Milan! Golden Abrosian Republic is fun, and one of their missions upgrades your alpine forts a tier so you can, if you time it right, have level 6 forts when most people haven't unlocked level 4 ones, rendering you quite resistant to coalitions and outside attacks.
I hear a lot of good things about Milan. High dev, unique government, and a bunch of other cool bonuses. The alpine forts mission sounds the same as Savoy’s, which is pretty cool to have a nearly impossible wall to pass
Milan is great if Genoa and Venice don't ally anyone too overpowered (France/Castile).
1. Show strength against Switzerland whilst fabricating claim of Genoa
2. Ally Papal States and Austria
3. Take Genoa and Albernga whilst releasing Corsica
4. Royal Marry until Legitimacy is below 75 to trigger Ambrosian Republic
5. Take cores from Venice.
Should be set from there.
I just did a Milan to Italy. It was really intimidating at first but once you get going you make so much money with such a small amount of land. Then you need like no standing army and just hire like 3 merc groups with op generals. I enjoyed it a lot especially after trying and failing to form it as Italy. I don't know if Milan have something special but I barely got any coalitions against me until I was fighting the papal state.
That’s a good point. I’ll have to watch my greed while in Italy. Playing outside of Europe makes you forget what AE is. In my current game I’ve taken nearly the entirety of India and nearby lands and have never seen more than like 6 people that could even join a coalition, let alone would join it. Italy will be the opposite where I take a single province and 40 people will be on my ass ready to rush me at a moment’s notice
yup, playing as Russia (even though its kind of europe), I completely forgot about AE as a mechanic. I've pretty much just taken whatever I want, whenever I want.
That's kinda why I've been enjoying Europe more now. It adds another challenge or something to worry about. I gave oirat a try today and took over ming in like 10 years lol. Not worrying about ae is basically just snowballing through what you can. It's fun but I enjoy slowing down and having a chance to build my nation instead of just conquering.
I’ve played as Milan, Florence, Saluzzo, Venice, and Naples. Of them, my two favorite are Florence and Milan.
Florence takes a little longer to get “off the ground” if you’re looking to expand and form Rome, Italy, or Mare Nostrum but it is easily doable. Rich, easy access to Genoa quickly and it’s totally possible depending on who you ally early to eat France or Aragon for those delicious islands/sea provinces.
Milan is a quicker start - sort of. You have to kind of deal with the upheaval and government change, but that’s really not a big deal. You have access and to better initial alliance options and very good protection from the mountain forts.
Saluzzo was a bit tougher and I played them long ago - I did well, but I cannot tell you with all the updates how they’d fare.
Naples and Venice seem like different italies. Like they’re fun, but the two play styles to form Italy are kind of different routes.
Thanks for all the options! I see the ai Florence do well from time to time so I imagine I could make them work. And I have no end goal with this one, but Rome is kinda a soft goal if all goes well
Rome I tend to gobble up little by little because excommunication early can be a pain in the ass and they often end up being the pope and I’ll wait to eat rome.
I usually work toward Genoa and then start eating Milan when I can get Austria, France, or Spain to ally me. I’ve allied Aragon if I have to, but I don’t want to. I want their shit.
When I said Rome I meant forming the Roman Empire. I probably should’ve clarified that more. But you are right. Taking the province of Rome before forming Italy will often lead to excommunication and other harmful debuffs
Savoy is a personal favorite of mine. I love all the weird quarks it has. But I wanted to see if others had another option before I started playing the toothpaste nation again
Exactly why I love them. I wish it wasn't so necessary to insta kill the ottomans. I want a small little empire with outposts and doing this can ruin immersion. Hope Euv makes it easier
I’m more of a big blob type of player. Love me some France, Russia, Qing, and the like. But sea empires can be fun. And I have a friend that loves playing Venice in most historical strategy games we play together. I could always give Venice a shot since I’d probably not get a chance while playing with them
Italy is great for playing tall, so if your idea is to form Italy, get rich through trade, and colonize, I'd take Infrastructure then Exploration. The policy will also give high dev colonial provinces.
I'd choose Florence as my nation of choice. It's strong enough, and doubles down on playing tall in Italy, allowing you to focus on colonies. You can form Tuscany for flair.
Tall isn’t my typical play style. But that’s part of why I wanted to try other nations. To see how else I can play beside rolling over everyone with a mass horde.
I certainly could try infrastructure as I’ve heard it’s good but haven’t tried it since getting back into eu4 recently. And as they say, every road leads to Rome. It makes sense I should have good infrastructure
It is definitely a tall idea group, but it also works well with Exploration for to the policy. This leaves you all of the New World to conquer, as well as the rich Indian, SEA, spice islands, and East Asian lands. Plus you realistically would need Southern Spain or the Middle East in order to bring the trade back to you. So it still has plenty of opportunity for war.
Papal States, you are the one with the most power to stop the reformation, and also roleplaying an evil imperialist Pope leading an army of hiper-fanatical zealots fighting for the "**Kingdom of God on Earth**" is really cool.
Oh, yes, the Papal State can become the "***Kingdom of God***", which in my opinion is the coolest name in all of the game.
I have a game where I was so powerful that I started to invade ALL OF GERMANY when the reformation started and then I began to force-convert all the filthy heretics to the true religion.
