Anybody completed Sick Man of Europe for OE yet?

[Green Giant]

Seems crazy hard but I'm sure there are some wizard min/max-ers that have or will pull it off.

You have 20 years to complete 4 of:

- Reclaim Syria. (Egypt seems a lot stronger militarily)
- Urbanization (need 75% and start at 28%)
- Army Modernization (Need 250 Batallions start with 145)
- Bureaucratic Reform (need to enact some laws, seems like the easiest)
- Education Reform (Need 35% literacy and level 5 University, start at 22% and Level 5 University is basically dead weight with regards to the other journals)
- Suppress separatism (Seems hard to do if you're trying to do all the other stuff too)

The nice thing is that you only need to complete four. I've taken a few cracks at it and failed miserably but I'm still pretty shaky with how the mechanics work.

 

[Rhel]

I've tried. Multiple times. Almost managed it once, but the landowners started a giant civil war and ruined it.

 

[Lucododosor]

Laith did it, his video has some good tips (yeah I know, it's 1-hour long, but it's a really good video nonetheless)

 

[Haresus]

Reclaim Syria is probably the hardest one because you need 2 successful wars where Egypt does not back down. Since there's a 5 year truce, and your military is significantly worse for the first 2-5 years, this leaves you with very little time and you also risk getting invaded by Russia every time.
Urbanization is quite easy if you focus on building up your "rural" states right away. You need 100 urbanization in 75% of your states, most states start with around 50ish urbanization, so that's 3-4 (industrial/urban) buildings per non-urban state.
Army modernization is very easy to cheese since you just need to build 105 battalions, slap on modern production methods, and then you can delete the barracks and/or lower quality again. You'll also most likely have most of the techs you need from tech spread by the end of the tanzimat period.
Bureaucratic reforms is either very easy or very hard depending on your law RNG luck.
Education reform requires you to use the literacy edict, if I understand it correctly. I don't think you can manage it without the edict?
Suppress separatism is a freebie.

 

[Rhel]

Laith did it, his video has some good tips (yeah I know, it's 1-hour long, but it's a really good video nonetheless)

I know what I'm doing later!

 

[Unknown Unknown]

- Army Modernization (Need 250 Batallions start with 145)

Sorry if I'm looking at this out of context, but is the requirement literally to just get up to 250 battalions? If so, that's not modernization, it's just expansion.

Modernization is important and should be a goal for sure, but it shouldn't be measured simply by recruiting more battalions.

 

[fodazd]

I did it (after 4 failed attempts), but I only had 10 months left.
-> Urbanization is something you get anyway if you build at least a little bit of stuff in each of your states.
-> Separatism is also something you get for free if you don't have any secessions.
-> Switching to agrarianism and then to per-capita taxation and appointed bureaucrats was the hardest part. I bolstered the industrialists while only building privately owned buildings and no aristocrat-buildings. Once I had per capita taxation, I bolstered the intelligentsia, enacted freedom of conscience and then appointed bureaucrats.
-> With the money from per capita taxation, I could easily build a lot of barracks to get to 250 batallions.
...I did not even attempt to take syria after the previous failed attempts.

 

[Green Giant]

Sorry if I'm looking at this out of context, but is the requirement literally to just get up to 250 battalions? If so, that's not modernization, it's just expansion.

Modernization is important and should be a goal for sure, but it shouldn't be measured simply by recruiting more battalions.

It's just one. There's some stuff about improving the tech too. I just didn't feel like listing everything out.

 

[Haresus]

Sorry if I'm looking at this out of context, but is the requirement literally to just get up to 250 battalions? If so, that's not modernization, it's just expansion.

Modernization is important and should be a goal for sure, but it shouldn't be measured simply by recruiting more battalions.

The full requirements are:
250 battalions
Napoleonic Warfare tech researched
Line Infantry and Mobile Artillery (or better) PMs enabled on all those 250 battalions

The issue is that there's no "the following must be true for X years" requirement, so your "modernisation" can be extremely short-lived.

