What to do with Egypt?

GrounchoVilla · Nov 11, 2014

So I'm having a bit of a tough time with Egypt, which is a potentially powerful nation with no good options. Your military is big enough to deal with any of your neighbors easily, EXCEPT the one which matters - the so-called "sick man of Europe". That's not good, considering the Ottoman Empire is obsessed with bullying you for their cores.

In my game its 1845 - I've had Muhammad Ali's reforms in place for 3 years and am saving for the fabric factory reform (both historically accurate since Egypt was industrializing into fabrics at the time, and seemingly a good choice based on the oodles of cotton grown along the nile, and my own crappy economy). There are a couple things going for me - I control Abyssinia, Zanzibar and Mogadishu, which provide some troop pops and money.

My strategy to deal with the Ottoman invasion in 1839 was a desert version of the Russian plan used against Napoleon - I withdraw my forces and let desert attrition kill their army. It's amazingly successful and their military strength can be cut in half before they ever face you. They will send armies from Libya that are easy to completely obliterate with few losses, though their armies coming into the Levant pose a significantly greater challenge. I did my little plan, whittled down their military, and accepted their peace offer, giving Turkish Ankara to them for their wargoal and taking the prestige hit. I figured I'd do the same thing again in 1845 but when the Turks attacked then, I'd rout them outright. Easier said than done. Turkey attacked again the minute the truce was over to take Aleppo. I defeated their force from Libya - Again - but I'm facing insurmountable problems in fighting this war.

(1) In 1845, Turkey would always add another wargoal to take Syria not long after occupying all of Aleppo. This makes it significantly harder for me to make peace even if I wanted.

(2) I let Turkish forces get to Gaza and crushed them. It was great seeing their 30 man imperial guard unit turn into a 15 man unit boiling away in the Sinai sun, which was destroyed as soon as it crossed into Africa. The Turks had in the single digits regarding their military strength (3 at one point) and I dropped them down to a secondary power. But now I have a huge problem - I need to reoccupy the ENTIRE Levant, and my own military score has been lowered drastically. The turks, of course, are rearming quite quickly, and my units are too beat up to occupy anything at a decent pace.

(3) Thanks to my low war score, European powers suddenly see my lands as a prize target. I've had Portugal and Spain both declaring war on me in different runthroughs, Spain doing so twice for Crete and Portugal once for Zanzibar. Of course, the other European powers don't attack Turkey, despite their more lucrative real estate and vastly lower military score (I'm sure the alliance with Prussia helps)

(4) Thanks to the fact that they have artillery and I don't, the ONLY way for me to crush the Egyptian army is to mob them with 40 units at once, but killing a big army of size 30 is just a no-option for Egypt (even if Egypt could built artillery though I doubt I'd want to pay the money on maintenance)

Things I've tried but failed:

(1) cozying to the brits - I was hoping they'd sphere Egypt and ally with me. No such luck.

(2) Leaving a big stack in the levant. The Ottomans just surround it and mob it with 2 big armies. Even the hills of Lebanon provide no real protection.

(3) Cosying to the Russians - I figured Russia would do anything in its power to invade the Ottoman Empire ... panslavism and all that. Of course, the enlightened Khedive is no fan of slavophilia, but he is a practical man.

(4) Occupying all of Libya and Tripoli - I was hoping this would give me some extra warscore and convince the annoying turks to accept a white peace. No luck.

(5) Sucking up to the Ottomans and hoping they can't be bothered to tank relations. As an uncivilized power, Egypt gets diplomatic points quite slowly and I havent been able to get my relations with them high enough before they feel like intervening.

(6) replacing ALL of my irregulars with infantry. This is an incredibly expensive option that gives me a little bit more to push Egypt back with sooner but leaves me destitute.

Other thoughts I had is just withdrawing from Crete and Zanzibar so Spain and Portugal will let me beat up on Turkey by myself.

Problems

- no artillery, no soldier pops, very little money, and an expensive navy of questionable utility yet which seems important for deterring those peksy Spaniards.

So, questions - do I need to just give up on Aleppo and wait for 1850 to fight Turkey again? How can I ever attain great power status if I'm dropping like 10 prestige and some pretty good provinces just to keep the Sultan at bay every 5 years? Might my plan be doable if I, say, send my men otherwise occupying Libya to reoccupy the Levant and just sue for a white peace?

