GLORIOUS PORTUGAL WORLD EMPIRE
I play EU4 only about once every year or two and it is time for a Let's Play style report of this one:
- Focused on maximizing trade income and gold deliveries from colonies
- Had by far the largest navy the whole game but had to work hard on my ground force limit and manpower
The HRE and Russia were crushed by others, so I took over Siberia too after colonizing everything else I wanted:
Beat Spain three times and took over the Sevilla trade node provinces each time, had 80-90% of the trade node pretty soon:
The main pain in the ass of fighting Spain were his colonies Florida and Canada which were stronger than my own:
I started off with colonizing the Caribbean, then continued with Mexican conquest, Brazil and then Peru and Louisiana conquest. Especially the latter two were dicy to begin with. I liked having a stronger colony than the competing ones and then have them colonial wars on their own. France lost their major Colombia colony only towards the end when I attacked it with three of my colonies.
The Ottoman kept blobbing and had the by far largest army, but I still managed to have a "hit and run" win against him together with 3-4 allies and took over the Suez and Jerusalem. Interestingly, at the end the Ottoman attacked first France and then China and barely lost both times - probably due to having his armies all over the place and having no fast mode of transport. He became a Hegemon three times and lost it three times:
According to stastics, I took out 97 nations and won 135 wars - that was a bit of a "holy shit" moment that it were so many. I guess the American and Australian tribes were most of those.
Fun fact: I had 65% trade power in the Chinese Canton trade node with only one province there (Macau). The Global Trade Power, Trade Steering bonuses and Mercantilism do give enormous advantages.
Interestingly, staying Catholic also has huge advantages. Converting high development colony provinces gives a lot of papal points which can then be used to increase Mercantilism or raise Stability without wasting monarch points. Had 81% Mercantilism in the end, with most of it acquired through the pope:
I made sure to get as many gold provinces in my colonies as possible (easy income in the beginning). In the first war against Spain I took over most of the gold provinces in his Peru colony, which was the beginning of the end of his major colonies in South America.
Talk to you again in another year or two.
