For those of us who regularly return to playing England, the next patch is looking rather nice:



I'm hoping that they're also going to make the difference between England and Great Britain more significant.

England should be a traditional feudal type government with national ideas that are focused on traditional feudal preoccupations - basically a slightly inferior version of France.

Great Britain should have a different government form - ahead of its time in terms of progressiveness - and top-tier national ideas relating to naval power, colonisation, the early development of science and industry, and the introduction of a small but highly professional army.

 

I'ma leave this here.



One Faith, too.

 

Purely for shits and giggle: What is your monthly income?

 

Not quite as ludicrous as it could've been, I didn't add provinces to Trade Companies after I got the merchant for the last one and I basically didn't build anything but Cathedrals for the last 50 years, with the exception of me being bored and spending 40k on Counting Houses at some point.

Just checked, 4.4k as the HRE, most of that from trade. I didn't go maximise my income and so on, so... Yeah.

 

The 'Steal yo ships' Naval Doctrine is incredibly OP, holy shit.

 

Byzantium getting another buff with new missions is pretty neat. Pretty easy to get a decent start without needing to restart for once.



Edit: Consider the fact that I kinda suck too.

 

Who did you ally for the first war?

 

Albania. Ottomans attacked Albania and drew in Venice so I built to force limit and sniped tiny armies where I could until we got around 50% war score and Albania gave me 4 of my cores back. Then I allied Hungary and won the following war by fighting around forts and rivers. Also helps that I got the event to lose 25 prestige and legitimacy for a 100 tradition general.

Edit: Currently allied to mamluks and Austria so I think I could wipe the Ottomans in good time if I play this well.

 

Neat. I'll see about doing a Byz run after I finish my current GB achievement run.




Behold, the power of naval dominance allowing you to snipe enemies on your coastal forts again, and again, and again. Sure, they occupied all of France, but between the wipes and just that France did do some work (despite having high LD: they do respond if attacked directly), I managed to trigger the ticking warscore (Superiority).

 

Allied Wallachia and Karaman, improved relations with Albania but didn't nab alliance yet. Ottos attacked Albania, I let them get entangled, then offered the alliance.

3 years later, I peace out with three provinces, War Reps, and a bit of gold:



Another year and a bit later, Albania also peaces out:



-edit-

And 22 years after game start, the Ottomans are now an OPM and Anatolia is lot more border gorey than usual:

 

Congrats. I've never done an Iron Man run as Byzantium. I find it too fun to role play the culturally superior awesome Roman Empire resurgent where I use console to give myself all 8 idea groups in 1444 haha. There's something very satisfying about culture converting all Turkish provinces to Greek.

(My favourite for Byzantium run: Economic, Administrative, Religious, Trade, Diplomatic, Defensive, Quality, Offensive).

 

You rang?



Basileus in 165x in a pretty lazy game. Could've been earlier, but I was kind of bent on getting Albania to be my vassal diplomatically instead of attacking them. Just didn't feel right, y'know, after they were incredibly helpful at starting this run.

Now just running down the timer until Naples is Greek culture to Consecrate Metropolitan in Rome. (Yes, I could've made Umbrian and Neapolitan accepted, but again, didn't feel right. If you do something, do it right.)

 

Not quite as good as Oments run but I also just got Basileus in 1650s.

 

Minus five points for hideous borders.

 

The other screenshot refuses to attach but got an imgur link to show that it isn't that bad.

 

Completed a couple of achievements recently. First there was the Levant Turnabout (as Mamluks, eliminate the Ottomans and have 100 % Army Professionalism), which got paired with Arabian Coffee (form Arabia, be top Coffee producer) and Hard Bargaining (as a Muslim DoF, spread religion through trade to 5 provinces in the Moluccas). Then it was Choson One (as Korea, own all Eastern religion provinces), Turtles All The Way Down (as Korea, have 135 % ship durability), and Sweet Harmony (harmonise with seven religions/religious groups).

As for the current one... Well, have a screenshot and some incredible border gore.



This is attempt 5 by the way. Attempt 1 got sunk when Scotland allied France and decced on me. 2 was lost to terrible ruler stats. 3 and 4 both got gibbed when Burgundy set me free before I was ready to declare an independence war. This one seems to be going okay-ish, though I've played all this time with a 1/4/5 ruler, and since I kind of need to jump to the New World... Yeah, no fun.

 

That Mann achievement seems incredibly hard - good luck on that!

After 400 hours in the game I finally played past the 1700 mark for the first time. Was going for Sunset invasion and figured I may as well keep going. Got super lucky with the double whammy of Portugal colonising early with a total army of only 3k troops (As in their whole empire) and letting me farm warscore and Brittany somehow having no allies so I could no-cb them. Map as of 1739 below. If Ottomans weren't so strong I would be in a decent spot to become the Roman Empire.

