Questions For Experienced Oirat Players

[Groucho]

Hi, I'm playing my first game as Oirat, and things are going quite well, but I've come up against some issues and I'm hoping some of you might have some suggestions.

1. Is it worth switching to Confucianism (if so, when?) in order to take advantage of the monuments in Beijing and Yanzhou, both of which require local Confucianism and that Confucianism is the owner's religion?

2. Which reform do you recommend as the final Horde government reform (and why)?

3. Is it worth shifting your capital in order to develop the Colonialism and Printing Press institutions? If so, where do you suggest? (Obviously, farmlands or grasslands are best, but are there any in particular that you find make more sense?)

Thanks for any suggestions you may be able to offer.

[veryhungryperson]

I have not attempted an Oirat run on this patch. My experience is from 1.29

1) When you take the Mandate of Heaven to form Great Yuan you are given the Celestial Empire government reform which is in the Monarchy tree. As you lose the 25% inf/cav ratop bonus from the Horde government type you will have to integrate infantry into your armies. This is generally the time you want to consider converting away from Tengri. Before this point the 100% cavalry army is simply too good to give up.

if your intention is to form the Mongol Empire then ignore forming Yuan until you control all the required provinces for the Empire. I recommend ignoring these two monuments and sticking with Tengri if this is the case. Forming the Mongol Empire knocks you back to a horde so you can still use 100% cavalry armies.

2) I believe razing has been 'fixed' so you receive less as time goes on. Either way I preferred the +2 Horde unity which really takes the pressure off having to declare war.

3) You don't need to develop in your capital for it to count towards institutions. The province only has to be a state. If you Form Yuan your capital will be moved to Bejiing by default.

[Groucho]

Thank you very much for your helpful comments, especially about the timing of forming Yuan relative to the Mongol empire, religion, and Horde unity. (I did just check the religion interface which says Tengri is not allowed to convert to another religion. Do you know if this changes with either the Yuan or Mongol decisions?)

I was unclear about developing the institutions. I developed Colonialism in Xi'an, the closest farmland province to Kobdo; it's simply taking so long to spread to the capital (where I have so much development from pillaging other capitals) so that I can embrace the institution at a reasonable cost that I wondered if there was a better option.

Thank you again.

[Degenerate Trap]

Originally posted by Groucho:

Thank you very much for your helpful comments, especially about the timing of forming Yuan relative to the Mongol empire, religion, and Horde unity. (I did just check the religion interface which says Tengri is not allowed to convert to another religion. Do you know if this changes with either the Yuan or Mongol decisions?)

I was unclear about developing the institutions. I developed Colonialism in Xi'an, the closest farmland province to Kobdo; it's simply taking so long to spread to the capital (where I have so much development from pillaging other capitals) so that I can embrace the institution at a reasonable cost that I wondered if there was a better option.

Thank you again.

Based on my experiences 3 months ago

You can cheese out the Ming's emperor event to grab Beijing in the first 20-30 years and rush renaissance that way. As for all the other institutions, just dev it up yourself if you keep the horde government which will reform into the great horde once you reform the mongol empire. It's still the strongest yolo world expansion government in the game. Technically raid and burn everything on sight. Dont worry about the dev losses, you core even less that way and use the extra resources to dev up farmlands and such.

As for capital, just move to Beijing or through some events, either way, monarch point is the least of your concern. Beijing is surrounded by farmlands down south so you can dev up those, push edicts to allow institution spread faster. Money isnt an issue if you keep raiding left and right. Keep Ming weak but not too weak unless you wanna fight whatever the new Chinese emperor is once Ming is gone.

Don't reform government unless it's Horde reform. You'll lose all the big bonuses.

Don't change religion like i did which sucked Real bad. Let say if you change to Confucius, or Buddhism, you'll lose like close to 50% of your money/ army limit due to religion, Change to Confucius is ok, you get to develop some monuments. Or waste time waiting for the point to reach 100% to sync other religions while Tengri if built right, will give you +100% religious unity provided you take humanism as second idea since you'll expanding so fast (try hard me can reach Russia in 1550+ before the Russian can form Russia)

If you want to cheese even harder, look for gold provinces (-eyes at a certain desert down south-west-) and dev them up hard. They'll give you so much gold, then use the adm point you stole to put inflation down.

