Eu4 Ottomans World Conquest

On

European conquests are easy as Ottomans will help you out. Conquest of Ming- Get a border with Ming as soon as possible and watch them implode. World Conquest possible. Probably the easiest nation to do a WC in 1.26 patch with Dharma DLC. Religious unity-Low religious unity at the start, only gets worse as you conquer provinces.

I have been attempting to unite the world under one tag in EU4 with moderate success, doing a few test runs recreating the Roman Empire as an orthodox Ottomans and getting the Mare Nostrum achievement. But as much as the world trembles before the awesome culture and religion shifting powers of the Great Green Blob, they don't exactly have the optimal set of national ideas to undertake global dominion.

Aside from making a custom nation, which country in the game would have the best possible shot in terms of total development and national ideas at creating a worldwide government, be it formable or otherwise?

TotallyN0tABotTotallyN0tABot
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3 Answers

The easiest is catholic Ottoman. Become Emperor of the HRE and get a vassal swarm to conquer the world for you.

I don't understand, why you would say the Ottomans are not a good choice for world conquest. Ever since the game was released, they've been the #1 choice.While going for catholic makes it easiest an orthodox or even sunni Ottoman is still very much capable of world conquest.

They have three key adavantages over basically any other nation:

  1. Between increased manpower-recovery, reduced core creation cost and massive force limit, they have a very good set of national ideas. This was even nerfed, the Ghazi idea used to give +50% recovery speed.

  2. They are one of the most powerful nations at the start.

  3. Their position is uniquely suited to keep conquering all the time. Thanks to the reduced core creation cost you can afford coring and they are able to alternate wars between Europe, Russia, Arabia and Asia without obtaining enough aggressive expansion to trigger coalitions.

Other relatively easy options:

Ming/Qing - massive power right from the start or as soon you conquered China allows you to steamroll

Eu4 Ottomans World Conquest 1

Castille/France - colonial dominance, but you have to take out the other one quite early

England - With Personal Union over France you become a powerhouse

Austria/Bohemia/Brandenburg - HRE vassal swarm from the source, harder than Ottomans because their initial power level is much lower. Easiest of the three is Austria.

DulkanDulkan
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Catholic Ottoman should be good, Coptic Ottoman is also a good option (more CCR) if you are not opposed to a little exploit to start the game with the Westphalia peace.

To convert Ottoman, you can check FlorryWorry videos for more detail, but basically, you take some provinces the religion you want to convert, give them to the Dhimmi, then you piss off the Dhimmi and remove the provinces from them, generating religious rebels.
Let the Rebels roam free (stopping paying for your forts), while you are at war with an opm, they will convert all your provinces for free. Once they occupy enough provinces, break to them.
Being at war with an Opm prevent them to force break your country before they finished converting.

France is another very good choice, especially if you can quickly force pu over Aragon or Castille. Became Emperor as soon as possible (I personally forfeit Colonization in profit of diplo/influ), and keep the empire catholic by conquering and converting any center of reformation that pop in the empire (once your are the emperor of course).

Try to put your dynasty in PLC and Russia (i was able to do both on my current run), an aggressive PU allows basically allows you to conquer a 800% country in one war.
That's a huge help to a WC.
You can use the put relation on the throne on every HRE member after you revoke the privilege, it should help you to expend your dynasty.

Don't even start me about a diplomatic PU (was able to get PU over Russia and France diplomatically as Castille, without even trying).PUs are another reason why Catholics country are better for your first WC.

Ming is weird. It gets a very easy start, but it can be very difficult to manage WC with the mandate. Keep if mind that a 0% mandate means 50% weaker units.

You don't really have to worry about the Colonization part.Let a weak Portugal or Castille manage it, then PU/Vassalize/conquer the country and get all the Colonial Nations for free.

