Can form arabia and still Jihad?

[AirikrStrife]

I'm planning on doing an iron man run with Najd and among other things focus on doing Jihad and Arabian cofe. Question, does formng Arabia prevent th Jihad achievment in case I would have the option to form Arabia before having 500 provinces?

Also thoughts on the best idea set?
I'm thinking:
Defensive
Innovative
Religious/exploration
Religious/exploration
Administrative

 

[Sfan]

Someone who reads code can confirm your first question.

But for the rest... Why would you get these ideas?
A military idea first is generally bad, defensive spikes super early but my choice would be offensive or quantity to do Jihad, and that would definitely not be my first group.
Innovative is trash, especially to do Jihad. It's a complete waste of admin points.
Religious can be good here. Getting it fourth would be a bit late, as you'll mostly conquer Sunni land or easy to convert land (Fetishist) for the achievement, except Coptic provinces which you will have early.
Exploration is also good to boost your economy and get more Sunni provinces for free by colonizing inner Africa.
Admin is awesome, you take it SO late. You have to conquer 400 provinces (considering you go ham on colonization), get admin asap.

That's boring, but the optimal option is a very usual one:
Admin
Influence
Humanist/Exploration
Exploration/Humanist

Admin first because it saves up so many monarch points, helps with mercs, reduces coring time. Well, it's admin.
Influence second because you won't be able to use a good CB before Imperialism if you don't play around vassals. No Deus Vult for you, everyone is Sunni around you except a few tags so you need to release dead tags and feed their cores, or to go with conquest but in that case you need an unjustified demands modifier.
I won't go with religious for the reasons I said. With Custodian of the Holy Cities and potentially control of Jerusalem as well, and your ideas, you can convert the provinces you need witout Religious, and Deus Vult is wasted in your area. That leaves Humanist open early, which is always excellent. And Exploration for the reasons I mentioned. THEN a military group fifth imo.
That's considering you go the easiest road, which is to expand into Africa and the Hordes (low dev weak nations having Sunni provinces) and to colonize until you reach 500 provinces. Making all Africa Sunni without religious is extremely easy and that's almost the provinces required (428 in the region).

 

[deathbypie]

achievement_jihad = {
id = 50

possible = {
NOT = { num_of_custom_nations = 1 }
normal_or_historical_nations = yes
normal_province_values = yes
ironman = yes
start_date = 1444.11.11
tag = NAJ
religion = sunni
}

happened = {
religion = sunni
num_of_cities = 500
num_of_owned_provinces_with = {
value = 500
religion = sunni
}
}
}

You only need to start as Najd, it doesn't matter what nation you end up as.

I don't think you NEED to start admin for this, as you have until 1821 and don't need to do a world conquest. You don't even need to set foot in Europe. When I started a Jihad run last patch and forgot to finish, I was successful focusing military and getting defensive ideas first, just to make up for the overall terrible starting position. Might be easier now with more weak nearby nations to prey upon.

 

[Sfan]

You don't have to One Tag, but when you take 400 provinces, not having admin sets you SO far behind imo, even if they are mostly low dev. And I think it's easier to do it fast, because the more you wait the more blobs there will be.

 

[AirikrStrife]

Well the starting position is not really one of quick expansion. We have Mamluks/Hejaz/Median in the west and in my first run in 1.23 they were indeed crushd by the ottos, but later than it was before, to the north we have Timurids in were almost anything can happen.

Getting Defensive or another military idea early I imagine will help with the arabs not having any national ideas increasing military strenght. Choosing defensive for extra morale, and reduced attrition and manpower recovery speed combined with the arab traditions for extra manpower and reduced attrition could work well to maintain my army to always be battle capable while it still has some military bonuses

Getting innovative for the scientific revolution idea is my main purpose, getting it early pays back quite fastly as it get's 12% off on adm technology (for a cost of 400adm point) + the other 800 admin point to get prestige decay and mercenery and -4%technology cost. A lot of times I only prioritize getting those three and only get the rest if I have the admin to spare.

