Help me beat the Western Protectorate and unify India

[eastcoastceojam]

I'm trying to knock out a few CK2 achievements before CK3, so I decided to unify India and become Samrat Chakravartin for the "My Very Own Subcontinent" achievement.

Using an old Tughluq of Rajasthan save, I finished conquering the subcontinent in about 25 years. Now, I had only to conquer 4 counties owned by the Western Protectorate to own all of India.

In an old thread I made, but never followed through on, folks recommended turning off the Jade Dragon DLC before attacking the Western Protectorate, since I didn't feel like fighting 200k China doomstacks for a few measly counties.

I did just that, saved up 4,000 gold, hired 30k mercenaries, and then started a holy war for 3 of 4 the counties I need. I was doing petty good early on, and finally killed the bulk of the WP troops. But then, ~47K new attrition-less Chinese troops just showed in the Bay of Bengal!

Does the trick of deactivating the Jade Dragon DLC no longer work like it used to?



Old thread: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...e-western-protectorate-how-bad-is-it.1167152/

Current map:

 

[aswitz87]

Since we can’t play as him I don’t know what intrigue options they have available. It’s possible they have a ‘raise honor guard’ thing regardless of Jade Dragon.

 

[Yxklyx]

This looks exactly like my current game! WP had three provinces I need - I took one so far. I took Sikkim using a Conquest CB - 30k or 40k troops landed in Bengal right away. I was able get mine together in time and he spread his out a bit so defeated him in the battles. It helped that the WP has negative funds so his morale was lower than normal. I didn't use mercs as I can raise 50k to 60k troops myself. Did you increase your Feudal obligations for more troops. Also, I believe WP gets fewer and/or lower quality troops during unrest and civil war.

Don't go for the province right way - Sikkim had a level 6 fort in mountains as well so no assault. Try to amass your troops in one or two counties. The AI armies usually split up and maneuver so that you can defeat his armies one by one. After that go for the siege. It doesn't matter if he sieges some of your provinces as long as you win all the battles.

Timurids showed up I have NAP with them but they won't ally. If I could get them to join, these wars might go easier.

I've not see anything like 200K armies - maybe they get that in a Golden Age?

 

[eastcoastceojam]

This looks exactly like my current game! WP had three provinces I need - I took one so far.

Don't go for the province right way - Sikkim had a level 6 fort in mountains as well so no assault. Try to amass your troops in one or two counties. The AI armies usually split up and maneuver so that you can defeat his armies one by one. After that go for the siege. It doesn't matter if he sieges some of your provinces as long as you win all the battles.

Thanks for the advice. Starting in India in the 1330s is rough, since the Western Protectorate already owns all of Tibet before you even unpause. The WP leader had 50k troops, but even worse was that he was making ~300 gold per month, so he can afford to hire every merc band there is and still not run a deficit.

I think I'm going to try and unify India at an earlier start date where the WP is much smaller, and less of a problem to siege down when you need one of their counties.

I wonder if I start in Bengal if I can keep the WP from making half the east into their tributary? This seems to happen most of the time with Jade Dragon enabled, even if you have the China game rule set to "no major invasions."

 

[DB42]

I invaded Golden Age China as Tibet with 99999999 gompa monasteries built with buddhist society discount and learned that if you don't let Chinese invasion troops wander off the map you will fight those too...I was shitting bricks. 200K+ and a 80K invasion force. If it weren't for Himalayan Mountaineer retinues and abusing discount monasteries with all that it entails I would have lost.

I might have to abuse temple discount when I play muslims just to build up the realm early. Muslims don't get any religious society.

Anyway, yeah, abuse them. India is underdeveloped early, building 9999999 temples helps.

BTW, I got the achievement as 769 Pali. Insanely rich lands and a bloodline. Became immortal in that run. Built a lot of temples with discount, converted to Islam, raked in HUGE jizya tax and holy warred.