Dracula's Revenge Tips

[botho]

Hi,

As the title says, I am playing as Moldavia and going for the achievement.
I broke free with Denmark and TO's help, allied Russia right after it.

I had a claim on Crimea's provinces, but I am not sure those Sunni regions were a good idea.

Any thoughts on how to best proceed?
Muscovy will be capital, but I'm kinda worried they will be looking at my provinces by the time I'm big enough to take on Ottos.
For now, I think my focus should be on Lith mostly, get as many Orthodox provinces as possible.

 

[makaramus]

hungary is a good target too if they dont have strong alliances... they are your culture group after all (if wallachia is not under protection of ottoman)

 

[botho]

I was doing great. But I only had 1 ally, and Muscovy was fighting for Sweden's independence. I waited way too long to settle for peace.. They only wanted that sea province.
Not sure if I should have given it to them. Damn it. Poland was my vassal, I was going to start annexing in 2 years.
My plan was to share Lith with Muscovy and start attacking TO before moving to hungary

 

[ChloePech]

You can still beat the Ottomans, dude. Just be prepared to exploit debt and play very defensively.

 

[Sfan]

These numbers look so low for the Ottomans! Go for it, you can white peace.

 

[ChloePech]

I mean hell, if you're willing to take some interesting risks, you can outright win- so long as the ottos go bankrupt before you do. The AI doesnt manage that as well as a player can.

 

[Sfan]

That's a question of how willing you are to go far into debt as a player. Loans are ok, but crippling yourself for 10 years to cripple an AI for 15 is usually not worth, because there are several AIs and you're unique. I would only do that if that was my only chance of surviving, and here a white peace is pretty attainable without more than a few loans despite the lack of good terrain.

 

[Shinkuro Yukinari]

I would suggest a more convenient Linux distro, first of all. Mint, maybe?

As for future plans, consider expanding into Chernigov, Genoa and that little red tumour under Poland

 

[botho]

I pussied out and started a new game.
Ottos army are big, 200k+.
Maybe I should have hit them sooner?

I just waged war against Serbia, who called in Bohemia. I am annexing Nitra right now.
Croatia was my ally, so was Austria. Austria dow'd and I had to refuse a call to arms of Croatia. Sadly, this means i will have to fight Austria somwhere down the line.
Ragusa is guaranteed by Ottos, Venice and Papal states both have a province in the Balkans.

My main problem is money - when on full maintenance I lose about 9 ducats / month. I am behind on tech as well, I will embrace global trade soon(ish).

Not sure how to proceed next.. Either rebuild now, wait out the truce with Bohemia and attack them again (to get rich?) or go for Ottos with my allies (GB, which i think are worthless for war against the Ottos, Austria and Russia.)

If I decide to attack Ottos, should I white peace for 2-3 wars and try to get their country to crumble, or steal land in every war?

Thanks

 

[Dominion]

You can't hit them sooner with a Moldavia start. Wallachia used to be the easier opening because of that.

I've heard that diplo changes made it nigh impossible to pull off, but it was a walk in the park prior to 1.20
Standard Balkan path

As Moldavia you play for lategame for the lowest difficulty possible. In your situation (assuming I would want to just grab the achievement and speed5 through it) you'd grab Russia as an ally, wait until they've eaten a path through Ukraine (or call them in with the promise of land, slowly feeding them) and eat Naples, Spain, Portugal and Tunis (assuming they're not allied to OE) in the meantime, just to get some useful clay.

Once Ottos have lost Janissaries you DoW them together with Russia. Preferably with a nice fleet for tons of free warscore and WE. Easy war.
Or you don't want to invest too much IRL time and just DoW them immediately.

Whatever you do, the difficulty slider is in your hands. You got the hard part out of the way (surviving).

Just make sure you grab useful military ideas. You're not going to do any WC blobbing presumably. Stuff like Humanist or religious is a waste of a slot.

 

[Robert de Bruce]

Wouldn't it be easier to push Caucasus->Persia->India, blob there, get rich and steamroll Ottomans? I have to admit, since I experienced the benefits of doing so twice, I don't see any option that outscales this path. Ofcourse it's more IRL time, but comparing this to need 2 or more runs, discussable.

