Don't sweat it, it's not you, Portugal's economy isn't great for a while until you can get the trade going

it's a good lesson to lower maintenance/mothball forts/etc when you're not doing anything with your military

So it's 1498 now. While I've been dutifully colonizing everything I can and breaking even (at best) financially, Aragon (with allies Papal State, Florence and of course Naples) has proceeded to roflstomp Castile. Castile lost everything in Iberia north of Sevilla province as I was logging off last night. Unless I can work a diplomatic miracle, I fear I will be next.

I've read a lot of takes on how to play Portugal here and elsewhere and I have not seen one scenario in which Aragon snowballs this quickly. Maybe it's just bad luck? Should I not have rivaled Aragon in the first place? I've removed them as a rival and am trying to improve relations, and I was actually +21 while they were at war with Castile, but it dropped to -40 as soon as they made peace. If they attack me I'm not going to be able to do anything about it. I've got 28k troops stuck in North Africa and not even enough transports to get them back to Portugal proper before Aragon overruns if it they want.

I secured an alliance with France late before logging off...maybe that will save me. I'm not sure France would even answer the call right now because they just finished a pretty massive war with England which looks to have ended in white peace at best as England still has one province in France.

Are you still allied with Castille? Can you backstab them and take the rest before Aragon can? Especially taking Seville will basically lock down that trade node for you.

Yeah, that sounds almost like a dream scenario. Even if you are allied to them, if they have another ally, try to declare on that one and then vassalize Castile in a separate peace.

Yeah I'd be in fantastic shape if not for the fact that Aragon hates me and wants to kill me. I'm not allied with Castile anymore after I left them hanging in their war with Aragon, but I was before that. Not honoring call to arms ended the alliance. I still have a royal marriage with Castile. I've fabbed a claim on Sevilla. But since Aragon still has me rivaled I'm worried that they'll just wardec me regardless of whether or not I go after Castile.

Def stab Castille and take Sevilla or (even better) force vassalize them. Aragon is scary sure but its allies are weak and you have France. If Aragon just finished up a war with Castille, it probably won't declare on you anytime soon due to war exhaustion, loans, manpower, etc, plus AI will take your French alliance into consideration. I would lock down France as much as possible, royal marriage, improve relations, etc. Also, if Aragon is their rival, they are much more likely to respond to any call to arms.

If you successfully can force-vassalize Castille, you can use France to beat down Aragon and feed Castille back all its cores which will make you basically a reverse-Spain.

You can also consider allying Aragon's rivals, and/or the Papal states. Do you have any other decent allies besides France? Either way I'd def ship all your troops back ASAP to take Seville at the very least.

I'll have to look but I think at this moment France is my only ally. I was allied to Tunis for a while but that didn't work out, I forget why exactly.

I really didn't WANT to ally France for fear of getting drawn into some of their HRE bull**** but I felt like I had no choice once I saw Castile circling the drain.

Look up Aragons rivals and ally them. Hurry and take Castile province. Forming Spain as Portugal is a pretty good situation because the trade and colonization national ideas are useful early on and Spains ideas are useful later into the game.

Even if France starts wars in the HRE its unlikely anyone will even come to Portugal. If they do and they are huge armies just keep your troops in North Africa and let them do whatever. France will clean it up eventually. War with England is more likely to result in foreign troops on your soil than the HRE.

Allied with France, took all of Castile's provinces besides Galacia, Asturias and Cantabria. Didn't matter. I am seriously on tilt right now.

As soon as France jumped into another war they wardecced me. So of course France won't answer CtA because they're in another war.

ASDLFJKASDFL;JKASDL;FJK THIS MUST BE HOW CZECHOSLOVAKIA FELT **** YOU FRANCE EAT A BAG OF BAGUETTES

Trade war? Were you embargoing them but not vice versa?

No they have me rivaled so they have me embargoed, I unrivaled and unembargoed them a while ago

Wait if it's a trade war I don't think they can even take any provinces or anything? Might be a blessing in disguise if you can peace out for gold etc. By the time the truce runs out France will be ready to go.

yeah... I mean, I might just click offer tribute and see what they want. You can't win them all (unless you're the Ottomans lol).

alright I took out a loan and bought my way out of it

on the plus side, I got all of southern Iberia from Castile and made him my vassal afterward, plus was able to ally with one of his allies (Florence). I'm now a great power. But then Ottomans rivaled me and Tunis broke alliance because they're allied with Ottomans so I'm about to take Tlemcen but will have to deal with Tunis and eventually Ottomans. Hopefully Aragon gets into a war with France at some point so I can backdoor them.

France finally rivaled Aragon too so it's coming up milhouse

You're doing REALLY well. Dont integrate Castille if it has picked up exploration.

Doing a Prince of Egypt run. (Become Egypt as Florence)

Already culture shifted to Egyptian after picking up necessary provinces with Ottomans beating down Mamluks... then an event happened where I had to choose letting this guy become emperor or spawn 25 religious rebels.



Sign me up.

It's a real dude by the way. Moments like this when I learn about an interesting historical figure are big part of why I keep coming back to EU4.

I'm highly pissed that they don't call that achievement Florence of Arabia, but nice start anyway!

It's probably a terrible idea but I've decided to go the HRE>revoke privilegia>Roman Empire (the decision) and then form Egypt route becaues the alternative is just to sit on my ass until I get adm 20.

I don't think HRE can form Rome. Egypt can, though.

Yes this would have been correct

(though I guess Egypt isn't actually in Arabia so they likely saved someone a few thousand disgusted keystrokes)

Seems like the hardest part of doing any Egypt achievement would be Not Dying To Ottomans