Vijayanagar: Part 16: 1626-1632: Court and Country

Court and Counry was still ongoing, but it was time to do my last mission and take Persia. From my up to this point ally Ajam.

I got into 5 simultaneous wars against 300k enemy troops, calling in Ottomans last time to distract the Mamluks in one of those wars.

To make matters worse, Chinese minor rebels were spilling over Shun border into my lands.

I took Northern third of Persia, as that's where all the forts were. Also all Arabia except for Mamluk parts, and nice chunk of East Africa.

I couldn't actually end Court and Country during the war, as my war exhaustion was constantly too high. Oh well.

Predictably, Ottomans broke our alliance. So I allied Commonwealth and Venice instead.

I tried to be nice to the Chinese minors, so they wouldn't join the inevitable Muslim coalion, but then I allied Japan, and they hate me for it again.

Oirats somehow managed to keep positive mandate so far. They flipped Confucian by event, so they have nearly zero religious unity. Good job.

All that's left is two more wars to conquer whole Ajam, and exactly one Ottoman province, and the campaign is won.

That was the opening but I added a few more wars, as well as getting a lot of rebels.

The wars are surprisingly still not trivial, mostly due to distances involved, and part of my army always needing to chase rebels.

I'm down to just 20% of my max manpower.

Ottomans have nearly as many troops as me, and they want to coalition me, so there will be at least one big war.

Britain formed, and now it's: Aachen, Frankfurt, Dietmarchen, Saxe-Lauenburg, and Provence

In bordergore worth of the HRE

Vijayanagar: Part 15: 1612-1626: Oirat Conquest of China

Coalition fell apart again, so I cleaned up some minor powers.

I got "Arabian Trade" mission to dominate Hormuz and Aden trade just in a minor war against the locals - I didn't control it long term, but temporary occupation was good enough.

I stole some maps from Portugal and Aragon, and I finally discovered 3 uninhabited islands which were needed to finish conquer Malacca misssions (in addition to 2 uninhabited parts of the main island, those I were at least aware of). It's such a stupid oversight. Well, I spent far too much money on too many simultaneous colonies, but I got the mission.

I triggered Court and Country in July 1619, really late. After that I was dealing with rebels and taking a break from wars.

Game did this bullshit "pay all your money because too many territories" penalty, which makes all big countries ridiculously poor compared with what they ought to earn. So it was taking forever to save money for Global Trade. I had to piss off my estates and take a loan to actuall take it.

Oirats decided that since I'm not busy, it's great time to attack Shun for Mandate of Heaven. Well, Oirats have been good allies to me, so sorry Shun.

Korea attack Shun for the Mandate of Heaven just a few months ater.

Of course Oirats got completely wrecked and I had to win the war for them. At least I cleaned up some borders on my way.

The Oirats managed to take the Mandate from Shun after only 22 year reign. Leaving Shun and Koreans fighting over who knows what exactly.

That leaves just two missions:

• conquer Persia
• industrialize Bengal

So fell the Shun. Long time ago I was wondering if Oirats or Shun would be better ally to help me destroy Ming. I didn't really have a great reason to pick one or the other.

While Shun had a good shot at reestablishing stable and prosperous China, Oirats are completely hopeless, and their whole empire will fall to pieces in no time. They have none of three key cities, they have no accepted Chinese cultures (they could fix that if AI had any clue), and they're tech 14/14/14 to my 18/18/18.

They're even Tengri/Vajrayana, so they'll either go Confucian by event and wreck their religious unity, or not and lose even more mandate.

Kutai, Yarkand, Haasa, and Warsangali are my vassals

My only remaining mission is conquest of Persia, so time to do that and throw my long time ally Ajam under the bus

I've been quite good at coalition management, and there's only 20 haters out there - Shun, Min, and various Muslims. In addition to Persia wars, I'll clean up Arabia and East Africa as that's best way to prevent any coalition. Shun and Min will get over it or fall apart to rebels if I give them some time.

Vijayanagar: Part 14: 1604-1612: Great Arab War

I tried to piss off my estate rebels for some quick autonomy, but it looks like Indian estates can't do this. Damn.

After far too long dicking around in Indonesia, I finally attacked Westward, and my up to this point ally Hormuz sided with my enemies.

Every Muslim power except Ajam was somehow involved into this, and I decided not to give a fuck about AE. I made two new vassals Haasa, nad Warsangali, annexed Mahra, Chagatai, and Timurids, as well as good chunk of land from Hormuz and Transoxiana.

Then I got 39% absolutism on day of peace.

I finished two missions - conquer Khorasan and achieve (briefly) 100% religious unity.

Remaining missions:

• Conquer Persia - this is mostly my ally Ajam, but also one province held by the Ottomans, so great fun ahead
• Arabian Trade - be top power in Hormuz (done) and Gulf of Aden nodes (still to do) - this will be relatively straightforward conquering
• Conquer Malaya - I only need to got one island which is uncolonized and which nobody in the world is even aware exists, it's Paradox being really shitty here.
• Industrialize Bengal - everything done, except another century of waiting for to get tech to build Grand Shipyards

Shun China is doing OK so far. They're a strong secondary power, 12th globally by development.