 

[mergele]

The full requirements are:
250 battalions
Napoleonic Warfare tech researched
Line Infantry and Mobile Artillery (or better) PMs enabled on all those 250 battalions

The issue is that there's no "the following must be true for X years" requirement, so your "modernisation" can be extremely short-lived.

The real clue however is that conscripted battalions are counted when mobilised.
So, no need to build any new barracks. Join a situation of some big power beating something worthless in africa for colonialism, mobilise, get the tick and voila. Costs a bit of money to mobilise and conscript everyone, but not an issue overall.

Urbanisation is also quite easy imo.

Education can be an issue. It basically reads "Get an education institution and bring it to level 3, and do so very very early." Note however that the text says "increase BY 35%", which is a wholly different beast and should be fixed, because by 35% is just impossible (as my current estimation).

Seperatism is a freebi in my experience. I did Ottomans 3 times (the first two runs both only 25 years or so, mainly for learning the game), managed the sick man all of these and never had anything pop up to threaten this one, I am still not sure how seperatism even looks like.

Reclaiming Syria... I don't know. I just don't seem to understand the war system. Whenever I fight against Egypt they always get outnumber in me in battles, doesn't matter if I have more on the frontline or they do and so I only managed to retake Syria once where I let the british do all the work.

 

[Rhel]

Sorry if I'm looking at this out of context, but is the requirement literally to just get up to 250 battalions? If so, that's not modernization, it's just expansion.

Modernization is important and should be a goal for sure, but it shouldn't be measured simply by recruiting more battalions.

Yup. If anything a smaller but more modern military seems exactly like the thing to do.

 

[kingsword]

They quite literally hardcoded Ottomans to suck unlike any other country in the game. African tribe? No problem, you're already full westernized. Ottomans? Here, get hit with stuff AI can never remove and as a player you'll need to be super-gamey to remove it.

Why was it a good idea to have a time limit? Can't they reform, like, 25 years later? No, either you gotta speedrun it or it's forever stuck.

Call me paranoid but it looks extremely fishy after this year's bout between Sweden and Turkey. Especially after they just said "they don't want to railroad the player".

 

[Atheory]

I found it a surprisingly fun challenge starting the new game with. It took multiple restarts, but for me the most efficient means to accomplish this is:

At game start start improving relations with Great Britain, France, Austria and Russia. (though Great Britain is the only must here, I think friendly relations with the others lessens their desire to "declare interests" in our region (but I could be wrong))

#1 - Separatism - automatic if you don't push too many laws through.
#2 - Reclaim Syria - War #1 - By 1838 switch your army to tier 2 rifles and ensure all units have tier 1 artillery (there is one or two lacking it) - This should get military projection to around 550. By 1840 you can optionally switch to tier 2 artillery to get power projection to around 950, this is optional, but ideal. By 1841 ensure great britain is not in a war, start war with Egypt by initiating it over any province EXCEPT Adana as this draws in russia and not great britain. Give Britain an obligation (suck it up), but do not think to take the easy way out offering to ban slavery in egypt as this has a bad effect on diplomatic resolution phase (basically britain gets what they want and you only get one province). Not sure if this is WAD or a bug. Remember to get britain in the war it costs 20 maneuver points so wait until they join before adding more wargoals, and yes at this point you can add adana to the list. Depending on what Egypt claims in return you should get 4, maybe even 5 provinces in wargoals. Win war.

#3 - Reclaim egypt - War #2 - Interwar years - build a few more barracks - by 1847/1848 you should be strong enough to fight egypt on your own - maintaining good relations with european nations should keep them out, or bring one with you for safe measure. You will have to "conquer" Sinai, Lower, upper and middle egypt. if you're still short of the 250 army need for Modernization, continue to build barracks.

#4 - Modernization - half way through the second war with Egypt mobilize your conscripts - At some point you should reach the 250 threshold.

