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.