Anybody completed Sick Man of Europe for OE yet?

[MfgLuckbot]

first tech should be in the army, to be as powerful as Egypt. Don't build more troops, Egypt will usually want to fight if nobody calls allies, and then you can naval invade into Alexandria and Cairo and win with your first war securing all cores.

Don't know if my game is cursed but I had russia opposing me in everything I tried.

In the end I managed to do it without any wars at all. Burocratic, Urbanization, Army and Separatism. Education finished too but maybe a little too late, didn't check if it was still within the 20 years as I had 4 done already.

I then grabbed Syria in the 1870s, with my army finally eclipsing the russian one.

 

[Aeroclub]

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.

Actueally, you will get two new ones after you complete the first Egyptian one: retake the Nile and puppet Egypt. So you can easily do the whole thing by crushing Egypt in three wars plus the suppression one (which as others have noted is automatic). How do you crush Egypt? Just garrison the border and naval invade the capital, rinse and repeat.

Others are also pretty easy: bureacracy one requires the reforms that you should be working on anyway, ditto urbanization. The army one requires switching the method of production - but you don't have to have it for any extended period of time if you can't afford it. Meaning you can just click it, get the tanzimat and switch right back.

The only one that I couldn't do is the education one: but the reason is that I think it's somewhat brocken. Althorught I reached 35% literacy, it never fired. But without it, I think 7 out of 8 are defintely doable in a single playthrough.

 

[Sergeant Flutter]

The only one that I couldn't do is the education one: but the reason is that I think it's somewhat brocken. Althorught I reached 35% literacy, it never fired. But without it, I think 7 out of 8 are defintely doable in a single playthrough.

You have to increase it by 35% not to 35% . It needs to get to around 55% which frankly seems unreasonable in the timeframe.

 

[Aeroclub]

You have to increase it by 35% not to 35% . It needs to get to around 55% which frankly seems unreasonable in the timeframe.

Ah makes sense. Not reasonable, I agree.

 

[evilcat]

It is possible.
But there is some RNG.
We have decent convoys, so trade is good, and can fix many problems.
Generally play nice with great powers, sign trade agreements if possible.

- Reclaim Syria. (Egypt seems a lot stronger militarily)
Start with military techs, line infantry and napolenic wars. Import arms, canons,manowars. Build barracks in not sunni land.
You need to wait 1 year before new barrack method adapts.
You can puppet Persia or arabians, anything to spread the frontline. Just keep infamy below 25 when attacking egypt.
If it is 1on1 then egypt should not back, and if you take 4 provinces in first war, in second backing up will not hurt.
Set defensive line on tripoli. Create second anatolia general, and conduct naval invasion on lower egypt.

- Urbanization (need 75% and start at 28%)
This one is easy. Completing it in 19y11m is ok.
Wooden construction is 5/100, each barrack 2/100. They dont need full personel, just urbanization. And they dont take infrastructure.
Administrative is 20 urbanization.
Beside that just move over all provinces, and build them up to 100 urbanization, use road edict to speed up.
You have silk so clothing industry is good. But need to import dyes.

- Army Modernization (Need 250 Batallions start with 145)
We get extra barracks from syria. Barracks are only 50 construction so easy to get. Import equipment from great powers.
Easy.

- Bureaucratic Reform (need to enact some laws, seems like the easiest)
This one is rng. But we only had to pass 3 laws, the rest is bonus.
Agralism is good enought for us, and it will open income tax.
There is little opposition to landed tax and religious schools.
Suporting industrialist could be better, as they shoudl support all 3 laws.

- Suppress separatism (Seems hard to do if you're trying to do all the other stuff too)
This one just happens? Dont tax grain. Spare a coin on events, to not anger minorities.
Religious schools speed up conversion.
Can use edicts. Either Converse or supress. But it is not even needed.
Can build barracks in minority land, so some of them will die.

- 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)
It is the trap! I cant do that. Not even sure what is target value.
Can pass Religious Schools, priest are better than landowners.
And rise it will dialectics and archives to level 3.
But that is not enought for 55%.

