I'm approaching the end of Europa Universalis IV! In particular, I have entered the final of the four ages, the Age of Revolutions. It's pretty fun!
I think I left off in the late 1600s, shortly before Enlightenment. Once again I was able to spawn it in my borders. In this game I've avoided taking technologies early, which means I have a good surplus of Monarch Points, so I've been plowing those into development. For the previous century I'd built Universities everywhere and was progressively Dev'ing provinces up to 30 to make them eligible for Enlightenment.
For previous Institutions, I used Edicts to encourage their spread but waited as late as possible before Embracing them to minimize the cost. For this one, I went ahead and Embraced pretty early, once it had spread to 10% of my country. I'm at the hard 1-million-Ducat money cap, so money is completely meaningless now, and I welcome any chance to spend it.
Let's start at 9 o'clock and continue clockwise:
I was able to finish eating Spain. As one of the only Catholic countries left besides the Papal States they didn't have any significant allies, and over successive wars I'd gradually taken away their coastal provinces. Again, the key to fully annexing a large country with subjects is to declare on an ally (in this case, the Papal States) and co-belligerant them, which will let you fully annex them without getting the huge acceptance malus from a nation annexing itself. By this final war my New World holdings included the former English and Portuguese colonial nations, which were each smaller than Spain's American colonies but combined could hold their own. The hardest part of this war was actually taking a level-8 fort in the Andes that Spain directly owned; I think they ran out of real estate before they got enough provinces to make a Peruvian colony. South America was Spain's strongest presence so this ended up being slightly tricky: I did some dancing with large armies of theirs while my English and Portuguese subjects came through the American isthmus, started siegeing once I had some breathing room, and ultimately ordered some artillery barrages to break through the walls.
Once Spain fell, I was de-facto the sole independent power in Europe. Decades later Sweden ate the one province Denmark, the Papal States still exist as an OPM, and I eventually forced Muscovy into the HRE.
As I expand outside of Europe, I try to use those HRE vassals when possible to spread around Overextension and make better use of Accepted Culture slots. Perm was a relatively late addition to my family, but in terms of square mileage it's one of the biggest nations on the map now, snaking out to Vladivostock and holding big chunks of Mongolia and even China. Astrakhan and Circassia are similarly making inroads into Asia.
I'm mostly focusing on the other Great Powers, especially the highest-dev ones, which end up needing multiple wars to take down. The Mughals were geographically the largest empire for much of the game. Their territory is shredded now, and they have less than half of their largest extent, but even with all that they still are large.
I was curious about where and how the Center of the Revolution would break out, and what to do about it. From reading online, some people will intentionally try to spawn the Revolution inside their territory, so they can crush it and remove it immediately. Much like with Absolutism, though, that requires tanking a lot of things I would ordinarily want to do well: having low Stability, lots of loans, low prestige, etc. I think that in my Portugal game the Revolution spawned in France, which led to a fun and exciting war against my one-time ally. Here, though, I had so dominated Europe that almost no free nations remained, let alone any other Great Powers.
So I was a bit surprised, though I shouldn't have been, to see the Revolution spawn in Korea. Korea has been a very strong and boring nation for as long as I've been aware of it: they're basically at their historical borders, have some strong alliances to deter aggression, have highly developed provinces and can keep up in institutions.
Even though the Center of the Revolution spawned in Korea, they have not yet become revolutionary. This has been a bit of a pain. The Revolution has spread to many of my provinces in Asia, including in China, Indochina and the East Indies. So it's the first time in the game that I've had to deal with serious and sustained rebels, as the +20 unrest from my high Absolutism outweighs the many benefits I get from things like Humanism. Fortunately I haven't been getting actual Revolutionary rebels, but still some separatists and other annoying types. I'm falling back on my Portugal-era strategy of spreading around Fortresses to minimize the hit when rebels spawn into an undefended area.
The first nation to flip revolutionary was Wu. I wasn't around for the Mingsplosion, but it looks like Wu and Yue emerged as the biggest heirs, along with Liang and a few smaller nations. I had previously pounded Wu shortly after they took the first Celestial Reform and tanked their Mandate. When a nation becomes a Revolutionary Republic, they dissolve any pre-existing alliances they had, so if you declare quickly you can get a nice clean war in.
