Jan Mayen

Jan Mayen
Government type	HM's Government
Ruling party	Venstre (Liberal)
Capital	Jan Mayen
Population	15
Primary culture	Norwegian
Accepted cultures	Swedish, Polar Bear (no joke)
Religion	protestant
Literacy	80%
National value	Liberty
Tech school	Traditional Academia
Status	Civilized

An independent Jan Mayen. Notice that the POPs are Polar Bears.

Jan Mayen is a small Island state north of and part of modern Norway. In beginning of the game it is owned by Sweden. The traditional method of playing as Jan Mayen is to begin the game as Sweden, then to release Jan Mayen and choose Play As. This is normally exceedingly difficult, as Jan Mayen has an adult male population of 15 individuals in 1836, all of whom are farmers. In a normal game, the population will decrease to the 10 minimum and won't recover.

A unique decision allows Jan Mayen to be ruled by the rightful rulers of Europe: the polar bears. With the beta patch 3.04, there are Polar Bear POPs in the game, so Jan Mayen's armies will be led to victory by hat-wearing bears with names such as Grrrr and Rawrorr.

The nation and decision is clearly an easter egg.

Strategy (1836 Sweden release start)

A special decision The Polar Bear Purchase grants you control over Iceland and Greenland (and with the beta patch 3.04, makes your primary culture Polar Bear). To take it, you need to be a Secondary Power. Since you have no armies or industry and no hope of getting any, the only way to do this is to rush prestige-granting techs. Luckily your literacy is very high, although you have no clergy at all. A good tech order is Romanticism, stockpiling tech until 1840 for Idealism, then Realism. Make sure to not neglect the Economic Thought and Critique chain of Commerce technology, which also unlock a lot of prestige-granting inventions.

Once you embrace polar bear rule, your population will jump from 10 to about 20,000, still much too low to have any economy or army, although you can finally get clergy. In Addition it grants the second state, that is required to be a great power. With a heavy focus on prestige and some luck, you can become a Great Power by around 1860. In addition to everything that can possibly grant prestige (note that some of the Aesthetics inventions require other Culture techs to have a positive chance of discovery), work on the Market Functionality chain to improve your diplomatic potential once you attain GP status.

Your new stature opens up two possibilities. You can sphere some middling European power ( Two Sicilies and Spain are good options), form an alliance (you will likely need to boost relations for them to accept), then use their support to conquer an uncivilized nation and give you enough of an economic and population base to raise an army. You can also try to form Scandinavia. This will require tricky competition with Prussia/ North German Federation/ Germany in order to sphere Denmark and Russia to sphere Sweden, and there's also the danger that you will lose your GP status before you can succeed. But success will turn you into a serious European contender - from now on, you can follow a typical Sweden strategy, except with more bears.

Countries