step 1: ally everything orthodox prior to invasion
step 2: cede constantinople to turks
step 3: vassalise crimea
Hardest nation to play as in Europe?
- Thread starter Sharples88
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step 1: ally everything orthodox prior to invasion
step 2: cede constantinople to turks
step 3: vassalise crimea
Doesn't the OE need to occupy Constantinople in order for you to give it up? In my games they came for me immediately. Constantinople would hold long enough for you to get stack wiped and obliterated.
You have two diplomats and ~5 months average to DOW (I think I, once, got a full year in ~10 different start attempts). You literally do not have time to get relations high enough with all the Orthodox minors. Even if you manage to peace out the Ottomans, your only other ally (presumably Georgia if you forgo Circassia for Byzantium), does not have enough troops to match Crimea in my experience (and that's assuming you can convince them to attach to your army). Your force limit is 4 and Crimea will come at you with, as I recall, 7 or more, better troops (twice your unit pips plus the Horde +25% Shock Modifier). Your ally and you may, combined (assuming your army didn't get stack wiped), be able to outnumber them but not so much that you get a guaranteed victory.
I'd also argue that it's really gamey to ally someone just to give away their territory.
Corfu has to be released first.
With Ragusa all you have to do is DOW on Bosnia and annex them. From there it is relatively easy.
Wow, this is easier than some independent nations. Still not the best start by any means, but extremely fun nonetheless. Only mods are timeline 9999, no march basetax limit, and I gave Orleans some good ideas, somewhere between Nepal's and Rayazan's, but not as OP as Frances,
Joan of arc ideas and such, seige ability, +15% morale, 5% cavalry, other stuff.
It would still be doable with generic ideas, much less interesting though. You can get Aragon + Austria + Burgundy's support for independence almost day 1, and you can declare war while France is in the Hundred Years war, even though your in it as well. Occasionally you can get Castille instead of Aragon but either will do.
Joan of arc ideas and such, seige ability, +15% morale, 5% cavalry, other stuff.
It would still be doable with generic ideas, much less interesting though. You can get Aragon + Austria + Burgundy's support for independence almost day 1, and you can declare war while France is in the Hundred Years war, even though your in it as well. Occasionally you can get Castille instead of Aragon but either will do.
How difficult is Novgorod? I've never played them but I don't think I've ever seen them beat Muscovy.
Not hard; the AI just sucks at playing them. They're kinda more mid-level difficulty, if anything.
I say Brandenburg, Teutonic Order or any nation can form Prussia and second goes to France in multiplayer sessions.
Good sir, editing ideas doesn't count! Siege ability is crazy good in this kind of position; it lets you take down provinces much faster vs an opponent whose arguably biggest strength earliest game is manpower. 15% morale is amazingly strong and just because it's 5% less than BB/FR doesn't change that it's a huge buff. Cavalry CA is really really good at the beginning. Good job and all, but cmon!
If Sweden stays unionized and Muscovy goes for a horde and gets beat back, the AI usually wins. Seems rare enough for sure. For a player, I think they're actually kinda fun. They get bonus republican tradition which I REALLY like, and their position is kinda interesting - you have to break Muscovy but that's not so bad, and then you have some easy targets (Livonian/East) and hard targets (Sweden/PLC) to keep the excitement.
Is it not something like this:
Build army, take loans, get mercs, dow Muscovy, destroy Muscovy.
Muscovy starts with a shock 4 general, so even if you shoot well over your FL to get around theirs them + vassals + superior general will beat you.
It's better to be opportunistic than to brute force it if possible, and if you must brute force it to use some scorched earth.
By the time I start seiging their armies are already dead. They could be lucky and have AI bonuses and the alliance would still ahniliate them. Occupied or not, my 1 troop on their provinces stops them from recruiting. So your point is moot. Didn't have the 15% morale idea unlocked at the time of independence, nor for the 2 wars after independence.
The Armagnac picture I posted earlier was before support independence was a thing, and I used generic ideas then because I did not realize how easy EU IV was to mod. So... yeah.
The simple fact is, with large enough allies you can defeat any foe as any minor.
