Jihad! A Najd AAR

[unmerged(195685)]

You know what's really missing from this forum? Someone going for Jihad. Oh look, that's what I'm doing!

Why would I go for this ridiculous, near impossible achievement? Well for one, not a lot of people are making a run on it, so even the attempt ought to make for a good read. In reality though, I had to try for Jihad as soon as I saw the Najd idea group (here it is, for reference-http://eu4wiki.com/Najd). I'm also a huge fan of the Muslim religious stuff as it has some nice interactivity, and is generally the strongest religious choice overall. The Muslim music pack is pretty great too. Throughout I'll be doing my best to explain my thought process, go over possibly obscure game mechanics when they show up, and ask the audience where I should go next. This is actually my second serious attempt at Jihad-the first ended when I made an all-in gambit for Spain and lost horribly around 1530. But never-mind that-let's get started!

Why play as Najd?

I already touched on this briefly, but I'd like to go more into Najd's unique benefits right at the top. After all, Jihad is a pretty ridiculous achievement to get, and I dont entirely expect to actually succeed, so Najd better just be fun to play anyway.

First off, their ideas are ridiculously good. Najdi ideas are built entirely for conversion and war. The leader maneuver may be my favorite one of all, as I can easily use it to lure large stacks deep into the harsh desert and watch them die to attrition. Bedouin raiders helps immensely in that regard as well, and makes draining manpower a cinch. All in all, I just love the these ideas.

Next up, we're Sunni. The Sunni religious stuff is just bonkers good. In the early game I can easily sit at complete lack of piety, which does wonders for keeping ahead of my cohorts in tech and cash. As the game goes on, I'll be able to easily shift to full piety for the monstrous war-related bonuses and crush the western powers with hilariously high morale.

Finally, I always love any excuse to use the Muslim-dlc music. I'm a huge dork, I know.

The Cheese

1.2 sure did close a lot of loopholes, but not all of them. I'll be doing the obvious cheesey stuff (mainly, mega vassals hooo), but I have one or two other tricks up my sleeve as well. The first that you'll see today is reload cheese in ironman. Basically, Ironman autosaves after ALMOST everything, but not QUITE everything. The main example in this first post was in turning my leader into a general. I simply reloaded until I got some solid stats. Battles can also be somewhat cheesed in this manner, but I'm not sure I'll be doing much of that.

The first 20 years

They suck. I didn't take screenshots of my first moves as it's so easy for the first 20 years to fall apart completely at any moment. That said, here's where we're at after my standard Najd start-

Hedjaz/Oman/Iraq are my vassals, and I'm allied with the Ottomans. How did I get there? Here's my Najd start-

1. Fabricate on Nizwa, get military access through Yemen. Build 2 cavalry on the Shia side and ferry your starting troops. Build 1 more cavalry as soon as you have the gold, then 1 infantry. Improve relations with the Mamluks once your first diplomat comes back. If Oman allies with Qara Koyunlu at ANY point, start over.
2. In September raise army slider to max and take out loans to hire one merc infantry. Recall your Mamluk diplomat.
3. At the start of November, turn your heir into a leader. Reload your autosave until you get at least a 2 shock/3 maneuver leader, preferrably better (mine was 3/3).
4. As soon as your fabricate is done on Niza, declare war and chase the Omani stack down. Ideally Haasa will be allied to the ottomans, so chase their stack down next and start sieging Haasa with 2k troops. Disband your merc. You can try to siege Nizwa at this point as well, but you'll likely need to keep chasing down Omani for some time. Fabricate claims on Nirvan (Yemen) and Medina (Hedjaz) in the meantime.
5. After Oman is vassalized, ally with the Mamluks and declare for Hedjaz. If the Mamluks have guaranteed Hedjaz, you can try for yemen but you're probably best off restarting.
6. Declare for yemen and take as much as you can, selling all but Nirvan (your claim) to Oman/Hedjaz.

That's my start to take control of the peninsula. This game went mostly as planned, except Qara Koyunlu declared against Haasa before I could get it. The upside of this was that I gave Oman military access and watched their troops vanish, though my army was strong enough to chase them down regardless. Eventually I added the Ottomans to my alliance, which made for a fairly easy war against Qara Koyunlu (the ottomans had set them as rival, so they were immediately eager to join). The mamluks left the alliance as soon as the war was over, but no skin off my back. I needed a 4th relation to open up anyway!

