Qara Qoyunlu -> Persia gameplans

[Magean]

Hi,

I'm considering starting a game as Qara Qoyunlu in order to form Persia. I know Horde ideas are better than Persian ones, yet I want to be Shia Persia...

So, what would your plans be ? I haven't played a horde since 1.1.

I would start by releasing Persia, feeding it, then absorb it when feeding is done. That seems to be the easiest way to drive the Timurids out of Iran ASAP.

And I also need to reform my government. What would the best idea group be ? Administrative's main perk is the decreased coring cost, but now that vassal feeding is back to its glorious days (with occupation transfer) is it that necessary ? So I'd go for Innovative, though Economic is nice overall.

After that, what would my next idea group be ? Probably Influence for vassal management. I'll likely have to catch up a long way in MIL tech, so military ideas won't come soon.

Another problem : how to deal with both the Ottomans and and the Timurids ? What diplomatic moves to do ? I'd seek an alliance with the Mameluks if possible.

Finally, about westernization... this is a tricky question since my playstyle is usually semi-RP. I won't do any cheesy tactic like rushing for a European neighbour with Exploration or whatever. Maybe I'll wait till Europeans get a foothold in India. But that would delay westernization until way into the XVIIth century. Another possibility : if I manage to destroy the OE early enough, I may be able to get a European neighbour early on.

Your thoughts/advice ?

Thanks in advance

 

[MiniaAr]

If you want to form Shia Persia, why not try Shirvan? They have the great Caucasian ideas, they are shia and Azerbaijani, and you don't need to reform your government.

Anyway, Administrative is an awesome group, take it as QQ as well. To form Persia, I'd recommand having a Persian vassal, feed him only the necessary provinces to form Persia then annex. Afterwards, you get all Persian cores that you can conquer with 0 autonomy. In my game, I broke truce twice to conquer everything once the Timurids were sufficiently beaten, but a more patient approach is possible.

 

[Karasuk]

go Taberstan:
if you have diplo advisor, RM, subsidies,gift Mamluks, build over the limit army: mamluks ally you. they will help you vs QQ. take shia QQ provinces+Shirvan. Since everyone hates QQ no one will care.
Ally Ottoman, disband mamluk alliance GG.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

QQ is by far the strongest start that can form Persia though, even though they have to reform their government, not to mention their starting ideas are technically better than Persia's IMO .

The plan to feed only the provinces needed is a good one; you don't want to hold a slot on that too long when you can take 0 auto cores directly. It might be a bit slow at first due to Timmy allying Ottos necessitating you declaring non-cobelligerent on their allies to work them, but you can conquer out the Arabian peninsula + Mamluks in the meantime. For the Arabian peninsula, use force religion and let vassals convert it (or just feed Najd, after converting only them, whatever). For Syria, take a low tax Syrian province, convert it, release them as Shia, feed.

Doing that will piss the Ottomans off and they'll have missions on you, but if you focus MIL you can have more units and equal tech, and they don't really get better guys until tech 9 so you can just beat on them if they give you too much sass.

Timmy is a walkover if you get a tactics lead and play defensively using horde bonuses to wear them down a bit before sieging. In previous patches I won day 0 DoW on them and IMO that's still possible to do and win, but I don't see it being the strongest play initially.

By using vassal conversion tactics, you can fully convert the Arabian peninsula and most of Egypt without having religious ideas while working on forming Persia. Your horde CB is great for this purpose.

If you want to keep up the feeding ways, Sind takes religious first in India, and several of the hordes and Berber nations also go religious ideas, so if you REALLY wanted you could unify Islam in Shia without taking religious lol, but after you reform religious will be a great CB for you until very late in the game.

go Taberstan:
if you have diplo advisor, RM, subsidies,gift Mamluks, build over the limit army: mamluks ally you. they will help you vs QQ. take shia QQ provinces+Shirvan. Since everyone hates QQ no one will care.
Ally Ottoman, disband mamluk alliance GG.

Hmm, when I did my Tabby run I didn't have a diplo advisor, so I just saved money, went over FL, and beat QQ straight up by myself using released Persia vassal.



I didn't need any loans due to looting.

 

[Magean]

Thanks guys. I'll stick with QQ, I don't want to powergame with an underdog start.

Are you sure I should focus on MIL ? I thought I'd focus on ADM in order to reform as soon as possible.

