The Three Mountains - Ryukyu WC AAR/guide

Part One: Prepare for World Domination (1399-1430)
Goal: Trade and tech to QftNW as quickly as possible

My starting situation sucks, no army, no manpower, no money. My neighbors hate me and, if it weren't for Ming's protection, they wouldn't hesitate to kill me in a heartbeat. If I somehow managed to conquer anything around me, the lands are poor and their people hate me and would crush me with rebellions that I cannot fight against. Even if I managed to become a regional power in Asia, it's hopeless because Ming is stronger than the rest of Asia combined. If Ming ever decides that we are not worth protecting, it's game over man. Therefore in order to become powerful, war is not the way to go, only the lands I colonize myself would be truly my own. Asia is safe from my animist wrath, for now.

At start of the game before unpause:
- Moved my slider to free trade.
- Checked for any master of mint, statesmen or treasurer, nobody there.
- Changed my infantry to Asian longbow.
- Moved maintenance to lowest value.
- All Research went to government.
- Sent merchants to Nanjing.

I paused at October 14, 1400 and found a master of mint, yay.

I used my culture to get a statesmen, he was crappy but it was better than nothing. Eventually I spammed paintings until culture was over 90% and reloaded to get a level 6 statesmen, and then a level 6 treasurer and a level 6 master of mint afterwards.

Level 6 tech advisers were very important to my strategy as their +18 contributed to the vast majority of my research, even more than my entire economy did. They also triggered "greatmen" events which gave me even more bonuses to research. With this and my low tech cost I was able to tech very fast.

Merchants were at autosend to Nanjing. I manually sent merchants to Kyoto as they are very expensive to send and they don't return as much. Eventually I got access to Malacca and I manually sent merchants there as well.

I avoided minting over inflation limit as much as possible, getting inflation for pennies is a very bad idea. My level 6 master of mint helped.

Once government 4 was up I took national trade policy. I moved my research to trade but kept my statesmen hired because I would eventually need more NI slots.

If anyone attacked me, the only thing I could have done was to pray for Ming to help me. Luckily no one attacked me.

Eventually I built 2 cogs for the mission and started making infantry for "defense" purposes. With 14 manpower a month, I had to start building the army early.

I did NOT colonize Taiwan, not yet. It would only slow down my tech and I could not afford the maintenance required without screwing my economy.

By trade 6, my tech slider told me that I would reach trade 7 by 1430, 5 years before trade 7 was finished I switched my NI to colonial ventures to get 5 colonists by 1430. Ryukyu's small size, low stability cost and my trade income let me recover 1 stability a month. This advantage was very important, it let me switch NIs at will, among other things...

My second slider was at free trade, I think I went another slider towards free trade before going centralization to westernize.

At 1430 I reached trade 7 for QftNW. I also had a stable economy and 2.something inflation, I think I got some "gifts from nobles" events that helped.

At that point, with QftNW and my invincible army of about 2-3 infantry and 3 cogs, my preparations for world domination were complete. World, prepare to be conquered!

Part Two: Picking on Somebody My Own Size (1430-1477)
Goal: Secure foothold in North America before the Europeans do

America is the perfect first step for my world conquest. Being on the other side of the planet means that none of my Asian neighbors could ever touch me and it lets me meet the Europeans needed to westernize. The land itself is rich with goods like tobacco, coffee and gold. The native neighbors have lots of money and animist provinces, both are just begging to be liberated. But most importantly, they are all weaker than me.

With QftNW I hired an explorer and switched to patron of the arts. I moved research to government with the aim of hitting government 11 for 3 NIs.

I asked Manchu for military access, it was "very unlikely". Argh I should have done it sooner before relations deteriorate, not something a little reloading can't fix.

From the Manchu port of Wusuli, I sailed to Alaska by going over the North part of the map, every time I discovered an ocean province I had to retreat back. Once I got to Alaska things got much easier, I went straight down along the coast and reached Maya and Inca, asking for military access along the way. Then I went around South America to the east side of Maya and discovered Creek.