Alliance Mechanics

That first war against Qara Koyunlu is a great place to point out good use of war-joining mechanics. I had to make sure I allied the Mamluks as early as possible to increase the chances of them answering my call to arms, so it was very important to ally with them as soon as I finished my first war. Since I had them for an ally for such a long time they were all too happy to come to my aid against Qara Koyunlu. The Ottomans, on the other hand, had set Qara Qoyunlu as a rival, so I was able to ally and DOW immediately to bring them in. I didn't have to fight a single real battle, and as a bonus the Mamluks are incredibly weakened from this war. Who says alliances are rubbish?

In closing

So that's where we are after 20 years. This first post is obviously a bit text heavy as I catch everyone up to speed, but future posts will ideally feature a good bit more action. Before I leave though, I need to figure out my next course of action-DOW on the Mamluks or the Timurids. The Timurids were quite a depressing spot for this playthru, as the Persia event DID happen and I WAS in a position to snatch a territory and release Persia, but they inexplicably beat the revolts. They're completely tapped on manpower, though, and are 1 behind me in tech (though possibly not for long). I'm confident that I could win a limited engagement with my vassal forces and sieze Khuzestan (for creating Persia), however. On the other hand, the Mamluks are also pretty devastated from that Qara Koyunlu and the Ottomans would join a war against them. A war with the Mamluks would also give time for the Ottoman truce against the Timurids to clear, but by then they will almost definitely have mil tech 4. I could also just be a damn man about it and go for both at the same time, generally relying on the Ottomans to do all the Mamlukian lifting. So, what do you guys think? Timurids, Mamluks, or both?

Ninja edit-How do I get these images a bit larger again? I dont want to make you guys click to expand every SS.

 

[Soulstrider]

Good luck with the Jihad, I will be following.

To get the images bigger don't use the Forum attachments, upload your images with imgur and then put it's url between the

tags

 

[RebBrown]

Good luck! I tried, I died, but I'm sure you got a cunning plan that will see you through the horrible starting position of Najd.

 

[Warhawk43]

Good luck going for one of the hardest achievements, I will be following.

 

[unmerged(195685)]

So-timurids or mamluks? WHY NOT BOTH INDEED.

Easy peasy. The Timurids were having rebel issues so it was no problem snatching up Esfahan for my wargoal, so I was able to focus everything on the Mamluks.

The resulting occupation. Note that Persia actually released during this, so I scooped them up as a vassal as well.

And here's what I have to show for it. I actually kept the Mamluks under siege for awhile so that I could get my 3rd diplomatic idea for extra relations. As a result, the Timurids are no longer in a truce with me. Unfortunately, I'm basically tapped on manpower and my WE is rather high.

I didn't let that stop me though.

As a bonus, the Timurids got locked into a tribal succession crisis during this war. Persian rebels will likely scoop up another few provinces (the ones I cut off) with no need for an additional war.

Najd at 1480

All in all, a pretty successful 18 years. Unfortunately, the Mamluks and Qara Koyunlu are in a coalition against me, so expansion through those two will be a bit slowed. Fortunately, I can just feed Syria/Iraq their cores for at least a couple wars. Even more fortunately, this will help me circumvent the Ottoman alliance with Qara Koyunlu (from rivals to allies...stupid Ottomans). Annexing Hedjaz/Oman has actually dropped my troop count pretty significantly, however, so I'll need to wait until the fresh-faced Persian blob recruits some mans.

Where to next?

The mamluk/Qara Koyunlu coalition is the obvious choice for expansion. I have a lot of free cores I can scoop from them, and I need to push through the Mamluks anyway. My big worry is that since Qara Koyunlu will be automatically called into the war the Ottomans wont actually join-which could lead to them breaking their alliance. The Ottomans are obviously the big dog in this area, so I'd rather not start butting heads with them if I can help it. I could also vassalize Baluchistan to the east and start my Indian conquests, but I'd really rather wait until expansion ideas are filled for that, which will come much later in the game. Adal/Ethiopia are the final options. They're obviously very easy conquests without much tactical value, but it would be nice to consolidate the Gulf of Aden node for trade income. Decisions, decisions...

