Playing without westernising (DW 5.2)

[PrawnStar]

It does sound like an interesting challenge to AAR if you ask me

 

[digital_soda]

I may have an experiement with Malacca and cannon heavy armies...

On a related note, asside from having to rebuild every time you want to upgrade, what are the disadvantages of using troops built from foriegn cores (ie Timurids using Ottoman troops)?

One of my favorite nations to play is Malacca, though if you Westernize them maxxed innovation will not allow you to convert provinces.

I Westernize them anyways, your location and COT will make you a much larger threat than the Ottomans were.

 

[MondoPotato]

So after getting fairly proficient running western nations, I've had a brief experiement with other tech groups (namely Moscovy and the Ottomans, nothing too tricky). I'm curious as to how feasible it is to play through to endgame without westernising. Eastern, Ottoman and Muslim seem to be viable, although the placement of these nations puts them likely to come into extensive contact with the westerners, but has anyone done this with the more "backwards" tech groups?

I should point out I'm not aiming for world conquest or anything. I'm more interested in games around becoming a local power and surviving the arrival of the Europeans.

The Ottomans and Russia are very easy to stay Eastern/Ottoman tech and remain a top power straight through to end game. I prefer the Ottomans myself. The Muslim tech group is a little trickier overall, but some areas seem to be "off the radar" for European invaders and you can survive for longer without running into any serious issues, and gain enough power to both thrive and hold off invasions. The same applies to the Asian countries, with the caveat that holding off invasions from higher tech groups becomes extremely challenging. You can compete for quite a while, but I always find there comes a point when no matter the size of your armies the latin tech armies are just too powerful. Unless you have ridiculously massive troop numbers to throw into the meatgrinder. The new world states are a whole other scenario. If you don't westernise, then it's just a matter of time until enough Spaniards and/or Portuguese amass on your borders to smack you into oblivion.

 

[Slym]

I feel like an Oman who colonized Indonesia and parked a navy at the Cape would be pretty hard to beat, even without westernizing, unless someone holy warred their way down there and attacked with a land army.

 

[safferli]

restrict the memes to the Raaaage thread, please. This isn't 4chan.

 

[Kyoumen]

It's quite feasible to avoid Westernising in Indian or Chinese; I've done both (as Hindustan and Korea respectively) and caught up with the West. You need sky-high income for it - this was possible through trading as a non-expansionist Korea and through being Hindustan as Hindustan. The slight advantage it does give is that your neighbour bonus will buff up all the other countries in your tech group, meaning they can better resist early Western incursions.

I never, ever modernise troops (unless I'm playing nomads) personally... just for flavour reasons. I wish you did lose the "western influences" thing after awhile - it's a little ridiculous when it's a century or two past that point and you still have a+50% stability cost.

 

[wobbit]

Hmmm. I think I may give a non-westernising game a shot, if only to see how badly mangled I get by the Europeans. I don't think I'm as much of a glutton for punishment as prawnstar, but I'm thinking of trying one of the hordes (thinking of Timurids, but open to suggestions) and offsetting my massive tech deficit by using foriegn units and vassals. What additional difficulties (asside from REALLY slow tech and poor units) would this entail?

 

[Mods]

Hmmm. I think I may give a non-westernising game a shot, if only to see how badly mangled I get by the Europeans. I don't think I'm as much of a glutton for punishment as prawnstar, but I'm thinking of trying one of the hordes (thinking of Timurids, but open to suggestions) and offsetting my massive tech deficit by using foriegn units and vassals. What additional difficulties (asside from REALLY slow tech and poor units) would this entail?

Rule by the sword, or die by it

 

[DDRJake]

Your tech rate in horde tech is 10%. As a horde you get a -50% tech malus. Serfdom and narrowmindedness further crush your already dire tech rate. Throw in +5% global revolt risk and the succession crises, oh the crises

This almost crashed my game.

Of course, this is just a problem for hordes. You can reform the government and keep your crappy tech rate, but then you'll lose your only real advantage: Loads of cheap troops.

Revolts are managable, even when your world looks like this

 

[PrawnStar]

Agree with DDRJake rebels are managable in a worldwide TSC but it does require a change to the usual mindset of 'Ugh rebels, ragequit'. Once you've won through a couple of TSCs on that scale rebels will never be a problem for you as a player again.

 

[unmerged(80402)]

Well when i fight rebels i allways have priorities :
Attack Religious rebels before they start spreading their faith(first priority)
Attack Patriot rebels before they become part of another country(second priority)
Attack Nationalist when there are no need to deal with those two other rebel types, if you can, asap, however it is not a tragedy if they win, as you will be able to reconquest them for 0 infamy.(third priority)
Attack Peasant rebel before they will give you nasty flag of -50% tax(fourth on priority list)
Attack heretics after peasants as they also give nasty flag. But peasants will die after one battle, so you will deal with them faster, and you will be able to kill them easier(fifth on priority list)
Other rebel types except pretenders, must be dealt after those.
Pretender rebels can be dealt in the end, as they are strongest, and you don't get bad flags. Sometimes they even give you a positive, by taking over, and giving nice ruler. Plus to kill them, you only need to kill ONE rebel stack of theirs, and then all pretenders in the kingdom will die, and all provinces they taken will be yours again.

 

[wobbit]

So, I've managed to have a bit of a go at this with the Timurids and taken over most of Syria, Turkey and Egypt by 1410ish. TSC are fun, but manageable. They make for a very different game and make keeping your ruler alive somewhat more important. I'm not planning on pushing into Europe (with the possible exception of Constantinople, because it's right there and, well, it's Constantinople) so expansion will be mainly into India possibly accompanied by a push up to Astrakhan and the Gold province round there. Vassals seem to be working well to keep my income up and I'm now getting a healthy neighbour bonus for my tech (yay for high tech Muslims). I'm not at the point where I need to use their cores to build better units, but there are several availiable for when the time comes (particularly the Ottoman ones).

So, the next question is what to do with sliders and my imminent (and probably only) idea slot. Full land and merchantalism seem to be no brainers, and I probably ought to stay high decentralisation, aristocracy and narrowminded (probably serfdom as well) for flavour (and if I'm going to mess with my tech rate, I might as well REALLY mess with my tech rate). It's the quantity/quality and offensive/defensive that I'm having issues with. Quantity and Offensive would make the most sense for RP, but does anyone have any thoughts?
As to ideas, I'm torn between military drill and church attendance duty but I'm also open to over suggestions.

Thanks for all the ongoing advice.

 

[Dustman]

Your tech rate in horde tech is 10%. As a horde you get a -50% tech malus. Serfdom and narrowmindedness further crush your already dire tech rate. Throw in +5% global revolt risk and the succession crises, oh the crises

This almost crashed my game.

Of course, this is just a problem for hordes. You can reform the government and keep your crappy tech rate, but then you'll lose your only real advantage: Loads of cheap troops.

Revolts are managable, even when your world looks like this

How did you managed to get into Americas? Spread of discoveries + colonization?