WC/One Faith strategy as Timurids on 1.34

[humb]

Enacted the Viceroy-decision in 1514. End was a bit messy, as I had to truce break Bahmanis and sat on -2 Stab and 200OE for some time. I did not want to spend admin on land I loose to Deccan. And Admin-Points were too valuable to full-core it. Therefore lots of rebels and some cleanup to do. The Hindu CCR-Monument is rank 2, Malta and Granada are bein upgraded to rank 1 atm. Switched to Hindu via rebels at 1500. Tolerance is bad, I did not expect that and will take humanist next I think. Admin 4th.

Colonization was late (Holland got it! Castille and Portugal are in shambles), I pushed in Sirhind for it and am waiting for it to spread. I tried to line it up nicely. If it had happened at 1500, I would have gotten additional 10% dev cost reduction from a scholar. But I had to switch to Hindu soon, because a great project cost reduction modifier expired in May 1500 and I wanted to start the upgrade of Varanasi to rank 2 immediatly.

Where do you guys push for the first 3 Institutions? First in Herat most likely, but afterwards?

Next steps:
- push for the Monuments in Pegu (2+ dip rel) and Bangkok (-10AE and 15% GC) next. Priority for upgrading is Granada>Bangkok>>Malta=Pegu>Hindu Monuments that give tolerance and estate loyality.
- get a lithuanian core with lithuanian culture to reconquest after Poland integrates it at tech 10.
- similarly for Castille, who ist a PU under Aragon.
- clean up trade nodes and get some more merchants to steer more trade into persia.
- try do dismantle if I can ally some electors and before league war triggers
- kill the european majors (PLC, Austria, France, Aragon, England, Ottomans) mainly using reconquest for AE.

 

[BoomKidneyShot]

Anything you fully core will stay your core when its given to Deccan. You can integrate them for free if you've fully cored all the land which is given to them and don't give them any more land.

 

[necro84]

Where do you guys push for the first 3 Institutions? First in Herat most likely, but afterwards?

I usually do it in Persia, e.g. Teheran and Sari. In Persia there is 0 autonomy and I have prosperity. In India often there is autonomy, devastation etc. With few forts Persia is protected from the wars.
You can think about upgrading Mehrangarh Fort, -20% advisor cost is nice, with Pegu it will be -40%

- get a lithuanian core with lithuanian culture to reconquest after Poland integrates it at tech 10.

I'm not sure if you have enough range from Asturias to take land near the Baltic sea. Grabbing one province near the North Sea could help

End was a bit messy, as I had to truce break Bahmanis and sat on -2 Stab and 200OE for some time. I did not want to spend admin on land I loose to Deccan. And Admin-Points were too valuable to full-core it. Therefore lots of rebels and some cleanup to do.

that's why I prefer another vassal there - no rebels and no coring. You need to own only 2 provinces, rest can be owned by subjects. I can lose some diplo points for another relation but I save money and manpower, I think it's cheaper to promote advisor one level than to fight and diplo will be the same. You need to pay diplo anyway if you want to annex Deccan so this is only upkeep of relation

 

[harezmi]

When you do the Viceroyalty of Deccan event by having those two provinces owned and others owned by vassals, what happens to those vassals? Do they just disappear and become part of Deccan including their army? What if they have other provinces, do they just loose them and continue to exist? Does that cause any LD since they lost their cores?

@humb That's great progress! I am almost at the same date and way behind. I could have done a bit better but I have some house rules such as finishing Timurid's missions, staying Muslim, not truce-breaking (I may have to re-visit this) and no NO-CB wars (also may have to re-visit). I hope I'll post my update soon and I can get some feedback on how to speed up things for me.

Another question to @humb How did you get Granada so early? I was lucky to get even Malta and when I first saw Alhambra across the sea, France/Portugal allied Castile already ate up Granada. That was just too much trouble for me.

 

[necro84]

Nothing changes with the vassals. Deccan starts smaller, even with just 2 provinces if the rest is owned by other subjects.

