Well, let me just start with "finally, I did it!" What seemed to be an impossible task proved to actually be a lot easier than I thought. I would very much like to encourage everyone who thought about attempting the achievement to do so, and now that I went through it, I'd also like to give you a helping hand and share all the things I learned and which helped me along the way.
Let's start from the end
Achievement pop-up
Proof the tiny achievement popped up.
Now, as for some tips/guide. For the first 50-ish years, there is no better guide than AlzaboHD's. I used his Vassal Swarm strategy for this run and it was very successful. His opening moves are the ones I attempted and needed only 3-4 restarts to finally get the hang of it and complete the first part successfully.
This is how the map looked like in 1500:
1500
- I vassalized half the Manchurian tribes
- went as further east as I could in order to discover Alaska and spawn the colonialism institution which I was lucky enough to actually get from the first try
- was setting a foot in the south by already having vassalized Ternate and other minors
- acquired the Renaissance institution by developing Settsu (got it to 38 dev at this point)
At this point, there are a few bottlenecks which I want to talk about:
- manpower: you will only have 3-4 provinces (or maybe a bit more if you decide to take more than 1 from Hosokawa in the first war). Because of this, your manpower pool will be limited! You will have to very carefully manage this because you won't be able to afford many mercenaries at this stage, however, don't be greedy and get a few regiments even if it will get you close to +0.00 ducats/mo
- vassals not being useful: because most are stuck on the island of Japan, you won't get much out of them. For the first few wars, at least in my experience and tries, you'll have to carry the burden yourself in order to secure a few vassals on land
- claims: if you are not paying attention, you will find yourself unable to start a war you want to fight because you do not have a claim prepared. During this time, claims are really, really hard to get, especially in the south. It is a strong necessity that you use the "Transfer Subject" splendor ability which also allows you to chain claims. Chain the claims from China all the way down to the Moluccas. This will take planning so plan ahead! (but more on this later)
Your main source of income right now should be a mix of Vassal Income contribution and trade. By 1500 most of your Japanese daimyos should be loyal to you and you should be diverting trade from all of them as long as it doesn't get them above 50% Liberty DesireDon't be afraid to use your government ability to lower LD at this point but note that it will be rendered obsolete pretty soon.
Let's move on 50 or so years
1550
By 1550, I had conquered most of Manchuria and was struggling to get as west as possible because Russia was just formed by former Muscovy. The point here is to create a barrier north of Uzbek with a colonist so that Russia cannot expand eastward - it's not a hard necessity but it just makes your life so much easier. I was also lucky in a sense that Ming absolutely imploded
Ming by 1550
Let's talk about a few bottlenecks during this time:
- Geography: at this point, your "Empire" is rather small but it ranges a few thousand kilometers. You need to fight wars in Eastern Europe (Kazan/Russia) and also in South-Western Asia (Spice Islands, Moluccas, etc.) Your strength is stretched thin, "like butter scraped over too much bread" Your Manchurian vassals are getting more and more useful but cannot yet carry a war on their own. Your southern island-y vassals help with almost nothing during wars.- claims: claims remain an issue at this point and all this was exacerbated by a mistake I made which I will talk about just a bit later on
By now you might be wondering what ideas I had, so let's talk about those for a while. First of all, in the options menu, before even starting the campaign, I set the "No limits on Idea Groups" to Yes. That basically allowed me to take 2x diplomatic idea groups without an issue
No idea group limitations (100% compatible with Iron Man)
Now as for actual ideas, I had:
- Exploration: for colonialism and blocking Russia/expanding in Americas- Influence: for the absolutely amazing liberty desire decrease, vassal income and maybe most importantly, unjustified demands reduction- Humanist: for what I thought was reducing chances of rebellions, but this is actually the biggest mistake I made this run (referenced a bit earlier) but I'll tackle it in the next section
In 1600, the map looked like this:
1600
Quite a bit of land eaten compared to 1550.
