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Maldives - Four Different Strategies [1.28]
This guide was contributed by discord user- lazyboy007
General Maldives observations
Maldives is a forgotten nation, often overlooked due to its precarious position and average ideas. However, using a multitude of different strategies, this nation can be extremely fun and rewarding to win with.
You start in a pretty isolated position, with quite a lot of expansion routes, but also very weak and surrounded by threats. This guide will focus on 4 different ways to play out the early game, that all focus on getting out of said threat, and stabilising for future expansion. These guides are set in order of difficulty, but note that all of these strategies have multiple points where you will be under threat by bigger nations.
Strategy 1 – Move your capital to Uruguay
Phase I – Colonize to Cape
Objective – Stabilize and colonise to the Cape
This strategy is a very simple to execute one, but can come with a few major disadvantages. Your objective here is to find mainland Indian or Indonesian allies, in order to not get jumped by Vijayanagar.
Opening Moves-
- Set your diplomats to improve relations with Malacca, Bahmanis and Gujarat. Those 3 nations are not too difficult to ally. Malacca can usually be allied quickly, while Gujarat and Bahmanis may need you to grow out a bit.
- Lower army maintenance all the way, build transports to naval force limit, build infantry to force limit.
- Send your light ships (as many as you can afford to without losing sailors) to protect trade in Coromandel.
- Set your merchants to collect in Coromandel and Bengal.
- Disinherit your heir.
- Take the +15% tax modifier from government, you won’t have any vassals for the time being, as any Indian vassals would leave you exposed
While doing so, it is possible for Kotte and Kandy to DOW you. If this happens, know that your navy is stronger than theirs, so you can afford to simply stall them for ticking warscore and occasionally win engagements. Peace out for money and war reps as soon as possible but don’t risk your army or ask for anything else. Weakening Kotte too much means a stronger Vijayanagar and more threats for you.
Next Steps-
– Wait until 1450 when renaissance spawns. Only tech up military tech and nothing else.
– Once renaissance hits, wait for your government reform giving dev cost reduction. You should get it very quickly as your only province has 0% autonomy. You can also try to ally a maliki school muslim, as you are sunni yourself and can make use of it.
– As soon as you have this modifier, activate the dev cost reduction edict on your capital and spam development.
– While you do this, make sure to stay at force limit, and build more transports.
– Spend your military points, you will need admin and diplo en masse soon.
– Accept renaissance and wait until you take admin tech 5
– Take exploration ideas and start exploring. By this point, you should be allied to Malacca and at least one other Indian major. I was allied to Bahmanis and Gujarat. If you can, share knowledge with one of them, this will heavily boost your economy.
– As soon as you have money, build a church and workshop in your capital
– Continue teching up mil and adm, but prioritize completing the first 3 exploration ideas. As soon as you have those, tech up to diplo tech 7, it will be necessary.
– Note that your starting ruler is really bad stats wise. I recommend abdicating if you get a good heir. (dip is your most important stat at the start.)
Early colonisation-
– As soon as you get your colonist, set your policy to native repression.
– Colonise the island off the coast of Madagascar. This will be enough to reach the cape quickly.
– Colonise any province south of kilwa that you can reach.
– As soon as you can, colonise cape, and move your capital there. This will allow your to spawn colonialism, as it can’t spawn on an island.
– Continually explore towards America. By 1500 I had most of south America discovered as well as parts of Europe and all of Indonesia and the Chinese coast.
Phase II – Moving your capital
Objective – Moving to the New World
All this time you should be decently safe from threats on the Indian continent. However, starting now you will be a target for European colonisers.
Moving the capital-
– Once you own cape, you can usually, with the help of a colonial range advisor, land on the New World.
– If no advisor is available, use the falklands as a midway point.
– Start colonising Uruguay area as soon as you can. DO NOT COLONISE OR OWN ANY MORE PROVINCES THAN THE STRICT MINIMUM NECESSARY TO REACH THE New World. You will need 50% dev in the New World.
– Once your own provinces in the New World, you should be ahead on tech. Spend any excess monarch points you have on developing the New World provinces.