If you don't want to fully core provinces that will belong to Deccan you can have them without cores like humb - that way you have overextension or you can give them to vassal - that way you may need to pay for extra diplo realtion or two. In both strategies you don't need to pay any admin for that land, only diplo points when you annex subjects.
If you fully core you pay just admin and you won't need diplo points to annex because you keep cores there when Deccan is created (the same way you do with Timurid subjects at the start).
If you just make it territorial core you will pay half of the admin cost but still full diplo cost to annex - you lose cores when Deccan is created.

Game offers some choices there, there isn't just one right path

 

[harezmi]

Got it! without influence ideas, annexing takes lots of bird mana. i think i'll fully core the land to save some birds. I'm generating 17 diplo and I can barely meet the demand. And the heir is lacking diplo skills, too.

 

[humb]

When you do the Viceroyalty of Deccan event by having those two provinces owned and others owned by vassals, what happens to those vassals? Do they just disappear and become part of Deccan including their army? What if they have other provinces, do they just loose them and continue to exist? Does that cause any LD since they lost their cores?

@humb That's great progress! I am almost at the same date and way behind. I could have done a bit better but I have some house rules such as finishing Timurid's missions, staying Muslim, not truce-breaking (I may have to re-visit this) and no NO-CB wars (also may have to re-visit). I hope I'll post my update soon and I can get some feedback on how to speed up things for me.

Another question to @humb How did you get Granada so early? I was lucky to get even Malta and when I first saw Alhambra across the sea, France/Portugal allied Castile already ate up Granada. That was just too much trouble for me.

I finished most Timurid missions as well, most importantly the one giving 20% CCR, which I took the day forming Mughals. But I did not finish the righmost branch (2 stab was too expensive) and the India-branch I only did the first mission (I wanted to core Punjab as Mughals for addional 25%CCR. Mana was scarce in the first 15 years) I got a bit lucky with alliance-webs, but I did only truce break twice: one for Bahmanis to get missing provinces in Deccan. And Morocco once to get close to Granada. This was very unlucky: Morocco was allied to Tunis and Ottomans. Ottomans declared on Hisn Kayfa, which were allied to Mamlukes and Ottos took the provinces neighbouring Tunis. I wanted to take these provinces to get Holy-War CB on Tunis and seperate peace Morocco, but instead I had to no-cb on Morocco instead. And I had to call in Ottos simultaniously into a war against Aden to keep them from defending Morocco.
Morocco had a province on Iberia (which was a mess with Aragon owning most of it), that I took. I only barely managed to get the coring range by getting Diplo Tech 7 right before and taking Damietta from Mamelukes (separate peace in the war against Aden). The I declared on Aragon (allied to big England with land in France, Pope, Savoy) and called in Ottos. Had to do most of the work in Iberia with 60k against 100k troops, but I had tech advantage on Aragon and England had bad generals. I could take Malta and Granada in the same peace deal and plan to release Castille from the province taken from Morocco after Aragon forms Spain and integrates castille.
But even though I got Granada early, I'm lacking the money to upgrade it fully in the next 10 years.

Right now I'm starting from a previous save in 1489 again to incorporate the advice from @necro84 and fully core Deccan, switch to Hindu later (using the dev-cost-scholar for pushing Colonialism) and avoid truce-breaking Bahmanis. I will be at the same speed or slower, but more stable. And in the run posted above, Ottomans broke the alliance due to them having provinces in the Kyrenaika although I have 100 trust.
I will post again when I finish the Deccan-Mission. Bottle neck is the reform progress and the mission for 50 reform progress is crucial.

 

[harezmi]

UPDATE: JANUARY 1528
Ottomans canceled alliance even though I had 100 trust and positive relations. They expanded into North Italy and doing substantially well.
I allied Manchu to get help for the upcoming Ming war. My previous war with them when I DoW'ed Uzbeks was a success but took a long time.
Finished annexing Iraq and Syria. Currently annexing Nogai and Kazakh. Nogai has claims on Golden Horde but they are guaranteed by Ottomans and Muscovy.
Bengal is mostly eaten and they are now fighting Burmese countries and will lose even more land. This is good for me, so I can declare on them.
I'll attack Bahmanis next. VJ is very strong and it will take a long time to get their land. Truce-breaking looks like the only option to speed things up but I'll try not to do it.
I have Oirat as a vassal with lots of cores. Shun and Andhra are the other vassals. I'll also annex Yarkand next. I'll also release Madurai when I have an open relations spot.
Hormuz started a coalition after I ate up most of Crimea and Ottomans, Mamluks joined right away.
I ditched Quantity ideas after paying for two ideas and I did not have a save to start over. I took Religious. It was a mistake to take quantity.