I was finally feeling the strength of my vassals. It is also roughly during this time that I had moved my trade capital to the Malacca trade node thus effectively doubling my trade income. I also developed Settsu to around 60 development after Printing Press arrived so I could grab that. I had many points to spare honestly. I also picked up my next idea group - ***Diplomatic.***
Wars in South-Eastern Asia were a breeze, I could chain them easily and simply vassalize all the small countries in one war, break the bigger ones in pieces with ease etc. I want to expand a bit about all the ways you can eat countries up because it differs quite a lot from "normal" contest. So here are a few things to consider when eating a country up until the age of absolutism - there, things change a bit and I'll talk about that later as well.
- returning cores to vassals you already own is cheaper in war score than conquering and then giving the provinces to them. I should have done my homework on this, but I don't know exactly why it's the case. Up until I had around 80-ish absolutism, I could just return cores to vassals I already own and that cost me less than conquering them in the peace deal. Maybe someone can help out with explaining this?
- you can force bigger nations to release smaller ones and vassalize those. When you do this, you get +100 relation with the released country from the start and they are more than willing to enter an alliance with you => you need to give them some petty gold, maybe RM (avoid if you have too many relations) and improve relations and voila, once you reach +190 opinion, you'll be able to vassalize them without ever going to war. Oh, and the penalty for being too far to vassalize doesn't apply if you have a vassal bordering them already. Useful stuff!
Now for some bottlenecks which pop-up at around 1600:
- aggressive expansion: regardless of how many vassals you have, coalitions will form. They will most likely not declare on you, but they're still annoying as they slow expansion down if you're not careful. This is why I allied Commonwealth, the largest country I could ally back then. I kept them as an ally up until ~1750. Still, even though coalitions never declared on me, they still formed!
- bird mana: oh man, how this will bite you in the ass right about now. You can't make proper claims on neighbors. You leave one province at the border of your empire which you use to make claims on neighboring countries which you want to attack but that will give you what, 1-2 claims on the same country? 3 if you are lucky. Because you can now gobble up more and more land, even though you have -50% unjustified demands from influence ideas, that still will not be enough! You will quickly find yourself with -200 or -300 mana after eating up more countries in one war, and that takes a lot of time to recover from. This ties in with that mistake I said I made, and I'll explain it here.I should not have taken Humanist ideas but instead should have gone for Religious. The reasoning is simple. Humanist turned up to be almost useless because I gave away most of my land and the one I didn't give away was always near a war and my vassals would take care of any rebels. Furthermore, with Religious, I would have gotten an amazing CB - Deus Vult. With this, you can eat up all the land you want and no bird-mana will be taken from you. I was at -200 bird mana at this point and had 3 more wars planned, 1 click away each. I knew I couldn't go further so I gave up a 7/7 humanist group and took religious. This set me back a few good years, like 10-ish, but boy, was it worth it.The moment I gained that CB, I started conquering like crazy. The technique was simple. Eat land (releasing vassals, returning cores etc. etc.) but always make sure to leave 1 province of your own bordering the next target(s). I didn't even bother coring those provinces because once they had no neighbors on which I could declare on, I would give them away to a vassal.
Let's move on to ~1650
1651
As I said, Deus Vult was a beast. In just 50 years I ate up most of India, central Asia and was pushing hard on the Mamluks and Arabian peninsula. It is during this time, in roughly 1617 that Absolutism makes its appearence. I took another idea group and that was Administrative - I took it for a later synergy with another idea group and for mercenary bonuses. Let's talk a bit about that in our bottleneck section.