List of potential coalition members is 33 countries, all the way to damn Mali, so basically my only option is to remove all traces of kebab from the premises.

I'll just conquer everything. These wars weren't quite trivial yet, as Mamluks flooded Persia with troops, while mine had to deal with African minors.

To the East only Siak, Ming, Shu, and Min hate me, and Ming is getting dismantled by multiple other Chinese minors

I think I'll have a few more wars then call it a victory. There's still possibility of some difficulty happening - like West Africans joining coalition, then Ottomans dishonoring alliance and joining it too, so I have to waste a decade on pointless coalition war.

Morocco has 3 provinces but one of them is Gibraltar, so Aragon can't form Spain. I'm feeling bad for them

Vijayanagar: Part 13: 1599-1604: Shun China

Global trade spawned for me in Ceylon, even though it wasn't a state. That's a bit awkward.

I had an idea how to avoid Ottomans joining a huge coalition against me while I conquer my way West - ally Ottomans myself.
But for now I wanted to avoid expanding too much, as I'm really trying to finish mission for 100% religious unity, and my enemies keep giving me free infidel land.

At least I finished mission for Indochina. 6 more to go:

• get 100% religious unity
• conquer Burma - that means literally colonize the Andamans
• conquer Khorasan - 3 provinces left
• conquer Persia
• be strongest trade power in Hormuz and Gulf of Aden - so basically conquer Arabia and maybe East Africa
• industrialize Bengal - grand shipyards can't be done for another 100 years, but I did the rest of it

Shun took the Mandate of Heaven, but didn't took historical capital of Nanjing which is just over their border and for which they definitely had warscore, so they really messed up their chances of successfully establishing their dynasty.

At least they won't get Unguarded Nomad Frontier day one, as Oirats are no longer a horde. So they're losing just -0.07 a month (would by just -0.02 if they took Nanjing). This can be recovered from with a few bonuses.

I'm not going to help them, but I sort of wish them best of luck, AI so rarely successfully establishes new dynasty, usually they fall apart almost right away

Meanwhile, king of Desmond, about half of Ireland, declared in his will that his kingdom should pass to France on his death, but Britain disagreed, so they went into a succession war.
While London was occupied by Protestant zealots, and half of France by Aragon.

Vijayanagar: Part 12: 1577-1599: Oirat Invasion of China

During fights in Indonesia I got my navy wrecked, so I had to expand it. It was long overdue anyway.

I returned one of Majapahit's provinces so they'd get closer, and that convinced them to become my vassals.

I needed one province held by Ming for my mission, but since I was going to war anyway, I grabbed coaatline all the way to Canton. It pissed off Chinese minors, but they'll get over it.
Chinese civil war was ongoing. Shun was far ahead of all its rivals, but was unwilling to claim the Mandate of Heaven.

There was another coalition, of Nogai, Dawasir, Mahra, Shammar, Timurids, Burnei from the Sunni block, together with Shun and Min of China. They all got over it soon enough.

I somehow convinced Oirats, Ajam, and Hormuz to join my war against Transoxiana. After that even bigger coalition assembled - from Kilwa to Sulu. I barely kept the Ottomans from joining it.

Oirats decided to cash in on all the favors they got, and called me into their war against Shun, Min, and Korea. China is such a mess. I might as well help them. If they take North China, then I can take South China without any further coalition troubles.
The Oirats were absolutely awful, being many techs behind even the backwards Chinese, so I had to fight the whole war for them. They took some land, but not even Beijing.

It feels like wasted time, but coalition mostly fell apart again.

I took expansion for 4th idea group. It's a bit dumb this late, but there's some uncolonized land that I need for my missions. I made some progress on many missions, but didn't actually finish any.

Shun, Min, and Korea were defending from invading Oirats and Indians

I sort of want Shun to win, but Oirats have been good allies

Maybe I should just take China, instead of dooming it to eternal civil war?

Countries come and go there. Liang, Qi, Yi, Dali, and Changsheng spawned just recently, and Wun separatists are trying to join it as well

Ming just left the coalition, so maybe I should do something about it

Vijayanagar: Part 11: 1567-1577: Indian Parliament

With some really complicated diplomacy I added Hsenwi and Yarkand to my vassal list of Champa and Pasai.

Unfortunately it looks like the patch completely broke vassals, and they never use any missionaries. Even Yarkand with its religious ideas. I thought that maybe sending them some subisdies would help, but not one of them even tried.

After giving all my disappointing heirs swimming lessons, my ruler died without an heir, and I got an 18 year old 3/6/4 Timurid on the throne. I did not expect that. Timurids still rule in NAjd, Afghanistan, TImurids, Transoxiana, Mazandaran, and Ajam, and I'm allied with Ajam, and it looks like I accidentally accepted a royal marriage offer from them. Oh well, doesn't matter.

