Nice, as fun to read as the Prussia guide. I guess the choices for Europe are as you laid them out. Because of all the conquering the italian regions will declare war anyway so you are obligated to attack them.
To bad as I would guess that conquering the Middle East through the you African regions would be more challenging.
And finally a nation that can take on GB without losing important trade/ally. (happened to me with prussia/UP/sweden, you just need the brits)
One minor thing:
"Conquering the rest of America is merely a matter of building up your economy in what formerly was New Spain, training myriads of grenadiers, horsemen, artillery and units of line infantry in Madrid and slowly conquering"
Sorry, but I have a different approach to a successful Spain Campaign:
I like that faction and played it several times now on H/H.
0. Before the first turn:
1) Replace the PM with a more capable minister - I forgot which one, but select one with more stars.
2) Put a Militia into the only Trade Harbor available. This harbor can easily be blocked causing imminent bankruptcy.
3) Destroy the navy harbor for Spain in order to build a second Trader Harbor; you do not need two Navy building harbors during the first part of the game and later you can add one in the Americas. Leave the Gibraltar harbor for your navy building. Spain has only One Trade Harbor at the beginning(Britain has 3 or 4) - protect your trade harbor!
4) Keep an Admiral and one ship of the line to protect your Trade Harbor from the annoying Moors - they have only weak ships but can cause great damage. All other ships you may want to send to the Trade circles to improve your income. Avoid fights with pirates.
5) Burn the College for priests and get a second school in Spain. You can later add another school in Spain and get the school in Portugal, for a total of 4. Keep the church college on Sicily. Put the gentleman into the school you have close to Madrid.
6) Build one Indiaman and one Infantry unit per turn (use your money wisely).
7) Diplomacy: Stay allied with France at all costs. The Moroccans and Portugal are on the war path with you; so, they do not agree to anything you may offer. They should be your first target (Morocco and then Portugal) .
Flanders - is to isolated to be defendable. Offer them and Florida to France for French Guyana (productive mines) and 10000 gold, they usually take the deal for 8000 gold which you can use for building Indiaman.
Milan - is hard to defend and will get you soon into a war with either Genoa or Venice, but definitely Austria. You may want to consider selling it to one of the factions that can support you later in your fight with Austria.
Try to ally with the Italians - that would protect your provinces in the lower part of Italy and Sicily. You would not need any large troop build-up there.
8) Build troops in French Guyana because the Dutch will declare war before turn 10 and send some Indians to take that province from you.
1. Turn:
Build up your trade - avoid fights with pirates. Build your line infantry army in Madrid for the fight with Morocco, first. I can get almost 90% of all trade rings and have an income of over 10,000 gold by turn 10.
Build the second trade harbor in Spain. Recheck on your ministers every other turn.
Contrary to the OP, I do not take out the Moors but continue in the Americas first; eliminate the nasty pirates and then go after Brittan.
After turn 10 your are completely set to finish this game successfully - it's almost boring!
I build a semi-strong fleet (Armada) to control the mediteranian and a small chain of boats from Antwerp down to Bilbao or better to Cartegena. I built an army in Cartegena. At the first sign of trouble (Italy) , the army is in place in 1 turn to conquer it. It can be in Amsterdam the turn after.
After Rome the army is back in 1 turn to fight the Portugese that immediately declared war. It went on to Amsterdam. The mediterranian Fleet later crippled Austria.
1 boat docked in Gibraltar all time keeps the Maroccans away. The spanish priest acted as scout for their fleet-size.
I sold Florida to Indians, took the priest and army to Curacao and below, expanded the fleet with 2 boats in turn 1 to take on pirates. I started making Indianamen in turn 2
Alliance with the french was sacred.
Game over in 1710.
Takes a little practice to step from 1 boat onto another to move down the chain in 1 turn.....
I disagree in the point of view that the isolated posts, Flanders, Milan and Florida are indefensible. It is a challenge to keep them but very rewarding if you succeed. France is an ally and therefore passable- Flanders is not that isolated after all. In my game, I had a hard time there but France actually brought an army and placed it alongside the capital, a great help.
In Florida, the key is to beat the first wave of Indians. You need to "defend the fort" but eventually as your army gets bigger and more experienced from so many pitched battles, they seem to give up and then it is time to carry the war to them.
