Timurids - Mughals Guide 1.26 [Dharma DLC]

Mughals got a major buff in 1.26 patch/Dharma update. They have some cool new mechanics and massive new mission tree. In the new patch, you can form Mughals fairly fast with Delhi. But this guide will follow Timurids into Mughals, as Timurids start as a strong nation and a great power and once you get over the initial vassal disloyalty phase, you can become unstoppable in the region.

This guide will be divided in 3 phases so we can focus on key objectives better-

Phase I – Vassals, Schmassals

Start to Jan 1st, 1454

Objective- Pacify and integrate vassals

Early impediments-

The king Shah Rukh is 67 years old and is going to die soon. The king has a unique modifier that gives -50% liberty desire (LD) in subjects plus an additional -5% from being benevolent. So once he dies all your vassals will be disloyal and declare independence war against you. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Opening Moves

  1. Get your level 1 admin and mil advisors. Take the half price level 2 diplo rep guy.
  2. Take the iqta government decision to lower LD. Now all your vassals are loyal.
  3. Don’t set any rivals just yet. Setting rivals sometimes leads them to seek stronger allies.
  4. Start improve relations with vassals who are most disloyal.
  5. Bring your army near the border of Ajam.
  6. Don’t send royal marriage (RM) offers to vassals as your ruler will die soon and that will break the RMs. Wait for them to send the proposals so you have that extra positive opinion modifier even after King’s death.

Conquest of Ajam

On December 11th, set Ajam as rivals and declare immediately. Usually, Ajam only has a minor ally. But if they ally Mamluks or Ottomans, I recommend you restart the game.

Alternatively, If you really don’t want to restart, you can either release Sistan from vassalization or convert one of the vassals to march, and sink a lot of monarch points in developing your vassals provinces to buy down LD. Not recommended.

Another event that I recommend restarting for, is if your King dies before December 11th. You want to be at war when that happens as your vassals cannot declare independence when you are at war.

  • Let your vassals do all the battles and sieges in this war.
  • Don’t peace out until at least 1449, when you should have a claim on Baluchistan or any other Indian nation.
  • Take back as many cores as you can from Ajam.
  • Once you get your cores back, you will be strong enough that all subjects, but Transoxiana, will become loyal even after King’s death.

Conquest of Baluchistan

  • Start this war before ending your previous one.
  • Don’t peace out till Jan 1st, 1454
  • Take as many provinces as you can

Integrate vassals

  • Start on Jan 1st 1454
  • Khorasan, Fars and Transoxiana cost 0 diplo points and just 1 month to integrate.
  • Start with integrating Khorasan and Fars. Transoxiana have some cores on Uzbek that we can get back before integrating them.
  • After integrating couple of vassals, all your vassals will be loyal and that concluded Phase I
  • Reminder that you get -3 diplo rep and -30 opinion modifier with vassals when you integrate a vassal. When integrating more than one vassal, diplo rep modifier doesn’t stack up, but opinion modifier does.

Diplomacy

Allies-

  • No allies in Phase I. All diplo relation slots are filled with vassals.
  • Keep improving relations with Ottomans.

Rivals-

  • Ajam right before attacking them.
  • After that, Mamluks.

Phase II- Mughalization

Objective- Form Mughals

Prerequisites- Have a core on Delhi and one of these provinces- Doab, Central Doab, Lahore.

  • You get claims in northern India with Timurids missions.
  • Watch the AE
  • Consider dividing conquests between northern India and Caucasus region, to take provinces in Persia trade node

OP Mughals mechanics

Coring cost reduction (CCR)-

  • Mughals starting national idea
  • Can stack this with Admin Idea group CCR early game
  • Mughals get free claims in northern India, so CCR stacks further

Mission tree-

  • Free claims in basically all of India as you complete missions
  • CCR for all of India

Culture Assimilation bonus-

  • Once you conquer all provinces from a culture, its automatically accepted.
  • No cap on maximum number of accepted cultures.
  • Extra bonuses from conquering all provinces in a culture group. Eg- Conquering all Hindustani provinces gives extra -10% CCR

Diplomacy

Ottomans are your long term ally. Keep them close.

Phase III- Take over the world?

  • Yes.
  • Watch for AE. Time your conquests between India, Siberia, Russia, Caucasus, Arabia.
  • Release vassals, helps with managing monarch points and corruption (see next section)
  • European conquests are easy as Ottomans will help you out.
  • Conquest of Ming- Get a border with Ming as soon as possible and watch them implode.
  • World Conquest possible. Probably the easiest nation to do a WC in 1.26 patch with Dharma DLC.

Challenges

Religious unity-

  • Low religious unity at the start, only gets worse as you conquer provinces.
  • In the 1.26 patch, religious conversion not possible in territories. Need to be a State before you can convert.
  • Potential solutions-

  1. Humanist Idea group- more religious unity, more tolerance means less national unrest and less rebels. Easiest solution.
  2. Vassals- Give new lands to your vassals. You can convert provinces in your vassals area. Or Enforce religion on vassals, although the disloyalty modifier takes a while to go away.
  3. Unstate, Restate- Unstate provinces that have been converted and state provinces that need to be converted. Requires some admin points. Only do a couple of states at a time.
  4. Propagate religion with trade policy in trade company regions (only applicable late game)

Corruption-

In the new patch, going above your territory limit (more territories than max number of states) gives positive corruption.

Potential solutions-

  1. Buy it all down with ducats. Not really feasible as it costs a lot of ducats. You will still have to buy down some portion of it.
  2. Shift piety toward legalism and lose 2 corruption every 5 years. Good strategy.
  3. Admin-Defensive policy give -0.1 corruption. Admin-Espionage policy as well, if you want to take Espionage Ideas.
  4. Jain estate interaction- They need to be at 60% influence though and you can only give them provinces with certain religions. Not a viable option till mid to late game.
  5. Vassals- Give the conquered land to your vassals.

Aggressive Expansion-

  • A challenge all game as you can expand fast as Mughals (stacked CCR).
  • Keep Ottomans on your side to deter coalitions from declaring
  • Spread out the AE by conquests in different directions
  • Some downtime in between conquests to catch up on tech and develop institutions

Ideas

Admin- For CCR and merc discounts. Only get the first 3 to start and finish it up later.

Aristo- Cav combat ability stacks well with mughal starting national ideas and the monthly autonomy change helps with faster government reforms. Some good policies too.

Diplo/Humanist- If you don’t have enough admin points, go for diplo. Though going humanist first will help with the rebels. This choice will depend on how you are doing with monarch points.

Next you should take a military idea to buff up your army. Defensive or Offensive are good to start with. After that it will depend on what you are going for as late game Mughals.

Government reforms

Taking absolutism reforms seem tempting, but late game you might be restricted by corruption and will need to hand over conquered provinces to your vassals. So taking the extra states and the extra admin policy slot instead might make more sense (More testing needed).

Achievements

Sweet Home Qaraqorum- Assimilating all mongolian culture provinces is not that hard with Mughals CCR stacking and fairly powerful army.

I hope this guides helps out players who are looking to try Mughals in the new patch. Mughals are OP but now they also have some new challenges. Good luck, EU4 players!