Let's All Play Together: Lan Na! Community Nation Discovery

[TheMeInTeam]

Portugal probably has Fernando Po. If they don't have anything in South Africa, they haven't explored to you yet.

Dump a colony near Fernando Po, claim it, and land a stack there that is larger than their #transports. Sit there until you can take it, then westernize.

 

[net.split]

B) You say the Ottomans are rolling, have they westernized or are they closing in on a city that will give them free westernization?
C) If Castile is in West Africa, it's time to head there. Alternatively you could go to South America, but that'll take awhile.
D) Get fleet basing rights and explore your way into the Med. If you can either take some land around the Red Sea or keep working around Africa you can get coring range and hopefully find an easy target. North Africa might even have some Iberian countries or leftover cores

As a side note, be sure to check the West African nations to see if any of them have westernized. If the Spaniard moved inland at all or lost provinces back to them, they might be. If you have to take a province off Castile though, remember to pick a war goal that you can actually manage. No CB on a West African might be doable, but probably not on an Iberian

No one has westernized, not even Poland. I considered a Middle East approach since I can actually see that direction (and Persia already collapsed into Iraq and other splinter states), but I'd have to conquer all the way to Genoa (Crimea), and I'm not certain I can manage that.

West Africa is where I'd like to go, but I'm having trouble reaching it. My DIP tech is low (seriously bad rulers for awhile), so my colonial range is terrible (240). I was trying to avoid going all the way around Africa initially to leave some room for Iberians to reach the area, but after the cheat-peak I can see that it'll probably be close to 50 years before they make it there. I can probably reach them faster.

As for Ming, be sure to focus MIL and have your better advisor there. Get ahead in tech. In my Ajuuraan game, regimental camps have really helped me get in position to handle my little Turk problem. They cost some money, but one force limit each does add up. I'd also think about Korea or anyone to their north. If you can get them to split up their armies you can deal with them in small groups. They'll also waste loads of time trying to run between the two extremes.

Yeah, I'll probably have to do this. I tried to avoid focusing MIL so I could get my DIP tech up to par (and to try to get Exploration and Expansion ideas moved farther along), but at this point I can no longer afford to lag behind.

Income wise I can probably choose only two of: army at force limits, +2 mil advisor, and 3 concurrent colonies. Though I feel like I'm on the verge of being able to afford all three. Maybe if I hurry and blitz Khmer then that'll give me just enough...

Portugal probably has Fernando Po. If they don't have anything in South Africa, they haven't explored to you yet.

Dump a colony near Fernando Po, claim it, and land a stack there that is larger than their #transports. Sit there until you can take it, then westernize.

Just gotta get some exploration range to be able to reach it. I was surprised that colonizing Cape didn't give me any new exploration missions. I'm going to have to hop all the way around, which will take a few more years.

From the cheat-screen I actually don't think they had the island yet. Just one coastal province west of it. But maybe they will by the time I can get up there.


Thanks for the advice! This has been quite an entertaining game so far, my first foray into the region (as a starting point).

 

[TheMeInTeam]

DIP 3 can't reach to ivory coast from Cape, if you have DIP 7 though something is wrong.

 

[josh127]

Could always lose to them and give them your South Africa province. Problem is, unless they've started colonizing in the area I'm not sure if they would red thumb down it. I'd hate to fight the war (and trigger them seeing my capital) just to have them not interested.

 

[net.split]

I am at DIP 7.

Hmm. Could be an issue that requires reloading (had a couple weird things like this so far where something that was available wouldn't actually show until I reloaded the game). Though it's more likely to be user error, and I tried it before Cape finished.

I'll try again. Thanks for the note.

 

[Peachrocks]

I am at DIP 7.

Hmm. Could be an issue that requires reloading (had a couple weird things like this so far where something that was available wouldn't actually show until I reloaded the game). Though it's more likely to be user error, and I tried it before Cape finished.

I'll try again. Thanks for the note.

I was at dip 3 until well after Westernisation, vassals and diplomatic ideas are fun . I went to Kongos borders then bordered Benin to get my Western neighbor, I don't know but I think bordering Fernando Po was enough to Westernise because I didn't see any other western border, unless Benin counted, which it may have, they were Western and I was backwards in Dip tech. 'Better Diplomatic technology then Lan Na', yeah and this matters because? Ugh... stupid arbitrary nonsense....

 

[net.split]

I can't even see Kongo (that second screenshot is the extent of what it'll let me explore). How did you get there with DIP 3?

 

[Peachrocks]

You need to wait for colonies to complete of course before you can explore further but I just chained my way up there.

 

[net.split]

Right, of course.

Keep forgetting that I was intentionally avoiding chaining up that side because I was foolishly waiting on Portugal to come to me.

Time for a policy change.

 

[alpaca]

Right, of course.

Keep forgetting that I was intentionally avoiding chaining up that side because I was foolishly waiting on Portugal to come to me.

Time for a policy change.