It took me 9 years to discover all the way to Creek, I think it could have been faster if I got 2 explorers to zigzag each other while discovering the ocean tiles.

At that point, Inca sat alone in South America with two doom stacks of 12. Maya conquered Zapotec and Aztec, they had 1 doom stack. Creek were the weakest but they were allied with Shawnee, who had conquered Cherokee.

I chose Creek as my first target. With no time to waste, I shipped my army of 5 with my 3 cogs. Left half of it in Maya while getting the other half across the ocean. Once everything was in place, I saved and declared war on Creek.

Creek was defeated easily, but their ally Shawnee was an even fight. They had the numbers while I had superior troops. Emperor Bunei Satto died in battle on August 7, 1439. His sacrifice was not in vain though, his heir Boku I Satto turned into a 4 shock general and defeated Shawnee.

I seized one province, Muskogee, from Creek and forced religion. The next month I broke truce and annexed Creek with tribal feud CB. This is another advantage of Ryukyu, my low stability cost means I can abuse the natives again and again every month as long as I win the first war. Afterwards it's just a matter of walking my 1 regiment armies over their empty provinces before they can build anything. Take a million stability hits for breaking every treaty and truce known to man? Sure, it could only go down to -3.

I saw Maya with a weak throne, in two back to back wars I robbed them blind and forced a personal union on them. It was a mistake though as they got a bigger army and broke off when Baku I died on May 13, 1476. On I Satto succeeded him. I robbed and unioned Maya again.

I didn't remember the exact details of every war and treaty but in the end I broke up Shawnee, annexed Creek, forced religion on both Shawnee and Cherokee, eventually conquered Cherokee, left Shawnee as a vassal, personal union with Maya, and took one province from Inca so I could collect income tax from them every 5 years with tribal feud CB.

In domestic policy, I built forts in my conquered lands, divided up my army to sit on each province that was building them, some rebellions were close calls but I managed to get by. I converted shamanist provinces into animism once they had a fort. I took expended bureaucracy and eventually standardized weights and scales. My trade later expended to Bihar. My slider moves were towards centralization to westernize. When I got to government 9, I took national bank to prepare for heavy minting to support my colonies. My explorer discovered every single coastal province in the Americas for colonization.

I wasn't able to colonize until I moved my capital to America, and in order to do so I must have a core and national focus on it. My first province of Muskogee was conquered at 1439, so waiting 50 years for it to core meant I could start colonizing at 1489. However I was able to gain a core much earlier than that through an event, I don't exactly remember which one, it was either "border dispute" or "claims on rivals". It was 1477 when I moved my capital to the province of Shawnee (not to be confused with the nation of the same name). I immediately started to colonize the Caribbean and the Eastern seaboard. I switched out patron of the arts with colonial ventures for colonists, by then one "architectural development" event had fired for 2 innovative.

By 1477, with my capital in America, the natives pillaged, two empty continents ready to be colonized, and no Europeans in sight, I became master of the new world, and soon, master of the entire world!

Things I could have done better up to this point:
- Should have asked Manchu for military access earlier and hired another explorer to reach America faster.
- I took over too much land, it seriously slowed down my tech. I was able to reach government 9 for the second NI, but I wasn't able to get government 11 for a very long time. It became a problem later on. Also with so many provinces being distant overseas I was forced to build lots of carracks to maintain tariffs.
- Personal union with Maya was a mistake, I should have just robbed them and wait until government 11 before conquering them.

Correction: only Shawnee was left as vassal, Cherokee was conquered.