 

[MiniaAr]

Thanks guys. I'll stick with QQ, I don't want to powergame with an underdog start.

Are you sure I should focus on MIL ? I thought I'd focus on ADM in order to reform as soon as possible.

Focus on MIL is pretty much the best way to keep up in MIL tech with Ottos as a Horde and also to get a decisive tactics advantage over the Timurids soon into the game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Thanks guys. I'll stick with QQ, I don't want to powergame with an underdog start.

I'm not sure how just attacking an enemy is "powergaming", feels like you're stretching the term a bit lol. The screenshot above is a simple war dec while supporting rebels, no special tricks or game mechanics quirks, all pure WAD features to do something the game has an achievement to do. I'm certainly a powergamer, but it's hard to see how the above screenshot could fall under that definition.

That said, QQ is definitely much easier.

Are you sure I should focus on MIL ? I thought I'd focus on ADM in order to reform as soon as possible.

Reforming isn't going to help you if you're dead.

Also, rush-reforming is bad play. The horde CB is excellent, and for the first 100 years horde units are first better, then just competitive with anybody. When your ruler dies with no or a young heir, you get a ruler with a minimum of 3 in each stat as a horde, and you have 2x looting and 50% force limit and manpower boosts.

We're talking about the difference between conquering Timurids, Mamluks, and Ottomans early on versus cowering behind an Ottoman alliance and struggling to beat the Timurids while getting to be Muslim tech sooner. You still want to reform as one of your first 2 idea groups of course, but "ASAP" doesn't fit the bill.

 

[Magean]

I'm not sure how just attacking an enemy is "powergaming", feels like you're stretching the term a bit lol. The screenshot above is a simple war dec while supporting rebels, no special tricks or game mechanics quirks, all pure WAD features to do something the game has an achievement to do. I'm certainly a powergamer, but it's hard to see how the above screenshot could fall under that definition.

That said, QQ is definitely much easier.



Reforming isn't going to help you if you're dead.

Also, rush-reforming is bad play. The horde CB is excellent, and for the first 100 years horde units are first better, then just competitive with anybody. When your ruler dies with no or a young heir, you get a ruler with a minimum of 3 in each stat as a horde, and you have 2x looting and 50% force limit and manpower boosts.

We're talking about the difference between conquering Timurids, Mamluks, and Ottomans early on versus cowering behind an Ottoman alliance and struggling to beat the Timurids while getting to be Muslim tech sooner. You still want to reform as one of your first 2 idea groups of course, but "ASAP" doesn't fit the bill.

I wasn't referring specifically to your screenshot, just saying that I wanted a relatively easy start to achieve a goal, that is : forming Persia. Not one that forces me to consistently do optimal moves. That's what I meant by "not powergaming" : I'm not playing for the achievement, and I don't want to save-scum either. If I'm to play a Russian game, I'll pick Muscovy or Novgorod, not Tver or Ryazan. For Germany, I'll go Brandenburg or Hansa, not Ulm or Holstein.

Anyway, thanks again. Also, what idea groups would you pick ? And, what about westernization ?

EDIT : I'm also wondering about diplomacy. Timurids and Mameluks rival QQ right from the start, the Ottomans are neutral at first but often ally the Timmies. I may want to ally the Caucasian regional powers : they are close enough to matter. But, they may drag me in a war with Golden Horde or other Tatars.

Come to think of it, vassalizing and feeding Shirvan may be a good plan.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I wasn't referring specifically to your screenshot, just saying that I wanted a relatively easy start to achieve a goal, that is : forming Persia. Not one that forces me to consistently do optimal moves. That's what I meant by "not powergaming" : I'm not playing for the achievement, and I don't want to save-scum either. If I'm to play a Russian game, I'll pick Muscovy or Novgorod, not Tver or Ryazan. For Germany, I'll go Brandenburg or Hansa, not Ulm or Holstein.

Anyway, thanks again. Also, what idea groups would you pick ? And, what about westernization ?

I'm not sure Ryazan is much harder than Novgorod . Both of those are reliant on diplo and war tricks.

