TL;DR: It's 1652, I play as Russia and am a GP, but I keep getting crushed by the Ottomans who outnumber my armies 5:1 by themselves and even more with vassals and allies. All the Catholic GP colonizers have made a giant alliance (they destroyed Reformed France) which is even more ridiculously huge in terms of dev, armies and colonies. They have colonized literally the entire world except for Australia, and I now find myself between a rock and a hard place. I have land from Stockholm to Beijing (and Relentless Push East + Alyeska CN) but I'm also massively in debt and bleeding tons of ducats every month, and I'm asking for advice to see what I did wrong and how I can improve my game.
The thread title refers to the fact that I feel like it's going to be nigh on impossible to get out of this situation, as whatever I do the other GP's will just beat me to pulp meaning I have a harder and harder time defending myself and getting my economy and army back on track.
Longer version: I'll list what I think I did wrong or messed up and what I probably did right, as well as what I struggle with.
Right:
Wrong:
Questionable:
Struggles:
Any advice is appreciated.
The thread title refers to the fact that I feel like it's going to be nigh on impossible to get out of this situation, as whatever I do the other GP's will just beat me to pulp meaning I have a harder and harder time defending myself and getting my economy and army back on track.
Longer version: I'll list what I think I did wrong or messed up and what I probably did right, as well as what I struggle with.
Right:
- Taking Danzig immediately to prevent the Commonwealth from forming, which seems to have worked well. Even when Poland DoW'd me with Conquest of Danzig as CB, they didn't want it in the peace deal and I got it back eventually after being forced to release it as a vassal in another war.
- Crushing Ming for money and power, as well as taking Beijing to tank mandate.
- Taking Stockholm, Åland and south Finland to be able to march into Sweden without delay from sea blockades across the straits.
- Forming trade companies in Siberia and Manchuria powerful enough to grant extra merchants, and then funneling all trade to Novgorod.
- Getting inflation reduction modifiers from estates, as well as +mana points.
- Always staying ahead in military tech.
Wrong:
- Integrating two vassals simultaneously with an amazing monarch, which zeroed out all my dip gain for years, only to be immediately followed by an independence war (that I won, but still).
- Deleting all my forts, since I read some guide saying forts are useless with good armies, and therefore all my enemies can just march wherever they please and take the land immediately.
- Prioritising accomplishing the Relentless Push East achievement over conquest of richer lands to the south like India.
- Losing one province to the Ottomans early, preventing the mission for claims on the Pontic Steppes.
- Releasing Qasim and vassal feeding it preventing me from completing the mission to consolidate Russia until way after forming it.
- Delaying forming Russia because of lack of admin points.
- Taking Exploration as a late idea just to snatch Alaska, and realising everywhere else was already taken.
- Neglecting to develop my three gold mine provinces for income.
- Allowing Corruption to increase to over 20 due to having a lot of Overextension for a long time.
- Granting Cossack regiment privileges despite never once using them.
- Spending two wars conquering Riga due to having to siege down huge forts in all their Trade League allies’ provinces.
Questionable:
- Going for Dip to have an easier time with vassals, but then running out of them midgame and therefore having a lot of bonuses but nothing to use them on.
- Ignoring navies except for exploring to save money, since I can’t compete with anyone else in this aspect anyway (not even Denmark).
- Building Manufactories in as many Fur provinces as possible, even low dev ones.
- Relying entirely on Streltsy for armies, meaning a lack of artillery and cavalry which is bad for later sieges, and running out of manpower when reinforcing.
- Converting all land within reach (that’s not in TC land) by stacking every missionary strength modifier possible, including in vassal lands.
Struggles:
- Institutions spread - despite using every possible modifier I am still unable to efficiently spread institutions at any reasonable date, since my land is so huge.
- Colonies - despite being on par with dev with the other GP’s, they own all colonisable land everywhere and I have no clue how to keep up with that.
- Income - even with almost no forts, just maintaining an army at force limit is eating huge amounts of ducats, and I’m now also so deep in debt that things are going south at an alarming rate. Bankruptcy is an option, though not very appealing, but debasing currency seems worse.
- Army composition and positioning - Russia is gigantic, and it takes crazy long to march armies across it, not to mention taking a lot of attrition. It’s difficult to assess where they should be to protect against invasions without having half your forces sitting uselessly on the other end of the map in a war.
- Allies - literally everyone except for Georgia hates me for being either a heathen or a heretic, and at least six countries are also rivalling me meaning no chance whatsoever for any alliances with anyone important. For a while Bohemia could stand it until they decided they hated my heretic ways and dissolved it. The League wars never fired so I didn’t get a chance to beat on the Poles and Danes with the help of the Ottomans.
- Standing against two snowballs - on the one hand we have the Ottomans with their insane armies and economy (who also owns all of the Balkans, the Levant, the Pontic Steppes and all of Carpathia and is allied to Tunis who owns the North African coast) on the other hand we have the giant alliance of Catholic colonizers consisting of Great Britain (who own Alaska, California, Brazil, Argentine, New Guinea and almost all of mainland France), Spain (who own all of west and north South America, Mexico, Florida, Canada and south Maghreb plus most of Indonesia) and Portugal (who own every single Caribbean island, all of South and eastern Africa, the Kongo coast, Australia, New Zealand, the rest of Indonesia, north Maghreb and some islands). Reformed France are faltering in the face of their onslaught but still owns Panama, the south tip of South America and some assorted islands.
Any advice is appreciated.
