Subjugating Scotland in 1.3.X, Fully Patched But Without Leviathan

[Gefallener_Held]

Hi,

I am playing this again after a two year hiatus. Rewatched some of the England guides. I have exploited manpwer, granted autonomy and relinquished most of the French holdings except Calais to make Levy the Troops available.

In this game I have allied Austria and Burgundy. I rerolled quite a few times to get France as a rival but not Burgundy. I go to declare war on france, and none of my allies will join me.

The guides talk about currying favors to amek this happen, which requires Leviathan, which I do not want because of its nearly universally negative reception, but the game seems to have changed how allies react even if you do not have have Leviathan, such that they will not join a war.

This leaves me to wonder how one efficiently subjugates Scotland. One sticking point is that the CB one gains from levy the troops only lasts ten years. With war of the roses, that is a tall order to do two wars in ten years time to knock Scotland down to size. Perhaps a better strategy is to fabricate claims on Irish states, wrap up one war with an Irish state and Scotland before war of the roses fires, then levy the troops after?

[bri]

Easily:

1) release Gascony and Normandy as vassals, give Alencon to Normandy, set both to scutage, delete the fort in Calais, sell Maine to Provence to start infighting in the area and not trigger the Maine war

2) finish the levy the troops mission in whichever fashion you prefer (instant cheese or just through gameplay, I generally do the latter because, as you mentioned dealing with wotr while fighting a war is annoying at best). I'll usually use mercs to gobble Ireland while waiting for the manpower to grow back.

3) declare war, occupy Scotland, wipe any Irish minors involved off the map

4) wait until war is 5 years old

5) if France occupied Calais and transferred to Scotland then send an army to occupy land around Gascony which will pull all the enemy armies there to retake, have another army land and re-occupy Calais or if they keep occupation skip this step

6) congrats, 100% war score and Scotland subjugated (requires 90% ws cost)

That gives you 14-15 years to get the favors required to start chomping on France with reconquest for Gascon cores in the first war and firing the occupy Paris mission right before making peace if you want to deal with the PU or just nom them up in chunks over multiple wars and not deal with their disloyalty.

[grognardgary]

You can fabricate claims probably as easy a way as any and you can actually annex Ireland a couple of pieces at a time by early 1500.

[bri]

Escrito originalmente por grognardgary:

You can fabricate claims probably as easy a way as any and you can actually annex Ireland a couple of pieces at a time by early 1500.

You can annex Ireland and subjugate Scotland by the early 1460s, I do it all the time following the approach above. At that point you should have plenty of favors to get your allies to pile on France, which I do although I never get Burgundy because they have a 100% rival rate when I play England (along with Scotland and Denmark while France is maybe 50%).

[Gefallener_Held]

Escrito originalmente por bri:

Easily:

1) release Gascony and Normandy as vassals, give Alencon to Normandy, set both to scutage, delete the fort in Calais, sell Maine to Provence to start infighting in the area and not trigger the Maine war

2) finish the levy the troops mission in whichever fashion you prefer (instant cheese or just through gameplay, I generally do the latter because, as you mentioned dealing with wotr while fighting a war is annoying at best). I'll usually use mercs to gobble Ireland while waiting for the manpower to grow back.

3) declare war, occupy Scotland, wipe any Irish minors involved off the map

4) wait until war is 5 years old

5) if France occupied Calais and transferred to Scotland then send an army to occupy land around Gascony which will pull all the enemy armies there to retake, have another army land and re-occupy Calais or if they keep occupation skip this step

6) congrats, 100% war score and Scotland subjugated (requires 90% ws cost)

That gives you 14-15 years to get the favors required to start chomping on France with reconquest for Gascon cores in the first war and firing the occupy Paris mission right before making peace if you want to deal with the PU or just nom them up in chunks over multiple wars and not deal with their disloyalty.

I tried declaring war on Scotland January 1445. No dice. Aside from facing France, Scotland was allied with three or four Irish states. Together they had a coalition navy that defeated the English navy (with an admiral.)

So I went back and just dow'd one of the Irish states Allied with Scotland, Tyrone. I occupied all of Scotland, took three provices and war repatriations and annexted tyrone moths before WOTR. Manpower is in the hole some 6k and by calcuations will take a decade to recover from.
Perhaps the CB is nit the way to go, just DOW Scotland by attacing the Irish states she is allied with. I looked at the levy the tips tool tip and unlike the subjucation cb, the cores on Ireland never go away. I just do not see a feasinble way to declare war on Scotland or France dierectly with no allies. As I stated, the recent guide videos have one do favors to get allies to join in against France, which you cannot do without leviathan.