That aside, for ideas it depends to some extent what you want. IMO if you're forming Persia somewhat early, influence 1st is a good pick. Unfortunately, vassal income is bugged right now so you'll just get FL from it, but once it DOES work (devs said its fixed in the internal build), being Persia gives you 25% income from vassals, influence gives another 25%, and early on feudal monarchy gives you another 25%, meaning you can get 85% income from vassals pretty early in the game. Unlike QQ's horde ideas, Persia gets no -core cost ideas so feeding vassals --> annexing them is a bigger draw. Eventually, you'll want to get out of feudal monarchy and then your vassal income will "only" be 60% but you'll have faster -autonomy then post-annexation. Right now though you'll be stuck at 10% because the vassal income thing applies as a subject rather than overlord. You still get the force limits though. Influence is also great in that you can annex your vassals more inexpensively and faster, perfect for a "feed the Middle East into Shia" play.

Next up is one out of ADM, Econ, or Inno to reform. I'm not a fan of any of these for Persia, but you have no choice. Econ isn't going to mesh well with your boosted vassal income and then you'll be too rich to merit it, so choose your favorite out of ADM and innovative. I guess I slightly prefer innovative for a heavy vassal feed strat nation that's going to get rich pretty fast. You still get some money from the -advisor cost and so you can at least apply the -2% AT decay, extra general, and -.05 WE to put some hurting down.

After that, I'd go aristocratic (Persia can stack this with its -cav cost ambition) and offensive as military ideas, and work in religious and diplomatic.

Westernization can be done via Genoa, Sweden, Venice or Portugal with conquest, conquering Crimea, Ottomans, Muscovy, or the Berbers respectively depending on how your game shakes out. I recommend doing it this patch; it's easy to feed vassals in Asia even while western now and the nature of the unrest and -5/month cap make it practical even if you're large.

 

[Magean]

Thank you so much. Concerning diplomacy, I see I edited my post above right at the time you posted your reply... Am I being too demanding ?

Is there any ETA for the next beta patch ? I might as well delay my game if it's close enough. Any nation I plan to play currently may be buffed by it : Persia because of the broken vassal income ; Andeans because Wiz implied that the 50% LA cap in colonies may see some reworking ; and Malayans for the same reason, and also since the Chinese tech group may also be tweaked.

But, on the other hand, I wonder if occupation transfers will still work as they do right now. Vassal feeding has been consistently nerved since the initial release, and all of a sudden, it's back for real ? What was the devs' intention when they let us transfer any occupied province to a vassal, without removing the limitations put on selling provinces ? This is inconsistent. One of these may change.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You might be able to sneak a temp alliance with the Ottomans, but it won't last long as you'd rather take the lands they want and they'll grab a mission on you eventually regardless. For the most part, expect it to be you + vassals only, unless you want to rival Ottos and fish an alliance with Muscovy (I actually did that as Tabby --> Persia, QQ could get it earlier). Muscovy won't be loyal forever either but you can join their wars and do nothing w/o much risk and they'll be a pseudo deterrent otherwise, but only do this if you're willing to fight Ottomans.

No known ETA for the beta patch yet.

As for vassal feeding, it's "back", but it isn't what it once was (remember, diploannex didn't used to cost DIP). Right now, you can diploannex less expensively than you can core, except if you have -core cost ideas. However, feeding vassals needs you to spec heavily for it, annexing had 75% LA attached to new provinces, and if you want to annex more than once every 10 years you have to spec for that too, forcing you to use 2-3 idea groups to get it operating at full efficiency. This isn't so far removed from the DIP 22 territory and client states/imperialism type stuff, so while IMO vassal feeding is stronger overall on nations that have no -core cost, you have to invest heavily to get it and in a more competitive environment it could easily lose out.

 

[fridabina]

Not exactly on topic, but what are peoples opinion on Aq qoyunlu being Turkish rahter than Azerbaijani? (Meaning they can't form Persia.)

Found it rather annoying having to culture swithc in Ironman Aq qoyunlu -> Persia game.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not exactly on topic, but what are peoples opinion on Aq qoyunlu being Turkish rahter than Azerbaijani? (Meaning they can't form Persia.)

Found it rather annoying having to culture swithc in Ironman Aq qoyunlu -> Persia game.

I didn't know since I hadn't used them in 1.8 yet. My initial reaction is that it's bizarre. I know the historic conquest virtually never happened, but why make it even more doubtful?

 

[unmerged(332172)]

Not exactly on topic, but what are peoples opinion on Aq qoyunlu being Turkish rahter than Azerbaijani? (Meaning they can't form Persia.)

Found it rather annoying having to culture swithc in Ironman Aq qoyunlu -> Persia game.

