Need help with Mare Nostrum achievment

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Lachrymology

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HWEtGoj.jpg


I'm currently trying a Florence-Tuscany-Italy-Roman Empire game. So far it has been tons of fun. But now I'm facing stiff resistance. My only real ally is France and currently the ruler is malevolent and does not join in wars. Austria is allies with Bohemia and Great Britain. Ottomans are too strong do defeat all by myself and Spain is difficult because I lack CB to expand. I'm only progressing in Africa, which is slow because of truces. So I'm looking for advice hot to expand my borders in this game. I'm also looking for general advice, because I usually don't play super-aggressive in this game.

Thanks :)
 

CosmicChronos

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Thats fine, claim Baleares and attack Aragon-Castille, you can probably win that war, then take the Baleares and some other provinces if you want(they will cost you extra admin tho), then you are basically set to conquer Iberia

EDIT: Can you ally Russia? they like to go to war with the Ottomans
 
Last edited:

Lachrymology

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EDIT: Can you ally Russia? they like to go to war with the Ottomans
I have to try. But I'll try to bite a bit of Spain right now. Works better than I anticipated. But I'll see what I can do with Russia, thanks.

What is Ottos attitude towards you? Either they or Morocco might ally you if you are rivaled to Spain and/or Austria.
Well I am trying to conquer Morocco soon, since they are weak compared to my armies. But maybe I can ally Ottomans to fight Austria, hmm...
 

Brynjar

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Morocco looks like a sweet target. Getting those sweet Portugese centers of trade in the Sevilla trade node is always good.

Then there is always best CB (no CB), Kiev, Poland, GB and Netherlands could all be potential targets if you have a decent fleet. Just make sure you have the range to core, and watch out for AE (especially if Netherlands is part of the HRE).
 

Lachrymology

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War against Castile/Aragon worked out pretty well. I faced zero resistance on their part for some reason and I took a good bite in Iberia and am ready to munch more in the coming years, so thanks guys. Currently it looks like this (note how many allies Austria has, woa...):

P9TyutC.jpg


Is that Byzantium on Cyprus?
Yeah and I have no idea how that happend. :D
 

Badesumofu

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How's your Absolutism? Main aim should be getting that as high as you can around this time of the game. Keep eating Iberia to expand your powerbase. I'd grab Diplomatic ideas next. That -20% WS cost for provinces is great along with everything else that group provides.
 

Bibor

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Your first goal should be to get up to 1000 developement, if you didn't already get that. That frees up accepted culture slots that should be used on future Greek and Turkic culture. Helps with rebellions and conversions.

You should have two short-term goals - getting the same dynasty as France and securing Greece and Anatolia (beating the Ottomans).

Dealing with Africa, Iberia or the few provinces in Russia and Austria is a waste of precious time. By the late game, you can annex Iberia in 2-3 wars. The other provinces you need can be gained in pretty much one war each (London, Yorkshire, Zeeland, Vienna etc.)

In the first war against Ottomans you should take the 5 provinces around Sea of Marmara. This not only cuts Ottoman income by a hefty sum, but it also enables you to accept Turkish and Greek. Keep the truce timers as short as possible. Between wars with the Ottoman, take the rest of Mamluks and work on the African coast. This will also help you concentrate your forces in East.
If you can't get a PU over France by 1700, you should ditch the alliance and work simultaneously on Iberia and France.

By the looks of your map, you can also probably vassalize Portugal when you get to Imperialism CB and feed back its cores in Iberia (use the return province button so the Moroccan cores get removed upon transfer). You can also release Catalonia and do a quick war to return its cores. The same is true for Mamluks, Syria and Greece, since they never lose their cores.
 

Brynjar

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Those borders makes me cringe. At least you could have taken Valencia. The Portugese province owned by Castille (Evora?) would also have been a good choice for claims on Lisboa and Sevilla, as well as improved coring range and deploying troops before a war against Morocco.

In eu4, inner beauty is usually better than looks.
 

