Help With Ryukyu WC

[alozz]

First of all I never done a WC before, Ryukyu is fun so i decided to go with them.

The last thousand years were almost always fighting rebellions, my armies are decent but not space marines. I could not get through it again, not enough time left the fight with the whole Europe while fighting rebellions at the same time.

Anyone got any tips?

 

[Razer_greece]

Take humanist ideas

 

[bbqftw]

this isn't 1.13 anymore, humanist is king now.

religious + hindu is just asking to die to revolts. This idea combination just doesn't work out.

you also broke tributary too early

Here's a nice income benchmark. This is (in my opinion) the IDEAL start - Sho dies replaced with decent ruler during opening war (Madurai), Vijay declares on your first target, Ming destroys Vijay, you break into Hindu (saving ~2 stab and lots of war ex this early is huge). But overall it nicely demonstrates the sheer power of administrative -> exploration -> humanist engine. Punjab is vassal.

Generally I would aim for Empire rank within 120 years. 3k dev by 1620. You can go slower, but odds are if you can't manage the early snowball, you can't manage the late snowball either.

You can also go exploration -> admin -> humanist -> influence for the capital move to Australia, add everything to trade companies.

Exploration + influence are your AE management
Administrative - the earlier you can manage it the better.
Humanist - when you're ready to expand outside India (+Sunda/Majapahit. Animists can be converted out without religious)

Alternatively, if you move capital to Australia, you can delay humanist entirely until you're ready to conquer outside the trade company regions.

 

[alozz]

Take humanist ideas

i did in a previous run, after absolutism you cannot raise autonomy. Same thing happened

 

[bbqftw]

Try exploration adm hum influence opening then (going exploration adm influence hum is also viable but you're going to SUFFER if you don't roll a good adm ruler in 1610-1650 phase). The exploration + humanist policy gives +1 tolerance of heathens which nicely covers religious unity issues and also functions as extra unrest reducer.

 

[alozz]

this isn't 1.13 anymore, humanist is king now.

religious + hindu is just asking to die to revolts. This idea combination just doesn't work out.

you also broke tributary too early

Here's a nice income benchmark. This is (in my opinion) the IDEAL start - Sho dies replaced with decent ruler during opening war (Madurai), Vijay declares on your first target, Ming destroys Vijay, you break into Hindu (saving ~2 stab and lots of war ex this early is huge). But overall it nicely demonstrates the sheer power of administrative -> humanist engine. Punjab is vassal.



Generally I would aim for Empire rank within 120 years. 3k dev by 1620. You can go slower, but odds are if you can't manage the early snowball, you can't manage the late snowball either.

You can also go exploration -> admin -> humanist -> influence for the capital move to Australia, add everything to trade companies.

I broke tributary because I was literally one of only two nations left and the other one was some opm in the americas.

I no cb-ed Brunei and Kutai from the beginning, annex Kutai, turned Hindu and used Peasants War to reset stab and avoid rebellions. Spawned colonialism and local expansion was not really an issue after that.

My economy from the beginning was no issue at all, I broke into India as well from very early on. I was able to afford +3 advisors basically from 1550s.

My problem is almost always the late game, European powers have superior armies and great income. I can win wars against them but it is never that damaging. Almost every Ryukyu run so far ended with me not being able to break into Europe due to some crazy alliance combination, inferior armies or constant rebellions

 

[Sfan]

You need to get to Europe earlier. That's why an Indian opener is better, it allows to pierce through the remnants of a Timuridplosion and then start on Europe before you're blocked by a massive Russia/Ottomans block. The real pain is usually the western colonizers with their navy/colonies though.
Move your capital to Europe or Oceania to make TCs out of all of Asia, here it seems your capital is on Brunei unless i'm mistaken.

I suggest you try a WC as another nation if you have the courage, to get a first idea of a good pace, and the potential difficulties. If you're not prepared Americas alone take an insane amount of time. Ryukyu is still one of the hardest WCs even if somehow easier since MoH.

