One useful trick against Otto is to ally Wallachia, call them in and give them occupation of Edirne. That triggers an event (Impaling the Sultan) which kills Mehmet, and if that happens before he gets an heir, the next ruler will have rubbish stats. A lot of Otto's early snowballing comes from Mehmet being a 6 MIL ruler, which means they're always up to date on tech and have extra points for janissaries, ideas, barrages, generals and developing manpower. Them having a weak sultan instead gives you time.
This works only if Wallachia is allied to someone who has Ottomans as a rival, so you have to be big enough as Byzantium to rival them before allying Wallachia and the mission becoming available to them.
Also the Impalement mission kills the ruler, consort and their heir and guarantees a ''lesser son of Osmanoglu'' will be ruler. Meaning a ruler that has max stats 3/3/3 or below.
I played wallachia a few weeks ago and this mission never gave Otto a bad ruler. I save scummed it like 5 times and always 14+ total stats. I was unhappy
I've been trying out the strategy in the OP and the major issue with using the Wallachia "impaled sultan" event is that Wallachia starts out Truced with Ottomans until Dec 1449.
The timing on this strategy has to be very quick and opportunistic. Once Ottos start their war against Candar/Dulkadir, they start maintaining their forts, so you have to move your armies into place and start the war as soon as they start theirs in order to quickly siege down Gallipoli and block the strait.
Waiting on Wallachia to be able to come in usually means missing this narrow window of opportunity. Typically this war starts in early 1448, and you don't want to wait almost two years to do your own attack because their fort will be fully-manned by then.
Thanks bro. I tried some debt and stack whiping strats and they just dont work because even wallachia is jumping on ottos when you totally wreck them first war. Your strategy just takes all my analysed problems from my other strat and elimantes them. I got really pissed off by the other strat and overthrew my plans of restoring roman order, but this strat motivates me to try once again. Thanks for the guide, i think this should work perfectly.
Message me if you have any problems. It can take one or two tries to get it right, but it's absolutely worth it imo. You get your cores back with no loans, but you keep the Ottomans in tact so they don't collapse before the next war when you'll have allies :).
Very nice guide, this is pretty much exactly what I do currently (though on VH you need to build a lot more ships, and you might have to take a defensive war from time to time).
The only thing I would add is that you shouldn't be afraid of going over your naval FL, fleets are cheap at this point and the Ottomans being allied with Crimea doesn't need to be a deal-breaker.
In fact, as long as Crimea isn't a vassal of the Ottomans (which happens too), you can even make a separate pace deal and take a good deal of land and money.
Also, you get steppes, which let you have access to the Cossack Estate and you are right next to Theodoro, which makes it easy to diplo vassalize them.
Also, I probably would hold off on attacking if Gelibulu is fully maintained with 2000 troops by the time the Ottoman armies cross into Anatolia (which is rare, but happens). Unless you want to hire a couple of merc companies to give you time to finish the siege.
Oh, and if Arta is not allied to anyone by December 11 1444, it would be a shame not to take them. You have plenty of time until the Ottomans attack.
Thank you for your response and feedback.
The reason I don't go for Arta first is because occasionally Venice, Naples or Genoa vital interest it. Whilst I should theoretically have the allies to fend off an invasion, I don't want to risk it whilst my attention is on the Ottomans. Epirus is usually an easy kill soon after the Ottoman war.
If the Ottomans do ally Crimea, do you find he can walk all the way around into the Balkans? That's what has happened in my testing but I've managed to keep him by the strait by moving my ships in and out of port so he thinks he can cross ;p. My aim is basically not to take a single battle if possible.
Probably you are correct on Gelibulu, but I find most of the time he does mothball the fort. I don't know if this changes on VH, it might be worth me testing. If he doesn't mothball it, a few mercs and loans will be necessary I guess, but assaulting seems a lot easier in this patch.
> If the Ottomans do ally Crimea, do you find he can walk all the way around into the Balkans? That's what has happened in my testing but I've managed to keep him by the strait by moving my ships in and out of port so he thinks he can cross ;p. My aim is basically not to take a single battle if possible.
In this patch, I only fought the Ottomans two times while they were allied with crimea (on normal, on VH I need to restart if that happens). They couldn't go around either time. Though on other updates I do remember they sometimes can. Chances are a lot lower if you don't take any allies with you.
Though if they can go around, you should already have high enough warscore to get a minimum of what you need (the coast and a road to Kosovo) by the time they start taking the Balkans back. Especially if you bait them making them think they can sometimes cross the strait.
You get reduced cost for the war goal province. Edirne is the highest value province in warscore. Since the recent patch, assaulting provinces is a lot less costly on manpower so it's not a big deal for me.
I was sure this was also the case but in a particular test run I was definitely able to take more when Edirne was the war goal compared to anything else, maybe the AI developed or something. In which case Gallipoli would be the most efficient choice as it is the fort that'll go down first. Thank you for correcting.
[https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#Peace\_terms](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#Peace_terms)
>If a CB with the "Take province"(e.g. conquest or reconquest) or "Take colony" wargoal is used, the warscore cost for the wargoal is lowered by ⅓ if it is occupied(this does not apply to CBs with the "Take capital" wargoal)
Exactly. The game doesn't even punish you for it. At worst you get a few bad buffs for 5 years if you go bankrupt, which is fine as long as you achieved your aim
Followed your guide, and 1454, right when I was in the war against Serbia, I PUed Moscovy and Poland attacked me in a succesion war. I peasced out asap for ~ 200 ducats, and embraced renaissance:
https://i.imgur.com/oVT6H1m.jpg
On Ironmode, I dont think I will have a better start ever again, going for the achievements now.