As a historical note, they probably should have made Egypt a little tougher. Historically, the Ottomans needed to be bailed out by the UK and France after getting repeatedly embarrassed by Mohammad Ali, and it was an incredibly wealthy country. Their fault was bad war planning in Ethiopia as much as it was a fundamental weakness with Egypt.

GrounchoVilla · Nov 11, 2014

The longer term goal, of course, is to form Arabia and take the Ottoman place as the paramount Middle Eastern power, which should be kept in mind. There's another problem too - I'm finding it hard to keep education spending at 100% and admin spending over 50% without putting my forces on minimal supplies.

szmik · Nov 11, 2014

In my game I was lucky to be attacked by Spain. I gave them Lebanon and they were fighting Ottomans until I westernized.

My approach to Ottomans was to basically give them what they want before they occupy enough to add wargoal. That way I preserve my army for conquering Ethiopia and Sokoto (while having truce with Ottomans) to make westernizing quicker. I was ready to give up everything up to Sinai without a fight. Those provinces don't do Egypt any good, until it forms Arabia.

Illanair · Nov 11, 2014

Honestly, I'd rather start as Nejd. Their shortcut to Arabia (and the ton of free cores) is just so much better than starting as Egypt. You don't have to fight the Ottos right away and can start nibbling on The Middle East and North Africa before going for what's left of Egypt and the Ottoman (possibly with a strong European ally)

GrounchoVilla · Nov 11, 2014

szmik said:
In my game I was lucky to be attacked by Spain. I gave them Lebanon and they were fighting Ottomans until I westernized.

My approach to Ottomans was to basically give them what they want before they occupy enough to add wargoal. That way I preserve my army for conquering Ethiopia and Sokoto (while having truce with Ottomans) to make westernizing quicker. I was ready to give up everything up to Sinai without a fight. Those provinces don't do Egypt any good, until it forms Arabia.

I was worried about going after Sokoto because their poor literacy would hamper my research. They will also call for a two-step conquest because they have 4 states I believe.

I'm worried that giving in too much to the Ottomans will just slow down my advancement towards becoming a great power, and therefore forming Arabia. When were you able to do these things?

As for the Spanish - all they seem to care about is Crete in my game. They really want it, or so it seems.

Illanair said:
Honestly, I'd rather start as Nejd. Their shortcut to Arabia (and the ton of free cores) is just so much better than starting as Egypt. You don't have to fight the Ottos right away and can start nibbling on The Middle East and North Africa before going for what's left of Egypt and the Ottoman (possibly with a strong European ally)

Yeah, that's a good point, but they start with a very poor base. Its easier to start Arabia, but it seems harder to actually do anything with that, except annex a bunch of similarly weak states.

El Jojo · Nov 12, 2014

I've done the Egypt-Arabia playthrough at least twice, it's great fun and you feel good when you finally sphere what's left of the ottomans. Forming Arabia is really powerful, especially if coupled with colonization of Africa.
Still I can't remember all the specific details still things I did differently.

1 You're saving for the fabric factory reform, I take it that it means you have most of the reforms imroving your troops ? Even though, I think it's not a good reform, a fabric factory will require dye and since you're an unciv there's a good chance you won't get any on the world market (but it varies each game) so you may end with a factory which is a deadweight to your economy. If you want to go economy, the tax reforms are great to improve your income.
I also try to always check how much % westernization I get for 1 RP spent to quicken the process.

2 The big issue I see is that you do not have yet shifted away from irregulars, that's the first thing I do as Egypt. Fighting regulars with irregulars is a nightmare. The first war with the ottos can work because their starting army is also partly made of irregulars, but during the second war they usually have rebuilt only regulars and they have their mobilization pool also made of regulars. The budget may be a problem but at some point it's better to spend a year with very low education and admin spending and winning a war. With 100% tariffs and a few conquests I was able to stabilize my budget.
I also disbanded most of the navy, way too expensive for not much, sure Spain came for Crete, but they land stacks in the libyan desert where I can overwhelm them. There again having regulars is essential.

