WC as Timbuktu - Suggestions for a novice player

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being behind in tech is irrelevant, the only one that matters is military, so I would not fret about being only admin 3 or 4 so. One has to ask yourself the question is it worth spending 2k or more to push institutions while all you have to do is conquer some land a bit later on. And if you wait, you will get 25% discount on tech from a neighbour and will be able to push 4-6 tech levels using ~1000 points.
 
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being behind in tech is irrelevant, the only one that matters is military, so I would not fret about being only admin 3 or 4 so. One has to ask yourself the question is it worth spending 2k or more to push institutions while all you have to do is conquer some land a bit later on. And if you wait, you will get 25% discount on tech from a neighbour and will be able to push 4-6 tech levels using ~1000 points.
Tech might be irrelevant. Missing ideas is not!
 
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Thanks for the answers!



Thanks for the ideas! Maybe I could try to conquer a nation that already has feudalism, although I don't like my chances against Morocco and its allies



Thanks for the ideas! Going for Morocco early would also solve the feudalism problem (or maybe after I consolidated my power in West Africa).I will try it out and see what happens!

Also, I forgot to mention that the only DLCs I have are Art of War and Wealth of Nations. Is there any DLC considered crucial for a WC?

I would forget morocco amd the seveille node for a bit.

That node is awful until you cross the strait. And morocco will wreck you.

I would focus in the three gold mines and getting to the coast. Then start colonizing south and brazil and la plata. Colonize all islands and coastal provinces, and you can shut down europe for a time.

Southeast Africa has more gold. Just push up coast to ethiopia, and start conquering american tribes.

After you have most of africa, you should be set.

You will want a nice vassal swarm

edit: on the other hand... maybe you don’t need to colonize at all. Let someone else do it for you. I think I might go all in on a merc and vassal swarm, focusing west africa, kongo, and kilwa. And push military tech haaaard. You will conquer for institutions.

Keep an eye on portugal/spain to dow when you can. Otto and France would be good allies for europe push, just beat otto to cairo.

This way you can skip colonist ideas for better ones.

And its soooo easy to get charter companies to hop around. I bought one from portugal the other day.
 
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From my experience in sub saharan Africa, Spain/Portugal tends to DoW you a little after 1500. I'd keep an eye on those nations.
 
I wouldn't develop Feudalism. It's expensive and it will take a while. Instead you could spread to Feudalism. You can't see East Africa, but you see Kongo, so you can buy maps from them. Playing in that region I would beeline to get a port in the Gulf of Guinea (strictly it's not required, but it allows to avoid walking through a sequence of deadly uncolonized provinces on its shores). Then no-CB-vassalize someone insignificant in East Africa and core adjacently afterwards. East Africa gives you access to Feudalism and gold and from there you can buy more maps to discover more or less all Old World. Depending on your strategy, whether you want to become shogun or the emperor you may go in different directions. You don't have to become either, but then you will face a threat of encountering insurmountable amount of micromanagement later on.

It was suggested to no-CB Morocco vassal that you can see right from the start, but that would be a very tough war to win (particularly if playing on VH). To make it worse you wouldn't even be able to pick a good moment to attack since you don't see Morocco and can't know when they are in trouble. However, if you are a master tactician you might want to try that approach.
 
Government type doesn't make much difference there, as long as you can get your cap to reach 80 when the age starts (so before C&C).

Thing is no republic can hit 80 absolutism cap outside of golden ages.

Base cap: 65
+ Empire rank: 70
+ GP: 75
+ 100% RU: 80
+ high crownland: 95

The generic republican government reform with the smallest Absolutism malus is Noble Elite, which gives -20 absolutism cap.

Plus this assumes your estates have been granted no privileges. I don't know about you, but I like my +1 monthly monarch power.
 
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Thing is no republic can hit 80 absolutism cap outside of golden ages.

Base cap: 65
+ Empire rank: 70
+ GP: 75
+ 100% RU: 80
+ high crownland: 95

The generic republican government reform with the smallest Absolutism malus is Noble Elite, which gives -20 absolutism cap.

Plus this assumes your estates have been granted no privileges. I don't know about you, but I like my +1 monthly monarch power.

You're forgetting the 10 from one of the early republic reforms (it increases election term by 1 though, so you probably want to switch back out of it when you can) and the +25 from one of the final republic reforms.

You're also forgetting that Presidential Dictatorship, the government type you switch to when you re-elect with low rep trad, has no absolutism penalty. So with a bit of luck, you could make sure that you are in one of those when Court & Country is about to end, then get rep trad up to go back to what you were.

As for estate privileges, yes you might have to revoke those temporarily. The main thing you're waiting for is that 25 from the final reform tier, after you have that you should be good to go.
 
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Well you'll never reach that when starting tribal.

I think it should be 2700 reform progress, which with full rep trad and zero autonomy takes 135 years to get. But no, that isn't practical or realistic, hence why I didn't recommend going republic to OP. Not unless you let low rep trad switch you out of it when absolutism hits.
 
