Art of War World Conquest Tips?

[CyberianK]

I think that making protectorates is riskier now. I had some problems with them even in 1.7:
1. Some of them westernized and I had to beat them into submission again.
2. Others interfered while I was trying to protectorate other countries: they declared war on my target and I had to either re-protectorate them or I had to wait for them to peace out.

what happens again when the protectorate westernizes and you then win the war???
will it be a westernized protectorate or a westernized vassal or is it you can't vassalize it if its total tax base is too big???

asking cause I never had that happening in 1.7

 

[oblio-]

what happens again when the protectorate westernizes and you then win the war???
will it be a westernized protectorate or a westernized vassal or is it you can't vassalize it if its total tax base is too big???

asking cause I never had that happening in 1.7

If they westernize they become "regular" countries, all rules regarding conquest and vassals apply.
So if a big target westernizes it's best to release countries from them, those have the old tech group. For example Ming (Western) -> Zhou (Chinese).

 

[Quickslow87]

When you Full Annex a country, you inherit their vassals/colonies. That is very useful against the colonizers but you will need to occupy them quickly. War Exhaustion increases Liberty Desire in the colonies.

 

[CyberianK]

What? You don't need Exploration to kill the colonists...just use your vassal swarm and annex them and get their colonies for yourself.

can you elaborate on that? By Annex you mean Full Annexation right? So Not "Annex Vassal"?
So against Spain or England that is of course too big you probably mean multiples wars with breaking truces?

In past games I always vassalized the Colonial Powers, let them colonize and then reconquered or annexed them later to get their new colonies. With the change to westernization its probably bad to do it that way.

 

[Alsark]

Stomp out as many colonizers as possible to limit westernization, get expansion ideas and protectorate all of Asia ASAP. Get colonies in Siberia if possible then instantly sell them to whatever Manchu tribe is near there to block settlements that could allow a western border.

As long as you block enough westernization, all that extra tax won't mean very much.

Sounds good - thanks!

You should 100% someone and give up a reform. You will keep all the vassals but not have the -3 Dip rep penalty. If you're going for a WC, you will have plenty of IA to pass all reforms at the end through adding territory.

I would have never thought of that (nor would I have thought it worked that way) - thanks!

I agree with Durvas and TMIT, and actually you don`t even have to 100% to give up the last reform, just make a peace deal with a non cobeligerent to revoke, and they will accept.
The ideas, Influence and Diplomacy as two first sets I think it is a bad choice, Exploration/Expansion always need to be in the first row for WC attempts. You have to stop the colonizers early. Be in a state of constant war (quantity is a good choice BTW, manpower will be always a problem). And sit most of the game at 90% OE.

Yeaah... I guess I didn't really decide on the WC thing until after I had all of those vassals under my belt. I was too focused on diplo-rep to start out with. Hopefully that doesn't totally ruin me.

THIS
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...-guy-on-reddit-revoked-the-Privilegia-in-1478

also from my previous WC attemps (which were all distrubed by Paradox patching too fast ) I can say that PU of France is bad
that said things might be different in 1.8
It certainly was a bad choice in previous patches you always should do a war against them then instead and conquer/release
especially if you are this early and powerful already they have enough cores still to easily disband France

Could you elaborate on the PU with France being bad?

I guess I should make clear I don't really want a "world conquest" in the sense that the only country left is Austria, but that I want the achievement, which the Wiki says subject nations still count towards. My only concern with a France PU is that I don't know how their colonies would work... is that why it's better to just kill them off?

Thanks for everyone's replies.

 

[Qoff]

The best country for a WC atempt would be Austria right now IMO since you can Revoke the privilegia before 1500.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

can you elaborate on that? By Annex you mean Full Annexation right? So Not "Annex Vassal"?
So against Spain or England that is of course too big you probably mean multiples wars with breaking truces?

In past games I always vassalized the Colonial Powers, let them colonize and then reconquered or annexed them later to get their new colonies. With the change to westernization its probably bad to do it that way.

If I recall correctly, diploannexing them would lead to their colonies being released.

Also, to clarify, I meant that it's not necessary to take Exploration FIRST, but it is probably a good idea to take it at some point.

 

[durvas]

Would it be a good idea to revoke three reforms to get rid of the +10% stability cost modifier as well? (given that heavy conquest game will rely on a fair bit of truce breaking)

I thought that doing this would make you lose all your Dip points because you'd have a ton of vassals, but when I tried it with the console just now, it still did not count HRE vassals passed through revoke the privilegia as normal vassals when you gave up 3 reforms so it's definitely possible. I would still advise against it as there are some draw backs:

- There might not be enough provinces in Europe to pass 4 reforms if you care about being 1 tag. You have all the electors under your control so you are losing .70 a month and would never be able to accumulate IA.
- New HRE vassals would count as normal and be a waste as you'd waste IA for them instead of for your last reform push.
- If you pass erbkaisertum, the religious strife period doesn't happen as this is an automatic treaty of Westphalia. Without it, the game might actually bug out as everyone who would be in the protestant league is already your vassal. It is supposed to become automatic Catholic dominance if the Protestants never declare war, but some people have reported that at least 80 years on it hadn't ended. It might be hard coded to end at some date, but you would have to check the game files.
- If you want to switch to a new religion to get other bonuses, you would lose the emperor title unless you wait for the potentially buggy 30YW mechanics.

