Post 1 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-02 22:51:45 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 01: 1444-1451: Hormuz Opening
I want to play as Mughals before the next patch inevitably nerfs them into the ground, I was just really undecided which minor to play as. A lot of countries can in principle enthrone Timurid prince, then become Timurids, then become Mughals. Or just skip the Timurid part, culture shift Persian or Uzbek, and go directly for the Mughals.
Modpack is:
• Fun and Balance
• Missions Extended
• 14 Idea Groups - one for every tech starting from 4
• Better Tradenodes and Tradeflows
• Better UI
• a few tiny experimental changes
So after far too much deliberation between Ajam, Shirvan, Fars, and Mushasha, finally decided to start as Hormuz! Sunni plutocratic sultanate with 15% religious unity, ruling over overwhelmingly Shia and Ibadi lands. First step is to ally Ajam, insult rivals, milk estates etc.
First target - Haasa (supported by Beja, but they got into own war and bailed out early). Then Ibadi Oman, who had no frieds. Then Yas and Nadj, supported by Anizah.
That led to 18k rebels on my 10k force limit, negative manpower, and general misery, but it feels like I'm getting somewhere with font size at least.
Transoxiana supported by Ajam and Mamluks waged war of independence from Timurids. Sadly it didn't get any other minor liberated, and with Transoxiana gone, they probably won't rebel.
I allied myself with Mamluks, Ajam, Transoxiana, and some minors. Shia block of Qara Qoyunlu and Mushasha are the obvious target, they're just a lot stronger than me.
Maybe if Qara Qoyunlu would be so kind and get into a fight against Ottomans or Ajam? Then I'd just smash Mushasha quickly. Otherwise I have a bunch of Arab minors I could take I guess. Or I could take to the sea for now.
First idea group is admin, probably just for coring cost discount. I'm not sure which one I'll take next, since I have crazy high number of 14.
Rough plan for this campaign:
• take some Ibadi land (done), trigger Ibadi rebels, shift from Sunni to Ibadi
• take some Persian land and shift from Khaleeji Arab to Persian
• get one of required provinces, enthrone Timurid prince (I should manually trigger myself new missions for this)
• destroy Timurids, become new Timurids, going Uzbek and getting new missions this way
• conquering spree for Timurid missions
• become Mughals
• go some Eastern religion (Shinto would be most fun, but might be too far)
• become emperor of China
Plus some stuff involving trade, Constantinople, and general map painting.
#eu4
Hormuz doesn't start too small, but there's no good place to put our label. With color like this obviously I should ally the Mamluks.
A bit more impressive label, barely any better force limit, and now amirs are really angry at me due to events. Also negative prestige, as my heir accidentally fell into the Persian Gulf.
The main reason I decided on Hormuz and not someone more Persia-region was wanting to play Ibadi.
Start as Fars, ally Transoxiana for double independence war, then expand into Hormuz etc. was my other idea. As well as a bunch of others.
Going Ibadi will put big strain on my diplomatic relations, but that +10% goods produced, such a sweet bonus.
Post 2 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-03 05:07:34 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 02: 1451-1473: Ibadi Way
My country was about 1/3 Sunni, 1/3 Shia, and 1/3 Ibadi, but I let Ibadi zealots run around, and by the time I was 16/20 provinces Ibadi I accepted their demands.
Bafflingly this did not let me change religious school, and I had the absolute worst of them all (-10% development bonus), and how can I flip branch of Islam but not something so minor? Console muslim_school_events.20 to the rescue, picking one with -10% AE. Weirdly it's extremely unpopular, only Nadj, Oman, Yas (all dead), and Dawasir (who allied me but keeps sending me insults) actually follow it. One with +1 merchant school would maybe be more fitting where I am now, but not where I'm going.
After that I got into a fight against Mushasha, Qara Qoyunlu, and Arab minor Mikhlaf, supported by just 3 other Arab minors. Somehow Qara Qoyunru really did not want to be in this fight, and with siege of my ally almost done, they decided to actually pack and go home.
I took Mikhlaf as a vassal, all lands from Mushasha, and nobody was terribly bothered as they were Shia. Sadly my ally Mamluks attacked my ally Shammar, and it's not like I can realistically do much about that.
I was really bottled in by favors accumulating ridiculously slowly. I took over Arab minor Najran, but that was nearly meaningless. I really wanted to attack Timurids, but Transoxiana liked them, and Mamluks accumulated favors at slow and bugged out pace. Then Timurids allied Ottomans, so it became even less likely expansion route.
