Farming CBs

[Nil-The-Frogg]

Hi,

I'm currently in a mission to unite all muslims, playing OE.

I've conquered almost all my cores (wich is a lot of provinces) by 1560. Now, my stab costs are becoming a little high (a little cause I've taken care (and money) to ensure that my provinces are sunny (with two exception of culture incompatible orhtodox provinces) so I hesitate to keep DOWing without CB.

So, I try to start farming CBs. Here are those methodes I've tried:

1) Getting in an alliance with my target, having bad enough relations, crush them as soon as they dishonor. But that's more and more difficult now (would you tell they're becoming suspicious? )
2) Warning them. Never worked so far. Warnings seem to work, but not the way I would like them to. I also miss a message notifing me of a new CB...
3) Getting embargoed, but that's easy only with those scums that have a CoT
4) Jumping on the oportunity of random events, but that's it: random...
5) Proclaiming guarantees: same as 2) so far... And you never know if that's one of your targets that'll DOW.

Have you any suggestion?

 

[unmerged(11819)]

I've been thinking about doing that after i finish my current game. release european holdings that i can as vassals, let whatever else be conquered in later BB wars (ie leave europe to the europeans) and unite all muslims. tried it first as uzbek, but imploded in a 5 year stretch mid 1500's due to constant BB wars (and i hadnt read their event files.. all those separations cost a lot of BB to undo!). stretched from eastern turkey, up to samara or some such, all of old timurid empire. even weirdos like mantua would DOW me just to keep me at war. anyway, my point is id be interested to see how far you get!

 

[unmerged(30040)]

I've had a small amount of success with one-month-long loans that the AI doesn't want to repay, giving you a CB. But sometimes they don't take the loan offer in the first place. Also, if you have a royal marriage, you can claim their throne, but that is expensive and destabilizing.

 

[Nil-The-Frogg]

I've had a small amount of success with one-month-long loans that the AI doesn't want to repay, giving you a CB. But sometimes they don't take the loan offer in the first place. Also, if you have a royal marriage, you can claim their throne, but that is expensive and destabilizing.

These are two techniques that I've not listed nor tried. Thanks. But I thought that in latest patches AI wasn't very willing to accept loans (and effectively never accepted in my games, not that I tried often though... ). I was thinking about RM too, but I suppose this will cost loads of money, just like alliances. Maybe a bit less money in fact, but an additional stab cost, as you mentioned. Still, I have a RM and an alliance with Sibir, after I've saved them from Uzbeks (it wasn't on purpose, I was just kicking them for my own benefit: 5 provinces and a little 150d bonus).

Well, in case you're interested, I've beaten Austria and Russia 20 or 30 years ago, and they never came back. Veneto is a single province monster, Hungary, Wallachia and Transylvania are my vassals, I've crushed Castile and Aragon in order to take them Alexandria and Cataract... I'm on my way . It might not be that easy forever though, since OE has a really good pick of leaders for the first 150 years (maybe more ?).

My next target is Persia: I want to force convert her ASAP, so that she has enough time to convert her persian provinces to Sunni, wich would be very hard, very long and very costly for me. And no CB problem against her .

 

[Nil-The-Frogg]

I've been thinking about doing that after i finish my current game. release european holdings that i can as vassals, let whatever else be conquered in later BB wars (ie leave europe to the europeans) and unite all muslims. tried it first as uzbek, but imploded in a 5 year stretch mid 1500's due to constant BB wars (and i hadnt read their event files.. all those separations cost a lot of BB to undo!). stretched from eastern turkey, up to samara or some such, all of old timurid empire. even weirdos like mantua would DOW me just to keep me at war. anyway, my point is id be interested to see how far you get!

Since you're interested, and in case you come back and read this thread, I've expended O-E from Lybia to Eastern Caspian shores and N-S from Bujak to the province south of Mecca.
But I've just made a big mistake . Spain, Mantua, Papal States and Veneto were allied. And I had to wait for the end of truces to keep on conquering muslims on various fronts. And both Veneto and Papacy were single province minors... I've been anable to resist the urge to annex both of them. Now, I've two unconvertible catholic provinces, one of wich gives any catholic nation a permanent CB against me... But one of them has a fine CoT and how could I, as a muslim superpower, let the second one go away? I've stopped playing right now, since I begin to consider writting an AAR about it and really need to decide what the plot would tell me to do with those damned provinces...

[EDIT:] BTW, it's 1564: near death for Suleyman the Great, IIRC.

