Help Needed for First World Conquest Attempt

[Cuenca Guy]

I'm playing my fourth ever game: one with the Ottomans and one with Portugal in 1.11.4 with the first three DLC and my second Ottoman game in 1.22.2 (I'm waiting to update) and my first with Art of War, Common Sense, and Rights of Man. None of the first three games made it to 1550.

Now, I know I'm far too inexperienced to expect a successful WC, but I've watched a lot of videos and studied the game a lot, so I'm giving it a shot anyway. If I'm unsuccessful, there are still a lot of achievements I can get along with good practice.

With that out of the way, here's where I am.

I've been doing great with monarch points. Outside of five years of regency, I've had good rulers with a current 4/5/5 and a 5/5/2 heir. My techs are on-time with my first three ideas Admin (6/7), Influence (complete), and Quantity (3/7). I'm 34 years behind Colonialism, but I should be able to adopt soon with about 3% presence and it spreading along North Africa and Western Greece.

The plan from here is to finish North Africa and work my way into Africa, India, and towards Muscovy/Uzbek, snaking my territory and my vassals' along as I go, looking for one more vassal in India.

I'm trying to be more aggressive than I was in my two previous Ottoman games, but I still think I'm being too tentative. I imagine I'm taking too many troops to each war and not fighting enough wars at once as you can see by my maxed manpower. I'm not building enough improvements and getting nervous any time my income goes negative. I could have probably gone a bit further into Europe before everyone allied each other. I've been afraid of rebels and taking care of them mostly with autonomy.

So, where do I go from here? How many wars should I be fighting at once? How much do I feed my vassals? Should I diplo-annex or can I have giant vassals? What should I be turning into a state? Should I go over my force limit? I imagine I can given how many ducats I have, but how far over should I go and how frequently? Also, what ideas should I go with from here? From what I've seen, I'm concerned about absolutism for coring costs as well as getting everything conquered in time with over-extension, truces, and possibly aggressive expansion.

 

[Dell19]

I've just finished my WC as the Ottomans in 1779 and I think your position is roughly comparable to mine.

This was my situation in 1573 with Crimea, Baluchistan, Delhi and Malwa as vassals:

On rulers I think you have the DLC to disinherit bad heirs so you should be fine for monarch points. I forced a couple of the institutions to spawn through development although I don't think it was necessary.

You can only take so many provinces at a time so its not necessary to expand heavily in every direction early on but if someone looks weak and its not going to cause a big coalition then why not. The main advice I read beforehand was to conquer India as soon as possible to be able to set up trade companies so my expansion into Europe was limited to Russia, Naples and the Balkans until around 1650. Also

To try and answer your questions:
- I think India and East Africa should be your next targets.
- For the early game I was generally only fighting one or two wars at a time until the end.
- My understanding is that you should be annexing one vassal whilst feeding the others which I think I should have done more of early on. When I posted the screenshot above I was advised to feed my vassals more as granting provinces to them gives a significant drop in liberty desire.
- It shouldn't be necessary to go over your force limit particularly as you've taken quantity.
- I took the same three idea groups plus Offensive and Aristocratic (I had lots of military power points...), 3 ideas in Humanist which felt helpful, and exploration as I couldn't steal maps.
- I found late game expansion in Europe was pretty simple once I had max absolutism and tech 27. At some point AE becomes meaningless.

Finally Bly08 posted a nice guide on how to do a much more successful WC:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-22-sunni-ottoman-wc.1050358/

 

[Meshed Gear]

Regarding vassals, you don't want a giant vassal with hostile coring cost (Wallachia) It will be much more expensive to integrate than a vassal that doesn't have the modifier.
On the subject of AE, you generate more attacking targets of a different religion (with countries that share that religion) so one strategy is to focus on securing your religious group's lands before making big efforts against other religions.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

I've just finished my WC as the Ottomans in 1779 and I think your position is roughly comparable to mine.

This was my situation in 1573 with Crimea, Baluchistan, Delhi and Malwa as vassals:
On rulers I think you have the DLC to disinherit bad heirs so you should be fine for monarch points. I forced a couple of the institutions to spawn through development although I don't think it was necessary.

