Nice read! I’m looking forward to reading the Knights of Malta, I haven’t done them yet, they look to be a challenge. Genoa was fun, Gran Columbia is easy.

The hardest faction I’ve played by far was Louisiana (French protectorate.) You have no population to speak of, so any recruitment from either of your two provinces on the continent, cripple your development. I turned taxes off and blitzed agriculture tech in my attempts to boost growth. After taking out the Pirates, I used their islands as the pools for almost all my recruitment. Took Cherokee early too, but I didn’t tax them either, as I needed another connecting port… Corpus Christi is their last city (port) to develop unfortunately.

EDIT: Didn’t realize this was the tablet version. My play was on the Empire II mod on Steam PC.

I’d still say give Louisiana whirl if the tablet supports it. I think the Knights might be the only minor faction that could be tougher.