Absolutism seems to be one game mechanic that is difficult to grasp for newer players and yet its one of the key mechanic needed for late game expansion. This step-by-step guide will help the players understand the benefits of absolutism and techniques of getting the maximum absolutism possible.

ABSOLUTISM: What does it do?

Maximum absolutism (100) gives 5% discipline, 40% administrative efficiency and -50% foreign core duration. All of those modifiers are incredibly important for late game blobbing. And so, even though getting the max absolutism is not super easy, even newer players should know should go for it, when playing an expansionist game.

Absolutism and Maximum Absolutism

The absolutism mechanic becomes active in the Age of Absolutism and you can increase the absolutism only during that age.

You can increase absolutism by strengthening government, increasing stability, lowering autonomy and harsh treatments. You can also get yearly absolutism by age ability, some national ideas, aristocratic idea group and events. But you cannot increase it above your max absolutism.

The max absolutism is affected by religious unity, legitimacy, golden age and government type. You can increase the max cap by changing your government type if you can, although that costs admin points with stability hit. Another way to increase the max absolutism is to fire the court and country disaster. This disaster is also a good way to increase your absolutism fast.

Court and Country Disaster

To fire the court and country disaster, you need to have-

-at least +1 unrest

-less than +3 stab

-be at war

-have 50 absolutism.

Now you can get the first three done fairly easily, so lets work on getting that 50 absolutism in a short time.

Preparation phase

You need to start preparing when Age of Reformation is winding down. The day age of absolutism hits, make sure you are-

-not at war

-not seriously lacking on manpower or money

-have at least 500 admin, 500 diplo and close to maximum amount of mil points.

Next, you should place a stack of your army close to a remote nation, either in new world or far enough away that other nations don’t care about them.

Get to 50 absolutism

We will use lowering autonomy as our main approach to raise the absolutism. First step is to increase unrest. This can be done by-

1. Lowering stability
2. Increasing war exhaustion
3. And firing a theologian if you have one

You can lower stability by either breaking royal marriages or if you have exploration or expansion ideas, changing your native policy repeatedly. Get to -3 stability.

Now you need to find Particularists and Nobel rebels on your rebel screen. Sometimes, just getting -3 stab isn’t enough to get these rebels, this might be because you have some other negative unrest modifiers.

In which case-

No CB trick

Incase you don’t see enough particularists and noble rebels, you need to get more unrest by no CBing a nation. Ideally this would be an isolated nation. When you no CB someone, you get reduced stab and some serious war exhaustion. This should be enough to get the rebels.

Next accept demands from the particularists and the noble rebels if they are present in many provinces. Don’t accept demands if they are only in few provinces, its not worth it. When you accept demands, it increases autonomy in all provinces rebels are present.

Next, in order to get some absolutism going, you need to lower autonomy manually in all these provinces. However, you can’t lower autonomy when you are at war. So, white peace your enemy as quickly as possible, if you are doing the no-CB war..

Now lower autonomy in all possible provinces. This should give you close to 50 absolutism. If you aren’t quite there yet, use the strengthening government or harsh treatment to get to 50 absolutism.

You can stop here and just be at 50 to 60 absolutism which isn’t bad. But if you want to increase your max absolutism, you should look to fire the disaster.

Firing the disaster

Now that we have 50 absolutism and we already have the other criteria fulfilled, in order to fire the court and country disaster, we just need to be at war again. So since you already have a remote nation, you are going to no CB them again.

1. Increase your stab to -2 and no CB again. You can’t declare wars at -3 stab.
2. Now buy down war exhaustion until you are just above +1 unrest
3. The disaster takes about 3 years to fire. You will just have to wait around. Siege down the enemy provinces in the meantime.
4. Once the disaster fires, you can increase your stab, buy down war exhaustion and end your war. The disaster lasts for 10 years. Make a note of when the disaster started. Make sure your absolutism stays above 50, as buying down war exhaustion reduces absolutism.
5. The disaster will spawn multiple rebel stacks in your stated provinces, so make sure you have stacks of armies spread out in your nation.
6. Try to choose the +absolutism option on events whenever possible. However, some events will give you multiple rebels stacks for just +5 abs, so its okay to choose the other option sometimes.
7. The rebel spawns more frequently in the first 3 years or so. After the first few years, you can start conquering some other minor targets.

End of Disaster

When the disaster ends, you will get either +20, +10 or -10 max absolutism depending on how much absolutism you have at that time. So you should aim to get to 65 absolutism which will give you +20 max absolutism. That’s one of the reason firing the golden age during age of absolutism is the best time as it gives +5 extra max absolutism.

You can keep increasing your abs to get to max by methods I mentioned earlier. You can also choose the age ability to get +1 yearly abs. Soon you will hit the max absolutism.

This technique might sound like a lot, but really it isn’t that much of an issue. You might also get 10 or so stacks of 50-60k rebels at some point after the disaster so be prepared for that. This tutorial will get you to max absolutism faster than any other tactic. You can take it slow as well, if you don’t want to waste hundreds of admin and diplo point, but in the long run those points won’t matter much.

I should mention here that firing the court and country disaster is not a viable option for every country. Its meant mostly for bigger countries and only when you are going for late game expansionist plays.

Nonetheless its a fun little mechanic. I hope this step by step guide helps newer players in getting ever so close to world conquest.