Tips on starting as Golden H. (Great Kahn Ach)

[Blood4u]

Hello guys,so i have started on an challenge hunt for all the achievements at random and i am not stuck on the great kahn one.I tried differnt start up as the Golden Horde.

Most important of all i am playing on 1.8(but i have all the DLC's until Arts of war i havent gotten the last one ).

In my current run :
First step :
I have started by declaring wr on Circassia mostly because i get rebel pretenders from Day 1 if i am at peace.Vassalize them fast start war with the new gokazhi tribe(or smth like that) annex and then start selling to circasia leave 1 to start fast war with georgia,annex them feed all the provinces to circasia(i tried fighting shirvan but they got instantly allied to qara qoyonlu).

Second step:
Started war with the weakened nogai (they fought timurids and kazhan).Made a path to the realeased kazhak by the timurids.Eat the kazhak and annex them to instantly declar war on uzbek and make my way top to the colonizing regions.

Third step :
Core everything that formed the pathway and take care of the rebels also hire advisors for the admin tech . Get exploration and start colonizing and blocking russia right in the nik of time.

At this point i thought i had nailed the achievement because Muscovy was land locked ,also they had a very bad pattern that after they initial war won with novgorod they took poor decisions into fighting lithuania and never gained anything(they didnt lose anything also).So i sarted to clean up after nogai uzberk.
I vassalized the newly realeased again Kazhak and diplo annexed ciracssia,also vassalized crimea in a war.
Managed to grab alliance with ottomans and timurids.

Everything sounds nice but there is a huge problem that i can't seem to get over,all of my wars that i fought i brought to the table 13 k of troops while my vassals did all the job and now at the point that i had went toe to toe with kazhan which had 26 stacks and i had 43 i lost horribly ,the only way i manged to beat kazhan was because my crimmean ally had a nice army tech.
I am so behind in all techs that i can't do anything altough i have a really awesome economy and 54 land limit.I can't seem to win any war on my own especially after i diplo anexed circasia.
Persia has just been formed and i was thinking of vassalizing them and feeding it from the timurids but the big problem stil remains that muscovy crushes me in any single war.
My initial plan was to vassalize muscovy with the hep of the ottomans but apparently they went from a +250 overall relations to instant rival with CB after they decided to go rampant through qara qoyonlu and annex a territory adjcent to mine.
So now i am sitting with a really big nation and a strong crimmean vassal that always wants to fiind allies for independence and an useless tech in everything .I see myself pulling trough the conquest of QQ and get persia as my vassa but thats all since the timurids are allied with the Ottomans it's impossible to make persia BIg.
Also oirat horde has a nice blockade and fine army strength to kick my ass every war i want to expand into Asia.

Screenshots of my current awful try :
http://imgur.com/64OlJfW
http://imgur.com/euTcsrI
(can't seem to upload dirrectly on forum sorry)

If any of you guys have any solution to my current run that would be awesome.

Or if you can give me tips on how to start properly as Golden horde.

One thing that i want to mention is that Muscovy is a Badass country.I heard everyone saying that they got nerfed to the ground but in alll my starts they rape novgorod and take more then half of their lands.Even though i am on par with
them on forcelimit i am lower in manpower and also they have 3 vassals that they bring to the table.
It would be normal to just ally novgorod and wait for the decalre war if only you as Golden Horde will not get the Pretender rebel event every day you are not in a war,and since Muscovy waits for the war declaration you will eat your entire
Manpower just killing stacks of 5 pretender or in the attrition war against other countries so it's impossible to ally novgorod in a war against Muscovy.Another option is to get a start with circasian or gazahk and prolonge the war until muscovy
declares on Novgorod and bring your ally with you by declaring war into Muscovy,the only problem being everyone is having hatred towards you.Nogai,Kazhan,Crimea QQ timurids they all hate you ,your only possible ally is uzbek who even if they would have any way of helping they would never actually join the war because they are being eaten by rebels for the first 30-40 years.

