Brittany starts free trade +3 and has 4 provinces to Portugal's 7 meaning it will be massively richer and tech faster. Since we don't have a holland a player brittany would conceivably be the first to the new world. Breton also isn't French culture and none of its provinces are all that good so could presumably make a deal with France to protect it while it goes a colonizing.

**** venice imo

Brittany is a possible choice I guess.

So is venice, Naples, or the Papal State.


Actually a player Papal State could be interesting

Naples and papal state suck. Go Aragon to **** over bent

I'm afraid that a player Aragon will involve lots of ****ing over for somebody.

Venice is safe until Jim forms Italy. Genoa will be vassalized in the first session.

Especially with JIMPLOMACYYYYYY

Also, I loled at this starting position

ya but with Poland+Moscow you can beat them early for sure. Let those 2 do the fighting, seige the back field. gg.

Couple things:
For trying to find a nation for someone, how about Mamluks? If they are too close to the OE, Jalyrids might be another option. I've played them in single player to a pretty big nation. They could take the arabian peninsula, down into africa. Go east to Timurids, I think Vijay is the closest human player east. Or go west into mamluks, which they would probably be chopping with OE eventually.
Also, if no Ming, there's no one down near Australia, so something like Brunei might be an option, although I've never played a game in that area for a long duration to see how it plays out.
Here is a cool link I often reference when picking a country.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...icular-country

Lastly, I'm actually learning a lot with my Portugal practice sessions. Obviously about Portugal, but about game mechanics also. When you establish a goal, and then play through 5 or 6 different ways to achieve it, you really learn a lot about the consequences and effects of different actions.

Oh yeah forgot, in trying to strategize for Portugal, just about every strat guide, let's play, etc is useless. One lets play was a single player guide on how to fight Castille right off. Another was SP taking all of N. Africa. Trying to find established, viable multiplayer strats is proving difficult.

You can browse the paradox MP forums and look for successful Portugals. Maps and savegames are usually uploaded.

I'm playing OE and have no problem whatsoever with someone playing Mamluks or any other country near me. This is my first multiplayer game of EU, but all games are better when competing with actual humans. I'd prefer losing horribly to human players than steam rolling the AI. Plus, there's no reason that the OE and Mamluk's can't develop some synergy and cooperation versus the Christian devils. So if someone is interested in the Mamluks, go for it.

As an aside, I think a future game where everyone takes minor European powers could be a lot of fun.

This would be great. If we ever decided to do it though, I would suggest CK2 instead of EU3. That game seems more geared toward building empires out of meager beginnings. There's less of an issue with big and small players coexisting in the same space i.e. Player vassalization would be more accepted than in EU3 and doesn't need to stunt the growth of the vassal. I think it also gives you more opportunities to work together with factions and plot conspirators.

Rise of the Roman Empire: Chapter 2: Ordo ab Chao

Prologue
Chapter 1

After my last conquests my new subjects are not very happy with me.



The order of the day is to conquer Achaea and Trinacria since my cores on them will be expiring in a couple years. In these wars I'll be facing Venice, Aragon, and probably England too since they can't mind their own ****ing business. For that I will need a fleet. I quickly assemble the second greatest fleet known to man.



With my fleet ready I declare war on Achaea. Since they are allied with Venice I simultaneously declare war on Venice as well since I have a CB against them for Naxos and Corfu. Now in my excitement I might have forgot to actually declare war on Achaea as when I unpause the game this pops up:



Note there is nothing about me declaring war on Achaea. Norway, Galacia, and Brabant also join in.



I am slightly outnumbered. My actual troops number 30k since Hungary has no way of joining in the fighting and Aquileia's 5k troops are useless.

I commence sieging Achaea and Corfu. England starts sieging Cyprus and begins ferrying in troops 12k at a time. Venice and Aquileia siege each other. My plan is to quickly siege Achaea, Corfu, and Naxos and annex them, then fight off England until they will peace out. The plan is going nicely, Achaea is occupied and I go to annex. WTF 8 infamy?! FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. I facepalm and do the next best thing.



At this time I an sieging Corfu and when my army goes to cross to it the Venetian fleet attempts to stop them. LOL Venice falling for my plan. I think I am forgetting something though. Their navy is half the size of mine so as they attempt to block my troops I undock my fleet. Then on the same day my ships undock and meet the Venetian fleet, the second greatest navy humanity has ever seen meets the greatest. They didn't have long to meet since the battle took approximately 1.5 seconds.

oops

As I run around trying to take care of enemy troops and stomp out rebels at the same time Florence joins in against me as well. Notice Ottomans are having some rebel problems as well, Orthodox rebels.



Soon after, sweet free Ottoman province already converted to Orthodox religion.



I'm still chasing enemy armies and rebels (I only have 2 armies) when I suddenly meet the requirements for a national decision. The Federalism +1 sucks but I'll take the free 15k men.



During this time I could have peaced out with England by conceding defeat but I wanted Corfu and Naxos from Venice. Venice continues to be a little bitch and won't give them to me until I actually go and occupy one of its home provinces but eventually they give it.



Peace at last and not a moment too soon. My cores on Trinacria expire in a couple months. I use my free 15k army to assault my rebel provinces and then disband them since being so far over my forcelimits is costing me a fortune. Time to declare war.



I still have no fleet and Cyprus is sieged once again but otherwise the war is much smoother since Aragon can only ferry over 7k troops at a time. The war started out with about 65k enemy troops and by the time I annexed and could get Aragon to peace out they only had 5k left. I'm pretty sure Aragon's King died at some point during the war and they were doing so badly they lost their personal union with Trinacria.