3 As for conquests, taking the Omani colonies in Africa is a risky choice, Portugal loves to take them and will be mad at you for doing so (even if you took these colonies as a civilized nation). In my playthrough I took Madagascar at the very start of the game, good resources, some military pops, platform for later colonization. France is quick to sphere them to you have to do it early while the Ottos are slowly subduing Tripoli.

4 I use Ankara as the trading land between ottos and me. The first war I concede instantly, it's just one or two provinces, the second war I try to retake it, and the following wars I try to judge very quickly if I concede right away or if I fight.

5 Right now in your situation, I'd say don't try to reoccupy the whole levant, just their wargoals you want to stop the warscore from ticking. How many brigades do you have left ? Can you afford the supplies for them so that they resplenish ? How much warscore in their favor ?

GrounchoVilla · Nov 12, 2014

El Jojo said:
1 You're saving for the fabric factory reform, I take it that it means you have most of the reforms imroving your troops ? Even though, I think it's not a good reform, a fabric factory will require dye and since you're an unciv there's a good chance you won't get any on the world market (but it varies each game) so you may end with a factory which is a deadweight to your economy. If you want to go economy, the tax reforms are great to improve your income.
I also try to always check how much % westernization I get for 1 RP spent to quicken the process.

That's a good point about the dye, I hadn't really considered that. I was figuring I have no shortage of cotton and I have multiple cotton producing states so it might be a good investment. You're right though - without dye, it's a bit of a risk really. I'll keep that in mind.

As for the reforms - I have the education reform and none of the others yet. I was trying to decide to go for military or educational reforms. The military reforms seem to give the least progress for the research points - although I do like the +25% research gain from conquest, other than Ethiopia and Sokoto, most of the nearby conquest targets are high investment, low reward (like Hedjaz, where the desert terrain can only support small armies which can be dispatched by their military, and they have a crap population and pretty unimpressive RGOs.)

2 The big issue I see is that you do not have yet shifted away from irregulars, that's the first thing I do as Egypt. Fighting regulars with irregulars is a nightmare. The first war with the ottos can work because their starting army is also partly made of irregulars, but during the second war they usually have rebuilt only regulars and they have their mobilization pool also made of regulars. The budget may be a problem but at some point it's better to spend a year with very low education and admin spending and winning a war. With 100% tariffs and a few conquests I was able to stabilize my budget.

I actually managed to use my irregulars mainly for occupying Ottoman North Africa. The irregulars seem a cheap way to occupy. It also seems appropriate for the time period to use a mob of less-than-professional thugs to lay down the law, instead of a professional army

.

I also disbanded most of the navy, way too expensive for not much, sure Spain came for Crete, but they land stacks in the libyan desert where I can overwhelm them. There again having regulars is essential.

I actually did disband much of it, but not the whole thing, It would be a good move though.

3 As for conquests, taking the Omani colonies in Africa is a risky choice, Portugal loves to take them and will be mad at you for doing so (even if you took these colonies as a civilized nation). In my playthrough I took Madagascar at the very start of the game, good resources, some military pops, platform for later colonization. France is quick to sphere them to you have to do it early while the Ottos are slowly subduing Tripoli.

I was interested in Madagascar (Ethiopia seems weak and vulnerable enough to be saved for later) but I was worried that doing so might just be waving a red flag in front of a French bull. If the Portuguese are so interested in Zanzibar, I was assuming the French might be similarly obsessed with Madagascar too. The bad thing is the French don't scare so easily.

It also seems like a huge investment to launch a fleet of clipper transports when I can barely afford to keep my government running!

4 I use Ankara as the trading land between ottos and me. The first war I concede instantly, it's just one or two provinces, the second war I try to retake it, and the following wars I try to judge very quickly if I concede right away or if I fight.

One thing which can REALLY work in Egypt's favor is attrition, especially around Suez. One nice thing is that even if they take the whole Levant, they will be real hard pressed to get past the desert barrier. As I said in the OP, its soooo rewarding to watch their 32 strength unit try to occupy some desert province and get cut in half. As with so many colonial wars, the colonized are often best suited to let the land kill their enemy.

The issue really seems to be that such a strategy cripples the Ottomans entirely, but it leaves me with a pretty weakened force trying to undo a lot of Ottoman work.

5 Right now in your situation, I'd say don't try to reoccupy the whole levant, just their wargoals you want to stop the warscore from ticking. How many brigades do you have left ? Can you afford the supplies for them so that they resplenish ? How much warscore in their favor ?