For all who read through the wall of text thank you and maybe you can give me some tips on how to start in a new way or readjust my current one.I would preffer some tips from experience because general tips wont work ,golden horde seems to have a long list of bad events that aim at destroying your admin tech and stability and to eat all your manpower.

Thx again and sorry for the typos and bad english grammar.

 

[jkbfss]

For all the countries to the south of you with increased coring cost, i'd prefer to just deal with one vassal so part of my open is attacking the Shia two province minor Gazikumukh. You can vassalize it and force religion making it sunni, so later it'll annex much faster. When you get a chance, feed the other increased coring cost ones to it-it might be even able to convert some of them to sunni for you. I also go immediately to vassalize Crimea before they ally ottomans-you can do it with one war. Next I do ryzan near muscovy so i have a vassal to feed russian lands. Those are your three immediate vassalization targets, and then check if Muscovy or Lithuania are weak-if so, rip out a few russian territories for your new russian vassal. In my game, Kazan had taken three provinces from Nogai, making them exactly 100% to force vassal. Fighting the Russia and Lithuania is going to be tough, so I would wait until you have both a few huge vassals and they are already in a war, or if you can get Novgrod to fight with you. My number one tip is taking Crimea first-they're a great vassal who supply a decent amount of troops in your wars and will suffer winter attrition so you don't have to.

 

[donmolu]

I've recently done it, here is what I did:
1. Make your ruler and heir generals. You want them to die as early as possible.
2. Ally Uzbek at start, attack Nogai and take enough provinces so you can vassalize them in next war (don't core them, just sell them later after vassalization)
3. Try to get alliance with either Timurids or Ottomans, or both if possible. They most likely won't join many of your wars, but they will scare other AIs off.
4. Vassalize Crimea, but make sure you don't get into war against OE.
5. Eventually, Muscovy will be involved in war against Kazan. Use this opportunity to vassalize Kazan.
6. Now the hardest part of playthrough: when Muscovy is depleted of manpower, you have to attack. To win, you need to make use of weather. Small tip: leave one mercenary infantry unit on your border. Muscovy will send their stack against it. One day before they reach it, use scorched earth. If it's winter, Muscovy will then suffer terrible attrition while you only lose 20 or so ducats it costs to hire merc.
Also, try to field as many mercenaries as possible to preserve manpower. It's good idea to use mercenary infantry, as they suffer most casualities, while using your own cavalry to reduce army maintenance costs. Eventually, Muscovy will run out of men, and your vassals will be able to finish the job.
7. With Muscovy defeated or crippled, you are now free to dominate the rest of Asia. Reform the government to get muslim units, and then westernize when you get decent ruler (at least 7-8 monarch power in each category per month).

Idea groups I went with:
1. Diplomatic. Very useful all around, gives you more free vassals, easier alliances and additional diplomats to keep relations up and get claims.
2. Administrative. Cheap mercs are very useful early game, and -25% coring cost combined with additional -25% from horde ideas and another -25% from claims means you core for almost free.
3. Aristocratic. Manpower, shock pips, stronger cav, diplomat.
Those first 3 ideas will help you catch up in tech after your reform government and westernize.
4. Humanist. Makes westernization very easy, also helps you to keep religious unity up. I westernized with barely any revolts.
5. Exploration.
6. Defensive.
7. Offensive.
8. Quality.