You can only take so many provinces at a time so its not necessary to expand heavily in every direction early on but if someone looks weak and its not going to cause a big coalition then why not. The main advice I read beforehand was to conquer India as soon as possible to be able to set up trade companies so my expansion into Europe was limited to Russia, Naples and the Balkans until around 1650. Also

To try and answer your questions:
- I think India and East Africa should be your next targets.
- For the early game I was generally only fighting one or two wars at a time until the end.
- My understanding is that you should be annexing one vassal whilst feeding the others which I think I should have done more of early on. When I posted the screenshot above I was advised to feed my vassals more as granting provinces to them gives a significant drop in liberty desire.
- It shouldn't be necessary to go over your force limit particularly as you've taken quantity.
- I took the same three idea groups plus Offensive and Aristocratic (I had lots of military power points...), 3 ideas in Humanist which felt helpful, and exploration as I couldn't steal maps.
- I found late game expansion in Europe was pretty simple once I had max absolutism and tech 27. At some point AE becomes meaningless.

Finally Bly08 posted a nice guide on how to do a much more successful WC:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/1-22-sunni-ottoman-wc.1050358/

I'd say you're ahead of me (40 years will tell the real story) but not too much so, especially since you finished 40 years before necessary. I just annexed Persia but didn't really set up for more vassals. I'll be looking for one or two in India and will try to feed in Africa at least.

Trade companies are something I don't really understand and didn't think would be necessary for a military-focused game. I need to learn about how that works, but what is the point of going for the ducats? My economy has been getting healthy naturally. Are there more costs I'm not foreseeing?

Yes, RoM let's me disinherit, so I'm not worried about the monarch points although I haven't had any need to disinherit yet as the 5/5/2 heir is the worst ruler yet. I've been planning on Humanist, but Exploration might be a good idea as I don't have Mare Nostrum.

Regarding vassals, you don't want a giant vassal with hostile coring cost (Wallachia) It will be much more expensive to integrate than a vassal that doesn't have the modifier.
On the subject of AE, you generate more attacking targets of a different religion (with countries that share that religion) so one strategy is to focus on securing your religious group's lands before making big efforts against other religions.

Are there different diplo costs to annex vassals depending on how you vassalized them? If that's the case, I'll be sure to only release nations. Wallachia is the only hostile vassal I've had which also includes previously annexed Iraq and Persia. Is there a point where I don't worry about annexing vassals? A one-tag would be nice, but that's certainly not the goal.

I haven't worried too much about AE to this point as I end up having a truce or full-annexing with almost all of the nations that are upset. I've been wondering about AE being a problem when conquering Europe.

 

[rinehime]

Here we go again ....

Check out this thread for some advise, specifically some of the progress images from TheMeInTeam and others.

I'm might not be fully qualified to judge your progress, but I think you're doing well. I'm in the middle of a Copttoman One Faith/WC as well on 1.22 and might post some progress pics later as I think I'm doing well. I'd start heading for India ASAP though to eat them before they get too big or become Ming tributaries (I had surrounded a Hindu Jarkand till 1650ish b/c it was a tributary...) East Africa as well - get that OP Trade Company land which will become your main economic engine. Build manufacturories everyone, workshops in high goods value TC land, and temples in high ADM TC land or if you have an extra spot after manus+workshops. Eventually your economy will start snowballing and you'll have more ducats than you know what to do with.

As for ideas, I probably would've gone humanist third (if not One Faith-ing) then diplo/explo 4th. Explo isn't really needed - you can steal/share maps, but for One Faith I was (probably overly) worried about the colonizers spreading their heretic religions - it helps to drop a colony somewhere for an easy religious war CB. I went Admin (the stacked CCR with Ottos early is great), Infl, Religious, Explo, Humanist (rebels are a PITA), next is probably diplo.

Don't feed Wallachia - they have hostile CC. Pay attention to other nations with ICC (increased coring cost) as well. I almost got bit by turning Afghanistan into a vassal, but they didn't complete their national ideas to get ICC (of course, they also didn't core everything I feed them, so I still got screwed) In terms of total mana, especially before absolutism, directly conquering and just territorial coring ICC provinces is cheaper: 5 ADM *(1+0.5 HCC - 0.45 RCC) vs 8 DIP * (1+0.5 HCC), but note you're paying ADM which is worth more than DIP.

Also, as Sunni Ottos, disinherit everyone with bad stats. If your ruler's over 30, the Harem events fire with a MTTH of 6 months so you should never be at a loss for 14-16 MP rulers, especially with all the prestige you get from warmongering.

