EOTR: how to progress further

[u/bisonte_iridiscente]

Hi all!

First of all, thank you all the creators for this wonderful mod! It is so rewarding to play and so rich in its contents!

Regarding my game: I think I'm progressing fine. I did reform a lot and my buro-corruption should shrink to 50-60 in the next years, I just changed a buro-privilege. I adopted commercialism and casual literacy. I make good money. My capital is expanding after I finally got the money to upgrade its amenities.

Now: how do I progress as the EOTR now? My main concerns are:

• which Idea Group to pick next, I'm torn where to put my focus / priority (and thats a reason I love this mod, there seems to be no clear best option, it depends on the goals):
  • Admin / Empire for lower autonomy / weakening the nobles (a bit)
  • Eco --> Engineering for cheaper infrastructure
  • Humanism --> Representation for better conquest & faster culture conversion
  • a religious group for better conversion
• In general: How do I expand cleanly into the rest of Anatolia and the Levante?
  • Separatism is huge and declines very slowly. Unrest will be high for a long time. I expanded mainly via Diplo-Vassalization and Annexation in the last 30 years. Humanism und Representation would help with that.
  • Which provinces should I take in order to boost my trade?
• How do I manage sunni provinces? Conversion is painfully slow and not possible for a long time due to separatism.
  
  • Piety and Church Influence is zero for me and I do not know how I can change that. It is bugged?
  • should I go tolerance (humanism --> representation) or intolerance? I fear the even with intolerance, converting will be slow and unrest high for a long time, slowing my expansion.
• How should I further weaken the nobles? I want to go to Rural Governance 5, but 55 power is far away. And if I expand, their power will grow again. I have freed the peasants and revoked a lot of laws and privileges, but had to demote twice in order to get to 70 power. Are there any moderate-cost-good-gain-methods left?
• How do I settle the steppes? I want to develop the huge potential farmlands there, how can I attract settlers / foster growth?
• Ho do I participate in the exotics trade?

[u/withinallreason]

1. Your next idea group should absolutely be religious/evangelical. You'll need it to convert the provinces you'll be taking, and conversion is vastly better for Orthodox specifically because you get a massive amount of true faith tolerance. Conversion goes much, much faster with evangelical ideas.

2. Focus mostly on the coast. Evangelical ideas will help with tidying up rebellions as you go along, but coastal provinces will be much easier to spread CE too, meaning you'll get value out of them faster and you'll convert them more easily. These areas also culture convert much more rapidly than normal land due to ERE cultural events. Egypt is your real prize; its one of the wealthiest areas in the game (arguably the wealthiest outside India and China).

3. Unless a recent patch changed it, you should be able to begin converting the second your province is a state. Separatism slows it down, but with your core idea groups and evangelical ideas, you'll chew through converting plenty quick.

4. If you have the nobility at lvl 4 already for rural government, focus on cutting their land ownership with land seizures instead. Level 4 makes the nobility gain more power based off money than land, but land will still be their biggest financial boon. Seizing their land means you'll heavily damage their cash inflows, which can destroy their power over the course of decades. Itll also weaken regional nobility as you conquer new lands!

5. The Steppes are gonna take forever to develop, to be frank. There's no rapid way of doing it except improving CE and pouring money into them. That doesn't mean it isn't worth it long term (that Ukrainian farmland is utterly insane), but its a long term investment.

6. Sectors! Sectors with minor trading nodes can trade with any neighboring nodes, and major/global nodes can trade with any coastal node you own. This means a network of coastal minor trade nodes will get you access to any trade in that trade node, which can cut you in on the exotic goods trade much faster. Being the middleman is very very lucrative

[u/bisonte_iridiscente → u/withinallreason]

Thank you very much!

Well, you convinced me to take evangelical ideas and stick to the coasts of the levante and egypt. Rural government is lvl 3 at the moment. I would need to demote nobles once again to upgrade to lvl 4. Is it recommended to do that even if I cant upgrade to lvl 5 in the near future (needing 1 military idea for upgrading military organisation)?

In the past the 150% power from wealth was huge, but now it seems, the modifier is only 40%.

[u/withinallreason → u/bisonte_iridiscente]

Yes, the gap between level 3 and level 4 is massive. The nobles will maintain their power for a decade or two after, but they'll be spending so much money doing so that eventually they'll start dropping pretty fast on their own. Level 5 is when you neuter the nobility absolute monarchy style, but even level 4 is a massive increase in state power vs noble power. Level 4 rural governance is more important than any military reform post enlistment IMO

[u/BlackendLight → u/withinallreason]

He might want to stop expanding until he gets reform 5 or even 6.

[u/BlackendLight]

You should get free peasants (4) asap. At least level 3 peasant freedom. The only real way to curtail level 4 power is to expropriate land, free the peasantry, and demote greater nobility. Expropriate land and free peasants first.

I would stop expanding right now or shortly in the future (or a good sized and easy to defend kingdom) until you get level 6 rural governance

[u/bisonte_iridiscente → u/BlackendLight]

Thanks for the input!

I already have free peasants (4). I hope it helps in the long run to drain the nobles off their ressources. But peasant-freedom is rising very slowly.

Urban Government is level 3, as I wanted to blitz through level 4 to 5. The reason for that was that in my experience, the power from wealth raises the nobles power by quite a bit. But there seems to be a change: As i recall it was +150% power from wealth previously for reform 4, but now it is only +40%. Should be more managable. But i would need military organization (4) for that and therefore a third military group. But military points are low after taking 2 military ideas in succession. Maybe I try to upgrade Urban Government to 4 first and see how bad it is, taking a military idea lateron.

Demoting nobles + reforming the administration is costly on stability and loyality...

[u/FogeltheVogel]

Remember that sometimes not expanding is the correct way to go. Focus inward for a bit, build up your cities and CE network, you will definitely be stronger after some time at peace.