Part Three: If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them (1477-1550)
Goal: Colonize, stay alive and westernize

My colonies were expensive, and I was spending heavily to build docks and trade buildings on my most valuable provinces. I only made level 1 forts in native provinces to counter nationalist rebels. With so much spending I had to mint heavily even with all the money I stole from the natives. Even with national bank and my level 6 master of mint (I refused to let him die), my inflation was going up. I stationed 1 regiment armies on my colonies to trigger "native assimilation" events to make my colonies grow faster. Eventually my economy broke even and I was swimming in ducats. Once I stabilized financially, I covered the rest of my provinces with level 1 forts before going for more trade buildings and docks.

Emperor On I Satto died April 9, 1484. The Mayans broke off union again. Sei I Satto restored the union for the last time after robbing them. Shawnee was diplo-annexed in 1496 with the help of some reloading. Their COT in Ohio would eventually become the biggest COT in the world.

My domination in America came to an end with the arrival of Castille in the early 1500's, by then my colonies already spanned the Caribbean, Bermuda, and parts of the Eastern Seaboard. My plan was to hold the Europeans down to South America while I keep the Caribbean and North America along with the Incas.

By then, Castille became the sole superpower of Europe. It demolished Portugal, conquered pretty much all of North and West Africa, and were in the process of painting the Ottoman Empire yellow. Her competitors though, were getting nowhere. Portugal was down to an OPM, France was getting smashed by Burgundy, and England didn't even unite Ireland and Scotland yet. Soon enough Castille threw down 5 colonies in South America at once.

There was no way I could ever survive a war with Castille, my only hope was an alliance. I asked and gave them military access, and proclaimed guarantee. I then clicked "Offer Alliance" to check how many gifts I had to send them before having a chance, and much to my pleasant surprise it was already "Likely" to succeed. Obviously with 3 continents worth of enemies Castille was in desperate need of an ally, and there was no better ally than the world conqueror himself. Alliance accepted.

I sent gifts to England and eventually got them up to 200 relations. If there was anyone who could get past Castille's fleet it's England, and I didn't want to mess with them. Both of them proceeded to spam me with open market calls, I ignored them all.

With my European front secure, I took one colony in South America to border with Castille for westernization. Sei I died on November 23, 1507. Toku I succeeded him, he was an 8 admin ruler. His heir, Nei I Satto, was 8/8/8. Everything was ripe for westernization, except for my sliders.

Huron, who conquered Iroquois, were eventually discovered and annexed in 1510. Inca was annexed in 1515 after decades of abuse.

Throughout our alliance, my ally Castille was fighting the likes of Aragon, Dulkadir, Mutapa and Tunisia in various wars. I answered all their calls to arms with my emotional support while sitting on the other side of the planet collecting war taxes.

Eventually I left Ming's sphere of influence and they promptly embargoed me right after. The loss of trade in Nanjing hurt me but my COT in Ohio made up for it. I cannot take them on yet so I just waited it out.

Luckily Ming did not declare war on me, but Manchu did. Korea and Vijayanagar then immediately jumped in like vultures. They occupied Okinawa. I had my fleet of carracks defend the west coast of Maya to block their only path into America. They never came, and after a while they offered white peace.

I westernized in the 1530's, Toku I Satto got the first two done but died on February 18, 1537. Nei I Satto finished western tech, but I was 1 slider move away from the full centralization needed for military modernization. With western tech I poured all my research to get trade 15 for monopolies before anything else.

Maya was integrated in 1538, it made me suffer from overextension in the middle of westernization. I destroyed the COT in Mexico to make my Ohio one better.

With my complete monopoly in Ohio, I aggressively built up my military, and also fine art academies and universities.

By around 1550, military modernization was complete, I was finally on equal footing with European powers. Afterwards, Burgundy got tired of thrashing France and declared war on Castille, it's time for WAR!

LordBreak said:

Why did you use normal settings, was there a specific reason? I thought achievements had to be done on normal but they don't, so why didn't you choose easy or turn of inflation or other similar settings?

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It was just personal preference. Some settings would make things a lot easier. I'll talk about those in later posts.

Why did you switch to "patron of the arts" from "QFNW?"
What was the "architectural development" event and how does it fire?