The Oirats pulled me into their war against Chagatai and Transoxiana. I really hoped they'd be fighting Ming, but Ming collapsed anyway, so I guess it's fair.

I had a choice of government reform, and I took a parliament for a change. That normally disables Nobility estate, but for Indians it doesn't since they have Marathas or Rajputs. First parliamentary debate was educating the unwashed masses who can't speak proper Kannadian, or something else acceptable.

I got to 8/15 missions done. What remains:

• get 100% religious unity - I can get temporary 4th missionary with Parliament, and I can stack modifiers really high, so it's doable, but definitely harder for Christians or Muslims
• conquer Indochina region - just my enemies, will result into a fight with Ming
• conquer Khorasan region - just my enemies
• conquer Persia region - awkwardly my alies Ajam and Hormuz control most of it, but alliances don't always last
• be strongest trade power in Hormuz and Aden nodes - this would get me into a fight with my ally Hormuz
• conquer Malaya region - a few provinces are uncolonized, so I'd need to wait for Europeans, or take late expansion ideas
• industrialize Bengal - it requires dev pushing Lakhnor (done for Printing Press), manufactury in Lakhnor (in progress), 10 manufacturies in Bengal region (in progress), and 8 grand shipyards in Bengal region. Really unlikely that I'll do this, as grand shipyards require 1715 tech, and everything else should be over before 1650.

Potential coalition members are down to just 10, and 6 of them are not long for this world. It will go back to being a horrible mess once I turn my armies back West.

Big Beautiful Font

Yarkand, Hsenwi, Champa, and Pasai are my vassals

Light green are proper civilized people

Yellow are cultures in same group as ours

Dark green are acceptable cultures

Orange are barbarians currently being educated

Red are areas that will need some work in the future

Vijayanagar: Part 10: 1555-1567: How Many Indians Died for This Name Placement?

Coalition kept growing, including briefly my disloyal former ally Afghanistan, but they got kicked out during Jaunpur war.

I finally got the holy site for third missionary from Jaunpur. If I knew, I'd have done it a lot earlier.

Then thanks to great work by my diplomats - who insulted strategically chosen coutries - coalition fell apart. Then it reemerged. AI is really indecisive.

I started my Golden Age in 1559, it will last until 1609.

I had a lot of wars, but none of them dificult. Delhi got into alliance with the Mamluks, so I couldn't 100% them without making far more effort than it could possibly be worth.

Afghanistan lost all its alliances and was fighting all its neighbours, so I took as much as my OE would allow.

I got Punjab and Assam integrated, diplovassalized Champa and Pasai. I'm working on diplovassalizing newly spawned Yarkand, newly spawned Hsenwi, and distant Majapahit.

Ottomans got coalition war against themselves, while fighting League War on Reformed side. They lost the League war, which ended up in Catholic HRE, but they're winning against the coalition.

I'm at only 4/15 Bharat missions done, but I don't expect any major difficulties from now to the finish.

My missions are telling me to finish India, and conquer Indochina, Persia, and Arabia

That's pretty much what I was going to do anyway

One for 100% religious unity might be hard with just 3 missionaries and weak bonuses

I could vassalize someone who takes religious I guess

Ming lost alliance with Korea, so Shun should seriously attack them and take the mandate

No idea what are they waiting for

Vijayanagar: Part 09: 1541-1555: Fall of Ming

I have a lot of great scripts to run analysis of my campaigns. Some of them are for debugging, or just out of curiosity, but there's also really interesting ones like this AE report:

• Jaunpur 487.18 [Truce until 1555-06-30]
• Delhi 474.28 [Truce until 1546-04-04]
• Baluchistan 265.08 [Truce until 1544-10-14]
• Chagatai 216.38 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Mewar 187.154 [Truce until 1553-02-27]
• Timurids 173.602 [Truce until 1545-01-14]
• Ava 157.44 [Truce until 1547-11-28]
• Mong Yang 128.44 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Mong Pai 123.44 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Mong Nai 119.44 [Truce until 1546-05-12]
• Transoxiana 110.602
• Pegu 103.506
• Lan Na 101.306 [Truce until 1547-11-28]
• Afghanistan 96.602 [Ally]
• Ayutthaya 82.306 [Truce until 1545-01-14]
• Tibet 78.988 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Dali 73.306 [Truce until 1545-01-14]
• Lan Xang 69.306
• Pasai 57.602 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Hormuz 56.602 [Ally]
• Malacca 55.602 [Truce until 1543-09-29]
• Kedah 53.602 [Truce until 1543-09-29]

Followed by long tail I'm skipping featuring entries like:

• Mamluks 34.602 [Truce until 1545-01-14]
• Ming 23.306
• Dhundhar 14.734 [Vassal]
• Champa 4.9 [Ally]
• Ajam 1.0 [Ally]

Interestingly save game doesn't contain truce expiration date, just "last_war" and "last_warscore". So no wonder actual truce expiration and truce expiration tooltip so often mismatch - each rounds it differently. Not to mention EU4 operates on 365 day calendar, so using any out of the box Date class won't quite work.