[bri]

Or spend the first few of those 10 years eating up Irish minors without involving Scotland. I usually end up with one, maybe two that have no other Irish minor as an ally I can use to eliminate them before I hit Scotland. I also build a couple more heavies before fighting Scotland/France to ensure naval superiority. There's no reason to get into multiple wars with Scotland or a war where your navy is actually at risk of losing.

Ignore France, you don't need to fight them to subjugate Scotland...

[Gefallener_Held]

In this game Scotland immediately allied three Irish states. I think the subjugation cb is nice theoretically but, if I can't invoke allies to help with France..... best to chip away at Scotland by dowing Irish states...

Is there a mod that fixes this so you are not penalized so heavily for not having Leviathan? Seems like that DlC is ransomware whereby one has to pay 20 dollars for allies to help out (because without favors function, they won't).

[Marquoz]

Escrito originalmente por Gefallener_Held:

Is there a mod that fixes this so you are not penalized so heavily for not having Leviathan? Seems like that DlC is ransomware whereby one has to pay 20 dollars for allies to help out (because without favors function, they won't).

Sure they will. You just have to wait longer. Favors were not introduced by Leviathan. They've been in the game for many years. What Leviathan did was introduce the "curry favors" mechanic, which speeds up the process of earning them.

It's a compromise between the way the game was at launch (favors did not exist, allies could be called into wars the second after you allied them) and the way it was when the favor system was introduced (favors accumulated slowly by design to make expansion harder).

[bri]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2875386903

So this is a run I just did real quick using the basic strategy I outlined above albeit on version 1.30.6 rather than live although nothing in play is significantly different. Obviously no favors curried also no ally called into any war. I used the abuse manpower dev reduction to finish the levy the troops mission before the end of 1444. I then immediately started wiping out Irish minors using the 5 stack mercs with siege leader while waiting for a couple of heavies to be built and the wotr to be dealt with to go into Scotland. That war launched Nov 1 of 1552 so a couple years before the CB timer expired.

Mistakes were made and situations played out slightly differently than your experience. I messed up and co-belligerated a nation without checking their allies and pulled Denmark et all into my second Irish minor stomping so the Kalmar states plus Desmond and Offaly, had to sit on that one a while as well which tied up my navy and ended up setting back the start of the Scotland war. Scotland allied the Livonians and Brittany as well as 1 of the Irish opms, no big deal just more work for the navy to slaughter/capture enough ships for the ai to run and hide. France inconveniently assigned occupation of Calais to Scotland so I ended up also having to invade Brittany via Cotentin to smash their troops before they would white peace and then do the invade Gascony to pull the French armies away for a fast occupation of Calais (note: always land in Picardie or Ghent (whichever is giving access) and walk in, it's faster than landing directly into enemy occupied land.

eta: Honestly, though, I'm not sure that tossing the manpower dev away is worth it. Compared to my "average" game where I just fabricate the claims normally and let the manpower recover after the wotr I gained maybe 5-6 years and a minor number of admin points at a permanent cost of however manpower dev it took. I suppose you could risk it as a way around the Maine war without selling/returning Maine but rng is never my friend in that regard (seen the event pop on 11/12/1444 more than a few times if I didn't sell it before unpausing).

[Gefallener_Held]

Escrito originalmente por Marquoz:

Sure they will. You just have to wait longer. Favors were not introduced by Leviathan. They've been in the game for many years. What Leviathan did was introduce the "curry favors" mechanic, which speeds up the process of earning them.

It's a compromise between the way the game was at launch (favors did not exist, allies could be called into wars the second after you allied them) and the way it was when the favor system was introduced (favors accumulated slowly by design to make expansion harder).

No but it is different. IN the past allies that rivaled france were willing to go to war. Neither Burgundy nor Austria will at the start. Something has changed.

