How do you open as Kazan?

[Nitte Cera]

I want to attempt a Kazan WC (Would be my first WC) and having some trouble

1. Do I go for Muscovy when they declare on Novgorod or do I go for Great Horde/Nogai
and how do I win those wars and what do I take?
2. When do I restart the game (due to alliances and rivalries)
3. Should I form the Golden Horde?
4. What religion should I go for? How much does it matter?

 

[Henrious]

You can take muscovy when they go in for Novgorod. Raise host and go into debt. Pile your troops into Moscow and the terrain bonus your Cav gets will wipe the floor with them even with their defense bonus of fort. It's quite fun.

 

[lolada]

Yup win vs Muscovy quickly is certainly doable if you choose the right fights. The thing is that avoiding to attack them is just making thing worse.. Muscovy gets stronger you get weaker since land is crap there.

Best to avoid Hordes this patch but if you really want to play them go hit Muscovy. Try not to bankrupt. And line up for trade companies.. or reform.

 

[tip001]

I want to attempt a Kazan WC (Would be my first WC) and having some trouble

1. Do I go for Muscovy when they declare on Novgorod or do I go for Great Horde/Nogai
and how do I win those wars and what do I take?
2. When do I restart the game (due to alliances and rivalries)
3. Should I form the Golden Horde?
4. What religion should I go for? How much does it matter?

1) You need to attack Muscovy first. Take some essential provinces with flat terrain you can defend easily. This is for limiting their power/ threat, for the institution (!) and the power-projection.
2) Not really essential but it makes life easier if Uzbek or Nogai don't ally a bunch of people. Reason below.
3) Not for the first 2/3 of the game as you have best ideas in game already. You only change tag to reset rebellions or for meme's.
4) You should aim for Hindu as it gives extra 10% CCCR and tolerance. For that you need to conquer a big part of India. Therefore India should be your early goal as it also gives Trade Companies. Other land in Siberia is worthless besides you snaking your way to India (thru Nogai/ Uzbek/ Timmies/ Chagatai).

Hope this helps

 

[enKage]

Absolutely always Muscovy first for at least Qasim. It is sunni province, so easy to handle. Sometimes more, depending on warscore, as kazan has religious unity, you can take orthodox land freely, sometimes up to Moscow in first war.

And going hordes first won't give you free feudalism. Taking provinces from Muscovy will.

 

[KaiserJohan]

Don't take Moscow in the peace deal. It's nice and vulnerable for the follow-up war. Take all his other forts first, then snake and take money!
You can then reach Novgorod and vassalize what's left of them.

 

[Nitte Cera]

Yup win vs Muscovy quickly is certainly doable if you choose the right fights. The thing is that avoiding to attack them is just making thing worse.. Muscovy gets stronger you get weaker since land is crap there.

Best to avoid Hordes this patch but if you really want to play them go hit Muscovy. Try not to bankrupt. And line up for trade companies.. or reform.

Why is it best to avoid hordes this patch?

 

[KaiserJohan]

Why is it best to avoid hordes this patch?

Could be the corruption from territories? The mechanic that replaces it next patch is gonna make the Steppes suck less relative to more prosperous regions.
Although Trade Companies are inarguably stronger this patch and as Horde you are in prime position to snake down to India and then roll around in money since as a Western horde your capital will be in Europe.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can fish > 60% warscore just from battles + ticking in dogpile while Muscovy fights Novgorod, using careful unit control. Occupy one fort and take a big haul off that. 1-2 more times and Muscovy tends to break to pressure of even random minors around.

 

[lolada]

Why is it best to avoid hordes this patch?

Multiple reasons.. for exampling starting with estates. Since Dharma changes horde estates are terrible so you can't use them much. Before we could at least place them on very high autonomy provinces and remove them as autonomy was dropping.. but now its too punishing. Also if you made them angry its terrible.. penalties are very bad, much worse than angry clergy for example.
Then territory corruption is awful.. once you expand. The thing is that horde economy is awful.. TCs are just killer that comes slowly. So you are forced to go for trade companies to avoid corruption and its not easy from that place. You need to snake your way to India through some powerful countries while taking crap land. You are "snaking" so you can't really take juicy land.
All this costs money and manpower and hordes have none -_-. Hordes are also supposed to rely on cavalry which is way too expensive.. so thats uphill battle.

Jianzhou.. Manchu hordes are much more fun since they have Ming to pound to extract tons of money. And Ming trade nodes are good. Trade nodes in europe where hordes are are awful in comparision. If you start to dislike Kazan/Great horde try maybe forming Manchu, i found it much more pleasant.

 

[Karst]

Aside from what others have said, you should also improve with Ottomans. The last time I played Kazan they flipped friendly fairly early. With Otto as an ally, you can safely declare bankruptcy if necessary.