So I continued fighting Arab minors. I was pondering attacking Qara Qoyunlu, but my ally Ajam decided to attack them on their own. Well, in such case I'll start my separate war! I was counting on their distraction, but of course AI ignored their other war and completely focused on me. What was I even thinking, right?
I was limited on AE, so I took just 3 provinces and released Iraq there as it has plenty of cores.
Since I'm very strict timer, and it doesn't look like I'll be crushing Timurids anytime soon, I rivalled Ajam, and I'll have to conquer some provinces from them instead. Oh well.
A side thing I tried was allying Cyprus to get knowledge sharing from them for Renaissance, as alternative to dev pushing. Sadly it turns out they need to be in coring range, and I don't have any Mediterranean coast, so that whole thing won't work. I guess Mamluks almost have it, so I could pay them for it, and then dev push colonialism?
My idea groups so far are admin, quantity, and influence, but I won't be fully filling them in anytime soon.
#eu4
Awkwardness of my situation is best illustrated by awkwardness of my font placement.
Hard limit of 1490 for enthroning Timurid prince is looming, and Mamluk favors counters is almost certainly bugged. I need to own and core a key province (so conquer by 1487), and culture shift to Persian or related before then. Or I guess I could mod that timer to be a bit longer.
I guess I've been playing too casually for the kind of shenanigans I've been trying to achieve. I don't think there are any timers after that.
Oh and the kind of land grab I'll need for that will probably spawn a massive coalition all the way to Ottomans.
Post 3 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-03 15:09:17 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 03: 1473-1488: Persian Timurids
Nobody would help me deal with Ajam, but at least our shared allies Transoxiana and Baluchistan weren't terribly interested either - just some remote ones like Karaman, Crimea, and Ferghana.
Ferghana actually hurt them, as Timurids attacked them, pulling Ajam in, so they faced a two front war, and kept going back and forth.
I needed to do a massive land grab, to get as many Persians into my country as possible. My diplomats worked overtime to prevent that from resulting into a massive coalition from Ottomans to Timurids to Warsangali, but just barely got that.
After that, coring, estate rebellions due to necessary un-statifying, separatist rebellions, and general misery, I managed to culture shift to Persian, move my capital to Tehran, and invite a Timurid prince to take over my country.
It was really great time, as after heir's accident, and death of my previous sultan, a 1 year old took over, with 61 year old queen regent. They were now 7 and 67 respectively, and if I didn't replace them, they'd throw my country into council regency and general misery.
Next step is getting Iraq's cores back, but right now Qara Qoyunlu and Ajam are in massive fight, and my realm is really not taking this transition well, so I should wait a bit.
Ideas so far: admin (2), quantity (2), influence (4), humanist (1).
Now I need to mod the game to get Timurid minor missions, as that feels like a serious oversight on devs' part.
#eu4
Descendants of Timur rule over Hormuz, Ajam, Transoxiana Timurids, and Timurid's vassal Khorasan. Now it's time to unite all this land - also clean up Iraq and South Arabia while at it.
I'm massively in debt, and I'll need to spend a lot of money for next institutions. After that I'll probably dev push as my capital is actually decent area for development.
Even with this extremely aggressive backup plan I only made it within the limit by 14 months.
I don't want to fight Timurids and Ottomans together, but then again if Albania can grab Ottoman territory somehow, and survive without any allies, maybe I shouldn't worry too much.
Post 4 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-03 20:53:20 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 04: 1488-1501: Recovery
Timurid mission set has multiple variants:
• Reconquest of Persia chain (column 1) - all 6
• Reconquest of Transoxiana chain (column 5) - all except Fars
• Reconquest of Khorasan chain (column 3) - all except Fars, only without Dharma
• Conquest of India (column 3) - all except Fars, only with Dharma
And first mission of Persia chain has special variants for Timurids, for Ajam, and for everyone else. So I modded it so once I get a Timurid prince I get same mission a non-Timurids non-Ajam non-Fars Timurid minor would get. That makes sense I hope.
One of the minor things I'm trying this campaign is doubling max cash from war, so you can get up to 50% worth of warscore, not up to 25% (gold to warscore rate unchanged). So I beat up Qara Qoyunlu and Mazandaran for lunch money, over 1300 total plus war reparations, plus some Iraqi cores. It was good.
Baluchistan got into a war with Timurids, so I was forced to drop them.
Damn Ottomans allied Ajam a moment before our truce expired. Could they stop being such assholes for like one game? I was completely locked, and my vassal Iraq's refusal to fabricate any claims on Aq Qoyunlu or Hisn Kayfa double locked me.
