Priorities/order-of-operations for a Mughals or Yuan one-faith?

[Republic of Mercury]

Reposting here since the sub-forum doesn't get much traffic. So, One-Faith has been my white whale for a while now. I'm not a natural wc-er, having only ever done it as the Tummughals and Spain. I'd really like to get One Faith out of the way so that I can quiet that little voice in the back of my head that constantly says "Hm, maybe this could be a one faith..." During every campaign I do... Granted, I'm not doing myself any favours by not just Renevatio Imperii-ing and letting my subjects do all the work, but there's something about it that I just really dislike.
Still, with the option to become a Fuedal Theocractic caliphate, and trader-convert nearly the entirety of Asia and Africa, Islam seems like it should be a strong pick. My main obstacle when starting as either the Timurids (in order to Mughals, because Mughals OP) /Oirat (in order to horde everything to religously-impressionable rubble) is that the EUsual suspects pick up some colonists and vomit Christianity on the entirety of north and south america. I'm pretty that if I could head off them, a One Faith would be trivial, but that seems eaiser said than done: Trying to take land from them directly means either colonising/sailing round Africa, or snaking my through the Mamluks/the Ottomans. Alternatively, I could just establish a few colonial nations in the Americas, and do most of the fighting there, but then there's the risk of either them dumping all their solders into America, or backdooring my land if I overcommit.
Granted, building up a strong enough navy/army to do either of those things is fairly easy as the Mughals, but it takes time, and the longer it takes the more of America turns yellow on the religious map mode.
So, as the title says, my question is about what I should be prioritising when trying a muslim one-faith:

1. Becoming the largest power in America asap, and letting my CNs keep Christianity out for me,
2. Rushing Europe and nipping the main colonisers in the bud
3. Focusing on the Indian missions (if Mughals and not Yuan)/get the CCR from Hindustan, large coasts from the mission claims, and even the administrative efficiency from viceroyalty of the Deccan, although by the time the latter seems relevant, it feels like it'll be too late to stop most of America from being gone.

So, yeah. Any thoughts? Or at least goals in terms of "By this date, have accomplished this thing" to keep a one-faith on schedule?

 

[holyvigil]

Imo this is a really weak patch for Islamic one faith.

The estate privilege of no conversion means all of your vassals are colonial nations which means you have to do all the converting yourself everywhere. And you need vassals converting to make a one faith run work.

 

[Silvanel]

My own approach as Mughals would be to get to Americas relativley fast and start conquering there. CN are good at converting but not super good so You need to give them time. Other than that high piety+dof+religious+trade should be enough.

Edit: I am not sure how CN+ dhimii priviliges work.

 

[Guibou]

I did my one faith with Mughals but it was in 1.29 so things changed with the trade converting. You can target less religions than before and even if you TC the world, the main chunk to convert (europe/CN) won't profit from it. I didn't use any vassal because they sucked at converting at the time, wich is still the case for Islam. I also move my capital to Novgorod to be able to TC asia but you dont need this these days.

Anyway, You first aim should be to get the max amount of missionary (holy cities, roma, that culture in east africa, parlament, DotF). Cutting on the way any expantion routes for Ottoman into asia (so they focus on weakening europe).
After that I turned toward Asia, I don't like fighting on both side of the world at the same time, and walking from one way to the other is long so I just focus entirely on getting everything mainland asia first. TC money in india/china will set you for the game. You can reach something like 20+ merchants. Africa is a walk in the park and once you can afford 3-4 extra stack just use these in down time (don't move your main army from you true goal).
I kept Europe for last, to avoid having to fight coalitions. For the coloniser, i just control their mainland in europe. You get like 70-80% warscore and you take every little island and colonies in old world. Each war, their europe land will be more and more % warscore. Until you finally annexed them and all their CN becomes yours. I never set foot in america until very late game (1780) and it was only because I had to fight my own CN to be able to convert their capital.

My ideas were : Religious - Diplo - Admin - Commercial - Humanist - Aristocratic - Spying (you get 4 policies for +1% missionary strenght)

Here's a screen cap from my game in 1700. I was able to finish conversion around 1810. You can see in that screen i only had 4 missionary out of the 8 possible (I had to ask the forums to see what i was missing). So if you max these out early, it really acheivable.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

Imo this is a really weak patch for Islamic one faith.

The estate privilege of no conversion means all of your vassals are colonial nations which means you have to do all the converting yourself everywhere. And you need vassals converting to make a one faith run work.

Yeah, if my next attempt fails, I'll probably just give in and do an Austria run instead.

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My own approach as Mughals would be to get to Americas relativley fast and start conquering there. CN are good at converting but not super good so You need to give them time. Other than that high piety+dof+religious+trade should be enough.

Edit: I am not sure how CN+ dhimii priviliges work.

What kind of balance would you strike between expaning into the Americas v completing Mughal missions and eating India?

I did my one faith with Mughals but it was in 1.29 so things changed with the trade converting. You can target less religions than before and even if you TC the world, the main chunk to convert (europe/CN) won't profit from it. I didn't use any vassal because they sucked at converting at the time, wich is still the case for Islam. I also move my capital to Novgorod to be able to TC asia but you dont need this these days.
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My ideas were : Religious - Diplo - Admin - Commercial - Humanist - Aristocratic - Spying (you get 4 policies for +1% missionary strenght)

Here's a screen cap from my game in 1700. I was able to finish conversion around 1810. You can see in that screen i only had 4 missionary out of the 8 possible (I had to ask the forums to see what i was missing). So if you max these out early, it really acheivable.