Eventually, you'll be big enough that coalitions won't form at all. Then you can go hog-wild with AE. As long as you can handle it, you probably shouldn't be at peace for less than 1-2 years until max absolutism, then probably 6 months or less. Eventually you'll want to chain wars so that you can sit at about 100% OE constantly by finishing coring just before peace-ing out. If you've spawned Court and Country before, then do it again to max absolutism. If you haven't, you probably don't need spawn C&C as long as you sit near 100% OE. Once imperialism hits, watch the world fall!

 

[Meshed Gear]

Are there different diplo costs to annex vassals depending on how you vassalized them? If that's the case, I'll be sure to only release nations. Wallachia is the only hostile vassal I've had which also includes previously annexed Iraq and Persia. Is there a point where I don't worry about annexing vassals? A one-tag would be nice, but that's certainly not the goal.

It doesn't depend on how you vassalize them, it depends on which provinces have the increased coring costs. So a vassal Hungary that has provinces with Wallachian cores will have increased cost for those specific provinces, and regular cost for the rest. A vassal Wallachia will have cores on all their provinces, and so increased coring cost as well when you integrate them.
You could just keep them as a vassal forever, but there are better candidates for that relations slot out there.

 

[rinehime]

Trade companies are something I don't really understand and didn't think would be necessary for a military-focused game. I need to learn about how that works, but what is the point of going for the ducats? My economy has been getting healthy naturally. Are there more costs I'm not foreseeing?

Ah, I think you don't have the trade company DLC (Wealth of Nations). Without it, you won't see the immense OP-ness that is Trade Companies in the last few patches (ever since they reduced the autonomy floor to 0). TC land is still good to go for without the DLC, I think, b/c it's upstream from your home node and has high development, good trade good provinces.

Are there different diplo costs to annex vassals depending on how you vassalized them? If that's the case, I'll be sure to only release nations.

The base cost is the same (8 DIP per development) but you have to pay +50% on base for any provinces with cores from HCC countries. Note that when Adm. Eff. & Absolutism appear (which is multiplicative) they'll significantly reduce the effects of HCC. Releasing them doesn't change anything (unless they have HCC ambitions, in that case, a conquered & released nation with enough ideas to fill out their ambitions would be worse than just conquering and vassalizing them without the ambitions - of course, just conquering is better in either case...)

I haven't worried too much about AE to this point as I end up having a truce or full-annexing with almost all of the nations that are upset. I've been wondering about AE being a problem when conquering Europe.

Until you get really large, eat Europe in small chunks. If you start from the outside (Iberia/England/Scandinavia) in, you won't generate much AE. Dismantle the HRE before eating all the German minors, though, by that time, you'll probably be big enough to entirely avoid a coalition.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

Here we go again ....

I'd start heading for India ASAP though to eat them before they get too big or become Ming tributaries (I had surrounded a Hindu Jarkand till 1650ish b/c it was a tributary...) East Africa as well - get that OP Trade Company land which will become your main economic engine. Build manufacturories everyone, workshops in high goods value TC land, and temples in high ADM TC land or if you have an extra spot after manus+workshops. Eventually your economy will start snowballing and you'll have more ducats than you know what to do with.

As for ideas, I probably would've gone humanist third (if not One Faith-ing) then diplo/explo 4th. Explo isn't really needed - you can steal/share maps, but for One Faith I was (probably overly) worried about the colonizers spreading their heretic religions - it helps to drop a colony somewhere for an easy religious war CB. I went Admin (the stacked CCR with Ottos early is great), Infl, Religious, Explo, Humanist (rebels are a PITA), next is probably diplo.

Anywhere good to go to learn about trade companies? Do I form them or do they just happen? What should I make a state and should I core it again as well? Should I build all of that stuff in my core lands as well?

As to ideas, Humanist probably would have been better than Quantity as the third idea, but I had all of those extra military points, and I thought I needed Quantity...turns out that was just some of the early difficulties as I was getting ramped up. I may very well need to go for Exploration as I don't have Mare Nostrum.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

Ah, I think you don't have the trade company DLC (Wealth of Nations). Without it, you won't see the immense OP-ness that is Trade Companies in the last few patches (ever since they reduced the autonomy floor to 0). TC land is still good to go for without the DLC, I think, b/c it's upstream from your home node and has high development, good trade good provinces.

I do have Wealth of Nations. I have that, Res Publica, Conquest of Paradise, Art of War, Common Sense, Rights of Man, and Cossacks but am playing without the Cossacks because this is my first game with AoW, CS, and RoM and the estates mechanic felt a bit overwhelming. I just haven't played enough to have any idea what the TC mechanics are.