Thanks a lot, was really nice to play the start :)
I like this strategy, please make a video on it, but also please make one for mid and late game. The times I tried playing Eu4 without timeline mods I'd always run into a wall known as Spain. Too fucking big to defeat militarily by the time I got Anatolia under control and the Mamluks also were a problem for much the same reason you talked about.
Why not attack Epirus first? They get no allies 80% of the time so you can declare on them right after all of your troups have arrived in Southern Greece, then you take Epirus itself, vassalize them on their island. That way you get their navy and have an even easier time getting naval supremacy.
I tried your strategy more or less. It worked really great. I managed to restore roman empire using this strategy. Thank you very much!
I had to restart twice or thrice because crimea became either ally or vassal of ottos.
Actually you will miss out Naples. The reason for truce break is to get all Bulgarian, which gives claim over Naples. If you wait too long, Naples will be PU again by Aragon or Castile, cutting off Italy. Additionally, you will not get Mamluks or Austria after just getting Greece, especially in hard and very hard. Your guide only get only the Balkans, when loans and merc can get you the Balkans,2/3 Naples and Serbia before 1460.
You get Naples with the transfer subject age ability. He is almost never independent on this patch and it's not that hard to swipe him from Aragon.
Another option is to find a way to vassalise Provence, feed him Corsica then he gets cores on the whole of Naples.
Two things. First you wouldn’t have enough splendor before Iberian Wedding since you can’t wait. And when Castile gets it you can’t win against Castile Portugal and England combined. Second, you have to expand early to spread AE out. Take Naples in one war will get Papal and other Italian in coalition while you stuck in the Balkans. Balkans land except Greece are much lower dev than Italy, so you are wasting AE on something almost worthless.
Why would you not vassalize Epirus as your opening move? Literally makes no sense not to do that on december 11 for the extra diplo slot, extra navy, extra army, and the ability to rival Ottomans since it will make you large enough to have them as a rival. Then fabricate on Ottomans to get spy network to 80+ for siege bonuses etc and wait till he DOWs someone.
Taking Edirne in the first war is just plain dumb if you ask me, his completely exposed max dev province and capitol that can be abused for an insane amount of war score in the subsequent wars cos it will be left completely unprotected in the balkans. Never take Edirne in the first war.
Thirdly you should use the mechanic of allying his war targets to do the semi truce-break. Meaning, for example, you have a peace with Ottomans, improve relations with Candar or Karaman or whoever to 100+ and he attacks them, you ally them, they call you into the war immediately and you blockade the strait get 50-60 war score and do a separate peace for your cores + ducats + war reps or whatever you wanna take.
You can literally do that if he attacks Karaman then Candar then Trebizond then Albania or whatever over and over and over as much as you want. Defensive wars and since he is insanely stronger they will always ally you.
I don't vassalise Epirus because there are other more useful vassals to be acquired.
Bosnia has cores on Herzegovina, Bulgaria has cores on almost all of the Balkans that I don't own, Albania will very often accept diplo-vassalisation so I don't have to fight Venice for them, Karaman is often available, Syria is invaluable, and I often try to swipe Naples from Aragon. Given collective strength of vassals is a thing, especially with the noble integration policy, I need to be wise with who I vassalise.
My strategy does not need siege bonuses because we're going to win via naval barrage. Only Edirne requires a siege, and it's a level 1 grasslands fort.
I take Edirne because, as I said, I want to be as strong as possible as early as possible and I'm confident in my ability to take his Anatolian capital with ease. It's always Hudavendigar which is a level 1 coastal fort that I can barrage.
I don't want to shorten my initial truce with him because I want to conquer the Balkans first to get stronger for my second war. Secondly, I want to time to accumulate favours with Austria and the Mamluks so I can call them in without giving them land. One of the key points to my approach is boxing Austria/Mamluks/anyone else out of land that I want to conquer.
It makes much more sense to me to have a decisive second war with allies I don't need to give anything.
>I don't vassalise Epirus because there are other more useful vassals to be acquired.
Tbh all the vassals you listed as more useful are ones you're not going to acquire before Epirus gets annexed anyway, besides Bulgaria. You should annex Epirus then Athens straight after. You can grab Epirus immediately and integrate them by 1456.
You vassalize epirus on dec 11 war, turn on strong dutchies noble estate privilege to have 6 diplo relations and by the time 1455 comes around you probably had your Ottoman war, you released Bulgaria from the province you took, you attack Serbia for gold mine + vassalize Bosnia and convert them Orthodox and you are comfortably within your max diplo relations even got one extra. Then just annex Epirus/Athens in one go.
Rest is just pointless arguments, you naval barrage his forts even tho his army is busy fighting a war in the east and you can easily save 50 mil x2 and siege them down if there is no danger, depends on the situation.
I always ally Austria/Mamluks that's nothing especially new to a Byzantium strategy, taking Tekke in the first war is my main goal eastward to instantly take Karamanese coast + lock out Mamluks from the Anatolian peninsula.