Hello, everyone! Once again, I thank you all for this thread contribution, as it is giving me valuable information about what steps I need to take to a possible WC. My friend borrowed his account and he has all the DLCs, so I did some testing with some DLCs (Mandate of Heaven, Rights of Man, The Cossacks, Cradle of Civilization) and I got say, being able to disinherit bad heirs/rulers made a HUGE difference, as well as being able to get profissionalism -> slack to get that extra manpower. I started again and I'm in the best position I have ever been in this attempt:

1596573363660.png


I'm getting ready for absolutism and try to hit the cap ASAP. I got a foothold in India which I will expand as soon as I have that 30 ADM Eff. Technologically, I actually surprassed Austria and the Ottomans.

1596573471600.png


I think I need to get Influence Ideas ASAP, since I got quite a few vassals I need to annex. However, I made a horrible mistake: I reformed to a Theocracy, without using its DLC, which means I can use Strengthen Government to get absolutism. I tried to go for Horde, but didn't like the mechanics (although the no dip CB is awesome). I'm using Deus Vult to expand and, for a next try if this doesn't work out, would there be an easy way for me to convert to Ibadi at the beginning of the game? That seems to be an excellent idea.
 
Hello, everyone! Once again, I thank you all for this thread contribution, as it is giving me valuable information about what steps I need to take to a possible WC. My friend borrowed his account and he has all the DLCs, so I did some testing with some DLCs (Mandate of Heaven, Rights of Man, The Cossacks, Cradle of Civilization) and I got say, being able to disinherit bad heirs/rulers made a HUGE difference, as well as being able to get profissionalism -> slack to get that extra manpower. I started again and I'm in the best position I have ever been in this attempt:

View attachment 605432

I'm getting ready for absolutism and try to hit the cap ASAP. I got a foothold in India which I will expand as soon as I have that 30 ADM Eff. Technologically, I actually surprassed Austria and the Ottomans.

View attachment 605435

I think I need to get Influence Ideas ASAP, since I got quite a few vassals I need to annex. However, I made a horrible mistake: I reformed to a Theocracy, without using its DLC, which means I can use Strengthen Government to get absolutism. I tried to go for Horde, but didn't like the mechanics (although the no dip CB is awesome). I'm using Deus Vult to expand and, for a next try if this doesn't work out, would there be an easy way for me to convert to Ibadi at the beginning of the game? That seems to be an excellent idea.

Hordes are absolutely amazing for conquering vast swaths of land. They have an inherent 5% discipline (their thingy that substitutes legitimacy), razing gives you all 3 types of powers, ducats, reduces coring cost and allows you to take around 140% OE and reduce it to 100%. Their biggest downside is how bad tribes are (although I think their new iteration is markedly better). That is, of course, if you have The Cossacks DLC.

My first and last and only WC was in 1.29 as Oirat -> Yuan staying Horde for the entirety of the game. By the age of revolutions I was taking 200% OE, razing all and constantly attacking. And I had so, so ,so much power that I could just break truces, pay to get my stab back to 3, core newly acquired land and still keep my adm at 999.

Horde is love, lord is life. Embrace the steppes.
 
Gonna want to be a bit more aggressive in the New World. Also, remember that Trade Companies now primarily benefit from you feeding the new provinces to a local vassal, who gets a Goods Produced bonus from it.
 
Hordes are absolutely amazing for conquering vast swaths of land. They have an inherent 5% discipline (their thingy that substitutes legitimacy), razing gives you all 3 types of powers, ducats, reduces coring cost and allows you to take around 140% OE and reduce it to 100%. Their biggest downside is how bad tribes are (although I think their new iteration is markedly better). That is, of course, if you have The Cossacks DLC.

My first and last and only WC was in 1.29 as Oirat -> Yuan staying Horde for the entirety of the game. By the age of revolutions I was taking 200% OE, razing all and constantly attacking. And I had so, so ,so much power that I could just break truces, pay to get my stab back to 3, core newly acquired land and still keep my adm at 999.

Horde is love, lord is life. Embrace the steppes.

I went back to a previous save, before changing, and this time I picked up Horde. I was mistaken, as you pointed out, as they are an excellent form of government. One question, how did you manage the Tribal rebels? I'm trying to hit 50 absolutism ASAP to get Court and Country event, but if I lower my autonomy, these rebels simply popup in huge stacks and wreck my ground by raising autonomy. Should I take it easy and not increase that quickly?

Gonna want to be a bit more aggressive in the New World. Also, remember that Trade Companies now primarily benefit from you feeding the new provinces to a local vassal, who gets a Goods Produced bonus from it.

I'm still building my powerbase in India so I can contest the European countries. While I can defeat their armies, my navy is too weak at the moment to compete against theirs.
 
