Ottomans Advice

[roooo]

Ok so I'm currently doing a sort of world conquest run, I'm not that fussed if I don't make it as I've never really tried to do one before, but I'm wondering is it better to hold off fighting wars to get my diplo back on track in time for client states and imperialism? Currently all my wars cost me lots of diplo points so if i keep going I wont tech up again for the rest of the game. For ideas I have full admin, offensive, humanist, 5 of influence and 6 of quantity. My army is 760k with the next biggest being 130k.

 

[Sfan]

You're well on track for WC in terms of development owned, so you can delay it a bit and stay at peace, because that dip is a disaster. Focus on dip, get level 5 dip advisor and stay at peace for a while. You can use that to strengthen your economy, it is a bit worrying that you have so little money in the bank at the stage of the game (you don't need to fill all your FL so early in the game, wait Imperialism to fight multiple wars at once). Also try to see if you can't push PP over 50 somehow (is Ming/Russia still rivals?).
You don't seem to have a lot of vassals from what I see (but it's hard to judge here), and you have a lazy diplomat. Reconquest wars of tags who might have disappeared (typically the likes of Novgorod, Lithuania, Hungary and Delhi/Jaunpur Bahmanis/Vijay depending on who won) are the best way to avoid paying extra dip before Imperialism, and forge claims all the time if you did not get Religious. Imperialism will not only make wars cost 0 dip, it will also reduce warcost for provinces. So does diplomatic, that's why you usually need it too to WC (instead of 2 military groups early which is a waste, you clearly did not quantity here to outnumber everyone). By not having diplomatic and Imperialism, you basically need twice as many wars, and by being so behind in dip tech you make vassals disloyal.

 

[roooo]

Yeah I figured waiting would be the right option as I've just fought like 4 wars versus ming and tributaries and its just destroyed my diplo. I know going diplo would be good but I didn't start this as a WC attempt, I just got an early timurids as a vassal and fed them most of their cores back. Thanks for the advice

 

[ArzhurG]

Make sure that you finish Influence before you annex any vassal. You also have admin ideas so you can take the policy to reduce annexation costs, saving time and diplo points. Annexation would best be left for after you get diplo tech 21 anyways.

Also when you tech up consider waiting until you have reached the limit of diplo points which you can store. Then take as many techs as possible as the neighbour bonus stays until you unpause.

Finally try to get 100% spy network in any nation that has the highest diplo tech so that you gain another 5% discount per tech that you are behind them.

 

[bly08]

Take some time to figure out trade, more than half of your merchants should be collecting in rich nodes. Transfer only when you're transferring to high trade power nodes and preferably close to your home node. I'm guessing you should be making 1.5x to 2x more from trade with the right setup.

 

[roooo]

Really? I seem to have 96% control of constantinople and the trade flows pretty much uncontested to there with my merchants. Im making 335 ducats from trade with a net balance of +132.2 with 195 going on corruption

 

[bly08]

If you can take screenshots of your trade mapmode with the trade power shown in every important node I can help. Or upload the save assuming you have no mods.

 

[Sfan]

With that situaion, I'd also say that steering all the way makes sense, but the income is low for someone who owns all of India and substantial parts of SEA. Maybe a lack of manufactories because you overinvested in the army? +132,2 is rather low, I usually aim for +250 in 1700 to sustain WC, but that may be because i'm lazy and i don't want to micro everything late game because I already find it too boring, so I end up losing quite a lot of money to attrition and careless wipes.

 

[bly08]

There is really no scenario where steering all the way make sense unless your home node is the English Channel and you've conquered Europe piece by piece upstream, or you've conquered the whole world and have 99% TP in every node.

 

[roooo]

OK ive ticked a little bit and corruptions back at 0 and im making +234 balance.

 

[roooo]

Heres the economy tab also

 

[bly08]

Try transfer from Aleppo, transfer from Persia, transfer from Basra to Persia. Collect at Goa, transfer from Ceylon to Goa, transfer from Bengal, transfer from Malacca. Show Zanzibar and European nodes. Your #1 priority is to kill Mewar.