They don't even come to discover. Initially, I thought you might be able to wait for them to come explore, which would give them Goa, but that doesn't really pan out (or they refused). I was finally able to westernize in 1609, which isn't great but not terrible for a game without exploration, from a province I took off Venice in Asia Minor.

 

[Peachrocks]

Right, of course.

Keep forgetting that I was intentionally avoiding chaining up that side because I was foolishly waiting on Portugal to come to me.

Time for a policy change.

Playing in the Americas (north and south) enough has taught me waiting for Europe to do anything is folly.

 

[Vlorious]

So - I restarted after the patch. I decided I was still trying to figure out the new mechanisms and deal with how kid-gloves I had to treat my vassals. And I liked starting with 1 more tech.

I opened with invading Tuaga and their ally Hsienwa and didn't call my allies. After that I was able to get the jump on taking actual land on at war Ava (at war with that small guy to the north) and Lan Xing (at war with Ayuth). Eventually this chained and I was able to take advantage of all of my neighbors one by one, allowing my alliances to break and taking them out in turn - although the war against Khmer was their fault for siding with Pegu. I'm down to just a one province Champa (currently sieged) and a two province Khmer (on a timer) and the two countries at the base of the peninsula (Malacca and whomever) before I own everything in "SE Asia".

I opened with Exploration, founded a couple of colonies (working the third next to Siak for future claims), and am on the last available exploration mission. I should be able to colonize San Diego next to make the jump to Africa. Once I do that I'll work towards 1) westernization and 2) taking those African gold mines.

My single Hindu province finally revolted and the rebels have converted a couple of provinces now. I desperately want to not be Buddhist anymore. I have to be careful because my vassals - Da Viet, Xi, Suyer.., and Lit are all extemely eager to take those provinces back. Which means the rebels go back instead of heading towards my capital. I've never handled a conversion like this so its a bit strange to be trying to led armies around this tiny little rebel force - if I run into them I'll have to start the whole thing over again. It would probably be easier to go Sunni but I really want to play Hindu and maybe go Sikh. Kind of sick of Sunni after those Golden Horde runs.

These pics are just before I invade Kachar, Koch, Nepal, and Assam - taking most of their lands and stretching my Kingdom towards the Timurids. I figured breaking north around India may be easier then taking on Bengal and all of their allies.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Sikh is awful compared to Hindu unless you don't have DLC for Hindu deities, then they're both kind of bad. If you can spare the prestige and have an inquisitor or theologian you can switch to Sikh for about 1 day to take the +3 conversion power decision, then accept Hindu demands though. That way you have 5% strength from decisions (or 7-8% if you started Buddhist and took those too).

Sunni still converts better because you have DotF and never have to convert Sunni provinces, which are the bulk of what can possibly be difficult to convert. Hindu is better-constructed for tolerance, if you didn't pick "enforced heritage". +1 extra heathen tolerance means you are at 100% unity with only heathen provinces with full humanist and 100 legitimacy, though you can't guarantee 100 legitimacy. Even so, most of the time you'll have some Hindu land so you don't need that.

I suppose a semi-viable alternative for Hindu is to pick out nations in a culture group with a tiny number of cores, convert + release. They'll take a movement support so you can get an extra missionary with 4% strength and no wrong-culture resistance, not great but can often convert the 100 or 300 dev thresholds before you annex them or most of it if they're not Islamic provinces being converted...but the Islamic nations often take religious so you can feed Persia to something like a converted Khorasan or Haasa or Hormuz and let them take care of that instead. West Africa sucks though, not many realistic feed options there, maybe Benin since they take religious.

For horde lands use Kara Del or Sarig Yogir. Tartar stuff won't have much in the way of good options.

 

[alpaca]

Sikh is awful compared to Hindu unless you don't have DLC for Hindu deities, then they're both kind of bad. If you can spare the prestige and have an inquisitor or theologian you can switch to Sikh for about 1 day to take the +3 conversion power decision, then accept Hindu demands though. That way you have 5% strength from decisions (or 7-8% if you started Buddhist and took those too).

Sunni still converts better because you have DotF and never have to convert Sunni provinces, which are the bulk of what can possibly be difficult to convert. Hindu is better-constructed for tolerance, if you didn't pick "enforced heritage". +1 extra heathen tolerance means you are at 100% unity with only heathen provinces with full humanist and 100 legitimacy, though you can't guarantee 100 legitimacy. Even so, most of the time you'll have some Hindu land so you don't need that.

I suppose a semi-viable alternative for Hindu is to pick out nations in a culture group with a tiny number of cores, convert + release. They'll take a movement support so you can get an extra missionary with 4% strength and no wrong-culture resistance, not great but can often convert the 100 or 300 dev thresholds before you annex them or most of it if they're not Islamic provinces being converted...but the Islamic nations often take religious so you can feed Persia to something like a converted Khorasan or Haasa or Hormuz and let them take care of that instead. West Africa sucks though, not many realistic feed options there, maybe Benin since they take religious.

