Ottomans - Definitely the Sultan of Rum, Master of India, That's a Silk Road, The Rising Sun (Version 1.11)

This Guide is meant for the moderately experienced player, who has not yet played Ottomans in depth. Instead of giving too detailed pointers on the individual achievements I tried to give tipps on how to make life easier and avoid the bigger mistakes. If you play it right you can get the following achievements in a single run:

• Definitely the Sultan of Rum
  
• Master of India
  
• That's a Silk Road
  
• The Rising Sun

The first years

• First of all you need to retake all your cores and conquer/annex Greece/Anatolia.
  
  Ottomans cores in 1444
  
  
• Do not attack Venice/Hungary/Poland/Austria/Mameluks too early.
  
• Because you need to go to war constantly it is important to keep ~2-3 Vassals at all times and feed them so that you do not run into early manpower problems.
  
• Keep a large vassal in the Ragusa Trade node so you do not gain any borders to Austria and take all provinces in the Constantinople Node (except Bessarabia, that may be too difficult initially) for massive trade income later on.

The Western Front

• As said before try to annex/conquer most of the balkans early on and then form a large vassal between you and Austria. Then try to Ally with Austria, so do not rival them.
  
• Do not fight with Poland/Commonwealth until you have at least 50% more troops than them. Only take Bessarabia (Constantinople Trade Node) and Crimea if you can early/midgame.
  
• If you see that Russia is becoming strong try to get a line of provinces towards Moscow from the eastern Black sea so you can take Moskow quickly in 2 Wars. Here I took a line of provinces from Commonwealth up to Moscow in one war and then took Moscow in the next. I was lucky that the Commonwealth and Kazan kept Russia weak for a long time.
  
  
  
• Invade in Italy when France / Spain are occupied otherwise. Only take Rome or else you may get a coalition or large uprisings in Rome. Try to do this around the time you are taking Moskow so you may loose these provinces later on if necessary (e.g. Wars in india against Portugal/France/GB).
  
  
  
• Consider Unifying islam midgame if you arleady have all provinces except Cordoba / Ifni / Palermo / Messina. The italian Provinces can be grabed after Rome usually. The rest can be taken from Spain / Marocco? in a quick war when they are not allied with France. After taking the decision best sell them back to avoid further wars. The boni are enormously good because you can reach +8 for tolerance of the True faith +5 For Tolerance of Heathens/Heretics meaning that you can run a even larger overextension.
  
• However, you should not try to take all of north africa, only the Alexandria Node. Otherwise Spain will attack you sooner or later and you do not need that.

Middle east

• Only take on Mamluks once you have annexed Greece/Anatolia and have several Vassals. Mamluks usually have strong allies and manpower may be a problem if you do it too early.
  
• Conquer the whole Alexandria node, but you can already try to move into the Mesopotamian and Persian regions if you have longer truces with Mamluks.

India

• You will most likely have to do several wars against France/Great Britain/Portugal while you conquer India. You can use Rome / Moskow to buy a peace if necessary. It can be very annoying to have to move most of your armies back to Europe to deal with them. If possible try to do the wars in europe at the same time or shortly after another so you do not waste more time than necessary.
  
• Having a strong Austria on your side can help a lot to keep especially France at bay. If necessary build new armies in Constantinople, you will only rarely reach your force limit because i constantly rises. Always keep at least one or two Armies and transport navies in India in case a rebellion springs up.
  
• If you did not westernize, you can annex large parts of india which speeds up the process a lot.
  
• Consider Going around India north where there are few large provinces so you can to enter China or sea invade in China before 1700. Otherwise It may be tough with the timing. Here I'm using the vassalized Timurids to expand towards China:
  

China / Japan

That's a Silk Road
By the time you reach China you should already have conquered most silk provinces (see the map below). However, It can be difficult to conquer all of China/Japan in time so you may want to built a large transport fleet by the time you get the Imperialism Cassus Belli and simply invade near the Silk Provinces and go on from there. Otherwise You will have to do a lot of conquering in the last few years. As you can see on the map, you only need to invade by sea

• in south east asia for Khorat and Nong Khai
  
• near Guilin in south China and conquer towards Chengdu in the inland
  
• near Nanking in eastern China for the 4 Silk Provinces there
  
• In Japan at Kyoto but you may need to take Japan as a whole anyways for the Rising Sun Achievement

- It is advisable to attack in China while you are still fighting in India. It takes a lot of time to conquer all Indian Provinces and sometimes you are blocked by long truces with all countries there.

