Why the Mughals are OP 1 (a semi-educational HPM AAR)

Many question: What is the strongest unciv in the game?

Is it Egypt, the ancient master of the Nile? Nay!

Is it Persia, the old empire at the crossroads between the west and the eat? Nay!

Is it China, the juggernaut with feet of clay? Nay! (Warlords era not even once)

Is it Japan, the enigmatic land at the eastern edge of the world? Well, maybe they are ....

No! The strongest OPM in the game are the Mughals. (if you exclude Japan)

"But u/klingonadmiral, the Mughals are a tiny OPM puppet at 20% westernization progress, how can they *possibly* be anything but garbage?", I hear you say.

Well, maybe they are tiny, but they have quite a few tricks up their sleeve.

First, let's take a look at their population. Nothing out of the ordinary at first glance. But gaze upon that glorious 1.7% bureaucrats.

This means that the Mughal United Provinces have an administrative efficiency of 100%. This is an excellent position to be in, as the higher the administrative efficiency of a state, the faster pops promote.

Just to put that 100% administrative efficiency into context - Ile de France has barely above 50% in 1836.

Secondly, the Mughals have quite a few cores on British territory. This will become important later on.

We start by promoting Intellectuals in Delhi. If we want to get westernized, we need RP, and for RP we need literacy and Intellectuals. For literacy we need intellectuals. It's intellectuals all the way down.

As we have more than enough Bureaucrats, we can aggressively reduce admin spending.

The British go to war with the Sikh Empire.

Everything is proceeding as I have forseen.

And, yeah, Education spending should be maxed,

Good

GOOD

In 1837, we hit 2% Intellectuals.

Gotta need to westernize if you wanna be a GP.

In 1839, we are already well past 3% Intellectuals.

In February 1841 we hit 4% Intellectuals, the cap.

Literacy now increases by about 0.01% per month.

Free RP, best RP

In Mid 41, the first reforms become available. Nah.

More reforms. Still nah.

The British annex Jaipur via event. Excellent.

By the way, you really really really want the British to annex Awadh. That's like a million pops.

Of course, this game they didn't.

Also pray for as few pop-reducing events as possible.

In 1845, we hit 10% literacy.

*insert crying Balkan minors here*

Even more reforms. Nah.

More British annexations of our cores.

More free RP.

The US decide to only semi-manifest their destiny.

Finally the reform I want.

RP/day before taking it: 4.51

RP/day after taking it: 6.53

Prestige is good. The other option is military bonuses. Which you won't need.

This event tends to trigger a lot for me.

The Americans are deciding if slavery is good or bad.

They'll decide it's bad.

Stop killing my pops pls.

Like, a LOT.

Education Reform is the next.

With that we now can decide a national value to adopt:

Order: Military Military Military

Productivity: The best one.

Autocracy: If you want to be a dictatorship.

Equality: SJW #1

Liberty: SJW #2

We, of course, pick the good one. From now on we will have cash. Which is important.

With our cash, time to raise admin spending a bit as we've fallen below 100% administrative efficiency.

Also, time to build some troops.

We now get the ability to declare a jihad on the British.

Don't, they are still useful.

The other decision is much, much better.

Financial Reform is next. Now I'll just pick the chepest ones to fill out to 100% next, Land Reform and Training Methods.

The US decide to manifest their destiny in another direction.

Land reform is passed.

Training methods is passed in 1862 (forgot to take a screenshot of the popup). Time to push that Westernize button.


... next time.