 

[Blood4u]

I've recently done it, here is what I did:
1. Make your ruler and heir generals. You want them to die as early as possible.
2. Ally Uzbek at start, attack Nogai and take enough provinces so you can vassalize them in next war (don't core them, just sell them later after vassalization)
3. Try to get alliance with either Timurids or Ottomans, or both if possible. They most likely won't join many of your wars, but they will scare other AIs off.
4. Vassalize Crimea, but make sure you don't get into war against OE.
5. Eventually, Muscovy will be involved in war against Kazan. Use this opportunity to vassalize Kazan.
6. Now the hardest part of playthrough: when Muscovy is depleted of manpower, you have to attack. To win, you need to make use of weather. Small tip: leave one mercenary infantry unit on your border. Muscovy will send their stack against it. One day before they reach it, use scorched earth. If it's winter, Muscovy will then suffer terrible attrition while you only lose 20 or so ducats it costs to hire merc.
Also, try to field as many mercenaries as possible to preserve manpower. It's good idea to use mercenary infantry, as they suffer most casualities, while using your own cavalry to reduce army maintenance costs. Eventually, Muscovy will run out of men, and your vassals will be able to finish the job.
7. With Muscovy defeated or crippled, you are now free to dominate the rest of Asia. Reform the government to get muslim units, and then westernize when you get decent ruler (at least 7-8 monarch power in each category per month).

So i should start by making Nogai a big vassal then grab crimeea along the way,is it worth it to grab Circasia and make it big or do i need to rush the war against Muscovy?I am asking because muscovy will break war into novgorod really soon and i wont probably have any vassals by then so i can't help novgorod,and i was thinknig maybe circasia as a hug 12 stacks vasssal could help aswell.

Idea groups I went with:
1. Diplomatic. Very useful all around, gives you more free vassals, easier alliances and additional diplomats to keep relations up and get claims.
2. Administrative. Cheap mercs are very useful early game, and -25% coring cost combined with additional -25% from horde ideas and another -25% from claims means you core for almost free.
3. Aristocratic. Manpower, shock pips, stronger cav, diplomat.
Those first 3 ideas will help you catch up in tech after your reform government and westernize.
4. Humanist. Makes westernization very easy, also helps you to keep religious unity up. I westernized with barely any revolts.
5. Exploration.
6. Defensive.
7. Offensive.
8. Quality.

Isnt it making more sens eto go with adm tech first? you said i need to reform the goverment and westernize ,that's gonna eat like alot from 100 to 200 years or more especially if i start with the diplomatic ideeas.
I don't really see the pros of having diplo ideeas first since i already have cb against everyone with no agressive expansion altough yes the more vassals sounds nice i just want to know if its better to just get the admin tech first so i can reform gouverment super fast?.

Also how do you scorch a land ,never done it and i dont have a clue about what i'm suppose to do if you could explain in detail that would be awesome.

 

[Sousuke123]

In my current GH run which looks like this for now

I did this:
1. Vassalize Crimea
2. Vassalize Ryazan( good thing is to annex and release them so they will convert later everything to you)
3. Annex Circassa, Georgia and spit out Georgia to get with right religion vassals and feed them land of Circassa, then annex Gazimukh and if possible Shirvan, sell it everything to vassal
4. Vassalize Kazan -> you need to grab few provinces from them to be able vassalize them
5. If above is beyond reach thanks to some alliance DOW Muscovy grab Qasim, take Perm as vassal or cancel their vassalization if you have too low WS and grab some provinces, force them to spit out Nizhny Novgorod, give Kaluga and Rzhev to Ryazan. Take pick what you want but taking Perm is to utmost importance
6. Ally Ottos to deter anyone from attack you.
7. If your lucky enough Tatar patriots will defect giving you for free Azov, whether this happened or not DOW Genoa and return to Crimea their cores and if possible take Kaffa as well, if Theodorovo still exists annex them and whether core it or sell it
8. In my run Nogai and Yarkand made alliance with Timmies so i didn't bother with them till was strong enough to take them down which is now since i reformed and i'm few mil techs ahead of them
9. It's all up to you whether you'll reform before annexing Ming or not.
10. Best time to attack Lithuania is when they lose PU with Poland which tends to happen quite often despite Poland being lucky. If they don't lose Ottos will make them lose PU by trashing Poland.
So far i took only Exploration and Administrative and thanks to a lot of my vassals my dip tech is crap but as long as i keep in mil tech everything will be fine.

