The Knights -> Kingdom of Jerusalem

[Bisham]

Longtime lurker who finally decided to start posting.

With the release of AoW and the Knights/Cyprus ability to form the KoJ (Kingdom of Jerusalem), I am giving them a go and failing miserably...

Unfortunately there is still a time limit where I have to form the kingdom before the reformation starts. My best attempt saw me conquer Nabalus, Gaza, and Jerusalem from Syria (who had just broken off from the Mamluks after a war with the Ottomans), but the reformation kicked off in Bearn` in 1498 :blink: as I was coring those provinces. I got multiple lucky breaks that game including a free conversion of Rhodes to Catholicism so I'm a bit put off about how to go about doing things better.

I've found that the only nation I can seem to ally reliably is Venice and they can help me take Cyrpus. But if I take it before their claim time runs out they will drop the alliance and go hostile. Which means waiting until after roughly 1471 before I can snatch the island so as to not lose the most important ally I can get. I don't want to waste this time and I need more income/force limits so I tried to take the Balkans to mixed success. I can take Ragusa fairly easily with a no-CB war, but I can't core the province because it is 169 distance away from Rhodes and the starting max core distance is 160 until Diplo Tech 7. I also tried abandoning Rhodes and moving my capital to Ragusa but it says I can't core it since I don't have any cores anymore (closest is 99999 away).

Serbia has a water provice a tad closer but they have a much larger army so I haven't tried taking it instead of Ragusa yet. But if it is core-able then I could possibly core the entire balkans while waiting for Venice to lose interest in Cyrpus. In any event I still seem to be at the mercy of waiting for the Ottomans to trash the Mamluks before even attempting to steal the three provinces I need to form the KoJ.

Idea wise I went with Religion first since I need to convert Rhodes and Cyprus asap. I can't imagine being able to take Religion as a second idea and still make it in time to convert Jerusalem.

Anyone else have any better ideas? I'm trying not to abandon the Mediterranean and I have a fairly short amount of time to core the three provinces AND convert Jerusalem to Catholicism.

 

[orthezuma]

Have you tried no cb war and vassalizing/annexing circasia and georgia? circasia has 4 army size, and once it rebuilds its army you can take down georgia who has 6. (at least these were what they had in my cyprus try, too much waiting got me to abandon it ) maybe after there you can go south with a bit of luck.

 

[Bisham]

Are they close enough to core before Dip 7? They look pretty far away from Rhodes.

Is there anyway to see how far away a province is from one of your cored provinces?

---EDIT---

Ok I see now, colonial mapmode shows you the colonial distance which = coring distance. Circasia and Georgia are too far away to core...

 

[deezee]

Are they close enough to core before Dip 7? They look pretty far away from Rhodes.

Is there anyway to see how far away a province is from one of your cored provinces?

If I'm not mistaken, it shows up on the Colonial mapmode. Not really its intended purpose, but whatever works right?

 

[Bisham]

Ya thanks!

Ok so Zeta is in range, maybe no-cb on Serbia to get a foothold into the Balkans and conquer Serbia, Bosnia and Ragusa while waiting for Venice to lose interest in Cyprus. Will give that a shot.

 

[Clownie]

Ok I see now, colonial mapmode shows you the colonial distance which = coring distance. Circasia and Georgia are too far away to core...

Having a same-continent vassal adjacent to the province you want to core makes it coreable. My best strategy used to be going into Ireland.

edit: you can core one Irish province, and vassalise the rest of them and gain a neat 150 ducats in the process. Or just vassalise all of them. England will be a problem afterwards, but if you ally France and/or Spain, you should be fine.

 

[orthezuma]

Are they close enough to core before Dip 7? They look pretty far away from Rhodes.

Is there anyway to see how far away a province is from one of your cored provinces?

---EDIT---

Ok I see now, colonial mapmode shows you the colonial distance which = coring distance. Circasia and Georgia are too far away to core...

You don't need to core, take 1 province from circasia and vassalize them, then start fabricating on georgia and sell back the province you took to circasia. 10 years later diplo-annex.

 

[Bisham]

I tried Diplo-Annexing Ragusa one game because I couldn't core them but it wouldn't let me. When i hovered over the annex vassal button it said I wasn't in coring range. Maybe that is new in 1.8?

Going to try taking Serbia down, they have a gold mine anyway and that should be a huuuuuge help financially.

 

[knoddy]

You don't need to core, take 1 province from circasia and vassalize them, then start fabricating on georgia and sell back the province you took to circasia. 10 years later diplo-annex.