– As soon as you have 50% dev in the New World, move your capital to wherever suits you best. In my experience, this will require about 60 dev.
Challenges
European Colonisers
– Your only challenges will come from Europe. I recommend colonising any free African lands in the cape area, as Europeans might otherwise land there and desire your land.
– Ally Africans, they can help defend your colonised land.
– Note that, since your Asian allies can’t see Europe, they won’t be of any help to you.
Ideas
Exploration- Necessary for this strategy
The rest is up to you. I personally went with humanist + defensive, meaning that I had sufficiently high quality troops to win a war vs Spain.
General mid game expansion tips
– Focus Africa and India, as well as Indonesia. You can now send resources colonising next to Kongo or Mali, as well as next to Sunda, Pasai, Brunei and the island states. All this land is good TC land and I recommend taking it.
– Do not hesitate to go over colonies limit.
– Whenever you can, colonise next to European CN’s and attack them. Since your capital is in the New World, their overlord won’t be called in. This means simple victories and decent land for cheap.
– With this pace, you should be able to become a GP by 1600 and expand to your desires!
Strategy 2 – Move your capital to Australia
This strategy works the same as the previous in most ways. There are a few key differences however, noted below:
– You won’t be able to spawn colonialism. Do not bother moving your capital to an intermediary position.
– Do not hesitate to go over colonies limit.
– You can fabricate on Sunda and full annex and release them, they make for an excellent vassals and don’t count towards your continent dev, so it’s perfect. You can use their cores on Majapahit to strengthen yourself quite considerably.
– The area you want to colonise in Australia is New Zealand. It has much higher starting dev and is quite nice to own for spawning colonialism by dev.
– Europe is no longer a direct threat to you, and your best expansion routes in mid game are East Africa and India.
– You will be making less money than the first strat, and won’t be able to expand as well in the new world. However, land in South America is recommended, as you can still attack CN’s.
Strategy 3 – Stand your ground in India
This strategy is much tougher to execute and doesn’t grant you Indian TC land, which is a BIG drawback. However, it snowballs very well (I became a great power in 1520), and will allow you to defeat Vijayanagar easily. This will be more of an outline, as your diplomatic situation can vastly vary.
The opening moves are the same as before, except for improving with Gujarat.
– As soon as you can, fabricate a claim on Madurai. You can usually take them 1 on 2 after spawning renaissance if you’re on time with mil tech. Your goal is to vassalise them, and later on feed them most of south India
– Claim Kotte and annex them.
– As soon as you can, take colonial ideas. Once you do, start colonising to the cape, in order to, as before, spawn colonialism. I recommend moving your capital to Kotte.
– You should be able to expand in Madagascar and Kilwa with ease. As soon as you can, take over Kongo too.
– Just as before, I recommend going over your colonial limit.
– As soon as you can, colonise next to Sunda and DOW them. Release them as a vassal.
– You can easily conquer the Indonesian Area from here, Palembang is key.
– If your expansion goes well, you can usually outpace the Europeans on Africa and lock them out.
Using this strat I managed to become #1 GP by 1580. This is fast enough to allow for WC, but your start may still be a little slow.
Strategy 4 – Move to Europe and form Rum
Now this is the meat of this guide, the true strategy that will allow you to dominate as the Maldives. This strat has two minor variations, and also works with forming the Mughals. I however recommend Rum, as it gives you a decision to move your capital to Constantinople, which is one of the best possible locations for it.
Phase I – Into Arabia
Objective – Get a subject in Arabia and expand to border QQ
Opening Moves-
- Set an advisor to improve relations with Malacca, and demand military access through Medina.
- Build to army force limit immediately with infantry. Build to naval force limit with galleys.
- Send your merchants to Coromandel and Bengal.
- Set your policy on lenient taxation.
- Disinherit your heir.
Now you will wait for the 11 December 1444. Watch closely if Shammar or Najd have no allies and as soon as the 11th hits, no cb whichever one has no allies. If they both do, restart. In case of a tie, prioritise Najd. You do not have the force limit to take on Haasa’s level 3 fort, and your economy will be important early on. Other no cb targets are too far for the goal.
– Wait for your army to build up, and as soon as it’s complete, move to Medina.
