Jak's Game Guide: An EU4 Tutorial

jak7139 · Aug 5, 2024

CHAPTER NINETEEN: New Ruler, New Faces, New Horizons
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(December 1482-June 1493)

In March, I decide to hire a new general using our Estate decision because of a looming rebellion. Erwan is replaced by Paol Kalbean de Cardelan. Paol has less pips than Erwan, and he doesn’t have a siege pip, but he does have +3 Shock. So, he’s good for combat, but not much else.

Later, in the Fall, Morocco ends their rivalry with us. Tunis also breaks their alliance with them.

Continuing on, we pick up the next part of Exploration. This new perk gives bonuses to our Trade Companies, making them cheaper to govern and invest in. We don’t have any yet. But we will have lots in the future.

Finally, on November 1st, 1485, our colony in Eriksfjord finishes! Its Development also increases by 1 in each category due to the Age of Discovery bonus we picked back in Chapter 13.

I check page 12 of the Ledger to see where we can reach next, and I also notice Portugal on the island of Bermuda.

After thinking on it, I decide to send our colonist to Massachusett (renamed automatically to Baye Blanche). It’s a highly developed province (5/4/2), a Trade Center, and will give us range down the East Coast and to the Caribbean once done.

At the beginning of the next year, the remnants of Tlemcen (which had just lost a war to Tunis), is declared on by Castille. That war ends a few months later with Castille growing stronger. I also assign both of our Diplomats to start spying in North America. One goes to Wampanoag, the other goes to Penobscot.

In August, we grab a new Age Ability (see Chapter 13). This time I pick the one for decreased AE impact from taking provinces. This will make it harder for other nations to form a Coalition against us, something about to become very useful. Although we’ve been at peace for the past couple of decades, we’re about to expand again against some new targets.

I also turn Eriksfjord into a State and full-core it, both because we’re up-to-date with tech, but also because Greenland won’t be taken away from us when any of our colonial subjects form (this also applies to Bermuda and the Falklands).

Portugal also tries to attack Morocco again. Maybe this time they’ll have better luck.

Helpfully, as we begin to branch out, we get an event for faster colony growth for the next 10 years.

Then, just as our nation is about to enter a new era, Duke Francois takes his last breath. Long live Duke Francois II (and hopefully we spend a long time with his 4/6/5 stats)! Of course, we immediately boost our Stability back up to 0.

With this change in rulers, I check out the History Screen in the bottom right. This tells you all the things your ruler did over their reign, kind of like CK2’s chronicle but less detailed.

We next pick up in December 1487. Our new duke gets an heir and a bride! Prince Henri is perfectly average. I could disinherit him, but since our Prestige is low, I decide to keep him. It’s not like we’re struggling with tech.

Also, at some point, Eriksfjord was renamed to Vittreville. Vonig de Vittre is the name of our colonist, and I thought it was fitting to name it after him.

Francois decides to mark the birth of his son and the New Year with some good old-fashioned conquest. Our claim against Wampanoag is ready, our army is in place, and although we’re heavily outnumbered, we have the advantage of Tactics and Tech.

We move north onto Wampanoag’s capital. Then, a rebellion fires back home in Ireland. I hire a second general, using points this time since the decision is still on cooldown. The new guy, Loic, is terrible, but all we need him to do is fight rebels (armies without generals are more likely to lose battles).

France takes their Golden Era in March, and we also continue to finish Exploration. Only one slot left! Picking this second-to-last slot also gives us decreased unrest from our Breton Ideas.

After 166 days, Wampanoag’s capital falls. Why did it fall so quickly? One, we had a small Spy Network built up in them. Two, the difference in Tactics between our countries. We fight better and we siege better too.

With our high amount of mil points, I hire our first Conquistador to explore some of the lands around us. Sklaer is much better than Loic. We assign him to the 4,000-stack that was sieging. Then, they head through the terra incognita to the next enemy province.

Along the way, we meet the enemy in battle! We’re initially outnumbered, but our other army sitting nearby reinforces. We win the day and Sklaer gets a new trait. I’d also like to point out this battle screen before we move on.

This is why you should never fall behind in a Tactics tech. The natives had a better general and more men, but our Tactics-score prevented us from taking that much damage. However, our advantage won’t last forever. Now that we border some natives, they’ll get discounts to tech, and soon more Europeans will arrive. We need to go hard and fast for the foreseeable future. This opportunity won’t be presented again.

Loic (Paol has been reassigned to Europe) and Sklaer both move to the north and arrive in September. They each begin sieging a province. In December, Paol dies. He couldn’t live up to Erwan. The Irish rebellion is still ongoing as both sides stare at each other. Loic had fought one battle over there, but lost, hence why I reassigned Paol (the better general) to go deal with it. For now, nothing happens.

One province (Maliseet) falls in February after 177 days. The next one though (Abenaki) takes 463 days, falling in November 1489. I think we must’ve suffered some disease outbreaks, meaning we didn’t have enough troops to siege.

Our armies move out again. Sklaer moves south to deal with a native uprising. Loic moves north to start another siege. Sklaer then moves down to Lenape’s province to siege it. It’s July 1490.

Wampanoag assembles a small force to try and take back their capital. But now we see another effect of our Tactics. Not only is it faster for us to siege. It’s also slower for them to siege. Lenape falls in October after 207 days. Sklaer moves north again.

By the time he gets there, the entire enemy army has converged on Wampanoag’s siege. Despite our tech superiority, I don’t think we can take 16,000 on 4,000. We’ll wait for Luic’s force to finish in Stadacona.

In the meantime, we finally finish Exploration. We can now fabricate claims on any province in Colonial Regions (the Americas and Australia/New Zealand). Our diplomats have already been hard at work while this war has been happening. We want a claim on anything that borders Baye Blanche. But now we’re not even restricted by adjacency (annoyingly, the OPM natives will migrate around to different provinces, invalidating your claims. It’s just something to keep in mind).

In the end, after moving all of Loic’s force down to Sklaer (except for 1 unit to maintain the siege), I attack. And here’s another battle screen to hammer home how important Tactics is.

Unfortunately, while the battle was going on, I missed being able to take Innovativeness from the next mil tech. We’re one year ahead on admin and mil, but only the military one would’ve given us an Innovativeness bonus. Since we are near the cap on mil points, I would’ve liked to take the tech. But I switch gears to Develop our provinces instead, again sorting by the cheapest province in the Macrobuider and turning on the Edict where applicable.

The cheapest province this time is Arvor.

Development: 13 (3/6/4) -> 20 (5/6/9)
Points: 803 -> 734 (Admin). 980 -> 781 (Mil)

In July, Stadacona falls after 576 days. We have 100% warscore and it’s time to start peacing out. Let’s go one-by-one from September 1491 to June 1492 (it takes a while for our diplomats to cross the Atlantic):

Stadacona: War reps, Transfer Trade Power, 35 ducats.
Abenaki: Annex Migratory Tribe (AMT. A special peace option that prevents the tribe from moving somewhere else once their province is lost. It costs 100% warscore).
Maliseet: AMT
Wampanoag: AMT. 35 ducats (I think because they were the warleader, the cost to annex them was cheaper, allowing us to also take money).

Finally, to end this long update. I’ll quickly go over what happened while we were signing all those treaties:

October 1491:

Morocco loses Ifni, Tangiers, and 10.8 gold to Portugal. They’re also forced to release Fez and Marrakesh.
I notice a Castilian colony in Orinoco Delta (Venezuela) and a Portuguese colony in St. Martin (Caribbean).

November 1491:

We get an event to get 300 settlers in Baye Blanche for 25 diplo points. We take it, immediately finishing the colony. Our next colony is started in Penakuk to the northwest of Baye Blanche. We did this to be able to core the Maliseet and Abenaki provinces once the colony finishes.

December 1491:

Most of the army except for 3,000 to guard our colonies was shipped back to Ireland. December is when we finally attack. Loic’s force overwhelms the Irish rebels. He gains an excellent trait despite his lackluster stats.

January 1492:

We take the next admin (governing capacity and a new building) and mil tech (more inf fire and cav shock, plus a new building).
Our tech increase gives us a decision to increase our Missionary Strength but make Institutions more expensive to embrace. We enact it.

March 1492:

Castille declares on the tribe of Arawak next to Orinoco Delta.

April 1492:

We begin coring what provinces we can (Maliseet and Abenaki). We have no connection to Lenape. And I forgot to start coring Wampanoag once we annexed it, though this is fixed a few months later.
Most of the army was shipped back to North America, with a small contingent (4 units) left in Ireland.

jak7139 · Aug 12, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY: Whacking the Mikmaq & Settling Our New Home
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(June 1493-August 1497)

With our war over and done with, we seize some more Crownland, bringing us to 27%. We also fight the 3,000 Particularists who rose up in protest. Annoyingly, one of their stacks is in Mann. I send a few cogs back from the New World to handle it.

Out in eastern Europe, Muscovy finishes off Novgorod and takes all of Danish Finland. And now it’s time for our next war.

In August we go against Mikmaq in modern-day New Brunswick. They are allied to Pequot (Rhode Island) and Penobscot (Maine).

Sklaer’s force immediately takes out Pequot’s army and leaves behind a 1k stack. Then, he moves north and leaves another 3k men to siege Penobscot. The rest of our forces (6k) chase down the combined Mikmaq-Penobscot army. We besiege Mikmaq while the enemy watches helplessly from Nova Scotia.

While our sieges progress, Castille annexes Arawak. Mikmaq’s fortress falls first in October 1493. Sklaer’s 6,000 (4-2-0) force moves in against the enemy army. We win and they run away to the island to the north (which I’ve just learned in real life is fittingly called Cape Breton). We chase down their army afterwards and stackwipe it.

We receive enough Splendor in January to pick up another Age bonus. I decide to pick up the one for free War Taxes to help our economy. Normally, these taxes would cost 2 mil points per month. The discounts to our army and navy, while nice, are not worth that much. But for now, while they’re free, we’ll use them.

That May, we start catching up on diplo tech. we take tech 6 which gives us the ability to build a dock and steal maps. We still don't have the money for buildings yet, but stealing maps could prove useful if we get a large enough Spy Network (though we then lose out on the Prestige from exploring the area ourselves). During this, Penobscot’s province also falls.

Now, I look at the peacedeal screen. I want to annex Penobscot (they won’t accept currently) but our Aggressive Expansion score has started to build up among other nations. This isn’t a problem yet, but it could get out of hand quickly. Regardless, we go ahead with our annexation.

November comes around and I’ve finally decided on our next idea group. I was debating between something in the admin category (economy and expansion) or in the military one (defense and army quality). We’re 11 years ahead on both technologies, so that’s why I’m comparing those 2 categories. In the end, I double down on our colonization efforts. We choose the Expansion Idea Group.

Expansion is like Exploration in that it focuses on colonizing. It’s different in that it also has some trade stuff in there (like an extra Merchant) and an extra diplomat. And the Policy it has when paired with Exploration will be helpful for our colonial ambitions.

We even have enough points to unlock the first slot. But now that we have a second colonist, where do we send him? We have range for anything in the Caribbean, but South America and Africa are still too far away. In the end, my logic is the same as what we used in Baye Blanche. Our expedition heads to Puerto Rico, currently called Boriken, a 10 Dev province and Trade Center.

This happy news is abruptly cut short when January rolls around. Vougay d’Elbene, a true Breton hero, breathes his last. He shall be remembered fondly. As a side note, I’ve always found it annoying that the pop-up for character deaths doesn’t say their age. But we hired Vougay in 1471 when he was presumably 20-30, and we had him for 24 years. So, he was probably in his late 40s or mid-50s.

While the last siege was finishing up, I decided to rename our new provinces to something more fitting. I’m also sorry to any of you that speak French, I’m just going off of Google Translate here. And, as I’m writing this, I realize that these should’ve all been translated to Breton, not French. If I remember, I’ll fix that whenever we catch up to gameplay.

Wampanoag becomes “Nouveau Arvor”
Maliseet becomes “les fort des trois rivers” (because the area/state is already called trois rivieres)
Abenaki becomes “Sklaer’s Ennemi”

Pequot finally falls in October, and we begin peacing everyone out. That process finishes by January 1496. All three natives are annexed, and their treasuries seized. The game also automatically renames Pequot (Baye Notre-Dame) and Penobscot (Sainte Anne). Mikmaq doesn’t get a new name, but we still start coring it.

I immediately begin coring the cheapest of the 2 provinces (Sainte Anne, 27 points), and leave BND alone. The reason for this is that our Colonial Nation in the Eastern America region will soon spawn. All you need to spawn a CN is to own 5 core provinces within the region. So far, we have:

Baye Blanche (finished)
Nouveau Arvor (finished)
Sklaer’s Ennemi (finished)
Sainte Anne (progressing)
Penakuk (colonizing)
Les fort des trois rivers (it's in the Canada region so doesn’t count. It will count whenever we create a Canadian subject. It's also uncapitalized because I wouldn't have enough space for the name).

So, we don’t need to core more beyond that. Our new subject will core the rest using their own points once they spawn.

In September 1496, I decide to start exploring again. We hire a new Explorer using the Estate decision and head to the Caribbean. Our new guy, Arthur de Beaumetz is especially good at fighting.

Speaking of the Caribbean, Portugal has continued to plant colony after colony over there, and…wait! Did you see that? They just placed another one! Castille has also expanded their Venezuelan colony by another province to the west of Orinoco Delta. It’s a good thing we got to Puerto Rico when we did.

With all this cash in our treasury (139 gold), I remember our Diet Agenda from the Clergy to build a church in Anjou. An alert at the top of our screen reminds us that there are only 3 years left to complete this task. We get started right away.

In December, Francois II continues to surpass his father as a monarch by gaining the Reformist trait. This helps us gain Reform Progress faster, meaning we’ll have earlier access to the different bonuses we can pick.

Spring sees us build 2 more infantry in Ireland to help with a rebellion. England also decides to enter their Golden Era. And we take the next diplo tech in May. This one boosts our range significantly, letting us reach down to Brazil and Africa. While checking that, I notice 2 English colonies in Brazil. Plus, 5 out of the 9 provinces on Hispaniola are already owned by Portugal. The world is filling up fast.

jak7139 · Aug 19, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Merchants & Colonial Nations
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(August 1497-June 1500)

In August, we gain an extra Merchant from Expansion ideas. This also advances our Breton ideas, giving us extra Fort Defense (makes our forts take longer to siege).

An update on our current Merchant situation.

Our home/main node is in Bordeaux. You always automatically collect income in your home node, but assigning a Merchant there boosts the amount you collect.

You can collect in other nodes besides your home node, but that reduces your Trade Power (the amount of a node you control when compared to everyone else in the node) by 50%. But depending on the value of the node and your priorities in other nodes, this could still be very lucrative. So:

Our current trade income is 4.52 ducats.
We currently have a Merchant collecting in Bordeaux, earning 3.86 ducats.
Our other Merchant is in the North Sea also collecting. They earn 0.65 ducats.
Our new Merchant is sent to the next highest node where we have the most Trade Power (the Gulf of St. Lawrence). He is set to Transfer trade rather than collect because we want all the value in the GSL to flow into Bordeaux.
Our new income, once our Merchant arrives, is 4.97.