My military strength as of the last autosave is 21 and theirs is 13. I managed to wipe out all but one of their brigades when I was playing past that point (I think it crashed. That or some Great Power decided to join on the die of the Ottomans and I quit to go enjoy more illicit hobbies, I can't remember). I have 30 brigades in total, many at a fraction of their full strength.

In theory ... in theory ... it would be enough. I think I wasted a lot of brigade strength among my irregulars and cavalry by occupying the entirety of Ottoman North Africa, which was left wide open after I mopped up their army.

Aedelvice · Nov 12, 2014

It's probably extremely unlikely you can do this judging by your circumstances but a good method to stave off loosing territory of your own to the Ottomans is to push them back when your victory is inevitable and add your own wargoal for a portion of Tripoli. Flexing your muscles could keep them away for a while and if they /do/ return later they'll probably only ask for what they rightfully deserve, you don't loose much by giving them back Tripoli.

El Jojo · Nov 13, 2014

The military reforms are not the best in terms of % of westernization for their cost, I'd say the best reforms for that are the 15% economic ones, but military reforms giving RP points really help to speed up westernization as long as you have targets to invade, so all things considered they're the most useful. When you're sphered economic reforms get a discount and then they're really cheap for the progress they give, but Egypt does not seem to interest anyone before the 60s when the suez canal starts to be a possibility.
Still taking Ethiopia with the full +RP military reforms or just with the two you start with makes a difference (and they help with the ottos).

Doesn't it take forever to occupy with irregulars ? I remember than trying to occupy with a few infantry beigades was a disaster but maybe irregulars have a little recon in their stats.
France doesn't care about Madagascar if you steal it before they sphere it through event. The AI usually only looks at what's in front of it, meaning what's on the other side of the border. Getting Zulu is risky because UK or Portugal will see you as weak and close. The exception is Spain and its interest in Crete (which you can sometimes avoid by raising relations with them)

Doesn't your strategy against the Ottos leaving you with a lot of war exhaustion, fueling militancy and reactionnaries rebels ? Having a third of your land occupied can do that.
Otherwise you seem fine, 30 brigades is great, I'm not sure I was able to keep such numbers after a war if they reinforce, the ottos will rebuild slowly and you should be able to squash their new armies as they send them one by one. Keeping them fully supplied (check the green ribbon in the army list) is essential and if you have budget problems you should keep it as a priority during wars.

GrounchoVilla · Nov 13, 2014

I went with the Madagascar strategy, but I did it on the cheap and only built 4 transports, and France ended up sphereing Madagascar when I was about 2/3 done occupying it. Incidentally, it turned out to not be a problem. It turns out France isn't really that strong, and they're quire remote. They are as powerful as the Ottomans but they don't have the transports to focus enough men on the ground to really be threatening. They ended up losing a bunch of big land battles to me (I got an amazingly good general from the outset, so this runthrough was much luckier for me). It took them a few years but they gave in eventually. Unfortunately though I'll have to wait to after the next truce with the Ottomans to go after Ethiopia. The upshot of going Madagascar first, I've realized, is that you have time to get the officer/fort reforms before you absorb their massive country.

I also went for the Officer tech

El Jojo · Nov 14, 2014

You can win long wars but it's not very efficient, during wartime your troops require much more supplies, straining your budget and your infamy almost stops decreasing. That's why I try not to go on the cheap, better blitzkrieg and save on cash and infamy so that you can chain conquests more quickly.

The fort reform can be used to amplify your attrition strategy, a few forts in low supply capacity provinces (Transjordan, east Syria etc.) will make the ottos lose a lot more troops sieging them. Going from no forts to a level 1 is the most efficient. You need a positive budget for that though.
Getting Ethiopia with all the RP bonus also helps.
Also there's a bug that happens sometimes when you take the fort reform, instead of just improving your fort level in Cairo it gives you a level 6 fort...
If you take the "improved transportation" reform, try to build as many railroads as you can since there's a good chance you'll lose this capacity when you westernize...