Overall, it's still probably OK, but I personally wouldn't do it so I could avoid the 30YW mechanics. If you really want to stack -stab and not risk bugs, it would be best to only revoke only 1 reform then revoke the restraint of appeals and either switch to Orthodox if you want to keep trying for PUs or switch to Islam for Unify Islam after you get some of the Christian missionary strength decisions. If you change to Orthodox Italy, you can be stab capped with decisions, religious ideas, wine, and the fine arts academy. With the same things, you can also be stab capped as Sunni Austria.

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

I thought that doing this would make you lose all your Dip points because you'd have a ton of vassals, but when I tried it with the console just now, it still did not count HRE vassals passed through revoke the privilegia as normal vassals when you gave up 3 reforms so it's definitely possible. I would still advise against it as there are some draw backs:

- There might not be enough provinces in Europe to pass 4 reforms if you care about being 1 tag. You have all the electors under your control so you are losing .70 a month and would never be able to accumulate IA.
- New HRE vassals would count as normal and be a waste as you'd waste IA for them instead of for your last reform push.
- If you pass erbkaisertum, the religious strife period doesn't happen as this is an automatic treaty of Westphalia. Without it, the game might actually bug out as everyone who would be in the protestant league is already your vassal. It is supposed to become automatic Catholic dominance if the Protestants never declare war, but some people have reported that at least 80 years on it hadn't ended. It might be hard coded to end at some date, but you would have to check the game files.
- If you want to switch to a new religion to get other bonuses, you would lose the emperor title unless you wait for the potentially buggy 30YW mechanics.

Overall, it's still probably OK, but I personally wouldn't do it so I could avoid the 30YW mechanics. If you really want to stack -stab and not risk bugs, it would be best to only revoke only 1 reform then revoke the restraint of appeals and either switch to Orthodox if you want to keep trying for PUs or switch to Islam for Unify Islam after you get some of the Christian missionary strength decisions. If you change to Orthodox Italy, you can be stab capped with decisions, religious ideas, wine, and the fine arts academy. With the same things, you can also be stab capped as Sunni Austria.

Wait, if you lose 0.7 IA a month after passing the 7th reform, how can you ever get the last 50 to annex the vassals (to get their CN's, for example)?

 

[calvinhobbeslik]

Stomp out as many colonizers as possible to limit westernization, get expansion ideas and protectorate all of Asia ASAP. Get colonies in Siberia if possible then instantly sell them to whatever Manchu tribe is near there to block settlements that could allow a western border.

As long as you block enough westernization, all that extra tax won't mean very much.

This works because the Manchu tribes are Hordes and don't westernize?

 

[durvas]

Wait, if you lose 0.7 IA a month after passing the 7th reform, how can you ever get the last 50 to annex the vassals (to get their CN's, for example)?

You'd just add territories you've conquered while the game was paused. You would have to avoid releasing the rest of Europe as vassals to get enough IA though.

This works because the Manchu tribes are Hordes and don't westernize?

Certain tribes, like Oirat, don't take idea groups that let them reform and westernize until really late, effectively never.

 

[troutblock]

I thought that doing this would make you lose all your Dip points because you'd have a ton of vassals, but when I tried it with the console just now, it still did not count HRE vassals passed through revoke the privilegia as normal vassals when you gave up 3 reforms so it's definitely possible. I would still advise against it as there are some draw backs:

- There might not be enough provinces in Europe to pass 4 reforms if you care about being 1 tag. You have all the electors under your control so you are losing .70 a month and would never be able to accumulate IA.
- New HRE vassals would count as normal and be a waste as you'd waste IA for them instead of for your last reform push.
- If you pass erbkaisertum, the religious strife period doesn't happen as this is an automatic treaty of Westphalia. Without it, the game might actually bug out as everyone who would be in the protestant league is already your vassal. It is supposed to become automatic Catholic dominance if the Protestants never declare war, but some people have reported that at least 80 years on it hadn't ended. It might be hard coded to end at some date, but you would have to check the game files.
- If you want to switch to a new religion to get other bonuses, you would lose the emperor title unless you wait for the potentially buggy 30YW mechanics.

Overall, it's still probably OK, but I personally wouldn't do it so I could avoid the 30YW mechanics. If you really want to stack -stab and not risk bugs, it would be best to only revoke only 1 reform then revoke the restraint of appeals and either switch to Orthodox if you want to keep trying for PUs or switch to Islam for Unify Islam after you get some of the Christian missionary strength decisions. If you change to Orthodox Italy, you can be stab capped with decisions, religious ideas, wine, and the fine arts academy. With the same things, you can also be stab capped as Sunni Austria.

Thanks! I didn't think about the 30Y war - a good point. I decided to revoke just the one reform. With the new coalition mechanics I've got myself in a nice rotation where i'm able to attack everyone around me every few years, so i'm not truce breaking as much as i thought I would anyway

One new thing has just happened though - I got a female heir (Maria Theresa), will that be a problem?

 

[lordelenath]

Not as Austria, there should fire an event "Pragmatic Sanction" thereafter allowing females to be egligible for emperor.