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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.
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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.
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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.
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Loving the Common Sense gold changes.
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One of the gimmicks for the game was to accept every culture. I kind of succeeded and failed at the same time.
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Everybody is accepted, however some had to die for others to prosper. Oh well, nothing new under the sun.
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Religions and enclaves of tolerated infidels
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It's not on the list, but here's the mod for the flag I had in this playthrough: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=472667703&searchtext=Ottoman

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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.
no influence? also why is the flag....iirc its not supposed to be like that
 
Victorian 3, played way too scared at the end because I wanted to make sure I had 32/32/32, not wanting to redo whole thing for that. French PU over Castile was a pain, right at the end I stuck them for fun and took back half of Iberia :p. I took exploration 7th so I could own all land in Africa.



 
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Current state of my Ottomans game.
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I have Kiev, Galicia-Volhynia, Chernigov, and Persia as vassals, currently diplo-anexing persia and kiev. Feeding these vassals with reconq cas belli, so I can keep my crazy high AE down. Where should I go next? Im thinking of finishing North Africa first. But after?
 
Well, I'm scared now lol. England, just formed G.B., and have a PU over Austria w/lib des. of only 38%.
 
After several failure to get the First Come, First Served ! Achievement, I decided to go on a casual ottoman game...
Could'nt expand as much as I wanted because my god ruler died in the 1450s and I've been stuck with a 2/2/0 fool ever since(with a 5/6/3 heir on standby, please die soon)
Still stuck at adm tech 4, but miraculously managed to get 2 tech ahead of the hre on mil(i'm tech 9)
Which bring us to the campaign my inept ruler spent 40 years planning : the invasion of hungarian transylvania...

In Green, the Emperor, Pope and allies
In Red, me and allies



The war went WAAAAAAAYYY better than I expected

1 month after the war started, my glorious armies separated the kaiser head from the rest of its body, prompting the empire to wisely elect my good friend the king of bohemia emperor instead

This effectively means the Habsburg lose 16 tax income, 21.5 forcelimit(probably doubling their maintenance cost) and 25.5k manpower AND GIVE IT TO THEIR ENNEMY


I humiliated them, took all their money, force them to pay war reparations and break their alliances with the pope, hungary and genoa in a separate peace.

I totaly expect them to go bankrupt in the near future...*evil laugh*

Meanwhile in Hung(a)ry thanks to 20 war exhaustion and -1 stability...



After the War



The war will have cost me around 60k manpower and lasted about a year...
Having a dedicated siege unit made of 10 arty, 5 inf and a 3 siege general do get the job done quite fast hehe

No Burgundian inheritance ! Sweet !

Also, half the middle east land were actually not fough for, I merely ask their owner nicely to hand their provinces over and they agreed !(lol)

Also, no vassals feed were involved beside bosnia(diplo-vassal as an opm to hurt venice)

Religious map and proof of ironman



Now, I originaly planned to clean up the middle east after this, but Poland-Lithuania is at war with Moscovia...

As a consolation prize, the looser will get to fight ME ! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
 
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My re-reconquista:
EA7ED60B50E5DCE7E380088E71C045BE915F5EF6

This was quite a challenging game. I exodus't to Africa and built a powerbase there. Started taking back iberian provinces as soon as I could, with the iberian states being weak and fragmented. This was a mixed blessing since France decided to do this:
75F42B20E49EFA8ABDD124F278E71D0B6792F69F

So after taking the last bits of Portugal and Aragon visible here, I spent the rest of the game expending and taking military ideas in order to combat the French space marines. Luckily their only strong ally was the Ottomans(briefly, before i broke them up again) The Ottomans are my ally again, despite the massive shared border.
Completed on Ironman, got the achievement, though I must admit to being veeeeeeery cheesy about it.
 
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Long story short, here's how my nation developed of the course of my game; Religion, Culture, Nation formatting:
Sunni, Turkish, Ottomans -> Sunni, Turkish, Arabia -> Sunni Greek, Arabia -> Orthodox, Greek, Arabia -> Orthodox, Greek, Byzantium -> Orthodox, Roman, Roman Empire


End-game political maps:
Spain got cold, Portugal is in Mali and France is on Bermuda.
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Revolutionary Polen stronk!
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Religion Maps:
Almost eliminated Catholicism from Europe:
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Culture Maps:
Glorious Roman culture has been restored!
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Greek culture dominates Anatolia once again
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Portuguese Mexico and Spanish Canada
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Argentinian Froggy
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Roman Federal Republic:
Going Constitutional made culture conversion much easier.
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Still in the Anatolian unit tech
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The united Islam modifier doesn't wear off if you no longer follow Islam.
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Achievements earned: Dar al-Islam (not sure why it isn't showing up here), Arabian Coffee (not sure why it isn't showing up here), Mare Nostrum, Subsidize my Love, Definitely the Sultan of Rum, The Grand Armada
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Since I wanted to maintain nice borders I relinquished control of Moscow (and the immediately surrounding territories), Yorkshire, London and Zeeland.
 
