for 50 years or so) Anyway... thanks to Propain I learned how to unlock my government slider, and I rushed towards the next National Idea. Church attendance duty has the nice side effect that other faiths won't spread in your provinces, but besides that you get a stability cost reduction. With that, and a level 5 artist, I could afford to integrate Alsace for sure.

Or so I thought. The elzasser people converted to some obscure christian faith and wouldn't think of joining France. Not even the walking EUIII encyclopedia named Propain could think of a strategy to convert them to catholicism, so here I was, with a useless national idea and a bunch of useless missionaries. At least those missionaries could convert those heathen indians in my captured colonies. And then...



My king died and left me with a regency council, so the game got really boring at this point. I took this opportunity to let my infamy drop a little, and expand my western colonies. I figured I should be looking towards the east as well, since I don't have much colonizing competition from the other European powers yet. So I grabbed the Cape, and with the help of a navigator I could grab Bourbon (small island next to Madagaskar (SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING), sounded appropriate for France to own that piece of land) later on. I scouted India and discovered the indonesian archipelago. I noticed that there are a lot of provinces with spices, so I decided that that would be my next goal.

After all, it seems only fair that I own Indonesia, historically speaking. Balkenende would be proud. I can't establish colonies over there (yet), but that won't keep me from waging holy war against those heathens. And yes, I can make good use of my missionaries there. So when I got a new king, I started pillaging Atjeh and Borneo (which was completely owned by Brunei...). Unfortunately those islands are too big to capture in one war, so this is going to take a while. Nobody liked Atjeh and Brunei in that region, so I made some friends automatically. I noticed some of these friends own provinces with a high base tax, so we're no longer friends.

My goal is to own all the islands in this region, and protect this with my huge fleet. They can keep the mainland, I don't like Ming as my neighbour. There's a COT on Java though, and I'm not sure it's wise to capture it. It'll bring me great wealth eventually, but it'll kill my compete chance for the next 50 years (until I get a core). I would like a COT in the region, so I guess I'm taking my chances. My infamy'll have to drop after this anyway... What do you think?

Oh, another fun fact: I randomly got a core on an aragonese province. Aragaon, my faithful ally, who I helped in many war they started (seriously, they're waging a war against Sicily and Modena EVERY OTHER YEAR), but who declined to come to my aid when the Khmer decided to attack me... yes, that Aragon. I wouldn't be surprised if there's going to be a war on the Iberian peninsula sometime soon. Especially since a core on their province means NO INFAMY FOR ME, ha! Oh, and they're allied with Portugal, and Portugal is getting too big for my taste.

Oh, did you know you can make high res pictures of the world? Pretty cool. Unfortunately the forum thinks they're too big, I'll have to look into that.

[Shabbaman]

Well, I wouldn't want to keep this from you. Brunei declared holy war on me (doesn't the AI get stability hits for breaking truce?), so I captured all provinces of their loyal ally Atjeh. Again. But since Brunei declared war, apparently I couldn't get Atjeh's provinces with the holy war BB discount. Sigh... so I went after Brunei, and now that whole island is mine for a measly 5 infamy. These provinces have a large population, and three of them have spices. In the one with naval supplies I will build a manufactory (eventually). Oh, and of course I took that center of trade on Java as well. French East India is taking shape :)

Which apparently is something Baden has a problem with, so they started the Badenese Reconquest of Sundgau. Why is it that wars have names that most of the time don't cover accurately what happens? The Third Badenese Folly would've been a more fitting name. Unfortunately for Baden I was preparing to invade Aragon. Even worse, one of my large armies is usually sitting on top of Sundgau or Franche-Comte, so within a few days there wasn't much left of the Badenese army. My Swiss allies took the Badenese provinces (what a shame that you can't give your vassals or allies captured provinces without taking the infamy hit yourself...) so I sent my army after one of Baden's allies: the Papal States. I mentioned earlier that I was neglecting religion, but after several excommunications I simply pay the Papal State to keep good relations. But this war doesn't do our relation much good. The Papal State is pretty big, they have most of the lands in the Italian boot. Modena and Ferrara are blocking my army unfortunately, so I can't punish them for attacking me. I make peace with Baden before the Pope can capture my vassal Florence. I want to get my infamy down, so I'm not grabbing any provinces. But history has decided that this war will be known as the Badenese Succesful Attempt To Lose Their Core On Sundgau.

