How do you solve a problem like Maria? Kill her,
obviously!
1595-1604 King Sebastiao I, Part 1
Well, we didn't take such drastic steps as that, but in 1596, our Queen dies suddenly, leaving her young (ish,
he’s in his twenties) son Sebastio in charge of the Kingdom. He’s an OK ruler,
but his 3 year old son Antonio is much better!
Under our new ruler, our diplomatic power soars. This should
help us close the technology gap with the rest of Europe (whilst they’ve been
teching up, we’ve been using our power unlocking Ideas).
Protestant refugees arrive in one of our Javan colonies,
doubling the population but also turning the province away from the Catholic
church, until 1620! This is the second province to turn Protestant, as Alentejo
(on the mainland) did a couple of years ago (couldn’t find a screenshot).
Alentejo won’t be able to support a missionary until 1609.
Following the influx of new people, Priangan becomes
self-sustaining the same month, February 1596
We negotiate two new Royal Marriages in 1596, increasing our
chances of heirs being produced
Colonisation happens thick and fast, with Banten, another
Javan colony, finishing off in April 1597. Youcan see that Sunda has already
finished, as has Priangan. Demak has 500 colonists so far. Elsewhere, we are
colonising the Andaman Islands (the last Island chain in the Felipe/Indian
Ocean) and the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Peru.
Talking about the Galapagos (on the left of the next picture,
circled), we notice that Castile is very active in the Colombia/Peru region of
South America. Having been almost totally kicked out of Argentina and Brazil,
they are making inroads both in terms of colonisation, and militarily against
the Inca.
In June we take our second Quantity Idea, making cavalry
cheaper
And in November, here we go again, with our subject, Rio da
Prata, declaring war on Castilian La Plata
Racing forward to July 1598, we take an Expansion Idea,
Improved Shipyards, reducing shipbuilding time by 10%. This unlocks our final
National Idea, boosting trade by 10%! Awesome! We also get a bonus of 20% to
the tariffs we get from our colonial subjects, as an extra bonus for completing
our National Ideas.
A full list of Portuguese National Ideas can be found here http://www.eu4wiki.com/Portugal
Holy Moly! The following year we have enough income to
support a level 2 advisor. This guy will boost our trade power by 10%, brining
in even more income!
With our new guy in place, our diplomatic power is
wonderfully high!
The effect of the two recent trade boosts mean that we now
control more than 50% of the trade in the Malacca trade node, and have now
fulfilled the requirements for the East Indian Trade Route event, which fires
in June 1599, giving us another 5% trade boost! We are well on the way to being
the top trading nation (I think at this point we are second behind Great
Britain)
GB are controlling all of the trade from North America, as
they are dominating the Canadian and Chesapeake Bay trade nodes, and have
Sweden as an ally, so nobody can challenge them in the Western Europe and North
Sea trade nodes (which receive the trade from North America)...just look at all
the red on the next picture!
In February 1601, we take admin tech 15, and Rio da Prata
completes its military annexation of the Castilian colonial nation. Doesn’t
South America look good with all that green there?
The Galapagos finish colonising in June 1601, and our
attention shifts to colonising the Philippines
Meanwhile, back at HQ, we’ve been working hard on our
relationship with Granada over the past few years, and it pays off as they
agree to become our vassal. Our decision to release them as part of the peace
deal following our war against Castile in 1520 (Update 13 if you are
interested) is looking inspired! We can begin diplomatically annexing them
after 10 years, in 1611.
By May 1602 our fourth province in Java comes online, and we
now control half of the island. The other half will be ours eventually!
Another Expansion Idea the same month, boosts our standing
with other nations
Staying in May 1602, our young and exciting King takes the
bold move of reforming our Kingdom. From now on, we will be an Administrative
Monarchy, rather than a Feudal one. We will lose our 10% bonus to vassal
income, and our 10% bonus to manpower, which are the bonuses from being a
Feudal Monarchy, but this is fine as our manpower is sky high due to the
Quantity Idea group, and we only have 1 small vassal. In return, we will now
get a 10% production efficiency boost, increasing our direct income and rade
income, and a 5% tax modifier, again increasing the money coming into our
coffers. This is probably the best government type for Portugal, but we may change
to Constitutional Monarchy once we get to admin tech 22.
At the end of the year we get our settlement in Manila up
and running, and send our colonists off to Hawaii for some sun and surf
The next picture shows our Malaccan trade node, which is the
start of our trade push round Africa. The 4.69 ducats transferred out by our
merchant ends up turning into 44 ducats per month by the time it gets to
Iberia, as our colonies push it on and add to it in every trade node along the
way!
In October 1604, the Ottomans finally get the message that
we are the good guys, and leave the Coalition, allowing us to militarily expand
safely once more
And we take the next Quantity Idea, boosting our manpower
recovery speed (hint – read the text on the pop-up, it’s quite amusing!)
And that’s where we will leave it for now... the first 10
years of King Sebastiao’s reign have been peaceful and prosperous, with
government reform and trade domination setting us up nicely for things to come.
In the next Intermezzo update, we will look at the state of
the world at the turn of the century, and compare it to our last snapshot,
taken in 1555.
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