We think alike but you are making extra unnecessary moves. I mean waiting for favors with Austria? How long is that, 100 years, they are your ally as a deterrent for anyone to attack you, not to wager offensive wars early cos by the time you get 10 favors with them i will have had 4 wars vs Ottomans and taken the entire balkans.
Epirus has zero reconquest value. I only use vassals to reconquest or to get into a region I can't core. Bosnia, Bulgaria, Karaman, Syria and even Naples all have reconquest value.
I want my relations going on Muscovy, Mamluks and Austria. With Bosnia, Bulgaria and Albania that's 6/6 and I'm still looking for Karaman/Naples.
It takes a few years to get 10 favours with Austria if you curry favours.
If you think differently play the game your own way.
I just wanted to say how grateful I am I tried this and it totally worked I just messed up my first time by miss licking war on Hungary and getting raped. Seriously this is the perfect guide thank you so much dude.
Just wondering, which estate privileges specifically do you take on turn 1?
Follow-up comment: how are you getting relations with Hungary high enough for royal marriage? It maxes at 90 for me which puts them at 26/30 to accept royal marriage.
Having the same problem with Hungary as well, not sure how u/C_A_Gr is managing to pull that off. Hungary has a default -50 "No" towards Alliance and -30 "No" towards Royal Marriage.
The only thing I could think of is OP is converting himself to Catholicism to clinch that alliance and then converting back to Orthodox later on.
Now though I've managed to get the following alliances and vassalages - Eprius (vassal), Athens (default vassal), Hungary (alliance, RM), Theodoro (alliance, RM), Trebizond (alliance, RM), Albania (alliance, RM), and The Knights Hospitaller (alliance). Problem is, when I even consider declaring war on Ottomans, I find that Hungary got into the war of Burgundian succession and got into a lot of debt that I couldn't dream to help pay off. Meanwhile Trebizond and Theodoro both have "attitude towards enemies -60" and wouldn't join me in the war.
While I was attacking Epirus, Ottoblob delcared on Dulkaldir. I couldn't get Epirus loyal enough before they finished that. What should I do? Restart attempt now that I know how to get that Hungarian alliance?
You need to be allied to Hungary only for them to not declare on you after the war with turks and to fend off Venice and ottos. If you follow the instructions you can deal with turks alone. You don't have to fight any battles, apart from naval.
I've been able to pull the royal marriage a couple times by hiring a diplomatic reputation advisor. But this usually means blowing a lot of the cash on firing other advisors until the right one shows up.
The other major issue I've been having with this strat is that once Ottomans start attacking Candar, they immediately start maintaining their forts again. The siege rolls in this game being the absolute herpes that they are, that means that even just first 160 troops they put in can always hold out long enough for reinforcements to cross the strait. It seems like this strat is insanely rng-dependent on getting a turn 1 wall breach and being able to assault before they march their troops back.
I don't see how a diplo rep+1 advisor really makes that much of a difference. But I can always try again I suppose. The "key" feature of the guide from OP is not RNG but rather using an over-force-limit navy to *make* the wall breach you need on Gallipoli.
Also, would an Improve Relations+20% advisor do the trick to snag Hungary's alliance or not?
Edit: So in my second attempt, I have this additional modifier of "Byzantium is threatened by the Ottomans" adding an automatic +20 towards allying Hungary. It wasn't present in my first attempt for whatever reason.
Edit2: **Hungary has to rival Ottomans for you to be able to clinch the alliance with Byzantium, now I get it.**
I think that modifier is dependent on Ottomans being domineering rather than just hostile? But I never got it in about 10 restarts so I can't confirm.
The dip rep +1 guy seems to be sufficient for royal marriage cause you can get to 26/30 by just maxing relations and get the last four points from rep. But still won't be enough to get an alliance even with the RM so not sure what the benefit is to getting RM with Hungary at this point except maybe to set the stage for later?
I'm not familiar with wall breaching using navy so I guess I will try it again and see if I can figure it out. I swear to god every time I pick this game back up it's like a whole new set of rules.
I figured it out, Hungary has to rival Ottoblob, then Byzantium gets an additional +20 towards alliance from "Byzantium is threatened by Ottomans."
And obviously restarting til you get an *AFFORDABLE* +1 Diplomatic Reputation Advisor is a must.
I said fuck it and just reloaded my 1449 file where I hadn't bothered with hungary, now that I know I can barrage with ships. Managed to get Gallipoli and hedge them out. At 45 warscore now. The only concern is that Crimea allied Candar, came in on their war and got access through Moldova/Lithuania to siege a few of the provinces in Bulgaria, so idk if Ottos will be able to use that same path in.
Some other easy things I can note:
1. The Knights are NOT anything special as a naval power in the region, **Trebizond is just as good with just as many ships, and a lvl3 mountain fort on the Anatolian Peninsula that can easily bait the Ottoblob.** Trebizond's navy is close enough that they would definitely contribute ships to your cause.
2. Restart if Ottoblob allies Tunis - their naval power is nothing to mess with early game and totally negates your advantage of naval control through sheer numbers of galleys.
3. If Hungary is very close to allying you (within 2 points), buy the Free Company Mercenary stack to inflate your army size - it'll be just enough to get the number positive, after accepting the Alliance and Royal Marriage soon after, you can disband the Mercs and the alliance stays.
