CHAPTER 1

SKIPPING THE BORING PART ​

beggars

Because let's be honest, the first c. 150 years as primitives isn't that interesting. With the last patch the religious reforms are really easy so you should be able to complete them by year 1500. I suggest attacking Tarascan first and then going for gold mines – you'll eliminate the only real opposition from the begininng and with income from mines you'll be able to field enough mercs to wipe out your enemies. The best bonus from reforms is +5% discipline – this combined with advisor (if you are lucky) should allow you to blob easily so in the first 20 years you should achieve total domination in the region. Oh and don't be afraid to blob – you don't get Doom in quantity which can become a problem what with sacrificing your vassals and stuff. Also don't be afraid of AE – everyone is going to hate you anyways. As soon as the Maya is created – if you allow this to happen like me – DOW them and release all the cores.So, the year is c.1500 and you should unlock your first idea group, which obviously should be Exploration. This will allow you to get conquistadors with whom you can go to South America to meet the superior white master race so that you can westernize. Later the CB on primitives will allow you to farm American tribes for gold, so there's that. As for the westernization, you can either be lucky (I wasn't) or use the stealing-almost-finish-colony-right-next-to-already-developed-one technique, which is what I suggest. Just don't be stupid like me and count the colonists carefully – first time I DOWed Great Britain their colony in South America turned into province before my army got there. Five days of difference and I had to wait a whole truce to try again. Then obviously the AI out of pure spite decided to burn their former colony after I sieged it down. But hey, in the end I succeded! You should westernize between 1520-1530.I was also very, very lucky – the AI completely ignored Carribean and insted went for South America. After westernization I quickly colonized the whole region and you should do the same – the provinces on these islands are ridiculously rich with 5-6 basetax. This will change probably in „Common Sense” but still if you can get them, do this – a huge chunk of my income in middle and late game was from Carribean trade. After you finish colonizing Carribean you can either go south or noth. Since SA was already taken by lucky nations I decided to go north – remember to take the coast first to cutt of the AI from going deep into the interior! My next idea groups were Quantity (best military idea group there is) and Expansion, which with policies and +1 colonist from religious reforms give you 4 colonists. You need them – you'll spend the next 50-100 years slowly colonizing, developing your economy and catching up to the Western powers. BTW when even which gives you Adm ideas cost reduction as an option fires, go for it – the local autonomy reduction is negated by bonus from other event and you'll gonna need every ADM mana you can get. In the meantime do the usual, exterminate the natives and make sure minor countries like Britanny or Norway don't colonize next to you – their navy is pathetic so you should easily win wars with them and get some extra army tradition.When your tech gets on par with theirs you should be ready to plan the attack. Unless you get something like this, that is:Oh God why. Great Britain, the only nation which navy could help me defeat the Iberians, is under PU with Spain. This is bad, even more so since Spain is a monster in this campaign and already turned northern Africa into Big Yellow Blob. What is worse is that if Spain integrates GB they will inherit their colonies – or in other words the whole friggin' South America. But surely the PU will be broken before it happens, right?Wrong.Go to hell, RNG.Still, as you can see the 17th is coming to an end and I'm officialy Number Four in world ranking of great powers – not bad. You may notice how I carefully cut off the Westernrs (Easterners?) from American interior. Only DAMNED IBERIANS managed to get through before I got to California and Alaska. BTW use the Religious CB – best 3rd idea group for Aztec IMHO – to DOW natives, take their gold and convert them before you get to share border with them. It makes life much easier considering you missionary strength is going to suck. You may also notice I'm at war with Spain and I'm winning.Nope.It was France which attacked Spain and as a good ally I did completely nothing to help them. Allying BBB is kinda like cheating but come on, GB integrated by Spain? Besides the war didn't really go that well.Hordes of Spanish minions from South America would surely cause a lot of trouble if not for my superior navy which caused them to go through Panama. By this time I had both Offensive and Quality completed (Quality beacause discipline and bonuses to navy – you need the ships to invade Europe, duh), so it wasn't a problem. As you can see, I have a decent manpower but nothing crazy for middle game. My borders are ugly, inflation is killing me and I hate this stupid campaign, I wasted-WAIT A MOMENT.France won the war. France released Scotland. I immediately DOW Scotland and annex it, releasing – you guessed it – Great Britain, now as a proper Huitzilopochtli-worshipping march. The have cores everywhere on the British Isles (duh) which will be very helpful, just like their crazy naval ideas. You can also see me storming Portugal – they lost their alliance with Spain (thanks France!) and you need Lisboa anyways, so they are good as a first target. Did I mention you need a shitload of ships to pull it off?You need a shitload of ships to pull it off. You need 50-90 transports to be able to, well, transport your armies comfortably. You need 100-200 light ships to protect your trade in Mexico, Panama, Carribean and in NA trade nodes. And finally you need 50 heavies plus 100-150 galleys to be able to rip Western fleets to pieces and blockade them all. On an unrelated note, just like in real life Portugal is a pathetic excuse for an empire and their colonies are usually much stronger then them. I suggest you support their independence like I did with Brasil – you gain an ally (mostly useless, but hey,inferior non-white primitives can't be choosers) and you can very easily weaken them. Plus they can be your meatshield when colonial nations of lucky nations decide to siege your empty homeland while your >100,000 army puts down revolt in Portugal.Also take Malta. Trust me on this.The year is 1700 and it's about time to carve out some hearts for the Flayed God.