I remember a dev saying that one tag world conquest after art of war expansion (patch 1.8) should be impossible with all the newly added provinces.



Behold the power of personal Union mechanics in EU4

DISCLAIMER

England attacked me in two succession wars

I also note that Castille AND Lithuania got my dynasty with an event

started force PU war

succesion war over Austria

I actually got Castille as a minor Pu subject without a war

England attacked me in a succesion war over them

i started a force PU war

force PU war

I am trying to complete religious, expansion, diplomatic and later on, influence and administrative idea group for integration purposes (admin+influence gives a -25% integration cost policy that costs 1 admin power a month, well worth it).

to start the integration of Burgundy, Byzantium and Lithuania

i started feeding Austria, Sweden, burgundy and Lithuania the entire HRE

i use colonial conquest from pu partner their colonial nations to attack all american nations that i can. I then feed the native tribes to those CN for.. 0 AE.

Japan turned catholic due to rebels

impossible? No. I managed to pull it off!Curious? Read on.Sounded like a nice challenge.I must be quite mad to try for this again, after my Savoy one tag WC. But all my games just end up in WC.. Can't resist.Anyways, here goes.. And i did NOT use the shortlived bug to kill kings in ironman that was abusable at start of 1.8. My Foix game started after the fix.: I got LUCK, LUCK and more LUCK in this run, this is why i took this casual foix game to world conquest and eventually eating entire HRE and the world. Sometimes you can get NO PU in 150 years if things don't work out.Some explanation: gained independance from france backed by Austria, castille and burgundy. I started vassal feeding guyenne, Provence. I did a no cb war on byzantium (who had a massive serbia as ally). Vassalised both. After that, i started conquering the balkans. In between i declared on france whenever possible.. One for burgundy (their 18 year old fresh heirless king DIED. Never seen a ruler die that young. Burgundy is seriously cursed.. Their rulers seem to have big chance to die at any age given. I got the english territories in France out of this war) and one for.. Muscovy (Muscovy is SO easy to get into a PU these days...). Once i had those two, i went full ahead one tag WC. I allied sweden, portugal and Lithuania (yes, they didn't fall into PU under Poland). This made me go way over my diplo slot limit, but it is worth it, for the game of thrones.. Sometimes i can't believe my own luck. But then again, if you got 6+ royal marriages, the chance for this event gets really good. The screenshot is of my first 1.7 foix attempt. Just using this one to prove that this event DOES happen. You need 4 royal marriages (6 is better) and any of those rm partners with no heir. The longer they stay heirless, the more chance the event gets. Normal "mean time to happen" mechanic that applies also to other events.Once the heir in Lithuania was 15, i claimed throne of Lithuania and. Couldn't do it with Castille, the 15 year old king spawned with an heir.Castille broke Alliance and attacked me in a. Yes i know.... Yet again Succession wars with just a RM. It is best way/chance to get greater powers in a PU.If a greater power gets "heir dead" event when king is 50+, you get good chance for a succesion war with just a RM done. And since Lucky nations hget good heirs, they also get good chance for heir dead events. Although you need luck for all these events to fire.I can safely admit that both my one TAG conquests needed these "dynasty spread" and "heir dead" events in greater powers to get them in a PU. But you'd be amazed how many greater powers go to disputed succession status sooner or later.I integrated that massive Serbia and spent the next decades dealing with rebels there (well they are just minor pain if handled well)I gets even beter in next screenshot.Meanwhile, Castille (who got my dynasty by event waaay back remember) had the same happening. Heir dead, king old.England turned the offer down to attack me in a succesion war and i got PU for free. They already integrated aragon and naples by then.Sweden king died at age 28.. Heirless, yet again.