Our one and only centre of trade is doing pretty well: [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/130.png[/IMG] Antwerp is now the largest known centre of trade in the world... not least because we're sliiiiightly biased towards trading through it. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/131.png[/IMG] Note how Ukraine, Muscowy, and Murom are still Golden Horde vassals. I predict they will become indepdent nations (and conquerable in their own right) once we physically cut off their land connection to the Golden Horde. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/132.png[/IMG] About a year later, our leader dies. We're still the emperor, and our new leader is average... meh. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/133.png[/IMG] A while later this happens: [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/134.png[/IMG] I was kind of hoping we'd be able to defect a bit more Golden Horde territory away before they had a change of leader and thus a succession crisis. Our armies can deal with all the rebels, but it's kind of annoying. Also, rebellions in the coming years seem to get a lot more common, with our armies going around taking out rebel unit after rebel unit. By 1472, we're about to defect Mogilyov away from the Golden Horde and cut off the Ukraine vassal from its master. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/135.png[/IMG] And sure enough, this releases Ukraine from being a GH vassal into being its own country... briefly. We quickly declare war with them on a tribal conquest CB. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/136.png[/IMG] Meanwhile, across the pond... [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/137.png[/IMG] I just found this kinda cool. Our explorer knows the outline of South America without having explored it yet! :) In December 1472 it's slider change time again, and this time it's a no-brainer; several of our national decisions depend on us being highly centralized, and centralization is pretty much always good in general. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/138.png[/IMG] During our exploration of South America, we discover that Portugal have already set up a colony in Rio Grande, much sooner than we had expected! This could seriously put a dent in our quest for world domination as we'd like to colonize the entirity of the Americas. We need spies urgently to incite the natives, and the only way we can get it right now is with the Espionage national idea. We have space for 2 national ideas at the moment and we currently have Quest for the New World and Military Drill. The latter will have to be replaced with Espionage - we'll just use sheer numbers and land tech to win our many land battles. It might not come back for a while, either; although we're going to push government tech research hard so we get more national ideas as soon as possible, we're going to need Colonial Ventures [I]and[/I] Divine Supremacy given how many colonists and missionaries we need. Land of Opportunity wouldn't hurt either, to speed up our colony growth. We really need to work hard on colonizing the Americas now, as quickly as possible. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/139.png[/IMG] The -3 stability hit at this point is a real pain. It will take quite a few years to work our way back up to max stability, and we're getting to the size of empire now where we really want to try and avoid any stability hits... it will detract from our scientific research. We really could do with some more government tech to give us some new national idea slots, and of course at some point (admittedly after we dismantle the HRE) we want to turn into a Republican Dictatorship. We're slowly sieging Ukraine's 3 provinces so we can work our infamy down in readiness for annexing them. Eventually we get just below infamy limit minus 6, and annex their 3 provinces. We stay just barely under our infamy limit - pretty bad reputation now. We've hit the hard infamy limit on adding provinces to our empire, although we are losing about 1.3 infamy per year now, having built an embassy and with a level 6 diplomat. That's about as well as you can do until you get the Cabinet national idea at government tech 30 which gives an extra 1 infamy reduction per year (and which is something I always almost make a priority to adopt). [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/140.png[/IMG] Our colonial range is still frustratingly short such that even once we incite the natives to evict that Portugese colony in Rio Grande, we won't be able to replace it with one of our own. Not for a while. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/141.png[/IMG] We finally manage to evict the Portugese from South America with our Espionage-granted spies, but I doubt those Iberian settlers will stay away for long... [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/142.png[/IMG] It's clear that spies are now a valued resource and we won't be wasting any. I predict that there will be a lot of native-inciting required given the early nature of opposing nations' colonization. Later, we get yet another Imperial Liberation CB, this time for Modena province. These are coming along pretty regularly and we're picking off province by province for only 1 infamy on this basis. I think it's the most efficient way to take most of the HRE provinces if you're not going to actually form the HRE - grab most of them on this CB while you're the emperor but not actually part of the HRE, thus removing the "unlawful HRE territory" penalty. Once you've grabbed most provinces this way, dismantle the HRE and mop up the remaining provinces. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/143.png[/IMG] Holland for some reason think they can declare war on us because their mission is "save the Dutch people". We're a bit weakened from constantly fighting rebels in the Golden Horde area, but nowhere near [I]that[/I] weakened. This is almost as deluded as the odd declaration of war we get from Shawnee (they're more like an irritating fly... we'll probably annex them soon once our infamy is down a bit, but for now we just give them white peaces). [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/144.png[/IMG] Letting our minions - *ahem* vassals - deal with Holland, we decide it's time to take that unlawful province from Pisa. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/145.png[/IMG] A few nations annoyingly join in to defend them and Aquelia becomes the leader of their side of the war. We win, and use the old "peace out with a junior partner taking some of their land then immediately accept white peace with the enemy" trick. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/146.png[/IMG] A while later, Wuttemberg inherit the throne of Saxe-Lauenburg, giving us an Imperial Liberation CB against them. This could be an intresting one for the future... [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/147.png[/IMG] Are we taking out as many provinces as possible as efficiently as possible? Probably something close to that. Anyway Holland obviously lose their war against us. I'd love to just annex them at this point but it would just make our infamy too high, so we get as punishing a deal for them as we can. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/148.png[/IMG] The opportunities for cheap HRE territory just keep on coming, and we fully intend to gobble up a couple of provinces belonging to The Hansa owing to our new Imperial Liberation casus belli on them. At this rate, Europe will soon be drenched in a lovely shade of Burgundy. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/149.png[/IMG] One of our long-term bugbears has been England's very annoying ownership of Calais. Its being a core of Burgundy, we obviously want to take it from them (and that coast would make a really nice ship-building area; I generally try to go for 5 provinces in a row to upgrade over time to Naval Bases), but the England AI generally doesn't concede anything without the enemy actually taking some of the land on the main British isle. As their navy is supreme at this point, we need to get our troops onto there before we start a war with them, so we get military access from Scotland and get building a couple of new armies to ship over there. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/150.png[/IMG] Unfortunately, a few months later, England annex Scotland! They were only a small vassal. Now, England has all of the main British isle which prevents us using this strategy. Very annoying. The best I can now think of is to sponser some rebels there and start a war with England, leaving our troops to defend Calais once the rebels have occupied it (the rebels themselves will always be beaten by the English). The trouble is, the province will no doubt take many years to defect - maybe even 10 years. Are we going to keep a war going with England for that long? It will also effectively mean for that time, we can't move our ships around at all owing to England's deadly fleet. However, Calais is so important to us that we have a good mind to do this anyway, no matter how hard it will be. We declare war on The Hansa, aiming to grab a couple of provinces from them on the Imperial Liberation CB. Teutonic Order join in and are annoyingly stubborn in their defence of Kurland on The Hansa's behalf, so the war is long and gruelling, especially with our armies also dealing with quite a few rebels. The rebellions are quite common not least because we now have lots of defected Golden Horde provinces - not to mention all that former Shawnee land - that isn't yet Catholic. We need missionaries. Lots of them. As a Catholic nation, one great way of getting more missionaries is to conquest Judea and Mecca. Noticing that both are currently in Timurid hands, we decide that a short-to-medium-term goal has to be to get into a war with the Timmies. The world must be Catholic! [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/151.png[/IMG] Bruised and battered (check out the manpower), we finally emerge victorious from our war with The Hansa, Teutonic Order, Riga, and a bunch of other European states, grabbing the couple of Hanseatic provinces we were aiming for. Holstein isn't an HRE province and gives us 4 infamy instead of 1, but what the heck - we grab it anyway. We can (just about) take the infamy. [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/152.png[/IMG] And so, the overview of the European theatre in early 1483: [IMG]http://game-point.net/misc/eu3/burgundy/153.png[/IMG] Things aren't looking bad. Quite a bit of territory (overextension is now affecting us), and easily the biggest army in the world (though the Timurids are second). France is weakened to the point where it's no longer a threat. The prospects of long, drawn-out wars with England and the Timurids are high, and we'll probably get going with those after a brief period of consolidation. We've started sending colonists towards Qara Koyunlu, so once we've eaten through them (and/or the Ottomans), it's time to hit the Timurids. FInancially we are struggling. Even though Burgundy is a very wealthy nation, it's just darn expensive to do colonization - colonial maintenance is usually around 10 ducats per month. We've had to mint to the point of increasing inflation to 5.5, so reducing that is a long-term goal that will get easier as we core on an ever-higher percentage of our provinces. The struggle continues.