Strategy and opening moves for Qara Qoyunlu

[delpiero1234]

I decided to play a game as Qara Qoyunlu where I plan to form Persia in the long run. I have only played hordes in EU III and have no idea what my opening moves should be.
I did some (in my opinion) very successful games as western nations and would like to try a steppe horde now.

Qara Qoyunlu's national ideas don't look great and it borders nations that probably want to eat you in the long run like the Mamluks and Timurids (and probably also the Ottomans even though they don't share a border in 1444 start).

In order to form Persia it appears that I will have to conquer a lot of provinces that are not so close to my borders like Kohistan. Teching up as nomads is insanely expensive. My starting army is half the size of the Timurid's army. Nobody likes me because of my religion and most of my neighbors are hostile towards me.

The wiki has no tips for Qara Qoyunlu so I hope that some of you might be able to provide me with a strategy. I want to leave the nomad tech group as soon as possible because it sucks. Should I become a protectorate of one of my more advanced neighbors? I could break it once I own all the provinces to form Persia or not?

 

[Juggernaught]

You can release Persia as Qara Qoyunlu and feed them their cores when Persian rebels spawn in Timurid provinces. Especially when they are in a succession crisis.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You can release Persia as Qara Qoyunlu and feed them their cores when Persian rebels spawn in Timurid provinces. Especially when they are in a succession crisis.

Yeah. It's possible to immediately beat the Timurids, but it's not a strong choice because it will be slow and will cost at least a decent chunk of manpower even with perfect scorched earth control. Best is to probably pick off nations like Georgia, Haasa, and into the Middle East while waiting for Timmy to have some rebel trouble. Then you go in, hunt their stack remnants, and carpet out Persia for release, possibly supporting Persian rebels so they don't fight you.

Later just annex them as a vassal and form it . Religious ideas 1st is probably your best bet; Shiite isn't exactly the most common thing in the world. You could make a case for expansion and beating the northern hordes to colonize Siberia ahead of Muscovy too, however. Your date for that is ~1550 AD you want to be dropping a blocking colony in their face.

Expansion and Diplomatic ideas are your mid game goals. With them and decent size, it will be possible to pull allies like Austria or Poland/Commonwealth in Europe despite different religion, which has enormous unfortunate implications for your heretic neighbor to the west.

 

[delpiero1234]

You can release Persia as Qara Qoyunlu and feed them their cores when Persian rebels spawn in Timurid provinces. Especially when they are in a succession crisis.

I want to play as Persia though and not have them as my vassal.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I want to play as Persia though and not have them as my vassal.

Release and vassal feed Persia. Then, annex Persia.

Then form Persia.

 

[Musthavename]

I tried out a start with these guys recently and I ended up doing the following:

- Day 0 DoW on Georgia. Crush their army immediately and carpet siege them. Take all provinces but their capital. Don't bother spending points on coring any of them except the gold province.
- Declare war on Haasa, annex and core them.
- Start vassalising the Gulf States (Najd, Hedjaz, Oman, Yemen). You likely don't want all four, but three would be good. Diplo-annex when you can.
- Declare war on Georgia when the truce runs out and vassalise them, feeding them back their provinces.
- By this point you can generally field about 30k troops and can likely take on the Timurids. You want to grab the provinces they hold for Persia formation and ideally get a land link to Baluchistan (who hold one of the provinces, which you should take ASAP).
- Either feed a released Persia their cores from the Timurids or simply annex a Persia which hold the cores you need.

You should also be keeping an eye on the Timurids throughout all of this. If Persian nationalists start spawning or they look like they're collapsing, release Persia and go to war immediately. The last thing you want to see is an independent Persia. Your overall aim is to form it yourself, which jumps both your unit and tech groups to Muslim and gets rid of the Horde Government. After that, you can expand into India, Eygpt, Anatolia, the Steppes, or even East Africa. In a single player game, grabbing Exploration and nabbing the Spice Islands (or going around Africa to westernise) are also both good options.

One thing to bear in mind, early on my army was 20k men and 10k mercs. You don't start with a lot of manpower and losing men to sieges isn't a great plan. When you end up fighting the Timurids in particular, use the mountains to your advantage.

 

[Rubidium]

Note that as a horde you get major bonuses when fighting in deserts or plains in your own territory. Also, you don't have a limit on cavalry in your armies, and horde cavalry at the start is quite good, so use that.

If you go heavy into piety, that plus your bonus for being Shiite will give you a massive morale bonus over your enemies.

As others said, if you release Persia as a vassal, you can continue to feed it cores from the Timurids whenever you fight them; this will save you quite a bit of admin points. Once you have fed them enough, you can annex your vassal and turn into Persia yourself.

 

[delpiero1234]

I tried out a start with these guys recently and I ended up doing the following:

- Day 0 DoW on Georgia. Crush their army immediately and carpet siege them. Take all provinces but their capital. Don't bother spending points on coring any of them except the gold province.
- Declare war on Haasa, annex and core them.
- Start vassalising the Gulf States (Najd, Hedjaz, Oman, Yemen). You likely don't want all four, but three would be good. Diplo-annex when you can.
- Declare war on Georgia when the truce runs out and vassalise them, feeding them back their provinces.
- By this point you can generally field about 30k troops and can likely take on the Timurids. You want to grab the provinces they hold for Persia formation and ideally get a land link to Baluchistan (who hold one of the provinces, which you should take ASAP).
- Either feed a released Persia their cores from the Timurids or simply annex a Persia which hold the cores you need.

