Italy

Primary culture

Lombard (Latin)

Capital province

Roma (118)

Government

Feudal Nobility

State religion

Catholic

Technology group

Western

Italian ideas

Traditions:

+20% Global trade power

+50% Improve relations

Not a Geographical Construct

−10% Stability cost modifier

The Tradition of the Legion

+15% Infantry combat ability

Mare Nostrum

−15% Galley cost

+20% Galley combat ability

The Office of Censor

+33% National manpower modifier

Italian Tax Reform

+15% National tax modifier

Heir to the Empire

+1 Yearly prestige

The Path to Citizenship

−25% Core-creation cost

Ambition:

+20% Fort defense

For the region, see Italy (region).

Italy is one of the formable countries that can be formed by any country with a Latin culture group. Unlike other Catholic countries, Italy does not get a penalty for owning the province of Roma or being the overlord of the Papal States.

Missions[edit]

Main article: Italian missions

Formation[edit]

id

Form Italian Nation

As the heart of the Renaissance, our nation is blossoming culturally. We have just entered the beginning of what looks like a prolonged artistic rebellion, especially in the field of architecture and literature. The cultural evolution is not aiding our country in maintaining peace within our borders however. Our country is continuously stricken by foreign states seeking power and territorial gain.

Potential requirements

Italy does not exist.

The country:

was never an end-game tag.
has a primary culture in the Latin culture group.
is not a colonial nation.

If the country is AI-controlled then it:

can not be a former colonial nation.
must own at least 15 cities.
can not be a custom nation.

Allow

The country:

has an administrative technology of at least level 10.
is not a subject nation other than a tributary state.
is not at war.
owns at least 20 core provinces in Italy (region) including
- Genoa (101), Milan (104), Firenze (116) and Roma (118).

Effects

If the country:

is a member of the Holy Roman Empire but not the emperor or an elector then:
- all its provinces are removed from the HRE.
- the emperor gets the event ‘Italy breaks out of the Empire’.
- the emperor gets the opinion modifier ‘Left the Holy Roman Empire’ towards the country, worth −150 opinion with a yearly decay of 1.

The country:

becomes Italy.
moves its capital to Roma (118).
gets a permanent claim on every province in Italy (region) that it does not own.
gains 25 prestige.
obtains new missions (which are Italian missions).

If Italy:

is a duchy then
- it becomes a kingdom.
does not have custom ideas then
- it gets the event ‘New Traditions & Ambitions’.

Provinces in red are required to be owned and cored to form Italy. The provinces of colour mark the Italian region.

Strategy[edit]

The below is one of many player suggested strategies for Italy. Bear in mind, due to the dynamic nature of the game, it may unfold differently for other players.

Theoretically, Aragon could also form Italy after integrating Naples and culture shifting. The Holy Roman Empire and the Papal State can't form Italy.

Any nation on the Italian peninsula is a viable option for forming Italy. The most powerful states which hold provinces necessary to form Italy in 1444 are Florence, which can easily form Tuscany and expand from there; Milan, which begins the game with among the highest-developed provinces in Europe and can soon adopt the unique Ambrosian Republic government reform or semi-unique Military Dictatorship reform through the Golden Ambrosian Republic disaster, and Venice and Genoa, two powerful merchant republics in northern Italy with holdings elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Naples starts off in a personal union under Aragon, but can quickly make powerful allies, reclaim its independence and its Sicilian cores, and find itself the most powerful force on the peninsula. Savoy is also an option, with the potential to ally France and gain a power base in the Genoa trade node before forming Sardinia-Piedmont and, as in history, going on to unify the peninsula. With the Emperor [1.30] Update, Savoy also has access to arguably the best mission tree on the peninsula, potentially allowing a shrewd Savoy player to gain a permanent +5% Administrative Efficiency and +10% Goods Produced, a bonus also kept when forming Italy.

Italy is a very strong nation. Positioned to dominate both the Genoa and Venetian trade nodes, a powerful Italy with even a modest trade fleet is poised to completely control 2 of the top three earning nodes in the early game. The English node only outstrips Genoa once fully fledged colonial nations come online, and the severe lack of Chinese merchants always neuters the Beijing node.

To top off this incredible mercantile power, Italy has a ridiculous concentration of high development provinces. If the player can leverage their early game into a monarch point lead, they will soon have a foot hold in France, Tunisia, and the Balkans. With Infantry combat ability on land, and the generous Galley power at sea, Italian ideas are more than modestly equipped with fighting prowess.

Italian blobbing ability is also nothing to be scoffed at, with the prized Core-Creation Cost Reduction and the little seen Improve Relations modifier. This latter seemingly innocuous tradition is by no means useless - Improve Relations modifiers are the only way to increase the speed at which Aggressive Expansion decays.

With the complete development of the Italian region, it will take relatively little expansion after formation to meet the 1000 development requirement for Empire. While the culture bonuses will be unlikely to benefit coring, as the Italian Peninsula will likely have been united long before Empire status, such rapidity at upgrading to Empire will open up the culture spots for future expansion and coring - a not inconsiderable benefit.

If these benefits were not enough to amaze, one only need compare the Italian concentration of development to the wide steppe plains. That is, the ease of travel from province to province, and the constant option to transport by water, allows for both quick repositioning for wars on multiple fronts, and also neutralizes much of the hassle of rebels.