One really amazingly stupid design decision in the game is that I can't ask for knowledge sharing, only wait for AI to figure out it can get free money. So instead of Mamluks offering me Renaissance, they offered it to Transoxiana, and Transoxiana offered it to me, after Colonialism already spawned.
Ottomans got into war with Albania, technically protected by Venice, and France, but there's no way in hell French AI will bother walking there, so it might just as well not count.
Ideas are: admin (2), quantity (5), influence (7), humanist (4).
I might just have an idea how to crush this damn lock. I'm just tech 7 to Ottoman 8, and they outnumber me hard, so hopefully that Albanian nonsense distract them for a while. I definitely don't plan to just sit here and wait whole century before getting to India. If it fails... I mean, it can't fail, worst case scenario I'll go 10000 in debt hiring mercs.
#eu4
So you recovered your monetary situation and some how have two times quantity? Or is one of those quality?
Post 5 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-03 23:19:04 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 05: 1501-1508: The Great Sindhi War
Attack Sindh, cobeligerent Timurids. Joining on Sindh's side - Delhi, Mewat, Nagaur.
Joining through Timurids - Ottomans, Malwa, Guge, Aq Qoyunlu, Sirhind, Gujarat.
On my side, Mamluks, Transoxiana, Dawasir. Not Uzbek unfortunately, as they're busy, but it's rare that Ottomans are busy fighting France and Venice.
Of course as usual, Ottomans ignored their war, and sent all their army against me.
Enemies outnumbered us 2:1, my allies were really flakey, and what was going on was not exactly winning, so I sold out my ally, and got Ottomans out of the war by giving them one Mamluk province and some gold. Ottomans had to give Albania two provinces, so they didn't exactly win in this exchange.
I took 91% worth of land from Timurids. At this point I'd be totally fine peaceing out Sindh, but they preferred to turn it into a war of whose allies will bail out first.
It wasn't a crazy strategy, but since I couldn't get white peace, or concede defeat, or even just throw some money at them, I was forced to loan, merc up, and get at least some of that money in war reparations.
Between this war and Renaissance I'm not 7th great power. I got a lot of land including 4 mountain forts (also one farmland fort I destroyed). Now I also officially border India.
Ottomans, Timurids, and Aq Qoyunlu are back at war against the Mamluks over Dulkadir.
I guess I could ignore Timurids and become Mughals by going to India through Sindh into Delhi. It would lose me some Timurid missions, but then again, going the planned way might just take too long. I'm expanding so slow I didn't have even one coalition form against me!
I think I'll dev push Colonialism once I gather some mana. Waiting for it will take far too long, even if I was totally willing to pay someone for it.
#eu4
It's definitely the most painful war so far, and not just for me. My strategy was to ignore everyone except Timurids, and assault those forts hard.
Ottoman's "
Timurids are far from broken, but now I told all the mountain forts.
My new capital in Teheran got taken twice in this war, so maybe that's something to consider fixing somehow.
I'm really tempted to beat Qara Qoyunlu, Mazandaran, and Ajam (who helpfully guaranteed Mazandaran) for some gold now, what I just took from Sindh only covers half my debt, and Colonialism is coming soon.
Post 6 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-04 02:59:52 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 06: 1508-1523: Mountain Passes To Borders
I got Colonialism for highly affordable price of 1435 mana and 605 gold.
Other than that, I just started beating up minors for money.
Ottomans were beating Mamluks for third time or so, but they so far decided that actually they don't hate me. Maybe I'll switch my alliance at some point? I'm not really expanding West either way.
Next time truce with Timurids expired Ottomans were just barely exhausted enough with their previous war to be unwilling to join this one. Then again, Mamluks have been heavily beaten up, so force ratio was still fairly poor 90k:120k.
My new Indian allies Vijayanagar and Jaunpur weren't in my war, but they each pulled my enemies into some unrelated wars for some extra distraction. This time Indians did not rush towards me - Malwa actually focused on Jaunpur and friends, and went on a serious blobbing spree. Good for them.
This war went amazingly well. I took money from each one of Timurids' allies from Aq Qoyunlu to Sirhind do Sindh to Gujarat to Malwa, and then thanks to province cost discount from age bonus I took enormous amount of Timurid territory including the infamous mountain fort of Roh overlooking passage to India.
Becoming Timurids will be hard since I need to fully eliminate existing Timurids (2 wars at least), and take some stuff from my ally Transoxiana. Going straight Mughal might actually be easier as I now border Delhi, and it seems I could just barely snake up there to get require provinces in a single war.
