Just finished a GC as Persia (starting as Ak Koyunlu) and I have a few comments.
The Ottomans
The Turko-Persian tension events are out of whack. Many of them don't make sense if Turkey is Shi'ite (and it is extremely logical to force-convert them early on). And if Turkey is *not* Shi'ite, giving a CB to Persia is totally irrelevant, since they will already have a CB for religion.
Further, the incentive to take the "peace with the Ottomans" incentive is freakishly high. Given that the Turks have wrong culture, wrong religion provinces that you have no core on, there's absolutely no reason to fight with them unless you have lost Kurdistan to them. In which case you already have cores and multiple CBs against them, and don't need an event to make you fight them.
Also, your capital keeps moving east because of the historical impetus to do so - but in many cases the historical impetus to do so is missing, and you are still given the same event. I was directed to move my capital to Isfahan because of the incursions of the Turks, when the Turks were my Shi'ite ally...
Persian Strength
Persia as a player nation is too strong. You get multiple events to improve your tax base in several provinces by several points. I ended up with a core area richer than the Netherlands, with a recruitment capacity (with Conscription Centers) of 50k each in Isfahan, Tabaristan, and Tabriz. The sheer volume of these events as a player is staggering.
In addition, the player gets TWO events to convert all of Persia to Shi'ism, including some random conversions. While I understand that the AI may need help spreading the faith, this easily enabled me to spread Shi'ism from Asia Minor to India.
They also get the following cultures - persian, baluchi, afghani, and kurdish. And about forty core provinces. Just grabbing their cores will make them into an insane powerhouse with over 100k manpower. I ended up maxing infra without really trying very hard. I also managed to make Oahu into a CoT with a manufactory by game end. I never managed to settle Hawaii in any other game (though usually I play real minors).
They also have multiple events designed to aid Persia's creation that just make it a cakewalk for the player. If you are Ak Koyunlu, you need never really fight the Kara Koyunlu - just make peace with them and then annex them by event. Then after becoming Persia many of the other countries have events that cede you great gobs of land.
Also, the events intended to help them break up near the end essentially result in a constant bonus of innovation and centralization. I easily outteched all of Europe without ever taking a province in Africa or Europe. I could have easily done a WC if I had wanted to bother with the minimanagement. Except for:
Mongolia
At some point I decided it might be fun to conquer Siberia. I think it was when I started getting conquistadors. So I took a few provinces off of Sibir and went on a colonization spree. Until I ran into Mongolia.
I figured "ah, it's a pagan nation - I ought to be able to conquer them". But they had 11 land tech. And medium forts. MEDIUM FORTS. Try to think about conquering medium forts in the Siberian winter. I would recruit 150k at a time from central Persia and send them running off to Siberia, and then a few months later recruit another 150k. If I was lucky, that 150k reduced by attrition would manage to assault a single province before they fell below sieging strength.
I never managed to conquer Mongolia. I could have much more easily conquered England (in fact, the Scots nearly did). France would have been easier too, just attacking from my one port on the Mediterranean.
Suggestions
1: Mongolia needs to be toned WAY down. I mean WAY the fuck down. They need exotic tech and their provinces should not be able to support more than minimum-sized forts. Even then they would be difficult to conquer, but at least it would be a plausible enemy. As it stands it's worse than fighting Russia (I won several wars against Russia).
2: The Turko-Persian events need more triggers. Some of the events should demand that the Turks be Sunni, or that Turko-Persian relations be already below, say, +100. Also, giving a CB against the Ottomans isn't useful, since the CB is already there if they're different religion, and you probably don't want to fight them if they're the same religion.
3: The capital-moving events need more triggers. They should not trigger unless Persia does NOT own certain provinces. If Persia is getting ganked, sure, they should move. But if they're kicking ass, there's no reason for them to run away.
4: The Persian cores need to be rolled back a lot. Giving them the cultures is fine, but there's no reason they need cultures AND cores. That just gives them too much potential to be an earth-shattering behemoth.
5: The tax-boosting events need to be lowered. Multiple events giving +2 or more to multiple provinces makes for massive overpoweredness. +1 in those events would still be worthwhile, without being insane.
6: There needs to be some incentive to war with the Ottomans. As it stands a logical Persian player will convert the Turks and ally them. They do not have Turkish culture or any cores on those provinces, and they will be painfully hard to convert. By choosing the "war" options and winning those wars they should eventually get something out of it - either Turkish culture, more cores, or some conversions in those areas. Otherwise even if there IS a war the incentive is to mint for a few months and bribe them off, or to force-convert them, to force-vassalize them and ally them (if they're already converted).
7: There should be more ai triggers on some of the events expanding Persia. Certainly Persia needs a hand coming into existence, but a player doesn't need to annex a dozen provinces just to become a contender.
