What were your opening moves? In my games Texas is very strong, but usually doesn't expand terribly quickly. Their main advantages are their ridiculous god generals. If you move quickly enough you should be able to contain them.

Taking over the Pacific Northwest/Nevada isn't too hard to do reasonably quickly and will be a huge help against Texas. I always do that (and take over the Baja Peninsula) first in my California play-throughs.

I also feel like Pacifica and Cascadia are better to form than Las Californias. Pacifica is practically designed for California, as it is.

As California you should either complete the mission chain for California (annex Baja Californias, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, in this order) as soon as possible or grab the Pacific Northwest as soon as you can up to Vancouver or Seattle and form Pacifica. Either way Pacifica and Cascadia is better fit for taking on Texas than Las Californias.

Texas does not have any missions that compare to the Grand California mission chain, so fulfilling that will net you quite a bit of income that Texas won't have.

Also ally the right enemies to keep Texas in check. Using all of the infromation from the Diplomacy tab and the Ledger you can get on who is in the best position to help you ally against Texas. Usually a regional power in the South will develop and challenge Texas from the East, if you're large enough to ally them, do it.

As a Texan, having Texas be OP is my favorite part of the game. It fits the mentality of the state. that being said, it is odd that TX has the biggest army at the start of the game. Califorina has ~30% for population than us, a fact I think should be reflected in the initial troop count. Additionally, I think the Gulf Coast trade node is by far the biggest reason for Texas usualy powerhouse status by mid game. It can take a mission and eat Louisiana as you unpause, after which it controlls both Houston and New Orleans and the ability to pay massive about of ill-tempered cowboys with pointy sticks to attack its neighbors.

In vanilla, the Gulf area is divided into a Mississippi River and Rio Grande portions. This division would really help nerf TX by dividing its ability to controll gulf trade. The Rio Grande Node including the provinces of El Paso, Bexar, and whatever you called the Valley/Brownsville area, plus some northern Mexican ones, could feed into a central Mexico node. Meanwhile, the Mississippi River node (fed possibly by an inland Great Plains/Cornland node and a Deep south node) could feed into the Carribean. This would still leave Texas the elephant in the room as far as gulf states are concerned, but also significantly increase the ability of the Mexican states and Louisiana (via NO), Alabama (via Mobile), and Florida (Basetax) to contain it. (No offense to Mississippi, but trade is power)

The reason Texas has a better starting position than California is that it has reduced unrest at start and has more provinces with high basetax. California and Texas share the fact they have intrastate regional cultural differences, but for Texas, its population is spread out enough its easier to represent. California has most of its population in two metro areas, San Francisco and Los Angeles making hard to divide up.

Texas also has weaker neighbors - Oklahoma and the Southeast/Southwest states adjacent to it are relatively weak, and a lucky Texas that doesn't see any opposition from a strong alliance will blob a bit.

Originally posted by KeoniPhoenix:

The reason Texas has a better starting position than California is that it has reduced unrest at start and has more provinces with high basetax. California and Texas share the fact they have intrastate regional cultural differences, but for Texas, its population is spread out enough its easier to represent. California has most of its population in two metro areas, San Francisco and Los Angeles making hard to divide up.

California also suffers from having a relatively crappy home node compared to Texas. It can dominate it easily, but fewer ducats overall are coming in, so it doesn't help as much. Gulf Coast gets trade from all over the south and west, so once Texas conquers Louisiana it can get a really nice income from trade, with the only natural naval rival being Florida.

Originally posted by Mr. ZAP:

Originally posted by KeoniPhoenix:

The reason Texas has a better starting position than California is that it has reduced unrest at start and has more provinces with high basetax. California and Texas share the fact they have intrastate regional cultural differences, but for Texas, its population is spread out enough its easier to represent. California has most of its population in two metro areas, San Francisco and Los Angeles making hard to divide up.

California also suffers from having a relatively crappy home node compared to Texas. It can dominate it easily, but fewer ducats overall are coming in, so it doesn't help as much. Gulf Coast gets trade from all over the south and west, so once Texas conquers Louisiana it can get a really nice income from trade, with the only natural naval rival being Florida.

I feel like the Pacific has an advantage later in the game with it's access to Asian trade much faster/easier than either the Eastern US or Europe - but that's something that takes time and monarch points.

I think folk generally underestimate just how developed Texas -is-. I'm going to grad school in Lubbock which is, yeah, pretty much all cotton farms and nothing else, but Dallas is a huge city that produces a -ton- of goods, and Houston is one of the biggest ports in the world. Texas being the new France in this mod makes total sense to me - California/PNW is the new Iberian states (strong but not as strong as France militarily, emphasis on trade/colonization), and the Northeast is more like a bunch of Hansa's all crammed together. Meanwhile, the midwest reminds me more of the East - several religiously different states of relatively low base tax crammed together.

I always equated the Northeast with GB and the Netherlands. Strong trade, strong navy, frequently colonize, but relatively weak on land.

That makes sense. The middle coast (the Carolinas, etc) I haven't really seen doing much, but they do seem stable-ish? I haven't messed with the South in general.

Frankly the only states naturally of note in the southeast (in game; no one get offended...) are Florida (pretty much always), Virginia/Maryland (one or the other), D.C. (fantastic province), and maybe Louisiana (New Orleans). Generally one or two others blob as well and become contenders (I've seen Arkansas, Tennessee, and South Carolina blob at different times), but it's up for grabs. The only one I consistently see doing well is Florida. Florida is like the Nordic states: somewhat removed from other major powers, strong navy and decent colonizing chances, with a decent ability to blob without others interfereing.

A Texas/Florida alliance can generally do pretty well if it's able to happen. They're the strongest powers in the area, and they both expand north and west, so don't come into much territorial conflict.

I basically think most of Europe has a decent regional counterpart in SuperStates except maybe Italy. No one is like Italy.

California/Oregon/Washington/B.C. = Iberia
Texas = France
New York/New England/Maritime Provinces = G.B./Low Countries
Florida (and to a lesser extent more minor southeast powers) = Scandinavia/Nordic states
Mexico = Eastern Europe (including Balkans/Hungary/PLC/Baltic States, but not Muscovy)
Eastern Canada = Muscovy
Midwest = German region/HRE
Central/Western Canada (except B.C.) and Alaska = Ottomans/Hordes/Siberia (bits of all of it, but especially hordes... whoever comes out on top becomes Ottomans)

The Caribbean SHOULD be like Italy, but because Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are so weak, they're like... the Mediterranean Islands. Except they colonize. I dunno.

It is a strange continent.

Having the game play in spectator mode is quite fun.

When it comes to the California node, its seriously under connected as they only get trade flowing in from the PacNW, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. That's it. While Texas is all of that and more.

A couple weeks ago when I was play testing 1.8, I was quite surprised how much minor changes had a big impact on California. Their starting autonomy really drags them down as that hurts their starting manpower to where Arizona is their equal at start, something that was never the case before 1.8.

I'm thinking of linking into Alaska routes from the Far East trade nodes so that it can draw in income fron their colonization missions for Siberia. That alone can have a huge impact on California strategy.

If you want to nerf Texas a good amount, change that idea "The Alamo, the Goliad." It provides +10 Discipline and +10 Infantry Combat Ability. The combat ability is alright, but the discipline is too much. Just completing the entirety of the Offensive ideas branch gives you 10 or 5 discipline. A single idea should not give that many buffs.

I might do that. Some people might remember Missouri having an idea with 100% discipline bonus. Made Texas look weak.