I think the above is pretty accurate. The I dunno how you can do it with MOS. I think there are 2 major (and one minor) requirement and it's all about position to fill the first 2.
1. You must be in a position to stop the colonizers (all of them--including any HRE OPMs) before they round the cape.
- This means roughly before 1600. They can take a couple of provinces there, just as long as they don't take too much. Try to vassalize without surrounding their capital, you don't want them moving it to Africa. Portugal might be trouble, on 1.5 they're really agressive on Morocco. Although, this might be good for you, as berbers are really painful to conquer.
2. You must be in a position to stop MOS from getting into Siberia (though you have some leeway here if you can get into a PU with them, then that's great)
- I hate to rely on PU's. I never get them when/where I need it, so stopping Muscovy is the number 1 priority in every game.
3. And the minor, to my dismay, you must be involved in North America early by removing NA OPMs, so that your CN's do not create protectorates because if they do, you will have to hope that the protectorates westernize or you cannot declare war on them due to a bug.
- Not sure what bug you're talking about. If it's CNs declaring war on you, all you have to do is DoW NA OPMs during another war. This way, your CNs are already in a war on your side, so they can't DoW you. At least, they shouldn't. In my WC on 1.4, they didn't.
I'm on my 5th WC attempt. Each time you learn something new; and I've been pretty close 3/4 times. Dreadfully close the last time.
England, so far, has been the easiest because you are in the best position period. Good NI's, and as ikkisis says, you can stop All colonizers and MOS pretty easily. 1.5 may have made it untenable because France might be VERY difficult to beat. Still, even without PU'ing France you might be able to do it as France is relatively easy to break up.
- That's true. Although, without France PU, Castile might be a better option for WC than England. Just because you can colonize Africa by yourself and can easily conquer France with a Burgundy alliance. The real problem here should be Muscovy, but I'm sure that with a good start on France and an Aragon PU, you can stop Muscovy on time.
I'm not sure Italy isn't untenable (I might give it a go), since I thought the key in stopping MOS is really just getting up there and getting a platform to which to bash MOS in. Ally with LIT and take a small OPM vassal. Work from there.
- I didn't say you can't do it as Italy. You probably can, but it's not the best option anymore. I did a WC as Tuscany/Italy on 1.4 and all my strategies got crushed in this patch. Poland+Lithuania alone might not be enough to hold Muscovy, as they tend to be pretty bad in battle. Muscovy is a real monster sometimes.
Otto's are also great. My one attempt stalled because I did not stop Portugal from colonizing (thinking I can just sweep there colonies up later). Unfortunately, an unintended benefit was running into giant Westernized Indian and Chinese tech nations which is just too much of a slog to go through. I would have made it with ease if I could protectorate them (I gave up in 1690 when I ran into westernized Malwa and saw Japan and Ming westernizing too.) I'll probably give this another shot. The Core reduction skills just make managing OE so much easier.
- I'd recommend that you ignore colonizers (on America that is) completely. Stop Muscovy, conquer Africa yourself. This way, they shouldn't be able to get to Asia, which means no western India or China.
Also, one key item you need to do for WC--as I found out--is to center your strategy to release countries with cores asap. They still disappear for one reason or another, for example I had Styria disappear while invading Austria once--for (no?) apparent reason. It was there in 1550 in one war (where I Could release) and then gone 5 years later. Same with Mazovia, Maldovia, Tunisia; so just be aware that it still happens. I believe that it has something to do with culture converting which the AI now does.
- Those countries that aren't primary culture nations will disappear around 1550. This means Styria, most french, Novgorod and so on. Austrian culture views Austria as primary nation, that's why Styria disappears. Ruthenians view Ukraine as primary and it will never disappear, as long as POL/LIT don't culture convert provinces.
I've never found Ae to be particularly a problem in 1.3 or 1.5.
- AE is a problem when you're playing near HRE or trying too hard to get cores yourself. Sometimes just claiming provinces on HRE will turn a coalition against you. That's why ally feeding and war rotation works much better.
