Albania or Iberia 1.18 (Prussia) patch guide

A guide on how to survive and expand as Albania

Introduction

Welcome great leaders to my first guide for Europa Universalis 4. Today we are going to be looking at achievement called Albania in Iberia. I saw some guides on steam and on internet but most of them are complicated, require a lot of luck or are just simply outdated and use outdated methods. I am going to show you my path, which was pretty easy, for patch 1.19. I will look if any of the upcoming big patches are going to have some significant impact on my path and in the end I will edit this guide to make it as up-to-date as possible. Let's start!

Overview

This is how my empire presents at the end. I am very cautious so it's not the biggest of all + I had fortune not on my side. Unfortunately this is one of the few screenshots that I have.

Being completely honest. If you are playing on medium (I do not recommend playing on any higher difficulty since this achievement had been done on medium and the trick to survive will not work) I don't see this achievment being to hard for any of you. DLCs used were El Dorado and Art of War. I don't recommend using any other DLC (you can if you know what you are doing).

Albania is:

• One Province Minor
  
• Catholic and it's only province is orthodox
  
• surrounded by hungry enemies like the Ottomans or Venitians
  
• the owner of one of the best army generals in the game
  
• with very few options to expand
  
• the owner of a province with very low development

As Albania, you are in perfect place to embrace most of the institutions. It's fantastic, you are going to be able to compete with most of the great powers since you will be always up-to-date with your technology.


Situation of Albania is really tough. Even if you manage to survive and expand a little, the game can still tell you that you are not going to get this achievement. I was forced to restart a few-teen times. With that being said, let's hop right into the game.

Early game

As I said earlier, the situation is bad but not too bad. You need to have starting setup correct.

You need:

• Poland to have personal union with Lithuania
  
• Hungary to not rival Poland
  
• Poland to not rival Hungary
  
• to have diplomatic reputation advisor
  
• Byzantium to have an alliance with Serbia

This is an absolute must. If you don't have these things - RESTART You CAN try to have Austria not rivaling Poland/Hungary too but I really don't like this way.

You start with improving relations with both Hungary and Poland. With your third diplomat you go and build spy network in Serbia (choose them as your rival too). Ally Hungary and Poland ASAP and fire your advisor to not lose money.

Sometimes the Ottomans will go for you instead of Byzantium. If that happens, well, you guessed it - RESTART.

Fabricate a claim on Kosovo. Build up to your force limit. Wait until Ottos declare war on Byzantium. Serbia is guaranteed to join Byzantium which means that the Ottomans will smash them into the ground. Wait until Byzantines won't join against you and declare the war on Serbia. And there is why I don't want certain DLCs. If you have Cossacks you won't be able to call in Hungary or Poland because you won't have enough favors. You can call them in no problem without this DLC and this is why I recommend turning it off. So moving on, DoW Serbia and make Bosnia co-belligerent. Move into Kosovo and occupy it. After that, occupy every other not fortified on the border with Ottomans. YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO GET ANYTHING FROM SERBIA!. If you feel strong enough, you can strike into enemy's armies in Albania. With your general and terain bonuses you will probably win. Occupy any other not fortified provinces and let your ally/allies to the dirty work.

In the peace deal take Kosovo, Zeta, Travunia, Hum and make Serbia your vassal. It wasn't too hard, right? Core these provinces FIRST, make them a states and then make the autonomy higher. This way it's not going to be at 100%. Now you have to choose. Do you want to be Catholic or Orthodox? Let's look at their pros and cons.

Catholic:
Pros

• Things you can buy for papal influence are really nice and helpful
  
• The provinces you will expand to are mostly catholic.
  
• ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE

Cons

• Early game your religious unity will be lower = more rebels

I won't be making Orthodox pros and cons since they are all the opposite to the Catholic. I highly recommend staying catholic. ASAP improve relations with France and get an alliance. It won't be possible if you have an alliance with Austria though. Austria is good in helping you expand early game while France late game, but France was a better choice at the time. With the rest of your diplomats - improve relations with you allies and make claims. A lot of claims. Claim the rest of Bosnia, Venice, the Pope, Naples and the Ottomans.

The last tip I am going to give you in early game - be cautious. Yes, you have really strong allies but mostly they will be your defensive allies rather then offensive. Without them, you are still really weak so watch your steps.

