1st Serious WC Attempt Failed. Pointers for Ottoderp WC Needed.

[Lord Zsinj]

Hello all,

I just abandoned my first WC attempt as the Turk. I made it to the 1620's before giving up due to an ungodly debt spiral and bankruptcy. Ottoman lands stretched from Cueta in the west to Thatta in the east, and the wasteland norths of the Urals in the north to Zanzibar in the south (sorry, no pics as the save was deleted by an unholy mixture of Rage, Disgust & Self Loathing).

Except for a seven year stretch in the 1470's to let AE tic down, I was pretty much always at war. 331 provinces, ~1200 dev.

Ideas: Influence, Admin, Quantity, Humanist, Quality.

Specific mistakes:

- Letting Janissary Decadence fire.

- force annexing 3PM Great Horde to vassal feed steppe lands (historic rival malus, not worth the reconquest CB).

- After blocking off Muscovy from Siberia, leave the steppes alone?

- Need harder push into India?

- Less but bigger armies, too many 10/4/4 running around.

Any advice? Thank you all in advance.

 

[Dominion]

I'd start a new game, release Persia from a QQ province, hope you get a huge vassal and eat nothing but Africa+vassalize Portugal.

Consider it a trainingsrun more than an actual run. You absolutely need to get more if this is your first WC.

Once you hit dip23 you can train vassal feeding by repeatedly taking 200-300 OE and pumping it into old vassals, releasing new ones and constantly integrating unused ones.

These are really basic pointers, but 1200 in 1620 is way too slow to give concrete tips. That's something I get as an OPM by playing normal speed.

Edit: I misread. Either way, learning lategame is still more important for you than learning openings. Never drop a bad run again. Better to ruin a weak opening and learn something about lategame than to ruin the perfect run because you had no clue how lategame expansion works.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

1200 is a guess TBH, probably more but I didn't think to look before I deleted I was so pissed off at myself.

First war with the Black Sheep, I grabbed Tabriz then released it to form Persia then went HAM on Timmy, Tabaristan and any other Stan holding Persian cores, so I did that right. 340 dev they were not happy but I bought them off by Placating. Gained prestige back via conversions with the Reformation age perk. Just sucked to have to do that after doing the same with the Horde.

 

[Dominion]

If I didn't misread and you really had 1200 dev in 1620 I recommend you change... Everything?

Don't attack Europe. Not even Wallachia. Only gets you coalitions.

Don't create coalitions. You can't handle them properly yet.
On the current patch afaik taking out Russia early is important because the time it takes to wad through their provinces is horrible lategame. It's not even about dev, just travel time.

Seriously, just eat all of Africa, nibble a bit from India and learn how lategame expansion works. Best advice I can spontanously come up with.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Thatta in the east

Need harder push into India?

Thatta in 1520, not 1620.
The Area around Baluchistan is something you take in while walking past.
The longer you wait with India the harder it gets.

wasteland norths of the Urals

After blocking off Muscovy from Siberia, leave the steppes alone?

Wasteland = waste of time.
I dont quite understand why people bother with this whole cutting of Russia thing.

Letting Janissary Decadence fire.

I would have just restarted here because i like to punish myself for big mistakes.

Zanzibar in the south

In all directions you stopped just before the real money makers.

331 provinces, ~1200 dev.

1200 is a guess TBH,

It doenst even matter how accurate those numbers are.
They mean your average dev per province was like 5.
Thats not land you want to expand into early.

Except for a seven year stretch in the 1470's to let AE tic down, I was pretty much always at war

If you went to war that often and for that long the 1200 dev look even more depressing.

You shouldnt need a break for AE that early. All the people whod want to join can be kept in truce.
Unless you managed to also anger loads of Catholic.




https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...1st-wc-attempt-advice-plz-v-1-22-1-0.1034064/

 

[Lord Zsinj]

In the Balkans all I grabbed was Serbia (ate Kosovo, vassalize the rest to feed them Bosnia but never got the chance), one province from Wallachian (Poles ate 2, grabbed it before anyone else did), and Albanian & Greek land.

 

[Dominion]

How did you even get a coalition there? Not only one, but multiple coalitions?

Did you nocb thrice in a row?

 

[PhoenixG]

imo cutting Russia off, isn't that high priority. Having decent economy is. Expanding into east africa and india is the most common route.

