Hello,
I would like to offer a slew of feedback and question to the interested reader.
Having gotten all of the content DLCs (so, Art of war yes, unit packs no), I have run 2 games, one as Novgorod/Russia and one as Ethiopia.
Novgorod:
Short recap: I managed a draw in the first, very quick war against an expansive Muscovy. During the truce, Poland PUed Lithuania, I flagged TO as a rival and joined Poland and beating TO and LO for the lunch money (seperate war though), got LO as a vasall and eventually a Polish alliance. In the meantime annexed Tver and force vasallized Ryazan. Next war with Muscovy was a huge win, and it got easier after this.
Observations:
-Patriarch authority events seem to not fire at all or not very much.
-The ability to basically force provinces on your vasalls by changing the occupier during a war is huge and game changing. I am currently making poor TO and poor Astrakhan eat the Lithuanian and Polish coring costs for me. They dont even complain. Sweden is my "eat Danish and Norvegian coring costs" mark, but since Norway is allied with France and Castilla (who somehow inherited GB), and Danemark is allied with the Austrian God Emperor (revoked the privilegia) and Portugal I would rather beat up on Poles, Lithuanians and random asian nations for their lunch money.
What I do not fully understand are circumstances under which your vasalls pay the diplocost compared to circumstances under which you pay the diplo cost . Once I got all expansion ideas, I set up a Korchin Mega Mongol culture group state covering everything from Samarkand to Manchu. These guys did for some reason start at tech level 21 (same as me at that time) and were a huge aid. When I tried to set up Yeren as my secondary Manchu megastate (conquered some cores, converted them, released them) they had tech level 13. I do not understand what determines tech levels of released nations. Amusingly, totally cool Korchin actually helps keeping down Revolts in totally not cool Yeren, which is something I havent seen before.
-There seems to be a lot more money in general. I am, other than in some few specialized provinces, focusing on manufactories. Due to Russian province count, building normal buildings simply would not be very doable in terms of monarch points.
-I am unsure of how to best optimize my trade (got 8 merchants to send, the thing is, Castille has 4 times my trade income so they are doing something far better then I am).
-In terms of vasallmaking, I had the most success with setting up one vasall for an entire culture group.
-Portugal was pretty annoying, they were/are incredibly rich, colonized parts of Siberia (I was colonizing the Spice Islands after reaching the Pacific, Russia needs a nice holiday destination) and its pretty expensive to kick the idiots out.
-Westernisation is not an option because I am way to big. I compensate for technological deficiencies with bringing lots and lots of artillery. As a numerical artillery superiority is the superiority that matters most, it usually does the trick.
Ethiopia:
It is a very big change that you can now see the muslim parts of the map. Started by force vasallizing the other Ethiopian non Sunni minors, then went, with those minors aid, after Adal which got force vasallized too. Proceeded with opportunistic conquests into Arabia (dumping everyhting I took on Adal), and southwards towards Africa (usually setting for vasallizsations followed by annexations later). This greatly reduced my outflow of administrative points. Eventually teamed up with the Ottos (seperate war) to bring down the Mamelukes. Conquest of Jerusalem was a great boon to my missionary efforts. Successfully colonized in South Africa, got a mission for a foothold in India and managed to take Lower Sindh and Goa. Have no clue on how to optimize my trade though.
Will retain Adal as a long term vasall (now have original Adalese lands and about 3/4s of Arabia), and also retain some extra vasalls to rule over West African culture groups.´Again, the rule "one vasall per culture group" works pretty well.
There is, again, a lot of money, and again I dont quite know how to best invest it. Propably manufactories again. I did get Somali as an accepted culture which is pretty cool though.
I would like to offer a slew of feedback and question to the interested reader.
Having gotten all of the content DLCs (so, Art of war yes, unit packs no), I have run 2 games, one as Novgorod/Russia and one as Ethiopia.
Novgorod:
Short recap: I managed a draw in the first, very quick war against an expansive Muscovy. During the truce, Poland PUed Lithuania, I flagged TO as a rival and joined Poland and beating TO and LO for the lunch money (seperate war though), got LO as a vasall and eventually a Polish alliance. In the meantime annexed Tver and force vasallized Ryazan. Next war with Muscovy was a huge win, and it got easier after this.
Observations:
-Patriarch authority events seem to not fire at all or not very much.
-The ability to basically force provinces on your vasalls by changing the occupier during a war is huge and game changing. I am currently making poor TO and poor Astrakhan eat the Lithuanian and Polish coring costs for me. They dont even complain. Sweden is my "eat Danish and Norvegian coring costs" mark, but since Norway is allied with France and Castilla (who somehow inherited GB), and Danemark is allied with the Austrian God Emperor (revoked the privilegia) and Portugal I would rather beat up on Poles, Lithuanians and random asian nations for their lunch money.
What I do not fully understand are circumstances under which your vasalls pay the diplocost compared to circumstances under which you pay the diplo cost . Once I got all expansion ideas, I set up a Korchin Mega Mongol culture group state covering everything from Samarkand to Manchu. These guys did for some reason start at tech level 21 (same as me at that time) and were a huge aid. When I tried to set up Yeren as my secondary Manchu megastate (conquered some cores, converted them, released them) they had tech level 13. I do not understand what determines tech levels of released nations. Amusingly, totally cool Korchin actually helps keeping down Revolts in totally not cool Yeren, which is something I havent seen before.
-There seems to be a lot more money in general. I am, other than in some few specialized provinces, focusing on manufactories. Due to Russian province count, building normal buildings simply would not be very doable in terms of monarch points.
-I am unsure of how to best optimize my trade (got 8 merchants to send, the thing is, Castille has 4 times my trade income so they are doing something far better then I am).
-In terms of vasallmaking, I had the most success with setting up one vasall for an entire culture group.
-Portugal was pretty annoying, they were/are incredibly rich, colonized parts of Siberia (I was colonizing the Spice Islands after reaching the Pacific, Russia needs a nice holiday destination) and its pretty expensive to kick the idiots out.
-Westernisation is not an option because I am way to big. I compensate for technological deficiencies with bringing lots and lots of artillery. As a numerical artillery superiority is the superiority that matters most, it usually does the trick.
Ethiopia:
It is a very big change that you can now see the muslim parts of the map. Started by force vasallizing the other Ethiopian non Sunni minors, then went, with those minors aid, after Adal which got force vasallized too. Proceeded with opportunistic conquests into Arabia (dumping everyhting I took on Adal), and southwards towards Africa (usually setting for vasallizsations followed by annexations later). This greatly reduced my outflow of administrative points. Eventually teamed up with the Ottos (seperate war) to bring down the Mamelukes. Conquest of Jerusalem was a great boon to my missionary efforts. Successfully colonized in South Africa, got a mission for a foothold in India and managed to take Lower Sindh and Goa. Have no clue on how to optimize my trade though.
Will retain Adal as a long term vasall (now have original Adalese lands and about 3/4s of Arabia), and also retain some extra vasalls to rule over West African culture groups.´Again, the rule "one vasall per culture group" works pretty well.
There is, again, a lot of money, and again I dont quite know how to best invest it. Propably manufactories again. I did get Somali as an accepted culture which is pretty cool though.