Western Europe/the Motherland. I wasn't a super active player in Euro events directly but was part of a couple of fairly big wars, one of which finally booted Aragon off the peninsula. I was allied with Ottomans who were a big help there, as you can see they wound up with most of what started out as Naples. Castile was my vassal from after our first war, they had only 3 provinces until the war with Aragorn, after which I fed (some) of their cores back to them. Aragon did manage to survive, they hold Palermo there on the map. France eventually got merked after multiple wars that were basically France v. Everyone which I posted about earlier. Denmark also ceased to exist at some point, that's Hamburg there controlling the Jutland there. I also found it interesting that both Poland and Lithuania survived but never formed PLC and weren't even allied the last ~100 years or so.



The Far East & Southeast Asia. I made it a point early on to colonize as much of the Spice Islands as I could (and conquer what couldn't be colonized) and I think I did pretty well here. Castile irritatingly snatched up 3 of my Aussie colonies to keep me from painting the whole thing green (more on this later) and France controlled a couple of the New Guinea provinces I never got around to taking from them, but I mostly dominated the area. I have a foothold there between Champa and (what's left of) Pegu, but both are Ming tributaries ldo so I was never able to put a strong enough force there to challenge more in the mainland (ran out of time). I also managed to get a toehold in southern India there to open up that trade company, plus I own Goa though I'm still not sure how (I guess I got it in a war but I don't remember with whom). Most of the Pacific islands are mine as well by virtue of taking out what was Holland, who previously owned all of the once not snatched up by GB and France. (I only colonized a couple to extend colonization range, my priority colony targets were trade company provinces which I've read is the correct strategy.)



Africa is mostly mine, though Ottomans could have probably had it all. We were allies for a LONG time though so this mostly explains the map. Ethiopia was never a thing. Sweden grabbed Ezorngondo while I wasn't looking so that's why SE Africa isn't painted. I took most of Morocco and fed what I did not keep to my first vassal Tafilalt. Ottomans obv crushed, with no small help from me. We fought two wars against Russia and would have fought a third but I declined the call and Ottomans considered me an enemy from then on. I regret that decision as I could have probably controlled much more of south/southeast Asia if I had had their help but whatever this is how it shook out. Malwi took three (3) wars to conquer, those ****ers are tough, I may try them out after the patch.



North/Central America was a mixed bag. I feel like I got the important parts in terms of trade (all the cocoa belong to me, plus almost all of the West Indies save (again) a few annoying Castile colonies. While I concentrated on Central and South America + Indonesia, France and GB were busy gobbling up USA#1. I managed of course to grab California and (most of) Alaska, while Castile horned in a bit creating "Oregon" and assuring a lack of Portuguese presence in the North. As mentioned before, France formed Floride, then lost it when it failed, so I had United States alongside GB's Thirteen Colonies after that which is hilarious to me. Canada also formed from France's previous holdings. The few provinces Holland had were gobbled up by me and GB, and Holland's final capital was in the West Indies after they were booted from Europe.



South America was my first colonization target outside Africa so of course I control most of it. The only war I fought with GB was here, I wound up with some Peru provinces in the end but GB and her allies were just too scattered to ever fully conquer (though I did hold almost all of their Western Hemisphere provinces toward the end of that war). Castile just kept stealing my real estate though and it was a huge problem in SA. They screwed me up in Brazil and kept me from making a Peru for a long time. They were a valuable vassal to have, and I think it worked out OK, but part of me wishes I'd have just annexed them and painted SA and Iberia green. I missed out on the Unite Home Region mission by not doing this. I think the value of having a strong Euro march sitting in Iberia while I was adventuring in Africa and Indonesia was probably worth most though. It's just so nice to have marches who will go and fight when I just don't feel like micromanaging the game as much.



The final tally. I tried to play as optimally as possible based on what I have read but I'm not sure I really got there. I focused on getting as many provinces in trade companies as I could, but maybe it would have been better to hold fewer but develop them more? idk. I was getting 606.03 from trade at the end, but I've seen that number in the thousands so I clearly didn't do as well as I could have. Also a big lesson was the more spread out you are, the harder that **** is to defend.