"Crush the Revolution" is a really nice casus belli. It reduces War Score Cost, but more importantly for me, it seems to also eliminate Unjustified Demands, meaning you can take all provinces for 0 DIP.
One slightly annoying quirk I encountered in this playthrough: if you are a monarchy and you border the Revolution Target, you get a "Counter-Revolution" malus that increases Unrest in all your provinces (and I think has a few other negative effects). If you declare war on the Revolution Target, this should be replaced with a "Reaction" modifier that instead gives a net reduction to your Unrest. However, "Reaction" is only applied if your capital is on the same continent as the revolution target's capital. So for me, as a European with substantial Asian holdings, I had only downsides and no upsides.
But anyways, I defeated Wu a second time, taking much more territory from them. I try to be strategic about timing my wars, more specifically the end of them. At this phase of the game, part of me wants to always be at war, spinning up my next conquest as the previous one is winding down, especially since I have armies all over the world and big enemies with Level 8 forts can take longer to crack than their provinces take to core. But if a war ends and I have a few days or more of peace, I can grant provinces to my vassals, which lets me take over 100 Overextension worth of territory in a peace deal without actually having to keep it on my books. I can also release new vassals, which I almost never do these days but situationally can be very helpful (more on that later). So anyways, at the start of a war I'm already thinking about how long the war will take, how much overextension I expect to have (with that war, any other current wars and any provinces being cored that may not finish), what other wars I want to start, and based on all that whether I should have a rolling ladder of wars or fight this one to the finish and take a breather.
The revolution target had been crushed, but the actual revolution still lived on, as Korea's Center of Revolution continued its propaganda, bringing more disorder and chaos to my Asian holdings. Only a year or so after the Wu monarchy was restored, Japan was the next nation to turn Revolutionary. I'd been concerned about taking on Japan, as they had unified the islands and did not have any footholds available for naval insertion. But, again, a nice advantage is that all their existing treaties were canceled. Also, at the start of the Revolution several large "rebel" armies are spawned, and in this game those armies were similar in size to the regular armed forces. Thanks to my naval presence in the area, I could see that Japan's armies were all fully in the south of the country fighting off the rebels, so I quickly declared war and landed a ~40k stack on Hokkaido. Naval landings can be nail-biting experiences since they last over a month and quickly turn ugly if your enemy can move defenders into position prior to you touching soil. But they landed and took the province, so I could swiftly follow with the remainder of my invasion force.
This ended up being... I don't want to say necessarily an "easier" war than Wu, but maybe "cleaner": thanks to the constrained geography of Japan, I could steadily march south, siege forts one by one, and decisively crush their army outside Nagasaki, instead of chasing remnants all over the Asian Steppes and Siberia. Because of the -50 malus revolutionary targets get to accept a peace deal, you kind of need to fully occupy all their territory to push from 99 warscore up to the decisive 100; but once you do reach 100, you can take advantage of the reduced cost of warscore and diplo and take enormous swaths of land. In a single war I was able to take more than half of Japan, including all of its centers of trade, Great Projects, and straits, all in a contiguous line across the islands. I'll need to return and finish the job at some point in the future, but Japan's status as a Great Power has come to a permanent end.
After the first Wu war, they got separately declared on by both Yue and Manchu to claim the Mandate of Heaven. Yue was quite a big larger and more powerful than Manchu, but I think Manchu got a head start, and in any case Manchu was able to finish its war and seize the Mandate before Yue. But, Manchu doesn't have Beijing, Canton or Nanking. Oddly enough their Mandate has ticked up a bit over time even though their monthly rate is shown as negative; I've never played in China so I'm not super-familiar with the mechanics, I assume they're getting some Events that grant Mandate or maybe there's a Government transaction or something available to them. Part of me wants them to get the Mandate high enough so they'll take a Reform and then I can quickly declare on them while their forces are weak; but as it is I'm happy just waiting while it stagnates and eventually decays.
I did get to fight against Yue, though, when they became the third and (so far) last nation to turn Revolutionary. This was a bit more like the Wu war, except I had a much bigger footprint in China and so had a lot more room to position and maneuver my troops. Perm and Astrakhan were actually decently helpful in blocking out the north of the country while I focused on fighting and sieging in the south. As with Japan I was able to take a ton of land, but this time I could also give a lot of it away to Perm.
Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten one rule for optimal play. I had gotten used to giving my Holy Roman Empire vassals the Centers of Trade in Europe - since I use "Divert Trade" on all of them I end up with all the Trade Power anyways, and this way those centers can have an accepted culture and maybe some additional development. But I kept automatically doing that in land grants in Africa and Asia as well. I really should have kept those for myself, so I could turn them into Trade Companies, and just given the rest of the provinces to my vassal. Not a huge deal, just something I should remember for the future.
The East Indies has been a surprisingly slow point of expansion for this game. Brunei had an absolutely massive navy, and I was shocked when their swarms of galleys torpedoed my large fleets of heavy ships. I was able to declare later when Brunei and the Mamluks went to war against each other; in this game it looks like the Mamluks became colonizers, settling around Ternate, Tidore and other islands. By keeping a careful eye on the larger Brunei fleets and opportunistically attacking, I was able to take down some smaller groups of ships and land troops on some islands. I didn't bother to get this war close to 100%, but took forts on enough islands to be able to cherry-pick strategic positions and Centers of Trade. Later on Banjar and some other regional powers piled up on Brunei and I think they've been completely removed now.
I've now fought a few wars in India, mostly against Vijayanagar but also Bengal. As usual the first one is challenging, subsequent ones are far easier. Most of the Monuments in India are tied to specific religions and so aren't very useful for me, but it is a very rich subcontinent. I don't really care much about production income since I've maxed out my treasury, but it is satisfying to tie up those trade nodes and get free merchants so I can siphon still more ducats away from potential rivals. Oh, and I've completely controlled the coast for a while now... actually, I'm away from my computer but I think I have everything from the Persian Gulf through Malaysia directly under my control.
Africa has been pretty quiet lately. I did finally succeed in a war against Mali, who were briefly a Great Power but have now been reduced to about six dispersed provinces. I grabbed a few provinces from Air and Yao as non-co-belligerants. I need to fight another war against Zimbabwe at some point as they still have some Centers of Trade. One of the more interesting wars was against Kilwa, which is the one place on Earth still under Terra Incognita. Interestingly, you can take provinces in a peace deal even if you can't see them on the map, so I prioritized taking those invisible provinces (which of course are instantly revealed once you own them). I can take the visible ones later.
The most interesting thing in Africa, though, has been Ethiopia. I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but a long-term ambition of mine has been to form a Personal Union with Ethiopia, a Christian nation that I can feed land to in Africa. I've had a Royal Marriage with them for ages; I never entered into an Alliance with them since I knew that would complicate an eventual succession war, but I did Guarantee their Independence as the Mamluks were nibbling away at their territory. Most importantly, I kept one Diplomat constantly Currying Favors with them. It took a long time for this to tick up since I didn't have an Alliance, but it did progress; once it reached 100, I would trade some in for Trust and continue growing.
Their leader was really, really old, but just wouldn't die. But his heir was aging, too. I think that at one point the ruler was in his 80s and the heir in his 50s. Finally I got the notification that they did not have an heir - perhaps a hunting accident? I immediately Traded Favors for Heir and got a Chotek in the line of succession. I nervously monitored the dynasty. Younger heirs are less likely to die, but still can die. And heirs that accede to the throne often come with their own consort and heir: not a huge problem as it makes the line secure, but I was running low on time to get the heirless gap I needed to make a play for the throne.
Still more time passed, and finally the old man croaked and my Chotek acceded to the throne. Without an heir - hooray! I claimed the throne - I now had my Casus Belli, but had to wait a month to make a move. After that month, I tried to declare the war - but of course I couldn't declare on a nation whose independence I had guaranteed. Fine, cancel the guarantee. Wait another month. Ethiopia's rival Aljuraan declared a conquest war against them. The new king was probably working overtime to try and sire an heir of his own. The month was up. Declaring the war would mean breaking a truce, for a painful -3 Stability... but I didn't care. The dream was coming true.
