So I thought I would share my strategy for surviving as Granada to get your reconquista achievment, I hate the idea of running to India, or South America, but I guess my strategy is probably just as cheesey/gamey because I exploit the invisible wall for the AI called Scorched Earth.
So the only condition you really want to see within the first few months is Portugal with the Conquor Tangiers mission. if they dont get it I would suggest restarting because it will be hard to take out Morocco if the Iberians dont Pile onto them.
Before unpause - Ally Algiers/RM, if they wont accept send a diplo to improve relations, and they should accept pretty quickly, Fabricate a claim on a Moroccan province, doesnt matter which (Fez is probably a good choice tho). recruit 1 unit of infantry for each province in Iberia.
basically at the start once you have the claim, wait for the Iberians to declare and land troops, and then declare CTA Algiers and march in with your Ally. Often if Morocco cant ally you they will try and ally Tunisia, this is not an issue, because usually if that happens Tunisia will get rolled by the Iberians. In some play throughs, they peace out and break the alliance, or decline the CTA on the second war. If they do join the war, you can try and vassilze Tunis and Tripopili.
Your objective in this war is to take the lower lands of Morocco, Ifini, Sus, Safi, Cassablanca and one of their high Tax provinces, (I go for Fez usually). Peace out and try to leave them small enough to vassalize in your next war, and get ready because usually about this time your truce is up and Castile is coming. As soon as the truce is up, put your trade ships in port (unless you want to lose them) and get ready.
optional, during downtime you can try and improve relations with the Ottomans, they will ally you eventually which gives some pause to the Iberians, and they can help out in wars, if they are not too busy in their own, BUT it takes warleader away from you which can mean, non favourable peace deals for you.
Also fabricate a new claim on Morocco if you lost your other one.
As soon as they declare, Scorch all 3 Iberian provinces. rinse and repeat, they will not attempt to cross into N Africa, because the wargoal is always Granada. While this is happening, Core your High tax province, while this is frustrating because it costs so much, you have to core it to move your capital. Siege down Portugal's stuff in N Africa, if you can, try and nab some of the Islands, the Canaries, is outside of Europe, and is cheap, some of the others are not cheap because they are considered part of Europe. Watch out for their fleets tho.
Rinse and repeat with SE, until you can get a favourable peace, either white peace out, or try and get some cash or some of the cheap provinces. DO NOT get them to cancel their alliance with Portugal, Portugal often gets the quest "expand the buffer zone" which gives them a claim on cassablanca, if they own Tangiers. You do not want Portugal to declare a separate war for your N African provinces. It is a waste of warscore. You want Portugal to keep getting dragged into Castile's Reconquest wars for Granada.
Once a peace, declare on Morocco and vassalize. once your core on Fez or W/e high tax province you took from Morocco is done, sell Almeira and Gibraltar back to Castile, and move your capital, to your high tax core in North Africa, move the 2 units from Almeria and Gibraltar back to N Africa. Dont sell Granada, you want Castile to keep banging its head on the wall. If you sell all your Iberian holdings they will start invading. Doing it this way you can keep them occupied with Iberia, and they will ignore N Africa until your too big to care.
DONT waste any more admin points at this time, You need to save for your idea group. You CAN sell cores back to morocco, BUT you will be left with very few provinces, AND Ifini, Safi etc are all low base tax and do not make for much OE, you can live with it.
IF Castile gets drawn into a European war, thats fine, just gives you more time to cruise.
Once the truce is up, you will see them move all their troops to the border. put your trade ships in port and get ready for the inveitable DoW. Around this point, they should be starting to look to colonise the West Cost of Africa. so once they DoW being your Scorched earth rotation, siege down any N African holdings of Portugal, then go colony hunting. if you find colonies occupy them. Now if you occupy a colony it still grows, just a lot slower. so the idea is that you occupy until it is around 900 population, then you sieze it. after you sieze it, if you have the Military points (costs MP to use scorched and you cant run out) attack the natives so your colony is safe.
they will then probably start another colony which you can do exactly the same thing to. as long as you keep your SE rotation up, the war can go on indefinitely. they will try and colonize both the West Coast and the Islands off the coast (sorry cant remember the name) you need to get troops there and sieze that too. With any lucky you can sieze the Island and the 3 free provinces on the West Coast. this almost completely blocks them until Diplo tech 7 (I believe could be longer) but they will always finish Exploration first which gives you breathing space (their diplo tech will be behind)
You should be saving your Diplo points for your first idea group. When you get to Admin tech 4 take exploration, get your colonist to work finishing off Portugals colonies you siezed, they will be costing you a fortune, but if you do it right they should finish very fast.