After coalition truces expires and minor war in which Pegu found itself integrated into Bharat, I thought the remaining countries won't have balls to coalition me, but they did. Chagatai, Transoxian, Lan Xang, and Tibet. After a few months it got disbanded.

Ming could finish their disaster by just losing this one province - which Shun definitely wanted as it disconnected their land. It's such 4D chess I'm sad it didn't work out for them.

Ming was suffering Unguarded Nomadic Frontier because Oirat horde grew to over 300dev and they were bordering them with one province.

They had the best idea ever - they started reconquest on Shun, got wrecked, and hoped Shun would take that one province in the peace deal.

It truns out it was unnecessary, as Oirats reformed themselves into a regular monarchy.

I took advantage of Ming being busy losing war and attacked Tibet, who was constant pain in my ass, but until now until Ming's protection.

Shun took a lot more than one province in that war. And after that Ming fragmented even more, losing their great power status to Hungary.

Meanwhile, I had a quick fight where Baluchistan ended and Punjab got their cores from Delhi.

Then it was time for Ayutthaya and related minors. And a few other very easy wars.

Punjab and Assam are my vassals.

Ming and Shun are about comparably strong dynasties, so I expect Shun to challenge Ming for the mandate when their truces expire. Korea allied both, so it's on good side of whoever wins.

My name placement is atrociously bad, I need to clean up all the minors in Indo-China so it's nice and horizontal.

There were a few other coalition attempts. Dali tried to form a coalition, but nobody else joined.

Then Malacca, Dawasir, Chagatai, Transoxiana, Kedah, and Ming. Ming would normally be a cause of concern, but they got wrecked really hard.

Afghanistan broke our alliance once our royal marriage ended with queen's death. I guess I should be paying more attention to my allies. They might join the coalition in a few months. It might look like I'm still in serious trouble, but number of potential coalition members keep shrinking and it's down to 16 countries.

Meanwhile I'm trying to get Champa, Pasai, Majapahit, and reemergent (so with no memories of my AE) Hsenwi as my vassals.

I'm also dev pushing the third time for printing press. I should be able to spawn Global Trade in my territory.

Meanwhile in the HRE, Catholic league led by emperor Saxony faces Reformed league led by archbishop of Münster. It's such a rare treat to see Reformed HRE (and it's a mod-only feature), I wish them best, even though I have no way to help them in any way.

I feel in desperate need of more missionaries. As a Christian it's stupidly easy to get 6-7:

• 1 base
• 1 religious ideas
• 1 Defender of the Faith
• 1 Jerusalem
• 1 Mecca
• 2 Counter-Reformation (Catholics only)
• 1 Rome (non-Catholics)
• 1 Alexandria (Coptic only)
• 1 Pentarchy (Orthodox only)

Muslims get up to 6 too. As Hindu I only have 2. It looks like Jaunpur holds our holy site at Varanasi which will give me 3rd. I don't think I can get more than that - there are no policies for extra missionaries.

I guess that's one factor I didn't consider in my religion rankings. I still think Hindu is fairly strong, but maybe they're not Muslim tier after all.

In theory my vassals could be converting, but so far that never happened. No idea if they broke something recent patch.

Vijayanagar: Part 08: 1538-1541: Bharat

Coalition wars destroyed all my diplomatic relations - leaving me with just Afghanistan as an ally, and Dhundhar, Assam, and Punjab as vassals.
I had 4 free slots, so I allied:

• Oirats - horde over 300dev which is making Ming get into another crisis
• Ajam - Shia country in Persia which really hates the same Sunnis as me
• Champa - Theravada country in South Vietnam I hoped to diplovassalize someday
• Hormuz - they were forced to break our allliance during coalition wars, but that timed out, so we allied again

I formed Bharat in February 1541, less than 97 years into the campaign. I only did 18/25 Vijayanagari missions, but the rest really weren't realistically doable for decades.

Bharat has new set of missions:

• 5 are about uniting parts of India, then followed by 6th which just rewards you for the whole set - I did 3 of them day one
• 3 are about conquests in Indochina
• 2 are about conquests in Persia
• 1 is about getting 100% religious unity
• 3 are about trade and development

I'd say if I do all that, wreck Ming, Mamluks, and maybe Ottomans, I'll count it as a win.

That got me a lot of claims over India and Burma, which aligns with my strategy nicely.

My army and navy are both at half of my force limit due to all the losses in coalition wars, but that should be enough.

Ming triggered Unguarded Nomadic Frontier disaster, I'll definitely help Oirats fight them if I get called into it.

