Portugal or Spain guide

[Ghoulfield]

Does anyone know of a good Portugal or Spain guide? Or can write one up? I've been trying to do a campaign as them for the past 2 days and haven't seemed to be able to get anywhere, so tips will be wellcome.

[WhatWillTheNextDowndateBring?]

Is there something in particular you're trying to archive as them?

[Ghoulfield]

Trying to maintain myself as that colonial powerhouse/ navel powerhouse that they where. I've tried to expand into south africa, indoenesia and south america but between getting my armies squashed, looking for guides and GP's interferring I just need some tips on maintaing an army for taking, south america or indoenesia/south east asia. ( I'm fine with my stuff on colonies, and avoiding the GP's)

[WhatWillTheNextDowndateBring?]

Okay well the first thing I'd say is ignore South America, it's really underpopulated and doesn't have that great resources. I mean Brazil has tropical wood which is pretty good, but you can get that elsewhere and importiantly there's no coal and very little iron.

Indoenesia would depend on what part, Dutch or non-Dutch? Non-Dutch is simply up for grabs especially for Spain out of the two, for the armies Spain has in the Philippines should be enough as is and they've already got a port (or "s") there with a navy including transports from game start. However the Dutch parts are likely going to be hard as the Dutch often have strong allies like Prussia or Russia, at least at the start. Spain can ally Austria and I've seen them ally Britain early on too sometimes, so if you know what you're doing, maybe you combined with Austria and especially Britian (if they remember how to transport troops during the war) can team the Dutch and Prussia. Portugal on the other hand probably should leave the Dutch alone, unless maybe you see Britian beating them hard should the Dutch go after Belgium.

South east Asia, which I take as Siam, Dai Nam and Burma are fairly tough even for Spain, Burma should be fine if Britian doesn't beat you as Spain to it, Siam is very often sphered by Britian so that's likely not an option, Dai Nam should probably wait until you tech up abit as they often ally China who will likely be too much for you, Dai Nam alone might be tough as they have a decent sized army as is, at least 30K plus their puppet Cambodia. So Portugal would likely have to send all their forces to match Dai Nam alone without China who will send forces, I know as I fought a long war with them as Britian when I desided to load up and see what it would be like trying to take Hong Kong for historic reasons, they flooded India though Burma.

Otherwise, taking parts of China is the tried and true method for keeping your military strength high once you've got the tech advantage to beat them.

[WhatWillTheNextDowndateBring?]

It should be noted that Spain has plenty of coasts to ensure they'd be a force in the scramble for Africa if you can get the necessary techs in time, Portugal not so much, but certianly doable if you can somehow afford the naval upkeep.

[WhatWillTheNextDowndateBring?]

On second thought with Dai Nam, that British example of early war with China was me declaring war on China directly while I've had experiance of declaring war on them indirectly as Japan and them sending hardly anything my way as a result, so Dai Nam should be fine for Spain to take, Portugal may also be able to take them, but you'd likely need to send your entire force to do so as them which could be very risky. So Dai Nam and non-Dutch indoenesia should be what you focus on if conquering to establish a colonial empire is what you really want to do, go for Java if you see a good opportunity against the Dutch, but all that will likely hamper colonization of Africa should you want to do it, as that's a lot of colonial power being spent that you likely wont be able to get back but building ports in the conqured land. Unlike many other nations, Spain and Portugal already have decent colonial range coverage of Africa and therefore focus on other stuff.

[Ghoulfield]

Ok, I've currently got the moluccas and the phillipines, about to declare war on brunei, johore is a vassel and now has sumatra, all of south america sphered, preparing for colonial race in cameroon and ethopia. I've snatched Al Rif from the Morrocans and took all of Yemen, anything you think I should go for now?( I'm pretty sure the Ai doesn't call in it's substates if it's not the agressor or if it's not attacked independently)

[WhatWillTheNextDowndateBring?]

Yeah, China wont call it's substates if it's not attacking or being attacked directly, but just main China would be too much for Spain, fortunately, many Japanise conquests of Korea show how China doesn't seem to move troops through it's substates if they aren't also at war. Therefore, going after Dai Nam might be fine which would add an additional million manpower right there.

When you said "and now has sumatra", do you mean Johore has it? For that's the way it looks based on your wording, but even if not, are you talking about Atjeh or the Dutch part actually sharing that name? For if you took the Dutch part, why not Java? Sumatra has okay population and good resources, especially later on as they get rubber and or oil, but Java has great pop at over 2 million and sulfur which is probably even more important to get than coal given it's rarity.

One of the states of Egypt, I think Dongola, is really good to take as it gives you access to a early colonizeable part of Africa and I think also tropical wood which itself is a decent resource needed for luxury furniture. Sinai also from Egypt might also be good to take to secure the suez canal and by extention, Panama from Colombia might also be good to secure the Panama canal.