1.92 Normal Vanilla Ottoman WC - Completed. Well, 99% Before Loss.

[johnmyster]

Thanks all for your interest and support.

Run 15: Victory?
http://imgur.com/a/MO5Gn

1466: Poor Timurids
1472: Standard Spider Expansion
1488-1537: Cautious Optimism
1564-1575: A Woman Rules the Ottomans
1585-1606: Diplo-Annex Georgia, Release Novgorod
1607-1659: Solidifying my Position, and an Unexpected New Threat
1666-1711: Into France, Iberia, Africa, Asia, and South America
1714-1732: More Italy, New World, Iberia, Indonesia
1734-1753: Gearing Towards the End-Game
1779-1807: Pew Pew, Nom Nom, Regency Council
1809-1817: Victory Stolen at 99%​

Run 14: I didn't like Byzantium picking up two allies right away, and Albania allying Hungary.

Run 13:
While my first 65 years of expansion were awesome, I quit the run to due high AE and extreme loan interest hampering expansion and any momentum I'd built up.

1452-1509: Aggressive Expansion, Down with Castile!​

Runs 7-12 were mostly short as I had poor starts — like letting the Mamluks wipe 90% of my army, the Mamluks allying too many Turkish minors, and the Persians flipping before I could release them as my own.

Run 6 (bankrupt in 1815):
http://imgur.com/a/cOOrv

1485: Crippling Muscovy
1490: Dog Pile on Muscovy
1551: Manufactories Galore
1572: Gettin' Rich
1627: Vassals in India
Reply 1
Reply 2
1670: War with Pomerania, Austria, and friends
Reply 3
Reply 4
Reply 5
1674: Sweet Peace with Austria
1730/1731: Yummy, a Bite of Spain!
1741: A Growing Empire
1747-1804: A Republican Revolution
1809-1821: Another Defeat​

Run 5: Leader died an early death with heir age 0 a few years into the game. Quit run to not be crippled by 15 or w/e years of not being able to declare war so early in the game.

Run 4: (first run posted)
http://imgur.com/a/qBsj0

I have conceded defeat for this run. Details and reflections found here. Stay tuned for my next run.

Reply 1
Reply 2
Reply 3
Reply 4
1704 Post-Coalition War Update
Reply 5
Reply 6
Reply 7
1713 — Victory Against the Russians
1739: Movin' Right Along
Reply 8
1755: North America Discovered
1760: Another Coalition, 1 Million Strong
1762: Peace with the Coalition
1768: Spain and the Road Ahead
1780: Defeat
​

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Run 4 Post:

Hey there, I am going for an Ironman Ottoman WC on Normal difficulty. Not going for one-tag, I would just like to own or have a subject own every colonized province in the world. Uncolonized provinces are fine. Playing v1.19.20 Denmark on vanilla (no expansions enabled). It is currently 1690.

France and Vijayanagar are my allies, and are the #3 and #4 discovered land military powers by raw numbers (Russia #2, me #1). They are reluctant allies now that AE is so high, and positive opinion only kept by improved relations. Ottoman Brazil, Fulo, and Mongolia are my (mostly insignificant) subjects. Most of the known world (30 or 40ish countries) is in a coalition against me with Delhi as the leader, with some exceptions being my allies, subjects, Korea, Japan, Melwa, Nepal, countries with a truce, and central Africa which is still blocked off by uncolonized territory. Bohemia could enter soon, recently broke alliance with them as they tried to drag me into a war where one of the allies was in the coalition. (Not 100% sure if it would've dragged the coalition in, but wanted to be safe).

My biggest worries are breaking up the coalition, conquering the 500-650% (until I get -20% cost from diplo ideas) war score countries (France, Spain, Vijayanagar, Russia), the Holy Roman Empire (though OPM Cleves is Emperor), and the mostly undiscovered new world before 1821. Much of Spain and Russia's forts I have taken and deleted in recent wars.

I would say my economy is mostly satisfactory, though I do have 19k in loans and am paying 47 (out of my 287) gold in interest per month.

Is a WC still possible? How likely? Any advice you can give would be great as well. Thanks.

