OGs know it started with the AI coalition strat

​@youtuberobbedmeofmyname Ah I remember that. Shit was broken. Lol

@@youtuberobbedmeofmyname haha true, u could barely make something on normal as byzantium back then but for this strat u had to switch to hard/veryhard - and it was consistent when usually u had to restart game 20 times before u even had a chance to do anything. When I saw his guide about this it was mindblowing lol

Yup. I dont want to bash anyone, but no one does it like budgetmonk.

"How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old man?"

This is genius masterwork, as always. I also did something similar after watching your guide, except instead of recruiting a full merc company, I left 1 sacrificial troop in Cephalonia, was good enough bait. Worked like a charm, first try, even though my starting rivalries weren't ideal.

You are a lifesaver my friend! I had some damned troops stay on the island and kept losing the race. Thanks!

freaking crazy smart!! well played my friend!!

Biggest problem I've noticed with Ludi and Red Hawks guide are not that they don't work its the fact that they want you to do crazy min maxing and do everything perfectly in order to pull it off. Then on top of that some of the cheese mechanics they use really screw you long term which they don't show in their "guides" so yea sure the early game is easy but now they just made the mid to late game much harder because your country is usually in shambles by the time their guides are over.

The guide of Red Hawk required so much rng, while he pretended it didn't. It does feel more realistic though, to ally the west for survival

@@darkguild69 Exactly, I don't know those 2 content creators but I've stumbled upon random guides or advice comments, half of which basically involve bankrupting your country, wasting so much mana which could have been spent on development and skyrocketting your aggressive expansion penalty with important neighbors, taking decades just to recover that latter aspect.

Red hawk guides work well for me as long as I closely check the conditions (eg who X has allied/rivaled) and alt f4 if something goes totally haywire. Ludis guides and videos seems console commanded THOUGH

​@@THX-1138The infamous "Manchu guide incident" Also 100 army tradition in 1500 as Venice or Sardinia (I don't remember)

I went with a mix of what you've described and Ludi Et Historia's approach. Quick Rundown: 1. Focus Mil, hire L1 Admin and Diplo advisors. Hire an L2 Mil advisor (Morale preferred, but you don't have the cash to reroll for one at the start. Wait till after Serbia, if needed.) And give out the privilege for more mil points. With this much focus, you will have Tech 4 in approximately March of 49. If you get a lucky event (such as those from the Phoenix DLC), you can get it as early as 48. NOTE: this is BEFORE the Ottomans can even get it. 2. Set the development edict in Thrace and begin pumping up Constantinople with ONLY Admin and Diplo mana. Your goal is 30. Why? You will be able to Consecrate the metropolitan once you release Bulgaria. This gives 5 Patriarchal Authority. (It will also speed up ship production, but that's incidental). 3. Important Estates are: Nobility Officer Rights, Religious Diplomats, Institutionalized Klirrikoi. Most people don't think of that last one, but the decision it give sacrifices 5 prestige and legitimacy for 5 Patriarchal Authority. 4. Prioritize relations with Genoa and Venice, even going so far as to move your merchant into Ragusa and Genoa and setting them to Improve Communities. If Venice starts hostile to you, you're looking at March of 46. If they start neutral, you can have it by November of 45. Regardless, it removes the shipbuilding penalty and they will be built _faster_ than if you built them day 1. Your starting fleet is 2 Trade Ships, 8 Galleys, and 6 Transports. You need to construct at least 5 galleys. That will give you a combined 200 cannons for barrages. 5. Release Bulgaria and make them a Pronoia right before you attack Epirus. 6. Vassalize Epirus and take Arta. Their navy is still useful against the Ottomans, but even more useful later on for reasons I'll describe. DO NOT peace them out until after you've gotten the ships started, as the AE will drop Venice's opinion by about 10-15 points due to the AE and them wanting the province. 7. Once Genoa is up to 50, improve with Pope to get the alliance right after starting the ships. (I find Venice frequently rivals them.) 8. Pre-land your troops in your ally of Papal States (if you can). Then declare on Naples the day after Alfonso dies for best results. Based on my few runs, this is about when the Ottomans will be attacking their east. You'll have the superior fleet and army and can crush Naples. If you were delayed, call in the Papal States with the promise of land. If you do, make sure to move troops onto Naples' Provinces first or the Papacy will take them. Peace out for ALL of your claims and give the Papacy Abruzzo. If you're lucky, this will be sufficient land to appease the pope. If not, it's unfortunate, but you can't afford to give them anything else. Do be aware that you want to try and appease them because the Ottoman war is much easier if you... 9. Ally Georgia. Somewhere about here you should have the relations with Serbia to get your gold. Do that and then ally Georgia. They will usually want Canik from the Ottomans, allowing you to call them in, if you didn't piss off the Pope. 10. Ship your troops back to Constantinople. Having boosted Constantinople to 30 Dev, the land you acquired from Naples will give you 100 development, allowing you to repair the army. Then take the Icon of St. Micheal from your religion screen. (Five Patriarch Authority from Consecrating Constantinople and 5 from the Privilege decision.). Then you can take the mission to double its effect. Assuming you're attacking in 47 or 48, you will have MORE Morale and Discipline than the Ottomans. (They get 5% from their tradition and will sometimes hire an advisor. In this case, you match their discipline, but that's still much better than not.) 11. Fight the war. It's hard fought, but you can barrage Gelibolu/Gallipoli and seize control of the straight. It'll be tricky, but you'll have the troop quality advantage. Once you've taken the fort, carpet siege the rest and move your ships to port to trick Ottoman troops into crossing. Block the strait, destroy them, repeat a few times to cull their manpower. Special Note for Events: A. For the Ottoman Pretender, I recommend not even threatening the Ottomans. You get 50 diplo to help develop Constantinople and like 2k manpower. B. For the City Under Siege event, go with the Morale. C. For the Latin Favoritism event, take the gold. The removal of the privilege has nothing to do with Burgher loyalty. D. Keep the Union of the Churches so you can keep your mercs cheap. It's easy enough to remove after you defeat the Ottomans.

