Lately I have played around a lot as smaller European costal nations and I have a hard time seeing a opening that can compete with the Strategy to no cb Thomond right at game start to get a foothold outside of your regular expansion place and to split up aggressive expansion. does any one Know a opening for a Italian nation that can keep up with such. a opening there u can become a great power with in the first 15 years as any small nation like the Pope ?
Best cb Thomond opening
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The Pope is the last Italian start I would expect to need a no-CB. Join empire, excom Firenze / Provence and you're good to go.
No-CB Byzantium -> inherited war vs Ottomans is always nice if you can manage it, but you're going to want to some meaty allies. If you pull it off, it basically kills the Ottomans before 1450.
No-CB Byzantium -> inherited war vs Ottomans is always nice if you can manage it, but you're going to want to some meaty allies. If you pull it off, it basically kills the Ottomans before 1450.
Galley spam still works against Ottos if they DoW Byz right after AQ or Albania.
They'll send endless waves of transports+troops and give you free warscore + gain WE and once you're done you can blockade everything. Suffices to overcome the -25 ticking score and you can use your troops to gobble up a few Italian minors in the meanwhile.
Not the best opening. Grabbing Austria+Hungary would look a lot better, but sometimes you gotta do some ugly stuff to get going.
As pope it's amazing because you have a much easier time picking up alliances. No need to expand in Italy.
Ottomans with their cores back are always a major nuisance. Anything that's even remotely in range starts with a no-cb on Byz or a DoW on Ottos before 1470. At least in my book.
I wouldn't necessarily recommend this strategy for the Pope or any other Italian nation. That said I also like doing no-CBs on Ireland e.g. as Circassia. It's also useful for colonial range and in order to join the HRE. If you can grab Leinster, then the province of East Frisia will be in your coring range. If you can get East Frisia before it is conquered by someone else, you can join the HRE as anybody who is still small enough.
No CB vassalize Byzantium and call the emperor against the Ottomans is the best opener for any HRE member, no CB Circassia is better than no CB Thomond for any other nation. No CB Djerid or one of these is also really viable as anyone.
Why?
No-CB any Irish minor => vassalize => inherit war => conquer neighbours, make CBs => conquer any remains of Irish minors all this within 5-7 years from the game start.
This gives you an immediate powerbase in Ireland (except Pale), then you simply eat Scotland, then England, then BAM! you are a Great Power on the British Islands.
The only bottlenecks are:
1) unfavourable alliances at the start of the game = easily overcome by restarting before January 1448.
2) possible enforce peace from England = overcome by quick sieges.
Then it's only a matter of
The strategy works even for Muslims like Granada, although you need to change to Catholic for easier alliances.
On the other hand, Circassia is poor land with increased coring cost, surrounded by the same poor lands mixing multicultural Sunni/Orthodox/Shia/Coptic religion.
Besides, you are in immediate danger of early QQ, GH/Crimea, which fight a way better in plains than the English at the game start. And, of course, the neigbouring Ottomans (no need to comment)
How can all this be better?
Moreover, in terms of AE none cares for the Irish, then Burgundy and Brittany and Provence (if has territories) begin caring for Scotland, and some German minors care for England.
Contrary to that, conquer Muslims around Circasia => Ottomans, QQ, Timurids and Mameluks and tons of minors will care for your actions (more for Suni, a bit less for Shia). Conquer Orthodox, Ottomans and QQ will all care as well, because they are your immediate neighbours.
I don't say no-CB Circassia is impossible, I say it gives less time/benefit compared to Ireland for most coastal minor nations.
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The British Isles do not mitigate AE as efficiently because they are closer and Catholic, England can wipe you out early or at least totally block you with alliances/guarantees/warning if you're unlucky, Scotland will be guaranteed by France and England might be allied with Castile/Aragon/Austria/Burgundy, and usually at least one of these. And England is not that trash early on if they don't take the option to declare on France. It's more luck based.
On the other hand Circassia offers the option of generating almost no AE and all the nations there are free picks without any meaningful allies and yes, a patchwork of religions so less AE. If you're afraid of Crimea and GH I'm surprised you're not afraid of England, England is only bad when they need to land, on their island they put up a decent fight with 30k men early on while Crimea and GH will usually be lagging behind a player in miltech. QQ and Timurids will explode and give you more conquest opportunities, and you're closer from India. In a reasonable amount of time you can collect in Persia and start having trade companies. The Ottomans and Russia will not be interested in the Caucasus and Persia before 1500 at worst, and more likely 1550, so you don't fight any major before you're one yourself. You can turn Sunni to ally the Ottomans or orthodox to ally Muscovy, or wait until a catholic major near your homeland wants to ally you.
On the other hand Circassia offers the option of generating almost no AE and all the nations there are free picks without any meaningful allies and yes, a patchwork of religions so less AE. If you're afraid of Crimea and GH I'm surprised you're not afraid of England, England is only bad when they need to land, on their island they put up a decent fight with 30k men early on while Crimea and GH will usually be lagging behind a player in miltech. QQ and Timurids will explode and give you more conquest opportunities, and you're closer from India. In a reasonable amount of time you can collect in Persia and start having trade companies. The Ottomans and Russia will not be interested in the Caucasus and Persia before 1500 at worst, and more likely 1550, so you don't fight any major before you're one yourself. You can turn Sunni to ally the Ottomans or orthodox to ally Muscovy, or wait until a catholic major near your homeland wants to ally you.
Or start as Circassia and no-CB Thomand
I have a start where I did just this in order to combine Thomand's awesome idea set with Tribal Despotism. I didn't continue with the run in the end - maybe something for CoC.