Advice needed on Mughal Empire game

[unmerged(44072)]

I'm a fairly inexperienced EU player playing the ICG v. 1.23 as the Mughal Empire. It’s June 1643 and I just annexed Persia a couple years ago. Things have gone pretty much according to plan so far. I have a total of 43 cities, 4 colonies and 7 trading posts. I control almost all of India--everything west of a French trading post at Howrah except for Goa and Mangalore (Portuguese trading posts). Sorry for the lack of a screenie. I also hold the middle east as far west as Basrah, Iraq, Kirkuk, Kurdistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the exception of the Uzbek holdings. I also have the gold province of Samara.

My neighbors:
Uzbeks: the area east of the Caspian + Khorasan, Balucht and Azerbaijan
Sibir: Orenburg and points east
Turkey: holds the middle east to the west of me and has annexed the Hedjaz, Oman and the Mameluks. They also hold most of the Balkans and the north shore of the Black Sea.
Denmark (!) – controls Sochi.
Russia: very small. Controls the isolated province of Uralk, otherwise Tanbouw is their only holding south of Moscow. Novgorod is independent.
Poland-Lithuania: controls almost all inland areas between the Baltic and the Black Sea that lie south of Russia and west of Sibir.

My economy is strong. Income last year was 2122 (higher than any other great power except Spain), my trade level is on par with the western European powers (0.55) and I control two rich centers of trade (Delhi and Isfahan). I will reach trade level 6 in 1662. Infrastructure is only middling (about the same as Austria) but behind the Western European powers. I will reach infrastructure level 5 in 1655. I have a two arts academies and five refineries.

Militarily I have moderate sized land army, but essentially no navy. I’m a bit behind in land technology--researching level 12 (muskets) to finish in 1669. That puts me on a par with Poland-Lithuania, but behind the other great powers though I will catch up to Russia soon. For some reason, I’m not receiving a neighbor bonus, though Turkey is ahead of me (don’t understand that). My naval level is very low, reaching Galleons (5) in 1675.

My problem is this. I’m currently second with 1797 victory points, well ahead of Turkey in third (1148) but well behind Spain (2055), and I don’t seem to be picking up ground. So I have 150 years to catch a runaway Spain.

The current alliance situation of the major powers is this:

Mughals, Uzbeks, Sibir
Spain, Hessen, Cologne, Portugal, Naples
France, Austria, Helvetia, Savoy
Turkey, Denmark, Prussia
England, Russia, Netherlands, Knights, Genoa
Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, Bohemia, Ethiopia, Eire

Russia and Austria are weak, so the France-Austria and England-Russia axes are not as impressive as they sound.

My relations with Turkey are very good, but we’re not currently allied. Directly attacking Spain isn’t really an option, so as I see it I have a few options:

I can turn on my allies, and perhaps explore and set up trading posts in Siberia. I could also try to vassalize/diplomatically annex them, but they may have become too strong.

I can try to expand northward from Azerbaijan into Poland-Lithuania, which is large but poor and relatively primitive. It’s a long haul to bring manpower up that way, but the stability hit is smaller. Then again, once I start getting more Christian territories, rebellions may be more of a problem.

I can go after Turkey, again eating the stability penalty for attacking another Sunni nation without casus bellii. Probably richer spoils, but a lot more difficult. I might need some European help, but I suppose I can burn cash to get Austria, Venice or Poland-Lithuania to help. Perhaps I could just ally with them and wait for them to get into war with Turkey so I can avoid the stability penalty?

What’s my best bet for getting lots of victory points quickly?

 

[unmerged(44072)]

Actually thought of another option:

I could try to grab the incredibly lucrative British colony at Tarakan and go after Ayutthaya and China (which has annexed Dai Viet). This might be the easiest and most lucrative course of action, although I have not explored anywhere east of Tarakan. I'm reluctant to weaken Britain, though, as they may be critical in containing Spain.

 

[unmerged(11600)]

Not having played IGC yet (I downloaded it about a year ago, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong o ), so my answers might need to be tweaked. The surest way to surpass Spain in the VP race is to fight wars with them and win. In the GC, they rarely ever fortify their non-gold provinces in the Americas, so winning quickly is not out of the question (send troops {preferably cav} on a fleet over there, declare war, and unload).

If you want a CB against someone who owns a CoT, flood their center with merchants and hope they embargo you. If you've got diplomats to spare, send them Monty Python frenchmen ("Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!"), who knows, they might attack you themselves.

-Pat

 

[Nikolai II]

You have about 50 years to weaken Spain before they begin to fortify like mad, so use them to invade South America (preferably by having a stopover port somewhere to combat naval attrition)

Else aim for teching up, making wars here and there when you get a CB (CoT merchant spamming is the best method) waiting to attack Spain later, not with the intention of taking many provinces, only to make them drop in the VP race.

Oh yes.. do tech up trade and infra first, and pick one slider - never split your research on several sliders if you want maximum payback

 

[unmerged(44072)]

Hmm...it's going to be hard for me to attack Spain in South America since I haven't discovered America yet. My field of view doesn't extend much beyond the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. I haven't been able to trade discoveries to anybody with the big picture.

I can really only COT spam Poland-Lithuania and Turkey, since my other neighbors (even Russia) have no COT. I still hesitate to attack Turkey though it's easier logistically than the others.

 

[unmerged(44072)]

Well, I finished the game and won pretty easily (by about 650 points) without taking any extraordinary measures. I nibbled away at Turkey two provinces at a time in about 5 short wars. The first time I got CB by the merchant rush, but after that Turkey never tried to bar me from the COT's again. However, I decided to simply eat the stability and attacked Turkey whenever they got into a war with Austria, and that worked quite well. It may have assisted in Spain's stagnation, as Austria became quite strong and was able (with its French ally) to run Spain out of Italy and Sicily. My last war with Turkey was the most difficult, as they chose to attack me. I was actually getting ready for another offensive, but I was going to try and do it across the straits of Hormuz to minimize the loss of units to attrition traveling across the desert. So at the time that Turkey attacked (with a force of over 150,000) in Georgia, I was busily building ships in Hormouz. Since I didn't have cash on hand, I took out a couple loans (with my economy, I wasn't worried) and built an instant defense force.

I also had a couple of wars with Russia. Russia twice foolishly tried to attack Sibir after eliminating the Golden Horde, and paid a tribute of two provinces to me each time in very quick wars.

I selected the Mughal's because I was looking to try a non-European power and their great COT, good starting economy and isolation from Europe. But I have to say they aren't really very challenging to play. Even with the slower muslim tech, I was able to hang with the tech leaders in everything but naval. The other Indian states are small and weak, and once you have control of India, Persia lacks the manpower to fight you off. I'm actually playing Denmark and finding it a lot more difficult.

 

[Nikolai II]

I amused myself with Switzerland in the IGC, finding it nicely challenging. I did the Knights and Genoa before that, but it was too simple. I touched upon Ethiopia (or was it Nubia) but it was too boring.

Only game I actually played to conclusion (meaning that it was challenging enough to last me to the end) was a game as the Golden Horde. Great great fun, especially in the beginning