Saladin's Legacy - opening?

[Dominion]

What am I going for in this run?

On Bitlis I don't have a free claim and they get allies before I can fabricate, QQ is too strong and AQ would like me, but they look like the only one I can attack.

So... alliance with AQ, nocb Bitlis, pray QQ never attacks?

Any other ideas? Can I get QQ friendly?

A few pointers would be nice.

 

[Eviota]

I strongly suggest you to watch DDRJake run for Saladin's Legacy, he plays on very hard and it should give you nice ideas in early and mid game.

 

[Dominion]

I strongly suggest you to watch DDRJake run for Saladin's Legacy, he plays on very hard and it should give you nice ideas in early and mid game.

Didn't think of checking youtubters. Thanks for the hint!

 

[bbqftw]

I strongly suggest you to watch DDRJake run for Saladin's Legacy, he plays on very hard and it should give you nice ideas in early and mid game.

this has to be sarcasm as "do nothing for 150 years while surviving because of hotfixed bug that makes your overlord unable to annex you" is among the strats employed there

Doesn't Bitlis start as QQ vassal..?

Maybe some variant of Ottomans declaring early on AQ (not quite sure what events result in this happening...), opportunistic sniping for border, improve to +100 to disable hostile, alliance? If you secure Ottoman alliance before 1500 you have the achievement.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

On normal I could actually beat QQ with Aq Q as an ally by hitting them while QQ was fighting another nation and being very careful. That would not work on VH obviously, since it was close on normal.

After that I took a couple provinces before things went bad and betrayed Aq Q for power, allied Ottomans, and racked favors to get them to 80 trust. After that it was pretty free gameplay, ~2k development by 1600, not sure exactly but in that area IIRC.

 

[cuendillar]

On normal I could actually beat QQ with Aq Q as an ally by hitting them while QQ was fighting another nation and being very careful. That would not work on VH obviously, since it was close on normal.

After that I took a couple provinces before things went bad and betrayed Aq Q for power, allied Ottomans, and racked favors to get them to 80 trust. After that it was pretty free gameplay, ~2k development by 1600, not sure exactly but in that area IIRC.

How do you get them that high in trust? That would require upping trust 6 times, and the Ottomans are so much larger that you'd only get one every four years normally. That's 240 years of waiting to get there. How do you speed it up enough to make it feasible? My experience is that they always break alliance with me way before that (even if I start much farther away) and get -150 relations at best with me.

 

[Dutch Patriot]

How do you get them that high in trust? That would require upping trust 6 times, and the Ottomans are so much larger that you'd only get one every four years normally. That's 240 years of waiting to get there. How do you speed it up enough to make it feasible? My experience is that they always break alliance with me way before that (even if I start much farther away) and get -150 relations at best with me.

Call them in a war while promising land and give them everything. This gives you a bunch of favors.

 

[Chewy Yui]

For me, what worked was restarting until AQ wasn't allied to Dulkadir.

Ally Dulkadir and Samasktesh (The green Georgian guy), call them in against AQ as soon as you can war, with promise of favours. Make sure you get control of all the sieges. Improve with Ottomans, royal marry when you can (I had to get a dip rep advisor), preferably before the war ends.

In my game, I peaced out for all of AQ, except the two top provinces. You can give these to allys if you want to, I didn't bother (this gets broke land promise for 30 years though, I wasnt in a hurry for the achievement so didnt care). Dulkadir rivaled me as soon as I peaced out anyway. Sam' said he'd break the alliance, but never did.

Ally ottoman (should be possible as threatened by Mamluk/QQ, +the diplo rep advisor) and go from there.

Getting favours with Ottomans is easy, he will likely call you in against georgian minors/defensive stuff, and as long as you contribute, you get a ton of favours.

From there call Ottomans in against Mamluks, QQ, and let him do the work, just make sure you get the sieges on any land he has marked as Vital interest (usually only the coastal Levant provinces in the cyprus sea zone)

Ottoman wont get Conquer Levant mission if the land is owned by you, and if he does, take land outside of the claimed bits until it goes away

Hope this helps

 

[Dominion]

Helps a lot in that neither of you says QQ is a possible ally. Saves a lot of time.

Was thinking about a Bitlis start, but if AQ and QQ worked for you I'll go for that instead.

If either of you has any screenshots just so I can get a better feeling that'd be nice. I'll grab breaking the Yoke in the meantime. Still a bit unsure about starting a Saladin run ^^

Thanks for the contribution so far

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Call them in a war while promising land and give them everything. This gives you a bunch of favors.

This + when they do stupid crap like call you in vs Trebizond immediately rush Trebizond/kill their army/siege the province down yourself. You get 100% war contribution and instant 40 favors in wars like that. This is not a situation where you want to set yourself friendly to all nations to block ally CtA .

 

[Sousuke123]

In my run i waited till AQ gets overrun by coptic zealots and then annexed them. Allied Ottos and Timmies. Used them to conquer QQ. Took required provinces and formed Persia to make use of permanent claims and culture converted to Mashriqi culture grabbed required provinces and formed Arabia. Once Ottos became hostile to me i allied Poland and Austria.