For horde lands use Kara Del or Sarig Yogir. Tartar stuff won't have much in the way of good options.

Don't released countries go back to whatever they had before ceasing to exist since some patches ago rather than adopting the faith of the capital?

In my game, I made the mistake of taking enforced heritage and now have serious problems to convert stuff fast enough because I only have 1 missionary (can't afford to put the points into religious right now, although I did take DV, but I really want to pick up coring cost reduction because I need to get my gig together in Europe). It's really annoying me right now how those Sunni dudes can get like 2 more missionaries just for the holy cities plus also get DotF, so you have like +3 missionaries and their provinces are +2% harder to convert for you. Might try the Sikh idea, I wasn't aware of that. There's too much hidden information in the game in decisions and missions that are seriously powerful...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Released nations go by what their cores are in terms of faith. They count their "original" faith double, so if you have more than 2/3 of a nation's cores converted before releasing them, they will be your faith instead. For nations like Persia that's completely impractical; you might as well feed them Shia or just conquer/core the whole thing. For nations like Huai, Haasa, Hormuz, Sarig Yogir, Kara Del, Manchu, etc who have only 1-4 cores lying around, however, converting these cores and releasing + feeding them into 300 development offers a real improvement in your overall religious conversion speed.

Generic pagans and Sikh are particularly awful for vassal feed conversions; these guys virtually never use their missionary strength decision and as a result can't convert for crap...and you yourself have crummy strength as well. If you're really rich you can carpet cathedrals or something, but you'll never get more than 3 missionaries in most cases, they're just utterly non-viable converter faiths and you wind up almost forced into humanist.

But they're still better than Buddhism.

 

[alpaca]

Released nations go by what their cores are in terms of faith. They count their "original" faith double, so if you have more than 2/3 of a nation's cores converted before releasing them, they will be your faith instead. For nations like Persia that's completely impractical; you might as well feed them Shia or just conquer/core the whole thing. For nations like Huai, Haasa, Hormuz, Sarig Yogir, Kara Del, Manchu, etc who have only 1-4 cores lying around, however, converting these cores and releasing + feeding them into 300 development offers a real improvement in your overall religious conversion speed.

Generic pagans and Sikh are particularly awful for vassal feed conversions; these guys virtually never use their missionary strength decision and as a result can't convert for crap...and you yourself have crummy strength as well. If you're really rich you can carpet cathedrals or something, but you'll never get more than 3 missionaries in most cases, they're just utterly non-viable converter faiths and you wind up almost forced into humanist.

But they're still better than Buddhism.

Thanks for the explanation. Well said about Buddhism, Hindu is a damn sight better than that what with the option of getting Shiva for the -10% coring cost and the missions to educate your ruler a little. I'm still toying with the thought of switching to Sunni (haven't converted any Sunni territory yet) once I conquered those holy cities, but switching would also be seriously painful for a 2k dev country, and my vassals would probably wipe out the zealot rebels, so I'm very likely not going to do it.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Even with losing less karma/dow, once you're even a little bit past the opening phase of the game there's no way to keep karma high without dragging down your expansion rate. As it's tuned presently it's still the trash tier junk faith, most useful for its conversion power decision then switching ASAP.

Humanist hindu isn't great compared to religious but you can work it by stacking up influence + rivals and using the reduced claim time to focus claims on non-rivals for the DIP discount. Influence finisher + despotic monarchy + rival is -93% DIP cost (probably caps at 90%), so you can feed vassals or take land off rivals for 1 DIP/dev, while making claims faster. Even so, careful feeding practice with religion flops via planning it out with religious might be better, but for Hindu humanist is so CONVENIENT .

 

[Peachrocks]

Generic pagans and Sikh are particularly awful for vassal feed conversions; these guys virtually never use their missionary strength decision and as a result can't convert for crap...and you yourself have crummy strength as well. If you're really rich you can carpet cathedrals or something, but you'll never get more than 3 missionaries in most cases, they're just utterly non-viable converter faiths and you wind up almost forced into humanist.

But they're still better than Buddhism.

I love that, you listed several bad features about these religions then end with 'They're still better than Buddhism' because that's how bad it honestly is @_@. I know people play this game differently but geez... lol.

 

[Vlorious]

It strikes me that every holy group should have a Mecca or Rome.

Regardless - converting is hard work. If I go Sikh, it will just be for the decision and then force my way back. ... Would I allow myself to get "forced" to Hindu through rebel demands and then Sikh and then have to respawn rebels?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

It strikes me that every holy group should have a Mecca or Rome.

Regardless - converting is hard work. If I go Sikh, it will just be for the decision and then force my way back. ... Would I allow myself to get "forced" to Hindu through rebel demands and then Sikh and then have to respawn rebels?

Considering that your primary culture stuff is Hindu, you'd have zealot rebels you could accept basically instantly. Of course, this can be a little hard on the prestige.