Back to my plan to punish Aragon. Oh look, the Papal State gets me excommunicated [xx(] Styria seizes this opportunity immediately to declare war on me. Ungrateful bastards: I crafted Styria from the remains of Austria myself. They're bordering me because they took the remaining Milanese provinces (the lands I left Milan to keep my infamy at an acceptable level). Someday in the future I will get back at them and form Milan from their lands. Pretty soon I'm in three seperate excommunication wars. My land tech is superior and I was gearing up for war anyway, that was my luck. One of the three wars involves Castille, and I annihilate their army and navy. Since they're attacking me, I lack a proper Casus Belli to take decent compensation (this is what's annoying me in this game: I want my revenge, isn't being attacked enough Casus Belli to get some infamy reduction?), but at least I destroyed their army and fleet. Those three excommunication wars involve about everybody, except England, Aragon and those countries involved in the Badenese Succesful Attempt To Lose Their Core On Sundgau. But my luck hasn't run out.

My army is absolutely huge because I was recruiting in all my provinces after the excommunication, so I decide to go after Aragon right away. And look, Aragon is allied with Portugal and the Papal States. Heh. I ship one army around Modena and Ferrara, then move my fleet next to Barcelona where the (decently sized) Aragonese fleet is, and attack. My two stacks are so large that I annihilate the 20k Aragonese army swiftly, and I can take their provinces without extended sieges. Portugal doesn't even have an army, so that's a cakewalk. The Papal States go down without much ease, and from their lands I form Urbino and Naples. The circle is round: I started this game with a war against Provence that was in a personal union with Naples (pretty dumb in hindsight, it's tough to extort provinces out of a personal union if you can't hit the leader of the union), Naples eventually perished but now I have a grateful ally in the south of Italy.

[Melifluous]

So Shabba,

What are you doing to reduce infamy? The only things I've found so far are

1) A Ruler with High Diplomacy - (Kinda hit and miss unless your Government type allows elections)(-10% of Diplomacy skill per year, so -0.1 to -0.9 range)
2) An advisor with +Diplomacy (Ambassador, -0.05 to -0.45 range)
3) Cultural Decision - Support the Florentine School (only -0.1 Inf a year but meh)
4) Release Vassals - (-2 Inf per province!)

And then wait.

A lot

:(

[meli]

[ProPain]

Apart from those measures I've noticed:

- build an embassy
- rnd diplo advisor event: http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Excellent_Diplomacy

Apparently there;s another rnd event, I've never seen it though:
http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/$DIPLOMAT$

[Shabbaman]

Releasing vassals is a step too far, I didn't get that infamy because I don't like provinces. Controlling cardinals drops infamy as well, but besides having a lot of catholic provinces I haven't figured out how to get cardinals. So mainly it involves waiting. Since there's not much to do besides waiting for the revolution that's not a bad thing in itself.

A question: I noticed England is grabbing mayan provinces. Should I grab some valuable provinces myself or just extort cash?

[ProPain]

Controlling cardinals drops infamy as well, but besides having a lot of catholic provinces I haven't figured out how to get cardinals.
You're chance of getting a cardinal is negatively influenced by your infamy iirc. So we have a self reinforcing effect here.

A question: I noticed England is grabbing mayan provinces. Should I grab some valuable provinces myself or just extort cash?
Indians in latin america are sitting on 1000's of ducats. In my Brabant game I easily extorted 6000-7000 gold from the Aztecs (the only surviving indians in middle americas) before I took their lands. In the south the Inca's were the sole survivors and I alrdy got some heaps of cash from them as well.