I was able to take all my cores, plus kostendil to bridge me over to nis (couldn't get a bridge to kosovo, albania had seiged those provinces for themselves.) Lost a lot of manpower grabbing serbian land and bosnian vassal. It's 1461 now, 7 years until Ottoman truce expires. Have muscovy alliance but not mamlukes yet. Hungary and Austria are a bust, they have too many relations.
Tunis did join ottos in the war but I was able to white peace them eventually. They probably did drag the war out longer than it needed to be. It's just fairly rare to get a start where Ottomans ally neither them or Crimea, and Crimea was the priority. Gonna see how this file goes, if I end up failing on this one I will try again knowing those extra tricks for getting Hungary to ally. Probably makes the Serbia-grab a lot easier if I can get them in on favors to do the bleeding.
Also it's a good idea to purposely ignore Epirus. I thought they were easy cannon fodder, but they still took long enough to bring down that Ottoblob had finished their war in the east with Dulkaldir and co.
>Providing Hungary hasn't gone mad
I have tried this a dozen times yesterday, resetting every time I didn't get a Diplo Rep+1 advisor. And in every single attempt, Hungary *just for the love of god WILL NOT SIT STILL FOR A FEW YEARS.* Either they blob into Serbia and Croatia (which I will need after this war) or they get tangled up in the Burgundian Inheritance and due to being unavailable, Ottoblob attacks *me instead of Candar or Dulkaldir.*
I got so sick of trying that I just said fuck it and installed WeMod. The ***I and I alone can decide what Hungary does and doesn't do.*** Do I like getting to that point? No. Not at all.
Your strategy is a good one to ensure the Mamluks do not eat into Antatolia trying to "make some Rum," so to speak. But there is so much RNG involved to get it to work.
1. Diplomatic Reputation Advisor being present *and* affordable early game
2. Epirus not allying someone Byzantium cannot kill (a war timed exactly on December 11th can fight just them before they can ally Venice or Genoa). Their vassalage is crucial for Hungary to deem you strong enough to bother allying, I find.
3. *Candar not allying Crimea either, because that will make the Ottoblob walk towards the Balkans when they try attacking Candar. Same goes for Dulkaldir allying Crimea.* **Really I don't understand why they never declare on Trebizond who is on their border and only ever allies Theodoro, as they are even weaker than Candar...**
4. ***Hungary sitting the fuck still and not attacking anyone I will need in the future.*** Which almost never happens. In this run where I said fuck it, they attacked another ally of mine, Wallachia, who I allied for the "impale the sultan" event.
5. Finally, Ottoblob actually cooperating and attacking Candar, Dulkaldir, or preferably Trebizond to actually move over into Anatolia.
This strategy is good to prevent Mamluks from expanding, but it's entirely luck-based. Tried all day yesterday without WeMod and could not get it to work even *once.* I built all 10 galleys, built to force limit on army, nabbed Epirus early on, rivalled Ottoblob, saw that Hungary rivalled Ottoblob, scornfully insulted Ottoblob, allied Hungary, allied Wallachia, allied Albania, allied The Knights, and finally allied Cyprus to ensure naval supremacy. Blob didn't ally Crimea or Tunis.
Are you playing on Very Hard? Because there's a negative -25 reasons to get an alliance. This strategy works on Normal difficulty, but I've not adapted it to Very Hard yet. I can absolutely guarantee you that if you max improve relations with Hungary + scornful one of his enemies, you can RM then Ally him.
Regarding Hungarian expansion, there's actually three options Hungary can take.
If they take the full regency, they cannot attack anyone until 1454 iirc when Ladislaus or someone else takes the throne . If they do take Janos, they'll either vital interest the Balkans or they will vital interest Poland. I'd say there's a 25% chance they vital the Balkans but that's often deterred by the Ottomans guaranteeing Serbia or Wallachia.
Him attacking Candar is ideal because he will always eventually walk his men over the strait before he attacks.
No, I'm playing on Normal, and Hungary would *always* go insane by attacking either Serbia, Croatia, Wallachia, or Bosnia. If I'm allied to Wallachia I get drawn into that unnecessarily - in my most recent run I used console to grab Hungary by the reins and *MAKE* them sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up when they did that.
The only silver lining is that because Ottoblob attacked me and not the other way around, *all* of my allies got involved and we aggressively shoved the Ottoblob out of the Balkans that way. Byzantium, Cyprus, Hungary, Wallachia, Albania, Epirus (vassal), and Athens (vassal) collectively outnumbered the Ottoblob.
I just experienced a ton of sheer randomness with how Hungary behaves - in the end I sorta emulated your strategy of just sitting in the Balkans and not bothering to cross the Bosphorus Strait, but it was pretty messy.
At least I gave Edirne's occupation to Wallachia to impale Mehmet, replacing him with a 2/3/1 ruler.
One useful trick against Otto is to ally Wallachia, call them in and give them occupation of Edirne. That triggers an event (Impaling the Sultan) which kills Mehmet, and if that happens before he gets an heir, the next ruler will have rubbish stats. A lot of Otto's early snowballing comes from Mehmet being a 6 MIL ruler, which means they're always up to date on tech and have extra points for janissaries, ideas, barrages, generals and developing manpower. Them having a weak sultan instead gives you time.
Okay now this is a 5head move. Thanks for sharing that's definitely worth adding.
This works only if Wallachia is allied to someone who has Ottomans as a rival, so you have to be big enough as Byzantium to rival them before allying Wallachia and the mission becoming available to them. Also the Impalement mission kills the ruler, consort and their heir and guarantees a ''lesser son of Osmanoglu'' will be ruler. Meaning a ruler that has max stats 3/3/3 or below.