For most of my run till now my army was formed only from cavalry supported by few cannons. Thanks to this i could easily steamroll anyone whether i was getting boost from fighting on plains or not.

 

[ragnarokk]

There is only one great Kahn

Scorching land - when your army is on your province you can choose the army and look at the options right to army composition (the one with wheat and torch)

 

[Blood4u]

The first 4 points sounds really easy to pull off but the war with muscovy is the most troublesome,Muscovy is just plain powerfull did you have to scorch the land aswell? Also i don't get what's a DOW.
Also i cant really give provinces to vasals since im not having the art of war latest expansion but i can sell them afterwards.
Also i counter 4 vassals and 1 alliance which put you over the limit ,how do you cope with that or do you diplo anex a vassal? If that is so when do you think your vassals are of no use to you anymore.


And anohter thing,how do you keep ottomans allied to you when they reach you in my run it took 1 small province to border me and they forgot all their maxed friendship and went full ally.

Last thing to point is the only cavalery (cause bronze cannons come late) troops a good thing to do early on? i mean after the wars start disbanding stacks of infrantry or send them to die with my heir and just make cavalery or is it good with cannons later?.
And an off topic question,why didnt you cut trhough oirat to reach mingt insted of going to colonize everything? is it hard to beat ming at your current state?

Thx for all the info it really helps.

 

[donmolu]

So i should start by making Nogai a big vassal then grab crimeea along the way,is it worth it to grab Circasia and make it big or do i need to rush the war against Muscovy?I am asking because muscovy will break war into novgorod really soon and i wont probably have any vassals by then so i can't help novgorod,and i was thinknig maybe circasia as a hug 12 stacks vasssal could help aswell.



Isnt it making more sens eto go with adm tech first? you said i need to reform the goverment and westernize ,that's gonna eat like alot from 100 to 200 years or more especially if i start with the diplomatic ideeas.
I don't really see the pros of having diplo ideeas first since i already have cb against everyone with no agressive expansion altough yes the more vassals sounds nice i just want to know if its better to just get the admin tech first so i can reform gouverment super fast?.

Also how do you scorch a land ,never done it and i dont have a clue about what i'm suppose to do if you could explain in detail that would be awesome.

It's worth to grab Circasia if it won't delay you much (I did it, as they had no allies so the war took only few months).
At start, Muscovy will attack either Novgorod (bad start for you), or Kazan (good start). You must start war against Muscovy before they completely annex Novgorod, because then they will most likely become too strong.
The earlier you attack Muscovy, the easier time you will have to defeat them. You want to beat them before they get to Military tech 9, because then they will get stronger units. Also, Military tech 9 is a good time to reform government, because muslim units will be stronger than nomad, even better than eastern.

I chose Diplomatic as first idea because it frees up admin points to tech up to Admin tech 7, so you get 2 idea groups to invest points early on. You can ignore Diplo tech, and use all diplo points on ideas.
You don't want to reform government too early, as you will lose 50% bonus to force limits and manpower. I think Military tech 9 is best time to reform.

To scorch earth, select army, and there is a button on army interface (where you have forced march, stack splitting etc.). It will reduce supply limit and increase attrition on province the army is standing for next 60 months. Use it on your border provinces, but always leave at least one untouched so you later have a safe corridor to enemy lands.

 

[Bonafide]

Also i don't get what's a DOW.

A DOW is a Declaration of War, you basically go to war against another nation.

 

[Blood4u]

@ragnarokk & @donmolu

Thx for the scorch tip explanation.

One last question should i aim at killing my King and heir/Putting them on the 1 stack and send them to die in the first vassalizing war? or just us them as generals?

 

[donmolu]

@ragnarokk & @donmolu

Thx for the scorch tip explanation.

One last question should i aim at killing my King and heir/Putting them on the 1 stack and send them to die in the first vassalizing war? or just us them as generals?