Not exactly historically accurate. Both the Aq- and Qara Qoyunlu states were Azerbaijani. So this seems like a gameplay decision.

 

[Magean]

Indeed, vassal feeding isn't as strong as it used to, with the DIP cost and high LA malus.

However, what I have in mind is that we can feed vassals by transferring occupation of any province, but can't sell whatever province we want. So I'm wondering if the devs intended to bring back extensive vassal feeding (and in that case, they should open up province selling), or if they left a loophole in occupation transfers, that they may fix in the patch.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Not exactly historically accurate. Both the Aq- and Qara Qoyunlu states were Azerbaijani. So this seems like a gameplay decision.

To what purpose, however? To marginalize Aq Q even more in favor of holding baby Ottomans' hands?

However, what I have in mind is that we can feed vassals by transferring occupation of any province, but can't sell whatever province we want. So I'm wondering if the devs intended to bring back extensive vassal feeding (and in that case, they should open up province selling), or if they left a loophole in occupation transfers, that they may fix in the patch.

Adding a feature deliberately and then advertising it as such would be one hell of a loophole.

More likely, they just didn't bother to alter the selling aspect.

 

[unmerged(332172)]

I had a blast playing Shirvan. They have amazing ideas and their capital is rich. Ally the Ottomans and Qara Qoyunly. Fabricate a claim on Tabarestan and take the province and vassalize Tabarestan. Now you control a trade node and rich provinces with silk resources! Next fabricate new claims on the Timurid lands and then return the Tabarestan province to your vassal. Next use your alliance to crush the Timurids. Once you win the war, never stop harrassing the Timurids. I conquered all of Persia by 1600, and converted their culture to mine. But I never formed Persia (kinda liked the Shirvan ideas).

 

[Magean]

Another question : should I release Armenia ? Its provinces start with a high unrest, and are difficult to convert. A Shia Armenia would be able to do it more easily, and would be a good vassal to feed with Caucasus provinces. On the other hand, if I release both Armenia and Persia, my own territory shrinks quite a lot, and what's more, it gets separated in two non-contiguous parts (Azerbaijan and Iraq).

EDIT : first attempt. I had decided to wait until I was allied with Uzbeks and Timmies were at war to attack them. But the amount of pretender rebellions I got was so huge that I DoW'd the Timmies (who fortunately were invading Indian nations at the same time). The war started reasonably well, if not for my dumb Persian vassals who sieged the wrong province and eventually got cornered in a 3 vs 15 battle, costing me 2.2 warscore. After that, Shia rebelled in Timurid Persia. After taking control of one province, they decided to go for one of the province that I, a Shia ruler, occupied. I tried to hunt them down, and at that point 30K Timurids cornered my and I lost everything.

Maybe DoWing them at first wasn't a good idea. I should have waged war in Arabia or the Caucasus for a start, to avoid the rebellion events.

EDIT 2 : second try. This time I released Persia, allied and RM Shirvan. Then I dow'd Shia Haasa, vassalized them, and after that conquered Shaamar (the yellow Arab tribe) and most of Najd, which I fed to Haasa. I could also diplo-vassalize Shirvan. At that point, I invaded and vassalized Georgia, hoping to create a march there. Unfortunately, I can't : "Hordes cannot be march" says the tooltip, although Georgia isn't a horde. Anyway...
The Timurids allied the OE. I waited for the Ottos to be at war (with Karaman, this time), and only then attacked the Timmies, joined in their war by the OE and Kazan. The relative strength of alliances was roughly 2 to 1 in their favour. Since the Ottos were busy in Anatolia, I could take on Timurid armies, beat them (I had mil tech 4 and they had 3) and occupy 3 provinces. Unfortunately, the OE finished its war and rushed to help its ally. By then, it became very tough to fight both the remnants of Timurid armies and the many Turkish troops. Also, even with 29% warscore and after 4 years of war, the Timurids would only agree to a white peace.
*sigh*

There seems to be two possibilities :
-Recruiting dozens of mercenaries and going deep in debt in order to win the war at all cost, in the hope that the truce will last long enough for my budget and manpower to recover, while not being cowardly dow'd by the Mameluks.

-Or reloading before the war and waiting until the heirs of Tamerlan are in real trouble. A day that may never come since, at least in my games, they usually don't have much trouble keeping their empire in one piece. Also, the more I wait, the stronger the Ottos will get. A war between them and the Mameluks would be good news.