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Patron of the arts trigger the architectural development event every 30 years or so. The event is useful for westernization as it gives an option for getting 2 innovative.

So the trade buildings are better than the production buildings even though the production building gave you more money to spend, you were going for faster research?

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Trade buildings are better for spamming custom houses later on. Docks were better for production than production buildings, for every 1 counting house I could have built 3 docks instead.

For westernization purposes, did you reload every time a heir was announced to try and be sure of a high enough administration ruler?

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I was lucky and didn't have to reload for that. Heirs appear at random times, so it's probably best to be a republic at that point so you can reload before every election.

When you said you had your fleet defend your west coast against Manchu and others, did you have colonies on west coast at that time or are you talking about defending where Ryukyu is?

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On the west coast of where Maya was, to block their path if they tried to invade America.

I don't understand as well when to know to destroy COTs. If you had monopolies in both of your COTs, then why would destroying one and combining them be much more advantageous?

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All coastal COTs should be kept for extra colonists, inland COTs should be destroyed as much as possible, having more merchants inside COTs lowers your compete chance.

Part Four: Hey Europeans, Colonialize THIS (1550-1605)
Goal: Kick the Europeans out of America and Africa with the colonial wars CB

With Castille distracted by Burgundy, it's time betray Castille and take back the land that was rightfully mine (all of theirs). Since I just finished military modernization at that point, my military was still weak. To ensure my victory, I asked Great Britain to ally and gang up on Castille. It was "unlikely" even at 200 relations, but after some reloading Castille ended up in a 3 front war against Burgundy from land, Britain from the sea, and me eating up her colonies in South America. Many of them were seized outright, it seemed Castille wasn't able to afford them all those years. After this conflict, Castille was never the same again.

Burgundy and friends then declared war on me, but with the help of Britain keeping them locked up in Europe, they couldn't touch me. They managed to sneak a tiny suicidal landing into the Caribbean though, but it was easily defeated. Their colonies in South America and Africa were seized.

Through this and subsequent colonial wars against Castille, Burgundy, Savory, Prussia, Venice, Armagnac, and others, I controlled all of America and kicked Europeans out of sub-Saharan Africa. With Britain's fleet blocking them in Europe, it was as easy as taking candy from a baby.

Somehow the province of Chin, in Asia slightly to the west of Indochina, miraculously defected to me. I wasn't exactly sure why it happened but my guess was that it was a random core gotten from a "claims on rivals" event, and then the rebels did the rest. I built some troops over there for defense and eventually expended my territory with some boundary disputes and religious liberations.

Below is what the world looked like in 1605 after I kicked the Europeans out of America and Africa. Mutapa was made into a personal union. I also had a tiny patch of land in Asia between Manipur and Shan. My ally Britain never colonized but randomly conquered tiny pieces of Europe here and there. The 2 massive blobs in Russia were Ukraine and Ryazan. The really really big blob to their south in the Middle East were actually 3 countries, they were Syria, Persia, and what's left of the Golden Horde, somehow they all had the same color.

Castille was reduced to nothing but a punching bag. Burgundy took the left side of Iberian Peninsula from Castille, Portugal took back some of it too but would eventually lose them to Burgundy. I took the province of Andalucia from Castille for 4 infamy to serve as my base in Europe. Morocco was released because the colonial wars CB wouldn't let me take North Africa from Castille. The rest of Castille's processions in North Africa would eventually fall to rebellions.

At that point I was a year away from government 27 to get absolute monarchy for the imperialism CB. And when that's done, the world shall BURN!

I don't get what you are saying here, Iwo Jima is an ocean province to the southeast of Japan, that was no where near the path I took.

Start from the Manchu port of Wusuli, and cross the top part of the map to reach Alaska, then go straight down. Once you discover the Alaskan coast, the next trip should reach Zapotec/Maya without having to go back (or maybe it was two trips, don't remember exactly).

Maybe an explorer with some maneuver is needed as well.