I don't think that sending suicide stacks increases the chance of them dying, but I am not sure. Also, that way you lose money and manpower.
I'd recommend to just use them as generals. Also, there is a horde even that kills off your heir, but I am not sure what triggers it.

 

[Blood4u]

A DOW is a Declaration of War, you basically go to war against another nation.

Thank you really Handy

 

[Sousuke123]

The first 4 points sounds really easy to pull off but the war with muscovy is the most troublesome,Muscovy is just plain powerfull did you have to scorch the land aswell? Also i don't get what's a DOW.
Also i cant really give provinces to vasals since im not having the art of war latest expansion but i can sell them afterwards.
Also i counter 4 vassals and 1 alliance which put you over the limit ,how do you cope with that or do you diplo anex a vassal? If that is so when do you think your vassals are of no use to you anymore.


And anohter thing,how do you keep ottomans allied to you when they reach you in my run it took 1 small province to border me and they forgot all their maxed friendship and went full ally.

Last thing to point is the only cavalery (cause bronze cannons come late) troops a good thing to do early on? i mean after the wars start disbanding stacks of infrantry or send them to die with my heir and just make cavalery or is it good with cannons later?.
And an off topic question,why didnt you cut trhough oirat to reach mingt insted of going to colonize everything? is it hard to beat ming at your current state?

Thx for all the info it really helps.

I kept alliance with them by not taking anything of their interest expect Kaffa, they went hostile since they took mission before i took for myself. Then after few years they lost claims on this province and cancelled mission, after this they changed their attitude to friendly once again. Good option is to take aristocracy to get increased coring cost so they won't desire any province of yours.
If it comes to vassals i simply didn't annex them right of the bat since thanks to 100% cavalry policy number of my army was very low - for a very long time it didn't go over 24k. Mostly "thanks" to 25% autonomy cap and divided Tatar group making that you'll never get them accepted. For now only Russian is accepted culture beside. More important having big eastern tech vassals helps fight any enemies much easier. When i reformed my income sky rocketed since all my provinces dropped to 0% autonomy. So now i have 80k army and supporting +3 advisors so i can tech faster. At first i had national focus on administrative then all the time on diplomacy to be able to diploannex vassals, returning cores etc. After annexing few vassals i changed back to administrative to speed up filling idea and needed monarch points to reform and putting my stability once again on 0. Though taking administrative as 3rd idea group would be better since that way you'll unlock all horde NI getting great coring cost reduction.

After the war with Crimea, Ryazan and Caucasian states you can disband all of your infantry since they're quite worthless and they will eat your manpower.

I didn't attack Ming since you can always take Religious or use normal CB and annex them with ease, with a little luck they will go bankrupt and all of their provinces will be on 100% autonomy making them cheap to annex anyway, add to this Administrative Efficiency and you may annex them in one go.

You don't need to send them to die you will eventually get no child can be khan event and get god ruler, when i got new dynasty my ruler was 5/5/6 so it all is up to you

 

[Petrucci]

I disagree with those two guys about starting steps, I think mine are easier. If you are playing Ironman, most of the times Nogai, Uzbek or Crimea will be friendly to you. If not reload. Then ally Nogai, ally Uzbek, send guarantee to Novgorod and start improving relations with them. In that case you will be called in if Russians attack and your allies will most likely join you. With money you got build more solders and get ready for war with Muscovy. Rival Muscovy Kazan and Crimea Ally Novgorod when you can and if Muscovy hadn't declared,you declare first. Be sure both Nogai and Uzbek would join( Novgorod will always join). With superior horde troops and all those allies you will win in no time. Take Kasimov and Perm as Vassal. If Crimea is not allied with Turks, try to vassalize them too.,if not leave it for later. After you've won war, Kazan will most likely go in war with Muscovy too and probably take some provinces you can use that and attack them to get more Tartar ones, or if they lose take Tartar provinces from Muscovy.. You can use that and vassalize Ryzan. Sell all province you've got from Russia to them and Perm. Also try to steal Tver as vassal too. It could be used as base while sieging Muscovy provinces in winter to preserve man power.
By this time you should pick administrative so both mercenaries and coring creating are cheaper keep focus on admin point first 100 year, don't worry about diplo gain you need 8 level difference in order to westernize. Soon Nogai will break alliance with you and Uzbek will most likely collapse. Use that and gain more lands. after that it's easy, finish off Muscoy, reform, colonize Sibir expand east and be reach. Westernize ASAP and kill anyone on your way.

