30 years to go, is WC still possible?

[Lord Beverage]

Hi - a few weeks ago I posted a thread looking for help in a Sun Never Sets + Jagganath run - got both, and a dozen more achievements and sit now at 1781 with a massive Commonwealth blob, a slew of German minors, Austria, and Lucca + Naples holding all of Italy. I have France full occupied and about to peace out for all of its forts in Europe - and the ones that are visible in Floride, and full annex the rest of Spain. Ottomans are carved up and next to dead, and Scandinavia has been clobbered by the Commonwealth. Ming is all but dead now as well.

I made the mistakes of not opening Diplomatic ideas until now (and probably will never be able to even get the first idea as little diplo I earn as I have been annexing 1-2 client states simultaneously for the last decade or two), and running the Hindu discipline boost instead of the coring cost reduction as France was in its Golden Age (now over) and I thought I needed any edge possible against its space marines despite already having overwhelming numbers. My idea group ordering in general is far from ideal for a WC, but I didn't know what I was doing when I started the run.

I can abdicate my current leader - my heir has stability cost reduction too, and take the coring cost reduction bonus. I would be going from 6-3-2 to 5-3-5 - less admin overall, but more mil for artillery barrages. I don't think I would be taking any more tech the rest of the game.

Or, there are a few other small achievements I could grab, wrap this one up early and start thinking about the next campaign.

The current situation:

Ideas:

Rulers:

Still doable with mad truce-breaking? I am fielding about 1mil troops with half a dozen artillery 40-stacks for sieging down level 8s. Still, it is slow going even against a few enemies at once. Not being able to separate peace in coalition wars seems like it will slow things down even more.

 

[Dominion]

Only if you can get a coalition smash in. Without that I'd say no.

Go for it anyways. Looks like a fun challenge.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No rev government hurts. I don't see 1-tag happening but spamming vassals might be doable. Commonwealth would require multiple truce breaks probably, and you'd need to fight HRE land at the same time which isn't encouraging.

 

[Dominion]

Biggest issue will probably be mapping the whole thing.

You need multiple wars simultanously while also releasing nations and always making sure there's enough admin left to be able to buy 1stab.

I wouldn't touch the game before having a clear plan on how to approach the whole thing and you can probably forget about coring. You'll need all the admin you can get.

Dip limit is also out of the window. You'll need a boatload of vassals because you can barely core anything.

Looks really really interesting.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ I'm thinking more "move capital into Europe if it isn't already --> take provinces en masse' with imperialism and release/give to vassals", with client states to plug the gap (reason to move cap). All ADM can go into truce breaking after the capital move.

Completely agree on mapping the wars and how long they will take. If that was done in 1680 this would be a lot easier .

 

[Lord Beverage]

Hrm, what advantage does moving my capital to Europe give me at this point? Is that just to try and spawn the revolution?

At the moment I have been waiting for ticking war score to allow me to full annex Spain - I could leave them one non-fort provence, then 100% France for all its forts and a string of provinces in between to form a contiguous client state. (They'd have to keep Paris for me to afford that.)

On the same day as peace, core all Spanish provinces, French provinces in Spain, 4 Floride provinces (to form NA colonial nation), then release all remaining French provinces as a new client state. DOW Naples and Ottomans - their allies are minor - to keep myself busy while coring Spain - counting their forts 2-3 years is doable, but I'll make a few extra 40-art stacks just in case. A good number of stacks are in position on Korea as well which could make for a short war as their forts are all level 2.

Once those three wars are finished - 1785 ideally - delete fort at, and move capital to Toledo, then abdicate for prestige hit, then truce break and eat more of France, then take tons of loans - get the revolution going. (I've never gone revolutionary before so I am not 100% sure on the best way to get there.)

???

Profit? If so, that's 4/30 years planned.

The Commonwealth is sitting at 613% warscore, and with the first war the one that will take by far the longest, it doesn't seem like a good choice to start with if going revolutionary as fast as possible is the idea. (Cannot move capital while at war if I remember correctly.)

Just noticed Holland is looking like a juicier first target - they have the second largest remaining colonial nation, no allies, and the emperor is busy. Them and the Ottomans might be a better way to spend the Spanish coring time:

 

[Dominion]

If you think about chaining wars instead of combining them you're already too slow. No way you're getting all that stuff cored in time without hitting quadruple-digit OE consistently.

 

[Lord Beverage]

Well that's 3 wars at once right there while coring a new European capital was my thinking. I had completely forgotten that I took Denmark in the immediately proceeding war. So scratch that war ordering.

