Can Albania survive in the current patch?

[Saltiren]

With the new achievement for Albania, I'm sure someone has to have figured out a way to survive as them. All the previous methods just are not working currently. You can't siege Serbia/Bosnia/Ragusa because the Ottomans will follow you there. Anyone else to attack will just smash you. Does anyone have a working method for 1.9?

 

[Soph]

Siege one province in Bosnia or Serbia after wiping their army, get acces to Hungary and hide ^^. You only need that warscore to be 99% instead of 100%, ottomans usually don't waste that much time on the war. They won't desiege the owned province, although they might try and go after your army

 

[Clownie]

I went to Bosnia, Ottomans didn't follow. They did keep the war going for several years after occupying Albania though, which caused my WE to be at 20 for a very, very long time. I vassalised Bosnia, and was promptly annexed by Venice.

That was just one run, mind you. I'm probably gonna try for the achievement sometime soon.

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

Of course Albania is survivable and has so been since the game came out. Finished the Albania achievement a few days ago.

What you do is no-CB Bosnia, get MA from Serbia, claim Ragusa, take Donji Kraji or Hum for yourself. Declare war on Ragusa, annex. Fabricate on Dalmatia and DoW them.

This tactics only works if Bosnia does not give MA to Ottomans and Venice is friendly with Austria (as in not rival to Austria or Austria rival them). Why Austria has to rival Venice? Well, so they help you beat them up for Dalmatia. When you got those three provinces you move capital to Dalmatia and join HRE. Fabricate on Serbia as soon as possible as well so you get the gold mine (annex or vassalize them).

Note, you really should have PLC and Austria ready for alliance after the initial war with Ottomans.

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

I went to Bosnia, Ottomans didn't follow. They did keep the war going for several years after occupying Albania though, which caused my WE to be at 20 for a very, very long time. I vassalised Bosnia, and was promptly annexed by Venice.

That was just one run, mind you. I'm probably gonna try for the achievement sometime soon.

Why not peace Ottoman out when you got your bosnian province? They always accept to take Albania in the peace deal so you are stuck with wrong cultureand religion bosnia province for a while but that's far better than sitting with massive WE.

 

[Clownie]

Didn't occur to me that I could use vassal coring range. As I said, it was just one run, and I didn't have any pre-planning

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

Didn't occur to me that I could use vassal coring range. As I said, it was just one run, and I didn't have any pre-planning

In all the runs/tests (probably 30+, yeah i like to play Albania) i have done i have never vassalized Bosnia in the initial war. You don't need to core the bosnian province (Donji kraji/Hum) until you got Dalmatia and Ragusa.

 

[ParadogsGamer]

I have done 30 attempts now and have lost the initial battle in Bosnia every time except once. In that one success I had a Discipline adviser and got an event that gave me 10% morale. Then I barely won the battle, but then the Ottomans proceeded to siege down Albania before I could siege Hum (Skenderbeg has 0 siege).

In every battle I was parked in the mountains and the Bosnian general had anything from 0 to 3 shock. He always came in with a 3-1 advantage in men but I had between 4 and 8 modifier difference (5 from Skenderbeg + 3 from terrain - the opposing general).

I simply refuse to believe you won in all your 30 attempts. I will give this a 1 in 50 chance of succeeding.

There is no way to have more than the three starting regiments.
There is no way to get out to sea with more than 1 regiment.
Attacking Ragusa instead of Bosnia yielded the same results.
I have tried with a Discipline as well as a Morale adviser. Didn't help.
I have tried attacking the 6 Bosnian regiments in Bosnia so that the odds only were 1-2 but still got sniped every time.

 

[Kagemin]

What I did was going for Urbino at the start and then park my troops in Tuscany until the Ottomans grew tired of the war.
Ask for access from Naples day one, declare on Urbino day two, and start ferrying your troops over one by one with the cog you start with, you barely have enough time for that. Start improving relations with Tuscany or the Pope and probably Austria after that.
Defeat Urbino's army, hope that you finish your siege faster than the Ottomans, move your troops out of reach, and then wait it out.
If you want to you should even be able to join the HRE if you move your capital there and then add the province.