Ideally you should never need to or want to mobilize your conscripts. However, if you need them just remember they have their own building, and thus you can manage how well or poorly equipped they are, just like your barracks for the regular army.

 

[Ecclesiasdeez__nutz]

I have not been able to pull it off successfully. I was only able to get 3/4 of them before the time limit, because of how hard it was going to war with Egypt. The military reformation is pretty easy if you get national militias, because conscript battalions count towards the 250. I think the "easiest" path is probably to do urbanization+bureaucracy+separatism+military. That way you can boost up your economy while getting ready to fight the first war against Egypt, without being rushed into taking back Syria ASAP.

The education one might be doable if you understand how to efficiently build an economy, but I'm not at that point yet where I can waste time building universities lol. My first playthrough I got a bunch of universities constructed for free by philanthropic industrialists (like 3 in 20 years), but I haven't had that happen in any other playthrough.

 

[amocpower]

Seems crazy hard but I'm sure there are some wizard min/max-ers that have or will pull it off.

You have 20 years to complete 4 of:

- Reclaim Syria. (Egypt seems a lot stronger militarily)
- Urbanization (need 75% and start at 28%)
- Army Modernization (Need 250 Batallions start with 145)
- Bureaucratic Reform (need to enact some laws, seems like the easiest)
- Education Reform (Need 35% literacy and level 5 University, start at 22% and Level 5 University is basically dead weight with regards to the other journals)
- Suppress separatism (Seems hard to do if you're trying to do all the other stuff too)

The nice thing is that you only need to complete four. I've taken a few cracks at it and failed miserably but I'm still pretty shaky with how the mechanics work.

I did.

-Suppress sepratism (thats very easy, just don´t make very radical things)
-Army modernization/250 Batallions (with line Infantry and Mobile Artillery. You can build barracks very fast. I guess it is 1 or 2 weeks.)
-Reclaim Syria (After you have "modern army", Egypt is easy to beat. But you need enough weapons to win the war)
-Reclaim Egyp or Urbanization (you need build many stuff, like construction, Weapon factory, iron mines etc. anyway. Just build it to different states until you get 1 city center at least or much easier reclaim egypt. You have already strong army, so that will be very easy)

First High tax, put tax on Service, tea, Luxury cloth and furniture, tabacco and liquor. I build first 2-3 construction (maybe more but stay on plus, bcs you go to war soon). Build some silk and tea plantations. Its much faster then factories. Its make your ppl happy and get some money to your country.

Begin to build iron mines and weapon factories, because you have notting and you can´t import so much, no body have at time so much weapons. Try to focus to your goverment, forget the pop until you rid "sick man of europe". Build some paper factories, weapon, goverment buildings etc. Make goods(thats you buy) cost low as possible. 1-2 years bevor you want to attack Egypt begin to build barracks (i don´t know exactly the time, you need to calculate how long its take to build around 100 more barracks). You can also short time bevor you attack, change your production method on your barracks to save money. But i guess there is a debuff for 1 years (?) if you change it. You need to check by your self. If you have 250 army with line Infantry and Mobile Artillery you jump to great power. As great power you can get in 1 war whole your claims back!(you get 100 points in diplomatic play as great power and 75 if you not). After you get Syria, you get new entry and claim in Egypt. You can wait for peace truce and attack again (5 years?) or try to finish Urbanization or Bureaucratic reforms(thats very random and sometimes hard to get).

Oh don´t forget to improve your relation with russia, Austria, France and UK. If you get a defence packt with UK or France, you are save even when russia attack you.

 

[Attila4013]

I managed to reclaim Syria because I got into custom union as a junior partner with France. Our first joint force is too strong that Syria chose to back down resulting in only one province gain as your primary goal (this is a bit absurd, I haven't found out a way to set multiple items into primary goal), in our second joint force I downgrade several of my troops' weapon and then Russia gets into the party, that is after that war I finally reclaim all Syria.

 

[Al-Khalidi]

Seems crazy hard but I'm sure there are some wizard min/max-ers that have or will pull it off.

