Playing Spain on Monarch
Start up:
Looking over the situation for Spain, I see quite a bit of power and a lot of choices (too many choices of course). I figure that the League can hold ok against the French for awhile. From everything I have seen, the Irish need no help kicking the English out, so they don't need any help. That really leaves what to do about the English and the Pirates to the south.
The pirates have a pretty big starting navy (23 ships) and will produce more and basically have nothing to do but be a pain in the butt to the Spanish the entire game unless they are dealt with. I figure if I can hold pretty much every place else while wiping them from the face of the map, this would turn the Med into my lake and remove the threat of direct amphibious invasion along a lot of my long coast line and also allow me to ship troops from Barcelona to assist the League. This will also release my entire navy to go fight with the Dutch and English along with making the American route more secure.
As I stated in an earlier post, city worker manipulation is going to be a huge key to success. Spain has a ton of corruption and war weariness to deal with, so they don't necessarily want to be rush building (uses population with even more bad results). Incoming cash and getting science done is problimatic as well. The solution is to use a balance of police, civil engineers, tax collectors and scientists as they are not affected by corruption. After making all my adjustments, I am running a single digit deficeit and will get Regimental Org in 9 turns. I plan to get that and then go for some seaborne stuff to help with the fight at sea. I figure my Tercos are the best unit already, so they won't need much help. I also elect to work on some happiness improvements for some of the larger cities to help get more population in play as scientists and tax types. My settings are +10% on the happiness scale and 20% on the science scale.
I open the game by wiping out the Dutch resistance fighters around me in Belgium and also make progress against the rebel units in Spain. I move the Western Spanish fleet south. Basically, the next several turns are spent duking it out at sea with the Maghrib navy and he tries to make a amphib landing or two. The English starting ships come in and fortunately, I have enough concentration of firepower to sink all three of them. Glad to scrape the seas with them. The initial attacks of the Dutch are beaten off. Irish forces overrun the Brits as usual. One thing I start doing with my artillery in Belgium is trying to destroy Dutch improvements along the border. Hopefully, this will allow me to concentrate troops in a fire brigade fashion to reduce my attrition as he just can't come right up to the border and attack me right off the bat. It will take awhile I can see.
The French Fleet in the Med survives the attacks of the League ships and starts to head south to go home.. and is promptly attacked and sunk by the pirates. I then happily move in and sink the pirate ships. The English also run a ship or two in to sink the pirate ships at sea and I kill some of those. These are new construction ships, so I am glad to get rid of them. No cheap navy for the English!
It is now turn 12. I have taken 2 of the Magreb cities and I am poised to take another soon. The back of his navy has been broken for the most part and he seems to be building Cav for the most part to attack my cities in North Africa. The Germans declared war on me a couple turns ago and attacked and wiped a city between Liege and Trier. If it was not for this fact, I would be doing more against Holland as I have bled his army dry (took a lot of losses in the process too) and that area would be really stable. Right now, I don't know that I can deal with both Holland and the Germans and hope the Germans will give me a peace soon. In the French war, the League has lost two cities so far. The French have helped their English allies by taking a Irish town on the west coast. Scotland has jumped on the English side as well (big suprise since the AI is involved) and there is a international fleet by Kinsale (4 English transports, 3 Scottish transports and a Dutch transport). I have gotten 1 gold shipment in from the Americas.
Current economy is chugging along. I get 449 income. 64 to science, 18 to entertainment, 178 to corruption, 212 to maintenance.
Current military is 8 workers, 20 pikemen, 29 muskets, 19 Crracks, 6 Terco's (lost one in NA due to bad luck with the RNG), 2 pikes (upgraded 2 pikemen), 5 war galleon, 3 heavy galleass, 37 milita, 3 treasure, 3 riders, 5 bombard, 4 costal artillery, 1 defense unit, and 1 Landsknecht. As you can see, my navy has taken a beating, but I will get to produce war galleons in 6 turns and have a bunch of ports busy with shipping. With most of the Magreb Navy off the seas, my losses should be a bit better at least for now.
Current VP are Catholic League 10245, Protestants 7480.
My comment is I will be more than happy when the Germans are "fixed"