 

[Sfan]

I think you wasted a big opportunity by not expanding at all towards Asia. After independance, your first target should be Crimea, and then rush India asap while trying to control Astrakhan. Samarkand into Astrakhan into Crimea would mean you do not get 4 ducats out of trade as is the case with your screenshot (still, something is off with that number, can you show trade mapmode?). I don't say you're doomed, but 23 corruption, no economy, no expansion opportunity is a bad sign. Is there anyone that provides a good no CB somewhere to find a way out?

The achievement is just about getting strong as Moldavia/Wallachia, the required provinces you can get in less than 50 years late game. The first run seemed better if I might say.

 

[botho]

I expanded way more quickly in the first run, but it did cost me way more money.
The corruption I have because of debasing currency, and trying to take as few loans as possible.

As for the trade, I collect in Crimea(home) and Kiev. I've tested out different settings, that seems to give me the most money.

I did take religious and humanist ideas before taking offensive, and my 4th idea was economic.

I thought about going east, but I thought it would be risky to take lands Russia has claims on. I was often very unlucky with alliance breaks after helping an ally.

 

[Sfan]

Loans is just a number which will soon vanish if you get money from wars, as early loans are extremely small compared to midgame income of an agressive player. As small starts locked between majors, you have to play agressive and to grow thin early on. If you lose, restart, if you don't, you become a big player before 1600.

The main issue here is that because you let some early possibilities slip you have no money to fuel expansion into valuable trade nodes, so you have less money, so you don't have manufactories, so you have less money, so you debase, so you are behind in tech, so you can't expand, so you have less money and you end up with less than 100 ducats of income and less than 5 from trade in 1625. You need to fix that asap.

Can you somehow get into Venice for instance? I bet they're allied with France or something like that but maybe you can use Austria. You need the income and getting Venice and Ferrara would almost double it instantly. Getting Astrakhan from Crimea would help, but I bet they're allied with the Ottomans, right?

You've been playing for a lot of time, you surely have lots of trust with Russia I bet. Over 90 trust they'll never go hostile due to wanting your provinces, so you can take their permanent claims in the Steppes.

I'm still thinking of how you can pull that off, but who are Kurland and Riga allied with? The Baltic is an excellent tradenode as well and you can get almost 10 ducats per month if you simply take Riga and move tradeport there.
Bohemia wouldn't help your economy even if that's better than nothing, you need many wars to get to their goldmine and Krakow would be a hell to control, just like Kiev, unless you also make the Baltic Sea your homenode and can transfer instead of collecting (we come back to having a good endnode). The Nitran goldmine will be key, however.
There is still the possibility of a no CB vassalize into India, and growing from there, but that's late to get the full benefit of it.

I don't have any other idea to fix a run with that income and that corruption in the Age of Absolutism, even if that's not lost.

Edit: And oh, do you have merchants estates in Kiev? The TP of the tradenode seems low, even considering the penalty from collecting outside of your homenode.

 

[botho]

Burghers werent yet controlling Kiev, I forgot that. They are controlling all center of trades I have in Crimea though.
I just put them there, +- .80 ducats difference there.
Crimea is guaranteed by Russia and Ottos are defender of the Faith, but Crimea is also allied to Croatia, so I think I could just dow Croatia and steal lands from Crimea that way. Kurland are allied to Ottos and France, Riga only has minors (wurzburg, augsburg, Bremen, so can be done - but I can't fabricate claims there).
Venice is an option, they have Naples, Hamburg and The Knights, but also not possible to fabricate claims yet.
That would mean attacking the papal states once Venice is done.
My trust with Russia is 47 only with 27 favors. I'm not sure how I lost trust with them, but 200 positive opinion from them.

EDIT: i don't mind losing IRL time, i've just been getting back into the game, will try to make the best of it. if i fail, i'll do the india thing

 

[Sfan]

That's small, but better.

You can no CB, remember, especially as you have a lot of monarch points. I'd no CB Riga or Venice.