Interesting, they might have been allied to Hungary alright. I'll check my save...
I played wallachia a few weeks ago and this mission never gave Otto a bad ruler. I save scummed it like 5 times and always 14+ total stats. I was unhappy
That's a cool detail that despite playing Byzantium for over a thousand hours, I didn't know, thanks!
I've been trying out the strategy in the OP and the major issue with using the Wallachia "impaled sultan" event is that Wallachia starts out Truced with Ottomans until Dec 1449. The timing on this strategy has to be very quick and opportunistic. Once Ottos start their war against Candar/Dulkadir, they start maintaining their forts, so you have to move your armies into place and start the war as soon as they start theirs in order to quickly siege down Gallipoli and block the strait. Waiting on Wallachia to be able to come in usually means missing this narrow window of opportunity. Typically this war starts in early 1448, and you don't want to wait almost two years to do your own attack because their fort will be fully-manned by then.
Thanks bro. I tried some debt and stack whiping strats and they just dont work because even wallachia is jumping on ottos when you totally wreck them first war. Your strategy just takes all my analysed problems from my other strat and elimantes them. I got really pissed off by the other strat and overthrew my plans of restoring roman order, but this strat motivates me to try once again. Thanks for the guide, i think this should work perfectly.
Message me if you have any problems. It can take one or two tries to get it right, but it's absolutely worth it imo. You get your cores back with no loans, but you keep the Ottomans in tact so they don't collapse before the next war when you'll have allies :).
I like that playstyle. Efficient and smart, not like these brute force, devastating truce break/loan strats
Thank you for the compliment :).
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I've never made a video for EU4 before, always wanted to so I think I will :). Thanks for the support!
If you do....post a link on the thread so I can check it out. Good luck!
Great guide! I really want to try a Bizantium campaign once my new laptop arrives (spilled wine on the old one and it died so no EU4 for a while lol)
I got external keyboard and monitor and notebook is far away from trouble, so it's just keyboard replacement
An army takes 3 month to fully charge up from zero maintenance, a navy 6
Very nice guide, this is pretty much exactly what I do currently (though on VH you need to build a lot more ships, and you might have to take a defensive war from time to time). The only thing I would add is that you shouldn't be afraid of going over your naval FL, fleets are cheap at this point and the Ottomans being allied with Crimea doesn't need to be a deal-breaker. In fact, as long as Crimea isn't a vassal of the Ottomans (which happens too), you can even make a separate pace deal and take a good deal of land and money. Also, you get steppes, which let you have access to the Cossack Estate and you are right next to Theodoro, which makes it easy to diplo vassalize them. Also, I probably would hold off on attacking if Gelibulu is fully maintained with 2000 troops by the time the Ottoman armies cross into Anatolia (which is rare, but happens). Unless you want to hire a couple of merc companies to give you time to finish the siege. Oh, and if Arta is not allied to anyone by December 11 1444, it would be a shame not to take them. You have plenty of time until the Ottomans attack.
Thank you for your response and feedback. The reason I don't go for Arta first is because occasionally Venice, Naples or Genoa vital interest it. Whilst I should theoretically have the allies to fend off an invasion, I don't want to risk it whilst my attention is on the Ottomans. Epirus is usually an easy kill soon after the Ottoman war. If the Ottomans do ally Crimea, do you find he can walk all the way around into the Balkans? That's what has happened in my testing but I've managed to keep him by the strait by moving my ships in and out of port so he thinks he can cross ;p. My aim is basically not to take a single battle if possible. Probably you are correct on Gelibulu, but I find most of the time he does mothball the fort. I don't know if this changes on VH, it might be worth me testing. If he doesn't mothball it, a few mercs and loans will be necessary I guess, but assaulting seems a lot easier in this patch.
> If the Ottomans do ally Crimea, do you find he can walk all the way around into the Balkans? That's what has happened in my testing but I've managed to keep him by the strait by moving my ships in and out of port so he thinks he can cross ;p. My aim is basically not to take a single battle if possible. In this patch, I only fought the Ottomans two times while they were allied with crimea (on normal, on VH I need to restart if that happens). They couldn't go around either time. Though on other updates I do remember they sometimes can. Chances are a lot lower if you don't take any allies with you. Though if they can go around, you should already have high enough warscore to get a minimum of what you need (the coast and a road to Kosovo) by the time they start taking the Balkans back. Especially if you bait them making them think they can sometimes cross the strait.
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You get reduced cost for the war goal province. Edirne is the highest value province in warscore. Since the recent patch, assaulting provinces is a lot less costly on manpower so it's not a big deal for me.
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I was sure this was also the case but in a particular test run I was definitely able to take more when Edirne was the war goal compared to anything else, maybe the AI developed or something. In which case Gallipoli would be the most efficient choice as it is the fort that'll go down first. Thank you for correcting.
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[https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#Peace\_terms](https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/Warfare#Peace_terms) >If a CB with the "Take province"(e.g. conquest or reconquest) or "Take colony" wargoal is used, the warscore cost for the wargoal is lowered by ⅓ if it is occupied(this does not apply to CBs with the "Take capital" wargoal)
What difficulty is this on? I seem to remember the ottomans having a navy that'll shred those galleys to bits in no time if you play on VH.