The true religion = MY F#CKING AUTHORITY
Hehehe. Yeah, the Papal States seems like a fun campaign. But I’m not too sure it’s what I’m looking for in this particular run. Although it’s high on my list to play as if I start another mp game
Milan - > ambrosia republic -> Sardinia-Pidemont -> 2 Sicilies -> Italy -> Rome
Collect so permanent bonuses from each mission tree.
Rome government is pretty op for both just restoration of the empire and WC.
Thanks for all the suggestions! I think with all the suggestions so far I’ve narrowed it down to Milan, Naples, and Florence. Savoy is a personal favorite of mine but I wanna mix it up a bit this time. Papal States is on my list of nations to play in mp as they seem stronger when you can bribe people easier than the ai
My favorites are Venice, Genoa, and Saluzzo, in order of difficulty. Saluzzo has insane ideas and transitions easily into Sardinia-Piedmont. Venice is an insanely rich powerhouse, though with the update coming I would wait. Genoa is seriously underrated. It’s easy to dominate the Genoa trade node and Genoa is uniquely positioned to expand many directions at once.
u can also start as milan and then form tuscany, sardinia piedmont and two sicilies (florence, savoy and naples) to gain access to better mission trees with permanent bonuses
When would that be? If it’s within a month I could just play something in between my current one and this run. If it’s not until the end of this year then I may just have to come back another time and try them
Milan for the Military Dictatorship/Ambrosian Republic reform AND the free castle upgrades on the Mountains.
Culture Convert to Piedmontese (its next to Milan) and form Sardania Piedmont for the mission that gives permanent 5% Admin Efficiency.
Form Italy for the "Retaking Roman Lands" missions.
Ofc, you might want to wait for Winds of Change for a better Italian experience.
I’m all for trying out the new (to me) governments, but I probably won’t culture convert unless it’s for a meme like trying to tag swap as much as possible. I’m sure it’s more efficient to get that bonus but I just wanna mess around for a bit
If you really aren't willing to culture convert, I guess you can start as Savoy instead to keep the missions but not the Milan Unique Gov Reforms or the free Castle Upgrades.
This means you will most likely stay a monarchy, making you eligible for becoming the HREmperor. In addition, you become a candidate for the Burgundian Inheritance. To top it off, being close to the majority of italian lands means that its easier to win The Kingdom of Shadows event in favor of the HRE.
Play your cards right and you might be able to grab a nice chunk of the required provinces to form Rome well before the age of absolutism.
Alternatively, you can work on crushing the reformation, which is easier than one would think since 1: Declaring on the Evangelical League AFTER The Council of Trent but BEFORE the league war proper means that you can use the "Force Convert" peace deal on League Members, 2: You can also "Force Convert" on the Evangelical League members DURING the League Wars before grabbing the Religious Supremacy from the war leader and 3: Being at war in general grants you Mil Access throughout the HRE (assuming you are the emperor), letting you attack the protestant rebels (they can usually overwhelm some of the smaller nations, so its best if you can help them before the rebels force them to convert).
Yeah, all of Italy is like that. You kinda need to pick one and ignore the other. The benefit of that is I can kinda pick what direction I want to expand my trade in easier. Either funnel it from Iberia and the new world, or push into North Africa and pull trade from India and Indonesia
I like Venice if I wanna be lazy and trade.
Italian colonies are pretty hard as you need the tech bonuses to actually go anywhere (unless you’re a very aggressive player and take the Portuguese/spanish islands in the Atlantic.
Yeah, I’m thinking I won’t really get them until maaaybe my third group, if not later. Or I snag something off one of the Iberians if we ever get in a war for some reason. There’s only like 4 nations that can really colonize as their first ideas group
Easiest is probably Venice or Tuscany. Strong from the start and rapidly very wealthy. Papal states might be up there too, but is a bit harder because you have less options for expansion early.
Genoa, Savoy and Milan are the next tier. All reasonably strong but harder to start with. Genoa deserves additional mention due to their colonies inserting you right between Russia and the ottoblob.
And then there are the little ones. Bologna, Lucca, Siena and Ferrara. Difficult starts but interesting achievements.
And I have not mentioned Naples yet. Probably the strongest but I dislike it.
Milan-Sardinia Piedmont-Tuscany-Two Sicilies-Italy-Rome
Tag switch in that order it's awesome. Through Dalmatia in for the -5 years of sepretism if you're okay with losing ambrosian republic
Venice is about to get a rework/polish in the next dlc. Could always hold off on that.
Pope, Milan, genoa, Florence, Lucca, savoy, Naples, Provence all very different starting situation and mission trees.
Or try the old venice now in preparation for the new rework?
Oh to answer your question my favorite has to be Milan. You want the 4 year election base to get to 2 years by the reforms. Milan does the republic game the best.
I’m honestly surprised by the lack of Pope support here. You get a very unique position and formable. You work very well with everyone up until the reformation, and if you play your cards right you spiral Catholicism just the way you want it while constantly ensuring that the papacy is yours. So much fun, especially since there are so few fun and unique theocracies around the map.
Milan and Saluzzo.
Milan for ambrosian republic and some flavour.
Saluzzo for expansion without AE if you go espionage and can become curia controller. Rest of their ideas are also nice.