At this point I rest for a couple years to let my war exhaustion go down, build a new fleet, and finally stamp out the last of my rebels. Apparently my neighbors are getting jealous.

Ottomans, wat are you doing, stahp.

Ottomans declare war. Lithuania is Defender of the Orthodox Faith and joins in the fun. Ottomans had 5k troops when they declared war. The Chobanids joined them (and had about 40k troops) but asked for a white peace after a month.





Ottomans are left with 3 provinces. 1 of which promptly declares independence. It is immediately annexed.



5 years later and I'm sorry Ottomans but it is time to go.



As you can see my new mission is to wipe Bulgaria off the map which I'll be happy to comply with once my infamy goes down a bit. My empire in 1412:



I am about 18 months away from being able to diploannex Karamon. I've moved my National Focus to the province of Anatolia to help convert the heathens to the one true religion. I have the Roman Expansion CB against Trebizond and 3 or 4 of the Chobanid provinces. Here is the progress towards my first goal:



Austria has reduced Venice to 1 province that the bastards didn't bother annexing. Here is what happens when I form the Roman Empire:



Quick overview of my empire in 1412:



And the rest of the world:



Lots of big blobs.

Progue:

Portugal Prepares to Unleash Multiplayer Hell

according to my sources a progue is similar to a prologue, but spelled more efficiently.

***OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MESSAGE FROM MOROCCO TO PORTUGAL***

Served.

diplomatic insult casus belli ITT

Rise of the Roman Empire: Chapter 3: Mea Navis Aëricumbens Anguillis Abundat

Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

The religious status of my empire:



And I was wrong about Venice now being a OPM, they also have Kaffa on the northern coast of the Black Sea.

Armenia (province of Karamon) wisely accepts annexation.



So after a couple years of peace it is time to go back to war. My mission is to reconquer Bulgaria and I am happy to oblige.

















Now if any of those countries could actually get to me I might be in trouble. Brandenburg actually takes the trouble to march 22k troops all the way through Poland to reach me.



Mission accomplished.



I was able to get 5 of Bulgaria's provinces for 1 infamy but had to take 4 infamy on the final one, even though I had a core on it, because of my CB.

Next up is a quick blitz on the Mamluks since they had 2 provinces, Adana and Bitlis, I could take with my Roman Expansion CB.





Next up I get a Boundary Dispute event on Serbia, giving me a core on one of their provinces. Hey I'm not one to pass up a free province.





After my Reconquer the Eastern Balkans mission I got a mission to get a bigger army than the Chobanids. They have a higher forcelimit than me and thus a bigger army but I know a way to cut them down to size. Plus I have that nice juicy Roman Expansion CB for 8 of their provinces.



Now this war was a pain in the ass. They had 3 armies of 15k troops and I just could not take them out. I'd meet them 15k vs. 15k and I'd win the war but I would lose 8k troops while they lost 3k, meaning I could never follow and crush the losing army. About 75% through the war I realized my military maintainence was only at 50%. Eventually Mamluks and Aragon (for some reason) joined in for a good old fashion gangbang.



My current mission is build a bigger army than Lithuania. Boo boring.

The Byzantine Empire as of 1431:



That is a lone Aragonese province on the eastern shore of the Black Sea.



The rest of the world in 1431:



My ending stats:



Not a whole lot of progress was made towards my goal of reforming the Roman Empire besides coring a couple of my Anatolian provinces.



Next is to finish up conquering the provinces I have the Roman Expansion CB on. There are only 5 left. 1 more Chobanid province (Van), the 2 provinces of Trebizond that are bordering me. After I take those 3 provinces I plan to generally stop expanding to the east and focus on Europe, I have to start taking out some of those big blobs. The other 2 provinces I have the Roman Expansion CB on are Vlore and Albania, which belong to Austria currently. That should be fun.

After those 5 provinces I'll have to get started on Italy since I need cores there to form the Roman Empire. I think the only CBs I have against Italian powers are religious.

Another reason to focus on Europe is that I am already starting to fall behind in tech. I'm already 1 land tech behind and falling. The rest of my techs are already 3-4 levels behind. I still need 4 slider moves to westernize my Land Tech. In Death and Taxes you have to westernize each individual tech.

Just checked while I was at home. No CBs at all against anyone in Italy

If you cycle missions you will eventually get the reconquer southern italy mission which i think would give you a cb?

Venice AAR:

- I start out with a mission to take Verona, giving me a core on it
- I do so after Milan is weakened by a war with Naples. Next mission: take Brescia, which has been taken by Austria as part of their "our claims in northern Italy" mission
- Austria declares war on me since Verona is part of that mission; Austria being Austria, they're allied with almost the entire world and Burgundy, Scotland, Aquileia, Brabant, and prob a couple others join on their side, against me, my vassals (Naxos + Corfu + Wallachia), and Switzerland. Burgundy predictably steamrolls Switzerland, luckily Austria never puts their whole army together and my doomstack survives, taking out smaller armies when possible, but obv I have **** manpower and this process as a whole is not going well.
- Eventually I peace out individually with Burgundy for 75 ducats, and after a couple years and with their sieges lifted Austria peaces out for 25.
- 5 years later, they declare on me again, this time bringing Bohemia and Hungary with them too for ****s and giggles. I ragequit.

The end

Has anyone heard anything from Cassander, the France player? Seems to have just disappeared <_<