The main problem we are facing with trade is that our control over Bordeaux is low. Most of the node is controlled by France, so they get most of the benefit of whatever flow we direct. If we Transfer 4 ducats from GSL to Bordeaux, but France controls 70% of Bordeaux, they get 70% of that money.

In September, Penakuk finishes (renamed by me to Nouveau Bretagne) and we send our colonist to Havanna (same deal as with Puerto Rico, it’s a high-Dev Trade Center). Austria also enacts an HRE reform. Some Pretenders rise up in Kildare, but we don’t assist our vassal. As long as those rebels aren’t Separatists, we don’t care.

The month after that, we’re able to pick a new Government Reform. Of the 4 choices we’re presented with, the only ones that stand out for our purposes are:

Curtail Church Privileges: less Clergy influence (which is currently at 90% from an event), decreased amin tech cost, more Religious Unity.
Maintain Balance of Power: an extra diplomat, and increased loyalty from all of the Estates.

Both would be nice, but with how much travel they’re having to do across the Atlantic, an extra diplomat is sorely needed. And we’re not done with our wars over there yet either. Our new diplomat is sent immediately to the Pope to ask for money (42 ducats).

Our church also finishes in Anjou, giving us an extra tax Dev in Anjou and some loyalty with the Clergy.

In November, we declare war against another native nation, the Cherokee and their allies. And in January, we finish coring Sainte Anne.

Over the next month-tick, our new subject spawns in. I decide to name them in honor of our fallen Explorer who served us so well. We can also specialize our colony in one of three areas. These areas give different effects to them and to us as the overlord (though the bonuses for us don’t take effect until the colony has at least 10 provinces). Each one will give us:

Crown Colony: extra land forcelimit and manpower, a smaller amount of naval forcelimit and sailors, and an extra Merchant.
Private Enterprise: a large amount of extra sailors and naval forcelimit, plus a Merchant.
Self-Governing Colony: a small amount of forcelimit, manpower, and sailors, plus a Merchant.

Each of these different types also have unique interactions you can do with them in the Subjects’ Screen to further modify them and boost your own power. All CNs, regardless of type, get 1 free colonist. And you can switch their specialties to something else later if you want.

Of the three options, I make d’Elbene a self-governing colony. They’ll be able to grow their own nation faster, and will be more disloyal, but should be able to defend themselves easier from threats.

Because we’re the first Catholic nation with a CN in this region, the Pope signs a Treaty of Tordesillas. This means the Pope has legitimized our claim to this region, telling other Catholics to stay out. Because of this, our colonies in this region will grow faster and other Catholics’ colonies will grow slower. Those nations will also, if they violate the treaty, receive a large opinion malus with us and the Pope if they attempt anything.

Our uncored provinces in the region like Lenape (Philadelphie) and Pequot (Baye Notre-Dame) get automatically transferred over to d’Elbene’s control. Later on in May, we take advantage of our new CN. They’ve started building up their own army, so we can tell them to help with a siege.

We continue on. When December comes around, I do some more mil Development in our provinces to not reach the points-cap (we’re 7 years ahead on tech):

Bro-Naoned: 12 (4/4/4) -> 17 (4/4/9)
Pen-ar-Bed: 9 (2/3/4) -> 11 (2/3/6)
Points Spent: 953 -> 675

We would’ve been fine spending even more, but I always like keeping a couple hundred points saved for any emergencies.

At the same time, Francois has developed an interest in philosophy and science. I’ve had this event fire many times in many playthroughs, but I’ve never seen it do anything. Maybe this time will be different.

Another year passes, and we end up in December 1499. Our colony has enough points now to hire a general to lead their forces in battle. Seeing that, I also decide to see who their colonial governor is, just for narrative purposes.

Now, this is probably just a coincidence, but I found it strange. The governor’s name is Loïc de Bouëtiez. And if you remember, we have a general named Loïc de Beaudiez. It’s weird their names are so similar. Could they be distant relatives? We’ll never know...

Our game passes the 1500-mark. A great milestone for us. Naples sees it as a time to attack Florence. Florence is also at war with the Ottomans because of their alliance with Genoa. Castille attacks Tunis. And Milan goes against Genoa in April.

Our colonist in Havanna discovers a curious habit by the natives. The inhabitants roll up a plant called “Toe-back-oh” and smoke it. Our settlers say the drug is of high quality and will surely make us rich. Duke Francois scoffs. These “Cuban cigars” will surely never catch on.

The Neapolitan war against Florence ends up having consequences for us in June. The Pope, seeing all the action on the Italian peninsula, decides to take on Florence as well. They’ve called us in to help. We accept of course, our alliance is far too valuable. But all our troops are either in North America or Ireland. We’ve got nothing on the mainland.

But the Pope has his own allies too, so the Florentines and Provençals should be too distracted to bother us, right? What do you think?

jak7139 · Aug 26, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: Colonialism & An Important Decision
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(June 1500-January 1501)

To recap our situation, we’re wrapping up a war in North America to expand our colony, and the Pope has just called us against Florence, Provence (with their union, Lorraine), and Ferrara. The Pope and his other allies (Strasbourg and Trent) have enough to win this by themselves. So, I’ve decided to finish up our own war first before sending stuff over.

In the meantime, we pick up the next slot in Expansion. This gives us an extra +20 Global Settler Increase, making our colonies gain an extra 20 people per year (see Chapter 14). And, in other colonial news, Portugal has gotten their own Treaty of Tordesillas in the Caribbean.

If you didn’t believe we were in a race with Portugal before, this next bit of info will certainly change your mind. Both us and Portugal have picked Exploration and Expansion as our first two idea groups, but Portugal has nearly double our colony growth. Part of this is the recently signed treaty, but the rest is because of Portugal’s bonuses as a Historical Lucky Nation, their National Ideas, and a unique Age of Discovery bonus they can pick.

I usually keep Lucky Nations turned on because it is the game’s default setting, and because, as you’ll hopefully see by the end of this AAR, these bonuses don’t improve the AI’s ability to dominate the player that much.

Anyway, the colonies we’ve already started in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico and Havanna) won’t cause any outrage with Portugal or the Pope, but they will now grow slower. But if we start any new colonies in the region, their opinions will decrease. We have a choice to make here:

Cut our losses: once our 2 colonies finish, we leave the Caribbean and go colonize somewhere else. We won’t get a Colonial Nation this way and will have to own those provinces directly, but they’re still rich provinces with Trade Centers. Not a huge loss even if we won’t get another subject or Merchant.
Form a CN: colonize 3 more provinces when we can (preferably Trade Centers) to gain a new subject, then leave. Our relations with the Pope and Portugal will suffer, but we should be able to manage a small malus.
- Having a subject in the Caribbean also adds extra diplomatic options for us. Nations with their capital in the New World who declare on other New-World-capital nations, won’t have to worry about the nations’ overlord defending them most of the time (except for one exception).
- So, we could eventually build up our Caribbean CN enough to challenge Portugal’s CN in a 1 vs. 1 fight. We won’t have control of the peacedeal. But as long as our subject wins, they will take land. And we can economically subsidize them too.
- The exception to the overlord not defending them rule is the “Enforce Peace” diplomatic option. Portugal could send an ultimatum to us to force a white peace, otherwise they’d escalate it into a full war. Portugal would be the defender and able to call its own allies as well.
Double Down: We go all in to try and get 10 provinces before Portugal fills in the entire region. Trade will be, by the end of the game, our largest source of income. Directing the flow of trade with our Merchants will help with this. Our relations with Portugal will suffer. But since they’ll want our Caribbean land forever if we do this, they don’t matter. The real issue is the Pope. But if I keep a diplomat on him to keep his relations high, we might be fine.

We don’t have to make a decision until Puerto Rico finishes (currently at 819 settlers). But it’s something to think about as we continue playing.

In August, Provence decides to annoy us by besieging our capital with 6,000 men. There’s nothing we can do except turn on the Defensive Edict and wait. We have 7,000 men in Ireland, but all our transports are across the Atlantic. I immediately order them to make the crossing. Hopefully, they arrive in time.

The month after that, we take the next diplo tech. We’re finally caught up on all 3 categories! This tech isn’t anything special, just slight increases to Trade Range and naval Morale, and a new building for increased naval forcelimit. We at least get the ahead-of-time bonus now for a little while (5 years).

By October, our ships arrive in Ireland. I ship our whole army over to Pen-ar-Bed and prepare for a confrontation. While this happens, we get a free Stability from an event. We’re finally, for the first time this campaign above 0. I’d wanted to boost us up manually as well before clicking the event so we could be at a discounted +2, but we didn’t have enough points.

We also finally end our American war in January 1501. Here’s what we took (both provinces end up going to d’Elbene):

Susquehannock (in Pennsylvania to the west of Lenape: AMT. 35 ducats. Is disconnected from everything so can’t be cored.
Cherokee (in Virginia on the coast): AMT. 80 ducats (15.38 goes to d’Elbene because of their participation).

The next Institution, Colonialism, spawns as well in January. We had a chance for it to spawn in us, but unfortunately, fate favors Portugal. Regardless, it should spread to us rather quickly because of our ideas and colonial focus. The Institution’s province of origin, Porto, does get a permanent modifier to signify its importance as a colonial port. It would’ve been nice if we had gotten it, but oh well.

Now, I’m out of screenshots, but this chapter feels a little short. To make up for it, here are some nice-looking maps of our burgeoning empire.

See you all later and thanks for reading!

jak7139 · Sep 2, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Professionalism & Brittany’s Next Top General
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(January 1501-November 1503)

With Colonialism having spawned in the last chapter, the world sees permanent changes to the prices of Livestock and Grain. We have a few of these provinces, but it’s probably a wash. Neither good is very valuable anyway.

As our army in Europe gears up for battle, our North American army doesn’t stay idle. Next, we move against Mahican and their allies of Powhatan and Osheaga. Sklaer’s force pounces on the Mahican army and capital, while I tell d’Elbene to go siege Osheaga.

In April, the Pope separate peaces Ferrara by annexing them. We get 11.73 ducats for our trouble. Even though we haven’t helped at all, our besieged provinces count for participation as far as the game’s concerned.

After that, we pick up the Age bonus for an extra +1 to our dice-roll in battles with the same terrain as our capital. Then, helpfully, our European army doesn’t even need to fight the enemy force in Brittany. A combined Papal-Tridentine force arrives in Bro-Naoned, beating the enemy there, then stackwiping them in Anjou since they’ve nowhere to run.

I load our army back onto our transports and head for Ireland. More rebellions are always brewing because of our actions to decrease Autonomy. But eventually their anger will subside. We need the economic value out of those provinces more than we need a peaceful populace.

October sees Naples’ war against Florence end. Naples takes Pisa while Savoy takes Avignon and Forcalquier. It’s at this point I noticed Avignon wasn’t owned by the Pope (that’s how little I’ve been paying attention to this war). Provence has a mission to ask the Pope for control of it. Sometimes he says no, other times yes. But I’d assumed since the Pope still owns Acchisi (Aix) from our first war (see Chapter 3) that they’d refuse.

Savoy takes this moment of peace to rival us. Not that this really matters since neither of us are near each other.

At the same time, Milan takes both of Genoa’s mainland Italian provinces and releases Corsica. The once mighty merchant republic is just left with their Black Sea and Aegean holdings, all of which are currently occupied by the Ottomans as part of the war mentioned in Chapter 21. The Turks end that war in November. They take the Aegean stuff, plus Venice’s provinces in Albania, Greece, and a few in Croatia.

With Puerto Rico almost finished (975 settlers), I’ve finally come to a decision regarding the Caribbean. When building an empire, you have to take risks. Our colonist starts the journey to Jamaica (a 10 Dev Trade Center).

The Pope helpfully chooses the Golden Bull for Institution Spread. With that, the already small risk of us falling behind on tech is negated. A province like Anjou, which doesn't normally meet the requirements for Colonialism to spread, is gaining it at 2.50 a month just because of its Cardinal.

Naples chooses to continue their conquests once 1502 rolls around. This time they go after unlucky Lucca. Weirdly, this puts Naples at war with their former ally Savoy. Why’d they waste warscore by giving provinces to Savoy in the last war if they were just going to end the alliance a few months later?

By April, d’Elbene finishes their siege of Osheaga and moves down to Powhatan. Aren’t subjects great? I don’t even have to waste manpower on sieges!

Castille takes a huge chunk out of Tunis. Even if we become rivals one day, right now, it’s good to have Castille so strong. The Pope doesn’t take anything from Provence, just money (we get 1.68 of it). Theodoro takes 2 of the 3 provinces in Genoese Crimea. The last one (Azov) is occupied by Crimea itself. But rather than annexing them, Crimea decides to make Genoa a vassal. Did they hope to reconquer some of their cores?

Our siege of Mahican ends in June. Now we’re just waiting for Powhatan to fall. Portugal finally rivals us during the middle of this. It was bound to happen eventually. But colonizing Jamaica has pushed them over the edge.

I turn on the Institution Spread Edict in all of our European provinces to help out. The sooner we embrace Colonialism, the sooner we can sell it back to someone for a profit. And, in happy news, Francois II has much better luck than his father regarding spousal loyalty. His wife Claudine is so loyal in fact, that he receives a permanent +1 to his admin stat.

In December, our Papal bonus for increased taxes expires. We unfortunately don’t have enough Papal Influence to pick it again. And we won’t have enough for a while, as violating the Treaty of Tordesillas also penalizes your PI for every colony you put down.

More importantly than that though, we AMT Osheaga. Their province is immediately transferred to d’Elbene, giving them their tenth province, and us an extra Merchant.

I decide that sending him to the Caribbean node is our best bet. The Caribbean is a very important node as it transfers to Sevilla, Chesapeake Bay, and Bordeaux. Right now, all the money is going towards Sevilla because of Portugal. But with the number of Trade Centers we control in the region (3 of the 6), we should have enough power to force some of that money towards Bordeaux. Our trade income goes from 5.92 before the change (Dec. 1502), to 6.71 when I check it again (July 1503).

In January, young Henri’s fifteenth birthday comes around. His first trait is really good! Decreased AE Impact. Even though his stats are average, that trait has sealed the deal for me, we’re keeping him.

We’re already in 2 wars. What’s the harm in starting another? This time, we’re attacking Innui, Algonquin, Cree, and Ottawa.

With a few events providing extra admin power, we’re able to pick up the next Expansion slot in June. This gives us extra tariffs which is…not much. But it also gives us decreased travel time for our diplomats. With the amount of transatlantic wars we’re conducting, this is a great boost.

Since we’re nearing the mil points cap, we could consider doing more development. However, there’s one other way to get manpower which we haven’t discussed yet: Professionalism.

On the Military screen, there’s a horizontal progress-bar that runs across it with a tricorn in the top-left corner. As your Professionalism grows, that bar fills up, giving your army different bonuses. If your manpower situation is dire, you can spend Professionalism to increase your rate of manpower recovery by a significant amount. Since your recovery-rate is also affected by your cap, if you have a large maximum manpower, you can refill it quickly with Professionalism.

There are 2 main ways to gain Professionalism:

Drilling: drilling is a special action you can do with your armies that gives you ticking Professionalism as long as they drill. Drilling decreases their morale down to 0 but will fill up your Professionalism bar and another bar specific to your army (which I will discuss another time). The amount of Professionalism you get is determined by the proportion of your forcelimit that is drilling.
Hiring Generals: every time you hire a general, your Professionalism increases by +1. That’s it.

