It's not the size, it's what you do with it....

....when it comes to countries.

Would anyone agree/disagree?

I generally prefer large, but have just started a (for all intents and purposes) small position in one of the games. I'd love to hear the views of those players who play small positions, and especially any players that only ever choose small ones.

There are many benefits and disadvantages, but I think it would depend on what you want to achieve. Venice would never single handedly bring down the Turks, and Scotland would fare pretty badly in a head to head with England. But when it comes to, introducing universal education or a new system of canals Chinese Provinces and Russia would be at a loss to raise the funds.

Obviously income and recruits will be an issue more than once for a small position, but the obvious answer their is to 'buddy-up' with a powerful neighbour, provided you can strike a deal.

I'd love to see what people think, or what they have experienced from playing the little ones (Scotland, Venice, Milan etc).

I play the papal states in game 3, and it is an interesting position because of the role as the head of the Roman church. Your objectives aren't territorial, but more nuanced.

I think the big positions typically seem to be mostly about the war game aspect of the game. The smaller positions give you a wider variety of objectives at the cost that you're not a 'power'.

I don't think I'd really want to play one of the large positions because the wargame aspect of the game doesn't interest me as much.

I tend to prefer smaller nations though I have played a mix of sizes (from Denmark to Russia). I agree with Deacon that being smaller does give some more interesting options.

Now one of the nations I want to play one day is Scotland...one day

The small nations have the same desire as the large ones at the beginning generally and that is to build up ones economic base. Then everything diverges as the large countries have lots more recruits whilst smaller ones have very few so investment is initially fianncial fro smaller ones whilst larger can use recruits and finance.
Smaller countries have lots of problems but they have some advantages as it is amazing how wanted they can be by larger nations especially for alliances and then you can gain technological advances etc.
I am currently still a small state even though Ive doubled in size!!! Game 7
Maximilian Emanuel von Wittlesbach

I imagine there's the ego issue as well. As a small nation, you can't feel too bad if you get beat up. If you face plant as one of the big nations, you have nobody to blame but yourself!

Jason wrote:Now one of the nations I want to play one day is Scotland...one day

Why so?

smaller nations bring a harder challange than large ones in terms of money, planning, recruits investments etc. Rewards are not big, but as i always say, set a goal or two for it and try and acheive it.

albreda wrote:

Jason wrote:Now one of the nations I want to play one day is Scotland...one day

Why so?

I think it would interesting to see if it could work as a partnership role with England or (if necessary) be the backdoor if England was hostile. Also, for me, it could be a good candidate to see if I could make a small nation an innovation centre I think it could offer some interesting challenges to defend, small population but a reasonable sized territory. Generally, to me seems an interesting challenge

and, yes, also, I just have silly ideas, like building up a whisky industry

There is nothing, my friend, silly about good whisky!

Deacon wrote:
There is nothing, my friend, silly about good whisky!

As I'm proving right now