Is it impossible to survive as Ardabil in 1.34.5 VH?

[Mindel]

Ardabil seems to be in an impossible position in 1.34.5. They start with one small ally but two big hostile neighbors. And there is no one else willing to ally them except sometimes one other small nation. It's not enough to deter your neighbors at all.

The deadly new element is that the AI now attacks you less than two years into the game. This gives no time to build up relations with anyone to ally. The situation is similar for Byzantium (the Ottomans now also attack in 1446) except that with Ardabil you are a landlocked OPM with no navy tricks to use.

Has anyone found a strategy to survive as Ardabil?

 

[st360]

I dont know if this is even possible, but if you could find a way to loose a war where you get vassalized (by anyone), it would be a huge help. Due to silly balance, being a OPM vassal is multiple times easier than being a independent OPM. You will get a decade to improve relations to support independence from your overlords huge rivals.

 

[Blindbohemian]

I survived by building over forcelimit (took loans and hired a mercenary troop) to make Qara Qoyunlu and Ajam target other minors while I collected allies. By the time I had Mazandaran, Mushasha and Georgia (or whatever the blue Georgian country is called) they were leery enough about attacking me that I had time to improve with Aq Qoyunlu and grab them, and eventually managed to win a very tense war and get the ball rolling.

 

[RMS Oceanic]

The change to how the AI marks provinces of strategic interest has changed how they determine if they are friendly with you. For an unrelated example in 1.33 I could always ally Austria as Brandenburg because they started friendly, but now they don't and I have to get their relations over 100 for them to flip friendly. I think Ardabil is a loser of this tendency given their tenuous situation.

 

[necro84]

On VH the best allies I was able to get were Mazandaran and Mushasha. Religious diplomats, insulting their rivals are enough to RM and after improving relations you can ally them. You can call both of them with the promise of land and declare on Ajam when Timurids declare their war. If you curry favors and later trade favors for trust you can keep alliances without giving them anything.
The problem starts after defeating Ajam. QQ won't declare on you but you also can't declare on them - you have the same allies. The only hope of expansion I see is the collapse of Timurids. Maybe you can declare on them when vassals fight for independence but this is a lot of restarts. There is a very high chance Timurids will declare reconquest on you just after the war with Ajam so maybe having Ajam fully occupied and getting war exhaustion until Timurid vassals declare independence is some kind of solution

 

[vaLor-]

I was curious myself what you can do as an OPM to get allies on VH, and this was the starting diplomatic situation I reached at the start of 1448 on my first attempt:

(Shirvan guaranteed me near the start of the game)

This could be optimized further past what I did

Spoiler

(improve relations on basra node to get mushasha faster as it never flipped friendly for me, swapping to improve relations advisor between royal marriages and alliances for added speed if desired, training up units to decrease the negative army strength malus, insulting rival at opportune timing)

but as long as you use the starting tools available I think each of these three alliances is quite reliable (with bahmanis being a very useful pickup). the only RNG aspect I used was a diplomatic reputation advisor, which is practically a requirement when playing very weak starting nations on VH for alliances.

RM's are easy to obtain with each using dip rep advisor+religious diplomats+insult rivals. From there you just improve relations and you can ally all three, with bahmanis needing to flip to friendly for the alliance, which it should do with high enough relations (it did for me in 1445).

With this alliance network, you should be safe to go on your simple expansion through biapas/shirvan/ajam(each of these three can be declared upon without fabricating claims using reconquest and sanction holy war so there isn't much time loss) -> gilan-georgia(release and reconq, also a very strong march due to defensiveness in traditions)-gazikumukh-mazandaran and have a strong position able to contest qara qoyunlu and form persia.

 

[vv142]

I’ve played between a dozen and two dozen runs with Ardabil in 1.34.5 on VH (more than half lasted 2-3 years) and I can only second what was said above. You basically have (imo only) two viable strategies:
- Get guaranteed by Shirvan and ally Mushasha quickly and Bahmanis once you can (all improve relations/modifiers things mentioned above are necessary) This allows you to declare on small countries in Caucasus and on Ajam / Timmies quickly and take land when they fight each other or their vassals (Timmis), but you may struggle to get strong allies other than Bahmanis (I did) Even when I formed Persia it was a struggle, or
- Become a vassal of QQ (Ajam just wants land) and get independence and a strong ally later. I found that its best to become a vassal of QQ (offer it before they occupy Ardabil but when Ajam declares on you as well, because you get your cores back in that war). After that Ottos will get to them soon (they are shia and close to Ottos, while Ajam is sunni and far away), so you can get them to support your independence with dip rep advisor (and all the tricks in the book - try to scornfully insult someone other than Austria and Poland though). You can get independence with only Mamluks anyway, but you’ll have to fight Ottos soon in that case and I didn’t manage to even white peace them before building power base first even though I formed Persia. Actually, getting vassalized and having Ottos support your independence was the easiest way.

In terms of other early steps I always declared on Bispas (if they have no allies, which is like 2/3 of times) on Dec 11, with Gilan (offer land) aiming to finish war by the time Mushasha wants to ally you or QQ fabricates a claim. Making ruler a general with a siege pip or two really helps here, because you need to finish a month or two before the alliance / war (QQ may ask to release them if little time passes). 1/2 of my fails was due to this war dragging but I found that it helps if it works.

In terms of RNG, lvl 1 dip rep advisor is a must but it is not really rare. The other important aspect is if Shirvan rivals you (if so, they will not guarantee you and Ajam will likely declare on you even if you ally Mushasha so that QQ wont - they always ally Mushasha). You can rival them and go down the vassal path, but if you want to go your own way you need their guarantee. Finally, I found that QQ need to have a domineering attitude, rather than hostile, to vassalize you. If they are hostile they want land rather than vassalization. I actually couldn’t make it with hostile QQ and Shirvan as a rival, but I am not particularly good, so it is probably the reason.

Nonetheless, it is still possible to make it with the strategies already proposed above. But it is quite hard. I found that it is harder than Byz for me, but it is just a subjective opinion.

 

[Travis_Bickle]

Nonetheless, it is still possible to make it with the strategies already proposed above. But it is quite hard. I found that it is harder than Byz for me, but it is just a subjective opinion.

I think Ardabil are a much harder start than Byzantium, Granada or even Candar and Hisn Kayfa.

Back on 1.30 or so it was still possible to pull a couple of decent alliances or even reload until QQ were not hostile. On this patch everyone legitimately hates you. To be fair, makes it a fun challenge but I'd definitely put it up in the hardest starts now.