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I got consecutive missions to "establish a presence in India" and then "establish a presence in China". They gave me claims on EVERY COASTAL PROVINCE in those regions zomg.

The annoying thing is that I warred two Indian countries hoping to get some sweet coastal provinces, and in both cases one of the two provs I wanted to take was their capital and I couldn't take it.

But, getting a foothold in India, I have the Maldives + a couple colonies in Indonesia, and after getting an Indian province I got a decision to form an Indian Trading Company that gave me another merchant so I'm ready to move in to the Malacca trade node. Things are looking pretty good.

The interesting curveball in the horizon is that Austria is just a couple imperial authority points away from being able to enact the reform that makes every country a vassal of the emperor...POPCORN.GIF

(I left the HRE awhile back so it won't apply to me, but it would give me a pretty formidable opponent to my north obviously)

Random notes...
- Tuscany has been allied with Austria forever, and they recently entered my coalition war when I fought Naples and yet I couldn't take their province because it was occupied by rebels and it wouldn't let me fight them. SUPER ANNOYING, base tax 13 province of my culture just chilling in the middle of my Italian empire and it's annoying as hell to take it
- DAT ACEH. They have all of Sumatra, half of Brunei, and basically all of SE Asia. Quietly having a nice little game. Shame I'm gonna have to take it all away from them eventually...
- Everyone on the forums whines about France OP but they've completely and utterly failboated in this game, and I only fought in a serious war against them like once. They have like 4 provinces plus colonies and mainland France is divided between Berry (lol)/Hainaut/Provence/Savoy/Spain/Brittany.

Agreed, the costs just seem a bit low to me right now. As Portugal I cored most of west Africa by 1515.

Haven't done a trade game yet so I fired up Venice. The venetian 'Doctrine of preemptive war' led to me taking three provinces off of Austria while they were losing vs. Burgundy/Hungary. Dat gold imo. Now all my neighbors are in a coalition against me and coalition member Milan just attacked... Decided I was done for the night so I'll fight that war tomorrow. So much for a trade game

Finally finished my first real game, here's what it looked like.

ALMOST had time to devour alsace and the european portion of Spain, needed another 20 years.

here's what it looked like (both portugal and denmark are in PU with me, naples is allied):







was getting tiring to have a coalition of 15 big countries against me in every war lol.

Was pretty sick when I had 200k men and 250k manpower and the 2nd highest manpower was below 100k (RIP RUSSIA & POLAND, you were once feared).


Kinda wish I had turned off lucky nations, I wasnt one of em . Bet britain wouldve been ultra weak and I couldve taken all of france way easier... Also Spain wouldnt have finished first! >.<

Terra Incognita...what am I doing wrong? I take a fleet out captained by an explorer, and I can Go into the "white" portions of the map, but any islands stay gray. Do I need to have a conquistador on board to actually head up some troops to discover them and be able to colonize?

You have a chance of seeing the island each time you go past it. So you can set to patrol going back and forth until you spot it.

Spot it? You mean your fleet just goes back and forth for a while until they just automatically spot it and its available for colonization?

Yup

Damn....didn't know that. Thanks

Also how do you know what your capital province is? That seems to be important in trade.

How did you get such large personal unions? Just enforced claims early and helped them expand? The best I've done is Portugal personal union with Scotland and nothing came of it... just permanent alliance. Was it a matter of bad luck that their kings kept having babies and legit heirs?

You could do that and land troops led by a Conquistador, as they can freely explore hidden land. But there's also a random chance to discover coastal provs when passing with an Explorer-led fleet. Try just continuing onwards and maybe you'll find it on a future trip. Another method is to set a Patrol with a neighbouring sea tile, but that can be dangerous because of attrition (and if your whole fleet is lost to attrition, the explorer disappears with it).

Was allied with denmark from the start and was able to inherit them when they were very large already very late in the game (like last 50 years, didnt actually change much).

Got portugal earlyish. Theyre like at -200 with me now, -390 from aggressive expansion lmao, and theyre not protestants (unlike spain that I converted during an early war ).

Not sure exactly, I know that you need a lot of prestige and probbaly need a good amount of luck if you dont wanna fight em for the throne.

I keep up my prestige in the 80s at least with only events pushing them below 80 from time to time so I have to believe it's a matter of luck to some extent.

At one point I actually had to reset the game because my Portugese king sucked at having babies and Castille got me into PU.

why the **** cant you iron mode without lucky nations?!

I don't think you need an explorer in the fleet - I'm playing as Muscovy at the moment and discovered the top right sea and land without having explorers yet.

dat riga tho

It's the province with a tiny crown above it. You can see it for other countries as well if you don't zoom out too much.

edit: that kirby muscowy/russia is an abomination if i ever saw one! a strong candidate for worst borders ever.

they were reknown for getting dragged into wars that included the strongest ground army the worldhazevaseen

on another note, how the **** do you ironman ming with 1/1/1 and 1/1/2 leaders to startoff ? Anyone know if the 3rd is like a LOT better?

Cause with all the malus already... you need like 3600 admin points at 4 per months just to get your first idea and buildings...

wtf do i do for the near 100 years that must take? lol

all i can do is war and then wait at x5 for an hour while manpower replenishes

Playing Venice now and forming Italy, at least early on, feels impossible because HRE keeps demanding that I release the provinces and I just can't afford to piss off the Germans. I think I am going to switch to Naples (naval range to core early) or restart Venice and go south to expand into Muslim territory.

I think the third (and on) rulers are randomised

dat makes sense.

Provinces/Seas that are adjacent to fully-developed provs you own (not Colonies that are growing) have a chance to be revealed, so over time you will find them.

For uncovering islands and the like, it's a classic case of needing to send your explorer through the area until you luck out and make the discovery.

Soooooo mp?

Playing as Milan. I currently have more population in al Misr Arabic provinces than Lombardi.

Religious idea route to convert as many as I can get just break up all the eastern tech countries as I spread east while coring al Misr Arabic provinces.

EDIT: Something freakish just happened. Burgundian king died fighting England and Austria inherited Burgundy whole with cores... juggernaut much?