Their provinces can be quite good as well especially the gold producing ones. If you can spare the infamy I'd take some provinces each war as well, they're pretty cheap you get 0,8 BB per province only if you use the correct CB. Once the Aztecs were out of money I simply annexed the remaining provinces.

[Shabbaman]

Wow, I just fought the Second Badenese Attempt To Lose Their Core On Sundgau. I got 91 gold out of it, they didn't have a core left they could lose. One might say that this war was a lot less succesful than the previous one. For Baden, that is.

I got 800 gold out of the Maya, and when I left the aztecs revolted and broke free. That's A Good Thing (tm), because now I don't have to wait for the cease fire to end. Oh, and I got a colonialism CB on England now. And two incan provinces, one with a CoT and one with gold, plus 2400 gold.

[Shabbaman]

After getting the Aztec goldmines I got the mission to conquer Alsace. Again. Alsace is my vassal, but since they have chosen to follow some obscure christian faith I cannot annex them. But I'm fed up with this mission, since I already cancelled it 3 times. So, annex Alsace it is.

So I break my vassalage of Alsace and send them an insult, so I can declare war without getting a stability drop. Alsace has some troops and a level 2 fort, they don't even have allies although they are guaranteed by some HRE nations. There's still the HRE, which is Bohemia now, stretching as far as Ukraine. But that means that their troops are likely to be far away, and besides that I'm not scared of them anyway because from the ledger I gather that my army is much larger than theirs. But then I notice that England is the protector of whatever faith it is that is currently en mode in that part of the world... and I was looking to hamstring England anyway.

So, time to do some scouting. Where is their fleet? Conveniently sailing towards the Channel. Where are their troops? Can't see much through the fog of war, but I see that Cornwall and Wales are occupied by rebels. I suppose that if you let rebels capture multiple provinces close to your capital, you don't have many troops nearby. I see that they have 18k next to my aztec provinces, but I can handle that. Their other troops are in English north africa I guess. Here we go, rape Alsace, send an army to the wrong side of the channel and sack London. I let my faithful vassals have some r&r in the english countryside, while I discover a third of the remaining troops in Ireland. I land a token force in English North Africa, and I find an 18k stack surpressing nationalist revolts. I ship my expeditionary 21k from Ireland to the desert, and barely win. Fighting in the desert is apparently harder than I thought. Anyway, I don't need to annihilate them now, as I still have that colonialism CB...

Oh, after annexing Alsace I finally get a nice mission: subjugate Milan. Milan has the two provinces I carved out of Styria for them, and they refused to be my vassals. Ungrateful dogs.

[ProPain]

Can you post some pics for us? Would love to see how the French empire looks

[Shabbaman]

I will post pictures, I've made a lot of savegames specifically for that purpose. I'll have to fix the forum restrictions for .bmp first though, then I can post the world map images that EUIII can generate. Brilliant feature, it's something that civ should've had. There's a lot more in EUIII that "civ should've had", like the ledger.

[Beam]

Would love to see the pictures but why do you plan to use .bmp? Better convert them to something more portable like .jpg or .png.

[ProPain]

Would love to see the pictures but why do you plan to use .bmp? Better convert them to something more portable like .jpg or .png.

My thoughts exactly.

[Shabbaman]

That's because the game creates .bmp pics :)

[Beam]

That's because the game creates .bmp pics :)

That´s why it is better to convert them. :D Open them in M$ Paint and save as .jpg or .png file. The quality will be nearly the same but the size much smaller.

[Pastorius]

That´s why it is better to convert them. :D Open them in M$ Paint and save as .jpg or .png file. The quality will be nearly the same but the size much smaller.