So, with our excess number of mil points, I decide to hire a couple of generals. I’ll only keep one since I don’t want to go over our general-cap right now, but even the ones we fire the same day they’re hired still give Professionalism.

First up, we have Roman de Beaudiez, a relative of Loïc. Unfortunately, his stats aren’t great. No nepotism today. We send him away.

Next, we have someone pretending to be the legendary Erwan de Machecoul. They have the same name and everything. His stats are okay, but we can do better. Thanks for coming in. Next!

The last candidate is finally someone new. Gwilherm de Kerdrel. He has the exact same stats as Erwan, except he has an extra Fire pip. Oh, if only we were in the 1600s…

Anyway, that’s enough auditions for now. Gwilherm can stay. Welcome to the team!

Part of the reason we did all this was because there were only 7 days left on the Innovativeness timer for the next mil tech. We’re at the cap for the number of mil points we can hold, so need to spend some of it. We spent 147 on generals (our current Innovativeness has decreased the cost to 49 from the normal 50) and 770 on mil tech 9.

Tech 9 is very important. We get some more Tactics, an extra +1 to our CW, and get to pick a new infantry unit. France or Portugal should be deterred from attacking us, at least until they also get the tech, and our New World wars should be even easier.

Speaking of our wars, how are they going? Well, Innui and Algonquin’s armies are holed up on Newfoundland not doing anything. Our armies are sieging as much as they can.

The Mahican war is almost over, we’re just waiting for our diplomats to finish their European duties first. They are each improving relations with Castille, the Pope, and France.

And the Pope has just finished their war. They annex what’s left of Florence, and we get 3.23 ducats.

In August, Havanna finishes. Seems those cigars were more popular than Francois thought. Because our transports are busy, I colonize Guane, the province next-door, so our garrison at Havanna can just march into it.

Three last things before I end it here. One, I move our Merchant from the North Sea to Chesapeake Bay. I suspect that with our control over the East Coast solidifying, we’d make more money Transferring Trade from Chesapeake to GSL, which would then go to Bordeaux.

Turns out, I’m right. We were making 0.59 in the North Sea and 6.71 in total. Now, we transfer an extra 0.70 from Chesapeake to GSL, which then moves towards Bordeaux, and make 7.16 in total.

Secondly, Bro-Naoned becomes the seat of a Cardinal. Our alliance with the Pope is a great benefit. I hope it never ends.

And thirdly, we end our Mahican war:

Powhatan: AMT.
Mahican: AMT. 45 ducats (d’Elbene gets 23.65 of that).
Both provinces go to d’Elbene.

jak7139 · Sep 9, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: The Death of a Legend, Tariffs, Studying Technology
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(November 1503-September 1507)

Our war against Innui is going fine, so what’s one more war on top of it? This time, we’re going after the largest of the tribes this side of the Mississippi, the Iroquois, and their allies, Attigneenongnahac and Arendaronon. We cobelligerent both of Iroquois’ allies here because we want to lessen the penalties from taking land off of secondary participants, and because 2 of the 3 extra participants, Ottawa and Cree, wouldn’t even join (they’re already at war with us).

I decide to wait a few extra months before declaring our new war because we still haven’t picked our new infantry unit. Whenever you change your unit type, all those units will be set to 0 morale to represent the training and reorganization of your new forces.

Since we’re at war, even with our advantages in Tactics and tech, I don’t want to risk any unnecessary battles with Innui. But that war is basically won, their armies are dead, and we just need to siege. It’s the perfect time to upgrade our units. Now, what are our choices?

We’re currently using the Galloglaigh Infantry with its 1 offensive Shock pip and 2 offensive Morale pips (see Chapter 9 for the explanation on pips). For the outline below, the first number is the offensive value, the second is defensive. Our 3 new choices are:

Condotta Infantry: Fire 0-0. Shock 2-1. Morale 1-1.
Landsknecht Infantry: Fire 0-0. Shock 1-1. Morale 1-2.
Reformed Galloglaigh Infantry: Fire 0-0. Shock 2-0. Morale 2-1.

An argument could be made for either the Condotta or the Reformed Galloglaigh. The Landsknecht, with its minimal damage output compared to the others, doesn’t seem useful for our purposes. I choose the Reformed Galloglaigh. Do you think that was the correct decision? Would you have chosen the Condotta instead? Do you think there’s a case for the Landsknecht? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

We put our new units to the test in a battle against Ottawa while sieging Algonquin’s capital. We’ve also declared on the Iroquois and their allies by this point. The entire Northeast has been set ablaze.

As our wars continue, Naples annexes Lucca and takes Nice from Savoy in September. With how aggressive the Neapolitans our being, perhaps Italian unification will happen 300 years early.

In October, we receive an event that, should things go well, we will receive throughout the entire campaign.

If you have a CN as a subject, every so often, an event will pop up asking you if you want to increase tariffs on them. If you say yes, the specified CN will, of course, pay you more and get increased Liberty Desire. If you say no, you get 10 points (a 33% chance per type).

Now, you’d think it’d be worth having your subjects pay more money to you. But tariffs are an odd case. The tariffs you receive pale in comparison to the trade and gold income, if your CN has gold mines, you get. And later in the game when your CNs become increasingly disloyal, you’ll have to either decrease tariffs or deal with revolts.

For this event, it is always better to just say no. We’ll make tons of money off our colonies, but tariffs aren’t the answer.

We also have another event asking us to increase the Development by 1 in Ulster. We get the choice between tax, production, or manpower. Because Ulster produces Grain, which gives bonuses to the province’s forcelimit, I choose the manpower to further boost it.

By January 1505, both our wars are in their final stages. Unfortunately, Arthur de Beaumetz, our new explorer, won’t live to see it. He didn’t do much. He explored a bit of Africa and South America before sending his ships to protect trade in the Caribbean. He truly wasn’t able to accomplish much of note.

Castille embraces Colonialism in March. And we sign our first peace in April with Ottawa. The next peace is in May 1506 with Algonquin, then Cree and Innui in June. And, in September, we peace out Arendaronon. All these countries are annexed, but their provinces are in Canada so aren’t transferred to d’Elbene.

With all these peacedeals, I feel safe enough to send Sklaer out on an expedition to explore. You can explore, both with ships and with armies, manually or automatically. But with armies, using the automatic method means there is a chance to find El Dorado or the Fountain of Youth.

Unfortunately, after only a few months on the trail, Sklaer is killed in a random event. He’d fought up and down the East Coast and faced many battles, but in the end, he died to the whims of RNG. He was 17 when we hired him in 1488. And now it is 1506. He died at 35. It’s a shame that his legend ended so anticlimactically.

I hire a replacement Conquistador using mil points instead of the Estate decision. Venec de Saint-Houlon is just as skilled as Sklaer at combat, but he also has a siege pip. Hopefully, he lives long.

We pick up another advancement in Expansion ideas. This gives us another diplomat and reduced Liberty Desire for non-European subjects. We also get extra Missionary Strength and Papal Influence from our Breton Ideas.

By March, Colonialism has spread throughout enough of our provinces that we can embrace it for 53.02 gold. We adopt it. We can only sell it to 2 nations at this point, both our own subjects, but something is better than nothing. We’ll receive 0.41 a month for the next while from d’Elbene.

I also remember to turn off all the Institution Spread Edicts we have active to save money.

With the tech cost penalty from not having Colonialism gone, we also take diplo tech 9. This gives us some new ships, more Colonial Range, and the ability to Study Technology.

Studying Technology is a very useful ability. If you have a Spy Network in a nation ahead of you in technology, the higher your network, the higher your tech discount. This discount only applies to techs that the nation you’re spying on has unlocked but you haven’t.

My preferred strategy with this is to look at what technologies other nations have unlocked on page 7 of the Ledger, look at the top 10 or so most advanced nations, then check how fast a hypothetical Spy Network would build in the Diplomacy screen. The faster the network grows, the better. And the faster rate also means the target nation has less chance to expose the Network, deleting your progress.

In April, we annex Attignawantan. And in June, the Pope proclaims that Columbia is Castille’s domain with a Treaty of Tordesillas. I try to annex Attigneenongnahac in one of our peace deals, but the game says I can’t reach it. So, I settle for money, reps, and Trade Power instead. Shortly thereafter, they are invaded by Huron. In September we sign our final peacdeal with Iroquois, taking the eastern half of their country. We’ll be back for the rest later.

Ottawa: AMT. 31.9 ducats (25.19 to us).
Algonquin: AMT.
Cree: AMT. 19.6 ducats (16.22 to us).
Innui: AMT. 35 ducats (28.97).
Arendaronon: annexed. 35 ducats (30.16).
Attignawantan: annexed. 50 ducats (43).
Attigneenongnahac: war reps. Transferred Trade Power. 40 ducats (34.47).
Iroquois: 6 provinces (all to d’Elbene). War reps. 220 ducats (189.61).

jak7139 · Sep 16, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Buildings & Trade Companies
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(September 1507-April 1508)

With the spoils gained from our wars, we’re able to repay the last of our loans. We’re finally debt free! Then, in October, we achieve another milestone. Brittany has grown enough to be recognized as a Great Power! GP status gives us a permanent boost to our Power Projection based on our rank. It also unlocks some new diplomatic options that we’ll take advantage of later.

We spend 73 of our diplo points to reduce our War Exhaustion by 2 since we’re 11 years ahead on tech. Less War Exhaustion makes it cheaper to core our provinces, and I want to save as many points as possible to finish Expansion and still integrate our conquests.

It’s also time to seize and sell our Crownland again and summon the diet. We end up at 22% Crownland with 400 ducats in the treasury. Of the 3 options presented by the Estates today, we go with the Bourgeoisie’s proposal to colonize New York.

I also make the call to annex Kildare. They’ve been a loyal vassal and have served us well. But owning the land directly and freeing up a relation-slot is more valuable at this stage. And, as it will turn out over the next few decades, this was the correct decision. Any guesses why that might be?

I end up spending some of our Papal Influence to grab the extra taxes and decreased construction cost privilege we’ve taken before. Then, I spend 92 of our gold on a new church in Arvor. Once completed, it will earn us +0.15 a month. Another 92 is spent on a dockyard in Penn-ar-Bed for a mission. And we also construct a marketplace in Bro Naoned to increase our Trade Power.

Building slots, especially early in the game, are precious. Later on, with discounts to Development and increased mana generation, we’ll have an easier time deciding what to build. But I’ll tell you what I prioritize:

Workshops (production) & Temples (tax): income is, obviously, very important. And the more money you make, the more you can build. It spirals very quickly. Production is better throughout the game, tax is good early game. Anything that makes over 0.10 a month, I build/keep.
- If you hover over a province with a building in the Macrobuilder, it will tell you how much the building makes each month. Right-clicking while in the Macrobuilder deletes buildings.
Marketplaces (Trade Power): I only ever build these on Trade Centers/Estuaries, or provinces that have specific modifiers to their Trade Power. They really aren’t worth the slot anywhere else, except maybe on Trade Company provinces if you’re having trouble establishing the 51% control needed for a Merchant.
Barracks (manpower): extra manpower is always nice. Increased manpower cap also increases the recovery rate. Anything 500 or above is good. If you really have nothing else to build even the 100-level ones are worth it.
Shipyards (naval forcelimit): more ships, more trade, more control of the seas. These buildings also make it so your ships repair faster in the tiles they’re built on, helping you wear down enemies’ navies in close wars. They also make ships build faster.
Manufactories: very expensive, but absolutely worth the cost once you can afford them. Will easily make back the money you invest into them, especially for high-value trade goods. The specialized manufactories also provide extra bonuses if you construct them on specific trade goods.
- Soldier’s Households (manpower): build them on every grain, livestock, fish, or wine province you can. Along with barracks, you’ll never have to worry about manpower again.
- Furnaces: build on every coal province you have once unlocked. Free money.
- State Houses: helps with governing capacity. Build it on any paper, gems, or glass provinces. Nowhere else unless you want/need to.
Courthouses (governing capacity): doesn’t take a slot so can be built anywhere. Will help if you find yourself running out of governing capacity.
Universities (Dev cost): doesn’t take a slot. Gives the province it is built in -20% Dev cost. Build it everywhere you can, prioritizing provinces with no slots left. Then Dev those, now cheaper, provinces to unlock new slots.
Regimental Camps & Docks: more land forcelimit and more sailors are nice to have. But not as important as the other buildings for most of your needs. But build them once you start unlocking more slots or have nothing else to build.

Using 80 of our remaining 125 ducats, I unlock a Naval Doctrine for our country. The cost increases relative to the size of our navy, so before we start building more ships, we should pick one. I choose Merchant Navy, making our trade-ships more effective. Then I build two more Barques for our trade fleet in Bordeaux.

In December, England is proclaimed by the Pope to be the rightful ruler of Brazil. At least this will keep the Castilians and Portuguese from expanding there. It may even be a thorn in their side.

Our colony in Jamaica is almost finished (970 settlers), so I recall our colonist early to start the journey to our next outpost. The New World is nice, but it’s not the only frontier we need to settle. The Ivory Coast trade node is another key to our long-term expansion. Castille has already claimed the province of Gold Coast to the east, so we set up shop next door in Cape Coast. I immediately assign the province to a Trade Company.

Here’s a quick rundown on TCs:

Each TC has a region it belongs to (the same mapmode as the colonial regions for our CNs). Unlike the regions in the New World or Australia, a new subject won’t be spawned. Instead, the Subjects screen will show your TC’s control in that region. Having over 51% control will give us an extra Merchant.
TC provinces give you less tax, manpower, and sailors, and are capped at 90% autonomy, but they give a significant boost to your Trade Power, production income, and naval forcelimit (so you usually want to assign TCs to Trade Centers/Estuaries).
TCs cost more governing capacity than a normal province, but that’s offset by the fact that TCs can only exist in Territories, which cost less GC anyway, as well as any courthouses you build in the province.
TCs also have access to special, but expensive, buildings. These buildings can partially negate the penalties to tax, manpower, etc.
TCs are harder, if not impossible, to convert to your religion. But they do not contribute to religious/cultural unrest or religious unity.
All TC provinces in a region boost the goods produced of all non-TC provinces in that region. So, you want to assign enough provinces to the TC to get a Merchant, but not so many that you lose out on the goods produced.

I realize not much happened in this update. But these explanations about TCs and buildings had to come eventually. And understanding the specifics of TCs is key to building a global empire. There will be plenty of action coming in these next couple of chapters, I promise you that.

See you then and thanks for your comments and readership!

jak7139 · Sep 23, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: Oh Canada…Can You Hold This?
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(April 1508-January 1514)

Jamaica finishes and Bro Raozhon gains a Cardinal. Then, the relatively short reign of Francois II comes to an end. I was really hoping he’d live as long as his father.

Duke Henri’s first act is to purchase a new Splendor perk. This one gives us increased cav-to-inf ratio (see Chapter 13). This isn’t a huge boost because of our lack of cav. But if we were playing someone like Poland, then it’d be nice. Still, better than nothing.

A revolt of 4,000 natives rises up in Cape Coast and our small garrison isn’t enough to stop them. While we’re able to retreat west into some uncolonized land, our colony is destroyed when the province is sieged. The rebels disperse and we resend our colonist to try again. I also send our transports over with an extra infantry to help.