Ideas so far: admin (2), quantity (6), influence (7), humanist (6), diplomatic (2), and not sure what to take next. Actually considering economic maybe.
#eu4
Coalition management in India might not be too bad, as most minors have been dealt with, I'm allied with Vijayanagar and Jaunpur, and have a lot of truces.
I'd still like to clean up my borders a bit. At least I now longer feel bottled up by enemies - Ottomans seem to give limited amount of fucks about anything East of Ajam. Mamluks allied Hadramut, but African minors are open for conquest and Ethiopia is on my side. And in India, they all hate each other and didn't form united block just yet.
Post 7 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-04 22:31:10 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 07: 1523-1541: Conquest of West India
OPM Sirhind kept getting into my wars, so I converted them to the true faith. It turns out they had huge number of cores, and they actually quite liked me, so I diplovassalized them, then attacked Delhi, who was defended by Ajam, Transoxiana, and Bengal.
Forts on the way to India stopped them long enough that I could separate peace each of them separate without too much trouble - and I returned cores to my vassal, a snake of provinces that includes all required to form the Mughals.
I was building up my relations with the Ottomans to maybe become friends once Mamluks fail miserably, but then they decided to rival me. Oh well. Ottomans recovered one of provinces from Albania, and are beating Mamluks again. I wish there was a way to setup some sphere of influence pact - Syria, Crimea, and West Caucasus is theirs, Persia, Iraq, and East Caucasus is mine, we're all good, and not allying anyone on wrong side.
I had some fairly painful war against Ajam - releasing and diplovassalizing Khiva from Transoxiana, and doing some serious land grab. Somehow even Ethiopia helped me there, crushing Arabian leftover minor Hadramut.
Then I got into a fight with Timurids. They don't carry calendars on those horses, so they forgot when our truce was about to expire, and were drilling in border province while my army was literally standing there. It was just too easy.
In this war I grabbed a lot of land where I setup another Indian vassal Multan. And seriously reduced Timurids. Also got 103% OE as I couldn't be bothered to count what goes to which vassal and what I'll need to core myself, and cores from previous war didn't finish yet due to lack of mana.
What was left of Delhi suffered from a total pile-up from every direction, and Delhi is now no more.
It looks really good in terms of coalitions, minors who usually pad coalition sizes are mostly gone from India.
In 1545 I can start annexing Sirhind, and then I'll be able to become the Mughals by 1550 or so!
Ideas so far: admin (2), quantity (7), influence (7), humanist (7), diplomatic (5), offensive (1), economic (1), not sure (0). Admin ideas other than second are quite underwhelming, so it will be a while before I finish that.
I'm not actually that far ahead of vanilla, I'd have three idea slots at this point, so maybe up to 21 ideas, not that much less than my 30. Funnily enough the leader is Multan who has 49 ideas as country release logic works like this, filling in all but last. Of countries which actually did the work, Aachen has 42 and Ming has 41.
#eu4
Khiva, Sirhind, and Multan are my vassals. I'm #1 Great Power - Ming is bigger, but has no institutions.
It might be a good idea to buy some maps now so I can see how to get to Ming and crash their mandate.
And now that I think of it, I won't have access to Dhimmi as Mughals as I'll have special estates, so it will be hard to switch to Eastern religion.
Not to mention that I have no good way to take over China without my mandate tanking to zero instantly.
I'll rethink the plans once I go Mughal and see the missions.
Post 8 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-06 01:59:36 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 08: 1541-1549: Ibadi Mughals
I got option to form Persia, which would have been fun earlier, but it's a bit late and it blocks going Mughals, which I was about to do.
Anyway, now that I thought about it, the whole becoming China plan is silly. We've barely even heard of that place - and gameplay is actually quite bad to do China halfway through the game.
Here's the new plan:
• follow Mughal missions, so basically conquer India
• destroy other Timurids
• unite all native Asian culture groups
• totally control Indian Ocean
• destroy every last Sunni or Shia heretic - but let Indian and Eastern heathens keep their religion (so I won't be able to press "Unify Islam" button)
• crush China (my new rival), Ottomans, Mamluks, Muscovy, and anybody else who might oppose my plans
Unless the game decides to throw late game performance issues at me that is.
So, to start Ibadi Ocean plan, I sent my troops to crush East African heretics. I crushed 4 Sunni countries and setup Ajuuraan as a vassal there.
My damn vassal Khiva managed to fall to rebels - simultaneously Sunni zealots and Khorasani separatists. Do I seriously need to do everything myself? Ajuuraan can't handle theirs as well.