Milan is really isolated but allying some of the neighbors or at least getting a trade treaty might be a great help. The principle in all three posts is the same: Build up from start. Defend the post. Then counterattack. You should be able to keep at least two of the three.
Sure Florida is defendable, but the costs are very high. And no access to a port for quite a while, unless u manage to play Spain on very low tax levels. By the time Florida becomes worthwile I have fullfilled my obligations to New Spain and they have joined me.
If you like to play battles it is fun enough, but in terms of strategy on the map, it isnt worth the effort.
I do not steamroll the game and play only rush battles. I try to use all features of the game (diplomacy, economy, ministers, etc.); and I do not care of the victory conditions either.
In the end, everybody wins playing Spain, however you approach it!
that was a great guide i read all of it because i had some problems playing as Spain. I tried to conquer Italy near the very start and was faced with some very powerfull enimies very early.
I enjoyed this guide and a straightforward way to skin this cat. Well presented.
I used a different route. VH/N world domination
-trade florida and flanders for the rich Dutch Guyana at turn1 which avoids early war with the dutch.
-taxes 1/1 for first 20-30 years to max pop growth and wealth growth. Spain in 1730 makes over 16k with low taxes.
- keep New Spain to achieve a few extra things works best on VH remember ai gets repression/diplomacy/research bonuses
-give NS those small hard to control countries in return for techs(give them a country with a school and every tech you yourself get)Like Tunis and Malwa.
-at 1730 getting ~10k from NS
- at 1799 or if you like after all techs researched complete mission and get all NS provinces.
-early on demolish Portugal and Morocco and Barbary states to make Spain secure without a garrison.
-ally/protectorate Savoy/Genoa/Italian states makes Lombardy safe and you're ready to take on Austrians/Prussians etc.
- keep France happy. take over all India, giving a few Indian states to NS really supercharges your protectorates' economy, you will inherit a fully developed suite of countries from NS
-make sure your ministers are the best (I don't know how many amusing cads harridans and jug heads I've sacked).
Here's my experience: UP and Morrocco DoWed me round 1 of course. That combined with war with Cherokee, Berbers and Pirates makes for challenging starting gameplay as your fleets will be insufficcient to fight them util you can build another galleon or two.
Attacking Cherokee early on is a good idea, as your inital force is enough to siege and take georgia easily. I traded it back to the Cherokee for peace as conquering them is really not an objective for spain, but they backstabbed me 2 turns later anyway (H/N dofficulty)
I lowered taxes in europe to promote growth, but Spain is not so rich, so that lowered my profit to 600 ducats... Making alot of protectorates helped alot but has it's own consequences:
Savoy is always DoWed by France so don't bother making them a vassal.
Italalian states DoWed me in round 3 despite liking me and becoming my protectorate... first time I've seen a non-major protectorate DoW it's master like that. What's up? I barely managed to cling onto Milano as botht the Italian states and Genoa attacked me at the same time.
Flanders seem exposed but your stack there can hold out against UP for some time, at least if you train more men there. The not so peaceful Portugese DoWed me as well in round 3 while my Armada Royal was besieging Morocco.. my plan is to complete the conquest of Morrocco and then hand it over to New Spain (they lose much unrest), then turn around and deal with the Portugese.
Ov erall the hardest game I've yet to play!
All in all this seems like the most challenging came I've yet to play, very fun. I can't afford to build anything
I'm up to year 1730 in my Spain campaign now and I am really enjoying it more than any other of the nations I tried. Having just beaten a Russian and Austria campaign, I wanted to try a more naval focused faction. I ruled out Britain because well... it seemed too easy and boring and I was sick of fighting in North America from a previous French campaign. I decided against United Provinces because Skwisgaar Squigelf (taller than a tree) hates the Dutch and so do I. So Spain it is!
The first thing I did was sell Flanders to France for 8,000 and their starting enlightenment technology. Then I sold Lombardy to Italian States for 7,000 and made them my protectorate. Finally I sold Florida to the Cherokee for 7,000 and a peace treaty. Florida at this point in the game just isn't worth it to me because you are at war with natives and Louisianna will attack you as well which makes no sense at all. Next I disbanded all my terrible units like the demi-cannons, pikemen, and all cavalry (too expensive). I researched farms in the starting school and also tore down the Church in Spain and replaced it with a 2nd school which I used to research naval technologies.
