Hardest game ever :( need help.

[unmerged(42005)]

Well I am a big europa fan and loved the first one the second one is even more addicting. I usually play the eastern provinces like the ottomans or russians, austrians, or prussians. The colonial powers don't do it for me and I find it rather boring. I am more of a war mongerer and enjoy expanind through war. This is where my dilemma comes into play I was playing the ottmans one time and noticed that Albania always revolts and they are tough revolters too, an inqusition took care of that in the ottomans game but I decided to play with them thinking I'd have some challenges ahead of me and carve and empire out of eastern europe and take thrace from the ottmans.

I am now playing albania and it is very hard i wanna know has anyone beat it with them or at least survived long enough to win a minor victory point victory at the end or has anyone tried them at all?

Now to get to the point. This is my problem. These guys are impossible. I start off as a catholic and albania is orthodox. I have an alliance with naples which helps. I decided I had to strike my enemies first and gain some strength before they grew too powerful for me. I knew the ottomans would surely attack. So I took Ragusa and Hellas I also started a war with serbia to take Kosovo which was pretty much succesful but it gave me many enemies. I held on though and asked Croatia for peace and hoding off venice from me I also kept good relations with the ottomans so they wouldn't attack me. They had a right of passage with me and then they broke it. They attacked me and I found myself in trouble but as luck would have it at that exact moment Albania's great leader showed up and took the throne he's stats are dip-3 fin-4 mil-4. He is also a general and a very good one he's 8 on everything. He saved me cause I punished the Ottomans with him and once more Venice waged war on them too and I managed to take them over. Do you believe it? I couldnt and felt very lucky. Then it went downhill from there. As soon as I was celebrating the damn Karamn attack my provinces. What's worse i keep getting many revolts. On top of that I have little money and very little man power I think the highest it goes for them is like 4 or 8 and I keep spending every ducat I have to gradually build up a military force and fight off rebellions and fight of karam (greedy vultures). On top of that venice attacks me so does portugal and some other countries which I can't remember. I got very frustrated and saved and got way from it for a while. Does anyone have any suggestion besides the play a decent country to play with?

Maybe I went into war too quick but I had to i had one shitty province and the Ottomans would attack guaranteed no matter what and I would not make any kind of money for anything. The worse thing is the state religion is Catholic and everything around me including the capitol is Orthodox. On top of that I have bigger enemies on all fronts mainly Ottomas, Venice always looking to expand in my territory and the papal states.

 

[Hallsten]

Once you've started generating your first BB you're in BIG trouble. The best thing you could do would be to ally with the Ottos, let them destroy the armies of the enemy country and have you take land from them.
Basically you did the right thing now, though. You need to get as much use as you can from Skanderbeg before he disappears.
I might add that Albania is considered one of the most difficult countries to play in the entire game...

 

[unmerged(1047)]

You could try disbanding your army and dropping orthodox tolerance at the opening of the game, try to let your government fall by revolt - which will, I believe, convert you to Orthodox....

 

[Storey]

Your plan was sound but you expanded too quickly. Grab one maybe two provinces and then lay low. Bribe the Turks and if possible get in an alliance with them. Albania is t difficult country to play. Good luck but your current game maybe a lost cause.

Joe

 

[unmerged(42005)]

Thanks guys

Thanks guys for the feedback it's been helpful. I have some questions. First how do i check BB status. Secondly I don't know if I could change the state religion it's a pain in the ass and I defintely can't afford to convert everybody i take over including the capital. I did give up on that game and will start a fresh one and try to act a little more cautious. There are some problems though with what you guys said. The Ottoman will almost alway attack me no matter what my status with them is that is the biggest problem. But I think you guys are right I'll just have to stay clear of muslim provinces take it slow in the beggining and expand when I get skenderbeg. The alliance with naples dosen't help though because they are not very strong and they have no other allies they also lock up the possibility for me to make stronger alliance until a long time. Also I think the Papal states attack them so that means trouble for me. Any other suggestions are appreciated especially on how to check BB status and some effective ways to have people be more diplomatic because I am not so strong in being diplomatic as I said I like to war a lot. Thanks

 

[Hallsten]

BB is shown if you hover the mousecursor over your country's reputation in the diplomacy-screen for your country. You can check other countries' BB as well.

Sheridan's proposal is a pretty good one IMHO. Once you have the same religion as your only province you'll increase your income a lot!

Best way to avoid the OE is to stay allied with them. You don't want to be enemies of the Ottomans until you've grown a little and they've peaked.

 

[crash63]

As Serbia, Albania is very very hard to play. For me it's a good thing to avoid it.

 

[unmerged(42005)]

I tried to change the religion that way but there was no revolt even though my revolt rist was like 8% or something like that.

 

[crash63]

I tried to change the religion that way but there was no revolt even though my revolt rist was like 8% or something like that.

It can take some time. Wait but with RR, your income decreases.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

Actually government collapse does not change religion, nor government culture. I just tried it using the Knights.

 

[unmerged(41030)]

Actually government collapse does not change religion, nor government culture. I just tried it using the Knights.

Yep, that's true, I had a revolt too and state religion didn't change to Orthodox. Is there any other way to change Albania's religion to Orthodox?

 

[Formula51]

Actually it does sometimes. When people rebelled in Cyprus, I released it as a vassal, making it catholic, and when the gov't fell, it broke vassalage and became ortho.

 

[unmerged(4344)]

When you release a vassal, it gets the religion of the capital province. And culture.