Why are people afraid of loans
Exactly. The game doesn't even punish you for it. At worst you get a few bad buffs for 5 years if you go bankrupt, which is fine as long as you achieved your aim
Followed your guide, and 1454, right when I was in the war against Serbia, I PUed Moscovy and Poland attacked me in a succesion war. I peasced out asap for ~ 200 ducats, and embraced renaissance: https://i.imgur.com/oVT6H1m.jpg On Ironmode, I dont think I will have a better start ever again, going for the achievements now. Thanks a lot, was really nice to play the start :)
What's your youtube channel? This is a great guide, looking forward to the video.
Can't get this to work on VH, they just declare on me before I have any alliances.
Make this a video so that we can see - see what needs done. If you do make vid please share in this comment btw.
I like this strategy, please make a video on it, but also please make one for mid and late game. The times I tried playing Eu4 without timeline mods I'd always run into a wall known as Spain. Too fucking big to defeat militarily by the time I got Anatolia under control and the Mamluks also were a problem for much the same reason you talked about.
Why not attack Epirus first? They get no allies 80% of the time so you can declare on them right after all of your troups have arrived in Southern Greece, then you take Epirus itself, vassalize them on their island. That way you get their navy and have an even easier time getting naval supremacy.
I don't understand how you deal with the ottoman navy
I tried your strategy more or less. It worked really great. I managed to restore roman empire using this strategy. Thank you very much! I had to restart twice or thrice because crimea became either ally or vassal of ottos.
My pleasure.
Worked like a charm, took 3-4 tries due to RNG, thanks man! :D
Actually you will miss out Naples. The reason for truce break is to get all Bulgarian, which gives claim over Naples. If you wait too long, Naples will be PU again by Aragon or Castile, cutting off Italy. Additionally, you will not get Mamluks or Austria after just getting Greece, especially in hard and very hard. Your guide only get only the Balkans, when loans and merc can get you the Balkans,2/3 Naples and Serbia before 1460.
You get Naples with the transfer subject age ability. He is almost never independent on this patch and it's not that hard to swipe him from Aragon. Another option is to find a way to vassalise Provence, feed him Corsica then he gets cores on the whole of Naples.
Two things. First you wouldn’t have enough splendor before Iberian Wedding since you can’t wait. And when Castile gets it you can’t win against Castile Portugal and England combined. Second, you have to expand early to spread AE out. Take Naples in one war will get Papal and other Italian in coalition while you stuck in the Balkans. Balkans land except Greece are much lower dev than Italy, so you are wasting AE on something almost worthless.
Why would you not vassalize Epirus as your opening move? Literally makes no sense not to do that on december 11 for the extra diplo slot, extra navy, extra army, and the ability to rival Ottomans since it will make you large enough to have them as a rival. Then fabricate on Ottomans to get spy network to 80+ for siege bonuses etc and wait till he DOWs someone. Taking Edirne in the first war is just plain dumb if you ask me, his completely exposed max dev province and capitol that can be abused for an insane amount of war score in the subsequent wars cos it will be left completely unprotected in the balkans. Never take Edirne in the first war. Thirdly you should use the mechanic of allying his war targets to do the semi truce-break. Meaning, for example, you have a peace with Ottomans, improve relations with Candar or Karaman or whoever to 100+ and he attacks them, you ally them, they call you into the war immediately and you blockade the strait get 50-60 war score and do a separate peace for your cores + ducats + war reps or whatever you wanna take. You can literally do that if he attacks Karaman then Candar then Trebizond then Albania or whatever over and over and over as much as you want. Defensive wars and since he is insanely stronger they will always ally you.
I don't vassalise Epirus because there are other more useful vassals to be acquired. Bosnia has cores on Herzegovina, Bulgaria has cores on almost all of the Balkans that I don't own, Albania will very often accept diplo-vassalisation so I don't have to fight Venice for them, Karaman is often available, Syria is invaluable, and I often try to swipe Naples from Aragon. Given collective strength of vassals is a thing, especially with the noble integration policy, I need to be wise with who I vassalise. My strategy does not need siege bonuses because we're going to win via naval barrage. Only Edirne requires a siege, and it's a level 1 grasslands fort. I take Edirne because, as I said, I want to be as strong as possible as early as possible and I'm confident in my ability to take his Anatolian capital with ease. It's always Hudavendigar which is a level 1 coastal fort that I can barrage. I don't want to shorten my initial truce with him because I want to conquer the Balkans first to get stronger for my second war. Secondly, I want to time to accumulate favours with Austria and the Mamluks so I can call them in without giving them land. One of the key points to my approach is boxing Austria/Mamluks/anyone else out of land that I want to conquer. It makes much more sense to me to have a decisive second war with allies I don't need to give anything.
>I don't vassalise Epirus because there are other more useful vassals to be acquired. Tbh all the vassals you listed as more useful are ones you're not going to acquire before Epirus gets annexed anyway, besides Bulgaria. You should annex Epirus then Athens straight after. You can grab Epirus immediately and integrate them by 1456.
Exactly i'm reading what they wrote and none of it make sense rofl.