I liked the Vijayanagari yellow color better, but this intense green is still fine

Vijayanagar: Part 07: 1531-1538: Wars of the Two Coalitions

Coalition happened. There are 37 countries over AE limit, and they're far too geographically dispersed to effectively truce juggle, so I need some serious plan.
I coul go West, but as soos as I conquer the first line of Sunni infidels, I'll get coalitioned even harder by everyone from Ottomans to Songhai.
Or I could go South-East - it will get worse at first, but eventually I'll reach the Pacific Ocean, and the only potential coalition members there will be the fish.
The fish have no guns, horses, or artillery, so the worst they can do is stink up the Ganges.

Of course the actual strategy will be more complicated and it will involve trying to get placate, threaten, truce juggle, or destroy various countries opportunistically.

And so I was doing some minor fights in East Asia. Mewar turned hostile and abandoned our alliance.

Coalition war triggered after all. Nogai, Aq Qoyunlu, Biapas, Brunei, Chagatai, Dawasir, Kedah, Malaca, Mong Pai, Mong Yang, Pasai, Shammar, Shewa, Siak, Sulu, Tibet.
Of my allies, Transoxiana and Lan Xang betrayed me. Afghanistan and Hormuz joined my side.

Balance of power wasn't too bad. 128k and 57 ships vs 128k and 77 ships. They never got even close to India. There was more ship sinking than any other action.

Then second coalition war triggered. Timurids, Aden, Ayutthaya, Cyprus, Dali, and Mamluks. Hormuz betrayed me, only Afghanistan stayed a loyal ally.
It was 115k and 41 ships vs 134k and 103 ships.

I don't think I ever had multiple coalition war at the same time.

There was a Muslim coup in Delhi, same as Bengal before. I think this is a bullshit event and shouldn't be in the game.

The first coalition war ended in 1538 with white peace, with 52k peasants dead on my side, and 123k and 42 ships on theirs.

The second coalition war ended just a few months later, with Timurids gaining one core 4dev province from Afghanistan. It cost us 75k and them 93k and 15 ships.

In the meantime I had a few tiny side wars, finally getting enough land to form Bharat, but I still need to core it and get extra stability.

List of haters shrunk from 37 to 22.

I now need to reestablish new alliances, and continue Plan East.

Meanwhile, Ming managed to end its crisis, passed third reform, almost recovered from that. There's one more problem on the horizon, as Oirats just passed 300dev, so they'll get Unguarded Nomadic Frontier. Shun is nowhere near being able to challenge them at 237dev to Ming's 784dev, but they managed to hold to Beijing.

I have 19/25 missions done, and I'll probably just form Bharat instead of finishing the rest, as they're asking for expansion into Arabia, East Africa and Malacca.

First Coalition War

OPM Nogai really overambitious here

I occupied minors to my East, and sunk a lot of ships but it felt fairly uneventful.

Now with simultaneous Second First Coalition War

I even ended up fighting the Mamluks in Afghanistan and lost a battle. There was a lot more fighting in territory of my vassal Assam.

Vijayanagar: Part 06: 1516-1531: The Shun Rebellion

My ruler got cruel for +2 unrest, his wife was a heretic for +2 unrest, and then there was overextension, and such - reason to pick fights with the government started piling up.
I couldn't resign, as my last two heirs failed their swimming lessons.

Ming got his by their crisis and fell of valid rivals list. Ashikaga attacked their tributary Ryukyu, and won.

Shun rebelled against Ming, but then got double-teamed by Ming and Oirats - they lost a lot of land, but they kept Beijing.

Hindu rebels flipped Delhi Hindu. I hoped they'd fall apart instead like Bengal, but it's still something.

I integrated my vassals, and got new allies - Hormuz, Ayutthaya, and Lan Xang. Ayutthaya and Lan Xang hated each other, but covering both would let me clean up Burma area without much opposition. It didn't quite work, and Ayutthaya broke our alliance after event about claims gave up -50 relations. Oh well.

Instead I allied Transoxiana - and without them, Central Asian Sunni coalition against me is really unlikely.

I got into another big war, against Baluchistan and Delhi, supported by a lot of minors. I a lot of land, now missing only one province to form Bharat - province unfortunately held by my ally Mewar.

After the war, coalition finally happened. With 1598dev and strong vassals and allies, maybe it's a bit late.

Coalition right now is:

• Central Asian Hordes: Nogai, Chagatai
• Arabia: Dawasir
• Africa: Shewa
• Indonesia: Brunei, Malacca
• South-East Asia: Mong Yang, Mong Pai, Mong Nai

With obviously more to come from all those regions. Mamluks are above the threshold, but they're busy in some minor war right now.

It's nothing new, but EU4 AE formula is bullshit, especially those gloabl Sunni coalitions. Shewa and Brunei definitely shouldn't be getting AE on me. Is it counting distance by tiles, including sea tiles as one?

Considering how aggressively I've been expanding, most of the participants are only half-heartedly in it.

