Haven't technically gotten 50 universities yet but its smooth sailing from here onwards. I only needed 1 attempt at this.
build up to 4 infantries and put one on morea, one on achaea, and 2 on constantinople. Get anyone to support your independence (I had genoa support mine). Wait until Ottos declare on the byzantines, the byzantine army should all be in constantinople. 1 day before the ottoman army arrives, declare independence on Byzantines and watch as ottomans help you win the battle as well as the sieges.
From there its basically just rebel management and getting allies (austria/hungary/poland). I went for venice's lands, calling in austria (their rival) and took crete, negroponte, naxos and albania. From there I annexed serbia and bumped the gold mine up to 10 production. Ideally I would have taken istria next and then moved capital there to join HRE but bohemia became emperor and he hated me so I couldn't. Didn't end up mattering because ottos never declared on me (although the mamluks did for some reason, at least they were nice enough to leave me cyprus). From then its just waiting for ottos to be busy in a war with the mamluks/qq and then declare with your allies.
Its pretty important that you constantly had a master of mint (you can hire a cheap one from the clergy) to keep inflation under control until you get economic ideas. The national bank idea gives inflation reduction and has a related event that gives you -5 inflation so inflation shouldn't be an issue from there on (you can also use forgive usury from the papacy)
Interesting things in this game: France got wrekt hard early by burgundy so the inheritance never fired. Poland/commonwealth had loyalty issues with szlatcha the entire game and was actually pretty worthless as an ally as they were constantly busy dealing with rebels and had 0 manpower. Burgundy somehow got super stronk and was able to take on england, france and austria at the same time and win. Muscovy decided to rival me about 30 years in for some reason even though he was miles away. I got the Jagellion dynasty but commonwealths lost theirs so I'm trying to put it back on the throne atm.
Haven't technically gotten 50 universities yet but its smooth sailing from here onwards. I only needed 1 attempt at this.
build up to 4 infantries and put one on morea, one on achaea, and 2 on constantinople. Get anyone to support your independence (I had genoa support mine). Wait until Ottos declare on the byzantines, the byzantine army should all be in constantinople. 1 day before the ottoman army arrives, declare independence on Byzantines and watch as ottomans help you win the battle as well as the sieges.
From there its basically just rebel management and getting allies (austria/hungary/poland). I went for venice's lands, calling in austria (their rival) and took crete, negroponte, naxos and albania. From there I annexed serbia and bumped the gold mine up to 10 production. Ideally I would have taken istria next and then moved capital there to join HRE but bohemia became emperor and he hated me so I couldn't. Didn't end up mattering because ottos never declared on me (although the mamluks did for some reason, at least they were nice enough to leave me cyprus). From then its just waiting for ottos to be busy in a war with the mamluks/qq and then declare with your allies.
Its pretty important that you constantly had a master of mint (you can hire a cheap one from the clergy) to keep inflation under control until you get economic ideas. The national bank idea gives inflation reduction and has a related event that gives you -5 inflation so inflation shouldn't be an issue from there on (you can also use forgive usury from the papacy)
Interesting things in this game: France got wrekt hard early by burgundy so the inheritance never fired. Poland/commonwealth had loyalty issues with szlatcha the entire game and was actually pretty worthless as an ally as they were constantly busy dealing with rebels and had 0 manpower. Burgundy somehow got super stronk and was able to take on england, france and austria at the same time and win. Muscovy decided to rival me about 30 years in for some reason even though he was miles away. I got the Jagellion dynasty but commonwealths lost theirs so I'm trying to put it back on the throne atm.