Here's some extra pictures:

Spoiler: Armies

Spoiler: Coalition

Spoiler: Economy

Spoiler: Subjects

Spoiler: Ideas

And here's an Imgur link for more pictures of this run's current state if you want more details. Thanks again!

http://imgur.com/a/qBsj0

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You're probably not going to get "one faith", but just meeting the requirements for WC is doable from this position for sure.

 

[Dominion]

Going in as secondary participant does not trigger the coalition and would have helped you get rid of one of the coalition members.

 

[Toni Martoni]

You can easily do it but focus on big countries first and rotate the truces to avoid coalitions. You can continue to attack Spain in your position
To break the coalition, you can increase your number of troops (but with this economy it gonna be hard...) or eject the most dangerous members as Dominion said
You need to get rid of these loans... It kills your economy. I'm not sure you need fleet maintenance too
Ask for Spoils of war and hire lvl1 advisors, you don't need diplo and military points right now
You should have finished admin ideas, it reduces a lot the cost of adm tech...

And don't forget to STEAL maps from England and Spain! As you're still Sunni, you will not discover the new world easily: in my run in 1750 I still didn't see anything of North America.
Moreover, you don't have the DLC which enables you to kick an idea group for another (Exploration here) so be cautious here!

 

[Choggy]

You're in a great position overall. Imperialism and client-state feeding will deal with France, Russia and the other blobs, the New World is easy to conquer as you can force-feed CN's way over the 100OE limit so long as you leave an army over there to help (the reb spawns are small stacks and the CN's get the bad OE events, not you) and your economy seems fine even with the interest from the loans. You're hardly likely to go bankrupt by 1821 unless you do something really daft.

I'd be tempted to take the coalition head-on tbh. With your FL and army size, one war will almost certainly break it for good.

 

[Caligula's Horse]

I'd be tempted to take the coalition head-on tbh. With your FL and army size, one war will almost certainly break it for good.

That's almost never a good idea. Just because you can do something doesn't always mean its the best way to go about it.
Why fight them all at once, with years of long fighting and sieging to get any reasonable amount of warscore, only to have a singe measily peace deal to squeeze out concessions from the lot of them? Also afterwards, they're all going to be on the same truce timer, and would have had time to repay their debts and restore their manpower, and would have lost fairly few provinces (again with the measly singe peace deal) so the coalition will probably just come back.

Much better to get into separate wars with coalition members in any way possible (targeting their allies usually does it, just don't declare them co-belligeret, or they'll bring the coalition with them into the fight). This way, they'll all be on different truce timers, and you could fight them only a few at a time as opposed to all at once.

 

[Dominion]

Why fight them all at once, with years of long fighting and sieging to get any reasonable amount of warscore, only to have a singe measily peace deal to squeeze out concessions from the lot of them?

Because you separate peace them and don't just take a measly peacedeal.

 

[Caligula's Horse]

Because you separate peace them and don't just take a measly peacedeal.

I'm pretty sure you can't do that in a coalition war, just like you can't separate peace a vassal. I think you used to be able to separate peace coalition members I don't know how many patches ago, but not anymore.

 

[Toni Martoni]

I'm pretty sure you can't do that in a coalition war, just like you can't separate peace a vassal. I think you used to be able to separate peace coalition members I don't know how many patches ago, but not anymore.

You might still be able to separate peace if you wage the war on an ally of a coalition member and set this member co-belligerent, but I think I remember Paradox have changed that

 

[Choggy]

Much better to get into separate wars with coalition members in any way possible (targeting their allies usually does it, just don't declare them co-belligeret, or they'll bring the coalition with them into the fight). This way, they'll all be on different truce timers, and you could fight them only a few at a time as opposed to all at once.

Yes, that's the standard 'divide and conquer' way of dealing with a coalition where there is a clear and present threat that it'll fire and overwhelm you. But I doubt very much that this coalition will ever fire, the OP is far too powerful already. Therefore it's just another roadblock to get out of the way on the road to a WC.

So really the only question that remains is 'Would the OP win if it did fire?' His army is huge and given his progress he's clearly got a competent understanding of the game mechanics, so I would say he would win. Therefore, why not take it head-on on his terms?

WC runs are tiresome enough as it is due to the endless 'rinse-and'repeat' warfare that's needed to complete them. In his position I'd fight one big war, get them all on a big truce timer (during which they'll almost certainly all drop out of the coalition when the individual AI's re-evaluate the coalition during the resulting truce) and then be done with it rather than try and tip-toe around fighting even more wars to deal with what is essentially an inconvenience and not a threat.