Bottlenecks in ~1650:
- absolutism: I think it comes as no surprise that with just 29 provinces (that's how many I had at this time, out of which maybe 20 were full cores?) and 290 total development, conventional methods of farming absolutism fall apart. I couldn't properly spawn particularist rebels nor would it have been that much useful even if I did. I could end up lowering the autonomy in just a few provinces. Sure, lowering the autonomy in Settsu which had 60 development by now gave me around 6 absolutism, but that's still far away from what I wanted to get to which was, of course, 100. Luckily, I was in no shortage of military power as I never invested in generals (always took conscripted them from my daimyos) and so, I slowly but steadily gained absolutism by using harsh treatment on everything I could lay my finger on. I initially planned on firing the court and country disaster, but found myself not needing it. Maybe you will disagree on this, but honestly, I just didn't feel the need to deal with that so I reached 100 absolutism by roughly 1650, which isn't great, but it's not that bad either. As a first splendor ability I went for +1 yearly absolutism.
- manpower: this is the point at which I started having constant 0 manpower and from roughly now until the end of the game, I completely relied on mercenaries. I was swimming in gold from both trade and vassal income so I could afford it.
- big, blobby countries: this is roughly when you will be fighting your first big wars. I was lucky enough not to have to fight Ming but the Timurids were rather scary and then the Ottomans were waiting in the line as well. Don't be afraid! It looks more frightening than it is. Your vassals will destroy them pretty fast but will still require your help in doing so. The biggest disadvantage of using the new CB is that it relies on battles being won as a war goal. Careful how you manage those battles, make sure to help your vassals as they're many times dimwitted when it comes to pursuing this war goal and will often times lose needless battles. Don't be a prick to them either, if you can and are swimming in gold, pay up their debts, send them some money!
Going on, 1700!
1701
Now by this time, I was feeling comfortable. I gobbled up most of Asia, set a proper foot in Mexico and won my first 2 wars with the Ottomans. Oh, my ally, Commonwealth was actually pretty handy in this as I had many favors with him up until now and could call him in wars against the Ottomans who were actually pretty hard to beat. They had quantity and offensive and boy were my vassals stupid sometimes. I also ate up Scandinavia quite easily as they had no real allies but this drew a bit of attention towards me from Europe (AE) where I was finally being noticed. By 1700 I had already finished my next and maybe the most important idea group left - Offensive. Here are the policies which I got after this:
Policies
I simply cannot stress enough how important the first one is. When I got that, I doubled my monthly income instantly. It was crazy. By completing offensive I was able to hire and field more mercenaries, siege things down faster and afford any luxury I wanted. The synergies offered by Administrative and Offensive ideas coupled up with all the other more "mandatory" groups are wild and make your life that much easier.
Bottlenecks during this period:
- truces: I was mostly left with a heavily colonized/chartered Africa and Europe. HRE was still a thing and, unfortunately, Commonwealth was part of it, even becoming Emperor a few times. Look at this monster
Monster HRE
- Europe in general is a big bottleneck if HRE is still around at this point because of all the AE. Again, no one will have the guts to declare on you, but it slows you down as most OPMs/small nations and also large ones join lengthy coalitions which take years to break down. Oh, it didn't help that I ate the whole of Italy in just 1 war a bit later on...
Going further! 1750:
1751
I conquered most of Europe in 50 years. With 100 absolutism I ate Italy in 1 war, France in 2 and fully annexed it and released it so I can get all the colonies without having to eat them up as well. If you didn't already deal with colonials by now, this is the way to go in my opinion, but it's the most annoying thing ever. More on this, in the bottlenecks section. My next (and last) idea group was quality. I needed bulky troops and bulky ships because I was about to fight colonizers who had both. Slowly strengthened my fleet as well just so I can have at least 70 havies (GB had around 180 by now)
Bottlenecks by 1751:
- sailors: how can I say this... you have 42 provinces out of which maybe 30 are cored. You can't possibly expect them to generate enough sailors for a proper navy. Some of you might hit this problem earlier, but I dealt with it with some degree of ease up until now because I always made sure I had a bigger navy then my enemies and with the Navy policy thingy "+33% chance to capture enemy ship", I got ships for free basically, without paying in sailors/ducats. But now, you're about to be fighting the big boyz of the navy - the colonizers.