@@nehemiahkenny5027 Yeah, the pretenders succeeded in my run and added another 21k troops to the Ottoman army after I had defeated the other 30k. Pretty exhausting having to deal with even more troops when they initially declared on me(probably because I was tech 3 and they were 4).

Very nice.

AI always DOW weakest alliance web at there border. New Mamluks do not ally "Turkish minor" anymore, because they do not have the dip slots at Gamestart. Result, as long your personal alliance web stays stronger than +1 alliance web of AI nations, ottoman will never Dow you. That's how Byz into HRE emperoship over capital to naes and chatolic religion tactic works. You simply get "stronger allies" than the other nations at Ottoman border.

@@aqvamarek5316 That's how Byz into HRE emperoship over capital to naes and chatolic religion tactic works. WHAT

@@realityisenough you use your mission tree post Epirus war, to get your claims in neaple. Mil access your ally pope, put your army there, through mil access. Now 1vs1 neaple when they get there independence, force Catholic rebels post peace deal (accepte demand, loose the dip relationship penalty for being orthodox). Ally Austria, move capital neaple, enter hre. And ally the typical big boys like burgundy (for BI and taking there land for free)/castille. Now get electors, become emleror, and simply farm +10 ia for new ruler over your starting goverment reform. And prestige in proxy war, to always pump a heir, so that you get directly a new revolt stack for even more IA. Rince and repeat, until you get the vassal swarm in 1500-1550, than go back orthodox, and conquer the world. Your new vassal Typ also offers you the option to annex monarchy vassal dip cost free

Same, ottomans take quite awhile to finish off all the anatolian minors in this patch

I just tried it and was successful. The bit I struggled with was getting them onto the island in the first place! Took me the best part of a year!

