World Conquest for Dummies 2.0

[SKOTy]

Other useful resources:
Colition handling guide by @atwix
PU guide by @atwix


General things you need to know before you actually start playing:

When to attempt world conquest?
I recommend having at least 100 hours clocked and having played up to at least 1750 so you have experienced late game. Additionally you should have completed Mare Nostrum achievement (form Roman Empire) or any other with similar difficulty.

Which tag to play?

That's usually first question many players ask while thinking of World conquest. The answer is dependent on many factors. Are you going for certain achievement which requires you to start as certain nation and do not change it, prime example is The Three Mountains achievement which requires you to start and stay as Ryukyu tag whole game.
Here's a list of countries I consider prime candidates of ideal first World conquests:

• Ottomans - no surprise here, amazing starting position which allows them to expand to multiple directions, coring cost reduction in their national idea set, lot of starting development
• Ming - even stronger starting position than Ottoblob, once you pass Celestial reforms you get 20% coring cost reduction, thanks to tributaries basically unlimited MP to brute force institutions, but the Emperor of China is such an awkward mechanic, especially for heavy blobbing games so I don't recommend
  
• France, Castile - both of them can kill other colonizers, can become HRE eventually and have ideal position to from Italy (25% RCC) or Roman empire (20% RCC), Castile have easy access to 2 personal unions
• Hordes - Kazan, Jurchen tribes - world conquest with them always felt more rewarding for me, harder early game due to balancing on the edge
• Ryukyu

Now some theory:

Tagswitching

Changing your tag also changes your national idea set and this is main purpose of tag switching - to get an idea set which includes some form of coring cost reduction. Witch change of accepted/promoted/primary cultures works it's now pretty easy to switch primary culture to new one by simple stating new land with desired culture and unstating province with the old primary culture (be aware that state cores are lost by unstating). The most notable tagswitches are:
* Italy - easily available for anyone in Europe, provides 25% RCC
* Roman empire - tag switch which does not require culture switching, provides 20% RCC, however you can not form Roman Empire while you're HRE
* Mughals - RotW Italy, with some surgical strikes easily available for anyone in Asia and east Africa, 25% RCC and imo better idea set than Italy's thanks to +3 heathen tolerance
* Yuan - 25% RCC with additional 20% RCC coming from Empire of China, 5% admin efficiency, however with Empire of China bonusses also comes managing your mandate which is pain and I do not recommend this
* Manchu - amazing idea set, highly situational for countries like Korea


Coring cost reduction

This is probably the most important factor deciding how smooth and fast your run will be as it reduces the amount you have to pay in order to core a province, but it also reduces coring TIME by the same factor. While with absolutism and 25% RCC coming from admin ideas I was able to core 19000 development in last 110 years it was not nice as I had to sit at 100+ overextension for quite long period of time.
RCC comes from following things:
* territorial coring 50% - pretty much self explainable as in WC games you don't want to manually state provinces
* from playing privileged tag like Mughals, Yuan, Golden Horde, Hordes with generic ideas, Italy and Kazan (25% RCC), Ottomans, Turkish Beyliks, Manchu, Roman empire (20% RCC) and many other (15% or 10%)
* religion - 10% RCC from being Coptic, or Hindu with Shiva deity (or Norse with Odin)
* HRE 3rd reform provices 10% RCC, which can be combined with 10% RCC from being Coptic
* 20% from Celestial reform and decree
* 20% and 10% from Mayan, Inti reforms, but you don't want to be playing as unreformed natives
* 5/10/15% from tribal despotism government
* 10% from claims - it may still be worth in late game in case you have spare diplomats
* 25% from permanent claims - this allows Mughals to eat India very fast

* and most important - 2nd idea of administrative idea group - adaptability provides 25% RCC which is only source of RCC for counties like Catholic Norway

The maximum coring cost is capped at 30 development for a province. This means that if the province has 31 development, it's coring cost will be treated as if it only had 30 development.

 

[SKOTy]

1. The city of World's desire (1444 - 1455)


Before actual gameplay let's take a look on what makes Ottomans still one of the top contenders for a country with easiest time conquering the world.

Probably the most important thing is their starting position as they start bordering Catholic, Orthodox and Sunni nations which allows almost constant bullying of someone as Catholics and Orthodox nations do not really care what you're doing to Sunnis and Sunnis are not really caring about you beating Christians. Then there's their unique government where instead of getting random heir a choice between 3 is presented and heirs like Castile's Enrique are less likely to happen. There are also Janissaries, but I wouldn't rate them as strong as e.g. banners as if I am not mistaken they still Janissaries still need manpower to reinforce unlike banners.
As usual yellow will be used for important stuff, explanations and my personal comments.

Ottoman Traditions
+5% Discipline
+3 Tolerance of heathens
There's probably no-one that would complain about extra discipline so the first traditions bonus is self-explainable. Extra tolerance is also extremely nice bonus as +3 negates the penalty and combined with humanist idea group this means that you can say goodbye to any rebellions in heathen provinces. However it's not that strong when you're aiming for one faith World conquest (for obvious reasons).

Kanunnames
-20% Core-creation cost
+1 Max promoted cultures
This is what makes Ottomans one of the best tags to paint map with as there are just few privileged tags with coring cost reduction in the game. Although it has been nerfed from -33% it's still on par with Manchu ideas and is almost like having adaptability without actually taking the administrative idea group. The promoted cultures bonus is nothing breathtaking.

Ghazi
+20% Manpower recovery speed
Extra manpower, who wouldn't want it? Military ideas are always nice to have in the national ideas set as in World conquest game there's little room to focus on military idea groups as there are better ideas like e.g. influence to have.
Synergies well with Ottoman unique decision Adopt the Devshirme system which grants

+10% National manpower modifier.

Timar System
+15% Cavalry combat ability
Although I am not cavalry enthusiast this comes early enough when cavalry is still ruling and 15% is not too shabby.

Autonomous Pashas
-10% Cost of reducing war exhaustion
Worst idea in whole set.

The law code of Suleiman
+10% National tax modifier
Although the main source of money in WC game is from trade (these sweet trade companies) this comes early enough (level 7 admin tech) to make a difference as in early game the main source of income is from tax.

Tulip Period
+10% Trade efficiency
Free money once trade companies start rolling, probably second best economic idea to goods produced.

Found the Imperial School of Naval Engineering
-10% Ship costs
Just slightly worse idea than Autonomous Pashas.

Ambition
+33% Land forcelimit modifier
Really nice finisher to the nation idea set as it means more troops and more troops translate directly into more conquest. Additionally this supplements +50% from quantity idea group (I am not picking anyway as it can be fully supplemented by money).

Generally when it comes to judging national ideas I follow this pattern: coring cost reduction >>>>>>>> diplo annexation reduction > diplomatic reputation > military ideas > tolerance/unrest > trade efficiency/goods produced > other economic ideas > rest.

 

[SKOTy]

2. Bashing Mamluks (1456-1470)


Disclaimer: I played this chapter after I've returned from a pub in slightly intoxicated state so the the results may have been better.

Construction of new mosques is ordered in places where it would bring at least 0.1 ducats per month. Although this increase may look negligible it's not - although the building will pay for itself after 83 years (assuming no modifiers on building costs) two of them will allow you to field an extra regiment of infantry, ten of them is one more ducat each month into treasury and don't underestimate the power of early snowball
As for our next move - our armies are moving towards Serbia, we need some easy war to wage as manpower has been depleted in a previous war against Aq Qyonlu.
The key to a success is constant improvement of your empire via buildings, this is especially true once workshop + manufactory combo kicks in.

Sweet -10% AE from age bonus kicks in, which means we will take less AE from taking provinces in Serbia, and maybe we'll be able to fully annex them.
For majority of countries this will be the first choice of age of discovery bonus, no matter what, the only exceptions may be Portugal and other heavy colonizers.

The 'Adapt Provincial Government System' unique Ottoman decision is NOT taken - we're making over 10 ducats each month and increasing it via small margin is not worth it for extra one unrest for the whole campaign.

Serbia is attacked on the first day of September and we manage to start besieging their level 2 fort while it had no garrison inside due to being mothballed which results in the castle falling just in one siege tick.
Do I have to repeat that wars should be started on the 1st day of the month unless you just got -1 for acceptance of defensive call of wartarget's ally?

Bosnian stack is wandering our land due to no-fort play is caught and wiped.
Maintenance of 5 level 2 forts is higher than maintenance of 20 infantry stacks and guess what has higher value in an offensive war

Serbian stack was engaged in Bosnian mountains and wiped.