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"And in world history today, we'll talk about how the imperialist Ottoman Empire remade the grand Roman Republic. It mostly involved marrying Greek women."

Also, it's weird to see a republic labeled as the Roman Empire.
 
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My Dracula's Revenge achievement run as Moldavia. It was a pretty fun campaign. I had plenty of problems. Being poor as fug for 3/4 of the game, fighting corruption, being behind in tech due to trying to catch up in unbalanced research, France being an asshole and declaring himself defender of catholic faith were the worst of it.

Right before transforming into vampire smurf:
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Ahh yes this is why I keep you as my loyal march Prussia:
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Final screenshot before calling it a game after getting last provinces from The Pope who had a balkan ambition and cleaning up the borders a bit:
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Religion:
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Za Warudo:
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Luba lubricating kongo region. Spain being small but still holding to colonies. Afghans thinking they are Persia. Kochin being a little sweetheart. Cute Malaya. Nothing spectacular. I don't like how France eats up Iberia in my every game though.
Russia was my Tsar bro for most of the game aside from one tsar to another failed claiming a throne incident :p . We grew together fighting filthy pollacks, austrians, scandinavians and turks. I love the favor system. Finally can have an ally for life and death.
 
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Long story short, here's how my nation developed of the course of my game; Religion, Culture, Nation formatting:
Sunni, Turkish, Ottomans -> Sunni, Turkish, Arabia -> Sunni Greek, Arabia -> Orthodox, Greek, Arabia -> Orthodox, Greek, Byzantium -> Orthodox, Roman, Roman Empire


End-game political maps:
Spain got cold, Portugal is in Mali and France is on Bermuda.
sfyHCZL.jpg


Revolutionary Polen stronk!
VCGWrgt.jpg


HTPeUwi.jpg

Religion Maps:
Almost eliminated Catholicism from Europe:
MLahLHi.jpg


41uwBN9.jpg

Culture Maps:
Glorious Roman culture has been restored!
zD6JyWR.jpg


Greek culture dominates Anatolia once again
0blOWpz.jpg


QfjwGbQ.jpg


Portuguese Mexico and Spanish Canada
WeCh4Mo.jpg


Argentinian Froggy
w251f1y.jpg

Roman Federal Republic:
Going Constitutional made culture conversion much easier.
pnL1acs.jpg


Still in the Anatolian unit tech
l2IWeEW.jpg


The united Islam modifier doesn't wear off if you no longer follow Islam.
Wsd8dLR.jpg




Achievements earned: Dar al-Islam (not sure why it isn't showing up here), Arabian Coffee (not sure why it isn't showing up here), Mare Nostrum, Subsidize my Love, Definitely the Sultan of Rum, The Grand Armada
mwi1BGO.jpg


Since I wanted to maintain nice borders I relinquished control of Moscow (and the immediately surrounding territories), Yorkshire, London and Zeeland.
Is Sarmatia ruthenian(ukrainian) country?
 
I had a go at a custom nation starting in North America, and while the empire that came of this isn't all that interesting, the rest of the world in 1821 is much more so (at least to me). So I'm going to go against the topic somewhat and instead "post the AI's Europa Universalis 4 empire(s)":

Europe:
20CABA573B0308E2B90DEF5CD1A52E4DF6D29125


Middle East:
B992740032C3B2DB23A5B2BF0B5AE940C0D60851


Far East Asia:
87D993398D0B18FFAB38570AE9E801EB64DB79FA


So, what do we have here?

