Hisn Kayfa - continuation

[Dominion]

After overcoming my hesitation (and reading a few pointers I got from people last time) I decided to start Hisn Kayfa and in best eu4 style got told by the game to throw all preparation out of the window.

Opening up I saw QQ and AQ hostile, allied Dulkadir, took the mission for a claim on AQ and am already pleasantly surprised at how easy this is.

Inf to the max, no dip rep advisor, but morale lvl1. Instantly picked and developed my capital twice as well as deleted the fort.

May be a weird opening, but in some of these starts I feel like delaying adm and dip by a bit to get those 0.2 ducats extra.

Next up a war against AQ and this one was a gamble in my plan.

12k vs 7k and both Dulkadir and me are combat monsters (discipline/-shock received).
General is my ruler. He's an acceptable 5/0/0/1. Love the siege pip, absolutely needed for the gamble to work. Their cap is more difficult to take than Dulkadir's. Fire is meh, but 5 fire? I'll take it.

got extremely lucky. 3 wall breaches in a row. killed them before they could take Dulkadir.

Now here's the question:

Ercinzan is POI and I promised Dulkadir land, BUT I got the RM with Ottos.

So what's the next idea? Betray ally, go on a rampage or keep ally and hope to ally Ottos?

That start was an absolute gift. 1446, 3 loans (12 ducats) and a full AQ (+7 ducats) if I want to. Kinda unsure and want to hear a few ideas to avoid wasting this gift.

Full annexation? 3 provinces, keeping the alliance with dulk and going for Ottoalliance? Give Dulkadir Erzincan and get an alliance net to force vassalize and kill Ottos in a def war? something like that is going around in my head.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Ottoman WYP/WYSP early on is pretty unpleasant. Other than that I don't think you need to be a true love couple with your present ally.

 

[Dominion]

Ottoman WYP/WYSP early on is pretty unpleasant. Other than that I don't think you need to be a true love couple with your present ally.

Yea, I'll probably ditch him. But I'm still unsure about taking that province. It's only one, so the modifier should be maybe -10 or something.

Of course I'll have to watch AE as well if I want the alliance.

Another question is probably whether or not I should go coptic. I remember something about auto-breaking alliances when you switch religion. Only counts for swaps between groups, but I'd go Muslim > Christian and break, right?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Yea, I'll probably ditch him. But I'm still unsure about taking that province. It's only one, so the modifier should be maybe -10 or something.

Doesn't that modifier scale on relative power between the two nations? I've seen WYP break -100 for 2 provinces, but it might not be based on size scale. Not sure.

Religion switch will break alliances, but the AI stays in alliance attitude until month tick so you can send offer again before that and keep it, all else being good enough for keeping it (losing royal marriage + same religion bonus and getting small different religion hit could put you below a threshold where they can turn hostile if not careful).

Coptic is definitely better, but I'm doing a 1 tag run with them and just stayed Sunni since I started it just after the new mechanics were out. Early game as Sunni is a bit less headache.

 

[Dominion]

Nah, WYP is based on three blindfolded monkeys throwing darts at pictures of numbers.

The -200 stuff comes from missions, claims, cores, etc.and I have no clue about the modifier because it seems to be *1000 by default or sth.

Normal provinces without any of that stuff get sth like -5 to -10 per province.

 

[atwix]

Another question is probably whether or not I should go coptic. I remember something about auto-breaking alliances when you switch religion. Only counts for swaps between groups, but I'd go Muslim > Christian and break, right?

Religion switch will break alliances, but the AI stays in alliance attitude until month tick so you can send offer again before that and keep it, all else being good enough for keeping it (losing royal marriage + same religion bonus and getting small different religion hit could put you below a threshold where they can turn hostile if not careful).

tmit told it already.

anyways, i think you can't ally ottomans if a militarist borders you.

if ottomans has rivalled QQ or mamluks and if you border THEM, they will probably go friendly due to you being threatened by their rival. the AI automatically applies this +20 bonus to Alliance these days.

so, border the mamluks and take Urfa and rakka. don't take a border with ottomans until you get Alliance i'd say.

 

[cuendillar]

Even if you plan to break the alliance with Dulkadir, give them land in any case. The "Recently broke promise of land" modifier is really annoying, so I would avoid it unless it's for extremely valuable land.

 

[Dominion]

Even if you plan to break the alliance with Dulkadir, give them land in any case. The "Recently broke promise of land" modifier is really annoying, so I would avoid it unless it's for extremely valuable land.

I have a plan for that and turned it into an AAR.

Dunno how good I am at writing, but oh well. Either way, breaking the promise only gives you a 30 year modifier and we're already out of the opening with no major player on any side anyways.

Our position is so horrible, it's actually good. We can't attack anyone promising land to the Ottoman Empire because we want to cut off their eastern expansion, so it won't be used for a long time.
And nobody needs other allies when you have the Ottos. Breaking the promise in this situation was almost a no-brainer. The biggest headache was Erzurum, but the Ottoman's leader was a... diplomat I think. Or builder. Something like that.

Meaning if my plan works I can use them like a trained monkey and the only way for the plan to fail is if they get a militarist and break the alliance.

In which case promising land in offensive wars won't be used anyways for at least 30 years. That time will be spent trying to survive.

So one way or the other I won't be using the option. Having the modifier doesn't hurt at all.