Sell regions or not?

[okno1]

Hi everybody
I am starting a game playing Spain. This country has a big advantage because it owns gigantic territories, but this is by the same way its worst problem: they are tragically underdevelopped. All of them need thousands and thousands of golds of investment. Furthermore, european endless boring wars are annoying me, so I want to focus on Spain itself and its american colonies like Guatemala, Texas or Cuba. This is why I would like to get rid as quickly as possible from Belgium, Lombardia and the other Italian territories. I'd like to sell them. Today, I tried it. Unfortunetally, I have only succeeded in giving Belgium to France for 9000 and an unlimited military access. My best allies: Italian states, Malta, Venice, Genoa and Savoy, even France are refusing such big and rich regions like Sardinia, Napoli and Lombardia for amounts like 7000 and 6000 which I am considering as overwhelmingly to low for such big and wealthy territories.
So may I ask you, whether it is a good idea or not to sell these regions? For how much should I sell them? How to convince the other crowns to buy them?
Thank you very much for your help.

[fan101568]

Selling land is a good way to gain cash quickly in the beginning of a spanish campaign however i think it should only be done in situations when it is impossible to hold the land or to costly. the only land i recommend to sell if any would be belgium because it is threatened by the dutch who hate you right from the start of the campaign. the rest of your land you should be able to hold as your neighbors in italy like you. as for how much to sell land for and how to convince other nations it comes down to how much they like you and how powerful they are. weaker states will pay more for land because they lack it and powerful ones feel as if they could just take it. for example i sold moose factory once to georgia for 15000. hope this helps

[Kaku]

Hello, I just finished my campaign as the Spanish.
I started of with selling all my unconnected regions, leaving only Spain as far as I can remember, then massing armies and conquering the whole of North Africa fairly easily. From there one, there wasn't much problem with the money.

I tried selling all regions for as much as possible(try 9k, 8k, 7k, and so on), and many to France who became my best ally for the rest of the campaign (before I betrayed him). It's a very good idea to stay friendly with France as they will guard your northern border but also disrupt Great Britain(at least I was at war with them the whole campaign) overseas to allow relatively safe trading with other nations.

I also recommend trying to sell all your technology to all nations aside from to those you're at war with or nations you plan to invade.

[okno1]

Hi everyone and thank you very much for all these usefull answers. As far as I have understood, Belgium must be sold immediately in the first round because Dutchs are otherwise going to bother me with endless expensive wars. I am going to keep the Italian regions a few turns longer , become more powerful and then oblige the Italian states or Malta to buy them for a lot of money. Furthermore, and I had thought about that even before you told it to me, France MUST keep being my ultimate and biggest ally, otherwise am I DEAD, because they're so terribly rich and powerful. Selling and then taking some regions back by force could be a good idea to make a lot of cash at the beginning, but on the other hand it severly damages my international prestige. Maybe could I do this with some Native Americans like Pueblos.
All the ideas you have given to me are going to be very useful, I really thank you for that.
Just a last question: how could I get peace with some nations which are ennemies, like Austria or Portugal (because you know, war and rivalry are not good for business ;) )?
Thank you for your coming help.

[KoSeKu]

another options is to trade belgium with windward islands of france

also i gave away milan to morocco to become ally, i was defend by both south and north, so i could focus on my colonies. by the way morocco destryoed all barbarian states and asian regions of ottoman empire itself later on :O