- colonizers: by now, if you didn't already take care of most of the New World (and I didn't...) then Portugal, Spain, France and Great Britain are omnipresent there. I have to admit, I slacked a lot when it came to the new world, and this ended up biting me in the ass later on. Look how the Americas looked in 1701
1751 - Americas
Portugal was an absolute beast. By now kinda have to be fighting them and they proved to be the worst thing to deal with during my run. My tactic was to eat their non-colony land and fully annex them that way => I would be getting their colonies once that happens, then quickly release them as vassals. I hit a few problems with this:
- it takes around 3 wars to fully annex a colonizer like Portugal or Spain in my case. France took just two, but it was smaller than both of them.
- let's say you eat up 1/3 of Portugal. Easy for the first war (make sure to get the "Ignore coring range" splendor ability and eat all provinces with forts on first!) but then in subsequent wars, you'll have to fight within colonies as well because there's less land to capture in their home provinces. In my case, I was fighting huge colonies with a lot of ships and a lot of troops. Wars dragged for 4-6 years sometimes just because I didn't properly prepare to fight the colonies, I always thought I could easily just land 60k troops from the mainland and destroy them, but colonies are not primitives! They have strong troops and a shit-ton of them, too! In retrospect, I would have planted more stacks in the Americas just so I can properly take care of them and not drag wars for so long. This slowed me down by at least 15 to 20 years.
- once you capture land from colonizers in the first 1 or 2 wars and are pushing for the third, you will most likely not 1) want to or 2) be able to core all that land. It doesn't affect you all that much, you give away most of it but some, either forts which are deep within their country with no connection to your vassals or some God forsaken islands in the middle of nowhere, you cannot. I will talk about those God forsaken islands because they cost me a few years as well. During my final war with Portugal and Spain, because I had eaten those islands from them in the first wars, rebels popped up on them. Portuguese or Spanish separatists. You don't even bother with them honestly, they have nowhere to go, they can't enforce their demands because they conquered too little land, you have other priorities, BUT, when you finally finish that last war and oh Gosh, you ate up every. single. province with exactly 100% war score and you got all the colonies yourself and you are at 300% over-extension but f*ck it because you can simply release the nation as a vassal, that is whe you realize that... you can't. Because one freaking island in the middle of nowhere with 3 development is occupied by 10k separatists who have nothing better to do in life than screw with your. You can't release a vassal if any of their provinces is occupied. And for this you have to send a transport with at least 20k troops which take at least 1 year to get there. You are at 300% OE for 1-2 years because of this and trust me, it's just a drag...
- Great Britain: Yeah, this one deserves a mention of its own. Luckily, it was rather tiny when it came to colonial land because for whatever reason, Portugal was the absolute unit when it came to colonies, but landing foot on the island of Great Britain was an achievement in itself. With almost 200 heavies, my vassals didn't even dare come close with their ships. Heck, Denmark had around 40 but never left the port in fear. With dumb luck and prayers I was finally able to put 60k troops on there hammer all their piss troops and grab some land for the next war, but damn!
By this time, Commonwealth finally decided that I'm not what I look like and that province count wasn't a good enough metric to calculated "threat to world conquest" by, so they dropped their alliance with me. Unfortunately, they couldn't get any other (proper) alliances by now and were subsequently gobbled up by "my crew".
In 1795, I was done:
1795 - done
It took me around 2 weeks to finish this run. I don't know how many hours I played, but I mostly played on speed 4. In retrospect, if I were to do it again, based on everything I learned, I think I could do it by 1750-ish or sooner. It's been a lot of fun though, I have to admit. It's not as much of a grind as a "normal" WC is, to be honest. It's a lot more fun. Conscripting a 5/6/6/5 general from a daimyo is just priceless and the feeling you get when it is all over is such a relief!
