What was Italy doing in this period?

[Dayve]

Will there be an Italian faction? I know Italy were very good on the battlefield during the middle ages, masters of crossbowery, cavalry and superior quality heavy armour, but what at the dawn of gunpowder, and especially from 1700-1800?

Was Italy a united peninsula? What faction will most likely be the dominant one in Italy at the start of the game, if there is any at all, and the main question...

Will a re-creation of the Roman empire be feasible, what with the emphasis on money making being on other continents?

[Fondor_Yards]

Will there be an Italian faction? I know Italy were very good on the battlefield during the middle ages, masters of crossbowery, cavalry and superior quality heavy armour, but what at the dawn of gunpowder, and especially from 1700-1800?

Was Italy a united peninsula? What faction will most likely be the dominant one in Italy at the start of the game, if there is any at all, and the main question...

Will a re-creation of the Roman empire be feasible, what with the emphasis on money making being on other continents?

1. No it wasn't.

2. Spain.

3. If you mean taking all the land the roman empire had with an italian faction, then I suppose yes.

[Mailman653]

If I'm not mistakend, it was in this era that Italy unified and effectively eliminated the Papacy as the dominant force in Rome pushed them into what's now called the Holy See (Vatican city).

[Incitatus]

The unification of Italy didn't come until 1860. During the 1700s the Italian peninsula was divided into many small regions/principalities, with some bits controlled by larger empires.

[A Very Super Market]

Italy was basically a Catholic version of Germany, so to speak

[Sheogorath]

The Italian's spent most of their time squabbling with each other in this period, more or less ignoring and ignored by everybody else. The only exception was Venice which the Austrians annexed shortly prior to the Napoleonic Wars.

Interesting bit of trivia, Venice was (prior to its annexation) the oldest state (government, technically speaking) in the world, at 1,100 years, exactly.

Pretty amazing, really. Kind of a dick move to annex them on their uh...undecatennial...something like that.

[Polemists]

The only exception was Venice which the Austrians annexed shortly prior to the Napoleonic Wars.

Clearly the Austrians of that time frame were well versed in total war literature to know that Venice and Milan are not to be trusted.

When I play Austria Italian states are first to go

[knoddy]

Clearly the Austrians of that time frame were well versed in total war literature to know that Venice and Milan are not to be trusted.

When I play Austria Italian states are first to go

/waits for polemists to get betrayed and zerged by rebel milan with armies of genouse xbow men :P

[Dead Guy]

/waits for a mod that replaces the voices of genoese crossbowmen with zergling screams

Italy was composed of smaller states during the period iirc

[ArtillerySmoke]

1. No it wasn't.

2. Spain.

3. If you mean taking all the land the roman empire had with an italian faction, then I suppose yes.

Spain, really?

[Sir Beane]

Italy was many factions (as has been said) here's a list:

1> Spain - Held a lot of territory to the South and North
2> The Papal States - Stuck in the middle
3> Genoa - Based around the city of Genoa
4> Tuscany - South of Genoa and North of the Papal States
5> Venice - Very similar to the lands they held in Med 2
6> Duchy of Savoy - North West and Part of France

There are more small states but I couldn't find a map detailed enough to list them. Here's the map I used. http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1700.html

[ArtillerySmoke]

Italy was many factions (as has been said) here's a list:

1> Spain - Held a lot of territory to the South and North
2> The Papal States - Stuck in the middle
3> Genoa - Based around the city of Genoa
4> Tuscany - South of Genoa and North of the Papal States
5> Venice - Very similar to the lands they held in Med 2
6> Duchy of Savoy - North West and Part of France

There are more small states but I couldn't find a map detailed enough to list them. Here's the map I used. http://www.euratlas.com/history_europe/europe_map_1700.html

Cool link...I'm going to look into it shortly.

I just didn't realize that Spain would start the game with holdings on the Italian peninsula. That's pretty interesting.

edit: I just looked at that map. Wow. Western Europe is SOME hotbed of contention there. Spanish holdings in Italy really up the ante too. My French campaign that I start should be really interesting. For those playing as Austria first, good luck with the Ottoman's lol.

[Sir Beane]

Cool link...I'm going to look into it shortly.

I just didn't realize that Spain would start the game with holdings on the Italian peninsula. That's pretty interesting.