Transoxiana managed to get itself killed in its attack on the Timurids.
But now I'm the Mughals. And I modded those Timurid minor missions wrong, so I still have 6 extra missions (3 done) on Ajam, Timurids, and Central Asia.
It looks like 33 Mughal missions, 3 leftover Timurid missions, Iranian culture group just 62% united, Levantine just 35% (but that's also Egyptians and Turks, so going to take a while), and India barely started.
Even religiously Sunni at 491 provinces and 39 countries completely overwhelms Ibadi 111 and 7, at least Shia is down to 5 with no country representing them.
#eu4
Ajuuraan joins Khiva and Multan as another useless vassal.
Mamluks allied Warsangali and Malwa, which is even more annoying than Ottomans allying Chagatai, Ajam, and Aq Qoyunlu.
At least nobody cares if I clean up Timurids and Ladakh.
Post 9 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-09 22:56:28 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 09: 1549-1566: Great Malwa War
I abdicated for a younger ruler with a lot more mana generation ability.
My trade income completely crashed. My great default estates got replaced by really shitty Indian estates - and I lost my previous sweet bonuses - costing me half my trade income.
As a new country, there was a lot of business in West India and East Africa to attend to. My allies did all they could to undermine me, so I called Mamluks into a pointless war, then destroyed their ally Warsangali and built a fort snake inside Malwa.
I tried to spread Ibadi faith in Central Asia, but apparently leaving Ibadi OPMs without armies or allies is not very effective.
For Printing Press I paid 1200 to upgrade Sirhind's trade from level 1 to level 3. Even after that, it's going to take a while until it spreads to 10% of my country.
Protestants won HRE war - but since this is Fun and Balance there can be round two.
So far I've only done 2/33 Mughal and 3/6 leftover Timurid missions.
Idea groups so far: admin (2), quantity (7), influence (7), humanist (7), diplomatic (7), offensive (1), economic (3), religious (2), aristocratic (5).
That weirdly incomplete offensive before aristocratic was because I couldn't take aristocratic before becoming Mughals and changing my government type. I will be able to take 14/18 idea groups.
Definitely skipping naval and maritime, so the question is which other two groups to skip. I'll need some colonists to deal with uncolonized heretic provinces in Africa, so exploration and expansion are good. Innovative and trade are quite decent. I guess espionage and defensive are weakest remaining ones? Or defensive and quality maybe?
#eu4
The League War. Protestant side understandably won.
Actually Sweden was in unrelated independence war supported by Austria. We could always use a few more map modes.
The map finally revealed itself, and what we can see is a lot of bordergore.
Malwa did it to itself. Just after I crushed them (well, crushing went both sides for a long while since half my army was cleaning up East Africa), they attacked 2-province Gujarat guaranteed by Vijayanagar and allied with Ajam and Maldives just to be sure. How exactly was that a good idea?
Malwa is allied with Mamluks, Bengal is allied with Ottomans, Vijayanagar guarantees all leftovers, how am I supposed to get anything done in India? So far I've been brutally opportunistic, perhaps I should screw one of those three big powers directly.
Post 10 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-10 15:14:01 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 10: 1566-1579: Great Bengal War
I got Gazikumukh as a vassal, which got me involved in European affairs. Somehow I found myself at war with Brandenburg and Switzerland while cleaning up some minor hordes - that's how far HRE leagues managed to spread.
I didn't even notice that I had special age ability giving me -50% artillery cost. That's convenient after I changed my armies to 6x 12/2/6 stacks. I'm more concerned by supply limit than combat width, so it's actually not a great fighting unit, but it's fairly flexible.
Because I finally decided to clean up Persia, cobeligerent or not, I got my first coalition by Sindh, Bengal, and Ottomans. Coalition fell apart, as Ottomans got busy fighting Second HRE League War, so I decided it was time to wreck my enemies hard. It's Catholic League center vs Protestant League periphery.
Since Ottomans were busy anyway, I attacked Bengal, cobeligerent Malwa and Arakan. Ottomans joined - but so did a lot of my allies. So now they have a choice - do they want to win league war, or do they want to inconvenience me? They're too far to reach India anyway.
Then I extended the war to Sindh, newly respawned Gujarat, and due to inevitable >150% OE to a lot of rebels. All those claims that humanist ideas prevent rebels? Overstated.
Ottomans got wrecked really hard in all this. So hard in fact I made them return three quality provinces to the Mamluks, even as non-cobeligerents.