Lachrymology

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How's your Absolutism? Main aim should be getting that as high as you can around this time of the game. Keep eating Iberia to expand your powerbase. I'd grab Diplomatic ideas next. That -20% WS cost for provinces is great along with everything else that group provides.
Honestly I haven't seen the Absolutism function until now. I haven't played EU4 in a while and it's mostly 0 because I usually increase autonomy after conquering.

Your first goal should be to get up to 1000 developement, if you didn't already get that. That frees up accepted culture slots that should be used on future Greek and Turkic culture. Helps with rebellions and conversions.

You should have two short-term goals - getting the same dynasty as France and securing Greece and Anatolia (beating the Ottomans).

Dealing with Africa, Iberia or the few provinces in Russia and Austria is a waste of precious time. By the late game, you can annex Iberia in 2-3 wars. The other provinces you need can be gained in pretty much one war each (London, Yorkshire, Zeeland, Vienna etc.)

In the first war against Ottomans you should take the 5 provinces around Sea of Marmara. This not only cuts Ottoman income by a hefty sum, but it also enables you to accept Turkish and Greek. Keep the truce timers as short as possible. Between wars with the Ottoman, take the rest of Mamluks and work on the African coast. This will also help you concentrate your forces in East.
If you can't get a PU over France by 1700, you should ditch the alliance and work simultaneously on Iberia and France.

By the looks of your map, you can also probably vassalize Portugal when you get to Imperialism CB and feed back its cores in Iberia (use the return province button so the Moroccan cores get removed upon transfer). You can also release Catalonia and do a quick war to return its cores. The same is true for Mamluks, Syria and Greece, since they never lose their cores.
That's some solid advice. The thing with the Ottomans is that I lack allies that would go to war against them. France is friends with Ottomans and I don't have any other allies atm. Russia doesn't like me for some reason. And I don't think I can take Ottomans by myself. Their army is 3 times the size of mine.
 

Bibor

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The thing with the Ottomans is that I lack allies that would go to war against them. France is friends with Ottomans and I don't have any other allies atm. Russia doesn't like me for some reason. And I don't think I can take Ottomans by myself. Their army is 3 times the size of mine.

For Roman Empire you need all of Balkans, Greece, Anatolia and Mashriq. Just clicking once on all these provinces would take me 15 minutes.

You have both Admin and Influence ideas and you are Italy, so monarch points won't be an issue.

They might have three times the army, but so do Ming when you first invade them. However, your choice of Offensive idea group is wrong. Instead, you want either Defensive, Quality or Quantity. You can probably skip Quantity as, by now, you should probably have enough income to plant a +1 forcelimit building everywhere. That's 30+ forcelimits hiding right there.

Quality is a solid choice because it provides you with +25 % infantry combat ability from the very first idea (10 from quality, 15 from italy). However, to skip the morale bonus from Defensive, you need a healthy influx of reinforcements in large battles, luckily you have +10 % from Plutocratic.

Provided the Ottomans have no other significant allies (if you declare some dummy war into which you can drag France into), your setup should revolve around two things:
First, you want to lock down your provinces you want to defend: forts in mountains and hills so their armies can't enter Italy. If you want to defend in Maghreb, your fort is in the wrong spot - the original position, the one you deleted, is superior (one province South West from current fort).
Second, you want to have a navy that can beat the ottoman navy: 30 heavies, 90 galleys, an admiral. You probably will need to do this only once, since the AI doesn't prioritize navies that much, so feel free to go way above the forcelimit and cut down after the first war (but not by more than 30 %).

The first war will take a long time, so feel free to take time to prepare. It might be useful to drill up armies to max, but it's not mandatory. The target province you should declare for is either Corfu or Naxos (can't see if you control Crete or not), one of the islands you can fabricate on. Naxos is a better choice because it doesn't have a fort and is in Aegean sea. Once you siege it down, prevent ottoman armies from reclaiming it. This leaves the Ottomans with no choice but to go for your lands. The most likely point of their attempts is Friuli or Maghreb, the better option is Friuli (so try getting passage from Austria once the war starts to force this).