You can use the same strat go get into the balkans. No CB Ragusa, acess from serbia, land take it, fully annex fabricate and then release them as a vassal. OR alternatively you can vassalize them and take leadership of their wars if they are in any. I think in my best run I vassalized them and took over in a war against Serbia, Vassalized Serbia and took over their war against Bosnia and vassalized them. Was a great chain, wont always get lucky like that but Just take 1 province Fabricate on their neighbour then sell it back/release vassal.

 

[knoddy]

I tried Diplo-Annexing Ragusa one game because I couldn't core them but it wouldn't let me. When i hovered over the annex vassal button it said I wasn't in coring range. Maybe that is new in 1.8?

Going to try taking Serbia down, they have a gold mine anyway and that should be a huuuuuge help financially.

You cannot annex a vassal who is outside coring range, this is not new to 1.8, however you can core provinces adjacent to vassals, on the same continent, so potentially you could vassal ragusa, take 1 serbian province and adjacent to Ragusa and you should be able to core it. I think in my knights game I took the coastline and cored that.

 

[Geello]

Did it in ironman on the second run in 1492. (Didn't get it in the first one when protestantism hit in 1499 when I was 8 months away from converting jerusalem, so talk about luck).
First game I went with a DOW ragusa & vassalized them (bosnia or serbia attacked them, so free war). Even had malta defect to me, took achaea morea athens cyprus, but had a 0 adm leader for like 20 years, kinda slowed me too much to hit adm 8 (for the +1% conversion bonus, mandatory if you don't get the advisor).

Second game I did something else, DOWed byzantium this time (Venice conquered ragusa in the first 2 years of the game), vassalized them & took Zeta (from Serbia who were allied to them). This is were I got a bit lucky though : while at war with byzantium, Crimea attacked Genoa, calling a shitload of countries against the Ottomans (austria, hungary, venice, brandebourg, saxony etc). Ottomans fleet got wiped out by Venice's so I joined the war with Poland, blockaded the strait, vassalized byzantium during that war and gave them 3 4 cores.
After that had to play safe but still be quick about taking jerusalem & stuff from the mamluks, so I waited for venice's mission on cyprus to fade (1471 if memory serves right), took them from the mamluks (their fleet is obviously gonna get wiped by venice's). Just as I finished taking cyprus (1775ish), the ottomans attacked the mamluks, had to use the opportunity to take the 3 provinces ASAP (keep in mind coring & especially converting jerusalem can take a loooooong time, so be quick about it.) Did it, had to wait for tech 8 & at least +2 stab to convert jerusalem though.

http://imgur.com/a/CyPWU

Hope this helped.

 

[Xara]

They really need to change the Jerusalem requirement so that it is disabled by the Peace of Westphalia, not by the Reformation.

 

[atwix]

can't you, like, day one dow Urbino and ally Austria/france/castille after annexing them? Having powerful allies is best way to protect vs ottoblob.

Edit: nevermind, they can get allies and call them in after war start now, right?

I never played the knights, but its what i would do first.

If Venice can become friendly, they aren't bad ally for picking in mediterrenean. If they only stay defensive, they are worthless.

Guess i might try 'm at some point.

 

[Geello]

can't you, like, day one dow Urbino and ally Austria/france/castille after annexing them? Having powerful allies is best way to protect vs ottoblob.

Edit: nevermind, they can get allies and call them in after war start now, right?

I never played the knights, but its what i would do first.

If Venice can become friendly, they aren't bad ally for picking in mediterranean. If they only stay defensive, they are worthless.

Guess i might try 'm at some point.

As you said, tried DOWing urbino twice @ day 1, didn't work as they can still ally & call anytime in the war and at this point anyone would ruin your navy/army so you gotta wait to ally venice before DOWing anyone (they're historical friend, so they'll always ally even without the diplomat, got the best navy in the Mediterranean see and tend to be friendly most of the time so they'll help vs mamluks, ottos, byzantium etc.), just DON'T get cyprus until they'll lose their mission on it or they'll just break the alliance. You can always ally them again if you didn't get wiped out in the meantime, but not worth taking the risk.

 

[petertel123]

Did it in ironman on the second run in 1492. (Didn't get it in the first one when protestantism hit in 1499 when I was 8 months away from converting jerusalem, so talk about luck).
First game I went with a DOW ragusa & vassalized them (bosnia or serbia attacked them, so free war). Even had malta defect to me, took achaea morea athens cyprus, but had a 0 adm leader for like 20 years, kinda slowed me too much to hit adm 8 (for the +1% conversion bonus, mandatory if you don't get the advisor).