You're right about religious ideas though, especially since arabs have missionary strenght in their ideas. so probably go exploration at lvl 10 or humanist. Influence I dunno if I take that early.

edit: just started and realize Najd has their own ideas.

 

[Brynjar]

I'm also doing a Najd campaign right now. Don't bother with religious ideas. Najd ideas and traditions are good enough to do all the conversions you need without it, and when you occationally take some hard to convert land you can just hire a +2 missionary strength advisor. Deus vault isn't really worth it as most land you conquer early on is Sunni anyway, which makes it useless, and noone cares about the few Shia countries you gobble up.

I also had a hard time deciding whether or not to take exploration, but I decided not to and use best cb instead.

Exploration is also good to boost your economy and get more Sunni provinces for free by colonizing inner Africa.

Colonizing can't really be called free. It may not cost you admin power, but the ducats are usually better spent elsewhere.

 

[Sfan]

It's only 4 ducats a month, which is absolutely nothing if you pick it fourth group. You're trading about 100 ducats for 20 admin points, that's such a good trade at that point.

 

[Anastasius]

If someone more experienced could write a guide for Najd that would be great.
In my first game I had some early success but eventually I got beaten back to my starting position rather quickly.

 

[Brynjar]

It's only 4 ducats a month, which is absolutely nothing if you pick it fourth group. You're trading about 100 ducats for 20 admin points, that's such a good trade at that point.

And an idea group. With the starting position and National ideas of Najd there is a good chance you'll have a hard time without picking a single military idea group.

 

[Brynjar]

If someone more experienced could write a guide for Najd that would be great.
In my first game I had some early success but eventually I got beaten back to my starting position rather quickly.

Was this in 1.23 or earlier patches? The power balance and the early economic situation in the region is significantly different from what it was before.

 

[JeanneTherin]

Najd is in a much more difficult position this patch than it was previously, lots of alliance blocks and meddling GP's

I played for about 200 years with the goal of uniting the Arabian Peninsular, only.

I think the best thing too do would be to consolidate as much of the peninsular as possible and then break out into another region. Iraq is probably the easiest bet. Mamluks is doable but they need to be distracted. Their mountain fort in Arabia is what makes it painful. Going south will take longer to be able to achieve, Yemen has a few mountain forts too and Ethiopia is an attrition nightmare. Ethiopia and the horn of Africa is a good direction to expand in if you can deal with the attrition early on.

My najd didn't know what technology was let alone ideas. I was at admin and dip tech 6 in 1600. Unifying and staying relevant in tech was difficult. Institutions spread slowly in that area which is why getting out is important.

My only idea group was .... religious....um. I don't think this is good for what you want to do though. To do the achievement I'd probably pick (don't kill me) Economic. I found myself debasing and hemorrhaging loans frequently. On the topic of debasing, if you acquire legalism points you can burn -2 corruption every 5 years? this really helped after particularly brutal wars.

If you had a better economy, then Admin is what I would pick. Having mercenary reduction costs is nice but you have to be able to pay for them without bankrupting yourself. All surrounding sand for the the first 50 years will be... sand. I don't see the value in taking Admin for the core reduction cost that early as its all so cheep. Although if you think you can expand to high dev concentated areas quickly its debatable.

If an or if an opportunity arose in Persia, religious.

As for the other ideas, i'd probably go (some admin idea) -> Diplomatic -> Defensive. I'm not really a fan of defensive, but here it can work. If your crazy pick expansion and use it to fabricate on TC land in east africa (This is a JK, don't do it.........ever)

 

[kacpe3]

My najd didn't know what technology was let alone ideas. I was at admin and dip tech 6 in 1600. )

Jesus.

 

[ElGranCapitan]

If someone more experienced could write a guide for Najd that would be great.
In my first game I had some early success but eventually I got beaten back to my starting position rather quickly.

Wouldn't say I'm super experienced with Najd but I found a relatively successful start (I'm using all dlc btw)

Take the mission to gain access to the sea, should always be there. Ally the Mamluks, they start friendly. Build 3 infantry and fast forward to dec 11, if haasa has more than 1 ally restart. In my game they allied Baluchistan, so I allied Hormuz (Baluchistan won't get access due to at war with neighboring ally). During the war build 2 more infantry to be able to siege the lvl 3 fort (it's more expensive to siege with 9 than 10 units because every attrition tick will halt the siege making it much longer)

Btw, if Haasa if allied to someone that can reach you and has a lvl 3 fort themselves as well, I'd also restart.

