I might do that, then (though with two regency councils so far less than 40 years in, I'm very tempted to reform anyway and go republic...)
Let's All Play Together - Community Nation Discovery
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Hmm, I can't remember which form I picked, actually. Might have been the other one for the manpower bonuses.
You can swap between them any time for 100 ADM. Federation (manpower and force limit) is better early, but despotism (core-creation cost but higher unrest) rocks the lategame.
Don't think so. It's definitely not an option at game start. Go Despotism or Federation anyway, I'd say - avoid the +10% tech cost.
Hello everyone,
Noticed this thread since last week. So thought about trying it as well. It's an excellent idea from paradox to do something like this.
I'm not a good player, but wanted to try it anyway.
Since the start I struggled with both manpower and income.
Send my merchants to collect in Timbuktu, and the other one that starts with a K.
Not enough income to get advisers going, lucky we have an awesome ruler.
Focused (a bit later on) on military to get a huge advantage.
Allied Mossi, Air, Benin.
After somewhat of a messy start, getting in several wars, managed to stay alive and get a few provinces for myself.
As I read it was suggested to not chase down armies all around Africa, as well as try to stay on the defensive side.
That's what I did. At some point Mossi rivaled me, so I allied Mali.
All in all, at this time I have a couple of vassals. Kinda to many than I can handle.
Ashanti, Yatenga, Katsina, Kano.
Still got great relations with about everyone. I decided to vassal feed Katsinga some Sunni land so I don't need to deal with converting. Got 2 Sunni provinces myself that I can't convert at the moment.
Income is still very low, keeping maintenance down and let my vassals fight for me. While I need to figure out how to get some money going...
I just diplo- annexed Benin, so maybe I can get some power going in the Ivory Coast.
As my first idea I picked Influence. Only got the first idea going, since I got too many relations at the moment.
Military wise I'm the strongest in at least this part of Africa. About 2 techs ahead of most of the guys.
Air still my buddy, but I don't need this help anymore. Probably will rival them anytime soon and get some more feeding going for Katsinga.
Can't westernize yet at the moment. I could become a protectorate of Portugal though...
Also, I don't see any coalitions forming, not even close. Most of the vassals I had, I did it the friendly way.
Got 2 screenshots from where I stand now. It's non-ironmode though.
Noticed this thread since last week. So thought about trying it as well. It's an excellent idea from paradox to do something like this.
I'm not a good player, but wanted to try it anyway.
Since the start I struggled with both manpower and income.
Send my merchants to collect in Timbuktu, and the other one that starts with a K.
Not enough income to get advisers going, lucky we have an awesome ruler.
Focused (a bit later on) on military to get a huge advantage.
Allied Mossi, Air, Benin.
After somewhat of a messy start, getting in several wars, managed to stay alive and get a few provinces for myself.
As I read it was suggested to not chase down armies all around Africa, as well as try to stay on the defensive side.
That's what I did. At some point Mossi rivaled me, so I allied Mali.
All in all, at this time I have a couple of vassals. Kinda to many than I can handle.
Ashanti, Yatenga, Katsina, Kano.
Still got great relations with about everyone. I decided to vassal feed Katsinga some Sunni land so I don't need to deal with converting. Got 2 Sunni provinces myself that I can't convert at the moment.
Income is still very low, keeping maintenance down and let my vassals fight for me. While I need to figure out how to get some money going...
I just diplo- annexed Benin, so maybe I can get some power going in the Ivory Coast.
As my first idea I picked Influence. Only got the first idea going, since I got too many relations at the moment.
Military wise I'm the strongest in at least this part of Africa. About 2 techs ahead of most of the guys.
Air still my buddy, but I don't need this help anymore. Probably will rival them anytime soon and get some more feeding going for Katsinga.
Can't westernize yet at the moment. I could become a protectorate of Portugal though...
Also, I don't see any coalitions forming, not even close. Most of the vassals I had, I did it the friendly way.
Got 2 screenshots from where I stand now. It's non-ironmode though.
Zazzau circa 1528:
Air is a vassal, with another seven years or so on integration. I look something like a llama right now, but after the integration finishes I'll have more sensible borders.
Currently allied with Timbuktu. I was allies with Mali for awhile, but they're now my only valid rival, so that's that.
Things were slow for awhile -- had to recover a lot of manpower, and some ally defense wars stuck me in some truces. But I've doubled my territory since 1500, and that's not including the acquisition of Air. The opportunity came when Mossi and Kanem Bornu both invaded Air (with help from Timbuktu). I dishonored the offensive call from KB and charged Mossi, releasing Dahomey and taking most of their land, then used a mission against Air to vassalize them. After that it was one quick war after another to mop up KB, Mossi, Dahomey, and Yao, which I just completed at the time of this screenshot.