A while back I got Guge as tributary - I can't make tributaries, but I annexed someone who could so I inherited them. That now cost me a lot, as I couldn't end the war I had to give newly conquered land to my new vassal Arakan. Instead even more time at >150% OE. Oh well.
Just after all that fighting Jaunpur, recently rebranded as Oudh, broke our alliance. Oh well, I guess that's who I'll be fighting next.
A lot more countries have now coalition potential, including Ming being just about borderline there. Then again, I've been eliminating haters quite successfully including finally all other Timurids, and I have a lot of truces.
#eu4
Second League War. Balance of forces seems roughly even and there are many exhausted countries on both sides, so the winner will be whoever has more will to bleed for the cause.
Great Bengal War. A lot of side wars and side rebellions happened.
Dragging Arakan in as cobeligerent was a great opportunity, as they're not Ming tributary. Once I annex them, Ming's mandate will disappear.
Ottomans controlled the straits, so only Second HRE League War wrecked them on European side, and Great Bengal War wrecked them on Asian side. Interesting strategy.
I'm not really sure where Ottoman army was, they were siegeing me for a while but got tired of it and left, so we did all this close to unopposed.
With Ajuuraan, Gazikumukh, Khiva, and Arakan as vassals. My AE strategy right now is "
Post 11 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-11 03:21:21 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 11: 1579-1586: Great Vijayanagar War
After Great Bengal War there's been 22 countries with coalition-level AE, and the strategy I needed was basically destroy or truce juggle Sunnis, placate and bribe everybody else.
The HRE leagues weirdly ended up with religious peace, but at least Ottomans lost a lot more territory before that happened. There's now 4 Catholic and 3 Protestant elections, and it's unclear which side will win next vote.
Since Oudh broke our alliance, they had to be destroyed. Vijayanagar chose their side, their mistake. I lost my tributary Guge to alliance chain. My attempt at allying Sadiya also backfired as they chose my enemies - I re-allied them afterwards, but they got a lot of AE on me.
That war was shockingly easy. I'm way ahead in mil tech, at 15 to their 11 and 12. Is everyone picking too many ideas and not enough techs? It looks like nearly the whole world is behind, with Ming (understandably, they get mana from tributaries) and Poland (what?) the only significant exceptions.
Vijayanagar rebranded itself to Mysore afterwards - perhaps Fun and Balance makes those tag switches just too easy.
I got my first full culture group unified - Iranians for -10% advisor cost. I'm just one province away from unifying Hindustanis for -10% coring cost.
I also got exploration ideas and made my first colony in South Africa. I don't really plan to leave the Indian Ocean area.
Oh and here's a weird one - Ottomans are not a great power. They're only 8th by development and lack latest institution. I didn't even beat them that much, just forced them to return around 40dev to the Mamluks. Europeans including even Albania wrecked them a lot harder than that.
#eu4
It feels like Mughal missions would be a lot more fun before India becomes just a few big blobs. I don't feel like I'm guided by missions at all - it's just conquer all India in order determined by truce timers, and every now and then I get to press a button for some rewards.
I setup this snake vassal because I needed to break Vijayanagar (now rebranded as Mysore) from Malwa so they'd cancel the guarantee.
Russia is providing public service of cleaning up haters up North. Sadly Theodoro got wrecked, and then got vassalized by Russia. Albania is now losing to Ottomans. I thought about allying Albania to protect them, but I picked Sadiya (that split green country east of Bengal) instead, overall disappointed by my decision.
Post 12 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-16 00:23:02 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 12: 1586-1606: Ibadi Ceylon and Madagascar
HRE Catholics, after losing the first league war, and barely getting second into a bloody stalemate, Catholic Bohemia won HRE elections 4:3. So many dead peasants and it got them nowhere.
I had a lot of easy cleanup wars. Finally unlocked Deus Vult and explorers - I'd probably be better off doing idea groups in opposite order.
Ottomans dishonored every possible call to arms in AI vs AI wars due their debt, losing every ally in Asia. That was quite baffling, what are they spending all that money on?
I destroyed East African Sunnis while I was waiting for other truces - and took some pagan land too for cleaner borders.
Global Trade spawned on Persian Gulf coast, but it will be a while until it spreads all the way.
Next war with Indians they pulled some Indonesian minors into it. I just accepted >250% OE for a while. Rebellions were ridiculous but I had no shortage of willing peasants.
I finally got my Ming border, and their mandate will drop from 100 to 0 in about 20 years. I have time, and I'll be busy with Court and Country soon as well.
While I'm waiting for Indian truces, and Ming mandate collapse, why not actually do something about the Ottomans?
So far did 4/6 Timurid and 10/33 Mughal missions.
