Road to World Conquest

[Scalacious]

I have never done a WC before and I finally want to check it of my list
I revoked the privilegia and nearly controll all of europe with the HRE and my PUs, but barely hold anything beyond the mediterranean border.
With still about 200 years on the clock, is a WC possible? Expansion right now feels rather slow as I can take like only 10 provinces at a time from tlemcen, mamlukes, russia or sweden.
Any advice on what to do?

 

[Vetgirig]

Actually its now you can start to conquer the worlds. Before Absolutism it's just preparation time for WC.

Also you do know you can start one war every month ? So yes you can conquer a lot of land every year. Being in just one war is not the way to go. You got a vassal swarm. let them fight the wars.

Also do not core everything yourself - give land to your vassals.

 

[Scalacious]

Yeah, I know that I need to feed my vassals and that I can be in multiple wars, but there is still downtime when Im in a truce with everybody I border.
Do I need to break that truce?

 

[Waffle Knight]

Take clay in a straight line to the next nation over, not just big chunks, eventually you will border every nation in the world.
Border gore galore is the way to go.

 

[heliostellar]

Take clay in a straight line to the next nation over, not just big chunks, eventually you will border every nation in the world.
Border gore galore is the way to go.

I think this is the point I always miss with WCs. I usually end up surrounded by a wall of truces. I really don't have the patience to execute a complicated amphibious invasion of Southeast/East Asia either.

 

[EarlKonrad]

I think this is the point I always miss with WCs. I usually end up surrounded by a wall of truces. I really don't have the patience to execute a complicated amphibious invasion of Southeast/East Asia either.

Always try and make life easier to you. Aim for the weaker nations. Once you have a bridgehead you can declare on your new neighbors and expand.

Alternatively, ally yourself with an Asian nation, deploy troops on their territory and declare on one of their neighbours and drag your ally to the war. This way you don't have to care about amphibious assaults and have your army ready to strike.

 

[Kanem Bornu]

Yeah, I know that I need to feed my vassals and that I can be in multiple wars, but there is still downtime when Im in a truce with everybody I border.
Do I need to break that truce?

You do not need to break any truces until much, much later in the game. If at all. Look at how much development you took in the first 180 years with no admin efficiency.

Max out your absolutism. Take admin and diplo idea groups (for the CCR and province war score reduction, respectively). Take all of the provinces yourself in peace deals and then grant it to your subjects after. The reason to do that is your absolutism will be much higher than your subjects, so you will be able to take more land than if you try to give it to them directly in the peace deals.

Later in the game you should be able to maintain at least 50% admin efficiency which will cut everything in half - province war score, core costs, overextension impact from development, and even aggressive expanion.

People are saying feed your subjects and that's fine. But that's so much micro management, I don't understand how people don't lose their mind from the tedium. Don't be afraid to take on a lot of land yourself, especially the best states. Late game you'll be happy to have the coal producing provinces for yourself.

Most important of all, when you hit dip tech 23 you get the Imperialism CB. It changes everything. You don't need borders or claims, and taking any province is justified (no dip cost for provinces from primary participants). The CB does not expire. It's what you will use for the rest of the game, unless you go Revolutionary at some point.

 

[EarlKonrad]

I have never done a WC before and I finally want to check it of my list
I revoked the privilegia and nearly controll all of europe with the HRE and my PUs, but barely hold anything beyond the mediterranean border.
With still about 200 years on the clock, is a WC possible? Expansion right now feels rather slow as I can take like only 10 provinces at a time from tlemcen, mamlukes, russia or sweden.
Any advice on what to do?

View attachment 610254

1. Get Absolutism to 100 ASAP
2. Never stop fighting, ever.
3. Win

To elaborate a bit more. I myself never done an Austria WC but what I'm about to tell you is just general WC advice. Once you hit 100 absolutism and get imperialism, the rate at which you can conquer and core land is ludicrous so if you are fighting constantly and manage your MP wisely, you shouldn't have a problem conquering the world.

Things to keep in mind:
- Prioritize taking provinces with forts. It takes a lot of time to siege them and you ideally want to siege each fort exactly once.
- Always fight on multiple fronts at once. You want to be constantly expanding and have no downtime. This also means running 100% OE, or more if you can afford.
- Don't take blobs of land. Instead, focus on opening as many fronts as possible.
- Have a plan on how to deal with China and any other big blobs. Even with max absolutism they will take around 4 wars to fully annex so it is better to start killing any big blob as soon as possible.
- Blob around nations so that you can conformably eat them later and make it harder for them to get allies.
- Get Humanism, if you haven't already, and offensive, if you are aiming to conquer more territories for yourself.
- Client States are excellent vassals to feed newly acquired territories.