I feel like I am blocked on all sides and having two years with no wars felt weird. Staying Muslim is also a challenge because I am surrounded with Muslim countries and getting claims is also expensive. I try to utilize Estates Agendas. That's how I got Golden Horde's Dagihstan area.

I am afraid Ethiopia and other countries in that area may join the coalition and block me there, too. Once I have Deus Vult, I'll have some more options and may attack Muscovy (and Ethiopia). I also see how blobbing is easier when you're Hindu as Mughals because you already have claims to Hindu lands and then you can Holly War the rest of the world.

Money is fine I think. I have +100 each month even with 160k army with mercenaries, full navy and 5/5/3 advisors. I am a bit over the GC and building Courthouses to bring it down.

After Bahmanis, I'll attack Mongolia/Ming for Oirat's cores, get even more money and may be I'll level 3 Malta/Kaaba or Pegu. I can attack Mamluks but I'll need lots of diplo to get land and I'm not sure if that's a priority.

I'd like to hear if my pacing is good enough for WC/OF. Do I need to be more aggressive? Can this be over by 1700?
Any tactical/strategical suggestion is welcome and appreciated.

 

[humb]

@harezmi I think you are doing very good and are absolutely in time for a pre 1750 or even pre 1700WC. You have so much development and Mughal Ideas + Divan + Viceroyality should make middle- to late-game conquest extremely quick. Most world-conquests start out much much smaller and the main work is done after absolutism. Only some starts allow for that much early-game blobbing. In my last game as Ottomans on hard difficulty, most of the work was done ~1650 and I had less or equal development than you at the same time and Ottomans are worse for WC than Mughals, here is a gif: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...streamline-ottoman-game.1539390/post-28534129

A suggestion for getting out of the Sunni-Block: As you want to one-faith, converting to Hindu is not an option. But you could convert to Shia. This should give you the same amount of missionaries and missionary strength and you can utilize the Holy-War-CB against heretics. But Ithink you miss out on the conversion in trade-company-regions, I'm not sure, never played as a shia nation. Switching to Shia could be done via the devision to convert to Sikhism (requires you to have a sikh province, gets you -2Stab and -100 prestige) and then switching to Shia over the religious interface is possible. You could even switch back the same way to Sunni after eating the sunni nations.
Or you switch to Hindu temporarily and if I remember correct, there is a decision to switch back to Sunni again.

 

[necro84]

But Ithink you miss out on the conversion in trade-company-regions, I'm not sure, never played as a shia nation. Switching to Shia could be done via the devision to convert to Sikhism (requires you to have a sikh province, gets you -2Stab and -100 prestige) and then switching to Shia over the religious interface is possible. You could even switch back the same way to Sunni after eating the sunni nations.

All muslim nations can use propagate religion so you can do it as shia or ibadi. To use this option religion should be the biggest religion in your country so if you conquer too many heretics - in ths case sunnis you need to convert them first before you use this policy.

@harezmi
I wouldn't release Oirat and Shun yet and I would prefer to finish India first for Deccan mission. In few years there is chance Ming will explode because of disasters so you would fight much weaker nation.
I think Persia is your main trade node so look what nations are draining your trade from there. If Mamluks don't do anything you can wait with attacking them. They can only expand south and this only can help you. I would consider attacking Mamluks only to unite Syrian and Beduin cultures.
You can try going for Great Mosque of Djenné or Baiturrahman Grand Mosque monuments for even more missionary strength.

If possible you can use charter company to buy some provinces in Africa (sometimes even in Europe) and use holy war CB (or reconquest if you have open relations) to expand there. It all depends what religion becomes dominants in that region.
What are you doing with your diplo points if you have high level advisor and you aren't over the relation limit? Usually I'm 2-3 relations over the limit, annex one vassal and still not be more than 1 tech behind

 

[harezmi]

@humb Thank you for the encouragement. I'd like to do the OF as Sunni for this run. I had a chance to take Granada by declaring a colonial war to Aragon for their only North African province and Castile was the only ally. However, I couldn't risk wasting many years for a long attrition war. I did not have a navy and had to go around whole Europe. I could have allied England but Aragon was fighting with Ottomans and were about to lose that single North African province to Tunis, so I had a very short period of time for declaring war.