Early/mid game

You made it! You survived and expanded. Finish off Bosnia as soon as the truce expires (Hungary might want it so be quick). Give Bosnian orthodox provinces to Serbia and get the catholic ones for yourself. After that annex Serbia. By now, you are probably tech 7 and have around 12k troops. You have some time to rethink what to do so make in the meantime some buildings (churches are pretty nice).

What is going to be your next target? You can attack Hungary using Poland (but only if Hungary doesn't have an alliance with Austria). You can kill Pope or anyone in Italy (they probably left the HRE by now). You can try to no CB African nations. Possibilites are endless but NEVER attack the Ottomans that early in the game.

I went for Italy. Naples was still under personal union with Spain so I couldn't do anything about it. I DoWed The Papal States and took some provinces. I recommend not taking a lot of provinces in Italy (watch out for AE) but just one by one, step by step. Watch for opportunities. I took Ferrara and Mantua very easily and DoWed Pope again. This time I linked up my lands in Italy and took Provence which earlier Pope took from Provence. So de facto I was in France. You may ask me why was I scared of Big Blue Blob? France got smashed right after I got an alliance with them. Burgundy and Spain divided France between themselves. I got an alliance with both of them. I vassalized Florence which got beaten by Pope, Siena and allies and started to retake their cores. My army was significant and I took everything what was left of France. When you have a lot of land in Italy, I hugely recommend changing your capital to province in Italy, in Genoa trade node. It will improve your income so much, that you will be able to maintain another 30k stack of your army.

I recommend looking for good opportunities. Most of the time you will be alone (Hungary and Poland are probably too far to join your wars) but with wise thinking expansion at this stage of the game will give you no challenge. The last thing I can say - don't hesitate to leave you ally in exchange for a stronger one. I was allied to Hungary, Poland and France early game but in mid game I ended up with Spain, Burgundy, Austria and Poland.

Problems

On your way to victory may stand fortune. Mostly I was forced to restart early game but fortune was not on my side twice in mid game. I restarted once in mid game.

Let's talk about what could these problems be. Let me give you some examples:

• Ottomans DoW you
  
• Italian minor are in alliance with great powers
  
• You fall into a personal union under great power
  
• You try to kill Ottomans early game
  
• You

Ottomans are not likely to DoW you but they might. If you have Poland, Lithuania and Hungary - you will 9/10 times lose. Computer is too stupid and Ottomans are too powerful early on.

Sometimes when you have Italian minor in alliance with great power that you don't have an alliance with - this Italian minor might DoW you = most of the times restart

It happened in my actual run. I fell under a personal union with Spain. The Spanish-Burgundian alliance was unbeatable by that time. Fortunately I was saved from this situation. Spain and Burgundy joined the Catholic League and they were forced to face Commonwealth, Russia, Great Britain and the Ottomans. Burgundy collapsed and they lost their alliance with Spain. In the end, Protestant lost but I got my independence supported by Commonwealth and Russia. Spain didn't got their alliance with Burgundy and had only Hungary and Brittany on their side. This was the moment I knew that I still have a chance.





I released Aragon as my subject and was set up to conquer Iberia.

Killing Ottomans early game is very very tricky. 9/10 times you will fail. And even if you win the first war and take a lot of land like I did once:


it will be quickly over since after a lost war, the Ottomans will take an alliance with someone like Bohemia, France or Aragon.

You are very often your biggest enemy. You need to think wise - don't go for an unnecessary coalitons, don't go for risky wars. And remember, you have A LOT of time. Provinces later on will cost less to take and core so early on focus on expanding, not going for Iberia or Caucasus instantly.

Late game and epilogue

If you made it this far then congratulations! Late game is the time when you want to kill your biggest enemies - Ottomans and Spain. By now, you should be allied to some of the major powers in Europe. When you are ready for the Ottomans - declare war and call all of the allies. It doesn't matter how strong the Ottomans are, how big they are, how many allies they have and how many 3 star leaders they have. With your force and all of you major power allies you will defeat the Ottomans who have far weaker troops in this stage of the game. Take some of the starting points in the Ottomans (a few separated provinces in Anatolia) and if they have any province in Caucasus - take one and release caucasian vassal. The rest shouldn't be too hard. Wait for the best opportunity and strike all nations that own provinces in Georgia region.

