Playing Ottomans, year 1547 now, using Death & Taxes mod. Using a small modification that gives me a modifier that lowers infamy by 1.50 each year & incerases limit by 10 (the world hates me enough anyway, so the "support revolt" spam of every single neighbour stimulates the hate enough).
Had some problems initially, was on the verge of collapsing to rebels (was declared target of crusade about 3-4 times in a row, with most European major powers declaring war on me every few years/decades, at one point I had half my nation filled with rebels while I was fighting off the major powers on the other side). But still, not a single major defeat on my sheet (all the defeats I've had were me paying off tribute, no defeat was large enough for me to not be able to recover).
I guess I made a mistake by trying to westernize, as that was part of the reason of the almost-collapse as I was in negative stability for several decades in a row. One bonus tho - I now have experience playing with the most unstable nation possible, getting rebels every few weeks and holding large part of its history with stability below 0. And I was actually on the verge of failing my westernization - I had declared war on Austria so I could rack up army tradition for military westernization. Eventually I ended up being at war with Poland, Austria, Venice, Aquiela, Bavaria, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Poland, Denmark and some other, less important nations. Of course I was dominating them all, but I was really having problems with my troop numbers - attrition, battles & sieges had most of my forces at very low numbers and it was getting complicated to fight all the nations that were pumping out new, fresh, fully-reinforced troops all the time. Barely managed to slip thru without one of those retarded stabhits from westernization and managed to westernize military. I haven't westernized trade and I don't plan to, it's not important and not worth the trouble, might do it when I randomly meet the requirements and don't have any plans so I can take the stabhit.
I'm managing to keep up with the European powers in land tech, tho, but the rest of my tech is backwards, once again, partly thanks to stability hits that I had to recover from - I couldn't even research anything properly.
Here's screenshots from the game, detailing the situation -
My horrible tech -
French technology for comparison -
So, what are the suggestions? What should I go for? Anything I've done wrong so far except the obvious westernization part which made me even more backwards due to the wasted money on stab recovery?
Just some notes - can't annex Croatia, they're garuanteed by Lithuania, that'd be a risky war due to the large front, rebels everywhere & the fact that Bohemia hates me and that I have Austrian cores, so I'd risk a 2 front war and I'd simply get drawn into another annoying whack-a-mole-with-armies-that-have-no-infantry-left-due-to-annoying-sieges (my army composition is 8 inf, 4 cav and 3 art, I'm thinking to add 2 more inf when I get more forcelimits so I can have easier sieges & don't need to use multiple armies for 1 siege so frequently).
I did garuantee every Lithuanian neighbour to the east, tho, so they'd stop their expansion. And if they don't - I'll atleast have Lithuanians locked to fighting against another enemy and it'll be easier to pick off their armies. Right now I'm wondering which of the 3 directions should I go for - HRE, Lithuania or the Middle East (the latter seems a bit pointless and a waste of resources, right now east is quite easy on rebels and I don't want to have both east and west constantly rebelling).
Aaaand Hungary seems an easy target, but they're allied with Brandenburg and, IIRC, garuanteed by Lithuania, so that's fighting 2 majors (altho I don't take Brandenburg serious).
Also - playing without inflation, set to "From gold" only.
Oh, and if you noticed, I also have some pointless colony in Somalia that I made just for the sake of having it, no point in it, tho, but it has some income from slaves, so meh...
Had some problems initially, was on the verge of collapsing to rebels (was declared target of crusade about 3-4 times in a row, with most European major powers declaring war on me every few years/decades, at one point I had half my nation filled with rebels while I was fighting off the major powers on the other side). But still, not a single major defeat on my sheet (all the defeats I've had were me paying off tribute, no defeat was large enough for me to not be able to recover).
I guess I made a mistake by trying to westernize, as that was part of the reason of the almost-collapse as I was in negative stability for several decades in a row. One bonus tho - I now have experience playing with the most unstable nation possible, getting rebels every few weeks and holding large part of its history with stability below 0. And I was actually on the verge of failing my westernization - I had declared war on Austria so I could rack up army tradition for military westernization. Eventually I ended up being at war with Poland, Austria, Venice, Aquiela, Bavaria, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Poland, Denmark and some other, less important nations. Of course I was dominating them all, but I was really having problems with my troop numbers - attrition, battles & sieges had most of my forces at very low numbers and it was getting complicated to fight all the nations that were pumping out new, fresh, fully-reinforced troops all the time. Barely managed to slip thru without one of those retarded stabhits from westernization and managed to westernize military. I haven't westernized trade and I don't plan to, it's not important and not worth the trouble, might do it when I randomly meet the requirements and don't have any plans so I can take the stabhit.
I'm managing to keep up with the European powers in land tech, tho, but the rest of my tech is backwards, once again, partly thanks to stability hits that I had to recover from - I couldn't even research anything properly.
Here's screenshots from the game, detailing the situation -
My horrible tech -
French technology for comparison -
So, what are the suggestions? What should I go for? Anything I've done wrong so far except the obvious westernization part which made me even more backwards due to the wasted money on stab recovery?
Just some notes - can't annex Croatia, they're garuanteed by Lithuania, that'd be a risky war due to the large front, rebels everywhere & the fact that Bohemia hates me and that I have Austrian cores, so I'd risk a 2 front war and I'd simply get drawn into another annoying whack-a-mole-with-armies-that-have-no-infantry-left-due-to-annoying-sieges (my army composition is 8 inf, 4 cav and 3 art, I'm thinking to add 2 more inf when I get more forcelimits so I can have easier sieges & don't need to use multiple armies for 1 siege so frequently).
I did garuantee every Lithuanian neighbour to the east, tho, so they'd stop their expansion. And if they don't - I'll atleast have Lithuanians locked to fighting against another enemy and it'll be easier to pick off their armies. Right now I'm wondering which of the 3 directions should I go for - HRE, Lithuania or the Middle East (the latter seems a bit pointless and a waste of resources, right now east is quite easy on rebels and I don't want to have both east and west constantly rebelling).
Aaaand Hungary seems an easy target, but they're allied with Brandenburg and, IIRC, garuanteed by Lithuania, so that's fighting 2 majors (altho I don't take Brandenburg serious).
Also - playing without inflation, set to "From gold" only.
Oh, and if you noticed, I also have some pointless colony in Somalia that I made just for the sake of having it, no point in it, tho, but it has some income from slaves, so meh...
In this scenario I can really just crush all my enemies, lol.