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Thing is, I had more troops than the entire coalition before Russia joined (they were truce-blocked for a while). Still it wouldn't budge.

The biggest hope for my WC attempt (as the Timurids) is that I can use their less passive initial position to abort the two greatest threats I had this run, Russia and the Ottomans.
If you aren't opposed to this, you can just save and quit, and then load right back. If you do actually have more troops than the whole coalition, they will drop it immediately after you unpause.
 
Maharana Pratap and Mewar Never Changes:

eu4_239.png


So, what do I think of Mewar?

They are an interesting country that has a start that is both weak and strong at the same time. Their land is generally poor and they start surrounded by hostile muslim states that are generally stronger than them, and on top of that they have events that harass them during the early game. However, they have the Mewar gold mine. Which is great an all, but gold can't buy you manpower which was my main limiting factor in the first 100 years or so. But after I had consolidated Rajasthan I pretty much exploded into northern India, which promptly triggered a coalition war - Transoxiana, Jaunpur, Multan and the remains of Gujarat against me, Vijayanagar and Bengal. I do not understand why the coalition declared on me when my side had the quantity AND quality advantage (nothing more fun than wiping stacks with a 15% discipline advantage with a superiority wargoal). Well, Jaunpur had to give me the Lower Doab area for that transgression. After that it was just keep consolidating until I got the achievos.

However, there were a few things that irked me going for the achievements:

  1. The Maharana Pratap achievement as well as your mission tree require you to keep the Rajputs very happy and a decent land percentage, which kind of sucks once you hit the Age of Absolutism. If one wants to play Mewar without going for the achievements, I would completely disregard the rightmost branch of the mission tree and build no Rajput regiments, ever.
  2. I feel that Rajputana is just a tiny bit too ambitious of a formable. You need to get a lot of high dev land that is without fail held by Muslims. Prepare for AE through the roof.
  3. The earlygame can be rather RNG heavy. In my first try, Timurids survived the first decade and promptly claimed DotF.
So overall, where would I rank Mewar?

I think that among the 7 Indian tags I played, it's currently 7th, though that should by no means imply that it is bad by any stretch.

Countries in Italics have not been played in 1.30 and have been hit relatively hard by changes made in 1.30, generally in a negative manner.

  1. Bahmanis
  2. Vijayanagar
  3. Jaunpur
  4. Bengal
  5. Sirhind
  6. Sayyid-Delhi
  7. Mewar
 
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It's not especially *impressive* (and it certainly wasn't intentional), but I am super-pleased with how my Prussia game is developing. It feels like a true HRE monstrosity, with all its scattered holdings. It even looks a little like OTL Prussia at its greatest extent.

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Trying to Better than Napoleon but Russia is thiccc and allied to a very strong Qara Qoyunlu and Japan. Think I'll try and clean up the rest of Europe then see if I can win it. I've still got a Golden Age I'm saving until 1770. Just struggling with Governing Capacity, Corruption and Cash if anyone has suggestions.

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You can move your economic capital to London.

Also 9 merchants in 1750 is very few. I guess you have close to nothing in TC land (well former TC land, Africa/India/Far East).

If you have no other goal than Better than Napoleon, the best is to launch imperialism wars against allies of Japan and Qara Qoyunlu... and ignore them. Then attack Russia with all your forces, and Golden Age bonuses and so on. Russia will be alone and you will probably have better troop quality and better placement. Also the Russian AI usually has only level 2 forts everywhere so very easy to take at this stage of the game. You can so crush Russia so that you will have a path to Moscow and start to core it. Achievement done.

Another tactic would be to finish Great Britain/England, so you become overlord of all British CNs, so boosting your trade. Also search for easy targets in SE Asia/Philippines, to have extra merchants from CNs here. Easiest merchants to get from TC land: the Cape, Philippines, Moluccas
 
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You can move your economic capital to London.

Also 9 merchants in 1750 is very few. I guess you have close to nothing in TC land (well former TC land, Africa/India/Far East).