So my choices :

  • Coptomans with Westphalia
  • France
dnadna

I would argue that christian Ottomans is not the best choice due to these reasons:

  • you lose the Ottoman government type when you switch religion. Their unique government gives access to awesome heirs and make regency almost a 0-chance scenario. You can also focus your heirs to have high admin, so you can core much faster

  • The main reason for going christian - is HRE and annexing Europe. That's the hard way. Consider the opportunity cost - it's much easier at the start of the game to go east and south, conquer rich lands in Africa and Asia, exploit the spice islands. Instead you are forcing yourself to fight against major European powers.

But regular Muslim-Humanist Ottomans with lots of Janissary, with lots of Dhimmi for taxation and tech cost and religious tolerance, - this is an unstoppable steamroll. I urge you to try it this way. This was my way of doing my WC.

Alien-47Alien-47

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People just love to discuss EU4 idea groups, and to be honest almost everything they say is completely wrong.
I have no intention of joining this making stuff up contest, so instead here's a ranking that's as close to correct as it's possible to get.
The algorithm not only gives meaningful relative rankings, it gives meaningful absolute values - expressed in monarch points.
Eu4 ottoman strategyI've written it a while ago, but I'm posting it now, as next patch will mess with the values.

The Algorithm and its limitations

Value of +1 monarch point per month is 1, and that's the unit everything is expressed in. As dip/adm are far more valuable than mil, they're both worth 1.1 and mil is just 0.8, so they average to correct value.
The game has huge number of bonuses, and they're reduced to other bonuses based on some sensible assumptions. Algorithm has simple models of income, spending, military power, envoy use, monarch point budget and so on, and given such assumptions vast number of bonuses can be reduced to just a few.
The ranking has serious limitations, which are completely unavoidable:
  • Assumptions used to calculate point values are based on a typical country, at typical point in the game - maybe extra colonists wouldn't be much use for you as Ulm and maybe you really value galley combat strength over everything else as 1444 Byzantium, but ranking merely expresses how good those bonuses would be on average
  • Algorithm is completely linear. It tries to estimate how good +1 of some bonus would be, and makes linear extrapolation from there. Some bonuses are better in multiples (-10% galley cost is weak, but -100% galley cost is pure exploit territory), some are weaker in multiples (like you really need that 6th missionary most of the time), the algorithm just tries to estimate how much value would an extra one have for a typical country. The game is helpfully linear, so two +10% bonuses are identical to +20% bonus, but that's not the same as being twice as good.
  • Algorithm for the same reason ignores any synergies or anti-synergies between different bonuses.
  • Algorithm just focuses on bonuses, it ignores all events, decisions etc. based on idea groups.
  • Algorithm ignores order of bonuses, so it doesn't care if good ones are early or late.
There are also limitations which could be improved upon:
  • Assumptions and numbers are reasonable ballpark estimates, but they don't have amazing precisions, and you could easily tweak them getting somewhat different rankings.