I encourage any one of you to try it out. It's really worth it. If you have any questions or think I forgot about something, by all means, ask!Oh, and yes, I did save-scum a few times, but mostly my game crashed unexpectedly right after my 6/5/3 heir died and a 1/0/2 took its place. I think it's allergic to bullshit -.-
Take good care!
submitted by legzander to eu4 [link] [comments] Let's start from the end
Achievement pop-up
Proof the tiny achievement popped up.
Now, as for some tips/guide. For the first 50-ish years, there is no better guide than AlzaboHD's. I used his Vassal Swarm strategy for this run and it was very successful. His opening moves are the ones I attempted and needed only 3-4 restarts to finally get the hang of it and complete the first part successfully.
This is how the map looked like in 1500:
1500
- I vassalized half the Manchurian tribes
- went as further east as I could in order to discover Alaska and spawn the colonialism institution which I was lucky enough to actually get from the first try
- was setting a foot in the south by already having vassalized Ternate and other minors
- acquired the Renaissance institution by developing Settsu (got it to 38 dev at this point)
At this point, there are a few bottlenecks which I want to talk about:
- manpower: you will only have 3-4 provinces (or maybe a bit more if you decide to take more than 1 from Hosokawa in the first war). Because of this, your manpower pool will be limited! You will have to very carefully manage this because you won't be able to afford many mercenaries at this stage, however, don't be greedy and get a few regiments even if it will get you close to +0.00 ducats/mo
- vassals not being useful: because most are stuck on the island of Japan, you won't get much out of them. For the first few wars, at least in my experience and tries, you'll have to carry the burden yourself in order to secure a few vassals on land
- claims: if you are not paying attention, you will find yourself unable to start a war you want to fight because you do not have a claim prepared. During this time, claims are really, really hard to get, especially in the south. It is a strong necessity that you use the "Transfer Subject" splendor ability which also allows you to chain claims. Chain the claims from China all the way down to the Moluccas. This will take planning so plan ahead! (but more on this later)
Your main source of income right now should be a mix of Vassal Income contribution and trade. By 1500 most of your Japanese daimyos should be loyal to you and you should be diverting trade from all of them as long as it doesn't get them above 50% Liberty DesireDon't be afraid to use your government ability to lower LD at this point but note that it will be rendered obsolete pretty soon.
Let's move on 50 or so years
1550
By 1550, I had conquered most of Manchuria and was struggling to get as west as possible because Russia was just formed by former Muscovy. The point here is to create a barrier north of Uzbek with a colonist so that Russia cannot expand eastward - it's not a hard necessity but it just makes your life so much easier. I was also lucky in a sense that Ming absolutely imploded
Ming by 1550
Let's talk about a few bottlenecks during this time:
- Geography: at this point, your "Empire" is rather small but it ranges a few thousand kilometers. You need to fight wars in Eastern Europe (Kazan/Russia) and also in South-Western Asia (Spice Islands, Moluccas, etc.) Your strength is stretched thin, "like butter scraped over too much bread" Your Manchurian vassals are getting more and more useful but cannot yet carry a war on their own. Your southern island-y vassals help with almost nothing during wars.- claims: claims remain an issue at this point and all this was exacerbated by a mistake I made which I will talk about just a bit later on
By now you might be wondering what ideas I had, so let's talk about those for a while. First of all, in the options menu, before even starting the campaign, I set the "No limits on Idea Groups" to Yes. That basically allowed me to take 2x diplomatic idea groups without an issue
No idea group limitations (100% compatible with Iron Man)
Now as for actual ideas, I had:
- Exploration: for colonialism and blocking Russia/expanding in Americas- Influence: for the absolutely amazing liberty desire decrease, vassal income and maybe most importantly, unjustified demands reduction- Humanist: for what I thought was reducing chances of rebellions, but this is actually the biggest mistake I made this run (referenced a bit earlier) but I'll tackle it in the next section
In 1600, the map looked like this:
1600
Quite a bit of land eaten compared to 1550.
