I recently updated to Rule Britannia. I cannot even remember when I started with a strong nation, and with the new mission system I thought it would be neat to roll England (on very hard diff).

I didn't have any plans aside from taking control of the entire English Channel node and unifying the Isles. I even sold Maine on day one, then the southern holdings so France could grow strong enough so maybe they'll challenge me in time.

But.. well. Even if you don't push for PU with the Surrender am Maine, you get an insane amount of claims in French territory. I allied Spain, which called me into war twice, and got fed about a fourth of France in each war. In the end, both Spain and I got maybe half of France each, really early in the game. Work on the English Channel progressed as well, but the AE double-dicking from HRE lands made it slow, especially with all the AE from french lands.

By the time you get the third national idea, I didn't have much to do. I had claims over the Baleares and such from missions, but this was Castille so I left it alone, and decided that I might as well explore a map. Got three ideas from Exploration, got a ton of explorers, and made two colonies - one in Africa, the second right next to the still-unconquered Mexico. The second the colony finished, I no-CB one of them, then two decades later annexed what was left of it, netting me a ~350 dev colonial nation with like 10 gold provinces. This made Castille mad (surprisingly Portual stayed cool, even if they got all of Caribbean by then), which broke the alliance a month later. I was lucky enough that Portugal agreed just-so to break their alliance with them (+101 to agree, -100 to disagree) and so I conquered the rest of my mission-given cores, the Baleares, all their colonies in South America and West Africa and Sicily (they were strong on paper but rolled over with laughable ease). At some point another no-CB followed on South America primitives and in two wars another big colonial nation formed.

Meanwhile, I took Jerusalem + 2 provinces to greatly extend my range and push to India. Another best CB followed on some random nobody on India proper, then a surprisingly tough war on Vijayanagar, then another on Jaunpur, then on Bengal and so on - some staggering AE there, but Ming doesn't care about India and Timmy (at over 800dev) somehow never joined a coalition. Over several decades, almost the entire India came under my control, and provided me with ~120 ducats/month from trade there.

At some point, religious league war fired. I was allied with Austria and got called in. Given that only Sweden and Bohemia had any real strength on the Protestant side it was barely a fight.

Then the Ottos rivaled me. The first war was the most difficult by far - they weren't quite runaway Kebab yet, but had over 1500 dev and their armies were as ridiculous as always (highest point - 280k, 86 of which were mercs). Still, I recently allied Russia which got smashed to shit early in the war while barely accomplishing anything, but it allowed me to take over a third of Otto clay in the meantime. I finished at ~60% warscore, before they brought back their main forces and took most of the islands they owned, which promptly got forts built on them in case I needed a bit of cheese in the future (had an important miltech advantage in this war, and even then their troops usually beat mine in 1:1). Russia got fed a bit northeast of Crimea to keep me in favors. The second war followed not long after, but by then the ridiculous income allowed me to increase my force limit by a significant amount and outside of the ridiculous naval fight when my 50 heavies lost to 60 carracks things went well (I lost like 40 and they lost 7 - RNGsus sucks sometimes and I wasn't watching the battle). Russia got most of Crimea this time, though I didn't do any further cheese like taking Edirne + Constantinople to break them completely.

By then, my Indian conquests got me to like -500 with Jaunpur. The only thing blocking expansion was when AE would make Ottos join the coalition, so I looked to Oceania because muh trade, and aside from Auytthaya(?) conquered just about everything there. Everybody got pissed as usual, but since Ming doesn't care neither do I.

It's now about a decade into Age of Absolutism and I'm sitting at ~5k dev, with Ottos and Russia being the only valid rivals. Somehow I got PU over Sweden (~30 years ago) and Portugal (several years ago), even though I never aimed at PUs. Portugal is nice, since they beat Tunis on their own, and somehow still aren't mad at my colonial nations. I left Spain alone after two wars, sitting at -140 AE for their colonies. They'll be safe until their colonies look ready for the taking, especially since they're too scared to join coalition.

Right now I have about 300k troops poised to break Mughals (Timurids did very well in this game), which sits at 1200 dev and wants all of my India clay. Russia is also eager for Mughal lands, and feeding them Otto gave me 100 trust + 30 favors left. They also got a ~200k standing army and are about as strong as Mughals by themselves, so there's gonna be some high impact sexual violence committed in this area soon.

Oh, and I have like 30k in the bank, manufactories and universities built just about everywhere, ~120 heavies and ~300 ducats per month of income and three +5 advisors. At this point I'll probably smash Mughals, then maybe Ming, then retire the playthrough - WC is just a formality at this point.

In short - it can be rather cathartic to roll a strong nation after dying ten times to Kebab as Albania or Athens.

 

I hate to be that guy but if it next to Mexico you could have fabricated a claim xD.

But yes, Albania > England. I find smaller nations or underdogs more fun and takes longer to steamroll. Random new World is also fun if you are playing with an eastern Nation since the routes are much fairer.

if anyone wants to play in a new map I suggest this.

 

Strong nations. Weak nations. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled players should try to play with the countries they love best.

Or just achievement hunt. My current game: Bunte Kuh and an Early Reich as a Merchant Republic.



This is what happens to Iberia when Aragon gets a PU over Castille in 1471 - while they had a female heir to boot (which generally means there's a regular Iberian Wedding about to happen.



