What's the best country to form Italy?

[KhemDev]

I've played a lot of Italian games(Savoy, Milan, Venice and Florence) and I fail to form Italy every time. I want to know, how to play these small countries in Italian Region and what's the best to form Italy?

[Fellelin Gohkhwkhip Pi Kopqi Sú]

i think florence, great expansion options, clsoe to your capture points and easy alliances

[Bics93]

Also Florence has nice ideas with good bonuses on tech, ideas and developement; they also have some military bonuses that can be useful.
Savoy instead is more diplomatically oriented and this can be useful for securing a good network of alliances... Also Savoy is the nation that unified Italy in real life and because I'm Italian I've a special love for that minor nation :D

Edit: Milan is the more developed one; while I think that Venice is too much oriented towards the Balkans and the Mediterranean trade to be the good nation to unify Italy.

[Arrow in the Knee]

Venice used to be vary good but right now merchant republics aren't the best. I suggest Florence or Milan that are republics and you can keep electing the same president over and over to improve him and then regain tradition through military power. Just play safe and wait until a good occasion to attack. A good alternative that I'm trying right now is Naples that has a pretty good development in the capital, is pretty big and can become a great power easily. Also you can attack other nations(such as Tunis, Algeria or Serbia) around the world while waiting for aggressive expansion to go away.

[somnia et musica]

Milan, you'll have infinite Rep. tradition in a point of time.

[CosmicOdeum]

Naples, unless you wanna deal with a unified spain that controls south italy through inheriting Naples.

[Fellelin Gohkhwkhip Pi Kopqi Sú]

Originally posted by Groovy Genie:

Naples, unless you wanna deal with a unified spain that controls south italy through inheriting Naples.

well if you have a good fleet you can easily get naples sieged down

[CosmicOdeum]

Originally posted by Fellelin:

Originally posted by Groovy Genie:

Naples, unless you wanna deal with a unified spain that controls south italy through inheriting Naples.

well if you have a good fleet you can easily get naples sieged down

I mean, I suppose that might be possible? Though beating the spanish fleet might be tough if you haven't unified italy yet.
I'll admit I've never tried to do this, though. So I guess it could be easier than I think.

[Fellelin Gohkhwkhip Pi Kopqi Sú]

Originally posted by Groovy Genie:

Originally posted by Fellelin:

well if you have a good fleet you can easily get naples sieged down

I mean, I suppose that might be possible? Though beating the spanish fleet might be tough if you haven't unified italy yet.
I'll admit I've never tried to do this, though. So I guess it could be easier than I think.

as florence, i had a colonian empire to fund my wars in europe, gave me a huge limit to my fleet, i took quality ideas to fight land battles with small elite forces against the minors in italy, thanks to my gigantic fleet and tlemcens help i completely cut of iberia from it's colonies

[CosmicOdeum]

Originally posted by Fellelin:

Originally posted by Groovy Genie:

I mean, I suppose that might be possible? Though beating the spanish fleet might be tough if you haven't unified italy yet.
I'll admit I've never tried to do this, though. So I guess it could be easier than I think.

as florence, i had a colonian empire to fund my wars in europe, gave me a huge limit to my fleet, i took quality ideas to fight land battles with small elite forces against the minors in italy, thanks to my gigantic fleet and tlemcens help i completely cut of iberia from it's colonies

Aha, you used the major cheat of "being human".
A human player can do anything I suppose.

[northernwater]

I agree with Florence. Income is good and seems to gain the right allies easily. I think Naples is the hadest. Low dev and it seems to get a lot of bad events early game.

BTW - Don't take Rome until late in your run. As Florence I took Rome right away and it was a constant headache. I basically was never able to use papal influence the entire game and I never went protestant so it was an obstacle.

[Arrow in the Knee]

Originally posted by northernwater:

BTW - Don't take Rome until late in your run. As Florence I took Rome right away and it was a constant headache. I basically was never able to use papal influence the entire game and I never went protestant so it was an obstacle.

It depends in what tipe of game you'r trying to make. One thing Rome has a lot of development but, yeah, the -1 diplomatic reputation can be very bad.

[Rommel]

Originally posted by bics93:

Also Florence has nice ideas with good bonuses on tech, ideas and developement; they also have some military bonuses that can be useful.
Savoy instead is more diplomatically oriented and this can be useful for securing a good network of alliances... Also Savoy is the nation that unified Italy in real life and because I'm Italian I've a special love for that minor nation :D

Edit: Milan is the more developed one; while I think that Venice is too much oriented towards the Balkans and the Mediterranean trade to be the good nation to unify Italy.

My first time uniting Italy was with Savoy, the important thing is to not be impatient and try to force wars when your enemies are too strong. Ally with EITHER france or austria and build alliances based on their allies/enemies to make sure they dont break your alliance at a crucial time. Just be carefull not to piss off aragon, they love stomping italian armies for no reason.

[Fellelin Gohkhwkhip Pi Kopqi Sú]

Originally posted by Arrow in the Knee:

Originally posted by northernwater:

BTW - Don't take Rome until late in your run. As Florence I took Rome right away and it was a constant headache. I basically was never able to use papal influence the entire game and I never went protestant so it was an obstacle.

It depends in what tipe of game you'r trying to make. One thing Rome has a lot of development but, yeah, the -1 diplomatic reputation can be very bad.

taking rome last is the best way, but try to bleed the papal state dry as much as you can, take their land except rome take money and just loot their provinces and allies

[Laladen]

Venice or Florence. Naples...probably last on my list if I had to rank them. Terrible national ideas and you are stuck with the Pope as your first enemy.

[Fellelin Gohkhwkhip Pi Kopqi Sú]

Originally posted by Fedaykin:

Venice or Florence. Naples...probably last on my list if I had to rank them. Terrible national ideas and you are stuck with the Pope as your first enemy.

and as naples you have to go trough the pope to even border the hre, alot of people have allied the papal states to gain more influence, thus making their life more secure