They nerfed bannermen. Use it for rp.

[Groucho]

Thanks for all your helpful advice. (Unfortunately, on my first run-through, Ming totally imploded after the first war, so I have *all* the successor states and the associated AE--certainly not impossible, just inconvenient.)

Thanks also for your comments about religion--I didn't realize Confucianism damaged money and force limit as well as stability. (I did have my second war against Muscovy before 1540, so that's going well.)

I wonder which Yarkand province you might be eyeing... :)

Thanks again.

[veryhungryperson]

Originally posted by Groucho:

Thank you very much for your helpful comments, especially about the timing of forming Yuan relative to the Mongol empire, religion, and Horde unity. (I did just check the religion interface which says Tengri is not allowed to convert to another religion. Do you know if this changes with either the Yuan or Mongol decisions?)

I was unclear about developing the institutions. I developed Colonialism in Xi'an, the closest farmland province to Kobdo; it's simply taking so long to spread to the capital (where I have so much development from pillaging other capitals) so that I can embrace the institution at a reasonable cost that I wondered if there was a better option.

Thank you again.

Unfortunately waiting for spread is about all you can do. In big nations such as China it can take a while. You had the right idea about developing farmland. Institutions spread faster through lands that are high development so look for clusters of high development to force an institution. Try and do the same for Printing Press, once again near your capital and newly developed Colonialism point. You can speed things up very slightly by using the the State Edict that gives institution spread.

As for religion you are stuck with Tengri unless you rebel convert yourself. This process is fairly simple. Get a lot of Confucianism land and find a province without separatism then lower your missionary maintenance to zero and try convert a province. Confucian rebels should spawn. If more than 50% of your country is Confucian then once they occupy your capital you should see the demand state 'The state religion will become Confucianism'. Let them win their demands and you should change religions. You can do this with any non-pagan religion. There is not going back from this however. Tengri is very versatile though so think carefully before changing.

Tengri is very versatile though so think carefully before changing.

[Degenerate Trap]

Originally posted by veryhungryperson:

As for religion you are stuck with Tengri unless you rebel convert yourself.

Tengri is very versatile though so think carefully before changing.

-insert Achually meme-

You have two choices when it comes to free conversion. First is speak to the Dalai Lama and bring him to your capital. You'll become Buddhism which is a (gameplay wise) ♥♥♥♥ religion.

The others is I don't remember but if you form Yuan, you can choose to become Confucius via an event which will change your government to celestial empire and unit to chinese. Then you would be an Emperor...without tribute, and need to make CB to demand tributes. It sucks for a horde.

Tengri is one of the best religion in the game when you dont care about it, just sync with confucius and enjoy that -10% adm tech. Get humanism as second idea and never have to worry about religion again.

[Degenerate Trap]

Originally posted by Groucho:

I wonder which Yarkand province you might be eyeing... :)

Thanks again.

Somewhere...beyond the eh..desert. Somewhere...waiting for you

In the desert of Altishaaaaaaahr...In Kuqa land

[Groucho]

Originally posted by veryhungryperson:

As for religion you are stuck with Tengri unless you rebel convert yourself... Tengri is very versatile though so think carefully before changing.

Tengri is very versatile though so think carefully before changing.

Thank you for this. Actually, the only reason I had for thinking about the switch is to take advantage of the Forbidden Palace's mandate growth modifier, but that seems so modest relative to the effort and instability required that I am probably better off simply making sure I have enough prosperity (and remove devastation)--not to mention owning the three critical provinces--before I claim the Imperium.

Your thoughts and time are much appreciated.

[Groucho]

Originally posted by Degenerate Trap:

You have two choices when it comes to free conversion. First is speak to the Dalai Lama and bring him to your capital...

The others is I don't remember but if you form Yuan, you can choose to become Confucius via an event which will change your government to celestial empire and unit to chinese. Then you would be an Emperor...without tribute, and need to make CB to demand tributes. It sucks for a horde.

Tengri is one of the best religion in the game when you dont care about it, just sync with confucius and enjoy that -10% adm tech. Get humanism as second idea and never have to worry about religion again.

Thanks for all your thoughts on this. I have switched my syncretic faith to Confucianism for those reasons. I've been trying religious as my 2nd idea group, but converting so many provinces is a bit of a drag.