To help with our finances a bit, I offer Knowledge Sharing to Kildare before we annex them. We might as well steal the last of their money before it disappears into the void. Our economy in July 1509 sits at 17.93 ducats in total with a 4.27 surplus. And that’s while paying for our army and some Corruption caused by our overextension.

Guane has also nearly finished. So, in September, I send that colonist to Long Island to complete the diet we received in the last chapter.

A couple days later, we get a 5/4/4 heir from an event. Our prince is once again named Francois. I’m starting to sense a pattern. Duke Henri also decides to marry the woman in the event, Gwenvred. I’m sure that went down well with the Church.

I also remember to scornfully insult England. This brings our Power Projection above the magic number 50, earning us an extra point per month in each category. England, as a side note, isn’t doing very well right now. They’ve been dealing with a large Particularist rebellion for the past couple years now. At least this keeps them distracted, weak, and off the backs of either us or Scotland. I’d consider deccing on them, but their allies would still be a lot to handle: Austria, Portugal, Sweden, and East Frisia.

In April, we receive the once-per-game event that all European countries get: The Last Jousting Tournament. The bonuses are so good that there’s no reason you should ever decline it.

1511 comes around and I do some more Development clicks. I bring Bro Wened up from a 9 Development backwater to a 20 Dev metropolis. It is now tied for the largest city in our nation. Our other largest province is Arvor which we had Developed previously (Chapter 19). Both of them look like this:

Bro Wened: 1/3/5 -> 1/9/10
621 diplo -> 360
983 mil -> 763
Arvor: 5/6/9

Kildare submits to the inevitable in June. We gain some Prestige and a penalty to our Diplomatic Reputation for the next 10 years. Usually when annexing a subject, I like to take a privilege from the Nobility that negates the hit. But I forgot this time.

One month later, our Canadian CN spawns. We make it Self-Governing to hopefully fill out the region faster. And the Duke, perhaps to compensate for his average stats, names it after himself: Henrika.

Our new subject already has the 10 provinces needed for an extra Merchant. I send this one to Ohio to Transfer into Chesapeake Bay.

With Henrika up and running, I end our war against Huron. We were prevented before because of our lack of range. But our subject isn’t limited by that. We take their 3 provinces in OTL Toronto and 102.30 gold (we get 57.24). Huron is left with their lands in Michigan. We’ll be back later.

We take the next slot in Expansion, giving us an extra colonist and more Settler Chance. We start a new colony in Aruba (Caribbean Trade Center) to celebrate. Once it finishes, we’ll have the 5 provinces necessary for a CN (Havanna, Guane, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Aruba). Time will tell if we choose to go all in for the Merchant bonus.

We also get a random event that partially negates the Diplo Rep penalty from earlier. And I bring us up to our forcelimit of 21 by training 3 more regiments: 2 infantry and our first artillery piece. Our economy can afford the increased military size, but I spend some more gold on a Workshop in Bro Wened that will make us 0.15 (treasury is at 64 after queuing).

I hire an admin advisor, a Theologian, to help with our point generation. He lets us enact a decision for more Missionary Strength at the cost of some Institution Spread. Before the year’s end, we get an event from the Bourgeoisie to add 1 Base Tax in 4 of our provinces at the cost of some money and influence. I accept their offer, but we take out a loan because of it. We ask the Pope for some money to help out (61 ducats), which immediately goes towards a Marketplace in Penn-ar-Bed.

By April 1512, we have a force of 10,000 (9-0-1) and our transports assembled in Guane. What are they doing there, you ask? Well, we’re not slowing down our conquests that’s for sure. The jungles of Mexico and the Yucatan have been calling to us for a while now. Our settlers and soldiers in Cuba have heard tales of gold. Lots of gold.

Meet the nation of Cocomes and their allies, Itza and Kaqchikel. Our army is certainly going to become acquainted with them over these next few years.

As that war happens in the background, our restarted colony in Cape Coast gains some Dyes as its Trade Good. Another Mayan nation, Chactemal, also enters their own war against Cocomes after we beat their army. And Bro Wened, being the rich and prosperous city that it is, gains a Cardinal in January 1513.

In August, Cocomes cedes their entire country to Xiu and Chactemal. This doesn’t end our war, we’re now just left fighting Itza and Kaqchikel. Our Trader advisor has also died, so we replace him with a half-priced level 2 we got from an event. Our economy is exactly 1 ducat in the positive.

Our new Conquistador, Venec, doesn’t last long. The humid jungles of Central America are a different beast to the East Coast of Sklaer's campaigns. I hire a replacement with terrible stats. No one has yet lived up to Sklaer’s legend.

Before I end it here, I’ll show you a neat trick for if you have subjects. When you occupy an enemy province with a fort, you have to pay for it. But what if you’re having money troubles? You can mothball the fort, but if the enemy counterattacks or sneaks behind you, they might just undo all your progress.

However, if you have a subject, you can let them handle the occupation and the fort. The fort stays maintained, and you don’t have to pay a dime! As an extra bonus, if that subject is acting disloyal, the extra debt they accrue from having to pay for every single enemy fort is a great way to weaken them. And if you pay off their debt later, they’ll become more loyal.

Then, once you’re ready to peace out, you can bring whatever forts you transferred back under your control (if there was one you were planning on taking). You can also transfer occupations to your allies, but they won’t give occupation back to you once you’ve given it away. So, tread lightly.

Henrika very kindly is going to pay for the enemies’ forts until we end our war. How generous of them. They will do this regardless of debt, deficit, inflation, or any other metric. As long as the war goes on, unless they go bankrupt, they’ll pay for them.

jak7139 · Sep 30, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: In the Land of Jungles and Gold, We Gain Glory
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(January 1514-December 1517)

Itza and Kaqchikel are both fully occupied, but that’s not enough for our greedy Conquistadors. We also attack Xiu and their allies, Tzotzil and Chactemal. Chactemal’s normally level 3 fort is conveniently mothballed. Our army rushes straight in. We still have to siege their level 1 capital fort, but our job has been made much easier.

We peace-our Kaqchikel a month later for their annexation and 35 gold. I also put 5 mil Development into Dublin to not reach the points cap.

Dublin: 3/3/2 -> 3/3/7
983 mil -> 793

As we continue playing, word reaches the duke’s court from Mantua in November. A monk there has nailed a list of grievances against Catholic authority to the local church door. Duke Henri is, as we’ve seen, a truly devout man and doesn’t have affairs or children out of wedlock or anything. So, he is obviously deeply troubled by these events.

In any case, the world is shaken by the news in Mantua. The current Age of Discovery, along with all our Splendor and Abilities gained, will end in 120 months. After that, the next Age will start, with new objectives and bonuses. At least this means Portugal will lose the extra colonial growth they get in this Age, which will even out the playing field.

We annex Itza and take their gold in April 1515, and our colony in New York finishes in June (the game christens it, Nouv. Angoulême). I thought this name was weird, so I did some digging.

I’m assuming this is supposed to be “New England” or some variation. But “England” in French according to Google is “Angleterre.” That can’t be it. There is a city in southwestern France called Angoulême, but why did the game choose this town to reference? What’s so special about it and its relation to the OTL New York that Paradox made it the French name for the city?

“England” in Breton according to the translator I’m using is “Bro-Saoz.” So, going with the theory that this is supposed to say “New England” and Paradox just coded in “Angoulême” instead of “Angleterre,” then Breton translation would be “Nevez Bro-Saoz.”

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that aside. Our colonist is now free to go do something else. If you remember in Chapter 22, we had an important decision to make. Do we stop colonizing the Caribbean, do we gain 5 provinces then stop so we can form a CN, or do we go for the full 10 and a Merchant?

We have the 5 provinces needed for a CN, but should we push for 5 more? Right now, there are 9 empty provinces not under us or Portugal: The Bahamas, plus all of the Lesser Antilles minus St. Martin (Portugal), and 2 provinces to the east of Havanna separating our Cuban stuff from Portugal’s. There’s definitely enough time to get 10 provinces should we want to, especially if we’re willing to go over our colony limit.

After much debating, I colonize Barbados. The Portuguese and the Pope will just have to deal with it. As Duke Henri signs the decree to allow settlement, a chill washes over him. The clouds darken. He feels the eyes of God watching him. Or is it just a cool breeze? It’s probably just the wind. I wouldn’t worry about it.

Some of our transports head to Manhattan to pick up our colonial garrison there and ship them south to Barbados. In October, England brags about their discovery of El Dorado. I tried searching for Chanar in the province finder, but it must still be covered by terra incognita. It’s presumably in Brazil where the English have been focusing.

April 1516 sees us declare another war against the natives. This time we’re attacking Chorti and Can Pech. A few months later, Cape Coast finishes. We move 2 tiles east to Whydah, boxing Castille in. While this doesn’t trap Castille, it does give us a very important border with Benin.

Our lone artillery regiment is destroyed because I wasn’t paying attention. But that’s alright. We’ll just build another one. The Ottomans make another go at the Mamluks in February. Maybe this war will be more decisive. We also finish Expansion, giving us more Trade Power across the globe, less minimum Autonomy in our Territories, and a new Policy when combined with Expansion.

Policies are something I’ve mentioned in passing before. But basically, Idea Groups will give you an extra bonus when paired with another. Not every group and combination has a pairing, but it’s an extra thing to consider beyond your point generation or immediate goals. Some of the Policies are very powerful and can be game changers for your army, economy, or diplomacy. You can browse the different parings by hovering over the Idea Group when selecting it. Every nation can automatically select 1 free Policy from each of the 3 categories (admin, diplo, mil). Any Policies taken beyond that will cost 1 point per month of the type to maintain. You can get more free Policies from Reforms, Ideas, and other bonuses.

The Policy we’ve gained from Exploration-Expansion has given us 15 extra Global Settlers and -50% Native Uprising Chance. The -50%, when paired with our decision from the Clergy, brings us up to -100%! We don’t need any more garrisons, hooray!

Chactemal is annexed in August and their money (47.62) taken. Now, the keen-eyed among you might notice something strange about this peacedeal. Do you see it?

We accidentally gave Belize (Chactemal’s level 3 fort) to d’Elbene. This can be the downside of using the fort-transfer trick when not paying attention.

This is really annoying. This was a mistake. I’d meant to take it for myself. If this was an Ironman game, I’d have to reload. But this isn’t an Ironman game. I know opening up the console in a tutorial AAR is a bold move. But I didn’t do anything besides transfer Belize from d’Elbene to Brittany. We’d already won the war anyway. Chactemal would’ve accepted the peace whether I took it or d’Elbene did.

Owning Belize has the side-effect of giving us enough Development to become a Kingdom. Henri is no mere Duke anymore! This doesn’t do much for us, but it is a nice indicator of our progress. We get faster Autonomy decay, more governing capacity, and a shorter timer on being able to change our monarch point focus.

We’re also nearing the diplo points cap. Instead of spending some on Development, I accept the Irish as an equal culture to Breton within our realm. Narratively, this could be seen as Henri giving the Irish nobility concessions in return for his new title. A title that he created probably just to assuage his ego.

All owned provinces with cultures that aren’t your own get minor penalties to their unrest and economic value. Brother cultures (i.e. Breton and Francien, English and Scottish, Swiss and Bavarian) receive lesser penalties. Accepting Irish has removed the penalties, letting the game treat those provinces as if they were Breton.

Xiu is consumed in October (20 gold). I notice Portugal is colonizing provinces in Texas (the Colonial Region is Mexico). And our Caribbean CN spawns in December after Aruba finishes. I name it after the first Breton Explorer to chart the Caribbean, “Iles de Beaumetz.” I hope Arthur is proud wherever he is. IDB is turned into a Private Enterprise to hopefully compete with Portugal navally and trade-wise in the Caribbean.

jak7139 · Oct 7, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Vassals, Artillery, and…France? Oh My!
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(December 1517-December 1519)

While looking around the map, I notice Ashanti, a West African nation, would become our vassal. This is not only a sign of our increasing power. It’s also a great teaching moment.

I’ve talked before about the benefits of vassals and subjects. They pay you money, field militaries that you don’t have to pay for, and can even pay for expensive fortifications like we discussed in Chapter 26. And there are even other benefits I haven’t mentioned yet like having them fabricate their own claims while your diplomats are elsewhere, reconquering their cores during war for cheaper AE, and feeding them land to save on overextension or admin points. They’re great!

But while we have force-vassalized nations in peacedeals (Kildare), we haven’t released a nation from ourselves to make a vassal or peacefully offered the privilege to a weaker nation. This next topic deals with the latter option.

Just like how nations can accept alliances, marriages, and most other diplomatic options, nations can also accept vassalization. This requires 4 things:

The target must have less than 100 Development (this restriction doesn’t exist when force-vassalizing).
They must have 190+ opinion of you.
You must be allied to them.
They must be at peace.

There are also situations where a potential vassal might not accept the offer but will after certain actions are taken. Aside from your military and economic power, the AIs reasons for accepting your offer include:

Trust: having 100 trust gives +10 reasons for acceptance. Allying the nation, currying favors, then using them to increase trust quickly solves this.
AI Attitude: If the target is friendly, allied, or threatened, they’ll have an extra +10 reasons to say yes. Neutral attitude gives -20. Hostile or outraged gives -1,000.
Royal Marriage: +10 reasons.
Diplomatic Reputation: +3 reasons per each point of reputation.
Government Rank: +10 if you are of a higher rank than the target. -10/20 if the target is a kingdom/empire.
Religion: -10/-20 if you are a heretic/heathen.
Cores: if you own one of the target’s cores, they will never accept.
Espionage Ideas Slot 7: +15 reasons.

Sometimes it can also be tricky to reach the 190+ opinion required to offer vassalization, even if the nation would accept. But there are many ways to squeeze every last ounce of opinion out of them:

Improving Relations: improving to the maximum 100 relations with the target gives, of course, 100 opinion.
Royal Marriage: grants 25 opinion.
Alliance: 50 opinion.
Guarantee: 10 opinion.
Enemy of My Enemy: having the same rival as the target grants a ticking opinion boost up to 20.
Same Religion: Normally 10 opinion. But if you have the Religious Diplomats Estate privilege from the Clergy it is 25.
Military Access: if you offer mil access to the target (which they will almost always accept, especially if you’re allied) that’s another 10 opinion.
Transfer Trade Power: asking the target to Transfer, not Steer, Trade Power towards you gives another 10. If they won’t accept because too many nations are already giving you trade power, temporarily cancel those other deals (like with your current vassals) so you can lock this new prospect down.
GP Influence: Great Powers, as long as they don’t have any loans, can influence any nation for a fee, giving the target 25 opinion and 5 trust.
Gift: sending a gift of gold gives at most 25 opinion.
Subsidizing: ticks up slowly depending on the size of the subsidy. Gives at max 15 opinion. You can subsidy the target for a few months to get them to 190, offer vassalization, then cancel the subsidy afterwards.