Again once your warscore is high enough peace out. Being integrating Morocco. No Cb Declare on Tunis assuming they have no big allies (usually they are allied to Tripopili if you wrecked the PU) but nobody else, you can vassalize them both in the same war.
Now is quite possibly a good time to ally with Ottomans, because the Mamalukes can become a threat, Although they have not had a go at me yet in any of my games.
If Algeirs is only allied to you, you can backstab them and take over their lands, but often they are allied to the Otto's.
You can fabricate claims on Mali/Jolof and expand that way in peace times, and once your colonies on the west coast are done you can start un opposed for a while on Brazillian colonies. Take as much of the coast as you can to deny it to Portugal and Castile. it is very difficult to stop them, indefinitely but you can get a good amount of colonizing in before they turn up, and if they keep declaring on you (which they do) you can keep stealing colonies from them. Spread down the african coast too to, deny them that avenue as well.
If you get a good monarch in there at some point you can try and westernize, just dont forget you need Military Points to SE. at some point, in my current game, I just got a 5,4,5 monarch, so I am saving points and recruiting advisors, if I can get enough between wars, while colonizing I will Westernize.
This whole strat is based around denying Castile & Portugal conlonial oppurtunities until they get much higher tech. At some point, you should get big enough that you can actually fight back instead of just SE'ing your way to victory.
The main things to remember you want Portugal and Castile to be buddy buddy, because you WANT them to get CTA and then get peaced out so they dont try and take your N African Holdings. If you see them at war with each other, dont stress too much, they will usually be buddy buddy again after it.
The Otto's can be useful allies, but I find that most of the time if Castile is allied with Aragon or Austria, the Otto's will go fight them and leave you be in Iberia, if its just Castile and Portugal, they will come and assist you. But TBH you dont need them to win the wars as long as you dont stuff up your SE rotation.
SE lasts 12months to the date that you did it. BUT the modifier remains until the end of the month...SOMETIMES. I recommend slowing the game speed to 1-2 bars in the month that it expires, It usually lasts until the end of the month but OFTEN it dissapears randomly and you can get caught out.
So let me know what ya think of my strat.
So the only condition you really want to see within the first few months is Portugal with the Conquor Tangiers mission. if they dont get it I would suggest restarting because it will be hard to take out Morocco if the Iberians dont Pile onto them.
Before unpause - Ally Algiers/RM, if they wont accept send a diplo to improve relations, and they should accept pretty quickly, Fabricate a claim on a Moroccan province, doesnt matter which (Fez is probably a good choice tho). recruit 1 unit of infantry for each province in Iberia.
basically at the start once you have the claim, wait for the Iberians to declare and land troops, and then declare CTA Algiers and march in with your Ally. Often if Morocco cant ally you they will try and ally Tunisia, this is not an issue, because usually if that happens Tunisia will get rolled by the Iberians. In some play throughs, they peace out and break the alliance, or decline the CTA on the second war. If they do join the war, you can try and vassilze Tunis and Tripopili.
Your objective in this war is to take the lower lands of Morocco, Ifini, Sus, Safi, Cassablanca and one of their high Tax provinces, (I go for Fez usually). Peace out and try to leave them small enough to vassalize in your next war, and get ready because usually about this time your truce is up and Castile is coming. As soon as the truce is up, put your trade ships in port (unless you want to lose them) and get ready.
optional, during downtime you can try and improve relations with the Ottomans, they will ally you eventually which gives some pause to the Iberians, and they can help out in wars, if they are not too busy in their own, BUT it takes warleader away from you which can mean, non favourable peace deals for you.
Also fabricate a new claim on Morocco if you lost your other one.
As soon as they declare, Scorch all 3 Iberian provinces. rinse and repeat, they will not attempt to cross into N Africa, because the wargoal is always Granada. While this is happening, Core your High tax province, while this is frustrating because it costs so much, you have to core it to move your capital. Siege down Portugal's stuff in N Africa, if you can, try and nab some of the Islands, the Canaries, is outside of Europe, and is cheap, some of the others are not cheap because they are considered part of Europe. Watch out for their fleets tho.