There are several ways to handle that, one is to have a web of forts so no rebels can have an effect on any of your provinces (expensive, but personally I like doing this and just leave those forts at level 2).
The other is to stack -unrest so you can lower autonomy without going over 0 unrest, which is what Humanist is for. Add on the policy with Offensive and you simply don't see rebels anymore, though maintaining 1 unrest for a few years for CnC to trigger suddenly became somewhat of a headache, you will need to let war exhaustion pile up from ignoring the call for peace, often to around 8-10 because your country is just too stable, and during this all the rebels might suddenly pop out so you might want the fort web anyways.
One way to cheese it is to accept the demands of a rebel that increases autonomy in all your lands just one month before Age of Absolutism triggers (usually Particularist rebels are used, but I think Tribal rebels works too). That way, the month that you enter Absolutism, all your lands have non-zero autonomy with -100 unrest.
 
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There are several ways to handle that, one is to have a web of forts so no rebels can have an effect on any of your provinces (expensive, but personally I like doing this and just leave those forts at level 2).
The other is to stack -unrest so you can lower autonomy without going over 0 unrest, which is what Humanist is for. Add on the policy with Offensive and you simply don't see rebels anymore, though maintaining 1 unrest for a few years for CnC to trigger suddenly became somewhat of a headache, you will need to let war exhaustion pile up from ignoring the call for peace, often to around 8-10 because your country is just too stable, and during this all the rebels might suddenly pop out so you might want the fort web anyways.
One way to cheese it is to accept the demands of a rebel that increases autonomy in all your lands just one month before Age of Absolutism triggers (usually Particularist rebels are used, but I think Tribal rebels works too). That way, the month that you enter Absolutism, all your lands have non-zero autonomy with -100 unrest.
On the last point, pretty sure that reducing autonomy now removes the “recent uprising” modifier so if you do the accept demands into lowering autonomy you will have the unrest to deal with.
 
I also think, that you get some Feudalism spread as long as your capital dev is high enough in West Africa. I would advice deving for that at well. Just make sure you don't fall behind your neibhors in mil-tech while doing that.
I am afraid I don't understand how developing for institutions spread works...

I haven't played EUIV for more than 2 years and started a new game as Imerina (Madagascar) the other day (with all DLC's until Third Rome). Imerina also starts without Feudalism and is landlocked at the start in 1444. As soon as I could spare the monarch points, I developed my capital to get Feudalism spreading but nothing happened. How does this work exactly?

The current year is 1487, still 0% Feudalism or Renaissance present in my provinces although I have united the whole of Madagascar by now. I've just set up a colony in the province of Inhambane in South Africa, which is a natural harbor and is bordering Kilwa, who already has Feudalism and Renaissance on the way.
 
I am afraid I don't understand how developing for institutions spread works...

I haven't played EUIV for more than 2 years and started a new game as Imerina (Madagascar) the other day (with all DLC's until Third Rome). Imerina also starts without Feudalism and is landlocked at the start in 1444. As soon as I could spare the monarch points, I developed my capital to get Feudalism spreading but nothing happened. How does this work exactly?

The current year is 1487, still 0% Feudalism or Renaissance present in my provinces although I have united the whole of Madagascar by now. I've just set up a colony in the province of Inhambane in South Africa, which is a natural harbor and is bordering Kilwa, who already has Feudalism and Renaissance on the way.
You should be able to get passive spread from Kilwa anyway as Madagascar, as long as you share a sea zone with them. The only other requirement is to have positive relations with them, which shouldn't be too hard unless you've rivaled them. Which definitely isn't a good idea before getting the institutions. Devpushing should give progress (though not nessesarily ticking progress) unless you play as unreformed natives, but I'm relatively certain that those only exist in the new world.

The other way to get Feudalism would be to conquer enough land from Kilwa to let you embrace it, if you're strong enough militarily to do so. I used the passive spread method as Betsimisaraka for Feudalism, though I think I developed others. Feudalism may be nondevelopable in general.

Note also that Renaissance is impossible to embrace unless you've already embraced Feudalism, so you have to take them in the right order.
 
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Feudalism may be nondevelopable in general.
This could explain what happened as I didn't get any progress at all although I developed my capital Merina 3x times.

I am allied to Mutapa and Makua and rivaled Kilwa. Just answered a call to arms from my allies in a conquest war against Kilwa. Fetishists unite! ;)
 
I didn't get any progress at all although I developed my capital Merina 3x times.
It is possible to develop Feudalism. Merina starts with 8 development. If you develop it 3 times, you will get 4.99% spread in that province(the wiki has the detailed formula). But as long as the institution is not 100% present in a province, it will not count for embracing the institution. That's why the game tells you that it is in 0% of your provinces. To get an institution in a province which starts at 8 dev, you have to develop it 28 times. And only manual development clicks count, development increases from events, missions or other sources don't count. You can see how much progress one province has if you click on the institution icon on the right side of the province window and hover over the progress bar of that institution. You can also hover over the province in the institutions map mode.
 
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You're right, I was looking at the wrong province. :confused: I developed Betsileo for an estate mission and not my capital. *durp*

Feudalism is also spreading passively in the coastal provinces of Iboina, Besalampy, Antsalova and Menaba among others because of sharing sea zones with Kilwa. :)

20210117135928_1.jpg

Thanks for the help!