 

[Jomini]

The other things to remember:
1. You can burn a few hundred points on taking Expansion just for the colonist then abandoning the group. This can allow you drop a colony in Africa or Asia that opens new borders. Yeah the colony is a bit pricey once you lose the colonist, but you should be able to afford it.
2. With a big enough vassal swarm you can co-belligerent and pick off a new vassal. You are on the Red Sea so you can force vassalize somebody in a separate peace and then use them as a staging ground/CB farm (e.g. they have cores or claims) to go further abroad. I have not done the vassal swarm this patch, but I know in previous patches liberty desire for non-HRE vassals was crazy so they are not great for their own territorial expansion. Get a vassal in the Horn of Africa, Arabia, or even India this way.
3. Also look at the states who have MA with your neighbors. Can you find a war where you can force peace or balance out other great powers by intervening?
4. Seize vassal land to open new routes of expansion. You should be able to seize a province from Georgia to get a border (and expansion route) into QQ.
5. Demand MA as part of your peace treaties. Then if you can get CB sources and coring range (e.g. chartering) you can leapfrog the states that block you.

 

[Scalacious]

Update for those who care:
Im eating my way into India right now, trying to be in as many wars as is manageable and taking your advice to heart.
Is it okay to focus on afrika and asia right now leaving the americas for a later time? I don't want to ship my troops across the atlantic every 5 years or so.

 

[Waffle Knight]

Why ship them back? You should have above 200 FL, just leave a stack or 2 and keep the rest on the mainland to handle sieges efficently. Your vassals will mince any armies coming your way anyways.

 

[Scalacious]

Why ship them back? You should have above 200 FL, just leave a stack or 2 and keep the rest on the mainland to handle sieges efficently. Your vassals will mince any armies coming your way anyways.

The only real enemy in the americas is portugal, which is now a nation in south america (since I beat them out of ibiria) but still holds like 1/3 of the americas in colonial nations. I dont think I can defeat them with just one or two stacks

 

[EarlKonrad]

Forget Portugal's CNs, what you want to do is eat Portugal in its entirety so their CNs will become yours.

You should be able to conformably afford one or two medium sized stacks in Africa while the rest of your force is either conquering the Americas or Asia. There is no point in over commiting to a single front.

Post a map of the Americas next time.

 

[Scalacious]

Forget Portugal's CNs, what you want to do is eat Portugal in its entirety so their CNs will become yours.

You should be able to conformably afford one or two medium sized stacks in Africa while the rest of your force is either conquering the Americas or Asia. There is no point in over commiting to a single front.

Post a map of the Americas next time.

Eating Portugal is going to be a pain in the ass, as they are located in the middle of south america and have sizeable holdings in afrika and indonesia as well.
Pictures of the americas are following. Everything in green directly or indirectly (through my PU over castille) belongs to me.

 

[heliostellar]

Eating Portugal is going to be a pain in the ass, as they are located in the middle of south america and have sizeable holdings in afrika and indonesia as well.
Pictures of the americas are following. Everything in green directly or indirectly (through my PU over castille) belongs to me.

Don't worry about Portugal's holdings in America. They are colonies that will flip over to their CN.

You just need to vassalize Portugal, then diploannex. You will inherit their CNs are your own. You will also inherit any colonies that they had, such as in South America.

 

[Scalacious]

Don't worry about Portugal's holdings in America. They are colonies that will flip over to their CN.

You just need to vassalize Portugal, then diploannex. You will inherit their CNs are your own. You will also inherit any colonies that they had, such as in South America.

I don't think they are flipping over, because their capital is in south america.

 

[cuendillar]

You have tons of cash on hand. Opening a new front is as easy as chartering a trade company from some Asian and African nations. Get local allies and vassals (though your European ones will march over there anyway....) to strengthen the footholds.

 

[makaramus]

Don't worry about Portugal's holdings in America. They are colonies that will flip over to their CN.

You just need to vassalize Portugal, then diploannex. You will inherit their CNs are your own. You will also inherit any colonies that they had, such as in South America.

dude... portugal can his capital to brazil by integrating it.

 

[Scalacious]

Portugal just formed Peru und inherited all of their CNs

 

[enKage]

It doesn't change anything, eat Peru and inherit all colonial nations