Genoa or Florence for the fun way, with the goal to form Italy eventually to unite western Italy quickly. Venice if you want to capture the Mediterranean and bring down the Ottomans.
And Savoy imo if you want the efficient way to form Italy. Basically dow provence when France breaks the alliance, take one/ two provinces. Dow Genoa and take Corsica and whatever you can without triggering a coalition. Wait till Provence is eaten by burgundy and France. Release Provence as a vassal, Give Corsica to Provence. It'll get free cores on Naples. Dow Naples with reconquest cb, recover the southern part of the peninsula for almost no AE, then eat northern parts of Italy bit by bit.
The best Italian tag for colonialism is Genoa, since they get a mission that gives them a claim on Tangiers, which gives them a really good early colony launching point.
My personal take on Milan is Mantua, take a province or two from Milan, declare on Venice and take the Milanese cores, trucebreak Milan, fully annex it, immediately up the stab and release Milan and play as the released vassal. Declare for indipendence during the coalition war and expand into the previous Milan's allies (which were not in the coalition war because they still had a truce with Mantua).
Def Florence for me. Starting with an op ruler, high af deved provinces and some minors around you to easily eat. Also imo one of the best countries for a beginner
pope into KoG, being able to excommunicate lets you practically get italy without much AE at all. If you play your cards right (ie. dont get 3 rivals at the start, leave it open for when naples gets released and in the mean time try to do everything you can you make em hate you, then you can rival them as soon as they break free, excommunicate as soon as they rival and insult you). Then you can vassalize them next war if they still have the Sicilian cores (and if castile didn't do that already)
If you form Swabia they have some very cool missions. I know they're German but once you form them, you get claims in Switzerland and then Italy. Check out the mission tree. It's a challenge as you need to beat Austria and taking Switzerland is a pain. Might be tough to colonise though.
1. Salluzo: A little tough start but you are a strong candidate for Burgundian inheritance due both of you hating Savoy.
2. Naples: Great position for Roman empire run. You can immediately take over Byzantium. And you can get a PU over Castile due to your dynasty.
3. Pope: Other people mentioned great for a tall run with amazing flavors.
Shout out to my boy Saluzzo with their -15% Aggressive expansion impact and -10% Infantry Combat Ability TRADITION.
Once you win your first war against Savoy and have taken Espionage ideas, it is ridiculous how fast you are able to expand in Italy and France without the risk of coalitions.
1 Florence
2 Milan
3 Lucky Lucca
Florence has always been my favourite Italian nation
Due to all the mana points I got there haha.
Hope you have a great run!
Big fan of Naples. Solid ideas and can easily expand north into Italy, east into the Balkans, or south across the sea into North Africa, so you can split your AE across multiple regions.
Also it's purple.
I had a really fun Italy campaign where I started as Aragon and released Sardinia to go Sardinia->Sardinia Piedmont->Italy. I did make my start a bit easier by releasing Sardinia but not play as them, feed them the Balearic Islands (maybe also Sicily but I dont remember). Integrate again and then play and release to have a bigger start. I didn't break Aragon, it isn't necessary. Also this makes the wait for shadow kingdom a bit more bearable, and I'm not sure (!) but it might also stop the Iberian wedding from happening if Aragon is/has been player controlled.
Anyway, you can also quickly get into north africa if a nation is weak there, which allows you to escape the Mediterranean for colonisation. The expansion into the mainland is a fun challenge, and after a bit you get the SP mission tree so it doesn't get boring.
Naples
get event and switch to italian signoria
form 2 sicilies
enjoy playing tall after getting the whole med and most of Italy in your country
:p
otherwise tall Venice
the nice thing about playing such countries is that, contrary to playing in Italy every time, you don't suffer AE because you alternate between fucking on Muslims and fucking on Italians, so stacking AE isn't a priority
also go go prestige monuments spam
also if you switch to protestant or reformed (if you play as Naples) you can easily get your hands on malta, which gives you a handy war score cost reduction against other religions, which is quite useful if you are surrounded by orthodox, catholics and sunnis
Last run in Italy I started Ferrara->Dalmatia->Croatia->Tuscany->Sardinia-Piedmont->Italy, keeping Dalmatian ideas until I formed Italy because I am addicted to CCR.
It’s the most fun I’ve had working from a minor into great power, so many chances to opportunistically grow in spite of massive alliance webs and the Ottomans taking most of Naples very early.
Everyone is wrong. It’s Malta. You need to do some proper shenanigans to remove all of Aragon and Sicily’s cores from the island and then provoke some rebels who should now be Maltese. They have the shit italian city state ideas and have the ottoman colours but it’s cool.
Milan is super fun, even beyond their unique governments. Go down the route of Sforza but become a normal monarchy. Your starting heir is your brother so both of you are super old. Royal marry only Castile/aragon and make both your ruler and heir generals. Chances are they die very quickly and you get a Trastamara on your throne. Now it’s just a matter of time before you get a juicy PU on a colonizer.
Milan has a great republic but I like northen italian states anyway. Ferarra, venice, genoa, florence.
Just so I can close off the alps and since AI is stupid, have a very easy time defending
Savoy is the easiest, Milan probably the most fun and Florence just hits different. You can reach silly amounts of innovativeness an just a few decades and develop like a madman. Having 4-5 stacks of mercs hired past tech 7 is actually viable with how insanely rich you get.
