So I've started my second game, first one was meh. This will likely be the last game of EU4 I ever play because of how they fucked you if you didn't buy Common Sense. I have no expenses but Noosa yoghurt so I threw down. I run a massive vassal feeding system with an 800point custom nation. Fuck it, Ottomans are worth more points than 800 and you can't ever get their 33% core cost without mods so I think 800 is fair. I ditched the English Channel which I usually play as, for instance in my other common sense game I went for Lubeck and the English Channel. Now that Genoa is an end node and Sevilla isn't this shit is ridiculous.
I took the coast of sourthern Europe from Provence, minus the one they split from Provence, all the way to Athens plus every Island in the east, did not take Sardinia, Corsica, or Sicily but grabbed Malta. I have my capital at Liguria and I also collect in Venice. In 1500 I finally did enough shit that I can't sustain the rivals for power projection. I got crazy lucky with my 6/6/6 king living till like 65, I've had 72 but my 0/0/0 age 0 heir died and I got a 4/5/4 so I didn't end process to save the 6/6/6. I ended up with a 5/5/6 king who inherited at around 20 and is 23 now. I'd trade that mil for a dip or even an adm but w/e. I ended up focusing East hard, I managed to get almost every province in Persia for literally free from rebels. I hit Mamelukes to release Syria, hit QQ with reconquest from Syria, got milacc with Ottos to kill their rebels for them, they had 80 force limit and 0 fucking troops lol, managed to release Persia from QQ's Ilam, and THEN the fucking other rebels broke Timmy so all of Timmy's persian lands revolted to me. I haven't got vision on Afghanistan so I'm thinking I may not be able to release them, but I have too many vassals anyways. I've thrown down literally 6k+ on fucking +1 force limit buildings, so I can raise my troop limit to drop liberty desire. I had to take a dip policy for +1diprep and +20% improve relations for the same reason. I have 90k troops in fucking 1515 with an opposite of whopping 39 provinces. I can only afford level one advisors cause of this shit. I finished Influence and Humanist, and now finishing Diplo and then waiting out Admin. If I hadn't had my 45 year reign 6/6/6 starter king and my 24 year 4/5/4 and then my current 3 year 5/5/6 I would have collapsed to vassal revolts.
I have almost full persia, full Byzzie that I am annexing now, full Styria, 1 land each for Catalonia, Toulouse, Leon, 2 land Guyenne, all cores but not all culture Syria, minus 3 lands Iraq and 1 land champagne. I stole Madeira, Azores, and Canaries, but somehow they got down the cost to africa and port has an Ashanti protectorate. Gonna have to steal their African lands. Should be no issue. Aragon annexed Naples, and didnt merge with Castile and even took some of their land. Plus I'm OP. Gonna release full Naples once I annex Byzzies.
I make about 70 ducats gross in good times, my expenses with mil maint to 0 are about 45. All level 1 advisors, prod, diprep, mil maint, would prefer +1 10% force limit though for mil advisor. 90 of 86 land troops, 72 of 59 boats including a ton of heavies. 1519 with 10/9/10 and 3 idea groups with just last 2 dip ideas left. My prestige is in the tank cause I had like 80% and 92% and failed fucking parliament shit plus taking 20prestige hit to give -10% lib desire that drops off over 10 years. My heir is 3/3/4 18 years to my 5/5/6 23 year king, made him general hope, my next heir is better. I'd take like 4/5/2 even. I need dip for that sweet islamic tech/idea cost reduction at 5 dip ruler. I am dutch to avoid lowland revolts, though I have none of those lands right now, shia for heir power and +10% morale. English Parliament government. Get some nice base tax raises, tech costs drops and so forth from issues. I am king cause I left the HRE. They killed the imperial integrity bonus so fuck the HRE anyways. Burgundy didn't get inherited and got crapped on by coalition so it lost all its PUs some lands, and vassals. France is surviving because I've been hitting hard in the East and lack the dip slots of anti lib desire mechanics to finish feeding my french vassals. Or my Spanish ones for that matter. First in score about 850, 2.5x the score of Ottos or Austria since I repeatedly stomped them. 2x otto force limits, they are tops besides me even without any greek lands, and 2.25x Aragon or Otto troop counts, 90 to 42 and 40. 2x the ships of anyone else and about 1.5x the force limits. If I had the cash my naval limit would rise like 78 points with docks in every province. cost me like 8k gold though and I need that to keep spamming +1mil for limits and pay maintenance.
I am 14 techs out from the first annex/core efficiency thing. Which is bullshit. I have -65% dip annex costs from nat ideas, influence and the policy. Costs me tons more dip points to annex than it should. I can't even fight wars cause I got spend my money keeping vassals from rebelling. Honestly free persia from rebels is the only awesome thing I saw in this expansion.