In Europe Austria gets inheritance and Burgundy is not even in a war!
I want this in my Austria campaign too! And I will make a bet that Crimean ruler (already quite old) will live past 1466 so I won't see Crimean succession event fire

Genoa has still truce with us which mean there are just three nations eligible of joining coalition against us, which means that full annex button is hit.

While not at war our armies are drilling as high professionalism provides invaluable siege ability. The goal is to reach reasonable levels of professionalism before hiring mercscum.

Ajam is lured in a war against QQ with promise of territory. Little they know that I have no intention of giving them any and are just in the war to serve as a distraction.

QQ's forts have been also mothballed but we weren't able to reach them in time while they still had 0 garrison, but at this low levels I am hitting the assault button if a breach appears.

The price for this event will repay itself in one tech and for dip in 2.5 ideas unlocked (which means that it will definitely repay itself in 25 years), the extra base tax is just added bonus but it's not something I really care of.

Wargoal is secured and both sides of the conflict have similar numbers of troops. However Ottoman armies are sticking together which discourages QQ from attacking so they're rather wandering Ajam's land - exactly as I've expected.

QQ is lagging one military tech behind us which (5 v 4) and attack stack almost twice as big as their in their mountainous capital - the outcome is clear as QQ's stack has been wiped.

Administrative tech 6 is unlocked which brings in price change event for new trade good - paper.

THIS is the best event you can get from influence idea group 5 year pulse events. Which means we can get 100% warscore deal from QQ instead of ~80%.

Rebels have risen in Serbia and began wandering and besieging Serbian culture land which also made their movements predictable as they could only move to Nish, Branicevo and Semendire. This way rebel stack which is numerical superior was forced to attack our 15k in forest and over a river crossing which resulted in their defeat.

The son with most stats combined was made an heir. The other options were 5/1/3 and some utter garbage. That's the advantage of Ottoman government as you can choose between utter garbage and just garbage instead of getting utter garbage straight away.

Kanunnames national idea is unlocked before making peace with QQ as it will save us some precious admin points. The other influence idea which provides 20% AE reduction is too far away so peace will be made once fort in Karabakh falls.

QQ is forced to cede every province claimed by the 'Safeguard eastern Anatolia mission' and also Musul and Arbil. Ajam gets nothing and breaks alliance within couple of months, but that was a plan for whole war against QQ.
Some provinces are kept to ourselves while some are fed to the vassals.
The 'Safeguard eastern Anatolia' mission is abandoned as only claims it provides are just on our vassals' land (maybe PDX should change this to check whether the land is owned by you or a vassal of you).

What about NO Great Horde?
I really do not want to join pointless wars that would slow me down so the -1 dip rep and loss of DotF is eaten.
Avoid fighting pointless and exhausting wars - they're just slowing you down and there's almost always someone better to attack. Don't be afraid to decline defensive call to arms from someone who's being attacked by France, Commonwealth and Russia.
However be wary about 5 trust hit with ENTIRE world, 25 prestige hit and -1 dip rep for 5 years if you decline alliance. In case of declining DotF call to arms the penalty is just losing DotF (500 gold) and -1 dip rep for 5 years.

I've forgot to make a screen of full annexation of Karaman which was only allied to some random OPM in Persia.
Morocco won't protect Mamluks and with freshly unlocked land tech 6 we should be able to win this without any major issues.
Unfortunately Ethiopia won't join with just promise of land because they saw us screwing Ajam

With +33% siege ability from age of discovery bonus available only to Ottomans the siege of Aleppo is progressing fast. The siege is guarded by 2 stacks - our main fighting stack (17k in Raka) and smaller one with subject's armies attached as they've been set to be supportive.

Mamluks have not yet unlocked land tech 6 so they're easily sent packing.

Another pathetic attempt by the Mamluks. After routing their second stack another siege is initiated as for some time they should be licking their wounds.

Wargoal is secured so we're enjoying ticking warscore.

Fort in Damascus has fallen and we're enjoying first stackwipe in the war with Mamluks as they still haven't teched to 6.

Lack of tech 6 leads to decisive victories in a places where we should not be to win that easily - e.g. mountainous forts.

Qahirah, the Mamluk capital has fallen and the last battle fought there puts a nail into Mamluk's war enthusiasm coffin, peace is made shortly after.
Lesson from this war: Sometimes it's worth to wait year or two to unlock new military tech to stomp your enemy with a new military tech. The difference of one tech (especially in the early game), can sometimes mean a completely different outcome of a war.

Mamluks have lost 2 forts in the first war against them which will make subsequent wars easier due to lower number of forts we will have to siege in future. Jerusalem is taken for us for the extra missionary (we are going for one faith so securing these extra missionaries should be one of our priorities).

In the end this was a quite successful session as we've managed to stomp both QQ and the Mamluks, two of the biggest threats in the east. However our AE with Sunni world has risen so it's time to attack elsewhere, but more of this in future update

 

[SKOTy]

3. Mediterranean hegemony (1471 - 1492)


Hello,
this will be slightly longer chapter as for gameplay as I've already explained some principles I am also using in this chapter so it will be more gameplay and less explaining.

After the first with Mamluks we ended up with 8k manpower deficit. To counter this regiments were consolidated and missing ones were replaced by mercenary scum as we can afford it.
By consolidating regiments you squash your regiments to make as many as much max strength ones as you can.
Let's say you have ten regiments of 650 troops each and you consolidate them, the result will be 6 max strength regiments, one regiment with 500 soldiers and three regiments disbanded. This can be useful if you have manpower issues.
There's option to NOT disband the regiments which would end up with zero strength achieved by shift-K shortcut. This is useful when you have manpower (or they're mercs) to reinforce but you need as many fighting shape regiments as soon as possible.

With brutal overflow of admin points and next admin tech 8 years away there's no point in unlocking it this early. The excess admin points are spent on stating best states instead.
I don't like paying for full cores as they should be obtained by annexing vassals, but with unlocked Kanunnames national ideas (+20% core creation cost reduction) it's not that painful and it's still better than development of provinces as it provides much more value than development of provinces for the cost paid.

Our smaller vassal Hisn Kayfa gets annexed as I had no bigger plans with them as their 15% RCC comes too late in comparison with Ramazan (which have it as tradition).

Opportunistic wars for the win
Bosnia gets full annexed.

I had a bit of dilemma what to do with mil points as unlocking tech 7 looked tempting, but given the fact we're not going to fight any difficult wars soon where we would need military tech advantage I've decided to develop some of the provinces for extra base manpower instead of rolling generals (they provide a bit of professionalism, but with events and armies drilling it's not that difficult to get it high enough) as at the moment we're lacking manpower more than army professionalism.

This event fires at the first Crimean ruler's death if the year is less than 1476, so it was just in time. Unfortunately it makes Crimea our march which means we will have to eat a stab hit in the future for revocation of march, but who wouldn't take free land.

Land adjacent to Crimea is immediately marked as vital interest.
This is how you get vassals to make claims for you.

Opportunistic wars for the win Two of Aragon's allies won't honor the defensive call so it's time to project our influence further into the Mediterranean.
Naples have fallen into personal union with France

You call that invasion?!?
Wait, you get 31 army tradition when you get stackwiped?

Renaissance is embraced in the Ottomans, which brings in artillery and 2nd idea group slot.

Certain technology levels have events associated when a first country unlocks them. E.g. admin and military technology levels 7 which both increase price of gems and copper. Especially the first event is nice as it Istanbul now produces gems which are worth 5 ducats and have +15% local tax modifier for each province which produces them. With this Istanbul alone is worth more than 5 ducats each month.

Usual peace deal with not co-belligerent allies of wartarget. Money, reparations and annul of alliances.
This is how my usual deal with war target's allies looks like. But in certain conditions it's worth taking land even from someone which is not co-belligerent. E.g. some bridgehead province which allows claim fabrication on another enemy or annexation of someone in trade league while you don't want to engage trade league itself, prime example is Riga which is allied most of the to Livonian order, when basically no-one from Lubeck trade league gives a damn about annexation of not co-belligerent Riga.

Aragon is reduced to a two province minor in Sicily due to aggressive expansion constraints.

Poland is being ravaged by Hungary + Austria, looks like another easy opportunistic war for the win

With artillery arriving to the sieges, 3 siege pip general and Ottoman age bonus the sieges are going ridiculously fast.

Crimea gets it's three cores back and is fed with the rest of Lithuanian land. We keep Moldavia for ourselves which gets fully annexed (removes Poland's 10 regiment stack from the game) and most importantly we have now land connection with Crimea.

Unholy alliance has been signed
Actually alliance with France was signed just to provide us meat shield once favors will be obtained.

QQ is attacked which brings in 3 of their allies, but nothing that we couldn't handle.