 

[grisamentum]

What idea groups are you going for first?

 

[unmerged(195685)]

What idea groups are you going for first?

Diplomacy first, for obvious reasons. Defensive almost for sure as my second, since my rulers have been somewhat weak on the admin side. Religious as the third. From there, most likely expansion-offensive.

 

[RebBrown]

Ethiopia and Adal have poor provinces, from what I can recall, so going there would mean 1) a strain on either ADM points to core or 2) pushing your diplo relations. But the benefit of going south is that you shouldn't get much AE with your other neighbours. Baluchistan is also poor as dirt, but together with Persia it would make for a great springboard into India. IF you want to go there.

 

[unmerged(195685)]

Ethiopia and Adal have poor provinces, from what I can recall, so going there would mean 1) a strain on either ADM points to core or 2) pushing your diplo relations. But the benefit of going south is that you shouldn't get much AE with your other neighbours. Baluchistan is also poor as dirt, but together with Persia it would make for a great springboard into India. IF you want to go there.

Those were concerns for sure. Ultimately I opted to avoid Adal/Ethiopia due to high war exhaustion...and being in near-constant war with everyone else!

First up, I had a coalition of the Mamluks and Qara Koyunlu to deal with. I was prepared to fight them both head on (I had a notable tech advantage), but lucky for me the ottomans decided they wanted Candar at the same time, who was allied to the Mamluks. I got free sieges while the Ottoman doomstack hunted all their troops down. Warscore for returning Syrian cores was also surprisingly low-anyone have an idea why?

Obviously triggered immediately after spending 330 diplomatic points for territory.

After this war Qara Koyunlu left the coalition against me, as I didnt actually accrue any AE during it from them and our relations were decently improved. This meant I could pull the Ottomans into a war against the Mamluks, then declare on Qara Koyunlu without them coming in-except for one minor problem. The Ottomans and Mamluks were both allied to Crimea..who was also allied to the Timurids. Perfect! I declared on Timurids to get the rest of my Persian cores, then got the Mamluk war started as soon as the truce ended. With the Ottomans on my side, I could declare an easy war against Qara Koyunlu for more territory. I unfortunately didnt take any screens of the wars themselves but they were, frankly, very straight-forward wars with large troop/tech counts in my favor.

The aftermath of said wars-

50 year overview

First, the world at 1500-

Muscovy is already growing decently sized, but that's hardly a surprise. Lithuania isnt in a PU with poland, so that's one potentially major opponent I wont have to worry about. France is getting beat up a bit, but it's still basically France. My main concern right now is Castille-the Iberian wedding triggered almost immediately, which put both a large Aragon and Naples under Castille. Once those two are inherited, Spain will form and be a monster-a big concern, considering my ideal expansion path is through the Berber lands and into Andalusia. Thankfully, colonization hasnt even remotely begun, so there isnt much concern over a filled Africa right now. Also thankfully, Genoa has managed to hold onto Kaffa, which should prove helpful for westernization at some point unless I end up trucking through the Ottomans.

Tech-wise, I'm doing fine. My mil tech is actually in great shape, my admin tech is just barely at 7, and my diplo is non-existent due to idea filling. I've also started filling in defensive ideas, which will certainly do wonders. I still have at least a war or two against the mamluks to finish them off, but at some point I'm going to have to deal with the Ottomans. They chose quantity as their first military idea, so my troops will have a significant morale bonus-I can also make use of the desert to drain them out without fighting a battle. Once I've annexed my current main vassals, I like my odds. Conversely, I could forego an Ottoman showdown and start pushing east into India-that territory will be ridiculously easy to scoop up due to tech differences, but it doesn't take me in a strategically strong direction. So there's the question-Ottomans or India?

 

[bleakie]

An interesting read. Congrats for having a promising start!

I would choose to focus on the Ottomans. The Ottomans will break up with you anyway after you annex Syria, and they will become a constant threat in the northern theatre. If you open up a new Indian theatre, your troops may not be able to cover the two fronts well. It's better to weaken the Ottomans first (maybe pushing them to the Bosporus). You will not gain new enemies and you can strengthen yourself massively by coring rich Anatolia.