 

[roooo]

Ok that seems to have lowered my trade income a bit. I don't use any mods so heres a copy of the save. Also yeah mewar is my vassal but as my dip is so horrific ive just gone and taken a couple provinces from him and released him, ill eat him when the truce is up

 

[giovdb]

You can demolish some of those forts in India. Don't need that many. That will help lower your expenses. Same thing with the 3 back to back forts in East Africa.

Do you have Absolutism maxed? If, not, take this time to raise it. Easiest way IMO is to Accept demands of Particularist rebels and then lower Autonomy in 1000 development worth of provinces. The bonuses are HUGE. Also consider going revolutionary in 1710ish. The amount of land you can take from both of these is truly absurd.

 

[giovdb]

In case you didn't know, this is what a peace deal looks like with Revolutionary Target modifier, and 80% Absolutism (need to do the Court and Country disaster, which I didn't do, to get to 100% with a Republic... One of my regrets in my current game).

 

[bly08]

I reassigned some of the merchants, organized the estates and deleted most of the forts. Transferring is mostly better at this point still but you really need to kill Mewar asap. Stacks should fill frontline CW at 34 at this point. Don't need more than 2 cavs per stack or any at all. When more money comes in build manufactories in all provinces with more than +.50 income. Build more regiments up to your force limit, Build heavy ships in both the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean stacks. WC should be no problem. One faith may be close. Keep your estates happy, when burghers get to 50% loyalty demand money from them.

 

[Sfan]

There is really no scenario where steering all the way make sense unless your home node is the English Channel and you've conquered Europe piece by piece upstream, or you've conquered the whole world and have 99% TP in every node.

Could you explain why it is better to collect in several places when you own Malacca - Bengal - Ceylon - Goa - Indus - Hormuz - Basra - Aleppo - Constantinople (and also Aden so Zanzibar is weak)? Isn't the bonus from steering insanely higher than what you lose in some marginal places. You're practically doubling the original money by steering in 8 nodes, right? Care to elaborate? You probably don't say that without reasons, but I would have instinctively guessed trade income would be signficantly lower by cutting the exponential steer bonus (I may overvalue it though), and OP confirms it did.

Edit: Well, it seems you checked the save and came to the same conclusion.

 

[bly08]

Could you explain why it is better to collect in several places when you own Malacca - Bengal - Ceylon - Goa - Indus - Hormuz - Basra - Aleppo - Constantinople (and also Aden so Zanzibar is weak)? Isn't the bonus from steering insanely higher than what you lose in some marginal places. You're practically doubling the original money by steering in 8 nodes, right? Care to elaborate? You probably don't say that without reasons, but I would have instinctively guessed trade income would be signficantly lower by cutting the exponential steer bonus (I may overvalue it though), and OP confirms it did.

Edit: Well, it seems you checked the save and came to the same conclusion.

I don't mean to collect in every node, but you only need 5 merchants to get max steering bonus. The bonus you lose by collecting in another node away from home node is the transfer bonus, not the steering bonus. The transfer bonus only affects trade power which is usually negligible. As a general rule of thumb, if you're not transferring to a node with 85%+ trade power, don't transfer, collect. The trade power lost from collecting isn't nearly enough to make up for the trade value lost.

In this situation he has 40+ ships protecting two end nodes which adds a lot of trade power. 40 is overkill, I deleted half of those ships.

Test in console to see what I mean.

 

[Sfan]

I thought it only increased in effectiveness up to the fifth merchant, but the sixth was as valuable as the fifth, and not not valuable at all? Am I getting this wrong?
I agree for ships at this point, however, and for figures, but I assume he has more than 85% in any of the nodes along the way with his situation, that's why I'm surprised you suggested to collect.

 

[bly08]

Yes, 5 merchants give max steering bonus to 11.3%, but a 6th merchant in the same chain still adds the same 11.3% to incoming trade value in that node. Thus unless there's already a transferring merchant present in the node from another tag, it's best to put the transferring merchants as close to the end nodes as possible so that the 11.3% is applied to the largest incoming trade value.

However, without dominant trade power ex. 80-85%+, preferably more, the trade value lost does not make up for the trade value gained from the steering bonus. Thus collecting in those nodes despite the trade power lost in all nodes is better than transferring.