Japan / The Rising Sun

For this achievement you need to have cores on all Provinces in the japan region (see map).
Note that the islands of Ryukyu, Jeju, Sakhalin, and Kurils are not necessary.

The Japanese region

Ideas

Must have:

• Humanist (Unrest, Cultures, Better Relations over Time)
  
• Religious (Conversion, Unrest),
  
• Trade (Massive Income),
  
• Influence (Diplomatic Annexation cost, Aggressive Expansion)
  
• Diplomatic Ideas (Province Warscore cost reduction, more vassals, faster annexation)

Nice to have:

• Quantity Ideas (Larger Armies and no Problems with Manpower, saves a lot of monarch points on buildings)
  
• Offensive Ideas (Speeds up siege a lot, Nice to have if you are facing Russia/Commonwealth/France/Portugal at some point)
  
• Administrative ideas (reduced coring cost)

Trade

• Trade will be your largest income so you need to make sure you own >80% Tradepower in Constantinople / Alexandria.
  
  
• Try to get a Trade Route with merchants in Indus -> Hormus (Merchant optional) -> Basra-> Persia (Merchant optional) -> Aleppo (Merchant optional) -> Alexandria -> Constantinople (Merchant optional)
  
  In this case I skipped the optional Merchants to steer the trade in the Indian trades several times towards Basra or else a lot of trade values would have leaked towards southern Africa. What is optimal depends on how many merchants you have and how large your trade power in the indian nodes already is. This picture is taken from the end of the game.
  
  
• Make Use of the centers of Trade and build the level 5&6 trade buildings there. Only spam Market Places/trade depots where necessary to avoid leaks (Constantinople, Alexandria) or to build a road from east to west.
  
  
• Do not Spam Tax buildings, only built them in the Provinces with 6+ Gold or if you cannot convert otherwise.
  
  
• Build Production buildings/Manufactories mostly in the Aleppo/Persia/Basra/India Trade nodes and only for the expensive trade goods (or if you want a trading bonus).

General Tipps

• Avoid wars in Europe whenever you can after you have taken the Balkans (and Rome/Moscow), it takes away a lot of time. Remember you may need to beat France/Portugal into submission if they grab indian provinces at some point, that takes away enough time already.
  
  
• Do not introduce the "Provincial Government System". +1 Unrest may not sound too bad early on for 10% Tax bonus but you will need to run at high levels of overextension very often and each point of unrest will bite you later on. Money will not be a problem after a few years.
  
  
• Keep a large vassal between you and Austria for all the game (Croatia or Hungary seems reasonable) in the Ragusa trade node. The idea is to not have any direct borders them so you do not get the negative opinion modifiers. This way you have a better chance of having Austria as an Ally against the other Europeans mid-lategame. They will only rarely call you into a war because you are too far away. On the other Hand they will help you take Rome & Moskow and you do not need to worry about invasions from the west if your armies are far in the east.
  
  
• Do not Westernize! It is very expensive/slow for a wealthy country like the Ottomans and takes away the possibility to annex Indian / Chinese countries. The Tech malus is quite low for Ottomans and you do not need to keep up with the Europeans all the time since you do not have to fight them too often. Simply get the Techs a few years later just before the ahead of time bonus vanishes. Westernization will also trigger the Janisary decadence almost automatically.
  
  
• Do not reduce autonomy! You will have to run constant wars and a lot of overextension / war exhaustion so it is not worth it to have rebels springing up in these provinces every time you end a war. Having religious and Humanist ideas allows you to mostly prevent uprisings even at 100% Overextension but not if you reduce autonomy. Instead go for absolutist monarchy as soon as you can and it will melt by itself. The manpower/tax income malus will not hurt you that much if you have the right ideas and focus on trade/production.
  
