Timurid strategy
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[edit] Introduction
This one is very interesting. Have you ever heard about Tamerlane? You are his successor and you are meant to continue his legacy.
[edit] Overview
Your great ancestor left you quite a nice country. First of all, it's set up the way that allows you to field massive armies cheaply. Almost full Aristocracy, full decentralisation, Quantity tendency. Very good. More of it, your goverment type is Tribal Despotism and this means 20% additional manpower. Your citizens are ready to fight and die for the glory of your empire. Just give them an occasion to do that.
You have your own two trade centres in Samarkand and in Harmus which really help your tax income. You produce mainly wool but also have a few very good spice producing provinces.
Your manpower pool and land force limit are extremely high which makes you a natural predator. All your provinces are cores, all have your state Sunni religion.
So, to make long story short, you are the shark in the area, poor at the beginning but you have strong and numerous (and cheap!!!) armies which will soon improve your material situation.
Short way from you there are extremely wealthy provinces of India, trade centre in the three province big country of Kutch, extremely wealthy Persia (early on Qara Koyunlu). You are muslim so your tech aren't as slow as those of Indian countries you're going to fight. Wonderful situation.
There are also little drawbacks. You have despotism, so can't convert into anything useful. Your research is slowed down by 50% due to that. But you're still better than Indian countries you're going to fight.
Your main culture is Mongol and your culture group (Altaic) is numerous and spread all over Asia. This makes your expansion very easy allowing you to earn more cash from all the new provinces you conquer. Same culture group means no culture penalty so 25 years to get a core and you're earning 100%.
The best thing to do early is to move on your enemies quickly to kill them before they manage to train any substantial armies. But before you do that, you have to set up your research.
[edit] Research priorities
I do it the following way, first priority is goverment tech level one. To reach Military Drill. +50% morale is a serious advantage in the area where nobody is going to reach high Land tech levels. The next priority is level one Land tech to allow you to build forts in your provinces. No more they will be able just to march in to take them, they will have to siege now and since they have weak troops, it will give you a lot of time to counter attack.
The third priority is to reach Production level one. It will allow you to build Workshops which give you +2 cash per province at the end of each year. Since you will have to invest everything into tech and survive the whole year from your yearly census taxes, this particular thing allows you to field a few additional units per province. You're deadly with those three techs.
Of course feel free to choose the order of reaching them which suits you the most. Many people can't live without forts, others can't afford wars without Workshops. Do what you think is the best.
After that it's advisable to move further in Land tech or Goverment tech. Ignore everything else.
[edit] Advisors
There's no many historical ones. Make your life easier and pick "normal setting" for advisors. Take tech ones if they have three or more stars, if not, pick stability or reputation. The rest is pretty much useless.
[edit] Early warfare
Your first target is Khorossan, the minor on your border with Qara Koyunlu. Vassalize them and demand as much cash as they can pay. Usually it's 50, it allows you to build up your army a bit.
Your next enemy has almost no forts so you need no infantry except the forces you are starting with. Build only cavalry, muslim cavalry. You need many small and fast armies able to take most of enemy territory quickly and also reinforce each other wherever Persians bring more troops.
This war can be extremely annoying if you don't play it right. You should have enough forces to enter all the enemy provinces you border and hold them. Of course make them help each other but try to create a front of troops denying enemy from passing into your lands. After you have all of them and hold onto them, move one step forward into their territory, also occupying ALL the provinces that border those you have just taken. This way you should have a line of provinces behind your back and none of the enemies will be able to pass through it.
Don't forget to block their fleet with yours too, they are capable of landing a small cavalry army behind your back and this is extremely annoying to take.
Now take a look on their territory. You don't want all of it. You want all the southern provinces, those which produce spices, tea, trade centre in Fars.
Try to take all of those not allowing enemies to slip through to the land you have already taken. It takes a few save and loads and needs a lot of practice but is possible. You have bigger army than they do, if they don't slip through or breach your front (reinforce any bigger battles!), they are doomed.
