How I plan to use Spain

(Or, "How To Conquer the World, Starting with Spain")

(Or, "The Importance of Spain in Empires In Arms")

(I even have them numbered)
1. Get alliances w/ Prussia & Turkey, and make statements that no one should push the little guys around, unless they have good reasons.

2. Make a secret concordat with France to the effect that as soon as France beats Austria and Spain gobbles up her minor countries the two of you will attempt a naval invasion of England. (Huzzah!)

3. In return for this, France will agree to several things:
   1. backing your claims (and laying off) minor countries you plan to invade yourself (which I'll list later)
   2. Acquiring for and ceding to you Lombardy, Venetia, and the Illyrian province (where Da-bo failed I will succeed)
   3. Seizing Malta from the British

   This is a lot to ask, but so is me going to war with England, so I feel it is an even trade.

4. Now, as for territory Spain needs to sieze for itself, in my list is: Naples & Sicily, Papacy, Portugal, Morocco, Algeria, and ALL of Scandinavia, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland.

   This is an awful lot of stuff, I know, but it can be done if I am politically able. Part of the treaty with France is that they recognize my claims and back me for all of these. If England tries to intervene, I threaten them by saying I will side with France against them (which I plan to do anyway, but they don't know that). Turkey I can bully with my big fleet versus their tiny fleet, and hopefully get them to agree to keep Russia out of the Med by this same technique. I also back their claims to all the rest of North Africa, which gives them the Ottoman Empire so they should be happy. The Germanies can't really reach this territory if I hurry, and Russia too should be frozen in the Baltic. The most important thing though, is that I declare war (especially on Sweden and Denmark) without telling anyone and before anyone else. If someone else happens to do so on the same turn, I go to political means to get them to back down. Spain can reach all these territories (except for Sweden) in one month of fleet sailing, so if I attack lightning fast and use some wily political methods, I'll be able to get most of this.

5. The biggest problem with this is that Spain only has 40 army factors and three fleet counters to start the game, so I'll have to go for the minors that are more out of my league first, and then fight the ones that are clearly in my sphere of influence later, like Portugal and Morocco, and hope nobody has grabbed them.

6. On the world scence, I protect Prussia and Turkey politically, and Encourage a French vs. British/Austrian/Russian war. Once everything is in place, with all the minor fleets I've nabbed, France and I put together the monster armada (140 ships or so) and invade Britain to force them to unconditional surrender. At the same time, I sieze the Rock of Gibraltar with land and sea forces. Because France is constrained by the rules to request certain peace terms, I'm free to get Ireland, Scotland and Wales from England, along with scuttling 2 fleets and removing the Nelson leader. I plan to return Scotland and Wales, but not before England loses her dominance. Also, after siezing Gibraltar, I can declare the Kingdom of Italy and get to be dominant myself.

7. By this time the enforced peaces between France & enemies should be expiring, so I encourage everyone to attack France, because its such a big threat (which it is, I just neglected to mention that before). I hope to not have to join in myself, but I just might. I also encourage Prussia to grab what it needs for dominance in this war.

NB: After all this I'll be a big naval juggernaut; unopposed on the seas and maybe I'll have built up a bit of a (high quality) army too. So I should be able to protect what I so audaciously grabbed in the beginning of the game.

Those're my plans for world dominance.