You have 20 years to complete 4 of:

- Reclaim Syria. (Egypt seems a lot stronger militarily)
- Urbanization (need 75% and start at 28%)
- Army Modernization (Need 250 Batallions start with 145)
- Bureaucratic Reform (need to enact some laws, seems like the easiest)
- Education Reform (Need 35% literacy and level 5 University, start at 22% and Level 5 University is basically dead weight with regards to the other journals)
- Suppress separatism (Seems hard to do if you're trying to do all the other stuff too)

The nice thing is that you only need to complete four. I've taken a few cracks at it and failed miserably but I'm still pretty shaky with how the mechanics work.

I did it three or four times already, it's pretty easy and then you get a lovely flavor event Focus on defeating Egypt (key is naval invasion on nile delta) twice, first take most populous provinces then puppet them. In reforms i recommend beaurocratic one (reloading while changing govt composition before each pushing attempt is helpful) as it gives you money for development. Then you should get separatism for free.

 

[Amosblanco]

It’s harsh but viable. Always focusing on bureaucratic reform first by suppressing landowners from day one. Removing traditionalism and reforming tax laws will gives you tons of money for industrialisation and affording a modern army. Then build build build and army modernisation to get line infantry and mobile artillery. The aim is to become a great power before declaring war on Egypt. Note that It’s possible to get all the cores from Egypt back in one war if the Ottomans is a GREAT POWER (which gives 20 extra dip manuvre) before declaring war, which is not a very difficult task. I usually manage to achieve that by 1845. Defeating Egypt is quite easy as the current AI does not know how to defend the coast. Naval invasion targeting Nile Delta will easily grant you a victory. Then wait for 15 years to get the separation suppression reform. At last build barracks to get the fourth army modernisation reform by 1855.

 

[Larkh]

Most of the time when I lose, it is because of the laws for bureaucratic modernisation that refuse to pass for 20 years albeit many try and retry. (My move after army modernization is agrarianism, tax reform, bureaucratic reform to obtain 50% more taxation capacity).

Build order is: as many build slots as possible (ten to fifteen, twenty to twenty-five with alternating rank 1/2 building sectors, cheesing a little the market and accepting the debt spiral), then military industry (even naval) some wood and cows, then barracks until 250 regiments.

You can cheese Egypt in many wars just by triggering them with embargo at the start of the game (and Rivalry if it is possible I've forgot). Don't forget to stop rivalry with Russia (cast that on English India) and growth relations with France, UK, Austria and Russia since day 0. How to bring Egypt most of the time in diplo-conflicts? By aggroing countries they want to protect in Arabia and Ethiopia interest zones. There are many, many poor little states there that you can threaten and Egypt will very likely rush to protect them if they have the good views ("want to protect").

To facilitate, rush at the beginning the modernization of the army (after Agrarianism and tax techs), pass the "professional army" law if you see that everything else doesn't have a good chance (like the bad 6%). Your aim is to have rank 3 artillery and rank 2 infantry (they only use guns and artillery but not ammo yet that is too costly for the Ottomans, especially with 250-300 regiments). For your barracks, aim for Iraq, Balkans and Anatolia but dodge Dobrudja and Kars because they will never have the good amount of pops for that (you should even disband their barracks as they will bleed the local pops). Good salaries, "professional army" and "dedicated police" laws will bring you an army with very high loyalty. Build some docks for your navy, and use your navy to raid at every war the Egyptian imports. With everything said above, your power projection will skyrocket high and help even more to scare GP AI to move even more (that and your friendly diplo toward them).

I forgot many things, but it mostly how I win the objectives nearly every game ^^

 

[meruem02]

the key is causing an internal war. if you destroy the slave owners in war you can pass every law you want easily. this will check 2 Tanzimat.

I suggest reclaiming Syria and army modernization at the same time. Just make sure you are not extremely strong. Or install the mod that let you refuse AI's give up.