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

I'd suggest sitting back from conquering for a decade or more.

Catch up in admin tech, it's really important to get 23 ADM asap. Also, cut your army expenditure drastically for the time and PAY OFF THOSE LOANS. If possible build workshops and temples. You'll need more cash during the last 100 years. On that subject, fixing your trade income should be a top priority, you can probably double it by conquering southern India, establishing as many trade companies as can provide you with merchants and drawing the massive Asian trade to Constantinople. In my Otto WC trade income started to surpass production around 1700, and production had been far ahead of tax already at this time.

In general your run is fine except for the money.

 

[Caligula's Horse]

So really the only question that remains is 'Would the OP win if it did fire?' His army is huge and given his progress he's clearly got a competent understanding of the game mechanics, so I would say he would win. Therefore, why not take it head-on on his terms?

Because fighting them separately lets you take full war score per combatant, per war fought, as opposed to just the one full war score divided between all combatants for fighting all of them at once. It also puts them on separate truce timers and makes sure the coalition won't re-form with more certainty than fighting them all at once and winning, ironically enough. Now if he wants to fight the coalition for fun to break up the monotony of late game WC that's one thing, but there is no good mechanics driven reason to do so. Much better to break the coalition apart with separate wars by declaring on their allies and fighting them piecemeal if it can be managed.

That having been said, I think the coalition CB makes the war take longer as it affects the AI war leader's peace desire, and I think starting the war yourself with your own CB can get around that. It does give up on breaking the coalition apart diplomatically or by goading its members to separate wars, though.

 

[Dominion]

I'd suggest sitting back from conquering for a decade or more.

Catch up in admin tech, it's really important to get 23 ADM asap. Also, cut your army expenditure drastically for the time and PAY OFF THOSE LOANS. If possible build workshops and temples. You'll need more cash during the last 100 years. On that subject, fixing your trade income should be a top priority, you can probably double it by conquering southern India, establishing as many trade companies as can provide you with merchants and drawing the massive Asian trade to Constantinople. In my Otto WC trade income started to surpass production around 1700, and production had been far ahead of tax already at this time.

In general your run is fine except for the money.

No offense, but these are some of the weirdest tips I've seen in a while.

- Having loans does not hurt you at any point in the game
- The usual ROI time for 0.10 churches is 80 years, spamming them in 1690 is rather late and cash is better invested elsewhere
- You don't need more cash during the last 100 years because your trade income skyrockets once you get a hold on colonies + Asia
- "Fixing trade income" is just conquering land, which is something he would do anyways. It's a WC after all
- Sunni Ottomans might have to focus on Asia for trade, I wouldn't know, but orthodox, coptic and catholic Ottomans get their trade from America and I would focus on America/colonizers anyways since India seems pretty done judging from his screenshot
- In general he has 7k def at the end of the 17th century. That's okay, doable, whatever, but not exactly a strong position as Ottomans and seeing how it's his first attempt it will still take quite some energy to push through

 

[pedrito_elcabra]

No offense, but these are some of the weirdest tips I've seen in a while.

None taken. I respect your opinion too.

- Having loans does not hurt you at any point in the game

How does a 45 ducats per month expenditure in interest not hurt you? Did I miss something?
Even if he never goes bankrupt there is still the inflation that you get from extending loans.

- The usual ROI time for 0.10 churches is 80 years, spamming them in 1690 is rather late and cash is better invested elsewhere

Yes, in my opinion it's better invested in paying off loans, building workshops which can easily have a ROI of 25 years, or mosques for > 0.20 provinces which have a 40 year ROI, in that precise order.
You might have a different opinion of course.

- You don't need more cash during the last 100 years because your trade income skyrockets once you get a hold on colonies + Asia

He needs more cash, now.
At the time of the screenie he is fighting a single war while losing 40 ducats a month, his army maintenance is only going to increase once he starts taking full advantage of imperialism CB and running 4-5 different wars at a time.

- "Fixing trade income" is just conquering land, which is something he would do anyways. It's a WC after all

It's conquering the right land first.