I just can't do it captain, i don't have the power


[mischief]

[Shabbaman]

That´s why it is better to convert them. :D Open them in M$ Paint and save as .jpg or .png file. The quality will be nearly the same but the size much smaller.

Yes, but why would I look for additional work when I'm already too lazy to upload images without converting them?

[Beam]

Yes, but why would I look for additional work when I'm already too lazy to upload images without converting them?

Because:
I'll have to fix the forum restrictions for .bmp first though, then I can post the world map images that EUIII can generate. and you´re probably even more too lazy to sort that out bro ;)

[Shabbaman]

Actually, I already took care of that ;)

[ProPain]

Well, adjusting the BMP size restrictions is rather easy and less work than adjusting pics for suer. More important is that large pics simply take up more diskspace and slow down the database. Smaller is better. :)

[socralynnek]

There are even ways or programs to put "Convert to png" into windows context menu, s.t. you right click a file and even don't have to open a program.

Didn't try it, but found this: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/xnview-shell-extension-adds-image-converter-and-editor-in-right-click-context-menu/

Just as an example. Maybe some people viewing your pictures are on rather low speed and that would help them.

[Shabbaman]

Because you asked for it, this is the world (first picture) and France with it's vassals (second picture) in 1563. I've added some pics to the opening post, I might add some more maps in the other posts later. And yes, these pictures are 5.616px × 2.160px.

[Shabbaman]

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578971142969088612/86C456FC547BD8B22F8444B78905969B166AF670/

[Beam]

Nice. :)

[Shabbaman]

One of my advisors died, so I hired a navigator and now I've colonised the Javan provinces (those I didn't conquer, that is), and... Taiwan. I've open markets with the Ming, so now I can place merchants in Nanjing, the most prosperous center of trade that I know of.

And I can also get another national idea! I noticed my tariff efficiency is only 57% (so I'm losing about 5% of my monthly income). I could go for Grand Navy and build more ships, so I could get my tariff efficiency up. Or I could ignore tariffs and go for direct trade, so that'd mean Shrewd Commercial Practices. Or perhaps something like Viceroys? Suggestions are welcome.

Have a look at my economy tab:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578971142972629768/17DD3C8F77736985D52FC92458CC5E5BE1C9BA81/

[Shabbaman]

I have all the gold provinces from the Inca. As a matter of fact, I destroyed the Inca. In the first conquest of Inca, I carved Chimu out of Inca. In the second conquest, I take all incan lands and carve Inca out of Chimu. Heh.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578971142987934057/50E216ADBB355D8B06831EE3D396963173B85C76/

Some of the missions that the game randomly generates are pretty stupid. I get missions to colonize remote parts of the world, like Canada (who would want to live there anyway). I guess the game just picks a province within colonization range at random, but I don't understand why the game doesn't just pick the province with the highest base tax within range, or a random province adjecent to one you already have colonized. Anyway, this explains the strange placement of some of my colonies...

Some missions are pretty cool though. Unfortunately Cologne has a bisshop, so I had to use my giant armies to subjugate them. Nice bonus though:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576720645762892525/F56BF5984275EECA52D76F3FE757BAC35D807562/

So my infamy is dropping steadily, but I expect it to rise soon: currently I'm in the middle of the umpteenth Badenese-French excommunication war (or, as I'd like to call it, the fourth (!) Badenese Succesful Attempt To Lose Their Core On Sundgau), and Aragon came to Baden's aid. Thanks to a lucky dice roll I managed to beat their 20k with my 11k (or maybe it's my land tech superiority), and now I'm steadily occupying their provinces. The countries on the Iberian peninsula have been annoying me for too long, so I'm grabbing some aragonese provinces to make sure they won't bother me again. I'll take Aragon and maybe Valencia, though I'd rather have Barcelona but unfortunately it's their capital.

Anyway, check attachment for France and it's vassals in 1575.