(i know, it starts to get old huh) after i allied and RM England. So much for my Alliance with england...The downside of succesion wars like this is that you usually lose an ally and gain a minor PU subject.But... (you are not gonna believe this) I kept the RM with england since they got "'heir dead" event when their king was 50+. You can guess the result. England got a noble of my dynasty, andimmediatly after claiming throne once the heir got out of regency.And umm, Portugal took my dynasty because of their RM with castille, and their king died heirless... Anotherand the screenshot shows result.8 greater powers in a Union before 1560. Can it get any better? Gotta love game of thrones.I integrated Provence and France just has ile de france left.I started to slowly feed my Union subjects whatever i could.In the next 40 years i started expanding like mad, with sometimes up to ten wars at once. I attacked Norway, denmark, golden horde, qara qinlyu, uzbek, entire black sea region, timurids, arabian peninsula and so on. I fed all i could to Byzantium, Muscovy and all other PU subjects.I am taking humanism later on probably too.What about rebels i hear you think. My PU subjects kill any rebels anywhere, since i am at war constantlyparters in a war kill rebels if there is nothing else to do... The trick is to occupy anything, put attach OFF on all occupation forces and all war partners will kill your rebels as default action. Any parter in the war kills rebels of any other partner. So, all my PU subjects kill each others rebels and mine!I went to peace for 1 day,.. 1 day peace! The horror!I spread muscovy up to the border of india, mamluks got fed to portugal, and. Crazy idea, but the agressive expansion forces me to do it. Any nation at this point that i border in europe, would go in a coalition.Take a look at that MASSIVE Oirat, before i dismantle it.I knocked a few countries out of oirat after they went bankrupt. I spread Muscovy to the Manchu territory nw of Japan in the same peace deal. Muscovy is colonizing Siberia WITHOUT expansion or exploration ideas... Because they are crazy rich and can afford 5+ colonies without colonist active.I declared on the knocked out countries and on manchu.Meanwhile, i started with the conquest of africa and america. Ethiopia and darfur are off the map almost. You can't see it, butThey aren't MY colonial nations, remember. Well, not yet.. By attacking their enemies Korea and Manchu, they became friendly enough to accept Alliance and royal marriage. Of course, Japan is heirless and their king is 50+. Hey, not my fault game of thrones is so effective in my current game.this is whats left of the HRE in 1681. Not much huh.i just noticed i made a stupid mistake. I was convinced i had completed admin+influence idea group and took the -25% integrate cost policy. But it seems i never took last influence idea and never took policy. D'oh.Wasted precious diplo points there, since i already integrated Byzantium now and am close to finish integrating Burgundy..I also force vassalised Khazach now (its possible to vassalise horde nations in asia, they don't become protectorate) for further feeding purposes. Khazach is buddhist, since Oirat is buddhist. So, ideal feeding vassal. Once i get 7/8 diplo relations, i'll force vassalise Oirat aswell.Japan is still heirless, king is 62 year old or so. Once they get king of my dynasty, i'll force PU them. Or not. Their fleet is kinda huge. We'll see when it happens and what i can do then.I am busy on eating entire west africa now.I think i gotta spread conquest on entire world though and do it slower pace, since i can't force feed subjects over 5.00 overextension...Japan took my dynasty when their 63 or so ruler died heirless. Gonna do the force PU war asap! (yeah i know, yet another..)before......and after!Burgundy was my Pu subject. Now.. they are integrated.Declared on switzerland asap (only non catholic bordering hre member apart from tuscany now) before they realized they could get into a coalition versus me, and dragged Bavaria in, who has trier as vassal. Gonna make that Austria even bigger. Crazy big even.What else is happening?finally moved my capital (being without rebels in such a stretched country is friggin hard to do when you have to be NOT at war aswell to move capital. they really should adapt this req to move capital).Why Trebizond? Sentimental value. I moved my capital there in my 1.7 savoy run aswell.And of course to negate distant overseas all the way from black sea up to ethiopia.Result? Lowered autonomy all the way from trebizond to Ethiopia. I immediately reduced autonomy in whole burgundian terrain too, and it even didn't give me positive unrest anywhere... It