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Nope, I did not have space for colonial ideas at all, since I picked 4 Military ideas. And If you're going for a expansionistic game and plan on using client states, Influence ideas must be your first pick. +25% income from vassals(Applies to clients), -25% diplo annex cost and -20% AE makes your early game so much easier. Added with the -10% AE from Prussian traditions it was insane how much I could expand without going over 50 AE with more than 3 or 4 nations. I annexed Greater Poland ( 6 provinces, about 90 development when I took the mission) with a Conquest CB for 52 AE with poland itself. Never had a single coalition in this campaign. But still had to hold myself in the HRE. Double AE is killer.
Funny thing is, if I had time to annex Spain, I would have 3 colonial nations.
Always go Influence when in Western Europe these days - it's simply amazing. That and Religious used to be my opening gambit with Defensive/Quantity next, but this time I wen with Humanism instead of Religious and OMG. Instafavourite for HRE - stacked boni mean practically no rebels ever, no Religious turmoil and 25% RU is very very tasty. My main issue was overestimating the power of Poland + Lithuania + Novgorodian Russia vs me, Austria and Mega France and slowing myself down by about 30 years. Ah well, was my first successful Ironman run anyway, will upload as soon as it's ready. Will know better for my inevitable Blobban Blobbich Blobbanov run as Muscovy.
Always go Influence when in Western Europe these days - it's simply amazing. That and Religious used to be my opening gambit with Defensive/Quantity next, but this time I wen with Humanism instead of Religious and OMG. Instafavourite for HRE - stacked boni mean practically no rebels ever, no Religious turmoil and 25% RU is very very tasty. My main issue was overestimating the power of Poland + Lithuania + Novgorodian Russia vs me, Austria and Mega France and slowing myself down by about 30 years. Ah well, was my first successful Ironman run anyway, will upload as soon as it's ready. Will know better for my inevitable Blobban Blobbich Blobbanov run as Muscovy.
Poland-Lithuania is the war that will make or break your campaign to Germany. I went super conservative with my MP, since my first 4 ideas were Influence, Administrative, Aristocratic and Diplomatic. 10% discount on all techs in the mid-game and 25% cheaper annexation compensated somewhat for my bad kings( my best was a 3/2/3, if I remember correctly). Still ended unbalanced on tech. It would be far worse if I got humanism or religious for the reformation, but I got humanism as the 7th idea group. Too little, too late, as I would not accept any new cultures, nor the rebellions mattered, as the biggest one was 3 stack of about 30k, and I had 300k soldiers at the time. If i got one or two more average kings, I bet I could've ended 32/32/32 and annexed Britain. Oh well.
Here's the results of my first Ironman game (I had 400 hours when I started it, I just loathe historical lucky nations), patch 1.15: View attachment 170371
Just a classic Brandenburg to Prussia to Germany. Spain is in a PU, and both Britain and Turkey are client states. The highlight of this campaign is that this Germany was built on the backstab of a 271 year old, max trust alliance. I had plans to vassalize my ally Bavaria, and form Germany. I kept expanding to reduce the "economic base" malus, and when i went to see after a war if they would accept, they went over 100 development. I went to war with Austria (their only neighbor besides me), forced a 15-year truce with them, and broke the alliance. 5 years later, I made full use of the nationalism CB, and annexed my only, true friend.
In 1718, I formed Germany, built upon the corpses of 52,000 Bavarians (and hundreds of thousands of Polish, Russians, Scandinavians...).
Well i started to play this game in 1.16.1 patch. This was my first attempt with Ryzan and i played for 100 years this patch. My first target was Odoyev, but it was guaranteed by Golden Horde and Lithuania. One year into the game Muscovy declares on Poland and Lithuania (only allies nit union) and they have slaughtered themselves to the white peace. During that time i rivaled Golden Horde and allied Kazan and Tver and called them against Odoyev which was guaranteed by Golden Horde. I gave some provinces to Kazan, took one from Golden Horde (Tambov) for myself and annexed Odoyev.