I'd positioned my Afrika Korps outside the southern border of Ethiopia. They had a lot of Level 8 forts, which of course are a pain. I was also in a bit of a race against Aljuraan: I would need a lot more war score to enforce the personal union than they would need to take some territory, and only one of us could siege each fort or province. I plopped a big stack down on the nearest fort, then sent another big one on a long detour through Mamluk land towards the Level 9 capital fort. Aljuraan was making good progress, but fortunately seemed content to take regular provinces while they chased Ethiopia's army, for the time being leaving forts in my control. Unlike them, I preferred not to fight any Ethiopian armies if I could avoid it, as they would shortly become my own allied armies.
It all went pretty well. Shortly before the end of the war the Europeans from the Holy Roman Empire showed up and managed to contribute some valuable artillery to a few sieges. I took the Personal Union the moment I could, and was pleased to see that I was correct and that I could now join in the Ethiopia/Aljuraan war as the new war leader. (I think something similar had happened previously when I Revoked the Privilegia and abruptly became the defender against Muscovy's invasion of Rostov.) Ethiopia, Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire all now had huge armies right outside Aljuraan, and we steamrolled them. I think it was like a month-long war in total. I had been thinking of just taking a chunk of them, but we were able to fully annex them. And then I could turn around and give a lot of that territory back to Ethiopia - see, aren't you glad to be in union with me?
By far the biggest development recently has been the war between Prussia and the Mamluks. They had been my most valuable and powerful ally for much of the game, and they are still the #2 great power even after losing two decisive wars against me. I don't have any good justification for turning on them, it's just a pure power struggle. I think I cleared my alliance by declaring on another ally of theirs, or possibly another Sunni nation. (In the past I had navigated those situations by first calling the Mamluks in as an ally in another war, in which case they are not eligible to receive a call to arms against me.) Once the alliance was over and the truce cleared, we began duking it out.
They have a lot of development, so even after getting a really high warscore and taking their capital I can just take a fraction of their empire each time. I'm trying to remember the timing... let's see. I think that, prior to the first or second war, I released the Ottomans as a one-province minor vassal in Byzantium. Since the province was in the HRE they popped out as an HRE Prince. The province was Protestant, but the overall Ottoman cores were Sunni, so it came out as Protestant; in the past nations I've released as Catholic or Orthodox will convert on their own to Protestant if all of their provinces are already Protestant, but I think that only works for other denominations in the same religion. I was hoping that I could use the "Force Religion" Emperor Action in Diplomacy to convert them.... and it worked! I am very amused to have my Protestant Holy Roman Ottomans as my vassal princes.
The Ottomans haven't been a contender for centuries since I drove them out of the Balkans and Greece and the Mamluks ate them from the rear, but they did still have cores on all of Anatolia, so I was able to very cheaply get back that huge chunk of real estate from the Mamluks.
In the more recent war, which I just finished, I finally did what I should have originally done and taken all of their islands: they had the Spice Islands and various other East Indies spots. I also grabbed Crete after sieging down a level 2 Fort. Thanks to Ethiopia being on my side, we could take their claims and cores as well. And I had a lot of other odds and ends that I granted to my Black Sea princes. I did snag a lot of provinces with tempting Great Projects. Unlike India, most (not all) of the Great Projects in the Middle-east don't have religion requirements, either being free to everyone or requiring an accepted culture. It will be a while until I can core and convert all of them, but when I do, I'm looking forward to blazing through those projects. I'm probably most excited for the bonus Missionary from Jerusalem. Oh! And I also took the provinces required to start construction on the Suez Canal, which is the third and final canal I have remaining to build.
At this point, I'm feeling like I'll probably make it to 1821 after all, as there's less than a century to go. I'm less certain how hard I'll work towards getting a World Conquest. Right now I'm just taking on a rotating slate of Great Powers and working my way down the list, but there are a lot of minor nations out there. I'm sure that I militarily could take them, but dealing with super-high overextension and rebels does not sound very fun, and I don't know if I have enough time to properly digest and integrate the whole world. I also could try doing more stuff with non-HRE vassals; I've been avoiding them since my understanding is that they will take the strength of HRE vassals into account when calculating liberty desire, but I did end up with a western African vassal and their Liberty Desire is pretty manageable, so now I'm wondering if that could be viable after all.
Anyways! I'm continuing to love the game, and will most likely have one final post in the future before I put this campaign to bed for good!