With 4 missionaries conversions we're still obtaining new provinces to convert faster than we're actually converting them. Unfortunately with CoC changes you can't get +3 missionary strength from attacking heretics and heathens so 7,5% conversion strength is maximum we can get

WIPE

Maneuvering game for the win - as soon as QQs stack in Erivan becomes movement locked Shirvani stack in Melikates gets attacked and the battle ends up with mandatory stackwipe.

All but three provinces (Tabriz, Maragheh and Ilam) are fed to Ramazan. With stack of then artillery and incredible siege general it was a fast and easy war to fight.

Mamluks are next to be beaten. Ethiopia is called in to serve as a meatshield while our artillery stacks takes care of the forts.

Fort is Tabriz wasn't demolished immediately after war as it was the likeliest place for QQ rebels to rise and it's very easy to crush rebels besieging mountainous fort.
What's even easier is to watch some random army from a country you gave military access to stumble into your rebels and kill them for you
I seriously laughed my ass off

Most of the casualties are Ethiopian which fulfilled their role as meatshield well. In the end they get nothing and we get 100% peace deal which finishes the 'Conquer Levant' mission and also removes Cyprus as Mamluk's vassal.

The year 1490 is here and free ticket to northern Italy also

Most of the Venetian trade league actually don't like Venice so it looks like another opportune war for the win

While we're already at war with both of Albania's allies it's ideal time to reclaim our core from them as it would expire in fours years.

Venice is forced to give up it's holding's Aegean and eastern Mediterranean sea.
Also look how rich we are as we're building five manufactories

After 50 years of the game our professionalism already sits at 40% thanks to occasional drilling and events. Could be ~10% higher if I've spend excess mil points on rolling generals instead of development and artillery breaches.
As for armies currently I am running three stacks of 14 infantry + 2 cavalry and one siege stack of 10 artillery.


Hope you've enjoyed this chapter

 

[SKOTy]

4. Custodian of holy cities (1493 - 1507)
​

Tunis is attacked for two reasons - first of all they're already at war, helping Morocco against Castile and Morocco won't honor the defensive call to arms and even more important reason is that our AE is non-existent with Berbers so they're ideal target in terms of agr essive expansion spread.

Austria manages to pass 2nd reform, but with reformation coming into play soon and northern Italy leaving the empire it's most likely last reform they'll pass.

Easy wars for the win This one would be awarding the 'Cold war' achievement as the only casualties on both sides were caused by attrition.
All land taken from Tunis is fed to newly established vassal which will be granted all land with increased coring costs in that region.

Serbia pops out of Venice after they're defeated in a war and with Deus Vult we have instant CB so we put it into use.

Castile is still busy doing Reconquista against Morocco and their allies Portugal and Provence won't honor defensive call due to war exhaustion and loans.
New monarch takes place (somewhere in past decade previous heir died in a hunting accident and thanks to Ottoman government form we got even better replacement). The 5/2/3 kind hearted (-0.05 monthly war exhaustion) is decent replacement to the old 6/4/6 monarch.

Castile is forced to accept 100% warscore peace deal, which includes land connection to Portugal and all provinces somehow bordering France so they can not fabricate claims against Castile and deny us land this way. (Or guarantee Castile as now AI takes actions to slow down player expansion which includes guaranteeing neighboring countries).

France is called in as attack dog against Pope.

Some mandatory stackwipes of Papal alliance forces.

Although Rome was occupied already in 1499 the peace deal was signed two years later to allow some AE to decay in order to have only two countries which are not truce locked with us in the over 50 AE list.
Conquest of Rome provides with sweet +1 missionary which is key factor for one faith and sooner you can get it, the better as there will be always something to convert, especially when you can convert your subject's provinces as well.

To show that even I am doing mistakes - I saw Great Horde being reduced to OPM with a lot of cores which would make great vassal for usage of reconquest CB willing to accept diplo-vassalization so I immediately married them (was at war with Pope that time so haven't checked alliance acceptance as AI won't accept alliance when the other side is at war) and then I've discovered this
I guess you'll be force vassalized GH.

Sometimes old forts you take from your enemies can you serve one last time before as sometimes the rebels may try to siege mountainous fort.

With Ethiopia as a meatshield Mamluks are attacked for the 3rd time.

While we are already in war with Mamluks Medina is attacked as they're guaranteed by them and their only other ally is Dawasir.

Mamluks are forced to cede Mekka and a coastal corridor towards Yemen in order to open new expansion route.
New expansion routes and opening new fronts should be your number one priority once you're strong enough to bully everyone around.

With fully annexed Medina we now control both of the holy Islamic cities and are already sitting at maximum number of available missionaries.
When you're going for one faith securing all the cities which grant you additional missionary should be one of the highest priorities for you.

Colonialism is born in Portugal and maybe it's a sign for Ottomans to also go colonial

Ramazan is annexed and we should be looking for a new vassal to core land in the Persia region, unfortunately Persia no longer has cores in this region since 1.23 (however if Timmies are beaten badly enough they can serve this purpose).

Age of reformation hits shortly after colonialism and according to the age screen we've already converted 79 provinces (most likely also counts subjects' provinces).
The most OP bonus of this age is definitely -25% warscore cost against other religions followed by the prestige for religious conversions (but we're already sitting at constant 100 due to all conquest of something modifiers).



I am closing to the admin tech 10 which provides 3rd idea group slot and I have two candidates in my mind - admin or exploration. Given the fact that current admin point generation is 14 and with +20% core creation cost reduction it's more than enough to allow almost constant coring and tech/idea progression I am leaning towards exploration (gotta start converting New World as as non Christian nation you can't just take other Christians colonies) which is more fun and it also allows us to expand into much more corners of the World than just by land.
Your thoughts about 3rd idea group slot?

 

[SKOTy]

5. Going colonial (1508 - 1524)​

Ajam has lost all allies which means that they're easy target and with AE already decayed to reasonable levels in that region which means that they're attacked.
Easy wars for the win

Integration of Ramazan provided us state cores on majority of their land and some excess admin points are used to fully core Tabriz as it's juicy state with over 40 development but it still does not bring us to the state limit which is 23 (where 5 come from empire government rank and additional 5 come from Ottoman government).
I generally state land which has at least 30 development in the state and there I am not going for max states as no other suitable states can be found and I wouldn't be filling the state limit anyway as it's important to keep one state slot open for rebel management with stating, raising autonomy and de-stating land.

Ajam is forced to eat 100% peace deal and no-one in the neighborhood got angry due to improvement of relations which has been initiated once we saw expected AE gains.
Two province minor QQ is annexed shortly after, but this was no war worth a screenshot.

Knights are attacked in order to prevent these pesky raids (oh god how I love Mare Nostrum DLC ) and Ferrara, member of their trade league, is made co-belligerent as this brings just Ravensburg in as northern Italy is no longer under imperial protection.

With new changes AI countries are absurdly rich. E.g. Venice had about 1k banked which is then used by us to build farm estates in crappy provinces as better provinces already have been improved and there's nothing better to spend the money on.
Although production increase is negligible, there's still trade goods produced increase which is visible as the Constantinople trade node has been nearly monopolized.
Money spent on mercenaries which are winning wars for you are always much more important, but currently we're not suffering any manpower shortages and with +30 ducats each month we can afford to spend the money on non-optimal ROI building as in my opinion, any investment is better than just banking the cash (with exception of preparation for lengthy war or buying institution).

Knights and Ferrara are both annexed and no-one still bats an eye.

Monarch point focus has been shifted from admin to diplomatic in order to prepare for next idea group unlock and to bank points to be able to buy at least one idea immediately.

If you carefully micro your armies around your enemies armies movement lock it can lead to situations where you can catch them with pants down. Just wait till they're movement lock and then head to the province where they're heading to.

The other option was reduced autonomy by 10% in about 20 provinces, but given the fact that we're already rich and autonomy is not a problem due to passive autonomy reduction from empire government rank the +1 stability was a no-brainer to take.

Castile cedes majority of the coastline, the goal is to make them landlocked and deny them colonization routes.

Yemen is attacked and AE in Arabian peninsula has been decaying by 3.4 each year (2 base increased by 70% - 50% from prestige and 20% from advisor).
An event fired with the option highlighted which seems like nice modifier till the end of the game, but other option was 50 diplomatic points which were taken as there's abundance of the money, but the monarch points are the most rare thing in the game and if there's any event which gives me monarch points I take it over prestige, money etc.

Once time ahead penalty has run out for admin and military tech 10 they were both unlocked. None of them provided such big bonus that they would be worth unlocking ahead of time, thus wasting monarch points.
I want to mention here that more optimal choice would be admin and in serious world conquest (with someone else than Ottomans) I would take administrative. If you're reading this as an example for your first world conquest, please don't follow me here and take administrative.
I took exploration to give me a bit of handicap just to make sure I will reach to the age of revolutions in order to show how late game blobbing works and how to become revolutionary.
Plus I love colonization game and haven't played it for a while (basically every game I do now is a WC).