Had the same Happening to me 3 times. One Ottoman Stack did not move. On the 3rd try Ottomans for whatever reasons did not send a peacedeal until I unsieged Mesambria. I got really Lucky I guess.

honestly with the bonus morale from navies etc. it is pretty even at sea before considering many opportunities to get lucky. Admiral/trait/capture ships etc. The only real dependence is that the Ottomans do not ally someone with a navy which seems very unlikely in this patch. They do AQ like 90%

@@BudgetMonk In my tests, I have had them ally QA 70%, QA AND France once (absolute garbage and reset run), and Duk the rest of the time. Of course, first change was just released so who knows.

This is what I advise others to do. You can always deviate if you think you can do better. The reason is because most people struggle to have Bulgarians defect.

@@BudgetMonk Thank you for the reply, was just curious when you made the change in your strategy. I’m playing my first 1.36 and had luck doing the your strategy to kick the Turks out of the balkans after the first war. I usually use my peace to gain the Islands from Venice, Knights and Cyprus, knowing it is not the most optimal strategy (role play).

One day I am going to do a crazy Goatland run. And we will do this on that run.

I am going to play around with byz emp for other reasons. Client states can result in many members in the HRE. However almost any monarchy can do what you just suggested with simply taking the "elective monarchy" gov reform.

They only problem with deleting the fort in Constantinople is that you will have much less time to defeat the Ottoman navy. If their navy still has superiority over you then they can cross over the strait to the island and end the war. Assuming the ai has the competence to park their fleet there

It's guarantee. Monk wanted to make a strat where no AI can give Ottomans access to Bulgaria to deal with rebels

I'm also curious. Blocking them off the coast is not enough? Also, i didn't even know the entire country breaks free, including non-occupied provinces.

@@Hlodolog They can get access from around the Black Sea. Also can have a war nearby and as eg. land in Albania. I think that it works that if country exits, it defects province by province but if there is no tag, it breaks free with all cores that are held by the country where the breakout happens.

It's so that rebels take the province and the ottomans have no way of defeating them - causing the Bulgarians to pop out as a new free country, which you can then immediately conquer. He showed it in the video...

@@krzysztofmikosz oh right, i forgot they can get access elsewhere.

Spawn some more troops if this happen in the island to make it more '' challenging " for them,might work

In my game they keep on allying Ramazan and then they have a combined fleet of 30.

yes, i just tried it and it doesn't work on very hard. i was up against 20 galleys.

Great to hear!

I think this was done on normal difficulty, it probably works on vh. If it is normal though he won’t do a series on this because he basically only plays vh

Normally you would be looking for Constantinople to hold while you wear down the enemy fleet. In that case that you do wish the fort to fall. You can only sortie if you have at least 10% of the enemy troops. Meaning if they have over 30k it is not an option.

Not a criticism, just not sure what I’m doing wrong 😂

Theyre not only bait but also slow down the ability of the Ottos to siege Cephalonia so you have the most time to retake Mesembria/Bulgaria. The sacrifice of the Free Company will be remembered

@@RomanBV It seems that Monk's method would work regardless though

it is actually not possible to trap and disembark with troops at the same time. either you are slow and enemy catches you at land, or you are fast and prevent them from crossing. No middle option.

@@BudgetMonk Oh you are absolutely right. I am stupid and forgot you will block the straight once you pull out lol.

Even if you dont have the dlc , the strat works , tried it without the king of kings, just need to repair to port in Athens and before the month pass

I did that and it works ok but i feel that attacking ragusa and reseting the truce just for white peace or money is way better

@@PokeekoI’ve had games where Ragusa allies someone major and it ain’t an possibility. But your idea works better in 80% of situations.

And this time, they refused moving the final unit away from Cephalonica while I was taking out Mesambria. Leading to a 100% annexation. :/

When you get mil access from Theodore, get access from crimea , move them to crimea , then click to move them back to theodoro, and when the move is locked you cancel mil access from theodoro

Claim land from athens to not get to 100%

Worked for me pretty good as of now, finished the war with 0 loans. best byz strat I’ve ever used tbh,

did u hire mercs on the island?

You have dlc king of kings ?

@@P_Tire_j yes

Quantity. Espionage is what I recommend. The starting age bonus + prestige and orthodox bonus you can get =50% AE