By that time Lithuania was very, very weak, they lost alliance with Poland and they were attacked by Crimea. So i fabricated 4 claims and DOW. After that i kept declaring until there were no more Lithuania. I have no idea how Lithuania handles corruption now, but in 1.16.1. it was terrible and it was main reason why Muscovy declared on Poland and Lithuania.
I do not have a PU on either of Austria/Hungary. Austria's ruler died in a war and got Valois'd. He then Valois'd Hungary and Savoy... which has a PU on Sardinia.
And yes, that IS an early Emperor France with full BI and Naples deciding I'd make a great king over them.
Considering I am the Habsburgs of this game, this event was really ironic.
My Uzbek -> Bukhara -> Mughals game in progress.
Europe. Hungary decided to grow wings or something, France got rekt, me, Sweden and Lithuania are bullying Russia (revenge for making me waste manpower killing them when I was Uzbek and they were Muscovy).
Kurland!
Ottomans conquered most of Persia, up to the border with me, which was upheld by our alliance for a long time... until I discovered I had Persian cores. Om nom nom!
Not particularly significant, but the Deccan dynamism (constant flux in balance between Vijay, Mysore and Bahmanids) and Pandya surviving impressed me.
Shan formed by Ava. Khmer has Ayatthuya's usual place. Had to bully them a bit for my clay.
Yeah and the blue in Persia is also theirs (had to take some stuff to make India non-overseas, Persia also used to extend to Russia and Mesopotamia.
It's great what those countries can do if you remove the Ottomans and leave them alone.
they're also still coptic and have converted Mecca btw.
yup in my Byzantium game Ethiopia and Medhi Bahra (or whatever the spelling is) got massive and converted half of Arabia to Coptic before I could get there and convert it to Orthodox.
Follow-up to my Ryazan Kinslayer run (page 534 in this thread):
Ryazan to Rome!
Screenshot just before I click the button:
Intensive blobbing for the last 100 years. No truce breaking, but lots of declaring on France's native American allies and taking non-co-belligerent land with no claim. Some coalitions but no-one ever attacked.
Vassals along the way included Crimea, Circassia, Trebizond, QQ (who were useless apart from having lots of cores), Taberestan, Hejaz, Holstein, Naples, and four client states.
An enjoyable run. Regarding 1.16 - sailors were irrelevant, corruption occasionally a minor irritation, but the new states and territories made the taking of Europe possible with monarch points to spare.
I'd like to expand some more into the HRE, but stupid Austria and its rather strong alliance (Hungary, Ragusa, Brandenburg, Savoy and Provence) won't let me. =/
Casual Ottoman game with few small gimmicks and surprisingly pretty ai borders.
Legit AI Exploration Ming, decent european borders, Austria united HRE by sword. No player interference whatsoever.I honestly would have been sceptical if it wasn't a game of my own.
Although those borders could use some work, I absolutely love this vivid variety of cultures and colors in the New World. They lost their stuff at this point, but even Savoy had a CN at one point.
These pictures might give you the wrong idea that Ming can match me. Surprisingly even after westernization and multiple successful conquests they are roughly 1/10 of my power.
Loving the Common Sense gold changes.
One of the gimmicks for the game was to accept every culture. I kind of succeeded and failed at the same time.
Everybody is accepted, however some had to die for others to prosper. Oh well, nothing new under the sun.
Religions and enclaves of tolerated infidels
Dhimmi control ~33% of nation's development. Ulema and Beys have 10% each, Merchants have 11%. 65% of the nation belongs to Estates, rest is mine and mine alone. Not optimal at all, but I love my gimmicks. Enclaves are shown perfectly here.
I never planned to expand past Balkans and Hungary, so no Western Focus for me. No sane person westernizes as Ottomans without it, so I didn't westernize at all. It didn't really bother me.
Stacking tech discounts is probably the third and last gimmick of the game. Effectively I made myself Western without westernazing at all. Dhimmi and WAT will disappear if I westernize, so the net gain would in fact be just 5% cheaper tech. Imagine these tech costs without 110% ahead of time malus.
People always ask for these. Not all of them are graphical, but all can be found on steam workshop. All of them are Ironman friendly.