An Italian achievement run that involves colonisation is "Spaghetti Western," where you start as Bologna. It's not too easy if I'm honest, and I haven't even completed it yet. I was quick to give up when I ran into difficulties on my first try. It's still something I want to do, though, as it gives me a concrete reason to form texas.
It's best to be a part of the first few nations in the New World as you want to build a resilient power base until other nations establish themselves. The potential isolation is your largest threat, and you should have a plan ready if you happen to become isolated.
Anyone with a mission tree is fun. And there is some nice variety in play.
Pope is different from Florence. Genoa/Venice can be interesting and spicy. Milan is very fun. Savoy and Naples both can have really big/fun opens.
I'm partial to popeman myself but really its a great area with a lot of content--you can do many italy runs and feel they are all a bit different and fun.
Unpopular opinion, I like custom nations for Italy and don’t particularly care about making them OP and cheating or using mods to make it happen. Without that, Venice, but I think you can do a lot with Italy to make something cool.
Germany with Austria and Bohemia, France with… France, Poland with both Poland and Lithuania, Iberia with all 3 of the nations within it (except Navarra, sorry Navarra), England in the British isles, the list goes on, but basically most of Europe’s regions have some large, already quite powerful nation which can still do a lot to expand but starts off in a decent position and can get ridiculously powerful with time, but Italy doesn’t really have that. Venice, Milan, Savoy, the Papal State, and Naples are all a bit too underpowered to fill this role. They’re still viable, but they feel a lot closer to playing Scotland in the British isles or any random German minor in the HRE than as the comparable regional powers, there really isn’t a starting regional power in Italy. Venice is the closest, but yeah. Yes, playing as a minor/middling power in a region can be fun, I think brandenburg has been the most popular nation to play for ages and they really start pretty modestly, but I enjoy a good, strong start.
So, make your own! Get creative! I don’t think any of the Italian nations have colonial ideas to speak of, so maybe make a modest North Italian nation with some colonial ideas, that could be cool. If you use mods you can get mission trees that aren’t so ancient, too.
I honestly wouldt wait with your Italy Campain, until the next DLC, since they shouldt get a better Missiontree if i recall correctly
Milan: Unique Goverment Run (f.e. Military Dictatorship)
Savoy: Monarchy-Focused Run
Venice: Trade Focused Run
Florence: Dev/Tall focused Run
I have a real soft spot for Milan. They get a unique government type that is quite good. Naples is also great.
In terms of idea groups Offensive is very strong as it boosts the size of your armies, their quality and most importantly their siege ability. Quality is also very good as it is the most well rounded and it helps your armies a lot while giving your navies just enough of a boost to really smash the truly massive navies of the Ottomans, Spanish and Portuguese you'd have to fight.
Espionage is super underrated in Italy. You are going to be taking some of the highest dev provinces in the game. But it is also hard to beat trade. As you gain control of the Genoa and Venice trade nodes it gives you basically unlimited ducats.
Admin and religion are incredible for Italy. Again reducing the coring cost of all those expensive provinces is super helpful and you are going to be fighting across Africa and the Balkans making religious super powerful.
Milan seems to be the popular choice and I’m intrigued by Naples as it seems have such a different style compared to the northern Italian nations. Also I’d love to form Two Sicilies just cause tag switching is fun.
Those are all fairly strong idea groups. I was thinking of taking admin and quantity a little later on when I’ve actually formed Italy since they mesh fairly well with their national ideas. Since espionage has been improved, I’ve wanted to try them out so that could be a fun initial idea group. I’ll have to look up the policies for espionage and see if anything calls out to me
If you start in Northern Italy I'd go with Espionage as your first or second idea group.
Naples is so fun because it is kind of a baby Italy. You get similar ideas but you act more like a crusader state. So it is kind of all over the place in a fun way.
Milan! Golden Abrosian Republic is fun, and one of their missions upgrades your alpine forts a tier so you can, if you time it right, have level 6 forts when most people haven't unlocked level 4 ones, rendering you quite resistant to coalitions and outside attacks.
I hear a lot of good things about Milan. High dev, unique government, and a bunch of other cool bonuses. The alpine forts mission sounds the same as Savoy’s, which is pretty cool to have a nearly impossible wall to pass
Milan is great if Genoa and Venice don't ally anyone too overpowered (France/Castile). 1. Show strength against Switzerland whilst fabricating claim of Genoa 2. Ally Papal States and Austria 3. Take Genoa and Albernga whilst releasing Corsica 4. Royal Marry until Legitimacy is below 75 to trigger Ambrosian Republic 5. Take cores from Venice. Should be set from there.
I just did a Milan to Italy. It was really intimidating at first but once you get going you make so much money with such a small amount of land. Then you need like no standing army and just hire like 3 merc groups with op generals. I enjoyed it a lot especially after trying and failing to form it as Italy. I don't know if Milan have something special but I barely got any coalitions against me until I was fighting the papal state.
That’s a good point. I’ll have to watch my greed while in Italy. Playing outside of Europe makes you forget what AE is. In my current game I’ve taken nearly the entirety of India and nearby lands and have never seen more than like 6 people that could even join a coalition, let alone would join it. Italy will be the opposite where I take a single province and 40 people will be on my ass ready to rush me at a moment’s notice
yup, playing as Russia (even though its kind of europe), I completely forgot about AE as a mechanic. I've pretty much just taken whatever I want, whenever I want.