Although reformation is raging in the Europe, Austria is still being strong emperor.

What could that break of alliance mean
Timurids weren't initially willing to accept due to -50 for no CB against them but that was countered by forging a claim on them.

First Ottoman exploration fleet dispatches from Gibraltar.
The mod which changes the names here and makes the exploration missions bit more readable is called 'Xylozi readable exploration missions'.

Yemen cedes entire coast line including one part of the strait so we are closer to east African coast.

Never seen this mission, the reward is 1 mercantilism, which helps with the trade part of the game.

New Sultan takes the throne during our attack on Tunis (AE already decayed by a lot there) as Kabylia has to be fed.

The most powerful bonus of the age is unlocked so it's likely time to bash some heretics and heathens

Mushasha is attacked after Timurids were forced to break the alliance they had with them and new heir appears.

Due to AE in Arabian peninsula region only 4 provinces are taken, however one OPM has disappeared from the map.

Initially I wanted to wait for Timbuktu's war enthusiasm to drop so they'd accept white peace, but that would mean that Ethiopia wouldn't join another war as a cannonfodder...

Ethiopia is just there to distract the Mamluk alliance while I take care of the sieges

First colonist has been dispatched to the Gold coast after the +50% colonial range idea has been unlocked. Gold coast is key province in west Africa quarter and just this province might net us an additional merchant.
Kaabu - that's a tag I didn't know it existed.

Mamluks give us a border with Ethiopia as the straight without reasonable navy in the region is not reliable. Who know why the land from Mamluks has been taken in such way ...


That's last chapter for this year. I wish you happy 2018!

 

[SKOTy]

6. Smashing coalitions (1524 - 1540)​

Crimea is forced to give us strategically positioned province for a hefty price of 25 liberty desire. This way we have holy war CB against both Muscovy and Gazi-something.

Maps of Russia are purchased from Pomerania in order to prevent such embarrassing incidents like walking into twice as big stack hidden in terra incognita or enemy stack appearing out of nowhere. 15 prestige for maps of 49 provinces is not really big price as resting point of our prestige gain/decay is 100 so our prestige will naturally drift towards 100.

Georgia is made co-belligerent as the goal is to take black sea cost from them so our armies can use this corridor. This brings in OPM Theodoro which is not an issue.
Sweden joins on our side with promise of land, but there won't be any land for them

Ryazan's only fort fell quickly and they're forced out of the war.

Georgia is forced out of the war in similar fashion, but unlike Ryazan they're forced to cede some land.
I don't like paying extra dip in separate peaces where I have 0 dip cost for provinces from CB (e.g. tribal conquest or holy war) as dip is much more better spent annexing vassals, but sometimes it's worth.

Moscow has fallen and it causes severe drop in Muscovy's war enthusiasm.

Our forces are moving in tight formation and besieging everything they can. With two siege stacks forts are falling in matter of months. Muscovy's reaction is just running randomly around and trying retake random provinces.

That's 127 development taken from Muscovy. Novgorod is immediately released as a vassal in order to eat some overextension.

When released Novgorod always takes administrative and religious ideas which with their extra missionary strength makes a great vassal from them. But there's more - they are merchant republic.
Merchant republics are the best coring vassals you can have as they can have only 20 state provinces so they are not spending their admin on (for player) useless state cores thus they can be fed more. Also the diplomatic annexation reflects this so they're cheap to diplo-annex.

Aragon is one of the countries which we have ridiculous amounts of AE so they're attacked in order to be truce locked.

Full annexation is even better than truce lock

Castile is attacked as truce with them ended and they managed to set up multiple colonies in African coast.

Finishing exploration (which is suboptimal and I should have gone admin, but I wanted some colonization fun), bumps our forcelimit from 100 to 150

Castile has been stripped of coastline and according to peace screen they have no 0% OE provinces (colonies) and no colonist is heading towards recently burned colonies in African coast.
Looks like one of the colonizers have been neutralized.

Tlemcen's only ally Portugal is in huge dept and won't join so it's time to reconquer Kabylian core they posses.
Fort garrison in Dahra is low as the fort was not maintained when war started which is ideal time for an assault as the casualties will be negligible.

As north Africans are not caring what we're doing to Catholics in Europe and they're also not caring about other Sunni nations in Arabian peninsula we're going for the most greediest peace deal.

Timurids won't defend Mushasha so it looks like great opportunity to finish the 'Conquer Mesopotamia' mission.

Bye Tunis. Better no nation at all than a truce locked nation that would eventually join a coalition.

Only provinces to fulfill the mission plus Grane (so we can walk comfortably around Badiat Ash Sham desert) are taken as the war is meant to be quick landgrab and lengthy struggle for 100% peace deal.

Ragusa is attacked with intention to fully annex them as the CoT they have in Ragusa trade node is causing about 6% of value in Constantinople to be dragged away.
Hungary joining in is nice bonus as we can comfortably annul their alliance with Austria.

I don't get it how France has more war participation than me as they only fought one battle and are sitting on one OPMs fort while I've already dealt with Hungary by sending a siege stack to Pest (occupying capital reduces drastically war enthusiasm) and bashed multiple times Hungarian armies.
Personally I think even my vassals have done more in this war.
In the end the war is ended with full annexation of three provinces Ragusa.

Once colonialism was present in 10% of our development it was swiftly embraced as we had enough money prepared and only thing preventing us to do so was the 10% limitation.
If you don't have the money stockpiled it's almost always worth to take a loan in order to embrace an institution.

Four province Genoa which has been kicked out of Italy gets annexed - one more country with high AE gained gone.

Finally a coalition forms - but no relevant country joins as e.g .relations with Portugal have been improved, Hungary and Castile are truce locked and AE with Muscovy has already decayed to a point where it's bellow 50.

It's time for a preemptive strike and to dissolve the coalition. None of the countries pose a threat and even their combined might is nowhere 150 regiments we're fielding right now.
The trigger is pulled against one of the weaker members as for such war against freshly spawned coalition has to be quick and if the war leader is small you can quickly push his war enthusiasm into oblivion.
When dealing with coalitions it's better to declare the war by yourself as you can choose war leader and the AI does not get +50 to war enthusiasm for punitive war (which only disappears once you're above 50 war score).

Whole war lasted for 8 months where only one battle was fought where Yemeni (war leader) forces were stackwiped. Yemeni capital and Mamluks capital have both fallen and Papal fort in Ancona was occupied. No other battles were fought and no other forts were occupied but this was enough to get us past 20 warscore and to remove Yemeni war enthusiasm as factor from the peace negotiations.
By a surgical strike against weak coalition member you can dissolve coalitions in matter of months.

Armies sorted by size.

Countries sorted by income.

 

[SKOTy]

7. Colonial business (1541 - 1551)​

Ethiopia used to be our ally against Mamlkus, USED TO BE
The good thing about eating Ethiopia is that noone cares about Coptic nations so the AE gains will be minimal.

This is probably the earliest Brazil I've ever seen. Portugal has been in dept spiral and is also enjoying internal conflicts.

Ethiopia cedes coastal holdings and both ends of the Yemeni strait are secured which allows us to pass the strait even if it blocked by enemy ships assuming we're in control of both ends.

Usual beating of Castile.

In the end only 5 provinces are taken as taking more would provoke huge Christian coalition, which is something we can not yet afford.

PDX: We've improved AI's placement of armies.
EU4 AI: Hold by beer
Maaaybe it's time to invade France for some sweet PP as I already broke alliance with France and rivaled them to remove the PP penalty for insufficient rivals.

Benin is attacked and eaten. One of the advantages exploration give is to switch regions you're fighting and not just fronts. Our AE in west Africa was 0 so this was basically free land in terms of AE.

Extraction of Novgorodian cores from Muscovy which by the numbers is supposed to be easy war.
Getting a vassal with ton of cores on other nations is usual strategy as it gives you a CB and the AE is cut down to 25%. Novgorod is prime example of this as it usually gets eaten by Muscovy and if you manage to get their core from Muscovy or (diplo)vassalize them you have a nice (and in terms of AE cheap) CB against Muscovy.
Other example of good nation are Timurids in current patch if they're beaten badly enough by their former vassals. Unfortunately you can not use Persia or Ming (as Mingplosion almost never happens).

Quick war against American natives - due to technological difference the war is ridiculously easy.

Both armies are properly micro'd so they arrive on the same day.
When relieving a siege or attacking your enemy always try to micro your armies so they all arrive on the same day as it can lead to this...