 

[Rabid]

If you go for India there's a sizeable chunk of really dirt poor provinces you'll have to take just to get there, and a lot of conversions, however getting full control over eastern trade will make your income go up significantly and you'll avoid wasting manpower that you really want to be spending on knocking out the colonisers. I'd probably go for India unless you feel like you're already militarily strong enough to take out the OE without huge losses.

 

[Nikolai]

Good start! The Caliphate returns.

 

[OsirisDeath]

The start looks very promising indeed =)
Keep the pace up and maybe it is possible.
(But when i think of all the missionary work to do, man that's a lot, even if you need only ~months per province oO)

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

(But when i think of all the missionary work to do, man that's a lot, even if you need only ~months per province oO)

I don't think it should be too bad, as Najd you can stack up 6 missionaries:

1. Base.
2. Religious Ideas.
3. Najd Ideas.
4. Defender of the Faith.
5. Own Jerusalem.
6. Own Rome.

 

[unmerged(195685)]

I don't think it should be too bad, as Najd you can stack up 6 missionaries:

1. Base.
2. Religious Ideas.
3. Najd Ideas.
4. Defender of the Faith.
5. Own Jerusalem.
6. Own Rome.

Najd also gets a base 3% conversion chance, along with another 6% from ideas and piety. I dont expect to have many long-term troubles converting, except for the last rush of territory. Ideally I'll be able to leave mostly muslim territories at the end, so conversion wont be an issue.

bleakie
An interesting read. Congrats for having a promising start!

I would choose to focus on the Ottomans. The Ottomans will break up with you anyway after you annex Syria, and they will become a constant threat in the northern theatre. If you open up a new Indian theatre, your troops may not be able to cover the two fronts well. It's better to weaken the Ottomans first (maybe pushing them to the Bosporus). You will not gain new enemies and you can strengthen yourself massively by coring rich Anatolia

Rabid
If you go for India there's a sizeable chunk of really dirt poor provinces you'll have to take just to get there, and a lot of conversions, however getting full control over eastern trade will make your income go up significantly and you'll avoid wasting manpower that you really want to be spending on knocking out the colonisers. I'd probably go for India unless you feel like you're already militarily strong enough to take out the OE without huge losses.

I like seeing these good arguments made for either case-and that the focus is on monetary gains. Money has indeed been pretty tight since I've had to rely heavily on mercenaries (and I can't spam accumulate wealth like a certain OTHER AAR). Anyway, on to the game!

I start off by getting another war going against the Mamluks. They still have a lot of land I need, and I cant get any big coalition opponents until they're mostly dealt with.

I also opted to wipe out Qara Koyunlu once and for all. The ottomans forced a release of Armenia during this time, which was ideal for me-I need an Orthodox vassal for Georgian cores (Azerbaijan also somehow went orthodox, so added bonus there). At this point I had to decide between the Ottomans and India. As was correctly stated, the Ottomans ain't gettin any easier to handle. I actually had a brief window of opportunity where I had military tech 8 to their 7, which meant a tactics advantage. I also had a significant morale advantage due to higher prestige/army tradition and defensive ideas. Even though the Ottomans outnumbered me by about 30k troops (not counting my vassal troops, which were a measly tech 6), I had to make my play now or risk never having this kind of combat advantage against the Ottomans again.

I gird my loins, and declare on the kebab. After a tense year of maneuvering their doomstack into high-attrition losses...

Got em.

I actually had to cancel my vassalization of Persia during this time because I couldnt handle all the Shia provinces. They fought like gangbusters tho, so it worked out. After cleaning up my borders it was time for...more war! Against the Ottomans! Who knew? My initial plan was to break the truce via a coalition war against Karaman, except for one Hungarian sized problem. Named Hungary. Apparently they got -40 AE towards me for my Ottoman conquests and joined the coalition too. It's worth nothing that they didnt show up on the list of angry people at all, so I had no way of knowing they'd even be mad. The amount they got also doesn't match up well at all with the numbers presented in the peace deal, so it's basically a crapshoot how much AE I get to deal with. I'm totally fine with them getting mad at me (I did take a lot of land), I just would've liked to have known they would get mad, as they don't even share a border with the Ottomans right now. Even worse, a war against Kandar puts Hungary as the war leader, which is exactly what I don't want.