I was finally feeling the strength of my vassals. It is also roughly during this time that I had moved my trade capital to the Malacca trade node thus effectively doubling my trade income. I also developed Settsu to around 60 development after Printing Press arrived so I could grab that. I had many points to spare honestly. I also picked up my next idea group - ***Diplomatic.***
Wars in South-Eastern Asia were a breeze, I could chain them easily and simply vassalize all the small countries in one war, break the bigger ones in pieces with ease etc. I want to expand a bit about all the ways you can eat countries up because it differs quite a lot from "normal" contest. So here are a few things to consider when eating a country up until the age of absolutism - there, things change a bit and I'll talk about that later as well.
- returning cores to vassals you already own is cheaper in war score than conquering and then giving the provinces to them. I should have done my homework on this, but I don't know exactly why it's the case. Up until I had around 80-ish absolutism, I could just return cores to vassals I already own and that cost me less than conquering them in the peace deal. Maybe someone can help out with explaining this?
- you can force bigger nations to release smaller ones and vassalize those. When you do this, you get +100 relation with the released country from the start and they are more than willing to enter an alliance with you => you need to give them some petty gold, maybe RM (avoid if you have too many relations) and improve relations and voila, once you reach +190 opinion, you'll be able to vassalize them without ever going to war. Oh, and the penalty for being too far to vassalize doesn't apply if you have a vassal bordering them already. Useful stuff!
Now for some bottlenecks which pop-up at around 1600:
- aggressive expansion: regardless of how many vassals you have, coalitions will form. They will most likely not declare on you, but they're still annoying as they slow expansion down if you're not careful. This is why I allied Commonwealth, the largest country I could ally back then. I kept them as an ally up until ~1750. Still, even though coalitions never declared on me, they still formed!
- bird mana: oh man, how this will bite you in the ass right about now. You can't make proper claims on neighbors. You leave one province at the border of your empire which you use to make claims on neighboring countries which you want to attack but that will give you what, 1-2 claims on the same country? 3 if you are lucky. Because you can now gobble up more and more land, even though you have -50% unjustified demands from influence ideas, that still will not be enough! You will quickly find yourself with -200 or -300 mana after eating up more countries in one war, and that takes a lot of time to recover from. This ties in with that mistake I said I made, and I'll explain it here.I should not have taken Humanist ideas but instead should have gone for Religious. The reasoning is simple. Humanist turned up to be almost useless because I gave away most of my land and the one I didn't give away was always near a war and my vassals would take care of any rebels. Furthermore, with Religious, I would have gotten an amazing CB - Deus Vult. With this, you can eat up all the land you want and no bird-mana will be taken from you. I was at -200 bird mana at this point and had 3 more wars planned, 1 click away each. I knew I couldn't go further so I gave up a 7/7 humanist group and took religious. This set me back a few good years, like 10-ish, but boy, was it worth it.The moment I gained that CB, I started conquering like crazy. The technique was simple. Eat land (releasing vassals, returning cores etc. etc.) but always make sure to leave 1 province of your own bordering the next target(s). I didn't even bother coring those provinces because once they had no neighbors on which I could declare on, I would give them away to a vassal.
Let's move on to ~1650
1651
As I said, Deus Vult was a beast. In just 50 years I ate up most of India, central Asia and was pushing hard on the Mamluks and Arabian peninsula. It is during this time, in roughly 1617 that Absolutism makes its appearence. I took another idea group and that was Administrative - I took it for a later synergy with another idea group and for mercenary bonuses. Let's talk a bit about that in our bottleneck section.
Bottlenecks in ~1650:
- absolutism: I think it comes as no surprise that with just 29 provinces (that's how many I had at this time, out of which maybe 20 were full cores?) and 290 total development, conventional methods of farming absolutism fall apart. I couldn't properly spawn particularist rebels nor would it have been that much useful even if I did. I could end up lowering the autonomy in just a few provinces. Sure, lowering the autonomy in Settsu which had 60 development by now gave me around 6 absolutism, but that's still far away from what I wanted to get to which was, of course, 100. Luckily, I was in no shortage of military power as I never invested in generals (always took conscripted them from my daimyos) and so, I slowly but steadily gained absolutism by using harsh treatment on everything I could lay my finger on. I initially planned on firing the court and country disaster, but found myself not needing it. Maybe you will disagree on this, but honestly, I just didn't feel the need to deal with that so I reached 100 absolutism by roughly 1650, which isn't great, but it's not that bad either. As a first splendor ability I went for +1 yearly absolutism.