You should also be keeping an eye on the Timurids throughout all of this. If Persian nationalists start spawning or they look like they're collapsing, release Persia and go to war immediately. The last thing you want to see is an independent Persia. Your overall aim is to form it yourself, which jumps both your unit and tech groups to Muslim and gets rid of the Horde Government. After that, you can expand into India, Eygpt, Anatolia, the Steppes, or even East Africa. In a single player game, grabbing Exploration and nabbing the Spice Islands (or going around Africa to westernise) are also both good options.

One thing to bear in mind, early on my army was 20k men and 10k mercs. You don't start with a lot of manpower and losing men to sieges isn't a great plan. When you end up fighting the Timurids in particular, use the mountains to your advantage.

Thank you! I will follow this strategy

Note that as a horde you get major bonuses when fighting in deserts or plains in your own territory. Also, you don't have a limit on cavalry in your armies, and horde cavalry at the start is quite good, so use that.

If you go heavy into piety, that plus your bonus for being Shiite will give you a massive morale bonus over your enemies.

Thanks! I didn't know all these things.
Very helpful!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You should also be keeping an eye on the Timurids throughout all of this. If Persian nationalists start spawning or they look like they're collapsing, release Persia and go to war immediately. The last thing you want to see is an independent Persia.

It's not like an independent Persia will have a truce with you or have super allies, so unless it's too big you can just tribal conquest and vassal it with little trouble, then proceed as normal.

 

[delpiero1234]

So I just started my game and annexed all the Georgian provinces but the capital but now AqQounulu annexed Kartli, the capital of Georgia! Should I just restart and how can I prevent this?

 

[TheMeInTeam]

So I just started my game and annexed all the Georgian provinces but the capital but now AqQounulu annexed Kartli, the capital of Georgia! Should I just restart and how can I prevent this?

I thought you could vassal them in 1 war anyway.

One more point:

Muslim group can't vassal sub-Saharan, but Nomad *can*. It might be worth your while to quickly chain down the African East coast, as it's good land and it will come easily. An iron-fisted control over the Gulf of Aden trade will be...lucrative.

 

[delpiero1234]

I thought you could vassal them in 1 war anyway.

No I wasn't able to vassalize them directly

Muslim group can't vassal sub-Saharan, but Nomad *can*. It might be worth your while to quickly chain down the African East coast, as it's good land and it will come easily.

Sounds like a good idea but Nomad don't see African provinces in 1444 start.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No I wasn't able to vassalize them directly

No matter. If Aq ate the last province, just release them as a vassal and annex them later and you'll have cores.

Sounds like a good idea but Nomad don't see African provinces in 1444 start.

Can't you see at least Ethiopia or Adal? Usually Adal or Yemen winds up allied to someone down there, and you can move into TI with a nation you're fighting.

Horde cavalry doesn't get bad until after 1500 anyway, so if you're willing to take a mild tech hit for some good territory it's not that big of a deal.

 

[delpiero1234]

Actually releasing Georgia as vassal seems to be the much better strategy instead of feeding them the territory back because if you release Georgia then Georgia will be of sunni faith meaning it will convert the Georgian provinces for you and furthermore it's easier to reach the required 190 relationship to annex them due to same religion bonus.

 

[Musthavename]

It'll also likely mean that Georgia will be swimming in rebels that you'll likely have to deal with. I tend not to prefer the aggro early on of having to commit my manpower to rebels if at all possible. Force-vassalising it rather than releasing them means you can keep the gold province to yourself early on, which is a nice income booster.

But if someone else annexed them, just release them and get the province back in another war. It's easily recoverable.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But if someone else annexed them, just release them and get the province back in another war. It's easily recoverable.

Another war? No. Releasing someone makes them your vassal. On top of that, it creates a truce, so you will spend 1/2 the time it would take to annex with a truce anyway, then war + core time and a lot of monarch points.

Just release --> annex later.

 

[Musthavename]

Another war? No. Releasing someone makes them your vassal. On top of that, it creates a truce, so you will spend 1/2 the time it would take to annex with a truce anyway, then war + core time and a lot of monarch points.

Just release --> annex later.

...releasing them was exactly what I said. If you take all but their capital and someone else then annexes them, you might as well release them and then get their province back from the other aggressor.

 

[AndreasPhokas]

I've been reading this thread and I like the tips. One thing im considering though, is if I play as the qara after I take down Georgia I would get religious rebels to spawn then go orthodox....an orthodox horde into Persia.....

 

[delpiero1234]

I've been reading this thread and I like the tips. One thing im considering though, is if I play as the qara after I take down Georgia I would get religious rebels to spawn then go orthodox....an orthodox horde into Persia.....

But Shiite is much better religion! It increases Morale by 10% and increase chance of new heir by 100%

 

[TheMeInTeam]

But Shiite is much better religion! It increases Morale by 10% and increase chance of new heir by 100%

You don't do things like that because they're necessarily stronger .

Allying Muscovy and PU Europeans as a horde or Persia would be pretty comical, regardless of efficiency.