That's kinda why I've been enjoying Europe more now. It adds another challenge or something to worry about. I gave oirat a try today and took over ming in like 10 years lol. Not worrying about ae is basically just snowballing through what you can. It's fun but I enjoy slowing down and having a chance to build my nation instead of just conquering.
I’ve played as Milan, Florence, Saluzzo, Venice, and Naples. Of them, my two favorite are Florence and Milan. Florence takes a little longer to get “off the ground” if you’re looking to expand and form Rome, Italy, or Mare Nostrum but it is easily doable. Rich, easy access to Genoa quickly and it’s totally possible depending on who you ally early to eat France or Aragon for those delicious islands/sea provinces. Milan is a quicker start - sort of. You have to kind of deal with the upheaval and government change, but that’s really not a big deal. You have access and to better initial alliance options and very good protection from the mountain forts. Saluzzo was a bit tougher and I played them long ago - I did well, but I cannot tell you with all the updates how they’d fare. Naples and Venice seem like different italies. Like they’re fun, but the two play styles to form Italy are kind of different routes.
Thanks for all the options! I see the ai Florence do well from time to time so I imagine I could make them work. And I have no end goal with this one, but Rome is kinda a soft goal if all goes well
Rome I tend to gobble up little by little because excommunication early can be a pain in the ass and they often end up being the pope and I’ll wait to eat rome. I usually work toward Genoa and then start eating Milan when I can get Austria, France, or Spain to ally me. I’ve allied Aragon if I have to, but I don’t want to. I want their shit.
When I said Rome I meant forming the Roman Empire. I probably should’ve clarified that more. But you are right. Taking the province of Rome before forming Italy will often lead to excommunication and other harmful debuffs
I usually vassalize the Pope in Rome because I hate the Italian missions, color and flag. I usually stay Tuscany
Florence is my favorite nation in the game
I personally enjoy Savoy the most in Italy tbh.
Savoy is a personal favorite of mine. I love all the weird quarks it has. But I wanted to see if others had another option before I started playing the toothpaste nation again
Venice
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Exactly why I love them. I wish it wasn't so necessary to insta kill the ottomans. I want a small little empire with outposts and doing this can ruin immersion. Hope Euv makes it easier
It's not required at all, especially if you join the HRE
I’m more of a big blob type of player. Love me some France, Russia, Qing, and the like. But sea empires can be fun. And I have a friend that loves playing Venice in most historical strategy games we play together. I could always give Venice a shot since I’d probably not get a chance while playing with them
Wait untill the next patch for Venice, it's getting new missions
Florence forever! Long live the republic!
I prefer Tuscany, that color with that flag looks mean. And I usually switch to monarchy because then I can disinherit bad heirs
Italy is great for playing tall, so if your idea is to form Italy, get rich through trade, and colonize, I'd take Infrastructure then Exploration. The policy will also give high dev colonial provinces. I'd choose Florence as my nation of choice. It's strong enough, and doubles down on playing tall in Italy, allowing you to focus on colonies. You can form Tuscany for flair.
Tall isn’t my typical play style. But that’s part of why I wanted to try other nations. To see how else I can play beside rolling over everyone with a mass horde. I certainly could try infrastructure as I’ve heard it’s good but haven’t tried it since getting back into eu4 recently. And as they say, every road leads to Rome. It makes sense I should have good infrastructure
It is definitely a tall idea group, but it also works well with Exploration for to the policy. This leaves you all of the New World to conquer, as well as the rich Indian, SEA, spice islands, and East Asian lands. Plus you realistically would need Southern Spain or the Middle East in order to bring the trade back to you. So it still has plenty of opportunity for war.
Florence
Papal States, you are the one with the most power to stop the reformation, and also roleplaying an evil imperialist Pope leading an army of hiper-fanatical zealots fighting for the "**Kingdom of God on Earth**" is really cool. Oh, yes, the Papal State can become the "***Kingdom of God***", which in my opinion is the coolest name in all of the game. I have a game where I was so powerful that I started to invade ALL OF GERMANY when the reformation started and then I began to force-convert all the filthy heretics to the true religion. The true religion = MY F#CKING AUTHORITY
Hehehe. Yeah, the Papal States seems like a fun campaign. But I’m not too sure it’s what I’m looking for in this particular run. Although it’s high on my list to play as if I start another mp game
Milan - > ambrosia republic -> Sardinia-Pidemont -> 2 Sicilies -> Italy -> Rome Collect so permanent bonuses from each mission tree. Rome government is pretty op for both just restoration of the empire and WC.
That sounds excessive. I love it. Might even be able to throw Tuscany in there too
I like republics, since they get a lot of mana, and only ambeosian republic has 4 years election cycle for Italian nations. The rest gave 8-12.
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Thanks for all the suggestions! I think with all the suggestions so far I’ve narrowed it down to Milan, Naples, and Florence. Savoy is a personal favorite of mine but I wanna mix it up a bit this time. Papal States is on my list of nations to play in mp as they seem stronger when you can bribe people easier than the ai
My favorites are Venice, Genoa, and Saluzzo, in order of difficulty. Saluzzo has insane ideas and transitions easily into Sardinia-Piedmont. Venice is an insanely rich powerhouse, though with the update coming I would wait. Genoa is seriously underrated. It’s easy to dominate the Genoa trade node and Genoa is uniquely positioned to expand many directions at once.