[Shabbaman]

When Baden declared war on me for the sixth time, I decided that it was enough. It brought in it's usual allies, Aragon and Tirol. Well, I had settled on Aragon as a target anyway, so here we go:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/576721200254154832/C7576773101366648708349BF688DC30881B7FDA/

I noticed I had a very high cultural tradition, so I used it to draft a diplomat. This'll help bring my infamy down after I annexed Aragon and Baden.

Right before Baden attacked me, I started an intervention war to save one of my weaker allies, Marocco, from England. That was the public statement, but basically I want to keep England down:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/576721200255810023/312B66D00B555A2A87DB1ED23C3EBE351E322B13/

It's worse that it seems: my allies whatitsname and whateveritsname got Ulster and Wessex out of it, and they immediately formed Ireland and Wales. After I forced England out of their deals with Scotland, Scotland attacked (finally) and without an army on their mainland (it's in Marocco) and a fleet (it's on the bottom of the sea) and at -3 stability it'll be tough to fight back against the three scottish units (units, not armies).

Back to the Badenese Excommunication War (or: the sixth attempt to get France very pissed with Baden), France and it's vassals got Aragon at it's knees. Unfortunately they're still too large to annex them, so I leave them with a colony in Africa, Barcelona and the party islands. Unfortunately one of my allies captured Baden, so I can't annex them yet. Next time Baden, until next time...

Oh, and I got in a personal union with newly-formed Wales :D

[Pastorius]

Please feel free to liberate Norway, since noone seems to be clever enough to pull a "Harald Fairhair".

You know you 'll strike oil eventually [;)]

[Shabbaman]

Norway and Denmark were pretty large at the start, but I let Sweden have too much fun.

[Shabbaman]

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578973081539590405/B2E63B05AF3943C50D125E0980092231E0149BDE/

That'll teach them.

[Shabbaman]

As I was bored and I had a colonialism CB against Castille, I decided it was time again to make sure my southern border remains safe. My original plan was to conquer Aragon (out of spite), but I don't have a CB and they didn't honor their alliance with Baden. In other words, I decided to declare war on Castille. My specific war goal is Murcia. One of the reasons I want Murcia is that it's a coastal city, and I need docks to raise my naval forcelimits; I have many colonies, so I need a large fleet to keep the tariff efficiency up.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577849604431001055/B43429306105029AC4CE95E8728EBBFE100F617D/

Castille won't give access to my vassals, so they're stuck in Granada (my loyal vassal). So, off we go. Castille has some 20k troops, and I make sure I destroy them completely. I make them release the Maya's as a sovereign state, and I keep Murcia. Castille split in half, and I have their mediterranean coastline... plus a corridor to my loyal vassal Granada. I've also kept Salamanca, as I figured that conquering manufactories is a valid tactic.

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/577849604436662193/6A83C077C388266463586EC25C2A8F652A95A3FF/

What you can see in above picture is that the vultures are already picking at Castille's body. The Papal State decided it needs some provinces in Hiberia, apparently.

Three things happen:
-my king dies, and his successor is a moron;
-upon death of Charles the umpteenth and because of excommunication, Baden decides it wants freedom
-I get a random event that makes me lose 6 infamy

Of course my new king gets excommunicated again. This is getting tiresome... anyway, I declare war on Baden with the restore union CB. Somehow I can't restore the union in the peace declaration, so I annex them instead. And that was the last time the world has heard anything of Baden.

Unfortunately Baden gets aided by... the papal states. This way I'll never be able to get some papal influence... oh well. I get Modena out of it, because of the valid "your manufactory is now mine" tactic. Of course, when you're down the vultures are sure to get you, so Naples and Siena take over the pope's lands.