I'm not worried at all - Ottomans don't know I exist, Ming doesn't care about fights between barbarians, and my real targets will get instant war declaration.

If they actually attack, they'll have serious trouble getting into India or winning on seas.

This was the war which was a step to far for my enemies

I have powerful allies in each direction so anyone fighting me will have hard time

Great Powers mode.

My borders are pretty much like modern India, except I have holes in my country

Aragon won't form Spain as Grenada survives as Morocco's OPM vassal

It's not the first time I'm seeing this problem (except generally Castile's fault)

Switching to Ming view, it's handling its crisis remarkably well for an AI

It just needs to end the rebels and crisis is over

It could literally do it by one button press - accept peasants' demands for autonomy, done.

AI is really passive about it, it will neither accept rebel demands nor fight rebels ASAP. So more rebels spawn before those are dealt with and so on.

Ming can still lose if it tries to pass third imperial reform while in the middle of the crisis.

Vijayanagar: Part 05: 1508-1516: Conquest of Bengal

Bengal sold me a shitty 3dev province for 200 gold. I got one of Assam's core from Kachar by just asking nicely. Bengal's capital Gauda defected to Assam due to Hindu rebels. It's not much, but I enjoy getting those easy wins.

I converted OPM next to Jaunpur from Sikh to Hindu for next age's objective, and took all the money from Jaunpur.

Then I got into a big war against Delhi, supported by non-cobeligerent Baluchistan and Bengal, to connect my vassals.

After that I removed two remaining OPMs.

During war with Delhi, I made sure to leave Bengal to Hindu rebels, losing big battle on purpose to transfer half-finished siege to them. A few years later it paid off - almost whole Bengal defected to newly recreated Kalinjar, which got attacked in first week of its existence. And good that I acted fast as it took Jaunpur about a month to guarantee them.

Sunnis really hate me, everyone from Mamluks to Brunei has -39 AE or worse. At least the Ottomans never heard of my existence. I'm not sure why none of them have balls to coalition me.

Age of Reformation just started, and just on time, as I'm a few months away from finishing religious ideas, and Deus Vulting their ass.

My ideas are:

• administrative - just first two for now
• religious - all the way
• next is trade - it's really great for countries without colonies and trade companies, at least until next patch rebalances it

I'm already a lot stronger than Ming - by my favourite metric of income 105 vs 80, and their about to hit Crisis of the Ming Dynasty in two years.

I'm really close to getting all of India, and coalition is yet to be seen.

Jaisamer, Dhundhar, Kumaon, Gorkha, Ladakh, and Assam are my vassals.

One idea is to let Sunnis chill a bit while I conquer Buddhists of South-East Asia, as nobody cares about those, but Ming would still protect them. If Ming explodes however, it's free real estate.

Muslims all hate me. However, Arabs, Africans, and Indonesians only somewhat so, Turks don't know who I am, Indians are truce-locked, half of Persians are Shia, so it's just mostly a Central Asian problem - and they're too busy fighting each other to create a coalition.

This good fortune won't last forever.

Vijayanagar: Part 04: 1489-1508: Empire of Vijayanagar

Peasant War started ticking, fortunately these days game provides enough toys to get some extra manpower to deal with it. Then I had Brahmins trying to take over, but that's even easier to deal with.

I didn't have any easy targets near me, but my vassal Ghorka had a few neighbours.

Mewar broke my tranquility by calling me into their war against Delhi, for my exact claim against Delhi.
I sieged down nearly whole Delhi, but Mewar decided to take zero land, and peaced them out for just some cash. Bastards!

My diplomacy kept advancing, with previous vassals getting integrated, and Kumaon and Jaisalmer taking their place.

Finally I ran out of easy targets, so I got into a fight with Bengal with non-cobeligerent Delhi. Then with my key allies Mewar and Jaunpur in the war, I could clean up central India.

Unfortunately due to the way wars worked, with coring blocked by other wars, once it was over I had to go 178% OE. As soon as I peaced out Janpur broke our alliance, and Muslims deep into Central Asia were threatening to coalition me. Even Mamluks were over -40, and I barely started my conquests.

I got myself emperor title after that, but then my country went in flames. Everyone rebelled, my ruler died fighting some rebels getting me to -2 stability, Peasant War and Internal Conflicts kept ticking up, and I barely stopped that. Fortunately tranquillity finally returned.

I had to burn a lot of mana to dev push my new capital for Colonialism, but it's going to be a while until it spreads far enough to adopt. It was also really bad timing, as I was too low on all mana I could use to deal with my country's issues.

While my country was burning, the diplomats were busy abroad. With bribes and nice words the coalition was at least postposed. But it will happen for sure. I got myself new vassals - Assam, Ladakh, and Dhundhar.

Unfortunately my long time ally Pegu got conquered by overachieving OPM Prome. I guess it watched DDRJake and wanted to give it a go too.

I'm at 17/25 missions done. There will be more missions after I form Bharat.