  • After we reduce handful of bonuses to some values like '5% higher income', '10% more powerful armies', or '1 extra diplomat', how do they compare with universal unit of +1 monarch point/month? Numbers I've chosen here could definitely be challenged.
  • There is not enough distinction made between 'X' and 'base X'. For many things it's just fine, but 'trade income' and 'base trade income' are typically quite far from each other, so good ballpark estimate of trade income would still give wrong estimates of how much trade income bonuses are worth, as they apply to base trade income instead.
  • There could be bugs.
Fortunately it turns out that numbers algorithm returns are not even close - some ideas are drastically better than some others, which makes worries about precision less important.
The whole algorithm is on github. Here I'll just present some examples of the kind of reasoning it uses.
Algorithm estimates that typical country spends 40% of its budget on land forces, and 50% of its army budget on infantry, so -10% infantry cost is equal to -4% army cost, or +2% extra money.
Algorithm estimates that you'll be hitting +1 stability button once every 15 years, and its base cost is 100 (actual cost is irrelevant due to how bonuses stack). So -X% stability cost bonus is worth +X adm points every 180 months. In other words -10% stability cost is estimated as +0.055 monthly admin or +0.061 average monarch point (as adm mp is worth 1.1 mp).
Algorithm calculates that throughout the game you'll spend 4 points a month for base cost of techs - this is surprisingly robust, as we know how many years there are in game, how many techs start to end, and what it's base cost (600/tech). It doesn't need to know how much you're paying for actual techs, bonuses are applied to base cost. So -10% tech cost is worth as much as +0.4 bonus to each monarch point, or +1.2 points/month total.
Algorithm estimates that diplomats spend 25% of their time travelling, colonist 10%, and merchants 1% (missionaries just teleport), and average country has 2 diplomats, 2 merchants, and 1 colonist, so -X% envoy travel time is comparable to +2 * 25% * X% diplomat, +2 * 1% * X% merchant, and +1 * 10% * X% colonists.
Algorithm estimates that usually stability is what you'll be using papal points for, so 100 papal points is about as good as 100 adm. Then it converts +1 yearly papal points to +1/12 montly adm points, and takes 50% as good guestimates how likely you are to be able to take advantage of that. That 50% is somewhat dubious, as much fewer than 50% of countries are Catholic, but typically European countries get this kind of bonuses.
Algorithm estimates that for a typical country, 25% of infidel provinces are heretics, and 75% are heathens, so +1% missionary strength against heretics is worth as much as +0.25% against everyone.
Algorithm estimates that extra siege pip speeds up sieges by 17% (that's based on some spreadsheet simulations), and 30% of sieges have leaders (that's just a guess), so +1 leader siege is worth 5.1% siege ability.
If you're interested in such calculations, script explains its choices in comments pretty well.
The last step is most arbitrary, covering all things that have no good conversions:
  • +1 colonist - +3 points
  • +1 diplomat - +2 points
  • +1 missionary - +1 point
  • +1 merchant - +1 point
  • +1% missionary strength - +1 point