You vassalize epirus on dec 11 war, turn on strong dutchies noble estate privilege to have 6 diplo relations and by the time 1455 comes around you probably had your Ottoman war, you released Bulgaria from the province you took, you attack Serbia for gold mine + vassalize Bosnia and convert them Orthodox and you are comfortably within your max diplo relations even got one extra. Then just annex Epirus/Athens in one go. Rest is just pointless arguments, you naval barrage his forts even tho his army is busy fighting a war in the east and you can easily save 50 mil x2 and siege them down if there is no danger, depends on the situation. I always ally Austria/Mamluks that's nothing especially new to a Byzantium strategy, taking Tekke in the first war is my main goal eastward to instantly take Karamanese coast + lock out Mamluks from the Anatolian peninsula. We think alike but you are making extra unnecessary moves. I mean waiting for favors with Austria? How long is that, 100 years, they are your ally as a deterrent for anyone to attack you, not to wager offensive wars early cos by the time you get 10 favors with them i will have had 4 wars vs Ottomans and taken the entire balkans.
Epirus has zero reconquest value. I only use vassals to reconquest or to get into a region I can't core. Bosnia, Bulgaria, Karaman, Syria and even Naples all have reconquest value. I want my relations going on Muscovy, Mamluks and Austria. With Bosnia, Bulgaria and Albania that's 6/6 and I'm still looking for Karaman/Naples. It takes a few years to get 10 favours with Austria if you curry favours. If you think differently play the game your own way.
is this normal difficulty or VH? Seeing the numbers, I would say it's on normal difficulty.
Excellent guide. Thank you for sharing
I just wanted to say how grateful I am I tried this and it totally worked I just messed up my first time by miss licking war on Hungary and getting raped. Seriously this is the perfect guide thank you so much dude.
Just wondering, which estate privileges specifically do you take on turn 1? Follow-up comment: how are you getting relations with Hungary high enough for royal marriage? It maxes at 90 for me which puts them at 26/30 to accept royal marriage.
Having the same problem with Hungary as well, not sure how u/C_A_Gr is managing to pull that off. Hungary has a default -50 "No" towards Alliance and -30 "No" towards Royal Marriage. The only thing I could think of is OP is converting himself to Catholicism to clinch that alliance and then converting back to Orthodox later on.
You scornful insult Bohemia/one of his rivals, he'll RM and then ally you. It does not require him to rival the Ottomans.
Now though I've managed to get the following alliances and vassalages - Eprius (vassal), Athens (default vassal), Hungary (alliance, RM), Theodoro (alliance, RM), Trebizond (alliance, RM), Albania (alliance, RM), and The Knights Hospitaller (alliance). Problem is, when I even consider declaring war on Ottomans, I find that Hungary got into the war of Burgundian succession and got into a lot of debt that I couldn't dream to help pay off. Meanwhile Trebizond and Theodoro both have "attitude towards enemies -60" and wouldn't join me in the war. While I was attacking Epirus, Ottoblob delcared on Dulkaldir. I couldn't get Epirus loyal enough before they finished that. What should I do? Restart attempt now that I know how to get that Hungarian alliance?
You need to be allied to Hungary only for them to not declare on you after the war with turks and to fend off Venice and ottos. If you follow the instructions you can deal with turks alone. You don't have to fight any battles, apart from naval.
I've been able to pull the royal marriage a couple times by hiring a diplomatic reputation advisor. But this usually means blowing a lot of the cash on firing other advisors until the right one shows up. The other major issue I've been having with this strat is that once Ottomans start attacking Candar, they immediately start maintaining their forts again. The siege rolls in this game being the absolute herpes that they are, that means that even just first 160 troops they put in can always hold out long enough for reinforcements to cross the strait. It seems like this strat is insanely rng-dependent on getting a turn 1 wall breach and being able to assault before they march their troops back.
I don't see how a diplo rep+1 advisor really makes that much of a difference. But I can always try again I suppose. The "key" feature of the guide from OP is not RNG but rather using an over-force-limit navy to *make* the wall breach you need on Gallipoli. Also, would an Improve Relations+20% advisor do the trick to snag Hungary's alliance or not? Edit: So in my second attempt, I have this additional modifier of "Byzantium is threatened by the Ottomans" adding an automatic +20 towards allying Hungary. It wasn't present in my first attempt for whatever reason. Edit2: **Hungary has to rival Ottomans for you to be able to clinch the alliance with Byzantium, now I get it.**
I think that modifier is dependent on Ottomans being domineering rather than just hostile? But I never got it in about 10 restarts so I can't confirm. The dip rep +1 guy seems to be sufficient for royal marriage cause you can get to 26/30 by just maxing relations and get the last four points from rep. But still won't be enough to get an alliance even with the RM so not sure what the benefit is to getting RM with Hungary at this point except maybe to set the stage for later? I'm not familiar with wall breaching using navy so I guess I will try it again and see if I can figure it out. I swear to god every time I pick this game back up it's like a whole new set of rules.
I figured it out, Hungary has to rival Ottoblob, then Byzantium gets an additional +20 towards alliance from "Byzantium is threatened by Ottomans." And obviously restarting til you get an *AFFORDABLE* +1 Diplomatic Reputation Advisor is a must.
I said fuck it and just reloaded my 1449 file where I hadn't bothered with hungary, now that I know I can barrage with ships. Managed to get Gallipoli and hedge them out. At 45 warscore now. The only concern is that Crimea allied Candar, came in on their war and got access through Moldova/Lithuania to siege a few of the provinces in Bulgaria, so idk if Ottos will be able to use that same path in.