 

[Delterius]

Need 35% literacy

No. It needs 57% literacy

 

[Freger]

The states have to be incorpareted. Syrian states may not make it in time.

You have plenty of time. Plenty.

 

[Freger]

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".

You're paranoid

 

[GrounchoVilla]

You're paranoid

especially if you consider the fact that the OE really *was* a basket case at the time

 

[HotDoggerson]

I did, it was a very tense early game and a very rewarding mid to late game. I don't specifically remember which journals I completed, but I do remember that I misread the literacy one, I thought it said to reach 35% literacy, not *increase by* 35%. So I was a year or two away from failing the journal and getting Dead Man of Europe, so I frantically looked through the journals so find one I could do, and decided the only possible one was puppeting Egypt. It was close but I was able to beat Egypt and saved the Ottoman Empire with a couple months to spare. Don't have screenshots of the early game but I did take this screenshot of getting the 'Healthy Man of Europe' achievement:

Ottomans are in my opinion the most interesting and most flavorful nation by far, it's a shame more nations don't have the same love given to them. Getting the healthcare laws required for the achievement was annoying but getting to this was very satisfying.

 

[5iberys]

The only reform that is really impossible is the litteracy one. If you expand your construction sector and tax base quickly, you can complete all of the other objectives in a relatively short amount of time. The bureaucratic reform is not that difficult since your ruler is already favoring the intelligentsia, you just have to implement them in the correct order to make sure you don't get the landowners to extreme radicalism. The separatism "reform" is basically free. Urbanization is pretty hard since you need to build a lot to get it. The military reform is basically free since if you did the urbanization one, you have enough construction capacity to complete it in a few month (if your financial situation is dire, you can complete it last to finish the tanzimat and then scale back). The conquest of Syria is tricky but not too hard. You need to research technologies to improve your military quickly, and attack early since it's easier if you can do three wars. I suggest to expand your military as little as possible, but to improve your techs as fast as you can; that way, you won't attract the attention of great powers and Egypt won't back down while you'll be able to beat them. Don't forget to keep reserves and use the recruitment edict to max the refresh rate of your troops.

By doing all that I was able to complete the entry in about 17 years iirc on my second try. And believe me, if I was able to do it, you can do it

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

Don't know if my game is cursed but I had russia opposing me in everything I tried.

In the end I managed to do it without any wars at all. Burocratic, Urbanization, Army and Separatism. Education finished too but maybe a little too late, didn't check if it was still within the 20 years as I had 4 done already.

I then grabbed Syria in the 1870s, with my army finally eclipsing the russian one.

When in doubt, improve relations from game start. I believe I did that in my game too, for obvious reasons.

 

[Aeschyli]

Russia is harmless except persia war. You can take all balkan minors from the start just dont deploy your troops against russia.

 

[lolada]

I've done it again last night - this time I wanted to do Syria one as well. Finished all main ones including Syria quite quickly - like 8 years before expiring and I was waiting for "supress separatism" one to tick down.

This time I went for military techs - got line infantry and artillery 3rd tier (i had also that 10% defence tech) and build up maybe 5 arm factories - then I dowed Egypt. I just used my main army - no conscripts as they had obsolete equipment (saving money - and i stayed pretty much first 20 years in minimal debt). Now I guess its luck / RNG but Russia didn't support them - but arabian minors will jump in. I ran improve relations with russia from start but they didn't like me anyway.

So anyway - war was won by naval invasion - I added one extra general to split otto 60-80k main stack because all those units don't fight anyway. Invaded Kairo then moved that army to front - towards Syria (since they seem to go towards ethiopia always). For some reason Egypt somehow always break ottomans north in Allepo (and i was on defence on that front from start) - they did break my front this time as well - but they capitulated due to naval invasion. One earlier attempt Egypt had expert artillery commander - thats +30 attack. Its basically 100% attacking bonus - thing is wildly op early when base attack is 30.