Portugal has been rather obnoxious (though predictable) with its colony placements thus far, but Castile just dropped one right onto my doorstep. Won't be too long before I can finally begin to westernize.
Next up: rebel whack-a-mole, then war with Mali to get next door to Castile. I have Admin tech up to 5, then went with Admin ideas (for reform and the cheaper techs to help catch up after westernizing). After that, it's a simple matter of kicking the Iberians off my continent! Not sure if I'll go Exploration or Expansion with the second group. Depends on how much opens up after I go western, I suppose.
This has been really fun so far! It's like a game within a game, an arena brawl that opens up to the world around the time you establish unquestioning dominance over your region. Zazzau was a bit of a blind choice, but I'm absolutely happy to recommend pretty much any nation in this region for a fun game.
Air is a vassal, with another seven years or so on integration. I look something like a llama right now, but after the integration finishes I'll have more sensible borders.
Currently allied with Timbuktu. I was allies with Mali for awhile, but they're now my only valid rival, so that's that.
Things were slow for awhile -- had to recover a lot of manpower, and some ally defense wars stuck me in some truces. But I've doubled my territory since 1500, and that's not including the acquisition of Air. The opportunity came when Mossi and Kanem Bornu both invaded Air (with help from Timbuktu). I dishonored the offensive call from KB and charged Mossi, releasing Dahomey and taking most of their land, then used a mission against Air to vassalize them. After that it was one quick war after another to mop up KB, Mossi, Dahomey, and Yao, which I just completed at the time of this screenshot.
Portugal has been rather obnoxious (though predictable) with its colony placements thus far, but Castile just dropped one right onto my doorstep. Won't be too long before I can finally begin to westernize.
Next up: rebel whack-a-mole, then war with Mali to get next door to Castile. I have Admin tech up to 5, then went with Admin ideas (for reform and the cheaper techs to help catch up after westernizing). After that, it's a simple matter of kicking the Iberians off my continent! Not sure if I'll go Exploration or Expansion with the second group. Depends on how much opens up after I go western, I suppose.
This has been really fun so far! It's like a game within a game, an arena brawl that opens up to the world around the time you establish unquestioning dominance over your region. Zazzau was a bit of a blind choice, but I'm absolutely happy to recommend pretty much any nation in this region for a fun game.
I guess having Katsina, Nupe and Kano +2 provinces of Oyo conquered and Oyo Αas a 2 province vassal by 1453 is too much to handle, not because of AE, which was fine, but rebels seem to appear all over the place! Restart.
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What I did was vassalise the muslims (can't convert them and low religious unity hurts) and conquer the animists.
If you want to go for Islam, I suggest annexing a Muslim country wholesale, but no more than one until you've actually converted.
Thank you. Playing almost exclusively european, and mostly big, countries, i rarely had such concerns, also being a complete noob didn't help much, but i guess that is what threads like this are about. Intriguing to try something, and helpful enough to become better in the game.
Tribal democracy reforms into a republic though so if you could switch to one just before doing so that would be really nice. Too bad. They also nerfed them in the new world since reforming your religion (at least as Mayan) causes you to lose the republic (tested with Zapotec --> Mayan).
I'm taking a break from this one to do a quick/easy Jihad run, but I'll be back most likely. I've never used Sokoto so I'll do that even though it'll probably mean that I wind up unifying Islam twice in a row ^_^.
I'm taking a break from this one to do a quick/easy Jihad run, but I'll be back most likely. I've never used Sokoto so I'll do that even though it'll probably mean that I wind up unifying Islam twice in a row ^_^.
The nation itself didn't really seem too hard to play as. Or maybe in Ironman it was. (?)
I made quite a lot of vassals. Feed Animist land to the Animist vassal, and feed Sunni to the Sunni.
Westernized at around 1610. Just went to war with Spain again to take some Africa land.
Leon also appeared. From what I saw from the start of the game is that Spain got beaten up by France a couple of times, probably made them release Leon.
Seems like I should've played in Ironman though, could've tried for an achievement.
Anyway, still somewhat years to go. I'd like to try to retake all of Africa or maybe get a few colonies in America. Not sure yet.
World as it is now:
I made quite a lot of vassals. Feed Animist land to the Animist vassal, and feed Sunni to the Sunni.
Westernized at around 1610. Just went to war with Spain again to take some Africa land.
Leon also appeared. From what I saw from the start of the game is that Spain got beaten up by France a couple of times, probably made them release Leon.
Seems like I should've played in Ironman though, could've tried for an achievement.