If you play it right, they will cede everything that produces valuable resources, from Gilan to Basra and everything east of it. War score may be way over 200%, doesn't matter, if their war capacity is 0%, they will cede everything you want.
Those provinces is all you need. You don't want to progress further to this direction. There's nothing good to take up there. You should turn towards India now. Befriend Egypt, befriend nations on Arabian Peninsula and forget they exist.
[edit] India
This particular part of the map is changing very fast. It is comparable to what happens in the HRE early in game when all the minors start fighting each other. It is hard to write a guide for that part, since there's absolutely no guarantee how the map will look like in your game after you are ready to march into India.
Most of the time there's a number of Sunni countries to the north, Gujarat, Sind, Delhi, sometimes something else too. Those countries like you, admire your power, are frightened to death with the prospect of war with you. They will be likely to accept an alliance with you and you should use that opportunity to step into India through your ally's lands. It makes your land safe and this is good and smart way of fighting wars.
After you have an ally, you can do two things. Either attack somebody (which is not advised) or wait until your ally is attacked or attacks somebody.
There are two ways of dealing with countries in India. All the muslim ones are easy to vassalize and diplo-annex, so do it whenever you can.
Those which aren't muslim should be stripped from all their land you can take. Your territory may be split, don't worry about that. Just make sure you can march to every piece of your territory through lands that are dependant from you, belong to your vassals or are yours.
Wars aren't very hard provided you have numerical advantage in cavalry. Your (muslim) units are better to what Indians can field at the time. I usually have a standing army consisting only of cavalry. When a war starts, I hire 12k infantry mercenaries for one of my armies and a general. I send other cavalry armies (10k each usually) to harass enemy territory and armies and I march my infantry from province to province taking them one by one (with immediate assaults, 12k vs 1k forts is quick and easy). I also make sure nobody gets behind my armies so everything I took is safe from retaking. This way wars are faster and easier to win. Blitzkrieg.
Also, when you face a number of enemies swarming you, don't panic. Pick them one by one, choose the weakest, march your armies to his territory, besiege everything, take a fort or two and vassalize him. Proceed until there's nobody fighting you.
If you have too much badboy, don't hesitate to vassalize not muslim countries. After your badboy goes down again, you just cancel vassalege, send an insult or two and attack the guy without trouble.
[edit] National Ideas
This part is difficult, you have to choose wisely. Practically, there are three ideas which are very useful in your game. Military Drill allows your cavalry only armies to win every battle, Deus Vult allows to declare war on anybody of not your religion without penalties, very useful in India.
Finally, Quest for the New World will allow you to explore all the unknown provinces in Asia.
It may happen that your enemies will take a lot of terra incognita. When that happens, take QFtNW. If not, take MD and DV.
[edit] Trade centres
There's definitely too many of them around the place. Samarkand, Fars, Harmuz, Kutch, Bihar... Many people tend to destroy trade centres they conquer, they prefer to have one huge and wealthy as it's easier to keep five merchants inside.
I leave them be, +10 tax is a very nice bonus. Leave them be the way they are and don't hesitate to create a centre on your own if you notice you can (Note- you can only do that in Napoleons Ambition). 500 is a lot but with Workshops and all that wealthy Indian provinces you will have much more than that.
Try to autosend merchants to all your centres (Note- again this feature is only in Napoleons Ambition), they seem to be stronger in them than in foreign ones. Ignore trade technology though and don't focus on trade. This is not your specialty.
[edit] Mughalistan
Since you are Mongol and sitting on all necessary provinces, it is very likely you will be able to form the state of Mughalistan in your game. Is it worth it? I don't know. New color is sometimes a nice change. Be warned that the flag of Mughalistan is ugly.
All the info about forming the country is in a separate article, called Mughal unification. Mughalistan is very tempting due to one more thing. It will change your goverment type to despotic monarchy and thus allow you to get more advanced goverment types. Your tribal 50% tech penalty will vanish too.
You don't have to do it though. With all the cash from India you can safely keep up with the rest of the world even with your penalty. Decide for yourself whether you want to have all the power over your subjects or not. Tamerlane would never switch into such goverment...