I'm not unimpressed. Do you still think Religous first is the best opener in 1.30? Now that everything is trade companies, you only need missionaries for heretics, christians and colonial areas, so if you're focuing on Asia first, you won't need them so early (or so it seems to me, at least). That, and not grabbing a colonist (and giving up the potential to lock down the Cape of Good Hope early) is anthema to me. But then, I'm not the one who's ever managed to do a One Faith, so...

 

[grotaclas]

CN are good at converting but not super good so You need to give them time

What do you mean by CN here? Colonial nation? Did you actually see them convert province in 1.30? I'm pretty sure that they didn't convert any provinces in 1.28 and 1.29, because their national ideas remove all negative effects from wrong religion.

 

[Guibou]

Do you still think Religous first is the best opener in 1.30?

I took it mostly to not have to sink in 200+ diplo point every wars. You get good claims in india and SE asia, but sometime you can get stuck in truce and stuff so i find it usefull to continue expending. Also to push into muscovy and avoid russia. Early game your religious unity is low too as timmy and you have vassal to annex, so an admin group felt natural to me. Could be admin first too, id see it work.

 

[Laurent1944]

I did my WC+One faith with a horde (starting with Great Horde) but this was in a patch where CN were converting most of their provinces, so I conquered European colonizers between 1700 and 1720, giving them 100 years to convert their provinces. Some provinces seem to never convert. Actually around 1770, there were a few remaining provinces in America still not muslim, so after completing WC I released some tiny states, declared war on it and lost on purpose to release CNs, that I then attacked to take the provinces remaining to be converted.

With 8 possible missionaries, and near infinite money giving you the ability to spawn cathedrals or rather high mosquees everywhere needed, you can convert a huge number of provinces in the last century.

Still taking exploration might be interesting. All you need is a colony starting in Mexico, a diplo to forge claims and then bang the conquest is launched, same for Peru, and most of American gold is yours (even if you won't be able to ship gold from Peru to India...). Then you can use your missonaries to convert American provinces. CN will not convert their provinces, but any province they colonize will be of their faith, and a great part of Americas will be colonized like that, so the sooner you have CNs here, the better.

Another trick is to be able to defeat European colonizers and to take their CN from America, but for this you need range and Exploration is still mandatory for Mughals. Also the idea is to do this early enough so that the CNs have not started colonizing everywhere and you can convert them to islam through subject interaction.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

I don't think I'm going to succeed this run. Y'know that point where you can just declare on every potential member of a coaliton before they join, and war them all simultaneously but peace them out seperately? Yeah, I thought I was at that point. I was not at that point.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

I took it mostly to not have to sink in 200+ diplo point every wars. You get good claims in india and SE asia, but sometime you can get stuck in truce and stuff so i find it usefull to continue expending. Also to push into muscovy and avoid russia. Early game your religious unity is low too as timmy and you have vassal to annex, so an admin group felt natural to me. Could be admin first too, id see it work.

I'd still think something like Aristocratic is better as the first pick for Mughals. Your claims (both east and west) should cover you until tech 8 hits.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

I'd still think something like Aristocratic is better as the first pick for Mughals. Your claims (both east and west) should cover you until tech 8 hits.

I feel like, taking into account how much other idea groups can help with a one faith, combined with the Timurid's starting position, (Do you really need extra manpower and combat ability? You're the Timurids; you're gonna win every war automatically until you meet the Ottomans. Autonomy reduction? You start with 0 autonomy cores on nearly all of Persia. An extra diplomat? Okay, but if you needed them that badly, there's diplomatic.), aristocratic just isn't the best first pick.

I wish I knew how to balance Europe vs not Europe, so I'm strong enough to deal with them when I get there, but also have enough time left to convert them when I do.

I wonder if no-cbing Byzantium would be a good idea as the Mughals.

 

[Republic of Mercury]

So I said I would try an Austria run, and I did, but it's really just not my cup of tea. I just feel... Overwhelmed? And I'd really prefer being able to control land myself rather than worry about vassals.

Maybe I should give Oirat another go.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

I feel like, taking into account how much other idea groups can help with a one faith, combined with the Timurid's starting position, (Do you really need extra manpower and combat ability? You're the Timurids; you're gonna win every war automatically until you meet the Ottomans. Autonomy reduction? You start with 0 autonomy cores on nearly all of Persia. An extra diplomat? Okay, but if you needed them that badly, there's diplomatic.), aristocratic just isn't the best first pick.

I wish I knew how to balance Europe vs not Europe, so I'm strong enough to deal with them when I get there, but also have enough time left to convert them when I do.

I wonder if no-cbing Byzantium would be a good idea as the Mughals.

My thinking with Aristocratic is that Manpower is still pretty critical for the Mughals until they've taken most of India/SEA. The combination of Manpower and the extra siege pip mean you end up saving a lot of manpower which you need to keep your army large to help prevent coalitions. Plus, the siege pip means you can expand faster, which is kinda crucial for a One Faith.

I suppose if you're wanting to expand faster, Espionage/Religious is an interesting combo. They combination of -AE modifiers (prestige/direct -AE modifier/DV CB) certainly helps with your coalitions as well.



Regarding Byz, screw Mughals, doing it as Timurids on 11 Jan 1445 is a good move. Let your vassals fight Ajam while you slowly get troops over to Byz.