EU IV Portugal AAR - Intermission 1650

Once again we are back for our 50 year look at the world around us.

We normally start in mainland Europe, so let's not buck the trend.

A large part of central, eastern and northern Europe is the same as it was 50 years ago, albeit Prussia is a bit bigger and Poland is a bit smaller. Moving westwards, the Netherlands has formed and is holding its own, although I don't believe it has started colonising abroad yet. Great Britain is identical to 50 years ago; Wales had a short life, but was absorbed back into the British Empire quite quickly. Moving to the south there has been more fluidity. On the Italian peninsula, Genoa has completely disappeared, being annexed by Venice, and Castile has lost some of Iberia to me, but gained bit of territory along the Cote d'Azur. I have also annexed Granada. The biggest change though is that Aragon has disappeared, being diplomatically annexed by my faithful ally, Austria.

Zooming out a little, we can see that Russia is continuing its expansion, having absorbed Perm and Crimea in the last half century. The Ottomans have lost some territory in Europe during their war with us and Austria, with the new nations of Albania and Bulgaria being formed. Sweden still dominates Scandinavia.

I'm not going to bother showing the European religious map, as it is identical to the last update!

Let's take a look at our direct holdings, vassals and allies instead. Compared with 50 years ago, we haven't done anything in the North America or the Caribbean, but in South America we have expanded our territory, taking Inca as a vassal. Across the Atlantic in Africa, we have massively expanded our dominion along hte Eastern Coast, taking provinces and making Protectorates. We also have a new Protectorate in Vijayanagar, who control the entire Indian sub-continent.

But it is in South-east Asia and Australasia where we have made the most progress. 50 years ago we had only a handful of colonies. Now, we are the dominant power, with pretty much all apart from Sumatra and Papua under our control. We have also colonised Australia and New Zealand, and (although you can't really tell from the map) hold most of the Pacific islands. We'll look at that map in a little more detail shortly.

Click on the map to view in detail

First, though, let's have a peek at North America. We haven't explored all of the interior, but by the magic of Disney we can look at a different nation's view of the continent.

Hmmm, interesting. Castile has most of Mexico and the West Coast, and also has a large colonial nation running up the Mississippi into the central farmlands of Kansas. France has a large colonial nation running from Mexico all the way up to Texas/New Mexico area, and two smaller colonial nations over on the East coast and in southern Canada. The British are also there in force, controlling the entire south-eastern seaboard (very powerful colonial nation) and northern Canada. The tribal nations are slowly getting squeezed, and it will be interesting to see how this continent pans out in the remaining 150 or so years of the game remaining. North America will be one of the flashpoints for war between the colonial powers.

The other major flashpoint will probably be in the Middle East and Asia. Looking at this map we can see major power blocks forming. Russia is huge, and militarily powerful, and will be looking to expand south and east. The Ottomans and Mughals have nowhere to go but south and east as well, or they will run up against Russia. this will bring them into direct conflict with me I would imagine! Japan will also look to expand into China, as the Ming and Zhou naitons are large but weak. Oh, and that yellow area above Japan in the east is controlled by.... Castile!

Now, let's go back to Southeast Asia, and take a look at our expansion. Castile has taken a small island in the north of the region, and there is still the nation of Matapahit in Java, but otherwise, its all us. There are still islands left to colonise but we'll be looking to take these in the next 20 years or so. we can currently maintain 5 active colonies with our powerful economy, which is way more than anyone else can manage.

In Australasia we have completely colonised the East coast of Oz, plus all of New Zealand, and have even taken Fiji to the north of the islands. Our next goal will be taking Papua to the north of Australia, and the remaining Pacific Islands. Note that Castile has taken Tasmania.

Talking about the Pacific Islands, here's a little picture of the Pacific, with circles round all of our island holdings. Out of our colonial rivals, only Castile has a presence here, on the small island of Rapanui in the south east.

And that's about it for this intermission. We are still colonising like mad, and will hopefully complete our expansion in the east before 1700. The more interesting area for us will be in the Middle East and sub-continent, where we are undoubtedly going to come to blows with either the Ottomans or Mughals, or possibly both. We really need to keep Austria on our side there, and catch up with our military tech!