- No France (they were gone already when I discovered Europe). And by that I mean no colonies, no nothing. Poof, gone. They managed to revolt and get back around 1650 or so, but the british put a stop to that.
- Trier is blobbing. They had my help for some of it, but not much. Granted, being allied to me probably protected them.
- Aragon is blobbing. Ate Iberian Castille pretty quickly.
- Austria is SUPER-blobbing. Rarely seen them go that big, and never so far east.
- Ragusa is still(!) alive and well.
- Netherlands blobbed into Scandinavia.
- No PLC. Poland+Lithuania were allied and best buddies though. At least until Lithuania decided to turn on Poland that is.
- No Russia, only big Muscovy (since Lithuania holds Moskva).
- Livonian order is still alive, and conquered Finland.
- Mamluks -> Egypt. Never seen that before.
- No Ottomans. They were broken already when I discovered Europe/Middle east, so no idea what really happened. Austria and Mamluks (Egypt) swallowed them before 1600.
- Yemen and Hormuz(!)
- Korea is quite big, especially considering Ming is still around.

Keep in mind that all of this happened without my intervention (well, except maybe Trier). All I did in Europe was take out Portugal (from around 1570) and Great Britain (after 1700). The rest is pure AI magic. A shame I can't check the timeline feature (this is 1.15).

Edit: Oh, and I almost forgot. That little grayish dot on the coast west of the Netherlands? That's Peru. Yeah.
 
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After several failure to get the First Come, First Served ! Achievement, I decided to go on a casual ottoman game...
Could'nt expand as much as I wanted because my god ruler died in the 1450s and I've been stuck with a 2/2/0 fool ever since(with a 5/6/3 heir on standby, please die soon)
Still stuck at adm tech 4, but miraculously managed to get 2 tech ahead of the hre on mil(i'm tech 9)
Which bring us to the campaign my inept ruler spent 40 years planning : the invasion of hungarian transylvania...

In Green, the Emperor, Pope and allies
In Red, me and allies



The war went WAAAAAAAYYY better than I expected

1 month after the war started, my glorious armies separated the kaiser head from the rest of its body, prompting the empire to wisely elect my good friend the king of bohemia emperor instead

This effectively means the Habsburg lose 16 tax income, 21.5 forcelimit(probably doubling their maintenance cost) and 25.5k manpower AND GIVE IT TO THEIR ENNEMY


I humiliated them, took all their money, force them to pay war reparations and break their alliances with the pope, hungary and genoa in a separate peace.

I totaly expect them to go bankrupt in the near future...*evil laugh*

Meanwhile in Hung(a)ry thanks to 20 war exhaustion and -1 stability...



After the War



The war will have cost me around 60k manpower and lasted about a year...
Having a dedicated siege unit made of 10 arty, 5 inf and a 3 siege general do get the job done quite fast hehe

No Burgundian inheritance ! Sweet !

Also, half the middle east land were actually not fough for, I merely ask their owner nicely to hand their provinces over and they agreed !(lol)

Also, no vassals feed were involved beside bosnia(diplo-vassal as an opm to hurt venice)

Religious map and proof of ironman



Now, I originaly planned to clean up the middle east after this, but Poland-Lithuania is at war with Moscovia...

As a consolation prize, the looser will get to fight ME ! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AE?
 
Aaaa finally. Plucked up the courage to play my first Ironman campaign (all in 1.15). Did it on Hard as well! Your very standard Brandenburg -> Germany (screw Prussia :p). My very savescummy experience thus far consisted of some short runs with Muscovy -> Russia (what can I say, got to love that blob), Castille -> Spain colonisation (and deblobbification of France), Mongolia, Byzantium, Vijayanagar aaand that's about it. Most of these didn't make it past 1650 and were completely played in speed 5. Even in war. The reason I'm telling you this is because every game I had played basically descended into endless blobbing at one point, even though I'd explicitly stated my Castille and VIjay runs would not.

This time I took it far more slowly and it paid off! I also told myself I wouldn't take anything not Germanic, I'd play it cool, Ironmany, all Bismark-like and unite the German people under one banner and ensure unending peace and prosperity for Europe through a web of alliances. Show some character, backbone and you know, restraint…

Apparently I don't do restraint.

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May have gone a bit overboard with the vassal/ march/ client state mechanics. Also got bored and went Exploration and Expansion around 1700 and got myself some freedom across the pond.

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All your money and units are belong to us.

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Ideas and Tech. Could have tech-ed up one or two more things if I'd played 'till the end.

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Glorious 61 development Berlin is glorious. No, it wasn't just to top Paris… Okay maybe a little.

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Space marines you say? Well said.

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Bonus funny one. This happened because I annexed Hungary while they were at war. :D

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Maps. Late game expansion seems to have become insanely quick in the last few patches.

