Revoked at 1551, will that be my first world conquest?
Posted May 16, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC
2618
Yes, easily
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I had the same experience. No intention to do a WC, but things just sort of rolled--and I'm not a great player. I usually just blob until I get bored.
The step that pushed it to doable was getting a PU on Portugal who had basically all of South and Central America and having some minors with colonies on Australia. Until the last few years, I kept telling myself that I wasn't really doing a WC. I just kept giving myself little goals (e.g., spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific).
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Austria is the easiest country to world conquest once you get to this point because the vassal swarm will just fight the wars for you, and you can annex, add lands to the HRE (in Europe at least) and release vassals, so gov cap is much less of an issue for you than other countries. It's mostly a matter of resource management at this point. A good use of your time pre absolutism would be hamstringing Russia and the Ottomans and getting expansion paths in Africa and Asia.
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For me I agree the vassal swarm is much more powerful (and snake vassals/client states all the way from East Europe to China, Spain to Africa, Turkey to Africa etc), but at some point that gets more tedious than just forming the HRE and going alone the rest of the way. The HRE is probably S tier anyway, and once you build the gov cap buildings everywhere the GC is not really an issue.
So, this is of course subjective, but I find forming HRE once you have all of Europe and absolutism at 100% is more fun.
Also you are way early, I started going ham 1620 due to needing to do a few mission trees since I was going for a one faith as well. You can still do that. Finish far enough in the Austrian one to get the mission bonus, convert to orthodox (makes Savoy mission tree easier), swap to Savoy, finish the whole mission tree, swap to Byzantium, finish mission tree. Go finish the world.
One faith would be very doable in your situation.
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R5 Im really wondering if I could turn this casual Austria game into a World conquest. Tell me your wisdom fellow redditors.
It is very doable. Now, you only need the patience and skills to finish it (mostly the first). I am not trying to be a snob, but a WC requires a different set of skills/mindset that you acquire while trying to do WCs (which you might not have if this is your first attempt).
Oh, and get absolutism 100+ :-) My first WC was with Austria + vassal swarm. It can be a frustrating experience. Just take breaks and keep going and you will eventually succeed. But you definitely have a strong position for WC at the moment.
He's right, taking breaks can make the difference between the completion and a surrender.
When you have wc in goal, and once you've unlocked "unlimited" ducats and manpower, the game becomes way more redundant (which sucks for some but not so much for others), because many of the strategic aspects of the game are now irrelevant, diplomacy, fear of coalitions, smart battle maneuvers, etc, all that becomes kind of pointless. But as he said, new set of skills are involved, and they also are interesting to learn about, work on and improve. Those skills make the difference in term of game time required to finish your world conquest. And there are personal skills involved too, like patience and dedication.
My last WC attempt was also with Austria (i did 2 already, one with France on 1.27 or smthg, and one with Mongolia/Mongol Empire on 1.32), and i say attempt because i finally surrender and decided to move on after grabbing the related achievements of the run. Surely the vassals swarm makes it easier in term of micro management, but it made it harder for me to enjoy the wc process. And the lags ! I got a decent computer but 2 or 3 huge wars simultaneously would make my pc quite slow. I took several days off while being at it, but i eventually quited anyway. With Mongol Empire i took some days off too and i'm glad i did. Usually one or two days away from eu4 are enough to refill your dedication bar and get back it, at least in my case.
Gl hf !
Is it worth it in this case to focus only on adm and dip politics and doctrines? As military should not be important
I'm thinking mostly about the reduction cost of coring provinces and diplo annexation bonuses
I usually focus on core cost reduction, diplo is useful as well. Humanist can make life less frustrating, but I have read that many just ignore this one. Wen I get the chance, I also pick up siege pips (Aristocratic+Offensive+Innovative), although I don´t know how useful they actually are.
When you have vassals in the entire europe I think it's ok to not have the siege, anyway most of the time it will be a vassal who is sieging.
One faith is hard if not suni?
Definitely. Start snaking through Asia and Africa and it should be pretty doable.
Go for it, the most difficult part of a WC is the will to keep playing the campaign.
Yes. Head into Lithuania, Russia and Anatolia. Core, convert (if muslim), add the the Empire and release all vassals there, especially those on the border of Europe (Perm, Bukhara, the Great Horde, Astrakhan, Kazan, Trebizond, Georgia, Circassia... are some decent candidates). Don't worry about diplo points, your vassal swarm will fund your advisors, and grab as much land as you can in every war. Hand it out to your vassals, but keep in mind that you can only hand out land that's bordering the vassal you're handing it out to. So you'll want to snake them towards larger areas. Keep 1 province for yourself near the edges of your empire, so you can Deus Vult. You won't be able core this, but that doesn't really matter. Later when absolutism hits, you'll be able to take a lot more land than your vassals (especially if combined with diplo ideas, the moument in Malta and the Al Hambra), so you'll have to divvy up the lands after you've taken them. See if you can get a CB on England before they eat Scotland, because you can use Scotland for military access and naval basing rights. This makes dealing with the English a lot easier, since you can land an army (or two) the day you declare, and you won't have to deal with their navy. Once you have a foothold in England, they're done for.
This is good advise. Problem is being truce locked to hell, I take 5 provinces max in a war and there we go to 20 years of truce again. The ottomans and Spain/Portugal are also a pain in the ass. Not hard to fight them but nerve wrecking.
Edit: also how do I get more vassals for my vassal sworm. It seems capped once you revoke
You'll want to have as many borders with heretics and heathens not in the HRE as possible, so you can have as many CBs as possible. Russia is less of an issue as soon as you released a bunch of one province vassals, since you can reconquest. But as soon as you're leaving Europe, keep a few provinces around to have a border with other nations. That way, you can cycle your conquests between Russia, Africa, Anatolia and Europe. Do not worry about AE, it is literally just a number for you. You'll want to have as high a province war score cost reduction as possible, which is diplomatic ideas for -20% and the monument in Malta (if you have Leviathan). When you're still in the Age of Reformation, take the age ability that lowers the cost as well. Even without the fort, those two will allow you to take nearly twice as much dev in the peace deal as usual. If you also grab the Alhambra in Spain, it gets lowered more.
Don't worry too much about not taking a lot of land, take whatever you can (and keep in mind capitals are more expensive than same-dev non-capitals). Once Absolutism hits, and you maximize it, that's when the real fun starts. That's when you can grab huge chunks of land. And later when Imperialism hits (diplo tech 23), you can get even more going, since it's a CB against everyone, and it makes provinces cheaper to conquer than conquest.
Click on a province and you'll be able to see what tags have cores on it. Focus on taking one province from each tag that no longer exists, since that'll give you more provinces to reconquest later on. In order to release them, it's important to first core the province, and add it to the Empire (or they'll be disloyal as heck), and then release them. Here's how to release a vassal.
Yes. You want to feed as much as possible of the Old World to your vassal swarm. Release a bunch of princes from your territory bordering the enemy lands; after each war, give them all the territory you take, in long thin strips. Then they spend their admin mana to core it, and you get everything for free once you push the final reform.
You want Religious ideas so you get a free CB on everyone who's not Catholic, and can take however much land for no diplo mana cost. Temporarily keep a province for yourself here and there at the fronts of expansion so you border the next targets and get the CB.
Get yourself a couple of large vassals and time it so they become integrated right as the age of absolutism starts. Then you can decrease autonomy on all of their provinces for free absolutism. You can instantly get to 50+ if the vassals are big enough, and kick off court and country very quick. You can have 100 absolutism and all the mana estate privileges before 1625