GrounchoVilla · Nov 17, 2014

Well, its 1863 and Egypt has been modernized for 3 years. I gave up Antakya in the first war, went for Madagascar, and managed somehow to beat the Ottomans in the second war. I think the OE must have done something stupid while invading Tripoli in 1936, because their military ranking was much worse than in previous games and I was able to cripple them. They didn't attack me at all between 1848 or so and 1861, and when they did attack me the third time, I was a secondary power and was able to ally with the British and call them into war. Unfortunately they only did that because they were sphereing me. Persia, Nejd and Abu Dhabi were also my allies and joined me in the war, tying down the Ottomans, but their Moldovan and Wallachian allies both sent like 30 stacks to keep me busy. The war was also much easier when I was able to mobilize.

I took Madagascar, Ethiopia, Makran, and after Portugal took Zanzibar, I annexed Oman too (poor Oman had no allies and no army by that point). I didn't want to mess around with Songhai.

I see why you recommended Madagascar - it's incredibly lucrative. Oddly, all the locals converted to Islam within a few years (not really sure why, apparently in 2014 most people in Madagascar are still animist)

By the 1860s I was making incredible amounts of money, although I think the British sphereing me has really done a number on my economy. I'm no longer getting any tariffs since the UK can export ANYTHING your pops need, which is annoying. My surplus went from +100-300 to -100-300 and I had to cut ed, military and admin spending from 91% to 51% (those have been creeping up again too as i can afford it). Now I'm a rank 10 secondary power - I just need to get up 2 ranks so I can escape the British sphere.

My first generation of Capitalists set up some useless enterprises unfortunately. I now have a fancy clothing factory in transjordan, despite lacking silk or many craftsmen pops. I got the free fabric factory as my last reform, which has been going well (there's no shortage of dye in the British sphere, thankfully)

My industry is rapidly growing (faster than the Japanese who is the #8 great power, with much less prestige than me) but after the third war with the Ottomans in 1861 I've been unable to up my military score without doing something dumb like building lots of capital ships I really don't need. I'm also waiting on building more factories until I have more craftsmen pops.

El Jojo said:
You can win long wars but it's not very efficient, during wartime your troops require much more supplies, straining your budget and your infamy almost stops decreasing. That's why I try not to go on the cheap, better blitzkrieg and save on cash and infamy so that you can chain conquests more quickly.

The fort reform can be used to amplify your attrition strategy, a few forts in low supply capacity provinces (Transjordan, east Syria etc.) will make the ottos lose a lot more troops sieging them. Going from no forts to a level 1 is the most efficient. You need a positive budget for that though.
Getting Ethiopia with all the RP bonus also helps.
Also there's a bug that happens sometimes when you take the fort reform, instead of just improving your fort level in Cairo it gives you a level 6 fort...
If you take the "improved transportation" reform, try to build as many railroads as you can since there's a good chance you'll lose this capacity when you westernize...

This time around, I took a more offensive version of my attrition strategy - I let them take most, but not all of the Levant, and then I attacked their small stacks with my big stack. I got lucky and had a general with +3 attack, so it was more than possible. I wasn't able to afford lots of forts until after the war.

I went for the improved transport reform, and it was incredibly useful to develop my economy. I westernized and lost the Experimental Rail tech as you mentioned, which surprised me. Luckily, I had already done what you had said - build a railroad in every province you can. I was incredibly rich for a while, so I was able to afford it. I built a railroad from Antioch down to Lower Egypt, and then down to southern Sudan. All those lovely, sexy tropical wood provinces have railroads, as well as my cotton provinces.

I've been able to expand into Southern Ethiopia and Darfur now that I have the ability to colonize and I researched medicine.

The bad thing about where I am right now is that I can't support very many brigades. Despite having almost 60k soldier pops (I think that dropped down into the low 50s/high 40s after the latest war with the Ottomans) it's been hard for me to support more than 10 brigades (I have like 20 but most have low or no reinforcement thanks to casualties in the reserves). My soldier pops must be spread out really thinly across my empire or something. The upshot is that my economy is decent and with some tax techs, I'll be doing quite well.

Well, off to colonize Africa. Next time the Ottomans decide to try to take Aleppo, they might just have to face 3 full stacks of Somali, Oromo and Hausa infantry.

El Jojo · Nov 18, 2014

I'd say don't wait for craftsmen before opening factories, open factories will give you craftsmen, so with a state capitalist party build factories in many states. It's useful to make pops from Ethiopia move to Egypt and assimilate. Any points also help closing the gap to 8th rank.