Rinse and repeat with SE, until you can get a favourable peace, either white peace out, or try and get some cash or some of the cheap provinces. DO NOT get them to cancel their alliance with Portugal, Portugal often gets the quest "expand the buffer zone" which gives them a claim on cassablanca, if they own Tangiers. You do not want Portugal to declare a separate war for your N African provinces. It is a waste of warscore. You want Portugal to keep getting dragged into Castile's Reconquest wars for Granada.
Once a peace, declare on Morocco and vassalize. once your core on Fez or W/e high tax province you took from Morocco is done, sell Almeira and Gibraltar back to Castile, and move your capital, to your high tax core in North Africa, move the 2 units from Almeria and Gibraltar back to N Africa. Dont sell Granada, you want Castile to keep banging its head on the wall. If you sell all your Iberian holdings they will start invading. Doing it this way you can keep them occupied with Iberia, and they will ignore N Africa until your too big to care.
DONT waste any more admin points at this time, You need to save for your idea group. You CAN sell cores back to morocco, BUT you will be left with very few provinces, AND Ifini, Safi etc are all low base tax and do not make for much OE, you can live with it.
IF Castile gets drawn into a European war, thats fine, just gives you more time to cruise.
Once the truce is up, you will see them move all their troops to the border. put your trade ships in port and get ready for the inveitable DoW. Around this point, they should be starting to look to colonise the West Cost of Africa. so once they DoW being your Scorched earth rotation, siege down any N African holdings of Portugal, then go colony hunting. if you find colonies occupy them. Now if you occupy a colony it still grows, just a lot slower. so the idea is that you occupy until it is around 900 population, then you sieze it. after you sieze it, if you have the Military points (costs MP to use scorched and you cant run out) attack the natives so your colony is safe.
they will then probably start another colony which you can do exactly the same thing to. as long as you keep your SE rotation up, the war can go on indefinitely. they will try and colonize both the West Coast and the Islands off the coast (sorry cant remember the name) you need to get troops there and sieze that too. With any lucky you can sieze the Island and the 3 free provinces on the West Coast. this almost completely blocks them until Diplo tech 7 (I believe could be longer) but they will always finish Exploration first which gives you breathing space (their diplo tech will be behind)
You should be saving your Diplo points for your first idea group. When you get to Admin tech 4 take exploration, get your colonist to work finishing off Portugals colonies you siezed, they will be costing you a fortune, but if you do it right they should finish very fast.
Again once your warscore is high enough peace out. Being integrating Morocco. No Cb Declare on Tunis assuming they have no big allies (usually they are allied to Tripopili if you wrecked the PU) but nobody else, you can vassalize them both in the same war.
Now is quite possibly a good time to ally with Ottomans, because the Mamalukes can become a threat, Although they have not had a go at me yet in any of my games.
If Algeirs is only allied to you, you can backstab them and take over their lands, but often they are allied to the Otto's.
You can fabricate claims on Mali/Jolof and expand that way in peace times, and once your colonies on the west coast are done you can start un opposed for a while on Brazillian colonies. Take as much of the coast as you can to deny it to Portugal and Castile. it is very difficult to stop them, indefinitely but you can get a good amount of colonizing in before they turn up, and if they keep declaring on you (which they do) you can keep stealing colonies from them. Spread down the african coast too to, deny them that avenue as well.
If you get a good monarch in there at some point you can try and westernize, just dont forget you need Military Points to SE. at some point, in my current game, I just got a 5,4,5 monarch, so I am saving points and recruiting advisors, if I can get enough between wars, while colonizing I will Westernize.
This whole strat is based around denying Castile & Portugal conlonial oppurtunities until they get much higher tech. At some point, you should get big enough that you can actually fight back instead of just SE'ing your way to victory.
The main things to remember you want Portugal and Castile to be buddy buddy, because you WANT them to get CTA and then get peaced out so they dont try and take your N African Holdings. If you see them at war with each other, dont stress too much, they will usually be buddy buddy again after it.
The Otto's can be useful allies, but I find that most of the time if Castile is allied with Aragon or Austria, the Otto's will go fight them and leave you be in Iberia, if its just Castile and Portugal, they will come and assist you. But TBH you dont need them to win the wars as long as you dont stuff up your SE rotation.
SE lasts 12months to the date that you did it. BUT the modifier remains until the end of the month...SOMETIMES. I recommend slowing the game speed to 1-2 bars in the month that it expires, It usually lasts until the end of the month but OFTEN it dissapears randomly and you can get caught out.
So let me know what ya think of my strat.