doubled my manpower gain.I am well on my way feeding entire west africa to england and portugal. Ottomans are 2 provinces surrounded by Castille now after they exploded to rebels.Buratya broke free of muscovy, cause i missed one damn provnce that was sieged by rebels still. Oh well. Muscovy kept the cores, so.. who cares. I'll get 'm back.I'm attacking the remains of various countries around the globe.Prepping Austria and sweden to be integrated next.Next war targets: Force PU Japan (they got weak heir claim, i now got all the time in the world to do so), Oirat, Korea (after force PU japan), Reduce Persia to OPM, And somehow i gotta find a way to declare on Multan. They westernised, don't have overseas expansion CB, Castille borders them (province i sold). I didn't know you lose the overseas expansion CB if a country finishes westernising. So if i see a country starting to westernize, i attack them. Even Japan started westernizing off Muscovy now, but i'll let them. They'll be better subject when westernized.Once i got Japan, i'll begin full scale assault of Korea,Manchu, Oirat and whoever i eat to feed my subjects... I'll try to feed Japan whatever i can. I'll probably give them the entire coastline manchu has in their northern territories. They 'll make nice navy then that can take down Malaya one. Gotta plan ahead.Speaking of Malaya: it formed out of Brunei, and it starts to get CRAZY big. They made themselves defender of the sunni faith. Invading Brunei isn't gonna be as easy as force PU japan.. We'll see.I bashed the HRE so much, that they don't have eglible monarchy to elect emperor.So... they elected catholic OPM on the other side of globe as emperor..The Lithuanians resisted integration LONG enough. Wasted thousands of diplo points because i failed to notice Lithuania takes aristocracy. And of course i also forgot that aristocracy +coring cost now also increases diplo cost to integrate.This beast costed me almost 5000 diplo points to integrate....Time to integrate Austria now. They are now right in the middle of FOIX territory..I spread Khazach in a thin line towards tibet, and fed them almost entire tibet.Japan PU war is complete, i'm gonna start feeding them the manchu coastline. Japan westernized.Operation conquer west africa is almost done.i dismantled the HRE, cause there were no eglible emperors left in the world.The entire former HRE is being sieged and i'll likely munch it up soon. Well, Austria will for the most part.Anyways, the playtrough is starting to slow and bog down quite a bit.I'm not sure on the best way to deal with india.In 1.7 i protectorated the biggest countries and killed them last in break truce wars. But, with the new rebel mechanic...OMG REBELS! I gotta be at +2 or +3 stab and 0 war exhaustion or i get swarmed by rebels..Last thing i need is a million rebels to fight. And believe me, at this point 1 million rebels isn't hard to get.So i think i'll have to do this the hard way.. Declare on one country, make all others full participant and fight 100k+ armies...And make seperate peace deals.I'm intending to make oirat a vassal aswell. Problem is that they attacked ming, and them going over 100% would hamper my efforts.I'm starting to think absorbing the whole world is gonna be hard without me coring stuff aswell. And even with me helping.. They added SO many provinces in asia SHEESH!So, i'm considering forming Italy again.. But then again, i want a big foix tag. I suppose 'getting as big as possible" is good as a goal too.Regarding the diplo points deficit: i don't lose a single point now. When lithuania integrated, i was at max diplo slots! Kazach included.I hate to do the math now, but.. we'll see how integration of all those PU subjects will come along. Don't forget austria and sweden are well on their way to being integrated now. Oirat will be the new vassal once i got the diplo slot free. Or before that. I got a world to feed... to my subjects.In other news: I'm officialy changing my gamespeed from 3 to 2 now. I'm at war with entire india, anything east of it on mainland, and BOY its a micromanaging nightmare.At least i defeated all the rebels in burgundian and lithuanian territory.I will never *ever* lower autonomy again.I learned after 2 decades, that 2,5% chance of advance for rebels means 1 million rebels at once 2 decades later.And i'm NOT exagerrating. 