Europe isn't actually that exciting outside of that one weird thing -- in fact Gaeldom just has one province in their homeland; their capital is now along the Ivory Coast, where they've got 4 provinces including the trade node.



The bad thing for me for my game is the main powers have solidified nicely -- there's ONLY Russia, and Commonwealth, and a huge Uzbek (guaranteed by a fully constituted Ming), and the Ottomans, and a big Ethiopia with no little countries around, and ONLY Kilwa in east Africa and Madagascar.

The only areas where that isn't true is India, where there are a few smaller nations that are all guaranteed by Vijayangar, West Africa (which is a mess). Central Africa is Kongo and then three nations in the Rwanda area.

I was about to go after Kilwa but they allied Ming ffs. I'm actually maybe about to ally Ming to go after Vijay with me, which will in turn let me munch on Uzbek and maybe Kilwa too.

I've been holding out on tech buys until Printing Press spreads enough to buy, it's 8.4% spread at the moment, just need a few more provinces in the west to pop. Already bought Global Trade. I really need that to happen before I start fighting big wars -- military tech 12 vs 15 is not a good idea at equal strength.

Wider view:



My current vassals are Beja (by Mamluks), Bengal (light blue SW of Ming), Chanda (central India, pasty green), and Kazakh (with a zillion cores in Uzbek). I moved capital back to Persia node for that sweet trade. Economy is finally doing very well, making about 44 ducats a month (with forts mothballed and no reinforcements), though I do need to build about 50 units to hit my force limit again.

And just noticed Ming just got in another war (vs Ayutthaya) and won't honor guarantee with Uzbek. So, yeah, I have a target!

Really good article for everyone, but especially for beginners, "The Art of Administration"

https://gumroad.com/l/txyen

Do they have the little torch thingy showing in the vassals screen? I always set mine to that ("aggressive") but you can change it so that they are docile

This is very similar to my Kurrent Kandy game, except it's Ottomans allied with basically any and everyone I could potentially attack. Their AI is just mass allying everyone, Bahmanis (whom I would LOVE to roll), even France ffs which keeps me from going after their CNs. They have like 10 allies seriously, way over the diplo relations limit and don't seem to mind at all. I'm #2 great power behind them, but I'm pretty significantly far behind.

It's 1780 and it's almost over anyway **** it no need to complain I suppose.

Oh Enlightenment spawned in the middle of Bahmanis which I thought was funny

whee, Ming's exploding!

Also, Tunis and Ethiopia took enough of Mamluks that I could force vassalize the then DOW Ethiopia and Tunis to get Mamluks their cores back, so that was fun. I'll post an update at the end of the night. It's been a good 20 years or so.

Current vassals, left to right: Mzab, Mamluks, Beja (currently annexing), Trebizond, Kazakh, Chanda, and Bengal.

So weird to see Ottomans not dominating by that point in the game. I assume they at least vassalized Crimea? They diplo annexed Crimea my last two games played.

No, Crimea is free. They're currently guaranteed by Russia, so I haven't bothered to try them.

Because I cut the Ottomans off in the south and east, they've expanded about as much as they can. Their choices are through Commonwealth, through Austria and Bohemia (HRE land), or through Venice and into Italy -- which is their best bet but Venice is allied with France.

In my GB game, I finally got to 1710.

It's frigging torture just waiting for age of enlightenment. I am also just letting Russia expand so hopefully I could fight him in a war with 1 million + casualties on both sides for the achievement.

Yeah when I played GB to get the achievement for all the missions the end of the game was sitting on speed 5 waiting for enlightenment.

Briefly I considered trying to do all the Eu4 achievements before looking at how many required played until 1700+.

I wardecced Norway to take Iceland. Norway shares a border with PLC, my ally. The green check is by his name so he will join me. when I call to arms, it says I'll owe him 10 favors whatever, but when I check the "Promise Land" box, his Yes changes to a No. Why would he not want free land?

I mean I guess he could be overextended but is that ever a problem in 1800? I mean he could refuse the land right? Seems like you always take the promise of land over favors

AI don't want land unless it has marked it as provinces of interest. You can check them (and set your own so you get them in war started by ally AI) in diplomacy screen, 3rd tab on the middle-right.

Your 1692 update, because I know you care so much:



I just force-vassalized a one province Ming (look just below the second K in Kazakh), which is going to make taking the rest of China much easier.

Vassals: Chanda (just started vassalizing; 2000 diplo points lol), Kazakh, Bengal (march), and Ming.

D- name placement that I'm going to have to correct somehow.

edit to add: this is pretty cool tech reduction...

The name placement is super tilting, I'd be directing all my conquering efforts towards fixing that somehow.

What's everyone's opinion on the Religious idea group since the patch? Is Humanist strictly better now that provinces are required to be in a state before they can be converted? (I just started a Muscovy run so this decision will have a direct impact on yours truly)

I haven't used it yet, but that seems to be the consensus.

I am in the humanist is better camp.

I mean the decisions currently available to me give +1 to missionary strength, like they actually intend for me to pick Religious, but even still if I have to wait to state up every Horde province before I can convert them it really doesn't seem worth it.

In next patch (in less than week) religious finisher gets an ability to convert territories. It is still worse than Humanist, although I think it quite good idea #1 to maximize the value from Deus Vult.

I remember picking Religious for Portugal and hating it (but those decisions giving +1 to missionary strength weren't available to Portugal obviously)

Yeah seems like it. Once you complete Humanist you've got +3 heathen tolerance, like, BAM it's there you don't have to do anything else. With Religious even though you have the stacked bonuses to missionary strength + extra missionaries, you still have to go through the conversion process and fight off rebel swarms in the meantime (not to mention the +25% religious unity along the way). I wasted soooo many years on rebels in that Portugal run. With Humanist it's almost like rebels are turned off as a game setting.

Deus Vult CB seems like the lone advantage to Religious at this point.

That and all that sweet sweet papal influence if still catholic.