 

[itsuart]

Isn't Great Khan unachieveable due to bug in it's code? Like you have to own wasteland province (which is obviously impossible)?

 

[anomalacaris]

Did it back before 1.8, think it might be harder now that you can't grab that godly gold mine early. Two points for early game:
1. Vassalize some nomad neighbor early. Unlike conquest, vassals are instantly useful and make you much stronger early game. But be careful with controlling them, it's generally good idea to have a 1-stack infantry and let your vassal stack with it.
2. Shut down Muscowy. Actually easier than you expect. Nomad troops are superior early game, you have +25% damage in home plains etc. Wait for them to get in serious war with Nov then backstab. Mercs are great siegers/cannon fodder and you don't even pay to reinforce them. If they are smart like players they would ally Denmark, which would be the greatest problem, be really careful. If you can't win a prolonged war, just take some wargoals (e.g. Perm to stop colonizing) or simply slow them down.

Some more strategy for fighting in Russia/general:
- Use supply limit to your advantage. If they stack up, run away and drain their manpower from attrition. If they split, attack.
- Watch your manpower, mercs are great to die in the winter
- Siege in great number of stacks when their main stack is thinned. Run away/delete to conserve war exhaustion, keep your prestige up and their prestige down.

Once Muscowy is down it should be easy afterwards...

 

[nathiral]

It is actually a lot easier now. I tried in 1.6 and did it in 1.8. If you get moderately lucky, Novgorod won't support Sweden (or will win before Muscovy takes advantage of the war) and Novgorod will be able to beat Muscovy down.

The biggest change, in my opinion, is that you want to keep two or three orthodox vassals to handle that land until you can convert directly. Because unrest can be painful, and you can't convert them until you get Religious, you don't want a 100 BT set of Orthodox provinces revolting all together. I also found that early on I wanted large vassals with 0-ish autonomy compared to the same amount of land with 75% autonomy, so I did not integrate my orthodox vassals very quickly. 25% direct income vs 15% vassal income isn't much difference, but the vassal manpower and force limits are much better with them.

Here's how I did it:

1. Day 1 DoW Crimea and vassalize. If the Ottomans join (about a 20% chance, I think), restart. The new naval AI was pretty good at getting them over to help, so it isn't really worth the hassle.
1.a Feed Crimea it's core and the Sunni Azov if Genoa ever looks weak - integrate Crimea if Genoa looks like it isn't going to be weak in the first two decades (e.g. they get in a war with Austria on the other side and have few allies of note - mine always had Austria accepting a CtA and Lithuania as an ally)
2. Vassalize Circassia. You could annex them, but it was impossible for me to convert their lands. You could annex and release, but they don't take Religious, nor do they have any +Missionary Strength, so they will just be revolting constantly if they aren't Orthodox.
2.a Feed Circassia everything in that area that has +Core cost (Georgia, the Orthodox province off Genoa
3. Vassalize Ryazan. I left them as Orthodox so they wouldn't have revolts.
3.a Whenever Muscovy is weak, feed them to Ryazan. Once they're gone, do same for Novgorod lands.
4. Start feeding off Kazan/Nogai/Uzbek/Khazakh.
5. Integrate Kazan/Nogai/Khazak. You integrate these ASAP (or just annex) because they are Sunni and accepted culture, so they won't revolt much even if you drop autonomy (though for annexations I wouldn't drop autonomy until the nationalism is gone).
6. Once Muscovy was down below 100% war score cost, I annexed them and released because they take Religious early. Since I had fed all their cores to Ryazan, I now had a Sunni Muscovy and an Orthodox Ryazan.
6.a Make sure when you release Muscovy that they do NOT have a port because then they will take Religious ideas earlier
7. Once you have Religious ideas (or full piety and an Inquisitor, but I never got an inquisitor until like 1600), integrate super-Ryazan and super-Circassia.
8. Feed the Russian Region to Muscovy then integrate (or leave as a vassal and keep at 200 relations, they are a great attack dog)
9. Conquer your way east and south. I went through Oirat a few times while still a Horde for the great CB (you can even keep one of your Horde vassals around to keep the CB on them).

