Help with Granada

[Greyhand]

Greetings, fellow Paradoxians.

Well, as the title states, I could use some help with Granada here.

As you can guess, I have problems surviving the first war.
Every time I try it Castille just stomps me.
My allies are no real help either, even when I am lucky and Castille sends its fleet to death against Morocco's and mine they still do like nothing.
And on the land I am not able to survive, since the AI is clever enough to chase my army with the right amount of troops and even when I win some times they are just overwhelming me with like 30k men in the end.

But I know it is possible to "win" since some of you already did that.

So I am looking forward to receive some help.

Thank you.

 

[stnikolauswagne]

The incredible cheesiness that lies behind granada winning the war lies in the following AI-Qurik: if a very small (1k) army moves toward a big army the big army just stands there. By constantly keeping all of castilles stacks occupied that way you can siege their territory and eventually beat them. Not very fun 3 years but after that it should be a cakewalk with your ingenious sliders.

 

[PiriReis]

It is possible to survive and win with Granada but you do need a bit of luck. Before you start with the game, send a diplomat to ally with Algiers and Tunisia, so you will have all three of the North African Maghreb nations behind you. Next change your national idea to Millitary Drill. Get a military engineer/fortification expert, grand Captain and a commandant for the defence bonus, morale and discipline boost. Use your slider move (large revolt may rise) when castille has send an army to one of your provinces... And get as many possible 1k armies across half of Castille (Badajoz - Toledo or Madrid line) defend that line until your allies join you in Iberia. Use your navy only when they send forces to help you. Try to send a ship to the corners of Europe so that castilian ships chase you instead of attacking the ships of your allies. Get some millitary access so that you dont loose those ships too.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

My experience is that none of the Muslim A.I.'s will actually send troops across the Mediterranean even when you've lured the Castillian navy to the British Isles.

 

[sprites]

But when you are playing Castille against Granada , they do.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

But when you are playing Castille against Granada , they do.

I wonder why. :/

I've tried beating up Castile as Morocco a few times and each time, none of the other Muslims bothered to send troops. And yes, that's the starting Granada war where you get called in.

 

[PiriReis]

My experience is that none of the Muslim A.I.'s will actually send troops across the Mediterranean even when you've lured the Castillian navy to the British Isles.

.

What I have seen in my Granada game is that each time Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia would send some forces to Iberia, the castillian navy just destroys it. After while they stop sending. But if they reach Spain, it helps you a lot.

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

.

What I have seen in my Granada game is that each time Morocco, Algiers and Tunisia would send some forces to Iberia, the castillian navy just destroys it. After while they stop sending. But if they reach Spain, it helps you a lot.

Speaking of which, were the English and Castillian navies that strong back then? I am under the impression that the English navy only really started to become very strong under Henry VIII.

 

[joshau-k]

My Granada strategy is to invade Tunisia, while you are getting invaded by Castille, and take their non-coastal province. Then castille won't be able to fully conquer you and you can wait from a white peace due to no conflict for 5 or 10 years. Then sell your spanish provinces to castille, so you after 1 more war you can give them the last province, then they won't want to invade you as much as before. Then expand in north africa, until you are strong enough to reconquer Spain.

 

[mejla]

My Granada strategy is to invade Tunisia, while you are getting invaded by Castille, and take their non-coastal province. Then castille won't be able to fully conquer you and you can wait from a white peace due to no conflict for 5 or 10 years. Then sell your spanish provinces to castille, so you after 1 more war you can give them the last province, then they won't want to invade you as much as before. Then expand in north africa, until you are strong enough to reconquer Spain.

wow, never thought of that. an ellegant solution. i managed to prevail with granada only once in countless attempts. and it is about luck if you want to avoid cheezy techniques with the troops etc. i reloaded a lot though which many players consider cheating anyway. tunis and morroco arrived to help me distract the spaniards while i was trying to occupy some land, liberate any of my conquered granadian provinces, train some troops and avoid the spanish stacks on the way.

 

[unmerged(171188)]

It is possible to survive and win with Granada but you do need a bit of luck. Before you start with the game, send a diplomat to ally with Algiers and Tunisia, so you will have all three of the North African Maghreb nations behind you. Next change your national idea to Millitary Drill. Get a military engineer/fortification expert, grand Captain and a commandant for the defence bonus, morale and discipline boost. Use your slider move (large revolt may rise) when castille has send an army to one of your provinces... And get as many possible 1k armies across half of Castille (Badajoz - Toledo or Madrid line) defend that line until your allies join you in Iberia. Use your navy only when they send forces to help you. Try to send a ship to the corners of Europe so that castilian ships chase you instead of attacking the ships of your allies. Get some millitary access so that you dont loose those ships too.

Are you saying you've actually done this? If so, did it take somewhere around 20 reloads? Because my experience with this game tells me this would never work because the AI doesn't plop its entire army down on one of your provinces; you NEVER can take more than 2 of their provinces because before you can any further one of their many ~4000 will crush you. Worse, they almost always ally with Portugal or Aragon the first day and then their troops will exterminate you.