  • -1 unrest - +1 point
  • -0.1 autonomy - +1 point
  • -10% warscore cost - +1 point
  • +10% money - +1 point
  • +20% siege ability - +1 point
  • +10% defensiveness - +0.1 point
  • +10% military power - +1 point
  • +10% manpower - +0.3 point
  • +25 colonial growth - +1 point
  • +0.5 point for every minor ability (like infiltrate administration, reduced stab impact etc.)
  • +1 point for extra CB (religious CBs are treated as 2 different CBs)
  • +1 annual legitimacy - +0.5 point
  • +1 annual republican tradition - +1 point
  • ability to explore - +2 points
  • +1 advisor pool size - +1 point
  • +1% hostile attrition - +1 point
  • 10% better relations over time - 0.2 points
  • -10% AE impact - 0.2 points
  • +1 diplo rep - +1 point
A lot of bonuses like prestige, IA, fervor, heir chance, trade range, interest, ship recruitment speed, enemy core creation, spy offence etc. are ignored completely as either far too situational to be of use to a typical country, or basically pointless.
To help with those numbers I took decisions and policies like '+1 missionary strength +1 unrest' (maybe yes, maybe no - so these bonuses are worth about the same), '+1 colonist for -1 dip' (so ridiculously good so they removed it in patch), which is not terribly scientific, but it's a good starting point.
And here's the ranking of idea groups:
  • 11.76 Exploration Ideas
  • 9.54 Religious Ideas
  • 8.23 Diplomatic Ideas
  • 7.58 Expansion Ideas
  • 5.22 Humanist Ideas
  • 4.80 Influence Ideas
  • 4.50 Plutocratic Ideas
  • 4.14 Trade Ideas
  • 4.10 Aristocratic Ideas
  • 3.62 Espionage Ideas
  • 3.58 Defensive Ideas
  • 3.42 Innovative Ideas
  • 3.40 Quantity Ideas
  • 2.40 Offensive Ideas
  • 1.94 Economic Ideas
  • 1.66 Administrative Ideas
  • 1.35 Quality Ideas
  • 0.96 Maritime Ideas
  • 0.56 Naval Ideas
As you can see every single military idea is total crap, and naval/maritime are just ridiculously bad. I don't expect anybody to possibly be surprised by top 5.
And here's the ranking. Personally I'd value Russian, Spanish and American ideas above Najdi - Najdi ideas are very good, but its +5% missionary strength is perhaps not worth 5x as much as +1% missionary strength bonus would be, so algorithm's linear character arguably overestimates it.
Only one country has ideas which algorithm estimates as (within margin of error) worse than default ideas, and I totally agree with this assessment.
  • 10.85 Najdi Ideas
  • 10.49 Muscovite Ideas
  • 10.36 Spanish Ideas
  • 10.10 American Ideas
  • 8.88 Colonial Ideas
  • 7.54 Jerusalem Ideas
  • 6.96 Byzantine Ideas
  • 6.92 Norwegian Ideas
  • 6.86 Bremen Ideas
  • 6.74 Austrian Ideas
  • 6.55 Manchu Ideas
  • 6.49 Sukhothai Ideas
  • 6.42 Mapuche Ideas
  • 6.42 Assamese Ideas
  • 6.39 Canadian Ideas
  • 6.38 Carib Ideas
  • 6.32 Teutonic Ideas
  • 6.32 Bosnian Ideas
  • 6.29 Native Ideas
  • 6.24 Iroquois Ideas
  • 6.15 Kievan Ideas
  • 6.08 French Ideas
  • 5.84 Lan Xang Ideas
  • 5.79 Kanem Bornuan Ideas
  • 5.73 Québécois Ideas
  • 5.63 Romanian Ideas
  • 5.55 Divine Ideas
  • 5.51 Kurdish Ideas
  • 5.41 Cherokee Ideas
  • 5.38 Malayan Sultanate Ideas
  • 5.37 German Ideas
  • 5.36 Provençal Ideas
  • 5.34 Palatinate Ideas
  • 5.32 Armenian Ideas
  • 5.27 Krakowian Ideas
  • 5.26 Shawnee Ideas
  • 5.20 Japanese Ideas
  • 5.11 Tibetan Ideas
  • 5.09 Knights Hospitaller Ideas
  • 5.07 Welsh Ideas
  • 5.03 Ajuuraan Ideas
  • 5.01 Mossi Ideas
  • 4.95 Savoyard Ideas
  • 4.92 Vindhyan Ideas
