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There is no way to finish a WQ before 1600, especially not 1500 with OE. They have indeed almost no diplomats.
I am sure finishing before 1600 is not too hard (with OE or number of other nations)

Also PU'ing Castille, Portugal, Aragorn, France, Austria, England, Scandinavia, is extremely more powerful than being the OE and declaring war on them. It requires 6 wars to annex France, Castille, etc. It requires 1 war to PU them and they will fight on your side until you annex them with 0 badboy instead of 20-35 badboy dedepending on their number of provinces.
I think that your chances of PU'ing and inheriting all of them in 100 years are about zero while your chances of annexing them with HW is about one. That's the shortage of diplomats to take the multitude of the small nations that is the issue.

Personal Unions are extremely important in World Conquest. Ottoman Empire is insanely powerful, but a holy-war CB is much less powerful than the ability to PU.
I did WC without PU (because I didn't want to use any cheese) and after that I've concluded that holy war CB is cheesy too (it's just way too powerful)

Also 1500? You have to conquer more than a thousand provinces and you don't have enough diplomats to contact much with vassals, annex them, release them (for negative badboy on own cores, in order to reconquer 5 years later. Burn BB 3 times the speed.), declare wars. The PU option is easy and insanely powerful
In theory there's enough diplomats to do it (if you get enemies to make peace offers you want - and they will make you suitable offers for everything but annexations), but making it actually work is a different story - everything needs to be so precise. But if you think you can do it using PUs you're welcome to try and report results :)
 
It was pointed out in the other thread that it's possible as the Timurids to conquer all the other Hordes (excepting the GH) and all the land from Morocco to Bengal, and from the Balkans to Hungary by ~1425. This means it's feasible to use monthly autosaves to reload whenever Timur dies. After you've conquered all that land, you have 75 more years to finish off Japan, Ming, and western Europe. However, the net cost of all pre-Mughal lands: 0 infamy, 0 colonists, 5 diplomats (1 for each opposing horde). To move fast enough requires massive micro, but it certainly seems feasible. A similar path seems available to Golden Horde. I doubt it possible for non-Hordes, based upon diplomat generation and infamy gains.

I've got a Timurid game that I've started with that goal. I'll make it available to anyone that wants it after I get it to 1410. I'm keeping the speed down, and playing as micro as possible to ensure that all actions are taken optimally. The only cheese I'm using is the reloading back to the month's start when Timur dies. I've spent 15 hours thus far to get to a 1402 in which every nation sharing initial borders with the Timurids has been entirely defeated and occupied, and the first conquered provinces (in Sind and Jalayirids) have begun to flip.
 
The most important question: Is it even possible to get Trade 7 that early when only being able to resarch properly for 75 years? Everything depends on QFTNW and if you are not able to get it (since westernizing is most likely not an option) you will fail.
 
Mughal decision auto-westernizes you to muslim which has decent pace, so I think getting Trade 7 within a reasonable time frame (perhaps around 1460-1470) should be doable. I am not sure it's a good idea to form Mughals so early though. It might be better to live through a mega-succesion crisis once or twice. That delays Trade7 through, so it's unclear where is the optimal Mughalization point.
 
My favorite European power for WC is England->France->HRE. The missions available give quite a few cores, the decisions available are great, good position to colonize, and good position to PU Castille and Portugal. Then, vassalize electors to become the Emperor. Next time I do this, I plan on using the turboformation strategy developed by Pewt to unite the HRE in about a decade. If you push it, you can have the HRE formed with the Iberian kingdoms PU'd by 1430 (perhaps earlier), placing basically all of Western Europe under your control...

What wizardry is this!? I must know this strategy!
 
My favorite European power for WC is England->France->HRE. The missions available give quite a few cores, the decisions available are great, good position to colonize, and good position to PU Castille and Portugal. Then, vassalize electors to become the Emperor. Next time I do this, I plan on using the turboformation strategy developed by Pewt to unite the HRE in about a decade. If you push it, you can have the HRE formed with the Iberian kingdoms PU'd by 1430 (perhaps earlier), placing basically all of Western Europe under your control. Incidentally, this makes it really easy to stop the Reformation, have permanent control of the Curia (thus gaining the maximum possible infamy reduction), and able to have the Crusade modifier against pretty much everyone you'll fight.

