Take Castile with Portugal at start?

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

What would be the best way to take out Castile at the start as Portugal? I was thinking team up with France and Aragon? then take over Morrocco to get the gold mine and more troop limit. Then France will be done with England hopefully. This should be enough to take most of Castile right? I am just sick of them stealing my New World land. Also, would it be more profitable to go east fully and take all of the indian trade and asia trade right away instead of concentrating on the New World?

[artur296]

CoRe*Killerb původně napsal:

What would be the best way to take out Castile at the start as Portugal? I was thinking team up with France and Aragon? then take over Morrocco to get the gold mine and more troop limit. Then France will be done with England hopefully. This should be enough to take most of Castile right? I am just sick of them stealing my New World land. Also, would it be more profitable to go east fully and take all of the indian trade and asia trade right away instead of concentrating on the New World?

Not sure about your first questions, it's a matter of opinion, but if you can build a sizable fleet to control WETN, Africa and India are really profitable in the beggining. The New World will be out of your colonial range for some time. Africa is really close and there are lots of weak countries to conquer. There are as many gold mines as in the New World. In the first 50 years Sub-Saharan countries don't have any light ships so you can steal their trade. Then head to the Gulf of Aden.

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

My first question was about taking out Castile from the start. Is it possible to destroy most of Castile before they get too big and compete for the New World. Portugal is pretty small compared to them in the beginning. But yeah! you are right, the Asian trade is too far in the start but taking all of Africa could workout. then it might be harder in the future for others to get to asia since I would own all the jumping point provinces.

[artur296]

I would say don't take them at the very beggining. Most of the time Castile is aggresive agaisnt Aragon (not always). If they are, France will get invovled and a coalition might form. Otherwise wait until you get some money from trade and colnization and attack when you can sustain a big army. They won't go colonizing early on, so they are not such a problem. Or ally with Aragon. There is one more option. On the wiki under Portugal there is a 1475 starting date when there is a succesion war. You with the Big Blue Blob agaisnt Castile and Aragon. You can easily force a PU and later integrate them.

[Jormundgand]

Beating Castille can be done fairly soon as long as you wait untill their manpower is low and jump at them while they're already at war or just after a war. Start making claims on all the lands you can and declare war as soon as you have the last claim started (work will continue through the war but you can't start it in the midst of a war with them). Make sure you have powerfull allies who are not weak from war -- England is a good choice since they won't go to war with Castille on their own (usually) or ally with them. If you can get Aragon to join too you have someone they can beat on (but that's not likely going to happen).

If you start to lose, get mercs, take loans and just do what it takes to get what you need to beat them. Make peace as soon as you can get all the provinces you have claims on.

If you beat them, make sure you siege every province and wait it out to increase war exhaustion and debt. This will ruin their chance to recover for the next war.

While at peace, start making new claims and kill them in the next war.

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

Thank you guys for the advice. I think my plan is going to be take most of North Africa. Then claim the New world as fast as possible then move the capital to NA.

[DireSwift]

The only time I took out most of Castile as Portugal they were at war with Morocco and had 3/4's of their troops in Morocco. I was also allied with Aragon who joined in. By myself even with most of their troops gone it would have been close but with Aragon they just mopped everyone up. I parked my MUCH larger fleet in the sea zones preventing them from coming back and slowly sieged down their entire country.

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

Thank you DireSwift! That is what I am hoping will happen for me in a way lol

[Jormundgand]

You could try to drag them into a war in north africa and somehow change the situation so that you're at war with castille while their forces are stranded there -- as per DireSwift's suggestions. Something like:

• Declare war on someone and make Castille join you
  
• Win/lose the war and make sure you are ready to get rid of the alliance (no mil access, no guarantee)
  
• Get rid of the alliance
  
• Hope Castillian troops hasn't arrived home yet and declare war on Castille. Snipe any transports trying to evacuate troops

It's a bit of a gamble though -- it prolly won't work because of diplomat cooldown between disolving the alliance and declaring war. As long as Castille hasn't landed any boots in Ibera you should be safe though.

[Alex]

you can get around the diplomat cooldown by starting a war, waiting until they would refuse a call to arms, call them to arms, get dishonored call and declare war avoiding the diplomat cooldown problem.

[Horus]

Oh, so easy. Start the game on June 2nd, 1475. You will be in a succession war for Castille against Aragon, but with France on your side. Play smart (it is a less difficult than England in HYW) and you can force Castille into personal union - you already have many territories occupied when you begin. You can then easily dominate Aragon with Castille by your side, integrate Castille and then form Spain with Portuguese ideas. :) Trade hegemony with a strong presence in Europe.

Keep in mind that Castille will colonize with you, and once you integrate them you will get all of their directly owned colonial territories, but (presently, I hope they fix this) any colonial govts that Castille forms will be cut loose. So it can possibly work in your favor as you can have the whole Carribean (plus good chunks of South and North America) colonized by 1530, just hope they diversify. I am presently trying to reclaim half of the West Indies that was cut loose on integration.

[Alex]

But what about Iron man ;)

If you do some tricks feeding vassals (that are as of yet unpatched "cheeses" - you can create strategic interest.., but it's complicated) you can annex Castile in 25 years, more realistically 30 to allocate for "problems".

[Jormundgand]

Alex původně napsal:

you can get around the diplomat cooldown by starting a war, waiting until they would refuse a call to arms, call them to arms, get dishonored call and declare war avoiding the diplomat cooldown problem.

Then how would you their troops out of Iberia? Start two wars?

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

Thank you guys so much for the help. I actually ended up using a little of everyones advice. Hahaha! I was going to move my Capital to NA but before I could get NA I saw Castile getting attacked by Aragon and France. So I sat back and watched to see what would happen. I decided at a perfect time to jump into the war and took their islands and some mainland provinces. That made me happy because I pretty much stopped them from colonizing with the island gone. However, I got greedy and noticed they released Galacia and I vassalized them right away based on some help from Alex. I eventually made Castile release Granada as an agreement and allied with them. After that Castile only has about 5 provinces left and soon they will be my vassal :) WOOT!! it is amazing how each game can me completely different.

[CoRe Killerbrandt]

Really quick though! how are you all having succession wars with Castile. I have never once seen that happen in my games? I dont know if I am missing anything. I am still new to the PU thing.

[artur296]

CoRe*Killerb původně napsal:

Really quick though! how are you all having succession wars with Castile. I have never once seen that happen in my games? I dont know if I am missing anything. I am still new to the PU thing.

You need to start in 1475, you have a really nice succesion war and France is your ally in it.