Luckily the moron king didn't live long, and the new king is gifted. My goals for the near future:
-build level 5 improvements: I can build colleges now, and I want 20 of them so I'll get 1 additional spy and magistrate each year. I'm building mints in the few top grossing provinces (those that have CoT's) and post offices in the others. Undecided about naval arsenals.
-settle the west coast of North America: I can do this because I'll soon get a core on mexican west-coast provinces.
-annex some vassals: I have a mission that'll grant me a level 4 artist, so I can take the stability hit
-see if I can be papal controller

I've added the world map and the vassal map for 1598. Funny thing about the world map: Sweden and Moscow are huge, but they have poor provinces. Bohemia is stomping Austria, but Austria doesn't care and just expands into the Balkan. Bohemia is cut in half by Ukraine (thankfully).

[Shabbaman]

So I got this mission:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578976070529523729/E045A04AC6F33D139B92FC1806C4D9F35966935E/

Seems fun, right? It's even better, one of the rewards is the loss of 3 infamy :D One of the benefits of good relations with the Pope. The game isn't completely transparent in what you can expect of a mission. From what the message says you'd expect to get an infamy discount on capturing Napeolitan land, but that's not the case. Unfortunately, because I would've liked to get the university in Ancona. I liberated Urbino instead (for the umpteenth time), let's see if I can convince them to be my vassal.

I did get Ferrara's university though. It was conquered by the Ottomans, and with the cheap holy war CB I couldn't resist annexing it.

[Shabbaman]

Okay, just a heads up. After I researched government tech 27 I switched to absolute monarchy (http://www.paradoxian.org/eu3wiki/Absolute_Monarchy) (one of the things that could make this game better would be a tech tree instead of tech branches, and less generic names than "government tech 27"... why not just Absolute Monarchy instead? Paradox... :confused: ). I hesitated, because Empire sounds more fun, but after comparing the two government forms I decided it was a strict upgrade.

And suddenly:

http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/578976790151348828/40D23394C4430F072CA09576C44D04D7787C88D4/

That's pretty sweet, as the game was getting boring. So, when Tirol decides to troll me with spies, I declare war at once. I could go with the discovered spy CB, but I go with imperialism instead. I could annex Tirol's three provinces (for only 6 infamy), but I'm not sure yet if I want to expand into central Europe. OTOH, why not? The few provinces in Italy are worth it (some have universities), but half of Italy is my vassal already anyway. One of the benefits of expanding east is easy access to Austria. Austria is getting too big, they're even grabbing north african provinces now. Luckily everyone and their mothers are coming to Tirol's aid (must be the hubschen maedel).

So, short term goals: make Austria release some nations. I wish I could give provinces to my vassals (although I noticed that I am now able to demand unoccupied provinces that have a vassal core... but not with discounted infamy (and I get the infamy, not the vassal) I really wish there'd be missions for this).

Long term goals: own Italy and the Hiberian peninsula. Or just Europe.

[Shabbaman]

Minor update. Something isn't quite right with my net connection at home. It might keep me from spamming, but it doesn't keep me from playing EU3. Lack of time does though ;)

The fifth Tirolean Attempt To Annoy France has come to an end. I annexed Tirol (reduced infamy from the imperialism CB YEAH BABY), I completed a mission by forcing Catholicism on Bavaria, freed the Bavarian vassals, and made sure Austria will have a hard time getting back on it's feet:

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578977332403333014/E2FD922DCA2068EFDBDE4E7A41AA03B6D4E3D86D/

Released nations always are your ally automatically, so I should have a decent ally with Bosnia cutting Austria in half. I have a Purging of Heresy CB against Styria (because of Unam Sanctum, if I knew Colonialism CB was coming up I wouldn't have picked that national idea) which consists of Linz, Lienz and Karnten. I think I'll take those provinces quickly, then I can station troops close to the Austrian and Bohemian capitals.

After completing the forced religion mission against Bavaria, I got the same mission against Hainaut. Hainaut is my vassal though, I'm not sure if it's worth the infamy points to release them and declare war on them. I doubt I can finish the mission successfully if I annex them. The mission against Bavaria made me lose two infamy, I assume this mission has the same benefit.