Finally, once you have all these subjects, how do you control their Liberty Desire to prevent revolts? Well (there are other nation, Idea, Policy, or Great Project specific bonuses not included here):

Opinion: by having max opinion with a subject, they’ll receive -20% Liberty Desire (LD). Can be done through any/all of the ways described above. Subjects’ relations can be improved via a diplomat up to 200 instead of the normal 100.
Marriages: not only gives opinion for vassalizing the target, but also give -5% LD.
Trust: Having 100 trust can give -20% LD. You can curry favors with your subjects just like with allies, but it’s slower. If you have spare diplomats, you can curry favors while you’re still allied with the target and before they’ve sworn fealty.
Placating: at the cost of 20 Prestige, you can temporarily decrease LD by 10%. Stacks up to -100% (assuming you have enough Prestige) and ticks away over time.
Development: much like Placating, it gives -5% LD for every point of Development within the subject you improve. But this will, in the long term, make them stronger and more expensive to annex. I usually do this as a last resort to keep them loyal while they’re in the process of annexation.
Economic Dependency: if a vassal is in debt, you can pay off their loans. Each loan paid off gives -5% LD and stacks to -100%. Using the vassal-fort trick (Chapter 26), you can let your troublesome subjects take on debt, only for you to come in as their “savior.”
You can also build forts (and other buildings) in your subjects to keep them in debt. This was once a common strategy, but Paradox has since patched it. If your vassal can’t afford the fort, they will delete it.
But there are still a few ways around this. One, they’ll only delete forts you build, not forts they conquer, are granted, or start with. Two, they won’t delete forts while at war. Build some forts in your subject, wait for them to nearly finish, declare an easy war but keep it going for as long as possible, then pay off your subjects’ debt.
Army, Navy, Economy Size: pretty self-explanatory. The more powerful you are, the better. The AI only cares about army size, not quality, so building masses of cheap infantry can help.
Some subjects, like CNs or Personal Unions, only count their own military/economy strength against yours. Others, like vassals or marches, check all of their strengths together against you.

Phew! That was a lot. Hopefully, you all got all that. You did? Good! Back to the game. We work on making Ashanti our vassal.

We also take diplo and mil tech 10, giving new models for our transports, galleys, cavalry, and artillery, plus some other small things, including the ahead-of-time bonus from diplo.

I know I just did that whole huge explanation about vassals, so I won’t go into much detail on our new cavalry unit.

We go from a (Fire/Shock/Morale) 0-0/1-0/1-1 pip unit to a 1-0/2-1/2-2 pip unit. Very nice! Our cavalry now does damage in the Fire phase.

But I need to talk about artillery. I promise, I’ll try to be brief. If you need a reminder of what the different pips mean, see Chapter 9.

Artillery units during combat have two main differences from inf or cav:

One, they only do HALF as much damage when BEHIND a unit and take DOUBLE damage when in the FRONT rank.
Two, they transfer HALF of their DEFENSIVE pips rounded down to the units in FRONT of them.

In the mid to late game, artillery will be the king of damage. But right now, they’re expensive and don’t do a lot in combat. For sieges they’re useful, but don’t expect them to be good in a fight.

When looking at the extra artillery Fire/Shock damage techs give you on the Technology screen, or the damage they currently do on the Military screen, visualize those numbers as HALF of what they really are. You NEVER (unless you’re trying an artillery only run) want artillery in the front rank.

We choose the Pedrero instead of the Culverin because it has 2 defensive Shock pips instead of 1. That way, our front rank will benefit from the transferred pips.

Getting back to the game, I lose another 1,000 infantry to the fog of war. But in better news, we’re able to ship our garrison from West Africa over to help with the fight. King Henri is also now Industrious. And we have a 3-siege general.

We’ve had a couple general, Conquistador, and Explorer deaths. I haven’t mentioned them much because, just like the detail on these wars, we’re starting to zoom out for a more global reach. I also haven’t mentioned any Trade Good price changes because they mostly aren’t important.

I’ll still cover ruler changes, advisor hires, and peacedeals. But I don’t want to bog these updates down any more than necessary. Just assume, because of the tech-difference, none of these native wars are hard.

We’ve been building a Spy Network in one of the natives we’re fighting, Kiche. With 50 Spy Network accrued, we’re able to steal their maps of Mexico. I don’t want to lose anyone else to “the fog” (cue, cheesy horror movie music).

Our alliance with the Pope continues to bring benefits as Dublin gains a Cardinal in January 1519. I sure hope nothing bad happens to our alliance. King Henri feels a chill in the air again. Weird?

We’re also able to pick up a new Government Reform. Of the 11 options presented, 2 are greyed out, and only 3 align with our campaign goals:

Sustained Drill: less army attrition, more army drill, and less drill loss (see Chapter 23 where drill was briefly mentioned but not explained).
Military Engineering: less expensive artillery and cheaper wall barrages during sieges.
Organized Military Staff: faster reinforce speed, more supply limit, and reinforcing our troops is less expensive.

After some thought, I go with Organized Military Staff.

We annex Kiche in March bringing our overextension up to 85.6%. Since we want to annex Can Pech too, we’d either have to wait or risk going over 100% (something that would be a terrible idea this early).

But there is another, niche, option that is rarely possible. When clicking on a province, you can look at all the provinces in its Area/State on a second tab. This tab has some buttons. The one that’s relevant here is Concentrate Development.

This decreases the Development of the valid provinces in the State and put some of it into your capital. You can’t always do this because the original Area’s Development needs to be high enough. But when you can, it will decrease the overextension and cost to core recently conquered provinces.

We do this with Kiche’s provinces, bringing us to 68.8% Overextension. Then we annex Can Pech and take most of Chortli (except for one province in Colonial Columbia that we don’t care about). We also start colonizing Guadelupe.

I also seize, sell, and summon with our Estates again. The Bourgeoisie want us to increase the number of TC-provinces we have in West Africa to 5. Easily doable. With the extra money we now have (768) we build a Workshop in Bro Naoned (0.23), a Marketplace in Cork, and 5 Barracks (each giving 750-1,022 manpower).

Things are looking up! King Henri scoffs, perhaps he was wrong about that chill after all. After all…I mean… … … oh no…

Author’s Note: Concerning the next chapter, I’ve got to be honest, I tried to fight this war with France, I really tried. But, realistically, since this is supposed to be a tutorial, I should have surrendered immediately. You can win wars when fighting against stronger opponents, but this is not one of those times. However, I wanted to see if I could still win anyway. And when it looked like victory wasn’t on the cards, I reloaded my save to right when France declared and immediately sought peace.

I still took screenshots of the alternate-timeline war, and I figured I should still show what happened during it. We won’t be continuing on from that point, but will instead go off the reloaded, instant-peace version.

jak7139 · Oct 14, 2024

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: Woe! Weep! War Has Come to Brittany
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(December 1519-June 1523)
Alternate Timeline, Not Canon

"El Pelea" from the OWB mod for HOI4

It is December 9th, 1519. What we’ve longed feared has come to pass, Brittany is at war with France. Curse the Burgundian king for dying! Curse the traitorous Pope in Rome!

Brittany, her colonies in the New World, plus Switzerland, Castille, Navarra, Aragon, and their colonies are at war with France, Naples, Geneva, Savoy, and Scotland. The sides are not as uneven as one might expect, but we’re still outnumbered. And a good chunk of our alliance’s forces are stuck across the Atlantic.

The first thing we do is order our trade fleet in Bordeaux to port before the French fleet snipes it. The second thing is to burn our Professionalism to help with our manpower stocks. The third thing is to take on debt, the Bourgeoisie loans plus a normal loan to pay back our existing 4% one (since our loan size has now increased from 121 to 192).

Our army in Ireland (5-2-0) heads to Ulster to block any Scottish attempts to cross the strait. Our transports in West Africa move to Mexico to pick up as many of our boys as they can for the trip back to Europe. The Defensive Edict goes on in all our mainland provinces to slow the French down. We fill our forcelimit by building 5 more Irish infantry.

We unpause.

The French move over us like a horde. Nowhere is safe. The game, taking pity on us, gives us extra Fort Defense for the next 10 years. The Pope, vile collaborator he is, rivals us as well. At least he is honest and open about his deceit.

With Bro Naoned about to fall barely 6 months into the war, I order our trade fleet to the allied port of Cantabria. Some extra ships I had exploring also make their way from Cape Coast to the Canaries. June sees the entire Breton mainland lost. But we still fight on!

The Iberians have taken Narbonnais, but now they twiddle their thumbs. With Brittany occupied, the French are free to turn their attention south. Our allies are woefully ill-prepared.

In better news, we capture a lone French trade ship off the coast of Ireland after our fleet moves away from Cantabria. We also take the mission to build to our forcelimit, giving us extra morale.

I build an extra infantry in Cape Coast with the hope that we might one day be able to ship it over. Our transports have just arrived in Mexico and are now on their way to Ireland. Colonial Mexico forms and I name it after, what a quick internet search tells me, is the patron Saint of Brittany, “le Refuge d’Anne.” The extra Merchant from its 10 provinces is sent to the Ivory Coast to Transfer Trade.

Our unit in Cape Coast moves west and occupies, then seizes, a French colony! They’ll learn we aren’t so toothless. I quickly put a colonist there to change its culture to Breton. Whydah also becomes a full-fledged city. That colonist is sent to Benguela near Kongo.

Switzerland, our faithful friend, is forced to surrender 2 provinces, reparations, and money to Savoy for peace. But Castille and Aragon have engaged a large French force in Burgos. They face none other than Louis XIII himself! Our allies win but take more casualties. The French have the most Discipline out of the participants. But the Castilians have the most Morale.

Such victories are short-lived. The French soon return in greater numbers as our transports arrive in the formerly Portuguese province of Algarve. Across the Mediterranean, the Ottomans beat the Mamluks again.

Our force moves to engage a leaderless enemy stack on the mountains of Navarra. With Aragonese help, we win the day. Another battle a month later at Rosello goes poorly. Without allied support, we had no choice but to retreat when 50,000 French forces came out of the fog of war.

January 1523 sees a particularly low point. Burgos and Rosello have fallen, and our allies do nothing. The French are everywhere! In a desperate maneuver, I try transporting our Irish forces to Penn-ar-Bed as a distraction. But all 12 ships, and the 12,000 men aboard them, are caught and sunk and killed.

This is the last straw for me. I roll back the save, take out the 1% loans before they decrease in size, and make peace before the first blade is unsheathed.

The peace is not as bad as you might expect, only 3 provinces and some money. But make no mistake, France will return.

jak7139 · Oct 21, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY: Tariffs (again) & Development Strategy
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(December 1519-July 1523)

We have a truce with France until May 1530. That’s a few months less than 11 years for us to grow, regroup, and become stronger. Do you think we can do it?

I start by repaying our normal loan, leaving us with just the 5 we got from the Estates. Next, once Barbados finishes, I colonize Benguela just like in that other timeline.

The Protestant Reformation is off to an okay start. Bohemia, Mantua, Ferrara, and Denmark have all embraced it. Most of Sweden has it, but they haven’t taken the final step.

With no war in Europe to distract us, we continue to attack the different nations in Mexico. This time, we’re at war with Zapotec, Totonac, Yokotan, Tzotzil, and Aztec.

With the loss of Development and manpower from Bro Wened and Bro Raozhon, I decide to spend some points in Ireland to help with our future prospects. Dublin, Midlands, Desmond, and Cork all get some attention:

Dublin: 3/3/7 -> 3/7/10
Midlands: 2/2/5 -> 2/3/5
Desmond: 2/1/1 -> 2/3/5
Cork: 3/3/1 -> 3/10/6
Points Spent: 716 -> 75 (diplo), 516 -> 7 (mil)

I haven’t mentioned yet why I’m focusing on bringing provinces up to 10, then 20 Development, or why I’m Developing manpower and production, but not tax.

The reason for the 10 and 20 milestones is simple: they unlock new building slots.

As for tax…I’m not saying Base Tax is bad. It certainly has its uses. But Base Manpower is great for giving you a large forcelimit and manpower pool and Base Production is much more valuable economically.

Tax is a great source of income early game, but quickly falls off as trade and production grow much faster. If I were really being optimal here, my admin points would be spent on a button “Expand Infrastructure” in each of my provinces. Aside from decreases to Dev cost and other bonuses, it also lets your provinces have 2 manufactories instead of 1. I know we haven’t built any yet, but they’re worth it. Trust me.

I would also, for optimal play, decrease my Base Tax and focus exclusively on Base Production or Manpower, but we’re not at that stage yet. I usually don’t care this much anyway (any dev is good dev), but the war with France has left me shaken. I need to squeeze every bit of power out of Ireland that I can.

Here’s another divergence from the other timeline. I name our Mexico CN “L’espoir d’Anne” instead of “le Refuge d’Anne.” Anne’s Hope instead of Anne’s Shelter. And yes, I know, these should’ve been Breton names instead. I promise we’ll get there. Our subject is a Crown Colony because of a special interaction we can do with all that, hopefully not cursed, Aztec gold.

The Merchant we get goes to the Ivory Coast, same as before.

A year and 2 days from our peace with France, Naples declares on Milan. France helps their ally pick on the smaller Italian power.

I remember to assign Benguela to a TC to solidify our control over the node. If we can’t beat France militarily, we’ll just have to beat them economically.

As our truce with Iroquois ends, we take admin tech 9. Even though our army is still in Mexico, I declare on the Iroquois anyway. We’ll be over there soon enough.

We insult the English to stay above 50 Power Projection, and Whydah finishes, giving us a complete border with Benin. Calabar is next on our list of places to place bases. I set up a Spy Network in Benin and turn on the special trade policy (Chapter 2) to help it grow.

Scotland rivals us, Naples grows at Milan’s expense, and the Ottomans make peace with their Egyptian rivals.

We turn Calabar into a TC because it is a Trade Center, and you should basically always turn Trade Centers into TCs to play to their strengths. The only time you wouldn’t do this is if you are comfortably above the 50% threshold for a Merchant. Remember, every province you turn into a TC is a province that misses out on the goods produced modifier from the node (Chapter 25).

Savoy dogpiles on Milan in May. Their downfall is certain. I shift our monarch point focus from admin to diplo in anticipation of out next Idea Group. Although a military Idea is certainly tempting after the war with France, I want this campaign to demonstrate something.

Army quality is great. But EU4’s AI, despite many attempts and improvements over the years, is still very predictable. It’s so predictable in fact, that in singleplayer you don’t ever need to take a military Idea Group. Those slots can be better used on admin or diplo Idea Groups to outscale the AI before they ever become a threat.

This isn’t to say I don’t take any military Ideas. And that’s not to say you shouldn’t either. But you don’t have to, even to beat massive powers like France or the Ottomans. We’ll see if I’ve successfully convinced you of this by the end of the campaign.

Another Mexico-focused war is declared as we slowly grow our new subject. By July 1523, I’ve finally babied Ashanti enough that they become our vassal. They’re not very useful for wars because of their lack of tech. but they pay us a nice amount (0.28).

(Referencing the earlier Mexico screenshot, we're at war with the red and purple nations to Zapotec's west)

And this is a perfect moment to demonstrate why tariffs are terrible. I briefly mentioned in Chapter 24 why I never increase tariffs, but this case with Ashanti adds more fuel to my argument. Let’s compare 2 of our subjects.

Ashanti has one province with 5 Development. They pay us 0.23 ducats a month (the number has changed slightly).

Iles de Beaumetz has over 10 times the amount of Development (79) with their 7 provinces. But they’re only paying us 0.32 per month.

Yes, that amount is higher than Ashanti’s, but the point is that Ashanti pays us almost as much for no increased Liberty Desire and they’re significantly poorer than our colonies.

With deals like that, why would I ever increase tariffs on a CN? Especially when the CN is likely to revolt because of it. It’s just not worth it.