@necro84 For diplo, I annexed multiple vassals at the same time but now the mana generation is more stable. I am now annexing both Nogai and Kazakh.

I don't understand how allowing Mamluks grow would help me. They are Sunni and I can't Holy War them. I don't have claims for such vast land, either. They had a war with Ethiopia and I was terrified. I helped the Coptic Nation not to lose any land and destroyed the whole Mamluk army but even with their 20k army they decided to go with white peace.

I made several mistakes with the vassals recently.
1. Nogai had 7-8 claims on Golden Horde and I annexed them.
2. I vassalized Morocco after they lost most of their land to Portugal. I was terrified for some reason. Must be late night playing. I could have just took one province later and release them. I'm not sure what to do with them now. May be they can help me to distract Tunis if I fight Ottomans but I should not waste time in that area for the time being.
3. I released Shun and Oirat together. One of them is definitely too early to release. I should have waited for Shun. Oirat's cores are already too many.

Ming has around 80 mandate and about the pass the third reform. They have lots of tributaries and going strong. I allied Manchu to help me and also prevent Ming to eat them. This might help when I attack Ming for a quicker war.

I have a question regarding CB's:
If I have claims and also cores of a vassal, using the Reconquest CB does not allow me to take my or vassal's claimed provinces without diplo points. If I declare by using the Conquest CB, I can use return cores action. This way I get more provinces but much more AE. Do I still get full AE for the return core action, too?

I am still puzzled in certain situations like in one case I declared with Conquest CB, set co-belligerent one of the enemies which I also have claims on and when I try to separate peace them, I was still required to pay for diplo.

I will look into this more carefully but I'd like to know if AE is still that important once you get big enough. I can just Holy War everyone and grow even faster and bigger.

 

[bokorthedust]

If I have claims and also cores of a vassal, using the Reconquest CB does not allow me to take my or vassal's claimed provinces without diplo points. If I declare by using the Conquest CB, I can use return cores action. This way I get more provinces but much more AE. Do I still get full AE for the return core action, too?

You do, because the AE modifier comes from the CB you use, not from having the cores themselves. For AE purposes, in this case you get the full amount even if you conquer both claims and cores for the vassal. It's still a better solution IMO if you can spare the AE, because it allows you to take more land without spending diplo on the peace deal, but if AE is an issue, you're better off doing the reconquest first and then allowing the vassal to fabricate more claims during the truce, then swoop in for the claims in the second round of war.

I am still puzzled in certain situations like in one case I declared with Conquest CB, set co-belligerent one of the enemies which I also have claims on and when I try to separate peace them, I was still required to pay for diplo

You have to peace them out from the main war, together with the primary target for the co-belligerency to apply. If you separate peace them IRC their provinces still have double the ws cost, and as you noted, still cost diplo, even though they are a co-belligerent.

 

[necro84]

You have to peace them out from the main war, together with the primary target for the co-belligerency to apply. If you separate peace them IRC their provinces still have double the ws cost, and as you noted, still cost diplo, even though they are a co-belligerent.

province warscore cost is normal but you pay diplo points

@harezmi when Ming passes reform their mandate drops and there can be Crisis of the Ming Dynasty. This disaster starts after age of discovery when Ming is under 50 mandate. I think in your case Ming didn't pass any reforms in age of reformation so this would start the disaster. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis_of_the_Ming_Dynasty If Shun doesn't exist there can be the event Li Zicheng's Rebellion and the Shun Dynasty where Shun declares independence and starts a war with Ming and this weakens Ming even further

 

[harezmi]

@harezmi when Ming passes reform their mandate drops and there can be Crisis of the Ming Dynasty. This disaster starts after age of discovery when Ming is under 50 mandate. I think in your case Ming didn't pass any reforms in age of reformation so this would start the disaster. https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Crisis_of_the_Ming_Dynasty If Shun doesn't exist there can be the event Li Zicheng's Rebellion and the Shun Dynasty where Shun declares independence and starts a war with Ming and this weakens Ming even further

I was paying attention to mandate and Manchu but I did not know about the chain of events in the link you shared. I played only one game in the China region and that was with Oirat for Khaan achievement. In that game and in my current game, Ming did not explode.
In the current game Ming passed two reforms, Manchu has more than 300 dev and they still have 59 mandate declining by 0.04 by month only.