They also own the are where Belgium and the Netherland are today, as well as most of the small Mediteranean islands. Spain probably has the most provinces in Empire at the start as it also owns a lot of land in South America, North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

They should be a very interesting faction to play as having both a strong continental and a strong colonial presence.

I wonder if Italy might be an emergent faction? Greece is, and so are Scotland and Mexico so it seems possible that other Countries might be able to emerge (here's hoping for Cananda ).

[Fisherking]

What was Italy doing during this time period?

Working on their culinary arts! They got tomatoes!

[Sir Beane]

What was Italy doing during this time period?

Working on their culinary arts! They got tomatoes!

The Italian tech tree will be based around pasta recipes, pizza and fancy ice cream.

[CBR]

If CA follows history just a bit then Savoy (later called Kingdom of Sardinia) would be the Prussia of the Italian peninsula. It had a good army and took part in several of the major wars.


CBR

[Polemists]

3> Genoa - Based around the city of Genoa

Mount up the troops...

We only have one week to prepare for the.....crossbow legions...

[Sir Beane]

Mount up the troops...

We only have one week to prepare for the.....crossbow legions...

Luckily for everyone I don't think they are in the game .

[ArtillerySmoke]

They also own the are where Belgium and the Netherland are today, as well as most of the small Mediteranean islands. Spain probably has the most provinces in Empire at the start as it also owns a lot of land in South America, North America, Central America and the Caribbean.

They should be a very interesting faction to play as having both a strong continental and a strong colonial presence.

I wonder if Italy might be an emergent faction? Greece is, and so are Scotland and Mexico so it seems possible that other Countries might be able to emerge (here's hoping for Cananda ).

Yeah it sounds like playing as Spain would be a really diverse and event filled campaign.

It will be interesting to see if Spain can typically be the dominant Western power in most games. All I know is that I definitely see a power struggle for Naval presence between France and Spain setting up early.

edit: Looking over that map further, from a French perspective, the Spanish holdings in Belgium and the Netherlands have to go. I'm not allowing an Imperial Spain to sit on both sides of me like that. Do we know for certain that, in the game, Spain starts out holding Belgium?

[A Very Super Market]

Historically, the French and Spanish allied with each other (Pre-revolution, obviously), mostly because such a huge war between superpowers would weaken each other considerably. Lets see how the campaign AI solves that conundrum...

[Beskar]

Spain, a hundred years earlier was the Super Power, in league the same league as America is today, in the World.

They sent a large armada against the British, ruled by Elizabeth the first and ended up thoroughly trashed.

The amazing thing is, you want to know why? Britain was 50years ahead in Naval warfare. Unlike the other powers, the British perfected the skill of caste made cannons, thus, they had uniform cannon sets on the ships allowing them to blow apart the armada. In the olden days, in the example of Henry the 8's Tutor Rose which was very modern in it's time frame, every cannon made was different and all requiring a different ball of ammunition, which led to very long reload times trying to find the right one, and unable to fire a cannon when they all went, etc, thus the majority of the fighting occurred on the deck of the ship in hand-to-hand, thus land warfare on the Ocean as it were.

[ArtillerySmoke]

Historically, the French and Spanish allied with each other (Pre-revolution, obviously), mostly because such a huge war between superpowers would weaken each other considerably. Lets see how the campaign AI solves that conundrum...

That's a good point. When both factions are under AI control, let's see where things go.

Still, from a standpoint where either faction is controlled by the player, I don't see war being avoided often. You're right, it's a huge war. But as a player controlling France, if you want to expand anywhere really other than overseas, you're going to be at odds with Spain.

It's definitely a mess though. During that war you'd have to watch to the East for Germany/Prussia and Austria, and to the north for Great Britain which is definitely a powerhouse w/ the protectorate colonies.

Our first campaigns should definitely be interesting.

Of course as France you could just sit back and make alliances with Spain and or GB and then focus your efforts entirely on moving east through Europe. As said, shall be interesting

[Greyblades]

This is from a nother thread but i think this (if correct that is) quite nicely explains the predicament that the french were in at the time.
IE: I realy dont want to type out this much for a second time when this is easier.

This is from what I understand from intercontinental politics and warfare of the 18th century (which for some reason my history class missed so I am probably wrong.)