 

[Vulkandrache]

Serbia (ate Kosovo

You ONLY take the province of Kosovo for the gold mine.
You get missions for the rest later, thats stuff to do inbetween truces with nations in the east and while you have near 0 AE in Europe.

Albanian & Greek land.

Mentioning those two in a Ottoman run is like saying the night is dark.
You have those before the game even really starts.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

Coalition iirc was Mamelukes, and a bunch of crap little countries. I probably could have taken them but I figured i probably was going too crazy too early so I settled in for a bit. As people dropped out people coming off of truces joined in.

And it probably happened after a bunch of annexations.

Once I diploannexed Crimea, 3 short wars got me to the tundra, cheap land too. Should not have expanded off of that though.

 

[Vulkandrache]

If you let the Mamluks join a coalition then youve already failed. You should be attacking them like clockwork every time the truce runs out until they disappear.

 

[PhoenixG]

Coalition iirc was Mamelukes, and a bunch of crap little countries. I probably could have taken them but I figured i probably was going too crazy too early so I settled in for a bit. As people dropped out people coming off of truces joined in.

And it probably happened after a bunch of annexations.

Looks like you didn't do a proper truce juggling. You need to watch out with the truces and only have 3 country with outrage attitude without a truce.

imo lots of people fail a WC is the going too ham in the early game and while not improving their economy enough

 

[Lord Zsinj]

Yeah Serbia was attacked while truces were on in Iraq and the Levant.

I will fully agree something was horribly wrong with my economy though. Only was able to build workshops in copper and silk producers, marketplaces in CoT/estuary provinces, and 3-4 weapon manufacturers.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

Now for future tries, just release Persia and blast a road straight into India rather than flesh out a Persia with their cores?

 

[Vulkandrache]

You release Persia, do one reconquest against Timmy and start Persian integration asap.
You want it to finish quickly or they just steal your trade income.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I dont quite understand why people bother with this whole cutting of Russia thing.

It's a holdover from the distant past. Before attrition was nerfed into the floor and before you could demand provinces without first occupying them, Russia was a significant enough late game resource drain where cutting off its colonization to limit the provinces you'd have to individually siege in Siberia was worth it.

It's been years since those patches, but the really old guides that said to do this had pretty good reasoning.

It doenst even matter how accurate those numbers are.
They mean your average dev per province was like 5.
Thats not land you want to expand into early.

If you actually hold land from Maghrebi --> Thatta and down through Zanzibar in addition to Anatolia, that number is a gross underestimation. That's significantly more than 2000 development.

He's still underexpanding but unless some horde come through and triple razed all the provinces before he got his hands on them no way he has 1200 development on the territory he described.

That's not the issue anyway. Ottomans should not be poor. Ottomans should be running 3/3/1 advisors pretty early into the game while still able to expand on multiple fronts and making money.

This is the earliest point I have a screenshot from the one tag/one faith I did this patch:



Crimea + Taberestan were vassals, don't remember if I had Crimea just yet. Crimea chose to stay independent but I nope'd that choice.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

I was 3/3/1 or 3/1/3 depending on circumstances, with a lot of times the Admin or Diplo being an event or estate cheaper advisor.

Persia stealing trade income must have been the big culprit cause I hit a point I was switching inf back to regular and deleting merc inf to free up income. I fed Persia ALL their cores and did not integrate them right away, and it took almost 25 years when I did, even with Influence, cost redux policy and dip rep advisor.

 

[Vulkandrache]

This is the earliest point I have a screenshot from the one tag/one faith I did this patch:

Yes, thats legit progress.

 

[Robert de Bruce]

@TheMeInTeam : Interesting. Was there a specific reason to rush west? Cut off colonizers is outdated like cut off Russia and it also does not look like you wanted to snipe the unify-Islam provinces early on.

@Lord Zsinj : All what you wrote sounds like you need a lot of more experience all over the game. Perhaps you should focus more on less complicated achievements. What is the most difficult one you got yet? There are some, where you can learn something while achieving them without being as difficult as a WC. For example, you could go for a Better than Napoleon and Ruina Imperii run with France. I think the most important thing you need to improve is eco, but with the few information given it is hard to help.

 

[Lord Zsinj]

@TheMeInTeam - Holy fucking hell all you've done is inspire my to throw my computer out the window.