L’espoir d’Anne (232 Dev), for reference, is paying 0.26. But they are significantly overextended from all the land we’ve been feeding them, decreasing the amount. Henrika and d’Elbene pay us a pitiful 0.02 and 0.01 respectively but that’s because Iroquois is occupying most of them while we’re busy in Mexico.

jak7139 · Oct 28, 2024

Author's Note: Fair warning, we have a lot of stuff to get through in this update. So it's longer and has more images than usual (double the normal amount!). But all of this stuff is important, and I can't find anything that will be fine to cut. Sorry! But to balance things out, next week's chapter is shorter than normal.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: New Ideas, Religions, & Rivals
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(July 1523-July 1532)

Spain has formed. Our ally now has nearly 100k troops on their own, but that’s not nearly enough to match France. We have a bit of a scare as Spain considers breaking our alliance. But I deselect the conflicting Provinces-of-Interest and they forgive me.

What’s a Province-of-Interest (POI)?

One of the tabs on the Diplomacy Screen allows you set POIs. These let the AI know which provinces you consider vital to expand into. Your allies will be more likely to give you them in war, and your enemies will be more likely to ally with others to defend themselves. Your subjects will look at your POIs and try to fabricate claims, allowing you to get free CBs while your diplomats do other things. You can see other countries’ POIs by clicking on them and selecting the same tab.

I’d made a POI out of most of Mexico to encourage L’espoir d’Anne. But Spain hates that we have the same goals. I back off to maintain our alliance. We’ll just create the claims ourselves.

With Guadelupe near finishing, we head to Beafada next. That’s right next to France’s West African colony, the same one we seized in the ATL war. Our base is bordered to the north by Jolof.

In August 1524, the last of our Mexico wars, for now, is over. Some of our forces are sent north in boats. But 14k men stay behind to help L’espoir d’Anne deal with the consequences of our aggression: many, many revolts. At least it’s good target practice. Also, our general getting the Ruthless trait here has certain villainous implications. If this were a Historybook AAR, I could definitely see him becoming a villain of pop-culture in this world.

The Age of Discovery ends, so we get a new set of objectives and potential bonuses.

We’ll definitely Create a Colonial Empire and Convert 10 Provinces.

Converting Another Nation and Getting an Asian Trade bonus are maybes.

We’re definitely not switching religions (even if it would fit with the Pope’s betrayal), taking Religious or Humanist, or conquering France to Unify our Culture.

I’d consider switching religions, but Brittany has a specific National Idea that is only useful for Catholics. Unless we want to handicap ourselves on that end, it’s better to stay aligned with Rome. We’d also lose any Treaty of Tordesillas we’ve gotten (allowing someone like Spain or Portugal to move in).

We take admin tech 10 and enact 2 new decisions for more Missionary Strength. The other decision for increased Tolerance of Heretics I pass on. I haven’t mentioned it, but we’ve been using a spare diplomat to Study Technology (Chapter 24) in Bologna to make these techs cheaper.

This newest tech also gives us a new Idea Slot. We discussed last chapter how I’m hoping to not take any military Ideas this campaign, so that leaves us with admin and diplo, and we’re short on admin points due to the amount of conquest we’ve been doing.

There are 6 diplomatic Idea Groups left: Espionage, Diplomatic, Trade, Maritime, Influence, and Court. Diplomatic and Espionage are my two top picks out of those. I ultimately decide on Diplomatic because of the decreased Province Warscore Cost, cheaper diplo tech cost, and increased number of diplomats.

Immediately upon picking Diplomatic, we can take its first slot. This gives us an extra diplomat and gives us another of our Breton Ideas: our ships are now cheaper to build and maintain.

Savoy annexes Milan completely, and we AMT one of Iroquois’ allies. Benguela also finishes, allowing our colonist to move to East Africa. Inhambane is a Trade Center and will be an excellent base as we move into Asia. We assign it to a TC as well.

Even though we have a CN in Mexico, our horrible relations with the Pope mean that he grants Portugal the Treaty instead. This doesn’t affect us too much. Conquering the Mexican natives doesn’t give any relation penalties, only colonizing provinces. We’ll take the south, Portugal can colonize the north.

The next slot in Diplomatic we pick up gives us 25% cheaper diplo advisors. A very nice bonus long-term. Calabar finishes, so we head to Dominica in the Caribbean. The Pope has made his loyalties clear, so we couldn’t care less what him and Portugal think.

We take some more provinces from 2 of Iroquois’ allies on the shores of Lake Huron. Henrika still can’t core any of them, but we don’t care. We also peace out with Iroquois, leaving them with 1 province in Virginia.

Not slowing down, I see that Tlapanec in Mexico has no army. How unfortunate for them. Our Beafada colony is complete. The next province we go for is Bonny to the west of Calabar. There’s a risk that England, Portugal, France, or Spain will claim the province. And I want to box Benin in.

Using some of the 711 ducats we’ve gained in our wars. I build a couple lucrative Workshops:

Cork: 0.35
Dublin: 0.14
Cape Coast: 0.10
Benguela: 0.10

Our economy is in okay shape. The 10 inflation is an issue, but I don’t want to spend any admin points on decreasing it right now. It will exist in the background for the next while.

Now, we experience a consequence of feeding Henrika land they can’t core. Henrika's economy, and thus army, is small. It’s even small enough that natives like Huron think they can win in a fight.

The same strategy we hope to eventually use with Portugal’s Caribbean CN (Chapter 22), can also be used against us. Nations with their capital in the New World can fight against each other without their overlord immediately intervening. We’ll need to use the Enforce Peace diplomatic option on Huron if we want to stop them. If they say yes, the war ends in a white peace. If not, we come in against them.

Thankfully our armies are still in the area, so in this instance it’s not too annoying. A couple months later, we’re able to pick up another slot in Diplomatic. This one gives an extra relation-slot. However, I hold off because the next diplo tech is only 2 years away and it gives more Colonial Range.

We get the first major benefit of our Mexican CN soon after. Colonial Nations with gold provinces will, over time, fill up a bar next to their flag on the Subjects screen. When the bar is full, the overlord receives a large sum of money (based on the number of gold provinces) and some inflation. Any gold fleets we receive are also boosted by 25% because of Exploration.

After that, I notice a Danish colony in Canada. Since Denmark is Protestant, they don’t get any penalties from violating the Pope’s mandate. This is annoying but not a huge deal. This fills out the region faster, and whenever Danish Canada spawns as a subject we can take their lands in the same way we’re planning with Portugal.

We can’t take any land off Huron, so we just go for money and Prestige. They’ll be back, but Henrika is safe for the moment.

Papal authority continues to be challenged. The Reformed religion, an offshoot of Protestantism, has spawned in Frankfurt. Our truce with France is now up, and they don’t immediately declare on us. A good sign!

Inhambane is complete. Next, we move to the island of Hollhavi in the Indian Ocean. It gets automatically renamed to Chagos as soon as our colonist arrives.

This session was played back in May, but at the time I’m writing this (early October), Chagos has been in the news for the past week with the UK handing sovereignty of the islands over to Mauritius. I didn’t think anything when colonizing the island in-game, but now that I’m looking back at these screenshots, Chagos has extra significance.

We pick up diplo and mil techs 11. The diplo tech gives us more range. The mil tech gives increased Combat Width, cavalry Fire, and infantry Shock. Both techs also give a manufactory.

The Danes aren’t the only Scandinavian with interest in Canada. Norway has also set up a base nearby. This can be an advantage of having a subject which colonizes, like in this case with Denmark’s union over Norway. You can colonize twice as fast! If Denmark ever integrates Norway, they’ll also get 2 Canadian CNs and the potential for a Merchant each.

England further divides the Catholic world by adopting its own church. The citizens and rulers of Brittany have mixed feelings regarding these split-offs. On the one hand, it serves the Pope right for his dishonorable betrayal. On the other, every Breton is committed to being a loyal, if not pious, Catholic.

We end our war with Tlapanec by taking everything. And we also seize land from the Estates. Our New World army has been moved via transports to Beafada for another adventure.

But that’s enough for now. We’ll pick up with that war next time. See you all later!

jak7139 · Nov 4, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: We Fight, We Die…for Brittany!
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(July 1532-September 1534)

We’re about to fight a major land war in Africa. What’s the worst that could happen? We may be outnumbered locally, but we have a slight advantage in tech (our 11 vs Jolof’s 8). Why are we doing this now? Because the Bourgeoisie’s diet agenda wants us to expand our Ivory Coast TC. Of the alliance blocks in Africa, Jolof’s looks the easiest to beat.

A few days after our declaration, we receive some vindication against a certain traitor.

Another New World nation, Kaskasia, decides to try their luck against d’Elbene. Then, a few days later, Joara dogpiles on. We Enforce Peace on both, giving us two new wars as distractions. I did leave a 7,000-stack in North America for these occasions. All we have to do is siege down the enemy’s capital to peace out. And their armies still can’t match ours in battle.

As things continue, we catch up on admin tech, giving us yet another Manufactory. Also, if you remember in the last update, we picked up diplo tech 11. We were previously holding off on our Idea Group spending to unlock that tech. But now that we’ve done that, we can continue down Diplomatic.

Attrition and a desperate battle has whittled down our 15,000-strong force in Africa. We’re down to nearly half our original army. But Jolof’s capital is ours!

In other news, Dominica’s colony completes. Our race to get 10 provinces is nearly over, but we still have work to do. Our colonist moves to St. Vincent next. Iles de Beaumetz is also helpfully colonizing the Bahamas on their own.

Bonny is also close to done, so we move on to Ile Bourbon off the coast of Madagascar. I spot England next door in Mauritius.

We fight another close battle in Africa, but we are forced to retreat. Two months later, a second violent fight ensues. We lose again.

We may have better tech, but the advantage isn’t as big when compared to our ventures in the New World. And Timbuktu’s 4-Shock general is much better than our 4-Fire one at this stage in the game. That, plus the heavy attrition, has shrunk our army and completely depleted our manpower.

This is a perfect opportunity for us to burn our Army Professionalism. I explained briefly that this was an option in Chapter 23. And we used it during the ATL war with France (Chapter 29). Now we use it again.

For the next while before our Professionalism runs out, we’ll gain 912 new recruits a month. We need almost 8,000 men to fully reinforce our armies, not to mention the 34,000 needed to refill our pool to its maximum.

I remember a second thing I can do to help our manpower even more. We’ve used the Catholic bonus for construction cost and taxes before (Chapters 11, 18). Now we take the one for increased manpower gain and less army maintenance.

In better news, both our New World distractions end in victory. We don’t have enough warscore to force the enemy to cede land. But we do have enough to take gold and reparations. We then gain even more money (294.42 ducats) from L’espoir d’Anne’s gold fleet.

King Henri is also heralded as Just, hampering revolts. Prince Francois is unfortunately Malevolent. Thankfully, none of our subjects are strong enough yet for the increased LD to be an issue. But if we get this trait in a later ruler, it will be a problem.

Finally, we stackwipe Jolof’s army. Timbuktu, Jenne, and Kong were off doing something else. Who knows? But I won’t complain! The little 1-stacks that Jolof will recruit are great to pick off for more warscore too.

But other battles aren’t as easy. A close one is lost against Jenne and Timbuktu.

France also pressures Switzerland to cut ties with us. Worrying. Anyway, I’ll end it here.

This is kind of a shorter update, but that’s a consequence of how the chapters of this play session were divided up. Chapters 30, 31, and 32 are all one session. Compare this to a longer play session (23-28), or a single chapter session (29, the ATL war).

France’s war with us has not only upended my plans for this AAR, it’s also changed how I structured these last few updates. But I love it! Trying to come back from this challenging position has been a blast to play. And I hope it shows in the writing. Going from success to success is fun to play (at least, at the beginning), but it’s probably not very engaging to read about. Now we have a challenge.

See you all later! Thanks for reading!

jak7139 · Nov 11, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: A Narrative Interlude & Other Things
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(September 1534-November 1535)

We jump right into a war against France.

That’s right. You heard me.

A war against France.

The ending screenshot for last week’s chapter was taken on September 19th, 1534. That’s when France broke our Swiss alliance. This next screenshot is on October 7th, 1534. Our light ships are engaged with France’s in the English Chanel.

So, at some point in-between France declared war, and I forgot to highlight the actual declaration. The sides are the same as in Chapter 29, minus Naples and Switzerland.

We might be able to fight this. Might.

But our forces are once again out of position. And our manpower is completely drained. If we do fight, we’ll be relying on the Spanish AI whose forces are currently not in Spain. Our only option is still an instant surrender.

We’ve been kicked from the mainland. King Henri moves his court to Cork. From Ireland we shall rebuild!

And we shall return.

*
"Beneath Fog" from Kingdom: Two Crowns

The bells of the city’s church rang loudly down to the docks. Every sailor and his mate lifted their heads for a moment. Most prayers were held silently, some were muttered. Few dared speak. Then the work resumed.

Ropes were tightened. Decks were scoured. Sheets were sewn up. The work was hard, but that wasn’t the reason for the crew’s lack of joy. There would be no returning to this port, they all knew it. Not for them, their children, or their children’s children. Penn-ar-Bed was a Frenchman’s land now.

A grizzled, stubbly seadog spat on the deck of the ship, then quickly hid his contempt by rubbing the spot with a shine rag. The church bells were silent now. The French had at least given them the curtesy of a departing sermon. Soon they would be off.

Around them, a dozen or more ships lay moored. They carried the families and belongings of the crew and passengers. But this, the lead vessel, had a special task.

A cold and eerie fall fog had started to form. But this crew and vessel had sailed from Brittany to the Moray Firth and back a thousand times, rain or shine. The short hop from here to Cork would be no issue.

And that was the trouble. Every man in the crew was a good piece of rigging, tense, strong, sturdy, unflinching. They yearned to fight. But instead, by order of King Henri, first of his name, they were to run like cowards.

If the fog were just a bit thicker, maybe the king would reconsider leaving his native home and subjects for some foreign court. Maybe a challenging bit of weather could calm the restless, brave hands that sailed the “l’Impétueux,” take their mind off things.

Maybe.

Maybe…

But no.

They all heard it, the clopping horses coming their way. Each slow trot of the animals’ hooves a harsh reminder on their fiery hearts.

“Here come the king and his men, cowards every one of them.

By decree we flee and fly, never again to live and die.

In these homes on the bay, we rested and supped in happier days.

Now, no more

No more…”

The crewman, a young lad whose head held little sense but many dreams, faltered. The gangplank had been lowered. King Henri stood, watching.

The ship groaned, the rigging ready to snap.

The king moved aside, as if to make way for a guard. But slid away instead for the captain. He conversed with me for a time as the crew made ready.

Crew and nobility, courtier, king, and commoner all mulled about on the deck. The King refused offers to go to his quarters. He stayed and watched until the anchor was pulled away.

Alone at the bow was King Henri as “l’Impétueux” cut through the fog. Other ships followed in its wake.

But alone was King Henri at the bow as Brittany’s golden shores disappeared ‘neath cloud.

Alone was King Henri at the bow.

~~~

~~~This episode, dated October 7th, 1534, taken from the personal writings and memoirs of “The Vougay of the East,” Captain Vougay de Tintériac which he assembled shortly before his death~~~

Our capital in Cork is still a large city, but we’ve been hit hard by our losses. Still, we continue on. We lose Savoy as a rival as well.