The best advice I have is to start around 1480, when Castile is at war with Aragon and Portugal and has a rebel stack of 14000 at their capital. In your first go, you should be able to take a few provinces (one or two will likely defect a well), which you can then use to flee to the New World and grow your power base. After their war, Portugal and Aragon won't join in an alliance with Castile, making them somewhat easier to take down if you can get a decent alliance with Muslim allies (Ottomans).

 

[Greyhand]

Although it seems like all these solutions are a bit luck-based, I hope I'll be able to kick off a successful game with Granada once with the help given.

Thanks for all your advice.

 

[Nerga]

Speaking of which, were the English and Castillian navies that strong back then? I am under the impression that the English navy only really started to become very strong under Henry VIII.

Western Europe did not have strong navies really. Venice and Ottomans had the strongest navies until at least 1550. Ragusa and Genoa also had very strong navies. The Western European navies would have fleets of maybe 20-30 ships for the largest naval battles. Where as the stronger Republics and Ottomans could raise fleets of hundreds of galleys and smaller ships.

 

[Zaga]

When I played Granada and survived the first two wars (after that, if you took provinces from Castille and maybe Aragon/Portugal in the meantime it is pretty easy) the first thing I usually did was to try to siege one area at a time. It is slow, but you also get to use a very good cheese, that requires some good timing. When your armies are 2 areas away from an enemies siege, they will almost always assault it. When I beat Castille in my first war, I destroyed 2 separate stacks of 12 by getting there within the end of the month that Castille did a failed assault. With some really good timing and a small amount of luck, an 8k army can insta-wipe a 12k army that has 0 morale.

So, while sieging that 1 area have your main army be on wiping duty. If you get around 4-5 provinces captured you can settle the first war with 1-2 provinces, which in turn give you the manpower base needed for the next wars. It is quite risky by try grabbing Andalusia from Castille in the first war. That is pretty much all of early Castille's money base (outside of gold producing Toledo).

 

[ywhtptgtfo]

Western Europe did not have strong navies really. Venice and Ottomans had the strongest navies until at least 1550. Ragusa and Genoa also had very strong navies. The Western European navies would have fleets of maybe 20-30 ships for the largest naval battles. Where as the stronger Republics and Ottomans could raise fleets of hundreds of galleys and smaller ships.

Then shouldn't Castile, Portugal, and Englands' navies be nerfed? Right now, England's fleet and roflstomp Venice and Ottomans' at 1399.

 

[PiriReis]

Are you saying you've actually done this? If so, did it take somewhere around 20 reloads? Because my experience with this game tells me this would never work because the AI doesn't plop its entire army down on one of your provinces; you NEVER can take more than 2 of their provinces because before you can any further one of their many ~4000 will crush you. Worse, they almost always ally with Portugal or Aragon the first day and then their troops will exterminate you.

It took around 5 reloads, so you do need soms luck. But they did send help, its that the navy of Castille is too strong for Morroco, Algier and Tunisia. By the way Algiers had given me war subsidies. First time and last time İ ever saw the Aİ doing that. İf Castille allies Aragon or Portugal just reload . İf your lucky Portugal or Aragon may declare war on Castille. That will make your war easier too.

So, while sieging that 1 area have your main army be on wiping duty. If you get around 4-5 provinces captured you can settle the first war with 1-2 provinces, which in turn give you the manpower base needed for the next wars. It is quite risky by try grabbing Andalusia from Castille in the first war. That is pretty much all of early Castille's money base (outside of gold producing Toledo).

If you can achieve to get Andalusia, then the tables turn in your favour. A castille withouts it COT isnt that strong anymore.

Western Europe did not have strong navies really. Venice and Ottomans had the strongest navies until at least 1550. Ragusa and Genoa also had very strong navies. The Western European navies would have fleets of maybe 20-30 ships for the largest naval battles. Where as the stronger Republics and Ottomans could raise fleets of hundreds of galleys and smaller ships.

Ragusa too?

Then shouldn't Castile, Portugal, and Englands' navies be nerfed? Right now, England's fleet and roflstomp Venice and Ottomans' at 1399.

Yes.

 

[PerciXal]

My Granada strategy is to invade Tunisia, while you are getting invaded by Castille, and take their non-coastal province. Then castille won't be able to fully conquer you and you can wait from a white peace due to no conflict for 5 or 10 years. Then sell your spanish provinces to castille, so you after 1 more war you can give them the last province, then they won't want to invade you as much as before. Then expand in north africa, until you are strong enough to reconquer Spain.

What if Castille formed Spain, colonised a shit ton of Americas, and has tons of allies?

 

[Nerga]

Ragusa too?

Ragusa was actually a rather powerful republic that was Venices main competitor for power in the Adriatic for a long time. But I had my dates a bit wrong, they were not that strong militarily by EU3 time frame. They were more of a middle ages power. Althogh they were an important merchant power.