So to start:

1. Peace out Spain and France - take all forts, release client states, core minimal new world provinces.
2. Move capital to Denmark and trash economy accordingly to start revolution countdown.
3. Truce break and re-DOW France immediately, also DOW Korea, Ottomans, and Holland (let colonial nations do most of the work on Holland).

All of that must happen simultaneously - the peace deal in step one will trigger a pan-European coalition anchored by the Commonwealth. Whether or not they DOW me while I'm busy the four above I don't know.

Try and finish those 4 wars in 4 years or less. Smash the coalition in the next war, taking as many Commonwealth forts as possible.

It seems coring anything at all at this point is a bad idea? I don't have colonial nations for eastern America, Louisiana, or Alaska yet, but if vassal swarm the rest of way is the best way that's maximum 15 cores remaining.

I'm having trouble coming up with any workable timeline that doesn't start with me DOW'ing the Commonwealth in the first set of wars to soften them up - they've spammed level 8s everywhere. Truce breaking France, DOW Commonwealth, and DOW Ottomans might be a better plan for the first wave. That would leave a much weaker coalition afterwards, and during the long slog the first Commonwealth war will be I could pick off other minors foolish enough to stay out of the coalition.

 

[Dominion]

Coring of colonial nations won't be a problem since they don't create OE and can sit around for a while if you don't feel like you have the adm points needed at that point.

Really depends on your mapping those cores need to be finished before you go to war against their overlord again, but they can also sit around unfinished for a while if you want to trucebreak Commonwealth first. Either way you need to find some vassals that are still alive and releasable. Thankfully most of the dev left is Europe and they have quite a few eternal cores.

Do you at least have napoleonic warfare yet? Because you could just throw in a ton of art, run over Commonwealth with mercs and barrage all forts. lvl8 art + barrage turns lvl8 forts into lvl2 forts, which is doable.

And if you ever get a coalition you should fall to your knees and thank god for that gift. Coalition smashing is your best option at this point.

DoW an ally of a coalition member, set the member as CoB. This enables you to separate peace all of them.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

^ If you mothball forts then break truce ASAP you can also hit forts that have almost nothing in them to take even more land fast. Dumping the land you just took into vassals and putting them in scutage is advisable, keeps ADM cost of boosting stability down.

 

[Lord Beverage]

Ok, so I will take a copy of this save and try both a non-revolutionary and a revolutionary approach, because I never used the revolution mechanics before and don't fully understand how to trigger them, I don't want to have to rely on them.

I will immediately recruit two more 40-art stacks, and 4+ 50-merc-inf stacks to follow them for immediate assaults of all wall breaches. The plan will be to DOW Commonwealth after full annexing Spain and 100%ing-for-all-forts France, regardless of whatever coalition situation forms after. Per Dominion's advice, if alliances allow I will DOW allies of and co-belligerent the Commonwealth and whoever else I can if the coalition situation allows. All the level 8 forts taken from France should hopefully distract all the minors. By bashing the coalition first, I can save some admin points for coring Commonwealth forts I can't snake together into a client state if necessary.

I will cancel my annexation of Funj - I hadn't yet asked myself why their two roaming 50 stacks have been pacman'ing every soft target in sight in all my recent wars - they have 4 military idea groups finished, a militaristic leader (does that actually affect combat AI?), and have two very good general. Best performance by a vassal I've had ever. I'll annex someone else if I have to.

A 100% peace deal in 5 years is probably too optimistic, but if it takes over 10 then the WC is probably not possible.

The challenge: a metric fuckton of level 8 forts, with one very important level 1:

 

[R.Graymarch]

In 1781, don't you have 40 years to go? And not 30.

 

[bly08]

Show a screenshot of your GP development and your economy. If you have most of the new world then yes, definitely doable.

 

[Lord Beverage]

I have most of the New World, all of South America and Oceana, and most of Africa and Asia. I do not have an Eastern America colony, Louisiana, or Alaskan colonies, I have half of the Canadian colonial area.

Lol I cannot math. It is 40 years.

I'll give it a go today with smashing the Commonwealth and whatever coalition forms after the opening peace deal. Hopefully I catch the coalition half formed and can keep two groups separated by their truce timers.

 

[bly08]

Coalitions shouldn't be forming at this point if you're at your force limit. In general, fight the people with the highest warscore first. So depending on truces, fight PLC and Ottoman before France or anyone else in the HRE. White peace their allies, DoW later and white peace the main target to shorten truce. Turn revolutionary and spawn rebels near your capital with estates. IIRC the warscore cost tooltip doesn't count CB, so the 50% revolutionary CB cuts everything in half. Leave the HRE alive and keep taking land from the emperor through prince wars. Don't take colonies or demand CNs from peace deals, full annex their overlord and inherit.