- Sunni Ottomans might have to focus on Asia for trade, I wouldn't know, but orthodox, coptic and catholic Ottomans get their trade from America and I would focus on America/colonizers anyways since India seems pretty done judging from his screenshot

I see a 500 dev Vijay in India, blocking the vital Ceylon node and that he's allied to.
That, for me, would be a priority no matter if I decided to collect in Constantinople, Seville, Zanzibar... you name it.

- In general he has 7k def at the end of the 17th century. That's okay, doable, whatever, but not exactly a strong position as Ottomans and seeing how it's his first attempt it will still take quite some energy to push through

Agree 100%.

 

[Choggy]

It also puts them on separate truce timers and makes sure the coalition won't re-form with more certainty than fighting them all at once and winning, ironically enough

But this approach assumes that the after the truce from the first coalition war runs out that there's a risk that the coalition will reform again. I disagree with this premise in this particular game, he's too powerful. That existing coalition is nothing more that a last-ditch attempt to contain the player, it's clearly a defensive coalition, otherwise it would have fired by now. I just can't see another coalition forming if he smashes this one.

That aside, everything you've said about dealing with coalitions is correct. There is the separate question of how it was allowed to get so large in the first place though.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It's true the economy is a little weak to this point. Screwing around with Mali I have about that income on a bit more than 3k development, so there's some missing stuff with manufactories and managing LA.

 

[johnmyster]

Thank you guys so much for all your detailed replies! I have tried my best to reply to all of them that I have something to say, and keep it organized for easier reading. Religious and Local Autonomy maps are now available on the Imgur page ( http://imgur.com/a/qBsj0 )

Spoiler: TheMeInTeam

You're probably not going to get "one faith", but just meeting the requirements for WC is doable from this position for sure.

Fortunately, I'm not going for one faith!

Spoiler: Tony M.

You might still be able to separate peace if you wage the war on an ally of a coalition member and set this member co-belligerent, but I think I remember Paradox have changed that

I've declared on the coalition once or twice, over a century ago. You can't separate peace a coalition in my version. If I declare, the -30% warscore/reasons for peace coalition modifier does not seem to apply.

...
To break the coalition, you can increase your number of troops (but with this economy it gonna be hard...) or eject the most dangerous members as Dominion said
You need to get rid of these loans... It kills your economy. I'm not sure you need fleet maintenance too
Ask for Spoils of war and hire lvl1 advisors, you don't need diplo and military points right now
You should have finished admin ideas, it reduces a lot the cost of adm tech...

And don't forget to STEAL maps from England and Spain! As you're still Sunni, you will not discover the new world easily: in my run in 1750 I still didn't see anything of North America.
Moreover, you don't have the DLC which enables you to kick an idea group for another (Exploration here) so be cautious here!

Fleet maintenance is to ferry troops around denmark's islands to capture forts. I generally ask for max gold in wars, as long as it doesn't keep me taking any provinces. I will strongly consider switching back to lvl 1 diplo/mil advisors to save gold.

By stealing maps, do you mean exploring territory during war? Haven't seen a steal map option in vanilla. I am considering getting exploration ideas next, with aggressive and maybe humanist also being ones I'm considering.

Spoiler: Choggy, and Caligula's Horse

Yes, that's the standard 'divide and conquer' way of dealing with a coalition where there is a clear and present threat that it'll fire and overwhelm you. But I doubt very much that this coalition will ever fire, the OP is far too powerful already. Therefore it's just another roadblock to get out of the way on the road to a WC.

So really the only question that remains is 'Would the OP win if it did fire?' His army is huge and given his progress he's clearly got a competent understanding of the game mechanics, so I would say he would win. Therefore, why not take it head-on on his terms?

WC runs are tiresome enough as it is due to the endless 'rinse-and'repeat' warfare that's needed to complete them. In his position I'd fight one big war, get them all on a big truce timer (during which they'll almost certainly all drop out of the coalition when the individual AI's re-evaluate the coalition during the resulting truce) and then be done with it rather than try and tip-toe around fighting even more wars to deal with what is essentially an inconvenience and not a threat.

Even after 342 hours of EU4 and 3 or so previous Otto WC attempts, I'm still developing an understanding as to how best to pace my conquering. If I did declare, I would probably shoot only for -10% war score or so and release some small nation as I did previously with Ethiopia, as my economy seems too weak or my mind too overwhelmed to fight a war on so many fronts.