On turn 2 United Provinces went to war with France which caused me to go to war with UP since I wanted to stay allied to France. I was able to get peace with them by offering military access I think... It was cheap but I really didn't want to be at war with them this early in the game and the AI is insanely war happy in 1.3. Morocco also went to war with me and I conquered them with an army I built up in Spain.
My basic strategy was to turtle as long as I can and work on setting up trade in the ivory coast as soon as possible. I was able to do this by placing a galleon fleet there along with indiamen which was enough to fend off the pirates. Portugal attacked me around turn 6 which I expected, so an army I had in Morocco went up and conquered them in short order. Then I shipped off the army from Portugal to kill of the pirates and work on my mission targets (Mexico, etc). I created an African Native line infantry army mixed with Dragoons in Morocco to start conquering north Africa for me. It was slow going because of unrest but eventually I wiped out the Barbary States and now do land trade with the Ottomans who are in really sad shape right now...
Now I am about to attack the Plains Nations territory from Texas and retake Florida with another army that is also in America. While I do that I'm working on building up a navy of 3rd rates to protect my trade areas from United Provinces when I eventually go to war with them over their Carribean colonies. I'm really enjoying operating in Central America for a change and I've found that Mexico is an amazing province that generates tons of money. My long term goal is to conquer all of the Carribean and Central America and ignore Europe. I will be able to win this way because I went with World Domination over the other victory conditions. This is on VH/N by the way.
Last edited by Fotchimus; July 18, 2009 at 02:04 PM.
I'm up to year 1730 in my Spain campaign now and I am really enjoying it more than any other of the nations I tried. Having just beaten a Russian and Austria campaign, I wanted to try a more naval focused faction. I ruled out Britain because well... it seemed too easy and boring and I was sick of fighting in North America from a previous French campaign. I decided against United Provinces because Skwisgaar Squigelf (taller than a tree) hates the Dutch and so do I. So Spain it is!
The first thing I did was sell Flanders to France for 8,000 and their starting enlightenment technology. Then I sold Lombardy to Italian States for 7,000 and made them my protectorate. Finally I sold Florida to the Cherokee for 7,000 and a peace treaty. Florida at this point in the game just isn't worth it to me because you are at war with natives and Louisianna will attack you as well which makes no sense at all. Next I disbanded all my terrible units like the demi-cannons, pikemen, and all cavalry (too expensive). I researched farms in the starting school and also tore down the Church in Spain and replaced it with a 2nd school which I used to research naval technologies.
On turn 2 United Provinces went to war with France which caused me to go to war with UP since I wanted to stay allied to France. I was able to get peace with them by offering military access I think... It was cheap but I really didn't want to be at war with them this early in the game and the AI is insanely war happy in 1.3. Morocco also went to war with me and I conquered them with an army I built up in Spain.
My basic strategy was to turtle as long as I can and work on setting up trade in the ivory coast as soon as possible. I was able to do this by placing a galleon fleet there along with indiamen which was enough to fend off the pirates. Portugal attacked me around turn 6 which I expected, so an army I had in Morocco went up and conquered them in short order. Then I shipped off the army from Portugal to kill of the pirates and work on my mission targets (Mexico, etc). I created an African Native line infantry army mixed with Dragoons in Morocco to start conquering north Africa for me. It was slow going because of unrest but eventually I wiped out the Barbary States and now do land trade with the Ottomans who are in really sad shape right now...
Now I am about to attack the Plains Nations territory from Texas and retake Florida with another army that is also in America. While I do that I'm working on building up a navy of 3rd rates to protect my trade areas from United Provinces when I eventually go to war with them over their Carribean colonies. I'm really enjoying operating in Central America for a change and I've found that Mexico is an amazing province that generates tons of money. My long term goal is to conquer all of the Carribean and Central America and ignore Europe. I will be able to win this way because I went with World Domination over the other victory conditions. This is on VH/N by the way.