Casual Ottoman game where I simply wanted to refresh that glorious feeling of reducing coring costs to the ground. Admin first, Millets asap, Syria/Armenia/Persia/Ethiopia as vassals = (33+25)*50% = 21% coring costs, i.e. 79% coring cost reduction from the get go if I'm doing the math right.
Overall nothing too special. Ottos are the best WC nation, so what I did here isn't really an acomplishment. Custom goals and pretty borders were enjoyable though and even AI didn't drop the ball this time.
Tried to go for the restoration of the Roman Empire...after a while forgot about the damned Corruption and it got 'a bit' out of hand...I love the borders though, with a giant Ming blob just out of the screenshot.
first ever attempt at Basileus. I thought the first war would be way harder than it was but then I think I got quite lucky - I'll explain that later.
Realised I was running out of time for Master of India in about 1800 so the whole last 20 years of the game was spent warring with Jaunpur, Vijayanagar and Ayutthaya. Every peace involved going to ~150% Overextension. The Separatist sentiment event is absolutely brutal when you're this size since each province checks to fire individually and it's not exactly feasible to stay at 3 stability when you're constantly overextended. Grabbed the achievement with about 2 years to spare. Unfortunately I couldn't convert all of India to Orthodox even if I had time because Sambalpur had religious zeal until 1830. Using diplomatic mapped for this because I border Lithuania and Livonia so the colours are a little hard to tell apart, especially from this distance.
Autonomy mapmode. I kept India, Africa, the Iranian coast and Arabia overseas until about 1817 when I had started coring my last Indian province. I annexed a couple of provinces from Persia to get the land bridge for all my land primarily just to see how much my income/force limits would shoot up. The red bits in India are provinces I had to increase autonomy on before making them non-overseas. the Orange bit in north Russia is there because about 6 months from the end of the game I managed to diplo annex my Russia vassal who was around 600 development.
With Purple Phoenix missions/events etc. I think Byzantium is a bit overpowered. Quite fun, and the first war is always challenging since you don't really get many of the Purple Phoenix perks while the Ottomans are still super strong. But the free monarch points until you get to the stability NI, the great missions, the decisions to just give yourself a tonne of army tradition, etc. are just a huge boost to keep you snowballing.
Anyway, game start Lithuania has rivalled me but Poland PUs them so that doesn't matter. Get an alliance with Poland, Serbia and Trebizond and insult the Ottomans after they have warred with Albania and Aq Qoyunlu. They DOW, we barely win battles with a 2:1 and sometimes 3:1 advantage (5% discipline, better pips and a sick starting general is just a bit too much) but eventually we get all of the European part of them either occupied or besieged. I also scorched Constantinople so they wouldn't ever hang around there.
The difficulty in early wars with Ottomans IMO is crossing the strait. You can't get decent warscore if you don't have control of the strait to occupy their other half. Luckily in this run, Venice declared on Ottomans as we were finishing up. They sank the entire Ottoman fleet of dozens and dozens of galleys which meant that I had control of the strait for the next two wars. I released Mentese and fed them most of the Ottoman provinces and then set up Bulgaria whom I fed Serbia - quite precarious at one point as they both had ~50% Liberty desire and I was really struggling to get them below since I didn't have prestige and no easy targets for me to feed them. Managed to annex Bulgaria though and that dropped Mentese's LD.
The rest of the game was mostly pretty easy aside from the early 1700s when I had to deal with Lithuania blob.As it turns out, declaring war right after you tech military and with a bunch of old generals is a risky move - my generals all died and I didn't have enough power to roll for good ones since my tradition was low. Got absolutely crushed despite numbers advantages and Discipline/unit modifiers/Tactics advantages. Lithuania's generals are just insane.
http://imgur.com/a/hugb6 - some other mapmode images. Quite amazing what some nations can achieve when they don't have Ottomans destroying them or breathing down their neck. Mamluks blobbed pretty hard before I got to them, Ethiopia and Medhi Bahra conquered all of East Africa and were even in the process of converting Mecca to Coptic before I took it off them.
50% from Humanist, 10% from each silk, humanist+influence policy and government form, 15% from Ottos' ideas. There is one more policy for 10% more iirc.