WIPE

Novgorod has regained all of its cores and will be fed couple of more provinces.

Expansion in central America continues while first provinces there are coring. Once there are 5 cored provinces a CN will form and we'll lose the holy war CB on the natives.

As it was requested by @AVN screenshot of my economy.
With 22 states (current state limit is 23 - I am keeping one free for stating, raising autonomy and de-stating) the production and taxation are both quite high as workshops and mosques were build everywhere where it would yield at least 0.1 ducats monthly.
I am collecting in Constantinople as it's basically end node where I control 97% of trade and after Hungary loses some provinces to me it will be 100%.
Running 3 level 3 advisors (2 of them are with 50% discount).
Inflation is just a number which will be addressed by trading in gems (0.05 yearly inflation reduction).

Truce with Mamlkus after we've beaten the coalition is over and no new coalition has formed which means we get to attack them alone.
The zero manpower is caused by an event where you get to choose between loss of manpower or professionalism, this is not a problem as the monthly gain is over 1000 and there's always consolidate and hire mercs option.

Last war with holy war CB in central America before our 5 provinces are cored there (in fact I am coring only 5 of them and converting the rest of the provinces there as CN can take core of the rest).

An event tied to Ottoman government form replaces current heir with someone more capable.

Mamluks are on the edge of collapsing.
In other news: Padishah Ahmed I. is really enjoying new beverage, which means that we're first European country to have a province producing sugar in the New World. These price events are global and can sometimes help you to reveal some (maybe) useful information about other countries that have it.

Mamluks cede their Mediterranean coastline which means that our armies can walk from St. Petersburg to Kabylia, our vassal in Maghreb.
Our first colonial nation in Mexico forms, now the goal is to get it past 10 provinces for the extra merchant which will be useful once we start dealing with India.

 

[SKOTy]

8. Indonesian adventure (1552 - 1561)​

Hormuz was forced to drop alliance with Hadramut via great power action.

With no allies on its side addition of Hadramut to Ottoman territories is swiftly done.

Crimea gets integrated while the war with Morocco is still raging.

Kabylia if fed with some more of Moroccan land and it's slowly time to start process of diplo annexation.

Majapahit is attacked using unfinished colony in Sumatra as a staging area for invasion. One stack is enough to fend of whole Majapahit's armies as they recently started a war against Makassar which they're losing.

79 development is taken from Majapahit due to coring two provinces taken from Morocco which weren't given to and as they're Hindu nation none of the other nations in Indonesia does not care as rest of them is either Sunni or Animist.

In a quick war against bankrupt Portugal (or should I say Poor-tugal ) they lost all of their colonial holdings in Brazil, Cape Verde, 2 provinces in west Africa, Azores and one mainland province.

No possible rivals Ming go eat someone please

Natives in Brazil, inferior in numbers and tech, are attacked and everyone is made co-belligerent in order to take as much land as possible.

In the end three native tribes are annexed (for the fourth one there's no way how to core the province). Out of recently conquered two provinces just two will be cored and rest of them will be cored by our newly established colonial nation.

Trade situation: I've went through trial and error process and I've tried to put a merchant into Seville trade node which in the end resulted in a mere 1.5 ducat as the penalty to trade power for collecting elsewhere than in home node. Similarly for a trade nodes leading into Constantinople it's much better to just steer instead of collecting there, which also applies a bonus to outgoing value from steered node (merchant steering trade increases steered value by 5% up to 11.3% when five different countries have merchant present in the node steering in the same direction).
If you've watched the Rights of Man dev clash that's what Fido did, he had multiple merchants steering trade towards him and each of them increased the value by 5% (which might not seem to be a lot, but the effect rises exponentially).

Majapahit was forced by Makassar to release Sunda, which simplifies gobbling up of Java island. Unfortunately they're sitting at 81 development which would put us past 100% overextension, but there's no need to it yet so we'll just wait for other provinces to finish coring. At least this way we get to replenish some admin points which we''re quite short of.

Our armies are hunting for the mysterious seven cities, but so far they've found (soon to be) Ottoman gold mines

Europe is usual mess, Pomerania used to control whole eastern Prussia region but was beaten and forced to release Teutonic Order which then former Prussia. Netherlands have declared independence and retained it and Sweden is not overpowered.

Rome has finally been converted thanks to accepting Umbrian culture which removed -2% penalty from unaccepted culture.

While bunch of new land from Sunda has been already obtained another war has been already won for future coring cycle.
New colonial nation in Brazil has been established and Ottomans are only nation with colonial nations.

 

[SKOTy]

9. Big bad bully (1563 - 1578)​

The chapter begins with attack on Muscovy immediately after truce ends as forces which attacked Georgia moved preemptively to the attack position. The war itself should be easy as Muscovy lacks military technology and also lack quantity as it has been repeatedly beaten.

The progress in war continues usual scheme - focus on forts in a compact formation and prey on isolated enemy forces.
Fort in Smolensk has already fallen and Moscow is about to fall.

As last chapter ended up with Georgia fully occupied but not yet annexed as coring Georgia together with provinces taken from Sunda would put us past 100% overextension. But once overextension dropped to zero the 'full annex' button was hit,

Fifteen provinces exchanged owners, most of them even twice as initially they were ceded by Muscovy to us and after that they were fed to Novgorod which was then put at 99% overextension.
The peace deal was carefully tailored so the Novgorod would sit exactly 99% overextension and after granting them provinces and so we don't push 100% overextension ourselves.
The provinces were taken by ourselves as our -25% warscore cost against different religion wouldn't apply if the occupation would be transferred to Novgorod. That's why it's better to take provinces by yourself and then feed as the warscore discounts from admin efficiency and diplomatic ideas are not applying if the occupation is transferred to your ally (as for the warscore cost calculation the game is using their reductions to province warscore). Not to mention the reduction to vassal liberty desire.
Additionally only 99 development which is equal to 99% overextension was granted to Novgorod as the game does not allow you to feed your vassal past 100% OE using vassal interaction, but it also does not allow you to put you vassal to 100% OE this way (which is by the way completely harmless as the OE events start > 100% OE).

Free stability? Why not
And extra 10% discipline so we're sitting at 120% during war against enemy alliance which actually have some numbers? Why not
Both our vassals Kabylia and Novgorod started being annexed due to excess dip points we're having and it's better to spend it on vassal integration than on e.g. development

Austria just got a personal union over Great Britain, which is actually loyal and sitting 20% liberty desire. France decided to contest it.

Another coalition has formed and weakest link has been identified and attacked - three province Majapahit leading the coalition can be easily forced to accept white peace.

Admin tech 14 is finally unlocked and administrative idea group is finally unlocked.

Khorasan is forced to cede a corridor towards Persian gulf and for now we'll take a break from wars in order to obtain 800 admin points and unlock first two ideas in the administrative idea group.

Did I just wrote that 800 admin points are needed? Now it's more like 400
On the picture is our newly established colonies in Caribbean.

First circumnavigation was completed by glorious Ottoman navy in 1574 while armies are preparing for a strike against Castile which is allied with Portugal.

Castile cedes 5 provinces due to AE constraints (Austria would be able to join coalition in case we'd take more land) and Portugal is forced to eat usual annul treaties and concede colonial region peace deal.
Conceding colonial region does not incur unjustified demands so it means that it costs zero dip even when done in separate peace.
Reduced coring cost does also affect coring speed so now with 45% reduction coring times have dropped to 19.8 months (36*0.55).

Majapahit is about to be fully annexed during simultaneous war against Morocco which is about to be forced to give some provinces to Kabylia.
As truce with the rest of coalition where Majapahit was also ended some nations are recreating it. I guess they never learn

Mamluks are probably the weakest nation in the coalition we have a CB on which does not bring extra friends in (e.g. Navarra would bring in France as it's guaranteed by France) so they're chosen as target to be declared on in order to prevent other nations from joining.

In half of year Mamluks' capital has been occupied together with OPMs Mushasha and Navarra which drove up the warscore to 24% which is enough for a reasonable peace deal as Hungary was left ignored occupying our land in the north which is driving the warscore down.
Other option for dismantling the coalition would be attacking an ally of coalition member, marking the coalition member as co-belligerent when declaring war as that would call in all coalition member, but you can negotiate a separate peace with them. I did not do this as I had my armies spread across the world and I was seeking a quick way how deal with the coalition.

For 17k troops we now have truce with the coalition for about 6.5 years and for the next time I might use the trick mentioned above to dismantle the coalition completely if it forms again. For now quick beating of coalition every ~6-7 years is not problematic unless some heavy weight like Austria or Muscovy joins but I am very careful about these.
Beating a coalition from time to time instead of carefully watching AE and truce cycles is allowing me to play much more aggressive then I would have played in case I watched my AE (I am still watching it so no other European nations apart from Hungary can join it).

