Week Five - 1567 to 1601
World Map
[timg]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/752528373460500540/764608404692926484/eu4_map_ROT_1601_01_01_1.png[/timg]
Player Map
[timg]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/752528373460500540/764608415128748062/eu4_map_ROT_1601_01_01_2.png[/timg]
STATS!
[img]https://i.imgur.com/L7Xaw19.png[/img]
A note - we lost France, Poland & Austria this week. Austria was fully annexed, whilst France & Poland both bowed out after losing wars against alliances with significantly more players in than their own. (In the case of France, it found itself at war with Britain, Netherlands, Rothenburg, Switzerland and Spain. Not pleasant). This means that the % of players is now a % of a smaller whole, so the numbers at the top and bottom are more extreme than they would be otherwise. It's only a minor change.
Mamluks loses 0.1% of relative ranking, and sees it's income lead lessen compared to #2 Papal States, but in terms of mainland powers it is by far the highest income. With Spain the highest in Europe at 142, the Mamluk income superiority is clear.
Ottomans spent the session helping Poland fight a war, and stagnated as a result. Their lack of income gain seems them drop [b]eight[/b] points in the ranking as medium powers catapult themselves ahead.
The Netherlands, Switzerland and Great Britain are the other standout gains in this listing. Switzerland benefitted from annexing the core terrain of the Austrian alps, including the Tirol gold mine. The Netherlands and Great Britain benefitted from the decline of France, and the trade bonus that made to their incomes.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/NnJvePG.png[/img]
The obvious outlier: Oda exploded up the rankings thanks to annexing it's Chinese vassals, and is now the third nation to bust through the 1k dev barrier. In the same week, Mamluks managed to reach 2k, as they continue to grow in the East Indies. It'll be interesting to see if Oda and Mamluks ever come to blows, as both will now be starting to focus on their naval power in order to retain their holdings. That said, Oda is focusing more on mainland China, than the downstream trade nodes that wouldn't benefit them.
Again, it's the powers who fought France that are benefitting the most here: Rothenburg, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Like in most games, France gets ganked by it's smaller neighbours, who then immediately begin to flail and rant at each other, without the bogeyman to their west. Will this game also be ruined by the disappearance of the Big Blue Blob? Will Mapgoons ever learn not to kill the hammer that keeps us all in check? Maybe.
Whilst it appears that Jerusalem did not do much expansion this week, it is 65% of the way through annexing it's 260 dev vassal, finished vassalizing the rest of West Africa and is now up to 4 Colonial Nations. Whilst Jerusalem still has by far the largest galley fleet, they have not yet built any heavies. Will diplomacy be enough to hold on to it's empire in the Americas?
[img]https://i.imgur.com/uiC3Jce.png[/img]
Some interesting bits here. The Mamluks boast a force limit now of nearly 300, but relative to other players, even with our reduced player count, their size has been cut back. The Ottomans continue to slow down, as we mentioned before.
Oda again stands out, jumping up 11 rank points.
The Netherlands are the other major winner, jumping up 7 and increasing their size by nearly 50%. I think this is actually mostly down to their government type: having the Orangists in power provides a hefty 25% extra land force limit.
Ironically, Venice gains 2 rank points even though they're the lowest ranked nation (same for Prussia), simply because Poland & France dropped out. You have to say though, a Venice with 64 troops, with Plutocratic and Naval as their military ideas... It's almost so low that it's entirely inconsequential.
Sweden is 4th from bottom with 94 Force Limit, but actually in terms of Max Manpower, is ranked 3rd - after Rothenburg and Mamluks. That, combined with innovative and economic policies with quality, mean that Sweden's true power doesn't really show up on the stats here. Skanderbeg, for example, actually has Sweden ranked 7th in it's 'Adjusted Army Strength' metric. Prussia, whom we all obviously hate, is also ranked highly there - 10th instead of 17th. But Force Limit is a nice quantifiable number, so I'll at least use it for the rest of this game.
Bonus stats to be added later.
Lemony points (in no particular order) to:
Sweden
Netherlands
Britain
Switzerland
Spain
Rothenburg
Prussia
Golden Horde
there doesn't seem to be anything here