1625

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1695

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1819

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Some fun facts:

• Russia was formed by a Novgorod, which looked dead and buried by Muscovy and Sweden around 1530 but bounced back without my help and ended up vassalising a distracted between the PLC and Hordy McHordeHord Muscovy. Was a weak Russia though. Glorious Rus will replace!
• Became Emporer in 1446 and the blobbing commenced.
• France ate most of Iberia at one point and in 1625-ish I was scared I might not be able to beat them.
• I allied Poland pretty much on day one and with their help subjugated the HRE and subsequently dismantled it.
• Poland was a great ally. Then blobbing occured in the 17. century.
• Austria had an alliance of doom with France so I naturally allied them both. :D
• After some maneuvers involving chainwarring Lithuania and Hungary (Both allies of Austria) and bags of AE I managed to eat them without pissing off France. Austria had actually eaten most of what was once Yugoslavia at one point.
• France was a great ally for a very long time! We had fun removing the Ottoblobs from Europe together. Then blobbing occured and Frace were no longer my mates.
• In about 1650 I saw the disputed succession icon pop up. Checked and saw it was a scary-ish and fully formed Sweden so RM on the next day. Less than a month later - PU. Didn't want to integrate (that and insane diplo costs) the space marines so I let them be.
• The second to last HRE was giant France, which petrified me as I'd left the empire by forming Germany and hadn't killed all the electors. OPM Hainaut remained.
• France's emperor died aged 36 and Hainaut became emperor. Ruina Imperii followed shortly.
• That Brazil is English and the rest of South America is French. Must have given those colonies upwards of 10 000 ducats in gifts to help them out in their independence wars.
• I helped New Portugal to get free! They formed the USA. Then blobbing occured and I (my CN Christiansland rather) ate them.
• Could have easily eaten all of Mexico and probably California, but didn't feel like destroying them - kind of liked seeing them free.
• Used Bulgaria to try something out - can I force someone to blob? Apparently not. Still, they westernised and I didn't want the tumultuous mess that is the Balkans in my Reich so I gave it to them. Later I decided to chase the Turk away from Constantinople and created Better Greece.
• Went overblob on vassal feeding: Brunswick, Big Bavaria, Verden, Hesse, Burgundy, Bohemia, Switzerland, TO, Tuscany and the last Holy Roman Emperor Hainaut all went that way. Not to mention my own custom vassals of Slavonia (southern Lithuania basically) and Baguette.
• Catalonia revolted from a dying Aragon at some point on the Baleares so I diplovassalised them and fed them their cores from France back. Gave them a bit of extra as well.
• Aragon is still alive believe it or not. That's them in Malta.
• Austria ended its miserable existence as an OPM white Albania.
• France now lives in Northern Scotland and Western Africa. How the blobby have fallen.
• My march Rus was something like the fifth most developed country in the end. LD 0%. Like a baws. Although in fairness it probably had more to do with me shoving 150% of OE on them every 12-15 years when I started gourging myself on Russia. They also got some Ottoblob land in the Caucasus.
• The only protestants are the free (and Norwegian by culture) Republic of Canada and their former Norwegian overlords, who now reside mostly in Iceland.
• Went for pretty borders.
• Was a bit ineffective. With some better choices (and if I were less crappy at wars) I could have probably had all of Europe, Asia Minor and North America. Aaah well, leave some for next time.
• At one point I fought France, Ottoblobs, Jaunpur, Mutapa and Russia at the same time. Pfft, easy!



This was easily my most enjoyable campaign thus far. Ironman, taking it slow and playing in the HRE made it really intense. Humanism is awe inspiring (hardly felt the reformation), Influence is great, but Diplomatic is a necessity alongside those two. Would be a decent fourth idea. Humanism -> Mil -> Influence -> Diplo would be insane.

Northern Germany seems to be poorer than it used to. Had to rely on trade more than usual for the first half of the game.

Got 29 achievements this run. I'm sure I missed a few (most notably that Prussian Goose one).

This was extremely fun and enjoyable. Best and most fulfilling run I've had in any game ever probably. :)

Blob.
 
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Depends, in western europe my agressive expansion is just bellow the threshold(around -45 for venice which is the most offended)
On the estern front though...
Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy were at war but did'nt fight a single battle or siege a single province ! It was actually a staring contest across the border and muscovy ended up conceding defeat in a peace deal when kazan separatist revolted. Now they both joined the coalition against me with the mamluk and persia, so I,m actually back to cleaning up arabia and hurting venice and genoa some more.
I'll soon reach the -200 cap for mamluk so I'd wager they'll never leave the coalition

As long as I don't expand into the hre, I'll be fine, but the moment I'll take wien, everyone will want a piece of me haha