Morocco should be last war from annexation and Kabylia is fed once again with that horrible land with increased coring cost.
New ruler with 5/4/2 stats which is incredibly good for a world conquest game takes the throne which marks it as ideal time to end this chapter

 

[SKOTy]

10. Attack here, attack there (1578 - 1598)​

As Ethiopia is not really caring about out conquests of Muslim and Orthodox countries the aggressive expansion we had with them dropped to 10 so there was no reason to keep attacking them as no truce was needed for coalition management. However as age of reformation will be ending in 30 years it's time to make use of the -25% warscore cost against different religions.

An event which allowed me to chose an heir popped and 4/2/2 heir was the strongest option so it's time for some disinheritance. The prestige lost will be quickly reclaimed from peace deal with Ethiopia and from natural drift towards 100 due to all +prestige modifiers we have.
Generally I am disinheriting everything which is not at least 4/3/2 (Ottoman government makes disinheriting heirs even better) when I a have enough prestige so I don't end up with too much negative prestige and young enough ruler or consort so I don't end up with regency.

Half of he prestige lost by disinheriting suboptimal heir has already been regained.

Vinegar was called in as decoy in conquest of Sind, the goal is to slowly approach India.

Sind is reduced to a two province minor and cedes Thatta, province needed for 'Unify Islam' decision which increases conversion strength and this will be handy in achieving one faith.
Peace deal was signed just few days before 1581 ended which also means one aggressive expansion decay tick which allows me stop worrying about multiple Indian nations like Delhi which are sitting at 51 or 52 AE after the peace deal as it will drop in 4 days bellow 50.

Truce with Muscovy is over which means just one thing - usual Muscovy bashing

Trading in cotton happens to us which speeds up colony growth a bit while Muscovy is about to cede 100% warscore worth of land once more.

Novgorod is not having any unrest caused by overxtension which means that that they're sitting at 0% OE so land will be taken in a way that will allow feeding of 99 development to Novgorod.

About 120 development exchanges owners and most of it is fed to Novgorod afterwards.

Hormuz is attacked and their only ally Mamluks is forced to eat usual annul treaties peace deal.
At this moment I've also realized that annexing both Kabylia and Novgorod at the same time may have been a mistake as life with one diplomat can be pretty hard as he's nonstop busy forging claims or traveling back from countries we attack. However I needed some reasonable dip point sink which would actually cause my dip points to drop down.

New vassal Oman appears in land previously owned by Hormuz as our admin points are getting a bit low. This will also secure us reconquest CB on Oman so no claim will be needed for future war.

Gazikumukh is guaranteed by Muscovy which brings them in, but only after provinces taken from them finished coring (remember that you can not core provinces of a nation you're at war with). Muscovy is not an issue in this war and it will in end shorten our truce timer with them
Being able to convert subjects' provinces helps a lot - although Novgorod has missionary strength idea and took religious you can clearly see that our 6 missionaries are helping.

Dagestan is taken which means one less province needed for the 'Unify Islam' decision.

With army sitting at forcelimit (nearly 300 regiments) our expenses are getting quite high, but there's one trick in the box...

Instead of loaning in order to finally embrace printing press we debase currency.

As there's a button which immediately removes all corruption gained by debasing.

Small coalition of three countries spawn which is the weakest coalition formed so far.

The other option was a consort with decent stats, but the points are taken as with Ottoman government the longest time a consort can rule is 5 years.

Creation of colonial nation in the Caribbean is awarded by a trade efficiency bonus which comes handy in hoarding money.
Mushasha and Kaffa are already fully occupied and the other war you can see is war where Vinegar dragged us, but we're not doing anything in order to help Vinegar.

Administrative idea group has been finally fully filled which means that 'Vassal Integration Act' policy can be enacted.
Annexation progress of both Kabylia and Novgorod jumps by a lot and first one is about to be completed in 1594 and according to my estimate annexation of Novgorod will be completed in 1601 (due to -3 dip rep after annexing a vassal) which means that policy won't have to be active for more than the minimal period of ten years.

After Venice's capital has fallen (previous screenshot) the warscore has climbed high enough to allow annexation of both Kaffa and Mushasha.

We're getting big

Ajuraan is next to be attacked so we can work our way towards southeast African gold mines.
Trading in gems happens to us which will finally give us some form of inflation reduction as how much I hate inflation (OCD reasons) I also have paying it down as admin points are better spent elsewhere.

Annexation of Kabylia provided us with a state cores and some of the states they owned are pretty juicy. Tunis is worth 44 development and Algeria staggering 59!

Morocco is gone which also means one more city (is it Ifni?) is secured for the 'Unify Islam' decision.
As Muscovy was forced out of war with Gazikumukh pretty quickly in a peace deal which cost about 20% warscore the resulting truce ended even earlier than the original 15 years long.
And guess what happens when truce with Muscovy is up

For the 2nd time in my EU4 career I saw en event giving you a core in a province owned by a nation you're at war with. However I was too quick on clicking accept on that event that I've forgot to make a screenshot

All provinces apart the one we've magically obtained a core were fed to newly created vassal Perm, which will be used for feeding rest of the land taken from Muscovy. The land was not given to Novgorod as they're close to be annexed so it means that there might be uncored land by the time annexation completes and this will also delay the annexation so it won't be completed before mandatory 10 years of active policy are over.

 

[SKOTy]

11. Globally trading (1599 - 1612)​

Mamluks are finally attacked without coalition backing which means that's a chance to finally eat them as they posses a higly developed provinces of our culture (the AI tends to develop like crazy, especially when it's boxed in like Mamluks).
In the end they're reduced to a two province minor.

Trade nodes sorted by their value, what could that mean

An expansion route towards Kilwa and southeast African gold mines has been opened.

Global trade has spawned in Constantinople, as expected
When going for a world conquest game spawning global trade institution in place where you're collecting is always a good sign of progress.

With global trade comes also a lot of price change events like this. Most of them are increasing price of the good so they're helpful to us and we are even in situation where we can prevent events like 'Decline of Spice Trade' happening (the trigger for this event is a Christian nation owning at least 3 spice producing provinces - guess which nation which is not in Christian religious group has stopped nearly all colonization ).

Hormuz, which still owns some of the Omani cores does not have any chance.
From now on I won't be probably posting more then one screenshot from wars against easy targets like Hormuz without allies as there's nothing to show. But there will be at least one so you can keep track of my wars.

Entire Kilwan armies have been wiped during first days of the war which provides nice boost to warscore and significantly lowers Kilwan war enthusiasm.

Integration of Novgorod finishes two years later then I've expected due to lowered diplomatic reputation from overextension which I didn't took into account which results in about 24 admin points wasted due to diplomatic annexation policy being active bit longer than minimal period of 10 years.
Territories like Moscow and Novgorod are immediately stated as Novgorod had state cores there because they've lost their merchant republic government and turned into republican dictatorship which got them rid of 20 stated provinces limit.

Although Mutapan gold mines have not yet been reached a trade company in Zanzibar is strong enough to provide us with additional merchant.
Also with new patch mission giving cores have been introduced - just like in the old good eu3 times.

New colonial nation is about to rise in the north America, the location has been strategically chosen so two estuary and trade center provinces with increased trade power (Lenape and Yeni Istanbul) are part of the newly created colonial nation.
In the old world Gazikumukh have been reduced to three province minor.

Administrative technology level 17 has been purchased which unlocks first level of administrative efficiency and also allows construction of universities. 5 of them are built for a certain reason

Gobbling up of India has begun as Gujarat was reduced to one province minor which was then eaten by our former ally Vinegar.
As for our promoted cultures just 5 out of 6 slots are used as the sixth comes from trading in silk and game sometimes bugs out so you lose the trading bonus for a month so I've decided to not to use the sixth slot.

Ajuraan has been beaten in a quick war as age of reformation will end soon and it's good to be at peace when age of absolutism hits.

And this why we have five promoted cultures and five universities To speed up splendor gain as much as possible.
The 90 absolutism will come with time, as Muslim nation we can not become the emperor of China and we did not partake in religious war (as Muslim nation there's nothing to gain from this so we've never joined leagues in the fist place) which was never declared as no-one dared to attack Austria with PUd Great Britain.

As we're in peace we can slap down autonomy where it's possible in order to increase absolutism as fast as possible which is the fastest method to increase it.
Although there are some tricks like letting peasants or nobles to rise in your country to increase autonomy so you can decrease it as Reman describes in his absolutism video i prefer different approach - start gobbling trade company land as much as possible as these provinces have 50% autonomy so you can decrease autonomy immediately after granting the province to a trade company. Then more trade company land you take this way will increase absolutism quickly which will allow you take even more trade company land and ultimately increase your absolutism even more.
This also simplifies rebel management as rebels would pop in recently conquered provinces anyway as the state the territory, decrease autonomy and de-state land trick is no longer viable so the extra 10 unrest from lowered autonomy does not matter.