My ideas are: admin (2), quantity (7), influence (7), humanist (7), diplomatic (7), offensive (7), economic (7), religious (7), aristocratic (7), exploration (4). I'll probably do trade, expansion, innovative, and maybe espionage after that.
#eu4
My anti-Russia strategy is to maintain alliance with the worthless Uzbek just to spite the Russians and deny them easy clay.
Ming's mandate just started countdown, but I might attack faster perhaps to get Tibetan culture group.
Of course the most important thing of all is capturing Constantinople. No campaign is complete without it.
Post 13 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-17 22:48:11 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 13: 1606-1613: First Ming War
Ottomans betrayed all their allies in order, so it was no surprise nobody wanted to defend them when I attacked, and they got wrecked. I had no way to cross the strait, and Russia refused to let my walk around, so I took only modest amount of land. By modest I mean Constantinople, connection to Constantinople, and whatever else is on the offer is just a minor bonus.
To clean up that part of the world, I diplovassalized Immereti and The Knights, and started vassalizing Karaman. That scornful insult on rivals for instant +25 is amazingly useful for getting to 190 opinion. For I while I wondered about allying or diplovassalizing Albania, but by the time I arrived very little was left of them.
I started setting up trade companies - but in Africa I first needed to convert the Sunnis and Pagans (everyone else is OK), and in India many places had to be states for missions.
Well, since Ottomans were so trivial, it was time to attack Ming directly, and then clean their tributaries while they were busy in the main war. Their mandate is still very high, but nothing a bit of devastation can't help with.
Once Ming was distracted fighting me, I attacked their tributaries. And well, it looks like full mandate Ming is a lot stronger than Ottomans. The whole war was waged on my territory, and >100% OE and often >200% OE, and I kept losing battles due to my divided armies.
They beat up Malacca enough to force them to break our alliance. For their side, they lost Sadiya, Yarkand, Chagatai, good chunks of Tibet and Dai Viet, and a bit of Oirat. I even snatched Manipur and Maldives in all this. Their mandate should hit zero by about 1620, in time for our next war.
I was completely unprepared for absolutism as the usual estates weren't present, so I wasted three years and a lot of sword mana, but now it's finally ticking.
Ottomans are now getting wrecked by Austria and Poland in two more wars. I'll join the pile-up in due time. Pretty much the only thing saving them is that with two wars each occupying half their territory, neither can 100% them.
#eu4
First Ming War had many stages - my whole frontline from Chagatai to Dai Viet advanced by huge amount of territory of mostly Ming tributaries. Also rebels were spawning all over the place due to crazy OE, helpfully Ming killed some of them.
Next time Ming will have no mandate, and I'll have shorter frontlines.
It might also be time to reorganize my armies, my stacks are a bit small 12/2/6. Then again, supply limit in mountains is miserable and I could only increase it to 14/2/8 while still able to sit on any province without taking attrition.
Still only 3 culture groups unified (Iranian, Hindustani, Central Indian), but I should be able to get to 10+ by 1700. Annoyingly I'll need to colonize a lot of poor African provinces to get those groups, uncolonized provinces count too.
Post 14 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-21 23:55:50 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 14: 1613-1625: Court and Country
I got into a phony war in Africa to trigger Court and Country. It's real hard to get over +1 unrest.
There was a coalition war - Switzerland attacked the badboy Bavaria. AE is hilariously unbalanced, with HRE minors always getting coalitions, but I've never seen AI Russia, Ottomans, or France get one, no matter how much they blobbed.
I vassalized Circassia just after Imereti, to deny Russia their allies. It was a bit awkward conversation as I had to scornfully insult Circassia to make Imereti like me, but then I scornfully insulted Genoa to make Circassia get over it.
Mamluks dragged me into some war against my former allies Malacca. I took 3 Malaccan provinces (1 for mission, 2 forts), and separate peaced.
Ottomans lost to Austria, then to Poland, then to Venice, then to me.
I allied Korea, with intention of breaking them from the Ming somehow. Well, that will take a while to tick up those favours. Ming mandate was zero, so I attacked them. Unfortunately they got so many military ideas even with those mandate penalites they fought quite decently. I had good K:D ratio, but they kept throwing peasants they weren't supposed to have at me.
They even managed to stackwipe one 24k stack because game didn't correctly indicated where the battle will be (probably due to tag order of same day arrival). Oh well, time to resize my armies to 16/2/10, even if that can't quite chill in Tibet without taking attrition.
I never sent missionaries to Hindus or Buddhists, but that "religious conversion by merchant" button was tempting me, so I enabled it. And I'm getting a lot of merchants now.
