I thought I’d note down a few random thoughts having finally managed to conquer the world. This was to get the achievement so I made liberal use of vassals. And I used the Ottomans, who are a good nation to try it with for a host of reasons. I appreciate this will be old hat for some, but might be useful for others.
Anyway, just in time for my comments to be made obsolete by 1.23 and in no particular order:
- Early game: after annexing Byzantium and my cores, the first job is to get access to the Persian Gulf. I wanted that to kick start my colonisation campaign and to monopolise the eastern trade routes. With Exploration ideas I discovered America pre-1500, giving me a fighting chance of Colonisation spawning in my land (which it did) and get a colonial nation going even if not. I also wanted to go east and conquer the Spice Islands. Once you have trade routes coming from the Spice Islands, up the Persian Gulf and into Constantinople, you’ll have the money you need for world domination.
- Religion: humanism was my first idea group. I never tried to convert anyone. I kept piety as low as possible until I ran out of Muslim nations to invade, then kept it high. It’s worth being defender of the faith for the morale and especially war exhaustion bonus. I’d annexed all other Muslim nations anyway by about 1650.
- Coring: I wanted to maximise Absolutism for the coring benefits, use vassals where I could, rarely turn a territory into a state (I just did it for Egypt, Syria and Iraq, plus where vassals had been annexed), and grab admin ideas to get the coring bonus. Do that and you never need have over extension over 100%. I went to 190% by accident in the mid eighteenth century: it took 30,000 ducats and three years to get everything back on an even keel.
- Vassals: I vassalise defeated opponents and then annex them later, but I had big vassals I'd fed liberally set as marches at the end: there are two policies for Aristocracy and Offence ideas that add 100% to vassal forces so all six of my regular vassals were fielding stacks of 60 or 70 for the last push on the HRE. Keep an eye out for countries that were big and then get small. Vassalise them and use all the lovely cores they have on all their neighbours.
- Colonising: I made sure I had a small colonial nation in every area, then let the main European colonisers do their thing. When I invaded them late game, I could take their colonies after the first victory and then mop up the rest of the Native Americans.
- Ideas: Humanism, Exploration, Admin, Influence, Diplomacy, Aristocracy, Offence. Never got the last one.
- Fortresses: Hate ‘em. I destroy all mine as soon as separatism has gone away. For those late game size 8 fortresses all over Europe I used 100+ stacks with 50 inf and 50 artillery. I had three of these on the go, with cavalry sitting behind in case they were attacked.
- Mercs: I turned to infantry mercs as early as I could afford, then also cavalry mercs. I was at war almost constantly so without maxing out my budget on mercs, my manpower would never have coped.
- Alliances: Nope.
- Colonists: Once I had the Indies under my thumb and colonial nations all set, I just stopped.
- Russia: In the first couple of wars, I took enough low development land to completely enclose them. I did this early enough to stop them taking much of Siberia. Then just left them to it while I attended to other things for 100 years. They were still stuck in their big cold prison a century later when I came back to finish them off.
- Ming: I just kept invading their tributary countries. The Mingsters always join in and you can just bleed them dry without having to worry about truces. It’s a long but inevitable process. I also got them to release nations that I vassalised and fed with the new Ming provinces as I conquered them.
- Order of play: Invading Arabia and Syria, Indies, Egypt and horn of Africa, India, Russia, Ming and central Asia, north and central Africa, Europe through Iberia, Balkans and Scandi. Finally the HRE. Last down in my game was Austria in 1815.
Anyway, just in time for my comments to be made obsolete by 1.23 and in no particular order:
- Early game: after annexing Byzantium and my cores, the first job is to get access to the Persian Gulf. I wanted that to kick start my colonisation campaign and to monopolise the eastern trade routes. With Exploration ideas I discovered America pre-1500, giving me a fighting chance of Colonisation spawning in my land (which it did) and get a colonial nation going even if not. I also wanted to go east and conquer the Spice Islands. Once you have trade routes coming from the Spice Islands, up the Persian Gulf and into Constantinople, you’ll have the money you need for world domination.
- Religion: humanism was my first idea group. I never tried to convert anyone. I kept piety as low as possible until I ran out of Muslim nations to invade, then kept it high. It’s worth being defender of the faith for the morale and especially war exhaustion bonus. I’d annexed all other Muslim nations anyway by about 1650.
- Coring: I wanted to maximise Absolutism for the coring benefits, use vassals where I could, rarely turn a territory into a state (I just did it for Egypt, Syria and Iraq, plus where vassals had been annexed), and grab admin ideas to get the coring bonus. Do that and you never need have over extension over 100%. I went to 190% by accident in the mid eighteenth century: it took 30,000 ducats and three years to get everything back on an even keel.
- Vassals: I vassalise defeated opponents and then annex them later, but I had big vassals I'd fed liberally set as marches at the end: there are two policies for Aristocracy and Offence ideas that add 100% to vassal forces so all six of my regular vassals were fielding stacks of 60 or 70 for the last push on the HRE. Keep an eye out for countries that were big and then get small. Vassalise them and use all the lovely cores they have on all their neighbours.
- Colonising: I made sure I had a small colonial nation in every area, then let the main European colonisers do their thing. When I invaded them late game, I could take their colonies after the first victory and then mop up the rest of the Native Americans.
- Ideas: Humanism, Exploration, Admin, Influence, Diplomacy, Aristocracy, Offence. Never got the last one.
- Fortresses: Hate ‘em. I destroy all mine as soon as separatism has gone away. For those late game size 8 fortresses all over Europe I used 100+ stacks with 50 inf and 50 artillery. I had three of these on the go, with cavalry sitting behind in case they were attacked.
- Mercs: I turned to infantry mercs as early as I could afford, then also cavalry mercs. I was at war almost constantly so without maxing out my budget on mercs, my manpower would never have coped.
- Alliances: Nope.
- Colonists: Once I had the Indies under my thumb and colonial nations all set, I just stopped.
- Russia: In the first couple of wars, I took enough low development land to completely enclose them. I did this early enough to stop them taking much of Siberia. Then just left them to it while I attended to other things for 100 years. They were still stuck in their big cold prison a century later when I came back to finish them off.
- Ming: I just kept invading their tributary countries. The Mingsters always join in and you can just bleed them dry without having to worry about truces. It’s a long but inevitable process. I also got them to release nations that I vassalised and fed with the new Ming provinces as I conquered them.
- Order of play: Invading Arabia and Syria, Indies, Egypt and horn of Africa, India, Russia, Ming and central Asia, north and central Africa, Europe through Iberia, Balkans and Scandi. Finally the HRE. Last down in my game was Austria in 1815.