- manpower: this is the point at which I started having constant 0 manpower and from roughly now until the end of the game, I completely relied on mercenaries. I was swimming in gold from both trade and vassal income so I could afford it.
- big, blobby countries: this is roughly when you will be fighting your first big wars. I was lucky enough not to have to fight Ming but the Timurids were rather scary and then the Ottomans were waiting in the line as well. Don't be afraid! It looks more frightening than it is. Your vassals will destroy them pretty fast but will still require your help in doing so. The biggest disadvantage of using the new CB is that it relies on battles being won as a war goal. Careful how you manage those battles, make sure to help your vassals as they're many times dimwitted when it comes to pursuing this war goal and will often times lose needless battles. Don't be a prick to them either, if you can and are swimming in gold, pay up their debts, send them some money!
Going on, 1700!
1701
Now by this time, I was feeling comfortable. I gobbled up most of Asia, set a proper foot in Mexico and won my first 2 wars with the Ottomans. Oh, my ally, Commonwealth was actually pretty handy in this as I had many favors with him up until now and could call him in wars against the Ottomans who were actually pretty hard to beat. They had quantity and offensive and boy were my vassals stupid sometimes. I also ate up Scandinavia quite easily as they had no real allies but this drew a bit of attention towards me from Europe (AE) where I was finally being noticed. By 1700 I had already finished my next and maybe the most important idea group left - Offensive. Here are the policies which I got after this:
Policies
I simply cannot stress enough how important the first one is. When I got that, I doubled my monthly income instantly. It was crazy. By completing offensive I was able to hire and field more mercenaries, siege things down faster and afford any luxury I wanted. The synergies offered by Administrative and Offensive ideas coupled up with all the other more "mandatory" groups are wild and make your life that much easier.
Bottlenecks during this period:
- truces: I was mostly left with a heavily colonized/chartered Africa and Europe. HRE was still a thing and, unfortunately, Commonwealth was part of it, even becoming Emperor a few times. Look at this monster
Monster HRE
- Europe in general is a big bottleneck if HRE is still around at this point because of all the AE. Again, no one will have the guts to declare on you, but it slows you down as most OPMs/small nations and also large ones join lengthy coalitions which take years to break down. Oh, it didn't help that I ate the whole of Italy in just 1 war a bit later on...
Going further! 1750:
1751
I conquered most of Europe in 50 years. With 100 absolutism I ate Italy in 1 war, France in 2 and fully annexed it and released it so I can get all the colonies without having to eat them up as well. If you didn't already deal with colonials by now, this is the way to go in my opinion, but it's the most annoying thing ever. More on this, in the bottlenecks section. My next (and last) idea group was quality. I needed bulky troops and bulky ships because I was about to fight colonizers who had both. Slowly strengthened my fleet as well just so I can have at least 70 havies (GB had around 180 by now)
Bottlenecks by 1751:
- sailors: how can I say this... you have 42 provinces out of which maybe 30 are cored. You can't possibly expect them to generate enough sailors for a proper navy. Some of you might hit this problem earlier, but I dealt with it with some degree of ease up until now because I always made sure I had a bigger navy then my enemies and with the Navy policy thingy "+33% chance to capture enemy ship", I got ships for free basically, without paying in sailors/ducats. But now, you're about to be fighting the big boyz of the navy - the colonizers.