Albania finally collapsed, to Venice.
Court and Country disaster ended, so now I'm ready to absolutely wreck whoever's left.
I got 47 culture groups accepted, but that's only 4 full culture groups. That's going to change quite soon.
Also Ibadis now narrowly outnumber Sunnis, but Catholic are still far ahead of both of us.
#eu4
I feel like I need to clean up the borders a bit, get Jerusalem, Mecca, and I can call this campaign done.
Ming still offered some respectable resistance this time, but there will be a lot less next war. Somehow nobody even wants to coalition me except for direct victims.
Post 15 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-24 17:18:38 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 15: 1625-1639: First partition of Ming
I was fighting wars to clean up my cultural borders, slowly consuming bits of Ming as non-cobeligerent while technically fighting their remaining tributaries.
I wanted to see nice Mingsplosion, but that 14 idea groups mod gave them far too many bonuses to fall apart even at zero mandate, so I did some extra modding to increase penalties to macth that.
In some crazy way the game decided to make capital of Scotland Ibadi Hindavi. Scotland exiled to South Africa that is. It cost me -10% coring cost bonus from my primary culture. That's really poor gameplay here.
I finally cleaned up India except for that one Spanish province, and released my vassal Deccan. Game released them as Sunni for some stupid reason, even though there wasn't a single Sunni in India for like a century.
Ethiopia was tempting fate attacking Mamluk's ally Funj and trying to get me into their fight, but Mamluks dishonored, so it ended fine for them.
Russia bought a province from Dai Viet, and then declared holy war on them four months later. Like seriously, that doesn't even create a truce?
So now Ming is at war with Japan over Ryukyu, with Russia over Dai Viet, and hopefully rebels will eat it from within while I do nothing.
#eu4
The most fun part of this map is Catholic rulers over Ibadi peasants in South Africa. Sadly event related to that is how I lost my 10% coring cost discount. If I kept the game running until 1821 whole South-East Asia would probablly turn Ibadi through merchants. It's happening, but really slowly. My missionaries only target Sunnis and (inconsistently) pagans.
Time to turn West. Hopefully I'll be able to see a Mingsplosion this campaign.
Post 16 - Originally published on Google+ on 2018-11-24 19:00:03 UTC
Celestial Dharma: Part 16: 1639-1642: Conquest of the Holy Land
I left Ming alone so they can fall apart in peace, hopefully, and attacked Spain to get the last province of India.
That meant fighting Spain, its colonial empire, Mamluks, Austria/Hungary, Venice, and assortment of European minors. I got Ethiopia on my side, and bribed Poland to join as well. And it was so damn easy - completely crushed the Mamluks (Ethiopia weirdly didn't transfer one province in middle of Arabia for no obvious reason, oh well), white peaced Austria-Hungary and assorted minors, and still had enough warscore leftover to seize all Spanish colonies on Indian Ocean.
And the point where this campaign ends. There's a century of potential cleanup to do, and I guess Russia might still be worth one not totally trivial war, but if this wasn't even close to a challenge, nothing will be, and it's time to play something else.
So some conclusions:
• 14 idea groups mod is hilariously unbalanced. I've played this game enough that it needs some fresh ideas, but this isn't it.
• Mughals get crazy many missions, but they're either same claims into claims stuff or some baffling nonsense like building a bunch of forts in places where there's zero reason to build any. Only a few did something interesting. Overall not too impressed.
• Timurid missions and decisions were actually very fun. And then there's a choice between forming Persia, Timurids, or Mughals. No other region has such wealth of goals. In Europe it's just reforming Rome or Rome really.
• Mughal unique culture mechanics made me think very differently about stuff, but then that random event with my culture leaking to Scotland spoiled the fun.
• Indian estates are awfully low power level. Overall new estate changes are fine, and you can do less micro.
• New penalties for blobbing (based on territories count and average autonomy) are not enjoyable, they're basically a huge nerf for not having capital in Europe. They also probably make hordes unplayable.
• Government reforms system is too slow, especially if you blob at all. Early bonuses are mostly boring, late reforms are more interesting but happen in 1700+ when game is over anyway. There are events to gain or lose some points, but too few. It should be totally reverse of this - giving you interesting choices how to play early on!
• So much of what they add to the game like colonists in own region is completely irrelevant added complexity. This game is desperately asking for some cleanup.
• Buying provinces for trade companies is a fun idea, but it leads to so damn much (historically accurate I guess) bordergore.
#eu4
This is very definitely won.
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