Another tough battle is fought in Africa, though we do inflict more casualties on the enemy this time. And we’re out of manpower completely again. The one thing we do have? Money. The Grand Company (8,000 infantry with 18,400 manpower) is hired in Beafada for 121.52 ducats.

Here’s a good comparison of our pre and post-war power levels, the screenshot of our economy in Chapter 31 and one for the present:

We’ve actually only lost about 2 ducats in tax and almost 1 ducat in production. But trade is the real issue. We’ve lost around 11 ducats there!

Does anyone have a guess as to why the hit to our trade income is so big?

It actually took me quite a while to notice our new trade income. I took the screenshot for your benefit, but barely glanced at it myself. I just assumed our deficit was because of our lost homeland and army reinforcements. Eventually I have a proper look at my economy and realize my mistake.

Anyway, we’re 10 years ahead in all the techs. So, we can start developing our lands to get us back on our feet. I’m still following the strategy outlined in Chapter 30 of only spend mil and diplo points. And because all our diplo points are going towards our Idea Group, we only spend mil at this time. But this will help with our manpower deficit.

Mann: 1/1/1 -> 1/1/3
Ormond: 3/3/1 -> 3/3/5
297 mil points -> 6 mil points

This doesn’t look like a lot but trust me, it’ll add up. Just wait.

(A look at all our Stated provinces after losing the mainland. The TCs are important too. But our Development efforts will be focused in Ireland)

In other news, our army (mercenaries included) is attacked in Beafada. We still have low morale, so are forced to retreat one province east into enemy territory. To prevent the following stackwipe, I decide to cut our losses.

We still have positive warscore from occupying Jolof’s capital (the benefits of a Spy Network and a 3-Siege general) and the wargoal (Gabu).

This was a costly victory, but we’ll be back. And hopefully better prepared too!

(As you can see, the attrition wasn't that severe. And even on battles we took less casualties. But the enemy had us outnumbered heavily. With hindsight, I should've hired the mercs day one of the war.)

Gabu is a Trade Center, so we assign it to our Ivory Coast TC. This still doesn’t complete the bourgeoisie’s agenda to expand our presence in the node. But it’s a start. I decide to rival Timbuktu to show Brittany’s commitment to her colonies in the region.

I disband our mercenaries as well. We wasted 120 ducats to hire them in the first place, but we don’t need them at present. Two clicks (143 admin points) are spent to buy down inflation, bringing it from 10.21% to 6.21%.

(Another look at our economy post war without the mercs. Not terrible, but still not great.)

Sweden has embraced the Reformation. As well as Scotland, Switzerland, Corsica, and some other HRE states. Switzerland would ally us again if we wanted to. But I don’t offer it. Spain (for obvious reasons) will be our one and only continental commitment.

Here’s a screenshot of Nubia. It’s not relevant or anything. I just never see them form so thought it was cool. Good job AI!

But here’s something much more relevant. You remember that Neapolitan-Papal war, don’t you? The one Naples started? Well, here’s the peace:

Yep! Somehow Naples lost that, despite having the numbers advantage. The Pope has become the dominant power on the peninsula. But they’re by no means unchallenged. Naples and Savoy are both still allied to France. Venice is strong as well.

We pick up another slot in Diplomatic. We have another diplomat now and more Improve Relations. We also get some Diplo Rep from our Breton Ideas.

Improve Relations is a very good bonus to get. It increases the rate our diplomats improve relations by (of course) and also increases the rate of AE decay. If we were playing a much more aggressive campaign, say in the HRE, then this bonus would be a must. It’s still good regardless. Diplomatic is just a really solid group. It’s useful in basically every situation.

jak7139 · Nov 18, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: At Least We Have Gold
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(November 1535-August 1541)

Spending 200 ducats (our Mexico CN’s periodic gold fleets help a ton) we upgrade the Center of Trade in Cork. This helps a bit with our economy, as you can see:

Also, you might remember that we got the free War Taxes bonus from the Age of Discovery (Chapter 20). When that Age ended, I forgot to disable it. That’s why you’re seeing me turn that off here.

We lost, let’s see…264 mil points over 11 years (December 1525-December 1535). That could’ve helped with our Development spending. That in turn would’ve meant more manpower and forcelimit, meaning more troops, meaning France might’ve been deterred from attacking us. Oops! This happens every campaign, by the way. Whenever I pick up the War Taxes Ability, I always forget to turn it off.

The distractions never cease. Fox (modern-day Pennsylvania/Ohio) declares war on Henrika. We intervene. We also integrate Ashanti during this time.

Even though their province isn’t a Center or Estuary, I assign it to our TC anyway. This completes the Estate agenda. Whenever we’re able to, I’ll unassign Ashanti’s province. There’s a cooldown and the province will get some temporary maluses. Nothing too severe.

Chagos becomes a full city. The Fox war ends with money and reparations taken. We can turn our army off now, giving a surplus of 2 ducats a month. I’ve also been slowly buying down inflation since, as mentioned last time, we’re so far ahead in tech (currently 3.07%).

More Crownland is seized. And a new Diet is called. The bourgeoisie once again win King Henri over. The merchants want us to own a spice or cloves province in Indonesia. Not hard to do. There are many colonizable provinces that have a decent chance to produce those goods.

Spain wants us to share our maps of the Pacific with them. I say no. The Prestige we'd get, while nice, is not as nice as keeping Spain in the dark on Asia for as long as possible. Declining doesn’t give an opinion malus. Spain still loves us as much as before.

Ojibwe (Wisconsin) attacks Henrika as well. You know the drill by this point. But this time Ojibwe accepts the immediate white peace. No intervention necessary.

(Ojibwe and the rest of North America, including some future targets)

Another fleet from Mexico arrives. It carries nearly 300 ducats in pillaged wealth! I pay off most of our loans with it.

Our colonist from Chagos has been free for a while. I was busy managing other things. But now I remember to send him to Indonesia. The province of Bengkulu gives us a mainland foothold and has a 20.3% chance for spices.

The Ottomans attack the Mamluks once again. And L’espoir d’Anne feels confident enough to attack the remains of Zapotec on their own.

Ile Bourbon also completes. Our colonist moves to Matsolo in East Africa. Why? Gold. And St. Vincent is done as well. Next up, Lower Limpopo and more gold (hopefully).

Osage (Michigan) attacks Henrika but we white peace it before anything happens. And now we’ve finally finished something we started long ago. In Chapters 22 and 23 we started a race with Portugal in the Caribbean. This race has had, I believe, a butterfly effect on the whole game, from the Papal betrayal to losing the Breton mainland.

But we’ve finally finished it! With St. Vincent done (and IDB is colonizing the Bahamas as well, remember), we have 10 provinces in the Caribbean and another merchant.

Was this merchant worth all the trouble? Probably not. Would I play things differently if I tried this again? Yes. But that’s hindsight for you.

Our dearly won merchant heads to Timbuktu (and Tyler too) which feeds into the Ivory Coast. I’d just like to mention that this merchant’s name is Arthur d’Elbene. It’s nice to see the family is doing well ever since that first expedition (Chapter 14).

We get 0.40 more ducats with him in Timbuktu. But I also check out what would happen if we moved him to the North Sea to collect. That turns out to be the better play, earning us another 0.50 on top of the 0.40.

(I had a proper look at our merchants by this point. They're no longer funneling everything towards Bordeaux)

We get some more diplo rep from Diplomatic Ideas. Hire a mil advisor. And we start converting Beafada to Catholic.

Since we don’t plan on assigning Beafada to a TC, and our missionary has nothing else to do, we might as well. This will help our Religious Unity and get rid of the heathen penalties from owning the province (remember that TC provinces give no religious maluses).

Portugal has recently ended a war of reconquest against Natchitoches in North America (their Mexican CN had the same issues with natives that Henrika and d’Elbene have been having). I’d like to get a Louisiana CN, but we need a border first. We declare on Ichisi (Florida) to sort this out.

We find gold in Matsolo. This is slowly hurting our inflation. But this province will give us a lot of cash once we invest into it. Definitely needed. Lower Limpopo unfortunately gets tropical wood. I would’ve liked a double.

Another gold fleet arrives. Another loan is paid off. And 9 light ships are built.

We get 2 Base Production in Desmond from an event. And we don’t get spices in Bengkulu. It’s incense instead. King Henri is incensed at the news.

Here’s some big news. The French and English are fighting over Calais. Hopefully, it’s a very bloody, long, and expensive war for them both.

Also, L’espoir d’Anne annexes Zapotec. However, we experience a quirk of EU4’s peace system because of it.

Zapotec had a few vassals. And when you annex an overlord, all their subjects are transferred to the conqueror. But because L’espoir d’Anne is a subject themselves, we get the vassals instead. This does mean we got these provinces without a war, however they are taking up 2 relation-slots that we might’ve used for other things.

(I was trying to get a Union over Luneburg, just to showcase the mechanic. But it didn't work out, so I won't mention it)

And, as if King Henri wasn’t shaken enough already, tragedy continues to strike! Prince Francois, like many of EU4’s heirs, was fond of hunting. Was. But the forests of Ireland aren’t like those of Brittany. They’re strange and unfamiliar.

Prince Francois is dead.

Even news of a North American victory can’t cheer the aging king up. He has no heir. No homeland. Is this a punishment from the Vicar of Christ? Will he be the last of his house?

We’ll have to leave the King with those questions for now. It’s time to let him mourn.

jak7139 · Nov 25, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: Finishing Diplomatic & A Spanish Proposal
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(August 1541-September 1545)

We left off last time with tragedy. But regardless of the King’s sorrows, the management of the realm continues on. The cooldown is up, so I remove Ashanti’s province from the TC. In the long-term, this should be better for our income. In the short-term, the province will be useless.

The second to last slot in Diplomatic is picked up. The bonus is straightforward, every province costs 20% less to demand in war. I also think this is a good time to point out our GP ranking.

Despite our losses, we’re still growing at a good pace. We’re more than half as strong as France or Spain, nearly as strong as England, and Portugal doesn’t even make the cut.

Don’t misunderstand, losing Brittany proper has hurt our game a lot. And we’re not out of the woods yet (no spoilers). But we are still strong and growing rapidly. We will outpace every AI on this list by the end of the game, even France.

We’re the first European to discover Japan according to the game, so we gain some Prestige.

And another event, a long time coming, happens. Austria is allied to England in their war against France. This of course means the entire weight of France is bearing down on the HREmperor. Austria, distracted heavily, declines to defend Provence when Lorraine finally declares independence (see Chapter 15).

We build a Marketplace in Gabu, further cementing our trade share there. And we move a colonist from Matsolo to Nias, the northernmost of the two island chains west of Sumatra. Around this time, we declare on defenseless Natchitoches.

With Matsolo finished, I decide to turn the whole area into a State. Once we full-core everything and the Autonomy goes down, our gold income will increase a ton. There are no Estuaries or Centers in this Area/State, so we don’t plan on adding it to a TC.

It’s all a huge balancing act between trade, Autonomy, governing capacity, and so on how you manage your provinces. At times, it can feel overwhelming. But usually going with your instinct is the best call. In this case, my instincts tell me we’ll make more money from Matsolo’s gold if it’s fully integrated.

A simple month-tick helps confirm my theory. We were making roughly 0.58 ducats from the province before. Now we’re up to 5.77! I build a Church there (0.13 ducats) to further help. And another one (0.10) is built in Desmond.

Our colonist moves to the other Sumatran island-chain, Mentawari. I’ll let our income screen speak for itself:

The Natchitoches war ends fully. We take their province at the mouth of the Mississippi river. King Henri is sure this will be an important trade hub someday. Since this is in a new Colonial Region (Louisiana), we’ll have to keep and core it ourselves for now.

The game dubs this province Nouvelle Orleans. I think Nouvelle Nantes is much more fitting (proper non-French, Breton renames will come eventually).

Taking the next mil tech (12) gives us some more Tactics and a choice for our infantry. At this point, I think we’ve all got the drill regarding pips, Fire, and Shock. If not, you can refer to Chapter 9 (or Chapter 28 for specifics on artillery). Here’s the change we made:

We’ve been at peace for 3 months. We can’t have that! Kongo looks weak. We attack them. Lorraine is now independent.

(A quick look at our manpower and cash reserves. We've recovered fully from the Jolof war 9 years ago. Hopefully, this one isn't as bloody.)

Lower Limpopo is done. We set up shop on the island of Belitung which is between Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. More light ships are built, we grab admin tech 12, some productive barracks are built in Ireland, and France has set up an outpost in Gabon. This spiteful gesture actually blackflags our army, since we were in the province as the colony spawned. There’s also a Portuguese province in Luanda, bordering Kongo’s south. I’ll have to attempt a naval landing in Kongo instead.

Austria peaces out of the England-France war, reneging on the most recent HRE reform. I’m not going to talk about the HRE, I don’t think (unless you want me to). It’s not relevant to Brittany’s situation. But I will do an HRE-focused season 2 of this I’m pretty sure. But that’s far, far in the future.

The Turks take a massive bite out of Egypt. They’re now the preeminent Middle Eastern power. Also, I should mention that they've allied Russia. I didn’t actually notice this until much, much later. It’s an interesting divergence given Russo-Ottoman relations historically.

While France is winning their war. That doesn’t prevent England from taking a slice of Scotland in a separate peace. We’ve finally finished Diplomatic too.

We get cheaper diplo tech cost and lessened Stability impacts from diplomacy. What this means, is that we don’t suffer a Stab loss from breaking royal marriages (allowing us to “fish” for unions if we were playing that way). And we suffer less penalties from no-CB wars (-1 Stab loss instead of -2). We also, incidentally, finish off our Breton Ideas. The extra 25% naval forcelimit and +1 yearly Prestige are both nice, but not major.

At 57, King Henri has still not found another heir to replace the late prince. But the Spanish offer us a member of their House. I’m sorely tempted to consider it.

We’d get closer ties with Spain (keeping our alliance secure) and we’d have the opportunity (should we grow large enough) to gain Spain as a Personal Union. This would include the entirety of their overseas empire as well. Of course, we’d suffer the same risk of falling under a union. Do I chance it? We can’t fall under a PU as long as we stay at war.

Decisions. Decisions…

*
"Horns of Hattin & the Aftermath (Orchestral House Lords version)" from Crusader Kings 2

The room was small. Smaller even than the one before.

The diplomat shivered, his ruff wobbling. And colder too, he thought. Looking up, he saw an Irish motif of the patron Saint Finbar before the doors. He prayed, hoping the Breton king was in a hospitable mood.

The miniature room was small enough that the Spaniard could even identify the features of the two guards—weary faces with determined looks. Their stern glares filled him with dread. He gulped.

He nearly jumped as the attendant entered, curtly bidding him forward. “His majesty will see you now.”

The aide’s hair was grey and frantic, yet that face held the same steely stare.

Cristo! Are they all this way? The diplomat wondered.

Nervously, yet with purpose, he stepped further into the court of King Henri.

. . .

The weary king slumped in his throne

Thinking of ways he might atone

For his lost home

For his son turned bones

Here was Spain

Offering an end to the pain

Would it be a boon or a bane?

The implications were plain

An end to his house

A fire to be doused

A Spanish lion set to pounce

This Breton mouse was roused

In the end, I decide not to take Spain’s offer. In part, this is for narrative purposes. What can I say? I’ve grown attached to the Dreux family. I want to see if they can make it all the way to 1821.