– The war with either of the two minors should extremely easy. Win the war, vassalise and ask for all their money. Repaying debt will be one way to keep Najd loyal.
– At this point your force limit will have grown to about 7, still not enough to invade Haasa. Attack Shammar/Najd and feed your subject with its lands.
– During that time, spawn the renaissance back at home. Use all dev cost reduction you can, following what was given in above guides. (maliki + govt reform + state edict)
– Once the second war is done, improve relations with the Mamluks and ally them. This should usually not be difficult, as they flip to friendly when you hit 100 opinion.
– Once you accept renaissance, knowledge share with them.
– As soon as you can, have your subject fabricate claims on Haasa and invade. With renaissance, your force limit should be about 10, allowing you to siege him with no issues.
– Once Haasa has been eaten, I recommend taking and not coring a province from them, fabricate a claim on Mushasha, and then hand over the province to your subject.
– Attack Mushasha, this should go easily and you can give all the provinces to your subject.
At this point you border QQ, allowing you to enter into phase II
Phase II – Into Georgia
Objective – vassalise a country north of QQ and move capital to Georgia
– Once you border QQ, invade by calling in the Mamluks. You can use a simple trick for this: call them in on promise land, and on the day while the offer is pending, mark all QQ land as desired. This allows you to take land without giving any to your ally with no penalty.
– Your goal in this war is to take Baghdad or any southern provinces that might be useful, and to steal Karabakh. If Karabakh has for some reason died however, you will have to look for another north asian vassaliseable nation north of QQ, and no cb them.
– With your second vassal in hand, and continuous lenient taxation, you can now attack QQ a second time to take Ganja for yourself (DO NOT hand it over to your vassal). This will allow you to expand into Georgia and core the land.
– As soon as you can, DOW whoever controls land next to Ganja in Europe. Annex all the land you can, core it and move your capital.
This ends Phase II. A lot can go wrong here. Since you’ll be bordering a potential big Timurids, you have to be aware of that threat. Vijay is still in a position to threaten you as well, so be wary.
Phase III – killing the blobs and culture shifting
Objective – kill one of the Mamluks or Timurids as well as Ottoman and build a powerbase in India
This phase is the tough one. You are now powerful enough to match Vijay if all has gone well, and you have Indian TC’s. Make good use of this. This will describe more vague ideas of how to proceed to form Rum from here.
-You can from here check your options: Keep the Mamluks as ally and use them to kill Ottoman and Timurids, or ally Ottoman, and use them to kill Mamluks while preventing their expansion completely by locking them in permanent truce.
– This will depend HEAVILY on your game’s diplomatic landscape. If Ottoman has blobbed, I recommend expanding into Arabia and Hormuz, then invading Sindh for the Gujarati TC’s. At the same time, use Ottoman on your side to kill the Mamluks. This will delay your formation of Rum but is much safer and consistent.
– If Ottoman has not blobbed considerably, take them on with the Mamluks. Your goal is to get 50% of your states to be Turkish and to culture shift. Remember to not state more than ~280 dev of non Turkish land, as the Turkish culture starts with about that much.
– If the Timurids have imploded, their land is easy to take on, despite usually being a diplomatic landmine. It can be good to steal one of the smaller vassals, as they usually have cores. QQ can potentially also be release for reconquest.
This step can vary wildly, so it is up to you to find the strategies to apply in your specific game.
Challenges-
– Everything. This is a relatively perilous strategy, as you will be surrounded by threats from everywhere.
– Your economy should not be an issue whatsoever. Moving your trade capital to Ganja at some point can be a great move for the sweet Persian trade.
– While troop quality will not pose any issues to you, as Maldives start with good military ideas and Indian sultanate, giving them great military reforms, quantity will be a problem. Your force limit will stay quite low all along, until you blob into India or start stating Turkish land.
Ideas-
Your ideas build can be very flexible. The only must for this strategy are Influence in the first 2 ideas and Humanist in the first 4. The rest is up to you! I personally went with Influence -> Defensive -> Humanist -> Admin, but other builds can definitely work.
Good luck with this whacky strat!
Written by lazyboy007