 

Step 1 is complete: remove... Fish and chips? Eh, whatever. England's gone, carved up between myself and Scotland. I've also managed to get the Caribbean CN and should get Canada as well. Have also colonised Fernando Po, but did lose the Bahamas to France. Need to rush Expansion now, I've got vision on Madagascar, where Kilwa went ham, but at the same time, I've got domestic... Well, not issues, but the fact that Scotland has the French as an ally makes things interesting. Need to secure naval dominance in the area fast so I can pull a wooden wall while I unite the isles.

To be fair, pull a wooden wall is essentially the name of this game. I fully intend to take 0 provinces that do not count for the achievement - though my CN in Canada will probably expand into a few with its ideas. Restricting on an already fairly hard achievement? Yes. Fun? You bet.

-edit- Mingsplosion happened. That makes certain areas a lot easier to deal with. Downside is that Spain and Portugal are also already staking claims on Indonesia. The last century is going to be bloody.

 

Completed. Extended things by a few years at the end because I 1. took the wrong CB to war Russia for Gotland, Aland, Osel, Sakhalin, and 3/4ths of Hokkaido and 2. I failed to block the Sea of Marmera as 180k Ottomans crossed into Edirne. They're not that strong late-game, and I was running Space Marines, but numbers do matter a bit.

As for what happened to Ming, two pictures, taken a year apart:




Best I can tell, Shu/Liang/Dali were the prime instigators and rebels eventually got over half of Ming, probably after they just got a Mandate Reform in.

Next run, well... I'm feeling the need to really fuck with history. Consider this your warning for the picture in the spoiler.

Spoiler

 

I have just gotten stupid lucky. Playing Aztecs for a Sunset Invasion, and got off to a slow start - had to wait for a while because alliance webs everywhere and so on. Broke it late and by the time I saw Iberian ships, I was still busy mopping up the area. They didn't want to attack though, so I waited. And waited. And waited, and nobody was fucking colonising anything on the Gulf by 1530.

Then I get the Spanish (still in constituent parts) war declaration. With Portugal and their CN Cuba, New Granada over to the south and... Castilian Canada? There's fish in the poutine now, apparently, but regardless, I wipe a few armies and it's looking like I might be able to hold. They didn't have Mil 12 yet, so that was a pretty big help for me, and the Aztecs come with enough bonus modifiers that the European Disease modifier is merely crippling and not game-ending. Then, suddenly, 30 transports with 28 regiments appear. I put up a surprisingly decent fight with the crossing bonus and a 6 shock general, but I lose, and on a whim, I see if I can peace out now before I have to give up half my land or the run.

War Reps and max gold (close to 900) are enough to get them off by exactly 1. It forces a heavy toll on the economy, but I live. The reason for this is that the Burgundian inheritance happened as it did in real life to some degree, and Spain was also embroiled in a pretty extensive war for Aachen.

I keep the economy afloat, hope that someone shows up, and finally, it's Brittany living through the first 100 years and colonising the Gulf. I start beelining there because I'm always loathe to colonise the Gulf myself - this is why I lost earlier runs amongst other reasons... - and hope to get there before Spain attacks again. Truce runs out in '46, Portugal comes a-knocking a few years later, but they're not the problem. I beat them off with the help of a good general and slight numerical advantage and secure myself a pretty decent settlement of war reps and 670-odd ducats, mostly wiping out my loans and also getting them off my back while I desperately urge my colonist to proc as many times as possible. I have a border with them at this point, but colonies don't count, so I'm left waiting.

My Spy Network tells me Spain wants to attack. Fuck my life. It's going to have to be a desperate defence, and I'm already consigning this run to the annals of fails when the message comes in.

"Give us Tlapanec [Gold/Natural Harbour province on the Pacific], or else."

Okay then, mister Malevolent King of Spain sir, have this province, would you like some hot cocoa while you're at it?

This was 1559. In 1562, Spain cored it, giving me reform capabilities. I gain a few techs and... Printing Press? Saving me upwards of 2000 points to manually establish it? Don't mind if I fucking do press the button.

They are all going to die, and I shall bring the pain to them. Eventually. First, teching up to military parity and expanding all over the Americas. Also first, wondering whose firstborn was sacrificed for this, because this luck is stupid.

-edit-

I regret boasting. I just spent 1.5 hours and 10 years fighting off four Great Powers invading me in the 1660s: Ming (#3) first, then France (#2) joined in (and I had just taken Floride to town too, so shit wasn't coring), and because dogpiles are fun, Spain (#5) and Portugal (#7) opted to join the fun.

I got one province and 400 ducats out of the deals, had to slacken recruitment 7 times, and I'm still on 30 % of my admittedly small manpower pool.