Songhai First Idea Group

[Zqrfmb]

I'm playing Songhai with intent to take advantage of central Africa's land routes to north and east Africa and form a continent-spanning empire. I might end up westernizing if I have to tangle constantly with the ottomans or European colonial powers, but for now, I just hit ADM 4 I'm focusing on consolidating central africa. Any ideas for an idea group? I've been considering humanism to help me hold together the new culture groups better and expand easier, but that might not be as helpful in the long term since most of what I intend to expand into will already be Sunni.

Other notes:

- The year is 1489
- I have Hausa and Y-... the culture that starts with a Y south of Songhai accepted
- I have annexed Benin and the Hausa country whose name starts with a Z.
- My military tech is 6, compared to 4-5 among my neighbors, so I'm not very concerned with difficulties in conquest.
- I also have the highest FL and standing army in central Africa
- No European powers have any permanent territories in the area that aren't presently occupied by patriot rebels.
- Most other nations in the area still exist and have remained relatively static.

 

[MiniaAr]

Humanism is great and let you deal with Unrest/Autonomy pretty nicely. If you're conquering a lot of land, instead of using vassals, then Administrative is always good (and the tech reduction priceless). Finally, this is a gold-heavy region if I recall correctly so Economic would make sense.

That's for the ADM groups, I always start with one of those theses days. Pre-AOW, you might like to take Exploration and go to Brazil, but I'm not sure this is advisable anymore.

You don't seem to need a MIL group at this point, and MIL tech parity is probably what you should aim for before ideas.

 

[ThisIsAUsername]

If you take Humanism as a large Muslim empire, you'll see your provinces converting to heresies and giving you -10 piety fairly often. Good for technology cost, but Songhai already has this as one of its national ideas.

MiniaAr, Exploration is alive and well in AoW. I'm currently playing as Songhai with it as my first idea group. It's the only thing that keeps me entertained at the moment. I've already united Central Africa but still lack military tech to remove Iberians from the premises. Now I'm creating colonial nations in Brazil and La Plata with the goal of having all this trade power rerouted to Ivory Coast.

 

[Karabas1543]

Religious for CBs on neighbors + conversion of the animist provinces?

 

[Santoes]

I'd pick one of the reform government ideas. Innovation is a pretty good first pick. You get a -1 to unrest when it's all done. If your getting an early gold mine economics would help as west africa is kind of poor on taxes.

 

[petertel123]

on another note, the nobody wants to die achievement has become ridiculously easy

 

[aschack]

Interesting. I'm also playing Songhai as my first AoW playthrough (mainly to learn the ropes) with an Africa spanning empire as a vague goal.

I've taken religious as the first idea group to get the CB and easy conversion on the pagan neighbours and the coptic states to the east. An alternative, if you really want all of Africa, is to take Exploration as the first - Castile will be colonising Africa very swiftly. There seems to be some difference between 1.7 and 1.8 as to what gets colonised when and by whom, but eventually both Castile, Portugal and England will go for Africa, as well as possibly France. So if you want the Cape etc. you need Exploration as the first.
Keep in mind that it seems Morocco get an event that colonises Tuat for them even if they don't have Exploration/Expansion ideas.

I'm considering Quantity ideas too as manpower is quite low in west Africa. If you want money, you're probably better off with Economic ideas than Trade for a good while, since the downstream trade power makes Europeans have silly amounts of trade power in Ivory Coast.
And Diplomatic will help immensely if you're going for core-feeding vassals with the new annex vassal mechanics.

If you're going to westernise, remember that you then won't be able to vassalise sub-Saharans after that, so you'll likely be coring them, which means Admin ideas are a godsent. It will be too if you want to core the berber states.

I'd planned to not westernise, but after a bit of a screwup with killing off my heirs, I ended up with 0 legitimacy. a 10 year regency council and a bunch of provinces with recently lowered autonomy, and as Morocco westernised, I decided to go for it since it'd be 10 years of rebel stomping regardless.