Confronting the coalition in one way or another is inevitable, as my options for expansion outside of coalition countries are shrinking.

Spoiler: Dominion, and Pedro

No offense, but these are some of the weirdest tips I've seen in a while.

- Having loans does not hurt you at any point in the game
- The usual ROI time for 0.10 churches is 80 years, spamming them in 1690 is rather late and cash is better invested elsewhere
- You don't need more cash during the last 100 years because your trade income skyrockets once you get a hold on colonies + Asia
- "Fixing trade income" is just conquering land, which is something he would do anyways. It's a WC after all
- Sunni Ottomans might have to focus on Asia for trade, I wouldn't know, but orthodox, coptic and catholic Ottomans get their trade from America and I would focus on America/colonizers anyways since India seems pretty done judging from his screenshot
- In general he has 7k def at the end of the 17th century. That's okay, doable, whatever, but not exactly a strong position as Ottomans and seeing how it's his first attempt it will still take quite some energy to push through

None taken. I respect your opinion too.



How does a 45 ducats per month expenditure in interest not hurt you? Did I miss something?
Even if he never goes bankrupt there is still the inflation that you get from extending loans.


Yes, in my opinion it's better invested in paying off loans, building workshops which can easily have a ROI of 25 years, or mosques for > 0.20 provinces which have a 40 year ROI, in that precise order.
You might have a different opinion of course.


He needs more cash, now.
At the time of the screenie he is fighting a single war while losing 40 ducats a month, his army maintenance is only going to increase once he starts taking full advantage of imperialism CB and running 4-5 different wars at a time.


It's conquering the right land first.


I see a 500 dev Vijay in India, blocking the vital Ceylon node and that he's allied to.
That, for me, would be a priority no matter if I decided to collect in Constantinople, Seville, Zanzibar... you name it.



Agree 100%.

Thank you for a civil conversation! I will certainly look into improving my economy. I'm trying to weight the benefits of improving it vs. the ever-ticking clock I'm running against to core provinces. I've only built about one manufactory for a quest, and have been building mosques (and the first trade building) in most/all provinces where the increase in income is .13 or more.

India certainly does look trade rich, and avoiding it has probably been one of my major blunders. Baluchistan and Delhi (who used to both be 1-1.5 wars worth larger) in a coalition with others have been blocking access to it for most of the game, and it seemed to me that my troops were better spent elsewhere at each point in time. It seems I was wrong. xD

Spoiler: Choggy (2)

But this approach assumes that the after the truce from the first coalition war runs out that there's a risk that the coalition will reform again. I disagree with this premise in this particular game, he's too powerful. That existing coalition is nothing more that a last-ditch attempt to contain the player, it's clearly a defensive coalition, otherwise it would have fired by now. I just can't see another coalition forming if he smashes this one.

That aside, everything you've said about dealing with coalitions is correct. There is the separate question of how it was allowed to get so large in the first place though.

This version of the coalition is somewhere around 25-40 years old, with the HRE being very recent members. 25-40 or something years ago, the coalition dropped members completely on its own, before reforming a year or so later. I tried to make the most of this coalitionless time, but may have not been aggressive enough in declaring war to mix up truce timers and coalition-forming capabilities.

It got so large by:

1. Me trying to take on the easiest countries for so long (to make the most gains for each gold, manpower, time, OE, and Admin/Diplo points spent), probably too long. I may have rushed my provincial gains against the clock a little too fast, instead of trying to build a larger force to take on / prevent coalitions.

2. Not making dismantling it a big enough priority. I've broken up a few (much smaller) coalitions earlier in the game.

Spoiler: TheMeInTeam (2)

It's true the economy is a little weak to this point. Screwing around with Mali I have about that income on a bit more than 3k development, so there's some missing stuff with manufactories and managing LA.

A fair point. I had no loans about maybe 20-25 years ago, and should built up my economy buildings more aggressively at that time. Here is my Local Autonomy map:

Spoiler

As you can see, I have been aggressive in raising LA to help with rebels, almost always raising it after taking any province while the initial seperatism takes place. Perhaps I underestimated the economical effects of raising LA on richer provinces / overestimated the economic impact of fighting the rebels head-on.