 

[xMer]

You can use Confucian religion to deal with religious issues. However getting it with India opening might be harder than Pagarruyung-Pasai. Surprisingly religious ideas+ Confucian work well as it mitigate issues from having 0 harmony during harmonization stage(0 harmony doesn't slow harmonization process).

Also once you get free from being Ming tributary you can make tributaries for your own gain, at one point i had around +10 monarch power per month from tributaries around world(+120 per year from tributaries with total dev over 4000)
My Ideas were exploration -> religious -> influence -> admin

Exploration->Religious allow to speed colonize and reach Europe around Africa very fast if you get blocked by Ottoblob.

 

[Sfan]

Confucian has no RCC. As an OPM who can't tagswitch, you need a RCC religion or a vassal swarm.
Did you manage it with Confucian religion and admin fourth group? I'd be genuinely amazed at how well you minmaxed to do it if that's the case.

 

[xMer]

Yes it doesn't, but all eastern religions have enormous generation of monarch powers from tributaries. which is better than 10% RCC from religion. As Ryukyu can't stack RCC very high anyway.

After very edgy start It was rather very relaxed play and I did one-tag(+colonials) in 1780 (v1.21).
Once it was obvious that i have plenty of time i become very lazy, could done it 40 years earlier most likely, and if i didn't aim for one-tag then even faster

 

[Sfan]

I was more concerned about the coring time than the monarch points, but well, that works out fine.

 

[bbqftw]

There's a lot of valid routes for Ryukyu normal.

You might as well pop Revolution if military power is the limiting factor to your WC.

 

[alozz]

You

You need to get to Europe earlier. That's why an Indian opener is better, it allows to pierce through the remnants of a Timuridplosion and then start on Europe before you're blocked by a massive Russia/Ottomans block. The real pain is usually the western colonizers with their navy/colonies though.
Move your capital to Europe or Oceania to make TCs out of all of Asia, here it seems your capital is on Brunei unless i'm mistaken.

I suggest you try a WC as another nation if you have the courage, to get a first idea of a good pace, and the potential difficulties. If you're not prepared Americas alone take an insane amount of time. Ryukyu is still one of the hardest WCs even if somehow easier since MoH.

My capital was in Tarakan since its grasslands and I developed Ren. But yeah basically Brunei.

Why are Trade Companies are so loved? Can you explain the benefits to me? I just got that DLC last week, I think I might be missing a few benefits

I mean I was in India anyways, the problem was I could not beat a Malwa who was allied to Bengal + Delhi without expanding into somewhere else and gain more power. By the time I was able to beat them, Ottos and Russia were already two massive blobs.

Yeah but the main issue was Western Colonizers, such a pain in the ass to deal with.

Do you have any suggestions for Western WC Nations? Iberia, France and Ottos feels boring after I got the achievements for all of them. I formed Italy and Germany as well,

 

[xMer]

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Trade_company

In short: you sacrifice manpower and sailors for local stability and economic benefits.

About Western Nations: If you consider HRE WC then any decent country that can overtake and reform HRE fast like France, Poland, England, Spain or Austria. Just don't unite HRE, but feed free vassal-princes.

Another unique play for WC is Japan Daimyo(Shimazu despite being OPM is very good candidate as it can ally 2 biggest Daimyos). Never form Japan, but instead Vassalize World(every Vassal would use Daymio mechanic so their liberty desire is calculated separately)

 

[Sfan]

To make it short, trade companies are revolt-free land (or almost) which give you the full financial benefit of a state without having to be stated. That's the easiest way to fuel any world conquest because that creates a bigger powerbase, or a powerbase with less admin cost.

I'd say that pretty much everyone has a better time doing a WC than Ryukyu except the Native North Americans. If you find Europe boring, you can try a WC as Ethiopia for instance, that's still a relatively strong country and it has excellent ideas to WC and it starts with the best WC religion, but it's a bit more challenging than European majors so you might find that more to your taste. You can also try an European minor and combine that with another achievement. Dithmarschen or Lucca for instance. Experiencing things such as the time certain regions take to be conquered, or the benefit of mechanics like TC, seems needed to suceed in a Three Mountains.