Anyway, still somewhat years to go. I'd like to try to retake all of Africa or maybe get a few colonies in America. Not sure yet.
World as it is now:
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Bizarre game! Looks like Leon swallowed Portugal in your game somehow. Iberian colonizers won't really threaten you at all. England is struggling, too. France could be a problem, except they look utterly disinterested in your part of the world. Ottomans are scary, but that only matters if you want to unify Africa.
Love that independent Brazil, too.
Love that independent Brazil, too.
I did get coalition smacked, over just Katsina (vassaled) and Nupe (full annexed). I annexed Oyo too but the Sunnis didn't care about that (mossi did, and helped their hated rival that took tons of provinces off them directly ffs) I needed a good 15 loans to deal with it. It didn't set me back as much as expected because I not only won the war, but was able to fleece a lot of money off future targets to cover the loans.
Mewar,Lan na, Malacca would be fun options for the next one!
I haven't had time to do a zazzau run, probably tomorrow
I haven't had time to do a zazzau run, probably tomorrow
So, I dug the game out again after taking a break for a while. Behold Zazzau at the turn of 1600
As previously mentioned, this playthrough I unified the sub-saharan area by 1485 or so and westernized in 1514. After that, I went on an expansion hiatus for another 40 years because I had no CBs except against Portugal - which had a PU over Castile, Aragon and Naples and was a bit much to swallow. After unlocking my first idea, which went to Exploration so that I could colonize corridors to start expanding again, I took Kongo as a protectorate and started slowly gobbling up their territory. The first war with Portugal was mostly for staging. I took the Ivory Coast colonies, large parts of Brazil, and Murcia as a staging ground for Iberia. I also attacked Morocco and Tunis, and created vassals Tafilalt and Fezzan there, but still haven't got around to feeding them properly yet.
The next war, in the 1570-80s, was fought mostly on Spanish soil, where I had put two stacks with 20k each, but it was quite a slog because Aragon's armies were a level advanced compared to mine (lvl 15, so 1 morale difference). At least the Portuguese sat on low Prestige and lost their PUs when their king died. I took most of Portugal to prepare for annexing them and taking over their colonial nations. The war drained my manpower completely and then some, and pushed me 1000 ducats into debt, so to recover I set my sights on the New World to relieve some natives of the piles of gold they're always sitting on and get some colonial nations for merchants and increased force limits. I also got Kilwa as a protectorate and immediately took over their most valuable provinces.
As for the current status, I'm making about 100 ducats per month with 1600 in the bank, and am financing level 3 advisors by deficit spending. My army has a total size of 84k, 60k in three main army stacks (8/4/8) and the rest in some smaller armies to defend colonies against natives and hunt for the seven cities. My navy is at 65, about half transports, 10 heavy ships and the rest light ships currently pirating Genoa. I am currently gearing up for another war against Iberia, who are in a nefarious alliance once again, during which I intend to annex Portugal and take La Mancha and Seville from Castile. Long-term, I want to take over Sevilla and perhaps Genoa to collect the New World trade more efficiently, which is currently taken in the Caribbean at a low efficiency. My tech levels are 11/13/16, I finished Exploration and Administrative and have the first two Offensive ideas. My current ruler is 4/2/5, his heir a slightly unfortunate 4/2/1 (I had a better heir, but got a hunting accident, now my ruler is too old to gamble for a new heir, or I'll risk a regency). I am at 912 base dev, which will probably go over 1000 after the next war with Iberia, finally unlocking empire status.
As for the state of the world, there are a few things of note to report
The PLC and Russia are blobbing like normal, but the Ottomans failed and were beaten repeatedly by Genoa and the Emperor (Bohemia for the last couple elections, before that I don't know). France failed similarly. Both are still Great Powers, and I'm allied with the Ottomans because I decided having an ally with a navy in the Mediterranean would be useful - and to protect them from the Commonwealth should the need arise. Great Britain looks great here, but they actually went bankrupt some 30 years ago or so and still haven't fully recovered. They have a smallish army at 30000 and an almost non-existent navy (neither of my doing). This is also one of the first games where Denmark didn't fail but kept and integrated Norway, then blobbed their way through Sweden.
In the east, the situation is mostly defined by a bad-ass Ming and Bahmani. Followed by a united Japan about on the level of Denmark. Both Ming (14/15/13) and Bahmanis (12/15/13) are keeping up surprisingly well in the tech game, though they're a bit behind in military.
As for my future plans after the war with Iberia, I am probably going to expand into eastern Africa and continue conquering the New World for the goody gold and free merchants. I am also planning to feed North Africa to my vassals. After that, I'm going to start butting some heads in Europe, probably taking some land off France and Britain. Europe being overseas means that coring is nicely cheap there at -85% (-90% once I get Empire rank).