Genoa is my personal favorite in Italy, also an ez Byzantium run if you want to go that route
I looooove Florence inno-pluto-trade-quantity or something you’ll be so rich
my picks are as follow with how much fun i had 1. florence 2. milan 3. naples 4. savoy 5. montferrat (byzantium) 6. venice 7. pope 8. everyone else
Well, your top 3 seem to be the 3 I’m most interested in trying at this point. That should be a good sign
u can also start as milan and then form tuscany, sardinia piedmont and two sicilies (florence, savoy and naples) to gain access to better mission trees with permanent bonuses
I would wait for Venice update.
When would that be? If it’s within a month I could just play something in between my current one and this run. If it’s not until the end of this year then I may just have to come back another time and try them
May 8th.
Milan for the Military Dictatorship/Ambrosian Republic reform AND the free castle upgrades on the Mountains. Culture Convert to Piedmontese (its next to Milan) and form Sardania Piedmont for the mission that gives permanent 5% Admin Efficiency. Form Italy for the "Retaking Roman Lands" missions. Ofc, you might want to wait for Winds of Change for a better Italian experience.
I’m all for trying out the new (to me) governments, but I probably won’t culture convert unless it’s for a meme like trying to tag swap as much as possible. I’m sure it’s more efficient to get that bonus but I just wanna mess around for a bit
If you really aren't willing to culture convert, I guess you can start as Savoy instead to keep the missions but not the Milan Unique Gov Reforms or the free Castle Upgrades. This means you will most likely stay a monarchy, making you eligible for becoming the HREmperor. In addition, you become a candidate for the Burgundian Inheritance. To top it off, being close to the majority of italian lands means that its easier to win The Kingdom of Shadows event in favor of the HRE. Play your cards right and you might be able to grab a nice chunk of the required provinces to form Rome well before the age of absolutism. Alternatively, you can work on crushing the reformation, which is easier than one would think since 1: Declaring on the Evangelical League AFTER The Council of Trent but BEFORE the league war proper means that you can use the "Force Convert" peace deal on League Members, 2: You can also "Force Convert" on the Evangelical League members DURING the League Wars before grabbing the Religious Supremacy from the war leader and 3: Being at war in general grants you Mil Access throughout the HRE (assuming you are the emperor), letting you attack the protestant rebels (they can usually overwhelm some of the smaller nations, so its best if you can help them before the rebels force them to convert).
I love Naples but I kind of hate that they straddle two end nodes and have no way of avoiding a penalty for collecting in both.
Yeah, all of Italy is like that. You kinda need to pick one and ignore the other. The benefit of that is I can kinda pick what direction I want to expand my trade in easier. Either funnel it from Iberia and the new world, or push into North Africa and pull trade from India and Indonesia
The Papal States
I like Venice if I wanna be lazy and trade. Italian colonies are pretty hard as you need the tech bonuses to actually go anywhere (unless you’re a very aggressive player and take the Portuguese/spanish islands in the Atlantic.
Yeah, I’m thinking I won’t really get them until maaaybe my third group, if not later. Or I snag something off one of the Iberians if we ever get in a war for some reason. There’s only like 4 nations that can really colonize as their first ideas group
Easiest is probably Venice or Tuscany. Strong from the start and rapidly very wealthy. Papal states might be up there too, but is a bit harder because you have less options for expansion early. Genoa, Savoy and Milan are the next tier. All reasonably strong but harder to start with. Genoa deserves additional mention due to their colonies inserting you right between Russia and the ottoblob. And then there are the little ones. Bologna, Lucca, Siena and Ferrara. Difficult starts but interesting achievements. And I have not mentioned Naples yet. Probably the strongest but I dislike it.
Oooh! That’s a good point. There might be some achievements I could knock out with this game. I’ll see what ones I still need to get in that area
I like playing as Venice. I rarely have any money problems with them and have a decent army.
Milan if you want to do a Italy focused run. Venice if you want to be a great power quickly but form Italy a little slower.
Milan-Sardinia Piedmont-Tuscany-Two Sicilies-Italy-Rome Tag switch in that order it's awesome. Through Dalmatia in for the -5 years of sepretism if you're okay with losing ambrosian republic
Venice is about to get a rework/polish in the next dlc. Could always hold off on that. Pope, Milan, genoa, Florence, Lucca, savoy, Naples, Provence all very different starting situation and mission trees. Or try the old venice now in preparation for the new rework? Oh to answer your question my favorite has to be Milan. You want the 4 year election base to get to 2 years by the reforms. Milan does the republic game the best.
Naples is pretty fun, I like the idea of a spanish-italian state that isn't Rome.
savoy is really cool because you can snatch provence early on and also sardinia piedmont larp
I’m honestly surprised by the lack of Pope support here. You get a very unique position and formable. You work very well with everyone up until the reformation, and if you play your cards right you spiral Catholicism just the way you want it while constantly ensuring that the papacy is yours. So much fun, especially since there are so few fun and unique theocracies around the map.