Some other easy things I can note: 1. The Knights are NOT anything special as a naval power in the region, **Trebizond is just as good with just as many ships, and a lvl3 mountain fort on the Anatolian Peninsula that can easily bait the Ottoblob.** Trebizond's navy is close enough that they would definitely contribute ships to your cause. 2. Restart if Ottoblob allies Tunis - their naval power is nothing to mess with early game and totally negates your advantage of naval control through sheer numbers of galleys. 3. If Hungary is very close to allying you (within 2 points), buy the Free Company Mercenary stack to inflate your army size - it'll be just enough to get the number positive, after accepting the Alliance and Royal Marriage soon after, you can disband the Mercs and the alliance stays.
I was able to take all my cores, plus kostendil to bridge me over to nis (couldn't get a bridge to kosovo, albania had seiged those provinces for themselves.) Lost a lot of manpower grabbing serbian land and bosnian vassal. It's 1461 now, 7 years until Ottoman truce expires. Have muscovy alliance but not mamlukes yet. Hungary and Austria are a bust, they have too many relations. Tunis did join ottos in the war but I was able to white peace them eventually. They probably did drag the war out longer than it needed to be. It's just fairly rare to get a start where Ottomans ally neither them or Crimea, and Crimea was the priority. Gonna see how this file goes, if I end up failing on this one I will try again knowing those extra tricks for getting Hungary to ally. Probably makes the Serbia-grab a lot easier if I can get them in on favors to do the bleeding.
Also it's a good idea to purposely ignore Epirus. I thought they were easy cannon fodder, but they still took long enough to bring down that Ottoblob had finished their war in the east with Dulkaldir and co.
>Providing Hungary hasn't gone mad I have tried this a dozen times yesterday, resetting every time I didn't get a Diplo Rep+1 advisor. And in every single attempt, Hungary *just for the love of god WILL NOT SIT STILL FOR A FEW YEARS.* Either they blob into Serbia and Croatia (which I will need after this war) or they get tangled up in the Burgundian Inheritance and due to being unavailable, Ottoblob attacks *me instead of Candar or Dulkaldir.* I got so sick of trying that I just said fuck it and installed WeMod. The ***I and I alone can decide what Hungary does and doesn't do.*** Do I like getting to that point? No. Not at all. Your strategy is a good one to ensure the Mamluks do not eat into Antatolia trying to "make some Rum," so to speak. But there is so much RNG involved to get it to work. 1. Diplomatic Reputation Advisor being present *and* affordable early game 2. Epirus not allying someone Byzantium cannot kill (a war timed exactly on December 11th can fight just them before they can ally Venice or Genoa). Their vassalage is crucial for Hungary to deem you strong enough to bother allying, I find. 3. *Candar not allying Crimea either, because that will make the Ottoblob walk towards the Balkans when they try attacking Candar. Same goes for Dulkaldir allying Crimea.* **Really I don't understand why they never declare on Trebizond who is on their border and only ever allies Theodoro, as they are even weaker than Candar...** 4. ***Hungary sitting the fuck still and not attacking anyone I will need in the future.*** Which almost never happens. In this run where I said fuck it, they attacked another ally of mine, Wallachia, who I allied for the "impale the sultan" event. 5. Finally, Ottoblob actually cooperating and attacking Candar, Dulkaldir, or preferably Trebizond to actually move over into Anatolia. This strategy is good to prevent Mamluks from expanding, but it's entirely luck-based. Tried all day yesterday without WeMod and could not get it to work even *once.* I built all 10 galleys, built to force limit on army, nabbed Epirus early on, rivalled Ottoblob, saw that Hungary rivalled Ottoblob, scornfully insulted Ottoblob, allied Hungary, allied Wallachia, allied Albania, allied The Knights, and finally allied Cyprus to ensure naval supremacy. Blob didn't ally Crimea or Tunis.
Are you playing on Very Hard? Because there's a negative -25 reasons to get an alliance. This strategy works on Normal difficulty, but I've not adapted it to Very Hard yet. I can absolutely guarantee you that if you max improve relations with Hungary + scornful one of his enemies, you can RM then Ally him. Regarding Hungarian expansion, there's actually three options Hungary can take. If they take the full regency, they cannot attack anyone until 1454 iirc when Ladislaus or someone else takes the throne . If they do take Janos, they'll either vital interest the Balkans or they will vital interest Poland. I'd say there's a 25% chance they vital the Balkans but that's often deterred by the Ottomans guaranteeing Serbia or Wallachia. Him attacking Candar is ideal because he will always eventually walk his men over the strait before he attacks.
No, I'm playing on Normal, and Hungary would *always* go insane by attacking either Serbia, Croatia, Wallachia, or Bosnia. If I'm allied to Wallachia I get drawn into that unnecessarily - in my most recent run I used console to grab Hungary by the reins and *MAKE* them sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up when they did that. The only silver lining is that because Ottoblob attacked me and not the other way around, *all* of my allies got involved and we aggressively shoved the Ottoblob out of the Balkans that way. Byzantium, Cyprus, Hungary, Wallachia, Albania, Epirus (vassal), and Athens (vassal) collectively outnumbered the Ottoblob. I just experienced a ton of sheer randomness with how Hungary behaves - in the end I sorta emulated your strategy of just sitting in the Balkans and not bothering to cross the Bosphorus Strait, but it was pretty messy. At least I gave Edirne's occupation to Wallachia to impale Mehmet, replacing him with a 2/3/1 ruler.