And this is what happens to the trade routes. At this point in the game, I turned a profit at 5 colonies over the limit at this point - it got up to 6 over limit not long after. The Lubeck node is absolutely filthy to feed into with a trade-focused empire.

 

Where is the money coming from into Lubeck, aside from local production and North Sea? The three end nodes get stuff from colonies all over the world, but my Lubeck rarely had any real amounts of filthy lucre. How do you pull over 20 ducats from land-locked nodes, like the node between Lubeck and Wien (the green one) without holding any land there? Did you vassalize or used steer trade in war just for screenshot or what? 1647 isn't early, but it's not 100-ducats in every node either.

I've been considering tall-ish Prussia, which I somehow never did, so Lubeck would be an appreciable target if I could somehow manage it as TO, maybe with a vassal or two. I understand trade system reasonably well when it comes to trade companies and such, but I was under the impression that land-locked nodes were hardly worth bothering with if you don't conquer the land that belongs to the node.

Generally when playing smallish countries without overseas holdings I make a pittance from trade. For the most part, other countries like Lubeck or whatever small, rich neighbors I have pay for my stuff. Can be hard on manpower, but eh.

@Mestre - I actually forgot about the first 'original war' - bullied some neighbor loser for five provinces to core first so OE would go directly into colonial Mexico instead of my country. The second was no-CB because Portugal had army nearby and feared they wanted Mexican clay, and since I had diplomatic ideas for AE burning it only cost me 1 stab, which is nothing for large Christian country (nor Anglican for that matter). In the end Portugal didn't do anything anyway, but I'd be pissed if they stole all that gold when my army was right there.

 

There's 38 from North Sea, 34 from the Rheinland (grey-blue) and Saxony (green) nodes, some amount from the Baltic Sea as well (20, 22-ish? Something like that), and basically every single province of mine had Manufactories and Workshops. Lubeck also popped Incense from the Perfume Industry event, which is another boost to the trade value, albeit a fairly minor one: the node is pretty meh in terms of Trade Goods. (It's mostly Livestock/Fish/Naval Supplies, which aren't great at this point in the game.)

Anyway, putting the rest in spoiler because I'm nerding out.

Spoiler

There might be one Steer Trade in this screenshot, on 4pm Münster (below Ostfriesland), but most of that power in the two adjacent nodes comes down to three things: Caravan Power, Trade Propagated Downstream, and the more standard Global Trade Power modifier. In order: I get 91.5 base power in any inland node: 50 standard, +33 % because I'm a Merchant Republic, and +25 % each from Trade 7 and Plutocratic 6. That's a pretty decent start right off the bat.

A not-particularly-well-known bit about Trade is that, if you have 10 provincial trade power in a node, you transfer 20 % of your provincial trade power to the nodes directly upstream. I've got a significant amount of it - my provinces are well-developed, with more than a few Estuaries and Centres of Trade lying around to boot, and all the provinces with one of those have Trade Depots - all on 0 % autonomy because I don't have any estates.

Then the last bit: Global Trade Power. This multiplies your trade power. And as a Trade-focused nation, I have a lot of those modifiers. This is from a century later, but the numbers are virtually the same: I lose Australia and Growing East-Indian Trade, but gain some on Prestige and Power Projection.



(The Traders is the faction that I tend to keep in power as a Merchant Republic. Hanseatic City is my first National Idea.)

So all that power I get from caravan trade power and being utterly and completely dominant provincially in Lubeck is then multiplied significantly. There's some other number chicanery involved as well, but I don't offhand recall who was in my Trade League at this point in the game - that's probably the more likely explanation for having more power in Rheinland than Saxony.

As a bonus, this is right now.



Oh, and the icon between unrest and truce is the warning that you have too many provinces in your states as a Merchant Republic - you gain a 0,1 Republican Tradition malus for every stated province over 20. I have 21, but it's worth it.

Long story short: dominating the Lubeck node sets you up for some amazing money-making opportunities.

 

World Conquests are the number one way to ruin any enjoyment in this game. I just hit 11k dev at 1713 and I came to the realisation that I was not enjoying it at all and just gave up on the campaign despite knowing I could finish it if I played it out.

 

I got two of the three World Conquest achievements (just not Three Mountains), that's good enough for me.

My four most recent achievements:



Top: The Great Khan and Back In Control. Bottom: Phillippine Tiger and The Spice Must Flow. Both required one restart each; Ming declared on Oirat too soon in the first Mongolia start, and I fucked up the diplomatic situation in my first Cebu start, but since both were less than five years in... Yeah.

Bonus, from the Cebu game, a Europe that is... Not very standard.

 

I disagree. I think that world conquests introduces a new foe to player when he snowballed hard and too big to fail : Time. In my last world conquest (Aq Qoyunlu to Rûm) I barely managed to finish world conquest (I blame stupid alliance networks and Russia) It was fun for me to plan next wars, truce breaks and army positions. Though I agree that this might not be entertaining to everyone.

 

I can see the appeal, but all I really do is declare on any neighbors as soon as truces run out since nobody can fight me, grant all the land to client states, shift focus to the other side of the world, then repeat. My favourite runs were things like Sunset Invasion, The First Tangoo Empire, and Gold Rush because I had more of a solid goal and felt like I was actually making progress whereas in my WC run I end up spending ages micromanaging in order to get the most efficiency I can and making the whole run feel like a slog.

Also it should be noted that that was the first run I actually got past 1700 outside of my Sunset Invasion run in nearly 500 hours. Maybe I just lack the patience.