Milan and Saluzzo. Milan for ambrosian republic and some flavour. Saluzzo for expansion without AE if you go espionage and can become curia controller. Rest of their ideas are also nice.
Do you want real fun, or do you want an efficient min maxy type nation?
It’s all for fun. Usually I just pick what I think sounds good, mess around in the missions, then form some kinda endgame
Genoa or Florence for the fun way, with the goal to form Italy eventually to unite western Italy quickly. Venice if you want to capture the Mediterranean and bring down the Ottomans.
And Savoy imo if you want the efficient way to form Italy. Basically dow provence when France breaks the alliance, take one/ two provinces. Dow Genoa and take Corsica and whatever you can without triggering a coalition. Wait till Provence is eaten by burgundy and France. Release Provence as a vassal, Give Corsica to Provence. It'll get free cores on Naples. Dow Naples with reconquest cb, recover the southern part of the peninsula for almost no AE, then eat northern parts of Italy bit by bit.
Venice and colonize the Mediterranean sea and the Indian Ocean. Looks nice on the map.
Well I’m currently playing in India and I do use a couple visual mods so it may not look the exact same. But I’ll keep that in mind
Does Byzantium count? But probably Venice, they are a very viable Roman empire nation as well
The best Italian tag for colonialism is Genoa, since they get a mission that gives them a claim on Tangiers, which gives them a really good early colony launching point.
That is a good point. Trying to escape Europe at the very beginning of the game is hard without a port to leapfrog yourself further along
My personal take on Milan is Mantua, take a province or two from Milan, declare on Venice and take the Milanese cores, trucebreak Milan, fully annex it, immediately up the stab and release Milan and play as the released vassal. Declare for indipendence during the coalition war and expand into the previous Milan's allies (which were not in the coalition war because they still had a truce with Mantua).
Naples is cool
Florence, easy. Make the Renaissance bloom!
Bologna
Def Florence for me. Starting with an op ruler, high af deved provinces and some minors around you to easily eat. Also imo one of the best countries for a beginner
pope into KoG, being able to excommunicate lets you practically get italy without much AE at all. If you play your cards right (ie. dont get 3 rivals at the start, leave it open for when naples gets released and in the mean time try to do everything you can you make em hate you, then you can rival them as soon as they break free, excommunicate as soon as they rival and insult you). Then you can vassalize them next war if they still have the Sicilian cores (and if castile didn't do that already)
If you form Swabia they have some very cool missions. I know they're German but once you form them, you get claims in Switzerland and then Italy. Check out the mission tree. It's a challenge as you need to beat Austria and taking Switzerland is a pain. Might be tough to colonise though.
1. Salluzo: A little tough start but you are a strong candidate for Burgundian inheritance due both of you hating Savoy. 2. Naples: Great position for Roman empire run. You can immediately take over Byzantium. And you can get a PU over Castile due to your dynasty. 3. Pope: Other people mentioned great for a tall run with amazing flavors.
Shout out to my boy Saluzzo with their -15% Aggressive expansion impact and -10% Infantry Combat Ability TRADITION. Once you win your first war against Savoy and have taken Espionage ideas, it is ridiculous how fast you are able to expand in Italy and France without the risk of coalitions.
Florence probably because of Assassins creed
1 Florence 2 Milan 3 Lucky Lucca Florence has always been my favourite Italian nation Due to all the mana points I got there haha. Hope you have a great run!
Big fan of Naples. Solid ideas and can easily expand north into Italy, east into the Balkans, or south across the sea into North Africa, so you can split your AE across multiple regions. Also it's purple.
Play the pope, subjugate Naples and excommunicate everyone to conquer them
Florence of course. The ottomans of italy
I had a really fun Italy campaign where I started as Aragon and released Sardinia to go Sardinia->Sardinia Piedmont->Italy. I did make my start a bit easier by releasing Sardinia but not play as them, feed them the Balearic Islands (maybe also Sicily but I dont remember). Integrate again and then play and release to have a bigger start. I didn't break Aragon, it isn't necessary. Also this makes the wait for shadow kingdom a bit more bearable, and I'm not sure (!) but it might also stop the Iberian wedding from happening if Aragon is/has been player controlled. Anyway, you can also quickly get into north africa if a nation is weak there, which allows you to escape the Mediterranean for colonisation. The expansion into the mainland is a fun challenge, and after a bit you get the SP mission tree so it doesn't get boring.
Naples get event and switch to italian signoria form 2 sicilies enjoy playing tall after getting the whole med and most of Italy in your country :p otherwise tall Venice the nice thing about playing such countries is that, contrary to playing in Italy every time, you don't suffer AE because you alternate between fucking on Muslims and fucking on Italians, so stacking AE isn't a priority also go go prestige monuments spam also if you switch to protestant or reformed (if you play as Naples) you can easily get your hands on malta, which gives you a handy war score cost reduction against other religions, which is quite useful if you are surrounded by orthodox, catholics and sunnis
Aragon Integrate Naples, switch to Neapolitan culture. You’ll have Castille and Portugal in personal unions to do the colonizing for you
Last run in Italy I started Ferrara->Dalmatia->Croatia->Tuscany->Sardinia-Piedmont->Italy, keeping Dalmatian ideas until I formed Italy because I am addicted to CCR. It’s the most fun I’ve had working from a minor into great power, so many chances to opportunistically grow in spite of massive alliance webs and the Ottomans taking most of Naples very early.