Spain was a little more tricky. Almost everytime I wanted to DoW them, Spain was allied to Austria and its leash. Sabotaging their reputation and fact that Austria was allied to Spanish rival (me) was enough to disolve this alliance everytime. You don't even need to core all of Spain if you have Aragon. Aragon can even be disloyal - it doesn't matter at this point since you need to have you and/or your vassal own it. If you don't have Imperialism CB yet, I recommend you to go and take any province on the border with Portugal. You can fabricate claims on Portugese land and take Portugal and Spain separately. DON'T FORGET ABOUT 3 ISLANDS ON THE ATLANTIC OCEAN, THEY ARE NECESSARY TOO.

If you are a little better then me - you can go for Mare Nostrum achievement. I wasn't able to beat Commonwealth and Austria, even with Russia, and ended up failing. But I got my achievement nonetheless which I'm very happy about.



Idea groups that I took and a quick overview why.

1. Trade - Mediterraean sea is trade heaven. This will make your poor income (early game) a lot better.
2. Quantity - defenitely one of the best idea groups. You can build and have a gigantic army early on into the game.
3. Diplomatic - it depends on your situation. I was forced to take it to get my allies and this diplomatic reputation to make Russia and PLC support my independence. Also province warscore cost and diplo tech cost reduction are very nice.
4. Administrative - really big fan if you want to make sure you are gonna do this achievement and also Mare Nostrum - this idea group is for you. Coring cost, mercenaries, inflation reduction (you have or will have gold mines in Kosovo and La Mancha) and admin tech cost reduction are fantastic for this campaign.
5. Defensive - not much to say, better generals, morale and more money.
6. Influence - good if you like a playstyle "many vassals, lots of cores to feed". AE reduction, extra diplo relation and diplo rep are nice too.
7. Offensive - everything in offensive group is fantastic
8. Espionage - I love this idea group for very late game. Spy network construction speed, diplomat, global trade power, liberty desire in subject reduction and cost to fabricate claims will help you in your unstoppable late game conquest.

[Verathian]

Yes you are right, but I was saying another option. Although the rest of the guide is quality.

[Mkk grx.]

Verathian Ye, that's why I disagree. Almost everytime I restart, Serbia allies Byzantium. Idk what is the factor that causes that but I'm giving guide how I did this achievement and how I think this is one of the easiest ways to get it. Also - I didn't say the Ottomans are unbeatable. No, they aren't. But it is extremely hard in early game. They have really strong units early on, a lot of units and awesome generals. Even when my allies actually do something and get into the big battle and it's like 50k vs 30k in our favor and Ottos are having attacker penalties - we still lose most of the time. And like I said in problems - even if I win the war and take a lot of land from them - they often ally western great power and beating them again is near to impossible. Going for Ottomans first is possible though, but it's very very tricky.

[Verathian]

If you can do it with byzantium with hungary and poland as allies, why not albania? Also I restarted 12 times and serbia didnt ally byzantium. Also in one run we were about to siege out edirne at 49% after killing their army 5-6 times but then we finally lost. I get what you are trying to do, but you can also an option 2. Because in some cases byzantium doesnt ally serbia.

[Mkk grx.]

Verathian It doesn't matter anyway if Albania is a duchy or not. Serbia and Byzantium ally each other very often and killing Ottomans early game is in almost all cases impossible so I have to disagree

[Verathian]

Albania is a duchy. Also serbia doesnt seem to ally byzantium alot, so best way is save up favors or disable cossacks and kill ottomans.

[Mkk grx.]

ultrapowerpie oh ♥♥♥, how could I write it wrong, thanks for correction

[ultrapowerpie]

This is patch 1.18, not 19. 19 will be Denmark.

Aside from that, pretty good guide.

[Mkk grx.]

Profile Name that's weird. You should have 3 diplomats. 2 diplomats are deafult for all the nations and additional one is for nations with kingdom government rank (that is Albania too). I don't know how certain DLCs affect your government rank so that might be your problem

[Zestrum_UA]

Буду пробовать, с этим гайдом будет однозначно проще, thx!

[Jackapoo]

how do you have three diplomats at the start, i only have two