My favorite non-European power for WC is Timurids->Mughals. Winning the starting wars and flipping all their territory gives control of Egypt and the central Balkans in the west all the way to the Ganges basin in the east, and it's easy to conquer Kazakh, Nogai, and Chagatai while waiting for the conquered territories to flip. As long as Timur lives until you hit Gov 4, you can form the Mughals without going through a tribal crisis that could strip your entire empire, and control everything from the Hungary and Morocco to Bengal and from the Kazakh steppes to Malabar and Swahili by 1425. And all of that without ever having gained any infamy. Plus, with basically every Islamic nation conquered while still a Horde, you can use the Holy War CB to minimize infamy gain when conquering the rest of Asia and Europe.

A close second non-European power is the Golden Horde, which can follow a very similar strategy as the Timurids. It'll take slightly longer to reach Morocco and SE Asia, but you have easier expansion opportunities in Europe. Plus, you can conquer the Timurid lands while they're in Succession crisis, thus having more total cores when you form the Mughals. More total cores means you'll go longer without being overextended. Th major benefit of the Golden Horde over the Timurids is the starting cores on the Black Sea, meaning you can build ships that can reach England, Portugal, Castille, Norway (or whoever controls Iceland), and Britanny as soon as you become the Mughals, and thus conquer them before they can begin colonizing. Unless you get lucky with a core granting event, the Timurids can't do this until some of the early conquests (such as Trebizond or Georgia's coast) core in the 1450s, and this makes it difficult for them to conquer the early colonizers before they spread.

btw, I've done WCs with the Timurids->Mughals, Golden Horde -> Mughals, Golden Horde->Russia, Muscovy->Russia, Brandenburg->Prussia->Germany->HRE, England->UK->HRE, England->France->HRE, Burgundy->Netherlands->Prussia->Germany->HRE, Vijyangar->Hindustan, and Castille->Spain. Most of those were during the past year, when I was hospitalized and playing EU3 nearly 12 hours per day for 8 months, because there was no internet access and nothing to do but play computer games and read.

For slower, revenue maximizing WCs, I'll still use England->France->HRE, but I'll stay in the HRE vassalization stage for a long while to allow myself huge amounts of magistrates, while the HRE nations will build themselves up.

Great write-up! Where is Pewt's strategy?
 
Unfortunately the forum post of it here is pretty scattered (but it might be fun to follow along), so if you don't want to read all 8 pages here's a summary I wrote up:

Pewt said:
(Play as bohemia)

Step 1: ask Austria+Poland+Lithuania+Hungary for Military Access, check Milan's mission, SoI anyone they're told to attack.

Step 2: beat Milan in the inevitable war, demand parma+pisa+siena {+whatever they took, if they took any vassals}, release them as vassals. +IA, 3-4 vassals.

Step 3: same drill with burgundy. Basically you want to acquire around 10 vassals and be at roughly 0 infamy after the fact (in case your king dies and you need to be reelected, and because infamy ruins your chances to pass reforms).

Step 4: First two reforms.

Step 5: Declare war on tver, an HRE minor, and wallachia. No-CB is fine; your stability regenerates extremely fast as the emperor.

Step 6: Siege tver, convert to orthodox (Offer Tribute -> Force Religion), Enforce Religious Unity on all vassals (should be Very Likely) until 90 IA.

Step 7: Siege one of the HRE minors you're at war with (if they brought friends, you need to peace out someone who isn't the warleader because you'll want to use this war again later), Offer Tribute -> Force Religion back to Catholic.

Step 8: Pass 2 reforms, Force Religion on your vassals, pass 1-2 more (1 is fine).

Step 9: Force Religion back to Orthodox from Wallachia, do the same thing with converting your vassals, convert back to catholic off the warleader of that HRE minor war, pass the last three reforms.

Note that you should save up 100 IA before passing the last two reforms, because that way you can pass them back-to-back without demanding oaths of fealty (ie causing some countries to leave the empire and declare war on you).

--

If you can vassalize electors that's great since it means that you'll get emperorship back even if your king dies while orthodox (even though you're only orthodox for a few months total).

Don't try to pass reforms as orthodox, they'll fail. Wait until you convert back to catholic, even if it means you miss out on some IA. If you do things right it should only take 2 swaps to orthodox and back to form the HRE.