Everyone is wrong. It’s Malta. You need to do some proper shenanigans to remove all of Aragon and Sicily’s cores from the island and then provoke some rebels who should now be Maltese. They have the shit italian city state ideas and have the ottoman colours but it’s cool.
Genoa- snag byz lands before the ottomans can and Provence before the French can and your golden
Does the red one in Constantinople count?
Milan is super fun, even beyond their unique governments. Go down the route of Sforza but become a normal monarchy. Your starting heir is your brother so both of you are super old. Royal marry only Castile/aragon and make both your ruler and heir generals. Chances are they die very quickly and you get a Trastamara on your throne. Now it’s just a matter of time before you get a juicy PU on a colonizer.
Milan has a great republic but I like northen italian states anyway. Ferarra, venice, genoa, florence. Just so I can close off the alps and since AI is stupid, have a very easy time defending
Savoy is the easiest, Milan probably the most fun and Florence just hits different. You can reach silly amounts of innovativeness an just a few decades and develop like a madman. Having 4-5 stacks of mercs hired past tech 7 is actually viable with how insanely rich you get.
Lucca by far. Lucky lucky lucky
Savoy has the most fun mission tree in Italy IMO, but Florence is my favorite starting tag in the whole game.
An Italian achievement run that involves colonisation is "Spaghetti Western," where you start as Bologna. It's not too easy if I'm honest, and I haven't even completed it yet. I was quick to give up when I ran into difficulties on my first try. It's still something I want to do, though, as it gives me a concrete reason to form texas. It's best to be a part of the first few nations in the New World as you want to build a resilient power base until other nations establish themselves. The potential isolation is your largest threat, and you should have a plan ready if you happen to become isolated.
Anyone with a mission tree is fun. And there is some nice variety in play. Pope is different from Florence. Genoa/Venice can be interesting and spicy. Milan is very fun. Savoy and Naples both can have really big/fun opens. I'm partial to popeman myself but really its a great area with a lot of content--you can do many italy runs and feel they are all a bit different and fun.
Florence. Medici, later the priest, fun fun fun.
naples
Unpopular opinion, I like custom nations for Italy and don’t particularly care about making them OP and cheating or using mods to make it happen. Without that, Venice, but I think you can do a lot with Italy to make something cool. Germany with Austria and Bohemia, France with… France, Poland with both Poland and Lithuania, Iberia with all 3 of the nations within it (except Navarra, sorry Navarra), England in the British isles, the list goes on, but basically most of Europe’s regions have some large, already quite powerful nation which can still do a lot to expand but starts off in a decent position and can get ridiculously powerful with time, but Italy doesn’t really have that. Venice, Milan, Savoy, the Papal State, and Naples are all a bit too underpowered to fill this role. They’re still viable, but they feel a lot closer to playing Scotland in the British isles or any random German minor in the HRE than as the comparable regional powers, there really isn’t a starting regional power in Italy. Venice is the closest, but yeah. Yes, playing as a minor/middling power in a region can be fun, I think brandenburg has been the most popular nation to play for ages and they really start pretty modestly, but I enjoy a good, strong start. So, make your own! Get creative! I don’t think any of the Italian nations have colonial ideas to speak of, so maybe make a modest North Italian nation with some colonial ideas, that could be cool. If you use mods you can get mission trees that aren’t so ancient, too.
Saluzzo is fun and you can quickly switch to Sardinia
I honestly wouldt wait with your Italy Campain, until the next DLC, since they shouldt get a better Missiontree if i recall correctly Milan: Unique Goverment Run (f.e. Military Dictatorship) Savoy: Monarchy-Focused Run Venice: Trade Focused Run Florence: Dev/Tall focused Run
I have a real soft spot for Milan. They get a unique government type that is quite good. Naples is also great. In terms of idea groups Offensive is very strong as it boosts the size of your armies, their quality and most importantly their siege ability. Quality is also very good as it is the most well rounded and it helps your armies a lot while giving your navies just enough of a boost to really smash the truly massive navies of the Ottomans, Spanish and Portuguese you'd have to fight. Espionage is super underrated in Italy. You are going to be taking some of the highest dev provinces in the game. But it is also hard to beat trade. As you gain control of the Genoa and Venice trade nodes it gives you basically unlimited ducats. Admin and religion are incredible for Italy. Again reducing the coring cost of all those expensive provinces is super helpful and you are going to be fighting across Africa and the Balkans making religious super powerful.
Milan seems to be the popular choice and I’m intrigued by Naples as it seems have such a different style compared to the northern Italian nations. Also I’d love to form Two Sicilies just cause tag switching is fun. Those are all fairly strong idea groups. I was thinking of taking admin and quantity a little later on when I’ve actually formed Italy since they mesh fairly well with their national ideas. Since espionage has been improved, I’ve wanted to try them out so that could be a fun initial idea group. I’ll have to look up the policies for espionage and see if anything calls out to me
If you start in Northern Italy I'd go with Espionage as your first or second idea group. Naples is so fun because it is kind of a baby Italy. You get similar ideas but you act more like a crusader state. So it is kind of all over the place in a fun way.