 

[Zqrfmb]

I'd pick one of the reform government ideas. Innovation is a pretty good first pick. You get a -1 to unrest when it's all done. If your getting an early gold mine economics would help as west africa is kind of poor on taxes.

Songhai starts as a despotic monarchy, as oppsoed to all the other countries being tribes.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Religious for CBs on neighbors + conversion of the animist provinces?

That's junk. None of the provinces are particularly high tax (except Timbuktu, which is Sunni anyway), and pagans make you convert their provinces more easily. Religious is good if you're doing colonial wars with Iberians or later on to go on a tear in non-Sunni lands, but shouldn't even be on your radar early on.

Some good early picks:

1. Exploration: If you don't pick this, the only path to early westernization involves a war vs Morocco. That's actually doable, but exploration also lets you make a run for Cape or even get into the colonial Brazil game.

2. Economic: There is still gold and it still inflates you, and you can still back-invest it into manufactories and other useful buildings. With gimped colonies developing your conquered land carries even more weight.

3. Quantity: This is an underrated economy trait with the power cost reduction and massively reduced army upkeep.

I would open the ideas in that order actually, lets you catch up in miltech after westernizing.

 

[Santoes]

1. Exploration: If you don't pick this, the only path to early westernization involves a war vs Morocco. That's actually doable, but exploration also lets you make a run for Cape or even get into the colonial Brazil game.

Portugal will come to you more often then not. I don't see a need for exploration unless you really want it. It also takes a good while now for africa to fall behind in tech, so there's no need to rush for it.

 

[aschack]

It's a good point about the low base tax being easy to convert. Still, for a predominantly conquest based game, it's rock solid for the CB.
About the westernisation, since every man and their dog are westernising now, I think it's fairly given that Morocco will westernise, so you can just use them to westernise off. Exploration's still mandatory as the first to get to Cape before Europe though.

 

[Zqrfmb]

I'm not in a hurry to slog through the tropical areas to the cape, rich as it is; I'd rather test the AI's ability to defend coastal africa from me after they do the grunt work. I will need a colonist to get a land route into Ethiopia and Morocco, though.

 

[anomanderus]

Yoruba? It's probably Yoruba.

 

[Santoes]

I'm not in a hurry to slog through the tropical areas to the cape, rich as it is; I'd rather test the AI's ability to defend coastal africa from me after they do the grunt work. I will need a colonist to get a land route into Ethiopia and Morocco, though.

Africans get a bonus in tropical so it should be easier for you. Aside from that I think there are other options other then early colonization of the coasts. For instance you could go for morocco and later dominate the gold coast and cape.

 

[fletcherreed]

I'm in the middle of a Songhai play through. I went:

Defensive, mainly for the extra morale and AT. (AT is still overpowered because of general pips).
Innovative, to stack with the tech bonus and for reduced tradition decay. Plus the events are awesome
Exploration, to colonize

I was thinking about humanism because of all the different cultures in W Africa but none of the other bonuses would have been useful in that idea group. The pagans are easy to convert and everyone else is Sunni already so I shouldn't need to worry about religious unity.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not in a hurry to slog through the tropical areas to the cape, rich as it is; I'd rather test the AI's ability to defend coastal africa from me after they do the grunt work. I will need a colonist to get a land route into Ethiopia and Morocco, though.

Are Fernando PO and St Helena tropical now?

 

[aschack]

Are Fernando PO and St Helena tropical now?

Nope

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Nope

Then exploration wins w/o even trying. You get past tropical and into Cape region at DIP 3 exploration 3 unless they changed the ranges. You have to colonize one arid province IIRC, which at DIP 3 exploration 3 has solid positive growth already with more from exploration 4.

 

[Jeggred86]

Africans get a bonus in tropical so it should be easier for you

What bonus do they get? I'm playing Kongo for the achievement and didn't notice a bonus.

 

[Santoes]

It negates tropical climate.