 

[Cuenca Guy]

It doesn't depend on how you vassalize them, it depends on which provinces have the increased coring costs. So a vassal Hungary that has provinces with Wallachian cores will have increased cost for those specific provinces, and regular cost for the rest. A vassal Wallachia will have cores on all their provinces, and so increased coring cost as well when you integrate them.
You could just keep them as a vassal forever, but there are better candidates for that relations slot out there.

Sorry for the reply spam. I reply to one comment and then see another one afterwards. So this increased coring costs is related to nation-specific ideas and traditions? So I shouldn't make vassals out of nations that have those ideas (Wallachia, Circassia, Georgia, Bohemia, etc.)? If that's the case, how do I know who is safe to vassalize before I release a nation? Is there a list or should I only make vassals out of nations that I can check the ideas of? Some of the things in that list on the Wiki (if I'm understanding correctly) don't sound nation-specific (ie. Central Indian traditions).

 

[Badesumofu]

A few things come to mind, though I'm no Ottomans expert.

You shouldn't be taking Admin techs while Admin ideas are 6/7 (or for the most part while you have Admin ideas open but incomplete at all). You're wasting a lot of points by doing that.

Push towards India to make TCs should be high priority. If you don't have the DLC for TCs, then get it. It's probably just as important as any DLC for WC at this point. Being able to get all that 0 autonomy land for territorial cores and free merchants is absurdly powerful.

 

[rinehime]

Anywhere good to go to learn about trade companies? Do I form them or do they just happen? What should I make a state and should I core it again as well? Should I build all of that stuff in my core lands as well?

I do have Wealth of Nations. I have that, Res Publica, Conquest of Paradise, Art of War, Common Sense, Rights of Man, and Cossacks but am playing without the Cossacks because this is my first game with AoW, CS, and RoM and the estates mechanic felt a bit overwhelming. I just haven't played enough to have any idea what the TC mechanics are.

Ahh, I misread your initial post. TCs form automatically, but you have to add each province to them. There's a button in the province view that does this (same location as HRE button), or you can add-all provinces in a given region in the Trade map view. The only time you wouldn't add them is if you're doing a One Faith and want to convert them first.

The Wiki page is a good place to start learning. TC's are almost-states for half price: For the cost of a territorial core, you get -100% (additive) penalties for manpower/sailors/tax, but +100% trade power and a 0% autonomy floor and usually high-value trade goods. By spamming factories in them you get both the trade income and the production income. The autonomy floor is the real kicker though - b/c it's 0%, every building is 100% efficient (including temples/barracks/reg camps, not just barracks workshops (what was I thinking? )) i.e. it's better to build anything in TC land than regular territories. Combined with the fact that they're also pretty high development it's a no-brainer to go for TC land early. And that's not all! You get an extra merchant in each TC where the TC holds >50% trade power, which helps direct trade home or collect to prevent other nations from siphoning it off.

Personally, I try not to create vassals in TC regions. Maybe if there's an eliminated country with a lot of existing cores, it's worthwhile for the reconquest CB, but if you have to annex you pay more mana and delay the effects of owning the TC.

There's really no point stating them (even the 100+ dev Borneo...) your ADM is better spent elsewhere.

So I shouldn't make vassals out of nations that have those ideas (Wallachia, Circassia, Georgia, Bohemia, etc.)? If that's the case, how do I know who is safe to vassalize before I release a nation? Is there a list or should I only make vassals out of nations that I can check the ideas of? Some of the things in that list on the Wiki (if I'm understanding correctly) don't sound nation-specific (ie. Central Indian traditions).

It's mostly from ideas (there's a policy too, but I don't know how to check that it's on or if it works if the country was full-annexed) I don't know if anyone has a list, but just check the wiki for the country you want to release, really. Things like "Berber" or "Central Indian" traditions apply to specific culture groups that don't have unique national ideas. Search the wiki for the country, and If the country doesn't have unique ideas, find it's ideas and see if Hostile Core Creation Cost is in there. Don't worry too much about it though, it's not that big a deal unless you overfeed them. If you screw up and see HCC in the ideas when you release them, then just don't give them extra territory.

 

[rinehime]

You shouldn't be taking Admin techs while Admin ideas are 6/7 (or for the most part while you have Admin ideas open but incomplete at all). You're wasting a lot of points by doing that.