Concerning colonization, if you manage to get level 2 bases everywhere you should have a lot of points to expand into Africa, with a good naval base in Madagascar you can reach Namaqualand, while coming from Darfur you can rush to Congo / Cameroun and lock central Africa for you, gaining time to get Benin, Niger Delta etc With a bit of luck you can really dominate Africa.

Your soldiers will come back, now that you have medicine pop growth will let your army grow and since you're allied to UK the Ottomans should leave you alone for a while (except if UK gets into a war against a big opponent, then the Ottos will seize the opportunity. Same attrition strategy holds though. Clearly colonization will help.
Coal may become a problem later on if you industrialize, so consider invading Korea and other rich coal provinces because the african coal is not enough if you seriously industrialize.

Madagascar is nice yeah, I did not really notice the whole conversion thing happening or not, but I can tell you that in 2014 most people are not animists (I grew up there...), it's just that the game is poor at showing syncretism, people having some animist traditions while also going to the church or the mosq.
Getting Makran is a bit surprising, it's a lot of infamy for not much... Sindh, Atjeh (if it's still on the map) etc. Basically any asian minor has to be worth more than Makran...

GrounchoVilla · Nov 18, 2014

I think I got lucky with Makran - It was a little experiment, and I only gained .6 infamy or thereabouts. I would have reloaded and gone for something else if I hadn't gotten that lucky.

Its interesting since the colonization race started - I have pretty much all of Nigeria and chunks of central Africa. I really like the Niger Delta - it's a real holy grail of a province. France took Djibouti, which looked like a waste of time to me. I'm still not a great power though, I'm industrializing too slowly. I managed to snap up the nice Congolese province with lots of tropical wood - I'm set to become the global #1 producer (I think I am up there, although I'm sure Brazil and the UK have nifty tropical wood production too.) Luckily for me, the Brits are largely ignoring Africa, France has only one or two colonies, and the only countries which are competing with me are the Dutch and Denmark (I'm not really worried much about the Danes)

Incidentally, my expansion into Africa has improved my military standing to the point that my forces are now stronger than the Ottomans. They're allied with Germany, which luckily for me, took a beating in a nasty war with Austria some time after forming and lost Bavaria. The tough part seems to be making Arabia so you can get all those cores in the Ottoman Empire.

I'm having a problem I had with my Mexico game though - I need to turn these colonies into national territory, and none of my bureaucrats want to move. Luckily for Mexico, my only colonies were Fiji and Easter Island. Egypt needs to free up some colonial points though.

Madagascar is nice yeah, I did not really notice the whole conversion thing happening or not, but I can tell you that in 2014 most people are not animists (I grew up there...), it's just that the game is poor at showing syncretism, people having some animist traditions while also going to the church or the mosq.
Getting Makran is a bit surprising, it's a lot of infamy for not much... Sindh, Atjeh (if it's still on the map) etc. Basically any asian minor has to be worth more than Makran...

I got that from demographic stuff I read on Madagascar. You sure it's not an urban/rural thing? Either way, it seems implausible that evangelism in such a huge country would be so quick as to have practically eliminated it. The same goes for Shia Muslims, who all convert to Sunni Islam, even though there are small minorities all over the Sunni world.

I was actually thinking a syncretism feature would be really cool (and presumably an anathema to moralist parties). It could allow the game to have Haitian voodoo, etc, so it would also add to the realism. Religion doesn't play a big role in the game, and it shouldn't the way I'm guessing it does in the Paradox games with earlier time settings, but religious institutions did play an important role both in pursuing and resisting colonization, as well as in building the narratives among colonizers and colonized alike about the moral qualities of their other. I think having a more complex way of relating Christianity and to a lesser extent Islam and Buddhism with the more local religious traditions might capture some of the history that the game doesn't right now.

I'm hoping I don't have to go too far afield to find coal. I have more than enough for my industry right now and I have none of the mining techs. Worst comes to worst, I can just invade Turkey proper, or sphere them once they have been driven from Africa and the non-Anatolian part of the Middle East (one of the things I like about this game is that total conquest is possible, but discouraged for everyone but raving fascists ... with the exception of Imperialist assaults on countries outside of the west. It's far more realistic, for one thing).