 

[Lord Beverage]

Four hours of gameplay and three years later...

I peace'd out Spain for all of its remaining colonial possessions, and all but one of its remaining Iberian provinces. I form a Neo-Spain client state, but forget to give it a port, which I will regret later. France as well for a snake connecting all of its lvl8 forts on the continent and in Britain, and in its colonial nations. I began coring the minimum provinces required to form colonial nations in western NA and Alaska, and cored the provinces in Britain as I didn't have any sensible vassal options available there.

A coalition formed and the Commonwealth did not join immediately, but Morocco did along with small German minors loaded with lvl8s right on my French border! Ottomans as well had not yet joined so I DOW'd each, along with Korea in the west to get Siberia out of the way early. The rest of Europe joined the coalition after, but too late to join this round.

I had already stripped Morocco of its lvl8s in a previous war, but they built a few new ones and still fielded 100k troops so they weren't a complete pushover, however it quickly became a slog of stamping out its survivor stacks while sieging down the non-capital forts they built in the meantime. All the while sieging down whatever German lvl8s where I could. It turns out following my artillery doomstacks with merc cannonfodder for assaults doesn't work. 40k got stackwiped almost immediately by 6k defenders when I tried it. Perhaps I was unlucky though.

Same story with the Ottomans, however they still held all of their Balkan forts - a few artillery doomstacks and my vassals made short work of them.

Korea was a tedious slog through Siberia, but their forts were all still lvl2s, easy.

In the middle of this, the rest of Denmark broke free from Sweden - a nice target of opportunity giving me a direct line to Stockholm when it comes time to eat Scandinavia.

The peace deals in the west got me half a dozen of the southern German lvl8s, all of Morocco's and Ottomans, almost all of the Balkans and Crimea. I released Croatia, Serbia, and Crimea, and created a new South-German client state for feeding in the next war. In the east I released Buryatia and split Korea between them and my Japanese vassal.

I am now 6 over the relationship limit and at a diplo tech disadvantage to my subjects, so liberty desire is becoming an issue, however I have half a dozen small subjects in perfect position to Europe now. Occupations in Funj caused my annexation of them to pause allowing me to take the first diplomatic idea - that extra diplomat and my capital being much closer to the fight make managing the complicated peace deals much easier now.

On to Smashing The Commonweath, Round 1, 37 years to go, with only one lvl8 between Crimea and Warsaw.

If the coalition does not reform, I will simultaneously hit Aragorn, Holland, and Austria and others as alliances permit. Aiming for 5-6 years to finish this round of wars.

Current situation:

Still a lot of forts to go, mostly lvl8s:

 

[Palatinus Germanicus]

So you need:

1) Adequate artillery (max per fort) for all the constant sieging.
2) As much ADM points as possible for all the truce-breaking.
3) Use all that money to have plenty of merc's so you can assault over & over when you get breaches.
4) As much absolutism as possible, so you can eat & digest as much land as possible, quickly.
5) Grab as many forts as possible, per truce.

Probably doable. Save the German regions for last. Once everyone else is gone, you can just get nasty w/ them, and truce-break like crazy. Meantime, every ADM point is precious... try to avoid breaking where possible.

 

[Lord Beverage]

Absolutism is over 100, I'm not sure why any non-Republic would do anything but max that in the current state of the game. This is my first game using that mechanic though.

Just reorganized all my trade to funnel to Sevilla now that I control the entire world that feeds it and my capital is nearby - income is through the roof. Not sure why I hadn't done that yet. No diplo to move my trade capital there though so I'll continue to take a big chunk out of it in Zanzibar. Discovered I was paying 480 in fort maintenance - fixed that problem too.

I'm saving truce breaking for the final pushes - more than enough foes to eat without doing that yet. With my capital in Europe spawning the revolution is tempting, and a truce-break would get me on the fast track, but I think it is best not to experiment with game mechanics I've never used.

I do have a few odd provinces I cannot chain into anything, or provinces nest to subjects I pushed up near 100% overextension. If I give up on diplo for the rest of the game and use policies to keep liberty desire down I could release Denmark up north, and make an additional Manchurian client state - I could use the later for eating the rest of Ming - I will think about that before starting my session this evening. Otherwise I'd need to lose a few hundred admin points to core the. I would be 8 over the relationship limit at that point.

 

[Dominion]

3) Use all that money to have plenty of merc's so you can assault over & over when you get breaches.

You don't assault. Nobody in his right mind assaults anymore.

Except for controlled+mothballed forts you can't take in a peacedeal, which are on 0-450 garrison power in your trucebreak war, in which case you don't need much more than a few hundred troops in total which is less than your monthly income.

Real assaults have been worthless for over a year. Maybe even two.