Dealing with Autonomy is a tricky issue. I dropped the autonomy manually on integrated Crimean, Nogai-an, and Kazani lands. Because they were right culture, right religion, I had very few revolts. I gunned for Administrative Monarchy ASAP (ADM tech 12), and then stopped manually reducing autonomy. Mostly because it was a hassle clicking on everything manually, but also because 0.1 per month while at war (and you're constantly at war) is incredibly good. I found the 30 year increased unrest was too painful. I'd have -11 unrest, drop autonomy, then 10 years later I'd have a period of 20 legitimacy, 90% overextension, and some other +unrest events and regret dropping the autonomy.

You can even raise autonomy on provinces once you get Absolute Monarchy (and I stayed in that government for the rest of the game). It's more than enough time for nationalism to drop off and conversion to happen. With 2.4% autonomy dropping naturally per year, it's only 10 years before the province is back to it's freshly conquered state, but it keeps the -10 unrest for the next 20 years. I would conquer some random part of the Middle East, raise autonomy, then move my armies away because unrest was 0.

For conquest, I had my 3 diplomats creating claims constantly, so I would take vast swaths of land and instantly core it. I released Khorasan and fed Afghanistan to it (I hate that +Core creation is additive to -Core Creation instead of multiplicative). I only used vassals in the west (kept feeding Muscovy and Chernigov Lithuania and Poland - much more than necessary for the achievement) and Afghanistan.

My ideas - I went heavy on the admin ideas. Innovative to start, then reform, then westernize off Genoa (another reason why you take Crimea, so you can specifically leave them a province). Then religious, then administrative. I was behind admin tech for a long time (3-5 techs behind), but since you want to be behind to westernize (but don't want to drop behind on MIL tech), this works out. And once you westernize, the behind-bonus + idea bonus = techs for 10-20% of base cost.

1. Innovative (to reform, -5% tech is best early on, -WE is amazing, -25% mercs was useful too))
2. Religious (for CB and converting and tolerance of the true faith = -unrest) - take this early so you can convert Orthodox/Shia/Coptic without trouble
-- You can probably take whatever you want after this, mine are just an example --
3. Administrative (-25% core cost, -10% admin tech cost, better mercs, +1 advisors)
4. Influence (You will start integrating wrong culture, wrong religion vassals soon)
5. Humanism (I started direct conquest here, so -2 Unrest, 25% unity, -10 years nationalism, all amazing)
6. Offensive (Began wars vs nations with military national ideas)
7. Expansion (Probably should have taken this earlier since Taiwan is part of the China region - or at least China Proper)
8. Didn't get that far.

Expansion may not be necessary - not sure if the achievement region (Chinese_region) includes Taiwan. You do NOT need Siberia, so I put it off till very late.

I really enjoyed this setup because of the -75% core creation cost you can get (-25 for Horde ideas, -25% Admin ideas, -25% claim). That plus 4 ADM idea groups meant I could personally core all of Asia and most of Persia and never fall behind in admin tech. You can protectorate everything once you westernize to save a lot of hassle, but I wanted a giant GOLDEN HORDE across Asia. I was often eating the ahead-of-tech penalty before I was making enough money to spam buildings. I was pretty far behind in DIP tech though - about 7 techs. MIL tech I never lost the advantage. I kept my focus on ADM for most of the game.

