Nepal? Any strategies/ ideas?

[Badpak]

So i'm looking to do an India game and i've noticed Nepal. Tough they start very weak, their ideas are godlike, almost like a prussian indian. So i'm wondering if anyone has any tips/ strategies for me.
Utsang, Koch and Tirhang always seem to rival Nepal so taking them down first would be a logical step. However i have no idea what allies to take. I could ally orissa, but they are in a likely spot of getting owned by Vijangar.
So yeah, does anyone have any tips on the early game part of nepal?

[Surimi]

Personally, I think Nepal, while very powerful militarily, is missing some ideas which make life a bit easier for most Indian factions. The lack of tolerance or religious unity, for example, is pretty harsh. Fortunately, most of India starts out Hindu, so by the time it becomes a problem you may well have had a chance to pick up religious ideas.

India tends to be quite volitile, so my strategy would generally be to pick a couple of fairly strong allies at a time. That way, you can afford to abandon one if they're trying to drag you into an unwinnable war.

Going towards Assam would be my bet, although of course it depends a little on how the diplomatic situation plays out.

[the_panther]

Bengal Tiger!

Great Indian nation to play plus there is the nice little achievement. However, you cannot form Hindustan till after the achievement is done, though.

As Bengal, it is a bit tough starting out as a Sunni nation with Hindu in 100% of your provinces. Even today, Bangladesh (modern Bengal) still has plenty of religious strife.

I did steamroll Nepal as Bengal, but it was run by the AI. Humans can do better. Since Nepal is Hindu (I think?), you can easily pick up all the allies you need inside the Indian subcontinent.

I did notice that the Nepal AI hit U-tsang early while I was taking the Assam region. Maybe that works for you too, as you can get a vassal right off the bat.

[Hat8]

Conquer Bengal first.

[Badpak]

Allright i'll do that.

Does anyone have any recommendations on what ideas to take? I was thinking:

1: Religious
2: Exploration (for westernization)
3: Defensive (army tradition + overall bonusses)
4: Innovative
5: ????

[Yami]

I say humanist as ur first. humanist is nice for both religious tolerance and reduce nationalism/cultural acceptance. It gives u 10% reduce idea cost as well so i say take that first.

[Badpak]

Hmm, i always tought that on the long run, having religious is better because then you actually convert all your provinces.
Would you advise me to take humanism and ignore religous altogheter?

[Yami]

Originally posted by Badpak:

Hmm, i always tought that on the long run, having religious is better because then you actually convert all your provinces.
Would you advise me to take humanism and ignore religous altogheter?

I would say take religious as ur 3rd. i would not take any military ideas till i westernise cause keeping up in military tech is more important imo. Since u have a lot of land to conquer, the 10 yrs nationalism reduction will save u a lot of headache

Edit: if u want to westernise, the -2(cant remember 2 or 1) revolt risk is nice as well.

Edit2: btw u might want to read this:http://www.eu4wiki.com/Nepal. There is a small strat guide in case u need help.

[Badpak]

Hey yami, thanks for your informative reply.

I already read the wiki guid, but it's not updated for 1.8 so they dont take the changed indian situation into account.

So what your saying is, take humanist 1st and religious 3rd? Isnt that a bit overkill?

[Surimi]

Whether you should go religious, humanist (or neither) depends on how much tolerance you can get from other sources, and where you want to expand.

As Nepal, you have +1 tolerance of heretics (and can get an additional +1 from a decision). However, the only Hindu heresy is Sikhism, which isn't around at the beginning of the campaign. Most of the time you'll be conquering Muslims, which means you need tolerance of heathens.

Ideally, you want to get +3 tolerance. That effectively means unlimited expansion into areas of that religion. The base tolerance scores are -2 for heretics and -3 for heathens, and you can additional + or - 1 for high or low legitimacy as a monarchy.

If you can't hit +3 tolerance, then humanist will enable you to expand quite a bit but ultimately you'll hit a limit where you start running out of religious unity, and it will begin to cause you problems. How much of an issue this is is debatable, it may be that you can still convert enough provinces that it doesn't matter, but just pointing it out.

As Nepal, you'll be able to hit +3 tolerance of heretics if you take humanist ideas, but you'll never be able to get to +3 tolerance of heathens (the most I think you'll be able to get is +1 with full legitimacy). Since tolerance of heathens is actually what you need to expand into the Muslim provinces, I'd recommend taking religious ideas if you're having trouble converting, instead of humanist.

[Badpak]

Woah. That was a very detailed and impressive explenation Deep hurting, thank you for that.

So i guess ill take religious first and then defensive/exploration/innovative.

Do you have any tips on what to do/ what ideas to take?

Sorry that i dont have such a long story, just dont know what else to say. ^^