Before unpausing land is distributed to estates so their influence gets past 75% but not over 80% which means that estates can be milked for 150 points each.
Don't underestimate the points you can get from estates as each 20 years you can get 50 - 200 points. While going for full 200 is not safe most of the time you should be going for 150 whenever possible as gaining 450 points each 20 years is like having monarch with almost 2 more skill points.
Another good advice is to have game stop with a pop-up whenever estate modifier expires - this way you won't forget about the interaction being available once again as with fully optimal milking of estates whenever it's available you can gain 8550 points during the game.
Ramazan is just few points away from accepting diplomatic annexation so a diplomat is immediately dispatched in order to improve relations.
I can't say how much I love the diplomatic macro builder as it saves a lot of clicking when you're looking for a guy which accepts diplomatic annexation or alliance.
Diplomatic annexation means that we won't gain any AE for subduing Ramazan and we'll also gain a vassal which has +20% coring cost reduction in their TRADITIONS.
Mission to conquer the city of World's desire is taken, rivals are set, diplomat is sent to improve relations with Ramazan. Everything looks like it's set as forts has been deleted, advisors assigned and we're ready to unpause the game.
As for monarch I've forgot to do a screen but he's 6/4/6 and the focus is currently set to military with option to be switched out which will be done once military tech 4 is unlocked (probably to dip to compensate 4 in diplo skill and to allow faster purchase of influence idea group which will be definitely first one to unlock).
Advisors:
level 3 inquisitor from estate interaction which is 50% cheaper for obvious reasons
level 2 diplomat also for obvious reasons (make AE decay faster)
level 1 military guy (I think extra morale but can't recall right now)
Do not rush in the game but take your time while the game is paused, look for possible allies, study rivalry patterns which will help you get allies and if there's someone to be annexed peacefully, do it as it will save you AE later. Do not forget about estates!
I've spent at least 10 minutes with the game paused while looking at rivalries, possible vassals, milking estates, deleting forts, taking decisions etc.
As one month passes Byzantium is immediately attacked. Without any alliance their armies do not pose any real threat and in fact are wiped as the war starts.
Byzantium's armies are wiped thanks to the fact that AI tends to lower maintenance when not in war, thus their armies had not full morale when engaged. You can also capture some mothballed forts during that first month as AI loves to mothball forts.
Always declare your wars on 1st day of the month as this maximizes the change you will catch your opponents with pants down 
Just as diplomatic interaction with Byzantium becomes available it's used to check how much aggressive expansion will be gained with desired peace deal and with whom.
Check your predicted AE immediately after declaration of war and act accordingly! Do not wait with checking it till your opponent is fully besieged just to discover that you either have to make a sub-optimal peace deal or spend 3 years improving relations before making a peace or face a coalition.
A coalition will form when there are at least four nations which:
- you have have 50+ aggressive expansion with
- do not have truce with
- target country have negative opinion of you (this is when diplomats come into play)
With Byzantine armies wiped it's time to siege their land. Small stacks (fort level x 3 + 1) are placed on the enemy forts and fleet is ordered to blockade the forts.
With enemy armies wiped out and not threatening us there's really no reason why bigger stacks than fort level x 3 + 1 (+1 is there for case of disease outbreak which kills 5% of attackers and would thus halt the siege).
Watch the attrition, if there's no need to sit on fort with big stack - don't do it and whenever possible blockade coastal forts.
As soon as siege of Constantinople finishes the general is transferred to Morea due to his 2 siege pips.
Use every opportunity to quicken the sieges!
Once fort in Morea falls Byzantium is annexed. The only country which really cares is Wallachia, but a diplomat has been already improving relations with them so the situation is not that problematic.
Decision to move capital to Constantinople is taken as it's nobrainer which provides core and also raises stability by 1 to 1. Notice that I haven't spent single admin point in raising stability.
I think lot of less experienced players still struggle with understanding of that stability is just a number and admin points can be spend on much more important things than just raising a number.
Army is placed on top of a dhimmi controlled province then their control of the province is revoked which causes rebels to pop and be treated as attackers.
Revoking provinces from disloyal dhimmis is a quick way how to spawn a lot of religious rebels in case you want to quickly switch religions. However there it's done with intention of removing dhimmis completely as they prevent conversion of provinces they control.
Ramazan becomes vassal and safeguard eastern Anatolia mission is taken which provides a lot of claims and determines direction of future expansion.
My intention here is to feed some of the land to Ramazan and do not complete the mission as it only provides the inspiring victory bonuses which are +1 yearly prestige and +10% manpower recovery speed. The claims itself are much more bigger reward than actual reward of the mission.
Candar is made co-belligerent as they have no other allies than Dulkadir, the actual war target. The other ally is Crimea which will be forced out of the war as soon as possible with hopes of the Crimean succession event later.
Armies of Dulkadir and Candar have been WIPED
Carpet sieges has just begun.