For policies, I took -Culture Conversion (had so much DIP because I didn't care about teching it up), -diploannex cost, and +1 diprep while annexing my giant Muscovy/Chernigov/Greece. (I decided to kill the Ottomans for fun.)

Military tactics wise, I did nothing interesting since the start is pretty easy now. Only little trick is to use 2 merc infantry + 1 regular cannon stacks to siege. It all but removes the manpower loss from carpet sieges and with -merc cost, it isn't bad. It also gives +1 to every dice roll, so sieges fall quickly enough. I made a March out of the Teutonic Order from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. Spain somehow inherited Hungary, Austria owned Croatia, so I had to fight them to create my ...

Teutonic Border. B-)

(Sadly it lost March bonuses because of all the incredibly high base tax in Europe.)

 

[nathiral]

And yes, it's currently bugged. You cannot obtain it because you need to own a wasteland province (the one adjacent to Arkhangelsk).

 

[Petrucci]

You did great job. Still I'm questioning your choice of innovative instead of administrative first? Also, is offensive more worthy then quantity? I remember when playing Crimea back in 1.7 that I hadn't manpower problems once I picked it. Also it stacks well with maintenance cost.

 

[Blood4u]

I disagree with those two guys about starting steps, I think mine are easier. If you are playing Ironman, most of the times Nogai, Uzbek or Crimea will be friendly to you. If not reload. Then ally Nogai, ally Uzbek, send guarantee to Novgorod and start improving relations with them. In that case you will be called in if Russians attack and your allies will most likely join you. With money you got build more solders and get ready for war with Muscovy. Rival Muscovy Kazan and Crimea Ally Novgorod when you can and if Muscovy hadn't declared,you declare first. Be sure both Nogai and Uzbek would join( Novgorod will always join). With superior horde troops and all those allies you will win in no time. Take Kasimov and Perm as Vassal. If Crimea is not allied with Turks, try to vassalize them too.,if not leave it for later. After you've won war, Kazan will most likely go in war with Muscovy too and probably take some provinces you can use that and attack them to get more Tartar ones, or if they lose take Tartar provinces from Muscovy.. You can use that and vassalize Ryzan. Sell all province you've got from Russia to them and Perm. Also try to steal Tver as vassal too. It could be used as base while sieging Muscovy provinces in winter to preserve man power.
By this time you should pick administrative so both mercenaries and coring creating are cheaper keep focus on admin point first 100 year, don't worry about diplo gain you need 8 level difference in order to westernize. Soon Nogai will break alliance with you and Uzbek will most likely collapse. Use that and gain more lands. after that it's easy, finish off Muscoy, reform, colonize Sibir expand east and be reach. Westernize ASAP and kill anyone on your way.

I don't know which version you are playing on or if the Art of war gives some differences(i only have until before art of war expansion) but in every single run ,and i had many : -UZbek is an useless nation that geats eaten up by rebels instantly and will never join you in a war until they made their land safe
-The pretender event fires up instantly if you are not in a war so a first war must be insnatly started where you will be starved of 8-10 k manpower because of attrition and carpet sieging or alot of gold (remember no more gold time provinces)
-After 1 month and most likely even less you have to start a new war,i usually do it right off the bat because you can't gamble with the pretender event it will just spawn 5-6 k troops that are not gonna be taken by your ally or vassal and you just lose 3-4 k manpower which is costly as hell.
-Nogai may even backfire and usually start a war with Kazhan way more faster then Muscovy and timurids will always ally after and join the war and clean up

In essence everything that implies you waiting for Muscovy to declar war on novgorod when you want it is a HUGE gamble,i won't restart and redo the same squence for 20 years 100 times just to see it once work i want strategy and from this point of view the first 2 guys have a very good plausable and doable start ,your seems to fairy tale.

But thx for the heads up on the fact that i can't earn the achievment yet,will wait till they come with a fix.