Just my thoughts. Thanks for reading.
The Ottomans
The Turko-Persian tension events are out of whack. Many of them don't make sense if Turkey is Shi'ite (and it is extremely logical to force-convert them early on). And if Turkey is *not* Shi'ite, giving a CB to Persia is totally irrelevant, since they will already have a CB for religion.
Further, the incentive to take the "peace with the Ottomans" incentive is freakishly high. Given that the Turks have wrong culture, wrong religion provinces that you have no core on, there's absolutely no reason to fight with them unless you have lost Kurdistan to them. In which case you already have cores and multiple CBs against them, and don't need an event to make you fight them.
Also, your capital keeps moving east because of the historical impetus to do so - but in many cases the historical impetus to do so is missing, and you are still given the same event. I was directed to move my capital to Isfahan because of the incursions of the Turks, when the Turks were my Shi'ite ally...
Persian Strength
Persia as a player nation is too strong. You get multiple events to improve your tax base in several provinces by several points. I ended up with a core area richer than the Netherlands, with a recruitment capacity (with Conscription Centers) of 50k each in Isfahan, Tabaristan, and Tabriz. The sheer volume of these events as a player is staggering.
In addition, the player gets TWO events to convert all of Persia to Shi'ism, including some random conversions. While I understand that the AI may need help spreading the faith, this easily enabled me to spread Shi'ism from Asia Minor to India.
They also get the following cultures - persian, baluchi, afghani, and kurdish. And about forty core provinces. Just grabbing their cores will make them into an insane powerhouse with over 100k manpower. I ended up maxing infra without really trying very hard. I also managed to make Oahu into a CoT with a manufactory by game end. I never managed to settle Hawaii in any other game (though usually I play real minors).
They also have multiple events designed to aid Persia's creation that just make it a cakewalk for the player. If you are Ak Koyunlu, you need never really fight the Kara Koyunlu - just make peace with them and then annex them by event. Then after becoming Persia many of the other countries have events that cede you great gobs of land.
Also, the events intended to help them break up near the end essentially result in a constant bonus of innovation and centralization. I easily outteched all of Europe without ever taking a province in Africa or Europe. I could have easily done a WC if I had wanted to bother with the minimanagement. Except for:
Mongolia
At some point I decided it might be fun to conquer Siberia. I think it was when I started getting conquistadors. So I took a few provinces off of Sibir and went on a colonization spree. Until I ran into Mongolia.
I figured "ah, it's a pagan nation - I ought to be able to conquer them". But they had 11 land tech. And medium forts. MEDIUM FORTS. Try to think about conquering medium forts in the Siberian winter. I would recruit 150k at a time from central Persia and send them running off to Siberia, and then a few months later recruit another 150k. If I was lucky, that 150k reduced by attrition would manage to assault a single province before they fell below sieging strength.
I never managed to conquer Mongolia. I could have much more easily conquered England (in fact, the Scots nearly did). France would have been easier too, just attacking from my one port on the Mediterranean.
Suggestions
1: Mongolia needs to be toned WAY down. I mean WAY the fuck down. They need exotic tech and their provinces should not be able to support more than minimum-sized forts. Even then they would be difficult to conquer, but at least it would be a plausible enemy. As it stands it's worse than fighting Russia (I won several wars against Russia).
2: The Turko-Persian events need more triggers. Some of the events should demand that the Turks be Sunni, or that Turko-Persian relations be already below, say, +100. Also, giving a CB against the Ottomans isn't useful, since the CB is already there if they're different religion, and you probably don't want to fight them if they're the same religion.
3: The capital-moving events need more triggers. They should not trigger unless Persia does NOT own certain provinces. If Persia is getting ganked, sure, they should move. But if they're kicking ass, there's no reason for them to run away.
4: The Persian cores need to be rolled back a lot. Giving them the cultures is fine, but there's no reason they need cultures AND cores. That just gives them too much potential to be an earth-shattering behemoth.
5: The tax-boosting events need to be lowered. Multiple events giving +2 or more to multiple provinces makes for massive overpoweredness. +1 in those events would still be worthwhile, without being insane.
6: There needs to be some incentive to war with the Ottomans. As it stands a logical Persian player will convert the Turks and ally them. They do not have Turkish culture or any cores on those provinces, and they will be painfully hard to convert. By choosing the "war" options and winning those wars they should eventually get something out of it - either Turkish culture, more cores, or some conversions in those areas. Otherwise even if there IS a war the incentive is to mint for a few months and bribe them off, or to force-convert them, to force-vassalize them and ally them (if they're already converted).
7: There should be more ai triggers on some of the events expanding Persia. Certainly Persia needs a hand coming into existence, but a player doesn't need to annex a dozen provinces just to become a contender.
Just my thoughts. Thanks for reading.
o