 

[CatKnight]

I normally abhor cheating, but just to see what kind of difference it makes you could hack the save game file and MAKE yourself Orthodox.....

Failing that, there's a strategy guide around here somewhere. It doesn't mention Albania, but has some general advice on tactics and economics. I've included the link below.

Lying low is not a bad idea. I usually find myself in big trouble just like you described, then I started a new game with the determination I wouldn't declare war without a DoW. It cost me a few opportunities, but not having the world hate me has paid much bigger dividends.

You need peace with the Ottos ASAP. Join their alliance. Then let THEM start the wars for control of the Balkans, and steal as much as you can for yourself. Ideally you want to become a barrier state between the Ottos and Austria-Hungary that neither one hates enough to bother killing.

United Strategy Guide

 

[unmerged(3931)]

Albania is a tough country to play. I like WC games where I can get right into war from the start. Prior to version 1.08 Albania was very capable of WC-type expansion right from the start. I played a v1.06 WC game with Albania. And the early history was repeatable without too much virability. You could use a similar tactic and win in 95% of games.

That tactic was to:
1. Ditch Naples alliance.
2. Ally with Wallachia and Moldova, requiring first lower relations (to -8) by religion to make a royal marriage acceptable then raised religious relations (to +10) before asking to join alliance.
3. DoW Serbia and invite allies, (sometimes complicated by Serbia already being in your alliance). Moldova usually doesn't join in the war but enters the war later when Wallachia brings them back into the alliance.
4. Gain 100% victory on Serbia (something of a challenge because Wallachia usually gets the to the capital first then you have to flee a battle there to get the seige yourself).
5. Then DoW Poland/Lithuania but do not invite allies (you still have access through allied territory because still at war with Serbia).
6. Loot Poland/Lithuania for a five years and use the loot to build 20k cavalry.
7. DoW Hungary, again no allies. Hopefully Hungary is distracted with war with Austria or Venice and you can run around, loot them and eventually gain 100% victory.
8. Accept peace from Hungary, you want Pest, vasallship, and money.
9. All the while you repeatedly loot Poland/Lithuania building up to 40K cavalry and 30 galleys.
10. Accept white peace with Poland (even though you may be at -99% warscore, Poland offers white peace if you have no money and they have no controlled territory). Sometimes Lithuania unloads troops to your capital and you need to make peace with Serbia and take Kosovo to stay afloat. If Lithuania takes Kosovo too give it to them, then you always have CB for more looting.
11. Make peace with Serbia taking Kosovo, money, and military access.
12. With 40K cavalry and 30 gallies, DoW Mameluks, take Alexandria. Then DoW your way to China (through Chigate Khanate) taking Isfahan and vassalship and loot and money on the way.
13. Then DoW Spain in 1500 to 1510. Take maps and shipyard in Andalusia and Toledo and some Carribbean holdings.
14. Then conquer Aztecs, Maya, Incans, colonize, and typical WC play.

The trouble is, in the new version, troop maintenance costs are now so high for exceeding your support level that you can no longer loot your way to building even 20K cavalry let alone 40K cavalry that you need to start the ball rolling. Also, the AI builds much more armies during war than in previous versions. So victory against Hungary if you have only 20K to 40K cavalry is nearly impossible. Victory against China with 60K to 80K cavalry is impossible once they get forts up. Also, the AI only raises a treasury to a certain maximum amount for peace offers, so there is less cash. And war taxes now cause 1% inflation; without war taxes you can only build 1K troops in your capital most of the time. And the new revolt risk modifier to tax base can keep your from building any troops once war exhaustion gets high. It is still fun to try, but I've not been able to succeed at it.

So now the strategy is more likely to be to ditch the Naples alliance and ally with Ottoman Empire against Byzantium. Dutchy of Athens may DoW you in the first one or two months of the game if you ditch Naples, this can be a bonus if you know how to beat the AI considering Tuscany comes to their aid. Your siege of Hellas must complete before Tuscany's siege of your capital. The OE will only invite you into alliance if you ditch Naples ASAP so using your only diplomat to leave the Naples alliance on January 1 is a must.

When the OE makes peace with Byzantium taking Morea, break truce and DoW Byzantium while having your troops in their capital. You can annex Thrace without a fight. You may need to build two gallies, so you can ferry your troops back home. Hopefully you did get the war with Dutchy of Athens because then you should have miltary access, making getting to and from Thrace so much easier and giving your troops a place to retreat in case of an event caused revolt in your capital. Don't bother to put down revolts in Thrace just let the rebels take control and move on then siege the province back into your control.

After annexing Thrace, you will have to remain a pretty good boy and not DoW much. You also have to join in with OE on all their wars because they will start to hating you pretty quick; and you'll never get the opportunity to get back into alliance once you're out. Stopping the OE from attacking you by staying in alliance is as important as taking Thrace to keep OE from getting really strong.

You still need to get Kosovo somehow; and you would probably like to conquer Ragusa for the big cash payoff, early while their treasury is still big. It's the troop maintenance problem that keeps you from going WC, so do everything to raise manpower, grain trade, grain production, and income in general. Having Thrace helps there too. From the start of the game you need to use your small treasury on placing merchants in empty slots. You should be able to keep five merchants in place, one in each of various European CoTs except Veneto. Novgorod is usually good for two merchants and there's a lot of grain traded there too.

 

[unmerged(10426)]

When you release a vassal, it gets the religion of the capital province. And culture.

Not strictly true. The religion, and indeed culture(s), of some states are hardcoded in the revolt.txt file.