This is a good point to remember, both in this specific instance (for the - tech cost idea) and generally (the -2% reduction / idea). You really don't need to have all techs on times. The important ones are the Admin techs that give ideas/AdmEff, DIP tech 23 (for imperialism). It's usually better to just wait and get additional neighbor discounts / spy bonuses / idea bonuses. Make sure your MIL tech is always on time though...

Personally though, I'm really bad a letting tech drop back too much (it's OCD or something...) Until I started my WC attempt, I don't think I really realized how draining on MP all that conquering is and how powerful things like RCC are. I've learned to relax a bit, but 2 techs behind and I get a bit anxious....

 

[Cuenca Guy]

A few things come to mind, though I'm no Ottomans expert.

You shouldn't be taking Admin techs while Admin ideas are 6/7 (or for the most part while you have Admin ideas open but incomplete at all). You're wasting a lot of points by doing that.

This is noob me worrying too much about ducats to get the bonuses for being early instead of thinking it out and prioritizing monarch points.

Ahh, I misread your initial post. TCs form automatically, but you have to add each province to them. There's a button in the province view that does this (same location as HRE button), or you can add-all provinces in a given region in the Trade map view. The only time you wouldn't add them is if you're doing a One Faith and want to convert them first.

The Wiki page is a good place to start learning. TC's are almost-states for half price: For the cost of a territorial core, you get -100% (additive) penalties for manpower/sailors/tax, but +100% trade power and a 0% autonomy floor and usually high-value trade goods. By spamming factories in them you get both the trade income and the production income. The autonomy floor is the real kicker though - b/c it's 0%, every building is 100% efficient (including temples/barracks/reg camps, not just barracks) i.e. it's better to build anything in TC land than regular territories. Combined with the fact that they're also pretty high development it's a no-brainer to go for TC land early. And that's not all! You get an extra merchant in each TC where the TC holds >50% trade power, which helps direct trade home or collect to prevent other nations from siphoning it off.

Personally, I try not to create vassals in TC regions. Maybe if there's an eliminated country with a lot of existing cores, it's worthwhile for the reconquest CB, but if you have to annex you pay more mana and delay the effects of owning the TC.

There's really no point stating them (even the 100+ dev Borneo...) you're ADM is better spent elsewhere.

It's mostly from ideas (there's a policy too, but I don't know how to check that it's on or if it works if the country was full-annexed) I don't know if anyone has a list, but just check the wiki for the country you want to release, really. Things like "Berber" or "Central Indian" traditions apply to specific culture groups that don't have unique national ideas. Search the wiki for the country, and If the country doesn't have unique ideas, find it's ideas and see if Hostile Core Creation Cost is in there. Don't worry too much about it though, it's not that big a deal unless you overfeed them. If you screw up and see HCC in the ideas when you release them, then just don't give them extra territory.

I'm not sure why I didn't check the wiki on it before. It looks relatively simple as you summarized. The other little tips you added are good info. I guess I'll just have to dig into the culture groups like you suggested as I couldn't find a list

 

[rinehime]

Here's my progress so far (1664). Take with a grain of salt as it's my first WC/One Faith attempt, but I think I'm on track. I have all of India,Indonesia, E. Africa (with a rump of Ethiopia left). I spawned the Golden Age after getting my max absolutism to about 90 and am using it to attack France and Ming.

Currently, I'm fighting Flanders/Hollad/DoTF Portugal/HRE Emp. Wurttemberg and Ming. I got lucky with the HRE - they blew up after the Protestants won the League War (with help from Protestant GB and a strong catholic Commonwealth I think ) I PU'ed and force-converted GB, leaving like 7 small protestant nations in the HRE and Denmark and Norway. Some of these got eatten by the AI and I force-converted one or two. Now it's just Wurttemberg which has hereditary rule (not sure how that happened) so I'll have to vassalize them.

I also just started my 2nd war against Ming and will DOW some tributaries while I'm at it. For Ming, I reset the truce timer after a full warscore war by declaring on a tributary and white-peaceing.

I went Coptic for the CRR/Missionaries/PUs - Great Britain and Castile are my PU partners. They do quite a bit of colonizing, but I'm integrating GB now as they spawned 2 Protestant CNs before I forced my claim on their throne.

Spoiler: 1500

Spoiler: 1550

Spoiler: 1599

Spoiler: 1664