My next idea will be Influence for the AE reduction and cheaper integration (can't take an admin idea because I need to catch up a little in tech). For the one after that, I'm torn between Expansion and Religious. Expansion provides a nice CB in Asia, but I'm not sure I can finish the group quickly enough for that to be relevant. Deus Vult is just one idea in, and has more utility in Europe so I don't have to pay a ton of diplo points for every peace deal. What do you think?
As previously mentioned, this playthrough I unified the sub-saharan area by 1485 or so and westernized in 1514. After that, I went on an expansion hiatus for another 40 years because I had no CBs except against Portugal - which had a PU over Castile, Aragon and Naples and was a bit much to swallow. After unlocking my first idea, which went to Exploration so that I could colonize corridors to start expanding again, I took Kongo as a protectorate and started slowly gobbling up their territory. The first war with Portugal was mostly for staging. I took the Ivory Coast colonies, large parts of Brazil, and Murcia as a staging ground for Iberia. I also attacked Morocco and Tunis, and created vassals Tafilalt and Fezzan there, but still haven't got around to feeding them properly yet.
The next war, in the 1570-80s, was fought mostly on Spanish soil, where I had put two stacks with 20k each, but it was quite a slog because Aragon's armies were a level advanced compared to mine (lvl 15, so 1 morale difference). At least the Portuguese sat on low Prestige and lost their PUs when their king died. I took most of Portugal to prepare for annexing them and taking over their colonial nations. The war drained my manpower completely and then some, and pushed me 1000 ducats into debt, so to recover I set my sights on the New World to relieve some natives of the piles of gold they're always sitting on and get some colonial nations for merchants and increased force limits. I also got Kilwa as a protectorate and immediately took over their most valuable provinces.
As for the current status, I'm making about 100 ducats per month with 1600 in the bank, and am financing level 3 advisors by deficit spending. My army has a total size of 84k, 60k in three main army stacks (8/4/8) and the rest in some smaller armies to defend colonies against natives and hunt for the seven cities. My navy is at 65, about half transports, 10 heavy ships and the rest light ships currently pirating Genoa. I am currently gearing up for another war against Iberia, who are in a nefarious alliance once again, during which I intend to annex Portugal and take La Mancha and Seville from Castile. Long-term, I want to take over Sevilla and perhaps Genoa to collect the New World trade more efficiently, which is currently taken in the Caribbean at a low efficiency. My tech levels are 11/13/16, I finished Exploration and Administrative and have the first two Offensive ideas. My current ruler is 4/2/5, his heir a slightly unfortunate 4/2/1 (I had a better heir, but got a hunting accident, now my ruler is too old to gamble for a new heir, or I'll risk a regency). I am at 912 base dev, which will probably go over 1000 after the next war with Iberia, finally unlocking empire status.
As for the state of the world, there are a few things of note to report
The PLC and Russia are blobbing like normal, but the Ottomans failed and were beaten repeatedly by Genoa and the Emperor (Bohemia for the last couple elections, before that I don't know). France failed similarly. Both are still Great Powers, and I'm allied with the Ottomans because I decided having an ally with a navy in the Mediterranean would be useful - and to protect them from the Commonwealth should the need arise. Great Britain looks great here, but they actually went bankrupt some 30 years ago or so and still haven't fully recovered. They have a smallish army at 30000 and an almost non-existent navy (neither of my doing). This is also one of the first games where Denmark didn't fail but kept and integrated Norway, then blobbed their way through Sweden.
In the east, the situation is mostly defined by a bad-ass Ming and Bahmani. Followed by a united Japan about on the level of Denmark. Both Ming (14/15/13) and Bahmanis (12/15/13) are keeping up surprisingly well in the tech game, though they're a bit behind in military.
As for my future plans after the war with Iberia, I am probably going to expand into eastern Africa and continue conquering the New World for the goody gold and free merchants. I am also planning to feed North Africa to my vassals. After that, I'm going to start butting some heads in Europe, probably taking some land off France and Britain. Europe being overseas means that coring is nicely cheap there at -85% (-90% once I get Empire rank).
My next idea will be Influence for the AE reduction and cheaper integration (can't take an admin idea because I need to catch up a little in tech). For the one after that, I'm torn between Expansion and Religious. Expansion provides a nice CB in Asia, but I'm not sure I can finish the group quickly enough for that to be relevant. Deus Vult is just one idea in, and has more utility in Europe so I don't have to pay a ton of diplo points for every peace deal. What do you think?
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