What you need to do is stackwipe around a third of their troops, I presume that's around 100K. For that, you'll need 20-30k more troops (to have around 120k). The first few battles will be the worst and probably won't be stackwipes, but if you do this by defending your forts in the hills/mountains, you shouldn't lose more than 40K men. This leaves you with 80K manpower to rout their returning armies in the plains of Hungary and siege down a few forts in Greece (including Constantinople). Keep your army in two stacks of 60K (or 3 of 40K) and stackwipe their returning siege armies. Once they have around 180-200K, make your way (fort by fort) though Romania and Bulgaria to Constantinople.
During this time, your navy should keep defending your sieged down target province and preventing naval transports from reaching your lands. Once your armies reach Constantinople, the navy should be split between Sea of Marmara and Aegean. Feel free to spend 100 mil points on breaching the walls on these two forts, but take them 1 by 1, not two simultaneously.
If you siege down Edirne and Constantinople, you're in the clear. Even if the Ottomans still have 100K troops in Greece you should be able to rout them and stackwipe them.

By this point, you should be sitting at solid zero manpower, while the Ottomans will have around 50k manpower and around 180-200 K men (of which 30-50K are newly built units). But they can't reach you. Your aim is to siege down enough forts in Greece (with zero manpower) to get to around 60 % warscore. Take Constantinople, Edirne and/or, if possible, attack Ragusa while ottomans can't defend them and create a 1-province corridor that links Dalmatia, Ragusa and Montenegro with Edirne and Constantinople. It might also be worth it to sacrifice 10% warscore and get annul treaties with France.

Your next war should be vs. Mamluks (vassalize if possible) to take Upper Egypt and for your next war vs Ottomans you should really work on your diplomacy :)

EDIT:
Composition suggestions:
Combat width: 32
Army comp: 30/2/28
Total number of armies: 2 (120k)

Naval combat width: 33 (coastal) +3 per admiral maneuver pip.
Heavy ship width: 3
Galley width: 1
Total width (presuming 1 manevuer pip): 36
Naval comp: 8 heavies (24 width), 12 galleys
Total number of fleets: 4 (32 heavies, 48 galleys), 30-40 extra light ships or galleys.
 
Last edited:

Lachrymology

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Wow. Really great advice. Thank you.
I actually went ahead and declared war on the Ottomans, although I took other provinces due to RP reasons.
It was surprisingly easy because of my superior armies and I was able to stack-wipe entire armies. But I was not able to defeat all their armies. But still, you were right, my forces were more than a match for the Ottoman masses.

Maybe I should switch to Quality even though my Offensive is maxed out?

My current status in the game is this:
(still no PU with France tho)
f9fE3f4.jpg
 

Bibor

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Maybe I should switch to Quality even though my Offensive is maxed out?

That would be a waste of points. Your next idea should probably be another military idea. By the time you are tackling France (if the PU option fails), you'll probably be sitting at 30 % or more siege ability, so forts won't be that much of a problem. I'd suggest going Quality next for even more discipline and those crazy levels of combat ability.

Just don't forget that if you turn on France you want Ottomans to be a non-factor or they'll ally France again. I'd leave France for last.

It makes sense both from the game and RP perspective to secure the holy sites next - Middle East / Jerusalem, Alexandria and Constantinople and liberate/release nations under the Ottoman yoke (Mamluks, Syrians etc). That was the plan historically as well. Releasing and feeding Mamluks/Syirans is basically an "early Lawrence of Arabia".

I won't tell you how to RP, but... you're RPing a future Roman Emperor. Someone who would be embarrased if not holding Jerusalem, Greece, Egypt and Anatolia, undisputed Roman territory.
 
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Lachrymology

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Well I had to RP and conquer Constantinople. The city has just fallen two centuries earlier.
Anyway. Beating up Ottomans is quite fun, but my play is somehow slow and I'm playing against the clock now.
Austria is somehow too damn strong. With Russia as an ally I can't beat them, even with France.
I also noticed that I lose so many troops to attrition.

So... Is the goal still possible with the race against the clock?
Any advice would be most welcome. You guys have helped me a lot and I learned a lot in conquest focused games.

2Lh1PHu.jpg
 

Sian

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Given that you need to eat all of France, rest of Castile, parts of Austria (both their 'Yuguslavian' lands and Wien) and 2-3 wars worth of Ottoman ... It's going to be tight