14 k of g in a f p d

Lately I’ve been playing a lot of Europa Universalis III. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, EU III is a detailed simulation of the European powers (it covers the entire world but is definitely European-centric) from 1399 until 1821. The player takes the role of the leader of one of the powers of the time and attempts to lead them to a position of world supremacy using political, economic or military means.

It has been a long time since I last played a detailed wargame of this type and I had never played a Paradox game before so I decided to pick someone easy for my first try. I went with Castille (most of what is now Spain) since it is apparently one of the easier countries to play.

I started out in a relatively stable position with a starting mission to drive the Moors off of the Iberian peninsula; that means attacking Granada. (The game gives you “missions” from time to time. They aren’t required but following them nudges the game along more “historical” lines.) So I recruit a few armies, declare war and invade Gibraltar. Morocco immediately comes in on Granada’s side.

Granada had one army, a 1/0/0 (1 cavalry, no infantry and no artillery), which it immediately uses to invade my province of La Mancha; I’m not sure why it didn’t come to the defense of Gibraltar. I send my second army to intercept it and my third to invade Granada itself. My fleet meanwhile intercepts Granada’s lone transport off of Granada and eliminates it.

I have a bit of trouble before realizing that cavalry doesn’t help me a bit in a siege and spend a bit of time reorganizing my troops. I then intercept Granada’s army again (which has now moved up to Toledo) and eliminate it. I send some infantry down to besiege Almeria.

About this time Granada offers peace if I pay them more ducats than I have. I decline.

Suddenly a huge (by my standards) Moorish army appears in Asturias. (It was something like a 9/5/0) I have no idea what it was doing up there. I send my fleet to intercept theirs and move everyone that isn’t besieging Granada up there as well. Additionally, I start recruiting some more troops and throwing them into the fray.

I wind up chasing this army all over northern Spain for a while. My fleet intercepts the Moorish fleet (which consisted mostly of transports) and eliminates it. Another Granadan fleet appears in the Gulf of Almeria and I send my fleet back after it. It turns out to be a single transport again.

Meanwhile Galicia falls briefly before I get my armies reorganized and get a coordinated attack underway. Eventually I manage to surround the Moorish army so it can’t retreat and destroy it utterly.

I decide to wait out the sieges in Granada. Gibraltar falls relatively quickly and Granada itself next while Almeria holds out for almost two years. Granada has offered peace a few times, going from asking me to pay them off to offering a white peace to finally offering Gibraltar. I keep turning them down until they offer both Gibraltar and Almeria. I accept this, though it means that I’ll have to attack Granada again at some point.

Meanwhile, Morocco builds up this ridiculous 3/10 army in one of their provinces then offers me a white peace. I briefly consider invading Tangier (just so I can control the entire Straits of Gibraltar) but wind up accepting.

I consolidate my armies into two 1/4/0s (one in Granada and one in Almeria, just in case Granada gets any ideas), a 5/5 (with a general) in Toledo and a 3/7 (also with a general) in Madrid. I set my fleet of 11 large ships and one transport to patrolling the Gulf of Almeria to keep an eye on Morocco.

Elsewhere, I have merchants in every Center of Trade except Isle de France and am part of the Venetian trade league. I have a royal marriage with Portugal (wanted to boost my relations with them so I wouldn’t have a problem at my back if I turn towards the continent). And that’s the extent of my diplomatic initiatives.

After my initial actions, the world looked like this.

As the years passed I slowly built up my alliances and armies and slowly expanded. I formed alliances with both Portugal and Aragon. I had a mission to conquer the latter (to form the nation of Spain) but allied with them and even entered a royal marriage with them in an attempt to convert them to a vassal state then later annex them but was never able to do so.

Instead, I started a second war with Granada. Portugal honored the alliance I had with them but Aragon did not. This time when I conquered Granada I annexed the entire country. My first mission was complete. I then got another mission to captures several provinces across the Straits of Gibraltar.

But first I wanted to do something about Aragon. Its failure to join me in my attack on Grenada had given me a Casus Belli (a reason for a war) against them and I used it to invade. (If you declare war on someone without a Casus Belli you gain “imfamy” with the other countries in the world. If it gets too high they will refuse to trade with you, break diplomatic relations with you and may eventually attack you for being too dangerous.) The war was short but successful and I captured over half their territory. Unfortunately I was still one province short of forming Spain; I needed Barcelona still.

But that would be later; for now I needed to invade North Africa. Most of the provinces across the Mediterranean from me were controlled by Morocco so I declared war on them. Since the North African provinces were predominately Muslim I was able to use a “Holy War” Casus Belli against them, satisfying the mostly Catholic European states and preventing me from gaining Infamy with them.

This war wound up taking two phases. My initial attack was able to capture several provinces before Morocco was able to muster sufficient resources to stop my invasion. I waited a few years, building up my own forces then attacked again. This time Algiers took advantage of the distraction and invaded Morocco as well. Actually, they wound up controlling more of Morocco than I did. Morocco sued for peace with me, giving me enough provinces to complete my mission, but Algiers continued their attack. Morocco was wiped out completely.

Over the next few years Algiers slowly spread across North Africa, defeating all who stood before it. By the time their war ended Algiers controlled everything north of the Sahara from Egypt to the Atlantic with the exception of the few provinces I owned.

Somehow I wound up in an alliance with England and they asked for my help in a war in Ireland. I sent out a few troops but when I got there there were no English troops to be found. They were all in France, apparently. This resulted in Spain owning most of Ireland. Not sure what that was all about.

Speaking of wondering what things were all about, Aragon asked me to help them in a war against Sardinia. I agreed to join in but unfortunately failed to look at who Sardinia was allied with. I suddenly found myself at war not just with Sardinia but also with Naples, The Papal State and France. France invaded me with a 36,000 man army. Fortunately the war ended almost immediately (and Naples invaded the Papal State).

Spurred by this encounter I worked on building up my armies. By the time I was done I had 4 full armies of 16,000 troops and two with 8,000 each providing security in Ireland and North Africa against periodic rebellions.

By this time I had also reached the national idea for the Quest for the New World. This let me start creating explorers and conquistadors, both of which are required to explore the unknown areas of the map. I started exploring and discovered the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. I also discovered that Portugal had already reached and established a colony in the Azores. Unable to yet reach the Americas I started exploring southwards along the coast of Africa.

My European map now looked like this.

And this was North Africa. Most of the Castillian provinces here are even Catholic now. But look at Algiers!

I finally got Castille’s colonial efforts on track after discovering the Colony Support slider. Moving it to the right means my colonies are no longer dying. (Yay) I now have a couple of colonies in Africa, one in Bermuda and one on the coast of South America near the mouth of the Amazon. Sadly, Portugal is there ahead of me with a couple of colonies in the Caribbean (and one in Connecticut?). They are also all over Africa; I don’t know where they are getting the colony range to do that since I’m at my extreme limit.

Speaking of Africa, Algiers is no longer a problem…

Algiers is only still alive because the AI snuck one past me. I controlled all but one of their provinces and it was all that stood between me and total domination of North Africa when I got an offer for a white peace from Mali. I failed to notice that Mali was representing their entire alliance and agreed, which immediately let Algiers off the hook. Right now I’m just waiting for the truce to expire to go with round two…

And here’s the state of the world as of 1500.

On to the 16th Century!