My best time with the strategy, which is somewhat optimized but by no means perfect, can be found in the hall of fame or in this screenshot from there:

UnAdO.jpg
 
It was pointed out in the other thread that it's possible as the Timurids to conquer all the other Hordes (excepting the GH) and all the land from Morocco to Bengal, and from the Balkans to Hungary by ~1425. This means it's feasible to use monthly autosaves to reload whenever Timur dies. After you've conquered all that land, you have 75 more years to finish off Japan, Ming, and western Europe. However, the net cost of all pre-Mughal lands: 0 infamy, 0 colonists, 5 diplomats (1 for each opposing horde). To move fast enough requires massive micro, but it certainly seems feasible. A similar path seems available to Golden Horde. I doubt it possible for non-Hordes, based upon diplomat generation and infamy gains.

I've got a Timurid game that I've started with that goal. I'll make it available to anyone that wants it after I get it to 1410. I'm keeping the speed down, and playing as micro as possible to ensure that all actions are taken optimally. The only cheese I'm using is the reloading back to the month's start when Timur dies. I've spent 15 hours thus far to get to a 1402 in which every nation sharing initial borders with the Timurids has been entirely defeated and occupied, and the first conquered provinces (in Sind and Jalayirids) have begun to flip.

It is possible, as Timurids, to take all of Eurasia (excepting the islands), along with north and east Africa by 1470. By 1455, I had annexed all of Asia including the hordes, but excepting the islands, and Korea - I had crushed the Ming and Manchu was waiting for their lands to flip. In Europe, I had all of Russia (the GH were completely snuffed out), Scandinavia, the Balkans, and central Europe upto (and including) the lands of Bohemia, Bavaria and Austria. I was taking apart the German HRE minors, when my king (a very competent king I got after the death of Timur in 1405 after his usual heir predeceased him) died. Had I reloaded from the beginning of the year and continued for another 15 years, I could have completely crushed every power in mainland Europe by 1470. After that, it would have been a simple matter of turning Mughal and spamming enough galleys to crush the British islands, waiting for QFTNW and crushing all the New World powers and the west Africans, and the Japanese and the other islands of Europe and Asia. If I had continued with my game, I am pretty certain I could have finished everyone else in about another 100 years (roughly 1550) if I ignored infamy.
 
What wizardry is this!? I must know this strategy!

There is a special mission that ENG can get. It's supposed to represent what would have happened if England won the 100 years war which is the period the game starts in. While you are at war with FRA and cancel whatever mission you have, you'll almost always get the mission Occupy Paris. If you achieve it, it gives you cores (and thereby free Conquest CBs) on most of FRA... I thought I heard that it was going to be all of France with 5.1 but I have done it since the patch was released. Anyways, once you have those cores you can start eating up France and its vassals for free. Then, once you own Paris, you can move your capital to France (doesn't have to be Paris but somewhere with French culture), you can change your nation's culture to French through a decision that will appear once your capital is moved. I believe that it has to be the majority culture in your nation before it will let you take the decision (check the tooltip and the ledger). Once you're a French-cultured ENG you can then form the French nation just like any other French cultured minor. Then, just as France you have to some how weasel your way into the HRE. It's interesting gameplay...
 
Unfortunately the forum post of it here is pretty scattered (but it might be fun to follow along), so if you don't want to read all 8 pages here's a summary I wrote up:


My best time with the strategy, which is somewhat optimized but by no means perfect, can be found in the hall of fame or in this screenshot from there:

UnAdO.jpg

Wow, that is extremely gamey, but bravo for figuring it out!
 
I like to guarantee Candar if I need to change religion - it usually gives a free war vs Byzantium and Wallachia, which is particularly convenient because if you settle with Wallachia separately, you can make a double flip from a single war (and not take any stabhit). Not sure if it would work with Bohemia though - it might look too big and scary to Byzantium
 
I seem to get the most luck with Castille, in terms of keeping colonial rivals down and using my tariffs and extra manpower to always stay ahead, sapping away at the rest of Western Europe with one hand while using your convenient place to prey on the weaker Islamic states across North Africa. England seems to be good for it too, although despite what people usually say my only attempt as a game playing France turned out slow and dull in terms of expansion.