This time I could actually add all Journal provinces as war goal (return state), so I took all of them in single war. I didn't pay attention - but this was not possible before - I guess I was great power ?! or something changed in patches.Anyway Syria was the first objective I completed -_-. Then the rest is not difficult as described in thread.

 

[Myrten]

Ottomans are not that hard, this is my game in 1935 - I became British protectorate just after start and UK defeated Egypt for me xD Later I won independence back.

Later they can snowball quite easily because they share heritage with entire Middle East from Morocco to Persia which means fast integration and these countries are very weak.

 

[Less2]

Is the literacy requirement even theoretically reachable at all? It's not like you can just spam universities, you need education access. The only way to max that out is to massively raise your pops' standard of living. And I'm not sure if you could raise by 35% even if you waved a magic wand and had 100% education access in 1836.

Also the Syria requirement should really be achievable in one war IMO. Hate the 250 regiment requirement because that's way overkill but you can cheese it by building barracks for a day.

 

[bugglesley]

Is the literacy requirement even theoretically reachable at all? It's not like you can just spam universities, you need education access. The only way to max that out is to massively raise your pops' standard of living. And I'm not sure if you could raise by 35% even if you waved a magic wand and had 100% education access in 1836.

Also the Syria requirement should really be achievable in one war IMO. Hate the 250 regiment requirement because that's way overkill but you can cheese it by building barracks for a day.

Just to jump in late, the literacy requirement is practically impossible. Don't even bother.

Like many in the thread, I have completed this and enjoyed the process.

Where I break with the conventional wisdom is that I think it's foolish to go to war with Egypt early. If you focus industry tech/building from the start it empowers the capitalists and makes passing the reforms much easier. With the reforms and industry, it makes the 250 battalions and a strong navy to trivialize the war much more affordable. With 250 quality battalions, a strong navy, and the GDP to back them up, you can sneak onto the GP list. GP status gives you 100 maneuvers in diplo plays, and you can eat all the provinces in one glorious war 15 years in.

Stressing about the truce timer and doing two 75 maneuver wars makes every other reform more difficult by delaying your modernization snowball. Fix the economy and politics first, do one 100 maneuver war, and you're in a much better position to grow into the midgame to boot.

 

[Less2]

Yeah, I agree, delay the war. Egypt is not getting much stronger anytime fast.

I'd actually downsize the army significantly, you definitely don't need it to beat Egypt. What you definitely need (or at least I want) is a stronger navy that can guarantee naval landings, from there you can shorten the war even if you only have 50 regiments and vastly reduce your casualties and expenses. The 250 regiment requirement you don't need to reach unless you get particularly unlucky with laws AND aren't doing the urbanization requirement (which I don't like since distributed industry is suboptimal), and if you do need it then its pretty trivial to build up to 250 in the last few years.

the literacy requirement is practically impossible. Don't even bother.

I'm asking because if its just practically impossible, then that's one thing. But if its literally, completely, 100% impossible, then that should be reported as a game bug. Looking at the numbers and the literacy gain rates I can achieve with much more affluent nations, I feel like the literacy requirement is actually literally impossible short of something weird like losing most of your territory and conquering Britain to raise your average literacy.

 

[Myrten]

Where I break with the conventional wisdom is that I think it's foolish to go to war with Egypt early. If you focus industry tech/building from the start it empowers the capitalists and makes passing the reforms much easier. With the reforms and industry, it makes the 250 battalions and a strong navy to trivialize the war much more affordable. With 250 quality battalions, a strong navy, and the GDP to back them up, you can sneak onto the GP list. GP status gives you 100 maneuvers in diplo plays, and you can eat all the provinces in one glorious war 15 years in.

Stressing about the truce timer and doing two 75 maneuver wars makes every other reform more difficult by delaying your modernization snowball. Fix the economy and politics first, do one 100 maneuver war, and you're in a much better position to grow into the midgame to boot.

You can do war very early if you get great power like UK on your side

 

[Less2]

You can do war very early if you get great power like UK on your side

Any tip to do that reliably?