- colonizers: by now, if you didn't already take care of most of the New World (and I didn't...) then Portugal, Spain, France and Great Britain are omnipresent there. I have to admit, I slacked a lot when it came to the new world, and this ended up biting me in the ass later on. Look how the Americas looked in 1701
1751 - Americas
Portugal was an absolute beast. By now kinda have to be fighting them and they proved to be the worst thing to deal with during my run. My tactic was to eat their non-colony land and fully annex them that way => I would be getting their colonies once that happens, then quickly release them as vassals. I hit a few problems with this:
- it takes around 3 wars to fully annex a colonizer like Portugal or Spain in my case. France took just two, but it was smaller than both of them.
- let's say you eat up 1/3 of Portugal. Easy for the first war (make sure to get the "Ignore coring range" splendor ability and eat all provinces with forts on first!) but then in subsequent wars, you'll have to fight within colonies as well because there's less land to capture in their home provinces. In my case, I was fighting huge colonies with a lot of ships and a lot of troops. Wars dragged for 4-6 years sometimes just because I didn't properly prepare to fight the colonies, I always thought I could easily just land 60k troops from the mainland and destroy them, but colonies are not primitives! They have strong troops and a shit-ton of them, too! In retrospect, I would have planted more stacks in the Americas just so I can properly take care of them and not drag wars for so long. This slowed me down by at least 15 to 20 years.
- once you capture land from colonizers in the first 1 or 2 wars and are pushing for the third, you will most likely not 1) want to or 2) be able to core all that land. It doesn't affect you all that much, you give away most of it but some, either forts which are deep within their country with no connection to your vassals or some God forsaken islands in the middle of nowhere, you cannot. I will talk about those God forsaken islands because they cost me a few years as well. During my final war with Portugal and Spain, because I had eaten those islands from them in the first wars, rebels popped up on them. Portuguese or Spanish separatists. You don't even bother with them honestly, they have nowhere to go, they can't enforce their demands because they conquered too little land, you have other priorities, BUT, when you finally finish that last war and oh Gosh, you ate up every. single. province with exactly 100% war score and you got all the colonies yourself and you are at 300% over-extension but f*ck it because you can simply release the nation as a vassal, that is whe you realize that... you can't. Because one freaking island in the middle of nowhere with 3 development is occupied by 10k separatists who have nothing better to do in life than screw with your. You can't release a vassal if any of their provinces is occupied. And for this you have to send a transport with at least 20k troops which take at least 1 year to get there. You are at 300% OE for 1-2 years because of this and trust me, it's just a drag...
- Great Britain: Yeah, this one deserves a mention of its own. Luckily, it was rather tiny when it came to colonial land because for whatever reason, Portugal was the absolute unit when it came to colonies, but landing foot on the island of Great Britain was an achievement in itself. With almost 200 heavies, my vassals didn't even dare come close with their ships. Heck, Denmark had around 40 but never left the port in fear. With dumb luck and prayers I was finally able to put 60k troops on there hammer all their piss troops and grab some land for the next war, but damn!
By this time, Commonwealth finally decided that I'm not what I look like and that province count wasn't a good enough metric to calculated "threat to world conquest" by, so they dropped their alliance with me. Unfortunately, they couldn't get any other (proper) alliances by now and were subsequently gobbled up by "my crew".
In 1795, I was done:
1795 - done
It took me around 2 weeks to finish this run. I don't know how many hours I played, but I mostly played on speed 4. In retrospect, if I were to do it again, based on everything I learned, I think I could do it by 1750-ish or sooner. It's been a lot of fun though, I have to admit. It's not as much of a grind as a "normal" WC is, to be honest. It's a lot more fun. Conscripting a 5/6/6/5 general from a daimyo is just priceless and the feeling you get when it is all over is such a relief!
I encourage any one of you to try it out. It's really worth it. If you have any questions or think I forgot about something, by all means, ask!Oh, and yes, I did save-scum a few times, but mostly my game crashed unexpectedly right after my 6/5/3 heir died and a 1/0/2 took its place. I think it's allergic to bullshit -.-
Take good care!