A very different strategy than I took. Trading away Flanders is not that great move IMO as it brings you about 1k every turn income, so the money you got from france is not worth it. The tech is nice, but you can get it yourself fairly quickly. UP DoWed me and raided me a bit the first turns, but after defeating them a bit with just the starting units there, they didn't even try to attack Flanders. You can get some help from France there as well, and the dutch fleet hasn't been much of a problem to me.
Trading Naples/Sicily might be a better move as The "Pope" DoWed me fairly quickly as I've said, and not having a border with them might prevent that.
Still, despite losing Milano to them I managed to hold on to Naples, steadily building a stack. In 1711 I'm about to conquer their capitol after a siege, and my almost full stack there with excellent units will be able to retake my lands, conquer Genoa, and even continue into Venice if i want.
Florida is much the same. I've been fighting Cherokee there for awhile. Lousianna becomes France very quickly and never DoWed me, so no problem there. I did lose Florida momentarily, but managed to retake it as well as Georgia. Now I'm in position to take New Orleans as France lost it to the cherokee. I don't know why you disbanded your artillery, I've been wreaking havoc on the indians with them, even with round shot! With cannister shot I often get 150+ kills with a single demicannon unit, and the morale impact and ability to force the enemy to attack you is invaluable. Of course I will get foot arty soon which is better on the offensive, although I usually relocate my demicannons to less important armies where they can still make a difference.
Florida has't much income, but at least it gives me more resources to trade and a foothold in America.
Disbanding cavalry is a no no, provincial cav is cheap and can be used for policing, and regimental cav is almost required to hunt down the enemy after a battle (the general is never enough).
My strategy has been hard, but not my efforts have begun to pay off. My trade income is decent, I dominate 2 trade theatres and my fleet bolstered by alot of captured ships are about to embark to the remaining threatres and sink the pirate fleet. I've kept everything but Milano, about to get Portugal which is very rich and I've allowed them to build the top tier government building so that means lots of tax income there Thus my situation in Europe is stabilized and I'm soon ready to go kill off those pesky dutch and deal with any random DoWs. I've had a short war with GB and Sweden but managed to secure peace with mil. access to them both, the latter required me to sink their fleet before they accepted.
So my remaining goals is:
1. Expand in Lousianna before the French get it and make the Cherokee weak.
2. Capture the Pirate Islands and Dutch areas in the Americas.
3. Reestablish the habsburg empire by conquering the Austrians.
Flanders does give the whole 1k a turn but that's easily negated by the cost of the garrison you need in that area just to hold onto it. I'd rather not worry about it at all. My whole thing was trying to avoid wars with the major powers in the beginning of the game until I get my economy rolling.
I still have Naples and as of 1730 the Italian States have never attacked me after I made them a protectorate. I do have the city defenses upgraded there and a garrison of 4 militia just in case though. Naples earns me quite a lot of cash at this point with all its towns developed. Florida like Flanders, was just too expensive for me to hold on to in the early game so I opted to sell it and I'm now getting around to retaking it. My foothold into America has been through Texas and Mexico. I may try to conquer the 13 colony regions, but I'm not sure if it will be worth the hassle or not. I could try allying with the Iriqois first.
As for disbanding units: I agree that even demi canons can be useful but I was trying to cut all expenses down as much as possible to fund a galleon/tradeship fleet. It was a rough start but that paid off because I have a monopoly on all Ivory, Sugar, and 3 out of the 5 spice spots - so just about everything. Now I'm making 30k just from trade which is enough to fund massive armies in America. I didn't need any cavalry or canons to start with. Only a general, 4 line infantry, and 4 guerillas and I was able to conquer Morocco and Portugal. You don't need cavalry to chase down fleeing units when sieging towns because after you win all traces of their armies disappear for these 1 territory factions.
I have three full stack armies now and several small navies. With my armies I go with 1x General, 5x Line Infantry, 4x Other Infantry (Guerillas, Frontiersmen, or Grenadiers), 6x Three pound canons, 2x Heavy Cav, 2x Light Dragoons or Ranged Cav. My favorite army has a unit of Walloon Guards in it and they kick so much ass it's unbelieveable. So yes I do value the use of cavalry and canons - once I get the income to support their hefty upkeep costs.
It sounds like you are going for more of the European theater fighting than I am, which you have to do when doing any of the victory conditions but World Domination. Your strategy for that makes a lot more sense for that because you do want to hold onto Flanders in that case.