When it comes to EU3, I like to think that I never pass up a challenge that's remotely possible, no matter how hard; in fact, I quite like the challenge. I have given up on one or two nations in my time; basically, ones that are Animist or Shamanist (although I do have a rather awesome Chumu AAR when I took over South America, but Chimu's remote location gives them an advantage) - so I have given up on Ryukyu as an Animist nation, or the north American natives as Shamanists, because of the eternal Colonial Conquest CB that will cause Europeans to destroy you pretty much no matter what you do. Pretty much anything else, though, is fair game.
One that I've been meaning to try for a long time is Mongol Khanate, who are Buddhist and so don't have the 'Europeans get a Colonial Conquest on me' problem. They still start in a dreadful situation - steppe nomads, bordered by Manchu and Ming - but in theory they should be playable... possibly. I looked at some other threads on the forum that discussed succeeding with them and the tactics generally didn't work. I found that attacking Oirat Horde failed miserably, as that horde would come back and destroy you with their larger armies. You might grab something like Tanna Tuva off them, but it has no fort, and then Kazakh will DoW on you because you're weak (especially when you are forced to go to war with Ming) and it's pretty much game over. So I thought I'd share the tactics that, at least at the beginning of the game, have worked for me. There's definitely an element of luck and favourable dice rolling to it, no doubt. But still, it's theoretically legitimate.
You're immediately at war with Manchu. As attacking Oirat isn't viable (at least in my experience), the goal is to take over Manchu and Korea. You must mint 100%, inflation be damned, and build up some cash; maybe 100 ducats. Then quickly build enough cavalry and infantry to beat Manchu. That's probably gonna be 4 cavalry and 8 infantry at least; use mercenaries if you run out of manpower. Convert your ruler into a general; if he doesn't have half-decent stats, start again and roll the dice again. Manchu will win the siege of Dornod. Attack them, and win the battle. Follow them to (probably) Hinggan, then keep following them until their stack is destroyed. Then quickly carpet-siege their provinces (if you can, ditch the mercenary regiments now as they're way expensive).
Carefully ensure that Manchu don't manage to build up any units. If they're building a new unit where your siege consists of 800 men, break off another 1000 men to join them and kill the Manchu unit as soon as it's created. If necessary, break off a siege on a province that isn't creating a unit to backup the siege on a province that is creating one. You can always come back and re-siege that province later, but if they can build up a big unit you're pretty screwed.
Try to use some of your magistrates to commission paintings and get your cultural tradition up to 30% or something; create a few advisors so you'll get paid for them a year later.
I had a royal marriage and an alliance with Oirat Horde, and they went to war with Kazakh. I figured I might as well join the call to war, as the Kazakh wouldn't reach me before the war was out (this was correct) so I joined.
As people have said in other threads, the new 10 year truces in Divine Wind do not apply to steppe nomads, whose truces only last 5 years. The tooltip popup is wrong. In late 1404, your 5-year truce with Ming ends, halfway through the carpet siege of Manchu.
My strategy here (if you can call it a strategy) was to just let Ming win. They attack *your* provinces, so let them. They won't attack the Manchu provinces until you've occupied them. In fact, I'm not sure they even attacked occupied Manchu provinces; only once they defected away did Ming march for them. During the siege, we drove a tiny Manchu army towards the natives. I think even the natives would beat it...
... and sure enough, they did. No more Manchu stack. For once, I'm happy the natives attack!
Ming are now siegeing all of our provinces, and our income drops horribly. We're losing 41 ducats annually. I had been able to draw back the minting a bit, but it had to go up again. Inflation will be nearly 10% by the end of this escapade. Can't be helped.
I had to give up on trying to re-take Dornod as Ming were coming for me. In hindsight, you should probably never bother with it because Manchu's occupation of Dornod will end when they are eliminated anyway.
Turns out Ming went to war with Japan pretty early on. Maybe this distracts them, I'm not sure. They still came for me pretty aggressively (and refused any peace offer, even tribute).
And with the occupation of Hinggan, the entire occupation of Manchu was finally complete! Now to start waiting for defecting provinces.
Manchu had started suing for peace. Not a chance. The goal (and, I believe, survival) is to annihilate them.
War exhaustion was up a tad, and land force limits were still pitifully low because provinces hadn't defected yet. Still, I thought I'd consolidate my army and move it over into Ninguta to provide a buffer between it and Ming (in previous games, I'd had Ming insta-kill my entire unit because I happened to be walking next to their provinces and they intercepted my unit with a large stack...)
But I had a rather sudden change of heart when I realized that, once Manchu's provinces started flipping over to us, Ming would come to siege them. So I decided to manoeuvre my troops around Ming by ploughing through the natives! Unlike the earlier Manchu unit, we didn't have a problem dispatching them on our way through.