But we press on! I ended up waiting for the truce with the Ottomans to end and redaclared on them. It meant they had mostly rebuilt their army (mostly), but my goal wasn't Anatolian territory...it was the Berbers all along!

Imagine that back and forth for about 5 years (every single month) while I sieged out Tunis and Algiers. It was riveting stuff, let me tell you. I couldnt engage them in direct combat as my manpower was shot getting them to a level where I could even press a siege-I had to kill an extra 22k Hungarians, after all. I managed to claim my wargoal and win another +40 warscore in battles, which meant a couple more Anatolian provinces in addition to half of North Africa-not too shabby!

In closing

Najd at 1527-

Dulkadir/Armenia/Tunis/Tripoli as vassals.

The world-

I have to start zooming out to get it all in, so that's a victory right there. I've also finally diploannexed my first big round of vassals, so things are lookin good. Elsewhere in the world we have a mega-Denmark, a quick growing Muscovy, and Spain with a Neapolitan PU as my three major concerns. I also still need to mostly wipe out the Ottomans before I start picking up more major coalition enemies, which will take another 2 wars by my estimation. After the Ottomans are dealt with I have three options for expansion-west into Iberia, north into Lithuania(with bosnia as a PU) or Muscovy, or India. I'll almost definitely start some light conquest in India as a couple indian nations in coalition against me is hardly a concern, but the other two options will feature some stiff opposition. Right now, I generally like my chances against the north more, as I wont have to worry about naval shenanigans. I'm also incredibly wary of an all-in war against Spain since that was my undoing in my previous attempt. On the other hand, there aren't a lot of chances to catch Spain while it's weak, so I better be ready to pounce when that time comes.

 

[GreatUberGeek]

Gotta love that marshmallow turkey.

 

[Evil4Zerggin]

Warscore for returning Syrian cores was also surprisingly low-anyone have an idea why?

As far as I can tell provincial warscore cost is 8% + 2% per base tax + 2% per base kManpower + 2% per flat trade power from buildings and modifiers above 3. However, the total warscore for a country seems to be capped at ~400% (more for super-blobs?) for at least some peace deal terms; if the total would be larger than this, this 400% is split among the provinces according to the cost they would have had. It could be that returning cores is subject to the country cap but directly annexing provinces is not; I'll have to do more testing. The upshot is that it could be that at 100% warscore you are always limited to annexing ~4 provinces but you are able to return cores on a quarter of the country.

 

[unmerged(195685)]

As far as I can tell provincial warscore cost is 8% + 2% per base tax + 2% per base kManpower + 2% per flat trade power from buildings and modifiers above 3. However, the total warscore for a country seems to be capped at ~400% (more for super-blobs?) for at least some peace deal terms; if the total would be larger than this, this 400% is split among the provinces according to the cost they would have had. It could be that returning cores is subject to the country cap but directly annexing provinces is not; I'll have to do more testing. The upshot is that it could be that at 100% warscore you are always limited to annexing ~4 provinces but you are able to return cores on a quarter of the country.

Interesting info on warscore costs-for reference, each Syrian core cost me 2% warscore and no more (but Qara Koyunlu core returns for Iraq and Persia were 20% at least, which I was expecting).

 

[True-Chaos]

As far as I can tell provincial warscore cost is 8% + 2% per base tax + 2% per base kManpower + 2% per flat trade power from buildings and modifiers above 3. However, the total warscore for a country seems to be capped at ~400% (more for super-blobs?) for at least some peace deal terms; if the total would be larger than this, this 400% is split among the provinces according to the cost they would have had. It could be that returning cores is subject to the country cap but directly annexing provinces is not; I'll have to do more testing. The upshot is that it could be that at 100% warscore you are always limited to annexing ~4 provinces but you are able to return cores on a quarter of the country.

The other reason for them being cheap is that... They are distant overseas at that point since you cut the overland connection from Cairo, and those provinces are in asia

 

[unmerged(195685)]

The other reason for them being cheap is that... They are distant overseas at that point since you cut the overland connection from Cairo, and those provinces are in asia

Oh yeah, silly me! I mean..Man, I'm soo smart I totally planned that.