I need to kill the tributaries to lower the mandate but most of them are in a coalition against me (including Ottomans the Hulk).

I now think may be I annex Shun. It is a one province vassal anyways.

I need to desperately expand even though all my neighbors are in a coalition, deal with the rebels, find a way to eat +300% WS VJ. I like this run. Feels very natural. Lots of errors and mistakes but fun to deal with these challenges. Lots of learning in the meantime, too.

 

[harezmi]

UPDATE: DECEMBER 1540
Vassal Nogai is annexed. Adal is annexed. I got all of the Andhra's core back from VJ. I got more land in Central India and Assam/Bengal/Burma.

Annexing Kazakh is almost done. Yarkand, Andhra, Madurai, Oirat, Shun, Morocco, Georgia are my subjects. Manchu and Commonwealth are my allies. Commonwealth has its butt kicked by Ottomans recently. Ottomans are unstoppable right now. I smoewhat blocked them in the east but they're expanding in the west.

I have a huge coalition against me including Ottomans and Ming. It'll be harder to expand but waiting for AE to cooldown is not an option.

Russia is formed and colonizing Siberia. That must be a priority for me. I allied Commonwealth who is enemies with Russia and Ottomans. I will attack Burma/Thailand and may be move to Malacca while waiting for the truces in India and elsewhere.

Now, the questions if I may.

Trade: I am losing a lot from Persian node. I have 84% of the power. I enabled "protect trade" edict in my capital area (Herat) which has by far the most trade power. All trade centers have marketplace and upgraded if possible, two areas in Shirvan and Armenia are TC'ed. I either add the least developed province to a TC or the ones with trade centers or trade bonuses. I built the trade power bonus buildings for TC in these areas. I have a merchant collecting there, too. I am still losing a lot of money there. I don't have much power in Crimea and Astrakhan but dominating Aleppo one. I have 7 merchants and will get one more from Burma.

I can enable more "protect trade" edict in Persian node but I am not sure if it will cover the extra cost. I am in constant wars and overextension keeps changing, so it is hard to test. May be I'll do a test run to check that out. I am open to suggestions on what can be done. Golden Horde, Ottomans, Ragusa(!), Russia and Commonwealth are the ones siphoning the most. I will deal with Russia soon but I don't think I can attack the others anytime soon.

GC: I got a lot of land very quickly and GC got out of control. I built courthouses everywhere it reduces GC by 3. It is far from enough. I have -10% Admin Eff. The State Houses tech will be available very soon. I don't know if it is worth to lose crown land to get the extra GC. Now, I'm writing this down, I think I should have done that already. It is just that I had never taken the privileges for GC before. I have 66% Crownland and can afford to lose some but I also need to think about Age of Absolutism, too. Knowing that Admin Eff. is the most important modifier in the game, I don't know why I never considered that.

Unstating is also another option but losing the state cores also feel like a waste but again I am wasting more resources by not reducing GC. May be I just do a combination of all. I'll take care of this asap.

Great Projects: Pegu is L3. Kaaba, Malta, Bam, Tikrit L2. All of the rest are L1 and may be a few more are also L2.

Buildings: I am wondering how aggressive I should be with manufactories. I built 5-6 textile manufactories and a few farm estates. I'll build State Houses in most areas and prioritize the ones with paper/glass/gems.

Ideas: Admin, Diplo and Religious are completed. I'm considering Humanist next. Rebellions are really slowing me down and adding lots of micro management. New Espionage ideas look really good and I'm considering that one, too. I'd like to hear what you guys think.