Rather abruptly, and for no obvious reason, Ming then peaced out with Japan.
Would this spell doom for the Mongols as Ming focused their forces on us entirely now? I'm gonna continue in part 2.
One that I've been meaning to try for a long time is Mongol Khanate, who are Buddhist and so don't have the 'Europeans get a Colonial Conquest on me' problem. They still start in a dreadful situation - steppe nomads, bordered by Manchu and Ming - but in theory they should be playable... possibly. I looked at some other threads on the forum that discussed succeeding with them and the tactics generally didn't work. I found that attacking Oirat Horde failed miserably, as that horde would come back and destroy you with their larger armies. You might grab something like Tanna Tuva off them, but it has no fort, and then Kazakh will DoW on you because you're weak (especially when you are forced to go to war with Ming) and it's pretty much game over. So I thought I'd share the tactics that, at least at the beginning of the game, have worked for me. There's definitely an element of luck and favourable dice rolling to it, no doubt. But still, it's theoretically legitimate.
You're immediately at war with Manchu. As attacking Oirat isn't viable (at least in my experience), the goal is to take over Manchu and Korea. You must mint 100%, inflation be damned, and build up some cash; maybe 100 ducats. Then quickly build enough cavalry and infantry to beat Manchu. That's probably gonna be 4 cavalry and 8 infantry at least; use mercenaries if you run out of manpower. Convert your ruler into a general; if he doesn't have half-decent stats, start again and roll the dice again. Manchu will win the siege of Dornod. Attack them, and win the battle. Follow them to (probably) Hinggan, then keep following them until their stack is destroyed. Then quickly carpet-siege their provinces (if you can, ditch the mercenary regiments now as they're way expensive).
Carefully ensure that Manchu don't manage to build up any units. If they're building a new unit where your siege consists of 800 men, break off another 1000 men to join them and kill the Manchu unit as soon as it's created. If necessary, break off a siege on a province that isn't creating a unit to backup the siege on a province that is creating one. You can always come back and re-siege that province later, but if they can build up a big unit you're pretty screwed.
Try to use some of your magistrates to commission paintings and get your cultural tradition up to 30% or something; create a few advisors so you'll get paid for them a year later.
I had a royal marriage and an alliance with Oirat Horde, and they went to war with Kazakh. I figured I might as well join the call to war, as the Kazakh wouldn't reach me before the war was out (this was correct) so I joined.
As people have said in other threads, the new 10 year truces in Divine Wind do not apply to steppe nomads, whose truces only last 5 years. The tooltip popup is wrong. In late 1404, your 5-year truce with Ming ends, halfway through the carpet siege of Manchu.
My strategy here (if you can call it a strategy) was to just let Ming win. They attack *your* provinces, so let them. They won't attack the Manchu provinces until you've occupied them. In fact, I'm not sure they even attacked occupied Manchu provinces; only once they defected away did Ming march for them. During the siege, we drove a tiny Manchu army towards the natives. I think even the natives would beat it...
... and sure enough, they did. No more Manchu stack. For once, I'm happy the natives attack!
Ming are now siegeing all of our provinces, and our income drops horribly. We're losing 41 ducats annually. I had been able to draw back the minting a bit, but it had to go up again. Inflation will be nearly 10% by the end of this escapade. Can't be helped.
I had to give up on trying to re-take Dornod as Ming were coming for me. In hindsight, you should probably never bother with it because Manchu's occupation of Dornod will end when they are eliminated anyway.
Turns out Ming went to war with Japan pretty early on. Maybe this distracts them, I'm not sure. They still came for me pretty aggressively (and refused any peace offer, even tribute).
And with the occupation of Hinggan, the entire occupation of Manchu was finally complete! Now to start waiting for defecting provinces.
Manchu had started suing for peace. Not a chance. The goal (and, I believe, survival) is to annihilate them.
War exhaustion was up a tad, and land force limits were still pitifully low because provinces hadn't defected yet. Still, I thought I'd consolidate my army and move it over into Ninguta to provide a buffer between it and Ming (in previous games, I'd had Ming insta-kill my entire unit because I happened to be walking next to their provinces and they intercepted my unit with a large stack...)
But I had a rather sudden change of heart when I realized that, once Manchu's provinces started flipping over to us, Ming would come to siege them. So I decided to manoeuvre my troops around Ming by ploughing through the natives! Unlike the earlier Manchu unit, we didn't have a problem dispatching them on our way through.
Rather abruptly, and for no obvious reason, Ming then peaced out with Japan.
Would this spell doom for the Mongols as Ming focused their forces on us entirely now? I'm gonna continue in part 2.
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