So this is how things stand right at the start. Burgundy looks like just another section in the patchwork quilt that makes up medieval Europe. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/001.png[/IMG] The whole world will learn to fear the men in deep red. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/002.png[/IMG] Burgundy starts out, predictably, with a conquer CB; Brabant, no less, with 3 provinces. We immediately declare war. We go for centralization on the slider, which causes a stability loss; no problem really, and we're already working fully on stability anyway. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/003.png[/IMG] Brabant was attacked on the first game day and so it had no allies. Our next mission is to annex Hainaut. They do have Holland as an ally, but Burgundy's armies easily out-muscle them. We annex Hainaut. One of the cores we start off with is Calais, so we'll be grabbing that at an opportune moment... [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/004.png[/IMG] With Hainaut annexed, we get another mission - annex Luxembourg. Burgundy's unfair advantages are just as big as I remembered. :) During these missions, we've also forced vassalization of Cologne and Trier. We also had a mission to vassalize Lorraine, which we did. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/005.png[/IMG] Savoy and a few others jump in to defend Luxembourg. They're slightly annoying, but conveniently we're allied with Aragon and they distract Savoy's forces whilst we siege Luxembourg and annex it. We then peace out with Savoy as they can't match our forces. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/006.png[/IMG] This philosopher event happens. Normally, I'd go more innovative here, but I'm going to be going to narrowminded +1 (not to mention serfdom -3) before going in the right direction, so we can pass the Liquor Act and the Court of Wards and Liveries Act, both of which increase tax income. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/007.png[/IMG] And just like that, the next mission is to "reclaim" Barrois! It's just like pacman, gobbling up all the states around you. Not that we needed this mission; we had a core on the province anyway. We're quite high on war exhaustion right now, though, and speaking of cores we have... [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/008.png[/IMG] We have a core on Gelre to the north, too. More access to the sea = higher force limits, and it's yet another province to increase the size of our empire. So we rest for a bit to get the war exhaustion down to around 6, then declare war on Gelre and quickly annex it. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/009.png[/IMG] Later, we attack Barrois to annex that. A few powers come in to defend Barrois, including the Palatinate. As we're easily beating them, they offer peace, but the thought comes to me that one of the easier ways to eat through the HRE would be to vassalize states with several provinces (the Palatinate has 4) and demand annexation later. So we force their vassalization, too. Early on in the game when we're a feudal monarchy, our infamy limit is quite high and so we can afford to build up some infamy and just slowly let it fade away. Immediately after we vassalize a country, we ally with them of course. More allies, more troops on our side for each of our wars! We tend to reject regular alliance offers, though; I want to get used to the idea from early on that Burgundy is so powerful it can just rely 100% on its own troops. That way it doesn't have to rely on the dodgy AI when it comes to troop movements, either. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/010.png[/IMG] The Palatinate is defeated, but Austria was also part of the war against us. Lots of troops are lost, but no whole units. Even Burgundy's manpower replenishment rate (about 1,300) is being tested by this war, and war exhaustion is up at around 8. I'm also very conscious that France is sitting next to us, fresher than we are (although we could have more troops than them if we had time to recover). They actually barred us from their centres of trade and as they have a reconquest CB on several of Burgundy's provinces I feared they were about to attack, but they never did. Austria was carpet-sieged, and eventually forced to cede Sundgau, which was quickly removed from the HRE (about halfway through this war we had done the inevitable and left the HRE - this removes all your provinces from the HRE in one fell swoop; you don't need to do them 1 by 1 with individual magistrates). [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/011.png[/IMG] So this is how it stands after the dust settles. An ex-HRE member, several HRE states vassalized (3 of them are actually voting for us - might we become the next emperor even though we left??) and lots of territory won. It's definitely time for Burgundy to briefly recuperate its manpower and build another army or two - a big battle with France is inevitable as France will be a constant threat unless they are roundly defeated - and this recuperation fits in nicely with the current mission, which is to "create a proper fleet". Getting the naval fleet to our forcelimits of 12 ships isn't too hard, and we start building enough transport ships (cogs) to reach 12. We're building transports up in anticipation of needing to transport troops to the Americas when the time comes, which it will soon. Stability is now up to +3, so we focus on trade reserch. Once trade's up to level 7 we can go for Quest for the New World and visit the natives. I'm still wondering how we're going to get a foothold next to the Golden Horde and start eating up territory on the eastern front (which would probably let us push through to the other hordes, including the Timurids, and eat all their territory for zero infamy). We also send 5 merchants to our Antwerp centre of trade, which is currently worth just over 500 ducats. We've not had to mint anything so far and we still have tons of cash. Did I mention that Burgundy starts with a ton of advantages? :)