If you have no other goal than Better than Napoleon, the best is to launch imperialism wars against allies of Japan and Qara Qoyunlu... and ignore them. Then attack Russia with all your forces, and Golden Age bonuses and so on. Russia will be alone and you will probably have better troop quality and better placement. Also the Russian AI usually has only level 2 forts everywhere so very easy to take at this stage of the game. You can so crush Russia so that you will have a path to Moscow and start to core it. Achievement done.

Another tactic would be to finish Great Britain/England, so you become overlord of all British CNs, so boosting your trade. Also search for easy targets in SE Asia/Philippines, to have extra merchants from CNs here. Easiest merchants to get from TC land: the Cape, Philippines, Moluccas

Usually I've got a much stronger Merchant game, the problem was GB had a huge Thirteen Colonies which I got to declare independence after driving GB to 20 War Exhaustion. The problem is, they were instantly a top 3 army in the game and started eating all my land in the Americas. I couldn't enforce a peace as their navy was superior to mine and I'd need 80% of my men in the Americas to fight them, leaving me vulnerable in Europe. So I just grew in Europe till now Florida no longer rivalled me, allied them and left it be.

In terms of acquiring more merchants, if I designated my land in West Africa to a Trade Company would that give me another merchant? Any tips on getting more? I still have another idea left to take (Went Diplomatic, Humanist, Exploration, Offensive, Quantity, Admin, Quality).

Your idea for Imperialism CBs is good. I'll consider doing that.
 
Any node that you have control of the trade centers (outside Western Europe), if you turn them to a TC you will probably have a merchant immediately. If without a TC you have 50% control of the node, you will have no difficulty turning your province into a valuable TC giving you an extra merchant.
 
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Concerning trade (apart from the trade company merchants, which Laurent already answered, and the general collection set-up, which you're going to look into): the Trade idea group grants 3 additional merchants by itself, plus trade power, efficiency, steering and so forth. Plus some great policies for that trade money influx: 20% trade efficiency with admin or quality, 20% goods produced with quantity, all of which you have.

Unless you're still colonising, and you have serious problems with your economy, consider dropping Exploration ideas and grab Economic for additional cash, and cheaper buildings (plus the +5% discipline policy with quality, which might help with that war with Russia). The cheaper buildings might also help you finance state houses and town halls to deal with your governing capacity.
On that note: what are your current sources of governing capacity? Specifically: have you granted your estates the privileges, and have you taken the government reforms granting additional capacity? Those would be easy short-term sources. If you're already done with all the government reforms you want, dump all your current and future reform progress in additional governing capacity.

Additionally:
- What advisor(s) are you missing? At your current size, I suppose lvl1 +10% tax/production efficiency, +10% trade efficiency or -10% army maintenance would all be a net profit for your finances.
- Do you need that 60k merc army? You look like you have enough manpower to disband them and hire cheaper regulars.
- For a short term economic boost, mothball your forts that are not under threat from those soon-to-spawn rebels and reduce your army maintenance once the rebel threat is over. Or even just delete some forts in place that will never be sieged anyway. You can use the money you save using that to pay off some loans or build economic buildings to boost your income.

Since you mention it: what is the source of your corruption? Boosting your economy allows you to spend more on combating it, but taking care of the source should at least stop it from growing further. You get a natural decrease in yearly corruption from stability and being ahead of time in (admin/diplo) technology.
 
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Any node that you have control of the trade centers (outside Western Europe), if you turn them to a TC you will probably have a merchant immediately. If without a TC you have 50% control of the node, you will have no difficulty turning your province into a valuable TC giving you an extra merchant.

Cheers, I'll do this with my West African land and whatever I have in the Malaccas.

Concerning trade (apart from the trade company merchants, which Laurent already answered, and the general collection set-up, which you're going to look into): the Trade idea group grants 3 additional merchants by itself, plus trade power, efficiency, steering and so forth. Plus some great policies for that trade money influx: 20% trade efficiency with admin or quality, 20% goods produced with quantity, all of which you have.

Unless you're still colonising, and you have serious problems with your economy, consider dropping Exploration ideas and grab Economic for additional cash, and cheaper buildings (plus the +5% discipline policy with quality, which might help with that war with Russia). The cheaper buildings might also help you finance state houses and town halls to deal with your governing capacity.
On that note: what are your current sources of governing capacity? Specifically: have you granted your estates the privileges, and have you taken the government reforms granting additional capacity? Those would be easy short-term sources. If you're already done with all the government reforms you want, dump all your current and future reform progress in additional governing capacity.