That said, an invasion of Korea from Brunei now that I've taken that might be fun too.

Lwantssugar · Nov 19, 2014

Might I recommend pops of darkness? I did more or less the same thing you're trying however there's a specific event for when the Ottomans inevitably lose their status as a great power which triggers the oriental crisis. The ottomans will try and make you a puppet again but the other great powers will intervene in the war either in favor of the Ottomans or you, it's possible to fight the empire but not Austria or France so just surrender to one of them (and not the Ottomans) basically you'll trade your levantine provinces for your independence. After that focus your efforts on westernizing, it's worth mentioning that you shouldn't let other nations excavate the valley of the kings since when you discover nationalism and imperialism you can do it yourself. So when you become a great power you can not only form Arabia but later create the Arab union which makes all Arab cultures accepted and gives cores on the entire middle east from Morocco to Baghdad

El Jojo · Nov 19, 2014

You should have more than enough colonial points considering the number of naval bases you have and the fact that when you westernize you have no colonies to maintain. Your pops will move to the colonial provinces and become bureaucrats as long as your admin slider is not too low. Moving to the colonies seems to be tied to the presence of a land border with the homeland. Playing with African nations or the Ottomans I managed to statify much more african states than when I play a nation from another continent and no contiguous land route.
Still it won't happen in six months but in 10 years. or so.

Coal will become an issue if you industrialize successfully and you don't have that much around you. A few provinces in Anatolia, southern Spain, but they're not dense enough to have high production. Even if you plan to focus on electric gears and cars you'll need some if you want to be significant.

From the moment you have a strong colonial empire, the ottomans shouldn't be a threat anymore, you'll way too much soldiers for them to compete, even if in the very first years post-westernization you'll be lacking in military techs.

As for Madagascar, well I can't pretend I've met every single person living there but I'd say a lot of people in rural areas would identify as christians or muslims, animism being a set of practice they keep. In urban areas, most animist are mostly out. I'd take any demographic survey with a touch of salt considering the lack of a strong governmental or institutions network to collect data.

Still on the subject of conversion, Africa saw some big conversion in the colonial era, often with syncretism, or not so much syncretism as co-presence with strong animist traditions in parallel with church going and quite often the colonial priest looking the other way

GrounchoVilla · Nov 22, 2014

El Jojo said:
You should have more than enough colonial points considering the number of naval bases you have and the fact that when you westernize you have no colonies to maintain. Your pops will move to the colonial provinces and become bureaucrats as long as your admin slider is not too low. Moving to the colonies seems to be tied to the presence of a land border with the homeland. Playing with African nations or the Ottomans I managed to statify much more african states than when I play a nation from another continent and no contiguous land route.
Still it won't happen in six months but in 10 years. or so.

Coal will become an issue if you industrialize successfully and you don't have that much around you. A few provinces in Anatolia, southern Spain, but they're not dense enough to have high production. Even if you plan to focus on electric gears and cars you'll need some if you want to be significant.

From the moment you have a strong colonial empire, the ottomans shouldn't be a threat anymore, you'll way too much soldiers for them to compete, even if in the very first years post-westernization you'll be lacking in military techs.

Ya that's more or less what happened. I control maybe between a third and a half (?) of Africa, and most of the best cores around Nigeria and the northern Congo (lots of tropical wood)

Now I'm trying to found Arabia, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how the formable nation function works. When I found Arabia with one Arab country in my sphere, it joins, but when I found Arabia with three or four Arab countries in my sphere, I end up just changing Egypt's name to Arabia and ending up with a bunch of very poor Arab countries in my sphere. None of the Arab countries join Arabia.

As for Madagascar, well I can't pretend I've met every single person living there but I'd say a lot of people in rural areas would identify as christians or muslims, animism being a set of practice they keep. In urban areas, most animist are mostly out. I'd take any demographic survey with a touch of salt considering the lack of a strong governmental or institutions network to collect data.

