While Oirat is usually thought of as one of the central steppe hordes, with not many options beyond land based blobbing against the other hordes, its unique position as the gatekeeper to central asia for the manchu and mongols and proximity to the free siberian lands, along with a few other quirks, gives this horde the potential to become one of the colonial powers of the game. The strategy, from my expirience, has proven pretty consistent/reliable, sucsesfully performing well in Ironman.
Step 1: Become ming’s tributary
While other better players that can handle a war against ming might ignore this step, I personally would advise bending the knee while you rush in the early game to gather strength. Becoming Ming’s tributary sheilds you from outside threats and means easy pickings of Chagatai when ming forces them to bend.
Step 2: No Casus Belli Buryatiya
This should be done as early as possible, hopefully before Buryatiya finds an alliance. The goal is to fully annex them, due to their gold and strateigic location.
Step 3: Thats a nice port you have there Yeren.. would be a shame..
Important detail about hordes: their tribal conquest does not require you to have an ajacent core. Just an ajacent controlled province. At this point, a conflict between the manchu/mongol steppe hordes and maybe Korea has probably started, letting you smash through Yeren. You want at minimum the norternmost port and a land bridge to it, probably with extra ports if possible.
Step 4: rush Explorers and Conquistadors
Due to the snakey path of conquered land, you will need to internally manage the unrest for a few years due to lenghty coring path. In the meantime, you will want to build up at least 3 light ships and get explorers and conquistadors as fast as you can. Remember to exploit conflicts in manchuria and ming’s attack on chagatai for easy expantion. Important: you want native repression policy initially.
Step 5: Siberian stepping stones
Once you discover the siberian clan councils, send a large army north and send a colonist to an adjacent province. Once the colony is started, you will get a tribal conquest CB. Declare war and annex all of the clan councils, and remove the colony. Once cored, they should allow for more exploration. Into the new world earlier then most countries could boast.
Step 6: The new world
Now that you have an impressive war chest at your disposal due to all those easy wars, its time to start colonising! Because you need to quickly start making the colonies pay for themselves, you will need to do something I like to call the Pay-For-Genocide trick:
1)Have Native Repression
2)put an army on the province you want to colonise
4)raise your army maintenance to full
3)Kill all the natives (using the attack natives button multiple times)
5) reduce your army maintenance to 0
6) Fully colonise the province
7)Reapeat steps 2 through 6 untill you can support a colonist
Now you should be set to create your colonial empire! There are a few more things I have to talk about though:
Colonising siberia:
You want to basically wall off other countries from colonising it instead of you. This means once you can support a second colonist, you want to secure the coast up to the siberian outpost and block russia from using its siberian fronteir. I suggest cutting of siberia at the estuary due to the trade power it secures.
Mongolia:
Mostly an annoyance, they are still usefull. Even though they hate you, they will still defend their own territory, and that can be a saving grace when dealing with turmoil in the east. Otherwise, I suggest stealing land from events whenever possible.
Tributary threats:
Mostly Korea, securing a strong outside ally is a priority if Korea is not your freind.
Random new world:
The strategy works best with rnw for multiple reasons, though it has its downsides. With rnw, you will most likely have much better land and much more land at your disposal compared to alaska. However, the two big downsides is that the land will probably be a bit further then alaska and you will have to deal with the british much earlier. You have been warned.
Reform and stability:
Ideally, your second idea group should be economic to reform from the steppe horde governement type. If tribal unity becomes a problem Focus military power and strengthen governement. Dont hesitate to use harsh treatment early on as the starting conquests make can make you unstable.
Long term goals, objectives and abstract strategy:
If random new world is enabled, do not spread put your colonial effort too much. No matter how strong you become your navy will be a sitting duck to a UK, so your best bet is beating them on land. Feudalism can be obtained rather easy from the manchu, and colonialism from your colonies.
Here are screenshots of my old save using this strategy:
Step 1: Become ming’s tributary
While other better players that can handle a war against ming might ignore this step, I personally would advise bending the knee while you rush in the early game to gather strength. Becoming Ming’s tributary sheilds you from outside threats and means easy pickings of Chagatai when ming forces them to bend.
Step 2: No Casus Belli Buryatiya
This should be done as early as possible, hopefully before Buryatiya finds an alliance. The goal is to fully annex them, due to their gold and strateigic location.
Step 3: Thats a nice port you have there Yeren.. would be a shame..
Important detail about hordes: their tribal conquest does not require you to have an ajacent core. Just an ajacent controlled province. At this point, a conflict between the manchu/mongol steppe hordes and maybe Korea has probably started, letting you smash through Yeren. You want at minimum the norternmost port and a land bridge to it, probably with extra ports if possible.
Step 4: rush Explorers and Conquistadors
Due to the snakey path of conquered land, you will need to internally manage the unrest for a few years due to lenghty coring path. In the meantime, you will want to build up at least 3 light ships and get explorers and conquistadors as fast as you can. Remember to exploit conflicts in manchuria and ming’s attack on chagatai for easy expantion. Important: you want native repression policy initially.
Step 5: Siberian stepping stones
Once you discover the siberian clan councils, send a large army north and send a colonist to an adjacent province. Once the colony is started, you will get a tribal conquest CB. Declare war and annex all of the clan councils, and remove the colony. Once cored, they should allow for more exploration. Into the new world earlier then most countries could boast.
Step 6: The new world
Now that you have an impressive war chest at your disposal due to all those easy wars, its time to start colonising! Because you need to quickly start making the colonies pay for themselves, you will need to do something I like to call the Pay-For-Genocide trick:
1)Have Native Repression
2)put an army on the province you want to colonise
4)raise your army maintenance to full
3)Kill all the natives (using the attack natives button multiple times)
5) reduce your army maintenance to 0
6) Fully colonise the province
7)Reapeat steps 2 through 6 untill you can support a colonist
Now you should be set to create your colonial empire! There are a few more things I have to talk about though:
Colonising siberia:
You want to basically wall off other countries from colonising it instead of you. This means once you can support a second colonist, you want to secure the coast up to the siberian outpost and block russia from using its siberian fronteir. I suggest cutting of siberia at the estuary due to the trade power it secures.
Mongolia:
Mostly an annoyance, they are still usefull. Even though they hate you, they will still defend their own territory, and that can be a saving grace when dealing with turmoil in the east. Otherwise, I suggest stealing land from events whenever possible.
Tributary threats:
Mostly Korea, securing a strong outside ally is a priority if Korea is not your freind.
Random new world:
The strategy works best with rnw for multiple reasons, though it has its downsides. With rnw, you will most likely have much better land and much more land at your disposal compared to alaska. However, the two big downsides is that the land will probably be a bit further then alaska and you will have to deal with the british much earlier. You have been warned.
Reform and stability:
Ideally, your second idea group should be economic to reform from the steppe horde governement type. If tribal unity becomes a problem Focus military power and strengthen governement. Dont hesitate to use harsh treatment early on as the starting conquests make can make you unstable.
Long term goals, objectives and abstract strategy:
If random new world is enabled, do not spread put your colonial effort too much. No matter how strong you become your navy will be a sitting duck to a UK, so your best bet is beating them on land. Feudalism can be obtained rather easy from the manchu, and colonialism from your colonies.
Here are screenshots of my old save using this strategy:
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