Escrito originalmente por bri:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2875386903

So this is a run I just did real quick using the basic strategy I outlined above albeit on version 1.30.6 rather than live although nothing in play is significantly different. Obviously no favors curried also no ally called into any war. I used the abuse manpower dev reduction to finish the levy the troops mission before the end of 1444. I then immediately started wiping out Irish minors using the 5 stack mercs with siege leader while waiting for a couple of heavies to be built and the wotr to be dealt with to go into Scotland. That war launched Nov 1 of 1552 so a couple years before the CB timer expired.

Mistakes were made and situations played out slightly differently than your experience. I messed up and co-belligerated a nation without checking their allies and pulled Denmark et all into my second Irish minor stomping so the Kalmar states plus Desmond and Offaly, had to sit on that one a while as well which tied up my navy and ended up setting back the start of the Scotland war. Scotland allied the Livonians and Brittany as well as 1 of the Irish opms, no big deal just more work for the navy to slaughter/capture enough ships for the ai to run and hide. France inconveniently assigned occupation of Calais to Scotland so I ended up also having to invade Brittany via Cotentin to smash their troops before they would white peace and then do the invade Gascony to pull the French armies away for a fast occupation of Calais (note: always land in Picardie or Ghent (whichever is giving access) and walk in, it's faster than landing directly into enemy occupied land.

eta: Honestly, though, I'm not sure that tossing the manpower dev away is worth it. Compared to my "average" game where I just fabricate the claims normally and let the manpower recover after the wotr I gained maybe 5-6 years and a minor number of admin points at a permanent cost of however manpower dev it took. I suppose you could risk it as a way around the Maine war without selling/returning Maine but rng is never my friend in that regard (seen the event pop on 11/12/1444 more than a few times if I didn't sell it before unpausing).

Interesting. About whether to toss the manpower development, I wonder that also. If one does not do that, can one levy the troops before War of the Roses fires? That event is a manpower killer. I started yet again and not sure why but I faired a little better with manpower... until war of the roses. The Margaret Anjou event fired but she did not get pregnant so it fired anyway....

[grognardgary]

Escrito originalmente por bri:

Escrito originalmente por grognardgary:

You can fabricate claims probably as easy a way as any and you can actually annex Ireland a couple of pieces at a time by early 1500.

You can annex Ireland and subjugate Scotland by the early 1460s, I do it all the time following the approach above. At that point you should have plenty of favors to get your allies to pile on France, which I do although I never get Burgundy because they have a 100% rival rate when I play England (along with Scotland and Denmark while France is maybe 50%).

I do it without going to war.

[bri]

Escrito originalmente por grognardgary:

Escrito originalmente por bri:

You can annex Ireland and subjugate Scotland by the early 1460s, I do it all the time following the approach above. At that point you should have plenty of favors to get your allies to pile on France, which I do although I never get Burgundy because they have a 100% rival rate when I play England (along with Scotland and Denmark while France is maybe 50%).

I do it without going to war.

Do what?

[bri]

Escrito originalmente por Gefallener_Held:

Interesting. About whether to toss the manpower development, I wonder that also. If one does not do that, can one levy the troops before War of the Roses fires? That event is a manpower killer. I started yet again and not sure why but I faired a little better with manpower... until war of the roses. The Margaret Anjou event fired but she did not get pregnant so it fired anyway....

It depends on how soon the wotr fires. If you raise stab to make it slower or get Margaret quickly so the bad stats are off the board making it progress slowly you definitely can. Oh, just so you know, it wouldn't have mattered if Margaret got an heir, since it would be a d'Anjou the wotr keeps ticking (this stupid change came with 1.31 I believe).

[Gefallener_Held]

Take her as an advisor then?

[Gefallener_Held]

I restarted. I exploited manpower in French lands I give away only. I also lowered autonomy which may have been a mistake. I was able to levy the troops in 1447, and dow ulster which was not allied with Scotland all while easily handing WOTR. I really doubt sacking your manpower development is a good idea to get a three year head start. First war against Scotland happened immediately after WOTR by declaring war on Tyrone. Once agina have manpower issues but my army cap is sllghtly higher and I just feel better about future prospects.
It may.or not be absolutely the most optimal but it gets me the results I like the best.
I have no idea how you would extrapolate the long term cost of scaling manpower development in the homeland but it cannot be worth it in the long run.
I am a little worried because France is quickly unifying, having taken Brittany..... No war with Burgundy or Castille or anything like that.

[bri]

Eh, she's still worth it as monarch instead if she comes early as any monarch points are an improvement over the starting loser.