!Warning long sentance ahead!
On the french side of things their AI wont be the rampaging superpower taking over the world because they know that if they even thought of taking over anything larger than a small island outside of defending an ally that was attacked, in Europe anyway, they would have Britain(definitely), Portugal(if persuaded by Britain which would have been a certainty), Spain, maybe Denmark, Norway and/or Sweden, some german city states and some northern Italian factions come crashing down on them using Frances agression as an excuse to grab precious land.

Sorry that should be "To join in with their allies to put down an agressive Enemy that had full intention of selfishly taking over the world and them with it"

Well thats my anyway.

Edit: Ok it didnt copy out as well as I thought so here is just the french side of the post.

Edit 2: ooh 100th post!

[Noddy The Beefy Egg]

Italy was basically a Catholic version of Germany, so to speak

no. That's Barvaria

[Sheogorath]

Spain, a hundred years earlier was the Super Power, in league the same league as America is today, in the World.

They sent a large armada against the British, ruled by Elizabeth the first and ended up thoroughly trashed.

The amazing thing is, you want to know why? Britain was 50years ahead in Naval warfare. Unlike the other powers, the British perfected the skill of caste made cannons, thus, they had uniform cannon sets on the ships allowing them to blow apart the armada. In the olden days, in the example of Henry the 8's Tutor Rose which was very modern in it's time frame, every cannon made was different and all requiring a different ball of ammunition, which led to very long reload times trying to find the right one, and unable to fire a cannon when they all went, etc, thus the majority of the fighting occurred on the deck of the ship in hand-to-hand, thus land warfare on the Ocean as it were.

Although, rather amusingly, the weather ended up doing more damage to the Spanish than the Brits.

So in the end, in terms of ships sunk, the score looks something like this:

British: 5
Spanish: 8
Weather: About 60

Let's also not forget that the British had numerical superiority, something which is unaccountably not mentioned so very often. Funny that.

Yet more amusing is the sudden appearance of black haired Irishmen a year or so after the battle

[A Very Super Market]

Bah, its a rounded out analogy. I mean lots of little states fighting, plus a few big ones.

[Malkut]

It also means revenge against the Northren Italians!

"THIS IS FOR THE CROSSBOW MILITIA HORDES!"

[lars573]

Spain, really?

It's quite complicated as only the swapping of royal territory can be. But essentailly the last King of Sicily died in 1295. And his closest male heir was the King of Aragon. Who proceded to become King of Sicily, Naples, and Sardinia. These were then inherited by the Habsburg Kings of Spain. As were the Habsburg lands of Milan and what we call Belgium (in those days it was called the Spainish Netherlands). In 1700 some where between a third and half of Italy was ruled by the Spainish King. In the 15th and 16th centuries (before the 30 years war) Spain was the hyper power of europe. There is a reason some historian liken the victory of England over the Spainish armada to Castro and Cuba beating the US.
http://home.zonnet.nl/gerardvonhebel/1648.htm

edit: Looking over that map further, from a French perspective, the Spanish holdings in Belgium and the Netherlands have to go. I'm not allowing an Imperial Spain to sit on both sides of me like that. Do we know for certain that, in the game, Spain starts out holding Belgium?

They do. CA did a good job of replicating Europe in 1700. But if they replicate the war of Spainish succession, Spain will lose all those lands. Belgium and Milan go to Austria, Sardinia to the Duchy of Savoy, and Sicily and Naples combine into a single state.

[andrewt]

Basically, a family living somewhere in Germany/Switzerland (Hapsburg) managed to marry their way to inheriting Austria. They also got elected as HRE emperor due to their influence. Eventually, they managed to marry their way to inheriting a newly unified Spain, the low countries, huge parts of Italy and some lands in southern France, I believe.

The Spanish branch, because of interbreeding, died out at the start of the game. The last Spanish king in the line had almost all the negative stereotypical traits associated with inbreds. The Austrian line died out near the end of the game.

[MadKow]

Although, rather amusingly, the weather ended up doing more damage to the Spanish than the Brits.

So in the end, in terms of ships sunk, the score looks something like this:

British: 5
Spanish: 8
Weather: About 60

Let's also not forget that the British had numerical superiority, something which is unaccountably not mentioned so very often. Funny that.

Yet more amusing is the sudden appearance of black haired Irishmen a year or so after the battle

I read somewhere potatoes too.
(not black haired potatoes, just potatoes arriving to Ireland after the defeat of the Great Armada)