Ming recovered mandate after first reform, but lost a bit of land in process, with some minors in South China becoming their tributaries.

I'd say I'm now stronger than Ming even at their full power, and they'll inevitably get into another crisis real soon now.

Meanwhile in Europe, it looks like Castile tried to get independent of Aragon, and lost that war.

It's a very impressive chain of vassals and allies going all the way from Assam to borders of Persia

It's separated from my realm my narrow band of hostile Muslim blobs - Baluchistan, Delhi, Jaunpur, and Bengal.

Jaisamer is also a disconnected vassal, but Hindu Mewar is friendly so it's fine.

I don't think I'll be able to keep Afghanistan as an ally long term, it's entangled on enemy side of the alliance chains.

I'll have to fight them soon, and I'll get coalition from Mamluks to Brunei at some point.

The Yellow Triangle is bigger every time.

Vijayanagar: Part 03: 1474-1489: End of Tamil Insurgency

Diplomatic meddling my Malwa and Mewar prevented any easy wars. I used that break in expansion to get second admin idea for for -25% core creation cost, so it wasn't too bad.

I got the age ability to fabricate claims next to claims, and managed to snake them way into an OPM to distract Mewar without triggering anything major. It cost me 20 favors so I milked that for 4 wars in which Mewar would otherwise interfere, in addition to actually killing that OPM. I still had to fight Malwa.

I finally got rid of Tamil insurgency events, unlocking main part of my mission chain. There's a way to do this in 1444, but it's the first time I'm playing the new mission tree, so I had no idea. Oh well. That's 13/25 missions done.

Bengal at some point flipped Hindu, managed to crush what was left of Orissa, but then went Muslim again by a coup. Damn infidel oppressors need to be thrown back into the dessert.

Bengal then allied their fellow sultanate Malwa. So it's me and Mewar vs the infidels. After the war Mewar collapsed, and Hindu Garha popped up in most of their remaining land.

Timurids conquered Sistan who started the independence league. They also annexed their one loyal vassal Fars. It was going so well, then they fell apart to rebels, and a new even bigger Sistan got reborn. Also Fars. Then Afghanistan took over half of New Sistan.

Central India is mostly fine, so I diplovassalized Gorkha, and maybe I'll expand there next. It's not connected to my mainland other than my territory of my ally Jaunpur, but how long this alliance will last is anyone's guess.

This slow push North is really increasing my power. My income increased from 50 to 76 in this short time, more than anyone else in the world. Ming is suffering consequences of first imperial reform, so maybe they'll just fall apart without my help.

Mewar, Orissa, and what was left of Gujarat are all gone.

There was a brief Timurid resurgence, but that's over now.

Mamluks are big, and Ottomans are getting into fights as far as Khorasan, so I might need another intervention or to.

So far I've been trying my best to avoid fighting Delhi or my allies (Mewar, Jaunpur, Afghanistan, Pegu).

Great Powers map. Aragon having PU over Castile is the only unusual thing here.

Vijayanagar: Part 02: 1461-1474: Fall of Orissa

I had a quick war against the Bahmanis. After that I got event to move capital to Bidar, which it renamed Kalyana, but then unrenamed on next monthly tick. Wat?
I renamed it back to Kalyana. The citizens must be really confused by all that. I thought it would at least give me a free core, but no such luck.

Anyway, free capital moves are actually great for multiple dev pushes, and it's just a better province with silk and grassland instead of grain and drylands.

What was not fun was that it moved my trade capital to wrong node. I didn't notice this for a few years until I noticed baffling "You have no income from trade" while switching tabs about my country.
It's not even supposed to be possible to transfer trade past my trade capital, it should automatically free those merchants or switch them to collecting so I'd notice that. Oh well. 500 ducats or so down the drain.

I also finally got Golconda gem mine - I could have taken in first war, but I didn't notice this crazy rich province.

I got into a war with Orissa with Jaunpur's help. Orissa had 4 annoying vassals and far too many allies. It was too many forts for me to handle, and Jaunpur ended up bailing out halfway, so I just grabbed 4 of the forts in minor peace deal.

Weirdly last of Orissa's vassals got annexed by Patna, and Orissa and Patna got allied. Is this another weird event? It's not something I'd have normally noticed even playing near India. Maybe it happens every time, who knows.

Malwa tried to block my moves, spamming guarantees like they're Britain in HoI4, but they got distracted in Baglana-Bahmanis war, so I grabbed all of Patna. Maybe dishonoring guarantees should cancel all other guarantees and prevent a country from making more for 5 years? Just an idea.

There was another clusterfun in Gujarat area, so I tried to expand there and diplovassalize some minors, but Mewar sniped a few provinces in front of me, and they don't want to become my vassals due to distance. Mewar is allied with both me and Bahmanis, and well as 5 minors, so we'll see how this is going to go. I might distract them with some OPM war, then fight Bahmanis.

Taking administrative as my first ideas, not much surprise there.