The trouble is getting those allies =P
Did some Cyprus runs with Josh127 trying them too yesterday, best I got so far:
I'm westernized and stayed Catholic. Kingdom of Jerusalem is a real pain because it forces you to stay Catholic (terrible unity for a long time), and pushes you to either underexpand or take someone other than the Ottomans out. If you win day 0 DoW on BYZ you can get close enough to ally Poland even with no-CB AE (note Cyprus can always ally Poland if you have +100, guarantee, and a 25 ducat gift). This also brings you into proximity with Austria though, and unlike BYZ you're Catholic and so it's much easier to ally them early. Hungary and Genoa will ally too.
This makes it pretty easy to keep the Ottomans off you after you vassal (or if you can manage it, full annex) Byzantium. You can actually spam enough galleys to beat the Ottomans even as Cyprus this way if you move your capitol to Constantinople (crucially dropping its LA to 0%), wars above were won vs Ottos with standard pure galley spam. But, if you want KoJ, you want to leave the Ottos intact until you form it and that's a pain. I'm not sure lucky nations are actually harder here as a result; two of your primary allies (Poland and Austria) benefit from it while only one of your enemies does (Ottomans), but you need that enemy to beat down your actual target to the point where you can win so even their luck might benefit your goals.
But if you're not going for the form decision? Nowhere near Europe's hardest start, and I'm not convinced it's much harder than the Knights.
I'm westernized and stayed Catholic. Kingdom of Jerusalem is a real pain because it forces you to stay Catholic (terrible unity for a long time), and pushes you to either underexpand or take someone other than the Ottomans out. If you win day 0 DoW on BYZ you can get close enough to ally Poland even with no-CB AE (note Cyprus can always ally Poland if you have +100, guarantee, and a 25 ducat gift). This also brings you into proximity with Austria though, and unlike BYZ you're Catholic and so it's much easier to ally them early. Hungary and Genoa will ally too.
This makes it pretty easy to keep the Ottomans off you after you vassal (or if you can manage it, full annex) Byzantium. You can actually spam enough galleys to beat the Ottomans even as Cyprus this way if you move your capitol to Constantinople (crucially dropping its LA to 0%), wars above were won vs Ottos with standard pure galley spam. But, if you want KoJ, you want to leave the Ottos intact until you form it and that's a pain. I'm not sure lucky nations are actually harder here as a result; two of your primary allies (Poland and Austria) benefit from it while only one of your enemies does (Ottomans), but you need that enemy to beat down your actual target to the point where you can win so even their luck might benefit your goals.
But if you're not going for the form decision? Nowhere near Europe's hardest start, and I'm not convinced it's much harder than the Knights.
I think it must be a landlocked nation. Landlocked nation have a mutch harder start then anyone. With any costal nation you can just escape from your position and start elsewhere.
In the HRE, Salzburg is very hard and actually not that fun at all.
In the HRE, Salzburg is very hard and actually not that fun at all.
Did some Cyprus runs with Josh127 trying them too yesterday, best I got so far:
I'm westernized and stayed Catholic. Kingdom of Jerusalem is a real pain because it forces you to stay Catholic (terrible unity for a long time), and pushes you to either underexpand or take someone other than the Ottomans out. If you win day 0 DoW on BYZ you can get close enough to ally Poland even with no-CB AE (note Cyprus can always ally Poland if you have +100, guarantee, and a 25 ducat gift). This also brings you into proximity with Austria though, and unlike BYZ you're Catholic and so it's much easier to ally them early. Hungary and Genoa will ally too.
This makes it pretty easy to keep the Ottomans off you after you vassal (or if you can manage it, full annex) Byzantium. You can actually spam enough galleys to beat the Ottomans even as Cyprus this way if you move your capitol to Constantinople (crucially dropping its LA to 0%), wars above were won vs Ottos with standard pure galley spam. But, if you want KoJ, you want to leave the Ottos intact until you form it and that's a pain. I'm not sure lucky nations are actually harder here as a result; two of your primary allies (Poland and Austria) benefit from it while only one of your enemies does (Ottomans), but you need that enemy to beat down your actual target to the point where you can win so even their luck might benefit your goals.
But if you're not going for the form decision? Nowhere near Europe's hardest start, and I'm not convinced it's much harder than the Knights.
Is it me or in the latest patches the AI Papal states go ham over Italy consistently?
It may or may not be, but my game isn't a fair comparison as they're one of my allies along with Austria and Genoa (as I was staying Catholic, might as well get some PI boosts) and the unusual alliances caused by having some random crusader state takeover of Greece favored them...
You could see that happen in previous patches too if the Papal State secured an alliance with one or two great powers (usually France).