 

[ErikHeinrichs]

I have done 30 attempts now and have lost the initial battle in Bosnia every time except once. In that one success I had a Discipline adviser and got an event that gave me 10% morale. Then I barely won the battle, but then the Ottomans proceeded to siege down Albania before I could siege Hum (Skenderbeg has 0 siege).

In every battle I was parked in the mountains and the Bosnian general had anything from 0 to 3 shock. He always came in with a 3-1 advantage in men but I had between 4 and 8 modifier difference (5 from Skenderbeg + 3 from terrain - the opposing general).

I simply refuse to believe you won in all your 30 attempts. I will give this a 1 in 50 chance of succeeding.

There is no way to have more than the three starting regiments.
There is no way to get out to sea with more than 1 regiment.
Attacking Ragusa instead of Bosnia yielded the same results.
I have tried with a Discipline as well as a Morale adviser. Didn't help.
I have tried attacking the 6 Bosnian regiments in Bosnia so that the odds only were 1-2 but still got sniped every time.

Why are you parking anything in any mountain before the bosnian army has stack wiped?

I just tried it and it worked again without any advisors or events. But i noticed something that will make this even easier... if you on 11th november scorch earth and start recruiting a merc infantry the Ottomans won't attack you until you have already gotten the merc inf and dowed Bosnia. So do exactly like this:

11th november
Assign Skanderbeg and recruit heir as general (maybe get lucky and get siege bonus on him)
Scorch earth
Recruit merc inf
Do not do anything with your diplomats yet

Unpause until you get your merc
DoW Bosnia (unpause one day)
Get military access from Serbia
Stack wipe Bosnia (you move your army straight to Bosna, hold shift and then click Travunia so it never stops at Bosna when you win the fight)
Merge armies so that your regular 3 regiments are left and disband merc. Make sure that while merging you got left 3 regiments, not 2.
Remove Skanderbeg from any army so he doesn't die from unlucky roll because he is commanding army (go to a Serbian province with him and quickly back without him).
Cancel MA with Serbia (to be able to loot provinces)
Siege Donji Kraji without general (heir if siege bonus)
With the very weak third regiment you got left you move it immediately to any province where Bosnia is currently recruiting regiment to stop the recruitment (this is very crucial). Have this weak regiment stationed at Hum so you can quickly move it to Travunia or Bosna and so you see if recruitment is happening in Travunia. This weak regiment is also your "looter".

 

[Targor]

I simply refuse to believe you won in all your 30 attempts. I will give this a 1 in 50 chance of succeeding.

There is no way to have more than the three starting regiments.
There is no way to get out to sea with more than 1 regiment.
Attacking Ragusa instead of Bosnia yielded the same results.
I have tried with a Discipline as well as a Morale adviser. Didn't help.
I have tried attacking the 6 Bosnian regiments in Bosnia so that the odds only were 1-2 but still got sniped every time.

The "problem" here is AI-Bonuses. If you start with them, Bosnia has six regiments -> you die, if you start without them, they have three -> they die.

 

[ParadogsGamer]

Why are you parking anything in any mountain before the bosnian army has stack wiped?

As I wrote here:

I have tried attacking the 6 Bosnian regiments in Bosnia so that the odds only were 1-2 but still got sniped every time.

so that doesn't work. Are you not getting 6 Bosnian regiments in Bosnia?

I just tried it and it worked again without any advisors or events. But i noticed something that will make this even easier... if you on 11th november scorch earth and start recruiting a merc infantry the Ottomans won't attack you until you have already gotten the merc inf and dowed Bosnia. So do exactly like this:

11th november
Assign Skanderbeg and recruit heir as general (maybe get lucky and get siege bonus on him)
Scorch earth
Recruit merc inf
Do not do anything with your diplomats yet

Unpause until you get your merc
DoW Bosnia (unpause one day)
Get military access from Serbia
Stack wipe Bosnia (you move your army straight to Bosna, hold shift and then click Travunia so it never stops at Bosna when you win the fight)
Merge armies so that your regular 3 regiments are left and disband merc. Make sure that while merging you got left 3 regiments, not 2.
Remove Skanderbeg from any army so he doesn't die from unlucky roll because he is commanding army (go to a Serbian province with him and quickly back without him).
Cancel MA with Serbia (to be able to loot provinces)
Siege Donji Kraji without general (heir if siege bonus)
With the very weak third regiment you got left you move it immediately to any province where Bosnia is currently recruiting regiment to stop the recruitment (this is very crucial). Have this weak regiment stationed at Hum so you can quickly move it to Travunia or Bosna and so you see if recruitment is happening in Travunia. This weak regiment is also your "looter".