1 million rebels or more.I got the rebels because i converted all of it to catholicism, in combination with lowering autonomy. Its realy hard to adapt to 1.8 mechanics in an enormous empire..Somehow i'm remembering the weird times when a rebel stack in total random territory would spawn for a laugh (aaaaargh nuisance!). I still like the new rebel change though. If they spawn, its my own fault, not some damn RNG god frowning on me.this is the situation in asia.I think i will knock a few countries out of india somewhere, and do a conquest war on them to transfer the wartarget province to more PU subjects.At the moment only muscovy, castile, kazach are eglible to be fed stuff there. Not good. Gah, sometimes i hate the change they did to transferring provinces to war allies.on the good side: england took "get presence in india" mission and castille aswell. So i won't need conquest wars to get england involved in India.Take a look at those two screenshots and imagine what a micromanaging nightmare i'm in at speed 2...There were like 200k soldiers involved (multan and bahmanis and jaunpur), and they all had full manpower.In other news, Sweden got integrated. Austria is 2/3 on the way. Pondering who to start next.i decided on my strategy for india. Instead of feeding its coast to england, i gave england almost entire bengal delta region, and jaunpur provided england some provinces for a future corridor to kazach aswell. I'll have it once i can attack tibet again. Castille got a corridor from west india to east india.See all those nations i knocked out of bahmanis? I will core that one province i took on eastern india shore, and attack all the knocked out countries from there.Thats right, i think i'll core entire india myself.Meanwhile, i started operation east africa. Occupying the entire eastern african coastline.i vassalised oirat. they will make a nice new vassal to feed. Hordes are Always hungry! I'm back to 8/8 diplo slots now, and will start integration of several countries soon.I waited till ming and lan na were in ONE coalition, then attacked Ming and lan na could NOT call in their allies. This made it easy. Occupied all of it.Meanwhile, i attacked Tibet to make some nice corridors from india to khazach vassal. I'm also attacking all the countries in india that i knocked out of bahmanis.Result of all this?Tibet is now an OPM, made some nice corridors to avoid climbing the Himalaya. England got spread up to Malaya and Dai Viet. I transferred occupation until i hit southern coast of Lan Na, and only gave england the south provinces towards malaya and east towards dai viet. England can core the coast near malaya though. This works wonders for spreading subjects across coastlines..Kazach also borders Dai Viet now. Many countries got knocked out of the really big Lan Na. They can wait. Japan borders manchu now with a thin line from Bejing to their Southern territories.Next up: attacking dai viet and feeding that+coring cost country to a country whom it will be overseas for. And Malaya and manchu at some point.Meanwhile, i am attacking and coring what i can in east africa.this was Austria. Ugly borders and it looks like (insert imagination)... a fish?this is after. The foix tag is really big now! The run is already succesful now for meBut as long as one tag seems possible, i'll carry on.Decided to take malaya on, cause why wait? Their fleet can only get bigger. It was a struggle to juggle around landing fleets.I released more and more countries out of the big ones that i attack. The expansion cb is great for this. The reason i do it is to have possible war targets constantly..Pasai got knocked out of malaya, and i fed all the eastern islands malaya had to portugal. I also gave portugal provinces on makassar, so i'll have no more fleet problems when i hit malaya again. I can just put stack in all islands before the war starts.I'm constantly at 90+ overextension now. I released darfur, cause i had a few uncorable provinces there for ages. I 'll just core darfur later.Multan and Bahmanis can both be vassalised in a next war. Castille ate a lot of multan.All in all, its going to be easy from now on to conquer stuff.Meanwhile, i'm integrating portugal, castile, muscovy and england at once. I can Always knock countries out of the PU subjects (100% occupy a country, and offer to release countries, the released contry will get knocked out of PU subject) and reconquer and core them later. It will lower the cost to integrate them. After all, i gotta have something to do till 1821..Read on in my next post a bit below, i hit the image cap here.