All this slow expansion doesn't look like much on the map, but the country is also building up with temples and barracks, rebels calm down, control over trade gets stronger, and Golconda gem mine is mining some serious gems. With income of 50 gold/month I'm far ahead of anyone else except Ming's 80.

Meanwhile elsewhere, Aragon got a PU over extremely disloyal Castile. I really wish them luck. Saxony is the HRE. I don't think I'll really deal with Europe this campaign, so I'll just grab the popcorn and watch once the map uncovers.

India looks deceptively similar to before

Situation in Central India changed very rapidly last decade. Chanda and Andhra are my vassals, Orissa and Bahmanis fell apart, Mewar and Malwa are trying to play politics. Gujayar area is a total mess.

Vijayanagar: Part 01: 1444-1461: Fall of the Timurids

I want an easy relaxing game. So Vijayanagar, do all missions, conquer Greater India, form Bharat, make sure any nearby blobs like Timurids, Ming (and possibly Ottomans, Mamluks, or Russia if they get close) are properly wrecked - either by me, or by circumstances.

I'll probably stay Hindu, as India is almost all Hindu, it's a nearly top tier religion, and nearby alternatives like Confucians, Sikhs, various Buddhists and Pagans are all godawful. Muslims are about the same tier as Hindus, so that's a reasonable flip, but if I wanted to do that, I might just as well start as an Indian Muslim.

My religion tier list for the Old World is:

• S: Orthodox and Coptic
• A: Hindu, all Muslims
• B: Catholics, Protestants, Norse, Shinto
• C: Reformed, all Buddhists, Tengri
• D: Anglican, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Sikh, various Pagans (do nothing generic religions)
• F: Confucian (as I found during my Korean game, way worse than that)

Exact position of these could be argued up or down a tier of course.

There are some difficulties I can see:

• I'll need to dev push maybe as much as 3 times, there aren't any great places to dev push.
• I risk some nasty coalitions from Brunei to Morrocco once I start expanding into Muslim-occupied India, as AE in EU4 is broken. Fortunately India has so many culture groups this will dampen AE

India gets into instant clusterfun mode every time, and it's anybody's guess who's going to be top powers. This time it was Vijayanagar, Jaunpur, and Sirhind (which then reformed Delhi)

So the usual start. Deleting all forts, hiring level 1 advisors, building to force limit, milking all estates. I gave my heir swimming lessons, which ended up quite poorly.

I rivalled Gujarat, Bahmanis, and Bengal. Then I sent alliance offers to Malwa, Orissa, and Pegu, in addition to my existing alliance with Andhra.

Sirhind started with the first war in the world on 22 November 1444, attacking Delhi by event, before official wars can start. Delhi didn't last one year. Then Sirhind formed Delhi. It's as if nothing really happened.

Unfortunately my Indian estates can't give me any generals, and with my army tradition it felt like a waste to even roll one, so I got my ruler into an awful 0/1/3/0.

The war was annoying as Bahmanis had far too many forts, and I had no cannons, and no siege generals. Orissa and Malwa helped me, but then after disagreement as to division of spoils of war they broke our alliance. So I allied Mewar and Jaunpur in their place.

I had a mission to deal with autonomy of Tamil provinces, so I mass reduced autonomy everywhere. Unfortunately that's still far from enough.

Bengal lost a war to my ally Mewar defending some OPM, lost half its territory, and so I eclipsed my first rival. Well, Orissa it is then.

Another mission I had was to get war reparations from 3 countries, and reward was development cost discount in my capital, so I really needed that before Renaissance dev push. I got into a minor war against Mysore and friends just for that.

After that I dev pushed my capital to 38 to get Renaissance, cleaned up South India, in process Andhra ended up as my vassal.

Fun and Balance gives Timurids 8 diplo slots instead of vanilla's 4, so they could pick any 3 allies. Najd, Dawasir, and Biapas wouldn't be my first choices.

I think their vassals could have decent chance to win even unsupported, but they weren't willing to pull the trigger.

Vassals of the Timurids really needed a push, so I told them I'd support their independence, and they pulled the trigger. On paper it's a 57k vs 35k war, but there's just this one awkward issue that it's really inconvenient for me to get there. What was very convenient was just sending my boats to blockade Timurids.

Then once I crushed all my rebels, I landed my entire army, and got 60% war participation. I got nothing out of it except some petty cash, and not even any favors - probably because the country which triggered (Sistan) wasn't the one I supported (Afghanistan). Oh well, Timurids lost 4/5 of its vassals and 9 provinces.

I transferred all my occupations to encourage some greed. It paid off.

All that got me from not even being a great power into being 2nd on the list.
So far only 3 missions are done. 4 more would be done, but I can't click the button as they're in wrong order.

Jaffa and Andhra are my vassals, Chanda is my likely future vassal.

Afghanistan, Mewar, Jaunpur, and Pegu are my allies.

For now no coalitions are forming, but that won't last much longer.