  • 4.91 West African Ideas
  • 4.88 Central Indian Ideas
  • 4.86 Novgorod Ideas
  • 4.86 Trebizond Ideas
  • 4.79 Javan Ideas
  • 4.78 Lithuanian Ideas
  • 4.67 Karamanid Ideas
  • 4.58 Hungarian Ideas
  • 4.56 Songhai Ideas
  • 4.53 Sinhalese Ideas
  • 4.48 Moldavian Ideas
  • 4.47 Papal Ideas
  • 4.45 Hausan Ideas
  • 4.45 Tapuian Ideas
  • 4.44 Bulgarian Ideas
  • 4.44 Ragusan Ideas
  • 4.43 Athenian Ideas
  • 4.42 Polotskian Ideas
  • 4.42 Fulani Jihad Ideas
  • 4.40 Danish Ideas
  • 4.40 Irish Ideas
  • 4.39 Sumatran Ideas
  • 4.35 Client State Ideas
  • 4.34 Circassian Ideas
  • 4.33 Pskovian Ideas
  • 4.31 Transylvanian Ideas
  • 4.26 Finnish Ideas
  • 4.24 English Ideas
  • 4.23 Horde Ideas
  • 4.22 Ryukyuan Ideas
  • 4.18 Afghan Ideas
  • 4.15 Scottish Ideas
  • 4.13 Siberian Ideas
  • 4.10 Italian Ideas
  • 4.10 Polish Ideas
  • 4.09 Montenegrin Ideas
  • 4.06 Prussian Ideas
  • 4.04 Swahili Ideas
  • 4.03 Dai Viet Ideas
  • 4.01 Ashanti Ideas
  • 4.00 Ethiopian Ideas
  • 4.00 Chinese Ideas
  • 3.99 Ryazan Ideas
  • 3.98 Huron Ideas
  • 3.96 Bohemian Ideas
  • 3.96 Kongo Ideas
  • 3.92 Nepali Ideas
  • 3.90 Siddi Ideas
  • 3.90 Tarascan Ideas
  • 3.89 Hejazi Ideas
  • 3.89 Wallachian Ideas
  • 3.87 Ayutthayan Ideas
  • 3.85 Breton Ideas
  • 3.81 Bavarian Ideas
  • 3.79 Bahmani Ideas
  • 3.77 Mesoamerican Ideas
  • 3.77 Anatolian Ideas
  • 3.74 Zaporozhian Ideas
  • 3.71 Vijayanagar Ideas
  • 3.70 Yaroslavlyian Ideas
  • 3.69 Khmer Ideas
  • 3.68 Brazilian Ideas
  • 3.67 Holstein Ideas
  • 3.63 Mexican Ideas
  • 3.63 Arabian Ideas
  • 3.61 Shan Ideas
  • 3.55 Chachapoyan Ideas
  • 3.54 Kazani Ideas
  • 3.52 Taungu Ideas
  • 3.51 Portuguese Ideas
  • 3.51 Pueblo Ideas
  • 3.47 Mughal Ideas
  • 3.45 Milanese Ideas
  • 3.43 Ottoman Ideas
  • 3.41 Khivan Ideas
  • 3.41 Wurzburgian Ideas
  • 3.40 Aztec Ideas
  • 3.39 Daimyo Ideas
  • 3.37 Ruthenian Ideas
  • 3.35 Venetian Ideas
  • 3.33 Air Ideas
  • 3.33 Candarid Ideas
  • 3.30 Hamburger Ideas
  • 3.29 Malian Ideas
  • 3.28 Swedish Ideas
  • 3.27 Theodoro Ideas
  • 3.22 Saxon Ideas
  • 3.22 Indian Sultanate Ideas
  • 3.22 Jaunpuri Ideas
  • 3.20 Croatian Ideas
  • 3.17 Hessian Ideas
  • 3.17 Naxian Ideas
  • 3.17 Serbian Ideas
  • 3.16 Dutch Ideas
  • 3.14 Berber Ideas
  • 3.11 Guarani Ideas
  • 3.10 Couronian Ideas
  • 3.10 Ming Ideas
  • 3.09 Muiscan Ideas
  • 3.09 Navarran Ideas
  • 3.04 Tuscan Ideas
  • 3.03 Beninese Ideas
  • 3.03 Cypriot Ideas
  • 3.02 Korean Ideas
  • 3.01 Tverian Ideas
  • 3.01 Bengali Ideas
  • 3.01 Arawak Ideas
  • 3.00 Granada Ideas
  • 3.00 Gujarati Ideas
  • 2.99 Creek Ideas
  • 2.99 Punjabi Ideas
  • 2.96 South Indian Ideas
  • 2.90 Danziger Ideas
  • 2.86 Georgian Ideas
  • 2.84 Silesian Ideas
  • 2.82 Incan Ideas
  • 2.77 Italian Ideas
  • 2.70 Chimu Ideas
  • 2.67 Permian Ideas
  • 2.64 Timurid Ideas
  • 2.55 Chickasaw Ideas
  • 2.42 Omani Ideas
  • 2.41 Dahomey Ideas
  • 2.38 Mogadishan Ideas
  • 2.35 Hanseatic Ideas
  • 2.32 Charruan Ideas
  • 2.31 Maratha Ideas
  • 2.31 Mamluk Ideas
  • 2.22 Pacific Northwest Ideas
  • 2.20 Orissan Ideas
  • 2.18 Aymaran Ideas
  • 2.16 Smolenskian Ideas
  • 2.04 Persian Ideas
  • 2.02 Rajput Ideas
  • 1.92 Swiss Ideas
  • 1.91 Pomeranian Ideas
  • 1.87 Burgundian Ideas
  • 1.87 Tupi Ideas
  • 1.79 Neapolitan Ideas
  • 1.73 Gutnish Ideas
  • 1.72 Andean Ideas
  • 1.60 Caucasian Ideas
  • 1.51 Albanian Ideas
  • 1.44 Aragonese Ideas
  • 1.34 Default National Ideas
  • 1.30 Genoese Ideas