Just tried this also and no go.
If I scorch Albania the Ottomans are coming regardless. So no time to get a merc.

The "problem" here is AI-Bonuses. If you start with them, Bosnia has six regiments -> you die, if you start without them, they have three -> they die.

I have to play in Ironman to get the achievement. They always have 6 regiments.

 

[josh127]

Just tried this also and no go.
If I scorch Albania the Ottomans are coming regardless. So no time to get a merc.

I just did it the way Erik said and it worked for me. On Nov 12 the Ottomans were moving in with some units but not the 2 large stacks. A few days later they changed their minds. I had already put the ruler commanding the army and scorched before unpausing. The only thing I did not listed was I set my merchant in Constantinople to collect and sent my other one to Venice.

My heir got 1 siege, so that helped at that point, but that doesn't seem to be where you're running into a problem.

 

[ParadogsGamer]

I just did it the way Erik said and it worked for me. On Nov 12 the Ottomans were moving in with some units but not the 2 large stacks. A few days later they changed their minds. I had already put the ruler commanding the army and scorched before unpausing. The only thing I did not listed was I set my merchant in Constantinople to collect and sent my other one to Venice.

My heir got 1 siege, so that helped at that point, but that doesn't seem to be where you're running into a problem.

My problem is that when I run into Bosnia's 6 regiments, no matter how their general is, with my 3 regiments and a god-like general, I get stackwiped every single time.

 

[josh127]

My problem is that when I run into Bosnia's 6 regiments, no matter how their general is, with my 3 regiments and a god-like general, I get stackwiped every single time.

4 regiments. Build the merc, he goes with you. I won that battle with lots of room to spare.

I don't know that Ottomans aren't moving in on me EVERY time, but I had my army in Bosnian territory (even waiting for the merc to finish) before they started to move. Other units being built tried to move (one started toward me then changed his mind).

 

[ParadogsGamer]

4 regiments. Build the merc, he goes with you. I won that battle with lots of room to spare.

I don't know that Ottomans aren't moving in on me EVERY time, but I had my army in Bosnian territory (even waiting for the merc to finish) before they started to move. Other units being built tried to move (one started toward me then changed his mind).

Ok so that might work sometimes. Still far from saying this is a sure tactic that works in 30 out of 30.
You will need that merc to take out the Bosnians - at least in Ironman that is.

 

[josh127]

Ok so that might work sometimes. Still far from saying this is a sure tactic that works in 30 out of 30.
You will need that merc to take out the Bosnians - at least in Ironman that is.

I don't know about 30/30, I only tried it the once because it sounded interesting and easy to try out.

When I was testing with Cyprus though, there was an opening that worked probably around 20-30 times in a row. Around step 8-9 in my plan it kept falling apart. Next day I went back to it, and step 1 failed the first two times I tried it.

On a side note, my Albania died miserably because as I sieged I ran speed 5 to see if I would out race the Ottomans, completely ignoring Erik's later advice to run around and keep Bosnia from rebuilding. :blush:

 

[ParadogsGamer]

With advice from DDRJake's stream I think I have found the culprit.
Apparently (although I haven't tried it yet) it is possible to remove AI bonuses in Ironman.
In that case I would face only 3 Bosnian regiments and the method above suddenly starts to become feasible.

 

[ParadogsGamer]

Alright just did a test run quickly and got one Q.
Will Ottomans ever agree on a peace before I peace out Bosnia for Hum?
It seemed they wouldn't take anything until I peaced out Bosnia and then they wanted Albania.
After the war with Bosnia and Ottos, I should sit tight and get relations up with Austria and get them allied right? And only attack Ragusa if I havent been warned by Venice.

 

[AurochsAway]

With advice from DDRJake's stream I think I have found the culprit.
Apparently (although I haven't tried it yet) it is possible to remove AI bonuses in Ironman.
In that case I would face only 3 Bosnian regiments and the method above suddenly starts to become feasible.

AI bonuses and hard difficulty are just options. You can play ironman with or without them. What you can't do is play ironman without lucky nations or with player bonuses.