  
• Do not try to get low Piety. You will only succeed early on if at all while you conquer the middle east. Once you get to India/China your constant wars against heathens will give you so much Piety that you cannot keep in at a large negative value. Furthermore you will need to convert a lot of Heretics/Heathens.
  
  
• If possible weaken Russia / Muscovy / Novgorod early / Midgame or at least do not attack Poland / Commonwealth too early. If there is no strong Russia you can very easily grab Moscow even lategame.
  
  
• Work with "spindles" in an initial war grab several provinces pointing into the enemies territory at once to get as many neighboring provinces as possible even if you have to take 2-3 provinces that you do not have a claim on. It will speed up the conquest a lot.
  
  
• Only build buildings where it really gives a large bonus or is necessary. You will have more than enough money and manpower later on so don't waste monarch points, you need them for coring/annexing.
  
  
• Consider Humiliating your Rivals from time to time if you have your armies still near. The +1/1/1 for monarch Points is worth it. Also Insult them regularly for the +5 Bonus. This way you can at least stay at 25+ Power Projection most of the time for the free leader. They will usually not attack since you are far too powerful mid-lategame.

[Zaoist]

I got this achievement unintentionally, I played a game where i flipped to orthodox, allied austria and France, and took over rome, I later saw muscovy get beatun up, so i diplo-vassalized them, then fed all cores and integrated, had never heard of achievement before it popped up on my screen lol.

[TDG]

@narpity Just revert to what it says its for 1.11 thats what i did so im not on 1.12 or 1.13 (beta) I just reverted to 1.11 because this guide is for 1.11

[Narpity]

@Meneldil Don't Diplo annex as Ottomans. They have the lowest coreing costs in the game and diplo annex is now tied to development and takes way more points.

[Meneldil]

I'm in 1550, have gotten the Sultan of Rum pretty easily (Russia is now a cakewalk), but I can't see how I'd get the silk road achiev. I was hoping to vassalize the Timurids and use them to diplo annex most of the east, but they got trashed before I arrived. Now, there's a bunch of tiny nations that all hate my guts, and annexing them one after the other will drain my diplo points. Oh well, I'm gonna give it a try anyway.

[EvilKnievel]

Then you have to either do it by "return core" in the peace deal or sell the provinces one by one.

[ZahZuhZay]

I do not have the "Art of War" DLC and thus can not transfer ownership of occupied or "sieged-out" provinces. How do I make a big vassel then?

[EvilKnievel]

In that case first expand into the middle east and try to befriend austria. Check their rivals and choose at least one rival that they have too. The try to keep their opinion of you as high as possible and hope they unrival you after a time.

The union of lithuania and poland sometimes forms later, maybe you are lucky. I would first try to annex the middle east (Mamluks & Iraq territory) so you have enough income and manpower to take on Muscovy/Russia. It may become harder if you have to delay it but midgame you can easily have several time the number of troops to russia because they will never expand as quickly as you do.

[Kriegs]

If can I ask:
Right now I have 1530 year of the game, owning all of territory(except Hungarian - but I will write about it after) which belonged to Ottos in the times of the reign of Suleiman (except some Arabians minor) and all of the Persian coast (getting into India) , I cannot ally Austria cuz they rivaled me some years after I conquered Serbia (wanted to have some monies and relevance ), so I can't ally them, Muscovy grown so big, Poland haven't got union with Lithuania which started to conquer hordes, any tips to attack this Muscovy? I have vassalized Astrakhan which actually owns three provinces (gotta annex them after Caucasus) and idk how to break that Muscovy - my main goals are Master Of India/Rising Sun/that's a silk road but I'm afraid I won't get that Sultan Of Rum which such a big Muscovy.

[EvilKnievel]

@ Nimrod: I was wrong as I just had to find out. Apparently the wiki is not completely correct or misleading at least. You need to start with a Capital in Europe and the Western Tech group for the Trade Hegemon Achievement. I corrected the Guide.

[Kriegs]

Kk, I think that will be useful for me soon so I will add to favourites and give +