Additionally:
- What advisor(s) are you missing? At your current size, I suppose lvl1 +10% tax/production efficiency, +10% trade efficiency or -10% army maintenance would all be a net profit for your finances.
- Do you need that 60k merc army? You look like you have enough manpower to disband them and hire cheaper regulars.
- For a short term economic boost, mothball your forts that are not under threat from those soon-to-spawn rebels and reduce your army maintenance once the rebel threat is over. Or even just delete some forts in place that will never be sieged anyway. You can use the money you save using that to pay off some loans or build economic buildings to boost your income.

Since you mention it: what is the source of your corruption? Boosting your economy allows you to spend more on combating it, but taking care of the source should at least stop it from growing further. You get a natural decrease in yearly corruption from stability and being ahead of time in (admin/diplo) technology.

I was also thinking of ditching exploration.

Problem is, right now I am in a prime position to eat insane amounts of land. I can wipe whole countries out at once. I've got full Diplomatic ideas allowing for the warscore province cost being lowered, I've got the admin idea for lowering coring costs, and 90 absolutism as well as the military to swiftly dispatch of multiple enemies at once.

Because of that, my corruption is always growing because I never have land that doesn't need coring, and I can't afford to keep it down whilst raising a whole army and hiring advisors (Ignore the empty slot in the picture, I almost always have 3, +3 advisors hired).

60k mercs I hired because I was fighting on multiple ends of Europe and manpower started to dwindle. I was also trying to deter Sweden from joining a coalition. I can indeed disband them now.

All you guys suggestions are most appreciated. I think I've got drastically better at EU4 recently but I still struggle with my economy and managing governing capacity. If I can get rich enough I will start building the necessary buildings everywhere to get the GC down.
 
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Second Austria -> Germany run (find the first game here)

eu4_277.png


Much better RNG this time compared to my first attempt. I got a full BI before 1460 and Poland didn't disintegrate, giving me a PU over a healthy-ish PLC midgame. And I managed to spread my dynasty a fair bit, giving me a direct inheritance of Pommerania and later enforcing a PU on Spain.

Unfortunately though by the midgame the Catholics also chose to go full intolerant towards the Protestants, making it basically impossible for me to continue my diplomatic growth in Europe. Protestantism had large failed, and while Reformed had grown strong in the HRE it had no significant presence anywhere else.

While this was going on, the Ottomans had their usual super-blobby game they have in any of my Austria runs (seriously game, why do they only collapse when I am playing in the Far East but always go ultra-ham when I'm playing in Europe?), making it impossible for me to fully eradicate them (it would still take 4 wars to take the rest of their territory). And considering the massive coalition I was facing at the very end of the game, it was probably completely impossible.

Finally, I would also like to turn your eyes away from my empire and towards that beautiful, huge, stable Qing.

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Really happy with my Roman Empire! Diplo view below because it's a lil unclear in a few spots (though love the vibrant red/purple (don't at me I don't know how colours work))

Rome_1821_Diplo.png


As this is only my third ironman run, I was super happy to get to restore the Empire as Byzantium! I was hoping initally to fully restore the Rhine and Danube borders and get all the way to Hadrian's Wall, but I made a few poor decisions on wars in the 1600s and Austria blobbed aggressively at me. On the other hand there was a point at around 1780 where I thought I was going to fall short of the Empire! I did have to truce break France to get the light green area in diplo view and I then spent the last few years whack-a-moleing rebels. But really really fun challenging campaign - had to break the Mamluk blob, the Spanish world empire, then the Austrian HRE to get to the 1700s intact and then from 1750 onwards exploded north-west - I just imagine the poor French like "oh so nice to see Byzantium is back at its old borders, how nolstagic. Wait.. SPQR? That's not.. hang on!" Too late lads, Rome's back.
 
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Beautiful Roman Empire, I might add a more Holy Roman Empire (the real one) :

jérusalem.png



Started as Provence and played the PU game. Really fun start but as usual the late game is very tedious. Overall loving the country ! Definitely recommanding !
 
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