If you can, fully annex Haasa, if you can't due to an ally like Baluchistan in my case leave them 1 province, but make sure to take the fort and the 2 gems provinces. As soon as you can develop the gems provinces to 10 and give them to the burghers to offset increasing autonomy

Haasa has feudalism, take a loan and embrace it

Due to you getting 150 mil from your nobles you'll reach tech 4 before the AI, use it to beat up a small alliance of 2 people (like dawasir+someone or shammer+someone)

At this point you gotta go with the flow, I fought Shammar next (allied with Hisn Kayfa), then Dawasir+Oman. Oman typically only has 1 ally and he has a lot of cores on hormuz. I force converted and vassalized him (and annexed Dawasir) and got a defensive war with hormuz which I used to take all of Hormuz land except the island (had no ships)

At some point the Mamluks will call you into a war that they will win by themselves, run around, loot and help siege to farm favours. With the Mamluks Yemen and Ethiopia should be no problems

Hope that helps a little, the middle east is a lot like Europe now, alliances are really diverse so you can't plan out everything in advance like you could

 

[Anastasius]

Was this in 1.23 or earlier patches? The power balance and the early economic situation in the region is significantly different from what it was before.

1.23,first game actually. I had an easy time gaining access to the Persian gulf due to my alliance with Hormuz. Also the surrounding countries like Shammar were easy to deal with,however after solidifying my rule in central Arabia I had a couple of rebellions to deal with,this really drained my economy so I decided to go for the rich lands of Iraq. Hormuz was willing to assist me in this,they didn't even require the promise of land to join the war and they seemed well of to carry me trough the conquest of Kuwait (whichever nation is there that controls it)
However the above mentioned nation had an ally in Persia,the one that has the Sassanid looking flag and spaceship technology,compared to ours,so we got wrecked hard. Hormuz peaced out quickly and I was gobbled away....

 

[Anastasius]

Wouldn't say I'm super experienced with Najd but I found a relatively successful start (I'm using all dlc btw)

Take the mission to gain access to the sea, should always be there. Ally the Mamluks, they start friendly. Build 3 infantry and fast forward to dec 11, if haasa has more than 1 ally restart. In my game they allied Baluchistan, so I allied Hormuz (Baluchistan won't get access due to at war with neighboring ally). During the war build 2 more infantry to be able to siege the lvl 3 fort (it's more expensive to siege with 9 than 10 units because every attrition tick will halt the siege making it much longer)

Btw, if Haasa if allied to someone that can reach you and has a lvl 3 fort themselves as well, I'd also restart.

If you can, fully annex Haasa, if you can't due to an ally like Baluchistan in my case leave them 1 province, but make sure to take the fort and the 2 gems provinces. As soon as you can develop the gems provinces to 10 and give them to the burghers to offset increasing autonomy

Haasa has feudalism, take a loan and embrace it

Due to you getting 150 mil from your nobles you'll reach tech 4 before the AI, use it to beat up a small alliance of 2 people (like dawasir+someone or shammer+someone)

At this point you gotta go with the flow, I fought Shammar next (allied with Hisn Kayfa), then Dawasir+Oman. Oman typically only has 1 ally and he has a lot of cores on hormuz. I force converted and vassalized him (and annexed Dawasir) and got a defensive war with hormuz which I used to take all of Hormuz land except the island (had no ships)

At some point the Mamluks will call you into a war that they will win by themselves, run around, loot and help siege to farm favours. With the Mamluks Yemen and Ethiopia should be no problems

Hope that helps a little, the middle east is a lot like Europe now, alliances are really diverse so you can't plan out everything in advance like you could

Yeah basically I made a mistake of taking only the province that is the objective of the mission,because Hormuz wasn't happy with the idea of me taking more,and getting only the one province that they actually wanted....and like I mentioned above,my next step was my biggest mistake thinking that those freaks from Tabriz wouldn't march down with their spacemarines and beat the sh*t out of us...

