Need help with strongest possible Italy

[Mr.Zombie]

So I want to do an Italy run, but since I really do not like italy mission tree to much I was thinking about stacking as many bonuses as I can with Italian minors permanent bonuses, but I also want to know if it's worth to keep milan military dictatorship and this way renouncing to form Sardinia piedmont, and another thing i read in a paradox plaza post was that you don't get Tuscany mission if you form it with anyone but florence, so I was wondering on what is the possible start?

I think maybe it's florence?

Florence > Tuscany > Sardinia Piedmont > Two sicilies

Because if it's true that I can't form piedmont with the military dictatorship and I don't get Tuscany missions if I'm not florence than the only thing I can do with military dictatorship Milan is:

Milan > Two sicilies

Any suggestions or things I missed?

[RCMidas]

Forming Tuscany does give you the missions now, so assuming you aren't leaving the Latin culture group, start as someone other than Florence and then become Tuscany later.

Do not become an Empire until you form Italy though, else you'll need to culture-shift outside of Latin to be able to switch to the correct form of Latin culture.

[Kapika96]

IMO the strongest Italy (and my last Italy run) is Aragon > Morocco > Sardinia-Piedmont > Italy.

Aragon just give you a big head start on a load of things. Gets you an easy PU on Castile, and the opportunity to no-CB vassalise Byzantium ASAP and then use their reconquest CB + allies to crush the Ottos before they even get started. Plus a whole bunch of nice mission rewards.

Morocco is for the permanent discipline and heavy ship combat ability. Always nice to have more discipline!

Sardinia-Piedmont for the admin efficiency of course, plus you need to go Italian culture at some point!

[Marquoz]

Venice to Italy is my favorite. You're small enough to join the Empire and can become Emperor after you ditch the Republic. You border Byzantium. You can ally Poland and Austria and rip up the Ottomans and then head due east, routing all the trade from Persia, India, and Egypt home.

You don't get the bonuses that Kapika's approach gives you, but with the Empire at your command, you don't need them. Who needs discipline when you have the vassal swarm? :-)

[Mr.Zombie]

At the end I went with milan, I really like the military dictatorship reform + i will stack some morale bonuses, even tho the only real good thing you get from the mission tree are some permant buffs for Milano, a bit unlucky since savoy and florence have a bunch of permanent buffs, but I think it's ok, if you go with military dictatorship and stack military buffs I think you can get something like 55%+ morale 10 from the reform 10 another 10 from quantity + religious another 15 from defensive and another last 10 if you get the republican reform that gives it (citizenry I think) and I also think (EDIT YOU CAN GET ANOTHER 10% WITH DEFENDER OF THE FAITH) denesive ideas are really good with Italy, you can basically turn the alps into the ultimate unpassable regions considering you also have fort defense with Italy ideas (+20%) if I remember correctly and I don't even want to think how many defensive bonuses I can stack with the edict, ramparts, the Italian idea and defensive ideas and also the defensive stance reform.
I think this might be my favorite run.

Can't wait for Siena to ally the ottomans and completly ruin the campaign.

[Mr.Zombie]

The really unlucky thing is that the Italian mission tree i a bit meh in my opinion, you don't really get amazing stuff, it's not trash, but it's not op like some others, I just hope I don't get screwed by some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like Austria expanding into Venice or spain conquering all of south Italy, I need to be fast but also keep an eye on aggressive expansion.

[Mr.Zombie]

So for a little summary this are the buffs you can stack with Italy (that are worth mentioning at least)

-morale: 10% with military dictatorship (only as Milan) + 10% with republican reform (citizenry) + 10% quantity + religious ideas + anther 15% with defensive ideas and another 10% if you become defender of the faith for a total of 55% morale of armies (not counting advisors and other events or other possible buffs from other missions you can get by culture switching etc.)

-defensiveness: you get 20% fort defense with Italian ideas + another 15% if you pick the defensive stance reform, you get another 25% with defensive ideas and you can also get another 20% with the edict + ramparts building for a total of 70% fort defense, and you also get increased garrisons and attrition for enemies which is great, and then again we are not counting advisors or events

You can also stack a bit of infantry combat ability considering you get + 15% with Italian ideas so you can get around + 45% I think with quality and quality + innovative ideas.

Please correct me if I mist something or I did something wrong.

[ChaffyExpert]

I mean i would actually go Naples, get allies like France or sometimes Castile that hate Aragon to support your independence, declare war on Aragon, and inevitably win, take Sicily

Now you have half of Italy, and likely with some major powers as allies, which will make it easier to unite Italy.

Next is to try and take over Epirus and Byzantium fast before the Ottomans do, if this isn't an option, then next would be taking over Papal states but NOT ROME because of the debuffs that it gives, and by this time The Shadow Kingdom should have probably happened, if not, wait for it to happen, then proceed to take north Italy.

ADM should probably be the first ideagroup due to the conquering, followed by Diplomatic because AE may be a problem. If not that, then Infleunce.

I'm not sure about this but doesn't having a spy network reduce AE?

Anyways there isn't *that* many countries in north Italy, so it should be easy to use your diplomats to avoid any coalitions, just make sure the nations have a positive number after you take what you want, and they won't bother joining coalitions.

Also, Milan and Florence or venice may do well, or they may collapse, usually i see them destroyed, usually by Venice. So what you can do is take a single province of a nation like Milan, release Milan as a vassal, and use reconquest CB, or the same with any other large nation.

Specifically if you can get Byzantine lands then release byzantium as a vassal you get free cores basically on the Ottomans.

I think this would by far be one of the strongest Italy games, since you would have half of Italy right off the bat, and likely have France or Castile/Spain as an ally that you could use to bully the other nations around.

Plus, you can expand in any direction, like you could go for a fourth punic war and take Tunis, continue eating Aragon, or try to stop the Ottomans and take the Balkans and Turkey, from which you would then also have alot of the lands needed for forming the Roman Empire, if you wanted.