36 absolutism right in the first month of absolutism is not too shabby and with the administrative efficiency coming from tech it results in 24.4% administrative efficiency.
We're also just 14 points away from being able to trigger Court And Country disaster

Countries sorted by development. As for development we have more of it than the other top six nations combined and as for income we have slightly less than other top 3 nations combined (while we're profit is 100 ducats per month).
Usually when I am going for a world conquest I have a benchmark of 2500 development when age of absolutism starts so I guess this goal was slightly surpassed

Countries sorted by their professionalism.

And finally, countries sorted by size of their armies.
More then the other top four nations combined

 

[SKOTy]

12. I am the state (1613 - 1630)​

I am sorry for two weeks without an update as last two weeks were busy for me, but I am now back in the bussiness.

Time to use that 38 absolutism gained immediately after the age of absolutism started. Vinegar is attacked with a holy war CB as time to digest India has finally come.

The reason why I waited so long with India is that now with absolutism and administrative efficiency coming into play gobbling it up takes much less time like it can be seen on the screenshot as about 30% more land was taken when compared to no administrative efficiency.
In America new colonial nation of New Ottomans has been formed in the area around Chesapeke bay and the said CN is already in control of all important estuaries and trade centers along the coast.

Another quick war against few nations which managed to create a coalition has been declared. In the end Ethiopia peaces out for cash in order to make the war concluded as fast as possible.

Time to hit that 'Decrease autonomy' button more as we're nowhere near 50 absolutism which should be a priority for the first years of age of absolutism.
Other than that a religious center in Thatta can be seen converting provinces in the respective area which makes progress on the conversion of the world go a bit faster.

Global trade was embraced just after we've slapped Malwa for some more provinces on the Indian subcontinent.
The second reason why I've waited with India for so long is that I can immediately add land conquered there to trade company and decrease autonomy there as TC land no longer has an autonomy floor. And as separatists would rise anyway the extra 10 unrest does not matter. This way I am effectively gaining absolutism as fast as I am blobbing, increasing value of the recently conquered land and I don't have to deal with extra rebellions.

Absolutism has reached treshhold of 50 which mean we're now eligible for the Court and country disaster. Now only if we had some actual unrest in our lands...

As one of the requirements for the C&C disaster is to be at war a war which will be active for quite some time has been declared on Yemen which is only allied with Hormuz so we can be safely at war with them for about 3 years which it takes the C&C disaster to fully charge.
For this it's better to declare on OPM or no-CB someone in America so you have a safe war going which won't cause any harm to your realm.
The other part of requirements for C&C disaster to trigger is having at least one point of unrest which can be achieved easily by having negative stability as each point of negative stability means +2 unrest.
One way of lowering stability is e.g. breaking a royal marriage with your vassal.

Or you can switch your colonization policies as this also means one stability hit. Or you can just no CB Ternate...
Just make sure you declared all your wars prior lowering your stability as sometimes having positive unrest means that you'll have to sit at -3 stability for 3 years.

800 splendor has been reached which means first age ability can be purchased and it is +5% administrative efficiency.
As Court and Country disaster is about to be triggered which means that absolutism will skyrocket due to events which will pop up during that disaster it makes no sense picking anything else than extra administrative efficiency.
If you have troubles reaching 50 absolutism the extra yearly absolutism might be worth it in order to get you to C&C disaster faster, but if you have the disaster rolling by the time your first 800 splendor is available the +5% admin efficiency is nobrainer as it basically equals 12.5 ticks of yearly absolutism in terms of administrative efficiency.

In November 1619 the C&C disaster triggers which means it's safe to get the stability into more positive numbers as we've been sitting at -3 stability for 3 years which also prevented us declaring wars.
Yemen and Hormuz are both annexed
As for managing the disaster it's quite simple - pick whatever option which hurts you less, usually it's some rebels rising but beating couple of rebel stacks should not be problem as coming into age of absolutism you should definitely have at least 200k army standing.

What is revolt risk? Only places where rebels are rising are recently conquered territories where autonomy was decreased.

The old rival is finally gone. Bit later than probably should have been, but for past ~80-100 years Mamluks have not been relevant so they were just overlooked.

Truce with Muscovy is over - come get some
Humanist idea group is picked in order to ease further conquest as it basically prevents uprisings in recently conquered territories, which lets your armies focus on acquiring new land instead of smashing rebels and also enables more benevolent passing of the 100% overextension barrier.
Usually I pick humanist idea group as 5th pick and only once I've triggered C&C disaster as it might prevent the positive unrest which is required for C&C to trigger.

5 absolutism as a reward for crushing some rebels? Gimme
Remember when I've talked about that 5% admin efficiency is better pick than yearly absolutism as C&C disaster will push your absolutism through the roof? Here's the proof...

Muscovy is denied an opportunity to colonize Siberia.
Also notice how the gains from wars are increasing due to rising absolutism.

Delhi is forced to remove its alliances as cost of getting out of war with Transoxiana. Which means Delhi is free to be attacked once truce is over and there'll be less allies interfering.

Remember when I've talked about 'Unite Islam' decision? Transoxiana just ceded last province needed for the decision when I've recalled that ALL of your provinces must be in Muslim religious group, not just the needed ones so I can say we can say goodbye to taking that decision as there's no way (mainly due to religious zeal) how to get all of our provinces to be Muslim till the absolute end of the game.

Khorasan is beaten and our new vassal Mazandaran is spawned in the recently conquered territory.

As we've ended the C&C disaster with more than 65 absolutism we're rewarded with permanent 20 max absolutism increase till the end of the campaign which will serve as buffer for occasional low legitimacy or lower religious unity.
The disaster ends after it has been active for 10 years (so write down when it started) and NONE of your provinces is occupied by rebels so if you're nearing 65 absolutism and the 10 years of disaster are about to pass just let rebels siege one of your provinces and get your absolutism past 65 (with all that events coming from the disaster that shouldn't be a problem, just don't be afraid to e.g. strengthen government so your absolutism cap is higher than 65 in case you have low legitimacy).

With absolutism cap of 100 we're now ready to unleash the true blobbing power of the Ottoblob, but more of that in next chaper

 

[SKOTy]

13. Bag of tricks (1631 - 1649)​

As potential for high absolutism (at the moment cap is sitting at 115 and actual absolutism is somewhere around 80) has been unlocked it's time to make use of it.
Vinegar is attacked for the 2nd time as digestion of Indian subcontinent continues. The other battle in the picture is against three province minor Ajuraan which ultimately becomes fully annexed by us.

As there's no country in the entire world which can mess up with our 400k troops the war against Vinegar was easy one (as subsequent wars against someone who have you already beaten are) and Vinegar loses quite a big chunk of land.

Delhi is next to taste out high absolutism. Unfortunately during war there were no notable events so there's only picture of the peace deal.
New vassal is established in the recently conquered land and is fed most of the land up to 99% overextension. Unfortunately Punjab was spawned as Hindu nation, but that's nothing which 'Enforce religion' subject interaction couldn't fix.
I've forgot to make a screenshot of separate peace with Mong Yang (tributary of Ming) allied to Delhi which was fully annexed. Co-belligerent or not, AE is slowly no longer being a concern when most of the possible coalition has truce with us and rest is afraid to join a coalition.

Another boring war against Kilwa so the screenshot of peace deal will have to suffice.
This is what 100 absolutism and 55% administrative efficiency in 1640 feels like. Absolutism and early obtainable administrative efficiency changed midgame blobbing so in the 17th century you can blob like in the early 18th in previous patches as by this time in the previous patch you could have at most 20% AE which is nothing as AE becomes better more you have it and at low levels its effects are underwhelming.
Especially once technology level 23 hits (around 1687) you have a period of 25 years with 65% AE and a wargoal which provides reduction to province warscore cost which is even more powerful than blobbing with 3rd level of administrative efficiency in previous patches.

There are however another ways how to get land - threaten war is one of them. The only thing you need for this is to have either a core or a claim on a province you'd like to have and sometimes the AI will give you land without you fighting for it.

So you're saying we're now bordering Ming thanks to the province we threatened war?
Very well Ming enjoy the ticking down mandate

Muscovy is now just one war from full annexation

Hello France and Netherlands, so you've shipped your armies into colonies? Too bad my colonial subjects have already powerful armies and my armies are ... in France and Netherlands

So you're telling me France, that you won't accept a peace deal for just one province and you'd rather eat a stabhit due to -1000 reasons to accept as I've not occupied fort there? So eat the stabhit then...
If you're missing EU3 and being able to stabhit AI you can do it in EU4 as well, as long as there's country enclave with a fort you haven't occupied and you have sufficient warscore you can stabhit AI into oblivion.