 

[necro84]

Trade: I am losing a lot from Persian node. I have 84% of the power. I enabled "protect trade" edict in my capital area (Herat) which has by far the most trade power. All trade centers have marketplace and upgraded if possible, two areas in Shirvan and Armenia are TC'ed. I either add the least developed province to a TC or the ones with trade centers or trade bonuses. I built the trade power bonus buildings for TC in these areas. I have a merchant collecting there, too. I am still losing a lot of money there. I don't have much power in Crimea and Astrakhan but dominating Aleppo one. I have 7 merchants and will get one more from Burma.

You can try using embargo on Ottomans.
Great Horde is weak so you can try forcing transfering trade power in a war (it's best to do something else too for 15 year truce). It's possible that they are allied to one of your enemies and you can separate peace for that, if not you need to calculate how much this war will cost you and how much will you gain. You may consider conquering Astrakhna state - most of trade power is from 2 provinces in that state (Sarai and Astrakhan)
You can use divert trade power on Georgia.

GC: I got a lot of land very quickly and GC got out of control. I built courthouses everywhere it reduces GC by 3. It is far from enough. I have -10% Admin Eff. The State Houses tech will be available very soon. I don't know if it is worth to lose crown land to get the extra GC. Now, I'm writing this down, I think I should have done that already. It is just that I had never taken the privileges for GC before. I have 66% Crownland and can afford to lose some but I also need to think about Age of Absolutism, too. Knowing that Admin Eff. is the most important modifier in the game, I don't know why I never considered that.

I would grant this privilage for now, you can always revoke it. With admin ideas it will give you 125 gov capacity, when you get monument 140 GC.
Age of absolutism will start in 70 years but it will be few more years before you get to the max and it's possible to have 100 absolutism with few privilages granted. If you trigger court and coutry even for all 5 estates for extra 700 GC.

Early age of absolutism offers you no extra GC (only 100 at tech 17) so when you are close to the limit you can't expand much anyway and you need strong economy to build courthouses everywhere or you need to increase GC with privilages. If you can't conquer more land having 100 absolutism doesn't give you much


If you defeat Ottomans and you don't have GC consider making vassal in Anatolia (Eretna or Karaman starts with lots of cores there). You will reduce Ottoman trade power in that area and if you divert trade your subject also won't take anything from Persia.

 

[humb]

@harezmi
I think you should focus on fixing you GC, growing your economy and expanding towards clear goals. You are so big and have so much time left, there is no point in expanding at all cost, hampering your future growth.

1. Fix GC
   1. I always take all the +GC privileges. As Sunni you get one more estate than with Hindu, so you can have one more +GC privilege, which is a big advantage. Instead of building so many courthouses, you could have built manufactories or upgraded more monuments.
   2. Consider explointing development. You can do this every 20 years and get cash or manpower, whatever you need most atm. It helped me reducing my GC and filling up my manpower-reserves.
   3. I keep some vassals for a long time. Vassals that only have garbage land (Kazach), are downstream and can be fed / reconquest a lot of land (Novgorod, Lithuania, Morocco). I have the following roles for vassals:
      1. land that I want to own asap, but dont have a good CB on (Syria, Irak, Aden, Oman...). I grow them fully and annex them as soon as diplo-points allow to reduce the diplo-relations
      2. Help conquer land quicker to break up big nations (Guyenne and Provence to weaken France; Byzantion, Eretna and Bulgaria for Ottomans; Nations in China, a collapsed Ming is a great vassal to conquer most of China very fast). These I integrate with Prio 2
      3. Big Vassals for the same purpose as above, but their integration is not important as they are bigger and only one vassal is needed to weaken the corresponding major/ conquer the region (Hungary for Austria/ Ottomans, Lithuania for PLC, Novgorod for Russia. Whatever nation for Spain and England). They hold lots of development that I dont need now and that would hamper my GC. I feed them much more than just their cores.
2. Grow Economy
   1. Build manufactories. A lot. We dont get the mission with 10% building cost reduction as Mughals, sadly. But manufactories are worth it. My priority is 1. Upgrading some selected very important monuments before tech 11 (Granada T3, Bangkok T3, Varanasi T2, some T1 ones like Malta). 2. Build manufactories. 3. with the increased income, upgrade less important monuments (e.g. pegu) or monuments you only conquered now (consider +reform progress monuments in Europe, Pasai, Jenne). @necro84 how would you fit in trade-company-investments? I dont use them a lot and am unsure how to priotize them.
   2. At tech 15, state low-dev states where most provinces have grain / cattle / wine as trade good. Then build soldier households to boost you manpower. Arabia and the steppes in Transoxania and europe are excellent for this.
3. Expansion
   1. Finish the Viceroy-Mission. This is the most important thing. Can you shorten the truce with VJ? Do they guarantee a small nation you have no truce with?
   2. You should conquer Bangkok: fully upgraded it gives +15% GC und -10%AE, helping you on two choke-points.
   3. conquer the two trade-centers in Astrakhan for 1 merchant and less leakage in persia.
   4. Age of Reformation is Age of feed big vassals via reconquest. Get some of the ones mentioned in role 3. Lithuania and Novgorod are in reach. Maybe Hungary?
   5. Strongly connected to the above: prepare to break major late-game threats. As time progresses, nations like france, PLC and Ottomans take more and more military ideas, making fighting them harder in the long run. There should be a point soon where you can afford two groups of armies: a big one in europe and a small one to gobble up SEA and Africa.
   6. Look out if you have some easy paths towards some monuments (Napoli and Madrid help with GC), Venezia for Reform Progress. Pasai for Converting.
4. Idea Groups: I find it very useful to have humanist as soon as Age of Absolutism starts. Until then, increasing autonomy should take care of most rebels. As Hindu with less TOH then Sunni with iqta, I have very few rebels after increasing autonomy. I would take Humanist as 4th idea. 5th is a bit late, but better players than me can live without it. In my Hindu-run I chose to take admin 3rd and will take humanist 4th. I can get some TOH with monuments and want to expand in no-claim-land. Admin saves many points and raises GC immensely.