How about another war? We don’t have any troops in Mexico. But our CN is decently powerful. I declare war against a few of the remaining tribes and let our subject go to work.

It’s at that moment that our truce with France expires.

jak7139 · Dec 2, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Bretons in the Kongo! Plus, Barrages, Assaults, & Disasters
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(September 1545-February 1550)

Our army has landed in Kongo and occupied the province of Soyo. We get to work sieging their capital, but then I decide to take a good-looking battle instead. The sides are even and we’re winning…until an extra 7k reinforces the enemy from the fog of war. We retreat to Benguela.

I don’t make the same mistake as our Jolof war (Chapters 32 & 33), I hire mercs right away (an extra 17k). We’re losing 8.12 ducats a month, but if we wrap this up quick, we’ll be alright. The Franco-English war ends, with the latter ceding Calais, an enormous sum of money, and their alliance with Austria.

Kongo decides to occupy our holdings in Bonny and Calabar rather than defend their own land. This is a classic move by the AI. If they don’t think they can win in a fight, they’ll siege you anywhere you’re not contesting.

Right then I’m reminded of a new privilege we can take from the Nobility. This one only becomes available when you have 2 or more vassals. It gives 2 extra relation-slots and less Liberty Desire.

With the Kongolese too scared to attack, we take their capital, Mpemba, after only 27 days. It was only a level 1 fort, we had enough cannons for a full +5 bonus to our siege rolls, and we had a medium-sized Spy Network all speeding our progress.

The realm is without an heir. We’re beset by the French on all sides. This would be enough to make anyone despair. King Henri doesn’t know what to do. But then he has a productive conversation with Queen Gwenvred.

Prince Richard’s stats are below the 9-point average, but I keep him. As mentioned at the end of the last part, I want to see if the House of Dreux lasts until 1821. And Henri is 58. He could die at any moment.

The war in Africa goes nicely. We’re besieging another fort, and I barrage it. Barrages were mentioned in passing in Chapter 28. When sieging a fort, you have 3 buttons that cost mil power: naval barrage, land barrage, and assault.

Barraging a fort gives you a Wall Breach (a significant bonus to your siege rolls). Assaulting a fort has your army attempt, well, an assault. As you’d imagine, it’s quite costly in terms of men, so I rarely attempt it against fully garrisoned fortifications. But something with less than 1,000 defenders is probably fine if you have enough infantry.

Shift-Consolidation (Chapter 4) works for this too. When assaulting, your army takes casualties every day-tick. But slowing the game-speed down and consolidating the army every tick (even if it is micro-intensive) helps take forts faster and for less losses.

As we progress in Africa, we also end two wars in Mexico. And Belitung gets Spices as its Trade Good, completing our Diet Agenda. We lose another battle, but I have a plan. Kongo outnumbers us because of their allies. But what if they had no allies? Using our Spy Network, I steal Kongo’s maps to reveal the interior. Our armies march for Kalundwe’s and Lunda’s capitals.

Here’s a major development. Our country is on the brink of Disaster! Not in a real sense, but in a game sense.

Along the top row of your Stability and Expansion tab, there are many eligible Disasters that could happen if the requirements are met. When one ticks up to 100%, it fires. You’ll need to take certain actions to end it. By default, when a Disaster starts ticking, an alert (in this case, a red-orange flame icon) will pop up to draw your attention.

Hovering over the Disaster shows what you need to do to stop its progression or end it completely. Hovering over the progress bar shows the factors affecting its growth.

In our case, the Religious Turmoil Disaster will fire soon because we have less than 75% Religious Unity. The province that’s taken us over the edge is not any of our African, Asian, or Louisianan land, but our own capital!

The different religions of the Reformation will, for the duration of this Age, spawn Centers of Reformation to convert away Catholic provinces. One located in Scotland has done so for Cork. We’re unable to convert it back due to an enforced cooldown, so the Disaster will fire. We can’t stop it.

Meanwhile, Portugal gains a CN in Louisiana. But the Pope, for whatever reason, doesn’t sanction their claim. We also catch up on diplo tech (tech 12), giving more naval morale and CW, and a building.

After 117 days we take Kalundwe’s capital. I make sure to move our army away so we don’t get blackflagged. We peace out for money, reparations, and Trade Power. That army then moves to Kongo’s last fort in Kasanje. The enemy has retaken Mpemba, but as I’ve said, it’s only a level 1 fort. It should be easy to recapture it. A few months later, after 163 days, Lunda’s capital falls. They’re given the same deal as Kalundwe.

Another war over in Mexico ends about this time too. Another victory for Brittany! This gives us Tarascan’s OPM vassal, Matlatzinca.

With no one to help them, we drive a small Kongolese force off Mpemba. Some separatists revolt in Gabu. We’ll deal with them once we’re done here. Kasanje falls after 191 days.

Despite many Bretons’ justified anger towards the Pope, we follow his command to treat the New World natives as Christian souls, not slaves. Perhaps we can mend our relationship yet.

We’ve also finished exploring the seas. Vougay de Tintériac has served us well. I let him enter semi-retirement. His 3 ships will protect trade in the Malacca node as we continue expanding our presence there. It’s said that the aging captain, having nothing left to explore, starts compiling his memoirs at this time. We read his account of the Breton Exodus previously.

After this, we end our war with Kongo. Their entire coastline, capital, and an inland Trade Center for the Ivory Coast node are taken. It was a bloody fight. But it’s also a bigger victory than our Jolof war. And these spoils should be well worth the cost once we integrate them.

And the next Institution, the Printing Press, spawns in Germany.

jak7139 · Dec 9, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: Just a Sudden Major War
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(February 1550-March 1553)

With our victory against Kongo, King Henri affirms his right to rule over all Breton territories, even those owned by a certain continental blue blob. Absolutism is a mechanic I’ve mentioned a few times now, but I still don’t think it’s the right time to explore the topic. Just know that we’ve taken a Government Reform boosting it further.

In more important news, we’re at peace. Our Spanish ally, seeing that we’re freed up, decides to call us in for a venture of their own. And this time, we’re not just fighting some native with a tech disparity:

This is a great opportunity. We can claim Ireland and a part of the spoils, surpassing England and coming one step closer to beating France. Not only that, but also any share of the North Sea node we take will help immensely with our income.

Our position now, while better than in 1444, still has the same issue we faced back then (all the way back in Chapter 1): most of our home trade node is owned by someone stronger than us. Back then it was Bordeaux and France, now it’s the North Sea and England.

I hold the Call-to-Arms for now, then spend 130 gold on the Free Company (7k inf) in Ireland. Our fleet of 25 light ships move to the Irish Sea, ready to block the strait between Ulster and Ayrshire. I could’ve even waited another month (the CtA will be auto-declined after 2 months), but I enter the war on the 2nd of April.

While it isn’t relevant to this war, during the waiting period, I ally Austria and Naples. I am eventually hoping to use favors to break the pact between Naples and France, even if they’ve lost the momentum on the peninsula because of their Papal defeat.

As soon as we join against England, our fleets clash in the Irish Sea. Their heavy ships and the presence of an admiral force us to port in Dublin. We lose 2 ships.

I hire, then fire, a temporary merc-stack in Gabu to deal with the rebels there. I want our African forces back in Ireland ASAP. We don’t have time to stop in Gabu. Another 7k mercs are hired in Ireland.

The sides of the war are heavily in our favor. But we’re on the front lines. England is concentrated while Spain is spread out. If we lose Ireland, there’s no way we’ll be able to unoccupy it. We’ll be stuck waiting for Spain to slowly win as our homeland burns.

Incidentally due to the longstanding Anglo-Portuguese alliance, we face action across the Atlantic too. We have 7k that’s been in Nouvelle Nantes since the Natchitoches war, deterring revolts. I move them west into Portuguese Louisiana and Mexico to see what we might accomplish.

Our colony at Mentawari finishes. We move on to Halmahera, a very key province in the East Indies. It’s the only land border to the native OPMs of Ternate and Tidore. Halmahera has a decent chance for cloves to appear. And the other two provinces already have them. Cloves is a very rich good, perfect for making money.

Nias is almost finished, so we head to the Trade Center of Palu on the island of Sulawesi. As that happens, Huron tries their luck with Henrika again. Of course we intervene.

Now, you may be thinking, with all these mercs, how is the economy looking? Well:

(A look at our armies, cash, and manpower reserves too. 14k in Ireland, 20k in Africa, 7k in America.)

We’re hurting, but our balance for now is still in the black.

Our army is attacked in Louisiana and defeated, luckily we can retreat to our Mexican land, joining up with our subjects and allies.

Belitung is done. I send our colonist to the westernmost of the two free Borneo provinces, Katapang. I also decide we might as well call Spain in against Huron to see if they help.

At 63, King Henri and Queen Gwenvred have seen more than most. As the war drags on, they receive word from Malacca. The legendary explorer, Vougay de Tintériac, is dead. Meanwhile, everything we took from Kongo has been cored. The 3 Trade Centers are all made into TCs. Mpemba, Kongo’s former capital, is in a different node under a different region (see Chapter 25).

It's been a year since our entry into Spain’s war. The English have sent no response. We’ve occupied all of Ireland. Our 14k mercs stationed there wait eagerly for action. Feeling confident, I let our Kongo army stop off in Benin for another quick war. They’ve just lost a war and have basically no army, so this should be easy.

In another engagement off the Irish coast, our fleet picks off a lone English heavy. Our admiral boasts heavily about his victory against the famed English navy, gaining a trait. He takes another battle against East Frisia a few days later, sinking the entire thing.

Our Irish forces fight a minor battle against England, stackwiping their army. I see more of their forces gathering across the strait in Scotland.

Ojibwe goes against Henrika again. You know what we do. Same with Iroquois a bit after that.

Here’s a choice I made during the war. A major one as it turns out.

Rather than plant our armies on Ulster, I want the English to cross. If they cross, our navy can prevent their escape or reinforcement, letting us negate England’s numbers advantage one battle at a time.

The English cross.

We fight.

We lose.

We had numbers. The army qualities were even. But I think it came down to rolls, and maybe the English cannons. Seeing this, I take one of our Missions for extra army morale. We’re now in a race against the clock.

If England occupies Ulster, they can cross freely, regardless of our blockade. We can’t wait to recover our morale or reinforce our men. We need to attack. I suicide my navy out into the Irish Sea, hoping we can delay their Scottish armies long enough.

We lose 9 ships and another 4,000 men with the two defeats. We retreat to Desmond, but the English AI smells blood. Their army splits up, and a force half our number attacks. We retreat again.

A final battle spells our doom. We have nothing in Ireland to stop the enemy.

(Battle 1 is when the English first crossed. Battle 7 is when our last army was destroyed. I hired a third merc stack for battle 4 which was killed instantly. Discounting the stackwipes, we actually did decent damage to the English, it just wasn't enough.)

jak7139 · Dec 16, 2024

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: An Exhausting Peace
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(March 1553-November 1559)

As our lands are occupied, our navy is forced out. Another 8 ships are lost. We make port in Mann.

Seeing the desperate situation at home, Benin is peaced out. It’s a great victory, but not the focus right now. All I’ll say is that the capital of Benin, also called Benin, is made into a TC. This gives us the 51% control in the Ivory Coast needed for a merchant. He’s assigned to Transfer from Timbuktu.

Huron is white peaced. I build 1k of infantry in Lower Limpopo to occupy the English holdings in South Africa. They have nothing to stop us, so we occupy the whole thing.

We gain cloves in Halmahera. England offers us peace if we cede Leinster and 36.8 ducats. I refuse. Spain is winning the war elsewhere handily. We just need to wait for a favorable settlement.

We’re starting to feel the strain though. Our economy, while in shambles, isn’t the worst thing. We have a stockpile of money to burn through and periodic fleets from Mexico to top us off.

No. We need to worry about our War Exhaustion (Chapter 10). Having so much of our nation occupied is increasing it rapidly. Revolts fire in Benguela and Inhambane. We have no armies available right now to stop either of them.

As our nation burns, the Pope calls the Council of Trent. This gives us a decision, which we don’t enact, to embrace the Counter-Reformation. It also unlocks a new section of the Papacy interface.

In this interface, every nation with a Cardinal can choose to either be Harsh or Conciliatory to Protestantism. Depending on how many Cardinals swing to each side, a stance will be chosen and all Catholics will get certain bonuses for the duration of the Age. I move to a Conciliatory stance.

A month after that, Queen Gwenvred passes away. King Henri is now 66, and the young Prince Richard is only 8.

A time of great change will soon be upon Brittany. Ireland is fine, but the King laments that his son has never seen the shores of the mainland, of home. What a chaotic time of change Richard is being born into, a time of religious upheaval and war.

Iroquois is defeated, giving gold, reparations, and Prestige. Nearly a year afterwards, Spain forces Portugal out of the war. We get 2 provinces in Louisiana (one step closer to a CN there) and 75.85 ducats. Not bad.

Ojibwe gives us some gold and we call it a day. England now offers us white peace. I reject. Ireland may be off the cards, but Spain can still give us something in English South Africa.

Some separatists rise up in Mann. As a result, I move our navy to the safer shores of Spain.

The Disaster that’s been slowly ticking up also fires. We can choose two ways of dealing with it, either rebels or increased Stab cost. The rebels don’t look appealing right now. I go the other route.

Two more colonists are sent to distant lands, Manado on the tip of Sulawesi and Ohlone in California.

The Protestant League begins to form. We take diplo and mil techs 13 which give new artillery units with more Fire and Shock, and a transport ship upgrade.

It is February 1557. I can’t wait anymore. If I do, Brittany will be consumed by revolts and manpower issues (two of the things high War Exhaustion affects). I transfer our occupations to Spain, so they don’t lose too much warscore, then accept England’s white peace.

At least the war has been going on long enough that Spain doesn’t care that we’ve left. That’s about the only good news. Here’s some good/bad news, depending on how you look at it, we can’t gain anymore War Exhaustion. We’re at the cap!

(Not sure why the game isn't listing our CNs here. At least most of these casualties are mercs, not actual manpower)

And here’s a slap in the face. Spain ends their war 2 months later. England loses 3 provinces in South America and 2 in Ireland through released nations.

Our diplomats get to work improving relations with Tyrone and Sligo. We ally both too. I use some of our limited manpower to recruit 5k infantry at home.

One of our colonists heads to the other free Bornean province, Sampit. I also start preparing for the next Age by revoking a Privilege from the Bourgeoisie, increasing our eventual Absolutism cap.

We last looked at our Great Power ranking in Chapter 35, 16 years ago. With the war against England concluded, I think it’s a good time to look at it again. Before, we were in 6th place, barely behind England. Now we’re in 5th, well ahead of our recent foe. We grew by 266 points during that time. Most of the others also grew by 200-300.

The next admin tech is picked up on schedule, giving a very minor boost in Production Efficiency.

Another native war also happens against d’Elbene. We must intervene. Our War Exhaustion only goes down while at peace, but it’s that or lose the colony.

A portion of our Benin army and our new Irish army deal with the revolt on Mann. We annex one of the Mexican vassals.

And after a long, difficult life, King Henri passes away at 71. The new King Richard is 13 and in a regency. In under 2 years, he will be crowned. A new king for a new era.

Jak's Game Guide: An EU4 Tutorial

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