New colonial nation in Canada has been established in order to drive our colonization effort.
French stability drops to just 1 after they've raised their stability back to 3 two times.

France lost couple of mainland provinces and was forced to cede entire colonial Caribbean. As for aggressive expansion gained France is only new nation that cares about it and we care about but it is truce locked for almost 15 years.
AE with Austria will drop to 49 on the following day so Austria joining coalition is not an issue

Hello Orissa and Nepal, hero comes the Ottoblob

Goodbye Orissa Also perfect 99.9% overxtentsion after that peace

Time of consuming everything and everywhere has come as alone we're fielding over 500 regiments. Khorasan has to die.
Also notice 3 armies carefully micro-ed to arrive on the same day coming into Delhi

And WIPE

Khorasan is also feeling the burn as their capital has already fallen.

More coffee = more money
Most of the Khorasani forts are under our control and Delhi has been already forced out of the war.

With most of the land fed to Mazandaran Khorasan is now one war from total annexation.

Second to last war with Vinegar as their total province warscore cost sits at ~190%. Quite easy war as both Vinegar and Mysore lack the troops to halt the coming tide.

Perm gets annexed, Vinegar cedes additional land. The times are good for us

Pardon me Ming, just excersizing a military drill here

 

[SKOTy]

14. Bye Bye Ming (1650 - 1655)​

First I'd like to apologize for delays, I was sick for some time and then I had no time as I am trying to buy a piece of land to build house on which took me a lot of time and willpower to play to EU4/write stuff.
But now back to the action.

Ming's armies are second to us with only exception - due to 0 mandate they're utterly reliable on their manpower as zero mandate prevents raising any mercenary force.
Which means one thing - defeating Ming is just matter of draining its manpower instead of endless smashing of mercenary stacks.

Manufactories have spawned in Philippines Not they could spawn in a country which has like 100+ manufactories...

Our attack against Ming comes from mountainous South which means we can not spread our forces as Ming would have defender advantage and despite them receiving extra damage their damage output is at usual values.
While we're having 2.5 higher numbers than Ming we can deploy only similar numbers as them as we have to gobbling land elsewhere.

Ming's armies took a beating, but it did hurt a LOT.
Zero mandate Ming even with current penalties should not be underestimated.

Ming is actually winning some battles due to local numerical superiority, which shows why they should not be underestimated.

Ming bled a LOT for that vitory.
If you find yourself losing a battle, remember it's just a battle you've lost not war.
Retreat to reinforce, consolidate regiments when needed and reinforce with mercenaries if needed and fight again until you win the war... Or lose terribly.

Hold the lane!

Ming's manpower is bleeding as there's already manpower deficit on Ming's side. Which means war is won as only armies we'll encounter will be understrength ones and more Ming engage our forces it will become harder for him to engage us later.
It even took some losses to achieve this, but these were 2:1 casualty ratio losses against an enemy which can not recruit mercenaries and I'd took these any day

Previously we were fending off Ming's stacks. This is what happens when we go on the offense. 32k dead vs 4.5 dead.
R.I.P. Ming's manpower

Increase price on Chinaware gives us definitely not negligible boost to our treasury and increases its price by 50%.
Guess who'll be shortly World's controller of Chinaware production

Finally peace with Ming.
Most of the nasty mountainous forts are taken so they're no longer a nuisance and we can engage Ming much faster next time due to expanded borders with them.
Casualties on both sides are interesting to see, as although we've lost more then Ming majority of our losses was attrition. When it comes to fighting we've clearly won despite we've been attacked multiple times in unfavorable terrain (and these losses also include our stupid vassals).

Gazikumukh and Timurids are both annexed in one war because why not

 

[SKOTy]

15. This is going to be (very) hard​

So it looks like I am back, in the meantime I've started some experiments with very hard difficulty on latest patch (1.25 England) as I could roflstomp the World with anyone (I've completed one relaxed WC with Byzantium in the meantime) and during experiments with very hard I've accidentally overwritten my save game for this AAR (who would thing that I will use name Ottoscum for a save game twice).

The pace of AAR will be a bit slower than usual as I am still solving stuff around mortgage and marriage and playing EU4 on very hard is not very relaxing thing to do after solving these kind of issues in real life.

On very hard AI gets these bonuses, basically the AI is compensated for its incompetence with a huge number of various bonuses.
+50% Manpower recovery speed
+50% National manpower modifier
+50% Land force limit modifier
+50% Naval force limit modifier
−33% Regiment cost
−33% Ship cost
0.05 Yearly inflation reduction
−2 National unrest
−0.05 Monthly war exhaustion
−25% Core-creation cost
−25% Idea cost
−1 Interest per annum
+50% Improve relations
−20% Development cost
−25% Construction cost
−33% Aggressive expansion impact

I've ended previously in 1654, now it's 1650, and we're sitting at 5974 development without subjects, compared to 6713 in the game on normal difficulty.
As for expansion path it has been India all the way which is more or less whole gobbled up, the only two tags in India other than me are Andhra (vassal of mine) and Jaunpur (one war away from being gone).
Europe has been mostly untouched as I was focusing on getting to to India as fast as possible to get rolling in cash.

The ideas picked are: Influence, Religious, Administrative, Offensive, Humanist
C&C disaster has been resolved with +20 maximum absolutism till the end of the game and absolutism is sitting at 100.

The border with Ming has already been established and the mandate is ticking down...

Countries sorted by income.
Having higher income than countries no. 2, 3 and 4 combined is a good sign, especially on very hard where AI develops like crazy and has discount on building construction.

On very hard the AI truly develops like crazy, Cebu has improved 54 times (!!!). The good thing is, that cost for coring a province caps at 30 development.

In terms of army quality we're topping it with exception of army morale and tradition, which definitely helps against boosted AI (for example when I fought war for north Africa in 1630 Tunis alone fielded about 80k troops).

That are some scary armies that AI have - the plan is to continue to eat RotW for additional ~50 years and then start dealing with Europe with at least one million on the field.
As usual, mercscum is core of our army and with all of India belonging to trade companies we have economy to sustain it.

At this moment there's no way how we could break wooden wall of Great Britain, luckily for us even with boosted numbers the AI is still incompetent when it comes to correctly handling sailors.

Any my favourite screen



Generally speaking I do enjoy playing on very hard as on normal difficulty I've been almost always in unrivaled position by about 1500. Now I still feel threatened by European powers which has been efficient at consolidating land (notice how much nigger European blobs are), which is the thing I like on very hard most - the AI is much more competent at blobbing.
However it's still about getting the ball rolling as after first set of wars and first war with Mamluks I've again found myself in almost unrivaled position and just kept going on.

 

[SKOTy]

16. Tackling big boys​

During world (or basically any greater conquest) it's important to have something to eat between attempting to take on the big boys. Kilwa is going to be annexed in this war and with our great monarch admin power to core stuff is not an issue, the combo of disinheritance and Ottoman government is quite potent when it comes to strong monarchs.

Russia is busy in a huge war against Poland and Spain, no better way to say "come to take my land ".
According to a war screen, the numbers are on our side.

And casualties say that army quality is also on our side, 120% discipline vs. 101% discipline.

WIPE

Our subject Andhra spanning almost over one third of Indian subcontinent gets integrated, the area without trade companies shows the size of our former subject.

Superiority has been achieved.

Russia is cut of Siberia completely which means eating Russia will require a lot lower investment in the future compared to a situation where they would colonize entire Siberia.

Remember, small stack here and there is healthy

Soo, you're saying to me, that Ming is embroiled in a war against Japan, which is a stalemate, does not have manpower and has 0 mandate (which means zero mercs)? Looks like an invitation to their land

Troops, we're going to vacation

Actually, attacking Ming without checking their military technology level was a small mistake as they've managed to reach tech 21 which provides military tactics sooner than us (look at the tactics difference).
Even with +50% damage taken, Ming is capable of punching hard, especially with tactics advantage. Luckily for us military tech 21 was unlocked quite soon into war so the Ming advantage was almost immediately gone.

Sure, Ming, send your troops to wander steppes while I am besieging your forts

In the end the war resulted in complete victory, but the combat casualties show that Ming is not to be underestimated even when sitting on zero mandate (and especially on higher mil tech).
All of the Ming's fortifications are gone (although they were just level 2 forts, as with boosted force limit coming from very hard, the AI's priority is to reach force limit and after that it upgrades forts).