Crimea has been engaged in Silistre.
The key for a successful game is having game pause with a pop-up for basically everything. Your armies attack someone or gets attacked and you miss that? Let the game automatically pause so you can react accordingly. You armies arrive into destination, siege completes? Again, autopause.
Although Crimea is enjoying flat terrain advantage, they're WIPED
Crimea without armies becomes fully occupied, but still refuses to sign a white peace, however sending one under-strength regiment to sit on their capital changes their mind and they peace out very eagerly for war reparations and cash.
The trick was that even with fully occupied country their war enthusiasm was still high enough to keep fighting, but at the moment their capital became besieged by even one regiment their war enthusiasm dropped by a lot due to "Occupied and besieged provinces". You can severely hamper you enemies war enthusiasm by sending single regiment(s) to sit on their capital and/or forts.
Candar is annexed in a separate peace which allows us to take their money.
The price for the peace is 51 dip due to unjustified demands as we're lacking claims for the provinces. We would have to pay these 51 dip even if we took the provinces via war leader Dulkadir as we lack the claims (the price is still the same).
However imagine situation where the claims would be available for both Kastamonu and Sinop. In case of separate peace with Candar we would have to pay 51 dip for unjustified demands, but in case of demanding these provinces from war leader Dulkadir the price for unjustified demands would be 0 as we have claims and are using conquest CB.
Hope that clarifies demanding unjustified demands and demanding from warleader and separate peaces a bit
Dulkadir is fully annexed and province Ayntab is started to being cored. The remaining three provinces are then gifted to Ramazan.
Ayntab is kept by us as in order to be eligible to obtain the conquer Levant mission we have to have a province bordering with Levant.
Additionally, once you start coring province which you have access from capital you can break this connection, the province will finish coring unless you manually cancel it. This is something what I did here.
Fleet expansion has been ordered. Galleys are dirt cheep to maintain and rule the Mediterranean sea.
Don't neglect your navy, it allows you multiple things: e.g. rapid transportation of troops (useful now with movement speed nerfs), shortens coastal forts sieges and allows you to blockade your enemies driving up warscore and their war exhaustion. Obviously it denies this opportunity from your enemies.
Navy should not be neglected especially if you play in Med and SEA.
We become defender of the faith for numerous reasons - it's one of the sources of passive war exhaustion reduction apart from innovative ideas, defensive-influence policy, Prussian monarchy and some national ideas.
Extra missionary is self-explainable, especially in one faith game. Extra bit of morale is always welcome and prestige bonus is also something not negligible. The extra 5% tech cost is a small price to pay for this.
Trebizond is allied with just Theodoro. Both of their armies are wiped and victory is just matter of occupying the forts.
Again, check for predicted AE and diplomat is disptched to Circassia.
The Knights and Serbia won't be eligible after year's tick (it's close to the end of the year) as AE with them decays by about 3 each year. This is where diplomat advisor (+20% improve relations) and high prestige (up to +50% improve relations) come into play.
Relations with Circassia have been improved, Theodoro will be truce locked after the war, Trebizond won't exist so this means that there are just 3 countries eligible for creating a coalition which is not enough.
Naples is attacked using a claim which brings in their overlord Aragon and Aragonese ally Genoa. Venice won't join due to their troubles in Serbia which makes it ideal time to strike.
As there's no land connection to Naples strong navy will be deciding factor in this war.
Land tech 4 versus land tech 3 ensures WIPE
Another wipe, this Genoese army gets wipe using two attacking stacks, while one regiment is kept in Napoli to save the siege progress.
Aragon gets attacked by Castile as their ally Genoa is exhausted from being at war with us and didn't honor the call against Castile.
In the end Aragon cedes 3 island provinces to provide us operational base in Mediterranean and gets humiliated which fulfills one of the age objectives.
I was hoping for getting the Balearic islands, but coring range without diplo tech 7 is too small
Don't underestimate getting 50 PP! It's free monarch points which are just laying around. I'd say one of the first objectives should be getting to 50PP e.g. by declaring on ally of your rival for land and then humiliating rival in a separate peace or just by taking rival's land for yourself.
Current age objective situation, the -10% aggressive expansion will be taken first, then +33% siege ability.
AQ is attacked for provinces claimed by the safeguard eastern Anatolia mission as they're allied just with Karaman and one 3 province minor from Arabian peninsula. All of them are quickly overrun.
Influence idea group is unlocked as it's in my opinion the best opening group for world conquest, unless you're playing some special starts which can snipe colonialism using exploration and then attack on multiple continents (e.g. my Ryukyu) or even some more weird choice.
AQ is fully annexed and still no-one bats an eye which results in slightly over 200 development eaten in first 11 years.
That's enough for the first chapter, please let me know how do you find my progress and my explanations. Is there anything you'd like to know, anything to change? I am open to criticism and new ideas