Fair enough

Still on the subject of conversion, Africa saw some big conversion in the colonial era, often with syncretism, or not so much syncretism as co-presence with strong animist traditions in parallel with church going and quite often the colonial priest looking the other way

True, but I know the success of the missions varied a lot. Parts of Africa converted mostly with a little bit of syncretism to Islam and Christianity, while parts were more resistant to the missionary message (like Benin and Togo, or the Dogon parts of Mali)

El Jojo · Nov 22, 2014

GrounchoVilla said:
Ya that's more or less what happened. I control maybe between a third and a half (?) of Africa, and most of the best cores around Nigeria and the northern Congo (lots of tropical wood)

Now I'm trying to found Arabia, and I'm having a hard time figuring out how the formable nation function works. When I found Arabia with one Arab country in my sphere, it joins, but when I found Arabia with three or four Arab countries in my sphere, I end up just changing Egypt's name to Arabia and ending up with a bunch of very poor Arab countries in my sphere. None of the Arab countries join Arabia.

I was never patient enough to do it that, I just sphered the one country you need (Hedjaz I think), formed Arabia and then took my cores by war, since it's mostly poor uncivilized nations, it's quick and efficient. It's so easy that you can even rationnalize as your armies liberating them.
I think all arab culture nations should get a proposal of joining the union when you form Arabia but it seems they mostly refuse, may it's because they're uncivilized and that somehow messes with decision to join.
Maybe they'll join after a while ? It happens with Germany or Italy, a country can join after a while if they're sphered, have good relationship and share the culture...

GrounchoVilla said:
True, but I know the success of the missions varied a lot. Parts of Africa converted mostly with a little bit of syncretism to Islam and Christianity, while parts were more resistant to the missionary message (like Benin and Togo, or the Dogon parts of Mali)

Sure, things did happen differently and the power relations make it tough to distinguish the religious dimension and the political one.

GrounchoVilla · Nov 22, 2014

El Jojo said:
I was never patient enough to do it that, I just sphered the one country you need (Hedjaz I think), formed Arabia and then took my cores by war, since it's mostly poor uncivilized nations, it's quick and efficient. It's so easy that you can even rationnalize as your armies liberating them.

Apparently, it doesn't even need to be Hedjaz. I found Nejd to be a little better - there is less land to annex, and I thought it would be good to reward the Sauds for their decades of long alliance (which resulted in them losing all their soldier pops in wars against the Turks).

Oddly though, I've found the UK drops relations precipitously, which invites an Ottoman-Austrian alliance to attack me if I invest too much. The UK doesn't feel like honoring their alliance if that happens. Also, Japan wants to stick up for little Abu Dhabi & decides to occupy Madagasar. At least the UK joins me against Japan though. I'm almost as powerful as Austria and France militarily, but I have a hard time taking on two European powers at once on my own, and England seems to trust Arabia a lot less than it did Egypt. I guess you need to work on diplomacy before going all reconquista.

I think all arab culture nations should get a proposal of joining the union when you form Arabia but it seems they mostly refuse, may it's because they're uncivilized and that somehow messes with decision to join.
Maybe they'll join after a while ? It happens with Germany or Italy, a country can join after a while if they're sphered, have good relationship and share the culture...

I'd really like to know, I'd use completely different strategies depending. Algeria is independent and unsphered (France was too busy losing a war against me over Madagascar in the early game) and there are three other Arab countries which are independent and unsphered (Yemen is France's puppet). Perhaps I will scour the FAQ for information on it.

Also, I found that for some reason, Libya didn't get Arab spheres. Which is unfortunate - everywhere else in North Africa did. Even Tripoli!

Sure, things did happen differently and the power relations make it tough to distinguish the religious dimension and the political one.

Very true - in fact, it would be interesting to have the game's conversion rate drastically lowered, but give the player options to use missionaries which would not only convert local pops but might increase literacy, admin efficiency and militancy. Missionaries were semi-state functionaries in the colonies, acting as advisers to vassal kings and bringing European skills and technology with their religion. The alternative would be to hire local priests which would not convert folks but might also not bring the same kinds of benefits. I think it might also capture the kinds of strategic decisions made historically, both when the UK decided to let Hindu and Muslim religious codes determine Indian law after the Sepoy mutiny, as well as the use of missionaries in Africa and the Pacific Islands as a kind of European vanguard.

Search

What to do with Egypt?

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

szmik

Libertarian

Illanair

Space Duck

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

Aedelvice

Second Lieutenant

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

Lwantssugar

Lt. General

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel

El Jojo

Lt. General

GrounchoVilla

Colonel