 

[necro84]

@necro84 how would you fit in trade-company-investments? I dont use them a lot and am unsure how to priotize them.

I prefer to build manufacturies at admin tech 11 in cloth and silk provinces first so investments need to wait. Tech 14 unlock manufacturies for cotton so it depends if I can afford investments earlier. Usually I use investments after I have manufacturies at around tech 15-16

I keep some vassals for a long time. Vassals that only have garbage land (Kazach), are downstream and can be fed / reconquest a lot of land (Novgorod, Lithuania, Morocco)

I do the same thing. Adal was good vassal - it gets claims for entire horn of Africa from missions

 

[JaxElite]

Just a few general notices from a few mughal runs, some are too late to apply to you guys campaigns, but might help others.

1. Do not integrate your vassals (except the timurid core ones) too fast. It saves GC and gives more manpowee for stupidly high attrition. It slso keeps average autonomy lower early on and therefore gives faster reforms
2. it is a viable tactic to guarantee granada at game start to block castille.
In general when you identify the possible roadblock countries early you csn block them quite well (granada, byz, ryazan) only commonwealth and austria are quite hard ro block.
3. dont take a military idea early. If you have to, always go offensive over quantity, since the bonus siege speed will save you more manpower than quantitiy ever could. If you feel thst you have way too many mil points and need a mil idea group you barrage to few forts
4. Religous is not a good idea group early on. If you wanna wc it might seem tempting to rush it early but you are mostly surrounded by sunni and get perma claims on india anyway. Only take it if you wanna mess stuff up in europe early on or if you intend to use long term vassals to convert land
5. Adm->Dip->Inf
6. Considering that i revommend not integrating too early and influence just third you need to really plan ahead on which vassals to release for reconquest. Dont take too small ones.
7. Dont rush malta or mekka for the province war score modifiers. You start in the middle of sunni nations and even your early indian targets are sunni sultanates. Their modifiers are great but they really dont help you out early on.
8. Petra is an undervalued monument later on in a wc. Not only does it give you faster annexations via dip rep it also gives envoy travel time, which can be crucial when handling nations across the globe
9. If you dont let russia form there will be no siberian frontiers and you will never need to convert those uncolonised provinces.

 

[necro84]

@JaxElite I never took influence. Does it help a lot? Full idea is 2800 dip and you are missing other idea group so you need to integrate about 800 development just to get diplo points back. Of course it's not just points but for me faster integration isn't that important, I'm keeping subjects longer. I prefer humanist for more stable nation

I use influence only when I integrate big PUs or need extra diplo rep in the HRE