Merging Nations

So I'm in the process of trying to rationalize the governments of portugal and spain in game 8. Much of what richard tells me makes perfect sense, but he keeps coming up that I need to devalue a currency at a cost of more than 50M pounds (or alternatively I can just destroy the economy of portugal if I prefer!). I've suggested just leaving both currencies in circulation and making them both legal tender and he says ok, and then he tells me this again (that I need to pay a ton to rationalize the currencies).

Unless I'm really mistaken, the value of the integration from a gameplay standpoint isn't even 1/10th the cost he's proposing, so game balance wise it seems all out of whack, and I'd think I could just define one currency as fixed relation to the other (ie one is 2x the value of the other), and stop minting one and mint more of the other and just let time take its course, but he hit me with a >5M a year cost do do this for 10 years.

Does anybody else have experience with this? someone who dealt with the acts of union or another person who had a similar issue?

The costs I keep getting quoted no matter what I propose seem so ludicrous I'm wondering what I'm not getting?

It's a bit frustrating because I just don't get why it needs to cost so much to do an economic union.

Any insight welcome, or you can just laugh at my travails.

I think he may be trying to prevent you from doing it. In most games Spain and Portugal have an attempted joining only for years later and a new player for it to go its separate way again.

Yeah, I was wondering if that might be it. Certainly it is the consequence of the price he's quoting.

In actual fact in 1700 "Spain" was not one Kingdom it was several ie Aragon, Castille, Naples etc all had their own Laws and seperate Cortez etc.

This was also the case when the Crown of Portugal passed to Phillip II who was already King of Castille etc.

The different Crowns can be worn by the same person but if you try and abolish "local freedoms" and rule in the French style I would expect your honour to crash and possible revolts in Portugal, Catolonia etc

The in-game issue is more that there are two separate treasuries, and inventions don't share back and forth across the two nations. It isn't that big an issue to manage both as they are in game, but merging them so you had one treasury, and inventions applied across both nations would be a convenience.

It may be an idea to continue running them as 2 "separate" states, just organise a patrol to move all the treasury contains to your main position. It would keep the Nobles of the minor partner happy, as they would see the monies still going to their administration. you can then re-mint the currency if you wish or spend it on Portugal without the problem of revaluing. I take it as Spain/Portugal you have a certain amount of Bullion so you can mint that into your currency of choice. You could also try to introduce a law to allow both currencies to be used in both countries at a set exchange rate. That way you would enable a degree of independence for both positions at later date. Just ideas, not actually tried them myself when I merged Prussia & Bavaria, I introduced a new currency by revaluing from 20:1 to 5:1 with regards to the pound sterling. can't remember how much it cost but it was no where near what you have quoted in your post.

revaluing the money is harsh and takes a few years to get over unless you have a large income, I would make portugal a puppet state paying you a tribute every year of so much plus they have ti support any war etc.

Maybe send missions from one country to the other to spread your knowledge & discoveries, also would allow any special build units to be transferred. If you set up one kingdom as the main one with all the government facilities & have the second pay a yearly tribute to your treasury would that be a viable solution?

remember you are shrinking the available positions in the game and hence Richards income  

Oh that's something to think about Kingmaker sounds like a recipe for instant insurrection on unification.

One Grain. 

Well, this thread has given me some ideas on how to manage it without spending the crazy money, so I'll see how it goes and report back in 6 months or a year.