 

[unmerged(11819)]

I did come back, thank you for posting! Very interesting. I've not finished my current game I spoke of, but i've had a fair bit of expansion (not going for WC or anything tho). having trouble now as my western neighbors are a few levels ahead of me in tech and very angry..my superpower size keeps getting me stability lowering events..and i have poor sultans! my one big mistake was shortly after toasting the complete FA of austria early in the 15th century, styria changes into austria and inherits some landlocked provs too far west for me to get to. doh! should have FV i guess... not sure what to do next apart from fighting continuous rebellions... my bb is about 3 times the threshold although im not experiencing so many strange DOWs as i did with uzbek.
ill try and post a screenshot!
its AGCEEP, mid 1600s, btw.

 

[Nil-The-Frogg]

my bb is about 3 times the threshold although im not experiencing so many strange DOWs as i did with uzbek.

Do you play at Very Hard?

Regarding tech level, I'm above all in Infra, way behind in Trade (not very important) and I stick with Austria in LandTech. The downside is a near constant poor stability (I wanted a rather Innovative country, to break the routine and because it's more in line with my feelings, I guess). Takes 3 to 5 years to regain 1 stab, in spite of 6 FAA...

Okay, I'll not overextend about my game, bye bye and lady luck be with your empire

 

[unmerged(3931)]

Well royal marriages are cheap in that you only need maybe -150 to -100 relations to get one. Claiming a throne is what is expensive, but it can be worth it. Many times war spoils of loot and peace cash pay for the cost.

One thing to consider is that you do not need a CB so bad as you might think. Read the badboy FAQ. You get only two badboy points for a DoW without CB if your relations are +100 or higher. This is not WAD.

It is a bug. It is supposed to be that there are only two badboys for relations less than +100 and four badboy for relations above that. So actually, wars should be much less costly to declare. Exploiting the bug is not really an exploit since it is actually costing you money to get relations up so that the DoW costs you only as many badboys as are intended without the high relations.

 

[blue emu]

Since you've expanded quite a bit (and perhaps captured some Maps)...

Another possibility is to make a big alliance containing yourself and all the nearby nations that you want CB's against... and then declare war on a nation on the other side of the planet... one whose location your allies don't even know.

They will automatically default on the alliance (they CAN'T declare war on a nation they haven't met)... and that gives you CB's against ALL of them.

Cheezy but effective...

 

[Iasius]

For smallish Sunni countries (Aden, Marocco, etc.) I've found diplovassalization to be quite effective unless your badboy gets too high.
As the OE you have a lot of good to exceptionally great monarchs for the first 200 years or so, use them.

 

[unmerged(3931)]

Another possibility is to make a big alliance containing yourself and all the nearby nations that you want CB's against... and then declare war on a nation on the other side of the planet... one whose location your allies don't even know.

They will automatically default on the alliance (they CAN'T declare war on a nation they haven't met)... and that gives you CB's against ALL of them.

The original poster already knows about manufacturing CB by getting allies to dishonor. Possibly, not requiring bad relations is new information. Actually, a nation is capable of honoring a call to war against a country they have never met. The AI just never does it. The AI does enter alliances and join in on war, which causes the AI nation to discover the capital of the nation to which they are at war.

So, I try to start farming CBs. Here are those methodes I've tried:

1) Getting in an alliance with my target, having bad enough relations, crush them as soon as they dishonor. But that's more and more difficult now (would you tell they're becoming suspicious? )

One problem with manufacturing CB against lots of enemies is that you are simultaneously at war with as many as six nations who may bring in other allies, and you have no allies. Okay you can get some new allies. Do you really have so large an army to fight so many simultaneous wars?

So if you manufacture CB against one ally at a time that may involve a DoW somewhere for one BB point and then a DoW for one BB against the ally that dishonors. Often times that is two BB points anyway. So unless you have something substantial to gain from the first DoW, you could just make things simpler and DoW your prospective dishonoring ally without CB when relations are +100 or better. That is only two BB points.

Also, I do not ever notice the AI becoming "suspicious" about alliances. You might not be able to get an alliance because you do not have provinces close enough to them. If you do not border them or border a shared enemy or other ally, you are unlikely to be able to achieve an alliance. The AI is less restrictive about who it invites to alliances.

If you border a nation and have very positive relations, you can always achieve an alliance so long as the nation is not a vassal and is not in a different alliance.

 

[Nil-The-Frogg]

Well, this might be a simple coincidence, but they often refuse to conclude an alliance and I thought this was due to my, erm, pretty BB score. But if I understand you well, I'll just have to stick with that method. Oh, and I don't much care about BB in fact (I have so many yet that a little more or a little less will not hurt that much: I'm already the Turkish Ogre ), but much more about stab hits.