 

[ElGranCapitan]

Yeah basically I made a mistake of taking only the province that is the objective of the mission,because Hormuz wasn't happy with the idea of me taking more,and getting only the one province that they actually wanted....and like I mentioned above,my next step was my biggest mistake thinking that those freaks from Tabriz wouldn't march down with their spacemarines and beat the sh*t out of us...

You can betray everyone, you only need the Mamluks

 

[Brynjar]

1.23,first game actually. I had an easy time gaining access to the Persian gulf due to my alliance with Hormuz. Also the surrounding countries like Shammar were easy to deal with,however after solidifying my rule in central Arabia I had a couple of rebellions to deal with,this really drained my economy so I decided to go for the rich lands of Iraq. Hormuz was willing to assist me in this,they didn't even require the promise of land to join the war and they seemed well of to carry me trough the conquest of Kuwait (whichever nation is there that controls it)
However the above mentioned nation had an ally in Persia,the one that has the Sassanid looking flag and spaceship technology,compared to ours,so we got wrecked hard. Hormuz peaced out quickly and I was gobbled away....

In my current game I also allied Hormuz and Shammar from the start. The provinces Shammar holds are pretty much worthless. My first offensive war (after getting favors with Hormuz in some trivial war) was against Haasa. I think I only took Hofuf, Al-Qatif and Grane in the first war as I didn't want to risk upsetting Hormuz by taking their cores. After taking these you should have no problem embracing feudalism.

While waiting for the truce to expire I did some opportunisitc wars in the south/west. The second war against Haasa I took Bahrain (again I didn't want to risk upsetting Hormuz, and since they were in the war with me they get the same truce time). After the war I moved my capital to bahrain and developed it to gain reinessance. When this was done the province was earning me 5+ ducats per month from tax and production alone.

After this it's just a matter of patience to wait for good opportunities for expansion. You got plenty of time to get the 500 provinces you need, so there is no need to take unnecessary risks early on.

To reduce revolt risks you can turn territories into states (don't spend admin points to make them full cores), then increase autonomy just to abandon the state into a territory again. Then you'll still have 75% autonomy, but with -10 unrest.

Also, make sure you stay friendly with the Mamluks until you are able to get an alliance with the Ottomans. Oh, and don't engange QQ without serious backup. I have seen them handle both Mamluks and Ottomans in 1 vs 1 wars early on.

 

[Brynjar]

You can betray everyone, you only need the Mamluks

I prefered betraying the Mamluks the moment the Ottomans decided to pay them a visit with their superior tech, numbers, morale, discipline and army professionalism. Also made the Ottomans like me enough to be willing to ally me
Which one of the two is your best bet will probably vary from game to game though.

 

[Anastasius]

I prefered betraying the Mamluks the moment the Ottomans decided to pay them a visit with their superior tech, numbers, morale, discipline and army professionalism. Also made the Ottomans like me enough to be willing to ally me
Which one of the two is your best bet will probably vary from game to game though.

Isn't it dangerous to bet on the Ottomans too much,I mean by the time they defeat the Mamluks conquer Syria and Egypt they are a major threat to you as well. Such an alliance is a fragile one at best,soon enough they will desire the Hedjaz (implying you conquered it) and then you go next under the grinder.

 

[Brynjar]

Isn't it dangerous to bet on the Ottomans too much,I mean by the time they defeat the Mamluks conquer Syria and Egypt they are a major threat to you as well. Such an alliance is a fragile one at best,soon enough they will desire the Hedjaz (implying you conquered it) and then you go next under the grinder.

I have had no problems getting favors with the Ottomans. This means I can run the show when it comes to the Ottoman/Mamluk wars since Ottomans will be willing to join wars against the Mamluks without being promised land. As long as you declare on the Mamluks as soon as the truce expire you'll also be able to prevent the Ottomans from expanding into the Levant.
That said, their 315k force limit, which they are built up to, (very hard) is still scaring me.