 

[rjinswand]

I did mostly the same thing as Chewy Yui over here, restart until ottomans and dulkadir doesnt ally AQ (they only allied some arab minor (azab?)) and kill them together with dulkadir. It could be a tough war, but if you manage to beat AQs army once you should be good to siege down everything. I full annexed AQ without giving dulkadir any land and then dropping their alliance for Ajam and ottomans who I had improved with and married.

As soon as you get ottomans to back you up you should be golden. I took some georgian land and other caucasus states as well as joining any ottoman wars to gain favors. Used their favors to increase trust and eat the mamluks. I even converted to orthodox and kept ottomans, and all levant land since I got them to 100 trust pretty quick (there seems to be a bug where you can gain like 40 favors from accepting call to arms and doing minor work). Currently sitting as great power around ~1520 with all of mamluks northern land along with everything sub-caucasus and north of baghdad.

Edit: I read Chewy Yuis post again and realized it was pretty much identical to mine. I didnt get samtschke though, otherwise completely the same and totally reproducable. I also allied timmies after Ajam got mad (he ate all remaining QQ land), but I imagine that is totally unnecessary as long as you keep the ottos happy. The first 20 years are the hardest, everything from then on is a cakewalk. I'd also suggest using Iraq and Syria to vassal feed when you get that far.

 

[bbqftw]

The biggest meme thing to do to farm favors is give Ottomans non-cobelligerent land in the peace deal since it costs double warscore and all the favors calculation do is consider the warscore proportions.

e.g. Wallachia allied to Theodoro, you declare on Theodoro, do all the work, then call Ottomans once everything is done and give them Wallachia. ez 30++ favors.

If you are playing on normal this also gives them asston of AE which might check their expansion down the line.

 

[Khan of Italy]

I started with a no-CB war on the Rassids (though any Yemeni nation without friends would work) and vassalized them, going terribly into debt/corruption in the process. From there I used the Rassids claims/cores to do conquest/reconquest on their neighbors, taking some land for myself too. Waited 10 years doing everything I could to keep Rassid liberty desire down, them annexed the Rassids. From there I had a decent powerbase in Yemen, and had weak Arab and Somali neighbors to expand into. The Mamluks were chill and gave me military access, so I was able to march back to my home territory and conquer the Qoyunlus when they were weak.

After that, I think the game is too chaotic for people to reliably replicate what I did. It all depends on AI alliances, the Ottoman/Mamluk attitudes to you, how strong the Timurid successor states (or Timurids) are, etc. Blob into those who are weak and rich (Persia and Caucuses, probably), try to avoid pissing off them Ottomans. If you can befriend the Ottomans and use them against the Mamluks, that's great (but will probably get them pissed once you take too much Mamluk land). Focus on offensive/defensive/quality ideas in preparation for fighting the Ottomans, you're never going to have more troops than them but your troops can be a lot better in terms of discipline/morale/combat ability. Be sure to take defender of the faith for the 10% morale bonus (and to deny that bonus to the Ottomans, who usually claim defender of the faith).

I got the achievement around 1750, more talented players could probably do it much quicker than I did.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If you are playing on normal this also gives them asston of AE which might check their expansion down the line.

Not much of a threat on normal, especially not if you're bringing them in on Mamluks to truce lock them out of their own DoW there. I don't think the AE will matter to them with luck bonus + AI expansion rate on normal, but neither does their expansion rate matter much (rather this is why the AE won't).

 

[Dominion]

Jake's run convinced me that a player should never be allowed to offer himself as a vassal in a peacedeal and entertained me. Not much beyond that. I'll get back to them in the new year.

 

[Splax77]

As someone who recently did Saladin's Legacy on VH:

• Try and get alliances with QQ's rivals, early opportunities include AQ, Ajam, and possibly Mamluks (have to snatch them right as they annex a vassal, otherwise too many relations). Mamluks is more of an insurance policy to prevent attacks, as their AI is hardcoded to be 10x dumber than a normal AI.
• Don't be afraid of no CB wars as a means of expansion (or as a means of stopping the ottomans from being hostile: https://i.imgur.com/ShWvrJK.jpg): https://imgur.com/a/JzKkc
• Hope the Mamluks AI isn't completely braindead and stubbornly refuses to use mercs: https://imgur.com/a/pjgUX
• Eventually, get big enough to rival the Mamluks and ally the Ottomans instead: https://i.imgur.com/rTifApn.jpg
• Watch in awe as Novgorod beats Muscovy: https://i.imgur.com/vDxTRIw.jpg
• Use your Otto alliance to grab some stuff off the Mamluks, and slowly expand east into Persia. I recommend doing quantity ideas first.
• Once you've got a force limit of ~250, you're ready to get revenge on the Turks for steailng 2 of your provinces a few centuries ago: https://imgur.com/a/zhwZ7