 

[Choggy]

Even after 342 hours of EU4 and 3 or so previous Otto WC attempts, I'm still developing an understanding as to how best to pace my conquering. If I did declare, I would probably shoot only for -10% war score or so and release some small nation as I did previously with Ethiopia, as my economy seems too weak or my mind too overwhelmed to fight a war on so many fronts.

Confronting the coalition in one way or another is inevitable, as my options for expansion outside of coalition countries are shrinking.

In terms of pacing the game, you could easily afford to take a break of a year or two to recover your manpower, sort your economy out, get some stored monarch points etc. You have much more time to complete this than you think you have, even as a one-tag WC. Imperialism and Admin Efficiency make a huge difference to game pace.

With a 4/6/4 king those +3 DIP and MIL advisors do look expensive though, even if DIP 23 is a key tech.

The coalition doesn't sound very stable and may well disappear but if it doesn't, then you're right - you'll need to fight it. I wouldn't go for half measures like -10 peace treaty deals when fighting it though, the goal should be to annihilate the coalitions armies so that it never forms again. Those countries can then easily picked off after the truce runs out.

 

[TheDutchWarlord]

My main advice for you right now, would be to aim for the Important trade provinces in India and Indonesia. Doing that will allow you to steer all that trade towards you and give you an easy 100+ ducats a month from the trade of it alone, (also maybe hire lvl 1 advisors) thus making you able to start paying off the loans and once that is done, build a bigger army.

If you don't want to attack Vijayanagar for it's CoT's and Estuaries, try pushing trade from Malacca to Zanzibar and just setting a merchant there to collect, that should increase your income already (assuming you have majority in Malacca and the rest of the Indonesian trade nodes)

Also, are you hiring any mercs that are not infantry? If so disband those, Mercspamm is most cost effective when buying infantry, and since that is the main casualty in most battles your manpower pool should be refilling itself some more. For the rest, you might want to try and break the coalition by attacking allies of Members, preferably the big members, since that will greatly weaken the coalition making it more likely to disband.

 

[johnmyster]

In terms of pacing the game, you could easily afford to take a break of a year or two to recover your manpower, sort your economy out, get some stored monarch points etc. You have much more time to complete this than you think you have, even as a one-tag WC. Imperialism and Admin Efficiency make a huge difference to game pace.

With a 4/6/4 king those +3 DIP and MIL advisors do look expensive though, even if DIP 23 is a key tech.

The coalition doesn't sound very stable and may well disappear but if it doesn't, then you're right - you'll need to fight it. I wouldn't go for half measures like -10 peace treaty deals when fighting it though, the goal should be to annihilate the coalitions armies so that it never forms again. Those countries can then easily picked off after the truce runs out.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try to slow down a bit. Gotta get that Admin Efficiency. xD Dip and Mil advisors are now +1.

And for the coalition, good point about annihilating the armies. Maybe I'm overestimating their potential to simply rebuild them compared to mine.

About a year and a half has now passed. Denmark and Sweden's forts all are all mine and deleted, and I'm at war with Venice w/ Spain and Genoa as non-cobelligerents, war is going just fine. I'm trying to declare wars as truces expire before they can join coalition, but it is probably time to tackle the coalition once and for all.

My main advice for you right now, would be to aim for the Important trade provinces in India and Indonesia. Doing that will allow you to steer all that trade towards you and give you an easy 100+ ducats a month from the trade of it alone, (also maybe hire lvl 1 advisors) thus making you able to start paying off the loans and once that is done, build a bigger army.

If you don't want to attack Vijayanagar for it's CoT's and Estuaries, try pushing trade from Malacca to Zanzibar and just setting a merchant there to collect, that should increase your income already (assuming you have majority in Malacca and the rest of the Indonesian trade nodes)

Also, are you hiring any mercs that are not infantry? If so disband those, Mercspamm is most cost effective when buying infantry, and since that is the main casualty in most battles your manpower pool should be refilling itself some more. For the rest, you might want to try and break the coalition by attacking allies of Members, preferably the big members, since that will greatly weaken the coalition making it more likely to disband.

I'm still a bit fuzzy on trade, even after lots of reading and watching videos. I'll try to do those things.

All my mercs are just infantry.

Most allies of members are now also in the coalition, since my expansion is so widespread.