I can speak to the Dalai Lama??? That sounds weird!

And Kuqa is MINE! :D

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I greatly appreciate it.

[Usaball]

As Oirat, make sure Mongolia's liberty desire is below 50%, improve relations with them to +200 at the start. Also, send a spy to build a spy network in Ming, as this helps a bit more with sieging down their forts. I know Ming looks scary and has around 90-100k at the start, but the Ming ai tends to lose manpower FAST and bum rushes all your low dev provinces/ Mongolia's capital. So, you merge your two armies at the start before you declare the Mandate Of Heaven cb on them, send that 17k army to your southern provinces, and then declare. Now, when you do this, try to look for an army alone with their emperor/heir, as you will get an event called the Tumu Crisis (capture of the Ming emperor) that gives your army +20% morale and 20% siege ability, and go STRAIGHT for Beijing. Don't worry about them attacking your army, they won't. Once you siege down their capital, you automatically control northern China and your warscore skyrockets. When you peace out with them, make sure you take a couple provinces for razing and as much ducats you can from them, and you will have a REALLY good start as Oirat.

[Degenerate Trap]

Originally posted by Groucho:

Originally posted by Degenerate Trap:

You have two choices when it comes to free conversion. First is speak to the Dalai Lama and bring him to your capital...

The others is I don't remember but if you form Yuan, you can choose to become Confucius via an event which will change your government to celestial empire and unit to chinese. Then you would be an Emperor...without tribute, and need to make CB to demand tributes. It sucks for a horde.

Tengri is one of the best religion in the game when you dont care about it, just sync with confucius and enjoy that -10% adm tech. Get humanism as second idea and never have to worry about religion again.

Thanks for all your thoughts on this. I have switched my syncretic faith to Confucianism for those reasons. I've been trying religious as my 2nd idea group, but converting so many provinces is a bit of a drag.

I can speak to the Dalai Lama??? That sounds weird!

And Kuqa is MINE! :D

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I greatly appreciate it.

Religious idea is strong when it come to combine it with other ideas for army morale and stuff but if you reached Europe and prevented Russia from forming, you probably already reformed the Mongol empire and nothing really hurt you much unless they are fulled united India

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Groucho:

I can speak to the Dalai Lama??? That sounds weird!

Vajrayana Buddhists can make a decision to invite a powerful Lama to their capitol - it costs a fair bit resources (25 Prestige to make the invitation to begin with, then 100 Adm points and 75% of a year's income to accept the Lama's conditions), and a -25% tax modifier to said capitol, but it also grants +1 Yearly Legitimacy, +1 Tolerance of True Faith, and -5 capitol development cost for the rest of the game.

Every 50 or so years he'll die of course, and you'll need to search for his reincarnation, but if you switch out of being Vajrayana, you get to keep his benefits without needing to worry about this. Mind you, if you're to be a Vajrayana for a while, you may as well keep going south to Lan Na and siege down their capitol of Chiang Mai. If you win, you can claim the Emerald Buddha for an additional 0.5 Yearly Prestige for the rest of the game.

Whether or not any of this is worth it is...up to you. Pokemon players will certainly know the urge to collect as many modifiers and suchlike as possible.

[Degenerate Trap]

Yeah but those are just prestiges and toleration of the true faith (most of your tengri places are dirt poor) While your capitol is so dev'ed up due to conquest that it doesnt make sense in getting that modifier.

Buddhism is a waste of time and seriously weakened you unless of course, rp purpose

[RCMidas]

I'm not good enough of a player to try RPing just yet. I can follow guides and advice well enough to cheese certain results if I'm lucky, but that kind of challenge is way beyond me. I'm just point out what you can get for being some kind of Buddhist in the area. It really isn't much. Orthodoxy all the way just for the manpower boost - now if only metropolitans were actually good.

[Degenerate Trap]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

I'm not good enough of a player to try RPing just yet. I can follow guides and advice well enough to cheese certain results if I'm lucky, but that kind of challenge is way beyond me. I'm just point out what you can get for being some kind of Buddhist in the area. It really isn't much. Orthodoxy all the way just for the manpower boost - now if only metropolitans were actually good.

By the time he reaches Russsia, Orthodox religious rebs will need to hire a pineapple express to make it to china...