1602 Country Updates - part 1 (click to expand)
We begin with
@AnotherLondonManc, who is beginning to be a little bit afraid of
@Solius. Perhaps he should be, since he no longer has
@RedSky for an ally to calm the warmongering Iberian down. He's now effectively squeezed in between Solius and
@Wing Attack Plan R, which might explain why he's started mimicking his friend
@Organic Potatoes and is currently attacking some poor South Americans. King Ranerio AnotherLondonManc is calm, and inspiring leader and expansionist.
Prediction: He's going to find himself in a war with Solius pretty soon, since they no longer have an ally in common to stop them.
Next up is someone who is on the up and up,
@BootsyCollins. He did pretty much nothing of note for a hundred years, but since then he's been attacking in all directions, and usually winning. This time the Finns are the ones colonizing Sweden, as
@Vidyoyo discovered to his great surprise. He's still supporting the independence of
@PSV, but PSV doesn't appear interested in acting on it. Bootsy is in a war to mop up the actual Swedes right now. Queen Regent Helen Aminoff is tolerant.
Prediction: Having finished with Vidyoyo, he's going to keep attacking
@Salt Bailly and their Nogai eastern neighbour.
Fittingly, the next person is the one person who might help
@Salt Bailly deflect the unwelcome advances of
@BootsyCollins.
@hobbers is still big, but he has slowed down a bit. He no longer has any very obvious targets, all his neighbours being either pretty strong or allied (Tiber, who is still in a personal union under him). He's actually started expanding east of Tiber, which feels like should be Tiber's thing. King Daniel Hobbers is an obsessive perfectionist (which genuinely means they try to avoid ugly borders), and a fierce negotiator.
Prediction: hobbers is going to fight Walrus and successfully claim Anatolia.
For the next person I actually had to take a ludicrously zoomed out screenshot. And this is still only half the world, god help us if
@Organic Potatoes ever decides to colonize Asia. Which he kinda already is, as you can very barely see by the green-coloured islands in the Pacific. He has actually lost a few wars, but nobody is really successfully invading his home islands, and nobody is really in any position to take his colonies. Some countries are trying to contest South America, but he's got an incredible head start, and he even took the colonies from a pretender earlier. High Queen Finneacht Eboue is fertile.
Prediction: Organic Potatoes is going to snowball as long as they can stay out of a dumb war with Solius.
Next up we've got
@PSV, who hasn't had much luck this game so far. They're still alive, which is more than we can say for 5 other people (and two more only have a single province). They have no allies, except for
@Salt Bailly who still rule them in a personal union, but the purple on the map signifies someone who supports their independence, and would join a war to make them free. They should probably do something soon, because if
@Salt Bailly gets stronger compared to PSV then there's a chance they could inherit the entirety of PSV on the death of a monarch.
Prediction: At some point Salt Bailly is going to be weak enough for PSV to strike, but they might lose the war.
Speaking of the devil, it's
@Salt Bailly next. He's reasonably big still, but lately he
has been targeted by
@Samid and
@BootsyCollins to an unhealthy degree. He's got a powerful friend in hobbers, so it's unclear why he doesn't use that to strike back. Grand Kniaz Innokentiy I Hobbers is a craven and a naive enthusiast. Not great.
Prediction: he's going to continue getting picked on by
@Samid and
@BootsyCollins, particularly the latter turning into something of a beast. BeastyCollins.
@Solius then. Our
current beast. He's completely driven
@Shakesey out of Northern Africa, with some help from
@BD (and
@AnotherLondonManc, inadvertently). Probably he's going to continue further down into West Africa, where he might clash with
@Organic Potatoes and/or
@SilentWitness. He's not much for colonizing, but he's giving it a go South America. He's got the largest army, the largest fleet and the most income. If he wasn't allied to
@BD and
@RedSky I would fear for their safety. King Gutierre Redsky (yes, Redsky) is not a very impressive ruler, but at least he's fertile.
Prediction: he's going to conquer all of West Africa, taking it from other Europeans if he has to.
Next up we have
@Walrus. He spoke earlier about having a buffer state between himself and the scary Timurids to his east, but now they're pretty much finishing up devouring that buffer state together. He's got some pretty intimidating neighbours in
@hobbers and
@Wing Attack Plan R, but at least unlike hobbers he hasn't really slowed down. It's also possible Wing Attack Plan R is going to be too busy in Africa to effectively deal with Walrus Sultan Ayaz von Walrus is a tactical genius and a conqueror, which fits pretty damn well with his 6 military skill.
Prediction: Further wars with Wing Attack Plan R, pushing down into Arabia.
@Wing Attack Plan R is another person for whom I had to zoom out quite a lot. At least he has a very
vertical empire, which makes it easier to capture. He has almost finished conquering Ethiopia, and the opponents don't get really get any more difficult the further south he goes. Despite his gargantuan empire he's not as strong as he looks, since he lacks strong allies and has bled out his armies. He currently only has 29 000 men under arms, as you can see to the left of his ideas in the screenshot. He has a "force limit" of 120, which means he could support 120 000, but he also has basically no manpower to turn into armies. And that takes a while to return. On top of that, he's falling dangerously far behind the Christians in technology. Sultan Bashar Wing Attack Plan R is fertile and midas touched.
Prediction: He's going to carry on conquering his way down Africa, but might be in trouble with
@Walrus and
@AnotherLondonManc up north.