Second game I did something else, DOWed byzantium this time (Venice conquered ragusa in the first 2 years of the game), vassalized them & took Zeta (from Serbia who were allied to them). This is were I got a bit lucky though : while at war with byzantium, Crimea attacked Genoa, calling a shitload of countries against the Ottomans (austria, hungary, venice, brandebourg, saxony etc). Ottomans fleet got wiped out by Venice's so I joined the war with Poland, blockaded the strait, vassalized byzantium during that war and gave them 3 4 cores.
After that had to play safe but still be quick about taking jerusalem & stuff from the mamluks, so I waited for venice's mission on cyprus to fade (1471 if memory serves right), took them from the mamluks (their fleet is obviously gonna get wiped by venice's). Just as I finished taking cyprus (1775ish), the ottomans attacked the mamluks, had to use the opportunity to take the 3 provinces ASAP (keep in mind coring & especially converting jerusalem can take a loooooong time, so be quick about it.) Did it, had to wait for tech 8 & at least +2 stab to convert jerusalem though.

http://imgur.com/a/CyPWU

Hope this helped.

the last picture says you have divine ideas, where are your hospitaller ideas?

 

[Geello]

It's actually a bug in the load, happened to me in 1.7 as well after forming prussia as livonian order. It's just for the load though, IG you have the correct ideas.

 

[Bisham]

Welp another failure. I know its do-able because I've seen people posting about it but it relies on too many luck factors for my taste (at least at my skill level anyway).

Just had a game where the Mamluks didn't fight any wars, except for my conquest of Cyprus, before the reformation. The Ottomans had the Conquest of the Levant quest for 20 some odd years and did nothing other than pick fights with Georgia + Muscovy.

Is it even possible to take the provinces you need without the Ottomans attacking the Mamluks?

 

[Bisham]

Ya I give up, I don't care anymore. I was 1/3rd of the way through converting Jerusalem to Catholic and the Protestant Reformation popped in 1504 at 94% reform desire. Sadly there wasn't an Inquisitor available to help speed things up...

After liberating Jerusalem from the Muslims I don't know why they would care about some minor heresy (at least for now) popping up in the middle of Germany. I've seen more Lollard rebel owned provinces than there is protestant ones right now now.

 

[hager]

Started my game by allying Venice and no-cb DOW Serbia which called in its ally Byzantium. I vassalized both countries. Ottomans got its fleet sunk in a conflict which made me able to take whole of Balkans and give it to Byzantium. I didn't take any provinces for myself since the new autonomy system screws manpower anyway. Managed to conquer/vassalize myself through Anatolia (Candar + Eretna) with Venice + Poland/Lithuanias help to get a border with Mamluks. This would allow my vassals the reach them in a war. Year is around 1478. My combined army including vassals reach 50k, I am allied with Venice with an additional 20k + biggest fleet in game. Mamluks have a standing army of 38k. So far I have been very lucky with everything going in my favor.

This is where the fun starts. Venice gets a stack of 16k noble rebels in Istria. Apparently the AI find it reasonable to sit back and watch the siege while lending huge amount of money. With a debt of 300g Venice refused to join any war and with a monthly income of 2g I am in no position to give money. I am in a hurry and can't wait for Venice. No problem though! I still outnumber Mamluks and with a wargoal to take Sivas, which Mamluks owned, I can just siege the mountain province and sit back. I DOW Mamluks in 1479 starting sieging Sivas. Vassal AI is of course set to supportive. But to my astonishment my vassals start attacking Mamluks bigger stacks in the mountains. Over and over again, of course in order to be annihilated in short notice. Most retarded AI behavior I have ever seen. With my vassals hell bent on charging every single mountainous province the war is soon lost and I have to release Candar and Eretna in order to peace out.

At this time Venice had recovered from its debt and my last chance was to DOW directly again. This time using Cyprus as wargoal which Mamluks guarantees. Venice fleet outnumbers the Mamluks 3:1. Again, to my astonishment Venice prioritizes using its fleet to block Bosphorus and blockade Mamluk provinces while Mamluks lands 2 armies in Rhodes. This is 1 sea province away from Venice's superior fleet stacks. War is lost and the year is 1490.

I don't like to complain but it is somewhat frustrating to fail because of the allied AI:s complete retardedness.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

In 1.7, I could pretty reliably blow up the Berber nations using the window created by Iberia. I haven't looked at how the North African alliances shake out in 1.8, but that's probably worth a peek. Especially with the Ottomans no longer in Turko-Semetic, you can potentially really abuse the AE against that culture group if you get the ball rolling. Double annex cost on the Berber ideas is a bit of a drag, but maybe you could march some of those suckers and effectively use them + Venice to dogpile the Mamluks.